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Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: SCENE II. The same. A public place. [Enter, in procession, with music, Caesar; Antony, for the course; Calpurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, and Casca; a great crowd following, among them a Soothsayer.] CAESAR. Calpurnia,-- CASCA. Peace, ho! Caesar speaks. [Music ceases.] CAESAR. Calpurnia,-- CALPURNIA. Here, my lord. CAESAR. Stand you directly in Antonius' way, When he doth run his course.--Antonius,-- ANTONY. Caesar, my lord? CAESAR. Forget not in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their sterile curse. ANTONY. I shall remember. When Caesar says "Do this," it is perform'd. CAESAR. Set on; and leave no ceremony out. [Music.] SOOTHSAYER. Caesar! CAESAR. Ha! Who calls? CASCA. Bid every noise be still.--Peace yet again! [Music ceases.] CAESAR. Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, Cry "Caesar"! Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear. SOOTHSAYER. Beware the Ides of March. CAESAR. What man is that? BRUTUS. A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March. CAESAR. Set him before me; let me see his face. CASSIUS. Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar. CAESAR. What say'st thou to me now? Speak once again. SOOTHSAYER. Beware the Ides of March. CAESAR. He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass. [Sennet. Exeunt all but BRUTUS and CASSIUS.] CASSIUS. Will you go see the order of the course? BRUTUS. Not I. CASSIUS. I pray you, do. BRUTUS. I am not gamesome; I do lack some part Of that quick spirit that is in Antony. Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires; I'll leave you. CASSIUS. Brutus, I do observe you now of late: I have not from your eyes that gentleness And show of love as I was wont to have: You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand Over your friend that loves you. BRUTUS. Cassius, Be not deceived: if I have veil'd my look, I turn the trouble of my countenance Merely upon myself. Vexed I am Of late with passions of some difference, Conceptions only proper to myself, Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviors; But let not therefore my good friends be grieved-- Among which number, Cassius, be you one-- Nor construe any further my neglect, Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war, Forgets the shows of love to other men. CASSIUS. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion; By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations. Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face? BRUTUS. No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself But by reflection, by some other thing. CASSIUS. 'Tis just: And it is very much lamented, Brutus, That you have no such mirrors as will turn Your hidden worthiness into your eye, That you might see your shadow. I have heard Where many of the best respect in Rome,-- Except immortal Caesar!-- speaking of Brutus, And groaning underneath this age's yoke, Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes. BRUTUS. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself For that which is not in me? CASSIUS. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear; And since you know you cannot see yourself So well as by reflection, I, your glass, Will modestly discover to yourself That of yourself which you yet know not of. And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus; Were I a common laugher, or did use To stale with ordinary oaths my love To every new protester; if you know That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard And after scandal them; or if you know That I profess myself, in banqueting, To all the rout, then hold me dangerous. [Flourish and shout.] BRUTUS. What means this shouting? I do fear the people Choose Caesar for their king. CASSIUS. Ay, do you fear it? Then must I think you would not have it so. BRUTUS. I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well, But wherefore do you hold me here so long? What is it that you would impart to me? If it be aught toward the general good, Set honor in one eye and death i' the other And I will look on both indifferently; For let the gods so speed me as I love The name of honor more than I fear death. CASSIUS. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, As well as I do know your outward favor. Well, honor is the subject of my story. I cannot tell what you and other men Think of this life; but, for my single self, I had as lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself. I was born free as Caesar; so were you: We both have fed as well; and we can both Endure the winter's cold as well as he: For once, upon a raw and gusty day, The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Caesar said to me, "Darest thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood And swim to yonder point?" Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, And bade him follow: so indeed he did. The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it With lusty sinews, throwing it aside And stemming it with hearts of controversy; But ere we could arrive the point proposed, Caesar cried, "Help me, Cassius, or I sink! I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor, Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber Did I the tired Caesar: and this man Is now become a god; and Cassius is A wretched creature, and must bend his body, If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. He had a fever when he was in Spain; And when the fit was on him I did mark How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake: His coward lips did from their color fly; And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan: Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, Alas, it cried, "Give me some drink, Titinius," As a sick girl.--Ye gods, it doth amaze me, A man of such a feeble temper should So get the start of the majestic world, And bear the palm alone. [Shout. Flourish.] BRUTUS. Another general shout! I do believe that these applauses are For some new honors that are heap'd on Caesar. CASSIUS. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves,that we are underlings. "Brutus" and "Caesar": what should be in that "Caesar"? Why should that name be sounded more than yours? Write them together, yours is as fair a name; Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well; Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them, "Brutus" will start a spirit as soon as "Caesar." Now, in the names of all the gods at once, Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed! Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods! When went there by an age since the great flood, But it was famed with more than with one man? When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome, That her wide walls encompass'd but one man? Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough, When there is in it but one only man. O, you and I have heard our fathers say There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd Th' eternal devil to keep his state in Rome, As easily as a king! BRUTUS. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous; What you would work me to, I have some aim: How I have thought of this, and of these times, I shall recount hereafter; for this present, I would not, so with love I might entreat you, Be any further moved. What you have said, I will consider; what you have to say, I will with patience hear; and find a time Both meet to hear and answer such high things. Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this: Brutus had rather be a villager Than to repute himself a son of Rome Under these hard conditions as this time Is like to lay upon us. CASSIUS. I am glad that my weak words Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus. BRUTUS. The games are done, and Caesar is returning. CASSIUS. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve; And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you What hath proceeded worthy note today. [Re-enter Caesar and his Train.] BRUTUS. I will do so.--But, look you, Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, And all the rest look like a chidden train: Calpurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes As we have seen him in the Capitol, Being cross'd in conference by some senators. CASSIUS. Casca will tell us what the matter is. CAESAR. Antonius,-- ANTONY. Caesar? CAESAR. Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. ANTONY. Fear him not, Caesar; he's not dangerous; He is a noble Roman and well given. CAESAR. Would he were fatter! But I fear him not: Yet, if my name were liable to fear, I do not know the man I should avoid So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much; He is a great observer, and he looks Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays, As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music: Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit That could be moved to smile at any thing. Such men as he be never at heart's ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves; And therefore are they very dangerous. I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd Than what I fear, for always I am Caesar. Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, And tell me truly what thou think'st of him. [Exeunt Caesar and his Train. Casca stays.] CASCA. You pull'd me by the cloak; would you speak with me? BRUTUS. Ay, Casca, tell us what hath chanced today, That Caesar looks so sad. CASCA. Why, you were with him, were you not? BRUTUS. I should not then ask Casca what had chanced. CASCA. Why, there was a crown offer'd him; and being offer'd him, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell a-shouting. BRUTUS. What was the second noise for? CASCA. Why, for that too. CASSIUS. They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for? CASCA. Why, for that too. BRUTUS. Was the crown offer'd him thrice? CASCA. Ay, marry, was't, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than other; and at every putting-by mine honest neighbors shouted. CASSIUS. Who offer'd him the crown? CASCA. Why, Antony. BRUTUS. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca. CASCA. I can as well be hang'd, as tell the manner of it: it was mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown;--yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets;--and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again: then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by; and still, as he refused it, the rabblement shouted, and clapp'd their chopt hands, and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Caesar, for he swooned and fell down at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air. CASSIUS. But, soft! I pray you. What, did Caesar swoon? CASCA. He fell down in the market-place, and foam'd at mouth, and was speechless. BRUTUS. 'Tis very like: he hath the falling-sickness. CASSIUS. No, Caesar hath it not; but you, and I, And honest Casca, we have the falling-sickness. CASCA. I know not what you mean by that; but I am sure Caesar fell down. If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man. BRUTUS. What said he when he came unto himself? CASCA. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad he refused the crown, he pluck'd me ope his doublet, and offered them his throat to cut: an I had been a man of any occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would I might go to hell among the rogues:--and so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said, if he had done or said any thing amiss, he desired their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three or four wenches where I stood cried, "Alas, good soul!" and forgave him with all their hearts. But there's no heed to be taken of them: if Caesar had stabb'd their mothers, they would have done no less. BRUTUS. And, after that he came, thus sad away? CASCA. Ay. CASSIUS. Did Cicero say any thing? CASCA. Ay, he spoke Greek. CASSIUS. To what effect? CASCA. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell you more news too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if could remember it. CASSIUS. Will you sup with me tonight, Casca? CASCA. No, I am promised forth. CASSIUS. Will you dine with me tomorrow? CASCA. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth the eating. CASSIUS. Good; I will expect you. CASCA. Do so; farewell both. [Exit CASCA.] BRUTUS. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be! He was quick mettle when he went to school. CASSIUS. So is he now in execution Of any bold or noble enterprise, However he puts on this tardy form. This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, Which gives men stomach to digest his words With better appetite. BRUTUS. And so it is. For this time I will leave you: Tomorrow, if you please to speak with me, I will come home to you; or, if you will, Come home to me, and I will wait for you. CASSIUS. I will do so: till then, think of the world.-- [Exit Brutus.] Nun, Brutus, du bist adlig; dennoch sehe ich, Dein ehrenwertes Wesen kann geformt werden, Von dem, worauf es gerichtet ist: Daher ist es angebracht, Dass noble Gedanken stets unter ihresgleichen bleiben; Denn wer ist so fest, dass er nicht verführt werden kann? Caesar ist mir feindlich gesinnt, doch er liebt Brutus; Wenn ich jetzt Brutus wäre und er Cassius, Würde er mich nicht nachgiebig behandeln. Ich werde in dieser Nacht, Mit verschiedenen Händen, sie in seine Fenster werfen, Als kämen sie von verschiedenen Bürgern, Schriften, die alle auf die große Meinung abzielen, Die Rom von seinem Namen hat; wobei dunkel Caesars Ehrgeiz angedeutet wird: Und danach soll Caesar sicher Platz nehmen; Denn wir werden ihn erschüttern oder schlimmere Tage ertragen. [Abgang.] Können Sie eine passende Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Caesar, der triumphierend nach Rom eingezogen ist, ruft seine Frau Calphurnia zu sich und befielt ihr, sich dort hinzustellen, wo Mark Antony, der gleich am traditionellen Lupercal-Fußrennen teilnehmen wird, sie berühren kann, wenn er vorbeiläuft. Caesar teilt den Glauben, dass eine kinderlose Frau ihre Unfruchtbarkeit verliert, wenn sie von einem der heiligen Läufer berührt wird. Ein Wahrsager ruft aus der Menge und warnt Caesar vor den "Iden des März", aber Caesar beachtet es nicht und geht mit seinen Begleitern fort, während Brutus und Cassius zurückbleiben. Cassius beginnt, Brutus nach seinen Gefühlen für Caesar und der Aussicht auf Caesars Diktatur in Rom zu befragen. Brutus ist offensichtlich seit einiger Zeit von dieser Frage beunruhigt. Cassius erinnert Brutus daran, dass Caesar nur ein Mensch wie sie ist, mit ganz gewöhnlichen menschlichen Schwächen, und sagt, dass er lieber sterben würde, als einen solchen Mann zu seinem Herrscher zu sehen. Er erinnert Brutus an Brutus' edle Abstammung und an die Erwartungen seiner Mit-Römer, dass er seinem Land dienen wird, wie es seine Vorfahren taten. Brutus ist offensichtlich bewegt, ist sich aber unsicher, was er tun soll. Mehrmals während ihres Gesprächs hören Cassius und Brutus Rufe und den Klang von Trompeten. Caesar kommt mit seinen Begleitern zurück und bemerkt nebenbei zu Mark Antony, dass er Cassius misstraut, der "einen mageren und hungernden Blick hat; Er denkt zu viel. Solche Männer sind gefährlich." Als Caesar geht, halten Brutus und Cassius Casca auf und unterhalten sich mit ihm. Er erzählt ihnen, dass Mark Antony Caesar drei Mal die Krone angeboten hat, aber dass Caesar sie jedes Mal abgelehnt und dann einen epileptischen Anfall erlitten hat. Die drei Männer sind sich einig, weiter über die Angelegenheit nachzudenken, und als Casca und Brutus gegangen sind, gibt Cassius in einem kurzen Monolog seine Pläne preis, Brutus fest für die Verschwörung zu gewinnen, die er gegen Caesar plant.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Actus Secundus. Scoena Prima. Flourish. Enter the King sicke, the Queene, Lord Marquesse Dorset, Riuers, Hastings, Catesby, Buckingham, Wooduill. King. Why so: now haue I done a good daies work. You Peeres, continue this vnited League: I, euery day expect an Embassage From my Redeemer, to redeeme me hence. And more to peace my soule shall part to heauen, Since I haue made my Friends at peace on earth. Dorset and Riuers, take each others hand, Dissemble not your hatred, Sweare your loue Riu. By heauen, my soule is purg'd from grudging hate And with my hand I seale my true hearts Loue Hast. So thriue I, as I truly sweare the like King. Take heed you dally not before your King, Lest he that is the supreme King of Kings Confound your hidden falshood, and award Either of you to be the others end Hast. So prosper I, as I sweare perfect loue Ri. And I, as I loue Hastings with my heart, King. Madam, your selfe is not exempt from this: Nor you Sonne Dorset, Buckingham nor you; You haue bene factious one against the other. Wife, loue Lord Hastings, let him kisse your hand, And what you do, do it vnfeignedly Qu. There Hastings, I will neuer more remember Our former hatred, so thriue I, and mine King. Dorset, imbrace him: Hastings, loue Lord Marquesse Dor. This interchange of loue, I heere protest Vpon my part, shall be inuiolable Hast. And so sweare I King. Now Princely Buckingham, seale y this league With thy embracements to my wiues Allies, And make me happy in your vnity Buc. When euer Buckingham doth turne his hate Vpon your Grace, but with all dutious loue, Doth cherish you, and yours, God punish me With hate in those where I expect most loue, When I haue most need to imploy a Friend, And most assured that he is a Friend, Deepe, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile, Be he vnto me: This do I begge of heauen, When I am cold in loue, to you, or yours. Embrace King. A pleasing Cordiall, Princely Buckingham Is this thy Vow, vnto my sickely heart: There wanteth now our Brother Gloster heere, To make the blessed period of this peace Buc. And in good time, Heere comes Sir Richard Ratcliffe, and the Duke. Enter Ratcliffe, and Gloster. Rich. Good morrow to my Soueraigne King & Queen And Princely Peeres, a happy time of day King. Happy indeed, as we haue spent the day: Gloster, we haue done deeds of Charity, Made peace of enmity, faire loue of hate, Betweene these swelling wrong incensed Peeres Rich. A blessed labour my most Soueraigne Lord: Among this Princely heape, if any heere By false intelligence, or wrong surmize Hold me a Foe: If I vnwillingly, or in my rage, Haue ought committed that is hardly borne, To any in this presence, I desire To reconcile me to his Friendly peace: 'Tis death to me to be at enmitie: I hate it, and desire all good mens loue, First Madam, I intreate true peace of you, Which I will purchase with my dutious seruice. Of you my Noble Cosin Buckingham, If euer any grudge were lodg'd betweene vs. Of you and you, Lord Riuers and of Dorset, That all without desert haue frown'd on me: Of you Lord Wooduill, and Lord Scales of you, Dukes, Earles, Lords, Gentlemen, indeed of all. I do not know that Englishman aliue, With whom my soule is any iot at oddes, More then the Infant that is borne to night: I thanke my God for my Humility Qu. A holy day shall this be kept heereafter: I would to God all strifes were well compounded. My Soueraigne Lord, I do beseech your Highnesse To take our Brother Clarence to your Grace Rich. Why Madam, haue I offred loue for this, To be so flowted in this Royall presence? Who knowes not that the gentle Duke is dead? They all start. You do him iniurie to scorne his Coarse King. Who knowes not he is dead? Who knowes he is? Qu. All-seeing heauen, what a world is this? Buc. Looke I so pale Lord Dorset, as the rest? Dor. I my good Lord, and no man in the presence, But his red colour hath forsooke his cheekes King. Is Clarence dead? The Order was reuerst Rich. But he (poore man) by your first order dyed, And that a winged Mercurie did beare: Some tardie Cripple bare the Countermand, That came too lagge to see him buried. God grant, that some lesse Noble, and lesse Loyall, Neerer in bloody thoughts, and not in blood, Deserue not worse then wretched Clarence did, And yet go currant from Suspition. Enter Earle of Derby. Der. A boone my Soueraigne for my seruice done King. I prethee peace, my soule is full of sorrow Der. I will not rise, vnlesse your Highnes heare me King. Then say at once, what is it thou requests Der. The forfeit (Soueraigne) of my seruants life, Who slew to day a Riotous Gentleman, Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolke King. Haue I a tongue to doome my Brothers death? And shall that tongue giue pardon to a slaue? My Brother kill'd no man, his fault was Thought, And yet his punishment was bitter death. Who sued to me for him? Who (in my wrath) Kneel'd and my feet, and bid me be aduis'd? Who spoke of Brother-hood? who spoke of loue? Who told me how the poore soule did forsake The mighty Warwicke, and did fight for me? Who told me in the field at Tewkesbury, When Oxford had me downe, he rescued me: And said deare Brother liue, and be a King? Who told me, when we both lay in the Field, Frozen (almost) to death, how he did lap me Euen in his Garments, and did giue himselfe (All thin and naked) to the numbe cold night? All this from my Remembrance, brutish wrath Sinfully pluckt, and not a man of you Had so much grace to put it in my minde. But when your Carters, or your wayting Vassalls Haue done a drunken Slaughter, and defac'd The precious Image of our deere Redeemer, You straight are on your knees for Pardon, pardon, And I (vniustly too) must grant it you. But for my Brother, not a man would speake, Nor I (vngracious) speake vnto my selfe For him poore Soule. The proudest of you all, Haue bin beholding to him in his life: Yet none of you, would once begge for his life. O God! I feare thy iustice will take hold On me, and you; and mine, and yours for this. Come Hastings helpe me to my Closset. Ah poore Clarence. Exeunt. some with K[ing]. & Queen. Rich. This is the fruits of rashnes: Markt you not, How that the guilty Kindred of the Queene Look'd pale, when they did heare of Clarence death. O! they did vrge it still vnto the King, God will reuenge it. Come Lords will you go, To comfort Edward with our company Buc. We wait vpon your Grace. Exeunt. Scena Secunda. Enter the old Dutchesse of Yorke, with the two children of Clarence. Edw. Good Grandam tell vs, is our Father dead? Dutch. No Boy Daugh. Why do weepe so oft? And beate your Brest? And cry, O Clarence, my vnhappy Sonne Boy. Why do you looke on vs, and shake your head, And call vs Orphans, Wretches, Castawayes, If that our Noble Father were aliue? Dut. My pretty Cosins, you mistake me both, I do lament the sicknesse of the King, As loath to lose him, not your Fathers death: It were lost sorrow to waile one that's lost Boy. Then you conclude, (my Grandam) he is dead: The King mine Vnckle is too blame for it. God will reuenge it, whom I will importune With earnest prayers, all to that effect Daugh. And so will I Dut. Peace children peace, the King doth loue you wel. Incapeable, and shallow Innocents, You cannot guesse who caus'd your Fathers death Boy. Grandam we can: for my good Vnkle Gloster Told me, the King prouok'd to it by the Queene, Deuis'd impeachments to imprison him; And when my Vnckle told me so, he wept, And pittied me, and kindly kist my cheeke: Bad me rely on him, as on my Father, And he would loue me deerely as a childe Dut. Ah! that Deceit should steale such gentle shape, And with a vertuous Vizor hide deepe vice. He is my sonne, I, and therein my shame, Yet from my dugges, he drew not this deceit Boy. Thinke you my Vnkle did dissemble Grandam? Dut. I Boy Boy. I cannot thinke it. Hearke, what noise is this? Enter the Queene with her haire about her ears, Riuers & Dorset after her. Qu. Ah! who shall hinder me to waile and weepe? To chide my Fortune, and torment my Selfe. Ile ioyne with blacke dispaire against my Soule, And to my selfe, become an enemie Dut. What meanes this Scene of rude impatience? Qu. To make an act of Tragicke violence. Edward my Lord, thy Sonne, our King is dead. Why grow the Branches, when the Roote is gone? Why wither not the leaues that want their sap? If you will liue, Lament: if dye, be breefe, That our swift-winged Soules may catch the Kings, Or like obedient Subiects follow him, To his new Kingdome of nere-changing night Dut. Ah so much interest haue in thy sorrow, As I had Title in thy Noble Husband: I haue bewept a worthy Husbands death, And liu'd with looking on his Images: But now two Mirrors of his Princely semblance, Are crack'd in pieces, by malignant death, And I for comfort, haue but one false Glasse, That greeues me, when I see my shame in him. Thou art a Widdow: yet thou art a Mother, And hast the comfort of thy Children left, But death hath snatch'd my Husband from mine Armes, And pluckt two Crutches from my feeble hands, Clarence, and Edward. O, what cause haue I, (Thine being but a moity of my moane) To ouer-go thy woes, and drowne thy cries Boy. Ah Aunt! you wept not for our Fathers death: How can we ayde you with our Kindred teares? Daugh. Our fatherlesse distresse was left vnmoan'd, Your widdow-dolour, likewise be vnwept Qu. Giue me no helpe in Lamentation, I am not barren to bring forth complaints: All Springs reduce their currents to mine eyes, That I being gouern'd by the waterie Moone, May send forth plenteous teares to drowne the World. Ah, for my Husband, for my deere Lord Edward Chil. Ah for our Father, for our deere Lord Clarence Dut. Alas for both, both mine Edward and Clarence Qu. What stay had I but Edward, and hee's gone? Chil. What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone Dut. What stayes had I, but they? and they are gone Qu. Was neuer widdow had so deere a losse Chil. Were neuer Orphans had so deere a losse Dut. Was neuer Mother had so deere a losse. Alas! I am the Mother of these Greefes, Their woes are parcell'd, mine is generall. She for an Edward weepes, and so do I: I for a Clarence weepes, so doth not shee: These Babes for Clarence weepe, so do not they. Alas! you three, on me threefold distrest: Power all your teares, I am your sorrowes Nurse, And I will pamper it with Lamentation Dor. Comfort deere Mother, God is much displeas'd, That you take with vnthankfulnesse his doing. In common worldly things, 'tis call'd vngratefull, With dull vnwillingnesse to repay a debt, Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent: Much more to be thus opposite with heauen, For it requires the Royall debt it lent you Riuers. Madam, bethinke you like a carefull Mother Of the young Prince your sonne: send straight for him, Let him be Crown'd, in him your comfort liues. Drowne desperate sorrow in dead Edwards graue, And plant your ioyes in liuing Edwards Throne. Enter Richard, Buckingham, Derbie, Hastings, and Ratcliffe. Rich. Sister haue comfort, all of vs haue cause To waile the dimming of our shining Starre: But none can helpe our harmes by wayling them. Madam, my Mother, I do cry you mercie, I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee, I craue your Blessing Dut. God blesse thee, and put meeknes in thy breast, Loue Charity, Obedience, and true Dutie Rich. Amen, and make me die a good old man, That is the butt-end of a Mothers blessing; I maruell that her Grace did leaue it out Buc. You clowdy-Princes, & hart-sorowing-Peeres, That beare this heauie mutuall loade of Moane, Now cheere each other, in each others Loue: Though we haue spent our Haruest of this King, We are to reape the Haruest of his Sonne. The broken rancour of your high-swolne hates, But lately splinter'd, knit, and ioyn'd together, Must gently be preseru'd, cherisht, and kept: Me seemeth good, that with some little Traine, Forthwith from Ludlow, the young Prince be set Hither to London, to be crown'd our King Riuers. Why with some little Traine, My Lord of Buckingham? Buc. Marrie my Lord, least by a multitude, The new-heal'd wound of Malice should breake out, Which would be so much the more dangerous, By how much the estate is greene, and yet vngouern'd. Where euery Horse beares his commanding Reine, And may direct his course as please himselfe, As well the feare of harme, as harme apparant, In my opinion, ought to be preuented Rich. I hope the King made peace with all of vs, And the compact is firme, and true in me Riu. And so in me, and so (I thinke) in all. Yet since it is but greene, it should be put To no apparant likely-hood of breach, Which haply by much company might be vrg'd: Therefore I say with Noble Buckingham, That it is meete so few should fetch the Prince Hast. And so say I Rich. Then be it so, and go we to determine Who they shall be that strait shall poste to London. Madam, and you my Sister, will you go To giue your censures in this businesse. Exeunt. Manet Buckingham, and Richard. Buc. My Lord, who euer iournies to the Prince, For God sake let not vs two stay at home: For by the way, Ile sort occasion, As Index to the story we late talk'd of, To part the Queenes proud Kindred from the Prince Rich. My other selfe, my Counsailes Consistory, My Oracle, My Prophet, my deere Cosin, I, as a childe, will go by thy direction, Toward London then, for wee'l not stay behinde. Exeunt. Scena Tertia. Enter one Citizen at one doore, and another at the other. 1.Bürger. Guten Morgen, Nachbar, wohin so eilig? 2.Bürger. Ich verspreche Ihnen, ich kenne mich kaum selbst: Haben Sie Neuigkeiten von draußen gehört? 1. Ja, dass der König gestorben ist. 2. Schlechte Nachrichten, Herrin, gute Nachrichten kommen selten: Ich fürchte, ich fürchte, es wird eine wankelmütige Welt werden. Ein anderer Bürger tritt auf. 3. Nachbarn, Gott schütze euch. 1. Grüß Gott, Herr. 3. Ist die Nachricht von König Edwards Tod wahr? 2. Ja, Herr, es ist allzu wahr, Gott helfe. Können Sie eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Im königlichen Palast in London leitet König Edward, der sehr krank ist, eine Versöhnung zwischen verfeindeten Gruppen. Zuerst versöhnen sich Hastings und Rivers, der Bruder der Königin. Die Königin, ihr Sohn Dorset und Buckingham schließen sich der allgemeinen Versöhnung an. Richard tritt ein und verspricht allen im Raum seine Freundschaft. Doch dann erwähnt die Königin den Namen Clarence, und Richard sagt, dass Clarence tot ist. Das ist für alle Neuigkeiten, und sie sind alle schockiert. Der König sagt, dass der Befehl, Clarence zu töten, zurückgezogen wurde; Richard antwortet, dass der Gegenbefehl zu spät kam. Lord Stanley, auch bekannt als Earl of Derby, tritt ein. Er fragt den König, ob das Leben eines seiner Diener verschont werden könnte, obwohl er einen Mann getötet hat. Der König antwortet, indem er über das Leben von Clarence nachdenkt und seinen Tod bedauert. Er erinnert sich daran, wie Clarence, nachdem er Warwick's Sache verlassen hatte, ihm treu geblieben ist. Und dennoch, sagt der König, kam niemand zu ihm, um für Clarence's Leben zu bitten, und jetzt hat sogar ein Diener jemanden, der für ihn bittet. Er gewährt die Gunst Stanley. Der König und die Königin und andere verlassen den Raum und lassen Richard und Buckingham zurück. Richard versucht, die Familie der Königin für Clarence's Tod verantwortlich zu machen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: THE BOOK OF THE GROTESQUE The writer, an old man with a white mustache, had some difficulty in getting into bed. The windows of the house in which he lived were high and he wanted to look at the trees when he awoke in the morning. A carpenter came to fix the bed so that it would be on a level with the window. Quite a fuss was made about the matter. The carpenter, who had been a soldier in the Civil War, came into the writer's room and sat down to talk of building a platform for the purpose of raising the bed. The writer had cigars lying about and the carpenter smoked. For a time the two men talked of the raising of the bed and then they talked of other things. The soldier got on the subject of the war. The writer, in fact, led him to that subject. The carpenter had once been a prisoner in Andersonville prison and had lost a brother. The brother had died of starvation, and whenever the carpenter got upon that subject he cried. He, like the old writer, had a white mustache, and when he cried he puckered up his lips and the mustache bobbed up and down. The weeping old man with the cigar in his mouth was ludicrous. The plan the writer had for the raising of his bed was forgotten and later the carpenter did it in his own way and the writer, who was past sixty, had to help himself with a chair when he went to bed at night. In his bed the writer rolled over on his side and lay quite still. For years he had been beset with notions concerning his heart. He was a hard smoker and his heart fluttered. The idea had got into his mind that he would some time die unexpectedly and always when he got into bed he thought of that. It did not alarm him. The effect in fact was quite a special thing and not easily explained. It made him more alive, there in bed, than at any other time. Perfectly still he lay and his body was old and not of much use any more, but something inside him was altogether young. He was like a pregnant woman, only that the thing inside him was not a baby but a youth. No, it wasn't a youth, it was a woman, young, and wearing a coat of mail like a knight. It is absurd, you see, to try to tell what was inside the old writer as he lay on his high bed and listened to the fluttering of his heart. The thing to get at is what the writer, or the young thing within the writer, was thinking about. The old writer, like all of the people in the world, had got, during his long life, a great many notions in his head. He had once been quite handsome and a number of women had been in love with him. And then, of course, he had known people, many people, known them in a peculiarly intimate way that was different from the way in which you and I know people. At least that is what the writer thought and the thought pleased him. Why quarrel with an old man concerning his thoughts? In the bed the writer had a dream that was not a dream. As he grew somewhat sleepy but was still conscious, figures began to appear before his eyes. He imagined the young indescribable thing within himself was driving a long procession of figures before his eyes. You see the interest in all this lies in the figures that went before the eyes of the writer. They were all grotesques. All of the men and women the writer had ever known had become grotesques. The grotesques were not all horrible. Some were amusing, some almost beautiful, and one, a woman all drawn out of shape, hurt the old man by her grotesqueness. When she passed he made a noise like a small dog whimpering. Had you come into the room you might have supposed the old man had unpleasant dreams or perhaps indigestion. For an hour the procession of grotesques passed before the eyes of the old man, and then, although it was a painful thing to do, he crept out of bed and began to write. Some one of the grotesques had made a deep impression on his mind and he wanted to describe it. At his desk the writer worked for an hour. In the end he wrote a book which he called "The Book of the Grotesque." It was never published, but I saw it once and it made an indelible impression on my mind. The book had one central thought that is very strange and has always remained with me. By remembering it I have been able to understand many people and things that I was never able to understand before. The thought was involved but a simple statement of it would be something like this: That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were the truths and they were all beautiful. The old man had listed hundreds of the truths in his book. I will not try to tell you of all of them. There was the truth of virginity and the truth of passion, the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and abandon. Hundreds and hundreds were the truths and they were all beautiful. And then the people came along. Each as he appeared snatched up one of the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them. It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood. You can see for yourself how the old man, who had spent all of his life writing and was filled with words, would write hundreds of pages concerning this matter. The subject would become so big in his mind that he himself would be in danger of becoming a grotesque. He didn't, I suppose, for the same reason that he never published the book. It was the young thing inside him that saved the old man. Concerning the old carpenter who fixed the bed for the writer, I only mentioned him because he, like many of what are called very common people, became the nearest thing to what is understandable and lovable of all the grotesques in the writer's book. Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Ein alter Schriftsteller hat ein Bett, das sein Schreiner erhöht hat, damit der Schriftsteller aus dem Fenster schauen kann. Leider fällt es ihm nun schwer, in das Bett hinein- und wieder herauszukommen. Von diesem Bett aus träumt er "einen Traum, der kein Traum war", in dem alle Menschen, die er je gekannt hat, vor seinen Augen vorbeiziehen. Diese Gestalten sind grotesk. Aus diesem Umzug von Gestalten erschafft er die Geschichten in diesem Buch.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: XV. The Footsteps Die Out For Ever Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind. Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father's house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. "If thou be changed into this shape by the will of God," say the seers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, "then remain so! But, if thou wear this form through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!" Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along. As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in many windows there are no people, and in some the occupation of the hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes survey the faces in the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors to see the sight; then he points his finger, with something of the complacency of a curator or authorised exponent, to this cart and to this, and seems to tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day before. Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; others, with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people. There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils, and faces are often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some question. It would seem to be always the same question, for, it is always followed by a press of people towards the third cart. The horsemen abreast of that cart, frequently point out one man in it with their swords. The leading curiosity is, to know which is he; he stands at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with a mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand. He has no curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always speaks to the girl. Here and there in the long street of St. Honore, cries are raised against him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily touch his face, his arms being bound. On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, stands the Spy and prison-sheep. He looks into the first of them: not there. He looks into the second: not there. He already asks himself, "Has he sacrificed me?" when his face clears, as he looks into the third. "Which is Evremonde?" says a man behind him. "That. At the back there." "With his hand in the girl's?" "Yes." The man cries, "Down, Evremonde! To the Guillotine all aristocrats! Down, Evremonde!" "Hush, hush!" the Spy entreats him, timidly. "And why not, citizen?" "He is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid in five minutes more. Let him be at peace." But the man continuing to exclaim, "Down, Evremonde!" the face of Evremonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evremonde then sees the Spy, and looks attentively at him, and goes his way. The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow ploughed among the populace is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, and end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in and close behind the last plough as it passes on, for all are following to the Guillotine. In front of it, seated in chairs, as in a garden of public diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the fore-most chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend. "Therese!" she cries, in her shrill tones. "Who has seen her? Therese Defarge!" "She never missed before," says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood. "No; nor will she miss now," cries The Vengeance, petulantly. "Therese." "Louder," the woman recommends. Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will scarcely hear thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet it will hardly bring her. Send other women up and down to seek her, lingering somewhere; and yet, although the messengers have done dread deeds, it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far enough to find her! "Bad Fortune!" cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair, "and here are the tumbrils! And Evremonde will be despatched in a wink, and she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I cry with vexation and disappointment!" As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash!--A head is held up, and the knitting-women who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One. The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. Crash!--And the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their Work, count Two. The supposed Evremonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him. "But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by Heaven." "Or you to me," says Sydney Carton. "Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object." "I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid." "They will be rapid. Fear not!" The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom. "Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me--just a little." "Tell me what it is." "I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a farmer's house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate--for I cannot write--and if I could, how should I tell her! It is better as it is." "Yes, yes: better as it is." "What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so much support, is this:--If the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time: she may even live to be old." "What then, my gentle sister?" "Do you think:" the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble: "that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?" "It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there." "You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment come?" "Yes." She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him--is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two. "I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three. ***** They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic. One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe--a woman--had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these: "I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. "I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward. "I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both. "I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place--then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement--and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice. "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Die Wagen mit den zweiundfünfzig Gefangenen rollen durch die Straßen von Paris und die Menschenmenge drängt sich zusammen, um Evremonde auf seinem Weg in den Tod zu sehen. Carton ignoriert die schreiende Menge und konzentriert sich auf die Näherin. Er tröstet sie und erinnert sich an die Aufstehungspassage aus der Bibel. Die Rache ist besorgt über das Fehlen von Mme. Defarge. Als er die Stufen zur Guillotine hinaufsteigt, hat Carton eine Vision, in der er lange und glückliche Leben für Mr. Lorry, Dr. Manette und die Familie Darnay voraussieht, die sich alle liebevoll an ihn erinnern werden. Er stellt sich auch vor, wie Lucie und Darnay einen Sohn haben, den sie Carton nennen. Das Buch endet mit dem berühmten Satz: "Es ist eine weitaus bessere Tat, die ich tue, als alles, was ich je getan habe; es ist eine weitaus bessere Ruhe, in die ich gehe, als alles, was ich je gekannt habe".

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Sir Thomas's return made a striking change in the ways of the family, independent of Lovers' Vows. Under his government, Mansfield was an altered place. Some members of their society sent away, and the spirits of many others saddened--it was all sameness and gloom compared with the past--a sombre family party rarely enlivened. There was little intercourse with the Parsonage. Sir Thomas, drawing back from intimacies in general, was particularly disinclined, at this time, for any engagements but in one quarter. The Rushworths were the only addition to his own domestic circle which he could solicit. Edmund did not wonder that such should be his father's feelings, nor could he regret anything but the exclusion of the Grants. "But they," he observed to Fanny, "have a claim. They seem to belong to us; they seem to be part of ourselves. I could wish my father were more sensible of their very great attention to my mother and sisters while he was away. I am afraid they may feel themselves neglected. But the truth is, that my father hardly knows them. They had not been here a twelvemonth when he left England. If he knew them better, he would value their society as it deserves; for they are in fact exactly the sort of people he would like. We are sometimes a little in want of animation among ourselves: my sisters seem out of spirits, and Tom is certainly not at his ease. Dr. and Mrs. Grant would enliven us, and make our evenings pass away with more enjoyment even to my father." "Do you think so?" said Fanny: "in my opinion, my uncle would not like _any_ addition. I think he values the very quietness you speak of, and that the repose of his own family circle is all he wants. And it does not appear to me that we are more serious than we used to be--I mean before my uncle went abroad. As well as I can recollect, it was always much the same. There was never much laughing in his presence; or, if there is any difference, it is not more, I think, than such an absence has a tendency to produce at first. There must be a sort of shyness; but I cannot recollect that our evenings formerly were ever merry, except when my uncle was in town. No young people's are, I suppose, when those they look up to are at home". "I believe you are right, Fanny," was his reply, after a short consideration. "I believe our evenings are rather returned to what they were, than assuming a new character. The novelty was in their being lively. Yet, how strong the impression that only a few weeks will give! I have been feeling as if we had never lived so before." "I suppose I am graver than other people," said Fanny. "The evenings do not appear long to me. I love to hear my uncle talk of the West Indies. I could listen to him for an hour together. It entertains _me_ more than many other things have done; but then I am unlike other people, I dare say." "Why should you dare say _that_?" (smiling). "Do you want to be told that you are only unlike other people in being more wise and discreet? But when did you, or anybody, ever get a compliment from me, Fanny? Go to my father if you want to be complimented. He will satisfy you. Ask your uncle what he thinks, and you will hear compliments enough: and though they may be chiefly on your person, you must put up with it, and trust to his seeing as much beauty of mind in time." Such language was so new to Fanny that it quite embarrassed her. "Your uncle thinks you very pretty, dear Fanny--and that is the long and the short of the matter. Anybody but myself would have made something more of it, and anybody but you would resent that you had not been thought very pretty before; but the truth is, that your uncle never did admire you till now--and now he does. Your complexion is so improved!--and you have gained so much countenance!--and your figure--nay, Fanny, do not turn away about it--it is but an uncle. If you cannot bear an uncle's admiration, what is to become of you? You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at. You must try not to mind growing up into a pretty woman." "Oh! don't talk so, don't talk so," cried Fanny, distressed by more feelings than he was aware of; but seeing that she was distressed, he had done with the subject, and only added more seriously-- "Your uncle is disposed to be pleased with you in every respect; and I only wish you would talk to him more. You are one of those who are too silent in the evening circle." "But I do talk to him more than I used. I am sure I do. Did not you hear me ask him about the slave-trade last night?" "I did--and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther." "And I longed to do it--but there was such a dead silence! And while my cousins were sitting by without speaking a word, or seeming at all interested in the subject, I did not like--I thought it would appear as if I wanted to set myself off at their expense, by shewing a curiosity and pleasure in his information which he must wish his own daughters to feel." "Miss Crawford was very right in what she said of you the other day: that you seemed almost as fearful of notice and praise as other women were of neglect. We were talking of you at the Parsonage, and those were her words. She has great discernment. I know nobody who distinguishes characters better. For so young a woman it is remarkable! She certainly understands _you_ better than you are understood by the greater part of those who have known you so long; and with regard to some others, I can perceive, from occasional lively hints, the unguarded expressions of the moment, that she could define _many_ as accurately, did not delicacy forbid it. I wonder what she thinks of my father! She must admire him as a fine-looking man, with most gentlemanlike, dignified, consistent manners; but perhaps, having seen him so seldom, his reserve may be a little repulsive. Could they be much together, I feel sure of their liking each other. He would enjoy her liveliness and she has talents to value his powers. I wish they met more frequently! I hope she does not suppose there is any dislike on his side." "She must know herself too secure of the regard of all the rest of you," said Fanny, with half a sigh, "to have any such apprehension. And Sir Thomas's wishing just at first to be only with his family, is so very natural, that she can argue nothing from that. After a little while, I dare say, we shall be meeting again in the same sort of way, allowing for the difference of the time of year." "This is the first October that she has passed in the country since her infancy. I do not call Tunbridge or Cheltenham the country; and November is a still more serious month, and I can see that Mrs. Grant is very anxious for her not finding Mansfield dull as winter comes on." Fanny could have said a great deal, but it was safer to say nothing, and leave untouched all Miss Crawford's resources--her accomplishments, her spirits, her importance, her friends, lest it should betray her into any observations seemingly unhandsome. Miss Crawford's kind opinion of herself deserved at least a grateful forbearance, and she began to talk of something else. "To-morrow, I think, my uncle dines at Sotherton, and you and Mr. Bertram too. We shall be quite a small party at home. I hope my uncle may continue to like Mr. Rushworth." "That is impossible, Fanny. He must like him less after to-morrow's visit, for we shall be five hours in his company. I should dread the stupidity of the day, if there were not a much greater evil to follow--the impression it must leave on Sir Thomas. He cannot much longer deceive himself. I am sorry for them all, and would give something that Rushworth and Maria had never met." In this quarter, indeed, disappointment was impending over Sir Thomas. Not all his good-will for Mr. Rushworth, not all Mr. Rushworth's deference for him, could prevent him from soon discerning some part of the truth--that Mr. Rushworth was an inferior young man, as ignorant in business as in books, with opinions in general unfixed, and without seeming much aware of it himself. He had expected a very different son-in-law; and beginning to feel grave on Maria's account, tried to understand _her_ feelings. Little observation there was necessary to tell him that indifference was the most favourable state they could be in. Her behaviour to Mr. Rushworth was careless and cold. She could not, did not like him. Sir Thomas resolved to speak seriously to her. Advantageous as would be the alliance, and long standing and public as was the engagement, her happiness must not be sacrificed to it. Mr. Rushworth had, perhaps, been accepted on too short an acquaintance, and, on knowing him better, she was repenting. With solemn kindness Sir Thomas addressed her: told her his fears, inquired into her wishes, entreated her to be open and sincere, and assured her that every inconvenience should be braved, and the connexion entirely given up, if she felt herself unhappy in the prospect of it. He would act for her and release her. Maria had a moment's struggle as she listened, and only a moment's: when her father ceased, she was able to give her answer immediately, decidedly, and with no apparent agitation. She thanked him for his great attention, his paternal kindness, but he was quite mistaken in supposing she had the smallest desire of breaking through her engagement, or was sensible of any change of opinion or inclination since her forming it. She had the highest esteem for Mr. Rushworth's character and disposition, and could not have a doubt of her happiness with him. Sir Thomas was satisfied; too glad to be satisfied, perhaps, to urge the matter quite so far as his judgment might have dictated to others. It was an alliance which he could not have relinquished without pain; and thus he reasoned. Mr. Rushworth was young enough to improve. Mr. Rushworth must and would improve in good society; and if Maria could now speak so securely of her happiness with him, speaking certainly without the prejudice, the blindness of love, she ought to be believed. Her feelings, probably, were not acute; he had never supposed them to be so; but her comforts might not be less on that account; and if she could dispense with seeing her husband a leading, shining character, there would certainly be everything else in her favour. A well-disposed young woman, who did not marry for love, was in general but the more attached to her own family; and the nearness of Sotherton to Mansfield must naturally hold out the greatest temptation, and would, in all probability, be a continual supply of the most amiable and innocent enjoyments. Such and such-like were the reasonings of Sir Thomas, happy to escape the embarrassing evils of a rupture, the wonder, the reflections, the reproach that must attend it; happy to secure a marriage which would bring him such an addition of respectability and influence, and very happy to think anything of his daughter's disposition that was most favourable for the purpose. To her the conference closed as satisfactorily as to him. She was in a state of mind to be glad that she had secured her fate beyond recall: that she had pledged herself anew to Sotherton; that she was safe from the possibility of giving Crawford the triumph of governing her actions, and destroying her prospects; and retired in proud resolve, determined only to behave more cautiously to Mr. Rushworth in future, that her father might not be again suspecting her. Had Sir Thomas applied to his daughter within the first three or four days after Henry Crawford's leaving Mansfield, before her feelings were at all tranquillised, before she had given up every hope of him, or absolutely resolved on enduring his rival, her answer might have been different; but after another three or four days, when there was no return, no letter, no message, no symptom of a softened heart, no hope of advantage from separation, her mind became cool enough to seek all the comfort that pride and self revenge could give. Henry Crawford had destroyed her happiness, but he should not know that he had done it; he should not destroy her credit, her appearance, her prosperity, too. He should not have to think of her as pining in the retirement of Mansfield for _him_, rejecting Sotherton and London, independence and splendour, for _his_ sake. Independence was more needful than ever; the want of it at Mansfield more sensibly felt. She was less and less able to endure the restraint which her father imposed. The liberty which his absence had given was now become absolutely necessary. She must escape from him and Mansfield as soon as possible, and find consolation in fortune and consequence, bustle and the world, for a wounded spirit. Her mind was quite determined, and varied not. To such feelings delay, even the delay of much preparation, would have been an evil, and Mr. Rushworth could hardly be more impatient for the marriage than herself. In all the important preparations of the mind she was complete: being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home, restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The rest might wait. The preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and spring, when her own taste could have fairer play. The principals being all agreed in this respect, it soon appeared that a very few weeks would be sufficient for such arrangements as must precede the wedding. Mrs. Rushworth was quite ready to retire, and make way for the fortunate young woman whom her dear son had selected; and very early in November removed herself, her maid, her footman, and her chariot, with true dowager propriety, to Bath, there to parade over the wonders of Sotherton in her evening parties; enjoying them as thoroughly, perhaps, in the animation of a card-table, as she had ever done on the spot; and before the middle of the same month the ceremony had taken place which gave Sotherton another mistress. It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed; the two bridesmaids were duly inferior; her father gave her away; her mother stood with salts in her hand, expecting to be agitated; her aunt tried to cry; and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant. Nothing could be objected to when it came under the discussion of the neighbourhood, except that the carriage which conveyed the bride and bridegroom and Julia from the church-door to Sotherton was the same chaise which Mr. Rushworth had used for a twelvemonth before. In everything else the etiquette of the day might stand the strictest investigation. It was done, and they were gone. Sir Thomas felt as an anxious father must feel, and was indeed experiencing much of the agitation which his wife had been apprehensive of for herself, but had fortunately escaped. Mrs. Norris, most happy to assist in the duties of the day, by spending it at the Park to support her sister's spirits, and drinking the health of Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth in a supernumerary glass or two, was all joyous delight; for she had made the match; she had done everything; and no one would have supposed, from her confident triumph, that she had ever heard of conjugal infelicity in her life, or could have the smallest insight into the disposition of the niece who had been brought up under her eye. The plan of the young couple was to proceed, after a few days, to Brighton, and take a house there for some weeks. Every public place was new to Maria, and Brighton is almost as gay in winter as in summer. When the novelty of amusement there was over, it would be time for the wider range of London. Julia was to go with them to Brighton. Since rivalry between the sisters had ceased, they had been gradually recovering much of their former good understanding; and were at least sufficiently friends to make each of them exceedingly glad to be with the other at such a time. Some other companion than Mr. Rushworth was of the first consequence to his lady; and Julia was quite as eager for novelty and pleasure as Maria, though she might not have struggled through so much to obtain them, and could better bear a subordinate situation. Their departure made another material change at Mansfield, a chasm which required some time to fill up. The family circle became greatly contracted; and though the Miss Bertrams had latterly added little to its gaiety, they could not but be missed. Even their mother missed them; and how much more their tenderhearted cousin, who wandered about the house, and thought of them, and felt for them, with a degree of affectionate regret which they had never done much to deserve! 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Alle im Mansfield Park sind schlecht gelaunt und es ist nicht mehr lustig, seit Sir Thomas zurück im Haus ist. Edmund beschwert sich bei Fanny darüber, dass die Grants nicht mehr so oft mit Mary vorbeikommen, da sie Sir Thomas nicht wirklich kennen. Fanny sagt, dass die Dinge wieder so sind, wie sie früher waren - langweilig und öde. Edmund stimmt zu und sagt, dass der ganze Spaß ungewöhnlich für den Mansfield Park war. Fanny sagt, dass sie jetzt Spaß hat, weil sie gerne von Sir Thomas' Abenteuern in Westindien hört. Edmund lobt Fanny und sagt ihr, dass sein Vater denkt, dass sie in letzter Zeit viel hübscher geworden ist. Fanny ist verlegen. Edmund bemerkt, dass Mary gesagt hat, dass Fanny Angst hat, bemerkt zu werden. Dann schwärmt er davon, wie toll Mary ist. Fanny sagt währenddessen kein Wort. Die beiden diskutieren dann über Mr. Rushworth und entscheiden, dass Sir Thomas bald genug von ihm haben wird, da Rushworth ein wenig dumm ist. Das ist wahr: Sir Thomas ist immer unzufriedener mit Rushworth und bemerkt, dass Maria nicht wirklich an ihm interessiert zu sein scheint. Also hat er ein Gespräch mit Maria und bietet ihr an, sie von ihrer Verlobung zu befreien, wenn sie möchte. Aber Maria lehnt ab und besteht darauf, Rushworth heiraten zu wollen. Was ist hier los? Nun, Maria hat zwei Motive: Sie will ihrem Vater und Mansfield entkommen, einem Ort, den sie als einschränkend und langweilig empfindet. Außerdem will sie es Henry heimzahlen und zeigen, dass sie auch ohne ihn gut zurechtkommen kann. Außerdem wird Rushworth sie davor bewahren, wieder von ihrer Liebe zu Henry mitgerissen zu werden. Schließlich wird sie feststecken, sobald sie verheiratet ist. Sir Thomas freut sich, denn seine Tochter wird reich und eine Verlobung zu brechen ist unangenehm. Also heiratet Maria Anfang November. Sie und Julia machen sich dann mit Rushworth auf nach Brighton, einer Badeortstadt. Julia und Maria verstehen sich besser, seit Henry weg ist. Mansfield wurde noch langweiliger, da alle Spaßvögel weg sind. Nur Edmund, Fanny und Mary sind immer noch die ganze Zeit da.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: STAVE FOUR THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible, save one outstretched hand. But for this, it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded. He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved. "I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?" said Scrooge. The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand. "You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us," Scrooge pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?" The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received. Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover. But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror to know that, behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black. "Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But, as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?" It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them. "Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!" The phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along. They scarcely seemed to enter the City; for the City rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often. The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk. "No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I don't know much about it either way. I only know he's dead." "When did he die?" inquired another. "Last night, I believe." "Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. "I thought he'd never die." "God knows," said the first with a yawn. "What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock. "I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to _me_. That's all I know." This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. "It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same speaker; "for, upon my life, I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party, and volunteer?" "I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "But I must be fed if I make one." Another laugh. "Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all," said the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!" Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation. The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here. He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view. "How are you?" said one. "How are you?" returned the other. "Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?" "So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it?" "Seasonable for Christmas-time. You are not a skater, I suppose?" "No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!" Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting. Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but, feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that, to whomsoever they applied, they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy. He looked about in that very place for his own image, but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and, though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this. Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied, from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold. They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth and misery. Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal were bought. Upon the floor within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age, who had screened himself from the cold air without by a frouzy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters hung upon a line, and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement. Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too, and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them than they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh. "Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met here without meaning it!" "You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. "Come into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no such old bones here as mine. Ha! ha! We're all suitable to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour." The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and, having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night) with the stem of his pipe, put it into his mouth again. While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two. "What odds, then? What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said the woman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves. _He_ always did!" "That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man more so." "Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman! Who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose?" "No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. "We should hope not." "Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose?" "No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing. "If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself." "It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. Dilber, "It's a judgment on him." "I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the woman; "and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We knew pretty well that we were helping ourselves before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe." But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced _his_ plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found that there was nothing more to come. "That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next?" Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver tea-spoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner. "I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal, and knock off half-a-crown." "And now undo _my_ bundle, Joe," said the first woman. Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and, having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large heavy roll of some dark stuff. "What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains?" "Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!" "You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, with him lying there?" said Joe. "Yes, I do," replied the woman. "Why not?" "You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and you'll certainly do it." "I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He was, I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now." "His blankets?" asked Joe. "Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say." "I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up. "Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah! You may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me." "What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe. "Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied the woman with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did in that one." Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself. "Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!" "Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way now. Merciful Heaven, what is this?" He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language. The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed: and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man. Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side. Oh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy, and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal! No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly! He lay, in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child to say he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What _they_ wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think. "Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!" Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head. "I understand you," Scrooge returned, "and I would do it if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power." Again it seemed to look upon him. "If there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this man's death," said Scrooge, quite agonised, "show that person to me, Spirit! I beseech you." The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and, withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were. She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the room; started at every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of her children in their play. At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress. He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire, and, when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer. "Is it good," she said, "or bad?" to help him. "Bad," he answered. "We are quite ruined?" "No. There is hope yet, Caroline." "If _he_ relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened." "He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead." She was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart. "What the half-drunken woman, whom I told you of last night, said to me when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay, and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me, turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then." "To whom will our debt be transferred?" "I don't know. But, before that time, we shall be ready with the money; and, even though we were not, it would be bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!" Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure. "Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said Scrooge; "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever present to me." The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and, as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house,--the dwelling he had visited before,--and found the mother and the children seated round the fire. Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet! "'And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.'" Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on? The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face. "The colour hurts my eyes," she said. The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim! "They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife. "It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father, when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time." "Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book. "But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother." They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once: "I have known him walk with--I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder very fast indeed." "And so have I," cried Peter. "Often." "And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all. "But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent upon her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door!" She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter--he had need of it, poor fellow--came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees, and laid, each child, a little cheek against his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved!" Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said. "Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?" said his wife. "Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!" cried Bob. "My little child!" He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart, perhaps, than they were. He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and, when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy. They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little--"just a little down, you know," said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. "On which," said Bob, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife.' By-the-bye, how he ever knew _that_ I don't know." "Knew what, my dear?" "Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob. "Everybody knows that," said Peter. "Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope they do. 'Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it wasn't," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us." "I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit. "You would be sure of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised--mark what I say!--if he got Peter a better situation." "Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit. "And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping company with some one, and setting up for himself." "Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning. "It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days; though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But, however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim--shall we--or this first parting that there was among us?" "Never, father!" cried they all. "And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was, although he was a little, little child, we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it." "No, never, father!" they all cried again. "I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very happy!" Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God! "Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?" The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before--though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future--into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. "This court," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be in days to come." The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere. "The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why do you point away?" The inexorable finger underwent no change. Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before. He joined it once again, and, wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering. A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man, whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place! The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape. "Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be only?" Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood. "Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!" The Spirit was immovable as ever. Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE. "Am _I_ that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried upon his knees. The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again. "No, Spirit! Oh no, no!" The finger still was there. "Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?" For the first time the hand appeared to shake. "Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: "your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life?" The kind hand trembled. "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!" In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost. Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Der Geist der zukünftigen Weihnacht kommt feierlich in seiner schwarzen Gewandung auf Scrooge zu. Er antwortet auf Scrooges Fragen mit Stille und bedeute ihm, ihm zu folgen. Plötzlich finden sie sich in der Stadt wieder und belauschen einige Geschäftsleute, die beiläufig und scherzhaft über einen Tod diskutieren. Scrooge fragt sich, warum der Geist ihm diese Gespräche zeigt und was sie mit seiner zukünftigen Selbst zu tun haben. Allerdings sieht er sich selbst nicht unter den Menschenmengen. Scrooge und der Geist reisen durch einen armen, heruntergekommenen Teil der Stadt. In einem Laden teilen sich mehrere Personen Besitztümer auf, die sie einem kürzlich Verstorbenen geraubt haben. Scrooge sagt dem Geist, dass er sieht, dass sein Leben sich so entwickeln könnte wie das des toten Mannes. Die Szene ändert sich und Scrooge befindet sich an dem geplünderten Bett des Verstorbenen. Scrooge kann sich nicht dazu bringen, den Schleier des toten Mannes zu lüften und sein Gesicht zu sehen. Scrooge bittet den Geist, ihm jemanden zu zeigen, der emotional von dem Tod des Mannes betroffen ist. Sie werden in das Haus eines jungen Paares transportiert, das sich freut, da ihr skrupelloser Gläubiger gestorben ist und sie nicht durch Schulden ruiniert sind. Scrooge bittet den Gastgeber, ihm etwas Zärtlichkeit in Verbindung mit einem Tod zu zeigen. In der Cratchit-Familie trauert Bob um den kürzlich verstorbenen Tiny Tim. Er erzählt der Familie von der Freundlichkeit von Scrooges Neffen Fred und fühlt sich besser, als er über Tiny Tims bleibende Erinnerung spricht. Scrooge fragt den Geist, wer der tote Mann war, den sie gesehen haben, aber der Geist führt ihn nur zu Scrooges Büro. Allerdings hat jemand Neues das Büro übernommen. Der Geist zeigt Scrooge auf einen Friedhof und auf ein bestimmtes Grab. Bevor Scrooge es sich ansieht, fragt er den Geist, ob dies die Schatten von Dingen sind, die "werden" oder "sein können". Scrooge glaubt, dass es die Schatten von dem sind, was "sein könnte", aber der Geist sagt nichts. Scrooge sieht seinen eigenen Namen auf dem Grabstein und erkennt, dass er der tote Mann von vorhin war. Scrooge schwört, Weihnachten in seinem Herzen zu ehren und nach den Lehren der Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft zu leben, um sein Leben zu ändern. Der Geist schrumpft zusammen und wird zu einem Bettpfosten.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: In the fall of the year, when the days were shortening and the bite of the frost was coming into the air, White Fang got his chance for liberty. For several days there had been a great hubbub in the village. The summer camp was being dismantled, and the tribe, bag and baggage, was preparing to go off to the fall hunting. White Fang watched it all with eager eyes, and when the tepees began to come down and the canoes were loading at the bank, he understood. Already the canoes were departing, and some had disappeared down the river. Quite deliberately he determined to stay behind. He waited his opportunity to slink out of camp to the woods. Here, in the running stream where ice was beginning to form, he hid his trail. Then he crawled into the heart of a dense thicket and waited. The time passed by, and he slept intermittently for hours. Then he was aroused by Grey Beaver's voice calling him by name. There were other voices. White Fang could hear Grey Beaver's squaw taking part in the search, and Mit-sah, who was Grey Beaver's son. White Fang trembled with fear, and though the impulse came to crawl out of his hiding-place, he resisted it. After a time the voices died away, and some time after that he crept out to enjoy the success of his undertaking. Darkness was coming on, and for a while he played about among the trees, pleasuring in his freedom. Then, and quite suddenly, he became aware of loneliness. He sat down to consider, listening to the silence of the forest and perturbed by it. That nothing moved nor sounded, seemed ominous. He felt the lurking of danger, unseen and unguessed. He was suspicious of the looming bulks of the trees and of the dark shadows that might conceal all manner of perilous things. Then it was cold. Here was no warm side of a tepee against which to snuggle. The frost was in his feet, and he kept lifting first one fore- foot and then the other. He curved his bushy tail around to cover them, and at the same time he saw a vision. There was nothing strange about it. Upon his inward sight was impressed a succession of memory-pictures. He saw the camp again, the tepees, and the blaze of the fires. He heard the shrill voices of the women, the gruff basses of the men, and the snarling of the dogs. He was hungry, and he remembered pieces of meat and fish that had been thrown him. Here was no meat, nothing but a threatening and inedible silence. His bondage had softened him. Irresponsibility had weakened him. He had forgotten how to shift for himself. The night yawned about him. His senses, accustomed to the hum and bustle of the camp, used to the continuous impact of sights and sounds, were now left idle. There was nothing to do, nothing to see nor hear. They strained to catch some interruption of the silence and immobility of nature. They were appalled by inaction and by the feel of something terrible impending. He gave a great start of fright. A colossal and formless something was rushing across the field of his vision. It was a tree-shadow flung by the moon, from whose face the clouds had been brushed away. Reassured, he whimpered softly; then he suppressed the whimper for fear that it might attract the attention of the lurking dangers. A tree, contracting in the cool of the night, made a loud noise. It was directly above him. He yelped in his fright. A panic seized him, and he ran madly toward the village. He knew an overpowering desire for the protection and companionship of man. In his nostrils was the smell of the camp-smoke. In his ears the camp-sounds and cries were ringing loud. He passed out of the forest and into the moonlit open where were no shadows nor darknesses. But no village greeted his eyes. He had forgotten. The village had gone away. His wild flight ceased abruptly. There was no place to which to flee. He slunk forlornly through the deserted camp, smelling the rubbish-heaps and the discarded rags and tags of the gods. He would have been glad for the rattle of stones about him, flung by an angry squaw, glad for the hand of Grey Beaver descending upon him in wrath; while he would have welcomed with delight Lip-lip and the whole snarling, cowardly pack. He came to where Grey Beaver's tepee had stood. In the centre of the space it had occupied, he sat down. He pointed his nose at the moon. His throat was afflicted by rigid spasms, his mouth opened, and in a heart- broken cry bubbled up his loneliness and fear, his grief for Kiche, all his past sorrows and miseries as well as his apprehension of sufferings and dangers to come. It was the long wolf-howl, full-throated and mournful, the first howl he had ever uttered. The coming of daylight dispelled his fears but increased his loneliness. The naked earth, which so shortly before had been so populous, thrust his loneliness more forcibly upon him. It did not take him long to make up his mind. He plunged into the forest and followed the river bank down the stream. All day he ran. He did not rest. He seemed made to run on forever. His iron-like body ignored fatigue. And even after fatigue came, his heritage of endurance braced him to endless endeavour and enabled him to drive his complaining body onward. Where the river swung in against precipitous bluffs, he climbed the high mountains behind. Rivers and streams that entered the main river he forded or swam. Often he took to the rim-ice that was beginning to form, and more than once he crashed through and struggled for life in the icy current. Always he was on the lookout for the trail of the gods where it might leave the river and proceed inland. White Fang was intelligent beyond the average of his kind; yet his mental vision was not wide enough to embrace the other bank of the Mackenzie. What if the trail of the gods led out on that side? It never entered his head. Later on, when he had travelled more and grown older and wiser and come to know more of trails and rivers, it might be that he could grasp and apprehend such a possibility. But that mental power was yet in the future. Just now he ran blindly, his own bank of the Mackenzie alone entering into his calculations. All night he ran, blundering in the darkness into mishaps and obstacles that delayed but did not daunt. By the middle of the second day he had been running continuously for thirty hours, and the iron of his flesh was giving out. It was the endurance of his mind that kept him going. He had not eaten in forty hours, and he was weak with hunger. The repeated drenchings in the icy water had likewise had their effect on him. His handsome coat was draggled. The broad pads of his feet were bruised and bleeding. He had begun to limp, and this limp increased with the hours. To make it worse, the light of the sky was obscured and snow began to fall--a raw, moist, melting, clinging snow, slippery under foot, that hid from him the landscape he traversed, and that covered over the inequalities of the ground so that the way of his feet was more difficult and painful. Grey Beaver had intended camping that night on the far bank of the Mackenzie, for it was in that direction that the hunting lay. But on the near bank, shortly before dark, a moose coming down to drink, had been espied by Kloo-kooch, who was Grey Beaver's squaw. Now, had not the moose come down to drink, had not Mit-sah been steering out of the course because of the snow, had not Kloo-kooch sighted the moose, and had not Grey Beaver killed it with a lucky shot from his rifle, all subsequent things would have happened differently. Grey Beaver would not have camped on the near side of the Mackenzie, and White Fang would have passed by and gone on, either to die or to find his way to his wild brothers and become one of them--a wolf to the end of his days. Night had fallen. The snow was flying more thickly, and White Fang, whimpering softly to himself as he stumbled and limped along, came upon a fresh trail in the snow. So fresh was it that he knew it immediately for what it was. Whining with eagerness, he followed back from the river bank and in among the trees. The camp-sounds came to his ears. He saw the blaze of the fire, Kloo-kooch cooking, and Grey Beaver squatting on his hams and mumbling a chunk of raw tallow. There was fresh meat in camp! White Fang expected a beating. He crouched and bristled a little at the thought of it. Then he went forward again. He feared and disliked the beating he knew to be waiting for him. But he knew, further, that the comfort of the fire would be his, the protection of the gods, the companionship of the dogs--the last, a companionship of enmity, but none the less a companionship and satisfying to his gregarious needs. He came cringing and crawling into the firelight. Grey Beaver saw him, and stopped munching the tallow. White Fang crawled slowly, cringing and grovelling in the abjectness of his abasement and submission. He crawled straight toward Grey Beaver, every inch of his progress becoming slower and more painful. At last he lay at the master's feet, into whose possession he now surrendered himself, voluntarily, body and soul. Of his own choice, he came in to sit by man's fire and to be ruled by him. White Fang trembled, waiting for the punishment to fall upon him. There was a movement of the hand above him. He cringed involuntarily under the expected blow. It did not fall. He stole a glance upward. Grey Beaver was breaking the lump of tallow in half! Grey Beaver was offering him one piece of the tallow! Very gently and somewhat suspiciously, he first smelled the tallow and then proceeded to eat it. Grey Beaver ordered meat to be brought to him, and guarded him from the other dogs while he ate. After that, grateful and content, White Fang lay at Grey Beaver's feet, gazing at the fire that warmed him, blinking and dozing, secure in the knowledge that the morrow would find him, not wandering forlorn through bleak forest-stretches, but in the camp of the man-animals, with the gods to whom he had given himself and upon whom he was now dependent. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze verfassen?

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Mit dem Einzug des Herbstes werden die Tage kürzer und es wird kälter. Als sich die Lagermitglieder darauf vorbereiten, an einen anderen Ort zu gehen, entkommt White Fang in den Wald. Für eine Weile genießt er die Freiheit der Wildnis, jedoch findet er sich bald einsam und ängstlich wieder und sehnt sich nach dem Komfort des Camps. Tatsächlich hat er das Jagen verlernt und fürchtet sich sogar vor dem Schatten eines Baumes. Ängstlich und verzweifelt kehrt er zum Camp zurück, findet jedoch heraus, dass die Indianer fortgegangen sind. Mit Bedenken heult er laut auf. Am nächsten Morgen stürzt sich White Fang in den Wald und folgt dem Bach bis zum Flussufer. Dem Lauf des Flusses folgend rennt White Fang dreißig Stunden lang. Schließlich kommt er hungrig und müde im neuen Indianerlager an. White Fang gesellt sich um das Feuer und bekommt seinen Anteil an Fleisch, das er zufrieden verspeist.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: VI. Triumph The dread tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and determined Jury, sat every day. Their lists went forth every evening, and were read out by the gaolers of the various prisons to their prisoners. The standard gaoler-joke was, "Come out and listen to the Evening Paper, you inside there!" "Charles Evremonde, called Darnay!" So at last began the Evening Paper at La Force. When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a spot reserved for those who were announced as being thus fatally recorded. Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, had reason to know the usage; he had seen hundreds pass away so. His bloated gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced over them to assure himself that he had taken his place, and went through the list, making a similar short pause at each name. There were twenty-three names, but only twenty were responded to; for one of the prisoners so summoned had died in gaol and been forgotten, and two had already been guillotined and forgotten. The list was read, in the vaulted chamber where Darnay had seen the associated prisoners on the night of his arrival. Every one of those had perished in the massacre; every human creature he had since cared for and parted with, had died on the scaffold. There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the parting was soon over. It was the incident of every day, and the society of La Force were engaged in the preparation of some games of forfeits and a little concert, for that evening. They crowded to the grates and shed tears there; but, twenty places in the projected entertainments had to be refilled, and the time was, at best, short to the lock-up hour, when the common rooms and corridors would be delivered over to the great dogs who kept watch there through the night. The prisoners were far from insensible or unfeeling; their ways arose out of the condition of the time. Similarly, though with a subtle difference, a species of fervour or intoxication, known, without doubt, to have led some persons to brave the guillotine unnecessarily, and to die by it, was not mere boastfulness, but a wild infection of the wildly shaken public mind. In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it. And all of us have like wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them. The passage to the Conciergerie was short and dark; the night in its vermin-haunted cells was long and cold. Next day, fifteen prisoners were put to the bar before Charles Darnay's name was called. All the fifteen were condemned, and the trials of the whole occupied an hour and a half. "Charles Evremonde, called Darnay," was at length arraigned. His judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats; but the rough red cap and tricoloured cockade was the head-dress otherwise prevailing. Looking at the Jury and the turbulent audience, he might have thought that the usual order of things was reversed, and that the felons were trying the honest men. The lowest, cruelest, and worst populace of a city, never without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the directing spirits of the scene: noisily commenting, applauding, disapproving, anticipating, and precipitating the result, without a check. Of the men, the greater part were armed in various ways; of the women, some wore knives, some daggers, some ate and drank as they looked on, many knitted. Among these last, was one, with a spare piece of knitting under her arm as she worked. She was in a front row, by the side of a man whom he had never seen since his arrival at the Barrier, but whom he directly remembered as Defarge. He noticed that she once or twice whispered in his ear, and that she seemed to be his wife; but, what he most noticed in the two figures was, that although they were posted as close to himself as they could be, they never looked towards him. They seemed to be waiting for something with a dogged determination, and they looked at the Jury, but at nothing else. Under the President sat Doctor Manette, in his usual quiet dress. As well as the prisoner could see, he and Mr. Lorry were the only men there, unconnected with the Tribunal, who wore their usual clothes, and had not assumed the coarse garb of the Carmagnole. Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, was accused by the public prosecutor as an emigrant, whose life was forfeit to the Republic, under the decree which banished all emigrants on pain of Death. It was nothing that the decree bore date since his return to France. There he was, and there was the decree; he had been taken in France, and his head was demanded. "Take off his head!" cried the audience. "An enemy to the Republic!" The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked the prisoner whether it was not true that he had lived many years in England? Undoubtedly it was. Was he not an emigrant then? What did he call himself? Not an emigrant, he hoped, within the sense and spirit of the law. Why not? the President desired to know. Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was distasteful to him, and a station that was distasteful to him, and had left his country--he submitted before the word emigrant in the present acceptation by the Tribunal was in use--to live by his own industry in England, rather than on the industry of the overladen people of France. What proof had he of this? He handed in the names of two witnesses; Theophile Gabelle, and Alexandre Manette. But he had married in England? the President reminded him. True, but not an English woman. A citizeness of France? Yes. By birth. Her name and family? "Lucie Manette, only daughter of Doctor Manette, the good physician who sits there." This answer had a happy effect upon the audience. Cries in exaltation of the well-known good physician rent the hall. So capriciously were the people moved, that tears immediately rolled down several ferocious countenances which had been glaring at the prisoner a moment before, as if with impatience to pluck him out into the streets and kill him. On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay had set his foot according to Doctor Manette's reiterated instructions. The same cautious counsel directed every step that lay before him, and had prepared every inch of his road. The President asked, why had he returned to France when he did, and not sooner? He had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he had no means of living in France, save those he had resigned; whereas, in England, he lived by giving instruction in the French language and literature. He had returned when he did, on the pressing and written entreaty of a French citizen, who represented that his life was endangered by his absence. He had come back, to save a citizen's life, and to bear his testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth. Was that criminal in the eyes of the Republic? The populace cried enthusiastically, "No!" and the President rang his bell to quiet them. Which it did not, for they continued to cry "No!" until they left off, of their own will. The President required the name of that citizen. The accused explained that the citizen was his first witness. He also referred with confidence to the citizen's letter, which had been taken from him at the Barrier, but which he did not doubt would be found among the papers then before the President. The Doctor had taken care that it should be there--had assured him that it would be there--and at this stage of the proceedings it was produced and read. Citizen Gabelle was called to confirm it, and did so. Citizen Gabelle hinted, with infinite delicacy and politeness, that in the pressure of business imposed on the Tribunal by the multitude of enemies of the Republic with which it had to deal, he had been slightly overlooked in his prison of the Abbaye--in fact, had rather passed out of the Tribunal's patriotic remembrance--until three days ago; when he had been summoned before it, and had been set at liberty on the Jury's declaring themselves satisfied that the accusation against him was answered, as to himself, by the surrender of the citizen Evremonde, called Darnay. Doctor Manette was next questioned. His high personal popularity, and the clearness of his answers, made a great impression; but, as he proceeded, as he showed that the Accused was his first friend on his release from his long imprisonment; that, the accused had remained in England, always faithful and devoted to his daughter and himself in their exile; that, so far from being in favour with the Aristocrat government there, he had actually been tried for his life by it, as the foe of England and friend of the United States--as he brought these circumstances into view, with the greatest discretion and with the straightforward force of truth and earnestness, the Jury and the populace became one. At last, when he appealed by name to Monsieur Lorry, an English gentleman then and there present, who, like himself, had been a witness on that English trial and could corroborate his account of it, the Jury declared that they had heard enough, and that they were ready with their votes if the President were content to receive them. At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually), the populace set up a shout of applause. All the voices were in the prisoner's favour, and the President declared him free. Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which the populace sometimes gratified their fickleness, or their better impulses towards generosity and mercy, or which they regarded as some set-off against their swollen account of cruel rage. No man can decide now to which of these motives such extraordinary scenes were referable; it is probable, to a blending of all the three, with the second predominating. No sooner was the acquittal pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as blood at another time, and such fraternal embraces were bestowed upon the prisoner by as many of both sexes as could rush at him, that after his long and unwholesome confinement he was in danger of fainting from exhaustion; none the less because he knew very well, that the very same people, carried by another current, would have rushed at him with the very same intensity, to rend him to pieces and strew him over the streets. His removal, to make way for other accused persons who were to be tried, rescued him from these caresses for the moment. Five were to be tried together, next, as enemies of the Republic, forasmuch as they had not assisted it by word or deed. So quick was the Tribunal to compensate itself and the nation for a chance lost, that these five came down to him before he left the place, condemned to die within twenty-four hours. The first of them told him so, with the customary prison sign of Death--a raised finger--and they all added in words, "Long live the Republic!" The five had had, it is true, no audience to lengthen their proceedings, for when he and Doctor Manette emerged from the gate, there was a great crowd about it, in which there seemed to be every face he had seen in Court--except two, for which he looked in vain. On his coming out, the concourse made at him anew, weeping, embracing, and shouting, all by turns and all together, until the very tide of the river on the bank of which the mad scene was acted, seemed to run mad, like the people on the shore. They put him into a great chair they had among them, and which they had taken either out of the Court itself, or one of its rooms or passages. Over the chair they had thrown a red flag, and to the back of it they had bound a pike with a red cap on its top. In this car of triumph, not even the Doctor's entreaties could prevent his being carried to his home on men's shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps heaving about him, and casting up to sight from the stormy deep such wrecks of faces, that he more than once misdoubted his mind being in confusion, and that he was in the tumbril on his way to the Guillotine. In wild dreamlike procession, embracing whom they met and pointing him out, they carried him on. Reddening the snowy streets with the prevailing Republican colour, in winding and tramping through them, as they had reddened them below the snow with a deeper dye, they carried him thus into the courtyard of the building where he lived. Her father had gone on before, to prepare her, and when her husband stood upon his feet, she dropped insensible in his arms. As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head between his face and the brawling crowd, so that his tears and her lips might come together unseen, a few of the people fell to dancing. Instantly, all the rest fell to dancing, and the courtyard overflowed with the Carmagnole. Then, they elevated into the vacant chair a young woman from the crowd to be carried as the Goddess of Liberty, and then swelling and overflowing out into the adjacent streets, and along the river's bank, and over the bridge, the Carmagnole absorbed them every one and whirled them away. After grasping the Doctor's hand, as he stood victorious and proud before him; after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, who came panting in breathless from his struggle against the waterspout of the Carmagnole; after kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to clasp her arms round his neck; and after embracing the ever zealous and faithful Pross who lifted her; he took his wife in his arms, and carried her up to their rooms. "Lucie! My own! I am safe." "O dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees as I have prayed to Him." They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When she was again in his arms, he said to her: "And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in all this France could have done what he has done for me." She laid her head upon her father's breast, as she had laid his poor head on her own breast, long, long ago. He was happy in the return he had made her, he was recompensed for his suffering, he was proud of his strength. "You must not be weak, my darling," he remonstrated; "don't tremble so. I have saved him." Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Darnay verteidigt sich vor Gericht und gibt eine gut geplante und gut einstudierte Verteidigung von sich. Sowohl Dr. Manette als auch Mr. Lorry legen Zeugnis zu seinen Gunsten ab. Die Zuschauer sind beeindruckt und jubeln wild, als die Jury ihn freispricht. Er wird wiedervereint mit Lucie und seiner Tochter, die stolz auf das sind, was er erreicht hat.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Akt 2, Szene 1. Betreten Sie getrennt Bastard und Curan. Bast: Kannst du mich retten, Curan? Cur: Und Ihnen auch, Sir. Ich war mit Ihrem Vater zusammen und habe ihm Bescheid gegeben, dass der Herzog von Cornwall und Regan, seine Herzogin, heute Nacht bei ihm sein werden. Bast: Wie kommt das? Cur: Nun, ich weiß es nicht. Haben Sie von den Neuigkeiten gehört, die im Umlauf sind? Ich meine die geheimen, denn es sind nur flüsternde Argumente. Bast: Nicht ich. Könnten Sie mir bitte sagen, um was es geht? Cur: Haben Sie nichts von möglichen Kriegen zwischen den Herzögen von Cornwall und Albany gehört? Bast: Kein einziges Wort. Cur: Dann könnten Sie rechtzeitig handeln. Lebwohl, Sir. Betreten Sie. Bast: Der Herzog ist heute Nacht hier? Das ist umso besser. Das verstrickt sich von selbst in meine Angelegenheiten. Mein Vater hat Wachen aufgestellt, um meinen Bruder festzunehmen. Und ich habe eine Frage, die mir schwer auf dem Magen liegt und die ich in die Tat umsetzen muss. Kürze und Glück sollen mir dabei helfen. Betreten Edgar. Bruder, ein Wort; steig herunter. Bruder, sage ich, mein Vater beobachtet uns. Oh, Sir, fliehen Sie diesen Ort. Jemand hat verraten, wo Sie sich verstecken. Sie haben jetzt den Vorteil der Nacht. Haben Sie nicht gegen den Herzog von Cornwall gesprochen? Er kommt hierher, jetzt sofort, und mit Regan. Haben Sie nichts auf seiner Seite gegen den Herzog von Albany gesagt? Bedenken Sie. Edg: Davon weiß ich nichts. Nicht ein Wort. Bast: Ich höre meinen Vater kommen. Verzeihen Sie mir. Um tückisch zu sein, muss ich mein Schwert gegen Sie ziehen. Ziehen Sie Ihres, tun Sie so, als ob Sie sich verteidigen würden. Jetzt machen Sie es gut. Ergeben Sie sich, treten Sie vor meinen Vater, holla, hier. Flieg, Bruder, Fackeln, Fackeln. Auf Wiedersehen. Abgang Edgar. Wenn etwas Blut in mir fließt, könnte das den Eindruck erwecken, dass ich mich besonders anstrenge. Ich habe Betrunkene gesehen, die mehr als das nur zum Spaß gemacht haben. Vater, Vater, halt, halt, ich bin verloren. Betreten Gloster und Diener mit Fackeln. Glo: Nun Edmund, wo ist der Schurke? Bast: Hier stand er im Dunkeln, das scharfe Schwert in der Hand, murmelte böse Zaubersprüche, beschwor den Mond, gütige Herrscherin, in günstiger Stellung zu verharren. Glo: Aber wo ist er? Bast: Schauen Sie, Sir, ich blute. Glo: Wo ist der Schurke, Edmund? Bast: Er ist in diese Richtung geflohen, Sir, und zwar auf keine erdenkliche Weise. Glo: Verfolgen Sie ihn, schnell. Wie, auf keine Weise? Was? Bast: Überzeugen Sie mich vom Mord an Ihrer Lordschaft? Es sei denn, ich hätte ihm gesagt, dass sich die rächenden Götter gegen Elternmörder gewandt haben und der Donner auf sie alle niedergeht. Erinnern Sie sich daran, wie fest das Kind an den Vater gebunden ist. Sehen Sie, wie widerlich ich dieser abscheulichen Absicht entgegenstehe. Er stürzt sich mit gezücktem Schwert auf meinen unvorbereiteten Körper und schließt meinen Arm ein. Und als er sah, dass meine vollbrachten Geister mutig im Kampfesrecht bereitstanden und sich im Streit erhoben, oder ob er sich durch den Lärm erschreckt fühlte, er ist plötzlich geflohen. Glost: Lasst ihn weit fliehen. Er soll nicht unentdeckt und unerwischt in diesem Land bleiben. Los, erledigen wir das. Der edle Herzog, mein Herr und Gönner, kommt heute Nacht. Dank seiner Autorität werde ich verkünden, dass derjenige, der ihn findet, unseren Dank verdient, indem er den mörderischen Feigling an den Pranger stellt. Wer ihn versteckt, dem droht der Tod. Bast: Als ich ihn von seinem Vorhaben abrat, drohte ich, ihn zu verraten. Da antwortete er: "Du uneheliches Bastard, denkst du, wenn ich mich gegen dich stellen würde, würden Vertrauen, Tugend und Wert in dir die Worte so machen, wie du sie glauben gemacht hast?" Nein, was sollte ich verweigern, selbst wenn du meinen Charakter präsentierst? Ich würde alles zu deiner Anstiftung, zu deinem Komplott und zu deiner verdammten Praxis machen. Du musst die Welt für dumm halten, wenn sie nicht glaubt, dass mein Tod große und potenzielle Geister beherbergt, die dich dazu bringen könnten, danach zu suchen. Trompetensignal im Hintergrund. Glo: O seltsamer und verdammter Schurke. Würde er seinen Brief leugnen, sagte er? Hört, die Trompeten des Herzogs. Ich weiß nicht, wo er kommt. Ich werde alle Möglichkeiten versperren, damit der Schurke nicht entkommt. Der Herzog wird mir das gewähren. Außerdem werde ich sein Bild weit und breit verbreiten lassen, damit das ganze Königreich von ihm und von meinem Vermögen erfährt, du loyaler und natürlicher Junge. Ich werde die Mittel finden, dich dazu in der Lage zu machen. Betreten Cornwall, Regan und Bedienstete. Corn: Wie geht es meinem edlen Freund, seitdem ich hier bin (was erst jetzt der Fall ist), habe ich seltsame Dinge gehört. Reg: Wenn es wahr ist, dann ist die Strafe zu gering, die den Übeltäter verfolgt. Wie geht es Ihnen, mein Herr? Glo: Oh, Madam, mein altes Herz ist gebrochen. Es ist gebrochen. Reg: Was, hat mein Patensohn nach Ihrem Leben getrachtet? Der, den mein Vater als Ihren Edgar bezeichnet hat? Glo: Oh, Lady, Lady, der Schamhafte wollte es verbergen. Reg: War er nicht in Begleitung der ausschweifenden Ritter, die sich um meinen Vater gekümmert haben? Glo: Das weiß ich nicht, Madam. Es ist zu schlimm, zu schlimm. Bast: Ja, Madam, er gehörte zu dieser Gruppe. Reg: Kein Wunder, dass er schlechte Absichten hatte. Sie haben ihn dazu gebracht, den alten Mann zu töten, um seine Einkünfte zu verschwenden. Von meiner Schwester habe ich heute Abend davon erfahren, mit solchen Vorbehalten, dass ich nicht da sein werde, wenn sie in meinem Haus wohnen wollen. Corn: Und ich auch nicht, versichere ich Ihnen, Regan. Edmund, ich habe gehört, dass Sie Ihrem Vater eine kindliche Pflicht erwiesen haben. Bast: Es war meine Pflicht, Sir. Glo: Er hat sein Vorhaben verraten und Empfangen Sie diese Verletzung, die Sie sehen, als er versuchte, ihn festzunehmen. Corn: Wird er verfolgt? Glo: Ja, mein edler Lord. Corn: Wenn er gefangen wird, wird er nie wieder in der Lage sein, Schaden anzurichten. Tun Sie, was Sie in meiner Stärke für richtig halten. Aber Sie, Edmund, Ihre Tugend und Gehorsamkeit sind so augenfällig, dass wir Sie dringend brauchen werden. Sie sind diejenigen, die wir zuerst festnehmen werden. Bast: Ich werde Ihnen, Sir, in Wahrheit dienen, wie auch immer es sonst sein mag. Glo: Ich danke Ihnen für Ihre Gnade. Corn: Wissen Sie nicht, warum wir Sie besuchen kommen? Reg: Jetzt, zu einer unpassenden Zeit, durchschneidet die dunkele Nacht das Leben des edlen Glosters mit einem Preis. Hierbei brauchen wir Ihren Rat. Unser Vater und unsere Schwester haben über Differenzen geschrieben, von denen ich dachte, es sei am besten, von zuhause aus zu antworten. Die verschiedenen Boten warten hier auf ihre Erledigung. Unser guter, alter Freund, lehnen Sie sich bitte an, und geben Sie uns Ihren tröstenden Rat für unsere Angelegenheiten, die dringend sind. Glo: Ich diene Ihnen, Madam. Ihre Gnaden sind herzlich willkommen. Abgang. Trompeten erklingen. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Akt II beginnt mit einer Rückkehr zur Nebenhandlung um Edmund, Edgar und Gloucester. Edmund spricht mit dem Höfling Curan, der ihn darüber informiert, dass Regan und Cornwall bald im Schloss von Gloucester eintreffen werden. Er übermittelt auch das Gerücht, dass es bald einen Krieg zwischen Cornwall und Albany geben könnte. Nachdem Curan gegangen ist, drückt Edmund seine Freude über die Neuigkeiten aus, die er erfahren hat, da er sie in seinem Plan verwenden kann. Edgar tritt ein und Edmund fragt geschickt, ob er Cornwall oder Albany beleidigt habe. Edgar sagt, dass er das nicht getan hat. Edmund ruft aus, dass er Gloucester kommen hört und zwingt Edgar, sein Schwert zu ziehen. Edmund befiehlt Edgar zu fliehen und verwundet sich dann selbst mit seinem Schwert, bevor er nach Hilfe bei Gloucester ruft. Gloucester kommt schnell an und schickt Diener hinter dem Schurken her. Edmund erklärt, dass er nicht zulassen würde, dass Edgar ihn dazu bringt, ihren Vater zu ermorden, was Edgar veranlasst, ihn mit seinem Schwert zu verletzen. Er fährt fort, dass Edgar ihn bedroht habe und keineswegs beabsichtigt gewesen sei, dass Edmund, ein "unehelicher Bastard", ihn von seinem bösen Plan abhält. Gloucester ist empört und behauptet, dass Edgar gefangen genommen und bestraft wird. Er verspricht, dass Edmund der Erbe seines Landes werden wird. An diesem Punkt betreten Cornwall und Regan die Szene und fragen sich, ob das Gerücht, das sie über Edgar gehört haben, stimmt. Gloucester bestätigt dies. Edmund bestätigt geschickt Regans Befürchtung, dass Edgar als Teil von Lears aufrührerischen Rittern gehandelt hat. Cornwall würdigt die gute Tat, die Edmund für Gloucester getan hat, und verspricht, ihn zu begünstigen. Nachdem Gloucester und Edmund ihnen gedankt haben, erklärt Regan, warum sie und Cornwall zu Gloucesters Schloss gekommen sind. Sie hatte einen Brief von Goneril erhalten und war deshalb von zu Hause weggegangen, um sich vor Lear zu schützen. Sie bittet um Gloucesters Hilfe.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Miss Bingleys Brief kam an und beendete alle Zweifel. Der allererste Satz vermittelte die Gewissheit, dass sie alle für den Winter in London angesiedelt waren, und endete mit dem Bedauern ihres Bruders, dass er nicht genug Zeit hatte, seinen Freunden in Hertfordshire seine Aufwartung zu machen bevor er das Land verließ. Die Hoffnung war vorbei, komplett vorbei; und als Jane sich dem Rest des Briefes widmen konnte, fand sie wenig, außer der beteuerten Zuneigung der Autorin, die ihr Trost spenden konnte. Miss Darcys Lob nahm den größten Teil davon ein. Ihre vielen Vorzüge wurden erneut aufgezählt und Caroline prahlte freudig von ihrer steigenden Vertrautheit und wagte es, die Erfüllung der Wünsche vorherzusagen, die in ihrem vorherigen Brief enthüllt worden waren. Sie schrieb auch mit großer Freude darüber, dass ihr Bruder Gast in Mr. Darcys Haus war und erwähnte mit Begeisterung einige Pläne letzteren mit Blick auf neue Möbel. Elizabeth, der Jane dies sehr bald mitteilte, hörte es mit stiller Empörung. Ihr Herz war zwischen Sorge um ihre Schwester und Groll gegenüber allen anderen hin- und hergerissen. Caroline's Behauptung, dass ihr Bruder Miss Darcy bevorzuge, glaubte sie nicht. Dass er wirklich Gefühle für Jane hatte, bezweifelte sie nicht mehr als zuvor; und so sehr sie ihn auch immer mochte, konnte sie nicht ohne Ärger, kaum ohne Verachtung, an diese Leichtigkeit des Charakters, an diese mangelnde Entschlossenheit denken, die ihn nun zum Sklaven seiner hinterhältigen Freunde machte und ihn dazu brachte, sein eigenes Glück den Launen ihrer Neigungen aufzuopfern. Hätte sein eigenes Glück jedoch das einzige Opfer gewesen, dann hätte er damit in der besten Weise spielen dürfen, die er für richtig hielt; aber auch ihre Schwester war darin verwickelt, ihrer Meinung nach musste er selbst dies erkennen. Es war ein Thema, kurz gesagt, über das man lange nachdenken und das keine Antwort bringen würde. Sie konnte an nichts anderes denken, und doch, ob Bingleys Zuneigung wirklich verschwunden war oder durch das Eingreifen seiner Freunde unterdrückt wurde; ob er von Janes Verbindung wusste oder ob es seiner Beobachtung entgangen war; egal, welcher Fall es war, obwohl ihre Meinung von ihm wesentlich davon betroffen sein musste, blieb die Situation ihrer Schwester dieselbe, ihr Frieden gleichermaßen verletzt. Ein oder zwei Tage vergingen, bevor Jane den Mut fand, ihre Gefühle gegenüber Elizabeth zu äußern; aber schließlich, als Mrs. Bennet sie allein ließ, nach einer längeren Irritation als üblich über Netherfield und seinen Besitzer, konnte sie nicht umhin zu sagen: "Oh! dass meine liebe Mutter mehr Kontrolle über sich hätte; sie kann sich nicht vorstellen, wie sehr sie mir Schmerz bereitet, indem sie ständig auf ihn anspielt. Aber ich will nicht jammern. Es wird nicht lange dauern. Er wird vergessen werden, und wir werden alle so sein wie wir vorher waren." Elizabeth betrachtete ihre Schwester mit ungläubiger Besorgnis, sagte jedoch nichts. "Du bezweifelst mich", rief Jane, leicht errötend; "du hast wirklich keinen Grund dafür. Er wird in meiner Erinnerung als der liebenswürdigste Mann meiner Bekanntschaft weiterleben, aber das ist alles. Ich habe weder Hoffnung noch Angst, und nichts, womit ich ihn tadeln könnte. Gott sei Dank! Ich habe _diesen_ Schmerz nicht. Eine kurze Zeit also.--Ich werde auf jeden Fall versuchen, darüber hinwegzukommen." Mit fester Stimme fügte sie bald hinzu: "Ich habe sofort diesen Trost, dass es nicht mehr ist als ein Irrtum meinerseits und dass es keinen Schaden angerichtet hat außer mir selbst." "Meine liebe Jane!" rief Elizabeth aus, "du bist zu gut. Deine Liebenswürdigkeit und Selbstlosigkeit sind wirklich engelsgleich; ich weiß nicht, was ich dazu sagen soll. Ich fühle mich, als hätte ich dir nie die Anerkennung gegeben, oder dich so geliebt, wie du es verdienst." Miss Bennet wies eifrig jeglichen außergewöhnlichen Verdienst zurück und legte das Lob auf die warme Zuneigung ihrer Schwester zurück. "Nun," sagte Elizabeth, "das ist nicht fair. _Du_ möchtest, dass die ganze Welt respektabel ist, und bist verletzt, wenn ich schlecht über jemanden spreche. _Ich_ möchte nur, dass _du_ perfekt bist, und du stehst dir selbst im Weg. Hab keine Angst, dass ich übertrieben werde, dass ich mich auf deine Privilegien der universalen Freundlichkeit beschränke. Das musst du nicht. Es gibt nur wenige Menschen, die ich wirklich liebe, und noch weniger, von denen ich gut denke. Je mehr ich von der Welt sehe, desto unzufriedener bin ich; und jeden Tag bestätigt meinen Glauben an die Inkonsistenz aller menschlichen Charaktere und die geringe Zuverlässigkeit, die man auf das Auftreten sowohl von Verdienst als auch von Verstand legen kann. Ich habe in letzter Zeit zwei Beispiele erlebt; das eine werde ich nicht erwähnen; das andere ist Charlotte's Heirat. Es ist unerklärlich! In jeder Hinsicht ist es unerklärlich!" "Meine liebe Lizzy, gib dich nicht solchen Gefühlen hin. Sie werden dein Glück zerstören. Du berücksichtigst nicht genug den Unterschied in Situation und Temperament. Bedenke Mr. Collins' Achtbarkeit und Charlottes vernünftigen, beständigen Charakter. Erinnere dich daran, dass sie zu einer großen Familie gehört; dass es hinsichtlich des Vermögens eine äußerst begehrte Partie ist; und sei bereit, zum Wohl aller zu glauben, dass sie so etwas wie Zuneigung und Wertschätzung für unseren Cousin empfinden könnte." "Um dir einen Gefallen zu tun, würde ich versuchen fast alles zu glauben, aber niemand sonst könnte von einem solchen Glauben profitieren; denn wäre ich davon überzeugt, dass Charlotte irgendwelche Gefühle für ihn hätte, müsste ich nur noch schlechter von ihrem Verstand denken als ich es bereits tue; mein liebes Jane, Mr. Collins ist ein eingebildeter, prahlerischer, engstirniger, dummer Mann; du weißt es genauso gut wie ich; und du musst auch fühlen, wie ich es tue, dass die Frau, die ihn heiratet, nicht vernünftig denken kann. Du sollst sie nicht verteidigen, auch wenn es Charlotte Lucas ist. Du darfst es nicht tun, um einer einzelnen Person willen die Bedeutung von Prinzip und Integrität verändern, oder zu versuchen, dich selbst oder mich davon zu überzeugen, dass Egoismus Umsicht ist und Gefühllosigkeit gegenüber Gefahr Sicherheit für Glück bedeutet." "Ich denke, deine Wortwahl ist zu stark, wenn du über beides sprichst," antwortete Jane, "und ich hoffe, du wirst davon überzeugt sein, wenn du sie glücklich zusammen siehst. Aber genug davon. Du hast von etwas anderem gesprochen. Du hast _zwei_ Beispiele erwähnt. Ich kann dich nicht falsch verstehen, aber ich bitte dich inständig, liebe Lizzy, mich nicht zu verletzen, indem du _diese Person_ dafür Mrs. Bennet wunderte sich immer noch und bedauerte es, dass er nicht mehr zurückkam, und obwohl kaum ein Tag verging, an dem Elizabeth es nicht deutlich erklärte, schien es wenig wahrscheinlich, dass sie es jemals mit weniger Verwirrung in Betracht ziehen würde. Ihre Tochter bemühte sich, sie von etwas zu überzeugen, woran sie selbst nicht glaubte, dass seine Aufmerksamkeit gegenüber Jane nur eine flüchtige und gewöhnliche Zuneigung gewesen war, die aufhörte, als er sie nicht mehr sah. Obwohl die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Aussage damals zugestanden wurde, hatte sie jeden Tag dieselbe Geschichte zu wiederholen. Der beste Trost von Mrs. Bennet war, dass Mr. Bingley im Sommer wieder nach unten kommen müsse. Mr. Bennet behandelte die Angelegenheit anders. „Also, Lizzy,“ sagte er eines Tages, „ich finde heraus, dass deine Schwester unglücklich verliebt ist. Ich gratuliere ihr. Neben dem Heiraten mag ein Mädchen es ab und zu gerne unglücklich verliebt sein. Es ist etwas zum Nachdenken und verleiht ihr eine Art Besonderheit unter ihren Gefährtinnen. Wann kommst du dran? Du wirst es kaum ertragen, von Jane übertroffen zu werden. Jetzt ist deine Zeit gekommen. Hier sind genug Offiziere in Meryton, um alle jungen Damen im Land zu enttäuschen. Lass Wickham dein Mann sein. Er ist ein angenehmer Kerl und würde dich standesgemäß sitzen lassen.“ „Danke, Sir, aber ein weniger angenehmer Mann würde mich zufriedenstellen. Wir sollten nicht alle Janes Glück erwarten.“ „Stimmt“, sagte Mr. Bennet, „aber es ist ein Trost zu wissen, dass du, was auch immer dir in dieser Hinsicht widerfahren mag, eine liebende Mutter hast, die immer das Beste daraus machen wird.“ Mr. Wickhams Gesellschaft war von materiellem Nutzen, um die Trübsal zu vertreiben, die die letzten widerspenstigen Ereignisse auf viele Mitglieder der Longbourn-Familie geworfen hatten. Sie sahen ihn oft und zu seinen anderen Vorzügen kam nun noch die allgemeine Offenheit hinzu. Alles, was Elizabeth bereits gehört hatte, seine Ansprüche auf Mr. Darcy und alles, was er von ihm erlitten hatte, wurde nun offen anerkannt und öffentlich diskutiert; und jeder war erfreut darüber, wie sehr sie Mr. Darcy immer schon abgelehnt hatten, bevor sie etwas davon wussten. Miss Bennet war das einzige Lebewesen, das annehmen könnte, dass es möglicherweise mildernde Umstände in dem Fall gibt, die der Gesellschaft von Hertfordshire unbekannt sind; ihr mildes und beständiges Aufrichtigkeit plädierte immer für Zugeständnisse und betonte die Möglichkeit von Fehlern - aber alle anderen verurteilten Mr. Darcy als den schlechtesten aller Menschen. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Die Antwort von Miss Bingley auf Janes Brief trifft ein und zeigt an, dass sie alle für den Winter in London fest etabliert sind. Der größte Teil des Briefes spricht grausam von Miss Darcy und ihren vielen Vorzügen. Caroline prahlt auch mit der wachsenden Vertrautheit zwischen ihr und ihrem Bruder Bingley, der bei Darcy wohnt. Elizabeth fühlt immer noch, dass Bingley von seinen Schwestern beeinflusst wird, die seine Bewunderung für Jane zerstören wollen. Sie kritisiert Bingley dafür, dass er so leicht beeinflusst und manipuliert wird, aber Jane will keine Kritik an Bingley, Caroline oder Mrs. Hurst hören. Nach dem Eintreffen von Carolines Brief ist die Stimmung in Longbourn gedrückt. Die häufigen Besuche von Mr. Wickham scheinen einen Teil der Schwermut zu lindern. Die gesamte Bennet-Familie wird über die angebliche Behandlung von Wickham durch Darcy informiert und akzeptiert alle seine Darstellung als faktisch. Selbst Jane verurteilt Darcy; aber sie glaubt immer noch, dass es mildernde Umstände geben könnte, die ihnen unbekannt sind.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Not far from this time Nat Turner's insurrection broke out; and the news threw our town into great commotion. Strange that they should be alarmed, when their slaves were so "contented and happy"! But so it was. It was always the custom to have a muster every year. On that occasion every white man shouldered his musket. The citizens and the so-called country gentlemen wore military uniforms. The poor whites took their places in the ranks in every-day dress, some without shoes, some without hats. This grand occasion had already passed; and when the slaves were told there was to be another muster, they were surprised and rejoiced. Poor creatures! They thought it was going to be a holiday. I was informed of the true state of affairs, and imparted it to the few I could trust. Most gladly would I have proclaimed it to every slave; but I dared not. All could not be relied on. Mighty is the power of the torturing lash. By sunrise, people were pouring in from every quarter within twenty miles of the town. I knew the houses were to be searched; and I expected it would be done by country bullies and the poor whites. I knew nothing annoyed them so much as to see colored people living in comfort and respectability; so I made arrangements for them with especial care. I arranged every thing in my grandmother's house as neatly as possible. I put white quilts on the beds, and decorated some of the rooms with flowers. When all was arranged, I sat down at the window to watch. Far as my eye could reach, it rested on a motley crowd of soldiers. Drums and fifes were discoursing martial music. The men were divided into companies of sixteen, each headed by a captain. Orders were given, and the wild scouts rushed in every direction, wherever a colored face was to be found. It was a grand opportunity for the low whites, who had no negroes of their own to scourge. They exulted in such a chance to exercise a little brief authority, and show their subserviency to the slaveholders; not reflecting that the power which trampled on the colored people also kept themselves in poverty, ignorance, and moral degradation. Those who never witnessed such scenes can hardly believe what I know was inflicted at this time on innocent men, women, and children, against whom there was not the slightest ground for suspicion. Colored people and slaves who lived in remote parts of the town suffered in an especial manner. In some cases the searchers scattered powder and shot among their clothes, and then sent other parties to find them, and bring them forward as proof that they were plotting insurrection. Every where men, women, and children were whipped till the blood stood in puddles at their feet. Some received five hundred lashes; others were tied hands and feet, and tortured with a bucking paddle, which blisters the skin terribly. The dwellings of the colored people, unless they happened to be protected by some influential white person, who was nigh at hand, were robbed of clothing and every thing else the marauders thought worth carrying away. All day long these unfeeling wretches went round, like a troop of demons, terrifying and tormenting the helpless. At night, they formed themselves into patrol bands, and went wherever they chose among the colored people, acting out their brutal will. Many women hid themselves in woods and swamps, to keep out of their way. If any of the husbands or fathers told of these outrages, they were tied up to the public whipping post, and cruelly scourged for telling lies about white men. The consternation was universal. No two people that had the slightest tinge of color in their faces dared to be seen talking together. I entertained no positive fears about our household, because we were in the midst of white families who would protect us. We were ready to receive the soldiers whenever they came. It was not long before we heard the tramp of feet and the sound of voices. The door was rudely pushed open; and in they tumbled, like a pack of hungry wolves. They snatched at every thing within their reach. Every box, trunk, closet, and corner underwent a thorough examination. A box in one of the drawers containing some silver change was eagerly pounced upon. When I stepped forward to take it from them, one of the soldiers turned and said angrily, "What d'ye foller us fur? D'ye s'pose white folks is come to steal?" I replied, "You have come to search; but you have searched that box, and I will take it, if you please." At that moment I saw a white gentleman who was friendly to us; and I called to him, and asked him to have the goodness to come in and stay till the search was over. He readily complied. His entrance into the house brought in the captain of the company, whose business it was to guard the outside of the house, and see that none of the inmates left it. This officer was Mr. Litch, the wealthy slaveholder whom I mentioned, in the account of neighboring planters, as being notorious for his cruelty. He felt above soiling his hands with the search. He merely gave orders; and, if a bit of writing was discovered, it was carried to him by his ignorant followers, who were unable to read. My grandmother had a large trunk of bedding and table cloths. When that was opened, there was a great shout of surprise; and one exclaimed, "Where'd the damned niggers git all dis sheet an' table clarf?" My grandmother, emboldened by the presence of our white protector said, "You may be sure we didn't pilfer 'em from _your_ houses." "Look here, mammy," said a grim-looking fellow without any coat, "you seem to feel mighty gran' 'cause you got all them 'ere fixens. White folks oughter have 'em all." His remarks were interrupted by a chorus of voices shouting, "We's got 'em! We's got 'em! Dis 'ere yaller gal's got letters!" There was a general rush for the supposed letter, which, upon examination, proved to be some verses written to me by a friend. In packing away my things, I had overlooked them. When their captain informed them of their contents, they seemed much disappointed. He inquired of me who wrote them. I told him it was one of my friends. "Can you read them?" he asked. When I told him I could, he swore, and raved, and tore the paper into bits. "Bring me all your letters!" said he, in commanding tone. I told him I had none. "Don't be afraid," he continued, in an insinuating way. "Bring them all to me. Nobody shall do you any harm." Seeing I did not move to obey him, his pleasant tone changed to oaths and threats. "Who writes to you? half free niggers?" inquired he. I replied, "O, no; most of my letters are from white people. Some request me to burn them after they are read, and some I destroy without reading." An exclamation of surprise from some of the company put a stop to our conversation. Some silver spoons which ornamented an old-fashioned buffet had just been discovered. My grandmother was in the habit of preserving fruit for many ladies in the town, and of preparing suppers for parties; consequently she had many jars of preserves. The closet that contained these was next invaded, and the contents tasted. One of them, who was helping himself freely, tapped his neighbor on the shoulder, and said, "Wal done! Don't wonder de niggers want to kill all de white folks, when dey live on 'sarves" [meaning preserves]. I stretched out my hand to take the jar, saying, "You were not sent here to search for sweetmeats." "And what _were_ we sent for?" said the captain, bristling up to me. I evaded the question. The search of the house was completed, and nothing found to condemn us. They next proceeded to the garden, and knocked about every bush and vine, with no better success. The captain called his men together, and, after a short consultation, the order to march was given. As they passed out of the gate, the captain turned back, and pronounced a malediction on the house. He said it ought to be burned to the ground, and each of its inmates receive thirty-nine lashes. We came out of this affair very fortunately; not losing any thing except some wearing apparel. Towards evening the turbulence increased. The soldiers, stimulated by drink, committed still greater cruelties. Shrieks and shouts continually rent the air. Not daring to go to the door, I peeped under the window curtain. I saw a mob dragging along a number of colored people, each white man, with his musket upraised, threatening instant death if they did not stop their shrieks. Among the prisoners was a respectable old colored minister. They had found a few parcels of shot in his house, which his wife had for years used to balance her scales. For this they were going to shoot him on Court House Green. What a spectacle was that for a civilized country! A rabble, staggering under intoxication, assuming to be the administrators of justice! The better class of the community exerted their influence to save the innocent, persecuted people; and in several instances they succeeded, by keeping them shut up in jail till the excitement abated. At last the white citizens found that their own property was not safe from the lawless rabble they had summoned to protect them. They rallied the drunken swarm, drove them back into the country, and set a guard over the town. The next day, the town patrols were commissioned to search colored people that lived out of the city; and the most shocking outrages were committed with perfect impunity. Every day for a fortnight, if I looked out, I saw horsemen with some poor panting negro tied to their saddles, and compelled by the lash to keep up with their speed, till they arrived at the jail yard. Those who had been whipped too unmercifully to walk were washed with brine, tossed into a cart, and carried to jail. One black man, who had not fortitude to endure scourging, promised to give information about the conspiracy. But it turned out that he knew nothing at all. He had not even heard the name of Nat Turner. The poor fellow had, however, made up a story, which augmented his own sufferings and those of the colored people. The day patrol continued for some weeks, and at sundown a night guard was substituted. Nothing at all was proved against the colored people, bond or free. The wrath of the slaveholders was somewhat appeased by the capture of Nat Turner. The imprisoned were released. The slaves were sent to their masters, and the free were permitted to return to their ravaged homes. Visiting was strictly forbidden on the plantations. The slaves begged the privilege of again meeting at their little church in the woods, with their burying ground around it. It was built by the colored people, and they had no higher happiness than to meet there and sing hymns together, and pour out their hearts in spontaneous prayer. Their request was denied, and the church was demolished. They were permitted to attend the white churches, a certain portion of the galleries being appropriated to their use. There, when every body else had partaken of the communion, and the benediction had been pronounced, the minister said, "Come down, now, my colored friends." They obeyed the summons, and partook of the bread and wine, in commemoration of the meek and lowly Jesus, who said, "God is your Father, and all ye are brethren." Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Die Angst vor Aufständen Harriet berichtet, wie der Aufstand von Nat Turner die weiße Bevölkerung im Süden mit Angst und Paranoia erfüllte. Eines Tages riefen die Weißen zu einer Musterung zusammen, von der die Sklaven dachten, es handele sich um einen weiteren Feiertag. Alle versammelten sich im Freien, während Soldaten umhermarschierten und martialische Musik gespielt wurde. Plötzlich wurden Befehle gegeben und die Soldaten und "niederen Weißen", die ihre geringe Machtbefugnis genossen, rannten umher. Sklaven wurden geschlagen und ausgeraubt, Häuser wurden durchsucht und Besitztümer wurden gestohlen. Harriet dachte, dass das Haus ihrer Großmutter sicher sein würde, da sie in hohem Ansehen bei vielen weißen Familien standen. Das Haus wurde von anmaßenden Soldaten durchsucht, die ihre Habseligkeiten durchwühlten, aber am Ende gingen sie. Der Hauptmann verfluchte das Haus beim Abschied. An diesem Abend wüteten noch grausamere Taten in der Stadt. Harriet war erstaunt über dieses "Schauspiel für ein zivilisiertes Land. Eine Menge, die unter Trunkenheit schwankte und sich anmaßte, die Vollstrecker der Gerechtigkeit zu sein". Wochenlang wurden Patrouillen fortgesetzt. Sklaven wurden geschlagen und eingesperrt, um Informationen von ihnen zu bekommen. Schließlich wurden die Sklavenhalter durch die Gefangennahme von Nat Turner besänftigt. Danach wurde die Kirche der Sklaven abgerissen und sie wurden gezwungen, mit den Weißen zusammen zu beten.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Es wäre sicherlich schwer gewesen zu sehen, welchen Schaden ihr aus dem Besuch auf Mr. Osmonds Hügel entstehen könnte. Nichts hätte bezaubernder sein können als diese Gelegenheit - ein weicher Nachmittag in der vollen Reife des toskanischen Frühlings. Die Begleiter fuhren aus dem Römer Tor hinaus, unter der enormen leeren Überbauung, die den klaren Bogen des Portals krönt und es nackt beeindruckend macht, und fuhren zwischen hoch ummauerten Gassen weiter, in die die Blüte reicher Obstgärten überhing und einen Duft verstreute, bis sie den kleinen städtischen Platz erreichten, der eine krumme Form hatte, wo die lange braune Mauer der Villa, die teilweise von Mr. Osmond eingenommen wurde, ein hervorstechendes oder zumindest ein sehr imposantes Objekt darstellte. Isabel ging mit ihrer Freundin durch einen weiten, hohen Hof, in dem unten ein klarer Schatten ruhte und zwei leicht gewölbte Galerien, die einander gegenüberstanden, das obere Sonnenlicht auf ihre schlanken Säulen und die darin eingebauten Blütenpflanzen einfingen. Es gab etwas Ernstes und Starkes an diesem Ort; es sah irgendwie aus, als ob man, sobald man darin war, einen Akt der Energie brauchen würde, um herauszukommen. Für Isabel gab es natürlich noch keinen Gedanken daran, herauszukommen, sondern nur daran, voranzukommen. Mr. Osmond traf sie in der kalten Vorhalle, die selbst im Mai kalt war, und führte sie mit ihrer Begleiterin in die Wohnung ein, in die wir bereits eingeführt wurden. Madame Merle war voraus und während Isabel noch etwas verweilte und mit ihm redete, ging sie vertraut voran und grüßte zwei Personen, die im Salon saßen. Eine davon war die kleine Pansy, der sie einen Kuss gab; die andere war eine Frau, die Mr. Osmond Isabel als seine Schwester, die Gräfin Gemini, vorstellte. "Und das ist meine kleine Tochter", sagte er, "die gerade aus dem Kloster gekommen ist." Pansy trug ein knappes weißes Kleid und ihr blondes Haar war ordentlich in einem Netz frisiert; ihre kleinen Schuhe waren sandalenartig um ihre Knöchel gebunden. Sie verneigte sich konventuell vor Isabel und kam dann, um sich küssen zu lassen. Die Gräfin Gemini nickte nur, ohne aufzustehen: Isabel konnte sehen, dass sie eine Frau von hoher Mode war. Sie war dünn und dunkel und überhaupt nicht hübsch, mit Gesichtszügen, die an einen tropischen Vogel erinnerten - eine lange, schnabelartige Nase, kleine, schnell bewegliche Augen und einen Mund und ein Kinn, die sehr zurückwichen. Ihr Ausdruck war jedoch, dank verschiedener Intensitäten von Betonung und Erstaunen, von Schrecken und Freude, nicht unmenschlich, und was ihr Aussehen betrifft, war es offensichtlich, dass sie sich selbst verstand und das Beste aus ihren Vorzügen machte. Ihre Kleidung, voluminös und zart, die vor Eleganz funkelte, hatte den Anschein schimmernden Gefieders und ihre Haltungen waren so leicht und plötzlich wie die eines Wesens, das auf Zweigen landet. Sie hatte sehr viel Manieren; Isabel, die noch nie jemanden mit so viel Manieren gekannt hatte, bezeichnete sie sofort als die am meisten betroffene Frau. Sie erinnerte sich daran, dass Ralph sie nicht als Bekannte empfohlen hatte, aber sie war bereit, anzuerkennen, dass die Gräfin Gemini auf den ersten Blick keine Tiefe offenbarte. Ihre Demonstrationen deuteten auf das heftige Winken einer allgemeinen Waffenruhe hin - weiße Seide mit flatternden Bändern. "Sie werden mir glauben, dass ich froh bin, Sie zu sehen, wenn ich Ihnen sage, dass ich nur deshalb selbst gekommen bin, weil ich wusste, dass Sie hier sein würden. Ich gehe nicht zu meinem Bruder - ich lasse ihn zu mir kommen. Dieser Hügel von ihm ist unmöglich - ich verstehe nicht, was ihn dazu bewegt. Wirklich, Osmond, du wirst meine Pferde eines Tages ruinieren und wenn ihnen etwas passiert, musst du mir ein anderes Paar geben. Ich habe sie heute keuchen gehört; ich versichere Ihnen. Es ist sehr unangenehm, seine Pferde keuchen zu hören, wenn man im Wagen sitzt; es hört sich auch so an, als wären sie nicht das, was sie sein sollten. Aber ich hatte immer gute Pferde; egal, was ich sonst vielleicht falsch gemacht habe, ich habe immer das geschafft. Mein Mann weiß nicht viel, aber ich denke, er kennt sich mit Pferden aus. Im Allgemeinen kennen sich Italiener nicht damit aus, aber mein Mann findet, nach seinem schwachen Licht, alles Englische toll. Meine Pferde sind englisch - deshalb ist es umso bedauerlicher, dass sie ruiniert werden sollen. Ich muss Ihnen sagen", fuhr sie mit Nachdruck auf Isabel zu, "dass Osmond mich nicht oft einlädt; ich glaube nicht, dass er mich gern hat. Es war ganz meine eigene Idee, heute zu kommen. Ich sehe gern neue Leute und ich bin mir sicher, dass Sie neu sind. Aber setzen Sie sich nicht dorthin; dieser Stuhl ist nicht das, was er zu sein scheint. Hier gibt es einige sehr gute Plätze, aber auch einige Grauen." Diese Äußerungen wurden mit einer Reihe kleiner Rucke und Picken, mit Trillern von Schrillheit und mit einem Akzent vorgetragen, der an ein zärtliches Erinnern an gutes Englisch erinnerte, oder genauer gesagt, an gutes Amerikanisch in Schwierigkeiten. "Ich habe dich nicht gern, meine Liebe?", sagte ihr Bruder. "Ich bin sicher, du bist unschätzbar." "Ich sehe nirgends Grausamkeiten", erwiderte Isabel und sah sich um. "Alles erscheint mir schön und kostbar." "Ich habe ein paar gute Sachen", erlaubte Mr. Osmond; "tatsächlich habe ich nichts sehr Schlechtes. Aber ich habe nicht das, was ich gerne hätte." Er stand etwas unbeholfen da und lächelte und schaute sich um; seine Art war eine eigenartige Mischung aus Distanziertheit und Einbezug. Er schien anzudeuten, dass nichts als die richtigen "Werte" von Bedeutung sei. Isabel zog eine schnelle Schlussfolgerung: vollkommene Einfachheit war nicht das Merkmal seiner Familie. Selbst das kleine Mädchen aus dem Kloster, das in ihrem ordentlichen weißen Kleid, mit ihrem kleinen unterwürfigen Gesicht und den vor ihr verschränkten Händen da stand, als ob sie gleichzeitig an ihrer ersten Kommunion teilnehmen sollte, selbst Mr. Osmonds kleine Tochter hatte eine Art Finesse, die nicht ganz unbeholfen war. "Sie hätten ein paar Dinge aus den Uffizien und dem Pitti gerne gehabt - das hätten Sie gerne gehabt", sagte Madame Merle. "Armer Osmond, mit seinen alten Vorhängen und Kreuzen!" rief die Gräfin Gemini aus: Sie schien ihren Bruder nur bei seinem Familiennamen zu nennen. Ihre Ausrufung hatte kein bestimmtes Ziel; sie lächelte Isabel an, als sie es sagte, und betrachtete sie von oben bis unten. Ihr Bruder hatte sie nicht gehört; er schien darüber nachzudenken, was er Isabel sagen könnte. "Möchten Sie Tee haben? Sie müssen sehr müde sein", kam er schließlich auf die Idee zu bemerken. "Nein, ich bin wirklich nicht müde; was habe ich getan, um mich müde zu machen?" Isabel fühlte ein gewisses Bedürfnis, sehr direkt zu sein, sich nichts vorzumachen; es gab etwas in der Luft, in ihrem allgemeinen Eindruck von Dingen - sie konnte kaum sagen, was es war - das sie von jeglicher Lust abhielt, sich in den Vordergrund zu drängen. Der Ort Isabel war sich nicht sicher, ob sie es gesehen hatte, und antwortete, dass sie sehr schlecht darin war, Argumenten zu folgen. Die Gräfin erklärte dann, dass sie selbst Argumente verabscheute, aber dass dies der Geschmack ihres Bruders sei - er würde immer diskutieren wollen. "Für mich", sagte sie, "sollte man etwas mögen oder nicht mögen; man kann natürlich nicht alles mögen. Aber man sollte nicht versuchen, es zu begründen - man weiß nie, wohin es führen kann. Es gibt einige sehr gute Gefühle, die schlechte Gründe haben können, wissen Sie? Und dann gibt es manchmal sehr schlechte Gefühle, die gute Gründe haben. Verstehen Sie, was ich meine? Mir sind Gründe egal, aber ich weiß, was ich mag." "Ah, das ist das Große", sagte Isabel, lächelnd und mit der Vermutung, dass ihre Bekanntschaft mit dieser leicht flatterhaften Person nicht zu intellektueller Ruhe führen würde. Wenn die Gräfin Einwände gegen eine Argumentation hatte, hatte Isabel im Moment auch wenig Interesse daran, und sie streckte ihre Hand nach Pansy aus mit dem angenehmen Gefühl, dass diese Geste sie zu nichts verpflichtete, was zu einer Meinungsverschiedenheit führen könnte. Gilbert Osmond schien die Tonlage seiner Schwester relativ aussichtslos zu finden; er lenkte das Gespräch auf ein anderes Thema. Er setzte sich schließlich auf die andere Seite seiner Tochter, die schüchtern Isabels Finger mit ihren eigenen berührt hatte; aber am Ende zog er sie aus ihrem Stuhl und ließ sie zwischen seinen Knien stehen, sich an ihn lehnend, während er den Arm um ihre Schlankheit legte. Das Kind fixierte Isabel mit einem stillen, desinteressierten Blick, der einer Absicht zu mangeln schien, aber einer Anziehungskraft bewusst war. Herr Osmond sprach über viele Dinge; Madame Merle hatte gesagt, dass er angenehm sein konnte, wenn er wollte, und heute schien er nicht nur gewählt zu haben, sondern auch entschieden zu haben. Madame Merle und die Gräfin Gemini saßen ein wenig abseits und unterhielten sich in der mühelosen Art von Personen, die sich gut genug kannten, um es sich bequem machen zu können; aber hin und wieder hörte Isabel, wie die Gräfin bei etwas, das ihr Begleiter sagte, in dessen Klarheit eintauchte wie ein Pudel, der einem geworfenen Stock hinterherspritzt. Es war, als ob Madame Merle ausprobierte, wie weit sie gehen würde. Herr Osmond sprach von Florenz, von Italien, vom Vergnügen, in diesem Land zu leben, und von den Abstrichen am Vergnügen. Es gab sowohl Befriedigungen als auch Nachteile; die Nachteile waren zahlreich; Fremde sahen zu leicht eine solche Welt als romantisch an. Es kam für das Menschliche, für das soziale Versagen entgegen - womit er die Menschen meinte, die ihre Sensibilität nicht "verwirklichen" konnten, wie sie sagten: Sie konnten sie dort, in ihrer Armut, ohne Lächerlichkeit bewahren, so wie man einen Familienschatz oder einen unbequemen, mit Schulden belasteten Platz behalten könnte, der einem nichts einbrachte. So gab es Vorteile, in dem Land zu leben, das die größte Schönheit beherbergte. Bestimmte Eindrücke konnte man nur dort bekommen. Andere, die dem Leben zuträglich waren, bekam man nie, und man bekam einige, die sehr schlecht waren. Aber ab und zu bekam man einen von einer Qualität, die für alles entschädigte. Italien hatte trotzdem viele Menschen verdorben; er war manchmal sogar dumm genug zu glauben, dass er selbst ein besserer Mensch hätte sein können, wenn er weniger Zeit seines Lebens dort verbracht hätte. Es machte einen faul und amateurhaft und zweitklassig; es hatte keine Disziplin für den Charakter, kultivierte nicht in einem die erfolgreiche soziale und andere "Frechheit", die in Paris und London florierte. "Wir sind süß provinziell", sagte Herr Osmond, "und ich bin mir durchaus bewusst, dass ich selbst so verrostet bin wie ein Schlüssel ohne Schloss, in das er passt. Es poliert mich ein wenig auf, mit Ihnen zu sprechen - nicht dass ich mir anmaße, dass ich jenes sehr komplizierte Schloss öffnen könnte, von dem ich Ihr Intellekt verdächtige! Aber Sie werden weggehen, bevor ich Sie dreimal gesehen habe, und ich werde Sie vielleicht nie wiedersehen. Das ist es, in einem Land zu leben, das von Menschen frequentiert wird. Wenn sie hier unangenehm sind, ist es schlimm genug; wenn sie angenehm sind, ist es noch schlimmer. Sobald man sie mag, gehen sie wieder weg! Ich wurde schon zu oft getäuscht; ich habe aufgehört, Bindungen einzugehen, mich von Anziehungen beeinflussen zu lassen. Sie beabsichtigen zu bleiben - sich niederzulassen? Das wäre wirklich komfortabel. Ah ja, Ihre Tante ist so eine Art Garantie; ich glaube, man kann sich auf sie verlassen. Oh, sie ist eine alte Florentinerin; ich meine wörtlich eine alte; keine moderne Außenseiterin. Sie ist eine Zeitgenossin der Medici; sie muss bei der Verbrennung Savonarolas dabei gewesen sein, und ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob sie nicht eine Handvoll Späne ins Feuer geworfen hat. Ihr Gesicht ähnelt sehr einigen Gesichtern in den frühen Gemälden; kleine, trockene, präzise Gesichter, die viel Ausdruck gehabt haben müssen, aber fast immer denselben. Tatsächlich kann ich Ihnen ihr Porträt in einem Fresko von Ghirlandaio zeigen. Ich hoffe, es macht Ihnen nichts aus, dass ich so von Ihrer Tante spreche, nicht wahr? Ich habe eine Idee, dass es Ihnen nicht stört. Vielleicht denken Sie, dass das noch schlimmer ist. Ich versichere Ihnen, es fehlt mir an Respekt gegenüber Ihnen beiden nichts. Sie wissen, dass ich ein besonderer Bewunderer von Mrs. Touchett bin." Während Isabels Gastgeber sich bemühte, sie auf diese etwas vertrauliche Art zu unterhalten, schaute sie gelegentlich zu Madame Merle, die ihren Blick mit einem unaufmerksamen Lächeln erwiderte, in dem an diesem Tag keine unglückselige Andeutung lag, dass unsere Heldin gut aussah. Madame Merle schlug schließlich der Gräfin Gemini vor, in den Garten zu gehen, und die Gräfin, die sich erhob und ihre Federn ausschüttelte, begann knisternd auf die Tür zuzugehen. "Arme Miss Archer!" rief sie aus und betrachtete die andere Gruppe mit ausdrucksstollem Mitleid. "Sie wurde ganz in die Familie aufgenommen." "Miss Archer kann mit Sicherheit nichts anderes als Mitgefühl für eine Familie haben, zu der Sie gehören", antwortete Mr. Osmond mit einem Lachen, das zwar einen Hauch von Spott hatte, aber auch eine feinere Geduld. "Ich weiß nicht, was Sie damit meinen! Ich bin sicher, sie wird nichts Schlimmes in mir sehen, außer dem, was Sie ihr sagen. Ich bin besser, als er sagt, Miss Archer", fuhr die Gräfin fort. "Ich bin nur etwas dümmlich und langweilig. Hat er das gesagt? Ah, dann halten Sie ihn in guter Laune. Hat er eines seiner Lieblingsthemen angeschnitten? Ich kündige Ihnen an, dass es zwei oder drei gibt, die er besonders liebt. In dem Fall sollten Sie Ihren Hut abnehmen." "Ich glaube nicht, dass ich weiß, was Mr. Osmonds Lieblingsthemen sind", sagte Isabel, die aufgestanden war. Die Gräfin nahm für einen Moment eine Haltung intensiver Meditation ein, indem sie eine ihrer Hände mit den Fingerspitzen an die Stirn legte. "Ich sage es Ihnen gleich. Das eine ist Machiavelli; das andere ist Vittoria Colonna; das nächste ist Metastasio." "Ah, bei mir", sagte Madame Merle, als sie ihren Arm in den der Gräfin Gemini legte, als ob sie ihren Weg in den Garten lenken wollte, "ist Mr. Osmond niemals so historisch." "Oh du", antwortete die Gräfin, während sie sich entfer Ja, du hast sie nur sehr wenig gesehen; aber du musst bemerkt haben, dass es nicht viel von ihr zu sehen gibt. Was hältst du von der Art, wie unsere Familie auftritt?", fuhr er ruhig lächelnd fort. "Ich würde gerne wissen, wie es auf einen frischen, unvoreingenommenen Geist wirkt. Ich weiß, was du sagen wirst - du hast es fast nicht beobachten können. Natürlich ist dies nur ein kurzer Einblick. Aber achte in Zukunft darauf, wenn du eine Gelegenheit hast. Manchmal denke ich, dass wir einen eher schlechten Weg eingeschlagen haben, wenn wir hier leben, fern von unseren eigenen Dingen und Menschen, ohne Verantwortlichkeiten oder Bindungen, ohne etwas, das uns zusammenhält oder uns aufrecht hält; indem wir Ausländer heiraten, künstliche Vorlieben entwickeln und mit unserer eigentlichen Mission spielen. Lass mich hinzufügen, dass ich das viel mehr für mich selbst sage als für meine Schwester. Sie ist eine sehr ehrliche Dame - noch mehr, als sie scheint. Sie ist ziemlich unglücklich und da sie nicht ernsthaft ist, neigt sie nicht dazu, dies tragisch zu zeigen: sie zeigt es stattdessen komisch. Sie hat einen schrecklichen Ehemann, obwohl ich mir nicht sicher bin, ob sie das Beste aus ihm macht. Natürlich ist ein schrecklicher Ehemann eine unangenehme Sache. Madame Merle gibt ihr ausgezeichnete Ratschläge, aber es ist zu einem großen Teil so, als würde man einem Kind ein Wörterbuch geben, um eine Sprache damit zu lernen. Er kann die Wörter nachschlagen, aber er kann sie nicht zusammenfügen. Meine Schwester braucht eine Grammatik, aber leider ist sie nicht grammatikalisch. Entschuldigen Sie, dass ich Sie mit diesen Details belästige; meine Schwester hatte Recht, als sie sagte, dass Sie in die Familie aufgenommen wurden. Lassen Sie mich dieses Bild abhängen; Sie möchten mehr Licht haben." Er nahm das Bild ab, trug es zum Fenster und erzählte einige interessante Fakten darüber. Sie betrachtete die anderen Kunstwerke und er gab ihr weitere Informationen, die für einen Besuch einer jungen Frau an einem Sommernachmittag am angenehmsten zu sein schienen. Seine Bilder, Medaillen und Wandteppiche waren interessant; aber nach einer Weile fand Isabel den Besitzer viel interessanter, unabhängig von ihnen, so sehr schienen sie über ihm zu schweben. Er ähnelte niemandem, den sie je gesehen hatte; die meisten Menschen, die sie kannte, konnten in Gruppen von einigen wenigen Exemplaren eingeteilt werden. Es gab ein oder zwei Ausnahmen davon; sie konnte sich zum Beispiel keine Gruppe vorstellen, in der ihre Tante Lydia enthalten war. Es gab auch andere Leute, die relativ gesehen originell waren - originell, wie man sagen könnte, aus Höflichkeit, wie Mr. Goodwood, ihr Cousin Ralph, Henrietta Stackpole, Lord Warburton, Madame Merle. Aber im Wesentlichen, wenn man sich sie genauer ansah, gehörten diese Individuen zu bereits vorhandenen Typen in ihrem Verstand. Ihr Verstand enthielt keine Klasse, die einen natürlichen Platz für Mr. Osmond bot - er war ein eigenständiges Exemplar. Es lag nicht daran, dass sie all diese Wahrheiten in jener Stunde erkannte, aber sie ordneten sich vor ihr. Im Moment sagte sie sich nur, dass diese "neue Beziehung" vielleicht ihre angesehenste sein würde. Madame Merle hatte diese Besonderheit, aber welche ganz andere Bedeutung sie sofort gewann, wenn sie von einem Mann ausgesprochen wurde! Es war nicht so sehr, was er sagte und tat, sondern eher das, was er zurückhielt, was ihn für sie als eines dieser Zeichen der höchst Neugierigen auszeichnete, die er ihr auf der Unterseite von alten Tellern zeigte und in der Ecke von Zeichnungen aus dem 16. Jahrhundert: Er nahm keine auffälligen Abweichungen vom allgemeinen Gebrauch vor, er war originell, ohne exzentrisch zu sein. Sie hatte noch nie eine Person von so feiner Beschaffenheit getroffen. Die Besonderheit begann körperlich und erstreckte sich auf Unerklärliches. Sein dichtes, feines Haar, sein überzeichnetes, retuschiertes Gesicht, sein klarer, reifer Teint ohne Grobheit, die gleichmäßige Bartwuchs und diese leichte, glatte Schlankheit seiner Statur, die die Bewegung eines einzigen seiner Finger zu einer ausdrucksstarken Geste werden ließ - diese persönlichen Merkmale trafen unsere sensible junge Frau als Zeichen von Qualität, Intensität und irgendwie als Versprechen von Interesse. Er war sicherlich anspruchsvoll und kritisch; er war wahrscheinlich gereizt. Seine Empfindlichkeit hatte ihn beherrscht - möglicherweise zu sehr; sie hatte ihn ungeduldig mit banalen Problemen gemacht und dazu geführt, dass er alleine in einer sortierten, durchsuchten, arrangierten Welt lebte, in der er über Kunst, Schönheit und Geschichte nachdachte. Er hatte seinen Geschmack in allem befragt - wahrscheinlich nur seinen Geschmack, wie ein bewusst unheilbarer Kranker zuletzt nur seinen Anwalt befragt: Das war es, was ihn so anders machte als alle anderen. Ralph hatte etwas von dieser gleichen Qualität, diesem Anschein, dass das Leben eine Frage des Expertenwissens war; aber bei Ralph war es eine Anomalie, eine Art humoristische Auswucherung, während es bei Mr. Osmond der Schlüsselton war und alles im Einklang damit stand. Sie war sicherlich weit davon entfernt, ihn vollständig zu verstehen; seine Bedeutung war nicht immer offensichtlich. Es war schwer zu erkennen, was er zum Beispiel mit dem Reden von seiner Provinzialseite meinte - die genau die Seite war, von der sie glaubte, dass sie ihm am meisten fehlen würde. War es ein harmloses Paradoxon, das sie verwirren sollte? Oder war es die letzte Raffinesse der Hochkultur? Sie hoffte, es mit der Zeit herauszufinden; es wäre sehr interessant zu erfahren. Wenn es provinziell war, diese Harmonie zu haben, was war dann die Vollendung der Hauptstadt? Und sie konnte diese Frage stellen, trotzdem sie ihren Gastgeber als eine scheue Persönlichkeit empfand; da solche Schüchternheit wie seine - die Schüchternheit von kitzligen Nerven und feinen Wahrnehmungen - vollkommen mit bester Erziehung übereinstimmte. Tatsächlich war es fast ein Beweis für Standards und Prüfsteine, die sich von den gewöhnlichen unterschieden: Er musste so sicher sein, dass die Gewöhnlichen zuerst am Ort sein würden. Er war kein Mann mit leichter Selbstsicherheit, der mit der Flüssigkeit eines oberflächlichen Naturells plauderte und klatschte; er war sowohl sich selbst als auch anderen gegenüber kritisch und indem er viel von anderen verlangte, um sie angenehm zu finden, nahm er wahrscheinlich eine eher ironische Sicht auf das, was er selbst anbot: ein Beweis dafür, dass er nicht grob eingebildet war. Wenn er nicht schüchtern gewesen wäre, hätte er diese allmähliche, subtile, erfolgreiche Umwandlung, der sie sowohl das gefiel in ihm als auch das sie verwirrte, nicht bewirken können. Wenn er sie plötzlich gefragt hätte, was sie von der Gräfin Gemini halte, war das zweifellos ein Beweis dafür, dass er an ihr interessiert war; es konnte kaum als Hilfe zur Kenntnis seiner eigenen Schwester dienen. Dass er so interessiert war, zeigte einen fragenden Geist, aber es war ein wenig eigenartig, dass er seine brüderlichen Gefühle seiner Neugier opfern sollte. Dies war das verrückteste, was er getan hatte. Es gab zwei weitere Räume, jenseits des Raumes, in dem sie empfangen wurde, die gleichermaßen voller romantischer Gegenstände waren, und in diesen Wohnungen verbrachte Isabel eine Viertelstunde. Alles war äußerst seltsam und kostbar, und Mr. Osmond blieb der freundlichste Führer, als er sie von einem Meisterwerk zum anderen führte und immer noch seine kleine Tochter an der Hand hielt. Seine Freundlichkeit überraschte unsere junge Freundin fast, die sich fragte, warum er sich so viel Mühe für sie machte; und schließlich drückte sie die Schönheit und das Wissen, mit denen sie konfrontiert wurde, Sie kamen zurück in den ersten der Räume, wo der Tee serviert worden war; aber da die beiden anderen Damen noch auf der Terrasse waren und Isabel noch nicht mit der Aussicht vertraut gemacht worden war, dem herausragenden Merkmal des Ortes, führte Herr Osmond sie ohne weitere Verzögerung in den Garten. Madame Merle und die Gräfin hatten Stühle herausbringen lassen, und da der Nachmittag herrlich war, schlug die Gräfin vor, den Tee im Freien einzunehmen. Pansy wurde also geschickt, um den Diener zu bitten, die Vorbereitungen herauszubringen. Die Sonne hatte sich gesenkt, das goldene Licht nahm einen tieferen Ton an, und auf den Bergen und der Ebene, die sich darunter erstreckten, glühten die Massen lila Schatten so prächtig wie die Stellen, die noch unbeleuchtet waren. Die Szene hatte einen außergewöhnlichen Charme. Die Luft war fast feierlich still, und die große Ausdehnung der Landschaft mit ihrer gartenähnlichen Kultur und edlen Konturierung, ihrem wimmelnden Tal und zierlichen Hügelrelief, ihren menschlichen Siedlungsmerkmalen, die ihr eigenständiges Aussehen verliehen, lag dort in herrlicher Harmonie und klassischer Anmut. "Du scheinst so zufrieden zu sein, dass ich denke, ich kann dir vertrauen, zurückzukommen", sagte Osmond, als er seine Begleiterin in eine der Ecken der Terrasse führte. "Ich werde bestimmt wiederkommen", entgegnete sie, "trotz dem, was du über das Leben in Italien gesagt hast. Was meintest du mit meiner natürlichen Aufgabe? Ich frage mich, ob ich meine natürliche Aufgabe aufgeben würde, wenn ich mich in Florenz niederlassen würde." "Die natürliche Aufgabe einer Frau ist es, dort zu sein, wo sie am meisten geschätzt wird." "Die Frage ist herauszufinden, wo das ist." "Ganz recht – oft verschwendet sie viel Zeit mit der Suche danach. Die Leute sollten es ihr sehr deutlich machen." "Ich müsste wohl sehr genau darüber aufgeklärt werden", lächelte Isabel. "Ich bin jedenfalls froh, dass du von Niederlassen sprichst. Madame Merle hatte mir den Eindruck vermittelt, dass du eher eine unstete Natur hast. Ich dachte, sie hätte von deinem Plan gesprochen, um die Welt zu reisen." "Ich schäme mich etwas für meine Pläne; ich mache jeden Tag einen neuen." "Ich sehe nicht, warum du dich schämen solltest; es ist das größte Vergnügen." "Ich finde es frivol, glaube ich", sagte Isabel. "Man sollte etwas sehr bewusst wählen und daran festhalten." "Nach dieser Regel habe ich nicht frivol gehandelt." "Hast du nie Pläne gemacht?" "Doch, vor vielen Jahren habe ich einen gemacht, und heute handle ich danach." Es muss ein sehr angenehmer gewesen sein", erlaubte sich Isabel zu bemerken. "Es war sehr einfach. Es war möglichst ruhig zu sein." "Ruhig?" wiederholte das Mädchen. "Nicht zu sorgen – nicht zu streben oder zu kämpfen. Mich zu fügen. Zufrieden zu sein mit Wenigem." Er sprach diese Sätze langsam aus, mit kurzen Pausen dazwischen, und sein intelligenter Blick ruhte auf dem seiner Besucherin mit der bewussten Haltung eines Mannes, der sich dazu gebracht hat, etwas zu gestehen. "Nennst du das einfach?" fragte sie mit mildem Spott. "Ja, weil es negativ ist." "War dein Leben negativ?" "Nenne es gerne positiv. Nur hat es meine Gleichgültigkeit bekräftigt. Beachte, nicht meine natürliche Gleichgültigkeit – die hatte ich nicht. Aber meine bewusste, meine gewollte Aufgabe." Sie verstand ihn kaum; es schien fraglich, ob er scherzte oder nicht. Warum sollte ein Mann, der ihr als jemand erschien, der viel Zurückhaltung besitzt, sich plötzlich zu so vertraulichen Äußerungen hinreißen lassen? Das ging sie jedoch nichts an, und seine Vertraulichkeiten waren interessant. "Ich sehe nicht, warum du es aufgegeben haben solltest", sagte sie nach einem Moment. "Weil ich nichts tun konnte. Ich hatte keine Aussichten, war arm und kein Genie. Ich hatte nicht einmal Talente; Ich habe mich früh im Leben gemessen. Ich war einfach der anspruchsvollste junge Herr überhaupt. Es gab zwei oder drei Menschen auf der Welt, die ich beneidete - den Kaiser von Russland zum Beispiel und den Sultan der Türkei! Es gab sogar Momente, in denen ich den Papst von Rom beneidete – wegen der Anerkennung, die er erfährt. Es hätte mich erfreut, in diesem Maße anerkannt zu werden; aber da das nicht möglich ist, habe ich mich für nichts Geringeres interessiert, und ich habe beschlossen, keine Ehren anzustreben. Der dünnste Herr kann sich immer als etwas Besonderes betrachten, und glücklicherweise war ich, obwohl dünn, ein Herr. In Italien konnte ich nichts tun – ich konnte nicht einmal ein italienischer Patriot sein. Dazu hätte ich das Land verlassen müssen; und ich war zu sehr daran gewachsen, es zu verlassen, ganz zu schweigen von meiner Zufriedenheit damit, wie es damals insgesamt war, um es verändern zu wollen. Also habe ich viele Jahre hier nach diesem ruhigen Plan verbracht, von dem ich gesprochen habe. Ich war überhaupt nicht unglücklich. Ich meine nicht zu sagen, dass mir nichts wichtig war; aber die Dinge, die mir wichtig waren, waren bestimmt – begrenzt. Die Ereignisse meines Lebens sind von niemandem außer mir selbst bemerkt worden; den Kauf eines alten silbernen Kruzifixes zu einem günstigen Preis (ich habe natürlich noch nie etwas teures gekauft), oder das Entdecken einer Skizze von Correggio auf einer von irgendeinem inspirierten Idioten beschmierten Holztafel." Dies wäre eine eher trockene Darstellung von Herrn Osmonds Karriere gewesen, wenn Isabel es vollständig geglaubt hätte; aber ihre Vorstellungskraft füllte die menschliche Komponente aus, von der sie sicher war, dass sie nicht gefehlt hatte. Sein Leben war stärker mit anderen Leben verbunden, als er zugab; natürlich konnte sie nicht erwarten, dass er darauf einging. Im Moment verzichtete sie darauf, weitere Enthüllungen herauszufordern; anzudeuten, dass er ihr nicht alles erzählt hatte, wäre vertrauter und weniger rücksichtsvoll gewesen, als sie jetzt sein wollte – würde im Grunde genommen sehr vulgär sein. Er hatte ihr sicherlich genug erzählt. Es war jedoch ihre gegenwärtige Neigung, ein abgemessenes Mitgefühl für den Erfolg auszudrücken, mit dem er seine Unabhängigkeit bewahrt hatte. "Das ist ein sehr angenehmes Leben", sagte sie, "alles außer Correggio aufzugeben!" "Oh, in meinem eigenen Sinne habe ich etwas Gutes daraus gemacht. Stell dir nicht vor, dass ich mich darüber beklage. Es ist unsere eigene Schuld, wenn wir nicht glücklich sind." Das war groß; sie beschränkte sich auf etwas Kleineres. "Hast du immer hier gelebt?" "Nein, nicht immer. Ich habe lange Zeit in Neapel gelebt und viele Jahre in Rom. Aber ich bin schon eine Weile hier. Vielleicht muss ich jedoch etwas anderes tun. Ich habe nicht mehr nur an mich zu denken. Meine Tochter wird erwachsen und wird vielleicht nicht so sehr an den Correggios und Kruzifixen interessiert sein wie ich. Ich werde tun müssen, was das Beste für Pansy ist." "Ja, tu das", sagte Isabel. "Sie ist ein so liebes kleines Mädchen." "Ach," rief Gilbert Osmond herrlich aus, "sie ist ein kleiner Heiliger des Himmels! Sie ist mein großes Glück!" Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Isabel hat die Gelegenheit, Gilbert Osmond in seinem eigenen Haus zu besuchen. Dort trifft sie auf Gilbert Osmonds Schwester, Gräfin Gemini, und seine Tochter Pansy. Sie bemerkt, dass Gräfin Gemini Merkmale eines tropischen Vogels hat und dass sie eine "große Art" hat. Die Gräfin informiert Isabel, dass sie Gilbert besucht hat, um Isabel zu sehen, nicht um ihren eigenen Bruder zu sehen. Mr. Osmond bemerkt über seine Besitztümer: "Ich habe ein paar gute Dinge. Ich habe in der Tat nichts sehr Schlimmes. Aber ich habe nicht das, was ich gerne gehabt hätte." Er scheint anzudeuten, dass "nur die richtigen 'Werte' von Bedeutung waren". Isabel stellt fest, dass die Einfachheit nicht der Weg dieser bestimmten Familie ist. Sie wird sich auch bewusst, dass die Gelegenheit "mehr bedeutet, als auf der Oberfläche liegt" und sie fühlt sich nicht in der Lage, zu verstehen, was es ist. Sie hat auch das Gefühl, dass sie eine Art Unterhaltung anbieten sollte, ist aber zu schüchtern, dies zu tun. Mr. Osmond übernimmt stattdessen das meiste Reden. Madame Merle und Gräfin Gemini scheinen sich gut zu kennen. Mr. Osmond spricht davon, in Florenz zu leben, in einem so abgeschiedenen Haus. Er glaubt, dass er ein besserer Mensch gewesen sein könnte, wenn er nicht in Florenz gelebt hätte, erklärt aber auch, dass Florenz ein Ort ist, an dem man Eindrücke bekommt, die man sonst nirgendwo bekommt. Er gesteht ein, "rostig wie ein Schlüssel" zu sein, da er aufgehört hat, Beziehungen und soziale Kontakte zu pflegen. Gräfin Gemini und Madame Merle gehen zusammen in den Garten und lassen Osmond und Isabel für ein paar Minuten allein mit Pansy. Osmond fragt Isabel, was sie von seiner Schwester hält, und gibt ihr seine eigene Meinung über Gräfin Gemini: Er denkt, dass sie ehrlicher ist, als sie scheint, dass sie unglücklich ist, besonders mit ihrem schrecklichen Ehemann, aber sie zeigt dieses Unglück auf eine komische Art und Weise. Dann erzählt er ihr von den Objekten in seinem Salon. Der Erzähler konzentriert sich dann auf Isabels Gedanken während dieser Szene, anstatt genau zu beschreiben, was gesagt wird. Isabel findet Osmonds Gespräch interessant, aber sie findet ihn noch interessanter, weil er anders ist als alle anderen, die sie je gesehen hat. Sie bemerkt, dass er keine ungewöhnlichen Begriffe oder Redewendungen verwendet, sondern einfach originell ist. Sie sieht, dass er "in allem seinen Geschmack konsultierte", genauso wie ein kranker Mann einen Anwalt konsultiert. Sie hält ihn für ähnlich wie Ralph, sieht aber Osmond mehr im Einklang mit seiner Umgebung. Sie fragt sich, was Osmond mit seinem eigenen provinziellen Geist meint, seiner Tendenz zur Zurückgezogenheit. Sie stellt fest, dass er schüchtern ist, aber erkennt, dass diese Schüchternheit ein Zeichen seiner guten Erziehung ist. Sie interpretiert seine Frage nach Gräfin Gemini als Zeichen seines eigenen Interesses an Isabel selbst. Isabel findet es jedoch anstrengend, so intelligent zu erscheinen, wie sie glaubt, dass Madame Merle sie beschrieben hat. Sie bemüht sich, nicht mit Osmond zu widersprechen. Bevor sie mit dem Rest der Gesellschaft Nachmittagstee trinken, fragt Osmond Isabel, ob sie wiederkommen wird. Sie sagt, sie wird es tun, auch wenn sie sich fragt, ob es sie von ihrer eigentlichen Mission abhalten wird, wenn sie in Florenz bleibt. Osmond erwidert: "Die natürliche Aufgabe einer Frau ist es, dort zu sein, wo sie am meisten geschätzt wird." Madame Merle hört dies und sagt, dass Isabel eine Reise um die Welt plant. Isabel gesteht, dass sie ihre Pläne täglich ändert, und sie fühlt sich oberflächlich dafür. Osmond erklärt, dass er selber vor vielen Jahren einen Plan gemacht hat und immer noch danach lebt: "Mich selbst aufzugeben. Mich mit wenigem zufrieden zu geben." Isabel fragt sich, ob das wirklich eine einfache Art zu leben ist. Er denkt, es ist einfach, weil es "negativ" ist. Er gibt zu, keine Aussichten und keine Talente gehabt zu haben. Isabel ist überrascht, dass er private Informationen über sich geteilt hat. Seine eigene Selbstbeschreibung wäre trocken gewesen, aber Isabels eigene Vorstellungskraft gibt ihm eine "menschliche Note". Das Kapitel endet damit, dass Gilbert Osmond erklärt, wie seine Tochter sein größtes Glück ist.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: ADVENTURE Alice Hindman, a woman of twenty-seven when George Willard was a mere boy, had lived in Winesburg all her life. She clerked in Winney's Dry Goods Store and lived with her mother, who had married a second husband. Alice's step-father was a carriage painter, and given to drink. His story is an odd one. It will be worth telling some day. At twenty-seven Alice was tall and somewhat slight. Her head was large and overshadowed her body. Her shoulders were a little stooped and her hair and eyes brown. She was very quiet but beneath a placid exterior a continual ferment went on. When she was a girl of sixteen and before she began to work in the store, Alice had an affair with a young man. The young man, named Ned Currie, was older than Alice. He, like George Willard, was employed on the Winesburg Eagle and for a long time he went to see Alice almost every evening. Together the two walked under the trees through the streets of the town and talked of what they would do with their lives. Alice was then a very pretty girl and Ned Currie took her into his arms and kissed her. He became excited and said things he did not intend to say and Alice, betrayed by her desire to have something beautiful come into her rather narrow life, also grew excited. She also talked. The outer crust of her life, all of her natural diffidence and reserve, was torn away and she gave herself over to the emotions of love. When, late in the fall of her sixteenth year, Ned Currie went away to Cleveland where he hoped to get a place on a city newspaper and rise in the world, she wanted to go with him. With a trembling voice she told him what was in her mind. "I will work and you can work," she said. "I do not want to harness you to a needless expense that will prevent your making progress. Don't marry me now. We will get along without that and we can be together. Even though we live in the same house no one will say anything. In the city we will be unknown and people will pay no attention to us." Ned Currie was puzzled by the determination and abandon of his sweetheart and was also deeply touched. He had wanted the girl to become his mistress but changed his mind. He wanted to protect and care for her. "You don't know what you're talking about," he said sharply; "you may be sure I'll let you do no such thing. As soon as I get a good job I'll come back. For the present you'll have to stay here. It's the only thing we can do." On the evening before he left Winesburg to take up his new life in the city, Ned Currie went to call on Alice. They walked about through the streets for an hour and then got a rig from Wesley Moyer's livery and went for a drive in the country. The moon came up and they found themselves unable to talk. In his sadness the young man forgot the resolutions he had made regarding his conduct with the girl. They got out of the buggy at a place where a long meadow ran down to the bank of Wine Creek and there in the dim light became lovers. When at midnight they returned to town they were both glad. It did not seem to them that anything that could happen in the future could blot out the wonder and beauty of the thing that had happened. "Now we will have to stick to each other, whatever happens we will have to do that," Ned Currie said as he left the girl at her father's door. The young newspaper man did not succeed in getting a place on a Cleveland paper and went west to Chicago. For a time he was lonely and wrote to Alice almost every day. Then he was caught up by the life of the city; he began to make friends and found new interests in life. In Chicago he boarded at a house where there were several women. One of them attracted his attention and he forgot Alice in Winesburg. At the end of a year he had stopped writing letters, and only once in a long time, when he was lonely or when he went into one of the city parks and saw the moon shining on the grass as it had shone that night on the meadow by Wine Creek, did he think of her at all. In Winesburg the girl who had been loved grew to be a woman. When she was twenty-two years old her father, who owned a harness repair shop, died suddenly. The harness maker was an old soldier, and after a few months his wife received a widow's pension. She used the first money she got to buy a loom and became a weaver of carpets, and Alice got a place in Winney's store. For a number of years nothing could have induced her to believe that Ned Currie would not in the end return to her. She was glad to be employed because the daily round of toil in the store made the time of waiting seem less long and uninteresting. She began to save money, thinking that when she had saved two or three hundred dollars she would follow her lover to the city and try if her presence would not win back his affections. Alice did not blame Ned Currie for what had happened in the moonlight in the field, but felt that she could never marry another man. To her the thought of giving to another what she still felt could belong only to Ned seemed monstrous. When other young men tried to attract her attention she would have nothing to do with them. "I am his wife and shall remain his wife whether he comes back or not," she whispered to herself, and for all of her willingness to support herself could not have understood the growing modern idea of a woman's owning herself and giving and taking for her own ends in life. Alice worked in the dry goods store from eight in the morning until six at night and on three evenings a week went back to the store to stay from seven until nine. As time passed and she became more and more lonely she began to practice the devices common to lonely people. When at night she went upstairs into her own room she knelt on the floor to pray and in her prayers whispered things she wanted to say to her lover. She became attached to inanimate objects, and because it was her own, could not bare to have anyone touch the furniture of her room. The trick of saving money, begun for a purpose, was carried on after the scheme of going to the city to find Ned Currie had been given up. It became a fixed habit, and when she needed new clothes she did not get them. Sometimes on rainy afternoons in the store she got out her bank book and, letting it lie open before her, spent hours dreaming impossible dreams of saving money enough so that the interest would support both herself and her future husband. "Ned always liked to travel about," she thought. "I'll give him the chance. Some day when we are married and I can save both his money and my own, we will be rich. Then we can travel together all over the world." In the dry goods store weeks ran into months and months into years as Alice waited and dreamed of her lover's return. Her employer, a grey old man with false teeth and a thin grey mustache that drooped down over his mouth, was not given to conversation, and sometimes, on rainy days and in the winter when a storm raged in Main Street, long hours passed when no customers came in. Alice arranged and rearranged the stock. She stood near the front window where she could look down the deserted street and thought of the evenings when she had walked with Ned Currie and of what he had said. "We will have to stick to each other now." The words echoed and re-echoed through the mind of the maturing woman. Tears came into her eyes. Sometimes when her employer had gone out and she was alone in the store she put her head on the counter and wept. "Oh, Ned, I am waiting," she whispered over and over, and all the time the creeping fear that he would never come back grew stronger within her. In the spring when the rains have passed and before the long hot days of summer have come, the country about Winesburg is delightful. The town lies in the midst of open fields, but beyond the fields are pleasant patches of woodlands. In the wooded places are many little cloistered nooks, quiet places where lovers go to sit on Sunday afternoons. Through the trees they look out across the fields and see farmers at work about the barns or people driving up and down on the roads. In the town bells ring and occasionally a train passes, looking like a toy thing in the distance. For several years after Ned Currie went away Alice did not go into the wood with the other young people on Sunday, but one day after he had been gone for two or three years and when her loneliness seemed unbearable, she put on her best dress and set out. Finding a little sheltered place from which she could see the town and a long stretch of the fields, she sat down. Fear of age and ineffectuality took possession of her. She could not sit still, and arose. As she stood looking out over the land something, perhaps the thought of never ceasing life as it expresses itself in the flow of the seasons, fixed her mind on the passing years. With a shiver of dread, she realized that for her the beauty and freshness of youth had passed. For the first time she felt that she had been cheated. She did not blame Ned Currie and did not know what to blame. Sadness swept over her. Dropping to her knees, she tried to pray, but instead of prayers words of protest came to her lips. "It is not going to come to me. I will never find happiness. Why do I tell myself lies?" she cried, and an odd sense of relief came with this, her first bold attempt to face the fear that had become a part of her everyday life. In the year when Alice Hindman became twenty-five two things happened to disturb the dull uneventfulness of her days. Her mother married Bush Milton, the carriage painter of Winesburg, and she herself became a member of the Winesburg Methodist Church. Alice joined the church because she had become frightened by the loneliness of her position in life. Her mother's second marriage had emphasized her isolation. "I am becoming old and queer. If Ned comes he will not want me. In the city where he is living men are perpetually young. There is so much going on that they do not have time to grow old," she told herself with a grim little smile, and went resolutely about the business of becoming acquainted with people. Every Thursday evening when the store had closed she went to a prayer meeting in the basement of the church and on Sunday evening attended a meeting of an organization called The Epworth League. When Will Hurley, a middle-aged man who clerked in a drug store and who also belonged to the church, offered to walk home with her she did not protest. "Of course I will not let him make a practice of being with me, but if he comes to see me once in a long time there can be no harm in that," she told herself, still determined in her loyalty to Ned Currie. Without realizing what was happening, Alice was trying feebly at first, but with growing determination, to get a new hold upon life. Beside the drug clerk she walked in silence, but sometimes in the darkness as they went stolidly along she put out her hand and touched softly the folds of his coat. When he left her at the gate before her mother's house she did not go indoors, but stood for a moment by the door. She wanted to call to the drug clerk, to ask him to sit with her in the darkness on the porch before the house, but was afraid he would not understand. "It is not him that I want," she told herself; "I want to avoid being so much alone. If I am not careful I will grow unaccustomed to being with people." * * * During the early fall of her twenty-seventh year a passionate restlessness took possession of Alice. She could not bear to be in the company of the drug clerk, and when, in the evening, he came to walk with her she sent him away. Her mind became intensely active and when, weary from the long hours of standing behind the counter in the store, she went home and crawled into bed, she could not sleep. With staring eyes she looked into the darkness. Her imagination, like a child awakened from long sleep, played about the room. Deep within her there was something that would not be cheated by phantasies and that demanded some definite answer from life. Alice took a pillow into her arms and held it tightly against her breasts. Getting out of bed, she arranged a blanket so that in the darkness it looked like a form lying between the sheets and, kneeling beside the bed, she caressed it, whispering words over and over, like a refrain. "Why doesn't something happen? Why am I left here alone?" she muttered. Although she sometimes thought of Ned Currie, she no longer depended on him. Her desire had grown vague. She did not want Ned Currie or any other man. She wanted to be loved, to have something answer the call that was growing louder and louder within her. And then one night when it rained Alice had an adventure. It frightened and confused her. She had come home from the store at nine and found the house empty. Bush Milton had gone off to town and her mother to the house of a neighbor. Alice went upstairs to her room and undressed in the darkness. For a moment she stood by the window hearing the rain beat against the glass and then a strange desire took possession of her. Without stopping to think of what she intended to do, she ran downstairs through the dark house and out into the rain. As she stood on the little grass plot before the house and felt the cold rain on her body a mad desire to run naked through the streets took possession of her. She thought that the rain would have some creative and wonderful effect on her body. Not for years had she felt so full of youth and courage. She wanted to leap and run, to cry out, to find some other lonely human and embrace him. On the brick sidewalk before the house a man stumbled homeward. Alice started to run. A wild, desperate mood took possession of her. "What do I care who it is. He is alone, and I will go to him," she thought; and then without stopping to consider the possible result of her madness, called softly. "Wait!" she cried. "Don't go away. Whoever you are, you must wait." The man on the sidewalk stopped and stood listening. He was an old man and somewhat deaf. Putting his hand to his mouth, he shouted. "What? What say?" he called. Alice dropped to the ground and lay trembling. She was so frightened at the thought of what she had done that when the man had gone on his way she did not dare get to her feet, but crawled on hands and knees through the grass to the house. When she got to her own room she bolted the door and drew her dressing table across the doorway. Her body shook as with a chill and her hands trembled so that she had difficulty getting into her nightdress. When she got into bed she buried her face in the pillow and wept brokenheartedly. "What is the matter with me? I will do something dreadful if I am not careful," she thought, and turning her face to the wall, began trying to force herself to face bravely the fact that many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg. Können Sie eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Alice Hindman, eine 27-jährige Frau, hat ihr ganzes Leben in Winesburg verbracht und arbeitet als Angestellte in Winney's Trockenwarenladen. Als sie sechzehn Jahre alt ist, hat sie eine Affäre mit Ned Currie. Aber Ned hat Winesburg verlassen, um sein Glück in der Stadt zu versuchen. Bevor er geht, verspricht er Alice, dass er zu ihr zurückkehren und sie mit sich nehmen werde. Doch im Laufe der Zeit, als er im Stadtleben gefangen ist, vergisst er sie völlig. Alice wartet in der Zwischenzeit weiter auf ihn und hält sich von jeglichem sozialen Kontakt fern. Sie betrachtet sich bereits als mit Ned verheiratet und lässt nach dem Tod ihres Vaters keinen Mann mehr an sich heran, als ihre Mutter wieder heiratet und Alice noch einsamer zurücklässt. Sie fängt an, Geld zu sparen, in der Hoffnung, dass es Ned und ihr einmal zugutekommen wird, wenn sie zusammen ein neues Leben beginnen. Allmählich jedoch erkennt Alice die Sinnlosigkeit ihrer Träume und Hoffnungen und geht sogar ein paar Mal mit Will Hurley, einem mittelalten Mann, aus. Doch ihr Herz ist nicht dabei und sie weist ihn bald ab. Im Alter von siebenundzwanzig Jahren hat Alice ein Abenteuer. Nachdem sie zu Hause angekommen ist, zieht sie sich im Dunkeln aus und ein seltsames Verlangen bemächtigt sich ihrer. Ohne weiter nachzudenken, rennt sie nackt die Treppe hinunter und beginnt, durch die Straßen in der kalten Nacht zu laufen. Als sie einen Mann in der Ferne sieht, übermannt sie ihr unerfülltes Verlangen und sie ruft ihn an. Glücklicherweise ist der Mann alt und taub, und Alice geschieht kein Leid. Aber später in ihrem eigenen Zimmer weint sie bitterlich und beschließt, ein Leben zu leben, das Alleinsein zu lernen und allein in Winesburg zu sterben.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Arkadische Einfachheit Neben diesen ehrlichen Leuten auf dem Gutshof (deren Einfachheit und süße ländliche Reinheit sicherlich den Vorteil eines Landlebens gegenüber einem Stadtleben zeigen) müssen wir den Leser auch mit ihren Verwandten und Nachbarn auf dem Pfarrhof, Bute Crawley und seiner Frau, bekannt machen. Der ehrwürdige Bute Crawley war ein großer, stattlicher, fröhlicher Mann mit Zylinder, der in seiner Grafschaft weitaus beliebter war als der Baronet, sein Bruder. An der Universität war er Steuermann im Ruderboot von Christ Church und hat alle besten Raufbolde der "Stadt" vermöbelt. Seine Vorliebe für Boxen und Leibesübungen brachte er auch in sein Privatleben ein; es gab keinen Kampf innerhalb von zwanzig Meilen, bei dem er nicht zugegen war, keine Rennen, keine Jagd, keine Regatta, keinen Ball, keine Wahl, keine Visitationsdinner, ja kein gutes Essen im ganzen Landkreis, dem er nicht beiwohnte. Man konnte sein braunes Pferd und seinen Kutschenlampe bereits von zwanzig Meilen Entfernung von seinem Pfarrhaus sehen, wann immer ein Essen im Fuddleston's oder im Roxby's oder im Wapshot Hall oder bei den großen Herren des Landkreises stattfand, mit denen er alle gut bekannt war. Er hatte eine schöne Stimme, sang "A southerly wind and a cloudy sky" und stieß den "Hurraruf" im Chor mit allgemeinem Beifall aus. Er ritt im Jagdsattel und war einer der besten Angler im Landkreis. Frau Crawley, die Frau des Pfarrers, war eine schlaue kleine Frau, die die Predigten dieses ehrenwerten Geistlichen schrieb. Da sie haushaltsbezogen war und viel Zeit mit ihren Töchtern zu Hause verbrachte, herrschte sie im Pfarrhaus uneingeschränkt, gewährte ihrem Ehemann jedoch volle Freiheit. Er konnte kommen und gehen, auswärts zu Abend essen, so viele Tage lang, wie ihm sein Geschmack diktieren mochte. Denn Frau Crawley war eine sparsame Frau und kannte den Preis von Portwein. Seit Frau Bute den jungen Pfarrer von Queen's Crawley abgeschleppt hatte (sie entstammte einer guten Familie, war die Tochter des verstorbenen Leutnants Colonel Hector McTavish und sie und ihre Mutter spielten für Bute und gewannen ihn bei Harrowgate), war sie eine vernünftige und sparsame Ehefrau für ihn gewesen. Trotz ihrer Sorgfalt geriet er jedoch immer in Schulden. Es dauerte mindestens zehn Jahre, um seine während des Lebens seines Vaters entstandenen Studienschulden zu begleichen. Im Jahr 179- bot er eine Quote von 100 zu 1 (in Zehnerpackungen) gegen Kangaroo an, der das Derby gewann. Der Pfarrer war gezwungen, das Geld zu ruinösen Zinsen aufzunehmen und hatte seitdem gekämpft. Seine Schwester half ihm hin und wieder mit einhundert Pfund, aber natürlich lag seine größte Hoffnung in ihrem Tod - dann würde sie ihm "verdammt noch mal" (wie er sagen würde), die Hälfte ihres Geldes hinterlassen. So hatten der Baronet und sein Bruder also jeden Grund, der uns möglicherweise gegeben sein könnte, sich gegenseitig anzufechten. Sir Pitt hatte Bute bei zahllosen familiären Transaktionen übervorteilt. Young Pitt jagte nicht nur nicht, sondern eröffnete einen Versammlungsort direkt unter der Nase seines Onkels. Es war bekannt, dass Rawdon den Großteil von Miss Crawleys Vermögen erben würde. Diese Geldtransaktionen, Spekulationen um Leben und Tod, stille Kämpfe um vererbbares Vermögen - das alles macht Brüder in Vanity Fair sehr liebevoll zueinander. Ich persönlich habe erlebt, wie ein Fünf-Pfund-Schein eine jahrzehntelange Verbundenheit zwischen zwei Brüdern zunichte machen kann und kann nicht anders, als zu bewundern, wie wunderbar und beständig die Liebe unter weltlichen Menschen ist. Es kann nicht angenommen werden, dass die Ankunft einer Persönlichkeit wie Rebecca in Queen's Crawley und ihre allmähliche Integration in die Gunst aller dortigen Menschen von Mrs. Bute Crawley unbemerkt blieb. Mrs. Bute, die wusste, wie viele Tage das Rinderfilet im Herrenhaus hielt, wie viel Wäsche bei der großen Wäsche vorbereitet wurde, wie viele Pfirsiche an der Südwand reiften, wie viele Dosen ihre Edelfrau einnahm, wenn sie krank war - denn diese Punkte sind für bestimmte Personen im Land von höchstem Interesse - konnte nicht an der Gouvernante des Herrenhauses vorbeigehen, ohne jede erforderliche Information über ihre Geschichte und ihren Charakter einzuholen. Es herrschte immer das beste Einvernehmen zwischen den Dienstboten des Pfarrhauses und des Herrenhauses. Im Küchenraum des ersteren befand sich immer ein gutes Glas Bier für die Leute vom Herrenhaus, deren üblicher Trunk sehr gering war. Und tatsächlich kannte die Ehefrau des Pfarrers genau die Menge Malz, die zur Herstellung jedes Fasses Bier des Herrenhauses verwendet wurde. Es bestanden Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse zwischen den Hausangestellten des Herrenhauses und des Pfarrhauses, wie zwischen ihren Herren und durch diese Kanäle war jede Familie mit dem Tun der anderen bestens vertraut. Nebenbei bemerkt, kann das als allgemeine Anmerkung angesehen werden. Wenn du und dein Bruder befreundet seid, sind dir seine Taten gleichgültig. Wenn ihr euch gestritten habt, kennst du alle seine Ein- und Ausgänge, als ob du sein Spion wärst. Sehr bald nach ihrer Ankunft begann Rebecca einen festen Platz in Mrs. Crawleys Nachrichten aus dem Herrenhaus einzunehmen. Diese lauteten wie folgt: "Das schwarze Schwein ist geschlachtet - wog x Steine - Seiten gesalzen - Schweinswurst und Schweinekeule zum Mittagessen. Mr. Cramp von Mudbury war bei Sir Pitt, um John Blackmore ins Gefängnis zu stecken - Mr. Pitt beim Treffen (mit allen Namen der Anwesenden) - meine Frau wie üblich - die jungen Damen mit der Gouvernante." Dann kämen die Berichte - die neue Gouvernante sei eine seltene Haushälterin - Sir Pitt sei sehr entzückt über sie - Mr. Crawley auch - er lese ihr Schriften vor - "Was für ein verdorbenes Weib!" sagte die kleine, eifrige, aktive, schwarzgesichtige Mrs. Bute Crawley. Schließlich hieß es, die Gouvernante habe "alle um den Finger gewickelt" - sie schreibe Sir Pitts Briefe, erledige seine Geschäfte, führte die Haushaltsführung und hatte das Sagen im ganzen Haus, bei meiner Dame, Mr. Crawley, den Mädchen und allen - wogegen Mrs. Crawley erklärte, sie sei eine listige Närrin und habe schreckliche Absichten. So waren die Vorgänge im Herrenhaus der Hauptgesprächsstoff im Pfarrhaus und die hellen Augen von Mrs. Bute entdeckten alles, was in das Lager des Feindes vorging - alles und noch viel mehr. Mrs. Bute Crawley an Miss Pinkerton, The Mall, Chiswick. Pfarrhaus, Queen's Crawley, Dezember--. Meine liebe Dame, obwohl so viele Jahre seitdem ich von Ihrem erfreulichen und unschätzbaren Unterricht profitiert habe, vergangen sind, habe ich immer die liebste und verehrungsvollste Achtung für Miss Pinkerton und das liebenswerte Chiswick bewahrt. Ich hoffe, es geht Ihnen gut. Die Welt und die Bildung können es sich nicht leisten, Miss Pinkerton VIELE Sehr geehrte Frau, ich habe die Ehre, Ihren höflichen Brief zu erhalten und umgehend zu antworten. Es ist äußerst erfreulich für jemanden in meiner arbeitsreichen Position, zu bemerken, dass meine mütterlichen Fürsorgen eine erwiderte Zuneigung hervorgerufen haben, und in der liebenswürdigen Frau Bute Crawley meine ausgezeichnete Schülerin aus vergangenen Jahren zu erkennen. Es freut mich sehr, jetzt die Töchter vieler Ihrer Zeitgenossinnen in meiner Obhut zu haben. Welche Freude es mir bereiten würde, wenn Ihre eigenen geliebten jungen Damen meiner lehrreichen Aufsicht bedürfen sollten! Mit meinen respektvollen Grüßen an Lady Fuddleston habe ich die Ehre, meine beiden Freundinnen, Miss Tuffin und Miss Hawky, in epistolarischer Form bei ihr vorzustellen. Eine der beiden jungen Damen ist PERFEKT QUALIFIZIERT, um in Griechisch, Latein und den Grundzügen des Hebräischen zu unterrichten, in Mathematik und Geschichte, in Spanisch, Französisch, Italienisch und Geografie, in Musik, Gesang und Instrumental, in Tanz ohne Hilfe eines Lehrers sowie in den Grundlagen der Naturwissenschaften. Beide beherrschen den Umgang mit Globen. Zusätzlich kann Miss Tuffin, die Tochter des verstorbenen Reverend Thomas Tuffin (Mitglied des Corpus College, Cambridge), die syrische Sprache und die Grundlagen des Verfassungsgesetzes unterrichten. Da sie jedoch erst achtzehn Jahre alt ist und äußerst angenehm im Erscheinungsbild, könnte diese junge Dame vielleicht unerwünscht in Sir Huddleston Fuddlestons Familie sein. Miss Letitia Hawky hingegen ist nicht von angenehmer Erscheinung. Sie ist neunundzwanzig Jahre alt, ihr Gesicht ist stark von den Pocken gezeichnet. Sie humpelt, hat rote Haare und eine leichte Schielen. Beide Damen sind mit JEGLICHER MORALISCHER UND RELIGIÖSER TUGEND ausgestattet. Ihre Honorare sind natürlich angemessen zu ihren Fähigkeiten. Mit meinem aufrichtigen Respekt für Reverend Bute Crawley habe ich die Ehre zu sein, Sehr geehrte Frau, Ihre treueste und ergebene Dienerin, Barbara Pinkerton. P.S. Die Miss Sharp, von der Sie als Gouvernante von Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart., M.P., sprechen, war eine meiner Schülerinnen, und ich habe nichts gegen sie einzuwenden. Obwohl ihr Aussehen unangenehm ist, können wir die Eingriffe der Natur nicht kontrollieren. Und obwohl ihre Eltern unseriös waren (ihr Vater war ein Maler, mehrmals bankrott und ihre Mutter war, wie ich zu meinem Entsetzen erfahren habe, eine Tänzerin an der Oper), sind ihre Talente beträchtlich und ich bedauere es nicht, sie AUS BARMHERZIGKEIT aufgenommen zu haben. Mein Bedenken besteht darin, dass die Grundsätze der Mutter - die mir als eine französische Gräfin, gezwungen zur Emigration während der letzten revolutionären Schrecken, vorgestellt wurde, in Wirklichkeit aber eine Person von niedrigster Herkunft und Moral ist - sich als vererbbar erweisen könnten in der unglücklichen jungen Frau, die ich als VERSTOßENE aufgenommen habe. Aber ihre Grundsätze waren bisher korrekt (glaube ich) und ich bin sicher, dass nichts geschehen wird, um sie in den eleganten und raffinierten Kreisen des angesehenen Sir Pitt Crawley zu schädigen. Miss Rebecca Sharp an Miss Amelia Sedley. Ich habe meiner geliebten Amelia in den letzten Wochen nicht geschrieben, denn was für Neuigkeiten hätte ich über das Geschehen und Treiben im öden Herrenhaus, wie ich es getauft habe, erzählen sollen? Und was geht es dich an, ob die Steckrübenernte gut oder schlecht ist, ob das fette Schwein dreizehn oder vierzehn Steine gewogen hat und ob das Vieh gut gedeiht von der Mangelwurzel? Jeder Tag seit meinem letzten Brief gleicht dem anderen. Vor dem Frühstück ein Spaziergang mit Sir Pitt und seiner Grabungsgabel, nach dem Frühstück Lektionen (sofern man sie so nennen kann) im Klassenzimmer, nach dem Klassenzimmer Lesen und Schreiben über Anwälte, Pachtverträge, Kohleminen und Kanäle mit Sir Pitt (dessen Sekretärin ich geworden bin), nach dem Abendessen Herrn Crawleys Reden über Barons Backgammon, bei denen Lady Crawley mit gleichbleibender Gelassenheit zusieht. Seit Kurzem ist sie etwas interessanter geworden, denn sie ist krank und das hat einen neuen Besucher auf das Anwesen gebracht, und zwar einen jungen Arzt. Nun, meine Liebe, junge Frauen brauchen niemals verzweifeln. Der junge Arzt brachte einer gewissen Freundin von dir zum Ausdruck, dass, wenn sie Mrs. Glauber werden wollte, sie herzlich eingeladen sei, die Arztpraxis zu verschönern! Ich sagte ihm seine Frechheit, dass der vergoldete Mörser und Stößel bereits genug Verzierung seien. Als ob ich dazu geboren wäre, in der Tat, die Frau eines Landarztes zu sein! Herr Glauber kehrte ernsthaft gekränkt nach Hause zurück, nahm einen kühlenden Trank und ist nun völlig geheilt. Sir Pitt hat meine Entschlossenheit sehr gelobt, er würde ungerne seine kleine Sekretärin verlieren, denke ich, und ich glaube der alte Unhold mag mich so sehr, wie es in seiner Natur liegt, jemanden zu mögen. Heiraten, wirklich! und einen Landapotheker noch dazu - Nein, nein, man kann alte Bindungen nicht so leicht vergessen, über die ich nicht mehr sprechen werde. Lass uns zu Humdrum Hall zurückkehren. Seit einiger Zeit ist es nicht mehr Humdrum Hall. Meine liebe Miss Crawley ist mit ihren fetten Pferden, fetten Bediensteten und fetten Spaniel angekommen - die reiche, große Miss Crawley, mit siebzigtausend Pfund in den Fünfprozentigen, von denen ihre beiden Brüder schwärmen oder besser gesagt, DIE ihre beiden Brüder anbeten. Sie sieht sehr apoplektisch aus, die liebe Seele; kein Wunder, dass ihre Brüder sich Sorgen um sie machen. Ihr solltet sehen, wie sie sich abmühen, ihre Kissen zu arrangieren oder ihr Kaffee zu reichen! "Wenn ich ins Land komme", sagt sie (sie hat viel Humor), "lasse ich meine Schleimerin, Miss Briggs, zu Hause. Hier sind meine Brüder meine Schleimer, meine Liebe, und ein hübsches Paar sind sie!" Wenn sie aufs Land kommt, wird unser Hof eröffnet und für mindestens einen Monat würdet ihr denken, dass der alte Sir Walpole wieder zum Leben erwacht ist. Wir haben Dinnerpartys und fahren mit der Kutsche und den vier Pferden aus - die Bediensteten tragen ihre neuesten kanariengelben Livreen; wir trinken Claret und Champagner, als wären wir daran jeden Tag gewöhnt. Wir haben Wachslichter im Klassenzimmer und Feuer, um uns zu wärmen. Lady Crawley wird gezwungen, das leuchtendste Erbsengrün aus ihrem Kleiderschrank anzuziehen, und meine Schülerinnen ziehen ihre festen Schuhe und engen alten Karomäntel aus und tragen Seidenstrümpfe und Musselinröcke, wie es sich für Töchter vornehmer Barone gehört. Rose kam gestern in einem traurigen Zustand herein - das Wiltshire-Schwein (ein riesiges Haustier von ihr) rannte auf sie zu und zerstörte ein wunderschönes lilafarbenes Seidenkleid mit Blumenmuster, indem es darüber tanzte. Wenn das vor einer Woche passiert wäre, hätte Sir Pitt furchtbar geschimpft, das arme Ding übers Ohr gehauen und einen Monat lang auf Brot und Wasser gesetzt. Alles, was er sagte, war: "Ich werde Unsere Predigtbücher werden zugeklappt, wenn Miss Crawley kommt, und Herr Pitt, den sie verabscheut, findet es bequem, in die Stadt zu fahren. Andererseits erscheint der junge Dandy - "blutig", glaube ich, ist der Begriff - Captain Crawley, und ich nehme an, du möchtest wissen, was für eine Art Mensch er ist. Nun, er ist ein sehr großer junger Dandy. Er ist sechs Fuß hoch und spricht mit einer lauten Stimme; außerdem flucht er viel und gibt den Dienern Befehle, die ihn trotzdem alle verehren; denn er ist sehr großzügig mit seinem Geld und die Dienstboten werden alles für ihn tun. Letzte Woche haben die Jäger fast einen Gerichtsvollzieher und seinen Gehilfen, die aus London gekommen waren, um den Captain zu verhaften und die sich in der Nähe der Parkmauer versteckt hatten, fast getötet - sie haben sie verprügelt, tauchten sie unter Wasser und wollten sie erschießen, weil sie Wilderer waren, aber der Baronet hat eingegriffen. Der Captain hat eine herzliche Verachtung für seinen Vater, das kann ich sehen, und nennt ihn einen alten SPUT, einen alten SNOB, einen alten CHAW-BACON und unzählige andere hübsche Namen. Er hat einen furchtbaren Ruf bei den Damen. Er bringt seine Jäger mit nach Hause, lebt bei den Landadeligen der Grafschaft, lädt zum Essen ein, wen er will, und Sir Pitt traut sich nicht, nein zu sagen, aus Angst, Miss Crawley zu beleidigen und ihr Erbe zu verlieren, wenn sie an ihrer Gehirnerschütterung stirbt. Soll ich dir ein Kompliment erzählen, das der Captain mir gemacht hat? Ich muss, es ist so schön. Eines Abends hatten wir tatsächlich einen Tanz; da waren Sir Huddleston Fuddleston und seine Familie, Sir Giles Wapshot und seine jungen Damen und ich weiß nicht, wie viele mehr. Nun, ich hörte ihn sagen - "Beim Jupiter, sie ist ein hübsches kleines Fohlen!" und meinte damit deine ergebene Dienerin; und er hat mir die Ehre erwiesen, mit mir zwei Quadrillen zu tanzen. Mit den jungen Landadeligen kommt er ziemlich gut zurecht, mit denen er trinkt, wettet, reitet und über die Jagd und das Schießen spricht; aber er sagt, dass die Mädchen aus der Gegend langweilig sind; da hat er wohl nicht ganz unrecht. Du solltest den Verachtung sehen, mit der sie auf mich herabschauen! Wenn sie tanzen, setze ich mich brav hin und spiele das Klavier; aber neulich kam er ziemlich beschwipst aus dem Speisesaal und sah mich auf diese Weise beschäftigt und schwor laut, dass ich die beste Tänzerin im Raum sei, und schwor einen großen Eid, dass er die Geiger aus Mudbury kommen lassen würde. "Ich werde ein ländliches Menuett spielen", sagte Mrs. Bute Crawley sehr bereitwillig (sie ist eine kleine, schwarzhäutige alte Frau mit einem Turban, ziemlich krumm und mit sehr lebhaften Augen); und nachdem der Captain und deine arme kleine Rebecca einen Tanz zusammen aufgeführt hatten, hast du es kaum geglaubt, sie hat mir tatsächlich die Ehre erwiesen, meine Schritte zu loben! So etwas hat es noch nie gegeben; die stolze Mrs. Bute Crawley, eine Cousine ersten Grades des Earls von Tiptoff, die sich nicht herablässt, Lady Crawley zu besuchen, außer wenn ihre Schwester auf dem Land ist. Arme Lady Crawley! Während eines Großteils dieser Vergnügungen liegt sie im Obergeschoss und nimmt Pillen. Mrs. Bute hat plötzlich eine große Vorliebe für mich entwickelt. "Meine liebe Miss Sharp", sagt sie, "warum bringen Sie nicht Ihre Mädchen zum Pfarrhaus mit? - Ihre Cousinen werden sich so freuen, sie zu sehen." Ich weiß, was sie meint. Signor Clementi hat uns das Klavier nicht umsonst beigebracht; zu diesem Preis hofft Mrs. Bute, einen Privatlehrer für ihre Kinder zu bekommen. Ich kann ihre Pläne durchschauen, als ob sie sie mir erzählt hätte; aber ich werde hingehen, denn ich habe vor, mich angenehm zu machen - ist es nicht die Pflicht einer armen Gouvernante, die keinen Freund oder Beschützer auf dieser Welt hat? Die Frau des Rektors hat mir viele Komplimente über die Fortschritte meiner Schüler gemacht und wollte zweifellos mein Herz berühren - armes, einfaches Landmädchen! Als ob mir meine Schüler irgendetwas bedeuten würden! Dein indisches Musselin und dein rosa Seidenkleid sollen mir sehr gut stehen, liebe Amelia. Sie sind jetzt ziemlich abgetragen; aber du weißt, wir armen Mädchen können uns keine neuen Toiletten leisten. Glücklich, glücklich du! Du brauchst nur nach St. James's Street zu fahren und eine liebe Mutter, die dir alles gibt, was du verlangst. Leb wohl, liebste Freundin, Deine liebevolle Rebecca. P.S. - Ich wünschte, du könntest die Gesichter der Miss Blackbrooks (die Töchter von Admiral Blackbrook, mein Lieber) sehen, feine junge Damen mit Kleidern aus London, als Captain Rawdon ausgerechnet mich als Tanzpartnerin auswählte! Als Mrs. Bute Crawley (deren Machenschaften unsere findige Rebecca so schnell durchschaut hatte) von Miss Sharp das Versprechen eines Besuchs erhalten hatte, veranlasste sie die allmächtige Miss Crawley, den notwendigen Antrag bei Sir Pitt zu stellen, und die gutmütige alte Dame, die selbst gerne vergnügt war und alle um sich herum vergnügt und glücklich sehen wollte, war ganz begeistert und bereit, eine Versöhnung und Intimität zwischen ihren beiden Brüdern herzustellen. Es wurde daher vereinbart, dass die jungen Leute beider Familien sich in Zukunft oft besuchen sollten, und die Freundschaft hielt natürlich so lange an, wie die fröhliche alte Vermittlerin da war, um den Frieden zu bewahren. "Warum hast du diesen Schurken, Rawdon Crawley, zum Essen eingeladen?", sagte der Rektor zu seiner Frau, als sie auf dem Heimweg durch den Park gingen. "Ich möchte den Kerl nicht. Er sieht auf uns Landbewohner herab wie auf so viele Mohren. Er ist nie zufrieden, es sei denn, er bekommt meinen gelb versiegelten Wein, der mich zehn Schilling pro Flasche kostet, häng ihn auf! Außerdem ist er ein infernaler Charakter - er ist ein Spieler - er ist ein Trunkenbold - er ist in jeder Hinsicht ein Tunichtgut. Er hat einen Mann in einem Duell erschossen - er ist bis über beide Ohren verschuldet und hat mir und meinen Angehörigen den Großteil von Miss Crawleys Vermögen gestohlen. Waxy sagt, sie hat ihn" - hier schüttelte der Rektor mit etwas Ähnlichem wie einem Fluch die Faust gegen den Mond und fügte mit melancholischem Ton hinzu: "in ihrem Testament für fünfzigtausend stehen; und es wird höchstens dreißig zu teilen geben." "Ich glaube, sie geht", sagte die Frau des Rektors. "Sie hatte ein sehr rotes Gesicht, als wir vom Essen aufstanden. Ich musste sie auslösen." "Sie hat sieben Gläser Champagner getrunken", sagte der geistliche Herr leise, "und es ist schrecklicher Champagner, den mein Bruder uns mit Gift versorgt - aber ihr Frauen wisst nie, was Sache ist." "Wir wissen nichts", sagte Mrs. Bute Crawley. "Sie hat Kirschbranntwein nach dem Essen getrunken", fuhr sein Reverenz fort, "und Curaçao zum Kaffee genommen. Ich würde kein Glas dafür nehmen, wenn man mir fünf Pfund gibt: es verursacht mir Sodbrennen. Sie hält es nicht aus, Mrs. Crawley - sie muss gehen - Fleisch und Blut können es nicht ertragen! Und ich wette fünf zu zwei, dass Matilda in einem Jahr stirbt." Indem er in diesen feierlichen Spekulationen nachging und über seine Schulden und seinen So „Ich sage, er hat jede Sünde, Mrs. Crawley. Belästigen Sie mich nicht, Ma'am. Hat er nicht Captain Marker erschossen? Hat er nicht den jungen Lord Dovedale in der Cocoa-Tree ausgeraubt? Hat er nicht den Kampf zwischen Bill Soames and dem Cheshire Trump unterbrochen, bei dem ich 40 Pfund verloren habe? Sie wissen, dass er das getan hat; und was die Frauen betrifft, nun, Sie haben das vor mir gehört, in meinem eigenen Verhörraum.“ „Um Himmels willen, Mr. Crawley“, sagte die Dame, „ersparen Sie mir die Details.“ „Und Sie lassen diesen Schurken in Ihr Haus!“, fuhr der aufgebrachte Pfarrer fort. „Sie, die Mutter einer jungen Familie – die Ehefrau eines Geistlichen der Kirche von England. Donnerwetter!“ „Bute Crawley, du bist ein Narr“, sagte die Frau des Pfarrers verächtlich. „Nun, Ma'am, Narr oder nicht – und ich sage nicht, Martha, dass ich so schlau bin wie Sie, das habe ich nie behauptet. Aber ich werde Rawdon Crawley nicht treffen, das ist absolut sicher. Ich werde nach Huddleston gehen, das werde ich, und seinen schwarzen Windhund anschauen, Mrs. Crawley; und ich werde Lancelot gegen ihn antreten lassen, mit einem Einsatz von 50 Pfund. Donnerwetter, das werde ich tun; oder gegen irgendeinen Hund in England. Aber diesem Biest Rawdon Crawley werde ich nicht begegnen.“ „Mr. Crawley, Sie sind wie üblich betrunken“, erwiderte seine Ehefrau. Und am nächsten Morgen, als der Pfarrer aufwachte und nach schwachem Bier verlangte, erinnerte sie ihn an sein Versprechen, Sir Huddleston Fuddleston am Samstag zu besuchen, und da er wusste, dass er eine feuchte Nacht haben würde, wurde vereinbart, dass er rechtzeitig zum Gottesdienst am Sonntagmorgen wieder zurücksprengte. So war es also, dass die Gemeindemitglieder von Crawley sowohl mit ihrem Gutsherrn als auch mit ihrem Pfarrer gleichermaßen glücklich waren. Kaum hatte Miss Crawley sich im Herrenhaus niedergelassen, als Rebeccas Faszination das Herz dieses gutmütigen Londoner Lebemannes erobert hatte, genauso wie die der unschuldigen Landbewohner, von denen wir gesprochen haben. Eines Tages, während sie wie gewohnt spazieren fuhr, befahl sie, dass "die kleine Gouvernante" sie nach Mudbury begleiten solle. Bevor sie zurückkehrten, hatte Rebecca sie erobert; sie hatte sie viermal zum Lachen gebracht und sie die ganze Reise über unterhalten. "Lassen Sie Miss Sharp nicht am Tisch speisen!", sagte sie zu Sir Pitt, der ein förmliches Abendessen arrangiert hatte und alle benachbarten Baronets eingeladen hatte. "Mein liebes Geschöpf, meinen Sie, ich kann mit Lady Fuddleston über die Kinderstube plaudern oder mit diesem Dummkopf, dem alten Sir Giles Wapshot, über Justizangelegenheiten sprechen? Ich bestehe darauf, dass Miss Sharp erscheint. Wenn kein Platz ist, soll Lady Crawley oben bleiben. Aber die kleine Miss Sharp! Nun, sie ist die einzige Person im ganzen Land, mit der man reden kann!" Natürlich erhielt die Gouvernante, Miss Sharp, nach einer so entschiedenen Anordnung Befehl, mit der vornehmen Gesellschaft im Speisesaal zu speisen. Und als Sir Huddleston Miss Crawley mit großem Pomp und Zeremonie in den Speisesaal geführt hatte und sich darauf vorbereitete, neben ihr Platz zu nehmen, rief die alte Dame mit schriller Stimme: "Becky Sharp! Miss Sharp! Komm her und setz dich zu mir und amüsiere mich; und lass Sir Huddleston neben Lady Wapshot sitzen." Nachdem die Veranstaltungen vorbei waren und die Kutschen davongerollt waren, sagte die unersättliche Miss Crawley: "Komm mit mir in mein Ankleidezimmer, Becky, und lass uns über die Gesellschaft lästern" - was dieses Paar von Freunden dann auch vollkommen tat. Der alte Sir Huddleston hechelte während des Abendessens viel; Sir Giles Wapshot hatte eine besonders laute Art, seine Suppe zu trinken, und ihre Ladyship zwinkerte mit dem linken Auge. All dies karikierte Becky auf wunderbare Weise, genauso wie die Einzelheiten der nächtlichen Gespräche: die Politik, den Krieg, die Gerichtssitzungen, die berühmte Hetzjagd mit der H.H. und diese schwerfälligen und langweiligen Themen, über die Landbesitzer sich unterhalten. Was die Toiletten der Misses Wapshot und den berühmten gelben Hut von Lady Fuddleston betrifft, zerriss Miss Sharp sie in Fetzen, zum unendlichen Vergnügen ihres Publikums. "Mein Liebling, du bist eine absolute Trouvaille", sagte Miss Crawley. "Ich wünschte, du könntest zu mir nach London kommen, aber ich könnte mich nicht über dich lustig machen, so wie ich es bei der armen Briggs tue - nein, nein, du kleine listige Kreatur, du bist zu clever - Ist sie nicht, Firkin?" Mrs. Firkin (die das winzige Überbleibsel von Haaren, das Miss Crawley noch hatte, zurechtmachte), hob den Kopf und sagte mit dem unterkühltesten sarkastischen Ton: "Ich finde, Miss ist sehr clever." In der Tat hatte Mrs. Firkin den natürlichen Neid, der eines der Hauptprinzipien einer jeden ehrlichen Frau ist. Nachdem er Sir Huddleston Fuddleston abgewiesen hatte, ordnete Miss Crawley an, dass Rawdon Crawley sie jeden Tag zum Abendessen führen sollte, und dass Becky ihr mit ihrem Kissen folgen sollte – oder Becky sollte ihren Arm geben und Rawdon das Kissen tragen. "Wir müssen zusammen sitzen", sagte sie. "Wir sind die einzigen drei Christen in der Grafschaft, mein Liebling" – in diesem Fall muss man jedoch zugeben, dass die Religion in der Grafschaft Hants auf einem sehr niedrigen Niveau stand. Neben ihrer Vorliebe für Religion war Miss Crawley, wie gesagt, in ihren Ansichten ein Ultra-Liberaler und nutzte immer wieder Gelegenheiten, dies auf die offenste Weise auszudrücken. "Was ist Geburt, mein Liebes!", sagte sie zu Rebecca. "Schauen Sie sich meinen Bruder Pitt an; schauen Sie sich die Huddlestons an, die hier seit Heinrich II sind; schauen Sie sich den armen Bute im Pfarrhaus an – ist einer von ihnen Ihnen in Intelligenz oder Bildung ebenbürtig? Ihnen ebenbürtig – sie sind nicht einmal Briggs, meiner Begleiterin oder Bowls, meinem Butler, ebenbürtig. Sie, mein Liebes, sind ein kleines Paradies – wirklich ein kleiner Schatz – Sie haben mehr Verstand als die Hälfte des Bezirks – wenn das Können belohnt würde, sollten Sie eine Herzogin sein – nein, es sollten überhaupt keine Herzoginnen geben – aber Sie sollten keinen Vorgesetzten haben, und ich betrachte Sie, mein Liebes, in jeder Hinsicht als ebenbürtig zu mir; und – würden Sie bitte etwas Kohle ins Feuer legen, mein Liebes; und könnten Sie mein Kleid hier ein wenig zurechtmachen, Sie können das so gut, nicht wahr?" So ließ diese alte Philanthropin Rebecca ihre Erledigungen erledigen, ihre Schneiderarbeiten durchführen und sie jede Nacht mit französischen Romanen ins Schlafzimmer begleiten. Zu dieser Zeit, wie sich vielleicht manche alte Leser erinnern, war die vornehme Welt durch zwei Ereignisse in erhebliche Aufregung versetzt worden, die, wie die Zeitungen sagen, möglicherweise die Herren der Rechtswissenschaft beschäftigen könnten. Corporal Shafton war mit Lady Barbara Fitzurse, der Tochter und Erbin des Earl of Bruin, durchgebrannt; und der arme Vere Vane, ein Herr, der bis zum Alter von vierzig eine sehr anständige Lebensführung hatte und eine zahlreiche Familie großgezogen hatte, hatte sein Zuhause plötzlich und skandalös verlassen, wegen Mrs. Rougemont, der Schauspielerin, die fünfundse Als Fräulein Rebecca Sharp ihrem geliebten Freund von dem kleinen Ball in Queen's Crawley und der Art und Weise, wie Captain Crawley sie zum ersten Mal beachtet hatte, schrieb, gab sie, seltsam genug, keine ganz genaue Beschreibung des Ereignisses. Der Captain hatte sie schon etliche Male zuvor beachtet. Der Captain hatte sie bei einem Dutzend Spaziergängen getroffen. Der Captain war ihr in etlichen Korridoren und Gängen begegnet. Der Captain hatte sich an ihrem Klavier niedergelassen, wenn Miss Sharp sang. Der Captain hatte ihr Notizen geschrieben (die besten, die der tollpatschige Dragoner zustande bringen konnte, aber Dummheit kommt bei Frauen genauso gut an wie jede andere Eigenschaft). Als er jedoch den ersten Brief in den Seiten des Liedes, das sie sang, versteckte, hob die kleine Gouvernante den dreieckigen Brief zierlich auf, wedelte damit herum, als wäre es ein Dreispitz und ging auf den Feind zu. Sie warf den Brief ins Feuer, verbeugte sich tief vor ihm, kehrte an ihren Platz zurück und sang fröhlicher denn je. "Was ist das?", fragte Miss Crawley, die aus ihrem Nachmittagsschlaf aufschreckte, weil die Musik aufgehört hatte. "Das war eine falsche Note", sagte Miss Sharp lachend und Rawdon Crawley kochte vor Wut und Erniedrigung. Es war schön, dass Frau Bute Crawley die eindeutige Sympathie von Miss Crawley für die neue Gouvernante erkannte, nicht eifersüchtig war und die junge Dame im Pfarrhaus willkommen hieß – nicht nur sie, sondern auch Rawdon Crawley, den Rivalen ihres Mannes um die fünf Prozent von Fräulein Crawley. Sie wurden sehr gute Freunde, Frau Crawley und ihr Neffe. Er gab die Jagd auf; er lehnte Einladungen nach Fuddleston ab. Er speiste nicht mit der Truppe im Stützpunkt in Mudbury. Er ging lieber ins Pfarrhaus von Crawley – wo Miss Crawley ebenfalls hinkam. Und da ihre Mutter krank war, warum sollten nicht auch die Kinder mit Miss Sharp mitkommen? Also kamen die Kinder (kleine Lieblinge!) mit Miss Sharp und abends machten sich einige aus der Gruppe zusammen auf den Heimweg. Nicht Miss Crawley – sie bevorzugte ihren Wagen. Aber der Spaziergang über die Felder des Pfarrhauses, durch das kleine Parktor und durch den dunklen Wald, und dann die karierte Allee hoch nach Queen's Crawley, war im Mondschein für zwei solche Liebhaber des Pittoresken wie den Captain und Miss Rebecca bezaubernd. "Oh, diese Sterne, diese Sterne!", sagte Miss Rebecca und hob ihre funkelnden grünen Augen zu ihnen empor. "Ich fühle mich fast wie ein Geist, wenn ich sie betrachte." "Oh - ja - verdammt - ja, das geht mir ganz genauso, Miss Sharp", antwortete der andere Enthusiast. "Macht es Ihnen etwas aus, wenn ich rauche, Miss Sharp?" Miss Sharp liebte den Geruch einer Zigarre im Freien mehr als alles andere auf der Welt - und sie kostete auch eine, auf die reizendste Weise möglich und blies einen kleinen Rauchstoß aus und kreischte und kicherte ein bisschen und reichte die Zigarre dem Captain zurück, der seinen Schnurrbart drehte und ihn in Brand setzte. Die Zigarre leuchtete in der dunklen Pflanzung ganz rot und er schwor: "Jove - aw - Gad - das ist die beste Zigarre, die ich je geraucht habe, aw", denn sein Geist und seine Unterhaltung waren gleichermaßen brillant und passten zu einem schweren jungen Dragoner. Sir Pitt, der gerade an seinem Pfeifchen und Bier saß und mit John Horrocks über ein "Schiff" redete, das getötet werden sollte, entdeckte das Paar so beschäftigt vom Fenster seines Arbeitszimmers aus und schwor mit fürchterlichen Flüchen, dass er Rawdon nehmen und wie einen Schurken vor die Tür setzen würde, wenn es nicht um Miss Crawley ginge. "Er ist ein Bösewicht, das steht fest", bemerkte Mr. Horrocks. "Und sein Diener Flethers ist noch schlimmer und hat in der Haushälterei wegen des Essens und des Bier einen solchen Lärm gemacht, wie kein Lord es tun würde - aber ich glaube, Miss Sharp ist ihm gewachsen, Sir Pitt", fügte er nach einer Pause hinzu. Und das war sie wirklich – sowohl dem Vater als auch dem Sohn gegenüber. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

OK, jetzt ein wenig über die andere Seite der Familie - Sir Pitt und Miss Crawleys jüngerer Bruder Bute Crawley, der ein Minister ist. Und was für ein Minister! Er mag Trinken, Glücksspiel, Jagd und Essen gehen. Seine Frau schreibt all seine Predigten und versucht, mit seinen Glücksspielschulden umzugehen. Er wartet im Grunde darauf, dass seine Schwester, Miss Crawley, stirbt und ihm ihr Geld hinterlässt. Da Sir Pitt dasselbe hofft, kannst du dir vorstellen, wie freundlich sie miteinander sind. Frau Bute besticht natürlich alle Diener von Queen's Crawley, um herauszufinden, was dort vor sich geht. Sie erfährt bald von Becky und wie gut sie mit allen auskommt. Das macht Frau Bute Sorgen - höchstwahrscheinlich befürchtet sie, dass Sir Pitt Becky heiraten wird. Frau Bute schreibt einen Brief an Miss Pinkerton. Es stellt sich heraus, dass Frau Bute auch Pinkertons Schule besucht hat und etwas über diese neue Gouvernante erfahren möchte. Miss Pinkerton sendet eine super passiv-aggressive Notiz zurück, in der sie über Beckys niedrige Herkunft spricht und im Grunde andeutet, dass Becky selbst wahrscheinlich nur zwei Schritte von einer Prostituierten entfernt ist. In der Zwischenzeit schreibt Becky Amelia einen weiteren Brief mit Neuigkeiten und Abenteuern: Lady Crawley war krank und ihr Arzt hat Becky einen Heiratsantrag gemacht. Becky hat ihn ziemlich wütend abgelehnt - "als ob ich tatsächlich dazu geboren wurde, die Frau eines Landchirurgen zu sein!" . Zur gleichen Zeit kommt Miss Crawley, die reiche Schwester von Sir Pitt, zu Besuch. Sie ist wirklich ein Charakter: Sie isst und trinkt übermäßig und ist es gewohnt, wegen ihres Geldes verwöhnt zu werden. Wenn sie zu Besuch ist, geben sich Sir Pitt und Bute vor, gut auszukommen. Mr. Pitt, der prüde ist, fährt nach London und Rawdon kommt in die Stadt. Becky erzählt Amelia, dass Rawdon ihr ein Kompliment gemacht hat. Als er sie tanzen sah, sagte er: "Bei Jove, sie ist ein hübsches kleines Fohlen!" . Er ist ein echter Charmeur. Nachdem der Brief endet, sagt uns der Erzähler, dass Rawdon und Becky eine kleine Schwärmerei haben. Sie hat sogar an seiner Zigarre gezogen und alles.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Chapter XXX. The Inventory of M. de Beaufort. To have talked of D'Artagnan with Planchet, to have seen Planchet quit Paris to bury himself in his country retreat, had been for Athos and his son like a last farewell to the noise of the capital--to their life of former days. What, in fact, did these men leave behind them--one of whom had exhausted the past age in glory, and the other, the present age in misfortune? Evidently neither of them had anything to ask of his contemporaries. They had only to pay a visit to M. de Beaufort, and arrange with him the particulars of departure. The duke was lodged magnificently in Paris. He had one of those superb establishments pertaining to great fortunes, the like of which certain old men remembered to have seen in all their glory in the times of wasteful liberality of Henry III.'s reign. Then, really, several great nobles were richer than the king. They knew it, used it, and never deprived themselves of the pleasure of humiliating his royal majesty when they had an opportunity. It was this egotistical aristocracy Richelieu had constrained to contribute, with its blood, its purse, and its duties, to what was from his time styled the king's service. From Louis XI.--that terrible mower-down of the great--to Richelieu, how many families had raised their heads! How many, from Richelieu to Louis XIV., had bowed their heads, never to raise them again! But M. de Beaufort was born a prince, and of a blood which is not shed upon scaffolds, unless by the decree of peoples,--a prince who had kept up a grand style of living. How did he maintain his horses, his people, and his table? Nobody knew; himself less than others. Only there were then privileges for the sons of kings, to whom nobody refused to become a creditor, whether from respect or the persuasion that they would some day be paid. Athos and Raoul found the mansion of the duke in as much confusion as that of Planchet. The duke, likewise, was making his inventory; that is to say, he was distributing to his friends everything of value he had in his house. Owing nearly two millions--an enormous amount in those days--M. de Beaufort had calculated that he could not set out for Africa without a good round sum, and, in order to find that sum, he was distributing to his old creditors plate, arms, jewels, and furniture, which was more magnificent in selling it, and brought him back double. In fact, how could a man to whom ten thousand livres were owing, refuse to carry away a present worth six thousand, enhanced in estimation from having belonged to a descendant of Henry IV.? And how, after having carried away that present, could he refuse ten thousand livres more to this generous noble? This, then, was what had happened. The duke had no longer a dwelling-house--that had become useless to an admiral whose place of residence is his ship; he had no longer need of superfluous arms, when he was placed amidst his cannons; no more jewels, which the sea might rob him of; but he had three or four hundred thousand crowns fresh in his coffers. And throughout the house there was a joyous movement of people who believed they were plundering monseigneur. The prince had, in a supreme degree, the art of making happy the creditors most to be pitied. Every distressed man, every empty purse, found in him patience and sympathy for his position. To some he said, "I wish I had what _you_ have; I would give it you." And to others, "I have but this silver ewer; it is worth at least five hundred livres,--take it." The effect of which was--so truly is courtesy a current payment--that the prince constantly found means to renew his creditors. This time he used no ceremony; it might be called a general pillage. He gave up everything. The Oriental fable of the poor Arab who carried away from the pillage of palace a kettle at the bottom of which was concealed a bag of gold, and whom everybody allowed to pass without jealousy,--this fable had become a truth in the prince's mansion. Many contractors paid themselves upon the offices of the duke. Thus, the provision department, who plundered the clothes-presses and the harness-rooms, attached very little value to things which tailors and saddlers set great store by. Anxious to carry home to their wives presents given them by monseigneur, many were seen bounding joyously along, under the weight of earthen jars and bottles, gloriously stamped with the arms of the prince. M. de Beaufort finished by giving away his horses and the hay from his lofts. He made more than thirty happy with kitchen utensils; and thirty more with the contents of his cellar. Still further; all these people went away with the conviction that M. de Beaufort only acted in this manner to prepare for a new fortune concealed beneath the Arabs' tents. They repeated to each other, while pillaging his hotel, that he was sent to Gigelli by the king to reconstruct his lost fortunes; that the treasures of Africa would be equally divided between the admiral and the king of France; that these treasures consisted in mines of diamonds, or other fabulous stones; the gold and silver mines of Mount Atlas did not even obtain the honor of being named. In addition to the mines to be worked--which could not be begun till after the campaign--there would be the booty made by the army. M. de Beaufort would lay his hands on all the riches pirates had robbed Christendom of since the battle of Lepanto. The number of millions from these sources defied calculation. Why, then, should he, who was going in quest of such treasure, set any store by the poor utensils of his past life? And reciprocally, why should they spare the property of him who spared it so little himself? Such was the position of affairs. Athos, with his piercing practiced glance, saw what was going on at once. He found the admiral of France a little exalted, for he was rising from a table of fifty covers, at which the guests had drunk long and deeply to the prosperity of the expedition; at the conclusion of which repast, the remains, with the dessert, had been given to the servants, and the empty dishes and plates to the curious. The prince was intoxicated with his ruin and his popularity at one and the same time. He had drunk his old wine to the health of his wine of the future. When he saw Athos and Raoul: "There is my aide-de-camp being brought to me!" he cried. "Come hither, comte; come hither, vicomte." Athos tried to find a passage through the heaps of linen and plate. "Ah! step over, step over!" said the duke, offering a full glass to Athos. The latter drank it; Raoul scarcely moistened his lips. "Here is your commission," said the prince to Raoul. "I had prepared it, reckoning upon you. You will go before me as far as Antibes." "Yes, monseigneur." "Here is the order." And De Beaufort gave Raoul the order. "Do you know anything of the sea?" "Yes, monseigneur; I have traveled with M. le Prince." "That is well. All these barges and lighters must be in attendance to form an escort and carry my provisions. The army must be prepared to embark in a fortnight at the very latest." "That shall be done, monseigneur." "The present order gives you the right to visit and search all the isles along the coast; you will there make the enrolments and levies you may want for me." "Yes, monsieur le duc." "And you are an active man, and will work freely, you will spend much money." "I hope not, monseigneur." "But I am sure you will. My intendant has prepared the orders of a thousand livres, drawn upon the cities of the south; he will give you a hundred of them. Now, dear vicomte, be gone." Athos interrupted the prince. "Keep your money, monseigneur; war is to be waged among the Arabs with gold as well as lead." "I wish to try the contrary," replied the duke; "and then you are acquainted with my ideas upon the expedition--plenty of noise, plenty of fire, and, if so it must be, I shall disappear in the smoke." Having spoken thus, M. de Beaufort began to laugh; but his mirth was not reciprocated by Athos and Raoul. He perceived this at once. "Ah," said he, with the courteous egotism of his rank and age, "you are such people as a man should not see after dinner; you are cold, stiff, and dry when I am all fire, suppleness, and wine. No, devil take me! I should always see you fasting, vicomte, and you, comte, if you wear such a face as that, you shall see me no more." He said this, pressing the hand of Athos, who replied with a smile, "Monseigneur, do not talk so grandly because you happen to have plenty of money. I predict that within a month you will be dry, stiff, and cold, in presence of your strong-box, and that then, having Raoul at your elbow, fasting, you will be surprised to see him gay, animated, and generous, because he will have some new crowns to offer you." "God grant it may be so!" cried the delighted duke. "Comte, stay with me!" "No, I shall go with Raoul; the mission with which you charge him is a troublesome and difficult one. Alone it would be too much for him to execute. You do not observe, monseigneur, you have given him command of the first order." "Bah!" "And in your naval arrangements, too." "That may be true. But one finds that such fine young fellows as your son generally do all that is required of them." "Monseigneur, I believe you will find nowhere so much zeal and intelligence, so much real bravery, as in Raoul; but if he failed to arrange your embarkation, you would only meet the fate that you deserve." "Humph! you are scolding me, then." "Monseigneur, to provision a fleet, to assemble a flotilla, to enroll your maritime force, would take an admiral a year. Raoul is a cavalry officer, and you allow him a fortnight!" "I tell you he will do it." "He may; but I will go and help him." "To be sure you will; I reckoned upon you, and still further believe that when we are once at Toulon you will not let him depart alone." "Oh!" said Athos, shaking his head. "Patience! patience!" "Monseigneur, permit us to take our leave." "Begone, then, and may my good luck attend you." "Adieu! monseigneur; and may your own good luck attend you likewise." "Here is an expedition admirably commenced!" said Athos to his son. "No provisions--no store flotilla! What can be done, thus?" "Humph!" murmured Raoul; "if all are going to do as I am, provisions will not be wanted." "Monsieur," replied Athos, sternly, "do not be unjust and senseless in your egotism, or your grief, whichever you please to call it. If you set out for this war solely with the intention of getting killed therein, you stand in need of nobody, and it was scarcely worth while to recommend you to M. de Beaufort. But when you have been introduced to the prime commandant--when you have accepted the responsibility of a post in his army, the question is no longer about _you_, but about all those poor soldiers, who, as well as you, have hearts and bodies, who will weep for their country and endure all the necessities of their condition. Remember, Raoul, that officers are ministers as useful to the world as priests, and that they ought to have more charity." "Monsieur, I know it and have practiced it; I would have continued to do so still, but--" "You forget also that you are of a country that is proud of its military glory; go and die if you like, but do not die without honor and without advantage to France. Cheer up, Raoul! do not let my words grieve you; I love you, and wish to see you perfect." "I love your reproaches, monsieur," said the young man, mildly; "they alone may cure me, because they prove to me that some one loves me still." "And now, Raoul, let us be off; the weather is so fine, the heavens so clear, those heavens which we always find above our heads, which you will see more clear still at Gigelli, and which will speak to you of me there, as they speak to me here of God." The two gentlemen, after having agreed on this point, talked over the wild freaks of the duke, convinced that France would be served in a very incomplete manner, as regarded both spirit and practice, in the ensuing expedition; and having summed up the ducal policy under the one word vanity, they set forward, in obedience rather to their will than destiny. The sacrifice was half accomplished. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben stehenden Absätze verfassen?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Der Erzähler bemerkt, dass sich von Planchet zu verabschieden, sowohl für Raoul als auch für Athos wie ein Abschied von Paris anfühlte. Ihre einzige verbleibende Angelegenheit besteht darin, die prächtige Residenz von M. de Beaufort zu besuchen und alle Details für die Abreise zu klären. Ähnlich wie Planchet erstellt M. de Beaufort ein Inventar all seiner Besitztümer. Es stellt sich heraus, dass er fast zwei Millionen schuldet, daher versucht er, all seine Besitztümer zu verkaufen und zu verschenken und dann noch mehr Geld zu leihen, um die Expedition nach Afrika zu finanzieren. M. de Beaufort heißt seine beiden Besucher willkommen und überreicht Raoul seine Kommission. Raoul wird vor M. de Beaufort nach Antibes abreisen. Raoul muss die Armee in zwei Wochen für den Einsatz vorbereiten. M. de Beaufort gibt Raoul einen Befehl, der ihm erlaubt, alle Inseln entlang der Küste zu durchsuchen und Soldaten anzuwerben. Vater und Sohn machen sich auf den Weg und sind sich einig, dass die ganze Expedition nur der Eitelkeit von M. de Beaufort dient.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: It came vividly to Selden on the Casino steps that Monte Carlo had, more than any other place he knew, the gift of accommodating itself to each man's humour. His own, at the moment, lent it a festive readiness of welcome that might well, in a disenchanted eye, have turned to paint and facility. So frank an appeal for participation--so outspoken a recognition of the holiday vein in human nature--struck refreshingly on a mind jaded by prolonged hard work in surroundings made for the discipline of the senses. As he surveyed the white square set in an exotic coquetry of architecture, the studied tropicality of the gardens, the groups loitering in the foreground against mauve mountains which suggested a sublime stage-setting forgotten in a hurried shifting of scenes--as he took in the whole outspread effect of light and leisure, he felt a movement of revulsion from the last few months of his life. The New York winter had presented an interminable perspective of snow-burdened days, reaching toward a spring of raw sunshine and furious air, when the ugliness of things rasped the eye as the gritty wind ground into the skin. Selden, immersed in his work, had told himself that external conditions did not matter to a man in his state, and that cold and ugliness were a good tonic for relaxed sensibilities. When an urgent case summoned him abroad to confer with a client in Paris, he broke reluctantly with the routine of the office; and it was only now that, having despatched his business, and slipped away for a week in the south, he began to feel the renewed zest of spectatorship that is the solace of those who take an objective interest in life. The multiplicity of its appeals--the perpetual surprise of its contrasts and resemblances! All these tricks and turns of the show were upon him with a spring as he descended the Casino steps and paused on the pavement at its doors. He had not been abroad for seven years--and what changes the renewed contact produced! If the central depths were untouched, hardly a pin-point of surface remained the same. And this was the very place to bring out the completeness of the renewal. The sublimities, the perpetuities, might have left him as he was: but this tent pitched for a day's revelry spread a roof of oblivion between himself and his fixed sky. It was mid-April, and one felt that the revelry had reached its climax and that the desultory groups in the square and gardens would soon dissolve and re-form in other scenes. Meanwhile the last moments of the performance seemed to gain an added brightness from the hovering threat of the curtain. The quality of the air, the exuberance of the flowers, the blue intensity of sea and sky, produced the effect of a closing TABLEAU, when all the lights are turned on at once. This impression was presently heightened by the way in which a consciously conspicuous group of people advanced to the middle front, and stood before Selden with the air of the chief performers gathered together by the exigencies of the final effect. Their appearance confirmed the impression that the show had been staged regardless of expense, and emphasized its resemblance to one of those "costume-plays" in which the protagonists walk through the passions without displacing a drapery. The ladies stood in unrelated attitudes calculated to isolate their effects, and the men hung about them as irrelevantly as stage heroes whose tailors are named in the programme. It was Selden himself who unwittingly fused the group by arresting the attention of one of its members. "Why, Mr. Selden!" Mrs. Fisher exclaimed in surprise; and with a gesture toward Mrs. Jack Stepney and Mrs. Wellington Bry, she added plaintively: "We're starving to death because we can't decide where to lunch." Welcomed into their group, and made the confidant of their difficulty, Selden learned with amusement that there were several places where one might miss something by not lunching, or forfeit something by lunching; so that eating actually became a minor consideration on the very spot consecrated to its rites. "Of course one gets the best things at the TERRASSE--but that looks as if one hadn't any other reason for being there: the Americans who don't know any one always rush for the best food. And the Duchess of Beltshire has taken up Becassin's lately," Mrs. Bry earnestly summed up. Mrs. Bry, to Mrs. Fisher's despair, had not progressed beyond the point of weighing her social alternatives in public. She could not acquire the air of doing things because she wanted to, and making her choice the final seal of their fitness. Mr. Bry, a short pale man, with a business face and leisure clothes, met the dilemma hilariously. "I guess the Duchess goes where it's cheapest, unless she can get her meal paid for. If you offered to blow her off at the TERRASSE she'd turn up fast enough." But Mrs. Jack Stepney interposed. "The Grand Dukes go to that little place at the Condamine. Lord Hubert says it's the only restaurant in Europe where they can cook peas." Lord Hubert Dacey, a slender shabby-looking man, with a charming worn smile, and the air of having spent his best years in piloting the wealthy to the right restaurant, assented with gentle emphasis: "It's quite that." "PEAS?" said Mr. Bry contemptuously. "Can they cook terrapin? It just shows," he continued, "what these European markets are, when a fellow can make a reputation cooking peas!" Jack Stepney intervened with authority. "I don't know that I quite agree with Dacey: there's a little hole in Paris, off the Quai Voltaire--but in any case, I can't advise the Condamine GARGOTE; at least not with ladies." Stepney, since his marriage, had thickened and grown prudish, as the Van Osburgh husbands were apt to do; but his wife, to his surprise and discomfiture, had developed an earth-shaking fastness of gait which left him trailing breathlessly in her wake. "That's where we'll go then!" she declared, with a heavy toss of her plumage. "I'm so tired of the TERRASSE: it's as dull as one of mother's dinners. And Lord Hubert has promised to tell us who all the awful people are at the other place--hasn't he, Carry? Now, Jack, don't look so solemn!" "Well," said Mrs. Bry, "all I want to know is who their dress-makers are." "No doubt Dacey can tell you that too," remarked Stepney, with an ironic intention which the other received with the light murmur, "I can at least FIND OUT, my dear fellow"; and Mrs. Bry having declared that she couldn't walk another step, the party hailed two or three of the light phaetons which hover attentively on the confines of the gardens, and rattled off in procession toward the Condamine. Their destination was one of the little restaurants overhanging the boulevard which dips steeply down from Monte Carlo to the low intermediate quarter along the quay. From the window in which they presently found themselves installed, they overlooked the intense blue curve of the harbour, set between the verdure of twin promontories: to the right, the cliff of Monaco, topped by the mediaeval silhouette of its church and castle, to the left the terraces and pinnacles of the gambling-house. Between the two, the waters of the bay were furrowed by a light coming and going of pleasure-craft, through which, just at the culminating moment of luncheon, the majestic advance of a great steam-yacht drew the company's attention from the peas. "By Jove, I believe that's the Dorsets back!" Stepney exclaimed; and Lord Hubert, dropping his single eye-glass, corroborated: "It's the Sabrina--yes." "So soon? They were to spend a month in Sicily," Mrs. Fisher observed. "I guess they feel as if they had: there's only one up-to-date hotel in the whole place," said Mr. Bry disparagingly. "It was Ned Silverton's idea--but poor Dorset and Lily Bart must have been horribly bored." Mrs. Fisher added in an undertone to Selden: "I do hope there hasn't been a row." "It's most awfully jolly having Miss Bart back," said Lord Hubert, in his mild deliberate voice; and Mrs. Bry added ingenuously: "I daresay the Duchess will dine with us, now that Lily's here." "The Duchess admires her immensely: I'm sure she'd be charmed to have it arranged," Lord Hubert agreed, with the professional promptness of the man accustomed to draw his profit from facilitating social contacts: Selden was struck by the businesslike change in his manner. "Lily has been a tremendous success here," Mrs. Fisher continued, still addressing herself confidentially to Selden. "She looks ten years younger--I never saw her so handsome. Lady Skiddaw took her everywhere in Cannes, and the Crown Princess of Macedonia had her to stop for a week at Cimiez. People say that was one reason why Bertha whisked the yacht off to Sicily: the Crown Princess didn't take much notice of her, and she couldn't bear to look on at Lily's triumph." Selden made no reply. He was vaguely aware that Miss Bart was cruising in the Mediterranean with the Dorsets, but it had not occurred to him that there was any chance of running across her on the Riviera, where the season was virtually at an end. As he leaned back, silently contemplating his filigree cup of Turkish coffee, he was trying to put some order in his thoughts, to tell himself how the news of her nearness was really affecting him. He had a personal detachment enabling him, even in moments of emotional high-pressure, to get a fairly clear view of his feelings, and he was sincerely surprised by the disturbance which the sight of the Sabrina had produced in him. He had reason to think that his three months of engrossing professional work, following on the sharp shock of his disillusionment, had cleared his mind of its sentimental vapours. The feeling he had nourished and given prominence to was one of thankfulness for his escape: he was like a traveller so grateful for rescue from a dangerous accident that at first he is hardly conscious of his bruises. Now he suddenly felt the latent ache, and realized that after all he had not come off unhurt. An hour later, at Mrs. Fisher's side in the Casino gardens, he was trying to find fresh reasons for forgetting the injury received in the contemplation of the peril avoided. The party had dispersed with the loitering indecision characteristic of social movements at Monte Carlo, where the whole place, and the long gilded hours of the day, seem to offer an infinity of ways of being idle. Lord Hubert Dacey had finally gone off in quest of the Duchess of Beltshire, charged by Mrs. Bry with the delicate negotiation of securing that lady's presence at dinner, the Stepneys had left for Nice in their motor-car, and Mr. Bry had departed to take his place in the pigeon shooting match which was at the moment engaging his highest faculties. Mrs. Bry, who had a tendency to grow red and stertorous after luncheon, had been judiciously prevailed upon by Carry Fisher to withdraw to her hotel for an hour's repose; and Selden and his companion were thus left to a stroll propitious to confidences. The stroll soon resolved itself into a tranquil session on a bench overhung with laurel and Banksian roses, from which they caught a dazzle of blue sea between marble balusters, and the fiery shafts of cactus-blossoms shooting meteor-like from the rock. The soft shade of their niche, and the adjacent glitter of the air, were conducive to an easy lounging mood, and to the smoking of many cigarettes; and Selden, yielding to these influences, suffered Mrs. Fisher to unfold to him the history of her recent experiences. She had come abroad with the Welly Brys at the moment when fashion flees the inclemency of the New York spring. The Brys, intoxicated by their first success, already thirsted for new kingdoms, and Mrs. Fisher, viewing the Riviera as an easy introduction to London society, had guided their course thither. She had affiliations of her own in every capital, and a facility for picking them up again after long absences; and the carefully disseminated rumour of the Brys' wealth had at once gathered about them a group of cosmopolitan pleasure-seekers. "But things are not going as well as I expected," Mrs. Fisher frankly admitted. "It's all very well to say that every body with money can get into society; but it would be truer to say that NEARLY everybody can. And the London market is so glutted with new Americans that, to succeed there now, they must be either very clever or awfully queer. The Brys are neither. HE would get on well enough if she'd let him alone; they like his slang and his brag and his blunders. But Louisa spoils it all by trying to repress him and put herself forward. If she'd be natural herself--fat and vulgar and bouncing--it would be all right; but as soon as she meets anybody smart she tries to be slender and queenly. She tried it with the Duchess of Beltshire and Lady Skiddaw, and they fled. I've done my best to make her see her mistake--I've said to her again and again: 'Just let yourself go, Louisa'; but she keeps up the humbug even with me--I believe she keeps on being queenly in her own room, with the door shut. "The worst of it is," Mrs. Fisher went on, "that she thinks it's all MY fault. When the Dorsets turned up here six weeks ago, and everybody began to make a fuss about Lily Bart, I could see Louisa thought that if she'd had Lily in tow instead of me she would have been hob-nobbing with all the royalties by this time. She doesn't realize that it's Lily's beauty that does it: Lord Hubert tells me Lily is thought even handsomer than when he knew her at Aix ten years ago. It seems she was tremendously admired there. An Italian Prince, rich and the real thing, wanted to marry her; but just at the critical moment a good-looking step-son turned up, and Lily was silly enough to flirt with him while her marriage-settlements with the step-father were being drawn up. Some people said the young man did it on purpose. You can fancy the scandal: there was an awful row between the men, and people began to look at Lily so queerly that Mrs. Peniston had to pack up and finish her cure elsewhere. Not that SHE ever understood: to this day she thinks that Aix didn't suit her, and mentions her having been sent there as proof of the incompetence of French doctors. That's Lily all over, you know: she works like a slave preparing the ground and sowing her seed; but the day she ought to be reaping the harvest she over-sleeps herself or goes off on a picnic." Mrs. Fisher paused and looked reflectively at the deep shimmer of sea between the cactus-flowers. "Sometimes," she added, "I think it's just flightiness--and sometimes I think it's because, at heart, she despises the things she's trying for. And it's the difficulty of deciding that makes her such an interesting study." She glanced tentatively at Selden's motionless profile, and resumed with a slight sigh: "Well, all I can say is, I wish she'd give ME some of her discarded opportunities. I wish we could change places now, for instance. She could make a very good thing out of the Brys if she managed them properly, and I should know just how to look after George Dorset while Bertha is reading Verlaine with Neddy Silverton." She met Selden's sound of protest with a sharp derisive glance. "Well, what's the use of mincing matters? We all know that's what Bertha brought her abroad for. When Bertha wants to have a good time she has to provide occupation for George. At first I thought Lily was going to play her cards well THIS time, but there are rumours that Bertha is jealous of her success here and at Cannes, and I shouldn't be surprised if there were a break any day. Lily's only safeguard is that Bertha needs her badly--oh, very badly. The Silverton affair is in the acute stage: it's necessary that George's attention should be pretty continuously distracted. And I'm bound to say Lily DOES distract it: I believe he'd marry her tomorrow if he found out there was anything wrong with Bertha. But you know him--he's as blind as he's jealous; and of course Lily's present business is to keep him blind. A clever woman might know just the right moment to tear off the bandage: but Lily isn't clever in that way, and when George does open his eyes she'll probably contrive not to be in his line of vision." Selden tossed away his cigarette. "By Jove--it's time for my train," he exclaimed, with a glance at his watch; adding, in reply to Mrs. Fisher's surprised comment--"Why, I thought of course you were at Monte!"--a murmured word to the effect that he was making Nice his head-quarters. "The worst of it is, she snubs the Brys now," he heard irrelevantly flung after him. Ten minutes later, in the high-perched bedroom of an hotel overlooking the Casino, he was tossing his effects into a couple of gaping portmanteaux, while the porter waited outside to transport them to the cab at the door. It took but a brief plunge down the steep white road to the station to land him safely in the afternoon express for Nice; and not till he was installed in the corner of an empty carriage, did he exclaim to himself, with a reaction of self-contempt: "What the deuce am I running away from?" The pertinence of the question checked Selden's fugitive impulse before the train had started. It was ridiculous to be flying like an emotional coward from an infatuation his reason had conquered. He had instructed his bankers to forward some important business letters to Nice, and at Nice he would quietly await them. He was already annoyed with himself for having left Monte Carlo, where he had intended to pass the week which remained to him before sailing; but it would now be difficult to return on his steps without an appearance of inconsistency from which his pride recoiled. In his inmost heart he was not sorry to put himself beyond the probability of meeting Miss Bart. Completely as he had detached himself from her, he could not yet regard her merely as a social instance; and viewed in a more personal ways she was not likely to be a reassuring object of study. Chance encounters, or even the repeated mention of her name, would send his thoughts back into grooves from which he had resolutely detached them; whereas, if she could be entirely excluded from his life, the pressure of new and varied impressions, with which no thought of her was connected, would soon complete the work of separation. Mrs. Fisher's conversation had, indeed, operated to that end; but the treatment was too painful to be voluntarily chosen while milder remedies were untried; and Selden thought he could trust himself to return gradually to a reasonable view of Miss Bart, if only he did not see her. Having reached the station early, he had arrived at this point in his reflections before the increasing throng on the platform warned him that he could not hope to preserve his privacy; the next moment there was a hand on the door, and he turned to confront the very face he was fleeing. Miss Bart, glowing with the haste of a precipitate descent upon the train, headed a group composed of the Dorsets, young Silverton and Lord Hubert Dacey, who had barely time to spring into the carriage, and envelop Selden in ejaculations of surprise and welcome, before the whistle of departure sounded. The party, it appeared, were hastening to Nice in response to a sudden summons to dine with the Duchess of Beltshire and to see the water-fete in the bay; a plan evidently improvised--in spite of Lord Hubert's protesting "Oh, I say, you know,"--for the express purpose of defeating Mrs. Bry's endeavour to capture the Duchess. During the laughing relation of this manoeuvre, Selden had time for a rapid impression of Miss Bart, who had seated herself opposite to him in the golden afternoon light. Scarcely three months had elapsed since he had parted from her on the threshold of the Brys' conservatory; but a subtle change had passed over the quality of her beauty. Then it had had a transparency through which the fluctuations of the spirit were sometimes tragically visible; now its impenetrable surface suggested a process of crystallization which had fused her whole being into one hard brilliant substance. The change had struck Mrs. Fisher as a rejuvenation: to Selden it seemed like that moment of pause and arrest when the warm fluidity of youth is chilled into its final shape. He felt it in the way she smiled on him, and in the readiness and competence with which, flung unexpectedly into his presence, she took up the thread of their intercourse as though that thread had not been snapped with a violence from which he still reeled. Such facility sickened him--but he told himself that it was with the pang which precedes recovery. Now he would really get well--would eject the last drop of poison from his blood. Already he felt himself calmer in her presence than he had learned to be in the thought of her. Her assumptions and elisions, her short-cuts and long DETOURS, the skill with which she contrived to meet him at a point from which no inconvenient glimpses of the past were visible, suggested what opportunities she had had for practising such arts since their last meeting. He felt that she had at last arrived at an understanding with herself: had made a pact with her rebellious impulses, and achieved a uniform system of self-government, under which all vagrant tendencies were either held captive or forced into the service of the state. And he saw other things too in her manner: saw how it had adjusted itself to the hidden intricacies of a situation in which, even after Mrs. Fisher's elucidating flashes, he still felt himself agrope. Surely Mrs. Fisher could no longer charge Miss Bart with neglecting her opportunities! To Selden's exasperated observation she was only too completely alive to them. She was "perfect" to every one: subservient to Bertha's anxious predominance, good-naturedly watchful of Dorset's moods, brightly companionable to Silverton and Dacey, the latter of whom met her on an evident footing of old admiration, while young Silverton, portentously self-absorbed, seemed conscious of her only as of something vaguely obstructive. And suddenly, as Selden noted the fine shades of manner by which she harmonized herself with her surroundings, it flashed on him that, to need such adroit handling, the situation must indeed be desperate. She was on the edge of something--that was the impression left with him. He seemed to see her poised on the brink of a chasm, with one graceful foot advanced to assert her unconsciousness that the ground was failing her. On the Promenade des Anglais, where Ned Silverton hung on him for the half hour before dinner, he received a deeper impression of the general insecurity. Silverton was in a mood of Titanic pessimism. How any one could come to such a damned hole as the Riviera--any one with a grain of imagination--with the whole Mediterranean to choose from: but then, if one's estimate of a place depended on the way they broiled a spring chicken! Gad! what a study might be made of the tyranny of the stomach--the way a sluggish liver or insufficient gastric juices might affect the whole course of the universe, overshadow everything in reach--chronic dyspepsia ought to be among the "statutory causes"; a woman's life might be ruined by a man's inability to digest fresh bread. Grotesque? Yes--and tragic--like most absurdities. There's nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.... Where was he? Oh--the reason they chucked Sicily and rushed back? Well--partly, no doubt, Miss Bart's desire to get back to bridge and smartness. Dead as a stone to art and poetry--the light never WAS on sea or land for her! And of course she persuaded Dorset that the Italian food was bad for him. Oh, she could make him believe anything--ANYTHING! Mrs. Dorset was aware of it--oh, perfectly: nothing SHE didn't see! But she could hold her tongue--she'd had to, often enough. Miss Bart was an intimate friend--she wouldn't hear a word against her. Only it hurts a woman's pride--there are some things one doesn't get used to . . . All this in confidence, of course? Ah--and there were the ladies signalling from the balcony of the hotel.... He plunged across the Promenade, leaving Selden to a meditative cigar. The conclusions it led him to were fortified, later in the evening, by some of those faint corroborative hints that generate a light of their own in the dusk of a doubting mind. Selden, stumbling on a chance acquaintance, had dined with him, and adjourned, still in his company, to the brightly lit Promenade, where a line of crowded stands commanded the glittering darkness of the waters. The night was soft and persuasive. Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rush of rockets; and from the east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bend of the coast, sent across the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to ashes in the red glitter of the illuminated boats. Down the lantern-hung Promenade, snatches of band-music floated above the hum of the crowd and the soft tossing of boughs in dusky gardens; and between these gardens and the backs of the stands there flowed a stream of people in whom the vociferous carnival mood seemed tempered by the growing languor of the season. Selden and his companion, unable to get seats on one of the stands facing the bay, had wandered for a while with the throng, and then found a point of vantage on a high garden-parapet above the Promenade. Thence they caught but a triangular glimpse of the water, and of the flashing play of boats across its surface; but the crowd in the street was under their immediate view, and seemed to Selden, on the whole, of more interest than the show itself. After a while, however, he wearied of his perch and, dropping alone to the pavement, pushed his way to the first corner and turned into the moonlit silence of a side street. Long garden-walls overhung by trees made a dark boundary to the pavement; an empty cab trailed along the deserted thoroughfare, and presently Selden saw two persons emerge from the opposite shadows, signal to the cab, and drive off in it toward the centre of the town. The moonlight touched them as they paused to enter the carriage, and he recognized Mrs. Dorset and young Silverton. Beneath the nearest lamp-post he glanced at his watch and saw that the time was close on eleven. He took another cross street, and without breasting the throng on the Promenade, made his way to the fashionable club which overlooks that thoroughfare. Here, amid the blaze of crowded baccarat tables, he caught sight of Lord Hubert Dacey, seated with his habitual worn smile behind a rapidly dwindling heap of gold. The heap being in due course wiped out, Lord Hubert rose with a shrug, and joining Selden, adjourned with him to the deserted terrace of the club. It was now past midnight, and the throng on the stands was dispersing, while the long trails of red-lit boats scattered and faded beneath a sky repossessed by the tranquil splendour of the moon. Lord Hubert looked at his watch. "By Jove, I promised to join the Duchess for supper at the LONDON HOUSE; but it's past twelve, and I suppose they've all scattered. The fact is, I lost them in the crowd soon after dinner, and took refuge here, for my sins. They had seats on one of the stands, but of course they couldn't stop quiet: the Duchess never can. She and Miss Bart went off in quest of what they call adventures--gad, it ain't their fault if they don't have some queer ones!" He added tentatively, after pausing to grope for a cigarette: "Miss Bart's an old friend of yours, I believe? So she told me.--Ah, thanks--I don't seem to have one left." He lit Selden's proffered cigarette, and continued, in his high-pitched drawling tone: "None of my business, of course, but I didn't introduce her to the Duchess. Charming woman, the Duchess, you understand; and a very good friend of mine; but RATHER a liberal education." Selden received this in silence, and after a few puffs Lord Hubert broke out again: "Sort of thing one can't communicate to the young lady--though young ladies nowadays are so competent to judge for themselves; but in this case--I'm an old friend too, you know . . . and there seemed no one else to speak to. The whole situation's a little mixed, as I see it--but there used to be an aunt somewhere, a diffuse and innocent person, who was great at bridging over chasms she didn't see . . . Ah, in New York, is she? Pity New York's such a long way off!" Miss Bart, emerging late the next morning from her cabin, found herself alone on the deck of the Sabrina. The cushioned chairs, disposed expectantly under the wide awning, showed no signs of recent occupancy, and she presently learned from a steward that Mrs. Dorset had not yet appeared, and that the gentlemen--separately--had gone ashore as soon as they had breakfasted. Supplied with these facts, Lily leaned awhile over the side, giving herself up to a leisurely enjoyment of the spectacle before her. Unclouded sunlight enveloped sea and shore in a bath of purest radiancy. The purpling waters drew a sharp white line of foam at the base of the shore; against its irregular eminences, hotels and villas flashed from the greyish verdure of olive and eucalyptus; and the background of bare and finely-pencilled mountains quivered in a pale intensity of light. How beautiful it was--and how she loved beauty! She had always felt that her sensibility in this direction made up for certain obtusenesses of feeling of which she was less proud; and during the last three months she had indulged it passionately. The Dorsets' invitation to go abroad with them had come as an almost miraculous release from crushing difficulties; and her faculty for renewing herself in new scenes, and casting off problems of conduct as easily as the surroundings in which they had arisen, made the mere change from one place to another seem, not merely a postponement, but a solution of her troubles. Moral complications existed for her only in the environment that had produced them; she did not mean to slight or ignore them, but they lost their reality when they changed their background. She could not have remained in New York without repaying the money she owed to Trenor; to acquit herself of that odious debt she might even have faced a marriage with Rosedale; but the accident of placing the Atlantic between herself and her obligations made them dwindle out of sight as if they had been milestones and she had travelled past them. Her two months on the Sabrina had been especially calculated to aid this illusion of distance. She had been plunged into new scenes, and had found in them a renewal of old hopes and ambitions. The cruise itself charmed her as a romantic adventure. She was vaguely touched by the names and scenes amid which she moved, and had listened to Ned Silverton reading Theocritus by moonlight, as the yacht rounded the Sicilian promontories, with a thrill of the nerves that confirmed her belief in her intellectual superiority. But the weeks at Cannes and Nice had really given her more pleasure. The gratification of being welcomed in high company, and of making her own ascendency felt there, so that she found herself figuring once more as the "beautiful Miss Bart" in the interesting journal devoted to recording the least movements of her cosmopolitan companions--all these experiences tended to throw into the extreme background of memory the prosaic and sordid difficulties from which she had escaped. If she was faintly aware of fresh difficulties ahead, she was sure of her ability to meet them: it was characteristic of her to feel that the only problems she could not solve were those with which she was familiar. Meanwhile she could honestly be proud of the skill with which she had adapted herself to somewhat delicate conditions. She had reason to think that she had made herself equally necessary to her host and hostess; and if only she had seen any perfectly irreproachable means of drawing a financial profit from the situation, there would have been no cloud on her horizon. The truth was that her funds, as usual, were inconveniently low; and to neither Dorset nor his wife could this vulgar embarrassment be safely hinted. Still, the need was not a pressing one; she could worry along, as she had so often done before, with the hope of some happy change of fortune to sustain her; and meanwhile life was gay and beautiful and easy, and she was conscious of figuring not unworthily in such a setting. She was engaged to breakfast that morning with the Duchess of Beltshire, and at twelve o'clock she asked to be set ashore in the gig. Before this she had sent her maid to enquire if she might see Mrs. Dorset; but the reply came back that the latter was tired, and trying to sleep. Lily thought she understood the reason of the rebuff. Her hostess had not been included in the Duchess's invitation, though she herself had made the most loyal efforts in that direction. But her grace was impervious to hints, and invited or omitted as she chose. It was not Lily's fault if Mrs. Dorset's complicated attitudes did not fall in with the Duchess's easy gait. The Duchess, who seldom explained herself, had not formulated her objection beyond saying: "She's rather a bore, you know. The only one of your friends I like is that little Mr. Bry--HE'S funny--" but Lily knew enough not to press the point, and was not altogether sorry to be thus distinguished at her friend's expense. Bertha certainly HAD grown tiresome since she had taken to poetry and Ned Silverton. On the whole, it was a relief to break away now and then from the Sabrina; and the Duchess's little breakfast, organized by Lord Hubert with all his usual virtuosity, was the pleasanter to Lily for not including her travelling-companions. Dorset, of late, had grown more than usually morose and incalculable, and Ned Silverton went about with an air that seemed to challenge the universe. The freedom and lightness of the ducal intercourse made an agreeable change from these complications, and Lily was tempted, after luncheon, to adjourn in the wake of her companions to the hectic atmosphere of the Casino. She did not mean to play; her diminished pocket-money offered small scope for the adventure; but it amused her to sit on a divan, under the doubtful protection of the Duchess's back, while the latter hung above her stakes at a neighbouring table. The rooms were packed with the gazing throng which, in the afternoon hours, trickles heavily between the tables, like the Sunday crowd in a lion-house. In the stagnant flow of the mass, identities were hardly distinguishable; but Lily presently saw Mrs. Bry cleaving her determined way through the doors, and, in the broad wake she left, the light figure of Mrs. Fisher bobbing after her like a row-boat at the stern of a tug. Mrs. Bry pressed on, evidently animated by the resolve to reach a certain point in the rooms; but Mrs. Fisher, as she passed Lily, broke from her towing-line, and let herself float to the girl's side. "Lose her?" she echoed the latter's query, with an indifferent glance at Mrs. Bry's retreating back. "I daresay--it doesn't matter: I HAVE lost her already." And, as Lily exclaimed, she added: "We had an awful row this morning. You know, of course, that the Duchess chucked her at dinner last night, and she thinks it was my fault--my want of management. The worst of it is, the message--just a mere word by telephone--came so late that the dinner HAD to be paid for; and Becassin HAD run it up--it had been so drummed into him that the Duchess was coming!" Mrs. Fisher indulged in a faint laugh at the remembrance. "Paying for what she doesn't get rankles so dreadfully with Louisa: I can't make her see that it's one of the preliminary steps to getting what you haven't paid for--and as I was the nearest thing to smash, she smashed me to atoms, poor dear!" Lily murmured her commiseration. Impulses of sympathy came naturally to her, and it was instinctive to proffer her help to Mrs. Fisher. "If there's anything I can do--if it's only a question of meeting the Duchess! I heard her say she thought Mr. Bry amusing----" But Mrs. Fisher interposed with a decisive gesture. "My dear, I have my pride: the pride of my trade. I couldn't manage the Duchess, and I can't palm off your arts on Louisa Bry as mine. I've taken the final step: I go to Paris tonight with the Sam Gormers. THEY'RE still in the elementary stage; an Italian Prince is a great deal more than a Prince to them, and they're always on the brink of taking a courier for one. To save them from that is my present mission." She laughed again at the picture. "But before I go I want to make my last will and testament--I want to leave you the Brys." "Me?" Miss Bart joined in her amusement. "It's charming of you to remember me, dear; but really----" "You're already so well provided for?" Mrs. Fisher flashed a sharp glance at her. "ARE you, though, Lily--to the point of rejecting my offer?" Miss Bart coloured slowly. "What I really meant was, that the Brys wouldn't in the least care to be so disposed of." Mrs. Fisher continued to probe her embarrassment with an unflinching eye. "What you really meant was that you've snubbed the Brys horribly; and you know that they know----" "Carry!" "Oh, on certain sides Louisa bristles with perceptions. If you'd even managed to have them asked once on the Sabrina--especially when royalties were coming! But it's not too late," she ended earnestly, "it's not too late for either of you." Lily smiled. "Stay over, and I'll get the Duchess to dine with them." "I shan't stay over--the Gormers have paid for my SALON-LIT," said Mrs. Fisher with simplicity. "But get the Duchess to dine with them all the same." Lily's smile again flowed into a slight laugh: her friend's importunity was beginning to strike her as irrelevant. "I'm sorry I have been negligent about the Brys----" she began. "Oh, as to the Brys--it's you I'm thinking of," said Mrs. Fisher abruptly. She paused, and then, bending forward, with a lowered voice: "You know we all went on to Nice last night when the Duchess chucked us. It was Louisa's idea--I told her what I thought of it." Miss Bart assented. "Yes--I caught sight of you on the way back, at the station." "Well, the man who was in the carriage with you and George Dorset--that horrid little Dabham who does 'Society Notes from the Riviera'--had been dining with us at Nice. And he's telling everybody that you and Dorset came back alone after midnight." "Alone--? When he was with us?" Lily laughed, but her laugh faded into gravity under the prolonged implication of Mrs. Fisher's look. "We DID come back alone--if that's so very dreadful! But whose fault was it? The Duchess was spending the night at Cimiez with the Crown Princess; Bertha got bored with the show, and went off early, promising to meet us at the station. We turned up on time, but she didn't--she didn't turn up at all!" Miss Bart made this announcement in the tone of one who presents, with careless assurance, a complete vindication; but Mrs. Fisher received it in a manner almost inconsequent. She seemed to have lost sight of her friend's part in the incident: her inward vision had taken another slant. "Bertha never turned up at all? Then how on earth did she get back?" "Oh, by the next train, I suppose; there were two extra ones for the FETE. At any rate, I know she's safe on the yacht, though I haven't yet seen her; but you see it was not my fault," Lily summed up. "Not your fault that Bertha didn't turn up? My poor child, if only you don't have to pay for it!" Mrs. Fisher rose--she had seen Mrs. Bry surging back in her direction. "There's Louisa, and I must be off--oh, we're on the best of terms externally; we're lunching together; but at heart it's ME she's lunching on," she explained; and with a last hand-clasp and a last look, she added: "Remember, I leave her to you; she's hovering now, ready to take you in." Lily carried the impression of Mrs. Fisher's leave-taking away with her from the Casino doors. She had accomplished, before leaving, the first step toward her reinstatement in Mrs. Bry's good graces. An affable advance--a vague murmur that they must see more of each other--an allusive glance to a near future that was felt to include the Duchess as well as the Sabrina--how easily it was all done, if one possessed the knack of doing it! She wondered at herself, as she had so often wondered, that, possessing the knack, she did not more consistently exercise it. But sometimes she was forgetful--and sometimes, could it be that she was proud? Today, at any rate, she had been vaguely conscious of a reason for sinking her pride, had in fact even sunk it to the point of suggesting to Lord Hubert Dacey, whom she ran across on the Casino steps, that he might really get the Duchess to dine with the Brys, if SHE undertook to have them asked on the Sabrina. Lord Hubert had promised his help, with the readiness on which she could always count: it was his only way of ever reminding her that he had once been ready to do so much more for her. Her path, in short, seemed to smooth itself before her as she advanced; yet the faint stir of uneasiness persisted. Had it been produced, she wondered, by her chance meeting with Selden? She thought not--time and change seemed so completely to have relegated him to his proper distance. The sudden and exquisite reaction from her anxieties had had the effect of throwing the recent past so far back that even Selden, as part of it, retained a certain air of unreality. And he had made it so clear that they were not to meet again; that he had merely dropped down to Nice for a day or two, and had almost his foot on the next steamer. No--that part of the past had merely surged up for a moment on the fleeing surface of events; and now that it was submerged again, the uncertainty, the apprehension persisted. They grew to sudden acuteness as she caught sight of George Dorset descending the steps of the Hotel de Paris and making for her across the square. She had meant to drive down to the quay and regain the yacht; but she now had the immediate impression that something more was to happen first. "Which way are you going? Shall we walk a bit?" he began, putting the second question before the first was answered, and not waiting for a reply to either before he directed her silently toward the comparative seclusion of the lower gardens. She detected in him at once all the signs of extreme nervous tension. The skin was puffed out under his sunken eyes, and its sallowness had paled to a leaden white against which his irregular eyebrows and long reddish moustache were relieved with a saturnine effect. His appearance, in short, presented an odd mixture of the bedraggled and the ferocious. He walked beside her in silence, with quick precipitate steps, till they reached the embowered slopes to the east of the Casino; then, pulling up abruptly, he said: "Have you seen Bertha?" "No--when I left the yacht she was not yet up." He received this with a laugh like the whirring sound in a disabled clock. "Not yet up? Had she gone to bed? Do you know at what time she came on board? This morning at seven!" he exclaimed. "At seven?" Lily started. "What happened--an accident to the train?" He laughed again. "They missed the train--all the trains--they had to drive back." "Well----?" She hesitated, feeling at once how little even this necessity accounted for the fatal lapse of hours. "Well, they couldn't get a carriage at once--at that time of night, you know--" the explanatory note made it almost seem as though he were putting the case for his wife--"and when they finally did, it was only a one-horse cab, and the horse was lame!" "How tiresome! I see," she affirmed, with the more earnestness because she was so nervously conscious that she did not; and after a pause she added: "I'm so sorry--but ought we to have waited?" "Waited for the one-horse cab? It would scarcely have carried the four of us, do you think?" She took this in what seemed the only possible way, with a laugh intended to sink the question itself in his humorous treatment of it. "Well, it would have been difficult; we should have had to walk by turns. But it would have been jolly to see the sunrise." "Yes: the sunrise WAS jolly," he agreed. "Was it? You saw it, then?" "I saw it, yes; from the deck. I waited up for them." "Naturally--I suppose you were worried. Why didn't you call on me to share your vigil?" He stood still, dragging at his moustache with a lean weak hand. "I don't think you would have cared for its DENOUEMENT," he said with sudden grimness. Again she was disconcerted by the abrupt change in his tone, and as in one flash she saw the peril of the moment, and the need of keeping her sense of it out of her eyes. "DENOUEMENT--isn't that too big a word for such a small incident? The worst of it, after all, is the fatigue which Bertha has probably slept off by this time." She clung to the note bravely, though its futility was now plain to her in the glare of his miserable eyes. "Don't--don't----!" he broke out, with the hurt cry of a child; and while she tried to merge her sympathy, and her resolve to ignore any cause for it, in one ambiguous murmur of deprecation, he dropped down on the bench near which they had paused, and poured out the wretchedness of his soul. It was a dreadful hour--an hour from which she emerged shrinking and seared, as though her lids had been scorched by its actual glare. It was not that she had never had premonitory glimpses of such an outbreak; but rather because, here and there throughout the three months, the surface of life had shown such ominous cracks and vapours that her fears had always been on the alert for an upheaval. There had been moments when the situation had presented itself under a homelier yet more vivid image--that of a shaky vehicle, dashed by unbroken steeds over a bumping road, while she cowered within, aware that the harness wanted mending, and wondering what would give way first. Well--everything had given way now; and the wonder was that the crazy outfit had held together so long. Her sense of being involved in the crash, instead of merely witnessing it from the road, was intensified by the way in which Dorset, through his furies of denunciation and wild reactions of self-contempt, made her feel the need he had of her, the place she had taken in his life. But for her, what ear would have been open to his cries? And what hand but hers could drag him up again to a footing of sanity and self-respect? All through the stress of the struggle with him, she had been conscious of something faintly maternal in her efforts to guide and uplift him. But for the present, if he clung to her, it was not in order to be dragged up, but to feel some one floundering in the depths with him: he wanted her to suffer with him, not to help him to suffer less. Happily for both, there was little physical strength to sustain his frenzy. It left him, collapsed and breathing heavily, to an apathy so deep and prolonged that Lily almost feared the passers-by would think it the result of a seizure, and stop to offer their aid. But Monte Carlo is, of all places, the one where the human bond is least close, and odd sights are the least arresting. If a glance or two lingered on the couple, no intrusive sympathy disturbed them; and it was Lily herself who broke the silence by rising from her seat. With the clearing of her vision the sweep of peril had extended, and she saw that the post of danger was no longer at Dorset's side. "If you won't go back, I must--don't make me leave you!" she urged. But he remained mutely resistant, and she added: "What are you going to do? You really can't sit here all night." "I can go to an hotel. I can telegraph my lawyers." He sat up, roused by a new thought. "By Jove, Selden's at Nice--I'll send for Selden!" Lily, at this, reseated herself with a cry of alarm. "No, no, NO!" she protested. He swung round on her distrustfully. "Why not Selden? He's a lawyer isn't he? One will do as well as another in a case like this." "As badly as another, you mean. I thought you relied on ME to help you." "You do--by being so sweet and patient with me. If it hadn't been for you I'd have ended the thing long ago. But now it's got to end." He rose suddenly, straightening himself with an effort. "You can't want to see me ridiculous." She looked at him kindly. "That's just it." Then, after a moment's pondering, almost to her own surprise she broke out with a flash of inspiration: "Well, go over and see Mr. Selden. You'll have time to do it before dinner." "Oh, DINNER----" he mocked her; but she left him with the smiling rejoinder: "Dinner on board, remember; we'll put it off till nine if you like." It was past four already; and when a cab had dropped her at the quay, and she stood waiting for the gig to put off for her, she began to wonder what had been happening on the yacht. Of Silverton's whereabouts there had been no mention. Had he returned to the Sabrina? Or could Bertha--the dread alternative sprang on her suddenly--could Bertha, left to herself, have gone ashore to rejoin him? Lily's heart stood still at the thought. All her concern had hitherto been for young Silverton, not only because, in such affairs, the woman's instinct is to side with the man, but because his case made a peculiar appeal to her sympathies. He was so desperately in earnest, poor youth, and his earnestness was of so different a quality from Bertha's, though hers too was desperate enough. The difference was that Bertha was in earnest only about herself, while he was in earnest about her. But now, at the actual crisis, this difference seemed to throw the weight of destitution on Bertha's side, since at least he had her to suffer for, and she had only herself. At any rate, viewed less ideally, all the disadvantages of such a situation were for the woman; and it was to Bertha that Lily's sympathies now went out. She was not fond of Bertha Dorset, but neither was she without a sense of obligation, the heavier for having so little personal liking to sustain it. Bertha had been kind to her, they had lived together, during the last months, on terms of easy friendship, and the sense of friction of which Lily had recently become aware seemed to make it the more urgent that she should work undividedly in her friend's interest. It was in Bertha's interest, certainly, that she had despatched Dorset to consult with Lawrence Selden. Once the grotesqueness of the situation accepted, she had seen at a glance that it was the safest in which Dorset could find himself. Who but Selden could thus miraculously combine the skill to save Bertha with the obligation of doing so? The consciousness that much skill would be required made Lily rest thankfully in the greatness of the obligation. Since he would HAVE to pull Bertha through she could trust him to find a way; and she put the fulness of her trust in the telegram she managed to send him on her way to the quay. Thus far, then, Lily felt that she had done well; and the conviction strengthened her for the task that remained. She and Bertha had never been on confidential terms, but at such a crisis the barriers of reserve must surely fall: Dorset's wild allusions to the scene of the morning made Lily feel that they were down already, and that any attempt to rebuild them would be beyond Bertha's strength. She pictured the poor creature shivering behind her fallen defences and awaiting with suspense the moment when she could take refuge in the first shelter that offered. If only that shelter had not already offered itself elsewhere! As the gig traversed the short distance between the quay and the yacht, Lily grew more than ever alarmed at the possible consequences of her long absence. What if the wretched Bertha, finding in all the long hours no soul to turn to--but by this time Lily's eager foot was on the side-ladder, and her first step on the Sabrina showed the worst of her apprehensions to be unfounded; for there, in the luxurious shade of the after-deck, the wretched Bertha, in full command of her usual attenuated elegance, sat dispensing tea to the Duchess of Beltshire and Lord Hubert. The sight filled Lily with such surprise that she felt that Bertha, at least, must read its meaning in her look, and she was proportionately disconcerted by the blankness of the look returned. But in an instant she saw that Mrs. Dorset had, of necessity, to look blank before the others, and that, to mitigate the effect of her own surprise, she must at once produce some simple reason for it. The long habit of rapid transitions made it easy for her to exclaim to the Duchess: "Why, I thought you'd gone back to the Princess!" and this sufficed for the lady she addressed, if it was hardly enough for Lord Hubert. At least it opened the way to a lively explanation of how the Duchess was, in fact, going back the next moment, but had first rushed out to the yacht for a word with Mrs. Dorset on the subject of tomorrow's dinner--the dinner with the Brys, to which Lord Hubert had finally insisted on dragging them. "To save my neck, you know!" he explained, with a glance that appealed to Lily for some recognition of his promptness; and the Duchess added, with her noble candour: "Mr. Bry has promised him a tip, and he says if we go he'll pass it onto us." This led to some final pleasantries, in which, as it seemed to Lily, Mrs. Dorset bore her part with astounding bravery, and at the close of which Lord Hubert, from half way down the side-ladder, called back, with an air of numbering heads: "And of course we may count on Dorset too?" "Oh, count on him," his wife assented gaily. She was keeping up well to the last--but as she turned back from waving her adieux over the side, Lily said to herself that the mask must drop and the soul of fear look out. Mrs. Dorset turned back slowly; perhaps she wanted time to steady her muscles; at any rate, they were still under perfect control when, dropping once more into her seat behind the tea-table, she remarked to Miss Bart with a faint touch of irony: "I suppose I ought to say good morning." If it was a cue, Lily was ready to take it, though with only the vaguest sense of what was expected of her in return. There was something unnerving in the contemplation of Mrs. Dorset's composure, and she had to force the light tone in which she answered: "I tried to see you this morning, but you were not yet up." "No--I got to bed late. After we missed you at the station I thought we ought to wait for you till the last train." She spoke very gently, but with just the least tinge of reproach. "You missed us? You waited for us at the station?" Now indeed Lily was too far adrift in bewilderment to measure the other's words or keep watch on her own. "But I thought you didn't get to the station till after the last train had left!" Mrs. Dorset, examining her between lowered lids, met this with the immediate query: "Who told you that?" "George--I saw him just now in the gardens." "Ah, is that George's version? Poor George--he was in no state to remember what I told him. He had one of his worst attacks this morning, and I packed him off to see the doctor. Do you know if he found him?" Lily, still lost in conjecture, made no reply, and Mrs. Dorset settled herself indolently in her seat. "He'll wait to see him; he was horribly frightened about himself. It's very bad for him to be worried, and whenever anything upsetting happens, it always brings on an attack." This time Lily felt sure that a cue was being pressed on her; but it was put forth with such startling suddenness, and with so incredible an air of ignoring what it led up to, that she could only falter out doubtfully: "Anything upsetting?" "Yes--such as having you so conspicuously on his hands in the small hours. You know, my dear, you're rather a big responsibility in such a scandalous place after midnight." At that--at the complete unexpectedness and the inconceivable audacity of it--Lily could not restrain the tribute of an astonished laugh. "Well, really--considering it was you who burdened him with the responsibility!" Mrs. Dorset took this with an exquisite mildness. "By not having the superhuman cleverness to discover you in that frightful rush for the train? Or the imagination to believe that you'd take it without us--you and he all alone--instead of waiting quietly in the station till we DID manage to meet you?" Lily's colour rose: it was growing clear to her that Bertha was pursuing an object, following a line she had marked out for herself. Only, with such a doom impending, why waste time in these childish efforts to avert it? The puerility of the attempt disarmed Lily's indignation: did it not prove how horribly the poor creature was frightened? "No; by our simply all keeping together at Nice," she returned. "Keeping together? When it was you who seized the first opportunity to rush off with the Duchess and her friends? My dear Lily, you are not a child to be led by the hand!" "No--nor to be lectured, Bertha, really; if that's what you are doing to me now." Mrs. Dorset smiled on her reproachfully. "Lecture you--I? Heaven forbid! I was merely trying to give you a friendly hint. But it's usually the other way round, isn't it? I'm expected to take hints, not to give them: I've positively lived on them all these last months." "Hints--from me to you?" Lily repeated. "Oh, negative ones merely--what not to be and to do and to see. And I think I've taken them to admiration. Only, my dear, if you'll let me say so, I didn't understand that one of my negative duties was NOT to warn you when you carried your imprudence too far." A chill of fear passed over Miss Bart: a sense of remembered treachery that was like the gleam of a knife in the dusk. But compassion, in a moment, got the better of her instinctive recoil. What was this outpouring of senseless bitterness but the tracked creature's attempt to cloud the medium through which it was fleeing? It was on Lily's lips to exclaim: "You poor soul, don't double and turn--come straight back to me, and we'll find a way out!" But the words died under the impenetrable insolence of Bertha's smile. Lily sat silent, taking the brunt of it quietly, letting it spend itself on her to the last drop of its accumulated falseness; then, without a word, she rose and went down to her cabin. Miss Bart's telegram caught Lawrence Selden at the door of his hotel; and having read it, he turned back to wait for Dorset. The message necessarily left large gaps for conjecture; but all that he had recently heard and seen made these but too easy to fill in. On the whole he was surprised; for though he had perceived that the situation contained all the elements of an explosion, he had often enough, in the range of his personal experience, seen just such combinations subside into harmlessness. Still, Dorset's spasmodic temper, and his wife's reckless disregard of appearances, gave the situation a peculiar insecurity; and it was less from the sense of any special relation to the case than from a purely professional zeal, that Selden resolved to guide the pair to safety. Whether, in the present instance, safety for either lay in repairing so damaged a tie, it was no business of his to consider: he had only, on general principles, to think of averting a scandal, and his desire to avert it was increased by his fear of its involving Miss Bart. There was nothing specific in this apprehension; he merely wished to spare her the embarrassment of being ever so remotely connected with the public washing of the Dorset linen. How exhaustive and unpleasant such a process would be, he saw even more vividly after his two hours' talk with poor Dorset. If anything came out at all, it would be such a vast unpacking of accumulated moral rags as left him, after his visitor had gone, with the feeling that he must fling open the windows and have his room swept out. But nothing should come out; and happily for his side of the case, the dirty rags, however pieced together, could not, without considerable difficulty, be turned into a homogeneous grievance. The torn edges did not always fit--there were missing bits, there were disparities of size and colour, all of which it was naturally Selden's business to make the most of in putting them under his client's eye. But to a man in Dorset's mood the completest demonstration could not carry conviction, and Selden saw that for the moment all he could do was to soothe and temporize, to offer sympathy and to counsel prudence. He let Dorset depart charged to the brim with the sense that, till their next meeting, he must maintain a strictly noncommittal attitude; that, in short, his share in the game consisted for the present in looking on. Selden knew, however, that he could not long keep such violences in equilibrium; and he promised to meet Dorset, the next morning, at an hotel in Monte Carlo. Meanwhile he counted not a little on the reaction of weakness and self-distrust that, in such natures, follows on every unwonted expenditure of moral force; and his telegraphic reply to Miss Bart consisted simply in the injunction: "Assume that everything is as usual." On this assumption, in fact, the early part of the following day was lived through. Dorset, as if in obedience to Lily's imperative bidding, had actually returned in time for a late dinner on the yacht. The repast had been the most difficult moment of the day. Dorset was sunk in one of the abysmal silences which so commonly followed on what his wife called his "attacks" that it was easy, before the servants, to refer it to this cause; but Bertha herself seemed, perversely enough, little disposed to make use of this obvious means of protection. She simply left the brunt of the situation on her husband's hands, as if too absorbed in a grievance of her own to suspect that she might be the object of one herself. To Lily this attitude was the most ominous, because the most perplexing, element in the situation. As she tried to fan the weak flicker of talk, to build up, again and again, the crumbling structure of "appearances," her own attention was perpetually distracted by the question: "What on earth can she be driving at?" There was something positively exasperating in Bertha's attitude of isolated defiance. If only she would have given her friend a hint they might still have worked together successfully; but how could Lily be of use, while she was thus obstinately shut out from participation? To be of use was what she honestly wanted; and not for her own sake but for the Dorsets'. She had not thought of her own situation at all: she was simply engrossed in trying to put a little order in theirs. But the close of the short dreary evening left her with a sense of effort hopelessly wasted. She had not tried to see Dorset alone: she had positively shrunk from a renewal of his confidences. It was Bertha whose confidence she sought, and who should as eagerly have invited her own; and Bertha, as if in the infatuation of self-destruction, was actually pushing away her rescuing hand. Lily, going to bed early, had left the couple to themselves; and it seemed part of the general mystery in which she moved that more than an hour should elapse before she heard Bertha walk down the silent passage and regain her room. The morrow, rising on an apparent continuance of the same conditions, revealed nothing of what had occurred between the confronted pair. One fact alone outwardly proclaimed the change they were all conspiring to ignore; and that was the non-appearance of Ned Silverton. No one referred to it, and this tacit avoidance of the subject kept it in the immediate foreground of consciousness. But there was another change, perceptible only to Lily; and that was that Dorset now avoided her almost as pointedly as his wife. Perhaps he was repenting his rash outpourings of the previous day; perhaps only trying, in his clumsy way, to conform to Selden's counsel to behave "as usual." Such instructions no more make for easiness of attitude than the photographer's behest to "look natural"; and in a creature as unconscious as poor Dorset of the appearance he habitually presented, the struggle to maintain a pose was sure to result in queer contortions. It resulted, at any rate, in throwing Lily strangely on her own resources. She had learned, on leaving her room, that Mrs. Dorset was still invisible, and that Dorset had left the yacht early; and feeling too restless to remain alone, she too had herself ferried ashore. Straying toward the Casino, she attached herself to a group of acquaintances from Nice, with whom she lunched, and in whose company she was returning to the rooms when she encountered Selden crossing the square. She could not, at the moment, separate herself definitely from her party, who had hospitably assumed that she would remain with them till they took their departure; but she found time for a momentary pause of enquiry, to which he promptly returned: "I've seen him again--he's just left me." She waited before him anxiously. "Well? what has happened? What WILL happen?" "Nothing as yet--and nothing in the future, I think." "It's over, then? It's settled? You're sure?" He smiled. "Give me time. I'm not sure--but I'm a good deal surer." And with that she had to content herself, and hasten on to the expectant group on the steps. Selden had in fact given her the utmost measure of his sureness, had even stretched it a shade to meet the anxiety in her eyes. And now, as he turned away, strolling down the hill toward the station, that anxiety remained with him as the visible justification of his own. It was not, indeed, anything specific that he feared: there had been a literal truth in his declaration that he did not think anything would happen. What troubled him was that, though Dorset's attitude had perceptibly changed, the change was not clearly to be accounted for. It had certainly not been produced by Selden's arguments, or by the action of his own soberer reason. Five minutes' talk sufficed to show that some alien influence had been at work, and that it had not so much subdued his resentment as weakened his will, so that he moved under it in a state of apathy, like a dangerous lunatic who has been drugged. Temporarily, no doubt, however exerted, it worked for the general safety: the question was how long it would last, and by what kind of reaction it was likely to be followed. On these points Selden could gain no light; for he saw that one effect of the transformation had been to shut him off from free communion with Dorset. The latter, indeed, was still moved by the irresistible desire to discuss his wrong; but, though he revolved about it with the same forlorn tenacity, Selden was aware that something always restrained him from full expression. His state was one to produce first weariness and then impatience in his hearer; and when their talk was over, Selden began to feel that he had done his utmost, and might justifiably wash his hands of the sequel. It was in this mind that he had been making his way back to the station when Miss Bart crossed his path; but though, after his brief word with her, he kept mechanically on his course, he was conscious of a gradual change in his purpose. The change had been produced by the look in her eyes; and in his eagerness to define the nature of that look, he dropped into a seat in the gardens, and sat brooding upon the question. It was natural enough, in all conscience, that she should appear anxious: a young woman placed, in the close intimacy of a yachting-cruise, between a couple on the verge of disaster, could hardly, aside from her concern for her friends, be insensible to the awkwardness of her own position. The worst of it was that, in interpreting Miss Bart's state of mind, so many alternative readings were possible; and one of these, in Selden's troubled mind, took the ugly form suggested by Mrs. Fisher. If the girl was afraid, was she afraid for herself or for her friends? And to what degree was her dread of a catastrophe intensified by the sense of being fatally involved in it? The burden of offence lying manifestly with Mrs. Dorset, this conjecture seemed on the face of it gratuitously unkind; but Selden knew that in the most one-sided matrimonial quarrel there are generally counter-charges to be brought, and that they are brought with the greater audacity where the original grievance is so emphatic. Mrs. Fisher had not hesitated to suggest the likelihood of Dorset's marrying Miss Bart if "anything happened"; and though Mrs. Fisher's conclusions were notoriously rash, she was shrewd enough in reading the signs from which they were drawn. Dorset had apparently shown marked interest in the girl, and this interest might be used to cruel advantage in his wife's struggle for rehabilitation. Selden knew that Bertha would fight to the last round of powder: the rashness of her conduct was illogically combined with a cold determination to escape its consequences. She could be as unscrupulous in fighting for herself as she was reckless in courting danger, and whatever came to her hand at such moments was likely to be used as a defensive missile. He did not, as yet, see clearly just what course she was likely to take, but his perplexity increased his apprehension, and with it the sense that, before leaving, he must speak again with Miss Bart. Whatever her share in the situation--and he had always honestly tried to resist judging her by her surroundings--however free she might be from any personal connection with it, she would be better out of the way of a possible crash; and since she had appealed to him for help, it was clearly his business to tell her so. This decision at last brought him to his feet, and carried him back to the gambling rooms, within whose doors he had seen her disappearing; but a prolonged exploration of the crowd failed to put him on her traces. He saw instead, to his surprise, Ned Silverton loitering somewhat ostentatiously about the tables; and the discovery that this actor in the drama was not only hovering in the wings, but actually inviting the exposure of the footlights, though it might have seemed to imply that all peril was over, served rather to deepen Selden's sense of foreboding. Charged with this impression he returned to the square, hoping to see Miss Bart move across it, as every one in Monte Carlo seemed inevitably to do at least a dozen times a day; but here again he waited vainly for a glimpse of her, and the conclusion was slowly forced on him that she had gone back to the Sabrina. It would be difficult to follow her there, and still more difficult, should he do so, to contrive the opportunity for a private word; and he had almost decided on the unsatisfactory alternative of writing, when the ceaseless diorama of the square suddenly unrolled before him the figures of Lord Hubert and Mrs. Bry. Hailing them at once with his question, he learned from Lord Hubert that Miss Bart had just returned to the Sabrina in Dorset's company; an announcement so evidently disconcerting to him that Mrs. Bry, after a glance from her companion, which seemed to act like the pressure on a spring, brought forth the prompt proposal that he should come and meet his friends at dinner that evening--"At Becassin's--a little dinner to the Duchess," she flashed out before Lord Hubert had time to remove the pressure. Selden's sense of the privilege of being included in such company brought him early in the evening to the door of the restaurant, where he paused to scan the ranks of diners approaching down the brightly lit terrace. There, while the Brys hovered within over the last agitating alternatives of the MENU, he kept watch for the guests from the Sabrina, who at length rose on the horizon in company with the Duchess, Lord and Lady Skiddaw and the Stepneys. From this group it was easy for him to detach Miss Bart on the pretext of a moment's glance into one of the brilliant shops along the terrace, and to say to her, while they lingered together in the white dazzle of a jeweller's window: "I stopped over to see you--to beg of you to leave the yacht." The eyes she turned on him showed a quick gleam of her former fear. "To leave--? What do you mean? What has happened?" "Nothing. But if anything should, why be in the way of it?" The glare from the jeweller's window, deepening the pallour of her face, gave to its delicate lines the sharpness of a tragic mask. "Nothing will, I am sure; but while there's even a doubt left, how can you think I would leave Bertha?" The words rang out on a note of contempt--was it possibly of contempt for himself? Well, he was willing to risk its renewal to the extent of insisting, with an undeniable throb of added interest: "You have yourself to think of, you know--" to which, with a strange fall of sadness in her voice, she answered, meeting his eyes: "If you knew how little difference that makes!" "Oh, well, nothing WILL happen," he said, more for his own reassurance than for hers; and "Nothing, nothing, of course!" she valiantly assented, as they turned to overtake their companions. In the thronged restaurant, taking their places about Mrs. Bry's illuminated board, their confidence seemed to gain support from the familiarity of their surroundings. Here were Dorset and his wife once more presenting their customary faces to the world, she engrossed in establishing her relation with an intensely new gown, he shrinking with dyspeptic dread from the multiplied solicitations of the MENU. The mere fact that they thus showed themselves together, with the utmost openness the place afforded, seemed to declare beyond a doubt that their differences were composed. How this end had been attained was still matter for wonder, but it was clear that for the moment Miss Bart rested confidently in the result; and Selden tried to achieve the same view by telling himself that her opportunities for observation had been ampler than his own. Meanwhile, as the dinner advanced through a labyrinth of courses, in which it became clear that Mrs. Bry had occasionally broken away from Lord Hubert's restraining hand, Selden's general watchfulness began to lose itself in a particular study of Miss Bart. It was one of the days when she was so handsome that to be handsome was enough, and all the rest--her grace, her quickness, her social felicities--seemed the overflow of a bounteous nature. But what especially struck him was the way in which she detached herself, by a hundred undefinable shades, from the persons who most abounded in her own style. It was in just such company, the fine flower and complete expression of the state she aspired to, that the differences came out with special poignancy, her grace cheapening the other women's smartness as her finely-discriminated silences made their chatter dull. The strain of the last hours had restored to her face the deeper eloquence which Selden had lately missed in it, and the bravery of her words to him still fluttered in her voice and eyes. Yes, she was matchless--it was the one word for her; and he could give his admiration the freer play because so little personal feeling remained in it. His real detachment from her had taken place, not at the lurid moment of disenchantment, but now, in the sober after-light of discrimination, where he saw her definitely divided from him by the crudeness of a choice which seemed to deny the very differences he felt in her. It was before him again in its completeness--the choice in which she was content to rest: in the stupid costliness of the food and the showy dulness of the talk, in the freedom of speech which never arrived at wit and the freedom of act which never made for romance. The strident setting of the restaurant, in which their table seemed set apart in a special glare of publicity, and the presence at it of little Dabham of the "Riviera Notes," emphasized the ideals of a world where conspicuousness passed for distinction, and the society column had become the roll of fame. It was as the immortalizer of such occasions that little Dabham, wedged in modest watchfulness between two brilliant neighbours, suddenly became the centre of Selden's scrutiny. How much did he know of what was going on, and how much, for his purpose, was still worth finding out? His little eyes were like tentacles thrown out to catch the floating intimations with which, to Selden, the air at moments seemed thick; then again it cleared to its normal emptiness, and he could see nothing in it for the journalist but leisure to note the elegance of the ladies' gowns. Mrs. Dorset's, in particular, challenged all the wealth of Mr. Dabham's vocabulary: it had surprises and subtleties worthy of what he would have called "the literary style." At first, as Selden had noticed, it had been almost too preoccupying to its wearer; but now she was in full command of it, and was even producing her effects with unwonted freedom. Was she not, indeed, too free, too fluent, for perfect naturalness? And was not Dorset, to whom his glance had passed by a natural transition, too jerkily wavering between the same extremes? Dorset indeed was always jerky; but it seemed to Selden that tonight each vibration swung him farther from his centre. The dinner, meanwhile, was moving to its triumphant close, to the evident satisfaction of Mrs. Bry, who, throned in apoplectic majesty between Lord Skiddaw and Lord Hubert, seemed in spirit to be calling on Mrs. Fisher to witness her achievement. Short of Mrs. Fisher her audience might have been called complete; for the restaurant was crowded with persons mainly gathered there for the purpose of spectatorship, and accurately posted as to the names and faces of the celebrities they had come to see. Mrs. Bry, conscious that all her feminine guests came under that heading, and that each one looked her part to admiration, shone on Lily with all the pent-up gratitude that Mrs. Fisher had failed to deserve. Selden, catching the glance, wondered what part Miss Bart had played in organizing the entertainment. She did, at least, a great deal to adorn it; and as he watched the bright security with which she bore herself, he smiled to think that he should have fancied her in need of help. Never had she appeared more serenely mistress of the situation than when, at the moment of dispersal, detaching herself a little from the group about the table, she turned with a smile and a graceful slant of the shoulders to receive her cloak from Dorset. The dinner had been protracted over Mr. Bry's exceptional cigars and a bewildering array of liqueurs, and many of the other tables were empty; but a sufficient number of diners still lingered to give relief to the leave-taking of Mrs. Bry's distinguished guests. This ceremony was drawn out and complicated by the fact that it involved, on the part of the Duchess and Lady Skiddaw, definite farewells, and pledges of speedy reunion in Paris, where they were to pause and replenish their wardrobes on the way to England. The quality of Mrs. Bry's hospitality, and of the tips her husband had presumably imparted, lent to the manner of the English ladies a general effusiveness which shed the rosiest light over their hostess's future. In its glow Mrs. Dorset and the Stepneys were also visibly included, and the whole scene had touches of intimacy worth their weight in gold to the watchful pen of Mr. Dabham. A glance at her watch caused the Duchess to exclaim to her sister that they had just time to dash for their train, and the flurry of this departure over, the Stepneys, who had their motor at the door, offered to convey the Dorsets and Miss Bart to the quay. The offer was accepted, and Mrs. Dorset moved away with her husband in attendance. Miss Bart had lingered for a last word with Lord Hubert, and Stepney, on whom Mr. Bry was pressing a final, and still more expensive, cigar, called out: "Come on, Lily, if you're going back to the yacht." Lily turned to obey; but as she did so, Mrs. Dorset, who had paused on her way out, moved a few steps back toward the table. "Miss Bart is not going back to the yacht," she said in a voice of singular distinctness. A startled look ran from eye to eye; Mrs. Bry crimsoned to the verge of congestion, Mrs. Stepney slipped nervously behind her husband, and Selden, in the general turmoil of his sensations, was mainly conscious of a longing to grip Dabham by the collar and fling him out into the street. Dorset, meanwhile, had stepped back to his wife's side. His face was white, and he looked about him with cowed angry eyes. "Bertha!--Miss Bart . . . this is some misunderstanding . . . some mistake . . ." "Miss Bart remains here," his wife rejoined incisively. "And, I think, George, we had better not detain Mrs. Stepney any longer." Miss Bart, during this brief exchange of words, remained in admirable erectness, slightly isolated from the embarrassed group about her. She had paled a little under the shock of the insult, but the discomposure of the surrounding faces was not reflected in her own. The faint disdain of her smile seemed to lift her high above her antagonist's reach, and it was not till she had given Mrs. Dorset the full measure of the distance between them that she turned and extended her hand to her hostess. "I am joining the Duchess tomorrow," she explained, "and it seemed easier for me to remain on shore for the night." She held firmly to Mrs. Bry's wavering eye while she gave this explanation, but when it was over Selden saw her send a tentative glance from one to another of the women's faces. She read their incredulity in their averted looks, and in the mute wretchedness of the men behind them, and for a miserable half-second he thought she quivered on the brink of failure. Then, turning to him with an easy gesture, and the pale bravery of her recovered smile--"Dear Mr. Selden," she said, "you promised to see me to my cab." Outside, the sky was gusty and overcast, and as Lily and Selden moved toward the deserted gardens below the restaurant, spurts of warm rain blew fitfully against their faces. The fiction of the cab had been tacitly abandoned; they walked on in silence, her hand on his arm, till the deeper shade of the gardens received them, and pausing beside a bench, he said: "Sit down a moment." She dropped to the seat without answering, but the electric lamp at the bend of the path shed a gleam on the struggling misery of her face. Selden sat down beside her, waiting for her to speak, fearful lest any word he chose should touch too roughly on her wound, and kept also from free utterance by the wretched doubt which had slowly renewed itself within him. What had brought her to this pass? What weakness had placed her so abominably at her enemy's mercy? And why should Bertha Dorset have turned into an enemy at the very moment when she so obviously needed the support of her sex? Even while his nerves raged at the subjection of husbands to their wives, and at the cruelty of women to their kind, reason obstinately harped on the proverbial relation between smoke and fire. The memory of Mrs. Fisher's hints, and the corroboration of his own impressions, while they deepened his pity also increased his constraint, since, whichever way he sought a free outlet for sympathy, it was blocked by the fear of committing a blunder. Suddenly it struck him that his silence must seem almost as accusatory as that of the men he had despised for turning from her; but before he could find the fitting word she had cut him short with a question. "Do you know of a quiet hotel? I can send for my maid in the morning." "An hotel--HERE--that you can go to alone? It's not possible." She met this with a pale gleam of her old playfulness. "What IS, then? It's too wet to sleep in the gardens." "But there must be some one----" "Some one to whom I can go? Of course--any number--but at THIS hour? You see my change of plan was rather sudden----" "Good God--if you'd listened to me!" he cried, venting his helplessness in a burst of anger. She still held him off with the gentle mockery of her smile. "But haven't I?" she rejoined. "You advised me to leave the yacht, and I'm leaving it." He saw then, with a pang of self-reproach, that she meant neither to explain nor to defend herself; that by his miserable silence he had forfeited all chance of helping her, and that the decisive hour was past. She had risen, and stood before him in a kind of clouded majesty, like some deposed princess moving tranquilly to exile. "Lily!" he exclaimed, with a note of despairing appeal; but--"Oh, not now," she gently admonished him; and then, in all the sweetness of her recovered composure: "Since I must find shelter somewhere, and since you're so kindly here to help me----" He gathered himself up at the challenge. "You will do as I tell you? There's but one thing, then; you must go straight to your cousins, the Stepneys." "Oh--" broke from her with a movement of instinctive resistance; but he insisted: "Come--it's late, and you must appear to have gone there directly." He had drawn her hand into his arm, but she held him back with a last gesture of protest. "I can't--I can't--not that--you don't know Gwen: you mustn't ask me!" "I MUST ask you--you must obey me," he persisted, though infected at heart by her own fear. Her voice sank to a whisper: "And if she refuses?"--but, "Oh, trust me--trust me!" he could only insist in return; and yielding to his touch, she let him lead her back in silence to the edge of the square. In the cab they continued to remain silent through the brief drive which carried them to the illuminated portals of the Stepneys' hotel. Here he left her outside, in the darkness of the raised hood, while his name was sent up to Stepney, and he paced the showy hall, awaiting the latter's descent. Ten minutes later the two men passed out together between the gold-laced custodians of the threshold; but in the vestibule Stepney drew up with a last flare of reluctance. "It's understood, then?" he stipulated nervously, with his hand on Selden's arm. "She leaves tomorrow by the early train--and my wife's asleep, and can't be disturbed." Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Buch Zwei beginnt in Europa, wo Selden mit Carry Fisher und einigen anderen weniger prominenten Personen, die auch auf Bellomont waren, in Monte Carlo ist. Ebenfalls in Monte Carlo eintreffend sind die Dorsets, Ned Silverton und Lily, die auf einer Yacht namens Sabrina im gesamten Mittelmeer unterwegs waren. Lily sieht sehr gut aus und hat alte europäische Freunde wie Lady Skiddaw, die Kronprinzessin von Mazedonien und Lord Hubert getroffen. Selden, besorgt nachdem er Lily mit Gus Trenor gesehen hat, erfährt von Carry, dass Bertha Dorset Lily auf die Reise mitgenommen hat, um ihren Ehemann George abzulenken, während Bertha ihre Affäre mit dem jungen Ned Silverton verfolgt. Allerdings wird Bertha eifersüchtig auf Lily's Erfolg mit Adligen und steht zwischen dem Wunsch, Lily von der Yacht zu werfen und andere Möglichkeiten zu finden, ihre Affäre zu verbergen, oder Lily bleiben zu lassen und ihren Erfolg zu ertragen. Um die Dinge noch komplizierter zu machen, interessiert sich George plötzlich sehr für Lily. Selden entscheidet sich, von dieser Szene wegzukommen und nach Nizza zurückzukehren, welches sein Ausgangspunkt wird. Später geht er mit Ned zu einer Show in der Bucht von Monte Carlo. Er entscheidet sich, wegzugehen und durch die Straßen zu schlendern, doch auf einmal sieht er Bertha und Ned zusammen gehen. Selden geht in den Club, wo er sich mit Lord Hubert trifft, aber er weiß jetzt, dass Lily als Werkzeug benutzt wird, um George Dorset zu beschäftigen, während Bertha und Ned Zeit miteinander verbringen. Am nächsten Tag sehen wir Lily alleine auf der Sabrina. Sie fühlt sich von ihren finanziellen Sorgen zuhause getrennt, was ihre Stimmung hebt, aber sie stellt fest, dass ihr Geld sehr knapp wird. Später trifft sie sich mit Carry Fisher, die ihr erzählt, dass das Gerücht umgeht, Lily und George hätten eine Affäre, nachdem sie zusammen am Bahnhof gesehen wurden. Obwohl Lily und George auf Bertha gewartet haben, sagt Carry, dass Lily dafür "büßen" wird. Später erfahren wir, dass die Gerüchte von Bertha verbreitet wurden, um Lily von der Sabrina zu werfen. Während sie durch die Stadt geht, trifft Lily George, der ihr erzählt, dass Bertha alle Züge in der vorherigen Nacht verpasst hat und die beiden deshalb gewartet haben. Obwohl er etwas begriffsstutzig ist, hat Dorset einen emotionalen Zusammenbruch, da er weiß, dass seine Frau eine Affäre mit Silverton hat. Er beschließt, Selden um Hilfe zu bitten, um seine Ehe rechtlich zu beenden. Obwohl Lily beschließt, Bertha aus freundschaftlicher Sympathie zu vergeben, lügt Bertha später und behauptet, dass sie und Ned tatsächlich zuerst am Bahnhof waren und nicht auf Lily und George gewartet haben. Bertha erzählt Lily, dass sie wütend ist, dass Lily und George zusammen in der Öffentlichkeit gesehen wurden, wegen der Gerüchte, die es zweifellos hervorrufen wird. Später hat Lily ein unangenehmes Abendessen mit den Dorsets, was Misstrauen weckt, da Ned nicht erscheint und George Lily ausweicht. In dieser Nacht sucht Selden nach Lily, um mit ihr zu sprechen, aber er trifft stattdessen auf Lord Hubert und Mrs. Bry, die ihn zu einem Abendessen mit der Herzogin einladen. Da er weiß, dass Lily ebenfalls anwesend sein wird, entscheidet Selden sich, hinzugehen, und als er Lily dort findet, sagt er ihr, sie solle die Yacht verlassen, weil er fürchtet, dass die Leute zu viel über Lily und George reden werden. Bei dem Dinner erscheinen zahlreiche Würdenträger, zur Freude von Mrs. Bry, die versucht, sich mit Hilfe von Carry Fisher als Mitglied der Elite zu etablieren. Nach dem Dinner verkündet Bertha plötzlich vor allen, dass Lily nicht zur Yacht zurückkehren wird und verschwindet prompt. Obwohl Lily versucht, ihre Verbannung zu vertuschen, nehmen die meisten Menschen an, dass Bertha Lily rausgeworfen hat, weil Lily eine Affäre mit George hatte. Selden begleitet die zerstörte Lily zum Taxi und bringt sie zu Jack Stepney's Wohnung, wo sie die Nacht bleiben darf. Lily ist zerrissen und weiß, dass sie praktisch nirgendwo hingehen kann.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: BOOK VIII. No more of talk where God or Angel Guest With Man, as with his Friend, familiar us'd To sit indulgent, and with him partake Rural repast, permitting him the while Venial discourse unblam'd: I now must change Those Notes to Tragic; foul distrust, and breach Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt And disobedience: On the part of Heav'n Now alienated, distance and distaste, Anger and just rebuke, and judgement giv'n, That brought into this World a world of woe, Sinne and her shadow Death, and Miserie Deaths Harbinger: Sad task, yet argument Not less but more Heroic then the wrauth Of stern ACHILLES on his Foe pursu'd Thrice Fugitive about TROY Wall; or rage Of TURNUS for LAVINIA disespous'd, Or NEPTUN'S ire or JUNO'S, that so long Perplex'd the GREEK and CYTHEREA'S Son; If answerable style I can obtaine Of my Celestial Patroness, who deignes Her nightly visitation unimplor'd, And dictates to me slumbring, or inspires Easie my unpremeditated Verse: Since first this subject for Heroic Song Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late; Not sedulous by Nature to indite Warrs, hitherto the onely Argument Heroic deem'd, chief maistrie to dissect With long and tedious havoc fabl'd Knights In Battels feign'd; the better fortitude Of Patience and Heroic Martyrdom Unsung; or to describe Races and Games, Or tilting Furniture, emblazon'd Shields, Impreses quaint, Caparisons and Steeds; Bases and tinsel Trappings, gorgious Knights At Joust and Torneament; then marshal'd Feast Serv'd up in Hall with Sewers, and Seneshals; The skill of Artifice or Office mean, Not that which justly gives Heroic name To Person or to Poem. Mee of these Nor skilld nor studious, higher Argument Remaines, sufficient of it self to raise That name, unless an age too late, or cold Climat, or Years damp my intended wing Deprest, and much they may, if all be mine, Not Hers who brings it nightly to my Ear. The Sun was sunk, and after him the Starr Of HESPERUS, whose Office is to bring Twilight upon the Earth, short Arbiter Twixt Day and Night, and now from end to end Nights Hemisphere had veild the Horizon round: When SATAN who late fled before the threats Of GABRIEL out of EDEN, now improv'd In meditated fraud and malice, bent On mans destruction, maugre what might hap Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd. By Night he fled, and at Midnight return'd From compassing the Earth, cautious of day, Since URIEL Regent of the Sun descri'd His entrance, and forewarnd the Cherubim That kept thir watch; thence full of anguish driv'n, The space of seven continu'd Nights he rode With darkness, thrice the Equinoctial Line He circl'd, four times cross'd the Carr of Night From Pole to Pole, traversing each Colure; On the eighth return'd, and on the Coast averse From entrance or Cherubic Watch, by stealth Found unsuspected way. There was a place, Now not, though Sin, not Time, first wraught the change, Where TIGRIS at the foot of Paradise Into a Gulf shot under ground, till part Rose up a Fountain by the Tree of Life; In with the River sunk, and with it rose Satan involv'd in rising Mist, then sought Where to lie hid; Sea he had searcht and Land From EDEN over PONTUS, and the Poole MAEOTIS, up beyond the River OB; Downward as farr Antartic; and in length West from ORANTES to the Ocean barr'd At DARIEN, thence to the Land where flowes GANGES and INDUS: thus the Orb he roam'd With narrow search; and with inspection deep Consider'd every Creature, which of all Most opportune might serve his Wiles, and found The Serpent suttlest Beast of all the Field. Him after long debate, irresolute Of thoughts revolv'd, his final sentence chose Fit Vessel, fittest Imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide From sharpest sight: for in the wilie Snake, Whatever sleights none would suspicious mark, As from his wit and native suttletie Proceeding, which in other Beasts observ'd Doubt might beget of Diabolic pow'r Active within beyond the sense of brute. Thus he resolv'd, but first from inward griefe His bursting passion into plaints thus pour'd: O Earth, how like to Heav'n, if not preferrd More justly, Seat worthier of Gods, as built With second thoughts, reforming what was old! For what God after better worse would build? Terrestrial Heav'n, danc't round by other Heav'ns That shine, yet bear thir bright officious Lamps, Light above Light, for thee alone, as seems, In thee concentring all thir precious beams Of sacred influence: As God in Heav'n Is Center, yet extends to all, so thou Centring receav'st from all those Orbs; in thee, Not in themselves, all thir known vertue appeers Productive in Herb, Plant, and nobler birth Of Creatures animate with gradual life Of Growth, Sense, Reason, all summ'd up in Man. With what delight could I have walkt thee round If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange Of Hill and Vallie, Rivers, Woods and Plaines, Now Land, now Sea, & Shores with Forrest crownd, Rocks, Dens, and Caves; but I in none of these Find place or refuge; and the more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel Torment within me, as from the hateful siege Of contraries; all good to me becomes Bane, and in Heav'n much worse would be my state. But neither here seek I, no nor in Heav'n To dwell, unless by maistring Heav'ns Supreame; Nor hope to be my self less miserable By what I seek, but others to make such As I though thereby worse to me redound: For onely in destroying I finde ease To my relentless thoughts; and him destroyd, Or won to what may work his utter loss, For whom all this was made, all this will soon Follow, as to him linkt in weal or woe, In wo then; that destruction wide may range: To mee shall be the glorie sole among The infernal Powers, in one day to have marr'd What he ALMIGHTIE styl'd, six Nights and Days Continu'd making, and who knows how long Before had bin contriving, though perhaps Not longer then since I in one Night freed From servitude inglorious welnigh half Th' Angelic Name, and thinner left the throng Of his adorers: hee to be aveng'd, And to repaire his numbers thus impair'd, Whether such vertue spent of old now faild More Angels to Create, if they at least Are his Created or to spite us more, Determin'd to advance into our room A Creature form'd of Earth, and him endow, Exalted from so base original, With Heav'nly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed He effected; Man he made, and for him built Magnificent this World, and Earth his seat, Him Lord pronounc'd, and, O indignitie! Subjected to his service Angel wings, And flaming Ministers to watch and tend Thir earthlie Charge: Of these the vigilance I dread, and to elude, thus wrapt in mist Of midnight vapor glide obscure, and prie In every Bush and Brake, where hap may finde The Serpent sleeping, in whose mazie foulds To hide me, and the dark intent I bring. O foul descent! that I who erst contended With Gods to sit the highest, am now constraind Into a Beast, and mixt with bestial slime, This essence to incarnate and imbrute, That to the hight of Deitie aspir'd; But what will not Ambition and Revenge Descend to? who aspires must down as low As high he soard, obnoxious first or last To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long back on it self recoiles; Let it; I reck not, so it light well aim'd, Since higher I fall short, on him who next Provokes my envie, this new Favorite Of Heav'n, this Man of Clay, Son of despite, Whom us the more to spite his Maker rais'd From dust: spite then with spite is best repaid. So saying, through each Thicket Danck or Drie, Like a black mist low creeping, he held on His midnight search, where soonest he might finde The Serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found In Labyrinth of many a round self-rowl'd, His head the midst, well stor'd with suttle wiles: Not yet in horrid Shade or dismal Den, Not nocent yet, but on the grassie Herbe Fearless unfeard he slept: in at his Mouth The Devil enterd, and his brutal sense, In heart or head, possessing soon inspir'd With act intelligential; but his sleep Disturbd not, waiting close th' approach of Morn. Now whenas sacred Light began to dawne In EDEN on the humid Flours, that breathd Thir morning Incense, when all things that breath, From th' Earths great Altar send up silent praise To the Creator, and his Nostrils fill With gratefull Smell, forth came the human pair And joynd thir vocal Worship to the Quire Of Creatures wanting voice, that done, partake The season, prime for sweetest Sents and Aires: Then commune how that day they best may ply Thir growing work: for much thir work outgrew The hands dispatch of two Gardning so wide. And EVE first to her Husband thus began. ADAM, well may we labour still to dress This Garden, still to tend Plant, Herb and Flour. Our pleasant task enjoyn'd, but till more hands Aid us, the work under our labour grows, Luxurious by restraint; what we by day Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind, One night or two with wanton growth derides Tending to wilde. Thou therefore now advise Or hear what to my mind first thoughts present, Let us divide our labours, thou where choice Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind The Woodbine round this Arbour, or direct The clasping Ivie where to climb, while I In yonder Spring of Roses intermixt With Myrtle, find what to redress till Noon: For while so near each other thus all day Our task we choose, what wonder if no near Looks intervene and smiles, or object new Casual discourse draw on, which intermits Our dayes work brought to little, though begun Early, and th' hour of Supper comes unearn'd. To whom mild answer ADAM thus return'd. Sole EVE, Associate sole, to me beyond Compare above all living Creatures deare, Well hast thou motion'd, wel thy thoughts imployd How we might best fulfill the work which here God hath assign'd us, nor of me shalt pass Unprais'd: for nothing lovelier can be found In woman, then to studie houshold good, And good workes in her Husband to promote. Yet not so strictly hath our Lord impos'd Labour, as to debarr us when we need Refreshment, whether food, or talk between, Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse Of looks and smiles, for smiles from Reason flow, To brute deni'd, and are of Love the food, Love not the lowest end of human life. For not to irksom toile, but to delight He made us, and delight to Reason joyn'd. These paths and Bowers doubt not but our joynt Will keep from Wilderness with ease, as wide As we need walk, till younger hands ere long Assist us: But if much converse perhaps Thee satiate, to short absence I could yeild. For solitude somtimes is best societie, And short retirement urges sweet returne. But other doubt possesses me, least harm Befall thee sever'd from me; for thou knowst What hath bin warn'd us, what malicious Foe Envying our happiness, and of his own Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame By sly assault; and somwhere nigh at hand Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find His wish and best advantage, us asunder, Hopeless to circumvent us joynd, where each To other speedie aide might lend at need; Whether his first design be to withdraw Our fealtie from God, or to disturb Conjugal Love, then which perhaps no bliss Enjoy'd by us excites his envie more; Or this, or worse, leave not the faithful side That gave thee being, stil shades thee and protects. The Wife, where danger or dishonour lurks, Safest and seemliest by her Husband staies, Who guards her, or with her the worst endures. To whom the Virgin Majestie of EVE, As one who loves, and some unkindness meets, With sweet austeer composure thus reply'd. Ofspring of Heav'n and Earth, and all Earths Lord, That such an enemie we have, who seeks Our ruin, both by thee informd I learne, And from the parting Angel over-heard As in a shadie nook I stood behind, Just then returnd at shut of Evening Flours. But that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt To God or thee, because we have a foe May tempt it, I expected not to hear. His violence thou fearst not, being such, As wee, not capable of death or paine, Can either not receave, or can repell. His fraud is then thy fear, which plain inferrs Thy equal fear that my firm Faith and Love Can by his fraud be shak'n or seduc't; Thoughts, which how found they harbour in thy Brest, ADAM, misthought of her to thee so dear? To whom with healing words ADAM reply'd. Daughter of God and Man, immortal EVE, For such thou art, from sin and blame entire: Not diffident of thee do I dissuade Thy absence from my sight, but to avoid Th' attempt it self, intended by our Foe. For hee who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses The tempted with dishonour foul, suppos'd Not incorruptible of Faith, not prooff Against temptation: thou thy self with scorne And anger wouldst resent the offer'd wrong, Though ineffectual found: misdeem not then, If such affront I labour to avert From thee alone, which on us both at once The Enemie, though bold, will hardly dare, Or daring, first on mee th' assault shall light. Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn; Suttle he needs must be, who could seduce Angels, nor think superfluous others aid. I from the influence of thy looks receave Access in every Vertue, in thy sight More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on, Shame to be overcome or over-reacht Would utmost vigor raise, and rais'd unite. Why shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel When I am present, and thy trial choose With me, best witness of thy Vertue tri'd. So spake domestick ADAM in his care And Matrimonial Love, but EVE, who thought Less attributed to her Faith sincere, Thus her reply with accent sweet renewd. If this be our condition, thus to dwell In narrow circuit strait'nd by a Foe, Suttle or violent, we not endu'd Single with like defence, wherever met, How are we happie, still in fear of harm? But harm precedes not sin: onely our Foe Tempting affronts us with his foul esteem Of our integritie: his foul esteeme Sticks no dishonor on our Front, but turns Foul on himself; then wherfore shund or feard By us? who rather double honour gaine From his surmise prov'd false, finde peace within, Favour from Heav'n, our witness from th' event. And what is Faith, Love, Vertue unassaid Alone, without exterior help sustaind? Let us not then suspect our happie State Left so imperfet by the Maker wise, As not secure to single or combin'd. Fraile is our happiness, if this be so, And EDEN were no EDEN thus expos'd. To whom thus ADAM fervently repli'd. O Woman, best are all things as the will Of God ordaind them, his creating hand Nothing imperfet or deficient left Of all that he Created, much less Man, Or ought that might his happie State secure, Secure from outward force; within himself The danger lies, yet lies within his power: Against his will he can receave no harme. But God left free the Will, for what obeyes Reason, is free, and Reason he made right, But bid her well beware, and still erect, Least by some faire appeering good surpris'd She dictate false, and missinforme the Will To do what God expresly hath forbid. Not then mistrust, but tender love enjoynes, That I should mind thee oft, and mind thou me. Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve, Since Reason not impossibly may meet Some specious object by the Foe subornd, And fall into deception unaware, Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warnd. Seek not temptation then, which to avoide Were better, and most likelie if from mee Thou sever not; Trial will come unsought. Wouldst thou approve thy constancie, approve First thy obedience; th' other who can know, Not seeing thee attempted, who attest? But if thou think, trial unsought may finde Us both securer then thus warnd thou seemst, Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more; Go in thy native innocence, relie On what thou hast of vertue, summon all, For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine. So spake the Patriarch of Mankinde, but EVE Persisted, yet submiss, though last, repli'd. With thy permission then, and thus forewarnd Chiefly by what thy own last reasoning words Touchd onely, that our trial, when least sought, May finde us both perhaps farr less prepar'd, The willinger I goe, nor much expect A Foe so proud will first the weaker seek; So bent, the more shall shame him his repulse. Thus saying, from her Husbands hand her hand Soft she withdrew, and like a Wood-Nymph light OREAD or DRYAD, or of DELIA's Traine, Betook her to the Groves, but DELIA's self In gate surpass'd and Goddess-like deport, Though not as shee with Bow and Quiver armd, But with such Gardning Tools as Are yet rude, Guiltless of fire had formd, or Angels brought, To PALES, or POMONA, thus adornd, Likest she seemd, POMONA when she fled VERTUMNUS, or to CERES in her Prime, Yet Virgin of PROSERPINA from JOVE. Her long with ardent look his EYE pursu'd Delighted, but desiring more her stay. Oft he to her his charge of quick returne, Repeated, shee to him as oft engag'd To be returnd by Noon amid the Bowre, And all things in best order to invite Noontide repast, or Afternoons repose. O much deceav'd, much failing, hapless EVE, Of thy presum'd return! event perverse! Thou never from that houre in Paradise Foundst either sweet repast, or found repose; Such ambush hid among sweet Flours and Shades Waited with hellish rancor imminent To intercept thy way, or send thee back Despoild of Innocence, of Faith, of Bliss. For now, and since first break of dawne the Fiend, Meer Serpent in appearance, forth was come, And on his Quest, where likeliest he might finde The onely two of Mankinde, but in them The whole included Race, his purposd prey. In Bowre and Field he sought, where any tuft Of Grove or Garden-Plot more pleasant lay, Thir tendance or Plantation for delight, By Fountain or by shadie Rivulet He sought them both, but wish'd his hap might find EVE separate, he wish'd, but not with hope Of what so seldom chanc'd, when to his wish, Beyond his hope, EVE separate he spies, Veild in a Cloud of Fragrance, where she stood, Half spi'd, so thick the Roses bushing round About her glowd, oft stooping to support Each Flour of slender stalk, whose head though gay Carnation, Purple, Azure, or spect with Gold, Hung drooping unsustaind, them she upstaies Gently with Mirtle band, mindless the while, Her self, though fairest unsupported Flour, From her best prop so farr, and storn so nigh. Neererhe drew, and many a walk travers'd Of stateliest Covert, Cedar, Pine, or Palme, Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen Among thick-wov'n Arborets and Flours Imborderd on each Bank, the hand of EVE: Spot more delicious then those Gardens feign'd Or of reviv'd ADONIS, or renownd ALCINOUS, host of old LAERTES Son, Or that, not Mystic, where the Sapient King Held dalliance with his faire EGYPTIAN Spouse. Much hee the Place admir'd, the Person more. As one who long in populous City pent, Where Houses thick and Sewers annoy the Aire, Forth issuing on a Summers Morn, to breathe Among the pleasant Villages and Farmes Adjoynd, from each thing met conceaves delight, The smell of Grain, or tedded Grass, or Kine, Or Dairie, each rural sight, each rural sound; If chance with Nymphlike step fair Virgin pass, What pleasing seemd, for her now pleases more, She most, and in her look summs all Delight. Such Pleasure took the Serpent to behold This Flourie Plat, the sweet recess of EVE Thus earlie, thus alone; her Heav'nly forme Angelic, but more soft, and Feminine, Her graceful Innocence, her every Aire Of gesture or lest action overawd His Malice, and with rapine sweet bereav'd His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought: That space the Evil one abstracted stood From his own evil, and for the time remaind Stupidly good, of enmitie disarm'd, Of guile, of hate, of envie, of revenge; But the hot Hell that alwayes in him burnes, Though in mid Heav'n, soon ended his delight, And tortures him now more, the more he sees Of pleasure not for him ordain'd: then soon Fierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts Of mischief, gratulating, thus excites. Thoughts, whither have he led me, with what sweet Compulsion thus transported to forget What hither brought us, hate, not love, nor hope Of Paradise for Hell, hope here to taste Of pleasure, but all pleasure to destroy, Save what is in destroying, other joy To me is lost. Then let me not let pass Occasion which now smiles, behold alone The Woman, opportune to all attempts, Her Husband, for I view far round, not nigh, Whose higher intellectual more I shun, And strength, of courage hautie, and of limb Heroic built, though of terrestrial mould, Foe not informidable, exempt from wound, I not; so much hath Hell debas'd, and paine Infeebl'd me, to what I was in Heav'n. Shee fair, divinely fair, fit Love for Gods, Not terrible, though terrour be in Love And beautie, not approacht by stronger hate, Hate stronger, under shew of Love well feign'd, The way which to her ruin now I tend. So spake the Enemie of Mankind, enclos'd In Serpent, Inmate bad, and toward EVE Address'd his way, not with indented wave, Prone on the ground, as since, but on his reare, Circular base of rising foulds, that tour'd Fould above fould a surging Maze, his Head Crested aloft, and Carbuncle his Eyes; With burnisht Neck of verdant Gold, erect Amidst his circling Spires, that on the grass Floted redundant: pleasing was his shape, And lovely, never since of Serpent kind Lovelier, not those that in ILLYRIA chang'd HERMIONE and CADMUS, or the God In EPIDAURUS; nor to which transformd AMMONIAN JOVE, or CAPITOLINE was seen, Hee with OLYMPIAS, this with her who bore SCIPIO the highth of ROME. With tract oblique At first, as one who sought access, but feard To interrupt, side-long he works his way. As when a Ship by skilful Stearsman wrought Nigh Rivers mouth or Foreland, where the Wind Veres oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her Saile; So varied hee, and of his tortuous Traine Curld many a wanton wreath in sight of EVE, To lure her Eye; shee busied heard the sound Of rusling Leaves, but minded not, as us'd To such disport before her through the Field, From every Beast, more duteous at her call, Then at CIRCEAN call the Herd disguis'd. Hee boulder now, uncall'd before her stood; But as in gaze admiring: Oft he bowd His turret Crest, and sleek enamel'd Neck, Fawning, and lick'd the ground whereon she trod. His gentle dumb expression turnd at length The Eye of EVE to mark his play; he glad Of her attention gaind, with Serpent Tongue Organic, or impulse of vocal Air, His fraudulent temptation thus began. Wonder not, sovran Mistress, if perhaps Thou canst, who art sole Wonder, much less arm Thy looks, the Heav'n of mildness, with disdain, Displeas'd that I approach thee thus, and gaze Insatiate, I thus single; nor have feard Thy awful brow, more awful thus retir'd. Fairest resemblance of thy Maker faire, Thee all living things gaze on, all things thine By gift, and thy Celestial Beautie adore With ravishment beheld, there best beheld Where universally admir'd; but here In this enclosure wild, these Beasts among, Beholders rude, and shallow to discerne Half what in thee is fair, one man except, Who sees thee? (and what is one?) who shouldst be seen A Goddess among Gods, ador'd and serv'd By Angels numberless, thy daily Train. So gloz'd the Tempter, and his Proem tun'd; Into the Heart of EVE his words made way, Though at the voice much marveling; at length Not unamaz'd she thus in answer spake. What may this mean? Language of Man pronounc't By Tongue of Brute, and human sense exprest? The first at lest of these I thought deni'd To Beasts, whom God on their Creation-Day Created mute to all articulat sound; The latter I demurre, for in thir looks Much reason, and in thir actions oft appeers. Thee, Serpent, suttlest beast of all the field I knew, but not with human voice endu'd; Redouble then this miracle, and say, How cam'st thou speakable of mute, and how To me so friendly grown above the rest Of brutal kind, that daily are in sight? Say, for such wonder claims attention due. To whom the guileful Tempter thus reply'd. Empress of this fair World, resplendent EVE, Easie to mee it is to tell thee all What thou commandst, and right thou shouldst be obeyd: I was at first as other Beasts that graze The trodden Herb, of abject thoughts and low, As was my food, nor aught but food discern'd Or Sex, and apprehended nothing high: Till on a day roaving the field, I chanc'd A goodly Tree farr distant to behold Loaden with fruit of fairest colours mixt, Ruddie and Gold: I nearer drew to gaze; When from the boughes a savorie odour blow'n, Grateful to appetite, more pleas'd my sense Then smell of sweetest Fenel, or the Teats Of Ewe or Goat dropping with Milk at Eevn, Unsuckt of Lamb or Kid, that tend thir play. To satisfie the sharp desire I had Of tasting those fair Apples, I resolv'd Not to deferr; hunger and thirst at once, Powerful perswaders, quick'nd at the scent Of that alluring fruit, urg'd me so keene. About the Mossie Trunk I wound me soon, For high from ground the branches would require Thy utmost reach or ADAMS: Round the Tree All other Beasts that saw, with like desire Longing and envying stood, but could not reach. Amid the Tree now got, where plentie hung Tempting so nigh, to pluck and eat my fill I spar'd not, for such pleasure till that hour At Feed or Fountain never had I found. Sated at length, ere long I might perceave Strange alteration in me, to degree Of Reason in my inward Powers, and Speech Wanted not long, though to this shape retaind. Thenceforth to Speculations high or deep I turnd my thoughts, and with capacious mind Considerd all things visible in Heav'n, Or Earth, or Middle, all things fair and good; But all that fair and good in thy Divine Semblance, and in thy Beauties heav'nly Ray United I beheld; no Fair to thine Equivalent or second, which compel'd Mee thus, though importune perhaps, to come And gaze, and worship thee of right declar'd Sovran of Creatures, universal Dame. So talk'd the spirited sly Snake; and EVE Yet more amaz'd unwarie thus reply'd. Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt The vertue of that Fruit, in thee first prov'd: But say, where grows the Tree, from hence how far? For many are the Trees of God that grow In Paradise, and various, yet unknown To us, in such abundance lies our choice, As leaves a greater store of Fruit untoucht, Still hanging incorruptible, till men Grow up to thir provision, and more hands Help to disburden Nature of her Bearth. To whom the wilie Adder, blithe and glad. Empress, the way is readie, and not long, Beyond a row of Myrtles, on a Flat, Fast by a Fountain, one small Thicket past Of blowing Myrrh and Balme; if thou accept My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon. Lead then, said EVE. Hee leading swiftly rowld In tangles, and make intricate seem strait, To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy Bright'ns his Crest, as when a wandring Fire Compact of unctuous vapor, which the Night Condenses, and the cold invirons round, Kindl'd through agitation to a Flame, Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends, Hovering and blazing with delusive Light, Misleads th' amaz'd Night-wanderer from his way To Boggs and Mires, & oft through Pond or Poole, There swallow'd up and lost, from succour farr. So glister'd the dire Snake and into fraud Led EVE our credulous Mother, to the Tree Of prohibition, root of all our woe; Which when she saw, thus to her guide she spake. Serpent, we might have spar'd our coming hither, Fruitless to me, though Fruit be here to excess, The credit of whose vertue rest with thee, Wondrous indeed, if cause of such effects. But of this Tree we may not taste nor touch; God so commanded, and left that Command Sole Daughter of his voice; the rest, we live Law to our selves, our Reason is our Law. To whom the Tempter guilefully repli'd. Indeed? hath God then said that of the Fruit Of all these Garden Trees ye shall not eate, Yet Lords declar'd of all in Earth or Aire? To whom thus EVE yet sinless. Of the Fruit Of each Tree in the Garden we may eate, But of the Fruit of this fair Tree amidst The Garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eate Thereof, nor shall ye touch it, least ye die. She scarse had said, though brief, when now more bold The Tempter, but with shew of Zeale and Love To Man, and indignation at his wrong, New part puts on, and as to passion mov'd, Fluctuats disturbd, yet comely, and in act Rais'd, as of som great matter to begin. As when of old som Orator renound In ATHENS or free ROME, where Eloquence Flourishd, since mute, to som great cause addrest, Stood in himself collected, while each part, Motion, each act won audience ere the tongue, Somtimes in highth began, as no delay Of Preface brooking through his Zeal of Right. So standing, moving, or to highth upgrown The Tempter all impassiond thus began. O Sacred, Wise, and Wisdom-giving Plant, Mother of Science, Now I feel thy Power Within me cleere, not onely to discerne Things in thir Causes, but to trace the wayes Of highest Agents, deemd however wise. Queen of this Universe, doe not believe Those rigid threats of Death; ye shall not Die: How should ye? by the Fruit? it gives you Life To Knowledge? By the Threatner, look on mee, Mee who have touch'd and tasted, yet both live, And life more perfet have attaind then Fate Meant mee, by ventring higher then my Lot. Shall that be shut to Man, which to the Beast Is open? or will God incense his ire For such a pretty Trespass, and not praise Rather your dauntless vertue, whom the pain Of Death denounc't, whatever thing Death be, Deterrd not from atchieving what might leade To happier life, knowledge of Good and Evil; Of good, how just? of evil, if what is evil Be real, why not known, since easier shunnd? God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just; Not just, not God; not feard then, nor obeid: Your feare it self of Death removes the feare. Why then was this forbid? Why but to awe, Why but to keep ye low and ignorant, His worshippers; he knows that in the day Ye Eate thereof, your Eyes that seem so cleere, Yet are but dim, shall perfetly be then Op'nd and cleerd, and ye shall be as Gods, Knowing both Good and Evil as they know. That ye should be as Gods, since I as Man, Internal Man, is but proportion meet, I of brute human, yee of human Gods. So ye shalt die perhaps, by putting off Human, to put on Gods, death to be wisht, Though threat'nd, which no worse then this can bring And what are Gods that Man may not become As they, participating God-like food? The Gods are first, and that advantage use On our belief, that all from them proceeds, I question it, for this fair Earth I see, Warm'd by the Sun, producing every kind, Them nothing: If they all things, who enclos'd Knowledge of Good and Evil in this Tree, That whoso eats thereof, forthwith attains Wisdom without their leave? and wherein lies Th' offence, that Man should thus attain to know? What can your knowledge hurt him, or this Tree Impart against his will if all be his? Or is it envie, and can envie dwell In heav'nly brests? these, these and many more Causes import your need of this fair Fruit. Goddess humane, reach then, and freely taste. He ended, and his words replete with guile Into her heart too easie entrance won: Fixt on the Fruit she gaz'd, which to behold Might tempt alone, and in her ears the sound Yet rung of his perswasive words, impregn'd With Reason, to her seeming, and with Truth; Meanwhile the hour of Noon drew on, and wak'd An eager appetite, rais'd by the smell So savorie of that Fruit, which with desire, Inclinable now grown to touch or taste, Sollicited her longing eye; yet first Pausing a while, thus to her self she mus'd. Great are thy Vertues, doubtless, best of Fruits, Though kept from Man, & worthy to be admir'd, Whose taste, too long forborn, at first assay Gave elocution to the mute, and taught The Tongue not made for Speech to speak thy praise: Thy praise hee also who forbids thy use, Conceales not from us, naming thee the Tree Of Knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil; Forbids us then to taste, but his forbidding Commends thee more, while it inferrs the good By thee communicated, and our want: For good unknown, sure is not had, or had And yet unknown, is as not had at all. In plain then, what forbids he but to know, Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise? Such prohibitions binde not. But if Death Bind us with after-bands, what profits then Our inward freedom? In the day we eate Of this fair Fruit, our doom is, we shall die. How dies the Serpent? hee hath eat'n and lives, And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discernes, Irrational till then. For us alone Was death invented? or to us deni'd This intellectual food, for beasts reserv'd? For Beasts it seems: yet that one Beast which first Hath tasted, envies not, but brings with joy The good befall'n him, Author unsuspect, Friendly to man, farr from deceit or guile. What fear I then, rather what know to feare Under this ignorance of Good and Evil, Of God or Death, of Law or Penaltie? Here grows the Cure of all, this Fruit Divine, Fair to the Eye, inviting to the Taste, Of vertue to make wise: what hinders then To reach, and feed at once both Bodie and Mind? So saying, her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the Fruit, she pluck'd, she eat: Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her Works gave signs of woe, That all was lost. Back to the Thicket slunk The guiltie Serpent, and well might, for EVE Intent now wholly on her taste, naught else Regarded, such delight till then, as seemd, In Fruit she never tasted, whether true Or fansied so, through expectation high Of knowledg, nor was God-head from her thought. Greedily she ingorg'd without restraint, And knew not eating Death: Satiate at length, And hight'nd as with Wine, jocond and boon, Thus to her self she pleasingly began. O Sovran, vertuous, precious of all Trees In Paradise, of operation blest To Sapience, hitherto obscur'd, infam'd, And thy fair Fruit let hang, as to no end Created; but henceforth my early care, Not without Song, each Morning, and due praise Shall tend thee, and the fertil burden ease Of thy full branches offer'd free to all; Till dieted by thee I grow mature In knowledge, as the Gods who all things know; Though others envie what they cannot give; For had the gift bin theirs, it had not here Thus grown. Experience, next to thee I owe, Best guide; not following thee, I had remaind In ignorance, thou op'nst Wisdoms way, And giv'st access, though secret she retire. And I perhaps am secret; Heav'n is high, High and remote to see from thence distinct Each thing on Earth; and other care perhaps May have diverted from continual watch Our great Forbidder, safe with all his Spies About him. But to ADAM in what sort Shall I appeer? shall I to him make known As yet my change, and give him to partake Full happiness with mee, or rather not, But keep the odds of Knowledge in my power Without Copartner? so to add what wants In Femal Sex, the more to draw his Love, And render me more equal, and perhaps A thing not undesireable, somtime Superior; for inferior who is free? This may be well: but what if God have seen, And Death ensue? then I shall be no more, And ADAM wedded to another EVE, Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct; A death to think. Confirm'd then I resolve, ADAM shall share with me in bliss or woe: So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure; without him live no life. So saying, from the Tree her step she turnd, But first low Reverence don, as to the power That dwelt within, whose presence had infus'd Into the plant sciential sap, deriv'd From Nectar, drink of Gods. ADAM the while Waiting desirous her return, had wove Of choicest Flours a Garland to adorne Her Tresses, and her rural labours crown As Reapers oft are wont thir Harvest Queen. Great joy he promis'd to his thoughts, and new Solace in her return, so long delay'd; Yet oft his heart, divine of somthing ill, Misgave him; hee the faultring measure felt; And forth to meet her went, the way she took That Morn when first they parted; by the Tree Of Knowledge he must pass, there he her met, Scarse from the Tree returning; in her hand A bough of fairest fruit that downie smil'd, New gatherd, and ambrosial smell diffus'd. To him she hasted, in her face excuse Came Prologue, and Apologie to prompt, Which with bland words at will she thus addrest. Hast thou not wonderd, ADAM, at my stay? Thee I have misst, and thought it long, depriv'd Thy presence, agonie of love till now Not felt, nor shall be twice, for never more Mean I to trie, what rash untri'd I sought, The paine of absence from thy sight. But strange Hath bin the cause, and wonderful to heare: This Tree is not as we are told, a Tree Of danger tasted, nor to evil unknown Op'ning the way, but of Divine effect To open Eyes, and make them Gods who taste; And hath bin tasted such; the Serpent wise, Or not restraind as wee, or not obeying, Hath eat'n of the fruit, and is become, Not dead, as we are threatn'd, but thenceforth Endu'd with human voice and human sense, Reasoning to admiration, and with mee Perswasively hath so prevaild, that I Have also tasted, and have also found Th' effects to correspond, opener mine Eyes, Dimm erst, dilated Spirits, ampler Heart, And growing up to Godhead; which for thee Chiefly I sought, without thee can despise. For bliss, as thou hast part, to me is bliss, Tedious, unshar'd with thee, and odious soon. Thou therefore also taste, that equal Lot May joyne us, equal Joy, as equal Love; Least thou not tasting, different degree Disjoyne us, and I then too late renounce Deitie for thee, when Fate will not permit. Thus EVE with Countnance blithe her storie told; But in her Cheek distemper flushing glowd. On th' other side, ADAM, soon as he heard The fatal Trespass don by EVE, amaz'd, Astonied stood and Blank, while horror chill Ran through his veins, and all his joynts relax'd; From his slack hand the Garland wreath'd for EVE Down drop'd, and all the faded Roses shed: Speechless he stood and pale, till thus at length First to himself he inward silence broke. O fairest of Creation, last and best Of all Gods Works, Creature in whom excell'd Whatever can to fight or thought be found, Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet! How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost, Defac't, deflourd, and now to Death devote? Rather how hast thou yeelded to transgress The strict forbiddance, how to violate The sacred Fruit forbidd'n! som cursed fraud Of Enemie hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown, And mee with thee hath ruind, for with thee Certain my resolution is to Die; How can I live without thee, how forgoe Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly joyn'd, To live again in these wilde Woods forlorn? Should God create another EVE, and I Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee Would never from my heart; no no, I feel The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh, Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe. So having said, as one from sad dismay Recomforted, and after thoughts disturbd Submitting to what seemd remediless, Thus in calme mood his Words to EVE he turnd. Bold deed thou hast presum'd, adventrous EVE, And peril great provok't, who thus hast dar'd Had it bin onely coveting to Eye That sacred Fruit, sacred to abstinence, Much more to taste it under banne to touch. But past who can recall, or don undoe? Not God omnipotent, for Fate, yet so Perhaps thou shalt not Die, perhaps the Fact Is not so hainous now, foretasted Fruit, Profan'd first by the Serpent, by him first Made common and unhallowd: ere one tastes; Nor yet on him found deadly; he yet lives, Lives, as thou saidst, and gaines to live as Man Higher degree of Life, inducement strong To us, as likely tasting to attaine Proportional ascent, which cannot be But to be Gods, or Angels Demi-gods. Nor can I think that God, Creator wise, Though threatning, will in earnest so destroy Us his prime Creatures, dignifi'd so high, Set over all his Works, which in our Fall, For us created, needs with us must faile, Dependent made; so God shall uncreate, Be frustrate, do, undo, and labour loose, Not well conceav'd of God, who though his Power Creation could repeate, yet would be loath Us to abolish, least the Adversary Triumph and say; Fickle their State whom God Most Favors, who can please him long? Mee first He ruind, now Mankind; whom will he next? Matter of scorne, not to be given the Foe. However I with thee have fixt my Lot, Certain to undergoe like doom, if Death Consort with thee, Death is to mee as Life; So forcible within my heart I feel The Bond of Nature draw me to my owne, My own in thee, for what thou art is mine; Our State cannot be severd, we are one, One Flesh; to loose thee were to loose my self. So ADAM, and thus EVE to him repli'd. O glorious trial of exceeding Love, Illustrious evidence, example high! Ingaging me to emulate, but short Of thy perfection, how shall I attaine, ADAM, from whose deare side I boast me sprung, And gladly of our Union heare thee speak, One Heart, one Soul in both; whereof good prooff This day affords, declaring thee resolvd, Rather then Death or aught then Death more dread Shall separate us, linkt in Love so deare, To undergoe with mee one Guilt, one Crime, If any be, of tasting this fair Fruit, Whose vertue, for of good still good proceeds, Direct, or by occasion hath presented This happie trial of thy Love, which else So eminently never had bin known. Were it I thought Death menac't would ensue This my attempt, I would sustain alone The worst, and not perswade thee, rather die Deserted, then oblige thee with a fact Pernicious to thy Peace, chiefly assur'd Remarkably so late of thy so true, So faithful Love unequald; but I feel Farr otherwise th' event, not Death, but Life Augmented, op'nd Eyes, new Hopes, new Joyes, Taste so Divine, that what of sweet before Hath toucht my sense, flat seems to this, and harsh. On my experience, ADAM, freely taste, And fear of Death deliver to the Windes. So saying, she embrac'd him, and for joy Tenderly wept, much won that he his Love Had so enobl'd, as of choice to incurr Divine displeasure for her sake, or Death. In recompence (for such compliance bad Such recompence best merits) from the bough She gave him of that fair enticing Fruit With liberal hand: he scrupl'd not to eat Against his better knowledge, not deceav'd, But fondly overcome with Femal charm. Earth trembl'd from her entrails, as again In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan, Skie lowr'd, and muttering Thunder, som sad drops Wept at compleating of the mortal Sin Original; while ADAM took no thought, Eating his fill, nor EVE to iterate Her former trespass fear'd, the more to soothe Him with her lov'd societie, that now As with new Wine intoxicated both They swim in mirth, and fansie that they feel Divinitie within them breeding wings Wherewith to scorn the Earth: but that false Fruit Farr other operation first displaid, Carnal desire enflaming, hee on EVE Began to cast lascivious Eyes, she him As wantonly repaid; in Lust they burne: Till ADAM thus 'gan EVE to dalliance move. EVE, now I see thou art exact of taste, And elegant, of Sapience no small part, Since to each meaning savour we apply, And Palate call judicious; I the praise Yeild thee, so well this day thou hast purvey'd. Much pleasure we have lost, while we abstain'd From this delightful Fruit, nor known till now True relish, tasting; if such pleasure be In things to us forbidden, it might be wish'd, For this one Tree had bin forbidden ten. But come, so well refresh't, now let us play, As meet is, after such delicious Fare; For never did thy Beautie since the day I saw thee first and wedded thee, adorn'd With all perfections, so enflame my sense With ardor to enjoy thee, fairer now Then ever, bountie of this vertuous Tree. So said he, and forbore not glance or toy Of amorous intent, well understood Of EVE, whose Eye darted contagious Fire. Her hand he seis'd, and to a shadie bank, Thick overhead with verdant roof imbowr'd He led her nothing loath; Flours were the Couch, Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel, And Hyacinth, Earths freshest softest lap. There they thir fill of Love and Loves disport Took largely, of thir mutual guilt the Seale, The solace of thir sin, till dewie sleep Oppress'd them, wearied with thir amorous play. Soon as the force of that fallacious Fruit, That with exhilerating vapour bland About thir spirits had plaid, and inmost powers Made erre, was now exhal'd, and grosser sleep Bred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreams Encumberd, now had left them, up they rose As from unrest, and each the other viewing, Soon found thir Eyes how op'nd, and thir minds How dark'nd; innocence, that as a veile Had shadow'd them from knowing ill, was gon, Just confidence, and native righteousness, And honour from about them, naked left To guiltie shame hee cover'd, but his Robe Uncover'd more. So rose the DANITE strong HERCULEAN SAMSON from the Harlot-lap Of PHILISTEAN DALILAH, and wak'd Shorn of his strength, They destitute and bare Of all thir vertue: silent, and in face Confounded long they sate, as struck'n mute, Till ADAM, though not less then EVE abasht, At length gave utterance to these words constraind. O EVE, in evil hour thou didst give care To that false Worm, of whomsoever taught To counterfet Mans voice, true in our Fall, False in our promis'd Rising; since our Eyes Op'nd we find indeed, and find we know Both Good and Evil, Good lost and Evil got, Bad Fruit of Knowledge, if this be to know, Which leaves us naked thus, of Honour void, Of Innocence, of Faith, of Puritie, Our wonted Ornaments now soild and staind, And in our Faces evident the signes Of foul concupiscence; whence evil store; Even shame, the last of evils; of the first Be sure then. How shall I behold the face Henceforth of God or Angel, earst with joy And rapture so oft beheld? those heav'nly shapes Will dazle now this earthly, with thir blaze Insufferably bright. O might I here In solitude live savage, in some glad Obscur'd, where highest Woods impenetrable To Starr or Sun-light, spread thir umbrage broad, And brown as Evening: Cover me ye Pines, Ye Cedars, with innumerable boughs Hide me, where I may never see them more. But let us now, as in bad plight, devise What best may for the present serve to hide The Parts of each from other, that seem most To shame obnoxious, and unseemliest seen, Some Tree whose broad smooth Leaves together sowd, And girded on our loyns, may cover round Those middle parts, that this new commer, Shame, There sit not, and reproach us as unclean. So counsel'd hee, and both together went Into the thickest Wood, there soon they chose The Figtree, not that kind for Fruit renown'd, But such as at this day to INDIANS known In MALABAR or DECAN spreds her Armes Braunching so broad and long, that in the ground The bended Twigs take root, and Daughters grow About the Mother Tree, a Pillard shade High overarch't, and echoing Walks between; There oft the INDIAN Herdsman shunning heate Shelters in coole, and tends his pasturing Herds At Loopholes cut through thickest shade: Those Leaves They gatherd, broad as AMAZONIAN Targe, And with what skill they had, together sowd, To gird thir waste, vain Covering if to hide Thir guilt and dreaded shame; O how unlike To that first naked Glorie. Such of late COLUMBUS found th' AMERICAN to girt With featherd Cincture, naked else and wilde Among the Trees on Iles and woodie Shores. Thus fenc't, and as they thought, thir shame in part Coverd, but not at rest or ease of Mind, They sate them down to weep, nor onely Teares Raind at thir Eyes, but high Winds worse within Began to rise, high Passions, Anger, Hate, Mistrust, Suspicion, Discord, and shook sore Thir inward State of Mind, calme Region once And full of Peace, now tost and turbulent: For Understanding rul'd not, and the Will Heard not her lore, both in subjection now To sensual Appetite, who from beneathe Usurping over sovran Reason claimd Superior sway: From thus distemperd brest, ADAM, estrang'd in look and alterd stile, Speech intermitted thus to EVE renewd. Would thou hadst heark'nd to my words, & stai'd With me, as I besought thee, when that strange Desire of wandring this unhappie Morn, I know not whence possessd thee; we had then Remaind still happie, not as now, despoild Of all our good, sham'd, naked, miserable. Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve The Faith they owe; when earnestly they seek Such proof, conclude, they then begin to faile. To whom soon mov'd with touch of blame thus EVE. What words have past thy Lips, ADAM severe, Imput'st thou that to my default, or will Of wandering, as thou call'st it, which who knows But might as ill have happ'nd thou being by, Or to thy self perhaps: hadst thou bin there, Or bere th' attempt, thou couldst not have discernd Fraud in the Serpent, speaking as he spake; No ground of enmitie between us known, Why hee should mean me ill, or seek to harme. Was I to have never parted from thy side? As good have grown there still a liveless Rib. Being as I am, why didst not thou the Head Command me absolutely not to go, Going into such danger as thou saidst? Too facil then thou didst not much gainsay, Nay, didst permit, approve, and fair dismiss. Hadst thou bin firm and fixt in thy dissent, Neither had I transgress'd, nor thou with mee. To whom then first incenst ADAM repli'd. Is this the Love, is the recompence Of mine to thee, ingrateful EVE, exprest Immutable when thou wert lost, not I, Who might have liv'd and joyd immortal bliss, Yet willingly chose rather Death with thee: And am I now upbraided, as the cause Of thy transgressing? not enough severe, It seems, in thy restraint: what could I more? I warn'd thee, I admonish'd thee, foretold The danger, and the lurking Enemie That lay in wait; beyond this had bin force, And force upon free Will hath here no place. But confidence then bore thee on, secure Either to meet no danger, or to finde Matter of glorious trial; and perhaps I also err'd in overmuch admiring What seemd in thee so perfet, that I thought No evil durst attempt thee, but I rue That errour now, which is become my crime, And thou th' accuser. Thus it shall befall Him who to worth in Women overtrusting Lets her Will rule; restraint she will not brook, And left to her self, if evil thence ensue, Shee first his weak indulgence will accuse. Thus they in mutual accusation spent The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning And of thir vain contest appeer'd no end. THE END OF THE EIGHTH BOOK. PARADISE LOST Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Adam fragt Raphael über die Himmel. In der Zwischenzeit kümmert sich Eva um ihren Garten. Raphael spricht ein wenig über den Himmel und erwähnt sogar Kreaturen, die auf anderen Planeten leben, aber er sagt auch, dass Adam und Eva nicht zu neugierig über andere Welten oder die Funktionsweise des Himmels sein sollten. Solche Fragen und Neugier können sie von ihrer Funktion auf der Erde abbringen. Adam erzählt Raphael dann, woran er sich erinnert, als er erschaffen wurde. Adam erinnert sich nur daran, an einem schönen Ort aufzuwachen und sich über seine eigene Existenz zu wundern. Er hat einen Traum und Gott antwortet ihm, dass er es war, Gott, der ihn erschaffen hat. Gott warnt ihn davor, vom Baum der Erkenntnis von Gut und Böse zu essen. Gott teilt Adam mit, dass ihm der Rest der Schöpfung gehört und er ihn benennen darf. Adam teilt Gott mit, dass er gerne eine Gefährtin, eine Partnerin hätte. Adam bemerkt, dass alle anderen Tiere Partner oder Gefährten bekommen haben. Gott sagt ihm, dass er, Gott, alleine ist und es ihm gut geht. Schließlich gibt Gott jedoch nach und sagt Adam, dass er von Anfang an eine Gefährtin für ihn geplant habe. Adam wird in einen Schlaf versetzt und Gott nimmt eine Rippe von seiner Seite. Daraus formt Gott eine Frau, die für Adam die schönste aller Kreaturen Gottes ist. Adam und Raphael führen ein Gespräch über die Liebe: wie Liebe rein sein muss, keine fleischliche oder leidenschaftliche Liebe. Fleischliche Liebe ist das, was die Tiere genießen, und Gott hat Adam eine Frau gegeben, kein Tier, also sollte er eine höhere Liebe praktizieren.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: XX. A Plea When the newly-married pair came home, the first person who appeared, to offer his congratulations, was Sydney Carton. They had not been at home many hours, when he presented himself. He was not improved in habits, or in looks, or in manner; but there was a certain rugged air of fidelity about him, which was new to the observation of Charles Darnay. He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a window, and of speaking to him when no one overheard. "Mr. Darnay," said Carton, "I wish we might be friends." "We are already friends, I hope." "You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech; but, I don't mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I say I wish we might be friends, I scarcely mean quite that, either." Charles Darnay--as was natural--asked him, in all good-humour and good-fellowship, what he did mean? "Upon my life," said Carton, smiling, "I find that easier to comprehend in my own mind, than to convey to yours. However, let me try. You remember a certain famous occasion when I was more drunk than--than usual?" "I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me to confess that you had been drinking." "I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy upon me, for I always remember them. I hope it may be taken into account one day, when all days are at an end for me! Don't be alarmed; I am not going to preach." "I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you, is anything but alarming to me." "Ah!" said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if he waved that away. "On the drunken occasion in question (one of a large number, as you know), I was insufferable about liking you, and not liking you. I wish you would forget it." "I forgot it long ago." "Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is not so easy to me, as you represent it to be to you. I have by no means forgotten it, and a light answer does not help me to forget it." "If it was a light answer," returned Darnay, "I beg your forgiveness for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight thing, which, to my surprise, seems to trouble you too much, aside. I declare to you, on the faith of a gentleman, that I have long dismissed it from my mind. Good Heaven, what was there to dismiss! Have I had nothing more important to remember, in the great service you rendered me that day?" "As to the great service," said Carton, "I am bound to avow to you, when you speak of it in that way, that it was mere professional claptrap, I don't know that I cared what became of you, when I rendered it.--Mind! I say when I rendered it; I am speaking of the past." "You make light of the obligation," returned Darnay, "but I will not quarrel with _your_ light answer." "Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside from my purpose; I was speaking about our being friends. Now, you know me; you know I am incapable of all the higher and better flights of men. If you doubt it, ask Stryver, and he'll tell you so." "I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his." "Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who has never done any good, and never will." "I don't know that you 'never will.'" "But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If you could endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow of such indifferent reputation, coming and going at odd times, I should ask that I might be permitted to come and go as a privileged person here; that I might be regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were not for the resemblance I detected between you and me, an unornamental) piece of furniture, tolerated for its old service, and taken no notice of. I doubt if I should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one if I should avail myself of it four times in a year. It would satisfy me, I dare say, to know that I had it." "Will you try?" "That is another way of saying that I am placed on the footing I have indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use that freedom with your name?" "I think so, Carton, by this time." They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a minute afterwards, he was, to all outward appearance, as unsubstantial as ever. When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed with Miss Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay made some mention of this conversation in general terms, and spoke of Sydney Carton as a problem of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in short, not bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might who saw him as he showed himself. He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young wife; but, when he afterwards joined her in their own rooms, he found her waiting for him with the old pretty lifting of the forehead strongly marked. "We are thoughtful to-night!" said Darnay, drawing his arm about her. "Yes, dearest Charles," with her hands on his breast, and the inquiring and attentive expression fixed upon him; "we are rather thoughtful to-night, for we have something on our mind to-night." "What is it, my Lucie?" "Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I beg you not to ask it?" "Will I promise? What will I not promise to my Love?" What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair from the cheek, and his other hand against the heart that beat for him! "I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more consideration and respect than you expressed for him to-night." "Indeed, my own? Why so?" "That is what you are not to ask me. But I think--I know--he does." "If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me do, my Life?" "I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding." "It is a painful reflection to me," said Charles Darnay, quite astounded, "that I should have done him any wrong. I never thought this of him." "My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable now. But, I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things." She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man, that her husband could have looked at her as she was for hours. "And, O my dearest Love!" she urged, clinging nearer to him, laying her head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to his, "remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery!" The supplication touched him home. "I will always remember it, dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I live." He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of that husband, he might have cried to the night--and the words would not have parted from his lips for the first time-- "God bless her for her sweet compassion!" Können Sie eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Als Lucie und Darnay von ihrer Hochzeitsreise nach Hause kommen, ist Sydney Carton ihr erster Besucher. Er entschuldigt sich für seine Trunkenheit in der Nacht des Prozesses und hält eine selbstentwertende Rede, in der er um Darnays Freundschaft bittet: "Wenn du es ertragen könntest, einen solch wertlosen Kerl zu haben, der zu unpassenden Zeiten kommt und geht, würde ich darum bitten, dass ich als privilegierte Person kommen und gehen darf." Carton geht. Danach bemerkt Darnay, dass Carton dazu neigt, unvorsichtig und leichtsinnig zu sein. Lucie findet dieses Urteil zu hart und besteht darauf, dass Carton ein gutes, wenn auch verletztes Herz hat. Lucies Mitgefühl berührt Darnay und er verspricht, Cartons Fehler mit Sympathie zu betrachten.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: ACT IV. Szene 3. Troy. Eine Straße vor PANDES Haus Paris, Troilus, Aeneas, Deiphobus, Antenor und Diomedes betreten die Szene. PARIS. Es ist ein großer Morgen; und die Stunde, die bestimmt ist Für ihre Übergabe an diesen tapferen Griechen, Rückt schnell näher. Mein guter Bruder Troilus, Sage der Dame, was sie zu tun hat Und bringe sie schnell zum Ziel. TROILUS. Geh in ihr Haus. Ich werde sie gleich zu den Griechen bringen; Und wenn ich sie ihm übergebe, Denke daran, dass es ein Altar ist und dein Bruder Troilus Ein Priester ist, der ihm sein eigenes Herz darbringt. Er geht ab. PARIS. Ich weiß, was es heißt, zu lieben, Und wollte, ich könnte helfen, wie ich Mitleid habe! Wenn es Ihnen recht ist, meine Herren, treten Sie ein. Sie gehen ab. Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Vor dem Haus von Kalchas erzählt Paris Troilus, dass er hineingehen und Cressida holen muss, damit sie sie an die Griechen ausliefern können. Er tut Troilus leid, aber er kann nichts dagegen tun.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: SCENE III. Another part of the field Enter POSTHUMUS and a Britain LORD LORD. Cam'st thou from where they made the stand? POSTHUMUS. I did: Though you, it seems, come from the fliers. LORD. I did. POSTHUMUS. No blame be to you, sir, for all was lost, But that the heavens fought. The King himself Of his wings destitute, the army broken, And but the backs of Britons seen, all flying, Through a strait lane- the enemy, full-hearted, Lolling the tongue with slaught'ring, having work More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down Some mortally, some slightly touch'd, some falling Merely through fear, that the strait pass was damm'd With dead men hurt behind, and cowards living To die with length'ned shame. LORD. Where was this lane? POSTHUMUS. Close by the battle, ditch'd, and wall'd with turf, Which gave advantage to an ancient soldier- An honest one, I warrant, who deserv'd So long a breeding as his white beard came to, In doing this for's country. Athwart the lane He, with two striplings- lads more like to run The country base than to commit such slaughter; With faces fit for masks, or rather fairer Than those for preservation cas'd or shame- Made good the passage, cried to those that fled 'Our Britain's harts die flying, not our men. To darkness fleet souls that fly backwards! Stand; Or we are Romans and will give you that, Like beasts, which you shun beastly, and may save But to look back in frown. Stand, stand!' These three, Three thousand confident, in act as many- For three performers are the file when all The rest do nothing- with this word 'Stand, stand!' Accommodated by the place, more charming With their own nobleness, which could have turn'd A distaff to a lance, gilded pale looks, Part shame, part spirit renew'd; that some turn'd coward But by example- O, a sin in war Damn'd in the first beginners!- gan to look The way that they did and to grin like lions Upon the pikes o' th' hunters. Then began A stop i' th' chaser, a retire; anon A rout, confusion thick. Forthwith they fly, Chickens, the way which they stoop'd eagles; slaves, The strides they victors made; and now our cowards, Like fragments in hard voyages, became The life o' th' need. Having found the back-door open Of the unguarded hearts, heavens, how they wound! Some slain before, some dying, some their friends O'erborne i' th' former wave. Ten chas'd by one Are now each one the slaughterman of twenty. Those that would die or ere resist are grown The mortal bugs o' th' field. LORD. This was strange chance: A narrow lane, an old man, and two boys. POSTHUMUS. Nay, do not wonder at it; you are made Rather to wonder at the things you hear Than to work any. Will you rhyme upon't, And vent it for a mock'ry? Here is one: 'Two boys, an old man (twice a boy), a lane, Preserv'd the Britons, was the Romans' bane.' LORD. Nay, be not angry, sir. POSTHUMUS. 'Lack, to what end? Who dares not stand his foe I'll be his friend; For if he'll do as he is made to do, I know he'll quickly fly my friendship too. You have put me into rhyme. LORD. Farewell; you're angry. Exit POSTHUMUS. Still going? This is a lord! O noble misery, To be i' th' field and ask 'What news?' of me! To-day how many would have given their honours To have sav'd their carcasses! took heel to do't, And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm'd, Could not find death where I did hear him groan, Nor feel him where he struck. Being an ugly monster, 'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds, Sweet words; or hath moe ministers than we That draw his knives i' th' war. Well, I will find him; For being now a favourer to the Briton, No more a Briton, I have resum'd again The part I came in. Fight I will no more, But yield me to the veriest hind that shall Once touch my shoulder. Great the slaughter is Here made by th' Roman; great the answer be Britons must take. For me, my ransom's death; On either side I come to spend my breath, Which neither here I'll keep nor bear again, But end it by some means for Imogen. Enter two BRITISH CAPTAINS and soldiers FIRST CAPTAIN. Great Jupiter be prais'd! Lucius is taken. 'Tis thought the old man and his sons were angels. SECOND CAPTAIN. There was a fourth man, in a silly habit, That gave th' affront with them. FIRST CAPTAIN. So 'tis reported; But none of 'em can be found. Stand! who's there? POSTHUMUS. A Roman, Who had not now been drooping here if seconds Had answer'd him. SECOND CAPTAIN. Lay hands on him; a dog! A leg of Rome shall not return to tell What crows have peck'd them here. He brags his service, As if he were of note. Bring him to th' King. Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, and Roman captives. The CAPTAINS present POSTHUMUS to CYMBELINE, who delivers him over to a gaoler. Exeunt omnes Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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In einem anderen Teil des Feldes wird Posthumus von einem britischen Lord angesprochen, der ihn nach dem Fortschritt der Schlacht fragt. Posthumus berichtet, dass die britische Armee zu einem Zeitpunkt überwältigt und in Unordnung war und die Soldaten auf einem schmalen Weg vor dem Feind flohen, den König seinem Schicksal überlassend. Doch aus dem Nichts war ein alter Mann zusammen mit zwei jungen Burschen aufgetaucht und hatte mit Worten und Taten einen solchen Mut in die fliehenden Briten eingeflößt, dass sie umkehrten und tapfer wie Löwen kämpften und den König aus den Klauen des Feindes befreiten. Während Posthumus die seltsame Geschichte erzählt, ist der Zuhörer erstaunt über die Art und Weise, wie die beiden jungen Männer eine solche Veränderung in den Herzen der fliehenden Männer bewirkten. Posthumus erwähnt nicht seine eigene mutige Tat in dieser entscheidenden Schlacht und deutet an, dass er nur deshalb mit solchem Mut gehandelt habe, weil er den Tod suchte. Da Großbritannien nun siegreich ist, beschließt Posthumus, sich der italienischen Armee anzuschließen, um sein Ende durch die Hände seiner britischen Gefangenen zu finden. Er ist so voller Reue über Imogens Tod und seine Rolle darin, dass er sein Leben opfern will. Gerade dann kommen zwei britische Hauptleute herein und finden Posthumus, der behauptet, Römer zu sein. Er wird vor Cymbeline gebracht, der ihn einem Kerkermeister übergibt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: THAT same Thursday morning, as Arthur Donnithorne was moving about in his dressing-room seeing his well-looking British person reflected in the old-fashioned mirrors, and stared at, from a dingy olive-green piece of tapestry, by Pharaoh's daughter and her maidens, who ought to have been minding the infant Moses, he was holding a discussion with himself, which, by the time his valet was tying the black silk sling over his shoulder, had issued in a distinct practical resolution. "I mean to go to Eagledale and fish for a week or so," he said aloud. "I shall take you with me, Pym, and set off this morning; so be ready by half-past eleven." The low whistle, which had assisted him in arriving at this resolution, here broke out into his loudest ringing tenor, and the corridor, as he hurried along it, echoed to his favourite song from the Beggar's Opera, "When the heart of a man is oppressed with care." Not an heroic strain; nevertheless Arthur felt himself very heroic as he strode towards the stables to give his orders about the horses. His own approbation was necessary to him, and it was not an approbation to be enjoyed quite gratuitously; it must be won by a fair amount of merit. He had never yet forfeited that approbation, and he had considerable reliance on his own virtues. No young man could confess his faults more candidly; candour was one of his favourite virtues; and how can a man's candour be seen in all its lustre unless he has a few failings to talk of? But he had an agreeable confidence that his faults were all of a generous kind--impetuous, warm-blooded, leonine; never crawling, crafty, reptilian. It was not possible for Arthur Donnithorne to do anything mean, dastardly, or cruel. "No! I'm a devil of a fellow for getting myself into a hobble, but I always take care the load shall fall on my own shoulders." Unhappily, there is no inherent poetical justice in hobbles, and they will sometimes obstinately refuse to inflict their worst consequences on the prime offender, in spite of his loudly expressed wish. It was entirely owing to this deficiency in the scheme of things that Arthur had ever brought any one into trouble besides himself. He was nothing if not good-natured; and all his pictures of the future, when he should come into the estate, were made up of a prosperous, contented tenantry, adoring their landlord, who would be the model of an English gentleman--mansion in first-rate order, all elegance and high taste--jolly housekeeping, finest stud in Loamshire--purse open to all public objects--in short, everything as different as possible from what was now associated with the name of Donnithorne. And one of the first good actions he would perform in that future should be to increase Irwine's income for the vicarage of Hayslope, so that he might keep a carriage for his mother and sisters. His hearty affection for the rector dated from the age of frocks and trousers. It was an affection partly filial, partly fraternal--fraternal enough to make him like Irwine's company better than that of most younger men, and filial enough to make him shrink strongly from incurring Irwine's disapprobation. You perceive that Arthur Donnithorne was "a good fellow"--all his college friends thought him such. He couldn't bear to see any one uncomfortable; he would have been sorry even in his angriest moods for any harm to happen to his grandfather; and his Aunt Lydia herself had the benefit of that soft-heartedness which he bore towards the whole sex. Whether he would have self-mastery enough to be always as harmless and purely beneficent as his good-nature led him to desire, was a question that no one had yet decided against him; he was but twenty-one, you remember, and we don't inquire too closely into character in the case of a handsome generous young fellow, who will have property enough to support numerous peccadilloes--who, if he should unfortunately break a man's legs in his rash driving, will be able to pension him handsomely; or if he should happen to spoil a woman's existence for her, will make it up to her with expensive bon-bons, packed up and directed by his own hand. It would be ridiculous to be prying and analytic in such cases, as if one were inquiring into the character of a confidential clerk. We use round, general, gentlemanly epithets about a young man of birth and fortune; and ladies, with that fine intuition which is the distinguishing attribute of their sex, see at once that he is "nice." The chances are that he will go through life without scandalizing any one; a seaworthy vessel that no one would refuse to insure. Ships, certainly, are liable to casualties, which sometimes make terribly evident some flaw in their construction that would never have been discoverable in smooth water; and many a "good fellow," through a disastrous combination of circumstances, has undergone a like betrayal. But we have no fair ground for entertaining unfavourable auguries concerning Arthur Donnithorne, who this morning proves himself capable of a prudent resolution founded on conscience. One thing is clear: Nature has taken care that he shall never go far astray with perfect comfort and satisfaction to himself; he will never get beyond that border-land of sin, where he will be perpetually harassed by assaults from the other side of the boundary. He will never be a courtier of Vice, and wear her orders in his button-hole. It was about ten o'clock, and the sun was shining brilliantly; everything was looking lovelier for the yesterday's rain. It is a pleasant thing on such a morning to walk along the well-rolled gravel on one's way to the stables, meditating an excursion. But the scent of the stables, which, in a natural state of things, ought to be among the soothing influences of a man's life, always brought with it some irritation to Arthur. There was no having his own way in the stables; everything was managed in the stingiest fashion. His grandfather persisted in retaining as head groom an old dolt whom no sort of lever could move out of his old habits, and who was allowed to hire a succession of raw Loamshire lads as his subordinates, one of whom had lately tested a new pair of shears by clipping an oblong patch on Arthur's bay mare. This state of things is naturally embittering; one can put up with annoyances in the house, but to have the stable made a scene of vexation and disgust is a point beyond what human flesh and blood can be expected to endure long together without danger of misanthropy. Old John's wooden, deep-wrinkled face was the first object that met Arthur's eyes as he entered the stable-yard, and it quite poisoned for him the bark of the two bloodhounds that kept watch there. He could never speak quite patiently to the old blockhead. "You must have Meg saddled for me and brought to the door at half-past eleven, and I shall want Rattler saddled for Pym at the same time. Do you hear?" "Yes, I hear, I hear, Cap'n," said old John very deliberately, following the young master into the stable. John considered a young master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in general as a poor contrivance for carrying on the world. Arthur went in for the sake of patting Meg, declining as far as possible to see anything in the stables, lest he should lose his temper before breakfast. The pretty creature was in one of the inner stables, and turned her mild head as her master came beside her. Little Trot, a tiny spaniel, her inseparable companion in the stable, was comfortably curled up on her back. "Well, Meg, my pretty girl," said Arthur, patting her neck, "we'll have a glorious canter this morning." "Nay, your honour, I donna see as that can be," said John. "Not be? Why not?" "Why, she's got lamed." "Lamed, confound you! What do you mean?" "Why, th' lad took her too close to Dalton's hosses, an' one on 'em flung out at her, an' she's got her shank bruised o' the near foreleg." The judicious historian abstains from narrating precisely what ensued. You understand that there was a great deal of strong language, mingled with soothing "who-ho's" while the leg was examined; that John stood by with quite as much emotion as if he had been a cunningly carved crab-tree walking-stick, and that Arthur Donnithorne presently repassed the iron gates of the pleasure-ground without singing as he went. He considered himself thoroughly disappointed and annoyed. There was not another mount in the stable for himself and his servant besides Meg and Rattler. It was vexatious; just when he wanted to get out of the way for a week or two. It seemed culpable in Providence to allow such a combination of circumstances. To be shut up at the Chase with a broken arm when every other fellow in his regiment was enjoying himself at Windsor--shut up with his grandfather, who had the same sort of affection for him as for his parchment deeds! And to be disgusted at every turn with the management of the house and the estate! In such circumstances a man necessarily gets in an ill humour, and works off the irritation by some excess or other. "Salkeld would have drunk a bottle of port every day," he muttered to himself, "but I'm not well seasoned enough for that. Well, since I can't go to Eagledale, I'll have a gallop on Rattler to Norburne this morning, and lunch with Gawaine." Behind this explicit resolution there lay an implicit one. If he lunched with Gawaine and lingered chatting, he should not reach the Chase again till nearly five, when Hetty would be safe out of his sight in the housekeeper's room; and when she set out to go home, it would be his lazy time after dinner, so he should keep out of her way altogether. There really would have been no harm in being kind to the little thing, and it was worth dancing with a dozen ballroom belles only to look at Hetty for half an hour. But perhaps he had better not take any more notice of her; it might put notions into her head, as Irwine had hinted; though Arthur, for his part, thought girls were not by any means so soft and easily bruised; indeed, he had generally found them twice as cool and cunning as he was himself. As for any real harm in Hetty's case, it was out of the question: Arthur Donnithorne accepted his own bond for himself with perfect confidence. So the twelve o'clock sun saw him galloping towards Norburne; and by good fortune Halsell Common lay in his road and gave him some fine leaps for Rattler. Nothing like "taking" a few bushes and ditches for exorcising a demon; and it is really astonishing that the Centaurs, with their immense advantages in this way, have left so bad a reputation in history. After this, you will perhaps be surprised to hear that although Gawaine was at home, the hand of the dial in the courtyard had scarcely cleared the last stroke of three when Arthur returned through the entrance-gates, got down from the panting Rattler, and went into the house to take a hasty luncheon. But I believe there have been men since his day who have ridden a long way to avoid a rencontre, and then galloped hastily back lest they should miss it. It is the favourite stratagem of our passions to sham a retreat, and to turn sharp round upon us at the moment we have made up our minds that the day is our own. "The cap'n's been ridin' the devil's own pace," said Dalton the coachman, whose person stood out in high relief as he smoked his pipe against the stable wall, when John brought up Rattler. "An' I wish he'd get the devil to do's grooming for'n," growled John. "Aye; he'd hev a deal haimabler groom nor what he has now," observed Dalton--and the joke appeared to him so good that, being left alone upon the scene, he continued at intervals to take his pipe from his mouth in order to wink at an imaginary audience and shake luxuriously with a silent, ventral laughter, mentally rehearsing the dialogue from the beginning, that he might recite it with effect in the servants' hall. When Arthur went up to his dressing-room again after luncheon, it was inevitable that the debate he had had with himself there earlier in the day should flash across his mind; but it was impossible for him now to dwell on the remembrance--impossible to recall the feelings and reflections which had been decisive with him then, any more than to recall the peculiar scent of the air that had freshened him when he first opened his window. The desire to see Hetty had rushed back like an ill-stemmed current; he was amazed himself at the force with which this trivial fancy seemed to grasp him: he was even rather tremulous as he brushed his hair--pooh! it was riding in that break-neck way. It was because he had made a serious affair of an idle matter, by thinking of it as if it were of any consequence. He would amuse himself by seeing Hetty to-day, and get rid of the whole thing from his mind. It was all Irwine's fault. "If Irwine had said nothing, I shouldn't have thought half so much of Hetty as of Meg's lameness." However, it was just the sort of day for lolling in the Hermitage, and he would go and finish Dr. Moore's Zeluco there before dinner. The Hermitage stood in Fir-tree Grove--the way Hetty was sure to come in walking from the Hall Farm. So nothing could be simpler and more natural: meeting Hetty was a mere circumstance of his walk, not its object. Arthur's shadow flitted rather faster among the sturdy oaks of the Chase than might have been expected from the shadow of a tired man on a warm afternoon, and it was still scarcely four o'clock when he stood before the tall narrow gate leading into the delicious labyrinthine wood which skirted one side of the Chase, and which was called Fir-tree Grove, not because the firs were many, but because they were few. It was a wood of beeches and limes, with here and there a light silver-stemmed birch--just the sort of wood most haunted by the nymphs: you see their white sunlit limbs gleaming athwart the boughs, or peeping from behind the smooth-sweeping outline of a tall lime; you hear their soft liquid laughter--but if you look with a too curious sacrilegious eye, they vanish behind the silvery beeches, they make you believe that their voice was only a running brooklet, perhaps they metamorphose themselves into a tawny squirrel that scampers away and mocks you from the topmost bough. It was not a grove with measured grass or rolled gravel for you to tread upon, but with narrow, hollow-shaped, earthy paths, edged with faint dashes of delicate moss--paths which look as if they were made by the free will of the trees and underwood, moving reverently aside to look at the tall queen of the white-footed nymphs. It was along the broadest of these paths that Arthur Donnithorne passed, under an avenue of limes and beeches. It was a still afternoon--the golden light was lingering languidly among the upper boughs, only glancing down here and there on the purple pathway and its edge of faintly sprinkled moss: an afternoon in which destiny disguises her cold awful face behind a hazy radiant veil, encloses us in warm downy wings, and poisons us with violet-scented breath. Arthur strolled along carelessly, with a book under his arm, but not looking on the ground as meditative men are apt to do; his eyes WOULD fix themselves on the distant bend in the road round which a little figure must surely appear before long. Ah! There she comes. First a bright patch of colour, like a tropic bird among the boughs; then a tripping figure, with a round hat on, and a small basket under her arm; then a deep-blushing, almost frightened, but bright-smiling girl, making her curtsy with a fluttered yet happy glance, as Arthur came up to her. If Arthur had had time to think at all, he would have thought it strange that he should feel fluttered too, be conscious of blushing too--in fact, look and feel as foolish as if he had been taken by surprise instead of meeting just what he expected. Poor things! It was a pity they were not in that golden age of childhood when they would have stood face to face, eyeing each other with timid liking, then given each other a little butterfly kiss, and toddled off to play together. Arthur would have gone home to his silk-curtained cot, and Hetty to her home-spun pillow, and both would have slept without dreams, and to-morrow would have been a life hardly conscious of a yesterday. Arthur turned round and walked by Hetty's side without giving a reason. They were alone together for the first time. What an overpowering presence that first privacy is! He actually dared not look at this little butter-maker for the first minute or two. As for Hetty, her feet rested on a cloud, and she was borne along by warm zephyrs; she had forgotten her rose-coloured ribbons; she was no more conscious of her limbs than if her childish soul had passed into a water-lily, resting on a liquid bed and warmed by the midsummer sun-beams. It may seem a contradiction, but Arthur gathered a certain carelessness and confidence from his timidity: it was an entirely different state of mind from what he had expected in such a meeting with Hetty; and full as he was of vague feeling, there was room, in those moments of silence, for the thought that his previous debates and scruples were needless. "You are quite right to choose this way of coming to the Chase," he said at last, looking down at Hetty; "it is so much prettier as well as shorter than coming by either of the lodges." "Yes, sir," Hetty answered, with a tremulous, almost whispering voice. She didn't know one bit how to speak to a gentleman like Mr. Arthur, and her very vanity made her more coy of speech. "Do you come every week to see Mrs. Pomfret?" "Yes, sir, every Thursday, only when she's got to go out with Miss Donnithorne." "And she's teaching you something, is she?" "Yes, sir, the lace-mending as she learnt abroad, and the stocking-mending--it looks just like the stocking, you can't tell it's been mended; and she teaches me cutting-out too." "What! are YOU going to be a lady's maid?" "I should like to be one very much indeed." Hetty spoke more audibly now, but still rather tremulously; she thought, perhaps she seemed as stupid to Captain Donnithorne as Luke Britton did to her. "I suppose Mrs. Pomfret always expects you at this time?" "She expects me at four o'clock. I'm rather late to-day, because my aunt couldn't spare me; but the regular time is four, because that gives us time before Miss Donnithorne's bell rings." "Ah, then, I must not keep you now, else I should like to show you the Hermitage. Did you ever see it?" "No, sir." "This is the walk where we turn up to it. But we must not go now. I'll show it you some other time, if you'd like to see it." "Yes, please, sir." "Do you always come back this way in the evening, or are you afraid to come so lonely a road?" "Oh no, sir, it's never late; I always set out by eight o'clock, and it's so light now in the evening. My aunt would be angry with me if I didn't get home before nine." "Perhaps Craig, the gardener, comes to take care of you?" A deep blush overspread Hetty's face and neck. "I'm sure he doesn't; I'm sure he never did; I wouldn't let him; I don't like him," she said hastily, and the tears of vexation had come so fast that before she had done speaking a bright drop rolled down her hot cheek. Then she felt ashamed to death that she was crying, and for one long instant her happiness was all gone. But in the next she felt an arm steal round her, and a gentle voice said, "Why, Hetty, what makes you cry? I didn't mean to vex you. I wouldn't vex you for the world, you little blossom. Come, don't cry; look at me, else I shall think you won't forgive me." Arthur had laid his hand on the soft arm that was nearest to him, and was stooping towards Hetty with a look of coaxing entreaty. Hetty lifted her long dewy lashes, and met the eyes that were bent towards her with a sweet, timid, beseeching look. What a space of time those three moments were while their eyes met and his arms touched her! Love is such a simple thing when we have only one-and-twenty summers and a sweet girl of seventeen trembles under our glance, as if she were a bud first opening her heart with wondering rapture to the morning. Such young unfurrowed souls roll to meet each other like two velvet peaches that touch softly and are at rest; they mingle as easily as two brooklets that ask for nothing but to entwine themselves and ripple with ever-interlacing curves in the leafiest hiding-places. While Arthur gazed into Hetty's dark beseeching eyes, it made no difference to him what sort of English she spoke; and even if hoops and powder had been in fashion, he would very likely not have been sensible just then that Hetty wanted those signs of high breeding. But they started asunder with beating hearts: something had fallen on the ground with a rattling noise; it was Hetty's basket; all her little workwoman's matters were scattered on the path, some of them showing a capability of rolling to great lengths. There was much to be done in picking up, and not a word was spoken; but when Arthur hung the basket over her arm again, the poor child felt a strange difference in his look and manner. He just pressed her hand, and said, with a look and tone that were almost chilling to her, "I have been hindering you; I must not keep you any longer now. You will be expected at the house. Good-bye." Without waiting for her to speak, he turned away from her and hurried back towards the road that led to the Hermitage, leaving Hetty to pursue her way in a strange dream that seemed to have begun in bewildering delight and was now passing into contrarieties and sadness. Would he meet her again as she came home? Why had he spoken almost as if he were displeased with her? And then run away so suddenly? She cried, hardly knowing why. Arthur too was very uneasy, but his feelings were lit up for him by a more distinct consciousness. He hurried to the Hermitage, which stood in the heart of the wood, unlocked the door with a hasty wrench, slammed it after him, pitched Zeluco into the most distant corner, and thrusting his right hand into his pocket, first walked four or five times up and down the scanty length of the little room, and then seated himself on the ottoman in an uncomfortable stiff way, as we often do when we wish not to abandon ourselves to feeling. He was getting in love with Hetty--that was quite plain. He was ready to pitch everything else--no matter where--for the sake of surrendering himself to this delicious feeling which had just disclosed itself. It was no use blinking the fact now--they would get too fond of each other, if he went on taking notice of her--and what would come of it? He should have to go away in a few weeks, and the poor little thing would be miserable. He MUST NOT see her alone again; he must keep out of her way. What a fool he was for coming back from Gawaine's! He got up and threw open the windows, to let in the soft breath of the afternoon, and the healthy scent of the firs that made a belt round the Hermitage. The soft air did not help his resolution, as he leaned out and looked into the leafy distance. But he considered his resolution sufficiently fixed: there was no need to debate with himself any longer. He had made up his mind not to meet Hetty again; and now he might give himself up to thinking how immensely agreeable it would be if circumstances were different--how pleasant it would have been to meet her this evening as she came back, and put his arm round her again and look into her sweet face. He wondered if the dear little thing were thinking of him too--twenty to one she was. How beautiful her eyes were with the tear on their lashes! He would like to satisfy his soul for a day with looking at them, and he MUST see her again--he must see her, simply to remove any false impression from her mind about his manner to her just now. He would behave in a quiet, kind way to her--just to prevent her from going home with her head full of wrong fancies. Yes, that would be the best thing to do after all. It was a long while--more than an hour before Arthur had brought his meditations to this point; but once arrived there, he could stay no longer at the Hermitage. The time must be filled up with movement until he should see Hetty again. And it was already late enough to go and dress for dinner, for his grandfather's dinner-hour was six. Können Sie eine geeignete Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Am selben Donnerstagmorgen wie im vorherigen Kapitel, doch völlig anderer Schauplatz. Jetzt haben wir etwas Zeit mit Arthur Donnithorne zu verbringen. Arthur lungert in seinen Räumlichkeiten herum und plant einen Angelausflug. Er träumt auch davon, all die guten Dinge zu tun, wenn er den Besitz übernimmt - das heißt, wenn sein unsympathischer, unfähiger Großvater den Löffel abgibt. Anschließend geht Arthur nach draußen zum Stall. Irgendwann abends beschließt Arthur, sich in Hetty's Richtung zu begeben, und das alles mit der Absicht, einen Blick auf sie zu erhaschen. Dieser letzte Blick sollte das ganze Geschehen aus seinem Kopf verbannen. Klar. Denn der beste Weg, um eine Schwärmerei zu vergessen, ist, zu dieser Schwärmerei zu gehen und sie anzustarren. Als sie sich begegnen, ist Hetty schüchtern und Arthur ist "sich bewusst, auch zu erröten". Die beiden sind nun zum ersten Mal allein zusammen. Arthur beginnt mit Smalltalk über die Näharbeiten und Flickarbeiten, die Hetty für die Donnithornes erledigt. Dann erwähnt er Mr. Craig. Und Hetty errötet noch mehr. Und...weint? Arthur tröstet sie. Es gibt etwas an ihrer Berührung, das jetzt, weißt du, magisch erscheint: "Sie vermischen sich so leicht wie zwei Bäche, die nichts weiter wollen, als sich zu verschlingen", so beschreibt es der Erzähler. Doch bald ist die Magie vorbei. Sie lösen sich voneinander. Arthur macht sich hastig auf den Heimweg, macht es sich gemütlich und beschäftigt sich mit seinen aufgewühlten Gefühlen. Dann ist es Zeit für das Abendessen des mürrischen alten Großvaters Donnithorne. Alles, alles, um seinen Kopf von Hetty abzulenken.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: The detective passed down the quay, and rapidly made his way to the consul's office, where he was at once admitted to the presence of that official. "Consul," said he, without preamble, "I have strong reasons for believing that my man is a passenger on the Mongolia." And he narrated what had just passed concerning the passport. "Well, Mr. Fix," replied the consul, "I shall not be sorry to see the rascal's face; but perhaps he won't come here--that is, if he is the person you suppose him to be. A robber doesn't quite like to leave traces of his flight behind him; and, besides, he is not obliged to have his passport countersigned." "If he is as shrewd as I think he is, consul, he will come." "To have his passport visaed?" "Yes. Passports are only good for annoying honest folks, and aiding in the flight of rogues. I assure you it will be quite the thing for him to do; but I hope you will not visa the passport." "Why not? If the passport is genuine I have no right to refuse." "Still, I must keep this man here until I can get a warrant to arrest him from London." "Ah, that's your look-out. But I cannot--" The consul did not finish his sentence, for as he spoke a knock was heard at the door, and two strangers entered, one of whom was the servant whom Fix had met on the quay. The other, who was his master, held out his passport with the request that the consul would do him the favour to visa it. The consul took the document and carefully read it, whilst Fix observed, or rather devoured, the stranger with his eyes from a corner of the room. "You are Mr. Phileas Fogg?" said the consul, after reading the passport. "I am." "And this man is your servant?" "He is: a Frenchman, named Passepartout." "You are from London?" "Yes." "And you are going--" "To Bombay." "Very good, sir. You know that a visa is useless, and that no passport is required?" "I know it, sir," replied Phileas Fogg; "but I wish to prove, by your visa, that I came by Suez." "Very well, sir." The consul proceeded to sign and date the passport, after which he added his official seal. Mr. Fogg paid the customary fee, coldly bowed, and went out, followed by his servant. "Well?" queried the detective. "Well, he looks and acts like a perfectly honest man," replied the consul. "Possibly; but that is not the question. Do you think, consul, that this phlegmatic gentleman resembles, feature by feature, the robber whose description I have received?" "I concede that; but then, you know, all descriptions--" "I'll make certain of it," interrupted Fix. "The servant seems to me less mysterious than the master; besides, he's a Frenchman, and can't help talking. Excuse me for a little while, consul." Fix started off in search of Passepartout. Meanwhile Mr. Fogg, after leaving the consulate, repaired to the quay, gave some orders to Passepartout, went off to the Mongolia in a boat, and descended to his cabin. He took up his note-book, which contained the following memoranda: "Left London, Wednesday, October 2nd, at 8.45 p.m. "Reached Paris, Thursday, October 3rd, at 7.20 a.m. "Left Paris, Thursday, at 8.40 a.m. "Reached Turin by Mont Cenis, Friday, October 4th, at 6.35 a.m. "Left Turin, Friday, at 7.20 a.m. "Arrived at Brindisi, Saturday, October 5th, at 4 p.m. "Sailed on the Mongolia, Saturday, at 5 p.m. "Reached Suez, Wednesday, October 9th, at 11 a.m. "Total of hours spent, 158+; or, in days, six days and a half." These dates were inscribed in an itinerary divided into columns, indicating the month, the day of the month, and the day for the stipulated and actual arrivals at each principal point Paris, Brindisi, Suez, Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, New York, and London--from the 2nd of October to the 21st of December; and giving a space for setting down the gain made or the loss suffered on arrival at each locality. This methodical record thus contained an account of everything needed, and Mr. Fogg always knew whether he was behind-hand or in advance of his time. On this Friday, October 9th, he noted his arrival at Suez, and observed that he had as yet neither gained nor lost. He sat down quietly to breakfast in his cabin, never once thinking of inspecting the town, being one of those Englishmen who are wont to see foreign countries through the eyes of their domestics. Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der oben stehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Der Detektiv ging die Mole entlang und machte sich auf den Weg zum Konsulat. Er erzählte dem Konsul, dass er glaube, dass der Räuber auf der Mongolia sei. Der Konsul sagte, dass der Räuber möglicherweise nicht zum Konsulat komme, da es nicht notwendig sei, den Reisepass visieren zu lassen. Aber Fix denkt anders und sagt, dass er hoffe, dass der Konsul den Reisepass nicht visiere. "Warum nicht? Wenn der Reisepass echt ist, habe ich kein Recht, abzulehnen." Fix möchte den Räuber hier behalten, bis er den Haftbefehl bekommen kann. Zwei Fremde betraten den Raum des Konsuls, während Fix und der Konsul sich unterhielten, einer von ihnen war der Diener, den Fix an der Mole getroffen hatte, und der andere, sein Herr, hielt seinen Reisepass heraus mit der Bitte, dass der Konsul die Gefälligkeit hätte, ihn zu visieren. Der Konsul nahm das Dokument entgegen und las es sorgfältig, während Fix aus der Ferne zusah. Der Konsul stellte nur ein paar Fragen, bevor er sich bereit erklärte, Fogg's Reisepass zu visieren. Der Konsul ging dazu über, den Reisepass zu unterschreiben und zu datieren. Mr. Fogg zahlte die übliche Gebühr, verbeugte sich kühl und ging, gefolgt von seinem Diener. Der Konsul empfindet, dass Fogg wie ein ehrlicher Mann aussieht und zweifelt, dass Beschreibungen vollständig vertrauenswürdig sind - selbst wenn Fogg wie der Räuber aussieht, muss er es nicht sein. Fix beschließt herauszufinden, indem er Passepartout zum Reden bringt, da er glaubt, dass ein Franzose nicht widerstehen kann, den Mund aufzumachen. Fix macht sich auf die Suche nach Passepartout. In der Zwischenzeit begab sich Mr. Fogg nach Verlassen des Konsulats zur Mole, gab Passepartout einige Anweisungen und stieg in die Mongolia ein. In seiner Kabine gab Fogg die Reisedaten in eine Tabelle ein, die in Spalten unterteilt war und den Monat, den Tag des Monats und den Tag für die vereinbarten und tatsächlichen Ankünfte an jedem Hauptpunkt - Paris, Brindisi, Suez, Bombay, Kalkutta, Singapur, Hongkong, Yokohama, San Francisco, New York und London - vom 2. Oktober bis zum 21. Dezember angab. Diese methodische Aufzeichnung enthielt somit einen Überblick über alles Erforderliche, und Mr. Fogg wusste immer, ob er sich seiner Zeit voraus oder hinterher befand. An diesem Freitag, dem 9. Oktober, notierte er seine Ankunft in Suez und stellte fest, dass er weder gewonnen noch verloren hatte. Er setzte sich ruhig zum Frühstück in seine Kabine und dachte nicht einmal daran, die Stadt zu besichtigen, da er zu den Engländern gehörte, die es gewohnt sind, fremde Länder durch die Augen ihrer Bediensteten zu sehen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: ACT 1. SCENE I. Rome. Before the Capitol Flourish. Enter the TRIBUNES and SENATORS aloft; and then enter below SATURNINUS and his followers at one door, and BASSIANUS and his followers at the other, with drums and trumpets SATURNINUS. Noble patricians, patrons of my right, Defend the justice of my cause with arms; And, countrymen, my loving followers, Plead my successive title with your swords. I am his first born son that was the last That wore the imperial diadem of Rome; Then let my father's honours live in me, Nor wrong mine age with this indignity. BASSIANUS. Romans, friends, followers, favourers of my right, If ever Bassianus, Caesar's son, Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome, Keep then this passage to the Capitol; And suffer not dishonour to approach The imperial seat, to virtue consecrate, To justice, continence, and nobility; But let desert in pure election shine; And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice. Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS aloft, with the crown MARCUS. Princes, that strive by factions and by friends Ambitiously for rule and empery, Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand A special party, have by common voice In election for the Roman empery Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius For many good and great deserts to Rome. A nobler man, a braver warrior, Lives not this day within the city walls. He by the Senate is accited home, From weary wars against the barbarous Goths, That with his sons, a terror to our foes, Hath yok'd a nation strong, train'd up in arms. Ten years are spent since first he undertook This cause of Rome, and chastised with arms Our enemies' pride; five times he hath return'd Bleeding to Rome, bearing his valiant sons In coffins from the field; and at this day To the monument of that Andronici Done sacrifice of expiation, And slain the noblest prisoner of the Goths. And now at last, laden with honour's spoils, Returns the good Andronicus to Rome, Renowned Titus, flourishing in arms. Let us entreat, by honour of his name Whom worthily you would have now succeed, And in the Capitol and Senate's right, Whom you pretend to honour and adore, That you withdraw you and abate your strength, Dismiss your followers, and, as suitors should, Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness. SATURNINUS. How fair the Tribune speaks to calm my thoughts. BASSIANUS. Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy In thy uprightness and integrity, And so I love and honour thee and thine, Thy noble brother Titus and his sons, And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all, Gracious Lavinia, Rome's rich ornament, That I will here dismiss my loving friends, And to my fortunes and the people's favour Commit my cause in balance to be weigh'd. Exeunt the soldiers of BASSIANUS SATURNINUS. Friends, that have been thus forward in my right, I thank you all and here dismiss you all, And to the love and favour of my country Commit myself, my person, and the cause. Exeunt the soldiers of SATURNINUS Rome, be as just and gracious unto me As I am confident and kind to thee. Open the gates and let me in. BASSIANUS. Tribunes, and me, a poor competitor. [Flourish. They go up into the Senate House] Enter a CAPTAIN CAPTAIN. Romans, make way. The good Andronicus, Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion, Successful in the battles that he fights, With honour and with fortune is return'd From where he circumscribed with his sword And brought to yoke the enemies of Rome. Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter MARTIUS and MUTIUS, two of TITUS' sons; and then two men bearing a coffin covered with black; then LUCIUS and QUINTUS, two other sons; then TITUS ANDRONICUS; and then TAMORA the Queen of Goths, with her three sons, ALARBUS, DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON, with AARON the Moor, and others, as many as can be. Then set down the coffin and TITUS speaks TITUS. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds! Lo, as the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught Returns with precious lading to the bay From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage, Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs, To re-salute his country with his tears, Tears of true joy for his return to Rome. Thou great defender of this Capitol, Stand gracious to the rites that we intend! Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons, Half of the number that King Priam had, Behold the poor remains, alive and dead! These that survive let Rome reward with love; These that I bring unto their latest home, With burial amongst their ancestors. Here Goths have given me leave to sheathe my sword. Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own, Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet, To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx? Make way to lay them by their brethren. [They open the tomb] There greet in silence, as the dead are wont, And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars. O sacred receptacle of my joys, Sweet cell of virtue and nobility, How many sons hast thou of mine in store That thou wilt never render to me more! LUCIUS. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths, That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh Before this earthy prison of their bones, That so the shadows be not unappeas'd, Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth. TITUS. I give him you- the noblest that survives, The eldest son of this distressed queen. TAMORA. Stay, Roman brethen! Gracious conqueror, Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed, A mother's tears in passion for her son; And if thy sons were ever dear to thee, O, think my son to be as dear to me! Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome To beautify thy triumphs, and return Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke; But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets For valiant doings in their country's cause? O, if to fight for king and commonweal Were piety in thine, it is in these. Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood. Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? Draw near them then in being merciful. Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge. Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son. TITUS. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me. These are their brethren, whom your Goths beheld Alive and dead; and for their brethren slain Religiously they ask a sacrifice. To this your son is mark'd, and die he must T' appease their groaning shadows that are gone. LUCIUS. Away with him, and make a fire straight; And with our swords, upon a pile of wood, Let's hew his limbs till they be clean consum'd. Exeunt TITUS' SONS, with ALARBUS TAMORA. O cruel, irreligious piety! CHIRON. Was never Scythia half so barbarous! DEMETRIUS. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome. Alarbus goes to rest, and we survive To tremble under Titus' threat'ning look. Then, madam, stand resolv'd, but hope withal The self-same gods that arm'd the Queen of Troy With opportunity of sharp revenge Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent May favour Tamora, the Queen of Goths- When Goths were Goths and Tamora was queen- To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes. Re-enter LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and MUTIUS, the sons of ANDRONICUS, with their swords bloody LUCIUS. See, lord and father, how we have perform'd Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd, And entrails feed the sacrificing fire, Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky. Remaineth nought but to inter our brethren, And with loud 'larums welcome them to Rome. TITUS. Let it be so, and let Andronicus Make this his latest farewell to their souls. [Sound trumpets and lay the coffin in the tomb] In peace and honour rest you here, my sons; Rome's readiest champions, repose you here in rest, Secure from worldly chances and mishaps! Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells, Here grow no damned grudges, here are no storms, No noise, but silence and eternal sleep. In peace and honour rest you here, my sons! Enter LAVINIA LAVINIA. In peace and honour live Lord Titus long; My noble lord and father, live in fame! Lo, at this tomb my tributary tears I render for my brethren's obsequies; And at thy feet I kneel, with tears of joy Shed on this earth for thy return to Rome. O, bless me here with thy victorious hand, Whose fortunes Rome's best citizens applaud! TITUS. Kind Rome, that hast thus lovingly reserv'd The cordial of mine age to glad my heart! Lavinia, live; outlive thy father's days, And fame's eternal date, for virtue's praise! Enter, above, MARCUS ANDRONICUS and TRIBUNES; re-enter SATURNINUS, BASSIANUS, and attendants MARCUS. Long live Lord Titus, my beloved brother, Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome! TITUS. Thanks, gentle Tribune, noble brother Marcus. MARCUS. And welcome, nephews, from successful wars, You that survive and you that sleep in fame. Fair lords, your fortunes are alike in all That in your country's service drew your swords; But safer triumph is this funeral pomp That hath aspir'd to Solon's happiness And triumphs over chance in honour's bed. Titus Andronicus, the people of Rome, Whose friend in justice thou hast ever been, Send thee by me, their Tribune and their trust, This palliament of white and spotless hue; And name thee in election for the empire With these our late-deceased Emperor's sons: Be candidatus then, and put it on, And help to set a head on headless Rome. TITUS. A better head her glorious body fits Than his that shakes for age and feebleness. What, should I don this robe and trouble you? Be chosen with proclamations to-day, To-morrow yield up rule, resign my life, And set abroach new business for you all? Rome, I have been thy soldier forty years, And led my country's strength successfully, And buried one and twenty valiant sons, Knighted in field, slain manfully in arms, In right and service of their noble country. Give me a staff of honour for mine age, But not a sceptre to control the world. Upright he held it, lords, that held it last. MARCUS. Titus, thou shalt obtain and ask the empery. SATURNINUS. Proud and ambitious Tribune, canst thou tell? TITUS. Patience, Prince Saturninus. SATURNINUS. Romans, do me right. Patricians, draw your swords, and sheathe them not Till Saturninus be Rome's Emperor. Andronicus, would thou were shipp'd to hell Rather than rob me of the people's hearts! LUCIUS. Proud Saturnine, interrupter of the good That noble-minded Titus means to thee! TITUS. Content thee, Prince; I will restore to thee The people's hearts, and wean them from themselves. BASSIANUS. Andronicus, I do not flatter thee, But honour thee, and will do till I die. My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends, I will most thankful be; and thanks to men Of noble minds is honourable meed. TITUS. People of Rome, and people's Tribunes here, I ask your voices and your suffrages: Will ye bestow them friendly on Andronicus? TRIBUNES. To gratify the good Andronicus, And gratulate his safe return to Rome, The people will accept whom he admits. TITUS. Tribunes, I thank you; and this suit I make, That you create our Emperor's eldest son, Lord Saturnine; whose virtues will, I hope, Reflect on Rome as Titan's rays on earth, And ripen justice in this commonweal. Then, if you will elect by my advice, Crown him, and say 'Long live our Emperor!' MARCUS. With voices and applause of every sort, Patricians and plebeians, we create Lord Saturninus Rome's great Emperor; And say 'Long live our Emperor Saturnine!' [A long flourish till they come down] SATURNINUS. Titus Andronicus, for thy favours done To us in our election this day I give thee thanks in part of thy deserts, And will with deeds requite thy gentleness; And for an onset, Titus, to advance Thy name and honourable family, Lavinia will I make my empress, Rome's royal mistress, mistress of my heart, And in the sacred Pantheon her espouse. Tell me, Andronicus, doth this motion please thee? TITUS. It doth, my worthy lord, and in this match I hold me highly honoured of your Grace, And here in sight of Rome, to Saturnine, King and commander of our commonweal, The wide world's Emperor, do I consecrate My sword, my chariot, and my prisoners, Presents well worthy Rome's imperious lord; Receive them then, the tribute that I owe, Mine honour's ensigns humbled at thy feet. SATURNINUS. Thanks, noble Titus, father of my life. How proud I am of thee and of thy gifts Rome shall record; and when I do forget The least of these unspeakable deserts, Romans, forget your fealty to me. TITUS. [To TAMORA] Now, madam, are you prisoner to an emperor; To him that for your honour and your state Will use you nobly and your followers. SATURNINUS. [Aside] A goodly lady, trust me; of the hue That I would choose, were I to choose anew.- Clear up, fair Queen, that cloudy countenance; Though chance of war hath wrought this change of cheer, Thou com'st not to be made a scorn in Rome- Princely shall be thy usage every way. Rest on my word, and let not discontent Daunt all your hopes. Madam, he comforts you Can make you greater than the Queen of Goths. Lavinia, you are not displeas'd with this? LAVINIA. Not I, my lord, sith true nobility Warrants these words in princely courtesy. SATURNINUS. Thanks, sweet Lavinia. Romans, let us go. Ransomless here we set our prisoners free. Proclaim our honours, lords, with trump and drum. [Flourish] BASSIANUS. Lord Titus, by your leave, this maid is mine. [Seizing LAVINIA] TITUS. How, sir! Are you in earnest then, my lord? BASSIANUS. Ay, noble Titus, and resolv'd withal To do myself this reason and this right. MARCUS. Suum cuique is our Roman justice: This prince in justice seizeth but his own. LUCIUS. And that he will and shall, if Lucius live. TITUS. Traitors, avaunt! Where is the Emperor's guard? Treason, my lord- Lavinia is surpris'd! SATURNINUS. Surpris'd! By whom? BASSIANUS. By him that justly may Bear his betroth'd from all the world away. Exeunt BASSIANUS and MARCUS with LAVINIA MUTIUS. Brothers, help to convey her hence away, And with my sword I'll keep this door safe. Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS TITUS. Follow, my lord, and I'll soon bring her back. MUTIUS. My lord, you pass not here. TITUS. What, villain boy! Bar'st me my way in Rome? MUTIUS. Help, Lucius, help! TITUS kills him. During the fray, exeunt SATURNINUS, TAMORA, DEMETRIUS, CHIRON, and AARON Re-enter Lucius LUCIUS. My lord, you are unjust, and more than so: In wrongful quarrel you have slain your son. TITUS. Nor thou nor he are any sons of mine; My sons would never so dishonour me. Re-enter aloft the EMPEROR with TAMORA and her two Sons, and AARON the Moor Traitor, restore Lavinia to the Emperor. LUCIUS. Dead, if you will; but not to be his wife, That is another's lawful promis'd love. Exit SATURNINUS. No, Titus, no; the Emperor needs her not, Nor her, nor thee, nor any of thy stock. I'll trust by leisure him that mocks me once; Thee never, nor thy traitorous haughty sons, Confederates all thus to dishonour me. Was there none else in Rome to make a stale But Saturnine? Full well, Andronicus, Agree these deeds with that proud brag of thine That saidst I begg'd the empire at thy hands. TITUS. O monstrous! What reproachful words are these? SATURNINUS. But go thy ways; go, give that changing piece To him that flourish'd for her with his sword. A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy; One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons, To ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome. TITUS. These words are razors to my wounded heart. SATURNINUS. And therefore, lovely Tamora, Queen of Goths, That, like the stately Phoebe 'mongst her nymphs, Dost overshine the gallant'st dames of Rome, If thou be pleas'd with this my sudden choice, Behold, I choose thee, Tamora, for my bride And will create thee Empress of Rome. Speak, Queen of Goths, dost thou applaud my choice? And here I swear by all the Roman gods- Sith priest and holy water are so near, And tapers burn so bright, and everything In readiness for Hymenaeus stand- I will not re-salute the streets of Rome, Or climb my palace, till from forth this place I lead espous'd my bride along with me. TAMORA. And here in sight of heaven to Rome I swear, If Saturnine advance the Queen of Goths, She will a handmaid be to his desires, A loving nurse, a mother to his youth. SATURNINUS. Ascend, fair Queen, Pantheon. Lords, accompany Your noble Emperor and his lovely bride, Sent by the heavens for Prince Saturnine, Whose wisdom hath her fortune conquered; There shall we consummate our spousal rites. Exeunt all but TITUS TITUS. I am not bid to wait upon this bride. TITUS, when wert thou wont to walk alone, Dishonoured thus, and challenged of wrongs? Re-enter MARCUS, and TITUS' SONS, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS MARCUS. O Titus, see, O, see what thou hast done! In a bad quarrel slain a virtuous son. TITUS. No, foolish Tribune, no; no son of mine- Nor thou, nor these, confederates in the deed That hath dishonoured all our family; Unworthy brother and unworthy sons! LUCIUS. But let us give him burial, as becomes; Give Mutius burial with our bretheren. TITUS. Traitors, away! He rests not in this tomb. This monument five hundred years hath stood, Which I have sumptuously re-edified; Here none but soldiers and Rome's servitors Repose in fame; none basely slain in brawls. Bury him where you can, he comes not here. MARCUS. My lord, this is impiety in you. My nephew Mutius' deeds do plead for him; He must be buried with his bretheren. QUINTUS & MARTIUS. And shall, or him we will accompany. TITUS. 'And shall!' What villain was it spake that word? QUINTUS. He that would vouch it in any place but here. TITUS. What, would you bury him in my despite? MARCUS. No, noble Titus, but entreat of thee To pardon Mutius and to bury him. TITUS. Marcus, even thou hast struck upon my crest, And with these boys mine honour thou hast wounded. My foes I do repute you every one; So trouble me no more, but get you gone. MARTIUS. He is not with himself; let us withdraw. QUINTUS. Not I, till Mutius' bones be buried. [The BROTHER and the SONS kneel] MARCUS. Brother, for in that name doth nature plead- QUINTUS. Father, and in that name doth nature speak- TITUS. Speak thou no more, if all the rest will speed. MARCUS. Renowned Titus, more than half my soul- LUCIUS. Dear father, soul and substance of us all- MARCUS. Suffer thy brother Marcus to inter His noble nephew here in virtue's nest, That died in honour and Lavinia's cause. Thou art a Roman- be not barbarous. The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax, That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son Did graciously plead for his funerals. Let not young Mutius, then, that was thy joy, Be barr'd his entrance here. TITUS. Rise, Marcus, rise; The dismal'st day is this that e'er I saw, To be dishonoured by my sons in Rome! Well, bury him, and bury me the next. [They put MUTIUS in the tomb] LUCIUS. There lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends, Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb. ALL. [Kneeling] No man shed tears for noble Mutius; He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause. MARCUS. My lord- to step out of these dreary dumps- How comes it that the subtle Queen of Goths Is of a sudden thus advanc'd in Rome? TITUS. I know not, Marcus, but I know it is- Whether by device or no, the heavens can tell. Is she not, then, beholding to the man That brought her for this high good turn so far? MARCUS. Yes, and will nobly him remunerate. Flourish. Re-enter the EMPEROR, TAMORA and her two SONS, with the MOOR, at one door; at the other door, BASSIANUS and LAVINIA, with others SATURNINUS. So, Bassianus, you have play'd your prize: God give you joy, sir, of your gallant bride! BASSIANUS. And you of yours, my lord! I say no more, Nor wish no less; and so I take my leave. SATURNINUS. Traitor, if Rome have law or we have power, Thou and thy faction shall repent this rape. BASSIANUS. Rape, call you it, my lord, to seize my own, My true betrothed love, and now my wife? But let the laws of Rome determine all; Meanwhile am I possess'd of that is mine. SATURNINUS. 'Tis good, sir. You are very short with us; But if we live we'll be as sharp with you. BASSIANUS. My lord, what I have done, as best I may, Answer I must, and shall do with my life. Only thus much I give your Grace to know: By all the duties that I owe to Rome, This noble gentleman, Lord Titus here, Is in opinion and in honour wrong'd, That, in the rescue of Lavinia, With his own hand did slay his youngest son, In zeal to you, and highly mov'd to wrath To be controll'd in that he frankly gave. Receive him then to favour, Saturnine, That hath express'd himself in all his deeds A father and a friend to thee and Rome. TITUS. Prince Bassianus, leave to plead my deeds. 'Tis thou and those that have dishonoured me. Rome and the righteous heavens be my judge How I have lov'd and honoured Saturnine! TAMORA. My worthy lord, if ever Tamora Were gracious in those princely eyes of thine, Then hear me speak indifferently for all; And at my suit, sweet, pardon what is past. SATURNINUS. What, madam! be dishonoured openly, And basely put it up without revenge? TAMORA. Not so, my lord; the gods of Rome forfend I should be author to dishonour you! But on mine honour dare I undertake For good Lord Titus' innocence in all, Whose fury not dissembled speaks his griefs. Then at my suit look graciously on him; Lose not so noble a friend on vain suppose, Nor with sour looks afflict his gentle heart. [Aside to SATURNINUS] My lord, be rul'd by me, be won at last; Dissemble all your griefs and discontents. You are but newly planted in your throne; Lest, then, the people, and patricians too, Upon a just survey take Titus' part, And so supplant you for ingratitude, Which Rome reputes to be a heinous sin, Yield at entreats, and then let me alone: I'll find a day to massacre them all, And raze their faction and their family, The cruel father and his traitorous sons, To whom I sued for my dear son's life; And make them know what 'tis to let a queen Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.- Come, come, sweet Emperor; come, Andronicus. Take up this good old man, and cheer the heart That dies in tempest of thy angry frown. SATURNINUS. Rise, Titus, rise; my Empress hath prevail'd. TITUS. I thank your Majesty and her, my lord; These words, these looks, infuse new life in me. TAMORA. Titus, I am incorporate in Rome, A Roman now adopted happily, And must advise the Emperor for his good. This day all quarrels die, Andronicus; And let it be mine honour, good my lord, That I have reconcil'd your friends and you. For you, Prince Bassianus, I have pass'd My word and promise to the Emperor That you will be more mild and tractable. And fear not, lords- and you, Lavinia. By my advice, all humbled on your knees, You shall ask pardon of his Majesty. LUCIUS. We do, and vow to heaven and to his Highness That what we did was mildly as we might, Tend'ring our sister's honour and our own. MARCUS. That on mine honour here do I protest. SATURNINUS. Away, and talk not; trouble us no more. TAMORA. Nay, nay, sweet Emperor, we must all be friends. The Tribune and his nephews kneel for grace. I will not be denied. Sweet heart, look back. SATURNINUS. Marcus, for thy sake, and thy brother's here, And at my lovely Tamora's entreats, I do remit these young men's heinous faults. Stand up. Lavinia, though you left me like a churl, I found a friend; and sure as death I swore I would not part a bachelor from the priest. Come, if the Emperor's court can feast two brides, You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends. This day shall be a love-day, Tamora. TITUS. To-morrow, and it please your Majesty To hunt the panther and the hart with me, With horn and hound we'll give your Grace bonjour. SATURNINUS. Be it so, Titus, and gramercy too. Exeunt. Sound trumpets Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze verfassen?

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In Rom stehen sich zwei Brüder, Saturninus und Bassianus, und ihre jeweiligen Armeen vor dem überfüllten Senat gegenüber und sind bereit, um darüber zu kämpfen, wer zum Kaiser ernannt werden soll. Saturninus legt zuerst seinen Fall dar - da er der ältere Sohn des verstorbenen Kaisers ist, sollten ihn die Senatoren zum Kaiser von Rom ernennen. Bassianus meldet sich zu Wort und meint, der Titel sollte demjenigen zustehen, der ihn am meisten verdient hat. Marcus mischt sich ein und sagt sozusagen: Nicht so schnell, Jungs. Jeder weiß, dass das Volk bereits Titus Andronicus gewählt hat. Marcus führt eine lange Liste von Gründen auf, warum Titus gewählt wurde. Er ist der edelste und tapferste Mann in all dem Land, er hat die letzten zehn Jahre gegen den größten Feind Roms gekämpft, er hat viele Söhne in der Schlacht verloren und er ist gerade mit einigen sehr wichtigen Gefangenen nach Rom zurückgekehrt. Saturninus und Bassianus stimmen zu, ihre Soldaten nach Hause zu schicken und ihre Kampagnen aufzugeben. Titus kommt mit viel Pomp und Zeremonie an. Wir reden hier von Marschbands, den Söhnen des Titus und einer Menge von Titus' Gefangenen. Titus steigt auf die Bühne und verkündet, dass er als Sieger nach Rom zurückgekehrt ist und jetzt zwei weitere seiner getöteten Söhne in das Familiengrab der Andronicus legen wird. Lucius, einer von Titus' lebenden Söhnen, steht auf und bittet Titus, einen seiner gotischen Kriegsgefangenen herzugeben, damit die Römer ihm seine Gliedmaßen abhacken und dem Geist seiner toten Brüder opfern können. Titus findet die Idee großartig und bietet Tamoras ältesten Sohn, Alarbus, an. Tamora bittet Titus um Gnade und fleht ihn an, Alarbus nicht zu töten, sie weist darauf hin, dass ihre kriegerischen Söhne genauso ehrenhaft sind wie Titus' - der einzige Unterschied ist, dass sie auf der anderen Seite des Krieges gekämpft haben. Titus will davon nichts hören und sagt, dass Tamoras Kind sterben muss. Alarbus wird von Titus' Söhnen fortgeführt. Tamora und ihre anderen beiden Söhne erklären, dass Rom "barbarischer" als Skythien ist und schwören Rache. Titus' Söhne kommen mit blutigen Schwertern zurück auf die Bühne und Lucius verkündet, dass sie Alarbus zerschnitten und seine Gedärme in das "Opferfeuer" geworfen haben, wodurch es nun "wie Weihrauch den Himmel parfümiert". Nachdem das rituelle Opfer abgeschlossen ist, kann der Andronicus-Clan die Leichen der Söhne des Titus in das Familiengrab legen. Die reizende Lavinia betritt die Bühne und begrüßt ihren Vater nach dem langen, blutigen Krieg und bittet Titus, sie mit seiner "siegreichen Hand" zu "segnen". Titus erklärt seine Liebe zu seiner Tochter und sagt, dass er hofft, dass die tugendhafte Lavinia länger leben wird als er. Marcus, ein römischer Tribun und Bruder von Titus, heißt Titus und seine Söhne willkommen und verkündet, dass Titus zum Kaiser gewählt wurde, was bedeutet, dass Titus einen schicken, weißen Kaiserumhang tragen darf. Titus sagt, dass er geschmeichelt ist, aber er ist viel zu alt und müde, um Rom zu regieren. Nach zehn langen Jahren im Militärdienst möchte Titus nur in Frieden in den Ruhestand gehen. Saturninus, der immer wütender wird, beleidigt Titus und erklärt, dass er immer noch Kaiser werden will. Das römische Volk solle ihre Schwerter ziehen und sein Recht auf Herrschaft verteidigen. Jetzt, da offensichtlich ist, dass Titus nicht Rom regieren will, bringt Bassianus seinen Hut wieder ins Spiel und bittet Titus um seine Unterstützung. Titus bittet das Volk und die Tribunen, ihn den nächsten Kaiser wählen zu lassen, und sie stimmen zu. Titus nennt Saturninus. Saturninus akzeptiert den Titel und bietet an, Lavinia als Dank an Titus zu heiraten. Als Zeichen seiner Loyalität zu Roms neuem Führer übergibt Titus seine Tochter und all seine Gefangenen an Saturninus. Saturninus wirft einen Blick auf die bezaubernde Tamora und bereut sofort seine Verlobung mit Lavinia, die zwar ein nettes Mädchen ist, aber anscheinend nicht so heiß wie die Königin der Goten. Saturninus macht sich dann an Tamora heran und sagt Lavinia, sie solle nicht eifersüchtig sein. Bassianus erklärt, dass er bereits mit Lavinia verlobt ist und sie ihm gehört. Bassianus schnappt sich Lavinia und rennt mit ihr weg. Titus' Söhne helfen ihm bei der Flucht, während Mutius die Tür bewacht und Titus daran hindert, ihnen nachzujagen. Titus tötet ihn, weil er ihm im Weg steht, und verlangt, dass Lavinia zurückgebracht wird. Saturninus sagt so etwas wie "lass es sein - ich will nichts mit dir und deiner Verräter-Familie zu tun haben, Titus". Titus ist gekränkt und fühlt sich völlig gedemütigt. Saturninus wendet sich an Tamora und verkündet, dass er sie heiraten will. Tamora verspricht, dass sie seinem "Verlangen" als seine "Dienerin" nachkommen wird. Da in der Nähe ein Priester ist, rennt das glückliche Paar los, um sich zu vermählen, während Titus allein auf der Bühne ist und sich über sein schreckliches Leben beklagt. Marcus und Titus' Söhne tauchen auf und schimpfen mit Titus, weil er sein eigenes Fleisch und Blut getötet hat. Titus weigert sich zu bereuen und sagt, dass Mutius nicht im Familiengrab begraben werden darf. Nach etwas Streit sagt Marcus zu Titus, dass er nicht "barbarisch" sein solle, und Titus stimmt schließlich zu, Mutius' Leiche im Familiengewölbe beizusetzen. Das frisch vermählte Paar kehrt zurück und Saturninus verkündet, dass Titus' Familie und Bassianus für das bezahlen werden, was sie getan haben. Bassianus verteidigt seinen zukünftigen Schwiegervater und weist darauf hin, dass Titus seinen eigenen Sohn aus Loyalität zu Saturninus getötet hat und daher nicht bestraft werden sollte. Tamora zieht Saturninus beiseite und sagt ihm, dass das römische Volk revoltieren könnte, wenn ihr geliebter Titus von einem neuen Kaiser bestraft wird. Sie sagt "mach dir keine Sorgen, mein Lieber, ich werde dafür sorgen, dass Titus und seine Familie für das bezahlen, was sie getan haben". Dann inszeniert Tamora eine große Versöhnung von Saturninus und Titus. Saturninus gibt vor, sich mit Titus zu versöhnen, und da er bereits den Caterer und den Elvis-Imitatoren bezahlt hat, lädt er Lavinia und Bassianus zu einem Doppelhochzeitsfest ein. Alles scheint in Ordnung zu sein, also sagt Titus, dass es Spaß machen würde, morgen Panther zu jagen, und lädt alle ein, mitzukommen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Part I. 01 My Early Home The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end. Over the hedge on one side we looked into a plowed field, and on the other we looked over a gate at our master's house, which stood by the roadside; at the top of the meadow was a grove of fir trees, and at the bottom a running brook overhung by a steep bank. While I was young I lived upon my mother's milk, as I could not eat grass. In the daytime I ran by her side, and at night I lay down close by her. When it was hot we used to stand by the pond in the shade of the trees, and when it was cold we had a nice warm shed near the grove. As soon as I was old enough to eat grass my mother used to go out to work in the daytime, and come back in the evening. There were six young colts in the meadow besides me; they were older than I was; some were nearly as large as grown-up horses. I used to run with them, and had great fun; we used to gallop all together round and round the field as hard as we could go. Sometimes we had rather rough play, for they would frequently bite and kick as well as gallop. One day, when there was a good deal of kicking, my mother whinnied to me to come to her, and then she said: "I wish you to pay attention to what I am going to say to you. The colts who live here are very good colts, but they are cart-horse colts, and of course they have not learned manners. You have been well-bred and well-born; your father has a great name in these parts, and your grandfather won the cup two years at the Newmarket races; your grandmother had the sweetest temper of any horse I ever knew, and I think you have never seen me kick or bite. I hope you will grow up gentle and good, and never learn bad ways; do your work with a good will, lift your feet up well when you trot, and never bite or kick even in play." I have never forgotten my mother's advice; I knew she was a wise old horse, and our master thought a great deal of her. Her name was Duchess, but he often called her Pet. Our master was a good, kind man. He gave us good food, good lodging, and kind words; he spoke as kindly to us as he did to his little children. We were all fond of him, and my mother loved him very much. When she saw him at the gate she would neigh with joy, and trot up to him. He would pat and stroke her and say, "Well, old Pet, and how is your little Darkie?" I was a dull black, so he called me Darkie; then he would give me a piece of bread, which was very good, and sometimes he brought a carrot for my mother. All the horses would come to him, but I think we were his favorites. My mother always took him to the town on a market day in a light gig. There was a plowboy, Dick, who sometimes came into our field to pluck blackberries from the hedge. When he had eaten all he wanted he would have what he called fun with the colts, throwing stones and sticks at them to make them gallop. We did not much mind him, for we could gallop off; but sometimes a stone would hit and hurt us. One day he was at this game, and did not know that the master was in the next field; but he was there, watching what was going on; over the hedge he jumped in a snap, and catching Dick by the arm, he gave him such a box on the ear as made him roar with the pain and surprise. As soon as we saw the master we trotted up nearer to see what went on. "Bad boy!" he said, "bad boy! to chase the colts. This is not the first time, nor the second, but it shall be the last. There--take your money and go home; I shall not want you on my farm again." So we never saw Dick any more. Old Daniel, the man who looked after the horses, was just as gentle as our master, so we were well off. 02 The Hunt Before I was two years old a circumstance happened which I have never forgotten. It was early in the spring; there had been a little frost in the night, and a light mist still hung over the woods and meadows. I and the other colts were feeding at the lower part of the field when we heard, quite in the distance, what sounded like the cry of dogs. The oldest of the colts raised his head, pricked his ears, and said, "There are the hounds!" and immediately cantered off, followed by the rest of us to the upper part of the field, where we could look over the hedge and see several fields beyond. My mother and an old riding horse of our master's were also standing near, and seemed to know all about it. "They have found a hare," said my mother, "and if they come this way we shall see the hunt." And soon the dogs were all tearing down the field of young wheat next to ours. I never heard such a noise as they made. They did not bark, nor howl, nor whine, but kept on a "yo! yo, o, o! yo! yo, o, o!" at the top of their voices. After them came a number of men on horseback, some of them in green coats, all galloping as fast as they could. The old horse snorted and looked eagerly after them, and we young colts wanted to be galloping with them, but they were soon away into the fields lower down; here it seemed as if they had come to a stand; the dogs left off barking, and ran about every way with their noses to the ground. "They have lost the scent," said the old horse; "perhaps the hare will get off." "What hare?" I said. "Oh! I don't know what hare; likely enough it may be one of our own hares out of the woods; any hare they can find will do for the dogs and men to run after;" and before long the dogs began their "yo! yo, o, o!" again, and back they came altogether at full speed, making straight for our meadow at the part where the high bank and hedge overhang the brook. "Now we shall see the hare," said my mother; and just then a hare wild with fright rushed by and made for the woods. On came the dogs; they burst over the bank, leaped the stream, and came dashing across the field followed by the huntsmen. Six or eight men leaped their horses clean over, close upon the dogs. The hare tried to get through the fence; it was too thick, and she turned sharp round to make for the road, but it was too late; the dogs were upon her with their wild cries; we heard one shriek, and that was the end of her. One of the huntsmen rode up and whipped off the dogs, who would soon have torn her to pieces. He held her up by the leg torn and bleeding, and all the gentlemen seemed well pleased. As for me, I was so astonished that I did not at first see what was going on by the brook; but when I did look there was a sad sight; two fine horses were down, one was struggling in the stream, and the other was groaning on the grass. One of the riders was getting out of the water covered with mud, the other lay quite still. "His neck is broke," said my mother. "And serve him right, too," said one of the colts. I thought the same, but my mother did not join with us. "Well, no," she said, "you must not say that; but though I am an old horse, and have seen and heard a great deal, I never yet could make out why men are so fond of this sport; they often hurt themselves, often spoil good horses, and tear up the fields, and all for a hare or a fox, or a stag, that they could get more easily some other way; but we are only horses, and don't know." While my mother was saying this we stood and looked on. Many of the riders had gone to the young man; but my master, who had been watching what was going on, was the first to raise him. His head fell back and his arms hung down, and every one looked very serious. There was no noise now; even the dogs were quiet, and seemed to know that something was wrong. They carried him to our master's house. I heard afterward that it was young George Gordon, the squire's only son, a fine, tall young man, and the pride of his family. There was now riding off in all directions to the doctor's, to the farrier's, and no doubt to Squire Gordon's, to let him know about his son. When Mr. Bond, the farrier, came to look at the black horse that lay groaning on the grass, he felt him all over, and shook his head; one of his legs was broken. Then some one ran to our master's house and came back with a gun; presently there was a loud bang and a dreadful shriek, and then all was still; the black horse moved no more. My mother seemed much troubled; she said she had known that horse for years, and that his name was "Rob Roy"; he was a good horse, and there was no vice in him. She never would go to that part of the field afterward. Not many days after we heard the church-bell tolling for a long time, and looking over the gate we saw a long, strange black coach that was covered with black cloth and was drawn by black horses; after that came another and another and another, and all were black, while the bell kept tolling, tolling. They were carrying young Gordon to the churchyard to bury him. He would never ride again. What they did with Rob Roy I never knew; but 'twas all for one little hare. 03 My Breaking In I was now beginning to grow handsome; my coat had grown fine and soft, and was bright black. I had one white foot and a pretty white star on my forehead. I was thought very handsome; my master would not sell me till I was four years old; he said lads ought not to work like men, and colts ought not to work like horses till they were quite grown up. When I was four years old Squire Gordon came to look at me. He examined my eyes, my mouth, and my legs; he felt them all down; and then I had to walk and trot and gallop before him. He seemed to like me, and said, "When he has been well broken in he will do very well." My master said he would break me in himself, as he should not like me to be frightened or hurt, and he lost no time about it, for the next day he began. Every one may not know what breaking in is, therefore I will describe it. It means to teach a horse to wear a saddle and bridle, and to carry on his back a man, woman or child; to go just the way they wish, and to go quietly. Besides this he has to learn to wear a collar, a crupper, and a breeching, and to stand still while they are put on; then to have a cart or a chaise fixed behind, so that he cannot walk or trot without dragging it after him; and he must go fast or slow, just as his driver wishes. He must never start at what he sees, nor speak to other horses, nor bite, nor kick, nor have any will of his own; but always do his master's will, even though he may be very tired or hungry; but the worst of all is, when his harness is once on, he may neither jump for joy nor lie down for weariness. So you see this breaking in is a great thing. I had of course long been used to a halter and a headstall, and to be led about in the fields and lanes quietly, but now I was to have a bit and bridle; my master gave me some oats as usual, and after a good deal of coaxing he got the bit into my mouth, and the bridle fixed, but it was a nasty thing! Those who have never had a bit in their mouths cannot think how bad it feels; a great piece of cold hard steel as thick as a man's finger to be pushed into one's mouth, between one's teeth, and over one's tongue, with the ends coming out at the corner of your mouth, and held fast there by straps over your head, under your throat, round your nose, and under your chin; so that no way in the world can you get rid of the nasty hard thing; it is very bad! yes, very bad! at least I thought so; but I knew my mother always wore one when she went out, and all horses did when they were grown up; and so, what with the nice oats, and what with my master's pats, kind words, and gentle ways, I got to wear my bit and bridle. Next came the saddle, but that was not half so bad; my master put it on my back very gently, while old Daniel held my head; he then made the girths fast under my body, patting and talking to me all the time; then I had a few oats, then a little leading about; and this he did every day till I began to look for the oats and the saddle. At length, one morning, my master got on my back and rode me round the meadow on the soft grass. It certainly did feel queer; but I must say I felt rather proud to carry my master, and as he continued to ride me a little every day I soon became accustomed to it. The next unpleasant business was putting on the iron shoes; that too was very hard at first. My master went with me to the smith's forge, to see that I was not hurt or got any fright. The blacksmith took my feet in his hand, one after the other, and cut away some of the hoof. It did not pain me, so I stood still on three legs till he had done them all. Then he took a piece of iron the shape of my foot, and clapped it on, and drove some nails through the shoe quite into my hoof, so that the shoe was firmly on. My feet felt very stiff and heavy, but in time I got used to it. And now having got so far, my master went on to break me to harness; there were more new things to wear. First, a stiff heavy collar just on my neck, and a bridle with great side-pieces against my eyes called blinkers, and blinkers indeed they were, for I could not see on either side, but only straight in front of me; next, there was a small saddle with a nasty stiff strap that went right under my tail; that was the crupper. I hated the crupper; to have my long tail doubled up and poked through that strap was almost as bad as the bit. I never felt more like kicking, but of course I could not kick such a good master, and so in time I got used to everything, and could do my work as well as my mother. I must not forget to mention one part of my training, which I have always considered a very great advantage. My master sent me for a fortnight to a neighboring farmer's, who had a meadow which was skirted on one side by the railway. Here were some sheep and cows, and I was turned in among them. I shall never forget the first train that ran by. I was feeding quietly near the pales which separated the meadow from the railway, when I heard a strange sound at a distance, and before I knew whence it came--with a rush and a clatter, and a puffing out of smoke--a long black train of something flew by, and was gone almost before I could draw my breath. I turned and galloped to the further side of the meadow as fast as I could go, and there I stood snorting with astonishment and fear. In the course of the day many other trains went by, some more slowly; these drew up at the station close by, and sometimes made an awful shriek and groan before they stopped. I thought it very dreadful, but the cows went on eating very quietly, and hardly raised their heads as the black frightful thing came puffing and grinding past. For the first few days I could not feed in peace; but as I found that this terrible creature never came into the field, or did me any harm, I began to disregard it, and very soon I cared as little about the passing of a train as the cows and sheep did. Since then I have seen many horses much alarmed and restive at the sight or sound of a steam engine; but thanks to my good master's care, I am as fearless at railway stations as in my own stable. Now if any one wants to break in a young horse well, that is the way. My master often drove me in double harness with my mother, because she was steady and could teach me how to go better than a strange horse. She told me the better I behaved the better I should be treated, and that it was wisest always to do my best to please my master; "but," said she, "there are a great many kinds of men; there are good thoughtful men like our master, that any horse may be proud to serve; and there are bad, cruel men, who never ought to have a horse or dog to call their own. Besides, there are a great many foolish men, vain, ignorant, and careless, who never trouble themselves to think; these spoil more horses than all, just for want of sense; they don't mean it, but they do it for all that. I hope you will fall into good hands; but a horse never knows who may buy him, or who may drive him; it is all a chance for us; but still I say, do your best wherever it is, and keep up your good name." 04 Birtwick Park At this time I used to stand in the stable and my coat was brushed every day till it shone like a rook's wing. It was early in May, when there came a man from Squire Gordon's, who took me away to the hall. My master said, "Good-by, Darkie; be a good horse, and always do your best." I could not say "good-by", so I put my nose into his hand; he patted me kindly, and I left my first home. As I lived some years with Squire Gordon, I may as well tell something about the place. Squire Gordon's park skirted the village of Birtwick. It was entered by a large iron gate, at which stood the first lodge, and then you trotted along on a smooth road between clumps of large old trees; then another lodge and another gate, which brought you to the house and the gardens. Beyond this lay the home paddock, the old orchard, and the stables. There was accommodation for many horses and carriages; but I need only describe the stable into which I was taken; this was very roomy, with four good stalls; a large swinging window opened into the yard, which made it pleasant and airy. The first stall was a large square one, shut in behind with a wooden gate; the others were common stalls, good stalls, but not nearly so large; it had a low rack for hay and a low manger for corn; it was called a loose box, because the horse that was put into it was not tied up, but left loose, to do as he liked. It is a great thing to have a loose box. Into this fine box the groom put me; it was clean, sweet, and airy. I never was in a better box than that, and the sides were not so high but that I could see all that went on through the iron rails that were at the top. He gave me some very nice oats, he patted me, spoke kindly, and then went away. When I had eaten my corn I looked round. In the stall next to mine stood a little fat gray pony, with a thick mane and tail, a very pretty head, and a pert little nose. I put my head up to the iron rails at the top of my box, and said, "How do you do? What is your name?" He turned round as far as his halter would allow, held up his head, and said, "My name is Merrylegs. I am very handsome; I carry the young ladies on my back, and sometimes I take our mistress out in the low chair. They think a great deal of me, and so does James. Are you going to live next door to me in the box?" I said, "Yes." "Well, then," he said, "I hope you are good-tempered; I do not like any one next door who bites." Just then a horse's head looked over from the stall beyond; the ears were laid back, and the eye looked rather ill-tempered. This was a tall chestnut mare, with a long handsome neck. She looked across to me and said: "So it is you who have turned me out of my box; it is a very strange thing for a colt like you to come and turn a lady out of her own home." "I beg your pardon," I said, "I have turned no one out; the man who brought me put me here, and I had nothing to do with it; and as to my being a colt, I am turned four years old and am a grown-up horse. I never had words yet with horse or mare, and it is my wish to live at peace." "Well," she said, "we shall see. Of course, I do not want to have words with a young thing like you." I said no more. In the afternoon, when she went out, Merrylegs told me all about it. "The thing is this," said Merrylegs. "Ginger has a bad habit of biting and snapping; that is why they call her Ginger, and when she was in the loose box she used to snap very much. One day she bit James in the arm and made it bleed, and so Miss Flora and Miss Jessie, who are very fond of me, were afraid to come into the stable. They used to bring me nice things to eat, an apple or a carrot, or a piece of bread, but after Ginger stood in that box they dared not come, and I missed them very much. I hope they will now come again, if you do not bite or snap." I told him I never bit anything but grass, hay, and corn, and could not think what pleasure Ginger found it. "Well, I don't think she does find pleasure," says Merrylegs; "it is just a bad habit; she says no one was ever kind to her, and why should she not bite? Of course, it is a very bad habit; but I am sure, if all she says be true, she must have been very ill-used before she came here. John does all he can to please her, and James does all he can, and our master never uses a whip if a horse acts right; so I think she might be good-tempered here. You see," he said, with a wise look, "I am twelve years old; I know a great deal, and I can tell you there is not a better place for a horse all round the country than this. John is the best groom that ever was; he has been here fourteen years; and you never saw such a kind boy as James is; so that it is all Ginger's own fault that she did not stay in that box." 05 A Fair Start The name of the coachman was John Manly; he had a wife and one little child, and they lived in the coachman's cottage, very near the stables. The next morning he took me into the yard and gave me a good grooming, and just as I was going into my box, with my coat soft and bright, the squire came in to look at me, and seemed pleased. "John," he said, "I meant to have tried the new horse this morning, but I have other business. You may as well take him around after breakfast; go by the common and the Highwood, and back by the watermill and the river; that will show his paces." "I will, sir," said John. After breakfast he came and fitted me with a bridle. He was very particular in letting out and taking in the straps, to fit my head comfortably; then he brought a saddle, but it was not broad enough for my back; he saw it in a minute and went for another, which fitted nicely. He rode me first slowly, then a trot, then a canter, and when we were on the common he gave me a light touch with his whip, and we had a splendid gallop. "Ho, ho! my boy," he said, as he pulled me up, "you would like to follow the hounds, I think." As we came back through the park we met the Squire and Mrs. Gordon walking; they stopped, and John jumped off. "Well, John, how does he go?" "First-rate, sir," answered John; "he is as fleet as a deer, and has a fine spirit too; but the lightest touch of the rein will guide him. Down at the end of the common we met one of those traveling carts hung all over with baskets, rugs, and such like; you know, sir, many horses will not pass those carts quietly; he just took a good look at it, and then went on as quiet and pleasant as could be. They were shooting rabbits near the Highwood, and a gun went off close by; he pulled up a little and looked, but did not stir a step to right or left. I just held the rein steady and did not hurry him, and it's my opinion he has not been frightened or ill-used while he was young." "That's well," said the squire, "I will try him myself to-morrow." The next day I was brought up for my master. I remembered my mother's counsel and my good old master's, and I tried to do exactly what he wanted me to do. I found he was a very good rider, and thoughtful for his horse too. When he came home the lady was at the hall door as he rode up. "Well, my dear," she said, "how do you like him?" "He is exactly what John said," he replied; "a pleasanter creature I never wish to mount. What shall we call him?" "Would you like Ebony?" said she; "he is as black as ebony." "No, not Ebony." "Will you call him Blackbird, like your uncle's old horse?" "No, he is far handsomer than old Blackbird ever was." "Yes," she said, "he is really quite a beauty, and he has such a sweet, good-tempered face, and such a fine, intelligent eye--what do you say to calling him Black Beauty?" "Black Beauty--why, yes, I think that is a very good name. If you like it shall be his name;" and so it was. When John went into the stable he told James that master and mistress had chosen a good, sensible English name for me, that meant something; not like Marengo, or Pegasus, or Abdallah. They both laughed, and James said, "If it was not for bringing back the past, I should have named him Rob Roy, for I never saw two horses more alike." "That's no wonder," said John; "didn't you know that Farmer Grey's old Duchess was the mother of them both?" I had never heard that before; and so poor Rob Roy who was killed at that hunt was my brother! I did not wonder that my mother was so troubled. It seems that horses have no relations; at least they never know each other after they are sold. John seemed very proud of me; he used to make my mane and tail almost as smooth as a lady's hair, and he would talk to me a great deal; of course I did not understand all he said, but I learned more and more to know what he meant, and what he wanted me to do. I grew very fond of him, he was so gentle and kind; he seemed to know just how a horse feels, and when he cleaned me he knew the tender places and the ticklish places; when he brushed my head he went as carefully over my eyes as if they were his own, and never stirred up any ill-temper. James Howard, the stable boy, was just as gentle and pleasant in his way, so I thought myself well off. There was another man who helped in the yard, but he had very little to do with Ginger and me. A few days after this I had to go out with Ginger in the carriage. I wondered how we should get on together; but except laying her ears back when I was led up to her, she behaved very well. She did her work honestly, and did her full share, and I never wish to have a better partner in double harness. When we came to a hill, instead of slackening her pace, she would throw her weight right into the collar, and pull away straight up. We had both the same sort of courage at our work, and John had oftener to hold us in than to urge us forward; he never had to use the whip with either of us; then our paces were much the same, and I found it very easy to keep step with her when trotting, which made it pleasant, and master always liked it when we kept step well, and so did John. After we had been out two or three times together we grew quite friendly and sociable, which made me feel very much at home. As for Merrylegs, he and I soon became great friends; he was such a cheerful, plucky, good-tempered little fellow that he was a favorite with every one, and especially with Miss Jessie and Flora, who used to ride him about in the orchard, and have fine games with him and their little dog Frisky. Our master had two other horses that stood in another stable. One was Justice, a roan cob, used for riding or for the luggage cart; the other was an old brown hunter, named Sir Oliver; he was past work now, but was a great favorite with the master, who gave him the run of the park; he sometimes did a little light carting on the estate, or carried one of the young ladies when they rode out with their father, for he was very gentle and could be trusted with a child as well as Merrylegs. The cob was a strong, well-made, good-tempered horse, and we sometimes had a little chat in the paddock, but of course I could not be so intimate with him as with Ginger, who stood in the same stable. Könnten Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Black Beauty beginnt damit, seine frühesten Erinnerungen zu beschreiben. Er erinnert sich liebevoll an die angenehme Wiese und den Teich seiner jungen Tage, umsorgt von seiner Mutter und einem freundlichen Herrn. Nach und nach entwickelte sich Black Beauty vom Trinken der Milch seiner Mutter zum Grasessen und mit dieser Veränderung kam mehr Unabhängigkeit. Bald spielte er mit allen anderen Fohlen auf der Weide, während sie über die Felder galoppierten, kickten und bissen. Nach einem solchen Tag des Spielens gab ihm seine Mutter lebenslange Ratschläge: sei sanft und gut in allem, arbeite mit gutem Geist und trete niemals aus oder beiße. Black Beautys Leben würde ein herausragendes Beispiel für diese in die Praxis umgesetzten Ratschläge sein. Im Moment war er jedoch nur ein junger Dunkler unter der Obhut seiner Mutter Duchess und seines Herrn, die sich beide große Mühe gaben, ihm eine gute Erziehung zu geben und ihn vor bösen Jungen, die Steine werfen, und dergleichen zu schützen. Er konnte jedoch nicht für immer geschützt werden: Im Alter von zwei Jahren beobachtet Black Beauty zum ersten Mal eine Jagd. Er sieht, wie die Hunde über das Feld rennen, gefolgt von schnellen Pferden und ihren Reitern. Sie jagen einen Hasen weg und wieder zurück, obwohl sie über einen hohen Zaun springen müssen. Die meisten Jäger schaffen es über den Zaun und zwingen ihre Pferde zum Springen, aber zwei Pferde schaffen den Sprung nicht. Ein Reiter und sein Pferd überleben, aber das andere Paar, George Gordon - der Sohn von Squire Gordon - und sein Pferd Rob Roy sterben bei dem Unfall. Black Beauty und seine Mutter stellen fest: der Hase wurde gefangen; doch zu welchem Preis haben diese Männer solch einen kleinen Preis gekauft? Die Jahre vergehen und Black Beauty wird zu einer wahren Schwarzen Schönheit, mit einem dunklen königlichen Fell, unterbrochen nur von einer edlen weißen Blesse auf seiner Stirn und einem weißen Fuß. Bald ist er bereit, eingeritten zu werden, und Squire Gordon bietet an, ihn zu kaufen, sobald er bereit ist. Das Einreiten, wie Black Beauty erklärt, besteht darin, ein Pferd daran zu gewöhnen, einen Sattel und Reiter zu tragen und auf die Befehle des Reiters zu reagieren. Darüber hinaus muss das Pferd lernen, dass es einen Wagen oder eine Kutsche hinter sich hat und wie es mit der dazugehörigen Ausrüstung umgehen kann. Das Schlimmste für Black Beauty ist das Gebiss, das direkt über die Zunge des Pferdes geht und, wie er betont, lang anhaltende Unannehmlichkeiten verursacht. Aber mit den freundlichen Worten und der Ermutigung seines Trainers gewöhnt sich Black Beauty auch an diese Härte. Nach Black Beautys Fortschritt in diesem Prozess schickt ihn sein Trainer zur weiteren Ausbildung auf eine Nachbarwiese. Dort sieht er zum ersten Mal einen Zug und obwohl er anfangs davon erschreckt ist, gewöhnt er sich bald an die laute, blitzende Maschine. Das erwies sich für Black Beauty als großer Vorteil, da er mehr an Bahnhöfe und andere Merkmale des Stadtlebens gewöhnt war als andere Pferde. Alles in allem besteht Black Beauty den Einreitprozess sehr gut und schreibt seinen Erfolg der sanften und klugen Fürsorge seines Herrn zu. Wie ihm seine Mutter sagt, gibt es diese Art von Menschen nur in einer Gruppe von drei; die anderen beiden sind die grausamen Männer, die ihre Tiere misshandeln, und die unwissenden Männer, die sie vernachlässigen. Diese letzten Arten, sagt ihm seine Mutter, sind die schlimmsten, da sie ihre Tiere schrecklich verwöhnen. Kurz nach dem Ende des Trainingsprozesses zieht Squire Gordon Black Beauty auf sein Anwesen, ein angenehmes und großes Land mit großen offenen Ställen und Obstgärten. Sein Stall ist groß, luftig und komfortabel und während er dort steht und schönes Getreide und Hafer frisst, sieht er zum ersten Mal jemanden, der ein lieber Freund werden soll: Merrylegs. Dieses hübsche kleine Pony trägt regelmäßig die jungen Töchter des Squires, und er und das andere Pferd - Ginger - werden zu Mentoren für Black Beauty. Anfangs allerdings geht es Ginger nicht gut. Wie Merrylegs erklärt, ist Ginger ein ziemlich gereiztes und kaltes Pferd, dessen Gemeinheit sie auf die grausame Behandlung zurückführt, die sie von ihren Besitzern erfahren hat. Wie Black Beauty bald erfährt, ist sein neuer Kutscher - John Manly - ein süßer, weiser alter Kerl. Seine Sanftheit und Geschicklichkeit zeigen sich bereits in der ersten Woche, als er Black Beauty für eine Fahrt einspannt. Als Gegenzug für diese Sanftheit reitet Black Beauty ausgezeichnet, fliegt über die Felder, gehorcht den Befehlen des Reiters und erschrickt nicht vor Jagdhunden. John Manly weist den Squire darauf hin und behauptet, dass der Grund für diese Exzellenz Black Beautys gute Erziehung ist. Der Squire reitet ihn auch und stimmt dem Kutscher von ganzem Herzen zu. Nach diesem Ausflug stellt er Black Beauty der Frau des Gutsbesitzers vor. Bei dieser Begegnung erhält Black Beauty seinen berühmten Namen, den die Dame für ihn auswählt. Am Ende dieses bedeutsamen Tages hört Black Beauty, wie John mit James Howard, dem Stalljungen, spricht. John erzählt ihm, dass Black Beauty in Wirklichkeit Rob Roys Bruder ist, und so erfährt Black Beauty, dass das arme Pferd, das vor den Augen seiner Mutter starb, tatsächlich ihr Sohn und sein Bruder war. Seine Schmerzen werden dadurch multipliziert, dass er keine Ahnung hatte, dass Roy sein Bruder war. Aber die Zeit vergeht und damit lassen auch seine Schmerzen nach. Er wird sehr an John und James gewöhnt, die ihn wunderbar behandeln, sich immer darum kümmern, ihn zu bürsten, zu füttern und sogar zu massieren. Er bricht auch das Eis mit Ginger, nachdem er das erste Mal ein Doppelgespann mit ihr gezogen hat. Bald lernt er die beiden anderen Pferde des Anwesens kennen: Sir Oliver - ein alter Favorit des Squires - und Justice - ein Rappenpony. Mit all diesen Pferden wird er Freunde und so beginnen seine angenehmen Jahre bei Squire Gordon.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: This letter must make its way to Emma's feelings. She was obliged, in spite of her previous determination to the contrary, to do it all the justice that Mrs. Weston foretold. As soon as she came to her own name, it was irresistible; every line relating to herself was interesting, and almost every line agreeable; and when this charm ceased, the subject could still maintain itself, by the natural return of her former regard for the writer, and the very strong attraction which any picture of love must have for her at that moment. She never stopt till she had gone through the whole; and though it was impossible not to feel that he had been wrong, yet he had been less wrong than she had supposed--and he had suffered, and was very sorry--and he was so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and she was so happy herself, that there was no being severe; and could he have entered the room, she must have shaken hands with him as heartily as ever. She thought so well of the letter, that when Mr. Knightley came again, she desired him to read it. She was sure of Mrs. Weston's wishing it to be communicated; especially to one, who, like Mr. Knightley, had seen so much to blame in his conduct. "I shall be very glad to look it over," said he; "but it seems long. I will take it home with me at night." But that would not do. Mr. Weston was to call in the evening, and she must return it by him. "I would rather be talking to you," he replied; "but as it seems a matter of justice, it shall be done." He began--stopping, however, almost directly to say, "Had I been offered the sight of one of this gentleman's letters to his mother-in-law a few months ago, Emma, it would not have been taken with such indifference." He proceeded a little farther, reading to himself; and then, with a smile, observed, "Humph! a fine complimentary opening: But it is his way. One man's style must not be the rule of another's. We will not be severe." "It will be natural for me," he added shortly afterwards, "to speak my opinion aloud as I read. By doing it, I shall feel that I am near you. It will not be so great a loss of time: but if you dislike it--" "Not at all. I should wish it." Mr. Knightley returned to his reading with greater alacrity. "He trifles here," said he, "as to the temptation. He knows he is wrong, and has nothing rational to urge.--Bad.--He ought not to have formed the engagement.--'His father's disposition:'--he is unjust, however, to his father. Mr. Weston's sanguine temper was a blessing on all his upright and honourable exertions; but Mr. Weston earned every present comfort before he endeavoured to gain it.--Very true; he did not come till Miss Fairfax was here." "And I have not forgotten," said Emma, "how sure you were that he might have come sooner if he would. You pass it over very handsomely--but you were perfectly right." "I was not quite impartial in my judgment, Emma:--but yet, I think--had _you_ not been in the case--I should still have distrusted him." When he came to Miss Woodhouse, he was obliged to read the whole of it aloud--all that related to her, with a smile; a look; a shake of the head; a word or two of assent, or disapprobation; or merely of love, as the subject required; concluding, however, seriously, and, after steady reflection, thus-- "Very bad--though it might have been worse.--Playing a most dangerous game. Too much indebted to the event for his acquittal.--No judge of his own manners by you.--Always deceived in fact by his own wishes, and regardless of little besides his own convenience.--Fancying you to have fathomed his secret. Natural enough!--his own mind full of intrigue, that he should suspect it in others.--Mystery; Finesse--how they pervert the understanding! My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each other?" Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet's account, which she could not give any sincere explanation of. "You had better go on," said she. He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, "the pianoforte! Ah! That was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to consider whether the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure. A boyish scheme, indeed!--I cannot comprehend a man's wishing to give a woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather dispense with; and he did know that she would have prevented the instrument's coming if she could." After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill's confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for more than a word in passing. "I perfectly agree with you, sir,"--was then his remark. "You did behave very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line." And having gone through what immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax's sense of right, he made a fuller pause to say, "This is very bad.--He had induced her to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to prevent her from suffering unnecessarily.--She must have had much more to contend with, in carrying on the correspondence, than he could. He should have respected even unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were all reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear that she should have been in such a state of punishment." Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew uncomfortable. Her own behaviour had been so very improper! She was deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It was all read, however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest remark; and, excepting one momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear of giving pain--no remembrance of Box Hill seemed to exist. "There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends, the Eltons," was his next observation.--"His feelings are natural.--What! actually resolve to break with him entirely!--She felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each--she dissolved it.--What a view this gives of her sense of his behaviour!--Well, he must be a most extraordinary--" "Nay, nay, read on.--You will find how very much he suffers." "I hope he does," replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter. "'Smallridge!'--What does this mean? What is all this?" "She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge's children--a dear friend of Mrs. Elton's--a neighbour of Maple Grove; and, by the bye, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?" "Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to read--not even of Mrs. Elton. Only one page more. I shall soon have done. What a letter the man writes!" "I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him." "Well, there _is_ feeling here.--He does seem to have suffered in finding her ill.--Certainly, I can have no doubt of his being fond of her. 'Dearer, much dearer than ever.' I hope he may long continue to feel all the value of such a reconciliation.--He is a very liberal thanker, with his thousands and tens of thousands.--'Happier than I deserve.' Come, he knows himself there. 'Miss Woodhouse calls me the child of good fortune.'--Those were Miss Woodhouse's words, were they?-- And a fine ending--and there is the letter. The child of good fortune! That was your name for him, was it?" "You do not appear so well satisfied with his letter as I am; but still you must, at least I hope you must, think the better of him for it. I hope it does him some service with you." Ja, das tut es definitiv. Er hatte große Fehler, Fehler der Rücksichtslosigkeit und Gedankenlosigkeit; und ich teile seine Meinung sehr, wenn ich denke, dass er glücklicher sein wird, als er es verdient: Aber da er zweifellos wirklich an Miss Fairfax hängt und hoffentlich bald den Vorteil hat, ständig bei ihr zu sein, bin ich sehr bereit zu glauben, dass sein Charakter sich verbessern wird und von ihr die Beständigkeit und Feinfühligkeit des Prinzips bekommt, die ihm fehlt. Und jetzt will ich mit dir über etwas anderes sprechen. Ich habe im Moment so sehr das Interesse einer anderen Person im Herzen, dass ich nicht länger an Frank Churchill denken kann. Seitdem ich dich heute Morgen verlassen habe, Emma, beschäftige ich mich stark mit einem Thema. Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze verfassen?

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Als Emma ihr Haus betritt, ist sie "in einem exquisiten Glücksgefühl." Beim Servieren des Tees bemüht sie sich, die perfekte Gastgeberin zu sein. Mr. Woodhouse, der nichts von der Verlobung seiner Tochter weiß, spricht in gewohnter Weise mit Knightley und vermutet nichts. Nachts reflektiert die gereifte Emma über ihre Verantwortung als Tochter und Freundin. Obwohl sie es noch nicht mit Knightley besprochen hat, ist sie fest entschlossen, ihren Vater niemals zu verlassen; die Lösung besteht darin, solange mit Knightley verlobt zu bleiben, wie ihr Vater lebt. Emma beschließt auch, Harriet von ihrer Verlobung in einem Brief zu informieren; sie wird dann arrangieren, dass Harriet Highbury verlässt und einige Zeit mit Isabella in London verbringt, damit sie sich erholen kann. Am nächsten Morgen kommt Knightley zum Frühstück und bleibt eine halbe Stunde bei Emma. Emma schreibt auch einen Brief an Harriet und liest einen von Frank geschriebenen Brief, der von Mrs. Weston nach Hartfield weitergeleitet wurde. In dem Brief entschuldigt er sich für seine prahlerische und betrügerische Aufmerksamkeit gegenüber Emma und erklärt, dass seine Verlobung wegen der Schwierigkeiten in Enscombe aufgrund der Krankheit von Mrs. Churchill geheim gehalten wurde. Um seine Verlobung vor allen in Highbury zu verbergen, gab er vor, sich zu Emma hingezogen zu fühlen; da sie ihm gleichgültig schien, dachte er nicht, dass sein Flirten wichtig sei. Er erkennt jetzt, dass sein Verhalten sowohl Emma als auch Jane gegenüber betrügerisch und sehr egoistisch war. Er tut ihm aufrichtig leid, dass er beiden jungen Damen Unannehmlichkeiten bereitet hat. Frank erklärt dann, dass das Klavier, ein Geschenk von ihm an Jane, sogar vor Jane geheim gehalten wurde. Er wusste, dass Jane nicht zugestimmt hätte, es von ihm anzunehmen, denn sie ist eine sehr anständige junge Dame. Es ist Janes Sinn für Anstand, der sie aufregte, als sie Frank mit Emma flirten sah. Um sein Verhalten zu verteidigen, beschuldigte er Jane, kalt zu sein. Ihr Missverständnis veranlasste Jane, die Verlobung zu beenden und die Stelle als Gouvernante bei den Smallridges anzunehmen. Janes Brief an ihn, in dem sie ihre Handlungen erklärt, kam an dem Tag von Mrs. Churchills Tod an. Er hatte innerhalb einer Stunde auf ihren Brief geantwortet, aber in der Verwirrung der Bestattungsvorbereitungen hatte er vergessen, ihn abzuschicken. Bald darauf erhielt er ein Paket von Jane mit all seinen Briefen an sie beigefügt; es gab auch eine Notiz, in der sie ihre Überraschung darüber zum Ausdruck brachte, keine Antwort von Frank erhalten zu haben. Als er seinen Fehler erkannte, wusste Frank, dass er schnell handeln musste. Er sprach mit seinem Onkel und erhielt die Erlaubnis, Jane zu heiraten. Dann eilte er nach Highbury und versöhnte sich mit ihr. Der Brief endet mit Franks Dankbarkeit für die Freundlichkeit von Mrs. Weston und der Anerkennung, dass er wirklich ein Glückskind ist, wie es Emma zuvor vorgeschlagen hat.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: It was not in Miss Crawford's power to talk Fanny into any real forgetfulness of what had passed. When the evening was over, she went to bed full of it, her nerves still agitated by the shock of such an attack from her cousin Tom, so public and so persevered in, and her spirits sinking under her aunt's unkind reflection and reproach. To be called into notice in such a manner, to hear that it was but the prelude to something so infinitely worse, to be told that she must do what was so impossible as to act; and then to have the charge of obstinacy and ingratitude follow it, enforced with such a hint at the dependence of her situation, had been too distressing at the time to make the remembrance when she was alone much less so, especially with the superadded dread of what the morrow might produce in continuation of the subject. Miss Crawford had protected her only for the time; and if she were applied to again among themselves with all the authoritative urgency that Tom and Maria were capable of, and Edmund perhaps away, what should she do? She fell asleep before she could answer the question, and found it quite as puzzling when she awoke the next morning. The little white attic, which had continued her sleeping-room ever since her first entering the family, proving incompetent to suggest any reply, she had recourse, as soon as she was dressed, to another apartment more spacious and more meet for walking about in and thinking, and of which she had now for some time been almost equally mistress. It had been their school-room; so called till the Miss Bertrams would not allow it to be called so any longer, and inhabited as such to a later period. There Miss Lee had lived, and there they had read and written, and talked and laughed, till within the last three years, when she had quitted them. The room had then become useless, and for some time was quite deserted, except by Fanny, when she visited her plants, or wanted one of the books, which she was still glad to keep there, from the deficiency of space and accommodation in her little chamber above: but gradually, as her value for the comforts of it increased, she had added to her possessions, and spent more of her time there; and having nothing to oppose her, had so naturally and so artlessly worked herself into it, that it was now generally admitted to be hers. The East room, as it had been called ever since Maria Bertram was sixteen, was now considered Fanny's, almost as decidedly as the white attic: the smallness of the one making the use of the other so evidently reasonable that the Miss Bertrams, with every superiority in their own apartments which their own sense of superiority could demand, were entirely approving it; and Mrs. Norris, having stipulated for there never being a fire in it on Fanny's account, was tolerably resigned to her having the use of what nobody else wanted, though the terms in which she sometimes spoke of the indulgence seemed to imply that it was the best room in the house. The aspect was so favourable that even without a fire it was habitable in many an early spring and late autumn morning to such a willing mind as Fanny's; and while there was a gleam of sunshine she hoped not to be driven from it entirely, even when winter came. The comfort of it in her hours of leisure was extreme. She could go there after anything unpleasant below, and find immediate consolation in some pursuit, or some train of thought at hand. Her plants, her books--of which she had been a collector from the first hour of her commanding a shilling--her writing-desk, and her works of charity and ingenuity, were all within her reach; or if indisposed for employment, if nothing but musing would do, she could scarcely see an object in that room which had not an interesting remembrance connected with it. Everything was a friend, or bore her thoughts to a friend; and though there had been sometimes much of suffering to her; though her motives had often been misunderstood, her feelings disregarded, and her comprehension undervalued; though she had known the pains of tyranny, of ridicule, and neglect, yet almost every recurrence of either had led to something consolatory: her aunt Bertram had spoken for her, or Miss Lee had been encouraging, or, what was yet more frequent or more dear, Edmund had been her champion and her friend: he had supported her cause or explained her meaning, he had told her not to cry, or had given her some proof of affection which made her tears delightful; and the whole was now so blended together, so harmonised by distance, that every former affliction had its charm. The room was most dear to her, and she would not have changed its furniture for the handsomest in the house, though what had been originally plain had suffered all the ill-usage of children; and its greatest elegancies and ornaments were a faded footstool of Julia's work, too ill done for the drawing-room, three transparencies, made in a rage for transparencies, for the three lower panes of one window, where Tintern Abbey held its station between a cave in Italy and a moonlight lake in Cumberland, a collection of family profiles, thought unworthy of being anywhere else, over the mantelpiece, and by their side, and pinned against the wall, a small sketch of a ship sent four years ago from the Mediterranean by William, with H.M.S. Antwerp at the bottom, in letters as tall as the mainmast. To this nest of comforts Fanny now walked down to try its influence on an agitated, doubting spirit, to see if by looking at Edmund's profile she could catch any of his counsel, or by giving air to her geraniums she might inhale a breeze of mental strength herself. But she had more than fears of her own perseverance to remove: she had begun to feel undecided as to what she _ought_ _to_ _do_; and as she walked round the room her doubts were increasing. Was she _right_ in refusing what was so warmly asked, so strongly wished for--what might be so essential to a scheme on which some of those to whom she owed the greatest complaisance had set their hearts? Was it not ill-nature, selfishness, and a fear of exposing herself? And would Edmund's judgment, would his persuasion of Sir Thomas's disapprobation of the whole, be enough to justify her in a determined denial in spite of all the rest? It would be so horrible to her to act that she was inclined to suspect the truth and purity of her own scruples; and as she looked around her, the claims of her cousins to being obliged were strengthened by the sight of present upon present that she had received from them. The table between the windows was covered with work-boxes and netting-boxes which had been given her at different times, principally by Tom; and she grew bewildered as to the amount of the debt which all these kind remembrances produced. A tap at the door roused her in the midst of this attempt to find her way to her duty, and her gentle "Come in" was answered by the appearance of one, before whom all her doubts were wont to be laid. Her eyes brightened at the sight of Edmund. "Can I speak with you, Fanny, for a few minutes?" said he. "Yes, certainly." "I want to consult. I want your opinion." "My opinion!" she cried, shrinking from such a compliment, highly as it gratified her. "Yes, your advice and opinion. I do not know what to do. This acting scheme gets worse and worse, you see. They have chosen almost as bad a play as they could, and now, to complete the business, are going to ask the help of a young man very slightly known to any of us. This is the end of all the privacy and propriety which was talked about at first. I know no harm of Charles Maddox; but the excessive intimacy which must spring from his being admitted among us in this manner is highly objectionable, the _more_ than intimacy--the familiarity. I cannot think of it with any patience; and it does appear to me an evil of such magnitude as must, _if_ _possible_, be prevented. Do not you see it in the same light?" "Yes; but what can be done? Your brother is so determined." "There is but _one_ thing to be done, Fanny. I must take Anhalt myself. I am well aware that nothing else will quiet Tom." Fanny could not answer him. "It is not at all what I like," he continued. "No man can like being driven into the _appearance_ of such inconsistency. After being known to oppose the scheme from the beginning, there is absurdity in the face of my joining them _now_, when they are exceeding their first plan in every respect; but I can think of no other alternative. Can you, Fanny?" "No," said Fanny slowly, "not immediately, but--" "But what? I see your judgment is not with me. Think it a little over. Perhaps you are not so much aware as I am of the mischief that _may_, of the unpleasantness that _must_ arise from a young man's being received in this manner: domesticated among us; authorised to come at all hours, and placed suddenly on a footing which must do away all restraints. To think only of the licence which every rehearsal must tend to create. It is all very bad! Put yourself in Miss Crawford's place, Fanny. Consider what it would be to act Amelia with a stranger. She has a right to be felt for, because she evidently feels for herself. I heard enough of what she said to you last night to understand her unwillingness to be acting with a stranger; and as she probably engaged in the part with different expectations--perhaps without considering the subject enough to know what was likely to be--it would be ungenerous, it would be really wrong to expose her to it. Her feelings ought to be respected. Does it not strike you so, Fanny? You hesitate." "I am sorry for Miss Crawford; but I am more sorry to see you drawn in to do what you had resolved against, and what you are known to think will be disagreeable to my uncle. It will be such a triumph to the others!" "They will not have much cause of triumph when they see how infamously I act. But, however, triumph there certainly will be, and I must brave it. But if I can be the means of restraining the publicity of the business, of limiting the exhibition, of concentrating our folly, I shall be well repaid. As I am now, I have no influence, I can do nothing: I have offended them, and they will not hear me; but when I have put them in good-humour by this concession, I am not without hopes of persuading them to confine the representation within a much smaller circle than they are now in the high road for. This will be a material gain. My object is to confine it to Mrs. Rushworth and the Grants. Will not this be worth gaining?" "Yes, it will be a great point." "But still it has not your approbation. Can you mention any other measure by which I have a chance of doing equal good?" "No, I cannot think of anything else." "Give me your approbation, then, Fanny. I am not comfortable without it." "Oh, cousin!" "If you are against me, I ought to distrust myself, and yet--But it is absolutely impossible to let Tom go on in this way, riding about the country in quest of anybody who can be persuaded to act--no matter whom: the look of a gentleman is to be enough. I thought _you_ would have entered more into Miss Crawford's feelings." "No doubt she will be very glad. It must be a great relief to her," said Fanny, trying for greater warmth of manner. "She never appeared more amiable than in her behaviour to you last night. It gave her a very strong claim on my goodwill." "She _was_ very kind, indeed, and I am glad to have her spared"... She could not finish the generous effusion. Her conscience stopt her in the middle, but Edmund was satisfied. "I shall walk down immediately after breakfast," said he, "and am sure of giving pleasure there. And now, dear Fanny, I will not interrupt you any longer. You want to be reading. But I could not be easy till I had spoken to you, and come to a decision. Sleeping or waking, my head has been full of this matter all night. It is an evil, but I am certainly making it less than it might be. If Tom is up, I shall go to him directly and get it over, and when we meet at breakfast we shall be all in high good-humour at the prospect of acting the fool together with such unanimity. _You_, in the meanwhile, will be taking a trip into China, I suppose. How does Lord Macartney go on?"--opening a volume on the table and then taking up some others. "And here are Crabbe's Tales, and the Idler, at hand to relieve you, if you tire of your great book. I admire your little establishment exceedingly; and as soon as I am gone, you will empty your head of all this nonsense of acting, and sit comfortably down to your table. But do not stay here to be cold." He went; but there was no reading, no China, no composure for Fanny. He had told her the most extraordinary, the most inconceivable, the most unwelcome news; and she could think of nothing else. To be acting! After all his objections--objections so just and so public! After all that she had heard him say, and seen him look, and known him to be feeling. Could it be possible? Edmund so inconsistent! Was he not deceiving himself? Was he not wrong? Alas! it was all Miss Crawford's doing. She had seen her influence in every speech, and was miserable. The doubts and alarms as to her own conduct, which had previously distressed her, and which had all slept while she listened to him, were become of little consequence now. This deeper anxiety swallowed them up. Things should take their course; she cared not how it ended. Her cousins might attack, but could hardly tease her. She was beyond their reach; and if at last obliged to yield--no matter--it was all misery now. It was, indeed, a triumphant day to Mr. Bertram and Maria. Such a victory over Edmund's discretion had been beyond their hopes, and was most delightful. There was no longer anything to disturb them in their darling project, and they congratulated each other in private on the jealous weakness to which they attributed the change, with all the glee of feelings gratified in every way. Edmund might still look grave, and say he did not like the scheme in general, and must disapprove the play in particular; their point was gained: he was to act, and he was driven to it by the force of selfish inclinations only. Edmund had descended from that moral elevation which he had maintained before, and they were both as much the better as the happier for the descent. They behaved very well, however, to _him_ on the occasion, betraying no exultation beyond the lines about the corners of the mouth, and seemed to think it as great an escape to be quit of the intrusion of Charles Maddox, as if they had been forced into admitting him against their inclination. "To have it quite in their own family circle was what they had particularly wished. A stranger among them would have been the destruction of all their comfort"; and when Edmund, pursuing that idea, gave a hint of his hope as to the limitation of the audience, they were ready, in the complaisance of the moment, to promise anything. It was all good-humour and encouragement. Mrs. Norris offered to contrive his dress, Mr. Yates assured him that Anhalt's last scene with the Baron admitted a good deal of action and emphasis, and Mr. Rushworth undertook to count his speeches. "Perhaps," said Tom, "Fanny may be more disposed to oblige us now. Perhaps you may persuade _her_." "No, she is quite determined. She certainly will not act." "Oh! very well." And not another word was said; but Fanny felt herself again in danger, and her indifference to the danger was beginning to fail her already. There were not fewer smiles at the Parsonage than at the Park on this change in Edmund; Miss Crawford looked very lovely in hers, and entered with such an instantaneous renewal of cheerfulness into the whole affair as could have but one effect on him. "He was certainly right in respecting such feelings; he was glad he had determined on it." And the morning wore away in satisfactions very sweet, if not very sound. One advantage resulted from it to Fanny: at the earnest request of Miss Crawford, Mrs. Grant had, with her usual good-humour, agreed to undertake the part for which Fanny had been wanted; and this was all that occurred to gladden _her_ heart during the day; and even this, when imparted by Edmund, brought a pang with it, for it was Miss Crawford to whom she was obliged--it was Miss Crawford whose kind exertions were to excite her gratitude, and whose merit in making them was spoken of with a glow of admiration. She was safe; but peace and safety were unconnected here. Her mind had been never farther from peace. She could not feel that she had done wrong herself, but she was disquieted in every other way. Her heart and her judgment were equally against Edmund's decision: she could not acquit his unsteadiness, and his happiness under it made her wretched. She was full of jealousy and agitation. Miss Crawford came with looks of gaiety which seemed an insult, with friendly expressions towards herself which she could hardly answer calmly. Everybody around her was gay and busy, prosperous and important; each had their object of interest, their part, their dress, their favourite scene, their friends and confederates: all were finding employment in consultations and comparisons, or diversion in the playful conceits they suggested. She alone was sad and insignificant: she had no share in anything; she might go or stay; she might be in the midst of their noise, or retreat from it to the solitude of the East room, without being seen or missed. She could almost think anything would have been preferable to this. Mrs. Grant was of consequence: _her_ good-nature had honourable mention; her taste and her time were considered; her presence was wanted; she was sought for, and attended, and praised; and Fanny was at first in some danger of envying her the character she had accepted. But reflection brought better feelings, and shewed her that Mrs. Grant was entitled to respect, which could never have belonged to _her_; and that, had she received even the greatest, she could never have been easy in joining a scheme which, considering only her uncle, she must condemn altogether. Fanny's heart was not absolutely the only saddened one amongst them, as she soon began to acknowledge to herself. Julia was a sufferer too, though not quite so blamelessly. Henry Crawford had trifled with her feelings; but she had very long allowed and even sought his attentions, with a jealousy of her sister so reasonable as ought to have been their cure; and now that the conviction of his preference for Maria had been forced on her, she submitted to it without any alarm for Maria's situation, or any endeavour at rational tranquillity for herself. She either sat in gloomy silence, wrapt in such gravity as nothing could subdue, no curiosity touch, no wit amuse; or allowing the attentions of Mr. Yates, was talking with forced gaiety to him alone, and ridiculing the acting of the others. For a day or two after the affront was given, Henry Crawford had endeavoured to do it away by the usual attack of gallantry and compliment, but he had not cared enough about it to persevere against a few repulses; and becoming soon too busy with his play to have time for more than one flirtation, he grew indifferent to the quarrel, or rather thought it a lucky occurrence, as quietly putting an end to what might ere long have raised expectations in more than Mrs. Grant. She was not pleased to see Julia excluded from the play, and sitting by disregarded; but as it was not a matter which really involved her happiness, as Henry must be the best judge of his own, and as he did assure her, with a most persuasive smile, that neither he nor Julia had ever had a serious thought of each other, she could only renew her former caution as to the elder sister, entreat him not to risk his tranquillity by too much admiration there, and then gladly take her share in anything that brought cheerfulness to the young people in general, and that did so particularly promote the pleasure of the two so dear to her. "I rather wonder Julia is not in love with Henry," was her observation to Mary. "I dare say she is," replied Mary coldly. "I imagine both sisters are." "Both! no, no, that must not be. Do not give him a hint of it. Think of Mr. Rushworth!" "You had better tell Miss Bertram to think of Mr. Rushworth. It may do _her_ some good. I often think of Mr. Rushworth's property and independence, and wish them in other hands; but I never think of him. A man might represent the county with such an estate; a man might escape a profession and represent the county." "I dare say he _will_ be in parliament soon. When Sir Thomas comes, I dare say he will be in for some borough, but there has been nobody to put him in the way of doing anything yet." "Sir Thomas is to achieve many mighty things when he comes home," said Mary, after a pause. "Do you remember Hawkins Browne's 'Address to Tobacco,' in imitation of Pope?-- Blest leaf! whose aromatic gales dispense To Templars modesty, to Parsons sense. I will parody them-- Blest Knight! whose dictatorial looks dispense To Children affluence, to Rushworth sense. Will not that do, Mrs. Grant? Everything seems to depend upon Sir Thomas's return." "You will find his consequence very just and reasonable when you see him in his family, I assure you. I do not think we do so well without him. He has a fine dignified manner, which suits the head of such a house, and keeps everybody in their place. Lady Bertram seems more of a cipher now than when he is at home; and nobody else can keep Mrs. Norris in order. But, Mary, do not fancy that Maria Bertram cares for Henry. I am sure _Julia_ does not, or she would not have flirted as she did last night with Mr. Yates; and though he and Maria are very good friends, I think she likes Sotherton too well to be inconstant." "I would not give much for Mr. Rushworth's chance if Henry stept in before the articles were signed." "If you have such a suspicion, something must be done; and as soon as the play is all over, we will talk to him seriously and make him know his own mind; and if he means nothing, we will send him off, though he is Henry, for a time." Julia _did_ suffer, however, though Mrs. Grant discerned it not, and though it escaped the notice of many of her own family likewise. She had loved, she did love still, and she had all the suffering which a warm temper and a high spirit were likely to endure under the disappointment of a dear, though irrational hope, with a strong sense of ill-usage. Her heart was sore and angry, and she was capable only of angry consolations. The sister with whom she was used to be on easy terms was now become her greatest enemy: they were alienated from each other; and Julia was not superior to the hope of some distressing end to the attentions which were still carrying on there, some punishment to Maria for conduct so shameful towards herself as well as towards Mr. Rushworth. With no material fault of temper, or difference of opinion, to prevent their being very good friends while their interests were the same, the sisters, under such a trial as this, had not affection or principle enough to make them merciful or just, to give them honour or compassion. Maria felt her triumph, and pursued her purpose, careless of Julia; and Julia could never see Maria distinguished by Henry Crawford without trusting that it would create jealousy, and bring a public disturbance at last. Fanny saw and pitied much of this in Julia; but there was no outward fellowship between them. Julia made no communication, and Fanny took no liberties. They were two solitary sufferers, or connected only by Fanny's consciousness. The inattention of the two brothers and the aunt to Julia's discomposure, and their blindness to its true cause, must be imputed to the fullness of their own minds. They were totally preoccupied. Tom was engrossed by the concerns of his theatre, and saw nothing that did not immediately relate to it. Edmund, between his theatrical and his real part, between Miss Crawford's claims and his own conduct, between love and consistency, was equally unobservant; and Mrs. Norris was too busy in contriving and directing the general little matters of the company, superintending their various dresses with economical expedient, for which nobody thanked her, and saving, with delighted integrity, half a crown here and there to the absent Sir Thomas, to have leisure for watching the behaviour, or guarding the happiness of his daughters. Everything was now in a regular train: theatre, actors, actresses, and dresses, were all getting forward; but though no other great impediments arose, Fanny found, before many days were past, that it was not all uninterrupted enjoyment to the party themselves, and that she had not to witness the continuance of such unanimity and delight as had been almost too much for her at first. Everybody began to have their vexation. Edmund had many. Entirely against _his_ judgment, a scene-painter arrived from town, and was at work, much to the increase of the expenses, and, what was worse, of the eclat of their proceedings; and his brother, instead of being really guided by him as to the privacy of the representation, was giving an invitation to every family who came in his way. Tom himself began to fret over the scene-painter's slow progress, and to feel the miseries of waiting. He had learned his part--all his parts, for he took every trifling one that could be united with the Butler, and began to be impatient to be acting; and every day thus unemployed was tending to increase his sense of the insignificance of all his parts together, and make him more ready to regret that some other play had not been chosen. Fanny, being always a very courteous listener, and often the only listener at hand, came in for the complaints and the distresses of most of them. _She_ knew that Mr. Yates was in general thought to rant dreadfully; that Mr. Yates was disappointed in Henry Crawford; that Tom Bertram spoke so quick he would be unintelligible; that Mrs. Grant spoiled everything by laughing; that Edmund was behindhand with his part, and that it was misery to have anything to do with Mr. Rushworth, who was wanting a prompter through every speech. She knew, also, that poor Mr. Rushworth could seldom get anybody to rehearse with him: _his_ complaint came before her as well as the rest; and so decided to her eye was her cousin Maria's avoidance of him, and so needlessly often the rehearsal of the first scene between her and Mr. Crawford, that she had soon all the terror of other complaints from _him_. So far from being all satisfied and all enjoying, she found everybody requiring something they had not, and giving occasion of discontent to the others. Everybody had a part either too long or too short; nobody would attend as they ought; nobody would remember on which side they were to come in; nobody but the complainer would observe any directions. Fanny believed herself to derive as much innocent enjoyment from the play as any of them; Henry Crawford acted well, and it was a pleasure to _her_ to creep into the theatre, and attend the rehearsal of the first act, in spite of the feelings it excited in some speeches for Maria. Maria, she also thought, acted well, too well; and after the first rehearsal or two, Fanny began to be their only audience; and sometimes as prompter, sometimes as spectator, was often very useful. As far as she could judge, Mr. Crawford was considerably the best actor of all: he had more confidence than Edmund, more judgment than Tom, more talent and taste than Mr. Yates. She did not like him as a man, but she must admit him to be the best actor, and on this point there were not many who differed from her. Mr. Yates, indeed, exclaimed against his tameness and insipidity; and the day came at last, when Mr. Rushworth turned to her with a black look, and said, "Do you think there is anything so very fine in all this? For the life and soul of me, I cannot admire him; and, between ourselves, to see such an undersized, little, mean-looking man, set up for a fine actor, is very ridiculous in my opinion." From this moment there was a return of his former jealousy, which Maria, from increasing hopes of Crawford, was at little pains to remove; and the chances of Mr. Rushworth's ever attaining to the knowledge of his two-and-forty speeches became much less. As to his ever making anything _tolerable_ of them, nobody had the smallest idea of that except his mother; _she_, indeed, regretted that his part was not more considerable, and deferred coming over to Mansfield till they were forward enough in their rehearsal to comprehend all his scenes; but the others aspired at nothing beyond his remembering the catchword, and the first line of his speech, and being able to follow the prompter through the rest. Fanny, in her pity and kindheartedness, was at great pains to teach him how to learn, giving him all the helps and directions in her power, trying to make an artificial memory for him, and learning every word of his part herself, but without his being much the forwarder. Many uncomfortable, anxious, apprehensive feelings she certainly had; but with all these, and other claims on her time and attention, she was as far from finding herself without employment or utility amongst them, as without a companion in uneasiness; quite as far from having no demand on her leisure as on her compassion. The gloom of her first anticipations was proved to have been unfounded. She was occasionally useful to all; she was perhaps as much at peace as any. There was a great deal of needlework to be done, moreover, in which her help was wanted; and that Mrs. Norris thought her quite as well off as the rest, was evident by the manner in which she claimed it--"Come, Fanny," she cried, "these are fine times for you, but you must not be always walking from one room to the other, and doing the lookings-on at your ease, in this way; I want you here. I have been slaving myself till I can hardly stand, to contrive Mr. Rushworth's cloak without sending for any more satin; and now I think you may give me your help in putting it together. There are but three seams; you may do them in a trice. It would be lucky for me if I had nothing but the executive part to do. _You_ are best off, I can tell you: but if nobody did more than _you_, we should not get on very fast." Fanny took the work very quietly, without attempting any defence; but her kinder aunt Bertram observed on her behalf-- "One cannot wonder, sister, that Fanny _should_ be delighted: it is all new to her, you know; you and I used to be very fond of a play ourselves, and so am I still; and as soon as I am a little more at leisure, _I_ mean to look in at their rehearsals too. What is the play about, Fanny? you have never told me." "Oh! sister, pray do not ask her now; for Fanny is not one of those who can talk and work at the same time. It is about Lovers' Vows." "I believe," said Fanny to her aunt Bertram, "there will be three acts rehearsed to-morrow evening, and that will give you an opportunity of seeing all the actors at once." "You had better stay till the curtain is hung," interposed Mrs. Norris; "the curtain will be hung in a day or two--there is very little sense in a play without a curtain--and I am much mistaken if you do not find it draw up into very handsome festoons." Lady Bertram seemed quite resigned to waiting. Fanny did not share her aunt's composure: she thought of the morrow a great deal, for if the three acts were rehearsed, Edmund and Miss Crawford would then be acting together for the first time; the third act would bring a scene between them which interested her most particularly, and which she was longing and dreading to see how they would perform. The whole subject of it was love--a marriage of love was to be described by the gentleman, and very little short of a declaration of love be made by the lady. She had read and read the scene again with many painful, many wondering emotions, and looked forward to their representation of it as a circumstance almost too interesting. She did not _believe_ they had yet rehearsed it, even in private. The morrow came, the plan for the evening continued, and Fanny's consideration of it did not become less agitated. She worked very diligently under her aunt's directions, but her diligence and her silence concealed a very absent, anxious mind; and about noon she made her escape with her work to the East room, that she might have no concern in another, and, as she deemed it, most unnecessary rehearsal of the first act, which Henry Crawford was just proposing, desirous at once of having her time to herself, and of avoiding the sight of Mr. Rushworth. A glimpse, as she passed through the hall, of the two ladies walking up from the Parsonage made no change in her wish of retreat, and she worked and meditated in the East room, undisturbed, for a quarter of an hour, when a gentle tap at the door was followed by the entrance of Miss Crawford. "Am I right? Yes; this is the East room. My dear Miss Price, I beg your pardon, but I have made my way to you on purpose to entreat your help." Fanny, quite surprised, endeavoured to shew herself mistress of the room by her civilities, and looked at the bright bars of her empty grate with concern. "Thank you; I am quite warm, very warm. Allow me to stay here a little while, and do have the goodness to hear me my third act. I have brought my book, and if you would but rehearse it with me, I should be _so_ obliged! I came here to-day intending to rehearse it with Edmund--by ourselves--against the evening, but he is not in the way; and if he _were_, I do not think I could go through it with _him_, till I have hardened myself a little; for really there is a speech or two. You will be so good, won't you?" Fanny was most civil in her assurances, though she could not give them in a very steady voice. "Have you ever happened to look at the part I mean?" continued Miss Crawford, opening her book. "Here it is. I did not think much of it at first--but, upon my word. There, look at _that_ speech, and _that_, and _that_. How am I ever to look him in the face and say such things? Could you do it? But then he is your cousin, which makes all the difference. You must rehearse it with me, that I may fancy _you_ him, and get on by degrees. You _have_ a look of _his_ sometimes." "Have I? I will do my best with the greatest readiness; but I must _read_ the part, for I can say very little of it." "_None_ of it, I suppose. You are to have the book, of course. Now for it. We must have two chairs at hand for you to bring forward to the front of the stage. There--very good school-room chairs, not made for a theatre, I dare say; much more fitted for little girls to sit and kick their feet against when they are learning a lesson. What would your governess and your uncle say to see them used for such a purpose? Could Sir Thomas look in upon us just now, he would bless himself, for we are rehearsing all over the house. Yates is storming away in the dining-room. I heard him as I came upstairs, and the theatre is engaged of course by those indefatigable rehearsers, Agatha and Frederick. If _they_ are not perfect, I _shall_ be surprised. By the bye, I looked in upon them five minutes ago, and it happened to be exactly at one of the times when they were trying _not_ to embrace, and Mr. Rushworth was with me. I thought he began to look a little queer, so I turned it off as well as I could, by whispering to him, 'We shall have an excellent Agatha; there is something so _maternal_ in her manner, so completely _maternal_ in her voice and countenance.' Was not that well done of me? He brightened up directly. Now for my soliloquy." She began, and Fanny joined in with all the modest feeling which the idea of representing Edmund was so strongly calculated to inspire; but with looks and voice so truly feminine as to be no very good picture of a man. With such an Anhalt, however, Miss Crawford had courage enough; and they had got through half the scene, when a tap at the door brought a pause, and the entrance of Edmund, the next moment, suspended it all. Surprise, consciousness, and pleasure appeared in each of the three on this unexpected meeting; and as Edmund was come on the very same business that had brought Miss Crawford, consciousness and pleasure were likely to be more than momentary in _them_. He too had his book, and was seeking Fanny, to ask her to rehearse with him, and help him to prepare for the evening, without knowing Miss Crawford to be in the house; and great was the joy and animation of being thus thrown together, of comparing schemes, and sympathising in praise of Fanny's kind offices. _She_ could not equal them in their warmth. _Her_ spirits sank under the glow of theirs, and she felt herself becoming too nearly nothing to both to have any comfort in having been sought by either. They must now rehearse together. Edmund proposed, urged, entreated it, till the lady, not very unwilling at first, could refuse no longer, and Fanny was wanted only to prompt and observe them. She was invested, indeed, with the office of judge and critic, and earnestly desired to exercise it and tell them all their faults; but from doing so every feeling within her shrank--she could not, would not, dared not attempt it: had she been otherwise qualified for criticism, her conscience must have restrained her from venturing at disapprobation. She believed herself to feel too much of it in the aggregate for honesty or safety in particulars. To prompt them must be enough for her; and it was sometimes _more_ than enough; for she could not always pay attention to the book. In watching them she forgot herself; and, agitated by the increasing spirit of Edmund's manner, had once closed the page and turned away exactly as he wanted help. It was imputed to very reasonable weariness, and she was thanked and pitied; but she deserved their pity more than she hoped they would ever surmise. At last the scene was over, and Fanny forced herself to add her praise to the compliments each was giving the other; and when again alone and able to recall the whole, she was inclined to believe their performance would, indeed, have such nature and feeling in it as must ensure their credit, and make it a very suffering exhibition to herself. Whatever might be its effect, however, she must stand the brunt of it again that very day. The first regular rehearsal of the three first acts was certainly to take place in the evening: Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords were engaged to return for that purpose as soon as they could after dinner; and every one concerned was looking forward with eagerness. There seemed a general diffusion of cheerfulness on the occasion. Tom was enjoying such an advance towards the end; Edmund was in spirits from the morning's rehearsal, and little vexations seemed everywhere smoothed away. All were alert and impatient; the ladies moved soon, the gentlemen soon followed them, and with the exception of Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris, and Julia, everybody was in the theatre at an early hour; and having lighted it up as well as its unfinished state admitted, were waiting only the arrival of Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords to begin. They did not wait long for the Crawfords, but there was no Mrs. Grant. She could not come. Dr. Grant, professing an indisposition, for which he had little credit with his fair sister-in-law, could not spare his wife. "Dr. Grant is ill," said she, with mock solemnity. "He has been ill ever since he did not eat any of the pheasant today. He fancied it tough, sent away his plate, and has been suffering ever since". Here was disappointment! Mrs. Grant's non-attendance was sad indeed. Her pleasant manners and cheerful conformity made her always valuable amongst them; but _now_ she was absolutely necessary. They could not act, they could not rehearse with any satisfaction without her. The comfort of the whole evening was destroyed. What was to be done? Tom, as Cottager, was in despair. After a pause of perplexity, some eyes began to be turned towards Fanny, and a voice or two to say, "If Miss Price would be so good as to _read_ the part." She was immediately surrounded by supplications; everybody asked it; even Edmund said, "Do, Fanny, if it is not _very_ disagreeable to you." But Fanny still hung back. She could not endure the idea of it. Why was not Miss Crawford to be applied to as well? Or why had not she rather gone to her own room, as she had felt to be safest, instead of attending the rehearsal at all? She had known it would irritate and distress her; she had known it her duty to keep away. She was properly punished. "You have only to _read_ the part," said Henry Crawford, with renewed entreaty. "And I do believe she can say every word of it," added Maria, "for she could put Mrs. Grant right the other day in twenty places. Fanny, I am sure you know the part." Fanny could not say she did _not_; and as they all persevered, as Edmund repeated his wish, and with a look of even fond dependence on her good-nature, she must yield. She would do her best. Everybody was satisfied; and she was left to the tremors of a most palpitating heart, while the others prepared to begin. They _did_ begin; and being too much engaged in their own noise to be struck by an unusual noise in the other part of the house, had proceeded some way when the door of the room was thrown open, and Julia, appearing at it, with a face all aghast, exclaimed, "My father is come! He is in the hall at this moment." Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Fanny, immer noch verletzt durch Tom und den Angriff von Mrs. Norris auf sie, zieht sich in das alte Kinderzimmer zurück, wo sie ihre Bücher und anderen Besitztümer aufbewahrt. Edmund kommt, um ihren Rat zu suchen. Nachdem er herausgefunden hat, dass Tom vorhat, einen Nachbarn zu bitten, den Rest des Stücks zu übernehmen, hat er beschlossen, die Rolle selbst zu übernehmen, anstatt einen Außenseiter am Stück teilnehmen und es beobachten zu lassen. Er ist sich auch bewusst, dass Mary Crawford unglücklich darüber ist, mit einem Fremden spielen zu müssen. Fanny kann ihm nicht ganz zustimmen, stimmt aber widerwillig zu, dass seine Idee wahrscheinlich das Beste ist. Innerlich ist sie in Aufruhr; sie kann nicht glauben, dass Edmund zugestimmt hat, zu spielen, und sie gibt Mary die Schuld, ihn in die Irre geführt zu haben. Die Proben gehen weiter. Zu Fannys Erleichterung übernimmt Mrs. Grant die Rolle, die Tom Fanny aufdrängen wollte; Mary hat Fanny wieder einmal gerettet. Allen, insbesondere Mary und Mrs. Grant, ist zunehmend klar, dass Maria und Henry sich füreinander interessieren, trotz ihrer Verlobung mit Rushworth. Mary tadelt Maria dafür, dass sie mit einem Mann mit solchem Reichtum spielt; er könnte "einem Beruf entkommen" und einfach als Gentleman leben, bemerkt Mary. Sowohl Mary als auch Mrs. Grant sind sich einig, dass Sir Thomas' Rückkehr sehr helfen wird, indem er etwas dringend benötigten gesunden Menschenverstand und Autorität mitbringt. Fanny wird zur Vertrauten aller Beteiligten am Stück und hört alle Gerüchte und Beschwerden. Sie ist auch wertvoll als Probenpartnerin und Schauspielcoach, obwohl sie nicht bereit ist. Henry und Maria erweisen sich beide als gute Schauspieler, und Fanny kann nicht anders, als ihr Talent zu bewundern. Rushworth ist ein ungeschickter Schauspieler und eine Belästigung für alle, und Fanny muss sich auch über die Beschwerden der anderen über ihn und seine ständigen Bitten nach einem Probenpartner ärgern. Bald ist es an der Zeit, dass Edmund und Mary eine Szene gemeinsam proben, in der ihre Charaktere sich gegenseitig ihre Liebe gestehen. Fanny fürchtet die Aufführung. Als sie sich im ehemaligen Kinderzimmer versteckt, sucht Mary sie auf und bittet sie, die Szene mit ihr zu proben. Gerade als sie widerwillig zustimmt, kommt Edmund an, um den gleichen Gefallen von Fanny zu erbitten. Edmund und Mary entscheiden sich glücklich dafür, gemeinsam zu proben, mit Fanny als Zuschauer. Die emotionale Belastung ist für Fanny kaum zu ertragen. Schließlich kommt die Zeit für eine Kostümprobe. Mrs. Grant muss im Pfarrhaus bleiben, um sich um ihren kranken Ehemann zu kümmern, und die Gruppe drängt Fanny, ihre Rolle vorzulesen. Selbst Edmund drängt sie zur Zusammenarbeit. Sie wird gezwungen nachzugeben und ist gerade dabei, die Lesung zu beginnen, als Julia, die immer noch nicht am Stück teilnimmt, mit der Nachricht hereinstürmt, dass Sir Thomas gerade im Haus angekommen ist.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: PAUL LAUNCHES INTO LIFE MOREL was rather a heedless man, careless of danger. So he had endless accidents. Now, when Mrs. Morel heard the rattle of an empty coal-cart cease at her entry-end, she ran into the parlour to look, expecting almost to see her husband seated in the waggon, his face grey under his dirt, his body limp and sick with some hurt or other. If it were he, she would run out to help. About a year after William went to London, and just after Paul had left school, before he got work, Mrs. Morel was upstairs and her son was painting in the kitchen--he was very clever with his brush--when there came a knock at the door. Crossly he put down his brush to go. At the same moment his mother opened a window upstairs and looked down. A pit-lad in his dirt stood on the threshold. "Is this Walter Morel's?" he asked. "Yes," said Mrs. Morel. "What is it?" But she had guessed already. "Your mester's got hurt," he said. "Eh, dear me!" she exclaimed. "It's a wonder if he hadn't, lad. And what's he done this time?" "I don't know for sure, but it's 'is leg somewhere. They ta'ein' 'im ter th' 'ospital." "Good gracious me!" she exclaimed. "Eh, dear, what a one he is! There's not five minutes of peace, I'll be hanged if there is! His thumb's nearly better, and now--Did you see him?" "I seed him at th' bottom. An' I seed 'em bring 'im up in a tub, an' 'e wor in a dead faint. But he shouted like anythink when Doctor Fraser examined him i' th' lamp cabin--an' cossed an' swore, an' said as 'e wor goin' to be ta'en whoam--'e worn't goin' ter th' 'ospital." The boy faltered to an end. "He WOULD want to come home, so that I can have all the bother. Thank you, my lad. Eh, dear, if I'm not sick--sick and surfeited, I am!" She came downstairs. Paul had mechanically resumed his painting. "And it must be pretty bad if they've taken him to the hospital," she went on. "But what a CARELESS creature he is! OTHER men don't have all these accidents. Yes, he WOULD want to put all the burden on me. Eh, dear, just as we WERE getting easy a bit at last. Put those things away, there's no time to be painting now. What time is there a train? I know I s'll have to go trailing to Keston. I s'll have to leave that bedroom." "I can finish it," said Paul. "You needn't. I shall catch the seven o'clock back, I should think. Oh, my blessed heart, the fuss and commotion he'll make! And those granite setts at Tinder Hill--he might well call them kidney pebbles--they'll jolt him almost to bits. I wonder why they can't mend them, the state they're in, an' all the men as go across in that ambulance. You'd think they'd have a hospital here. The men bought the ground, and, my sirs, there'd be accidents enough to keep it going. But no, they must trail them ten miles in a slow ambulance to Nottingham. It's a crying shame! Oh, and the fuss he'll make! I know he will! I wonder who's with him. Barker, I s'd think. Poor beggar, he'll wish himself anywhere rather. But he'll look after him, I know. Now there's no telling how long he'll be stuck in that hospital--and WON'T he hate it! But if it's only his leg it's not so bad." All the time she was getting ready. Hurriedly taking off her bodice, she crouched at the boiler while the water ran slowly into her lading-can. "I wish this boiler was at the bottom of the sea!" she exclaimed, wriggling the handle impatiently. She had very handsome, strong arms, rather surprising on a smallish woman. Paul cleared away, put on the kettle, and set the table. "There isn't a train till four-twenty," he said. "You've time enough." "Oh no, I haven't!" she cried, blinking at him over the towel as she wiped her face. "Yes, you have. You must drink a cup of tea at any rate. Should I come with you to Keston?" "Come with me? What for, I should like to know? Now, what have I to take him? Eh, dear! His clean shirt--and it's a blessing it IS clean. But it had better be aired. And stockings--he won't want them--and a towel, I suppose; and handkerchiefs. Now what else?" "A comb, a knife and fork and spoon," said Paul. His father had been in the hospital before. "Goodness knows what sort of state his feet were in," continued Mrs. Morel, as she combed her long brown hair, that was fine as silk, and was touched now with grey. "He's very particular to wash himself to the waist, but below he thinks doesn't matter. But there, I suppose they see plenty like it." Paul had laid the table. He cut his mother one or two pieces of very thin bread and butter. "Here you are," he said, putting her cup of tea in her place. "I can't be bothered!" she exclaimed crossly. "Well, you've got to, so there, now it's put out ready," he insisted. So she sat down and sipped her tea, and ate a little, in silence. She was thinking. In a few minutes she was gone, to walk the two and a half miles to Keston Station. All the things she was taking him she had in her bulging string bag. Paul watched her go up the road between the hedges--a little, quick-stepping figure, and his heart ached for her, that she was thrust forward again into pain and trouble. And she, tripping so quickly in her anxiety, felt at the back of her her son's heart waiting on her, felt him bearing what part of the burden he could, even supporting her. And when she was at the hospital, she thought: "It WILL upset that lad when I tell him how bad it is. I'd better be careful." And when she was trudging home again, she felt he was coming to share her burden. "Is it bad?" asked Paul, as soon as she entered the house. "It's bad enough," she replied. "What?" She sighed and sat down, undoing her bonnet-strings. Her son watched her face as it was lifted, and her small, work-hardened hands fingering at the bow under her chin. "Well," she answered, "it's not really dangerous, but the nurse says it's a dreadful smash. You see, a great piece of rock fell on his leg--here--and it's a compound fracture. There are pieces of bone sticking through--" "Ugh--how horrid!" exclaimed the children. "And," she continued, "of course he says he's going to die--it wouldn't be him if he didn't. 'I'm done for, my lass!' he said, looking at me. 'Don't be so silly,' I said to him. 'You're not going to die of a broken leg, however badly it's smashed.' 'I s'll niver come out of 'ere but in a wooden box,' he groaned. 'Well,' I said, 'if you want them to carry you into the garden in a wooden box, when you're better, I've no doubt they will.' 'If we think it's good for him,' said the Sister. She's an awfully nice Sister, but rather strict." Mrs. Morel took off her bonnet. The children waited in silence. "Of course, he IS bad," she continued, "and he will be. It's a great shock, and he's lost a lot of blood; and, of course, it IS a very dangerous smash. It's not at all sure that it will mend so easily. And then there's the fever and the mortification--if it took bad ways he'd quickly be gone. But there, he's a clean-blooded man, with wonderful healing flesh, and so I see no reason why it SHOULD take bad ways. Of course there's a wound--" She was pale now with emotion and anxiety. The three children realised that it was very bad for their father, and the house was silent, anxious. "But he always gets better," said Paul after a while. "That's what I tell him," said the mother. Everybody moved about in silence. "And he really looked nearly done for," she said. "But the Sister says that is the pain." Annie took away her mother's coat and bonnet. "And he looked at me when I came away! I said: 'I s'll have to go now, Walter, because of the train--and the children.' And he looked at me. It seems hard." Paul took up his brush again and went on painting. Arthur went outside for some coal. Annie sat looking dismal. And Mrs. Morel, in her little rocking-chair that her husband had made for her when the first baby was coming, remained motionless, brooding. She was grieved, and bitterly sorry for the man who was hurt so much. But still, in her heart of hearts, where the love should have burned, there was a blank. Now, when all her woman's pity was roused to its full extent, when she would have slaved herself to death to nurse him and to save him, when she would have taken the pain herself, if she could, somewhere far away inside her, she felt indifferent to him and to his suffering. It hurt her most of all, this failure to love him, even when he roused her strong emotions. She brooded a while. "And there," she said suddenly, "when I'd got halfway to Keston, I found I'd come out in my working boots--and LOOK at them." They were an old pair of Paul's, brown and rubbed through at the toes. "I didn't know what to do with myself, for shame," she added. In the morning, when Annie and Arthur were at school, Mrs. Morel talked again to her son, who was helping her with her housework. "I found Barker at the hospital. He did look bad, poor little fellow! 'Well,' I said to him, 'what sort of a journey did you have with him?' 'Dunna ax me, missis!' he said. 'Ay,' I said, 'I know what he'd be.' 'But it WOR bad for him, Mrs. Morel, it WOR that!' he said. 'I know,' I said. 'At ivry jolt I thought my 'eart would ha' flown clean out o' my mouth,' he said. 'An' the scream 'e gives sometimes! Missis, not for a fortune would I go through wi' it again.' 'I can quite understand it,' I said. 'It's a nasty job, though,' he said, 'an' one as'll be a long while afore it's right again.' 'I'm afraid it will,' I said. I like Mr. Barker--I DO like him. There's something so manly about him." Paul resumed his task silently. "And of course," Mrs. Morel continued, "for a man like your father, the hospital IS hard. He CAN'T understand rules and regulations. And he won't let anybody else touch him, not if he can help it. When he smashed the muscles of his thigh, and it had to be dressed four times a day, WOULD he let anybody but me or his mother do it? He wouldn't. So, of course, he'll suffer in there with the nurses. And I didn't like leaving him. I'm sure, when I kissed him an' came away, it seemed a shame." So she talked to her son, almost as if she were thinking aloud to him, and he took it in as best he could, by sharing her trouble to lighten it. And in the end she shared almost everything with him without knowing. Morel had a very bad time. For a week he was in a critical condition. Then he began to mend. And then, knowing he was going to get better, the whole family sighed with relief, and proceeded to live happily. They were not badly off whilst Morel was in the hospital. There were fourteen shillings a week from the pit, ten shillings from the sick club, and five shillings from the Disability Fund; and then every week the butties had something for Mrs. Morel--five or seven shillings--so that she was quite well to do. And whilst Morel was progressing favourably in the hospital, the family was extraordinarily happy and peaceful. On Saturdays and Wednesdays Mrs. Morel went to Nottingham to see her husband. Then she always brought back some little thing: a small tube of paints for Paul, or some thick paper; a couple of postcards for Annie, that the whole family rejoiced over for days before the girl was allowed to send them away; or a fret-saw for Arthur, or a bit of pretty wood. She described her adventures into the big shops with joy. Soon the folk in the picture-shop knew her, and knew about Paul. The girl in the book-shop took a keen interest in her. Mrs. Morel was full of information when she got home from Nottingham. The three sat round till bed-time, listening, putting in, arguing. Then Paul often raked the fire. "I'm the man in the house now," he used to say to his mother with joy. They learned how perfectly peaceful the home could be. And they almost regretted--though none of them would have owned to such callousness--that their father was soon coming back. Paul was now fourteen, and was looking for work. He was a rather small and rather finely-made boy, with dark brown hair and light blue eyes. His face had already lost its youthful chubbiness, and was becoming somewhat like William's--rough-featured, almost rugged--and it was extraordinarily mobile. Usually he looked as if he saw things, was full of life, and warm; then his smile, like his mother's, came suddenly and was very lovable; and then, when there was any clog in his soul's quick running, his face went stupid and ugly. He was the sort of boy that becomes a clown and a lout as soon as he is not understood, or feels himself held cheap; and, again, is adorable at the first touch of warmth. He suffered very much from the first contact with anything. When he was seven, the starting school had been a nightmare and a torture to him. But afterwards he liked it. And now that he felt he had to go out into life, he went through agonies of shrinking self-consciousness. He was quite a clever painter for a boy of his years, and he knew some French and German and mathematics that Mr. Heaton had taught him. But nothing he had was of any commercial value. He was not strong enough for heavy manual work, his mother said. He did not care for making things with his hands, preferred racing about, or making excursions into the country, or reading, or painting. "What do you want to be?" his mother asked. "Anything." "That is no answer," said Mrs. Morel. But it was quite truthfully the only answer he could give. His ambition, as far as this world's gear went, was quietly to earn his thirty or thirty-five shillings a week somewhere near home, and then, when his father died, have a cottage with his mother, paint and go out as he liked, and live happy ever after. That was his programme as far as doing things went. But he was proud within himself, measuring people against himself, and placing them, inexorably. And he thought that PERHAPS he might also make a painter, the real thing. But that he left alone. "Then," said his mother, "you must look in the paper for the advertisements." He looked at her. It seemed to him a bitter humiliation and an anguish to go through. But he said nothing. When he got up in the morning, his whole being was knotted up over this one thought: "I've got to go and look for advertisements for a job." It stood in front of the morning, that thought, killing all joy and even life, for him. His heart felt like a tight knot. And then, at ten o'clock, he set off. He was supposed to be a queer, quiet child. Going up the sunny street of the little town, he felt as if all the folk he met said to themselves: "He's going to the Co-op. reading-room to look in the papers for a place. He can't get a job. I suppose he's living on his mother." Then he crept up the stone stairs behind the drapery shop at the Co-op., and peeped in the reading-room. Usually one or two men were there, either old, useless fellows, or colliers "on the club". So he entered, full of shrinking and suffering when they looked up, seated himself at the table, and pretended to scan the news. He knew they would think: "What does a lad of thirteen want in a reading-room with a newspaper?" and he suffered. Then he looked wistfully out of the window. Already he was a prisoner of industrialism. Large sunflowers stared over the old red wall of the garden opposite, looking in their jolly way down on the women who were hurrying with something for dinner. The valley was full of corn, brightening in the sun. Two collieries, among the fields, waved their small white plumes of steam. Far off on the hills were the woods of Annesley, dark and fascinating. Already his heart went down. He was being taken into bondage. His freedom in the beloved home valley was going now. The brewers' waggons came rolling up from Keston with enormous barrels, four a side, like beans in a burst bean-pod. The waggoner, throned aloft, rolling massively in his seat, was not so much below Paul's eye. The man's hair, on his small, bullet head, was bleached almost white by the sun, and on his thick red arms, rocking idly on his sack apron, the white hairs glistened. His red face shone and was almost asleep with sunshine. The horses, handsome and brown, went on by themselves, looking by far the masters of the show. Paul wished he were stupid. "I wish," he thought to himself, "I was fat like him, and like a dog in the sun. I wish I was a pig and a brewer's waggoner." Then, the room being at last empty, he would hastily copy an advertisement on a scrap of paper, then another, and slip out in immense relief. His mother would scan over his copies. "Yes," she said, "you may try." William had written out a letter of application, couched in admirable business language, which Paul copied, with variations. The boy's handwriting was execrable, so that William, who did all things well, got into a fever of impatience. The elder brother was becoming quite swanky. In London he found that he could associate with men far above his Bestwood friends in station. Some of the clerks in the office had studied for the law, and were more or less going through a kind of apprenticeship. William always made friends among men wherever he went, he was so jolly. Therefore he was soon visiting and staying in houses of men who, in Bestwood, would have looked down on the unapproachable bank manager, and would merely have called indifferently on the Rector. So he began to fancy himself as a great gun. He was, indeed, rather surprised at the ease with which he became a gentleman. His mother was glad, he seemed so pleased. And his lodging in Walthamstow was so dreary. But now there seemed to come a kind of fever into the young man's letters. He was unsettled by all the change, he did not stand firm on his own feet, but seemed to spin rather giddily on the quick current of the new life. His mother was anxious for him. She could feel him losing himself. He had danced and gone to the theatre, boated on the river, been out with friends; and she knew he sat up afterwards in his cold bedroom grinding away at Latin, because he intended to get on in his office, and in the law as much as he could. He never sent his mother any money now. It was all taken, the little he had, for his own life. And she did not want any, except sometimes, when she was in a tight corner, and when ten shillings would have saved her much worry. She still dreamed of William, and of what he would do, with herself behind him. Never for a minute would she admit to herself how heavy and anxious her heart was because of him. Also he talked a good deal now of a girl he had met at a dance, a handsome brunette, quite young, and a lady, after whom the men were running thick and fast. "I wonder if you would run, my boy," his mother wrote to him, "unless you saw all the other men chasing her too. You feel safe enough and vain enough in a crowd. But take care, and see how you feel when you find yourself alone, and in triumph." William resented these things, and continued the chase. He had taken the girl on the river. "If you saw her, mother, you would know how I feel. Tall and elegant, with the clearest of clear, transparent olive complexions, hair as black as jet, and such grey eyes--bright, mocking, like lights on water at night. It is all very well to be a bit satirical till you see her. And she dresses as well as any woman in London. I tell you, your son doesn't half put his head up when she goes walking down Piccadilly with him." Mrs. Morel wondered, in her heart, if her son did not go walking down Piccadilly with an elegant figure and fine clothes, rather than with a woman who was near to him. But she congratulated him in her doubtful fashion. And, as she stood over the washing-tub, the mother brooded over her son. She saw him saddled with an elegant and expensive wife, earning little money, dragging along and getting draggled in some small, ugly house in a suburb. "But there," she told herself, "I am very likely a silly--meeting trouble halfway." Nevertheless, the load of anxiety scarcely ever left her heart, lest William should do the wrong thing by himself. Presently, Paul was bidden call upon Thomas Jordan, Manufacturer of Surgical Appliances, at 21, Spaniel Row, Nottingham. Mrs. Morel was all joy. "There, you see!" she cried, her eyes shining. "You've only written four letters, and the third is answered. You're lucky, my boy, as I always said you were." Paul looked at the picture of a wooden leg, adorned with elastic stockings and other appliances, that figured on Mr. Jordan's notepaper, and he felt alarmed. He had not known that elastic stockings existed. And he seemed to feel the business world, with its regulated system of values, and its impersonality, and he dreaded it. It seemed monstrous also that a business could be run on wooden legs. Mother and son set off together one Tuesday morning. It was August and blazing hot. Paul walked with something screwed up tight inside him. He would have suffered much physical pain rather than this unreasonable suffering at being exposed to strangers, to be accepted or rejected. Yet he chattered away with his mother. He would never have confessed to her how he suffered over these things, and she only partly guessed. She was gay, like a sweetheart. She stood in front of the ticket-office at Bestwood, and Paul watched her take from her purse the money for the tickets. As he saw her hands in their old black kid gloves getting the silver out of the worn purse, his heart contracted with pain of love of her. She was quite excited, and quite gay. He suffered because she WOULD talk aloud in presence of the other travellers. "Now look at that silly cow!" she said, "careering round as if it thought it was a circus." "It's most likely a bottfly," he said very low. "A what?" she asked brightly and unashamed. They thought a while. He was sensible all the time of having her opposite him. Suddenly their eyes met, and she smiled to him--a rare, intimate smile, beautiful with brightness and love. Then each looked out of the window. The sixteen slow miles of railway journey passed. The mother and son walked down Station Street, feeling the excitement of lovers having an adventure together. In Carrington Street they stopped to hang over the parapet and look at the barges on the canal below. "It's just like Venice," he said, seeing the sunshine on the water that lay between high factory walls. "Perhaps," she answered, smiling. They enjoyed the shops immensely. "Now you see that blouse," she would say, "wouldn't that just suit our Annie? And for one-and-eleven-three. Isn't that cheap?" "And made of needlework as well," he said. "Yes." They had plenty of time, so they did not hurry. The town was strange and delightful to them. But the boy was tied up inside in a knot of apprehension. He dreaded the interview with Thomas Jordan. It was nearly eleven o'clock by St. Peter's Church. They turned up a narrow street that led to the Castle. It was gloomy and old-fashioned, having low dark shops and dark green house doors with brass knockers, and yellow-ochred doorsteps projecting on to the pavement; then another old shop whose small window looked like a cunning, half-shut eye. Mother and son went cautiously, looking everywhere for "Thomas Jordan and Son". It was like hunting in some wild place. They were on tiptoe of excitement. Suddenly they spied a big, dark archway, in which were names of various firms, Thomas Jordan among them. "Here it is!" said Mrs. Morel. "But now WHERE is it?" They looked round. On one side was a queer, dark, cardboard factory, on the other a Commercial Hotel. "It's up the entry," said Paul. And they ventured under the archway, as into the jaws of the dragon. They emerged into a wide yard, like a well, with buildings all round. It was littered with straw and boxes, and cardboard. The sunshine actually caught one crate whose straw was streaming on to the yard like gold. But elsewhere the place was like a pit. There were several doors, and two flights of steps. Straight in front, on a dirty glass door at the top of a staircase, loomed the ominous words "Thomas Jordan and Son--Surgical Appliances." Mrs. Morel went first, her son followed her. Charles I mounted his scaffold with a lighter heart than had Paul Morel as he followed his mother up the dirty steps to the dirty door. She pushed open the door, and stood in pleased surprise. In front of her was a big warehouse, with creamy paper parcels everywhere, and clerks, with their shirt-sleeves rolled back, were going about in an at-home sort of way. The light was subdued, the glossy cream parcels seemed luminous, the counters were of dark brown wood. All was quiet and very homely. Mrs. Morel took two steps forward, then waited. Paul stood behind her. She had on her Sunday bonnet and a black veil; he wore a boy's broad white collar and a Norfolk suit. One of the clerks looked up. He was thin and tall, with a small face. His way of looking was alert. Then he glanced round to the other end of the room, where was a glass office. And then he came forward. He did not say anything, but leaned in a gentle, inquiring fashion towards Mrs. Morel. "Can I see Mr. Jordan?" she asked. "I'll fetch him," answered the young man. He went down to the glass office. A red-faced, white-whiskered old man looked up. He reminded Paul of a pomeranian dog. Then the same little man came up the room. He had short legs, was rather stout, and wore an alpaca jacket. So, with one ear up, as it were, he came stoutly and inquiringly down the room. "Good-morning!" he said, hesitating before Mrs. Morel, in doubt as to whether she were a customer or not. "Good-morning. I came with my son, Paul Morel. You asked him to call this morning." "Come this way," said Mr. Jordan, in a rather snappy little manner intended to be businesslike. They followed the manufacturer into a grubby little room, upholstered in black American leather, glossy with the rubbing of many customers. On the table was a pile of trusses, yellow wash-leather hoops tangled together. They looked new and living. Paul sniffed the odour of new wash-leather. He wondered what the things were. By this time he was so much stunned that he only noticed the outside things. "Sit down!" said Mr. Jordan, irritably pointing Mrs. Morel to a horse-hair chair. She sat on the edge in an uncertain fashion. Then the little old man fidgeted and found a paper. "Did you write this letter?" he snapped, thrusting what Paul recognised as his own notepaper in front of him. "Yes," he answered. At that moment he was occupied in two ways: first, in feeling guilty for telling a lie, since William had composed the letter; second, in wondering why his letter seemed so strange and different, in the fat, red hand of the man, from what it had been when it lay on the kitchen table. It was like part of himself, gone astray. He resented the way the man held it. "Where did you learn to write?" said the old man crossly. Paul merely looked at him shamedly, and did not answer. "He IS a bad writer," put in Mrs. Morel apologetically. Then she pushed up her veil. Paul hated her for not being prouder with this common little man, and he loved her face clear of the veil. "And you say you know French?" inquired the little man, still sharply. "Yes," said Paul. "What school did you go to?" "The Board-school." "And did you learn it there?" "No--I--" The boy went crimson and got no farther. "His godfather gave him lessons," said Mrs. Morel, half pleading and rather distant. Mr. Jordan hesitated. Then, in his irritable manner--he always seemed to keep his hands ready for action--he pulled another sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it. The paper made a crackling noise. He handed it to Paul. "Read that," he said. It was a note in French, in thin, flimsy foreign handwriting that the boy could not decipher. He stared blankly at the paper. "'Monsieur,'" he began; then he looked in great confusion at Mr. Jordan. "It's the--it's the--" He wanted to say "handwriting", but his wits would no longer work even sufficiently to supply him with the word. Feeling an utter fool, and hating Mr. Jordan, he turned desperately to the paper again. "'Sir,--Please send me'--er--er--I can't tell the--er--'two pairs--gris fil bas--grey thread stockings'--er--er--'sans--without'--er--I can't tell the words--er--'doigts--fingers'--er--I can't tell the--" He wanted to say "handwriting", but the word still refused to come. Seeing him stuck, Mr. Jordan snatched the paper from him. "'Please send by return two pairs grey thread stockings without TOES.'" "Well," flashed Paul, "'doigts' means 'fingers'--as well--as a rule--" The little man looked at him. He did not know whether "doigts" meant "fingers"; he knew that for all HIS purposes it meant "toes". "Fingers to stockings!" he snapped. "Well, it DOES mean fingers," the boy persisted. He hated the little man, who made such a clod of him. Mr. Jordan looked at the pale, stupid, defiant boy, then at the mother, who sat quiet and with that peculiar shut-off look of the poor who have to depend on the favour of others. "And when could he come?" he asked. "Well," said Mrs. Morel, "as soon as you wish. He has finished school now." "He would live in Bestwood?" "Yes; but he could be in--at the station--at quarter to eight." "H'm!" It ended by Paul's being engaged as junior spiral clerk at eight shillings a week. The boy did not open his mouth to say another word, after having insisted that "doigts" meant "fingers". He followed his mother down the stairs. She looked at him with her bright blue eyes full of love and joy. "I think you'll like it," she said. "'Doigts' does mean 'fingers', mother, and it was the writing. I couldn't read the writing." "Never mind, my boy. I'm sure he'll be all right, and you won't see much of him. Wasn't that first young fellow nice? I'm sure you'll like them." "But wasn't Mr. Jordan common, mother? Does he own it all?" "I suppose he was a workman who has got on," she said. "You mustn't mind people so much. They're not being disagreeable to YOU--it's their way. You always think people are meaning things for you. But they don't." It was very sunny. Over the big desolate space of the market-place the blue sky shimmered, and the granite cobbles of the paving glistened. Shops down the Long Row were deep in obscurity, and the shadow was full of colour. Just where the horse trams trundled across the market was a row of fruit stalls, with fruit blazing in the sun--apples and piles of reddish oranges, small green-gage plums and bananas. There was a warm scent of fruit as mother and son passed. Gradually his feeling of ignominy and of rage sank. "Where should we go for dinner?" asked the mother. It was felt to be a reckless extravagance. Paul had only been in an eating-house once or twice in his life, and then only to have a cup of tea and a bun. Most of the people of Bestwood considered that tea and bread-and-butter, and perhaps potted beef, was all they could afford to eat in Nottingham. Real cooked dinner was considered great extravagance. Paul felt rather guilty. They found a place that looked quite cheap. But when Mrs. Morel scanned the bill of fare, her heart was heavy, things were so dear. So she ordered kidney-pies and potatoes as the cheapest available dish. "We oughtn't to have come here, mother," said Paul. "Never mind," she said. "We won't come again." She insisted on his having a small currant tart, because he liked sweets. "I don't want it, mother," he pleaded. "Yes," she insisted; "you'll have it." And she looked round for the waitress. But the waitress was busy, and Mrs. Morel did not like to bother her then. So the mother and son waited for the girl's pleasure, whilst she flirted among the men. "Brazen hussy!" said Mrs. Morel to Paul. "Look now, she's taking that man HIS pudding, and he came long after us." "It doesn't matter, mother," said Paul. Mrs. Morel was angry. But she was too poor, and her orders were too meagre, so that she had not the courage to insist on her rights just then. They waited and waited. "Should we go, mother?" he said. Then Mrs. Morel stood up. The girl was passing near. "Will you bring one currant tart?" said Mrs. Morel clearly. The girl looked round insolently. "Directly," she said. "We have waited quite long enough," said Mrs. Morel. In a moment the girl came back with the tart. Mrs. Morel asked coldly for the bill. Paul wanted to sink through the floor. He marvelled at his mother's hardness. He knew that only years of battling had taught her to insist even so little on her rights. She shrank as much as he. "It's the last time I go THERE for anything!" she declared, when they were outside the place, thankful to be clear. "We'll go," she said, "and look at Keep's and Boot's, and one or two places, shall we?" They had discussions over the pictures, and Mrs. Morel wanted to buy him a little sable brush that he hankered after. But this indulgence he refused. He stood in front of milliners' shops and drapers' shops almost bored, but content for her to be interested. They wandered on. "Now, just look at those black grapes!" she said. "They make your mouth water. I've wanted some of those for years, but I s'll have to wait a bit before I get them." Then she rejoiced in the florists, standing in the doorway sniffing. "Oh! oh! Isn't it simply lovely!" Paul saw, in the darkness of the shop, an elegant young lady in black peering over the counter curiously. "They're looking at you," he said, trying to draw his mother away. "But what is it?" she exclaimed, refusing to be moved. "Stocks!" he answered, sniffing hastily. "Look, there's a tubful." "So there is--red and white. But really, I never knew stocks to smell like it!" And, to his great relief, she moved out of the doorway, but only to stand in front of the window. "Paul!" she cried to him, who was trying to get out of sight of the elegant young lady in black--the shop-girl. "Paul! Just look here!" He came reluctantly back. "Now, just look at that fuchsia!" she exclaimed, pointing. "H'm!" He made a curious, interested sound. "You'd think every second as the flowers was going to fall off, they hang so big an' heavy." "And such an abundance!" she cried. "And the way they drop downwards with their threads and knots!" "Yes!" she exclaimed. "Lovely!" "I wonder who'll buy it!" he said. "I wonder!" she answered. "Not us." "It would die in our parlour." "Yes, beastly cold, sunless hole; it kills every bit of a plant you put in, and the kitchen chokes them to death." They bought a few things, and set off towards the station. Looking up the canal, through the dark pass of the buildings, they saw the Castle on its bluff of brown, green-bushed rock, in a positive miracle of delicate sunshine. "Won't it be nice for me to come out at dinner-times?" said Paul. "I can go all round here and see everything. I s'll love it." "You will," assented his mother. He had spent a perfect afternoon with his mother. They arrived home in the mellow evening, happy, and glowing, and tired. In the morning he filled in the form for his season-ticket and took it to the station. When he got back, his mother was just beginning to wash the floor. He sat crouched up on the sofa. "He says it'll be here on Saturday," he said. "And how much will it be?" "About one pound eleven," he said. She went on washing her floor in silence. "Is it a lot?" he asked. "It's no more than I thought," she answered. "An' I s'll earn eight shillings a week," he said. She did not answer, but went on with her work. At last she said: "That William promised me, when he went to London, as he'd give me a pound a month. He has given me ten shillings--twice; and now I know he hasn't a farthing if I asked him. Not that I want it. Only just now you'd think he might be able to help with this ticket, which I'd never expected." "He earns a lot," said Paul. "He earns a hundred and thirty pounds. But they're all alike. They're large in promises, but it's precious little fulfilment you get." "He spends over fifty shillings a week on himself," said Paul. "And I keep this house on less than thirty," she replied; "and am supposed to find money for extras. But they don't care about helping you, once they've gone. He'd rather spend it on that dressed-up creature." "She should have her own money if she's so grand," said Paul. "She should, but she hasn't. I asked him. And I know he doesn't buy her a gold bangle for nothing. I wonder whoever bought ME a gold bangle." William was succeeding with his "Gipsy", as he called her. He asked the girl--her name was Louisa Lily Denys Western--for a photograph to send to his mother. The photo came--a handsome brunette, taken in profile, smirking slightly--and, it might be, quite naked, for on the photograph not a scrap of clothing was to be seen, only a naked bust. "Yes," wrote Mrs. Morel to her son, "the photograph of Louie is very striking, and I can see she must be attractive. But do you think, my boy, it was very good taste of a girl to give her young man that photo to send to his mother--the first? Certainly the shoulders are beautiful, as you say. But I hardly expected to see so much of them at the first view." Morel found the photograph standing on the chiffonier in the parlour. He came out with it between his thick thumb and finger. "Who dost reckon this is?" he asked of his wife. "It's the girl our William is going with," replied Mrs. Morel. "H'm! 'Er's a bright spark, from th' look on 'er, an' one as wunna do him owermuch good neither. Who is she?" "Her name is Louisa Lily Denys Western." "An' come again to-morrer!" exclaimed the miner. "An' is 'er an actress?" "She is not. She's supposed to be a lady." "I'll bet!" he exclaimed, still staring at the photo. "A lady, is she? An' how much does she reckon ter keep up this sort o' game on?" "On nothing. She lives with an old aunt, whom she hates, and takes what bit of money's given her." "H'm!" said Morel, laying down the photograph. "Then he's a fool to ha' ta'en up wi' such a one as that." "Dear Mater," William replied. "I'm sorry you didn't like the photograph. It never occurred to me when I sent it, that you mightn't think it decent. However, I told Gyp that it didn't quite suit your prim and proper notions, so she's going to send you another, that I hope will please you better. She's always being photographed; in fact, the photographers ask her if they may take her for nothing." Presently the new photograph came, with a little silly note from the girl. This time the young lady was seen in a black satin evening bodice, cut square, with little puff sleeves, and black lace hanging down her beautiful arms. "I wonder if she ever wears anything except evening clothes," said Mrs. Morel sarcastically. "I'm sure I ought to be impressed." "You are disagreeable, mother," said Paul. "I think the first one with bare shoulders is lovely." "Do you?" answered his mother. "Well, I don't." On the Monday morning the boy got up at six to start work. He had the season-ticket, which had cost such bitterness, in his waistcoat pocket. He loved it with its bars of yellow across. His mother packed his dinner in a small, shut-up basket, and he set off at a quarter to seven to catch the 7.15 train. Mrs. Morel came to the entry-end to see him off. It was a perfect morning. From the ash tree the slender green fruits that the children call "pigeons" were twinkling gaily down on a little breeze, into the front gardens of the houses. The valley was full of a lustrous dark haze, through which the ripe corn shimmered, and in which the steam from Minton pit melted swiftly. Puffs of wind came. Paul looked over the high woods of Aldersley, where the country gleamed, and home had never pulled at him so powerfully. "Good-morning, mother," he said, smiling, but feeling very unhappy. "Good-morning," she replied cheerfully and tenderly. She stood in her white apron on the open road, watching him as he crossed the field. He had a small, compact body that looked full of life. She felt, as she saw him trudging over the field, that where he determined to go he would get. She thought of William. He would have leaped the fence instead of going round the stile. He was away in London, doing well. Paul would be working in Nottingham. Now she had two sons in the world. She could think of two places, great centres of industry, and feel that she had put a man into each of them, that these men would work out what SHE wanted; they were derived from her, they were of her, and their works also would be hers. All the morning long she thought of Paul. At eight o'clock he climbed the dismal stairs of Jordan's Surgical Appliance Factory, and stood helplessly against the first great parcel-rack, waiting for somebody to pick him up. The place was still not awake. Over the counters were great dust sheets. Two men only had arrived, and were heard talking in a corner, as they took off their coats and rolled up their shirt-sleeves. It was ten past eight. Evidently there was no rush of punctuality. Paul listened to the voices of the two clerks. Then he heard someone cough, and saw in the office at the end of the room an old, decaying clerk, in a round smoking-cap of black velvet embroidered with red and green, opening letters. He waited and waited. One of the junior clerks went to the old man, greeted him cheerily and loudly. Evidently the old "chief" was deaf. Then the young fellow came striding importantly down to his counter. He spied Paul. "Hello!" he said. "You the new lad?" "Yes," said Paul. "H'm! What's your name?" "Paul Morel." "Paul Morel? All right, you come on round here." Paul followed him round the rectangle of counters. The room was second storey. It had a great hole in the middle of the floor, fenced as with a wall of counters, and down this wide shaft the lifts went, and the light for the bottom storey. Also there was a corresponding big, oblong hole in the ceiling, and one could see above, over the fence of the top floor, some machinery; and right away overhead was the glass roof, and all light for the three storeys came downwards, getting dimmer, so that it was always night on the ground floor and rather gloomy on the second floor. The factory was the top floor, the warehouse the second, the storehouse the ground floor. It was an insanitary, ancient place. Paul was led round to a very dark corner. "This is the 'Spiral' corner," said the clerk. "You're Spiral, with Pappleworth. He's your boss, but he's not come yet. He doesn't get here till half-past eight. So you can fetch the letters, if you like, from Mr. Melling down there." The young man pointed to the old clerk in the office. "All right," said Paul. "Here's a peg to hang your cap on. Here are your entry ledgers. Mr. Pappleworth won't be long." And the thin young man stalked away with long, busy strides over the hollow wooden floor. After a minute or two Paul went down and stood in the door of the glass office. The old clerk in the smoking-cap looked down over the rim of his spectacles. "Good-morning," he said, kindly and impressively. "You want the letters for the Spiral department, Thomas?" Paul resented being called "Thomas". But he took the letters and returned to his dark place, where the counter made an angle, where the great parcel-rack came to an end, and where there were three doors in the corner. He sat on a high stool and read the letters--those whose handwriting was not too difficult. They ran as follows: "Will you please send me at once a pair of lady's silk spiral thigh-hose, without feet, such as I had from you last year; length, thigh to knee, etc." Or, "Major Chamberlain wishes to repeat his previous order for a silk non-elastic suspensory bandage." Many of these letters, some of them in French or Norwegian, were a great puzzle to the boy. He sat on his stool nervously awaiting the arrival of his "boss". He suffered tortures of shyness when, at half-past eight, the factory girls for upstairs trooped past him. Mr. Pappleworth arrived, chewing a chlorodyne gum, at about twenty to nine, when all the other men were at work. He was a thin, sallow man with a red nose, quick, staccato, and smartly but stiffly dressed. He was about thirty-six years old. There was something rather "doggy", rather smart, rather 'cute and shrewd, and something warm, and something slightly contemptible about him. "You my new lad?" he said. Paul stood up and said he was. "Fetched the letters?" Mr. Pappleworth gave a chew to his gum. "Yes." "Copied 'em?" "No." "Well, come on then, let's look slippy. Changed your coat?" "No." "You want to bring an old coat and leave it here." He pronounced the last words with the chlorodyne gum between his side teeth. He vanished into the darkness behind the great parcel-rack, reappeared coatless, turning up a smart striped shirt-cuff over a thin and hairy arm. Then he slipped into his coat. Paul noticed how thin he was, and that his trousers were in folds behind. He seized a stool, dragged it beside the boy's, and sat down. "Sit down," he said. Paul took a seat. Mr. Pappleworth was very close to him. The man seized the letters, snatched a long entry-book out of a rack in front of him, flung it open, seized a pen, and said: "Now look here. You want to copy these letters in here." He sniffed twice, gave a quick chew at his gum, stared fixedly at a letter, then went very still and absorbed, and wrote the entry rapidly, in a beautiful flourishing hand. He glanced quickly at Paul. "See that?" "Yes." "Think you can do it all right?" "Yes." "All right then, let's see you." He sprang off his stool. Paul took a pen. Mr. Pappleworth disappeared. Paul rather liked copying the letters, but he wrote slowly, laboriously, and exceedingly badly. He was doing the fourth letter, and feeling quite busy and happy, when Mr. Pappleworth reappeared. "Now then, how'r' yer getting on? Done 'em?" He leaned over the boy's shoulder, chewing, and smelling of chlorodyne. "Strike my bob, lad, but you're a beautiful writer!" he exclaimed satirically. "Ne'er mind, how many h'yer done? Only three! I'd 'a eaten 'em. Get on, my lad, an' put numbers on 'em. Here, look! Get on!" Paul ground away at the letters, whilst Mr. Pappleworth fussed over various jobs. Suddenly the boy started as a shrill whistle sounded near his ear. Mr. Pappleworth came, took a plug out of a pipe, and said, in an amazingly cross and bossy voice: "Yes?" Paul heard a faint voice, like a woman's, out of the mouth of the tube. He gazed in wonder, never having seen a speaking-tube before. "Well," said Mr. Pappleworth disagreeably into the tube, "you'd better get some of your back work done, then." Again the woman's tiny voice was heard, sounding pretty and cross. "I've not time to stand here while you talk," said Mr. Pappleworth, and he pushed the plug into the tube. "Come, my lad," he said imploringly to Paul, "there's Polly crying out for them orders. Can't you buck up a bit? Here, come out!" He took the book, to Paul's immense chagrin, and began the copying himself. He worked quickly and well. This done, he seized some strips of long yellow paper, about three inches wide, and made out the day's orders for the work-girls. "You'd better watch me," he said to Paul, working all the while rapidly. Paul watched the weird little drawings of legs, and thighs, and ankles, with the strokes across and the numbers, and the few brief directions which his chief made upon the yellow paper. Then Mr. Pappleworth finished and jumped up. "Come on with me," he said, and the yellow papers flying in his hands, he dashed through a door and down some stairs, into the basement where the gas was burning. They crossed the cold, damp storeroom, then a long, dreary room with a long table on trestles, into a smaller, cosy apartment, not very high, which had been built on to the main building. In this room a small woman with a red serge blouse, and her black hair done on top of her head, was waiting like a proud little bantam. "Here y'are!" said Pappleworth. "I think it is 'here you are'!" exclaimed Polly. "The girls have been here nearly half an hour waiting. Just think of the time wasted!" "YOU think of getting your work done and not talking so much," said Mr. Pappleworth. "You could ha' been finishing off." "You know quite well we finished everything off on Saturday!" cried Pony, flying at him, her dark eyes flashing. "Tu-tu-tu-tu-terterter!" he mocked. "Here's your new lad. Don't ruin him as you did the last." "As we did the last!" repeated Polly. "Yes, WE do a lot of ruining, we do. My word, a lad would TAKE some ruining after he'd been with you." "It's time for work now, not for talk," said Mr. Pappleworth severely and coldly. "It was time for work some time back," said Polly, marching away with her head in the air. She was an erect little body of forty. In that room were two round spiral machines on the bench under the window. Through the inner doorway was another longer room, with six more machines. A little group of girls, nicely dressed in white aprons, stood talking together. "Have you nothing else to do but talk?" said Mr. Pappleworth. "Only wait for you," said one handsome girl, laughing. "Well, get on, get on," he said. "Come on, my lad. You'll know your road down here again." And Paul ran upstairs after his chief. He was given some checking and invoicing to do. He stood at the desk, labouring in his execrable handwriting. Presently Mr. Jordan came strutting down from the glass office and stood behind him, to the boy's great discomfort. Suddenly a red and fat finger was thrust on the form he was filling in. "MR. J. A. Bates, Esquire!" exclaimed the cross voice just behind his ear. Paul looked at "Mr. J. A. Bates, Esquire" in his own vile writing, and wondered what was the matter now. "Didn't they teach you any better THAN that while they were at it? If you put 'Mr.' you don't put Esquire'-a man can't be both at once." The boy regretted his too-much generosity in disposing of honours, hesitated, and with trembling fingers, scratched out the "Mr." Then all at once Mr. Jordan snatched away the invoice. "Make another! Are you going to send that to a gentleman?" And he tore up the blue form irritably. Paul, his ears red with shame, began again. Still Mr. Jordan watched. "I don't know what they DO teach in schools. You'll have to write better than that. Lads learn nothing nowadays, but how to recite poetry and play the fiddle. Have you seen his writing?" he asked of Mr. Pappleworth. "Yes; prime, isn't it?" replied Mr. Pappleworth indifferently. Mr. Jordan gave a little grunt, not unamiable. Paul divined that his master's bark was worse than his bite. Indeed, the little manufacturer, although he spoke bad English, was quite gentleman enough to leave his men alone and to take no notice of trifles. But he knew he did not look like the boss and owner of the show, so he had to play his role of proprietor at first, to put things on a right footing. "Let's see, WHAT'S your name?" asked Mr. Pappleworth of the boy. "Paul Morel." It is curious that children suffer so much at having to pronounce their own names. "Paul Morel, is it? All right, you Paul-Morel through them things there, and then--" Mr. Pappleworth subsided on to a stool, and began writing. A girl came up from out of a door just behind, put some newly-pressed elastic web appliances on the counter, and returned. Mr. Pappleworth picked up the whitey-blue knee-band, examined it, and its yellow order-paper quickly, and put it on one side. Next was a flesh-pink "leg". He went through the few things, wrote out a couple of orders, and called to Paul to accompany him. This time they went through the door whence the girl had emerged. There Paul found himself at the top of a little wooden flight of steps, and below him saw a room with windows round two sides, and at the farther end half a dozen girls sitting bending over the benches in the light from the window, sewing. They were singing together "Two Little Girls in Blue". Hearing the door opened, they all turned round, to see Mr. Pappleworth and Paul looking down on them from the far end of the room. They stopped singing. "Can't you make a bit less row?" said Mr. Pappleworth. "Folk'll think we keep cats." A hunchback woman on a high stool turned her long, rather heavy face towards Mr. Pappleworth, and said, in a contralto voice: "They're all tom-cats then." In vain Mr. Pappleworth tried to be impressive for Paul's benefit. He descended the steps into the finishing-off room, and went to the hunchback Fanny. She had such a short body on her high stool that her head, with its great bands of bright brown hair, seemed over large, as did her pale, heavy face. She wore a dress of green-black cashmere, and her wrists, coming out of the narrow cuffs, were thin and flat, as she put down her work nervously. He showed her something that was wrong with a knee-cap. "Well," she said, "you needn't come blaming it on to me. It's not my fault." Her colour mounted to her cheek. "I never said it WAS your fault. Will you do as I tell you?" replied Mr. Pappleworth shortly. "You don't say it's my fault, but you'd like to make out as it was," the hunchback woman cried, almost in tears. Then she snatched the knee-cap from her "boss", saying: "Yes, I'll do it for you, but you needn't be snappy." "Here's your new lad," said Mr. Pappleworth. Fanny turned, smiling very gently on Paul. "Oh!" she said. "Yes; don't make a softy of him between you." "It's not us as 'ud make a softy of him," she said indignantly. "Come on then, Paul," said Mr. Pappleworth. "Au revoy, Paul," said one of the girls. There was a titter of laughter. Paul went out, blushing deeply, not having spoken a word. The day was very long. All morning the work-people were coming to speak to Mr. Pappleworth. Paul was writing or learning to make up parcels, ready for the midday post. At one o'clock, or, rather, at a quarter to one, Mr. Pappleworth disappeared to catch his train: he lived in the suburbs. At one o'clock, Paul, feeling very lost, took his dinner-basket down into the stockroom in the basement, that had the long table on trestles, and ate his meal hurriedly, alone in that cellar of gloom and desolation. Then he went out of doors. The brightness and the freedom of the streets made him feel adventurous and happy. But at two o'clock he was back in the corner of the big room. Soon the work-girls went trooping past, making remarks. It was the commoner girls who worked upstairs at the heavy tasks of truss-making and the finishing of artificial limbs. He waited for Mr. Pappleworth, not knowing what to do, sitting scribbling on the yellow order-paper. Mr. Pappleworth came at twenty minutes to three. Then he sat and gossiped with Paul, treating the boy entirely as an equal, even in age. In the afternoon there was never very much to do, unless it were near the week-end, and the accounts had to be made up. At five o'clock all the men went down into the dungeon with the table on trestles, and there they had tea, eating bread-and-butter on the bare, dirty boards, talking with the same kind of ugly haste and slovenliness with which they ate their meal. And yet upstairs the atmosphere among them was always jolly and clear. The cellar and the trestles affected them. After tea, when all the gases were lighted, WORK went more briskly. There was the big evening post to get off. The hose came up warm and newly pressed from the workrooms. Paul had made out the invoices. Now he had the packing up and addressing to do, then he had to weigh his stock of parcels on the scales. Everywhere voices were calling weights, there was the chink of metal, the rapid snapping of string, the hurrying to old Mr. Melling for stamps. And at last the postman came with his sack, laughing and jolly. Then everything slacked off, and Paul took his dinner-basket and ran to the station to catch the eight-twenty train. The day in the factory was just twelve hours long. His mother sat waiting for him rather anxiously. He had to walk from Keston, so was not home until about twenty past nine. And he left the house before seven in the morning. Mrs. Morel was rather anxious about his health. But she herself had had to put up with so much that she expected her children to take the same odds. They must go through with what came. And Paul stayed at Jordan's, although all the time he was there his health suffered from the darkness and lack of air and the long hours. He came in pale and tired. His mother looked at him. She saw he was rather pleased, and her anxiety all went. "Well, and how was it?" she asked. "Ever so funny, mother," he replied. "You don't have to work a bit hard, and they're nice with you." "And did you get on all right?" "Yes: they only say my writing's bad. But Mr. Pappleworth--he's my man--said to Mr. Jordan I should be all right. I'm Spiral, mother; you must come and see. It's ever so nice." Soon he liked Jordan's. Mr. Pappleworth, who had a certain "saloon bar" flavour about him, was always natural, and treated him as if he had been a comrade. Sometimes the "Spiral boss" was irritable, and chewed more lozenges than ever. Even then, however, he was not offensive, but one of those people who hurt themselves by their own irritability more than they hurt other people. "Haven't you done that YET?" he would cry. "Go on, be a month of Sundays." Again, and Paul could understand him least then, he was jocular and in high spirits. "I'm going to bring my little Yorkshire terrier bitch tomorrow," he said jubilantly to Paul. "What's a Yorkshire terrier?" "DON'T know what a Yorkshire terrier is? DON'T KNOW A YORKSHIRE--" Mr. Pappleworth was aghast. "Is it a little silky one--colours of iron and rusty silver?" "THAT'S it, my lad. She's a gem. She's had five pounds' worth of pups already, and she's worth over seven pounds herself; and she doesn't weigh twenty ounces." The next day the bitch came. She was a shivering, miserable morsel. Paul did not care for her; she seemed so like a wet rag that would never dry. Then a man called for her, and began to make coarse jokes. But Mr. Pappleworth nodded his head in the direction of the boy, and the talk went on _sotto voce_. Mr. Jordan only made one more excursion to watch Paul, and then the only fault he found was seeing the boy lay his pen on the counter. "Put your pen in your ear, if you're going to be a clerk. Pen in your ear!" And one day he said to the lad: "Why don't you hold your shoulders straighter? Come down here," when he took him into the glass office and fitted him with special braces for keeping the shoulders square. But Paul liked the girls best. The men seemed common and rather dull. He liked them all, but they were uninteresting. Polly, the little brisk overseer downstairs, finding Paul eating in the cellar, asked him if she could cook him anything on her little stove. Next day his mother gave him a dish that could be heated up. He took it into the pleasant, clean room to Polly. And very soon it grew to be an established custom that he should have dinner with her. When he came in at eight in the morning he took his basket to her, and when he came down at one o'clock she had his dinner ready. He was not very tall, and pale, with thick chestnut hair, irregular features, and a wide, full mouth. She was like a small bird. He often called her a "robinet". Though naturally rather quiet, he would sit and chatter with her for hours telling her about his home. The girls all liked to hear him talk. They often gathered in a little circle while he sat on a bench, and held forth to them, laughing. Some of them regarded him as a curious little creature, so serious, yet so bright and jolly, and always so delicate in his way with them. They all liked him, and he adored them. Polly he felt he belonged to. Then Connie, with her mane of red hair, her face of apple-blossom, her murmuring voice, such a lady in her shabby black frock, appealed to his romantic side. "When you sit winding," he said, "it looks as if you were spinning at a spinning-wheel--it looks ever so nice. You remind me of Elaine in the 'Idylls of the King'. I'd draw you if I could." And she glanced at him blushing shyly. And later on he had a sketch he prized very much: Connie sitting on the stool before the wheel, her flowing mane of red hair on her rusty black frock, her red mouth shut and serious, running the scarlet thread off the hank on to the reel. With Louie, handsome and brazen, who always seemed to thrust her hip at him, he usually joked. Emma was rather plain, rather old, and condescending. But to condescend to him made her happy, and he did not mind. "How do you put needles in?" he asked. "Go away and don't bother." "But I ought to know how to put needles in." She ground at her machine all the while steadily. "There are many things you ought to know," she replied. "Tell me, then, how to stick needles in the machine." "Oh, the boy, what a nuisance he is! Why, THIS is how you do it." He watched her attentively. Suddenly a whistle piped. Then Polly appeared, and said in a clear voice: "Mr. Pappleworth wants to know how much longer you're going to be down here playing with the girls, Paul." Paul flew upstairs, calling "Good-bye!" and Emma drew herself up. "It wasn't ME who wanted him to play with the machine," she said. As a rule, when all the girls came back at two o'clock, he ran upstairs to Fanny, the hunchback, in the finishing-off room. Mr. Pappleworth did not appear till twenty to three, and he often found his boy sitting beside Fanny, talking, or drawing, or singing with the girls. Often, after a minute's hesitation, Fanny would begin to sing. She had a fine contralto voice. Everybody joined in the chorus, and it went well. Paul was not at all embarrassed, after a while, sitting in the room with the half a dozen work-girls. At the end of the song Fanny would say: "I know you've been laughing at me." "Don't be so soft, Fanny!" cried one of the girls. Once there was mention of Connie's red hair. "Fanny's is better, to my fancy," said Emma. "You needn't try to make a fool of me," said Fanny, flushing deeply. "No, but she has, Paul; she's got beautiful hair." "It's a treat of a colour," said he. "That coldish colour like earth, and yet shiny. It's like bog-water." "Goodness me!" exclaimed one girl, laughing. "How I do but get criticised," said Fanny. "But you should see it down, Paul," cried Emma earnestly. "It's simply beautiful. Put it down for him, Fanny, if he wants something to paint." Fanny would not, and yet she wanted to. "Then I'll take it down myself," said the lad. "Well, you can if you like," said Fanny. And he carefully took the pins out of the knot, and the rush of hair, of uniform dark brown, slid over the humped back. "What a lovely lot!" he exclaimed. The girls watched. There was silence. The youth shook the hair loose from the coil. "It's splendid!" he said, smelling its perfume. "I'll bet it's worth pounds." "I'll leave it you when I die, Paul," said Fanny, half joking. "You look just like anybody else, sitting drying their hair," said one of the girls to the long-legged hunchback. Poor Fanny was morbidly sensitive, always imagining insults. Polly was curt and businesslike. The two departments were for ever at war, and Paul was always finding Fanny in tears. Then he was made the recipient of all her woes, and he had to plead her case with Polly. So the time went along happily enough. The factory had a homely feel. No one was rushed or driven. Paul always enjoyed it when the work got faster, towards post-time, and all the men united in labour. He liked to watch his fellow-clerks at work. The man was the work and the work was the man, one thing, for the time being. It was different with the girls. The real woman never seemed to be there at the task, but as if left out, waiting. From the train going home at night he used to watch the lights of the town, sprinkled thick on the hills, fusing together in a blaze in the valleys. He felt rich in life and happy. Drawing farther off, there was a patch of lights at Bulwell like myriad petals shaken to the ground from the shed stars; and beyond was the red glare of the furnaces, playing like hot breath on the clouds. He had to walk two and more miles from Keston home, up two long hills, down two short hills. He was often tired, and he counted the lamps climbing the hill above him, how many more to pass. And from the hilltop, on pitch-dark nights, he looked round on the villages five or six miles away, that shone like swarms of glittering living things, almost a heaven against his feet. Marlpool and Heanor scattered the far-off darkness with brilliance. And occasionally the black valley space between was traced, violated by a great train rushing south to London or north to Scotland. The trains roared by like projectiles level on the darkness, fuming and burning, making the valley clang with their passage. They were gone, and the lights of the towns and villages glittered in silence. And then he came to the corner at home, which faced the other side of the night. The ash-tree seemed a friend now. His mother rose with gladness as he entered. He put his eight shillings proudly on the table. "It'll help, mother?" he asked wistfully. "There's precious little left," she answered, "after your ticket and dinners and such are taken off." Then he told her the budget of the day. His life-story, like an Arabian Nights, was told night after night to his mother. It was almost as if it were her own life. Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Morel verletzt sich bei der Arbeit, als ein Stück Gestein auf sein Bein fällt. Als Frau Morel die Nachricht erhält, ist sie sehr aufgeregt, während sie sich darauf vorbereitet, ins Krankenhaus zu fahren, um ihn zu besuchen. Paul beruhigt sie und gibt ihr etwas Tee, und sie macht sich auf den Weg ins Krankenhaus. Als sie zurückkehrt, erzählt sie den Kindern, dass der Beinbruch ihres Vaters ziemlich schlimm ist. Sie sind alle besorgt, aber trösten sich damit, dass ihr Vater ein starker Heiler ist. Frau Morel fühlt sich ein wenig schuldig, weil sie ihren Ehemann nicht mehr liebt; während sie mit seinem Schmerz und seiner Verletzung Mitleid hat, empfindet sie dennoch eine emotionale Leere. Das Gespräch mit Paul tröstet sie ein wenig, da er ihre Sorgen teilen kann. Getreu seiner Natur erholt sich Morel tatsächlich, und die Familie ist sehr glücklich und friedlich, solange er noch im Krankenhaus ist, fast schon bedauernd, dass er bald zurückkehren wird. Paul ist nun vierzehn Jahre alt und es ist Zeit für ihn, einen Job zu finden. Jeden Tag schickt ihn seine Mutter in den Lesesaal der Genossenschaft, um die Stellenanzeigen in der Zeitung zu lesen. Das macht ihn unglücklich, aber er schreibt pflichtbewusst ein paar Angebote auf und bringt sie nach Hause. Er bewirbt sich für mehrere Jobs, wobei er eine Variation eines Briefes verwendet, den William geschrieben hatte. Er wird gebeten, bei Thomas Jordan vorzusprechen, einem Hersteller von chirurgischen Geräten, und seine Mutter ist überglücklich. Paul und Frau Morel reisen an einem Dienstagmorgen nach Nottingham, um der Einladung nachzukommen. Paul leidet die ganze Fahrt über, weil er das Vorstellungsgespräch und die Notwendigkeit, von Fremden inspiziert zu werden, fürchtet. Während des eigentlichen Vorstellungsgesprächs bittet Herr Jordan Paul, einen Brief auf Französisch vorzulesen, und er hat Schwierigkeiten mit der Handschrift, wird nervös und besteht immer wieder darauf, dass doigts Finger bedeutet, obwohl es in diesem Fall um die Zehen eines Strumpfes geht. Dennoch wird er als junger Mitarbeiter im Spiralbüro eingestellt. Nach dem Vorstellungsgespräch essen Paul und seine Mutter in einem Gasthaus, wo sich herausstellt, dass das Essen teurer ist als erwartet; sie bestellen das günstigste Gericht. Nach dem Essen schlendern sie durch die Stadt, schauen sich einige Geschäfte an und kaufen ein paar Dinge. Paul ist glücklich mit seiner Mutter. Am nächsten Tag beantragt er eine Jahreskarte für den Zug. Als er zurückkehrt und seiner Mutter erzählt, wie viel sie kosten wird, sagt sie, dass sie sich wünscht, William würde ihnen etwas Geld schicken, um beim Bezahlen von Dingen wie der Fahrkarte zu helfen. Inzwischen wird William ein Gentleman in London und fängt an, ein Mädchen namens Louisa Lily Denys Western zu treffen, die er Gipsy nennt. Er bittet sie um ein Foto, das er seiner Mutter schicken kann, und als das Foto kommt, zeigt es sie mit nackten Schultern. Frau Morel bemerkt William gegenüber, dass sie das Foto unangemessen findet, und das Mädchen schickt ein anderes, auf dem sie ein Abendkleid trägt. Frau Morel ist immer noch nicht beeindruckt. Am nächsten Montagmorgen fährt Paul mit dem Zug zur Arbeit. Er kommt in der Fabrik an und wird seinem Chef, Pappleworth, vorgestellt. Pappleworth zeigt ihm, wie er Briefe abholen und kopieren, Aufträge und Rechnungen schreiben und Pakete zum Versand vorbereiten kann. Er stellt ihn auch einigen anderen Mitarbeitern der Fabrik vor, und Paul versteht sich am besten mit den Frauen, wie Polly, der Aufseherin der Näharbeiterinnen, und der Bucklige Fanny, die in der Richteraumabteilung arbeitet. Er freundet sich mit vielen Frauen an und fängt an, seinen Job bei Jordan's zu mögen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard it muttering to itself 'The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where CAN I have dropped them, I wonder?' Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door, had vanished completely. Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out to her in an angry tone, 'Why, Mary Ann, what ARE you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!' And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made. 'He took me for his housemaid,' she said to herself as she ran. 'How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd better take him his fan and gloves--that is, if I can find them.' As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name 'W. RABBIT' engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and gloves. 'How queer it seems,' Alice said to herself, 'to be going messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on messages next!' And she began fancying the sort of thing that would happen: '"Miss Alice! Come here directly, and get ready for your walk!" "Coming in a minute, nurse! But I've got to see that the mouse doesn't get out." Only I don't think,' Alice went on, 'that they'd let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering people about like that!' By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass. There was no label this time with the words 'DRINK ME,' but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. 'I know SOMETHING interesting is sure to happen,' she said to herself, 'whenever I eat or drink anything; so I'll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!' It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself 'That's quite enough--I hope I shan't grow any more--As it is, I can't get out at the door--I do wish I hadn't drunk quite so much!' Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself 'Now I can do no more, whatever happens. What WILL become of me?' Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, and she grew no larger: still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy. 'It was much pleasanter at home,' thought poor Alice, 'when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what CAN have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I'll write one--but I'm grown up now,' she added in a sorrowful tone; 'at least there's no room to grow up any more HERE.' 'But then,' thought Alice, 'shall I NEVER get any older than I am now? That'll be a comfort, one way--never to be an old woman--but then--always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn't like THAT!' 'Oh, you foolish Alice!' she answered herself. 'How can you learn lessons in here? Why, there's hardly room for YOU, and no room at all for any lesson-books!' And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen. 'Mary Ann! Mary Ann!' said the voice. 'Fetch me my gloves this moment!' Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it. Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself 'Then I'll go round and get in at the window.' 'THAT you won't' thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something of the sort. Next came an angry voice--the Rabbit's--'Pat! Pat! Where are you?' And then a voice she had never heard before, 'Sure then I'm here! Digging for apples, yer honour!' 'Digging for apples, indeed!' said the Rabbit angrily. 'Here! Come and help me out of THIS!' (Sounds of more broken glass.) 'Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?' 'Sure, it's an arm, yer honour!' (He pronounced it 'arrum.') 'An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole window!' 'Sure, it does, yer honour: but it's an arm for all that.' 'Well, it's got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!' There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now and then; such as, 'Sure, I don't like it, yer honour, at all, at all!' 'Do as I tell you, you coward!' and at last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were TWO little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. 'What a number of cucumber-frames there must be!' thought Alice. 'I wonder what they'll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they COULD! I'm sure I don't want to stay in here any longer!' She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking together: she made out the words: 'Where's the other ladder?--Why, I hadn't to bring but one; Bill's got the other--Bill! fetch it here, lad!--Here, put 'em up at this corner--No, tie 'em together first--they don't reach half high enough yet--Oh! they'll do well enough; don't be particular--Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope--Will the roof bear?--Mind that loose slate--Oh, it's coming down! Heads below!' (a loud crash)--'Now, who did that?--It was Bill, I fancy--Who's to go down the chimney?--Nay, I shan't! YOU do it!--That I won't, then!--Bill's to go down--Here, Bill! the master says you're to go down the chimney!' 'Oh! So Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he?' said Alice to herself. 'Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but I THINK I can kick a little!' She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn't guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself 'This is Bill,' she gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next. The first thing she heard was a general chorus of 'There goes Bill!' then the Rabbit's voice along--'Catch him, you by the hedge!' then silence, and then another confusion of voices--'Hold up his head--Brandy now--Don't choke him--How was it, old fellow? What happened to you? Tell us all about it!' Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, ('That's Bill,' thought Alice,) 'Well, I hardly know--No more, thank ye; I'm better now--but I'm a deal too flustered to tell you--all I know is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!' 'So you did, old fellow!' said the others. 'We must burn the house down!' said the Rabbit's voice; and Alice called out as loud as she could, 'If you do. I'll set Dinah at you!' There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, 'I wonder what they WILL do next! If they had any sense, they'd take the roof off.' After a minute or two, they began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, 'A barrowful will do, to begin with.' 'A barrowful of WHAT?' thought Alice; but she had not long to doubt, for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the window, and some of them hit her in the face. 'I'll put a stop to this,' she said to herself, and shouted out, 'You'd better not do that again!' which produced another dead silence. Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came into her head. 'If I eat one of these cakes,' she thought, 'it's sure to make SOME change in my size; and as it can't possibly make me larger, it must make me smaller, I suppose.' So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; but she ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself safe in a thick wood. 'The first thing I've got to do,' said Alice to herself, as she wandered about in the wood, 'is to grow to my right size again; and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan.' It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it; and while she was peering about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just over her head made her look up in a great hurry. An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. 'Poor little thing!' said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to it; but she was terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing. Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut. This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape; so she set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, and till the puppy's bark sounded quite faint in the distance. 'And yet what a dear little puppy it was!' said Alice, as she leant against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the leaves: 'I should have liked teaching it tricks very much, if--if I'd only been the right size to do it! Oh dear! I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up again! Let me see--how IS it to be managed? I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is, what?' The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it. She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else. Können Sie eine geeignete Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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In einer dramatischen, magischen Veränderung findet sich Alice plötzlich in Anwesenheit des Weißen Kaninchens wieder. Aber der Glastisch und der große Saal sind verschwunden. Es besteht ein deutlicher Kontrast zwischen der Ruhe von Alice und dem nervösen, aufgeregten Weißen Kaninchen, das verzweifelt nach seinem verlorenen Fächer und Handschuhen sucht. Typischerweise macht sich das Weiße Kaninchen immer Sorgen um sein Aussehen und die Zeit, während sich Alice mit ihren körperlichen Größenveränderungen und ihrer Identitätskrise auseinandersetzt. Auf gewisse Weise verkörpern die beiden Charaktere die Anliegen von Jugend und Alter. Für die Jugend stellt sich die Frage nach der Festlegung einer Identität; für eine ältere Person besteht normalerweise ein ständiger Wunsch, zumindest das Erscheinungsbild einer Identität zu haben, und es besteht normalerweise ein "Sorgen" um die Zeit, da man sich immer bewusster darüber wird, wie wenig Zeit zum Leben noch bleibt, je mehr Tage vergehen. Alice's zentrales Problem in diesem Kapitel wird plötzlich deutlich verstärkt. Das Weiße Kaninchen hält sie versehentlich für seine Hausdienerin Mary Ann und befiehlt ihr, bei ihm zu Hause ein Ersatzpaar Handschuhe und einen Fächer zu holen. Seine autoritäre Haltung lässt sie ihm gehorchen, obwohl sie ihren neuen Status verabscheut: "Wie seltsam es ist, Botengänge für ein Kaninchen zu machen! Ich nehme an, Dinah wird mich als nächstes auf Botengänge schicken!" Alice weiß deutlich den Unterschied zwischen sich selbst und Dienstboten zu erkennen. Aber in der verwirrenden Anarchie von Wonderland versucht sie ständig, Sinn und Ordnung - in sozialer Hinsicht - zu schaffen. Es ist ihr sehr victorianisches Bewusstsein für Klassenunterschiede, das sie vernünftig, selbstkontrolliert und höflich erscheinen lässt; doch ihr Klassenbewusstsein lässt sie auch die fiesen und beleidigenden Behandlungen der Kreaturen verurteilen. Die Klasse unterscheidet letztendlich Alice von den exzentrischen Kreaturen von Wonderland; während sie immer reserviert wirkt, scheinen sie ständig den Launen ausgeliefert zu sein; und sie sind in der Regel entweder unhöflich oder grotesk unfähig. Im Haus des Weißen Kaninchens findet Alice den Fächer und die Handschuhe des Kaninchens, und dennoch wird sie scheinbar unaufhaltsam zu einer weiteren Flasche mit der Aufschrift "TRINK MICH" hingezogen. Sie probiert einen Schluck von der Flüssigkeit und plötzlich ist sie zu groß, um den Raum zu verlassen; wieder einmal haben Neugierde und Appetit ihr Ärger eingebracht. Doch dies ist nicht mehr nur "merkwürdig": Zu groß zu werden wird zu einem albtraumhaften Thema; in diesem Fall bilden Alice's stetiges Wachsen - und dann Schrumpfen - eine Art innerer Rhythmus, den die meisten Kinder mit der Zeit verbinden - das heißt, manchmal scheint die Zeit lang; manchmal scheint sie kurz. Doch die Folgen des Essens oder Trinkens der falschen Dinge führen in der realen Welt nie dazu, dass man plötzlich sehr klein oder wirklich riesig wird. Alice's Größe hier lässt sie ihr Abenteuer bereuen: "Es war viel angenehmer zu Hause", denkt sie. Offensichtlich ist sie "erwachsen" geworden, etwas, was sie schon lange wollte; aber jetzt beklagt sie sich darüber, dass das Erwachsenwerden sie nicht zu mehr einer Erwachsenen gemacht hat: "Werde ich niemals älter werden als jetzt?" Sie ist sehr groß, aber sie ist immer noch ein Kind. "Nun, das wird auf jeden Fall ein Trost sein - niemals eine alte Frau zu werden - aber dann - immer noch Lektionen lernen zu müssen!" Das Weiße Kaninchen hat inzwischen die Geduld verloren und ist Alice zu seinem Haus gefolgt. Er ist in einer wütenden Stimmung, die Alice erschreckt, also hindert sie ihn daran, das Haus zu betreten. Der Humor hier ergibt sich daraus, dass Alice viele, viele Male größer als das Kaninchen ist und logischerweise überhaupt keinen Grund hat, vor ihm Angst zu haben. Dennoch sind die wütenden, barschen Befehle des Weißen Kaninchens schrecklich einschüchternd für sie, weil das Weiße Kaninchen wie ein Erwachsener klingt. Für Alice muss ein Erwachsener, egal wie unhöflich er ist, immer beachtet und gefürchtet werden. Erwachsene mögen ein Rätsel sein, aber für ein Kind muss ihre Dominanz zu jeder Zeit akzeptiert werden. Alice's wirkliche Weltgesellschaft ist hier also für ihr Verhalten verantwortlich und wird durch ihr Klassenbewusstsein weiter verstärkt. Daran gehindert, ihr eigenes Haus zu betreten, ruft das Weiße Kaninchen seinen Gärtner, Pat. Hier ist zu beachten, dass das Weiße Kaninchen in formellem Englisch spricht, während Pat einen irischen Akzent hat. Pat schlägt vor, dass "kleine" Bill der Eidechse durch den Kamin ins Haus gelangen und Alice vertreiben soll; aufgrund seiner Gestalt sollte Bill keine Schwierigkeiten haben, durch den Schornstein zu passen. Also geht Bill durch den Kamin, aber Alice tritt ihn kräftig zurück in den Kamin, sobald er den Kamin erreicht. Plötzlich herrscht ein schweres klaustrophobisches Gefühl in Alice, aber sie ist keineswegs hilflos. Im Gegensatz dazu sind es die "winzigen Kreaturen", die wirklich frustriert sind, und wir sehen nun eine direkte Grundlage für Alice's Desillusionierung mit dem "Erwachsenwerden". Endlich ist sie physisch groß genug, um die Kreaturen von Wonderland zu kontrollieren, aber sie ist dazu nicht in der Lage, weil ihre enorme Größe sie in dem kleinen Haus des Kaninchens gefangen hält. Ohne Warnung beginnen das wütende Weiße Kaninchen und seine Diener, Alice mit kleinen Kieselsteinen zu bewerfen. Noch mehr Ärger! Aber sobald die Kieselsteine auf den Boden fallen, verwandeln sie sich magischerweise in Kuchen! In Erinnerung daran, dass Kuchen zuvor eine umgekehrte Wirkung im Vergleich zu Flüssigkeit hatten, isst Alice einen Kuchen und ist plötzlich wieder klein. Dann werden sie jedoch prompt von den Kreaturen draußen angegriffen und jagen sie davon. Alice ist nun so klein, dass sie sich verstecken muss; alle Kreaturen, die sie sieht, sind abscheulich, besonders ein "monströses" Hündchen, das sie beinahe zerquetscht. In Alice's Worten ist das Hündchen "ein liebes kleines Hündchen", aber aufgrund seiner Größe könnte es genauso gut "die böswillige Wut" aus der Geschichte der Maus sein. Alice tut ihr Bestes, um dem Hündchen zu entkommen, denn da er so groß und sie so klein ist, schwebt sie genau in der Art von Gefahr, von der die Maus erzählt hat. Das Hündchen mag für große Erwachsene freundlich erscheinen, ist aber zu Alice ein Rüpel, und das Leben eines winzig kleinen Alice hat für ihn sicherlich keine Bedeutung. Dieser Eindruck wird durch die ständige Freude des Hündchens verstärkt, fast auf sie zu trampeln. Nachdem sie dem Hündchen entkommen ist, findet sich Alice unter einem großen Pilz wieder, und oben auf dem Pilz sitzt eine große blaue Raupe, die eine Wasserpfeife raucht.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Two days later, in the afternoon. "Grumbach," said Carmichael, "what the deuce were you looking at the other night, with those opera-glasses?" "At the ball?" Grumbach pressed down the ash in his pipe and brushed his thumb on his sleeve. "I was looking into the past." "With a pair of opera-glasses?" "Yes." Grumbach was perfectly serious. "Oh, pshaw! You were following her highness with them. I want to know why." "She is beautiful." "You made a promise to me not long ago." "I did?" non-committally. "Yes. Soon I shall be shaking the dust of Dreiberg, and I want to know beforehand what this Chinese puzzle is. What did you do that compelled your flight from Ehrenstein?" Grumbach's pipe hung pendulent in his hand. He swung it to and fro absently. "I am waiting. Remember, you are an American citizen, for all that you were born here. If anything should happen to you, I must know the whole story in order to help you. You know that you may trust me." "It isn't that, Captain. I have grown to like you in these few days." "What has that to do with it?" impatiently. "Nothing, perhaps. Only, if I tell you, you will not be my friend." "Nonsense! What you did sixteen years ago doesn't matter now. It is enough for me that you fought in my regiment, and that you were a brave soldier." "Those opera-glasses; it was an idea. Well, since you will know. I was a gardener's boy. I worked under my brother Hermann. I used to ask the nurse, who had charge of her serene highness, where she would go each day. Then I'd cut flowers and meet them on the road somewhere and give the bouquet to the child. There was never any escort; a footman and a driver. The little one was always greatly pleased, and she would call me Hans. I was in love those days." Grumbach laughed with bitterness. "Yes, even I. Her name was Tekla, and she was a jade. I wanted to run away, but I had no money. I had already secured a passport; no matter how. It was the first affair, and I was desperately hurt. One day a Gipsy came to me. I shall always know him by the yellow spot in one of his black eyes. I was given a thousand crowns to tell him which road her highness was to be driven over the next day. As I said, I was mad with love. Why a Gipsy should want to know where her highness was going to ride was of no consequence to me. I told him. I was to get the money the same night. It was thus that her highness was stolen; it was thus that I became accessory before the fact, as the lawyers say. Flight with a band of Magyar Gipsies; weary days in the mountains, with detachments of troops scouring the whole duchy. Finally I escaped. A fortune was offered for the immediate return of the child. At the time I believed that it was an abduction for ransom. But no one ever came forward for the reward. There was a price on my head when it was known that I had fled." Grumbach stared into his pipe without seeing anything. "And no one ever came for the reward? That is strange. Was immunity promised?" asked Carmichael. "It was inferred, but not literally promised." "Fear kept them away." "Perhaps. And there is Arnsberg." "Was he guilty?" "I never saw _his_ hand anywhere." "So this is the story! Well, when a man's in love he is, more or less, in the clutch of temporary insanity." Carmichael's tone wasn't exactly cheery. "Insanity! Then you do not judge me harshly?" "No, Hans. I've a wild streak in me also. But what I can't understand is why you return and put your head in the lion's mouth. The police will stumble on something. I tell you frankly that if you are arrested I could do little or nothing for you. The United States protects only harmless political outcasts. Yours is a crime such as nullifies your citizenship, and any government would be compelled, according to the terms of treaty, to send you back here, if the demand was made for your extradition." "I know all that," Grumbach replied, dumping the ash into his palm and casting it into the paper-basket. "I suppose that when conscience drives we must go on. But the princess has been found. The best thing you can do is to put your passports into immediate use and return to the States. You can do no good here." "Maybe." Grumbach refilled his pipe, lighted it, and without saying more went out and down into the street. Carmichael watched him through the window. Cloud after cloud of smoke ran wavering behind the exile. He was smoking like one deeply perturbed. "He's a queer codger, and it's a queer story. I don't believe I have heard it all, either. What was he really hunting for with those glasses? I give it up." He was not angry with Grumbach; rather he seemed to be drawn to him more closely than ever. Mad with love. That was the phrase. He conned it over and over; mad with love. That excused many things. How strangely the chess-men were moved! Had Grumbach not assisted in the abduction, her highness would in all probability have grown up as other princesses, artificial, cold, reserved, seldom touched by the fires of animated thought or action. In fact, had things been otherwise, he never would have ridden with her highness in the freshness of the morning--or fallen in love with her. By rights he ought to curse Grumbach; but for him he would still be captain of his heart. Mad with love! There was no doubt of it. And the phrase rang in his ear for some time. Grumbach was indeed perturbed, and this sensation was the result of what he had _not_ told his friend. _Gott!_ What was going on? He hadn't the least idea where his footsteps were leading him. He went on, his teeth set strongly on the horn mouthpiece of his pipe, his hands jammed in his pockets. And after a time he woke. He was in the Adlergasse. And of all that happy, noisy family, only he and Hermann left! In one of the open doorways, for it was warm, a final caress of vanishing summer, he saw a fat, youngish woman knitting woolen hose. Two or three children sprawled about her knees. There was that petulance of lip and forehead which marked the dissatisfaction of the coquette married. "Tekla!" Grumbach murmured. He was not conscious that he had paused, but the woman was. She eyed him with the mild indifference of the bovine. Then she dropped her glance and the shining needles clicked afresh. Grumbach forced his step onward. And for this! He laughed discordantly. The woman looked up again wonderingly. Now, why should this stranger laugh all by himself like that? Hans saw the sign of the Black Eagle, and directed his steps thitherward. He sat down and ordered a beer, drinking it quickly. He repeated the order, but he did not touch the second glass. He threw back the lid and stared at the creamy froth as a seer stares at his ball of crystal. Carmichael was right; he was a doddering fool. What was done was done, and a thousand consciences would not right it. And what right had conscience to drag him back to Ehrenstein, where he had known the bitterest and happiest moments of his life? And yet, rail as he might at this invisible restraint called conscience, he saw God's direction in this return. Only _he_, Hans Grumbach, knew and one other. And that other, who? Fat, Tekla was fat; and he had treasured the fair picture of her youth these long years! Well, there was an end to that. Little fat Tekla, to have nearly overturned a duchy, and never a bit the wiser! And then Hans became aware of voices close at hand, for he sat near the bar. "Yes, Fraeu, he is at work in the grand duke's vineyards. And think, the first day he picked nine baskets." "That is good. But I know many a one who can pick their twelve. And you are to be married when the vintage is done? You will make a fine wife, Gretchen." "And he, a fine husband." "And you will bring him a dowry, too. But his own people; what does he say of them?" "He has no parents; only an uncle, who doesn't count. We shall live with grandmother and pay her rent." "And you are wearing a new dress," admiringly. Gretchen preened herself. Hans dropped the lid of his stein and pushed it away. His heart always warmed at the sight of this goose-girl. So she had a dowry and was going to be married? He felt of his wallet, and a kindly thought came into being. He counted down the small change for the beer, slid back his chair, and sauntered to the bar. Gretchen recognized him, and the recognition brought a smile to her face. "Good day to you, Herr," was her greeting. "When is the wedding?" Gretchen blushed. "I should like to come to it." "You will be welcome, Herr." "And may I bring along a little present?" "If it so please you. I must be going," she added to Fraeu Bauer. "May I walk along with you?" asked Hans. "If you wish," diffidently. So Grumbach walked with her to the Krumerweg, and he asked her many questions, and some of her answers surprised him. "Never knew father or mother?" "No, Herr. I am only a foundling who fell into kind hands. This is where I live." "And if I should ask to come in?" "But I shall be too busy to talk. This is bread-day," evasively. "I promise to sit very quiet in a chair." Her laughter rippled; she was always close to that expression. "You are a funny man. Come in, then; but mind, you will be dusty with flour when you leave." "I will undertake that risk," he replied, with a seriousness not in tune with the comedy of the situation. Into the kitchen she led him. She was moved with curiosity. Why should any man wish to see a woman knead bread? "Sit there, Herr." And she pointed to a stool at the left of the table. The sunlight came in through the window, and an aureola appeared above her beautiful head. "Have you never seen a woman knead flour?" "Not for many years," said Hans, thinking of his mother. Gretchen deliberately rolled up her sleeves and began work. There are three things which human growth never changes: the lines in the hand, the shape of the ear, and scars. The head grows, and the general features enlarge to their predestined mold, but these three things remain. Upon Gretchen's left arm, otherwise perfection, there was a white scar, rough and uneven, more like an ancient burn than anything else. Grumbach's eyes rested upon the scar and became fixed. "Where did you get that?" he asked. He spoke with a strange calm. "The scar? I do not remember. Grandmother says that when I was little I must have been burned." "_Gott!_" "What did you say, Herr?" "Nothing. You can't remember? Think!" tensely now. "What's all this nonsense about?" she cried, with a nervous laugh. "It's only a scar." She went on with the kneading. She patted the dough into four squares. These she placed on the oven-stove. She wiped her hands on a cloth for that purpose, and sighed contentedly. "There! It's a fine mystery, isn't it?" "Yes." But Grumbach was shaking as with ague. "What is the matter, Herr?" with concern. "I grow dizzy like this sometimes. It doesn't amount to anything." Gretchen turned down her sleeves. "You must go now, for I have other work." "And so have I, Gretchen." He gained the street, but how he never knew. He floated. Objects near at hand were shadowy and unusual. A great calm suddenly winged down upon him, and the world became clear, clear as his purpose, his courage, his duty. They might shoot or hang him, as they saw fit; this would not deter him. It might be truthfully said that he blundered back to the Grand Hotel. He must lay the whole matter before Carmichael. There lay his one hope. Carmichael should be his ambassador. But, God in Heaven, where should he begin? How? The Gipsy, standing in the center of the walk, did not see Grumbach, for he was looking toward the palaces, a kind of whimsical mockery in his dark eyes. Grumbach, even more oblivious, crashed into him. Grumbach stammered an apology, and the other replied in his peculiar dialect that no harm had been done. The jar, however, had roused Hans out of his tragic musings. There was a glint of yellow in the Gipsy's eye, a flaw in the iris. Hans gave a cry. "You? I find you at this moment, of all others?" The Gipsy retreated. "I do not know you. It is a mistake." "But I know you," whispered Hans. "And you will know me when I tell you that I am the gardener's boy you ruined some sixteen years ago!" Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Es ist endlich Zeit für Ani, Finn und Talone zu gehen, und Gilsa verabschiedet sich von ihnen mit einer Umarmung. Als sie die Stadt erreichen, bringt Ani Talone zu dem Ort, an dem sie als Gänsemagd gewohnt hat, und dort entdeckt sie, dass Enna den Rest der Gruppe bereits über die Details informiert hat. Ani ist eine Prinzessin und die kronenstehlende Hochstaplerin im Palast ist eine Mörderin. Sie haben einen Informanten, Tatto, der dem König eine anonyme Nachricht schicken wird, in der steht, dass Selia eine Hochstaplerin ist, um den Grundstein für Ani zu legen. Die Arbeiter haben alle frei für die königliche Hochzeit, die in zwei Tagen stattfindet. Ani hat eine knappe Frist, um Selia als das zu entlarven, was sie wirklich ist. Conrad entschuldigt sich bei Ani, dass er sie verraten hat. Er kannte die Wahrheit über ihre Identität nicht und hat deshalb den ausländischen Wachen erzählt, dass sie sich als Gänsemagd versteckt hält. Ani weiß, dass er keine bösen Absichten hatte und verzeiht ihm sofort. Während alle miteinander reden, bemerkt Ani, dass Finn und Enna sich offenbar näher kommen und er genießt die Aufmerksamkeit von ihr. Es gibt jedoch keine Zeit, das weiter zu untersuchen, denn sie müssen die königliche Hochzeit aufhalten und die Hochstaplerprinzessin entlarven. Razo, Conrad, Enna, Finn und einige andere sind bereit, mitzugehen - Ani ist schockiert, dass sie ihr Leben für sie riskieren würden, während Talone den Plan bereithält. Erste Station? Der Palast. Das einzige Problem ist, dass der König nicht da ist, als sie ankommen. Tatto informiert sie über seinen Aufenthaltsort: Er ist nach Norden zum Lake Meginhard zur königlichen Hochzeit gereist. Während sie im Palast sind, beschließt Ani einen Zwischenstopp einzulegen, um das richtige Kostüm zu finden. Sie kann nicht als Gänsemagd behaupten, eine Prinzessin zu sein, daher nimmt sie eines ihrer Kleider aus Kildenree aus Selias Kleiderschrank. Ha. Ishta kommt herein und möchte kämpfen, und Talone besteht darauf, ihn zu besiegen - zu Ehren aller. Die beiden Männer greifen einander an, aber Talone ist zu schnell und Ishta zu wütend. Nachdem Ishta stirbt, teilt Talone Ani mit, dass er lieber keine Menschen töten möchte, aber manchmal muss es sein. Es gibt jedoch keine Zeit, anzuhalten und zu reden, also rennen Talone und Ani weiter zum Lake Meginhard.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Szene fünf. Fanfaren. Bullingbrooke betritt die Bühne, begleitet von York und anderen Lords und Bediensteten. Bul. Lieber Onkel York, die neuesten Nachrichten, die wir hören, sind, dass die Rebellen mit Feuer unsere Stadt Cicester in Gloucestershire zerstört haben. Aber ob sie gefangen genommen oder getötet wurden, wissen wir nicht. Northumberland tritt auf. Willkommen, mein Herr. Was gibt es Neues? Nor. Zuerst wünsche ich dir, deinem erhabenen Stand alle Glückseligkeit. Die nächste Nachricht ist, dass ich die Köpfe von Salsbury, Spencer, Blunt und Kent nach London geschickt habe. Die Art und Weise, wie sie gefangen genommen wurden, kann in diesem Papier ausführlich besprochen werden. Bul. Wir danken dir, freundlicher Percy, für deine Mühe, und deinem Wert werden wir gerechte Belohnungen hinzufügen. Fitzwaters tritt auf. Fitz. Mein Herr, ich habe von Oxford aus die Köpfe von Broccas und Sir Bennet Seely nach London geschickt. Es sind zwei gefährliche Verschwörer, die in Oxford nach deinem Untergang trachteten. Bul. Deine Mühe, Fitzwaters, wird nicht vergessen. Dein Verdienst ist äußerst edel, das weiß ich wohl. Percy und Carlile treten auf. Per. Der Hauptverschwörer, Abt von Westminster, hat mit dem Joch des Gewissens und bitterer Melancholie seinen Körper dem Grab übergeben. Aber hier ist Carlile, der lebt, um dein königliches Urteil und den Spruch über seinen Stolz zu ertragen. Bul. Carlile, dies ist dein Schicksal: Wähle einen geheimen Ort, einen ehrwürdigen Raum, größer als du bereits hast, und freue dich daran, dein Leben zu verbringen. Lebe in Frieden, sterbe frei von Streit: Denn obwohl du mein Feind bist, habe ich immer Funken von Ehre in dir gesehen. Exton mit einem Sarg tritt auf. Exton. Großer König, in diesem Sarg präsentiere ich dir deine begraben Furcht. Hierin liegt leblos der Mächtigste deiner größten Feinde, Richard von Bordeaux, den ich hierher gebracht habe. Bul. Exton, ich danke dir nicht, denn mit deiner verhängnisvollen Hand hast du eine Tat des Schlachtens vollbracht. Auf meinen Kopf und auf dieses berühmte Land. Ex. Ich habe diese Tat aus deinem eigenen Mund, mein Herr. Bul. Diejenigen, die Gift brauchen, lieben es nicht, noch brauche ich dich. Obwohl ich ihn tot wünschte, hasse ich den Mörder, liebe den Ermordeten. Die Schuld des Gewissens übernimm du für deine Mühe. Aber weder mein gutes Wort noch die Gunst eines Prinzen sollen dir zuteil werden. Wandere mit Kain durch den Schatten der Nacht und zeige niemals dein Haupt bei Tag oder Licht. Ihr Lords, ich bekenne, meine Seele ist voller Kummer, dass Blut mich bespritzt, um mich wachsen zu lassen. Kommt und trauert mit mir, denn ich beklage es und lege sofort trübe Schwarz an. Ich werde eine Reise ins Heilige Land machen, um dieses Blut von meiner schuldigen Hand abzuwaschen. Macht euch traurig auf den Weg hierher, um meine Trauer zu begleiten und weint um diesen vorzeitigen Sarg. Sie gehen ab. Ende. Das Leben und der Tod von König Richard dem Zweiten. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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In Pomfret Castle reflektiert der gefangene Richard. Er versucht, seine Gefängniszelle mit der Außenwelt zu vergleichen, aber das ist schwierig, weil er im Gefängnis alleine ist, während es in der Welt viele Menschen gibt. Er entscheidet, dass seine vielen Gedanken die Menschen in dieser Analogie zwischen Gefängnis und Welt darstellen werden. Genau wie Menschen in der Welt, nehmen Gedanken sehr unterschiedliche Formen an. Manche Gedanken sind heilige Gedanken, aber diese sind widersprüchlich, weil die Schriften sich manchmal selbst widersprechen. Andere Gedanken sind ehrgeizig, wiederum andere sollen eine Person zufrieden mit ihrem Schicksal machen. So spielt Richard mit all seinen widersprüchlichen Gedanken viele verschiedene Menschen, aber keiner von ihnen ist zufrieden. Er hört Musik spielen, was ihn zu melancholischeren Gedanken verleitet. Aber er bedankt sich bei der Person, die sie für ihn spielt, denn es zeigt, dass es immer noch etwas Liebe für Richard in einer Welt gibt, die ihn nun hasst. Ein Stallbursche tritt ein. Er erzählt Richard, dass er ein königlicher Stallbursche in den Tagen war, als Richard König war. Er hat sich Urlaub genommen, um seinen früheren Meister zu sehen. Er bemerkt, wie sehr es ihn bekümmert hat, am Tag von Heinrich IV. Krönung den König auf Barbarossa reiten zu sehen, was Richards Pferd war. Richard wünscht sich, dass das Pferd gestolpert und den stolzen Mann, der ihn geritten hat, gebrochen hätte. Ein Knecht kommt herein und bringt Richard Fleisch, und der Stallbursche geht. Richard bittet den Knecht, das Fleisch zuerst zu kosten, wie er es normalerweise tut, aber der Knecht sagt ihm, dass Exton, der gerade vom König gekommen ist, ihm gesagt hat, das nicht zu tun. Verärgert schlägt Richard den Knecht, der um Hilfe ruft. Die Mörder stürzen herein. Richard tötet einen von ihnen, bevor Exton ihn tötet. Exton bereut seine Tat sofort, nachdem er sie begangen hat.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: ACT III. Scene I. Elsinore. A room in the Castle. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Lords. King. And can you by no drift of circumstance Get from him why he puts on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted, But from what cause he will by no means speak. Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, But with a crafty madness keeps aloof When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state. Queen. Did he receive you well? Ros. Most like a gentleman. Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question, but of our demands Most free in his reply. Queen. Did you assay him To any pastime? Ros. Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o'erraught on the way. Of these we told him, And there did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it. They are here about the court, And, as I think, they have already order This night to play before him. Pol. 'Tis most true; And he beseech'd me to entreat your Majesties To hear and see the matter. King. With all my heart, and it doth much content me To hear him so inclin'd. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge And drive his purpose on to these delights. Ros. We shall, my lord. Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too; For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, That he, as 'twere by accident, may here Affront Ophelia. Her father and myself (lawful espials) Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen, We may of their encounter frankly judge And gather by him, as he is behav'd, If't be th' affliction of his love, or no, That thus he suffers for. Queen. I shall obey you; And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish That your good beauties be the happy cause Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues Will bring him to his wonted way again, To both your honours. Oph. Madam, I wish it may. [Exit Queen.] Pol. Ophelia, walk you here.- Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves.- [To Ophelia] Read on this book, That show of such an exercise may colour Your loneliness.- We are oft to blame in this, 'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage And pious action we do sugar o'er The Devil himself. King. [aside] O, 'tis too true! How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience! The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it Than is my deed to my most painted word. O heavy burthen! Pol. I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord. Exeunt King and Polonius]. Enter Hamlet. Ham. To be, or not to be- that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep- No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die- to sleep. To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub! For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death- The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns- puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action.- Soft you now! The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins rememb'red. Oph. Good my lord, How does your honour for this many a day? Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well. Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours That I have longed long to re-deliver. I pray you, now receive them. Ham. No, not I! I never gave you aught. Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did, And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost, Take these again; for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord. Ham. Ha, ha! Are you honest? Oph. My lord? Ham. Are you fair? Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Ham. You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not. Oph. I was the more deceived. Ham. Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? Oph. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's own house. Farewell. Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens! Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell. Oph. O heavenly powers, restore him! Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp; you nickname God's creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't! it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Those that are married already- all but one- shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. Exit. Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword, Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, Th' observ'd of all observers- quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck'd the honey of his music vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see! Enter King and Polonius. King. Love? his affections do not that way tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. There's something in his soul O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose Will be some danger; which for to prevent, I have in quick determination Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England For the demand of our neglected tribute. Haply the seas, and countries different, With variable objects, shall expel This something-settled matter in his heart, Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus From fashion of himself. What think you on't? Pol. It shall do well. But yet do I believe The origin and commencement of his grief Sprung from neglected love.- How now, Ophelia? You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said. We heard it all.- My lord, do as you please; But if you hold it fit, after the play Let his queen mother all alone entreat him To show his grief. Let her be round with him; And I'll be plac'd so please you, in the ear Of all their conference. If she find him not, To England send him; or confine him where Your wisdom best shall think. King. It shall be so. Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. Exeunt. Scene II. Elsinore. hall in the Castle. Enter Hamlet and three of the Players. Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as live the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the cars of the groundlings, who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it. Player. I warrant your honour. Ham. Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show Virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to speak it profanely), that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. Player. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us, sir. Ham. O, reform it altogether! And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them. For there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. That's villanous and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready. Exeunt Players. Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of work? Pol. And the Queen too, and that presently. Ham. Bid the players make haste, [Exit Polonius.] Will you two help to hasten them? Both. We will, my lord. Exeunt they two. Ham. What, ho, Horatio! Enter Horatio. Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service. Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversation cop'd withal. Hor. O, my dear lord! Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter; For what advancement may I hope from thee, That no revenue hast but thy good spirits To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal'd thee for herself. For thou hast been As one, in suff'ring all, that suffers nothing; A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger To sound what stop she please. Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee. Something too much of this I There is a play to-night before the King. One scene of it comes near the circumstance, Which I have told thee, of my father's death. I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, Even with the very comment of thy soul Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt Do not itself unkennel in one speech, It is a damned ghost that we have seen, And my imaginations are as foul As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note; For I mine eyes will rivet to his face, And after we will both our judgments join In censure of his seeming. Hor. Well, my lord. If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing, And scape detecting, I will pay the theft. Sound a flourish. [Enter Trumpets and Kettledrums. Danish march. [Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and other Lords attendant, with the Guard carrying torches. Ham. They are coming to the play. I must be idle. Get you a place. King. How fares our cousin Hamlet? Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish. I eat the air, promise-cramm'd. You cannot feed capons so. King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words are not mine. Ham. No, nor mine now. [To Polonius] My lord, you play'd once i' th' university, you say? Pol. That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor. Ham. What did you enact? Pol. I did enact Julius Caesar; I was kill'd i' th' Capitol; Brutus kill'd me. Ham. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be the players ready. Ros. Ay, my lord. They stay upon your patience. Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. Ham. No, good mother. Here's metal more attractive. Pol. [to the King] O, ho! do you mark that? Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap? [Sits down at Ophelia's feet.] Oph. No, my lord. Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap? Oph. Ay, my lord. Ham. Do you think I meant country matters? Oph. I think nothing, my lord. Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs. Oph. What is, my lord? Ham. Nothing. Oph. You are merry, my lord. Ham. Who, I? Oph. Ay, my lord. Ham. O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within 's two hours. Oph. Nay 'tis twice two months, my lord. Ham. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year. But, by'r Lady, he must build churches then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is 'For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!' Hautboys play. The dumb show enters. Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck. He lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleeper's ears, and leaves him. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes, comes in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems harsh and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love. Exeunt. Oph. What means this, my lord? Ham. Marry, this is miching malhecho; it means mischief. Oph. Belike this show imports the argument of the play. Enter Prologue. Ham. We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all. Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant? Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him. Be not you asham'd to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means. Oph. You are naught, you are naught! I'll mark the play. Pro. For us, and for our tragedy, Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently. [Exit.] Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord. Ham. As woman's love. Enter [two Players as] King and Queen. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground, And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen About the world have times twelve thirties been, Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands, Unite comutual in most sacred bands. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o'er ere love be done! But woe is me! you are so sick of late, So far from cheer and from your former state. That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust, Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must; For women's fear and love holds quantity, In neither aught, or in extremity. Now what my love is, proof hath made you know; And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so. Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there. King. Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too; My operant powers their functions leave to do. And thou shalt live in this fair world behind, Honour'd, belov'd, and haply one as kind For husband shalt thou- Queen. O, confound the rest! Such love must needs be treason in my breast. When second husband let me be accurst! None wed the second but who killed the first. Ham. [aside] Wormwood, wormwood! Queen. The instances that second marriage move Are base respects of thrift, but none of love. A second time I kill my husband dead When second husband kisses me in bed. King. I do believe you think what now you speak; But what we do determine oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory, Of violent birth, but poor validity; Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree, But fall unshaken when they mellow be. Most necessary 'tis that we forget To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt. What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy Their own enactures with themselves destroy. Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change; For 'tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. The great man down, you mark his favourite flies, The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies; And hitherto doth love on fortune tend, For who not needs shall never lack a friend, And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy. But, orderly to end where I begun, Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. So think thou wilt no second husband wed; But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead. Queen. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light, Sport and repose lock from me day and night, To desperation turn my trust and hope, An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope, Each opposite that blanks the face of joy Meet what I would have well, and it destroy, Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, If, once a widow, ever I be wife! Ham. If she should break it now! King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile. My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile The tedious day with sleep. Queen. Sleep rock thy brain, [He] sleeps. And never come mischance between us twain! Exit. Ham. Madam, how like you this play? Queen. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Ham. O, but she'll keep her word. King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't? Ham. No, no! They do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' th' world. King. What do you call the play? Ham. 'The Mousetrap.' Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murther done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of work; but what o' that? Your Majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the gall'd jade winch; our withers are unwrung. Enter Lucianus. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King. Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord. Ham. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying. Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Ham. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge. Oph. Still better, and worse. Ham. So you must take your husbands.- Begin, murtherer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin! Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge. Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing; Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property On wholesome life usurp immediately. Pours the poison in his ears. Ham. He poisons him i' th' garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago. The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murtherer gets the love of Gonzago's wife. Oph. The King rises. Ham. What, frighted with false fire? Queen. How fares my lord? Pol. Give o'er the play. King. Give me some light! Away! All. Lights, lights, lights! Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio. Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play; For some must watch, while some must sleep: Thus runs the world away. Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers- if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me-with two Provincial roses on my raz'd shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir? Hor. Half a share. Ham. A whole one I! For thou dost know, O Damon dear, This realm dismantled was Of Jove himself; and now reigns here A very, very- pajock. Hor. You might have rhym'd. Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound! Didst perceive? Hor. Very well, my lord. Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning? Hor. I did very well note him. Ham. Aha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders! For if the King like not the comedy, Why then, belike he likes it not, perdy. Come, some music! Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. Ham. Sir, a whole history. Guil. The King, sir- Ham. Ay, sir, what of him? Guil. Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper'd. Ham. With drink, sir? Guil. No, my lord; rather with choler. Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor; for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler. Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair. Ham. I am tame, sir; pronounce. Guil. The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit hath sent me to you. Ham. You are welcome. Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business. Ham. Sir, I cannot. Guil. What, my lord? Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseas'd. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter! My mother, you say- Ros. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration. Ham. O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? Impart. Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed. Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us? Ros. My lord, you once did love me. Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers! Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend. Ham. Sir, I lack advancement. Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark? Ham. Ay, sir, but 'while the grass grows'- the proverb is something musty. Enter the Players with recorders. O, the recorders! Let me see one. To withdraw with you- why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? Guil. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly. Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe? Guil. My lord, I cannot. Ham. I pray you. Guil. Believe me, I cannot. Ham. I do beseech you. Guil. I know, no touch of it, my lord. Ham. It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. Guil. But these cannot I command to any utt'rance of harmony. I have not the skill. Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. Enter Polonius. God bless you, sir! Pol. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently. Ham. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? Pol. By th' mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed. Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel. Pol. It is back'd like a weasel. Ham. Or like a whale. Pol. Very like a whale. Ham. Then will I come to my mother by-and-by.- They fool me to the top of my bent.- I will come by-and-by. Pol. I will say so. Exit. Ham. 'By-and-by' is easily said.- Leave me, friends. [Exeunt all but Hamlet.] 'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother! O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom. Let me be cruel, not unnatural; I will speak daggers to her, but use none. My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites- How in my words somever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent! Exit. Scene III. A room in the Castle. Enter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. King. I like him not, nor stands it safe with us To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you; I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you. The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow Out of his lunacies. Guil. We will ourselves provide. Most holy and religious fear it is To keep those many many bodies safe That live and feed upon your Majesty. Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armour of the mind To keep itself from noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests The lives of many. The cesse of majesty Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel, Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone Did the king sigh, but with a general groan. King. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage; For we will fetters put upon this fear, Which now goes too free-footed. Both. We will haste us. Exeunt Gentlemen. Enter Polonius. Szene IV. Der Raum der Königin. Die Königin und Polonius treten ein. Pol. Er wird gleich kommen. Passen Sie auf und behandeln Sie ihn deutlich. Sagen Sie ihm, dass seine Streiche zu weit gegangen sind, Und dass Euer Gnaden ihn vor viel Hitze geschützt und unterstützt haben. Ich werde mich hier sogar zurückhalten. Bitten Sie ihn, ehrlich mit ihm zu sein. Ham. (aus dem Inneren) Mutter, Mutter, Mutter! Königin. Ich versichere Ihnen, fürchten Sie sich nicht. Ziehen Sie sich zurück; ich höre ihn kommen. [Polonius versteckt sich hinter dem Wandteppich.] Hamlet tritt ein. Ham. Now, mother, what's the matter? Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet? Ham. What's the matter now? Queen. Have you forgot me? Ham. No, by the rood, not so! You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife, And (would it were not so!) you are my mother. Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak. Ham. Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge; You go not till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you. Queen. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me? Help, help, ho! Pol. [behind] What, ho! help, help, help! Ham. [draws] How now? a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead! [Makes a pass through the arras and] kills Polonius. Pol. [behind] O, I am slain! Queen. O me, what hast thou done? Ham. Nay, I know not. Is it the King? Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! Ham. A bloody deed- almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother. Queen. As kill a king? Ham. Ay, lady, it was my word. [Lifts up the arras and sees Polonius.] Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune. Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger. Leave wringing of your hands. Peace! sit you down And let me wring your heart; for so I shall If it be made of penetrable stuff; If damned custom have not braz'd it so That it is proof and bulwark against sense. Queen. What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me? Ham. Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty; Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows As false as dicers' oaths. O, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul, and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words! Heaven's face doth glow; Yea, this solidity and compound mass, With tristful visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act. Queen. Ah me, what act, That roars so loud and thunders in the index? Ham. Look here upon th's picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See what a grace was seated on this brow; Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill: A combination and a form indeed Where every god did seem to set his seal To give the world assurance of a man. This was your husband. Look you now what follows. Here is your husband, like a mildew'd ear Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes You cannot call it love; for at your age The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have, Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err, Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd But it reserv'd some quantity of choice To serve in such a difference. What devil was't That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind? Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, Or but a sickly part of one true sense Could not so mope. O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame When the compulsive ardour gives the charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn, And reason panders will. Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more! Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul, And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave their tinct. Ham. Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty! Queen. O, speak to me no more! These words like daggers enter in mine ears. No more, sweet Hamlet! Ham. A murtherer and a villain! A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings; A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And put it in his pocket! Queen. No more! Enter the Ghost in his nightgown. Ham. A king of shreds and patches!- Save me and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure? Queen. Alas, he's mad! Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by Th' important acting of your dread command? O, say! Ghost. Do not forget. This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. But look, amazement on thy mother sits. O, step between her and her fighting soul Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. Speak to her, Hamlet. Ham. How is it with you, lady? Queen. Alas, how is't with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy, And with th' encorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm, Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements, Start up and stand an end. O gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look? Ham. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.- Do not look upon me, Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects. Then what I have to do Will want true colour- tears perchance for blood. Queen. To whom do you speak this? Ham. Do you see nothing there? Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. Ham. Nor did you nothing hear? Queen. No, nothing but ourselves. Ham. Why, look you there! Look how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he liv'd! Look where he goes even now out at the portal! Exit Ghost. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in. Ham. Ecstasy? My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time And makes as healthful music. It is not madness That I have utt'red. Bring me to the test, And I the matter will reword; which madness Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul That not your trespass but my madness speaks. It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; For in the fatness of these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg- Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good. Queen. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the other half, Good night- but go not to my uncle's bed. Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat Of habits evil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery, That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence; the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either [master] the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency. Once more, good night; And when you are desirous to be blest, I'll blessing beg of you.- For this same lord, I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so, To punish me with this, and this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister. I will bestow him, and will answer well The death I gave him. So again, good night. I must be cruel, only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind. One word more, good lady. Queen. What shall I do? Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed; Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse; And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know; For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise, Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so? No, in despite of sense and secrecy, Unpeg the basket on the house's top, Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape, To try conclusions, in the basket creep And break your own neck down. Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me. Ham. I must to England; you know that? Queen. Alack, I had forgot! 'Tis so concluded on. Ham. There's letters seal'd; and my two schoolfellows, Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd, They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; For 'tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet When in one line two crafts directly meet. This man shall set me packing. I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.- Mother, good night.- Indeed, this counsellor Is now most still, most secret, and most grave, Who was in life a foolish peating knave. Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you. Good night, mother. [Exit the Queen. Then] Exit Hamlet, tugging in Polonius. Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Ein Gefolge, bestehend aus dem König und der Königin, Polonius und Ophelia sowie Rosencrantz und Guildenstern, betritt die Bühne, um den Akt einzuleiten. Claudius fragt Rosencrantz und Guildenstern, was sie über Hamlets Leiden herausgefunden haben. Die beiden antworten, dass sie nicht die Ursache dafür finden konnten. Sie erwähnen jedoch, dass Hamlet sehr begeistert von der Leistung der Schauspieler in dieser Nacht war, woraufhin Claudius zustimmt, dem Stück beizuwohnen. Rosencrantz und Guildenstern verlassen die Szene. Polonius und Claudius entwerfen dann ihren Plan, Ophelia auf Hamlet loszulassen und ihre Begegnung zu beobachten, in der Hoffnung, die Wurzel seines Wahnsinns zu finden. Sie instruieren Ophelia, so zu tun, als ob sie einfach ein Buch liest und sich hinter einem Wandteppich zurückzuziehen. Hamlet tritt ein und hält die berühmteste Rede der Literatur, beginnend mit den Worten "Sein oder Nichtsein". Nach dieser langen Betrachtung über die Natur des Seins und des Todes erblickt Hamlet Ophelia. Nach einem kurzen Gespräch versucht sie, ihm einige Erinnerungen zurückzugeben, die Hamlet ihr gegeben hatte, als er um sie warb. Hamlet antwortet bissig und stellt Ophelias Ehrlichkeit in Frage. Er tadelt Ophelia dann, beleidigt sie sarkastisch und giftig und wiederholt immer wieder den Refrain "Gehe ins Kloster", oder mit anderen Worten, "Werden Sie Nonne, um Ihre Wollust zu beherrschen". Nach diesem Wutausbruch verlässt Hamlet die Szene und lässt Ophelia am Boden zerstört zurück. Claudius und Polonius treten aus ihrem Versteck heraus. Der König erklärt, dass er nicht glaubt, dass Hamlet verrückt ist wegen seiner vereitelten Liebe zu Ophelia oder überhaupt verrückt ist, sondern aus irgendeinem verborgenen Grund gequält wird. Er beschließt, Hamlet auf eine diplomatische Mission nach England zu schicken, bevor er ernsthafte Probleme verursachen kann. Polonius unterstützt diesen Plan, besteht aber darauf, dass Hamlets Kummer das Ergebnis seiner Liebe zu Ophelia ist. Er tröstet seine Tochter. Polonius schlägt zum Abschied vor, dass Claudius ein privates Gespräch zwischen Hamlet und seiner Mutter nach dem Stück am Abend arrangiert, und Claudius stimmt zu. Szene 2 Kurz bevor das Stück beginnen soll, weist Hamlet die Schauspieler in der Kunst des Schauspielens an und sagt ihnen, sie sollen natürlich spielen und Bombast vermeiden. Er bereitet die Schauspieler vor und berät sich dann mit Horatio. Nachdem er Horatio aufs Höchste gelobt hat, bittet Hamlet seinen Freund, ihm dabei zu helfen, die Reaktion des Königs auf das Stück zu beobachten, das sie gerade sehen werden. Horatio setzt sich so, dass er den König richtig sehen kann. Der königliche Gefolgschaft betritt die Szene. Hamlet plappert wie verrückt mit Claudius, Polonius, Gertrude und Ophelia und widmet letzterer besondere Aufmerksamkeit, setzt er sich doch neben sie und neckt sie. Das Stück beginnt mit einem "Stummen Spiel", das eine Pantomime des kommenden Dramas ist. Auf der Bühne wird die grundlegende Form des angeblichen Mordes wiederholt: Ein König und eine Königin sind glücklich verheiratet; der König macht ein Nickerchen; ein Giftmischer tritt ein und gießt ihm etwas ins Ohr, tötet ihn; der Giftmischer nimmt dann Besitz von der Königin. Ophelia scheint von dieser Handlung verwirrt zu sein, aber Hamlet sagt ihr, sie solle darauf warten, dass der Sprecher des Prologs es erklärt. Der Prolog ist ein kurzes kleines Klingelreimchen. Der Spielerkönig und die Spielerkönigin betreten dann sofort die Bühne. Der König erwähnt, dass sie seit dreißig Jahren verheiratet sind. Die Spielerkönigin hofft, dass ihre Liebe noch einmal so lange anhält. Der König ermutigt die Königin, wieder zu heiraten, wenn er stirbt. Die Königin protestiert vehement gegen diese Vorstellung und schwört, nie wieder jemand anderen zu lieben, wenn sie Witwe würde. Daraufhin schläft der König ein und die Königin geht ab. Hamlet fragt seine Mutter Gertrude, wie ihr das Stück gefällt, und Gertrude antwortet mit den berühmten Worten: "Meinetwegen protestiert die Dame zu viel." Auch Claudius äußert sich offen besorgt über die Natur des Stücks. Es geht jedoch weiter mit dem Auftritt von Lucianus, dem schlafenden Neffen des Königs. Diese böse Figur schleicht sich an den schlafenden Spielerkönig heran und gießt ihm Gift ins Ohr. Hamlet, der sich nicht zurückhalten kann, ruft aus, dass Lucianus bald die Liebe der überprotestierenden Frau des Königs gewinnen wird. Daraufhin erhebt sich Claudius und ordnet das Ende des Stücks an. Er zieht sich mit seinem Gefolge zurück. Hamlet und Horatio lachen zusammen und sind sich nun sicher, dass der Geist die Wahrheit gesagt hat. Nach einer kurzen Feierlichkeit treten Rosencrantz und Guildenstern ein und erzählen Hamlet, dass er Claudius sehr verärgert hat. Sie sagen auch, dass Gertrude Hamlet befohlen hat, sie in ihrem Zimmer zu treffen. Dann bitten sie Hamlet, ihnen die Ursache für seine Verstimmung zu nennen. Hamlet antwortet spöttisch, dass sie versuchen, ihn wie eine Pfeife zu spielen, und dass er es ihnen nicht erlauben wird. Polonius betritt die Szene und bittet Hamlet erneut, seine Mutter zu sehen. Alle verlassen die Szene außer Hamlet. In einem kurzen Monolog überlegt Hamlet, dass er grausam zu seiner Mutter sein wird und ihr das Ausmaß ihres Verbrechens offenbart, Claudius zu heiraten, aber ihr tatsächlich nicht schaden wird. Szene 3 Claudius gibt Rosencrantz und Guildenstern einen versiegelten Umschlag mit der Anweisung, Hamlet nach England zu bringen und den Umschlag dem dortigen König zu übergeben. In schmeichelnden Worten stimmen sie zu, dem Befehl des Königs Folge zu leisten, und verlassen die Szene. Polonius tritt dann ein und sagt, dass Hamlet sich mit seiner Mutter treffen wird, und erklärt, dass er sich hinter einen Wandteppich verstecken will und ihr Gespräch belauschen will. Er verlässt die Szene. Allein im Raum betrachtet der König seine Seele. Er ist zutiefst angewidert von dem, was er sieht. Er kniet nieder, um zu beten, in der Hoffnung, seine Schuld zu reinigen, aber er überlegt, dass diese Buße nicht echt sein wird, weil er immer noch die Belohnungen behalten wird, für die er im ersten Moment den Mord begangen hat, nämlich seine Krone und seine Frau. Während Claudius vergeblich betet, tritt Hamlet von hinten an ihn heran. Er überlegt, dass er nun die Gelegenheit hat, seinen Onkel zu töten und seinen Vater zu rächen, hält aber inne und überlegt, dass Claudius, während er betet, wahrscheinlich gerade in den Himmel kommen würde, wenn er getötet wird. Hamlet beschließt, Claudius später zu töten, wenn er gerade mitten in einer sündigen Handlung ist. Er geht weiter in das Zimmer seiner Mutter. Szene 4 In dem Zimmer versteckt sich Polonius hinter einem der Vorhänge von Gertrude. Hamlet tritt ein. Gertrude versucht, fest und ermahndend zu sein, aber Hamlet kontert sofort, indem er sagt, dass sie großes Unrecht getan hat, indem sie den Bruder ihres Mannes geheiratet hat. Er zieht seine Mutter vor einen Spiegel und sagt, dass er ihr Innerstes offenbaren werde, und Gertrude interpretiert dies kurzzeitig falsch und denkt, dass Hamlet versuchen könnte, sie zu ermorden. Sie ruft um Hilfe. Polonius, der im Verborgenen ist, ruft auch um Hilfe. Hamlet hält die versteckte Stimme für die von Claudius. Er ersticht Polonius durch den Vorhang und tötet ihn. Als er sieht, dass er Polonius getötet hat, bezeichnet Hamlet den alten Mann als "rasenden, eindringenden Narren". Polonius' Tod schnell vergessend, setzt Hamlet seine Mutter und stellt ihr zwei Porträts vor, eines von ihrem ersten Ehemann und das andere von Claudius. Er

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: XXV. THE FIRST WEDDING. The June roses over the porch were awake bright and early on that morning, rejoicing with all their hearts in the cloudless sunshine, like friendly little neighbors, as they were. Quite flushed with excitement were their ruddy faces, as they swung in the wind, whispering to one another what they had seen; for some peeped in at the dining-room windows, where the feast was spread, some climbed up to nod and smile at the sisters as they dressed the bride, others waved a welcome to those who came and went on various errands in garden, porch, and hall, and all, from the rosiest full-blown flower to the palest baby-bud, offered their tribute of beauty and fragrance to the gentle mistress who had loved and tended them so long. Meg looked very like a rose herself; for all that was best and sweetest in heart and soul seemed to bloom into her face that day, making it fair and tender, with a charm more beautiful than beauty. Neither silk, lace, nor orange-flowers would she have. "I don't want to look strange or fixed up to-day," she said. "I don't want a fashionable wedding, but only those about me whom I love, and to them I wish to look and be my familiar self." So she made her wedding gown herself, sewing into it the tender hopes and innocent romances of a girlish heart. Her sisters braided up her pretty hair, and the only ornaments she wore were the lilies of the valley, which "her John" liked best of all the flowers that grew. "You _do_ look just like our own dear Meg, only so very sweet and lovely that I should hug you if it wouldn't crumple your dress," cried Amy, surveying her with delight, when all was done. "Then I am satisfied. But please hug and kiss me, every one, and don't mind my dress; I want a great many crumples of this sort put into it to-day;" and Meg opened her arms to her sisters, who clung about her with April faces for a minute, feeling that the new love had not changed the old. "Now I'm going to tie John's cravat for him, and then to stay a few minutes with father quietly in the study;" and Meg ran down to perform these little ceremonies, and then to follow her mother wherever she went, conscious that, in spite of the smiles on the motherly face, there was a secret sorrow hid in the motherly heart at the flight of the first bird from the nest. As the younger girls stand together, giving the last touches to their simple toilet, it may be a good time to tell of a few changes which three years have wrought in their appearance; for all are looking their best just now. Jo's angles are much softened; she has learned to carry herself with ease, if not grace. The curly crop has lengthened into a thick coil, more becoming to the small head atop of the tall figure. There is a fresh color in her brown cheeks, a soft shine in her eyes, and only gentle words fall from her sharp tongue to-day. Beth has grown slender, pale, and more quiet than ever; the beautiful, kind eyes are larger, and in them lies an expression that saddens one, although it is not sad itself. It is the shadow of pain which touches the young face with such pathetic patience; but Beth seldom complains, and always speaks hopefully of "being better soon." Amy is with truth considered "the flower of the family;" for at sixteen she has the air and bearing of a full-grown woman--not beautiful, but possessed of that indescribable charm called grace. One saw it in the lines of her figure, the make and motion of her hands, the flow of her dress, the droop of her hair,--unconscious, yet harmonious, and as attractive to many as beauty itself. Amy's nose still afflicted her, for it never _would_ grow Grecian; so did her mouth, being too wide, and having a decided chin. These offending features gave character to her whole face, but she never could see it, and consoled herself with her wonderfully fair complexion, keen blue eyes, and curls, more golden and abundant than ever. All three wore suits of thin silver gray (their best gowns for the summer), with blush-roses in hair and bosom; and all three looked just what they were,--fresh-faced, happy-hearted girls, pausing a moment in their busy lives to read with wistful eyes the sweetest chapter in the romance of womanhood. There were to be no ceremonious performances, everything was to be as natural and homelike as possible; so when Aunt March arrived, she was scandalized to see the bride come running to welcome and lead her in, to find the bridegroom fastening up a garland that had fallen down, and to catch a glimpse of the paternal minister marching upstairs with a grave countenance, and a wine-bottle under each arm. "Upon my word, here's a state of things!" cried the old lady, taking the seat of honor prepared for her, and settling the folds of her lavender _moire_ with a great rustle. "You oughtn't to be seen till the last minute, child." "I'm not a show, aunty, and no one is coming to stare at me, to criticise my dress, or count the cost of my luncheon. I'm too happy to care what any one says or thinks, and I'm going to have my little wedding just as I like it. John, dear, here's your hammer;" and away went Meg to help "that man" in his highly improper employment. Mr. Brooke didn't even say "Thank you," but as he stooped for the unromantic tool, he kissed his little bride behind the folding-door, with a look that made Aunt March whisk out her pocket-handkerchief, with a sudden dew in her sharp old eyes. A crash, a cry, and a laugh from Laurie, accompanied by the indecorous exclamation, "Jupiter Ammon! Jo's upset the cake again!" caused a momentary flurry, which was hardly over when a flock of cousins arrived, and "the party came in," as Beth used to say when a child. "Don't let that young giant come near me; he worries me worse than mosquitoes," whispered the old lady to Amy, as the rooms filled, and Laurie's black head towered above the rest. "He has promised to be very good to-day, and he _can_ be perfectly elegant if he likes," returned Amy, gliding away to warn Hercules to beware of the dragon, which warning caused him to haunt the old lady with a devotion that nearly distracted her. There was no bridal procession, but a sudden silence fell upon the room as Mr. March and the young pair took their places under the green arch. Mother and sisters gathered close, as if loath to give Meg up; the fatherly voice broke more than once, which only seemed to make the service more beautiful and solemn; the bridegroom's hand trembled visibly, and no one heard his replies; but Meg looked straight up in her husband's eyes, and said, "I will!" with such tender trust in her own face and voice that her mother's heart rejoiced, and Aunt March sniffed audibly. Jo did _not_ cry, though she was very near it once, and was only saved from a demonstration by the consciousness that Laurie was staring fixedly at her, with a comical mixture of merriment and emotion in his wicked black eyes. Beth kept her face hidden on her mother's shoulder, but Amy stood like a graceful statue, with a most becoming ray of sunshine touching her white forehead and the flower in her hair. It wasn't at all the thing, I'm afraid, but the minute she was fairly married, Meg cried, "The first kiss for Marmee!" and, turning, gave it with her heart on her lips. During the next fifteen minutes she looked more like a rose than ever, for every one availed themselves of their privileges to the fullest extent, from Mr. Laurence to old Hannah, who, adorned with a head-dress fearfully and wonderfully made, fell upon her in the hall, crying, with a sob and a chuckle, "Bless you, deary, a hundred times! The cake ain't hurt a mite, and everything looks lovely." Everybody cleared up after that, and said something brilliant, or tried to, which did just as well, for laughter is ready when hearts are light. There was no display of gifts, for they were already in the little house, nor was there an elaborate breakfast, but a plentiful lunch of cake and fruit, dressed with flowers. Mr. Laurence and Aunt March shrugged and smiled at one another when water, lemonade, and coffee were found to be the only sorts of nectar which the three Hebes carried round. No one said anything, however, till Laurie, who insisted on serving the bride, appeared before her, with a loaded salver in his hand and a puzzled expression on his face. "Has Jo smashed all the bottles by accident?" he whispered, "or am I merely laboring under a delusion that I saw some lying about loose this morning?" "No; your grandfather kindly offered us his best, and Aunt March actually sent some, but father put away a little for Beth, and despatched the rest to the Soldiers' Home. You know he thinks that wine should be used only in illness, and mother says that neither she nor her daughters will ever offer it to any young man under her roof." Meg spoke seriously, and expected to see Laurie frown or laugh; but he did neither, for after a quick look at her, he said, in his impetuous way, "I like that! for I've seen enough harm done to wish other women would think as you do." "You are not made wise by experience, I hope?" and there was an anxious accent in Meg's voice. "No; I give you my word for it. Don't think too well of me, either; this is not one of my temptations. Being brought up where wine is as common as water, and almost as harmless, I don't care for it; but when a pretty girl offers it, one doesn't like to refuse, you see." "But you will, for the sake of others, if not for your own. Come, Laurie, promise, and give me one more reason to call this the happiest day of my life." A demand so sudden and so serious made the young man hesitate a moment, for ridicule is often harder to bear than self-denial. Meg knew that if he gave the promise he would keep it at all costs; and, feeling her power, used it as a woman may for her friend's good. She did not speak, but she looked up at him with a face made very eloquent by happiness, and a smile which said, "No one can refuse me anything to-day." Laurie certainly could not; and, with an answering smile, he gave her his hand, saying heartily, "I promise, Mrs. Brooke!" "I thank you, very, very much." "And I drink 'long life to your resolution,' Teddy," cried Jo, baptizing him with a splash of lemonade, as she waved her glass, and beamed approvingly upon him. So the toast was drunk, the pledge made, and loyally kept, in spite of many temptations; for, with instinctive wisdom, the girls had seized a happy moment to do their friend a service, for which he thanked them all his life. After lunch, people strolled about, by twos and threes, through house and garden, enjoying the sunshine without and within. Meg and John happened to be standing together in the middle of the grass-plot, when Laurie was seized with an inspiration which put the finishing touch to this unfashionable wedding. "All the married people take hands and dance round the new-made husband and wife, as the Germans do, while we bachelors and spinsters prance in couples outside!" cried Laurie, promenading down the path with Amy, with such infectious spirit and skill that every one else followed their example without a murmur. Mr. and Mrs. March, Aunt and Uncle Carrol, began it; others rapidly joined in; even Sallie Moffat, after a moment's hesitation, threw her train over her arm, and whisked Ned into the ring. But the crowning joke was Mr. Laurence and Aunt March; for when the stately old gentleman _chasséed_ solemnly up to the old lady, she just tucked her cane under her arm, and hopped briskly away to join hands with the rest, and dance about the bridal pair, while the young folks pervaded the garden, like butterflies on a midsummer day. Want of breath brought the impromptu ball to a close, and then people began to go. "I wish you well, my dear, I heartily wish you well; but I think you'll be sorry for it," said Aunt March to Meg, adding to the bridegroom, as he led her to the carriage, "You've got a treasure, young man, see that you deserve it." "That is the prettiest wedding I've been to for an age, Ned, and I don't see why, for there wasn't a bit of style about it," observed Mrs. Moffat to her husband, as they drove away. "Laurie, my lad, if you ever want to indulge in this sort of thing, get one of those little girls to help you, and I shall be perfectly satisfied," said Mr. Laurence, settling himself in his easy-chair to rest, after the excitement of the morning. "I'll do my best to gratify you, sir," was Laurie's unusually dutiful reply, as he carefully unpinned the posy Jo had put in his button-hole. The little house was not far away, and the only bridal journey Meg had was the quiet walk with John, from the old home to the new. When she came down, looking like a pretty Quakeress in her dove-colored suit and straw bonnet tied with white, they all gathered about her to say "good-by," as tenderly as if she had been going to make the grand tour. "Don't feel that I am separated from you, Marmee dear, or that I love you any the less for loving John so much," she said, clinging to her mother, with full eyes, for a moment. "I shall come every day, father, and expect to keep my old place in all your hearts, though I _am_ married. Beth is going to be with me a great deal, and the other girls will drop in now and then to laugh at my housekeeping struggles. Thank you all for my happy wedding-day. Good-by, good-by!" They stood watching her, with faces full of love and hope and tender pride, as she walked away, leaning on her husband's arm, with her hands full of flowers, and the June sunshine brightening her happy face,--and so Meg's married life began. [Illustration: Artistic Attempts] Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Die erste Hochzeit Meks Hochzeit ist einfach, denn sie möchte alles schlicht, ehrlich und von Liebe umgeben haben. Sie hat ihr eigenes Hochzeitskleid gemacht, nur mit Blumen als Accessoires. Tante March ist empört, als sie ankommt und von der Braut selbst begrüßt wird. Während der Zeremonie werden die Gelübde mit großer Ernsthaftigkeit und Liebe gesprochen, Meg gibt den ersten Kuss für Marmee und ihre Schwestern. In den vergangenen drei Jahren hat sich Jos Gesicht und Zunge besänftigt und ihr Haar ist lang gewachsen. Beth ist blass und dünn, immer noch schwach, aber fröhlich. Amy ist wirklich erblüht, jetzt sechzehn Jahre alt und voller Anmut. Das Mittagessen ist einfach, mit dem Wein, den Mr. Laurence geschickt hat, und Tante March ist nirgendwo zu finden, was Mr. und Mrs. March missbilligen. Meg erzählt Laurie das und als sie erfährt, dass er gelegentlich trinkt, nutzt sie die Gelegenheit, um Laurie zu bitten, in Zukunft auf Alkohol zu verzichten, indem er ein Enthaltsamkeitsversprechen ablegt, was er auch tut. Nach der Hochzeit ruft jeder aus, wie schön es war, trotz der Einfachheit. Mr. Laurence sagt Laurie, dass wenn er jemals heiraten möchte, er hofft, dass Laurie sich für ein March-Mädchen entscheiden wird, und Laurie sagt, er werde sein Bestes tun. Megs Eheleben beginnt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Scene IV. A street. Enter Benvolio and Mercutio. Mer. Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home to-night? Ben. Not to his father's. I spoke with his man. Mer. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, Torments him so that he will sure run mad. Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, Hath sent a letter to his father's house. Mer. A challenge, on my life. Ben. Romeo will answer it. Mer. Any man that can write may answer a letter. Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared. Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabb'd with a white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a love song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft; and is he a man to encounter Tybalt? Ben. Why, what is Tybalt? Mer. More than Prince of Cats, I can tell you. O, he's the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing pricksong-keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom! the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist! a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverse! the hay. Ben. The what? Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes- these new tuners of accent! 'By Jesu, a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsir, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O, their bones, their bones! Enter Romeo. Ben. Here comes Romeo! here comes Romeo! Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen wench (marry, she had a better love to berhyme her), Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, This be a gray eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour! There's a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night. Rom. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you? Mer. The slip, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive? Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy. Mer. That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams. Rom. Meaning, to cursy. Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it. Rom. A most courteous exposition. Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. Rom. Pink for flower. Mer. Right. Rom. Why, then is my pump well-flower'd. Mer. Well said! Follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump, that, when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain, after the wearing, solely singular. Rom. O single-sold jest, solely singular for the singleness! Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio! My wits faint. Rom. Swits and spurs, swits and spurs! or I'll cry a match. Mer. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for thou hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose? Rom. Thou wast never with me for anything when thou wast not there for the goose. Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest. Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not! Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce. Rom. And is it not, then, well serv'd in to a sweet goose? Mer. O, here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad! Rom. I stretch it out for that word 'broad,' which, added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose. Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature. For this drivelling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole. Ben. Stop there, stop there! Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair. Ben. Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large. Mer. O, thou art deceiv'd! I would have made it short; for I was come to the whole depth of my tale, and meant indeed to occupy the argument no longer. Rom. Here's goodly gear! Enter Nurse and her Man [Peter]. Mer. A sail, a sail! Ben. Two, two! a shirt and a smock. Nurse. Peter! Peter. Anon. Nurse. My fan, Peter. Mer. Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer face of the two. Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen. Mer. God ye good-den, fair gentlewoman. Nurse. Is it good-den? Mer. 'Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon. Nurse. Out upon you! What a man are you! Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar. Nurse. By my troth, it is well said. 'For himself to mar,' quoth 'a? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo? Rom. I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when you have found him than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse. Nurse. You say well. Mer. Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i' faith! wisely, wisely. Nurse. If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you. Ben. She will endite him to some supper. Mer. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho! Rom. What hast thou found? Mer. No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent He walks by them and sings. An old hare hoar, And an old hare hoar, Is very good meat in Lent; But a hare that is hoar Is too much for a score When it hoars ere it be spent. Romeo, will you come to your father's? We'll to dinner thither. Rom. I will follow you. Mer. Farewell, ancient lady. Farewell, [sings] lady, lady, lady. Exeunt Mercutio, Benvolio. Nurse. Marry, farewell! I Pray you, Sir, what saucy merchant was this that was so full of his ropery? Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month. Nurse. An 'a speak anything against me, I'll take him down, an 'a were lustier than he is, and twenty such jacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure! Peter. I saw no man use you at his pleasure. If I had, my weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you. I dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side. Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word; and, as I told you, my young lady bid me enquire you out. What she bid me say, I will keep to myself; but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they say; for the gentlewoman is young; and therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were an ill thing to be off'red to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing. Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto thee- Nurse. Good heart, and I faith I will tell her as much. Lord, Lord! she will be a joyful woman. Rom. What wilt thou tell her, nurse? Thou dost not mark me. Nurse. I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer. Rom. Bid her devise Some means to come to shrift this afternoon; And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell Be shriv'd and married. Here is for thy pains. Nurse. No, truly, sir; not a penny. Rom. Go to! I say you shall. Nurse. This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there. Rom. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall. Within this hour my man shall be with thee And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair, Which to the high topgallant of my joy Must be my convoy in the secret night. Farewell. Be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains. Farewell. Commend me to thy mistress. Nurse. Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir. Rom. What say'st thou, my dear nurse? Nurse. Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say, Two may keep counsel, putting one away? Rom. I warrant thee my man's as true as steel. Nurse. Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord! when 'twas a little prating thing- O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lieve see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the properer man; but I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter? Rom. Ay, nurse; what of that? Both with an R. Nurse. Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name. R is for the- No; I know it begins with some other letter; and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it. Rom. Commend me to thy lady. Nurse. Ay, a thousand times. [Exit Romeo.] Peter! Peter. Anon. Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before, and apace. Exeunt. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Am Morgen nach dem Fest der Capulets suchen Mercutio und Benvolio nach Romeo. Mercutio gibt Romeos Abwesenheit seiner Liebe zu der "blassen, hartherzigen Zimperliese" Rosaline die Schuld. Benvolio hat herausgefunden, dass Tybalt Romeo zu einem Duell herausgefordert hat, und Mercutio amüsiert sich über den Gedanken an eine Begegnung zwischen Romeo, dem Romantiker, und Tybalt, dem modischen "Prinzen der Katzen". Romeo trifft ein und beginnt einen langen Reigen von miteinander verknüpften Wortspielen und Spitzfindigkeiten mit Mercutio. Die Amme erscheint mit ihrem Diener Peter und sucht nach Romeo. Mercutio macht sie mit seinen schnellen, scharfen Spottreden wütend. Mercutio geht mit Benvolio und Romeo erzählt der Amme, dass Juliet ihn um 14 Uhr nachmittags in der Zelle von Friar Laurence treffen soll, um zu heiraten. Die Amme soll eine Strickleiter von Romeo besorgen, damit er am Hochzeitsabend durch Juliets Fenster klettern kann.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: BOOK VII. Descend from Heav'n URANIA, by that name If rightly thou art call'd, whose Voice divine Following, above th' OLYMPIAN Hill I soare, Above the flight of PEGASEAN wing. The meaning, not the Name I call: for thou Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top Of old OLYMPUS dwell'st, but Heav'nlie borne, Before the Hills appeerd, or Fountain flow'd, Thou with Eternal wisdom didst converse, Wisdom thy Sister, and with her didst play In presence of th' Almightie Father, pleas'd With thy Celestial Song. Up led by thee Into the Heav'n of Heav'ns I have presum'd, An Earthlie Guest, and drawn Empyreal Aire, Thy tempring; with like safetie guided down Return me to my Native Element: Least from this flying Steed unrein'd, (as once BELLEROPHON, though from a lower Clime) Dismounted, on th' ALEIAN Field I fall Erroneous, there to wander and forlorne. Half yet remaines unsung, but narrower bound Within the visible Diurnal Spheare; Standing on Earth, not rapt above the Pole, More safe I Sing with mortal voice, unchang'd To hoarce or mute, though fall'n on evil dayes, On evil dayes though fall'n, and evil tongues; In darkness, and with dangers compast rouud, And solitude; yet not alone, while thou Visit'st my slumbers Nightly, or when Morn Purples the East: still govern thou my Song, URANIA, and fit audience find, though few. But drive farr off the barbarous dissonance Of BACCHUS and his Revellers, the Race Of that wilde Rout that tore the THRACIAN Bard In RHODOPE, where Woods and Rocks had Eares To rapture, till the savage clamor dround Both Harp and Voice; nor could the Muse defend Her Son. So fail not thou, who thee implores: For thou art Heav'nlie, shee an empty dreame. Say Goddess, what ensu'd when RAPHAEL, The affable Arch-angel, had forewarn'd ADAM by dire example to beware Apostasie, by what befell in Heaven To those Apostates, least the like befall In Paradise to ADAM or his Race, Charg'd not to touch the interdicted Tree, If they transgress, and slight that sole command, So easily obeyd amid the choice Of all tasts else to please thir appetite, Though wandring. He with his consorted EVE The storie heard attentive, and was fill'd With admiration, and deep Muse to heare Of things so high and strange, things to thir thought So unimaginable as hate in Heav'n, And Warr so neer the Peace of God in bliss With such confusion: but the evil soon Driv'n back redounded as a flood on those From whom it sprung, impossible to mix With Blessedness. Whence ADAM soon repeal'd The doubts that in his heart arose: and now Led on, yet sinless, with desire to know What neerer might concern him, how this World Of Heav'n and Earth conspicuous first began, When, and whereof created, for what cause, What within EDEN or without was done Before his memorie, as one whose drouth Yet scarce allay'd still eyes the current streame, Whose liquid murmur heard new thirst excites, Proceeded thus to ask his Heav'nly Guest. Great things, and full of wonder in our eares, Farr differing from this World, thou hast reveal'd Divine Interpreter, by favour sent Down from the Empyrean to forewarne Us timely of what might else have bin our loss, Unknown, which human knowledg could not reach: For which to the infinitly Good we owe Immortal thanks, and his admonishment Receave with solemne purpose to observe Immutably his sovran will, the end Of what we are. But since thou hast voutsaf't Gently for our instruction to impart Things above Earthly thought, which yet concernd Our knowing, as to highest wisdom seemd, Deign to descend now lower, and relate What may no less perhaps availe us known, How first began this Heav'n which we behold Distant so high, with moving Fires adornd Innumerable, and this which yeelds or fills All space, the ambient Aire wide interfus'd Imbracing round this florid Earth, what cause Mov'd the Creator in his holy Rest Through all Eternitie so late to build In CHAOS, and the work begun, how soon Absolv'd, if unforbid thou maist unfould What wee, not to explore the secrets aske Of his Eternal Empire, but the more To magnifie his works, the more we know. And the great Light of Day yet wants to run Much of his Race though steep, suspens in Heav'n Held by thy voice, thy potent voice he heares, And longer will delay to heare thee tell His Generation, and the rising Birth Of Nature from the unapparent Deep: Or if the Starr of Eevning and the Moon Haste to thy audience, Night with her will bring Silence, and Sleep listning to thee will watch, Or we can bid his absence, till thy Song End, and dismiss thee ere the Morning shine. Thus ADAM his illustrous Guest besought: And thus the Godlike Angel answerd milde. This also thy request with caution askt Obtaine: though to recount Almightie works What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice, Or heart of man suffice to comprehend? Yet what thou canst attain, which best may serve To glorifie the Maker, and inferr Thee also happier, shall not be withheld Thy hearing, such Commission from above I have receav'd, to answer thy desire Of knowledge within bounds; beyond abstain To ask, nor let thine own inventions hope Things not reveal'd, which th' invisible King, Onely Omniscient, hath supprest in Night, To none communicable in Earth or Heaven: Anough is left besides to search and know. But Knowledge is as food, and needs no less Her Temperance over Appetite, to know In measure what the mind may well contain, Oppresses else with Surfet, and soon turns Wisdom to Folly, as Nourishment to Winde. Know then, that after LUCIFER from Heav'n (So call him, brighter once amidst the Host Of Angels, then that Starr the Starrs among) Fell with his flaming Legions through the Deep Into his place, and the great Son returnd Victorious with his Saints, th' Omnipotent Eternal Father from his Throne beheld Thir multitude, and to his Son thus spake. At least our envious Foe hath fail'd, who thought All like himself rebellious, by whose aid This inaccessible high strength, the seat Of Deitie supream, us dispossest, He trusted to have seis'd, and into fraud Drew many, whom thir place knows here no more; Yet farr the greater part have kept, I see, Thir station, Heav'n yet populous retaines Number sufficient to possess her Realmes Though wide, and this high Temple to frequent With Ministeries due and solemn Rites: But least his heart exalt him in the harme Already done, to have dispeopl'd Heav'n, My damage fondly deem'd, I can repaire That detriment, if such it be to lose Self-lost, and in a moment will create Another World, out of one man a Race Of men innumerable, there to dwell, Not here, till by degrees of merit rais'd They open to themselves at length the way Up hither, under long obedience tri'd, And Earth be chang'd to Heavn, & Heav'n to Earth, One Kingdom, Joy and Union without end. Mean while inhabit laxe, ye Powers of Heav'n, And thou my Word, begotten Son, by thee This I perform, speak thou, and be it don: My overshadowing Spirit and might with thee I send along, ride forth, and bid the Deep Within appointed bounds be Heav'n and Earth, Boundless the Deep, because I am who fill Infinitude, nor vacuous the space. Though I uncircumscrib'd my self retire, And put not forth my goodness, which is free To act or not, Necessitie and Chance Approach not mee, and what I will is Fate. So spake th' Almightie, and to what he spake His Word, the Filial Godhead, gave effect. Immediate are the Acts of God, more swift Then time or motion, but to human ears Cannot without process of speech be told, So told as earthly notion can receave. Great triumph and rejoycing was in Heav'n When such was heard declar'd the Almightie's will; Glorie they sung to the most High, good will To future men, and in thir dwellings peace: Glorie to him whose just avenging ire Had driven out th' ungodly from his sight And th' habitations of the just; to him Glorie and praise, whose wisdom had ordain'd Good out of evil to create, in stead Of Spirits maligne a better Race to bring Into thir vacant room, and thence diffuse His good to Worlds and Ages infinite. So sang the Hierarchies: Mean while the Son On his great Expedition now appeer'd, Girt with Omnipotence, with Radiance crown'd Of Majestie Divine, Sapience and Love Immense, and all his Father in him shon. About his Chariot numberless were pour'd Cherub and Seraph, Potentates and Thrones, And Vertues, winged Spirits, and Chariots wing'd, From the Armoury of God, where stand of old Myriads between two brazen Mountains lodg'd Against a solemn day, harnest at hand, Celestial Equipage; and now came forth Spontaneous, for within them Spirit livd, Attendant on thir Lord: Heav'n op'nd wide Her ever during Gates, Harmonious sound On golden Hinges moving, to let forth The King of Glorie in his powerful Word And Spirit coming to create new Worlds. On heav'nly ground they stood, and from the shore They view'd the vast immeasurable Abyss Outrageous as a Sea, dark, wasteful, wilde, Up from the bottom turn'd by furious windes And surging waves, as Mountains to assault Heav'ns highth, and with the Center mix the Pole. Silence, ye troubl'd waves, and thou Deep, peace, Said then th' Omnific Word, your discord end: Nor staid, but on the Wings of Cherubim Uplifted, in Paternal Glorie rode Farr into CHAOS, and the World unborn; For CHAOS heard his voice: him all his Traine Follow'd in bright procession to behold Creation, and the wonders of his might. Then staid the fervid Wheeles, and in his hand He took the golden Compasses, prepar'd In Gods Eternal store, to circumscribe This Universe, and all created things: One foot he center'd, and the other turn'd Round through the vast profunditie obscure, And said, thus farr extend, thus farr thy bounds, This be thy just Circumference, O World. Thus God the Heav'n created, thus the Earth, Matter unform'd and void: Darkness profound Cover'd th' Abyss: but on the watrie calme His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspred, And vital vertue infus'd, and vital warmth Throughout the fluid Mass, but downward purg'd The black tartareous cold infernal dregs Adverse to life: then founded, then conglob'd Like things to like, the rest to several place Disparted, and between spun out the Air, And Earth self-ballanc't on her Center hung. Let ther be Light, said God, and forthwith Light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure Sprung from the Deep, and from her Native East To journie through the airie gloom began, Sphear'd in a radiant Cloud, for yet the Sun Was not; shee in a cloudie Tabernacle Sojourn'd the while. God saw the Light was good; And light from darkness by the Hemisphere Divided: Light the Day, and Darkness Night He nam'd. Thus was the first Day Eev'n and Morn: Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung By the Celestial Quires, when Orient Light Exhaling first from Darkness they beheld; Birth-day of Heav'n and Earth; with joy and shout The hollow Universal Orb they fill'd, And touch't thir Golden Harps, & hymning prais'd God and his works, Creatour him they sung, Both when first Eevning was, and when first Morn. Again, God said, let ther be Firmament Amid the Waters, and let it divide The Waters from the Waters: and God made The Firmament, expanse of liquid, pure, Transparent, Elemental Air, diffus'd In circuit to the uttermost convex Of this great Round: partition firm and sure, The Waters underneath from those above Dividing: for as Earth, so hee the World Built on circumfluous Waters calme, in wide Crystallin Ocean, and the loud misrule Of CHAOS farr remov'd, least fierce extreames Contiguous might distemper the whole frame: And Heav'n he nam'd the Firmament: So Eev'n And Morning CHORUS sung the second Day. The Earth was form'd, but in the Womb as yet Of Waters, Embryon immature involv'd, Appeer'd not: over all the face of Earth Main Ocean flow'd, not idle, but with warme Prolific humour soft'ning all her Globe, Fermented the great Mother to conceave, Satiate with genial moisture, when God said Be gather'd now ye Waters under Heav'n Into one place, and let dry Land appeer. Immediately the Mountains huge appeer Emergent, and thir broad bare backs upheave Into the Clouds, thir tops ascend the Skie: So high as heav'd the tumid Hills, so low Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep, Capacious bed of Waters: thither they Hasted with glad precipitance, uprowld As drops on dust conglobing from the drie; Part rise in crystal Wall, or ridge direct, For haste; such flight the great command impress'd On the swift flouds: as Armies at the call Of Trumpet (for of Armies thou hast heard) Troop to thir Standard, so the watrie throng, Wave rowling after Wave, where way they found, If steep, with torrent rapture, if through Plaine, Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them Rock or Hill, But they, or under ground, or circuit wide With Serpent errour wandring, found thir way, And on the washie Oose deep Channels wore; Easie, e're God had bid the ground be drie, All but within those banks, where Rivers now Stream, and perpetual draw thir humid traine. The dry Land, Earth, and the great receptacle Of congregated Waters he call'd Seas: And saw that it was good, and said, Let th' Earth Put forth the verdant Grass, Herb yeilding Seed, And Fruit Tree yeilding Fruit after her kind; Whose Seed is in her self upon the Earth. He scarce had said, when the bare Earth, till then Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorn'd, Brought forth the tender Grass, whose verdure clad Her Universal Face with pleasant green, Then Herbs of every leaf, that sudden flour'd Op'ning thir various colours, and made gay Her bosom smelling sweet: and these scarce blown, Forth flourish't thick the clustring Vine, forth crept The smelling Gourd, up stood the cornie Reed Embattell'd in her field: add the humble Shrub, And Bush with frizl'd hair implicit: last Rose as in Dance the stately Trees, and spred Thir branches hung with copious Fruit; or gemm'd Thir Blossoms: with high Woods the Hills were crownd, With tufts the vallies & each fountain side, With borders long the Rivers. That Earth now Seemd like to Heav'n, a seat where Gods might dwell, Or wander with delight, and love to haunt Her sacred shades: though God had yet not rain'd Upon the Earth, and man to till the ground None was, but from the Earth a dewie Mist Went up and waterd all the ground, and each Plant of the field, which e're it was in the Earth God made, and every Herb, before it grew On the green stemm; God saw that it was good: So Eev'n and Morn recorded the Third Day. Again th' Almightie spake: Let there be Lights High in th' expanse of Heaven to divide The Day from Night; and let them be for Signes, For Seasons, and for Dayes, and circling Years, And let them be for Lights as I ordaine Thir Office in the Firmament of Heav'n To give Light on the Earth; and it was so. And God made two great Lights, great for thir use To Man, the greater to have rule by Day, The less by Night alterne: and made the Starrs, And set them in the Firmament of Heav'n To illuminate the Earth, and rule the Day In thir vicissitude, and rule the Night, And Light from Darkness to divide. God saw, Surveying his great Work, that it was good: For of Celestial Bodies first the Sun A mightie Spheare he fram'd, unlightsom first, Though of Ethereal Mould: then form'd the Moon Globose, and everie magnitude of Starrs, And sowd with Starrs the Heav'n thick as a field: Of Light by farr the greater part he took, Transplanted from her cloudie Shrine, and plac'd In the Suns Orb, made porous to receive And drink the liquid Light, firm to retaine Her gather'd beams, great Palace now of Light. Hither as to thir Fountain other Starrs Repairing, in thir gold'n Urns draw Light, And hence the Morning Planet guilds his horns; By tincture or reflection they augment Thir small peculiar, though from human sight So farr remote, with diminution seen. First in his East the glorious Lamp was seen, Regent of Day, and all th' Horizon round Invested with bright Rayes, jocond to run His Longitude through Heav'ns high rode: the gray Dawn, and the PLEIADES before him danc'd Shedding sweet influence: less bright the Moon, But opposite in leveld West was set His mirror, with full face borrowing her Light From him, for other light she needed none In that aspect, and still that distance keepes Till night, then in the East her turn she shines, Revolvd on Heav'ns great Axle, and her Reign With thousand lesser Lights dividual holds, With thousand thousand Starres, that then appeer'd Spangling the Hemisphere: then first adornd With thir bright Luminaries that Set and Rose, Glad Eevning & glad Morn crownd the fourth day. And God said, let the Waters generate Reptil with Spawn abundant, living Soule: And let Fowle flie above the Earth, with wings Displayd on the op'n Firmament of Heav'n. And God created the great Whales, and each Soul living, each that crept, which plenteously The waters generated by thir kindes, And every Bird of wing after his kinde; And saw that it was good, and bless'd them, saying, Be fruitful, multiply, and in the Seas And Lakes and running Streams the waters fill; And let the Fowle be multiply'd on the Earth. Forthwith the Sounds and Seas, each Creek & Bay With Frie innumerable swarme, and Shoales Of Fish that with thir Finns and shining Scales Glide under the green Wave, in Sculles that oft Bank the mid Sea: part single or with mate Graze the Sea weed thir pasture, & through Groves Of Coral stray, or sporting with quick glance Show to the Sun thir wav'd coats dropt with Gold, Or in thir Pearlie shells at ease, attend Moist nutriment, or under Rocks thir food In jointed Armour watch: on smooth the Seale, And bended Dolphins play: part huge of bulk Wallowing unweildie, enormous in thir Gate Tempest the Ocean: there Leviathan Hugest of living Creatures, on the Deep Stretcht like a Promontorie sleeps or swimmes, And seems a moving Land, and at his Gilles Draws in, and at his Trunck spouts out a Sea. Mean while the tepid Caves, and Fens and shoares Thir Brood as numerous hatch, from the Egg that soon Bursting with kindly rupture forth disclos'd Thir callow young, but featherd soon and fledge They summ'd thir Penns, and soaring th' air sublime With clang despis'd the ground, under a cloud In prospect; there the Eagle and the Stork On Cliffs and Cedar tops thir Eyries build: Part loosly wing the Region, part more wise In common, rang'd in figure wedge thir way, Intelligent of seasons, and set forth Thir Aierie Caravan high over Sea's Flying, and over Lands with mutual wing Easing thir flight; so stears the prudent Crane Her annual Voiage, born on Windes; the Aire Floats, as they pass, fann'd with unnumber'd plumes: From Branch to Branch the smaller Birds with song Solac'd the Woods, and spred thir painted wings Till Ev'n, nor then the solemn Nightingal Ceas'd warbling, but all night tun'd her soft layes: Others on Silver Lakes and Rivers Bath'd Thir downie Brest; the Swan with Arched neck Between her white wings mantling proudly, Rowes Her state with Oarie feet: yet oft they quit The Dank, and rising on stiff Pennons, towre The mid Aereal Skie: Others on ground Walk'd firm; the crested Cock whose clarion sounds The silent hours, and th' other whose gay Traine Adorns him, colour'd with the Florid hue Of Rainbows and Starrie Eyes. The Waters thus With Fish replenisht, and the Aire with Fowle, Ev'ning and Morn solemniz'd the Fift day. The Sixt, and of Creation last arose With Eevning Harps and Mattin, when God said, Let th' Earth bring forth Fowle living in her kinde, Cattel and Creeping things, and Beast of the Earth, Each in their kinde. The Earth obey'd, and strait Op'ning her fertil Woomb teem'd at a Birth Innumerous living Creatures, perfet formes, Limb'd and full grown: out of the ground up-rose As from his Laire the wilde Beast where he wonns In Forrest wilde, in Thicket, Brake, or Den; Among the Trees in Pairs they rose, they walk'd: The Cattel in the Fields and Meddowes green: Those rare and solitarie, these in flocks Pasturing at once, and in broad Herds upsprung: The grassie Clods now Calv'd, now half appeer'd The Tawnie Lion, pawing to get free His hinder parts, then springs as broke from Bonds, And Rampant shakes his Brinded main; the Ounce, The Libbard, and the Tyger, as the Moale Rising, the crumbl'd Earth above them threw In Hillocks; the swift Stag from under ground Bore up his branching head: scarse from his mould BEHEMOTH biggest born of Earth upheav'd His vastness: Fleec't the Flocks and bleating rose, As Plants: ambiguous between Sea and Land The River Horse and scalie Crocodile. At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, Insect or Worme; those wav'd thir limber fans For wings, and smallest Lineaments exact In all the Liveries dect of Summers pride With spots of Gold and Purple, azure and green: These as a line thir long dimension drew, Streaking the ground with sinuous trace; not all Minims of Nature; some of Serpent kinde Wondrous in length and corpulence involv'd Thir Snakie foulds, and added wings. First crept The Parsimonious Emmet, provident Of future, in small room large heart enclos'd, Pattern of just equalitie perhaps Hereafter, join'd in her popular Tribes Of Commonaltie: swarming next appeer'd The Femal Bee that feeds her Husband Drone Deliciously, and builds her waxen Cells With Honey stor'd: the rest are numberless, And thou thir Natures know'st, and gav'st them Names, Needlest to thee repeaed; nor unknown The Serpent suttl'st Beast of all the field, Of huge extent somtimes, with brazen Eyes And hairie Main terrific, though to thee Not noxious, but obedient at thy call. Now Heav'n in all her Glorie shon, and rowld Her motions, as the great first-Movers hand First wheeld thir course; Earth in her rich attire Consummate lovly smil'd; Aire, Water, Earth, By Fowl, Fish, Beast, was flown, was swum, was walkt Frequent; and of the Sixt day yet remain'd; There wanted yet the Master work, the end Of all yet don; a Creature who not prone And Brute as other Creatures, but endu'd With Sanctitie of Reason, might erect His Stature, and upright with Front serene Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence Magnanimous to correspond with Heav'n, But grateful to acknowledge whence his good Descends, thither with heart and voice and eyes Directed in Devotion, to adore And worship God Supream, who made him chief Of all his works: therefore the Omnipotent Eternal Father (For where is not hee Present) thus to his Son audibly spake. Let us make now Man in our image, Man In our similitude, and let them rule Over the Fish and Fowle of Sea and Aire, Beast of the Field, and over all the Earth, And every creeping thing that creeps the ground. This said, he formd thee, ADAM, thee O Man Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breath'd The breath of Life; in his own Image hee Created thee, in the Image of God Express, and thou becam'st a living Soul. Male he created thee, but thy consort Femal for Race; then bless'd Mankinde, and said, Be fruitful, multiplie, and fill the Earth, Subdue it, and throughout Dominion hold Over Fish of the Sea, and Fowle of the Aire, And every living thing that moves on the Earth. Wherever thus created, for no place Is yet distinct by name, thence, as thou know'st He brought thee into this delicious Grove, This Garden, planted with the Trees of God, Delectable both to behold and taste; And freely all thir pleasant fruit for food Gave thee, all sorts are here that all th' Earth yeelds, Varietie without end; but of the Tree Which tasted works knowledge of Good and Evil, Thou mai'st not; in the day thou eat'st, thou di'st; Death is the penaltie impos'd, beware, And govern well thy appetite, least sin Surprise thee, and her black attendant Death. Here finish'd hee, and all that he had made View'd, and behold all was entirely good; So Ev'n and Morn accomplish'd the Sixt day: Yet not till the Creator from his work Desisting, though unwearied, up returnd Up to the Heav'n of Heav'ns his high abode, Thence to behold this new created World Th' addition of his Empire, how it shew'd In prospect from his Throne, how good, how faire, Answering his great Idea. Up he rode Followd with acclamation and the sound Symphonious of ten thousand Harpes that tun'd Angelic harmonies: the Earth, the Aire Resounded, (thou remember'st, for thou heardst) The Heav'ns and all the Constellations rung, The Planets in thir stations list'ning stood, While the bright Pomp ascended jubilant. Open, ye everlasting Gates, they sung, Open, ye Heav'ns, your living dores; let in The great Creator from his work returnd Magnificent, his Six days work, a World; Open, and henceforth oft; for God will deigne To visit oft the dwellings of just Men Delighted, and with frequent intercourse Thither will send his winged Messengers On errands of supernal Grace. So sung The glorious Train ascending: He through Heav'n, That open'd wide her blazing Portals, led To Gods Eternal house direct the way, A broad and ample rode, whose dust is Gold And pavement Starrs, as Starrs to thee appeer, Seen in the Galaxie, that Milkie way Which nightly as a circling Zone thou seest Pouderd with Starrs. And now on Earth the Seaventh Eev'ning arose in EDEN, for the Sun Was set, and twilight from the East came on, Forerunning Night; when at the holy mount Of Heav'ns high-seated top, th' Impereal Throne Of Godhead, fixt for ever firm and sure, The Filial Power arriv'd, and sate him down With his great Father (for he also went Invisible, yet staid (such priviledge Hath Omnipresence) and the work ordain'd, Author and end of all things, and from work Now resting, bless'd and hallowd the Seav'nth day, As resting on that day from all his work, But not in silence holy kept; the Harp Had work and rested not, the solemn Pipe, And Dulcimer, all Organs of sweet stop, All sounds on Fret by String or Golden Wire Temper'd soft Tunings, intermixt with Voice Choral or Unison: of incense Clouds Fuming from Golden Censers hid the Mount. Creation and the Six dayes acts they sung, Great are thy works, JEHOVAH, infinite Thy power; what thought can measure thee or tongue Relate thee; greater now in thy return Then from the Giant Angels; thee that day Thy Thunders magnifi'd; but to create Is greater then created to destroy. Who can impair thee, mighty King, or bound Thy Empire? easily the proud attempt Of Spirits apostat and thir Counsels vaine Thou hast repeld, while impiously they thought Thee to diminish, and from thee withdraw The number of thy worshippers. Who seekes To lessen thee, against his purpose serves To manifest the more thy might: his evil Thou usest, and from thence creat'st more good. Witness this new-made World, another Heav'n From Heaven Gate not farr, founded in view On the cleer HYALINE, the Glassie Sea; Of amplitude almost immense, with Starr's Numerous, and every Starr perhaps a World Of destind habitation; but thou know'st Thir seasons: among these the seat of men, Earth with her nether Ocean circumfus'd, Thir pleasant dwelling place. Thrice happie men, And sons of men, whom God hath thus advanc't, Created in his Image, there to dwell And worship him, and in reward to rule Over his Works, on Earth, in Sea, or Air, And multiply a Race of Worshippers Holy and just: thrice happie if they know Thir happiness, and persevere upright. So sung they, and the Empyrean rung, With HALLELUIAHS: Thus was Sabbath kept. And thy request think now fulfill'd, that ask'd How first this World and face of things began, And what before thy memorie was don From the beginning, that posteritie Informd by thee might know; if else thou seekst Aught, not surpassing human measure, say. To whom thus ADAM gratefully repli'd. What thanks sufficient, or what recompence Equal have I to render thee, Divine Hystorian, who thus largely hast allayd The thirst I had of knowledge, and voutsaf't This friendly condescention to relate Things else by me unsearchable, now heard VVith wonder, but delight, and, as is due, With glorie attributed to the high Creator; some thing yet of doubt remaines, VVhich onely thy solution can resolve. VVhen I behold this goodly Frame, this VVorld Of Heav'n and Earth consisting, and compute, Thir magnitudes, this Earth a spot, a graine, An Atom, with the Firmament compar'd And all her numberd Starrs, that seem to rowle Spaces incomprehensible (for such Thir distance argues and thir swift return Diurnal) meerly to officiate light Round this opacous Earth, this punctual spot, One day and night; in all thir vast survey Useless besides, reasoning I oft admire, How Nature wise and frugal could commit Such disproportions, with superfluous hand So many nobler Bodies to create, Greater so manifold to this one use, For aught appeers, and on thir Orbs impose Such restless revolution day by day Repeated, while the sedentarie Earth, That better might with farr less compass move, Serv'd by more noble then her self, attaines Her end without least motion, and receaves, As Tribute such a sumless journey brought Of incorporeal speed, her warmth and light; Speed, to describe whose swiftness Number failes. So spake our Sire, and by his count'nance seemd Entring on studious thoughts abstruse, which EVE Perceaving where she sat retir'd in sight, With lowliness Majestic from her seat, And Grace that won who saw to wish her stay, Rose, and went forth among her Fruits and Flours, To visit how they prosper'd, bud and bloom, Her Nurserie; they at her coming sprung And toucht by her fair tendance gladlier grew. Yet went she not, as not with such discourse Delighted, or not capable her eare Of what was high: such pleasure she reserv'd, ADAM relating, she sole Auditress; Her Husband the Relater she preferr'd Before the Angel, and of him to ask Chose rather; hee, she knew would intermix Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute With conjugal Caresses, from his Lip Not Words alone pleas'd her. O when meet now Such pairs, in Love and mutual Honour joyn'd? With Goddess-like demeanour forth she went; Not unattended, for on her as Queen A pomp of winning Graces waited still, And from about her shot Darts of desire Into all Eyes to wish her still in sight. And RAPHAEL now to ADAM's doubt propos'd Benevolent and facil thus repli'd. To ask or search I blame thee not, for Heav'n Is as the Book of God before thee set, Wherein to read his wondrous Works, and learne His Seasons, Hours, or Days, or Months, or Yeares: This to attain, whether Heav'n move or Earth, Imports not, if thou reck'n right, the rest From Man or Angel the great Architect Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge His secrets to be scann'd by them who ought Rather admire; or if they list to try Conjecture, he his Fabric of the Heav'ns Hath left to thir disputes, perhaps to move His laughter at thir quaint Opinions wide Hereafter, when they come to model Heav'n And calculate the Starrs, how they will weild The mightie frame, how build, unbuild, contrive To save appeerances, how gird the Sphear With Centric and Eccentric scribl'd o're, Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb: Alreadie by thy reasoning this I guess, Who art to lead thy ofspring, and supposest That Bodies bright and greater should not serve The less not bright, nor Heav'n such journies run, Earth sitting still, when she alone receaves The benefit: consider first, that Great Or Bright inferrs not Excellence: the Earth Though, in comparison of Heav'n, so small, Nor glistering, may of solid good containe More plenty then the Sun that barren shines, Whose vertue on it self workes no effect, But in the fruitful Earth; there first receavd His beams, unactive else, thir vigor find. Yet not to Earth are those bright Luminaries Officious, but to thee Earths habitant. And for the Heav'ns wide Circuit, let it speak The Makers high magnificence, who built So spacious, and his Line stretcht out so farr; That Man may know he dwells not in his own; An Edifice too large for him to fill, Lodg'd in a small partition, and the rest Ordain'd for uses to his Lord best known. The swiftness of those Circles attribute, Though numberless, to his Omnipotence, That to corporeal substances could adde Speed almost Spiritual; mee thou thinkst not slow, Who since the Morning hour set out from Heav'n Where God resides, and ere mid-day arriv'd In EDEN, distance inexpressible By Numbers that have name. But this I urge, Admitting Motion in the Heav'ns, to shew Invalid that which thee to doubt it mov'd; Not that I so affirm, though so it seem To thee who hast thy dwelling here on Earth. God to remove his wayes from human sense, Plac'd Heav'n from Earth so farr, that earthly sight, If it presume, might erre in things too high, And no advantage gaine. What if the Sun Be Center to the World, and other Starrs By his attractive vertue and thir own Incited, dance about him various rounds? Thir wandring course now high, now low, then hid, Progressive, retrograde, or standing still, In six thou seest, and what if sev'nth to these The Planet Earth, so stedfast though she seem, Insensibly three different Motions move? Which else to several Sphears thou must ascribe, Mov'd contrarie with thwart obliquities, Or save the Sun his labour, and that swift Nocturnal and Diurnal rhomb suppos'd, Invisible else above all Starrs, the Wheele Of Day and Night; which needs not thy beleefe, If Earth industrious of her self fetch Day Travelling East, and with her part averse From the Suns beam meet Night, her other part Still luminous by his ray. What if that light Sent from her through the wide transpicuous aire, To the terrestrial Moon be as a Starr Enlightning her by Day, as she by Night This Earth? reciprocal, if Land be there, Feilds and Inhabitants: Her spots thou seest As Clouds, and Clouds may rain, and Rain produce Fruits in her soft'nd Soile, for some to eate Allotted there; and other Suns perhaps With thir attendant Moons thou wilt descrie Communicating Male and Femal Light, Which two great Sexes animate the World, Stor'd in each Orb perhaps with some that live. For such vast room in Nature unpossest By living Soule, desert and desolate, Onely to shine, yet scarce to contribute Each Orb a glimps of Light, conveyd so farr Down to this habitable, which returnes Light back to them, is obvious to dispute. But whether thus these things, or whether not, Whether the Sun predominant in Heav'n Rise on the Earth, or Earth rise on the Sun, Hee from the East his flaming rode begin, Or Shee from West her silent course advance With inoffensive pace that spinning sleeps On her soft Axle, while she paces Eev'n, And bears thee soft with the smooth Air along, Sollicit not thy thoughts with matters hid, Leave them to God above, him serve and feare; Of other Creatures, as him pleases best, Wherever plac't, let him dispose: joy thou In what he gives to thee, this Paradise And thy faire EVE; Heav'n is for thee too high To know what passes there; be lowlie wise: Think onely what concernes thee and thy being; Dream not of other Worlds, what Creatures there Live, in what state, condition or degree, Contented that thus farr hath been reveal'd Not of Earth onely but of highest Heav'n. To whom thus ADAM cleerd of doubt, repli'd. How fully hast thou satisfi'd mee, pure Intelligence of Heav'n, Angel serene, And freed from intricacies, taught to live, The easiest way, nor with perplexing thoughts To interrupt the sweet of Life, from which God hath bid dwell farr off all anxious cares, And not molest us, unless we our selves Seek them with wandring thoughts, and notions vaine. But apt the Mind or Fancie is to roave Uncheckt, and of her roaving is no end; Till warn'd, or by experience taught, she learne, That not to know at large of things remote From use, obscure and suttle, but to know That which before us lies in daily life, Is the prime Wisdom, what is more, is fume, Or emptiness, or fond impertinence, And renders us in things that most concerne Unpractis'd, unprepar'd, and still to seek. Therefore from this high pitch let us descend A lower flight, and speak of things at hand Useful, whence haply mention may arise Of somthing not unseasonable to ask By sufferance, and thy wonted favour deign'd. Thee I have heard relating what was don Ere my remembrance: now hear mee relate My Storie, which perhaps thou hast not heard; And Day is yet not spent; till then thou seest How suttly to detaine thee I devise, Inviting thee to hear while I relate, Fond, were it not in hope of thy reply: For while I sit with thee, I seem in Heav'n, And sweeter thy discourse is to my eare Then Fruits of Palm-tree pleasantest to thirst And hunger both, from labour, at the houre Of sweet repast; they satiate, and soon fill, Though pleasant, but thy words with Grace Divine Imbu'd, bring to thir sweetness no satietie. To whom thus RAPHAEL answer'd heav'nly meek. Nor are thy lips ungraceful, Sire of men, Nor tongue ineloquent; for God on thee Abundantly his gifts hath also pour'd, Inward and outward both, his image faire: Speaking or mute all comliness and grace Attends thee, and each word, each motion formes. Nor less think wee in Heav'n of thee on Earth Then of our fellow servant, and inquire Gladly into the wayes of God with Man: For God we see hath honour'd thee, and set On Man his equal Love: say therefore on; For I that Day was absent, as befell, Bound on a voyage uncouth and obscure, Farr on excursion toward the Gates of Hell; Squar'd in full Legion (such command we had) To see that none thence issu'd forth a spie, Or enemie, while God was in his work, Least hee incenst at such eruption bold, Destruction with Creation might have mixt. Not that they durst without his leave attempt, But us he sends upon his high behests For state, as Sovran King, and to enure Our prompt obedience. Fast we found, fast shut The dismal Gates, and barricado'd strong; But long ere our approaching heard within Noise, other then the sound of Dance or Song, Torment, and lowd lament, and furious rage. Glad we return'd up to the coasts of Light Ere Sabbath Eev'ning: so we had in charge. But thy relation now; for I attend, Pleas'd with thy words no less then thou with mine. So spake the Godlike Power, and thus our Sire. For Man to tell how human Life began Is hard; for who himself beginning knew? Desire with thee still longer to converse Induc'd me. As new wak't from soundest sleep Soft on the flourie herb I found me laid In Balmie Sweat, which with his Beames the Sun Soon dri'd, and on the reaking moisture fed. Strait toward Heav'n my wondring Eyes I turnd, And gaz'd a while the ample Skie, till rais'd By quick instinctive motion up I sprung, As thitherward endevoring, and upright Stood on my feet; about me round I saw Hill, Dale, and shadie Woods, and sunnie Plaines, And liquid Lapse of murmuring Streams; by these, Creatures that livd, and movd, and walk'd, or flew, Birds on the branches warbling; all things smil'd, With fragrance and with joy my heart oreflow'd. My self I then perus'd, and Limb by Limb Survey'd, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran With supple joints, as lively vigour led: But who I was, or where, or from what cause, Knew not; to speak I tri'd, and forthwith spake, My Tongue obey'd and readily could name What e're I saw. Thou Sun, said I, faire Light, And thou enlight'nd Earth, so fresh and gay, Ye Hills and Dales, ye Rivers, Woods, and Plaines, And ye that live and move, fair Creatures, tell, Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here? Not of my self; by some great Maker then, In goodness and in power praeeminent; Tell me, how may I know him, how adore, From whom I have that thus I move and live, And feel that I am happier then I know. While thus I call'd, and stray'd I knew not whither, From where I first drew Aire, and first beheld This happie Light, when answer none return'd, On a green shadie Bank profuse of Flours Pensive I sate me down; there gentle sleep First found me, and with soft oppression seis'd My droused sense, untroubl'd, though I thought I then was passing to my former state Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve: When suddenly stood at my Head a dream, Whose inward apparition gently mov'd My Fancy to believe I yet had being, And livd: One came, methought, of shape Divine, And said, thy Mansion wants thee, ADAM, rise, First Man, of Men innumerable ordain'd First Father, call'd by thee I come thy Guide To the Garden of bliss, thy seat prepar'd. So saying, by the hand he took me rais'd, And over Fields and Waters, as in Aire Smooth sliding without step, last led me up A woodie Mountain; whose high top was plaine, A Circuit wide, enclos'd, with goodliest Trees Planted, with Walks, and Bowers, that what I saw Of Earth before scarse pleasant seemd. Each Tree Load'n with fairest Fruit, that hung to the Eye Tempting, stirr'd in me sudden appetite To pluck and eate; whereat I wak'd, and found Before mine Eyes all real, as the dream Had lively shadowd: Here had new begun My wandring, had not hee who was my Guide Up hither, from among the Trees appeer'd, Presence Divine. Rejoycing, but with aw In adoration at his feet I fell Submiss: he rear'd me, & Whom thou soughtst I am, Said mildely, Author of all this thou seest Above, or round about thee or beneath. This Paradise I give thee, count it thine To Till and keep, and of the Fruit to eate: Of every Tree that in the Garden growes Eate freely with glad heart; fear here no dearth: But of the Tree whose operation brings Knowledg of good and ill, which I have set The Pledge of thy Obedience and thy Faith, Amid the Garden by the Tree of Life, Remember what I warne thee, shun to taste, And shun the bitter consequence: for know, The day thou eat'st thereof, my sole command Transgrest, inevitably thou shalt dye; From that day mortal, and this happie State Shalt loose, expell'd from hence into a World Of woe and sorrow. Sternly he pronounc'd The rigid interdiction, which resounds Yet dreadful in mine eare, though in my choice Not to incur; but soon his cleer aspect Return'd and gratious purpose thus renew'd. Not onely these fair bounds, but all the Earth To thee and to thy Race I give; as Lords Possess it, and all things that therein live, Or live in Sea, or Aire, Beast, Fish, and Fowle. In signe whereof each Bird and Beast behold After thir kindes; I bring them to receave From thee thir Names, and pay thee fealtie With low subjection; understand the same Of Fish within thir watry residence, Not hither summond, since they cannot change Thir Element to draw the thinner Aire. As thus he spake, each Bird and Beast behold Approaching two and two, These cowring low With blandishment, each Bird stoop'd on his wing. I nam'd them, as they pass'd, and understood Thir Nature, with such knowledg God endu'd My sudden apprehension: but in these I found not what me thought I wanted still; And to the Heav'nly vision thus presum'd. O by what Name, for thou above all these, Above mankinde, or aught then mankinde higher, Surpassest farr my naming, how may I Adore thee, Author of this Universe, And all this good to man, for whose well being So amply, and with hands so liberal Thou hast provided all things: but with mee I see not who partakes. In solitude What happiness, who can enjoy alone, Or all enjoying, what contentment find? Thus I presumptuous; and the vision bright, As with a smile more bright'nd, thus repli'd. What call'st thou solitude, is not the Earth With various living creatures, and the Aire Replenisht, and all these at thy command To come and play before thee, know'st thou not Thir language and thir wayes, they also know, And reason not contemptibly; with these Find pastime, and beare rule; thy Realm is large. So spake the Universal Lord, and seem'd So ordering. I with leave of speech implor'd, And humble deprecation thus repli'd. Let not my words offend thee, Heav'nly Power, My Maker, be propitious while I speak. Hast thou not made me here thy substitute, And these inferiour farr beneath me set? Among unequals what societie Can sort, what harmonie or true delight? Which must be mutual, in proportion due Giv'n and receiv'd; but in disparitie The one intense, the other still remiss Cannot well suite with either, but soon prove Tedious alike: Of fellowship I speak Such as I seek, fit to participate All rational delight, wherein the brute Cannot be human consort; they rejoyce Each with thir kinde, Lion with Lioness; So fitly them in pairs thou hast combin'd; Much less can Bird with Beast, or Fish with Fowle So well converse, nor with the Ox the Ape; Wors then can Man with Beast, and least of all. Whereto th' Almighty answer'd, not displeas'd. A nice and suttle happiness I see Thou to thy self proposest, in the choice Of thy Associates, ADAM, and wilt taste No pleasure, though in pleasure, solitarie. What thinkst thou then of mee, and this my State, Seem I to thee sufficiently possest Of happiness, or not? who am alone From all Eternitie, for none I know Second to mee or like, equal much less. How have I then with whom to hold converse Save with the Creatures which I made, and those To me inferiour, infinite descents Beneath what other Creatures are to thee? He ceas'd, I lowly answer'd. To attaine The highth and depth of thy Eternal wayes All human thoughts come short, Supream of things; Thou in thy self art perfet, and in thee Is no deficience found; not so is Man, But in degree, the cause of his desire By conversation with his like to help, Or solace his defects. No need that thou Shouldst propagat, already infinite; And through all numbers absolute, though One; But Man by number is to manifest His single imperfection, and beget Like of his like, his Image multipli'd, In unitie defective, which requires Collateral love, and deerest amitie. Thou in thy secresie although alone, Best with thy self accompanied, seek'st not Social communication, yet so pleas'd, Canst raise thy Creature to what highth thou wilt Of Union or Communion, deifi'd; I by conversing cannot these erect From prone, nor in thir wayes complacence find. Thus I embold'nd spake, and freedom us'd Permissive, and acceptance found, which gain'd This answer from the gratious voice Divine. Thus farr to try thee, ADAM, I was pleas'd, And finde thee knowing not of Beasts alone, Which thou hast rightly nam'd, but of thy self, Expressing well the spirit within thee free, My Image, not imparted to the Brute, Whose fellowship therefore unmeet for thee Good reason was thou freely shouldst dislike, And be so minded still; I, ere thou spak'st, Knew it not good for Man to be alone, And no such companie as then thou saw'st Intended thee, for trial onely brought, To see how thou could'st judge of fit and meet: What next I bring shall please thee, be assur'd, Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self, Thy wish, exactly to thy hearts desire. Hee ended, or I heard no more, for now My earthly by his Heav'nly overpowerd, Which it had long stood under, streind to the highth In that celestial Colloquie sublime, As with an object that excels the sense, Dazl'd and spent, sunk down, and sought repair Of sleep, which instantly fell on me, call'd By Nature as in aide, and clos'd mine eyes. Mine eyes he clos'd, but op'n left the Cell Of Fancie my internal sight, by which Abstract as in a transe methought I saw, Though sleeping, where I lay, and saw the shape Still glorious before whom awake I stood; Who stooping op'nd my left side, and took From thence a Rib, with cordial spirits warme, And Life-blood streaming fresh; wide was the wound, But suddenly with flesh fill'd up & heal'd: The Rib he formd and fashond with his hands; Under his forming hands a Creature grew, Manlike, but different sex, so lovly faire, That what seemd fair in all the World, seemd now Mean, or in her summd up, in her containd And in her looks, which from that time infus'd Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before, And into all things from her Aire inspir'd The spirit of love and amorous delight. She disappeerd, and left me dark, I wak'd To find her, or for ever to deplore Her loss, and other pleasures all abjure: When out of hope, behold her, not farr off, Such as I saw her in my dream, adornd With what all Earth or Heaven could bestow To make her amiable: On she came, Led by her Heav'nly Maker, though unseen, And guided by his voice, nor uninformd Of nuptial Sanctitie and marriage Rites: Grace was in all her steps, Heav'n in her Eye, In every gesture dignitie and love. I overjoyd could not forbear aloud. This turn hath made amends; thou hast fulfill'd Thy words, Creator bounteous and benigne, Giver of all things faire, but fairest this Of all thy gifts, nor enviest. I now see Bone of my Bone, Flesh of my Flesh, my Self Before me; Woman is her Name, of Man Extracted; for this cause he shall forgoe Father and Mother, and to his Wife adhere; And they shall be one Flesh, one Heart, one Soule. She heard me thus, and though divinely brought, Yet Innocence and Virgin Modestie, Her vertue and the conscience of her worth, That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won, Not obvious, not obtrusive, but retir'd, The more desirable, or to say all, Nature her self, though pure of sinful thought, Wrought in her so, that seeing me, she turn'd; I follow'd her, she what was Honour knew, And with obsequious Majestie approv'd My pleaded reason. To the Nuptial Bowre I led her blushing like the Morn: all Heav'n, And happie Constellations on that houre Shed thir selectest influence; the Earth Gave sign of gratulation, and each Hill; Joyous the Birds; fresh Gales and gentle Aires Whisper'd it to the Woods, and from thir wings Flung Rose, flung Odours from the spicie Shrub, Disporting, till the amorous Bird of Night Sung Spousal, and bid haste the Eevning Starr On his Hill top, to light the bridal Lamp. Thus I have told thee all my State, and brought My Storie to the sum of earthly bliss Which I enjoy, and must confess to find In all things else delight indeed, but such As us'd or not, works in the mind no change, Nor vehement desire, these delicacies I mean of Taste, Sight, Smell, Herbs, Fruits, & Flours, Walks, and the melodie of Birds; but here Farr otherwise, transported I behold, Transported touch; here passion first I felt, Commotion strange, in all enjoyments else Superiour and unmov'd, here onely weake Against the charm of Beauties powerful glance. Or Nature faild in mee, and left some part Not proof enough such Object to sustain, Or from my side subducting, took perhaps More then enough; at least on her bestow'd Too much of Ornament, in outward shew Elaborate, of inward less exact. For well I understand in the prime end Of Nature her th' inferiour, in the mind And inward Faculties, which most excell, In outward also her resembling less His Image who made both, and less expressing The character of that Dominion giv'n O're other Creatures; yet when I approach Her loveliness, so absolute she seems And in her self compleat, so well to know Her own, that what she wills to do or say, Seems wisest, vertuousest, discreetest, best; All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded, Wisdom in discourse with her Looses discount'nanc't, and like folly shewes; Authoritie and Reason on her waite, As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and to consummate all, Greatness of mind and nobleness thir seat Build in her loveliest, and create an awe About her, as a guard Angelic plac't. To whom the Angel with contracted brow. Accuse not Nature, she hath don her part; Do thou but thine, and be not diffident Of Wisdom, she deserts thee not, if thou Dismiss not her, when most thou needst her nigh, By attributing overmuch to things Less excellent, as thou thy self perceav'st. For what admir'st thou, what transports thee so, An outside? fair no doubt, and worthy well Thy cherishing, thy honouring, and thy love, Not thy subjection: weigh with her thy self; Then value: Oft times nothing profits more Then self-esteem, grounded on just and right Well manag'd; of that skill the more thou know'st, The more she will acknowledge thee her Head, And to realities yeild all her shows; Made so adorn for thy delight the more, So awful, that with honour thou maist love Thy mate, who sees when thou art seen least wise. But if the sense of touch whereby mankind Is propagated seem such dear delight Beyond all other, think the same voutsaf't To Cattel and each Beast; which would not be To them made common & divulg'd, if aught Therein enjoy'd were worthy to subdue The Soule of Man, or passion in him move. What higher in her societie thou findst Attractive, human, rational, love still; In loving thou dost well, in passion not, Wherein true Love consists not; love refines The thoughts, and heart enlarges, hath his seat In Reason, and is judicious, is the scale By which to heav'nly Love thou maist ascend, Not sunk in carnal pleasure, for which cause Among the Beasts no Mate for thee was found. To whom thus half abash't ADAM repli'd. Neither her out-side formd so fair, nor aught In procreation common to all kindes (Though higher of the genial Bed by far, And with mysterious reverence I deem) So much delights me, as those graceful acts, Those thousand decencies that daily flow From all her words and actions, mixt with Love And sweet compliance, which declare unfeign'd Union of Mind, or in us both one Soule; Harmonie to behold in wedded pair More grateful then harmonious sound to the eare. Yet these subject not; I to thee disclose What inward thence I feel, not therefore foild, Who meet with various objects, from the sense Variously representing; yet still free Approve the best, and follow what I approve. To love thou blam'st me not, for love thou saist Leads up to Heav'n, is both the way and guide; Bear with me then, if lawful what I ask; Love not the heav'nly Spirits, and how thir Love Express they, by looks onely, or do they mix Irradiance, virtual or immediate touch? To whom the Angel with a smile that glow'd Celestial rosie red, Loves proper hue, Answer'd. Let it suffice thee that thou know'st Us happie, and without Love no happiness. Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy'st (And pure thou wert created) we enjoy In eminence, and obstacle find none Of membrane, joynt, or limb, exclusive barrs: Easier then Air with Air, if Spirits embrace, Total they mix, Union of Pure with Pure Desiring; nor restrain'd conveyance need As Flesh to mix with Flesh, or Soul with Soul. But I can now no more; the parting Sun Beyond the Earths green Cape and verdant Isles HESPEREAN sets, my Signal to depart. Be strong, live happie, and love, but first of all Him whom to love is to obey, and keep His great command; take heed least Passion sway Thy Judgement to do aught, which else free Will Would not admit; thine and of all thy Sons The weal or woe in thee is plac't; beware. I in thy persevering shall rejoyce, And all the Blest: stand fast; to stand or fall Free in thine own Arbitrement it lies. Perfet within, no outward aid require; And all temptation to transgress repel. So saying, he arose; whom ADAM thus Follow'd with benediction. Since to part, Go heavenly Guest, Ethereal Messenger, Sent from whose sovran goodness I adore. Gentle to me and affable hath been Thy condescension, and shall be honour'd ever With grateful Memorie: thou to mankind Be good and friendly still, and oft return. So parted they, the Angel up to Heav'n From the thick shade, and ADAM to his Bowre. THE END OF THE SEVENTH BOOK. PARADISE LOST Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Adam fragt Raphael, wie der Mensch entstanden ist, wie die Erde erschaffen wurde und warum. Raphael erzählt ihm, dass nach Satans Fall Gott sah, dass der Himmel die Hälfte seiner Bewohner verloren hatte. Da er nicht wollte, dass Satan auch diesen Sieg für sich verbucht, entscheidet Gott, den Himmel mit einer Kreatur zu bevölkern, die mit freiem Willen ihren Weg in seine Herrlichkeit verdienen würde. Gott erschafft dann Dunkelheit und Licht, das Universum, die Erde und den Ozean sowie Pflanzen und Tiere in sieben Tagen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. KAPITEL IV: DAS LAND BESCHRIEBEN. EIN VORSCHLAG ZUR KORREKTUR VON MODERNEN KARTEN. DER PALAST DES KÖNIGS UND EINE BESCHREIBUNG DER HAUPTSTADT. DIE REISEMETHODE DES AUTORS. DIE BESCHREIBUNG DES HAUPTTEMPELS. Ich beabsichtige nun, dem Leser eine kurze Beschreibung dieses Landes zu geben, soweit ich es bereist habe, was nicht mehr als zweitausend Meilen rund um Lorbrulgrud, der Hauptstadt, war. Denn die Königin, der ich immer folgte, ist nie weiter gereist, wenn sie den König auf seinen Reisen begleitet hat und dort blieb, bis seine Majestät von der Besichtigung seiner Grenzen zurückkehrte. Das gesamte Ausmaß der Herrschaft dieses Fürsten beträgt etwa sechstausend Meilen in der Länge und drei bis fünf Meilen in der Breite. Daraus kann ich nur schließen, dass unsere Geografen in Europa einen großen Fehler machen, indem sie annehmen, dass zwischen Japan und Kalifornien nichts als Meer liegt; denn meiner Meinung nach muss es ein Gleichgewicht an Land geben, um den großen Kontinent von Tartary auszugleichen; und deshalb sollten sie ihre Karten und Diagramme korrigieren, indem sie dieses riesige Landstück mit den nordwestlichen Teilen von Amerika verbinden, wobei ich ihnen gerne helfen werde. Das Königreich ist eine Halbinsel, die im Nordosten von einem Reihen von dreißig Meilen hohen Bergen begrenzt wird, die aufgrund der Vulkane auf den Gipfeln völlig unpassierbar sind. Die Gelehrtesten wissen auch nicht, welche Art von Sterblichen sich jenseits dieser Berge befinden oder ob diese überhaupt bewohnt sind. Auf den anderen drei Seiten ist es vom Ozean begrenzt. Es gibt keinen einzigen Seehafen im gesamten Königreich, und die Küstenabschnitte, in die die Flüsse münden, sind so voller spitzen Felsen und das Meer so stürmisch, dass man sich mit den kleinsten Booten nicht hinauswagen kann. Diese Menschen sind also vollständig von jeglichem Handel mit dem Rest der Welt ausgeschlossen. Aber die großen Flüsse sind voller Schiffe und reich an ausgezeichnetem Fisch, denn sie bekommen selten welchen aus dem Meer, da die Meeresfische in Europa die gleiche Größe haben und daher keinen Fang wert sind. Dadurch wird deutlich, dass die Natur in der Erzeugung von Pflanzen und Tieren von so außergewöhnlicher Größe vollständig auf dieses Kontinent beschränkt ist, deren Ursachen ich den Philosophen überlasse. Ab und zu erbeuten sie jedoch einen Wal, der gegen die Felsen geschleudert wird, den das gemeine Volk dann herzhaft verspeist. Diese Wale sind so groß, dass ein Mann kaum einen auf seinen Schultern tragen kann. Manchmal werden sie auch aus Neugier in Körben nach Lorbrulgrud gebracht. Ich habe einen von ihnen auf dem Tisch des Königs in einer Schüssel gesehen, der als Seltenheit galt, aber ich habe nicht bemerkt, dass er davon begeistert war. Ich denke, die Größe hat ihn tatsächlich abgeschreckt, obwohl ich schon einmal einen etwas größeren in Grönland gesehen habe. Das Land ist gut besiedelt, denn es enthält eineundfünfzig Städte, fast hundert ummauerte Städte und eine große Anzahl von Dörfern. Um meinen neugierigen Leser zufrieden zu stellen, mag es ausreichend sein, wenn ich Lorbrulgrud beschreibe. Diese Stadt erstreckt sich fast gleichmäßig auf beiden Seiten des Flusses, der durch sie fließt. Sie umfasst über achtzigtausend Häuser und etwa sechshunderttausend Einwohner. Sie ist drei Glomglungs lang (was etwa vierundfünfzig englischen Meilen entspricht) und zweieinhalb Glomglungs breit, so wie ich es selbst auf der königlichen Karte gemessen habe, die auf Anweisung des Königs auf dem Boden ausgelegt wurde und hundert Fuß lang war. Ich habe den Durchmesser und den Umfang mehrmals barfuß vermessen und mithilfe des Maßstabs ziemlich genau gemessen. Der Palast des Königs ist kein regelmäßiger Bau, sondern ein Haufen von Gebäuden, die etwa sieben Meilen im Umfang messen. Die Hauptzimmern sind in der Regel zweihundertvierzig Fuß hoch und in Breite und Länge entsprechend. Glumdalclitch und ich wurden in einer Kutsche mitgenommen, in der ihre Gouvernante sie oft in die Stadt führte oder in die Geschäfte ging, und ich war immer in der Gesellschaft und wurde in meiner Kiste getragen. Allerdings nahm das Mädchen mich auf meinen eigenen Wunsch oft heraus und hielt mich in ihrer Hand, damit ich die Häuser und die Menschen entlang der Straßen bequemer betrachten konnte. Ich schätzte unsere Kutsche als etwa quadratisch wie die Westminster Hall, aber nicht ganz so hoch ein. Ich kann jedoch nicht sehr genau sein. Neben der großen Kiste, in der ich normalerweise getragen wurde, ließ die Königin eine kleinere für mich anfertigen, die etwa zwölf Fuß lang und zehn Fuß hoch war, um das Reisen zu erleichtern, da die andere etwas zu groß für Glumdalclitchs Schoß und umständlich in der Kutsche war. Sie wurde vom selben Künstler gemacht, dem ich bei der gesamten Planung Anweisungen gab. Dieser Reisekoffer war ein exaktes Quadrat mit einem Fenster in der Mitte von drei der Seiten, und jedes Fenster war außen mit Eisendraht vergittert, um Unfälle auf langen Reisen zu verhindern. Auf der vierten Seite, die kein Fenster hatte, waren zwei starke Riegel angebracht, durch die derjenige, der mich trug, wenn ich Lust hatte, auf einem Pferd zu reiten, einen Ledergürtel führte und um seine Taille schnallte. Das war immer die Aufgabe eines ernsten und vertrauenswürdigen Dieners, dem ich vertrauen konnte, egal ob ich den König und die Königin auf ihren Reisen begleitete oder die Gärten besichtigen oder einer großen Dame oder einem Minister des Staates am Hofe einen Besuch abstatten wollte. Denn ich begann schnell, unter den größten Beamten bekannt und geschätzt zu werden, vermutlich mehr aufgrund der Gunst ihrer Majestäten als aufgrund meiner eigenen Verdienste. Bei Reisen, wenn ich genug von der Kutsche hatte, würde ein Diener zu Pferd meine Kiste anschnallen und sie auf ein Kissen vor sich legen, und dort hatte ich von meinen drei Fenstern aus einen vollständigen Ausblick auf das Land. In diesem Schrank hatte ich ein Feldbett und eine Hängematte, die von der Decke hing, zwei Stühle und einen Tisch, der ordentlich am Boden befestigt war, um durch die Bewegung des Pferdes oder der Kutsche nicht hin- und hergeworfen zu werden. Und da ich lange Seereisen gewohnt war, störten mich diese Bewegungen, obwohl sie manchmal sehr heftig waren, nicht besonders. Wann immer ich die Stadt sehen wollte, geschah dies immer in meinem Reisekoffer, den Glumdalclitch auf ihrem Schoß in einer Art offenen Sänfte hielt, nach Art des Landes, die von vier Männern getragen und von zwei anderen in der Livree der Königin begleitet wurde. Die Leute, die oft von mir gehört hatten, waren sehr neugierig darauf, sich um die Sänfte zu drängen, und das Mädchen war freundlich genug, um die Träger anzuhalten und mich in ihre Hand zu nehmen, damit ich bequemer gesehen werden konnte. Ich war sehr daran interessiert, den Haupttempel zu sehen, und besonders den dazu gehörenden Turm, der als der höchste im Königreich gilt. Eines Tages brachte mich meine Amme dorthin, aber ich muss wirklich sagen, dass ich enttäuscht zurückkam; denn die Höhe beträgt nicht mehr als dreitausend Fuß, gemessen vom Boden zur Spitze des höchsten Pinnakels, was angesichts des Unterschieds in der Größe dieser Menschen und uns in Europa keine große Bewunderung darstellt und auch nicht im Verhältnis (wenn ich mich richtig erinnere) zum Turm von Salisbury. Aber um einer Nation, der ich während meines Lebens außerordentlich dankbar sein werde, nichts wegzunehmen, muss man zugeben, dass das, was diesem berühmten Turm an Höhe fehlt, durch Schönheit und Stärke reichlich wettgemacht wird. Denn die M Die Küche des Königs ist wahrhaftig ein stattliches Gebäude, oben gewölbt und etwa sechshundert Fuß hoch. Der große Ofen ist zwar nicht so breit wie die Kuppel von St. Paul's Cathedral, aber um zehn Schritte länger, denn das habe ich extra nach meiner Rückkehr vermessen. Wenn ich jedoch den Küchenrost, die riesigen Töpfe und Kessel, die Fleischstücke, die sich an den Spießen drehen, sowie viele andere Einzelheiten beschreiben sollte, würde man mir wahrscheinlich kaum glauben; zumindest würde ein strenger Kritiker wahrscheinlich denken, dass ich ein wenig übertreibe, wie es Reisenden oft nachgesagt wird. Um dieser Kritik zu entgehen, fürchte ich, bin ich zu sehr ins andere Extrem verfallen, und wenn diese Abhandlung zufällig in die Sprache von Brobdingnag übersetzt würde (das ist der allgemeine Name für jenes Königreich) und dorthin gesandt würde, hätten der König und sein Volk Grund, sich zu beschweren, dass ich ihnen Unrecht getan habe, durch eine falsche und verkleinerte Darstellung. Seine Majestät hält selten mehr als sechshundert Pferde in seinen Ställen. Sie sind im Allgemeinen von fünfundfünfzig bis sechzig Fuß groß. Aber wenn er an feierlichen Tagen ins Ausland reist, wird er von einer Bürgergarde von fünfhundert Reitern begleitet, was in der Tat das prachtvollste Schauspiel ist, das jemals zusehen war, bis ich einen Teil seiner Armee in Schlachtordnung erblickte, wozu ich bei anderer Gelegenheit noch etwas sagen werde. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze verfassen?

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Als der König und die Königin beschließen, das Land zu bereisen, entscheiden sie sich, Gulliver mitzunehmen. Gulliver beschreibt die Insel, das Meer um die Insel herum, die Stadt Lorbrulgrud, den Palast des Königs, seine Reisemethode auf der Insel, einige der Bewohner der Insel und einige Sehenswürdigkeiten auf der Insel. Bei der Beschreibung der Bewohner der Insel konzentriert sich Gulliver auf ihre Krankheiten und Leiden. Er erwähnt zum Beispiel riesige Bettler, schrecklich entstellt und von Läusen übersät. Gulliver vergleicht die Anblicke mit ähnlichen Anblicken in seiner Heimat. Schließlich werden die Dimensionen des Palastes des Königs beschrieben, wobei der Küche besondere Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt wird.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Als Jane und Elizabeth allein waren, äußerte die erstere, die zuvor vorsichtig im Lob von Mr. Bingley gewesen war, ihrer Schwester gegenüber, wie sehr sie ihn bewunderte. "Er ist genau das, was ein junger Mann sein sollte", sagte sie, "vernünftig, gutgelaunt, lebhaft, und ich habe noch nie solch fröhliches Benehmen gesehen! So viel Leichtigkeit vereint mit perfekter Höflichkeit!" "Er ist auch gutaussehend", antwortete Elizabeth, "was ein junger Mann ebenfalls sein sollte, wenn es ihm möglich ist. Damit ist sein Charakter vollendet." "Ich war sehr geschmeichelt, dass er mich ein zweites Mal zum Tanz aufgefordert hat. Ich hatte so ein Kompliment nicht erwartet." "Nicht? Ich habe es für dich erwartet. Aber das ist der große Unterschied zwischen uns. Komplimente nehmen dich immer überraschend ein und mich niemals. Was könnte natürlicher sein, als dass er dich erneut gefragt hat? Er konnte nicht anders, als zu sehen, dass du etwa fünfmal so hübsch bist wie jede andere Frau im Raum. Kein Dank gebührt seiner Galanterie dafür. Nun, er ist sicherlich sehr angenehm und ich erlaube dir, ihn zu mögen. Du hast schon viele dümmer aussehende Personen gemocht." "Liebe Lizzy!" "Oh! Du bist viel zu geneigt, Menschen im Allgemeinen zu mögen. Du siehst nie einen Fehler in irgendjemandem. Die ganze Welt ist in deinen Augen gut und angenehm. Ich habe dich mein ganzes Leben lang nie schlecht über einen Menschen sprechen hören." "Ich wünschte, nicht voreilig im Verurteilen zu sein, aber ich sage immer, was ich denke." "Ich weiß, dass du das tust; und das ist es, was mich wundert. Mit deinem Verstand bist du so ehrlich blind für die Torheiten und den Unsinn anderer! Die Vortäuschung von Offenheit ist weit verbreitet; man begegnet ihr überall. Aber aufrichtig zu sein ohne Aufdringlichkeit oder Absicht, das Gute im Charakter aller zu sehen und es noch besser zu machen und nichts Schlechtes zu sagen, das gehört allein dir. Und du magst also auch die Schwestern dieses Mannes, nicht wahr? Ihre Manieren sind nicht mit den seinen zu vergleichen." "Auf keinen Fall zu Beginn. Aber wenn man mit ihnen spricht, sind sie sehr angenehme Frauen. Miss Bingley wird bei ihrem Bruder wohnen und sein Haus führen; und ich täusche mich sehr, wenn wir in ihr keine sehr charmante Nachbarin finden werden." Elizabeth hörte schweigend zu, war jedoch nicht überzeugt; ihr Verhalten auf der Versammlung hatte im Allgemeinen nicht gefallen können; und mit mehr Beobachtungsgabe und weniger Anpassungsfähigkeit als ihre Schwester und einem Urteilsvermögen, das von jeglicher Aufmerksamkeit auf sich selbst unangefochten war, war sie sehr wenig geneigt, sie zu billigen. Sie waren tatsächlich sehr vornehme Damen; nicht mangelhaft in guter Laune, wenn sie zufrieden waren, noch in der Fähigkeit, angenehm zu sein, wenn sie es wünschten; aber stolz und eingebildet. Sie waren ziemlich hübsch, waren in einer der ersten Privatschulen der Stadt erzogen worden, hatten ein Vermögen von zwanzigtausend Pfund, neigten dazu, mehr auszugeben als sie sollten, und verkehrten mit Personen von Rang; und waren daher in jeder Hinsicht berechtigt, gut von sich selbst zu denken und schlecht von anderen. Sie entstammten einer angesehenen Familie im Norden Englands; ein Umstand, der in ihrem Gedächtnis tiefer eingeprägt war als dass der Reichtum ihres Bruders und ihrer eigenen durch Handel erlangt worden war. Mr. Bingley erbte vom seinem Vater ein Vermögen in Höhe von fast hunderttausend Pfund, der beabsichtigt hatte, ein Anwesen zu kaufen, es aber nicht mehr geschafft hat, dies zu tun. Auch Mr. Bingley beabsichtigte dies und traf manchmal eine Wahl für sein County, aber da er jetzt ein gutes Haus und die Freiheit eines Herrenhauses hatte, war es für viele, die am besten die Leichtigkeit seines Temperaments kannten, fraglich, ob er nicht den Rest seines Lebens in Netherfield verbringen würde und die nächste Generation den Kauf überlassen würde. Seine Schwestern waren sehr darauf bedacht, dass er ein eigenes Anwesen hatte; aber obwohl er jetzt nur als Mieter etabliert war, war Miss Bingley keineswegs abgeneigt, an seinem Tisch den Vorsitz zu führen, noch war es Mrs. Hurst, die einen Mann von mehr Mode als Vermögen geheiratet hatte, weniger bereit, sein Haus als ihr Zuhause zu betrachten, wenn es ihr passte. Mr. Bingley war noch keine zwei Jahre alt, als er von einer zufälligen Empfehlung verführt wurde, sich Netherfield House anzusehen. Er schaute es an und sich darin eine halbe Stunde um, war von der Lage und den Hauptzimmern zufrieden, mit dem, was der Besitzer in seinem Lob sagte, und nahm es sofort. Zwischen ihm und Darcy bestand eine sehr feste Freundschaft, trotz eines großen Charakterunterschieds. Bingley war Darcy aufgrund der Leichtigkeit, Offenheit und Flexibilität seines Temperaments ans Herz gewachsen, obwohl kein Jemand mehr im Gegensatz zu seinem eigenen Charakter stand, und auch wenn er nie unzufrieden mit seinem eigenen war. Von Darcys Zuneigung hatte Bingley das festeste Vertrauen und von seinem Urteilsvermögen die höchste Meinung. Bezüglich des Verständnisses war Darcy überlegen. Bingley war keineswegs minderwertig, aber Darcy war klüger. Gleichzeitig war er hochmütig, zurückhaltend und anspruchsvoll, und seine Manieren, obwohl gut erzogen, waren nicht einladend. In dieser Hinsicht hatte sein Freund einen großen Vorteil. Bingley konnte sicher sein, dass er überall gemocht wurde, Darcy gab ständig Anlass zur Empörung. Die Art und Weise, wie sie von der Versammlung in Meryton sprachen, war ausreichend charakteristisch. Bingley hatte nie angenehmere Menschen oder hübschere Mädchen in seinem Leben getroffen; jeder war sehr freundlich und aufmerksam zu ihm gewesen, es gab keine Formalität, keine Steifheit, er fühlte sich bald mit allen im Raum bekannt, und in Bezug auf Miss Bennet konnte er sich nicht vorstellen, einen schöneren Engel. Darcy hingegen hatte eine Gruppe von Menschen gesehen, bei denen wenig Schönheit und keine Mode vorhanden war, für niemanden von denen er das geringste Interesse empfand, und von niemandem Aufmerksamkeit oder Vergnügen erhielt. Miss Bennet gestand er zwar Schönheit zu, aber sie lächelte zu viel. Mrs. Hurst und ihre Schwester gaben zu, dass dem so war, aber sie bewunderten sie trotzdem, mochten sie und bezeichneten sie als ein süßes Mädchen, das sie gerne näher kennenlernen würden. Miss Bennet wurde also als ein süßes Mädchen etabliert, und ihr Bruder fühlte sich durch eine solche Empfehlung ermächtigt, an sie zu denken, wie er wollte. Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Elizabeth und Jane, die beiden ältesten Töchter der Bennets, diskutieren die Ereignisse, die auf dem Ball stattfanden. Beide sind sich einig, dass Bingley nicht nur reich und gutaussehend ist, sondern auch sehr vornehm. Sie sind sich auch einig, dass Darcy unhöflich und unangenehm ist. Elizabeth mag die Schwestern von Mr. Bingley nicht und findet sie stolz und eingebildet. Sie denken sehr gut von sich selbst und sehr schlecht von den Menschen, die nicht so wohlhabend sind wie sie. Die gutmütige Jane hingegen weigert sich, Fehler bei anderen zu sehen und hält sie für charmant. Es besteht eine feste Freundschaft zwischen Darcy und Bingley, obwohl sie temperamentmäßig unterschiedlich sind. Bingleys gelassene, freundliche Art macht ihn für Darcy sympathisch, und Bingley legt großen Wert auf Darcys Urteil und scharfen Verstand. Darcy ist der unausgesprochene Überlegene von beiden, aber sein Stolz ist monströs. Die Art und Weise, wie die beiden Freunde auf die Party reagieren, ist typisch für sie. Während Bingley von der Vielzahl der Schönheiten, insbesondere von Jane Bennet, absolut begeistert ist, ist Darcys Reaktion negativ: Er findet die Gäste eine seltsame Gruppe von Menschen, die weder schön noch modisch sind.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: CHAPTER VI I WHEN the first dubious November snow had filtered down, shading with white the bare clods in the plowed fields, when the first small fire had been started in the furnace, which is the shrine of a Gopher Prairie home, Carol began to make the house her own. She dismissed the parlor furniture--the golden oak table with brass knobs, the moldy brocade chairs, the picture of "The Doctor." She went to Minneapolis, to scamper through department stores and small Tenth Street shops devoted to ceramics and high thought. She had to ship her treasures, but she wanted to bring them back in her arms. Carpenters had torn out the partition between front parlor and back parlor, thrown it into a long room on which she lavished yellow and deep blue; a Japanese obi with an intricacy of gold thread on stiff ultramarine tissue, which she hung as a panel against the maize wall; a couch with pillows of sapphire velvet and gold bands; chairs which, in Gopher Prairie, seemed flippant. She hid the sacred family phonograph in the dining-room, and replaced its stand with a square cabinet on which was a squat blue jar between yellow candles. Kennicott decided against a fireplace. "We'll have a new house in a couple of years, anyway." She decorated only one room. The rest, Kennicott hinted, she'd better leave till he "made a ten-strike." The brown cube of a house stirred and awakened; it seemed to be in motion; it welcomed her back from shopping; it lost its mildewed repression. The supreme verdict was Kennicott's "Well, by golly, I was afraid the new junk wouldn't be so comfortable, but I must say this divan, or whatever you call it, is a lot better than that bumpy old sofa we had, and when I look around----Well, it's worth all it cost, I guess." Every one in town took an interest in the refurnishing. The carpenters and painters who did not actually assist crossed the lawn to peer through the windows and exclaim, "Fine! Looks swell!" Dave Dyer at the drug store, Harry Haydock and Raymie Wutherspoon at the Bon Ton, repeated daily, "How's the good work coming? I hear the house is getting to be real classy." Even Mrs. Bogart. Mrs. Bogart lived across the alley from the rear of Carol's house. She was a widow, and a Prominent Baptist, and a Good Influence. She had so painfully reared three sons to be Christian gentlemen that one of them had become an Omaha bartender, one a professor of Greek, and one, Cyrus N. Bogart, a boy of fourteen who was still at home, the most brazen member of the toughest gang in Boytown. Mrs. Bogart was not the acid type of Good Influence. She was the soft, damp, fat, sighing, indigestive, clinging, melancholy, depressingly hopeful kind. There are in every large chicken-yard a number of old and indignant hens who resemble Mrs. Bogart, and when they are served at Sunday noon dinner, as fricasseed chicken with thick dumplings, they keep up the resemblance. Carol had noted that Mrs. Bogart from her side window kept an eye upon the house. The Kennicotts and Mrs. Bogart did not move in the same sets--which meant precisely the same in Gopher Prairie as it did on Fifth Avenue or in Mayfair. But the good widow came calling. She wheezed in, sighed, gave Carol a pulpy hand, sighed, glanced sharply at the revelation of ankles as Carol crossed her legs, sighed, inspected the new blue chairs, smiled with a coy sighing sound, and gave voice: "I've wanted to call on you so long, dearie, you know we're neighbors, but I thought I'd wait till you got settled, you must run in and see me, how much did that big chair cost?" "Seventy-seven dollars!" "Sev----Sakes alive! Well, I suppose it's all right for them that can afford it, though I do sometimes think----Of course as our pastor said once, at Baptist Church----By the way, we haven't seen you there yet, and of course your husband was raised up a Baptist, and I do hope he won't drift away from the fold, of course we all know there isn't anything, not cleverness or gifts of gold or anything, that can make up for humility and the inward grace and they can say what they want to about the P. E. church, but of course there's no church that has more history or has stayed by the true principles of Christianity better than the Baptist Church and----In what church were you raised, Mrs. Kennicott?" "W-why, I went to Congregational, as a girl in Mankato, but my college was Universalist." "Well----But of course as the Bible says, is it the Bible, at least I know I have heard it in church and everybody admits it, it's proper for the little bride to take her husband's vessel of faith, so we all hope we shall see you at the Baptist Church and----As I was saying, of course I agree with Reverend Zitterel in thinking that the great trouble with this nation today is lack of spiritual faith--so few going to church, and people automobiling on Sunday and heaven knows what all. But still I do think that one trouble is this terrible waste of money, people feeling that they've got to have bath-tubs and telephones in their houses----I heard you were selling the old furniture cheap." "Yes!" "Well--of course you know your own mind, but I can't help thinking, when Will's ma was down here keeping house for him--SHE used to run in to SEE me, real OFTEN!--it was good enough furniture for her. But there, there, I mustn't croak, I just wanted to let you know that when you find you can't depend on a lot of these gadding young folks like the Haydocks and the Dyers--and heaven only knows how much money Juanita Haydock blows in in a year--why then you may be glad to know that slow old Aunty Bogart is always right there, and heaven knows----" A portentous sigh. "--I HOPE you and your husband won't have any of the troubles, with sickness and quarreling and wasting money and all that so many of these young couples do have and----But I must be running along now, dearie. It's been such a pleasure and----Just run in and see me any time. I hope Will is well? I thought he looked a wee mite peaked." It was twenty minutes later when Mrs. Bogart finally oozed out of the front door. Carol ran back into the living-room and jerked open the windows. "That woman has left damp finger-prints in the air," she said. II Carol was extravagant, but at least she did not try to clear herself of blame by going about whimpering, "I know I'm terribly extravagant but I don't seem to be able to help it." Kennicott had never thought of giving her an allowance. His mother had never had one! As a wage-earning spinster Carol had asserted to her fellow librarians that when she was married, she was going to have an allowance and be business-like and modern. But it was too much trouble to explain to Kennicott's kindly stubbornness that she was a practical housekeeper as well as a flighty playmate. She bought a budget-plan account book and made her budgets as exact as budgets are likely to be when they lack budgets. For the first month it was a honeymoon jest to beg prettily, to confess, "I haven't a cent in the house, dear," and to be told, "You're an extravagant little rabbit." But the budget book made her realize how inexact were her finances. She became self-conscious; occasionally she was indignant that she should always have to petition him for the money with which to buy his food. She caught herself criticizing his belief that, since his joke about trying to keep her out of the poorhouse had once been accepted as admirable humor, it should continue to be his daily bon mot. It was a nuisance to have to run down the street after him because she had forgotten to ask him for money at breakfast. But she couldn't "hurt his feelings," she reflected. He liked the lordliness of giving largess. She tried to reduce the frequency of begging by opening accounts and having the bills sent to him. She had found that staple groceries, sugar, flour, could be most cheaply purchased at Axel Egge's rustic general store. She said sweetly to Axel: "I think I'd better open a charge account here." "I don't do no business except for cash," grunted Axel. She flared, "Do you know who I am?" "Yuh, sure, I know. The doc is good for it. But that's yoost a rule I made. I make low prices. I do business for cash." She stared at his red impassive face, and her fingers had the undignified desire to slap him, but her reason agreed with him. "You're quite right. You shouldn't break your rule for me." Her rage had not been lost. It had been transferred to her husband. She wanted ten pounds of sugar in a hurry, but she had no money. She ran up the stairs to Kennicott's office. On the door was a sign advertising a headache cure and stating, "The doctor is out, back at----" Naturally, the blank space was not filled out. She stamped her foot. She ran down to the drug store--the doctor's club. As she entered she heard Mrs. Dyer demanding, "Dave, I've got to have some money." Carol saw that her husband was there, and two other men, all listening in amusement. Dave Dyer snapped, "How much do you want? Dollar be enough?" "No, it won't! I've got to get some underclothes for the kids." "Why, good Lord, they got enough now to fill the closet so I couldn't find my hunting boots, last time I wanted them." "I don't care. They're all in rags. You got to give me ten dollars----" Carol perceived that Mrs. Dyer was accustomed to this indignity. She perceived that the men, particularly Dave, regarded it as an excellent jest. She waited--she knew what would come--it did. Dave yelped, "Where's that ten dollars I gave you last year?" and he looked to the other men to laugh. They laughed. Cold and still, Carol walked up to Kennicott and commanded, "I want to see you upstairs." "Why--something the matter?" "Yes!" He clumped after her, up the stairs, into his barren office. Before he could get out a query she stated: "Yesterday, in front of a saloon, I heard a German farm-wife beg her husband for a quarter, to get a toy for the baby--and he refused. Just now I've heard Mrs. Dyer going through the same humiliation. And I--I'm in the same position! I have to beg you for money. Daily! I have just been informed that I couldn't have any sugar because I hadn't the money to pay for it!" "Who said that? By God, I'll kill any----" "Tut. It wasn't his fault. It was yours. And mine. I now humbly beg you to give me the money with which to buy meals for you to eat. And hereafter to remember it. The next time, I sha'n't beg. I shall simply starve. Do you understand? I can't go on being a slave----" Her defiance, her enjoyment of the role, ran out. She was sobbing against his overcoat, "How can you shame me so?" and he was blubbering, "Dog-gone it, I meant to give you some, and I forgot it. I swear I won't again. By golly I won't!" He pressed fifty dollars upon her, and after that he remembered to give her money regularly . . . sometimes. Daily she determined, "But I must have a stated amount--be business-like. System. I must do something about it." And daily she didn't do anything about it. III Mrs. Bogart had, by the simpering viciousness of her comments on the new furniture, stirred Carol to economy. She spoke judiciously to Bea about left-overs. She read the cookbook again and, like a child with a picture-book, she studied the diagram of the beef which gallantly continues to browse though it is divided into cuts. But she was a deliberate and joyous spendthrift in her preparations for her first party, the housewarming. She made lists on every envelope and laundry-slip in her desk. She sent orders to Minneapolis "fancy grocers." She pinned patterns and sewed. She was irritated when Kennicott was jocular about "these frightful big doings that are going on." She regarded the affair as an attack on Gopher Prairie's timidity in pleasure. "I'll make 'em lively, if nothing else. I'll make 'em stop regarding parties as committee-meetings." Kennicott usually considered himself the master of the house. At his desire, she went hunting, which was his symbol of happiness, and she ordered porridge for breakfast, which was his symbol of morality. But when he came home on the afternoon before the housewarming he found himself a slave, an intruder, a blunderer. Carol wailed, "Fix the furnace so you won't have to touch it after supper. And for heaven's sake take that horrible old door-mat off the porch. And put on your nice brown and white shirt. Why did you come home so late? Would you mind hurrying? Here it is almost suppertime, and those fiends are just as likely as not to come at seven instead of eight. PLEASE hurry!" She was as unreasonable as an amateur leading woman on a first night, and he was reduced to humility. When she came down to supper, when she stood in the doorway, he gasped. She was in a silver sheath, the calyx of a lily, her piled hair like black glass; she had the fragility and costliness of a Viennese goblet; and her eyes were intense. He was stirred to rise from the table and to hold the chair for her; and all through supper he ate his bread dry because he felt that she would think him common if he said "Will you hand me the butter?" IV She had reached the calmness of not caring whether her guests liked the party or not, and a state of satisfied suspense in regard to Bea's technique in serving, before Kennicott cried from the bay-window in the living-room, "Here comes somebody!" and Mr. and Mrs. Luke Dawson faltered in, at a quarter to eight. Then in a shy avalanche arrived the entire aristocracy of Gopher Prairie: all persons engaged in a profession, or earning more than twenty-five hundred dollars a year, or possessed of grandparents born in America. Even while they were removing their overshoes they were peeping at the new decorations. Carol saw Dave Dyer secretively turn over the gold pillows to find a price-tag, and heard Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh, the attorney, gasp, "Well, I'll be switched," as he viewed the vermilion print hanging against the Japanese obi. She was amused. But her high spirits slackened as she beheld them form in dress parade, in a long, silent, uneasy circle clear round the living-room. She felt that she had been magically whisked back to her first party, at Sam Clark's. "Have I got to lift them, like so many pigs of iron? I don't know that I can make them happy, but I'll make them hectic." A silver flame in the darkling circle, she whirled around, drew them with her smile, and sang, "I want my party to be noisy and undignified! This is the christening of my house, and I want you to help me have a bad influence on it, so that it will be a giddy house. For me, won't you all join in an old-fashioned square dance? And Mr. Dyer will call." She had a record on the phonograph; Dave Dyer was capering in the center of the floor, loose-jointed, lean, small, rusty headed, pointed of nose, clapping his hands and shouting, "Swing y' pardners--alamun lef!" Even the millionaire Dawsons and Ezra Stowbody and "Professor" George Edwin Mott danced, looking only slightly foolish; and by rushing about the room and being coy and coaxing to all persons over forty-five, Carol got them into a waltz and a Virginia Reel. But when she left them to disenjoy themselves in their own way Harry Haydock put a one-step record on the phonograph, the younger people took the floor, and all the elders sneaked back to their chairs, with crystallized smiles which meant, "Don't believe I'll try this one myself, but I do enjoy watching the youngsters dance." Half of them were silent; half resumed the discussions of that afternoon in the store. Ezra Stowbody hunted for something to say, hid a yawn, and offered to Lyman Cass, the owner of the flour-mill, "How d' you folks like the new furnace, Lym? Huh? So." "Oh, let them alone. Don't pester them. They must like it, or they wouldn't do it." Carol warned herself. But they gazed at her so expectantly when she flickered past that she was reconvinced that in their debauches of respectability they had lost the power of play as well as the power of impersonal thought. Even the dancers were gradually crushed by the invisible force of fifty perfectly pure and well-behaved and negative minds; and they sat down, two by two. In twenty minutes the party was again elevated to the decorum of a prayer-meeting. "We're going to do something exciting," Carol exclaimed to her new confidante, Vida Sherwin. She saw that in the growing quiet her voice had carried across the room. Nat Hicks, Ella Stowbody, and Dave Dyer were abstracted, fingers and lips slightly moving. She knew with a cold certainty that Dave was rehearsing his "stunt" about the Norwegian catching the hen, Ella running over the first lines of "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," and Nat thinking of his popular parody on Mark Antony's oration. "But I will not have anybody use the word 'stunt' in my house," she whispered to Miss Sherwin. "That's good. I tell you: why not have Raymond Wutherspoon sing?" "Raymie? Why, my dear, he's the most sentimental yearner in town!" "See here, child! Your opinions on house-decorating are sound, but your opinions of people are rotten! Raymie does wag his tail. But the poor dear----Longing for what he calls 'self-expression' and no training in anything except selling shoes. But he can sing. And some day when he gets away from Harry Haydock's patronage and ridicule, he'll do something fine." Carol apologized for her superciliousness. She urged Raymie, and warned the planners of "stunts," "We all want you to sing, Mr. Wutherspoon. You're the only famous actor I'm going to let appear on the stage tonight." While Raymie blushed and admitted, "Oh, they don't want to hear me," he was clearing his throat, pulling his clean handkerchief farther out of his breast pocket, and thrusting his fingers between the buttons of his vest. In her affection for Raymie's defender, in her desire to "discover artistic talent," Carol prepared to be delighted by the recital. Raymie sang "Fly as a Bird," "Thou Art My Dove," and "When the Little Swallow Leaves Its Tiny Nest," all in a reasonably bad offertory tenor. Carol was shuddering with the vicarious shame which sensitive people feel when they listen to an "elocutionist" being humorous, or to a precocious child publicly doing badly what no child should do at all. She wanted to laugh at the gratified importance in Raymie's half-shut eyes; she wanted to weep over the meek ambitiousness which clouded like an aura his pale face, flap ears, and sandy pompadour. She tried to look admiring, for the benefit of Miss Sherwin, that trusting admirer of all that was or conceivably could be the good, the true, and the beautiful. At the end of the third ornithological lyric Miss Sherwin roused from her attitude of inspired vision and breathed to Carol, "My! That was sweet! Of course Raymond hasn't an unusually good voice, but don't you think he puts such a lot of feeling into it?" Carol lied blackly and magnificently, but without originality: "Oh yes, I do think he has so much FEELING!" She saw that after the strain of listening in a cultured manner the audience had collapsed; had given up their last hope of being amused. She cried, "Now we're going to play an idiotic game which I learned in Chicago. You will have to take off your shoes, for a starter! After that you will probably break your knees and shoulder-blades." Much attention and incredulity. A few eyebrows indicating a verdict that Doc Kennicott's bride was noisy and improper. "I shall choose the most vicious, like Juanita Haydock and myself, as the shepherds. The rest of you are wolves. Your shoes are the sheep. The wolves go out into the hall. The shepherds scatter the sheep through this room, then turn off all the lights, and the wolves crawl in from the hall and in the darkness they try to get the shoes away from the shepherds--who are permitted to do anything except bite and use black-jacks. The wolves chuck the captured shoes out into the hall. No one excused! Come on! Shoes off!" Every one looked at every one else and waited for every one else to begin. Carol kicked off her silver slippers, and ignored the universal glance at her arches. The embarrassed but loyal Vida Sherwin unbuttoned her high black shoes. Ezra Stowbody cackled, "Well, you're a terror to old folks. You're like the gals I used to go horseback-riding with, back in the sixties. Ain't much accustomed to attending parties barefoot, but here goes!" With a whoop and a gallant jerk Ezra snatched off his elastic-sided Congress shoes. The others giggled and followed. When the sheep had been penned up, in the darkness the timorous wolves crept into the living-room, squealing, halting, thrown out of their habit of stolidity by the strangeness of advancing through nothingness toward a waiting foe, a mysterious foe which expanded and grew more menacing. The wolves peered to make out landmarks, they touched gliding arms which did not seem to be attached to a body, they quivered with a rapture of fear. Reality had vanished. A yelping squabble suddenly rose, then Juanita Haydock's high titter, and Guy Pollock's astonished, "Ouch! Quit! You're scalping me!" Mrs. Luke Dawson galloped backward on stiff hands and knees into the safety of the lighted hallway, moaning, "I declare, I nev' was so upset in my life!" But the propriety was shaken out of her, and she delightedly continued to ejaculate "Nev' in my LIFE" as she saw the living-room door opened by invisible hands and shoes hurling through it, as she heard from the darkness beyond the door a squawling, a bumping, a resolute "Here's a lot of shoes. Come on, you wolves. Ow! Y' would, would you!" When Carol abruptly turned on the lights in the embattled living-room, half of the company were sitting back against the walls, where they had craftily remained throughout the engagement, but in the middle of the floor Kennicott was wrestling with Harry Haydock--their collars torn off, their hair in their eyes; and the owlish Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh was retreating from Juanita Haydock, and gulping with unaccustomed laughter. Guy Pollock's discreet brown scarf hung down his back. Young Rita Simons's net blouse had lost two buttons, and betrayed more of her delicious plump shoulder than was regarded as pure in Gopher Prairie. Whether by shock, disgust, joy of combat, or physical activity, all the party were freed from their years of social decorum. George Edwin Mott giggled; Luke Dawson twisted his beard; Mrs. Clark insisted, "I did too, Sam--I got a shoe--I never knew I could fight so terrible!" Carol was certain that she was a great reformer. She mercifully had combs, mirrors, brushes, needle and thread ready. She permitted them to restore the divine decency of buttons. The grinning Bea brought down-stairs a pile of soft thick sheets of paper with designs of lotos blossoms, dragons, apes, in cobalt and crimson and gray, and patterns of purple birds flying among sea-green trees in the valleys of Nowhere. "These," Carol announced, "are real Chinese masquerade costumes. I got them from an importing shop in Minneapolis. You are to put them on over your clothes, and please forget that you are Minnesotans, and turn into mandarins and coolies and--and samurai (isn't it?), and anything else you can think of." While they were shyly rustling the paper costumes she disappeared. Ten minutes after she gazed down from the stairs upon grotesquely ruddy Yankee heads above Oriental robes, and cried to them, "The Princess Winky Poo salutes her court!" As they looked up she caught their suspense of admiration. They saw an airy figure in trousers and coat of green brocade edged with gold; a high gold collar under a proud chin; black hair pierced with jade pins; a languid peacock fan in an out-stretched hand; eyes uplifted to a vision of pagoda towers. When she dropped her pose and smiled down she discovered Kennicott apoplectic with domestic pride--and gray Guy Pollock staring beseechingly. For a second she saw nothing in all the pink and brown mass of their faces save the hunger of the two men. She shook off the spell and ran down. "We're going to have a real Chinese concert. Messrs. Pollock, Kennicott, and, well, Stowbody are drummers; the rest of us sing and play the fife." The fifes were combs with tissue paper; the drums were tabourets and the sewing-table. Loren Wheeler, editor of the Dauntless, led the orchestra, with a ruler and a totally inaccurate sense of rhythm. The music was a reminiscence of tom-toms heard at circus fortune-telling tents or at the Minnesota State Fair, but the whole company pounded and puffed and whined in a sing-song, and looked rapturous. Before they were quite tired of the concert Carol led them in a dancing procession to the dining-room, to blue bowls of chow mein, with Lichee nuts and ginger preserved in syrup. None of them save that city-rounder Harry Haydock had heard of any Chinese dish except chop sooey. With agreeable doubt they ventured through the bamboo shoots into the golden fried noodles of the chow mein; and Dave Dyer did a not very humorous Chinese dance with Nat Hicks; and there was hubbub and contentment. Carol relaxed, and found that she was shockingly tired. She had carried them on her thin shoulders. She could not keep it up. She longed for her father, that artist at creating hysterical parties. She thought of smoking a cigarette, to shock them, and dismissed the obscene thought before it was quite formed. She wondered whether they could for five minutes be coaxed to talk about something besides the winter top of Knute Stamquist's Ford, and what Al Tingley had said about his mother-in-law. She sighed, "Oh, let 'em alone. I've done enough." She crossed her trousered legs, and snuggled luxuriously above her saucer of ginger; she caught Pollock's congratulatory still smile, and thought well of herself for having thrown a rose light on the pallid lawyer; repented the heretical supposition that any male save her husband existed; jumped up to find Kennicott and whisper, "Happy, my lord? . . . No, it didn't cost much!" "Best party this town ever saw. Only----Don't cross your legs in that costume. Shows your knees too plain." She was vexed. She resented his clumsiness. She returned to Guy Pollock and talked of Chinese religions--not that she knew anything whatever about Chinese religions, but he had read a book on the subject as, on lonely evenings in his office, he had read at least one book on every subject in the world. Guy's thin maturity was changing in her vision to flushed youth and they were roaming an island in the yellow sea of chatter when she realized that the guests were beginning that cough which indicated, in the universal instinctive language, that they desired to go home and go to bed. While they asserted that it had been "the nicest party they'd ever seen--my! so clever and original," she smiled tremendously, shook hands, and cried many suitable things regarding children, and being sure to wrap up warmly, and Raymie's singing and Juanita Haydock's prowess at games. Then she turned wearily to Kennicott in a house filled with quiet and crumbs and shreds of Chinese costumes. He was gurgling, "I tell you, Carrie, you certainly are a wonder, and guess you're right about waking folks up. Now you've showed 'em how, they won't go on having the same old kind of parties and stunts and everything. Here! Don't touch a thing! Done enough. Pop up to bed, and I'll clear up." His wise surgeon's-hands stroked her shoulder, and her irritation at his clumsiness was lost in his strength. V From the Weekly Dauntless: One of the most delightful social events of recent months was held Wednesday evening in the housewarming of Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott, who have completely redecorated their charming home on Poplar Street, and is now extremely nifty in modern color scheme. The doctor and his bride were at home to their numerous friends and a number of novelties in diversions were held, including a Chinese orchestra in original and genuine Oriental costumes, of which Ye Editor was leader. Dainty refreshments were served in true Oriental style, and one and all voted a delightful time. VI The week after, the Chet Dashaways gave a party. The circle of mourners kept its place all evening, and Dave Dyer did the "stunt" of the Norwegian and the hen. Können Sie eine passende Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze verfassen?

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Im November lässt Carol die Zwischenwand im Salon entfernen und richtet den großen Raum mit orientalischen Elementen neu ein. Die ganze Stadt interessiert sich dafür. Zu dieser Zeit lernt Carol Mrs. Bogart kennen, ihre Nachbarin im Hinterhof, die die baptistische Moralwächterin und selbsternannte Schiedsrichterin der Moral der Stadt ist. Ihr vierzehnjähriger Sohn Cyrus ist das härteste Mitglied der härtesten Gang der Stadt. Mrs. Bogart besucht Carol und befragt sie zu allem, von ihrem religiösen Glauben bis hin zu den Kosten ihrer neuen Möbel. Carol ist erleichtert, als sie endlich geht. Es war normal, dass Ehemänner ihren Frauen Geld gaben, wie sie es brauchten, aber nachdem Carol andere Frauen beobachtet, wie sie ihre Ehemänner um Geld baten, sagt sie Kennicott, dass sie verhungern würde, anstatt zu betteln, falls er sie nicht regelmäßig an Geld erinnert. Von da an erinnert er sich meistens daran, ihr Geld zu geben, und Carol verzichtet vorerst darauf, auf eine regelmäßige Zuwendungen zu bestehen. Obwohl sie sparsam im Haushalt wirtschaftet, zögert sie nicht, Geld für ausgefallene Speisen aus der Stadt und Dekorationen für ihre Einweihungsparty auszugeben - sie will Gopher Prairie aus ihrer Lethargie reißen. Sie ist entmutigt zu sehen, wie bereitwillig ihre Gäste sich in die starre Formation eines Ausschusses begeben. Sie beschließt, sie aufzurütteln. Sie bringt die Gruppe dazu zu tanzen und auf Drängen von Vida besteht Carol darauf, dass Raymie singt. Während er singt, bemerkt sie jedoch, dass er es nicht gut kann. Als nächstes kündigt sie ein Spiel an, das sie in Chicago gelernt hat, namens "Sheeps and Wolves". Zur Ungläubigkeit der Gruppe lässt sie alle ihre Schuhe ausziehen und im verdunkelten Haus auf Händen und Knien suchen. Als das Licht wieder angeht, überzeugt der Anblick der zerzausten Teilnehmer Carol davon, dass sie Fortschritte macht. Sie verteilt chinesische Gewänder und führt sie durch eine mock musikalische Darbietung mit Kämmen und Trommeln, gefolgt von einer Mahlzeit mit exotischen chinesischen Gerichten. Sie bemerkt, dass Guy Pollock, der eintönige, aber kultivierte Anwalt, ihr besondere Aufmerksamkeit schenkt. Schließlich kehrt die Gruppe zu ihrem banalen Geplauder zurück, aber Carol, erschöpft von der Anstrengung, die Party am Laufen zu halten, erlaubt ihnen, ihrem Naturell zu folgen. Nachdem die Gruppe gegangen ist, gratuliert Kennicott ihr zu der besten Party, die die Stadt je gesehen hat, und der Weekly Dauntless berichtet, dass sie ein großer Erfolg war. In der folgenden Woche veranstalten die Dashaways eine Party, bei der die üblichen Stunts durchgeführt werden.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: SCENE 2. The same. [Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE.] EVANS. Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which is the way; and there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer. SIMPLE. Well, sir. EVANS. Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it is a 'oman that altogether's acquaintance with Mistress Anne Page; and the letter is to desire and require her to solicit your master's desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you be gone: I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins and cheese to come. [Exeunt.] SCENE 3. A room in the Garter Inn. [Enter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN.] FALSTAFF. Mine host of the Garter! HOST. What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and wisely. FALSTAFF. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my followers. HOST. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier; let them wag; trot, trot. FALSTAFF. I sit at ten pounds a week. HOST. Thou'rt an emperor, Caesar, Keiser, and Pheazar. I will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap; said I well, bully Hector? FALSTAFF. Do so, good mine host. HOST. I have spoke; let him follow. [To BARDOLPH] Let me see thee froth and lime. I am at a word; follow. [Exit.] FALSTAFF. Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade; an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a withered serving-man a fresh tapster. Go; adieu. BARDOLPH. It is a life that I have desired; I will thrive. PISTOL. O base Hungarian wight! Wilt thou the spigot wield? [Exit BARDOLPH.] NYM. He was gotten in drink. Is not the humour conceited? FALSTAFF. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box: his thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful singer--he kept not time. NYM. The good humour is to steal at a minim's rest. PISTOL. 'Convey' the wise it call. 'Steal!' foh! A fico for the phrase! FALSTAFF. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels. PISTOL. Why, then, let kibes ensue. FALSTAFF. There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must shift. PISTOL. Young ravens must have food. FALSTAFF. Which of you know Ford of this town? PISTOL. I ken the wight; he is of substance good. FALSTAFF. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about. PISTOL. Two yards, and more. FALSTAFF. No quips now, Pistol. Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife; I spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation; I can construe the action of her familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be Englished rightly, is 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.' PISTOL. He hath studied her will, and translated her will out of honesty into English. NYM. The anchor is deep; will that humour pass? FALSTAFF. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her husband's purse; he hath a legion of angels. PISTOL. As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I. NYM. The humour rises; it is good; humour me the angels. FALSTAFF. I have writ me here a letter to her; and here another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good eyes too, examined my parts with most judicious oeillades; sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my portly belly. PISTOL. Then did the sun on dunghill shine. NYM. I thank thee for that humour. FALSTAFF. O! she did so course o'er my exteriors with such a greedy intention that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass. Here's another letter to her: she bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheator to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go, bear thou this letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to Mistress Ford. We will thrive, lads, we will thrive. PISTOL. Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become, And by my side wear steel? then Lucifer take all! NYM. I will run no base humour. Here, take the humour-letter; I will keep the haviour of reputation. FALSTAFF. [To ROBIN] Hold, sirrah; bear you these letters tightly; Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores. Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go; Trudge, plod away o' hoof; seek shelter, pack! Falstaff will learn the humour of this age; French thrift, you rogues; myself, and skirted page. [Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN.] PISTOL. Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam holds, And high and low beguile the rich and poor; Tester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack, Base Phrygian Turk! NYM. I have operations in my head which be humours of revenge. PISTOL. Wilt thou revenge? NYM. By welkin and her star! PISTOL. With wit or steel? NYM. With both the humours, I: I will discuss the humour of this love to Page. PISTOL. And I to Ford shall eke unfold How Falstaff, varlet vile, His dove will prove, his gold will hold, And his soft couch defile. NYM. My humour shall not cool: I will incense Page to deal with poison; I will possess him with yellowness, for the revolt of mine is dangerous: that is my true humour. PISTOL. Thou art the Mars of malcontents; I second thee; troop on. [Exeunt.] Können Sie eine geeignete Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Evans schickt Slenders Diener Simple mit einer Nachricht an Mistress Quickly, um sie "zu bitten und zu ersuchen, ihre Herrin um Vermittlung der Wünsche von Herrn Anne Page zu ersuchen". Falstaff wiederum konspiriert mit seinen Männern im Garter Inn, um "Liebe zu Fords Ehefrau zu machen", denn "es wird berichtet, dass sie die volle Kontrolle über die Geldbörse ihres Mannes hat". Er schickt Nym und Pistol mit Liebesbriefen an Mistress Page und an Mistress Ford und verlässt dann den Raum. In Falstaffs Abwesenheit bereiten seine Verbündeten sich darauf vor, ihn zu verraten: Nym: Ich werde über den Kummer seiner Liebe zu Page sprechen. Pistol: Und ich werde Ford enthüllen, wie sich Falstaff, abscheulicher Schurke, als seine Taube beweisen wird, und sein Gold wird er behalten, und sein weiches Bett wird er besudeln.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: "I hope I shall soon have the pleasure of introducing my son to you," said Mr. Weston. Mrs. Elton, very willing to suppose a particular compliment intended her by such a hope, smiled most graciously. "You have heard of a certain Frank Churchill, I presume," he continued--"and know him to be my son, though he does not bear my name." "Oh! yes, and I shall be very happy in his acquaintance. I am sure Mr. Elton will lose no time in calling on him; and we shall both have great pleasure in seeing him at the Vicarage." "You are very obliging.--Frank will be extremely happy, I am sure.-- He is to be in town next week, if not sooner. We have notice of it in a letter to-day. I met the letters in my way this morning, and seeing my son's hand, presumed to open it--though it was not directed to me--it was to Mrs. Weston. She is his principal correspondent, I assure you. I hardly ever get a letter." "And so you absolutely opened what was directed to her! Oh! Mr. Weston--(laughing affectedly) I must protest against that.--A most dangerous precedent indeed!--I beg you will not let your neighbours follow your example.--Upon my word, if this is what I am to expect, we married women must begin to exert ourselves!--Oh! Mr. Weston, I could not have believed it of you!" "Aye, we men are sad fellows. You must take care of yourself, Mrs. Elton.--This letter tells us--it is a short letter--written in a hurry, merely to give us notice--it tells us that they are all coming up to town directly, on Mrs. Churchill's account--she has not been well the whole winter, and thinks Enscombe too cold for her--so they are all to move southward without loss of time." "Indeed!--from Yorkshire, I think. Enscombe is in Yorkshire?" "Yes, they are about one hundred and ninety miles from London, a considerable journey." "Yes, upon my word, very considerable. Sixty-five miles farther than from Maple Grove to London. But what is distance, Mr. Weston, to people of large fortune?--You would be amazed to hear how my brother, Mr. Suckling, sometimes flies about. You will hardly believe me--but twice in one week he and Mr. Bragge went to London and back again with four horses." "The evil of the distance from Enscombe," said Mr. Weston, "is, that Mrs. Churchill, _as_ _we_ _understand_, has not been able to leave the sofa for a week together. In Frank's last letter she complained, he said, of being too weak to get into her conservatory without having both his arm and his uncle's! This, you know, speaks a great degree of weakness--but now she is so impatient to be in town, that she means to sleep only two nights on the road.--So Frank writes word. Certainly, delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You must grant me that." "No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice--You will find me a formidable antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women--and I assure you, if you knew how Selina feels with respect to sleeping at an inn, you would not wonder at Mrs. Churchill's making incredible exertions to avoid it. Selina says it is quite horror to her--and I believe I have caught a little of her nicety. She always travels with her own sheets; an excellent precaution. Does Mrs. Churchill do the same?" "Depend upon it, Mrs. Churchill does every thing that any other fine lady ever did. Mrs. Churchill will not be second to any lady in the land for"-- Mrs. Elton eagerly interposed with, "Oh! Mr. Weston, do not mistake me. Selina is no fine lady, I assure you. Do not run away with such an idea." "Is not she? Then she is no rule for Mrs. Churchill, who is as thorough a fine lady as any body ever beheld." Mrs. Elton began to think she had been wrong in disclaiming so warmly. It was by no means her object to have it believed that her sister was _not_ a fine lady; perhaps there was want of spirit in the pretence of it;--and she was considering in what way she had best retract, when Mr. Weston went on. "Mrs. Churchill is not much in my good graces, as you may suspect--but this is quite between ourselves. She is very fond of Frank, and therefore I would not speak ill of her. Besides, she is out of health now; but _that_ indeed, by her own account, she has always been. I would not say so to every body, Mrs. Elton, but I have not much faith in Mrs. Churchill's illness." "If she is really ill, why not go to Bath, Mr. Weston?--To Bath, or to Clifton?" "She has taken it into her head that Enscombe is too cold for her. The fact is, I suppose, that she is tired of Enscombe. She has now been a longer time stationary there, than she ever was before, and she begins to want change. It is a retired place. A fine place, but very retired." "Aye--like Maple Grove, I dare say. Nothing can stand more retired from the road than Maple Grove. Such an immense plantation all round it! You seem shut out from every thing--in the most complete retirement.--And Mrs. Churchill probably has not health or spirits like Selina to enjoy that sort of seclusion. Or, perhaps she may not have resources enough in herself to be qualified for a country life. I always say a woman cannot have too many resources--and I feel very thankful that I have so many myself as to be quite independent of society." "Frank was here in February for a fortnight." "So I remember to have heard. He will find an _addition_ to the society of Highbury when he comes again; that is, if I may presume to call myself an addition. But perhaps he may never have heard of there being such a creature in the world." This was too loud a call for a compliment to be passed by, and Mr. Weston, with a very good grace, immediately exclaimed, "My dear madam! Nobody but yourself could imagine such a thing possible. Not heard of you!--I believe Mrs. Weston's letters lately have been full of very little else than Mrs. Elton." He had done his duty and could return to his son. "When Frank left us," continued he, "it was quite uncertain when we might see him again, which makes this day's news doubly welcome. It has been completely unexpected. That is, _I_ always had a strong persuasion he would be here again soon, I was sure something favourable would turn up--but nobody believed me. He and Mrs. Weston were both dreadfully desponding. 'How could he contrive to come? And how could it be supposed that his uncle and aunt would spare him again?' and so forth--I always felt that something would happen in our favour; and so it has, you see. I have observed, Mrs. Elton, in the course of my life, that if things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next." "Very true, Mr. Weston, perfectly true. It is just what I used to say to a certain gentleman in company in the days of courtship, when, because things did not go quite right, did not proceed with all the rapidity which suited his feelings, he was apt to be in despair, and exclaim that he was sure at this rate it would be _May_ before Hymen's saffron robe would be put on for us. Oh! the pains I have been at to dispel those gloomy ideas and give him cheerfuller views! The carriage--we had disappointments about the carriage;--one morning, I remember, he came to me quite in despair." She was stopped by a slight fit of coughing, and Mr. Weston instantly seized the opportunity of going on. "You were mentioning May. May is the very month which Mrs. Churchill is ordered, or has ordered herself, to spend in some warmer place than Enscombe--in short, to spend in London; so that we have the agreeable prospect of frequent visits from Frank the whole spring--precisely the season of the year which one should have chosen for it: days almost at the longest; weather genial and pleasant, always inviting one out, and never too hot for exercise. When he was here before, we made the best of it; but there was a good deal of wet, damp, cheerless weather; there always is in February, you know, and we could not do half that we intended. Now will be the time. This will be complete enjoyment; and I do not know, Mrs. Elton, whether the uncertainty of our meetings, the sort of constant expectation there will be of his coming in to-day or to-morrow, and at any hour, may not be more friendly to happiness than having him actually in the house. I think it is so. I think it is the state of mind which gives most spirit and delight. I hope you will be pleased with my son; but you must not expect a prodigy. He is generally thought a fine young man, but do not expect a prodigy. Mrs. Weston's partiality for him is very great, and, as you may suppose, most gratifying to me. She thinks nobody equal to him." "And I assure you, Mr. Weston, I have very little doubt that my opinion will be decidedly in his favour. I have heard so much in praise of Mr. Frank Churchill.--At the same time it is fair to observe, that I am one of those who always judge for themselves, and are by no means implicitly guided by others. I give you notice that as I find your son, so I shall judge of him.--I am no flatterer." Mr. Weston was musing. "I hope," said he presently, "I have not been severe upon poor Mrs. Churchill. If she is ill I should be sorry to do her injustice; but there are some traits in her character which make it difficult for me to speak of her with the forbearance I could wish. You cannot be ignorant, Mrs. Elton, of my connexion with the family, nor of the treatment I have met with; and, between ourselves, the whole blame of it is to be laid to her. She was the instigator. Frank's mother would never have been slighted as she was but for her. Mr. Churchill has pride; but his pride is nothing to his wife's: his is a quiet, indolent, gentlemanlike sort of pride that would harm nobody, and only make himself a little helpless and tiresome; but her pride is arrogance and insolence! And what inclines one less to bear, she has no fair pretence of family or blood. She was nobody when he married her, barely the daughter of a gentleman; but ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has out-Churchill'd them all in high and mighty claims: but in herself, I assure you, she is an upstart." "Only think! well, that must be infinitely provoking! I have quite a horror of upstarts. Maple Grove has given me a thorough disgust to people of that sort; for there is a family in that neighbourhood who are such an annoyance to my brother and sister from the airs they give themselves! Your description of Mrs. Churchill made me think of them directly. People of the name of Tupman, very lately settled there, and encumbered with many low connexions, but giving themselves immense airs, and expecting to be on a footing with the old established families. A year and a half is the very utmost that they can have lived at West Hall; and how they got their fortune nobody knows. They came from Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much, you know, Mr. Weston. One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound: but nothing more is positively known of the Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected; and yet by their manners they evidently think themselves equal even to my brother, Mr. Suckling, who happens to be one of their nearest neighbours. It is infinitely too bad. Mr. Suckling, who has been eleven years a resident at Maple Grove, and whose father had it before him--I believe, at least--I am almost sure that old Mr. Suckling had completed the purchase before his death." They were interrupted. Tea was carrying round, and Mr. Weston, having said all that he wanted, soon took the opportunity of walking away. After tea, Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and Mr. Elton sat down with Mr. Woodhouse to cards. The remaining five were left to their own powers, and Emma doubted their getting on very well; for Mr. Knightley seemed little disposed for conversation; Mrs. Elton was wanting notice, which nobody had inclination to pay, and she was herself in a worry of spirits which would have made her prefer being silent. Mr. John Knightley proved more talkative than his brother. He was to leave them early the next day; and he soon began with-- "Well, Emma, I do not believe I have any thing more to say about the boys; but you have your sister's letter, and every thing is down at full length there we may be sure. My charge would be much more concise than her's, and probably not much in the same spirit; all that I have to recommend being comprised in, do not spoil them, and do not physic them." "I rather hope to satisfy you both," said Emma, "for I shall do all in my power to make them happy, which will be enough for Isabella; and happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic." "And if you find them troublesome, you must send them home again." "That is very likely. You think so, do not you?" "I hope I am aware that they may be too noisy for your father--or even may be some encumbrance to you, if your visiting engagements continue to increase as much as they have done lately." "Increase!" "Certainly; you must be sensible that the last half-year has made a great difference in your way of life." "Difference! No indeed I am not." "There can be no doubt of your being much more engaged with company than you used to be. Witness this very time. Here am I come down for only one day, and you are engaged with a dinner-party!--When did it happen before, or any thing like it? Your neighbourhood is increasing, and you mix more with it. A little while ago, every letter to Isabella brought an account of fresh gaieties; dinners at Mr. Cole's, or balls at the Crown. The difference which Randalls, Randalls alone makes in your goings-on, is very great." "Yes," said his brother quickly, "it is Randalls that does it all." "Very well--and as Randalls, I suppose, is not likely to have less influence than heretofore, it strikes me as a possible thing, Emma, that Henry and John may be sometimes in the way. And if they are, I only beg you to send them home." "No," cried Mr. Knightley, "that need not be the consequence. Let them be sent to Donwell. I shall certainly be at leisure." "Upon my word," exclaimed Emma, "you amuse me! I should like to know how many of all my numerous engagements take place without your being of the party; and why I am to be supposed in danger of wanting leisure to attend to the little boys. These amazing engagements of mine--what have they been? Dining once with the Coles--and having a ball talked of, which never took place. I can understand you--(nodding at Mr. John Knightley)--your good fortune in meeting with so many of your friends at once here, delights you too much to pass unnoticed. But you, (turning to Mr. Knightley,) who know how very, very seldom I am ever two hours from Hartfield, why you should foresee such a series of dissipation for me, I cannot imagine. And as to my dear little boys, I must say, that if Aunt Emma has not time for them, I do not think they would fare much better with Uncle Knightley, who is absent from home about five hours where she is absent one--and who, when he is at home, is either reading to himself or settling his accounts." Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton's beginning to talk to him. VOLUME III Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Mr. Weston und Mrs. Elton führen ein langatmiges Gespräch, in dem sie komisch unterschiedliche Absichten verfolgen. Mrs. Elton angelt nach Komplimenten und schwärmt von Maple Grove, dem Anwesen, auf dem ihr wohlhabender Bruder und ihre Schwägerin leben. Mr. Weston spricht über Frank und erklärt die Krankheit von Franks Tante, Mrs. Churchill. Bevor das Gespräch zu hitzig wird, werden sie durch den Tee unterbrochen. Mr. John Knightley gibt Emma letzte Anweisungen bezüglich seiner Söhne und fragt sich, ob sie nun, da Emma so gesellig geworden ist, im Weg sein werden in Hartfield. Sie weist John Knightleys Andeutung zurück und besteht darauf, dass sie mehr ein Stubenhocker ist als Mr. Knightley, der erfreut und amüsiert von dieser Behauptung zu sein scheint.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Nun ist nicht der Zeitpunkt, an dem ich den Zustand meines Geistes unter seiner Last der Trauer erörtern soll. Ich kam zu dem Schluss, dass die Zukunft für mich verschlossen war, dass die Energie und Handlung meines Lebens zu Ende waren, dass ich niemals Zuflucht finden könnte, außer im Grab. Ich kam zu dieser Erkenntnis, aber nicht im ersten Schock meiner Trauer. Es wuchs langsam dahin. Wenn die Ereignisse, über die ich im Folgenden berichte, sich nicht von Anfang an um mich herum verdichtet hätten, um meine Affektion zu verwirren und am Ende zu verstärken, ist es möglich (obwohl ich es für unwahrscheinlich halte), dass ich sofort in diesen Zustand gefallen wäre. Wie dem auch sei, es verging eine Zeitspanne, bevor ich mein eigenes Leid vollständig erkannte. Eine Zeitspanne, in der ich sogar annahm, dass die schärfsten Schmerzen vorbei waren, und mein Geist konnte sich beruhigen, indem er sich an allem Unschuldigen und Schönen festhielt, in der zarten Geschichte, die für immer geschlossen war. Als zum ersten Mal vorgeschlagen wurde, dass ich ins Ausland gehen sollte, oder wie es zwischen uns vereinbart wurde, dass ich die Wiederherstellung meines inneren Friedens in Veränderung und Reisen suchen sollte, weiß ich selbst jetzt nicht genau. Der Geist von Agnes durchdrang alles, was wir dachten, sagten und taten, in dieser Zeit der Trauer, dass ich annehme, dass ich das Projekt ihrer Einflussnahme zuschreiben darf. Aber ihr Einfluss war so leise, dass ich nicht mehr weiß. Und jetzt fing ich tatsächlich an zu denken, dass in meiner alten Verbindung mit ihr und dem bunten Kirchenfenster eine prophetische Vorahnung dessen, was sie für mich in der Katastrophe sein würde, die zur richtigen Zeit eintreten sollte, ihren Weg in meinen Geist gefunden hatte. In all dieser Trauer, von dem Moment an, der nie vergessen werden würde, als sie vor mir stand und ihre erhobene Hand hatte, war sie wie eine heilige Präsenz in meinem einsamen Haus. Als der Todesengel dort landete, schlief meine kindliche Frau ein - sagten sie mir, als ich es ertragen konnte - in ihrem Schoß, mit einem Lächeln. Von meiner Ohnmacht erwachte ich zum ersten Mal in meinem Leben zu dem Bewusstsein ihrer mitfühlenden Tränen, ihrer Worte der Hoffnung und des Friedens, ihrem sanften Gesicht, das sich aus einer reineren, dem Himmel näheren Region über mein undiszipliniertes Herz neigte und seinen Schmerz linderte. Lassen Sie mich fortfahren. Ich sollte ins Ausland gehen. Das schien von Anfang an für uns bestimmt gewesen zu sein. Nachdem nun die Erde alles bedeckte, was von meiner verstorbenen Frau hätte vergehen können, wartete ich nur noch auf das, was Mr. Micawber die "endgültige Pulverisierung von Heep" nannte, und auf die Abreise der Auswanderer. Auf Wunsch von Traddles, dem liebevollsten und hingebungsvollsten Freund in meiner Not, kehrten wir nach Canterbury zurück: Ich meine Tante, Agnes und ich. Wir gingen sofort zum Haus von Mr. Micawber; wo mein Freund seit unserem explosiven Treffen gearbeitet hatte, und zu Mr. Wickfield. Als die arme Mrs. Micawber mich in meinem schwarzen Gewand hereinkommen sah, war sie spürbar bewegt. In all den vielen Jahren war noch viel Gutes in Mrs. Micawbers Herz geblieben. "Nun, Mr. und Mrs. Micawber", war die erste Begrüßung meiner Tante, nachdem wir uns hingesetzt hatten. "Haben Sie über meinen Vorschlag zur Auswanderung nachgedacht?" "Meine liebe Dame", erwiderte Mr. Micawber, "vielleicht kann ich die Schlussfolgerung, zu der Mrs. Micawber, Ihr ergebener Diener, und ich, darf ich hinzufügen, unsere Kinder, gemeinsam und einzeln, gekommen sind, nicht besser zum Ausdruck bringen, als in den Worten eines berühmten Dichters, um zu antworten, dass unser Boot am Ufer liegt und unser Schiff auf dem Meer ist." "Das ist richtig", sagte meine Tante. "Ich prophezeie alles Gute aus Ihrer vernünftigen Entscheidung." "Madam, Sie ehren uns sehr", erwiderte er. Er verwies dann auf eine Notiz. "Was die finanzielle Unterstützung betrifft, die es uns ermöglicht, unseren zerbrechlichen Kahn auf das Meer der Unternehmungen zu bringen, habe ich diesen wichtigen Geschäftspunkt überdacht und möchte meine Wechsel vorschlagen - gezeichnet, es ist unnötig, auf den Beträgen zu bestehen, die nach den verschiedenen anzuwendenden Parlamentsgesetzen für solche Sicherheiten erforderlich sind - nach achtzehn, vierundzwanzig und dreißig Monaten. Ursprünglich hatte ich die Vorschläge zwölf, achtzehn und vierundzwanzig gemacht; aber ich fürchte, dass eine solche Regelung nicht genügend Zeit für die erforderliche Menge an - Etwas - zulassen könnte, um es aufzudecken. Wir könnten nicht", sagte Mr. Micawber und blickte im Raum herum, als ob er mehrere Hektar hochkultiviertes Land repräsentierte, "bei Erstattung der ersten Verantwortung erfolgreich gewesen sein, wir hätten unsere Ernte möglicherweise nicht eingeholt. Arbeit ist in jenem Teil unseres Kolonialbesitzes, wo es unser Los sein wird, mit dem fruchtbaren Boden zu kämpfen, manchmal schwer zu bekommen." "Regeln Sie es, wie Sie möchten, Sir", sagte meine Tante. "Madam", antwortete er, "Mrs. Micawber und ich sind uns der sehr aufmerksamen Freundlichkeit unserer Freunde und Förderer sehr bewusst. Was ich möchte, ist, dass wir uns vollkommen geschäftlich verhalten und äußerst pünktlich sind. Wenn wir gerade dabei sind, eine völlig neue Seite umzublättern und jetzt dabei sind, uns für eine ungewöhnliche Herausforderung zurückzuziehen, ist es mir wichtig, mein Selbstwertgefühl zu wahren und meinem Sohn ein Vorbild zu sein, dass diese Vereinbarungen als Mann mit Mann abgeschlossen werden sollten." Ich weiß nicht, ob Mr. Micawber dieser letzten Phrase eine Bedeutung beimaß; ich weiß nicht, ob das je jemand getan hat oder tut, aber er schien es außergewöhnlich zu genießen und wiederholte es mit eindringlichem Husten: "Als Mann mit Mann". "Ich schlage vor", sagte Mr. Micawber, "Wechsel - eine Bequemlichkeit für die Handelswelt, für die wir, wie ich glaube, ursprünglich den Juden verdanken, die meiner Meinung nach seitdem des Teufels zu viel damit zu tun hatten - weil sie verhandelbar sind. Aber wenn eine Anleihe oder eine andere Art der Sicherheit bevorzugt wird, stehe ich gerne zur Ausführung einer solchen Urkunde zur Verfügung. Als Mann mit Mann." Meine Tante bemerkte, dass in einem Fall, in dem beide Parteien bereit waren, allem zuzustimmen, sie davon ausging, dass es keine Schwierigkeit geben würde, diesen Punkt zu regeln. Herr Micawber war ihrer Meinung. "In Bezug auf unsere häuslichen Vorbereitungen, meine Damen" sagte Mr. Micawber mit einigem Stolz, "um dem Schicksal entgegenzutreten, dem wir nun selbst hingebungsvoll sind, möchte ich darüber Bericht erstatten. Meine älteste Tochter geht jeden Morgen um fünf Uhr in eine nahegelegene Einrichtung, um den Vorgang, wenn man es so nennen kann, des Melkens von Kühen zu erlernen. Meine jüngeren Kinder werden angewiesen, die Gewohnheiten der Schweine und Geflügel in den ärmeren Teilen dieser Stadt so genau wie möglich zu beobachten - ein Betätigungsfeld, von dem sie schon zweimal nach Hause gebracht wurden, nur knapp einer Überfahrt entkommen. Ich selbst habe in der vergangenen Woche etwas Aufmerksamkeit auf die Kunst des Backens gelenkt, und mein Sohn Wilkins ist mit einem Spazierstock nach draußen gegangen und hat das Vieh getrieben, wenn er es durfte, von den rauen Kne Dies ist zumindest die Art und Weise, in der ich das Thema betrachte, mein lieber Mr. Copperfield", fuhr Mrs. Micawber fort. "Als ich noch zu Hause bei meinem Papa und meiner Mama lebte, pflegte mein Papa zu fragen, wenn ein bestimmter Punkt in unserem begrenzten Kreis diskutiert wurde: "Wie sieht Emma das Thema?" Dass mein Papa zu parteiisch war, weiß ich; dennoch habe ich zwangsläufig eine Meinung zu der Kälte, die zwischen Mr. Micawber und meiner Familie immer herrschte, wie trügerisch sie auch sein mag." "Zweifellos. Natürlich haben Sie das, meine Dame", sagte meine Tante. "Genau so", stimmte Mrs. Micawber zu. "Nun, ich mag mit meinen Schlussfolgerungen falsch liegen; es ist sehr wahrscheinlich, dass ich falsch liege. Aber mein persönlicher Eindruck ist, dass der Graben, der zwischen meiner Familie und Mr. Micawber besteht, auf einer Befürchtung seitens meiner Familie beruht, dass Mr. Micawber finanzielle Unterstützung benötigen würde. Ich kann nicht umhin zu denken", sagte Mrs. Micawber mit einer Luft tiefgreifender Weisheit, "dass es Mitglieder meiner Familie gibt, die befürchtet haben, dass Mr. Micawber sie um ihre Namen bitten würde - nicht um sie bei der Taufe unserer Kinder zu verleihen, sondern um sie auf Wechsel eintragen zu lassen und auf dem Geldmarkt zu handeln." Der durchdringende Blick, mit dem Mrs. Micawber diese Entdeckung verkündete, als hätte noch nie jemand daran gedacht, schien meine Tante etwas zu erstaunen, die abrupt antwortete: "Nun, meine Dame, ich wäre nicht überrascht, wenn Sie recht hätten!" "Da Mr. Micawber nun kurz davor steht, die finanziellen Fesseln abzuschütteln, die ihn so lange gefangen hielten", sagte Mrs. Micawber, "und eine neue Karriere in einem Land zu beginnen, in dem seine Fähigkeiten ausreichend gefragt sind - was meiner Meinung nach äußerst wichtig ist; Mr. Micawbers Fähigkeiten erfordern unbedingt Raum - scheint es mir angemessen, dass meine Familie Anlass gibt. Was ich sehen möchte, wäre ein Treffen zwischen Mr. Micawber und meiner Familie bei einer festlichen Veranstaltung, die von meiner Familie finanziert wird, bei der Mr. Micawbers Gesundheit und Wohlstand von einem führenden Mitglied meiner Familie vorgeschlagen wird, damit Mr. Micawber die Möglichkeit hat, seine Ansichten darzulegen." "Mein Lieber", sagte Mr. Micawber mit erhitzter Stimme, "es wäre für mich vielleicht besser, deutlich zu sagen, dass meine Ansichten, wenn ich sie dieser versammelten Gruppe darlegen würde, möglicherweise einen anstößigen Charakter hätten. Mein Eindruck ist nämlich, dass Ihre Familie insgesamt impertinente Snobs sind und im Detail unverfrorene Rabauken." "Micawber", sagte Mrs. Micawber kopfschüttelnd, "nein! Sie haben sie nie verstanden und sie haben Sie nie verstanden." Mr. Micawber hustete. "Sie haben sie nie verstanden, Micawber", sagte seine Frau. "Vielleicht sind sie dazu nicht in der Lage. Wenn dem so ist, ist das ihr Unglück. Ich kann ihr Unglück bedauern." "Es tut mir sehr leid, mein liebes Emma", sagte Mr. Micawber, nachgiebig, "mich zu Ausdrücken hinreißen zu lassen, die auch nur entfernt den Anschein starken Ausdrucks haben könnten. Alles, was ich sagen wollte, ist, dass ich ins Ausland gehen kann, ohne dass Ihre Familie sich bemüht, mir behilflich zu sein - oder besser gesagt, sich mit einem Kaltstellungsschub von ihrer Seite zu verabschieden. Und im Großen und Ganzen würde ich es vorziehen, England mit der von mir besessenen Energie zu verlassen, als irgendwelche Beschleunigung von dieser Seite zu bekommen. Gleichzeitig, meine Liebe, wenn sie sich herablassen sollten, auf Ihre Mitteilungen zu antworten - was unsere gemeinsame Erfahrung höchst unwahrscheinlich macht - Möge es mir fern sein, Ihnen im Wege zu stehen." Nachdem die Angelegenheit auf diese Weise einvernehmlich geregelt war, bot Mr. Micawber Mrs. Micawber seinen Arm an und warf einen Blick auf den Stapel Bücher und Papiere, die vor Traddles auf dem Tisch lagen, und sagte, dass sie uns allein lassen würden; was sie höflich taten. "Mein lieber Copperfield", sagte Traddles, sich in seinen Stuhl zurücklehnend, als sie weg waren und mich mit einer Zuneigung ansahen, die seine Augen rot werden ließ und seine Haare in allen möglichen Formen standen, "ich entschuldige mich nicht dafür, Ihnen Geschäftsangelegenheiten anzutragen, weil ich weiß, dass Sie stark daran interessiert sind und es Ihre Gedanken ablenken kann. Mein lieber Junge, ich hoffe, du bist nicht erschöpft?" "Ich bin ganz der Alte", sagte ich nach einer Pause. "Wir haben mehr Grund, an meine Tante zu denken als an irgendjemanden. Du weißt, wie viel sie getan hat." "Gewiss, gewiss", antwortete Traddles. "Wer kann das vergessen?" "Aber das ist noch nicht alles", sagte ich. "In den letzten zwei Wochen hat sie eine neue Sorge beunruhigt, und sie ist jeden Tag hin und her nach London gefahren. Mehrmals ist sie früh gegangen und bis abends weggeblieben. Letzte Nacht, Traddles, fast Mitternacht, kam sie nach Hause, und das alles vor dieser Reise. Du weißt, wie sehr sie um andere besorgt ist. Sie will mir nicht sagen, was ihr zugestoßen ist." Meine Tante, sehr blass und mit tiefen Falten in ihrem Gesicht, saß regungslos da, bis ich geendet hatte, als einige vereinzelte Tränen ihren Weg zu ihren Wangen fanden und sie ihre Hand auf meine legte. "Es ist nichts, Trot, nichts. Es wird nicht mehr vorkommen. Du wirst es bald erfahren. Nun, Agnes, meine Liebe, lassen Sie uns diese Angelegenheiten regeln." "Ich muss Mr. Micawber gerecht werden", begann Traddles, "obwohl es so aussehen mag, als hätte er für sich selbst nicht viel erreicht, ist er ein sehr unermüdlicher Mann, wenn es darum geht, für andere zu arbeiten. Ich habe noch nie einen solchen Kerl gesehen. Wenn er immer so weitermacht, muss er gegenwärtig virtuell etwa zweihundert Jahre alt sein. Die Hitze, in die er sich ständig versetzt hat, und die verwirrte und überstürzte Art und Weise, wie er sich Tag und Nacht im Papier- und Bücherchaos herumtrieb, ganz zu schweigen von der enormen Anzahl von Briefen, die er mir zwischen diesem Haus und Mr. Wickfields geschrieben hat und die er oft über den Tisch hinweg geschrieben hat, obwohl er viel einfacher hätte sprechen können, ist absolut außergewöhnlich." "Briefe!", rief meine Tante. "Ich glaube, er träumt in Briefen!" "Auch Mr. Dick", sagte Traddles, "hat Wunder vollbracht! Sobald er von Uriah Heep, den er so unter Kontrolle hatte wie ich nie zuvor gesehen habe, entlassen war, hat er sich auf Mr. Wickfield konzentriert. Und wirklich, seine Bereitschaft, bei den Untersuchungen, die wir angestellt haben, nützlich zu sein, und seine tatsächliche Nützlichkeit beim Herausschälen, Kopieren, Holen und Tragen, haben uns sehr angeregt." "Dick ist ein sehr bemerkenswerter Mann", rief meine Tante. "Und das habe ich schon immer gesagt, Trot, du weißt es." "Es freut mich zu sagen, Miss Wickfield", fuhr Traddles sowohl mit großer Delikatesse als auch mit großer Ernsthaftigkeit fort, "dass sich Herr Wickfield in Ihrer Abwesenheit erheblich verbessert hat. Von dem Druck befreit, unter dem er lange Zeit gelitten hat, und von den schrecklichen Befürchtungen, unter denen er gelebt hat, ist er kaum derselbe Mensch. Gelegentlich hat sich sogar seine beeinträchtigte Fähigkeit, seine Aufmerksamkeit und sein 'Aber,' sagte Traddles, 'der Überschuss, der als sein Unterstützungsmittel übrig bleiben würde – und ich nehme an, dass das Haus verkauft werden würde, selbst wenn ich das sage – wäre so gering, dass wahrscheinlich nicht mehr als einige hundert Pfund übrig blieben dürften. Vielleicht, Miss Wickfield, wäre es dann am besten zu überlegen, ob er nicht weiterhin die Verwaltung des Anwesens behalten sollte, für das er so lange Zeit die Einnahmen empfangen hat. Seine Freunde könnten ihn dazu beraten, wissen Sie, jetzt da er frei ist. Sie selbst, Miss Wickfield – Copperfield – ich –' 'Ich habe darüber nachgedacht, Trotwood,' sagte Agnes und sah mich an, 'und ich bin der Meinung, dass es nicht sein sollte und auch nicht sein darf, selbst auf Empfehlung eines Freundes, dem ich so dankbar bin und dem ich so viel schulde.' 'Ich wollte nicht sagen, dass ich es empfehle,' bemerkte Traddles. 'Ich denke, es ist richtig, es vorzuschlagen. Nicht mehr.' 'Ich freue mich, dass Sie das sagen,' antwortete Agnes ruhig, 'denn das gibt mir Hoffnung, fast Gewissheit, dass wir dasselbe denken. Lieber Mr. Traddles und lieber Trotwood, wenn Papa erst einmal mit Ehre frei ist, was könnte ich mir mehr wünschen! Es war schon immer mein Wunsch, wenn ich ihn von den Mühen befreien könnte, ihm etwas von der Liebe und Fürsorge zurückzugeben, die ich ihm schulde, und mein Leben ihm zu widmen. Es war jahrelang das höchste Ziel meiner Hoffnungen. Unsere Zukunft in meine Hände zu nehmen, wird die nächste große Freude sein – die nächste nach seiner Befreiung von jeder Verantwortung und Verpflichtung – die ich erfahren kann.' 'Haben Sie darüber nachgedacht, Agnes?' 'Ja, oft! Ich habe keine Angst, lieber Trotwood. Ich bin sicher, dass es erfolgreich sein wird. So viele Leute kennen mich hier und denken freundlich an mich, dass ich gewiss bin. Haben Sie kein Misstrauen. Unsere Bedürfnisse sind nicht groß. Wenn ich das liebe alte Haus vermiete und eine Schule führe, werde ich nützlich und glücklich sein.' Die ruhige Begeisterung ihrer fröhlichen Stimme rief das liebe alte Haus und dann mein einsames Zuhause so lebhaft in Erinnerung, dass mein Herz vor lauter Redebedarf zu voll war. Traddles tat für eine Weile so, als würde er eifrig unter den Papieren suchen. 'Nun, Miss Trotwood,' sagte Traddles, 'dieses Eigentum von Ihnen.' 'Nun, Sir,' seufzte meine Tante. 'Alles, was ich dazu sagen kann, ist, dass, wenn es weg ist, kann ich es ertragen, und wenn es nicht weg ist, werde ich froh sein, es zurückzubekommen.' 'Es waren, glaube ich, anfangs achttausend Pfund?' sagte Traddles. 'Richtig!' antwortete meine Tante. 'Ich kann nicht mehr als fünf nachvollziehen', sagte Traddles verwirrt. 'Tausend meinen Sie?', fragte meine Tante ungewöhnlich ruhig, 'oder Pfund?' 'Fünftausend Pfund', sagte Traddles. 'Das war alles', erwiderte meine Tante, 'Ich habe drei verkauft, für mich selbst. Eins habe ich für deine Sachen bezahlt, Trot, mein Lieber, und die anderen beiden habe ich hier. Als ich den Rest verlor, hielt ich es für klug, nichts über diese Summe zu sagen, sondern sie heimlich für einen Regentag aufzubewahren. Ich wollte sehen, wie du aus der Probe kommst, Trot; und du bist nobel herausgekommen – beharrlich, selbstständig, selbstlos! Das hat auch Dick getan. Sprich nicht mit mir, denn meine Nerven sind ein wenig erschüttert!' Niemand hätte das gedacht, wenn man sie aufrecht sitzend, mit verschränkten Armen gesehen hätte, aber sie hatte eine wunderbare Selbstbeherrschung. 'Dann freue ich mich zu sagen', rief Traddles erfreut, 'dass wir das ganze Geld zurückbekommen haben!' 'Gratuliert mir nicht, irgendjemand!' rief meine Tante aus. 'Wie das, Sir?' 'Sie dachten, dass es von Mr. Wickfield zweckentfremdet worden war?', sagte Traddles. 'Natürlich', sagte meine Tante, 'und deshalb wurde ich leicht zum Schweigen gebracht. Agnes, kein Wort!' 'Tatsächlich', sagte Traddles, 'wurde es, dank seiner bevollmächtigten Stellung im Umgang mit Ihnen, von ihm verkauft; aber ich brauche wohl nicht zu sagen, von wem es gekauft wurde oder unter wessen Namen es geschah. Später wurde Mr. Wickfield vorgemacht – und es wurde durch Zahlen bewiesen – dass er sich das Geld (nach allgemeinen Anweisungen, sagte er) angeeignet hatte, um andere Mängel und Schwierigkeiten von der Öffentlichkeit fernzuhalten. Mr. Wickfield, der so schwach und hilflos war, dass er Ihnen später mehrere Zinsen auf ein angebliches Kapital zahlte, das er wusste, dass nicht existierte, hat sich selbst leider in den Betrug verwickelt.' 'Später hat er die Schuld auf sich genommen', fügte meine Tante hinzu, 'und mir einen verrückten Brief geschrieben, in dem er sich selbst des Raubes und ungehörter Unrechts bezichtigte. Daraufhin habe ich ihn eines Morgens besucht, habe nach einer Kerze verlangt, den Brief verbrannt und ihm gesagt, wenn er mich und sich selbst jemals wieder gut machen könnte, solle er es tun; und wenn nicht, solle er aus Rücksicht auf seine Tochter schweigen. – Wenn mich jemand anspricht, werde ich das Haus verlassen!' Wir blieben alle ruhig sitzen; Agnes hielt ihr Gesicht bedeckt. 'Nun, mein lieber Freund', sagte meine Tante nach einer Pause, 'und ihr habt ihm das Geld wirklich wieder abgenommen?' 'Nun, eigentlich', antwortete Traddles fröhlich, 'muss ich Mr. Micawber noch einmal großes Lob zollen. Aber dafür, dass er sich so geduldig und beharrlich für so lange Zeit gezeigt hat, hätten wir nie hoffen können, irgendetwas Erwähnenswertes zu erreichen. Und ich denke, wir sollten bedenken, dass Mr. Micawber das Richtige getan hat, einfach weil es richtig war, wenn wir bedenken, welche Vereinbarungen er mit Uriah Heep selbst hätte treffen können, um sein Schweigen zu erkaufen.' 'Das denke ich auch', sagte ich. 'Und was würdest du ihm jetzt geben?' fragte meine Tante. 'Ach, bevor Sie darauf kommen,' sagte Traddles etwas verlegen, 'ich fürchte, ich dachte es für angebracht, zwei Punkte wegzulassen (da ich nicht alles mitnehmen konnte), bei dieser Gesetzeswidrigen Regelung – denn sie ist von Anfang bis Ende völlig gesetzeswidrig – einer schwierigen Angelegenheit. Diese Schuldscheine und so weiter, die ihm Mr. Micawber für die Vorschüsse gegeben hatte –' 'Nun ja! Sie müssen bezahlt werden', sagte meine Tante. "Ja, aber ich weiß nicht, wann sie vorankommen könnten oder wo sie sind", erwiderte Traddles und öffnete seine Augen. "Und ich vermute, dass Mr. Micawber zwischen dieser Zeit und seiner Abreise ständig verhaftet wird oder zur Vollstreckung mitgenommen wird." "Dann wird er ständig wieder freigelassen und aus der Vollstreckung genommen", sagte meine Tante. "Wie hoch ist die Gesamtsumme?" "Nun, Mr. Micawber hat die Transaktionen - er nennt sie Transaktionen - mit großer Sorgfalt in einem Buch erfasst", erwiderte Traddles lächelnd. "Und er macht die Summe zu hundertdrei Pfund und fünf." "Nun, was sollen wir ihm geben, inklusive dieser Summe?", fragte meine Tante. "Agnes, mein Liebes, du und ich können später über die Aufteilung sprechen. Wie viel sollten es sein? Fünfhundert Pfund?" Daraufhin mischten sich Traddles und ich gleichzeitig ein. Wir empfahlen beide eine kleine Geldsumme und die Zahlung der Ansprüche von Uriah an Mr. Micawber, ohne weitere Vereinbarungen. Wir schlugen vor, dass die Familie ihre Überfahrt und ihre Ausstattung sowie hundert Pfund erhalten sollte und dass Mr. Micawbers Vereinbarung zur Rückzahlung der Vorschüsse ernsthaft in Betracht gezogen werden sollte, da es für ihn gesund sein könnte, sich in dieser Verantwortung zu sehen. Zudem schlug ich vor, dass ich Mr. Peggotty etwas über seinen Charakter und seine Geschichte erzählen sollte, von dem ich wusste, dass man sich auf ihn verlassen kann, und dass Mr. Peggotty diskret anvertraut werden sollte, weitere hundert Pfund vorzustrecken. Ich schlug außerdem vor, dass man versuchen sollte, Mr. Micawber für Mr. Peggotty zu interessieren, indem man ihm so viel von Mr. Peggottys Geschichte anvertraut, wie ich für gerechtfertigt oder zweckmäßig halte, und dass man versuchen sollte, sie beide zur gemeinsamen Vorteil zu bringen. Wir alle waren begeistert von diesen Vorschlägen und ich kann sofort sagen, dass die Beteiligten dies kurz darauf mit voller Zustimmung und Harmonie taten. Da Traddles jetzt wieder besorgt zu meiner Tante blickte, erinnerte ich ihn an den zweiten und letzten Punkt, den er angesprochen hatte. "Du und deine Tante mögen es mir verzeihen, Copperfield, wenn ich ein schmerzhaftes Thema anspreche, wie ich befürchte, dass ich es tun werde", sagte Traddles zögernd. "Aber ich glaube, dass ich es euch ins Gedächtnis rufen muss. Am Tag von Mr. Micawbers denkwürdiger Verurteilung wurde von Uriah Heep eine drohende Anspielung auf deinen Tantchens Ehemann gemacht." Meine Tante nickte zustimmend und behielt ihre steife Haltung und scheinbare Gelassenheit bei. "Vielleicht war es nur sinnlose Frechheit", bemerkte Traddles. "Nein", erwiderte meine Tante. "Es gab diesen wirklich solchen Menschen und er hatte wirklich Macht über ihn?", deutete Traddles an. "Ja, mein guter Freund", sagte meine Tante. Traddles erklärte mit einer sichtbaren Verlängerung seines Gesichts, dass er dieses Thema nicht ansprechen konnte. Es war das gleiche Schicksal wie Mr. Micawbers Schulden und wurde nicht in den von ihm festgelegten Bedingungen berücksichtigt. Wir hatten keinerlei Einfluss mehr auf Uriah Heep und wenn er uns oder einem von uns Schaden zufügen könnte, wäre er zweifellos dazu bereit. Meine Tante blieb ruhig sitzen, bis wieder ein paar Tränen auf ihre Wangen fanden. "Du hast vollkommen recht", sagte sie. "Es war sehr aufmerksam, es zu erwähnen." "Kann ich - oder Copperfield - irgendetwas tun?", fragte Traddles sanft. "Nichts", sagte meine Tante. "Ich danke dir vielmals. Trot, mein Lieber, eine nutzlose Drohung! Lassen Sie uns Mr. und Mrs. Micawber zurückhaben. Und keiner von euch spricht mit mir!" Damit strich sie ihr Kleid glatt und setzte sich mit aufrechter Haltung, den Blick auf die Tür gerichtet. "Nun, Mr. und Mrs. Micawber!", sagte meine Tante, als sie eintraten. "Wir haben über eure Auswanderung gesprochen und bitten euch vielmals um Entschuldigung, dass wir euch so lange aus dem Zimmer gehalten haben. Ich werde euch jetzt die vorgeschlagenen Vereinbarungen erklären." Diese erklärte sie zur unermesslichen Zufriedenheit der Familie - Kinder und alle waren anwesend - und so sehr zur Wiedererweckung von Mr. Micawbers pünktlichen Gewohnheiten in der Anfangsphase aller Geschäftstransaktionen, dass er nicht davon abzubringen war, sofort in höchster Stimmung loszurennen und die Briefmarken für seine Wechsel zu kaufen. Aber seine Freude erhielt einen plötzlichen Dämpfer; denn innerhalb von fünf Minuten kehrte er in Begleitung eines Gerichtsvollziehers zurück und berichtete uns unter Tränen, dass alles verloren war. Wir waren auf dieses Ereignis natürlich vorbereitet, das natürlich auf das Betreiben von Uriah Heep zurückzuführen war, und zahlten das Geld sofort. Fünf Minuten später saß Mr. Micawber am Tisch und füllte die Briefmarken mit einem Ausdruck vollkommener Freude aus, den nur diese angenehme Beschäftigung oder das Mixen von Punsch seinem strahlenden Gesicht in vollständiger Vollkommenheit verleihen konnte. Ihn so bei der Arbeit mit den Briefmarken zu sehen, wie ein Künstler sie berührt, sie seitlich betrachtet, gewichtige Notizen zu Daten und Beträgen in sein Taschenbuch macht und sie nach Fertigstellung mit einem hohen Bewusstsein ihres kostbaren Werts betrachtet, war wirklich ein Anblick. "Nun, das Beste, was Sie tun können, Sir, wenn Sie es mir erlauben, Ihnen einen Rat zu geben", sagte meine Tante und beobachtete ihn schweigend, "ist, diese Beschäftigung für immer abzuschwören." "Madam", antwortete Mr. Micawber, "ich beabsichtige, einen solchen Schwur auf die unbeschriebene Seite der Zukunft zu setzen. Mrs. Micawber wird es bezeugen. Ich vertraue darauf", sagte Mr. Micawber feierlich, "dass mein Sohn Wilkins immer bedenken wird, dass es für ihn unendlich besser gewesen wäre, seine Faust ins Feuer zu stecken, als damit die Schlangen zu berühren, die das Lebensblut seines unglücklichen Elternteils vergiftet haben!" Tief bewegt und in einem Moment zum Bild der Verzweiflung geworden, betrachtete Mr. Micawber die Schlangen mit einem Blick düsteren Abscheus (in dem seine frühere Bewunderung für sie nicht ganz unterdrückt war), faltete sie zusammen und steckte sie in seine Tasche. Damit endeten die Ereignisse des Abends. Wir waren müde von Kummer und Erschöpfung, und meine Tante und ich sollten am nächsten Tag nach London zurückkehren. Es wurde vereinbart, dass die Micawbers uns folgen sollten, nachdem sie ihre Waren an einen Makler verkauft hatten, dass Mr. Wickfields Angelegenheiten unter der Leitung von Traddles schnell geregelt werden sollten und dass Agnes ebenfalls nach London kommen sollte, während dieser Vereinbarungen. Wir verbrachten die Nacht im alten Haus, das, befreit von der Gegenwart der Heeps, von einer Krankheit gereinigt schien, und ich lag in meinem alten Zimmer wie ein heimkehrender Schiffbrüchiger. Am nächsten Tag gingen wir zurück in das Haus meiner Tante - nicht in meines - und als sie und ich alleine waren, wie früher, vor dem Schlafengehen, sagte sie: "Trot, möchtest du wirklich Wir fuhren weg, aus der Stadt, zum Kirchhof in Hornsey. "Besser hier als auf den Straßen", sagte meine Tante. "Er ist hier geboren." Wir stiegen aus und folgten dem schlichten Sarg zu einer Ecke, an die ich mich gut erinnere, wo der Gottesdienst gehalten wurde und er der Erde übergeben wurde. "Vor sechsunddreißig Jahren, an diesem Tag, mein Lieber", sagte meine Tante, als wir zum Wagen zurückgingen, "habe ich geheiratet. Gott möge uns allen vergeben!" Wir nahmen schweigend unsere Plätze ein, und so saß sie lange Zeit neben mir und hielt meine Hand. Schließlich brach sie plötzlich in Tränen aus und sagte: "Als ich ihn geheiratet habe, war er ein gutaussehender Mann, Trot - und er hat sich sehr verändert!" Es dauerte nicht lange. Nachdem sie sich erleichtert hatte, wurde sie schnell wieder ruhig und sogar fröhlich. Ihre Nerven waren etwas erschüttert, sagte sie, sonst hätte sie sich nicht gehen lassen. Gott möge uns allen vergeben! So fuhren wir zurück zu ihrem kleinen Häuschen in Highgate, wo wir den folgenden kurzen Brief fanden, der an diesem Morgen mit der Post von Herrn Micawber angekommen war: 'Canterbury, 'Freitag. "Liebe Dame und Copperfield, "Das schöne Land der Verheißung, das vor kurzem am Horizont aufgetaucht ist, ist wieder in undurchdringlichen Nebelschwaden gehüllt und für immer den Augen eines dahin treibenden Elenden entzogen, dessen Schicksal besiegelt ist! "Ein weiterer Gerichtsbescheid wurde erlassen (in Ihrer Majestät Königlicher Gerichtshof am Königsgericht zu Westminster), in einer weiteren Angelegenheit von HEEP gegen MICAWBER, und der Beklagte in dieser Angelegenheit ist das Opfer des Sheriffs, der in diesem Gerichtsbezirk zuständig ist. 'Jetzt ist der Tag, und jetzt ist die Stunde, Schau, wie sich die Schlachtfront senkt, Sieh, wie sich EDWARD'S Macht nähert - Ketten und Sklaverei! 'Dafür bestimmt und einem schnellen Ende zugedacht (denn seelische Folter ist über einen bestimmten Punkt nicht erträglich, und diesen Punkt habe ich erreicht), ist mein Lauf beendet. Segne dich, segne dich! Ein zukünftiger Reisender, der aus Neugierde, hoffentlich nicht ohne Mitgefühl, den Ort der Gefangenschaft der Schuldner in dieser Stadt besucht, wird vielleicht, und ich hoffe es, inbrünstig darüber nachdenken, während er mit einem verrosteten Nagel folgende Worte auf der Wand entziffert: 'Die verworrenen Initialen, 'W. M. 'P.S. Ich öffne dies erneut, um zu sagen, dass unser gemeinsamer Freund, Herr Thomas Traddles (der uns noch nicht verlassen hat und aussieht, als ginge es ihm sehr gut), die Schulden und Kosten im edlen Namen von Miss Trotwood bezahlt hat ; und dass ich und meine Familie höchstes irdisches Glück empfinden.' Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Mr. Micawbers Geschäfte. Ein von Trauer gezeichneter David beschließt, für eine Weile ins Ausland zu gehen. Herr Micawber trifft Vorkehrungen, um Betseys Darlehen zurückzuzahlen. Alle Micawbers studieren Landwirtschaft, um sich auf ihr neues Leben als Landarbeiter in Australien vorzubereiten. Frau Micawber glaubt, dass ihre Familie versöhnt sein wird, wenn ihr Mann dort finanziellen Erfolg hat. Traddles berichtet, dass sich Mr. Wickfield ohne den Einfluss von Uriah verbessert hat und dass Mr. Dick ihm geholfen hat, seine Angelegenheiten zu regeln. Traddles sagt, dass er Betseys und Mr. Wickfields Geld zurückgewinnen kann. Traddles bespricht mit Agnes, wie sie leben werden, wenn Mr. Wickfield sein Geschäft abschließt, und Agnes sagt, dass sie ihr Haus vermieten und eine Schule leiten möchte. Traddles sagt, dass Uriah mit seiner Mutter die Stadt verlassen hat und niemand weiß, wo er ist. Traddles glaubt, dass er nicht so sehr aus Habgier, sondern aus Hass auf David gehandelt hat. Betsey vereinbart mit Traddles, Mr. Micawbers Schulden zu bezahlen. Am nächsten Tag bringt Betsey David zur Beerdigung ihres verstorbenen Ehemannes, der im Krankenhaus gestorben ist. Bevor er starb, bereute er seine Behandlung von Betsey und bat darum, sie zu sehen; sie war gegangen und hatte Zeit mit ihm verbracht.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: The next morning brought Mr. Frank Churchill again. He came with Mrs. Weston, to whom and to Highbury he seemed to take very cordially. He had been sitting with her, it appeared, most companionably at home, till her usual hour of exercise; and on being desired to chuse their walk, immediately fixed on Highbury.--"He did not doubt there being very pleasant walks in every direction, but if left to him, he should always chuse the same. Highbury, that airy, cheerful, happy-looking Highbury, would be his constant attraction."--Highbury, with Mrs. Weston, stood for Hartfield; and she trusted to its bearing the same construction with him. They walked thither directly. Emma had hardly expected them: for Mr. Weston, who had called in for half a minute, in order to hear that his son was very handsome, knew nothing of their plans; and it was an agreeable surprize to her, therefore, to perceive them walking up to the house together, arm in arm. She was wanting to see him again, and especially to see him in company with Mrs. Weston, upon his behaviour to whom her opinion of him was to depend. If he were deficient there, nothing should make amends for it. But on seeing them together, she became perfectly satisfied. It was not merely in fine words or hyperbolical compliment that he paid his duty; nothing could be more proper or pleasing than his whole manner to her--nothing could more agreeably denote his wish of considering her as a friend and securing her affection. And there was time enough for Emma to form a reasonable judgment, as their visit included all the rest of the morning. They were all three walking about together for an hour or two--first round the shrubberies of Hartfield, and afterwards in Highbury. He was delighted with every thing; admired Hartfield sufficiently for Mr. Woodhouse's ear; and when their going farther was resolved on, confessed his wish to be made acquainted with the whole village, and found matter of commendation and interest much oftener than Emma could have supposed. Some of the objects of his curiosity spoke very amiable feelings. He begged to be shewn the house which his father had lived in so long, and which had been the home of his father's father; and on recollecting that an old woman who had nursed him was still living, walked in quest of her cottage from one end of the street to the other; and though in some points of pursuit or observation there was no positive merit, they shewed, altogether, a good-will towards Highbury in general, which must be very like a merit to those he was with. Emma watched and decided, that with such feelings as were now shewn, it could not be fairly supposed that he had been ever voluntarily absenting himself; that he had not been acting a part, or making a parade of insincere professions; and that Mr. Knightley certainly had not done him justice. Their first pause was at the Crown Inn, an inconsiderable house, though the principal one of the sort, where a couple of pair of post-horses were kept, more for the convenience of the neighbourhood than from any run on the road; and his companions had not expected to be detained by any interest excited there; but in passing it they gave the history of the large room visibly added; it had been built many years ago for a ball-room, and while the neighbourhood had been in a particularly populous, dancing state, had been occasionally used as such;--but such brilliant days had long passed away, and now the highest purpose for which it was ever wanted was to accommodate a whist club established among the gentlemen and half-gentlemen of the place. He was immediately interested. Its character as a ball-room caught him; and instead of passing on, he stopt for several minutes at the two superior sashed windows which were open, to look in and contemplate its capabilities, and lament that its original purpose should have ceased. He saw no fault in the room, he would acknowledge none which they suggested. No, it was long enough, broad enough, handsome enough. It would hold the very number for comfort. They ought to have balls there at least every fortnight through the winter. Why had not Miss Woodhouse revived the former good old days of the room?--She who could do any thing in Highbury! The want of proper families in the place, and the conviction that none beyond the place and its immediate environs could be tempted to attend, were mentioned; but he was not satisfied. He could not be persuaded that so many good-looking houses as he saw around him, could not furnish numbers enough for such a meeting; and even when particulars were given and families described, he was still unwilling to admit that the inconvenience of such a mixture would be any thing, or that there would be the smallest difficulty in every body's returning into their proper place the next morning. He argued like a young man very much bent on dancing; and Emma was rather surprized to see the constitution of the Weston prevail so decidedly against the habits of the Churchills. He seemed to have all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social inclinations of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of Enscombe. Of pride, indeed, there was, perhaps, scarcely enough; his indifference to a confusion of rank, bordered too much on inelegance of mind. He could be no judge, however, of the evil he was holding cheap. It was but an effusion of lively spirits. At last he was persuaded to move on from the front of the Crown; and being now almost facing the house where the Bateses lodged, Emma recollected his intended visit the day before, and asked him if he had paid it. "Yes, oh! yes"--he replied; "I was just going to mention it. A very successful visit:--I saw all the three ladies; and felt very much obliged to you for your preparatory hint. If the talking aunt had taken me quite by surprize, it must have been the death of me. As it was, I was only betrayed into paying a most unreasonable visit. Ten minutes would have been all that was necessary, perhaps all that was proper; and I had told my father I should certainly be at home before him--but there was no getting away, no pause; and, to my utter astonishment, I found, when he (finding me nowhere else) joined me there at last, that I had been actually sitting with them very nearly three-quarters of an hour. The good lady had not given me the possibility of escape before." "And how did you think Miss Fairfax looking?" "Ill, very ill--that is, if a young lady can ever be allowed to look ill. But the expression is hardly admissible, Mrs. Weston, is it? Ladies can never look ill. And, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health.--A most deplorable want of complexion." Emma would not agree to this, and began a warm defence of Miss Fairfax's complexion. "It was certainly never brilliant, but she would not allow it to have a sickly hue in general; and there was a softness and delicacy in her skin which gave peculiar elegance to the character of her face." He listened with all due deference; acknowledged that he had heard many people say the same--but yet he must confess, that to him nothing could make amends for the want of the fine glow of health. Where features were indifferent, a fine complexion gave beauty to them all; and where they were good, the effect was--fortunately he need not attempt to describe what the effect was. "Well," said Emma, "there is no disputing about taste.--At least you admire her except her complexion." He shook his head and laughed.--"I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her complexion." "Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society?" At this moment they were approaching Ford's, and he hastily exclaimed, "Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford's. If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must buy something at Ford's. It will be taking out my freedom.--I dare say they sell gloves." "Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You will be adored in Highbury. You were very popular before you came, because you were Mr. Weston's son--but lay out half a guinea at Ford's, and your popularity will stand upon your own virtues." They went in; and while the sleek, well-tied parcels of "Men's Beavers" and "York Tan" were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he said--"But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking to me, you were saying something at the very moment of this burst of my _amor_ _patriae_. Do not let me lose it. I assure you the utmost stretch of public fame would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in private life." "I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her party at Weymouth." "And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a very unfair one. It is always the lady's right to decide on the degree of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account.--I shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may chuse to allow." "Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But her account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very reserved, so very unwilling to give the least information about any body, that I really think you may say what you like of your acquaintance with her." "May I, indeed?--Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so well. I met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a little in town; and at Weymouth we were very much in the same set. Colonel Campbell is a very agreeable man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly, warm-hearted woman. I like them all." "You know Miss Fairfax's situation in life, I conclude; what she is destined to be?" "Yes--(rather hesitatingly)--I believe I do." "You get upon delicate subjects, Emma," said Mrs. Weston smiling; "remember that I am here.--Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say when you speak of Miss Fairfax's situation in life. I will move a little farther off." "I certainly do forget to think of _her_," said Emma, "as having ever been any thing but my friend and my dearest friend." He looked as if he fully understood and honoured such a sentiment. When the gloves were bought, and they had quitted the shop again, "Did you ever hear the young lady we were speaking of, play?" said Frank Churchill. "Ever hear her!" repeated Emma. "You forget how much she belongs to Highbury. I have heard her every year of our lives since we both began. She plays charmingly." "You think so, do you?--I wanted the opinion of some one who could really judge. She appeared to me to play well, that is, with considerable taste, but I know nothing of the matter myself.--I am excessively fond of music, but without the smallest skill or right of judging of any body's performance.--I have been used to hear her's admired; and I remember one proof of her being thought to play well:--a man, a very musical man, and in love with another woman--engaged to her--on the point of marriage--would yet never ask that other woman to sit down to the instrument, if the lady in question could sit down instead--never seemed to like to hear one if he could hear the other. That, I thought, in a man of known musical talent, was some proof." "Proof indeed!" said Emma, highly amused.--"Mr. Dixon is very musical, is he? We shall know more about them all, in half an hour, from you, than Miss Fairfax would have vouchsafed in half a year." "Yes, Mr. Dixon and Miss Campbell were the persons; and I thought it a very strong proof." "Certainly--very strong it was; to own the truth, a great deal stronger than, if _I_ had been Miss Campbell, would have been at all agreeable to me. I could not excuse a man's having more music than love--more ear than eye--a more acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings. How did Miss Campbell appear to like it?" "It was her very particular friend, you know." "Poor comfort!" said Emma, laughing. "One would rather have a stranger preferred than one's very particular friend--with a stranger it might not recur again--but the misery of having a very particular friend always at hand, to do every thing better than one does oneself!--Poor Mrs. Dixon! Well, I am glad she is gone to settle in Ireland." "You are right. It was not very flattering to Miss Campbell; but she really did not seem to feel it." "So much the better--or so much the worse:--I do not know which. But be it sweetness or be it stupidity in her--quickness of friendship, or dulness of feeling--there was one person, I think, who must have felt it: Miss Fairfax herself. She must have felt the improper and dangerous distinction." "As to that--I do not--" "Oh! do not imagine that I expect an account of Miss Fairfax's sensations from you, or from any body else. They are known to no human being, I guess, but herself. But if she continued to play whenever she was asked by Mr. Dixon, one may guess what one chuses." "There appeared such a perfectly good understanding among them all--" he began rather quickly, but checking himself, added, "however, it is impossible for me to say on what terms they really were--how it might all be behind the scenes. I can only say that there was smoothness outwardly. But you, who have known Miss Fairfax from a child, must be a better judge of her character, and of how she is likely to conduct herself in critical situations, than I can be." "I have known her from a child, undoubtedly; we have been children and women together; and it is natural to suppose that we should be intimate,--that we should have taken to each other whenever she visited her friends. But we never did. I hardly know how it has happened; a little, perhaps, from that wickedness on my side which was prone to take disgust towards a girl so idolized and so cried up as she always was, by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set. And then, her reserve--I never could attach myself to any one so completely reserved." "It is a most repulsive quality, indeed," said he. "Oftentimes very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person." "Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction may be the greater. But I must be more in want of a friend, or an agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of conquering any body's reserve to procure one. Intimacy between Miss Fairfax and me is quite out of the question. I have no reason to think ill of her--not the least--except that such extreme and perpetual cautiousness of word and manner, such a dread of giving a distinct idea about any body, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to conceal." He perfectly agreed with her: and after walking together so long, and thinking so much alike, Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him, that she could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting. He was not exactly what she had expected; less of the man of the world in some of his notions, less of the spoiled child of fortune, therefore better than she had expected. His ideas seemed more moderate--his feelings warmer. She was particularly struck by his manner of considering Mr. Elton's house, which, as well as the church, he would go and look at, and would not join them in finding much fault with. No, he could not believe it a bad house; not such a house as a man was to be pitied for having. If it were to be shared with the woman he loved, he could not think any man to be pitied for having that house. There must be ample room in it for every real comfort. The man must be a blockhead who wanted more. Mrs. Weston laughed, and said he did not know what he was talking about. Used only to a large house himself, and without ever thinking how many advantages and accommodations were attached to its size, he could be no judge of the privations inevitably belonging to a small one. But Emma, in her own mind, determined that he _did_ know what he was talking about, and that he shewed a very amiable inclination to settle early in life, and to marry, from worthy motives. He might not be aware of the inroads on domestic peace to be occasioned by no housekeeper's room, or a bad butler's pantry, but no doubt he did perfectly feel that Enscombe could not make him happy, and that whenever he were attached, he would willingly give up much of wealth to be allowed an early establishment. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Als Emma bei der Abtei Farm nach Harriet ruft, erzählt ihr das aufgeregte Mädchen, dass sie bei Martins Mutter und zwei Schwestern zu Besuch war. Auf dem Heimweg beschließt Emma, bei den Westons anzuhalten und ist enttäuscht festzustellen, dass sie nicht zu Hause sind. Als sie sich zum Gehen wendet, kommen die Westons mit ihrem Wagen an. Sie informieren Emma, dass Frank Churchill am nächsten Tag ankommen wird und für zwei Wochen bleiben wird. Sie versichern Emma, dass sie Frank nach Hartfield bringen werden. Am nächsten Tag treffen sich Herr Weston und Frank bei Woodhouse. Emma findet Frank einen sehr gutaussehenden Gentleman mit gut erzogenem Benehmen; sie ist auch von seinem lebhaften Wesen beeindruckt. Er lobt Mrs. Weston für ihr hübsches Aussehen und ihre eleganten Manieren. Emma mag Frank sofort und schließt sich in ihrer Vorstellungskraft ein, dass auch Frank Interesse an ihr hat. Sie bemerkt kaum, dass er plant, als Nächstes bei Jane Fairfax anzurufen, da er sie bereits kennt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: CHAPTER XXXVIII SHE had lived in Washington for a year. She was tired of the office. It was tolerable, far more tolerable than housework, but it was not adventurous. She was having tea and cinnamon toast, alone at a small round table on the balcony of Rauscher's Confiserie. Four debutantes clattered in. She had felt young and dissipated, had thought rather well of her black and leaf-green suit, but as she watched them, thin of ankle, soft under the chin, seventeen or eighteen at most, smoking cigarettes with the correct ennui and talking of "bedroom farces" and their desire to "run up to New York and see something racy," she became old and rustic and plain, and desirous of retreating from these hard brilliant children to a life easier and more sympathetic. When they flickered out and one child gave orders to a chauffeur, Carol was not a defiant philosopher but a faded government clerk from Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. She started dejectedly up Connecticut Avenue. She stopped, her heart stopped. Coming toward her were Harry and Juanita Haydock. She ran to them, she kissed Juanita, while Harry confided, "Hadn't expected to come to Washington--had to go to New York for some buying--didn't have your address along--just got in this morning--wondered how in the world we could get hold of you." She was definitely sorry to hear that they were to leave at nine that evening, and she clung to them as long as she could. She took them to St. Mark's for dinner. Stooped, her elbows on the table, she heard with excitement that "Cy Bogart had the 'flu, but of course he was too gol-darn mean to die of it." "Will wrote me that Mr. Blausser has gone away. How did he get on?" "Fine! Fine! Great loss to the town. There was a real public-spirited fellow, all right!" She discovered that she now had no opinions whatever about Mr. Blausser, and she said sympathetically, "Will you keep up the town-boosting campaign?" Harry fumbled, "Well, we've dropped it just temporarily, but--sure you bet! Say, did the doc write you about the luck B. J. Gougerling had hunting ducks down in Texas?" When the news had been told and their enthusiasm had slackened she looked about and was proud to be able to point out a senator, to explain the cleverness of the canopied garden. She fancied that a man with dinner-coat and waxed mustache glanced superciliously at Harry's highly form-fitting bright-brown suit and Juanita's tan silk frock, which was doubtful at the seams. She glared back, defending her own, daring the world not to appreciate them. Then, waving to them, she lost them down the long train shed. She stood reading the list of stations: Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Chicago. Beyond Chicago----? She saw the lakes and stubble fields, heard the rhythm of insects and the creak of a buggy, was greeted by Sam Clark's "Well, well, how's the little lady?" Nobody in Washington cared enough for her to fret about her sins as Sam did. But that night they had at the flat a man just back from Finland. II She was on the Powhatan roof with the captain. At a table, somewhat vociferously buying improbable "soft drinks" for two fluffy girls, was a man with a large familiar back. "Oh! I think I know him," she murmured. "Who? There? Oh, Bresnahan, Percy Bresnahan." "Yes. You've met him? What sort of a man is he?" "He's a good-hearted idiot. I rather like him, and I believe that as a salesman of motors he's a wonder. But he's a nuisance in the aeronautic section. Tries so hard to be useful but he doesn't know anything--he doesn't know anything. Rather pathetic: rich man poking around and trying to be useful. Do you want to speak to him?" "No--no--I don't think so." III She was at a motion-picture show. The film was a highly advertised and abysmal thing smacking of simpering hair-dressers, cheap perfume, red-plush suites on the back streets of tenderloins, and complacent fat women chewing gum. It pretended to deal with the life of studios. The leading man did a portrait which was a masterpiece. He also saw visions in pipe-smoke, and was very brave and poor and pure. He had ringlets, and his masterpiece was strangely like an enlarged photograph. Carol prepared to leave. On the screen, in the role of a composer, appeared an actor called Eric Valour. She was startled, incredulous, then wretched. Looking straight out at her, wearing a beret and a velvet jacket, was Erik Valborg. He had a pale part, which he played neither well nor badly. She speculated, "I could have made so much of him----" She did not finish her speculation. She went home and read Kennicott's letters. They had seemed stiff and undetailed, but now there strode from them a personality, a personality unlike that of the languishing young man in the velvet jacket playing a dummy piano in a canvas room. IV Kennicott first came to see her in November, thirteen months after her arrival in Washington. When he announced that he was coming she was not at all sure that she wished to see him. She was glad that he had made the decision himself. She had leave from the office for two days. She watched him marching from the train, solid, assured, carrying his heavy suit-case, and she was diffident--he was such a bulky person to handle. They kissed each other questioningly, and said at the same time, "You're looking fine; how's the baby?" and "You're looking awfully well, dear; how is everything?" He grumbled, "I don't want to butt in on any plans you've made or your friends or anything, but if you've got time for it, I'd like to chase around Washington, and take in some restaurants and shows and stuff, and forget work for a while." She realized, in the taxicab, that he was wearing a soft gray suit, a soft easy hat, a flippant tie. "Like the new outfit? Got 'em in Chicago. Gosh, I hope they're the kind you like." They spent half an hour at the flat, with Hugh. She was flustered, but he gave no sign of kissing her again. As he moved about the small rooms she realized that he had had his new tan shoes polished to a brassy luster. There was a recent cut on his chin. He must have shaved on the train just before coming into Washington. It was pleasant to feel how important she was, how many people she recognized, as she took him to the Capitol, as she told him (he asked and she obligingly guessed) how many feet it was to the top of the dome, as she pointed out Senator LaFollette and the vice-president, and at lunch-time showed herself an habitue by leading him through the catacombs to the senate restaurant. She realized that he was slightly more bald. The familiar way in which his hair was parted on the left side agitated her. She looked down at his hands, and the fact that his nails were as ill-treated as ever touched her more than his pleading shoe-shine. "You'd like to motor down to Mount Vernon this afternoon, wouldn't you?" she said. It was the one thing he had planned. He was delighted that it seemed to be a perfectly well bred and Washingtonian thing to do. He shyly held her hand on the way, and told her the news: they were excavating the basement for the new schoolbuilding, Vida "made him tired the way she always looked at the Maje," poor Chet Dashaway had been killed in a motor accident out on the Coast. He did not coax her to like him. At Mount Vernon he admired the paneled library and Washington's dental tools. She knew that he would want oysters, that he would have heard of Harvey's apropos of Grant and Blaine, and she took him there. At dinner his hearty voice, his holiday enjoyment of everything, turned into nervousness in his desire to know a number of interesting matters, such as whether they still were married. But he did not ask questions, and he said nothing about her returning. He cleared his throat and observed, "Oh say, been trying out the old camera. Don't you think these are pretty good?" He tossed over to her thirty prints of Gopher Prairie and the country about. Without defense, she was thrown into it. She remembered that he had lured her with photographs in courtship days; she made a note of his sameness, his satisfaction with the tactics which had proved good before; but she forgot it in the familiar places. She was seeing the sun-speckled ferns among birches on the shore of Minniemashie, wind-rippled miles of wheat, the porch of their own house where Hugh had played, Main Street where she knew every window and every face. She handed them back, with praise for his photography, and he talked of lenses and time-exposures. Dinner was over and they were gossiping of her friends at the flat, but an intruder was with them, sitting back, persistent, inescapable. She could not endure it. She stammered: "I had you check your bag at the station because I wasn't quite sure where you'd stay. I'm dreadfully sorry we haven't room to put you up at the flat. We ought to have seen about a room for you before. Don't you think you better call up the Willard or the Washington now?" He peered at her cloudily. Without words he asked, without speech she answered, whether she was also going to the Willard or the Washington. But she tried to look as though she did not know that they were debating anything of the sort. She would have hated him had he been meek about it. But he was neither meek nor angry. However impatient he may have been with her blandness he said readily: "Yes, guess I better do that. Excuse me a second. Then how about grabbing a taxi (Gosh, isn't it the limit the way these taxi shuffers skin around a corner? Got more nerve driving than I have!) and going up to your flat for a while? Like to meet your friends--must be fine women--and I might take a look and see how Hugh sleeps. Like to know how he breathes. Don't think he has adenoids, but I better make sure, eh?" He patted her shoulder. At the flat they found her two housemates and a girl who had been to jail for suffrage. Kennicott fitted in surprisingly. He laughed at the girl's story of the humors of a hunger-strike; he told the secretary what to do when her eyes were tired from typing; and the teacher asked him--not as the husband of a friend but as a physician--whether there was "anything to this inoculation for colds." His colloquialisms seemed to Carol no more lax than their habitual slang. Like an older brother he kissed her good-night in the midst of the company. "He's terribly nice," said her housemates, and waited for confidences. They got none, nor did her own heart. She could find nothing definite to agonize about. She felt that she was no longer analyzing and controlling forces, but swept on by them. He came to the flat for breakfast, and washed the dishes. That was her only occasion for spite. Back home he never thought of washing dishes! She took him to the obvious "sights"--the Treasury, the Monument, the Corcoran Gallery, the Pan-American Building, the Lincoln Memorial, with the Potomac beyond it and the Arlington hills and the columns of the Lee Mansion. For all his willingness to play there was over him a melancholy which piqued her. His normally expressionless eyes had depths to them now, and strangeness. As they walked through Lafayette Square, looking past the Jackson statue at the lovely tranquil facade of the White House, he sighed, "I wish I'd had a shot at places like this. When I was in the U., I had to earn part of my way, and when I wasn't doing that or studying, I guess I was roughhousing. My gang were a great bunch for bumming around and raising Cain. Maybe if I'd been caught early and sent to concerts and all that----Would I have been what you call intelligent?" "Oh, my dear, don't be humble! You are intelligent! For instance, you're the most thorough doctor----" He was edging about something he wished to say. He pounced on it: "You did like those pictures of G. P. pretty well, after all, didn't you!" "Yes, of course." "Wouldn't be so bad to have a glimpse of the old town, would it!" "No, it wouldn't. Just as I was terribly glad to see the Haydocks. But please understand me! That doesn't mean that I withdraw all my criticisms. The fact that I might like a glimpse of old friends hasn't any particular relation to the question of whether Gopher Prairie oughtn't to have festivals and lamb chops." Hastily, "No, no! Sure not. I und'stand." "But I know it must have been pretty tiresome to have to live with anybody as perfect as I was." He grinned. She liked his grin. V He was thrilled by old negro coachmen, admirals, aeroplanes, the building to which his income tax would eventually go, a Rolls-Royce, Lynnhaven oysters, the Supreme Court Room, a New York theatrical manager down for the try-out of a play, the house where Lincoln died, the cloaks of Italian officers, the barrows at which clerks buy their box-lunches at noon, the barges on the Chesapeake Canal, and the fact that District of Columbia cars had both District and Maryland licenses. She resolutely took him to her favorite white and green cottages and Georgian houses. He admitted that fanlights, and white shutters against rosy brick, were more homelike than a painty wooden box. He volunteered, "I see how you mean. They make me think of these pictures of an old-fashioned Christmas. Oh, if you keep at it long enough you'll have Sam and me reading poetry and everything. Oh say, d' I tell you about this fierce green Jack Elder's had his machine painted?" VI They were at dinner. He hinted, "Before you showed me those places today, I'd already made up my mind that when I built the new house we used to talk about, I'd fix it the way you wanted it. I'm pretty practical about foundations and radiation and stuff like that, but I guess I don't know a whole lot about architecture." "My dear, it occurs to me with a sudden shock that I don't either!" "Well--anyway--you let me plan the garage and the plumbing, and you do the rest, if you ever--I mean--if you ever want to." Doubtfully, "That's sweet of you." "Look here, Carrie; you think I'm going to ask you to love me. I'm not. And I'm not going to ask you to come back to Gopher Prairie!" She gaped. "It's been a whale of a fight. But I guess I've got myself to see that you won't ever stand G. P. unless you WANT to come back to it. I needn't say I'm crazy to have you. But I won't ask you. I just want you to know how I wait for you. Every mail I look for a letter, and when I get one I'm kind of scared to open it, I'm hoping so much that you're coming back. Evenings----You know I didn't open the cottage down at the lake at all, this past summer. Simply couldn't stand all the others laughing and swimming, and you not there. I used to sit on the porch, in town, and I--I couldn't get over the feeling that you'd simply run up to the drug store and would be right back, and till after it got dark I'd catch myself watching, looking up the street, and you never came, and the house was so empty and still that I didn't like to go in. And sometimes I fell asleep there, in my chair, and didn't wake up till after midnight, and the house----Oh, the devil! Please get me, Carrie. I just want you to know how welcome you'll be if you ever do come. But I'm not asking you to." "You're----It's awfully----" "'Nother thing. I'm going to be frank. I haven't always been absolutely, uh, absolutely, proper. I've always loved you more than anything else in the world, you and the kid. But sometimes when you were chilly to me I'd get lonely and sore, and pike out and----Never intended----" She rescued him with a pitying, "It's all right. Let's forget it." "But before we were married you said if your husband ever did anything wrong, you'd want him to tell you." "Did I? I can't remember. And I can't seem to think. Oh, my dear, I do know how generously you're trying to make me happy. The only thing is----I can't think. I don't know what I think." "Then listen! Don't think! Here's what I want you to do! Get a two-weeks leave from your office. Weather's beginning to get chilly here. Let's run down to Charleston and Savannah and maybe Florida. "A second honeymoon?" indecisively. "No. Don't even call it that. Call it a second wooing. I won't ask anything. I just want the chance to chase around with you. I guess I never appreciated how lucky I was to have a girl with imagination and lively feet to play with. So----Could you maybe run away and see the South with me? If you wanted to, you could just--you could just pretend you were my sister and----I'll get an extra nurse for Hugh! I'll get the best dog-gone nurse in Washington!" VII It was in the Villa Margherita, by the palms of the Charleston Battery and the metallic harbor, that her aloofness melted. When they sat on the upper balcony, enchanted by the moon glitter, she cried, "Shall I go back to Gopher Prairie with you? Decide for me. I'm tired of deciding and undeciding." "No. You've got to do your own deciding. As a matter of fact, in spite of this honeymoon, I don't think I want you to come home. Not yet." She could only stare. "I want you to be satisfied when you get there. I'll do everything I can to keep you happy, but I'll make lots of breaks, so I want you to take time and think it over." She was relieved. She still had a chance to seize splendid indefinite freedoms. She might go--oh, she'd see Europe, somehow, before she was recaptured. But she also had a firmer respect for Kennicott. She had fancied that her life might make a story. She knew that there was nothing heroic or obviously dramatic in it, no magic of rare hours, nor valiant challenge, but it seemed to her that she was of some significance because she was commonplaceness, the ordinary life of the age, made articulate and protesting. It had not occurred to her that there was also a story of Will Kennicott, into which she entered only so much as he entered into hers; that he had bewilderments and concealments as intricate as her own, and soft treacherous desires for sympathy. Thus she brooded, looking at the amazing sea, holding his hand. VIII She was in Washington; Kennicott was in Gopher Prairie, writing as dryly as ever about water-pipes and goose-hunting and Mrs. Fageros's mastoid. She was talking at dinner to a generalissima of suffrage. Should she return? The leader spoke wearily: "My dear, I'm perfectly selfish. I can't quite visualize the needs of your husband, and it seems to me that your baby will do quite as well in the schools here as in your barracks at home." "Then you think I'd better not go back?" Carol sounded disappointed. "It's more difficult than that. When I say that I'm selfish I mean that the only thing I consider about women is whether they're likely to prove useful in building up real political power for women. And you? Shall I be frank? Remember when I say 'you' I don't mean you alone. I'm thinking of thousands of women who come to Washington and New York and Chicago every year, dissatisfied at home and seeking a sign in the heavens--women of all sorts, from timid mothers of fifty in cotton gloves, to girls just out of Vassar who organize strikes in their own fathers' factories! All of you are more or less useful to me, but only a few of you can take my place, because I have one virtue (only one): I have given up father and mother and children for the love of God. "Here's the test for you: Do you come to 'conquer the East,' as people say, or do you come to conquer yourself? "It's so much more complicated than any of you know--so much more complicated than I knew when I put on Ground Grippers and started out to reform the world. The final complication in 'conquering Washington' or 'conquering New York' is that the conquerors must beyond all things not conquer! It must have been so easy in the good old days when authors dreamed only of selling a hundred thousand volumes, and sculptors of being feted in big houses, and even the Uplifters like me had a simple-hearted ambition to be elected to important offices and invited to go round lecturing. But we meddlers have upset everything. Now the one thing that is disgraceful to any of us is obvious success. The Uplifter who is very popular with wealthy patrons can be pretty sure that he has softened his philosophy to please them, and the author who is making lots of money--poor things, I've heard 'em apologizing for it to the shabby bitter-enders; I've seen 'em ashamed of the sleek luggage they got from movie rights. "Do you want to sacrifice yourself in such a topsy-turvy world, where popularity makes you unpopular with the people you love, and the only failure is cheap success, and the only individualist is the person who gives up all his individualism to serve a jolly ungrateful proletariat which thumbs its nose at him?" Carol smiled ingratiatingly, to indicate that she was indeed one who desired to sacrifice, but she sighed, "I don't know; I'm afraid I'm not heroic. I certainly wasn't out home. Why didn't I do big effective----" "Not a matter of heroism. Matter of endurance. Your Middlewest is double-Puritan--prairie Puritan on top of New England Puritan; bluff frontiersman on the surface, but in its heart it still has the ideal of Plymouth Rock in a sleet-storm. There's one attack you can make on it, perhaps the only kind that accomplishes much anywhere: you can keep on looking at one thing after another in your home and church and bank, and ask why it is, and who first laid down the law that it had to be that way. If enough of us do this impolitely enough, then we'll become civilized in merely twenty thousand years or so, instead of having to wait the two hundred thousand years that my cynical anthropologist friends allow. . . . Easy, pleasant, lucrative home-work for wives: asking people to define their jobs. That's the most dangerous doctrine I know!" Carol was mediating, "I will go back! I will go on asking questions. I've always done it, and always failed at it, and it's all I can do. I'm going to ask Ezra Stowbody why he's opposed to the nationalization of railroads, and ask Dave Dyer why a druggist always is pleased when he's called 'doctor,' and maybe ask Mrs. Bogart why she wears a widow's veil that looks like a dead crow." The woman leader straightened. "And you have one thing. You have a baby to hug. That's my temptation. I dream of babies--of a baby--and I sneak around parks to see them playing. (The children in Dupont Circle are like a poppy-garden.) And the antis call me 'unsexed'!" Carol was thinking, in panic, "Oughtn't Hugh to have country air? I won't let him become a yokel. I can guide him away from street-corner loafing. . . . I think I can." On her way home: "Now that I've made a precedent, joined the union and gone out on one strike and learned personal solidarity, I won't be so afraid. Will won't always be resisting my running away. Some day I really will go to Europe with him . . . or without him. "I've lived with people who are not afraid to go to jail. I could invite a Miles Bjornstam to dinner without being afraid of the Haydocks . . . I think I could. "I'll take back the sound of Yvette Guilbert's songs and Elman's violin. They'll be only the lovelier against the thrumming of crickets in the stubble on an autumn day. "I can laugh now and be serene . . . I think I can." Though she should return, she said, she would not be utterly defeated. She was glad of her rebellion. The prairie was no longer empty land in the sun-glare; it was the living tawny beast which she had fought and made beautiful by fighting; and in the village streets were shadows of her desires and the sound of her marching and the seeds of mystery and greatness. IX Her active hatred of Gopher Prairie had run out. She saw it now as a toiling new settlement. With sympathy she remembered Kennicott's defense of its citizens as "a lot of pretty good folks, working hard and trying to bring up their families the best they can." She recalled tenderly the young awkwardness of Main Street and the makeshifts of the little brown cottages; she pitied their shabbiness and isolation; had compassion for their assertion of culture, even as expressed in Thanatopsis papers, for their pretense of greatness, even as trumpeted in "boosting." She saw Main Street in the dusty prairie sunset, a line of frontier shanties with solemn lonely people waiting for her, solemn and lonely as an old man who has outlived his friends. She remembered that Kennicott and Sam Clark had listened to her songs, and she wanted to run to them and sing. "At last," she rejoiced, "I've come to a fairer attitude toward the town. I can love it, now." She was, perhaps, rather proud of herself for having acquired so much tolerance. She awoke at three in the morning, after a dream of being tortured by Ella Stowbody and the Widow Bogart. "I've been making the town a myth. This is how people keep up the tradition of the perfect home-town, the happy boyhood, the brilliant college friends. We forget so. I've been forgetting that Main Street doesn't think it's in the least lonely and pitiful. It thinks it's God's Own Country. It isn't waiting for me. It doesn't care." But the next evening she again saw Gopher Prairie as her home, waiting for her in the sunset, rimmed round with splendor. She did not return for five months more; five months crammed with greedy accumulation of sounds and colors to take back for the long still days. She had spent nearly two years in Washington. When she departed for Gopher Prairie, in June, her second baby was stirring within her. Könnt ihr eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Nach einem Jahr in Washington verspürt Carol zunehmend das Verlangen nach mehr Abenteuer, als ihre Büroarbeit ihr erlaubt. Sie macht einen Spaziergang und sieht zwei Personen, die sie aus Gopher Prairie kennt. Sie ist überrascht, wie glücklich es sie macht, sie zu sehen. Dreizehn Monate nach ihrem Umzug nach Washington kommt Will, um sie zu besuchen. Der Besuch verläuft ziemlich gut, aber am Ende will Carol immer noch nicht mit Will nach Gopher Prairie zurückkehren. Er ist offensichtlich enttäuscht, aber wie ein geduldiger Partner sagt er, dass er weiterhin auf sie warten wird. Tatsächlich stimmt er zu, dass es eine gute Idee ist, dass sie vorerst nicht nach Hause kommt. Im Laufe der Zeit schwindet Carols Hass auf Gopher Prairie. Sie sieht es nicht mehr als langweilige Stadt, sondern als eine prärieartige Siedlung, die darum kämpft, Zivilisation zu schaffen. Nach fast zwei Jahren in Washington beschließt Carol, nach Gopher Prairie zurückzukehren. Wir erfahren auch, dass sie mit ihrem zweiten Kind schwanger ist. Und die Daten könnten nicht darauf hindeuten, dass das Kind von Will ist...

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: The brigade was halted in the fringe of a grove. The men crouched among the trees and pointed their restless guns out at the fields. They tried to look beyond the smoke. Out of this haze they could see running men. Some shouted information and gestured as they hurried. The men of the new regiment watched and listened eagerly, while their tongues ran on in gossip of the battle. They mouthed rumors that had flown like birds out of the unknown. "They say Perry has been driven in with big loss." "Yes, Carrott went t' th' hospital. He said he was sick. That smart lieutenant is commanding 'G' Company. Th' boys say they won't be under Carrott no more if they all have t' desert. They allus knew he was a--" "Hannises' batt'ry is took." "It ain't either. I saw Hannises' batt'ry off on th' left not more'n fifteen minutes ago." "Well--" "Th' general, he ses he is goin' t' take th' hull cammand of th' 304th when we go inteh action, an' then he ses we'll do sech fightin' as never another one reg'ment done." "They say we're catchin' it over on th' left. They say th' enemy driv' our line inteh a devil of a swamp an' took Hannises' batt'ry." "No sech thing. Hannises' batt'ry was 'long here 'bout a minute ago." "That young Hasbrouck, he makes a good off'cer. He ain't afraid 'a nothin'." "I met one of th' 148th Maine boys an' he ses his brigade fit th' hull rebel army fer four hours over on th' turnpike road an' killed about five thousand of 'em. He ses one more sech fight as that an' th' war 'll be over." "Bill wasn't scared either. No, sir! It wasn't that. Bill ain't a-gittin' scared easy. He was jest mad, that's what he was. When that feller trod on his hand, he up an' sed that he was willin' t' give his hand t' his country, but he be dumbed if he was goin' t' have every dumb bushwhacker in th' kentry walkin' 'round on it. Se he went t' th' hospital disregardless of th' fight. Three fingers was crunched. Th' dern doctor wanted t' amputate 'm, an' Bill, he raised a heluva row, I hear. He's a funny feller." The din in front swelled to a tremendous chorus. The youth and his fellows were frozen to silence. They could see a flag that tossed in the smoke angrily. Near it were the blurred and agitated forms of troops. There came a turbulent stream of men across the fields. A battery changing position at a frantic gallop scattered the stragglers right and left. A shell screaming like a storm banshee went over the huddled heads of the reserves. It landed in the grove, and exploding redly flung the brown earth. There was a little shower of pine needles. Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees. Twigs and leaves came sailing down. It was as if a thousand axes, wee and invisible, were being wielded. Many of the men were constantly dodging and ducking their heads. The lieutenant of the youth's company was shot in the hand. He began to swear so wondrously that a nervous laugh went along the regimental line. The officer's profanity sounded conventional. It relieved the tightened senses of the new men. It was as if he had hit his fingers with a tack hammer at home. He held the wounded member carefully away from his side so that the blood would not drip upon his trousers. The captain of the company, tucking his sword under his arm, produced a handkerchief and began to bind with it the lieutenant's wound. And they disputed as to how the binding should be done. The battle flag in the distance jerked about madly. It seemed to be struggling to free itself from an agony. The billowing smoke was filled with horizontal flashes. Men running swiftly emerged from it. They grew in numbers until it was seen that the whole command was fleeing. The flag suddenly sank down as if dying. Its motion as it fell was a gesture of despair. Wild yells came from behind the walls of smoke. A sketch in gray and red dissolved into a moblike body of men who galloped like wild horses. The veteran regiments on the right and left of the 304th immediately began to jeer. With the passionate song of the bullets and the banshee shrieks of shells were mingled loud catcalls and bits of facetious advice concerning places of safety. But the new regiment was breathless with horror. "Gawd! Saunders's got crushed!" whispered the man at the youth's elbow. They shrank back and crouched as if compelled to await a flood. The youth shot a swift glance along the blue ranks of the regiment. The profiles were motionless, carven; and afterward he remembered that the color sergeant was standing with his legs apart, as if he expected to be pushed to the ground. The following throng went whirling around the flank. Here and there were officers carried along on the stream like exasperated chips. They were striking about them with their swords and with their left fists, punching every head they could reach. They cursed like highwaymen. A mounted officer displayed the furious anger of a spoiled child. He raged with his head, his arms, and his legs. Another, the commander of the brigade, was galloping about bawling. His hat was gone and his clothes were awry. He resembled a man who has come from bed to go to a fire. The hoofs of his horse often threatened the heads of the running men, but they scampered with singular fortune. In this rush they were apparently all deaf and blind. They heeded not the largest and longest of the oaths that were thrown at them from all directions. Frequently over this tumult could be heard the grim jokes of the critical veterans; but the retreating men apparently were not even conscious of the presence of an audience. The battle reflection that shone for an instant in the faces on the mad current made the youth feel that forceful hands from heaven would not have been able to have held him in place if he could have got intelligent control of his legs. There was an appalling imprint upon these faces. The struggle in the smoke had pictured an exaggeration of itself on the bleached cheeks and in the eyes wild with one desire. The sight of this stampede exerted a floodlike force that seemed able to drag sticks and stones and men from the ground. They of the reserves had to hold on. They grew pale and firm, and red and quaking. The youth achieved one little thought in the midst of this chaos. The composite monster which had caused the other troops to flee had not then appeared. He resolved to get a view of it, and then, he thought he might very likely run better than the best of them. Können Sie eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Die gesamte Brigade hält schließlich in der Nähe eines Baumhains an und die Soldaten beobachten, wie andere Regimenter anderer Brigaden vor ihnen kämpfen. Während sie zuschauen und warten, tauschen sie Gerüchte darüber aus, wie andere Kompanien, Regimenter, Bataillone, einzelne Soldaten und Offiziere in den Schlachten abgeschnitten haben. Es gibt Uneinigkeit darüber, wie effektiv einige von ihnen waren und wie stark der Feind ist. Die gesamte Brigade hält schließlich in der Nähe eines Baumhains an und die Soldaten beobachten, wie andere Regimenter anderer Brigaden vor ihnen kämpfen. Während sie zuschauen und warten, tauschen sie Gerüchte darüber aus, wie andere Kompanien, Regimenter, Bataillone, einzelne Soldaten und Offiziere in den Schlachten abgeschnitten haben. Es gibt Uneinigkeit darüber, wie effektiv einige von ihnen waren und wie stark der Feind ist. Der Leutnant von Henrys Kompanie wird verwundet, während er wartet, und wird vom Hauptmann der Kompanie behandelt. Zur gleichen Zeit scheinen die Soldaten an vorderster Front in Unordnung zu sein. Die Offiziere dieser Brigade fluchen und flehen ihre Männer an, weiterzukämpfen, aber viele ziehen sich zurück. Die Truppen der Reservebrigade, einschließlich derjenigen in Henrys Regiment, beobachten das Geschehen mit Ehrfurcht und Angst. Doch bisher wurde der Feind, der all dieses Chaos verursacht, noch nicht gesehen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: SZENE IV. Land bei Dunsinane: Ein Wald im Blickfeld. [Mit Trommel und Fahnen marschieren Malcolm, der alte Siward und sein Sohn, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, Ross und Soldaten ein.] MALCOLM. Cousins, ich hoffe, die Tage sind nahe, an denen die Gemächer sicher sind. MENTEITH. Wir zweifeln daran nicht. SIWARD. Was ist das für ein Wald vor uns? MENTEITH. Der Wald von Birnam. MALCOLM. Lasst jeden Soldaten einen Zweig abhauen und vor sich tragen; dadurch werden wir die Anzahl unserer Truppen verbergen und die Berichte über uns falsch machen. SOLDATEN. Es wird getan. SIWARD. Wir haben erfahren, dass der selbstsichere Tyrann immer noch in Dunsinane bleibt und ertragen wird, dass wir uns davor niederlassen. MALCOLM. Das ist seine Haupthoffnung: Denn wo ein Vorteil zu geben ist, haben ihm sowohl Mehrere als Wenige den Rücken gekehrt. Und niemand dient mit ihm außer erzwungene Geschöpfe, deren Herzen ebenfalls abwesend sind. MACDUFF. Lasst unsere gerechten Kritiken das wahre Ergebnis berücksichtigen und wir tragen fleißige Kämpferschaft zur Schau. SIWARD. Der Zeitpunkt nähert sich, an dem wir durch eine angemessene Entscheidung wissen werden, was wir haben und was wir schulden. Spekulative Gedanken beziehen sich auf unsichere Hoffnungen; Aber klare Taten müssen entscheiden: Fort zum Krieg. [Abmarsch, im Marsch.] Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Diese sehr wichtige Szene, gefüllt mit Rückblenden, Symbolik, Bildern und Ironie, findet im Bankettsaal des Palastes statt und beginnt mit König Macbeth, der mit seiner Königin, Adligen, Herren und Gefolge hereinkommt. Am Anfang scheint alles ein Bild vollkommener Ordnung zu sein. Der Tisch ist gedeckt und Macbeth sagt allen, dass sie sich nach ihrem Rang vom oberen Ende des Tisches nach unten hin setzen sollen. Dann sagt er Lady Macbeth, dass sie sitzen bleiben soll, um die Gäste willkommen zu heißen, während er sich mit ihnen unterhält. Er scheint ein Mann vollkommenen Kontrolle zu sein. Als er unter den Gästen entlanggeht, entdeckt der König den ersten Mörder, der gerade den Saal betreten hat. Macbeth sagt zu ihm: "Auf deinem Gesicht ist Blut". Der Mörder antwortet, dass es von Banquo stammt. Nachdem Macbeth den Mörder für diese Tat gelobt hat, erfährt der König, dass Fleance entkommen ist. Es ist Macbeths Verderben. Er bleicht bei der Nachricht aus und sagt: "Dann überkommt mich wieder diese Anwandlung", eine Vorahnung der wirklichen Anwandlung, die er gleich im Bankettsaal zeigen wird. Der König versucht, seine Fassung wiederzuerlangen, indem er sagt, dass zumindest die "gewachsene Schlange" tot ist und die kleinere Schlange heute noch nicht gefürchtet werden muss. Aber die Nachricht hat Macbeth sichtlich erschüttert. Der erste Mörder geht weg und Lady Macbeth sucht ihren Mann auf, um den Toast zu halten. Als er seine Gäste begrüßt, betritt der Geist von Banquo den Saal, unbemerkt von Macbeth, und setzt sich auf seinen Stuhl. Als es Zeit ist, sich hinzusetzen, bemerkt Macbeth, dass für ihn kein freier Platz ist, und sagt: "Der Tisch ist voll." Da die anderen den Geist von Banquo nicht sehen können, wissen sie, dass etwas mit dem König nicht stimmt. Die Dinge werden schlimmer, als Macbeth auf den Geist zeigt und fragt: "Wer von euch hat das getan?" Dann beschuldigt er sich selbst offen, indem er seine Schuld leugnet: "Du kannst sagen, dass ich es getan habe." Der Adlige Ross, der Macbeths Geisteszustand erkennt, sagt allen, sie sollen aufstehen und den Raum verlassen, aber Lady Macbeth will die Kontrolle behalten und ihren Mann retten. Sie sagt allen, sie sollen sitzen bleiben, und erklärt, dass ihr Mann oft "Anfälle" hatte und sie seit seiner Jugend hat. Sie erklärt weiter, dass der Anfall nur von kurzer Dauer ist; bei einem Gedanken wird er wieder gesund sein. Sie sagt ihnen, dass es vorbei geht, wenn sie ihn einfach ignorieren. Dann wendet sie sich an ihren Mann und fragt zornig: "Bist du ein Mann?" Macbeth antwortet, dass er "ein kühner ist, der es wagt, das anzusehen, was sogar den Teufel erschaudern ließe". Lady Macbeth verspottet ihn dann weiter und sagt: "Dies ist das genaue Abbild deiner Angst; das ist der luftgezeichnete Dolch, der... dich zu Duncan geführt hat." Sie beendet diese erste Tirade mit den Worten: "Schamhaftigkeit selbst!" Sie greift Macbeth verbbal weiter an und nennt ihn "ganz entmännlicht durch Narrheit". Dieser gesamte Dialog dient als Rückblick auf die frühere Lady Macbeth, die ihren Mann wegen seines Mangels an Mut, Duncan zu ermorden, tadelte. Macbeth wendet sich dann um und fordert den Geist auf zu sprechen, was dazu führt, dass das Bild von Banquo vorübergehend verschwindet. Für sich selbst beklagt der König, dass "ermordete Männer wieder auferstehen... merkwürdiger als ein solcher Mord". Er versucht erneut, seine Fassung wiederzugewinnen und seinen Schaden zu vertuschen, indem er die Geschichte seiner Frau vor den Gästen aufgreift. Er sagt ihnen: "Ich habe ein merkwürdiges Gebrechen, das für diejenigen, die mich kennen, nichts ist." Dann geht er mit einem Toast auf alle weiter, aber der Geist taucht erneut auf, um ihn zu verspotten. Macbeth fordert die Erscheinung heraus, jede Gestalt außer der eines Geistes anzunehmen, und er wird mutig kämpfen und sie besiegen, tapfere Worte eines kranken Geistes, der Macbeths früheres Ich als stolzen Krieger hervorruft. Lady Macbeth wendet sich wieder ihrem Mann zu und tadelt ihn dafür, dass er die Feier ruiniert hat: "Du hast die Fröhlichkeit verdrängt und das gute Treffen zerbrochen." Dann wendet sie sich an die Gäste und entlässt sie und sagt ihnen, sie sollen in beliebiger Reihenfolge gehen. Das gut geplante, geordnete Bankett ist in völlige Chaos geraten. Als die Gäste weg sind, haben der König und Lady Macbeth eine kurze Unterhaltung, die deutlich die Tiefe von Macbeths geplagtem Geist offenbart. Er sagt von sich selbst: "Ich stecke im Blut, so weit, dass es genauso mühsam ist, zurückzukehren wie voranzugehen." Er fürchtet, dass "Blut Blut fordern wird", also hat er bezahlte Spione in den Häusern all seiner Adligen platziert. Nachdem Banquo jetzt tot ist, richtet er seine Angst auf Macduff. Er sagt auch, dass er alles tun wird, um sich zu schützen, denn er ist bereits so tief drin, dass es keine Rolle spielt. Er deutet weitere Blutvergießen an, wenn er sagt: "Wir sind erst am Anfang einer Taten". Zwei Morde liegen hinter ihm, weitere werden folgen. Um sein Schicksal herauszufinden, plant Macbeth, morgen wieder zu den drei Hexen zu gehen, den Verkörperungen des Bösen, denen er nun vertraut. Das Publikum kann sich bereits seine Zukunft vorstellen, aber Lady Macbeth, die sich selbst belügt, sagt, dass etwas Schlaf ihren Mann heilen wird. Die Ironie besteht darin, dass ihm der Schlaf entgeht. Es gibt keine Ruhe vor seinem gequälten Geist. Macbeth scheint sich im Laufe der Szene etwas zu erholen und ist mutig genug, seine Frau herauszufordern. Als sie fragt, ob er ein Mann sei, antwortet er, dass es ein mutiger Mann ist, der einen Geist ansehen und zugeben kann, dass das, was er sieht, den Teufel selbst entsetzt. Er beschwert sich auch bei ihr, dass sie ihn an sich selbst zweifeln lässt. Macbeth hat sich auch genug erholt, um den Geist zu verspotten, indem er sagt: "Wenn du nicken kannst, dann sprich auch." In diesem Bild liegt ein flackernder Hinweis auf den alten Krieger und Macbeth gewinnt vorübergehend, denn die Erscheinung verschwindet vorübergehend. Als der Geist zurückkehrt, fordert Macbeth erneut heraus und wagt die Figur, jede Gestalt außer einem Geist anzunehmen, sei es ein "wilder russischer Bär, ein bewaffneter Nashorn oder ein Hyrkanischer Tiger". Macbeth sagt, er werde sich gerne jedem dieser Formen ohne Furcht stellen oder sogar Banquo persönlich bekämpfen, wenn er wieder zum Leben erwacht, aber das Publikum fragt sich, ob er überhaupt noch den Kampfgeist hat. Dann befiehlt der König schließlich dem "grässlichen Schatten", zu verschwinden. Die Ironie besteht darin, dass Macbeth der eigentliche "grässliche Schatten" ist, eine Verspottung des Helden, der er einst war. Als der Geist zum letzten Mal geht, sagt Macbeth elend: "Ich bin wieder ein Mann." Als Lady Macbeth erkennt, dass ihr Mann sich nicht von seinem seltsamen Verhalten erholt, entlässt sie die Gäste hastig. Die Szene verwandelt sich schnell in ein Bild noch größerer Chaos, als die Herren und Damen ohne Ordnung und in lautem Gespräch über das gerade Geschehene gehen. Shakespeare hat eine meisterhafte und dramatische Szene geschrieben, in der das chaotische Ende des Banketts im totalen Gegensatz zu seinem geordneten Anfang steht, genauso wie Macbeth im totalen Gegensatz zu seinem früheren heldenhaften Selbst steht. Die Symbolik und Ironie der Bankettszene ist der Kern des gesamten Stücks. Macbeth hatte zu Beginn des Stücks alles. Er war ein echter Mann - ein tapferer Krieger, der gerade seinen größten Sieg errungen hatte, Schottland vor dem Ruin gerettet und vom König geehrt wurde. Er hatte viel zu erwarten, bis die drei bösen Hexen einen Samen der Gier in seinem Geist pflanzten. Plötzlich hatte er Gedanken, mehr zu sein als nur Thane von Cawdor. In seiner Schwäche ließ er sich von seiner noch gierigeren Ehefrau überreden, den Mord zu begehen. Sein Gewissen hatte ihn vor der Verschwör

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Als sie fuhren, beobachtete Elizabeth mit einiger Unruhe das erste Erscheinen des Pemberley-Waldes; und als sie schließlich beim Pfortenhaus einbogen, waren ihre Gefühle hoch aufgeregt. Der Park war sehr groß und bot eine große Vielfalt an Gelände. Sie betraten ihn an einem seiner niedrigsten Punkte und fuhren eine Weile durch einen schönen Wald, der sich über eine weite Fläche erstreckte. Elizabeths Gedanken waren zu voll für ein Gespräch, aber sie sah und bewunderte jede bemerkenswerte Stelle und Aussicht. Sie stiegen allmählich eine halbe Meile langsam auf und befanden sich schließlich auf der Spitze eines beträchtlichen Hügels, wo der Wald endete und das Auge sofort von Pemberley House auf der gegenüberliegenden Seite eines Tals, in das die Straße mit einiger Steilheit führte, erfasst wurde. Es war ein großes, schönes Steingebäude, das sich auf ansteigendem Grund gut befand und von einem Rücken hoher bewaldeter Hügel unterstützt wurde. Und vorne floss ein Bach von einiger natürlichen Bedeutung, der ohne jegliches künstliches Erscheinungsbild vergrößert wurde. Seine Ufer waren weder förmlich noch falsch geschmückt. Elizabeth war begeistert. Sie hatte noch nie einen Ort gesehen, für den die Natur mehr getan hatte, oder wo natürliche Schönheit so wenig von einem ungeschickten Geschmack überlagert worden war. Sie alle waren begeistert; und in diesem Moment fühlte sie, dass die Herrin von Pemberley zu sein etwas sein könnte! Sie fuhren den Hügel hinunter, überquerten die Brücke und fuhren zur Tür; und während sie das nähere Aussehen des Hauses betrachteten, kehrten alle ihre Befürchtungen, den Besitzer zu treffen, zurück. Sie fürchtete, dass sich die Stubenmädchen geirrt hatten. Bei der Bitte, den Ort zu sehen, wurden sie in den Flur gelassen; und während Elizabeth auf die Haushälterin wartete, hatte sie Zeit, sich über ihre Anwesenheit zu wundern. Die Haushälterin kam; eine respektable, ältere Frau, die viel weniger vornehm und höflicher war, als sie gedacht hatte. Sie folgten ihr in das Esszimmer. Es war ein großes, gut proportioniertes Zimmer, das schön eingerichtet war. Elizabeth, nachdem sie es flüchtig betrachtet hatte, ging ans Fenster, um die Aussicht zu genießen. Der von Wald gekrönte Hügel, von dem sie abgestiegen waren, nahm mit zunehmender Steilheit aus der Ferne ein wunderschönes Bild an. Jede Anordnung des Geländes war gut, und sie betrachtete die gesamte Szene, den Fluss, die Bäume, die an seinen Ufern verstreut waren, und den Verlauf des Tals, so weit sie es verfolgen konnte, mit Freude. Als sie in andere Räume gingen, änderten diese Objekte ihre Position; aber aus jedem Fenster gab es Schönheiten zu sehen. Die Räume waren hoch und schön, und ihre Möbel waren angemessen für den Reichtum ihres Besitzers; aber Elizabeth sah mit Bewunderung für seinen Geschmack, dass sie weder schillernd noch nutzlos fein waren; mit weniger Glanz und mehr echter Eleganz als die Möbel von Rosings. "Und von diesem Ort", dachte sie, "könnte ich die Herrin gewesen sein! Mit diesen Räumen hätte ich jetzt vertraut sein können! Anstatt sie als Fremde anzusehen, hätte ich mich über sie freuen und meinen Onkel und meine Tante als Besucher willkommen heißen können. Aber nein", erinnerte sie sich, "das hätte niemals sein können: mein Onkel und meine Tante wären für mich verlorengegangen: Ich hätte sie nicht einladen dürfen." Dies war eine glückliche Erinnerung - sie bewahrte sie vor einer gewissen Art von Bedauern. Sie sehnte sich danach, die Haushälterin danach zu fragen, ob ihr Herr wirklich abwesend war, wagte es aber nicht. Schließlich wurde die Frage jedoch von ihrem Onkel gestellt, und sie wandte sich mit Schrecken ab, während Mrs. Reynolds antwortete, dass er es sei und fügte hinzu: "Aber wir erwarten ihn morgen mit einer großen Gruppe von Freunden." Wie froh war Elizabeth, dass ihre eigene Reise durch keine Umstände um einen Tag verzögert worden war! Ihre Tante rief sie nun, um sich ein Bild anzusehen. Sie näherte sich und sah das Porträt von Mr. Wickham, das zusammen mit mehreren anderen Miniaturen über dem Kaminsims hing. Ihre Tante fragte sie lächelnd, wie sie es fand. Die Haushälterin kam vor und erzählte ihnen, dass es das Bild eines jungen Gentlemans sei, dem Sohn des verstorbenen Verwalters ihres Herrn, der auf seine Kosten aufgezogen worden war. "Er ist jetzt in die Armee gegangen", fügte sie hinzu, "aber ich fürchte, dass er sich sehr wild entwickelt hat." Mrs. Gardiner sah ihre Nichte lächelnd an, aber Elizabeth konnte es nicht erwidern. "Und das", sagte Mrs. Reynolds und deutete auf ein weiteres der Miniaturen, "ist mein Herr - und sehr ähnlich ihm. Es wurde zur gleichen Zeit wie das andere gezeichnet - vor etwa acht Jahren." "Ich habe viel von der stattlichen Erscheinung Ihres Herrn gehört", sagte Mrs. Gardiner und betrachtete das Bild; "es ist ein hübsches Gesicht. Aber Lizzy, du kannst uns sagen, ob es Ähnlichkeit hat oder nicht." Mrs. Reynolds' Respekt für Elizabeth schien sich aufgrund dieser Andeutung ihres Wissens über ihren Herrn zu erhöhen. "Kennt diese junge Dame Mr. Darcy?", fragte Elizabeth und wurde rot. "Ein wenig", antwortete sie. "Und denken Sie nicht, dass er ein sehr gutaussehender Herr ist, Ma'am?" "Ja, sehr gutaussehend." "Ich bin sicher, ICH kenne niemanden, der so gutaussehend ist; aber im Galeriegeschoss können Sie ein feineres, größeres Bild von ihm sehen als dieses. Dieses Zimmer war das Lieblingszimmer meines verstorbenen Herrn, und diese Miniaturen sind genauso, wie sie damals waren. Er war sehr an ihnen interessiert." Das erklärte Elizabeth, warum Mr. Wickham unter ihnen war. Dann richtete Mrs. Reynolds ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf eine Miniatur von Miss Darcy, die im Alter von nur acht Jahren gezeichnet wurde. "Und ist Miss Darcy so hübsch wie ihr Bruder?", fragte Mr. Gardiner. "Oh ja - die hübscheste junge Dame, die jemals gesehen wurde; und so begabt! Sie spielt und singt den ganzen Tag über. Im nächsten Raum steht ein neues Instrument, das gerade für sie hinuntergekommen ist - ein Geschenk von meinem Herrn; sie kommt morgen mit ihm hierher." Mr. Gardiner, dessen Manieren angenehm und freundlich waren, ermutigte ihre Gesprächigkeit durch seine Fragen und Bemerkungen; ob aus Stolz oder Zuneigung, hatte Mrs. Reynolds offensichtlich große Freude daran, von ihrem Herrn und seiner Schwester zu erzählen. "Verbringt Ihr Herr viel Zeit im Laufe des Jahres in Pemberley?" "Nicht so viel, wie ich wünschen könnte, Sir; aber ich denke, er verbringt die Hälfte seiner Zeit hier; und Miss Darcy ist immer für die Sommermonate hier." "Mit Ausnahme", dachte Elizabeth, "wenn sie nach Ramsgate fährt." "Wenn Ihr Herr heiraten würde, könnten Sie mehr von ihm sehen." "Ja, Sir; aber ich weiß nicht, wann das sein wird. Ich weiß nicht, wer gut genug für ihn ist." Mr. und Mrs. Gardiner lächelten. Elizabeth konnte nicht anders, als zu sagen: "Es spricht sehr für ihn, dass Sie es denken." "Ich sage nichts als die Wahrheit, und das "In welch liebenswertem Licht stellt ihn das!" dachte Elizabeth. "Dieser wunderbare Bericht über ihn", flüsterte ihre Tante, während sie gingen, "passt nicht ganz zu seinem Verhalten gegenüber unserem armen Freund." "Vielleicht wurden wir getäuscht." "Das ist sehr unwahrscheinlich; unsere Quelle war zuverlässig." Als sie den geräumigen Eingangsbereich oben erreichten, wurden sie in ein sehr hübsches Wohnzimmer geführt, das vor Kurzem mit noch mehr Eleganz und Leichtigkeit eingerichtet worden war als die Räume unten. Man teilte ihnen mit, dass es gerade erst fertiggestellt wurde, um Miss Darcy eine Freude zu machen, die sich beim letzten Besuch in Pemberley in den Raum verliebt hatte. "Er ist definitiv ein guter Bruder", sagte Elizabeth, als sie sich einem der Fenster näherte. Mrs. Reynolds konnte es kaum erwarten, bis Miss Darcy den Raum betreten würde. "Und so ist er immer", fügte sie hinzu. "Alles, was seiner Schwester Freude bereiten kann, wird sofort erledigt. Es gibt nichts, was er nicht für sie tun würde." Die Bildergalerie und zwei oder drei der wichtigsten Schlafzimmer waren alles, was noch gezeigt werden sollte. In der Galerie befanden sich viele Familienporträts, aber sie hatten wenig Interesse für einen Fremden. Elizabeth suchte nach dem einzigen Gesicht, dessen Züge sie kennen würde. Schließlich blieb sie stehen - und sah eine frappierende Ähnlichkeit mit Mr. Darcy, mit einem Lächeln im Gesicht, das sie manchmal gesehen hatte, wenn er sie anschaute. Sie stand mehrere Minuten vor dem Gemälde in ernster Betrachtung und kehrte noch einmal zu ihm zurück, bevor sie die Galerie verließen. Mrs. Reynolds informierte sie, dass es zu Lebzeiten seines Vaters entstanden war. In Elizabeths Gedanken gab es zu diesem Zeitpunkt sicher eine sanftere Empfindung gegenüber dem Original, als sie jemals im Höhepunkt ihrer Bekanntschaft empfunden hatte. Das Lob, das Mrs. Reynolds ihm zollte, hatte eine beachtliche Bedeutung. Welches Lob ist wertvoller als das eines intelligenten Dieners? Als Bruder, Vermieter, Herr überlegte sie, wie viele Menschen von seinem Wohlwollen abhingen! Wie viel Freude oder Schmerz er verleihen konnte! Wie viel Gutes oder Böses er bewirken konnte! Jede Aussage, die von der Haushälterin vorgebracht wurde, sprach für seinen Charakter, und als sie vor der Leinwand stand, auf der er abgebildet war, und er sie anblickte, dachte sie mit einer tieferen Dankbarkeit an seine Zuneigung als je zuvor; sie erinnerte sich an seine Wärme und milderte ihre Unangemessenheit in der Ausdrucksweise. Nachdem das gesamte Haus, das öffentlich zugänglich war, besichtigt worden war, kehrten sie nach unten zurück und verabschiedeten sich von der Haushälterin, bevor sie dem Gärtner übergeben wurden, der sie an der Haustür des Anwesens traf. Auf dem Weg über den Rasen zum Fluss drehte Elizabeth sich noch einmal um, ihr Onkel und ihre Tante hielten ebenfalls inne, und während ihr Onkel darüber rätselte, wann das Gebäude wohl errichtet wurde, trat der Eigentümer plötzlich aus der Straße, die hinter dem Haus zu den Stallungen führte. Sie waren etwa zwanzig Schritte voneinander entfernt, und sein plötzliches Erscheinen machte es unmöglich, ihm auszuweichen. Ihre Blicke trafen sich sofort, und die Wangen beider waren von tiefem Erröten überzogen. Er fing regelrecht an und schien für einen Moment vor Überraschung wie erstarrt; aber er erholte sich kurz darauf, näherte sich der Gruppe und sprach Elizabeth mit einer gewissen Anspannung an, wenn auch mit vollkommener Höflichkeit. Sie hatte sich instinktiv abgewendet, blieb jedoch stehen, als er näher kam, und nahm seine Komplimente in einer unüberwindlichen Verlegenheit entgegen. Sein erstes Erscheinen oder seine Ähnlichkeit mit dem gerade betrachteten Gemälde hätten den beiden anderen sofort klargemacht, dass sie nun Mr. Darcy sahen. Der überraschte Ausdruck des Gärtners, als er seinen Herrn sah, hätte es sofort verraten müssen. Sie standen ein wenig abseits, während er mit ihrer Nichte sprach und sie sich verblüfft und verwirrt kaum wagte, den Blick zu ihm zu erheben und wusste nicht, welche Antwort sie auf seine höflichen Fragen nach ihrer Familie geben sollte. Verblüfft von der Veränderung in seinem Verhalten seit ihrer letzten Trennung, erhöhte jeder Satz, den er äußerte, ihre Verlegenheit, und bei jedem Gedanken an die Unangemessenheit ihres Aufenthalts dort wurden die wenigen Minuten, in denen sie zusammenblieben, zu den unangenehmsten ihres Lebens. Auch schien er nicht viel entspannter zu sein; wenn er sprach, hatte sein Akzent nichts von seiner gewohnten Gelassenheit, und er wiederholte seine Fragen nach dem Zeitpunkt, zu dem sie Longbourn verlassen hatte, und nach ihrem Aufenthalt in Derbyshire so oft und so hastig, dass es deutlich von seiner geistigen Zerstreutheit sprach. Schließlich schienen ihm alle Ideen zu fehlen, und nachdem er ein paar Minuten schweigend dagestanden hatte, erinnerte er sich plötzlich, verabschiedete sich und ging. Die anderen schlossen sich ihr dann an und drückten ihre Bewunderung für seine Erscheinung aus, aber Elizabeth hörte kein Wort und folgte ihnen schweigend, völlig von ihren eigenen Gefühlen eingenommen. Sie war von Scham und Enttäuschung überwältigt. Ihr Kommen hierher war die unglücklichste, die am wenigsten durchdachte Sache der Welt! Wie seltsam musste es für ihn erscheinen! In welch beschämendem Licht konnte es einen so eitlen Mann nicht erscheinen lassen! Es mochte so aussehen, als ob sie sich absichtlich wieder in seinen Weg gestellt hätte! Ach, warum war sie gekommen? Oder warum war er so kurz vor seiner erwarteten Ankunft einen Tag zu früh gekommen? Hätten sie nur zehn Minuten früher sein können, sie wären außerhalb seiner Sichtweite gewesen, denn es war offensichtlich, dass er gerade angekommen war, dass er gerade von seinem Pferd oder seinem Wagen gestiegen war. Sie errötete immer wieder über den Eigensinn dieses Treffens. Und sein Verhalten, so auffallend verändert - was könnte es bedeuten? Dass er überhaupt mit ihr sprach, war erstaunlich - aber mit solcher Höflichkeit zu sprechen und nach ihrer Familie zu fragen! Nie zuvor hatte sie seine Manieren so wenig würdevoll gesehen, nie zuvor hatte er so sanft gesprochen, wie bei diesem unerwarteten Zusammentreffen. Welcher Kontrast bot es zu seiner letzten Ansprache im Rosings Park, als er ihr den Brief in die Hand legte! Sie wusste nicht, was sie denken sollte, noch wie sie es erklären sollte. Sie waren nun in einen schönen Spaziergang am Ufer des Flusses eingetreten, und jeder Schritt brachte einen erhabeneren Bodenfall oder einen schöneren Anblick des Waldes, auf den sie zukamen. Aber es dauerte eine Weile, bis Elizabeth etwas davon wahrnahm. Obwohl sie mechanisch auf die wiederholten Appelle ihres Onkels und ihrer Tante antwortete und ihre Augen auf die von ihnen gezeigten Objekte richtete, konnte sie nichts von der Szene unterscheiden. Ihre Gedanken waren alle auf den einen Ort von Pemberley House gerichtet, wo sich Mr. Darcy gerade aufhielt. Sie sehnte sich danach zu wissen, was in diesem Moment in seinem Kopf vorging; auf welche Weise dachte er an sie, und ob sie trotz allem immer noch lieb für ihn war. Vielleicht hatte er sich nur höflich verhalten, weil er sich wohl fühlte; aber in seiner Stimme war _das_ gewesen, das nicht nach Leichtigkeit klang. Ob er beim Anblick von ihr mehr Schmerz oder Vergnügen empfunden hatte, konnte sie nicht sagen, aber er hatte sie definitiv nicht ruhig angesehen. Schließlich jedoch brachten die Bemerkungen ihrer Begleiter über ihre Gedankenlosigkeit sie wieder zur Besinnung, und sie fühlte die Notwendigkeit, mehr wie sie selbst zu wirken. Sie betraten den Wald und verabschiedeten sich für eine Weile vom Fluss. Sie stiegen auf einige der höheren Gebiete, von denen aus man an einigen Stellen, an denen sich zwischen den Bäumen Lücken auftaten, einen herrlichen Blick auf das Tal, die gegenüberliegenden Hügel und die langen Wälder hatte, die sich über viele von ihnen erstreckten und gelegentlich auch auf Teile des Flusses. Herr Gardiner äußerte den Wunsch, den ganzen Park zu umrunden, fürchtete jedoch, dass dies für einen Spaziergang zu weit war. Mit einem triumphierenden Lächeln wurde ihnen gesagt, dass er zehn Meilen rundherum war. Das hatte die Sache entschieden und so machten sie sich auf den gewohnten Rundgang, der sie nach einiger Zeit wieder den Hügel hinab und durch hängende Wälder an den Rand des Wassers führte, an einer der schmalsten Stellen. Sie überquerten es mit einer einfachen Brücke, die dem allgemeinen Charakter der Szene entsprach. Es war ein weniger geschmückter Ort als alles, was sie bisher besichtigt hatten, und das Tal, das sich hier zu einer Schlucht verengte, ließ nur Platz für den Fluss und einen schmalen Spazierweg durch das raue Unterholz am Ufer. Elizabeth sehnte sich danach, seine Windungen zu erforschen, aber als sie die Brücke überquert hatten und den Abstand vom Haus bemerkten, konnte Frau Gardiner, die nicht gerne lange ging, nicht weitergehen und dachte nur daran, so schnell wie möglich zum Wagen zurückzukehren. Ihre Nichte musste sich daher fügen, und sie machten sich auf den Weg zum Haus auf der gegenüberliegenden Seite des Flusses, in nächster Richtung. Aber ihr Fortschritt war langsam, denn Mr. Gardiner, der selten die Gelegenheit hatte, seinem Hobby nachzugehen, war sehr gerne fischen und war so sehr damit beschäftigt, das gelegentliche Auftauchen einiger Forellen im Wasser zu beobachten und sich mit dem Mann darüber zu unterhalten, dass er nur wenig vorankam. Während sie auf diese langsame Weise weiterwanderten, wurden sie erneut überrascht, und Elizabeths Erstaunen war genauso groß wie beim ersten Mal, als sie Mr. Darcy auf sie zukommen sahen, und das in nicht allzu großer Entfernung. Da sie auf dieser Seite weniger geschützt waren als auf der anderen, konnten sie ihn sehen, bevor sie sich trafen. Elizabeth, obwohl erstaunt, war zumindest besser auf ein Treffen vorbereitet als zuvor und beschloss, ruhig zu erscheinen und mit ihm zu sprechen, wenn er sie wirklich treffen wollte. Für einen kurzen Moment hatte sie in der Tat das Gefühl, dass er vielleicht einen anderen Weg einschlagen würde. Dieser Gedanke hielt an, während eine Wende im Spaziergang ihn vor ihren Augen verbarg, nach der Wende war er sofort vor ihnen. Mit einem Blick sah sie, dass er nichts von seiner kürzlichen Höflichkeit eingebüßt hatte. Um seine Höflichkeit nachzuahmen, begann sie, als sie sich trafen, die Schönheit des Ortes zu bewundern. Aber sie war nicht über die Worte "entzückend" und "charmant" hinausgekommen, als ihr einige unglückliche Erinnerungen einfielen und sie fürchtete, dass Lob von Pemberley von ihr boshaft interpretiert werden könnte. Ihre Gesichtsfarbe änderte sich und sie sagte nichts mehr. Frau Gardiner stand etwas hinter ihnen und als sie innehielt, fragte er sie, ob sie ihm die Ehre erweisen würde, ihn ihren Freunden vorzustellen. Das war ein höflicher Schlag, für den sie nicht ganz bereit war, und sie konnte kaum ein Lächeln unterdrücken, als er jetzt die Bekanntschaft einiger dieser Leute suchte, gegen die sein Stolz sich in seinem Angebot an sie gewehrt hatte. "Was wird er überrascht sein", dachte sie, "wenn er weiß, wer sie sind! Er hält sie jetzt für Leute von Stand." Die Vorstellung wurde jedoch sofort gemacht und als sie ihre Verwandtschaft zu ihr erwähnte, warf sie ihm einen verstohlenen Blick zu, um zu sehen, wie er es aushalten würde, und hatte die Erwartung, dass er so schnell wie möglich vor solch beschämenden Begleitern fliehen würde. Dass er von der Verbindung überrascht war, war offensichtlich. Er ertrug es jedoch mit Tapferkeit und keineswegs verließ er sie, sondern kehrte mit ihnen um und begann ein Gespräch mit Herrn Gardiner. Elizabeth konnte nicht anders als sich darüber zu freuen und zu triumphieren. Es war tröstlich, dass er wusste, dass sie einige Verwandte hatte, für die es keinen Grund zum Erröten gab. Sie hörte aufmerksam zu, was zwischen ihnen passierte, und freute sich über jeden Ausdruck, jeden Satz ihres Onkels, der seinen Intellekt, seinen Geschmack oder seine guten Manieren zeigte. Das Gespräch wandte sich bald dem Angeln zu und sie hörte, wie Mr. Darcy ihm mit größter Höflichkeit einlud, dort so oft zu angeln, wie er wollte, solange er in der Nähe war. Er bot ihm gleichzeitig Angelgerät an und wies auf die Stellen des Flusses hin, an denen normalerweise die meisten Fische zu fangen sind. Frau Gardiner, die mit Elizabeth Arm in Arm ging, gab ihr einen Blick der Verwunderung. Elizabeth sagte nichts, aber es erfreute sie außerordentlich. Das Kompliment galt ganz ihr. Ihre Überraschung jedoch war überwältigend und immer wieder wiederholte sie: "Warum hat er sich so verändert? Worauf kann das zurückzuführen sein? Es kann nicht wegen mir sein, es kann nicht wegen mir sein, dass sein Benehmen so weich geworden ist. Meine Ermahnungen in Hunsford könnten eine solche Veränderung nicht bewirken. Es ist unmöglich, dass er mich noch liebt." Nachdem sie eine Weile so gegangen waren, vorne die beiden Damen und hinten die beiden Herren, kam es nach einer kurzen Pause zu einer kleinen Änderung. Sie ging von Frau Gardiner aus, die durch die Anstrengungen des Morgens ermüdet war und Elizabeths Arm nicht genug Halt bot und deshalb den Arm ihres Mannes bevorzugte. Mr. Darcy nahm ihren Platz an der Seite ihrer Nichte ein und sie gingen zusammen weiter. Nach einer kurzen Stille begann die Dame zuerst zu sprechen. Sie wollte, dass er weiß, dass man ihr vor ihrer Ankunft versichert hatte, dass er nicht da sein würde, und begann dementsprechend damit, zu bemerken, dass seine Ankunft sehr überraschend gewesen sei. "Denn Ihre Haushälterin", fügte sie hinzu, "hat uns informiert, dass Sie bestimmt nicht vor morgen hier sein würden; und tatsächlich hatten wir gehört, bevor wir Bakewell verließen, dass man Sie nicht sofort in der Gegend erwartete." Er gestand die Wahrheit all dessen ein und sagte, dass Geschäfte mit seinem Verwalter dazu geführt hätten, dass er einige Stunden vor dem Rest der Reisegruppe, mit der er unterwegs war, vorausgefahren war. "Sie werden sich morgen früh uns anschließen", fuhr er fort, "und unter ihnen sind einige, die sich mit Ihnen bekannt machen möchten - Mr. Bingley und seine Schwestern." Elizabeth antwortete nur mit einer leichten Verbeugung. Ihre Gedanken wurden sofort zurück zur Zeit geworfen, als Mr. Bingleys Name zuletzt zwischen ihnen erwähnt worden war, und wenn sie von seiner Gesichtsfarbe schließen konnte, war sein Geist nicht sehr unterschiedlich beschäftigt. "Es gibt auch noch eine andere Person in der Gruppe", fuhr er nach einer Pause fort, "die sich vor allem Ihnen bekannt machen möchte - Erlauben Sie mir, oder verlange ich zu viel, meiner Schwester während Ihres Aufenthalts in Lambton vorgestellt zu werden?" Die Überraschung über eine solche Anfrage war in der Tat groß, sie war zu groß, um zu wissen, in welcher Weise sie ihr zugestimmt hat. Sie fühlte sofort, dass was auch immer der Wunsch von Es ist gewiss etwas Majestätisches an ihm", antwortete ihre Tante, "aber es beschränkt sich auf seine Art und ist nicht unpassend. Ich kann jetzt mit der Haushälterin sagen, dass obwohl manche Leute ihn stolz nennen mögen, ich nichts davon gesehen habe." "Ich war noch nie so überrascht von seinem Verhalten uns gegenüber. Es war mehr als höflich; es war wirklich aufmerksam; und es gab keine Notwendigkeit für solche Aufmerksamkeit. Seine Bekanntschaft mit Elizabeth war sehr gering." "Sicherlich, Lizzy", sagte ihre Tante, "er ist nicht so gutaussehend wie Wickham; oder eher, er hat nicht Wickhams Gesichtszüge, denn seine Merkmale sind absolut gut. Aber wie kommst du darauf, uns zu erzählen, dass er so unangenehm wäre?" Elizabeth entschuldigte sich so gut sie konnte; sagte, dass sie ihn lieber mochte, als sie sich in Kent trafen, als zuvor und dass sie ihn noch nie so angenehm gesehen hatte wie heute Morgen. "Aber vielleicht ist er in seiner Höflichkeit ein wenig eigenwillig", antwortete ihr Onkel. "Eure großen Männer sind das oft; und deshalb werde ich ihn nicht beim Wort nehmen, wenn es ums Angeln geht, da er seine Meinung eines anderen Tages ändern könnte und mich von seinem Grundstück verweisen könnte." Elizabeth fühlte, dass sie sein Charakter vollständig missverstanden hatten, sagte aber nichts. "Basierend auf dem, was wir von ihm gesehen haben", fuhr Mrs. Gardiner fort, "hätte ich wirklich nicht gedacht, dass er sich so grausam gegenüber jemandem verhalten könnte, wie er es bei dem armen Wickham getan hat. Er sieht nicht boshaft aus. Im Gegenteil, wenn er spricht, gibt es etwas Angenehmes in seinem Mund. Und es gibt etwas an seiner Haltung, das einen nicht auf eine ungünstige Idee seines Herzens schließen lässt. Aber sicherlich hat die gute Dame, die uns das Haus gezeigt hat, ihm einen am meisten leidenschaftlichen Charakter gegeben! Manchmal konnte ich kaum das Lachen unterdrücken. Aber er ist ein großzügiger Herr, nehme ich an, und das umfasst für einen Diener jede Tugend." Elizabeth fühlte sich dazu aufgefordert, etwas zur Verteidigung seines Verhaltens gegenüber Wickham zu sagen; und erklärte daher auf möglichst vorsichtige Weise, dass nachdem sie von seinen Verwandten in Kent gehört hatte, seine Handlungen eine ganz andere Auslegung zulassen würden; und dass sein Charakter keineswegs so fehlerhaft sei, noch Wickhams so liebenswert, wie es in Hertfordshire geglaubt wurde. Zur Bestätigung dessen erzählte sie die Einzelheiten aller finanziellen Transaktionen, mit denen sie verbunden waren, ohne ihre Quelle tatsächlich zu nennen, aber sie gab an, dass es eine verlässliche sei. Mrs. Gardiner war überrascht und besorgt; aber da sie sich nun der Stätte ihrer vergangenen Freuden näherten, wich jeder Gedanke dem Zauber der Erinnerung; und sie war zu sehr damit beschäftigt, ihrem Ehemann alle interessanten Orte in der Umgebung zu zeigen, um an etwas anderes zu denken. Erschöpft von dem morgendlichen Spaziergang, machte sie sich, sobald sie gegessen hatten, sofort wieder auf die Suche nach ihren ehemaligen Bekannten und der Abend wurde in der Freude einer seit vielen Jahren Unterbrechung wieder aufgenommenen Unterhaltung verbracht. Die Ereignisse des Tages hatten Elizabeth zu sehr beschäftigt, um viel Aufmerksamkeit für diese neuen Freunde zu haben; und sie konnte nichts tun, als über Mr. Darcys Höflichkeit zu staunen, und vor allem über seinen Wunsch, dass sie seine Schwester kennenlernen solle. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Als Elizabeth zum ersten Mal die Pemberley Woods sieht, gerät sie "in große Aufregung. Sie bewundert die Wälder und Gebäude und denkt bewundernd: "Herrin von Pemberley zu sein könnte etwas sein." Die Gruppe trifft auf die Haushälterin, Mrs. Reynolds, und sie hat nichts als angenehme Dinge über Darcy zu sagen, zur Überraschung von Elizabeth. Nach einer Hausführung spaziert die Gruppe erneut über das Gelände, und Elizabeth ist überrascht, Darcy zu sehen. Als sie sich gegenseitig bemerken, zucken sowohl Darcy als auch Elizabeth zusammen und erröten, aber er geht auf sie zu und spricht mit ihr in perfekter Höflichkeit. Er verabschiedet sich von Elizabeth, und sie und die Gardiners setzen ihren Spaziergang über das Gelände fort. Bald nähert sich Darcy ihnen erneut, und wieder überrascht Elizabeth seine Höflichkeit. Darcy bittet Elizabeth sogar, ihn ihren Freunden vorzustellen, und Elizabeth freut sich, ihm einen Teil ihrer Familie zeigen zu können, für den sie sich nicht schämen muss. Darcy überrascht Elizabeth erneut, indem er ihr mitteilt, dass er sie seiner Schwester vorstellen möchte, die am nächsten Tag ankommen wird. Als die Gardiners und Elizabeth Pemberley verlassen, um in ihr Hotel zurückzukehren, kann Elizabeth nur an Darcy denken und sich über seine Höflichkeit wundern und darüber, wie er möchte, dass sie seine Schwester kennenlernt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home —the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers—she found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember. On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a campagne on Belrive, the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than a league from the city. We resided principally in the latter, and the lives of my parents were passed in considerable seclusion. It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them. Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels. No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed. When I mingled with other families I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love. My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately. I confess that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world. Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral relations of things. The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes, and the actions of men were his theme; and his hope and his dream was to become one among those whose names are recorded in story as the gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species. The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract; I might have become sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And Clerval—could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval? Yet he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity, so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition. I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. Besides, in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery, for when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled my destiny I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys. Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection for that science. When I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a day confined to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page of my book and said, “Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.” If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity. When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself. I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy’s apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit. The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect, anatomise, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined. But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple. It may appear strange that such should arise in the eighteenth century; but while I followed the routine of education in the schools of Geneva, I was, to a great degree, self-taught with regard to my favourite studies. My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child’s blindness, added to a student’s thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death! Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors. And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories and floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till an accident again changed the current of my ideas. When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed. Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable. By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science which could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration. Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. When I look back, it seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my life—the last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars and ready to envelop me. Her victory was announced by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul which followed the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting studies. It was thus that I was to be taught to associate evil with their prosecution, happiness with their disregard. It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction. Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Die Familie hört nach der Geburt ihres zweiten Sohnes auf, zu reisen. Sie kehren in ihre Heimat in die Schweiz zurück, auf ihr Anwesen am Fuße der Alpen. Der junge Victor umgibt sich lieber nicht mit vielen zufälligen Freunden; stattdessen ist er sehr eng mit einigen wenigen auserwählten Freunden verbunden. Dazu gehört ein brillanter Junge namens Henry Clerval, der für seine Flüge der Fantasie bekannt ist, und natürlich seine geliebte Elizabeth. Obwohl Victor sagt, dass es keine glücklichere Kindheit geben kann als seine, gesteht er, dass er als Kind einen gewalttätigen Temperament hatte. Sein Temperament richtete sich jedoch nicht gegen andere Menschen: Es äußerte sich als leidenschaftliches Verlangen, die Geheimnisse von Himmel und Erde zu ergründen. Clerval hingegen war fasziniert von Fragen der Moral, des Heldentums und der Tugend. In Genf dient Elizabeths "saintly soul" dazu, Victors brennende Leidenschaft für das Studium zu beruhigen und zu mildern. Ohne sie könnte sein Interesse an seiner Arbeit eine zwanghafte Qualität entwickeln. Frankenstein erfreut sich daran, diese Szenen aus seiner Kindheit zu erzählen, da sie von seinem jüngsten Unglück unberührt bleiben. Er kann jedoch erkennen, wie seine frühen wissenschaftlichen Bestrebungen seinen späteren Ruin vorausahnen lassen. Im Alter von dreizehn Jahren ist er fasziniert von der Arbeit von Cornelius Agrippa. Sein Vater sagt ihm, dass das Buch reiner Unsinn ist; Victor aber hört nicht auf ihn, da sein Vater nicht erklärt, warum das Buch Unsinn ist. Das von Agrippa vorgeschlagene "Wissenschafts"-System hat sich längst als falsch erwiesen; Victor, der sich dessen nicht bewusst ist, liest begierig alle Werke von Agrippa sowie die seiner Zeitgenossen Paracelsus und Albertus Magnus. Victor teilt ihr Verlangen, die Geheimnisse der Natur zu durchdringen, nach dem Stein der Weisen und dem Lebenselixir zu suchen. Die Suche nach letzterem wird zur Besessenheit. Obwohl er anerkennt, dass eine solche Entdeckung großen Reichtum mit sich bringen würde, sehnt sich Victor eigentlich nach Ruhm. Victor beschäftigt sich auch mit der Frage, wie man mit den Toten kommunizieren oder sie sogar auferwecken könnte. In den Werken seiner römischen Idole findet er keine Antwort und wird völlig von ihnen desillusioniert, als er ein Gewitter erlebt. Da die Römer keine zufriedenstellende Erklärung für dieses Phänomen haben, lehnt Victor sie vollständig ab und widmet sich dem Studium der Mathematik. Das Schicksal jedoch wird ihn zurück zu den Problemen der Naturphilosophie führen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Windy Corner lay, not on the summit of the ridge, but a few hundred feet down the southern slope, at the springing of one of the great buttresses that supported the hill. On either side of it was a shallow ravine, filled with ferns and pine-trees, and down the ravine on the left ran the highway into the Weald. Whenever Mr. Beebe crossed the ridge and caught sight of these noble dispositions of the earth, and, poised in the middle of them, Windy Corner,--he laughed. The situation was so glorious, the house so commonplace, not to say impertinent. The late Mr. Honeychurch had affected the cube, because it gave him the most accommodation for his money, and the only addition made by his widow had been a small turret, shaped like a rhinoceros' horn, where she could sit in wet weather and watch the carts going up and down the road. So impertinent--and yet the house "did," for it was the home of people who loved their surroundings honestly. Other houses in the neighborhood had been built by expensive architects, over others their inmates had fidgeted sedulously, yet all these suggested the accidental, the temporary; while Windy Corner seemed as inevitable as an ugliness of Nature's own creation. One might laugh at the house, but one never shuddered. Mr. Beebe was bicycling over this Monday afternoon with a piece of gossip. He had heard from the Miss Alans. These admirable ladies, since they could not go to Cissie Villa, had changed their plans. They were going to Greece instead. "Since Florence did my poor sister so much good," wrote Miss Catharine, "we do not see why we should not try Athens this winter. Of course, Athens is a plunge, and the doctor has ordered her special digestive bread; but, after all, we can take that with us, and it is only getting first into a steamer and then into a train. But is there an English Church?" And the letter went on to say: "I do not expect we shall go any further than Athens, but if you knew of a really comfortable pension at Constantinople, we should be so grateful." Lucy would enjoy this letter, and the smile with which Mr. Beebe greeted Windy Corner was partly for her. She would see the fun of it, and some of its beauty, for she must see some beauty. Though she was hopeless about pictures, and though she dressed so unevenly--oh, that cerise frock yesterday at church!--she must see some beauty in life, or she could not play the piano as she did. He had a theory that musicians are incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they want and what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends; that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been understood. This theory, had he known it, had possibly just been illustrated by facts. Ignorant of the events of yesterday he was only riding over to get some tea, to see his niece, and to observe whether Miss Honeychurch saw anything beautiful in the desire of two old ladies to visit Athens. A carriage was drawn up outside Windy Corner, and just as he caught sight of the house it started, bowled up the drive, and stopped abruptly when it reached the main road. Therefore it must be the horse, who always expected people to walk up the hill in case they tired him. The door opened obediently, and two men emerged, whom Mr. Beebe recognized as Cecil and Freddy. They were an odd couple to go driving; but he saw a trunk beside the coachman's legs. Cecil, who wore a bowler, must be going away, while Freddy (a cap)--was seeing him to the station. They walked rapidly, taking the short cuts, and reached the summit while the carriage was still pursuing the windings of the road. They shook hands with the clergyman, but did not speak. "So you're off for a minute, Mr. Vyse?" he asked. Cecil said, "Yes," while Freddy edged away. "I was coming to show you this delightful letter from those friends of Miss Honeychurch." He quoted from it. "Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it romance? Most certainly they will go to Constantinople. They are taken in a snare that cannot fail. They will end by going round the world." Cecil listened civilly, and said he was sure that Lucy would be amused and interested. "Isn't Romance capricious! I never notice it in you young people; you do nothing but play lawn tennis, and say that romance is dead, while the Miss Alans are struggling with all the weapons of propriety against the terrible thing. 'A really comfortable pension at Constantinople!' So they call it out of decency, but in their hearts they want a pension with magic windows opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairyland forlorn! No ordinary view will content the Miss Alans. They want the Pension Keats." "I'm awfully sorry to interrupt, Mr. Beebe," said Freddy, "but have you any matches?" "I have," said Cecil, and it did not escape Mr. Beebe's notice that he spoke to the boy more kindly. "You have never met these Miss Alans, have you, Mr. Vyse?" "Never." "Then you don't see the wonder of this Greek visit. I haven't been to Greece myself, and don't mean to go, and I can't imagine any of my friends going. It is altogether too big for our little lot. Don't you think so? Italy is just about as much as we can manage. Italy is heroic, but Greece is godlike or devilish--I am not sure which, and in either case absolutely out of our suburban focus. All right, Freddy--I am not being clever, upon my word I am not--I took the idea from another fellow; and give me those matches when you've done with them." He lit a cigarette, and went on talking to the two young men. "I was saying, if our poor little Cockney lives must have a background, let it be Italian. Big enough in all conscience. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for me. There the contrast is just as much as I can realize. But not the Parthenon, not the frieze of Phidias at any price; and here comes the victoria." "You're quite right," said Cecil. "Greece is not for our little lot"; and he got in. Freddy followed, nodding to the clergyman, whom he trusted not to be pulling one's leg, really. And before they had gone a dozen yards he jumped out, and came running back for Vyse's match-box, which had not been returned. As he took it, he said: "I'm so glad you only talked about books. Cecil's hard hit. Lucy won't marry him. If you'd gone on about her, as you did about them, he might have broken down." "But when--" "Late last night. I must go." "Perhaps they won't want me down there." "No--go on. Good-bye." "Thank goodness!" exclaimed Mr. Beebe to himself, and struck the saddle of his bicycle approvingly, "It was the one foolish thing she ever did. Oh, what a glorious riddance!" And, after a little thought, he negotiated the slope into Windy Corner, light of heart. The house was again as it ought to be--cut off forever from Cecil's pretentious world. He would find Miss Minnie down in the garden. In the drawing-room Lucy was tinkling at a Mozart Sonata. He hesitated a moment, but went down the garden as requested. There he found a mournful company. It was a blustering day, and the wind had taken and broken the dahlias. Mrs. Honeychurch, who looked cross, was tying them up, while Miss Bartlett, unsuitably dressed, impeded her with offers of assistance. At a little distance stood Minnie and the "garden-child," a minute importation, each holding either end of a long piece of bass. "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Beebe? Gracious what a mess everything is! Look at my scarlet pompoms, and the wind blowing your skirts about, and the ground so hard that not a prop will stick in, and then the carriage having to go out, when I had counted on having Powell, who--give every one their due--does tie up dahlias properly." Evidently Mrs. Honeychurch was shattered. "How do you do?" said Miss Bartlett, with a meaning glance, as though conveying that more than dahlias had been broken off by the autumn gales. "Here, Lennie, the bass," cried Mrs. Honeychurch. The garden-child, who did not know what bass was, stood rooted to the path with horror. Minnie slipped to her uncle and whispered that everyone was very disagreeable to-day, and that it was not her fault if dahlia-strings would tear longways instead of across. "Come for a walk with me," he told her. "You have worried them as much as they can stand. Mrs. Honeychurch, I only called in aimlessly. I shall take her up to tea at the Beehive Tavern, if I may." "Oh, must you? Yes do.--Not the scissors, thank you, Charlotte, when both my hands are full already--I'm perfectly certain that the orange cactus will go before I can get to it." Mr. Beebe, who was an adept at relieving situations, invited Miss Bartlett to accompany them to this mild festivity. "Yes, Charlotte, I don't want you--do go; there's nothing to stop about for, either in the house or out of it." Miss Bartlett said that her duty lay in the dahlia bed, but when she had exasperated everyone, except Minnie, by a refusal, she turned round and exasperated Minnie by an acceptance. As they walked up the garden, the orange cactus fell, and Mr. Beebe's last vision was of the garden-child clasping it like a lover, his dark head buried in a wealth of blossom. "It is terrible, this havoc among the flowers," he remarked. "It is always terrible when the promise of months is destroyed in a moment," enunciated Miss Bartlett. "Perhaps we ought to send Miss Honeychurch down to her mother. Or will she come with us?" "I think we had better leave Lucy to herself, and to her own pursuits." "They're angry with Miss Honeychurch because she was late for breakfast," whispered Minnie, "and Floyd has gone, and Mr. Vyse has gone, and Freddy won't play with me. In fact, Uncle Arthur, the house is not AT ALL what it was yesterday." "Don't be a prig," said her Uncle Arthur. "Go and put on your boots." He stepped into the drawing-room, where Lucy was still attentively pursuing the Sonatas of Mozart. She stopped when he entered. "How do you do? Miss Bartlett and Minnie are coming with me to tea at the Beehive. Would you come too?" "I don't think I will, thank you." "No, I didn't suppose you would care to much." Lucy turned to the piano and struck a few chords. "How delicate those Sonatas are!" said Mr. Beebe, though at the bottom of his heart, he thought them silly little things. Lucy passed into Schumann. "Miss Honeychurch!" "Yes." "I met them on the hill. Your brother told me." "Oh he did?" She sounded annoyed. Mr. Beebe felt hurt, for he had thought that she would like him to be told. "I needn't say that it will go no further." "Mother, Charlotte, Cecil, Freddy, you," said Lucy, playing a note for each person who knew, and then playing a sixth note. "If you'll let me say so, I am very glad, and I am certain that you have done the right thing." "So I hoped other people would think, but they don't seem to." "I could see that Miss Bartlett thought it unwise." "So does mother. Mother minds dreadfully." "I am very sorry for that," said Mr. Beebe with feeling. Mrs. Honeychurch, who hated all changes, did mind, but not nearly as much as her daughter pretended, and only for the minute. It was really a ruse of Lucy's to justify her despondency--a ruse of which she was not herself conscious, for she was marching in the armies of darkness. "And Freddy minds." "Still, Freddy never hit it off with Vyse much, did he? I gathered that he disliked the engagement, and felt it might separate him from you." "Boys are so odd." Minnie could be heard arguing with Miss Bartlett through the floor. Tea at the Beehive apparently involved a complete change of apparel. Mr. Beebe saw that Lucy--very properly--did not wish to discuss her action, so after a sincere expression of sympathy, he said, "I have had an absurd letter from Miss Alan. That was really what brought me over. I thought it might amuse you all." "How delightful!" said Lucy, in a dull voice. For the sake of something to do, he began to read her the letter. After a few words her eyes grew alert, and soon she interrupted him with "Going abroad? When do they start?" "Next week, I gather." "Did Freddy say whether he was driving straight back?" "No, he didn't." "Because I do hope he won't go gossiping." So she did want to talk about her broken engagement. Always complaisant, he put the letter away. But she, at once exclaimed in a high voice, "Oh, do tell me more about the Miss Alans! How perfectly splendid of them to go abroad!" "I want them to start from Venice, and go in a cargo steamer down the Illyrian coast!" She laughed heartily. "Oh, delightful! I wish they'd take me." "Has Italy filled you with the fever of travel? Perhaps George Emerson is right. He says that 'Italy is only an euphuism for Fate.'" "Oh, not Italy, but Constantinople. I have always longed to go to Constantinople. Constantinople is practically Asia, isn't it?" Mr. Beebe reminded her that Constantinople was still unlikely, and that the Miss Alans only aimed at Athens, "with Delphi, perhaps, if the roads are safe." But this made no difference to her enthusiasm. She had always longed to go to Greece even more, it seemed. He saw, to his surprise, that she was apparently serious. "I didn't realize that you and the Miss Alans were still such friends, after Cissie Villa." "Oh, that's nothing; I assure you Cissie Villa's nothing to me; I would give anything to go with them." "Would your mother spare you again so soon? You have scarcely been home three months." "She MUST spare me!" cried Lucy, in growing excitement. "I simply MUST go away. I have to." She ran her fingers hysterically through her hair. "Don't you see that I HAVE to go away? I didn't realize at the time--and of course I want to see Constantinople so particularly." "You mean that since you have broken off your engagement you feel--" "Yes, yes. I knew you'd understand." Mr. Beebe did not quite understand. Why could not Miss Honeychurch repose in the bosom of her family? Cecil had evidently taken up the dignified line, and was not going to annoy her. Then it struck him that her family itself might be annoying. He hinted this to her, and she accepted the hint eagerly. "Yes, of course; to go to Constantinople until they are used to the idea and everything has calmed down." "I am afraid it has been a bothersome business," he said gently. "No, not at all. Cecil was very kind indeed; only--I had better tell you the whole truth, since you have heard a little--it was that he is so masterful. I found that he wouldn't let me go my own way. He would improve me in places where I can't be improved. Cecil won't let a woman decide for herself--in fact, he daren't. What nonsense I do talk! But that is the kind of thing." "It is what I gathered from my own observation of Mr. Vyse; it is what I gather from all that I have known of you. I do sympathize and agree most profoundly. I agree so much that you must let me make one little criticism: Is it worth while rushing off to Greece?" "But I must go somewhere!" she cried. "I have been worrying all the morning, and here comes the very thing." She struck her knees with clenched fists, and repeated: "I must! And the time I shall have with mother, and all the money she spent on me last spring. You all think much too highly of me. I wish you weren't so kind." At this moment Miss Bartlett entered, and her nervousness increased. "I must get away, ever so far. I must know my own mind and where I want to go." "Come along; tea, tea, tea," said Mr. Beebe, and bustled his guests out of the front-door. He hustled them so quickly that he forgot his hat. When he returned for it he heard, to his relief and surprise, the tinkling of a Mozart Sonata. "She is playing again," he said to Miss Bartlett. "Lucy can always play," was the acid reply. "One is very thankful that she has such a resource. She is evidently much worried, as, of course, she ought to be. I know all about it. The marriage was so near that it must have been a hard struggle before she could wind herself up to speak." Miss Bartlett gave a kind of wriggle, and he prepared for a discussion. He had never fathomed Miss Bartlett. As he had put it to himself at Florence, "she might yet reveal depths of strangeness, if not of meaning." But she was so unsympathetic that she must be reliable. He assumed that much, and he had no hesitation in discussing Lucy with her. Minnie was fortunately collecting ferns. She opened the discussion with: "We had much better let the matter drop." "I wonder." "It is of the highest importance that there should be no gossip in Summer Street. It would be DEATH to gossip about Mr. Vyse's dismissal at the present moment." Mr. Beebe raised his eyebrows. Death is a strong word--surely too strong. There was no question of tragedy. He said: "Of course, Miss Honeychurch will make the fact public in her own way, and when she chooses. Freddy only told me because he knew she would not mind." "I know," said Miss Bartlett civilly. "Yet Freddy ought not to have told even you. One cannot be too careful." "Quite so." "I do implore absolute secrecy. A chance word to a chattering friend, and--" "Exactly." He was used to these nervous old maids and to the exaggerated importance that they attach to words. A rector lives in a web of petty secrets, and confidences and warnings, and the wiser he is the less he will regard them. He will change the subject, as did Mr. Beebe, saying cheerfully: "Have you heard from any Bertolini people lately? I believe you keep up with Miss Lavish. It is odd how we of that pension, who seemed such a fortuitous collection, have been working into one another's lives. Two, three, four, six of us--no, eight; I had forgotten the Emersons--have kept more or less in touch. We must really give the Signora a testimonial." And, Miss Bartlett not favouring the scheme, they walked up the hill in a silence which was only broken by the rector naming some fern. On the summit they paused. The sky had grown wilder since he stood there last hour, giving to the land a tragic greatness that is rare in Surrey. Grey clouds were charging across tissues of white, which stretched and shredded and tore slowly, until through their final layers there gleamed a hint of the disappearing blue. Summer was retreating. The wind roared, the trees groaned, yet the noise seemed insufficient for those vast operations in heaven. The weather was breaking up, breaking, broken, and it is a sense of the fit rather than of the supernatural that equips such crises with the salvos of angelic artillery. Mr. Beebe's eyes rested on Windy Corner, where Lucy sat, practising Mozart. No smile came to his lips, and, changing the subject again, he said: "We shan't have rain, but we shall have darkness, so let us hurry on. The darkness last night was appalling." They reached the Beehive Tavern at about five o'clock. That amiable hostelry possesses a verandah, in which the young and the unwise do dearly love to sit, while guests of more mature years seek a pleasant sanded room, and have tea at a table comfortably. Mr. Beebe saw that Miss Bartlett would be cold if she sat out, and that Minnie would be dull if she sat in, so he proposed a division of forces. They would hand the child her food through the window. Thus he was incidentally enabled to discuss the fortunes of Lucy. "I have been thinking, Miss Bartlett," he said, "and, unless you very much object, I would like to reopen that discussion." She bowed. "Nothing about the past. I know little and care less about that; I am absolutely certain that it is to your cousin's credit. She has acted loftily and rightly, and it is like her gentle modesty to say that we think too highly of her. But the future. Seriously, what do you think of this Greek plan?" He pulled out the letter again. "I don't know whether you overheard, but she wants to join the Miss Alans in their mad career. It's all--I can't explain--it's wrong." Miss Bartlett read the letter in silence, laid it down, seemed to hesitate, and then read it again. "I can't see the point of it myself." To his astonishment, she replied: "There I cannot agree with you. In it I spy Lucy's salvation." "Really. Now, why?" "She wanted to leave Windy Corner." "I know--but it seems so odd, so unlike her, so--I was going to say--selfish." "It is natural, surely--after such painful scenes--that she should desire a change." Here, apparently, was one of those points that the male intellect misses. Mr. Beebe exclaimed: "So she says herself, and since another lady agrees with her, I must own that I am partially convinced. Perhaps she must have a change. I have no sisters or--and I don't understand these things. But why need she go as far as Greece?" "You may well ask that," replied Miss Bartlett, who was evidently interested, and had almost dropped her evasive manner. "Why Greece? (What is it, Minnie dear--jam?) Why not Tunbridge Wells? Oh, Mr. Beebe! I had a long and most unsatisfactory interview with dear Lucy this morning. I cannot help her. I will say no more. Perhaps I have already said too much. I am not to talk. I wanted her to spend six months with me at Tunbridge Wells, and she refused." Mr. Beebe poked at a crumb with his knife. "But my feelings are of no importance. I know too well that I get on Lucy's nerves. Our tour was a failure. She wanted to leave Florence, and when we got to Rome she did not want to be in Rome, and all the time I felt that I was spending her mother's money--." "Let us keep to the future, though," interrupted Mr. Beebe. "I want your advice." "Very well," said Charlotte, with a choky abruptness that was new to him, though familiar to Lucy. "I for one will help her to go to Greece. Will you?" Mr. Beebe considered. "It is absolutely necessary," she continued, lowering her veil and whispering through it with a passion, an intensity, that surprised him. "I know--I know." The darkness was coming on, and he felt that this odd woman really did know. "She must not stop here a moment, and we must keep quiet till she goes. I trust that the servants know nothing. Afterwards--but I may have said too much already. Only, Lucy and I are helpless against Mrs. Honeychurch alone. If you help we may succeed. Otherwise--" "Otherwise--?" "Otherwise," she repeated as if the word held finality. "Yes, I will help her," said the clergyman, setting his jaw firm. "Come, let us go back now, and settle the whole thing up." Miss Bartlett burst into florid gratitude. The tavern sign--a beehive trimmed evenly with bees--creaked in the wind outside as she thanked him. Mr. Beebe did not quite understand the situation; but then, he did not desire to understand it, nor to jump to the conclusion of "another man" that would have attracted a grosser mind. He only felt that Miss Bartlett knew of some vague influence from which the girl desired to be delivered, and which might well be clothed in the fleshly form. Its very vagueness spurred him into knight-errantry. His belief in celibacy, so reticent, so carefully concealed beneath his tolerance and culture, now came to the surface and expanded like some delicate flower. "They that marry do well, but they that refrain do better." So ran his belief, and he never heard that an engagement was broken off but with a slight feeling of pleasure. In the case of Lucy, the feeling was intensified through dislike of Cecil; and he was willing to go further--to place her out of danger until she could confirm her resolution of virginity. The feeling was very subtle and quite undogmatic, and he never imparted it to any other of the characters in this entanglement. Yet it existed, and it alone explains his action subsequently, and his influence on the action of others. The compact that he made with Miss Bartlett in the tavern, was to help not only Lucy, but religion also. They hurried home through a world of black and grey. He conversed on indifferent topics: the Emersons' need of a housekeeper; servants; Italian servants; novels about Italy; novels with a purpose; could literature influence life? Windy Corner glimmered. In the garden, Mrs. Honeychurch, now helped by Freddy, still wrestled with the lives of her flowers. "It gets too dark," she said hopelessly. "This comes of putting off. We might have known the weather would break up soon; and now Lucy wants to go to Greece. I don't know what the world's coming to." "Mrs. Honeychurch," he said, "go to Greece she must. Come up to the house and let's talk it over. Do you, in the first place, mind her breaking with Vyse?" "Mr. Beebe, I'm thankful--simply thankful." "So am I," said Freddy. "Good. Now come up to the house." They conferred in the dining-room for half an hour. Lucy would never have carried the Greek scheme alone. It was expensive and dramatic--both qualities that her mother loathed. Nor would Charlotte have succeeded. The honours of the day rested with Mr. Beebe. By his tact and common sense, and by his influence as a clergyman--for a clergyman who was not a fool influenced Mrs. Honeychurch greatly--he bent her to their purpose, "I don't see why Greece is necessary," she said; "but as you do, I suppose it is all right. It must be something I can't understand. Lucy! Let's tell her. Lucy!" "She is playing the piano," Mr. Beebe said. He opened the door, and heard the words of a song: "Look not thou on beauty's charming." "I didn't know that Miss Honeychurch sang, too." "Sit thou still when kings are arming, Taste not when the wine-cup glistens--" "It's a song that Cecil gave her. How odd girls are!" "What's that?" called Lucy, stopping short. "All right, dear," said Mrs. Honeychurch kindly. She went into the drawing-room, and Mr. Beebe heard her kiss Lucy and say: "I am sorry I was so cross about Greece, but it came on the top of the dahlias." Rather a hard voice said: "Thank you, mother; that doesn't matter a bit." "And you are right, too--Greece will be all right; you can go if the Miss Alans will have you." "Oh, splendid! Oh, thank you!" Mr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands over the keys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness. Her mother bent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing, reclined on the floor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe between his lips. Oddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe, who loved the art of the past, was reminded of a favourite theme, the Santa Conversazione, in which people who care for one another are painted chatting together about noble things--a theme neither sensual nor sensational, and therefore ignored by the art of to-day. Why should Lucy want either to marry or to travel when she had such friends at home? "Taste not when the wine-cup glistens, Speak not when the people listens," she continued. "Here's Mr. Beebe." "Mr. Beebe knows my rude ways." "It's a beautiful song and a wise one," said he. "Go on." "It isn't very good," she said listlessly. "I forget why--harmony or something." "I suspected it was unscholarly. It's so beautiful." "The tune's right enough," said Freddy, "but the words are rotten. Why throw up the sponge?" "How stupidly you talk!" said his sister. The Santa Conversazione was broken up. After all, there was no reason that Lucy should talk about Greece or thank him for persuading her mother, so he said good-bye. Freddy lit his bicycle lamp for him in the porch, and with his usual felicity of phrase, said: "This has been a day and a half." "Stop thine ear against the singer--" "Wait a minute; she is finishing." "From the red gold keep thy finger; Vacant heart and hand and eye Easy live and quiet die." "I love weather like this," said Freddy. Mr. Beebe passed into it. The two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he had helped her. He could not expect to master the details of so big a change in a girl's life. If here and there he was dissatisfied or puzzled, he must acquiesce; she was choosing the better part. "Vacant heart and hand and eye--" Perhaps the song stated "the better part" rather too strongly. He half fancied that the soaring accompaniment--which he did not lose in the shout of the gale--really agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing the words that it adorned: "Vacant heart and hand and eye Easy live and quiet die." However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him--now as a beacon in the roaring tides of darkness. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Im 18. Kapitel lügt Lucy allen anderen in ihrem Leben: Mr. Beebe, Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy und den Bediensteten über ihre gebrochene Verlobung und ihre wahren Gefühle für George. Als das Kapitel beginnt, ist es ein stürmischer Tag, passend zu den Turbulenzen in Lucys Leben. Mr. Beebe, der immer noch nichts von der gebrochenen Verlobung weiß, kommt mit Neuigkeiten nach Windy Corner: Die Miss Alans machen eine Reise nach Griechenland und möglicherweise auch in die Türkei. Auf dem Weg trifft er auf den Wagen, der Cecil zum Bahnhof bringt, begleitet von Freddy. Mr. Beebe spricht aufgeregt über die Reise der Miss Alans. Griechenland ist ihm und seinen Freunden in Windy Corner zu viel: "Italien ist heldenhaft, aber Griechenland ist göttlich oder teuflisch. Wenn das arme kleine Cockney-Leben eine Kulisse haben muss, dann lass es italienisch sein. Groß genug, um allen Gewissen genug Platz zu bieten". Als ihr Wagen davonfährt, erzählt Freddy unauffällig Mr. Beebe von der gebrochenen Verlobung, und Mr. Beebe ist begeistert. Bei Windy Corner sind jedoch alle aufgebracht. Mrs. Honeychurch ist im Garten und beklagt die Blumen, die im Sturm zerbrochen sind, und Charlotte bringt wie üblich alle zur Verzweiflung. Lucy spielt am Klavier, in einer niedergeschlagenen Stimmung. Sie scheint verärgert zu sein, dass Freddy es Mr. Beebe erzählt hat. Er sagt ihr, dass sie das Richtige getan habe. Um sie abzulenken, erzählt er ihr von den Reiseplänen der Miss Alans. Sie wird sofort begeistert und erklärt, dass sie mit ihnen gehen muss. Das überrascht Mr. Beebe, der, ohne etwas von Georges Indiskretionen zu wissen, nicht verstehen kann, warum Lucy so weit weg reisen möchte. Als Mr. Beebe geht und Minnie und Miss Bartlett zum Tee mitnimmt, warnt ihn Miss Bartlett sehr dramatisch, dass er kein Wort über die gebrochene Verlobung an jemanden verraten darf. Zu seiner Überraschung unterstützt Miss Bartlett die Idee von Lucys Reise nach Griechenland voll und ganz und sagt ominös, dass es sehr notwendig ist. Schließlich entscheidet Mr. Beebe, dass Griechenland Lucy irgendwie helfen könnte. Da er fest an Zölibat glaubt, ist er froh, dass sie sich nicht dazu entschlossen hat zu heiraten, und würde sie gerne weit weg von Cecil sehen. Sie kehren nach Windy Corner zurück und überzeugen Mrs. Honeychurch, Lucy nach Griechenland zu lassen. In der Zwischenzeit spielt Lucy am Klavier und singt ein Lied, das ihr Cecil gegeben hat, ein Lied über Selbstverleugnung, das mit den Worten endet: "Schmecke nicht, wenn der Weinkelch funkelt. Stopfe deine Ohren gegen den Sänger / Vom Rotgold hältst du deinen Finger fern / Leeres Herz und Hand und Auge / Lebe leicht und stirb ruhig". Mr. Beebe, der an Zölibat glaubt, hält es für ein schönes und weises Lied, wenn auch etwas übertrieben; Freddy findet die Worte "verfault". Mr. Beebe meint, in der Art und Weise, wie Lucy die Worte singt, zu erkennen, dass sie Freddy tatsächlich zustimmt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: More than a week went by, in which the ill-luck that had hitherto pursued the Covenant upon this voyage grew yet more strongly marked. Some days she made a little way; others, she was driven actually back. At last we were beaten so far to the south that we tossed and tacked to and fro the whole of the ninth day, within sight of Cape Wrath and the wild, rocky coast on either hand of it. There followed on that a council of the officers, and some decision which I did not rightly understand, seeing only the result: that we had made a fair wind of a foul one and were running south. The tenth afternoon there was a falling swell and a thick, wet, white fog that hid one end of the brig from the other. All afternoon, when I went on deck, I saw men and officers listening hard over the bulwarks--"for breakers," they said; and though I did not so much as understand the word, I felt danger in the air, and was excited. Maybe about ten at night, I was serving Mr. Riach and the captain at their supper, when the ship struck something with a great sound, and we heard voices singing out. My two masters leaped to their feet. "She's struck!" said Mr. Riach. "No, sir," said the captain. "We've only run a boat down." And they hurried out. The captain was in the right of it. We had run down a boat in the fog, and she had parted in the midst and gone to the bottom with all her crew but one. This man (as I heard afterwards) had been sitting in the stern as a passenger, while the rest were on the benches rowing. At the moment of the blow, the stern had been thrown into the air, and the man (having his hands free, and for all he was encumbered with a frieze overcoat that came below his knees) had leaped up and caught hold of the brig's bowsprit. It showed he had luck and much agility and unusual strength, that he should have thus saved himself from such a pass. And yet, when the captain brought him into the round-house, and I set eyes on him for the first time, he looked as cool as I did. He was smallish in stature, but well set and as nimble as a goat; his face was of a good open expression, but sunburnt very dark, and heavily freckled and pitted with the small-pox; his eyes were unusually light and had a kind of dancing madness in them, that was both engaging and alarming; and when he took off his great-coat, he laid a pair of fine silver-mounted pistols on the table, and I saw that he was belted with a great sword. His manners, besides, were elegant, and he pledged the captain handsomely. Altogether I thought of him, at the first sight, that here was a man I would rather call my friend than my enemy. The captain, too, was taking his observations, but rather of the man's clothes than his person. And to be sure, as soon as he had taken off the great-coat, he showed forth mighty fine for the round-house of a merchant brig: having a hat with feathers, a red waistcoat, breeches of black plush, and a blue coat with silver buttons and handsome silver lace; costly clothes, though somewhat spoiled with the fog and being slept in. "I'm vexed, sir, about the boat," says the captain. "There are some pretty men gone to the bottom," said the stranger, "that I would rather see on the dry land again than half a score of boats." "Friends of yours?" said Hoseason. "You have none such friends in your country," was the reply. "They would have died for me like dogs." "Well, sir," said the captain, still watching him, "there are more men in the world than boats to put them in." "And that's true, too," cried the other, "and ye seem to be a gentleman of great penetration." "I have been in France, sir," says the captain, so that it was plain he meant more by the words than showed upon the face of them. "Well, sir," says the other, "and so has many a pretty man, for the matter of that." "No doubt, sir," says the captain, "and fine coats." "Oho!" says the stranger, "is that how the wind sets?" And he laid his hand quickly on his pistols. "Don't be hasty," said the captain. "Don't do a mischief before ye see the need of it. Ye've a French soldier's coat upon your back and a Scotch tongue in your head, to be sure; but so has many an honest fellow in these days, and I dare say none the worse of it." "So?" said the gentleman in the fine coat: "are ye of the honest party?" (meaning, Was he a Jacobite? for each side, in these sort of civil broils, takes the name of honesty for its own). "Why, sir," replied the captain, "I am a true-blue Protestant, and I thank God for it." (It was the first word of any religion I had ever heard from him, but I learnt afterwards he was a great church-goer while on shore.) "But, for all that," says he, "I can be sorry to see another man with his back to the wall." "Can ye so, indeed?" asked the Jacobite. "Well, sir, to be quite plain with ye, I am one of those honest gentlemen that were in trouble about the years forty-five and six; and (to be still quite plain with ye) if I got into the hands of any of the red-coated gentry, it's like it would go hard with me. Now, sir, I was for France; and there was a French ship cruising here to pick me up; but she gave us the go-by in the fog--as I wish from the heart that ye had done yoursel'! And the best that I can say is this: If ye can set me ashore where I was going, I have that upon me will reward you highly for your trouble." "In France?" says the captain. "No, sir; that I cannot do. But where ye come from--we might talk of that." And then, unhappily, he observed me standing in my corner, and packed me off to the galley to get supper for the gentleman. I lost no time, I promise you; and when I came back into the round-house, I found the gentleman had taken a money-belt from about his waist, and poured out a guinea or two upon the table. The captain was looking at the guineas, and then at the belt, and then at the gentleman's face; and I thought he seemed excited. "Half of it," he cried, "and I'm your man!" The other swept back the guineas into the belt, and put it on again under his waistcoat. "I have told ye sir," said he, "that not one doit of it belongs to me. It belongs to my chieftain," and here he touched his hat, "and while I would be but a silly messenger to grudge some of it that the rest might come safe, I should show myself a hound indeed if I bought my own carcase any too dear. Thirty guineas on the sea-side, or sixty if ye set me on the Linnhe Loch. Take it, if ye will; if not, ye can do your worst." "Ay," said Hoseason. "And if I give ye over to the soldiers?" "Ye would make a fool's bargain," said the other. "My chief, let me tell you, sir, is forfeited, like every honest man in Scotland. His estate is in the hands of the man they call King George; and it is his officers that collect the rents, or try to collect them. But for the honour of Scotland, the poor tenant bodies take a thought upon their chief lying in exile; and this money is a part of that very rent for which King George is looking. Now, sir, ye seem to me to be a man that understands things: bring this money within the reach of Government, and how much of it'll come to you?" "Little enough, to be sure," said Hoseason; and then, "if they knew," he added, drily. "But I think, if I was to try, that I could hold my tongue about it." "Ah, but I'll begowk* ye there!" cried the gentleman. "Play me false, and I'll play you cunning. If a hand is laid upon me, they shall ken what money it is." *Befool. "Well," returned the captain, "what must be must. Sixty guineas, and done. Here's my hand upon it." "And here's mine," said the other. And thereupon the captain went out (rather hurriedly, I thought), and left me alone in the round-house with the stranger. At that period (so soon after the forty-five) there were many exiled gentlemen coming back at the peril of their lives, either to see their friends or to collect a little money; and as for the Highland chiefs that had been forfeited, it was a common matter of talk how their tenants would stint themselves to send them money, and their clansmen outface the soldiery to get it in, and run the gauntlet of our great navy to carry it across. All this I had, of course, heard tell of; and now I had a man under my eyes whose life was forfeit on all these counts and upon one more, for he was not only a rebel and a smuggler of rents, but had taken service with King Louis of France. And as if all this were not enough, he had a belt full of golden guineas round his loins. Whatever my opinions, I could not look on such a man without a lively interest. "And so you're a Jacobite?" said I, as I set meat before him. "Ay," said he, beginning to eat. "And you, by your long face, should be a Whig?"* * Whig or Whigamore was the cant name for those who were loyal to King George. "Betwixt and between," said I, not to annoy him; for indeed I was as good a Whig as Mr. Campbell could make me. "And that's naething," said he. "But I'm saying, Mr. Betwixt-and-Between," he added, "this bottle of yours is dry; and it's hard if I'm to pay sixty guineas and be grudged a dram upon the back of it." "I'll go and ask for the key," said I, and stepped on deck. The fog was as close as ever, but the swell almost down. They had laid the brig to, not knowing precisely where they were, and the wind (what little there was of it) not serving well for their true course. Some of the hands were still hearkening for breakers; but the captain and the two officers were in the waist with their heads together. It struck me (I don't know why) that they were after no good; and the first word I heard, as I drew softly near, more than confirmed me. It was Mr. Riach, crying out as if upon a sudden thought: "Couldn't we wile him out of the round-house?" "He's better where he is," returned Hoseason; "he hasn't room to use his sword." "Well, that's true," said Riach; "but he's hard to come at." "Hut!" said Hoseason. "We can get the man in talk, one upon each side, and pin him by the two arms; or if that'll not hold, sir, we can make a run by both the doors and get him under hand before he has the time to draw." At this hearing, I was seized with both fear and anger at these treacherous, greedy, bloody men that I sailed with. My first mind was to run away; my second was bolder. "Captain," said I, "the gentleman is seeking a dram, and the bottle's out. Will you give me the key?" They all started and turned about. "Why, here's our chance to get the firearms!" Riach cried; and then to me: "Hark ye, David," he said, "do ye ken where the pistols are?" "Ay, ay," put in Hoseason. "David kens; David's a good lad. Ye see, David my man, yon wild Hielandman is a danger to the ship, besides being a rank foe to King George, God bless him!" I had never been so be-Davided since I came on board: but I said Yes, as if all I heard were quite natural. "The trouble is," resumed the captain, "that all our firelocks, great and little, are in the round-house under this man's nose; likewise the powder. Now, if I, or one of the officers, was to go in and take them, he would fall to thinking. But a lad like you, David, might snap up a horn and a pistol or two without remark. And if ye can do it cleverly, I'll bear it in mind when it'll be good for you to have friends; and that's when we come to Carolina." Here Mr. Riach whispered him a little. "Very right, sir," said the captain; and then to myself: "And see here, David, yon man has a beltful of gold, and I give you my word that you shall have your fingers in it." I told him I would do as he wished, though indeed I had scarce breath to speak with; and upon that he gave me the key of the spirit locker, and I began to go slowly back to the round-house. What was I to do? They were dogs and thieves; they had stolen me from my own country; they had killed poor Ransome; and was I to hold the candle to another murder? But then, upon the other hand, there was the fear of death very plain before me; for what could a boy and a man, if they were as brave as lions, against a whole ship's company? I was still arguing it back and forth, and getting no great clearness, when I came into the round-house and saw the Jacobite eating his supper under the lamp; and at that my mind was made up all in a moment. I have no credit by it; it was by no choice of mine, but as if by compulsion, that I walked right up to the table and put my hand on his shoulder. "Do ye want to be killed?" said I. He sprang to his feet, and looked a question at me as clear as if he had spoken. "O!" cried I, "they're all murderers here; it's a ship full of them! They've murdered a boy already. Now it's you." "Ay, ay," said he; "but they have n't got me yet." And then looking at me curiously, "Will ye stand with me?" "That will I!" said I. "I am no thief, nor yet murderer. I'll stand by you." "Why, then," said he, "what's your name?" "David Balfour," said I; and then, thinking that a man with so fine a coat must like fine people, I added for the first time, "of Shaws." It never occurred to him to doubt me, for a Highlander is used to see great gentlefolk in great poverty; but as he had no estate of his own, my words nettled a very childish vanity he had. "My name is Stewart," he said, drawing himself up. "Alan Breck, they call me. A king's name is good enough for me, though I bear it plain and have the name of no farm-midden to clap to the hind-end of it." And having administered this rebuke, as though it were something of a chief importance, he turned to examine our defences. The round-house was built very strong, to support the breaching of the seas. Of its five apertures, only the skylight and the two doors were large enough for the passage of a man. The doors, besides, could be drawn close: they were of stout oak, and ran in grooves, and were fitted with hooks to keep them either shut or open, as the need arose. The one that was already shut I secured in this fashion; but when I was proceeding to slide to the other, Alan stopped me. "David," said he--"for I cannae bring to mind the name of your landed estate, and so will make so bold as to call you David--that door, being open, is the best part of my defences." "It would be yet better shut," says I. "Not so, David," says he. "Ye see, I have but one face; but so long as that door is open and my face to it, the best part of my enemies will be in front of me, where I would aye wish to find them." Then he gave me from the rack a cutlass (of which there were a few besides the firearms), choosing it with great care, shaking his head and saying he had never in all his life seen poorer weapons; and next he set me down to the table with a powder-horn, a bag of bullets and all the pistols, which he bade me charge. "And that will be better work, let me tell you," said he, "for a gentleman of decent birth, than scraping plates and raxing* drams to a wheen tarry sailors." *Reaching. Thereupon he stood up in the midst with his face to the door, and drawing his great sword, made trial of the room he had to wield it in. "I must stick to the point," he said, shaking his head; "and that's a pity, too. It doesn't set my genius, which is all for the upper guard. And, now," said he, "do you keep on charging the pistols, and give heed to me." I told him I would listen closely. My chest was tight, my mouth dry, the light dark to my eyes; the thought of the numbers that were soon to leap in upon us kept my heart in a flutter: and the sea, which I heard washing round the brig, and where I thought my dead body would be cast ere morning, ran in my mind strangely. "First of all," said he, "how many are against us?" I reckoned them up; and such was the hurry of my mind, I had to cast the numbers twice. "Fifteen," said I. Alan whistled. "Well," said he, "that can't be cured. And now follow me. It is my part to keep this door, where I look for the main battle. In that, ye have no hand. And mind and dinnae fire to this side unless they get me down; for I would rather have ten foes in front of me than one friend like you cracking pistols at my back." I told him, indeed I was no great shot. "And that's very bravely said," he cried, in a great admiration of my candour. "There's many a pretty gentleman that wouldnae dare to say it." "But then, sir," said I, "there is the door behind you, which they may perhaps break in." "Ay," said he, "and that is a part of your work. No sooner the pistols charged, than ye must climb up into yon bed where ye're handy at the window; and if they lift hand against the door, ye're to shoot. But that's not all. Let's make a bit of a soldier of ye, David. What else have ye to guard?" "There's the skylight," said I. "But indeed, Mr. Stewart, I would need to have eyes upon both sides to keep the two of them; for when my face is at the one, my back is to the other." "And that's very true," said Alan. "But have ye no ears to your head?" "To be sure!" cried I. "I must hear the bursting of the glass!" "Ye have some rudiments of sense," said Alan, grimly. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Die Covenant stößt mit einem Boot zusammen. Es gibt einen Überlebenden, der an Bord gebracht wird. Der Mann ist ein Schotte, der in feiner französischer Kleidung gekleidet ist. Im Gespräch mit Hoseason offenbart der Mann, dass er ein Jakobit ist, oder ein Anhänger des Stewart-/Stuart-Anspruchs auf den englischen Thron. Die Jakobiten waren Katholiken. Der Mann sagt, dass er gegen die Engländer im Jakobiteraufstand von 1745 gekämpft hat und dass er in Gefahr wäre, wenn er von einem der "rotuniformierten Herren" gefunden würde. Während Hoseason Protestant und daher ein Anhänger der hannoverschen Monarchie ist, ist er bereit, mit dem Mann zu verhandeln, um ihn sicher an Land zu bringen, im Austausch gegen Bezahlung. Der Mann erklärt, dass das Geld, das er bei sich trägt, nicht seins ist. Er hat es von armen Pächterbauern gesammelt, um ihren Clan-Chef, den Kopf des Stewart-Clans, der im Exil in Frankreich ist, zu unterstützen. Das Anwesen des Clan-Chefs wurde von der Armee des Königs George zusammen mit den Ländereien vieler jakobitischer Clan-Chefs konfisziert. Der Mann bittet Hoseason, ihn in Frankreich abzusetzen, aber Hoseason sagt, er könne das nicht tun. Hoseason stimmt zu, den Mann gegen eine Gebühr in Schottland abzusetzen. Obwohl der Mann ein Jakobit ist und David als Whig aufgewachsen ist, findet David den Mann interessant. David belauscht Hoseason und Riach, wie sie planen, den Mann zu töten und seinen Geldgürtel zu stehlen. Ihr Problem ist, dass sich alle Waffen im Rundhaus befinden, wo der Mann ist. Sie bitten David, beim nächsten Mal, wenn er in das Rundhaus geht, einige Waffen zu holen, und versprechen ihm im Gegenzug zu helfen, wenn sie nach Carolina kommen. David kehrt ins Rundhaus zurück und erzählt dem Mann, dass dies ein Schiff voller Mörder ist und dass er der Nächste sein wird, der getötet wird. Der Mann stellt sich als Alan Breck Stewart vor, ein Mitglied des Stewart-Clans. Alan und David vereinbaren, gemeinsam gegen Hoseason und seine Männer zu kämpfen. Alan wird die Haupttür zum Rundhaus mit seinem Schwert bewachen, und David wird die Hintertür und das Oberlicht mit den Pistolen bewachen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: MR. SHIMERDA lay dead in the barn four days, and on the fifth they buried him. All day Friday Jelinek was off with Ambrosch digging the grave, chopping out the frozen earth with old axes. On Saturday we breakfasted before daylight and got into the wagon with the coffin. Jake and Jelinek went ahead on horseback to cut the body loose from the pool of blood in which it was frozen fast to the ground. When grandmother and I went into the Shimerdas' house, we found the women-folk alone; Ambrosch and Marek were at the barn. Mrs. Shimerda sat crouching by the stove, Antonia was washing dishes. When she saw me she ran out of her dark corner and threw her arms around me. "Oh, Jimmy," she sobbed, "what you tink for my lovely papa!" It seemed to me that I could feel her heart breaking as she clung to me. Mrs. Shimerda, sitting on the stump by the stove, kept looking over her shoulder toward the door while the neighbors were arriving. They came on horseback, all except the postmaster, who brought his family in a wagon over the only broken wagon-trail. The Widow Steavens rode up from her farm eight miles down the Black Hawk road. The cold drove the women into the cave-house, and it was soon crowded. A fine, sleety snow was beginning to fall, and every one was afraid of another storm and anxious to have the burial over with. Grandfather and Jelinek came to tell Mrs. Shimerda that it was time to start. After bundling her mother up in clothes the neighbors had brought, Antonia put on an old cape from our house and the rabbit-skin hat her father had made for her. Four men carried Mr. Shimerda's box up the hill; Krajiek slunk along behind them. The coffin was too wide for the door, so it was put down on the slope outside. I slipped out from the cave and looked at Mr. Shimerda. He was lying on his side, with his knees drawn up. His body was draped in a black shawl, and his head was bandaged in white muslin, like a mummy's; one of his long, shapely hands lay out on the black cloth; that was all one could see of him. Mrs. Shimerda came out and placed an open prayer-book against the body, making the sign of the cross on the bandaged head with her fingers. Ambrosch knelt down and made the same gesture, and after him Antonia and Marek. Yulka hung back. Her mother pushed her forward, and kept saying something to her over and over. Yulka knelt down, shut her eyes, and put out her hand a little way, but she drew it back and began to cry wildly. She was afraid to touch the bandage. Mrs. Shimerda caught her by the shoulders and pushed her toward the coffin, but grandmother interfered. "No, Mrs. Shimerda," she said firmly, "I won't stand by and see that child frightened into spasms. She is too little to understand what you want of her. Let her alone." At a look from grandfather, Fuchs and Jelinek placed the lid on the box, and began to nail it down over Mr. Shimerda. I was afraid to look at Antonia. She put her arms round Yulka and held the little girl close to her. The coffin was put into the wagon. We drove slowly away, against the fine, icy snow which cut our faces like a sand-blast. When we reached the grave, it looked a very little spot in that snow-covered waste. The men took the coffin to the edge of the hole and lowered it with ropes. We stood about watching them, and the powdery snow lay without melting on the caps and shoulders of the men and the shawls of the women. Jelinek spoke in a persuasive tone to Mrs. Shimerda, and then turned to grandfather. "She says, Mr. Burden, she is very glad if you can make some prayer for him here in English, for the neighbors to understand." Grandmother looked anxiously at grandfather. He took off his hat, and the other men did likewise. I thought his prayer remarkable. I still remember it. He began, "Oh, great and just God, no man among us knows what the sleeper knows, nor is it for us to judge what lies between him and Thee." He prayed that if any man there had been remiss toward the stranger come to a far country, God would forgive him and soften his heart. He recalled the promises to the widow and the fatherless, and asked God to smooth the way before this widow and her children, and to "incline the hearts of men to deal justly with her." In closing, he said we were leaving Mr. Shimerda at "Thy judgment seat, which is also Thy mercy seat." All the time he was praying, grandmother watched him through the black fingers of her glove, and when he said "Amen," I thought she looked satisfied with him. She turned to Otto and whispered, "Can't you start a hymn, Fuchs? It would seem less heathenish." Fuchs glanced about to see if there was general approval of her suggestion, then began, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," and all the men and women took it up after him. Whenever I have heard the hymn since, it has made me remember that white waste and the little group of people; and the bluish air, full of fine, eddying snow, like long veils flying:-- "While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high." Years afterward, when the open-grazing days were over, and the red grass had been ploughed under and under until it had almost disappeared from the prairie; when all the fields were under fence, and the roads no longer ran about like wild things, but followed the surveyed section-lines, Mr. Shimerda's grave was still there, with a sagging wire fence around it, and an unpainted wooden cross. As grandfather had predicted, Mrs. Shimerda never saw the roads going over his head. The road from the north curved a little to the east just there, and the road from the west swung out a little to the south; so that the grave, with its tall red grass that was never mowed, was like a little island; and at twilight, under a new moon or the clear evening star, the dusty roads used to look like soft gray rivers flowing past it. I never came upon the place without emotion, and in all that country it was the spot most dear to me. I loved the dim superstition, the propitiatory intent, that had put the grave there; and still more I loved the spirit that could not carry out the sentence--the error from the surveyed lines, the clemency of the soft earth roads along which the home-coming wagons rattled after sunset. Never a tired driver passed the wooden cross, I am sure, without wishing well to the sleeper. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Am fünften Tag nach seinem Selbstmord wird Herr Shimerda endlich beerdigt. Am Freitag hilft Anton Ambrosch, das Grab auszuheben. Am Samstag müssen Jake und Anton den gefrorenen Körper vom Boden lösen. Großmutter und Jim gehen die Shimerdas besuchen; die Frauen sind dort alleine. Antonia ist sehr traurig und klammert sich an Jim. Frau Shimerda sitzt am Fenster und beobachtet alle Leute, die ankommen. Es fängt an zu schneien. Als es Zeit ist, nach draußen zur Beerdigung zu gehen, trägt Antonia den Hasenfellhut, den ihr Vater für sie gemacht hat. Die Männer tragen den Sarg mit dem Körper den Hügel hinauf. Frau Shimerda betet über dem Körper, ebenso wie die anderen Mitglieder ihrer Familie. Frau Shimerda versucht, Yulka dazu zu bringen, den toten Körper anzusehen, aber die Großmutter greift ein und sagt, dass sie es nicht tun muss. Dann nageln sie den Deckel über den toten Körper. Antonia tröstet ihre kleine Schwester. Der Sarg wird in einen Wagen gelegt und jeder begleitet ihn zur Grabstätte, wo sie ihn hinunterlassen. Frau Shimerda möchte, dass Großvater ein Gebet über den Körper spricht. Er kommt dem nach. Er bittet Gott, diesem Mann zu vergeben, und sagt, dass Menschen nicht das Recht haben, andere Menschen zu beurteilen. Dann bittet Großmutter Otto, zu singen, und er singt ein religiöses Lied. Der Erzähler Jim bemerkt, dass Jahre später die Straßen in der Nähe von Herrn Shimerdas Grab vorbeiführten. Jim schaute immer gerne dorthin und es hatte immer eine große emotionale Bedeutung für ihn.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: I On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other end of the ocean; for there was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye could reach. To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, had its foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked solid, so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even the track of light from the westering sun shone smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of an imperceptible ripple. And when I turned my head to take a parting glance at the tug which had just left us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one leveled floor half brown, half blue under the enormous dome of the sky. Corresponding in their insignificance to the islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one on each side of the only fault in the impeccable joint, marked the mouth of the river Meinam we had just left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward journey; and, far back on the inland level, a larger and loftier mass, the grove surrounding the great Paknam pagoda, was the only thing on which the eye could rest from the vain task of exploring the monotonous sweep of the horizon. Here and there gleams as of a few scattered pieces of silver marked the windings of the great river; and on the nearest of them, just within the bar, the tug steaming right into the land became lost to my sight, hull and funnel and masts, as though the impassive earth had swallowed her up without an effort, without a tremor. My eye followed the light cloud of her smoke, now here, now there, above the plain, according to the devious curves of the stream, but always fainter and farther away, till I lost it at last behind the miter-shaped hill of the great pagoda. And then I was left alone with my ship, anchored at the head of the Gulf of Siam. She floated at the starting point of a long journey, very still in an immense stillness, the shadows of her spars flung far to the eastward by the setting sun. At that moment I was alone on her decks. There was not a sound in her--and around us nothing moved, nothing lived, not a canoe on the water, not a bird in the air, not a cloud in the sky. In this breathless pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed to be measuring our fitness for a long and arduous enterprise, the appointed task of both our existences to be carried out, far from all human eyes, with only sky and sea for spectators and for judges. There must have been some glare in the air to interfere with one's sight, because it was only just before the sun left us that my roaming eyes made out beyond the highest ridges of the principal islet of the group something which did away with the solemnity of perfect solitude. The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly; and with tropical suddenness a swarm of stars came out above the shadowy earth, while I lingered yet, my hand resting lightly on my ship's rail as if on the shoulder of a trusted friend. But, with all that multitude of celestial bodies staring down at one, the comfort of quiet communion with her was gone for good. And there were also disturbing sounds by this time--voices, footsteps forward; the steward flitted along the main-deck, a busily ministering spirit; a hand bell tinkled urgently under the poop deck.... I found my two officers waiting for me near the supper table, in the lighted cuddy. We sat down at once, and as I helped the chief mate, I said: "Are you aware that there is a ship anchored inside the islands? I saw her mastheads above the ridge as the sun went down." He raised sharply his simple face, overcharged by a terrible growth of whisker, and emitted his usual ejaculations: "Bless my soul, sir! You don't say so!" My second mate was a round-cheeked, silent young man, grave beyond his years, I thought; but as our eyes happened to meet I detected a slight quiver on his lips. I looked down at once. It was not my part to encourage sneering on board my ship. It must be said, too, that I knew very little of my officers. In consequence of certain events of no particular significance, except to myself, I had been appointed to the command only a fortnight before. Neither did I know much of the hands forward. All these people had been together for eighteen months or so, and my position was that of the only stranger on board. I mention this because it has some bearing on what is to follow. But what I felt most was my being a stranger to the ship; and if all the truth must be told, I was somewhat of a stranger to myself. The youngest man on board (barring the second mate), and untried as yet by a position of the fullest responsibility, I was willing to take the adequacy of the others for granted. They had simply to be equal to their tasks; but I wondered how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of one's own personality every man sets up for himself secretly. Meantime the chief mate, with an almost visible effect of collaboration on the part of his round eyes and frightful whiskers, was trying to evolve a theory of the anchored ship. His dominant trait was to take all things into earnest consideration. He was of a painstaking turn of mind. As he used to say, he "liked to account to himself" for practically everything that came in his way, down to a miserable scorpion he had found in his cabin a week before. The why and the wherefore of that scorpion--how it got on board and came to select his room rather than the pantry (which was a dark place and more what a scorpion would be partial to), and how on earth it managed to drown itself in the inkwell of his writing desk--had exercised him infinitely. The ship within the islands was much more easily accounted for; and just as we were about to rise from table he made his pronouncement. She was, he doubted not, a ship from home lately arrived. Probably she drew too much water to cross the bar except at the top of spring tides. Therefore she went into that natural harbor to wait for a few days in preference to remaining in an open roadstead. "That's so," confirmed the second mate, suddenly, in his slightly hoarse voice. "She draws over twenty feet. She's the Liverpool ship Sephora with a cargo of coal. Hundred and twenty-three days from Cardiff." We looked at him in surprise. "The tugboat skipper told me when he came on board for your letters, sir," explained the young man. "He expects to take her up the river the day after tomorrow." After thus overwhelming us with the extent of his information he slipped out of the cabin. The mate observed regretfully that he "could not account for that young fellow's whims." What prevented him telling us all about it at once, he wanted to know. I detained him as he was making a move. For the last two days the crew had had plenty of hard work, and the night before they had very little sleep. I felt painfully that I--a stranger--was doing something unusual when I directed him to let all hands turn in without setting an anchor watch. I proposed to keep on deck myself till one o'clock or thereabouts. I would get the second mate to relieve me at that hour. "He will turn out the cook and the steward at four," I concluded, "and then give you a call. Of course at the slightest sign of any sort of wind we'll have the hands up and make a start at once." He concealed his astonishment. "Very well, sir." Outside the cuddy he put his head in the second mate's door to inform him of my unheard-of caprice to take a five hours' anchor watch on myself. I heard the other raise his voice incredulously--"What? The Captain himself?" Then a few more murmurs, a door closed, then another. A few moments later I went on deck. My strangeness, which had made me sleepless, had prompted that unconventional arrangement, as if I had expected in those solitary hours of the night to get on terms with the ship of which I knew nothing, manned by men of whom I knew very little more. Fast alongside a wharf, littered like any ship in port with a tangle of unrelated things, invaded by unrelated shore people, I had hardly seen her yet properly. Now, as she lay cleared for sea, the stretch of her main-deck seemed to me very fine under the stars. Very fine, very roomy for her size, and very inviting. I descended the poop and paced the waist, my mind picturing to myself the coming passage through the Malay Archipelago, down the Indian Ocean, and up the Atlantic. All its phases were familiar enough to me, every characteristic, all the alternatives which were likely to face me on the high seas--everything!... except the novel responsibility of command. But I took heart from the reasonable thought that the ship was like other ships, the men like other men, and that the sea was not likely to keep any special surprises expressly for my discomfiture. Arrived at that comforting conclusion, I bethought myself of a cigar and went below to get it. All was still down there. Everybody at the after end of the ship was sleeping profoundly. I came out again on the quarter-deck, agreeably at ease in my sleeping suit on that warm breathless night, barefooted, a glowing cigar in my teeth, and, going forward, I was met by the profound silence of the fore end of the ship. Only as I passed the door of the forecastle, I heard a deep, quiet, trustful sigh of some sleeper inside. And suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of that untempted life presenting no disquieting problems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by the absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and by the singleness of its purpose. The riding light in the forerigging burned with a clear, untroubled, as if symbolic, flame, confident and bright in the mysterious shades of the night. Passing on my way aft along the other side of the ship, I observed that the rope side ladder, put over, no doubt, for the master of the tug when he came to fetch away our letters, had not been hauled in as it should have been. I became annoyed at this, for exactitude in some small matters is the very soul of discipline. Then I reflected that I had myself peremptorily dismissed my officers from duty, and by my own act had prevented the anchor watch being formally set and things properly attended to. I asked myself whether it was wise ever to interfere with the established routine of duties even from the kindest of motives. My action might have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only knew how that absurdly whiskered mate would "account" for my conduct, and what the whole ship thought of that informality of their new captain. I was vexed with myself. Not from compunction certainly, but, as it were mechanically, I proceeded to get the ladder in myself. Now a side ladder of that sort is a light affair and comes in easily, yet my vigorous tug, which should have brought it flying on board, merely recoiled upon my body in a totally unexpected jerk. What the devil!... I was so astounded by the immovableness of that ladder that I remained stock-still, trying to account for it to myself like that imbecile mate of mine. In the end, of course, I put my head over the rail. The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow on the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea. But I saw at once something elongated and pale floating very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess a faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue suddenly from the naked body of a man, flickered in the sleeping water with the elusive, silent play of summer lightning in a night sky. With a gasp I saw revealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long legs, a broad livid back immersed right up to the neck in a greenish cadaverous glow. One hand, awash, clutched the bottom rung of the ladder. He was complete but for the head. A headless corpse! The cigar dropped out of my gaping mouth with a tiny plop and a short hiss quite audible in the absolute stillness of all things under heaven. At that I suppose he raised up his face, a dimly pale oval in the shadow of the ship's side. But even then I could only barely make out down there the shape of his black-haired head. However, it was enough for the horrid, frost-bound sensation which had gripped me about the chest to pass off. The moment of vain exclamations was past, too. I only climbed on the spare spar and leaned over the rail as far as I could, to bring my eyes nearer to that mystery floating alongside. As he hung by the ladder, like a resting swimmer, the sea lightning played about his limbs at every stir; and he appeared in it ghastly, silvery, fishlike. He remained as mute as a fish, too. He made no motion to get out of the water, either. It was inconceivable that he should not attempt to come on board, and strangely troubling to suspect that perhaps he did not want to. And my first words were prompted by just that troubled incertitude. "What's the matter?" I asked in my ordinary tone, speaking down to the face upturned exactly under mine. "Cramp," it answered, no louder. Then slightly anxious, "I say, no need to call anyone." "I was not going to," I said. "Are you alone on deck?" "Yes." I had somehow the impression that he was on the point of letting go the ladder to swim away beyond my ken--mysterious as he came. But, for the moment, this being appearing as if he had risen from the bottom of the sea (it was certainly the nearest land to the ship) wanted only to know the time. I told him. And he, down there, tentatively: "I suppose your captain's turned in?" "I am sure he isn't," I said. He seemed to struggle with himself, for I heard something like the low, bitter murmur of doubt. "What's the good?" His next words came out with a hesitating effort. "Look here, my man. Could you call him out quietly?" I thought the time had come to declare myself. "I am the captain." I heard a "By Jove!" whispered at the level of the water. The phosphorescence flashed in the swirl of the water all about his limbs, his other hand seized the ladder. "My name's Leggatt." The voice was calm and resolute. A good voice. The self-possession of that man had somehow induced a corresponding state in myself. It was very quietly that I remarked: "You must be a good swimmer." "Yes. I've been in the water practically since nine o'clock. The question for me now is whether I am to let go this ladder and go on swimming till I sink from exhaustion, or--to come on board here." I felt this was no mere formula of desperate speech, but a real alternative in the view of a strong soul. I should have gathered from this that he was young; indeed, it is only the young who are ever confronted by such clear issues. But at the time it was pure intuition on my part. A mysterious communication was established already between us two--in the face of that silent, darkened tropical sea. I was young, too; young enough to make no comment. The man in the water began suddenly to climb up the ladder, and I hastened away from the rail to fetch some clothes. Before entering the cabin I stood still, listening in the lobby at the foot of the stairs. A faint snore came through the closed door of the chief mate's room. The second mate's door was on the hook, but the darkness in there was absolutely soundless. He, too, was young and could sleep like a stone. Remained the steward, but he was not likely to wake up before he was called. I got a sleeping suit out of my room and, coming back on deck, saw the naked man from the sea sitting on the main hatch, glimmering white in the darkness, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. In a moment he had concealed his damp body in a sleeping suit of the same gray-stripe pattern as the one I was wearing and followed me like my double on the poop. Together we moved right aft, barefooted, silent. "What is it?" I asked in a deadened voice, taking the lighted lamp out of the binnacle, and raising it to his face. "An ugly business." He had rather regular features; a good mouth; light eyes under somewhat heavy, dark eyebrows; a smooth, square forehead; no growth on his cheeks; a small, brown mustache, and a well-shaped, round chin. His expression was concentrated, meditative, under the inspecting light of the lamp I held up to his face; such as a man thinking hard in solitude might wear. My sleeping suit was just right for his size. A well-knit young fellow of twenty-five at most. He caught his lower lip with the edge of white, even teeth. "Yes," I said, replacing the lamp in the binnacle. The warm, heavy tropical night closed upon his head again. "There's a ship over there," he murmured. "Yes, I know. The Sephora. Did you know of us?" "Hadn't the slightest idea. I am the mate of her--" He paused and corrected himself. "I should say I _was_." "Aha! Something wrong?" "Yes. Very wrong indeed. I've killed a man." "What do you mean? Just now?" "No, on the passage. Weeks ago. Thirty-nine south. When I say a man--" "Fit of temper," I suggested, confidently. The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod imperceptibly above the ghostly gray of my sleeping suit. It was, in the night, as though I had been faced by my own reflection in the depths of a somber and immense mirror. "A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Conway boy," murmured my double, distinctly. "You're a Conway boy?" "I am," he said, as if startled. Then, slowly... "Perhaps you too--" It was so; but being a couple of years older I had left before he joined. After a quick interchange of dates a silence fell; and I thought suddenly of my absurd mate with his terrific whiskers and the "Bless my soul--you don't say so" type of intellect. My double gave me an inkling of his thoughts by saying: "My father's a parson in Norfolk. Do you see me before a judge and jury on that charge? For myself I can't see the necessity. There are fellows that an angel from heaven--And I am not that. He was one of those creatures that are just simmering all the time with a silly sort of wickedness. Miserable devils that have no business to live at all. He wouldn't do his duty and wouldn't let anybody else do theirs. But what's the good of talking! You know well enough the sort of ill-conditioned snarling cur--" He appealed to me as if our experiences had been as identical as our clothes. And I knew well enough the pestiferous danger of such a character where there are no means of legal repression. And I knew well enough also that my double there was no homicidal ruffian. I did not think of asking him for details, and he told me the story roughly in brusque, disconnected sentences. I needed no more. I saw it all going on as though I were myself inside that other sleeping suit. "It happened while we were setting a reefed foresail, at dusk. Reefed foresail! You understand the sort of weather. The only sail we had left to keep the ship running; so you may guess what it had been like for days. Anxious sort of job, that. He gave me some of his cursed insolence at the sheet. I tell you I was overdone with this terrific weather that seemed to have no end to it. Terrific, I tell you--and a deep ship. I believe the fellow himself was half crazed with funk. It was no time for gentlemanly reproof, so I turned round and felled him like an ox. He up and at me. We closed just as an awful sea made for the ship. All hands saw it coming and took to the rigging, but I had him by the throat, and went on shaking him like a rat, the men above us yelling, 'Look out! look out!' Then a crash as if the sky had fallen on my head. They say that for over ten minutes hardly anything was to be seen of the ship--just the three masts and a bit of the forecastle head and of the poop all awash driving along in a smother of foam. It was a miracle that they found us, jammed together behind the forebitts. It's clear that I meant business, because I was holding him by the throat still when they picked us up. He was black in the face. It was too much for them. It seems they rushed us aft together, gripped as we were, screaming 'Murder!' like a lot of lunatics, and broke into the cuddy. And the ship running for her life, touch and go all the time, any minute her last in a sea fit to turn your hair gray only a-looking at it. I understand that the skipper, too, started raving like the rest of them. The man had been deprived of sleep for more than a week, and to have this sprung on him at the height of a furious gale nearly drove him out of his mind. I wonder they didn't fling me overboard after getting the carcass of their precious shipmate out of my fingers. They had rather a job to separate us, I've been told. A sufficiently fierce story to make an old judge and a respectable jury sit up a bit. The first thing I heard when I came to myself was the maddening howling of that endless gale, and on that the voice of the old man. He was hanging on to my bunk, staring into my face out of his sou'wester. "'Mr. Leggatt, you have killed a man. You can act no longer as chief mate of this ship.'" His care to subdue his voice made it sound monotonous. He rested a hand on the end of the skylight to steady himself with, and all that time did not stir a limb, so far as I could see. "Nice little tale for a quiet tea party," he concluded in the same tone. One of my hands, too, rested on the end of the skylight; neither did I stir a limb, so far as I knew. We stood less than a foot from each other. It occurred to me that if old "Bless my soul--you don't say so" were to put his head up the companion and catch sight of us, he would think he was seeing double, or imagine himself come upon a scene of weird witchcraft; the strange captain having a quiet confabulation by the wheel with his own gray ghost. I became very much concerned to prevent anything of the sort. I heard the other's soothing undertone. "My father's a parson in Norfolk," it said. Evidently he had forgotten he had told me this important fact before. Truly a nice little tale. "You had better slip down into my stateroom now," I said, moving off stealthily. My double followed my movements; our bare feet made no sound; I let him in, closed the door with care, and, after giving a call to the second mate, returned on deck for my relief. "Not much sign of any wind yet," I remarked when he approached. "No, sir. Not much," he assented, sleepily, in his hoarse voice, with just enough deference, no more, and barely suppressing a yawn. "Well, that's all you have to look out for. You have got your orders." "Yes, sir." I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take up his position face forward with his elbow in the ratlines of the mizzen rigging before I went below. The mate's faint snoring was still going on peacefully. The cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which stood a vase with flowers, a polite attention from the ship's provision merchant--the last flowers we should see for the next three months at the very least. Two bunches of bananas hung from the beam symmetrically, one on each side of the rudder casing. Everything was as before in the ship--except that two of her captain's sleeping suits were simultaneously in use, one motionless in the cuddy, the other keeping very still in the captain's stateroom. It must be explained here that my cabin had the form of the capital letter L, the door being within the angle and opening into the short part of the letter. A couch was to the left, the bed place to the right; my writing desk and the chronometers' table faced the door. But anyone opening it, unless he stepped right inside, had no view of what I call the long (or vertical) part of the letter. It contained some lockers surmounted by a bookcase; and a few clothes, a thick jacket or two, caps, oilskin coat, and such like, hung on hooks. There was at the bottom of that part a door opening into my bathroom, which could be entered also directly from the saloon. But that way was never used. The mysterious arrival had discovered the advantage of this particular shape. Entering my room, lighted strongly by a big bulkhead lamp swung on gimbals above my writing desk, I did not see him anywhere till he stepped out quietly from behind the coats hung in the recessed part. "I heard somebody moving about, and went in there at once," he whispered. I, too, spoke under my breath. "Nobody is likely to come in here without knocking and getting permission." He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn faded, as though he had been ill. And no wonder. He had been, I heard presently, kept under arrest in his cabin for nearly seven weeks. But there was nothing sickly in his eyes or in his expression. He was not a bit like me, really; yet, as we stood leaning over my bed place, whispering side by side, with our dark heads together and our backs to the door, anybody bold enough to open it stealthily would have been treated to the uncanny sight of a double captain busy talking in whispers with his other self. "But all this doesn't tell me how you came to hang on to our side ladder," I inquired, in the hardly audible murmurs we used, after he had told me something more of the proceedings on board the Sephora once the bad weather was over. "When we sighted Java Head I had had time to think all those matters out several times over. I had six weeks of doing nothing else, and with only an hour or so every evening for a tramp on the quarter-deck." He whispered, his arms folded on the side of my bed place, staring through the open port. And I could imagine perfectly the manner of this thinking out--a stubborn if not a steadfast operation; something of which I should have been perfectly incapable. "I reckoned it would be dark before we closed with the land," he continued, so low that I had to strain my hearing near as we were to each other, shoulder touching shoulder almost. "So I asked to speak to the old man. He always seemed very sick when he came to see me--as if he could not look me in the face. You know, that foresail saved the ship. She was too deep to have run long under bare poles. And it was I that managed to set it for him. Anyway, he came. When I had him in my cabin--he stood by the door looking at me as if I had the halter round my neck already--I asked him right away to leave my cabin door unlocked at night while the ship was going through Sunda Straits. There would be the Java coast within two or three miles, off Angier Point. I wanted nothing more. I've had a prize for swimming my second year in the Conway." "I can believe it," I breathed out. "God only knows why they locked me in every night. To see some of their faces you'd have thought they were afraid I'd go about at night strangling people. Am I a murdering brute? Do I look it? By Jove! If I had been he wouldn't have trusted himself like that into my room. You'll say I might have chucked him aside and bolted out, there and then--it was dark already. Well, no. And for the same reason I wouldn't think of trying to smash the door. There would have been a rush to stop me at the noise, and I did not mean to get into a confounded scrimmage. Somebody else might have got killed--for I would not have broken out only to get chucked back, and I did not want any more of that work. He refused, looking more sick than ever. He was afraid of the men, and also of that old second mate of his who had been sailing with him for years--a gray-headed old humbug; and his steward, too, had been with him devil knows how long--seventeen years or more--a dogmatic sort of loafer who hated me like poison, just because I was the chief mate. No chief mate ever made more than one voyage in the Sephora, you know. Those two old chaps ran the ship. Devil only knows what the skipper wasn't afraid of (all his nerve went to pieces altogether in that hellish spell of bad weather we had)--of what the law would do to him--of his wife, perhaps. Oh, yes! she's on board. Though I don't think she would have meddled. She would have been only too glad to have me out of the ship in any way. The 'brand of Cain' business, don't you see. That's all right. I was ready enough to go off wandering on the face of the earth--and that was price enough to pay for an Abel of that sort. Anyhow, he wouldn't listen to me. 'This thing must take its course. I represent the law here.' He was shaking like a leaf. 'So you won't?' 'No!' 'Then I hope you will be able to sleep on that,' I said, and turned my back on him. 'I wonder that you can,' cries he, and locks the door. "Well after that, I couldn't. Not very well. That was three weeks ago. We have had a slow passage through the Java Sea; drifted about Carimata for ten days. When we anchored here they thought, I suppose, it was all right. The nearest land (and that's five miles) is the ship's destination; the consul would soon set about catching me; and there would have been no object in holding to these islets there. I don't suppose there's a drop of water on them. I don't know how it was, but tonight that steward, after bringing me my supper, went out to let me eat it, and left the door unlocked. And I ate it--all there was, too. After I had finished I strolled out on the quarter-deck. I don't know that I meant to do anything. A breath of fresh air was all I wanted, I believe. Then a sudden temptation came over me. I kicked off my slippers and was in the water before I had made up my mind fairly. Somebody heard the splash and they raised an awful hullabaloo. 'He's gone! Lower the boats! He's committed suicide! No, he's swimming.' Certainly I was swimming. It's not so easy for a swimmer like me to commit suicide by drowning. I landed on the nearest islet before the boat left the ship's side. I heard them pulling about in the dark, hailing, and so on, but after a bit they gave up. Everything quieted down and the anchorage became still as death. I sat down on a stone and began to think. I felt certain they would start searching for me at daylight. There was no place to hide on those stony things--and if there had been, what would have been the good? But now I was clear of that ship, I was not going back. So after a while I took off all my clothes, tied them up in a bundle with a stone inside, and dropped them in the deep water on the outer side of that islet. That was suicide enough for me. Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank--but that's not the same thing. I struck out for another of these little islands, and it was from that one that I first saw your riding light. Something to swim for. I went on easily, and on the way I came upon a flat rock a foot or two above water. In the daytime, I dare say, you might make it out with a glass from your poop. I scrambled up on it and rested myself for a bit. Then I made another start. That last spell must have been over a mile." His whisper was getting fainter and fainter, and all the time he stared straight out through the porthole, in which there was not even a star to be seen. I had not interrupted him. There was something that made comment impossible in his narrative, or perhaps in himself; a sort of feeling, a quality, which I can't find a name for. And when he ceased, all I found was a futile whisper: "So you swam for our light?" "Yes--straight for it. It was something to swim for. I couldn't see any stars low down because the coast was in the way, and I couldn't see the land, either. The water was like glass. One might have been swimming in a confounded thousand-feet deep cistern with no place for scrambling out anywhere; but what I didn't like was the notion of swimming round and round like a crazed bullock before I gave out; and as I didn't mean to go back... No. Do you see me being hauled back, stark naked, off one of these little islands by the scruff of the neck and fighting like a wild beast? Somebody would have got killed for certain, and I did not want any of that. So I went on. Then your ladder--" "Why didn't you hail the ship?" I asked, a little louder. He touched my shoulder lightly. Lazy footsteps came right over our heads and stopped. The second mate had crossed from the other side of the poop and might have been hanging over the rail for all we knew. "He couldn't hear us talking--could he?" My double breathed into my very ear, anxiously. His anxiety was in answer, a sufficient answer, to the question I had put to him. An answer containing all the difficulty of that situation. I closed the porthole quietly, to make sure. A louder word might have been overheard. "Who's that?" he whispered then. "My second mate. But I don't know much more of the fellow than you do." And I told him a little about myself. I had been appointed to take charge while I least expected anything of the sort, not quite a fortnight ago. I didn't know either the ship or the people. Hadn't had the time in port to look about me or size anybody up. And as to the crew, all they knew was that I was appointed to take the ship home. For the rest, I was almost as much of a stranger on board as himself, I said. And at the moment I felt it most acutely. I felt that it would take very little to make me a suspect person in the eyes of the ship's company. He had turned about meantime; and we, the two strangers in the ship, faced each other in identical attitudes. "Your ladder--" he murmured, after a silence. "Who'd have thought of finding a ladder hanging over at night in a ship anchored out here! I felt just then a very unpleasant faintness. After the life I've been leading for nine weeks, anybody would have got out of condition. I wasn't capable of swimming round as far as your rudder chains. And, lo and behold! there was a ladder to get hold of. After I gripped it I said to myself, 'What's the good?' When I saw a man's head looking over I thought I would swim away presently and leave him shouting--in whatever language it was. I didn't mind being looked at. I--I liked it. And then you speaking to me so quietly--as if you had expected me--made me hold on a little longer. It had been a confounded lonely time--I don't mean while swimming. I was glad to talk a little to somebody that didn't belong to the Sephora. As to asking for the captain, that was a mere impulse. It could have been no use, with all the ship knowing about me and the other people pretty certain to be round here in the morning. I don't know--I wanted to be seen, to talk with somebody, before I went on. I don't know what I would have said.... 'Fine night, isn't it?' or something of the sort." "Do you think they will be round here presently?" I asked with some incredulity. "Quite likely," he said, faintly. "He looked extremely haggard all of a sudden. His head rolled on his shoulders. "H'm. We shall see then. Meantime get into that bed," I whispered. "Want help? There." It was a rather high bed place with a set of drawers underneath. This amazing swimmer really needed the lift I gave him by seizing his leg. He tumbled in, rolled over on his back, and flung one arm across his eyes. And then, with his face nearly hidden, he must have looked exactly as I used to look in that bed. I gazed upon my other self for a while before drawing across carefully the two green serge curtains which ran on a brass rod. I thought for a moment of pinning them together for greater safety, but I sat down on the couch, and once there I felt unwilling to rise and hunt for a pin. I would do it in a moment. I was extremely tired, in a peculiarly intimate way, by the strain of stealthiness, by the effort of whispering and the general secrecy of this excitement. It was three o'clock by now and I had been on my feet since nine, but I was not sleepy; I could not have gone to sleep. I sat there, fagged out, looking at the curtains, trying to clear my mind of the confused sensation of being in two places at once, and greatly bothered by an exasperating knocking in my head. It was a relief to discover suddenly that it was not in my head at all, but on the outside of the door. Before I could collect myself the words "Come in" were out of my mouth, and the steward entered with a tray, bringing in my morning coffee. I had slept, after all, and I was so frightened that I shouted, "This way! I am here, steward," as though he had been miles away. He put down the tray on the table next the couch and only then said, very quietly, "I can see you are here, sir." I felt him give me a keen look, but I dared not meet his eyes just then. He must have wondered why I had drawn the curtains of my bed before going to sleep on the couch. He went out, hooking the door open as usual. I heard the crew washing decks above me. I knew I would have been told at once if there had been any wind. Calm, I thought, and I was doubly vexed. Indeed, I felt dual more than ever. The steward reappeared suddenly in the doorway. I jumped up from the couch so quickly that he gave a start. "What do you want here?" "Close your port, sir--they are washing decks." "It is closed," I said, reddening. "Very well, sir." But he did not move from the doorway and returned my stare in an extraordinary, equivocal manner for a time. Then his eyes wavered, all his expression changed, and in a voice unusually gentle, almost coaxingly: "May I come in to take the empty cup away, sir?" "Of course!" I turned my back on him while he popped in and out. Then I unhooked and closed the door and even pushed the bolt. This sort of thing could not go on very long. The cabin was as hot as an oven, too. I took a peep at my double, and discovered that he had not moved, his arm was still over his eyes; but his chest heaved; his hair was wet; his chin glistened with perspiration. I reached over him and opened the port. "I must show myself on deck," I reflected. Of course, theoretically, I could do what I liked, with no one to say nay to me within the whole circle of the horizon; but to lock my cabin door and take the key away I did not dare. Directly I put my head out of the companion I saw the group of my two officers, the second mate barefooted, the chief mate in long India-rubber boots, near the break of the poop, and the steward halfway down the poop ladder talking to them eagerly. He happened to catch sight of me and dived, the second ran down on the main-deck shouting some order or other, and the chief mate came to meet me, touching his cap. There was a sort of curiosity in his eye that I did not like. I don't know whether the steward had told them that I was "queer" only, or downright drunk, but I know the man meant to have a good look at me. I watched him coming with a smile which, as he got into point-blank range, took effect and froze his very whiskers. I did not give him time to open his lips. "Square the yards by lifts and braces before the hands go to breakfast." It was the first particular order I had given on board that ship; and I stayed on deck to see it executed, too. I had felt the need of asserting myself without loss of time. That sneering young cub got taken down a peg or two on that occasion, and I also seized the opportunity of having a good look at the face of every foremast man as they filed past me to go to the after braces. At breakfast time, eating nothing myself, I presided with such frigid dignity that the two mates were only too glad to escape from the cabin as soon as decency permitted; and all the time the dual working of my mind distracted me almost to the point of insanity. I was constantly watching myself, my secret self, as dependent on my actions as my own personality, sleeping in that bed, behind that door which faced me as I sat at the head of the table. It was very much like being mad, only it was worse because one was aware of it. I had to shake him for a solid minute, but when at last he opened his eyes it was in the full possession of his senses, with an inquiring look. "All's well so far," I whispered. "Now you must vanish into the bathroom." He did so, as noiseless as a ghost, and then I rang for the steward, and facing him boldly, directed him to tidy up my stateroom while I was having my bath--"and be quick about it." As my tone admitted of no excuses, he said, "Yes, sir," and ran off to fetch his dustpan and brushes. I took a bath and did most of my dressing, splashing, and whistling softly for the steward's edification, while the secret sharer of my life stood drawn up bolt upright in that little space, his face looking very sunken in daylight, his eyelids lowered under the stern, dark line of his eyebrows drawn together by a slight frown. When I left him there to go back to my room the steward was finishing dusting. I sent for the mate and engaged him in some insignificant conversation. It was, as it were, trifling with the terrific character of his whiskers; but my object was to give him an opportunity for a good look at my cabin. And then I could at last shut, with a clear conscience, the door of my stateroom and get my double back into the recessed part. There was nothing else for it. He had to sit still on a small folding stool, half smothered by the heavy coats hanging there. We listened to the steward going into the bathroom out of the saloon, filling the water bottles there, scrubbing the bath, setting things to rights, whisk, bang, clatter--out again into the saloon--turn the key--click. Such was my scheme for keeping my second self invisible. Nothing better could be contrived under the circumstances. And there we sat; I at my writing desk ready to appear busy with some papers, he behind me out of sight of the door. It would not have been prudent to talk in daytime; and I could not have stood the excitement of that queer sense of whispering to myself. Now and then, glancing over my shoulder, I saw him far back there, sitting rigidly on the low stool, his bare feet close together, his arms folded, his head hanging on his breast--and perfectly still. Anybody would have taken him for me. I was fascinated by it myself. Every moment I had to glance over my shoulder. I was looking at him when a voice outside the door said: "Beg pardon, sir." "Well!..." I kept my eyes on him, and so when the voice outside the door announced, "There's a ship's boat coming our way, sir," I saw him give a start--the first movement he had made for hours. But he did not raise his bowed head. "All right. Get the ladder over." I hesitated. Should I whisper something to him? But what? His immobility seemed to have been never disturbed. What could I tell him he did not know already?... Finally I went on deck. Können Sie eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Als die Dämmerung hereinbricht, steht der namenlose Erzähler der Geschichte auf dem Deck seines Schiffs, das derzeit am Mund des Meinam-Flusses im Golf von Siam vor Anker liegt. Der Erzähler ist der Kapitän des Schiffs, der das Deck verlässt, um mit seinen Kollegen zu Abend zu essen. Es ist ungefähr acht Uhr. Beim Abendessen bemerkt der Kapitän, dass er die Masten eines Schiffs sieht, das zwischen einigen nahegelegenen Inseln vor Anker liegt. Der Erste Offizier erklärt, dass es sich bei dem Schiff, von dem der Kapitän spricht, wahrscheinlich um ein weiteres englisches Schiff handelt, das auf den richtigen Moment wartet, um mit einer günstigen Gezeitenströmung nach Hause zu segeln. Der Zweite Offizier erläutert weiter: Das Schiff ist die Sephora aus Liverpool und fährt von Cardiff mit einer Ladung Kohle nach Hause. Der Kapitän macht eine großzügige Geste und bietet an, selbst bis ein Uhr die Ankeraufsicht zu übernehmen, danach wird ihn der Zweite Offizier ablösen. Wieder allein auf dem Deck raucht der Kapitän nachdenklich eine Zigarre und denkt erneut über seine eigene "Seltsamkeit" dem Schiff und seinem Kommando gegenüber nach. Der Rest der Besatzung schläft fest. Der Kapitän bemerkt, dass die Tau-Beitrepplattform, die über die Seite des Schiffes gehängt ist, um den Kapitän des Schleppers aufzunehmen, nicht hereingeholt wurde. Als er anfängt, daran zu ziehen, spürt er einen Ruck am anderen Ende und sieht neugierig über das Geländer in das Meer. Er sieht einen nackten Mann im Wasser treiben und das Ende der Treppe halten. Der Mann stellt sich als Leggatt vor. Er ist seit neun Uhr im Wasser und das lässt den Kapitän seine Kraft und Jugend überdenken. Leggatt klettert die Treppe hinauf und der Kapitän eilt in seine Kabine, um ihm Kleidung zu holen. Der Kapitän erfährt, dass Leggatt der Erste Offizier der Sephora war und versehentlich einen Mitbesatzungsmitglied getötet hat. Obwohl Leggatt den Mann unbeabsichtigt umgebracht hat, hat der Kapitän ihm den Titel aberkannt. Der Kapitän sagt Leggatt, dass sie sich in seine Kabine zurückziehen sollten, damit sie nicht vom Ersten Offizier entdeckt werden. Der Kapitän versteckt Leggatt in seiner Kabine, kehrt auf das Deck zurück, ruft den Ersten Offizier, um die Ankeraufsicht zu übernehmen, und kehrt in seine Kabine zurück. Leggatt erzählt weiter seine Geschichte: Nachdem er den Mann getötet hatte, wurde er festgenommen und fast sieben Wochen lang in seiner Kabine festgehalten. Etwa sechs Wochen nach seiner Inhaftierung bat Leggatt den Kapitän, ihn zu sehen und ihn darum zu bitten, seine Tür in dieser Nacht nicht abzuschließen, während die Sephora durch die Sundastraße segelte, sodass er ins Wasser springen und zur Java-Küste schwimmen konnte. Der Kapitän lehnte ab. Drei Wochen später kam die Sephora an ihre jetzige Position, und Leggatt entdeckte, dass die Tür zu seiner Kabine aus Versehen von einem Schiffssteward nicht abgeschlossen wurde. Leggatt ging auf das Deck und sprang ins Meer. Während die Besatzung der Sephora ein Boot hinabsenkte, um nach ihm zu suchen, schwamm Leggatt zu einer nahegelegenen Insel. Dort zog er sich aus und versenkte seine Kleidung, fest entschlossen, nie zurückzukehren. Er schwamm zu einer anderen kleinen Insel, sah das Rundumlicht des Kapitänschiffs und schwamm darauf zu. Schließlich erreichte er die Seilleiter, völlig erschöpft nach einer Schwimmstrecke von über einer Meile. Der Kapitän hilft Leggatt ins Bett, wo er sofort einschläft. Der Kapitän schläft schließlich selbst ein; am nächsten Morgen betritt der Steward die Kabine des Kapitäns, um ihm seinen Morgenkaffee zu bringen. Der Kapitän wird immer paranoider, dass jemand Leggatt entdecken könnte, und beschließt, sich auf dem Deck zu zeigen. Der Kapitän erfährt, dass ein Schiffboot auf ihr Schiff zukommt. Er befiehlt, die Leiter über die Seite abzulassen und lässt Leggatt zurück, um den Skipper der Sephora zu treffen, von dem er sicher ist, dass er nach Leggatt sucht.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Mehrere Tage vergingen über dem Seven Gables, schwer und trüb genug. Tatsächlich (ohne den ganzen Dunkelheit des Himmels und der Erde der einen unglücklichen Umstände von Phoebes Abreise zuzuschreiben) hatte sich ein Oststurm eingeschlichen und sich beharrlich daran gemacht, das schwarze Dach und die Wände des alten Hauses noch trostloser aussehen zu lassen als je zuvor. Doch das Äußere war nicht halb so trübselig wie das Innere. Clifford war sofort von all seinen spärlichen Freudenquellen abgeschnitten. Phoebe war nicht da, und auch das Sonnenlicht fiel nicht auf den Boden. Der Garten mit seinen schlammigen Wegen und dem kalten, tropfenden Laub des Sommerhauses war ein Bild, das einem Erschaudern verursachte. Nichts gedieh in der kalten, feuchten, erbarmungslosen Atmosphäre, die mit dem brackigen Sprühnebel der Meeresbrise trieb, außer dem Moos entlang der Fugen des Schindeldachs und dem großen Büschel Unkraut, das kürzlich unter der Dürre im Winkel zwischen den beiden vorderen Giebeln gelitten hatte. Was Hepzibah betrifft, schien sie nicht nur vom Ostwind besessen zu sein, sondern selbst eine weitere Phase dieses grauen und düsteren Wetters zu verkörpern; der Ostwind selbst, grimmig und betrübt, in einem rostigen schwarzen Seidenkleid und mit einem Turban aus Wolkenkränzen auf dem Kopf. Das Geschäft ging zurück, weil das Gerücht kursierte, dass sie ihr dünnbier und andere verderbliche Waren verdirbt, indem sie finster auf sie schaut. Es mag vielleicht wahr sein, dass das Publikum in ihrem Verhalten etwas zu beanstanden hatte, aber gegenüber Clifford war sie weder schlecht gelaunt noch unfreundlich, und sie spürte nicht weniger Warmherzigkeit in ihrem Herzen als sonst, wenn es möglich gewesen wäre, es zu ihm zu bringen. Die Nutzlosigkeit ihrer besten Bemühungen lähmte die arme alte Dame jedoch. Sie konnte kaum etwas anderes tun, als schweigend in einer Ecke des Raumes sitzen, wenn die nassen Birnbaumzweige über die kleinen Fenster fegten und eine Mittagsdämmerung erzeugten, die Hepzibah mit ihrem betrübten Aussehen unbewusst verdarb. Es war nicht Hepzibahs Schuld. Alles - selbst die alten Stühle und Tische, die drei oder vier Lebensdauern wie ihre eigene überstanden hatten - wirkte so feucht und kalt, als wäre die Gegenwart ihre schlimmste Erfahrung. Das Porträt des puritanischen Colonels zitterte an der Wand. Das Haus selbst zitterte, von jedem Dachraum seiner sieben Giebel bis hin zum großen Küchenkamin, der umso besser als Sinnbild des Herzens der Villa diente, weil er, obwohl für Wärme gebaut, nun so trostlos und leer war. Hepzibah versuchte, die Dinge durch ein Feuer im Salon aufzuheitern. Aber der Sturmdämon hielt Wache darüber und trieb den Rauch jedes Mal zurück, wenn eine Flamme entfacht wurde und den schmutzigen Schlot mit seinem eigenen Atem erstickte. Dennoch wickelte sich Clifford während der vier Tage dieses elenden Sturms in einen alten Umhang und nahm seinen gewohnten Platz ein. Am Morgen des fünften Tages, als er zum Frühstück gerufen wurde, antwortete er nur mit einem gebrochenen Murmeln, das seine Entschlossenheit ausdrückte, sein Bett nicht zu verlassen. Seine Schwester unternahm keinen Versuch, seinen Entschluss zu ändern. Tatsächlich hätte Hepzibah, so sehr sie ihn auch liebte, das elende Pflicht, die für einen noch empfindlichen, aber zerstörten Geist kritisch und anspruchsvoll ist, ohne Kraft oder Willen Unterhaltung zu suchen, kaum länger ertragen können. Zumindest war es heute etwas weniger als ein absoluter Verzweiflung, dass sie alleine zittern und nicht ständig bei jedem unbeständigen Seufzer ihres Leidensgenossen unter einer neuen Trauer und unvernünftigen Gewissensbisse leiden musste. Clifford schien es jedoch, obwohl er nicht im Erdgeschoss erschien, sich trotz allem um Unterhaltung bemüht zu haben. Im Laufe des Vormittags hörte Hepzibah einen Klang, der (da es keine andere musikalische Einrichtung im Haus der Seven Gables gab) von Alice Pyncheons Cembalo stammen musste. Sie wusste, dass Clifford in seiner Jugend einen kultivierten Musikgeschmack und eine beträchtliche Fähigkeit in ihrer Praxis besessen hatte. Es war jedoch schwer vorstellbar, dass er eine Fertigkeit bewahrte, für die regelmäßige Übung so wesentlich ist, im Umfang der süßen, luftigen, delikaten und doch größtenteils melancholischen Melodie, die nun ihr Ohr erreichte. Auch war es nicht weniger wunderbar, dass das lange Zeit stille Instrument zu so viel Melodie fähig war. Hepzibah dachte unwillkürlich an die geisterhaften Harmonien, die dem Tod in der Familie vorausgingen und der legendären Alice zugeschrieben wurden. Aber es war vielleicht ein Zeichen für das Werk von anderen als geistlichen Fingern, dass die Saiten nach ein paar Berührungen schienen, mit ihren eigenen Schwingungen auseinanderzubrechen, und die Musik aufhörte. Aber ein schrofferer Klang folgte den geheimnisvollen Noten; und der östliche Tag sollte nicht ohne ein Ereignis vergehen, das für Hepzibah und Clifford ausreichte, die mildeste Luft zu vergiften, die jemals die Kolibris mit sich brachte. Die letzten Klänge von Alice Pyncheons Darbietung (oder Clifford's, wenn man es als seine betrachtete) wurden von nichts Geringerem als dem Klingeln der Ladentürklingel vertrieben. Ein Fuß war zu hören, wie er sich auf der Schwelle scharrte und dann etwas schwerfällig auf den Boden trat. Hepzibah zögerte einen Moment, während sie sich in einen verblassten Schal hüllte, der seit vierzig Jahren ihr Schutzpanzer gegen den Ostwind gewesen war. Ein charakteristisches Geräusch jedoch - weder ein Husten noch ein Räuspern, sondern eine Art rollender und widerhallender Krampf in der tiefen Brust einer Person - veranlasste sie, mit jenem Ausdruck wilder Furchtsamkeit voranzueilen, der Frauen in Fällen gefährlicher Notlage so oft gemeinsam ist. Nur wenige Frauen haben zu solchen Gelegenheiten jemals so schrecklich ausgesehen wie unsere arme finster blickende Hepzibah. Aber der Besucher schloss ruhig die Ladentür hinter sich, stellte seinen Regenschirm an den Ladentisch und wandte sein Antlitz von ruhiger Güte ab, um auf die Alarmierung und den Ärger zu reagieren, die sein Erscheinen hervorgerufen hatten. Hepzibahs Vorahnung hatte sie nicht getäuscht. Es war niemand anderes als Richter Pyncheon, der nach erfolglosem Versuch, die Haustür zu öffnen, nun seinen Eintritt in das Geschäft geschafft hatte. "Wie geht es Ihnen, Cousine Hepzibah? Und wie beeinflusst dieses unwirtlichste Wetter unseren armen Clifford?" begann der Richter; und es schien wahrhaftig erstaunlich, dass der Oststurm sich nicht vor Scham versteckte oder zumindest ein wenig besänftigt wurde, durch die herzliche Güte seines Lächelns. "Ich konnte es nicht lassen, ohne zu fragen, ob ich auf irgendeine Weise seinen Komfort oder Ihren eigenen fördern kann." "Sie können nichts tun", sagte Hepzibah und versuchte, ihre Aufregung so "Cousine Hepzibah," sagte der Richter mit einer beeindruckenden Ernsthaftigkeit seiner Art, die sich sogar in tränenreichem Pathos steigerte, als er fortfuhr: "Kannst du wirklich nicht erkennen, wie ungerecht, wie unliebenswürdig, wie unchristlich diese ständige, lang anhaltende Bitterkeit gegen mich ist, für eine Rolle, die ich aufgrund meiner Pflicht und meines Gewissens, aufgrund der Kraft des Gesetzes und auf eigene Gefahr spielen musste? Was habe ich zu Lasten von Clifford getan, was möglich gewesen wäre, nicht zu tun? Wie hättest du, seine Schwester, - wenn du, genauso wie ich, unendlichen Kummer gehabt hättest - mehr Zärtlichkeit zeigen können? Und glaubst du, Cousine, dass es mir keine Qual bereitet hat? - Dass es in meinem Inneren keinen Schmerz hinterlassen hat, von jenem Tag bis heute, trotz all des Wohlstands, mit dem der Himmel mich gesegnet hat? - Oder dass ich mich jetzt nicht freue, wenn es als vereinbar mit den Forderungen der öffentlichen Gerechtigkeit und des Wohlergehens der Gesellschaft betrachtet wird, diesem lieben Verwandten, diesem alten Freund, dieser von Natur aus so fein und schön veranlagten Natur, - so unglücklich, sagen wir, und wir wollen das Wort "schuldig" vermeiden, - dass unser eigener Clifford letztendlich ins Leben zurückgebracht wird und all seine Möglichkeiten des Genusses? Ah, du kennst mich nicht, Cousine Hepzibah! Du kennst dieses Herz nicht! Es schlägt nun bei dem Gedanken daran, ihn zu treffen! Niemand auf dieser Welt (außer dir selbst - und du nicht mehr als ich) hat so viele Tränen für Cliffords Unglück vergossen. Du siehst jetzt einige davon. Niemand würde sich so darüber freuen, sein Glück zu fördern! Versuche es mit mir, Hepzibah! - Nimm es mit mir auf, Cousine! - Nimm es mit dem Mann auf, den du wie deinen Feind und Cliffords behandelt hast! - Nimm es mit Jaffrey Pyncheon auf, und du wirst ihn als wahrhaftig bis ins Innerste finden!" "Im Namen des Himmels", rief Hepzibah, die nur noch wütender wurde angesichts dieser überströmenden unschätzbaren Zärtlichkeit einer strengen Natur, "im Namen Gottes, den du beleidigst und dessen Kraft ich fast anzweifeln könnte, da er dich so viele falsche Worte aussprechen lässt, ohne deine Zunge zu lähmen, - gebe auf, ich flehe dich an, dieses abscheuliche Vortäuschen von Zuneigung für dein Opfer! Du hasst ihn! Sag es, wie ein Mann! Du hegst in diesem Moment irgendeinen schwarzen Plan gegen ihn in deinem Herzen! Rede es gleich aus! - oder wenn du hoffst, ihn besser fördern zu können, verstecke es, bis du in seinem Erfolg triumphieren kannst! Aber sprich nie wieder von deiner Liebe zu meinem armen Bruder! Ich kann es nicht ertragen! Es wird mich über die Anständigkeit einer Frau hinaustreiben! Es wird mich wahnsinnig machen! Lass es sein! Kein weiteres Wort! Es wird mich von dir abstossen lassen!" Dieses Mal hatte Hepzibahs Wut ihr Mut gegeben. Sie hatte gesprochen. Aber war dieses unüberwindliche Misstrauen gegenüber Richter Pyncheons Integrität und diese offensichtliche Verweigerung seines Anspruchs, zu den Gefühlen der Menschheit zu gehören, auf einer gerechten Wahrnehmung seines Charakters begründet oder lediglich das Ergebnis einer unvernünftigen Vorurteil einer Frau, das aus dem Nichts abgeleitet war? Der Richter war zweifellos ein Mann von hohem Ansehen. Die Kirche gab es zu, der Staat gab es zu. Niemand leugnete es. In dem sehr großen Bereich derjenigen, die ihn kannten, ob in öffentlichen oder privaten Funktionen, gab es nicht eine Person - außer Hepzibah und einigen Gesetzlosen wie dem Daguerreotypenfotografen und möglicherweise einigen politischen Gegnern -, die ernsthaft seinen Anspruch auf einen hohen und ehrenvollen Platz in der Welt bezweifelt hätten. Noch mehr, wir müssen ihm weiter gerecht werden und sagen, dass Richter Pyncheon selbst wahrscheinlich nur selten oder sehr oft daran zweifelte, dass sein beneidenswertes Ansehen mit seiner Leistung übereinstimmte. Sein Gewissen, das normalerweise als sicherster Zeuge für die Integrität eines Menschen gilt - sein Gewissen, es sei denn vielleicht für die kleine Zeitspanne von fünf Minuten an einem Tag oder gelegentlich an einem schwarzen Tag im ganzen Jahreskreis - sein Gewissen stimmte mit der lobenden Stimme der Welt überein. Und doch, so stark diese Beweise auch erscheinen mögen, sollten wir es zögern, unser eigenes Gewissen auf die Behauptung zu setzen, dass der Richter und die zustimmende Welt recht hatten und dass die arme Hepzibah mit ihrem einsamen Vorurteil unrecht hatte. Verborgen vor der Menschheit - von ihm selbst vergessen oder so tief unter einem verzierten Haufen von prahlerischen Taten vergraben, dass sein tägliches Leben keine Notiz davon nehmen konnte - könnte sich etwas Böses und Hässliches verborgen haben. Ja, wir könnten fast behaupten, dass eine tägliche Schuld von ihm begangen wurde, fortwährend erneuert und frisch aufleuchtend wie der wundersame Blutspritzer eines Mordes, ohne dass er es notwendigerweise und jederzeit wahrnehmen würde. Männer mit starkem Verstand, großer Charakterstärke und einer harten Empfindungsfähigkeit sind sehr fähig, in solche Irrtümer zu verfallen. Sie sind gewöhnlich Männer, für die Formen von vorrangiger Bedeutung sind. Ihr Aktionsfeld liegt in den äußeren Erscheinungen des Lebens. Sie besitzen ein großes Vermögen darin, die großen, schweren, soliden Unwirklichkeiten wie Gold, Grundbesitz, Ämter des Vertrauens und des Einkommens und öffentliche Ehren für sich zu ergreifen, zu organisieren und zu beanspruchen. Mit diesen Materialien und mit in den Augen der Öffentlichkeit ansehnlichen Taten baut ein Individuum dieser Klasse sozusagen ein hohes und stattliches Gebäude, das in den Augen anderer Menschen und letztendlich in seiner eigenen Sicht nichts anderes ist als der Charakter des Mannes oder der Mann selbst. Seht, also ein Palast! Seine prächtigen Hallen und Suiten von geräumigen Zimmern sind mit einem Mosaik aus kostbaren Marmoren ausgelegt; seine Fenster, die die gesamte Höhe jedes Raums einnehmen, lassen das Sonnenlicht durch das transparenteste Plattenglas herein; seine hohen Gesimse sind vergoldet und seine Decken prächtig bemalt; und eine hohe Kuppel - durch die man von der zentralen Plattform aus zum Himmel hinaufschauen kann, als gäbe es kein behinderndes Medium dazwischen - krönt das Ganze. Mit welchem schöneren und edleren Symbol könnte ein Mann seinen Charakter abbilden? Ah! Aber in irgendeinem niedrigen und dunklen Winkel - irgendeinem engen Schrank im Erdgeschoss, der verschlossen ist, mit einem Riegel gesichert und der Schlüssel weggeworfen ist - oder unter dem Marmorboden, in einer stehenden Wasserlache, mit dem reichsten Mosaikmuster oben darauf - kann eine halb verfallene und immer noch verfallende Leiche liegen, die einen Leichengeruch im ganzen Palast verbreitet! Der Bewohner wird sich dessen nicht bewusst sein, denn es ist seit langem sein täglicher Atem! Auch die Besucher werden es nicht bemerken, denn sie riechen nur die starken Gerüche, die der Hausherr sorgfältig im Palast verstreut, und das Weihrauch, das sie mitbringen und gerne vor ihm verbrennen! Jetzt und dann kommt vielleicht ein Seher herein, vor dessen traurig begabtem Auge die gesamte Struktur in Luft zerfällt und nur noch der versteckte Winkel, der verriegelte Schrank mit den Spinnweben über der vergessenen Tür oder das tödliche Loch unter dem Bodenbelag und die verfallende Leiche darin übrig bleiben. Hier also sollen wir das wahre Symbol für den Charakter des Menschen suchen und für die Tat, die seiner Existenz irgendeine Realität Um diesen Gedankengang etwas genauer auf Richter Pyncheon anzuwenden, könnten wir sagen (ohne jemandem von seiner hohen Achtbarkeit Verbrechen zu unterstellen), dass sein Leben genug prachtvolle Abfälle enthielt, um ein aktiveres und subtileres Gewissen als das des Richters zu überdecken und zu lähmen. Die Reinheit seines Richtercharakters auf der Richterbank, die Treue seines öffentlichen Dienstes in späteren Positionen, seine Hingabe an seine Partei und die rigide Konsequenz, mit der er sich an ihre Prinzipien gehalten hatte oder zumindest mit ihren organisierten Bewegungen Schritt hielt, sein bemerkenswerter Eifer als Präsident einer Bibelgesellschaft, seine untadelige Integrität als Schatzmeister eines Witwen- und Waisenfonds, seine Verdienste in der Gartenbaukunst durch die Produktion zweier hochgeschätzter Birnensorten und in der Landwirtschaft durch den berühmten Pyncheon-Bullen, die Sauberkeit seines moralischen Verhaltens in den letzten vielen Jahren, die Strenge, mit der er einen teuren und ausschweifenden Sohn misbilligt und schließlich verstoßen hat und Vergebung erst in der letzten Viertelstunde des jungen Mannes Lebenszeit gewährt hat, seine Gebete am Morgen und Abend und die Anmut beim Essen, seine Anstrengungen zur Förderung der Abstinenzbewegung, seine Beschränkung seit dem letzten Gichtanfall auf fünf tägliche Gläser alten Sherry, die Schneeweiße seiner Wäsche, der Glanz seiner Stiefel, die Schönheit seines goldgekrönten Stocks, der quadratische und geräumige Schnitt seines Mantels und die Feinheit seines Materials, und allgemein die gewissenhafte Passform seiner Kleidung und Ausstattung, die Gewissenhaftigkeit, mit der er der Öffentlichkeit auf der Straße durch eine Verbeugung, das Abnehmen des Huts, ein Nicken oder eine Handbewegung notice gezollt hat, je bdem und jedem seiner Bekannten, ob reich oder arm, das Lächeln der großen Güte, mit dem er die ganze Welt zu erfreuen versucht – wie sollte in einem Porträt, das aus solchen Gesichtszügen besteht, Platz für dunklere Eigenschaften sein? Dieses rechte Gesicht war es, was er im Spiegel sah. Dieses bewundernswert geordnete Leben war es, was er im Verlauf jeden Tages gewahr wurde. Könnte er dann nicht behaupten, dass er das Ergebnis und die Summe davon sei, und zu sich selbst und der Gemeinschaft sagen: "Seht hin, da steht Richter Pyncheon"? Selbst wenn wir zulassen, dass er vor vielen, vielen Jahren in seiner frühen und rücksichtslosen Jugend eine falsche Tat begangen hat – oder dass auch jetzt noch, aufgrund der unvermeidlichen Umstände, gelegentlich eine fragwürdige Handlung unter tausend lobenswerten oder zumindest tadellosen vollzogen wird – würden Sie den Richter anhand dieser einen notwendigen Tat und dieser halb vergessenen Handlung charakterisieren und das schöne Bild eines Lebens überschatten lassen? Was ist so schwerwiegend am Bösen, dass ein daumenbreites Stück davon das Ausmaß der nicht bösen Dinge überwiegen sollte, die auf die andere Waagschale gelegt sind? Dieses Waagen- und Balancesystem ist bei Menschen von Richter Pyncheons Brüderschaft beliebt. Ein harter, kalter Mann, der bedauerlicherweise selten oder nie in sich selbst schaut und resolut seine Vorstellung von sich selbst aus dem ableitet, was angeblich sein Spiegelbild in der öffentlichen Meinung ist, kann nur durch den Verlust von Besitz und Ruf wahre Selbsterkenntnis erlangen. Krankheit wird ihm dabei nicht immer helfen, auch nicht die Stunde des Todes! Aber unsere Angelegenheit betrifft jetzt Richter Pyncheon, wie er dem heftigen Ausbruch von Hepzibahs Zorn gegenüberstand. Ohne Vorausplanung, zu ihrer eigenen Überraschung und sogar ihrem Schrecken hatte sie zum ersten Mal ihrer langjährigen Verbitterung gegenüber diesem Verwandten Luft gemacht. Bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt hatte das Gesicht des Richters milde Nachsicht ausgedrückt – ernsthafte und fast sanfte Missbilligung von Hepzibahs unangemessener Gewalt – freie und christliche Vergebung für das Unrecht, das ihre Worte verursacht hatten. Aber als diese Worte unwiderruflich ausgesprochen waren, nahm sein Blick Ernsthaftigkeit, das Gefühl von Macht und unverbrüchlichem Entschluss an, und das auf so natürliche und unmerkliche Weise, dass es schien, als hätte der eiserne Mann von Anfang an dort gestanden und der sanfte Mann überhaupt nicht. Der Effekt war vergleichbar mit dem Verschwinden der leichten, dampfigen Wolken mit ihren sanften Farben von der steinigen Stirn eines steilen Berges und hinterließ dort das Stirnrunzeln, das du sofort als ewig empfinden kannst. Hepzibah war fast der irrsinnigen Meinung verfallen, dass es ihr alter puritanischer Vorfahre und nicht der moderne Richter war, an dem sie gerade die Bitterkeit ihres Herzens ausgelassen hatte. Nie hat ein Mann stärkere Beweise für die ihm zugeschriebene Abkunft geliefert als Richter Pyncheon in dieser Krise durch seine unverkennbare Ähnlichkeit mit dem Bild im inneren Raum. "Cousine Hepzibah", sagte er sehr ruhig, "es ist an der Zeit, damit aufzuhören." "Von ganzem Herzen gerne!", antwortete sie. "Warum verfolgen Sie uns dann weiter? Lassen Sie den armen Clifford und mich in Frieden. Wir wünschen uns nichts Besseres!" "Es ist mein Vorhaben, Clifford zu sehen, bevor ich dieses Haus verlasse", fuhr der Richter fort. "Benimm dich nicht wie eine Verrückte, Hepzibah! Ich bin sein einziger Freund, und ein allmächtiger dazu. Ist es dir nie in den Sinn gekommen – bist du so blind, dass du es nicht gesehen hast – dass ohne nicht nur meine Zustimmung, sondern auch meine Bemühungen, meine Darstellungen, die Ausschöpfung meines gesamten Einflusses, politischen, amtlichen und persönlichen, Clifford niemals das erreicht hätte, was du als Freiheit bezeichnest? Hast du gedacht, sein Freispruch sei ein Triumph über mich? Nein, meine liebe Cousine; keineswegs! Ganz im Gegenteil! Nein, es war die Verwirklichung eines von mir lange hegen Zwecks. Ich habe ihn freigelassen!" "Sie!" antwortete Hepzibah. "Ich werde es niemals glauben! Er hatte sein Gefängnis Ihnen zu verdanken, seine Freiheit der Vorsehung Gottes!" "Ich habe ihn freigelassen!", bekräftigte Richter Pyncheon mit ruhigster Gelassenheit. "Und ich bin jetzt hierher gekommen, um zu entscheiden, ob er seine Freiheit behalten darf. Das wird von ihm abhängen. Dazu muss ich ihn sehen." "Niemals! Das würde ihn in den Wahnsinn treiben!", rief Hepzibah aus, allerdings mit einer deutlich wahrnehmbaren Unentschlossenheit, die dem scharfen Auge des Richters nicht entging; denn ohne den geringsten Glauben an seine guten Absichten wusste sie nicht, ob mehr in nachgeben oder widerstehen zu fürchten war. "Und warum sollten Sie diesen elenden, gebrochenen Mann sehen wollen, der kaum noch einen Funken Verstand besitzt und selbst den vor einem Auge verbergen würde, das keine Liebe in sich trägt?" "Er wird genug Liebe in meinen sehen, wenn das alles ist!", sagte der Richter mit gut gegründetem Vertrauen in die Freundlichkeit seines Aussehens. "Aber Cousine Hepzibah, du gestehst viel ein und das ohne Umschweife. Nun, höre zu, und ich werde meine Gründe für dieses Treffen offen erklären. Bei Jaffreys Tod vor dreißig Jahren wurde festgestellt - ich weiß nicht "Gewiss nicht, mein lieber Cousin!", antwortete der Richter mit einem wohlwollenden Lächeln. "Im Gegenteil, wie du mir gerecht einräumen musst, habe ich stets meine Bereitschaft ausgedrückt, deine Ressourcen zu verdoppeln oder zu verdreifachen, sobald du dich dazu entschließt, irgendeine Art von Freundlichkeit von deinem Verwandten anzunehmen. Nein, nein! Aber hier liegt der Kern der Sache. Von dem zweifellos großen Vermögen meines Onkels, wie ich bereits sagte, war nach seinem Tod nicht die Hälfte - nein, nicht ein Drittel, da bin ich mir vollkommen sicher - zu erkennen. Nun, ich habe bestmögliche Gründe zu der Annahme, dass dein Bruder Clifford mir einen Hinweis auf die Wiedererlangung des Restes geben kann." "Clifford?! Clifford soll von verstecktem Reichtum wissen? Clifford hat die Macht, dich reich zu machen?", rief die alte Dame aus und empfand dabei eine Art von Lächerlichkeit für diese Idee. "Unmöglich! Du täuschst dich! Das ist wirklich zum Lachen!" "Es ist genauso sicher wie mein Hierstehen!", sagte Richter Pyncheon und schlug seinen mit Gold verzierten Stock auf den Boden und stampfte gleichzeitig mit dem Fuß, als ob er seine Überzeugung durch die ganze Betonung seiner stattlichen Person noch kraftvoller ausdrücken wollte. "Clifford hat es mir selbst gesagt!" "Nein, nein!", rief Hepzibah ungläubig aus. "Du träumst, Cousin Jaffrey." "Ich gehöre nicht zur Träumerklasse von Männern", sagte der Richter ruhig. "Einige Monate vor dem Tod meines Onkels hat Clifford damit geprahlt, das Geheimnis von unermesslichem Reichtum zu besitzen. Er wollte mich damit reizen und meine Neugier wecken. Ich weiß das sehr wohl. Aber aufgrund einer recht klaren Erinnerung an die Einzelheiten unseres Gesprächs bin ich fest davon überzeugt, dass an dem, was er sagte, Wahrheit war. Clifford kann mir in diesem Moment, wenn er will - und das muss er! - sagen, wo sich der Plan, die Dokumente, die Beweise, in welcher Form auch immer, des enormen Betrags des verschwundenen Besitzes von Onkel Jaffrey befinden. Er hat das Geheimnis. Seine Prahlerei war kein leeres Wort. Sie hatte eine Direktheit, eine Nachdrücklichkeit, eine Genauigkeit, die einen soliden Bedeutungsgehalt inmitten des Mysteriums seiner Aussage zeigte." "Aber was könnte Cliffords Absicht gewesen sein", fragte Hepzibah, "es so lange zu verheimlichen?" "Das war eine der schlechten Einflüsse unserer gefallenen Natur", antwortete der Richter und hob die Augen gen Himmel. "Er betrachtete mich als seinen Feind. Er sah mich als den Grund für seine überwältigende Schande, sein bevorstehendes Todesurteil, seinen unwiderruflichen Ruin an. Es gab also keine große Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass er freiwillig Informationen herausgeben würde, die mich noch weiter auf der Leiter des Wohlstands emporgeschwindet hätten. Aber der Moment ist gekommen, an dem er sein Geheimnis preisgeben muss." "Und was, wenn er sich weigern sollte?", erkundigte sich Hepzibah. "Oder - wie ich fest glaube - was, wenn er nichts von diesem Reichtum weiß?" "Liebe Cousine", sagte Richter Pyncheon mit einer Ruhe, die er dazu hatte, noch eindrucksvoller zu wirken als jegliche Gewalt, wenn er etwas so vollkommen Absurdes wie das oben Gesagte in einer Diskussion über geschäftliche Angelegenheiten hörte, "seit der Rückkehr deines Bruders habe ich die Vorsichtsmaßnahme getroffen (eine äußerst angemessene, wenn nahe Verwandte und natürliche Vormünder für eine Person in einer solchen Situation), sein Benehmen und seine Gewohnheiten ständig und sorgfältig zu überwachen. Deine Nachbarn waren Augenzeugen von allem, was im Garten passiert ist. Der Metzger, der Bäcker, der Fischhändler, einige Kunden deines Ladens und so manche neugierige alte Frau haben mir einige Geheimnisse deines Inneren verraten. Ein noch größerer Kreis - ich selbst eingeschlossen - kann von seinen Überspanntheiten am Bogenfenster berichten. Tausende Zeugen haben ihn vor ein oder zwei Wochen beobachtet, wie er kurz davor war, sich von dort auf die Straße zu stürzen. Basierend auf all diesen Zeugnissen befürchte ich - wenn auch widerwillig und mit tiefer Trauer -, dass Clifford's Unglücke seinen Verstand, der ohnehin nicht sehr stark war, so sehr beeinträchtigt haben, dass er sich nicht sicher in Freiheit bewegen kann. Die Alternative, das muss dir bewusst sein - und ihre Anwendung wird vollständig von der Entscheidung abhängen, die ich jetzt treffen werde -, ist seine Einweisung, wahrscheinlich für den Rest seines Lebens, in ein öffentliches Anstalt für Menschen in seinem bedauernswerten geistigen Zustand." "Das darf nicht wahr sein!", schrie Hepzibah. "Sollte mein Cousin Clifford", fuhr Richter Pyncheon völlig ungerührt fort, "aus reiner Bosheit und aus Hass gegen jemanden, dessen Interessen ihm naturgemäß lieb sein sollten - eine Leidenschaft, die so oft wie jede andere geistige Krankheit darauf hindeutet -, mir die für mich so wichtigen Informationen verweigern, die er zweifellos besitzt, werde ich das als das einzige benötigte Stück - ein Jota - an Beweis betrachten, um meinen Verstand von seiner geistigen Umnachtung zu überzeugen. Und wenn mein Gewissen einen Weg zeigt, kannst du, Cousine Hepzibah, keinen Zweifel daran hegen, dass ich ihn verfolgen werde." "Oh Jaffrey - Cousin Jaffrey", rief Hepzibah traurig, nicht leidenschaftlich, "du bist es, der geistig krank ist, nicht Clifford! Du hast vergessen, dass eine Frau deine Mutter war! Dass du Schwestern und Brüder hattest, Kinder von dir selbst! Oder dass es jemals Zuneigung zwischen Menschen gab oder Mitleid von einem Menschen zum anderen in dieser elendigen Welt! Sonst, wie könntest du so etwas träumen? Du bist nicht jung, Cousin Jaffrey! Nein, nicht einmal mittleren Alters - sondern bereits ein alter Mann! Dein Haar ist weiß auf deinem Kopf! Wie viele Jahre hast du noch zu leben? Bist du nicht reich genug für diese kurze Zeit? Wirst du hungrig sein, wirst du Kleidung oder ein Dach über dem Kopf brauchen, zwischen diesem Punkt und dem Grab? Nein! Aber mit der Hälfte von dem, was du jetzt besitzt, könntest du dich mit kostbarem Essen und Wein verwöhnen und ein Haus bauen, das doppelt so prachtvoll ist wie das, in dem du jetzt wohnst, und der Welt ein noch größeres Schauspiel bieten - und dennoch Reichtum für deinen einzigen Sohn hinterlassen, damit er die Stunde deines Todes segnen kann! Warum also solltest du diese grausame, grausame Tat vollbringen? - So verrückte Tat, dass ich nicht weiß, ob ich sie böse nennen soll! Ach Cousin Jaffrey, dieser hartherzige und raffgierige Geist läuft seit zweihundert Jahren in unserem Blut. Du tust nur in anderer Gestalt das, was dein Vorfahre vor dir getan hat, und gibst deinen Nachkommen den von ihm geerbten Fluch weiter!" "Sag doch etwas Vernünftiges, Hepzibah, um Himmels willen!", rief der Richter mit der Ungeduld, die einem vernünftigen Mann naturgemäß bei etwas so völlig Absurden, wie dem Obengenannten in einer geschäftlichen Diskussion, widerfuhr. "Ich habe dir meine Entschlossenheit mitgeteilt. Ich neige nicht dazu, meine Meinung zu ändern. Clifford muss sein Geheimnis preisgeben oder die Konsequenzen tragen. Und lass ihn schnell entscheiden; denn ich habe heute Morgen noch einige Angelegenheiten zu erledigen The Judge followed his cousin from the shop, where the foregoing conversation had passed, into the parlor, and flung himself heavily into the great ancestral chair. Many a former Pyncheon had found repose in its capacious arms: rosy children, after their sports; young men, dreamy with love; grown men, weary with cares; old men, burdened with winters,--they had mused, and slumbered, and departed to a yet profounder sleep. It had been a long tradition, though a doubtful one, that this was the very chair, seated in which the earliest of the Judge's New England forefathers--he whose picture still hung upon the wall--had given a dead man's silent and stern reception to the throng of distinguished guests. From that hour of evil omen until the present, it may be,--though we know not the secret of his heart,--but it may be that no wearier and sadder man had ever sunk into the chair than this same Judge Pyncheon, whom we have just beheld so immitigably hard and resolute. Surely, it must have been at no slight cost that he had thus fortified his soul with iron. Such calmness is a mightier effort than the violence of weaker men. And there was yet a heavy task for him to do. Was it a little matter--a trifle to be prepared for in a single moment, and to be rested from in another moment,--that he must now, after thirty years, encounter a kinsman risen from a living tomb, and wrench a secret from him, or else consign him to a living tomb again? "Did you speak?" asked Hepzibah, looking in from the threshold of the parlor; for she imagined that the Judge had uttered some sound which she was anxious to interpret as a relenting impulse. "I thought you called me back." "No, no" gruffly answered Judge Pyncheon with a harsh frown, while his brow grew almost a black purple, in the shadow of the room. "Why should I call you back? Time flies! Bid Clifford come to me!" The Judge had taken his watch from his vest pocket and now held it in his hand, measuring the interval which was to ensue before the appearance of Clifford. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Das Schmollen und Lächeln Das Haus der sieben Giebel wird zu einem trostlosen Ort, nachdem Phoebe gegangen ist; dies wird durch das Eintreffen eines Sturms, der mehrere Tage lang anhält, noch verstärkt. Clifford wird immer düsterer und weigert sich schließlich, aus dem Bett zu steigen. Hepzibah fühlt sich hilflos und weiß nicht, wie sie ihrem Bruder helfen soll. An diesem Tag läutet die Ladenglocke. Richter Pyncheon ist gekommen, um seinen beiden Cousins erneut einen Besuch abzustatten. Hepzibah reagiert wie zuvor auf den Richter, mit einer Wut, die an Hass grenzt, und verlangt zu wissen, warum der Richter sie weiterhin belästigt. Der Richter appelliert zuerst an ihre emotionale Seite und hält eine lange und tränenreiche Rede über seine eigene Liebe zu ihr und Clifford und informiert Hepzibah darüber, dass er nur aus reiner Güte seinen Cousins helfen möchte. Wir erfahren, dass der Richter allgemein als weiser und gütiger Mann angesehen wird und dass er selbst so von seiner gesellschaftlichen Stellung eingenommen ist, dass er glaubt, keinen Makel auf seinem Gewissen zu haben. Seine eine oder zwei grobe Taten, denkt der Richter, sind ein notwendiges Übel, das durch seine verschiedenen frommen Tätigkeiten ausgeglichen wird - darunter seine Arbeit in einer Bibelgruppe und seine Führung einer Abstinenzbewegung, die zur Förderung der Nüchternheit dient. Hepzibah lässt sich nicht von den freundlichen Worten des Richters täuschen und weigert sich weiterhin, Clifford herbeizurufen. Der Richter wird daraufhin wütend. Der Erzähler unternimmt eine ausführliche und beschreibende Untersuchung der Theorie, dass der Richter ein schreckliches Geheimnis hütet. Der Erzähler legt nahe, dass der Richter trotz seines gesunden und angenehmen Äußeren möglicherweise von einer schrecklichen, verborgenen Wahrheit korrumpiert worden ist, die jeden Teil von ihm wie eine in einer Ecke eines riesigen, schönen Palastes verrottende Leiche infiziert hat. Der aufgebrachte Richter sagt Hepzibah, dass er unbedingt mit Clifford sprechen muss, weil dieser ihm kurz vor seiner Inhaftierung von Dokumenten erzählt hat, die den Verbleib eines großen Teils des Erbes ihres Onkels Jaffrey enthüllen. Der Richter möchte unbedingt dieses Beweisstück haben und wird vor nichts zurückschrecken, um es zu bekommen. Hepzibah weigert sich zu glauben, dass ihr Bruder wirklich über dieses Wissen verfügen könnte, aber der Richter besteht weiterhin darauf, dass sie Clifford holen soll, damit er mit ihm reden kann. Schließlich droht der Richter, Clifford in eine Anstalt einsperren zu lassen, wenn er das Geheimnis nicht preisgibt. Hepzibah glaubt, dass ein Gespräch mit dem Richter Clifford zerstören wird, aber diese Drohung lässt ihr keine Wahl mehr. Sie geht nach oben, um Clifford zu holen, während der Richter unten wartet.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: In great families, when an advantageous place cannot be obtained, either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took counsel together on the expediency of shipping off Oliver Twist, in some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port. This suggested itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would knock his brains out with an iron bar; both pastimes being, as is pretty generally known, very favourite and common recreations among gentleman of that class. The more the case presented itself to the board, in this point of view, the more manifold the advantages of the step appeared; so, they came to the conclusion that the only way of providing for Oliver effectually, was to send him to sea without delay. Mr. Bumble had been despatched to make various preliminary inquiries, with the view of finding out some captain or other who wanted a cabin-boy without any friends; and was returning to the workhouse to communicate the result of his mission; when he encountered at the gate, no less a person than Mr. Sowerberry, the parochial undertaker. Mr. Sowerberry was a tall gaunt, large-jointed man, attired in a suit of threadbare black, with darned cotton stockings of the same colour, and shoes to answer. His features were not naturally intended to wear a smiling aspect, but he was in general rather given to professional jocosity. His step was elastic, and his face betokened inward pleasantry, as he advanced to Mr. Bumble, and shook him cordially by the hand. 'I have taken the measure of the two women that died last night, Mr. Bumble,' said the undertaker. 'You'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' said the beadle, as he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the undertaker: which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin. 'I say you'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' repeated Mr. Bumble, tapping the undertaker on the shoulder, in a friendly manner, with his cane. 'Think so?' said the undertaker in a tone which half admitted and half disputed the probability of the event. 'The prices allowed by the board are very small, Mr. Bumble.' 'So are the coffins,' replied the beadle: with precisely as near an approach to a laugh as a great official ought to indulge in. Mr. Sowerberry was much tickled at this: as of course he ought to be; and laughed a long time without cessation. 'Well, well, Mr. Bumble,' he said at length, 'there's no denying that, since the new system of feeding has come in, the coffins are something narrower and more shallow than they used to be; but we must have some profit, Mr. Bumble. Well-seasoned timber is an expensive article, sir; and all the iron handles come, by canal, from Birmingham.' 'Well, well,' said Mr. Bumble, 'every trade has its drawbacks. A fair profit is, of course, allowable.' 'Of course, of course,' replied the undertaker; 'and if I don't get a profit upon this or that particular article, why, I make it up in the long-run, you see--he! he! he!' 'Just so,' said Mr. Bumble. 'Though I must say,' continued the undertaker, resuming the current of observations which the beadle had interrupted: 'though I must say, Mr. Bumble, that I have to contend against one very great disadvantage: which is, that all the stout people go off the quickest. The people who have been better off, and have paid rates for many years, are the first to sink when they come into the house; and let me tell you, Mr. Bumble, that three or four inches over one's calculation makes a great hole in one's profits: especially when one has a family to provide for, sir.' As Mr. Sowerberry said this, with the becoming indignation of an ill-used man; and as Mr. Bumble felt that it rather tended to convey a reflection on the honour of the parish; the latter gentleman thought it advisable to change the subject. Oliver Twist being uppermost in his mind, he made him his theme. 'By the bye,' said Mr. Bumble, 'you don't know anybody who wants a boy, do you? A porochial 'prentis, who is at present a dead-weight; a millstone, as I may say, round the porochial throat? Liberal terms, Mr. Sowerberry, liberal terms?' As Mr. Bumble spoke, he raised his cane to the bill above him, and gave three distinct raps upon the words 'five pounds': which were printed thereon in Roman capitals of gigantic size. 'Gadso!' said the undertaker: taking Mr. Bumble by the gilt-edged lappel of his official coat; 'that's just the very thing I wanted to speak to you about. You know--dear me, what a very elegant button this is, Mr. Bumble! I never noticed it before.' 'Yes, I think it rather pretty,' said the beadle, glancing proudly downwards at the large brass buttons which embellished his coat. 'The die is the same as the porochial seal--the Good Samaritan healing the sick and bruised man. The board presented it to me on Newyear's morning, Mr. Sowerberry. I put it on, I remember, for the first time, to attend the inquest on that reduced tradesman, who died in a doorway at midnight.' 'I recollect,' said the undertaker. 'The jury brought it in, "Died from exposure to the cold, and want of the common necessaries of life," didn't they?' Mr. Bumble nodded. 'And they made it a special verdict, I think,' said the undertaker, 'by adding some words to the effect, that if the relieving officer had--' 'Tush! Foolery!' interposed the beadle. 'If the board attended to all the nonsense that ignorant jurymen talk, they'd have enough to do.' 'Very true,' said the undertaker; 'they would indeed.' 'Juries,' said Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane tightly, as was his wont when working into a passion: 'juries is ineddicated, vulgar, grovelling wretches.' 'So they are,' said the undertaker. 'They haven't no more philosophy nor political economy about 'em than that,' said the beadle, snapping his fingers contemptuously. 'No more they have,' acquiesced the undertaker. 'I despise 'em,' said the beadle, growing very red in the face. 'So do I,' rejoined the undertaker. 'And I only wish we'd a jury of the independent sort, in the house for a week or two,' said the beadle; 'the rules and regulations of the board would soon bring their spirit down for 'em.' 'Let 'em alone for that,' replied the undertaker. So saying, he smiled, approvingly: to calm the rising wrath of the indignant parish officer. Mr Bumble lifted off his cocked hat; took a handkerchief from the inside of the crown; wiped from his forehead the perspiration which his rage had engendered; fixed the cocked hat on again; and, turning to the undertaker, said in a calmer voice: 'Well; what about the boy?' 'Oh!' replied the undertaker; 'why, you know, Mr. Bumble, I pay a good deal towards the poor's rates.' 'Hem!' said Mr. Bumble. 'Well?' 'Well,' replied the undertaker, 'I was thinking that if I pay so much towards 'em, I've a right to get as much out of 'em as I can, Mr. Bumble; and so--I think I'll take the boy myself.' Mr. Bumble grasped the undertaker by the arm, and led him into the building. Mr. Sowerberry was closeted with the board for five minutes; and it was arranged that Oliver should go to him that evening 'upon liking'--a phrase which means, in the case of a parish apprentice, that if the master find, upon a short trial, that he can get enough work out of a boy without putting too much food into him, he shall have him for a term of years, to do what he likes with. When little Oliver was taken before 'the gentlemen' that evening; and informed that he was to go, that night, as general house-lad to a coffin-maker's; and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned, or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion, that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith. Now, although it was very natural that the board, of all people in the world, should feel in a great state of virtuous astonishment and horror at the smallest tokens of want of feeling on the part of anybody, they were rather out, in this particular instance. The simple fact was, that Oliver, instead of possessing too little feeling, possessed rather too much; and was in a fair way of being reduced, for life, to a state of brutal stupidity and sullenness by the ill usage he had received. He heard the news of his destination, in perfect silence; and, having had his luggage put into his hand--which was not very difficult to carry, inasmuch as it was all comprised within the limits of a brown paper parcel, about half a foot square by three inches deep--he pulled his cap over his eyes; and once more attaching himself to Mr. Bumble's coat cuff, was led away by that dignitary to a new scene of suffering. For some time, Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark; for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should: and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by the skirts of Mr. Bumble's coat as they blew open, and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee-breeches. As they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it expedient to look down, and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage. 'Oliver!' said Mr. Bumble. 'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, in a low, tremulous voice. 'Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir.' Although Oliver did as he was desired, at once; and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and another. The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble's he covered his face with both; and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers. 'Well!' exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity. 'Well! Of _all_ the ungratefullest, and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are the--' 'No, no, sir,' sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; 'no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so--so--' 'So what?' inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement. 'So lonely, sir! So very lonely!' cried the child. 'Everybody hates me. Oh! sir, don't, don't pray be cross to me!' The child beat his hand upon his heart; and looked in his companion's face, with tears of real agony. Mr. Bumble regarded Oliver's piteous and helpless look, with some astonishment, for a few seconds; hemmed three or four times in a husky manner; and after muttering something about 'that troublesome cough,' bade Oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy. Then once more taking his hand, he walked on with him in silence. The undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriate dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered. 'Aha!' said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word; 'is that you, Bumble?' 'No one else, Mr. Sowerberry,' replied the beadle. 'Here! I've brought the boy.' Oliver made a bow. 'Oh! that's the boy, is it?' said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver. 'Mrs. Sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?' Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, then, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance. 'My dear,' said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, 'this is the boy from the workhouse that I told you of.' Oliver bowed again. 'Dear me!' said the undertaker's wife, 'he's very small.' 'Why, he _is_ rather small,' replied Mr. Bumble: looking at Oliver as if it were his fault that he was no bigger; 'he is small. There's no denying it. But he'll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry--he'll grow.' 'Ah! I dare say he will,' replied the lady pettishly, 'on our victuals and our drink. I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they always cost more to keep, than they're worth. However, men always think they know best. There! Get downstairs, little bag o' bones.' With this, the undertaker's wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark: forming the ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated 'kitchen'; wherein sat a slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very much out of repair. 'Here, Charlotte,' said Mr. Sowerberry, who had followed Oliver down, 'give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for Trip. He hasn't come home since the morning, so he may go without 'em. I dare say the boy isn't too dainty to eat 'em--are you, boy?' Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him. I wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall within him; whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron; could have seen Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected. I wish he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which Oliver tore the bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine. There is only one thing I should like better; and that would be to see the Philosopher making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish. 'Well,' said the undertaker's wife, when Oliver had finished his supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful auguries of his future appetite: 'have you done?' There being nothing eatable within his reach, Oliver replied in the affirmative. 'Then come with me,' said Mrs. Sowerberry: taking up a dim and dirty lamp, and leading the way upstairs; 'your bed's under the counter. You don't mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose? But it doesn't much matter whether you do or don't, for you can't sleep anywhere else. Come; don't keep me here all night!' Oliver lingered no longer, but meekly followed his new mistress. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze verfassen?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Der Kirchenvorstand beschließt, Oliver zur See als Kabinenjungen zu schicken; "wahrscheinlich würde der Kapitän ihn entweder in einer spielerischen Stimmung nach dem Abendessen zu Tode prügeln oder ihm mit einem Eisenstab den Schädel einschlagen". Klingt nach einem Spaß. Auf dem Rückweg von der Suche nach möglichen Plätzen für Oliver auf einem Schiff trifft Mr. Bumble auf Mr. Sowerberry, den Bestatter und Sargmacher der Gemeinde. Nach einer kurzen Diskussion darüber, wie es um das Geschäft steht, fragt Mr. Bumble Mr. Sowerberry, ob er jemanden kennt, der eine Waise als Lehrling brauchen könnte. Es stellt sich heraus, dass Mr. Sowerberry selbst einen Lehrling braucht, und er stimmt zu, Oliver abends für einen Probezeitraum mitzunehmen - danach könnte er echte legale Verträge unterzeichnen, wenn er "nach einem kurzen Probelauf feststellen sollte, dass er genug Arbeit aus dem Jungen herausholen kann, ohne ihm zu viel Essen zu geben". Als Oliver erfährt, dass er zu einem Sargmacher geht, akzeptiert er es mit erstaunlich wenig Emotionen, nicht weil er ein "abgehärteter Schurke" ist, wie die Vorstandsmitglieder behaupten, sondern weil er in Gefahr ist, "durch die schlechte Behandlung, die er erfahren hat, in einen Zustand brutaler Dummheit und Verbitterung für das Leben reduziert zu werden". Armer Oliver. Also, als Mr. Bumble Oliver zu Mr. Sowerberry's Haus bringt, fängt Oliver tatsächlich an zu weinen und bevor Mr. Bumble ihn mit seinem Stock schlagen kann, ruft Oliver aus, dass er "einsam" ist, denn "jeder hasst mich, ich habe das Gefühl, als ob ich hier geschnitten worden bin, Sir, und es alles herausblutet" und er schlägt sich aufs Herz. Selbst Mr. Bumble ist nicht so hartherzig, um von einer solchen Szene unberührt zu bleiben, aber anstatt Oliver zu trösten, räuspert er sich und geht weiter. Immerhin schlägt er ihn nicht mit seinem Stock. Mr. Bumble bringt Oliver zum Sowerberry-Haus und nachdem er sich darüber beschwert hat, wie klein Oliver ist, schickt Mrs. Sowerberry Oliver in den Keller, um die Fleischreste zu essen, die der Familienhund abgelehnt hat. Oliver ist hungrig genug, um jedes Krümelchen zu verschlingen. Olivers Einführung in das Sowerberry-Haus und das Sarggeschäft schließt das Kapitel ab, als er zum Schlafen unter einem Tresen in der Werkstatt, umgeben von leeren Särgen, geschickt wird.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: As Adam was going homeward, on Wednesday evening, in the six o'clock sunlight, he saw in the distance the last load of barley winding its way towards the yard-gate of the Hall Farm, and heard the chant of "Harvest Home!" rising and sinking like a wave. Fainter and fainter, and more musical through the growing distance, the falling dying sound still reached him, as he neared the Willow Brook. The low westering sun shone right on the shoulders of the old Binton Hills, turning the unconscious sheep into bright spots of light; shone on the windows of the cottage too, and made them a-flame with a glory beyond that of amber or amethyst. It was enough to make Adam feel that he was in a great temple, and that the distant chant was a sacred song. "It's wonderful," he thought, "how that sound goes to one's heart almost like a funeral bell, for all it tells one o' the joyfullest time o' the year, and the time when men are mostly the thankfullest. I suppose it's a bit hard to us to think anything's over and gone in our lives; and there's a parting at the root of all our joys. It's like what I feel about Dinah. I should never ha' come to know that her love 'ud be the greatest o' blessings to me, if what I counted a blessing hadn't been wrenched and torn away from me, and left me with a greater need, so as I could crave and hunger for a greater and a better comfort." He expected to see Dinah again this evening, and get leave to accompany her as far as Oakbourne; and then he would ask her to fix some time when he might go to Snowfield, and learn whether the last best hope that had been born to him must be resigned like the rest. The work he had to do at home, besides putting on his best clothes, made it seven before he was on his way again to the Hall Farm, and it was questionable whether, with his longest and quickest strides, he should be there in time even for the roast beef, which came after the plum pudding, for Mrs. Poyser's supper would be punctual. Great was the clatter of knives and pewter plates and tin cans when Adam entered the house, but there was no hum of voices to this accompaniment: the eating of excellent roast beef, provided free of expense, was too serious a business to those good farm-labourers to be performed with a divided attention, even if they had had anything to say to each other--which they had not. And Mr. Poyser, at the head of the table, was too busy with his carving to listen to Bartle Massey's or Mr. Craig's ready talk. "Here, Adam," said Mrs. Poyser, who was standing and looking on to see that Molly and Nancy did their duty as waiters, "here's a place kept for you between Mr. Massey and the boys. It's a poor tale you couldn't come to see the pudding when it was whole." Adam looked anxiously round for a fourth woman's figure, but Dinah was not there. He was almost afraid of asking about her; besides, his attention was claimed by greetings, and there remained the hope that Dinah was in the house, though perhaps disinclined to festivities on the eve of her departure. It was a goodly sight--that table, with Martin Poyser's round good-humoured face and large person at the head of it helping his servants to the fragrant roast beef and pleased when the empty plates came again. Martin, though usually blest with a good appetite, really forgot to finish his own beef to-night--it was so pleasant to him to look on in the intervals of carving and see how the others enjoyed their supper; for were they not men who, on all the days of the year except Christmas Day and Sundays, ate their cold dinner, in a makeshift manner, under the hedgerows, and drank their beer out of wooden bottles--with relish certainly, but with their mouths towards the zenith, after a fashion more endurable to ducks than to human bipeds. Martin Poyser had some faint conception of the flavour such men must find in hot roast beef and fresh-drawn ale. He held his head on one side and screwed up his mouth, as he nudged Bartle Massey, and watched half-witted Tom Tholer, otherwise known as "Tom Saft," receiving his second plateful of beef. A grin of delight broke over Tom's face as the plate was set down before him, between his knife and fork, which he held erect, as if they had been sacred tapers. But the delight was too strong to continue smouldering in a grin--it burst out the next instant in a long-drawn "haw, haw!" followed by a sudden collapse into utter gravity, as the knife and fork darted down on the prey. Martin Poyser's large person shook with his silent unctuous laugh. He turned towards Mrs. Poyser to see if she too had been observant of Tom, and the eyes of husband and wife met in a glance of good-natured amusement. "Tom Saft" was a great favourite on the farm, where he played the part of the old jester, and made up for his practical deficiencies by his success in repartee. His hits, I imagine, were those of the flail, which falls quite at random, but nevertheless smashes an insect now and then. They were much quoted at sheep-shearing and haymaking times, but I refrain from recording them here, lest Tom's wit should prove to be like that of many other bygone jesters eminent in their day--rather of a temporary nature, not dealing with the deeper and more lasting relations of things. Tom excepted, Martin Poyser had some pride in his servants and labourers, thinking with satisfaction that they were the best worth their pay of any set on the estate. There was Kester Bale, for example (Beale, probably, if the truth were known, but he was called Bale, and was not conscious of any claim to a fifth letter), the old man with the close leather cap and the network of wrinkles on his sun-browned face. Was there any man in Loamshire who knew better the "natur" of all farming work? He was one of those invaluable labourers who can not only turn their hand to everything, but excel in everything they turn their hand to. It is true Kester's knees were much bent outward by this time, and he walked with a perpetual curtsy, as if he were among the most reverent of men. And so he was; but I am obliged to admit that the object of his reverence was his own skill, towards which he performed some rather affecting acts of worship. He always thatched the ricks--for if anything were his forte more than another, it was thatching--and when the last touch had been put to the last beehive rick, Kester, whose home lay at some distance from the farm, would take a walk to the rick-yard in his best clothes on a Sunday morning and stand in the lane, at a due distance, to contemplate his own thatching, walking about to get each rick from the proper point of view. As he curtsied along, with his eyes upturned to the straw knobs imitative of golden globes at the summits of the beehive ricks, which indeed were gold of the best sort, you might have imagined him to be engaged in some pagan act of adoration. Kester was an old bachelor and reputed to have stockings full of coin, concerning which his master cracked a joke with him every pay-night: not a new unseasoned joke, but a good old one, that had been tried many times before and had worn well. "Th' young measter's a merry mon," Kester frequently remarked; for having begun his career by frightening away the crows under the last Martin Poyser but one, he could never cease to account the reigning Martin a young master. I am not ashamed of commemorating old Kester. You and I are indebted to the hard hands of such men--hands that have long ago mingled with the soil they tilled so faithfully, thriftily making the best they could of the earth's fruits, and receiving the smallest share as their own wages. Then, at the end of the table, opposite his master, there was Alick, the shepherd and head-man, with the ruddy face and broad shoulders, not on the best terms with old Kester; indeed, their intercourse was confined to an occasional snarl, for though they probably differed little concerning hedging and ditching and the treatment of ewes, there was a profound difference of opinion between them as to their own respective merits. When Tityrus and Meliboeus happen to be on the same farm, they are not sentimentally polite to each other. Alick, indeed, was not by any means a honeyed man. His speech had usually something of a snarl in it, and his broad-shouldered aspect something of the bull-dog expression--"Don't you meddle with me, and I won't meddle with you." But he was honest even to the splitting of an oat-grain rather than he would take beyond his acknowledged share, and as "close-fisted" with his master's property as if it had been his own--throwing very small handfuls of damaged barley to the chickens, because a large handful affected his imagination painfully with a sense of profusion. Good-tempered Tim, the waggoner, who loved his horses, had his grudge against Alick in the matter of corn. They rarely spoke to each other, and never looked at each other, even over their dish of cold potatoes; but then, as this was their usual mode of behaviour towards all mankind, it would be an unsafe conclusion that they had more than transient fits of unfriendliness. The bucolic character at Hayslope, you perceive, was not of that entirely genial, merry, broad-grinning sort, apparently observed in most districts visited by artists. The mild radiance of a smile was a rare sight on a field-labourer's face, and there was seldom any gradation between bovine gravity and a laugh. Nor was every labourer so honest as our friend Alick. At this very table, among Mr. Poyser's men, there is that big Ben Tholoway, a very powerful thresher, but detected more than once in carrying away his master's corn in his pockets--an action which, as Ben was not a philosopher, could hardly be ascribed to absence of mind. However, his master had forgiven him, and continued to employ him, for the Tholoways had lived on the Common time out of mind, and had always worked for the Poysers. And on the whole, I daresay, society was not much the worse because Ben had not six months of it at the treadmill, for his views of depredation were narrow, and the House of Correction might have enlarged them. As it was, Ben ate his roast beef to-night with a serene sense of having stolen nothing more than a few peas and beans as seed for his garden since the last harvest supper, and felt warranted in thinking that Alick's suspicious eye, for ever upon him, was an injury to his innocence. But NOW the roast beef was finished and the cloth was drawn, leaving a fair large deal table for the bright drinking-cans, and the foaming brown jugs, and the bright brass candlesticks, pleasant to behold. NOW, the great ceremony of the evening was to begin--the harvest-song, in which every man must join. He might be in tune, if he liked to be singular, but he must not sit with closed lips. The movement was obliged to be in triple time; the rest was ad libitum. As to the origin of this song--whether it came in its actual state from the brain of a single rhapsodist, or was gradually perfected by a school or succession of rhapsodists, I am ignorant. There is a stamp of unity, of individual genius upon it, which inclines me to the former hypothesis, though I am not blind to the consideration that this unity may rather have arisen from that consensus of many minds which was a condition of primitive thought, foreign to our modern consciousness. Some will perhaps think that they detect in the first quatrain an indication of a lost line, which later rhapsodists, failing in imaginative vigour, have supplied by the feeble device of iteration. Others, however, may rather maintain that this very iteration is an original felicity, to which none but the most prosaic minds can be insensible. The ceremony connected with the song was a drinking ceremony. (That is perhaps a painful fact, but then, you know, we cannot reform our forefathers.) During the first and second quatrain, sung decidedly forte, no can was filled. Here's a health unto our master, The founder of the feast; Here's a health unto our master And to our mistress! And may his doings prosper, Whate'er he takes in hand, For we are all his servants, And are at his command. But now, immediately before the third quatrain or chorus, sung fortissimo, with emphatic raps of the table, which gave the effect of cymbals and drum together, Alick's can was filled, and he was bound to empty it before the chorus ceased. Then drink, boys, drink! And see ye do not spill, For if ye do, ye shall drink two, For 'tis our master's will. When Alick had gone successfully through this test of steady-handed manliness, it was the turn of old Kester, at his right hand--and so on, till every man had drunk his initiatory pint under the stimulus of the chorus. Tom Saft--the rogue--took care to spill a little by accident; but Mrs. Poyser (too officiously, Tom thought) interfered to prevent the exaction of the penalty. To any listener outside the door it would have been the reverse of obvious why the "Drink, boys, drink!" should have such an immediate and often-repeated encore; but once entered, he would have seen that all faces were at present sober, and most of them serious--it was the regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to do, as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over their wine-glasses. Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, had gone out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in the ceremony, and had not finished his contemplation until a silence of five minutes declared that "Drink, boys, drink!" was not likely to begin again for the next twelvemonth. Much to the regret of the boys and Totty: on them the stillness fell rather flat, after that glorious thumping of the table, towards which Totty, seated on her father's knee, contributed with her small might and small fist. When Bartle re-entered, however, there appeared to be a general desire for solo music after the choral. Nancy declared that Tim the waggoner knew a song and was "allays singing like a lark i' the stable," whereupon Mr. Poyser said encouragingly, "Come, Tim, lad, let's hear it." Tim looked sheepish, tucked down his head, and said he couldn't sing, but this encouraging invitation of the master's was echoed all round the table. It was a conversational opportunity: everybody could say, "Come, Tim," except Alick, who never relaxed into the frivolity of unnecessary speech. At last, Tim's next neighbour, Ben Tholoway, began to give emphasis to his speech by nudges, at which Tim, growing rather savage, said, "Let me alooan, will ye? Else I'll ma' ye sing a toon ye wonna like." A good-tempered waggoner's patience has limits, and Tim was not to be urged further. "Well, then, David, ye're the lad to sing," said Ben, willing to show that he was not discomfited by this check. "Sing 'My loove's a roos wi'out a thorn.'" The amatory David was a young man of an unconscious abstracted expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent to Ben's invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve over his mouth in a way that was regarded as a symptom of yielding. And for some time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the desire to hear David's song. But in vain. The lyricism of the evening was in the cellar at present, and was not to be drawn from that retreat just yet. Meanwhile the conversation at the head of the table had taken a political turn. Mr. Craig was not above talking politics occasionally, though he piqued himself rather on a wise insight than on specific information. He saw so far beyond the mere facts of a case that really it was superfluous to know them. "I'm no reader o' the paper myself," he observed to-night, as he filled his pipe, "though I might read it fast enough if I liked, for there's Miss Lyddy has 'em and 's done with 'em i' no time. But there's Mills, now, sits i' the chimney-corner and reads the paper pretty nigh from morning to night, and when he's got to th' end on't he's more addle-headed than he was at the beginning. He's full o' this peace now, as they talk on; he's been reading and reading, and thinks he's got to the bottom on't. 'Why, Lor' bless you, Mills,' says I, 'you see no more into this thing nor you can see into the middle of a potato. I'll tell you what it is: you think it'll be a fine thing for the country. And I'm not again' it--mark my words--I'm not again' it. But it's my opinion as there's them at the head o' this country as are worse enemies to us nor Bony and all the mounseers he's got at 's back; for as for the mounseers, you may skewer half-a-dozen of 'em at once as if they war frogs.'" "Aye, aye," said Martin Poyser, listening with an air of much intelligence and edification, "they ne'er ate a bit o' beef i' their lives. Mostly sallet, I reckon." "And says I to Mills," continued Mr. Craig, "'Will you try to make me believe as furriners like them can do us half th' harm them ministers do with their bad government? If King George 'ud turn 'em all away and govern by himself, he'd see everything righted. He might take on Billy Pitt again if he liked; but I don't see myself what we want wi' anybody besides King and Parliament. It's that nest o' ministers does the mischief, I tell you.'" "Ah, it's fine talking," observed Mrs. Poyser, who was now seated near her husband, with Totty on her lap--"it's fine talking. It's hard work to tell which is Old Harry when everybody's got boots on." "As for this peace," said Mr. Poyser, turning his head on one side in a dubitative manner and giving a precautionary puff to his pipe between each sentence, "I don't know. Th' war's a fine thing for the country, an' how'll you keep up prices wi'out it? An' them French are a wicked sort o' folks, by what I can make out. What can you do better nor fight 'em?" "Ye're partly right there, Poyser," said Mr. Craig, "but I'm not again' the peace--to make a holiday for a bit. We can break it when we like, an' I'm in no fear o' Bony, for all they talk so much o' his cliverness. That's what I says to Mills this morning. Lor' bless you, he sees no more through Bony!...why, I put him up to more in three minutes than he gets from's paper all the year round. Says I, 'Am I a gardener as knows his business, or arn't I, Mills? Answer me that.' 'To be sure y' are, Craig,' says he--he's not a bad fellow, Mills isn't, for a butler, but weak i' the head. 'Well,' says I, 'you talk o' Bony's cliverness; would it be any use my being a first-rate gardener if I'd got nought but a quagmire to work on?' 'No,' says he. 'Well,' I says, 'that's just what it is wi' Bony. I'll not deny but he may be a bit cliver--he's no Frenchman born, as I understand--but what's he got at's back but mounseers?'" Mr. Craig paused a moment with an emphatic stare after this triumphant specimen of Socratic argument, and then added, thumping the table rather fiercely, "Why, it's a sure thing--and there's them 'ull bear witness to't--as i' one regiment where there was one man a-missing, they put the regimentals on a big monkey, and they fit him as the shell fits the walnut, and you couldn't tell the monkey from the mounseers!" "Ah! Think o' that, now!" said Mr. Poyser, impressed at once with the political bearings of the fact and with its striking interest as an anecdote in natural history. "Come, Craig," said Adam, "that's a little too strong. You don't believe that. It's all nonsense about the French being such poor sticks. Mr. Irwine's seen 'em in their own country, and he says they've plenty o' fine fellows among 'em. And as for knowledge, and contrivances, and manufactures, there's a many things as we're a fine sight behind 'em in. It's poor foolishness to run down your enemies. Why, Nelson and the rest of 'em 'ud have no merit i' beating 'em, if they were such offal as folks pretend." Mr. Poyser looked doubtfully at Mr. Craig, puzzled by this opposition of authorities. Mr. Irwine's testimony was not to be disputed; but, on the other hand, Craig was a knowing fellow, and his view was less startling. Martin had never "heard tell" of the French being good for much. Mr. Craig had found no answer but such as was implied in taking a long draught of ale and then looking down fixedly at the proportions of his own leg, which he turned a little outward for that purpose, when Bartle Massey returned from the fireplace, where he had been smoking his first pipe in quiet, and broke the silence by saying, as he thrust his forefinger into the canister, "Why, Adam, how happened you not to be at church on Sunday? Answer me that, you rascal. The anthem went limping without you. Are you going to disgrace your schoolmaster in his old age?" "No, Mr. Massey," said Adam. "Mr. and Mrs. Poyser can tell you where I was. I was in no bad company." "She's gone, Adam--gone to Snowfield," said Mr. Poyser, reminded of Dinah for the first time this evening. "I thought you'd ha' persuaded her better. Nought 'ud hold her, but she must go yesterday forenoon. The missis has hardly got over it. I thought she'd ha' no sperrit for th' harvest supper." Mrs. Poyser had thought of Dinah several times since Adam had come in, but she had had "no heart" to mention the bad news. "What!" said Bartle, with an air of disgust. "Was there a woman concerned? Then I give you up, Adam." "But it's a woman you'n spoke well on, Bartle," said Mr. Poyser. "Come now, you canna draw back; you said once as women wouldna ha' been a bad invention if they'd all been like Dinah." "I meant her voice, man--I meant her voice, that was all," said Bartle. "I can bear to hear her speak without wanting to put wool in my ears. As for other things, I daresay she's like the rest o' the women--thinks two and two 'll come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough about it." "Aye, aye!" said Mrs. Poyser; "one 'ud think, an' hear some folks talk, as the men war 'cute enough to count the corns in a bag o' wheat wi' only smelling at it. They can see through a barn-door, they can. Perhaps that's the reason THEY can see so little o' this side on't." Martin Poyser shook with delighted laughter and winked at Adam, as much as to say the schoolmaster was in for it now. "Ah!" said Bartle sneeringly, "the women are quick enough--they're quick enough. They know the rights of a story before they hear it, and can tell a man what his thoughts are before he knows 'em himself." "Like enough," said Mrs. Poyser, "for the men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun 'em, an' they can only catch 'em by the tail. I can count a stocking-top while a man's getting's tongue ready an' when he outs wi' his speech at last, there's little broth to be made on't. It's your dead chicks take the longest hatchin'. Howiver, I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men." "Match!" said Bartle. "Aye, as vinegar matches one's teeth. If a man says a word, his wife 'll match it with a contradiction; if he's a mind for hot meat, his wife 'll match it with cold bacon; if he laughs, she'll match him with whimpering. She's such a match as the horse-fly is to th' horse: she's got the right venom to sting him with--the right venom to sting him with." "Yes," said Mrs. Poyser, "I know what the men like--a poor soft, as 'ud simper at 'em like the picture o' the sun, whether they did right or wrong, an' say thank you for a kick, an' pretend she didna know which end she stood uppermost, till her husband told her. That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure o' one fool as 'ull tell him he's wise. But there's some men can do wi'out that--they think so much o' themselves a'ready. An' that's how it is there's old bachelors." "Come, Craig," said Mr. Poyser jocosely, "you mun get married pretty quick, else you'll be set down for an old bachelor; an' you see what the women 'ull think on you." "Well," said Mr. Craig, willing to conciliate Mrs. Poyser and setting a high value on his own compliments, "I like a cleverish woman--a woman o' sperrit--a managing woman." "You're out there, Craig," said Bartle, dryly; "you're out there. You judge o' your garden-stuff on a better plan than that. You pick the things for what they can excel in--for what they can excel in. You don't value your peas for their roots, or your carrots for their flowers. Now, that's the way you should choose women. Their cleverness 'll never come to much--never come to much--but they make excellent simpletons, ripe and strong-flavoured." "What dost say to that?" said Mr. Poyser, throwing himself back and looking merrily at his wife. "Say!" answered Mrs. Poyser, with dangerous fire kindling in her eye. "Why, I say as some folks' tongues are like the clocks as run on strikin', not to tell you the time o' the day, but because there's summat wrong i' their own inside..." Mrs. Poyser would probably have brought her rejoinder to a further climax, if every one's attention had not at this moment been called to the other end of the table, where the lyricism, which had at first only manifested itself by David's sotto voce performance of "My love's a rose without a thorn," had gradually assumed a rather deafening and complex character. Tim, thinking slightly of David's vocalization, was impelled to supersede that feeble buzz by a spirited commencement of "Three Merry Mowers," but David was not to be put down so easily, and showed himself capable of a copious crescendo, which was rendering it doubtful whether the rose would not predominate over the mowers, when old Kester, with an entirely unmoved and immovable aspect, suddenly set up a quavering treble--as if he had been an alarum, and the time was come for him to go off. The company at Alick's end of the table took this form of vocal entertainment very much as a matter of course, being free from musical prejudices; but Bartle Massey laid down his pipe and put his fingers in his ears; and Adam, who had been longing to go ever since he had heard Dinah was not in the house, rose and said he must bid good-night. "I'll go with you, lad," said Bartle; "I'll go with you before my ears are split." "I'll go round by the Common and see you home, if you like, Mr. Massey," said Adam. "Aye, aye!" said Bartle; "then we can have a bit o' talk together. I never get hold of you now." "Eh! It's a pity but you'd sit it out," said Martin Poyser. "They'll all go soon, for th' missis niver lets 'em stay past ten." But Adam was resolute, so the good-nights were said, and the two friends turned out on their starlight walk together. "There's that poor fool, Vixen, whimpering for me at home," said Bartle. "I can never bring her here with me for fear she should be struck with Mrs. Poyser's eye, and the poor bitch might go limping for ever after." "I've never any need to drive Gyp back," said Adam, laughing. "He always turns back of his own head when he finds out I'm coming here." "Aye, aye," said Bartle. "A terrible woman!--made of needles, made of needles. But I stick to Martin--I shall always stick to Martin. And he likes the needles, God help him! He's a cushion made on purpose for 'em." "But she's a downright good-natur'd woman, for all that," said Adam, "and as true as the daylight. She's a bit cross wi' the dogs when they offer to come in th' house, but if they depended on her, she'd take care and have 'em well fed. If her tongue's keen, her heart's tender: I've seen that in times o' trouble. She's one o' those women as are better than their word." "Well, well," said Bartle, "I don't say th' apple isn't sound at the core; but it sets my teeth on edge--it sets my teeth on edge." 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Am Mittwoch kehrt Adam von der Arbeit nach Hause zurück, in der Hoffnung, eine Zeit auszumachen, um Dinah in Snowfield zu besuchen. Als er das Haus der Poysers erreicht, ist er alarmiert, dass Dinah nicht da ist. Sie ist bereits gegangen. Herr Poyser beobachtet, wie der einfältige Tom Saft sein Rindfleischessen mit großer Belustigung genießt. Tom scheint so etwas wie ein Spaßmacher auf dem Hof zu sein. Abgesehen von ihm glaubt Herr Poyser, die besten Bediensteten und Aushilfen zu haben. Nach dem Essen singen sie alle gemeinsam ein Lied. Dabei trinken sie eine gute Menge Bier. Das Gespräch dreht sich um Politik und Adam sagt, dass die Franzosen nicht so schwach sind, wie alle anderen denken - sonst hätte Lord Nelson keinen Ehren haben, sie zu besiegen. Bartle fragt Adam, warum er nicht in der Kirche war, und als er erfährt, dass es mit Dinah zu tun hat, tadelt er ihn. Obwohl er sehr an Dinah interessiert war, argumentiert Bartle, dass alle Frauen gleich sind. Er gerät in einen hitzigen Streit mit Frau Poyser darüber, der von schrecklichem Gesang der Bediensteten unterbrochen wird. Adam und Bartle beschließen, zusammen zu gehen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: CANTO THE SIXTH. 'There is a tide in the affairs of men Which,--taken at the flood,'--you know the rest, And most of us have found it now and then; At least we think so, though but few have guess'd The moment, till too late to come again. But no doubt every thing is for the best-- Of which the surest sign is in the end: When things are at the worst they sometimes mend. There is a tide in the affairs of women Which, taken at the flood, leads--God knows where: Those navigators must be able seamen Whose charts lay down its current to a hair; Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen With its strange whirls and eddies can compare: Men with their heads reflect on this and that-- But women with their hearts on heaven knows what! And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she, Young, beautiful, and daring--who would risk A throne, the world, the universe, to be Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk The stars from out the sky, than not be free As are the billows when the breeze is brisk-- Though such a she 's a devil (if that there be one), Yet she would make full many a Manichean. Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset By commonest ambition, that when passion O'erthrows the same, we readily forget, Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one. If Antony be well remember'd yet, 'Tis not his conquests keep his name in fashion, But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes, Outbalances all Caesar's victories. He died at fifty for a queen of forty; I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty, For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds are but a sport--I Remember when, though I had no great plenty Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I Gave what I had--a heart: as the world went, I Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never Restore me those pure feelings, gone forever. 'Twas the boy's 'mite,' and, like the 'widow's,' may Perhaps be weigh'd hereafter, if not now; But whether such things do or do not weigh, All who have loved, or love, will still allow Life has nought like it. God is love, they say, And Love 's a god, or was before the brow Of earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears Of--but Chronology best knows the years. We left our hero and third heroine in A kind of state more awkward than uncommon, For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman: Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin, And don't agree at all with the wise Roman, Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious, Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius. I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong; I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it; But I detest all fiction even in song, And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it. Her reason being weak, her passions strong, She thought that her lord's heart (even could she claim it) Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine. I am not, like Cassio, 'an arithmetician,' But by 'the bookish theoric' it appears, If 'tis summ'd up with feminine precision, That, adding to the account his Highness' years, The fair Sultana err'd from inanition; For, were the Sultan just to all his dears, She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part Of what should be monopoly--the heart. It is observed that ladies are litigious Upon all legal objects of possession, And not the least so when they are religious, Which doubles what they think of the transgression: With suits and prosecutions they besiege us, As the tribunals show through many a session, When they suspect that any one goes shares In that to which the law makes them sole heirs. Now, if this holds good in a Christian land, The heathen also, though with lesser latitude, Are apt to carry things with a high hand, And take what kings call 'an imposing attitude,' And for their rights connubial make a stand, When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude: And as four wives must have quadruple claims, The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames. Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) The favourite; but what 's favour amongst four? Polygamy may well be held in dread, Not only as a sin, but as a bore: Most wise men, with one moderate woman wed, Will scarcely find philosophy for more; And all (except Mahometans) forbear To make the nuptial couch a 'Bed of Ware.' His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,-- So styled according to the usual forms Of every monarch, till they are consign'd To those sad hungry jacobins the worms, Who on the very loftiest kings have dined,-- His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms, Expecting all the welcome of a lover (A 'Highland welcome' all the wide world over). Now here we should distinguish; for howe'er Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that, May look like what is--neither here nor there, They are put on as easily as a hat, Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear, Trimm'd either heads or hearts to decorate, Which form an ornament, but no more part Of heads, than their caresses of the heart. A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind Of gentle feminine delight, and shown More in the eyelids than the eyes, resign'd Rather to hide what pleases most unknown, Are the best tokens (to a modest mind) Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne, A sincere woman's breast,--for over-warm Or over-cold annihilates the charm. For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth; If true, 'tis no great lease of its own fire; For no one, save in very early youth, Would like (I think) to trust all to desire, Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth, And apt to be transferr'd to the first buyer At a sad discount: while your over chilly Women, on t' other hand, seem somewhat silly. That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste, For so it seems to lovers swift or slow, Who fain would have a mutual flame confess'd, And see a sentimental passion glow, Even were St. Francis' paramour their guest, In his monastic concubine of snow;-- In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is Horatian, 'Medio tu tutissimus ibis.' The 'tu' 's too much,--but let it stand,--the verse Requires it, that 's to say, the English rhyme, And not the pink of old hexameters; But, after all, there 's neither tune nor time In the last line, which cannot well be worse, And was thrust in to close the octave's chime: I own no prosody can ever rate it As a rule, but truth may, if you translate it. If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part, I know not--it succeeded, and success Is much in most things, not less in the heart Than other articles of female dress. Self-love in man, too, beats all female art; They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less; And no one virtue yet, except starvation, Could stop that worst of vices--propagation. We leave this royal couple to repose: A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep, Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes: Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep As any man's day mixture undergoes. Our least of sorrows are such as we weep; 'Tis the vile daily drop on drop which wears The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares. A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill, A favourite horse fallen lame just as he 's mounted, A bad old woman making a worse will, Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted As certain;--these are paltry things, and yet I 've rarely seen the man they did not fret. I 'm a philosopher; confound them all! Bills, beasts, and men, and--no! not womankind! With one good hearty curse I vent my gall, And then my stoicism leaves nought behind Which it can either pain or evil call, And I can give my whole soul up to mind; Though what is soul or mind, their birth or growth, Is more than I know--the deuce take them both! As after reading Athanasius' curse, Which doth your true believer so much please: I doubt if any now could make it worse O'er his worst enemy when at his knees, 'Tis so sententious, positive, and terse, And decorates the book of Common Prayer, As doth a rainbow the just clearing air. Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or At least one of them!--Oh, the heavy night, When wicked wives, who love some bachelor, Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light Of the gray morning, and look vainly for Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite-- To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake! These are beneath the canopy of heaven, Also beneath the canopy of beds Four-posted and silk curtain'd, which are given For rich men and their brides to lay their heads Upon, in sheets white as what bards call 'driven Snow.' Well! 'tis all hap-hazard when one weds. Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been Perhaps as wretched if a peasant's quean. Don Juan in his feminine disguise, With all the damsels in their long array, Had bow'd themselves before th' imperial eyes, And at the usual signal ta'en their way Back to their chambers, those long galleries In the seraglio, where the ladies lay Their delicate limbs; a thousand bosoms there Beating for love, as the caged bird's for air. I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse The tyrant's wish, 'that mankind only had One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce:' My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad, And much more tender on the whole than fierce; It being (not now, but only while a lad) That womankind had but one rosy mouth, To kiss them all at once from North to South. O, enviable Briareus! with thy hands And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied In such proportion!--But my Muse withstands The giant thought of being a Titan's bride, Or travelling in Patagonian lands; So let us back to Lilliput, and guide Our hero through the labyrinth of love In which we left him several lines above. He went forth with the lovely Odalisques, At the given signal join'd to their array; And though he certainly ran many risks, Yet he could not at times keep, by the way (Although the consequences of such frisks Are worse than the worst damages men pay In moral England, where the thing 's a tax), From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs. Still he forgot not his disguise:--along The galleries from room to room they walk'd, A virgin-like and edifying throng, By eunuchs flank'd; while at their head there stalk'd A dame who kept up discipline among The female ranks, so that none stirr'd or talk'd Without her sanction on their she-parades: Her title was 'the Mother of the Maids.' Whether she was a 'mother,' I know not, Or whether they were 'maids' who call'd her mother; But this is her seraglio title, got I know not how, but good as any other; So Cantemir can tell you, or De Tott: Her office was to keep aloof or smother All bad propensities in fifteen hundred Young women, and correct them when they blunder'd. A goodly sinecure, no doubt! but made More easy by the absence of all men-- Except his majesty, who, with her aid, And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then A slight example, just to cast a shade Along the rest, contrived to keep this den Of beauties cool as an Italian convent, Where all the passions have, alas! but one vent. And what is that? Devotion, doubtless--how Could you ask such a question?--but we will Continue. As I said, this goodly row Of ladies of all countries at the will Of one good man, with stately march and slow, Like water-lilies floating down a rill-- Or rather lake, for rills do not run slowly-- Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy. But when they reach'd their own apartments, there, Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose, Waves at spring-tide, or women anywhere When freed from bonds (which are of no great use After all), or like Irish at a fair, Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce Establish'd between them and bondage, they Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile, and play. Their talk, of course, ran most on the new comer; Her shape, her hair, her air, her everything: Some thought her dress did not so much become her, Or wonder'd at her ears without a ring; Some said her years were getting nigh their summer, Others contended they were but in spring; Some thought her rather masculine in height, While others wish'd that she had been so quite. But no one doubted on the whole, that she Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair, And fresh, and 'beautiful exceedingly,' Who with the brightest Georgians might compare: They wonder'd how Gulbeyaz, too, could be So silly as to buy slaves who might share (If that his Highness wearied of his bride) Her throne and power, and every thing beside. But what was strangest in this virgin crew, Although her beauty was enough to vex, After the first investigating view, They all found out as few, or fewer, specks In the fair form of their companion new, Than is the custom of the gentle sex, When they survey, with Christian eyes or Heathen, In a new face 'the ugliest creature breathing.' And yet they had their little jealousies, Like all the rest; but upon this occasion, Whether there are such things as sympathies Without our knowledge or our approbation, Although they could not see through his disguise, All felt a soft kind of concatenation, Like magnetism, or devilism, or what You please--we will not quarrel about that: But certain 'tis they all felt for their new Companion something newer still, as 'twere A sentimental friendship through and through, Extremely pure, which made them all concur In wishing her their sister, save a few Who wish'd they had a brother just like her, Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia, They would prefer to Padisha or Pacha. Of those who had most genius for this sort Of sentimental friendship, there were three, Lolah, Katinka, and Dudu; in short (To save description), fair as fair can be Were they, according to the best report, Though differing in stature and degree, And clime and time, and country and complexion; They all alike admired their new connection. Lolah was dusk as India and as warm; Katinka was a Georgian, white and red, With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm, And feet so small they scarce seem'd made to tread, But rather skim the earth; while Dudu's form Look'd more adapted to be put to bed, Being somewhat large, and languishing, and lazy, Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy. A kind of sleepy Venus seem'd Dudu, Yet very fit to 'murder sleep' in those Who gazed upon her cheek's transcendent hue, Her Attic forehead, and her Phidian nose: Few angles were there in her form, 'tis true, Thinner she might have been, and yet scarce lose; Yet, after all, 'twould puzzle to say where It would not spoil some separate charm to pare. She was not violently lively, but Stole on your spirit like a May-day breaking; Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet, half-shut, They put beholders in a tender taking; She look'd (this simile 's quite new) just cut From marble, like Pygmalion's statue waking, The mortal and the marble still at strife, And timidly expanding into life. Lolah demanded the new damsel's name-- 'Juanna.'--Well, a pretty name enough. Katinka ask'd her also whence she came-- 'From Spain.'--'But where is Spain?'--'Don't ask such stuff, Nor show your Georgian ignorance--for shame!' Said Lolah, with an accent rather rough, To poor Katinka: 'Spain 's an island near Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.' Dudu said nothing, but sat down beside Juanna, playing with her veil or hair; And looking at her steadfastly, she sigh'd, As if she pitied her for being there, A pretty stranger without friend or guide, And all abash'd, too, at the general stare Which welcomes hapless strangers in all places, With kind remarks upon their mien and faces. But here the Mother of the Maids drew near, With, 'Ladies, it is time to go to rest. I 'm puzzled what to do with you, my dear,' She added to Juanna, their new guest: 'Your coming has been unexpected here, And every couch is occupied; you had best Partake of mine; but by to-morrow early We will have all things settled for you fairly.' Here Lolah interposed--'Mamma, you know You don't sleep soundly, and I cannot bear That anybody should disturb you so; I 'll take Juanna; we 're a slenderer pair Than you would make the half of;--don't say no; And I of your young charge will take due care.' But here Katinka interfered, and said, 'She also had compassion and a bed. 'Besides, I hate to sleep alone,' quoth she. The matron frown'd: 'Why so?'--'For fear of ghosts,' Replied Katinka; 'I am sure I see A phantom upon each of the four posts; And then I have the worst dreams that can be, Of Guebres, Giaours, and Ginns, and Gouls in hosts.' The dame replied, 'Between your dreams and you, I fear Juanna's dreams would be but few. 'You, Lolah, must continue still to lie Alone, for reasons which don't matter; you The same, Katinka, until by and by; And I shall place Juanna with Dudu, Who 's quiet, inoffensive, silent, shy, And will not toss and chatter the night through. What say you, child?'--Dudu said nothing, as Her talents were of the more silent class; But she rose up, and kiss'd the matron's brow Between the eyes, and Lolah on both cheeks, Katinka, too; and with a gentle bow (Curt'sies are neither used by Turks nor Greeks) She took Juanna by the hand to show Their place of rest, and left to both their piques, The others pouting at the matron's preference Of Dudu, though they held their tongues from deference. It was a spacious chamber (Oda is The Turkish title), and ranged round the wall Were couches, toilets--and much more than this I might describe, as I have seen it all, But it suffices--little was amiss; 'Twas on the whole a nobly furnish'd hall, With all things ladies want, save one or two, And even those were nearer than they knew. Dudu, as has been said, was a sweet creature, Not very dashing, but extremely winning, With the most regulated charms of feature, Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning Against proportion--the wild strokes of nature Which they hit off at once in the beginning, Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike, And pleasing or unpleasing, still are like. But she was a soft landscape of mild earth, Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet, Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth, Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it Than are your mighty passions and so forth, Which some call 'the sublime:' I wish they 'd try it: I 've seen your stormy seas and stormy women, And pity lovers rather more than seamen. But she was pensive more than melancholy, And serious more than pensive, and serene, It may be, more than either--not unholy Her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been. The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly Unconscious, albeit turn'd of quick seventeen, That she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall; She never thought about herself at all. And therefore was she kind and gentle as The Age of Gold (when gold was yet unknown, By which its nomenclature came to pass; Thus most appropriately has been shown 'Lucus a non lucendo,' not what was, But what was not; a sort of style that 's grown Extremely common in this age, whose metal The devil may decompose, but never settle: I think it may be of 'Corinthian Brass,' Which was a mixture of all metals, but The brazen uppermost). Kind reader! pass This long parenthesis: I could not shut It sooner for the soul of me, and class My faults even with your own! which meaneth, Put A kind construction upon them and me: But that you won't--then don't--I am not less free. 'Tis time we should return to plain narration, And thus my narrative proceeds:--Dudu, With every kindness short of ostentation, Show'd Juan, or Juanna, through and through This labyrinth of females, and each station Described--what 's strange--in words extremely few: I have but one simile, and that 's a blunder, For wordless woman, which is silent thunder. And next she gave her (I say her, because The gender still was epicene, at least In outward show, which is a saving clause) An outline of the customs of the East, With all their chaste integrity of laws, By which the more a haram is increased, The stricter doubtless grow the vestal duties Of any supernumerary beauties. And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss: Dudu was fond of kissing--which I 'm sure That nobody can ever take amiss, Because 'tis pleasant, so that it be pure, And between females means no more than this-- That they have nothing better near, or newer. 'Kiss' rhymes to 'bliss' in fact as well as verse-- I wish it never led to something worse. In perfect innocence she then unmade Her toilet, which cost little, for she was A child of Nature, carelessly array'd: If fond of a chance ogle at her glass, 'Twas like the fawn, which, in the lake display'd, Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass, When first she starts, and then returns to peep, Admiring this new native of the deep. And one by one her articles of dress Were laid aside; but not before she offer'd Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess Of modesty declined the assistance proffer'd: Which pass'd well off--as she could do no less; Though by this politesse she rather suffer'd, Pricking her fingers with those cursed pins, Which surely were invented for our sins,-- Making a woman like a porcupine, Not to be rashly touch'd. But still more dread, O ye! whose fate it is, as once 'twas mine, In early youth, to turn a lady's maid;-- I did my very boyish best to shine In tricking her out for a masquerade; The pins were placed sufficiently, but not Stuck all exactly in the proper spot. But these are foolish things to all the wise, And I love wisdom more than she loves me; My tendency is to philosophise On most things, from a tyrant to a tree; But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies. What are we? and whence came we? what shall be Our ultimate existence? what 's our present? Are questions answerless, and yet incessant. There was deep silence in the chamber: dim And distant from each other burn'd the lights, And slumber hover'd o'er each lovely limb Of the fair occupants: if there be sprites, They should have walk'd there in their sprightliest trim, By way of change from their sepulchral sites, And shown themselves as ghosts of better taste Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste. Many and beautiful lay those around, Like flowers of different hue, and dime, and root, In some exotic garden sometimes found, With cost, and care, and warmth induced to shoot. One with her auburn tresses lightly bound, And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath, And lips apart, which show'd the pearls beneath. One with her flush'd cheek laid on her white arm, And raven ringlets gather'd in dark crowd Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm; And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud The moon breaks, half unveil'd each further charm, As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud, Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night All bashfully to struggle into light. This is no bull, although it sounds so; for 'Twas night, but there were lamps, as hath been said. A third's all pallid aspect offer'd more The traits of sleeping sorrow, and betray'd Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore Beloved and deplored; while slowly stray'd (As night-dew, on a cypress glittering, tinges The black bough) tear-drops through her eyes' dark fringes. A fourth as marble, statue-like and still, Lay in a breathless, hush'd, and stony sleep; White, cold, and pure, as looks a frozen rill, Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep, Or Lot's wife done in salt,--or what you will;-- My similes are gather'd in a heap, So pick and choose--perhaps you 'll be content With a carved lady on a monument. And lo! a fifth appears;--and what is she? A lady of a 'certain age,' which means Certainly aged--what her years might be I know not, never counting past their teens; But there she slept, not quite so fair to see, As ere that awful period intervenes Which lays both men and women on the shelf, To meditate upon their sins and self. But all this time how slept, or dream'd, Dudu? With strict inquiry I could ne'er discover, And scorn to add a syllable untrue; But ere the middle watch was hardly over, Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue, And phantoms hover'd, or might seem to hover, To those who like their company, about The apartment, on a sudden she scream'd out: And that so loudly, that upstarted all The Oda, in a general commotion: Matron and maids, and those whom you may call Neither, came crowding like the waves of ocean, One on the other, throughout the whole hall, All trembling, wondering, without the least notion More than I have myself of what could make The calm Dudu so turbulently wake. But wide awake she was, and round her bed, With floating draperies and with flying hair, With eager eyes, and light but hurried tread, And bosoms, arms, and ankles glancing bare, And bright as any meteor ever bred By the North Pole,--they sought her cause of care, For she seem'd agitated, flush'd, and frighten'd, Her eye dilated and her colour heighten'd. But what was strange--and a strong proof how great A blessing is sound sleep--Juanna lay As fast as ever husband by his mate In holy matrimony snores away. Not all the clamour broke her happy state Of slumber, ere they shook her,--so they say At least,--and then she, too, unclosed her eyes, And yawn'd a good deal with discreet surprise. And now commenced a strict investigation, Which, as all spoke at once and more than once, Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration, Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce To answer in a very clear oration. Dudu had never pass'd for wanting sense, But, being 'no orator as Brutus is,' Could not at first expound what was amiss. At length she said, that in a slumber sound She dream'd a dream, of walking in a wood-- A 'wood obscure,' like that where Dante found Himself in at the age when all grow good; Life's half-way house, where dames with virtue crown'd Run much less risk of lovers turning rude; And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits, And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots; And in the midst a golden apple grew,-- A most prodigious pippin,--but it hung Rather too high and distant; that she threw Her glances on it, and then, longing, flung Stones and whatever she could pick up, to Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung To its own bough, and dangled yet in sight, But always at a most provoking height;-- That on a sudden, when she least had hope, It fell down of its own accord before Her feet; that her first movement was to stoop And pick it up, and bite it to the core; That just as her young lip began to ope Upon the golden fruit the vision bore, A bee flew out and stung her to the heart, And so--she awoke with a great scream and start. All this she told with some confusion and Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand To expound their vain and visionary gleams. I 've known some odd ones which seem'd really plann'd Prophetically, or that which one deems A 'strange coincidence,' to use a phrase By which such things are settled now-a-days. The damsels, who had thoughts of some great harm, Began, as is the consequence of fear, To scold a little at the false alarm That broke for nothing on their sleeping car. The matron, too, was wroth to leave her warm Bed for the dream she had been obliged to hear, And chafed at poor Dudu, who only sigh'd, And said that she was sorry she had cried. 'I 've heard of stories of a cock and bull; But visions of an apple and a bee, To take us from our natural rest, and pull The whole Oda from their beds at half-past three, Would make us think the moon is at its full. You surely are unwell, child! we must see, To-morrow, what his Highness's physician Will say to this hysteric of a vision. 'And poor Juanna, too--the child's first night Within these walls to be broke in upon With such a clamour! I had thought it right That the young stranger should not lie alone, And, as the quietest of all, she might With you, Dudu, a good night's rest have known; But now I must transfer her to the charge Of Lolah--though her couch is not so large.' Lolah's eyes sparkled at the proposition; But poor Dudu, with large drops in her own, Resulting from the scolding or the vision, Implored that present pardon might be shown For this first fault, and that on no condition (She added in a soft and piteous tone) Juanna should be taken from her, and Her future dreams should all be kept in hand. She promised never more to have a dream, At least to dream so loudly as just now; She wonder'd at herself how she could scream-- 'Twas foolish, nervous, as she must allow, A fond hallucination, and a theme For laughter--but she felt her spirits low, And begg'd they would excuse her; she 'd get over This weakness in a few hours, and recover. And here Juanna kindly interposed, And said she felt herself extremely well Where she then was, as her sound sleep disclosed When all around rang like a tocsin bell: She did not find herself the least disposed To quit her gentle partner, and to dwell Apart from one who had no sin to show, Save that of dreaming once 'mal-a-propos.' As thus Juanna spoke, Dudu turn'd round And hid her face within Juanna's breast: Her neck alone was seen, but that was found The colour of a budding rose's crest. I can't tell why she blush'd, nor can expound The mystery of this rupture of their rest; All that I know is, that the facts I state Are true as truth has ever been of late. And so good night to them,--or, if you will, Good morrow--for the cock had crown, and light Began to clothe each Asiatic hill, And the mosque crescent struggled into sight Of the long caravan, which in the chill Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height That stretches to the stony belt, which girds Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds. With the first ray, or rather grey of morn, Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; and pale As passion rises, with its bosom worn, Array'd herself with mantle, gem, and veil. The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn, Which fable places in her breast of wail, Is lighter far of heart and voice than those Whose headlong passions form their proper woes. And that 's the moral of this composition, If people would but see its real drift;-- But that they will not do without suspicion, Because all gentle readers have the gift Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs of vision; While gentle writers also love to lift Their voices 'gainst each other, which is natural, The numbers are too great for them to flatter all. Rose the sultana from a bed of splendour, Softer than the soft Sybarite's, who cried Aloud because his feelings were too tender To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side,-- So beautiful that art could little mend her, Though pale with conflicts between love and pride;-- So agitated was she with her error, She did not even look into the mirror. Also arose about the self-same time, Perhaps a little later, her great lord, Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime, And of a wife by whom he was abhorr'd; A thing of much less import in that clime-- At least to those of incomes which afford The filling up their whole connubial cargo-- Than where two wives are under an embargo. He did not think much on the matter, nor Indeed on any other: as a man He liked to have a handsome paramour At hand, as one may like to have a fan, And therefore of Circassians had good store, As an amusement after the Divan; Though an unusual fit of love, or duty, Had made him lately bask in his bride's beauty. And now he rose; and after due ablutions Exacted by the customs of the East, And prayers and other pious evolutions, He drank six cups of coffee at the least, And then withdrew to hear about the Russians, Whose victories had recently increased In Catherine's reign, whom glory still adores, But oh, thou grand legitimate Alexander! Her son's son, let not this last phrase offend Thine ear, if it should reach--and now rhymes wander Almost as far as Petersburgh and lend A dreadful impulse to each loud meander Of murmuring Liberty's wide waves, which blend Their roar even with the Baltic's--so you be Your father's son, 'tis quite enough for me. To call men love-begotten or proclaim Their mothers as the antipodes of Timon, That hater of mankind, would be a shame, A libel, or whate'er you please to rhyme on: But people's ancestors are history's game; And if one lady's slip could leave a crime on All generations, I should like to know What pedigree the best would have to show? Had Catherine and the sultan understood Their own true interests, which kings rarely know Until 'tis taught by lessons rather rude, There was a way to end their strife, although Perhaps precarious, had they but thought good, Without the aid of prince or plenipo: She to dismiss her guards and he his haram, And for their other matters, meet and share 'em. But as it was, his Highness had to hold His daily council upon ways and means How to encounter with this martial scold, This modern Amazon and queen of queans; And the perplexity could not be told Of all the pillars of the state, which leans Sometimes a little heavy on the backs Of those who cannot lay on a new tax. Meantime Gulbeyaz, when her king was gone, Retired into her boudoir, a sweet place For love or breakfast; private, pleasing, lone, And rich with all contrivances which grace Those gay recesses:--many a precious stone Sparkled along its roof, and many a vase Of porcelain held in the fetter'd flowers, Those captive soothers of a captive's hours. Mother of pearl, and porphyry, and marble, Vied with each other on this costly spot; And singing birds without were heard to warble; And the stain'd glass which lighted this fair grot Varied each ray;--but all descriptions garble The true effect, and so we had better not Be too minute; an outline is the best,-- A lively reader's fancy does the rest. And here she summon'd Baba, and required Don Juan at his hands, and information Of what had pass'd since all the slaves retired, And whether he had occupied their station; If matters had been managed as desired, And his disguise with due consideration Kept up; and above all, the where and how He had pass'd the night, was what she wish'd to know. Baba, with some embarrassment, replied To this long catechism of questions, ask'd More easily than answer'd,--that he had tried His best to obey in what he had been task'd; But there seem'd something that he wish'd to hide, Which hesitation more betray'd than mask'd; He scratch'd his ear, the infallible resource To which embarrass'd people have recourse. Gulbeyaz was no model of true patience, Nor much disposed to wait in word or deed; She liked quick answers in all conversations; And when she saw him stumbling like a steed In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh ones; And as his speech grew still more broken-kneed, Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to sparkle, And her proud brow's blue veins to swell and darkle. When Baba saw these symptoms, which he knew To bode him no great good, he deprecated Her anger, and beseech'd she 'd hear him through-- He could not help the thing which he related: Then out it came at length, that to Dudu Juan was given in charge, as hath been stated; But not by Baba's fault, he said, and swore on The holy camel's hump, besides the Koran. The chief dame of the Oda, upon whom The discipline of the whole haram bore, As soon as they re-enter'd their own room, For Baba's function stopt short at the door, Had settled all; nor could he then presume (The aforesaid Baba) just then to do more, Without exciting such suspicion as Might make the matter still worse than it was. He hoped, indeed he thought, he could be sure Juan had not betray'd himself; in fact 'Twas certain that his conduct had been pure, Because a foolish or imprudent act Would not alone have made him insecure, But ended in his being found out and sack'd, And thrown into the sea.--Thus Baba spoke Of all save Dudu's dream, which was no joke. This he discreetly kept in the background, And talk'd away--and might have talk'd till now, For any further answer that he found, So deep an anguish wrung Gulbeyaz' brow: Her cheek turn'd ashes, ears rung, brain whirl'd round, As if she had received a sudden blow, And the heart's dew of pain sprang fast and chilly O'er her fair front, like Morning's on a lily. Although she was not of the fainting sort, Baba thought she would faint, but there he err'd-- It was but a convulsion, which though short Can never be described; we all have heard, And some of us have felt thus 'all amort,' When things beyond the common have occurr'd;-- Gulbeyaz proved in that brief agony What she could ne'er express--then how should I? She stood a moment as a Pythones Stands on her tripod, agonised, and full Of inspiration gather'd from distress, When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull The heart asunder;--then, as more or lees Their speed abated or their strength grew dull, She sunk down on her seat by slow degrees, And bow'd her throbbing head o'er trembling knees. Her face declined and was unseen; her hair Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow, Sweeping the marble underneath her chair, Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow, A low soft ottoman), and black despair Stirr'd up and down her bosom like a billow, Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check Its farther course, but must receive its wreck. Her head hung down, and her long hair in stooping Conceal'd her features better than a veil; And one hand o'er the ottoman lay drooping, White, waxen, and as alabaster pale: Would that I were a painter! to be grouping All that a poet drags into detail O that my words were colours! but their tints May serve perhaps as outlines or slight hints. Baba, who knew by experience when to talk And when to hold his tongue, now held it till This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will. At length she rose up, and began to walk Slowly along the room, but silent still, And her brow clear'd, but not her troubled eye; The wind was down, but still the sea ran high. She stopp'd, and raised her head to speak--but paused, And then moved on again with rapid pace; Then slacken'd it, which is the march most caused By deep emotion:--you may sometimes trace A feeling in each footstep, as disclosed By Sallust in his Catiline, who, chased By all the demons of all passions, show'd Their work even by the way in which he trode. Gulbeyaz stopp'd and beckon'd Baba:--'Slave! Bring the two slaves!' she said in a low tone, But one which Baba did not like to brave, And yet he shudder'd, and seem'd rather prone To prove reluctant, and begg'd leave to crave (Though he well knew the meaning) to be shown What slaves her highness wish'd to indicate, For fear of any error, like the late. 'The Georgian and her paramour,' replied The imperial bride--and added, 'Let the boat Be ready by the secret portal's side: You know the rest.' The words stuck in her throat, Despite her injured love and fiery pride; And of this Baba willingly took note, And begg'd by every hair of Mahomet's beard, She would revoke the order he had heard. 'To hear is to obey,' he said; 'but still, Sultana, think upon the consequence: It is not that I shall not all fulfil Your orders, even in their severest sense; But such precipitation may end ill, Even at your own imperative expense: I do not mean destruction and exposure, In case of any premature disclosure; 'But your own feelings. Even should all the rest Be hidden by the rolling waves, which hide Already many a once love-beaten breast Deep in the caverns of the deadly tide-- You love this boyish, new, seraglio guest, And if this violent remedy be tried-- Excuse my freedom, when I here assure you, That killing him is not the way to cure you.' 'What dost thou know of love or feeling?--Wretch! Begone!' she cried, with kindling eyes--'and do My bidding!' Baba vanish'd, for to stretch His own remonstrance further he well knew Might end in acting as his own 'Jack Ketch;' And though he wish'd extremely to get through This awkward business without harm to others, He still preferr'd his own neck to another's. Away he went then upon his commission, Growling and grumbling in good Turkish phrase Against all women of whate'er condition, Especially sultanas and their ways; Their obstinacy, pride, and indecision, Their never knowing their own mind two days, The trouble that they gave, their immorality, Which made him daily bless his own neutrality. And then he call'd his brethren to his aid, And sent one on a summons to the pair, That they must instantly be well array'd, And above all be comb'd even to a hair, And brought before the empress, who had made Inquiries after them with kindest care: At which Dudu look'd strange, and Juan silly; But go they must at once, and will I--nill I. And here I leave them at their preparation For the imperial presence, wherein whether Gulbeyaz show'd them both commiseration, Or got rid of the parties altogether, Like other angry ladies of her nation,-- Are things the turning of a hair or feather May settle; but far be 't from me to anticipate In what way feminine caprice may dissipate. I leave them for the present with good wishes, Though doubts of their well doing, to arrange Another part of history; for the dishes Of this our banquet we must sometimes change; And trusting Juan may escape the fishes, Although his situation now seems strange And scarce secure, as such digressions are fair, The Muse will take a little touch at warfare. [Illustration: Canto 7] Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Canto VI ist eine Fortsetzung der Geschichte von Juan im Harem. Da momentan kein Bett für Juan verfügbar ist, beschließt die "Mutter der Mädchen", die für den Harem verantwortlich ist, dass "Juanna" das Bett mit Dudji teilen muss, einer hübschen Odaliske von siebzehn Jahren. Mitten in der Nacht, als der gesamte Harem schläft, schreit Dudji so laut, dass sie all ihre Gefährtinnen aufweckt, die eilig herbeieilen, um herauszufinden, was los ist. Dudji erklärt etwas verlegen, dass sie geträumt habe, sie sei in einem Wald spazieren gegangen und sei zu einem Baum gekommen, an dem ein goldener Apfel hing. Nachdem sie vergeblich versucht hatte, den Apfel zu bekommen, fiel er von selbst vor ihre Füße. Als sie ihn aufhob, um hineinzubeißen, flog eine Biene heraus und stach sie. An diesem Punkt in ihrem seltsamen Traum wachte sie mit einem lauten Schrei auf. Dudji entschuldigt sich sehr für die Störung, die sie verursacht hat, und der Harem legt sich schließlich wieder zum Schlafen hin. Als die Sultana am nächsten Morgen aufwacht, schickt sie Baba, um herauszufinden, was mit Juan gemacht wurde. Baba versucht, die Wahrheit vor ihr zu verheimlichen, aber ihr genaues Befragen zwingt ihn dazu, zuzugeben, dass Juan das Bett mit Dudji geteilt hat. Als die Sultana dies erfährt, ist sie wütend und befiehlt Baba, die beiden zu holen und sie auf die übliche Weise loszuwerden: sie in Säcke zu stecken und ins Meer zu werfen. Baba versucht, sie umzustimmen, aber bald merkt er, dass sie unnachgiebig ist.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: | AUS Gründen, die nur ihr bekannt waren, sagte Marilla Anne nicht, dass sie bis zum nächsten Tag in Green Gables bleiben sollte. Vormittags hielt sie das Kind mit verschiedenen Aufgaben beschäftigt und beobachtete sie dabei genau. Um die Mittagszeit war sie zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass Anne clever und gehorsam war, bereit zu arbeiten und schnell zu lernen. Ihr schwerwiegender Fehler schien jedoch eine Neigung zu Tagträumen mitten in einer Aufgabe zu sein und sie komplett zu vergessen, bis sie scharf durch einen Verweis oder eine Katastrophe auf die Erde zurückgerufen wurde. Nachdem Anne das Abwaschen des Mittagessens beendet hatte, stellte sie Marilla plötzlich mit der Miene und dem Ausdruck einer verzweifelt Entschlossenen vor die Wahl, das Schlimmste zu erfahren. Ihr schmächtiger kleiner Körper zitterte vom Kopf bis zu den Füßen; ihr Gesicht rötete sich und ihre Augen weiteten sich fast schwarz; sie hielt ihre Hände fest zusammen und sagte in flehendem Ton: "Oh bitte, Miss Cuthbert, könnten Sie mir nicht sagen, ob Sie mich wegschicken oder nicht? Ich habe den ganzen Vormittag versucht, geduldig zu sein, aber jetzt kann ich es wirklich nicht länger aushalten, nicht zu wissen. Es ist ein furchtbares Gefühl. Bitte sagen Sie es mir." "Du hast das Geschirrtuch nicht wie ich dir gesagt habe in sauberes heißes Wasser kochen lassen", antwortete Marilla ungerührt. "Geh und mach es, bevor du weitere Fragen stellst, Anne." Anne ging und kümmerte sich um das Geschirrtuch. Dann kehrte sie zu Marilla zurück und heftete flehende Augen auf das Gesicht der Letzteren. "Also", sagte Marilla, die keine Ausrede mehr fand, um ihre Erklärung weiter aufzuschieben, "ich nehme an, ich könnte es genauso gut sagen. Matthew und ich haben beschlossen, dich zu behalten, vorausgesetzt, du versuchst, ein braves kleines Mädchen zu sein und dich dankbar zu zeigen. Warum, Kind, was ist denn los?" "Ich weine", sagte Anne verwirrt. "Ich weiß nicht warum. Ich bin so froh, so froh, wie man nur sein kann. Oh, _froh_ scheint überhaupt nicht das richtige Wort zu sein. Ich war froh über den weißen Weg und die Kirschblüten. Aber das hier! Oh, das ist etwas mehr als froh. Ich bin so glücklich. Ich werde versuchen, so brav zu sein. Es wird harte Arbeit werden, glaube ich, denn Mrs. Thomas hat oft zu mir gesagt, dass ich verzweifelt böse wäre. Aber ich werde mein Bestes tun. Aber können Sie mir sagen, warum ich weine?" "Ich denke, es liegt daran, dass du aufgeregt und aufgewühlt bist", sagte Marilla missbilligend. "Setz dich auf den Stuhl und versuch, dich zu beruhigen. Ich fürchte, du weinst und lachst viel zu leicht. Ja, du kannst hier bleiben und wir werden versuchen, das Richtige für dich zu tun. Du musst zur Schule gehen; aber es sind nur zwei Wochen bis zu den Ferien, also lohnt es sich nicht, bevor sie im September wieder beginnt." "Wie soll ich Sie nennen?", fragte Anne. "Soll ich immer Miss Cuthbert sagen? Kann ich Sie Tante Marilla nennen?" "Nein, du wirst mich einfach Marilla nennen. Ich bin es nicht gewohnt, Miss Cuthbert genannt zu werden, und es würde mich nervös machen." "Es klingt furchtbar respektlos, einfach Marilla zu sagen", protestierte Anne. "Ich denke nicht, dass es respektlos ist, wenn du darauf achtest, respektvoll zu sprechen. Jeder, jung und alt, in Avonlea nennt mich Marilla, außer dem Pastor. Er sagt Miss Cuthbert, wenn er daran denkt." "Ich würde gerne Tante Marilla zu Ihnen sagen dürfen", sagte Anne sehnsüchtig. "Ich hatte nie eine Tante oder irgendeinen Verwandten - nicht einmal eine Großmutter. Es würde mich das Gefühl geben, als ob ich wirklich zu Ihnen gehöre. Kann ich Sie nicht Tante Marilla nennen?" "Nein. Ich bin nicht deine Tante und ich finde es nicht richtig, Leute mit Namen anzusprechen, die ihnen nicht gehören." "Aber wir könnten uns vorstellen, dass Sie meine Tante wären." "Das könnte ich nicht", sagte Marilla grimmig. "Kannst du dir nie etwas vorstellen, das anders ist als es wirklich ist?", fragte Anne mit großen Augen. "Nein." "Oh!" Anne holte tief Luft. "Oh, Miss...Marilla, wie viel du verpasst!" "Ich glaube nicht daran, mir Dinge vorzustellen, die anders sind als sie wirklich sind", erwiderte Marilla. "Wenn der Herr uns in bestimmte Umstände versetzt, dann meint er nicht, dass wir sie uns anders vorstellen sollen. Und das erinnert mich daran. Geh ins Wohnzimmer, Anne - achte darauf, dass deine Füße sauber sind und lass keine Fliegen herein - und bring mir die illustrierte Karte, die auf dem Kaminsims liegt. Das Vaterunser steht drauf und du wirst deine freie Zeit heute Nachmittag darauf verwenden, es auswendig zu lernen. Von solchem Beten wie letzte Nacht will ich nichts mehr hören." "Ich nehme an, ich war sehr ungeschickt", entschuldigte sich Anne. "Aber verstehen Sie, ich hatte noch keine Übung. Man kann wirklich nicht erwarten, dass eine Person beim ersten Versuch gut betet, oder etwa doch? Ich habe ein großartiges Gebet überlegt, nachdem ich im Bett war, genau wie ich Ihnen versprochen habe. Es war fast so lang wie das eines Pastors und richtig poetisch. Aber würden Sie es glauben? Als ich heute Morgen aufwachte, konnte ich kein einziges Wort mehr davon erinnern. Und ich fürchte, ich werde nie in der Lage sein, ein anderes genauso gut auszudenken. Irgendwie sind die Dinge nie so gut, wenn man sie ein zweites Mal durchdenkt. Haben Sie das jemals bemerkt?" "Hier ist etwas, das du bemerken solltest, Anne. Wenn ich dir sage, etwas zu tun, dann will ich, dass du mir sofort gehorchst und nicht stillstehst und darüber diskutierst. Geh einfach und tu, was ich dir aufgetragen habe." Anne ging prompt in das Wohnzimmer gegenüber und kehrte nicht zurück. Nachdem Marilla zehn Minuten gewartet hatte, legte sie ihre Strickarbeit beiseite und marschierte mit grimmigem Gesichtsausdruck hinter ihr her. Sie fand Anne regungslos vor einem Bild an der Wand zwischen den beiden Fenstern stehen, mit weit offenen Augen, voller Träume. Das weiße und grüne Licht, das durch Apfelbäume und Ranken fiel, die draußen standen, fiel über die verzückte kleine Gestalt mit einer halb-unwirklichen Strahlkraft. "Anne, worüber denkst du nach?", forderte Marilla scharf. Anne kam mit einem Schrecken zur Erde zurück. "Das", sagte sie und zeigte auf das Bild - ein recht lebhaftes Chromo mit dem Titel "Christus segnet die Kinder" - "Ich habe mir gerade vorgestellt, dass ich eine von ihnen bin - dass ich das kleine Mädchen im blauen Kleid bin, das für sich alleine in der Ecke steht, als ob sie niemandem gehören würde, eben wie bei mir. Sie wirkt einsam und traurig, findest du nicht? Ich glaube, sie hatte keinen eigenen Vater oder Mutter. Aber sie wollte auch gesegnet werden, also schlich sie sich schüchtern an den Rand der Menge, in der Hoffnung, dass niemand sie bemerken würde - außer Ihm. Ich bin sicher, ich weiß genau, wie sie sich gefühlt haben muss. Ihr Herz muss gepocht haben und ihre Hände müssen kalt geworden sein, so wie meine es getan haben, als ich dich gefragt habe Anne neigte die Vase voll Apfelblüten so weit, dass sie einer knospigen Blüte einen sanften Kuss geben konnte, bevor sie sich noch einige Momente lang eifrig darauf konzentrierte. "Marilla", forderte sie schließlich, "glaubst du, dass ich jemals eine Busenfreundin in Avonlea haben werde?" "Eine - eine was für eine Freundin?" Eine Busenfreundin - eine vertraute Freundin, verstehst du - jemand, mit dem ich meine innersten Gefühle teilen kann. Ich habe mein ganzes Leben lang davon geträumt, sie kennenzulernen. Ich habe nie wirklich geglaubt, dass es passieren würde, aber so viele meiner schönsten Träume sind auf einmal wahr geworden, dass dieser vielleicht auch wahr wird. Glaubst du, das ist möglich?" "Diana Barry wohnt auf der Obstbaum-Anhöhe und ist in deinem Alter. Sie ist ein sehr nettes kleines Mädchen, und vielleicht wird sie deine Spielgefährtin sein, wenn sie nach Hause kommt. Sie besucht gerade ihre Tante in Carmody. Du musst jedoch vorsichtig sein, wie du dich benimmst. Mrs. Barry ist eine sehr anspruchsvolle Frau. Sie lässt Diana nicht mit irgendeinem kleinen Mädchen spielen, das nicht nett und brav ist." Anne betrachtete Marilla durch die Apfelblüten, ihre Augen glühten vor Interesse. "Wie ist Diana?" Haar hat sie nicht rotes, oder? Oh, hoffentlich nicht. Es ist schon schlimm genug, rotes Haar zu haben, aber ich könnte es bei einer Busenfreundin überhaupt nicht ertragen." "Diana ist ein sehr hübsches kleines Mädchen. Sie hat schwarze Augen und schwarze Haare und rote Wangen. Und sie ist gut und klug, was besser ist als hübsch zu sein." Marilla war genauso begeistert von Moralvorstellungen wie die Fürstin im Wunderland und war fest davon überzeugt, dass jeder Aussage an ein Kind, das erzogen wurde, eine Moralvorstellung angehängt werden sollte. Aber Anne schob die Moral unbeachtet beiseite und konzentrierte sich nur auf die schönen Möglichkeiten, die sich boten. "Oh, ich bin so froh, dass sie hübsch ist. Neben der eigenen Schönheit zu sein - und das ist in meinem Fall unmöglich - wäre es am besten, eine wunderschöne Busenfreundin zu haben. Als ich bei Mrs. Thomas gelebt habe, hatte sie einen Bücherschrank in ihrem Wohnzimmer mit Glastüren. Es gab keine Bücher darin; Mrs. Thomas bewahrte ihr bestes Porzellan und ihre Marmeladen dort auf, wenn sie welche zum Aufbewahren hatte. Eine der Türen war kaputt. Herr Thomas hat sie eines Nachts zerbrochen, als er leicht betrunken mit etwas umkippte. Aber die andere war noch ganz, und ich habe so getan, als ob mein Spiegelbild darin ein anderes kleines Mädchen wäre, das darin leben würde. Ich habe sie Katie Maurice genannt, und wir waren sehr vertraut miteinander. Ich habe stundenlang mit ihr gesprochen, besonders am Sonntag, und ihr alles erzählt. Katie war der Trost und die Seelenverwandte meines Lebens. Wir haben so getan, als ob der Bücherschrank verzaubert wäre und wenn ich den Spruch kennen würde, könnte ich die Tür öffnen und direkt in den Raum treten, in dem Katie Maurice lebte, anstatt in Mrs. Thomas' Regalen mit Marmeladen und Porzellan. Und dann hätte mich Katie Maurice an die Hand genommen und mich in einen wunderschönen Ort geführt, voller Blumen und Sonnenschein und Feen, und wir hätten dort für immer glücklich gelebt. Als ich zu Mrs. Hammond gegangen bin, hat es mir das Herz gebrochen, Katie Maurice zurückzulassen. Es hat ihr auch schrecklich wehgetan, das weiß ich, denn sie hat geweint, als sie mir durch die Bücherschranktür zum Abschied einen Kuss gegeben hat. Bei Mrs. Hammond gab es keinen Bücherschrank. Aber ein kleines Stück den Fluss hinauf von dem Haus gab es ein langes grünes Tal, und dort lebte der schönste Echo. Es hat jedes Wort, das man sagte, zurückgeworfen, selbst wenn man kein bisschen laut sprach. Also habe ich mir vorgestellt, dass es ein kleines Mädchen namens Violetta sei und wir sehr gute Freunde wären und ich sie fast genauso liebte wie Katie Maurice - nicht ganz, aber fast, weißt du. In der Nacht, bevor ich ins Waisenhaus gekommen bin, habe ich mich von Violetta verabschiedet, und oh, ihr Abschied hat mir mit so traurigen, traurigen Tönen geantwortet. Ich hatte mich so an sie gewöhnt, dass ich es nicht übers Herz gebracht habe, mir im Waisenhaus eine Busenfreundin vorzustellen, selbst wenn es Raum für Vorstellungskraft dort gegeben hätte." "Ich denke, es ist genauso gut, dass es keinen gab", sagte Marilla trocken. "Ich bin nicht damit einverstanden, dass so etwas vor sich geht. Du scheinst deine eigenen Vorstellungen zu glauben. Es wird gut für dich sein, einen lebendigen Freund zu haben, der dir diesen Unsinn aus dem Kopf schlägt. Aber pass auf, dass Mrs. Barry dich nicht über deine Katie Maurices und Violettas reden hört, sonst denkt sie, du erfindest Geschichten." "Oh, das werde ich nicht. Das könnte ich nicht mit jedem besprechen - ihre Erinnerungen sind zu kostbar dafür. Aber ich dachte, du solltest davon wissen. Oh, schau, hier ist eine große Biene, die gerade aus einer Apfelblüte gefallen ist. Stell dir vor, was für ein schöner Ort zum Leben - in einer Apfelblüte! Stell dir vor, darin einzuschlafen, wenn der Wind sie hin und her wiegt. Wenn ich kein menschliches Mädchen wäre, glaube ich, ich wäre eine Biene und würde unter den Blumen leben." "Gestern wolltest du eine Möwe sein", schnaubte Marilla. "Ich denke, du bist sehr wankelmütig. Ich habe dir gesagt, dass du dieses Gebet lernen und nicht reden sollst. Aber es scheint unmöglich für dich zu sein, aufzuhören zu reden, wenn jemand da ist, der dir zuhört. Also geh in dein Zimmer und lerne es." "Oh, ich kenne es jetzt so ziemlich alles - bis auf den letzten Satz." "Nun gut, macht nichts. Tu, was ich dir gesagt habe. Geh in dein Zimmer und lerne es gut zu Ende und bleib dort, bis ich dich rufe, um mir beim Tee zu helfen." "Kann ich die Apfelblüten als Gesellschaft mitnehmen?" bat Anne. "Nein, du willst dein Zimmer nicht mit Blumen vollstellen. Du hättest sie lieber erst gar nicht vom Baum nehmen sollen." "So habe ich mich auch ein kleines bisschen gefühlt", sagte Anne. "Ich hatte das Gefühl, ich sollte ihr schönes Leben nicht verkürzen, indem ich sie pflücke - ich würde auch nicht gepflückt werden wollen, wenn ich eine Apfelblüte wäre. Aber die Versuchung war _unwiderstehlich_. Was machst du, wenn du einer unwiderstehlichen Versuchung begegnest?" "Anne, hast du gehört, wie ich dir gesagt habe, dass du in dein Zimmer gehen sollst?" Anne seufzte, ging in den Ostgiebel und setzte sich auf einen Stuhl am Fenster. "So, ich kenne dieses Gebet. Ich habe diesen letzten Satz gelernt, als ich die Treppe hochgekommen bin. Jetzt werde ich mir Dinge in diesem Raum vorstellen, die immer nur vorgestellt bleiben sollen. Der Boden ist mit einem weißen Samtteppich bedeckt, auf dem überall rosa Rosen sind, und an den Fenstern hängen rosa Seidenvorhänge. Die Wände sind mit gold- und silberfarbener Brokat-Tapisserie behängt. Die Möbel sind aus Mahagoni. Ich habe noch nie Mahagoni gesehen, aber es klingt so _luxuriös_. Hier ist ein Sofa voller prachtvoller, seidenen Kissen, rosa und blau und scharlachrot und gold, und ich liege anmutig darauf. Ich kann mein Spiegelbild in diesem großartigen großen Spiegel an der Wand sehen. Ich bin groß und königlich, gekleidet in ein Kleid aus weißer Spitze, das über den Boden schleift, mit einem Perlenkreuz auf meiner Brust und Perlen in meinem Haar. Mein Haar ist von Mitternachtsschwarze und meine Haut hat eine klare elfen Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Anne schafft es, die morgendlichen Arbeiten zu erledigen, ohne dass Marilla ihr Schicksal offenbart, aber sie entscheidet schließlich, dass es einfacher wäre, es zu wissen, als sich zu fragen, und fragt Marilla, ob sie sich entschieden hat, ob sie bleiben darf. Als Marilla ja sagt, ist Anne so glücklich, dass sie weint. Aber Marilla ist nicht der sentimentale Typ und sagt Anne, dass sie zu leicht weint und lacht. Anne fragt, ob sie sie Tante Marilla nennen kann. Marilla antwortet mit Nein, weil sie nicht ihre Tante ist. Anne fragt, ob sie sich vorstellen könnten, dass sie es ist, und Marilla sagt, dass sie nicht daran glaubt, dass man sich Dinge anders vorstellen kann, als sie sind. Wahrscheinlich der größte Unterschied zwischen diesen beiden Charakteren. Marilla beginnt Annes Ausbildung, indem sie ihr sagt, das Vaterunser auswendig zu lernen. Anne geht, um das Gebet zu holen, kehrt aber nicht zurück. Marilla sucht nach ihr und findet Anne verträumt das Flur-Bild "Christus segnet die Kinder" betrachtend. Anne war in Gedanken verloren, sich vorzustellen, dass sie eines von ihnen war. Erinnern Sie sich daran, wie Marilla nicht daran glaubt, sich Dinge vorzustellen? Sie ist nicht sympathisch. Zurück zum Vaterunser für Anne. Aber Anne kommt wieder vom Thema ab und fragt Marilla, ob sie in Avonlea "einen Seelenverwandten" finden könnte. Marilla sagt, dass die Nachbarin ein Mädchen namens Diana hat, das in Annes Alter ist. Anne erzählt die Geschichten ihrer früheren "Freunde", beide imaginär: Katie Maurice, ihr Spiegelbild, das sie vorgab, ein anderes Mädchen zu sein, und ihr Echo, das sie vorgab, eine Freundin namens Violetta zu sein. Erschöpft schickt Marilla Anne in ihr Zimmer, um das Gebet zu lernen. Anne sitzt in ihrem Zimmer und – wie erwartet – stellt sie sich Dinge vor. Aber dann denkt sie daran, dass sie jetzt Anne von der grünen Giebel ist und ist glücklich, "von" irgendwo zu sein.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Monsieur Leon, while studying law, had gone pretty often to the dancing-rooms, where he was even a great success amongst the grisettes, who thought he had a distinguished air. He was the best-mannered of the students; he wore his hair neither too long nor too short, didn't spend all his quarter's money on the first day of the month, and kept on good terms with his professors. As for excesses, he had always abstained from them, as much from cowardice as from refinement. Often when he stayed in his room to read, or else when sitting of an evening under the lime-trees of the Luxembourg, he let his Code fall to the ground, and the memory of Emma came back to him. But gradually this feeling grew weaker, and other desires gathered over it, although it still persisted through them all. For Leon did not lose all hope; there was for him, as it were, a vague promise floating in the future, like a golden fruit suspended from some fantastic tree. Then, seeing her again after three years of absence his passion reawakened. He must, he thought, at last make up his mind to possess her. Moreover, his timidity had worn off by contact with his gay companions, and he returned to the provinces despising everyone who had not with varnished shoes trodden the asphalt of the boulevards. By the side of a Parisienne in her laces, in the drawing-room of some illustrious physician, a person driving his carriage and wearing many orders, the poor clerk would no doubt have trembled like a child; but here, at Rouen, on the harbour, with the wife of this small doctor he felt at his ease, sure beforehand he would shine. Self-possession depends on its environment. We don't speak on the first floor as on the fourth; and the wealthy woman seems to have, about her, to guard her virtue, all her banknotes, like a cuirass in the lining of her corset. On leaving the Bovarys the night before, Leon had followed them through the streets at a distance; then having seen them stop at the "Croix-Rouge," he turned on his heel, and spent the night meditating a plan. So the next day about five o'clock he walked into the kitchen of the inn, with a choking sensation in his throat, pale cheeks, and that resolution of cowards that stops at nothing. "The gentleman isn't in," answered a servant. This seemed to him a good omen. He went upstairs. She was not disturbed at his approach; on the contrary, she apologised for having neglected to tell him where they were staying. "Oh, I divined it!" said Leon. He pretended he had been guided towards her by chance, by, instinct. She began to smile; and at once, to repair his folly, Leon told her that he had spent his morning in looking for her in all the hotels in the town one after the other. "So you have made up your mind to stay?" he added. "Yes," she said, "and I am wrong. One ought not to accustom oneself to impossible pleasures when there are a thousand demands upon one." "Oh, I can imagine!" "Ah! no; for you, you are a man!" But men too had had their trials, and the conversation went off into certain philosophical reflections. Emma expatiated much on the misery of earthly affections, and the eternal isolation in which the heart remains entombed. To show off, or from a naive imitation of this melancholy which called forth his, the young man declared that he had been awfully bored during the whole course of his studies. The law irritated him, other vocations attracted him, and his mother never ceased worrying him in every one of her letters. As they talked they explained more and more fully the motives of their sadness, working themselves up in their progressive confidence. But they sometimes stopped short of the complete exposition of their thought, and then sought to invent a phrase that might express it all the same. She did not confess her passion for another; he did not say that he had forgotten her. Perhaps he no longer remembered his suppers with girls after masked balls; and no doubt she did not recollect the rendezvous of old when she ran across the fields in the morning to her lover's house. The noises of the town hardly reached them, and the room seemed small, as if on purpose to hem in their solitude more closely. Emma, in a dimity dressing-gown, leant her head against the back of the old arm-chair; the yellow wall-paper formed, as it were, a golden background behind her, and her bare head was mirrored in the glass with the white parting in the middle, and the tip of her ears peeping out from the folds of her hair. "But pardon me!" she said. "It is wrong of me. I weary you with my eternal complaints." "No, never, never!" "If you knew," she went on, raising to the ceiling her beautiful eyes, in which a tear was trembling, "all that I had dreamed!" "And I! Oh, I too have suffered! Often I went out; I went away. I dragged myself along the quays, seeking distraction amid the din of the crowd without being able to banish the heaviness that weighed upon me. In an engraver's shop on the boulevard there is an Italian print of one of the Muses. She is draped in a tunic, and she is looking at the moon, with forget-me-nots in her flowing hair. Something drove me there continually; I stayed there hours together." Then in a trembling voice, "She resembled you a little." Madame Bovary turned away her head that he might not see the irrepressible smile she felt rising to her lips. "Often," he went on, "I wrote you letters that I tore up." She did not answer. He continued-- "I sometimes fancied that some chance would bring you. I thought I recognised you at street-corners, and I ran after all the carriages through whose windows I saw a shawl fluttering, a veil like yours." She seemed resolved to let him go on speaking without interruption. Crossing her arms and bending down her face, she looked at the rosettes on her slippers, and at intervals made little movements inside the satin of them with her toes. At last she sighed. "But the most wretched thing, is it not--is to drag out, as I do, a useless existence. If our pains were only of some use to someone, we should find consolation in the thought of the sacrifice." He started off in praise of virtue, duty, and silent immolation, having himself an incredible longing for self-sacrifice that he could not satisfy. "I should much like," she said, "to be a nurse at a hospital." "Alas! men have none of these holy missions, and I see nowhere any calling--unless perhaps that of a doctor." With a slight shrug of her shoulders, Emma interrupted him to speak of her illness, which had almost killed her. What a pity! She should not be suffering now! Leon at once envied the calm of the tomb, and one evening he had even made his will, asking to be buried in that beautiful rug with velvet stripes he had received from her. For this was how they would have wished to be, each setting up an ideal to which they were now adapting their past life. Besides, speech is a rolling-mill that always thins out the sentiment. But at this invention of the rug she asked, "But why?" "Why?" He hesitated. "Because I loved you so!" And congratulating himself at having surmounted the difficulty, Leon watched her face out of the corner of his eyes. It was like the sky when a gust of wind drives the clouds across. The mass of sad thoughts that darkened them seemed to be lifted from her blue eyes; her whole face shone. He waited. At last she replied-- "I always suspected it." Then they went over all the trifling events of that far-off existence, whose joys and sorrows they had just summed up in one word. They recalled the arbour with clematis, the dresses she had worn, the furniture of her room, the whole of her house. "And our poor cactuses, where are they?" "The cold killed them this winter." "Ah! how I have thought of them, do you know? I often saw them again as of yore, when on the summer mornings the sun beat down upon your blinds, and I saw your two bare arms passing out amongst the flowers." "Poor friend!" she said, holding out her hand to him. Leon swiftly pressed his lips to it. Then, when he had taken a deep breath-- "At that time you were to me I know not what incomprehensible force that took captive my life. Once, for instance, I went to see you; but you, no doubt, do not remember it." "I do," she said; "go on." "You were downstairs in the ante-room, ready to go out, standing on the last stair; you were wearing a bonnet with small blue flowers; and without any invitation from you, in spite of myself, I went with you. Every moment, however, I grew more and more conscious of my folly, and I went on walking by you, not daring to follow you completely, and unwilling to leave you. When you went into a shop, I waited in the street, and I watched you through the window taking off your gloves and counting the change on the counter. Then you rang at Madame Tuvache's; you were let in, and I stood like an idiot in front of the great heavy door that had closed after you." Madame Bovary, as she listened to him, wondered that she was so old. All these things reappearing before her seemed to widen out her life; it was like some sentimental immensity to which she returned; and from time to time she said in a low voice, her eyes half closed-- "Yes, it is true--true--true!" They heard eight strike on the different clocks of the Beauvoisine quarter, which is full of schools, churches, and large empty hotels. They no longer spoke, but they felt as they looked upon each other a buzzing in their heads, as if something sonorous had escaped from the fixed eyes of each of them. They were hand in hand now, and the past, the future, reminiscences and dreams, all were confounded in the sweetness of this ecstasy. Night was darkening over the walls, on which still shone, half hidden in the shade, the coarse colours of four bills representing four scenes from the "Tour de Nesle," with a motto in Spanish and French at the bottom. Through the sash-window a patch of dark sky was seen between the pointed roofs. She rose to light two wax-candles on the drawers, then she sat down again. "Well!" said Leon. "Well!" she replied. He was thinking how to resume the interrupted conversation, when she said to him-- "How is it that no one until now has ever expressed such sentiments to me?" The clerk said that ideal natures were difficult to understand. He from the first moment had loved her, and he despaired when he thought of the happiness that would have been theirs, if thanks to fortune, meeting her earlier, they had been indissolubly bound to one another. "I have sometimes thought of it," she went on. "What a dream!" murmured Leon. And fingering gently the blue binding of her long white sash, he added, "And who prevents us from beginning now?" "No, my friend," she replied; "I am too old; you are too young. Forget me! Others will love you; you will love them." "Not as you!" he cried. "What a child you are! Come, let us be sensible. I wish it." She showed him the impossibility of their love, and that they must remain, as formerly, on the simple terms of a fraternal friendship. Was she speaking thus seriously? No doubt Emma did not herself know, quite absorbed as she was by the charm of the seduction, and the necessity of defending herself from it; and contemplating the young man with a moved look, she gently repulsed the timid caresses that his trembling hands attempted. "Ah! forgive me!" he cried, drawing back. Emma was seized with a vague fear at this shyness, more dangerous to her than the boldness of Rodolphe when he advanced to her open-armed. No man had ever seemed to her so beautiful. An exquisite candour emanated from his being. He lowered his long fine eyelashes, that curled upwards. His cheek, with the soft skin reddened, she thought, with desire of her person, and Emma felt an invincible longing to press her lips to it. Then, leaning towards the clock as if to see the time-- "Ah! how late it is!" she said; "how we do chatter!" He understood the hint and took up his hat. "It has even made me forget the theatre. And poor Bovary has left me here especially for that. Monsieur Lormeaux, of the Rue Grand-Pont, was to take me and his wife." And the opportunity was lost, as she was to leave the next day. "Really!" said Leon. "Yes." "But I must see you again," he went on. "I wanted to tell you--" "What?" "Something--important--serious. Oh, no! Besides, you will not go; it is impossible. If you should--listen to me. Then you have not understood me; you have not guessed--" "Yet you speak plainly," said Emma. "Ah! you can jest. Enough! enough! Oh, for pity's sake, let me see you once--only once!" "Well--" She stopped; then, as if thinking better of it, "Oh, not here!" "Where you will." "Will you--" She seemed to reflect; then abruptly, "To-morrow at eleven o'clock in the cathedral." "I shall be there," he cried, seizing her hands, which she disengaged. And as they were both standing up, he behind her, and Emma with her head bent, he stooped over her and pressed long kisses on her neck. "You are mad! Ah! you are mad!" she said, with sounding little laughs, while the kisses multiplied. Then bending his head over her shoulder, he seemed to beg the consent of her eyes. They fell upon him full of an icy dignity. Leon stepped back to go out. He stopped on the threshold; then he whispered with a trembling voice, "Tomorrow!" She answered with a nod, and disappeared like a bird into the next room. In the evening Emma wrote the clerk an interminable letter, in which she cancelled the rendezvous; all was over; they must not, for the sake of their happiness, meet again. But when the letter was finished, as she did not know Leon's address, she was puzzled. "I'll give it to him myself," she said; "he will come." The next morning, at the open window, and humming on his balcony, Leon himself varnished his pumps with several coatings. He put on white trousers, fine socks, a green coat, emptied all the scent he had into his handkerchief, then having had his hair curled, he uncurled it again, in order to give it a more natural elegance. "It is still too early," he thought, looking at the hairdresser's cuckoo-clock, that pointed to the hour of nine. He read an old fashion journal, went out, smoked a cigar, walked up three streets, thought it was time, and went slowly towards the porch of Notre Dame. It was a beautiful summer morning. Silver plate sparkled in the jeweller's windows, and the light falling obliquely on the cathedral made mirrors of the corners of the grey stones; a flock of birds fluttered in the grey sky round the trefoil bell-turrets; the square, resounding with cries, was fragrant with the flowers that bordered its pavement, roses, jasmines, pinks, narcissi, and tube-roses, unevenly spaced out between moist grasses, catmint, and chickweed for the birds; the fountains gurgled in the centre, and under large umbrellas, amidst melons, piled up in heaps, flower-women, bare-headed, were twisting paper round bunches of violets. The young man took one. It was the first time that he had bought flowers for a woman, and his breast, as he smelt them, swelled with pride, as if this homage that he meant for another had recoiled upon himself. But he was afraid of being seen; he resolutely entered the church. The beadle, who was just then standing on the threshold in the middle of the left doorway, under the "Dancing Marianne," with feather cap, and rapier dangling against his calves, came in, more majestic than a cardinal, and as shining as a saint on a holy pyx. He came towards Leon, and, with that smile of wheedling benignity assumed by ecclesiastics when they question children-- "The gentleman, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? The gentleman would like to see the curiosities of the church?" "No!" said the other. And he first went round the lower aisles. Then he went out to look at the Place. Emma was not coming yet. He went up again to the choir. The nave was reflected in the full fonts with the beginning of the arches and some portions of the glass windows. But the reflections of the paintings, broken by the marble rim, were continued farther on upon the flag-stones, like a many-coloured carpet. The broad daylight from without streamed into the church in three enormous rays from the three opened portals. From time to time at the upper end a sacristan passed, making the oblique genuflexion of devout persons in a hurry. The crystal lustres hung motionless. In the choir a silver lamp was burning, and from the side chapels and dark places of the church sometimes rose sounds like sighs, with the clang of a closing grating, its echo reverberating under the lofty vault. Leon with solemn steps walked along by the walls. Life had never seemed so good to him. She would come directly, charming, agitated, looking back at the glances that followed her, and with her flounced dress, her gold eyeglass, her thin shoes, with all sorts of elegant trifles that he had never enjoyed, and with the ineffable seduction of yielding virtue. The church like a huge boudoir spread around her; the arches bent down to gather in the shade the confession of her love; the windows shone resplendent to illumine her face, and the censers would burn that she might appear like an angel amid the fumes of the sweet-smelling odours. But she did not come. He sat down on a chair, and his eyes fell upon a blue stained window representing boatmen carrying baskets. He looked at it long, attentively, and he counted the scales of the fishes and the button-holes of the doublets, while his thoughts wandered off towards Emma. The beadle, standing aloof, was inwardly angry at this individual who took the liberty of admiring the cathedral by himself. He seemed to him to be conducting himself in a monstrous fashion, to be robbing him in a sort, and almost committing sacrilege. But a rustle of silk on the flags, the tip of a bonnet, a lined cloak--it was she! Leon rose and ran to meet her. Emma was pale. She walked fast. "Read!" she said, holding out a paper to him. "Oh, no!" And she abruptly withdrew her hand to enter the chapel of the Virgin, where, kneeling on a chair, she began to pray. The young man was irritated at this bigot fancy; then he nevertheless experienced a certain charm in seeing her, in the middle of a rendezvous, thus lost in her devotions, like an Andalusian marchioness; then he grew bored, for she seemed never coming to an end. Emma prayed, or rather strove to pray, hoping that some sudden resolution might descend to her from heaven; and to draw down divine aid she filled full her eyes with the splendours of the tabernacle. She breathed in the perfumes of the full-blown flowers in the large vases, and listened to the stillness of the church, that only heightened the tumult of her heart. She rose, and they were about to leave, when the beadle came forward, hurriedly saying-- "Madame, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? Madame would like to see the curiosities of the church?" "Oh, no!" cried the clerk. "Why not?" said she. For she clung with her expiring virtue to the Virgin, the sculptures, the tombs--anything. Then, in order to proceed "by rule," the beadle conducted them right to the entrance near the square, where, pointing out with his cane a large circle of block-stones without inscription or carving-- "This," he said majestically, "is the circumference of the beautiful bell of Ambroise. It weighed forty thousand pounds. There was not its equal in all Europe. The workman who cast it died of the joy--" "Let us go on," said Leon. The old fellow started off again; then, having got back to the chapel of the Virgin, he stretched forth his arm with an all-embracing gesture of demonstration, and, prouder than a country squire showing you his espaliers, went on-- "This simple stone covers Pierre de Breze, lord of Varenne and of Brissac, grand marshal of Poitou, and governor of Normandy, who died at the battle of Montlhery on the 16th of July, 1465." Leon bit his lips, fuming. "And on the right, this gentleman all encased in iron, on the prancing horse, is his grandson, Louis de Breze, lord of Breval and of Montchauvet, Count de Maulevrier, Baron de Mauny, chamberlain to the king, Knight of the Order, and also governor of Normandy; died on the 23rd of July, 1531--a Sunday, as the inscription specifies; and below, this figure, about to descend into the tomb, portrays the same person. It is not possible, is it, to see a more perfect representation of annihilation?" Madame Bovary put up her eyeglasses. Leon, motionless, looked at her, no longer even attempting to speak a single word, to make a gesture, so discouraged was he at this two-fold obstinacy of gossip and indifference. The everlasting guide went on-- "Near him, this kneeling woman who weeps is his spouse, Diane de Poitiers, Countess de Breze, Duchess de Valentinois, born in 1499, died in 1566, and to the left, the one with the child is the Holy Virgin. Now turn to this side; here are the tombs of the Ambroise. They were both cardinals and archbishops of Rouen. That one was minister under Louis thousand gold crowns for the poor." And without stopping, still talking, he pushed them into a chapel full of balustrades, some put away, and disclosed a kind of block that certainly might once have been an ill-made statue. "Truly," he said with a groan, "it adorned the tomb of Richard Coeur de Lion, King of England and Duke of Normandy. It was the Calvinists, sir, who reduced it to this condition. They had buried it for spite in the earth, under the episcopal seat of Monsignor. See! this is the door by which Monsignor passes to his house. Let us pass on quickly to see the gargoyle windows." But Leon hastily took some silver from his pocket and seized Emma's arm. The beadle stood dumfounded, not able to understand this untimely munificence when there were still so many things for the stranger to see. So calling him back, he cried-- "Sir! sir! The steeple! the steeple!" "No, thank you!" said Leon. "You are wrong, sir! It is four hundred and forty feet high, nine less than the great pyramid of Egypt. It is all cast; it--" Leon was fleeing, for it seemed to him that his love, that for nearly two hours now had become petrified in the church like the stones, would vanish like a vapour through that sort of truncated funnel, of oblong cage, of open chimney that rises so grotesquely from the cathedral like the extravagant attempt of some fantastic brazier. "But where are we going?" she said. Making no answer, he walked on with a rapid step; and Madame Bovary was already, dipping her finger in the holy water when behind them they heard a panting breath interrupted by the regular sound of a cane. Leon turned back. "Sir!" "What is it?" And he recognised the beadle, holding under his arms and balancing against his stomach some twenty large sewn volumes. They were works "which treated of the cathedral." "Idiot!" growled Leon, rushing out of the church. A lad was playing about the close. "Go and get me a cab!" The child bounded off like a ball by the Rue Quatre-Vents; then they were alone a few minutes, face to face, and a little embarrassed. "Ah! Leon! Really--I don't know--if I ought," she whispered. Then with a more serious air, "Do you know, it is very improper--" "How so?" replied the clerk. "It is done at Paris." And that, as an irresistible argument, decided her. Still the cab did not come. Leon was afraid she might go back into the church. At last the cab appeared. "At all events, go out by the north porch," cried the beadle, who was left alone on the threshold, "so as to see the Resurrection, the Last Judgment, Paradise, King David, and the Condemned in Hell-flames." "Where to, sir?" asked the coachman. "Where you like," said Leon, forcing Emma into the cab. And the lumbering machine set out. It went down the Rue Grand-Pont, crossed the Place des Arts, the Quai Napoleon, the Pont Neuf, and stopped short before the statue of Pierre Corneille. "Go on," cried a voice that came from within. The cab went on again, and as soon as it reached the Carrefour Lafayette, set off down-hill, and entered the station at a gallop. "No, straight on!" cried the same voice. The cab came out by the gate, and soon having reached the Cours, trotted quietly beneath the elm-trees. The coachman wiped his brow, put his leather hat between his knees, and drove his carriage beyond the side alley by the meadow to the margin of the waters. It went along by the river, along the towing-path paved with sharp pebbles, and for a long while in the direction of Oyssel, beyond the isles. But suddenly it turned with a dash across Quatremares, Sotteville, La Grande-Chaussee, the Rue d'Elbeuf, and made its third halt in front of the Jardin des Plantes. "Get on, will you?" cried the voice more furiously. And at once resuming its course, it passed by Saint-Sever, by the Quai'des Curandiers, the Quai aux Meules, once more over the bridge, by the Place du Champ de Mars, and behind the hospital gardens, where old men in black coats were walking in the sun along the terrace all green with ivy. It went up the Boulevard Bouvreuil, along the Boulevard Cauchoise, then the whole of Mont-Riboudet to the Deville hills. It came back; and then, without any fixed plan or direction, wandered about at hazard. The cab was seen at Saint-Pol, at Lescure, at Mont Gargan, at La Rougue-Marc and Place du Gaillardbois; in the Rue Maladrerie, Rue Dinanderie, before Saint-Romain, Saint-Vivien, Saint-Maclou, Saint-Nicaise--in front of the Customs, at the "Vieille Tour," the "Trois Pipes," and the Monumental Cemetery. From time to time the coachman, on his box cast despairing eyes at the public-houses. He could not understand what furious desire for locomotion urged these individuals never to wish to stop. He tried to now and then, and at once exclamations of anger burst forth behind him. Then he lashed his perspiring jades afresh, but indifferent to their jolting, running up against things here and there, not caring if he did, demoralised, and almost weeping with thirst, fatigue, and depression. And on the harbour, in the midst of the drays and casks, and in the streets, at the corners, the good folk opened large wonder-stricken eyes at this sight, so extraordinary in the provinces, a cab with blinds drawn, and which appeared thus constantly shut more closely than a tomb, and tossing about like a vessel. Once in the middle of the day, in the open country, just as the sun beat most fiercely against the old plated lanterns, a bared hand passed beneath the small blinds of yellow canvas, and threw out some scraps of paper that scattered in the wind, and farther off lighted like white butterflies on a field of red clover all in bloom. At about six o'clock the carriage stopped in a back street of the Beauvoisine Quarter, and a woman got out, who walked with her veil down, and without turning her head. Kannst du eine geeignete Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Während seiner Zeit an der juristischen Fakultät in Paris hatte Leon seine Erinnerungen an Emma verblassen lassen; beim Wiedersehen entflammt seine Leidenschaft sofort wieder, obwohl fast drei Jahre vergangen sind. Als er Emma anspricht, zeigt Leon, der nicht mehr schüchtern ist, ein neues Selbstbewusstsein. Er ist sogar mutig genug, die Bovarys in ihrem Hotel zu besuchen. Charles ist nicht da und Leon und Emma unterhalten sich "über ihre Leiden, wobei sie immer aufgeregter werden, je offener sie werden." Schließlich platzt es aus Leon heraus, "Ich habe dich geliebt!" Emma strahlt auf, als sie diese Worte hört. Sie reden bis spät in die Nacht und verabreden sich für elf Uhr am nächsten Morgen im Dom. Bevor sie geht, küsst Leon sie im Nacken. Emma versucht verzweifelt, nicht darauf einzugehen. Am nächsten Tag kommt Emma zu spät im Dom an. Leon hat schon eine Weile gewartet und ist darauf aus, etwas Zeit allein mit ihr zu verbringen. Sie ist sich jedoch bewusst, dass ihre "wackelige Tugend" gefährdet ist, und akzeptiert eine Führung durch den Dom. Leon ist offensichtlich unbehaglich und nimmt sie mit, sobald sich die Gelegenheit bietet. Sie steigen in eine Kutsche und Leon ordnet an, dass der Fahrer willkürlich herumfahren soll. In der Nacht zuvor hatte Emma Leon einen Brief geschrieben, in dem sie erklärt hatte, dass sie keine Beziehung haben können. Dieser Brief wird in Stücke gerissen und aus dem Fenster der Kutsche geworfen. Gegen sechs Uhr lässt die Kutsche Emma in der Nähe ihres Hotels aussteigen. Sie entfernt sich "mit herabgesenktem Schleier und ohne einen rückwärtigen Blick".

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: SCENE VII ORGON, TARTUFFE ORGON What! So insult a saintly man of God! TARTUFFE Heaven, forgive him all the pain he gives me! [4] [Footnote 4: Some modern editions have adopted the reading, preserved by tradition as that of the earliest stage version: Heaven, forgive him even as I forgive him! Voltaire gives still another reading: Heaven, forgive me even as I forgive him! Whichever was the original version, it appears in none of the early editions, and Moliere probably felt forced to change it on account of its too close resemblance to the Biblical phrase.] (To Orgon) Could you but know with what distress I see Them try to vilify me to my brother! ORGON Ah! TARTUFFE The mere thought of such ingratitude Makes my soul suffer torture, bitterly ... My horror at it ... Ah! my heart's so full I cannot speak ... I think I'll die of it. ORGON (in tears, running to the door through which he drove away his son) Scoundrel! I wish I'd never let you go, But slain you on the spot with my own hand. (To Tartuffe) Brother, compose yourself, and don't be angry. TARTUFFE Nay, brother, let us end these painful quarrels. I see what troublous times I bring upon you, And think 'tis needful that I leave this house. ORGON What! You can't mean it? TARTUFFE Yes, they hate me here, And try, I find, to make you doubt my faith. ORGON What of it? Do you find I listen to them? TARTUFFE No doubt they won't stop there. These same reports You now reject, may some day win a hearing. ORGON No, brother, never. TARTUFFE Ah! my friend, a woman May easily mislead her husband's mind. ORGON No, no. TARTUFFE So let me quickly go away And thus remove all cause for such attacks. ORGON No, you shall stay; my life depends upon it. TARTUFFE Then I must mortify myself. And yet, If you should wish ... ORGON No, never! TARTUFFE Very well, then; No more of that. But I shall rule my conduct To fit the case. Honour is delicate, And friendship binds me to forestall suspicion, Prevent all scandal, and avoid your wife. ORGON No, you shall haunt her, just to spite them all. 'Tis my delight to set them in a rage; You shall be seen together at all hours And what is more, the better to defy them, I'll have no other heir but you; and straightway I'll go and make a deed of gift to you, Drawn in due form, of all my property. A good true friend, my son-in-law to be, Is more to me than son, and wife, and kindred. You will accept my offer, will you not? TARTUFFE Heaven's will be done in everything! ORGON Poor man! We'll go make haste to draw the deed aright, And then let envy burst itself with spite! Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Sobald Damis den Raum verlassen hat, erzählt Tartuffe Orgon, wie furchtbar Damis ihn fühlen lässt. Orgon rennt zur Tür, aus der Damis gerade herausgegangen ist, und schüttelt seine Faust, verflucht seinen Sohn noch mehr. Tartuffe sagt Orgon, er müsse einfach gehen, dass er zu viel Ärger für alle verursacht hat. Erneut beweist Tartuffe sich selbst als Meister der Umkehrpsychologie... oder vielleicht beweist er nur, dass Orgon ein Dummkopf ist. Oder beides. Orgon redet Tartuffe ein, zu bleiben - als ob er wirklich eine Ermutigung gebraucht hätte. Wenn alles geklärt ist, stellt Tartuffe eine weitere Bitte: Er sagt Orgon, dass er Elmire einfach meiden muss, nur für den Fall, dass, wissen Sie schon, etwas passieren könnte. Orgon will davon nichts hören. Er will es mit seinen gemeinen, betrügerischen Verwandten aufnehmen. Um dies zu tun, sagt er Tartuffe, er solle so viel Zeit wie möglich mit seiner Frau verbringen. Er beschließt auch, ihn zu seinem "einzigen Sohn und Erben" zu machen; er bedeutet ihm mehr, sagt er Tartuffe, "als Frau, Kind oder Verwandtschaft". Tartuffe ist mit der Vereinbarung einverstanden; soweit er betroffen ist, ist es Gottes Wille. Er und Orgon machen sich daran, den Vertrag aufzusetzen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: | LIEBER ICH, es gibt nichts als Treffen und Abschiede in dieser Welt, wie Mrs. Lynde sagte“, bemerkte Anne klagend, als sie am letzten Junitag ihre Schiefertafel und Bücher auf den Küchentisch legte und sich mit einem sehr feuchten Taschentuch die roten Augen abwischte. „War es nicht glücklich, Marilla, dass ich heute ein zusätzliches Taschentuch mit zur Schule genommen habe? Ich hatte eine Vorahnung, dass es gebraucht würde.“ „Ich hätte nie gedacht, dass du so sehr an Mr. Phillips hängst, dass du zwei Taschentücher brauchst, um deine Tränen zu trocknen, nur weil er weggeht“, sagte Marilla. „Ich glaube nicht, dass ich weinte, weil ich wirklich so sehr an ihm hing“, überlegte Anne. „Ich weinte nur, weil alle anderen weinten. Es war Ruby Gillis, die damit angefangen hat. Ruby Gillis hat immer behauptet, sie hasse Mr. Phillips, aber sobald er aufstand, um seine Abschiedsrede zu halten, brach sie in Tränen aus. Dann fingen alle Mädchen nacheinander an zu weinen. Ich habe versucht, standhaft zu sein, Marilla. Ich habe versucht, mich an die Zeit zu erinnern, als Mr. Phillips mich mit Gil – mit einem Jungen – zusammen hat sitzen lassen; und die Zeit, als er meinen Namen ohne "e" an die Tafel geschrieben hat; und wie er gesagt hat, dass ich die schlechteste Niete in Geometrie war, die er je gesehen hat, und wie er über meine Rechtschreibung gelacht hat; und all die Male, in denen er so schrecklich und sarkastisch war; aber irgendwie konnte ich es nicht, Marilla, und ich musste einfach auch weinen. Jane Andrews hat seit einem Monat davon gesprochen, wie froh sie ist, wenn Mr. Phillips weggeht, und sie hat geschworen, nie eine Träne zu vergießen. Nun, sie war schlimmer als wir alle und musste sich ein Taschentuch von ihrem Bruder leihen – natürlich haben die Jungen nicht geweint – weil sie keins dabei hatte und nicht erwartet hatte, dass sie es braucht. Oh, Marilla, es war herzzerreißend. Mr. Phillips hat so eine schöne Abschiedsrede gehalten, die mit den Worten begann: 'Es ist an der Zeit, dass wir uns trennen.' Es war sehr ergreifend. Und auch er hatte Tränen in den Augen, Marilla. Oh, ich fühlte mich schrecklich traurig und voller Reue für all die Male, in denen ich in der Schule über ihn geredet und Bilder von ihm auf meine Schiefertafel gemalt und mich über ihn und Prissy lustig gemacht habe. Ich kann dir sagen, ich wünschte, ich wäre ein Musterschüler wie Minnie Andrews gewesen. Sie hatte nichts auf dem Gewissen. Die Mädchen haben den ganzen Heimweg von der Schule geweint. Carrie Sloane hat jede paar Minuten gesagt: 'Es ist Zeit für uns, uns zu trennen', und das hat uns jedes Mal wieder zum Weinen gebracht, wenn wir dabei waren, wieder fröhlich zu werden. Ich fühle mich furchtbar traurig, Marilla. Aber man kann nicht ganz in den Tiefen der Verzweiflung sein, wenn man noch zwei Monate Ferien vor sich hat, oder? Außerdem haben wir den neuen Pastor und seine Frau getroffen, als sie vom Bahnhof kamen. Obwohl es mir so schlecht wegen Mr. Phillips ging, konnte ich mir nicht helfen und war ein bisschen interessiert an einem neuen Pastor, oder? Seine Frau ist sehr hübsch. Nicht regelrecht königlich schön, natürlich – es wäre wohl nicht angebracht, dass ein Pfarre einen königlich schönen Frau hat, weil es ein schlechtes Beispiel sein könnte. Mrs. Lynde sagt, dass die Frau des Pastors in Newbridge ein sehr schlechtes Beispiel gibt, weil sie sich so modisch kleidet. Unsere neue Pastorin war in blauer Musselin gekleidet mit schönen Puffärmeln und einem mit Rosen verzierten Hut. Jane Andrews meinte, dass Puffärmel zu weltlich für eine Pastorenfrau wären, aber ich habe keinen solchen böswilligen Kommentar gemacht, Marilla, weil ich weiß, wie sehr ich mir Puffärmel gewünscht habe. Außerdem ist sie erst seit kurzem eine Pastorenfrau, also muss man Nachsicht walten lassen, nicht wahr? Sie werden vorerst bei Mrs. Lynde wohnen.“ Wenn Marilla an diesem Abend hinunter zu Mrs. Lynde ging, hatte sie, wenn auch nicht ausgesprochen, doch noch andere Motive, als nur die Stepprahmen zurückzugeben, die sie im letzten Winter ausgeliehen hatte. Diese liebenswerte Schwäche teilten die meisten Bewohner von Avonlea. Vieles von dem, was Mrs. Lynde verliehen hatte, kam an diesem Abend wieder mit denjenigen zurück, die es ausgeliehen hatten, manchmal ohne Erwartung es je wiederzusehen. Ein neuer Pastor und außerdem noch ein Pastor mit Ehefrau war ein rechtmäßiger Anlass zur Neugier in einer ruhigen, kleinen Landgemeinde, in der Sensationen selten waren. Mr. Bentley, der Pastor, den Anne mangelnde Vorstellungskraft bescheinigte, war achtzehn Jahre lang Pastor in Avonlea gewesen. Als er kam, war er Witwer und als Witwer blieb er, obwohl er seitdem regelmäßig mit diesem, jenem oder einem anderen Gerücht verheiratet wurde. Im Februar vorher hatte er sein Amt niedergelegt und war unter dem Bedauern seiner Gemeinde, von der die meisten trotz seiner Mängel als Redner ihren guten alten Pastor aufgrund des langen Zusammenseins liebten, gegangen. Seitdem hatte die Avonlea Kirche eine Vielzahl von religiösen Verirrungen erlebt, indem sie den vielen verschiedenen Kandidaten und "Vertretungen" zuhörte, die Sonntag für Sonntag kamen, um Probe zu predigen. Diese bestanden oder fielen nach dem Urteil der Väter und Mütter in Israel, aber ein gewisses kleines rothaariges Mädchen, das still in der Ecke der alten Cuthbert Kirchenbank saß, hatte auch ihre Meinung über sie und diskutierte sie ausführlich mit Matthew, während Marilla aus Prinzip darauf verzichtete, Prediger in irgendeiner Form zu kritisieren. "Matthew, ich denke nicht, dass Mr. Smith es geschafft hätte", fasste Anne ihre Schlussfolgerung zusammen. "Mrs. Lynde sagt, seine Art zu sprechen wäre so miserabel gewesen, aber ich denke, sein schlimmster Fehler war genau wie bei Mr. Bentley, dass ihm die Vorstellungskraft fehlte. Und Mr. Terry hatte zu viel davon; er ließ sich davon mitreißen, genau wie ich mich von meiner Vorstellungskraft mitreißen ließ, was den Spukwald angeht. Außerdem sagt Mrs. Lynde, dass seine Theologie nicht solide war. Mr. Gresham war ein sehr guter und sehr religiöser Mann, aber er erzählte zu viele lustige Geschichten und brachte die Leute in der Kirche zum Lachen. Er war undignified, und ein Pastor muss doch eine gewisse Würde haben, oder, Matthew? Ich fand Mr. Marshall ausgesprochen attraktiv, aber Mrs. Lynde sagt, dass er nicht verheiratet oder sogar verlobt ist, denn sie hat speziell nach ihm gefragt, und sie meint, es wäre keine gute Idee, einen jungen unverheirateten Pastor in Avonlea zu haben, weil er in der Gemeinde heiraten könnte und das würde Ärger machen. Mrs. Lynde ist eine sehr vorausschauende Frau, nicht wahr, Matthew? Ich bin sehr froh, dass sie Mr. Allan gewählt haben. Ich mochte ihn, weil seine Predigt interessant war und er betete, wie wenn er es ernst meinen würde und nicht nur, weil es Gewohnheit war. Mrs. Lynde sagt, dass er nicht perfekt ist, aber sie sagt, wir könnten wohl kaum einen perfekten Pastor für siebenhundertfünfzig Dollar im Jahr erwarten, und jedenfalls ist seine Theologie solide, denn sie hat ihn gründlich zu allen Glaubenspunkten befragt. Und sie kennt die Leute, aus denen seine Frau stammt, und sie sind sehr angesehen und die Frauen sind alle tüchtige Hausfrauen. Mrs. Lynde sagt, dass solide Glaubenslehre und gute Hauswirtschaft in einer idealen Kombination für eine Pastorenfamilie ergeben." Der neue Pastor und seine Frau waren ein junges, sympathisches Paar, immer noch auf Hochzeitsreise und voller guter und schöner Begeisterung für ihr gewähltes Lebenswerk. Avonlea schloss sie von Anfang an ins Herz. Jung und Alt mochten den offenen, fröhlichen jungen Mann mit seinen hohen Idealen und das helle, sanfte kleine Fräulein, das die Rolle der Pastoren Niemand hat außer Ruby Gillis eine Frage gestellt, und sie hat gefragt, ob es diesen Sommer einen Sonntagsschulausflug geben wird. Ich fand das nicht unbedingt eine passende Frage, denn sie hatte nichts mit dem Unterricht zu tun – der Unterricht handelte von Daniel in der Löwengrube – aber Mrs. Allan hat nur gelächelt und gesagt, sie denke, dass es einen geben wird. Mrs. Allan hat ein wunderschönes Lächeln; sie hat so exquisite Grübchen in den Wangen. Ich wünschte, ich hätte Grübchen in den Wangen, Marilla. Ich bin längst nicht so dünn wie am Anfang, aber ich habe noch keine Grübchen. Wenn ich welche hätte, könnte ich vielleicht Menschen zum Guten beeinflussen. Mrs. Allan meinte, wir sollten immer versuchen, andere Menschen zum Guten zu beeinflussen. Sie hat so nett über alles gesprochen. Ich wusste vorher nicht, dass Religion so fröhlich ist. Ich dachte immer, sie sei etwas melancholisch, aber bei Mrs. Allan ist sie es nicht, und ich würde gerne ein Christ sein, wenn ich einer wie sie sein könnte. Ich möchte nicht so sein wie Mr. Superintendent Bell. "Es ist sehr unartig von dir, so über Mr. Bell zu sprechen", sagte Marilla streng. "Mr. Bell ist ein wirklich guter Mann." "Oh, natürlich ist er gut", stimmte Anne zu, "aber er scheint keine Freude daran zu haben. Wenn ich gut sein könnte, würde ich den ganzen Tag tanzen und singen, weil ich froh darüber wäre. Ich denke, Mrs. Allan ist zu alt, um zu tanzen und zu singen, und natürlich wäre es für die Frau eines Ministers auch nicht angemessen. Aber ich kann einfach spüren, dass sie froh ist, eine Christin zu sein, und dass sie es auch wäre, wenn sie auch ohne Christentum in den Himmel kommen könnte." "Ich denke, wir müssen Mr. und Mrs. Allan bald mal zum Tee einladen", sagte Marilla in nachdenklichem Ton. "Sie waren überall, nur nicht hier. Mal sehen. Nächsten Mittwoch wäre ein guter Zeitpunkt. Aber sag Matthew kein Wort davon, denn wenn er wüsste, dass sie kommen, würde er an dem Tag eine Ausrede finden, um nicht da zu sein. Er hat sich so an Mr. Bentley gewöhnt, dass er nichts dagegen hatte, aber es wird schwer für ihn sein, sich mit einem neuen Pastor anzufreunden, und die Frau des neuen Pastors wird ihn zu Tode erschrecken." "Ich werde so verschwiegen sein wie die Toten", versicherte Anne. "Aber ach, Marilla, erlaubst du mir, einen Kuchen für die Gelegenheit zu backen? Ich würde gerne etwas für Mrs. Allan tun, und du weißt, dass ich inzwischen einen ziemlich guten Kuchen backen kann." "Du kannst einen Schichtkuchen backen", versprach Marilla. Am Montag und Dienstag wurden in Green Gables große Vorbereitungen getroffen. Den Pastor und seine Frau zum Tee einzuladen war eine ernsthafte und wichtige Unternehmung, und Marilla war entschlossen, von keinem der Hausmütter von Avonlea übertroffen zu werden. Anne war wild vor Aufregung und Freude. Sie besprach alles am Dienstagabend in der Dämmerung mit Diana, während sie auf den großen roten Steinen am Dryad's Bubble saßen und mit kleinen Zweigen, die sie in Tannenbalsam getaucht hatten, Regenbogen im Wasser machten. "Alles ist bereit, Diana, außer meinem Kuchen, den ich morgen machen werde, und den Backpulver-Keksen, die Marilla kurz vor dem Tee machen wird. Ich versichere dir, Diana, dass Marilla und ich in den letzten zwei Tagen alle Hände voll zu tun hatten. Es ist eine große Verantwortung, eine Pastorenfamilie zum Tee zu haben. Ich habe so etwas noch nie erlebt. Du solltest unseren Speisekammer sehen. Es ist ein Anblick. Wir werden geleebratenes Huhn und kalte Zunge haben. Wir werden zwei Sorten Gelee haben, rot und gelb, sowie Schlagsahne und Zitronenkuchen und Kirschkuchen und drei Sorten Kekse und Früchtekuchen und Marillas berühmte gelbe Pflaumenmarmelade, die sie extra für Pastoren aufbewahrt, und Rührkuchen und Schichtkuchen und wie gesagt, die bereits erwähnten Kekse; sowie frisches und altes Brot, für den Fall, dass der Pastor an Dyspepsie leidet und kein frisches Brot essen kann. Mrs. Lynde sagt, Pastoren leiden unter Dyspepsie, aber ich glaube nicht, dass Mr. Allan schon lange genug Pastor ist, um davon betroffen zu sein. Mir wird kalt, wenn ich an meinen Schichtkuchen denke. Oh, Diana, was wäre, wenn er nicht gut wird! Letzte Nacht habe ich geträumt, ich wäre von einem furchtbaren Kobold mit einem großen Schichtkuchen als Kopf gejagt worden." "Er wird gut sein, ganz bestimmt", versicherte Diana, die eine sehr beruhigende Art von Freundin war. "Ich bin sicher, dass das Stück von dem Kuchen, den du vor zwei Wochen in Idlewild für uns gemacht hast, absolut vorzüglich war." "Ja, aber Kuchen haben so eine schreckliche Angewohnheit, gerade dann schlecht zu werden, wenn man möchte, dass sie gut sind", seufzte Anne und ließ einen besonders gut mit Balsam bestrichenen Zweig schwimmen. "Aber ich nehme an, ich muss mich einfach auf das Schicksal verlassen und darauf achten, dass ich das Mehl einrühre. Oh, sieh, Diana, was für ein schöner Regenbogen! Glaubst du, die Dryade wird herauskommen, nachdem wir weg sind, und ihn als Schal nehmen?" "Du weißt, dass es keine Dryade gibt", sagte Diana. Dianas Mutter hatte von dem Geisterwald erfahren und war darüber ziemlich verärgert gewesen. Als Ergebnis davon hatte Diana weitere nachahmende Flüge der Fantasie unterlassen und hielt es nicht für ratsam, an harmlose Dryaden zu glauben. "Aber es ist so einfach, sich vorzustellen, dass es sie gibt", sagte Anne. "Jeden Abend, bevor ich ins Bett gehe, schaue ich aus meinem Fenster und frage mich, ob die Dryade wirklich hier sitzt und ihre Haare mit dem Frühling als Spiegel kämmt. Manchmal suche ich morgens ihre Fußspuren im Tau. Oh, Diana, gib deinem Glauben an die Dryade nicht auf!" Der Mittwochmorgen kam. Anne stand bei Sonnenaufgang auf, weil sie zu aufgeregt zum Schlafen war. Sie hatte sich am Abend zuvor eine schwere Erkältung im Kopf geholt, weil sie im Wasser gespielt hatte; aber nichts als eine Lungenentzündung hätte ihr morgendliches Interesse an kulinarischen Angelegenheiten dämpfen können. Nach dem Frühstück machte sie sich daran, ihren Kuchen zu backen. Als sie schließlich die Ofentür schloss, atmete sie tief durch. "Ich bin sicher, dass ich diesmal nichts vergessen habe, Marilla. Aber glaubst du, er wird aufgehen? Was ist, wenn das Backpulver nicht mehr gut ist? Ich habe es aus der neuen Dose genommen. Und Mrs. Lynde sagt, man kann sich heutzutage nie sicher sein, ob man noch gutes Backpulver bekommt, wenn alles so verfälscht wird. Mrs. Lynde sagt, die Regierung sollte die Angelegenheit in die Hand nehmen, aber sie sagt, wir werden nie den Tag erleben, an dem eine konservative Regierung das tun wird. Marilla, was ist, wenn der Kuchen nicht aufgeht?" "Wir haben genug Sachen auch ohne ihn", sagte Marilla unbeeindruckt. Der Kuchen ging jedoch auf und kam aus dem Ofen so leicht und luftig wie goldener Schaum. Anne, vor Freude gerötet, belegte ihn mit Schichten aus Rubin-Gelee und sah in ihrer Vorstellung, wie Mrs. Allan ihn isst und vielleicht nach einem weiteren Stück fragt! "Ihr werdet natürlich das beste In diesem Fall muss ich probieren ", lachte Mrs. Allan und nahm sich ein pralles Dreieck, ebenso wie der Pfarrer und Marilla. Mrs. Allan nahm einen Bissen von ihrer Portion und eine sehr eigenartige Miene erschien auf ihrem Gesicht; jedoch sagte sie kein Wort, sondern aß konstant weiter. Marilla sah den Ausdruck und beeilte sich, den Kuchen zu kosten. "Anne Shirley!" rief sie aus, "was hast du bloß in den Kuchen getan?" "Nur das, was im Rezept stand, Marilla", rief Anne mit einem Blick des Schmerzes. "Oh, ist alles in Ordnung?" "Alles in Ordnung! Es ist einfach furchtbar. Mr. Allan, versuchen Sie nicht, davon zu essen. Anne, probier es selbst. Welche Aromatisierung hast du benutzt?" "Vanille", sagte Anne, ihr Gesicht knallrot vor Scham, nachdem sie den Kuchen probiert hatte. "Nur Vanille. Oh Marilla, es muss das Backpulver gewesen sein. Ich hatte meine Vermutungen über dieses Backpulver--" "Backpulver Quatsch! Geh und bring mir die Flasche Vanille, die du benutzt hast." Anne flüchtete in die Speisekammer und kehrte mit einer kleinen Flasche zurück, die teilweise mit einer braunen Flüssigkeit gefüllt war und gelblich mit "Beste Vanille" beschriftet war. Marilla nahm sie, entkorkte sie, roch daran. "Mitleid mit uns, Anne, du hast diesen Kuchen mit Liniment aromatisiert. Ich habe die Linimentflasche letzte Woche zerbrochen und den Rest in eine alte leere Vanilleflasche gegossen. Ich nehme an, es ist teilweise meine Schuld - ich hätte dich warnen sollen - aber warum zum Teufel hast du nicht daran gerochen?" Anne löste sich in Tränen auf unter dieser doppelten Schande. "Ich konnte nicht--ich hatte so eine Erkältung!" und mit diesen Worten floh sie förmlich ins Giebelzimmer, wo sie sich auf das Bett warf und weinte wie jemand, der sich nicht trösten lässt. Bald hörte man leichte Schritte auf der Treppe und jemand betrat den Raum. "Oh, Marilla", schluchzte Anne, ohne aufzublicken, "ich bin für immer blamiert. Ich werde niemals in der Lage sein, das zu überwinden. Es wird sich verbreiten - Dinge verbreiten sich immer in Avonlea. Diana wird mich fragen, wie mein Kuchen geworden ist und ich werde ihr die Wahrheit sagen müssen. Man wird mich immer als das Mädchen ansehen, das einen Kuchen mit Liniment aromatisiert hat. Die Jungs in der Schule werden niemals darüber hinwegkommen. Oh, Marilla, wenn du auch nur einen Funken christliches Mitgefühl hast, sag mir nicht, dass ich nach all dem das Geschirr abwaschen muss. Ich werde es abwaschen, wenn der Pfarrer und seine Frau weg sind, aber ich kann Mrs. Allan nie wieder ins Gesicht sehen. Vielleicht denkt sie, ich habe versucht, sie zu vergiften. Mrs. Lynde sagt, sie kennt ein Waisenmädchen, das versucht hat, ihren Wohltäter zu vergiften. Aber das Liniment ist nicht giftig. Es ist dazu gedacht, innerlich eingenommen zu werden - nur eben nicht in Kuchen. Sagst du das auch Mrs. Allan, Marilla?" "Stell dir vor, du stehst auf und sagst es ihr selbst", sagte eine fröhliche Stimme. Anne sprang auf und fand Mrs. Allan an ihrem Bett stehen, sie mit lachenden Augen betrachtend. "Mein liebes kleines Mädchen, du darfst nicht so weinen", sagte sie, von Annes tragischem Gesicht wirklich beunruhigt. "Es ist alles nur ein lustiger Fehler, den jeder begehen kann." "Oh nein, es braucht schon mich, um einen solchen Fehler zu machen", sagte Anne traurig. "Und ich wollte den Kuchen so schön für dich haben, Mrs. Allan." "Ja, ich weiß, Liebes. Und ich versichere dir, deine Freundlichkeit und Fürsorge schätze ich genauso, als ob alles gut geworden wäre. Jetzt darfst du nicht mehr weinen, komm stattdessen mit mir runter und zeig mir deinen Blumengarten. Miss Cuthbert erzählt mir, dass du ein kleines Beeteck ganz für dich allein hast. Ich möchte es sehen, denn Blumen interessieren mich sehr." Anne ließ sich führen und trösten, dabei bedenkend, dass es wirklich günstig war, dass Mrs. Allan eine geistesverwandte Seele war. Es wurde nicht weiter über den Linimentkuchen gesprochen und als die Gäste gingen, stellte Anne fest, dass sie den Abend mehr genossen hatte, als angesichts dieses furchtbaren Vorfalls zu erwarten war. Dennoch seufzte sie tief. "Marilla, ist es nicht schön zu denken, dass morgen ein neuer Tag ist, an dem noch keine Fehler gemacht wurden?" "Ich wette, du wirst genug in ihm machen", sagte Marilla. "Ich habe noch nie jemanden gesehen, der so viele Fehler macht wie du, Anne." "Ja, und das weiß ich nur zu gut", gab Anne betrübt zu. "Aber hast du schon mal etwas Ermutigendes an mir bemerkt, Marilla? Ich mache niemals denselben Fehler zweimal." "Ich glaube nicht, dass das viel nützt, wenn du immer neue machst." "Oh, siehst du das nicht, Marilla? Es muss eine Grenze geben für die Fehler, die eine Person machen kann, und wenn ich am Ende angekommen bin, werde ich mit ihnen fertig sein. Das ist ein sehr tröstlicher Gedanke." "Nun, dann geh und gib den Kuchen den Schweinen", sagte Marilla. "Er ist nicht zum Verzehr geeignet, nicht einmal für Jerry Boute." Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Ein Neuanfang in der Welt der Aromen Am letzten Tag des Junis kommt Anne mit roten Augen und einem durchnässten Taschentuch von der Schule nach Hause. Der allseits ungeliebte Schulmeister Mr. Phillips kündigt seine Stelle, und seine Abschiedsrede bringt alle Mädchen zum Weinen. Auch der alte Pfarrer Mr. Bentley gibt sein Amt auf und die Avonlea-Gemeinde wählt einen jungen Mann namens Mr. Allan als Nachfolger von Mr. Bentley. Die Gemeinde heißt Mr. Allan und seine hübsche junge Frau herzlich willkommen. Anne bewundert Mrs. Allan, die Annes Sonntagsschulklasse unterrichtet, weil sie im Gegensatz zur vorherigen Lehrerin die Schüler ermutigt, viele Fragen zu stellen. Marilla lädt Mr. und Mrs. Allan zum Tee ein und bereitet tagelang großzügig Essen für das junge Paar vor. Marilla erlaubt Anne, einen Tortenboden zu backen. Obwohl Anne schon viele Kuchen gebacken hat, ist sie trotzdem nervös. Der Kuchen kommt wunderschön aus dem Ofen und Anne ist stolz darauf, ihn ihrer neuen Heldin Mrs. Allan zu servieren. Mrs. Allan kann den Kuchen kaum hinunterwürgen, isst ihn jedoch, um Annes Gefühle nicht zu verletzen. Als Marilla den Kuchen selbst probiert, fragt sie Anne, welche Zutaten sie verwendet hat. Marilla stellt fest, dass Anne aus Versehen anästhetisches Liniment anstelle von Vanille verwendet hat, was den Geschmack des Kuchens furchtbar macht. Anne ist beschämt und läuft die Treppe hinauf, wirft sich auf das Bett und weint. Mrs. Allan macht Anne wieder Mut und Anne beginnt, etwas Gutes in der peinlichen Situation zu sehen, indem sie sagt, dass sie zumindest denselben Fehler nicht zweimal macht. Sie ist erleichtert zu denken, dass sie, sobald sie alle möglichen Fehler gemacht hat, keine Fehler mehr machen wird.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: XI. Dusk The wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die, fell under the sentence, as if she had been mortally stricken. But, she uttered no sound; and so strong was the voice within her, representing that it was she of all the world who must uphold him in his misery and not augment it, that it quickly raised her, even from that shock. The Judges having to take part in a public demonstration out of doors, the Tribunal adjourned. The quick noise and movement of the court's emptying itself by many passages had not ceased, when Lucie stood stretching out her arms towards her husband, with nothing in her face but love and consolation. "If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once! O, good citizens, if you would have so much compassion for us!" There was but a gaoler left, along with two of the four men who had taken him last night, and Barsad. The people had all poured out to the show in the streets. Barsad proposed to the rest, "Let her embrace him then; it is but a moment." It was silently acquiesced in, and they passed her over the seats in the hall to a raised place, where he, by leaning over the dock, could fold her in his arms. "Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing on my love. We shall meet again, where the weary are at rest!" They were her husband's words, as he held her to his bosom. "I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above: don't suffer for me. A parting blessing for our child." "I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say farewell to her by you." "My husband. No! A moment!" He was tearing himself apart from her. "We shall not be separated long. I feel that this will break my heart by-and-bye; but I will do my duty while I can, and when I leave her, God will raise up friends for her, as He did for me." Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his knees to both of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and seized him, crying: "No, no! What have you done, what have you done, that you should kneel to us! We know now, what a struggle you made of old. We know, now what you underwent when you suspected my descent, and when you knew it. We know now, the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for her dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all our love and duty. Heaven be with you!" Her father's only answer was to draw his hands through his white hair, and wring them with a shriek of anguish. "It could not be otherwise," said the prisoner. "All things have worked together as they have fallen out. It was the always-vain endeavour to discharge my poor mother's trust that first brought my fatal presence near you. Good could never come of such evil, a happier end was not in nature to so unhappy a beginning. Be comforted, and forgive me. Heaven bless you!" As he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood looking after him with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer, and with a radiant look upon her face, in which there was even a comforting smile. As he went out at the prisoners' door, she turned, laid her head lovingly on her father's breast, tried to speak to him, and fell at his feet. Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had never moved, Sydney Carton came and took her up. Only her father and Mr. Lorry were with her. His arm trembled as it raised her, and supported her head. Yet, there was an air about him that was not all of pity--that had a flush of pride in it. "Shall I take her to a coach? I shall never feel her weight." He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly down in a coach. Her father and their old friend got into it, and he took his seat beside the driver. When they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in the dark not many hours before, to picture to himself on which of the rough stones of the street her feet had trodden, he lifted her again, and carried her up the staircase to their rooms. There, he laid her down on a couch, where her child and Miss Pross wept over her. "Don't recall her to herself," he said, softly, to the latter, "she is better so. Don't revive her to consciousness, while she only faints." "Oh, Carton, Carton, dear Carton!" cried little Lucie, springing up and throwing her arms passionately round him, in a burst of grief. "Now that you have come, I think you will do something to help mamma, something to save papa! O, look at her, dear Carton! Can you, of all the people who love her, bear to see her so?" He bent over the child, and laid her blooming cheek against his face. He put her gently from him, and looked at her unconscious mother. "Before I go," he said, and paused--"I may kiss her?" It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, "A life you love." When he had gone out into the next room, he turned suddenly on Mr. Lorry and her father, who were following, and said to the latter: "You had great influence but yesterday, Doctor Manette; let it at least be tried. These judges, and all the men in power, are very friendly to you, and very recognisant of your services; are they not?" "Nothing connected with Charles was concealed from me. I had the strongest assurances that I should save him; and I did." He returned the answer in great trouble, and very slowly. "Try them again. The hours between this and to-morrow afternoon are few and short, but try." "I intend to try. I will not rest a moment." "That's well. I have known such energy as yours do great things before now--though never," he added, with a smile and a sigh together, "such great things as this. But try! Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not." "I will go," said Doctor Manette, "to the Prosecutor and the President straight, and I will go to others whom it is better not to name. I will write too, and--But stay! There is a Celebration in the streets, and no one will be accessible until dark." "That's true. Well! It is a forlorn hope at the best, and not much the forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should like to know how you speed; though, mind! I expect nothing! When are you likely to have seen these dread powers, Doctor Manette?" "Immediately after dark, I should hope. Within an hour or two from this." "It will be dark soon after four. Let us stretch the hour or two. If I go to Mr. Lorry's at nine, shall I hear what you have done, either from our friend or from yourself?" "Yes." "May you prosper!" Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and, touching him on the shoulder as he was going away, caused him to turn. "I have no hope," said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sorrowful whisper. "Nor have I." "If any one of these men, or all of these men, were disposed to spare him--which is a large supposition; for what is his life, or any man's to them!--I doubt if they durst spare him after the demonstration in the court." "And so do I. I heard the fall of the axe in that sound." Mr. Lorry leaned his arm upon the door-post, and bowed his face upon it. "Don't despond," said Carton, very gently; "don't grieve. I encouraged Doctor Manette in this idea, because I felt that it might one day be consolatory to her. Otherwise, she might think 'his life was wantonly thrown away or wasted,' and that might trouble her." "Yes, yes, yes," returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, "you are right. But he will perish; there is no real hope." "Yes. He will perish: there is no real hope," echoed Carton. And walked with a settled step, down-stairs. Können Sie eine geeignete Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze verfassen?

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Darnays Todesurteil erschüttert Lucie, aber sie schafft es, ihren Schock für das Wohl ihres Mannes zu kontrollieren. Als die Menge mit Jubel davonzieht, gewährt ihr das Gericht die Erlaubnis, ihren Mann ein letztes Mal zu umarmen. Sie und Darnay verabschieden sich, und Doktor Alexandre Manette kommt auf sie zu. Darnay versucht, seinen Schwiegervater zu trösten, aber der Arzt ringt nur die Hände und ruft aus. Als die Wächter Darnay wegführen, fällt Lucie in Ohnmacht. Carton nimmt sie auf und trägt sie zum wartenden Wagen. Zurück in Lucies und des Doktors Unterkunft bittet die junge Lucie Carton, ihren Eltern zu helfen. Carton verabschiedet sich mit einem Kuss von der bewusstlosen Lucie und flüstert: "Ein Leben, das du liebst", und ermutigt dann Doktor Manette, zu versuchen, die Richter ein letztes Mal zu beeinflussen. Nachdem er sich verabredet hat, sich später an diesem Abend mit Mr. Lorry und dem Doktor zu treffen, geht Carton weg.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: ACT IV The garden of a villa in Granada. Whoever wishes to know what it is like must go to Granada and see. One may prosaically specify a group of hills dotted with villas, the Alhambra on the top of one of the hills, and a considerable town in the valley, approached by dusty white roads in which the children, no matter what they are doing or thinking about, automatically whine for halfpence and reach out little clutching brown palms for them; but there is nothing in this description except the Alhambra, the begging, and the color of the roads, that does not fit Surrey as well as Spain. The difference is that the Surrey hills are comparatively small and ugly, and should properly be called the Surrey Protuberances; but these Spanish hills are of mountain stock: the amenity which conceals their size does not compromise their dignity. This particular garden is on a hill opposite the Alhambra; and the villa is as expensive and pretentious as a villa must be if it is to be let furnished by the week to opulent American and English visitors. If we stand on the lawn at the foot of the garden and look uphill, our horizon is the stone balustrade of a flagged platform on the edge of infinite space at the top of the hill. Between us and this platform is a flower garden with a circular basin and fountain in the centre, surrounded by geometrical flower beds, gravel paths, and clipped yew trees in the genteelest order. The garden is higher than our lawn; so we reach it by a few steps in the middle of its embankment. The platform is higher again than the garden, from which we mount a couple more steps to look over the balustrade at a fine view of the town up the valley and of the hills that stretch away beyond it to where, in the remotest distance, they become mountains. On our left is the villa, accessible by steps from the left hand corner of the garden. Returning from the platform through the garden and down again to the lawn (a movement which leaves the villa behind us on our right) we find evidence of literary interests on the part of the tenants in the fact that there is no tennis net nor set of croquet hoops, but, on our left, a little iron garden table with books on it, mostly yellow-backed, and a chair beside it. A chair on the right has also a couple of open books upon it. There are no newspapers, a circumstance which, with the absence of games, might lead an intelligent spectator to the most far reaching conclusions as to the sort of people who live in the villa. Such speculations are checked, however, on this delightfully fine afternoon, by the appearance at a little gate in a paling on our left, of Henry Straker in his professional costume. He opens the gate for an elderly gentleman, and follows him on to the lawn. This elderly gentleman defies the Spanish sun in a black frock coat, tall silk bat, trousers in which narrow stripes of dark grey and lilac blend into a highly respectable color, and a black necktie tied into a bow over spotless linen. Probably therefore a man whose social position needs constant and scrupulous affirmation without regard to climate: one who would dress thus for the middle of the Sahara or the top of Mont Blanc. And since he has not the stamp of the class which accepts as its life-mission the advertizing and maintenance of first rate tailoring and millinery, he looks vulgar in his finery, though in a working dress of any kind he would look dignified enough. He is a bullet cheeked man with a red complexion, stubbly hair, smallish eyes, a hard mouth that folds down at the corners, and a dogged chin. The looseness of skin that comes with age has attacked his throat and the laps of his cheeks; but he is still hard as an apple above the mouth; so that the upper half of his face looks younger than the lower. He has the self-confidence of one who has made money, and something of the truculence of one who has made it in a brutalizing struggle, his civility having under it a perceptible menace that he has other methods in reserve if necessary. Withal, a man to be rather pitied when he is not to be feared; for there is something pathetic about him at times, as if the huge commercial machine which has worked him into his frock coat had allowed him very little of his own way and left his affections hungry and baffled. At the first word that falls from him it is clear that he is an Irishman whose native intonation has clung to him through many changes of place and rank. One can only guess that the original material of his speech was perhaps the surly Kerry brogue; but the degradation of speech that occurs in London, Glasgow, Dublin and big cities generally has been at work on it so long that nobody but an arrant cockney would dream of calling it a brogue now; for its music is almost gone, though its surliness is still perceptible. Straker, as a very obvious cockney, inspires him with implacable contempt, as a stupid Englishman who cannot even speak his own language properly. Straker, on the other hand, regards the old gentleman's accent as a joke thoughtfully provided by Providence expressly for the amusement of the British race, and treats him normally with the indulgence due to an inferior and unlucky species, but occasionally with indignant alarm when the old gentleman shows signs of intending his Irish nonsense to be taken seriously. STRAKER. I'll go tell the young lady. She said you'd prefer to stay here [he turns to go up through the garden to the villa]. MALONE. [who has been looking round him with lively curiosity] The young lady? That's Miss Violet, eh? STRAKER. [stopping on the steps with sudden suspicion] Well, you know, don't you? MALONE. Do I? STRAKER. [his temper rising] Well, do you or don't you? MALONE. What business is that of yours? Straker, now highly indignant, comes back from the steps and confronts the visitor. STRAKER. I'll tell you what business it is of mine. Miss Robinson-- MALONE. [interrupting] Oh, her name is Robinson, is it? Thank you. STRAKER. Why, you don't know even her name? MALONE. Yes I do, now that you've told me. STRAKER. [after a moment of stupefaction at the old man's readiness in repartee] Look here: what do you mean by gittin into my car and lettin me bring you here if you're not the person I took that note to? MALONE. Who else did you take it to, pray? STRAKER. I took it to Mr Ector Malone, at Miss Robinson's request, see? Miss Robinson is not my principal: I took it to oblige her. I know Mr Malone; and he ain't you, not by a long chalk. At the hotel they told me that your name is Ector Malone. MALONE. Hector Malone. STRAKER. [with calm superiority] Hector in your own country: that's what comes o livin in provincial places like Ireland and America. Over here you're Ector: if you avn't noticed it before you soon will. The growing strain of the conversation is here relieved by Violet, who has sallied from the villa and through the garden to the steps, which she now descends, coming very opportunely between Malone and Straker. VIOLET. [to Straker] Did you take my message? STRAKER. Yes, miss. I took it to the hotel and sent it up, expecting to see young Mr Malone. Then out walks this gent, and says it's all right and he'll come with me. So as the hotel people said he was Mr Ector Malone, I fetched him. And now he goes back on what he said. But if he isn't the gentleman you meant, say the word: it's easy enough to fetch him back again. MALONE. I should esteem it a great favor if I might have a short conversation with you, madam. I am Hector's father, as this bright Britisher would have guessed in the course of another hour or so. STRAKER. [coolly defiant] No, not in another year or so. When we've ad you as long to polish up as we've ad im, perhaps you'll begin to look a little bit up to is mark. At present you fall a long way short. You've got too many aitches, for one thing. [To Violet, amiably] All right, Miss: you want to talk to him: I shan't intrude. [He nods affably to Malone and goes out through the little gate in the paling]. VIOLET. [very civilly] I am so sorry, Mr Malone, if that man has been rude to you. But what can we do? He is our chauffeur. MALONE. Your what? VIOLET. The driver of our automobile. He can drive a motor car at seventy miles an hour, and mend it when it breaks down. We are dependent on our motor cars; and our motor cars are dependent on him; so of course we are dependent on him. MALONE. I've noticed, madam, that every thousand dollars an Englishman gets seems to add one to the number of people he's dependent on. However, you needn't apologize for your man: I made him talk on purpose. By doing so I learnt that you're staying here in Grannida with a party of English, including my son Hector. VIOLET. [conversationally] Yes. We intended to go to Nice; but we had to follow a rather eccentric member of our party who started first and came here. Won't you sit down? [She clears the nearest chair of the two books on it]. MALONE. [impressed by this attention] Thank you. [He sits down, examining her curiously as she goes to the iron table to put down the books. When she turns to him again, he says] Miss Robinson, I believe? VIOLET. [sitting down] Yes. MALONE. [Taking a letter from his pocket] Your note to Hector runs as follows [Violet is unable to repress a start. He pauses quietly to take out and put on his spectacles, which have gold rims]: "Dearest: they have all gone to the Alhambra for the afternoon. I have shammed headache and have the garden all to myself. Jump into Jack's motor: Straker will rattle you here in a jiffy. Quick, quick, quick. Your loving Violet." [He looks at her; but by this time she has recovered herself, and meets his spectacles with perfect composure. He continues slowly] Now I don't know on what terms young people associate in English society; but in America that note would be considered to imply a very considerable degree of affectionate intimacy between the parties. VIOLET. Yes: I know your son very well, Mr Malone. Have you any objection? MALONE. [somewhat taken aback] No, no objection exactly. Provided it is understood that my son is altogether dependent on me, and that I have to be consulted in any important step he may propose to take. VIOLET. I am sure you would not be unreasonable with him, Mr Malone. MALONE. I hope not, Miss Robinson; but at your age you might think many things unreasonable that don't seem so to me. VIOLET. [with a little shrug] Oh well, I suppose there's no use our playing at cross purposes, Mr Malone. Hector wants to marry me. MALONE. I inferred from your note that he might. Well, Miss Robinson, he is his own master; but if he marries you he shall not have a rap from me. [He takes off his spectacles and pockets them with the note]. VIOLET. [with some severity] That is not very complimentary to me, Mr Malone. MALONE. I say nothing against you, Miss Robinson: I daresay you are an amiable and excellent young lady. But I have other views for Hector. VIOLET. Hector may not have other views for himself, Mr Malone. MALONE. Possibly not. Then he does without me: that's all. I daresay you are prepared for that. When a young lady writes to a young man to come to her quick, quick, quick, money seems nothing and love seems everything. VIOLET. [sharply] I beg your pardon, Mr Malone: I do not think anything so foolish. Hector must have money. MALONE. [staggered] Oh, very well, very well. No doubt he can work for it. VIOLET. What is the use of having money if you have to work for it? [She rises impatiently]. It's all nonsense, Mr Malone: you must enable your son to keep up his position. It is his right. MALONE. [grimly] I should not advise you to marry him on the strength of that right, Miss Robinson. Violet, who has almost lost her temper, controls herself with an effort; unclenches her fingers; and resumes her seat with studied tranquillity and reasonableness. VIOLET. What objection have you to me, pray? My social position is as good as Hector's, to say the least. He admits it. MALONE. [shrewdly] You tell him so from time to time, eh? Hector's social position in England, Miss Robinson, is just what I choose to buy for him. I have made him a fair offer. Let him pick out the most historic house, castle or abbey that England contains. The day that he tells me he wants it for a wife worthy of its traditions, I buy it for him, and give him the means of keeping it up. VIOLET. What do you mean by a wife worthy of its traditions? Cannot any well bred woman keep such a house for him? MALONE. No: she must be born to it. VIOLET. Hector was not born to it, was he? MALONE. His granmother was a barefooted Irish girl that nursed me by a turf fire. Let him marry another such, and I will not stint her marriage portion. Let him raise himself socially with my money or raise somebody else so long as there is a social profit somewhere, I'll regard my expenditure as justified. But there must be a profit for someone. A marriage with you would leave things just where they are. VIOLET. Many of my relations would object very much to my marrying the grandson of a common woman, Mr Malone. That may be prejudice; but so is your desire to have him marry a title prejudice. MALONE. [rising, and approaching her with a scrutiny in which there is a good deal of reluctant respect] You seem a pretty straightforward downright sort of a young woman. VIOLET. I do not see why I should be made miserably poor because I cannot make profits for you. Why do you want to make Hector unhappy? MALONE. He will get over it all right enough. Men thrive better on disappointments in love than on disappointments in money. I daresay you think that sordid; but I know what I'm talking about. My father died of starvation in Ireland in the black 47, Maybe you've heard of it. VIOLET. The Famine? MALONE. [with smouldering passion] No, the starvation. When a country is full of food, and exporting it, there can be no famine. My father was starved dead; and I was starved out to America in my mother's arms. English rule drove me and mine out of Ireland. Well, you can keep Ireland. I and my like are coming back to buy England; and we'll buy the best of it. I want no middle class properties and no middle class women for Hector. That's straightforward isn't it, like yourself? VIOLET. [icily pitying his sentimentality] Really, Mr Malone, I am astonished to hear a man of your age and good sense talking in that romantic way. Do you suppose English noblemen will sell their places to you for the asking? MALONE. I have the refusal of two of the oldest family mansions in England. One historic owner can't afford to keep all the rooms dusted: the other can't afford the death duties. What do you say now? VIOLET. Of course it is very scandalous; but surely you know that the Government will sooner or later put a stop to all these Socialistic attacks on property. MALONE. [grinning] D'y' think they'll be able to get that done before I buy the house--or rather the abbey? They're both abbeys. VIOLET. [putting that aside rather impatiently] Oh, well, let us talk sense, Mr Malone. You must feel that we haven't been talking sense so far. MALONE. I can't say I do. I mean all I say. VIOLET. Then you don't know Hector as I do. He is romantic and faddy--he gets it from you, I fancy--and he wants a certain sort of wife to take care of him. Not a faddy sort of person, you know. MALONE. Somebody like you, perhaps? VIOLET. [quietly] Well, yes. But you cannot very well ask me to undertake this with absolutely no means of keeping up his position. MALONE. [alarmed] Stop a bit, stop a bit. Where are we getting to? I'm not aware that I'm asking you to undertake anything. VIOLET. Of course, Mr Malone, you can make it very difficult for me to speak to you if you choose to misunderstand me. MALONE. [half bewildered] I don't wish to take any unfair advantage; but we seem to have got off the straight track somehow. Straker, with the air of a man who has been making haste, opens the little gate, and admits Hector, who, snorting with indignation, comes upon the lawn, and is making for his father when Violet, greatly dismayed, springs up and intercepts him. Straker doer not wait; at least he does not remain visibly within earshot. VIOLET. Oh, how unlucky! Now please, Hector, say nothing. Go away until I have finished speaking to your father. HECTOR. [inexorably] No, Violet: I mean to have this thing out, right away. [He puts her aside; passes her by; and faces his father, whose cheeks darken as his Irish blood begins to simmer]. Dad: you've not played this hand straight. MALONE. Hwat d'y'mean? HECTOR. You've opened a letter addressed to me. You've impersonated me and stolen a march on this lady. That's dishonorable. MALONE. [threateningly] Now you take care what you're saying, Hector. Take care, I tell you. HECTOR. I have taken care. I am taking care. I'm taking care of my honor and my position in English society. MALONE. [hotly] Your position has been got by my money: do you know that? HECTOR. Well, you've just spoiled it all by opening that letter. A letter from an English lady, not addressed to you--a confidential letter! a delicate letter! a private letter opened by my father! That's a sort of thing a man can't struggle against in England. The sooner we go back together the better. [He appeals mutely to the heavens to witness the shame and anguish of two outcasts]. VIOLET. [snubbing him with an instinctive dislike for scene making] Don't be unreasonable, Hector. It was quite natural of Mr Malone to open my letter: his name was on the envelope. MALONE. There! You've no common sense, Hector. I thank you, Miss Robinson. HECTOR. I thank you, too. It's very kind of you. My father knows no better. MALONE. [furiously clenching his fists] Hector-- HECTOR. [with undaunted moral force] Oh, it's no use hectoring me. A private letter's a private letter, dad: you can't get over that. MALONE [raising his voice] I won't be talked back to by you, d'y' hear? VIOLET. Ssh! please, please. Here they all come. Father and son, checked, glare mutely at one another as Tanner comes in through the little gate with Ramsden, followed by Octavius and Ann. VIOLET. Back already! TANNER. The Alhambra is not open this afternoon. VIOLET. What a sell! Tanner passes on, and presently finds himself between Hector and a strange elder, both apparently on the verge of personal combat. He looks from one to the other for an explanation. They sulkily avoid his eye, and nurse their wrath in silence. RAMSDEN. Is it wise for you to be out in the sunshine with such a headache, Violet? TANNER. Have you recovered too, Malone? VIOLET. Oh, I forgot. We have not all met before. Mr Malone: won't you introduce your father? HECTOR. [with Roman firmness] No, I will not. He is no father of mine. MALONE. [very angry] You disown your dad before your English friends, do you? VIOLET. Oh please don't make a scene. Ann and Octavius, lingering near the gate, exchange an astonished glance, and discreetly withdraw up the steps to the garden, where they can enjoy the disturbance without intruding. On their way to the steps Ann sends a little grimace of mute sympathy to Violet, who is standing with her back to the little table, looking on in helpless annoyance as her husband soars to higher and higher moral eminences without the least regard to the old man's millions. HECTOR. I'm very sorry, Miss Robinson; but I'm contending for a principle. I am a son, and, I hope, a dutiful one; but before everything I'm a Man!!! And when dad treats my private letters as his own, and takes it on himself to say that I shan't marry you if I am happy and fortunate enough to gain your consent, then I just snap my fingers and go my own way. TANNER. Marry Violet! RAMSDEN. Are you in your senses? TANNER. Do you forget what we told you? HECTOR. [recklessly] I don't care what you told me. RAMSDEN. [scandalized] Tut tut, sir! Monstrous! [he flings away towards the gate, his elbows quivering with indignation] TANNER. Another madman! These men in love should be locked up. [He gives Hector up as hopeless, and turns away towards the garden, but Malone, taking offence in a new direction, follows him and compels him, by the aggressivenes of his tone, to stop]. MALONE. I don't understand this. Is Hector not good enough for this lady, pray? TANNER. My dear sir, the lady is married already. Hector knows it; and yet he persists in his infatuation. Take him home and lock him up. MALONE. [bitterly] So this is the high-born social tone I've spoilt by my ignorant, uncultivated behavior! Makin love to a married woman! [He comes angrily between Hector and Violet, and almost bawls into Hector's left ear] You've picked up that habit of the British aristocracy, have you? HECTOR. That's all right. Don't you trouble yourself about that. I'll answer for the morality of what I'm doing. TANNER. [coming forward to Hector's right hand with flashing eyes] Well said, Malone! You also see that mere marriage laws are not morality! I agree with you; but unfortunately Violet does not. MALONE. I take leave to doubt that, sir. [Turning on Violet] Let me tell you, Mrs Robinson, or whatever your right name is, you had no right to send that letter to my son when you were the wife of another man. HECTOR. [outraged] This is the last straw. Dad: you have insulted my wife. MALONE. YOUR wife! TANNER. YOU the missing husband! Another moral impostor! [He smites his brow, and collapses into Malone's chair]. MALONE. You've married without my consent! RAMSDEN. You have deliberately humbugged us, sir! HECTOR. Here: I have had just about enough of being badgered. Violet and I are married: that's the long and the short of it. Now what have you got to say--any of you? MALONE. I know what I've got to say. She's married a beggar. HECTOR. No; she's married a Worker [his American pronunciation imparts an overwhelming intensity to this simple and unpopular word]. I start to earn my own living this very afternoon. MALONE. [sneering angrily] Yes: you're very plucky now, because you got your remittance from me yesterday or this morning, I reckon. Wait til it's spent. You won't be so full of cheek then. HECTOR. [producing a letter from his pocketbook] Here it is [thrusting it on his father]. Now you just take your remittance and yourself out of my life. I'm done with remittances; and I'm done with you. I don't sell the privilege of insulting my wife for a thousand dollars. MALONE. [deeply wounded and full of concern] Hector: you don't know what poverty is. HECTOR. [fervidly] Well, I want to know what it is. I want'be a Man. Violet: you come along with me, to your own home: I'll see you through. OCTAVIUS. [jumping down from the garden to the lawn and running to Hector's left hand] I hope you'll shake hands with me before you go, Hector. I admire and respect you more than I can say. [He is affected almost to tears as they shake hands]. VIOLET. [also almost in tears, but of vexation] Oh don't be an idiot, Tavy. Hector's about as fit to become a workman as you are. TANNER. [rising from his chair on the other ride of Hector] Never fear: there's no question of his becoming a navvy, Mrs Malone. [To Hector] There's really no difficulty about capital to start with. Treat me as a friend: draw on me. OCTAVIUS. [impulsively] Or on me. MALONE. [with fierce jealousy] Who wants your dirty money? Who should he draw on but his own father? [Tanner and Octavius recoil, Octavius rather hurt, Tanner consoled by the solution of the money difficulty. Violet looks up hopefully]. Hector: don't be rash, my boy. I'm sorry for what I said: I never meant to insult Violet: I take it all back. She's just the wife you want: there! HECTOR. [Patting him on the shoulder] Well, that's all right, dad. Say no more: we're friends again. Only, I take no money from anybody. MALONE. [pleading abjectly] Don't be hard on me, Hector. I'd rather you quarrelled and took the money than made friends and starved. You don't know what the world is: I do. HECTOR. No, no, NO. That's fixed: that's not going to change. [He passes his father inexorably by, and goes to Violet]. Come, Mrs Malone: you've got to move to the hotel with me, and take your proper place before the world. VIOLET. But I must go in, dear, and tell Davis to pack. Won't you go on and make them give you a room overlooking the garden for me? I'll join you in half an hour. HECTOR. Very well. You'll dine with us, Dad, won't you? MALONE. [eager to conciliate him] Yes, yes. HECTOR. See you all later. [He waves his hand to Ann, who has now been joined by Tanner, Octavius, and Ramsden in the garden, and goes out through the little gate, leaving his father and Violet together on the lawn]. MALONE. You'll try to bring him to his senses, Violet: I know you will. VIOLET. I had no idea he could be so headstrong. If he goes on like that, what can I do? MALONE. Don't be discurridged: domestic pressure may be slow; but it's sure. You'll wear him down. Promise me you will. VIOLET. I will do my best. Of course I think it's the greatest nonsense deliberately making us poor like that. MALONE. Of course it is. VIOLET. [after a moment's reflection] You had better give me the remittance. He will want it for his hotel bill. I'll see whether I can induce him to accept it. Not now, of course, but presently. MALONE. [eagerly] Yes, yes, yes: that's just the thing [he hands her the thousand dollar bill, and adds cunningly] Y'understand that this is only a bachelor allowance. VIOLET. [Coolly] Oh, quite. [She takes it]. Thank you. By the way, Mr Malone, those two houses you mentioned--the abbeys. MALONE. Yes? VIOLET. Don't take one of them until I've seen it. One never knows what may be wrong with these places. MALONE. I won't. I'll do nothing without consulting you, never fear. VIOLET. [politely, but without a ray of gratitude] Thanks: that will be much the best way. [She goes calmly back to the villa, escorted obsequiously by Malone to the upper end of the garden]. TANNER. [drawing Ramsden's attention to Malone's cringing attitude as he takes leave of Violet] And that poor devil is a billionaire! one of the master spirits of the age! Led on a string like a pug dog by the first girl who takes the trouble to despise him. I wonder will it ever come to that with me. [He comes down to the lawn.] RAMSDEN. [following him] The sooner the better for you. MALONE. [clapping his hands as he returns through the garden] That'll be a grand woman for Hector. I wouldn't exchange her for ten duchesses. [He descends to the lawn and comes between Tanner and Ramsden]. RAMSDEN. [very civil to the billionaire] It's an unexpected pleasure to find you in this corner of the world, Mr Malone. Have you come to buy up the Alhambra? MALONE. Well, I don't say I mightn't. I think I could do better with it than the Spanish government. But that's not what I came about. To tell you the truth, about a month ago I overheard a deal between two men over a bundle of shares. They differed about the price: they were young and greedy, and didn't know that if the shares were worth what was bid for them they must be worth what was asked, the margin being too small to be of any account, you see. To amuse meself, I cut in and bought the shares. Well, to this day I haven't found out what the business is. The office is in this town; and the name is Mendoza, Limited. Now whether Mendoza's a mine, or a steamboat line, or a bank, or a patent article-- TANNER. He's a man. I know him: his principles are thoroughly commercial. Let us take you round the town in our motor, Mr Malone, and call on him on the way. MALONE. If you'll be so kind, yes. And may I ask who-- TANNER. Mr Roebuck Ramsden, a very old friend of your daughter-in-law. MALONE. Happy to meet you, Mr Ramsden. RAMSDEN. Thank you. Mr Tanner is also one of our circle. MALONE. Glad to know you also, Mr Tanner. TANNER. Thanks. [Malone and Ramsden go out very amicably through the little gate. Tanner calls to Octavius, who is wandering in the garden with Ann] Tavy! [Tavy comes to the steps, Tanner whispers loudly to him] Violet has married a financier of brigands. [Tanner hurries away to overtake Malone and Ramsden. Ann strolls to the steps with an idle impulse to torment Octavius]. ANN. Won't you go with them, Tavy? OCTAVIUS. [tears suddenly flushing his eyes] You cut me to the heart, Ann, by wanting me to go [he comes down on the lawn to hide his face from her. She follows him caressingly]. ANN. Poor Ricky Ticky Tavy! Poor heart! OCTAVIUS. It belongs to you, Ann. Forgive me: I must speak of it. I love you. You know I love you. ANN. What's the good, Tavy? You know that my mother is determined that I shall marry Jack. OCTAVIUS. [amazed] Jack! ANN. It seems absurd, doesn't it? OCTAVIUS. [with growing resentment] Do you mean to say that Jack has been playing with me all this time? That he has been urging me not to marry you because he intends to marry you himself? ANN. [alarmed] No no: you mustn't lead him to believe that I said that: I don't for a moment think that Jack knows his own mind. But it's clear from my father's will that he wished me to marry Jack. And my mother is set on it. OCTAVIUS. But you are not bound to sacrifice yourself always to the wishes of your parents. ANN. My father loved me. My mother loves me. Surely their wishes are a better guide than my own selfishness. OCTAVIUS. Oh, I know how unselfish you are, Ann. But believe me--though I know I am speaking in my own interest--there is another side to this question. Is it fair to Jack to marry him if you do not love him? Is it fair to destroy my happiness as well as your own if you can bring yourself to love me? ANN. [looking at him with a faint impulse of pity] Tavy, my dear, you are a nice creature--a good boy. OCTAVIUS. [humiliated] Is that all? ANN. [mischievously in spite of her pity] That's a great deal, I assure you. You would always worship the ground I trod on, wouldn't you? OCTAVIUS. I do. It sounds ridiculous; but it's no exaggeration. I do; and I always shall. ANN. Always is a long word, Tavy. You see, I shall have to live up always to your idea of my divinity; and I don't think I could do that if we were married. But if I marry Jack, you'll never be disillusioned--at least not until I grow too old. OCTAVIUS. I too shall grow old, Ann. And when I am eighty, one white hair of the woman I love will make me tremble more than the thickest gold tress from the most beautiful young head. ANN. [quite touched] Oh, that's poetry, Tavy, real poetry. It gives me that strange sudden sense of an echo from a former existence which always seems to me such a striking proof that we have immortal souls. OCTAVIUS. Do you believe that is true? ANN. Tavy, if it is to become true you must lose me as well as love me. OCTAVIUS. Oh! [he hastily sits down at the little table and covers his face with his hands]. ANN. [with conviction] Tavy: I wouldn't for worlds destroy your illusions. I can neither take you nor let you go. I can see exactly what will suit you. You must be a sentimental old bachelor for my sake. OCTAVIUS. [desperately] Ann: I'll kill myself. ANN. Oh no you won't: that wouldn't be kind. You won't have a bad time. You will be very nice to women; and you will go a good deal to the opera. A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income. OCTAVIUS. [considerably cooled, but believing that he is only recovering his self-control] I know you mean to be kind, Ann. Jack has persuaded you that cynicism is a good tonic for me. [He rises with quiet dignity]. ANN. [studying him slyly] You see, I'm disillusionizing you already. That's what I dread. OCTAVIUS. You do not dread disillusionizing Jack. ANN. [her face lighting up with mischievous ecstasy--whispering] I can't: he has no illusions about me. I shall surprise Jack the other way. Getting over an unfavorable impression is ever so much easier than living up to an ideal. Oh, I shall enrapture Jack sometimes! OCTAVIUS. [resuming the calm phase of despair, and beginning to enjoy his broken heart and delicate attitude without knowing it] I don't doubt that. You will enrapture him always. And he--the fool!--thinks you would make him wretched. ANN. Yes: that's the difficulty, so far. OCTAVIUS. [heroically] Shall _I_ tell him that you love him? ANN. [quickly] Oh no: he'd run away again. OCTAVIUS. [shocked] Ann: would you marry an unwilling man? ANN. What a queer creature you are, Tavy! There's no such thing as a willing man when you really go for him. [She laughs naughtily]. I'm shocking you, I suppose. But you know you are really getting a sort of satisfaction already in being out of danger yourself. OCTAVIUS [startled] Satisfaction! [Reproachfully] You say that to me! ANN. Well, if it were really agony, would you ask for more of it? OCTAVIUS. Have I asked for more of it? ANN. You have offered to tell Jack that I love him. That's self-sacrifice, I suppose; but there must be some satisfaction in it. Perhaps it's because you're a poet. You are like the bird that presses its breast against the sharp thorn to make itself sing. OCTAVIUS. It's quite simple. I love you; and I want you to be happy. You don't love me; so I can't make you happy myself; but I can help another man to do it. ANN. Yes: it seems quite simple. But I doubt if we ever know why we do things. The only really simple thing is to go straight for what you want and grab it. I suppose I don't love you, Tavy; but sometimes I feel as if I should like to make a man of you somehow. You are very foolish about women. OCTAVIUS. [almost coldly] I am content to be what I am in that respect. ANN. Then you must keep away from them, and only dream about them. I wouldn't marry you for worlds, Tavy. OCTAVIUS. I have no hope, Ann: I accept my ill luck. But I don't think you quite know how much it hurts. ANN. You are so softhearted! It's queer that you should be so different from Violet. Violet's as hard as nails. OCTAVIUS. Oh no. I am sure Violet is thoroughly womanly at heart. ANN. [with some impatience] Why do you say that? Is it unwomanly to be thoughtful and businesslike and sensible? Do you want Violet to be an idiot--or something worse, like me? OCTAVIUS. Something worse--like you! What do you mean, Ann? ANN. Oh well, I don't mean that, of course. But I have a great respect for Violet. She gets her own way always. OCTAVIUS. [sighing] So do you. ANN. Yes; but somehow she gets it without coaxing--without having to make people sentimental about her. OCTAVIUS. [with brotherly callousness] Nobody could get very sentimental about Violet, I think, pretty as she is. ANN. Oh yes they could, if she made them. OCTAVIUS. But surely no really nice woman would deliberately practise on men's instincts in that way. ANN. [throwing up her hands] Oh Tavy, Tavy, Ricky Ticky Tavy, heaven help the woman who marries you! OCTAVIUS. [his passion reviving at the name] Oh why, why, why do you say that? Don't torment me. I don't understand. ANN. Suppose she were to tell fibs, and lay snares for men? OCTAVIUS. Do you think _I_ could marry such a woman--I, who have known and loved you? ANN. Hm! Well, at all events, she wouldn't let you if she were wise. So that's settled. And now I can't talk any more. Say you forgive me, and that the subject is closed. OCTAVIUS. I have nothing to forgive; and the subject is closed. And if the wound is open, at least you shall never see it bleed. ANN. Poetic to the last, Tavy. Goodbye, dear. [She pats his check; has an impulse to kiss him and then another impulse of distaste which prevents her; finally runs away through the garden and into the villa]. Octavius again takes refuge at the table, bowing his head on his arms and sobbing softly. Mrs Whitefield, who has been pottering round the Granada shops, and has a net full of little parcels in her hand, comes in through the gate and sees him. MRS WHITEFIELD. [running to him and lifting his head] What's the matter, Tavy? Are you ill? OCTAVIUS. No, nothing, nothing. MRS WHITEFIELD. [still holding his head, anxiously] But you're crying. Is it about Violet's marriage? OCTAVIUS. No, no. Who told you about Violet? MRS WHITEFIELD. [restoring the head to its owner] I met Roebuck and that awful old Irishman. Are you sure you're not ill? What's the matter? OCTAVIUS. [affectionately] It's nothing--only a man's broken heart. Doesn't that sound ridiculous? MRS WHITEFIELD. But what is it all about? Has Ann been doing anything to you? OCTAVIUS. It's not Ann's fault. And don't think for a moment that I blame you. MRS WHITEFIELD. [startled] For what? OCTAVIUS. [pressing her hand consolingly] For nothing. I said I didn't blame you. MRS WHITEFIELD. But I haven't done anything. What's the matter? OCTAVIUS. [smiling sadly] Can't you guess? I daresay you are right to prefer Jack to me as a husband for Ann; but I love Ann; and it hurts rather. [He rises and moves away from her towards the middle of the lawn]. MRS WHITEFIELD. [following him hastily] Does Ann say that I want her to marry Jack? OCTAVIUS. Yes: she has told me. MRS WHITEFIELD. [thoughtfully] Then I'm very sorry for you, Tavy. It's only her way of saying SHE wants to marry Jack. Little she cares what _I_ say or what I want! OCTAVIUS. But she would not say it unless she believed it. Surely you don't suspect Ann of--of DECEIT!! MRS WHITEFIELD. Well, never mind, Tavy. I don't know which is best for a young man: to know too little, like you, or too much, like Jack. Tanner returns. TANNER. Well, I've disposed of old Malone. I've introduced him to Mendoza, Limited; and left the two brigands together to talk it out. Hullo, Tavy! anything wrong? OCTAVIUS. I must go wash my face, I see. [To Mrs Whitefield] Tell him what you wish. [To Tanner] You may take it from me, Jack, that Ann approves of it. TANNER. [puzzled by his manner] Approves of what? OCTAVIUS. Of what Mrs Whitefield wishes. [He goes his way with sad dignity to the villa]. TANNER. [to Mrs Whitefield] This is very mysterious. What is it you wish? It shall be done, whatever it is. MRS WHITEFIELD. [with snivelling gratitude] Thank you, Jack. [She sits down. Tanner brings the other chair from the table and sits close to her with his elbows on his knees, giving her his whole attention]. I don't know why it is that other people's children are so nice to me, and that my own have so little consideration for me. It's no wonder I don't seem able to care for Ann and Rhoda as I do for you and Tavy and Violet. It's a very queer world. It used to be so straightforward and simple; and now nobody seems to think and feel as they ought. Nothing has been right since that speech that Professor Tyndall made at Belfast. TANNER. Yes: life is more complicated than we used to think. But what am I to do for you? MRS WHITEFIELD. That's just what I want to tell you. Of course you'll marry Ann whether I like it myself or not-- TANNER. [starting] It seems to me that I shall presently be married to Ann whether I like it myself or not. MRS WHITEFIELD. [peacefully] Oh, very likely you will: you know what she is when she has set her mind on anything. But don't put it on me: that's all I ask. Tavy has just let out that she's been saying that I am making her marry you; and the poor boy is breaking his heart about it; for he is in love with her himself, though what he sees in her so wonderful, goodness knows: _I_ don't. It's no use telling Tavy that Ann puts things into people's heads by telling them that I want them when the thought of them never crossed my mind. It only sets Tavy against me. But you know better than that. So if you marry her, don't put the blame on me. TANNER. [emphatically] I haven't the slightest intention of marrying her. MRS WHITEFIELD. [slyly] She'd suit you better than Tavy. She'd meet her match in you, Jack. I'd like to see her meet her match. TANNER. No man is a match for a woman, except with a poker and a pair of hobnailed boots. Not always even then. Anyhow, I can't take the poker to her. I should be a mere slave. MRS WHITEFIELD. No: she's afraid of you. At all events, you would tell her the truth about herself. She wouldn't be able to slip out of it as she does with me. TANNER. Everybody would call me a brute if I told Ann the truth about herself in terms of her own moral code. To begin with, Ann says things that are not strictly true. MRS WHITEFIELD. I'm glad somebody sees she is not an angel. TANNER. In short--to put it as a husband would put it when exasperated to the point of speaking out--she is a liar. And since she has plunged Tavy head over ears in love with her without any intention of marrying him, she is a coquette, according to the standard definition of a coquette as a woman who rouses passions she has no intention of gratifying. And as she has now reduced you to the point of being willing to sacrifice me at the altar for the mere satisfaction of getting me to call her a liar to her face, I may conclude that she is a bully as well. She can't bully men as she bullies women; so she habitually and unscrupulously uses her personal fascination to make men give her whatever she wants. That makes her almost something for which I know no polite name. MRS WHITEFIELD. [in mild expostulation] Well, you can't expect perfection, Jack. TANNER. I don't. But what annoys me is that Ann does. I know perfectly well that all this about her being a liar and a bully and a coquette and so forth is a trumped-up moral indictment which might be brought against anybody. We all lie; we all bully as much as we dare; we all bid for admiration without the least intention of earning it; we all get as much rent as we can out of our powers of fascination. If Ann would admit this I shouldn't quarrel with her. But she won't. If she has children she'll take advantage of their telling lies to amuse herself by whacking them. If another woman makes eyes at me, she'll refuse to know a coquette. She will do just what she likes herself whilst insisting on everybody else doing what the conventional code prescribes. In short, I can stand everything except her confounded hypocrisy. That's what beats me. MRS WHITEFIELD. [carried away by the relief of hearing her own opinion so eloquently expressed] Oh, she is a hypocrite. She is: she is. Isn't she? TANNER. Then why do you want to marry me to her? MRS WHITEFIELD. [querulously] There now! put it on me, of course. I never thought of it until Tavy told me she said I did. But, you know, I'm very fond of Tavy: he's a sort of son to me; and I don't want him to be trampled on and made wretched. TANNER. Whereas I don't matter, I suppose. MRS WHITEFIELD. Oh, you are different, somehow: you are able to take care of yourself. You'd serve her out. And anyhow, she must marry somebody. TANNER. Aha! there speaks the life instinct. You detest her; but you feel that you must get her married. MRS WHITEFIELD. [rising, shocked] Do you mean that I detest my own daughter! Surely you don't believe me to be so wicked and unnatural as that, merely because I see her faults. TANNER. [cynically] You love her, then? MRS WHITEFIELD. Why, of course I do. What queer things you say, Jack! We can't help loving our own blood relations. TANNER. Well, perhaps it saves unpleasantness to say so. But for my part, I suspect that the tables of consanguinity have a natural basis in a natural repugnance [he rises]. MRS WHITEFIELD. You shouldn't say things like that, Jack. I hope you won't tell Ann that I have been speaking to you. I only wanted to set myself right with you and Tavy. I couldn't sit mumchance and have everything put on me. TANNER. [politely] Quite so. MRS WHITEFIELD. [dissatisfied] And now I've only made matters worse. Tavy's angry with me because I don't worship Ann. And when it's been put into my head that Ann ought to marry you, what can I say except that it would serve her right? TANNER. Thank you. MRS WHITEFIELD. Now don't be silly and twist what I say into something I don't mean. I ought to have fair play-- Ann comes from the villa, followed presently by Violet, who is dressed for driving. ANN. [coming to her mother's right hand with threatening suavity] Well, mamma darling, you seem to be having a delightful chat with Jack. We can hear you all over the place. MRS WHITEFIELD. [appalled] Have you overheard-- TANNER. Never fear: Ann is only--well, we were discussing that habit of hers just now. She hasn't heard a word. MRS WHITEFIELD. [stoutly] I don't care whether she has or not: I have a right to say what I please. VIOLET. [arriving on the lawn and coming between Mrs Whitefield and Tanner] I've come to say goodbye. I'm off for my honeymoon. MRS WHITEFIELD. [crying] Oh don't say that, Violet. And no wedding, no breakfast, no clothes, nor anything. VIOLET. [petting her] It won't be for long. MRS WHITEFIELD. Don't let him take you to America. Promise me that you won't. VIOLET. [very decidedly] I should think not, indeed. Don't cry, dear: I'm only going to the hotel. MRS WHITEFIELD. But going in that dress, with your luggage, makes one realize--[she chokes, and then breaks out again] How I wish you were my daughter, Violet! VIOLET. [soothing her] There, there: so I am. Ann will be jealous. MRS WHITEFIELD. Ann doesn't care a bit for me. ANN. Fie, mother! Come, now: you mustn't cry any more: you know Violet doesn't like it [Mrs Whitefield dries her eyes, and subsides]. VIOLET. Goodbye, Jack. TANNER. Goodbye, Violet. VIOLET. The sooner you get married too, the better. You will be much less misunderstood. TANNER. [restively] I quite expect to get married in the course of the afternoon. You all seem to have set your minds on it. VIOLET. You might do worse. [To Mrs Whitefield: putting her arm round her] Let me take you to the hotel with me: the drive will do you good. Come in and get a wrap. [She takes her towards the villa]. MRS WHITEFIELD. [as they go up through the garden] I don't know what I shall do when you are gone, with no one but Ann in the house; and she always occupied with the men! It's not to be expected that your husband will care to be bothered with an old woman like me. Oh, you needn't tell me: politeness is all very well; but I know what people think--[She talks herself and Violet out of sight and hearing]. Ann, musing on Violet's opportune advice, approaches Tanner; examines him humorously for a moment from toe to top; and finally delivers her opinion. ANN. Violet is quite right. You ought to get married. TANNER. [explosively] Ann: I will not marry you. Do you hear? I won't, won't, won't, won't, WON'T marry you. ANN. [placidly] Well, nobody axd you, sir she said, sir she said, sir she said. So that's settled. TANNER. Yes, nobody has asked me; but everybody treats the thing as settled. It's in the air. When we meet, the others go away on absurd pretexts to leave us alone together. Ramsden no longer scowls at me: his eye beams, as if he were already giving you away to me in church. Tavy refers me to your mother and gives me his blessing. Straker openly treats you as his future employer: it was he who first told me of it. ANN. Was that why you ran away? TANNER. Yes, only to be stopped by a lovesick brigand and run down like a truant schoolboy. ANN. Well, if you don't want to be married, you needn't be [she turns away from him and sits down, much at her ease]. TANNER. [following her] Does any man want to be hanged? Yet men let themselves be hanged without a struggle for life, though they could at least give the chaplain a black eye. We do the world's will, not our own. I have a frightful feeling that I shall let myself be married because it is the world's will that you should have a husband. ANN. I daresay I shall, someday. TANNER. But why me--me of all men? Marriage is to me apostasy, profanation of the sanctuary of my soul, violation of my manhood, sale of my birthright, shameful surrender, ignominious capitulation, acceptance of defeat. I shall decay like a thing that has served its purpose and is done with; I shall change from a man with a future to a man with a past; I shall see in the greasy eyes of all the other husbands their relief at the arrival of a new prisoner to share their ignominy. The young men will scorn me as one who has sold out: to the young women I, who have always been an enigma and a possibility, shall be merely somebody else's property--and damaged goods at that: a secondhand man at best. ANN. Well, your wife can put on a cap and make herself ugly to keep you in countenance, like my grandmother. TANNER. So that she may make her triumph more insolent by publicly throwing away the bait the moment the trap snaps on the victim! ANN. After all, though, what difference would it make? Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days? I thought our pictures very lovely when papa bought them; but I haven't looked at them for years. You never bother about my looks: you are too well used to me. I might be the umbrella stand. TANNER. You lie, you vampire: you lie. ANN. Flatterer. Why are you trying to fascinate me, Jack, if you don't want to marry me? TANNER. The Life Force. I am in the grip of the Life Force. ANN. I don't understand in the least: it sounds like the Life Guards. TANNER. Why don't you marry Tavy? He is willing. Can you not be satisfied unless your prey struggles? ANN. [turning to him as if to let him into a secret] Tavy will never marry. Haven't you noticed that that sort of man never marries? TANNER. What! a man who idolizes women! who sees nothing in nature but romantic scenery for love duets! Tavy, the chivalrous, the faithful, the tenderhearted and true! Tavy never marry! Why, he was born to be swept up by the first pair of blue eyes he meets in the street. ANN. Yes, I know. All the same, Jack, men like that always live in comfortable bachelor lodgings with broken hearts, and are adored by their landladies, and never get married. Men like you always get married. TANNER. [Smiting his brow] How frightfully, horribly true! It has been staring me in the face all my life; and I never saw it before. ANN. Oh, it's the same with women. The poetic temperament's a very nice temperament, very amiable, very harmless and poetic, I daresay; but it's an old maid's temperament. TANNER. Barren. The Life Force passes it by. ANN. If that's what you mean by the Life Force, yes. TANNER. You don't care for Tavy? ANN. [looking round carefully to make sure that Tavy is not within earshot] No. TANNER. And you do care for me? ANN. [rising quietly and shaking her finger at him] Now Jack! Behave yourself. TANNER. Infamous, abandoned woman! Devil! ANN. Boa-constrictor! Elephant! TANNER. Hypocrite! ANN. [Softly] I must be, for my future husband's sake. TANNER. For mine! [Correcting himself savagely] I mean for his. ANN.[ignoring the correction] Yes, for yours. You had better marry what you call a hypocrite, Jack. Women who are not hypocrites go about in rational dress and are insulted and get into all sorts of hot water. And then their husbands get dragged in too, and live in continual dread of fresh complications. Wouldn't you prefer a wife you could depend on? TANNER. No, a thousand times no: hot water is the revolutionist's element. You clean men as you clean milkpails, by scalding them. ANN. Cold water has its uses too. It's healthy. TANNER. [despairingly] Oh, you are witty: at the supreme moment the Life Force endows you with every quality. Well, I too can be a hypocrite. Your father's will appointed me your guardian, not your suitor. I shall be faithful to my trust. ANN. [in low siren tones] He asked me who would I have as my guardian before he made that will. I chose you! TANNER. The will is yours then! The trap was laid from the beginning. ANN. [concentrating all her magic] From the beginning--from our childhood--for both of us--by the Life Force. TANNER. I will not marry you. I will not marry you. ANN. Oh, you will, you will. TANNER. I tell you, no, no, no. ANN. I tell you, yes, yes, yes. TANNER. NO. ANN. [coaxing--imploring--almost exhausted] Yes. Before it is too late for repentance. Yes. TANNER. [struck by the echo from the past] When did all this happen to me before? Are we two dreaming? ANN. [suddenly losing her courage, with an anguish that she does not conceal] No. We are awake; and you have said no: that is all. TANNER. [brutally] Well? ANN. Well, I made a mistake: you do not love me. TANNER. [seizing her in his arms] It is false: I love you. The Life Force enchants me: I have the whole world in my arms when I clasp you. But I am fighting for my freedom, for my honor, for myself, one and indivisible. ANN. Your happiness will be worth them all. TANNER. You would sell freedom and honor and self for happiness? ANN. It will not be all happiness for me. Perhaps death. TANNER. [groaning] Oh, that clutch holds and hurts. What have you grasped in me? Is there a father's heart as well as a mother's? ANN. Take care, Jack: if anyone comes while we are like this, you will have to marry me. TANNER. If we two stood now on the edge of a precipice, I would hold you tight and jump. ANN. [panting, failing more and more under the strain] Jack: let me go. I have dared so frightfully--it is lasting longer than I thought. Let me go: I can't bear it. TANNER. Nor I. Let it kill us. ANN. Yes: I don't care. I am at the end of my forces. I don't care. I think I am going to faint. At this moment Violet and Octavius come from the villa with Mrs Whitefield, who is wrapped up for driving. Simultaneously Malone and Ramsden, followed by Mendoza and Straker, come in through the little gate in the paling. Tanner shamefacedly releases Ann, who raises her hand giddily to her forehead. MALONE. Take care. Something's the matter with the lady. RAMSDEN. What does this mean? VIOLET. [running between Ann and Tanner] Are you ill? ANN. [reeling, with a supreme effort] I have promised to marry Jack. [She swoons. Violet kneels by her and chafes her hand. Tanner runs round to her other hand, and tries to lift her bead. Octavius goes to Violet's assistance, but does not know what to do. Mrs Whitefield hurries back into the villa. Octavius, Malone and Ramsden run to Ann and crowd round her, stooping to assist. Straker coolly comes to Ann's feet, and Mendoza to her head, both upright and self-possessed]. STRAKER. Now then, ladies and gentlemen: she don't want a crowd round her: she wants air--all the air she can git. If you please, gents-- [Malone and Ramsden allow him to drive them gently past Ann and up the lawn towards the garden, where Octavius, who has already become conscious of his uselessness, joins them. Straker, following them up, pauses for a moment to instruct Tanner]. Don't lift er ed, Mr Tanner: let it go flat so's the blood can run back into it. MENDOZA. He is right, Mr Tanner. Trust to the air of the Sierra. [He withdraws delicately to the garden steps]. TANNER. [rising] I yield to your superior knowledge of physiology, Henry. [He withdraws to the corner of the lawn; and Octavius immediately hurries down to him]. TAVY. [aside to Tanner, grasping his hand] Jack: be very happy. TANNER. [aside to Tavy] I never asked her. It is a trap for me. [He goes up the lawn towards the garden. Octavius remains petrified]. MENDOZA. [intercepting Mrs Whitefield, who comes from the villa with a glass of brandy] What is this, madam [he takes it from her]? MRS WHITEFIELD. A little brandy. MENDOZA. The worst thing you could give her. Allow me. [He swallows it]. Trust to the air of the Sierra, madam. For a moment the men all forget Ann and stare at Mendoza. ANN. [in Violet's ear, clutching her round the neck] Violet, did Jack say anything when I fainted? VIOLET. No. ANN. Ah! [with a sigh of intense relief she relapses]. MRS WHITEFIELD. Oh, she's fainted again. They are about to rush back to her; but Mendoza stops them with a warning gesture. ANN. [supine] No I haven't. I'm quite happy. TANNER. [suddenly walking determinedly to her, and snatching her hand from Violet to feel her pulse] Why, her pulse is positively bounding. Come, get up. What nonsense! Up with you. [He gets her up summarily]. ANN. Yes: I feel strong enough now. But you very nearly killed me, Jack, for all that. MALONE. A rough wooer, eh? They're the best sort, Miss Whitefield. I congratulate Mr Tanner; and I hope to meet you and him as frequent guests at the Abbey. ANN. Thank you. [She goes past Malone to Octavius] Ricky Ticky Tavy: congratulate me. [Aside to him] I want to make you cry for the last time. TAVY. [steadfastly] No more tears. I am happy in your happiness. And I believe in you in spite of everything. RAMSDEN. [coming between Malone and Tanner] You are a happy man, Jack Tanner. I envy you. MENDOZA. [advancing between Violet and Tanner] Sir: there are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it. Mine and yours, sir. TANNER. Mr Mendoza: I have no heart's desires. Ramsden: it is very easy for you to call me a happy man: you are only a spectator. I am one of the principals; and I know better. Ann: stop tempting Tavy, and come back to me. ANN. [complying] You are absurd, Jack. [She takes his proffered arm]. TANNER. [continuing] I solemnly say that I am not a happy man. Ann looks happy; but she is only triumphant, successful, victorious. That is not happiness, but the price for which the strong sell their happiness. What we have both done this afternoon is to renounce tranquillity, above all renounce the romantic possibilities of an unknown future, for the cares of a household and a family. I beg that no man may seize the occasion to get half drunk and utter imbecile speeches and coarse pleasantries at my expense. We propose to furnish our own house according to our own taste; and I hereby give notice that the seven or eight travelling clocks, the four or five dressing cases, the salad bowls, the carvers and fish slices, the copy of Tennyson in extra morocco, and all the other articles you are preparing to heap upon us, will be instantly sold, and the proceeds devoted to circulating free copies of the Revolutionist's Handbook. The wedding will take place three days after our return to England, by special license, at the office of the district superintendent registrar, in the presence of my solicitor and his clerk, who, like his clients, will be in ordinary walking dress. VIOLET. [with intense conviction] You are a brute, Jack. ANN. [looking at him with fond pride and caressing his arm] Never mind her, dear. Go on talking. TANNER. Talking! Universal laughter. Können Sie eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Die Szene spielt in einem teuren und aufgeblasenen Anwesen in Granada. Enry Straker betritt zusammen mit einem älteren Iren den Garten. Der Chauffeur wurde gebeten, eine Notiz an Hector in dessen Hotel zu überbringen. Er ist immer noch verwirrt darüber, dass dieser Fremde als Hector Malone identifiziert wurde, aber der Bitte nachgekommen ist, ihn zur Villa mitzubringen, als man ihm sagte, dass "alles in Ordnung" sei. Nun erfährt er, dass der Ire nicht einmal den Namen Violet Robinson kennt. Violet tritt ein und der Ire stellt sich als Hector Malone, Sr., vor. Während des ersten Teils der Szene gibt es eine amüsante Unterhaltung zwischen Enry und Malone über ihre jeweiligen Dialekte. Violet entschuldigt sich für jegliche Unhöflichkeit, die der selbstbewusste Straker begangen haben könnte: "Aber was können wir tun? Er ist unser Chauffeur." Ein Mann von seiner mechanischen Begabung ist unverzichtbar, alle sind auf ihn angewiesen. Die Notiz hatte Malone bewusst gemacht, dass sein Sohn tiefes Interesse an einer ihm unbekannten Frau hat; nun wird ihm gesagt, dass Hector Violet heiraten will. Er sagt ihr, dass sein Sohn von ihm "keinen Cent" bekommen wird, wenn er das tut, da er andere Pläne hat. Malone gesteht, dass Violet eine liebenswürdige und ausgezeichnete junge Dame ist, aber wie sein Sohn zu romantisch, um sich um Geld zu sorgen. Und er ist verblüfft, als Violet ruhig feststellt, dass sie nicht so töricht ist und dass Hector Geld haben muss. Dann soll er dafür arbeiten, erwidert Malone. Arbeiten! Es hat keinen Sinn, Geld zu haben, wenn man dafür arbeiten muss - das ist Unsinn, antwortet Violet gelassen. Aber sie verliert fast die Beherrschung, als Malone ihr rät, nicht aufgrund solch einer Überzeugung zu heiraten. Ist ihre soziale Stellung nicht genauso gut wie die von Hector, fragt sie dann? Der Vater erklärt, dass die soziale Position seines Sohnes genau das ist, was er für ihn wählt, und er stellt klar, dass er darauf besteht, dass Hector die Tochter eines Aristokraten heiratet. Er gesteht, dass er nichts gegen eine Hochzeit seines Sohnes mit einem barfußigen irischen Mädchen gehabt hätte, wie es seine eigene Großmutter gewesen war. Unter solchen Umständen hätte Malone dem jungen Mann finanzielle Hilfe nicht verweigert, da die Ausgaben sich "gesellschaftlicher Gewinn" bewegen. Aber wenn Hector Violet heiratet, würde alles "genau so sein"; das heißt, er würde zur Mittelschicht gehören. Als Violet bemerkt, dass viele ihrer Verwandten dagegen sein würden, dass sie den Enkel eines Bauern heiratet, und hinzufügt, dass auf beiden Seiten offensichtlich Vorurteile vorhanden sind, kann Malone nicht anders, als sie als "eine ziemlich unkomplizierte und geradeaus junge Frau" zu respektieren. Dennoch bleibt er standhaft: "Ich möchte weder Eigenschaften der Mittelschicht noch eine Mittelschichtfrau für Hector." Die anschließende Diskussion darüber, was der Vater für seinen Sohn tun sollte und was Violet für ihn tun könnte, wird durch Hectors Ankunft unterbrochen, sehr zum Ärger von Violet, denn sie wollte mehr Zeit haben, um Malone von ihrer Sichtweise zu überzeugen. Hector, der die Rolle des vollkommenen Ehrenmannes spielt, ist empört über seinen Vater, dass er den Brief geöffnet hat: "Das ist unehrenhaft." Aber Violet, die eine Szene befürchtet, drängt ihn, vernünftig zu sein, denn Malones Name stand auf dem Umschlag. Während Vater und Sohn einander schweigend anstarren, kommen Tanner, Ramsden, Octavius und Ann herein. Ramsden ist besorgt um Violet und Tanner um Hector, da beide behauptet hatten, unwohl zu sein und daher nicht mit den anderen einen Besuch der Alhambra unternehmen konnten. Als Violet ihren Mann bittet, seinen Vater den Neuankömmlingen vorzustellen, lehnt Hector dies kurz ab: "Er ist kein Vater von mir." Sie fleht die beiden an, keine Szene zu machen, als die erstaunte Ann und Octavius sich zurückziehen. Violet kann nur hilflos zusehen, wie ihr Mann immer höhere moralische Höhen erklimmt, ohne Rücksicht auf die Millionen des alten Mannes. Tanner erschwert die Angelegenheit, indem er das Geheimnis ausplaudert. Malone erfährt, dass Violet bereits verheiratet ist und vermutet, dass sein Sohn einer verheirateten Frau nachgestellt hat. "Du hast dir die Angewohnheiten des britischen Adels angeeignet, nicht wahr?" ruft er fast in das Ohr seines Sohnes. Also hat Hector keine andere Wahl, als seine Ehe mit Violet anzuerkennen. "Sie hat einen Bettler geheiratet", sagt der niedergeschlagene Malone. Aber der Sohn lehnt die Bezeichnung ab; er ist jetzt ein Arbeiter, der noch am selben Nachmittag angefangen hat, seinen Lebensunterhalt zu verdienen. Er will nichts mehr von einem Mann, der seine Frau beleidigt und Geld schickt. Der romantische Octavius ist von der vermeintlichen Edelmutigkeit von Hectors Unabhängigkeitserklärung zu Tränen gerührt und bittet darum, seine Hand schütteln zu dürfen. Auch Violet ist kurz vor den Tränen, aber aus einem anderen Grund. "Oh, sei kein Idiot, Tavey", ruft sie verärgert aus. Als Tanner und Octavius großzügig anbieten, Hector einen guten Start zu ermöglichen, ändert Malone seine Meinung und wird eifersüchtig, dass jemand außer ihm seinem Sohn helfen würde. Er drängt Hector, nicht übereilt zu handeln, und entschuldigt sich demütig bei Violet, indem er sie als genau die richtige Frau für seinen Sohn beschreibt. So scheint alles gut zu enden für das frisch verheiratete Paar. Aber Hector, der sich weiterhin als Mann mit hohen Prinzipien präsentiert, ist entschlossen, unabhängig von seinem Vater zu sein, der Violet auffordert, den jungen Mann zur Vernunft zu bringen. An diesem Punkt akzeptiert er bereitwillig ihren Rat, nichts ohne ihre Zustimmung zu tun, und gibt ihr begierig einen Tausend-Dollar-Schein, Hectors "junggesellenmäßiges Taschengeld". Als Tanner die Ergebenheit dieses Multimillionärs beobachtet, "eines der Genies unserer Zeit", fragt er sich, ob er jemals aufgrund einer Frau in einen solchen Zustand versetzt wird. Ramsden erklärt, je früher dies geschieht, desto besser für ihn. Nachdem Violet gegangen ist, ist Malone begeistert. "Das wird eine großartige Frau für Hector sein. Ich würde sie nicht gegen zehn Herzoginnen eintauschen", ruft er aus. In dem Gespräch zwischen Malone, Tanner und Ramsden wird offenbart, dass die Investition des Millionärs in Mendoza, Limited, über die er nichts weiß, ihn nach Granada gebracht hat. Jack teilt ihm mit, dass Mendoza ein Mann ist, der durch und durch geschäftlich ist, und verspricht, Malone zu ihm zu bringen. Der Ire und Ramsden verlassen die Szene. Tanner ruft Octavius, der mit Ann im Garten spazieren geht, und sagt ihm, dass der Schwiegervater seiner Schwester ein "Finanzier der Briganten" ist. Er eilt Malone und Ramsden hinterher. Octavius versucht jetzt ein weiteres Mal, die Hand der Frau zu gewinnen, die er liebt. Aber Ann sagt ihm, dass sie keine Stimme in der Angelegenheit hat, denn ihre Mutter ist entschlossen, dass sie Jack heiraten wird. Für einen Moment glaubt Tavy, dass sein Freund ihm gegenüber untreu geworden ist, indem er ihn davon abgeraten hat, Ann zu heiraten, aber sie besteht darauf, dass dem nicht so ist, und fügt hinzu, dass Jack wirklich nicht weiß, was er will. Sie sagt Tavy dann, dass nicht nur ihre Mutter darauf besteht, dass sie Jack heiratet, sondern dass auch das Testament deutlich zeigt, dass ihr Vater dies wollte. Octavius betrachtet das alles als Beweis dafür, dass Ann die gehorsame, selbstlos opferbereite Tochter ist, die einen Mann heiratet, den sie nicht liebt. Ann verspürt einen leichten Hauch von Mitleid für diesen jungen Romantiker und tut ihr Bestes, um ihn behutsam abzuweisen. Sie weist darauf hin, dass er immer den Boden beten würde, auf dem sie geht, und dass sie seinem Bild von Göttlichkeit niemals gerecht werden könnte. Wenn sie Jack heiratet, würde er nicht desillusioniert werden; er müsste also ein sentimentaler Junggeselle mit seinen romantischen Träumen bleiben, um ihrer willen. Tavy schwört, dass er sich umbringen wird, aber Ann sagt ihm, dass eine solche Tat unhöflich wäre. Sie gibt zu, dass Jack keine Illusionen über sie hat, ist sich aber sicher, dass sie ihn zumindest manchmal bezaubern wird. Nein, Tavy darf Jack nicht sagen, dass sie ihn heiraten will; er würde wieder weglaufen. Tavy ist schockiert. Würde Ann einen unwilligen Mann heiraten, fragt er ungläubig? Man sagt ihm, dass es so etwas wie einen unwilligen Mann nicht gibt, wenn die Frau wirklich hinter ihm her ist: "Das Einzige, was wirklich einfach ist, ist geradeaus anzugehen, was man will, und es zu ergreifen." Ihr Rat an Tavy ist, sich von Frauen fernzuhalten und sich damit zufrieden zu geben, von ihnen zu träumen. Dennoch versucht Ann mit den besten Absichten, Tavy in der Frage der Frauen zu belehren. Violet, sagt sie, ist "hart wie Nägel", aber sie hat großen Respekt vor der Frau, die praktisch ist und ihren Willen durchsetzt, ohne dass andere sentimental werden. Tavy besteht leidenschaftlich darauf, dass er niemals eine berechnende Frau heiraten könnte - nicht nachdem er Ann gekannt und geliebt hat. Poetisch bis zum Schluss gibt er Niederlage, wenn auch keine Zustimmung, zu. Ann tätschelt seine Wange, als sie sich verabschiedet und ins Haus läuft. Mrs. Whitefield tritt ein und läuft zu dem weinenden Tavy. Sie erfährt, dass Ann, entgegen ihrer eigenen Wünsche, Jack heiraten will. Mrs. Whitefield bemüht sich, ihn aufzuklären, aber er kann nicht glauben, dass Ann zu Betrug fähig wäre. Tanner tritt ein, kündigt an, dass er die beiden Banditen, Mendoza und Malone, zusammen gelassen hat, und fragt Tavy, was los ist. Tavy bittet die traurige Mrs. Whitefield, Jack zu sagen, was sie möchte, und verlässt dann den Raum. Jack ist verwirrt, und die Mutter bemerkt, wie kompliziert das Leben geworden ist: "Nichts ist in Ordnung, seit Professor Tyndale diesen Vortrag in Belfast gehalten hat." Jack stimmt zu, dass das Leben in der Tat kompliziert geworden ist, und fragt, was er für sie tun kann. Sie sagt, dass er sicherlich Ann heiraten wird, egal was sie wünscht, aber er solle die Mutter nicht dafür verantwortlich machen. Tanner antwortet bestimmt, dass er nicht die Absicht hat, Ann zu heiraten. Mrs. Whitefield hofft, dass die beiden heiraten werden, denn sie würde gerne sehen, wie ihre Tochter auf ihren ebenbürtigen Partner trifft. Jack kennt Ann so, wie sie ist, und Jack demonstriert sein Wissen, indem er Ann als skrupellose Lügnerin, kokette Frau, die Frauen schikaniert, und Heuchlerin beschreibt. Er könnte alles ertragen, außer ihre "verfluchte Heuchelei". Mrs. Whitefield stimmt ihm bereitwillig zu und erklärt, dass sie, so sehr sie Tavy auch mag, nicht will, dass er leidet, während Jack sehr gut auf sich selbst aufpassen würde. Sie fügt hinzu, dass er nicht denken darf, dass sie Ann nicht lieb hat, ihr eigen Fleisch und Blut, nur weil sie die Fehler ihrer Tochter sieht. Sowohl Ann als auch Violet treten ein, letztere sagte, dass sie die ganze Unterhaltung gehört habe. Violet ist gekommen, um sich zu verabschieden. Sie sagt Jack, je schneller er auch heiratet, desto besser. Da er sieht, dass die Falle sich um ihn herum schließt, bemerkt er ungehalten, dass er wahrscheinlich noch an diesem Tag ein verheirateter Mann wird. Mrs. Whitefield begleitet die Braut unter Tränen von der Bühne. Ann ist nun wieder allein mit Tanner. Jack beklagt sich darüber, dass ihn jetzt jeder, sogar Ramsden, behandelt, als ob seine Heirat mit Ann beschlossene Sache wäre. Ann bemerkt gelassen, dass sie ihm keinen Antrag gemacht habe und dass er nicht heiraten müsse, wenn er nicht wolle. Aber Jack sieht sich als verurteilten Mann, der keine Kontrolle über sein Schicksal hat. Er verurteilt die Ehe explosiv als "Abkehr von meinem Glauben, Verunehrung meiner Seele, schändliche Kapitulation, Aufgabe der Niederlage". Der Schlagabtausch zwischen den beiden geht lebhaft weiter, während Ann den widerwilligen Tanner nun ohne Täuschung umwirbt. Schon seit ihrer Kindheit, argumentiert sie, habe die Lebenskraft eine Falle für sie vorbereitet. Dennoch protestiert Jack weiterhin, dass er sie nicht heiraten wird. "Oh, doch, das wirst du", antwortet sie. Schließlich ergreift er sie in seinen Armen und erklärt, dass er sie wirklich liebt und dass ihm die Lebenskraft den Kopf verdreht. Als er ein letztes Mal versucht, sich aus ihrer Umarmung zu befreien, sinkt sie in Ohnmacht. Die meisten anderen Figuren kehren auf die Bühne zurück - Violet, Octavius, Mrs. Whitefield, Malone, Ramsden, Mendoza und Straker. Alle sind besorgt um das Wohlergehen von Ann, die sich genug erholt hat, um anzukündigen, dass Jack versprochen hat, sie zu heiraten. Als Tavy tapfer seinem Freund gratuliert, teilt Jack ihm mit, dass er ihr keinen Antrag gemacht habe, sondern in eine Falle gelockt wurde. Ann ist erleichtert, als Violet ihr sagt, dass Jack nichts gesagt hat. Sie scheint erneut in Ohnmacht zu fallen, erholt sich aber, um zu sagen, dass sie jetzt ganz glücklich ist. Malone ist sehr beeindruckt von Jack, den er als "einen rauen Werber", die beste Art, sieht. Alle gratulieren Jack zu seinem Glück. Aber in seiner letzten längeren Rede beschreibt er seinen Zustand. Er ist kein glücklicher Mann. Sowohl er als auch Ann haben wissentlich Glück, Freiheit, Gelassenheit und vor allem "die romantischen Möglichkeiten einer unbekannten Zukunft" aufgegeben. Die Hochzeit wird so einfach wie möglich sein. Sie wird drei Tage nach ihrer Rückkehr nach England stattfinden und im Büro des Bezirksregistrierungsleiters sein. Violet nennt Jack ein Raubein, aber Ann betrachtet ihn mit stolzer Zuneigung und streichelt seinen Arm. "Rede weiter", sagt sie. "Reden!" ruft Jack aus, und allgemeines Gelächter bricht aus, als das Stück endet.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. In the library, Dorothea sat down and started reading one of the pamphlets with Mr. Casaubon's marginal notes. She was engrossed in the text, trying to escape from the troubles of Tipton and Freshitt and her own propensity for making mistakes. Meanwhile, Mr. Brooke settled into his armchair, stretched out his legs towards the fire, and rubbed his hands together leisurely. He glanced at Dorothea with a mild expression but gave off a neutral air, as if he had nothing specific to say. Dorothea, upon realizing her uncle's presence, closed her pamphlet and stood up, as if she were about to leave. Normally, she would have been interested in her uncle's compassionate mission to aid the criminal, but her recent emotional turmoil had made her absent-minded. "I came back by Lowick, you know," said Mr. Brooke, not as if with any intention to arrest her departure, but apparently from his usual tendency to say what he had said before. This fundamental principle of human speech was markedly exhibited in Mr. Brooke. "I lunched there and saw Casaubon's library, and that kind of thing. There's a sharp air, driving. Won't you sit down, my dear? You look cold." Dorothea felt quite inclined to accept the invitation. Some times, when her uncle's easy way of taking things did not happen to be exasperating, it was rather soothing. She threw off her mantle and bonnet, and sat down opposite to him, enjoying the glow, but lifting up her beautiful hands for a screen. They were not thin hands, or small hands; but powerful, feminine, maternal hands. She seemed to be holding them up in propitiation for her passionate desire to know and to think, which in the unfriendly mediums of Tipton and Freshitt had issued in crying and red eyelids. She bethought herself now of the condemned criminal. "What news have you brought about the sheep-stealer, uncle?" "What, poor Bunch?--well, it seems we can't get him off--he is to be hanged." Dorothea's brow took an expression of reprobation and pity. "Hanged, you know," said Mr. Brooke, with a quiet nod. "Poor Romilly! he would have helped us. I knew Romilly. Casaubon didn't know Romilly. He is a little buried in books, you know, Casaubon is." "When a man has great studies and is writing a great work, he must of course give up seeing much of the world. How can he go about making acquaintances?" "That's true. But a man mopes, you know. I have always been a bachelor too, but I have that sort of disposition that I never moped; it was my way to go about everywhere and take in everything. I never moped: but I can see that Casaubon does, you know. He wants a companion--a companion, you know." "It would be a great honor to any one to be his companion," said Dorothea, energetically. "You like him, eh?" said Mr. Brooke, without showing any surprise, or other emotion. "Well, now, I've known Casaubon ten years, ever since he came to Lowick. But I never got anything out of him--any ideas, you know. However, he is a tiptop man and may be a bishop--that kind of thing, you know, if Peel stays in. And he has a very high opinion of you, my dear." Dorothea could not speak. "The fact is, he has a very high opinion indeed of you. And he speaks uncommonly well--does Casaubon. He has deferred to me, you not being of age. In short, I have promised to speak to you, though I told him I thought there was not much chance. I was bound to tell him that. I said, my niece is very young, and that kind of thing. But I didn't think it necessary to go into everything. However, the long and the short of it is, that he has asked my permission to make you an offer of marriage--of marriage, you know," said Mr. Brooke, with his explanatory nod. "I thought it better to tell you, my dear." No one could have detected any anxiety in Mr. Brooke's manner, but he did really wish to know something of his niece's mind, that, if there were any need for advice, he might give it in time. What feeling he, as a magistrate who had taken in so many ideas, could make room for, was unmixedly kind. Since Dorothea did not speak immediately, he repeated, "I thought it better to tell you, my dear." "Thank you, uncle," said Dorothea, in a clear unwavering tone. "I am very grateful to Mr. Casaubon. If he makes me an offer, I shall accept him. I admire and honor him more than any man I ever saw." Mr. Brooke paused a little, and then said in a lingering low tone, "Ah? . . . Well! He is a good match in some respects. But now, Chettam is a good match. And our land lies together. I shall never interfere against your wishes, my dear. People should have their own way in marriage, and that sort of thing--up to a certain point, you know. I have always said that, up to a certain point. I wish you to marry well; and I have good reason to believe that Chettam wishes to marry you. I mention it, you know." "It is impossible that I should ever marry Sir James Chettam," said Dorothea. "If he thinks of marrying me, he has made a great mistake." "That is it, you see. One never knows. I should have thought Chettam was just the sort of man a woman would like, now." "Pray do not mention him in that light again, uncle," said Dorothea, feeling some of her late irritation revive. Mr. Brooke wondered, and felt that women were an inexhaustible subject of study, since even he at his age was not in a perfect state of scientific prediction about them. Here was a fellow like Chettam with no chance at all. "Well, but Casaubon, now. There is no hurry--I mean for you. It's true, every year will tell upon him. He is over five-and-forty, you know. I should say a good seven-and-twenty years older than you. To be sure,--if you like learning and standing, and that sort of thing, we can't have everything. And his income is good--he has a handsome property independent of the Church--his income is good. Still he is not young, and I must not conceal from you, my dear, that I think his health is not over-strong. I know nothing else against him." "I should not wish to have a husband very near my own age," said Dorothea, with grave decision. "I should wish to have a husband who was above me in judgment and in all knowledge." Mr. Brooke repeated his subdued, "Ah?--I thought you had more of your own opinion than most girls. I thought you liked your own opinion--liked it, you know." "I cannot imagine myself living without some opinions, but I should wish to have good reasons for them, and a wise man could help me to see which opinions had the best foundation, and would help me to live according to them." "Very true. You couldn't put the thing better--couldn't put it better, beforehand, you know. But there are oddities in things," continued Mr. Brooke, whose conscience was really roused to do the best he could for his niece on this occasion. "Life isn't cast in a mould--not cut out by rule and line, and that sort of thing. I never married myself, and it will be the better for you and yours. The fact is, I never loved any one well enough to put myself into a noose for them. It _is_ a noose, you know. Temper, now. There is temper. And a husband likes to be master." "I know that I must expect trials, uncle. Marriage is a state of higher duties. I never thought of it as mere personal ease," said poor Dorothea. "Well, you are not fond of show, a great establishment, balls, dinners, that kind of thing. I can see that Casaubon's ways might suit you better than Chettam's. And you shall do as you like, my dear. I would not hinder Casaubon; I said so at once; for there is no knowing how anything may turn out. You have not the same tastes as every young lady; and a clergyman and scholar--who may be a bishop--that kind of thing--may suit you better than Chettam. Chettam is a good fellow, a good sound-hearted fellow, you know; but he doesn't go much into ideas. I did, when I was his age. But Casaubon's eyes, now. I think he has hurt them a little with too much reading." "I should be all the happier, uncle, the more room there was for me to help him," said Dorothea, ardently. Du hast dich ganz klar entschieden, sehe ich. Nun, meine Liebe, die Tatsache ist, ich habe einen Brief für dich in meiner Tasche." Mr. Brooke reichte den Brief an Dorothea, aber als sie aufstand, um zu gehen, fügte er hinzu: "Es besteht keine allzu große Eile, meine Liebe. Denke darüber nach, weißt du." Als Dorothea ihn verlassen hatte, überlegte er, dass er sicherlich deutlich gesprochen hatte: Er hatte ihr die Risiken einer Ehe auf eindrucksvolle Weise vor Augen geführt. Es war seine Pflicht, dies zu tun. Aber was das Vortäuschen von Weisheit für junge Leute anging - kein Onkel, egal wie viel er in seiner Jugend gereist war, neue Ideen aufgesogen hatte und mit verstorbenen Prominenten zu Abend gegessen hatte, konnte vorgeben, beurteilen zu können, welche Art von Ehe sich gut für ein junges Mädchen entwickeln würde, das Casaubon Chettam vorzog. Kurz gesagt war die Frau ein Problem, das, da Mr. Brookes Geist davor leer war, kaum weniger kompliziert sein konnte als die Revolutionen eines unregelmäßigen Körpers. Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Celia klärt Dorothea endlich auf: Sir James plant, um die "älteste Miss Brooke" anzuhalten. Dorothea ist sehr verärgert über die Neuigkeiten - sie wird ihre Diskussionen über ihre Hüttenpläne mit ihm aufgeben müssen. Mr. Brooke kommt nach Hause und bittet darum, mit Dorothea in seiner Bibliothek zu sprechen. Er berichtet, dass er auf dem Weg nach Hause mit Herrn Casaubon zu Mittag gegessen habe und dass Herr Casaubon um seine Erlaubnis gebeten habe, um Dorothea anzuhalten. Dorothea erzählt ihrem Onkel, dass sie ihn akzeptieren wird, wenn und falls Herr Casaubon sie anhält. Mr. Brooke ist völlig überrascht von den Neuigkeiten und fantasiert darüber, wie Herr Casaubon vielleicht besser zu ihr passt als ein jüngerer Mann, schließlich interessiert sie sich so sehr für Bücher und Ideen und so. Dorothea lässt Mr. Brooke verwirrt über Frauen zurück. Er versteht Dorothea wirklich überhaupt nicht.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Lancelot and Elaine Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable, Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, High in her chamber up a tower to the east Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot; Which first she placed where the morning's earliest ray Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam; Then fearing rust or soilure fashioned for it A case of silk, and braided thereupon All the devices blazoned on the shield In their own tinct, and added, of her wit, A border fantasy of branch and flower, And yellow-throated nestling in the nest. Nor rested thus content, but day by day, Leaving her household and good father, climbed That eastern tower, and entering barred her door, Stript off the case, and read the naked shield, Now guessed a hidden meaning in his arms, Now made a pretty history to herself Of every dint a sword had beaten in it, And every scratch a lance had made upon it, Conjecturing when and where: this cut is fresh; That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle; That at Caerleon; this at Camelot: And ah God's mercy, what a stroke was there! And here a thrust that might have killed, but God Broke the strong lance, and rolled his enemy down, And saved him: so she lived in fantasy. How came the lily maid by that good shield Of Lancelot, she that knew not even his name? He left it with her, when he rode to tilt For the great diamond in the diamond jousts, Which Arthur had ordained, and by that name Had named them, since a diamond was the prize. For Arthur, long before they crowned him King, Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse, Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn. A horror lived about the tarn, and clave Like its own mists to all the mountain side: For here two brothers, one a king, had met And fought together; but their names were lost; And each had slain his brother at a blow; And down they fell and made the glen abhorred: And there they lay till all their bones were bleached, And lichened into colour with the crags: And he, that once was king, had on a crown Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside. And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass, All in a misty moonshine, unawares Had trodden that crowned skeleton, and the skull Brake from the nape, and from the skull the crown Rolled into light, and turning on its rims Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn: And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught, And set it on his head, and in his heart Heard murmurs, 'Lo, thou likewise shalt be King.' Thereafter, when a King, he had the gems Plucked from the crown, and showed them to his knights, Saying, 'These jewels, whereupon I chanced Divinely, are the kingdom's, not the King's-- For public use: henceforward let there be, Once every year, a joust for one of these: For so by nine years' proof we needs must learn Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow In use of arms and manhood, till we drive The heathen, who, some say, shall rule the land Hereafter, which God hinder.' Thus he spoke: And eight years past, eight jousts had been, and still Had Lancelot won the diamond of the year, With purpose to present them to the Queen, When all were won; but meaning all at once To snare her royal fancy with a boon Worth half her realm, had never spoken word. Now for the central diamond and the last And largest, Arthur, holding then his court Hard on the river nigh the place which now Is this world's hugest, let proclaim a joust At Camelot, and when the time drew nigh Spake (for she had been sick) to Guinevere, 'Are you so sick, my Queen, you cannot move To these fair jousts?' 'Yea, lord,' she said, 'ye know it.' 'Then will ye miss,' he answered, 'the great deeds Of Lancelot, and his prowess in the lists, A sight ye love to look on.' And the Queen Lifted her eyes, and they dwelt languidly On Lancelot, where he stood beside the King. He thinking that he read her meaning there, 'Stay with me, I am sick; my love is more Than many diamonds,' yielded; and a heart Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen (However much he yearned to make complete The tale of diamonds for his destined boon) Urged him to speak against the truth, and say, 'Sir King, mine ancient wound is hardly whole, And lets me from the saddle;' and the King Glanced first at him, then her, and went his way. No sooner gone than suddenly she began: 'To blame, my lord Sir Lancelot, much to blame! Why go ye not to these fair jousts? the knights Are half of them our enemies, and the crowd Will murmur, "Lo the shameless ones, who take Their pastime now the trustful King is gone!"' Then Lancelot vext at having lied in vain: 'Are ye so wise? ye were not once so wise, My Queen, that summer, when ye loved me first. Then of the crowd ye took no more account Than of the myriad cricket of the mead, When its own voice clings to each blade of grass, And every voice is nothing. As to knights, Them surely can I silence with all ease. But now my loyal worship is allowed Of all men: many a bard, without offence, Has linked our names together in his lay, Lancelot, the flower of bravery, Guinevere, The pearl of beauty: and our knights at feast Have pledged us in this union, while the King Would listen smiling. How then? is there more? Has Arthur spoken aught? or would yourself, Now weary of my service and devoir, Henceforth be truer to your faultless lord?' She broke into a little scornful laugh: 'Arthur, my lord, Arthur, the faultless King, That passionate perfection, my good lord-- But who can gaze upon the Sun in heaven? He never spake word of reproach to me, He never had a glimpse of mine untruth, He cares not for me: only here today There gleamed a vague suspicion in his eyes: Some meddling rogue has tampered with him--else Rapt in this fancy of his Table Round, And swearing men to vows impossible, To make them like himself: but, friend, to me He is all fault who hath no fault at all: For who loves me must have a touch of earth; The low sun makes the colour: I am yours, Not Arthur's, as ye know, save by the bond. And therefore hear my words: go to the jousts: The tiny-trumpeting gnat can break our dream When sweetest; and the vermin voices here May buzz so loud--we scorn them, but they sting.' Then answered Lancelot, the chief of knights: 'And with what face, after my pretext made, Shall I appear, O Queen, at Camelot, I Before a King who honours his own word, As if it were his God's?' 'Yea,' said the Queen, 'A moral child without the craft to rule, Else had he not lost me: but listen to me, If I must find you wit: we hear it said That men go down before your spear at a touch, But knowing you are Lancelot; your great name, This conquers: hide it therefore; go unknown: Win! by this kiss you will: and our true King Will then allow your pretext, O my knight, As all for glory; for to speak him true, Ye know right well, how meek soe'er he seem, No keener hunter after glory breathes. He loves it in his knights more than himself: They prove to him his work: win and return.' Then got Sir Lancelot suddenly to horse, Wroth at himself. Not willing to be known, He left the barren-beaten thoroughfare, Chose the green path that showed the rarer foot, And there among the solitary downs, Full often lost in fancy, lost his way; Till as he traced a faintly-shadowed track, That all in loops and links among the dales Ran to the Castle of Astolat, he saw Fired from the west, far on a hill, the towers. Thither he made, and blew the gateway horn. Then came an old, dumb, myriad-wrinkled man, Who let him into lodging and disarmed. And Lancelot marvelled at the wordless man; And issuing found the Lord of Astolat With two strong sons, Sir Torre and Sir Lavaine, Moving to meet him in the castle court; And close behind them stept the lily maid Elaine, his daughter: mother of the house There was not: some light jest among them rose With laughter dying down as the great knight Approached them: then the Lord of Astolat: 'Whence comes thou, my guest, and by what name Livest thou between the lips? for by thy state And presence I might guess thee chief of those, After the King, who eat in Arthur's halls. Him have I seen: the rest, his Table Round, Known as they are, to me they are unknown.' Then answered Sir Lancelot, the chief of knights: 'Known am I, and of Arthur's hall, and known, What I by mere mischance have brought, my shield. But since I go to joust as one unknown At Camelot for the diamond, ask me not, Hereafter ye shall know me--and the shield-- I pray you lend me one, if such you have, Blank, or at least with some device not mine.' Then said the Lord of Astolat, 'Here is Torre's: Hurt in his first tilt was my son, Sir Torre. And so, God wot, his shield is blank enough. His ye can have.' Then added plain Sir Torre, 'Yea, since I cannot use it, ye may have it.' Here laughed the father saying, 'Fie, Sir Churl, Is that answer for a noble knight? Allow him! but Lavaine, my younger here, He is so full of lustihood, he will ride, Joust for it, and win, and bring it in an hour, And set it in this damsel's golden hair, To make her thrice as wilful as before.' 'Nay, father, nay good father, shame me not Before this noble knight,' said young Lavaine, 'For nothing. Surely I but played on Torre: He seemed so sullen, vext he could not go: A jest, no more! for, knight, the maiden dreamt That some one put this diamond in her hand, And that it was too slippery to be held, And slipt and fell into some pool or stream, The castle-well, belike; and then I said That if I went and if I fought and won it (But all was jest and joke among ourselves) Then must she keep it safelier. All was jest. But, father, give me leave, an if he will, To ride to Camelot with this noble knight: Win shall I not, but do my best to win: Young as I am, yet would I do my best.' 'So will ye grace me,' answered Lancelot, Smiling a moment, 'with your fellowship O'er these waste downs whereon I lost myself, Then were I glad of you as guide and friend: And you shall win this diamond,--as I hear It is a fair large diamond,--if ye may, And yield it to this maiden, if ye will.' 'A fair large diamond,' added plain Sir Torre, 'Such be for queens, and not for simple maids.' Then she, who held her eyes upon the ground, Elaine, and heard her name so tost about, Flushed slightly at the slight disparagement Before the stranger knight, who, looking at her, Full courtly, yet not falsely, thus returned: 'If what is fair be but for what is fair, And only queens are to be counted so, Rash were my judgment then, who deem this maid Might wear as fair a jewel as is on earth, Not violating the bond of like to like.' He spoke and ceased: the lily maid Elaine, Won by the mellow voice before she looked, Lifted her eyes, and read his lineaments. The great and guilty love he bare the Queen, In battle with the love he bare his lord, Had marred his face, and marked it ere his time. Another sinning on such heights with one, The flower of all the west and all the world, Had been the sleeker for it: but in him His mood was often like a fiend, and rose And drove him into wastes and solitudes For agony, who was yet a living soul. Marred as he was, he seemed the goodliest man That ever among ladies ate in hall, And noblest, when she lifted up her eyes. However marred, of more than twice her years, Seamed with an ancient swordcut on the cheek, And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes And loved him, with that love which was her doom. Then the great knight, the darling of the court, Loved of the loveliest, into that rude hall Stept with all grace, and not with half disdain Hid under grace, as in a smaller time, But kindly man moving among his kind: Whom they with meats and vintage of their best And talk and minstrel melody entertained. And much they asked of court and Table Round, And ever well and readily answered he: But Lancelot, when they glanced at Guinevere, Suddenly speaking of the wordless man, Heard from the Baron that, ten years before, The heathen caught and reft him of his tongue. 'He learnt and warned me of their fierce design Against my house, and him they caught and maimed; But I, my sons, and little daughter fled From bonds or death, and dwelt among the woods By the great river in a boatman's hut. Dull days were those, till our good Arthur broke The Pagan yet once more on Badon hill.' 'O there, great lord, doubtless,' Lavaine said, rapt By all the sweet and sudden passion of youth Toward greatness in its elder, 'you have fought. O tell us--for we live apart--you know Of Arthur's glorious wars.' And Lancelot spoke And answered him at full, as having been With Arthur in the fight which all day long Rang by the white mouth of the violent Glem; And in the four loud battles by the shore Of Duglas; that on Bassa; then the war That thundered in and out the gloomy skirts Of Celidon the forest; and again By castle Gurnion, where the glorious King Had on his cuirass worn our Lady's Head, Carved of one emerald centered in a sun Of silver rays, that lightened as he breathed; And at Caerleon had he helped his lord, When the strong neighings of the wild white Horse Set every gilded parapet shuddering; And up in Agned-Cathregonion too, And down the waste sand-shores of Trath Treroit, Where many a heathen fell; 'and on the mount Of Badon I myself beheld the King Charge at the head of all his Table Round, And all his legions crying Christ and him, And break them; and I saw him, after, stand High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume Red as the rising sun with heathen blood, And seeing me, with a great voice he cried, "They are broken, they are broken!" for the King, However mild he seems at home, nor cares For triumph in our mimic wars, the jousts-- For if his own knight cast him down, he laughs Saying, his knights are better men than he-- Yet in this heathen war the fire of God Fills him: I never saw his like: there lives No greater leader.' While he uttered this, Low to her own heart said the lily maid, 'Save your own great self, fair lord;' and when he fell From talk of war to traits of pleasantry-- Being mirthful he, but in a stately kind-- She still took note that when the living smile Died from his lips, across him came a cloud Of melancholy severe, from which again, Whenever in her hovering to and fro The lily maid had striven to make him cheer, There brake a sudden-beaming tenderness Of manners and of nature: and she thought That all was nature, all, perchance, for her. And all night long his face before her lived, As when a painter, poring on a face, Divinely through all hindrance finds the man Behind it, and so paints him that his face, The shape and colour of a mind and life, Lives for his children, ever at its best And fullest; so the face before her lived, Dark-splendid, speaking in the silence, full Of noble things, and held her from her sleep. Till rathe she rose, half-cheated in the thought She needs must bid farewell to sweet Lavaine. First in fear, step after step, she stole Down the long tower-stairs, hesitating: Anon, she heard Sir Lancelot cry in the court, 'This shield, my friend, where is it?' and Lavaine Past inward, as she came from out the tower. There to his proud horse Lancelot turned, and smoothed The glossy shoulder, humming to himself. Half-envious of the flattering hand, she drew Nearer and stood. He looked, and more amazed Than if seven men had set upon him, saw The maiden standing in the dewy light. He had not dreamed she was so beautiful. Then came on him a sort of sacred fear, For silent, though he greeted her, she stood Rapt on his face as if it were a God's. Suddenly flashed on her a wild desire, That he should wear her favour at the tilt. She braved a riotous heart in asking for it. 'Fair lord, whose name I know not--noble it is, I well believe, the noblest--will you wear My favour at this tourney?' 'Nay,' said he, 'Fair lady, since I never yet have worn Favour of any lady in the lists. Such is my wont, as those, who know me, know.' 'Yea, so,' she answered; 'then in wearing mine Needs must be lesser likelihood, noble lord, That those who know should know you.' And he turned Her counsel up and down within his mind, And found it true, and answered, 'True, my child. Well, I will wear it: fetch it out to me: What is it?' and she told him 'A red sleeve Broidered with pearls,' and brought it: then he bound Her token on his helmet, with a smile Saying, 'I never yet have done so much For any maiden living,' and the blood Sprang to her face and filled her with delight; But left her all the paler, when Lavaine Returning brought the yet-unblazoned shield, His brother's; which he gave to Lancelot, Who parted with his own to fair Elaine: 'Do me this grace, my child, to have my shield In keeping till I come.' 'A grace to me,' She answered, 'twice today. I am your squire!' Whereat Lavaine said, laughing, 'Lily maid, For fear our people call you lily maid In earnest, let me bring your colour back; Once, twice, and thrice: now get you hence to bed:' So kissed her, and Sir Lancelot his own hand, And thus they moved away: she stayed a minute, Then made a sudden step to the gate, and there-- Her bright hair blown about the serious face Yet rosy-kindled with her brother's kiss-- Paused by the gateway, standing near the shield In silence, while she watched their arms far-off Sparkle, until they dipt below the downs. Then to her tower she climbed, and took the shield, There kept it, and so lived in fantasy. Meanwhile the new companions past away Far o'er the long backs of the bushless downs, To where Sir Lancelot knew there lived a knight Not far from Camelot, now for forty years A hermit, who had prayed, laboured and prayed, And ever labouring had scooped himself In the white rock a chapel and a hall On massive columns, like a shorecliff cave, And cells and chambers: all were fair and dry; The green light from the meadows underneath Struck up and lived along the milky roofs; And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees And poplars made a noise of falling showers. And thither wending there that night they bode. But when the next day broke from underground, And shot red fire and shadows through the cave, They rose, heard mass, broke fast, and rode away: Then Lancelot saying, 'Hear, but hold my name Hidden, you ride with Lancelot of the Lake,' Abashed young Lavaine, whose instant reverence, Dearer to true young hearts than their own praise, But left him leave to stammer, 'Is it indeed?' And after muttering 'The great Lancelot, At last he got his breath and answered, 'One, One have I seen--that other, our liege lord, The dread Pendragon, Britain's King of kings, Of whom the people talk mysteriously, He will be there--then were I stricken blind That minute, I might say that I had seen.' So spake Lavaine, and when they reached the lists By Camelot in the meadow, let his eyes Run through the peopled gallery which half round Lay like a rainbow fallen upon the grass, Until they found the clear-faced King, who sat Robed in red samite, easily to be known, Since to his crown the golden dragon clung, And down his robe the dragon writhed in gold, And from the carven-work behind him crept Two dragons gilded, sloping down to make Arms for his chair, while all the rest of them Through knots and loops and folds innumerable Fled ever through the woodwork, till they found The new design wherein they lost themselves, Yet with all ease, so tender was the work: And, in the costly canopy o'er him set, Blazed the last diamond of the nameless king. Then Lancelot answered young Lavaine and said, 'Me you call great: mine is the firmer seat, The truer lance: but there is many a youth Now crescent, who will come to all I am And overcome it; and in me there dwells No greatness, save it be some far-off touch Of greatness to know well I am not great: There is the man.' And Lavaine gaped upon him As on a thing miraculous, and anon The trumpets blew; and then did either side, They that assailed, and they that held the lists, Set lance in rest, strike spur, suddenly move, Meet in the midst, and there so furiously Shock, that a man far-off might well perceive, If any man that day were left afield, The hard earth shake, and a low thunder of arms. And Lancelot bode a little, till he saw Which were the weaker; then he hurled into it Against the stronger: little need to speak Of Lancelot in his glory! King, duke, earl, Count, baron--whom he smote, he overthrew. But in the field were Lancelot's kith and kin, Ranged with the Table Round that held the lists, Strong men, and wrathful that a stranger knight Should do and almost overdo the deeds Of Lancelot; and one said to the other, 'Lo! What is he? I do not mean the force alone-- The grace and versatility of the man! Is it not Lancelot?' 'When has Lancelot worn Favour of any lady in the lists? Not such his wont, as we, that know him, know.' 'How then? who then?' a fury seized them all, A fiery family passion for the name Of Lancelot, and a glory one with theirs. They couched their spears and pricked their steeds, and thus, Their plumes driven backward by the wind they made In moving, all together down upon him Bare, as a wild wave in the wide North-sea, Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with all Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies, Down on a bark, and overbears the bark, And him that helms it, so they overbore Sir Lancelot and his charger, and a spear Down-glancing lamed the charger, and a spear Pricked sharply his own cuirass, and the head Pierced through his side, and there snapt, and remained. Then Sir Lavaine did well and worshipfully; He bore a knight of old repute to the earth, And brought his horse to Lancelot where he lay. He up the side, sweating with agony, got, But thought to do while he might yet endure, And being lustily holpen by the rest, His party,--though it seemed half-miracle To those he fought with,--drave his kith and kin, And all the Table Round that held the lists, Back to the barrier; then the trumpets blew Proclaiming his the prize, who wore the sleeve Of scarlet, and the pearls; and all the knights, His party, cried 'Advance and take thy prize The diamond;' but he answered, 'Diamond me No diamonds! for God's love, a little air! Prize me no prizes, for my prize is death! Hence will I, and I charge you, follow me not.' He spoke, and vanished suddenly from the field With young Lavaine into the poplar grove. There from his charger down he slid, and sat, Gasping to Sir Lavaine, 'Draw the lance-head:' 'Ah my sweet lord Sir Lancelot,' said Lavaine, 'I dread me, if I draw it, you will die.' But he, 'I die already with it: draw-- Draw,'--and Lavaine drew, and Sir Lancelot gave A marvellous great shriek and ghastly groan, And half his blood burst forth, and down he sank For the pure pain, and wholly swooned away. Then came the hermit out and bare him in, There stanched his wound; and there, in daily doubt Whether to live or die, for many a week Hid from the wide world's rumour by the grove Of poplars with their noise of falling showers, And ever-tremulous aspen-trees, he lay. But on that day when Lancelot fled the lists, His party, knights of utmost North and West, Lords of waste marches, kings of desolate isles, Came round their great Pendragon, saying to him, 'Lo, Sire, our knight, through whom we won the day, Hath gone sore wounded, and hath left his prize Untaken, crying that his prize is death.' 'Heaven hinder,' said the King, 'that such an one, So great a knight as we have seen today-- He seemed to me another Lancelot-- Yea, twenty times I thought him Lancelot-- He must not pass uncared for. Wherefore, rise, O Gawain, and ride forth and find the knight. Wounded and wearied needs must he be near. I charge you that you get at once to horse. And, knights and kings, there breathes not one of you Will deem this prize of ours is rashly given: His prowess was too wondrous. We will do him No customary honour: since the knight Came not to us, of us to claim the prize, Ourselves will send it after. Rise and take This diamond, and deliver it, and return, And bring us where he is, and how he fares, And cease not from your quest until ye find.' So saying, from the carven flower above, To which it made a restless heart, he took, And gave, the diamond: then from where he sat At Arthur's right, with smiling face arose, With smiling face and frowning heart, a Prince In the mid might and flourish of his May, Gawain, surnamed The Courteous, fair and strong, And after Lancelot, Tristram, and Geraint And Gareth, a good knight, but therewithal Sir Modred's brother, and the child of Lot, Nor often loyal to his word, and now Wroth that the King's command to sally forth In quest of whom he knew not, made him leave The banquet, and concourse of knights and kings. So all in wrath he got to horse and went; While Arthur to the banquet, dark in mood, Past, thinking 'Is it Lancelot who hath come Despite the wound he spake of, all for gain Of glory, and hath added wound to wound, And ridden away to die?' So feared the King, And, after two days' tarriance there, returned. Then when he saw the Queen, embracing asked, 'Love, are you yet so sick?' 'Nay, lord,' she said. 'And where is Lancelot?' Then the Queen amazed, 'Was he not with you? won he not your prize?' 'Nay, but one like him.' 'Why that like was he.' And when the King demanded how she knew, Said, 'Lord, no sooner had ye parted from us, Than Lancelot told me of a common talk That men went down before his spear at a touch, But knowing he was Lancelot; his great name Conquered; and therefore would he hide his name From all men, even the King, and to this end Had made a pretext of a hindering wound, That he might joust unknown of all, and learn If his old prowess were in aught decayed; And added, "Our true Arthur, when he learns, Will well allow me pretext, as for gain Of purer glory."' Then replied the King: 'Far lovelier in our Lancelot had it been, In lieu of idly dallying with the truth, To have trusted me as he hath trusted thee. Surely his King and most familiar friend Might well have kept his secret. True, indeed, Albeit I know my knights fantastical, So fine a fear in our large Lancelot Must needs have moved my laughter: now remains But little cause for laughter: his own kin-- Ill news, my Queen, for all who love him, this!-- His kith and kin, not knowing, set upon him; So that he went sore wounded from the field: Yet good news too: for goodly hopes are mine That Lancelot is no more a lonely heart. He wore, against his wont, upon his helm A sleeve of scarlet, broidered with great pearls, Some gentle maiden's gift.' 'Yea, lord,' she said, 'Thy hopes are mine,' and saying that, she choked, And sharply turned about to hide her face, Past to her chamber, and there flung herself Down on the great King's couch, and writhed upon it, And clenched her fingers till they bit the palm, And shrieked out 'Traitor' to the unhearing wall, Then flashed into wild tears, and rose again, And moved about her palace, proud and pale. Gawain the while through all the region round Rode with his diamond, wearied of the quest, Touched at all points, except the poplar grove, And came at last, though late, to Astolat: Whom glittering in enamelled arms the maid Glanced at, and cried, 'What news from Camelot, lord? What of the knight with the red sleeve?' 'He won.' 'I knew it,' she said. 'But parted from the jousts Hurt in the side,' whereat she caught her breath; Through her own side she felt the sharp lance go; Thereon she smote her hand: wellnigh she swooned: And, while he gazed wonderingly at her, came The Lord of Astolat out, to whom the Prince Reported who he was, and on what quest Sent, that he bore the prize and could not find The victor, but had ridden a random round To seek him, and had wearied of the search. To whom the Lord of Astolat, 'Bide with us, And ride no more at random, noble Prince! Here was the knight, and here he left a shield; This will he send or come for: furthermore Our son is with him; we shall hear anon, Needs must hear.' To this the courteous Prince Accorded with his wonted courtesy, Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it, And stayed; and cast his eyes on fair Elaine: Where could be found face daintier? then her shape From forehead down to foot, perfect--again From foot to forehead exquisitely turned: 'Well--if I bide, lo! this wild flower for me!' And oft they met among the garden yews, And there he set himself to play upon her With sallying wit, free flashes from a height Above her, graces of the court, and songs, Sighs, and slow smiles, and golden eloquence And amorous adulation, till the maid Rebelled against it, saying to him, 'Prince, O loyal nephew of our noble King, Why ask you not to see the shield he left, Whence you might learn his name? Why slight your King, And lose the quest he sent you on, and prove No surer than our falcon yesterday, Who lost the hern we slipt her at, and went To all the winds?' 'Nay, by mine head,' said he, 'I lose it, as we lose the lark in heaven, O damsel, in the light of your blue eyes; But an ye will it let me see the shield.' And when the shield was brought, and Gawain saw Sir Lancelot's azure lions, crowned with gold, Ramp in the field, he smote his thigh, and mocked: 'Right was the King! our Lancelot! that true man!' 'And right was I,' she answered merrily, 'I, Who dreamed my knight the greatest knight of all.' 'And if I dreamed,' said Gawain, 'that you love This greatest knight, your pardon! lo, ye know it! Speak therefore: shall I waste myself in vain?' Full simple was her answer, 'What know I? My brethren have been all my fellowship; And I, when often they have talked of love, Wished it had been my mother, for they talked, Meseemed, of what they knew not; so myself-- I know not if I know what true love is, But if I know, then, if I love not him, I know there is none other I can love.' 'Yea, by God's death,' said he, 'ye love him well, But would not, knew ye what all others know, And whom he loves.' 'So be it,' cried Elaine, And lifted her fair face and moved away: But he pursued her, calling, 'Stay a little! One golden minute's grace! he wore your sleeve: Would he break faith with one I may not name? Must our true man change like a leaf at last? Nay--like enow: why then, far be it from me To cross our mighty Lancelot in his loves! And, damsel, for I deem you know full well Where your great knight is hidden, let me leave My quest with you; the diamond also: here! For if you love, it will be sweet to give it; And if he love, it will be sweet to have it From your own hand; and whether he love or not, A diamond is a diamond. Fare you well A thousand times!--a thousand times farewell! Yet, if he love, and his love hold, we two May meet at court hereafter: there, I think, So ye will learn the courtesies of the court, We two shall know each other.' Then he gave, And slightly kissed the hand to which he gave, The diamond, and all wearied of the quest Leapt on his horse, and carolling as he went A true-love ballad, lightly rode away. Thence to the court he past; there told the King What the King knew, 'Sir Lancelot is the knight.' And added, 'Sire, my liege, so much I learnt; But failed to find him, though I rode all round The region: but I lighted on the maid Whose sleeve he wore; she loves him; and to her, Deeming our courtesy is the truest law, I gave the diamond: she will render it; For by mine head she knows his hiding-place.' The seldom-frowning King frowned, and replied, 'Too courteous truly! ye shall go no more On quest of mine, seeing that ye forget Obedience is the courtesy due to kings.' He spake and parted. Wroth, but all in awe, For twenty strokes of the blood, without a word, Lingered that other, staring after him; Then shook his hair, strode off, and buzzed abroad About the maid of Astolat, and her love. All ears were pricked at once, all tongues were loosed: 'The maid of Astolat loves Sir Lancelot, Sir Lancelot loves the maid of Astolat.' Some read the King's face, some the Queen's, and all Had marvel what the maid might be, but most Predoomed her as unworthy. One old dame Came suddenly on the Queen with the sharp news. She, that had heard the noise of it before, But sorrowing Lancelot should have stooped so low, Marred her friend's aim with pale tranquillity. So ran the tale like fire about the court, Fire in dry stubble a nine-days' wonder flared: Till even the knights at banquet twice or thrice Forgot to drink to Lancelot and the Queen, And pledging Lancelot and the lily maid Smiled at each other, while the Queen, who sat With lips severely placid, felt the knot Climb in her throat, and with her feet unseen Crushed the wild passion out against the floor Beneath the banquet, where all the meats became As wormwood, and she hated all who pledged. But far away the maid in Astolat, Her guiltless rival, she that ever kept The one-day-seen Sir Lancelot in her heart, Crept to her father, while he mused alone, Sat on his knee, stroked his gray face and said, 'Father, you call me wilful, and the fault Is yours who let me have my will, and now, Sweet father, will you let me lose my wits?' 'Nay,' said he, 'surely.' 'Wherefore, let me hence,' She answered, 'and find out our dear Lavaine.' 'Ye will not lose your wits for dear Lavaine: Bide,' answered he: 'we needs must hear anon Of him, and of that other.' 'Ay,' she said, 'And of that other, for I needs must hence And find that other, wheresoe'er he be, And with mine own hand give his diamond to him, Lest I be found as faithless in the quest As yon proud Prince who left the quest to me. Sweet father, I behold him in my dreams Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, Death-pale, for lack of gentle maiden's aid. The gentler-born the maiden, the more bound, My father, to be sweet and serviceable To noble knights in sickness, as ye know When these have worn their tokens: let me hence I pray you.' Then her father nodding said, 'Ay, ay, the diamond: wit ye well, my child, Right fain were I to learn this knight were whole, Being our greatest: yea, and you must give it-- And sure I think this fruit is hung too high For any mouth to gape for save a queen's-- Nay, I mean nothing: so then, get you gone, Being so very wilful you must go.' Lightly, her suit allowed, she slipt away, And while she made her ready for her ride, Her father's latest word hummed in her ear, 'Being so very wilful you must go,' And changed itself and echoed in her heart, 'Being so very wilful you must die.' But she was happy enough and shook it off, As we shake off the bee that buzzes at us; And in her heart she answered it and said, 'What matter, so I help him back to life?' Then far away with good Sir Torre for guide Rode o'er the long backs of the bushless downs To Camelot, and before the city-gates Came on her brother with a happy face Making a roan horse caper and curvet For pleasure all about a field of flowers: Whom when she saw, 'Lavaine,' she cried, 'Lavaine, How fares my lord Sir Lancelot?' He amazed, 'Torre and Elaine! why here? Sir Lancelot! How know ye my lord's name is Lancelot?' But when the maid had told him all her tale, Then turned Sir Torre, and being in his moods Left them, and under the strange-statued gate, Where Arthur's wars were rendered mystically, Past up the still rich city to his kin, His own far blood, which dwelt at Camelot; And her, Lavaine across the poplar grove Led to the caves: there first she saw the casque Of Lancelot on the wall: her scarlet sleeve, Though carved and cut, and half the pearls away, Streamed from it still; and in her heart she laughed, Because he had not loosed it from his helm, But meant once more perchance to tourney in it. And when they gained the cell wherein he slept, His battle-writhen arms and mighty hands Lay naked on the wolfskin, and a dream Of dragging down his enemy made them move. Then she that saw him lying unsleek, unshorn, Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, Uttered a little tender dolorous cry. The sound not wonted in a place so still Woke the sick knight, and while he rolled his eyes Yet blank from sleep, she started to him, saying, 'Your prize the diamond sent you by the King:' His eyes glistened: she fancied 'Is it for me?' And when the maid had told him all the tale Of King and Prince, the diamond sent, the quest Assigned to her not worthy of it, she knelt Full lowly by the corners of his bed, And laid the diamond in his open hand. Her face was near, and as we kiss the child That does the task assigned, he kissed her face. At once she slipt like water to the floor. 'Alas,' he said, 'your ride hath wearied you. Rest must you have.' 'No rest for me,' she said; 'Nay, for near you, fair lord, I am at rest.' What might she mean by that? his large black eyes, Yet larger through his leanness, dwelt upon her, Till all her heart's sad secret blazed itself In the heart's colours on her simple face; And Lancelot looked and was perplext in mind, And being weak in body said no more; But did not love the colour; woman's love, Save one, he not regarded, and so turned Sighing, and feigned a sleep until he slept. Then rose Elaine and glided through the fields, And past beneath the weirdly-sculptured gates Far up the dim rich city to her kin; There bode the night: but woke with dawn, and past Down through the dim rich city to the fields, Thence to the cave: so day by day she past In either twilight ghost-like to and fro Gliding, and every day she tended him, And likewise many a night: and Lancelot Would, though he called his wound a little hurt Whereof he should be quickly whole, at times Brain-feverous in his heat and agony, seem Uncourteous, even he: but the meek maid Sweetly forbore him ever, being to him Meeker than any child to a rough nurse, Milder than any mother to a sick child, And never woman yet, since man's first fall, Did kindlier unto man, but her deep love Upbore her; till the hermit, skilled in all The simples and the science of that time, Told him that her fine care had saved his life. And the sick man forgot her simple blush, Would call her friend and sister, sweet Elaine, Would listen for her coming and regret Her parting step, and held her tenderly, And loved her with all love except the love Of man and woman when they love their best, Closest and sweetest, and had died the death In any knightly fashion for her sake. And peradventure had he seen her first She might have made this and that other world Another world for the sick man; but now The shackles of an old love straitened him, His honour rooted in dishonour stood, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. Yet the great knight in his mid-sickness made Full many a holy vow and pure resolve. These, as but born of sickness, could not live: For when the blood ran lustier in him again, Full often the bright image of one face, Making a treacherous quiet in his heart, Dispersed his resolution like a cloud. Then if the maiden, while that ghostly grace Beamed on his fancy, spoke, he answered not, Or short and coldly, and she knew right well What the rough sickness meant, but what this meant She knew not, and the sorrow dimmed her sight, And drave her ere her time across the fields Far into the rich city, where alone She murmured, 'Vain, in vain: it cannot be. He will not love me: how then? must I die?' Then as a little helpless innocent bird, That has but one plain passage of few notes, Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er For all an April morning, till the ear Wearies to hear it, so the simple maid Went half the night repeating, 'Must I die?' And now to right she turned, and now to left, And found no ease in turning or in rest; And 'Him or death,' she muttered, 'death or him,' Again and like a burthen, 'Him or death.' But when Sir Lancelot's deadly hurt was whole, To Astolat returning rode the three. There morn by morn, arraying her sweet self In that wherein she deemed she looked her best, She came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought 'If I be loved, these are my festal robes, If not, the victim's flowers before he fall.' And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid That she should ask some goodly gift of him For her own self or hers; 'and do not shun To speak the wish most near to your true heart; Such service have ye done me, that I make My will of yours, and Prince and Lord am I In mine own land, and what I will I can.' Then like a ghost she lifted up her face, But like a ghost without the power to speak. And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish, And bode among them yet a little space Till he should learn it; and one morn it chanced He found her in among the garden yews, And said, 'Delay no longer, speak your wish, Seeing I go today:' then out she brake: 'Going? and we shall never see you more. And I must die for want of one bold word.' 'Speak: that I live to hear,' he said, 'is yours.' Then suddenly and passionately she spoke: 'I have gone mad. I love you: let me die.' 'Ah, sister,' answered Lancelot, 'what is this?' And innocently extending her white arms, 'Your love,' she said, 'your love--to be your wife.' And Lancelot answered, 'Had I chosen to wed, I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine: But now there never will be wife of mine.' 'No, no,' she cried, 'I care not to be wife, But to be with you still, to see your face, To serve you, and to follow you through the world.' And Lancelot answered, 'Nay, the world, the world, All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue To blare its own interpretation--nay, Full ill then should I quit your brother's love, And your good father's kindness.' And she said, 'Not to be with you, not to see your face-- Alas for me then, my good days are done.' 'Nay, noble maid,' he answered, 'ten times nay! This is not love: but love's first flash in youth, Most common: yea, I know it of mine own self: And you yourself will smile at your own self Hereafter, when you yield your flower of life To one more fitly yours, not thrice your age: And then will I, for true you are and sweet Beyond mine old belief in womanhood, More specially should your good knight be poor, Endow you with broad land and territory Even to the half my realm beyond the seas, So that would make you happy: furthermore, Even to the death, as though ye were my blood, In all your quarrels will I be your knight. This I will do, dear damsel, for your sake, And more than this I cannot.' While he spoke She neither blushed nor shook, but deathly-pale Stood grasping what was nearest, then replied: 'Of all this will I nothing;' and so fell, And thus they bore her swooning to her tower. Then spake, to whom through those black walls of yew Their talk had pierced, her father: 'Ay, a flash, I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead. Too courteous are ye, fair Lord Lancelot. I pray you, use some rough discourtesy To blunt or break her passion.' Lancelot said, 'That were against me: what I can I will;' And there that day remained, and toward even Sent for his shield: full meekly rose the maid, Stript off the case, and gave the naked shield; Then, when she heard his horse upon the stones, Unclasping flung the casement back, and looked Down on his helm, from which her sleeve had gone. And Lancelot knew the little clinking sound; And she by tact of love was well aware That Lancelot knew that she was looking at him. And yet he glanced not up, nor waved his hand, Nor bad farewell, but sadly rode away. This was the one discourtesy that he used. So in her tower alone the maiden sat: His very shield was gone; only the case, Her own poor work, her empty labour, left. But still she heard him, still his picture formed And grew between her and the pictured wall. Then came her father, saying in low tones, 'Have comfort,' whom she greeted quietly. Then came her brethren saying, 'Peace to thee, Sweet sister,' whom she answered with all calm. But when they left her to herself again, Death, like a friend's voice from a distant field Approaching through the darkness, called; the owls Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt Her fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms Of evening, and the moanings of the wind. And in those days she made a little song, And called her song 'The Song of Love and Death,' And sang it: sweetly could she make and sing. 'Sweet is true love though given in vain, in vain; And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 'Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be: Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. 'Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away, Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay, I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 'I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me; Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.' High with the last line scaled her voice, and this, All in a fiery dawning wild with wind That shook her tower, the brothers heard, and thought With shuddering, 'Hark the Phantom of the house That ever shrieks before a death,' and called The father, and all three in hurry and fear Ran to her, and lo! the blood-red light of dawn Flared on her face, she shrilling, 'Let me die!' As when we dwell upon a word we know, Repeating, till the word we know so well Becomes a wonder, and we know not why, So dwelt the father on her face, and thought 'Is this Elaine?' till back the maiden fell, Then gave a languid hand to each, and lay, Speaking a still good-morrow with her eyes. At last she said, 'Sweet brothers, yesternight I seemed a curious little maid again, As happy as when we dwelt among the woods, And when ye used to take me with the flood Up the great river in the boatman's boat. Only ye would not pass beyond the cape That has the poplar on it: there ye fixt Your limit, oft returning with the tide. And yet I cried because ye would not pass Beyond it, and far up the shining flood Until we found the palace of the King. And yet ye would not; but this night I dreamed That I was all alone upon the flood, And then I said, "Now shall I have my will:" And there I woke, but still the wish remained. So let me hence that I may pass at last Beyond the poplar and far up the flood, Until I find the palace of the King. There will I enter in among them all, And no man there will dare to mock at me; But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me, And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me; Gawain, who bad a thousand farewells to me, Lancelot, who coldly went, nor bad me one: And there the King will know me and my love, And there the Queen herself will pity me, And all the gentle court will welcome me, And after my long voyage I shall rest!' 'Peace,' said her father, 'O my child, ye seem Light-headed, for what force is yours to go So far, being sick? and wherefore would ye look On this proud fellow again, who scorns us all?' Then the rough Torre began to heave and move, And bluster into stormy sobs and say, 'I never loved him: an I meet with him, I care not howsoever great he be, Then will I strike at him and strike him down, Give me good fortune, I will strike him dead, For this discomfort he hath done the house.' To whom the gentle sister made reply, 'Fret not yourself, dear brother, nor be wroth, Seeing it is no more Sir Lancelot's fault Not to love me, than it is mine to love Him of all men who seems to me the highest.' 'Highest?' the father answered, echoing 'highest?' (He meant to break the passion in her) 'nay, Daughter, I know not what you call the highest; But this I know, for all the people know it, He loves the Queen, and in an open shame: And she returns his love in open shame; If this be high, what is it to be low?' Then spake the lily maid of Astolat: 'Sweet father, all too faint and sick am I For anger: these are slanders: never yet Was noble man but made ignoble talk. He makes no friend who never made a foe. But now it is my glory to have loved One peerless, without stain: so let me pass, My father, howsoe'er I seem to you, Not all unhappy, having loved God's best And greatest, though my love had no return: Yet, seeing you desire your child to live, Thanks, but you work against your own desire; For if I could believe the things you say I should but die the sooner; wherefore cease, Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man Hither, and let me shrive me clean, and die.' So when the ghostly man had come and gone, She with a face, bright as for sin forgiven, Besought Lavaine to write as she devised A letter, word for word; and when he asked 'Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord? Then will I bear it gladly;' she replied, 'For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world, But I myself must bear it.' Then he wrote The letter she devised; which being writ And folded, 'O sweet father, tender and true, Deny me not,' she said--'ye never yet Denied my fancies--this, however strange, My latest: lay the letter in my hand A little ere I die, and close the hand Upon it; I shall guard it even in death. And when the heat is gone from out my heart, Then take the little bed on which I died For Lancelot's love, and deck it like the Queen's For richness, and me also like the Queen In all I have of rich, and lay me on it. And let there be prepared a chariot-bier To take me to the river, and a barge Be ready on the river, clothed in black. I go in state to court, to meet the Queen. There surely I shall speak for mine own self, And none of you can speak for me so well. And therefore let our dumb old man alone Go with me, he can steer and row, and he Will guide me to that palace, to the doors.' She ceased: her father promised; whereupon She grew so cheerful that they deemed her death Was rather in the fantasy than the blood. But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh Her father laid the letter in her hand, And closed the hand upon it, and she died. So that day there was dole in Astolat. But when the next sun brake from underground, Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier Past like a shadow through the field, that shone Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge, Palled all its length in blackest samite, lay. There sat the lifelong creature of the house, Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck, Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face. So those two brethren from the chariot took And on the black decks laid her in her bed, Set in her hand a lily, o'er her hung The silken case with braided blazonings, And kissed her quiet brows, and saying to her 'Sister, farewell for ever,' and again 'Farewell, sweet sister,' parted all in tears. Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, Oared by the dumb, went upward with the flood-- In her right hand the lily, in her left The letter--all her bright hair streaming down-- And all the coverlid was cloth of gold Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white All but her face, and that clear-featured face Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead, But fast asleep, and lay as though she smiled. That day Sir Lancelot at the palace craved Audience of Guinevere, to give at last, The price of half a realm, his costly gift, Hard-won and hardly won with bruise and blow, With deaths of others, and almost his own, The nine-years-fought-for diamonds: for he saw One of her house, and sent him to the Queen Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed With such and so unmoved a majesty She might have seemed her statue, but that he, Low-drooping till he wellnigh kissed her feet For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong eye The shadow of some piece of pointed lace, In the Queen's shadow, vibrate on the walls, And parted, laughing in his courtly heart. All in an oriel on the summer side, Vine-clad, of Arthur's palace toward the stream, They met, and Lancelot kneeling uttered, 'Queen, Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy, Take, what I had not won except for you, These jewels, and make me happy, making them An armlet for the roundest arm on earth, Or necklace for a neck to which the swan's Is tawnier than her cygnet's: these are words: Your beauty is your beauty, and I sin In speaking, yet O grant my worship of it Words, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in words Perchance, we both can pardon: but, my Queen, I hear of rumours flying through your court. Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, Should have in it an absoluter trust To make up that defect: let rumours be: When did not rumours fly? these, as I trust That you trust me in your own nobleness, I may not well believe that you believe.' While thus he spoke, half turned away, the Queen Brake from the vast oriel-embowering vine Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off, Till all the place whereon she stood was green; Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive hand Received at once and laid aside the gems There on a table near her, and replied: 'It may be, I am quicker of belief Than you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake. Our bond is not the bond of man and wife. This good is in it, whatsoe'er of ill, It can be broken easier. I for you This many a year have done despite and wrong To one whom ever in my heart of hearts I did acknowledge nobler. What are these? Diamonds for me! they had been thrice their worth Being your gift, had you not lost your own. To loyal hearts the value of all gifts Must vary as the giver's. Not for me! For her! for your new fancy. Only this Grant me, I pray you: have your joys apart. I doubt not that however changed, you keep So much of what is graceful: and myself Would shun to break those bounds of courtesy In which as Arthur's Queen I move and rule: So cannot speak my mind. An end to this! A strange one! yet I take it with Amen. So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls; Deck her with these; tell her, she shines me down: An armlet for an arm to which the Queen's Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck O as much fairer--as a faith once fair Was richer than these diamonds--hers not mine-- Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself, Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will-- She shall not have them.' Saying which she seized, And, through the casement standing wide for heat, Flung them, and down they flashed, and smote the stream. Then from the smitten surface flashed, as it were, Diamonds to meet them, and they past away. Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdain At love, life, all things, on the window ledge, Close underneath his eyes, and right across Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge. Whereon the lily maid of Astolat Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night. But the wild Queen, who saw not, burst away To weep and wail in secret; and the barge, On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused. There two stood armed, and kept the door; to whom, All up the marble stair, tier over tier, Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that asked 'What is it?' but that oarsman's haggard face, As hard and still as is the face that men Shape to their fancy's eye from broken rocks On some cliff-side, appalled them, and they said 'He is enchanted, cannot speak--and she, Look how she sleeps--the Fairy Queen, so fair! Yea, but how pale! what are they? flesh and blood? Or come to take the King to Fairyland? For some do hold our Arthur cannot die, But that he passes into Fairyland.' While thus they babbled of the King, the King Came girt with knights: then turned the tongueless man From the half-face to the full eye, and rose And pointed to the damsel, and the doors. So Arthur bad the meek Sir Percivale And pure Sir Galahad to uplift the maid; And reverently they bore her into hall. Then came the fine Gawain and wondered at her, And Lancelot later came and mused at her, And last the Queen herself, and pitied her: But Arthur spied the letter in her hand, Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it; this was all: 'Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, I, sometime called the maid of Astolat, Come, for you left me taking no farewell, Hither, to take my last farewell of you. I loved you, and my love had no return, And therefore my true love has been my death. And therefore to our Lady Guinevere, And to all other ladies, I make moan: Pray for my soul, and yield me burial. Pray for my soul thou too, Sir Lancelot, As thou art a knight peerless.' Thus he read; And ever in the reading, lords and dames Wept, looking often from his face who read To hers which lay so silent, and at times, So touched were they, half-thinking that her lips, Who had devised the letter, moved again. Then freely spoke Sir Lancelot to them all: 'My lord liege Arthur, and all ye that hear, Know that for this most gentle maiden's death Right heavy am I; for good she was and true, But loved me with a love beyond all love In women, whomsoever I have known. Yet to be loved makes not to love again; Not at my years, however it hold in youth. I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave No cause, not willingly, for such a love: To this I call my friends in testimony, Her brethren, and her father, who himself Besought me to be plain and blunt, and use, To break her passion, some discourtesy Against my nature: what I could, I did. I left her and I bad her no farewell; Though, had I dreamt the damsel would have died, I might have put my wits to some rough use, And helped her from herself.' Then said the Queen (Sea was her wrath, yet working after storm) 'Ye might at least have done her so much grace, Fair lord, as would have helped her from her death.' He raised his head, their eyes met and hers fell, He adding, 'Queen, she would not be content Save that I wedded her, which could not be. Then might she follow me through the world, she asked; It could not be. I told her that her love Was but the flash of youth, would darken down To rise hereafter in a stiller flame Toward one more worthy of her--then would I, More specially were he, she wedded, poor, Estate them with large land and territory In mine own realm beyond the narrow seas, To keep them in all joyance: more than this I could not; this she would not, and she died.' He pausing, Arthur answered, 'O my knight, It will be to thy worship, as my knight, And mine, as head of all our Table Round, To see that she be buried worshipfully.' So toward that shrine which then in all the realm Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went The marshalled Order of their Table Round, And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see The maiden buried, not as one unknown, Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, And mass, and rolling music, like a queen. And when the knights had laid her comely head Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings, Then Arthur spake among them, 'Let her tomb Be costly, and her image thereupon, And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet Be carven, and her lily in her hand. And let the story of her dolorous voyage For all true hearts be blazoned on her tomb In letters gold and azure!' which was wrought Thereafter; but when now the lords and dames And people, from the high door streaming, brake Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, Who marked Sir Lancelot where he moved apart, Drew near, and sighed in passing, 'Lancelot, Forgive me; mine was jealousy in love.' He answered with his eyes upon the ground, 'That is love's curse; pass on, my Queen, forgiven.' But Arthur, who beheld his cloudy brows, Approached him, and with full affection said, 'Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have Most joy and most affiance, for I know What thou hast been in battle by my side, And many a time have watched thee at the tilt Strike down the lusty and long practised knight, And let the younger and unskilled go by To win his honour and to make his name, And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man Made to be loved; but now I would to God, Seeing the homeless trouble in thine eyes, Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it seems, By God for thee alone, and from her face, If one may judge the living by the dead, Delicately pure and marvellously fair, Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons Born to the glory of thine name and fame, My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake.' Then answered Lancelot, 'Fair she was, my King, Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be. To doubt her fairness were to want an eye, To doubt her pureness were to want a heart-- Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love Could bind him, but free love will not be bound.' 'Free love, so bound, were freest,' said the King. 'Let love be free; free love is for the best: And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, What should be best, if not so pure a love Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee She failed to bind, though being, as I think, Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know.' And Lancelot answered nothing, but he went, And at the inrunning of a little brook Sat by the river in a cove, and watched The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes And saw the barge that brought her moving down, Far-off, a blot upon the stream, and said Low in himself, 'Ah simple heart and sweet, Ye loved me, damsel, surely with a love Far tenderer than my Queen's. Pray for thy soul? Ay, that will I. Farewell too--now at last-- Farewell, fair lily. "Jealousy in love?" Not rather dead love's harsh heir, jealous pride? Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love, May not your crescent fear for name and fame Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes? Why did the King dwell on my name to me? Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach, Lancelot, whom the Lady of the Lake Caught from his mother's arms--the wondrous one Who passes through the vision of the night-- She chanted snatches of mysterious hymns Heard on the winding waters, eve and morn She kissed me saying, "Thou art fair, my child, As a king's son," and often in her arms She bare me, pacing on the dusky mere. Would she had drowned me in it, where'er it be! For what am I? what profits me my name Of greatest knight? I fought for it, and have it: Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it, pain; Now grown a part of me: but what use in it? To make men worse by making my sin known? Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great? Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man Not after Arthur's heart! I needs must break These bonds that so defame me: not without She wills it: would I, if she willed it? nay, Who knows? but if I would not, then may God, I pray him, send a sudden Angel down To seize me by the hair and bear me far, And fling me deep in that forgotten mere, Among the tumbled fragments of the hills.' So groaned Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain, Not knowing he should die a holy man. Kannst du eine geeignete Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze verfassen?

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Hoch oben in ihrem Turm bewacht Elaine von Astolat Lancelots Schild, das sie in einem seidenen Beutel aufbewahrt, den sie dafür bestickt hat. Sie fantasiert über die Kämpfe, die zu jeder Delle und Beule auf dem Schild geführt haben. Lancelot ließ sein Schild bei Elaine, bevor er sich auf den großen Turnierkampf um den Hauptpreis, einen Diamanten, begab. Einst fand Arthur auf einem moosbewachsenen Felsen eine antike Krone auf den ausgeblichenen Knochen eines gefallenen Königs. Er verfügte eine Serie von neun Turnieren, um die neun Diamanten aus der Krone zu verteilen. Die ersten acht Diamanten hat Lancelot gewonnen. Nun plant er, für den neunten und größten Diamanten zu kämpfen und sie alle zusammen Guinevere zu überreichen. Vor dem neunten Turnier erklärt Guinevere, dass sie zu krank sei, um teilzunehmen. Lancelot meldet sich freiwillig, in Camelot bei ihr zu bleiben, aber Guinevere will das nicht haben. Was geht ab? Als Lancelot hinterfragt, ob Guinevere nun wünscht, ihrem Ehemann treu zu sein, antwortet Guinevere, dass sie einen Liebhaber möchte, der so perfekt und rein ist wie Arthur. Guinevere erklärt, dass sie befürchtet, Lancelots Entscheidung, bei ihr zu bleiben, würde die Zungen schnattern lassen. Und wir wissen, wie das Gerede in Camelot ist. Sie rät ihm, in Verkleidung am Turnier teilzunehmen und später Arthur zu erklären, dass er seinen Mut als unbekannter Ritter und nicht als bereits gefürchteter testen wollte. Auf dem Weg zum Turnier sucht Lancelot Unterkunft in der Burg Astolat, wo er vom Herrn, seinen beiden Söhnen, Lavaine und Torre, und seiner Tochter, Elaine, willkommen geheißen wird. Torre, der verwundet ist und nicht am Turnier teilnehmen wird, stimmt zu, Lancelot sein Schild zu leihen, um ihm bei der Tarnung zu helfen. Lavaine bietet an, ihn zu begleiten. In dem Moment, in dem Elaine es wagt, Lancelot anzusehen, verliebt sie sich in ihn. Dieser Kerl hat es drauf. In dieser Nacht spricht Lancelot von seiner Rolle in den Kämpfen von Arthur gegen die Heiden und von dem, was für ein großer und tapferer König er ist. Elaine findet, dass Lancelot irgendwie traurig wirkt, obwohl er fröhlich und höflich ist. Sie fragt sich, ob die Fröhlichkeit und Höflichkeit ihr gelten. Liebt er sie? Am nächsten Morgen bittet Elaine Lancelot, bei dem Turnier ihr Bund zu tragen. Obwohl er noch nie zuvor das Bund einer Jungfrau getragen hat, willigt er ein, um seine Verkleidung zu verbessern. Er bittet Elaine, sein Schild für ihn zu bewachen. Auf dem Weg zum Turnier enthüllt Lancelot seine wahre Identität gegenüber Lavaine, der unseren Lanz sofort vergöttert. Beim Turnier sind Lancelots Verwandte wütend darüber, dass der unbekannte Ritter genauso gut ist wie Lancelot. Sie greifen ihn an und verwunden ihn mit einem Speer. Lancelot gewinnt das Turnier, aber er reitet mit Lavaine davon, bevor er den Diamanten erhalten kann, und nennt seine Wunde seinen einzigen Preis. Lavaine und Lancelot suchen in einer Höhle in der Nähe eines Pappelhains nicht weit von Camelot Schutz, wo sich ein Eremit um Lancelots Wunde kümmert. Währenddessen, zurück beim Turnier, vertraut Arthur Gawain den Diamanten an und befiehlt ihm, den Ritter zu finden, der ihn gewonnen hat, und ihn ihm zu überreichen. Als Arthur nach Camelot zurückkehrt, enthüllt Guinevere Lancelots List. Nachdem sie von Arthur erfahren hat, dass Lancelot das Bund einer anderen Frau getragen hat, gerät Guinevere in Wut. Gawain kommt in Astolat an und verzaubert sich so sehr von Elaine, dass er seine Suche nach dem unbekannten Ritter vergisst. Schließlich bietet Elaine an, ihm das Schild des Ritters zu zeigen, woraufhin er und sie beide erfahren, dass der unbekannte Ritter Lancelot ist. Elaine offenbart Gawain, dass sie in Lancelot verliebt ist. Als Gawain dies erfährt, überlässt er ihr den Diamanten, um ihn Lancelot zu überreichen. Sobald Gawain in Camelot ankommt, verbreitet er das Gerücht von Elaines Liebe zu Lancelot, das sich schnell zu dem Gerücht entwickelt, dass ihre Liebe erwidert wird, was Guinevere wütend macht. Elaine und Torre suchen nach Lancelot und Lavaine. Sie reisen nach Camelot, wo sie Lavaine außerhalb der Stadtmauern treffen. Er führt sie zu Lancelot. Elaine gibt Lancelot den Diamanten. Durch ihre Röte erkennt Lancelot, dass sie in ihn verliebt ist. Peinlich. Weil er Guinevere treu ergeben ist, kann er ihre Liebe nicht erwidern. Trotzdem pflegt Elaine Lancelot gesund. Seine Kühle ihr gegenüber überzeugt sie davon, dass er sie nicht liebt, und sie beginnt zu denken, dass sie vor unerwiderte Liebe sterben könnte. Als sie nach Astolat zurückkehren, bietet Lancelot Elaine jedes Geschenk an, das sie sich wünscht. Sie bittet ihn, sie zu lieben und zu heiraten. Als Lancelot antwortet, dass er das nicht kann, bittet Elaine ihn, ihre Geliebte zu werden. Er lehnt ab und beruft sich auf seinen Respekt vor ihrem Vater und ihren Brüdern. Lancelot sagt Elaine, dass ihre Liebe nur eine vorübergehende Laune der Jugend sei. Er bietet ihr an, ihr Ländereien und Reichtum zu geben, um jede spätere Heirat zu unterstützen, die sie wählen möchte, aber sie lehnt ab. Der Herr von Ascolat bittet Lancelot, Elaine zurückzuweisen, in der Hoffnung, dass die Zurückweisung ihre Liebe heilen wird. Also, als Lancelot nach Camelot reitet, versäumt er es, sich von Elaine zu verabschieden. Elaine sitzt allein in ihrem Turm, wo sie Visionen von Lancelot sieht und ein Lied über die Bitterkeit der Liebe und die Süße des Todes singt. Als ihr Vater und ihre Brüder sie besuchen, erinnert Elaine sich an eine Zeit, als Torre und Lavaine sie auf dem Fluss in Richtung Camelot ruderten, aber sich weigerten, sie ganz bis dorthin mitzunehmen. Jetzt möchte sie dem Fluss folgen, bis sie in Camelot ankommt. Um ihre Liebeshoffnung zu kühlen, erzählt ihr Vater Elaine von der außerehelichen Beziehung zwischen Lancelot und Guinevere. Elaine weigert sich, es zu glauben, nennt es leere Verleumdung. Elaine bittet um einen Priester, damit sie beichten kann. Sie weiß, dass sie bald sterben wird vor Liebesschmerz, also diktiert sie Lavaine einen Brief, den er ihr nach ihrem Tod in die Hände legen soll. Sie weist ihren Vater und ihre Brüder an, sie auf einer Trauerbarke zu betten und sie nach ihrem Tod nach Camelot zu schicken, und sie stimmen zu. Nach ihrem Tod folgen die drei Männer Elaines Anweisungen: Sie betten sie auf einer Trauerbarke aus, mit ihrem Brief in einer Hand und einer Lilie in der anderen, und schicken sie den Fluss hinunter. In Camelot versucht Lancelot, seine neun Diamanten Guinevere zu übergeben. Sie lehnt ab und denkt, dass er ihr untreu war mit Elaine. Sie wirft die Diamanten aus dem Fenster, wo sie im Fluss neben der vorbeifahrenden Trauerbarke von Elaine versinken. Alle am Hofe Arthurs versammeln sich, um das schöne Mädchen im Boot zu bewundern. Arthur liest Elaines Brief laut vor. Er enthüllt ihre unerwiderte Liebe zu Lancelot als Ursache ihres Todes, bittet um Mitleid von der Königin und ihren Damen und bittet Lancelot, für ihre Seele zu beten. Lancelot erklärt, was mit Elaine passiert ist, protestiert, dass er alles für sie getan hat, aber dass er sie nicht lieben konnte, wie sie ihn liebte. Arthur verfügt ein prächtiges Begräbnis für Elaine, mit der Geschichte ihrer Liebe und ihres Todes, ihrem Bild und Lancelots Schild, das auf ihrem Grab angebracht werden soll. In Privat bittet die Königin Lancelot um Vergebung und nennt die Eifersucht der Liebe als ihre Entschuldigung. Arthur sagt Lancelot, er wünschte, er hätte Elaine lieben können, die ihm gemacht zu sein schien. Lancelot antwortet, dass freie Liebe nicht erzwungen oder gebunden werden kann. Dennoch kann Arthur nicht verstehen, warum Elaine es nicht geschafft hat, sich Lancelot anzugliedern, einen Mann, von dem er glaubt, dass er nicht an einen anderen gebunden ist. Kleiner weiß er, nicht wahr? Nach seinem Gespräch mit Arthur erkennt Lancelot, dass Elaine ihn wahrhaftgiger geliebt hat

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: XLIII. SURPRISES. Jo was alone in the twilight, lying on the old sofa, looking at the fire, and thinking. It was her favorite way of spending the hour of dusk; no one disturbed her, and she used to lie there on Beth's little red pillow, planning stories, dreaming dreams, or thinking tender thoughts of the sister who never seemed far away. Her face looked tired, grave, and rather sad; for to-morrow was her birthday, and she was thinking how fast the years went by, how old she was getting, and how little she seemed to have accomplished. Almost twenty-five, and nothing to show for it. Jo was mistaken in that; there was a good deal to show, and by and by she saw, and was grateful for it. "An old maid, that's what I'm to be. A literary spinster, with a pen for a spouse, a family of stories for children, and twenty years hence a morsel of fame, perhaps; when, like poor Johnson, I'm old, and can't enjoy it, solitary, and can't share it, independent, and don't need it. Well, I needn't be a sour saint nor a selfish sinner; and, I dare say, old maids are very comfortable when they get used to it; but--" and there Jo sighed, as if the prospect was not inviting. It seldom is, at first, and thirty seems the end of all things to five-and-twenty; but it's not so bad as it looks, and one can get on quite happily if one has something in one's self to fall back upon. At twenty-five, girls begin to talk about being old maids, but secretly resolve that they never will be; at thirty they say nothing about it, but quietly accept the fact, and, if sensible, console themselves by remembering that they have twenty more useful, happy years, in which they may be learning to grow old gracefully. Don't laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragical romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under the sober gowns, and many silent sacrifices of youth, health, ambition, love itself, make the faded faces beautiful in God's sight. Even the sad, sour sisters should be kindly dealt with, because they have missed the sweetest part of life, if for no other reason; and, looking at them with compassion, not contempt, girls in their bloom should remember that they too may miss the blossom time; that rosy cheeks don't last forever, that silver threads will come in the bonnie brown hair, and that, by and by, kindness and respect will be as sweet as love and admiration now. Gentlemen, which means boys, be courteous to the old maids, no matter how poor and plain and prim, for the only chivalry worth having is that which is the readiest to pay deference to the old, protect the feeble, and serve womankind, regardless of rank, age, or color. Just recollect the good aunts who have not only lectured and fussed, but nursed and petted, too often without thanks; the scrapes they have helped you out of, the "tips" they have given you from their small store, the stitches the patient old fingers have set for you, the steps the willing old feet have taken, and gratefully pay the dear old ladies the little attentions that women love to receive as long as they live. The bright-eyed girls are quick to see such traits, and will like you all the better for them; and if death, almost the only power that can part mother and son, should rob you of yours, you will be sure to find a tender welcome and maternal cherishing from some Aunt Priscilla, who has kept the warmest corner of her lonely old heart for the "the best nevvy in the world." Jo must have fallen asleep (as I dare say my reader has during this little homily), for suddenly Laurie's ghost seemed to stand before her,--a substantial, lifelike ghost,--leaning over her, with the very look he used to wear when he felt a good deal and didn't like to show it. But, like Jenny in the ballad,-- "She could not think it he," and lay staring up at him in startled silence, till he stooped and kissed her. Then she knew him, and flew up, crying joyfully,-- "O my Teddy! O my Teddy!" "Dear Jo, you are glad to see me, then?" "Glad! My blessed boy, words can't express my gladness. Where's Amy?" "Your mother has got her down at Meg's. We stopped there by the way, and there was no getting my wife out of their clutches." "Your what?" cried Jo, for Laurie uttered those two words with an unconscious pride and satisfaction which betrayed him. "Oh, the dickens! now I've done it;" and he looked so guilty that Jo was down upon him like a flash. "You've gone and got married!" "Yes, please, but I never will again;" and he went down upon his knees, with a penitent clasping of hands, and a face full of mischief, mirth, and triumph. "Actually married?" "Very much so, thank you." "Mercy on us! What dreadful thing will you do next?" and Jo fell into her seat, with a gasp. "A characteristic, but not exactly complimentary, congratulation," returned Laurie, still in an abject attitude, but beaming with satisfaction. "What can you expect, when you take one's breath away, creeping in like a burglar, and letting cats out of bags like that? Get up, you ridiculous boy, and tell me all about it." "Not a word, unless you let me come in my old place, and promise not to barricade." Jo laughed at that as she had not done for many a long day, and patted the sofa invitingly, as she said, in a cordial tone,-- "The old pillow is up garret, and we don't need it now; so, come and 'fess, Teddy." "How good it sounds to hear you say 'Teddy'! No one ever calls me that but you;" and Laurie sat down, with an air of great content. "What does Amy call you?" "My lord." "That's like her. Well, you look it;" and Jo's eyes plainly betrayed that she found her boy comelier than ever. The pillow was gone, but there _was_ a barricade, nevertheless,--a natural one, raised by time, absence, and change of heart. Both felt it, and for a minute looked at one another as if that invisible barrier cast a little shadow over them. It was gone directly, however, for Laurie said, with a vain attempt at dignity,-- "Don't I look like a married man and the head of a family?" "Not a bit, and you never will. You've grown bigger and bonnier, but you are the same scapegrace as ever." "Now, really, Jo, you ought to treat me with more respect," began Laurie, who enjoyed it all immensely. "How can I, when the mere idea of you, married and settled, is so irresistibly funny that I can't keep sober!" answered Jo, smiling all over her face, so infectiously that they had another laugh, and then settled down for a good talk, quite in the pleasant old fashion. "It's no use your going out in the cold to get Amy, for they are all coming up presently. I couldn't wait; I wanted to be the one to tell you the grand surprise, and have 'first skim,' as we used to say when we squabbled about the cream." "Of course you did, and spoilt your story by beginning at the wrong end. Now, start right, and tell me how it all happened; I'm pining to know." "Well, I did it to please Amy," began Laurie, with a twinkle that made Jo exclaim,-- "Fib number one; Amy did it to please you. Go on, and tell the truth, if you can, sir." "Now she's beginning to marm it; isn't it jolly to hear her?" said Laurie to the fire, and the fire glowed and sparkled as if it quite agreed. "It's all the same, you know, she and I being one. We planned to come home with the Carrols, a month or more ago, but they suddenly changed their minds, and decided to pass another winter in Paris. But grandpa wanted to come home; he went to please me, and I couldn't let him go alone, neither could I leave Amy; and Mrs. Carrol had got English notions about chaperons and such nonsense, and wouldn't let Amy come with us. So I just settled the difficulty by saying, 'Let's be married, and then we can do as we like.'" "Of course you did; you always have things to suit you." "Not always;" and something in Laurie's voice made Jo say hastily,-- "How did you ever get aunt to agree?" "It was hard work; but, between us, we talked her over, for we had heaps of good reasons on our side. There wasn't time to write and ask leave, but you all liked it, had consented to it by and by, and it was only 'taking Time by the fetlock,' as my wife says." "Aren't we proud of those two words, and don't we like to say them?" interrupted Jo, addressing the fire in her turn, and watching with delight the happy light it seemed to kindle in the eyes that had been so tragically gloomy when she saw them last. "A trifle, perhaps; she's such a captivating little woman I can't help being proud of her. Well, then, uncle and aunt were there to play propriety; we were so absorbed in one another we were of no mortal use apart, and that charming arrangement would make everything easy all round; so we did it." "When, where, how?" asked Jo, in a fever of feminine interest and curiosity, for she could not realize it a particle. "Six weeks ago, at the American consul's, in Paris; a very quiet wedding, of course, for even in our happiness we didn't forget dear little Beth." Jo put her hand in his as he said that, and Laurie gently smoothed the little red pillow, which he remembered well. "Why didn't you let us know afterward?" asked Jo, in a quieter tone, when they had sat quite still a minute. "We wanted to surprise you; we thought we were coming directly home, at first; but the dear old gentleman, as soon as we were married, found he couldn't be ready under a month, at least, and sent us off to spend our honeymoon wherever we liked. Amy had once called Valrosa a regular honeymoon home, so we went there, and were as happy as people are but once in their lives. My faith! wasn't it love among the roses!" Laurie seemed to forget Jo for a minute, and Jo was glad of it; for the fact that he told her these things so freely and naturally assured her that he had quite forgiven and forgotten. She tried to draw away her hand; but, as if he guessed the thought that prompted the half-involuntary impulse, Laurie held it fast, and said, with a manly gravity she had never seen in him before,-- "Jo, dear, I want to say one thing, and then we'll put it by forever. As I told you in my letter, when I wrote that Amy had been so kind to me, I never shall stop loving you; but the love is altered, and I have learned to see that it is better as it is. Amy and you change places in my heart, that's all. I think it was meant to be so, and would have come about naturally, if I had waited, as you tried to make me; but I never could be patient, and so I got a heartache. I was a boy then, headstrong and violent; and it took a hard lesson to show me my mistake. For it _was_ one, Jo, as you said, and I found it out, after making a fool of myself. Upon my word, I was so tumbled up in my mind, at one time, that I didn't know which I loved best, you or Amy, and tried to love both alike; but I couldn't, and when I saw her in Switzerland, everything seemed to clear up all at once. You both got into your right places, and I felt sure that it was well off with the old love before it was on with the new; that I could honestly share my heart between sister Jo and wife Amy, and love them both dearly. Will you believe it, and go back to the happy old times when we first knew one another?" "I'll believe it, with all my heart; but, Teddy, we never can be boy and girl again: the happy old times can't come back, and we mustn't expect it. We are man and woman now, with sober work to do, for playtime is over, and we must give up frolicking. I'm sure you feel this; I see the change in you, and you'll find it in me. I shall miss my boy, but I shall love the man as much, and admire him more, because he means to be what I hoped he would. We can't be little playmates any longer, but we will be brother and sister, to love and help one another all our lives, won't we, Laurie?" He did not say a word, but took the hand she offered him, and laid his face down on it for a minute, feeling that out of the grave of a boyish passion, there had risen a beautiful, strong friendship to bless them both. Presently Jo said cheerfully, for she didn't want the coming home to be a sad one,-- "I can't make it true that you children are really married, and going to set up housekeeping. Why, it seems only yesterday that I was buttoning Amy's pinafore, and pulling your hair when you teased. Mercy me, how time does fly!" "As one of the children is older than yourself, you needn't talk so like a grandma. I flatter myself I'm a 'gentleman growed,' as Peggotty said of David; and when you see Amy, you'll find her rather a precocious infant," said Laurie, looking amused at her maternal air. "You may be a little older in years, but I'm ever so much older in feeling, Teddy. Women always are; and this last year has been such a hard one that I feel forty." "Poor Jo! we left you to bear it alone, while we went pleasuring. You _are_ older; here's a line, and there's another; unless you smile, your eyes look sad, and when I touched the cushion, just now, I found a tear on it. You've had a great deal to bear, and had to bear it all alone. What a selfish beast I've been!" and Laurie pulled his own hair, with a remorseful look. But Jo only turned over the traitorous pillow, and answered, in a tone which she tried to make quite cheerful,-- "No, I had father and mother to help me, the dear babies to comfort me, and the thought that you and Amy were safe and happy, to make the troubles here easier to bear. I _am_ lonely, sometimes, but I dare say it's good for me, and--" "You never shall be again," broke in Laurie, putting his arm about her, as if to fence out every human ill. "Amy and I can't get on without you, so you must come and teach 'the children' to keep house, and go halves in everything, just as we used to do, and let us pet you, and all be blissfully happy and friendly together." "If I shouldn't be in the way, it would be very pleasant. I begin to feel quite young already; for, somehow, all my troubles seemed to fly away when you came. You always were a comfort, Teddy;" and Jo leaned her head on his shoulder, just as she did years ago, when Beth lay ill, and Laurie told her to hold on to him. He looked down at her, wondering if she remembered the time, but Jo was smiling to herself, as if, in truth, her troubles _had_ all vanished at his coming. "You are the same Jo still, dropping tears about one minute, and laughing the next. You look a little wicked now; what is it, grandma?" "I was wondering how you and Amy get on together." "Like angels!" "Yes, of course, at first; but which rules?" "I don't mind telling you that she does, now; at least I let her think so,--it pleases her, you know. By and by we shall take turns, for marriage, they say, halves one's rights and doubles one's duties." "You'll go on as you begin, and Amy will rule you all the days of your life." "Well, she does it so imperceptibly that I don't think I shall mind much. She is the sort of woman who knows how to rule well; in fact, I rather like it, for she winds one round her finger as softly and prettily as a skein of silk, and makes you feel as if she was doing you a favor all the while." "That ever I should live to see you a henpecked husband and enjoying it!" cried Jo, with uplifted hands. It was good to see Laurie square his shoulders, and smile with masculine scorn at that insinuation, as he replied, with his "high and mighty" air,-- "Amy is too well-bred for that, and I am not the sort of man to submit to it. My wife and I respect ourselves and one another too much ever to tyrannize or quarrel." Jo liked that, and thought the new dignity very becoming, but the boy seemed changing very fast into the man, and regret mingled with her pleasure. "I am sure of that; Amy and you never did quarrel as we used to. She is the sun and I the wind, in the fable, and the sun managed the man best, you remember." "She can blow him up as well as shine on him," laughed Laurie. "Such a lecture as I got at Nice! I give you my word it was a deal worse than any of your scoldings,--a regular rouser. I'll tell you all about it sometime,--_she_ never will, because, after telling me that she despised and was ashamed of me, she lost her heart to the despicable party and married the good-for-nothing." "What baseness! Well, if she abuses you, come to me, and I'll defend you." "I look as if I needed it, don't I?" said Laurie, getting up and striking an attitude which suddenly changed from the imposing to the rapturous, as Amy's voice was heard calling,-- "Where is she? Where's my dear old Jo?" In trooped the whole family, and every one was hugged and kissed all over again, and, after several vain attempts, the three wanderers were set down to be looked at and exulted over. Mr. Laurence, hale and hearty as ever, was quite as much improved as the others by his foreign tour, for the crustiness seemed to be nearly gone, and the old-fashioned courtliness had received a polish which made it kindlier than ever. It was good to see him beam at "my children," as he called the young pair; it was better still to see Amy pay him the daughterly duty and affection which completely won his old heart; and best of all, to watch Laurie revolve about the two, as if never tired of enjoying the pretty picture they made. The minute she put her eyes upon Amy, Meg became conscious that her own dress hadn't a Parisian air, that young Mrs. Moffat would be entirely eclipsed by young Mrs. Laurence, and that "her ladyship" was altogether a most elegant and graceful woman. Jo thought, as she watched the pair, "How well they look together! I was right, and Laurie has found the beautiful, accomplished girl who will become his home better than clumsy old Jo, and be a pride, not a torment to him." Mrs. March and her husband smiled and nodded at each other with happy faces, for they saw that their youngest had done well, not only in worldly things, but the better wealth of love, confidence, and happiness. For Amy's face was full of the soft brightness which betokens a peaceful heart, her voice had a new tenderness in it, and the cool, prim carriage was changed to a gentle dignity, both womanly and winning. No little affectations marred it, and the cordial sweetness of her manner was more charming than the new beauty or the old grace, for it stamped her at once with the unmistakable sign of the true gentlewoman she had hoped to become. "Love has done much for our little girl," said her mother softly. "She has had a good example before her all her life, my dear," Mr. March whispered back, with a loving look at the worn face and gray head beside him. Daisy found it impossible to keep her eyes off her "pitty aunty," but attached herself like a lap-dog to the wonderful châtelaine full of delightful charms. Demi paused to consider the new relationship before he compromised himself by the rash acceptance of a bribe, which took the tempting form of a family of wooden bears from Berne. A flank movement produced an unconditional surrender, however, for Laurie knew where to have him. "Young man, when I first had the honor of making your acquaintance you hit me in the face: now I demand the satisfaction of a gentleman;" and with that the tall uncle proceeded to toss and tousle the small nephew in a way that damaged his philosophical dignity as much as it delighted his boyish soul. [Illustration: The tall uncle proceeded to toss and tousle the small nephew] "Blest if she ain't in silk from head to foot? Ain't it a relishin' sight to see her settin' there as fine as a fiddle, and hear folks calling little Amy, Mis. Laurence?" muttered old Hannah, who could not resist frequent "peeks" through the slide as she set the table in a most decidedly promiscuous manner. Mercy on us, how they did talk! first one, then the other, then all burst out together, trying to tell the history of three years in half an hour. It was fortunate that tea was at hand, to produce a lull and provide refreshment, for they would have been hoarse and faint if they had gone on much longer. Such a happy procession as filed away into the little dining-room! Mr. March proudly escorted "Mrs. Laurence;" Mrs. March as proudly leaned on the arm of "my son;" the old gentleman took Jo, with a whispered "You must be my girl now," and a glance at the empty corner by the fire, that made Jo whisper back, with trembling lips, "I'll try to fill her place, sir." The twins pranced behind, feeling that the millennium was at hand, for every one was so busy with the new-comers that they were left to revel at their own sweet will, and you may be sure they made the most of the opportunity. Didn't they steal sips of tea, stuff gingerbread _ab libitum_, get a hot biscuit apiece, and, as a crowning trespass, didn't they each whisk a captivating little tart into their tiny pockets, there to stick and crumble treacherously, teaching them that both human nature and pastry are frail? Burdened with the guilty consciousness of the sequestered tarts, and fearing that Dodo's sharp eyes would pierce the thin disguise of cambric and merino which hid their booty, the little sinners attached themselves to "Dranpa," who hadn't his spectacles on. Amy, who was handed about like refreshments, returned to the parlor on Father Laurence's arm; the others paired off as before, and this arrangement left Jo companionless. She did not mind it at the minute, for she lingered to answer Hannah's eager inquiry,-- "Will Miss Amy ride in her coop (_coupé_), and use all them lovely silver dishes that's stored away over yander?" "Shouldn't wonder if she drove six white horses, ate off gold plate, and wore diamonds and point-lace every day. Teddy thinks nothing too good for her," returned Jo with infinite satisfaction. "No more there is! Will you have hash or fish-balls for breakfast?" asked Hannah, who wisely mingled poetry and prose. "I don't care;" and Jo shut the door, feeling that food was an uncongenial topic just then. She stood a minute looking at the party vanishing above, and, as Demi's short plaid legs toiled up the last stair, a sudden sense of loneliness came over her so strongly that she looked about her with dim eyes, as if to find something to lean upon, for even Teddy had deserted her. If she had known what birthday gift was coming every minute nearer and nearer, she would not have said to herself, "I'll weep a little weep when I go to bed; it won't do to be dismal now." Then she drew her hand over her eyes,--for one of her boyish habits was never to know where her handkerchief was,--and had just managed to call up a smile when there came a knock at the porch-door. She opened it with hospitable haste, and started as if another ghost had come to surprise her; for there stood a tall, bearded gentleman, beaming on her from the darkness like a midnight sun. "O Mr. Bhaer, I _am_ so glad to see you!" cried Jo, with a clutch, as if she feared the night would swallow him up before she could get him in. [Illustration: O Mr. Bhaer, I am so glad to see you] "And I to see Miss Marsch,--but no, you haf a party--" and the Professor paused as the sound of voices and the tap of dancing feet came down to them. "No, we haven't, only the family. My sister and friends have just come home, and we are all very happy. Come in, and make one of us." Though a very social man, I think Mr. Bhaer would have gone decorously away, and come again another day; but how could he, when Jo shut the door behind him, and bereft him of his hat? Perhaps her face had something to do with it, for she forgot to hide her joy at seeing him, and showed it with a frankness that proved irresistible to the solitary man, whose welcome far exceeded his boldest hopes. "If I shall not be Monsieur de Trop, I will so gladly see them all. You haf been ill, my friend?" He put the question abruptly, for, as Jo hung up his coat, the light fell on her face, and he saw a change in it. "Not ill, but tired and sorrowful. We have had trouble since I saw you last." "Ah, yes, I know. My heart was sore for you when I heard that;" and he shook hands again, with such a sympathetic face that Jo felt as if no comfort could equal the look of the kind eyes, the grasp of the big, warm hand. "Father, mother, this is my friend, Professor Bhaer," she said, with a face and tone of such irrepressible pride and pleasure that she might as well have blown a trumpet and opened the door with a flourish. If the stranger had had any doubts about his reception, they were set at rest in a minute by the cordial welcome he received. Every one greeted him kindly, for Jo's sake at first, but very soon they liked him for his own. They could not help it, for he carried the talisman that opens all hearts, and these simple people warmed to him at once, feeling even the more friendly because he was poor; for poverty enriches those who live above it, and is a sure passport to truly hospitable spirits. Mr. Bhaer sat looking about him with the air of a traveller who knocks at a strange door, and, when it opens, finds himself at home. The children went to him like bees to a honey-pot; and, establishing themselves on each knee, proceeded to captivate him by rifling his pockets, pulling his beard, and investigating his watch, with juvenile audacity. The women telegraphed their approval to one another, and Mr. March, feeling that he had got a kindred spirit, opened his choicest stores for his guest's benefit, while silent John listened and enjoyed the talk, but said not a word, and Mr. Laurence found it impossible to go to sleep. If Jo had not been otherwise engaged, Laurie's behavior would have amused her; for a faint twinge, not of jealousy, but something like suspicion, caused that gentleman to stand aloof at first, and observe the new-comer with brotherly circumspection. But it did not last long. He got interested in spite of himself, and, before he knew it, was drawn into the circle; for Mr. Bhaer talked well in this genial atmosphere, and did himself justice. He seldom spoke to Laurie, but he looked at him often, and a shadow would pass across his face, as if regretting his own lost youth, as he watched the young man in his prime. Then his eye would turn to Jo so wistfully that she would have surely answered the mute inquiry if she had seen it; but Jo had her own eyes to take care of, and, feeling that they could not be trusted, she prudently kept them on the little sock she was knitting, like a model maiden aunt. A stealthy glance now and then refreshed her like sips of fresh water after a dusty walk, for the sidelong peeps showed her several propitious omens. Mr. Bhaer's face had lost the absent-minded expression, and looked all alive with interest in the present moment, actually young and handsome, she thought, forgetting to compare him with Laurie, as she usually did strange men, to their great detriment. Then he seemed quite inspired, though the burial customs of the ancients, to which the conversation had strayed, might not be considered an exhilarating topic. Jo quite glowed with triumph when Teddy got quenched in an argument, and thought to herself, as she watched her father's absorbed face, "How he would enjoy having such a man as my Professor to talk with every day!" Lastly, Mr. Bhaer was dressed in a new suit of black, which made him look more like a gentleman than ever. His bushy hair had been cut and smoothly brushed, but didn't stay in order long, for, in exciting moments, he rumpled it up in the droll way he used to do; and Jo liked it rampantly erect better than flat, because she thought it gave his fine forehead a Jove-like aspect. Poor Jo, how she did glorify that plain man, as she sat knitting away so quietly, yet letting nothing escape her, not even the fact that Mr. Bhaer actually had gold sleeve-buttons in his immaculate wristbands! "Dear old fellow! He couldn't have got himself up with more care if he'd been going a-wooing," said Jo to herself; and then a sudden thought, born of the words, made her blush so dreadfully that she had to drop her ball, and go down after it to hide her face. The manœuvre did not succeed as well as she expected, however; for, though just in the act of setting fire to a funeral-pile, the Professor dropped his torch, metaphorically speaking, and made a dive after the little blue ball. Of course they bumped their heads smartly together, saw stars, and both came up flushed and laughing, without the ball, to resume their seats, wishing they had not left them. Nobody knew where the evening went to; for Hannah skilfully abstracted the babies at an early hour, nodding like two rosy poppies, and Mr. Laurence went home to rest. The others sat round the fire, talking away, utterly regardless of the lapse of time, till Meg, whose maternal mind was impressed with a firm conviction that Daisy had tumbled out of bed, and Demi set his night-gown afire studying the structure of matches, made a move to go. "We must have our sing, in the good old way, for we are all together again once more," said Jo, feeling that a good shout would be a safe and pleasant vent for the jubilant emotions of her soul. They were not _all_ there. But no one found the words thoughtless or untrue; for Beth still seemed among them, a peaceful presence, invisible, but dearer than ever, since death could not break the household league that love made indissoluble. The little chair stood in its old place; the tidy basket, with the bit of work she left unfinished when the needle grew "so heavy," was still on its accustomed shelf; the beloved instrument, seldom touched now, had not been moved; and above it Beth's face, serene and smiling, as in the early days, looked down upon them, seeming to say, "Be happy. I am here." "Play something, Amy. Let them hear how much you have improved," said Laurie, with pardonable pride in his promising pupil. But Amy whispered, with full eyes, as she twirled the faded stool,-- "Not to-night, dear. I can't show off to-night." But she did show something better than brilliancy or skill; for she sung Beth's songs with a tender music in her voice which the best master could not have taught, and touched the listeners' hearts with a sweeter power than any other inspiration could have given her. The room was very still, when the clear voice failed suddenly at the last line of Beth's favorite hymn. It was hard to say,-- "Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal;" and Amy leaned against her husband, who stood behind her, feeling that her welcome home was not quite perfect without Beth's kiss. "Now, we must finish with Mignon's song; for Mr. Bhaer sings that," said Jo, before the pause grew painful. And Mr. Bhaer cleared his throat with a gratified "Hem!" as he stepped into the corner where Jo stood, saying,-- "You will sing with me? We go excellently well together." A pleasing fiction, by the way; for Jo had no more idea of music than a grasshopper. But she would have consented if he had proposed to sing a whole opera, and warbled away, blissfully regardless of time and tune. It didn't much matter; for Mr. Bhaer sang like a true German, heartily and well; and Jo soon subsided into a subdued hum, that she might listen to the mellow voice that seemed to sing for her alone. [Illustration: Mr. Bhaer sang heartily] "Know'st thou the land where the citron blooms," used to be the Professor's favorite line, for "das land" meant Germany to him; but now he seemed to dwell, with peculiar warmth and melody, upon the words,-- "There, oh there, might I with thee, O my beloved, go!" and one listener was so thrilled by the tender invitation that she longed to say she did know the land, and would joyfully depart thither whenever he liked. The song was considered a great success, and the singer retired covered with laurels. But a few minutes afterward, he forgot his manners entirely, and stared at Amy putting on her bonnet; for she had been introduced simply as "my sister," and no one had called her by her new name since he came. He forgot himself still further when Laurie said, in his most gracious manner, at parting,-- "My wife and I are very glad to meet you, sir. Please remember that there is always a welcome waiting for you over the way." Then the Professor thanked him so heartily, and looked so suddenly illuminated with satisfaction, that Laurie thought him the most delightfully demonstrative old fellow he ever met. "I too shall go; but I shall gladly come again, if you will gif me leave, dear madame, for a little business in the city will keep me here some days." He spoke to Mrs. March, but he looked at Jo; and the mother's voice gave as cordial an assent as did the daughter's eyes; for Mrs. March was not so blind to her children's interest as Mrs. Moffat supposed. "I suspect that is a wise man," remarked Mr. March, with placid satisfaction, from the hearth-rug, after the last guest had gone. "I know he is a good one," added Mrs. March, with decided approval, as she wound up the clock. "I thought you'd like him," was all Jo said, as she slipped away to her bed. She wondered what the business was that brought Mr. Bhaer to the city, and finally decided that he had been appointed to some great honor, somewhere, but had been too modest to mention the fact. If she had seen his face when, safe in his own room, he looked at the picture of a severe and rigid young lady, with a good deal of hair, who appeared to be gazing darkly into futurity, it might have thrown some light upon the subject, especially when he turned off the gas, and kissed the picture in the dark. [Illustration: Mrs. Laurence sitting in her mother's lap] Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Jo sitzt alleine am Abend, denkt nach und genießt ein wenig Zeit für sich alleine. Sie ist fast 25 Jahre alt und fühlt sich, als hätte sie nichts erreicht. Sie denkt, dass sie eine alte Jungfer sein wird, die sich auf ihre Karriere als Schriftstellerin konzentriert, anstatt auf eine Ehe mit einem Mann. Der Erzähler spricht über das Alleinleben. Für ein Mädchen im 19. Jahrhundert, das ausschließlich darauf erzogen wurde, einen Ehemann zu finden, könnte es erscheinen, als wäre das Ende der Welt gekommen, wenn sie keinen findet. Aber der Erzähler sagt, dass wir freundlich zu alten Jungfern sein sollten, weil sie die Ehe verpassen und weil jedes Mädchen auf diese Weise enden könnte, wenn es für sie nicht funktioniert hat. Dieser Abschnitt ist etwas seltsam, weil Louisa May Alcott selbst eine alte Jungfer war und perfekt glücklich. Der Erzähler hört auf uns zu belehren und kehrt zur Handlung zurück. Jo schaut auf und sieht Laurie über sich gebeugt. Sie ist aufgeregt, ihn zu sehen, und drückt ihn fest, um ihn willkommen zu heißen. Jo fragt, wo Amy ist, und Laurie erzählt ihr, dass seine Frau bei Meg und Marmee ist. Jo ist überrascht, aber glücklich zu erfahren, dass Amy und Laurie schon verheiratet sind! Jo und Laurie setzen sich hin, um über diesen neuen Zustand zu sprechen. Es ist sowohl mehr als auch weniger unangenehm zwischen ihnen - Laurie versucht nicht mehr, Jo dazu zu bringen, ihn zu lieben, aber sie können nicht wirklich mehr so eng sein. Laurie erklärt, dass er und Amy früh geheiratet haben, weil sich ihre Reisepläne geändert haben. Die Carrols beschlossen, noch einen Winter in Paris zu bleiben, also hatte Amy keine Begleitung nach Hause. Also heirateten Laurie und Amy, um es ordentlich zu machen und sie freizustellen, um zusammen mit dem alten Mr. Laurence in die USA zurückzukehren. Laurie beschreibt ihre Hochzeit - Amys Tante und Onkel waren dabei, und sie wussten, dass die Marches zustimmen würden, und auch sein Großvater war da, also hat es gut geklappt. Sie hatten eine ruhige Zeremonie im Büro des amerikanischen Konsuls in Paris. Es musste ruhig sein, weil sie immer noch um Beth trauern. Nach ihrer Hochzeit verbrachten Amy und Laurie einen Monat in Valrosa auf ihrer Hochzeitsreise. Laurie hält noch eine emotionale Rede an Jo. Er erklärt, dass er sie immer noch liebt, aber auf eine andere Weise - als Schwester. Er sagt, dass sie recht hatte, dass er hätte warten sollen, um zu sehen, wie sich seine Gefühle entwickeln würden, und dass er eine Frau finden würde, die besser zu ihm passt. Jo sagt, dass sie ihm glaubt, erinnert ihn jedoch daran, dass sie nicht mehr zusammen Spaß haben können; sie haben ernsthafte erwachsene Arbeit in der Welt zu erledigen. Jo hat das Gefühl, dass die Zeit vergeht; haben sie gestern nicht noch alle zusammen gespielt, als Kinder? Laurie erinnert sie daran, dass er älter ist als sie. Sie kontert, indem sie sagt, dass sie sich emotional nach Beths Tod gealtert fühlt. Laurie erkennt, wie alleine Jo in ihrer Trauer war - Meg hat ihren Ehemann und ihre Kinder, Laurie und Amy haben einander, aber Jo war allein mit ihren Eltern. Jo lenkt sich schnell ab, indem sie sich fragt, wie sich Amy und Laurie miteinander verstehen. Laurie sagt, dass sie sich sehr gut verstehen und meistens lässt er Amy die Kontrolle, aber sie ist sehr subtil und sanftmütig, so dass er nichts dagegen hat. Jo und Laurie werden von Amy unterbrochen, die mit ihrer Mutter, Mr. Laurence, Meg, Daisy, Demi und allen anderen hereinkommt. Die Familienmitglieder begrüßen einander. Jeder bemerkt, was für ein nettes Paar Amy und Laurie abgeben und wie schön es ist zu sehen, wie sie sich um den alten Mr. Laurence kümmern. Meg bemerkt Amys neues europäisches Kleid und ihre Manieren. Jo denkt, dass sie ein perfektes Paar abgeben. Mr. und Mrs. March bemerken, dass Amy eine gute Ehe eingegangen ist - nicht nur wegen des Geldes, sondern auch aus Liebe. Daisy und Demi freuen sich, ihre Tante zu sehen, an die sie sich kaum erinnern, und ihren neuen Onkel. Hannah freut sich, Amy als wohlhabende, würdevolle Frau zu sehen. Alle reden durcheinander und versuchen einander von dem zu erzählen, was passiert ist, während sie getrennt waren. Wir erfahren, dass Amy und Laurie drei Jahre lang in Europa waren. Die Familie geht hinein, um ihre spätabendliche Mahlzeit einzunehmen, die sie Tee nennen. Jeder ist zu beschäftigt, um auf die Zwillinge aufzupassen, die Süßigkeiten stehlen. Nach dem Essen gehen alle wieder ins Wohnzimmer. Die Familie ist alle paarweise, außer Jo, die alleine gelassen wird. Sie und Hannah sprechen über Amys majestätisches Auftreten mit Zufriedenheit. Hannah geht zurück in die Küche, um das Frühstück für morgen vorzubereiten. Jo, alleine gelassen, fühlt sich besonders einsam und traurig. Plötzlich gibt es einen Klopfen an der Tür. Jo öffnet sie und findet Herrn Bhaer auf der Türschwelle! Herr Bhaer versucht sich zu entschuldigen, da die Familie eine Party hat, aber Jo besteht darauf, dass er hereinkommt und sich ihnen anschließt. Herr Bhaer fragt Jo, warum sie so krank aussieht. Sie sagt, sie sei müde und traurig nach Beths Tod, und er tröstet sie. Jo nimmt Herrn Bhaer mit ins Wohnzimmer und stellt ihn ihrer Familie vor. Jeder begrüßt ihn freundlich und er scheint sofort in die Familie zu passen. Laurie ist anfangs misstrauisch gegenüber Herrn Bhaer, aber wärmt sich nach und nach auf. Herr Bhaer scheint zu glauben, dass Laurie und Jo ein Paar sind. Jo sitzt in der Ecke und strickt einen Socken und genießt, wie ihre Familie von Herrn Bhaer beeindruckt ist. Sie bemerkt, dass er sehr ordentlich angezogen ist, besonders für ihn, und fragt sich, ob er jemanden umwirbt. Dann wird ihr klar, was das für sie bedeuten würde, und lässt vor Überraschung ihre Wolle fallen. Jo und Herr Bhaer tauchen zur gleichen Zeit nach ihrem Wollknäuel und stoßen sich die Köpfe zusammen. Der Abend vergeht schnell und bald sind die Zwillinge im Bett und der alte Mr. Laurence ist nach Hause gegangen. Jo sagt, dass die Familie singen sollte, so wie sie es früher jeden Abend vor dem Schlafengehen getan hat, bevor die Party zu Ende ist. Die Idee, gemeinsam zu singen, lässt alle an Beth denken und sie vermissen sie. Amy spielt einige von Beths Liedern. Für das letzte Lied schlägt Jo eine Melodie vor, die Herr Bhaer besonders gut singen kann, Mignons Lied. Jo singt es mit ihm als Duett. Schubs, Schubs, Andeutung! Vielleicht werden sie bald viele "Duette" zusammen "singen"! Als sich alle verabschieden, fällt Herrn Bhaer zum ersten Mal auf, dass Laurie mit Amy verheiratet ist. Er ist ziemlich aufgeregt über diese Entdeckung. Herr Bhaer erzählt Mrs. March, dass er geschäftlich für eine Weile in der Stadt sein wird und fragt um Erlaubnis für einen weiteren Besuch, was sie gewährt. Er geht mit einem letzten Blick auf Jo. Mr. und Mrs. March sagen Jo, wie sehr ihnen Professor Bhaer gefällt. Jo geht ins Bett und fragt sich, was Herr Bhaer geschäftlich in der Stadt zu tun hat. Zurück in seinem Zimmer betrachtet Herr Bhaer ein Bild von ihr. Er gibt ihm einen Kuss, bevor er einschläft.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Madame Merle war am Abend jenes Donnerstags, von dem ich einige Ereignisse erzählt habe, nicht im Palazzo Roccanera erschienen und Isabel war, obwohl sie ihre Abwesenheit bemerkte, nicht überrascht. Zwischen ihnen waren Dinge vorgefallen, die der Geselligkeit keinen Anreiz gaben und um die zu verstehen, müssen wir ein wenig zurückschauen. Es wurde erwähnt, dass Madame Merle kurz nach Lord Warburtons Abreise aus Rom aus Neapel zurückgekehrt war und dass sie bei ihrem ersten Treffen mit Isabel (die sie, um ihr gerecht zu werden, unverzüglich aufsuchte) als erstes danach fragte, wo sich dieser Adlige aufhielt, für den sie ihre liebe Freundin verantwortlich zu machen schien. "Bitte sprich nicht von ihm", antwortete Isabel; "wir haben in letzter Zeit schon genug von ihm gehört." Madame Merle neigte leicht den Kopf, um Protest auszudrücken, und lächelte an der linken Ecke ihres Mundes. "Ja, ihr habt gehört. Aber ihr müsst bedenken, dass ich nichts davon in Neapel gehört habe. Ich habe gehofft, ihn hier zu finden und Pansy beglückwünschen zu können." "Du kannst Pansy immer noch beglückwünschen, aber nicht zu ihrer Heirat mit Lord Warburton." "Wie du das sagst! Weißt du nicht, dass ich mein Herz darauf gesetzt hatte?" Madame Merle fragte mit viel Schwung, aber immer noch mit der Intonation der guten Laune. Isabel war verunsichert, aber sie war entschlossen, auch gute Laune zu zeigen. "Dann hättest du nicht nach Neapel gehen sollen. Du hättest hier bleiben sollen und die Angelegenheit im Auge behalten sollen." "Ich hatte zu viel Vertrauen in dich. Aber meinst du, es ist zu spät?" "Frag lieber Pansy", sagte Isabel. "Ich werde sie fragen, was du zu ihr gesagt hast." Diese Worte schienen die Abwehrhaltung zu rechtfertigen, die Isabelle aufgrund der kritischen Haltung ihrer Besucherin in sich geweckt hatte. Madame Merle war, wie wir wissen, bisher sehr diskret gewesen; sie hatte nie kritisiert; sie hatte sich deutlich davor gescheut, sich einzumischen. Aber offensichtlich hatte sie sich nur für diesen Anlass zurückgehalten, da sie jetzt eine gefährliche Schnelligkeit in ihrem Blick hatte und eine gereizte Stimmung, die selbst ihre bewundernswerte Gelassenheit nicht transzendieren konnte. Sie hatte eine Enttäuschung erlitten, die Isabel überraschte - unsere Heldin hatte keine Kenntnis von ihrem eifrigen Interesse an Pansys Heirat. Und sie zeigte es auf eine Weise, die Mrs. Osmonds Alarm verstärkte. Klarer als je zuvor hörte Isabel eine kalte, spöttische Stimme aus dem undefinierten Raum um sie herum kommen und erklären, dass diese helle, starke, klare, weltliche Frau, diese Verkörperung des Praktischen, des Persönlichen, des Direkten, eine mächtige Akteurin in ihrem Schicksal war. Sie war ihr näher als Isabel bisher entdeckt hatte und diese Nähe war nicht der charmante Zufall, den sie so lange angenommen hatte. Das Gefühl des Zufalls war in ihr an diesem Tag gestorben, als sie zufällig auf die Art und Weise aufmerksam wurde, wie die wunderbare Dame und ihr eigener Ehemann privat zusammen saßen. Noch keine konkreten Verdachtsmomente waren an die Stelle getreten; aber es genügte, um sie ihre Freundin mit anderen Augen sehen zu lassen, um zu der Erkenntnis zu gelangen, dass es in ihrem vergangenen Verhalten mehr Absicht gab, als sie damals angenommen hatte. Oh ja, es gab Absicht, es gab Absicht, sagte sich Isabel; und sie schien aus einem langen, schädlichen Traum aufzuwachen. Was brachte ihr klar, dass Madame Merles Absicht nicht gut gewesen war? Nichts als das Misstrauen, das sich in letzter Zeit entwickelt hatte und das sich nun mit dem fruchtbaren Staunen verband, das durch die Herausforderung ihrer Besucherin im Namen des armen Pansy ausgelöst wurde. Es gab etwas in dieser Herausforderung, das von Anfang an eine Antwortfähigkeit erregte; eine namenlose Vitalität, die sie erkennen konnte, die in den bisherigen Bekenntnissen ihrer Freundin von Feingefühl und Vorsicht gefehlt hatte. Madame Merle hatte sich sicher nicht einmischen wollen, das stand fest, aber nur solange es nichts gab, in das sie sich einmischen konnte. Es wird dem Leser vielleicht so vorkommen, als ob Isabel schnell Zweifel an einer Aufrichtigkeit aufgrund bloßer Vermutung wagte, die durch mehrere Jahre guter Dienste bewiesen war. Sie bewegte sich in der Tat schnell und mit Vernunft, denn eine seltsame Wahrheit sickerte in ihre Seele. Madame Merles Interesse war identisch mit Osmonds: Das genügte. "Ich glaube nicht, dass Pansy dir etwas sagen wird, was dich noch wütender machen würde", antwortete sie auf die letzte Bemerkung ihrer Begleiterin. "Ich bin überhaupt nicht wütend. Ich habe nur einen großen Wunsch, die Situation zu retten. Glaubst du, dass Warburton uns für immer verlassen hat?" "Ich kann es dir nicht sagen; ich verstehe dich nicht. Es ist vorbei; bitte lass es ruhen. Osmond hat viel mit mir darüber gesprochen und ich habe nichts mehr dazu zu sagen oder zu hören. Ich bezweifle nicht, dass er sehr glücklich sein wird, das Thema mit dir zu besprechen." "Ich weiß, was er denkt; er kam gestern Abend zu mir." "Sobald du angekommen warst? Dann weißt du alles darüber und du brauchst mich nicht nach Informationen zu fragen." "Ich will keine Informationen. Letztendlich geht es um Sympathie. Ich hatte mein Herz an diese Ehe gehängt; die Idee tat etwas, was so wenige Dinge tun - sie befriedigte die Vorstellungskraft." "Deine Vorstellungskraft, das stimmt. Aber nicht die der beteiligten Personen." "Damit meinst du natürlich, dass ich nicht beteiligt bin. Natürlich nicht direkt. Aber wenn man eine so alte Freundin ist, kann man nicht verhindern, dass man etwas investiert. Du vergisst, wie lange ich Pansy schon kenne. Du meinst natürlich", fügte Madame Merle hinzu, "dass DU eine der beteiligten Personen bist." "Nein, das ist das Letzte, was ich meine. Ich habe genug davon." Madame Merle zögerte einen Moment. "Ach ja, deine Arbeit ist erledigt." "Pass auf, was du sagst", sagte Isabel sehr ernst. "Oh, ich passe auf; vielleicht nie mehr als dann, wenn es am wenigsten erscheint. Dein Ehemann urteilt streng über dich." Isabel antwortete für einen Moment nicht darauf; sie fühlte sich von Bitterkeit erstickt. Es war nicht die Frechheit von Madame Merles Hinweis, dass Osmond sie in seinem Vertrauen gegenüber seiner Frau informiert hatte, was sie am meisten traf; denn sie war nicht schnell dabei zu glauben, dass dies als Frechheit gemeint war. Madame Merle war sehr selten frech und nur wenn es genau richtig war. Das war es jetzt nicht, oder zumindest noch nicht. Was Isabel wie ein Tropfen ätzender Säure auf einer offenen Wunde traf, war die Erkenntnis, dass Osmond sie in seinen Worten genauso entehrte wie in seinen Gedanken. "Möchtest du wissen, wie ich über IHN urteile?", fragte sie schließlich. "Nein, denn du würdest es mir nie sagen. Und es wäre schmerzhaft für mich, es zu wissen." Es gab eine Pause, und zum ersten Mal seitdem sie sie kannte, fand Isabel Madame Merle unangenehm. Sie wünschte, sie würde gehen. "Denke daran, wie attraktiv Pansy ist, und verliere nicht die Hoffnung", sagte sie abrupt, mit dem Wunsch, Madame Merle hatte sehr bedächtig gehandelt, sie beobachtete ihre Begleiterin und schien zu denken, dass sie sicher handeln könnte. Während sie fortfuhr, wurde Isabel blass; sie hielt ihre Hände fester in ihrem Schoß. Es lag nicht daran, dass ihr Besucher endlich dachte, es sei an der richtigen Zeit, unverschämt zu sein; das war nicht das Offensichtlichste. Es war ein schlimmeres Grauen als das. "Wer sind Sie - was sind Sie?", murmelte Isabel. "Was haben Sie mit meinem Mann zu tun?" Es war seltsam, dass sie für den Moment so nah an ihn herankam, als ob sie ihn liebte. "Ach, dann nehmen Sie es also heroisch! Es tut mir sehr leid. Denken Sie jedoch nicht, dass es bei mir genauso sein wird." "Was haben Sie mit mir zu tun?" fuhr Isabel fort. Madame Merle stand langsam auf, strich über ihren Pelzmuff, behielt jedoch ihren Blick auf Isabels Gesicht. "Alles!" antwortete sie. Isabel saß da und schaute zu ihr auf, ohne aufzustehen; ihr Gesicht war beinahe wie ein Gebet, um aufgeklärt zu werden. Aber das Licht in den Augen dieser Frau schien nur Dunkelheit zu sein. "Oh Elend!" murmelte sie schließlich und sie lehnte sich zurück, indem sie ihr Gesicht in ihren Händen verbarg. Es überkam sie wie eine hochschäumende Welle, dass Mrs. Touchett recht gehabt hatte. Madame Merle hatte sie verheiratet. Bevor sie ihr Gesicht wieder enthüllte, hatte die Dame den Raum verlassen. An diesem Nachmittag fuhr Isabel alleine spazieren; sie wollte weit weg sein, unter dem Himmel, wo sie aus ihrem Wagen steigen und auf den Gänseblümchen herumlaufen konnte. Sie hatte längst das alte Rom in ihr Vertrauen gezogen, denn in einer Welt voller Ruinen schien der Verlust ihres Glücks eine weniger natürliche Katastrophe zu sein. Sie ließ ihre Erschöpfung ruhen auf Dingen, die seit Jahrhunderten verfallen waren und dennoch aufrecht standen; sie ließ ihre geheime Traurigkeit in die Stille einsamer Orte fallen, wo ihre moderne Qualität selbst von ihr abwich und objektiv wurde, sodass sie, wenn sie an einem sonnenverwöhnten Ort an einem Wintertag saß oder in einer mottenzerfressenen Kirche stand, zu der niemand kam, beinahe lächeln konnte und an ihre Kleinheit denken konnte. Klein war sie in der großen römischen Geschichte und ihr beunruhigendes Gefühl für die Kontinuität des menschlichen Schicksals trug sie mühelos vom Kleineren zum Größeren. Sie hatte Rom tief und zärtlich kennengelernt; es durchdrang und milderte ihre Leidenschaft. Aber in erster Linie dachte sie an Rom als den Ort, wo die Menschen gelitten hatten. Dies kam zu ihr in den ausgehungerten Kirchen, wo die Marmorsäulen, übertragen aus heidnischen Ruinen, ihr Gemeinschaft in Ausdauer zu bieten schienen und der muffige Weihrauch eine Mischung aus lange unausgesprochenen Gebeten war. Niemand war ein sanfterer oder weniger beständiger Häretiker als Isabel; der standhafteste Verehrer, der auf düstere Altarbilder oder gruppierte Kerzen starrte, hätte die Aussagekraft dieser Objekte nicht intimer empfinden und in solchen Momenten nicht anfälliger für einen spirituellen Besuch sein können. Pansy, wie wir wissen, war fast immer ihr Begleiter, und in letzter Zeit hatte die Gräfin Gemini mit einem rosa Sonnenschirm ihrer Karosse Glanz verliehen; aber sie fand sich immer noch gelegentlich alleine, wenn es ihrer Stimmung und dem Ort entsprach. Bei solchen Gelegenheiten hatte sie verschiedene Rückzugsorte; der zugänglichste war vielleicht ein Sitz auf dem niedrigen Geländer, das den weiten Rasenplatz vor der hohen, kalten Front von San Giovanni im Lateran umrundet, von wo aus man über die Campagna auf die weitläufige Silhouette des Albaner Berges und auf diese mächtige Ebene schaut, die immer noch so voll von allem ist, was aus ihr geworden ist. Nach der Abreise ihres Cousins und seiner Begleiter streifte sie mehr als üblich umher; sie trug ihren düsteren Geist von einem vertrauten Schrein zum anderen. Selbst wenn Pansy und die Gräfin bei ihr waren, spürte sie die Berührung einer vergangenen Welt. Die Kutsche, die die Mauern Roms hinter sich ließ, rollte durch enge Gassen, in denen der wilde Geißblatt damit begonnen hatte, sich in den Hecken zu verwickeln, oder wartete an ruhigen Orten auf sie, wo die Felder nahe lagen, während sie weiter und weiter über die blumenbesprenkelte Wiese schlenderte oder auf einem Stein saß, der einmal einen Nutzen hatte, und durch den Schleier ihrer persönlichen Traurigkeit auf die herrliche Traurigkeit der Szenerie schaute - auf das dichte, warme Licht, die weit entfernten Abstufungen und sanften Farbverwirrungen, die regungslosen Hirten in einsamen Posen, die Hügel, auf denen die Wolken ihren leichten Schatten hatten wie Erröten. An diesem Nachmittag, von dem ich sprach, hatte sie sich vorgenommen, nicht an Madame Merle zu denken; aber der Vorsatz erwies sich als vergeblich und das Bild dieser Dame schwebte ständig vor ihr. Sie fragte sich mit einer fast kindlichen Horrorvorstellung, ob auf diese enge Freundin von mehreren Jahren das große historische Epitheton "böse" zutreffen würde. Sie kannte die Idee nur aus der Bibel und anderen literarischen Werken; nach ihrem besten Wissen kannte sie das Böse nicht persönlich. Sie hatte sich eine große Bekanntschaft mit dem menschlichen Leben gewünscht und trotz der Tatsache, dass sie sich eingeredet hatte, sie würde dies mit einigem Erfolg kultivieren, war ihr dieses elementare Privileg verwehrt geblieben. Vielleicht war es nicht böse - im historischen Sinne gesehen - sogar tief verborgen zu sein; denn das war es, was Madame Merle gewesen war - tief, tief, tief. Isabels Tante Lydia hatte diese Entdeckung schon lange zuvor gemacht und ihrer Nichte davon erzählt; aber Isabel hatte sich zu dieser Zeit eingeredet, dass sie eine viel reichhaltigere Sicht auf die Dinge hatte, vor allem auf die Spontaneität ihrer eigenen Karriere und die Edelheit ihrer eigenen Interpretationen, als die arme starr denkende Mrs. Touchett. Madame Merle hatte erreicht, was sie wollte; sie hatte die Vereinigung ihrer beiden Freunde herbeigeführt - eine Tatsache, die es umso verwunderlicher machte, dass sie ein solches Ereignis so sehr gewünscht hatte. Es gab Menschen, die die Passion der Heiratsvermittlung hatten, wie die Anhänger der Kunst um der Kunst willen; aber Madame Merle, großartige Künstlerin, war kaum eine von diesen. Sie dachte zu schlecht von der Ehe, zu schlecht sogar vom Leben; sie hatte jene bestimmte Ehe gewünscht, aber nicht andere. Sie hatte also einen Gewinn im Sinn gehabt und Isabel fragte sich, wo sie ihren Vorteil gefunden hatte. Es dauerte natürlich eine lange Zeit, bis sie es entdeckte, und selbst dann war ihre Entdeckung unvollständig. Es fiel ihr ein, dass Madame Merle, obwohl sie sie seit ihrem ersten Treffen in Gardencourt zu mögen schien, nach Mr. Touchetts Tod und nachdem sie erfahren hatte, dass ihre junge Freundin der Wohltätigkeit des alten Mannes ausgesetzt war, doppelt liebevoll gewesen war. Sie hatte ihren Gewinn nicht in der simplen Betrugsmasche des Geldleihens gefunden, sondern in der raffinierteren Idee, einen ihrer Vertrauten der j "Sprich nicht von Dankbarkeit", erwiderte er trocken. "Und verärgere mich nicht", fügte er nach einem Moment hinzu. Madame Merle setzte sich langsam mit verschränkten Armen hin, wobei sie ihre weißen Hände so arrangierte, dass sie als Stütze und gleichzeitig als Schmuck fungierten. Sie sah außergewöhnlich ruhig, aber beeindruckend traurig aus. "Auf deiner Seite versuche nicht, mich zu erschrecken. Ich frage mich, ob du einige meiner Gedanken errätst." "Ich mache mir nicht mehr Sorgen um sie, als nötig ist. Ich habe genug eigene Sorgen." "Weil sie so wunderbar sind." Osmond lehnte seinen Kopf gegen die Rückenlehne seines Stuhls und sah seinen Begleiter mit einer zynischen Direktheit an, die zugleich Ausdruck von Müdigkeit zu sein schien. "Du verärgerst mich wirklich", bemerkte er nach einem Moment. "Ich bin sehr müde." "Eh moi donc!" rief Madame Merle aus. "Bei dir ist es, weil du dich selbst ermüdest. Bei mir ist es nicht meine Schuld." "Wenn ich mich ermüde, tue ich das für dich. Ich habe dir ein Interesse gegeben. Das ist ein großes Geschenk." "Nennst du das ein Interesse?", erkundigte sich Osmond sachlich. "Natürlich, weil es dir hilft, deine Zeit zu verbringen." "Die Zeit erschien mir noch nie länger als diesen Winter." "Du hast noch nie besser ausgesehen; du warst noch nie so angenehm, so brillant." "Verdamme meine Brillanz!", murmelte er nachdenklich. "Wie wenig du mich, letztendlich, kennst!" "Wenn ich dich nicht kenne, kenne ich nichts", lächelte Madame Merle. "Du hast das Gefühl vollständigen Erfolgs." "Nein, das werde ich erst haben, wenn du aufhörst, mich zu beurteilen." "Das habe ich längst getan. Ich spreche aus altem Wissen. Aber du drückst dich jetzt deutlicher aus." Osmond zögerte kurz. "Ich wünschte, du würdest dich weniger ausdrücken!" "Ich wünsche, du würdest mich zum Schweigen verurteilen? Denk daran, ich war noch nie eine Schwätzerin. Es gibt jedoch drei oder vier Dinge, die ich dir sagen möchte. Deine Frau weiß nicht, was sie mit sich anfangen soll", fuhr sie mit einem veränderten Tonfall fort. "Verzeihung; sie weiß das perfekt. Sie hat eine klare Linie. Sie beabsichtigt, ihre Ideen umzusetzen." "Ihre Ideen müssen heute bemerkenswert sein." "Sicher sind sie das. Sie hat mehr von ihnen als je zuvor." "Heute Morgen konnte sie mir jedoch nichts zeigen", sagte Madame Merle. "Sie schien sehr einfach, fast dumm. Sie war vollkommen verwirrt." "Du könntest besser sagen, dass sie bemitleidenswert war." "Ach nein, ich möchte dich nicht zu sehr ermutigen." Er hatte seinen Kopf immer noch gegen das Kissen hinter ihm gelehnt; die Knöchel eines Fußes ruhten auf dem anderen Knie. So saß er eine Weile da. "Ich würde gerne wissen, was mit dir los ist", sagte er schließlich. "Was los ist - was los ist"! Und hier hielt Madame Merle inne. Dann setzte sie mit einem plötzlichen Wutausbruch, einem Ausbruch von Sommergewitter bei klarem Himmel fort: "Das Problem ist, dass ich meine rechte Hand geben würde, um weinen zu können, und dass ich es nicht kann!" Was würde es dir bringen zu weinen? Es würde mich so fühlen lassen, wie ich mich fühlte, bevor ich dich kannte. Wenn ich deine Tränen getrocknet habe, ist das doch etwas. Aber ich habe dich weinen sehen. Oh, ich glaube, du wirst mich immer noch zum Weinen bringen. Ich meine, du wirst mich heulen lassen wie ein Wolf. Ich habe große Hoffnung, ich habe großes Bedürfnis danach. Ich war heute Morgen gemein; ich war schrecklich", sagte sie. Wenn Isabel in dem dummen Zustand war, den du erwähnst, hat sie es wahrscheinlich nicht bemerkt, antwortete Osmond. Gerade mein Teufelswerk hat sie betäubt. Ich konnte nicht anders; ich war voller etwas Schlechtem. Vielleicht war es etwas Gutes; das weiß ich nicht. Du hast nicht nur meine Tränen getrocknet, du hast auch meine Seele ausgetrocknet. Dann bin also nicht ich für den Zustand meiner Frau verantwortlich, sagte Osmond. Es ist angenehm zu denken, dass ich von deinem Einfluss auf sie profitieren werde. Weißt du nicht, dass die Seele ein unvergängliches Prinzip ist? Wie kann es dann Veränderungen erfahren? Ich glaube überhaupt nicht, dass die Seele ein unvergängliches Prinzip ist. Ich glaube, sie kann perfekt zerstört werden. Das ist mit meiner geschehen, die von Anfang an sehr gut war, und dafür habe ich dir zu danken. Du bist sehr böse“, fügte sie mit Nachdruck hinzu. Ist das der Weg, wie wir enden sollen?, fragte Osmond mit derselben gekünstelten Kälte. Ich weiß nicht, wie wir enden sollen. Ich wünschte, ich wüsste es - Wie enden schlechte Menschen? - besonders in Bezug auf ihre GEWÖHNLICHEN Verbrechen. Du hast mich so schlecht gemacht wie dich selbst. Ich verstehe dich nicht. Du scheinst mir völlig gut genug zu sein, sagte Osmond und seine bewusste Gleichgültigkeit verlieh den Worten eine extrem wirkende Wirkung. Madame Merles Gelassenheit neigte im Gegenteil dazu, abzunehmen, und sie war näher daran, sie zu verlieren, als an irgendeinem Anlass, bei dem wir das Vergnügen hatten, sie zu treffen. Der Glanz in ihren Augen wurde düster; ihr Lächeln verriet eine schmerzhafte Anstrengung. "Gut genug für alles, was ich mit mir selbst gemacht habe? Das ist, was du meinst." "Gut genug, um immer bezaubernd zu sein!", rief Osmond ebenfalls lächelnd aus. "Oh Gott!", murmelte seine Begleiterin und beugte dort in ihrer Reife ihr Gesicht nach vorne und legte es in ihre Hände. Wirst du jetzt weinen?, fragte Osmond, und als sie reglos blieb, fuhr er fort: "Habe ich mich jemals bei dir beschwert?" Sie ließ schnell ihre Hände fallen. "Nein, du hast dich anders gerächt - du hast es an IHR vollzogen." Osmond warf seinen Kopf weiter zurück; er schaute eine Weile an die Decke und könnte man vermuten, dass er auf informelle Weise die göttlichen Kräfte anrief. "Oh, die Vorstellungskraft der Frauen! Sie ist im Grunde immer vulgär. Du sprichst von Rache wie eine mittelmäßige Romanautorin." "Natürlich hast du dich nie beschwert. Du hast deinen Triumph zu sehr genossen." Ich bin eher neugierig zu wissen, was du meinen Triumph nennst. Du hast deine Frau vor mir eingeschüchtert. Osmond veränderte seine Position; er lehnte sich vor, stützte seine Ellbogen auf die Knie und schaute eine Weile auf einen schönen alten persischen Teppich zu seinen Füßen. Er hatte eine Haltung, die keine Bewertung von irgendetwas, selbst nicht von Zeit, akzeptierte und es vorzog, bei seiner eigenen zu bleiben; eine Eigenschaft, die ihn zuweilen zu einer irritierenden Person im Gespräch machte. "Isabel hat keine Angst vor mir, und das ist nicht das, was ich möchte", sagte er schließlich. "Zu welchem Zweck willst du mich provozieren, wenn du solche Dinge sagst?" Ich habe darüber nachgedacht, welchen Schaden du mir zufügen kannst, antwortete Madame Merle. Deine Frau hatte heute Morgen Angst vor mir, aber eigentlich hatte sie Angst vor dir in mir." Vielleicht hast du Dinge gesagt, die "Meine Frau hat abgelehnt - abgelehnt, irgendetwas in dieser Art zu tun", sagte Osmond. "Wenn du entschlossen bist, daraus eine Tragödie zu machen, ist die Tragödie kaum für sie." "Die Tragödie ist für mich!", rief Madame Merle aus und stand auf, begleitet von einem langen, leisen Seufzer, aber sie warf gleichzeitig einen Blick auf den Inhalt ihres Kaminsimses. "Scheint, als würde ich hart dafür bestraft werden, dass ich eine falsche Position einnehme." "Du drückst dich wie ein Satz in einem Schulheft aus. Wir müssen nach unserem Trost suchen, wo wir ihn finden können. Wenn meine Frau mich nicht mag, dann mag mich zumindest mein Kind. Ich werde in Pansy nach Kompensation suchen. Glücklicherweise habe ich keinen Grund, etwas an ihr auszusetzen." "Ah", sagte sie leise, "hätte ich nur ein Kind...!" Osmond wartete und fragte dann mit einer etwas formellen Art: "Die Kinder anderer können sehr interessant sein!", verkündete er. "Du bist mehr wie ein Schulheft als ich. Es gibt doch etwas, das uns zusammenhält." "Ist es die Vorstellung, welchen Schaden ich dir zufügen kann?", fragte Osmond. "Nein, es ist die Vorstellung, welchen Nutzen ich dir bringen kann. Das ist es", fuhr Madame Merle fort, während sich ihr Gesicht, das hart und bitter geworden war, zu seiner üblichen Glätte entspannte. Ihr Freund nahm seinen Hut und seinen Regenschirm und nachdem er den ersteren Gegenstand zwei- oder dreimal mit dem Ärmel seines Mantels geschlagen hatte, sagte er mit etwas förmlicher Miene: "Alles in allem denke ich, du solltest es besser mir überlassen." Nachdem er sie verlassen hatte, ging sie als erstes zu ihrem Kaminsims und nahm die dünne Kaffeetasse herunter, von der er erwähnt hatte, dass sie einen Sprung hat; aber sie betrachtete sie eher abwesend. "War ich so verabscheuungswürdig, ohne jeden Grund?", klagte sie vage. Da die Gräfin Gemini nicht mit den antiken Monumenten vertraut war, bot Isabel gelegentlich an, sie mit diesen interessanten Reliquien bekannt zu machen und ihrer Nachmittagsfahrt einen antiquarischen Zweck zu geben. Die Gräfin, die behauptete, ihre Schwägerin sei ein Wunder an Bildung, hatte nichts dagegen einzuwenden und betrachtete Massen römischer Ziegelsteine geduldig, als wären es moderne Stoffmuster. Sie hatte kein historisches Gespür, obwohl sie in manchen Bereichen ein Talent für Anekdoten hatte und sich selbst gegenüber entschuldigte, doch sie war so erfreut, in Rom zu sein, dass sie sich nur von der Strömung tragen lassen wollte. Sie hätte gerne eine Stunde jeden Tag in der feuchten Dunkelheit der Thermen des Titus verbracht, wenn es eine Bedingung dafür gewesen wäre, im Palazzo Roccanera zu bleiben. Isabel war jedoch keine strenge Fremdenführerin; sie besuchte die Ruinen hauptsächlich, weil sie eine Ausrede boten, um über andere Dinge als die Liebesaffären der Damen von Florenz zu sprechen, über die ihre Begleiterin niemals müde wurde, Informationen anzubieten. Es muss hinzugefügt werden, dass die Gräfin während dieser Besuche jede Form von aktiver Forschung verbot; ihre Vorliebe war es, im Wagen zu sitzen und zu erklären, dass alles äußerst interessant sei. Auf diese Weise hatte sie bisher auch das Kolosseum betrachtet, zum großen Bedauern ihrer Nichte, die - bei allem Respekt, den sie ihr schuldete - nicht verstehen konnte, warum sie das Gebäude nicht betreten durfte. Pansy hatte so wenig Gelegenheit zum Herumstreifen, dass ihre Sicht auf den Fall nicht völlig uneigennützig war; man kann erahnen, dass sie insgeheim die Hoffnung hatte, dass ihre Elterns Gästin, wenn sie erst einmal drinnen war, dazu gebracht werden könnte, auf die oberen Ränge zu klettern. Es kam der Tag, an dem die Gräfin ihre Bereitschaft ankündigte, diese Tat zu vollbringen - ein lauer Nachmittag im März, an dem der windige Monat sich gelegentlich in Frühlingsböen äußerte. Die drei Damen gingen zusammen ins Kolosseum, aber Isabel ließ ihre Begleiterinnen alleine durch den Ort wandern. Sie war oft auf diese verlassenen Tribünen gestiegen, von denen die römische Menge einst Beifall brüllte und wo nun die Wildblumen (wenn sie erlaubt sind) in den tiefen Spalten blühen; und heute fühlte sie sich müde und hatte Lust, in der geplünderten Arena zu sitzen. Das war auch eine Pause, denn die Gräfin beanspruchte oft mehr Aufmerksamkeit, als sie selbst gab, und Isabel glaubte, dass sie, wenn sie alleine mit ihrer Nichte war, für einen Moment den Staub auf den alten Skandalen der Arniden liegen ließ. Sie blieb daher unten, während Pansy ihre unkritische Tante zur steilen Ziegelstein-Treppe führte, an deren Fuß der Wärter das hohe Holztor aufschließt. Die große Auffangfläche stand zur Hälfte im Schatten; die Abendsonne brachte den blassen Rotton der großen Travertinblöcke zum Vorschein - die verborgene Farbe, das einzige lebendige Element in der riesigen Ruine. Hier und da irrte ein Bauer oder ein Tourist umher und schaute nach oben zur fernen Skyline, wo, in klarer Stille, eine Vielzahl von Schwalben kreisten und stürzten. Isabel wurde bald gewahr, dass einer der anderen Besucher, der mitten in der Arena stand, seine Aufmerksamkeit auf ihre eigene Person gerichtet hatte und sie mit einer gewissen kleinen Kopfhaltung betrachtete, die sie einige Wochen zuvor als charakteristisch für vereitelten, aber unzerstörbaren Zweck erkannt hatte. Eine solche Haltung konnte heute nur Mr. Edward Rosier gehören; und tatsächlich stellte sich heraus, dass dieser Herr die Absicht hatte, mit ihr zu sprechen. Als er sich vergewissert hatte, dass sie alleine war, kam er näher und bemerkte, dass sie zwar nicht auf seine Briefe antwortete, aber vielleicht seinen gesprochenen Ergüssen nicht ganz ihre Ohren verschließen würde. Sie erwiderte, dass ihre Stieftochter in der Nähe sei und dass sie ihm nur fünf Minuten geben könne. Daraufhin holte er seine Uhr heraus und setzte sich auf einen zerbrochenen Block. "Es ist schnell erzählt", sagte Edward Rosier. "Ich habe all meine Kunstgegenstände verkauft!" Isabel gab instinktiv einen Ausruf des Entsetzens von sich; es war, als hätte er ihr gesagt, er hätte sich alle Zähne ziehen lassen. "Ich habe sie vor drei Tagen bei einer Auktion im Hotel Drouot verkauft, und man hat mir das Ergebnis telegrafiert. Es ist großartig." "Es freut mich zu hören; aber ich wünschte, du hättest deine hübschen Dinge behalten." "Ich habe stattdessen das Geld bekommen - fünfzigtausend Dollar. Wird Mr. Osmond jetzt denken, dass ich reich genug bin?" "War es deshalb, dass du es getan hast?", fragte Isabel sanft. "Für was sonst auf der Welt könnte es sein? Das ist das einzige, woran ich denke. Ich bin nach Paris gegangen und habe meine Pläne gemacht. Ich konnte nicht für die Auktion bleiben; ich hätte sie nicht verkaufen sehen können; ich glaube, es hätte mich umgebracht. Aber ich habe sie in gute Hände gegeben, und sie haben hohe Preise erzielt. Ich sollte dir sagen, dass ich meine Email-Arbeiten behalten habe. Jetzt habe ich das Geld in meiner Tasche, und er kann nicht behaupten, dass ich arm bin!" Der junge Mann rief es herausfordernd aus. "Er wird jetzt sagen, dass du nicht klug bist", sagte Isabel, als ob Gilbert Osmond das noch nie zuvor gesagt hätte. Rosier warf ihr einen scharfen Blick zu. "Meinst du, dass ich ohne meine Kunstgegenstände nichts bin? Meinst du, dass sie das Beste an mir waren? Das haben sie mir in Paris gesagt; oh, sie waren sehr offenherzig dabei. Aber sie haben SIE nicht gesehen!" "Mein lieber Freund, du verdienst es, Erfolg zu haben", sagte Isabel sehr freundlich. "Du sagst das so traurig, dass es dasselbe ist, als ob du sagen würdest, dass ich keinen haben werde." Und er fragte ihre Augen "Ich fühle mich sehr sicher!", erklärte Rosier, ohne sich zu bewegen. Dies mag sein; aber offensichtlich fühlte er sich zudem sicherer, indem er die Ankündigung in ziemlich lauter Stimme machte, sich etwas selbstzufrieden auf die Zehenspitzen stellte und sich dabei umschaute, als wäre das Kolosseum mit einem Publikum gefüllt. Plötzlich sah Isabel, dass er die Farbe wechselte; es gab mehr Publikum, als er vermutet hatte. Sie drehte sich um und bemerkte, dass ihre beiden Begleiter von ihrem Ausflug zurückgekehrt waren. "Du musst wirklich gehen", sagte sie schnell. "Ach, meine liebe Dame, habt Mitleid mit mir!" murmelte Edward Rosier mit einer Stimme, die seltsamerweise nicht im Einklang mit der zuvor zitierten Ankündigung stand. Und dann fügte er hastig hinzu, wie ein Mann, der inmitten seines Unglücks von einem glücklichen Gedanken ergriffen wird: "Ist diese Dame die Gräfin Gemini? Ich habe sehr den Wunsch, ihr vorgestellt zu werden." Isabel betrachtete ihn einen Moment lang. "Sie hat keinen Einfluss auf ihren Bruder." "Ach, was für ein Ungeheuer du aus ihm machst!" Und Rosier wandte sich der Gräfin zu, die sich, vor Pansy hergehend, mit einer gewissen Begeisterung näherte, die vielleicht auch dadurch bedingt war, dass sie ihre Schwägerin in einem Gespräch mit einem sehr hübschen jungen Mann sah. "Ich bin froh, dass du deine Emaillebilder behalten hast!" rief Isabel, als sie ihn verließ. Sie ging geradewegs zu Pansy, die, als sie Edward Rosier sah, stehenblieb und die Augen senkte. "Wir werden zum Wagen zurückgehen", sagte sie sanft. "Ja, es wird spät", antwortete Pansy noch sanfter. Und sie ging weiter, ohne zu murren, zu zögern oder zurückzublicken. Isabel erlaubte sich jedoch diese letzte Freiheit und sah, dass sofort ein Treffen zwischen der Gräfin und Herrn Rosier stattfand. Er hatte seinen Hut abgenommen, sich verbeugt und gelächelt; offensichtlich hatte er sich vorgestellt, während der anmutige Rücken der Gräfin Isabels Augen eine höfliche Neigung zeigte. Trotzdem gerieten diese Tatsachen bald aus dem Blickfeld, denn Isabel und Pansy nahmen wieder im Wagen Platz. Pansy, die ihrer Stiefmutter gegenüber saß, hielt anfangs den Blick auf ihren Schoß gerichtet; dann hob sie ihn an und ruhte ihn auf Isabels. Aus jedem dieser Blicke strahlte ein kleiner melancholischer Strahl - ein Funke scheuer Leidenschaft, der Isabel ans Herz ging. Gleichzeitig durchzog sie eine Welle des Neids, während sie die zitternde Sehnsucht und das klare Ideal des Mädchens mit ihrer eigenen trockenen Verzweiflung verglich. "Arme kleine Pansy!", sagte sie liebevoll. "Oh, ist nicht so schlimm!" antwortete Pansy in einem eifrigen Ton der Entschuldigung. Und dann herrschte Stille; die Gräfin ließ lange auf sich warten. "Hast du deiner Tante alles gezeigt und hat es ihr gefallen?" fragte Isabel schließlich. "Ja, ich habe ihr alles gezeigt. Ich glaube, es hat ihr sehr gut gefallen." "Und du bist nicht müde, hoffe ich." "Oh nein, danke, ich bin nicht müde." Die Gräfin ließ immer noch auf sich warten, also bat Isabel den Diener, ins Kolosseum zu gehen und der Signora Contessa mitzuteilen, dass sie auf sie warten. Er kehrte bald mit der Ankündigung zurück, dass die Signora Contessa bat, nicht zu warten - sie würde mit einem Taxi nach Hause fahren! Etwa eine Woche nachdem sich die schnelle Sympathie dieser Dame für Herrn Rosier eingesetzt hatte, fand Isabel Pansy recht spät in ihrem Zimmer sitzend, als sie sich zum Abendessen anzog. Das Mädchen schien auf sie gewartet zu haben; sie stand von ihrem niedrigen Stuhl auf. "Verzeihen Sie meine Freiheit", sagte sie mit leiser Stimme. "Es wird das Letzte sein - für einige Zeit." Ihre Stimme war eigenartig, und ihre Augen, weit geöffnet, hatten einen aufgeregten, ängstlichen Blick. "Du gehst weg!" rief Isabel aus. "Ich gehe ins Kloster." "Ins Kloster?" Pansy rückte näher, bis sie nahe genug war, um ihre Arme um Isabel zu legen und den Kopf auf ihre Schulter zu legen. Sie stand eine Weile so da, völlig regungslos, aber ihre Begleiterin konnte spüren, wie sie zitterte. Das Zittern ihres kleinen Körpers drückte alles aus, was sie nicht sagen konnte. Isabel drängte sie dennoch. "Warum gehst du ins Kloster?" "Weil Papa denkt, dass es das Beste ist. Er sagt, dass es für ein junges Mädchen gelegentlich besser ist, sich ein wenig zurückzuziehen. Er sagt, dass die Welt, immer die Welt, sehr schlecht für ein junges Mädchen ist. Das ist nur eine Gelegenheit für eine kleine Abgeschiedenheit - eine kleine Besinnung." Pansy sprach in kurzen, abgehackten Sätzen, als ob sie sich kaum selbst vertrauen würde; und dann fügte sie mit einem Triumph der Selbstkontrolle hinzu: "Ich denke, Papa hat recht. Ich war diesen Winter so viel in der Welt." Ihre Ankündigung hatte eine seltsame Wirkung auf Isabel; es schien, als habe sie eine größere Bedeutung als das Mädchen selbst wusste. "Wann wurde das beschlossen?" fragte sie. "Ich habe nichts davon gehört." "Papa hat es mir vor einer halben Stunde gesagt; er dachte, es sei besser, dass man nicht zu viel im Voraus darüber spricht. Madame Catherine soll um Viertel nach sieben kommen, und ich soll nur zwei Kleider mitnehmen. Es ist nur für ein paar Wochen; ich bin mir sicher, dass es sehr gut sein wird. Ich werde all diese Damen wiedersehen, die so nett zu mir waren, und ich werde die kleinen Mädchen sehen, die erzogen werden. Ich mag kleine Mädchen sehr gerne", sagte Pansy mit einer Wirkung von kleinkindlicher Größe. "Und ich mag auch Mutter Catherine sehr gerne. Ich werde sehr ruhig sein und viel nachdenken." Isabel hörte ihr zu und hielt den Atem an; sie war fast ehrfürchtig. "Denke auch manchmal an mich." "Ah, komm mich bald besuchen!" rief Pansy; und der Ruf unterschied sich sehr von den heroischen Bemerkungen, die sie gerade gemacht hatte. Isabel konnte nichts mehr sagen; sie verstand nichts; sie fühlte nur, wie wenig sie ihren Ehemann bisher kannte. Ihre Antwort an seine Tochter war ein langer, zärtlicher Kuss. Eine halbe Stunde später erfuhr sie von ihrer Kammerzofe, dass Madame Catherine in einem Taxi angekommen und wieder mit der Signorina abgereist war. Als sie vor dem Abendessen ins Wohnzimmer ging, fand sie die Gräfin Gemini allein vor, und diese Dame charakterisierte den Vorfall mit einem wunderbaren Wurf des Kopfes: "En voila, ma chère, une pose!" Aber wenn es eine Pose war, wusste sie nicht, was ihr Ehemann damit bezweckte. Sie konnte nur vage erkennen, dass er mehr Traditionen hatte, als sie vermutet hatte. Es war zu ihrer Gewohnheit geworden, so darauf zu achten, was sie zu ihm sagte, dass sie, so seltsam es auch erscheinen mag, mehrere Minuten zögerte, nachdem er hereingekommen war, um auf seine plötzliche Abreise seiner Tochter anzuspielen: darüber sprach sie nur, nachdem sie am Tisch Platz genommen hatten. Aber sie hatte sich selbst verboten, Osmond eine Frage zu stellen. Alles, was sie tun konnte, war eine Erklärung abzugeben, und eine solche kam ihr sehr natürlich vor. "Ich werde Pansy sehr vermissen." Er betrachtete eine Weile den Blumenkorb in der Mitte des Tisches, den Kopf leicht geneigt. "Ah ja", sagte er schließlich, "ich hatte daran gedacht. Du musst sie besuchen, weißt du; aber nicht zu oft. Ich vermute, du fragst dich, warum ich sie zu den guten Schwestern geschickt habe. Aber ich bezweifle, dass ich es dir erklären kann. Es ist auch nicht wichtig; mach dir keine Gedanken darum. Deshalb habe ich nichts davon gesagt. Ich dachte nicht, dass du es verstehen würdest. Aber ich hatte schon immer die Vorstellung; ich habe es immer als Teil der Erziehung meiner Tochter angesehen. Meine Tochter sollte frisch und schön sein; sie sollte unschuldig und sanft sein. Mit den Manieren der heutigen Zeit besteht die Gefahr, dass sie so verstaubt und zerknittert wird. Pansy ist ein bisschen staubig, ein bisschen zerzaust; sie hat zu viel mitgemacht. Dieses geschäftige, drängende Pack, das sich Gesellschaft nennt - man sollte sie ab und zu daraus nehmen. Klöster sind sehr ruhig, sehr praktisch, sehr gesund. Ich denke gerne daran, wie sie dort ist, im alten Garten, unter dem Arkadenhof, umgeben von diesen ruhigen, tugendhaften Frauen. Viele von ihnen sind geborene Edelfrauen; einige von ihnen sind adelig. Sie wird ihre Bücher und ihr Zeichnen haben, ihr Klavier. Ich habe die großzügigsten Vereinbarungen getroffen. Es wird nichts Asketisches geben; es soll nur ein gewisses Gefühl der Abgeschiedenheit geben. Sie wird Zeit zum Nachdenken haben, und es gibt etwas, worüber ich möchte, dass sie nachdenkt." Osmond sprach bedächtig, vernünftig, immer noch den Kopf zur Seite geneigt, als schaue er auf den Blumenkorb. Sein Ton jedoch war der eines Mannes, der nicht so sehr eine Erklärung anbietet, sondern eine Sache in Worte bringt - fast in Bilder -, um zu sehen, selbst, wie es aussehen würde. Er betrachtete eine Weile das Bild, das er heraufbeschworen hatte, und schien sehr zufrieden damit zu sein. Und dann fuhr er fort: "Die Katholiken sind am Ende sehr klug. Das Kloster ist eine großartige Einrichtung; wir können nicht ohne sie auskommen; sie entspricht einem wesentlichen Bedürfnis in Familien, in der Gesellschaft. Es ist eine Schule für gute Manieren; es ist eine Schule für Ruhe. Oh, ich möchte meine Tochter nicht von der Welt trennen", fügte er hinzu. "Ich möchte sie nicht dazu bringen, ihre Gedanken auf etwas anderes zu richten. Diese Hier und Jetzt ist gut genug, wie SIE es aufnehmen soll, und sie kann so viel daran denken, wie sie möchte. Nur soll sie in der richtigen Weise daran denken." Isabel schenkte dieser kleinen Skizze höchste Aufmerksamkeit; sie fand sie tatsächlich äußerst interessant. Es schien ihr zu zeigen, wie weit der Wunsch ihres Mannes, wirksam zu sein, gehen konnte - bis hin zu theoretischen Spielereien am empfindlichen Organismus seiner Tochter. Sie konnte seinen Zweck nicht vollständig verstehen, nein - nicht ganz; aber sie verstand ihn besser, als er vermutete oder wünschte, insofern sie überzeugt war, dass das ganze Verfahren eine ausgetüftelte Täuschung war, die an sie gerichtet war und auf ihre Vorstellungskraft wirken sollte. Er hatte etwas Aufsehenerregendes und Willkürliches tun wollen, etwas Unerwartetes und Raffiniertes; den Unterschied zwischen seinen Sympathien und ihren eigenen kennzeichnen und zeigen, dass es natürlich war, dass er seine Tochter als kostbares Kunstwerk betrachtete und daher immer vorsichtiger bei den letzten Feinheiten sein sollte. Wenn er wirksam sein wollte, hatte er Erfolg; der Vorfall versetzte Isabel einen Schauer. Pansy hatte das Kloster in ihrer Kindheit schon einmal kennengelernt und hatte dort ein glückliches Zuhause gefunden; sie mochte die guten Schwestern, die sehr auf sie bedacht waren, und daher gab es vorläufig keine konkreten Härten in ihrem Schicksal. Aber trotzdem war das Mädchen erschrocken; der Eindruck, den ihr Vater vermitteln wollte, würde offensichtlich scharf genug sein. Die alte protestantische Tradition war nie aus Isabels Vorstellung verschwunden, und als sich ihre Gedanken an dieses markante Beispiel von ihrem Manns Genie hefteten - sie saß wie er und schaute auf den Blumenkorb - wurde die arme kleine Pansy zur Heldin einer Tragödie. Osmond wollte bekannt machen, dass er vor nichts zurückschreckte, und seine Frau fand es schwer, so zu tun, als ob sie ihr Abendessen essen würde. Es war eine gewisse Erleichterung, als sie schließlich die hohe, angespannte Stimme ihrer Schwägerin hörte. Die Gräfin hatte offenbar auch über die Sache nachgedacht, aber zu einer anderen Schlussfolgerung als Isabel gekommen. "Es ist sehr absurd, mein lieber Osmond", sagte sie, "so viele hübsche Gründe für das Verbanntsein der armen Pansy zu erfinden. Warum sagst du nicht gleich, dass du sie aus dem Weg haben willst? Hast du nicht bemerkt, dass ich sehr gut von Mr. Rosier halte? Ich tue das wirklich; er scheint mir simpaticissimo. Er hat mich an wahren Liebe glauben lassen; das habe ich vorher nie getan! Natürlich hast du dir eingebildet, dass ich bei diesen Überzeugungen für Pansy schreckliche Gesellschaft bin." Osmond nahm einen Schluck aus einem Glas Wein; er sah völlig gutmütig aus. "Meine liebe Amy", antwortete er, lächelnd, als ob er eine galante Bemerkung machen würde, "ich weiß nichts von deinen Überzeugungen, aber wenn ich vermuten würde, dass sie meine beeinträchtigen, wäre es viel einfacher, DICH zu verbannen." Gilbert Osmond legte seine kleinen Werkzeuge beiseite, entfernte einen Staubfleck von seiner Zeichnung, stand langsam auf und schaute zum ersten Mal seine Frau an. "Dass ich mich nicht eingemischt habe, als er hier war." "Oh ja, das tue ich. Ich erinnere mich genau daran, wie deutlich du mir klargemacht hast, dass es dir nicht gefallen hat. Ich war sehr froh, als er weg war." "Lass ihn in Ruhe. Laufe ihm nicht nach." Isabel wandte ihre Augen von ihm ab; sie ruhten auf seiner kleinen Zeichnung. "Ich muss nach England gehen", sagte sie, in vollem Bewusstsein, dass ihr Ton einen reizbaren Mann des Geschmacks als dumm stur erscheinen könnte. "Dann wird es mir nicht gefallen," bemerkte Osmond. "Warum sollte mir das etwas ausmachen? Es wird dir nicht gefallen, wenn ich es nicht tue. Du magst nichts, was ich tue oder nicht tue. Du tust so, als ob du denkst, ich lüge." Osmond wurde leicht blass; er lächelte kalt. "Deswegen musst du also gehen? Nicht um deinen Cousin zu sehen, sondern um Rache an mir zu nehmen." "Ich weiß nichts von Rache." "Ich schon", sagte Osmond. "Gib mir keinen Anlass dafür." "Du bist nur zu bereit, einen zu finden. Du wünschst dir sehr, dass ich einen Fehler begehe." "In dem Fall wäre ich erfreut, wenn du mir nicht gehorchst." "Wenn ich dir nicht gehorche?", sagte Isabel leise, mit einem sanften Unterton. "Lass es klar sein. Wenn du heute Rom verlässt, wäre das pure und bewusste Opposition." "Wie kannst du das kalkuliert nennen? Ich habe gerade vor drei Minuten die Telegramm meiner Tante erhalten." "Du kalkulierst schnell; das ist eine große Fähigkeit. Ich sehe keinen Grund, unsere Diskussion zu verlängern; du kennst meinen Wunsch." Und er stand da, als erwarte er, dass sie sich zurückzieht. Aber sie rührte sich nicht; sie konnte sich nicht rühren, so seltsam es auch klingen mag; sie wollte sich immer noch rechtfertigen; er hatte die Macht, in außergewöhnlichem Maße, sie dieses Bedürfnis fühlen zu lassen. Es gab etwas in ihrer Vorstellungskraft, auf das er immer gegen ihr Urteilsvermögen appellieren konnte. "Du hast keinen Grund für solchen Wunsch", sagte Isabel, "und ich habe allen Grund zu gehen. Ich kann dir nicht sagen, wie ungerecht du mir erscheinst. Aber ich denke, du weißt es. Es ist deine eigene Opposition, die kalkuliert ist. Sie ist bösartig." Sie hatte ihre schlimmsten Gedanken noch nie zuvor ihrem Ehemann gegenüber geäußert, und die Empfindung, sie zu hören, schien Osmond offensichtlich neu zu sein. Aber er zeigte keine Überraschung, und seine Kühle war anscheinend ein Beweis dafür, dass er geglaubt hatte, seine Frau würde seiner geschickten Bemühung, sie herauszulocken, tatsächlich nicht für immer widerstehen können. "Dann ist es umso intensiver", antwortete er. Und er fügte fast so, als würde er ihr einen freundlichen Rat geben: "Das ist eine sehr wichtige Angelegenheit." Sie erkannte das; sie war sich der Bedeutung des Moments voll bewusst; sie wusste, dass sie sich in einer Krise befanden. Ihre Ernsthaftigkeit machte sie vorsichtig; sie sagte nichts, und er fuhr fort. "Du sagst, ich habe keinen Grund? Ich habe den allerbesten. Ich verabscheue, aus tiefstem Herzen, was du beabsichtigst zu tun. Es ist ehrlos, es ist untaktvoll, es ist anstößig. Dein Cousin bedeutet mir überhaupt nichts, und ich bin nicht verpflichtet, ihm Zugeständnisse zu machen. Ich habe bereits die großzügigsten gemacht. Deine Beziehung zu ihm hat mich auf Nadeln gehalten, als er hier war, aber ich ließ das zu, weil ich von Woche zu Woche erwartete, dass er geht. Ich habe ihn noch nie gemocht, und er hat mich nie gemocht. Das ist der Grund, warum du ihn magst - weil er mich hasst", sagte Osmond mit einem schnellen, kaum hörbaren Zittern in seiner Stimme. "Ich habe eine Vorstellung davon, was meine Frau tun und nicht tun sollte. Sie sollte nicht allein quer durch Europa reisen, gegen meinen tiefsten Wunsch, um am Bett anderer Männer zu sitzen. Dein Cousin bedeutet dir nichts; er bedeutet uns nichts. Du lächelst sehr ausdrucksstark, wenn ich über UNS spreche, aber ich versichere dir, dass WIR, WIR, Mrs. Osmond, alles sind, was ich kenne. Ich nehme unsere Ehe ernst; du scheinst einen Weg gefunden zu haben, das nicht zu tun. Mir ist nicht bewusst, dass wir geschieden oder getrennt sind; für mich sind wir unauflöslich verbunden. Du bist mir näher als alles andere, und ich bin dir näher. Es mag eine unangenehme Nähe sein, es ist zumindest eine, die wir bewusst geschaffen haben. Du magst nicht daran erinnert werden, das weiß ich; aber ich bin vollkommen bereit, weil - weil -" Und er machte einen Moment Pause und sah aus, als hätte er etwas zu sagen, was sehr wichtig sein würde. "Weil ich denke, wir sollten die Konsequenzen unserer Handlungen akzeptieren, und was ich im Leben am meisten schätze, ist die Ehre der Dinge!" Er sprach ernst und fast sanft; der Ton des Sarkasmus war aus seiner Stimme verschwunden. Es hatte eine Ernsthaftigkeit, die die heftigen Emotionen seiner Frau bremste; die Entschlossenheit, mit der sie in das Zimmer gekommen war, befand sich nun in einem Netz feiner Fäden gefangen. Seine letzten Worte waren kein Befehl, sie waren eine Art Appell; und obwohl sie fühlte, dass jeder Ausdruck von Respekt seinerseits nur eine Verfeinerung des Egoismus sein konnte, repräsentierten sie etwas Transzendentes und Absolutes, wie das Kreuzzeichen oder die Flagge des eigenen Landes. Er sprach im Namen von etwas Heiligem und Kostbarem - der Einhaltung einer großartigen Form. Sie waren in ihren Gefühlen so völlig getrennt wie zwei desillusionierte Liebende es je gewesen waren; aber sie hatten sich noch nie in der Tat getrennt. Isabel hatte sich nicht verändert; ihre alte Leidenschaft für Gerechtigkeit wohnte noch in ihr; und jetzt, mitten in ihrem Gefühl für den blasphemischen Sophismus ihres Mannes, begann es im Takt zu pochen, der ihm für einen Moment den Sieg versprach. Es kam über sie, dass er in seinem Wunsch, die äußere Erscheinung zu wahren, immerhin aufrichtig war, und dass dies, soweit es ging, ein Verdienst war. Zehn Minuten zuvor hatte sie sich über die Freude einer unreflektierten Handlung gefreut - eine Freude, von der sie so lange ein Fremder gewesen war; aber die Handlung war plötzlich zu einer langsamen Aufgabe geworden, verwandelt durch den Fluch von Osmonds Berührung. Wenn sie jedoch verzichten müsse, würde sie ihn wissen lassen, dass sie ein Opfer und keine Täuschung war. "Ich weiß, du bist ein Meister der Kunst der Spottrede", sagte sie. "Wie kannst du von einer unauflöslichen Verbindung sprechen - wie kannst du von deiner Zufriedenheit sprechen? Wo ist unsere Verbindung, wenn du mich der Falschheit beschuldigst? Wo ist deine Zufriedenheit, wenn du nichts als abscheulichen Verdacht in deinem Herzen hast?" "Sie besteht darin, dass wir anständig zusammenleben, trotz solcher Hindernisse." "Wir leben nicht anständig zusammen!" rief Isabel. "In der Tat nicht, wenn du nach England gehst." "Das ist sehr wenig; das ist nichts. Ich könnte viel mehr tun." Er hob die Augenbra Die Gräfin warf ihr Buch hinunter. "Ah, er war so simpatico. Es tut mir wirklich leid für dich." "Du wärst noch betrübter, wenn du wüsstest." "Was gibt es zu wissen? Du siehst sehr schlecht aus", fügte die Gräfin hinzu. "Du musst mit Osmond gewesen sein." Eine halbe Stunde zuvor hätte Isabel sehr kalt auf einen Hinweis reagiert, dass sie jemals das Bedürfnis nach dem Mitgefühl ihrer Schwägerin verspüren würde, und es gibt keinen besseren Beweis für ihre gegenwärtige Verlegenheit, als dass sie fast nach der flatternden Aufmerksamkeit dieser Dame gegriffen hat. "Ich war bei Osmond", sagte sie, während die strahlenden Augen der Gräfin auf sie glänzten. "Ich bin sicher, er hat sich furchtbar benommen!" rief die Gräfin aus. "Hat er gesagt, er sei froh über Mr. Touchetts Tod?" "Er sagte, es ist unmöglich, dass ich nach England gehe." Der Geist der Gräfin war beweglich, wenn es um ihre Interessen ging; sie konnte bereits das Ende jeder weiteren Helligkeit ihres Besuchs in Rom vorhersehen. Ralph Touchett würde sterben, Isabel würde trauern, und dann gäbe es keine weiteren Dinnerpartys mehr. Diese Aussicht zeigte für einen Moment eine ausdrucksstarke Grimasse in ihrem Gesicht, aber dieses schnelle und malerische Spiel ihrer Gesichtszüge war ihr einziger Tribut an Enttäuschung. Schließlich überlegte sie, das Spiel sei fast zu Ende; sie hatte ihre Einladung bereits überzogen. Und dann bedeutete ihr Isabels Probleme genug, um ihre eigenen zu vergessen, und sie sah, dass Isabels Problem tief war. Es schien tiefer zu sein als der bloße Tod eines Cousins, und die Gräfin zögerte nicht, ihren ärgerlichen Bruder mit dem Ausdruck in den Augen ihrer Schwägerin in Verbindung zu bringen. Ihr Herz klopfte vor einer fast freudigen Erwartung, denn wenn sie wollte, dass Osmond übertroffen würde, schienen die Bedingungen jetzt günstig. Natürlich würde sie, wenn Isabel nach England gehen sollte, sofort Palazzo Roccanera verlassen; nichts würde sie dazu bringen, dort mit Osmond zu bleiben. Dennoch verspürte sie eine immense Sehnsucht zu hören, dass Isabel nach England gehen würde. "Für dich ist nichts unmöglich, meine Liebe", sagte sie liebevoll. "Warum sonst bist du reich und clever und gut?" "Warum in der Tat? Ich fühle mich dumm schwach." "Warum sagt Osmond, dass es unmöglich ist?", fragte die Gräfin in einem Ton, der deutlich machte, dass sie es sich nicht vorstellen konnte. Ab dem Moment, in dem sie so begann, begann Isabel sich zurückzuziehen; sie löste ihre Hand, die die Gräfin liebevoll ergriffen hatte. Aber sie antwortete auf diese Frage mit offenem Bitternis. "Weil wir so glücklich zusammen sind, dass wir uns nicht einmal für vierzehn Tage trennen können." "Ah", rief die Gräfin, als Isabel sich abwandte, "wenn ich eine Reise machen möchte, sagt mir mein Mann einfach, dass ich kein Geld haben kann!" Isabel ging in ihr Zimmer, wo sie eine Stunde lang auf und ab ging. Einigen Lesern mag es erscheinen, dass sie sich viel Mühe gegeben hat, und es steht fest, dass sie sich als Frau von hohem Geist leicht hat aufhalten lassen. Es schien ihr, dass sie erst jetzt das große Unterfangen der Ehe vollständig erfasst hatte. Eine Hochzeit bedeutete, dass man in einem Fall wie diesem, wenn man wählen musste, natürlich für ihren Ehemann wählt. "Ich fürchte - ja, ich fürchte," sagte sie mehr als einmal zu sich selbst und blieb in ihrem Gang stehen. Aber wovor sie Angst hatte, war nicht ihr Ehemann – sein Missfallen, sein Hass, seine Rache; es war nicht einmal ihr eigenes späteres Urteil über ihr Verhalten, eine Erwägung, die sie oft zurückgehalten hatte; es war einfach die Gewalt in dem Akt, wenn Osmond wollte, dass sie bleibt, es war ein Schrecken für ihn, dass sie geht. Es hatte sich eine Kluft zwischen ihnen aufgetan, aber trotzdem war sein Wunsch, dass sie bleibt, ihm ein Horror. Sie kannte die nervliche Feinheit, mit der er Einwände spüren konnte. Was er von ihr hielt, wusste sie, was er zu ihr sagen konnte, hatte sie gespürt; und trotzdem waren sie verheiratet, und Ehe bedeutete, dass sich eine Frau an den Mann klammern sollte, mit dem sie am Altar gestanden hatte und ungeheuerliche Gelübde abgelegt hatte. Schließlich sank sie erschöpft auf ihr Sofa und begrub ihren Kopf in einem Stapel Kissen. Als sie den Kopf wieder erhob, schwebte die Gräfin Gemini vor ihr. Sie war unbemerkt hereingekommen; sie hatte ein seltsames Lächeln auf ihren schmalen Lippen, und ihr ganzes Gesicht schien in einer Stunde eine leuchtende Andeutung geworden zu sein. Sie lebte gewiss, könnte man sagen, am Fenster ihres Geistes, aber jetzt lehnte sie sich weit heraus. "Ich habe geklopft", begann sie, "aber du hast nicht geantwortet. Also habe ich es gewagt, hereinzugehen. Ich habe dich die letzten fünf Minuten beobachtet. Du bist sehr unglücklich." "Ja, aber ich glaube nicht, dass du mich trösten kannst." "Dürfte ich es trotzdem versuchen?" Und die Gräfin setzte sich neben sie auf das Sofa. Sie lächelte immer noch, und in ihrem Ausdruck lag etwas Mitteilendes und Triumphierendes. Es schien, als hätte sie viel zu sagen, und es kam Isabel zum ersten Mal in den Sinn, dass ihre Schwägerin etwas wirklich Menschliches sagen könnte. Sie spielte mit ihren glitzernden Augen, in denen eine unangenehme Faszination lag. "Schließlich", fuhr sie bald fort, "muss ich dir zuerst etwas sagen, weil ich glaube, dass du es wissen solltest. Vielleicht tust du es bereits; vielleicht hast du es geahnt. Aber wenn du es hast, kann ich nur sagen, dass ich noch weniger verstehe, warum du nicht tun solltest, was du willst." "Was möchtest du, dass ich weiß?" Isabel spürte eine Vorahnung, die ihr Herz schneller schlagen ließ. Die Gräfin wollte sich rechtfertigen, und das allein war schon beunruhigend. Aber sie war dennoch bereit, ein wenig mit ihrem Thema zu spielen. "An deiner Stelle hätte ich es vor langer Zeit erraten. Hast du wirklich nie etwas vermutet?" "Ich habe nichts erraten. Was hätte ich vermuten sollen? Ich weiß nicht, was du meinst." "Das kommt daher, dass du einen so verdammten reinen Geist hast. Ich habe noch nie eine Frau mit einem so reinen Geist gesehen!" rief die Gräfin aus. Isabel stand langsam auf. "Du wirst mir etwas Schreckliches erzählen." "Nenne es, wie du willst!" Und die Gräfin stand ebenfalls auf, während ihre angesammelte Bosheit lebendig und furchterregend wurde. Sie stand einen Moment in einer Art Glühlicht und, wie es Isabel selbst damals schien, in einer Hässlichkeit; danach sagte sie: "Meine erste Schwägerin hatte keine Kinder." Isabel starrte sie zurück an; die Ankündigung war eine Antiklimax. "Deine erste Schwägerin?" "Ich nehme an, du weißt zumindest, wenn man es erwähnen darf, dass Osmond zuvor verheiratet war! Ich habe nie mit dir über seine Frau gesprochen; ich dachte, es könnte anständig oder respektvoll sein. Aber andere, die weniger wählerisch sind, müssen es getan haben. Die arme kleine Frau lebte kaum drei Jahre und starb kinderlos. Es war erst nach ihrem Tod, dass Pansy auftauchte." Isabel runzelte die Stirn; ihre Lippen waren vor blasser, vager Verwunderung geöffnet. Sie versuchte zu folgen, aber es schien ihr, dass es viel mehr zu folgen gab, als sie sehen konnte. "Pansy ist also nicht das Kind meines Mannes?" "Deines Mannes - in Vollkommenheit! Aber nicht des Mannes einer anderen Frau. Einer anderen Frau. Ach, meine liebe Isabel", rief die Gräfin, "mit dir muss man die Punkte auf die i setzen!" "Ich verstehe nicht. Einer welchen Frau?" fragte Isabel. Die Ehefrau eines schrecklichen kleinen Schweizers, der vor wie lange? - einem Dutzend, mehr als fünfzehn, Jahren gestorben ist. Er hat Miss Pansy nie anerkannt und hätte nichts mit ihr zu tun haben wollen, selbst wenn er gewusst hätte, was er tat. Und es gab keinen Grund, warum er das tun sollte. Osmond hat das getan, und das war besser; obwohl er danach die ganze Geschichte über den Tod seiner eigenen Frau bei der Geburt erfinden musste und darüber, wie er das kleine Mädchen aus Trauer und Entsetzen so lange wie möglich aus den Augen genommen hatte, bevor er sie von der Krankenschwester mit nach Hause nahm. Seine Frau ist wirklich gestorben, wissen Sie, an einer völlig anderen Ursache und an einem völlig anderen Ort: in den piemontesischen Bergen, wohin sie, im August, gegangen waren, weil ihre Gesundheit frische Luft zu erfordern schien, aber wo es ihr plötzlich schlechter ging - tödlich krank. Die Geschichte hatte ausgereicht; sie wurde von den äußeren Umständen gedeckt, solange es niemanden interessierte, solange niemand genauer hinsah. Aber natürlich wusste ich das - ohne Nachforschungen", fuhr die Gräfin klarsichtig fort. "Und auch, verstehen Sie, ohne ein Wort zwischen uns zu sagen - ich meine zwischen Osmond und mir. Sehen Sie nicht, wie er mich anschaut, schweigend, auf diese Weise, um es zu klären? - das heißt, um MICH zu klären, falls ich etwas sagen sollte. Ich habe nichts gesagt, rechts oder links - nie ein Wort zu irgendjemandem, wenn Sie das von mir glauben können; bei meiner Ehre, meine Liebe, ich erzähle Ihnen jetzt, nach all dieser Zeit, im Vertrauen, wie ich es nie, nie erzählt habe. Es sollte für mich von Anfang an genug sein, dass das Kind meine Nichte war - von dem Moment an, als es meiner Bruderstochter war. Was ihre wirkliche Mutter betrifft -!" Aber damit verstummte Pansys wunderbare Tante - wie unfreiwillig, von dem Eindruck des Gesichts ihrer Schwägerin, aus dem mehr Augen auf sie zu schauen schienen, als sie jemals hätte treffen müssen. Sie hatte keinen Namen genannt, aber Isabel konnte nicht anders, als auf den eigenen Lippen ein Echo des Unausgesprochenen zu unterdrücken. Sie sank wieder auf ihren Platz und senkte den Kopf. "Warum hast du mir das erzählt?" fragte sie mit einer Stimme, die die Gräfin kaum wiedererkannte. "Weil es mich gelangweilt hat, dass du es nicht wusstest. Ich habe mich gelangweilt, ehrlich gesagt, meine Liebe, dass ich es dir nicht erzählt habe; als ob ich dumm, die ganze Zeit über nicht damit umgehen konnte! Es übertrifft mich, wenn du mir gestattest, so zu sagen, die Dinge um dich herum, von denen du zu wissen erscheinst. Es ist eine Art von Unterstützung - Hilfe für unschuldige Unwissenheit - bei der ich schon immer schlecht war; und in diesem Zusammenhang, dem des Schweigens für meinen Bruder, hat meine Tugend sich schließlich erschöpft. Es ist auch keine glatte Lüge, wissen Sie", fügte die Gräfin inimitabel hinzu. "Die Fakten sind genau das, was ich Ihnen erzähle." "Ich hatte keine Ahnung", sagte Isabel schließlich und schaute sie an, und ihre Reaktion entsprach zweifellos der scheinbaren Einfältigkeit dieses Geständnisses. "So habe ich es mir gedacht - obwohl es schwer zu glauben war. War es dir nie in den Sinn gekommen, dass er sechs oder sieben Jahre lang ihr Liebhaber war?" "Ich weiß es nicht. Es sind mir Dinge eingefallen, und vielleicht war das es, was sie alle meinten." "Sie war wunderbar clever, sie war großartig mit Pansy!" rief die Gräfin angesichts dessen aus. "Oh, keine Vorstellung für mich", fuhr Isabel fort, "hat sich jemals GANZ in diese Form verwandelt. Sie schien sich selbst vorzustellen, was gewesen war und was nicht. "Und so, wie es ist - ich verstehe einfach nicht." Sie sprach wie jemand, der beunruhigt und verwirrt ist, und doch schien die arme Gräfin gemerkt zu haben, dass sich ihre Offenbarung unter ihren Möglichkeiten eines Effekts abgespielt hatte. Sie hatte erwartet, ein resonantes Feuerwerk ausgelöst zu haben, hatte aber kaum einen Funken entzündet. Isabel zeigte sich kaum mehr beeindruckt, als sie es als junge Frau mit bestätigter Vorstellungskraft vielleicht bei einem feinen unheimlichen Kapitel der öffentlichen Geschichte gewesen wäre. "Erkennen Sie nicht, wie das Kind niemals als ihr Ehemanns durchgehen konnte? - das heißt mit Herrn Merle selbst", fuhr ihre Begleitung fort. "Sie waren zu lange getrennt dafür, und er war in ein entferntes Land gegangen - ich glaube nach Südamerika. Wenn sie jemals Kinder gehabt hat - worüber ich mir nicht sicher bin - hat sie sie verloren. Die Umstände hatten es so gemacht, dass Osmond das kleine Mädchen anerkennen konnte, wenn sie unter Druck stand (ich meine in so einer schwierigen Lage). Seine Frau war tot - ganz genau; aber sie war noch nicht so lange tot, dass eine gewisse Anpassung der Daten ausgeschlossen wurde - vom Moment an, meine ich, als der Verdacht nicht erhoben wurde; worüber sie sich kümmern mussten. Was war natürlicher, als dass die arme Frau Osmond, in der Ferne und für eine Welt, die sich nicht um Kleinigkeiten kümmerte, das Pfand ihres kurzen Glücks zurückgelassen hatte, das ihr das Leben gekostet hatte? Mit Hilfe eines Wohnortswechsels - Osmond hatte damals mit ihr in Neapel gelebt und hatte es in der Folgezeit für immer verlassen - wurde die ganze Geschichte erfolgreich inszeniert. Meine arme Schwägerin im Grab konnte nichts dagegen tun, und die eigentliche Mutter verzichtete aus Eigennutz auf jegliche sichtbare Eigentumsrechte an dem Kind." "Ach, die arme, arme Frau!" rief Isabel aus und brach dabei in Tränen aus. Es war lange her, dass sie welche vergossen hatte; sie hatte eine hohe Abneigung gegen Weinen entwickelt. Aber jetzt flossen sie reichlich, und die Gräfin Gemini fand nur eine weitere Dissonanz darin. "Es ist sehr liebenswürdig von dir, sie zu bemitleiden!" lachte sie missgestimmt. "Ja, du hast deine eigene Art, Isabel!" "Er muss seiner Frau untreu gewesen sein - und das so bald!" sagte Isabel mit einem plötzlichen Zögern. "Das fehlte gerade noch - dass du dich für ihre Sache einsetzen würdest!" fuhr die Gräfin fort. "Ich bin jedoch ganz deiner Meinung, dass es viel zu früh war." "Aber für mich, für mich -?" Und Isabel zögerte, als hätte sie nicht gehört, als hätte ihre Frage - obwohl sie deutlich in ihren Augen zu erkennen war - nur ihr selbst gegolten. "Für dich war er treu? Nun, das kommt darauf an, meine Liebe, wie du Treue definierst. Als er dich heiratete, war er nicht mehr der Liebhaber einer anderen Frau - eines solchen Liebhabers, wie er zwischen ihren Risiken und Vorsichtsmaßnahmen bestand, solange die Sache dauerte! Dieser Zustand der Dinge war vergangen; die Dame hatte Reue gezeigt oder sich jedenfalls aus Gründen ihrer eigenen zurückgezogen: Sie hatte auch immer eine Anbetung von Äußerlichkeiten, so intensiv, dass es Osmond selbst langweilig geworden war. Du kannst dir also vorstellen, wie es war - als es sich für keinen seiner bisherigen Kandidaten bequem anpirschen ließ! Aber die ganze Vergangenheit war zwischen ihnen." "Ja", wiederholte Isabel mechanisch, "die ganze Vergangenheit steht zwischen ihnen." "Ah, diese spätere Vergangenheit bedeutet nichts. Aber sechs oder sieben Jahre lang haben sie es durchgehalten." Sie schwieg einen Augenblick. "Warum hat sie ihn dann nicht geheiratet?" fragte Isabel schließlich. "Weil sie kein Geld hatte." Die Gräfin hatte auf alles eine Antwort, und wenn sie lügte, dann log sie gut. "Niemand weiß, niemand hat jemals gewusst, wovon sie lebt oder wie sie all diese wunderschönen D Sie liebt ihn nicht auf diese Weise. Am Anfang tat sie es, und dann würde ich vermuten, dass sie ihn geheiratet hätte; aber zu der Zeit lebte ihr Ehemann. Als M. Merle sich wieder angeschlossen hatte - ich sage nicht seine Vorfahren, denn er hatte nie welche - hatten sich ihre Beziehungen zu Osmond geändert und sie war ehrgeiziger geworden. Außerdem hatte sie nie, was man so nennen könnte, irgendwelche Vorstellungen von INTELLIGENZ. Sie hoffte, sie könnte einen großen Mann heiraten; das war schon immer ihre Vorstellung gewesen. Sie hat gewartet, beobachtet, geplant und gebetet; aber sie hat nie Erfolg gehabt. Ich nenne Madame Merle keinen Erfolg, wissen Sie. Ich weiß nicht, was sie noch erreichen mag, aber im Moment hat sie sehr wenig vorzuweisen. Das einzige greifbare Ergebnis, das sie jemals erzielt hat - abgesehen davon, natürlich, dass sie alles über jeden herausgefunden hat und bei ihnen kostenlos wohnt - war, dass sie dich und Osmond zusammengebracht hat. Oh, das hat sie getan, meine Liebe; du musst nicht so tun, als ob du daran zweifelst. Ich habe sie jahrelang beobachtet; ich weiß alles - alles. Man hält mich für einen großen Wirrkopf, aber ich habe genug Geisteszustand, um diesen beiden zu folgen. Sie hasst mich, und ihre Art, es zu zeigen, besteht darin, vorzugeben, mich immer zu verteidigen. Wenn die Leute sagen, ich hätte fünfzehn Liebhaber gehabt, sieht sie entsetzt aus und erklärt, dass bei der Hälfte von ihnen niemals Beweise erbracht wurden. Sie hat jahrelang Angst vor mir gehabt und sie hat sich sehr über die schändlichen, falschen Dinge getröstet, die die Leute über mich gesagt haben. Sie hat Angst gehabt, dass ich sie bloßstellen würde, und an einem Tag, als Osmond damit begann, dir den Hof zu machen, hat sie mir gedroht. Es war in seinem Haus in Florenz; erinnerst du dich an den Nachmittag, als sie dich dorthin gebracht hat und wir Tee im Garten hatten? Sie hat mich damals wissen lassen, dass wenn ich Geschichten erzählen sollte, zwei das gleiche Spiel spielen könnten. Sie gibt vor, dass es viel mehr über mich zu erzählen gibt als über sie. Es wäre ein interessanter Vergleich! Es ist mir egal, was sie sagen mag, einfach weil ich weiß, dass es dir genauso egal ist wie mir. Du kannst dich nicht weniger um mich kümmern, als du es jetzt schon tust. Also kann sie Rache nehmen, wie sie will; ich glaube nicht, dass sie dich sehr erschrecken wird. Ihre große Idee war es, enorm untadelig zu sein - eine Art voll erblühte Lilie - die Inkarnation der Anständigkeit. Sie hat diesen Gott immer angebetet. Es soll keinen Skandal um die Frau des Cäsars geben, wissen Sie? Und wie gesagt hat sie immer gehofft, Caesar zu heiraten. Das war ein Grund, warum sie Osmond nicht heiraten wollte; die Angst, dass die Leute, wenn sie sie mit Pansy sahen, Dinge zusammenfügen würden - vielleicht sogar eine Ähnlichkeit sehen würden. Sie hatte Angst, dass die Mutter sich verraten würde. Sie war furchtbar vorsichtig; die Mutter hat das nie getan." "Ja, ja, die Mutter hat das getan", sagte Isabel, die all dem mit einem immer blasser werdenden Gesicht zugehört hatte. "Sie hat sich neulich vor mir verraten, obwohl ich sie nicht erkannt habe. Es schien eine Chance für Pansys gute Heirat zu geben, und in ihrer Enttäuschung darüber, dass es nicht geklappt hat, hat sie die Maske fast fallen lassen." "Ah, da würde sie sich selbst ruinieren!" rief die Gräfin. "Sie ist so schrecklich gescheitert, dass sie entschlossen ist, dass ihre Tochter es gutmacht." Isabel zuckte bei den Worten "ihre Tochter" zusammen, die ihre Gästin so vertraulich verwendet hat. "Es scheint sehr erstaunlich", murmelte sie, und in diesem verwirrenden Eindruck hat sie fast den Sinn dafür verloren, dass die Geschichte sie persönlich berührt hat. "Jetzt geh nicht und wende dich gegen das arme, unschuldige Kind!" fuhr die Gräfin fort. "Sie ist sehr nett, trotz ihrer bedauerlichen Herkunft. Ich selbst mochte Pansy; natürlich nicht, weil sie ihre war, sondern weil sie deine geworden ist." "Ja, sie ist meine geworden. Und wie sehr muss die arme Frau gelitten haben, mich zu sehen –!" Isabel rief aus, während sie bei dem Gedanken errötete. "Ich glaube nicht, dass sie gelitten hat; im Gegenteil, sie hat es genossen. Osmonds Heirat hat seine Tochter ein bisschen auf die Beine gebracht. Vorher lebte sie in einem Loch. Und wissen Sie, was die Mutter dachte? Dass Sie sich so sehr für das Kind interessieren könnten, dass Sie etwas für sie tun würden. Osmond konnte ihr natürlich niemals eine Mitgift geben. Osmond war wirklich extrem arm; aber natürlich wissen Sie alles darüber. Ach, meine Liebe", rief die Gräfin aus, "warum bist du überhaupt reich geworden?" Sie hielt einen Moment inne, als ob sie etwas Besonderes in Isabels Gesicht sah. "Sag mir jetzt nicht, dass du ihr eine Mitgift geben wirst. Du bist dazu fähig, aber ich würde es nicht glauben. Versuch nicht zu gut zu sein. Sei ein bisschen locker und natürlich und gemein; fühl dich einmal in deinem Leben ein bisschen böse, um dich zu trösten!" "Es ist sehr seltsam. Ich denke, ich sollte es wissen, aber es tut mir leid", sagte Isabel. "Ich danke Ihnen sehr." "Ja, du scheinst es zu tun!" rief die Gräfin mit einem spöttischen Lachen. "Vielleicht tust du es – vielleicht auch nicht. Du nimmst es nicht so, wie ich gedacht hätte." "Wie sollte ich es nehmen?" fragte Isabel. "Nun, ich würde sagen, als eine Frau, die benutzt wurde." Auf diese Aussage gab Isabel keine Antwort; sie hörte nur zu, und die Gräfin fuhr fort. "Sie waren immer aneinander gebunden; sie blieben es auch, nachdem sie den Kontakt abgebrochen haben - oder er hat den Kontakt abgebrochen. Aber er bedeutet ihr immer mehr als sie ihm. Nachdem ihr kleiner Karneval vorbei war, haben sie einen Kompromiss geschlossen: Jeder sollte dem anderen absolute Freiheit geben, aber jeder sollte auch alles tun, um dem anderen zu helfen. Du könntest mich fragen, wie ich so etwas wissen kann. Ich weiß es anhand der Art und Weise, wie sie sich verhalten haben. Schau mal, wie viel besser Frauen sind als Männer! Sie hat eine Frau für Osmond gefunden, aber Osmond hat keinen Finger für SIE gerührt. Sie hat für ihn gearbeitet, für ihn geplant, für ihn gelitten; sie hat sogar mehr als einmal Geld für ihn gefunden; und am Ende hat er genug von ihr. Sie ist eine alte Gewohnheit; es gibt Momente, in denen er sie braucht, aber im Großen und Ganzen würde er sie nicht vermissen, wenn sie entfernt wäre. Und, was noch wichtiger ist, heute weiß sie das. Also musst du nicht eifersüchtig sein!", fügte die Gräfin humorvoll hinzu. Isabel stand wieder von ihrem Sofa auf; sie fühlte sich gequetscht und atemlos; ihr Kopf summte vor neuen Erkenntnissen. "Ich danke Ihnen sehr", wiederholte sie. Und dann fügte sie abrupt in einem völlig anderen Ton hinzu: "Wie wissen Sie das alles?" Diese Frage schien die Gräfin mehr zu verärgern als Isabels Ausdruck der Dankbarkeit ihr gefiel. Sie starrte ihre Begleiterin mutig an und rief aus: "Nehmen wir an, ich habe es erfunden!" Sie änderte jedoch plötzlich ihre Tonlage und legte ihre Hand auf Isabels Arm und sagte mit der Durchdringung ihrer scharfen, hellen Lächelns: "Wirst du jetzt deine Reise aufgeben?" Isabel zuckte ein wenig zusammen; sie drehte sich weg. Aber sie fühlte sich schwach und musste in einem Moment ihren Arm auf den Kaminsims legen, um sich abzustützen. So stand sie eine Minute lang, und dann ließ sie auf ihrem Arm ihren schwindelerregenden Kopf mit geschlossenen Augen und blassen Lippen sinken. "Ich habe Unrecht getan, zu sprechen - ich habe dich krank gemacht!" rief die Gräfin. "Ah, ich muss Ralph sehen!", jammerte Isabel; nicht in Verärgerung, nicht in der schnellen Leidenschaft, die ihre Begleiterin erwartet hatte; sondern in einem Ton von weitreichender, unendlicher Traurigkeit. Können Sie eine geeignete Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Als Madame Merle Isabel mit ihrer Rolle bei der Abreise von Lord Warburton aus Rom konfrontiert, ist Isabel schockiert über Merles Vermessenheit - sie spricht wie als spreche sie als Vertreterin von Osmond und nicht nur als entfernte Bekannte der Familie. Anstand würde vorschreiben, dass der gesamte Vorfall Madame Merle nichts angeht, aber Merle fragt Isabel unverfroren danach, als wäre sie, und nicht Isabel, Osmonds Ehefrau. Isabel fühlt erneut, dass Madame Merle eine mächtige und finstere Rolle in ihrem Leben spielt. Aufgebracht fragt Isabel Merle, welche Rolle sie spielt und was ihre Beziehung zu Osmond ist; Merle antwortet, dass es "alles" ist. Isabel keucht und bedeckt ihr Gesicht mit den Händen; Merle gratuliert ihr sarkastisch dazu, die Nachricht so gut aufzunehmen. Sie erkennt, dass Mrs. Touchett Recht hatte: Merle hat ihre Ehe mit Osmond orchestriert, damit die beiden Zugang zu ihrem Geld haben können. Merle geht und Isabel macht eine lange Fahrt, allein, und denkt über das nach, was sie gelernt hat. Sie erkennt, dass Osmond sie nur wegen ihres Geldes geheiratet hat. Nach einiger Zeit beginnt sie Mitleid mit Madame Merle zu haben, dass sie von Osmond beeinflusst wurde. Osmond sitzt im Salon von Madame Merle und hört seiner ehemaligen Geliebten zu, wie sie ihm von dem erzählt, was mit Isabel geschehen ist. Merle ist zutiefst aufgewühlt von ihrer Handlungsweise und sie erzählt Osmond, dass er ihre Seele welken lassen hat - sie kann nicht einmal weinen. Osmond argumentiert, dass die Seele nicht geschädigt werden kann, und sie sagt im Gegenteil, das kann sie. Er sagt ihr, dass alle Frauen monströse Vorstellungen haben, als wären sie alle schlechte Schriftsteller. Er sagt, dass er eigentlich nur wollte, dass Isabel ihn verehrt, und da sie das nicht tut, ist er mit der Verehrung von Pansy zufrieden. Merle sagt sehnsüchtig, dass sie sich ein Kind wünscht, und Osmond antwortet verletzend, dass sie durch Menschen, die Kinder haben, eine Art Stellvertretung haben kann. Merle sagt, dass trotz allem, was geschehen ist, noch etwas sie zusammenhält. Osmond denkt, dass es der Schaden ist, den er ihr zufügen könnte. Merle sagt, er irrt sich: es ist das Gute, das sie ihm zufügen kann. Osmond geht. Merle denkt für sich selbst, dass sie sich selbst zu einem Monster gemacht hat, alles umsonst. Die Gräfin Gemini ist besessen davon, über die außerehelichen Affären der Frauen in Florenz zu tratschen, obwohl sie jetzt in Rom ist. Um sie auf andere Gedanken zu bringen, fährt Isabel sie oft durch die Straßen von Rom. Eines Tages sind sie und die Gräfin mit Pansy unterwegs, als Isabel Edward Rosier sieht, der von seiner mysteriösen Reise zurückgekehrt ist. Isabel spricht alleine mit ihm und er erzählt ihr, dass er weg war, um seine Sammlung von Kunstgegenständen zu verkaufen; er hat fünfzigtausend Dollar eingenommen und hofft nun, dass er nun Pansy heiraten darf. Isabel erzählt ihm, dass Osmond vorhat, Pansy an einen Adligen zu verheiraten. Pansy nähert sich und Isabel geht dazwischen. Die Gräfin geht mit Rosier sprechen und einige Zeit später schickt Isabel den Kutscher los, um sie abzuholen. Aber die Gräfin schickt ihn zurück und sagt, dass sie lieber mit Mr. Rosier sprechen will und mit dem Taxi nach Hause fahren wird. Eine Woche später schockt Pansy Isabel damit, dass ihr Vater sie zurück ins Kloster schickt; die Nonnen werden noch heute Abend für sie kommen. Osmond erzählt Isabel, dass es etwas gibt, über das er möchte, dass Pansy "auf die richtige Art und Weise" nachdenkt. Isabel ist nicht sicher, was Osmond damit erreichen will, ist aber schockiert, dass er so weit gehen würde, nur um seinen Willen zu bekommen. An diesem Abend beim Abendessen sagt die Gräfin ihrem Bruder, dass sie glaubt, er hat seine Tochter verbannt, um sie von ihrem Einfluss fernzuhalten, denn die Gräfin gibt zu, dass sie Partei für Edward Rosier ergriffen hat. Osmond antwortet scharf, dass er, wenn das der Fall wäre, die Gräfin einfach verbannt hätte und Pansy hätte bleiben lassen. Mrs. Touchett schreibt Isabel, dass Ralph dem Tode nahe ist und bittet Isabel, sofort zu kommen. Als Isabel Osmond von dieser Nachricht erzählt, verbietet er ihr, Rom zu verlassen mit der Begründung, dass es einfach ein Akt der Rache gegen ihn wäre. Isabel erkennt, dass er die gesamte Situation nur als ein ausgearbeitetes Spiel sieht und in seiner Paranoia glaubt, dass all ihre Handlungen entweder dazu dienen, ihm zu helfen oder ihm zu schaden. Sie fragt, was passieren würde, wenn sie sich ihm widersetzen würde. Er weigert sich, darüber zu diskutieren. Isabel erzählt der Gräfin, was passiert ist; die Gräfin drängt sie, Osmond zu widersprechen und Rom zu verlassen. Aber Isabel wird von der Erinnerung an ihr Eheversprechen heimgesucht, das sie nicht brechen möchte. Die Gräfin erzählt Isabel, dass Osmond sie belogen hat: seine erste Frau starb nicht bei der Geburt, denn sie war nie schwanger. Pansys Mutter ist Madame Merle. Madame Merle und Osmond sind seit Jahren Liebhaber; Osmonds erste Frau starb etwa zur Zeit von Pansys Geburt, also behaupteten sie einfach, dass sie bei der Geburt gestorben sei und steckten Pansy ins Kloster. Merle wählte Isabel aus, um Osmond zu heiraten, weil Pansy eine Mutter brauchte - sie mag Merle, ihre richtige Mutter, nicht - und weil Isabel Geld für Pansys Mitgift hat. Isabel erkennt, dass dies erklärt, warum Merle so aufgebracht war, als sie dachte, Isabel hätte Warburton ermutigt, Pansy nicht zu heiraten. Isabel fragt, warum Merle und Osmond nie geheiratet haben. Die Gräfin sagt, dass Merle immer gehofft hatte, über Osmond zu heiraten und sich sorgte, dass wenn sie Osmond heiraten würde, die Leute merken würden, dass sie ein Kind außerehelich hatte. Isabel empfindet intensives Mitleid mit Madame Merle. Isabel sagt traurig, dass sie Ralph sehen muss und bereitet sich auf die Abreise nach England vor.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: ACT II. SCENE I. A wood near Athens Enter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you? FAIRY. Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, through brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, through fire, I do wander every where, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the Fairy Queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours. I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone. Our Queen and all her elves come here anon. PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night; Take heed the Queen come not within his sight; For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, Because that she as her attendant hath A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king. She never had so sweet a changeling; And jealous Oberon would have the child Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild; But she perforce withholds the loved boy, Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy. And now they never meet in grove or green, By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen, But they do square, that all their elves for fear Creep into acorn cups and hide them there. FAIRY. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he That frights the maidens of the villagery, Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, And bootless make the breathless housewife churn, And sometime make the drink to bear no barm, Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they shall have good luck. Are not you he? PUCK. Thou speakest aright: I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon, and make him smile When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a filly foal; And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl In very likeness of a roasted crab, And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her withered dewlap pour the ale. The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there. But room, fairy, here comes Oberon. FAIRY. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone! Enter OBERON at one door, with his TRAIN, and TITANIA, at another, with hers OBERON. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. TITANIA. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence; I have forsworn his bed and company. OBERON. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord? TITANIA. Then I must be thy lady; but I know When thou hast stolen away from fairy land, And in the shape of Corin sat all day, Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, Come from the farthest steep of India, But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love, To Theseus must be wedded, and you come To give their bed joy and prosperity? OBERON. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania, Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, Knowing I know thy love to Theseus? Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night From Perigouna, whom he ravished? And make him with fair Aegles break his faith, With Ariadne and Antiopa? TITANIA. These are the forgeries of jealousy; And never, since the middle summer's spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By paved fountain, or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport. Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land, Hath every pelting river made so proud That they have overborne their continents. The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard; The fold stands empty in the drowned field, And crows are fatted with the murrion flock; The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud, And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, For lack of tread, are undistinguishable. The human mortals want their winter here; No night is now with hymn or carol blest; Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound. And through this distemperature we see The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose; And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which. And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension; We are their parents and original. OBERON. Do you amend it, then; it lies in you. Why should Titania cross her Oberon? I do but beg a little changeling boy To be my henchman. TITANIA. Set your heart at rest; The fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a vot'ress of my order; And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossip'd by my side; And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, Marking th' embarked traders on the flood; When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive, And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait Following- her womb then rich with my young squire- Would imitate, and sail upon the land, To fetch me trifles, and return again, As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; And for her sake do I rear up her boy; And for her sake I will not part with him. OBERON. How long within this wood intend you stay? TITANIA. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day. If you will patiently dance in our round, And see our moonlight revels, go with us; If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. OBERON. Give me that boy and I will go with thee. TITANIA. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away. We shall chide downright if I longer stay. Exit TITANIA with her train OBERON. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove Till I torment thee for this injury. My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb'rest Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maid's music. PUCK. I remember. OBERON. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, Flying between the cold moon and the earth Cupid, all arm'd; a certain aim he took At a fair vestal, throned by the west, And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon; And the imperial vot'ress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell. It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it Love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flow'r, the herb I showed thee once. The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid Will make or man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees. Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again Ere the leviathan can swim a league. PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes. Exit PUCK OBERON. Having once this juice, I'll watch Titania when she is asleep, And drop the liquor of it in her eyes; The next thing then she waking looks upon, Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, On meddling monkey, or on busy ape, She shall pursue it with the soul of love. And ere I take this charm from off her sight, As I can take it with another herb, I'll make her render up her page to me. But who comes here? I am invisible; And I will overhear their conference. Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him DEMETRIUS. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. Thou told'st me they were stol'n unto this wood, And here am I, and wood within this wood, Because I cannot meet my Hermia. Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more. HELENA. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; But yet you draw not iron, for my heart Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw, And I shall have no power to follow you. DEMETRIUS. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you? HELENA. And even for that do I love you the more. I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you. Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, Unworthy as I am, to follow you. What worser place can I beg in your love, And yet a place of high respect with me, Than to be used as you use your dog? DEMETRIUS. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; For I am sick when I do look on thee. HELENA. And I am sick when I look not on you. DEMETRIUS. You do impeach your modesty too much To leave the city and commit yourself Into the hands of one that loves you not; To trust the opportunity of night, And the ill counsel of a desert place, With the rich worth of your virginity. HELENA. Your virtue is my privilege for that: It is not night when I do see your face, Therefore I think I am not in the night; Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, For you, in my respect, are all the world. Then how can it be said I am alone When all the world is here to look on me? DEMETRIUS. I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes, And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts. HELENA. The wildest hath not such a heart as you. Run when you will; the story shall be chang'd: Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase; The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind Makes speed to catch the tiger- bootless speed, When cowardice pursues and valour flies. DEMETRIUS. I will not stay thy questions; let me go; Or, if thou follow me, do not believe But I shall do thee mischief in the wood. HELENA. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius! Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex. We cannot fight for love as men may do; We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo. Exit DEMETRIUS I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well. Exit HELENA OBERON. Fare thee well, nymph; ere he do leave this grove, Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love. Re-enter PUCK Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer. PUCK. Ay, there it is. OBERON. I pray thee give it me. I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine; There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight; And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin, Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in; And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, And make her full of hateful fantasies. Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove: A sweet Athenian lady is in love With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes; But do it when the next thing he espies May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man By the Athenian garments he hath on. Effect it with some care, that he may prove More fond on her than she upon her love. And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow. PUCK. Fear not, my lord; your servant shall do so. Exeunt Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze verfassen?

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Die Szene des Geschehens verlagert sich in den Wald, wo die Welt der Feen eingeführt wird. Zu Beginn der Szene wird Puck vorgestellt. Auch bekannt als Robin Good Fellow, ist Puck ein "schlauer Schelm". Er trifft auf einen Bediensteten der Feenkönigin Titania. Die Aktivitäten der Feen, die dieser Bedienstete erzählt, führen in eine verzauberte Welt ein. Puck liefert weitere Informationen, als er über seinen Herrn Oberon erzählt, der der Feenkönig ist, und seinen Konflikt mit der Feenkönigin. Sie haben um einen Wechselbalg-Jungen gekämpft, der von einem indischen König gestohlen wurde. Der Junge ist nun der Liebling von Titania, die ihn nicht freigeben will, aber Oberon möchte, dass das Kind der "Ritter seines Gefolges" sein soll. Puck rät dem Bediensteten der Fee darauf zu achten, dass die Königin nicht in Oberons Sicht kommt. Während Puck mit dem Bediensteten der Fee spricht, kommen Oberon und Titania auf die Bühne. Ihr Streit wird fortgesetzt, und Oberon fordert sie auf, ihm den Jungen zu geben. Titania antwortet: "Nicht für dein Feenreich." Dann geht sie mit ihren Bediensteten weg. Oberon befiehlt Puck, ihm die Blume namens "Liebe-im-Faulen" zu bringen, deren Saft magische Kräfte hat; wenn er auf "schlafende Augenlider" gedrückt wird, wird der Saft die schlafende Person sich in die "nächste lebende Kreatur" verlieben lassen, die er/sie nach dem Aufwachen sieht. Er plant, den Saft auf Titania's Augen zu träufeln, wenn sie das nächste Mal schläft; dann wird sie sich, wenn sie aufwacht, in die erste Kreatur verlieben, die sie sieht, sei es ein "Löwe, Bär oder Wolf, oder Stier oder mischender Affe oder geschäftiger Affe." Während Oberon seine Pläne schmiedet, betreten Demetrius und Helena die Szene. All ihre Bitten an ihn fallen auf taube Ohren, und Demetrius droht, sie der Gnade wilder Tiere zu überlassen. Demetrius geht, immer noch von Helena verfolgt. Oberon tut Helena leid und beschließt, bevor Demetrius den Wald verlässt, ihre Probleme zu lösen. Als Puck zurückkehrt, nimmt Oberon die Blumen und geht zu Titania. Er plant, ihren Saft auf ihre Augenlider zu drücken, wenn sie einschläft. Er befiehlt Puck auch, eine süße Athener Dame mit einem herablassenden Jugendlichen zu finden und ihm die Augen zu salben, nachdem er sichergestellt hat, dass die Dame in der Nähe sein wird, wenn er aufwacht; Oberon plant, dass Puck Helena's Probleme löst, indem er den magischen Blumensaft auf Demetrius verwendet. Puck versichert Oberon, dass er die Anweisungen ausführen wird.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: The same. Christian, Ligniere, then Ragueneau and Le Bret. CUIGY: Ligniere! BRISSAILLE (laughing): Not drunk as yet? LIGNIERE (aside to Christian): I may introduce you? (Christian nods in assent): Baron de Neuvillette. (Bows.) THE AUDIENCE (applauding as the first luster is lighted and drawn up): Ah! CUIGY (to Brissaille, looking at Christian): 'Tis a pretty fellow! FIRST MARQUIS (who has overheard): Pooh! LIGNIERE (introducing them to Christian): My lords De Cuigy. De Brissaille. . . CHRISTIAN (bowing): Delighted!. . . FIRST MARQUIS (to second): He is not ill to look at, but certes, he is not costumed in the latest mode. LIGNIERE (to Cuigy): This gentleman comes from Touraine. CHRISTIAN: Yes, I have scarce been twenty days in Paris; tomorrow I join the Guards, in the Cadets. FIRST MARQUIS (watching the people who are coming into the boxes): There is the wife of the Chief-Justice. THE BUFFET-GIRL: Oranges, milk. . . THE VIOLINISTS (tuning up): La--la-- CUIGY (to Christian, pointing to the hall, which is filling fast): 'Tis crowded. CHRISTIAN: Yes, indeed. FIRST MARQUIS: All the great world! (They recognize and name the different elegantly dressed ladies who enter the boxes, bowing low to them. The ladies send smiles in answer.) SECOND MARQUIS: Madame de Guemenee. CUIGY: Madame de Bois-Dauphin. FIRST MARQUIS: Adored by us all! BRISSAILLE: Madame de Chavigny. . . SECOND MARQUIS: Who sports with our poor hearts!. . . LIGNIERE: Ha! so Monsieur de Corneille has come back from Rouen! THE YOUNG MAN (to his father): Is the Academy here? THE BURGHER: Oh, ay, I see several of them. There is Boudu, Boissat, and Cureau de la Chambre, Porcheres, Colomby, Bourzeys, Bourdon, Arbaud. . .all names that will live! 'Tis fine! FIRST MARQUIS: Attention! Here come our precieuses; Barthenoide, Urimedonte, Cassandace, Felixerie. . . SECOND MARQUIS: Ah! How exquisite their fancy names are! Do you know them all, Marquis? FIRST MARQUIS: Ay, Marquis, I do, every one! LIGNIERE (drawing Christian aside): Friend, I but came here to give you pleasure. The lady comes not. I will betake me again to my pet vice. CHRISTIAN (persuasively): No, no! You, who are ballad-maker to Court and City alike, can tell me better than any who the lady is for whom I die of love. Stay yet awhile. THE FIRST VIOLIN (striking his bow on the desk): Gentlemen violinists! (He raises his bow.) THE BUFFET-GIRL: Macaroons, lemon-drink. . . (The violins begin to play.) CHRISTIAN: Ah! I fear me she is coquettish, and over nice and fastidious! I, who am so poor of wit, how dare I speak to her--how address her? This language that they speak to-day--ay, and write--confounds me; I am but an honest soldier, and timid withal. She has ever her place, there, on the right--the empty box, see you! LIGNIERE (making as if to go): I must go. CHRISTIAN (detaining him): Nay, stay. LIGNIERE: I cannot. D'Assoucy waits me at the tavern, and here one dies of thirst. THE BUFFET-GIRL (passing before him with a tray): Orange drink? LIGNIERE: Ugh! THE BUFFET-GIRL: Milk? LIGNIERE: Pah! THE BUFFET-GIRL: Rivesalte? LIGNIERE: Stay. (To Christian): I will remain awhile.--Let me taste this rivesalte. (He sits by the buffet; the girl pours some out for him.) CRIES (from all the audience, at the entrance of a plump little man, joyously excited): Ah! Ragueneau! LIGNIERE (to Christian): 'Tis the famous tavern-keeper Ragueneau. RAGUENEAU (dressed in the Sunday clothes of a pastry-cook, going up quickly to Ligniere): Sir, have you seen Monsieur de Cyrano? LIGNIERE (introducing him to Christian): The pastry-cook of the actors and the poets! RAGUENEAU (overcome): You do me too great honor. . . LIGNIERE: Nay, hold your peace, Maecenas that you are! RAGUENEAU: True, these gentlemen employ me. . . LIGNIERE: On credit! He is himself a poet of a pretty talent. . . RAGUENEAU: So they tell me. LIGNIERE: --Mad after poetry! RAGUENEAU: 'Tis true that, for a little ode. . . LIGNIERE: You give a tart. . . RAGUENEAU: Oh!--a tartlet! LIGNIERE: Brave fellow! He would fain fain excuse himself! --And for a triolet, now, did you not give in exchange. . . RAGUENEAU: Some little rolls! LIGNIERE (severely): They were milk-rolls! And as for the theater, which you love? RAGUENEAU: Oh! to distraction! LIGNIERE: How pay you your tickets, ha?--with cakes. Your place, to-night, come tell me in my ear, what did it cost you? RAGUENEAU: Four custards, and fifteen cream-puffs. (He looks around on all sides): Monsieur de Cyrano is not here? 'Tis strange. LIGNIERE: Why so? RAGUENEAU: Montfleury plays! LIGNIERE: Ay, 'tis true that that old wine-barrel is to take Phedon's part to-night; but what matter is that to Cyrano? RAGUENEAU: How? Know you not? He has got a hot hate for Montfleury, and so!--has forbid him strictly to show his face on the stage for one whole month. LIGNIERE (drinking his fourth glass): Well? RAGUENEAU: Montfleury will play! CUIGY: He can not hinder that. RAGUENEAU: Oh! oh! that I have come to see! FIRST MARQUIS: Who is this Cyrano? CUIGY: A fellow well skilled in all tricks of fence. SECOND MARQUIS: Is he of noble birth? CUIGY: Ay, noble enough. He is a cadet in the Guards. (Pointing to a gentleman who is going up and down the hall as if searching for some one): But 'tis his friend Le Bret, yonder, who can best tell you. (He calls him): Le Bret! (Le Bret comes towards them): Seek you for De Bergerac? LE BRET: Ay, I am uneasy. . . CUIGY: Is it not true that he is the strangest of men? LE BRET (tenderly): True, that he is the choicest of earthly beings! RAGUENEAU: Poet! CUIGY: Soldier! BRISSAILLE: Philosopher! LE BRET: Musician! LIGNIERE: And of how fantastic a presence! RAGENEAU: Marry, 'twould puzzle even our grim painter Philippe de Champaigne to portray him! Methinks, whimsical, wild, comical as he is, only Jacques Callot, now dead and gone, had succeeded better, and had made of him the maddest fighter of all his visored crew--with his triple-plumed beaver and six-pointed doublet--the sword-point sticking up 'neath his mantle like an insolent cocktail! He's prouder than all the fierce Artabans of whom Gascony has ever been and will ever be the prolific Alma Mater! Above his Toby ruff he carries a nose!--ah, good my lords, what a nose is his! When one sees it one is fain to cry aloud, 'Nay! 'tis too much! He plays a joke on us!' Then one laughs, says 'He will anon take it off.' But no!--Monsieur de Bergerac always keeps it on. LE BRET (throwing back his head): He keeps it on--and cleaves in two any man who dares remark on it! RAGUENEAU (proudly): His sword--'tis one half of the Fates' shears! FIRST MARQUIS (shrugging his shoulders): He will not come! RAGUENEAU: I say he will! and I wager a fowl--a la Ragueneau. THE MARQUIS (laughing): Good! (Murmurs of admiration in hall. Roxane has just appeared in her box. She seats herself in front, the duenna at the back. Christian, who is paying the buffet-girl, does not see her entrance.) SECOND MARQUIS (with little cries of joy): Ah, gentlemen! she is fearfully--terribly--ravishing! FIRST MARQUIS: When one looks at her one thinks of a peach smiling at a strawberry! SECOND MARQUIS: And what freshness! A man approaching her too near might chance to get a bad chill at the heart! CHRISTIAN (raising his head, sees Roxane, and catches Ligniere by the arm): 'Tis she! LIGNIERE: Ah! is it she? CHRISTIAN: Ay, tell me quick--I am afraid. LIGNIERE (tasting his rivesalte in sips): Magdaleine Robin--Roxane, so called! A subtle wit--a precieuse. CHRISTIAN: Woe is me! LIGNIERE: Free. An orphan. The cousin of Cyrano, of whom we were now speaking. (At this moment an elegant nobleman, with blue ribbon across his breast, enters the box, and talks with Roxane, standing.) CHRISTIAN (starting): Who is yonder man? LIGNIERE (who is becoming tipsy, winking at him): Ha! ha! Count de Guiche. Enamored of her. But wedded to the niece of Armand de Richelieu. Would fain marry Roxane to a certain sorry fellow, one Monsieur de Valvert, a viscount--and--accommodating! She will none of that bargain; but De Guiche is powerful, and can persecute the daughter of a plain untitled gentleman. More by token, I myself have exposed this cunning plan of his to the world, in a song which. . .Ho! he must rage at me! The end hit home. . .Listen! (He gets up staggering, and raises his glass, ready to sing.) CHRISTIAN: No. Good-night. LIGNIERE: Where go you? CHRISTIAN: To Monsieur de Valvert! LIGNIERE: Have a care! It is he who will kill you (showing him Roxane by a look): Stay where you are--she is looking at you. CHRISTIAN: It is true! (He stands looking at her. The group of pickpockets seeing him thus, head in air and open-mouthed, draw near to him.) LIGNIERE: 'Tis I who am going. I am athirst! And they expect me--in the taverns! (He goes out, reeling.) LE BRET (who has been all round the hall, coming back to Ragueneau reassured): No sign of Cyrano. RAGUENEAU (incredulously): All the same. . . LE BRET: A hope is left to me--that he has not seen the playbill! THE AUDIENCE: Begin, begin! Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Ligniere stellt Christian einigen Marqueses vor. Christian ist gerade in Paris angekommen, um sich den Guards anzuschließen. Die Marqueses finden, dass Christian nicht sehr modisch gekleidet ist; sie sind mehr an den aristokratischen und literarischen Damen interessiert, die ihre Plätze in den Logen einnehmen. Ligniere ist gekommen, um Christian dabei zu helfen, eine Dame zu identifizieren, in die er verliebt ist. Der Konditor Ragueneau kommt an. Ligniere stellt ihn Christian vor und erklärt, dass Ragueneau ein Liebhaber von Poesie ist, der Gedichte als Zahlung für seine Gebäckstücke akzeptiert. Ragueneau ist aufgeregt zu erfahren, ob Cyrano, ein weiteres Mitglied der Guards, hier ist. Der Schauspieler Montfleury tritt heute Abend auf und Cyrano hat ihm verboten, für den Rest des Monats auf der Bühne zu erscheinen. Cyrano's Freunde sprechen von ihm als brillanten Dichter, Schwertkämpfer, Philosophen und Musiker. Sie scheinen vor ihm ehrfürchtig zu sein. Ragueneau erwähnt, dass Cyrano eine riesige Nase hat, und Le Bret warnt davor, dass Cyrano jeden bekämpfen wird, der darauf hinweist. Roxane, eine wunderschöne junge Frau und das Objekt von Christians Zuneigung, kommt an und setzt sich in eine Loge. Ligniere erzählt Christian, dass sie Cyrano's Cousine ist. Er fügt hinzu, dass sie intellektuell ist. Christian ist niedergeschlagen über diese Neuigkeit. Roxane wird vom Comte de Guiche begleitet, einem Adligen, der in sie verliebt ist. Er ist bereits verheiratet, also plant er, sie einem seiner Protegés, dem Vicomte de Valvert, zu heiraten, der ein Auge zudrücken würde, wenn de Guiche eine Affäre mit Roxane beginnen würde. Roxane und Christian tauschen Blicke aus. Ligniere geht, um eine Taverne zu finden. Es gibt immer noch keine Anzeichen von Cyrano. Die Menge fordert ungeduldig, dass das Stück beginnt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Summer was already past its prime, when Edgar reluctantly yielded his assent to their entreaties, and Catherine and I set out on our first ride to join her cousin. It was a close, sultry day: devoid of sunshine, but with a sky too dappled and hazy to threaten rain: and our place of meeting had been fixed at the guide-stone, by the cross-roads. On arriving there, however, a little herd-boy, despatched as a messenger, told us that,--'Maister Linton wer just o' this side th' Heights: and he'd be mitch obleeged to us to gang on a bit further.' 'Then Master Linton has forgot the first injunction of his uncle,' I observed: 'he bid us keep on the Grange land, and here we are off at once.' 'Well, we'll turn our horses' heads round when we reach him,' answered my companion; 'our excursion shall lie towards home.' But when we reached him, and that was scarcely a quarter of a mile from his own door, we found he had no horse; and we were forced to dismount, and leave ours to graze. He lay on the heath, awaiting our approach, and did not rise till we came within a few yards. Then he walked so feebly, and looked so pale, that I immediately exclaimed,--'Why, Master Heathcliff, you are not fit for enjoying a ramble this morning. How ill you do look!' Catherine surveyed him with grief and astonishment: she changed the ejaculation of joy on her lips to one of alarm; and the congratulation on their long-postponed meeting to an anxious inquiry, whether he were worse than usual? 'No--better--better!' he panted, trembling, and retaining her hand as if he needed its support, while his large blue eyes wandered timidly over her; the hollowness round them transforming to haggard wildness the languid expression they once possessed. 'But you have been worse,' persisted his cousin; 'worse than when I saw you last; you are thinner, and--' 'I'm tired,' he interrupted, hurriedly. 'It is too hot for walking, let us rest here. And, in the morning, I often feel sick--papa says I grow so fast.' Badly satisfied, Cathy sat down, and he reclined beside her. 'This is something like your paradise,' said she, making an effort at cheerfulness. 'You recollect the two days we agreed to spend in the place and way each thought pleasantest? This is nearly yours, only there are clouds; but then they are so soft and mellow: it is nicer than sunshine. Next week, if you can, we'll ride down to the Grange Park, and try mine.' Linton did not appear to remember what she talked of and he had evidently great difficulty in sustaining any kind of conversation. His lack of interest in the subjects she started, and his equal incapacity to contribute to her entertainment, were so obvious that she could not conceal her disappointment. An indefinite alteration had come over his whole person and manner. The pettishness that might be caressed into fondness, had yielded to a listless apathy; there was less of the peevish temper of a child which frets and teases on purpose to be soothed, and more of the self-absorbed moroseness of a confirmed invalid, repelling consolation, and ready to regard the good-humoured mirth of others as an insult. Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a punishment, than a gratification, to endure our company; and she made no scruple of proposing, presently, to depart. That proposal, unexpectedly, roused Linton from his lethargy, and threw him into a strange state of agitation. He glanced fearfully towards the Heights, begging she would remain another half-hour, at least. 'But I think,' said Cathy, 'you'd be more comfortable at home than sitting here; and I cannot amuse you to-day, I see, by my tales, and songs, and chatter: you have grown wiser than I, in these six months; you have little taste for my diversions now: or else, if I could amuse you, I'd willingly stay.' 'Stay to rest yourself,' he replied. 'And, Catherine, don't think or say that I'm _very_ unwell: it is the heavy weather and heat that make me dull; and I walked about, before you came, a great deal for me. Tell uncle I'm in tolerable health, will you?' 'I'll tell him that _you_ say so, Linton. I couldn't affirm that you are,' observed my young lady, wondering at his pertinacious assertion of what was evidently an untruth. 'And be here again next Thursday,' continued he, shunning her puzzled gaze. 'And give him my thanks for permitting you to come--my best thanks, Catherine. And--and, if you _did_ meet my father, and he asked you about me, don't lead him to suppose that I've been extremely silent and stupid: don't look sad and downcast, as you are doing--he'll be angry.' 'I care nothing for his anger,' exclaimed Cathy, imagining she would be its object. 'But I do,' said her cousin, shuddering. '_Don't_ provoke him against me, Catherine, for he is very hard.' 'Is he severe to you, Master Heathcliff?' I inquired. 'Has he grown weary of indulgence, and passed from passive to active hatred?' Linton looked at me, but did not answer; and, after keeping her seat by his side another ten minutes, during which his head fell drowsily on his breast, and he uttered nothing except suppressed moans of exhaustion or pain, Cathy began to seek solace in looking for bilberries, and sharing the produce of her researches with me: she did not offer them to him, for she saw further notice would only weary and annoy. 'Is it half-an-hour now, Ellen?' she whispered in my ear, at last. 'I can't tell why we should stay. He's asleep, and papa will be wanting us back.' 'Well, we must not leave him asleep,' I answered; 'wait till he wakes, and be patient. You were mighty eager to set off, but your longing to see poor Linton has soon evaporated!' 'Why did _he_ wish to see me?' returned Catherine. 'In his crossest humours, formerly, I liked him better than I do in his present curious mood. It's just as if it were a task he was compelled to perform--this interview--for fear his father should scold him. But I'm hardly going to come to give Mr. Heathcliff pleasure; whatever reason he may have for ordering Linton to undergo this penance. And, though I'm glad he's better in health, I'm sorry he's so much less pleasant, and so much less affectionate to me.' 'You think _he is_ better in health, then?' I said. 'Yes,' she answered; 'because he always made such a great deal of his sufferings, you know. He is not tolerably well, as he told me to tell papa; but he's better, very likely.' 'There you differ with me, Miss Cathy,' I remarked; 'I should conjecture him to be far worse.' Linton here started from his slumber in bewildered terror, and asked if any one had called his name. 'No,' said Catherine; 'unless in dreams. I cannot conceive how you manage to doze out of doors, in the morning.' 'I thought I heard my father,' he gasped, glancing up to the frowning nab above us. 'You are sure nobody spoke?' 'Quite sure,' replied his cousin. 'Only Ellen and I were disputing concerning your health. Are you truly stronger, Linton, than when we separated in winter? If you be, I'm certain one thing is not stronger--your regard for me: speak,--are you?' The tears gushed from Linton's eyes as he answered, 'Yes, yes, I am!' And, still under the spell of the imaginary voice, his gaze wandered up and down to detect its owner. Cathy rose. 'For to-day we must part,' she said. 'And I won't conceal that I have been sadly disappointed with our meeting; though I'll mention it to nobody but you: not that I stand in awe of Mr. Heathcliff.' "Husch", flüsterte Linton, "um Gottes willen, husch! Er kommt." Und er klammerte sich an Catherines Arm und versuchte, sie festzuhalten; aber bei dieser Ankündigung befreite sie sich eilig und pfiff nach Minny, die wie ein Hund gehorchte. "Ich bin nächsten Donnerstag wieder hier", rief sie und sprang in den Sattel. "Auf Wiedersehen. Schnell, Ellen!" Und so ließen wir ihn zurück, kaum bewusst, dass wir fortgingen, so sehr war er damit beschäftigt, die Ankunft seines Vaters vorherzusehen. Bevor wir zu Hause ankamen, milderte sich Catherines Unmut zu einem verwirrten Gefühl des Mitleids und Bedauerns, das weitgehend mit vagen, unruhigen Zweifeln über Lintons tatsächliche Umstände, sowohl physisch als auch sozial, vermischt war: an denen ich teilnahm, obwohl ich ihr riet, nicht viel zu sagen; denn eine zweite Reise würde uns bessere Richter machen. Mein Herr bat um einen Bericht über unsere Erlebnisse. Das Dankeschön seines Neffen wurde ordnungsgemäß überbracht, Miss Cathy berührte sanft den Rest: Ich leistete auch wenig Aufklärung über seine Fragen, denn ich wusste kaum, was ich verbergen und was ich offenbaren sollte. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Zur vereinbarten Zeit des ersten Treffens auf dem Moor ist Linton nicht am vereinbarten Ort; stattdessen ist er ganz in der Nähe von Wuthering Heights. Sowohl Nelly als auch Cathy sind besorgt um Lintons Gesundheit, aber er besteht darauf, dass er stärker wird. Während des gesamten Besuchs ist er empfindlich und ängstlich und schaut ständig zurück zu seinem Haus. Als es Zeit ist zu gehen, versichert Cathy Linton, dass sie ihm verspricht, ihn nächsten Donnerstag wieder zu treffen. Auf dem Heimweg besprechen Cathy und Nelly Lintons Gesundheit und beschließen, bis zum nächsten Besuch abzuwarten, um das Ausmaß seines Verfalls festzustellen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Yea, voice of every Soul that clung To life that strove from rung to rung When Devadatta's rule was young, The warm wind brings Kamakura. Buddha at Kamakura. Behind them an angry farmer brandished a bamboo pole. He was a market-gardener, Arain by caste, growing vegetables and flowers for Umballa city, and well Kim knew the breed. 'Such an one,' said the lama, disregarding the dogs, 'is impolite to strangers, intemperate of speech and uncharitable. Be warned by his demeanour, my disciple.' 'Ho, shameless beggars!' shouted the farmer. 'Begone! Get hence!' 'We go,' the lama returned, with quiet dignity. 'We go from these unblessed fields.' 'Ah,' said Kim, sucking in his breath. 'If the next crops fail, thou canst only blame thine own tongue.' The man shuffled uneasily in his slippers. 'The land is full of beggars,' he began, half apologetically. 'And by what sign didst thou know that we would beg from thee, O Mali?' said Kim tartly, using the name that a market-gardener least likes. 'All we sought was to look at that river beyond the field there.' 'River, forsooth!' the man snorted. 'What city do ye hail from not to know a canal-cut? It runs as straight as an arrow, and I pay for the water as though it were molten silver. There is a branch of a river beyond. But if ye need water I can give that--and milk.' 'Nay, we will go to the river,' said the lama, striding out. 'Milk and a meal.' the man stammered, as he looked at the strange tall figure. 'I--I would not draw evil upon myself--or my crops. But beggars are so many in these hard days.' 'Take notice.' The lama turned to Kim. 'He was led to speak harshly by the Red Mist of anger. That clearing from his eyes, he becomes courteous and of an affable heart. May his fields be blessed! Beware not to judge men too hastily, O farmer.' 'I have met holy ones who would have cursed thee from hearthstone to byre,' said Kim to the abashed man. 'Is he not wise and holy? I am his disciple.' He cocked his nose in the air loftily and stepped across the narrow field-borders with great dignity. 'There is no pride,' said the lama, after a pause, 'there is no pride among such as follow the Middle Way.' 'But thou hast said he was low-caste and discourteous.' 'Low-caste I did not say, for how can that be which is not? Afterwards he amended his discourtesy, and I forgot the offence. Moreover, he is as we are, bound upon the Wheel of Things; but he does not tread the way of deliverance.' He halted at a little runlet among the fields, and considered the hoof-pitted bank. 'Now, how wilt thou know thy River?' said Kim, squatting in the shade of some tall sugar-cane. 'When I find it, an enlightenment will surely be given. This, I feel, is not the place. O littlest among the waters, if only thou couldst tell me where runs my River! But be thou blessed to make the fields bear!' 'Look! Look!' Kim sprang to his side and dragged him back. A yellow-and-brown streak glided from the purple rustling stems to the bank, stretched its neck to the water, drank, and lay still--a big cobra with fixed, lidless eyes. 'I have no stick--I have no stick,' said Kim. 'I will get me one and break his back.' 'Why? He is upon the Wheel as we are--a life ascending or descending--very far from deliverance. Great evil must the soul have done that is cast into this shape.' 'I hate all snakes,' said Kim. No native training can quench the white man's horror of the Serpent. 'Let him live out his life.' The coiled thing hissed and half opened its hood. 'May thy release come soon, brother!' the lama continued placidly. 'Hast thou knowledge, by chance, of my River?' 'Never have I seen such a man as thou art,' Kim whispered, overwhelmed. 'Do the very snakes understand thy talk?' 'Who knows?' He passed within a foot of the cobra's poised head. It flattened itself among the dusty coils. 'Come, thou!' he called over his shoulder. 'Not I,' said Kim'. 'I go round.' 'Come. He does no hurt.' Kim hesitated for a moment. The lama backed his order by some droned Chinese quotation which Kim took for a charm. He obeyed and bounded across the rivulet, and the snake, indeed, made no sign. 'Never have I seen such a man.' Kim wiped the sweat from his forehead. 'And now, whither go we?' 'That is for thee to say. I am old, and a stranger--far from my own place. But that the rail-carriage fills my head with noises of devil-drums I would go in it to Benares now ... Yet by so going we may miss the River. Let us find another river.' Where the hard-worked soil gives three and even four crops a year through patches of sugar-cane, tobacco, long white radishes, and nol-kol, all that day they strolled on, turning aside to every glimpse of water; rousing village dogs and sleeping villages at noonday; the lama replying to the volleyed questions with an unswerving simplicity. They sought a River: a River of miraculous healing. Had any one knowledge of such a stream? Sometimes men laughed, but more often heard the story out to the end and offered them a place in the shade, a drink of milk, and a meal. The women were always kind, and the little children as children are the world over, alternately shy and venturesome. Evening found them at rest under the village tree of a mud-walled, mud-roofed hamlet, talking to the headman as the cattle came in from the grazing-grounds and the women prepared the day's last meal. They had passed beyond the belt of market-gardens round hungry Umballa, and were among the mile-wide green of the staple crops. He was a white-bearded and affable elder, used to entertaining strangers. He dragged out a string bedstead for the lama, set warm cooked food before him, prepared him a pipe, and, the evening ceremonies being finished in the village temple, sent for the village priest. Kim told the older children tales of the size and beauty of Lahore, of railway travel, and such-like city things, while the men talked, slowly as their cattle chew the cud. 'I cannot fathom it,' said the headman at last to the priest. 'How readest thou this talk?' The lama, his tale told, was silently telling his beads. 'He is a Seeker.' the priest answered. 'The land is full of such. Remember him who came only last, month--the fakir with the tortoise?' 'Ay, but that man had right and reason, for Krishna Himself appeared in a vision promising him Paradise without the burning-pyre if he journeyed to Prayag. This man seeks no God who is within my knowledge.' 'Peace, he is old: he comes from far off, and he is mad,' the smooth-shaven priest replied. 'Hear me.' He turned to the lama. 'Three koss [six miles] to the westward runs the great road to Calcutta.' 'But I would go to Benares--to Benares.' 'And to Benares also. It crosses all streams on this side of Hind. Now my word to thee, Holy One, is rest here till tomorrow. Then take the road' (it was the Grand Trunk Road he meant) 'and test each stream that it overpasses; for, as I understand, the virtue of thy River lies neither in one pool nor place, but throughout its length. Then, if thy Gods will, be assured that thou wilt come upon thy freedom.' 'That is well said.' The lama was much impressed by the plan. 'We will begin tomorrow, and a blessing on thee for showing old feet such a near road.' A deep, sing-song Chinese half-chant closed the sentence. Even the priest was impressed, and the headman feared an evil spell: but none could look at the lama's simple, eager face and doubt him long. 'Seest thou my chela?' he said, diving into his snuff-gourd with an important sniff. It was his duty to repay courtesy with courtesy. 'I see--and hear.' The headman rolled his eye where Kim was chatting to a girl in blue as she laid crackling thorns on a fire. 'He also has a Search of his own. No river, but a Bull. Yea, a Red Bull on a green field will some day raise him to honour. He is, I think, not altogether of this world. He was sent of a sudden to aid me in this search, and his name is Friend of all the World.' The priest smiled. 'Ho, there, Friend of all the World,' he cried across the sharp-smelling smoke, 'what art thou?' 'This Holy One's disciple,' said Kim. 'He says thou are a but [a spirit].' 'Can buts eat?' said Kim, with a twinkle. 'For I am hungry.' 'It is no jest,' cried the lama. 'A certain astrologer of that city whose name I have forgotten--' 'That is no more than the city of Umballa where we slept last night,' Kim whispered to the priest. 'Ay, Umballa was it? He cast a horoscope and declared that my chela should find his desire within two days. But what said he of the meaning of the stars, Friend of all the World?' Kim cleared his throat and looked around at the village greybeards. 'The meaning of my Star is War,' he replied pompously. Somebody laughed at the little tattered figure strutting on the brickwork plinth under the great tree. Where a native would have lain down, Kim's white blood set him upon his feet. 'Ay, War,' he answered. 'That is a sure prophecy,' rumbled a deep voice. 'For there is always war along the Border--as I know.' It was an old, withered man, who had served the Government in the days of the Mutiny as a native officer in a newly raised cavalry regiment. The Government had given him a good holding in the village, and though the demands of his sons, now grey-bearded officers on their own account, had impoverished him, he was still a person of consequence. English officials--Deputy Commissioners even--turned aside from the main road to visit him, and on those occasions he dressed himself in the uniform of ancient days, and stood up like a ramrod. 'But this shall be a great war--a war of eight thousand.' Kim's voice shrilled across the quick-gathering crowd, astonishing himself. 'Redcoats or our own regiments?' the old man snapped, as though he were asking an equal. His tone made men respect Kim. 'Redcoats,' said Kim at a venture. 'Redcoats and guns.' 'But--but the astrologer said no word of this,' cried the lama, snuffing prodigiously in his excitement. 'But I know. The word has come to me, who am this Holy One's disciple. There will rise a war--a war of eight thousand redcoats. From Pindi and Peshawur they will be drawn. This is sure.' 'The boy has heard bazar-talk,' said the priest. 'But he was always by my side,' said the lama. 'How should he know? I did not know.' 'He will make a clever juggler when the old man is dead,' muttered the priest to the headman. 'What new trick is this?' 'A sign. Give me a sign,' thundered the old soldier suddenly. 'If there were war my sons would have told me.' 'When all is ready, thy sons, doubt not, will be told. But it is a long road from thy sons to the man in whose hands these things lie.' Kim warmed to the game, for it reminded him of experiences in the letter-carrying line, when, for the sake of a few pice, he pretended to know more than he knew. But now he was playing for larger things--the sheer excitement and the sense of power. He drew a new breath and went on. 'Old man, give me a sign. Do underlings order the goings of eight thousand redcoats--with guns?' 'No.' Still the old man answered as though Kim were an equal. 'Dost thou know who He is, then, that gives the order?' 'I have seen Him.' 'To know again?' 'I have known Him since he was a lieutenant in the topkhana (the Artillery).' 'A tall man. A tall man with black hair, walking thus?' Kim took a few paces in a stiff, wooden style. 'Ay. But that anyone may have seen.' The crowd were breathless--still through all this talk. 'That is true,' said Kim. 'But I will say more. Look now. First the great man walks thus. Then He thinks thus.' (Kim drew a forefinger over his forehead and downwards till it came to rest by the angle of the jaw.) 'Anon He twitches his fingers thus. Anon He thrusts his hat under his left armpit.' Kim illustrated the motion and stood like a stork. The old man groaned, inarticulate with amazement; and the crowd shivered. 'So--so--so. But what does He when He is about to give an order?' 'He rubs the skin at the back of his neck--thus. Then falls one finger on the table and He makes a small sniffing noise through his nose. Then He speaks, saying: "Loose such and such a regiment. Call out such guns."' The old man rose stiffly and saluted. '"For"'--Kim translated into the vernacular the clinching sentences he had heard in the dressing-room at Umballa--'"For," says He, "we should have done this long ago. It is not war--it is a chastisement. Snff!"' 'Enough. I believe. I have seen Him thus in the smoke of battles. Seen and heard. It is He!' 'I saw no smoke'--Kim's voice shifted to the rapt sing-song of the wayside fortune-teller. 'I saw this in darkness. First came a man to make things clear. Then came horsemen. Then came He standing in a ring of light. The rest followed as I have said. Old man, have I spoken truth?' 'It is He. Past all doubt it is He.' The crowd drew a long, quavering breath, staring alternately at the old man, still at attention, and ragged Kim against the purple twilight. 'Said I not--said I not he was from the other world?' cried the lama proudly. 'He is the Friend of all the World. He is the Friend of the Stars!' 'At least it does not concern us,' a man cried. 'O thou young soothsayer, if the gift abides with thee at all seasons, I have a red-spotted cow. She may be sister to thy Bull for aught I know--' 'Or I care,' said Kim. 'My Stars do not concern themselves with thy cattle.' 'Nay, but she is very sick,' a woman struck in. 'My man is a buffalo, or he would have chosen his words better. Tell me if she recover?' Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the play; but one does not know Lahore city, and least of all the fakirs by the Taksali Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing human nature. The priest looked at him sideways, something bitterly--a dry and blighting smile. 'Is there no priest, then, in the village? I thought I had seen a great one even now,' cried Kim. 'Ay--but--' the woman began. 'But thou and thy husband hoped to get the cow cured for a handful of thanks.' The shot told: they were notoriously the closest-fisted couple in the village. 'It is not well to cheat the temples. Give a young calf to thine own priest, and, unless thy Gods are angry past recall, she will give milk within a month.' 'A master-beggar art thou,' purred the priest approvingly. 'Not the cunning of forty years could have done better. Surely thou hast made the old man rich?' 'A little flour, a little butter and a mouthful of cardamoms,' Kim retorted, flushed with the praise, but still cautious--'Does one grow rich on that? And, as thou canst see, he is mad. But it serves me while I learn the road at least.' He knew what the fakirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they talked among themselves, and copied the very inflection of their lewd disciples. 'Is his Search, then, truth or a cloak to other ends? It may be treasure.' 'He is mad--many times mad. There is nothing else.' Here the old soldier bobbled up and asked if Kim would accept his hospitality for the night. The priest recommended him to do so, but insisted that the honour of entertaining the lama belonged to the temple--at which the lama smiled guilelessly. Kim glanced from one face to the other, and drew his own conclusions. 'Where is the money?' he whispered, beckoning the old man off into the darkness. 'In my bosom. Where else?' 'Give it me. Quietly and swiftly give it me.' 'But why? Here is no ticket to buy.' 'Am I thy chela, or am I not? Do I not safeguard thy old feet about the ways? Give me the money and at dawn I will return it.' He slipped his hand above the lama's girdle and brought away the purse. 'Be it so--be it so.' The old man nodded his head. 'This is a great and terrible world. I never knew there were so many men alive in it.' Next morning the priest was in a very bad temper, but the lama was quite happy; and Kim had enjoyed a most interesting evening with the old man, who brought out his cavalry sabre and, balancing it on his dry knees, told tales of the Mutiny and young captains thirty years in their graves, till Kim dropped off to sleep. 'Certainly the air of this country is good,' said the lama. 'I sleep lightly, as do all old men; but last night I slept unwaking till broad day. Even now I am heavy.' 'Drink a draught of hot milk,' said Kim, who had carried not a few such remedies to opium-smokers of his acquaintance. 'It is time to take the Road again.' 'The long Road that overpasses all the rivers of Hind,' said the lama gaily. 'Let us go. But how thinkest thou, chela, to recompense these people, and especially the priest, for their great kindness? Truly they are but parast, but in other lives, maybe, they will receive enlightenment. A rupee to the temple? The thing within is no more than stone and red paint, but the heart of man we must acknowledge when and where it is good.' 'Holy One, hast thou ever taken the Road alone?' Kim looked up sharply, like the Indian crows so busy about the fields. 'Surely, child: from Kulu to Pathankot--from Kulu, where my first chela died. When men were kind to us we made offerings, and all men were well-disposed throughout all the Hills.' 'It is otherwise in Hind,' said Kim drily. 'Their Gods are many-armed and malignant. Let them alone.' 'I would set thee on thy road for a little, Friend of all the World, thou and thy yellow man.' The old soldier ambled up the village street, all shadowy in the dawn, on a punt, scissor-hocked pony. 'Last night broke up the fountains of remembrance in my so-dried heart, and it was as a blessing to me. Truly there is war abroad in the air. I smell it. See! I have brought my sword.' He sat long-legged on the little beast, with the big sword at his side--hand dropped on the pommel--staring fiercely over the flat lands towards the North. 'Tell me again how He showed in thy vision. Come up and sit behind me. The beast will carry two.' 'I am this Holy One's disciple,' said Kim, as they cleared the village-gate. The villagers seemed almost sorry to be rid of them, but the priest's farewell was cold and distant. He had wasted some opium on a man who carried no money. 'That is well spoken. I am not much used to holy men, but respect is always good. There is no respect in these days--not even when a Commissioner Sahib comes to see me. But why should one whose Star leads him to war follow a holy man?' 'But he is a holy man,' said Kim earnestly. 'In truth, and in talk and in act, holy. He is not like the others. I have never seen such an one. We be not fortune-tellers, or jugglers, or beggars.' 'Thou art not. That I can see. But I do not know that other. He marches well, though.' The first freshness of the day carried the lama forward with long, easy, camel-like strides. He was deep in meditation, mechanically clicking his rosary. They followed the rutted and worn country road that wound across the flat between the great dark-green mango-groves, the line of the snowcapped Himalayas faint to the eastward. All India was at work in the fields, to the creaking of well-wheels, the shouting of ploughmen behind their cattle, and the clamour of the crows. Even the pony felt the good influence and almost broke into a trot as Kim laid a hand on the stirrup-leather. 'It repents me that I did not give a rupee to the shrine,' said the lama on the last bead of his eighty-one. The old soldier growled in his beard, so that the lama for the first time was aware of him. 'Seekest thou the River also?' said he, turning. 'The day is new,' was the reply. 'What need of a river save to water at before sundown? I come to show thee a short lane to the Big Road.' 'That is a courtesy to be remembered, O man of good will. But why the sword?' The old soldier looked as abashed as a child interrupted in his game of make-believe. 'The sword,' he said, fumbling it. 'Oh, that was a fancy of mine an old man's fancy. Truly the police orders are that no man must bear weapons throughout Hind, but'--he cheered up and slapped the hilt--'all the constabeels hereabout know me.' 'It is not a good fancy,' said the lama. 'What profit to kill men?' 'Very little--as I know; but if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers. I do not speak without knowledge who have seen the land from Delhi south awash with blood.' 'What madness was that, then?' 'The Gods, who sent it for a plague, alone know. A madness ate into all the Army, and they turned against their officers. That was the first evil, but not past remedy if they had then held their hands. But they chose to kill the Sahibs' wives and children. Then came the Sahibs from over the sea and called them to most strict account.' 'Some such rumour, I believe, reached me once long ago. They called it the Black Year, as I remember.' 'What manner of life hast thou led, not to know The Year? A rumour indeed! All earth knew, and trembled!' 'Our earth never shook but once--upon the day that the Excellent One received Enlightenment.' 'Umph! I saw Delhi shake at least--and Delhi is the navel of the world.' 'So they turned against women and children? That was a bad deed, for which the punishment cannot be avoided.' 'Many strove to do so, but with very small profit. I was then in a regiment of cavalry. It broke. Of six hundred and eighty sabres stood fast to their salt--how many, think you? Three. Of whom I was one.' 'The greater merit.' 'Merit! We did not consider it merit in those days. My people, my friends, my brothers fell from me. They said: "The time of the English is accomplished. Let each strike out a little holding for himself." But I had talked with the men of Sobraon, of Chilianwallah, of Moodkee and Ferozeshah. I said: "Abide a little and the wind turns. There is no blessing in this work." In those days I rode seventy miles with an English Memsahib and her babe on my saddle-bow. (Wow! That was a horse fit for a man!) I placed them in safety, and back came I to my officer--the one that was not killed of our five. "Give me work," said I, "for I am an outcast among my own kind, and my cousin's blood is wet on my sabre." "Be content," said he. "There is great work forward. When this madness is over there is a recompense."' 'Ay, there is a recompense when the madness is over, surely?' the lama muttered half to himself. 'They did not hang medals in those days on all who by accident had heard a gun fired. No! In nineteen pitched battles was I; in six-and-forty skirmishes of horse; and in small affairs without number. Nine wounds I bear; a medal and four clasps and the medal of an Order, for my captains, who are now generals, remembered me when the Kaisar-i-Hind had accomplished fifty years of her reign, and all the land rejoiced. They said: "Give him the Order of Berittish India." I carry it upon my neck now. I have also my jaghir [holding] from the hands of the State--a free gift to me and mine. The men of the old days--they are now Commissioners--come riding to me through the crops--high upon horses so that all the village sees--and we talk out the old skirmishes, one dead man's name leading to another.' 'And after?' said the lama. 'Oh, afterwards they go away, but not before my village has seen.' 'And at the last what wilt thou do?' 'At the last I shall die.' 'And after?' 'Let the Gods order it. I have never pestered Them with prayers. I do not think They will pester me. Look you, I have noticed in my long life that those who eternally break in upon Those Above with complaints and reports and bellowings and weepings are presently sent for in haste, as our Colonel used to send for slack-jawed down-country men who talked too much. No, I have never wearied the Gods. They will remember this, and give me a quiet place where I can drive my lance in the shade, and wait to welcome my sons: I have no less than three Rissaldar--majors all--in the regiments.' 'And they likewise, bound upon the Wheel, go forth from life to life--from despair to despair,' said the lama below his breath, 'hot, uneasy, snatching.' 'Ay,' the old soldier chuckled. 'Three Rissaldar--majors in three regiments. Gamblers a little, but so am I. They must be well mounted; and one cannot take the horses as in the old days one took women. Well, well, my holding can pay for all. How thinkest thou? It is a well-watered strip, but my men cheat me. I do not know how to ask save at the lance's point. Ugh! I grow angry and I curse them, and they feign penitence, but behind my back I know they call me a toothless old ape.' 'Hast thou never desired any other thing?' 'Yes--yes--a thousand times! A straight back and a close-clinging knee once more; a quick wrist and a keen eye; and the marrow that makes a man. Oh, the old days--the good days of my strength!' 'That strength is weakness.' 'It has turned so; but fifty years since I could have proved it otherwise,' the old soldier retorted, driving his stirrup-edge into the pony's lean flank. 'But I know a River of great healing.' 'I have drank Gunga-water to the edge of dropsy. All she gave me was a flux, and no sort of strength.' 'It is not Gunga. The River that I know washes from all taint of sin. Ascending the far bank one is assured of Freedom. I do not know thy life, but thy face is the face of the honourable and courteous. Thou hast clung to thy Way, rendering fidelity when it was hard to give, in that Black Year of which I now remember other tales. Enter now upon the Middle Way which is the path to Freedom. Hear the Most Excellent Law, and do not follow dreams.' 'Speak, then, old man,' the soldier smiled, half saluting. 'We be all babblers at our age.' The lama squatted under the shade of a mango, whose shadow played checkerwise over his face; the soldier sat stiffly on the pony; and Kim, making sure that there were no snakes, lay down in the crotch of the twisted roots. There was a drowsy buzz of small life in hot sunshine, a cooing of doves, and a sleepy drone of well-wheels across the fields. Slowly and impressively the lama began. At the end of ten minutes the old soldier slid from his pony, to hear better as he said, and sat with the reins round his wrist. The lama's voice faltered, the periods lengthened. Kim was busy watching a grey squirrel. When the little scolding bunch of fur, close pressed to the branch, disappeared, preacher and audience were fast asleep, the old officer's strong-cut head pillowed on his arm, the lama's thrown back against the tree-bole, where it showed like yellow ivory. A naked child toddled up, stared, and, moved by some quick impulse of reverence, made a solemn little obeisance before the lama--only the child was so short and fat that it toppled over sideways, and Kim laughed at the sprawling, chubby legs. The child, scared and indignant, yelled aloud. 'Hai! Hai!' said the soldier, leaping to his feet. 'What is it? What orders? ... It is ... a child! I dreamed it was an alarm. Little one--little one--do not cry. Have I slept? That was discourteous indeed!' 'I fear! I am afraid!' roared the child. 'What is it to fear? Two old men and a boy? How wilt thou ever make a soldier, Princeling?' The lama had waked too, but, taking no direct notice of the child, clicked his rosary. 'What is that?' said the child, stopping a yell midway. 'I have never seen such things. Give them me.' 'Aha.' said the lama, smiling, and trailing a loop of it on the grass: This is a handful of cardamoms, This is a lump of ghi: This is millet and chillies and rice, A supper for thee and me! The child shrieked with joy, and snatched at the dark, glancing beads. 'Oho!' said the old soldier. 'Whence hadst thou that song, despiser of this world?' 'I learned it in Pathankot--sitting on a doorstep,' said the lama shyly. 'It is good to be kind to babes.' 'As I remember, before the sleep came on us, thou hadst told me that marriage and bearing were darkeners of the true light, stumbling-blocks upon the Way. Do children drop from Heaven in thy country? Is it the Way to sing them songs?' 'No man is all perfect,' said the lama gravely, recoiling the rosary. 'Run now to thy mother, little one.' 'Hear him!' said the soldier to Kim. 'He is ashamed for that he has made a child happy. There was a very good householder lost in thee, my brother. Hai, child!' He threw it a pice. 'Sweetmeats are always sweet.' And as the little figure capered away into the sunshine: 'They grow up and become men. Holy One, I grieve that I slept in the midst of thy preaching. Forgive me.' 'We be two old men,' said the lama. 'The fault is mine. I listened to thy talk of the world and its madness, and one fault led to the next.' 'Hear him! What harm do thy Gods suffer from play with a babe? And that song was very well sung. Let us go on and I will sing thee the song of Nikal Seyn before Delhi--the old song.' And they fared out from the gloom of the mango tope, the old man's high, shrill voice ringing across the field, as wail by long-drawn wail he unfolded the story of Nikal Seyn [Nicholson]--the song that men sing in the Punjab to this day. Kim was delighted, and the lama listened with deep interest. 'Ahi! Nikal Seyn is dead--he died before Delhi! Lances of the North, take vengeance for Nikal Seyn.' He quavered it out to the end, marking the trills with the flat of his sword on the pony's rump. 'And now we come to the Big Road,' said he, after receiving the compliments of Kim; for the lama was markedly silent. 'It is long since I have ridden this way, but thy boy's talk stirred me. See, Holy One--the Great Road which is the backbone of all Hind. For the most part it is shaded, as here, with four lines of trees; the middle road--all hard--takes the quick traffic. In the days before rail-carriages the Sahibs travelled up and down here in hundreds. Now there are only country-carts and such like. Left and right is the rougher road for the heavy carts--grain and cotton and timber, fodder, lime and hides. A man goes in safety here for at every few koss is a police-station. The police are thieves and extortioners (I myself would patrol it with cavalry--young recruits under a strong captain), but at least they do not suffer any rivals. All castes and kinds of men move here. 'Look! Brahmins and chumars, bankers and tinkers, barbers and bunnias, pilgrims and potters--all the world going and coming. It is to me as a river from which I am withdrawn like a log after a flood.' And truly the Grand Trunk Road is a wonderful spectacle. It runs straight, bearing without crowding India's traffic for fifteen hundred miles--such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world. They looked at the green-arched, shade-flecked length of it, the white breadth speckled with slow-pacing folk; and the two-roomed police-station opposite. 'Who bears arms against the law?' a constable called out laughingly, as he caught sight of the soldier's sword. 'Are not the police enough to destroy evil-doers?' 'It was because of the police I bought it,' was the answer. 'Does all go well in Hind?' 'Rissaldar Sahib, all goes well.' 'I am like an old tortoise, look you, who puts his head out from the bank and draws it in again. Ay, this is the Road of Hindustan. All men come by this way...' 'Son of a swine, is the soft part of the road meant for thee to scratch thy back upon? Father of all the daughters of shame and husband of ten thousand virtueless ones, thy mother was devoted to a devil, being led thereto by her mother. Thy aunts have never had a nose for seven generations! Thy sister--What Owl's folly told thee to draw thy carts across the road? A broken wheel? Then take a broken head and put the two together at leisure!' The voice and a venomous whip-cracking came out of a pillar of dust fifty yards away, where a cart had broken down. A thin, high Kathiawar mare, with eyes and nostrils aflame, rocketed out of the jam, snorting and wincing as her rider bent her across the road in chase of a shouting man. He was tall and grey-bearded, sitting the almost mad beast as a piece of her, and scientifically lashing his victim between plunges. The old man's face lit with pride. 'My child!' said he briefly, and strove to rein the pony's neck to a fitting arch. 'Am I to be beaten before the police?' cried the carter. 'Justice! I will have Justice--' 'Am I to be blocked by a shouting ape who upsets ten thousand sacks under a young horse's nose? That is the way to ruin a mare.' 'He speaks truth. He speaks truth. But she follows her man close,' said the old man. The carter ran under the wheels of his cart and thence threatened all sorts of vengeance. 'They are strong men, thy sons,' said the policeman serenely, picking his teeth. The horseman delivered one last vicious cut with his whip and came on at a canter. 'My father!' He reigned back ten yards and dismounted. The old man was off his pony in an instant, and they embraced as do father and son in the East. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Ein wütender Bauer versucht, Kim und die Lama von seinem Grundstück zu vertreiben, während sie in einem seiner Felder nach dem Fluss des Pfeils suchen. Aber Kim schafft es schnell, den Bauern ein schlechtes Gewissen zu machen, indem er ihm klar macht, dass es Unglück bringt, einen heiligen Mann wie das Lama zu belästigen. Deshalb entschuldigt sich der Bauer und bietet den beiden eine Mahlzeit an. Als sie das Feld überqueren, entdeckt Kim eine Kobra und will sie töten. Das Lama sagt nein: "Lass ihn sein Leben leben" und geht einen Fuß entfernt von der Schlange, als wäre sie nicht schrecklich giftig. Kim scheint tatsächlich beeindruckt von der spirituellen Natur des Lamas. Kim und das Lama gehen zu Fuß weiter und halten an jedem Gewässer an, das sie passieren, um zu überprüfen, ob es der Fluss ist. Auf ihrer Reise treffen sie auf einen älteren Dorfvorsteher, der gerne Leute unterhält. Der Vorsteher lädt den Dorfpriester ein, damit sie eine kleine Feier für Kim und das Lama veranstalten können, und die Ältesten des Dorfes versammeln sich, um Kim's Geschichten über Lahore und seine Reisen mit dem Lama zu hören. Das Lama bringt Kim's Rotes Bull wieder zur Sprache. Kim fühlt sich offensichtlich aufgeblasen wichtig: Er erzählt den Männern, dass sein Sternzeichen Krieg prophezeit. Tatsächlich gibt es einen alten Mann auf dieser Party, der alles über Krieg weiß - er kämpfte im Auftrag der britischen indischen Regierung während der "Meuterei" von 1857. Als Kim schwört, dass achttausend Soldaten von Pindi und Peshawar marschieren, will der alte Mann einen Beweis haben. Kim imitiert den großen Mann mit schwarzen Haaren, der die Befehle gab, perfekt und der alte Mann ist so beeindruckt von dieser Imitation, dass er Kim salutiert. Am nächsten Tag kommt der alte Soldat im Tempel an, in dem das Lama und Kim übernachtet haben. Der alte Mann will ihnen den Weg zeigen, der zur großen Nord-Süd-Verbindung nach Benares führt. Während sie gehen, bemerkt das Lama, dass der alte Mann sein Schwert trägt. Also erzählt der alte Mann von seinen Erfahrungen, gegen seine indischen Kameraden im Aufstand von 1857 zu kämpfen. Er kämpfte auf Seiten der Engländer und erhielt nach dem Ende des Aufstandes viele Medaillen für seine Tapferkeit. Das Lama versucht, das Interesse des alten Mannes an seinem Fluss des Pfeils zu wecken, der den alten Mann von allen seinen Sünden reinigen wird. Schließlich erreichen sie die "Große Straße", die große Nord-Süd-Verbindung. Dies ist eine alte Straße, die von Ost nach West quer durch Indien führt. Auf dieser riesigen Straße sehen sie einen Mann, der brutal sein Pferd schlägt. Das Lama rennt zu dem Pferd, um es zu streicheln und zu beruhigen, und ein Polizist schimpft mit dem Mann, der den Wagen fährt, weil er sein Pferd so schlägt. Aber der alte Soldat umarmt den Pferdeführer: es ist sein Sohn.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Sturm still. Betritt Lear und Narr. Lear. Blase Wind und zerre deine Wangen; Rasere, blase! Katarakte, spüle, bis unsere Türme überschwemmt sind, ersäufe die Hähne. Ihr schwefelhaltigen und gedankenexekutierenden Feuer, Stolze Vorläufer von eagnen Blitzschlägen, Versengt mein weißes Haar. Und du, das alles erschütternde Donnergrollen, Zerstöre die dicke Rundheit der Welt, Zerberste die natürlichen Formen, alle Geschlechter zugleich, Die den undankbaren Menschen ausmachen. Narr. Oh Onkel, das Weihwasser am Hof in einem trockenen Haus ist besser als dieser Regen draußen. Gut Onkel, geh rein und bitte um den Segen deiner Töchter, hier ist eine Nacht, die weder Weisen noch Narren gefällt. Lear. Lass deinen Bauch laut grummeln, spuck Feuer, spritze Regen. Weder Regen, Wind, Donner noch Feuer sind meine Töchter; Ich verurteile euch nicht, ihr Elemente, wegen Undankbarkeit. Ich habe euch niemals ein Königreich gegeben, euch Kinder genannt; Ihr schuldet mir nichts. Lasst also herabregnen Eure furchtbare Freude. Hier stehe ich als euer Sklave, Ein armer, schwacher, verachteter alter Mann: Aber ich nenne euch dienstbare Bedienten, Die sich mit meinen eigen Fleisch und Blut erzeugenden Töchtern verbünden In ihrem gegen einen Kopf gerichteten Kampf, So alt und weiß wie dieser. Oh, wie schändlich! Narr. Wer ein Haus hat, worin er seinen Kopf bergen kann, hat einen guten Kopf. Das männliche Geschlechtsteil, das ein Haus hat, bevor der Kopf irgendetwas hat; Der Kopf muss gehen und er soll heiraten: daher heiraten viele Bettler. Der Mann, der aus einem Korn Wehklagen macht, was er aus seinem Herzen machen soll, Wird über ein Strohalm stöhnen und wach werden. Denn es hat noch nie eine schöne Frau gegeben, die nicht Grimassen im Spiegel macht. Betrete Kent. Lear. Nein, ich werde das Vorbild der Geduld sein, Ich sage nichts. Kent. Wer ist da? Narr. Verdammt, hier ist Gnade und ein männliches Geschlechtsteil, das ist weise und Narr. Kent. Ach, mein Herr, bist du hier? Menschen, die die Nacht lieben, mögen nicht solche Nächte wie diese: Die zornigen Himmel verdammen die Wanderer der Dunkelheit und zwingen sie, in ihren Höhlen zu bleiben: Seit ich ein Mann bin, solche Feuerfontänen, solche schreckliche Donnerstöße, solches Stöhnen des brüllenden Windes und Regens, habe ich noch nie erfahre. Die Natur des Menschen kann weder so viel Leid noch so viel Angst ertragen. Lear. Lass die großen Götter, die dieses schreckliche Durcheinander über unseren Köpfen verursachen, jetzt ihre Feinde finden. Zittere, du Elender, der du unverkündete Verbrechen in dir trägst, von der Gerechtigkeit ungestraft. Verstecke dich, du blutige Hand; du Meineidiger und du Versteller der Tugend, der Inzest treibt. Schurke, zittere und zerbrich dich in den Händen von Sünden, die du geheim hältst, sprenge deine verbergenden Gefäße und schrei diese furchtbaren Unheilstifter an. Ich bin ein Mann, mehr gesündigt worden als gesündigt habe. Kent. Ach, ohne Hut? Gnädiger Herr, hier in der Nähe ist ein Stall, etwas Freundlichkeit wird er dir gegen den Sturm gewähren: Erhol dich dort, während ich zu diesem harten Haus zurückkehre, (härter sogar als die Steine, aus denen es gebaut ist, das mich gerade erst gefragt hat, ob ich hereinkommen möchte, und mir verweigert hat) und ihre knappe Höflichkeit erzwingen werde. Lear. Mein Verstand beginnt sich zu drehen. Komm schon, mein Junge. Wie geht es dir mein Junge? Ist dir kalt? Mir ist kalt. Wo ist dieses Stroh, mein Kamerad? Die Kunst unserer Not ist seltsam und kann wertlose Dinge kostbar machen. Komm, zu deinem Stall; Armer Narr und Schurke, ich habe einen Teil in meinem Herzen, der noch um dich trauert. Narr. Wer wenig Verstand hat, Er muss sich mit dem Wind und dem Regen zufriedengeben, Obwohl es jeden Tag regnet. Le. Wahr, Junge. Bring uns zu diesem Stall. Betrete. Narr. Das ist eine mutige Nacht, um eine Kurtisane abzukühlen: Ich werde eine Prophezeiung machen, bevor ich gehe: Wenn Priester mehr in Worten sind als in Taten; Wenn Brauer ihr Malz mit Wasser verderben; Wenn Adelige Schneider unterrichten, Keine Ketzter brennen, sondern die Huren sie verklagen; Wenn jeder Rechtsfall richtig entschieden wird; Kein Knappe verschuldet und kein armer Ritter; Wenn Verleumdungen in den Mündern nicht leben; Und Taschendiebe nicht in Mengen auftauchen; Wenn Wucherer ihr Gold auf dem Feld zählen Und Spitzbuben und Huren Kirchen bauen, Dann wird das Königreich von Albion in große Verwirrung geraten: Dann kommt die Zeit, wer es lebt zu sehen, dass Gehen mit Füßen benutzt wird. Diese Prophezeiung soll Merlin machen, denn ich lebe vor seiner Zeit. Betrete. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Inmitten eines heftigen Sturms betritt Lear die Bühne; er wird vom Narren begleitet, der zittert und ängstlich ist. Lear selbst ist "stürmisch" begeistert. Er jubelt über die Macht der Natur und vergleicht sie mit seinen Töchtern. Ironischerweise erkennt er nun selbst, dass er alt, schwach, schutzlos und machtlos ist. Als er die Wahrheit über sich selbst erkennt, beginnt er, "in das Leben der Dinge" zu sehen und empfindet zum ersten Mal eine Beziehung zu anderen Menschen. Dadurch lässt er Selbstmitleid hinter sich. Der Narr bleibt dem König nahe und versucht, ihn mit halblustigen Sprüchen aufzuheitern. Kent betritt die Bühne, sieht sich den rasenden Lear an und beklagt das Schicksal des hilflosen, alten Königs. Er hört zu, wie Lear über die Unvernunft der Menschheit und ihre Selbsttäuschung und falschen Werte schwadroniert. Kent versucht, mit dem König vernünftig zu reden und bittet ihn, Schutz zu suchen. Lear macht sich jedoch keine Sorgen um sich selbst; stattdessen zeigt er eine zärtliche Fürsorge für den Narren. Schließlich überredet Kent Lear, in Richtung einer nahe gelegenen Hütte zu gehen. Die beiden verlassen die Bühne und der Narr folgt ihnen kurz darauf und verkündet eine Prophezeiung.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: HALFWAY down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon Elm. On my occasional visits to the town aforesaid, I seldom failed to turn down Pyncheon Street, for the sake of passing through the shadow of these two antiquities,--the great elm-tree and the weather-beaten edifice. Die Erscheinung des ehrwürdigen Herrenhauses hat mich immer wie ein menschliches Gesicht beeinflusst, das nicht nur die Spuren äußerer Stürme und Sonnenschein trägt, sondern auch den langen Lauf des irdischen Lebens, und begleitende Wechselfälle, die darin passiert sind, ausdrückt. Wären diese würdig erzählt worden, würden sie eine Erzählung von großem Interesse und Unterricht bilden und außerdem eine gewisse bemerkenswerte Einheit besitzen, die fast wie das Ergebnis einer künstlerischen Anordnung erscheinen könnte. Aber die Geschichte würde eine Kette von Ereignissen umfassen, die sich über den größten Teil von zwei Jahrhunderten erstrecken und, mit angemessener Breite ausgeschrieben, ein größeres Folio-Band füllen oder eine längere Reihe von Duodezim-Bänden, als vernünftigerweise den annalen ganz Neuenglands während eines ähnlichen Zeitraums zugewiesen werden könnten. Daher wird es unerlässlich, mit den meisten der überlieferten Überlieferungen kurzumzugehen, von denen das alte Pyncheon-Haus, das auch als Haus der sieben Giebel bekannt ist, das Thema war. Mit einer kurzen Skizze daher der Umstände, unter denen das Haus erbaut wurde, und einem schnellen Blick auf sein schrulliges Äußeres, wie es sich im vorherrschenden Ostwind schwarz färbte, - wobei auch hier und da eine Stelle von grüner Moosigkeit auf seinem Dach und Wänden - werden wir die eigentliche Handlung unserer Geschichte zu einer Epoche beginnen, die nicht sehr weit von der Gegenwart entfernt ist. Dennoch wird es eine Verbindung zur langen Vergangenheit geben, eine Erinnerung an vergessene Ereignisse und Personen und an Sitten, Gefühle und Meinungen, die fast oder ganz veraltet sind, die, wenn sie dem Leser angemessen übersetzt werden, dazu dienen würden, zu veranschaulichen, wie viel altes Material die frischeste Neuheit des menschlichen Lebens ausmacht. Deshalb könnte auch eine wichtige Lehre aus der wenig beachteten Wahrheit gezogen werden, dass die Handlungen der vorübergehenden Generation der Keim sind, der in weit entfernter Zeit gute oder böse Früchte hervorbringen kann und muss; dass sie zusammen mit dem Samen der bloß zeitweiligen Ernte, die Sterbliche als zweckmäßig erachten, unausweichlich die Eicheln einer dauerhafteren Entwicklung sähen, die ihre Nachfahren finster beschatten können. Das Haus der sieben Giebel, so antiquiert es auch aussieht, war nicht das erste Wohnhaus, das von zivilisierten Menschen genau an dieser Stelle errichtet wurde. Die Pyncheon Street trug früher den bescheideneren Namen Maule's Lane, nach dem Namen des ursprünglichen Besitzers des Bodens, vor dessen Hütte es einen Kuhpfad gab. Eine natürliche Quelle von weichem und angenehmem Wasser - ein seltenes Gut auf der von Meer umgebenen Halbinsel, auf der die puritanische Siedlung errichtet wurde - hatte Matthew Maule frühzeitig dazu veranlasst, an dieser Stelle eine mit Reet bedeckte Hütte zu errichten, obwohl sie etwas zu weit von dem damaligen Dorfzentrum entfernt war. In dem Wachstum der Stadt wurde der Bereich, der von dieser einfachen Hütte bedeckt war, jedoch nach etwa dreißig oder vierzig Jahren in den Augen einer herausragenden und mächtigen Person, die plausible Ansprüche auf das Eigentum an diesem und einem großen angrenzenden Grundstück geltend machte, äußerst begehrenswert. Colonel Pyncheon, der Anspruchsteller, wie wir aus den ihm zugeschriebenen Merkmalen entnehmen, zeichnete sich durch eine eiserne Willensenergie aus. Matthew Maule hingegen, obwohl ein unbekannter Mann, war hartnäckig in der Verteidigung dessen, was er als sein Recht ansah; und mehrere Jahre lang gelang es ihm, das, was er mit eigener Mühe aus dem Urwald herausgehauen hatte, um seinen Garten und sein Heimstätte zumachen, zu schützen. Es ist kein schriftlicher Aufzeichnung dieses Streits bekannt. Unser Wissen über das gesamte Thema stammt hauptsächlich aus der Tradition. Es wäre daher kühn und möglicherweise ungerecht, eine endgültige Meinung über seine Vorzüge abzugeben; obwohl es zumindest zweifelhaft scheint, ob Colonel Pyncheons Anspruch nicht übertrieben war, um die kleinen Vermessungs- und Grenzlinien von Matthew Maule zu umfassen. Was diesen Verdacht sehr verstärkt, ist die Tatsache, dass dieser Streit zwischen zwei ungleichen Gegnern - zu einer Zeit, mögen wir es loben, hatte persönlicher Einfluss weit mehr Gewicht als heute - jahrelang unentschieden blieb und erst mit dem Tod der Partei, die das umstrittene Gelände besetzte, endete. Die Art seines Todes wirkt auch heute anders auf den Geist als vor anderthalb Jahrhunderten. Es war ein Tod, der den bescheidenen Namen des Bewohners der Hütte mit seltsamer Schrecken erfüllte und es beinahe zu einer religiösen Handlung machte, den Pflug über den kleinen Bereich seines Wohnsitzes zu führen und seinen Platz und seine Erinnerung aus der Mitte der Menschen zu tilgen. Der alte Matthew Maule wurde im Grunde genommen wegen des Verbrechens der Hexerei hingerichtet. Er war einer der Märtyrer dieser schrecklichen Täuschung, die uns unter anderem lehren sollte, dass die einflussreichen Klassen und diejenigen, die sich selbst zu Führern des Volkes machen, genauso anfällig für jeglichen leidenschaftlichen Irrtum sind, der jemals die verrückteste Menge charakterisiert hat. Geistliche, Richter, Staatsmänner - die weisesten, ruhigsten und heiligsten Personen ihrer Zeit standen im inneren Kreis um den Galgen herum, am lautesten, um die Bluttat zu bejubeln, am spätesten, um sich elendig zu gestehen, wie sehr sie sich getäuscht hatten. Wenn irgendein Teil ihres Vorgehens weniger Tadel verdient als ein anderer, dann war es die bemerkenswerte Undiskriminiertheit, mit der sie nicht nur die Armen und Alten verfolgten, wie bei früheren Justizmassakern, sondern Menschen aller Schichten; ihre eigenen Gleichgestellten, Brüder und Ehefrauen. Angesichts des Durcheinanders einer solchen unterschiedlichen Zerstörung ist es nicht verwunderlich, dass ein Mann von geringer Bekanntheit wie Maule fast unbemerkt den Märtyrerpfad zum Henkerhügel betrat, inmitten seiner Leidensgenossen. Aber in den folgenden Tagen, als der Wahnsinn dieser abscheulichen Epoche abgeklungen war, erinnerte man sich, wie laut Colonel Pyncheon in den allgemeinen Ruf eingestimmt hatte, das Land von Hexerei zu reinigen. Es ließ sich auch nicht überhören, dass eine verletzende Bitterkeit in dem Eifer war, mit dem er die Verurteilung von Matthew Maule gesucht hatte. Es war allgemein bekannt, dass das Opfer die Verbitterung persönlicher Feindschaft in der Verhaltensweise seines Verfolgers gegenüber ihm erkannt und erklärt hatte, dass er wegen seiner Beute zu Tode gejagt wurde. Im Moment der Hinrichtung - mit dem Strick um den Hals und während Colonel Pyncheon grimassierend auf dem Pferd saß und auf die Szene starrte - hatte Maule ihn von oben herab vom Schafott aus angesprochen und eine Prophetie ausgesprochen, deren Worte die Geschichte ebenso wie die Überlieferung am Kaminfeuer bewahrt haben. "Gott", sagte der Sterbende und zeigte mit grässlichem Blick auf das unerschütterliche Antlitz seines Feindes, "Gott wird ihm Blut zu trinken geben!" Nach dem Tod des vermeintlichen Zauberers war sein bescheidenes Heim zur leichten Beute von Colonel Pyncheon geworden. Als jedoch bekannt wurde, dass der Colonel beabsichtigte, ein Familiengemach zu errichten - geräumig, schwer aus Eichenholz errichtet und auf viele Generationen seines Geschlechts ausgelegt - genau über dem Fleck, der einst von der Holzhütte Matthew Maules bedeckt war, schüttelten die Dorftratschen bedenklich den Kopf. Ohne wirklich Zweifel daran zum Ausdruck zu bringen, ob der stattliche Puritaner während des geschilderten Vorgehens als Mann des Gewissens und der Integrität gehandelt hatte, deuteten sie doch an, dass er darauf bestand, sein Haus über einem unruhigen Grab zu errichten. Sein Zuhause würde das Heim des toten und begrabenen Zauberers einschließen und somit dem Geist dieses Letzteren eine Art Vorrecht geben, seine neuen Räumlichkeiten sowie die Gemächer zu verfolgen, in die zukünftige Bräutigame ihre Bräute führen, und wo Kinder des Pyncheon-Blutes geboren werden. Der Schrecken und die Hässlichkeit von Maules Verbrechen und das Elend seiner Bestrafung würden die frisch verputzten Wände verdunkeln und sie frühzeitig mit dem Geruch eines alten und melancholischen Hauses durchdringen. Warum also sollte Colonel Pyncheon, während so viel des Bodens um ihn herum vom Laub des unberührten Waldes bedeckt war, einen Standort bevorzugen, der bereits verflucht worden war? Aber der puritanische Soldat und Magistrat war kein Mann, der von der Furcht vor dem Geist des Zauberers oder von flüchtigen Sentimentalitäten irgendwelcher Art, mögen sie noch so trügerisch gewesen sein, von seinem wohlbedachten Plan abgebracht wurde. Hätte man ihm von schlechter Luft erzählt, hätte ihn das etwas bewegen können, aber er war bereit, einem bösen Geist auf eigenem Boden zu begegnen. Mit gesundem Menschenverstand, so massiv und hart wie Granitblöcke, die mit der eisernen Starrheit des Zwecks zusammengefügt sind, folgte er seinem ursprünglichen Entwurf, wahrscheinlich ohne auch nur einen Einwand dagegen zu erahnen. In Bezug auf Feingefühl oder jede Gewissenhaftigkeit, die ihm eine feinere Sensibilität hätte lehren können, war der Colonel wie die meisten seiner Rasse und Generation undurchdringlich. Daher grub er seinen Keller und legte die tiefen Grundlagen seines Anwesens auf dem quadratischen Stück Erde, von dem Matthew Maule vor vierzig Jahren das heruntergefallene Laub beseitigt hatte. Es war ziemlich merkwürdig und, wie manche Leute dachten, ein ominöser Umstand, dass sehr bald nach Beginn der Arbeiten die oben genannte Wasserquelle ihren köstlichen ursprünglichen Geschmack vollständig verlor. Ob die Quellen durch die Tiefe des neuen Kellers gestört wurden oder welche subtilere Ursache auch immer am Grund lauerte, sicher ist, dass das Wasser von Maules Brunnen, wie er weiterhin genannt wurde, hart und salzig wurde. Auch heute noch finden wir es so und jede alte Frau aus der Nachbarschaft wird bezeugen, dass es bei denen, die dort ihren Durst stillen, zu Darmbeschwerden führt. Der Leser mag es für sonderbar halten, dass der oberste Zimmermann des neuen Gebäudes niemand anderer war als der Sohn des Mannes, dem das Eigentum des Bodens aus der Leichenstarre entrungen worden war. Nicht unwahrscheinlich war er der beste Handwerker seiner Zeit oder der Colonel hielt es für angebracht oder wurde von einem besseren Gefühl getrieben, alle Feindseligkeiten gegen die Nachkommen seines gefallenen Gegners offen abzulegen. Es passte auch gut zur allgemeinen Derbheit und nüchternen Art des Zeitalters, dass der Sohn bereit war, einen ehrlichen Penny zu verdienen oder besser gesagt, eine beträchtliche Summe Sterling aus der Kasse des tödlichen Feindes seines Vaters. Auf jeden Fall wurde Thomas Maule der Architekt des Hauses der sieben Giebel und erfüllte seine Aufgabe so gewissenhaft, dass das von seinen Händen befestigte Holzgerüst immer noch zusammenhält. So wurde das große Haus gebaut. Vertraut, wie es dem Schriftsteller in Erinnerung steht - denn es hat sein Interesse seit seiner Kindheit geweckt, sowohl als Beispiel für die beste und stattlichste Architektur einer längst vergangenen Epoche als auch als Schauplatz von Ereignissen, die vielleicht voller menschlichen Interesses sind als die einer grauen Feudalburg - vertraut, wie es in seinem rostigen Alter steht, ist es daher umso schwerer, sich die helle Neuheit vorzustellen, mit der es zuerst das Sonnenlicht einfing. Der Eindruck seines tatsächlichen Zustands, aus dieser Entfernung von hundertsechzig Jahren, verdunkelt sich unvermeidlich durch das Bild, das wir gerne von seinem Aussehen am Morgen geben würden, als der puritanische Magnat die ganze Stadt zu seinen Gästen einlud. Eine Weihezeremonie, festlich wie auch religiös, sollte nun stattfinden. Ein Gebet und eine Predigt von Herrn Pfarrer Higginson und das gemeinsame Singen eines Psalms durch die ganze Gemeinde sollte durch Ale, Apfelwein, Wein und Branntwein in reichlicher Menge und, wie einige Quellen behaupten, durch einen geschmorten Ochsen oder zumindest durch das Gewicht und die Substanz eines Ochsen in handlichere Stücke und Filets, schmackhaft gemacht werden. Dem riesigen Umfang eines Pasteten wurde das Fleisch eines innerhalb von zwanzig Meilen erlegten Hirsches Maule's Lane, oder Pyncheon Street, wie es jetzt angemessener war, es zu nennen, war zum angesetzten Zeitpunkt überfüllt, als wäre es eine Gemeinde auf dem Weg zur Kirche. Alle schauten nach oben auf das imposante Gebäude, das von nun an seinen Platz unter den Wohnstätten der Menschheit einnehmen sollte. Dort erhob es sich, etwas zurückgesetzt von der Straßenlinie, aber stolz, nicht bescheiden. Seine ganze sichtbare Außenseite war mit skurrilen Figuren verziert, die in der Groteske einer gotischen Phantasie entworfen und in dem glitzernden Putz aus Kalk, Kieselsteinen und Glassplittern, mit dem das Holzwerk der Wände überzogen war, eingezeichnet oder gestempelt waren. Auf jeder Seite wiesen die sieben Giebel scharf zum Himmel und boten den Anblick einer ganzen Schwesternschaft von Gebäuden, die durch die Atemlöcher eines großen Schornsteins atmeten. Die vielen Fenstergitter mit ihren kleinen, diamantförmigen Scheiben ließen das Sonnenlicht in Flur und Kammer hinein, während die zweite Etage, die weit über dem Fundament herausragte und selbst unter der dritten Etage zurücktrat, einen schattigen und nachdenklichen düsteren Hauch in die unteren Räume warf. Unter den vorspringenden Geschichten waren geschnitzte Holzkugeln angebracht. An allen sieben Spitzen waren kleine spiralförmige Eisenstäbe angebracht. Auf dem dreieckigen Teil des Giebels, der zur Straße hin lag, befand sich eine Tafel, die an diesem Morgen angebracht wurde und auf der noch die Sonne die Stunden des ersten hellen Tagesmarkierte einer Geschichte, die nicht dazu bestimmt war, ganz so hell zu sein. Überall waren Späne, Abbruchstücke, Schindeln und halbe Ziegelsteine verstreut; zusammen mit der erst kürzlich umgedrehten Erde, auf der das Gras noch nicht begonnen hatte zu wachsen, trugen sie zum Eindruck von Fremdheit und Neuheit bei, der einem Haus entspricht, das noch seinen Platz unter den täglichen Interessen der Menschen finden muss. Der Haupteingang, der fast die Breite einer Kirchentür hatte, befand sich in der Ecke zwischen den beiden vorderen Giebeln und war von einer offenen Veranda mit Bänken unter ihrem Schutz bedeckt. Unter dieser gewölbten Eingangstür, indem sie ihre Füße auf die unbenutzte Schwelle abkratzten, schritten nun die Geistlichen, die Ältesten, die Magistraten, die Diakone und alles, was an Aristokratie in der Stadt oder im Landkreis vorhanden war. Auch die plebejischen Klassen strömten dorthin genauso frei wie ihre Vorgesetzten und in größerer Anzahl. Direkt hinter dem Eingang jedoch standen zwei Diener, die einige der Gäste in die Nähe der Küche wiesen und andere in die prächtigeren Räume führten - gastfreundlich für alle, aber dennoch mit einer genauen Beachtung des hohen oder niedrigen Standes jedes Einzelnen. Samtene Gewänder, düster, aber reich, steif gefaltete Rüschen und Kragen, bestickte Handschuhe, ehrwürdige Bärte, die Haltung und das Gesicht von Autorität machten es leicht, den verehrten Herrn von Ansehen zu unterscheiden, der zu dieser Zeit den Gentleman vom Kaufmann mit seinem geschäftigen Auftreten oder dem Arbeiter in seinem Lederwams, der ehrfürchtig in das Haus schlich, das er vielleicht mitgebaut hatte. Es gab jedoch einen ungünstigen Umstand, der in den Herzen einiger der pedantischeren Besucher kaum verhüllten Ärger hervorrief. Der Begründer dieses stattlichen Herrenhauses - ein Herr, der für die quadratische und ponderöse Höflichkeit seines Auftretens bekannt war - hätte sicherlich in seiner eigenen Halle stehen und das erste Willkommen so vieler bedeutender Persönlichkeiten anbieten sollen, die sich hier zu Ehren seines feierlichen Festes versammelten. Er war noch unsichtbar; die bevorzugtesten Gäste hatten ihn noch nicht gesehen. Diese Trägheit seitens des Colonel Pyncheon erschien noch unerklärlicher, als der zweithöchste Würdenträger der Provinz erschien und keine feierlichere Begrüßung erhielt. Der Vizegouverneur, obwohl sein Besuch eines der erwarteten Glanzlichter des Tages war, stieg von seinem Pferd ab, half seiner Dame von ihrem Seitensattel ab und überschritt die Schwelle des Colonels, ohne andere Begrüßung als die des Haushofmeisters zu erhalten. Diese Person - ein grauhaariger Mann, von ruhigem und äußerst respektvollem Auftreten - fand es notwendig zu erklären, dass sein Herr immer noch in seinem Arbeitszimmer oder Privatapartment blieb. Als er eine Stunde zuvor eintrat, äußerte er den Wunsch, auf keinen Fall gestört zu werden. "Siehst du nicht, Kerl", sagte der Sheriff des Bezirks und zog den Diener beiseite, "dass dies nichts weniger ist als ein Mann als der Vizegouverneur? Rufe Colonel Pyncheon sofort! Ich weiß, dass er heute Morgen Briefe aus England erhalten hat; und während er sie liest und darüber nachdenkt, kann eine Stunde vergehen, ohne dass er es bemerkt. Aber er wird unzufrieden sein, so schätze ich, wenn du es zulässt, dass er die Höflichkeit vernachlässigt, die einem unserer hohen Herrscher gebührt und der, könnte man sagen, König William repräsentiert, in Abwesenheit des Gouverneurs selbst. Rufe deinen Herrn sofort." "Nein, bitte Euer Gnaden", antwortete der Mann mit großer Verwirrung, aber mit einer Zurückhaltung, die den harten und strengen Charakter von Colonel Pyncheons häuslicher Herrschaft deutlich zeigte. "Die Anweisungen meines Herrn waren äußerst streng; und wie Ihr wisst, gestattet er keine Eigenständigkeit bei der Befolgung derjenigen, die ihm dienstbar sind. Lasst denjenigen die Tür öffnen, wer auch immer will; ich wage es nicht, selbst wenn die Stimme des Gouverneurs es mir befiehlt!" "Pah, pah, Meistersheriff!" rief der Vizegouverneur, der das vorangegangene Gespräch gehört hatte und sich in seiner Stellung hoch genug fühlte, um ein wenig mit seiner Würde zu spielen. "Ich werde die Angelegenheit selbst in die Hand nehmen. Es ist an der Zeit, dass der gute Colonel herauskommt, um seine Freunde zu begrüßen, sonst könnten wir vermuten, dass er einen Schluck zu viel von seinem Kanarischen Wein genommen hat und in seiner extremen Überlegung, welche der Fässer er zu Ehren des Tages anbohren soll, zögert! Aber da er so weit im Rückstand ist, werde ich ihm selbst eine Erinnerung geben!" Dementsprechend, mit einem solchen Trampeln seiner schweren Reitstiefel, dass es von selbst in der entferntesten der sieben Giebel zu hören gewesen sein könnte, näherte er sich der Tür, auf die der Diener hinwies, und ließ ihre neuen Türflügel mit einem lauten, freien Klopfen widerhallen. Dann sah er sich lächelnd zu den Zuschauern um und wartete auf eine Antwort. Da jedoch keine kam, klopfte er erneut, jedoch mit demselben unbefriedigenden Ergebnis wie zuvor. Und nun, da er eine etwas gereizte Natur hatte, hob der Vizegouverneur den schweren Knauf seines Schwertes, mit dem er auf die Tür schlug und pochte, dass, wie einige der Umstehenden flüsterten, der Lärm die Toten gestört haben könnte. Wie dem auch sei, schien es keine erweckende Wirkung auf Colonel Pyncheon zu haben. Als der Klang nachließ, war die Stille im Haus tief, düster und beklemmend, obwohl die Zungen vieler der Gäste bereits durch einen heimlichen Becher oder zwei Wein oder Spirituosen gelockert worden waren. "Seltsam, in der Tat - sehr seltsam!" rief der Vizegouverneur aus, dessen Lächeln in ein Stirnrunz Sie drängten sich jedoch zur nun offenen Tür und drängten den Vizegouverneur, vor ihnen in den Raum zu treten, da sie so neugierig waren. Auf den ersten Blick sahen sie nichts Außergewöhnliches: ein schön möbliertes Zimmer von mittlerer Größe, etwas abgedunkelt durch Vorhänge; Bücher auf Regalen angeordnet; eine große Karte an der Wand und ebenfalls ein Porträt von Colonel Pyncheon, unter dem der eigene Colonel selbst in einem Eichensessel saß, mit einem Stift in der Hand. Briefe, Pergamente und leere Blätter Papier lagen auf dem Tisch vor ihm. Er schien auf die neugierige Menge zu starren, vor der der Vizegouverneur stand; und auf seinem dunklen und massiven Gesicht lag ein finsterer Ausdruck, als wäre er zornig über die Dreistigkeit, die sie in seine private Zurückgezogenheit getrieben hatte. Ein kleiner Junge - der Enkel des Colonels und das einzige menschliche Wesen, das sich jemals getraute, vertraut mit ihm zu sein - bahnte sich nun seinen Weg zwischen den Gästen und rannte auf die sitzende Figur zu; dann blieb er auf halbem Weg stehen und begann vor Angst zu schreien. Die Gesellschaft, zitternd wie die Blätter eines Baumes, wenn sie alle zusammen zittern, kam näher und bemerkte, dass es eine unnatürliche Verzerrung in der Starre von Colonel Pyncheons Blick gab; dass da Blut an seinem Kragen war und dass sein graues Bart damit getränkt war. Es war zu spät, Hilfe zu leisten. Der eisenherzige Puritaner, der unbarmherzige Verfolger, der raffgierige und entschlossene Mann war tot! Tot, in seinem neuen Haus! Es gibt eine Überlieferung, die nur erwähnt wird, um einer Szene vielleicht genug übernatürlichen Schrecken einzuhauchen, die auch ohne sie schon düster genug wäre, dass eine Stimme laut unter den Gästen sprach, deren Klang demjenigen des alten Matthew Maule, dem hingerichteten Zauberer, ähnelte: "Gott hat ihm Blut zu trinken gegeben!" So früh betrat dieser eine Gast - der einzige Gast, der mit Sicherheit irgendwann den Weg in jede menschliche Behausung findet - die Schwelle des Hauses der sieben Giebel! Colonel Pyncheons plötzliches und mysteriöses Ende sorgte damals für viel Aufsehen. Es gab viele Gerüchte, von denen einige vage bis in die Gegenwart gedrungen sind, wie dass äußere Anzeichen auf Gewalt hindeuteten; dass Fingerabdrücke an seinem Hals und eine blutige Hand auf seinem geplätteten Kragen zu sehen waren; und dass sein spitz zulaufender Bart zerzaust war, als ob er heftig gegriffen und gezogen worden wäre. Es wurde auch behauptet, dass das Fensterchen nahe dem Stuhl des Colonels offen stand und dass nur wenige Minuten vor dem tödlichen Vorfall die Gestalt eines Mannes beobachtet worden war, wie sie über den Gartenzaun auf der Rückseite des Hauses kletterte. Es wäre jedoch töricht, auf solche Geschichten Wert zu legen, die sich sicherlich um ein Ereignis wie das hier geschilderte ranken und sich manchmal, wie in diesem Fall, noch jahrhundertelang hinziehen, wie die Pilze, die darauf hinweisen, dass der gefallene und vergrabene Baumstamm längst zu Erde verrottet ist. Was uns betrifft, nehmen wir ihnen genauso wenig Glauben entgegen wie der anderen Sage von der skelettierten Hand, die der Vizegouverneur angeblich am Hals des Colonels gesehen haben soll, die sich jedoch auflöste, als er weiter in den Raum vordrang. Sicher ist jedoch, dass es eine große Konsultation und einen Streit der Ärzte über der toten Leiche gab. Ein gewisser John Swinnerton, wie uns scheint ein angesehener Mann, behauptete, es handele sich, wenn wir seine Fachausdrücke richtig verstanden haben, um einen Fall von Schlaganfall. Seine beruflichen Kollegen hatten jeweils ihre eigenen, mehr oder weniger plausiblen Hypothesen, die alle in einem verwirrenden Mysterium von Ausdrücken gehüllt waren, das, wenn es keinen geistigen Wirrwarr bei diesen gelehrten Ärzten zeigt, sicherlich den ungebildeten Leser ihrer Meinungen verwirrt. Die Leiche wurde von der Leichenschau begutachtet und die klugen Männer gaben ein unwiderlegbares Urteil über "plötzlichen Tod" ab! Es ist in der Tat schwer vorstellbar, dass es einen ernsthaften Mordverdacht gegeben hat oder geringe Anhaltspunkte gab, um eine bestimmte Person als Täter zu belasten. Der Rang, der Reichtum und der herausragende Charakter des Verstorbenen hätten eine genaueste Untersuchung jeder mehrdeutigen Umstande garantiert. Da nichts dergleichen verzeichnet ist, kann man davon ausgehen, dass nichts dergleichen existierte. Tradition - die manchmal die Wahrheit überliefert, die die Geschichte hat fallen lassen, aber oft das wilde Geschwätz der Zeit ist, wie es früher am Kaminfeuer gesprochen und nun in Zeitungen versteinert ist -, Tradition ist für alle gegenteiligen Behauptungen verantwortlich. In der Trauerpredigt über Colonel Pyncheon, die gedruckt und bis heute existiert, nennt der Reverend Mr. Higginson unter den vielen Freuden der irdischen Laufbahn seines angesehenen Gemeindemitglieds die glückliche Zeitigkeit seines Todes. Nachdem er seine Pflichten erfüllt hatte - der höchste Wohlstand erreicht war - sein Geschlecht und zukünftige Generationen auf eine stabile Basis gestellt waren und mit einem imposanten Dach, das sie jahrhundertelang schützen sollte - was blieb diesem guten Menschen noch übrig, außer den letzten Schritt von der Erde durch das goldene Tor des Himmels zu gehen! Der fromme Geistliche hätte sicherlich nicht solche Worte geäußert, wenn er auch nur im geringsten vermutet hätte, dass der Colonel mit Gewalt in die andere Welt gedrängt worden war. Die Familie von Colonel Pyncheon schien zum Zeitpunkt seines Todes dazu bestimmt zu sein, eine ebenso glückliche Beständigkeit zu erreichen, wie sie mit der inhärenten Instabilität menschlicher Angelegenheiten vereinbar ist. Man konnte mit Sicherheit davon ausgehen, dass der Lauf der Zeit ihren Wohlstand eher vermehren und reifen lassen würde, als ihn abzunutzen und zu zerstören. Denn nicht nur hatte sein Sohn und Erbe sofortigen Genuss eines reichen Anwesens, sondern es gab auch einen Anspruch durch eine indianische Urkunde, bestätigt durch eine spätere Verleihung des General Court, auf ein noch unerforschtes und unvermessenes Gebiet im Osten. Diese Besitzungen - so könnte man sie fast sicher zählen - umfassten den größten Teil dessen, was heute als Waldo County im Bundesstaat Maine bekannt ist, und waren umfangreicher als so manches Herzogtum oder das Hoheitsgebiet eines regierenden Fürsten auf europäischem Boden. Wenn der undurchdringliche Wald, der dieses wilde Fürstentum noch bedeckte, einem goldreichen Anbau des menschlichen Kultivierungszustands weichen würde - wie es zwangsläufig geschehen musste, wenn auch vielleicht erst in fernen Zeiten -, würde er der Pyncheon-Sippe unermesslichen Reichtum bescheren. Hätte der Colonel nur noch einige Wochen länger gelebt, dann wäre es wahrscheinlich gewesen, dass sein großer politischer Einfluss und seine mächtigen Verbindungen im In- und Ausland alles Notwendige getan hätten, um den Anspruch nutzbar zu machen. Doch trotz der gratulatorischen Eloquenz von Mr. Higginson erwies sich dies offenbar als das eine, was Colonel Pyncheon, so vorausschauend und klug er auch war, ohne Sorge aus den Händen glitt. Was das potentielle Territorium betraf, starb er zweifellos zu früh. Sein Sohn verfügte nicht nur nicht über die herausragende Stellung des Vaters, sondern auch nicht über das Talent und die Stärke des Charakters, um sie zu erreichen: Er konnte daher nichts durch politisches Interesse erreichen, und die bloße Gerechtigkeit oder Legalität des Anspruchs war nach dem Tod des Colonels nicht mehr so offensichtlich wie zu Lebzeiten. Ein verbindendes Element war aus den Beweisen verschwunden und konnte nirgendwo gefunden werden. Es wurden tatsächlich Bemühungen von den Pyncheons unternommen, nicht nur damals, sondern in verschiedenen Zeiträumen für fast hundert Jahre danach, um das zu erlangen, was sie hartnäckig als ihr Recht ansahen. Aber im Laufe der Zeit wurde das Gebiet teilweise anderen bevorzugten Personen zurückgegeben und teilweise von tatsächlichen Siedlern geräumt und besiedelt. Letztere hätten, falls sie je von dem Pyncheon-Titel gehört hätten, über die Idee gelacht, dass jemand das Recht auf Land beansprucht - gestützt auf angestaubte Urkunden, unterzeichnet mit den verblassten Autogrammen von längst verstorbenen und vergessenen Gouverneuren und Gesetzgebern - das sie oder ihre Väter sich mit ihrer eigenen schweren Arbeit von der wilden Natur abgerungen hatten. Dieser ungreifbare Anspruch führte daher zu nichts Greifbarem als dass die Pyncheons von Generation zu Generation einen absurden Wahn von familiärer Bedeutung hegen, der die Pyncheons die ganze Zeit auszeichnete. Dadurch fühlte sich das ärmste Mitglied der Familie, als ob es eine Art Adel ererbt hätte, und könnte noch in den Besitz eines fürstlichen Reichtums kommen, um diese Bedeutung zu unterstützen. Bei den besseren Exemplaren der Rasse verlieh diese Eigenart dem harten Material des menschlichen Lebens eine ideale Anmut, ohne irgendeine wirklich wertvolle Qualität wegzunehmen. Bei den niederträchtigeren dagegen hatte sie zur Folge, dass die Anfälligkeit für Trägheit und Abhängigkeit zunahm und das Opfer einer illusionären Hoffnung dazu verleitete, jegliche Selbstbemühungen einzustellen, während es auf die Erfüllung seiner Träume wartete. Jahre und Jahre, nachdem ihre Forderungen aus dem öffentlichen Gedächtnis verschwunden waren, pflegten die Pyncheons die uralte Karte des Colonels zu konsultieren, die projiziert worden war, als Waldo County noch eine unberührte Wildnis war. Wo der alte Landvermesser Wälder, Seen und Flüsse vermerkt hatte, zeichneten sie die gerodeten Flächen nach und punkteten die Dörfer und Städte ein und berechneten den progressiv zunehmenden Wert des Gebiets, als gäbe es noch eine Aussicht darauf, dass es letztendlich ein Fürstentum für sie bildet. Trotzdem gab es fast in jeder Generation irgendjemanden, einen Nachkommen der Familie, der mit einem Teil des harten, scharfen Sinnes und der praktischen Energie begabt war, die den ursprünglichen Gründer so bemerkenswert ausgezeichnet hatten. Sein Charakter konnte tatsächlich bis weit hinab verfolgt werden, so deutlich, als ob der Colonel selbst, ein wenig abgeschwächt, mit einer Art intermittierender Unsterblichkeit auf Erden gesegnet worden wäre. Bei zwei oder drei Epochen, wenn das Schicksal der Familie niedrig war, trat dieser Vertreter der erblichen Eigenschaften auf und ließ die tratschenden Traditionen der Stadt untereinander flüstern: "Hier ist der alte Pyncheon wieder gekommen! Jetzt wird das Haus der sieben Giebel neu geschindelt!" Von Vater zu Sohn hielten sie am alten Familienhaus mit bemerkenswerter Beharrlichkeit an. Aus verschiedenen Gründen und aufgrund von oft zu vage begründeten Eindrücken, um sie aufs Papier zu bringen, hegt der Verfasser den Glauben, dass viele, wenn nicht die meisten, der aufeinanderfolgenden Besitzer dieses Anwesens Zweifel an ihrem moralischen Recht hatten, es zu halten. An ihrem rechtlichen Besitz konnte keine Frage gestellt werden; aber der alte Matthew Maule trat, so ist zu befürchten, Troddeln hinunter aus seinem Alter in ein viel späteres und setzte mit jedem Schritt seinen schweren Fußabdruck auf das Gewissen eines Pyncheon. Wenn das so ist, bleibt uns die schreckliche Frage zu beantworten, ob jeder Erbe des Anwesens - im Bewusstsein der Schuld und ohne sie zu korrigieren - nicht erneut die große Schuld seines Vorfahren begeht und alle seine ursprünglichen Verantwortlichkeiten auf sich nimmt. Und wenn dem so ist, wäre es dann nicht eine weitaus treffendere Ausdrucksweise, von einer großen Misere zu sprechen, die die Pyncheon-Familie geerbt hat, anstatt umgekehrt? Wir haben bereits angedeutet, dass es nicht unser Zweck ist, die Geschichte der Pyncheon-Familie in ihrer ununterbrochenen Verbindung mit dem Haus der sieben Giebel bis ins Detail zu verfolgen. Ebenso wenig wollen wir zeigen, wie der Rost und die Schwäche des Alters über das ehrwürdige Haus selbst hinweggekommen sind. Was das Innere des Hauses betrifft, so hing dort ein großes, dunkles Spiegelglas in einem der Räume und wurde erzählt, dass es in seinen Tiefen alle Formen enthielt, die jemals darin reflektiert wurden - den alten Colonel selbst und seine vielen Nachkommen, einige im Gewand des antiken Säuglings, andere in der Blüte weiblicher Schönheit oder männlicher Stärke oder traurig mit den Falten des frostigen Alters. Hätten wir das Geheimnis dieses Spiegels, würden wir uns gerne davor setzen und seine Offenbarungen auf unsere Seite übertragen. Aber es gab eine Geschichte, für die es schwer vorstellbar ist, dass sie eine Grundlage hat: Die Nachkommen von Matthew Maule hatten angeblich eine Verbindung mit dem Geheimnis des Spiegels, und durch eine Art mesmerischem Prozess konnten sie seine innere Region mit den verstorbenen Pyncheons wieder lebendig machen. Nicht so, wie sie sich der Welt gezeigt hatten, oder in ihren besseren und glücklicheren Stunden, sondern wiederholten einige böse Tat oder befanden sich in der Krise des bittersten Leids. Die populäre Vorstellung beschäftigte sich in der Tat lange mit dem Fall des alten puritanischen Pyncheon und des Zauberers Maule; der Fluch, den Letzterer von seinem Schafott geschleudert hatte, wurde mit der äußerst wichtigen Hinzufügung in Erinnerung behalten, dass er zum Pyncheon-Erbe geworden war. Wenn jemand aus der Familie in seinem Hals gurgelte, würde ein Beobachter ganz wahrscheinlich, zwischen Ernst und Spaß flüsternd, sagen: "Er hat Maules Blut zu trinken!" Der plötzliche Tod eines Pyncheon vor etwa hundert Jahren unter Umständen, die den oben geschilderten ähneln, wurde als zusätzliche Bestätigung der verbreiteten Meinung zu diesem Thema angesehen. Es galt außerdem als hässlicher und ominöser Umstand, dass das Bildnis von Colonel Pyncheon - angeblich aufgrund einer Bestimmung seines Testaments - an der Wand des Raumes, in dem er starb, angebracht blieb. Diese strengen, unnachgiebigen Gesichtszüge schienen einen bösen Einfluss zu symbolisieren und so dunkel den Schatten ihrer Anwesenheit mit dem Sonnenschein der vergehenden Stunde zu vermischen, dass dort keine guten Gedanken oder Absichten jemals aufblühen konnten. Für den nachdenklichen Geist wird es keinen Anflug von Aberglauben geben, wenn wir figurativ ausdrücken, dass das Geisterbild eines toten Vorfahren - vielleicht als Teil seiner eigenen Bestrafung - oft dazu verdammt ist, zum bösen Genius seiner Familie zu werden. Die Pyncheons lebten kurz gesagt fast zwei Jahrhunderte lang mit vielleicht weniger äußerem Wechsel als dies bei den meisten anderen Neuengland-Familien in derselben Zeitspanne der Fall war. Sie hatten sehr eigene Eigenschaften, nahmen aber den allgemeinen Charakter der kleinen Gemeinschaft auf, in der sie lebten; einer Stadt, die für ihre sparsamen, diskreten, gut geordneten und heimatliebenden Einwohner bekannt war, ebenso wie Es ist wichtig, ein paar Worte über das Opfer dieses fast vergessenen Mordes zu sagen. Er war ein alter Junggeselle und besaß großen Reichtum, zusätzlich zu dem Haus und dem Grundstück, das den verbliebenen Teil des alten Pyncheon-Anwesens ausmachte. Aufgrund seiner exzentrischen und melancholischen Art, seiner Vorliebe für das Durchstöbern alter Aufzeichnungen und das Lauschen alter Traditionen war er, wie behauptet wird, zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass Matthew Maule, der Zauberer, aus seinem Wohnsitz und vielleicht sogar aus seinem Leben betrügerisch vertrieben worden war. In Anbetracht dessen und da er, der alte Junggeselle, im Besitz der übel erworbenen Beute war - befleckt mit dem schwarzen Blutstropfen, der immer noch von gewissenhaften Nasen wahrgenommen werden konnte -, stellte sich die Frage, ob es nicht sogar in dieser späten Stunde für ihn zwingend war, Wiedergutmachung an Maules Nachkommen zu leisten. Für einen Mann, der so sehr in der Vergangenheit und so wenig in der Gegenwart lebte wie der zurückgezogene und historische alte Junggeselle, schien eineinhalb Jahrhunderte keine so große Zeitspanne zu sein, um richtiges Handeln statt Unrecht zu setzen. Diejenigen, die ihn am besten kannten, glaubten fest daran, dass er den sehr eigenartigen Schritt unternommen hätte, das Haus der Sieben Giebel dem Vertreter von Matthew Maule zu überlassen, wenn nicht das unsägliche Durcheinander, das ein Verdacht auf das Projekt des alten Herrn unter seinen Pyncheon-Verwandten auslöste, gewesen wäre. Ihr Einsatz hatte den Effekt, dass sein Vorhaben ausgesetzt wurde; aber es wurde befürchtet, dass er nach seinem Tod durch die Operation seines letzten Willens das tun würde, was er während seines eigentlichen Lebens nur knapp verhindert hatte. Aber es gibt nichts, was Männer so selten tun, egal welcher Anlass oder welche Anreize gegeben sind, wie die Vererbung von Eigentum weg von ihrem eigenen Blut. Sie mögen andere Personen weit mehr lieben als ihre Verwandten, sie mögen sogar Abneigung oder positive Feindseligkeit gegenüber letzteren hegen; aber in Anbetracht des Todes wird der starke Vorbehalt der Blutsverwandtschaft wieder belebt und treibt den Erblasser dazu, seinen Besitz gemäß der langjährigen Sitte in der vom Schicksal vorgesehenen Linie weiterzugeben, sodass es sich wie Natur anfühlt. Bei allen Pyncheons hatte dieses Gefühl die Wirkung einer Krankheit. Es war zu mächtig für die Gewissensbisse des alten Junggesellen, bei dessen Tod das Gutshaus zusammen mit den meisten seiner Reichtümer in den Besitz seines rechtmäßigen Nachfolgers überging. Dieser Nachfolger war ein Neffe, der Cousin des unglücklichen jungen Mannes, der des Mordes an dem Onkel überführt worden war. Der neue Erbe galt bis zu seiner Übernahme als eher ausschweifender Jüngling, hatte sich jedoch sofort gebessert und sich zu einem äußerst angesehenen Mitglied der Gesellschaft gemacht. Tatsächlich zeigte er mehr von der Pyncheon-Qualität und hatte höhere Anerkennung in der Welt erlangt als alle seine Vorfahren seit Zeiten der ursprünglichen Puritaner. In jüngeren Jahren wandte er sich dem Studium des Rechts zu und hatte aufgrund seiner natürlichen Neigung zu einem Amt vor vielen Jahren eine richterliche Position in einem untergeordneten Gericht erreicht, die ihm den sehr begehrenswerten und eindrucksvollen Titel des Richters auf Lebenszeit verlieh. Später engagierte er sich politisch und leistete einen Teil von zwei Amtszeiten im Kongress, wo er außerdem eine bedeutende Rolle in beiden Kammern der Landesgesetzgebung spielte. Richter Pyncheon war zweifellos eine Ehre für seine Familie. Er hatte sich ein Landsitz nur wenige Meilen von seiner Heimatstadt entfernt gebaut und verbrachte dort diejenigen Zeiten, die er von öffentlichen Diensten abzweigen konnte, damit er all seine Anmut und Tugend - wie es eine Zeitung am Vorabend einer Wahl ausdrückte - als Christ, guter Bürger, Gärtner und Gentleman präsentieren konnte. Es gab nur wenige Pyncheons, die sich im Glanz des Wohlstands des Richters sonnen konnten. In Bezug auf natürlichen Zuwachs gedieh die Familie nicht; sie schien eher auszusterben. Die einzigen bekannten Mitglieder der Familie waren zunächst der Richter selbst und ein einziger überlebender Sohn, der gerade in Europa reiste; dann der bereits erwähnte Gefangene von dreißig Jahren und eine Schwester dieses Gefangenen, die auf äußerst zurückgezogene Weise das Anwesen des House of the Seven Gables bewohnte, weil sie durch das Testament des alten Junggesellen ein Nießbrauchsrecht darauf hatte. Man ging davon aus, dass sie elend arm war und es vorzog, so zu bleiben, obwohl ihr wohlhabender Cousin, der Richter, ihr mehrmals in sowohl dem alten Herrenhaus als auch in seinem eigenen modernen Wohnsitz jeden Komfort angeboten hatte. Der jüngste Pyncheon war ein kleines Landmädchen von siebzehn Jahren, die Tochter eines anderen Cousins des Richters, der eine Frau ohne Herkunft oder Vermögen geheiratet hatte und früh und in schlechten Verhältnissen gestorben war. Seine Witwe hatte vor kurzem erneut geheiratet. Was die Nachkommen von Matthew Maule betraf, so wurde angenommen, dass sie inzwischen ausgestorben seien. Über einen sehr langen Zeitraum nach dem Hexenwahn hatten die Maules jedoch weiterhin in der Stadt gelebt, in der ihr Vorfahr so zu Unrecht gestorben war. Anscheinend waren sie eine ruhige, ehrliche und wohlmeinende Gruppe von Menschen, die weder Hass gegen Einzelpersonen noch gegen die Öffentlichkeit für die ihnen zugefügte Ungerechtigkeit hegen. Oder wenn sie in ihrem eigenen Heim von Vater zu Kind Erinnerungen an das Schicksal des Zauberers und den Verlust ihres Erbguts weitergaben, so wurde nie danach gehandelt oder gar offen ausgedrückt. Es wäre auch nicht ungewöhnlich gewesen, wenn sie vergessen hätten, dass das Haus der Sieben Giebel auf einem Fundament ruhte, das rechtmäßig ihnen gehörte. Es liegt etwas so Massives, Stabiles und fast unwiderstehlich Imposantes in der äußeren Erscheinung von fest etabliertem Rang und großer Besitztümern, dass ihre bloße Existenz ihnen ein Recht zu geben scheint; zumindest so ausgezeichnet eine Fälschung von Recht, dass nur wenige arme und demütige Menschen moralisch genug Kraft haben, es auch nur in ihren geheimen Gedanken zu hinterfragen. Das ist auch jetzt noch der Fall, nachdem so viele alte Vorurteile umgestürzt wurden, und früher, in den Tagen vor der Revolution, als die Aristokratie stolz sein konnte und das niedere Volk sich mit Niedrigheit zufriedengab. So hielten die Maules jedenfalls ihre Groll tief in ihren Herzen verborgen. Sie waren im Allgemeinen arm; immer plebejisch und obskur; sie arbeiteten erfolglos in Handwerksberufen, schufteten an den Docks oder fuhren als Matrosen vor dem Mast auf See; sie lebten hier und da in angemieteten Wohnungen in der Stadt und kamen schließlich im Armenhaus als natürliche Heimat ihres Alters unter. Nach und nach, quasi für eine so lange Zeit am äußersten Rand des trüben Pools der Dunkelheit dahin schleichend, hatten sie jenen offenkundigen Sturz genommen, der früher oder später das Schicksal aller Familien ist, ob sie nun von Fürsten oder Plebejern stammen. Seit dreißig Jahren hinterließen weder die Stadtakten noch Grabsteine, das Adressverzeichnis noch das Wissen oder die Erinnerung der Menschen eine Spur von Matthew Maules Nachkommen. Sein Blut könnte anderswo existieren; hier, wo sein bescheidenes Erbe so weit zurückverfolgt werden konnte, hatte es aufgehört, einen unaufhaltsamen Kurs einzuschlagen. Solange noch eines dieser Rasse zu finden war, wurden sie von anderen Menschen unterschieden - nicht auffällig, auch nicht in scharfen Linien, sondern mit einer Wirkung, die eher gefühlt als ausgesprochen wurde - durch einen erblichen Charakter der Zurückhaltung. Ihre Begleiter oder diejenigen, die versuchten, solche zu werden, wurden sich eines Kreises um die Maules bewusst, innerhalb der Heiligkeit oder des Zauberwortes, in deren Schutz es für keinen Mann möglich war zu treten, trotz eines Äußeren ausreichenden Aufrichtigkeit und guter Kameradschaft. Es war diese undefinierbare Eigenart, vielleicht, die sie von menschlicher Hilfe isolierte und sie in ihrem Leben immer so unglücklich machte. Es trug sicherlich dazu bei, ihr einziger Erbe zu sein, diese Gefühle des Widerwillens und des Aberglaubens, mit denen die Leute der Stadt, auch nachdem sie aus ihrem Wahnsinn erwacht waren, das Andenken an die angeblichen Hexen betrachteten. Der Mantel oder besser gesagt der zerlumpte Umhang des alten Matthew Maule war auf seine Kinder gefallen. Ihnen wurde halb geglaubt, mysteriöse Eigenschaften zu erben. Das Familienauge sollte eine seltsame Macht besitzen. Neben anderen nutzlosen Eigenschaften und Privilegien wurde ihnen insbesondere eine zugeteilt - die, Einfluss auf die Träume der Menschen auszuüben. Die Pyncheons waren, wenn alle Geschichten wahr waren, stolz, wie sie sich auch auf den Mittagsstraßen ihrer Heimatstadt zeigten, keine besseren als die Plebejer-Maules, sobald sie die auf dem Kopf stehende Gemeinschaft des Schlafes betraten. Die moderne Psychologie wird sie vielleicht versuchen, diese behaupteten Nekromantien auf ein System zu reduzieren, anstatt sie als völlig fabelhaft abzulehnen. Ein oder zwei beschreibende Absätze, die das Siebengiebelhaus in seinem neueren Zustand behandeln, werden dieses Einführungskapitel abschließen. Die Straße, in der es seine ehrwürdigen Gipfel aufragte, war schon lange kein vornehmer Bezirk der Stadt mehr, so dass, obwohl das alte Gebäude von modernen Wohnungen umgeben war, diese meist klein waren, ganz aus Holz gebaut und typisch für die plumpste Einförmigkeit des gewöhnlichen Lebens. Zweifellos kann die ganze Geschichte der menschlichen Existenz in jedem von ihnen latent sein, aber ohne Äußerlichkeiten, die die Vorstellungskraft oder das Mitgefühl auffordert, danach zu suchen. Aber was das alte Gebäude unserer Geschichte betrifft, schien sein Rahmen aus weißer Eiche, seine Bretter, Schindeln und bröckelnder Putz und sogar der riesige, geklammerte Schornstein in der Mitte nur den geringsten und geringsten Teil seiner Realität auszumachen. So viel von der vielfältigen Erfahrung der Menschheit war dort vorbeigegangen, so viel war erlitten worden und auch etwas genossen worden, dass die Balken selbst feucht waren, wie mit der Feuchtigkeit eines Herzens. Es war selbst wie ein großes menschliches Herz mit einem eigenen Leben, voller reicher und düsterer Erinnerungen. Der tiefe Vorsprung des zweiten Stocks verlieh dem Haus einen nachdenklichen Blick, so dass man es nicht passieren konnte, ohne den Gedanken zu haben, dass es Geheimnisse zu bewahren hatte und auf eine ereignisreiche Geschichte moralisiert werden sollte. Vorne, direkt am Rand des unbefestigten Bürgersteigs, wuchs die Pyncheon-Esche, die im Vergleich zu den üblicherweise anzutreffenden Bäumen durchaus als riesig bezeichnet werden könnte. Sie war von einem Urenkel des ersten Pyncheon gepflanzt worden und war trotz ihres Alters von etwa achtzig Jahren oder vielleicht sogar hundert Jahren noch in ihrer starken und breiten Reife und warf ihren Schatten von einer Straßenseite zur anderen über die sieben Giebel und fegte das ganze schwarze Dach mit ihrem herabhängenden Laub. Sie verlieh dem alten Gebäude Schönheit und schien es zu einem Teil der Natur zu machen. Die Straße war vor etwa vierzig Jahren verbreitert worden, so dass das vordere Giebelhaus genau mit ihr übereinstimmte. Auf jeder Seite erstreckte sich ein zerfallender Holzzaun aus offenem Gitterwerk, durch den ein grasbewachsener Hof zu sehen war und vor allem in den Winkeln des Gebäudes eine enorme Fruchtbarkeit von Kletten mit Blättern, es ist kaum eine Übertreibung zu sagen, zwei oder drei Fuß lang. Hinter dem Haus schien sich ein Garten zu befinden, der zweifellos einmal weitläufig war, jetzt aber von anderen Umfriedungen beeinträchtigt oder von Gebäuden und Nebengebäuden eingeschlossen, die an einer anderen Straße standen. Es wäre eine unverzeihliche Lücke, wenn wir das grüne Moos vergessen würden, das sich seit langem über die Vorsprünge der Fenster und an den Hängen des Dachs gesammelt hatte, und wir dürfen das Auge des Lesers nicht versäumen, auf eine Ernte, nicht von Unkraut, sondern von Blumensträuchern, die in der Luft in der Nische zwischen zwei der Giebel wuchsen, zu lenken. Sie wurden Alice's Posies genannt. Die Überlieferung besagte, dass eine gewisse Alice Pyncheon sie im Spaß ausgestreut hatte und dass der Staub der Straße und der Zerfall des Dachs allmählich eine Art Boden für sie bildeten, aus dem sie gewachsen waren, als Alice schon lange im Grab lag. Wie auch immer die Blumen dorthin gekommen sein mögen, es war sowohl traurig als auch süß zu beobachten, wie die Natur dieses verlassene, verfallende, stürmische, rostige alte Haus der Familie Pyncheon für sich selbst angenommen hatte, und wie der immer wiederkehrende Sommer sein Bestes tat, um es mit zarter Schönheit zu erfreuen und dabei melancholisch wurde. Es gibt noch ein weiteres Merkmal, das sehr beachtet werden sollte, aber das, fürchten wir sehr, jeden malerischen und romantischen Eindruck beeinträchtigen kann, den wir bereit waren, über unsere Darstellung dieses respektablen Gebäudes zu werfen. Im vorderen Giebel, unter der überhängenden Stirn des zweiten Stocks und angrenzend an die Straße, befand sich eine Ladentür, die horizontal in der Mitte geteilt war und ein Fenster für ihr oberes Segment hatte, wie man es oft in Wohnhäusern eines etwas alten Datums sieht. Diese Ladentür war der gegenwärtigen Bewohnerin des erhabenen Pyncheon-Hauses ebenso wie einigen ihrer Vorgänger ein Grund zur großen Verlegenheit. Die Angelegenheit ist unangenehm heikel zu behandeln, aber da der Leser das Geheimnis unbedingt erfahren muss, sollte er verstehen, dass sich vor etwa einem Jahrhundert das Oberhaupt der Pyncheons in ernsthafte finanzielle Schwierigkeiten verstrickte. Der Kerl (den er sich selbst Gentleman nannte) kann kaum etwas anderes als ein falscher Eindringling gewesen sein, denn anstatt ein Amt vom König oder dem königlichen Gouverneur zu suchen oder sein erbliches Recht auf Ländereien im Osten geltend zu machen, kam ihm kein besserer Weg zum Reichtum, als eine Laden-Tür durch die Seite seines Stammhauses zu schneiden. Es war in der Tat die Zeitüblichkeit für Händler, ihre Waren zu lagern und Geschäfte in ihren eigenen Häusern zu tätigen. Aber es war etwas bedauernswert Kleines in der Art und Weise, wie dieser alte Pyncheon seine Handelsoperationen begann. Es wurde gemunkelt, dass er mit seinen eigenen Händen, so wie sie es waren, Wechselgeld für einen Schilling gab und eine halbe Münze zweimal umdrehte, um sicherzugehen, dass sie echt war. Zweifellos war in seinen Adern das Blut eines kleinen Krämers, wie es auch immer dorthin gekommen sein mag. Unmittelbar nach seinem Tod wurde die Ladentür abgeschlossen, verriegelt und verrammelt und wurde bis zum Zeitpunkt unserer Geschichte wahrschein Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Die alte Pyncheon-Familie In den 1650er Jahren errichtet der Bauer Matthew Maule ein kleines Haus neben einer schönen, klaren Quelle in dem, was eine kleine, wohlhabende Stadt in Massachusetts werden wird. Ein örtlicher Grundbesitzer namens Colonel Pyncheon, der das Land für sich selbst haben möchte, beschuldigt Maule der Hexerei zu einer Zeit der Massenhysterie gegen Hexen. Maule wird verurteilt und gehängt, aber bevor er stirbt, warnt er davor, dass Gott Pyncheon Blut zu trinken geben wird. Von diesem Fluch unbeeindruckt, baut Colonel Pyncheon ein Haus mit sieben Giebeln, vertikalen dreieckigen Punkten auf einem Haus, die vom Mittelpunkt des Daches bis zu seiner Kante verlaufen. Maules eigener Sohn hilft beim Entwurf und Bau des Hauses, und am Tag der Eröffnung findet ein großes Fest statt. Als Colonel Pyncheon es versäumt, seine angesehenen Gäste zu begrüßen, stürmen sie in eines seiner Zimmer, nur um ihn tot an seinem Schreibtisch sitzen zu finden. Blut bedeckt seinen Bart und sein Hemd. Es gibt keine Anzeichen für Fremdeinwirkung, aber niemand weiß, wie er starb, und Gerüchte über Strangulation halten sich hartnäckig. Es wird geflüstert, dass eine mysteriöse Gestalt gesehen wurde, wie sie vom Tatort flüchtet. Der Erzähler tut dies jedoch aufs Gründlichste ab, um diese Gerüchte zu entkräften. In den nächsten anderthalb Jahrhunderten beziehen zukünftige Generationen der Pyncheon-Familie das Haus, können aber nie eine der letzten Erwerbungen des toten Colonels, ein gigantisches Grundstück in Maine, beanspruchen. Generationen der Familie werden in dem Glauben erzogen, dass ihnen das Land rechtmäßig gehört, und sie unternehmen erfolglose Versuche, es zu erlangen. Das Gebiet, auf dem das Pyncheon-Haus gebaut wurde, gerät aus der Mode. Dreißig Jahre, bevor der Roman spielt, wird ein wohlhabender Pyncheon von einem seiner Neffen, einem anderen Pyncheon, ermordet. Der Mörder wird verurteilt und zu lebenslanger Haft verurteilt, aber der andere Neffe des Toten, ein intelligenter Mann, der als Richter Pyncheon bekannt wird, ist erfolgreich und baut ein großes Haus etwas außerhalb der Stadt. Die Schwester des inhaftierten Pyncheon lebt weiterhin allein im Haus der sieben Giebel. Die Maules hingegen haben keinen so klaren Stammbaum durch die Geschichte. Viele von ihnen haben keine Kenntnis von Matthew Maule oder seinem Fluch auf Colonel Pyncheon, und einige wissen nicht einmal, dass sie von Maule abstammen. Trotzdem behalten viele von ihnen die charakteristische abschreckende Zurückhaltung der Maules bei, und einige werden von den Stadtbewohnern für angeblich geheimnisvolle Kräfte ihrer Vorfahren gehalten. Das Kapitel endet mit einigen Beschreibungen. Vor dem Haus der sieben Giebel steht eine gigantische Ulme, die vor über achtzig Jahren von einem der frühesten Pyncheons gepflanzt wurde. In einer Ecke zwischen zwei der Giebel wächst ein Blumenstrauß namens Alice's Posies, benannt nach einer alten Legende, nach der Alice Pyncheon Samen für Spaß in die Luft geworfen haben soll; die daraus resultierenden Blumen sollen im Staub und Schmutz, der auf dem Dach gesammelt wird, gedeihen. Das Haus enthält auch eine Tür im vorderen Giebel, die zu einem kleinen Laden führt, wo ein Pyncheon-Familienmitglied, das in finanzielle Not geriet, einmal dazu überging, ein Händler zu sein.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: I. In Secret The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris from England in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and bad horses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen and unfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory; but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than these. Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them, inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death. A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, when Charles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these country roads there was no hope of return until he should have been declared a good citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on to his journey's end. Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in the series that was barred between him and England. The universal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have felt his freedom more completely gone. This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in a day, by riding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping him by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him in charge. He had been days upon his journey in France alone, when he went to bed tired out, in a little town on the high road, still a long way from Paris. Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter from his prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty at the guard-house in this small place had been such, that he felt his journey to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as little surprised as a man could be, to find himself awakened at the small inn to which he had been remitted until morning, in the middle of the night. Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed. "Emigrant," said the functionary, "I am going to send you on to Paris, under an escort." "Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I could dispense with the escort." "Silence!" growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with the butt-end of his musket. "Peace, aristocrat!" "It is as the good patriot says," observed the timid functionary. "You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort--and must pay for it." "I have no choice," said Charles Darnay. "Choice! Listen to him!" cried the same scowling red-cap. "As if it was not a favour to be protected from the lamp-iron!" "It is always as the good patriot says," observed the functionary. "Rise and dress yourself, emigrant." Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house, where other patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by a watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence he started with it on the wet, wet roads at three o'clock in the morning. The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tri-coloured cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who rode one on either side of him. The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached to his bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept girded round his wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in their faces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement, and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state they traversed without change, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that lay between them and the capital. They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedly clothed, that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatched their ragged shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personal discomfort of being so attended, and apart from such considerations of present danger as arose from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears in his breast; for, he reasoned with himself that it could have no reference to the merits of an individual case that was not yet stated, and of representations, confirmable by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that were not yet made. But when they came to the town of Beauvais--which they did at eventide, when the streets were filled with people--he could not conceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming. An ominous crowd gathered to see him dismount of the posting-yard, and many voices called out loudly, "Down with the emigrant!" He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and, resuming it as his safest place, said: "Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my own will?" "You are a cursed emigrant," cried a farrier, making at him in a furious manner through the press, hammer in hand; "and you are a cursed aristocrat!" The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider's bridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said, "Let him be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris." "Judged!" repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. "Ay! and condemned as a traitor." At this the crowd roared approval. Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse's head to the yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on, with the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could make his voice heard: "Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not a traitor." "He lies!" cried the smith. "He is a traitor since the decree. His life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own!" At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd, which another instant would have brought upon him, the postmaster turned his horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon his horse's flanks, and the postmaster shut and barred the crazy double gates. The farrier struck a blow upon them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but, no more was done. "What is this decree that the smith spoke of?" Darnay asked the postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard. "Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants." "When passed?" "On the fourteenth." "The day I left England!" "Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will be others--if there are not already--banishing all emigrants, and condemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he said your life was not your own." "But there are no such decrees yet?" "What do I know!" said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders; "there may be, or there will be. It is all the same. What would you have?" They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, and then rode forward again when all the town was asleep. Among the many wild changes observable on familiar things which made this wild ride unreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep. After long and lonely spurring over dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of poor cottages, not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, and would find the people, in a ghostly manner in the dead of the night, circling hand in hand round a shrivelled tree of Liberty, or all drawn up together singing a Liberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep in Beauvais that night to help them out of it and they passed on once more into solitude and loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold and wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth that year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and by the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up across their way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads. Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier was closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it. "Where are the papers of this prisoner?" demanded a resolute-looking man in authority, who was summoned out by the guard. Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requested the speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller and French citizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of the country had imposed upon him, and which he had paid for. "Where," repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of him whatever, "are the papers of this prisoner?" The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Casting his eyes over Gabelle's letter, the same personage in authority showed some disorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close attention. He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and went into the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon their horses outside the gate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, Charles Darnay observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiers and patriots, the latter far outnumbering the former; and that while ingress into the city for peasants' carts bringing in supplies, and for similar traffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest people, was very difficult. A numerous medley of men and women, not to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was waiting to issue forth; but, the previous identification was so strict, that they filtered through the barrier very slowly. Some of these people knew their turn for examination to be so far off, that they lay down on the ground to sleep or smoke, while others talked together, or loitered about. The red cap and tri-colour cockade were universal, both among men and women. When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of these things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in authority, who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to the escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested him to dismount. He did so, and the two patriots, leading his tired horse, turned and rode away without entering the city. He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of common wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing and lying about. The light in the guard-house, half derived from the waning oil-lamps of the night, and half from the overcast day, was in a correspondingly uncertain condition. Some registers were lying open on a desk, and an officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over these. "Citizen Defarge," said he to Darnay's conductor, as he took a slip of paper to write on. "Is this the emigrant Evremonde?" "This is the man." "Your age, Evremonde?" "Thirty-seven." "Married, Evremonde?" "Yes." "Where married?" "In England." "Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evremonde?" "In England." "Without doubt. You are consigned, Evremonde, to the prison of La Force." "Just Heaven!" exclaimed Darnay. "Under what law, and for what offence?" The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment. "We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offences, since you were here." He said it with a hard smile, and went on writing. "I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in response to that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which lies before you. I demand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay. Is not that my right?" "Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde," was the stolid reply. The officer wrote until he had finished, read over to himself what he had written, sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words "In secret." Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must accompany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armed patriots attended them. "Is it you," said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down the guardhouse steps and turned into Paris, "who married the daughter of Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more?" "Yes," replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise. "My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter Saint Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me." "My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes!" The word "wife" seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge, to say with sudden impatience, "In the name of that sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France?" "You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe it is the truth?" "A bad truth for you," said Defarge, speaking with knitted brows, and looking straight before him. "Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed, so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render me a little help?" "None." Defarge spoke, always looking straight before him. "Will you answer me a single question?" "Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is." "In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have some free communication with the world outside?" "You will see." "I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means of presenting my case?" "You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarly buried in worse prisons, before now." "But never by me, Citizen Defarge." Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steady and set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, the fainter hope there was--or so Darnay thought--of his softening in any slight degree. He, therefore, made haste to say: "It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even better than I, of how much importance), that I should be able to communicate to Mr. Lorry of Tellson's Bank, an English gentleman who is now in Paris, the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown into the prison of La Force. Will you cause that to be done for me?" "I will do," Defarge doggedly rejoined, "nothing for you. My duty is to my country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both, against you. I will do nothing for you." Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pride was touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could not but see how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passing along the streets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A few passers turned their heads, and a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat; otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no more remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes should be going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty street through which they passed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool, was addressing an excited audience on the crimes against the people, of the king and the royal family. The few words that he caught from this man's lips, first made it known to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the foreign ambassadors had one and all left Paris. On the road (except at Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The escort and the universal watchfulness had completely isolated him. That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which had developed themselves when he left England, he of course knew now. That perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken faster and faster yet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit to himself that he might not have made this journey, if he could have foreseen the events of a few days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, imagined by the light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled as the future was, it was the unknown future, and in its obscurity there was ignorant hope. The horrible massacre, days and nights long, which, within a few rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessed garnering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge as if it had been a hundred thousand years away. The "sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine," was hardly known to him, or to the generality of people, by name. The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were probably unimagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How could they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind? Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood, or the certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly. With this on his mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prison courtyard, he arrived at the prison of La Force. A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defarge presented "The Emigrant Evremonde." "What the Devil! How many more of them!" exclaimed the man with the bloated face. Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and withdrew, with his two fellow-patriots. "What the Devil, I say again!" exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife. "How many more!" The gaoler's wife, being provided with no answer to the question, merely replied, "One must have patience, my dear!" Three turnkeys who entered responsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and one added, "For the love of Liberty;" which sounded in that place like an inappropriate conclusion. The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and with a horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon the noisome flavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all such places that are ill cared for! "In secret, too," grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper. "As if I was not already full to bursting!" He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles Darnay awaited his further pleasure for half an hour: sometimes, pacing to and fro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on a stone seat: in either case detained to be imprinted on the memory of the chief and his subordinates. "Come!" said the chief, at length taking up his keys, "come with me, emigrant." Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him by corridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them, until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded with prisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table, reading and writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men were for the most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the room. In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime and disgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company. But the crowning unreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising to receive him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, and with all the engaging graces and courtesies of life. So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners and gloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor and misery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed to stand in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes that were changed by the death they had died in coming there. It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and the other gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough as to appearance in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked so extravagantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and blooming daughters who were there--with the apparitions of the coquette, the young beauty, and the mature woman delicately bred--that the inversion of all experience and likelihood which the scene of shadows presented, was heightened to its utmost. Surely, ghosts all. Surely, the long unreal ride some progress of disease that had brought him to these gloomy shades! "In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune," said a gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward, "I have the honour of giving you welcome to La Force, and of condoling with you on the calamity that has brought you among us. May it soon terminate happily! It would be an impertinence elsewhere, but it is not so here, to ask your name and condition?" Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information, in words as suitable as he could find. "But I hope," said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with his eyes, who moved across the room, "that you are not in secret?" "I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard them say so." "Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage; several members of our society have been in secret, at first, and it has lasted but a short time." Then he added, raising his voice, "I grieve to inform the society--in secret." There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed the room to a grated door where the gaoler awaited him, and many voices--among which, the soft and compassionate voices of women were conspicuous--gave him good wishes and encouragement. He turned at the grated door, to render the thanks of his heart; it closed under the gaoler's hand; and the apparitions vanished from his sight forever. The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When they had ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an hour already counted them), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passed into a solitary cell. It struck cold and damp, but was not dark. "Yours," said the gaoler. "Why am I confined alone?" "How do I know!" "I can buy pen, ink, and paper?" "Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask then. At present, you may buy your food, and nothing more." There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. As the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of the four walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through the mind of the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water. When the gaoler was gone, he thought in the same wandering way, "Now am I left, as if I were dead." Stopping then, to look down at the mattress, he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought, "And here in these crawling creatures is the first condition of the body after death." "Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half." The prisoner walked to and fro in his cell, counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose like muffled drums with a wild swell of voices added to them. "He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes." The prisoner counted the measurement again, and paced faster, to draw his mind with him from that latter repetition. "The ghosts that vanished when the wicket closed. There was one among them, the appearance of a lady dressed in black, who was leaning in the embrasure of a window, and she had a light shining upon her golden hair, and she looked like * * * * Let us ride on again, for God's sake, through the illuminated villages with the people all awake! * * * * He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes. * * * * Five paces by four and a half." With such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, obstinately counting and counting; and the roar of the city changed to this extent--that it still rolled in like muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he knew, in the swell that rose above them. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Die geheime Reise durch Frankreich erweist sich für Darnay als schwierig. Feindliche Revolutionäre halten ihn häufig an und befragen ihn. Bei seiner Ankunft in Paris sperren die Revolutionäre ihn in ein Gefängnis namens La Force. Darnay protestiert und erinnert seine Wärter an seine Rechte. Doch der Wachmann antwortet, dass Darnay als Emigrant keine Rechte habe, und übergibt Darnay an Defarge mit den Anweisungen "Im Geheimen". Während er abgeführt wird, unterhält sich Darnay mit dem Weinhändler. Defarge fragt laut, warum Darnay sich dazu entschieden habe, während des "Zeitalters der scharfen, neugeborenen Frau namens La Guillotine" nach Frankreich zurückzukehren. Darnay bittet Defarge um Hilfe, doch dieser lehnt ab. In La Force hat Darnay das Gefühl, in die Welt der Toten eingetreten zu sein. Ein Mitgefangener heißt ihn im Gefängnis willkommen und hofft, dass Darnay nicht "im Geheimen" gehalten wird - die anglisierte Form von "en secret", was Einzelhaft bedeutet. Doch Darnay wurde tatsächlich zur totalen Isolation verurteilt und findet sich bald in einer Zelle von "fünf Schritten mal vier und ein halb" wieder.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Tom Is Expected It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed to go with her father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home from the academy; but the morning was too wet, Mrs. Tulliver said, for a little girl to go out in her best bonnet. Maggie took the opposite view very strongly, and it was a direct consequence of this difference of opinion that when her mother was in the act of brushing out the reluctant black crop Maggie suddenly rushed from under her hands and dipped her head in a basin of water standing near, in the vindictive determination that there should be no more chance of curls that day. "Maggie, Maggie!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout and helpless with the brushes on her lap, "what is to become of you if you're so naughty? I'll tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt Pullet when they come next week, and they'll never love you any more. Oh dear, oh dear! look at your clean pinafore, wet from top to bottom. Folks 'ull think it's a judgment on me as I've got such a child,--they'll think I've done summat wicked." Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already out of hearing, making her way toward the great attic that run under the old high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This attic was Maggie's favorite retreat on a wet day, when the weather was not too cold; here she fretted out all her ill humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten floors and the worm-eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with cobwebs; and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which once stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of cheeks; but was now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. Three nails driven into the head commemorated as many crises in Maggie's nine years of earthly struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg. But immediately afterward Maggie had reflected that if she drove many nails in she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and beating the wooden head against the rough brick of the great chimneys that made two square pillars supporting the roof. That was what she did this morning on reaching the attic, sobbing all the while with a passion that expelled every other form of consciousness,--even the memory of the grievance that had caused it. As at last the sobs were getting quieter, and the grinding less fierce, a sudden beam of sunshine, falling through the wire lattice across the worm-eaten shelves, made her throw away the Fetish and run to the window. The sun was really breaking out; the sound of the mill seemed cheerful again; the granary doors were open; and there was Yap, the queer white-and-brown terrier, with one ear turned back, trotting about and sniffing vaguely, as if he were in search of a companion. It was irresistible. Maggie tossed her hair back and ran downstairs, seized her bonnet without putting it on, peeped, and then dashed along the passage lest she should encounter her mother, and was quickly out in the yard, whirling round like a Pythoness, and singing as she whirled, "Yap, Yap, Tom's coming home!" while Yap danced and barked round her, as much as to say, if there was any noise wanted he was the dog for it. "Hegh, hegh, Miss! you'll make yourself giddy, an' tumble down i' the dirt," said Luke, the head miller, a tall, broad-shouldered man of forty, black-eyed and black-haired, subdued by a general mealiness, like an auricula. Maggie paused in her whirling and said, staggering a little, "Oh no, it doesn't make me giddy, Luke; may I go into the mill with you?" Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and often came out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness that made her dark eyes flash out with new fire. The resolute din, the unresting motion of the great stones, giving her a dim, delicious awe as at the presence of an uncontrollable force; the meal forever pouring, pouring; the fine white powder softening all surfaces, and making the very spidernets look like a faery lace-work; the sweet, pure scent of the meal,--all helped to make Maggie feel that the mill was a little world apart from her outside every-day life. The spiders were especially a subject of speculation with her. She wondered if they had any relatives outside the mill, for in that case there must be a painful difficulty in their family intercourse,--a fat and floury spider, accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer a little at a cousin's table where the fly was _au naturel_, and the lady spiders must be mutually shocked at each other's appearance. But the part of the mill she liked best was the topmost story,--the corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps of grain, which she could sit on and slide down continually. She was in the habit of taking this recreation as she conversed with Luke, to whom she was very communicative, wishing him to think well of her understanding, as her father did. Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with him on the present occasion for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near which he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was requisite in mill-society,-- "I think you never read any book but the Bible, did you, Luke?" "Nay, Miss, an' not much o' that," said Luke, with great frankness. "I'm no reader, I aren't." "But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any _very_ pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but there's 'Pug's Tour of Europe,'--that would tell you all about the different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn't understand the reading, the pictures would help you; they show the looks and ways of the people, and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know, and one sitting on a barrel." "Nay, Miss, I'n no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i' knowin' about _them_." "But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our fellow-creatures." "Not much o' fellow-creaturs, I think, Miss; all I know--my old master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I sow my wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that war as much as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door. Nay, nay, I aren't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's fools enoo, an' rogues enoo, wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em." "Oh, well," said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly decided views about Dutchmen, "perhaps you would like 'Animated Nature' better; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants and kangaroos, and the civet-cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its tail,--I forget its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you like to know about them, Luke?" "Nay, Miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn; I can't do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings folks to the gallows,--knowin' everything but what they'n got to get their bread by. An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's printed i' the books: them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i' the streets." "Why, you're like my brother Tom, Luke," said Maggie, wishing to turn the conversation agreeably; "Tom's not fond of reading. I love Tom so dearly, Luke,--better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell him everything he doesn't know. But I think Tom's clever, for all he doesn't like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and rabbit-pens." "Ah," said Luke, "but he'll be fine an' vexed, as the rabbits are all dead." "Dead!" screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding seat on the corn. "Oh dear, Luke! What! the lop-eared one, and the spotted doe that Tom spent all his money to buy?" "As dead as moles," said Luke, fetching his comparison from the unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall. "Oh dear, Luke," said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the big tears rolled down her cheek; "Tom told me to take care of 'em, and I forgot. What _shall_ I do?" "Well, you see, Miss, they were in that far tool-house, an' it was nobody's business to see to 'em. I reckon Master Tom told Harry to feed 'em, but there's no countin' on Harry; _he's_ an offal creatur as iver come about the primises, he is. He remembers nothing but his own inside--an' I wish it 'ud gripe him." "Oh, Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day; but how could I, when they didn't come into my head, you know? Oh, he will be so angry with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his rabbits, and so am I sorry. Oh, what _shall_ I do?" "Don't you fret, Miss," said Luke, soothingly; "they're nash things, them lop-eared rabbits; they'd happen ha' died, if they'd been fed. Things out o' natur niver thrive: God A'mighty doesn't like 'em. He made the rabbits' ears to lie back, an' it's nothin' but contrairiness to make 'em hing down like a mastiff dog's. Master Tom 'ull know better nor buy such things another time. Don't you fret, Miss. Will you come along home wi' me, and see my wife? I'm a-goin' this minute." The invitation offered an agreeable distraction to Maggie's grief, and her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Luke's side to his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple and pear trees, and with the added dignity of a lean-to pigsty, at the other end of the Mill fields. Mrs. Moggs, Luke's wife, was a decidedly agreeable acquaintance. She exhibited her hospitality in bread and treacle, and possessed various works of art. Maggie actually forgot that she had any special cause of sadness this morning, as she stood on a chair to look at a remarkable series of pictures representing the Prodigal Son in the costume of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as might have been expected from his defective moral character, he had not, like that accomplished hero, the taste and strength of mind to dispense with a wig. But the indefinable weight the dead rabbits had left on her mind caused her to feel more than usual pity for the career of this weak young man, particularly when she looked at the picture where he leaned against a tree with a flaccid appearance, his knee-breeches unbuttoned and his wig awry, while the swine apparently of some foreign breed, seemed to insult him by their good spirits over their feast of husks. "I'm very glad his father took him back again, aren't you, Luke?" she said. "For he was very sorry, you know, and wouldn't do wrong again." "Eh, Miss," said Luke, "he'd be no great shakes, I doubt, let's feyther do what he would for him." That was a painful thought to Maggie, and she wished much that the subsequent history of the young man had not been left a blank. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben stehenden Absätze verfassen?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Maggie ist verärgert, dass sie nicht mit ihrem Papa mitgehen kann, um Tom von der Schule abzuholen. Ihre Mama versucht, ihre Haare zu machen, aber Maggie findet das nervig. Also rennt sie fort und taucht ihren Kopf in Wasser, wodurch ihre Frisur ruiniert wird. Frau Tulliver ist frustriert und schimpft mit Maggie. Eine wütende Maggie rennt auf den Dachboden und fängt an, eine hölzerne Puppe namens ihr "Fetisch" zu schlagen. Maggie hatte zuvor Nägel in den Kopf der Puppe geschlagen, aber jetzt schlägt sie sie einfach gegen eine Wand und "tröstet" sie dann, sobald es ihr besser geht. Nachdem sie geweint und ihre Puppe verprügelt hat, beruhigt sich Maggie. Sie sieht ihren Hund Yap draußen und geht zu ihm, um mit ihm zu spielen. Luke, der Leiter der Mühle, kommt vorbei und Maggie geht mit ihm zur Mühle. Maggie liebt es, zur Mühle zu gehen, und findet die Maschinen richtig cool, da sie so laut und leistungsstark sind. Wir erfahren, dass die Tullivers eine Art Getreidemühle besitzen, die Mehl und Maismehl produziert. Maggie hat Spaß daran, die riesigen Haufen Getreide hinunter zu rutschen und eine Sauerei zu machen. Das hört sich eigentlich nach Spaß an. Luke und Maggie unterhalten sich über Bücher. Luke sagt, dass er nicht besonders gerne liest, und Maggie sagt, dass er lesen sollte, um mehr über die Welt zu erfahren. Luke sagt, dass er sich nicht wirklich für den Rest der Welt interessiert. Zumindest ist Luke ehrlich. Maggie kommt auf ihr anderes Lieblingsthema zu sprechen: Tom. Maggie sagt, dass Tom das Lesen hasst und nur Dinge wie Waffen und Kaninchen mag. Luke bemerkt, dass Tom enttäuscht sein wird, da seine Haustierkaninchen gestorben sind. Maggie flippt aus - sie sollte sich um die Kaninchen kümmern und hat es vergessen. Luke versichert Maggie, dass Tom darüber hinwegkommen wird, aber Maggie ist immer noch besorgt. Also nimmt Luke Maggie mit zu sich nach Hause, um seiner Frau Hallo zu sagen. Maggie wird von einigen coolen Gemälden abgelenkt. Sie mag besonders das Gemälde vom verlorenen Sohn aus der biblischen Geschichte. Der verlorene Sohn rennt im Grunde genommen weg und führt ein wildes und verrücktes Leben und kehrt dann nach Hause zurück, um seine Familie um Vergebung und Geld zu bitten. Also ist er im Grunde genommen wie ein typischer Student. Maggie findet diese Geschichte cool, aber sie fragt sich, was mit dem Sohn passiert ist, nachdem er nach Hause zurückgekehrt ist. Ist er für immer Stubenarrest?

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: ACT III In the library after lunch. It is not much of a library, its literary equipment consisting of a single fixed shelf stocked with old paper-covered novels, broken backed, coffee stained, torn and thumbed, and a couple of little hanging shelves with a few gift books on them, the rest of the wall space being occupied by trophies of war and the chase. But it is a most comfortable sitting-room. A row of three large windows in the front of the house shew a mountain panorama, which is just now seen in one of its softest aspects in the mellowing afternoon light. In the left hand corner, a square earthenware stove, a perfect tower of colored pottery, rises nearly to the ceiling and guarantees plenty of warmth. The ottoman in the middle is a circular bank of decorated cushions, and the window seats are well upholstered divans. Little Turkish tables, one of them with an elaborate hookah on it, and a screen to match them, complete the handsome effect of the furnishing. There is one object, however, which is hopelessly out of keeping with its surroundings. This is a small kitchen table, much the worse for wear, fitted as a writing table with an old canister full of pens, an eggcup filled with ink, and a deplorable scrap of severely used pink blotting paper. At the side of this table, which stands on the right, Bluntschli is hard at work, with a couple of maps before him, writing orders. At the head of it sits Sergius, who is also supposed to be at work, but who is actually gnawing the feather of a pen, and contemplating Bluntschli's quick, sure, businesslike progress with a mixture of envious irritation at his own incapacity, and awestruck wonder at an ability which seems to him almost miraculous, though its prosaic character forbids him to esteem it. The major is comfortably established on the ottoman, with a newspaper in his hand and the tube of the hookah within his reach. Catherine sits at the stove, with her back to them, embroidering. Raina, reclining on the divan under the left hand window, is gazing in a daydream out at the Balkan landscape, with a neglected novel in her lap. The door is on the left. The button of the electric bell is between the door and the fireplace. PETKOFF (looking up from his paper to watch how they are getting on at the table). Are you sure I can't help you in any way, Bluntschli? BLUNTSCHLI (without interrupting his writing or looking up). Quite sure, thank you. Saranoff and I will manage it. SERGIUS (grimly). Yes: we'll manage it. He finds out what to do; draws up the orders; and I sign 'em. Division of labour, Major. (Bluntschli passes him a paper.) Another one? Thank you. (He plants the papers squarely before him; sets his chair carefully parallel to them; and signs with the air of a man resolutely performing a difficult and dangerous feat.) This hand is more accustomed to the sword than to the pen. PETKOFF. It's very good of you, Bluntschli, it is indeed, to let yourself be put upon in this way. Now are you quite sure I can do nothing? CATHERINE (in a low, warning tone). You can stop interrupting, Paul. PETKOFF (starting and looking round at her). Eh? Oh! Quite right, my love, quite right. (He takes his newspaper up, but lets it drop again.) Ah, you haven't been campaigning, Catherine: you don't know how pleasant it is for us to sit here, after a good lunch, with nothing to do but enjoy ourselves. There's only one thing I want to make me thoroughly comfortable. CATHERINE. What is that? PETKOFF. My old coat. I'm not at home in this one: I feel as if I were on parade. CATHERINE. My dear Paul, how absurd you are about that old coat! It must be hanging in the blue closet where you left it. PETKOFF. My dear Catherine, I tell you I've looked there. Am I to believe my own eyes or not? (Catherine quietly rises and presses the button of the electric bell by the fireplace.) What are you shewing off that bell for? (She looks at him majestically, and silently resumes her chair and her needlework.) My dear: if you think the obstinacy of your sex can make a coat out of two old dressing gowns of Raina's, your waterproof, and my mackintosh, you're mistaken. That's exactly what the blue closet contains at present. (Nicola presents himself.) CATHERINE (unmoved by Petkoff's sally). Nicola: go to the blue closet and bring your master's old coat here--the braided one he usually wears in the house. NICOLA. Yes, madam. (Nicola goes out.) PETKOFF. Catherine. CATHERINE. Yes, Paul? PETKOFF. I bet you any piece of jewellery you like to order from Sofia against a week's housekeeping money, that the coat isn't there. CATHERINE. Done, Paul. PETKOFF (excited by the prospect of a gamble). Come: here's an opportunity for some sport. Who'll bet on it? Bluntschli: I'll give you six to one. BLUNTSCHLI (imperturbably). It would be robbing you, Major. Madame is sure to be right. (Without looking up, he passes another batch of papers to Sergius.) SERGIUS (also excited). Bravo, Switzerland! Major: I bet my best charger against an Arab mare for Raina that Nicola finds the coat in the blue closet. PETKOFF (eagerly). Your best char-- CATHERINE (hastily interrupting him). Don't be foolish, Paul. An Arabian mare will cost you 50,000 levas. RAINA (suddenly coming out of her picturesque revery). Really, mother, if you are going to take the jewellery, I don't see why you should grudge me my Arab. (Nicola comes back with the coat and brings it to Petkoff, who can hardly believe his eyes.) CATHERINE. Where was it, Nicola? NICOLA. Hanging in the blue closet, madam. PETKOFF. Well, I am d-- CATHERINE (stopping him). Paul! PETKOFF. I could have sworn it wasn't there. Age is beginning to tell on me. I'm getting hallucinations. (To Nicola.) Here: help me to change. Excuse me, Bluntschli. (He begins changing coats, Nicola acting as valet.) Remember: I didn't take that bet of yours, Sergius. You'd better give Raina that Arab steed yourself, since you've roused her expectations. Eh, Raina? (He looks round at her; but she is again rapt in the landscape. With a little gush of paternal affection and pride, he points her out to them and says) She's dreaming, as usual. SERGIUS. Assuredly she shall not be the loser. PETKOFF. So much the better for her. I shan't come off so cheap, I expect. (The change is now complete. Nicola goes out with the discarded coat.) Ah, now I feel at home at last. (He sits down and takes his newspaper with a grunt of relief.) BLUNTSCHLI (to Sergius, handing a paper). That's the last order. PETKOFF (jumping up). What! finished? BLUNTSCHLI. Finished. (Petkoff goes beside Sergius; looks curiously over his left shoulder as he signs; and says with childlike envy) Haven't you anything for me to sign? BLUNTSCHLI. Not necessary. His signature will do. PETKOFF. Ah, well, I think we've done a thundering good day's work. (He goes away from the table.) Can I do anything more? BLUNTSCHLI. You had better both see the fellows that are to take these. (To Sergius.) Pack them off at once; and shew them that I've marked on the orders the time they should hand them in by. Tell them that if they stop to drink or tell stories--if they're five minutes late, they'll have the skin taken off their backs. SERGIUS (rising indignantly). I'll say so. And if one of them is man enough to spit in my face for insulting him, I'll buy his discharge and give him a pension. (He strides out, his humanity deeply outraged.) BLUNTSCHLI (confidentially). Just see that he talks to them properly, Major, will you? PETKOFF (officiously). Quite right, Bluntschli, quite right. I'll see to it. (He goes to the door importantly, but hesitates on the threshold.) By the bye, Catherine, you may as well come, too. They'll be far more frightened of you than of me. CATHERINE (putting down her embroidery). I daresay I had better. You will only splutter at them. (She goes out, Petkoff holding the door for her and following her.) BLUNTSCHLI. What a country! They make cannons out of cherry trees; and the officers send for their wives to keep discipline! (He begins to fold and docket the papers. Raina, who has risen from the divan, strolls down the room with her hands clasped behind her, and looks mischievously at him.) RAINA. You look ever so much nicer than when we last met. (He looks up, surprised.) What have you done to yourself? BLUNTSCHLI. Washed; brushed; good night's sleep and breakfast. That's all. RAINA. Did you get back safely that morning? BLUNTSCHLI. Quite, thanks. RAINA. Were they angry with you for running away from Sergius's charge? BLUNTSCHLI. No, they were glad; because they'd all just run away themselves. RAINA (going to the table, and leaning over it towards him). It must have made a lovely story for them--all that about me and my room. BLUNTSCHLI. Capital story. But I only told it to one of them--a particular friend. RAINA. On whose discretion you could absolutely rely? BLUNTSCHLI. Absolutely. RAINA. Hm! He told it all to my father and Sergius the day you exchanged the prisoners. (She turns away and strolls carelessly across to the other side of the room.) BLUNTSCHLI (deeply concerned and half incredulous). No! you don't mean that, do you? RAINA (turning, with sudden earnestness). I do indeed. But they don't know that it was in this house that you hid. If Sergius knew, he would challenge you and kill you in a duel. BLUNTSCHLI. Bless me! then don't tell him. RAINA (full of reproach for his levity). Can you realize what it is to me to deceive him? I want to be quite perfect with Sergius--no meanness, no smallness, no deceit. My relation to him is the one really beautiful and noble part of my life. I hope you can understand that. BLUNTSCHLI (sceptically). You mean that you wouldn't like him to find out that the story about the ice pudding was a--a--a--You know. RAINA (wincing). Ah, don't talk of it in that flippant way. I lied: I know it. But I did it to save your life. He would have killed you. That was the second time I ever uttered a falsehood. (Bluntschli rises quickly and looks doubtfully and somewhat severely at her.) Do you remember the first time? BLUNTSCHLI. I! No. Was I present? RAINA. Yes; and I told the officer who was searching for you that you were not present. BLUNTSCHLI. True. I should have remembered it. RAINA (greatly encouraged). Ah, it is natural that you should forget it first. It cost you nothing: it cost me a lie!--a lie!! (She sits down on the ottoman, looking straight before her with her hands clasped on her knee. Bluntschli, quite touched, goes to the ottoman with a particularly reassuring and considerate air, and sits down beside her.) BLUNTSCHLI. My dear young lady, don't let this worry you. Remember: I'm a soldier. Now what are the two things that happen to a soldier so often that he comes to think nothing of them? One is hearing people tell lies (Raina recoils): the other is getting his life saved in all sorts of ways by all sorts of people. RAINA (rising in indignant protest). And so he becomes a creature incapable of faith and of gratitude. BLUNTSCHLI (making a wry face). Do you like gratitude? I don't. If pity is akin to love, gratitude is akin to the other thing. RAINA. Gratitude! (Turning on him.) If you are incapable of gratitude you are incapable of any noble sentiment. Even animals are grateful. Oh, I see now exactly what you think of me! You were not surprised to hear me lie. To you it was something I probably did every day--every hour. That is how men think of women. (She walks up the room melodramatically.) BLUNTSCHLI (dubiously). There's reason in everything. You said you'd told only two lies in your whole life. Dear young lady: isn't that rather a short allowance? I'm quite a straightforward man myself; but it wouldn't last me a whole morning. RAINA (staring haughtily at him). Do you know, sir, that you are insulting me? BLUNTSCHLI. I can't help it. When you get into that noble attitude and speak in that thrilling voice, I admire you; but I find it impossible to believe a single word you say. RAINA (superbly). Captain Bluntschli! BLUNTSCHLI (unmoved). Yes? RAINA (coming a little towards him, as if she could not believe her senses). Do you mean what you said just now? Do you know what you said just now? BLUNTSCHLI. I do. RAINA (gasping). I! I!!! (She points to herself incredulously, meaning "I, Raina Petkoff, tell lies!" He meets her gaze unflinchingly. She suddenly sits down beside him, and adds, with a complete change of manner from the heroic to the familiar) How did you find me out? BLUNTSCHLI (promptly). Instinct, dear young lady. Instinct, and experience of the world. RAINA (wonderingly). Do you know, you are the first man I ever met who did not take me seriously? BLUNTSCHLI. You mean, don't you, that I am the first man that has ever taken you quite seriously? RAINA. Yes, I suppose I do mean that. (Cosily, quite at her ease with him.) How strange it is to be talked to in such a way! You know, I've always gone on like that--I mean the noble attitude and the thrilling voice. I did it when I was a tiny child to my nurse. She believed in it. I do it before my parents. They believe in it. I do it before Sergius. He believes in it. BLUNTSCHLI. Yes: he's a little in that line himself, isn't he? RAINA (startled). Do you think so? BLUNTSCHLI. You know him better than I do. RAINA. I wonder--I wonder is he? If I thought that--! (Discouraged.) Ah, well, what does it matter? I suppose, now that you've found me out, you despise me. BLUNTSCHLI (warmly, rising). No, my dear young lady, no, no, no a thousand times. It's part of your youth--part of your charm. I'm like all the rest of them--the nurse--your parents--Sergius: I'm your infatuated admirer. RAINA (pleased). Really? BLUNTSCHLI (slapping his breast smartly with his hand, German fashion). Hand aufs Herz! Really and truly. RAINA (very happy). But what did you think of me for giving you my portrait? BLUNTSCHLI (astonished). Your portrait! You never gave me your portrait. RAINA (quickly). Do you mean to say you never got it? BLUNTSCHLI. No. (He sits down beside her, with renewed interest, and says, with some complacency.) When did you send it to me? RAINA (indignantly). I did not send it to you. (She turns her head away, and adds, reluctantly.) It was in the pocket of that coat. BLUNTSCHLI (pursing his lips and rounding his eyes). Oh-o-oh! I never found it. It must be there still. RAINA (springing up). There still!--for my father to find the first time he puts his hand in his pocket! Oh, how could you be so stupid? BLUNTSCHLI (rising also). It doesn't matter: it's only a photograph: how can he tell who it was intended for? Tell him he put it there himself. RAINA (impatiently). Yes, that is so clever--so clever! What shall I do? BLUNTSCHLI. Ah, I see. You wrote something on it. That was rash! RAINA (annoyed almost to tears). Oh, to have done such a thing for you, who care no more--except to laugh at me--oh! Are you sure nobody has touched it? BLUNTSCHLI. Well, I can't be quite sure. You see I couldn't carry it about with me all the time: one can't take much luggage on active service. RAINA. What did you do with it? BLUNTSCHLI. When I got through to Peerot I had to put it in safe keeping somehow. I thought of the railway cloak room; but that's the surest place to get looted in modern warfare. So I pawned it. RAINA. Pawned it!!! BLUNTSCHLI. I know it doesn't sound nice; but it was much the safest plan. I redeemed it the day before yesterday. Heaven only knows whether the pawnbroker cleared out the pockets or not. RAINA (furious--throwing the words right into his face). You have a low, shopkeeping mind. You think of things that would never come into a gentleman's head. BLUNTSCHLI (phlegmatically). That's the Swiss national character, dear lady. RAINA. Oh, I wish I had never met you. (She flounces away and sits at the window fuming.) (Louka comes in with a heap of letters and telegrams on her salver, and crosses, with her bold, free gait, to the table. Her left sleeve is looped up to the shoulder with a brooch, shewing her naked arm, with a broad gilt bracelet covering the bruise.) LOUKA (to Bluntschli). For you. (She empties the salver recklessly on the table.) The messenger is waiting. (She is determined not to be civil to a Servian, even if she must bring him his letters.) BLUNTSCHLI (to Raina). Will you excuse me: the last postal delivery that reached me was three weeks ago. These are the subsequent accumulations. Four telegrams--a week old. (He opens one.) Oho! Bad news! RAINA (rising and advancing a little remorsefully). Bad news? BLUNTSCHLI. My father's dead. (He looks at the telegram with his lips pursed, musing on the unexpected change in his arrangements.) RAINA. Oh, how very sad! BLUNTSCHLI. Yes: I shall have to start for home in an hour. He has left a lot of big hotels behind him to be looked after. (Takes up a heavy letter in a long blue envelope.) Here's a whacking letter from the family solicitor. (He pulls out the enclosures and glances over them.) Great Heavens! Seventy! Two hundred! (In a crescendo of dismay.) Four hundred! Four thousand!! Nine thousand six hundred!!! What on earth shall I do with them all? RAINA (timidly). Nine thousand hotels? BLUNTSCHLI. Hotels! Nonsense. If you only knew!--oh, it's too ridiculous! Excuse me: I must give my fellow orders about starting. (He leaves the room hastily, with the documents in his hand.) LOUKA (tauntingly). He has not much heart, that Swiss, though he is so fond of the Servians. He has not a word of grief for his poor father. RAINA (bitterly). Grief!--a man who has been doing nothing but killing people for years! What does he care? What does any soldier care? (She goes to the door, evidently restraining her tears with difficulty.) LOUKA. Major Saranoff has been fighting, too; and he has plenty of heart left. (Raina, at the door, looks haughtily at her and goes out.) Aha! I thought you wouldn't get much feeling out of your soldier. (She is following Raina when Nicola enters with an armful of logs for the fire.) NICOLA (grinning amorously at her). I've been trying all the afternoon to get a minute alone with you, my girl. (His countenance changes as he notices her arm.) Why, what fashion is that of wearing your sleeve, child? LOUKA (proudly). My own fashion. NICOLA. Indeed! If the mistress catches you, she'll talk to you. (He throws the logs down on the ottoman, and sits comfortably beside them.) LOUKA. Is that any reason why you should take it on yourself to talk to me? NICOLA. Come: don't be so contrary with me. I've some good news for you. (He takes out some paper money. Louka, with an eager gleam in her eyes, comes close to look at it.) See, a twenty leva bill! Sergius gave me that out of pure swagger. A fool and his money are soon parted. There's ten levas more. The Swiss gave me that for backing up the mistress's and Raina's lies about him. He's no fool, he isn't. You should have heard old Catherine downstairs as polite as you please to me, telling me not to mind the Major being a little impatient; for they knew what a good servant I was--after making a fool and a liar of me before them all! The twenty will go to our savings; and you shall have the ten to spend if you'll only talk to me so as to remind me I'm a human being. I get tired of being a servant occasionally. LOUKA (scornfully). Yes: sell your manhood for thirty levas, and buy me for ten! Keep your money. You were born to be a servant. I was not. When you set up your shop you will only be everybody's servant instead of somebody's servant. NICOLA (picking up his logs, and going to the stove). Ah, wait till you see. We shall have our evenings to ourselves; and I shall be master in my own house, I promise you. (He throws the logs down and kneels at the stove.) LOUKA. You shall never be master in mine. (She sits down on Sergius's chair.) NICOLA (turning, still on his knees, and squatting down rather forlornly, on his calves, daunted by her implacable disdain). You have a great ambition in you, Louka. Remember: if any luck comes to you, it was I that made a woman of you. LOUKA. You! NICOLA (with dogged self-assertion). Yes, me. Who was it made you give up wearing a couple of pounds of false black hair on your head and reddening your lips and cheeks like any other Bulgarian girl? I did. Who taught you to trim your nails, and keep your hands clean, and be dainty about yourself, like a fine Russian lady? Me! do you hear that? me! (She tosses her head defiantly; and he rises, ill-humoredly, adding more coolly) I've often thought that if Raina were out of the way, and you just a little less of a fool and Sergius just a little more of one, you might come to be one of my grandest customers, instead of only being my wife and costing me money. LOUKA. I believe you would rather be my servant than my husband. You would make more out of me. Oh, I know that soul of yours. NICOLA (going up close to her for greater emphasis). Never you mind my soul; but just listen to my advice. If you want to be a lady, your present behaviour to me won't do at all, unless when we're alone. It's too sharp and impudent; and impudence is a sort of familiarity: it shews affection for me. And don't you try being high and mighty with me either. You're like all country girls: you think it's genteel to treat a servant the way I treat a stable-boy. That's only your ignorance; and don't you forget it. And don't be so ready to defy everybody. Act as if you expected to have your own way, not as if you expected to be ordered about. The way to get on as a lady is the same as the way to get on as a servant: you've got to know your place; that's the secret of it. And you may depend on me to know my place if you get promoted. Think over it, my girl. I'll stand by you: one servant should always stand by another. LOUKA (rising impatiently). Oh, I must behave in my own way. You take all the courage out of me with your cold-blooded wisdom. Go and put those logs on the fire: that's the sort of thing you understand. (Before Nicola can retort, Sergius comes in. He checks himself a moment on seeing Louka; then goes to the stove.) SERGIUS (to Nicola). I am not in the way of your work, I hope. NICOLA (in a smooth, elderly manner). Oh, no, sir, thank you kindly. I was only speaking to this foolish girl about her habit of running up here to the library whenever she gets a chance, to look at the books. That's the worst of her education, sir: it gives her habits above her station. (To Louka.) Make that table tidy, Louka, for the Major. (He goes out sedately.) (Louka, without looking at Sergius, begins to arrange the papers on the table. He crosses slowly to her, and studies the arrangement of her sleeve reflectively.) SERGIUS. Let me see: is there a mark there? (He turns up the bracelet and sees the bruise made by his grasp. She stands motionless, not looking at him: fascinated, but on her guard.) Ffff! Does it hurt? LOUKA. Yes. SERGIUS. Shall I cure it? LOUKA (instantly withdrawing herself proudly, but still not looking at him). No. You cannot cure it now. SERGIUS (masterfully). Quite sure? (He makes a movement as if to take her in his arms.) LOUKA. Don't trifle with me, please. An officer should not trifle with a servant. SERGIUS (touching the arm with a merciless stroke of his forefinger). That was no trifle, Louka. LOUKA. No. (Looking at him for the first time.) Are you sorry? SERGIUS (with measured emphasis, folding his arms). I am never sorry. LOUKA (wistfully). I wish I could believe a man could be so unlike a woman as that. I wonder are you really a brave man? SERGIUS (unaffectedly, relaxing his attitude). Yes: I am a brave man. My heart jumped like a woman's at the first shot; but in the charge I found that I was brave. Yes: that at least is real about me. LOUKA. Did you find in the charge that the men whose fathers are poor like mine were any less brave than the men who are rich like you? SERGIUS (with bitter levity.) Not a bit. They all slashed and cursed and yelled like heroes. Psha! the courage to rage and kill is cheap. I have an English bull terrier who has as much of that sort of courage as the whole Bulgarian nation, and the whole Russian nation at its back. But he lets my groom thrash him, all the same. That's your soldier all over! No, Louka, your poor men can cut throats; but they are afraid of their officers; they put up with insults and blows; they stand by and see one another punished like children---aye, and help to do it when they are ordered. And the officers!---well (with a short, bitter laugh) I am an officer. Oh, (fervently) give me the man who will defy to the death any power on earth or in heaven that sets itself up against his own will and conscience: he alone is the brave man. LOUKA. How easy it is to talk! Men never seem to me to grow up: they all have schoolboy's ideas. You don't know what true courage is. SERGIUS (ironically). Indeed! I am willing to be instructed. LOUKA. Look at me! how much am I allowed to have my own will? I have to get your room ready for you--to sweep and dust, to fetch and carry. How could that degrade me if it did not degrade you to have it done for you? But (with subdued passion) if I were Empress of Russia, above everyone in the world, then--ah, then, though according to you I could shew no courage at all; you should see, you should see. SERGIUS. What would you do, most noble Empress? LOUKA. I would marry the man I loved, which no other queen in Europe has the courage to do. If I loved you, though you would be as far beneath me as I am beneath you, I would dare to be the equal of my inferior. Would you dare as much if you loved me? No: if you felt the beginnings of love for me you would not let it grow. You dare not: you would marry a rich man's daughter because you would be afraid of what other people would say of you. SERGIUS (carried away). You lie: it is not so, by all the stars! If I loved you, and I were the Czar himself, I would set you on the throne by my side. You know that I love another woman, a woman as high above you as heaven is above earth. And you are jealous of her. LOUKA. I have no reason to be. She will never marry you now. The man I told you of has come back. She will marry the Swiss. SERGIUS (recoiling). The Swiss! LOUKA. A man worth ten of you. Then you can come to me; and I will refuse you. You are not good enough for me. (She turns to the door.) SERGIUS (springing after her and catching her fiercely in his arms). I will kill the Swiss; and afterwards I will do as I please with you. LOUKA (in his arms, passive and steadfast). The Swiss will kill you, perhaps. He has beaten you in love. He may beat you in war. SERGIUS (tormentedly). Do you think I believe that she--she! whose worst thoughts are higher than your best ones, is capable of trifling with another man behind my back? LOUKA. Do you think she would believe the Swiss if he told her now that I am in your arms? SERGIUS (releasing her in despair). Damnation! Oh, damnation! Mockery, mockery everywhere: everything I think is mocked by everything I do. (He strikes himself frantically on the breast.) Coward, liar, fool! Shall I kill myself like a man, or live and pretend to laugh at myself? (She again turns to go.) Louka! (She stops near the door.) Remember: you belong to me. LOUKA (quietly). What does that mean--an insult? SERGIUS (commandingly). It means that you love me, and that I have had you here in my arms, and will perhaps have you there again. Whether that is an insult I neither know nor care: take it as you please. But (vehemently) I will not be a coward and a trifler. If I choose to love you, I dare marry you, in spite of all Bulgaria. If these hands ever touch you again, they shall touch my affianced bride. LOUKA. We shall see whether you dare keep your word. But take care. I will not wait long. SERGIUS (again folding his arms and standing motionless in the middle of the room). Yes, we shall see. And you shall wait my pleasure. (Bluntschli, much preoccupied, with his papers still in his hand, enters, leaving the door open for Louka to go out. He goes across to the table, glancing at her as he passes. Sergius, without altering his resolute attitude, watches him steadily. Louka goes out, leaving the door open.) BLUNTSCHLI (absently, sitting at the table as before, and putting down his papers). That's a remarkable looking young woman. SERGIUS (gravely, without moving). Captain Bluntschli. BLUNTSCHLI. Eh? SERGIUS. You have deceived me. You are my rival. I brook no rivals. At six o'clock I shall be in the drilling-ground on the Klissoura road, alone, on horseback, with my sabre. Do you understand? BLUNTSCHLI (staring, but sitting quite at his ease). Oh, thank you: that's a cavalry man's proposal. I'm in the artillery; and I have the choice of weapons. If I go, I shall take a machine gun. And there shall be no mistake about the cartridges this time. SERGIUS (flushing, but with deadly coldness). Take care, sir. It is not our custom in Bulgaria to allow invitations of that kind to be trifled with. BLUNTSCHLI (warmly). Pooh! don't talk to me about Bulgaria. You don't know what fighting is. But have it your own way. Bring your sabre along. I'll meet you. SERGIUS (fiercely delighted to find his opponent a man of spirit). Well said, Switzer. Shall I lend you my best horse? BLUNTSCHLI. No: damn your horse!---thank you all the same, my dear fellow. (Raina comes in, and hears the next sentence.) I shall fight you on foot. Horseback's too dangerous: I don't want to kill you if I can help it. RAINA (hurrying forward anxiously). I have heard what Captain Bluntschli said, Sergius. You are going to fight. Why? (Sergius turns away in silence, and goes to the stove, where he stands watching her as she continues, to Bluntschli) What about? BLUNTSCHLI. I don't know: he hasn't told me. Better not interfere, dear young lady. No harm will be done: I've often acted as sword instructor. He won't be able to touch me; and I'll not hurt him. It will save explanations. In the morning I shall be off home; and you'll never see me or hear of me again. You and he will then make it up and live happily ever after. RAINA (turning away deeply hurt, almost with a sob in her voice). I never said I wanted to see you again. SERGIUS (striding forward). Ha! That is a confession. RAINA (haughtily). What do you mean? SERGIUS. You love that man! RAINA (scandalized). Sergius! SERGIUS. You allow him to make love to you behind my back, just as you accept me as your affianced husband behind his. Bluntschli: you knew our relations; and you deceived me. It is for that that I call you to account, not for having received favours that I never enjoyed. BLUNTSCHLI (jumping up indignantly). Stuff! Rubbish! I have received no favours. Why, the young lady doesn't even know whether I'm married or not. RAINA (forgetting herself). Oh! (Collapsing on the ottoman.) Are you? SERGIUS. You see the young lady's concern, Captain Bluntschli. Denial is useless. You have enjoyed the privilege of being received in her own room, late at night-- BLUNTSCHLI (interrupting him pepperily). Yes; you blockhead! She received me with a pistol at her head. Your cavalry were at my heels. I'd have blown out her brains if she'd uttered a cry. SERGIUS (taken aback). Bluntschli! Raina: is this true? RAINA (rising in wrathful majesty). Oh, how dare you, how dare you? BLUNTSCHLI. Apologize, man, apologize! (He resumes his seat at the table.) SERGIUS (with the old measured emphasis, folding his arms). I never apologize. RAINA (passionately). This is the doing of that friend of yours, Captain Bluntschli. It is he who is spreading this horrible story about me. (She walks about excitedly.) BLUNTSCHLI. No: he's dead--burnt alive. RAINA (stopping, shocked). Burnt alive! BLUNTSCHLI. Shot in the hip in a wood yard. Couldn't drag himself out. Your fellows' shells set the timber on fire and burnt him, with half a dozen other poor devils in the same predicament. RAINA. How horrible! SERGIUS. And how ridiculous! Oh, war! war! the dream of patriots and heroes! A fraud, Bluntschli, a hollow sham, like love. RAINA (outraged). Like love! You say that before me. BLUNTSCHLI. Come, Saranoff: that matter is explained. SERGIUS. A hollow sham, I say. Would you have come back here if nothing had passed between you, except at the muzzle of your pistol? Raina is mistaken about our friend who was burnt. He was not my informant. RAINA. Who then? (Suddenly guessing the truth.) Ah, Louka! my maid, my servant! You were with her this morning all that time after---after---Oh, what sort of god is this I have been worshipping! (He meets her gaze with sardonic enjoyment of her disenchantment. Angered all the more, she goes closer to him, and says, in a lower, intenser tone) Do you know that I looked out of the window as I went upstairs, to have another sight of my hero; and I saw something that I did not understand then. I know now that you were making love to her. SERGIUS (with grim humor). You saw that? RAINA. Only too well. (She turns away, and throws herself on the divan under the centre window, quite overcome.) SERGIUS (cynically). Raina: our romance is shattered. Life's a farce. BLUNTSCHLI (to Raina, goodhumoredly). You see: he's found himself out now. SERGIUS. Bluntschli: I have allowed you to call me a blockhead. You may now call me a coward as well. I refuse to fight you. Do you know why? BLUNTSCHLI. No; but it doesn't matter. I didn't ask the reason when you cried on; and I don't ask the reason now that you cry off. I'm a professional soldier. I fight when I have to, and am very glad to get out of it when I haven't to. You're only an amateur: you think fighting's an amusement. SERGIUS. You shall hear the reason all the same, my professional. The reason is that it takes two men--real men--men of heart, blood and honor--to make a genuine combat. I could no more fight with you than I could make love to an ugly woman. You've no magnetism: you're not a man, you're a machine. BLUNTSCHLI (apologetically). Quite true, quite true. I always was that sort of chap. I'm very sorry. But now that you've found that life isn't a farce, but something quite sensible and serious, what further obstacle is there to your happiness? RAINA (riling). You are very solicitous about my happiness and his. Do you forget his new love--Louka? It is not you that he must fight now, but his rival, Nicola. SERGIUS. Rival!! (Striking his forehead.) RAINA. Did you not know that they are engaged? SERGIUS. Nicola! Are fresh abysses opening! Nicola!! RAINA (sarcastically). A shocking sacrifice, isn't it? Such beauty, such intellect, such modesty, wasted on a middle-aged servant man! Really, Sergius, you cannot stand by and allow such a thing. It would be unworthy of your chivalry. SERGIUS (losing all self-control). Viper! Viper! (He rushes to and fro, raging.) BLUNTSCHLI. Look here, Saranoff; you're getting the worst of this. RAINA (getting angrier). Do you realize what he has done, Captain Bluntschli? He has set this girl as a spy on us; and her reward is that he makes love to her. SERGIUS. False! Monstrous! RAINA. Monstrous! (Confronting him.) Do you deny that she told you about Captain Bluntschli being in my room? SERGIUS. No; but-- RAINA (interrupting). Do you deny that you were making love to her when she told you? SERGIUS. No; but I tell you-- RAINA (cutting him short contemptuously). It is unnecessary to tell us anything more. That is quite enough for us. (She turns her back on him and sweeps majestically back to the window.) BLUNTSCHLI (quietly, as Sergius, in an agony of mortification, sinks on the ottoman, clutching his averted head between his fists). I told you you were getting the worst of it, Saranoff. SERGIUS. Tiger cat! RAINA (running excitedly to Bluntschli). You hear this man calling me names, Captain Bluntschli? BLUNTSCHLI. What else can he do, dear lady? He must defend himself somehow. Come (very persuasively), don't quarrel. What good does it do? (Raina, with a gasp, sits down on the ottoman, and after a vain effort to look vexedly at Bluntschli, she falls a victim to her sense of humor, and is attacked with a disposition to laugh.) SERGIUS. Engaged to Nicola! (He rises.) Ha! ha! (Going to the stove and standing with his back to it.) Ah, well, Bluntschli, you are right to take this huge imposture of a world coolly. RAINA (to Bluntschli with an intuitive guess at his state of mind). I daresay you think us a couple of grown up babies, don't you? SERGIUS (grinning a little). He does, he does. Swiss civilization nursetending Bulgarian barbarism, eh? BLUNTSCHLI (blushing). Not at all, I assure you. I'm only very glad to get you two quieted. There now, let's be pleasant and talk it over in a friendly way. Where is this other young lady? RAINA. Listening at the door, probably. SERGIUS (shivering as if a bullet had struck him, and speaking with quiet but deep indignation). I will prove that that, at least, is a calumny. (He goes with dignity to the door and opens it. A yell of fury bursts from him as he looks out. He darts into the passage, and returns dragging in Louka, whom he flings against the table, R., as he cries) Judge her, Bluntschli--you, the moderate, cautious man: judge the eavesdropper. (Louka stands her ground, proud and silent.) BLUNTSCHLI (shaking his head). I mustn't judge her. I once listened myself outside a tent when there was a mutiny brewing. It's all a question of the degree of provocation. My life was at stake. LOUKA. My love was at stake. (Sergius flinches, ashamed of her in spite of himself.) I am not ashamed. RAINA (contemptuously). Your love! Your curiosity, you mean. LOUKA (facing her and retorting her contempt with interest). My love, stronger than anything you can feel, even for your chocolate cream soldier. SERGIUS (with quick suspicion--to Louka). What does that mean? LOUKA (fiercely). It means-- SERGIUS (interrupting her slightingly). Oh, I remember, the ice pudding. A paltry taunt, girl. (Major Petkoff enters, in his shirtsleeves.) PETKOFF. Excuse my shirtsleeves, gentlemen. Raina: somebody has been wearing that coat of mine: I'll swear it--somebody with bigger shoulders than mine. It's all burst open at the back. Your mother is mending it. I wish she'd make haste. I shall catch cold. (He looks more attentively at them.) Is anything the matter? RAINA. No. (She sits down at the stove with a tranquil air.) SERGIUS. Oh, no! (He sits down at the end of the table, as at first.) BLUNTSCHLI (who is already seated). Nothing, nothing. PETKOFF (sitting down on the ottoman in his old place). That's all right. (He notices Louka.) Anything the matter, Louka? LOUKA. No, sir. PETKOFF (genially). That's all right. (He sneezes.) Go and ask your mistress for my coat, like a good girl, will you? (She turns to obey; but Nicola enters with the coat; and she makes a pretence of having business in the room by taking the little table with the hookah away to the wall near the windows.) RAINA (rising quickly, as she sees the coat on Nicola's arm). Here it is, papa. Give it to me, Nicola; and do you put some more wood on the fire. (She takes the coat, and brings it to the Major, who stands up to put it on. Nicola attends to the fire.) PETKOFF (to Raina, teasing her affectionately). Aha! Going to be very good to poor old papa just for one day after his return from the wars, eh? RAINA (with solemn reproach). Ah, how can you say that to me, father? PETKOFF. Well, well, only a joke, little one. Come, give me a kiss. (She kisses him.) Now give me the coat. RAINA. Now, I am going to put it on for you. Turn your back. (He turns his back and feels behind him with his arms for the sleeves. She dexterously takes the photograph from the pocket and throws it on the table before Bluntschli, who covers it with a sheet of paper under the very nose of Sergius, who looks on amazed, with his suspicions roused in the highest degree. She then helps Petkoff on with his coat.) There, dear! Now are you comfortable? PETKOFF. Quite, little love. Thanks. (He sits down; and Raina returns to her seat near the stove.) Oh, by the bye, I've found something funny. What's the meaning of this? (He put his hand into the picked pocket.) Eh? Hallo! (He tries the other pocket.) Well, I could have sworn--(Much puzzled, he tries the breast pocket.) I wonder--(Tries the original pocket.) Where can it--(A light flashes on him; he rises, exclaiming) Your mother's taken it. RAINA (very red). Taken what? PETKOFF. Your photograph, with the inscription: "Raina, to her Chocolate Cream Soldier--a souvenir." Now you know there's something more in this than meets the eye; and I'm going to find it out. (Shouting) Nicola! NICOLA (dropping a log, and turning). Sir! PETKOFF. Did you spoil any pastry of Miss Raina's this morning? NICOLA. You heard Miss Raina say that I did, sir. PETKOFF. I know that, you idiot. Was it true? NICOLA. I am sure Miss Raina is incapable of saying anything that is not true, sir. PETKOFF. Are you? Then I'm not. (Turning to the others.) Come: do you think I don't see it all? (Goes to Sergius, and slaps him on the shoulder.) Sergius: you're the chocolate cream soldier, aren't you? SERGIUS (starting up). I! a chocolate cream soldier! Certainly not. PETKOFF. Not! (He looks at them. They are all very serious and very conscious.) Do you mean to tell me that Raina sends photographic souvenirs to other men? SERGIUS (enigmatically). The world is not such an innocent place as we used to think, Petkoff. BLUNTSCHLI (rising). It's all right, Major. I'm the chocolate cream soldier. (Petkoff and Sergius are equally astonished.) The gracious young lady saved my life by giving me chocolate creams when I was starving--shall I ever forget their flavour! My late friend Stolz told you the story at Peerot. I was the fugitive. PETKOFF. You! (He gasps.) Sergius: do you remember how those two women went on this morning when we mentioned it? (Sergius smiles cynically. Petkoff confronts Raina severely.) You're a nice young woman, aren't you? RAINA (bitterly). Major Saranoff has changed his mind. And when I wrote that on the photograph, I did not know that Captain Bluntschli was married. BLUNTSCHLI (much startled protesting vehemently). I'm not married. RAINA (with deep reproach). You said you were. BLUNTSCHLI. I did not. I positively did not. I never was married in my life. PETKOFF (exasperated). Raina: will you kindly inform me, if I am not asking too much, which gentleman you are engaged to? RAINA. To neither of them. This young lady (introducing Louka, who faces them all proudly) is the object of Major Saranoff's affections at present. PETKOFF. Louka! Are you mad, Sergius? Why, this girl's engaged to Nicola. NICOLA (coming forward ). I beg your pardon, sir. There is a mistake. Louka is not engaged to me. PETKOFF. Not engaged to you, you scoundrel! Why, you had twenty-five levas from me on the day of your betrothal; and she had that gilt bracelet from Miss Raina. NICOLA (with cool unction). We gave it out so, sir. But it was only to give Louka protection. She had a soul above her station; and I have been no more than her confidential servant. I intend, as you know, sir, to set up a shop later on in Sofia; and I look forward to her custom and recommendation should she marry into the nobility. (He goes out with impressive discretion, leaving them all staring after him.) PETKOFF (breaking the silence). Well, I am---hm! SERGIUS. This is either the finest heroism or the most crawling baseness. Which is it, Bluntschli? BLUNTSCHLI. Never mind whether it's heroism or baseness. Nicola's the ablest man I've met in Bulgaria. I'll make him manager of a hotel if he can speak French and German. LOUKA (suddenly breaking out at Sergius). I have been insulted by everyone here. You set them the example. You owe me an apology. (Sergius immediately, like a repeating clock of which the spring has been touched, begins to fold his arms.) BLUNTSCHLI (before he can speak). It's no use. He never apologizes. LOUKA. Not to you, his equal and his enemy. To me, his poor servant, he will not refuse to apologize. SERGIUS (approvingly). You are right. (He bends his knee in his grandest manner.) Forgive me! LOUKA. I forgive you. (She timidly gives him her hand, which he kisses.) That touch makes me your affianced wife. SERGIUS (springing up). Ah, I forgot that! LOUKA (coldly). You can withdraw if you like. SERGIUS. Withdraw! Never! You belong to me! (He puts his arm about her and draws her to him.) (Catherine comes in and finds Louka in Sergius's arms, and all the rest gazing at them in bewildered astonishment.) CATHERINE. What does this mean? (Sergius releases Louka.) PETKOFF. Well, my dear, it appears that Sergius is going to marry Louka instead of Raina. (She is about to break out indignantly at him: he stops her by exclaiming testily.) Don't blame me: I've nothing to do with it. (He retreats to the stove.) CATHERINE. Marry Louka! Sergius: you are bound by your word to us! SERGIUS (folding his arms). Nothing binds me. BLUNTSCHLI (much pleased by this piece of common sense). Saranoff: your hand. My congratulations. These heroics of yours have their practical side after all. (To Louka.) Gracious young lady: the best wishes of a good Republican! (He kisses her hand, to Raina's great disgust.) CATHERINE (threateningly). Louka: you have been telling stories. LOUKA. I have done Raina no harm. CATHERINE (haughtily). Raina! (Raina is equally indignant at the liberty.) LOUKA. I have a right to call her Raina: she calls me Louka. I told Major Saranoff she would never marry him if the Swiss gentleman came back. BLUNTSCHLI (surprised). Hallo! LOUKA (turning to Raina). I thought you were fonder of him than of Sergius. You know best whether I was right. BLUNTSCHLI. What nonsense! I assure you, my dear Major, my dear Madame, the gracious young lady simply saved my life, nothing else. She never cared two straws for me. Why, bless my heart and soul, look at the young lady and look at me. She, rich, young, beautiful, with her imagination full of fairy princes and noble natures and cavalry charges and goodness knows what! And I, a common-place Swiss soldier who hardly knows what a decent life is after fifteen years of barracks and battles--a vagabond--a man who has spoiled all his chances in life through an incurably romantic disposition--a man-- SERGIUS (starting as if a needle had pricked him and interrupting Bluntschli in incredulous amazement). Excuse me, Bluntschli: what did you say had spoiled your chances in life? BLUNTSCHLI (promptly). An incurably romantic disposition. I ran away from home twice when I was a boy. I went into the army instead of into my father's business. I climbed the balcony of this house when a man of sense would have dived into the nearest cellar. I came sneaking back here to have another look at the young lady when any other man of my age would have sent the coat back-- PETKOFF. My coat! BLUNTSCHLI.--Yes: that's the coat I mean--would have sent it back and gone quietly home. Do you suppose I am the sort of fellow a young girl falls in love with? Why, look at our ages! I'm thirty-four: I don't suppose the young lady is much over seventeen. (This estimate produces a marked sensation, all the rest turning and staring at one another. He proceeds innocently.) All that adventure which was life or death to me, was only a schoolgirl's game to her--chocolate creams and hide and seek. Here's the proof! (He takes the photograph from the table.) Now, I ask you, would a woman who took the affair seriously have sent me this and written on it: "Raina, to her chocolate cream soldier--a souvenir"? (He exhibits the photograph triumphantly, as if it settled the matter beyond all possibility of refutation.) PETKOFF. That's what I was looking for. How the deuce did it get there? BLUNTSCHLI (to Raina complacently). I have put everything right, I hope, gracious young lady! RAINA (in uncontrollable vexation). I quite agree with your account of yourself. You are a romantic idiot. (Bluntschli is unspeakably taken aback.) Next time I hope you will know the difference between a schoolgirl of seventeen and a woman of twenty-three. BLUNTSCHLI (stupefied). Twenty-three! (She snaps the photograph contemptuously from his hand; tears it across; and throws the pieces at his feet.) SERGIUS (with grim enjoyment of Bluntschli's discomfiture). Bluntschli: my one last belief is gone. Your sagacity is a fraud, like all the other things. You have less sense than even I have. BLUNTSCHLI (overwhelmed). Twenty-three! Twenty-three!! (He considers.) Hm! (Swiftly making up his mind.) In that case, Major Petkoff, I beg to propose formally to become a suitor for your daughter's hand, in place of Major Saranoff retired. RAINA. You dare! BLUNTSCHLI. If you were twenty-three when you said those things to me this afternoon, I shall take them seriously. CATHERINE (loftily polite). I doubt, sir, whether you quite realize either my daughter's position or that of Major Sergius Saranoff, whose place you propose to take. The Petkoffs and the Saranoffs are known as the richest and most important families in the country. Our position is almost historical: we can go back for nearly twenty years. PETKOFF. Oh, never mind that, Catherine. (To Bluntschli.) We should be most happy, Bluntschli, if it were only a question of your position; but hang it, you know, Raina is accustomed to a very comfortable establishment. Sergius keeps twenty horses. BLUNTSCHLI. But what on earth is the use of twenty horses? Why, it's a circus. CATHERINE (severely). My daughter, sir, is accustomed to a first-rate stable. RAINA. Hush, mother, you're making me ridiculous. BLUNTSCHLI. Oh, well, if it comes to a question of an establishment, here goes! (He goes impetuously to the table and seizes the papers in the blue envelope.) How many horses did you say? SERGIUS. Twenty, noble Switzer! BLUNTSCHLI. I have two hundred horses. (They are amazed.) How many carriages? SERGIUS. Three. BLUNTSCHLI. I have seventy. Twenty-four of them will hold twelve inside, besides two on the box, without counting the driver and conductor. How many tablecloths have you? SERGIUS. How the deuce do I know? BLUNTSCHLI. Have you four thousand? SERGIUS. NO. BLUNTSCHLI. I have. I have nine thousand six hundred pairs of sheets and blankets, with two thousand four hundred eider-down quilts. I have ten thousand knives and forks, and the same quantity of dessert spoons. I have six hundred servants. I have six palatial establishments, besides two livery stables, a tea garden and a private house. I have four medals for distinguished services; I have the rank of an officer and the standing of a gentleman; and I have three native languages. Show me any man in Bulgaria that can offer as much. PETKOFF (with childish awe). Are you Emperor of Switzerland? BLUNTSCHLI. My rank is the highest known in Switzerland: I'm a free citizen. CATHERINE. Then Captain Bluntschli, since you are my daughter's choice, I shall not stand in the way of her happiness. (Petkoff is about to speak.) That is Major Petkoff's feeling also. PETKOFF. Oh, I shall be only too glad. Two hundred horses! Whew! SERGIUS. What says the lady? RAINA (pretending to sulk). The lady says that he can keep his tablecloths and his omnibuses. I am not here to be sold to the highest bidder. BLUNTSCHLI. I won't take that answer. I appealed to you as a fugitive, a beggar, and a starving man. You accepted me. You gave me your hand to kiss, your bed to sleep in, and your roof to shelter me-- RAINA (interrupting him). I did not give them to the Emperor of Switzerland! BLUNTSCHLI. That's just what I say. (He catches her hand quickly and looks her straight in the face as he adds, with confident mastery) Now tell us who you did give them to. RAINA (succumbing with a shy smile). To my chocolate cream soldier! BLUNTSCHLI (with a boyish laugh of delight). That'll do. Thank you. (Looks at his watch and suddenly becomes businesslike.) Time's up, Major. You've managed those regiments so well that you are sure to be asked to get rid of some of the Infantry of the Teemok division. Send them home by way of Lom Palanka. Saranoff: don't get married until I come back: I shall be here punctually at five in the evening on Tuesday fortnight. Gracious ladies--good evening. (He makes them a military bow, and goes.) SERGIUS. What a man! What a man! Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Diese Szene spielt in der Bibliothek der Petkoffs, einem sehr armseligen Raum, wie Shaw uns wissen lässt. Sie besteht nur aus einem einzigen Zimmer mit einem einzelnen Regal alter, abgenutzter Romanhefte. Der Rest des Raumes ähnelt eher einem Wohnzimmer, mit einem weiteren Hocker darin, wie demjenigen in Rainas Zimmer im ersten Akt. Der Raum ist außerdem mit einem alten Küchentisch ausgestattet, der als Schreibtisch dient. Zu Beginn des Akts ist Bluntschli damit beschäftigt, Bestellungen mit geschäftsmäßiger Regelmäßigkeit für die Verwendung der bulgarischen Armee vorzubereiten. Petkoff ist eher eine Belastung als eine Hilfe, da er ständig unterbricht, um zu sehen, ob er helfen kann. Schließlich sagt ihm seine Frau, er solle aufhören zu unterbrechen. Petkoff beschwert sich wiederum, dass alles, was er braucht, um sich wohlzufühlen, sein Lieblingsalter Mantel ist, den er nicht finden kann. Catherine läutet nach Nicola und sagt dem Diener, in den blauen Schrank zu gehen und den alten Mantel seines Herrn zu holen. Petkoff ist so sicher, dass er dort nicht ist, dass er bereit ist, mit ihr um ein teures Schmuckstück zu wetten. Sergius will ebenfalls eine Wette eingehen, aber Nicola kehrt plötzlich mit dem Mantel zurück. Petkoff ist völlig erstaunt und verwirrt, als Nicola verkündet, dass er tatsächlich im blauen Schrank hing. In diesem Moment beendet Bluntschli die letzte Bestellung, gibt sie Sergius mit, damit er sie seinen Soldaten übergibt, und bittet dann Petkoff, ihm zu folgen, um sicherzustellen, dass Sergius keinen Fehler macht. Petkoff bittet seine Frau mitzukommen, weil sie gut darin ist, Befehle zu geben. Allein mit Raina drückt Bluntschli seine Verwunderung darüber aus, dass in diesem Heer "Offiziere ihre Frauen kommen lassen, um Disziplin zu wahren". Raina erzählt Bluntschli dann, wie viel besser er jetzt aussieht, da er sauber ist, und sie erkundigt sich nach seinen Erfahrungen, nachdem er ihr Schlafzimmer verlassen hat. Sie macht ihm klar, dass die ganze Geschichte so oft erzählt wurde, dass sowohl ihr Vater als auch ihr Verlobter von der Geschichte wissen, jedoch nicht die Identität der beteiligten Personen. In der Tat glaubt Raina, dass "wenn Sergius es wüsste, würde er dich herausfordern und dich in einem Duell töten". Bluntschli sagt, dass er hofft, dass Raina es nicht erzählt, aber Raina erzählt ihm von ihrem Wunsch, mit Sergius völlig offen und ehrlich zu sein. Aufgrund von Bluntschli, sagt Raina, hat sie jetzt schon zwei Lügen erzählt: einmal den Soldaten, die nach ihm in ihrem Zimmer suchten, und gerade eben über den Schokoladenpudding - und sie fühlt sich schrecklich, weil sie gelogen hat. Bluntschli kann sie nicht ernst nehmen. Tatsächlich sagt er ihr, dass wenn "du diese noble Haltung einnimmst und mit dieser aufregenden Stimme sprichst, bewundere ich dich; aber ich finde es unmöglich, dir auch nur ein einziges Wort zu glauben". Zuerst ist Raina empört, aber dann amüsiert es sie sehr, dass Bluntschli durch die Verkleidung, die sie seit ihrer Kindheit benutzt hat, durchschaut hat: "Weißt du, ich habe mich immer so verhalten", sagt sie ihm. Als Raina ihn fragt, was er von ihr hält, weil sie ihm ein Porträt von sich gegeben hat, sagt Bluntschli ihr, dass er es nie bekommen hat, weil er nie in die Tasche des Mantels gegriffen hat, wo Raina es hineingesteckt hatte. Er macht sich keine Sorgen, bis er erfährt, dass Raina darauf "Für meinen Schokoladencreme-Soldaten" geschrieben hat. In der Zwischenzeit gibt Bluntschli zu, dass er den Mantel verpfändet hat, weil er dachte, das sei der sicherste Ort dafür. Raina ist wütend und beschuldigt ihn, eine "kleinkrämerische Einstellung" zu haben. In diesem Moment werden sie von Louka unterbrochen, die Bluntschli Briefe und Telegramme bringt, in denen steht, dass sein Vater gestorben ist und Bluntschli mehrere Hotels geerbt hat, die er verwalten muss. Er muss sofort gehen. Alarmiert folgt Raina ihm nach. Nicola kommt herein und sieht Louka mit hochgekrempeltem Ärmel, der ihren blauen Fleck zeigt, und er schimpft mit ihr. Dann streiten sie sich über die Pflichten und Verpflichtungen eines Dieners. Louka sagt, sie weigere sich entschieden, sich wie eine Dienerin zu benehmen, und Nicola antwortet, er sei durchaus bereit, sie von ihrer Verlobung zu entlassen, wenn sie sich verbessern könne. Dann hätte er einen anderen Kunden für seinen Laden, der ihm gute Geschäfte bringen würde. Als Sergius hereinkommt, geht Nicola sofort, und Sergius bemerkt den blauen Fleck an Loukas Arm und fragt, ob er ihn jetzt heilen könne, indem er ihn küsst. Louka erinnert ihn an seinen Platz und den ihren. Sie fragt sich laut, ob Sergius ein tapferer Mann ist und ob arme Menschen weniger tapfer sind als wohlhabende Menschen. Sergius antwortet, dass im Krieg jeder Mann Mut haben kann: "Der Mut zu wüten und zu töten ist billig". Louka fragt dann, ob Sergius wahren Mut habe; das heißt, würde er jemanden heiraten, den er liebt, wenn diese Person sozial unter ihm steht? Sie behauptet, dass sie glaubt, dass Sergius "Angst vor dem hätte, was andere sagen würden", und deshalb würde er nie den Mut haben, unter seinem Stand zu heiraten. Sergius widerspricht ihr, bis Louka ihm sagt, dass Raina ihn niemals heiraten werde, dass Raina den Schweizer Soldaten heiraten werde. Während sie geht, packt Sergius sie und hält sie fest; als er sie bedroht und die Wahrheit ihrer Anschuldigung in Frage stellt, fragt sie sich, ob jemand glauben würde, dass sie jetzt in seinen Armen ist. Er lässt sie los mit der Behauptung, dass wenn er sie jemals wieder berührt, es als ihr Verlobter sein wird. Louka macht ihm keine Vorwürfe; sie sagt, dass ihre Liebe auf dem Spiel steht und dass ihre Gefühle für Sergius stärker sind als Rainas Gefühle für den "Schokoladencreme-Soldaten". In diesem Moment betritt Major Petkoff in kurzen Ärmeln den Raum; sein alter Mantel wird repariert. Als Nicola mit ihm hereintritt, hilft Raina ihm, den Mantel anzuziehen, und nimmt geschickt das beschriftete Porträt aus der Manteltasche. Als ihr Vater nachdem Foto greift, um Raina nach der Bedeutung eines Fotos von ihr mit der Aufschrift zu fragen: "Raina, für ihren Schokoladencreme-Soldaten: Ein Andenken", fehlt das Foto! Major Petkoff ist verwirrt und fragt Sergius, ob er der "Schokoladencreme-Soldat" ist. Der Major reagiert empört und sagt, dass er es nicht ist. Dann erklärt Bluntschli, dass er der "Schokoladencreme-Soldat" ist und dass Raina sein Leben gerettet hat. Petkoff ist weiter verwirrt, als Raina darauf hinweist, dass Louka das eigentliche Objekt von Sergius' Zuneigung ist, obwohl Louka mit Nicola verlobt ist, der dies leugnet und sagt, dass er auf Loukas gute Empfehlung hofft, wenn er seinen Laden eröffnet. Plötzlich fühlt sich Louka wie im Handel und verlangt eine Entschuldigung; als Sergius ihr zur Entschuldigung die Hand küsst, erinnert sie ihn daran, dass seine Berührung sie nun zu seiner "Verlobten" macht, und obwohl Sergius seine frühere Aussage vergessen hatte, hält er sich dennoch an sein Wort und beansprucht Louka für sich. In diesem Moment tritt Catherine ein und ist schockiert, Louka und Sergius zusammen zu finden. Louka erklärt, dass Raina nur an Bluntschli interessiert ist, und bevor Raina antworten kann, erklärt Bluntschli, dass ein so junge und schöne Mädchen wie Raina sich nicht in einen vierunddreißigjährigen Soldaten verlieben könne, der ein unheilbarer Romantiker ist; der einzige Grund, warum er zurückgekommen ist, sagt er, war nicht, den Mantel zurückzugeben, sondern noch einen Blick auf Raina zu erhaschen, aber er fürchtet, dass sie nicht älter als siebzehn Jahre alt ist. Raina sagt dann zu Bluntschli, dass er in der Tat töricht romantisch ist, wenn er denkt, dass sie, eine dreiundzwanzig Jahre alte Frau, ein siebzehnjähriges Mädchen ist. An diesem Punkt bittet Bluntschli um Erlaubnis, um um Rainas Hand anzuhalten. Als man ihn daran erinnert, dass Sergius aus einer alten Familie stammt, die mindestens zwanzig Pferde hatte, fängt Bluntschli an, alle Besitztümer aufzuzählen, die er hat; er vergisst jedoch zu erwähnen, dass sich sein Besitz mit dem Hotelgeschäft verbindet, das er gerade geerbt hat. Seine Liste der Besitztümer wirkt so beeindruckend, dass festgelegt wird, dass er in der Tat Raina heiraten soll, die begeistert von ihrem "Schokoladencreme-Soldaten" ist. Während Bluntschli geht, mit der Zusage, in zwei Wochen zurückzusein, schaut Sergius staunend und kommentiert: "Was für ein Mann! Ist das ein Mann!"

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: XI. Dusk The wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die, fell under the sentence, as if she had been mortally stricken. But, she uttered no sound; and so strong was the voice within her, representing that it was she of all the world who must uphold him in his misery and not augment it, that it quickly raised her, even from that shock. The Judges having to take part in a public demonstration out of doors, the Tribunal adjourned. The quick noise and movement of the court's emptying itself by many passages had not ceased, when Lucie stood stretching out her arms towards her husband, with nothing in her face but love and consolation. "If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once! O, good citizens, if you would have so much compassion for us!" There was but a gaoler left, along with two of the four men who had taken him last night, and Barsad. The people had all poured out to the show in the streets. Barsad proposed to the rest, "Let her embrace him then; it is but a moment." It was silently acquiesced in, and they passed her over the seats in the hall to a raised place, where he, by leaning over the dock, could fold her in his arms. "Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing on my love. We shall meet again, where the weary are at rest!" They were her husband's words, as he held her to his bosom. "I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above: don't suffer for me. A parting blessing for our child." "I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say farewell to her by you." "My husband. No! A moment!" He was tearing himself apart from her. "We shall not be separated long. I feel that this will break my heart by-and-bye; but I will do my duty while I can, and when I leave her, God will raise up friends for her, as He did for me." Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his knees to both of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and seized him, crying: "No, no! What have you done, what have you done, that you should kneel to us! We know now, what a struggle you made of old. We know, now what you underwent when you suspected my descent, and when you knew it. We know now, the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for her dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all our love and duty. Heaven be with you!" Her father's only answer was to draw his hands through his white hair, and wring them with a shriek of anguish. "It could not be otherwise," said the prisoner. "All things have worked together as they have fallen out. It was the always-vain endeavour to discharge my poor mother's trust that first brought my fatal presence near you. Good could never come of such evil, a happier end was not in nature to so unhappy a beginning. Be comforted, and forgive me. Heaven bless you!" As he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood looking after him with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer, and with a radiant look upon her face, in which there was even a comforting smile. As he went out at the prisoners' door, she turned, laid her head lovingly on her father's breast, tried to speak to him, and fell at his feet. Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had never moved, Sydney Carton came and took her up. Only her father and Mr. Lorry were with her. His arm trembled as it raised her, and supported her head. Yet, there was an air about him that was not all of pity--that had a flush of pride in it. "Shall I take her to a coach? I shall never feel her weight." He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly down in a coach. Her father and their old friend got into it, and he took his seat beside the driver. When they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in the dark not many hours before, to picture to himself on which of the rough stones of the street her feet had trodden, he lifted her again, and carried her up the staircase to their rooms. There, he laid her down on a couch, where her child and Miss Pross wept over her. "Don't recall her to herself," he said, softly, to the latter, "she is better so. Don't revive her to consciousness, while she only faints." "Oh, Carton, Carton, dear Carton!" cried little Lucie, springing up and throwing her arms passionately round him, in a burst of grief. "Now that you have come, I think you will do something to help mamma, something to save papa! O, look at her, dear Carton! Can you, of all the people who love her, bear to see her so?" He bent over the child, and laid her blooming cheek against his face. He put her gently from him, and looked at her unconscious mother. "Before I go," he said, and paused--"I may kiss her?" It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, "A life you love." When he had gone out into the next room, he turned suddenly on Mr. Lorry and her father, who were following, and said to the latter: "You had great influence but yesterday, Doctor Manette; let it at least be tried. These judges, and all the men in power, are very friendly to you, and very recognisant of your services; are they not?" "Nothing connected with Charles was concealed from me. I had the strongest assurances that I should save him; and I did." He returned the answer in great trouble, and very slowly. "Try them again. The hours between this and to-morrow afternoon are few and short, but try." "I intend to try. I will not rest a moment." "That's well. I have known such energy as yours do great things before now--though never," he added, with a smile and a sigh together, "such great things as this. But try! Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not." "I will go," said Doctor Manette, "to the Prosecutor and the President straight, and I will go to others whom it is better not to name. I will write too, and--But stay! There is a Celebration in the streets, and no one will be accessible until dark." "That's true. Well! It is a forlorn hope at the best, and not much the forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should like to know how you speed; though, mind! I expect nothing! When are you likely to have seen these dread powers, Doctor Manette?" "Immediately after dark, I should hope. Within an hour or two from this." "It will be dark soon after four. Let us stretch the hour or two. If I go to Mr. Lorry's at nine, shall I hear what you have done, either from our friend or from yourself?" "Yes." "May you prosper!" Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and, touching him on the shoulder as he was going away, caused him to turn. "I have no hope," said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sorrowful whisper. "Nor have I." "If any one of these men, or all of these men, were disposed to spare him--which is a large supposition; for what is his life, or any man's to them!--I doubt if they durst spare him after the demonstration in the court." "And so do I. I heard the fall of the axe in that sound." Mr. Lorry leaned his arm upon the door-post, and bowed his face upon it. "Don't despond," said Carton, very gently; "don't grieve. I encouraged Doctor Manette in this idea, because I felt that it might one day be consolatory to her. Otherwise, she might think 'his life was wantonly thrown away or wasted,' and that might trouble her." "Yes, yes, yes," returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, "you are right. But he will perish; there is no real hope." "Yes. He will perish: there is no real hope," echoed Carton. And walked with a settled step, down-stairs. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Die Menschenmenge im Gerichtssaal ergießt sich auf die Straßen, um Darnays Verurteilung zu feiern. John Barsad, der damit beauftragt ist, Darnay zurück in seine Zelle zu bringen, erlaubt Lucie, ihren Ehemann ein letztes Mal zu umarmen. Darnay besteht darauf, dass Doktor Manette sich nicht selbst für den Ausgang des Prozesses verantwortlich macht. Darnay wird zurück in seine Zelle eskortiert, um auf seine Hinrichtung am nächsten Morgen zu warten, und Carton begleitet die trauernde Lucie zu ihrer Wohnung. Carton sagt Manette, er solle noch ein letztes Mal seinen Einfluss bei den Staatsanwälten geltend machen und ihn dann bei Tellson's treffen, obwohl Lorry sicher ist, dass es keine Hoffnung für Darnay gibt, und Carton diese Meinung teilt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: AKT V. SZENE 9. Ein anderer Teil der Ebene Rückzugssignal. Ruf. AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES und der Rest marschieren herein. AGAMEMNON. Hört! Hört! Was ist das für ein Ruf? NESTOR. Ruhe, Trommeln! SOLDATEN. [Im Inneren] Achilles! Achilles! Hector ist erschlagen. Achilles! DIOMEDES. Das Gerücht besagt, Hector ist erschlagen, und zwar von Achilles. AJAX. Wenn dem so ist, dann lass uns dennoch nicht prahlen; Großer Hector war ein ebenso guter Mann wie er. AGAMEMNON. Marschiert geduldig weiter. Lasst jemanden geschickt werden, Achilles zu bitten, uns in unserem Zelt zu sehen. Wenn uns die Götter in seinem Tod geholfen haben; Großes Troja ist unser, und unsere erbitterten Kriege sind beendet. Abgang Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Eine Gruppe von Soldaten teilt den griechischen Anführern mit, dass Achilles den Trojaner Hector getötet hat. Ajax sagt, dass Hector ein "guter" Mann war und dass sein Tod "nicht angegeben" sein sollte. Agamemnon sagt, wenn Hector tot ist, dann wird Troja vollständig fallen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: HOW well I remember the stiff little parlor where I used to wait for Lena: the hard horsehair furniture, bought at some auction sale, the long mirror, the fashion-plates on the wall. If I sat down even for a moment I was sure to find threads and bits of colored silk clinging to my clothes after I went away. Lena's success puzzled me. She was so easy-going; had none of the push and self-assertiveness that get people ahead in business. She had come to Lincoln, a country girl, with no introductions except to some cousins of Mrs. Thomas who lived there, and she was already making clothes for the women of "the young married set." She evidently had great natural aptitude for her work. She knew, as she said, "what people looked well in." She never tired of poring over fashion books. Sometimes in the evening I would find her alone in her work-room, draping folds of satin on a wire figure, with a quite blissful expression of countenance. I could n't help thinking that the years when Lena literally had n't enough clothes to cover herself might have something to do with her untiring interest in dressing the human figure. Her clients said that Lena "had style," and overlooked her habitual inaccuracies. She never, I discovered, finished anything by the time she had promised, and she frequently spent more money on materials than her customer had authorized. Once, when I arrived at six o'clock, Lena was ushering out a fidgety mother and her awkward, overgrown daughter. The woman detained Lena at the door to say apologetically:-- "You'll try to keep it under fifty for me, won't you, Miss Lingard? You see, she's really too young to come to an expensive dressmaker, but I knew you could do more with her than anybody else." "Oh, that will be all right, Mrs. Herron. I think we'll manage to get a good effect," Lena replied blandly. I thought her manner with her customers very good, and wondered where she had learned such self-possession. Sometimes after my morning classes were over, I used to encounter Lena downtown, in her velvet suit and a little black hat, with a veil tied smoothly over her face, looking as fresh as the spring morning. Maybe she would be carrying home a bunch of jonquils or a hyacinth plant. When we passed a candy store her footsteps would hesitate and linger. "Don't let me go in," she would murmur. "Get me by if you can." She was very fond of sweets, and was afraid of growing too plump. We had delightful Sunday breakfasts together at Lena's. At the back of her long work-room was a bay-window, large enough to hold a box-couch and a reading-table. We breakfasted in this recess, after drawing the curtains that shut out the long room, with cutting-tables and wire women and sheet-draped garments on the walls. The sunlight poured in, making everything on the table shine and glitter and the flame of the alcohol lamp disappear altogether. Lena's curly black water-spaniel, Prince, breakfasted with us. He sat beside her on the couch and behaved very well until the Polish violin-teacher across the hall began to practice, when Prince would growl and sniff the air with disgust. Lena's landlord, old Colonel Raleigh, had given her the dog, and at first she was not at all pleased. She had spent too much of her life taking care of animals to have much sentiment about them. But Prince was a knowing little beast, and she grew fond of him. After breakfast I made him do his lessons; play dead dog, shake hands, stand up like a soldier. We used to put my cadet cap on his head--I had to take military drill at the University--and give him a yard-measure to hold with his front leg. His gravity made us laugh immoderately. Lena's talk always amused me. Antonia had never talked like the people about her. Even after she learned to speak English readily there was always something impulsive and foreign in her speech. But Lena had picked up all the conventional expressions she heard at Mrs. Thomas's dressmaking shop. Those formal phrases, the very flower of small-town proprieties, and the flat commonplaces, nearly all hypocritical in their origin, became very funny, very engaging, when they were uttered in Lena's soft voice, with her caressing intonation and arch naivete. Nothing could be more diverting than to hear Lena, who was almost as candid as Nature, call a leg a "limb" or a house a "home." We used to linger a long while over our coffee in that sunny corner. Lena was never so pretty as in the morning; she wakened fresh with the world every day, and her eyes had a deeper color then, like the blue flowers that are never so blue as when they first open. I could sit idle all through a Sunday morning and look at her. Ole Benson's behavior was now no mystery to me. "There was never any harm in Ole," she said once. "People need n't have troubled themselves. He just liked to come over and sit on the draw-side and forget about his bad luck. I liked to have him. Any company's welcome when you're off with cattle all the time." "But was n't he always glum?" I asked. "People said he never talked at all." "Sure he talked, in Norwegian. He'd been a sailor on an English boat and had seen lots of queer places. He had wonderful tattoos. We used to sit and look at them for hours; there was n't much to look at out there. He was like a picture book. He had a ship and a strawberry girl on one arm, and on the other a girl standing before a little house, with a fence and gate and all, waiting for her sweetheart. Farther up his arm, her sailor had come back and was kissing her. 'The Sailor's Return,' he called it." I admitted it was no wonder Ole liked to look at a pretty girl once in a while, with such a fright at home. "You know," Lena said confidentially, "he married Mary because he thought she was strong-minded and would keep him straight. He never could keep straight on shore. The last time he landed in Liverpool he'd been out on a two years' voyage. He was paid off one morning, and by the next he had n't a cent left, and his watch and compass were gone. He'd got with some women, and they'd taken everything. He worked his way to this country on a little passenger boat. Mary was a stewardess, and she tried to convert him on the way over. He thought she was just the one to keep him steady. Poor Ole! He used to bring me candy from town, hidden in his feed-bag. He could n't refuse anything to a girl. He'd have given away his tattoos long ago, if he could. He's one of the people I'm sorriest for." If I happened to spend an evening with Lena and stayed late, the Polish violin-teacher across the hall used to come out and watch me descend the stairs, muttering so threateningly that it would have been easy to fall into a quarrel with him. Lena had told him once that she liked to hear him practice, so he always left his door open, and watched who came and went. There was a coolness between the Pole and Lena's landlord on her account. Old Colonel Raleigh had come to Lincoln from Kentucky and invested an inherited fortune in real estate, at the time of inflated prices. Now he sat day after day in his office in the Raleigh Block, trying to discover where his money had gone and how he could get some of it back. He was a widower, and found very little congenial companionship in this casual Western city. Lena's good looks and gentle manners appealed to him. He said her voice reminded him of Southern voices, and he found as many opportunities of hearing it as possible. He painted and papered her rooms for her that spring, and put in a porcelain bathtub in place of the tin one that had satisfied the former tenant. While these repairs were being made, the old gentleman often dropped in to consult Lena's preferences. She told me with amusement how Ordinsky, the Pole, had presented himself at her door one evening, and said that if the landlord was annoying her by his attentions, he would promptly put a stop to it. "I don't exactly know what to do about him," she said, shaking her head, "he's so sort of wild all the time. I would n't like to have him say anything rough to that nice old man. The Colonel is long-winded, but then I expect he's lonesome. I don't think he cares much for Ordinsky, either. He said once that if I had any complaints to make of my neighbors, I must n't hesitate." One Saturday evening when I was having supper with Lena we heard a knock at her parlor door, and there stood the Pole, coatless, in a dress shirt and collar. Prince dropped on his paws and began to growl like a mastiff, while the visitor apologized, saying that he could not possibly come in thus attired, but he begged Lena to lend him some safety pins. "Oh, you'll have to come in, Mr. Ordinsky, and let me see what's the matter." She closed the door behind him. "Jim, won't you make Prince behave?" I rapped Prince on the nose, while Ordinsky explained that he had not had his dress clothes on for a long time, and to-night, when he was going to play for a concert, his waistcoat had split down the back. He thought he could pin it together until he got it to a tailor. Lena took him by the elbow and turned him round. She laughed when she saw the long gap in the satin. "You could never pin that, Mr. Ordinsky. You've kept it folded too long, and the goods is all gone along the crease. Take it off. I can put a new piece of lining-silk in there for you in ten minutes." She disappeared into her work-room with the vest, leaving me to confront the Pole, who stood against the door like a wooden figure. He folded his arms and glared at me with his excitable, slanting brown eyes. His head was the shape of a chocolate drop, and was covered with dry, straw-colored hair that fuzzed up about his pointed crown. He had never done more than mutter at me as I passed him, and I was surprised when he now addressed me. "Miss Lingard," he said haughtily, "is a young woman for whom I have the utmost, the utmost respect." "So have I," I said coldly. He paid no heed to my remark, but began to do rapid finger-exercises on his shirt-sleeves, as he stood with tightly folded arms. "Kindness of heart," he went on, staring at the ceiling, "sentiment, are not understood in a place like this. The noblest qualities are ridiculed. Grinning college boys, ignorant and conceited, what do they know of delicacy!" I controlled my features and tried to speak seriously. "If you mean me, Mr. Ordinsky, I have known Miss Lingard a long time, and I think I appreciate her kindness. We come from the same town, and we grew up together." His gaze traveled slowly down from the ceiling and rested on me. "Am I to understand that you have this young woman's interests at heart? That you do not wish to compromise her?" "That's a word we don't use much here, Mr. Ordinsky. A girl who makes her own living can ask a college boy to supper without being talked about. We take some things for granted." "Then I have misjudged you, and I ask your pardon,"--he bowed gravely. "Miss Lingard," he went on, "is an absolutely trustful heart. She has not learned the hard lessons of life. As for you and me, noblesse oblige,"--he watched me narrowly. Lena returned with the vest. "Come in and let us look at you as you go out, Mr. Ordinsky. I've never seen you in your dress suit," she said as she opened the door for him. A few moments later he reappeared with his violin case--a heavy muffler about his neck and thick woolen gloves on his bony hands. Lena spoke encouragingly to him, and he went off with such an important, professional air, that we fell to laughing as soon as we had shut the door. "Poor fellow," Lena said indulgently, "he takes everything so hard." After that Ordinsky was friendly to me, and behaved as if there were some deep understanding between us. He wrote a furious article, attacking the musical taste of the town, and asked me to do him a great service by taking it to the editor of the morning paper. If the editor refused to print it, I was to tell him that he would be answerable to Ordinsky "in person." He declared that he would never retract one word, and that he was quite prepared to lose all his pupils. In spite of the fact that nobody ever mentioned his article to him after it appeared--full of typographical errors which he thought intentional--he got a certain satisfaction from believing that the citizens of Lincoln had meekly accepted the epithet "coarse barbarians." "You see how it is," he said to me, "where there is no chivalry, there is no amour propre." When I met him on his rounds now, I thought he carried his head more disdainfully than ever, and strode up the steps of front porches and rang doorbells with more assurance. He told Lena he would never forget how I had stood by him when he was "under fire." All this time, of course, I was drifting. Lena had broken up my serious mood. I was n't interested in my classes. I played with Lena and Prince, I played with the Pole, I went buggy-riding with the old Colonel, who had taken a fancy to me and used to talk to me about Lena and the "great beauties" he had known in his youth. We were all three in love with Lena. Before the first of June, Gaston Cleric was offered an instructorship at Harvard College, and accepted it. He suggested that I should follow him in the fall, and complete my course at Harvard. He had found out about Lena--not from me--and he talked to me seriously. "You won't do anything here now. You should either quit school and go to work, or change your college and begin again in earnest. You won't recover yourself while you are playing about with this handsome Norwegian. Yes, I've seen her with you at the theater. She's very pretty, and perfectly irresponsible, I should judge." Cleric wrote my grandfather that he would like to take me East with him. To my astonishment, grandfather replied that I might go if I wished. I was both glad and sorry on the day when the letter came. I stayed in my room all evening and thought things over; I even tried to persuade myself that I was standing in Lena's way--it is so necessary to be a little noble!--and that if she had not me to play with, she would probably marry and secure her future. The next evening I went to call on Lena. I found her propped up on the couch in her bay window, with her foot in a big slipper. An awkward little Russian girl whom she had taken into her work-room had dropped a flat-iron on Lena's toe. On the table beside her there was a basket of early summer flowers which the Pole had left after he heard of the accident. He always managed to know what went on in Lena's apartment. Lena was telling me some amusing piece of gossip about one of her clients, when I interrupted her and picked up the flower basket. "This old chap will be proposing to you some day, Lena." "Oh, he has--often!" she murmured. "What! After you've refused him?" "He does n't mind that. It seems to cheer him to mention the subject. Old men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they're in love with somebody." "The Colonel would marry you in a minute. I hope you won't marry some old fellow; not even a rich one." Lena shifted her pillows and looked up at me in surprise. "Why, I'm not going to marry anybody. Did n't you know that?" "Nonsense, Lena. That's what girls say, but you know better. Every handsome girl like you marries, of course." She shook her head. "Not me." "But why not? What makes you say that?" I persisted. Lena laughed. "Well, it's mainly because I don't want a husband. Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible and what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody." "But you'll be lonesome. You'll get tired of this sort of life, and you'll want a family." "Not me. I like to be lonesome. When I went to work for Mrs. Thomas I was nineteen years old, and I had never slept a night in my life when there were n't three in the bed. I never had a minute to myself except when I was off with the cattle." Usually, when Lena referred to her life in the country at all, she dismissed it with a single remark, humorous or mildly cynical. But to-night her mind seemed to dwell on those early years. She told me she could n't remember a time when she was so little that she was n't lugging a heavy baby about, helping to wash for babies, trying to keep their little chapped hands and faces clean. She remembered home as a place where there were always too many children, a cross man, and work piling up around a sick woman. "It was n't mother's fault. She would have made us comfortable if she could. But that was no life for a girl! After I began to herd and milk I could never get the smell of the cattle off me. The few underclothes I had I kept in a cracker box. On Saturday nights, after everybody was in bed, then I could take a bath if I was n't too tired. I could make two trips to the windmill to carry water, and heat it in the wash-boiler on the stove. While the water was heating, I could bring in a washtub out of the cave, and take my bath in the kitchen. Then I could put on a clean nightgown and get into bed with two others, who likely had n't had a bath unless I'd given it to them. You can't tell me anything about family life. I've had plenty to last me." "But it's not all like that," I objected. "Near enough. It's all being under somebody's thumb. What's on your mind, Jim? Are you afraid I'll want you to marry me some day?" Then I told her I was going away. "What makes you want to go away, Jim? Have n't I been nice to you?" "You've been just awfully good to me, Lena," I blurted. "I don't think about much else. I never shall think about much else while I'm with you. I'll never settle down and grind if I stay here. You know that." I dropped down beside her and sat looking at the floor. I seemed to have forgotten all my reasonable explanations. Lena drew close to me, and the little hesitation in her voice that had hurt me was not there when she spoke again. "I ought n't to have begun it, ought I?" she murmured. "I ought n't to have gone to see you that first time. But I did want to. I guess I've always been a little foolish about you. I don't know what first put it into my head, unless it was Antonia, always telling me I must n't be up to any of my nonsense with you. I let you alone for a long while, though, did n't I?" She was a sweet creature to those she loved, that Lena Lingard! At last she sent me away with her soft, slow, renunciatory kiss. "You are n't sorry I came to see you that time?" she whispered. "It seemed so natural. I used to think I'd like to be your first sweetheart. You were such a funny kid!" She always kissed one as if she were sadly and wisely sending one away forever. We said many good-byes before I left Lincoln, but she never tried to hinder me or hold me back. "You are going, but you have n't gone yet, have you?" she used to say. My Lincoln chapter closed abruptly. I went home to my grandparents for a few weeks, and afterward visited my relatives in Virginia until I joined Cleric in Boston. I was then nineteen years old. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Wenn Jim Lena besuchen geht, muss er im Salon warten. Er ist überrascht, dass Lena so erfolgreich ist, weil sie nicht dominant und geschäftsmäßig ist. Aber sie hat ein großes Talent dafür, Kleider zu machen und der Mode zu folgen, obwohl sie nie etwas rechtzeitig fertigstellt und immer das Budget überzieht. Jim findet, dass sie gut mit Kunden umgehen kann. Manchmal sieht Jim sie in der Stadt in ihrem Geschäftsanzug, wenn sie gut aussieht. Oft frühstücken sie zusammen am Sonntag bei ihr zu Hause. Sie hat einen Hund namens Prince, der Jim anknurrt. Lenas Vermieter heißt Colonel Raleigh, und er ist der Mann, der Lena den Hund gegeben hat. Jim amüsiert Lenas sprechende Art. Sie hat viele gängige englische Ausdrücke gelernt, obwohl es nicht ihre Muttersprache ist. Jim findet, dass Lena morgens hübsch aussieht. Er versteht, warum Ole so verrückt nach ihr war. Lena erzählt ihm, dass Ole ihr nie etwas Böses wollte. Er hat nur gerne mit ihr gesprochen. Er hat Mary nur geheiratet, weil er dachte, dass sie ihn in Ordnung halten würde, weil er ein Problem mit Frauen hatte, die ihn ausnutzen. Lena tut ihm leid, sagt sie. Wenn Jim zu spät bei Lena bleibt, kommt der polnische Geigenlehrer, der auf dem Flur gegenüber wohnt, herein und sagt Jim bedrohliche Dinge. Colonel Raleigh und der polnische Nachbar verstehen sich nicht. Letzterer versucht immer zu verhindern, dass er sich mit Lena anbändelt. Eines Abends, während Jim mit Lena zu Abend isst, kommt der Nachbar namens Ordinsky herein. Er versucht, seine Weste zusammenzunähen, die kaputt ist, damit er bei einem Konzert spielen kann. Lena geht hin, um sie für ihn zu nähen. Während sie weg ist, warnt Ordinsky Jim, dass er ihr Respekt entgegenbringen soll. Jim überzeugt den Mann davon, dass er ehrenhaft ist. Danach ist Ordinsky immer freundlich zu Jim. Eines Tages schreibt er einen Zeitungsartikel und bittet Jim, ihn zum Chefredakteur der Zeitung zu bringen, um ihn zu veröffentlichen. Jim tut das, und so mag Ordinsky ihn immer dafür, dass er ihm geholfen hat. Weil er viel Zeit mit Lena verbringt, nimmt Jim seine Studien nicht mehr ernst. Jim erklärt, dass er, Colonel Raleigh und Herr Ordinsky alle in Lena verliebt sind. Gaston Cleric wird die Chance geboten, an der Harvard zu unterrichten, und er nimmt sie an. Er sagt Jim, dass er mit nach Harvard kommen sollte, wo Lena nicht da sein wird, um ihn abzulenken. Cleric schreibt an Jims Großvater und schlägt vor, dass Jim nach Harvard geht. Großvater stimmt zu, dass es für ihn in Ordnung ist. Jim verbringt einen Abend damit, über die Dinge nachzudenken. Am nächsten Morgen geht er zu Lena. Da sind Blumen, die Herr Ordinsky für sie da gelassen hat. Jim erzählt ihr, dass sie vorsichtig sein sollte, sonst könnte Herr Ordinsky ihr eines Tages einen Heiratsantrag machen. Lena sagt, er habe oft einen Antrag gemacht, aber es macht ihr nichts aus, wenn sie nein sagt. Alte Männer mögen es, in jemanden verliebt zu sein, sagt sie, weil sie sich wichtig fühlen. Jim sagt Lena, dass er hoffe, sie werde nicht einen alten reichen Mann heiraten. Lena sagt ihm, er solle sich keine Sorgen machen, denn sie werde niemanden heiraten. Sie möchte keinen Ehemann, weil verheiratete Männer ihrer Frau immer sagen wollen, was sie tun soll. Sie genießt es auch, Zeit für sich selbst zu haben. Schließlich sagt Jim ihr, dass er weggeht, weil er hier sonst nichts erreichen wird. Lena sagt, sie hätte nie etwas mit Jim anfangen sollen. Sie überlegt, dass es wahrscheinlich Antonia war, die ihr gesagt hat, es nicht zu tun. Sie gibt Jim einen Abschiedskuss und sagt, sie habe früher gedacht, sie würde Jims erste Geliebte sein. Nachdem er Lincoln verlassen hat, besucht Jim seine Großeltern zu Hause. Dann besucht er seine Verwandten in Virginia und geht weiter, um sich Cleric in Boston anzuschließen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Der düstere Hurstwood, der in seinem billigen Hotel saß, wo er Zuflucht mit siebzig Dollar - dem Preis seiner Möbel - zwischen ihm und nichts gefunden hatte, erlebte einen heißen Sommer und einen kühlen Herbst, während er las. Er war nicht völlig gleichgültig gegenüber der Tatsache, dass sein Geld immer knapper wurde. Als Tag für Tag fünfzig Cent für eine Übernachtung ausgegeben wurden, wurde er unruhig und nahm schließlich ein günstigeres Zimmer, das nur fünfunddreißig Cent pro Tag kostete, um sein Geld länger halten zu können. Häufig sah er Ankündigungen von Carrie. Ihr Bild war einmal oder zweimal in der "World" zu sehen und eine alte "Herald", die er in einem Stuhl fand, informierte ihn darüber, dass sie kürzlich mit anderen bei einer Wohltätigkeitsveranstaltung aufgetreten war. Er las diese Dinge mit gemischten Gefühlen. Jede schien sie weiter und weiter in eine Welt zu bringen, die immer imposanter wurde, je mehr sie sich von ihm entfernte. Auch auf den Plakatwänden sah er ein hübsches Poster, das sie als quäkerisches Mädchen zeigte, demütig und zart. Mehr als einmal blieb er stehen und betrachtete sie, starrte auf ihr hübsches Gesicht auf mürrische Art und Weise. Seine Kleidung war schäbig und er bildete einen markanten Kontrast zu allem, was sie jetzt zu sein schien. Irgendwie, solange er wusste, dass sie im Casino war, obwohl er nie vorhatte, ihr nahe zu kommen, gab es eine unterschwellige Bequemlichkeit für ihn - er war nicht ganz allein. Die Show schien so fest zu sein, dass er nach ein oder zwei Monaten davon ausging, dass sie immer noch lief. Im September ging sie auf Tournee und er bemerkte es nicht. Als fast zwanzig Dollar seines Geldes weg waren, zog er in ein Fünfzehn-Cent-Logis im Bowery, wo es einen kargen Aufenthaltsraum mit Tischen und Bänken sowie einigen Stühlen gab. Hier zog er es vor, seine Augen zu schließen und von früheren Tagen zu träumen, eine Gewohnheit, die in ihm heranwuchs. Es war anfangs kein Schlaf, sondern ein geistiges Zurückkehren zu Szenen und Ereignissen in seinem Leben in Chicago. Je dunkler die Gegenwart wurde, desto heller wurde die Vergangenheit und alles, was damit zu tun hatte, stand im Mittelpunkt. Er war sich nicht bewusst, wie sehr diese Gewohnheit ihn im Griff hatte, bis er eines Tages feststellte, dass seine Lippen eine alte Antwort wiederholten, die er einem seiner Freunde gegeben hatte. Sie waren bei Fitzgerald und Moy's. Es war, als ob er vor der Tür seines eleganten kleinen Büros stand, bequem gekleidet und mit Sagar Morrison über den Wert von Immobilien in Süd-Chicago sprach, in die letzterer investieren wollte. "Wie wäre es, wenn du mit mir einsteigst?", hörte er Morrison sagen. "Ich nicht", antwortete er, genauso wie er es vor Jahren getan hatte. "Ich habe jetzt genug zu tun." Die Bewegung seiner Lippen rüttelte ihn auf. Er fragte sich, ob er wirklich gesprochen hatte. Beim nächsten Mal bemerkte er etwas Ähnliches, redete er wirklich. "Warum springst du nicht, du verdammter Narr?", sagte er. "Spring!" Es war eine lustige englische Geschichte, die er einer Schauspielgruppe erzählte. Selbst als seine Stimme ihn zurückrief, lächelte er. Ein mürrischer alter Junggeselle, der in der Nähe saß, schien beunruhigt zu sein; zumindest starrte er in einer sehr deutlichen Weise. Hurstwood richtete sich auf. Der Humor der Erinnerung verging in einem Augenblick und er fühlte sich beschämt. Zur Erleichterung verließ er seinen Stuhl und spazierte auf die Straße. Eines Tages sah er beim Betrachten der Anzeigenkolumne der "Evening World", dass ein neues Theaterstück im Casino lief. Sofort kam er zum stillen Stehen. Carrie war gegangen! Er erinnerte sich, dass er gestern erst ein Poster von ihr gesehen hatte, aber es war sicherlich eines, das noch nicht von den neuen Schildern bedeckt wurde. Merkwürdigerweise erschütterte ihn diese Tatsache. Er musste zugeben, dass er irgendwie darauf angewiesen war, dass sie in der Stadt war. Jetzt war sie fort. Er fragte sich, wie ihm diese wichtige Tatsache entgangen war. Gott weiß, wann sie jetzt zurück sein würde. Von einer nervösen Angst angetrieben, stand er auf und ging in den schäbigen Flur, wo er sein restliches Geld unbemerkt zählte. Es waren nur noch zehn Dollar übrig. Er fragte sich, wie all die anderen Leute in diesem Logis um ihn herum zurechtkamen. Sie schienen nichts zu tun. Vielleicht bettelten sie - ohne Frage taten sie es. Viele Male hatte er in seiner Zeit solchen Menschen einen Groschen gegeben. Er hatte andere Männer auf der Straße um Geld bitten sehen. Vielleicht könnte er es auf diese Weise bekommen. Allein dieser Gedanke war schrecklich. Als er im Zimmer des Logis saß, hatte er noch fünfzig Cent. Er hatte gespart und gezählt, bis seine Gesundheit beeinträchtigt war. Seine Korpulenz war verschwunden. Damit auch die Anmut einer passenden Kleidung. Nun beschloss er, etwas zu unternehmen, und während er herumlief, sah er, wie ein weiterer Tag verging, der ihn auf seine letzten zwanzig Cent brachte - nicht genug, um am nächsten Tag zu essen. Unter Einsatz seines ganzen Mutes ging er auf dem Broadway zur Broadway Central Hotel. Innerhalb eines Blocks hielt er inne, unentschlossen. Ein großer, schwerfälliger Portier stand an einem der Seiteneingänge und sah hinaus. Hurstwood beabsichtigte, an ihn zu appellieren. Er ging direkt auf ihn zu und war auf einmal bei ihm, bevor er sich abwenden konnte. "Mein Freund", sagte er und erkannte auch in seiner Not die Unterlegenheit des Mannes, "gibt es in diesem Hotel etwas, das ich tun könnte?" Der Portier starrte ihn an, während er weiterredete. "Ich habe keine Arbeit und kein Geld mehr und ich muss etwas finden, - es spielt keine Rolle, was. Ich möchte nicht über das sprechen, was ich einmal war, aber wenn Sie mir sagen könnten, wie ich etwas finden kann, wäre ich Ihnen sehr dankbar. Es wäre egal, wenn es nur für ein paar Tage wäre. Ich brauche etwas." Der Portier starrte immer noch und versuchte gleichgültig auszusehen. Dann, als er sah, dass Hurstwood weiterreden würde, sagte er: "Ich habe nichts damit zu tun. Sie müssen drinnen fragen." Dieses Stirnrunzeln des Portiers veranlasste Hurstwood zu weiteren Anstrengungen. "Ich dachte, Sie könnten mir etwas sagen." Der Mann schüttelte genervt den Kopf. Hurstwood ging zum Büro neben dem Schreibtisch des Schreibers. Einer der Hotelmanager war dort. Hurstwood schaute ihm direkt in die Augen. "Könnten Sie mir etwas für ein paar Tage geben?" sagte er. "Ich bin in einer Situation, in der ich sofort etwas finden muss." Der bequeme Manager schaute ihn an, als wollte er sagen: "Nun, das würde ich mal meinen." "Ich bin hierher gekommen", erklärte Hurstwood nervös, "weil ich selbst früher Manager war. Ich hatte in gewisser Weise Pech, aber ich bin nicht hier, um Ihnen das zu erzählen. Ich möchte etwas tun, wenn auch nur für eine Woche." Der Mann bildete sich ein, einen fiebrigen Glanz in den Augen des Bewerbers zu sehen. "In welchem Hotel waren Sie Manager?" fragte er. "Es war kein Hotel", sagte Hurstwood. "Ich war Manager bei Fitzgerald und Moy in Chicago für fünfzehn Jahre Mit der Verstocktheit und Gleichgültigkeit der Verzweiflung ertrug er jedoch alles, schlief auf einem Dachboden auf dem Dach des Hauses, aß, was ihm die Köchin gab, akzeptierte ein paar Dollar in der Woche, die er zu sparen versuchte. Sein Körper war nicht in der Lage, das auszuhalten. Eines Tages im folgenden Februar wurde er auf eine Erledigung in das Büro eines großen Kohleunternehmens geschickt. Es hatte geschneit und getaut und die Straßen waren schlammig. Er benetzte seine Schuhe auf dem Weg und kehrte sich matt und müde zurück. Den ganzen nächsten Tag fühlte er sich ungewöhnlich deprimiert und saß möglichst viel herum, zur Verärgerung derer, die Energie bewunderten. Am Nachmittag sollten einige Kisten verschoben werden, um Platz für neue Küchenbedarf zu machen. Er bekam den Auftrag, einen Lastwagen zu benutzen. Als er auf eine große Kiste stieß, konnte er sie nicht hochheben. "Was ist da los?" sagte der Chef-Portier. "Kannst du es nicht schaffen?" Er gab sein Bestes, um sie hochzuheben, hörte aber jetzt auf. "Nein", sagte er schwach. Der Mann sah ihn an und sah, dass er totenbleich war. "Bist du krank?" fragte er. "Ich glaube schon", antwortete Hurstwood. "Nun, dann setz dich besser hin." Das tat er, wurde aber schnell schlechter. Es schien alles, was er tun konnte, sich in sein Zimmer zu schleppen, wo er einen Tag lang blieb. "Der Mann Wheeler ist krank", berichtete einer der Lakaien dem Nachtportier. "Was ist mit ihm?" "Ich weiß nicht. Er hat hohes Fieber." Der Hotelarzt sah ihn sich an. "Schicken Sie ihn besser nach Bellevue", empfahl er. "Er hat eine Lungenentzündung." Also wurde er weggebracht. Nach drei Wochen war das Schlimmste vorüber, aber es war fast Anfang Mai, bevor seine Kräfte ihm erlaubten, entlassen zu werden. Dann wurde er entlassen. Nie sah ein schwächer aussehendes Wesen im Frühlingssonnenschein spazieren gehen als der einst kräftige Manager. Seine ganze Korpulenz war verschwunden. Sein Gesicht war dünn und blass, seine Hände weiß, sein Körper schlaff. Mit Kleidung und allem wog er nur noch hundertfünfunddreißig Pfund. Einige alte Kleidungsstücke wurden ihm gegeben - ein billiger brauner Mantel und eine schlecht sitzende Hose. Auch etwas Kleingeld und Ratschläge. Man sagte ihm, er solle sich an die Wohltätigkeit wenden. Er kehrte erneut in das Bowery-Gästehaus zurück und sann darüber nach, wo er suchen sollte. Von hier aus war es nur noch ein Schritt zur Armut. "Was kann ein Mann tun?", sagte er. "Ich kann nicht verhungern." Seine erste Anwendung war auf dem sonnigen Second Avenue. Ein gut gekleideter Mann kam gemächlich aus dem Stuyvesant Park gelaufen. Hurstwood stärkte sich und näherte sich vorsichtig. "Würden Sie mir zehn Cent geben?", sagte er direkt. "Ich bin in einer Situation, in der ich jemanden fragen muss." Der Mann sah ihn kaum an, fischte in seiner Westentasche und holte einen Zehner heraus. "Da hast du", sagte er. "Vielen Dank", sagte Hurstwood leise, aber der andere schenkte ihm keine weitere Aufmerksamkeit. Zufrieden mit seinem Erfolg und doch beschämt über seine Situation beschloss er, nur noch um fünfundzwanzig Cent mehr zu bitten, da das ausreichend sein würde. Er schlenderte umher und beurteilte die Menschen, aber es dauerte lange, bis das richtige Gesicht und die richtige Situation ankamen. Als er fragte, wurde er abgelehnt. Schockiert von diesem Ergebnis dauerte es eine Stunde, bis er sich wieder gefangen hatte, und dann fragte er erneut. Diesmal wurde ihm ein Nickel gegeben. Mit größter Anstrengung bekam er zwanzig Cent mehr, aber es war schmerzhaft. Am nächsten Tag versuchte er es auf die gleiche Weise, musste mehrere Abweisungen hinnehmen und wurde ein oder zwei Mal großzügig empfangen. Schließlich kam ihm der Gedanke, dass es eine Kunst des Gesichterlesens gab und dass ein Mann das großzügige Antlitz aussuchen konnte, wenn er es versuchte. Ihm bereitete es jedoch keine Freude, Passanten anzuhalten. Er sah, dass ein Mann dafür festgenommen wurde und machte sich Sorgen, auch er könnte verhaftet werden. Dennoch ging er weiter, in der vagen Erwartung, dieses unbestimmte Etwas zu finden, das immer besser ist. Mit Zufriedenheit sah er eines Morgens die Rückkehr der Casino Company angekündigt, "mit Miss Carrie Madenda". Er hatte oft genug an sie gedacht in vergangenen Tagen. Wie erfolgreich sie war - wie viel Geld sie haben musste! Sogar jetzt brauchte es jedoch eine schwere Pechsträhne, um ihn dazu zu bringen, sich an sie zu wenden. Er war wirklich hungrig, bevor er sagte: "Ich werde sie fragen. Sie wird mir ein paar Dollar nicht verweigern." Dementsprechend machte er sich an einem Nachmittag auf den Weg zum Casino und passierte es mehrmals, um den Bühneneingang zu finden. Dann setzte er sich im Bryant Park, einen Block entfernt, und wartete. "Sie wird mir ein bisschen helfen können", sagte er immer wieder zu sich selbst. Beginnend um halb sieben schwebte er wie ein Schatten um den Eingang in der Thirty-ninth Street herum, gab immer vor, eilig zu Fuß zu sein und fürchtete dennoch, sein Ziel zu verpassen. Er war auch leicht nervös, jetzt da die entscheidende Stunde gekommen war. Aber da er schwach und hungrig war, war sein Leiden gemildert. Schließlich sah er, dass die Schauspieler anfingen anzukommen, und seine nervöse Anspannung stieg, bis es schien, als könne er es nicht mehr ertragen. Einmal dachte er, er sähe Carrie kommen und ging nach vorne, nur um festzustellen, dass er sich geirrt hatte. "Sie kann nicht mehr lange wegbleiben", sagte er zu sich selbst, halb befürchtend, ihr zu begegnen und gleichzeitig depressiv bei dem Gedanken, dass sie vielleicht auf einem anderen Weg hereingegangen war. Sein Magen war so leer, dass er schmerzte. Einzelperson um Einzelperson ging an ihm vorbei, fast alle gut gekleidet, fast alle indifferent. Er sah Kutschen vorbeifahren, Herren, die mit Damen vorbeigingen - der Abendvergnügen begann in dieser Region von Theatern und Hotels. Plötzlich rollte eine Kutsche an und der Fahrer sprang herunter, um die Tür zu öffnen. Bevor Hurstwood handeln konnte, stolzierten zwei Damen über den breiten Gehweg und verschwanden in der Bühnentür. Er dachte, er sähe Carrie, aber es war so unerwartet, so elegant und in weiter Ferne, dass er es kaum sagen konnte. Er wartete noch eine Weile, wurde immer ungeduldiger wegen des Hungers und als er sah, dass sich die Bühnentür nicht mehr öffnete und ein fröhliches Publikum ankam, schloss er daraus, dass es Carrie gewesen sein musste und wandte sich ab. "Herr", sagte er und hastete aus der Straße, in die die Glücklicheren strömten, "ich muss etwas bekommen." Um diese Zeit, wenn der Broadway seinen interessantesten Anblick annimmt, stellte sich eine besondere Person in der Ecke der Twenty-sixth Street und Broadway auf - einem Ort, der auch von der Fifth Avenue durchquert wird. Zu dieser Zeit begannen die Theater gerade erst, ihre Besucher zu empfangen. Feuerzeichen, die die Abendvergnügungen ankündigten, leuchteten überall. Taxis und Kutschen, deren Lampen wie gelbe Augen glänzten, klapperten vorbei. Paare und Gruppen von drei oder vier mischten sich frei in der Menge, die in einem dichten Strom vorbeizog und lachte und scherzte. Auf der Fifth Avenue waren Flaneure - ein paar Als die erste halbe Stunde verging, tauchten bestimmte Charaktere auf. Hier und da in den vorbeigehenden Menschenmengen konnte man ab und zu jemanden sehen, der interessiert in der Nähe herumlungerte. Eine schlaffe Gestalt überquerte die gegenüberliegende Ecke und warf verstohlene Blicke in seine Richtung. Ein anderer kam die Fifth Avenue bis zur Ecke der 26th Street hinunter, machte eine allgemeine Umfrage und humpelte dann wieder weg. Zwei oder drei auffällige Typen aus der Bowery drängten sich entlang der Fifth Avenue-Seite des Madison Square, wagten es aber nicht hinüberzugehen. Der Soldat in seinem Umhangmantel ging in seinem Eckbereich etwa drei Meter hin und her und pfiff gleichgültig vor sich hin. Als neun Uhr näher rückte, ließ der Trubel der früheren Stunde nach. Die Atmosphäre in den Hotels war nicht mehr so jugendlich. Die Luft war auch kälter. Auf allen Seiten bewegten sich neugierige Gestalten - Beobachter und Neugierige, ohne sich in einen imaginären Kreis zu begeben, den sie anscheinend betreten zu wollen. Es waren insgesamt zwölf von ihnen. Schließlich, als sich ein schärferes Kältegefühl einstellte, trat eine Gestalt vor. Sie überquerte die Broadway aus dem Schatten der 26th Street und kam auf eine zögernde, verschlungene Weise nahe an die wartende Gestalt heran. In der Bewegung lag etwas schüchternes oder zögerliches, als ob die Absicht darin bestände, jegliche Idee des Anhaltens bis zum allerletzten Moment zu verbergen. Dann, plötzlich und ganz in der Nähe des Soldaten, kam es zum Stillstand. Der Hauptmann erkannte ihn, aber es gab keine besondere Begrüßung. Der Neue nickte leicht und murmelte etwas, als warte er auf Geschenke. Der andere zeigte einfach in Richtung des Gehwegs. "Stell dich da rüber," sagte er. Damit war der Bann gebrochen. Während der Soldat seinen kurzen, feierlichen Gang fortsetzte, schoben sich weitere Gestalten vor. Sie begrüßten den Anführer nicht so sehr, sondern schlossen sich dem einen an, schniefend und schlurfend und scharrten mit den Füßen. "Gold, oder?!" "Ich bin froh, dass der Winter vorbei ist." "Sieht so aus, als ob es regnen könnte." Die zusammengewürfelte Gruppe hatte sich auf zehn erhöht. Ein oder zwei kannten sich und unterhielten sich. Andere standen einige Meter entfernt, ohne in der Menge zu sein und dennoch nicht abgezählt zu werden. Sie waren mürrisch, brummig, schweigsam, blickten auf nichts Bestimmtes und bewegten ihre Füße. Es hätte bald Gespräche gegeben, aber der Soldat gab ihnen keine Chance. Nachdem er genug zum Beginnen gezählt hatte, trat er vor. "Betten, oder? Alle von euch?" Es gab ein allgemeines Gescharr und Gemurmel der Zustimmung. "Gut, stellt euch hier an. Ich schaue mal, was ich tun kann. Ich habe keinen Cent bei mir." Sie reihten sich in eine Art zerlumpte, ungleichmäßige Linie ein. Jetzt konnte man im Vergleich einige der Hauptmerkmale erkennen. Da war ein Holzbein in der Linie. Die Hüte hingen alle, eine Gruppe, die keineswegs zu einer Second-Hand-Sammlung im Kellergeschoss der Hester Street passen würde. Die Hosen waren alle unten verzogen und ausgefranst und die Mäntel waren abgetragen und ausgebleicht. Im Schein der Geschäftslichter sahen einige Gesichter trocken und kreidig aus; andere waren mit Flecken rot und geschwollen an den Wangen und unter den Augen; ein oder zwei waren knochig und erinnerten an Eisenbahnhände. Einige Zuschauer kamen näher, angezogen von der scheinbar beratenden Gruppe, dann immer mehr und schnell gab es eine drängelnde, staunende Menschenmenge. Jemand in der Reihe begann zu reden. "Ruhe!" rief der Hauptmann. "Also, meine Herren, diese Männer haben keine Betten. Sie müssen heute Nacht irgendwo schlafen. Sie können nicht auf den Straßen liegen. Ich brauche zwölf Cent, um einen von ihnen ins Bett zu bringen. Wer gibt sie mir?" Keine Antwort. "Gut, dann müssen wir hier warten, Jungs, bis jemand welche gibt. Zwölf Cent sind nicht so viel für einen Mann." "Hier sind fünfzehn", rief ein junger Mann und spähte angestrengt nach vorne. "Das ist alles was ich mir leisten kann." "Alles klar. Jetzt habe ich fünfzehn. Stellt euch aus der Reihe," und er griff einem an der Schulter und führte ihn ein Stück weg und stellte ihn allein auf. Als er zurückkam, nahm er seinen Platz wieder ein und begann erneut. "Ich habe noch drei Cent übrig. Diese Männer müssen auf irgendeine Weise ins Bett gebracht werden. Da sind" - er zählte - "ein, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn, elf, zwölf Männer. Neun Cent mehr werden den nächsten Mann ins Bett bringen; geben ihm ein gutes, bequemes Bett für die Nacht. Ich kümmere mich selbst darum. Wer gibt mir neun Cent?" Einer der Beobachter, diesmal ein Mann mittleren Alters, gab ihm ein Fünf-Cent-Stück. "Jetzt habe ich acht Cent. Vier weitere werden dieses Mannes Bett bezahlen. Na los, Gentlemen. Heute Abend geht es sehr langsam voran. Ihr alle habt gute Betten. Was ist mit diesen hier?" "Bitte schön", bemerkte ein Zuschauer und steckte ihm eine Münze in die Hand. "Das", sagte der Hauptmann und betrachtete die Münze, "bezahlt zwei Betten für zwei Männer und gibt mir fünf auf den nächsten. Wer gibt mir sieben Cent mehr?" "Ich schon", sagte eine Stimme. Als Hurstwood heute Abend die Sixth Avenue entlang kam, überquerte er die 26th Street in Richtung Third Avenue. Er hatte völlig niedergeschlagenen Geistes, hungrig bis zur fast tödlichen Grenze, müde und besiegt. Wie sollte er jetzt an Carrie herankommen? Es würde elf Uhr sein, bevor die Show vorbei war. Wenn sie in einer Kutsche gekommen war, würde sie auch in einer gehen. Er müsste unter den schwierigsten Umständen unterbrechen. Schlimmer noch, er war hungrig und müde und es würde mindestens ein ganzer Tag vergehen, denn er hatte nicht den Mut, es heute Abend noch einmal zu versuchen. Er hatte weder Essen noch ein Bett. Als er sich Broadway näherte, bemerkte er die Gruppe der Wanderer des Hauptmanns, dachte jedoch, dass es das Ergebnis eines Straßenpredigers oder eines Wunderheilmittelfritzen sei, und wollte weitergehen. Beim Überqueren der Straße in Richtung Madison Square Park bemerkte er jedoch die Linie von Männern, deren Betten bereits gesichert waren und sich von der Hauptgruppe abhoben. Im Schein des benachbarten elektrischen Lichts erkannte er eine Art von Menschen wie sich selbst - die Gestalten, die er auf der Straße und in den Herbergen sah, die geistig und körperlich wie er dahintreibend waren. Er fragte sich, was es sein könnte, und kehrte um. Da war der Hauptmann, der weiterhin kurz flehte. Mit Erstaunen und einem Gefühl der Erleichterung hörte er die oft wiederholten Worte: "Diese Männer brauchen ein Bett." Vor ihm war die Linie der Unglücklichen, deren Betten noch zu haben waren, und als er sah, wie ein Neuling sich ruhig hinzugesellte und sich ans Ende der Linie stellte, beschloss er dasselbe zu tun. Was brachte es zu kämpfen? Er war heute Abend müde. Es war zumindest ein einfacher Weg aus einer Schwierigkeit heraus. Morgen würde es vielleicht besser laufen. Dahinter, dort wo einige waren, deren Ein Taxi hatte angehalten. Ein Herr im Abendkleid reichte dem Kapitän einen Geldschein, der diesen mit einfachem Dank entgegennahm und sich zu seiner Gruppe wandte. Die Leute drehten ihre Köpfe, als der Schmuck auf der weißen Hemdbrust funkelte und das Taxi davonfuhr. Sogar die Menge starrte ehrfürchtig. "Damit haben wir neun Männer für die Nacht versorgt", sagte der Kapitän und zählte so viele Leute in seiner Gruppe. "Stellt euch dort auf. Nun, da sind nur noch sieben. Ich brauche zwölf Cent." Das Geld kam langsam. Mit der Zeit lichtete sich die Menge auf nur noch wenige. Die Fifth Avenue war bis auf gelegentliche Taxis oder Fußgänger leer. Broadway war dünn bevölkert. Nur ab und zu bemerkte ein Fremder, der vorbeiging, die kleine Gruppe, gab eine Münze und ging ohne Beachtung weiter. Der Kapitän blieb beharrlich und entschlossen. Er redete weiterhin langsam, sprach die wenigsten Worte und mit einer gewissen Sicherheit, als ob er nicht scheitern könnte. "Kommt schon, ich kann nicht die ganze Nacht hier draußen bleiben. Diese Männer werden müde und kalt. Jemand gibt mir vier Cent." Es kam der Zeitpunkt, an dem er überhaupt nichts mehr sagte. Man gab ihm Geld und für je zwölf Cent suchte er einen Mann aus und stellte ihn in die andere Gruppe. Dann ging er wieder auf und ab, den Blick auf den Boden gerichtet. Die Theater entließen ihre Besucher. Die Feuermelder verschwanden. Eine Uhr schlug elf. Noch eine halbe Stunde und er war bei den letzten beiden Männern angelangt. "Kommt jetzt", rief er einigen neugierigen Beobachtern zu, "achtzehn Cent würden uns alle für die Nacht versorgen. Achtzehn Cent. Ich habe sechs. Jemand gibt mir das Geld. Bedenkt, ich muss noch heute Abend nach Brooklyn fahren. Davor muss ich diese Männer hinunterbringen und sie ins Bett bringen. Achtzehn Cent." Niemand reagierte. Er ging hin und her, blickte mehrere Minuten lang auf den Boden und murmelte ab und zu leise: "Achtzehn Cent." Es schien, als würde dieser lächerliche Betrag die gewünschte Vollendung länger verzögern als alles andere zuvor. Hurstwood konnte sich, etwas gestärkt durch die lange Schlange, deren Teil er war, gerade noch davon abhalten zu stöhnen, so schwach war er. Schließlich kam eine Dame im Opernmantel und ruschelndem Rock die Fifth Avenue hinunter, begleitet von ihrem Begleiter. Hurstwood schaute müde, erinnert sowohl an Carrie in ihrer neuen Welt als auch an die Zeit, als er seine eigene Frau auf ähnliche Weise begleitet hatte. Während er zuschaute, drehte sie sich um, betrachtete die bemerkenswerte Gesellschaft und schickte ihren Begleiter herüber. Dieser kam, elegant und anmutig, einen Geldschein in den Fingern haltend. "Hier ist er", sagte er. "Dankeschön", sagte der Kapitän und wandte sich den beiden verbleibenden Bewerbern zu. "Jetzt haben wir auch etwas für morgen Abend." Damit stellte er die letzten beiden in eine Reihe und ging zum Anfang, während er zählte. "Einhundertsiebenunddreißig", verkündete er. "Jetzt, Jungs, Stellt euch auf. Rechts ausrichten. Wir werden nicht mehr lange brauchen. Immer ruhig." Er stellte sich an die Spitze und rief "Vorwärts". Hurstwood bewegte sich mit der Gruppe. Über die Fifth Avenue, durch den Madison Square auf den gewundenen Wegen, östlich auf der 23. Straße und hinunter zur Third Avenue zog sich die lange, serpentinenartige Gesellschaft. Mitternachtsspaziergänger und Schlendrer hielten inne und starrten, als die Gruppe vorbeizog. Schwatzende Polizisten an verschiedenen Ecken schauten gleichgültig oder nickten dem Anführer zu, den sie schon zuvor gesehen hatten. Auf der Third Avenue marschierten sie eine scheinbar müde Strecke entlang zur Eighth Street, wo es ein Herberge gab, die anscheinend für die Nacht geschlossen war. Allerdings wurden sie erwartet. Draußen, im Dunkeln, warteten sie, während der Anführer drinnen verhandelte. Dann wurden die Türen geöffnet und sie wurden mit einem "Immer ruhig" eingeladen. Jemand führte sie die knarrenden Treppen hinauf, und Hurstwood schaute zurück und sah den Kapitän, der zuschaute; der letzte in der Reihe war in seine umfassende Sorge einbezogen. Dann schlang er seinen Umhang um sich und schlenderte in die Nacht hinaus. "Ich halte das hier nicht mehr aus", sagte Hurstwood, dessen Beine ihn schmerzhaft plagten, als er sich auf dem elenden Bett in der kleinen, dunklen Kammer niederließ, die ihm zugeteilt worden war. "Ich muss essen, oder ich werde sterben." Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze verfassen?

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Hurstwood ist immer noch im billigen Hotel, wo wir ihn zuletzt gesehen haben. Er hat in den Zeitungen mehr über Carrie gelesen und sie sogar auf Werbetafeln gesehen. Die Zeit vergeht und Hurstwood wird gezwungen, in ein Wohnhaus in der Bowery zu ziehen, das so ziemlich einen Schritt davon entfernt ist, in einem Obdachlosenheim zu leben. Der arme Kerl scheint auch ein wenig den Verstand zu verlieren. Er tagträumt so oft über sein früheres Luxusleben, dass er manchmal laut spricht, als wäre er wieder der alte, was die anderen Männer im Wohnhaus stört. Hurstwood versucht, Arbeit in einem anderen Hotel zu finden. Sie haben nichts frei, aber er sieht so bemitleidenswert aus, dass sie ihn als eine Art Wohltätigkeitsfall aufnehmen und ihm erlauben, auf dem Dachboden zu schlafen und im Gegenzug für einige Gelegenheitsjobs Essen zu bekommen. Aber dann bekommt er eine Lungenentzündung und jemand aus dem Hotel bringt ihn ins Krankenhaus, wo er drei Wochen lang bleibt. Als er entlassen wird, hat er kein Geld und keinen Ort zum Hin. Er fängt an, um Geld zu betteln. Er ist beschämt, aber verzweifelt. Er ist so verzweifelt, dass er beschließt, ins Theater zu gehen, wo er weiß, dass Carrie auftritt. Er schwebt um den Eingang herum, in der Hoffnung, ihr zu begegnen, aber er findet sie nicht. In der Nähe befindet sich ein Mann, den wir als den Kapitän kennenlernen, einen Mann, der als "ein ehemaliger Soldat, der zum Religionisten geworden ist" beschrieben wird. Der Kapitän sammelt Geld von Fremden auf der Straße, um Obdachlosen zu helfen, Betten für die Nacht zu finden. Eine Menschenmenge sammelt sich um ihn herum und Hurstwood driftet in die Menge. Der Kapitän sammelt genug Geld ein und führt sie dann zu einem Wohnhaus für die Nacht. Als Hurstwood sich in sein Bett im Wohnhaus legt, erkennt er, dass er hungert.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: I HE forgot Paul Riesling in an afternoon of not unagreeable details. After a return to his office, which seemed to have staggered on without him, he drove a "prospect" out to view a four-flat tenement in the Linton district. He was inspired by the customer's admiration of the new cigar-lighter. Thrice its novelty made him use it, and thrice he hurled half-smoked cigarettes from the car, protesting, "I GOT to quit smoking so blame much!" Their ample discussion of every detail of the cigar-lighter led them to speak of electric flat-irons and bed-warmers. Babbitt apologized for being so shabbily old-fashioned as still to use a hot-water bottle, and he announced that he would have the sleeping-porch wired at once. He had enormous and poetic admiration, though very little understanding, of all mechanical devices. They were his symbols of truth and beauty. Regarding each new intricate mechanism--metal lathe, two-jet carburetor, machine gun, oxyacetylene welder--he learned one good realistic-sounding phrase, and used it over and over, with a delightful feeling of being technical and initiated. The customer joined him in the worship of machinery, and they came buoyantly up to the tenement and began that examination of plastic slate roof, kalamein doors, and seven-eighths-inch blind-nailed flooring, began those diplomacies of hurt surprise and readiness to be persuaded to do something they had already decided to do, which would some day result in a sale. On the way back Babbitt picked up his partner and father-in-law, Henry T. Thompson, at his kitchen-cabinet works, and they drove through South Zenith, a high-colored, banging, exciting region: new factories of hollow tile with gigantic wire-glass windows, surly old red-brick factories stained with tar, high-perched water-tanks, big red trucks like locomotives, and, on a score of hectic side-tracks, far-wandering freight-cars from the New York Central and apple orchards, the Great Northern and wheat-plateaus, the Southern Pacific and orange groves. They talked to the secretary of the Zenith Foundry Company about an interesting artistic project--a cast-iron fence for Linden Lane Cemetery. They drove on to the Zeeco Motor Company and interviewed the sales-manager, Noel Ryland, about a discount on a Zeeco car for Thompson. Babbitt and Ryland were fellow-members of the Boosters' Club, and no Booster felt right if he bought anything from another Booster without receiving a discount. But Henry Thompson growled, "Oh, t' hell with 'em! I'm not going to crawl around mooching discounts, not from nobody." It was one of the differences between Thompson, the old-fashioned, lean Yankee, rugged, traditional, stage type of American business man, and Babbitt, the plump, smooth, efficient, up-to-the-minute and otherwise perfected modern. Whenever Thompson twanged, "Put your John Hancock on that line," Babbitt was as much amused by the antiquated provincialism as any proper Englishman by any American. He knew himself to be of a breeding altogether more esthetic and sensitive than Thompson's. He was a college graduate, he played golf, he often smoked cigarettes instead of cigars, and when he went to Chicago he took a room with a private bath. "The whole thing is," he explained to Paul Riesling, "these old codgers lack the subtlety that you got to have to-day." This advance in civilization could be carried too far, Babbitt perceived. Noel Ryland, sales-manager of the Zeeco, was a frivolous graduate of Princeton, while Babbitt was a sound and standard ware from that great department-store, the State University. Ryland wore spats, he wrote long letters about City Planning and Community Singing, and, though he was a Booster, he was known to carry in his pocket small volumes of poetry in a foreign language. All this was going too far. Henry Thompson was the extreme of insularity, and Noel Ryland the extreme of frothiness, while between them, supporting the state, defending the evangelical churches and domestic brightness and sound business, were Babbitt and his friends. With this just estimate of himself--and with the promise of a discount on Thompson's car--he returned to his office in triumph. But as he went through the corridor of the Reeves Building he sighed, "Poor old Paul! I got to--Oh, damn Noel Ryland! Damn Charley McKelvey! Just because they make more money than I do, they think they're so superior. I wouldn't be found dead in their stuffy old Union Club! I--Somehow, to-day, I don't feel like going back to work. Oh well--" II He answered telephone calls, he read the four o'clock mail, he signed his morning's letters, he talked to a tenant about repairs, he fought with Stanley Graff. Young Graff, the outside salesman, was always hinting that he deserved an increase of commission, and to-day he complained, "I think I ought to get a bonus if I put through the Heiler sale. I'm chasing around and working on it every single evening, almost." Babbitt frequently remarked to his wife that it was better to "con your office-help along and keep 'em happy 'stead of jumping on 'em and poking 'em up--get more work out of 'em that way," but this unexampled lack of appreciation hurt him, and he turned on Graff: "Look here, Stan; let's get this clear. You've got an idea somehow that it's you that do all the selling. Where d' you get that stuff? Where d' you think you'd be if it wasn't for our capital behind you, and our lists of properties, and all the prospects we find for you? All you got to do is follow up our tips and close the deal. The hall-porter could sell Babbitt-Thompson listings! You say you're engaged to a girl, but have to put in your evenings chasing after buyers. Well, why the devil shouldn't you? What do you want to do? Sit around holding her hand? Let me tell you, Stan, if your girl is worth her salt, she'll be glad to know you're out hustling, making some money to furnish the home-nest, instead of doing the lovey-dovey. The kind of fellow that kicks about working overtime, that wants to spend his evenings reading trashy novels or spooning and exchanging a lot of nonsense and foolishness with some girl, he ain't the kind of upstanding, energetic young man, with a future--and with Vision!--that we want here. How about it? What's your Ideal, anyway? Do you want to make money and be a responsible member of the community, or do you want to be a loafer, with no Inspiration or Pep?" Graff was not so amenable to Vision and Ideals as usual. "You bet I want to make money! That's why I want that bonus! Honest, Mr. Babbitt, I don't want to get fresh, but this Heiler house is a terror. Nobody'll fall for it. The flooring is rotten and the walls are full of cracks." "That's exactly what I mean! To a salesman with a love for his profession, it's hard problems like that that inspire him to do his best. Besides, Stan--Matter o' fact, Thompson and I are against bonuses, as a matter of principle. We like you, and we want to help you so you can get married, but we can't be unfair to the others on the staff. If we start giving you bonuses, don't you see we're going to hurt the feeling and be unjust to Penniman and Laylock? Right's right, and discrimination is unfair, and there ain't going to be any of it in this office! Don't get the idea, Stan, that because during the war salesmen were hard to hire, now, when there's a lot of men out of work, there aren't a slew of bright young fellows that would be glad to step in and enjoy your opportunities, and not act as if Thompson and I were his enemies and not do any work except for bonuses. How about it, heh? How about it?" "Oh--well--gee--of course--" sighed Graff, as he went out, crabwise. Babbitt did not often squabble with his employees. He liked to like the people about him; he was dismayed when they did not like him. It was only when they attacked the sacred purse that he was frightened into fury, but then, being a man given to oratory and high principles, he enjoyed the sound of his own vocabulary and the warmth of his own virtue. Today he had so passionately indulged in self-approval that he wondered whether he had been entirely just: "After all, Stan isn't a boy any more. Oughtn't to call him so hard. But rats, got to haul folks over the coals now and then for their own good. Unpleasant duty, but--I wonder if Stan is sore? What's he saying to McGoun out there?" So chill a wind of hatred blew from the outer office that the normal comfort of his evening home-going was ruined. He was distressed by losing that approval of his employees to which an executive is always slave. Ordinarily he left the office with a thousand enjoyable fussy directions to the effect that there would undoubtedly be important tasks to-morrow, and Miss McGoun and Miss Bannigan would do well to be there early, and for heaven's sake remind him to call up Conrad Lyte soon 's he came in. To-night he departed with feigned and apologetic liveliness. He was as afraid of his still-faced clerks--of the eyes focused on him, Miss McGoun staring with head lifted from her typing, Miss Bannigan looking over her ledger, Mat Penniman craning around at his desk in the dark alcove, Stanley Graff sullenly expressionless--as a parvenu before the bleak propriety of his butler. He hated to expose his back to their laughter, and in his effort to be casually merry he stammered and was raucously friendly and oozed wretchedly out of the door. But he forgot his misery when he saw from Smith Street the charms of Floral Heights; the roofs of red tile and green slate, the shining new sun-parlors, and the stainless walls. III He stopped to inform Howard Littlefield, his scholarly neighbor, that though the day had been springlike the evening might be cold. He went in to shout "Where are you?" at his wife, with no very definite desire to know where she was. He examined the lawn to see whether the furnace-man had raked it properly. With some satisfaction and a good deal of discussion of the matter with Mrs. Babbitt, Ted, and Howard Littlefield, he concluded that the furnace-man had not raked it properly. He cut two tufts of wild grass with his wife's largest dressmaking-scissors; he informed Ted that it was all nonsense having a furnace-man--"big husky fellow like you ought to do all the work around the house;" and privately he meditated that it was agreeable to have it known throughout the neighborhood that he was so prosperous that his son never worked around the house. He stood on the sleeping-porch and did his day's exercises: arms out sidewise for two minutes, up for two minutes, while he muttered, "Ought take more exercise; keep in shape;" then went in to see whether his collar needed changing before dinner. As usual it apparently did not. The Lettish-Croat maid, a powerful woman, beat the dinner-gong. The roast of beef, roasted potatoes, and string beans were excellent this evening and, after an adequate sketch of the day's progressive weather-states, his four-hundred-and-fifty-dollar fee, his lunch with Paul Riesling, and the proven merits of the new cigar-lighter, he was moved to a benign, "Sort o' thinking about buyin, a new car. Don't believe we'll get one till next year, but still we might." Verona, the older daughter, cried, "Oh, Dad, if you do, why don't you get a sedan? That would be perfectly slick! A closed car is so much more comfy than an open one." "Well now, I don't know about that. I kind of like an open car. You get more fresh air that way." "Oh, shoot, that's just because you never tried a sedan. Let's get one. It's got a lot more class," said Ted. "A closed car does keep the clothes nicer," from Mrs. Babbitt; "You don't get your hair blown all to pieces," from Verona; "It's a lot sportier," from Ted; and from Tinka, the youngest, "Oh, let's have a sedan! Mary Ellen's father has got one." Ted wound up, "Oh, everybody's got a closed car now, except us!" Babbitt faced them: "I guess you got nothing very terrible to complain about! Anyway, I don't keep a car just to enable you children to look like millionaires! And I like an open car, so you can put the top down on summer evenings and go out for a drive and get some good fresh air. Besides--A closed car costs more money." "Aw, gee whiz, if the Doppelbraus can afford a closed car, I guess we can!" prodded Ted. "Humph! I make eight thousand a year to his seven! But I don't blow it all in and waste it and throw it around, the way he does! Don't believe in this business of going and spending a whole lot of money to show off and--" They went, with ardor and some thoroughness, into the matters of streamline bodies, hill-climbing power, wire wheels, chrome steel, ignition systems, and body colors. It was much more than a study of transportation. It was an aspiration for knightly rank. In the city of Zenith, in the barbarous twentieth century, a family's motor indicated its social rank as precisely as the grades of the peerage determined the rank of an English family--indeed, more precisely, considering the opinion of old county families upon newly created brewery barons and woolen-mill viscounts. The details of precedence were never officially determined. There was no court to decide whether the second son of a Pierce Arrow limousine should go in to dinner before the first son of a Buick roadster, but of their respective social importance there was no doubt; and where Babbitt as a boy had aspired to the presidency, his son Ted aspired to a Packard twin-six and an established position in the motored gentry. The favor which Babbitt had won from his family by speaking of a new car evaporated as they realized that he didn't intend to buy one this year. Ted lamented, "Oh, punk! The old boat looks as if it'd had fleas and been scratching its varnish off." Mrs. Babbitt said abstractedly, "Snoway talkcher father." Babbitt raged, "If you're too much of a high-class gentleman, and you belong to the bon ton and so on, why, you needn't take the car out this evening." Ted explained, "I didn't mean--" and dinner dragged on with normal domestic delight to the inevitable point at which Babbitt protested, "Come, come now, we can't sit here all evening. Give the girl a chance to clear away the table." He was fretting, "What a family! I don't know how we all get to scrapping this way. Like to go off some place and be able to hear myself think.... Paul ... Maine ... Wear old pants, and loaf, and cuss." He said cautiously to his wife, "I've been in correspondence with a man in New York--wants me to see him about a real-estate trade--may not come off till summer. Hope it doesn't break just when we and the Rieslings get ready to go to Maine. Be a shame if we couldn't make the trip there together. Well, no use worrying now." Verona escaped, immediately after dinner, with no discussion save an automatic "Why don't you ever stay home?" from Babbitt. In the living-room, in a corner of the davenport, Ted settled down to his Home Study; plain geometry, Cicero, and the agonizing metaphors of Comus. "I don't see why they give us this old-fashioned junk by Milton and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and all these has-beens," he protested. "Oh, I guess I could stand it to see a show by Shakespeare, if they had swell scenery and put on a lot of dog, but to sit down in cold blood and READ 'em--These teachers--how do they get that way?" Mrs. Babbitt, darning socks, speculated, "Yes, I wonder why. Of course I don't want to fly in the face of the professors and everybody, but I do think there's things in Shakespeare--not that I read him much, but when I was young the girls used to show me passages that weren't, really, they weren't at all nice." Babbitt looked up irritably from the comic strips in the Evening Advocate. They composed his favorite literature and art, these illustrated chronicles in which Mr. Mutt hit Mr. Jeff with a rotten egg, and Mother corrected Father's vulgarisms by means of a rolling-pin. With the solemn face of a devotee, breathing heavily through his open mouth, he plodded nightly through every picture, and during the rite he detested interruptions. Furthermore, he felt that on the subject of Shakespeare he wasn't really an authority. Neither the Advocate-Times, the Evening Advocate, nor the Bulletin of the Zenith Chamber of Commerce had ever had an editorial on the matter, and until one of them had spoken he found it hard to form an original opinion. But even at risk of floundering in strange bogs, he could not keep out of an open controversy. "I'll tell you why you have to study Shakespeare and those. It's because they're required for college entrance, and that's all there is to it! Personally, I don't see myself why they stuck 'em into an up-to-date high-school system like we have in this state. Be a good deal better if you took Business English, and learned how to write an ad, or letters that would pull. But there it is, and there's no talk, argument, or discussion about it! Trouble with you, Ted, is you always want to do something different! If you're going to law-school--and you are!--I never had a chance to, but I'll see that you do--why, you'll want to lay in all the English and Latin you can get." "Oh punk. I don't see what's the use of law-school--or even finishing high school. I don't want to go to college 'specially. Honest, there's lot of fellows that have graduated from colleges that don't begin to make as much money as fellows that went to work early. Old Shimmy Peters, that teaches Latin in the High, he's a what-is-it from Columbia and he sits up all night reading a lot of greasy books and he's always spieling about the 'value of languages,' and the poor soak doesn't make but eighteen hundred a year, and no traveling salesman would think of working for that. I know what I'd like to do. I'd like to be an aviator, or own a corking big garage, or else--a fellow was telling me about it yesterday--I'd like to be one of these fellows that the Standard Oil Company sends out to China, and you live in a compound and don't have to do any work, and you get to see the world and pagodas and the ocean and everything! And then I could take up correspondence-courses. That's the real stuff! You don't have to recite to some frosty-faced old dame that's trying to show off to the principal, and you can study any subject you want to. Just listen to these! I clipped out the ads of some swell courses." He snatched from the back of his geometry half a hundred advertisements of those home-study courses which the energy and foresight of American commerce have contributed to the science of education. The first displayed the portrait of a young man with a pure brow, an iron jaw, silk socks, and hair like patent leather. Standing with one hand in his trousers-pocket and the other extended with chiding forefinger, he was bewitching an audience of men with gray beards, paunches, bald heads, and every other sign of wisdom and prosperity. Above the picture was an inspiring educational symbol--no antiquated lamp or torch or owl of Minerva, but a row of dollar signs. The text ran: $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ POWER AND PROSPERITY IN PUBLIC SPEAKING A Yarn Told at the Club Who do you think I ran into the other evening at the De Luxe Restaurant? Why, old Freddy Durkee, that used to be a dead or-alive shipping clerk in my old place--Mr. Mouse-Man we used to laughingly call the dear fellow. One time he was so timid he was plumb scared of the Super, and never got credit for the dandy work he did. Him at the De Luxe! And if he wasn't ordering a tony feed with all the "fixings" from celery to nuts! And instead of being embarrassed by the waiters, like he used to be at the little dump where we lunched in Old Lang Syne, he was bossing them around like he was a millionaire! I cautiously asked him what he was doing. Freddy laughed and said, "Say, old chum, I guess you're wondering what's come over me. You'll be glad to know I'm now Assistant Super at the old shop, and right on the High Road to Prosperity and Domination, and I look forward with confidence to a twelve-cylinder car, and the wife is making things hum in the best society and the kiddies getting a first-class education." ------------------------ WHAT WE TEACH YOU How to address your lodge. How to give toasts. How to tell dialect stories. How to propose to a lady. How to entertain banquets. How to make convincing selling-talks. How to build big vocabulary. How to create a strong personality. How to become a rational, powerful and original thinker. How to be a MASTER MAN! -------------------------------- ------------------------ PROF. W. F. PEET author of the Shortcut Course in Public-Speaking, is easily the foremost figure in practical literature, psychology & oratory. A graduate of some of our leading universities, lecturer, extensive traveler, author of books, poetry, etc., a man with the unique PERSONALITY OF THE MASTER MINDS, he is ready to give YOU all the secrets of his culture and hammering Force, in a few easy lessons that will not interfere with other occupations. -------------------------------- "Here's how it happened. I ran across an ad of a course that claimed to teach people how to talk easily and on their feet, how to answer complaints, how to lay a proposition before the Boss, how to hit a bank for a loan, how to hold a big audience spellbound with wit, humor, anecdote, inspiration, etc. It was compiled by the Master Orator, Prof. Waldo F. Peet. I was skeptical, too, but I wrote (JUST ON A POSTCARD, with name and address) to the publisher for the lessons--sent On Trial, money back if you are not absolutely satisfied. There were eight simple lessons in plain language anybody could understand, and I studied them just a few hours a night, then started practising on the wife. Soon found I could talk right up to the Super and get due credit for all the good work I did. They began to appreciate me and advance me fast, and say, old doggo, what do you think they're paying me now? $6,500 per year! And say, I find I can keep a big audience fascinated, speaking on any topic. As a friend, old boy, I advise you to send for circular (no obligation) and valuable free Art Picture to:-- SHORTCUT EDUCATIONAL PUB. CO. Desk WA Sandpit, Iowa. ARE YOU A 100 PERCENTER OR A 10 PERCENTER?" Babbitt was again without a canon which would enable him to speak with authority. Nothing in motoring or real estate had indicated what a Solid Citizen and Regular Fellow ought to think about culture by mail. He began with hesitation: "Well--sounds as if it covered the ground. It certainly is a fine thing to be able to orate. I've sometimes thought I had a little talent that way myself, and I know darn well that one reason why a fourflushing old back-number like Chan Mott can get away with it in real estate is just because he can make a good talk, even when he hasn't got a doggone thing to say! And it certainly is pretty cute the way they get out all these courses on various topics and subjects nowadays. I'll tell you, though: No need to blow in a lot of good money on this stuff when you can get a first-rate course in eloquence and English and all that right in your own school--and one of the biggest school buildings in the entire country!" "That's so," said Mrs. Babbitt comfortably, while Ted complained: "Yuh, but Dad, they just teach a lot of old junk that isn't any practical use--except the manual training and typewriting and basketball and dancing--and in these correspondence-courses, gee, you can get all kinds of stuff that would come in handy. Say, listen to this one: 'CAN YOU PLAY A MAN'S PART? 'If you are walking with your mother, sister or best girl and some one passes a slighting remark or uses improper language, won't you be ashamed if you can't take her part? Well, can you? Wir unterrichten Boxen und Selbstverteidigung per Post. Viele Schüler haben geschrieben, dass sie nach ein paar Lektionen größere und schwerere Gegner erfolgreich besiegt haben. Die Lektionen beginnen mit einfachen Bewegungen, die vor dem Spiegel geübt werden - die Hand zum Münzenhalten ausstrecken, das Brustschwimmen usw. Bevor du es bemerkst, schlägst du wissenschaftlich zu, duckst dich, verteidigst dich und täuschst vor, als hättest du einen echten Gegner vor dir. "I can see what an influence these courses might have on the whole educational works. Course I'd never admit it publicly--fellow like myself, a State U. graduate, it's only decent and patriotic for him to blow his horn and boost the Alma Mater--but smatter of fact, there's a whole lot of valuable time lost even at the U., studying poetry and French and subjects that never brought in anybody a cent. I don't know but what maybe these correspondence-courses might prove to be one of the most important American inventions. "Trouble with a lot of folks is: they're so blame material; they don't see the spiritual and mental side of American supremacy; they think that inventions like the telephone and the areoplane and wireless--no, that was a Wop invention, but anyway: they think these mechanical improvements are all that we stand for; whereas to a real thinker, he sees that spiritual and, uh, dominating movements like Efficiency, and Rotarianism, and Prohibition, and Democracy are what compose our deepest and truest wealth. And maybe this new principle in education-at-home may be another--may be another factor. I tell you, Ted, we've got to have Vision--" "I think those correspondence-courses are terrible!" The philosophers gasped. It was Mrs. Babbitt who had made this discord in their spiritual harmony, and one of Mrs. Babbitt's virtues was that, except during dinner-parties, when she was transformed into a raging hostess, she took care of the house and didn't bother the males by thinking. She went on firmly: "It sounds awful to me, the way they coax those poor young folks to think they're learning something, and nobody 'round to help them and--You two learn so quick, but me, I always was slow. But just the same--" Babbitt attended to her: "Nonsense! Get just as much, studying at home. You don't think a fellow learns any more because he blows in his father's hard-earned money and sits around in Morris chairs in a swell Harvard dormitory with pictures and shields and table-covers and those doodads, do you? I tell you, I'm a college man--I KNOW! There is one objection you might make though. I certainly do protest against any effort to get a lot of fellows out of barber shops and factories into the professions. They're too crowded already, and what'll we do for workmen if all those fellows go and get educated?" Ted was leaning back, smoking a cigarette without reproof. He was, for the moment, sharing the high thin air of Babbitt's speculation as though he were Paul Riesling or even Dr. Howard Littlefield. He hinted: "Well, what do you think then, Dad? Wouldn't it be a good idea if I could go off to China or some peppy place, and study engineering or something by mail?" "No, and I'll tell you why, son. I've found out it's a mighty nice thing to be able to say you're a B.A. Some client that doesn't know what you are and thinks you're just a plug business man, he gets to shooting off his mouth about economics or literature or foreign trade conditions, and you just ease in something like, 'When I was in college--course I got my B.A. in sociology and all that junk--' Oh, it puts an awful crimp in their style! But there wouldn't be any class to saying 'I got the degree of Stamp-licker from the Bezuzus Mail-order University!' You see--My dad was a pretty good old coot, but he never had much style to him, and I had to work darn hard to earn my way through college. Well, it's been worth it, to be able to associate with the finest gentlemen in Zenith, at the clubs and so on, and I wouldn't want you to drop out of the gentlemen class--the class that are just as red-blooded as the Common People but still have power and personality. It would kind of hurt me if you did that, old man!" "I know, Dad! Sure! All right. I'll stick to it. Say! Gosh! Gee whiz! I forgot all about those kids I was going to take to the chorus rehearsal. I'll have to duck!" "But you haven't done all your home-work." "Do it first thing in the morning." "Well--" Six times in the past sixty days Babbitt had stormed, "You will not 'do it first thing in the morning'! You'll do it right now!" but to-night he said, "Well, better hustle," and his smile was the rare shy radiance he kept for Paul Riesling. IV "Ted's a good boy," he said to Mrs. Babbitt. "Oh, he is!" "Who's these girls he's going to pick up? Are they nice decent girls?" "I don't know. Oh dear, Ted never tells me anything any more. I don't understand what's come over the children of this generation. I used to have to tell Papa and Mama everything, but seems like the children to-day have just slipped away from all control." "I hope they're decent girls. Course Ted's no longer a kid, and I wouldn't want him to, uh, get mixed up and everything." "George: I wonder if you oughtn't to take him aside and tell him about--Things!" She blushed and lowered her eyes. "Well, I don't know. Way I figure it, Myra, no sense suggesting a lot of Things to a boy's mind. Think up enough devilment by himself. But I wonder--It's kind of a hard question. Wonder what Littlefield thinks about it?" "Course Papa agrees with you. He says all this--Instruction is--He says 'tisn't decent." "Oh, he does, does he! Well, let me tell you that whatever Henry T. Thompson thinks--about morals, I mean, though course you can't beat the old duffer--" "Why, what a way to talk of Papa!" "--simply can't beat him at getting in on the ground floor of a deal, but let me tell you whenever he springs any ideas about higher things and education, then I know I think just the opposite. You may not regard me as any great brain-shark, but believe me, I'm a regular college president, compared with Henry T.! Yes sir, by golly, I'm going to take Ted aside and tell him why I lead a strictly moral life." "Oh, will you? When?" "When? When? What's the use of trying to pin me down to When and Why and Where and How and When? That's the trouble with women, that's why they don't make high-class executives; they haven't any sense of diplomacy. When the proper opportunity and occasion arises so it just comes in natural, why then I'll have a friendly little talk with him and--and--Was that Tinka hollering up-stairs? She ought to been asleep, long ago." He prowled through the living-room, and stood in the sun-parlor, that glass-walled room of wicker chairs and swinging couch in which they loafed on Sunday afternoons. Outside only the lights of Doppelbrau's house and the dim presence of Babbitt's favorite elm broke the softness of April night. "Good visit with the boy. Getting over feeling cranky, way I did this morning. And restless. Though, by golly, I will have a few days alone with Paul in Maine! . . . That devil Zilla! . . . But . . . Ted's all right. Whole family all right. And good business. Not many fellows make four hundred and fifty bucks, practically half of a thousand dollars easy as I did to-day! Maybe when we all get to rowing it's just as much my fault as it is theirs. Oughtn't to get grouchy like I do. But--Wish I'd been a pioneer, same as my grand-dad. But then, wouldn't have a house like this. I--Oh, gosh, I DON'T KNOW!" He thought moodily of Paul Riesling, of their youth together, of the girls they had known. When Babbitt had graduated from the State University, twenty-four years ago, he had intended to be a lawyer. He had been a ponderous debater in college; he felt that he was an orator; he saw himself becoming governor of the state. While he read law he worked as a real-estate salesman. He saved money, lived in a boarding-house, supped on poached egg on hash. The lively Paul Riesling (who was certainly going off to Europe to study violin, next month or next year) was his refuge till Paul was bespelled by Zilla Colbeck, who laughed and danced and drew men after her plump and gaily wagging finger. Babbitt's evenings were barren then, and he found comfort only in Paul's second cousin, Myra Thompson, a sleek and gentle girl who showed her capacity by agreeing with the ardent young Babbitt that of course he was going to be governor some day. Where Zilla mocked him as a country boy, Myra said indignantly that he was ever so much solider than the young dandies who had been born in the great city of Zenith--an ancient settlement in 1897, one hundred and five years old, with two hundred thousand population, the queen and wonder of all the state and, to the Catawba boy, George Babbitt, so vast and thunderous and luxurious that he was flattered to know a girl ennobled by birth in Zenith. Of love there was no talk between them. He knew that if he was to study law he could not marry for years; and Myra was distinctly a Nice Girl--one didn't kiss her, one didn't "think about her that way at all" unless one was going to marry her. But she was a dependable companion. She was always ready to go skating, walking; always content to hear his discourses on the great things he was going to do, the distressed poor whom he would defend against the Unjust Rich, the speeches he would make at Banquets, the inexactitudes of popular thought which he would correct. One evening when he was weary and soft-minded, he saw that she had been weeping. She had been left out of a party given by Zilla. Somehow her head was on his shoulder and he was kissing away the tears--and she raised her head to say trustingly, "Now that we're engaged, shall we be married soon or shall we wait?" Engaged? It was his first hint of it. His affection for this brown tender woman thing went cold and fearful, but he could not hurt her, could not abuse her trust. He mumbled something about waiting, and escaped. He walked for an hour, trying to find a way of telling her that it was a mistake. Often, in the month after, he got near to telling her, but it was pleasant to have a girl in his arms, and less and less could he insult her by blurting that he didn't love her. He himself had no doubt. The evening before his marriage was an agony, and the morning wild with the desire to flee. She made him what is known as a Good Wife. She was loyal, industrious, and at rare times merry. She passed from a feeble disgust at their closer relations into what promised to be ardent affection, but it drooped into bored routine. Yet she existed only for him and for the children, and she was as sorry, as worried as himself, when he gave up the law and trudged on in a rut of listing real estate. "Poor kid, she hasn't had much better time than I have," Babbitt reflected, standing in the dark sun-parlor. "But--I wish I could 've had a whirl at law and politics. Seen what I could do. Well--Maybe I've made more money as it is." He returned to the living-room but before he settled down he smoothed his wife's hair, and she glanced up, happy and somewhat surprised. I HE solemnly finished the last copy of the American Magazine, while his wife sighed, laid away her darning, and looked enviously at the lingerie designs in a women's magazine. The room was very still. It was a room which observed the best Floral Heights standards. The gray walls were divided into artificial paneling by strips of white-enameled pine. From the Babbitts' former house had come two much-carved rocking-chairs, but the other chairs were new, very deep and restful, upholstered in blue and gold-striped velvet. A blue velvet davenport faced the fireplace, and behind it was a cherrywood table and a tall piano-lamp with a shade of golden silk. (Two out of every three houses in Floral Heights had before the fireplace a davenport, a mahogany table real or imitation, and a piano-lamp or a reading-lamp with a shade of yellow or rose silk.) On the table was a runner of gold-threaded Chinese fabric, four magazines, a silver box containing cigarette-crumbs, and three "gift-books"--large, expensive editions of fairy-tales illustrated by English artists and as yet unread by any Babbitt save Tinka. In a corner by the front windows was a large cabinet Victrola. (Eight out of every nine Floral Heights houses had a cabinet phonograph.) Among the pictures, hung in the exact center of each gray panel, were a red and black imitation English hunting-print, an anemic imitation boudoir-print with a French caption of whose morality Babbitt had always been rather suspicious, and a "hand-colored" photograph of a Colonial room--rag rug, maiden spinning, cat demure before a white fireplace. (Nineteen out of every twenty houses in Floral Heights had either a hunting-print, a Madame Feit la Toilette print, a colored photograph of a New England house, a photograph of a Rocky Mountain, or all four.) It was a room as superior in comfort to the "parlor" of Babbitt's boyhood as his motor was superior to his father's buggy. Though there was nothing in the room that was interesting, there was nothing that was offensive. It was as neat, and as negative, as a block of artificial ice. The fireplace was unsoftened by downy ashes or by sooty brick; the brass fire-irons were of immaculate polish; and the grenadier andirons were like samples in a shop, desolate, unwanted, lifeless things of commerce. Against the wall was a piano, with another piano-lamp, but no one used it save Tinka. The hard briskness of the phonograph contented them; their store of jazz records made them feel wealthy and cultured; and all they knew of creating music was the nice adjustment of a bamboo needle. The books on the table were unspotted and laid in rigid parallels; not one corner of the carpet-rug was curled; and nowhere was there a hockey-stick, a torn picture-book, an old cap, or a gregarious and disorganizing dog. II At home, Babbitt never read with absorption. He was concentrated enough at the office but here he crossed his legs and fidgeted. When his story was interesting he read the best, that is the funniest, paragraphs to his wife; when it did not hold him he coughed, scratched his ankles and his right ear, thrust his left thumb into his vest pocket, jingled his silver, whirled the cigar-cutter and the keys on one end of his watch chain, yawned, rubbed his nose, and found errands to do. He went upstairs to put on his slippers--his elegant slippers of seal-brown, shaped like medieval shoes. He brought up an apple from the barrel which stood by the trunk-closet in the basement. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," he enlightened Mrs. Babbitt, for quite the first time in fourteen hours. "That's so." "An apple is Nature's best regulator." "Yes, it--" "Trouble with women is, they never have sense enough to form regular habits." "Well, I--" "Always nibbling and eating between meals." "George!" She looked up from her reading. "Did you have a light lunch to-day, like you were going to? I did!" This malicious and unprovoked attack astounded him. "Well, maybe it wasn't as light as--Went to lunch with Paul and didn't have much chance to diet. Oh, you needn't to grin like a chessy cat! If it wasn't for me watching out and keeping an eye on our diet--I'm the only member of this family that appreciates the value of oatmeal for breakfast. I--" She stooped over her story while he piously sliced and gulped down the apple, discoursing: "One thing I've done: cut down my smoking. "Had kind of a run-in with Graff in the office. He's getting too darn fresh. I'll stand for a good deal, but once in a while I got to assert my authority, and I jumped him. 'Stan,' I said--Well, I told him just exactly where he got off. "Funny kind of a day. Makes you feel restless. "Wellllllllll, uh--" That sleepiest sound in the world, the terminal yawn. Mrs. Babbitt yawned with it, and looked grateful as he droned, "How about going to bed, eh? Don't suppose Rone and Ted will be in till all hours. Yep, funny kind of a day; not terribly warm but yet--Gosh, I'd like--Some day I'm going to take a long motor trip." "Yes, we'd enjoy that," she yawned. He looked away from her as he realized that he did not wish to have her go with him. As he locked doors and tried windows and set the heat regulator so that the furnace-drafts would open automatically in the morning, he sighed a little, heavy with a lonely feeling which perplexed and frightened him. So absent-minded was he that he could not remember which window-catches he had inspected, and through the darkness, fumbling at unseen perilous chairs, he crept back to try them all over again. His feet were loud on the steps as he clumped upstairs at the end of this great and treacherous day of veiled rebellions. III Before breakfast he always reverted to up-state village boyhood, and shrank from the complex urban demands of shaving, bathing, deciding whether the current shirt was clean enough for another day. Whenever he stayed home in the evening he went to bed early, and thriftily got ahead in those dismal duties. It was his luxurious custom to shave while sitting snugly in a tubful of hot water. He may be viewed to-night as a plump, smooth, pink, baldish, podgy goodman, robbed of the importance of spectacles, squatting in breast-high water, scraping his lather-smeared cheeks with a safety-razor like a tiny lawn-mower, and with melancholy dignity clawing through the water to recover a slippery and active piece of soap. He was lulled to dreaming by the caressing warmth. The light fell on the inner surface of the tub in a pattern of delicate wrinkled lines which slipped with a green sparkle over the curving porcelain as the clear water trembled. Babbitt lazily watched it; noted that along the silhouette of his legs against the radiance on the bottom of the tub, the shadows of the air-bubbles clinging to the hairs were reproduced as strange jungle mosses. He patted the water, and the reflected light capsized and leaped and volleyed. He was content and childish. He played. He shaved a swath down the calf of one plump leg. The drain-pipe was dripping, a dulcet and lively song: drippety drip drip dribble, drippety drip drip drip. He was enchanted by it. He looked at the solid tub, the beautiful nickel taps, the tiled walls of the room, and felt virtuous in the possession of this splendor. He roused himself and spoke gruffly to his bath-things. "Come here! You've done enough fooling!" he reproved the treacherous soap, and defied the scratchy nail-brush with "Oh, you would, would you!" He soaped himself, and rinsed himself, and austerely rubbed himself; he noted a hole in the Turkish towel, and meditatively thrust a finger through it, and marched back to the bedroom, a grave and unbending citizen. There was a moment of gorgeous abandon, a flash of melodrama such as he found in traffic-driving, when he laid out a clean collar, discovered that it was frayed in front, and tore it up with a magnificent yeeeeeing sound. Most important of all was the preparation of his bed and the sleeping-porch. It is not known whether he enjoyed his sleeping-porch because of the fresh air or because it was the standard thing to have a sleeping-porch. Just as he was an Elk, a Booster, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, just as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determined his every religious belief and the senators who controlled the Republican Party decided in little smoky rooms in Washington what he should think about disarmament, tariff, and Germany, so did the large national advertisers fix the surface of his life, fix what he believed to be his individuality. These standard advertised wares--toothpastes, socks, tires, cameras, instantaneous hot-water heaters--were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first the signs, then the substitutes, for joy and passion and wisdom. But none of these advertised tokens of financial and social success was more significant than a sleeping-porch with a sun-parlor below. The rites of preparing for bed were elaborate and unchanging. The blankets had to be tucked in at the foot of his cot. (Also, the reason why the maid hadn't tucked in the blankets had to be discussed with Mrs. Babbitt.) The rag rug was adjusted so that his bare feet would strike it when he arose in the morning. The alarm clock was wound. The hot-water bottle was filled and placed precisely two feet from the bottom of the cot. These tremendous undertakings yielded to his determination; one by one they were announced to Mrs. Babbitt and smashed through to accomplishment. At last his brow cleared, and in his "Gnight!" rang virile power. But there was yet need of courage. As he sank into sleep, just at the first exquisite relaxation, the Doppelbrau car came home. He bounced into wakefulness, lamenting, "Why the devil can't some people never get to bed at a reasonable hour?" So familiar was he with the process of putting up his own car that he awaited each step like an able executioner condemned to his own rack. The car insultingly cheerful on the driveway. The car door opened and banged shut, then the garage door slid open, grating on the sill, and the car door again. The motor raced for the climb up into the garage and raced once more, explosively, before it was shut off. A final opening and slamming of the car door. Silence then, a horrible silence filled with waiting, till the leisurely Mr. Doppelbrau had examined the state of his tires and had at last shut the garage door. Instantly, for Babbitt, a blessed state of oblivion. IV At that moment In the city of Zenith, Horace Updike was making love to Lucile McKelvey in her mauve drawing-room on Royal Ridge, after their return from a lecture by an eminent English novelist. Updike was Zenith's professional bachelor; a slim-waisted man of forty-six with an effeminate voice and taste in flowers, cretonnes, and flappers. Mrs. McKelvey was red-haired, creamy, discontented, exquisite, rude, and honest. Updike tried his invariable first maneuver--touching her nervous wrist. "Don't be an idiot!" she said. "Do you mind awfully?" "No! That's what I mind!" He changed to conversation. He was famous at conversation. He spoke reasonably of psychoanalysis, Long Island polo, and the Ming platter he had found in Vancouver. She promised to meet him in Deauville, the coming summer, "though," she sighed, "it's becoming too dreadfully banal; nothing but Americans and frowsy English baronesses." And at that moment in Zenith, a cocaine-runner and a prostitute were drinking cocktails in Healey Hanson's saloon on Front Street. Since national prohibition was now in force, and since Zenith was notoriously law-abiding, they were compelled to keep the cocktails innocent by drinking them out of tea-cups. The lady threw her cup at the cocaine-runner's head. He worked his revolver out of the pocket in his sleeve, and casually murdered her. At that moment in Zenith, two men sat in a laboratory. For thirty-seven hours now they had been working on a report of their investigations of synthetic rubber. At that moment in Zenith, there was a conference of four union officials as to whether the twelve thousand coal-miners within a hundred miles of the city should strike. Of these men one resembled a testy and prosperous grocer, one a Yankee carpenter, one a soda-clerk, and one a Russian Jewish actor. The Russian Jew quoted Kautsky, Gene Debs, and Abraham Lincoln. At that moment a G. A. R. veteran was dying. He had come from the Civil War straight to a farm which, though it was officially within the city-limits of Zenith, was primitive as the backwoods. He had never ridden in a motor car, never seen a bath-tub, never read any book save the Bible, McGuffey's readers, and religious tracts; and he believed that the earth is flat, that the English are the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, and that the United States is a democracy. At that moment the steel and cement town which composed the factory of the Pullmore Tractor Company of Zenith was running on night shift to fill an order of tractors for the Polish army. It hummed like a million bees, glared through its wide windows like a volcano. Along the high wire fences, searchlights played on cinder-lined yards, switch-tracks, and armed guards on patrol. At that moment Mike Monday was finishing a meeting. Mr. Monday, the distinguished evangelist, the best-known Protestant pontiff in America, had once been a prize-fighter. Satan had not dealt justly with him. As a prize-fighter he gained nothing but his crooked nose, his celebrated vocabulary, and his stage-presence. The service of the Lord had been more profitable. He was about to retire with a fortune. It had been well earned, for, to quote his last report, "Rev. Mr. Monday, the Prophet with a Punch, has shown that he is the world's greatest salesman of salvation, and that by efficient organization the overhead of spiritual regeneration may be kept down to an unprecedented rock-bottom basis. He has converted over two hundred thousand lost and priceless souls at an average cost of less than ten dollars a head." Of the larger cities of the land, only Zenith had hesitated to submit its vices to Mike Monday and his expert reclamation corps. The more enterprising organizations of the city had voted to invite him--Mr. George F. Babbitt had once praised him in a speech at the Boosters' Club. But there was opposition from certain Episcopalian and Congregationalist ministers, those renegades whom Mr. Monday so finely called "a bunch of gospel-pushers with dish-water instead of blood, a gang of squealers that need more dust on the knees of their pants and more hair on their skinny old chests." This opposition had been crushed when the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce had reported to a committee of manufacturers that in every city where he had appeared, Mr. Monday had turned the minds of workmen from wages and hours to higher things, and thus averted strikes. He was immediately invited. An expense fund of forty thousand dollars had been underwritten; out on the County Fair Grounds a Mike Monday Tabernacle had been erected, to seat fifteen thousand people. In it the prophet was at this moment concluding his message: "There's a lot of smart college professors and tea-guzzling slobs in this burg that say I'm a roughneck and a never-wuzzer and my knowledge of history is not-yet. Oh, there's a gang of woolly-whiskered book-lice that think they know more than Almighty God, and prefer a lot of Hun science and smutty German criticism to the straight and simple Word of God. Oh, there's a swell bunch of Lizzie boys and lemon-suckers and pie-faces and infidels and beer-bloated scribblers that love to fire off their filthy mouths and yip that Mike Monday is vulgar and full of mush. Those pups are saying now that I hog the gospel-show, that I'm in it for the coin. Well, now listen, folks! I'm going to give those birds a chance! They can stand right up here and tell me to my face that I'm a galoot and a liar and a hick! Only if they do--if they do!--don't faint with surprise if some of those rum-dumm liars get one good swift poke from Mike, with all the kick of God's Flaming Righteousness behind the wallop! Well, come on, folks! Who says it? Who says Mike Monday is a fourflush and a yahoo? Huh? Don't I see anybody standing up? Well, there you are! Now I guess the folks in this man's town will quit listening to all this kyoodling from behind the fence; I guess you'll quit listening to the guys that pan and roast and kick and beef, and vomit out filthy atheism; and all of you 'll come in, with every grain of pep and reverence you got, and boost all together for Jesus Christ and his everlasting mercy and tenderness!" At that moment Seneca Doane, the radical lawyer, and Dr. Kurt Yavitch, the histologist (whose report on the destruction of epithelial cells under radium had made the name of Zenith known in Munich, Prague, and Rome), were talking in Doane's library. "Zenith's a city with gigantic power--gigantic buildings, gigantic machines, gigantic transportation," meditated Doane. "I hate your city. It has standardized all the beauty out of life. It is one big railroad station--with all the people taking tickets for the best cemeteries," Dr. Yavitch said placidly. Doane roused. "I'm hanged if it is! You make me sick, Kurt, with your perpetual whine about 'standardization.' Don't you suppose any other nation is 'standardized?' Is anything more standardized than England, with every house that can afford it having the same muffins at the same tea-hour, and every retired general going to exactly the same evensong at the same gray stone church with a square tower, and every golfing prig in Harris tweeds saying 'Right you are!' to every other prosperous ass? Yet I love England. And for standardization--just look at the sidewalk cafes in France and the love-making in Italy! "Standardization is excellent, per se. When I buy an Ingersoll watch or a Ford, I get a better tool for less money, and I know precisely what I'm getting, and that leaves me more time and energy to be individual in. And--I remember once in London I saw a picture of an American suburb, in a toothpaste ad on the back of the Saturday Evening Post--an elm-lined snowy street of these new houses, Georgian some of 'em, or with low raking roofs and--The kind of street you'd find here in Zenith, say in Floral Heights. Open. Trees. Grass. And I was homesick! There's no other country in the world that has such pleasant houses. And I don't care if they ARE standardized. It's a corking standard! "No, what I fight in Zenith is standardization of thought, and, of course, the traditions of competition. The real villains of the piece are the clean, kind, industrious Family Men who use every known brand of trickery and cruelty to insure the prosperity of their cubs. The worst thing about these fellows is that they're so good and, in their work at least, so intelligent. You can't hate them properly, and yet their standardized minds are the enemy. "Then this boosting--Sneakingly I have a notion that Zenith is a better place to live in than Manchester or Glasgow or Lyons or Berlin or Turin--" "It is not, and I have lift in most of them," murmured Dr. Yavitch. "Well, matter of taste. Personally, I prefer a city with a future so unknown that it excites my imagination. But what I particularly want--" "You," said Dr. Yavitch, "are a middle-road liberal, and you haven't the slightest idea what you want. I, being a revolutionist, know exactly what I want--and what I want now is a drink." VI At that moment in Zenith, Jake Offutt, the politician, and Henry T. Thompson were in conference. Offutt suggested, "The thing to do is to get your fool son-in-law, Babbitt, to put it over. He's one of these patriotic guys. When he grabs a piece of property for the gang, he makes it look like we were dyin' of love for the dear peepul, and I do love to buy respectability--reasonable. Wonder how long we can keep it up, Hank? We're safe as long as the good little boys like George Babbitt and all the nice respectable labor-leaders think you and me are rugged patriots. There's swell pickings for an honest politician here, Hank: a whole city working to provide cigars and fried chicken and dry martinis for us, and rallying to our banner with indignation, oh, fierce indignation, whenever some squealer like this fellow Seneca Doane comes along! Honest, Hank, a smart codger like me ought to be ashamed of himself if he didn't milk cattle like them, when they come around mooing for it! But the Traction gang can't get away with grand larceny like it used to. I wonder when--Hank, I wish we could fix some way to run this fellow Seneca Doane out of town. It's him or us!" At that moment in Zenith, three hundred and forty or fifty thousand Ordinary People were asleep, a vast unpenetrated shadow. In the slum beyond the railroad tracks, a young man who for six months had sought work turned on the gas and killed himself and his wife. At that moment Lloyd Mallam, the poet, owner of the Hafiz Book Shop, was finishing a rondeau to show how diverting was life amid the feuds of medieval Florence, but how dull it was in so obvious a place as Zenith. And at that moment George F. Babbitt turned ponderously in bed--the last turn, signifying that he'd had enough of this worried business of falling asleep and was about it in earnest. Sofort befand er sich in einem magischen Traum. Er war irgendwo unter unbekannten Menschen, die über ihn lachten. Er glitt davon, rannte durch die Wege eines Mitternachtsgartens und an dem Tor wartete das Feenkind. Ihre liebevolle und ruhige Hand streichelte seine Wange. Er war galant, weise und geliebt; ihre Arme waren warm wie Elfenbein und jenseits gefährlicher Moore funkelte das tapfere Meer. 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Nach dem Mittagessen kehrt Babbitt zur Arbeit zurück und führt einen potenziellen Kunden zu einer Immobilie. Anschließend gehen er und Henry T. Thompson, sein Schwiegervater und Partner, einkaufen, um ein neues Auto für den älteren Mann zu besorgen. Babbitt gelingt es, durch ein Mitglied des Boosters-Clubs, das Verkaufsleiter des Autohändlers Zeeco Auto Agency ist, einen Rabatt auf den Preis zu bekommen. Zurück im Büro setzt Babbitt seine tägliche Routine fort. Spät am Nachmittag gerät er in einen Streit mit Stanley Graff, seinem Außendienstmitarbeiter. Graff hat lange Zeit hart für Babbitt gearbeitet und regelmäßig Überstunden gemacht. Nun, da er plant zu heiraten, bittet er um eine Erhöhung seiner Provision und einen Bonus für einen besonders schwierigen Verkauf, den er gerade abgeschlossen hat. Babbitt wendet sich wütend an Graff und gibt ihm eine strenge moralische Standpauke, in der er Graffs Mangel an Fairness, Idealen, Unternehmergeist und Vision kritisiert. Graff ist mit dieser Antwort nicht zufrieden, aber er kann wenig tun, da Babbitt offen darauf hinweist, dass er leicht einen anderen Verkäufer finden kann. Graff zieht sich mürrisch zurück. Babbitt fühlt sich schuldig, als er sieht, dass die anderen Mitglieder seines Teams Mitgefühl für Graff haben, aber er wird seine Entscheidung nicht ändern. Babbitt kehrt nach Hause zum Abendessen zurück. Wie gewöhnlich streitet sich die Familie über verschiedene Kleinigkeiten, einschließlich des Bedarfs an einem neueren und stilvolleren Auto. Babbitt verspricht, im nächsten Jahr eines zu besorgen, aber diese Lösung befriedigt Verona und Ted nur teilweise. Nach dem Essen geht Verona, um sich mit einigen Freunden zu treffen; die anderen setzen sich auf die Veranda. Ted macht seine Hausaufgaben, Myra näht und Babbitt vertieft sich in sein Lieblingslektüre, die Comics in der Abendzeitung. Nach einer Weile fängt Ted an, sich über die Nutzlosigkeit der Dinge zu beschweren, die er in der Schule lernen muss - ebenso wie über die Werke von Shakespeare, Milton und Cicero. Er sagt, dass er nicht zur Universität gehen will, weil Lernen keinen monetären Wert hat; er ist daran interessiert, viel Geld zu verdienen. Er sieht sich einige Anzeigen für Fernkurse an, von Fingerabdruck-Spuren bis hin zu öffentlichem Reden; sie garantieren alle, dass sie die Verdienstmöglichkeiten steigern. Seine Eltern sind von den Anzeigen beeindruckt, aber sie sagen trotzdem, dass Ted sich an sein schulisches Pensum halten und zur Universität gehen muss. Ein Hochschulabschluss hat einen großen materiellen Wert in Bezug auf sozialen Status und persönliches Know-how, selbst wenn die Kurse langweilig und unpraktisch sind. Ted nimmt den Ratschlag seines Vaters gerne an und geht dann hinaus, um sich mit einigen Freunden zu treffen und seine Hausaufgaben unerledigt zu lassen. Babbitt fühlt sich stolz und warm, wenn er darüber nachdenkt, wie erwachsen und vernünftig sein Sohn ist. Nachdem Ted gegangen ist, plaudert Babbitt mit seiner Frau eine Weile sinnlos über Teds schnelles Erwachsenwerden und seine Freundin von nebenan, Eunice Littlefield. Babbitt verspricht noch einmal, eines Tages ein ernsthaftes Gespräch mit seinem Sohn über Moral und Mannhaftigkeit zu führen. Für den Rest des Abends schwelgt er in Erinnerungen daran, wie er einst davon träumte, Anwalt und Politiker zu werden, diese Träume aber aufgab, um zu heiraten. Er behauptete nie, Myra zu lieben, aber sie kamen gut miteinander aus, also heiratete Babbitt sie, anstatt sie zu verletzen. Myra war ihm immer eine gute und treue Ehefrau, obwohl sie ein wenig einfallslos und unromantisch war. Er bedauert sie kurzzeitig, als er realisiert, dass auch sie Beschwerden oder Gefühle der Unzufriedenheit haben könnte, und er streichelt sanft ihr Haar. Myra ist überrascht über Babbitts Geste; sie macht sie glücklich. Während der Abend weitergeht, sitzen Babbitt und seine Frau im Salon und lesen Zeitschriften. Der Salon ist wie die meisten anderen Salons in der Gegend eingerichtet, sowie die meisten Häuser der Mittelklasse in ganz Amerika. Bald ist Schlafenszeit und das Paar geht in ihr Zimmer. Während Babbitt einschläft, beschreibt Lewis eine Reihe von Dingen, die zu diesem Zeitpunkt in verschiedenen Teilen der Stadt Zenith geschehen. Zum Beispiel begeht die Frau des reichsten Bürgers der Stadt Ehebruch, ein Drogenhändler tötet in einem Wutanfall eine Prostituierte, zwei Wissenschaftler sind spät in ihrem Labor und führen Experimente mit synthetischem Gummi durch, vier linke Gewerkschaftsfunktionäre planen einen Streik der Kohlebergarbeiter, ein betagter Veteran des Bürgerkriegs, der noch nie in einem Auto gefahren ist, liegt im Sterben, eine Traktorfabrik arbeitet in der Nachtschicht, um einen Eilauftrag zu erfüllen, und ein prominenter fundamentalistischer Evangelist beendet gerade eine Zeltversammlung am Stadtrand. In einem anderen Teil von Zenith trinken Seneca Doane, ein "radikaler" Anwalt, und Kurt Yavitch, ein Histologe, und diskutieren über den philosophischen Zustand des zeitgenössischen Amerikas. Zur gleichen Zeit planen Jake Offutt, ein politischer Boss, und Henry T. Thompson einen betrügerischen Immobiliendeal, der auf ihrem geheimen Wissen über die geplante Erweiterung des Service durch das Zenith Street Traction Company basiert. Sie erwarten einen großen Gewinn aus ihren illegalen Manipulationen und planen, Babbitt als ihren Handlanger zu benutzen. An anderer Stelle in der Stadt Zenith schlafen fast 350.000 Menschen. Die meisten von ihnen sind sich der vielen Dinge um sie herum nicht bewusst und kümmern sich auch nicht darum. In einem Slum in der Nähe des Bahnhofs nimmt sich ein junger Mann, der seit sechs Monaten arbeitslos ist, und seine Frau das Leben. George F. Babbitt wälzt sich im Bett um und träumt von seiner märchenhaften Nymphe, die ihm ihre Hand reicht und ihn einlädt, sich ihr in einem exotischen Mitternachtsgarten anzuschließen. Sie empfängt ihn freudig und Babbitt ist wieder galant, weise und kritiklos geliebt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Die Gräfin wurde nicht verbannt, fühlte aber die Unsicherheit ihrer Stellung in der Gastfreundschaft ihres Bruders. Eine Woche nach diesem Vorfall erhielt Isabel ein Telegramm aus England mit dem Stempel von Gardencourt und der Handschrift von Mrs. Touchett. "Ralph wird nicht mehr lange durchhalten", stand darin. "Wenn es möglich ist, möchte er dich sehen. Er bittet mich, dir zu sagen, dass du nur kommen sollst, wenn du keine anderen Pflichten hast. Was mich betrifft, hast du früher viel darüber gesprochen, was deine Pflicht ist und dich gefragt, was es ist; ich bin gespannt zu sehen, ob du es herausgefunden hast. Ralph stirbt wirklich und es gibt sonst niemanden hier." Isabel war auf diese Nachricht vorbereitet, da sie von Henrietta Stackpole einen detaillierten Bericht über ihre Reise nach England mit ihrem dankbaren Patienten erhalten hatte. Ralph war mehr tot als lebendig angekommen, aber sie hatte es geschafft, ihn nach Gardencourt zu bringen, wo er ans Bett gefesselt war, wie Miss Stackpole schrieb. Sie fügte hinzu, dass sie tatsächlich zwei Patienten statt einem hatte, da Herr Goodwood, der sich als völlig nutzlos erwiesen hatte, auf eine andere Weise genauso krank war wie Herr Touchett. Später schrieb sie, dass sie das Feld an Mrs. Touchett abtreten musste, die gerade aus Amerika zurückgekehrt war und ihr unmissverständlich klargemacht hatte, dass sie keine Interviews in Gardencourt wünschte. Isabel hatte ihrer Tante kurz nach Ralphs Ankunft in Rom geschrieben und sie über seinen kritischen Zustand informiert und vorgeschlagen, dass sie keine Zeit verlieren sollte, um nach Europa zurückzukehren. Mrs. Touchett hatte per Telegramm darauf geantwortet, und die einzige weitere Nachricht, die Isabel von ihr erhielt, war das zweite bisher zitierte Telegramm. Isabel stand einen Moment da und betrachtete die letzte Mitteilung; dann steckte sie es in ihre Tasche und ging direkt zur Tür des Arbeitszimmers ihres Mannes. Hier verharrte sie wieder einen Moment und öffnete dann die Tür und trat ein. Osmond saß am Tisch nahe dem Fenster mit einem Folianten vor sich, der an einen Stapel Bücher gelehnt war. Der Band war auf einer Seite mit kleinen farbigen Tafeln geöffnet, und Isabel sah bald, dass er von dort die Zeichnung einer antiken Münze kopiert hatte. Eine Schachtel mit Wasserfarben und feinen Pinseln lag vor ihm, und er hatte bereits den zarten, fein getönten Kreis auf ein weißes Blatt Papier übertragen. Sein Rücken war der Tür zugewandt, aber er erkannte seine Frau, ohne sich umzudrehen. "Entschuldige, dass ich dich störe", sagte sie. "Wenn ich in dein Zimmer komme, klopfe ich immer", antwortete er und arbeitete weiter. "Ich habe es vergessen. Ich hatte etwas anderes zu bedenken. Mein Cousin stirbt." "Ah, das glaube ich nicht", sagte Osmond und betrachtete seine Zeichnung durch eine Lupe. "Er hat bereits kurz vor unserer Hochzeit sterben sollen; er wird uns alle überleben." Isabel nahm sich keine Zeit, keinen Gedanken, um den sorgfältigen Zynismus dieser Erklärung zu würdigen; sie fuhr einfach schnell fort und hatte ihre eigene Absicht im Sinn. "Meine Tante hat mir ein Telegramm geschickt; ich muss nach Gardencourt gehen." "Warum musst du nach Gardencourt?" fragte Osmond in einem Ton der unparteiischen Neugier. "Um Ralph zu sehen, bevor er stirbt." Auf diese Aussage reagierte er eine Weile lang nicht; er widmete seine volle Aufmerksamkeit seiner Arbeit, die keine Nachlässigkeit duldete. "Ich sehe keinen Grund dafür", sagte er schließlich. "Er ist gekommen, um dich hier zu sehen. Das mochte ich nicht; ich dachte, dass es ein großer Fehler ist, dass er in Rom ist. Aber ich habe es toleriert, weil es das letzte Mal sein sollte, dass du ihn siehst. Jetzt sagst du mir, dass es nicht das letzte Mal sein sollte. Ah, du bist undankbar!" "Wofür sollte ich dankbar sein?" Gilbert Osmond legte seine kleinen Werkzeuge ab, blies einen Staubfleck von seiner Zeichnung und stand langsam auf. Zum ersten Mal sah er seine Frau an. "Dafür, dass ich mich nicht eingemischt habe, als er hier war." "Oh ja, das bin ich. Ich erinnere mich sehr deutlich, wie deutlich du mir zu verstehen gegeben hast, dass du es nicht mochtest. Ich war sehr froh, als er wegging." "Dann lass ihn in Ruhe. Lauf ihm nicht nach." Isabel wandte ihren Blick von ihm ab; er ruhte auf seiner kleinen Zeichnung. "Ich muss nach England", sagte sie mit vollem Bewusstsein, dass ihr Ton auf einen gereizten Geschmacksmann möglicherweise dumm stur wirken könnte. "Ich werde es nicht mögen, wenn du gehst", bemerkte Osmond. "Warum sollte mir das etwas ausmachen? Dir wird es nicht gefallen, wenn ich nicht gehe. Du magst nichts, was ich tue oder nicht tue. Du tust so, als ob du denkst, dass ich lüge." Osmond wurde leicht blass; er lächelte kalt. "Daher musst du gehen? Nicht um deinen Cousin zu sehen, sondern um Rache an mir zu nehmen." "Ich weiß nichts von Rache." "Ich schon", sagte Osmond. "Gib mir keinen Anlass dazu." "Du bist nur allzu bereit, einen zu finden. Du wünschst dir sehr, dass ich einen Fehler begehe." "In dem Fall würde ich mich freuen, wenn du mir nicht gehorchst." "Wenn ich dir nicht gehorche?", sagte Isabel mit einer leisen Stimme, die den Effekt von Sanftmut hatte. "Mach es klar. Wenn du heute Rom verlässt, wird es ein bewusster, berechneter Akt der Opposition sein." "Wie kannst du das berechnet nennen? Ich habe das Telegramm meiner Tante gerade vor drei Minuten erhalten." "Du berechnest schnell; das ist eine große Begabung von dir. Ich sehe keinen Grund, warum wir unsere Diskussion verlängern sollten; du kennst meinen Wunsch." Und er stand da, als erwartete er, dass sie sich zurückzieht. Aber sie bewegte sich nicht; sie konnte sich nicht bewegen, so seltsam es auch erscheinen mag; sie wollte sich immer noch rechtfertigen; er hatte die Fähigkeit, in außergewöhnlichem Maße in ihr das Bedürfnis zu wecken. Da war etwas in ihrer Vorstellungskraft, auf das er sich immer gegen ihr Urteil berufen konnte. "Du hast keinen Grund für diesen Wunsch", sagte Isabel. "Und ich habe allen Grund zu gehen. Ich kann dir nicht sagen, wie ungerecht du mir erscheinst. Aber ich glaube, du weißt es. Deine Opposition ist berechnet. Sie ist bösartig." Sie hatte noch nie zuvor ihren schlimmsten Gedanken gegenüber ihrem Mann ausgesprochen, und das Gefühl, ihn zu hören, war offenbar für Osmond neu. Aber er zeigte keine Überraschung, und seine Gelassenheit war offensichtlich ein Beweis dafür, dass er geglaubt hatte, seine Frau würde in der Tat irgendwann seiner geschickten Bemühung, sie herauszufordern, nicht widerstehen können. "Dann ist sie umso intensiver", antwortete er. Und fast so, als würde er ihr einen freundlichen Rat geben, fügte er hinzu: "Das ist eine sehr wichtige Angelegenheit." Sie erkannte das; sie war sich der Bedeutung des Anlasses voll bewusst; sie wusste, dass sie zusammen an einen Wendepunkt gelangt waren. Seine Ernsthaftigkeit machte sie vorsichtig; sie sagte nichts, und er fuhr fort. "Du sagst, ich habe keinen Grund? Ich habe den allerbesten. Ich mag von Herzen nicht, was du vorhast. Es ist nicht ehrenhaft, es ist taktlos, es ist unanständig. Dein Cousin ist mir völlig egal, und ich bin nicht verpflichtet, ihm Zugeständnisse zu machen. Ich habe bereits die allergrößten gemacht. Dein Verhältnis zu ihm, als er hier war, hat mich auf die Folter gespannt, aber ich habe das auf sich beruhen Er sprach ernst und fast sanft; der Ton des Sarkasmus war aus seiner Stimme verschwunden. Es hatte eine Ernsthaftigkeit, die die schnelle Emotion seiner Frau bremste; die Entschlossenheit, mit der sie in den Raum gekommen war, wurde in einem Netz feiner Fäden gefangen. Seine letzten Worte waren keine Anweisung, sie stellten eine Art Appell dar; und obwohl sie fühlte, dass jeder Ausdruck von Respekt seinerseits nur eine Feinheit des Egoismus sein konnte, repräsentierten sie etwas Transzendentes und Absolutes, wie das Kreuzeszeichen oder die Flagge seines Landes. Er sprach im Namen von etwas Heiligem und Kostbarem - der Einhaltung einer prächtigen Form. Sie hatten in ihren Gefühlen Abstand voneinander genommen wie zwei desillusionierte Liebhaber; aber sie hatten sich noch nie in der Tat getrennt. Isabel hatte sich nicht verändert; ihre alte Leidenschaft für Gerechtigkeit wohnte immer noch in ihr, und jetzt, mitten in ihrem Gefühl von ihrem blasphemischen Sophismus ihres Mannes, begann es zu einem Rhythmus zu pochen, der ihm für einen Moment den Sieg versprach. Ihr wurde klar, dass er in seinem Wunsch, den Schein zu wahren, nach allem wirklich aufrichtig war und dass dies, so weit das ging, ein Verdienst war. Zehn Minuten zuvor hatte sie die Freude des unreflektierten Handelns empfunden - eine Freude, von der sie so lange fern gewesen war; aber die Handlung war plötzlich zu einer langsamen Verzichtserklärung geworden, verwandelt durch den Makel von Osmunds Berührung. Wenn sie jedoch verzichten müsste, würde sie ihn wissen lassen, dass sie ein Opfer und keine Dumme ist. "Ich weiß, dass du ein Meister der Spottkunst bist", sagte sie. "Wie kannst du von einer unauflöslichen Vereinigung sprechen - wie kannst du von deiner Zufriedenheit sprechen? Wo ist unsere Vereinigung, wenn du mich der Falschheit beschuldigst? Wo ist deine Zufriedenheit, wenn nichts als scheußlicher Verdacht in deinem Herzen ist?" "Sie liegt in unserem anständigen Zusammenleben trotz solcher Hindernisse." "Wir leben nicht anständig zusammen!" rief Isabel. "Eigentlich nicht, wenn du nach England gehst." "Das ist sehr wenig; das ist nichts. Ich könnte viel mehr tun." Er zog die Augenbrauen hoch und auch ein wenig die Schultern: Er hatte lange genug in Italien gelebt, um sich diese Geste anzueignen. "Ah, wenn du gekommen bist, um mir zu drohen, ziehe ich meine Zeichnung vor." Und er ging zurück an seinen Tisch, wo er das Blatt Papier, an dem er gearbeitet hatte, aufnahm und es studierte. "Ich nehme an, wenn ich gehe, wirst du nicht erwarten, dass ich zurückkomme", sagte Isabel. Er drehte sich schnell um, und sie konnte sehen, dass diese Bewegung zumindest nicht beabsichtigt war. Er sah sie einen Moment lang an und fragte dann: "Bist du verrückt geworden?" "Was könnte es sonst sein als ein Bruch?", fuhr sie fort. "Besonders wenn alles, was du sagst, wahr ist?" Sie konnte nicht sehen, wie es etwas anderes als ein Bruch sein könnte; sie wollte aufrichtig wissen, was es sonst noch sein könnte. Er setzte sich vor seinen Tisch. "Ich kann wirklich nicht mit dir darüber streiten, dass du mir trotzt", sagte er. Und er nahm wieder einen seiner kleinen Pinsel auf. Sie verweilte noch einen Moment; lang genug, um mit ihrem Blicke seine ganze absichtlich gleichgültige, aber ausdrucksstarke Gestalt zu umfassen; danach verließ sie schnell das Zimmer. Ihre Fähigkeiten, ihre Energie, ihre Leidenschaft waren alle wieder zerstreut; sie fühlte, als ob ein kalter, dunkler Nebel sie plötzlich umgeben hätte. Osmond beherrschte in höchstem Maße die Kunst, jede Schwäche herauszuarbeiten. Auf dem Rückweg zu ihrem Zimmer traf sie die Gräfin Gemini, die in der offenen Tür eines kleinen Salons stand, in dem eine kleine Sammlung heterogener Bücher untergebracht war. Die Gräfin hatte ein offenes Buch in der Hand; sie schien über eine Seite hinwegzublicken, die sie nicht als interessant empfand. Bei dem Klang von Isabels Schritt hob sie den Kopf. "Ah, meine Liebe", sagte sie, "du, die so literarisch bist, sag mir ein unterhaltsames Buch zum Lesen! Alles hier ist so öde... Glaubst du, das würde mir guttun?" Isabel warf einen Blick auf den Titel des Buches, das sie ihr entgegenhielt, las oder verstand es aber nicht. "Ich fürchte, ich kann dir keine Ratschläge geben. Ich habe schlechte Nachrichten. Mein Cousin Ralph Touchett liegt im Sterben." Die Gräfin warf ihr Buch nieder. "Ah, er war so sympathisch. Es tut mir furchtbar leid für dich." "Du wärst noch trauriger, wenn du wüsstest." "Was gibt es zu wissen? Du siehst sehr schlecht aus", fügte die Gräfin hinzu. "Du musst bei Osmond gewesen sein." Eine halbe Stunde zuvor hätte Isabel sehr kühl auf die Andeutung reagiert, dass sie je das Bedürfnis nach dem Mitgefühl ihrer Schwägerin verspüren könnte, und es gibt keinen besseren Beweis für ihre momentane Verlegenheit als die Tatsache, dass sie fast nach der flatternden Aufmerksamkeit dieser Dame griff. "Ich war bei Osmond", sagte sie, während die leuchtenden Augen der Gräfin auf sie gerichtet waren. "Ich bin sicher, er war abscheulich!" rief die Gräfin. "Hat er gesagt, dass er froh ist über den Tod des armen Mr. Touchett?" "Er hat gesagt, es sei unmöglich, dass ich nach England gehen." Der Geist der Gräfin, wenn es um ihre Interessen ging, war beweglich; sie hatte bereits das Ende weiterer Helligkeit in ihrem Besuch in Rom vorausgesehen. Ralph Touchett würde sterben, Isabel würde in Trauer gehen, und dann gebe es keine Abendessen mehr. Eine solche Aussicht erzeugte für einen Moment in ihrem Gesicht ein ausdrucksvolles Grimassieren; aber dieses schnelle, malerische Spiel der Züge war ihr einziger Tribut an Enttäuschung. Immerhin überlegte sie, war das Spiel fast ausgespielt; sie war bereits über ihre Einladung hinausgeblieben. Und dann interessierte sie sich genug für Isabels Trouble, um ihren eigenen zu vergessen, und sie sah, dass Isabels Trouble tief war. Es schien tiefer zu sein als der bloße Tod eines Cousins, und die Gräfin zögerte nicht, ihren ärgerlichen Bruder mit dem Ausdruck in Isabels Augen in Verbindung zu bringen. Ihr Herz schlug fast freudig in Erwartung, denn wenn sie Osmond übertrumpfen wollte, sahen die Bedingungen jetzt günstig aus. Natürlich, wenn Isabel nach England gehen sollte, würde sie sofort das Palazzo Roccanera verlassen; nichts würde sie dazu bringen, dort mit Osmond zu bleiben. Dennoch hatte sie ein großes Verlangen zu hören, dass Isabel nach England gehen würde. "Nichts ist unmöglich für dich, meine Liebe", sagte sie liebevoll. "Warum bist du sonst reich und klug und gut?" "Warum in der Tat? Ich fühle mich dumm schwach." "Warum sagt Osmond, dass es unmöglich ist?", fragte die Gräfin mit einem Ton, der deutlich zeigte, dass sie es sich nicht vorstellen konnte. Von dem Moment an, als sie so zu ihr zu sprechen begann, zog sich Isabel jedoch zurück; sie zog ihre Hand zurück, die die Gräfin liebevoll ergriffen hatte. Aber sie antwortete auf diese Frage mit offenem Groll. "Weil wir so glücklich zusammen sind, dass wir uns nicht einmal für zwei Wochen trennen können." "Ah", rief die Gräfin, während sich Isabel abwandte, "wenn ich reisen will "Wirst du mir erlauben, es zu versuchen?" Und die Gräfin setzte sich neben sie auf das Sofa. Sie lächelte weiterhin, und es gab etwas Mitteilendes und Triumphierendes in ihrem Ausdruck. Es schien Isabel zum ersten Mal, dass ihre Schwägerin etwas wirklich Menschliches sagen könnte. Sie spielte mit ihren glitzernden Augen, in denen eine unangenehme Faszination lag. "Schließlich", fuhr sie bald fort, "muss ich dir am Anfang sagen, dass ich deinen Gemütszustand nicht verstehe. Du scheinst so viele Bedenken, so viele Gründe, so viele Bindungen zu haben. Als ich vor zehn Jahren entdeckte, dass der innigste Wunsch meines Mannes war, mich unglücklich zu machen - in letzter Zeit hat er mich einfach in Ruhe gelassen - ach, es war eine wunderbare Vereinfachung! Meine arme Isabel, du bist nicht einfach genug." "Nein, ich bin nicht einfach genug", sagte Isabel. "Es gibt etwas, das ich möchte, dass du weißt", erklärte die Gräfin - "weil ich denke, dass du es wissen solltest. Vielleicht weißt du es; vielleicht hast du es geahnt. Aber wenn du es getan hast, kann ich nur sagen, dass ich noch weniger verstehe, warum du nicht tun solltest, was du willst." "Was möchtest du, dass ich weiß?" Isabel spürte eine Vorahnung, die ihr Herz schneller schlagen ließ. Die Gräfin war dabei, sich zu rechtfertigen, und das allein war beunruhigend. Aber sie war dennoch bereit, ein wenig mit ihrem Thema zu spielen. "An deiner Stelle hätte ich es vor langer Zeit erraten. Hast du nie wirklich etwas vermutet?" "Ich habe nichts erraten. Was hätte ich vermuten sollen? Ich weiß nicht, was du meinst." "Das liegt daran, dass du so eine verdammte reine Seele hast. Ich habe noch nie eine Frau mit so einer reinen Seele gesehen!" rief die Gräfin. Isabel stand langsam auf. "Du wirst mir etwas Schreckliches erzählen." "Du kannst es nennen, wie du willst!" Und die Gräfin stand ebenfalls auf, während ihre gesammelte Boshaftigkeit lebendig und furchterregend wurde. Sie stand einen Moment in einer Art Glanz der Absicht und, wie Isabel damals schien, des Hässlichen; danach sagte sie: "Meine erste Schwägerin hatte keine Kinder." Isabel starrte sie an; die Ankündigung war ein Antiklimax. "Deine erste Schwägerin?" "Ich nehme an, du weißt zumindest, wenn man es erwähnen darf, dass Osmond schon einmal verheiratet war! Ich habe nie mit dir über seine Frau gesprochen; ich dachte, es könnte unanständig oder respektlos sein. Aber andere, weniger zurückhaltende, müssen es getan haben. Die arme kleine Frau lebte kaum drei Jahre und starb kinderlos. Erst nach ihrem Tod kam Pansy." Isabel runzelte die Stirn; ihre Lippen waren vor blasser, vager Verwunderung geöffnet. Sie versuchte zu folgen; es schien so viel mehr zu folgen zu geben, als sie sehen konnte. "Also ist Pansy nicht das Kind meines Mannes?" "Deines Mannes - perfekt! Aber nicht das Kind eines anderen Mannes. Das Kind einer anderen Frau. Ach, meine liebe Isabel", rief die Gräfin, "bei dir muss man auf Kleinigkeiten achten!" "Ich verstehe nicht. Von wessen Frau?" fragte Isabel. "Die Frau eines schrecklichen kleinen Schweizers, der vor - wie lange? - einem Dutzend, mehr als fünfzehn Jahren gestorben ist. Er hat Miss Pansy nie anerkannt und hätte, wenn er gewusst hätte, was er tat, nichts mit ihr zu tun haben wollen; und es gab keinen Grund, warum er es sollte. Osmond hat es getan, und das war besser; obwohl er danach die ganze Geschichte von seiner eigenen Frau, die bei der Geburt gestorben war, und von seiner Trauer und seinem Entsetzen, das kleine Mädchen so lange wie möglich von seiner Sicht zu verbannen, aufgesetzt hat, bevor er sie von der Krankenschwester mit nach Hause nahm. Seine Frau war wirklich gestorben, weißt du, an ganz anderen Dingen und an einem ganz anderen Ort: in den piemontesischen Bergen, wohin sie, im August, gefahren waren, weil ihre Gesundheit die Luft zu erfordern schien, aber wo sie plötzlich schwerkrank wurde. Die Geschichte hat sich durchgesetzt, ausreichend; sie wurde von den Erscheinungen bedeckt, solange niemand darauf achtete, solange niemand danach suchte. Aber natürlich wusste ich es - ohne Recherchen", fuhr die Gräfin einleuchtend fort, "wie auch, verstehst du, ohne ein Wort zwischen uns zu sagen - ich meine zwischen Osmond und mir. Du siehst ihn, schweigend, mich so ansehen, um die Sache zu klären? - das heißt, um MICH zu klären, falls ich etwas sagen sollte. Ich habe nie etwas, weder rechts noch links, gesagt - nie ein Wort zu einem Geschöpf, wenn du das von mir glauben kannst: auf meine Ehre, meine Liebe, ich spreche jetzt nach all dieser Zeit mit dir über die Sache, wie ich noch nie, nie gesprochen habe. Es war für mich genug von Anfang an, dass das Kind meine Nichte war - seit dem Moment, als sie die Tochter meines Bruders war. Was ihre wahre Mutter betrifft - aber damit ließ Pansys wunderbare Tante ab - als, ungewollt, aus dem Eindruck von ihrem Gesicht, aus dem mehr Augen zu blicken schienen, als sie jemals hätte treffen können. Sie hatte keinen Namen genannt, aber Isabel konnte nicht umhin, einen Echo des Unaussprechlichen auf ihren eigenen Lippen zu unterdrücken. Sie setzte sich wieder hin und senkte den Kopf. "Warum hast du mir das erzählt?" fragte sie mit einer Stimme, die die Gräfin kaum wiedererkannte. "Weil ich deines Nichtwissens müde bin. Ich habe es satt gehabt, es dir nicht gesagt zu haben; als ob ich all die Zeit, dumm, nicht damit umgehen könnte! Es ist mir zu hoch, wenn du mir erlaubst, so zu sagen, mit all den Dingen um dich herum, von denen du erscheinst, erfolgreich nicht zu wissen. Es ist eine Art Hilfe - Hilfe für unschuldige Unwissenheit - die ich immer schon schlecht geleistet habe; und in dieser Verbindung, der des Schonens meines Bruders, hat sich meine Tugend wenigstens schließlich erschöpft. Es ist auch keine schwarze Lüge, weißt du", fügte die Gräfin unnachahmlich hinzu. "Die Fakten sind genau das, was ich dir sage." "Ich hatte keine Ahnung", sagte Isabel schließlich und sah zu ihr auf, auf eine Weise, die zweifellos der scheinbaren Einfältigkeit dieses Geständnisses entsprach. "So habe ich es geglaubt - obwohl es schwer zu glauben war. Ist dir nie in den Sinn gekommen, dass er sechs oder sieben Jahre lang ihr Liebhaber war?" "Ich weiß es nicht. Mir sind Dinge eingefallen, und vielleicht war das es, was sie alle gemeint haben." "Sie war wunderbar clever, sie war großartig, was Pansy betrifft!" rief die Gräfin angesichts dieser Ansicht aus. "Oh, keine Ahnung für mich", fuhr Isabel fort, "nahmen jemals DEFINITIV diese Form an." Sie schien sich selbst zu überlegen, was war und was nicht war. "Und wie es ist - ich verstehe es nicht." Sie sprach wie jemand, der beunruhigt und verwirrt ist, doch die arme Gräfin schien gesehen zu haben, wie ihre Offenbarung unter ihren Möglichkeiten der Wirkung blieb. Sie hatte erwartet, ein responsive Flamme zu entfachen, hatte aber kaum einen Funken extrahiert. Isabel zeigte sich kaum beeindruckter als eine junge Frau mit anerkan "Das ist alles, was fehlt - dass du dich für ihre Sache einsetzt!" fuhr die Gräfin fort. "Ich stimme dir allerdings zu, dass es zu früh war." "Aber für mich, für mich -?" Und Isabel zögerte, als hätte sie es nicht gehört; als ob ihre Frage - obwohl sie deutlich in ihren Augen lag - ganz für sich selbst sei. "War er dir treu? Nun, das hängt, mein Liebes, davon ab, was du unter treu verstehst. Als er dich heiratete, war er kein Liebhaber einer anderen Frau mehr - so ein Liebhaber, wie er zwischen ihren Risiken und Vorsichtsmaßnahmen war, solange es andauerte! Dieser Zustand war vorbei; die Dame hatte bereut, oder zumindest, aus eigener Überzeugung zurückgezogen: Sie hatte immer auch eine derart intensive Verehrung für den Schein, dass selbst Osmond sich davon gelangweilt hatte. Du kannst dir also vorstellen, wie es war - als er es nicht bequem an irgendjemanden ansetzen konnte, mit dem er es versucht hat! Aber die ganze Vergangenheit war zwischen ihnen." "Ja", antwortete Isabel mechanisch, "die ganze Vergangenheit ist zwischen ihnen." "Ach, diese spätere Vergangenheit ist nichts. Aber sechs oder sieben Jahre lang, wie ich sagte, haben sie es weiter verfolgt." Sie schwieg eine Weile. "Warum wollte sie dann, dass er mich heiratet?" "Ach mein Liebes, das ist ihre Überlegenheit! Weil du Geld hattest; und weil sie glaubte, du wirst gut zu Pansy sein." "Arme Frau - und Pansy mag sie nicht!" rief Isabel aus. "Das ist der Grund, warum sie jemanden wollte, den Pansy mögen würde. Sie weiß es; sie weiß alles." "Wird sie wissen, dass du mir das erzählt hast?" "Das wird davon abhängen, ob du es ihr erzählst. Sie ist darauf vorbereitet, und weißt du, worauf sie für ihre Verteidigung zählt? Darauf, dass du glaubst, dass ich lüge. Vielleicht tust du es; mach dir keine Sorgen, um es zu verbergen. Aber dieses Mal ist es anders. Ich habe viele kleine idiotische Lügen erzählt, aber sie haben niemandem außer mir selbst geschadet." Isabel saß da und starrte auf die Geschichte ihrer Begleiterin, als ob eine stöbernde Zigeunerin ihre fantastischen Waren auf dem Teppich vor ihr ausgepackt hätte. "Warum hat Osmond sie nie geheiratet?", fragte sie schließlich. "Weil sie kein Geld hatte." Die Gräfin hatte für alles eine Antwort, und wenn sie log, log sie gut. "Niemand weiß, niemand hat je gewusst, wovon sie lebt oder wie sie all diese schönen Dinge bekommen hat. Ich glaube nicht einmal, dass Osmond es selbst weiß. Außerdem hätte sie ihn nicht geheiratet." "Wie konnte sie ihn dann geliebt haben?" "Sie liebt ihn nicht auf diese Art und Weise. Am Anfang schon, und dann hätte sie ihn wohl geheiratet. Aber zu dieser Zeit war ihr Ehemann noch am Leben. Als M. Merle sich wiedervereinigt hatte - ich will nicht sagen mit seinen Vorfahren, denn er hatte nie welche - hatten sich ihre Beziehungen zu Osmond verändert, und sie war ambionierter geworden. Außerdem hat sie ihn nie -", die Gräfin fuhr fort und ließ Isabel danach so tragisch erschauern -, "sie hatte nie, was man Illusionen der INTELLIGENZ nennen könnte. Sie hoffte, sie könnte einen großen Mann heiraten; das war schon immer ihre Idee. Sie hat gewartet, beobachtet, geplant und gebetet, aber es hat nie geklappt. Ich nenne Madame Merle keinen Erfolg, weißt du. Ich weiß nicht, was sie noch erreichen kann, aber im Moment hat sie sehr wenig vorzuweisen. Das einzige greifbare Ergebnis, das sie je erzielt hat - abgesehen natürlich davon, dass sie jeden kennt und kostenlos bei ihnen wohnt - ist, dass sie dich und Osmond zusammengebracht hat. Oh, das hat sie gemacht, Liebes; du brauchst nicht so zu schauen, als würdest du daran zweifeln. Ich habe sie jahrelang beobachtet; ich weiß alles - alles. Man hält mich für eine große Zerstreute, aber ich habe genug geistige Anstrengung betrieben, um diese beiden zu verfolgen. Sie hasst mich, und ihre Art, es zu zeigen, ist es, sich immer zu mir zu halten. Wenn die Leute sagen, ich hätte fünfzehn Liebhaber gehabt, sieht sie entsetzt aus und erklärt, dass bei der Hälfte davon nie etwas bewiesen worden sei. Sie hat sich jahrelang vor mir gefürchtet und hat sich großen Trost darin geholt, die bösen falschen Dinge, die die Leute über mich gesagt haben, zu glauben. Sie hat Angst gehabt, dass ich sie bloßstellen würde und hat mich angedroht, als Osmond anfing, dir den Hof zu machen. Es war in seinem Haus in Florenz; erinnerst du dich an den Nachmittag, als sie dich dorthin brachte und wir im Garten Tee tranken? Damals ließ sie mich wissen, dass wenn ich Geschichten erzählen würde, zwei das Spiel spielen könnten. Sie gibt vor, dass es viel mehr über mich zu erzählen gäbe als über sie. Das wäre ein interessanter Vergleich! Mir ist es egal, was sie sagt, einfach weil ich weiß, dass es dir egal ist. Du kannst dir weniger Sorgen um mich machen, als du es bereits tust. Also kann sie sich rächen, wie sie will; ich glaube nicht, dass sie dich sehr erschrecken wird. Ihre große Idee war es, auch in höchstem Maße untadelig zu sein - eine Art voll erblühter Lilie - die Inkarnation der Anständigkeit. Sie hat immer diesen Gott angebetet. Es sollte keinen Skandal um Caesars Frau geben, weißt du; und wie gesagt, hat sie immer gehofft, Caesar zu heiraten. Das war ein Grund, warum sie Osmond nicht geheiratet hat; die Angst, dass die Leute, wenn sie sie mit Pansy sehen würden, Dinge zusammenfügen würden - vielleicht sogar eine Ähnlichkeit erkennen würden. Sie hatte Angst, dass die Mutter sich verraten würde. Sie war schrecklich vorsichtig; die Mutter hat es nie getan." "Ja, ja, die Mutter hat es getan", sagte Isabel, die dem Ganzen mit einem immer blasseren Gesicht zugehört hatte. "Sie hat es mir neulich verraten, obwohl ich sie nicht erkannt habe. Es schien die Möglichkeit einer großen Heirat für Pansy gegeben zu haben, und in ihrer Enttäuschung darüber, dass es nicht geklappt hat, hat sie fast die Maske fallen lassen." "Ach, das wäre ihr Verderben!" rief die Gräfin. "Sie hat so furchtbar versagt, dass sie fest entschlossen war, dass ihre Tochter es ausgleicht." Isabel zuckte bei den Worten "ihre Tochter" zusammen, die ihre Gästin so vertraut aussprach. "Es scheint sehr wunderbar zu sein", murmelte sie und hatte in diesem verwirrenden Eindruck fast vergessen, dass sie persönlich von der Geschichte berührt war. "Nun geh nicht und wende dich gegen das arme unschuldige Kind!" fuhr die Gräfin fort. "Sie ist sehr nett, trotz ihrer bedauerlichen Herkunft. Ich mochte Pansy selbst, natürlich nicht, weil sie von ihr ist, sondern weil sie zu dir gehört." "Ja, sie gehört jetzt zu mir. Und wie sehr die arme Frau gelitten haben muss, als sie mich sah -!" rief Isabel aus und errötete bei dem Gedanken. "Ich glaube nicht, dass sie gelitten hat; im Gegenteil, sie hat es genossen. Osmonds Heirat hat seiner Tochter einen guten Schub gegeben. Vorher lebte sie in einem Loch. Und weißt du, was die Mutter dachte? Dass du dich so für das Kind begeistern könntest, dass du etwas für sie tun würdest. Osmond konnte ihr natürlich nie etwas geben. Osmond war wirklich extrem arm; aber natürlich weißt du das. Ach, meine Liebe!", rief die Gräfin aus, "warum hast du jemals Geld geerbt?" Sie hielt einen Moment inne, als ob sie etwas Seltsames in Isabels Gesicht sehen würde. "Sag mir jetzt nicht, dass du ihr eine Mitgift geben wirst. Das könntest du tun, aber ich würde es nicht glauben. Versuche nicht, zu gut zu sein. Sei ein bisschen locker und natürlich und gemein; fühl dich einmal in deinem Leben ein bisschen böse, um dich besser zu fühlen!" "Es ist sehr seltsam. Ich sollte es wissen, aber es tut mir leid", sagte Isabel. "Ich danke Ihnen sehr." "Ja, so scheint es!", rief die Gräfin mit einem spöttischen Lachen aus. "Vielleicht sind Sie es - vielleicht sind Sie es nicht. Sie nehmen es Nun ja, ich sollte sagen, als eine Frau, die benutzt wurde." Isabel antwortete nicht darauf; sie hörte nur zu, und die Gräfin fuhr fort. "Sie waren immer aneinander gebunden; sie blieben es auch, nachdem sie sich getrennt haben - oder ER hat es getan. Aber er war immer mehr für sie da, als sie für ihn. Nachdem ihr kleiner Karneval vorbei war, haben sie einen Vertrag geschlossen, dass jeder dem anderen volle Freiheit geben soll, aber dass jeder auch alles tun soll, um dem anderen zu helfen. Du kannst mich fragen, wie ich so etwas weiß. Ich weiß es anhand ihrer Verhaltensweise. Nun sieh nur, wie viel besser Frauen sind als Männer! Sie hat eine Frau für Osmond gefunden, aber Osmond hat nicht mal einen Finger für SIE gerührt. Sie hat für ihn gearbeitet, für ihn geplant, für ihn gelitten; sie hat sogar mehr als einmal Geld für ihn gefunden; und am Ende ist er ihrer überdrüssig. Sie ist eine alte Gewohnheit; es gibt Momente, in denen er sie braucht, aber im Großen und Ganzen würde er sie nicht vermissen, wenn sie verschwunden wäre. Und, was noch mehr ist, heute weiß sie es. Also brauchst du nicht eifersüchtig zu sein!" fügte die Gräfin humorvoll hinzu. Isabel erhob sich wieder von ihrem Sofa; sie fühlte sich zerschlagen und hatte kaum Atem; ihr Kopf summte vor neuen Erkenntnissen. "Ich danke Ihnen vielmals", wiederholte sie. Und dann fügte sie abrupt in einem ganz anderen Ton hinzu: "Wie wissen Sie all das?" Diese Frage schien die Gräfin mehr zu verärgern als Isabels Ausdruck der Dankbarkeit ihr Freude bereitete. Sie starrte ihre Begleitung mutig an und rief: "Nehmen wir an, ich habe es erfunden!" Doch auch sie änderte plötzlich ihren Ton und legte ihre Hand auf Isabels Arm. Mit dem Durchblick ihres scharfen, hellen Lächelns sagte sie: "Wirst du nun deine Reise aufgeben?" Isabel zuckte ein wenig zusammen; sie wandte sich ab. Aber sie fühlte sich schwach und legte in einem Moment ihren Arm zur Unterstützung auf den Kaminsims. Sie stand so eine Minute und dann ließ sie ihren schwindeligen Kopf mit geschlossenen Augen und blassen Lippen auf ihren Arm fallen. "Ich habe Unrecht getan zu sprechen - ich habe dich krank gemacht!" rief die Gräfin. "Ah, ich muss Ralph sehen!" klagte Isabel; nicht in Resentiment, nicht in der schnellen Leidenschaft, die ihre Begleitung erwartet hatte; sondern in einem Ton von weitreichender, unendlicher Traurigkeit. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Eine Woche nach Pansys Abreise erhält Isabel ein Telegramm von Mrs. Touchett. Ralph hat sich verschlechtert und wird bald sterben. Isabel geht in Osmonds Studie, um ihm von Ralphs Zustand zu berichten und ihre Absicht zu erklären, nach Gardencourt zu gehen, um Ralph zu besuchen. Osmond glaubt, dass ihr einziger Grund dafür ist, dass sie sich an ihrem Ehemann rächen will. Osmond sagt ihr, dass es, wenn sie nach Rom fährt, bedeuten wird, dass sie sich bewusst gegen ihren Ehemann stellt. Isabel sagt ihm, dass seine eigene Opposition bösartig und berechnend ist. Dies ist ihr schlimmster Gedanke - sie hat noch nie zuvor in dieser Weise mit ihrem Ehemann gesprochen. Osmond erinnert sie daran, dass ihre Vereinigung "bewusst geschaffen" ist und dass er als ihr Ehemann möchte, dass sie ihre Ehe ernst nimmt. Er behauptet, Ehre über alles zu schätzen. Isabel spürt, dass dies wirklich sein Egoismus ist, stellt aber auch fest, dass dies einen Appell an ihr Ehrgefühl darstellt. Sie erkennt, dass er im Namen der heiligsten Dinge spricht - der Einhaltung einer großartigen Form. Zuvor hatte sie das Gefühl, dass sie handeln konnte, indem sie Ralph besuchte, aber jetzt fühlt sie, dass die Bedeutung dieser Handlung sich plötzlich "durch den Fluch von Osmonds Einfluss" verändert hat. Isabel gibt jedoch nicht so leicht auf und beschuldigt ihren Ehemann, von ihrer Vereinigung zu sprechen, als er sie der Falschheit beschuldigt. Isabel sagt, dass er, wenn sie geht, erwarten muss, dass sie nie zurückkommt. Osmond, der begonnen hat, eine kleine Skizze von etwas zu zeichnen, hält sie für verrückt. Isabel geht und hat das Gefühl, dass Osmond jede ihrer Schwächen gegen sie verwenden kann. Auf dem Weg nach draußen trifft sie auf Gräfin Gemini. Sie erzählt der Gräfin von Ralphs schlechtem Zustand. Die Gräfin erkennt für einen Moment, dass Isabel bald in Trauer gehen wird und es keine Dinnerpartys mehr für sie zu besuchen gibt. Sie denkt auch über Isabels verunsicherten Zustand nach. Isabel kehrt in ihr Zimmer zurück und denkt darüber nach, wie man ihren Ehemann über alles andere stellen muss. Sie fürchtet sich vor der Gewalt, mit der sie geht, wenn Osmond möchte, dass sie bleibt. Isabel begräbt sich in einem Stapel Kissen. Die Gräfin Gemini schwebt über ihr, als sie aufblickt. Die Gräfin ist gekommen, um sie zu trösten und Isabel zu ermutigen, das zu tun, was sie möchte, nämlich Ralph zu besuchen. Sie erzählt Isabel dann, dass ihre erste Schwägerin, die erste Frau von Osmond, keine Kinder hatte. Pansy ist die Tochter von Osmond und die Ehefrau eines anderen Mannes - Madame Merle. Osmond hatte es geschafft, Pansy als Tochter seiner verstorbenen Frau zu verkleiden. Madame Merle konnte das Kind nicht als ihr eigenes ausgeben, weil sie zu lange von ihrem Ehemann getrennt war, damit es seins sein könnte. Isabel fragt sich, warum die Gräfin ihr das jetzt erzählt. Die Gräfin gibt zu, dass sie es leid ist, dass Isabel es nicht weiß, und ist überrascht von all den Dingen, die Isabel geschafft hat, nicht zu wissen. Isabel hat Mitleid mit Madame Merle, und die Gräfin amüsiert sich über Isabels Freundlichkeit. Isabel fragt sich, warum Osmond Madame Merle nie geheiratet hat, und die Gräfin antwortet, dass Merle kein Geld hat. Merle selbst wollte immer noch einen großen Mann heiraten. Die Gräfin beendet das Gespräch, indem sie Isabel fragt, ob sie ihre Reise trotzdem antreten wird. Isabel sieht krank aus und erklärt mit "unendlicher Traurigkeit", dass sie Ralph sehen muss.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: XVIII. Nine Days The marriage-day was shining brightly, and they were ready outside the closed door of the Doctor's room, where he was speaking with Charles Darnay. They were ready to go to church; the beautiful bride, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross--to whom the event, through a gradual process of reconcilement to the inevitable, would have been one of absolute bliss, but for the yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon should have been the bridegroom. "And so," said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the bride, and who had been moving round her to take in every point of her quiet, pretty dress; "and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie, that I brought you across the Channel, such a baby! Lord bless me! How little I thought what I was doing! How lightly I valued the obligation I was conferring on my friend Mr. Charles!" "You didn't mean it," remarked the matter-of-fact Miss Pross, "and therefore how could you know it? Nonsense!" "Really? Well; but don't cry," said the gentle Mr. Lorry. "I am not crying," said Miss Pross; "_you_ are." "I, my Pross?" (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be pleasant with her, on occasion.) "You were, just now; I saw you do it, and I don't wonder at it. Such a present of plate as you have made 'em, is enough to bring tears into anybody's eyes. There's not a fork or a spoon in the collection," said Miss Pross, "that I didn't cry over, last night after the box came, till I couldn't see it." "I am highly gratified," said Mr. Lorry, "though, upon my honour, I had no intention of rendering those trifling articles of remembrance invisible to any one. Dear me! This is an occasion that makes a man speculate on all he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that there might have been a Mrs. Lorry, any time these fifty years almost!" "Not at all!" From Miss Pross. "You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?" asked the gentleman of that name. "Pooh!" rejoined Miss Pross; "you were a bachelor in your cradle." "Well!" observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig, "that seems probable, too." "And you were cut out for a bachelor," pursued Miss Pross, "before you were put in your cradle." "Then, I think," said Mr. Lorry, "that I was very unhandsomely dealt with, and that I ought to have had a voice in the selection of my pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie," drawing his arm soothingly round her waist, "I hear them moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and I, as two formal folks of business, are anxious not to lose the final opportunity of saying something to you that you wish to hear. You leave your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving as your own; he shall be taken every conceivable care of; during the next fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and thereabouts, even Tellson's shall go to the wall (comparatively speaking) before him. And when, at the fortnight's end, he comes to join you and your beloved husband, on your other fortnight's trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent him to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I hear Somebody's step coming to the door. Let me kiss my dear girl with an old-fashioned bachelor blessing, before Somebody comes to claim his own." For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the well-remembered expression on the forehead, and then laid the bright golden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuine tenderness and delicacy which, if such things be old-fashioned, were as old as Adam. The door of the Doctor's room opened, and he came out with Charles Darnay. He was so deadly pale--which had not been the case when they went in together--that no vestige of colour was to be seen in his face. But, in the composure of his manner he was unaltered, except that to the shrewd glance of Mr. Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that the old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like a cold wind. He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her down-stairs to the chariot which Mr. Lorry had hired in honour of the day. The rest followed in another carriage, and soon, in a neighbouring church, where no strange eyes looked on, Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette were happily married. Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of the little group when it was done, some diamonds, very bright and sparkling, glanced on the bride's hand, which were newly released from the dark obscurity of one of Mr. Lorry's pockets. They returned home to breakfast, and all went well, and in due course the golden hair that had mingled with the poor shoemaker's white locks in the Paris garret, were mingled with them again in the morning sunlight, on the threshold of the door at parting. It was a hard parting, though it was not for long. But her father cheered her, and said at last, gently disengaging himself from her enfolding arms, "Take her, Charles! She is yours!" And her agitated hand waved to them from a chaise window, and she was gone. The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious, and the preparations having been very simple and few, the Doctor, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross, were left quite alone. It was when they turned into the welcome shade of the cool old hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a great change to have come over the Doctor; as if the golden arm uplifted there, had struck him a poisoned blow. He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion might have been expected in him when the occasion for repression was gone. But, it was the old scared lost look that troubled Mr. Lorry; and through his absent manner of clasping his head and drearily wandering away into his own room when they got up-stairs, Mr. Lorry was reminded of Defarge the wine-shop keeper, and the starlight ride. "I think," he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious consideration, "I think we had best not speak to him just now, or at all disturb him. I must look in at Tellson's; so I will go there at once and come back presently. Then, we will take him a ride into the country, and dine there, and all will be well." It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at Tellson's, than to look out of Tellson's. He was detained two hours. When he came back, he ascended the old staircase alone, having asked no question of the servant; going thus into the Doctor's rooms, he was stopped by a low sound of knocking. "Good God!" he said, with a start. "What's that?" Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. "O me, O me! All is lost!" cried she, wringing her hands. "What is to be told to Ladybird? He doesn't know me, and is making shoes!" Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself into the Doctor's room. The bench was turned towards the light, as it had been when he had seen the shoemaker at his work before, and his head was bent down, and he was very busy. "Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor Manette!" The Doctor looked at him for a moment--half inquiringly, half as if he were angry at being spoken to--and bent over his work again. He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open at the throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and even the old haggard, faded surface of face had come back to him. He worked hard--impatiently--as if in some sense of having been interrupted. Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed that it was a shoe of the old size and shape. He took up another that was lying by him, and asked what it was. "A young lady's walking shoe," he muttered, without looking up. "It ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be." "But, Doctor Manette. Look at me!" He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in his work. "You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your proper occupation. Think, dear friend!" Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an instant at a time, when he was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would extract a word from him. He worked, and worked, and worked, in silence, and words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on the air. The only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that he sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexity--as though he were trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind. Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as important above all others; the first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie; the second, that it must be kept secret from all who knew him. In conjunction with Miss Pross, he took immediate steps towards the latter precaution, by giving out that the Doctor was not well, and required a few days of complete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practised on his daughter, Miss Pross was to write, describing his having been called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter of two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been addressed to her by the same post. These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry took in the hope of his coming to himself. If that should happen soon, he kept another course in reserve; which was, to have a certain opinion that he thought the best, on the Doctor's case. In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course being thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved to watch him attentively, with as little appearance as possible of doing so. He therefore made arrangements to absent himself from Tellson's for the first time in his life, and took his post by the window in the same room. He was not long in discovering that it was worse than useless to speak to him, since, on being pressed, he became worried. He abandoned that attempt on the first day, and resolved merely to keep himself always before him, as a silent protest against the delusion into which he had fallen, or was falling. He remained, therefore, in his seat near the window, reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and natural ways as he could think of, that it was a free place. Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink, and worked on, that first day, until it was too dark to see--worked on, half an hour after Mr. Lorry could not have seen, for his life, to read or write. When he put his tools aside as useless, until morning, Mr. Lorry rose and said to him: "Will you go out?" He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old manner, looked up in the old manner, and repeated in the old low voice: "Out?" "Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?" He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more. But, Mr. Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned forward on his bench in the dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, that he was in some misty way asking himself, "Why not?" The sagacity of the man of business perceived an advantage here, and determined to hold it. Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and observed him at intervals from the adjoining room. He paced up and down for a long time before he lay down; but, when he did finally lay himself down, he fell asleep. In the morning, he was up betimes, and went straight to his bench and to work. On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by his name, and spoke to him on topics that had been of late familiar to them. He returned no reply, but it was evident that he heard what was said, and that he thought about it, however confusedly. This encouraged Mr. Lorry to have Miss Pross in with her work, several times during the day; at those times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father then present, precisely in the usual manner, and as if there were nothing amiss. This was done without any demonstrative accompaniment, not long enough, or often enough to harass him; and it lightened Mr. Lorry's friendly heart to believe that he looked up oftener, and that he appeared to be stirred by some perception of inconsistencies surrounding him. When it fell dark again, Mr. Lorry asked him as before: "Dear Doctor, will you go out?" As before, he repeated, "Out?" "Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?" This time, Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could extract no answer from him, and, after remaining absent for an hour, returned. In the meanwhile, the Doctor had removed to the seat in the window, and had sat there looking down at the plane-tree; but, on Mr. Lorry's return, he slipped away to his bench. The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry's hope darkened, and his heart grew heavier again, and grew yet heavier and heavier every day. The third day came and went, the fourth, the fifth. Five days, six days, seven days, eight days, nine days. With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always growing heavier and heavier, Mr. Lorry passed through this anxious time. The secret was well kept, and Lucie was unconscious and happy; but he could not fail to observe that the shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out at first, was growing dreadfully skilful, and that he had never been so intent on his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble and expert, as in the dusk of the ninth evening. Können Sie eine passende Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Am Tag der Hochzeit ist jeder glücklich, mit Ausnahme von Miss Pross, die immer noch der Meinung ist, dass ihr Bruder Solomon der Bräutigam hätte sein sollen. Mr. Lorry flirtet mit Miss Pross und denkt darüber nach, dass er vielleicht einen Fehler gemacht hat, indem er Junggeselle geblieben ist. Charles Darnay offenbart seine Identität gegenüber Doktor Manette, der danach ziemlich blass aussieht, aber die Hochzeit findet trotzdem statt. Das Paar heiratet und macht sich für neun Tage auf Hochzeitsreise nach Wales auf, was dazu führt, dass Doktor Manette zum ersten Mal seit seiner Rettung aus Paris ohne seine Tochter ist. Sobald Lucie geht, verändert sich ihr Vater und er kehrt zu seiner Schuhmacherarbeit zurück und erkennt Miss Pross nicht mehr. Mr. Lorry und Miss Pross entscheiden sich dafür, Lucie nicht über die Veränderung ihres Vaters zu informieren, und sie beobachten ihn abwechselnd nachts.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: SHELTER When Jess opened her eyes it must have been about ten o'clock in the morning. She sat up and looked all around her. She could see dimly the opening where they had come into the woods. She looked around to see that her family was still safely by her. Then she looked up at the sky. At first she thought it must still be night, and then she realized that the darkness was caused by an approaching storm. "Whatever, _whatever_ shall we do now?" demanded Jess of the air. She got up and looked in every direction for shelter. She even walked quite a little way into the woods, and down a hill. And there she stood, not knowing what to do next. "I shall have to wake Henry up," she said at last. "Only how I hate to!" As she spoke she glanced into the forest, and her feet felt as if they were nailed to the ground. She could not stir. Faintly outlined among the trees, Jess saw an old freight or box car. Her first thought was one of fear; her second, hope for shelter. As she thought of shelter, her feet moved, and she stumbled toward it. It really was a freight car. She felt of it. It stood on rusty broken rails which were nearly covered with dead leaves. Then the thunder cracked overhead. Jess came to her usual senses and started back for Henry, flying like the wind. He was awake, looking anxiously overhead. He had not noticed that Jess was missing. "Come!" panted Jess. "I've found a place! Hurry! hurry!" Henry did not stop to ask questions. He picked up Benny, telling Violet to gather up the hay. And then they ran headlong through the thick underbrush in Jess' wake, seeing their way only too well by the sharp flashes of lightning. "It's beginning to sprinkle!" gasped Henry. "We'll get there, all right," Jess shouted back. "It's not far. Be all ready to help me open the door when we get there!" By sheer good fortune a big tree stump stood under the door of the freight car, or the children never could have opened it. As it was, Jess sprang on the stump and Henry, pausing to lay Benny down, did likewise. Together they rolled back the heavy door about a foot. "That's enough," panted Jess. "I'll get in, and you hand Benny up to me." "No," said Henry quietly. "I must see first if any one is in there." "It will rain!" protested Jess. "Nothing will hurt me." But she knew it was useless to argue with Henry, so she hastily groped in the bag for the matches and handed them to her brother. It must be confessed that Jess held her breath while Henry struck one and peered about inside the car. "All's well!" he reported. "Come in, everybody!" Violet passed the hay up to her brother, and crawled in herself. Then Jess handed Benny up like a package of groceries and, taking one last look at the angry sky and waving trees, she climbed in after him. The two children managed to roll the door back so that the crack was completely closed before the storm broke. But at that very instant it broke with a vengeance. It seemed to the children that the sky would split, so sharp were the cracks of thunder. But not a drop of rain reached them in their roomy retreat. They could see nothing at all, for the freight car was tightly made, and all outside was nearly as black as night. Through it all, Benny slept on. Presently the thunder grew fainter, and rumbled away down the valley, and the rain spent itself. Only the drip from the trees on the top of the car could be heard. Then Henry ventured to open the door. He knelt on his hands and knees and thrust his head out. The warm sunlight was filtering through the trees, making golden pools of light here and there. The beautiful trees, pines and white birches and oaks, grew thickly around and the ground was carpeted with flowers and wonderful ferns more than a yard high. But most miraculous of all was a miniature waterfall, small but perfect, where the same little brown brook fell gracefully over some ledges, and danced away down the glen. In an instant Jess and Violet were looking over Henry's shoulder at the pretty sight. "How different everything looks with the sun shining!" exclaimed Jess. "Things will soon be dry at this rate." "It must be about noon," observed Henry, looking at the sun. And as he spoke the faint echo of mill bells in the distance was heard. "Henry!" said Jess sharply. "Let's _live_ here!" "Live here?" repeated Henry dully. "Yes! Why not?" replied Jess. "Nobody uses this car, and it's dry and warm. We're quite far away. And yet we are near enough to a town so we can buy things." "And we're near water," added Violet. Jess hugged her sister. "So we are, little mouse," she said--"the most important thing of all." "But--" began Henry. "_Please_, Henry," said Jess excitedly. "I could make this old freight car into the dearest little house, with beds, and chairs, and a table--and dishes--" "I'd like to live here, too," said a determined little voice from the corner, "but I don't want to, unless--" "Unless what?" asked Henry, panic-stricken. "Unless I can have my dinner," Benny finished anxiously. "We'll have something to eat right away, old fellow," said Henry, thankful it was no worse. For he himself was beginning to see what a cozy home the car really would make. Jess cut the last loaf of bread into four pieces, but alas! it was very dry. The children were so hungry that they tore it with their teeth like little dogs, but Benny was nearly crying. He did not actually cry, however, for just at the crucial moment Violet started a funny story about Cinnamon Bear eating bread crusts out of the ash can. "He ought to have milk," said Jess quietly to Henry. "He _shall_ have milk," replied Henry. "I'll go down the railroad track to the town and get some." Jess counted out a dollar in ten dimes and handed it to Henry. "By the time our four dollars are gone, you will have some work to do," she said. All the same Henry did not like to begin his trip. "How I hate to leave you alone, Jess!" he said miserably. "Oh, don't you worry," began Jess lightly. "We'll have a surprise for you when you come back. You just wait and see!" And she nodded her head wisely as Henry walked slowly off through the woods. The moment he was out of sight she turned to Benny and Violet. "Now, children," she said, "what do you think we're going to do? Do you know what I saw over in the sunny part of the woods? I saw some blueberries!" "Oh, oh!" cried Benny, who knew what blueberries were. "Can't we have some blueberries and milk?" "We certainly--" began Jess. But the sentence never was finished, for a sharp crackle of dry leaves was heard. Something was moving in the woods. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Guten Morgen. Jessie ist als Erste wach und sie bemerkt, dass ein großer Sturm bevorsteht. Sie ergreift die Initiative und geht in den Wald, um nach einem Unterschlupf zu suchen. Sie stößt auf einen alten Güterwagen. Irgendetwas sagt Shmoop, dass dies der Ort sein könnte, wo die Boxcar-Kinder ihren Namen herhaben. Jessie rennt zurück zu den anderen Kindern und erzählt ihnen vom Güterwagen. Der Sturm steht bevor, also machen sie sich durch den Wald auf den Weg. Es beginnt zu regnen, bevor sie den Güterwagen erreichen. Jessie und Henry kommen als Erste an und rollen das schwere Tor zurück. Als der Sturm in vollem Gange ist, verbringen die Boxcar-Kinder einfach ihre Zeit im Güterwagen. Violet erklärt den leeren, alten Güterwagen für absolut perfekt. Klar, Violet, wie du meinst. Schließlich endet der Sturm und die Kinder kommen aus dem Wald heraus. Es ist wirklich schön dort. Jessie schlägt vor, dass sie dort leben sollten; der Güterwagen könnte ihr Haus sein. Benny möchte nicht im Güterwagen leben, weil er befürchtet, dass eine Lokomotive vorbeikommen und dagegen fahren wird. Und außerdem ist es ein Güterwagen. Henry erklärt, dass der Güterwagen verlassen wurde und die Strecke nicht mehr benutzt wird. Henry ist voll und ganz damit einverstanden, im Güterwagen zu wohnen. Benny gibt auf und fragt nach dem Abendessen. Rate mal, was auf dem Speiseplan steht? Brot. Benny fängt an zu weinen, weil er sein trauriges Brot-Abendessen hasst. Shmoop fängt an zu denken, dass er der vernünftigste von allen Kindern ist. Henry beschließt, in die Stadt zu gehen und etwas Milch zu besorgen. Er macht sich Sorgen, die Mädchen alleine zu lassen, aber Jessie sagt ihm, er solle sich keine Sorgen machen und dass sie eine Überraschung für ihn haben, wenn er zurückkommt. Als Henry weg ist, erzählt Jessie den anderen Kindern, dass sie in dem Wald einige Blaubeeren gesehen hat. Das ist die Überraschung. Sie wollen gerade Blaubeeren sammeln, als Jessie hört, wie etwas im Wald Lärm macht. Oh je.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: In the course of time Mr. Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active and healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly; and when he was confined to the chimney-corner he grew grievously irritable. A nothing vexed him; and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into fits. This was especially to be remarked if any one attempted to impose upon, or domineer over, his favourite: he was painfully jealous lest a word should be spoken amiss to him; seeming to have got into his head the notion that, because he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to do him an ill-turn. It was a disadvantage to the lad; for the kinder among us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his partiality; and that humouring was rich nourishment to the child's pride and black tempers. Still it became in a manner necessary; twice, or thrice, Hindley's manifestation of scorn, while his father was near, roused the old man to a fury: he seized his stick to strike him, and shook with rage that he could not do it. At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living answer by teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit of land himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr. Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said--'Hindley was nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered.' I hoped heartily we should have peace now. It hurt me to think the master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed. I fancied the discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements; as he would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people--Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay, up yonder. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. By his knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he gained. He was relentless in worrying him about his soul's concerns, and about ruling his children rigidly. He encouraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate; and, night after night, he regularly grumbled out a long string of tales against Heathcliff and Catherine: always minding to flatter Earnshaw's weakness by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter. Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener in a day: from the hour she came down-stairs till the hour she went to bed, we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mischief. Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going--singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild, wicked slip she was--but she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish: and, after all, I believe she meant no harm; for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort her. She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than any of us on his account. In play, she liked exceedingly to act the little mistress; using her hands freely, and commanding her companions: she did so to me, but I would not bear slapping and ordering; and so I let her know. Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he had always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing condition than he was in his prime. His peevish reproofs wakened in her a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look, and her ready words; turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule, baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most--showing how her pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over Heathcliff than his kindness: how the boy would do _her_ bidding in anything, and _his_ only when it suited his own inclination. After behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to make it up at night. 'Nay, Cathy,' the old man would say, 'I cannot love thee, thou'rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and ask God's pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared thee!' That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was sorry for her faults, and beg to be forgiven. But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw's troubles on earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the fire-side. A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all together--I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally sat in the house then, after their work was done). Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she leant against her father's knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. I remember the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair--it pleased him rarely to see her gentle--and saying, 'Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?' And she turned her face up to his, and laughed, and answered, 'Why cannot you always be a good man, father?' But as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said she would sing him to sleep. She began singing very low, till his fingers dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast. Then I told her to hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him. We all kept as mute as mice a full half-hour, and should have done so longer, only Joseph, having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must rouse the master for prayers and bed. He stepped forward, and called him by name, and touched his shoulder; but he would not move: so he took the candle and looked at him. I thought there was something wrong as he set down the light; and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them to 'frame up-stairs, and make little din--they might pray alone that evening--he had summut to do.' 'I shall bid father good-night first,' said Catherine, putting her arms round his neck, before we could hinder her. The poor thing discovered her loss directly--she screamed out--'Oh, he's dead, Heathcliff! he's dead!' And they both set up a heart-breaking cry. I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter; but Joseph asked what we could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven. He told me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the parson. I could not guess the use that either would be of, then. However, I went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor, back with me; the other said he would come in the morning. Leaving Joseph to explain matters, I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they had never lain down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we were all there safe together. Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral; and--a thing that amazed us, and set the neighbours gossiping right and left--he brought a wife with him. What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the union from his father. She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own account. Every object she saw, the moment she crossed the threshold, appeared to delight her; and every circumstance that took place about her: except the preparing for the burial, and the presence of the mourners. I thought she was half silly, from her behaviour while that went on: she ran into her chamber, and made me come with her, though I should have been dressing the children: and there she sat shivering and clasping her hands, and asking repeatedly--'Are they gone yet?' Then she began describing with hysterical emotion the effect it produced on her to see black; and started, and trembled, and, at last, fell a-weeping--and when I asked what was the matter, answered, she didn't know; but she felt so afraid of dying! I imagined her as little likely to die as myself. She was rather thin, but young, and fresh-complexioned, and her eyes sparkled as bright as diamonds. I did remark, to be sure, that mounting the stairs made her breathe very quick; that the least sudden noise set her all in a quiver, and that she coughed troublesomely sometimes: but I knew nothing of what these symptoms portended, and had no impulse to sympathise with her. We don't in general take to foreigners here, Mr. Lockwood, unless they take to us first. Young Earnshaw was altered considerably in the three years of his absence. He had grown sparer, and lost his colour, and spoke and dressed quite differently; and, on the very day of his return, he told Joseph and me we must thenceforth quarter ourselves in the back-kitchen, and leave the house for him. Indeed, he would have carpeted and papered a small spare room for a parlour; but his wife expressed such pleasure at the white floor and huge glowing fireplace, at the pewter dishes and delf-case, and dog-kennel, and the wide space there was to move about in where they usually sat, that he thought it unnecessary to her comfort, and so dropped the intention. She expressed pleasure, too, at finding a sister among her new acquaintance; and she prattled to Catherine, and kissed her, and ran about with her, and gave her quantities of presents, at the beginning. Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish, Hindley became tyrannical. A few words from her, evincing a dislike to Heathcliff, were enough to rouse in him all his old hatred of the boy. He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of doors instead; compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the farm. Heathcliff bore his degradation pretty well at first, because Cathy taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields. They both promised fair to grow up as rude as savages; the young master being entirely negligent how they behaved, and what they did, so they kept clear of him. He would not even have seen after their going to church on Sundays, only Joseph and the curate reprimanded his carelessness when they absented themselves; and that reminded him to order Heathcliff a flogging, and Catherine a fast from dinner or supper. But it was one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day, and the after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at. The curate might set as many chapters as he pleased for Catherine to get by heart, and Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till his arm ached; they forgot everything the minute they were together again: at least the minute they had contrived some naughty plan of revenge; and many a time I've cried to myself to watch them growing more reckless daily, and I not daring to speak a syllable, for fear of losing the small power I still retained over the unfriended creatures. One Sunday evening, it chanced that they were banished from the sitting-room, for making a noise, or a light offence of the kind; and when I went to call them to supper, I could discover them nowhere. We searched the house, above and below, and the yard and stables; they were invisible: and, at last, Hindley in a passion told us to bolt the doors, and swore nobody should let them in that night. The household went to bed; and I, too, anxious to lie down, opened my lattice and put my head out to hearken, though it rained: determined to admit them in spite of the prohibition, should they return. In a while, I distinguished steps coming up the road, and the light of a lantern glimmered through the gate. I threw a shawl over my head and ran to prevent them from waking Mr. Earnshaw by knocking. There was Heathcliff, by himself: it gave me a start to see him alone. 'Where is Miss Catherine?' I cried hurriedly. 'No accident, I hope?' 'At Thrushcross Grange,' he answered; 'and I would have been there too, but they had not the manners to ask me to stay.' 'Well, you will catch it!' I said: 'you'll never be content till you're sent about your business. What in the world led you wandering to Thrushcross Grange?' 'Let me get off my wet clothes, and I'll tell you all about it, Nelly,' he replied. I bid him beware of rousing the master, and while he undressed and I waited to put out the candle, he continued--'Cathy and I escaped from the wash-house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see whether the Lintons passed their Sunday evenings standing shivering in corners, while their father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing, and burning their eyes out before the fire. Do you think they do? Or reading sermons, and being catechised by their manservant, and set to learn a column of Scripture names, if they don't answer properly?' 'Probably not,' I responded. 'They are good children, no doubt, and don't deserve the treatment you receive, for your bad conduct.' 'Don't cant, Nelly,' he said: 'nonsense! We ran from the top of the Heights to the park, without stopping--Catherine completely beaten in the race, because she was barefoot. You'll have to seek for her shoes in the bog to-morrow. We crept through a broken hedge, groped our way up the path, and planted ourselves on a flower-plot under the drawing-room window. The light came from thence; they had not put up the shutters, and the curtains were only half closed. Both of us were able to look in by standing on the basement, and clinging to the ledge, and we saw--ah! it was beautiful--a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with little soft tapers. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there; Edgar and his sisters had it entirely to themselves. Shouldn't they have been happy? We should have thought ourselves in heaven! And now, guess what your good children were doing? Isabella--I believe she is eleven, a year younger than Cathy--lay screaming at the farther end of the room, shrieking as if witches were running red-hot needles into her. Edgar stood on the hearth weeping silently, and in the middle of the table sat a little dog, shaking its paw and yelping; which, from their mutual accusations, we understood they had nearly pulled in two between them. The idiots! That was their pleasure! to quarrel who should hold a heap of warm hair, and each begin to cry because both, after struggling to get it, refused to take it. We laughed outright at the petted things; we did despise them! When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted? or find us by ourselves, seeking entertainment in yelling, and sobbing, and rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room? I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange--not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the house-front with Hindley's blood!' 'Hush, hush!' I interrupted. 'Still you have not told me, Heathcliff, how Catherine is left behind?' 'I told you we laughed,' he answered. 'The Lintons heard us, and with one accord they shot like arrows to the door; there was silence, and then a cry, "Oh, mamma, mamma! Oh, papa! Oh, mamma, come here. Oh, papa, oh!" They really did howl out something in that way. We made frightful noises to terrify them still more, and then we dropped off the ledge, because somebody was drawing the bars, and we felt we had better flee. I had Cathy by the hand, and was urging her on, when all at once she fell down. "Run, Heathcliff, run!" she whispered. "They have let the bull-dog loose, and he holds me!" The devil had seized her ankle, Nelly: I heard his abominable snorting. She did not yell out--no! she would have scorned to do it, if she had been spitted on the horns of a mad cow. I did, though: I vociferated curses enough to annihilate any fiend in Christendom; and I got a stone and thrust it between his jaws, and tried with all my might to cram it down his throat. A beast of a servant came up with a lantern, at last, shouting--"Keep fast, Skulker, keep fast!" He changed his note, however, when he saw Skulker's game. The dog was throttled off; his huge, purple tongue hanging half a foot out of his mouth, and his pendent lips streaming with bloody slaver. The man took Cathy up; she was sick: not from fear, I'm certain, but from pain. He carried her in; I followed, grumbling execrations and vengeance. "What prey, Robert?" hallooed Linton from the entrance. "Skulker has caught a little girl, sir," he replied; "and there's a lad here," he added, making a clutch at me, "who looks an out-and-outer! Very like the robbers were for putting them through the window to open the doors to the gang after all were asleep, that they might murder us at their ease. Hold your tongue, you foul-mouthed thief, you! you shall go to the gallows for this. Mr. Linton, sir, don't lay by your gun." "No, no, Robert," said the old fool. "The rascals knew that yesterday was my rent-day: they thought to have me cleverly. Come in; I'll furnish them a reception. There, John, fasten the chain. Give Skulker some water, Jenny. To beard a magistrate in his stronghold, and on the Sabbath, too! Where will their insolence stop? Oh, my dear Mary, look here! Don't be afraid, it is but a boy--yet the villain scowls so plainly in his face; would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts as well as features?" He pulled me under the chandelier, and Mrs. Linton placed her spectacles on her nose and raised her hands in horror. The cowardly children crept nearer also, Isabella lisping--"Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He's exactly like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant. Isn't he, Edgar?" 'While they examined me, Cathy came round; she heard the last speech, and laughed. Edgar Linton, after an inquisitive stare, collected sufficient wit to recognise her. They see us at church, you know, though we seldom meet them elsewhere. "That's Miss Earnshaw?" he whispered to his mother, "and look how Skulker has bitten her--how her foot bleeds!" '"Miss Earnshaw? Nonsense!" cried the dame; "Miss Earnshaw scouring the country with a gipsy! And yet, my dear, the child is in mourning--surely it is--and she may be lamed for life!" '"What culpable carelessness in her brother!" exclaimed Mr. Linton, turning from me to Catherine. "I've understood from Shielders"' (that was the curate, sir) '"that he lets her grow up in absolute heathenism. But who is this? Where did she pick up this companion? Oho! I declare he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to Liverpool--a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway." '"A wicked boy, at all events," remarked the old lady, "and quite unfit for a decent house! Did you notice his language, Linton? I'm shocked that my children should have heard it." 'I recommenced cursing--don't be angry, Nelly--and so Robert was ordered to take me off. I refused to go without Cathy; he dragged me into the garden, pushed the lantern into my hand, assured me that Mr. Earnshaw should be informed of my behaviour, and, bidding me march directly, secured the door again. The curtains were still looped up at one corner, and I resumed my station as spy; because, if Catherine had wished to return, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a million of fragments, unless they let her out. She sat on the sofa quietly. Mrs. Linton took off the grey cloak of the dairy-maid which we had borrowed for our excursion, shaking her head and expostulating with her, I suppose: she was a young lady, and they made a distinction between her treatment and mine. Then the woman-servant brought a basin of warm water, and washed her feet; and Mr. Linton mixed a tumbler of negus, and Isabella emptied a plateful of cakes into her lap, and Edgar stood gaping at a distance. Afterwards, they dried and combed her beautiful hair, and gave her a pair of enormous slippers, and wheeled her to the fire; and I left her, as merry as she could be, dividing her food between the little dog and Skulker, whose nose she pinched as he ate; and kindling a spark of spirit in the vacant blue eyes of the Lintons--a dim reflection from her own enchanting face. I saw they were full of stupid admiration; she is so immeasurably superior to them--to everybody on earth, is she not, Nelly?' 'There will more come of this business than you reckon on,' I answered, covering him up and extinguishing the light. 'You are incurable, Heathcliff; and Mr. Hindley will have to proceed to extremities, see if he won't.' My words came truer than I desired. The luckless adventure made Earnshaw furious. And then Mr. Linton, to mend matters, paid us a visit himself on the morrow, and read the young master such a lecture on the road he guided his family, that he was stirred to look about him, in earnest. Heathcliff received no flogging, but he was told that the first word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure a dismissal; and Mrs. Earnshaw undertook to keep her sister-in-law in due restraint when she returned home; employing art, not force: with force she would have found it impossible. Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks: till Christmas. By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The mistress visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and flattery, which she took readily; so that, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there 'lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit, which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in. Hindley lifted her from her horse, exclaiming delightedly, 'Why, Cathy, you are quite a beauty! I should scarcely have known you: you look like a lady now. Isabella Linton is not to be compared with her, is she, Frances?' 'Isabella has not her natural advantages,' replied his wife: 'but she must mind and not grow wild again here. Ellen, help Miss Catherine off with her things--Stay, dear, you will disarrange your curls--let me untie your hat.' I removed the habit, and there shone forth beneath a grand plaid silk frock, white trousers, and burnished shoes; and, while her eyes sparkled joyfully when the dogs came bounding up to welcome her, she dared hardly touch them lest they should fawn upon her splendid garments. She kissed me gently: I was all flour making the Christmas cake, and it would not have done to give me a hug; and then she looked round for Heathcliff. Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw watched anxiously their meeting; thinking it would enable them to judge, in some measure, what grounds they had for hoping to succeed in separating the two friends. Heathcliff was hard to discover, at first. If he were careless, and uncared for, before Catherine's absence, he had been ten times more so since. Nobody but I even did him the kindness to call him a dirty boy, and bid him wash himself, once a week; and children of his age seldom have a natural pleasure in soap and water. Therefore, not to mention his clothes, which had seen three months' service in mire and dust, and his thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally beclouded. He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a rough-headed counterpart of himself, as he expected. 'Is Heathcliff not here?' she demanded, pulling off her gloves, and displaying fingers wonderfully whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors. 'Heathcliff, you may come forward,' cried Mr. Hindley, enjoying his discomfiture, and gratified to see what a forbidding young blackguard he would be compelled to present himself. 'You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants.' Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend in his concealment, flew to embrace him; she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the second, and then stopped, and drawing back, burst into a laugh, exclaiming, 'Why, how very black and cross you look! and how--how funny and grim! But that's because I'm used to Edgar and Isabella Linton. Well, Heathcliff, have you forgotten me?' She had some reason to put the question, for shame and pride threw double gloom over his countenance, and kept him immovable. 'Shake hands, Heathcliff,' said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly; 'once in a way that is permitted.' 'I shall not,' replied the boy, finding his tongue at last; 'I shall not stand to be laughed at. I shall not bear it!' And he would have broken from the circle, but Miss Cathy seized him again. 'I did not mean to laugh at you,' she said; 'I could not hinder myself: Heathcliff, shake hands at least! What are you sulky for? It was only that you looked odd. If you wash your face and brush your hair, it will be all right: but you are so dirty!' She gazed concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her own, and also at her dress; which she feared had gained no embellishment from its contact with his. 'You needn't have touched me!' he answered, following her eye and snatching away his hand. 'I shall be as dirty as I please: and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty.' With that he dashed headforemost out of the room, amid the merriment of the master and mistress, and to the serious disturbance of Catherine; who could not comprehend how her remarks should have produced such an exhibition of bad temper. After playing lady's-maid to the new-comer, and putting my cakes in the oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires, befitting Christmas-eve, I prepared to sit down and amuse myself by singing carols, all alone; regardless of Joseph's affirmations that he considered the merry tunes I chose as next door to songs. He had retired to private prayer in his chamber, and Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw were engaging Missy's attention by sundry gay trifles bought for her to present to the little Lintons, as an acknowledgment of their kindness. They had invited them to spend the morrow at Wuthering Heights, and the invitation had been accepted, on one condition: Mrs. Linton begged that her darlings might be kept carefully apart from that 'naughty swearing boy.' Under these circumstances I remained solitary. I smelt the rich scent of the heating spices; and admired the shining kitchen utensils, the polished clock, decked in holly, the silver mugs ranged on a tray ready to be filled with mulled ale for supper; and above all, the speckless purity of my particular care--the scoured and well-swept floor. I gave due inward applause to every object, and then I remembered how old Earnshaw used to come in when all was tidied, and call me a cant lass, and slip a shilling into my hand as a Christmas-box; and from that I went on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff, and his dread lest he should suffer neglect after death had removed him: and that naturally led me to consider the poor lad's situation now, and from singing I changed my mind to crying. It struck me soon, however, there would be more sense in endeavouring to repair some of his wrongs than shedding tears over them: I got up and walked into the court to seek him. He was not far; I found him smoothing the glossy coat of the new pony in the stable, and feeding the other beasts, according to custom. 'Make haste, Heathcliff!' I said, 'the kitchen is so comfortable; and Joseph is up-stairs: make haste, and let me dress you smart before Miss Cathy comes out, and then you can sit together, with the whole hearth to yourselves, and have a long chatter till bedtime.' He proceeded with his task, and never turned his head towards me. 'Come--are you coming?' I continued. 'There's a little cake for each of you, nearly enough; and you'll need half-an-hour's donning.' I waited five minutes, but getting no answer left him. Catherine supped with her brother and sister-in-law: Joseph and I joined at an unsociable meal, seasoned with reproofs on one side and sauciness on the other. His cake and cheese remained on the table all night for the fairies. He managed to continue work till nine o'clock, and then marched dumb and dour to his chamber. Cathy sat up late, having a world of things to order for the reception of her new friends: she came into the kitchen once to speak to her old one; but he was gone, and she only stayed to ask what was the matter with him, and then went back. In the morning he rose early; and, as it was a holiday, carried his ill-humour on to the moors; not re-appearing till the family were departed for church. Fasting and reflection seemed to have brought him to a better spirit. He hung about me for a while, and having screwed up his courage, exclaimed abruptly--'Nelly, make me decent, I'm going to be good.' 'High time, Heathcliff,' I said; 'you _have_ grieved Catherine: she's sorry she ever came home, I daresay! It looks as if you envied her, because she is more thought of than you.' The notion of _envying_ Catherine was incomprehensible to him, but the notion of grieving her he understood clearly enough. 'Did she say she was grieved?' he inquired, looking very serious. 'She cried when I told her you were off again this morning.' 'Well, _I_ cried last night,' he returned, 'and I had more reason to cry than she.' 'Yes: you had the reason of going to bed with a proud heart and an empty stomach,' said I. 'Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. But, if you be ashamed of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she comes in. You must go up and offer to kiss her, and say--you know best what to say; only do it heartily, and not as if you thought her converted into a stranger by her grand dress. And now, though I have dinner to get ready, I'll steal time to arrange you so that Edgar Linton shall look quite a doll beside you: and that he does. You are younger, and yet, I'll be bound, you are taller and twice as broad across the shoulders; you could knock him down in a twinkling; don't you feel that you could?' Heathcliff's face brightened a moment; then it was overcast afresh, and he sighed. 'But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn't make him less handsome or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!' 'And cried for mamma at every turn,' I added, 'and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain. Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! Come to the glass, and I'll let you see what you should wish. Do you mark those two lines between your eyes; and those thick brows, that, instead of rising arched, sink in the middle; and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies? Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes. Don't get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its dessert, and yet hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers.' 'In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton's great blue eyes and even forehead,' he replied. 'I do--and that won't help me to them.' 'A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,' I continued, 'if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking--tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!' So I chattered on; and Heathcliff gradually lost his frown and began to look quite pleasant, when all at once our conversation was interrupted by a rumbling sound moving up the road and entering the court. He ran to the window and I to the door, just in time to behold the two Lintons descend from the family carriage, smothered in cloaks and furs, and the Earnshaws dismount from their horses: they often rode to church in winter. Catherine took a hand of each of the children, and brought them into the house and set them before the fire, which quickly put colour into their white faces. I urged my companion to hasten now and show his amiable humour, and he willingly obeyed; but ill luck would have it that, as he opened the door leading from the kitchen on one side, Hindley opened it on the other. They met, and the master, irritated at seeing him clean and cheerful, or, perhaps, eager to keep his promise to Mrs. Linton, shoved him back with a sudden thrust, and angrily bade Joseph 'keep the fellow out of the room--send him into the garret till dinner is over. He'll be cramming his fingers in the tarts and stealing the fruit, if left alone with them a minute.' 'Nay, sir,' I could not avoid answering, 'he'll touch nothing, not he: and I suppose he must have his share of the dainties as well as we.' 'He shall have his share of my hand, if I catch him downstairs till dark,' cried Hindley. 'Begone, you vagabond! What! you are attempting the coxcomb, are you? Wait till I get hold of those elegant locks--see if I won't pull them a bit longer!' 'They are long enough already,' observed Master Linton, peeping from the doorway; 'I wonder they don't make his head ache. It's like a colt's mane over his eyes!' He ventured this remark without any intention to insult; but Heathcliff's violent nature was not prepared to endure the appearance of impertinence from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a rival. He seized a tureen of hot apple sauce (the first thing that came under his grip) and dashed it full against the speaker's face and neck; who instantly commenced a lament that brought Isabella and Catherine hurrying to the place. Mr. Earnshaw snatched up the culprit directly and conveyed him to his chamber; where, doubtless, he administered a rough remedy to cool the fit of passion, for he appeared red and breathless. I got the dishcloth, and rather spitefully scrubbed Edgar's nose and mouth, affirming it served him right for meddling. His sister began weeping to go home, and Cathy stood by confounded, blushing for all. 'You should not have spoken to him!' she expostulated with Master Linton. 'He was in a bad temper, and now you've spoilt your visit; and he'll be flogged: I hate him to be flogged! I can't eat my dinner. Why did you speak to him, Edgar?' 'I didn't,' sobbed the youth, escaping from my hands, and finishing the remainder of the purification with his cambric pocket-handkerchief. 'I promised mamma that I wouldn't say one word to him, and I didn't.' 'Well, don't cry,' replied Catherine, contemptuously; 'you're not killed. Don't make more mischief; my brother is coming: be quiet! Hush, Isabella! Has anybody hurt you?' 'There, there, children--to your seats!' cried Hindley, bustling in. 'That brute of a lad has warmed me nicely. Next time, Master Edgar, take the law into your own fists--it will give you an appetite!' The little party recovered its equanimity at sight of the fragrant feast. They were hungry after their ride, and easily consoled, since no real harm had befallen them. Mr. Earnshaw carved bountiful platefuls, and the mistress made them merry with lively talk. I waited behind her chair, and was pained to behold Catherine, with dry eyes and an indifferent air, commence cutting up the wing of a goose before her. 'An unfeeling child,' I thought to myself; 'how lightly she dismisses her old playmate's troubles. I could not have imagined her to be so selfish.' She lifted a mouthful to her lips: then she set it down again: her cheeks flushed, and the tears gushed over them. She slipped her fork to the floor, and hastily dived under the cloth to conceal her emotion. I did not call her unfeeling long; for I perceived she was in purgatory throughout the day, and wearying to find an opportunity of getting by herself, or paying a visit to Heathcliff, who had been locked up by the master: as I discovered, on endeavouring to introduce to him a private mess of victuals. In the evening we had a dance. Cathy begged that he might be liberated then, as Isabella Linton had no partner: her entreaties were vain, and I was appointed to supply the deficiency. We got rid of all gloom in the excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers. They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first-rate treat to hear them. After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs and glees. Mrs. Earnshaw loved the music, and so they gave us plenty. Catherine loved it too: but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of the steps, and she went up in the dark: I followed. They shut the house door below, never noting our absence, it was so full of people. She made no stay at the stairs'-head, but mounted farther, to the garret where Heathcliff was confined, and called him. He stubbornly declined answering for a while: she persevered, and finally persuaded him to hold communion with her through the boards. I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment: then I clambered up the ladder to warn her. Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof, into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could coax her out again. When she did come, Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen, as my fellow-servant had gone to a neighbour's, to be removed from the sound of our 'devil's psalmody,' as it pleased him to call it. I told them I intended by no means to encourage their tricks: but as the prisoner had never broken his fast since yesterday's dinner, I would wink at his cheating Mr. Hindley that once. He went down: I set him a stool by the fire, and offered him a quantity of good things: but he was sick and could eat little, and my attempts to entertain him were thrown away. He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely--'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!' 'For shame, Heathcliff!' said I. 'It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.' 'No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall,' he returned. 'I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain.' 'But, Mr. Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you. I'm annoyed how I should dream of chattering on at such a rate; and your gruel cold, and you nodding for bed! I could have told Heathcliff's history, all that you need hear, in half a dozen words.' * * * * * Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, and proceeded to lay aside her sewing; but I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I was very far from nodding. 'Sit still, Mrs. Dean,' I cried; 'do sit still another half-hour. You've done just right to tell the story leisurely. That is the method I like; and you must finish it in the same style. I am interested in every character you have mentioned, more or less.' 'The clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir.' 'No matter--I'm not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours. One or two is early enough for a person who lies till ten.' 'You shouldn't lie till ten. There's the very prime of the morning gone long before that time. A person who has not done one-half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.' 'Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair; because to-morrow I intend lengthening the night till afternoon. I prognosticate for myself an obstinate cold, at least.' 'I hope not, sir. Well, you must allow me to leap over some three years; during that space Mrs. Earnshaw--' 'No, no, I'll allow nothing of the sort! Are you acquainted with the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss's neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of temper?' 'A terribly lazy mood, I should say.' 'On the contrary, a tiresomely active one. It is mine, at present; and, therefore, continue minutely. I perceive that people in these regions acquire over people in towns the value that a spider in a dungeon does over a spider in a cottage, to their various occupants; and yet the deepened attraction is not entirely owing to the situation of the looker-on. They _do_ live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less in surface, change, and frivolous external things. I could fancy a love for life here almost possible; and I was a fixed unbeliever in any love of a year's standing. One state resembles setting a hungry man down to a single dish, on which he may concentrate his entire appetite and do it justice; the other, introducing him to a table laid out by French cooks: he can perhaps extract as much enjoyment from the whole; but each part is a mere atom in his regard and remembrance.' 'Oh! here we are the same as anywhere else, when you get to know us,' observed Mrs. Dean, somewhat puzzled at my speech. 'Excuse me,' I responded; 'you, my good friend, are a striking evidence against that assertion. Excepting a few provincialisms of slight consequence, you have no marks of the manners which I am habituated to consider as peculiar to your class. I am sure you have thought a great deal more than the generality of servants think. You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering your life away in silly trifles.' Mrs. Dean laughed. 'I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body,' she said; 'not exactly from living among the hills and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from year's end to year's end; but I have undergone sharp discipline, which has taught me wisdom; and then, I have read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood. You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of also: unless it be that range of Greek and Latin, and that of French; and those I know one from another: it is as much as you can expect of a poor man's daughter. However, if I am to follow my story in true gossip's fashion, I had better go on; and instead of leaping three years, I will be content to pass to the next summer--the summer of 1778, that is nearly twenty-three years ago.' Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Mr. Earnshaw's Gesundheit verschlechtert sich und er möchte nichts Schlechtes über Heathcliff hören, was Hindley weiter entfremdet, der weggeschickt wird. Sein Diener Joseph, der ein religiöser Fanatiker ist, hat immer mehr Einfluss auf seinen Herrn. Cathy erkennt nicht die Ernsthaftigkeit des Zustands ihres Vaters und das wird ihr erst bewusst, als er stirbt. Heathcliff tröstet Cathy mit Gesprächen über das Jenseits. Hindley kehrt zur Beerdigung seines Vaters zurück, begleitet von seiner neuen Frau Frances. Er übernimmt sofort die Kontrolle über das Bauernhaus, verlegt die Bediensteten Joseph und Nelly in die hintere Küche und Heathcliff soll keine Bildung erhalten. Er zwingt ihn dazu, ein Bauernarbeiter zu werden. Heathcliff und Cathy sind immer noch in der Lage, der realen Welt zu entfliehen und auf den Mooren zu spielen. Eines Tages verschwindet das Paar und Hindley ordnet an, dass die Türen verschlossen werden, wenn es dunkel wird. Nelly wartet auf sie, aber Heathcliff kehrt allein zurück und sagt, dass Cathy bei Thrushcross Grange ist. Sie waren in den Garten des Grange gegangen, um Edgar und Isabella Linton, die Kinder des Linton-Hauses, zu beobachten und sich über sie lustig zu machen. Sie wurden entdeckt, und der Hund der Lintons biss Cathy und sie konnte nicht entkommen. Ein Diener kam heraus und brachte Cathy ins Grange. Mr. und Mrs. Linton sagen, dass Cathys Verletzung zu schwer ist und dass sie die Nacht im Grange verbringen muss, aber Heathcliff wird weggeschickt. Mr. Linton ruft am nächsten Tag bei Hindley an und tadelte ihn für seine Erziehung seiner Schwester. Hindley entlädt seinen Ärger an Heathcliff und sagt ihm, dass er rausgeworfen wird, wenn er jemals wieder mit Cathy spricht. Cathy bleibt 5 Wochen lang im Grange, währenddessen möchte Mrs. Linton das wilde Mädchen von den Mooren in eine junge Dame verwandeln. Als sie schließlich nach Wuthering Heights zurückkehrt, hat sie eine Veränderung durchgemacht. Sie demütigt Heathcliff vor Hindley, indem sie sagt, dass er schmutzig aussieht und kein Vergleich zu Edgar Linton ist. Heathcliff ist tief verletzt von dieser Beleidigung und von der Veränderung, die bei Cathy stattgefunden hat. Hindley beschließt, die Lintons zum Abendessen einzuladen, und sie stimmen zu, unter der Bedingung, dass Heathcliff von ihren Kindern ferngehalten wird. Hindley stimmt zu. Trotzdem ermutigt Nelly Heathcliff, sich für den Besuch der Lintons zurechtzumachen. Als die Lintons ankommen, wird Heathcliff in die Küche geschickt, aber er belauscht, wie Edgar ihn beleidigt, und er wirft ihm heißen Apfelmus ins Gesicht. Heathcliff wird auf dem Dachboden eingeschlossen. Cathy macht Edgar für Heathcliffs Ärger verantwortlich und nach dem Abendessen schleicht sie sich weg, um Heathcliff zu besuchen. Heathcliff sagt Nelly, dass er sich eines Tages an Hindley rächen werde.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: ACT V. SCENE I. Cyprus. A street. Enter Iago and Roderigo: IAGO. Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he come. Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home. Quick, quick; fear nothing; I'll be at thy elbow. It makes us, or it mars us; think on that, And fix most firm thy resolution. RODERIGO. Be near at hand; I may miscarry in't. IAGO. Here, at thy hand, be bold, and take thy stand. Retires. RODERIGO. I have no great devotion to the deed; And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons. 'Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword; he dies. IAGO. I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense, And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio, Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other, Every way makes my gain. Live Roderigo, He calls me to a restitution large Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him, As gifts to Desdemona; It must not be. If Cassio do remain, He hath a daily beauty in his life That makes me ugly; and besides, the Moor May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril. No, he must die. Be't so. I hear him coming. Enter Cassio. RODERIGO. I know his gait; 'tis he. Villain, thou diest! Makes a pass at Cassio. CASSIO. That thrust had been mine enemy indeed, But that my coat is better than thou know'st; I will make proof of thine. Draws, and wounds Roderigo. RODERIGO. O, I am slain! Iago from behind wounds Cassio in the leg, and exit. CASSIO. I am maim'd forever. Help, ho! Murther! Murther! Falls. Enter Othello. OTHELLO. The voice of Cassio; Iago keeps his word. RODERIGO. O, villain that I am! OTHELLO. It is even so. CASSIO. O, help, ho! Light! A surgeon! OTHELLO. 'Tis he. O brave Iago, honest and just, That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong! Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies dead, And your unblest fate hies. Strumpet, I come! Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted; Thy bed lust-stain'd shall with lust's blood be spotted. Exit. Enter Lodovico and Gratiano. CASSIO. What, ho! No watch? No passage? Murther! Murther! GRATIANO. 'Tis some mischance; the cry is very direful. CASSIO. O, help! LODOVICO. Hark! RODERIGO. O wretched villain! LODOVICO. Two or three groan; it is a heavy night. These may be counterfeits; let's think't unsafe To come in to the cry without more help. RODERIGO. Nobody come? Then shall I bleed to death. LODOVICO. Hark! Re-enter Iago, with a light. GRATIANO. Here's one comes in his shirt, with light and weapons. IAGO. Who's there? Whose noise is this that cries on murther? LODOVICO. We do not know. IAGO. Did not you hear a cry? CASSIO. Here, here! for heaven's sake, help me! IAGO. What's the matter? GRATIANO. This is Othello's ancient, as I take it. LODOVICO. The same indeed; a very valiant fellow. IAGO. What are you here that cry so grievously? CASSIO. Iago? O, I am spoil'd, undone by villains! Give me some help. IAGO. O me, lieutenant! What villains have done this? CASSIO. I think that one of them is hereabout, And cannot make away. IAGO. O treacherous villains! [To Lodovico and Gratiano.] What are you there? Come in and give some help. RODERIGO. O, help me here! CASSIO. That's one of them. IAGO. O murtherous slave! O villain! Stabs Roderigo. RODERIGO. O damn'd Iago! O inhuman dog! IAGO. Kill men i' the dark! Where be these bloody thieves? How silent is this town! Ho! Murther! Murther! What may you be? Are you of good or evil? LODOVICO. As you shall prove us, praise us. IAGO. Signior Lodovico? LODOVICO. He, sir. IAGO. I cry you mercy. Here's Cassio hurt by villains. GRATIANO. Cassio? IAGO. How is't, brother? CASSIO. My leg is cut in two. IAGO. Marry, heaven forbid! Light, gentlemen; I'll bind it with my shirt. Enter Bianca. BIANCA. What is the matter, ho? Who is't that cried? IAGO. Who is't that cried? BIANCA. O my dear Cassio, my sweet Cassio! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio! IAGO. O notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect Who they should be that have thus mangled you? CASSIO. No. GRATIANO. I am sorry to find you thus; I have been to seek you. IAGO. Lend me a garter. So. O, for a chair, To bear him easily hence! BIANCA. Alas, he faints! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio! IAGO. Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash To be a party in this injury. Patience awhile, good Cassio. Come, come; Lend me a light. Know we this face or no? Alas, my friend and my dear countryman Roderigo? No--yes, sure. O heaven! Roderigo. GRATIANO. What, of Venice? IAGO. Even he, sir. Did you know him? GRATIANO. Know him! ay. IAGO. Signior Gratiano? I cry you gentle pardon; These bloody accidents must excuse my manners, That so neglected you. GRATIANO. I am glad to see you. IAGO. How do you, Cassio? O, a chair, a chair! GRATIANO. Roderigo! IAGO. He, he, 'tis he. [A chair brought in.] O, that's well said: the chair. Some good man bear him carefully from hence; I'll fetch the general's surgeon. [To Bianca.] For you, mistress, Save you your labor. He that lies slain here, Cassio, Was my dear friend; what malice was between you? CASSIO. None in the world; nor do I know the man. IAGO. [To Bianca.] What, look you pale? O, bear him out o' the air. Cassio and Roderigo are borne off. Stay you, good gentlemen. Look you pale, mistress? Do you perceive the gastness of her eye? Nay, if you stare, we shall hear more anon. Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her. Do you see, gentlemen? Nay, guiltiness will speak, Though tongues were out of use. Enter Emilia. EMILIA. 'Las, what's the matter? What's the matter, husband? IAGO. Cassio hath here been set on in the dark By Roderigo, and fellows that are 'scaped; He's almost slain, and Roderigo dead. EMILIA. Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio! IAGO. This is the fruit of whoring. Prithee, Emilia, Go know of Cassio where he supp'd tonight. What, do you shake at that? BIANCA. He supp'd at my house; but I therefore shake not. IAGO. O, did he so? I charge you, go with me. EMILIA. Fie, fie upon thee, strumpet! BIANCA. I am no strumpet, but of life as honest As you that thus abuse me. EMILIA. As I! foh! fie upon thee! IAGO. Kind gentlemen, let's go see poor Cassio dress'd. Come, mistress, you must tell's another tale. Emilia, run you to the citadel, And tell my lord and lady what hath happ'd! Will you go on? [Aside.] This is the night That either makes me or fordoes me quite. Exeunt. SCENE II. A bedchamber in the castle. Desdemona in bed asleep; a light burning. Enter Othello. OTHELLO. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul. Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars! It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood, Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow And smooth as monumental alabaster. Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. Put out the light, and then put out the light. If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me; but once put out thy light, Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose, I cannot give it vital growth again, It must needs wither; I'll smell it on the tree. Kisses her. O, balmy breath, that dost almost persuade Justice to break her sword! One more, one more; Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee, And love thee after. One more, and this the last; So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep, But they are cruel tears; this sorrow's heavenly, It strikes where it doth love. She wakes. DESDEMONA. Who's there? Othello? OTHELLO. Ay, Desdemona. DESDEMONA. Will you come to bed, my lord? OTHELLO. Have you pray'd tonight, Desdemona? DESDEMONA. Ay, my lord. OTHELLO. If you bethink yourself of any crime Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace, Solicit for it straight. DESDEMONA. Alas, my lord, what may you mean by that? OTHELLO. Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by. I would not kill thy unprepared spirit. No, heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul. DESDEMONA. Talk you of killing? OTHELLO. Ay, I do. DESDEMONA. Then heaven have mercy on me! OTHELLO. Amen, with all my heart! DESDEMONA. If you say so, I hope you will not kill me. OTHELLO. Hum! DESDEMONA. And yet I fear you, for you are fatal then When your eyes roll so. Why I should fear I know not, Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear. OTHELLO. Think on thy sins. DESDEMONA. They are loves I bear to you. OTHELLO. Ay, and for that thou diest. DESDEMONA. That death's unnatural that kills for loving. Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip? Some bloody passion shakes your very frame. These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope, They do not point on me. OTHELLO. Peace, and be still! DESDEMONA. I will so. What's the matter? OTHELLO. That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee Thou gavest to Cassio. DESDEMONA. No, by my life and soul! Send for the man, and ask him. OTHELLO. Sweet soul, take heed, Take heed of perjury; thou are on thy deathbed. DESDEMONA. Ay, but not yet to die. OTHELLO. Yes, presently: Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin, For to deny each article with oath Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception That I do groan withal. Thou art to die. DESDEMONA. Then Lord have mercy on me! OTHELLO. I say, amen. DESDEMONA. And have you mercy too! I never did Offend you in my life; never loved Cassio But with such general warranty of heaven As I might love. I never gave him token. OTHELLO. By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in 's hand. O perjured woman! Thou dost stone my heart, And makest me call what I intend to do A murther, which I thought a sacrifice. I saw the handkerchief. DESDEMONA. He found it then; I never gave it him. Send for him hither; Let him confess a truth. OTHELLO. He hath confess'd. DESDEMONA. What, my lord? OTHELLO. That he hath used thee. DESDEMONA. How? unlawfully? OTHELLO. Ay. DESDEMONA. He will not say so. OTHELLO. No, his mouth is stopp'd; Honest Iago hath ta'en order for't. DESDEMONA. O, my fear interprets! What, is he dead? OTHELLO. Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge Had stomach for them all. DESDEMONA. Alas, he is betray'd, and I undone! OTHELLO. Out, strumpet! Weep'st thou for him to my face? DESDEMONA. O, banish me, my lord, but kill me not! OTHELLO. Down, strumpet! DESDEMONA. Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight! OTHELLO. Nay, if you strive-- DESDEMONA. But half an hour! OTHELLO. Being done, there is no pause. DESDEMONA. But while I say one prayer! OTHELLO. It is too late. He stifles her. EMILIA. [Within.] My lord, my lord! What, ho! my lord, my lord! OTHELLO. What noise is this? Not dead? not yet quite dead? I that am cruel am yet merciful; I would not have thee linger in thy pain. So, so. EMILIA. [Within.] What, ho! my lord, my lord! OTHELLO. Who's there? EMILIA. [Within.] O, good my lord, I would speak a word with you! OTHELLO. Yes, 'tis Emilia. By and by. She's dead. 'Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's death. The noise was here. Ha! no more moving? Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were't good? I think she stirs again. No. What's best to do? If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife. My wife! My wife! What wife? I have no wife. O, insupportable! O heavy hour! Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe Should yawn at alteration. EMILIA. [Within.] I do beseech you That I may speak with you, O, good my lord! OTHELLO. I had forgot thee. O, come in, Emilia. Soft, by and by. Let me the curtains draw. Where art thou? Unlocks the door. Enter Emilia. What's the matter with thee now? EMILIA. O, my good lord, yonder's foul murthers done! OTHELLO. What, now? EMILIA. But now, my lord. OTHELLO. It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she was wont And makes men mad. EMILIA. Cassio, my lord, hath kill'd a young Venetian Call'd Roderigo. OTHELLO. Roderigo kill'd? And Cassio kill'd? EMILIA. No, Cassio is not kill'd. OTHELLO. Not Cassio kill'd! Then murther's out of tune, And sweet revenge grows harsh. DESDEMONA. O, falsely, falsely murther'd! EMILIA. Alas, what cry is that? OTHELLO. That? what? EMILIA. Out, and alas! That was my lady's voice. Help! help, ho! help! O lady, speak again! Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak! DESDEMONA. A guiltless death I die. EMILIA. O, who hath done this deed? DESDEMONA. Nobody; I myself. Farewell; Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell! Dies. OTHELLO. Why, how should she be murther'd? EMILIA. Alas, who knows? OTHELLO. You heard her say herself, it was not I. EMILIA. She said so; I must needs report the truth. OTHELLO. She's like a liar gone to burning hell; 'Twas I that kill'd her. EMILIA. O, the more angel she, And you the blacker devil! OTHELLO. She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore. EMILIA. Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil. OTHELLO. She was false as water. EMILIA. Thou art rash as fire, to say That she was false. O, she was heavenly true! OTHELLO. Cassio did top her; ask thy husband else. O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell, But that I did proceed upon just grounds To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all. EMILIA. My husband? OTHELLO. Thy husband. EMILIA. That she was false to wedlock? OTHELLO. Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true, If heaven would make me such another world Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, I'ld not have sold her for it. EMILIA. My husband? OTHELLO. Ay, 'twas he that told me first. An honest man he is, and hates the slime That sticks on filthy deeds. EMILIA. My husband? OTHELLO. What needs this iteration, woman? I say thy husband. EMILIA. O mistress, villainy hath made mocks with love! My husband say that she was false! OTHELLO. He, woman; I say thy husband. Dost understand the word? My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago. EMILIA. If he say so, may his pernicious soul Rot half a grain a day! He lies to the heart. She was too fond of her most filthy bargain. OTHELLO. Ha! EMILIA. Do thy worst; This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven Than thou wast worthy her. OTHELLO. Peace, you were best. EMILIA. Thou hast not half that power to do me harm As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt! As ignorant as dirt! Thou hast done a deed-- I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known, Though I lost twenty lives. Help! help, ho! help! The Moor hath kill'd my mistress! Murther, murther! Enter Montano, Gratiano, Iago, and others. MONTANO. What is the matter? How now, general? EMILIA. O, are you come, Iago? You have done well, That men must lay their murthers on your neck. GRATIANO. What is the matter? EMILIA. Disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man. He says thou told'st him that his wife was false; I know thou didst not, thou'rt not such a villain. Speak, for my heart is full. IAGO. I told him what I thought, and told no more Than what he found himself was apt and true. EMILIA. But did you ever tell him she was false? IAGO. I did. EMILIA. You told a lie, an odious, damned lie; Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie! She false with Cassio? Did you say with Cassio? IAGO. With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your tongue. EMILIA. I will not charm my tongue; I am bound to speak. My mistress here lies murther'd in her bed-- ALL. O heavens forfend! EMILIA. And your reports have set the murther on. OTHELLO. Nay, stare not, masters; it is true indeed. GRATIANO. 'Tis a strange truth. MONTANO. O monstrous act! EMILIA. Villainy, villainy, villainy! I think upon't, I think, I smell't, O villainy! I thought so then. I'll kill myself for grief. O villainy, villainy! IAGO. What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home. EMILIA. Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak; 'Tis proper I obey him, but not now. Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home. OTHELLO. O! O! O! Falls on the bed. EMILIA. Nay, lay thee down and roar; For thou hast kill'd the sweetest innocent That e'er did lift up eye. OTHELLO. [Rises.] O, she was foul! I scarce did know you, uncle; there lies your niece, Whose breath indeed these hands have newly stopp'd. I know this act shows horrible and grim. GRATIANO. Poor Desdemon! I am glad thy father's dead. Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief Shore his old thread in twain; did he live now, This sight would make him do a desperate turn, Yea, curse his better angel from his side, And fall to reprobation. OTHELLO. 'Tis pitiful, but yet Iago knows That she with Cassio hath the act of shame A thousand times committed. Cassio confess'd it, And she did gratify his amorous works With that recognizance and pledge of love Which I first gave her. I saw it in his hand, It was a handkerchief, an antique token My father gave my mother. EMILIA. O heaven! O heavenly powers! IAGO. 'Zounds! Hold your peace. EMILIA. 'Twill out, 'twill. I peace? No, I will speak as liberal as the north; Let heaven and men and devils, let them all, All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak. IAGO. Be wise, and get you home. EMILIA. I will not. Iago offers to stab Emilia. GRATIANO. Fie! Your sword upon a woman? EMILIA. O thou dull Moor! That handkerchief thou speak'st of I found by fortune and did give my husband, For often with a solemn earnestness, More than indeed belong'd to such a trifle, He begg'd of me to steal it. IAGO. Villainous whore! EMILIA. She give it Cassio? No, alas, I found it, And I did give't my husband. IAGO. Filth, thou liest! EMILIA. By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen. O murtherous coxcomb! What should such a fool Do with so good a wife? OTHELLO. Are there not stones in heaven But what serve for thunder? Precious villain! He runs at Iago, but Montano disarms him. Iago stabs Emilia. GRATIANO. The woman falls; sure, he hath kill'd his wife. EMILIA. Ay, ay! O, lay me by my mistress' side. Exit Iago. GRATIANO. He's gone, but his wife's kill'd. MONTANO. 'Tis a notorious villain. Take you this weapon, Which I have here recover'd from the Moor. Come, guard the door without; let him not pass, But kill him rather. I'll after that same villain, For 'tis a damned slave. Exeunt all but Othello and Emilia. OTHELLO. I am not valiant neither, But every puny whipster gets my sword. But why should honor outlive honesty? Let it go all. EMILIA. What did thy song bode, lady? Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan, And die in music. [Sings.] "Willow, willow, willow." Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor; So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true; So speaking as I think, I die, I die. Dies. OTHELLO. I have another weapon in this chamber; It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper-- O, here it is. Uncle, I must come forth. GRATIANO. [Within.] If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear. Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer. OTHELLO. Look in upon me then, and speak with me, Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee. Re-enter Gratiano. GRATIANO. What is the matter? OTHELLO. Behold, I have a weapon; A better never did itself sustain Upon a soldier's thigh. I have seen the day That with this little arm and this good sword I have made my way through more impediments Than twenty times your stop. But, O vain boast! Who can control his fate? 'Tis not so now. Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd; Here is my journey's end, here is my butt And very sea-mark of my utmost sail. Do you go back dismay'd? 'Tis a lost fear. Man but a rush against Othello's breast, And he retires. Where should Othello go? Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench! Pale as thy smock! When we shall meet at compt, This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven, And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl? Even like thy chastity. O cursed, cursed slave! Whip me, ye devils, From the possession of this heavenly sight! Blow me about in winds! Roast me in sulphur! Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire! O Desdemon! dead, Desdemon! dead! O! O! O! Enter Lodovico, Montano, Cassio carried in a chair, and Officers with Iago, prisoner. LODOVICO. Where is this rash and most unfortunate man? OTHELLO. That's he that was Othello. Here I am. LODOVICO. Where is that viper? Bring the villain forth. OTHELLO. I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable. If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee. Wounds Iago. LODOVICO. Wrench his sword from him. IAGO. I bleed, sir, but not kill'd. OTHELLO. I am not sorry neither. I'ld have thee live, For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die. LODOVICO. O thou Othello, that wert once so good, Fall'n in the practice of a damned slave, What shall be said to thee? OTHELLO. Why, anything; An honorable murtherer, if you will, For nought did I in hate, but all in honor. LODOVICO. This wretch hath part confess'd his villainy. Did you and he consent in Cassio's death? OTHELLO. Ay. CASSIO. Dear general, I never gave you cause. OTHELLO. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon. Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body? IAGO. Demand me nothing; what you know, you know. From this time forth I never will speak word. LODOVICO. What, not to pray? GRATIANO. Torments will ope your lips. OTHELLO. Well, thou dost best. LODOVICO. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n, Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo, And here another. The one of them imports The death of Cassio to be undertook By Roderigo. OTHELLO. O villain! CASSIO. Most heathenish and most gross! LODOVICO. Now here's another discontented paper, Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems, Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain; But that, belike, Iago in the interim Came in and satisfied him. OTHELLO. O the pernicious caitiff! How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief That was my wife's? CASSIO. I found it in my chamber; And he himself confess'd but even now That there he dropp'd it for a special purpose Which wrought to his desire. OTHELLO. O fool! fool! fool! CASSIO. There is besides in Roderigo's letter, How he upbraids Iago, that he made him Brave me upon the watch, whereon it came That I was cast. And even but now he spake After long seeming dead, Iago hurt him, Iago set him on. LODOVICO. You must forsake this room, and go with us. Your power and your command is taken off, And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave, If there be any cunning cruelty That can torment him much and hold him long, It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest, Till that the nature of your fault be known To the Venetian state. Come, bring away. OTHELLO. Soft you; a word or two before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know't. No more of that. I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinal gum. Set you down this; And say besides, that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog And smote him, thus. Stabs himself. LODOVICO. O bloody period! GRATIANO. All that's spoke is marr'd. OTHELLO. I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee. No way but this, Killing myself, to die upon a kiss. Falls on the bed, and dies. CASSIO. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon; For he was great of heart. LODOVICO. [To Iago.] O Spartan dog, More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea! Look on the tragic loading of this bed; This is thy work. The object poisons sight; Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep the house, And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor, For they succeed on you. To you, Lord Governor, Remains the censure of this hellish villain, The time, the place, the torture. O, enforce it! Myself will straight aboard, and to the state This heavy act with heavy heart relate. Exeunt. THE END Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Zypern. Eine Straße. Iago hat Roderigo bereit und in Position gebracht, um sich auf Cassio zu stürzen und ihn zu töten. Wenn einer von beiden getötet wird, ist dies von Nutzen für Iago, obwohl er es gerne sehen würde, dass beide beseitigt werden, damit seine Pläne nicht entdeckt werden. Roderigo und Cassio kämpfen und beide werden verletzt. Othello hört den Kampf, freut sich und geht dann, um Desdemona fertigzustellen. Iago betritt die Szene und gibt vor, nichts von dem Kampf zu wissen. Gratiano und Lodovico stoßen ebenfalls auf die Szene und haben keine Ahnung, was passiert ist. Roderigo ist immer noch am Leben, also stellt Iago einen Streit vor und tötet ihn. Bianca kommt vorbei und sieht Cassio verwundet. Iago macht eine Bemerkung, um sie zu belasten. Cassio wird weggebracht und Roderigo ist bereits tot. Emilia kommt auch herein und gibt Bianca noch mehr Schuld. Sie hat nichts getan, aber Iago hat viel Arbeit vor sich, wenn er sich in diesem Durcheinander entlasten will. Othello betritt Desdemonas Zimmer, während sie schläft. Und obwohl sie schön ist und unschuldig erscheint, ist er entschlossen, sie zu töten. Er rechtfertigt dies mit Bildern, Metaphern und Vorstellungen von ihrer Wiedergeburt nach dem Tod, und obwohl seine Wut gemildert ist, irrt er sich immer noch sehr über sie. Desdemona erwacht und er sagt ihr, dass sie Buße tun soll für jede Sünde, bevor sie stirbt. Sie glaubt, dass sie nichts tun kann, um ihn davon abzuhalten, sie zu töten, behauptet aber weiterhin ihre Unschuld. Othello erzählt ihr, dass er ihr Taschentuch bei Cassio gefunden hat, obwohl Desdemona darauf besteht, dass es nicht wahr sein kann. Sie fleht Othello an, sie nicht zu töten, aber er beginnt, sie zu ersticken. Emilia klopft neugierig an, um zu erfahren, was vor sich geht. Othello lässt sie herein, versucht aber, Desdemona zu verbergen, von der er denkt, dass sie bereits tot ist. Emilia bringt die Nachricht von Roderigos Tod und Cassios Verwundung. Emilia erfährt bald, dass Desdemona fast tot ist, durch die Hand von Othello. Desdemona sagt ihre letzten Worte und dann fällt Emilia über Othello her und wirft ihm diesen schrecklichen Verbrechen vor. Othello ist erst von seiner Torheit überzeugt, als Iago seine Rolle gesteht und Cassio von der Verwendung des Taschentuchs spricht. Dann wird Othello von Trauer überwältigt. Iago ersticht Emilia, weil sie alles über seine Pläne erzählt hat, und dann stirbt auch Emilia. Die venezianischen Edelleute geben bekannt, dass Brabantio, Desdemonas Vater, gestorben ist und von dieser Tragödie nun nicht mehr betroffen sein kann. Othello ersticht Iago, als er zurückgebracht wird. Othello sagt dann allen Anwesenden, sich daran zu erinnern, wie er ist, und nimmt sich das Leben. Cassio wird vorübergehend zum Anführer der Truppen in Zypern. Lodovico und Gratiano sollen die Nachricht von der Tragödie zurück nach Venedig tragen. Iago wird festgenommen und seine Verbrechen werden in Venedig verurteilt werden.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Other opportunities of making her observations could not fail to occur. Anne had soon been in company with all the four together often enough to have an opinion, though too wise to acknowledge as much at home, where she knew it would have satisfied neither husband nor wife; for while she considered Louisa to be rather the favourite, she could not but think, as far as she might dare to judge from memory and experience, that Captain Wentworth was not in love with either. They were more in love with him; yet there it was not love. It was a little fever of admiration; but it might, probably must, end in love with some. Charles Hayter seemed aware of being slighted, and yet Henrietta had sometimes the air of being divided between them. Anne longed for the power of representing to them all what they were about, and of pointing out some of the evils they were exposing themselves to. She did not attribute guile to any. It was the highest satisfaction to her to believe Captain Wentworth not in the least aware of the pain he was occasioning. There was no triumph, no pitiful triumph in his manner. He had, probably, never heard, and never thought of any claims of Charles Hayter. He was only wrong in accepting the attentions (for accepting must be the word) of two young women at once. After a short struggle, however, Charles Hayter seemed to quit the field. Three days had passed without his coming once to Uppercross; a most decided change. He had even refused one regular invitation to dinner; and having been found on the occasion by Mr Musgrove with some large books before him, Mr and Mrs Musgrove were sure all could not be right, and talked, with grave faces, of his studying himself to death. It was Mary's hope and belief that he had received a positive dismissal from Henrietta, and her husband lived under the constant dependence of seeing him to-morrow. Anne could only feel that Charles Hayter was wise. One morning, about this time Charles Musgrove and Captain Wentworth being gone a-shooting together, as the sisters in the Cottage were sitting quietly at work, they were visited at the window by the sisters from the Mansion-house. It was a very fine November day, and the Miss Musgroves came through the little grounds, and stopped for no other purpose than to say, that they were going to take a long walk, and therefore concluded Mary could not like to go with them; and when Mary immediately replied, with some jealousy at not being supposed a good walker, "Oh, yes, I should like to join you very much, I am very fond of a long walk;" Anne felt persuaded, by the looks of the two girls, that it was precisely what they did not wish, and admired again the sort of necessity which the family habits seemed to produce, of everything being to be communicated, and everything being to be done together, however undesired and inconvenient. She tried to dissuade Mary from going, but in vain; and that being the case, thought it best to accept the Miss Musgroves' much more cordial invitation to herself to go likewise, as she might be useful in turning back with her sister, and lessening the interference in any plan of their own. "I cannot imagine why they should suppose I should not like a long walk," said Mary, as she went up stairs. "Everybody is always supposing that I am not a good walker; and yet they would not have been pleased, if we had refused to join them. When people come in this manner on purpose to ask us, how can one say no?" Just as they were setting off, the gentlemen returned. They had taken out a young dog, who had spoilt their sport, and sent them back early. Their time and strength, and spirits, were, therefore, exactly ready for this walk, and they entered into it with pleasure. Could Anne have foreseen such a junction, she would have staid at home; but, from some feelings of interest and curiosity, she fancied now that it was too late to retract, and the whole six set forward together in the direction chosen by the Miss Musgroves, who evidently considered the walk as under their guidance. Anne's object was, not to be in the way of anybody; and where the narrow paths across the fields made many separations necessary, to keep with her brother and sister. Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves, and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which had drawn from every poet, worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling. She occupied her mind as much as possible in such like musings and quotations; but it was not possible, that when within reach of Captain Wentworth's conversation with either of the Miss Musgroves, she should not try to hear it; yet she caught little very remarkable. It was mere lively chat, such as any young persons, on an intimate footing, might fall into. He was more engaged with Louisa than with Henrietta. Louisa certainly put more forward for his notice than her sister. This distinction appeared to increase, and there was one speech of Louisa's which struck her. After one of the many praises of the day, which were continually bursting forth, Captain Wentworth added:-- "What glorious weather for the Admiral and my sister! They meant to take a long drive this morning; perhaps we may hail them from some of these hills. They talked of coming into this side of the country. I wonder whereabouts they will upset to-day. Oh! it does happen very often, I assure you; but my sister makes nothing of it; she would as lieve be tossed out as not." "Ah! You make the most of it, I know," cried Louisa, "but if it were really so, I should do just the same in her place. If I loved a man, as she loves the Admiral, I would always be with him, nothing should ever separate us, and I would rather be overturned by him, than driven safely by anybody else." It was spoken with enthusiasm. "Had you?" cried he, catching the same tone; "I honour you!" And there was silence between them for a little while. Anne could not immediately fall into a quotation again. The sweet scenes of autumn were for a while put by, unless some tender sonnet, fraught with the apt analogy of the declining year, with declining happiness, and the images of youth and hope, and spring, all gone together, blessed her memory. She roused herself to say, as they struck by order into another path, "Is not this one of the ways to Winthrop?" But nobody heard, or, at least, nobody answered her. Winthrop, however, or its environs--for young men are, sometimes to be met with, strolling about near home--was their destination; and after another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures, where the ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer counteracting the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning to have spring again, they gained the summit of the most considerable hill, which parted Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view of the latter, at the foot of the hill on the other side. Winthrop, without beauty and without dignity, was stretched before them; an indifferent house, standing low, and hemmed in by the barns and buildings of a farm-yard. Mary exclaimed, "Bless me! here is Winthrop. I declare I had no idea! Well now, I think we had better turn back; I am excessively tired." Henrietta, conscious and ashamed, and seeing no cousin Charles walking along any path, or leaning against any gate, was ready to do as Mary wished; but "No!" said Charles Musgrove, and "No, no!" cried Louisa more eagerly, and taking her sister aside, seemed to be arguing the matter warmly. Charles, in the meanwhile, was very decidedly declaring his resolution of calling on his aunt, now that he was so near; and very evidently, though more fearfully, trying to induce his wife to go too. But this was one of the points on which the lady shewed her strength; and when he recommended the advantage of resting herself a quarter of an hour at Winthrop, as she felt so tired, she resolutely answered, "Oh! no, indeed! walking up that hill again would do her more harm than any sitting down could do her good;" and, in short, her look and manner declared, that go she would not. After a little succession of these sort of debates and consultations, it was settled between Charles and his two sisters, that he and Henrietta should just run down for a few minutes, to see their aunt and cousins, while the rest of the party waited for them at the top of the hill. Louisa seemed the principal arranger of the plan; and, as she went a little way with them, down the hill, still talking to Henrietta, Mary took the opportunity of looking scornfully around her, and saying to Captain Wentworth-- "It is very unpleasant, having such connexions! But, I assure you, I have never been in the house above twice in my life." She received no other answer, than an artificial, assenting smile, followed by a contemptuous glance, as he turned away, which Anne perfectly knew the meaning of. The brow of the hill, where they remained, was a cheerful spot: Louisa returned; and Mary, finding a comfortable seat for herself on the step of a stile, was very well satisfied so long as the others all stood about her; but when Louisa drew Captain Wentworth away, to try for a gleaning of nuts in an adjoining hedge-row, and they were gone by degrees quite out of sight and sound, Mary was happy no longer; she quarrelled with her own seat, was sure Louisa had got a much better somewhere, and nothing could prevent her from going to look for a better also. She turned through the same gate, but could not see them. Anne found a nice seat for her, on a dry sunny bank, under the hedge-row, in which she had no doubt of their still being, in some spot or other. Mary sat down for a moment, but it would not do; she was sure Louisa had found a better seat somewhere else, and she would go on till she overtook her. Anne, really tired herself, was glad to sit down; and she very soon heard Captain Wentworth and Louisa in the hedge-row, behind her, as if making their way back along the rough, wild sort of channel, down the centre. They were speaking as they drew near. Louisa's voice was the first distinguished. She seemed to be in the middle of some eager speech. What Anne first heard was-- "And so, I made her go. I could not bear that she should be frightened from the visit by such nonsense. What! would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or of any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it; and Henrietta seemed entirely to have made up hers to call at Winthrop to-day; and yet, she was as near giving it up, out of nonsensical complaisance!" "She would have turned back then, but for you?" "She would indeed. I am almost ashamed to say it." "Happy for her, to have such a mind as yours at hand! After the hints you gave just now, which did but confirm my own observations, the last time I was in company with him, I need not affect to have no comprehension of what is going on. I see that more than a mere dutiful morning visit to your aunt was in question; and woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference in such a trifle as this. Your sister is an amiable creature; but yours is the character of decision and firmness, I see. If you value her conduct or happiness, infuse as much of your own spirit into her as you can. But this, no doubt, you have been always doing. It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm. Here is a nut," said he, catching one down from an upper bough, "to exemplify: a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn. Not a puncture, not a weak spot anywhere. This nut," he continued, with playful solemnity, "while so many of his brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still in possession of all the happiness that a hazel nut can be supposed capable of." Then returning to his former earnest tone--"My first wish for all whom I am interested in, is that they should be firm. If Louisa Musgrove would be beautiful and happy in her November of life, she will cherish all her present powers of mind." He had done, and was unanswered. It would have surprised Anne if Louisa could have readily answered such a speech: words of such interest, spoken with such serious warmth! She could imagine what Louisa was feeling. For herself, she feared to move, lest she should be seen. While she remained, a bush of low rambling holly protected her, and they were moving on. Before they were beyond her hearing, however, Louisa spoke again. "Mary is good-natured enough in many respects," said she; "but she does sometimes provoke me excessively, by her nonsense and pride--the Elliot pride. She has a great deal too much of the Elliot pride. We do so wish that Charles had married Anne instead. I suppose you know he wanted to marry Anne?" After a moment's pause, Captain Wentworth said-- "Do you mean that she refused him?" "Oh! yes; certainly." "When did that happen?" "I do not exactly know, for Henrietta and I were at school at the time; but I believe about a year before he married Mary. I wish she had accepted him. We should all have liked her a great deal better; and papa and mamma always think it was her great friend Lady Russell's doing, that she did not. They think Charles might not be learned and bookish enough to please Lady Russell, and that therefore, she persuaded Anne to refuse him." The sounds were retreating, and Anne distinguished no more. Her own emotions still kept her fixed. She had much to recover from, before she could move. The listener's proverbial fate was not absolutely hers; she had heard no evil of herself, but she had heard a great deal of very painful import. She saw how her own character was considered by Captain Wentworth, and there had been just that degree of feeling and curiosity about her in his manner which must give her extreme agitation. As soon as she could, she went after Mary, and having found, and walked back with her to their former station, by the stile, felt some comfort in their whole party being immediately afterwards collected, and once more in motion together. Her spirits wanted the solitude and silence which only numbers could give. Charles and Henrietta returned, bringing, as may be conjectured, Charles Hayter with them. The minutiae of the business Anne could not attempt to understand; even Captain Wentworth did not seem admitted to perfect confidence here; but that there had been a withdrawing on the gentleman's side, and a relenting on the lady's, and that they were now very glad to be together again, did not admit a doubt. Henrietta looked a little ashamed, but very well pleased;--Charles Hayter exceedingly happy: and they were devoted to each other almost from the first instant of their all setting forward for Uppercross. Everything now marked out Louisa for Captain Wentworth; nothing could be plainer; and where many divisions were necessary, or even where they were not, they walked side by side nearly as much as the other two. In a long strip of meadow land, where there was ample space for all, they were thus divided, forming three distinct parties; and to that party of the three which boasted least animation, and least complaisance, Anne necessarily belonged. She joined Charles and Mary, and was tired enough to be very glad of Charles's other arm; but Charles, though in very good humour with her, was out of temper with his wife. Mary had shewn herself disobliging to him, and was now to reap the consequence, which consequence was his dropping her arm almost every moment to cut off the heads of some nettles in the hedge with his switch; and when Mary began to complain of it, and lament her being ill-used, according to custom, in being on the hedge side, while Anne was never incommoded on the other, he dropped the arms of both to hunt after a weasel which he had a momentary glance of, and they could hardly get him along at all. This long meadow bordered a lane, which their footpath, at the end of it was to cross, and when the party had all reached the gate of exit, the carriage advancing in the same direction, which had been some time heard, was just coming up, and proved to be Admiral Croft's gig. He and his wife had taken their intended drive, and were returning home. Upon hearing how long a walk the young people had engaged in, they kindly offered a seat to any lady who might be particularly tired; it would save her a full mile, and they were going through Uppercross. The invitation was general, and generally declined. The Miss Musgroves were not at all tired, and Mary was either offended, by not being asked before any of the others, or what Louisa called the Elliot pride could not endure to make a third in a one horse chaise. The walking party had crossed the lane, and were surmounting an opposite stile, and the Admiral was putting his horse in motion again, when Captain Wentworth cleared the hedge in a moment to say something to his sister. The something might be guessed by its effects. "Miss Elliot, I am sure you are tired," cried Mrs Croft. "Do let us have the pleasure of taking you home. Here is excellent room for three, I assure you. If we were all like you, I believe we might sit four. You must, indeed, you must." Anne was still in the lane; and though instinctively beginning to decline, she was not allowed to proceed. The Admiral's kind urgency came in support of his wife's; they would not be refused; they compressed themselves into the smallest possible space to leave her a corner, and Captain Wentworth, without saying a word, turned to her, and quietly obliged her to be assisted into the carriage. Yes; he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to give her rest. She was very much affected by the view of his disposition towards her, which all these things made apparent. This little circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before. She understood him. He could not forgive her, but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed. Her answers to the kindness and the remarks of her companions were at first unconsciously given. They had travelled half their way along the rough lane, before she was quite awake to what they said. She then found them talking of "Frederick." "He certainly means to have one or other of those two girls, Sophy," said the Admiral; "but there is no saying which. He has been running after them, too, long enough, one would think, to make up his mind. Ay, this comes of the peace. If it were war now, he would have settled it long ago. We sailors, Miss Elliot, cannot afford to make long courtships in time of war. How many days was it, my dear, between the first time of my seeing you and our sitting down together in our lodgings at North Yarmouth?" "We had better not talk about it, my dear," replied Mrs Croft, pleasantly; "for if Miss Elliot were to hear how soon we came to an understanding, she would never be persuaded that we could be happy together. I had known you by character, however, long before." "Well, and I had heard of you as a very pretty girl, and what were we to wait for besides? I do not like having such things so long in hand. I wish Frederick would spread a little more canvass, and bring us home one of these young ladies to Kellynch. Then there would always be company for them. And very nice young ladies they both are; I hardly know one from the other." "Very good humoured, unaffected girls, indeed," said Mrs Croft, in a tone of calmer praise, such as made Anne suspect that her keener powers might not consider either of them as quite worthy of her brother; "and a very respectable family. One could not be connected with better people. My dear Admiral, that post! we shall certainly take that post." But by coolly giving the reins a better direction herself they happily passed the danger; and by once afterwards judiciously putting out her hand they neither fell into a rut, nor ran foul of a dung-cart; and Anne, with some amusement at their style of driving, which she imagined no bad representation of the general guidance of their affairs, found herself safely deposited by them at the Cottage. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze verfassen?

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Anne hat ihre eigene Meinung zu der Situation, möchte sich jedoch aus dem Drama der Musgroves heraushalten und behält ihre Meinungen für sich. Dennoch glaubt sie in ihrem Innersten, dass Louisa die Nase vorn hat, aber sie glaubt nicht wirklich daran, dass Captain Wentworth eine der Musgrove-Mädchen wirklich liebt. Sie bemerkt auch, dass Charles H. sich aus dem Wettbewerb zurückgezogen hat, und hält dies für eine kluge Entscheidung seinerseits. Die Musgrove-Schwestern besuchen Anne und Mary und sagen, dass sie einen langweiligen und langen Spaziergang machen wollen, dem Mary sicher nicht beitreten möchte, weil er so lang und langweilig sein wird, und haben sie erwähnt, dass er lang ist? Anne vermutet, dass die Schwestern eine Vorhaben haben, für das sie eigentlich keine Gesellschaft möchten, aber Mary besteht darauf, trotzdem mit ihnen mitzugehen. Charles M. und Captain W. kommen in diesem Moment von ihrer morgendlichen Runde des Dingeabschießens zurück und schließen sich ebenfalls der Spaziergangsgruppe an. Auf dem Spaziergang versucht Anne, sich aus dem Weg aller zu halten, damit sie in Ruhe über ihre Sammlung von emotionaler Lyrik nachdenken kann. Captain Wentworth unterhält sich mit den Musgrove-Schwestern, und Anne bemerkt, dass Louisa mehr Aufmerksamkeit von ihm erhält als ihre Schwester. Die Erwähnung der Angewohnheit der Crofts, ihren Wagen zu rammen, bewegt Louisa dazu zu sagen, dass sie lieber mit ihrem Freund havarieren würde, als von sonst jemandem sicher gefahren zu werden; Captain Wentworths offensichtliche Freude über diese Darstellung von rücksichtsloser Loyalität beunruhigt Anne. Die Spaziergangsgruppe kommt in Winthrop, dem Zuhause der Hayters, an, das das offensichtliche Ziel der Musgrove-Mädchen zu sein scheint. Henrietta scheint unruhig zu sein, aber Louisa überredet sie dazu, ins Haus zu gehen; Charles M. begleitet sie. Die Gruppe teilt sich weiter auf: Louisa und Wentworth gehen zusammen spazieren und lassen Anne mit der mürrischen Mary zurück. Mary geht Louisa hinterher, von der sie überzeugt ist, dass sie irgendwo Spaß hat, den Mary mit ihr teilen möchte. Während Mary anderswo im Gebüsch herumjammert, hört Anne, unbemerkt, ein Gespräch zwischen Wentworth und Louisa mit. Louisa sagt, dass Henrietta vorher nach Winthrop zurückgekehrt wäre, wenn nicht der Einfluss ihrer entschlosseneren Schwester gewesen wäre. Wentworth lobt Louisa für ihre Entschlossenheit. Das Gespräch dreht sich um Mary, von der Louisa sagt, dass sie zu viel von dem Elliot-Stolz hat und dass die Musgroves wünschen, dass Charles M. anstatt dessen Anne geheiratet hätte. Wentworth ist überrascht zu hören, dass a) Anne einen Heiratsantrag hatte und b) sie ihn abgelehnt hat. Louisa sagt, dass ihre Eltern Lady Russell die Schuld geben, dass sie Anne überredet hat, dass Charles M. nicht klug genug für sie sei. Die Spaziergangsgruppe kommt wieder zusammen, und Henrietta bringt Charles H. mit; der Status des Paares hat sich anscheinend von "es ist kompliziert" zu "in einer Beziehung" geändert. Sie setzen den Spaziergang zu zweit fort: Henrietta und Charles H., Louisa und Wentworth und Mary und Charles M...und Anne. Mary jammert weiter darüber, wie schwierig es ist, sie selbst zu sein, und Charles zieht sich so schnell wie möglich zurück und lässt die erschöpfte Anne ohne Armstütze zurück. Die Gruppe trifft auf die Crofts in ihrem Pferdewagen. Die Crofts haben nur noch Platz für eine weitere Person und bieten an, eine Mitfahrgelegenheit für die am meisten erschöpfte Dame anzubieten, aber niemand nimmt das Angebot an. Sie sind gerade dabei zu gehen, als Wentworth ihnen etwas zuflüstert und sie darauf bestehen, dass Anne mitkommt. Bevor Anne Zeit hat, zu widersprechen, hat Wentworth ihr in den Wagen geholfen. Für Anne ist diese Geste voller Bedeutung: Sie glaubt, dass er ihr nicht verziehen hat, aber es ihm zumindest wichtig ist, ob sie lebt oder stirbt - oder in diesem Fall geht oder fährt. Als sie endlich ihre eigenen Gedanken hinter sich lässt und wieder in das Gespräch der Crofts einsteigt, sprechen sie auch von Wentworth, sind aber immer noch in dem gestrigen Argument darüber, welche Musgrove-Schwester er wählen wird, gefangen. Die Crofts sprechen von ihrer eigenen überstürzten Hochzeit und fragen sich, warum Wentworth nicht einfach eine von ihnen schnappt und ab nach Vegas geht. Der Admiral ist dabei, den Wagen gegen einen Pfosten zu fahren, aber Mrs. Croft übernimmt die Zügel und führt sie sicher. Anne denkt, dass so ihre Ehe funktioniert, mit Mrs. Croft, die ihren Ehemann durch seine Fehler lenkt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: LONELINESS He was the son of Mrs. Al Robinson who once owned a farm on a side road leading off Trunion Pike, east of Winesburg and two miles beyond the town limits. The farmhouse was painted brown and the blinds to all of the windows facing the road were kept closed. In the road before the house a flock of chickens, accompanied by two guinea hens, lay in the deep dust. Enoch lived in the house with his mother in those days and when he was a young boy went to school at the Winesburg High School. Old citizens remembered him as a quiet, smiling youth inclined to silence. He walked in the middle of the road when he came into town and sometimes read a book. Drivers of teams had to shout and swear to make him realize where he was so that he would turn out of the beaten track and let them pass. When he was twenty-one years old Enoch went to New York City and was a city man for fifteen years. He studied French and went to an art school, hoping to develop a faculty he had for drawing. In his own mind he planned to go to Paris and to finish his art education among the masters there, but that never turned out. Nothing ever turned out for Enoch Robinson. He could draw well enough and he had many odd delicate thoughts hidden away in his brain that might have expressed themselves through the brush of a painter, but he was always a child and that was a handicap to his worldly development. He never grew up and of course he couldn't understand people and he couldn't make people understand him. The child in him kept bumping against things, against actualities like money and sex and opinions. Once he was hit by a street car and thrown against an iron post. That made him lame. It was one of the many things that kept things from turning out for Enoch Robinson. In New York City, when he first went there to live and before he became confused and disconcerted by the facts of life, Enoch went about a good deal with young men. He got into a group of other young artists, both men and women, and in the evenings they sometimes came to visit him in his room. Once he got drunk and was taken to a police station where a police magistrate frightened him horribly, and once he tried to have an affair with a woman of the town met on the sidewalk before his lodging house. The woman and Enoch walked together three blocks and then the young man grew afraid and ran away. The woman had been drinking and the incident amused her. She leaned against the wall of a building and laughed so heartily that another man stopped and laughed with her. The two went away together, still laughing, and Enoch crept off to his room trembling and vexed. The room in which young Robinson lived in New York faced Washington Square and was long and narrow like a hallway. It is important to get that fixed in your mind. The story of Enoch is in fact the story of a room almost more than it is the story of a man. And so into the room in the evening came young Enoch's friends. There was nothing particularly striking about them except that they were artists of the kind that talk. Everyone knows of the talking artists. Throughout all of the known history of the world they have gathered in rooms and talked. They talk of art and are passionately, almost feverishly, in earnest about it. They think it matters much more than it does. And so these people gathered and smoked cigarettes and talked and Enoch Robinson, the boy from the farm near Winesburg, was there. He stayed in a corner and for the most part said nothing. How his big blue childlike eyes stared about! On the walls were pictures he had made, crude things, half finished. His friends talked of these. Leaning back in their chairs, they talked and talked with their heads rocking from side to side. Words were said about line and values and composition, lots of words, such as are always being said. Enoch wanted to talk too but he didn't know how. He was too excited to talk coherently. When he tried he sputtered and stammered and his voice sounded strange and squeaky to him. That made him stop talking. He knew what he wanted to say, but he knew also that he could never by any possibility say it. When a picture he had painted was under discussion, he wanted to burst out with something like this: "You don't get the point," he wanted to explain; "the picture you see doesn't consist of the things you see and say words about. There is something else, something you don't see at all, something you aren't intended to see. Look at this one over here, by the door here, where the light from the window falls on it. The dark spot by the road that you might not notice at all is, you see, the beginning of everything. There is a clump of elders there such as used to grow beside the road before our house back in Winesburg, Ohio, and in among the elders there is something hidden. It is a woman, that's what it is. She has been thrown from a horse and the horse has run away out of sight. Do you not see how the old man who drives a cart looks anxiously about? That is Thad Grayback who has a farm up the road. He is taking corn to Winesburg to be ground into meal at Comstock's mill. He knows there is something in the elders, something hidden away, and yet he doesn't quite know. "It's a woman you see, that's what it is! It's a woman and, oh, she is lovely! She is hurt and is suffering but she makes no sound. Don't you see how it is? She lies quite still, white and still, and the beauty comes out from her and spreads over everything. It is in the sky back there and all around everywhere. I didn't try to paint the woman, of course. She is too beautiful to be painted. How dull to talk of composition and such things! Why do you not look at the sky and then run away as I used to do when I was a boy back there in Winesburg, Ohio?" That is the kind of thing young Enoch Robinson trembled to say to the guests who came into his room when he was a young fellow in New York City, but he always ended by saying nothing. Then he began to doubt his own mind. He was afraid the things he felt were not getting expressed in the pictures he painted. In a half indignant mood he stopped inviting people into his room and presently got into the habit of locking the door. He began to think that enough people had visited him, that he did not need people any more. With quick imagination he began to invent his own people to whom he could really talk and to whom he explained the things he had been unable to explain to living people. His room began to be inhabited by the spirits of men and women among whom he went, in his turn saying words. It was as though everyone Enoch Robinson had ever seen had left with him some essence of himself, something he could mould and change to suit his own fancy, something that understood all about such things as the wounded woman behind the elders in the pictures. The mild, blue-eyed young Ohio boy was a complete egotist, as all children are egotists. He did not want friends for the quite simple reason that no child wants friends. He wanted most of all the people of his own mind, people with whom he could really talk, people he could harangue and scold by the hour, servants, you see, to his fancy. Among these people he was always self-confident and bold. They might talk, to be sure, and even have opinions of their own, but always he talked last and best. He was like a writer busy among the figures of his brain, a kind of tiny blue-eyed king he was, in a six-dollar room facing Washington Square in the city of New York. Then Enoch Robinson got married. He began to get lonely and to want to touch actual flesh-and-bone people with his hands. Days passed when his room seemed empty. Lust visited his body and desire grew in his mind. At night strange fevers, burning within, kept him awake. He married a girl who sat in a chair next to his own in the art school and went to live in an apartment house in Brooklyn. Two children were born to the woman he married, and Enoch got a job in a place where illustrations are made for advertisements. That began another phase of Enoch's life. He began to play at a new game. For a while he was very proud of himself in the role of producing citizen of the world. He dismissed the essence of things and played with realities. In the fall he voted at an election and he had a newspaper thrown on his porch each morning. When in the evening he came home from work he got off a streetcar and walked sedately along behind some business man, striving to look very substantial and important. As a payer of taxes he thought he should post himself on how things are run. "I'm getting to be of some moment, a real part of things, of the state and the city and all that," he told himself with an amusing miniature air of dignity. Once, coming home from Philadelphia, he had a discussion with a man met on a train. Enoch talked about the advisability of the government's owning and operating the railroads and the man gave him a cigar. It was Enoch's notion that such a move on the part of the government would be a good thing, and he grew quite excited as he talked. Later he remembered his own words with pleasure. "I gave him something to think about, that fellow," he muttered to himself as he climbed the stairs to his Brooklyn apartment. To be sure, Enoch's marriage did not turn out. He himself brought it to an end. He began to feel choked and walled in by the life in the apartment, and to feel toward his wife and even toward his children as he had felt concerning the friends who once came to visit him. He began to tell little lies about business engagements that would give him freedom to walk alone in the street at night and, the chance offering, he secretly re-rented the room facing Washington Square. Then Mrs. Al Robinson died on the farm near Winesburg, and he got eight thousand dollars from the bank that acted as trustee of her estate. That took Enoch out of the world of men altogether. He gave the money to his wife and told her he could not live in the apartment any more. She cried and was angry and threatened, but he only stared at her and went his own way. In reality the wife did not care much. She thought Enoch slightly insane and was a little afraid of him. When it was quite sure that he would never come back, she took the two children and went to a village in Connecticut where she had lived as a girl. In the end she married a man who bought and sold real estate and was contented enough. And so Enoch Robinson stayed in the New York room among the people of his fancy, playing with them, talking to them, happy as a child is happy. They were an odd lot, Enoch's people. They were made, I suppose, out of real people he had seen and who had for some obscure reason made an appeal to him. There was a woman with a sword in her hand, an old man with a long white beard who went about followed by a dog, a young girl whose stockings were always coming down and hanging over her shoe tops. There must have been two dozen of the shadow people, invented by the child-mind of Enoch Robinson, who lived in the room with him. And Enoch was happy. Into the room he went and locked the door. With an absurd air of importance he talked aloud, giving instructions, making comments on life. He was happy and satisfied to go on making his living in the advertising place until something happened. Of course something did happen. That is why he went back to live in Winesburg and why we know about him. The thing that happened was a woman. It would be that way. He was too happy. Something had to come into his world. Something had to drive him out of the New York room to live out his life an obscure, jerky little figure, bobbing up and down on the streets of an Ohio town at evening when the sun was going down behind the roof of Wesley Moyer's livery barn. About the thing that happened. Enoch told George Willard about it one night. He wanted to talk to someone, and he chose the young newspaper reporter because the two happened to be thrown together at a time when the younger man was in a mood to understand. Youthful sadness, young man's sadness, the sadness of a growing boy in a village at the year's end, opened the lips of the old man. The sadness was in the heart of George Willard and was without meaning, but it appealed to Enoch Robinson. It rained on the evening when the two met and talked, a drizzly wet October rain. The fruition of the year had come and the night should have been fine with a moon in the sky and the crisp sharp promise of frost in the air, but it wasn't that way. It rained and little puddles of water shone under the street lamps on Main Street. In the woods in the darkness beyond the Fair Ground water dripped from the black trees. Beneath the trees wet leaves were pasted against tree roots that protruded from the ground. In gardens back of houses in Winesburg dry shriveled potato vines lay sprawling on the ground. Men who had finished the evening meal and who had planned to go uptown to talk the evening away with other men at the back of some store changed their minds. George Willard tramped about in the rain and was glad that it rained. He felt that way. He was like Enoch Robinson on the evenings when the old man came down out of his room and wandered alone in the streets. He was like that only that George Willard had become a tall young man and did not think it manly to weep and carry on. For a month his mother had been very ill and that had something to do with his sadness, but not much. He thought about himself and to the young that always brings sadness. Enoch Robinson and George Willard met beneath a wooden awning that extended out over the sidewalk before Voight's wagon shop on Maumee Street just off the main street of Winesburg. They went together from there through the rain-washed streets to the older man's room on the third floor of the Heffner Block. The young reporter went willingly enough. Enoch Robinson asked him to go after the two had talked for ten minutes. The boy was a little afraid but had never been more curious in his life. A hundred times he had heard the old man spoken of as a little off his head and he thought himself rather brave and manly to go at all. From the very beginning, in the street in the rain, the old man talked in a queer way, trying to tell the story of the room in Washington Square and of his life in the room. "You'll understand if you try hard enough," he said conclusively. "I have looked at you when you went past me on the street and I think you can understand. It isn't hard. All you have to do is to believe what I say, just listen and believe, that's all there is to it." It was past eleven o'clock that evening when old Enoch, talking to George Willard in the room in the Heffner Block, came to the vital thing, the story of the woman and of what drove him out of the city to live out his life alone and defeated in Winesburg. He sat on a cot by the window with his head in his hand and George Willard was in a chair by a table. A kerosene lamp sat on the table and the room, although almost bare of furniture, was scrupulously clean. As the man talked George Willard began to feel that he would like to get out of the chair and sit on the cot also. He wanted to put his arms about the little old man. In the half darkness the man talked and the boy listened, filled with sadness. "She got to coming in there after there hadn't been anyone in the room for years," said Enoch Robinson. "She saw me in the hallway of the house and we got acquainted. I don't know just what she did in her own room. I never went there. I think she was a musician and played a violin. Every now and then she came and knocked at the door and I opened it. In she came and sat down beside me, just sat and looked about and said nothing. Anyway, she said nothing that mattered." The old man arose from the cot and moved about the room. The overcoat he wore was wet from the rain and drops of water kept falling with a soft thump on the floor. When he again sat upon the cot George Willard got out of the chair and sat beside him. "I had a feeling about her. She sat there in the room with me and she was too big for the room. I felt that she was driving everything else away. We just talked of little things, but I couldn't sit still. I wanted to touch her with my fingers and to kiss her. Her hands were so strong and her face was so good and she looked at me all the time." The trembling voice of the old man became silent and his body shook as from a chill. "I was afraid," he whispered. "I was terribly afraid. I didn't want to let her come in when she knocked at the door but I couldn't sit still. 'No, no,' I said to myself, but I got up and opened the door just the same. She was so grown up, you see. She was a woman. I thought she would be bigger than I was there in that room." Enoch Robinson stared at George Willard, his childlike blue eyes shining in the lamplight. Again he shivered. "I wanted her and all the time I didn't want her," he explained. "Then I began to tell her about my people, about everything that meant anything to me. I tried to keep quiet, to keep myself to myself, but I couldn't. I felt just as I did about opening the door. Sometimes I ached to have her go away and never come back any more." The old man sprang to his feet and his voice shook with excitement. "One night something happened. I became mad to make her understand me and to know what a big thing I was in that room. I wanted her to see how important I was. I told her over and over. When she tried to go away, I ran and locked the door. I followed her about. I talked and talked and then all of a sudden things went to smash. A look came into her eyes and I knew she did understand. Maybe she had understood all the time. I was furious. I couldn't stand it. I wanted her to understand but, don't you see, I couldn't let her understand. I felt that then she would know everything, that I would be submerged, drowned out, you see. That's how it is. I don't know why." The old man dropped into a chair by the lamp and the boy listened, filled with awe. "Go away, boy," said the man. "Don't stay here with me any more. I thought it might be a good thing to tell you but it isn't. I don't want to talk any more. Go away." George Willard shook his head and a note of command came into his voice. "Don't stop now. Tell me the rest of it," he commanded sharply. "What happened? Tell me the rest of the story." Enoch Robinson sprang to his feet and ran to the window that looked down into the deserted main street of Winesburg. George Willard followed. By the window the two stood, the tall awkward boy-man and the little wrinkled man-boy. The childish, eager voice carried forward the tale. "I swore at her," he explained. "I said vile words. I ordered her to go away and not to come back. Oh, I said terrible things. At first she pretended not to understand but I kept at it. I screamed and stamped on the floor. I made the house ring with my curses. I didn't want ever to see her again and I knew, after some of the things I said, that I never would see her again." The old man's voice broke and he shook his head. "Things went to smash," he said quietly and sadly. "Out she went through the door and all the life there had been in the room followed her out. She took all of my people away. They all went out through the door after her. That's the way it was." George Willard turned and went out of Enoch Robinson's room. In the darkness by the window, as he went through the door, he could hear the thin old voice whimpering and complaining. "I'm alone, all alone here," said the voice. "It was warm and friendly in my room but now I'm all alone." Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Ein Großteil von Enoch Robinsons Geschichte spielt in New York City, aber "Einsamkeit" gehört aus zwei Gründen zu Winesburg, Ohio. Erstens ist Enoch Robinson, wie die meisten Menschen in Winesburg, eine einsame Person. In seinem Fall wird seine Einsamkeit teilweise durch seine Hingabe zur Kunst verursacht. Mit einundzwanzig flüchtete er aus Winesburg in der Hoffnung, einen Ort zu finden, an dem er besser zurechtkommen würde, aber er fühlt sich auch nicht in New York City zuhause. Wie Anderson sagt, konnte Enoch "die Menschen nicht verstehen und die Menschen konnten ihn nicht verstehen." Daher hat Enoch die Tür seines gemieteten Zimmers verschlossen und seine Isolation mit phantastischen Kreaturen seiner Vorstellungskraft bevölkert; er ist durch seine Kunst isoliert und mit seiner Kunst; er ist eine weitere einsame Groteske. Ein weiterer Grund, warum "Einsamkeit" zu dieser Sammlung von Geschichten gehört, ist, dass Enoch im Alter von 36 Jahren nach Winesburg zurückkehrte und der letzte Teil seiner Geschichte eine lange Erklärung an George Willard über seine Rückkehr ist. Wir erfahren, dass Enoch seine Kunst nach einiger Zeit in der Stadt aufgegeben hat. Er heiratete, wurde Wähler und Arbeiter; "er fand Arbeit an einem Ort, an dem Illustrationen für Werbeanzeigen hergestellt werden," sagt Anderson, der es klingen lässt wie etwas Verachtenswertes und Ehrverletzendes. Es wird uns mitgeteilt: "Zwei Kinder wurden von der Frau, die er geheiratet hatte, geboren", als ob Enoch nicht beteiligt wäre. Und in der Tat war er das auch nicht wirklich. Enoch spielte eine Rolle und begann sich erstickt und eingeschlossen in seiner Wohnung zu fühlen. Also verließ Enoch seine Frau und kehrte in sein gemietetes Zimmer zurück. Dort lernte er jedoch eine andere Frau kennen, die ihn schließlich verließ und all seine imaginären Phantome mit sich nahm. Also kehrte Enoch frustriert und besiegt nach Winesburg zurück. In dieser Geschichte versucht Anderson offenbar, uns zu zeigen, wie ein Künstler ist. Er beschreibt Enoch als "jungen Mann", weil er offenbar selbst genug romantisch und platonisch war, um zu glauben, dass ein Kind empfindsamer und fantasievoller ist als ein Erwachsener. Die Frau, die Enoch nach Winesburg zurücktrieb, wird als "zu groß für das Zimmer" und "so erwachsen" beschrieben. Sie war es, diese personifizierte Erwachsene, die all seine "Leute" weggenommen hat. Von Enoch bleibt nur "eine dünne alte Stimme" übrig, die sich beschwert: "Es war warm und freundlich in meinem Zimmer, aber jetzt bin ich ganz allein." Wenn man diese Geschichte aufmerksam liest, erkennt man, dass ihre Stärke in ihrer Subtilität und ihrer Andeutung liegt. Nehmen wir zum Beispiel, was sich wie eine irrelevante Einzelheit anhört - dass Enoch von einer Straßenbahn erfasst und gelähmt wurde. Aber ist eine solche Einzelheit irrelevant, oder deutet Anderson an, dass Industrialisierung und Mechanisierung den Künstler zerstören - oder zumindest verstümmeln? Oder betrachten wir die Tatsache, dass Enochs billiges gemietetes Zimmer "lang und schmal wie ein Korridor" ist. Deutet Anderson an, dass das Zimmer unpraktisch und unbequem ist, oder deutet er an, dass die Welt des Künstlers ein magischer Ort ist, der ihn zu neuen Welten führt, ein Korridor, der viele Türen zum Öffnen hat. Wenn man über Andersons Subtilität spekuliert, kann man sich an Enochs Beschreibung eines seiner Gemälde erinnern: "Das Bild, das du siehst, besteht nicht aus den Dingen, über die du sprichst. Es gibt noch etwas anderes, etwas, das du überhaupt nicht siehst", und während Enoch über dieses Gemälde spricht, beginnt man zu erkennen, dass das, was er in das Bild hineingesteckt hat, weniger wichtig ist als das, was er weggelassen hat. Anderson selbst kultivierte die Kunst des Weglassens. In dieser Geschichte sehen wir den jungen George Willard, der Enoch Robinson eifrig zuhört und den alten Mann sogar auffordert, seine Geschichte fortzusetzen. Georges Mitgefühl und Interesse an dieser Stelle des Buches stehen im Gegensatz zu seiner Angst, sich mit Wing Biddlebaum zu engagieren. Wir erkennen, dass George sich entwickelt, dass er anfängt, Kate Swifts Ratschlag zu befolgen und herauszufinden, worüber die Leute nachdenken. George versucht, sich auf das Schreiben vorzubereiten.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Als Isabel mit ihrem Geliebten durch die Cascine spazierte, fühlte sie keinen Impuls, ihm zu sagen, wie wenig er im Palazzo Crescentini genehmigt wurde. Der diskrete Widerstand, den ihre Tante und ihre Cousine ihrer Ehe entgegenbrachten, machte im Großen und Ganzen keinen großen Eindruck auf sie. Die Moral daraus war einfach, dass sie Gilbert Osmond nicht mochten. Diese Abneigung beunruhigte Isabel nicht; sie bedauerte sie kaum. Denn sie betonte nur noch stärker die Tatsache, dass sie aus eigener Überzeugung heiratete. Andere Dinge tat man, um andere Leute zufriedenzustellen; dies tat sie jedoch zur persönlichen Befriedigung. Und Isabels Befriedigung wurde durch das bewundernswerte Verhalten ihres Geliebten bestärkt. Gilbert Osmond war verliebt, und nie zuvor hatte er weniger verdient als in diesen stillen, hellen Tagen, von denen jeder einzeln gezählt wurde und die der Erfüllung seiner Hoffnungen vorangingen, der harschen Kritik, die ihm Ralph Touchett mitgeteilt hatte. Der Hauptindruck, den diese Kritik auf Isabels Geist hinterlassen hatte, war, dass die Leidenschaft der Liebe ihr Opfer furchtbar von allen anderen außer dem geliebten Objekt trennte. Sie fühlte sich von allen Menschen, die sie jemals gekannt hatte, abgeschnitten - von ihren beiden Schwestern, die schrieben, um die hoffnungsvolle Erwartung zum Ausdruck zu bringen, dass sie glücklich sein würde, und sich etwas verwundert darüber zu äußern, dass sie sich nicht einen Gefährten ausgewählt hatte, der der Held einer reicheren Ansammlung von Anekdoten war; von Henrietta, die mit Sicherheit zu spät herauskommen würde, um zu ermahnen; von Lord Warburton, der sich sicherlich trösten würde, und von Caspar Goodwood, der es vielleicht nicht tun würde; von ihrer Tante, die kalte, oberflächliche Vorstellungen von der Ehe hatte, worüber sie nicht traurig war, ihren Verachtung zu zeigen; und von Ralph, dessen Reden über großartige Pläne für sie sicherlich nichts weiter als eine exzentrische Enttäuschung verdeckten. Ralph schien offensichtlich nicht zu wollen, dass sie überhaupt heiratete - das war es, worum es eigentlich ging - weil er sich an den Abenteuern freute, die sie als alleinstehende Frau erlebte. Seine Enttäuschung veranlasste ihn, böse Dinge über den Mann zu sagen, den sie sogar ihm vorgezogen hatte: Isabel flatterte sich ein, dass sie glaubte, dass Ralph wütend gewesen war. Es war für sie umso leichter, das zu glauben, weil, wie gesagt, sie jetzt kaum noch ungenutzte Gefühle für geringere Bedürfnisse hatte und die Vorstellung, dass sie Gilbert Osmond so wie sie ihn bevorzugte, zwangsläufig alle anderen Bindungen brechen würde, als einen Vorfall, ja sogar als Schmuck ihres Schicksals betrachtete. Sie kostete von den Freuden dieser Priorität und sie machten sie sich fast ehrfürchtig bewusst über die neidische und unaufhaltsame Flut der bezauberten und besessenen Verfassung, so groß war die traditionelle Ehre und zugeschriebene Tugend, in Liebe zu sein. Es war der tragische Teil des Glücks; das eigene Recht war immer das Unrecht eines anderen. Das Hochgefühl des Erfolgs, das sicherlich in Osmond jetzt hoch aufleuchtete, gab in der Zwischenzeit für so brilliantes Feuer sehr wenig Rauch ab. Zufriedenheit nahm bei ihm keine vulgäre Form an; Aufregung war bei dem selbstbewusstesten der Männer eine Art Ekstase der Selbstbeherrschung. Diese Veranlagung aber machte ihn zu einem bewundernswerten Liebhaber; sie verschaffte ihm einen ständigen Blick auf den verzauberten und hingebungsvollen Zustand. Er vergaß sich selbst nie, wie gesagt; und deshalb vergaß er auch nie, anmutig und zärtlich zu sein und den Anschein - was in der Tat keine Schwierigkeit bereitete - von erregten Sinnen und tiefen Absichten zu erwecken. Er war unendlich erfreut über seine junge Dame; Madame Merle hatte ihm ein unschätzbares Geschenk gemacht. Was konnte es Schöneres geben, als einen hochgesinnten Geist in Harmonie mit Sanftheit zu leben? Denn würde nicht die Sanftheit nur für einen selbst sein und die Anstrengung für die Gesellschaft, die die Aura der Überlegenheit bewunderte? Was könnte ein glücklicheres Geschenk in einem Begleiter sein als ein schneller, phantasievoller Geist, der einem Wiederholungen erspart und die Gedanken auf einer polierten, eleganten Oberfläche widerspiegelt? Osmond hasste es, dass seine Gedanken wortwörtlich wiedergegeben wurden - das machte sie altbacken und dumm; er zog es vor, dass sie in der Reproduktion frisch werden, so wie "Worte" durch Musik. Sein Egoismus hatte niemals die rohe Form, eine langweilige Ehefrau zu wünschen; das Intelligenz von dieser Dame sollte ein Silberteller sein, kein irdener - ein Teller, auf dem er reife Früchte anhäufen konnte, dem er einen dekorativen Wert verleihen konnte, so dass das Gespräch für ihn eine Art serviertes Dessert wurde. In Isabel fand er diese silberne Qualität vollkommen; er konnte mit seinen Fingern auf ihre Vorstellungskraft klopfen und sie klingen lassen. Er wusste dies perfekt, obwohl man es ihm nicht gesagt hatte, dass ihre Verbindung bei den Verwandten des Mädchens wenig Zustimmung fand; aber er hatte sie immer als unabhängige Person behandelt, so dass es kaum notwendig schien, Bedauern über die Haltung ihrer Familie zum Ausdruck zu bringen. Dennoch machte er eines Morgens einen abrupten Hinweis darauf. "Es ist der Unterschied in unserem Vermögen, den sie nicht mögen", sagte er. "Sie denken, ich sei in dich und dein Geld verliebt." "Sprichst du von meiner Tante - von meiner Cousine?" fragte Isabel. "Woher weißt du, was sie denken?" "Du hast mir nicht erzählt, dass sie erfreut sind, und als ich Mrs. Touchett neulich schrieb, beantwortete sie meinen Brief nicht. Wenn sie begeistert gewesen wären, hätte ich irgendein Zeichen dafür bekommen, und die Tatsache, dass ich arm bin und du reich, ist die offensichtlichste Erklärung für ihr Schweigen. Aber natürlich muss sich ein armer Mann, der ein reiches Mädchen heiratet, auf Unterstellungen gefasst machen. Es macht mir nichts aus; mir liegt nur eine Sache am Herzen - dass du nicht den geringsten Zweifel hast. Ich kümmere mich nicht darum, was Leute denken, von denen ich nichts verlange - ich bin vielleicht nicht einmal fähig, es wissen zu wollen. Ich habe mich bisher nie so sehr interessiert, Gott vergib mir, und warum sollte ich heute anfangen, wo ich mir eine Entschädigung für alles gesucht habe? Ich werde nicht vorgeben, dass es mir leid tut, dass du reich bist; ich bin begeistert. Ich freue mich über alles, was dir gehört - sei es Geld oder Tugend. Geld ist eine schreckliche Sache, wenn man ihm nachjagt, aber eine bezaubernde Sache, wenn man es trifft. Es scheint mir jedoch, dass ich die Grenzen meines Verlangens ausreichend bewiesen habe: Ich habe in meinem Leben nie versucht, einen Penny zu verdienen, und ich sollte weniger verdächtig sein als die meisten Menschen, die man dabei sieht, wie sie sich abmühen und sich etwas schnappen. Ich glaube, es ist ihre Angelegenheit zu vermuten - die deiner Familie; es ist im Großen und Ganzen angemessen, dass sie es tun sollten. Sie werden mich eines Tages mehr mögen - dich übrigens auch. In der Zwischenzeit besteht meine Aufgabe nicht darin, schlechtes Blut zu machen, sondern einfach dankbar für das Leben und die Liebe zu sein." "Du hast aus mir eine bessere Person gemacht, indem du mich liebst", sagte er zu einem anderen Zeitpunkt; "du hast mich weiser und gelassener, und - ich werde nicht abstreiten - strahlender und liebenswerter und sogar stärker gemacht. Früher wollte ich viele Dinge und ärgerte mich, dass ich sie nicht hatte. Theoretisch war ich, wie ich dir einmal gesagt habe, zufrieden. Ich Sie hatten viele Pläne gemacht, aber sie ließen sich auch viel Spielraum; es war selbstverständlich, dass sie vorerst in Italien leben würden. In Italien hatten sie sich kennengelernt, Italien war Zeuge ihrer ersten Eindrücke voneinander gewesen und Italien sollte auch Zeuge ihres Glücks sein. Osmond hatte die Bindung an alte Bekanntschaften und Isabel den Reiz des Neuen, was ihr eine Zukunft auf einem hohen Niveau des Bewusstseins für das Schöne zu versprechen schien. Das Verlangen nach unbegrenzter Expansion war in ihrer Seele einem Gefühl gewichen, dass das Leben leer sei, ohne eine private Pflicht, die die eigenen Energien bündeln könnte. Sie hatte Ralph gesagt, dass sie "das Leben" in ein oder zwei Jahren gesehen habe und dass sie bereits müde sei, nicht vom Leben selbst, sondern von der bloßen Beobachtung. Was war aus all ihren Leidenschaften, ihren Ambitionen, ihren Theorien, ihrer hohen Einschätzung ihrer Unabhängigkeit und ihrer anfänglichen Überzeugung geworden, niemals zu heiraten? Diese Dinge waren in einem primitiveren Bedürfnis aufgegangen - einem Bedürfnis, dessen Antwort unzählige Fragen beiseite schob und unendliche Wünsche erfüllte. Es vereinfachte die Situation auf einen Schlag, es kam von oben wie das Licht der Sterne und es bedurfte keiner Erklärung. Die Tatsache, dass er ihr Geliebter war, ihr eigener, und dass sie ihm von Nutzen sein konnte, war Erklärung genug. Sie konnte sich ihm mit einer Art von Demut hingeben, ihn mit einer Art von Stolz heiraten; sie nahm nicht nur, sie gab. Er brachte Pansy zwei- oder dreimal mit in den Cascine - Pansy, die kaum größer war als im Vorjahr und nicht viel älter. Dass sie immer ein Kind bleiben würde, war die Überzeugung ihres Vaters, der sie an der Hand hielt, als sie sechzehn Jahre alt war, und ihr sagte, sie solle spielen gehen, während er sich ein wenig mit der hübschen Dame hinsetzte. Pansy trug ein kurzes Kleid und einen langen Mantel; ihr Hut schien ihr immer zu groß zu sein. Sie hatte Vergnügen daran, mit schnellen, kurzen Schritten bis ans Ende der Allee zu gehen und dann mit einem Lächeln zurückzukommen, das eine Art von Zustimmung zu suchen schien. Isabel war voller Zustimmung und diese Zustimmung hatte den persönlichen Touch, den das liebevolle Naturell des Kindes suchte. Sie beobachtete ihre Anzeichen, als ob auch für sie selbst viel davon abhängen würde - Pansy stellte bereits einen Teil des Dienstes dar, den sie leisten konnte, und einen Teil der Verantwortung, der sie sich stellen konnte. Ihr Vater hatte eine so kindische Sicht auf sie, dass er ihr die neue Beziehung, in der er zur eleganten Miss Archer stand, noch nicht erklärt hatte. "Sie weiß es nicht", sagte er zu Isabel; "sie ahnt es nicht; sie findet es ganz natürlich, dass du und ich zusammen hierher gehen, einfach als gute Freunde. Darin liegt etwas entzückend Unschuldiges, so mag ich es, dass sie ist. Nein, ich bin kein Misserfolg, wie ich früher dachte; ich habe in zwei Dingen Erfolg gehabt. Ich werde die Frau heiraten, die ich liebe, und ich habe mein Kind, wie ich es wollte, nach der alten Art erzogen." In allem war er sehr an der "alten Art" interessiert; das hatte Isabel als eine seiner feinen, ruhigen und aufrichtigen Eigenschaften angesehen. "Es fällt mir ein, dass du nicht wissen wirst, ob du Erfolg hattest, bis du es ihr gesagt hast", sagte sie. "Du musst sehen, wie sie die Nachricht aufnimmt. Sie könnte entsetzt sein - sie könnte eifersüchtig sein." "Davor habe ich keine Angst; sie hat dich viel zu gern um ihretwillen. Ich würde es gerne noch etwas länger geheim halten - um zu sehen, ob ihr der Gedanke kommt, dass wir, wenn wir nicht verlobt sind, es sein sollten." Isabel war beeindruckt von Osmonds künstlerischer, plastischer Sichtweise, wie es ihr anscheinend vorkam, auf Pansys Unschuld - ihre eigene Wertschätzung davon war eher besorgt moralisch. Sie war vielleicht umso mehr erfreut, als er ihr ein paar Tage später erzählte, dass er die Tatsache seiner Tochter mitgeteilt hatte, die eine so hübsche kleine Rede gehalten hatte - "Oh, dann werde ich eine wunderschöne Schwester haben!" Sie war weder überrascht noch beunruhigt; sie hatte nicht geweint, wie er erwartet hatte. "Vielleicht hat sie es geahnt", sagte Isabel. "Sag das nicht; das würde mich abstossen, wenn ich das glauben würde. Ich dachte, es wäre nur ein kleiner Schock; aber wie sie es aufgenommen hat, beweist, dass ihre gute Erziehung überwiegt. Das ist auch das, was ich wollte. Du wirst es selbst sehen; morgen wird sie dir persönlich gratulieren." Das Treffen am nächsten Tag fand bei der Gräfin Gemini statt, zu der Pansy von ihrem Vater gebracht wurde, der wusste, dass Isabel am Nachmittag einen Besuch machen würde, um einen Besuch zu erwidern, den die Gräfin ihr gemacht hatte, nachdem sie erfahren hatte, dass sie bald Schwägerinnen sein würden. Bei Casa Touchett hatte der Besucher Isabel nicht Zuhause angetroffen; aber nachdem unsere junge Frau in das Wohnzimmer der Gräfin geführt worden war, kam Pansy, um zu sagen, dass ihre Tante bald erscheinen würde. Pansy verbrachte den Tag bei dieser Dame, die sie für alt genug hielt, um zu lernen, sich in der Gesellschaft zu bewegen. Isabel war der Ansicht, dass das kleine Mädchen ihrer Verwandten Unterricht in Haltung hätte geben können, und nichts konnte diese Überzeugung besser gerechtfertigt haben als die Art und Weise, wie Pansy sich benahm, während sie zusammen auf die Gräfin warteten. Die Entscheidung ihres Vaters im Jahr zuvor hatte schließlich darin bestanden, sie zurück ins Kloster zu schicken, um die letzten Anmutungen zu empfangen, und Madame Catherine hatte offensichtlich ihre Theorie durchgesetzt, dass Pansy für die große Welt vorbereitet werden sollte. "Papa hat mir gesagt, dass du freundlicherweise zugestimmt hast, ihn zu heiraten", sagte die vorbildliche Schülerin dieser ausgezeichneten Frau. "Das ist sehr erfreulich; ich denke, ihr werdet sehr gut zusammenpassen." "Du denkst, dass ich zu dir passen werde?" "Du wirst sehr gut zu mir passen, aber was ich meine ist, dass du und papa gut zueinander passen werdet. Ihr seid beide so ruhig und ernst. Du bist nicht so ruhig wie er - oder sogar wie Madame Merle; aber du bist ruhiger als viele andere. Er sollte zum Beispiel keine Frau wie meine Tante haben. Sie ist immer in Bewegung, in Aufregung - gerade heute; du wirst es sehen, wenn sie hereinkommt. Sie haben uns im Kloster gesagt, dass es falsch ist, unsere Ältesten zu beurteilen, aber ich denke, es ist nicht schlimm, wenn wir sie wohlwollend beurteilen. Du wirst eine charmante Begleiterin für papa sein." "Ich hoffe auch für dich", sagte Isabel. "Ich spreche absichtlich zuerst von ihm. Ich habe dir bereits gesagt, was ich von dir halte; ich mochte dich von Anfang an. Ich bewundere dich so sehr, dass ich denke, es wird ein Glück sein, dich immer vor mir zu haben. Du wirst mein Vorbild sein, ich werde versuchen, dich nachzuahmen, obwohl ich befürchte, dass es sehr schwach sein wird. Ich freue mich sehr für papa - er brauchte etwas mehr als mich. Ohne dich sehe ich nicht, wie er es bekommen könnte. Du wirst meine Stiefmutter sein, aber wir dürfen dieses Wort nicht verwenden. Sie gelten immer als grausam; aber ich glaube nicht, dass du mich je so viel wie kneifen oder sogar stoßen wirst. Ich habe überhaupt keine Angst." "Mein liebes Pansy", sagte Isabel sanft, "ich werde sehr nett zu dir sein." Eine vage, inkonsequente Vorstellung, dass sie auf eine sonderbare Weise plötzlich darauf angewiesen sein würde, war dazwischengekommen und wirkte wie eine Kälte. "Gut, dann habe ich nichts zu befürchten", erwiderte das Kind mit einem hauch von vorbereiteter Schlagfertigkeit. Welche Unterrichtung sie auch immer gehabt haben mochte, schien es anzudeuten - oder welche Strafen für Nichterfüllung sie fürchtete! Ihre Beschreibung ihrer Tante war nicht falsch; die Gräfin Gemini entfernte sich weiter denn je davon, ihre Flügel eingeklappt zu haben. Sie betrat den Raum mit einem Flattern durch die Luft und küsste Isabel zuerst auf die Stirn und dann auf jede Wange, als ob es sich um ein altes vorgeschriebenes Ritual handelte. Sie zog die Besucherin auf ein Sofa und begann, sie mit verschiedenen Kopfbewegungen anzusehen und zu reden, als würde sie sitzend mit einem Pinsel vor einer Staffelei eine Reihe wohlüberlegter Pinselstriche auf eine bereits skizzierte Komposition von Figuren auftragen. "Wenn du erwartest, dass ich dir gratuliere, muss ich dich um Entschuldigung bitten. Ich nehme nicht an, dass es dir etwas ausmacht, ob ich es tue oder nicht; Ich glaube, du solltest dich nicht darum kümmern - aufgrund deiner Cleverness - um allerlei gewöhnliche Dinge. Aber ich selbst achte darauf, wenn ich Lügen erzähle; Ich erzähle sie nur, wenn ich etwas ziemlich Gutes davon habe. Ich sehe nicht, was ich mit dir gewinnen kann - vor allem, da du mir nicht glauben würdest. Ich mache keine Versprechungen, genauso wenig wie ich Papierblumen oder plüschige Lampenschirme bastle - ich weiß nicht wie. Meine Lampenschirme würden mit Sicherheit Feuer fangen, meine Rosen und meine Lügen wären überlebensgroß. Ich bin sehr froh für mich selbst, dass du Osmond heiraten wirst; aber ich werde nicht vorgeben, dass es mir für dich auch gefällt. Du bist sehr brilliant - du weißt, so spricht man immer von dir; du bist eine Erbin und sehr gutaussehend und originell, nicht banal; daher ist es gut, dich in der Familie zu haben. Unsere Familie ist sehr gut, weißt du; Osmond wird dir das gesagt haben; und meine Mutter war recht außergewöhnlich - sie wurde die amerikanische Corinne genannt. Aber wir sind schrecklich gefallen, denke ich, und vielleicht wirst du uns aufpäppeln. Ich habe großes Vertrauen in dich; es gibt so viele Dinge, über die ich mit dir sprechen möchte. Ich gratuliere nie einem Mädchen zur Heirat; ich finde, sie sollten es irgendwie schaffen, dass es nicht so furchtbar ist wie eine Stahl-Falle. Ich nehme an, Pansy sollte das nicht alles hören; aber deswegen ist sie ja zu mir gekommen - um den Ton der Gesellschaft zu erlernen. Es ist nicht schlimm, wenn sie weiß, welche Schrecken sie erwarten könnten. Als ich erstmals eine Vorstellung davon hatte, dass mein Bruder Absichten mit dir hat, dachte ich daran, dir zu schreiben, um dich in den deutlichsten Worten zu bitten, ihm nicht zuzuhören. Dann dachte ich, es wäre illoyal, und ich hasse alles in der Art. Außerdem, wie gesagt, war ich für mich selbst begeistert; und letztendlich bin ich sehr egoistisch. Übrigens wirst du mich nicht respektieren, nicht im Geringsten, und wir werden niemals vertraut sein. Ich würde es gerne wollen, aber du wirst es nicht tun. Trotzdem werden wir eines Tages bessere Freunde sein, als du anfangs glauben wirst. Mein Mann wird dich besuchen kommen, obwohl er, wie du wahrscheinlich weißt, überhaupt kein Verhältnis zu Osmond hat. Er geht sehr gerne zu hübschen Frauen, aber ich habe keine Angst vor dir. Erstens ist es mir egal, was er tut. Zweitens wirst du keinen Deut auf ihn achten; er wird zu keiner Zeit für dich von Bedeutung sein, und so dumm er auch sein mag, er wird erkennen, dass du nicht die Richtige für ihn bist. Eines Tages, wenn du es ertragen kannst, werde ich dir alles über ihn erzählen. Denkst du, meine Nichte sollte den Raum verlassen? Pansy, geh und übe ein wenig in meinem Ankleidezimmer." "Lass sie bitte bleiben", sagte Isabel. "Ich möchte nichts hören, was Pansy nicht hören darf!" Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Isabel erzählt Gilbert Osmond niemals von der Ablehnung ihrer Familie und ihrer Freunde gegenüber der Ehe. Sie fühlt sich, als müsse sie, um ihn zu lieben, alle anderen Bindungen brechen. Gilbert Osmond ist begeistert von seinem Erfolg. Er glaubt, dass Madame Merle ihm ein enormes Geschenk gemacht hat, indem sie ihm Isabel Archer gegeben hat. Sie ist intelligent genug, um seine eigenen Gedanken schmeichelhaft zu reflektieren. Sie ist wie ein Silbertablett, das seine Ideen perfekt widerspiegelt. Eines Tages, als sie im Park spazieren gehen, erwähnt er, dass er weiß, dass ihre Familie ihn nicht gutheißt. Er sagt, dass er nie nach Geld gestrebt hat und sie deshalb nicht denken sollten, dass er Isabel aus diesem Grund heiratet. Er sagt ihr, dass er ein besserer Mensch ist, weil er sie liebt. Er sagt, dass er früher viele Dinge wollte und "krankhaft, sterile, verhasste Hunger- und Verlangensattacken" hatte. Er sagt, dass jetzt ein langer Sommer-Nachmittag des Lebens auf sie beide wartet und dass sie seine bezaubernde Tochter unterhalten werden. Als er es schließlich Pansy erzählt, drückt sie ihre Freude darüber aus, Isabel als "schöne Schwester" zu haben. Eines Tages trifft Isabel Pansy bei der Gräfin Gemini. Pansy begrüßt sie freundlich und sagt ihr, dass sie sich freut, sie als Stiefmutter zu haben. Isabel sagt ihr, dass sie immer nett zu ihr sein wird und plötzlich spürt sie eine Kälte, als ob sie für einen Moment realisiert, dass Pansy eines Tages ihre Hilfe brauchen wird. Die Gräfin Gemini kommt herein und redet lange Zeit über ihre Gefühle, als sie von der Nachricht gehört hat, und ihr Gefühl, dass Isabel ihre Familie verbessern wird. Sie sagt, dass sie Isabel einige Dinge über die Ehe erzählen will und Pansy den Raum verlassen sollte. Isabel sagt ihr, sie möchte, dass Pansy bleibt, weil sie nichts hören will, was Pansy nicht hören kann.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: It was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of general holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their affection plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place in their unsophisticated hearts: I promised them that never a week should pass in future that I did not visit them, and give them an hour's teaching in their school. Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some half-dozen of my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest, and well-informed young women as could be found in the ranks of the British peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for after all, the British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most self-respecting of any in Europe: since those days I have seen paysannes and Bauerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton girls. "Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?" asked Mr. Rivers, when they were gone. "Does not the consciousness of having done some real good in your day and generation give pleasure?" "Doubtless." "And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the task of regenerating your race be well spent?" "Yes," I said; "but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy my own faculties as well as to cultivate those of other people. I must enjoy them now; don't recall either my mind or body to the school; I am out of it and disposed for full holiday." He looked grave. "What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince? What are you going to do?" "To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you." "Do you want her?" "Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a week, and I want to have everything in order against their arrival." "I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It is better so: Hannah shall go with you." "Tell her to be ready by to-morrow then; and here is the schoolroom key: I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning." He took it. "You give it up very gleefully," said he; "I don't quite understand your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life have you now?" "My first aim will be to _clean down_ (do you comprehend the full force of the expression?)--to _clean down_ Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come." St. John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied. "It is all very well for the present," said he; "but seriously, I trust that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little higher than domestic endearments and household joys." "The best things the world has!" I interrupted. "No, Jane, no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt to make it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful." "I mean, on the contrary, to be busy." "Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months' grace I allow you for the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with this late-found charm of relationship; but _then_, I hope you will begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised affluence. I hope your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength." I looked at him with surprise. "St. John," I said, "I think you are almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as a queen, and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?" "To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously--I warn you of that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don't cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?" "Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause to be happy, and I _will_ be happy. Goodbye!" Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house turned topsy-turvy--how I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook. And really, after a day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken a journey to S--- to purchase some new furniture: my cousins having given me _carte blanche_ to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having been set aside for that purpose. The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms I left much as they were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still some novelty was necessary, to give to their return the piquancy with which I wished it to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, answered the end: they looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model of bright modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen of wintry waste and desert dreariness without. The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in readiness. St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the house till everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its walls sufficed to scare him to estrangement. He found me in the kitchen, watching the progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking. Approaching the hearth, he asked, "If I was at last satisfied with housemaid's work?" I answered by inviting him to accompany me on a general inspection of the result of my labours. With some difficulty, I got him to make the tour of the house. He just looked in at the doors I opened; and when he had wandered upstairs and downstairs, he said I must have gone through a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected such considerable changes in so short a time: but not a syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the improved aspect of his abode. This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed some old associations he valued. I inquired whether this was the case: no doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone. "Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously respected every association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed more thought on the matter than it was worth. How many minutes, for instance, had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this very room?--By-the-bye, could I tell him where such a book was?" I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and withdrawing to his accustomed window recess, he began to read it. Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him--its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire--after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone--at his fine lineaments fixed in study--I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes--Christian and Pagan--her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place. "This parlour is not his sphere," I reflected: "the Himalayan ridge or Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp would suit him better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his element: there his faculties stagnate--they cannot develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife and danger--where courage is proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked--that he will speak and move, the leader and superior. A merry child would have the advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a missionary's career--I see it now." "They are coming! they are coming!" cried Hannah, throwing open the parlour door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran. It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened the door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped out. In a minute I had my face under their bonnets, in contact first with Mary's soft cheek, then with Diana's flowing curls. They laughed--kissed me--then Hannah: patted Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked eagerly if all was well; and being assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house. They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah brought in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he advanced from the parlour. They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a while to be talked to, and then, intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge. I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed me. They were delighted with the renovation and decorations of their rooms; with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich tinted china vases: they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I had the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly, and that what I had done added a vivid charm to their joyous return home. Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St. John's taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise. The event of the day--that is, the return of Diana and Mary--pleased him; but the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee of reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer morrow was come. In the very meridian of the night's enjoyment, about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered with the intimation that "a poor lad was come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see his mother, who was drawing away." "Where does she live, Hannah?" "Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and moss all the way." "Tell him I will go." "I'm sure, sir, you had better not. It's the worst road to travel after dark that can be: there's no track at all over the bog. And then it is such a bitter night--the keenest wind you ever felt. You had better send word, sir, that you will be there in the morning." But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o'clock: he did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was: but he looked happier than when he set out. He had performed an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and deny, and was on better terms with himself. I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a sort of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary's spirits like some life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning till noon, and from noon till night. They could always talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything else. St. John did not rebuke our vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was seldom in the house; his parish was large, the population scattered, and he found daily business in visiting the sick and poor in its different districts. One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some minutes, asked him, "If his plans were yet unchanged." "Unchanged and unchangeable," was the reply. And he proceeded to inform us that his departure from England was now definitively fixed for the ensuing year. "And Rosamond Oliver?" suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her lips involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a gesture as if wishing to recall them. St. John had a book in his hand--it was his unsocial custom to read at meals--he closed it, and looked up. "Rosamond Oliver," said he, "is about to be married to Mr. Granby, one of the best connected and most estimable residents in S-, grandson and heir to Sir Frederic Granby: I had the intelligence from her father yesterday." His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at him: he was serene as glass. "The match must have been got up hastily," said Diana: "they cannot have known each other long." "But two months: they met in October at the county ball at S-. But where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where the connection is in every point desirable, delays are unnecessary: they will be married as soon as S--- Place, which Sir Frederic gives up to them, can he refitted for their reception." The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I felt tempted to inquire if the event distressed him: but he seemed so little to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing to offer him more, I experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had already hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him: his reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed beneath it. He had not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters; he continually made little chilling differences between us, which did not at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short, now that I was acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the distance between us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been admitted to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity. Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said-- "You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won." Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a moment's hesitation I answered-- "But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin you?" "I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall never be called upon to contend for such another. The event of the conflict is decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!" So saying, he returned to his papers and his silence. As our mutual happiness (_i.e._, Diana's, Mary's, and mine) settled into a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and regular studies, St. John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the same room, sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course of encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own: that of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition of which he thought necessary to his plans. Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish- looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation: if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what it meant: I wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment, namely, my weekly visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled when, if the day was unfavourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind, and his sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of their solicitude, and encourage me to accomplish the task without regard to the elements. "Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her," he would say: "she can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of us. Her constitution is both sound and elastic;--better calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust." And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little weather-beaten, I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him: on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse was a special annoyance. One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really had a cold. His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exchanged a translation for an exercise, I happened to look his way: there I found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye. How long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I cannot tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious--as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny. "Jane, what are you doing?" "Learning German." "I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee." "You are not in earnest?" "In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why." He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements, and so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do him this favour? I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his departure. St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent. I consented. When Diana and Mary returned, the former found her scholar transferred from her to her brother: she laughed, and both she and Mary agreed that St. John should never have persuaded them to such a step. He answered quietly-- "I know it." I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master: he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation. By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said "go," I went; "come," I came; "do this," I did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me. One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicsome humour (_she_ was not painfully controlled by his will; for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed-- "St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don't treat her as such: you should kiss her too." She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly--he kissed me. There are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin's salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted the ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent it, seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm. As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his own. Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of late it had been easy enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat at my heart and drained my happiness at its source--the evil of suspense. Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse, nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving to know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at Morton, I re-entered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now at Moor House, I sought my bedroom each night to brood over it. In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester's present residence and state of health; but, as St. John had conjectured, he was quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, entreating information on the subject. I had calculated with certainty on this step answering my end: I felt sure it would elicit an early answer. I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but when two months wore away, and day after day the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety. I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed. Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed. A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer approached; Diana tried to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and wished to accompany me to the sea-side. This St. John opposed; he said I did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him--I could not resist him. One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had told me in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take it, almost certain that the long-looked for tidings were vouchsafed me at last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on business. The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again. St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice failed me: words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of the parlour: Diana was practising her music in the drawing-room, Mary was gardening--it was a very fine May day, clear, sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said-- "We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed." And while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his desk, and looking like a physician watching with the eye of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient's malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something about not being very well that morning, I resumed my task, and succeeded in completing it. St. John put away my books and his, locked his desk, and said-- "Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me." "I will call Diana and Mary." "No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put on your things; go out by the kitchen-door: take the road towards the head of Marsh Glen: I will join you in a moment." I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John's directions; and in ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side with him. The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with scents of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire tints from the firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a soft turf, mossy fine and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a tiny white flower, and spangled with a star-like yellow blossom: the hills, meantime, shut us quite in; for the glen, towards its head, wound to their very core. "Let us rest here," said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers of a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck rushed down a waterfall; and where, still a little farther, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment and crag for gem--where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exchanged the fresh for the frowning--where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, and a last refuge for silence. I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and down the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He seemed in communion with the genius of the haunt: with his eye he bade farewell to something. "And I shall see it again," he said aloud, "in dreams when I sleep by the Ganges: and again in a more remote hour--when another slumber overcomes me--on the shore of a darker stream!" Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot's passion for his fatherland! He sat down; for half-an-hour we never spoke; neither he to me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced-- "Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman which sails on the 20th of June." "God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work," I answered. "Yes," said he, "there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an infallible Master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject to the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strange to me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner,--to join in the same enterprise." "All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish to march with the strong." "I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only such as are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it." "Those are few in number, and difficult to discover." "You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up--to urge and exhort them to the effort--to show them what their gifts are, and why they were given--to speak Heaven's message in their ear,--to offer them, direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen." "If they are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts be the first to inform them of it?" I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me: I trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and rivet the spell. "And what does _your_ heart say?" demanded St. John. "My heart is mute,--my heart is mute," I answered, struck and thrilled. "Then I must speak for it," continued the deep, relentless voice. "Jane, come with me to India: come as my helpmeet and fellow-labourer." The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had heard a summons from Heaven--as if a visionary messenger, like him of Macedonia, had enounced, "Come over and help us!" But I was no apostle,--I could not behold the herald,--I could not receive his call. "Oh, St. John!" I cried, "have some mercy!" I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty, knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued-- "God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife. It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love. A missionary's wife you must--shall be. You shall be mine: I claim you--not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign's service." "I am not fit for it: I have no vocation," I said. He had calculated on these first objections: he was not irritated by them. Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his arms on his chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for a long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to last him to its close--resolved, however, that that close should be conquest for him. "Humility, Jane," said he, "is the groundwork of Christian virtues: you say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or who, that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons? I, for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I acknowledge myself the chiefest of sinners; but I do not suffer this sense of my personal vileness to daunt me. I know my Leader: that He is just as well as mighty; and while He has chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great task, He will, from the boundless stores of His providence, supply the inadequacy of the means to the end. Think like me, Jane--trust like me. It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on: do not doubt but it will bear the weight of your human weakness." "I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary labours." "There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can set you your task from hour to hour; stand by you always; help you from moment to moment. This I could do in the beginning: soon (for I know your powers) you would be as strong and apt as myself, and would not require my help." "But my powers--where are they for this undertaking? I do not feel them. Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light kindling--no life quickening--no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths--the fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!" "I have an answer for you--hear it. I have watched you ever since we first met: I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited? In the village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled. In the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas:--lucre had no undue power over you. In the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability with which, at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were interested, and adopted another because it interested me; in the untiring assiduity with which you have since persevered in it--in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties--I acknowledge the complement of the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease to mistrust yourself--I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable." My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure step. Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in making the way, which had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded, and assumed a definite form under his shaping hand. He waited for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an hour to think, before I again hazarded a reply. "Very willingly," he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still. {He threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still: p389.jpg} "I _can_ do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge that," I meditated,--"that is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun. What then? He does not care for that: when my time came to die, he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me. The case is very plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land--Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes--and yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: if I go to India, I go to premature death. And how will the interval between leaving England for India, and India for the grave, be filled? Oh, I know well! That, too, is very clear to my vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I _shall_ satisfy him--to the finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations. If I _do_ go with him--if I _do_ make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely: I will throw all on the altar--heart, vitals, the entire victim. He will never love me; but he shall approve me; I will show him energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never suspected. Yes, I can work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging. "Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item--one dreadful item. It is--that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a husband's heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve me; but can I let him complete his calculations--coolly put into practice his plans--go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him--not as his wife: I will tell him so." I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column; his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to his feet and approached me. "I am ready to go to India, if I may go free." "Your answer requires a commentary," he said; "it is not clear." "You have hitherto been my adopted brother--I, your adopted sister: let us continue as such: you and I had better not marry." He shook his head. "Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you were my real sister it would be different: I should take you, and seek no wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment--your strong sense will guide you." I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should: and therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. "St. John," I returned, "I regard you as a brother--you, me as a sister: so let us continue." "We cannot--we cannot," he answered, with short, sharp determination: "it would not do. You have said you will go with me to India: remember--you have said that." "Conditionally." "Well--well. To the main point--the departure with me from England, the co-operation with me in my future labours--you do not object. You have already as good as put your hand to the plough: you are too consistent to withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view--how the work you have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all considerations in one purpose: that of fulfilling with effect--with power--the mission of your great Master. To do so, you must have a coadjutor: not a brother--that is a loose tie--but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister: a sister might any day be taken from me. I want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death." I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow--his hold on my limbs. "Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you." "One fitted to my purpose, you mean--fitted to my vocation. Again I tell you it is not the insignificant private individual--the mere man, with the man's selfish senses--I wish to mate: it is the missionary." "And I will give the missionary my energies--it is all he wants--but not myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For them he has no use: I retain them." "You cannot--you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you. I cannot accept on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire." "Oh! I will give my heart to God," I said. "_You_ do not want it." I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this conference: the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities: I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, caring as I. The veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these qualities, I felt his imperfection and took courage. I was with an equal--one with whom I might argue--one whom, if I saw good, I might resist. He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me, expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. "Is she sarcastic, and sarcastic to _me_!" it seemed to say. "What does this signify?" "Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter," he said ere long; "one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart to God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker's spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in marriage: the only union that gives a character of permanent conformity to the destinies and designs of human beings; and, passing over all minor caprices--all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling--all scruple about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal inclination--you will hasten to enter into that union at once." "Shall I?" I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity; at his brow, commanding but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep and searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and fancied myself in idea _his wife_. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour; accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man: profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came, and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample down: but as his wife--at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked--forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital--_this_ would be unendurable. "St. John!" I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation. "Well?" he answered icily. "I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you." "A part of me you must become," he answered steadily; "otherwise the whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we be for ever together--sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage tribes--and unwed?" "Very well," I said shortly; "under the circumstances, quite as well as if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like yourself." "It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such: to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And for the rest, though you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a woman's heart and--it would not do." "It would do," I affirmed with some disdain, "perfectly well. I have a woman's heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a comrade's constancy; a fellow-soldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like; a neophyte's respect and submission to his hierophant: nothing more--don't fear." "It is what I want," he said, speaking to himself; "it is just what I want. And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane, you would not repent marrying me--be certain of that; we _must_ be married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your eyes." "I scorn your idea of love," I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. "I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it." He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so. Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell: he could command his countenance thoroughly. "I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you," he said: "I think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn." I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien. "Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance--a topic we should never discuss: the very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage--forget it." "No," said he; "it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which can secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further at present. To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends there to whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight--take that space of time to consider my offer: and do not forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens to you a noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered with those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels!" He had done. Turning from me, he once more "Looked to river, looked to hill." But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected submission--the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance. That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to forget even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I--who, though I had no love, had much friendship for him--was hurt by the marked omission: so much hurt that tears started to my eyes. "I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane," said Diana, "during your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the passage expecting you--he will make it up." I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be happy than dignified; and I ran after him--he stood at the foot of the stairs. "Good-night, St. John," said I. "Good-night, Jane," he replied calmly. "Then shake hands," I added. What a cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers! He was deeply displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, nor tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him--no cheering smile or generous word: but still the Christian was patient and placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that he had nothing to forgive, not having been offended. And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me down. 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Jane schließt ihre Schule für Weihnachten und verbringt eine glückliche Zeit mit ihren neu gefundenen Cousinen auf Moor House. Diana und Mary sind begeistert von den Verbesserungen, die Jane in der Schule vorgenommen hat, aber St. John scheint kälter und distanzierter als je zuvor zu sein. Er erzählt Jane, dass Rosamond mit einem reichen Mann namens Mr. Granby verlobt ist. Eines Tages bittet er Jane, ihr Studium des Deutschen aufzugeben und stattdessen "Hindustani" mit ihm zu lernen - die Sprache, die er für die Missionsarbeit in Indien lernt. Im Laufe der Zeit übt St. John eine immer größere Einfluss auf Jane aus; seine Macht über sie ist fast unheimlich. Dadurch fühlt sich Jane leer, kalt und traurig, aber sie folgt seinen Wünschen. Schließlich bittet er sie, mit ihm nach Indien zu gehen, um Missionar zu werden - und seine Frau zu sein. Sie stimmt zu, als Missionarin nach Indien zu gehen, aber sagt, dass sie nicht seine Frau sein wird, weil sie nicht verliebt sind. St. John besteht grob darauf, dass sie ihn heiratet und erklärt, dass seine Ablehnung seines Antrags gleichbedeutend ist mit der Verleugnung des christlichen Glaubens. Er verlässt abrupt den Raum.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Merlin and Vivien A storm was coming, but the winds were still, And in the wild woods of Broceliande, Before an oak, so hollow, huge and old It looked a tower of ivied masonwork, At Merlin's feet the wily Vivien lay. For he that always bare in bitter grudge The slights of Arthur and his Table, Mark The Cornish King, had heard a wandering voice, A minstrel of Caerleon by strong storm Blown into shelter at Tintagil, say That out of naked knightlike purity Sir Lancelot worshipt no unmarried girl But the great Queen herself, fought in her name, Sware by her--vows like theirs, that high in heaven Love most, but neither marry, nor are given In marriage, angels of our Lord's report. He ceased, and then--for Vivien sweetly said (She sat beside the banquet nearest Mark), 'And is the fair example followed, Sir, In Arthur's household?'--answered innocently: 'Ay, by some few--ay, truly--youths that hold It more beseems the perfect virgin knight To worship woman as true wife beyond All hopes of gaining, than as maiden girl. They place their pride in Lancelot and the Queen. So passionate for an utter purity Beyond the limit of their bond, are these, For Arthur bound them not to singleness. Brave hearts and clean! and yet--God guide them--young.' Then Mark was half in heart to hurl his cup Straight at the speaker, but forbore: he rose To leave the hall, and, Vivien following him, Turned to her: 'Here are snakes within the grass; And you methinks, O Vivien, save ye fear The monkish manhood, and the mask of pure Worn by this court, can stir them till they sting.' And Vivien answered, smiling scornfully, 'Why fear? because that fostered at thy court I savour of thy--virtues? fear them? no. As Love, if Love is perfect, casts out fear, So Hate, if Hate is perfect, casts out fear. My father died in battle against the King, My mother on his corpse in open field; She bore me there, for born from death was I Among the dead and sown upon the wind-- And then on thee! and shown the truth betimes, That old true filth, and bottom of the well Where Truth is hidden. Gracious lessons thine And maxims of the mud! "This Arthur pure! Great Nature through the flesh herself hath made Gives him the lie! There is no being pure, My cherub; saith not Holy Writ the same?"-- If I were Arthur, I would have thy blood. Thy blessing, stainless King! I bring thee back, When I have ferreted out their burrowings, The hearts of all this Order in mine hand-- Ay--so that fate and craft and folly close, Perchance, one curl of Arthur's golden beard. To me this narrow grizzled fork of thine Is cleaner-fashioned--Well, I loved thee first, That warps the wit.' Loud laughed the graceless Mark, But Vivien, into Camelot stealing, lodged Low in the city, and on a festal day When Guinevere was crossing the great hall Cast herself down, knelt to the Queen, and wailed. 'Why kneel ye there? What evil hath ye wrought? Rise!' and the damsel bidden rise arose And stood with folded hands and downward eyes Of glancing corner, and all meekly said, 'None wrought, but suffered much, an orphan maid! My father died in battle for thy King, My mother on his corpse--in open field, The sad sea-sounding wastes of Lyonnesse-- Poor wretch--no friend!--and now by Mark the King For that small charm of feature mine, pursued-- If any such be mine--I fly to thee. Save, save me thou--Woman of women--thine The wreath of beauty, thine the crown of power, Be thine the balm of pity, O Heaven's own white Earth-angel, stainless bride of stainless King-- Help, for he follows! take me to thyself! O yield me shelter for mine innocency Among thy maidens! Here her slow sweet eyes Fear-tremulous, but humbly hopeful, rose Fixt on her hearer's, while the Queen who stood All glittering like May sunshine on May leaves In green and gold, and plumed with green replied, 'Peace, child! of overpraise and overblame We choose the last. Our noble Arthur, him Ye scarce can overpraise, will hear and know. Nay--we believe all evil of thy Mark-- Well, we shall test thee farther; but this hour We ride a-hawking with Sir Lancelot. He hath given us a fair falcon which he trained; We go to prove it. Bide ye here the while.' She past; and Vivien murmured after 'Go! I bide the while.' Then through the portal-arch Peering askance, and muttering broken-wise, As one that labours with an evil dream, Beheld the Queen and Lancelot get to horse. 'Is that the Lancelot? goodly--ay, but gaunt: Courteous--amends for gauntness--takes her hand-- That glance of theirs, but for the street, had been A clinging kiss--how hand lingers in hand! Let go at last!--they ride away--to hawk For waterfowl. Royaller game is mine. For such a supersensual sensual bond As that gray cricket chirpt of at our hearth-- Touch flax with flame--a glance will serve--the liars! Ah little rat that borest in the dyke Thy hole by night to let the boundless deep Down upon far-off cities while they dance-- Or dream--of thee they dreamed not--nor of me These--ay, but each of either: ride, and dream The mortal dream that never yet was mine-- Ride, ride and dream until ye wake--to me! Then, narrow court and lubber King, farewell! For Lancelot will be gracious to the rat, And our wise Queen, if knowing that I know, Will hate, loathe, fear--but honour me the more.' Yet while they rode together down the plain, Their talk was all of training, terms of art, Diet and seeling, jesses, leash and lure. 'She is too noble' he said 'to check at pies, Nor will she rake: there is no baseness in her.' Here when the Queen demanded as by chance 'Know ye the stranger woman?' 'Let her be,' Said Lancelot and unhooded casting off The goodly falcon free; she towered; her bells, Tone under tone, shrilled; and they lifted up Their eager faces, wondering at the strength, Boldness and royal knighthood of the bird Who pounced her quarry and slew it. Many a time As once--of old--among the flowers--they rode. But Vivien half-forgotten of the Queen Among her damsels broidering sat, heard, watched And whispered: through the peaceful court she crept And whispered: then as Arthur in the highest Leavened the world, so Vivien in the lowest, Arriving at a time of golden rest, And sowing one ill hint from ear to ear, While all the heathen lay at Arthur's feet, And no quest came, but all was joust and play, Leavened his hall. They heard and let her be. Thereafter as an enemy that has left Death in the living waters, and withdrawn, The wily Vivien stole from Arthur's court. She hated all the knights, and heard in thought Their lavish comment when her name was named. For once, when Arthur walking all alone, Vext at a rumour issued from herself Of some corruption crept among his knights, Had met her, Vivien, being greeted fair, Would fain have wrought upon his cloudy mood With reverent eyes mock-loyal, shaken voice, And fluttered adoration, and at last With dark sweet hints of some who prized him more Than who should prize him most; at which the King Had gazed upon her blankly and gone by: But one had watched, and had not held his peace: It made the laughter of an afternoon That Vivien should attempt the blameless King. And after that, she set herself to gain Him, the most famous man of all those times, Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts, Had built the King his havens, ships, and halls, Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens; The people called him Wizard; whom at first She played about with slight and sprightly talk, And vivid smiles, and faintly-venomed points Of slander, glancing here and grazing there; And yielding to his kindlier moods, the Seer Would watch her at her petulance, and play, Even when they seemed unloveable, and laugh As those that watch a kitten; thus he grew Tolerant of what he half disdained, and she, Perceiving that she was but half disdained, Began to break her sports with graver fits, Turn red or pale, would often when they met Sigh fully, or all-silent gaze upon him With such a fixt devotion, that the old man, Though doubtful, felt the flattery, and at times Would flatter his own wish in age for love, And half believe her true: for thus at times He wavered; but that other clung to him, Fixt in her will, and so the seasons went. Then fell on Merlin a great melancholy; He walked with dreams and darkness, and he found A doom that ever poised itself to fall, An ever-moaning battle in the mist, World-war of dying flesh against the life, Death in all life and lying in all love, The meanest having power upon the highest, And the high purpose broken by the worm. So leaving Arthur's court he gained the beach; There found a little boat, and stept into it; And Vivien followed, but he marked her not. She took the helm and he the sail; the boat Drave with a sudden wind across the deeps, And touching Breton sands, they disembarked. And then she followed Merlin all the way, Even to the wild woods of Broceliande. For Merlin once had told her of a charm, The which if any wrought on anyone With woven paces and with waving arms, The man so wrought on ever seemed to lie Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower, From which was no escape for evermore; And none could find that man for evermore, Nor could he see but him who wrought the charm Coming and going, and he lay as dead And lost to life and use and name and fame. And Vivien ever sought to work the charm Upon the great Enchanter of the Time, As fancying that her glory would be great According to his greatness whom she quenched. There lay she all her length and kissed his feet, As if in deepest reverence and in love. A twist of gold was round her hair; a robe Of samite without price, that more exprest Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs, In colour like the satin-shining palm On sallows in the windy gleams of March: And while she kissed them, crying, 'Trample me, Dear feet, that I have followed through the world, And I will pay you worship; tread me down And I will kiss you for it;' he was mute: So dark a forethought rolled about his brain, As on a dull day in an Ocean cave The blind wave feeling round his long sea-hall In silence: wherefore, when she lifted up A face of sad appeal, and spake and said, 'O Merlin, do ye love me?' and again, 'O Merlin, do ye love me?' and once more, 'Great Master, do ye love me?' he was mute. And lissome Vivien, holding by his heel, Writhed toward him, slided up his knee and sat, Behind his ankle twined her hollow feet Together, curved an arm about his neck, Clung like a snake; and letting her left hand Droop from his mighty shoulder, as a leaf, Made with her right a comb of pearl to part The lists of such a board as youth gone out Had left in ashes: then he spoke and said, Not looking at her, 'Who are wise in love Love most, say least,' and Vivien answered quick, 'I saw the little elf-god eyeless once In Arthur's arras hall at Camelot: But neither eyes nor tongue--O stupid child! Yet you are wise who say it; let me think Silence is wisdom: I am silent then, And ask no kiss;' then adding all at once, 'And lo, I clothe myself with wisdom,' drew The vast and shaggy mantle of his beard Across her neck and bosom to her knee, And called herself a gilded summer fly Caught in a great old tyrant spider's web, Who meant to eat her up in that wild wood Without one word. So Vivien called herself, But rather seemed a lovely baleful star Veiled in gray vapour; till he sadly smiled: 'To what request for what strange boon,' he said, 'Are these your pretty tricks and fooleries, O Vivien, the preamble? yet my thanks, For these have broken up my melancholy.' And Vivien answered smiling saucily, 'What, O my Master, have ye found your voice? I bid the stranger welcome. Thanks at last! But yesterday you never opened lip, Except indeed to drink: no cup had we: In mine own lady palms I culled the spring That gathered trickling dropwise from the cleft, And made a pretty cup of both my hands And offered you it kneeling: then you drank And knew no more, nor gave me one poor word; O no more thanks than might a goat have given With no more sign of reverence than a beard. And when we halted at that other well, And I was faint to swooning, and you lay Foot-gilt with all the blossom-dust of those Deep meadows we had traversed, did you know That Vivien bathed your feet before her own? And yet no thanks: and all through this wild wood And all this morning when I fondled you: Boon, ay, there was a boon, one not so strange-- How had I wronged you? surely ye are wise, But such a silence is more wise than kind.' And Merlin locked his hand in hers and said: 'O did ye never lie upon the shore, And watch the curled white of the coming wave Glassed in the slippery sand before it breaks? Even such a wave, but not so pleasurable, Dark in the glass of some presageful mood, Had I for three days seen, ready to fall. And then I rose and fled from Arthur's court To break the mood. You followed me unasked; And when I looked, and saw you following me still, My mind involved yourself the nearest thing In that mind-mist: for shall I tell you truth? You seemed that wave about to break upon me And sweep me from my hold upon the world, My use and name and fame. Your pardon, child. Your pretty sports have brightened all again. And ask your boon, for boon I owe you thrice, Once for wrong done you by confusion, next For thanks it seems till now neglected, last For these your dainty gambols: wherefore ask; And take this boon so strange and not so strange.' And Vivien answered smiling mournfully: 'O not so strange as my long asking it, Not yet so strange as you yourself are strange, Nor half so strange as that dark mood of yours. I ever feared ye were not wholly mine; And see, yourself have owned ye did me wrong. The people call you prophet: let it be: But not of those that can expound themselves. Take Vivien for expounder; she will call That three-days-long presageful gloom of yours No presage, but the same mistrustful mood That makes you seem less noble than yourself, Whenever I have asked this very boon, Now asked again: for see you not, dear love, That such a mood as that, which lately gloomed Your fancy when ye saw me following you, Must make me fear still more you are not mine, Must make me yearn still more to prove you mine, And make me wish still more to learn this charm Of woven paces and of waving hands, As proof of trust. O Merlin, teach it me. The charm so taught will charm us both to rest. For, grant me some slight power upon your fate, I, feeling that you felt me worthy trust, Should rest and let you rest, knowing you mine. And therefore be as great as ye are named, Not muffled round with selfish reticence. How hard you look and how denyingly! O, if you think this wickedness in me, That I should prove it on you unawares, That makes me passing wrathful; then our bond Had best be loosed for ever: but think or not, By Heaven that hears I tell you the clean truth, As clean as blood of babes, as white as milk: O Merlin, may this earth, if ever I, If these unwitty wandering wits of mine, Even in the jumbled rubbish of a dream, Have tript on such conjectural treachery-- May this hard earth cleave to the Nadir hell Down, down, and close again, and nip me flat, If I be such a traitress. Yield my boon, Till which I scarce can yield you all I am; And grant my re-reiterated wish, The great proof of your love: because I think, However wise, ye hardly know me yet.' And Merlin loosed his hand from hers and said, 'I never was less wise, however wise, Too curious Vivien, though you talk of trust, Than when I told you first of such a charm. Yea, if ye talk of trust I tell you this, Too much I trusted when I told you that, And stirred this vice in you which ruined man Through woman the first hour; for howsoe'er In children a great curiousness be well, Who have to learn themselves and all the world, In you, that are no child, for still I find Your face is practised when I spell the lines, I call it,--well, I will not call it vice: But since you name yourself the summer fly, I well could wish a cobweb for the gnat, That settles, beaten back, and beaten back Settles, till one could yield for weariness: But since I will not yield to give you power Upon my life and use and name and fame, Why will ye never ask some other boon? Yea, by God's rood, I trusted you too much.' And Vivien, like the tenderest-hearted maid That ever bided tryst at village stile, Made answer, either eyelid wet with tears: 'Nay, Master, be not wrathful with your maid; Caress her: let her feel herself forgiven Who feels no heart to ask another boon. I think ye hardly know the tender rhyme Of "trust me not at all or all in all." I heard the great Sir Lancelot sing it once, And it shall answer for me. Listen to it. "In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers: Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. "It is the little rift within the lute, That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all. "The little rift within the lover's lute Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, That rotting inward slowly moulders all. "It is not worth the keeping: let it go: But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. And trust me not at all or all in all." O Master, do ye love my tender rhyme?' And Merlin looked and half believed her true, So tender was her voice, so fair her face, So sweetly gleamed her eyes behind her tears Like sunlight on the plain behind a shower: And yet he answered half indignantly: 'Far other was the song that once I heard By this huge oak, sung nearly where we sit: For here we met, some ten or twelve of us, To chase a creature that was current then In these wild woods, the hart with golden horns. It was the time when first the question rose About the founding of a Table Round, That was to be, for love of God and men And noble deeds, the flower of all the world. And each incited each to noble deeds. And while we waited, one, the youngest of us, We could not keep him silent, out he flashed, And into such a song, such fire for fame, Such trumpet-glowings in it, coming down To such a stern and iron-clashing close, That when he stopt we longed to hurl together, And should have done it; but the beauteous beast Scared by the noise upstarted at our feet, And like a silver shadow slipt away Through the dim land; and all day long we rode Through the dim land against a rushing wind, That glorious roundel echoing in our ears, And chased the flashes of his golden horns Till they vanished by the fairy well That laughs at iron--as our warriors did-- Where children cast their pins and nails, and cry, "Laugh, little well!" but touch it with a sword, It buzzes fiercely round the point; and there We lost him: such a noble song was that. But, Vivien, when you sang me that sweet rhyme, I felt as though you knew this cursed charm, Were proving it on me, and that I lay And felt them slowly ebbing, name and fame.' And Vivien answered smiling mournfully: 'O mine have ebbed away for evermore, And all through following you to this wild wood, Because I saw you sad, to comfort you. Lo now, what hearts have men! they never mount As high as woman in her selfless mood. And touching fame, howe'er ye scorn my song, Take one verse more--the lady speaks it--this: '"My name, once mine, now thine, is closelier mine, For fame, could fame be mine, that fame were thine, And shame, could shame be thine, that shame were mine. So trust me not at all or all in all." 'Says she not well? and there is more--this rhyme Is like the fair pearl-necklace of the Queen, That burst in dancing, and the pearls were spilt; Some lost, some stolen, some as relics kept. But nevermore the same two sister pearls Ran down the silken thread to kiss each other On her white neck--so is it with this rhyme: It lives dispersedly in many hands, And every minstrel sings it differently; Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls: "Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love." Yea! Love, though Love were of the grossest, carves A portion from the solid present, eats And uses, careless of the rest; but Fame, The Fame that follows death is nothing to us; And what is Fame in life but half-disfame, And counterchanged with darkness? ye yourself Know well that Envy calls you Devil's son, And since ye seem the Master of all Art, They fain would make you Master of all vice.' And Merlin locked his hand in hers and said, 'I once was looking for a magic weed, And found a fair young squire who sat alone, Had carved himself a knightly shield of wood, And then was painting on it fancied arms, Azure, an Eagle rising or, the Sun In dexter chief; the scroll "I follow fame." And speaking not, but leaning over him I took his brush and blotted out the bird, And made a Gardener putting in a graff, With this for motto, "Rather use than fame." You should have seen him blush; but afterwards He made a stalwart knight. O Vivien, For you, methinks you think you love me well; For me, I love you somewhat; rest: and Love Should have some rest and pleasure in himself, Not ever be too curious for a boon, Too prurient for a proof against the grain Of him ye say ye love: but Fame with men, Being but ampler means to serve mankind, Should have small rest or pleasure in herself, But work as vassal to the larger love, That dwarfs the petty love of one to one. Use gave me Fame at first, and Fame again Increasing gave me use. Lo, there my boon! What other? for men sought to prove me vile, Because I fain had given them greater wits: And then did Envy call me Devil's son: The sick weak beast seeking to help herself By striking at her better, missed, and brought Her own claw back, and wounded her own heart. Sweet were the days when I was all unknown, But when my name was lifted up, the storm Brake on the mountain and I cared not for it. Right well know I that Fame is half-disfame, Yet needs must work my work. That other fame, To one at least, who hath not children, vague, The cackle of the unborn about the grave, I cared not for it: a single misty star, Which is the second in a line of stars That seem a sword beneath a belt of three, I never gazed upon it but I dreamt Of some vast charm concluded in that star To make fame nothing. Wherefore, if I fear, Giving you power upon me through this charm, That you might play me falsely, having power, However well ye think ye love me now (As sons of kings loving in pupilage Have turned to tyrants when they came to power) I rather dread the loss of use than fame; If you--and not so much from wickedness, As some wild turn of anger, or a mood Of overstrained affection, it may be, To keep me all to your own self,--or else A sudden spurt of woman's jealousy,-- Should try this charm on whom ye say ye love.' And Vivien answered smiling as in wrath: 'Have I not sworn? I am not trusted. Good! Well, hide it, hide it; I shall find it out; And being found take heed of Vivien. A woman and not trusted, doubtless I Might feel some sudden turn of anger born Of your misfaith; and your fine epithet Is accurate too, for this full love of mine Without the full heart back may merit well Your term of overstrained. So used as I, My daily wonder is, I love at all. And as to woman's jealousy, O why not? O to what end, except a jealous one, And one to make me jealous if I love, Was this fair charm invented by yourself? I well believe that all about this world Ye cage a buxom captive here and there, Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower From which is no escape for evermore.' Then the great Master merrily answered her: 'Full many a love in loving youth was mine; I needed then no charm to keep them mine But youth and love; and that full heart of yours Whereof ye prattle, may now assure you mine; So live uncharmed. For those who wrought it first, The wrist is parted from the hand that waved, The feet unmortised from their ankle-bones Who paced it, ages back: but will ye hear The legend as in guerdon for your rhyme? 'There lived a king in the most Eastern East, Less old than I, yet older, for my blood Hath earnest in it of far springs to be. A tawny pirate anchored in his port, Whose bark had plundered twenty nameless isles; And passing one, at the high peep of dawn, He saw two cities in a thousand boats All fighting for a woman on the sea. And pushing his black craft among them all, He lightly scattered theirs and brought her off, With loss of half his people arrow-slain; A maid so smooth, so white, so wonderful, They said a light came from her when she moved: And since the pirate would not yield her up, The King impaled him for his piracy; Then made her Queen: but those isle-nurtured eyes Waged such unwilling though successful war On all the youth, they sickened; councils thinned, And armies waned, for magnet-like she drew The rustiest iron of old fighters' hearts; And beasts themselves would worship; camels knelt Unbidden, and the brutes of mountain back That carry kings in castles, bowed black knees Of homage, ringing with their serpent hands, To make her smile, her golden ankle-bells. What wonder, being jealous, that he sent His horns of proclamation out through all The hundred under-kingdoms that he swayed To find a wizard who might teach the King Some charm, which being wrought upon the Queen Might keep her all his own: to such a one He promised more than ever king has given, A league of mountain full of golden mines, A province with a hundred miles of coast, A palace and a princess, all for him: But on all those who tried and failed, the King Pronounced a dismal sentence, meaning by it To keep the list low and pretenders back, Or like a king, not to be trifled with-- Their heads should moulder on the city gates. And many tried and failed, because the charm Of nature in her overbore their own: And many a wizard brow bleached on the walls: And many weeks a troop of carrion crows Hung like a cloud above the gateway towers.' And Vivien breaking in upon him, said: 'I sit and gather honey; yet, methinks, Thy tongue has tript a little: ask thyself. The lady never made unwilling war With those fine eyes: she had her pleasure in it, And made her good man jealous with good cause. And lived there neither dame nor damsel then Wroth at a lover's loss? were all as tame, I mean, as noble, as the Queen was fair? Not one to flirt a venom at her eyes, Or pinch a murderous dust into her drink, Or make her paler with a poisoned rose? Well, those were not our days: but did they find A wizard? Tell me, was he like to thee? She ceased, and made her lithe arm round his neck Tighten, and then drew back, and let her eyes Speak for her, glowing on him, like a bride's On her new lord, her own, the first of men. He answered laughing, 'Nay, not like to me. At last they found--his foragers for charms-- A little glassy-headed hairless man, Who lived alone in a great wild on grass; Read but one book, and ever reading grew So grated down and filed away with thought, So lean his eyes were monstrous; while the skin Clung but to crate and basket, ribs and spine. And since he kept his mind on one sole aim, Nor ever touched fierce wine, nor tasted flesh, Nor owned a sensual wish, to him the wall That sunders ghosts and shadow-casting men Became a crystal, and he saw them through it, And heard their voices talk behind the wall, And learnt their elemental secrets, powers And forces; often o'er the sun's bright eye Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud, And lashed it at the base with slanting storm; Or in the noon of mist and driving rain, When the lake whitened and the pinewood roared, And the cairned mountain was a shadow, sunned The world to peace again: here was the man. And so by force they dragged him to the King. And then he taught the King to charm the Queen In such-wise, that no man could see her more, Nor saw she save the King, who wrought the charm, Coming and going, and she lay as dead, And lost all use of life: but when the King Made proffer of the league of golden mines, The province with a hundred miles of coast, The palace and the princess, that old man Went back to his old wild, and lived on grass, And vanished, and his book came down to me.' And Vivien answered smiling saucily: 'Ye have the book: the charm is written in it: Good: take my counsel: let me know it at once: For keep it like a puzzle chest in chest, With each chest locked and padlocked thirty-fold, And whelm all this beneath as vast a mound As after furious battle turfs the slain On some wild down above the windy deep, I yet should strike upon a sudden means To dig, pick, open, find and read the charm: Then, if I tried it, who should blame me then?' And smiling as a master smiles at one That is not of his school, nor any school But that where blind and naked Ignorance Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed, On all things all day long, he answered her: 'Thou read the book, my pretty Vivien! O ay, it is but twenty pages long, But every page having an ample marge, And every marge enclosing in the midst A square of text that looks a little blot, The text no larger than the limbs of fleas; And every square of text an awful charm, Writ in a language that has long gone by. So long, that mountains have arisen since With cities on their flanks--thou read the book! And ever margin scribbled, crost, and crammed With comment, densest condensation, hard To mind and eye; but the long sleepless nights Of my long life have made it easy to me. And none can read the text, not even I; And none can read the comment but myself; And in the comment did I find the charm. O, the results are simple; a mere child Might use it to the harm of anyone, And never could undo it: ask no more: For though you should not prove it upon me, But keep that oath ye sware, ye might, perchance, Assay it on some one of the Table Round, And all because ye dream they babble of you.' And Vivien, frowning in true anger, said: 'What dare the full-fed liars say of me? They ride abroad redressing human wrongs! They sit with knife in meat and wine in horn! They bound to holy vows of chastity! Were I not woman, I could tell a tale. But you are man, you well can understand The shame that cannot be explained for shame. Not one of all the drove should touch me: swine!' Then answered Merlin careless of her words: 'You breathe but accusation vast and vague, Spleen-born, I think, and proofless. If ye know, Set up the charge ye know, to stand or fall!' And Vivien answered frowning wrathfully: 'O ay, what say ye to Sir Valence, him Whose kinsman left him watcher o'er his wife And two fair babes, and went to distant lands; Was one year gone, and on returning found Not two but three? there lay the reckling, one But one hour old! What said the happy sire?' A seven-months' babe had been a truer gift. Those twelve sweet moons confused his fatherhood.' Then answered Merlin, 'Nay, I know the tale. Sir Valence wedded with an outland dame: Some cause had kept him sundered from his wife: One child they had: it lived with her: she died: His kinsman travelling on his own affair Was charged by Valence to bring home the child. He brought, not found it therefore: take the truth.' 'O ay,' said Vivien, 'overtrue a tale. What say ye then to sweet Sir Sagramore, That ardent man? "to pluck the flower in season," So says the song, "I trow it is no treason." O Master, shall we call him overquick To crop his own sweet rose before the hour?' And Merlin answered, 'Overquick art thou To catch a loathly plume fallen from the wing Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey Is man's good name: he never wronged his bride. I know the tale. An angry gust of wind Puffed out his torch among the myriad-roomed And many-corridored complexities Of Arthur's palace: then he found a door, And darkling felt the sculptured ornament That wreathen round it made it seem his own; And wearied out made for the couch and slept, A stainless man beside a stainless maid; And either slept, nor knew of other there; Till the high dawn piercing the royal rose In Arthur's casement glimmered chastely down, Blushing upon them blushing, and at once He rose without a word and parted from her: But when the thing was blazed about the court, The brute world howling forced them into bonds, And as it chanced they are happy, being pure.' 'O ay,' said Vivien, 'that were likely too. What say ye then to fair Sir Percivale And of the horrid foulness that he wrought, The saintly youth, the spotless lamb of Christ, Or some black wether of St Satan's fold. What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard, Among the knightly brasses of the graves, And by the cold Hic Jacets of the dead!' And Merlin answered careless of her charge, 'A sober man is Percivale and pure; But once in life was flustered with new wine, Then paced for coolness in the chapel-yard; Where one of Satan's shepherdesses caught And meant to stamp him with her master's mark; And that he sinned is not believable; For, look upon his face!--but if he sinned, The sin that practice burns into the blood, And not the one dark hour which brings remorse, Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be: Or else were he, the holy king, whose hymns Are chanted in the minster, worse than all. But is your spleen frothed out, or have ye more?' And Vivien answered frowning yet in wrath: 'O ay; what say ye to Sir Lancelot, friend Traitor or true? that commerce with the Queen, I ask you, is it clamoured by the child, Or whispered in the corner? do ye know it?' To which he answered sadly, 'Yea, I know it. Sir Lancelot went ambassador, at first, To fetch her, and she watched him from her walls. A rumour runs, she took him for the King, So fixt her fancy on him: let them be. But have ye no one word of loyal praise For Arthur, blameless King and stainless man?' She answered with a low and chuckling laugh: 'Man! is he man at all, who knows and winks? Sees what his fair bride is and does, and winks? By which the good King means to blind himself, And blinds himself and all the Table Round To all the foulness that they work. Myself Could call him (were it not for womanhood) The pretty, popular cause such manhood earns, Could call him the main cause of all their crime; Yea, were he not crowned King, coward, and fool.' Then Merlin to his own heart, loathing, said: 'O true and tender! O my liege and King! O selfless man and stainless gentleman, Who wouldst against thine own eye-witness fain Have all men true and leal, all women pure; How, in the mouths of base interpreters, From over-fineness not intelligible To things with every sense as false and foul As the poached filth that floods the middle street, Is thy white blamelessness accounted blame!' But Vivien, deeming Merlin overborne By instance, recommenced, and let her tongue Rage like a fire among the noblest names, Polluting, and imputing her whole self, Defaming and defacing, till she left Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad clean. Her words had issue other than she willed. He dragged his eyebrow bushes down, and made A snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes, And muttered in himself, 'Tell her the charm! So, if she had it, would she rail on me To snare the next, and if she have it not So will she rail. What did the wanton say? "Not mount as high;" we scarce can sink as low: For men at most differ as Heaven and earth, But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell. I know the Table Round, my friends of old; All brave, and many generous, and some chaste. She cloaks the scar of some repulse with lies; I well believe she tempted them and failed, Being so bitter: for fine plots may fail, Though harlots paint their talk as well as face With colours of the heart that are not theirs. I will not let her know: nine tithes of times Face-flatterer and backbiter are the same. And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime Are pronest to it, and impute themselves, Wanting the mental range; or low desire Not to feel lowest makes them level all; Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain, To leave an equal baseness; and in this Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find Some stain or blemish in a name of note, Not grieving that their greatest are so small, Inflate themselves with some insane delight, And judge all nature from her feet of clay, Without the will to lift their eyes, and see Her godlike head crowned with spiritual fire, And touching other worlds. I am weary of her.' He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part, Half-suffocated in the hoary fell And many-wintered fleece of throat and chin. But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood, And hearing 'harlot' muttered twice or thrice, Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood Stiff as a viper frozen; loathsome sight, How from the rosy lips of life and love, Flashed the bare-grinning skeleton of death! White was her cheek; sharp breaths of anger puffed Her fairy nostril out; her hand half-clenched Went faltering sideways downward to her belt, And feeling; had she found a dagger there (For in a wink the false love turns to hate) She would have stabbed him; but she found it not: His eye was calm, and suddenly she took To bitter weeping like a beaten child, A long, long weeping, not consolable. Then her false voice made way, broken with sobs: 'O crueller than was ever told in tale, Or sung in song! O vainly lavished love! O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange, Or seeming shameful--for what shame in love, So love be true, and not as yours is--nothing Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust Who called her what he called her--all her crime, All--all--the wish to prove him wholly hers.' She mused a little, and then clapt her hands Together with a wailing shriek, and said: 'Stabbed through the heart's affections to the heart! Seethed like the kid in its own mother's milk! Killed with a word worse than a life of blows! I thought that he was gentle, being great: O God, that I had loved a smaller man! I should have found in him a greater heart. O, I, that flattering my true passion, saw The knights, the court, the King, dark in your light, Who loved to make men darker than they are, Because of that high pleasure which I had To seat you sole upon my pedestal Of worship--I am answered, and henceforth The course of life that seemed so flowery to me With you for guide and master, only you, Becomes the sea-cliff pathway broken short, And ending in a ruin--nothing left, But into some low cave to crawl, and there, If the wolf spare me, weep my life away, Killed with inutterable unkindliness.' She paused, she turned away, she hung her head, The snake of gold slid from her hair, the braid Slipt and uncoiled itself, she wept afresh, And the dark wood grew darker toward the storm In silence, while his anger slowly died Within him, till he let his wisdom go For ease of heart, and half believed her true: Called her to shelter in the hollow oak, 'Come from the storm,' and having no reply, Gazed at the heaving shoulder, and the face Hand-hidden, as for utmost grief or shame; Then thrice essayed, by tenderest-touching terms, To sleek her ruffled peace of mind, in vain. At last she let herself be conquered by him, And as the cageling newly flown returns, The seeming-injured simple-hearted thing Came to her old perch back, and settled there. There while she sat, half-falling from his knees, Half-nestled at his heart, and since he saw The slow tear creep from her closed eyelid yet, About her, more in kindness than in love, The gentle wizard cast a shielding arm. But she dislinked herself at once and rose, Her arms upon her breast across, and stood, A virtuous gentlewoman deeply wronged, Upright and flushed before him: then she said: 'There must now be no passages of love Betwixt us twain henceforward evermore; Since, if I be what I am grossly called, What should be granted which your own gross heart Would reckon worth the taking? I will go. In truth, but one thing now--better have died Thrice than have asked it once--could make me stay-- That proof of trust--so often asked in vain! How justly, after that vile term of yours, I find with grief! I might believe you then, Who knows? once more. Lo! what was once to me Mere matter of the fancy, now hath grown The vast necessity of heart and life. Farewell; think gently of me, for I fear My fate or folly, passing gayer youth For one so old, must be to love thee still. But ere I leave thee let me swear once more That if I schemed against thy peace in this, May yon just heaven, that darkens o'er me, send One flash, that, missing all things else, may make My scheming brain a cinder, if I lie.' Scarce had she ceased, when out of heaven a bolt (For now the storm was close above them) struck, Furrowing a giant oak, and javelining With darted spikes and splinters of the wood The dark earth round. He raised his eyes and saw The tree that shone white-listed through the gloom. But Vivien, fearing heaven had heard her oath, And dazzled by the livid-flickering fork, And deafened with the stammering cracks and claps That followed, flying back and crying out, 'O Merlin, though you do not love me, save, Yet save me!' clung to him and hugged him close; And called him dear protector in her fright, Nor yet forgot her practice in her fright, But wrought upon his mood and hugged him close. The pale blood of the wizard at her touch Took gayer colours, like an opal warmed. She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales: She shook from fear, and for her fault she wept Of petulancy; she called him lord and liege, Her seer, her bard, her silver star of eve, Her God, her Merlin, the one passionate love Of her whole life; and ever overhead Bellowed the tempest, and the rotten branch Snapt in the rushing of the river-rain Above them; and in change of glare and gloom Her eyes and neck glittering went and came; Till now the storm, its burst of passion spent, Moaning and calling out of other lands, Had left the ravaged woodland yet once more To peace; and what should not have been had been, For Merlin, overtalked and overworn, Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept. Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm Of woven paces and of waving hands, And in the hollow oak he lay as dead, And lost to life and use and name and fame. Then crying 'I have made his glory mine,' And shrieking out 'O fool!' the harlot leapt Adown the forest, and the thicket closed Behind her, and the forest echoed 'fool.' Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Als sich ein Sturm den wilden Wäldern von Broceliande nähert, liegt Vivien zu Merlins Füßen vor einer ausgehöhlten Eiche. Die Geschichte hinter dieser ungewöhnlichen Paarung beginnt am Hofe von König Mark von Cornwall, wo ein reisender Minnesänger von der Liebe zwischen Lancelot und Guinevere flüstert. Auf Anregung von Marks Geliebter Vivien erzählt der Minnesänger, wie deren Beispiel viele von Arthurs Rittern zu reiner Liebe ohne Hoffnung auf körperliche Belohnung inspiriert hat. Mark, immer noch verbittert über Arthurs vermeintliche Herablassung ihm gegenüber, fordert seine Geliebte Vivien heraus, Unruhe unter seinen Rittern zu stiften. Vivien reagiert, indem sie sich über die Vorstellung lustig macht, dass jemand genauso rein und tugendhaft sein könnte wie Arthur und seine Ritter angeblich sind. Sie verspricht, zu Mark zurückzukehren und ihm die Herzen des Ritterordens in die Hände zu legen. Vivien reist nach Camelot und erzählt Guinevere, dass Mark unerwünschte Avancen ihr gegenüber macht. Guinevere erlaubt Vivien, bei ihren Frauen zu wohnen. Vivien schleicht sich um die Ritter von Arthurs Hof herum und verbreitet Gerüchte über Sünde und Korruption unter ihnen. Eines Tages beobachtet Merlin, wie Vivien versucht, Arthur den Hof zu machen, und lacht über die lächerliche Anstrengung. Als er seinen Spott hört, schwört Vivien, Merlin für sich zu gewinnen. Vivians Flirts machen Merlin ein wenig tolerant gegenüber ihr, zur gleichen Zeit spürt er sein Schicksal nahen. Überwältigt von Melancholie verlässt er den Hof, mit Vivien dicht auf den Fersen. Merlin überquert den Ozean und kommt in den Wäldern von Broceliande in der Bretagne an, im nordwestlichen Teil Frankreichs. Vivien folgt ihm und beabsichtigt, einen Zauber über ihn zu wirken, der das Opfer zu einer leblosen Statue werden lässt. Vivien windet sich um Merlin und fleht ihn an, seine Liebe für sie auszusprechen. Sie wickelt sich in seinen Bart und nennt sich selbst eine Sommerfliege, gefangen im Netz eines Tyrannen. Merlin dankt ihr dafür, dass sie seine melancholische Stimmung aufgehellt hat, und fragt sie, welches Geschenk sie von ihm haben möchte. Vivien erinnert Merlin daran, wie gut sie ihn behandelt hat, ohne Dank oder freundliches Wort als Gegenleistung. Merlin erzählt Vivien, dass er das Gefühl hatte, als ob eine Welle über seinem Kopf zusammenzubrechen drohte und dass Vivien diese Welle sei. Nun jedoch stellt er fest, dass Vivians Flirts seine Stimmung aufgehellt haben, und fragt sie erneut, welches Geschenk sie sich wünscht. Vivien möchte, dass Merlin ihr beibringt, wie man jemanden in eine lebende Statue verwandelt. Sie fragt dies als Beweis für sein Vertrauen und seine Liebe. Als Merlin ablehnt, singt Vivien ein Lied darüber, wie selbst der kleinste Mangel an Vertrauen eine ganze Beziehung vergiftet. Als Antwort erzählt Merlin eine Geschichte darüber, wie er und die Ritter der Tafelrunde einmal einem Hirsch mit goldenen Hörnern nachjagten, und zwar genau von dem Eichenbaum aus, wo sie jetzt stehen, angespornt durch das Lied des jüngsten Ritters. Als Vivien sang, so sagt Merlin, hatte er das Gefühl, dass sie genau den Zauber auf ihn wirkt, den sie lernen möchte, und dass er seinen "Namen und Ruhm" schwinden fühlen konnte. Vivien antwortet, dass Männer nur an Ruhm denken, während Frauen nur lieben. Merlin erzählt, wie er einmal das Motto eines Ritters von "Ich folge dem Ruhm" in "Besser gebrauche als Ruhm" geändert hat. Mit anderen Worten, es ist besser, nützlich zu sein als berühmt. Er erklärt, dass er fürchtet, Vivien Macht über ihn zu geben durch den Zauber, nicht weil er befürchtet, seinen Ruhm zu verlieren, sondern weil er nützlich bleiben möchte. Er hat Angst, dass plötzliche Eifersucht Vivien dazu veranlassen könnte, den Zauber gegen ihn einzusetzen. Vivien antwortet, dass sie sicher ist, dass sie ein Recht zur Eifersucht hat: Merlin benutzt wahrscheinlich den Zauber, um ihm vollbusige Frauen gefügig zu machen. Also erzählt Merlin die Geschichte über den Ursprung des Zaubers: Ein König heiratete eine Frau, die so übernatürlich verlockend war, dass selbst Tiere ihre Füße küssten. Königreiche führten Kriege um sie. Der König war so eifersüchtig, dass er einen Zauber suchte, der sie nur ihm allein gehören ließ. Er bot einen riesigen Preis an jeden Zauberer, der solch einen Zauber machen konnte, aber sie alle scheiterten, denn auch sie wurden von der Anziehungskraft der Frau gefangen. Schließlich fanden die Männer des Königs einen Einsiedler, dessen fleißige Studien ihn so sehr mit der Natur verbunden hatten, dass er Stürme oder Sonnenschein nach Belieben herbeirufen konnte. Sie zerrten ihn vor den König, wo er einen Zauber wirkte, der die Königin in eine leblose Statue verwandelte, die nur der König sehen konnte und die nur ihn sehen konnte. Der Einsiedler lehnte die Belohnung ab, die der König ihm anbot, und kehrte zu seinem Leben der Einsamkeit zurück. Merlin erbte sein Buch. Vivien sagt, sie werde dieses Buch finden, egal wie gut Merlin es versteckt. Merlin antwortet, dass sie nicht einmal die archaische Sprache und winzige Schrift darin lesen könnte. Er warnt sie davor, nach dem Zauber zu verlangen. Sie sagt ihm nicht, dass er ihr Vertrauen beweisen und sie davon abhalten kann zu gehen. Sie ruft den Himmel an, sie mit einem Blitz zu treffen, wenn irgendwelche schlechten Absichten sie dazu veranlassen, nach dem Zauber zu fragen. Ein Blitz schlägt in die Eiche ein. Vivien schreit vor Schreck und springt in Merlins Arme. Während der Sturm über ihnen wütet, setzt sie ihre Schmeichelei und Flirt fort. Schließlich, von Viviens Verlockungen erschöpft, lehrt Merlin sie den Zauber und schläft ein. Vivien nutzt sofort den Zauber, um ihn in der Eiche einzusperren. Guter Schachzug, Merlin.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: ON Christmas morning, when I got down to the kitchen, the men were just coming in from their morning chores--the horses and pigs always had their breakfast before we did. Jake and Otto shouted "Merry Christmas"! to me, and winked at each other when they saw the waffle-irons on the stove. Grandfather came down, wearing a white shirt and his Sunday coat. Morning prayers were longer than usual. He read the chapters from St. Matthew about the birth of Christ, and as we listened it all seemed like something that had happened lately, and near at hand. In his prayer he thanked the Lord for the first Christmas, and for all that it had meant to the world ever since. He gave thanks for our food and comfort, and prayed for the poor and destitute in great cities, where the struggle for life was harder than it was here with us. Grandfather's prayers were often very interesting. He had the gift of simple and moving expression. Because he talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull from constant use. His prayers reflected what he was thinking about at the time, and it was chiefly through them that we got to know his feelings and his views about things. After we sat down to our waffles and sausage, Jake told us how pleased the Shimerdas had been with their presents; even Ambrosch was friendly and went to the creek with him to cut the Christmas tree. It was a soft gray day outside, with heavy clouds working across the sky, and occasional squalls of snow. There were always odd jobs to be done about the barn on holidays, and the men were busy until afternoon. Then Jake and I played dominoes, while Otto wrote a long letter home to his mother. He always wrote to her on Christmas Day, he said, no matter where he was, and no matter how long it had been since his last letter. All afternoon he sat in the dining-room. He would write for a while, then sit idle, his clenched fist lying on the table, his eyes following the pattern of the oilcloth. He spoke and wrote his own language so seldom that it came to him awkwardly. His effort to remember entirely absorbed him. At about four o'clock a visitor appeared: Mr. Shimerda, wearing his rabbit-skin cap and collar, and new mittens his wife had knitted. He had come to thank us for the presents, and for all grandmother's kindness to his family. Jake and Otto joined us from the basement and we sat about the stove, enjoying the deepening gray of the winter afternoon and the atmosphere of comfort and security in my grandfather's house. This feeling seemed completely to take possession of Mr. Shimerda. I suppose, in the crowded clutter of their cave, the old man had come to believe that peace and order had vanished from the earth, or existed only in the old world he had left so far behind. He sat still and passive, his head resting against the back of the wooden rocking-chair, his hands relaxed upon the arms. His face had a look of weariness and pleasure, like that of sick people when they feel relief from pain. Grandmother insisted on his drinking a glass of Virginia apple-brandy after his long walk in the cold, and when a faint flush came up in his cheeks, his features might have been cut out of a shell, they were so transparent. He said almost nothing, and smiled rarely; but as he rested there we all had a sense of his utter content. [Illustration: Jake bringing home a Christmas tree] As it grew dark, I asked whether I might light the Christmas tree before the lamp was brought. When the candle ends sent up their conical yellow flames, all the colored figures from Austria stood out clear and full of meaning against the green boughs. Mr. Shimerda rose, crossed himself, and quietly knelt down before the tree, his head sunk forward. His long body formed a letter "S." I saw grandmother look apprehensively at grandfather. He was rather narrow in religious matters, and sometimes spoke out and hurt people's feelings. There had been nothing strange about the tree before, but now, with some one kneeling before it,--images, candles, {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Grandfather merely put his finger-tips to his brow and bowed his venerable head, thus Protestantizing the atmosphere. We persuaded our guest to stay for supper with us. He needed little urging. As we sat down to the table, it occurred to me that he liked to look at us, and that our faces were open books to him. When his deep-seeing eyes rested on me, I felt as if he were looking far ahead into the future for me, down the road I would have to travel. At nine o'clock Mr. Shimerda lighted one of our lanterns and put on his overcoat and fur collar. He stood in the little entry hall, the lantern and his fur cap under his arm, shaking hands with us. When he took grandmother's hand, he bent over it as he always did, and said slowly, "Good wo-man!" He made the sign of the cross over me, put on his cap and went off in the dark. As we turned back to the sitting-room, grandfather looked at me searchingly. "The prayers of all good people are good," he said quietly. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze verfassen?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

An Heiligabendmorgen wacht Jim auf und sieht, wie die Männer von ihrer morgendlichen Arbeit zurückkommen. Sie rufen sich alle "Frohe Weihnachten" zu. Großvater betet an diesem Morgen besonders lange und liest laut aus der Bibel vor. Er dankt Gott für Weihnachten. Der Erzähler-Jim bemerkt, dass Großvater ein besonderes Talent dafür hatte, Gebete zu sprechen. Zum Frühstück gibt es Waffeln und Würstchen. Jake erzählt ihnen, dass die Shimerdas mit ihren Geschenken zufrieden waren, sogar Ambrosch. An diesem Nachmittag spielen Jake und Jim Murmeln, während Otto einen Brief an seine Mutter schreibt, wie er es jedes Weihnachten tut. Um 16 Uhr taucht Herr Shimerda mit seiner winterlichen Fuchsfell-Ausrüstung auf. Er ist gekommen, um ihnen für alles zu danken, was sie für seine Familie getan haben. Obwohl es nur eine Unterbrechung von seiner ständigen Traurigkeit ist, scheint er sehr zufrieden zu sein. Um 21 Uhr verabschiedet er sich, um nach Hause zu gehen. Als er geht, macht er das Kreuzzeichen über Großmutter und sagt ihr, dass sie eine gute Frau sei. Er fügt hinzu, dass die Gebete aller guten Menschen gut sind.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Sobald ich diesen Brief gelesen hatte, ging ich zum Herrn und informierte ihn, dass seine Schwester auf den Heights angekommen sei und mir einen Brief geschickt habe, in dem sie ihr Bedauern über Mrs. Lintons Zustand und ihren sehnlichen Wunsch, ihn zu sehen, zum Ausdruck brachte. Sie wünschte, dass er ihr möglichst bald ein Zeichen der Vergebung durch mich übermitteln möge. "Vergebung!" sagte Linton. "Ich habe ihr nichts zu vergeben, Ellen. Du kannst heute Nachmittag auf Wuthering Heights vorbeigehen, wenn du möchtest, und sagen, dass ich nicht wütend bin, aber es tut mir leid, sie verloren zu haben, vor allem, da ich nicht glauben kann, dass sie glücklich sein wird. Es ist undenkbar, dass ich sie besuche: Wir sind für immer getrennt; und sollte sie mir wirklich einen Gefallen tun wollen, dann soll sie den Schurken, den sie geheiratet hat, überzeugen, das Land zu verlassen." "Und du wirst ihr keinen kleinen Brief schreiben, Sir?", fragte ich flehend. "Nein", antwortete er. "Es ist unnötig. Meine Kommunikation mit Heathcliffs Familie wird genauso spärlich sein wie seine mit meiner. Sie wird nicht existieren!" Mr. Edgars Kühle drückte mich sehr nieder, und auf dem Weg von der Grange zerbrach ich mir den Kopf, wie ich seinen Worten mehr Herz einhauchen und seine Ablehnung, Isabella auch nur ein paar Zeilen zum Trost zu schreiben, abmildern könnte. Ich vermute, dass sie seit dem Morgen auf mich gewartet hatte: Als ich den Gartenweg entlangkam, sah ich sie durch das Gitter schauen, und ich nickte ihr zu; aber sie zog sich zurück, als ob sie befürchtete, beobachtet zu werden. Ich trat ohne anzuklopfen ein. Es gab nie eine so trostlose, düstere Szene wie das früher fröhliche Haus! Ich muss gestehen, dass ich, wenn ich an der Stelle des jungen Mädchens gewesen wäre, zumindest den Kamin gekehrt und die Tische mit einem Staubtuch abgewischt hätte. Aber sie nahm bereits teil an dem allgegenwärtigen Geist der Vernachlässigung, der sie umgab. Ihr hübsches Gesicht war blass und müde; ihre Haare nicht gekräuselt: einige Strähnen hingen schlaff herunter, und einige waren nachlässig um ihren Kopf gewickelt. Wahrscheinlich hatte sie ihr Kleid seit gestern Abend nicht angerührt. Hindley war nicht da. Mr. Heathcliff saß an einem Tisch und blätterte in einigen Papieren in seinem Notizbuch; aber er erhob sich, als ich auftauchte, fragte mich freundlich, wie es mir geht, und bot mir einen Stuhl an. Er war das einzige, was dort anständig schien; und ich dachte, er hätte noch nie besser ausgesehen. So sehr hatten sich die Umstände geändert, dass er sicherlich einem Fremden als geborener Gentleman erschien; und seine Frau als eine vollkommene Lumpenhündin! Sie kam eifrig auf mich zu, hielt eine Hand aus, um den erwarteten Brief entgegenzunehmen. Ich schüttelte den Kopf. Sie würde den Hinweis nicht verstehen, aber sie folgte mir zu einem Beistelltisch, wo ich meinen Hut ablegte, und flehte mich leise an, ihr sofort zu geben, was ich gebracht hatte. Heathcliff erahnte die Bedeutung ihrer Manöver und sagte: "Wenn du etwas für Isabella hast (was du zweifellos hast, Nelly), gib es ihr. Du brauchst kein Geheimnis daraus zu machen: Wir haben keine Geheimnisse voreinander." "Oh, ich habe nichts", antwortete ich und dachte, es sei am besten, die Wahrheit sofort zu sagen. "Mein Herr befahl mir, seiner Schwester mitzuteilen, dass sie gegenwärtig weder einen Brief noch einen Besuch von ihm erwarten dürfe. Er schickt ihr seine Liebe, Ma'am, und seine Wünsche für ihr Glück und um Verzeihung für den Kummer, den sie verursacht hat; aber er denkt, dass nach dieser Zeit sein Haushalt und der Haushalt hier die Verbindung abbrechen sollten, da nichts daraus entstehen könnte, sie weiter aufrechtzuerhalten." Die bewegte Lippe von Mrs. Heathcliff zitterte leicht, und sie kehrte an ihren Platz am Fenster zurück. Ihr Mann stellte sich neben mir auf den Kaminstein und begann Fragen über Catherine zu stellen. Ich erzählte ihm so viel wie ich für richtig hielt über ihre Krankheit, und er entlockte mir durch Befragung die meisten Tatsachen, die mit ihrer Entstehung zusammenhingen. Ich tadelte sie, wie sie es verdient hatte, dafür, dass sie sich all das selbst zuzuschreiben hatte; und endete mit der Hoffnung, dass er Mr. Lintons Beispiel folgen und sich in Zukunft nicht mehr in seine Familie einmischen würde, weder zum Guten noch zum Schlechten. "Mrs. Linton erholt sich jetzt gerade", sagte ich. "Sie wird nie mehr sein wie früher, aber ihr Leben ist gerettet; und wenn Sie wirklich etwas für sie empfinden, werden Sie es vermeiden, wieder in ihren Weg zu kommen: Nein, Sie werden dieses Land ganz verlassen; und damit Sie es nicht bereuen, informiere ich Sie: Catherine Linton ist jetzt so anders als Ihre alte Freundin Catherine Earnshaw, wie diese junge Dame anders ist als ich. Ihr Aussehen hat sich stark verändert, ihr Charakter noch mehr; und die Person, die gezwungen ist, ihr Begleiter zu sein, wird seine Zuneigung in Zukunft nur noch durch die Erinnerung daran, was sie einst war, durch gemeinsame Menschlichkeit und ein Gefühl von Pflicht aufrechterhalten!" "Das ist durchaus möglich", bemerkte Heathcliff, zwang sich, ruhig zu wirken: "durchaus möglich, dass sich Ihr Herr nur auf gemeinsame Menschlichkeit und ein Gefühl von Pflicht verlassen kann. Aber glauben Sie, dass ich Catherine seinem _Gefühl der Pflicht_ und _Menschlichkeit_ überlassen werde? Und können Sie meine Gefühle für Catherine mit seinen vergleichen? Bevor Sie dieses Haus verlassen, muss ich Ihnen das Versprechen abnehmen, dass Sie mir ein Treffen mit ihr ermöglichen werden: Zustimmung oder Ablehnung, ich _werde_ sie sehen! Was sagen Sie dazu?" "Ich sage, Mr. Heathcliff", erwiderte ich, "das dürfen Sie nicht: Sie werden es niemals durch mich erreichen. Eine weitere Begegnung zwischen Ihnen und dem Herrn würde sie endgültig töten." "Mit Ihrer Hilfe kann das vermieden werden", fuhr er fort, "und sollte die Gefahr eines solchen Ereignisses bestehen – sollte er der Grund für eine weitere Belastung ihres Lebens sein – dann, denke ich, wäre ich berechtigt, Äußerste zu tun! Ich wünschte, Sie hätten genug Aufrichtigkeit, um mir zu sagen, ob Catherine sehr unter seinem Verlust leiden würde: Die Angst davor hindert mich. Und hier sehen Sie den Unterschied zwischen unseren Gefühlen: Hätte er an meiner Stelle gestanden und ich an seiner, obwohl ich ihn mit einem Hass hasste, der mein Leben in Galle verwandelte, hätte ich niemals ein Hand gegen ihn erhoben. Sie können ungläubig schauen, wenn Sie möchten! Ich hätte ihn nicht aus ihrer Gesellschaft verbannt, solange sie seine wünschte. Im Moment, wo ihre Zuneigung erlischt, hätte ich sein Herz herausgerissen und sein Blut getrunken! Aber bis dahin – wenn Sie mir nicht glauben, dann kennen Sie mich nicht – bis dahin wäre ich lieber langsam gestorben, bevor ich auch nur ein einziges Haar seines Kopfes berührt hätte!" "Und doch", unterbrach ich, "hast du keine Skrupel, alle Hoffnungen auf ihre vollständige Genesung zu zerstören, indem du dich jetzt in "Meine junge Dame sieht traurig aus, seit sich ihre Umstände geändert haben", bemerkte ich. "Offensichtlich lässt jemandes Liebe in ihrem Fall zu wünschen übrig; wen, darf ich raten; aber vielleicht sollte ich es nicht sagen." "Ich würde vermuten, es ist ihre eigene Liebe", sagte Heathcliff. "Sie verkommt zu einer simplen Schlampe! Sie ist schon früh müde, mich zu beglücken. Sie würden es kaum glauben, aber schon am Tag nach unserer Hochzeit weinte sie, um nach Hause zu gehen. Nun gut, sie wird in diesem Haus umso besser passen, wenn sie nicht allzu pingelig ist, und ich werde dafür sorgen, dass sie mich nicht blamieren wird, indem sie herumstreift." "Nun gut, Sir", erwiderte ich, "ich hoffe, Sie bedenken, dass Mrs. Heathcliff daran gewöhnt ist, versorgt und bedient zu werden, und dass sie wie eine einzige Tochter aufgewachsen ist, die von allen bereitwillig bedient wurde. Sie müssen ihr gestatten, eine Dienstmagd zu haben, die die Dinge in Ordnung hält, und Sie müssen sie freundlich behandeln. Was auch immer Sie von Mr. Edgar halten, Sie können nicht bezweifeln, dass sie eine Fähigkeit für starke Bindungen hat, sonst hätte sie nicht den Luxus und die Annehmlichkeiten und Freunde ihres früheren Zuhauses aufgegeben, um sich zufriedenstellend in einer solchen Wildnis wie dieser niederzulassen, bei Ihnen." "Sie hat sie unter einem Irrtum aufgegeben", antwortete er. "In mir hat sie sich einen Helden der Romanze ausgemalt und unbegrenzte Nachsicht von meiner ritterlichen Hingabe erwartet. Ich kann sie kaum als vernünftiges Wesen betrachten, so beharrlich hat sie darauf bestanden, sich ein fabelhaftes Bild von meinem Charakter zu machen und auf den falschen Eindrücken zu handeln, die sie gehegt hat. Aber jetzt glaube ich, dass sie langsam anfängt, mich zu erkennen: Ich bemerke nicht mehr die dummen Lächeln und Grimassen, die mich anfangs provozierten, und die sinnlose Unfähigkeit, dass ich es ernst meinte, als ich ihr meine Meinung über ihre Verblendung und sich selbst mitteilte. Es war eine erstaunliche Fähigkeit zur Scharfsinnigkeit, herauszufinden, dass ich sie nicht liebe. Ich glaubte, dass ihr keine Lektionen das je beibringen könnten! Und trotzdem hat sie es schlecht gelernt, denn heute Morgen verkündete sie als eine schockierende Nachricht, dass ich es tatsächlich geschafft habe, dass sie mich hasst! Eine Arbeit des Herkules, das versichere ich Ihnen! Wenn es erreicht ist, habe ich Grund zur Dankbarkeit. Kann ich Ihrer Aussage, Isabella, trauen? Sind Sie sicher, dass Sie mich hassen? Wenn ich Sie einen halben Tag in Ruhe lasse, werden Sie dann nicht wieder seufzend und schmeichelnd zu mir kommen? Ich vermute, sie würde es lieber bevorzugen, dass ich Ihnen gegenüber zuvorkommend war: Es kränkt ihr Eitelkeit, die Wahrheit offengelegt zu bekommen. Aber es ist mir egal, wer weiß, dass die Leidenschaft vollkommen einseitig war: und ich habe ihr nie eine Lüge darüber erzählt. Sie kann mich nicht beschuldigen, auch nur ein bisschen trügerische Sanftheit gezeigt zu haben. Das erste, was sie sah, als sie aus dem Grange kam, war, dass ich ihren kleinen Hund aufhängte; und als sie dafür bat, waren die ersten Worte, die ich äußerte, ein Wunsch, dass ich von jedem Wesen, das ihr gehört, mit Ausnahme eines, den Strick anlegen könnte: vielleicht hat sie das als Ausnahme für sich selbst betrachtet. Aber mich hat keine Brutalität angeekelt: ich nehme an, sie hat eine angeborene Bewunderung dafür, solange ihr kostbarer Körper vor Verletzungen geschützt ist! Ist es nicht der Gipfel der Absurdität - des wahren Idiotismus, dass diese bemitleidenswerte, knechtische, kleinmütige Hündin sich einbildet, dass ich sie lieben könnte? Sagen Sie Ihrem Herrn, Nelly, dass ich in meinem ganzen Leben nie auf ein so erbärmliches Ding getroffen bin. Sie besudelt sogar den Namen Linton; und manchmal habe ich aus reiner Fantasielosigkeit in meinen Experimenten nachgelassen, wie weit sie gehen kann und sich immer noch schändlich kriechend zurückzieht! Aber sagen Sie ihm auch, dass er sein brüderliches und vermeintlich autoritäres Herz beruhigen kann: dass ich mich strikt an die Grenzen des Gesetzes halte. Ich habe es bis jetzt vermieden, ihr das geringste Recht auf eine Trennung zu geben; und, was noch wichtiger ist, sie würde niemandem dankbar sein, der uns trennt. Wenn sie gehen möchte, kann sie es tun: der Ärger ihrer Anwesenheit überwiegt die Befriedigung, die sie bringen könnte!" "Mister Heathcliff", sagte ich, "das ist das Geplapper eines Verrückten; Ihre Frau ist höchstwahrscheinlich davon überzeugt, dass Sie verrückt sind; und aus diesem Grund hat sie bis jetzt mit Ihnen ausgehalten: aber jetzt, wo Sie sagen, dass sie gehen kann, wird sie sich zweifellos die Erlaubnis zunutze machen. Sind Sie nicht so verzaubert, meine Dame, dass Sie aus freien Stücken bei ihm bleiben?" "Passen Sie auf, Ellen!" antwortete Isabella, ihre Augen funkelten voller Wut; angesichts ihres Ausdrucks bestand kein Zweifel an dem vollen Erfolg der Bemühungen ihres Partners, sich verabscheuen zu machen. "Glauben Sie kein einziges Wort, das er spricht. Er ist ein lügnerischer Teufel! Ein Ungeheuer und kein Mensch! Man hat mir schon gesagt, dass ich ihn verlassen könnte, und ich habe den Versuch gemacht, aber ich darf es nicht wiederholen! Nur, Ellen, versprechen Sie, kein Wort von seinem schändlichen Gespräch meinem Bruder oder Catherine zu erwähnen. Was auch immer er vorgibt, er will Edgar zur Verzweiflung bringen: er behauptet, dass er mich geheiratet habe, um Macht über ihn zu erlangen; und er wird sie nicht bekommen - ich sterbe lieber! Ich hoffe nur, ich bete, dass er seine teuflische Vorsicht vergisst und mich tötet! Das einzige Vergnügen, das ich mir vorstellen kann, ist zu sterben oder ihn tot zu sehen!" "So, das reicht für jetzt!" sagte Heathcliff. "Wenn Sie vor Gericht vorgeladen werden, werden Sie sich an ihre Worte erinnern, Nelly! Und werfen Sie einen guten Blick auf ihr Gesicht: sie ist dem Punkt nahe, der mir passen würde. Nein, Sie sind nicht in der Verfassung, Ihr eigener Vormund zu sein, Isabella, und ich, als Ihr gesetzlicher Beschützer, muss Sie in meiner Obhut behalten, wie unangenehm die Verpflichtung auch sein mag. Gehen Sie nach oben; ich habe etwas Privates mit Ellen Dean zu besprechen. So geht das nicht: nach oben, sage ich Ihnen! Das hier ist der Weg nach oben, Kind!" Er packte sie und schob sie aus dem Raum und kehrte murmelnd zurück: "Ich habe kein Mitleid! Ich habe kein Mitleid! Je mehr sich die Würme winden, desto mehr sehne ich mich danach, ihre Eingeweide zu zermalmen! Es ist ein moralisches Zahnen; und ich mahle mit immer größerer Energie, je stärker der Schmerz wird." "Verstehen Sie, was das Wort Mitleid bedeutet?", sagte ich und beeilte mich, meinen Hut wieder aufzusetzen. "Haben Sie jemals in Ihrem Leben einen Hauch davon verspürt?" "Lassen Sie das!", unterbrach er mich und bemerkte meine Absicht zu gehen. "Sie gehen noch nicht. Kommen Sie jetzt hierher, Nelly: Ich muss Sie entweder überreden oder zwingen, mir dabei zu helfen, meinen Entschluss zu erfüllen, Catherine zu sehen, und das ohne Verzögerung. Ich schwöre, "In diesem Fall werde ich Maßnahmen ergreifen, um dich zu sichern!", rief Heathcliff aus. "Du wirst Wuthering Heights nicht verlassen, bis morgen früh. Es ist eine dumme Geschichte zu behaupten, dass Catherine mich nicht sehen konnte; und was das Überraschen angeht, ich wünsche es nicht: Du musst sie vorbereiten - frag sie, ob ich kommen darf. Du sagst, sie erwähnt nie meinen Namen und dass ich ihr nie erwähnt werde. Wen sollte sie erwähnen, wenn ich ein verbotenes Thema im Haus bin? Sie denkt, ihr alle seid Spione für ihren Ehemann. Oh, ich bin mir sicher, sie ist in der Hölle zwischen euch! Ich errate an ihrem Schweigen genauso wie an allem anderen, was sie empfindet. Du sagst, sie ist oft ruhelos und ängstlich: Ist das ein Beweis für Ruhe? Du redest davon, dass ihr Verstand nicht stabil ist. Wie zum Teufel sollte er das anders sein in ihrer furchtbaren Isolation? Und dieser fade, unbedeutende Charakter, der aus _Pflicht_ und _Menschlichkeit_ bei ihr ist! Aus _Mitleid_ und _Wohltätigkeit_! Er könnte genauso gut eine Eiche in einen Blumentopf pflanzen und erwarten, dass sie gedeiht, wie glauben, er könne sie in der dümmlichen Sorge wieder zu Kräften bringen? Lassen Sie uns das sofort klären: Bleibst du hier und soll ich mir den Weg zu Catherine über Linton und seinen Diener erkämpfen? Oder wirst du mein Freund sein, wie du es bisher warst, und tun, was ich verlange? Entscheide! Denn es gibt keinen Grund für mein Verweilen, wenn du in deinem sturen Unwillen beharrst!" Nun, Mr. Lockwood, stritt ich mich und beschwerte mich und lehnte ihn dreißig Mal ab; aber letztendlich zwang er mich zu einer Vereinbarung. Ich sagte zu, einen Brief von ihm an meine Herrin zu bringen; und sollte sie zustimmen, versprach ich, ihm mitzuteilen, wann Linton das nächste Mal nicht zu Hause sein würde, damit er kommen und eingelassen werden konnte: Ich würde nicht da sein und meine Mitdiener sollten ebenfalls aus dem Weg sein. War es richtig oder falsch? Ich fürchte, es war falsch, obwohl es zweckmäßig war. Ich dachte, ich würde eine weitere Explosion verhindern, indem ich mich fügte; und ich dachte auch, es könnte eine günstige Krise in Catherines geistiger Krankheit herbeiführen: und dann erinnerte ich mich an Mr. Edgars strenge Zurechtweisung, keine Geschichten zu verbreiten; und ich versuchte, alle Unruhe zu beruhigen, indem ich behauptete, mit häufiger Wiederholung, dass dieses Vertrauensbruch, wenn er eine so harte Bezeichnung verdiente, der letzte sein sollte. Trotzdem war meine Heimreise trauriger als meine Reise dorthin; und ich hatte viele Zweifel, bevor ich mich überwinden konnte, das Schreiben in die Hand von Mrs. Linton zu legen. Aber hier ist Kenneth; ich werde runtergehen und ihm sagen, wie viel besser du bist. Meine Geschichte ist traurig, wie wir sagen, und wird einen weiteren Morgen vertreiben. Traurig und öde! Überlegte ich, als die gute Frau hinunterging, um den Arzt zu empfangen: und nicht genau die Art, mit der ich mich amüsieren würde. Aber egal! Ich werde heilende Medizin aus den bitteren Kräutern von Mrs. Deans ziehen; und zuallererst muss ich mich vor der Faszination hüten, die in den brillanten Augen von Catherine Heathcliff lauert. Es wäre eine merkwürdige Angelegenheit für mich, wenn ich mein Herz dieser jungen Person hingeben würde und die Tochter sich als Neuauflage der Mutter erweisen würde. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten Absätze schreiben?

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Ellen, verärgert über Edgar's Weigerung Isabella zu trösten, ging sie zu einem Besuch bei ihr auf Wuthering Heights. Sie erzählte Isabella und Heathcliff, dass Catherine "nie mehr sein würde wie sie war" und dass Heathcliff sie nicht mehr belästigen sollte. Heathcliff behauptete, dass er sie nicht Edgar's lauwarmer Fürsorge überlassen würde und dass sie ihn viel mehr liebte als ihren Ehemann. Er sagte, dass wenn er an Edgar's Stelle gewesen wäre, er sich niemals in Catherine's Freundschaften eingemischt hätte, obwohl er den Freund töten würde, sobald Catherine sich nicht mehr für ihn interessierte. Ellen drängte Heathcliff dazu, Isabella besser zu behandeln und er drückte seinen Verachtung und Hass auf seine Frau aus. Er sagte, dass Isabella wusste, wer er war, als sie ihn heiratete: sie hatte gesehen, wie er ihren Lieblingshund getötet hatte. Isabella erzählte Ellen, dass sie Heathcliff hasste und er befahl ihr nach oben zu gehen, damit er mit Ellen sprechen konnte. Allein mit ihr sagte er ihr, dass wenn sie ihm kein Treffen mit Catherine arrangieren würde, er sich bewaffnet gewaltsam Zutritt verschaffen würde und sie stimmte zu, Catherine einen Brief von ihm zu geben.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: "L' altra vedete ch'ha fatto alla guancia Della sua palma, sospirando, letto." --Purgatorio, vii. When George the Fourth was still reigning over the privacies of Windsor, when the Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister, and Mr. Vincy was mayor of the old corporation in Middlemarch, Mrs. Casaubon, born Dorothea Brooke, had taken her wedding journey to Rome. In those days the world in general was more ignorant of good and evil by forty years than it is at present. Travellers did not often carry full information on Christian art either in their heads or their pockets; and even the most brilliant English critic of the day mistook the flower-flushed tomb of the ascended Virgin for an ornamental vase due to the painter's fancy. Romanticism, which has helped to fill some dull blanks with love and knowledge, had not yet penetrated the times with its leaven and entered into everybody's food; it was fermenting still as a distinguishable vigorous enthusiasm in certain long-haired German artists at Rome, and the youth of other nations who worked or idled near them were sometimes caught in the spreading movement. One fine morning a young man whose hair was not immoderately long, but abundant and curly, and who was otherwise English in his equipment, had just turned his back on the Belvedere Torso in the Vatican and was looking out on the magnificent view of the mountains from the adjoining round vestibule. He was sufficiently absorbed not to notice the approach of a dark-eyed, animated German who came up to him and placing a hand on his shoulder, said with a strong accent, "Come here, quick! else she will have changed her pose." Quickness was ready at the call, and the two figures passed lightly along by the Meleager, towards the hall where the reclining Ariadne, then called the Cleopatra, lies in the marble voluptuousness of her beauty, the drapery folding around her with a petal-like ease and tenderness. They were just in time to see another figure standing against a pedestal near the reclining marble: a breathing blooming girl, whose form, not shamed by the Ariadne, was clad in Quakerish gray drapery; her long cloak, fastened at the neck, was thrown backward from her arms, and one beautiful ungloved hand pillowed her cheek, pushing somewhat backward the white beaver bonnet which made a sort of halo to her face around the simply braided dark-brown hair. She was not looking at the sculpture, probably not thinking of it: her large eyes were fixed dreamily on a streak of sunlight which fell across the floor. But she became conscious of the two strangers who suddenly paused as if to contemplate the Cleopatra, and, without looking at them, immediately turned away to join a maid-servant and courier who were loitering along the hall at a little distance off. "What do you think of that for a fine bit of antithesis?" said the German, searching in his friend's face for responding admiration, but going on volubly without waiting for any other answer. "There lies antique beauty, not corpse-like even in death, but arrested in the complete contentment of its sensuous perfection: and here stands beauty in its breathing life, with the consciousness of Christian centuries in its bosom. But she should be dressed as a nun; I think she looks almost what you call a Quaker; I would dress her as a nun in my picture. However, she is married; I saw her wedding-ring on that wonderful left hand, otherwise I should have thought the sallow Geistlicher was her father. I saw him parting from her a good while ago, and just now I found her in that magnificent pose. Only think! he is perhaps rich, and would like to have her portrait taken. Ah! it is no use looking after her--there she goes! Let us follow her home!" "No, no," said his companion, with a little frown. "You are singular, Ladislaw. You look struck together. Do you know her?" "I know that she is married to my cousin," said Will Ladislaw, sauntering down the hall with a preoccupied air, while his German friend kept at his side and watched him eagerly. "What! the Geistlicher? He looks more like an uncle--a more useful sort of relation." "He is not my uncle. I tell you he is my second cousin," said Ladislaw, with some irritation. "Schon, schon. Don't be snappish. You are not angry with me for thinking Mrs. Second-Cousin the most perfect young Madonna I ever saw?" "Angry? nonsense. I have only seen her once before, for a couple of minutes, when my cousin introduced her to me, just before I left England. They were not married then. I didn't know they were coming to Rome." "But you will go to see them now--you will find out what they have for an address--since you know the name. Shall we go to the post? And you could speak about the portrait." "Confound you, Naumann! I don't know what I shall do. I am not so brazen as you." "Bah! that is because you are dilettantish and amateurish. If you were an artist, you would think of Mistress Second-Cousin as antique form animated by Christian sentiment--a sort of Christian Antigone--sensuous force controlled by spiritual passion." "Yes, and that your painting her was the chief outcome of her existence--the divinity passing into higher completeness and all but exhausted in the act of covering your bit of canvas. I am amateurish if you like: I do _not_ think that all the universe is straining towards the obscure significance of your pictures." "But it is, my dear!--so far as it is straining through me, Adolf Naumann: that stands firm," said the good-natured painter, putting a hand on Ladislaw's shoulder, and not in the least disturbed by the unaccountable touch of ill-humor in his tone. "See now! My existence presupposes the existence of the whole universe--does it _not?_ and my function is to paint--and as a painter I have a conception which is altogether genialisch, of your great-aunt or second grandmother as a subject for a picture; therefore, the universe is straining towards that picture through that particular hook or claw which it puts forth in the shape of me--not true?" "But how if another claw in the shape of me is straining to thwart it?--the case is a little less simple then." "Not at all: the result of the struggle is the same thing--picture or no picture--logically." Will could not resist this imperturbable temper, and the cloud in his face broke into sunshiny laughter. "Come now, my friend--you will help?" said Naumann, in a hopeful tone. "No; nonsense, Naumann! English ladies are not at everybody's service as models. And you want to express too much with your painting. You would only have made a better or worse portrait with a background which every connoisseur would give a different reason for or against. And what is a portrait of a woman? Your painting and Plastik are poor stuff after all. They perturb and dull conceptions instead of raising them. Language is a finer medium." "Yes, for those who can't paint," said Naumann. "There you have perfect right. I did not recommend you to paint, my friend." The amiable artist carried his sting, but Ladislaw did not choose to appear stung. He went on as if he had not heard. "Language gives a fuller image, which is all the better for beings vague. After all, the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection. I feel that especially about representations of women. As if a woman were a mere colored superficies! You must wait for movement and tone. There is a difference in their very breathing: they change from moment to moment.--This woman whom you have just seen, for example: how would you paint her voice, pray? But her voice is much diviner than anything you have seen of her." "I see, I see. You are jealous. No man must presume to think that he can paint your ideal. This is serious, my friend! Your great-aunt! 'Der Neffe als Onkel' in a tragic sense--ungeheuer!" "You and I shall quarrel, Naumann, if you call that lady my aunt again." "How is she to be called then?" "Mrs. Casaubon." "Good. Suppose I get acquainted with her in spite of you, and find that she very much wishes to be painted?" "Ja, nehmen wir an!" sagte Will Ladislaw mit verächtlichem Unterton, der darauf abzielte, das Thema abzuschließen. Er war sich bewusst, dass er durch lächerlich kleine Gründe gereizt wurde, die zum Teil seiner eigenen Erschaffung entsprangen. Warum machte er sich überhaupt Gedanken über Mrs. Casaubon? Und dennoch fühlte er, als ob etwas mit Bezug auf sie mit ihm passiert wäre. Es gibt Charaktere, die kontinuierlich Kollisionen und Hindernisse in Dramen schaffen, für die niemand vorbereitet ist, mit ihnen zu handeln. Ihre Empfindlichkeiten werden gegen unschuldig ruhende Objekte stoßen. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Dieses Kapitel beginnt mit einem Szenenwechsel - wir sind jetzt in Rom, Italien, wo Dorothea und Mr. Casaubon ihre Hochzeitsreise machen. Will Ladislaw ist auch da, um Kunst zu studieren und zu reisen. Wills Freund, Naumann, sieht Dorothea in einer Galerie in einem Museum und findet sie genauso schön wie die Statuen, die sie betrachtet. Will sieht, wer es ist, und ist nicht glücklich darüber. Naumann möchte vorgestellt werden, weil er Dorotheas Porträt malen möchte. Will ist dagegen, Dorotheas Wesen in einem Gemälde festhalten zu wollen. Er mag Dorothea nicht sehr, aber er denkt, dass sie zu kompliziert ist, um sie in einem Gemälde einzufangen.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: I sat one evening in my laboratory; the sun had set, and the moon was just rising from the sea; I had not sufficient light for my employment, and I remained idle, in a pause of consideration of whether I should leave my labour for the night, or hasten its conclusion by an unremitting attention to it. As I sat, a train of reflection occurred to me, which led me to consider the effects of what I was now doing. Three years before I was engaged in the same manner, and had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart, and filled it for ever with the bitterest remorse. I was now about to form another being, of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man, and hide himself in deserts; but she had not; and she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation. They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species. Even if they were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror. Had I a right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being I had created; I had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats: but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price perhaps of the existence of the whole human race. I trembled, and my heart failed within me; when, on looking up, I saw, by the light of the moon, the daemon at the casement. A ghastly grin wrinkled his lips as he gazed on me, where I sat fulfilling the task which he had allotted to me. Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he had loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide and desert heaths; and he now came to mark my progress, and claim the fulfilment of my promise. As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of malice and treachery. I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and, trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness, and, with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew. I left the room, and, locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own heart never to resume my labours; and then, with trembling steps, I sought my own apartment. I was alone; none were near me to dissipate the gloom, and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most terrible reveries. Several hours past, and I remained near my window gazing on the sea; it was almost motionless, for the winds were hushed, and all nature reposed under the eye of the quiet moon. A few fishing vessels alone specked the water, and now and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound of voices, as the fishermen called to one another. I felt the silence, although I was hardly conscious of its extreme profundity until my ear was suddenly arrested by the paddling of oars near the shore, and a person landed close to my house. In a few minutes after, I heard the creaking of my door, as if some one endeavoured to open it softly. I trembled from head to foot; I felt a presentiment of who it was, and wished to rouse one of the peasants who dwelt in a cottage not far from mine; but I was overcome by the sensation of helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams, when you in vain endeavour to fly from an impending danger, and was rooted to the spot. Presently I heard the sound of footsteps along the passage; the door opened, and the wretch whom I dreaded appeared. Shutting the door, he approached me, and said, in a smothered voice-- "You have destroyed the work which you began; what is it that you intend? Do you dare to break your promise? I have endured toil and misery: I left Switzerland with you; I crept along the shores of the Rhine, among its willow islands, and over the summits of its hills. I have dwelt many months in the heaths of England, and among the deserts of Scotland. I have endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger; do you dare destroy my hopes?" "Begone! I do break my promise; never will I create another like yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness." "Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master;--obey!" "The hour of my weakness is past, and the period of your power is arrived. Your threats cannot move me to do an act of wickedness; but they confirm me in a resolution of not creating you a companion in vice. Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a daemon, whose delight is in death and wretchedness. Begone! I am firm, and your words will only exasperate my rage." The monster saw my determination in my face, and gnashed his teeth in the impotence of anger. "Shall each man," cried he, "find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn. Man, you may hate; but beware! Your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness for ever. Are you to be happy, while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness? You can blast my other passions; but revenge remains--revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die; but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery. Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict." "Devil, cease; and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice. I have declared my resolution to you, and I am no coward to bend beneath words. Leave me; I am inexorable." "It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night." I started forward, and exclaimed, "Villain! before you sign my death-warrant, be sure that you are yourself safe." I would have seized him; but he eluded me, and quitted the house with precipitation: in a few moments I saw him in his boat, which shot across the waters with an arrowy swiftness, and was soon lost amidst the waves. All was again silent; but his words rung in my ears. I burned with rage to pursue the murderer of my peace, and precipitate him into the ocean. I walked up and down my room hastily and perturbed, while my imagination conjured up a thousand images to torment and sting me. Why had I not followed him, and closed with him in mortal strife? But I had suffered him to depart, and he had directed his course towards the main land. I shuddered to think who might be the next victim sacrificed to his insatiate revenge. And then I thought again of his words--"_I will be with you on your wedding-night._" That then was the period fixed for the fulfilment of my destiny. In that hour I should die, and at once satisfy and extinguish his malice. The prospect did not move me to fear; yet when I thought of my beloved Elizabeth,--of her tears and endless sorrow, when she should find her lover so barbarously snatched from her,--tears, the first I had shed for many months, streamed from my eyes, and I resolved not to fall before my enemy without a bitter struggle. The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness, when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene of the last night's contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and my fellow-creatures; nay, a wish that such should prove the fact stole across me. I desired that I might pass my life on that barren rock, wearily it is true, but uninterrupted by any sudden shock of misery. If I returned, it was to be sacrificed, or to see those whom I most loved die under the grasp of a daemon whom I had myself created. I walked about the isle like a restless spectre, separated from all it loved, and miserable in the separation. When it became noon, and the sun rose higher, I lay down on the grass, and was overpowered by a deep sleep. I had been awake the whole of the preceding night, my nerves were agitated, and my eyes inflamed by watching and misery. The sleep into which I now sunk refreshed me; and when I awoke, I again felt as if I belonged to a race of human beings like myself, and I began to reflect upon what had passed with greater composure; yet still the words of the fiend rung in my ears like a death-knell, they appeared like a dream, yet distinct and oppressive as a reality. The sun had far descended, and I still sat on the shore, satisfying my appetite, which had become ravenous, with an oaten cake, when I saw a fishing-boat land close to me, and one of the men brought me a packet; it contained letters from Geneva, and one from Clerval, entreating me to join him. He said that nearly a year had elapsed since we had quitted Switzerland, and France was yet unvisited. He entreated me, therefore, to leave my solitary isle, and meet him at Perth, in a week from that time, when we might arrange the plan of our future proceedings. This letter in a degree recalled me to life, and I determined to quit my island at the expiration of two days. Yet, before I departed, there was a task to perform, on which I shuddered to reflect: I must pack my chemical instruments; and for that purpose I must enter the room which had been the scene of my odious work, and I must handle those utensils, the sight of which was sickening to me. The next morning, at day-break, I summoned sufficient courage, and unlocked the door of my laboratory. The remains of the half-finished creature, whom I had destroyed, lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being. I paused to collect myself, and then entered the chamber. With trembling hand I conveyed the instruments out of the room; but I reflected that I ought not to leave the relics of my work to excite the horror and suspicion of the peasants, and I accordingly put them into a basket, with a great quantity of stones, and laying them up, determined to throw them into the sea that very night; and in the mean time I sat upon the beach, employed in cleaning and arranging my chemical apparatus. Nothing could be more complete than the alteration that had taken place in my feelings since the night of the appearance of the daemon. I had before regarded my promise with a gloomy despair, as a thing that, with whatever consequences, must be fulfilled; but I now felt as if a film had been taken from before my eyes, and that I, for the first time, saw clearly. The idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur to me; the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not reflect that a voluntary act of mine could avert it. I had resolved in my own mind, that to create another like the fiend I had first made would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness; and I banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different conclusion. Between two and three in the morning the moon rose; and I then, putting my basket aboard a little skiff, sailed out about four miles from the shore. The scene was perfectly solitary: a few boats were returning towards land, but I sailed away from them. I felt as if I was about the commission of a dreadful crime, and avoided with shuddering anxiety any encounter with my fellow-creatures. At one time the moon, which had before been clear, was suddenly overspread by a thick cloud, and I took advantage of the moment of darkness, and cast my basket into the sea; I listened to the gurgling sound as it sunk, and then sailed away from the spot. The sky became clouded; but the air was pure, although chilled by the north-east breeze that was then rising. But it refreshed me, and filled me with such agreeable sensations, that I resolved to prolong my stay on the water, and fixing the rudder in a direct position, stretched myself at the bottom of the boat. Clouds hid the moon, every thing was obscure, and I heard only the sound of the boat, as its keel cut through the waves; the murmur lulled me, and in a short time I slept soundly. I do not know how long I remained in this situation, but when I awoke I found that the sun had already mounted considerably. The wind was high, and the waves continually threatened the safety of my little skiff. I found that the wind was north-east, and must have driven me far from the coast from which I had embarked. I endeavoured to change my course, but quickly found that if I again made the attempt the boat would be instantly filled with water. Thus situated, my only resource was to drive before the wind. I confess that I felt a few sensations of terror. I had no compass with me, and was so little acquainted with the geography of this part of the world that the sun was of little benefit to me. I might be driven into the wide Atlantic, and feel all the tortures of starvation, or be swallowed up in the immeasurable waters that roared and buffeted around me. I had already been out many hours, and felt the torment of a burning thirst, a prelude to my other sufferings. I looked on the heavens, which were covered by clouds that flew before the wind only to be replaced by others: I looked upon the sea, it was to be my grave. "Fiend," I exclaimed, "your task is already fulfilled!" I thought of Elizabeth, of my father, and of Clerval; and sunk into a reverie, so despairing and frightful, that even now, when the scene is on the point of closing before me for ever, I shudder to reflect on it. Some hours passed thus; but by degrees, as the sun declined towards the horizon, the wind died away into a gentle breeze, and the sea became free from breakers. But these gave place to a heavy swell; I felt sick, and hardly able to hold the rudder, when suddenly I saw a line of high land towards the south. Almost spent, as I was, by fatigue, and the dreadful suspense I endured for several hours, this sudden certainty of life rushed like a flood of warm joy to my heart, and tears gushed from my eyes. How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery! I constructed another sail with a part of my dress, and eagerly steered my course towards the land. It had a wild and rocky appearance; but as I approached nearer, I easily perceived the traces of cultivation. I saw vessels near the shore, and found myself suddenly transported back to the neighbourhood of civilized man. I eagerly traced the windings of the land, and hailed a steeple which I at length saw issuing from behind a small promontory. As I was in a state of extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly towards the town as a place where I could most easily procure nourishment. Fortunately I had money with me. As I turned the promontory, I perceived a small neat town and a good harbour, which I entered, my heart bounding with joy at my unexpected escape. As I was occupied in fixing the boat and arranging the sails, several people crowded towards the spot. They seemed very much surprised at my appearance; but, instead of offering me any assistance, whispered together with gestures that at any other time might have produced in me a slight sensation of alarm. As it was, I merely remarked that they spoke English; and I therefore addressed them in that language: "My good friends," said I, "will you be so kind as to tell me the name of this town, and inform me where I am?" "You will know that soon enough," replied a man with a gruff voice. "May be you are come to a place that will not prove much to your taste; but you will not be consulted as to your quarters, I promise you." I was exceedingly surprised on receiving so rude an answer from a stranger; and I was also disconcerted on perceiving the frowning and angry countenances of his companions. "Why do you answer me so roughly?" I replied: "surely it is not the custom of Englishmen to receive strangers so inhospitably." "I do not know," said the man, "what the custom of the English may be; but it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains." While this strange dialogue continued, I perceived the crowd rapidly increase. Their faces expressed a mixture of curiosity and anger, which annoyed, and in some degree alarmed me. I inquired the way to the inn; but no one replied. I then moved forward, and a murmuring sound arose from the crowd as they followed and surrounded me; when an ill-looking man approaching, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Come, Sir, you must follow me to Mr. Kirwin's, to give an account of yourself." "Who is Mr. Kirwin? Why am I to give an account of myself? Is not this a free country?" "Aye, Sir, free enough for honest folks. Mr. Kirwin is a magistrate; and you are to give an account of the death of a gentleman who was found murdered here last night." This answer startled me; but I presently recovered myself. I was innocent; that could easily be proved: accordingly I followed my conductor in silence, and was led to one of the best houses in the town. I was ready to sink from fatigue and hunger; but, being surrounded by a crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical debility might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt. Little did I then expect the calamity that was in a few moments to overwhelm me, and extinguish in horror and despair all fear of ignominy or death. I must pause here; for it requires all my fortitude to recall the memory of the frightful events which I am about to relate, in proper detail, to my recollection. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

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Victor reflektiert über seine Vergangenheit und erkennt, dass seit der Erschaffung des Monsters bereits drei Jahre vergangen sind. Nun erschafft er ein weiteres und überlegt sich die Konsequenzen einer ähnlichen Kreation. Vor allem fürchtet er, dass die beiden Kreaturen versuchen könnten, Kinder zu bekommen. Gerade in diesem Moment taucht das Monster auf und Victor zerstört in Verzweiflung die fast abgeschlossene Kreation. Er schwört, seine Arbeit nicht fortzusetzen und stellt sich der Kreatur. Victor denkt daran, Hilfe zu rufen, fühlt sich jedoch völlig hilflos. Er kämpft erfolglos mit dem Monster, doch dann verlässt es ihn und droht, in der Hochzeitsnacht von Victor wieder aufzutauchen. Später erhält er einen Brief von Clerval, der ihn bittet, sich ihm in Perth anzuschließen. Clerval sagt, dass er seine Abreise nicht verzögern kann und sich auf seine Expedition nach Indien vorbereiten muss. Aber Victor muss zuerst die Leiche des Monsters beseitigen. Er beschließt, sie spät in der Nacht ins Meer zu werfen. Er erledigt diese Aufgabe, bleibt aber noch eine Weile auf dem Meer, bis er einschläft. Am nächsten Morgen wacht er auf und stellt fest, dass er sich völlig verloren hat. Hungrig und ermüdet kommt er in einem fremden Land an. Er wird unhöflich empfangen und aufgefordert, vor einem Magistrat zu erscheinen. Da unter verdächtigen Umständen eine Leiche gefunden wurde, besteht der Verdacht, dass er den Mord begangen hat.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: In spite of Udolpho and the dressmaker, however, the party from Pulteney Street reached the Upper Rooms in very good time. The Thorpes and James Morland were there only two minutes before them; and Isabella having gone through the usual ceremonial of meeting her friend with the most smiling and affectionate haste, of admiring the set of her gown, and envying the curl of her hair, they followed their chaperones, arm in arm, into the ballroom, whispering to each other whenever a thought occurred, and supplying the place of many ideas by a squeeze of the hand or a smile of affection. The dancing began within a few minutes after they were seated; and James, who had been engaged quite as long as his sister, was very importunate with Isabella to stand up; but John was gone into the card-room to speak to a friend, and nothing, she declared, should induce her to join the set before her dear Catherine could join it too. "I assure you," said she, "I would not stand up without your dear sister for all the world; for if I did we should certainly be separated the whole evening." Catherine accepted this kindness with gratitude, and they continued as they were for three minutes longer, when Isabella, who had been talking to James on the other side of her, turned again to his sister and whispered, "My dear creature, I am afraid I must leave you, your brother is so amazingly impatient to begin; I know you will not mind my going away, and I dare say John will be back in a moment, and then you may easily find me out." Catherine, though a little disappointed, had too much good nature to make any opposition, and the others rising up, Isabella had only time to press her friend's hand and say, "Good-bye, my dear love," before they hurried off. The younger Miss Thorpes being also dancing, Catherine was left to the mercy of Mrs. Thorpe and Mrs. Allen, between whom she now remained. She could not help being vexed at the non-appearance of Mr. Thorpe, for she not only longed to be dancing, but was likewise aware that, as the real dignity of her situation could not be known, she was sharing with the scores of other young ladies still sitting down all the discredit of wanting a partner. To be disgraced in the eye of the world, to wear the appearance of infamy while her heart is all purity, her actions all innocence, and the misconduct of another the true source of her debasement, is one of those circumstances which peculiarly belong to the heroine's life, and her fortitude under it what particularly dignifies her character. Catherine had fortitude too; she suffered, but no murmur passed her lips. From this state of humiliation, she was roused, at the end of ten minutes, to a pleasanter feeling, by seeing, not Mr. Thorpe, but Mr. Tilney, within three yards of the place where they sat; he seemed to be moving that way, but he did not see her, and therefore the smile and the blush, which his sudden reappearance raised in Catherine, passed away without sullying her heroic importance. He looked as handsome and as lively as ever, and was talking with interest to a fashionable and pleasing-looking young woman, who leant on his arm, and whom Catherine immediately guessed to be his sister; thus unthinkingly throwing away a fair opportunity of considering him lost to her forever, by being married already. But guided only by what was simple and probable, it had never entered her head that Mr. Tilney could be married; he had not behaved, he had not talked, like the married men to whom she had been used; he had never mentioned a wife, and he had acknowledged a sister. From these circumstances sprang the instant conclusion of his sister's now being by his side; and therefore, instead of turning of a deathlike paleness and falling in a fit on Mrs. Allen's bosom, Catherine sat erect, in the perfect use of her senses, and with cheeks only a little redder than usual. Mr. Tilney and his companion, who continued, though slowly, to approach, were immediately preceded by a lady, an acquaintance of Mrs. Thorpe; and this lady stopping to speak to her, they, as belonging to her, stopped likewise, and Catherine, catching Mr. Tilney's eye, instantly received from him the smiling tribute of recognition. She returned it with pleasure, and then advancing still nearer, he spoke both to her and Mrs. Allen, by whom he was very civilly acknowledged. "I am very happy to see you again, sir, indeed; I was afraid you had left Bath." He thanked her for her fears, and said that he had quitted it for a week, on the very morning after his having had the pleasure of seeing her. "Well, sir, and I dare say you are not sorry to be back again, for it is just the place for young people--and indeed for everybody else too. I tell Mr. Allen, when he talks of being sick of it, that I am sure he should not complain, for it is so very agreeable a place, that it is much better to be here than at home at this dull time of year. I tell him he is quite in luck to be sent here for his health." "And I hope, madam, that Mr. Allen will be obliged to like the place, from finding it of service to him." "Thank you, sir. I have no doubt that he will. A neighbour of ours, Dr. Skinner, was here for his health last winter, and came away quite stout." "That circumstance must give great encouragement." "Yes, sir--and Dr. Skinner and his family were here three months; so I tell Mr. Allen he must not be in a hurry to get away." Here they were interrupted by a request from Mrs. Thorpe to Mrs. Allen, that she would move a little to accommodate Mrs. Hughes and Miss Tilney with seats, as they had agreed to join their party. This was accordingly done, Mr. Tilney still continuing standing before them; and after a few minutes' consideration, he asked Catherine to dance with him. This compliment, delightful as it was, produced severe mortification to the lady; and in giving her denial, she expressed her sorrow on the occasion so very much as if she really felt it that had Thorpe, who joined her just afterwards, been half a minute earlier, he might have thought her sufferings rather too acute. The very easy manner in which he then told her that he had kept her waiting did not by any means reconcile her more to her lot; nor did the particulars which he entered into while they were standing up, of the horses and dogs of the friend whom he had just left, and of a proposed exchange of terriers between them, interest her so much as to prevent her looking very often towards that part of the room where she had left Mr. Tilney. Of her dear Isabella, to whom she particularly longed to point out that gentleman, she could see nothing. They were in different sets. She was separated from all her party, and away from all her acquaintance; one mortification succeeded another, and from the whole she deduced this useful lesson, that to go previously engaged to a ball does not necessarily increase either the dignity or enjoyment of a young lady. From such a moralizing strain as this, she was suddenly roused by a touch on the shoulder, and turning round, perceived Mrs. Hughes directly behind her, attended by Miss Tilney and a gentleman. "I beg your pardon, Miss Morland," said she, "for this liberty--but I cannot anyhow get to Miss Thorpe, and Mrs. Thorpe said she was sure you would not have the least objection to letting in this young lady by you." Mrs. Hughes could not have applied to any creature in the room more happy to oblige her than Catherine. The young ladies were introduced to each other, Miss Tilney expressing a proper sense of such goodness, Miss Morland with the real delicacy of a generous mind making light of the obligation; and Mrs. Hughes, satisfied with having so respectably settled her young charge, returned to her party. Miss Tilney had a good figure, a pretty face, and a very agreeable countenance; and her air, though it had not all the decided pretension, the resolute stylishness of Miss Thorpe's, had more real elegance. Her manners showed good sense and good breeding; they were neither shy nor affectedly open; and she seemed capable of being young, attractive, and at a ball without wanting to fix the attention of every man near her, and without exaggerated feelings of ecstatic delight or inconceivable vexation on every little trifling occurrence. Catherine, interested at once by her appearance and her relationship to Mr. Tilney, was desirous of being acquainted with her, and readily talked therefore whenever she could think of anything to say, and had courage and leisure for saying it. But the hindrance thrown in the way of a very speedy intimacy, by the frequent want of one or more of these requisites, prevented their doing more than going through the first rudiments of an acquaintance, by informing themselves how well the other liked Bath, how much she admired its buildings and surrounding country, whether she drew, or played, or sang, and whether she was fond of riding on horseback. The two dances were scarcely concluded before Catherine found her arm gently seized by her faithful Isabella, who in great spirits exclaimed, "At last I have got you. My dearest creature, I have been looking for you this hour. What could induce you to come into this set, when you knew I was in the other? I have been quite wretched without you." "My dear Isabella, how was it possible for me to get at you? I could not even see where you were." "So I told your brother all the time--but he would not believe me. Do go and see for her, Mr. Morland, said I--but all in vain--he would not stir an inch. Was not it so, Mr. Morland? But you men are all so immoderately lazy! I have been scolding him to such a degree, my dear Catherine, you would be quite amazed. You know I never stand upon ceremony with such people." "Look at that young lady with the white beads round her head," whispered Catherine, detaching her friend from James. "It is Mr. Tilney's sister." "Oh! Heavens! You don't say so! Let me look at her this moment. What a delightful girl! I never saw anything half so beautiful! But where is her all-conquering brother? Is he in the room? Point him out to me this instant, if he is. I die to see him. Mr. Morland, you are not to listen. We are not talking about you." "But what is all this whispering about? What is going on?" "There now, I knew how it would be. You men have such restless curiosity! Talk of the curiosity of women, indeed! 'Tis nothing. But be satisfied, for you are not to know anything at all of the matter." "And is that likely to satisfy me, do you think?" "Well, I declare I never knew anything like you. What can it signify to you, what we are talking of. Perhaps we are talking about you; therefore I would advise you not to listen, or you may happen to hear something not very agreeable." In this commonplace chatter, which lasted some time, the original subject seemed entirely forgotten; and though Catherine was very well pleased to have it dropped for a while, she could not avoid a little suspicion at the total suspension of all Isabella's impatient desire to see Mr. Tilney. When the orchestra struck up a fresh dance, James would have led his fair partner away, but she resisted. "I tell you, Mr. Morland," she cried, "I would not do such a thing for all the world. How can you be so teasing; only conceive, my dear Catherine, what your brother wants me to do. He wants me to dance with him again, though I tell him that it is a most improper thing, and entirely against the rules. It would make us the talk of the place, if we were not to change partners." "Upon my honour," said James, "in these public assemblies, it is as often done as not." "Nonsense, how can you say so? But when you men have a point to carry, you never stick at anything. My sweet Catherine, do support me; persuade your brother how impossible it is. Tell him that it would quite shock you to see me do such a thing; now would not it?" "No, not at all; but if you think it wrong, you had much better change." "There," cried Isabella, "you hear what your sister says, and yet you will not mind her. Well, remember that it is not my fault, if we set all the old ladies in Bath in a bustle. Come along, my dearest Catherine, for heaven's sake, and stand by me." And off they went, to regain their former place. John Thorpe, in the meanwhile, had walked away; and Catherine, ever willing to give Mr. Tilney an opportunity of repeating the agreeable request which had already flattered her once, made her way to Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Thorpe as fast as she could, in the hope of finding him still with them--a hope which, when it proved to be fruitless, she felt to have been highly unreasonable. "Well, my dear," said Mrs. Thorpe, impatient for praise of her son, "I hope you have had an agreeable partner." "Very agreeable, madam." "I am glad of it. John has charming spirits, has not he?" "Did you meet Mr. Tilney, my dear?" said Mrs. Allen. "No, where is he?" "He was with us just now, and said he was so tired of lounging about, that he was resolved to go and dance; so I thought perhaps he would ask you, if he met with you." "Where can he be?" said Catherine, looking round; but she had not looked round long before she saw him leading a young lady to the dance. "Ah! He has got a partner; I wish he had asked you," said Mrs. Allen; and after a short silence, she added, "he is a very agreeable young man." "Indeed he is, Mrs. Allen," said Mrs. Thorpe, smiling complacently; "I must say it, though I am his mother, that there is not a more agreeable young man in the world." This inapplicable answer might have been too much for the comprehension of many; but it did not puzzle Mrs. Allen, for after only a moment's consideration, she said, in a whisper to Catherine, "I dare say she thought I was speaking of her son." Catherine was disappointed and vexed. She seemed to have missed by so little the very object she had had in view; and this persuasion did not incline her to a very gracious reply, when John Thorpe came up to her soon afterwards and said, "Well, Miss Morland, I suppose you and I are to stand up and jig it together again." "Oh, no; I am much obliged to you, our two dances are over; and, besides, I am tired, and do not mean to dance any more." "Do not you? Then let us walk about and quiz people. Come along with me, and I will show you the four greatest quizzers in the room; my two younger sisters and their partners. I have been laughing at them this half hour." Again Catherine excused herself; and at last he walked off to quiz his sisters by himself. The rest of the evening she found very dull; Mr. Tilney was drawn away from their party at tea, to attend that of his partner; Miss Tilney, though belonging to it, did not sit near her, and James and Isabella were so much engaged in conversing together that the latter had no leisure to bestow more on her friend than one smile, one squeeze, and one "dearest Catherine." Können Sie eine passende Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Es ist Zeit für einen weiteren Ball. Catherine kommt kurz nach den Thorpes und James an. James möchte mit Isabella tanzen, aber John ist abgetaucht, um Karten zu spielen und lässt Catherine ohne Partner zurück. Isabella besteht darauf, dass sie für ganze fünf Sekunden bei Catherine sitzt, bevor sie sie fallen lässt und mit James tanzt. Catherine hat damit kein Problem und verbringt die Zeit mit Mrs. Thorpe und Mrs. Allen. Sie wünscht sich jedoch, einen Partner zu haben und nicht wie eine Mauerblume auszusehen. Mr. Tilney taucht wieder auf. Catherine entdeckt ihn mit einer Frau, von der sie annimmt, dass es seine Schwester ist. Henry kommt zu Mrs. Allen und plaudert mit ihr. Dann fragt er Catherine, ob sie tanzen möchte, aber sie muss ablehnen, da sie John gesagt hat, dass sie mit ihm tanzt. John kommt endlich zum Tanzen und spricht über Pferde, Hunde usw. Catherine kann Isabella nicht finden und ist enttäuscht. Eine Mrs. Hughes kommt auf sie zu und stellt ihr Miss Eleanor Tilney vor, Henrys jüngere Schwester, und fragt, ob es Catherine etwas ausmacht, Eleanor in die Gruppe zu lassen. Miss Tilney ist sehr höflich, gelassen und höflich. Sie und Catherine kommen ins Gespräch. Catherine redet größtenteils. Isabella taucht auf und schilt Catherine aus, weil sie sie nicht früher gefunden hat. Isabella erzählt Catherine, wie sie James schilt und im Grunde genommen sehr flirtet und leichtlebig ist. Catherine weist Isabella auf Eleanor und Henry hin. James und Isabella flirten weiter und dann lehnt Isabella es ab, wieder mit James zu tanzen, da es schlecht aussehen würde. Aber nach gerade einmal zwei Sekunden beschließt sie doch, mit James zu tanzen. Isabella muss noch an ihrer "Playing hard to get" Taktik arbeiten. Catherine geht weg, um Henry noch einmal zu finden, aber er tanzt bereits mit jemand anderem. Catherine ist enttäuscht. John taucht wieder auf, aber Catherine sagt, dass sie müde ist und nicht mehr tanzt. Catherine ist den Rest des Abends gelangweilt und sie hat immer noch nicht mit Henry tanzen können.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: <CHAPTER> BOOK SIX -- AFTERCOURSES 1--The Inevitable Movement Onward The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout Egdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and months. All the known incidents of their love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and modified, till the original reality bore but a slight resemblance to the counterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues. Yet, upon the whole, neither the man nor the woman lost dignity by sudden death. Misfortune had struck them gracefully, cutting off their erratic histories with a catastrophic dash, instead of, as with many, attenuating each life to an uninteresting meagreness, through long years of wrinkles, neglect, and decay. On those most nearly concerned the effect was somewhat different. Strangers who had heard of many such cases now merely heard of one more; but immediately where a blow falls no previous imaginings amount to appreciable preparation for it. The very suddenness of her bereavement dulled, to some extent, Thomasin's feelings; yet irrationally enough, a consciousness that the husband she had lost ought to have been a better man did not lessen her mourning at all. On the contrary, this fact seemed at first to set off the dead husband in his young wife's eyes, and to be the necessary cloud to the rainbow. But the horrors of the unknown had passed. Vague misgivings about her future as a deserted wife were at an end. The worst had once been matter of trembling conjecture; it was now matter of reason only, a limited badness. Her chief interest, the little Eustacia, still remained. There was humility in her grief, no defiance in her attitude; and when this is the case a shaken spirit is apt to be stilled. Could Thomasin's mournfulness now and Eustacia's serenity during life have been reduced to common measure, they would have touched the same mark nearly. But Thomasin's former brightness made shadow of that which in a sombre atmosphere was light itself. The spring came and calmed her; the summer came and soothed her; the autumn arrived, and she began to be comforted, for her little girl was strong and happy, growing in size and knowledge every day. Outward events flattered Thomasin not a little. Wildeve had died intestate, and she and the child were his only relatives. When administration had been granted, all the debts paid, and the residue of her husband's uncle's property had come into her hands, it was found that the sum waiting to be invested for her own and the child's benefit was little less than ten thousand pounds. Where should she live? The obvious place was Blooms-End. The old rooms, it is true, were not much higher than the between-decks of a frigate, necessitating a sinking in the floor under the new clock-case she brought from the inn, and the removal of the handsome brass knobs on its head, before there was height for it to stand; but, such as the rooms were, there were plenty of them, and the place was endeared to her by every early recollection. Clym very gladly admitted her as a tenant, confining his own existence to two rooms at the top of the back staircase, where he lived on quietly, shut off from Thomasin and the three servants she had thought fit to indulge in now that she was a mistress of money, going his own ways, and thinking his own thoughts. His sorrows had made some change in his outward appearance; and yet the alteration was chiefly within. It might have been said that he had a wrinkled mind. He had no enemies, and he could get nobody to reproach him, which was why he so bitterly reproached himself. He did sometimes think he had been ill-used by fortune, so far as to say that to be born is a palpable dilemma, and that instead of men aiming to advance in life with glory they should calculate how to retreat out of it without shame. But that he and his had been sarcastically and pitilessly handled in having such irons thrust into their souls he did not maintain long. It is usually so, except with the sternest of men. Human beings, in their generous endeavour to construct a hypothesis that shall not degrade a First Cause, have always hesitated to conceive a dominant power of lower moral quality than their own; and, even while they sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon, invent excuses for the oppression which prompts their tears. Thus, though words of solace were vainly uttered in his presence, he found relief in a direction of his own choosing when left to himself. For a man of his habits the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a year which he had inherited from his mother were enough to supply all worldly needs. Resources do not depend upon gross amounts, but upon the proportion of spendings to takings. He frequently walked the heath alone, when the past seized upon him with its shadowy hand, and held him there to listen to its tale. His imagination would then people the spot with its ancient inhabitants--forgotten Celtic tribes trod their tracks about him, and he could almost live among them, look in their faces, and see them standing beside the barrows which swelled around, untouched and perfect as at the time of their erection. Those of the dyed barbarians who had chosen the cultivable tracts were, in comparison with those who had left their marks here, as writers on paper beside writers on parchment. Their records had perished long ago by the plough, while the works of these remained. Yet they all had lived and died unconscious of the different fates awaiting their relics. It reminded him that unforeseen factors operate in the evolution of immortality. Winter again came round, with its winds, frosts, tame robins, and sparkling starlight. The year previous Thomasin had hardly been conscious of the season's advance; this year she laid her heart open to external influences of every kind. The life of this sweet cousin, her baby, and her servants, came to Clym's senses only in the form of sounds through a wood partition as he sat over books of exceptionally large type; but his ear became at last so accustomed to these slight noises from the other part of the house that he almost could witness the scenes they signified. A faint beat of half-seconds conjured up Thomasin rocking the cradle, a wavering hum meant that she was singing the baby to sleep, a crunching of sand as between millstones raised the picture of Humphrey's, Fairway's, or Sam's heavy feet crossing the stone floor of the kitchen; a light boyish step, and a gay tune in a high key, betokened a visit from Grandfer Cantle; a sudden break-off in the Grandfer's utterances implied the application to his lips of a mug of small beer, a bustling and slamming of doors meant starting to go to market; for Thomasin, in spite of her added scope of gentility, led a ludicrously narrow life, to the end that she might save every possible pound for her little daughter. One summer day Clym was in the garden, immediately outside the parlour window, which was as usual open. He was looking at the pot-flowers on the sill; they had been revived and restored by Thomasin to the state in which his mother had left them. He heard a slight scream from Thomasin, who was sitting inside the room. "O, how you frightened me!" she said to someone who had entered. "I thought you were the ghost of yourself." Clym was curious enough to advance a little further and look in at the window. To his astonishment there stood within the room Diggory Venn, no longer a reddleman, but exhibiting the strangely altered hues of an ordinary Christian countenance, white shirt-front, light flowered waistcoat, blue-spotted neckerchief, and bottle-green coat. Nothing in this appearance was at all singular but the fact of its great difference from what he had formerly been. Red, and all approach to red, was carefully excluded from every article of clothes upon him; for what is there that persons just out of harness dread so much as reminders of the trade which has enriched them? Yeobright went round to the door and entered. "I was so alarmed!" said Thomasin, smiling from one to the other. "I couldn't believe that he had got white of his own accord! It seemed supernatural." "I gave up dealing in reddle last Christmas," said Venn. "It was a profitable trade, and I found that by that time I had made enough to take the dairy of fifty cows that my father had in his lifetime. I always thought of getting to that place again if I changed at all, and now I am there." "How did you manage to become white, Diggory?" Thomasin asked. "I turned so by degrees, ma'am." "You look much better than ever you did before." Venn appeared confused; and Thomasin, seeing how inadvertently she had spoken to a man who might possibly have tender feelings for her still, blushed a little. Clym saw nothing of this, and added good-humouredly-- "What shall we have to frighten Thomasin's baby with, now you have become a human being again?" "Sit down, Diggory," said Thomasin, "and stay to tea." Venn moved as if he would retire to the kitchen, when Thomasin said with pleasant pertness as she went on with some sewing, "Of course you must sit down here. And where does your fifty-cow dairy lie, Mr. Venn?" "At Stickleford--about two miles to the right of Alderworth, ma'am, where the meads begin. I have thought that if Mr. Yeobright would like to pay me a visit sometimes he shouldn't stay away for want of asking. I'll not bide to tea this afternoon, thank'ee, for I've got something on hand that must be settled. 'Tis Maypole-day tomorrow, and the Shadwater folk have clubbed with a few of your neighbours here to have a pole just outside your palings in the heath, as it is a nice green place." Venn waved his elbow towards the patch in front of the house. "I have been talking to Fairway about it," he continued, "and I said to him that before we put up the pole it would be as well to ask Mrs. Wildeve." "I can say nothing against it," she answered. "Our property does not reach an inch further than the white palings." "But you might not like to see a lot of folk going crazy round a stick, under your very nose?" "I shall have no objection at all." Venn soon after went away, and in the evening Yeobright strolled as far as Fairway's cottage. It was a lovely May sunset, and the birch trees which grew on this margin of the vast Egdon wilderness had put on their new leaves, delicate as butterflies' wings, and diaphanous as amber. Beside Fairway's dwelling was an open space recessed from the road, and here were now collected all the young people from within a radius of a couple of miles. The pole lay with one end supported on a trestle, and women were engaged in wreathing it from the top downwards with wild-flowers. The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still--in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine. Yeobright did not interrupt the preparations, and went home again. The next morning, when Thomasin withdrew the curtains of her bedroom window, there stood the Maypole in the middle of the green, its top cutting into the sky. It had sprung up in the night, or rather early morning, like Jack's bean-stalk. She opened the casement to get a better view of the garlands and posies that adorned it. The sweet perfume of the flowers had already spread into the surrounding air, which, being free from every taint, conducted to her lips a full measure of the fragrance received from the spire of blossom in its midst. At the top of the pole were crossed hoops decked with small flowers; beneath these came a milk-white zone of Maybloom; then a zone of bluebells, then of cowslips, then of lilacs, then of ragged-robins, daffodils, and so on, till the lowest stage was reached. Thomasin noticed all these, and was delighted that the May revel was to be so near. When afternoon came people began to gather on the green, and Yeobright was interested enough to look out upon them from the open window of his room. Soon after this Thomasin walked out from the door immediately below and turned her eyes up to her cousin's face. She was dressed more gaily than Yeobright had ever seen her dressed since the time of Wildeve's death, eighteen months before; since the day of her marriage even she had not exhibited herself to such advantage. "How pretty you look today, Thomasin!" he said. "Is it because of the Maypole?" "Not altogether." And then she blushed and dropped her eyes, which he did not specially observe, though her manner seemed to him to be rather peculiar, considering that she was only addressing himself. Could it be possible that she had put on her summer clothes to please him? He recalled her conduct towards him throughout the last few weeks, when they had often been working together in the garden, just as they had formerly done when they were boy and girl under his mother's eye. What if her interest in him were not so entirely that of a relative as it had formerly been? To Yeobright any possibility of this sort was a serious matter; and he almost felt troubled at the thought of it. Every pulse of loverlike feeling which had not been stilled during Eustacia's lifetime had gone into the grave with her. His passion for her had occurred too far on in his manhood to leave fuel enough on hand for another fire of that sort, as may happen with more boyish loves. Even supposing him capable of loving again, that love would be a plant of slow and laboured growth, and in the end only small and sickly, like an autumn-hatched bird. He was so distressed by this new complexity that when the enthusiastic brass band arrived and struck up, which it did about five o'clock, with apparently wind enough among its members to blow down his house, he withdrew from his rooms by the back door, went down the garden, through the gate in the hedge, and away out of sight. He could not bear to remain in the presence of enjoyment today, though he had tried hard. Nothing was seen of him for four hours. When he came back by the same path it was dusk, and the dews were coating every green thing. The boisterous music had ceased; but, entering the premises as he did from behind, he could not see if the May party had all gone till he had passed through Thomasin's division of the house to the front door. Thomasin was standing within the porch alone. She looked at him reproachfully. "You went away just when it began, Clym," she said. "Yes. I felt I could not join in. You went out with them, of course?" "No, I did not." "You appeared to be dressed on purpose." "Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people were there. One is there now." Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the paling, and near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy figure, sauntering idly up and down. "Who is it?" he said. "Mr. Venn," said Thomasin. "You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie. He has been very kind to you first and last." "I will now," she said; and, acting on the impulse, went through the wicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole. "It is Mr. Venn, I think?" she inquired. Venn started as if he had not seen her--artful man that he was--and said, "Yes." "Will you come in?" "I am afraid that I--" "I have seen you dancing this evening, and you had the very best of the girls for your partners. Is it that you won't come in because you wish to stand here, and think over the past hours of enjoyment?" "Well, that's partly it," said Mr. Venn, with ostentatious sentiment. "But the main reason why I am biding here like this is that I want to wait till the moon rises." "To see how pretty the Maypole looks in the moonlight?" "No. To look for a glove that was dropped by one of the maidens." Thomasin was speechless with surprise. That a man who had to walk some four or five miles to his home should wait here for such a reason pointed to only one conclusion--the man must be amazingly interested in that glove's owner. "Were you dancing with her, Diggory?" she asked, in a voice which revealed that he had made himself considerably more interesting to her by this disclosure. "No," he sighed. "And you will not come in, then?" "Not tonight, thank you, ma'am." "Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young person's glove, Mr. Venn?" "O no; it is not necessary, Mrs. Wildeve, thank you. The moon will rise in a few minutes." Thomasin went back to the porch. "Is he coming in?" said Clym, who had been waiting where she had left him. "He would rather not tonight," she said, and then passed by him into the house; whereupon Clym too retired to his own rooms. When Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and, just listening by the cot, to assure herself that the child was asleep, she went to the window, gently lifted the corner of the white curtain, and looked out. Venn was still there. She watched the growth of the faint radiance appearing in the sky by the eastern hill, till presently the edge of the moon burst upwards and flooded the valley with light. Diggory's form was now distinct on the green; he was moving about in a bowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass for the precious missing article, walking in zigzags right and left till he should have passed over every foot of the ground. "How very ridiculous!" Thomasin murmured to herself, in a tone which was intended to be satirical. "To think that a man should be so silly as to go mooning about like that for a girl's glove! A respectable dairyman, too, and a man of money as he is now. What a pity!" At last Venn appeared to find it; whereupon he stood up and raised it to his lips. Then placing it in his breastpocket--the nearest receptacle to a man's heart permitted by modern raiment--he ascended the valley in a mathematically direct line towards his distant home in the meadows. </CHAPTER> Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Damon und Eustacia sind berühmt für ihren Tod und ihre Liebesgeschichte wird weit und breit erzählt und übertrieben. Damon hatte viele Schulden, also ist die verwitwete Thomasin jetzt pleite und muss wieder zu Clym ins Haus von Mrs. Yeobright ziehen. Die beiden Yeobright Cousins sind schwer depressiv, aber Thomasin kann zumindest etwas Trost in ihrem Baby finden. Clym wandert durch die Heide, besucht die Gräber seiner Frau und Mutter und ist deprimiert. Die Zeit vergeht und Diggory Venn taucht wieder auf - doch er ist nicht mehr rot. Er hat aufgehört, ein Rotschopf zu sein und betreibt nun wieder seine Molkerei. Thomasin ist beeindruckt. Es findet ein örtliches Festival statt und Thomasin nimmt teil, in der Hoffnung, Diggory zu sehen. Clym beginnt sich Sorgen zu machen, dass Thomasin sich wieder in den Kerl verliebt und denkt, dass er sie vielleicht heiraten muss. Diggory hat auf dem Maifest mit anderen getanzt. Schlau, Diggory, schlau. Thomasin sieht ihn später am Abend und lädt ihn ein, Clym zu besuchen, aber Diggory lehnt ab. Diggory erklärt, dass er herumhing und nach einem verlorenen Handschuh eines Mädchens suchte, was Thomasin für albern hält. Sie geht und Diggory macht sich weiter Gedanken über den Handschuh.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: CHAPTER XII ONE week of authentic spring, one rare sweet week of May, one tranquil moment between the blast of winter and the charge of summer. Daily Carol walked from town into flashing country hysteric with new life. One enchanted hour when she returned to youth and a belief in the possibility of beauty. She had walked northward toward the upper shore of Plover Lake, taking to the railroad track, whose directness and dryness make it the natural highway for pedestrians on the plains. She stepped from tie to tie, in long strides. At each road-crossing she had to crawl over a cattle-guard of sharpened timbers. She walked the rails, balancing with arms extended, cautious heel before toe. As she lost balance her body bent over, her arms revolved wildly, and when she toppled she laughed aloud. The thick grass beside the track, coarse and prickly with many burnings, hid canary-yellow buttercups and the mauve petals and woolly sage-green coats of the pasque flowers. The branches of the kinnikinic brush were red and smooth as lacquer on a saki bowl. She ran down the gravelly embankment, smiled at children gathering flowers in a little basket, thrust a handful of the soft pasque flowers into the bosom of her white blouse. Fields of springing wheat drew her from the straight propriety of the railroad and she crawled through the rusty barbed-wire fence. She followed a furrow between low wheat blades and a field of rye which showed silver lights as it flowed before the wind. She found a pasture by the lake. So sprinkled was the pasture with rag-baby blossoms and the cottony herb of Indian tobacco that it spread out like a rare old Persian carpet of cream and rose and delicate green. Under her feet the rough grass made a pleasant crunching. Sweet winds blew from the sunny lake beside her, and small waves sputtered on the meadowy shore. She leaped a tiny creek bowered in pussy-willow buds. She was nearing a frivolous grove of birch and poplar and wild plum trees. The poplar foliage had the downiness of a Corot arbor; the green and silver trunks were as candid as the birches, as slender and lustrous as the limbs of a Pierrot. The cloudy white blossoms of the plum trees filled the grove with a springtime mistiness which gave an illusion of distance. She ran into the wood, crying out for joy of freedom regained after winter. Choke-cherry blossoms lured her from the outer sun-warmed spaces to depths of green stillness, where a submarine light came through the young leaves. She walked pensively along an abandoned road. She found a moccasin-flower beside a lichen-covered log. At the end of the road she saw the open acres--dipping rolling fields bright with wheat. "I believe! The woodland gods still live! And out there, the great land. It's beautiful as the mountains. What do I care for Thanatopsises?" She came out on the prairie, spacious under an arch of boldly cut clouds. Small pools glittered. Above a marsh red-winged blackbirds chased a crow in a swift melodrama of the air. On a hill was silhouetted a man following a drag. His horse bent its neck and plodded, content. A path took her to the Corinth road, leading back to town. Dandelions glowed in patches amidst the wild grass by the way. A stream golloped through a concrete culvert beneath the road. She trudged in healthy weariness. A man in a bumping Ford rattled up beside her, hailed, "Give you a lift, Mrs. Kennicott?" "Thank you. It's awfully good of you, but I'm enjoying the walk." "Great day, by golly. I seen some wheat that must of been five inches high. Well, so long." She hadn't the dimmest notion who he was, but his greeting warmed her. This countryman gave her a companionship which she had never (whether by her fault or theirs or neither) been able to find in the matrons and commercial lords of the town. Half a mile from town, in a hollow between hazelnut bushes and a brook, she discovered a gipsy encampment: a covered wagon, a tent, a bunch of pegged-out horses. A broad-shouldered man was squatted on his heels, holding a frying-pan over a camp-fire. He looked toward her. He was Miles Bjornstam. "Well, well, what you doing out here?" he roared. "Come have a hunk o' bacon. Pete! Hey, Pete!" A tousled person came from behind the covered wagon. "Pete, here's the one honest-to-God lady in my bum town. Come on, crawl in and set a couple minutes, Mrs. Kennicott. I'm hiking off for all summer." The Red Swede staggered up, rubbed his cramped knees, lumbered to the wire fence, held the strands apart for her. She unconsciously smiled at him as she went through. Her skirt caught on a barb; he carefully freed it. Beside this man in blue flannel shirt, baggy khaki trousers, uneven suspenders, and vile felt hat, she was small and exquisite. The surly Pete set out an upturned bucket for her. She lounged on it, her elbows on her knees. "Where are you going?" she asked. "Just starting off for the summer, horse-trading." Bjornstam chuckled. His red mustache caught the sun. "Regular hoboes and public benefactors we are. Take a hike like this every once in a while. Sharks on horses. Buy 'em from farmers and sell 'em to others. We're honest--frequently. Great time. Camp along the road. I was wishing I had a chance to say good-by to you before I ducked out but----Say, you better come along with us." "I'd like to." "While you're playing mumblety-peg with Mrs. Lym Cass, Pete and me will be rambling across Dakota, through the Bad Lands, into the butte country, and when fall comes, we'll be crossing over a pass of the Big Horn Mountains, maybe, and camp in a snow-storm, quarter of a mile right straight up above a lake. Then in the morning we'll lie snug in our blankets and look up through the pines at an eagle. How'd it strike you? Heh? Eagle soaring and soaring all day--big wide sky----" "Don't! Or I will go with you, and I'm afraid there might be some slight scandal. Perhaps some day I'll do it. Good-by." Her hand disappeared in his blackened leather glove. From the turn in the road she waved at him. She walked on more soberly now, and she was lonely. But the wheat and grass were sleek velvet under the sunset; the prairie clouds were tawny gold; and she swung happily into Main Street. II Through the first days of June she drove with Kennicott on his calls. She identified him with the virile land; she admired him as she saw with what respect the farmers obeyed him. She was out in the early chill, after a hasty cup of coffee, reaching open country as the fresh sun came up in that unspoiled world. Meadow larks called from the tops of thin split fence-posts. The wild roses smelled clean. As they returned in late afternoon the low sun was a solemnity of radial bands, like a heavenly fan of beaten gold; the limitless circle of the grain was a green sea rimmed with fog, and the willow wind-breaks were palmy isles. Before July the close heat blanketed them. The tortured earth cracked. Farmers panted through corn-fields behind cultivators and the sweating flanks of horses. While she waited for Kennicott in the car, before a farmhouse, the seat burned her fingers and her head ached with the glare on fenders and hood. A black thunder-shower was followed by a dust storm which turned the sky yellow with the hint of a coming tornado. Impalpable black dust far-borne from Dakota covered the inner sills of the closed windows. The July heat was ever more stifling. They crawled along Main Street by day; they found it hard to sleep at night. They brought mattresses down to the living-room, and thrashed and turned by the open window. Ten times a night they talked of going out to soak themselves with the hose and wade through the dew, but they were too listless to take the trouble. On cool evenings, when they tried to go walking, the gnats appeared in swarms which peppered their faces and caught in their throats. She wanted the Northern pines, the Eastern sea, but Kennicott declared that it would be "kind of hard to get away, just NOW." The Health and Improvement Committee of the Thanatopsis asked her to take part in the anti-fly campaign, and she toiled about town persuading householders to use the fly-traps furnished by the club, or giving out money prizes to fly-swatting children. She was loyal enough but not ardent, and without ever quite intending to, she began to neglect the task as heat sucked at her strength. Kennicott and she motored North and spent a week with his mother--that is, Carol spent it with his mother, while he fished for bass. The great event was their purchase of a summer cottage, down on Lake Minniemashie. Perhaps the most amiable feature of life in Gopher Prairie was the summer cottages. They were merely two-room shanties, with a seepage of broken-down chairs, peeling veneered tables, chromos pasted on wooden walls, and inefficient kerosene stoves. They were so thin-walled and so close together that you could--and did--hear a baby being spanked in the fifth cottage off. But they were set among elms and lindens on a bluff which looked across the lake to fields of ripened wheat sloping up to green woods. Here the matrons forgot social jealousies, and sat gossiping in gingham; or, in old bathing-suits, surrounded by hysterical children, they paddled for hours. Carol joined them; she ducked shrieking small boys, and helped babies construct sand-basins for unfortunate minnows. She liked Juanita Haydock and Maud Dyer when she helped them make picnic-supper for the men, who came motoring out from town each evening. She was easier and more natural with them. In the debate as to whether there should be veal loaf or poached egg on hash, she had no chance to be heretical and oversensitive. They danced sometimes, in the evening; they had a minstrel show, with Kennicott surprisingly good as end-man; always they were encircled by children wise in the lore of woodchucks and gophers and rafts and willow whistles. If they could have continued this normal barbaric life Carol would have been the most enthusiastic citizen of Gopher Prairie. She was relieved to be assured that she did not want bookish conversation alone; that she did not expect the town to become a Bohemia. She was content now. She did not criticize. But in September, when the year was at its richest, custom dictated that it was time to return to town; to remove the children from the waste occupation of learning the earth, and send them back to lessons about the number of potatoes which (in a delightful world untroubled by commission-houses or shortages in freight-cars) William sold to John. The women who had cheerfully gone bathing all summer looked doubtful when Carol begged, "Let's keep up an outdoor life this winter, let's slide and skate." Their hearts shut again till spring, and the nine months of cliques and radiators and dainty refreshments began all over. III Carol had started a salon. Since Kennicott, Vida Sherwin, and Guy Pollock were her only lions, and since Kennicott would have preferred Sam Clark to all the poets and radicals in the entire world, her private and self-defensive clique did not get beyond one evening dinner for Vida and Guy, on her first wedding anniversary; and that dinner did not get beyond a controversy regarding Raymie Wutherspoon's yearnings. Guy Pollock was the gentlest person she had found here. He spoke of her new jade and cream frock naturally, not jocosely; he held her chair for her as they sat down to dinner; and he did not, like Kennicott, interrupt her to shout, "Oh say, speaking of that, I heard a good story today." But Guy was incurably hermit. He sat late and talked hard, and did not come again. Then she met Champ Perry in the post-office--and decided that in the history of the pioneers was the panacea for Gopher Prairie, for all of America. We have lost their sturdiness, she told herself. We must restore the last of the veterans to power and follow them on the backward path to the integrity of Lincoln, to the gaiety of settlers dancing in a saw-mill. She read in the records of the Minnesota Territorial Pioneers that only sixty years ago, not so far back as the birth of her own father, four cabins had composed Gopher Prairie. The log stockade which Mrs. Champ Perry was to find when she trekked in was built afterward by the soldiers as a defense against the Sioux. The four cabins were inhabited by Maine Yankees who had come up the Mississippi to St. Paul and driven north over virgin prairie into virgin woods. They ground their own corn; the men-folks shot ducks and pigeons and prairie chickens; the new breakings yielded the turnip-like rutabagas, which they ate raw and boiled and baked and raw again. For treat they had wild plums and crab-apples and tiny wild strawberries. Grasshoppers came darkening the sky, and in an hour ate the farmwife's garden and the farmer's coat. Precious horses painfully brought from Illinois, were drowned in bogs or stampeded by the fear of blizzards. Snow blew through the chinks of new-made cabins, and Eastern children, with flowery muslin dresses, shivered all winter and in summer were red and black with mosquito bites. Indians were everywhere; they camped in dooryards, stalked into kitchens to demand doughnuts, came with rifles across their backs into schoolhouses and begged to see the pictures in the geographies. Packs of timber-wolves treed the children; and the settlers found dens of rattle-snakes, killed fifty, a hundred, in a day. Yet it was a buoyant life. Carol read enviously in the admirable Minnesota chronicles called "Old Rail Fence Corners" the reminiscence of Mrs. Mahlon Black, who settled in Stillwater in 1848: "There was nothing to parade over in those days. We took it as it came and had happy lives. . . . We would all gather together and in about two minutes would be having a good time--playing cards or dancing. . . . We used to waltz and dance contra dances. None of these new jigs and not wear any clothes to speak of. We covered our hides in those days; no tight skirts like now. You could take three or four steps inside our skirts and then not reach the edge. One of the boys would fiddle a while and then some one would spell him and he could get a dance. Sometimes they would dance and fiddle too." She reflected that if she could not have ballrooms of gray and rose and crystal, she wanted to be swinging across a puncheon-floor with a dancing fiddler. This smug in-between town, which had exchanged "Money Musk" for phonographs grinding out ragtime, it was neither the heroic old nor the sophisticated new. Couldn't she somehow, some yet unimagined how, turn it back to simplicity? She herself knew two of the pioneers: the Perrys. Champ Perry was the buyer at the grain-elevator. He weighed wagons of wheat on a rough platform-scale, in the cracks of which the kernels sprouted every spring. Between times he napped in the dusty peace of his office. She called on the Perrys at their rooms above Howland & Gould's grocery. When they were already old they had lost the money, which they had invested in an elevator. They had given up their beloved yellow brick house and moved into these rooms over a store, which were the Gopher Prairie equivalent of a flat. A broad stairway led from the street to the upper hall, along which were the doors of a lawyer's office, a dentist's, a photographer's "studio," the lodge-rooms of the Affiliated Order of Spartans and, at the back, the Perrys' apartment. They received her (their first caller in a month) with aged fluttering tenderness. Mrs. Perry confided, "My, it's a shame we got to entertain you in such a cramped place. And there ain't any water except that ole iron sink outside in the hall, but still, as I say to Champ, beggars can't be choosers. 'Sides, the brick house was too big for me to sweep, and it was way out, and it's nice to be living down here among folks. Yes, we're glad to be here. But----Some day, maybe we can have a house of our own again. We're saving up----Oh, dear, if we could have our own home! But these rooms are real nice, ain't they!" As old people will, the world over, they had moved as much as possible of their familiar furniture into this small space. Carol had none of the superiority she felt toward Mrs. Lyman Cass's plutocratic parlor. She was at home here. She noted with tenderness all the makeshifts: the darned chair-arms, the patent rocker covered with sleazy cretonne, the pasted strips of paper mending the birch-bark napkin-rings labeled "Papa" and "Mama." She hinted of her new enthusiasm. To find one of the "young folks" who took them seriously, heartened the Perrys, and she easily drew from them the principles by which Gopher Prairie should be born again--should again become amusing to live in. This was their philosophy complete . . . in the era of aeroplanes and syndicalism: The Baptist Church (and, somewhat less, the Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian Churches) is the perfect, the divinely ordained standard in music, oratory, philanthropy, and ethics. "We don't need all this new-fangled science, or this terrible Higher Criticism that's ruining our young men in colleges. What we need is to get back to the true Word of God, and a good sound belief in hell, like we used to have it preached to us." The Republican Party, the Grand Old Party of Blaine and McKinley, is the agent of the Lord and of the Baptist Church in temporal affairs. All socialists ought to be hanged. "Harold Bell Wright is a lovely writer, and he teaches such good morals in his novels, and folks say he's made prett' near a million dollars out of 'em." People who make more than ten thousand a year or less than eight hundred are wicked. Europeans are still wickeder. It doesn't hurt any to drink a glass of beer on a warm day, but anybody who touches wine is headed straight for hell. Virgins are not so virginal as they used to be. Nobody needs drug-store ice cream; pie is good enough for anybody. The farmers want too much for their wheat. The owners of the elevator-company expect too much for the salaries they pay. There would be no more trouble or discontent in the world if everybody worked as hard as Pa did when he cleared our first farm. IV Carol's hero-worship dwindled to polite nodding, and the nodding dwindled to a desire to escape, and she went home with a headache. Next day she saw Miles Bjornstam on the street. "Just back from Montana. Great summer. Pumped my lungs chuck-full of Rocky Mountain air. Now for another whirl at sassing the bosses of Gopher Prairie." She smiled at him, and the Perrys faded, the pioneers faded, till they were but daguerreotypes in a black walnut cupboard. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

An einem angenehmen Tag geht Carol ins Grüne und trifft Miles Bjornstam, der über einem Feuer in einem Zigeunerlager kocht, an. Miles und sein Partner Pete verlassen die Stadt für einen Sommer des Pferdehandels im Westen und Miles lädt sie humorvoll ein, mit ihnen mitzukommen. Sie verabschiedet sich und kehrt in die Stadt zurück. Der Sommer bringt drückende Hitze und Carol und Will fliehen in ihre neu gekaufte Sommerhütte am See. Carol schwimmt und tratscht tagsüber mit den Damen und abends fahren ihre Ehemänner aus der Stadt. Carol ist glücklich in diesem Sommer, aber im September kehren die Familien in die trostlose Stadt zurück. Carol entwickelt eine Begeisterung für den Geist der Pioniere und beschließt, wenn sie die Stadt nicht in die Zukunft bringen kann, vielleicht einiges von ihrer edlen Vergangenheit wiederzubeleben. Sie sucht die beiden Pioniere auf, die sie kennt - Herrn und Frau Champ Perry. Anfangs ist sie von ihnen bezaubert, aber ihr belehrendes Gerede über gesellschaftliche Probleme wird ihr bald zu viel. Miles Bjornstam kehrt aus Montana zurück.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Mrs. Elton was first seen at church: but though devotion might be interrupted, curiosity could not be satisfied by a bride in a pew, and it must be left for the visits in form which were then to be paid, to settle whether she were very pretty indeed, or only rather pretty, or not pretty at all. Emma had feelings, less of curiosity than of pride or propriety, to make her resolve on not being the last to pay her respects; and she made a point of Harriet's going with her, that the worst of the business might be gone through as soon as possible. She could not enter the house again, could not be in the same room to which she had with such vain artifice retreated three months ago, to lace up her boot, without _recollecting_. A thousand vexatious thoughts would recur. Compliments, charades, and horrible blunders; and it was not to be supposed that poor Harriet should not be recollecting too; but she behaved very well, and was only rather pale and silent. The visit was of course short; and there was so much embarrassment and occupation of mind to shorten it, that Emma would not allow herself entirely to form an opinion of the lady, and on no account to give one, beyond the nothing-meaning terms of being "elegantly dressed, and very pleasing." She did not really like her. She would not be in a hurry to find fault, but she suspected that there was no elegance;--ease, but not elegance.-- She was almost sure that for a young woman, a stranger, a bride, there was too much ease. Her person was rather good; her face not unpretty; but neither feature, nor air, nor voice, nor manner, were elegant. Emma thought at least it would turn out so. As for Mr. Elton, his manners did not appear--but no, she would not permit a hasty or a witty word from herself about his manners. It was an awkward ceremony at any time to be receiving wedding visits, and a man had need be all grace to acquit himself well through it. The woman was better off; she might have the assistance of fine clothes, and the privilege of bashfulness, but the man had only his own good sense to depend on; and when she considered how peculiarly unlucky poor Mr. Elton was in being in the same room at once with the woman he had just married, the woman he had wanted to marry, and the woman whom he had been expected to marry, she must allow him to have the right to look as little wise, and to be as much affectedly, and as little really easy as could be. "Well, Miss Woodhouse," said Harriet, when they had quitted the house, and after waiting in vain for her friend to begin; "Well, Miss Woodhouse, (with a gentle sigh,) what do you think of her?--Is not she very charming?" There was a little hesitation in Emma's answer. "Oh! yes--very--a very pleasing young woman." "I think her beautiful, quite beautiful." "Very nicely dressed, indeed; a remarkably elegant gown." "I am not at all surprized that he should have fallen in love." "Oh! no--there is nothing to surprize one at all.--A pretty fortune; and she came in his way." "I dare say," returned Harriet, sighing again, "I dare say she was very much attached to him." "Perhaps she might; but it is not every man's fate to marry the woman who loves him best. Miss Hawkins perhaps wanted a home, and thought this the best offer she was likely to have." "Yes," said Harriet earnestly, "and well she might, nobody could ever have a better. Well, I wish them happy with all my heart. And now, Miss Woodhouse, I do not think I shall mind seeing them again. He is just as superior as ever;--but being married, you know, it is quite a different thing. No, indeed, Miss Woodhouse, you need not be afraid; I can sit and admire him now without any great misery. To know that he has not thrown himself away, is such a comfort!--She does seem a charming young woman, just what he deserves. Happy creature! He called her 'Augusta.' How delightful!" When the visit was returned, Emma made up her mind. She could then see more and judge better. From Harriet's happening not to be at Hartfield, and her father's being present to engage Mr. Elton, she had a quarter of an hour of the lady's conversation to herself, and could composedly attend to her; and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and thinking much of her own importance; that she meant to shine and be very superior, but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert and familiar; that all her notions were drawn from one set of people, and one style of living; that if not foolish she was ignorant, and that her society would certainly do Mr. Elton no good. Harriet would have been a better match. If not wise or refined herself, she would have connected him with those who were; but Miss Hawkins, it might be fairly supposed from her easy conceit, had been the best of her own set. The rich brother-in-law near Bristol was the pride of the alliance, and his place and his carriages were the pride of him. The very first subject after being seated was Maple Grove, "My brother Mr. Suckling's seat;"--a comparison of Hartfield to Maple Grove. The grounds of Hartfield were small, but neat and pretty; and the house was modern and well-built. Mrs. Elton seemed most favourably impressed by the size of the room, the entrance, and all that she could see or imagine. "Very like Maple Grove indeed!--She was quite struck by the likeness!--That room was the very shape and size of the morning-room at Maple Grove; her sister's favourite room."--Mr. Elton was appealed to.--"Was not it astonishingly like?--She could really almost fancy herself at Maple Grove." "And the staircase--You know, as I came in, I observed how very like the staircase was; placed exactly in the same part of the house. I really could not help exclaiming! I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, it is very delightful to me, to be reminded of a place I am so extremely partial to as Maple Grove. I have spent so many happy months there! (with a little sigh of sentiment). A charming place, undoubtedly. Every body who sees it is struck by its beauty; but to me, it has been quite a home. Whenever you are transplanted, like me, Miss Woodhouse, you will understand how very delightful it is to meet with any thing at all like what one has left behind. I always say this is quite one of the evils of matrimony." Emma made as slight a reply as she could; but it was fully sufficient for Mrs. Elton, who only wanted to be talking herself. "So extremely like Maple Grove! And it is not merely the house--the grounds, I assure you, as far as I could observe, are strikingly like. The laurels at Maple Grove are in the same profusion as here, and stand very much in the same way--just across the lawn; and I had a glimpse of a fine large tree, with a bench round it, which put me so exactly in mind! My brother and sister will be enchanted with this place. People who have extensive grounds themselves are always pleased with any thing in the same style." Emma doubted the truth of this sentiment. She had a great idea that people who had extensive grounds themselves cared very little for the extensive grounds of any body else; but it was not worth while to attack an error so double-dyed, and therefore only said in reply, "When you have seen more of this country, I am afraid you will think you have overrated Hartfield. Surry is full of beauties." "Oh! yes, I am quite aware of that. It is the garden of England, you know. Surry is the garden of England." "Yes; but we must not rest our claims on that distinction. Many counties, I believe, are called the garden of England, as well as Surry." "No, I fancy not," replied Mrs. Elton, with a most satisfied smile. "I never heard any county but Surry called so." Emma was silenced. "My brother and sister have promised us a visit in the spring, or summer at farthest," continued Mrs. Elton; "and that will be our time for exploring. While they are with us, we shall explore a great deal, I dare say. They will have their barouche-landau, of course, which holds four perfectly; and therefore, without saying any thing of _our_ carriage, we should be able to explore the different beauties extremely well. They would hardly come in their chaise, I think, at that season of the year. Indeed, when the time draws on, I shall decidedly recommend their bringing the barouche-landau; it will be so very much preferable. When people come into a beautiful country of this sort, you know, Miss Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them to see as much as possible; and Mr. Suckling is extremely fond of exploring. We explored to King's-Weston twice last summer, in that way, most delightfully, just after their first having the barouche-landau. You have many parties of that kind here, I suppose, Miss Woodhouse, every summer?" "No; not immediately here. We are rather out of distance of the very striking beauties which attract the sort of parties you speak of; and we are a very quiet set of people, I believe; more disposed to stay at home than engage in schemes of pleasure." "Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. Nobody can be more devoted to home than I am. I was quite a proverb for it at Maple Grove. Many a time has Selina said, when she has been going to Bristol, 'I really cannot get this girl to move from the house. I absolutely must go in by myself, though I hate being stuck up in the barouche-landau without a companion; but Augusta, I believe, with her own good-will, would never stir beyond the park paling.' Many a time has she said so; and yet I am no advocate for entire seclusion. I think, on the contrary, when people shut themselves up entirely from society, it is a very bad thing; and that it is much more advisable to mix in the world in a proper degree, without living in it either too much or too little. I perfectly understand your situation, however, Miss Woodhouse--(looking towards Mr. Woodhouse), Your father's state of health must be a great drawback. Why does not he try Bath?--Indeed he should. Let me recommend Bath to you. I assure you I have no doubt of its doing Mr. Woodhouse good." "My father tried it more than once, formerly; but without receiving any benefit; and Mr. Perry, whose name, I dare say, is not unknown to you, does not conceive it would be at all more likely to be useful now." "Ah! that's a great pity; for I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, where the waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give. In my Bath life, I have seen such instances of it! And it is so cheerful a place, that it could not fail of being of use to Mr. Woodhouse's spirits, which, I understand, are sometimes much depressed. And as to its recommendations to _you_, I fancy I need not take much pains to dwell on them. The advantages of Bath to the young are pretty generally understood. It would be a charming introduction for you, who have lived so secluded a life; and I could immediately secure you some of the best society in the place. A line from me would bring you a little host of acquaintance; and my particular friend, Mrs. Partridge, the lady I have always resided with when in Bath, would be most happy to shew you any attentions, and would be the very person for you to go into public with." It was as much as Emma could bear, without being impolite. The idea of her being indebted to Mrs. Elton for what was called an _introduction_--of her going into public under the auspices of a friend of Mrs. Elton's--probably some vulgar, dashing widow, who, with the help of a boarder, just made a shift to live!--The dignity of Miss Woodhouse, of Hartfield, was sunk indeed! She restrained herself, however, from any of the reproofs she could have given, and only thanked Mrs. Elton coolly; "but their going to Bath was quite out of the question; and she was not perfectly convinced that the place might suit her better than her father." And then, to prevent farther outrage and indignation, changed the subject directly. "I do not ask whether you are musical, Mrs. Elton. Upon these occasions, a lady's character generally precedes her; and Highbury has long known that you are a superior performer." "Oh! no, indeed; I must protest against any such idea. A superior performer!--very far from it, I assure you. Consider from how partial a quarter your information came. I am doatingly fond of music--passionately fond;--and my friends say I am not entirely devoid of taste; but as to any thing else, upon my honour my performance is _mediocre_ to the last degree. You, Miss Woodhouse, I well know, play delightfully. I assure you it has been the greatest satisfaction, comfort, and delight to me, to hear what a musical society I am got into. I absolutely cannot do without music. It is a necessary of life to me; and having always been used to a very musical society, both at Maple Grove and in Bath, it would have been a most serious sacrifice. I honestly said as much to Mr. E. when he was speaking of my future home, and expressing his fears lest the retirement of it should be disagreeable; and the inferiority of the house too--knowing what I had been accustomed to--of course he was not wholly without apprehension. When he was speaking of it in that way, I honestly said that _the_ _world_ I could give up--parties, balls, plays--for I had no fear of retirement. Blessed with so many resources within myself, the world was not necessary to _me_. I could do very well without it. To those who had no resources it was a different thing; but my resources made me quite independent. And as to smaller-sized rooms than I had been used to, I really could not give it a thought. I hoped I was perfectly equal to any sacrifice of that description. Certainly I had been accustomed to every luxury at Maple Grove; but I did assure him that two carriages were not necessary to my happiness, nor were spacious apartments. 'But,' said I, 'to be quite honest, I do not think I can live without something of a musical society. I condition for nothing else; but without music, life would be a blank to me.'" "We cannot suppose," said Emma, smiling, "that Mr. Elton would hesitate to assure you of there being a _very_ musical society in Highbury; and I hope you will not find he has outstepped the truth more than may be pardoned, in consideration of the motive." "No, indeed, I have no doubts at all on that head. I am delighted to find myself in such a circle. I hope we shall have many sweet little concerts together. I think, Miss Woodhouse, you and I must establish a musical club, and have regular weekly meetings at your house, or ours. Will not it be a good plan? If _we_ exert ourselves, I think we shall not be long in want of allies. Something of that nature would be particularly desirable for _me_, as an inducement to keep me in practice; for married women, you know--there is a sad story against them, in general. They are but too apt to give up music." "But you, who are so extremely fond of it--there can be no danger, surely?" "I should hope not; but really when I look around among my acquaintance, I tremble. Selina has entirely given up music--never touches the instrument--though she played sweetly. And the same may be said of Mrs. Jeffereys--Clara Partridge, that was--and of the two Milmans, now Mrs. Bird and Mrs. James Cooper; and of more than I can enumerate. Upon my word it is enough to put one in a fright. I used to be quite angry with Selina; but really I begin now to comprehend that a married woman has many things to call her attention. I believe I was half an hour this morning shut up with my housekeeper." "But every thing of that kind," said Emma, "will soon be in so regular a train--" "Well," said Mrs. Elton, laughing, "we shall see." Emma, finding her so determined upon neglecting her music, had nothing more to say; and, after a moment's pause, Mrs. Elton chose another subject. "We have been calling at Randalls," said she, "and found them both at home; and very pleasant people they seem to be. I like them extremely. Mr. Weston seems an excellent creature--quite a first-rate favourite with me already, I assure you. And _she_ appears so truly good--there is something so motherly and kind-hearted about her, that it wins upon one directly. She was your governess, I think?" Emma was almost too much astonished to answer; but Mrs. Elton hardly waited for the affirmative before she went on. "Having understood as much, I was rather astonished to find her so very lady-like! But she is really quite the gentlewoman." "Mrs. Weston's manners," said Emma, "were always particularly good. Their propriety, simplicity, and elegance, would make them the safest model for any young woman." "And who do you think came in while we were there?" Emma was quite at a loss. The tone implied some old acquaintance--and how could she possibly guess? "Knightley!" continued Mrs. Elton; "Knightley himself!--Was not it lucky?--for, not being within when he called the other day, I had never seen him before; and of course, as so particular a friend of Mr. E.'s, I had a great curiosity. 'My friend Knightley' had been so often mentioned, that I was really impatient to see him; and I must do my caro sposo the justice to say that he need not be ashamed of his friend. Knightley is quite the gentleman. I like him very much. Decidedly, I think, a very gentleman-like man." Happily, it was now time to be gone. They were off; and Emma could breathe. "Insufferable woman!" was her immediate exclamation. "Worse than I had supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley!--I could not have believed it. Knightley!--never seen him in her life before, and call him Knightley!--and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart, vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her _caro_ _sposo_, and her resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery. Actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady. I could not have believed it! And to propose that she and I should unite to form a musical club! One would fancy we were bosom friends! And Mrs. Weston!--Astonished that the person who had brought me up should be a gentlewoman! Worse and worse. I never met with her equal. Much beyond my hopes. Harriet is disgraced by any comparison. Oh! what would Frank Churchill say to her, if he were here? How angry and how diverted he would be! Ah! there I am--thinking of him directly. Always the first person to be thought of! How I catch myself out! Frank Churchill comes as regularly into my mind!"-- All this ran so glibly through her thoughts, that by the time her father had arranged himself, after the bustle of the Eltons' departure, and was ready to speak, she was very tolerably capable of attending. "Well, my dear," he deliberately began, "considering we never saw her before, she seems a very pretty sort of young lady; and I dare say she was very much pleased with you. She speaks a little too quick. A little quickness of voice there is which rather hurts the ear. But I believe I am nice; I do not like strange voices; and nobody speaks like you and poor Miss Taylor. However, she seems a very obliging, pretty-behaved young lady, and no doubt will make him a very good wife. Though I think he had better not have married. I made the best excuses I could for not having been able to wait on him and Mrs. Elton on this happy occasion; I said that I hoped I _should_ in the course of the summer. But I ought to have gone before. Not to wait upon a bride is very remiss. Ah! it shews what a sad invalid I am! But I do not like the corner into Vicarage Lane." "I dare say your apologies were accepted, sir. Mr. Elton knows you." "Yes: but a young lady--a bride--I ought to have paid my respects to her if possible. It was being very deficient." "But, my dear papa, you are no friend to matrimony; and therefore why should you be so anxious to pay your respects to a _bride_? It ought to be no recommendation to _you_. It is encouraging people to marry if you make so much of them." "No, my dear, I never encouraged any body to marry, but I would always wish to pay every proper attention to a lady--and a bride, especially, is never to be neglected. More is avowedly due to _her_. A bride, you know, my dear, is always the first in company, let the others be who they may." "Well, papa, if this is not encouragement to marry, I do not know what is. And I should never have expected you to be lending your sanction to such vanity-baits for poor young ladies." "My dear, you do not understand me. This is a matter of mere common politeness and good-breeding, and has nothing to do with any encouragement to people to marry." Emma had done. Her father was growing nervous, and could not understand _her_. Her mind returned to Mrs. Elton's offences, and long, very long, did they occupy her. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Emma sieht die neue Mrs. Elton zuerst in der Kirche, aber sie kann nicht in der Nähe der Eltons sein, ohne sich an das schlechte Verhalten von Mr. Elton und Emmas Einmischung zu erinnern. Emma stellt fest, dass Mrs. Elton keine Eleganz besitzt und behauptet, Harriet wäre eine bessere Ehefrau für Mr. Elton gewesen, aufgrund ihrer höheren gesellschaftlichen Verbindungen. Als Emma sich mit Mrs. Elton trifft, vergleicht sie Hartfield mit Maple Grove, wo ihr Bruder wohnt, und ist ziemlich anmaßend, indem sie Mrs. Weston überraschenderweise ladylike nennt, wenn man bedenkt, was sie früher getan hat. Sie nennt sogar Mr. Knightley viel weniger formell "Knightley".

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Kapitel: Ich erwarte kaum, dass der Leser mir Glauben schenkt, wenn ich behaupte, dass ich fast sieben Jahre in diesem kleinen düsteren Loch gelebt habe, beinahe ohne Licht und Luft und ohne Platz, mich zu bewegen. Aber es ist eine Tatsache; und für mich auch heute noch eine traurige; denn mein Körper leidet immer noch unter den Folgen dieser langen Gefangenschaft, ganz zu schweigen von meiner Seele. Mitglieder meiner Familie, die jetzt in New York und Boston leben, können bezeugen, dass das, was ich sage, wahr ist. Unzählige Nächte saß ich spät an der kleinen Schießscharte, kaum groß genug, um einen Blick auf einen funkelnden Stern zu erhaschen. Dort hörte ich die Patrouillen und Sklavenjäger darüber sprechen, wie sie entlaufene Sklaven einfangen könnten, wohl wissend, mit welcher Freude sie mich erwischen würden. Jahreszeiten um Jahreszeiten, Jahr um Jahr, blickte ich auf die Gesichter meiner Kinder und hörte ihre süßen Stimmen, während mein Herz immer wieder danach verlangte zu sagen: "Eure Mutter ist hier." Manchmal schien es mir, als wären Zeitalter vergangen, seit ich dieses düstere und monotonische Dasein begonnen hatte. Manchmal war ich betäubt und teilnahmslos, manchmal wurde ich sehr ungeduldig, zu erfahren, wann diese dunklen Jahre enden würden und ich wieder das Sonnenlicht spüren und die reine Luft atmen könnte. Nachdem Ellen uns verlassen hatte, verstärkte sich dieses Gefühl noch. Mr. Sands hatte zugestimmt, dass Benny in den Norden gehen durfte, sobald sein Onkel Phillip mit ihm gehen konnte; und ich wollte auch dort sein, um über meine Kinder zu wachen und sie soweit ich konnte zu schützen. Außerdem drohte ich aus meinem Versteck vertrieben zu werden, wenn ich noch länger dort blieb; denn das fragile Dach wurde zunehmend reparaturbedürftig, und Onkel Phillip fürchtete, die Schindeln zu entfernen, aus Angst, dass jemand einen Blick auf mich erhaschen könnte. Wenn in der Nacht Stürme aufkamen, legten sie Matten und Teppichreste aus, die am Morgen trocken erschienen; aber das Dach tagsüber zu bedecken, hätte Aufmerksamkeit erregen können. Daher waren meine Kleidung und Bettwäsche oft durchnässt, was die Schmerzen und Verspannungen in meinen verkümmerten und steifen Gliedern erheblich verstärkte. Ich hegte verschiedene Fluchtpläne in meinem Kopf, die ich manchmal meiner Großmutter mitteilte, wenn sie zu mir ans Falltürchen kam, um mit mir zu flüstern. Die gutherzige alte Frau hatte ein intensives Mitgefühl für entlaufene Sklaven. Sie hatte zu viel von den Grausamkeiten erfahren, die denen zugefügt wurden, die gefangen genommen wurden. Ihre Erinnerungen flogen immer sofort zu den Leiden ihres klugen und hübschen Sohnes Benjamin, dem jüngsten und liebsten ihrer Kinder. Also, immer wenn ich das Thema ansprach, stöhnte sie: "Oh, denk nicht daran, Kind. Du wirst mir das Herz brechen." Ich hatte jetzt niemanden mehr wie die liebe Tante Nancy, die mich ermutigte; aber mein Bruder William und meine Kinder winkten mir ständig in den Norden. Nun muss ich einige Monate in meiner Geschichte zurückgehen. Ich habe erwähnt, dass der erste Januar die Zeit war, in der Sklaven verkauft wurden oder an neue Herren verleast wurden. Wenn man die Zeit in Herzschlägen zählen würde, könnten die armen Sklaven Jahre des Leidens während dieses für die Freien so fröhlichen Festes berechnen. Am Neujahrstag vor dem Tod meiner Tante sollte eine meiner Freundinnen namens Fanny bei einer Auktion verkauft werden, um die Schulden ihres Herrn zu begleichen. Meine Gedanken waren den ganzen Tag bei ihr, und nachts erkundigte ich mich besorgt, was ihr Schicksal geworden war. Mir wurde gesagt, dass sie an einen Herrn verkauft worden war und ihre vier kleinen Mädchen an einen anderen, weit entfernten Herrn; dass sie ihrem Käufer entkommen war und nicht aufzufinden war. Ihre Mutter war die alte Aggie, von der ich gesprochen habe. Sie lebte in einer kleinen Wohnung, die meiner Großmutter gehörte und auf demselben Gelände wie ihr eigenes Haus gebaut war. Ihre Wohnung wurde durchsucht und überwacht, und das brachte die Patrouillen so nahe an mich heran, dass ich mich in meinem Versteck sehr in Acht nehmen musste. Die Jäger wurden irgendwie getäuscht, und nicht lange danach erblickte Benny Fanny zufällig in der Hütte ihrer Mutter. Er erzählte es seiner Großmutter, die ihm nie davon zu sprechen erlaubte, und erklärte ihm die schrecklichen Konsequenzen; und er verriet das Vertrauen nie. Aggie ahnte nicht, dass meine Großmutter wusste, wo ihre Tochter versteckt war, und dass die gebeugte Gestalt ihrer alten Nachbarin unter einer ähnlichen Last von Ängsten und Ängstlichkeit litt; aber diese gefährlichen Geheimnisse vertieften das Mitgefühl zwischen den beiden alten verfolgten Müttern. Meine Freundin Fanny und ich blieben viele Wochen in Rufweite voneinander verborgen, aber sie war sich dieser Tatsache nicht bewusst. Ich wünschte mir, dass sie mein Versteck mit mir teilen würde, das schien mir ein sichereres Versteck zu sein als ihres; aber ich hatte meiner Großmutter schon so viel Ärger bereitet, dass es falsch schien, sie größeren Risiken auszusetzen. Meine Unruhe nahm zu. Ich hatte zu lange in körperlichen Schmerzen und geistiger Qual gelebt. Ich hatte ständig Angst, dass mir Sklaverei durch einen Unfall oder eine List meine Kinder nehmen würde. Dieser Gedanke trieb mich fast in den Wahnsinn, und ich beschloss, um jeden Preis zum Nordstern zu steuern. In dieser Krise eröffnete mir die Vorsehung einen unerwarteten Weg zur Flucht. Mein Freund Peter kam eines Abends zu mir und bat um ein Gespräch. "Dein Tag ist gekommen, Linda", sagte er. "Ich habe eine Möglichkeit für dich gefunden, in die Free States zu gehen. Du hast zwei Wochen, um dich zu entscheiden." Die Nachricht schien zu schön, um wahr zu sein, aber Peter erklärte seine Vereinbarungen und sagte mir, dass es nur darum ging, dass ich sage, dass ich gehen würde. Ich wollte ihm mit einem freudigen Ja antworten, als der Gedanke an Benny in meinen Sinn kam. Ich sagte ihm, dass die Versuchung äußerst stark sei, aber ich furchte mich entsetzlich vor Dr. Flints behaupteter Macht über mein Kind und dass ich nicht gehen und ihn zurücklassen könne. Peter widersprach eindringlich. Er sagte, eine so gute Gelegenheit könne sich nie wieder ergeben; dass Benny frei sei und zu mir geschickt werden könne; und dass ich wegen des Wohlergehens meiner Kinder keinen Moment zögern dürfe. Ich sagte ihm, dass ich mich mit Onkel Phillip beraten würde. Mein Onkel freute sich über den Plan und riet mir nachdrücklich, unbedingt zu gehen. Er versprach, wenn er am Leben bliebe, entweder meinen Sohn zu mir zu bringen oder ihn mir zu schicken, sobald ich einen sicheren Ort erreicht hätte. Ich beschloss zu gehen, aber ich dachte, es sei besser, meiner Großmutter nichts davon zu sagen, bis es kurz vor der Abreise ist. Aber mein Onkel dachte, sie würde es stärker empfinden, wenn ich sie so plötzlich verlassen würde. "Ich werde mit ihr reden", sagte er, "und sie davon überzeugen, wie notwendig es ist, nicht nur für dich, sondern auch für sie. Du kannst ja nicht übersehen, dass sie unter ihren Bürden zusammenbricht." Das sah ich klar ein. Mir war bewusst, dass mein Versteck eine ständige Quelle von Angst für sie war, und dass sie mit zunehmendem Alter immer ängstlicher vor der Entdeckung war. Mein Onkel sprach mit ihr und schaffte es schließlich, sie davon zu überzeugen, dass es absolut notwendig war, die unerwartete Chance zu ergreifen. Die Aussicht, eine freie Frau zu Ich sollte in einem Schiff fliehen; aber ich verzichte darauf, weitere Einzelheiten zu erwähnen. Ich war bereit, aber das Schiff wurde unerwartet mehrere Tage aufgehalten. In der Zwischenzeit kam die Nachricht von einem entsetzlichen Mord an einem flüchtigen Sklaven namens James in die Stadt. Charity, die Mutter dieses unglücklichen jungen Mannes, war eine alte Bekannte von uns. Ich habe die schockierenden Einzelheiten seines Todes in meiner Beschreibung einiger benachbarter Sklavenhalter erzählt. Meine Großmutter, immer nervös sensibel gegenüber Ausreißern, war schrecklich verängstigt. Sie war sicher, dass mir ein ähnliches Schicksal bevorstand, wenn ich nicht von meinem Vorhaben abließ. Sie schluchzte und stöhnte und flehte mich an, nicht zu gehen. Ihre übermäßige Angst war etwas ansteckend und mein Herz war nicht gegen ihre extreme Qual gefeit. Ich war zutiefst enttäuscht, aber ich versprach, mein Vorhaben aufzugeben. Als mein Freund Peter davon erfuhr, war er sowohl enttäuscht als auch verärgert. Er sagte, dass es angesichts unserer bisherigen Erfahrungen lange dauern würde, bis ich eine solche Gelegenheit hatte, sie wegzuwerfen. Ich sagte ihm, dass es nicht verschwendet werden müsste; dass ich einen Freund in der Nähe versteckt hatte, der froh genug wäre, den Platz einzunehmen, der für mich vorgesehen war. Ich erzählte ihm von der armen Fanny und dem gutherzigen, edlen Kerl, der niemals jemanden in Not, sei er weiß oder schwarz, im Stich lassen würde und erklärte seine Bereitschaft, ihr zu helfen. Aggie war sehr überrascht, als sie feststellte, dass wir ihr Geheimnis kannten. Sie freute sich über eine solche Chance für Fanny und es wurden Vorkehrungen getroffen, dass sie am nächsten Abend an Bord des Schiffs gehen konnte. Sie beide nahmen an, dass ich bereits lange im Norden war, daher wurde mein Name nicht in der Transaktion erwähnt. Fanny wurde zur vereinbarten Zeit an Bord gebracht und in einer sehr kleinen Kabine untergebracht. Diese Unterkunft war zu einem Preis erworben worden, der für eine Reise nach England ausreichen würde. Aber wenn man plant, nach dem schönen alten England zu gehen, überlegt man, ob man sich die Kosten für das Vergnügen leisten kann; während bei einem Fluchtversuch aus der Sklaverei das zitternde Opfer bereit ist zu sagen: "Nimm alles, was ich habe, nur verrate mich nicht!" Am nächsten Morgen schaute ich durch mein Versteck und sah, dass es dunkel und bewölkt war. In der Nacht erhielt ich die Nachricht, dass der Wind ungünstig war und das Schiff nicht abgelegt hatte. Ich war äußerst besorgt um Fanny und auch um Peter, der aufgrund meiner Anstiftung ein enormes Risiko einging. Am nächsten Tag blieben Wind und Wetter gleich. Arme Fanny hatte vor Angst fast den Verstand verloren, als sie an Bord gebracht wurde, und ich konnte mir gut vorstellen, wie sehr sie jetzt leiden musste. Großmutter kam oft in meine Kammer und sagte, wie dankbar sie sei, dass ich nicht gegangen sei. Am dritten Morgen klopfte sie an meine Tür, um mich in den Vorratsraum zu rufen. Die arme alte Leidende brach unter der Last ihrer Probleme zusammen. Sie war jetzt leicht aufgeregt. Ich fand sie in einem nervösen, aufgeregten Zustand vor, war mir aber nicht bewusst, dass sie vergessen hatte, die Tür hinter sich abzuschließen, wie üblich. Sie war sehr besorgt über die Verzögerung des Schiffs. Sie fürchtete, dass alles entdeckt würde und dann Fanny, Peter und ich alle zu Tode gefoltert würden und Philip völlig ruiniert wäre und ihr Haus abgerissen würde. Armer Peter! Wenn er einen so schrecklichen Tod sterben sollte wie der arme Sklave James es erst kürzlich getan hatte, und das alles wegen seiner Freundlichkeit, mir zu helfen, wie schrecklich wäre das für uns alle! Ach, der Gedanke war mir vertraut und hatte schon manch scharfen Stich in mein Herz versetzt. Ich versuchte, meine eigene Angst zu unterdrücken und beruhigend auf sie einzureden. Sie erwähnte Tante Nancy, ihre geliebte Tochter, die sie kürzlich begraben hatte, und verlor dann jegliche Kontrolle über sich selbst. Während sie dort stand und zitterte und schluchzte, rief eine Stimme von der Veranda aus: "Wo bist du, Tante Marthy?" Großmutter erschrak und öffnete in ihrer Aufregung die Tür, ohne an mich zu denken. Jenny, das verrückte Zimmermädchen, das versucht hatte, mein Zimmer zu betreten, als ich im Haus meiner weißen Wohltäterin versteckt war, trat herein. "Ich habe dich überall gesucht, Tante Marthy", sagte sie. "Meine Herrin möchte, dass du ihr einige Kekse schickst." Ich hatte mich hinter einem Fass verkrochen, das mich völlig abdeckte, aber ich stellte mir vor, dass Jenny genau auf den Fleck schaute und mein Herz schlug heftig. Meine Großmutter dachte sofort darüber nach, was sie getan hatte, und ging schnell mit Jenny nach draußen, um die Kekse zu zählen, nachdem sie die Tür abgeschlossen hatte. Sie kehrte nach wenigen Minuten zu mir zurück und war das perfekte Abbild der Verzweiflung. "Armes Kind!", rief sie aus, "meine Nachlässigkeit hat dich ruiniert. Das Boot ist noch nicht abgefahren. Mach dich sofort fertig und geh mit Fanny. Ich habe nichts mehr dagegen zu sagen, denn man kann nicht sagen, was an diesem Tag passieren wird." Onkel Phillip wurde gerufen und er stimmte mit seiner Mutter überein, dass Jenny Dr. Flint in weniger als vierundzwanzig Stunden informieren würde. Er empfahl, mich möglicherweise an Bord des Bootes zu bringen; wenn nicht, sollte ich mich in meiner Kammer sehr ruhig verhalten, wo man mich nicht finden konnte, ohne das Haus abzureißen. Es wäre nicht angebracht, wenn er sich in die Angelegenheit einmischen würde, denn das würde sofort Verdacht erregen. Aber er versprach, mit Peter in Kontakt zu treten. Ich zögerte, mich wieder an ihn zu wenden, da ich ihn bereits zu sehr hineingezogen hatte, aber es schien keine Alternative zu geben. Verärgert über meine Unentschlossenheit, blieb Peter seinem großzügigen Wesen treu und sagte sofort, dass er sein Bestes tun würde, um mir zu helfen, in der Hoffnung, dass ich mich stärker zeigen würde. Er begab sich sofort zum Hafen und stellte fest, dass sich der Wind gedreht hatte und das Schiff langsam flussabwärts segelte. Unter einem Vorwand dringender Notwendigkeit bot er zwei Bootsmännern je einen Dollar an, um sie einzuholen. Er war heller als die von ihm angestellten Bootsmänner und als der Kapitän sie so schnell kommen sah, dachte er, dass Offiziere sein Schiff verfolgten, um den flüchtigen Sklaven, den er an Bord hatte, zu suchen. Sie hissten die Segel, aber das Boot holte sie ein, und der unermüdliche Peter sprang an Bord. Der Kapitän erkannte ihn sofort. Peter bat ihn, mit ihm nach unten zu gehen, um über eine schlechte Schuld zu sprechen, die er ihm gegeben hatte. Als er seinen Auftrag mitteilte, antwortete der Kapitän: "Warum, die Frau ist schon hier, und ich habe sie an einen Ort gebracht, an dem du oder der Teufel Schwierigkeiten hätten, sie zu finden." "Aber ich möchte eine andere Frau bringen", sagte Peter. "Auch sie ist in großer Not, und Sie werden alles Vernünftige erhalten, Er antwortete: "Ich stand an einem Tag unter dem Dachvorsprung, bevor Ellen fortging, und hörte jemanden über dem Holzschuppen husten. Ich weiß nicht, warum ich dachte, dass du es warst, aber das tat ich. Ich habe Ellen in der Nacht vermisst, bevor sie fortging; und Großmutter hat sie in der Nacht zurück ins Zimmer gebracht; und ich dachte, vielleicht war sie _bei dir_, bevor sie ging, denn ich hörte Großmutter zu ihr flüstern: 'Schlaf jetzt ein; und denk daran, niemals etwas zu erzählen.'" Ich fragte ihn, ob er jemals seine Verdächtigungen seiner Schwester gegenüber erwähnt habe. Er sagte, er habe das nie getan; aber nachdem er den Husten gehört hatte, hat er, wenn er sie mit anderen Kindern auf dieser Seite des Hauses spielen sah, immer versucht, sie auf die andere Seite zu ziehen, aus Angst, dass sie auch meinen Husten hören würden. Er sagte, er habe immer nach Dr. Flint Ausschau gehalten, und wenn er ihn mit einem Polizisten oder Streifenpolizisten sprechen sah, hat er es immer Großmutter erzählt. Jetzt erinnerte ich mich daran, dass ich bemerkt hatte, wie er Unbehagen zeigte, wenn Leute auf dieser Seite des Hauses waren, und ich hatte damals gerätselt, was sein Beweggrund für sein Handeln sein könnte. Eine solche Vorsicht mag für einen zwölfjährigen Jungen außergewöhnlich erscheinen, aber Sklaven, die von Geheimnissen, Täuschungen und Gefahren umgeben sind, lernen früh, misstrauisch und wachsam zu sein sowie frühzeitig vorsichtig und schlau zu werden. Er hatte nie Großmutter oder Onkel Phillip eine Frage gestellt, und ich hatte ihn oft mit anderen Kindern im Chor sprechen gehört, wenn sie von meiner Anwesenheit im Norden sprachen. Ich sagte ihm, dass ich jetzt wirklich in die Freien Staaten gehen würde, und wenn er ein guter, ehrlicher Junge und ein liebendes Kind für seine liebe alte Großmutter wäre, würde der Herr ihn segnen und ihn zu mir bringen, und wir und Ellen würden zusammenleben. Er fing an, mir zu erzählen, dass Großmutter den ganzen Tag nichts gegessen hatte. Während er sprach, wurde die Tür aufgeschlossen und sie kam mit einer kleinen Geldtasche herein, die sie wollte, dass ich mitnehme. Ich bat sie, einen Teil davon zumindest aufzuheben, um für Bennys Reise in den Norden zu bezahlen, aber sie bestand darauf, während ihre Tränen schnell fielen, dass ich alles nehmen sollte. "Du könntest unter Fremden krank werden", sagte sie, "und sie würden dich ins Armenhaus schicken, um zu sterben." Ah, diese gute Großmutter! Zum letzten Mal ging ich zu meinem Versteck. Sein verlassenes Aussehen kühlte mich nicht mehr ab, denn das Licht der Hoffnung war in meiner Seele aufgegangen. Doch selbst mit der gesegneten Aussicht auf Freiheit fühlte ich mich sehr traurig dabei, für immer diesen alten Bauernhof zu verlassen, wo ich so lange von der lieben alten Großmutter geschützt worden war; wo ich meinen ersten jugendlichen Traum von Liebe geträumt hatte; und wo, nachdem dieser verblasst war, meine Kinder kamen, um sich so eng um mein trostloses Herz zu schlingen. Als die Stunde für meinen Abschied näher rückte, stieg ich wieder in den Keller hinab. Meine Großmutter und Benny waren dort. Sie nahm mich bei der Hand und sagte: "Linda, lass uns beten." Wir knieten zusammen nieder, mein Kind an mein Herz gedrückt und meinen anderen Arm um den treuen, liebevollen alten Freund, den ich für immer verlassen würde. An keiner anderen Gelegenheit war ich jemals dazu bestimmt, einer so innigen Bitte um Gnade und Schutz zu lauschen. Sie erfüllte mein Herz mit Gänsehaut und inspirierte mich zum Vertrauen auf Gott. Peter wartete auf mich auf der Straße. Ich war bald an seiner Seite, körperlich erschöpft, aber stark in meinem Vorhaben. Ich habe nicht zurück auf den alten Ort geschaut, obwohl ich wusste, dass ich ihn nie wiedersehen würde. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Linda lebt nun schon seit sieben Jahren im Kriechkeller und ihre Mobilität leidet ernsthaft darunter. Linda erzählt die Geschichte ihrer Freundin Fanny, die vor Monaten vom Auktionsblock geflohen ist. Sie hat in der Hütte ihrer Mutter Aggie gewohnt. Aggies Hütte gehört Tante Martha und befindet sich auf deren Grundstück, so dass sowohl Linda als auch Fanny ziemlich dicht beieinander versteckt sind. Eines Tages erzählt Lindas Freund Peter ihr, dass es einen Versteckplatz in einem Boot gibt, auf dem ihr Name steht. Linda hat Angst, ihren Sohn Benny zurückzulassen, wo Dr. Flint ihn bekommen kann. Aber schließlich stimmt sie zu zu gehen. Und dann wird ein flüchtiger Sklave brutal ermordet und Tante Martha dreht durch. Sie bettelt Linda an, nicht wegzulaufen. Linda stimmt zu. Sie sagt Peter, dass er stattdessen Fanny mitnehmen soll. Am nächsten Tag hat Tante Martha Linda gerade in den Lagerraum gelassen, um ihre Beine zu vertreten, als ein schwarzes Dienstmädchen namens Jenny hineingeht. Linda versteckt sich schnell, aber sie ist überzeugt, dass Jenny sie gesehen hat und sie verraten wird. Sie fragt Peter, ob das Angebot immer noch gilt. Das tut es. Bevor Linda geht, trifft sie sich mit Benny und sagt ihm, dass sie ihn liebt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: The same. Cyrano, then Bellerose, Jodelet. MONTFLEURY (to the marquises): Come to my help, my lords! A MARQUIS (carelessly): Go on! Go on! CYRANO: Fat man, take warning! If you go on, I Shall feel myself constrained to cuff your face! THE MARQUIS: Have done! CYRANO: And if these lords hold not their tongue Shall feel constrained to make them taste my cane! ALL THE MARQUISES (rising): Enough!. . .Montfleury. . . CYRANO: If he goes not quick I will cut off his ears and slit him up! A VOICE: But. . . CYRANO: Out he goes! ANOTHER VOICE: Yet. . . CYRANO: Is he not gone yet? (He makes the gesture of turning up his cuffs): Good! I shall mount the stage now, buffet-wise, To carve this fine Italian sausage--thus! MONTFLEURY (trying to be dignified): You outrage Thalia in insulting me! CYRANO (very politely): If that Muse, Sir, who knows you not at all, Could claim acquaintance with you--oh, believe (Seeing how urn-like, fat, and slow you are) That she would make you taste her buskin's sole! THE PIT: Montfleury! Montfleury! Come--Baro's play! CYRANO (to those who are calling out): I pray you have a care! If you go on My scabbard soon will render up its blade! (The circle round him widens.) THE CROWD (drawing back): Take care! CYRANO (to Montfleury): Leave the stage! THE CROWD (coming near and grumbling): Oh!-- CYRANO: Did some one speak? (They draw back again.) A VOICE (singing at the back): Monsieur de Cyrano Displays his tyrannies: A fig for tyrants! What, ho! Come! Play us 'La Clorise!' ALL THE PIT (singing): 'La Clorise!' 'La Clorise!'. . . CYRANO: Let me but hear once more that foolish rhyme, I slaughter every man of you. A BURGHER: Oh! Samson? CYRANO: Yes Samson! Will you lend your jawbone, Sir? A LADY (in the boxes): Outrageous! A LORD: Scandalous! A BURGHER: 'Tis most annoying! A PAGE: Fair good sport! THE PIT: Kss!--Montfleury. . .Cyrano! CYRANO: Silence! THE PIT (wildly excited): Ho-o-o-o-h! Quack! Cock-a-doodle-doo! CYRANO: I order-- A PAGE: Miow! CYRANO: I order silence, all! And challenge the whole pit collectively!-- I write your names!--Approach, young heroes, here! Each in his turn! I cry the numbers out!-- Now which of you will come to ope the lists? You, Sir? No! You? No! The first duellist Shall be dispatched by me with honors due! Let all who long for death hold up their hands! (A silence): Modest? You fear to see my naked blade? Not one name?--Not one hand?--Good, I proceed! (Turning toward the stage, where Montfleury waits in an agony): The theater's too full, congested,--I Would clear it out. . .If not. . . (Puts his hand on his sword): The knife must act! MONTFLEURY: I. . . CYRANO (leaves his chair, and settles himself in the middle of the circle which has formed): I will clap my hands thrice, thus--full moon! At the third clap, eclipse yourself! THE PIT (amused): Ah! CYRANO (clapping his hands): One! MONTFLEURY: I. . . A VOICE (in the boxes): Stay! THE PIT: He stays. . .he goes. . .he stays. . . MONTFLEURY: I think. . .Gentlemen,. . . CYRANO: Two! MONTFLEURY: I think 'twere wisest. . . CYRANO: Three! (Montfleury disappears as through a trap. Tempest of laughs, whistling cries, etc.) THE WHOLE HOUSE: Coward. . .come back! CYRANO (delighted, sits back in his chair, arms crossed): Come back an if you dare! A BURGHER: Call for the orator! (Bellerose comes forward and bows.) THE BOXES: Ah! here's Bellerose! BELLEROSE (elegantly): My noble lords. . . THE PIT: No! no! Jodelet! JODELET (advancing, speaking through his nose): Calves! THE PIT: Ah! bravo! good! go on! JODELET: No bravos, Sirs! The fat tragedian whom you all love Felt. . . THE PIT: Coward! JODELET: . . .was obliged to go. THE PIT: Come back! SOME: No! OTHERS: Yes! A YOUNG MAN (to Cyrano): But pray, Sir, for what reason, say, Hate you Montfleury? CYRANO (graciously, still seated): Youthful gander, know I have two reasons--either will suffice. Primo. An actor villainous! who mouths, And heaves up like a bucket from a well The verses that should, bird-like, fly! Secundo-- That is my secret. . . THE OLD BURGHER (behind him): Shameful! You deprive us Of the 'Clorise!' I must insist. . . CYRANO (turning his chair toward the burgher, respectfully): Old mule! The verses of old Baro are not worth A doit! I'm glad to interrupt. . . THE PRECIEUSES (in the boxes): Our Baro!-- My dear! How dares he venture!. . . CYRANO (turning his chair toward the boxes gallantly): Fairest ones, Radiate, bloom, hold to our lips the cup Of dreams intoxicating, Hebe-like! Or, when death strikes, charm death with your sweet smiles; Inspire our verse, but--criticise it not! BELLEROSE: We must give back the entrance fees! CYRANO (turning his chair toward the stage): Bellerose, You make the first intelligent remark! Would I rend Thespis' sacred mantle? Nay! (He rises and throws a bag on the stage): Catch then the purse I throw, and hold your peace! THE HOUSE (dazzled): Ah! Oh! JODELET (catching the purse dexterously and weighing it): At this price, you've authority To come each night, and stop 'Clorise,' Sir! THE PIT: Ho!. . .Ho! Ho!. . . JODELET: E'en if you chase us in a pack!. . . BELLEROSE: Clear out the hall!. . . JODELET: Get you all gone at once! (The people begin to go out, while Cyrano looks on with satisfaction. But the crowd soon stop on hearing the following scene, and remain where they are. The women, who, with their mantles on, are already standing up in the boxes, stop to listen, and finally reseat themselves.) LE BRET (to Cyrano): 'Tis mad!. . . A BORE (coming up to Cyrano): The actor Montfleury! 'Tis shameful! Why, he's protected by the Duke of Candal! Have you a patron? CYRANO: No! THE BORE: No patron?. . . CYRANO: None! THE BORE: What! no great lord to shield you with his name? CYRANO (irritated): No, I have told you twice! Must I repeat? No! no protector. . . (His hand on his sword): A protectress. . .here! THE BORE: But you must leave the town? CYRANO: Well, that depends! THE BORE: The Duke has a long arm! CYRANO: But not so long As mine, when it is lengthened out. . . (Shows his sword): As thus! THE BORE: You think not to contend? CYRANO: 'Tis my idea! THE BORE: But. . . CYRANO: Show your heels! now! THE BORE: But I. . . CYRANO: Or tell me why you stare so at my nose! THE BORE (staggered): I. . . CYRANO (walking straight up to him): Well, what is there strange? THE BORE (drawing back): Your Grace mistakes! CYRANO: How now? Is't soft and dangling, like a trunk?. . . THE BORE (same play): I never. . . CYRANO: Is it crook'd, like an owl's beak? THE BORE: I. . . CYRANO: Do you see a wart upon the tip? THE BORE: Nay. . . CYRANO: Or a fly, that takes the air there? What Is there to stare at? THE BORE: Oh. . . CYRANO: What do you see? THE BORE: But I was careful not to look--knew better. CYRANO: And why not look at it, an if you please? THE BORE: I was. . . CYRANO: Oh! it disgusts you! THE BORE: Sir! CYRANO: Its hue Unwholesome seems to you? THE BORE: Sir! CYRANO: Or its shape? THE BORE: No, on the contrary!. . . CYRANO: Why then that air Disparaging?--perchance you think it large? THE BORE (stammering): No, small, quite small--minute! CYRANO: Minute! What now? Accuse me of a thing ridiculous! Small--my nose? THE BORE: Heaven help me! CYRANO: 'Tis enormous! Old Flathead, empty-headed meddler, know That I am proud possessing such appendice. 'Tis well known, a big nose is indicative Of a soul affable, and kind, and courteous, Liberal, brave, just like myself, and such As you can never dare to dream yourself, Rascal contemptible! For that witless face That my hand soon will come to cuff--is all As empty. . . (He cuffs him.) THE BORE: Aie! CYRANO: --of pride, of aspiration, Of feeling, poetry--of godlike spark Of all that appertains to my big nose, (He turns him by the shoulders, suiting the action to the word): As. . .what my boot will shortly come and kick! THE BORE (running away): Help! Call the Guard! CYRANO: Take notice, boobies all, Who find my visage's center ornament A thing to jest at--that it is my wont-- An if the jester's noble--ere we part To let him taste my steel, and not my boot! DE GUICHE (who, with the marquises, has come down from the stage): But he becomes a nuisance! THE VISCOUNT DE VALVERT (shrugging his shoulders): Swaggerer! DE GUICHE: Will no one put him down?. . . THE VISCOUNT: No one? But wait! I'll treat him to. . .one of my quips!. . .See here!. . . (He goes up to Cyrano, who is watching him, and with a conceited air): Sir, your nose is. . .hmm. . .it is. . .very big! CYRANO (gravely): Very! THE VISCOUNT (laughing): Ha! CYRANO (imperturbably): Is that all?. . . THE VISCOUNT: What do you mean? CYRANO: Ah no! young blade! That was a trifle short! You might have said at least a hundred things By varying the tone. . .like this, suppose,. . . Aggressive: 'Sir, if I had such a nose I'd amputate it!' Friendly: 'When you sup It must annoy you, dipping in your cup; You need a drinking-bowl of special shape!' Descriptive: ''Tis a rock!. . .a peak!. . .a cape! --A cape, forsooth! 'Tis a peninsular!' Curious: 'How serves that oblong capsular? For scissor-sheath? Or pot to hold your ink?' Gracious: 'You love the little birds, I think? I see you've managed with a fond research To find their tiny claws a roomy perch!' Truculent: 'When you smoke your pipe. . .suppose That the tobacco-smoke spouts from your nose-- Do not the neighbors, as the fumes rise higher, Cry terror-struck: "The chimney is afire"?' Considerate: 'Take care,. . .your head bowed low By such a weight. . .lest head o'er heels you go!' Tender: 'Pray get a small umbrella made, Lest its bright color in the sun should fade!' Pedantic: 'That beast Aristophanes Names Hippocamelelephantoles Must have possessed just such a solid lump Of flesh and bone, beneath his forehead's bump!' Cavalier: 'The last fashion, friend, that hook? To hang your hat on? 'Tis a useful crook!' Emphatic: 'No wind, O majestic nose, Can give THEE cold!--save when the mistral blows!' Dramatic: 'When it bleeds, what a Red Sea!' Admiring: 'Sign for a perfumery!' Lyric: 'Is this a conch?. . .a Triton you?' Simple: 'When is the monument on view?' Rustic: 'That thing a nose? Marry-come-up! 'Tis a dwarf pumpkin, or a prize turnip!' Military: 'Point against cavalry!' Practical: 'Put it in a lottery! Assuredly 'twould be the biggest prize!' Or. . .parodying Pyramus' sighs. . . 'Behold the nose that mars the harmony Of its master's phiz! blushing its treachery!' --Such, my dear sir, is what you might have said, Had you of wit or letters the least jot: But, O most lamentable man!--of wit You never had an atom, and of letters You have three letters only!--they spell Ass! And--had you had the necessary wit, To serve me all the pleasantries I quote Before this noble audience. . .e'en so, You would not have been let to utter one-- Nay, not the half or quarter of such jest! I take them from myself all in good part, But not from any other man that breathes! DE GUICHE (trying to draw away the dismayed viscount): Come away, Viscount! THE VISCOUNT (choking with rage): Hear his arrogance! A country lout who. . .who. . .has got no gloves! Who goes out without sleeve-knots, ribbons, lace! CYRANO: True; all my elegances are within. I do not prank myself out, puppy-like; My toilet is more thorough, if less gay; I would not sally forth--a half-washed-out Affront upon my cheek--a conscience Yellow-eyed, bilious, from its sodden sleep, A ruffled honor,. . .scruples grimed and dull! I show no bravery of shining gems. Truth, Independence, are my fluttering plumes. 'Tis not my form I lace to make me slim, But brace my soul with efforts as with stays, Covered with exploits, not with ribbon-knots, My spirit bristling high like your mustaches, I, traversing the crowds and chattering groups Make Truth ring bravely out like clash of spurs! THE VISCOUNT: But, Sir. . . CYRANO: I wear no gloves? And what of that? I had one,. . .remnant of an old worn pair, And, knowing not what else to do with it, I threw it in the face of. . .some young fool. THE VISCOUNT: Base scoundrel! Rascally flat-footed lout! CYRANO (taking off his hat, and bowing as if the viscount had introduced himself): Ah?. . .and I, Cyrano Savinien Hercule de Bergerac (Laughter.) THE VISCOUNT (angrily): Buffoon! CYRANO (calling out as if he had been seized with the cramp): Aie! Aie! THE VISCOUNT (who was going away, turns back): What on earth is the fellow saying now? CYRANO (with grimaces of pain): It must be moved--it's getting stiff, I vow, --This comes of leaving it in idleness! Aie!. . . THE VISCOUNT: What ails you? CYRANO: The cramp! cramp in my sword! THE VISCOUNT (drawing his sword): Good! CYRANO: You shall feel a charming little stroke! THE VISCOUNT (contemptuously): Poet!. . . CYRANO: Ay, poet, Sir! In proof of which, While we fence, presto! all extempore I will compose a ballade. THE VISCOUNT: A ballade? CYRANO: Belike you know not what a ballade is. THE VISCOUNT: But. . . CYRANO (reciting, as if repeating a lesson): Know then that the ballade should contain Three eight-versed couplets. . . THE VISCOUNT (stamping): Oh! CYRANO (still reciting): And an envoi Of four lines. . . THE VISCOUNT: You. . . CYRANO: I'll make one while we fight; And touch you at the final line. THE VISCOUNT: No! CYRANO: No? (declaiming): The duel in Hotel of Burgundy--fought By De Bergerac and a good-for-naught! THE VISCOUNT: What may that be, an if you please? CYRANO: The title. THE HOUSE (in great excitement): Give room!--Good sport!--Make place!--Fair play!--No noise! (Tableau. A circle of curious spectators in the pit; the marquises and officers mingled with the common people; the pages climbing on each other's shoulders to see better. All the women standing up in the boxes. To the right, De Guiche and his retinue. Left, Le Bret, Ragueneau, Cyrano, etc.) CYRANO (shutting his eyes for a second): Wait while I choose my rhymes. . .I have them now! (He suits the action to each word): I gayly doff my beaver low, And, freeing hand and heel, My heavy mantle off I throw, And I draw my polished steel; Graceful as Phoebus, round I wheel, Alert as Scaramouch, A word in your ear, Sir Spark, I steal-- At the envoi's end, I touch! (They engage): Better for you had you lain low; Where skewer my cock? In the heel?-- In the heart, your ribbon blue below?-- In the hip, and make you kneel? Ho for the music of clashing steel! --What now?--A hit? Not much! 'Twill be in the paunch the stroke I steal, When, at the envoi, I touch. Oh, for a rhyme, a rhyme in o?-- You wriggle, starch-white, my eel? A rhyme! a rhyme! The white feather you SHOW! Tac! I parry the point of your steel; --The point you hoped to make me feel; I open the line, now clutch Your spit, Sir Scullion--slow your zeal! At the envoi's end, I touch. (He declaims solemnly): Envoi. Prince, pray Heaven for your soul's weal! I move a pace--lo, such! and such! Cut over--feint! (Thrusting): What ho! You reel? (The viscount staggers. Cyrano salutes): At the envoi's end, I touch! (Acclamations. Applause in the boxes. Flowers and handkerchiefs are thrown down. The officers surround Cyrano, congratulating him. Ragueneau dances for joy. Le Bret is happy, but anxious. The viscount's friends hold him up and bear him away.) THE CROWD (with one long shout): Ah! A TROOPER: 'Tis superb! A WOMAN: A pretty stroke! RAGUENEAU: A marvel! A MARQUIS: A novelty! LE BRET: O madman! THE CROWD (presses round Cyrano. Chorus of): Compliments! Bravo! Let me congratulate!. . .Quite unsurpassed!. . . A WOMAN'S VOICE: There is a hero for you!. . . A MUSKETEER (advancing to Cyrano with outstretched hand): Sir, permit; Naught could be finer--I'm a judge I think; I stamped, i' faith!--to show my admiration! (He goes away.) CYRANO (to Cuigy): Who is that gentleman? CUIGY: Why--D'Artagnan! LE BRET (to Cyrano, taking his arm): A word with you!. . . CYRANO: Wait; let the rabble go!. . . (To Bellerose): May I stay? BELLEROSE (respectfully): Without doubt! (Cries are heard outside.) JODELET (who has looked out): They hoot Montfleury! BELLEROSE (solemnly): Sic transit!. . . (To the porters): Sweep--close all, but leave the lights. We sup, but later on we must return, For a rehearsal of to-morrow's farce. (Jodelet and Bellerose go out, bowing low to Cyrano.) THE PORTER (to Cyrano): You do not dine, Sir? CYRANO: No. (The porter goes out.) LE BRET: Because? CYRANO (proudly): Because. . . (Changing his tone as the porter goes away): I have no money!. . . LE BRET (with the action of throwing a bag): How! The bag of crowns?. . . CYRANO: Paternal bounty, in a day, thou'rt sped! LE BRET: How live the next month?. . . CYRANO: I have nothing left. LE BRET: Folly! CYRANO: But what a graceful action! Think! THE BUFFET-GIRL (coughing, behind her counter): Hum! (Cyrano and Le Bret turn. She comes timidly forward): Sir, my heart mislikes to know you fast. (Showing the buffet): See, all you need. Serve yourself! CYRANO (taking off his hat): Gentle child, Although my Gascon pride would else forbid To take the least bestowal from your hands, My fear of wounding you outweighs that pride, And bids accept. . . (He goes to the buffet): A trifle!. . .These few grapes. (She offers him the whole bunch. He takes a few): Nay, but this bunch!. . . (She tries to give him wine, but he stops her): A glass of water fair!. . . And half a macaroon! (He gives back the other half.) LE BRET: What foolery! THE BUFFET-GIRL: Take something else! CYRANO: I take your hand to kiss. (He kisses her hand as though she were a princess.) THE BUFFET-GIRL: Thank you, kind Sir! (She courtesies): Good-night. (She goes out.) Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obigen Absätze schreiben?

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Szene 4 beginnt damit, dass Cyrano gegen das Publikum besteht, das lautstark darauf besteht, dass Montfleury seine Vorstellung nicht abbricht. Cyrano droht damit, sein Schwert zu ziehen und jeden im Publikum herauszufordern, der es wagt, ihn herauszufordern. Dann beleidigt er den Schauspieler und jagt ihn von der Bühne. Anschließend kritisiert Cyrano den Dramatiker Baro für sein wertloses Schreiben. Als die intellektuell anspruchsvollen Frauen im Publikum gegen sein Handeln protestieren, lobt Cyrano sie als literarische Themen, bittet sie jedoch, es nicht zu beurteilen. Bellerose, der Leiter des Theaters, stellt sich Cyrano entgegen und sagt ihm, dass das Geld der Zuschauer zurückerstattet werden muss, wenn das Stück abgesagt wird. Cyrano gibt ihm seine Geldbörse, die mit Gold gefüllt ist, und sagt ihm, dass er die Zuschauer bezahlen soll. Das Publikum wird dann aufgefordert zu gehen. Ein unangenehmer Mann tritt an Cyrano heran und warnt ihn, dass Montfleury und sein wichtigster Unterstützer schwer beleidigt wurden und Rache wollen werden. Als der Mann weitermacht und trotz Cyrano's Aufforderung nicht gehen will, streitet er sich mit ihm und wirft ihn raus. Graf De Guiche ruft seine Anhänger auf, Cyrano zum Schweigen zu bringen. Valvert nähert sich Cyrano und wagt es, seinen Nasenrücken zu kommentieren. Cyrano antwortet, indem er eine witzige Darstellung von Nasen gibt und sich vorstellt, was allerlei Leute über die Größe seiner Nase sagen könnten. Valvert, der sich von Cyrano herabgesetzt fühlt, versucht seine Kleidung zu beleidigen. Cyrano kontert, indem er erklärt, dass seine Moral einwandfrei ist, auch wenn seine Kleidung es nicht ist. Valvert, der nicht die Oberhand gewinnen kann, wird immer aggressiver unhöflich. Cyrano reagiert darauf mit Witz. Als er einen Verrückten genannt wird, zieht Cyrano sein Schwert, um gegen Valvert zu kämpfen. Er behauptet, dass er den Zweikampf führen wird, während er eine Ballade komponiert, die er rezitieren wird während er fechtet. Die beiden ziehen ihre Schwerter und beginnen zu den Versen von Cyrano's witzigem Gedicht zu kämpfen. Durch den Refrain der Ballade stürzt sich Cyrano vor und trifft Valvert, der taumelt. Als Valvert weggebracht wird, applaudieren die Zuschauer Cyrano für seine Leistung; dann verlassen sie das Theater. Nachdem die Zuschauer gegangen sind, gesteht Cyrano, dass er kein Geld hat, um sich etwas zu essen zu kaufen. Als ihn sein Freund Le Bret dafür tadeln, sein gesamtes Einkommen für den Monat dem Theater geschenkt zu haben, behauptet er, dass es eine noble und lohnenswerte Geste war. Als ihm die Kellnerin etwas zu essen anbietet, nimmt er einen symbolischen Bissen und bedankt sich höflich und großartig.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: Who hath desired the Sea--the immense and contemptuous surges? The shudder, the stumble, the swerve ere the star-stabbing bowsprit merges-- The orderly clouds of the Trades and the ridged roaring sapphire thereunder-- Unheralded cliff-lurking flaws and the head-sails' low-volleying thunder? His Sea in no wonder the same--his Sea and the same in each wonder-- His Sea that his being fulfils? So and no otherwise--so and no otherwise hill-men desire their hills! The Sea and the Hills. 'Who goes to the hills goes to his mother.' They had crossed the Siwaliks and the half-tropical Doon, left Mussoorie behind them, and headed north along the narrow hill-roads. Day after day they struck deeper into the huddled mountains, and day after day Kim watched the lama return to a man's strength. Among the terraces of the Doon he had leaned on the boy's shoulder, ready to profit by wayside halts. Under the great ramp to Mussoorie he drew himself together as an old hunter faces a well-remembered bank, and where he should have sunk exhausted swung his long draperies about him, drew a deep double-lungful of the diamond air, and walked as only a hillman can. Kim, plains-bred and plains-fed, sweated and panted astonished. 'This is my country,' said the lama. 'Beside Such-zen, this is flatter than a rice-field'; and with steady, driving strokes from the loins he strode upwards. But it was on the steep downhill marches, three thousand feet in three hours, that he went utterly away from Kim, whose back ached with holding back, and whose big toe was nigh cut off by his grass sandal-string. Through the speckled shadow of the great deodar-forests; through oak feathered and plumed with ferns; birch, ilex, rhododendron, and pine, out on to the bare hillsides' slippery sunburnt grass, and back into the woodlands' coolth again, till oak gave way to bamboo and palm of the valley, the lama swung untiring. Glancing back in the twilight at the huge ridges behind him and the faint, thin line of the road whereby they had come, he would lay out, with a hillman's generous breadth of vision, fresh marches for the morrow; or, halting in the neck of some uplifted pass that gave on Spiti and Kulu, would stretch out his hands yearningly towards the high snows of the horizon. In the dawns they flared windy-red above stark blue, as Kedarnath and Badrinath--kings of that wilderness--took the first sunlight. All day long they lay like molten silver under the sun, and at evening put on their jewels again. At first they breathed temperately upon the travellers, winds good to meet when one crawled over some gigantic hog's-back; but in a few days, at a height of nine or ten thousand feet, those breezes bit; and Kim kindly allowed a village of hillmen to acquire merit by giving him a rough blanket-coat. The lama was mildly surprised that anyone should object to the knife-edged breezes which had cut the years off his shoulders. 'These are but the lower hills, chela. There is no cold till we come to the true Hills.' 'Air and water are good, and the people are devout enough, but the food is very bad,' Kim growled; 'and we walk as though we were mad--or English. It freezes at night, too.' 'A little, maybe; but only enough to make old bones rejoice in the sun. We must not always delight in soft beds and rich food.' 'We might at least keep to the road.' Kim had all a plainsman's affection for the well-trodden track, not six feet wide, that snaked among the mountains; but the lama, being Tibetan, could not refrain from short cuts over spurs and the rims of gravel-strewn slopes. As he explained to his limping disciple, a man bred among mountains can prophesy the course of a mountain-road, and though low-lying clouds might be a hindrance to a short-cutting stranger, they made no earthly difference to a thoughtful man. Thus, after long hours of what would be reckoned very fair mountaineering in civilized countries, they would pant over a saddle-back, sidle past a few landslips, and drop through forest at an angle of forty-five onto the road again. Along their track lay the villages of the hillfolk--mud and earth huts, timbers now and then rudely carved with an axe--clinging like swallows' nests against the steeps, huddled on tiny flats half-way down a three-thousand-foot glissade; jammed into a corner between cliffs that funnelled and focused every wandering blast; or, for the sake of summer pasture, cowering down on a neck that in winter would be ten feet deep in snow. And the people--the sallow, greasy, duffle-clad people, with short bare legs and faces almost Esquimaux--would flock out and adore. The Plains--kindly and gentle--had treated the lama as a holy man among holy men. But the Hills worshipped him as one in the confidence of all their devils. Theirs was an almost obliterated Buddhism, overlaid with a nature-worship fantastic as their own landscapes, elaborate as the terracing of their tiny fields; but they recognized the big hat, the clicking rosary, and the rare Chinese texts for great authority; and they respected the man beneath the hat. 'We saw thee come down over the black Breasts of Eua,' said a Betah who gave them cheese, sour milk, and stone-hard bread one evening. 'We do not use that often--except when calving cows stray in summer. There is a sudden wind among those stones that casts men down on the stillest day. But what should such folk care for the Devil of Eua!' Then did Kim, aching in every fibre, dizzy with looking down, footsore with cramping desperate toes into inadequate crannies, take joy in the day's march--such joy as a boy of St Xavier's who had won the quarter-mile on the flat might take in the praises of his friends. The hills sweated the ghi and sugar suet off his bones; the dry air, taken sobbingly at the head of cruel passes, firmed and built out his upper ribs; and the tilted levels put new hard muscles into calf and thigh. They meditated often on the Wheel of Life--the more so since, as the lama said, they were freed from its visible temptations. Except the grey eagle and an occasional far-seen bear grubbing and rooting on the hillside; a vision of a furious painted leopard met at dawn in a still valley devouring a goat; and now and again a bright-coloured bird, they were alone with the winds and the grass singing under the wind. The women of the smoky huts over whose roofs the two walked as they descended the mountains, were unlovely and unclean, wives of many husbands, and afflicted with goitre. The men were woodcutters when they were not farmers--meek, and of an incredible simplicity. But that suitable discourse might not fail, Fate sent them, overtaking and overtaken upon the road, the courteous Dacca physician, who paid for his food in ointments good for goitre and counsels that restore peace between men and women. He seemed to know these hills as well as he knew the hill dialects, and gave the lama the lie of the land towards Ladakh and Tibet. He said they could return to the Plains at any moment. Meantime, for such as loved mountains, yonder road might amuse. This was not all revealed in a breath, but at evening encounters on the stone threshing-floors, when, patients disposed of, the doctor would smoke and the lama snuff, while Kim watched the wee cows grazing on the housetops, or threw his soul after his eyes across the deep blue gulfs between range and range. And there were talks apart in the dark woods, when the doctor would seek herbs, and Kim, as budding physician, must accompany him. 'You see, Mister O'Hara, I do not know what the deuce-an' all I shall do when I find our sporting friends; but if you will kindly keep within sight of my umbrella, which is fine fixed point for cadastral survey, I shall feel much better.' Kim looked out across the jungle of peaks. 'This is not my country, hakim. Easier, I think, to find one louse in a bear-skin.' 'Oah, thatt is my strong points. There is no hurry for Hurree. They were at Leh not so long ago. They said they had come down from the Karakorum with their heads and horns and all. I am onlee afraid they will have sent back all their letters and compromising things from Leh into Russian territoree. Of course they will walk away as far to the East as possible--just to show that they were never among the Western States. You do not know the Hills?' He scratched with a twig on the earth. 'Look! They should have come in by Srinagar or Abbottabad. Thatt is their short road--down the river by Bunji and Astor. But they have made mischief in the West. So'--he drew a furrow from left to right--'they march and they march away East to Leh (ah! it is cold there), and down the Indus to Hanle (I know that road), and then down, you see, to Bushahr and Chini valley. That is ascertained by process of elimination, and also by asking questions from people that I cure so well. Our friends have been a long time playing about and producing impressions. So they are well known from far off. You will see me catch them somewhere in Chini valley. Please keep your eye on the umbrella.' It nodded like a wind-blown harebell down the valleys and round the mountain sides, and in due time the lama and Kim, who steered by compass, would overhaul it, vending ointments and powders at eventide. 'We came by such and such a way!' The lama would throw a careless finger backward at the ridges, and the umbrella would expend itself in compliments. They crossed a snowy pass in cold moonlight, when the lama, mildly chaffing Kim, went through up to his knees, like a Bactrian camel--the snow-bred, shag-haired sort that came into the Kashmir Serai. They dipped across beds of light snow and snow-powdered shale, where they took refuge from a gale in a camp of Tibetans hurrying down tiny sheep, each laden with a bag of borax. They came out upon grassy shoulders still snow-speckled, and through forest, to grass anew. For all their marchings, Kedarnath and Badrinath were not impressed; and it was only after days of travel that Kim, uplifted upon some insignificant ten-thousand-foot hummock, could see that a shoulder-knot or horn of the two great lords had--ever so slightly--changed outline. At last they entered a world within a world--a valley of leagues where the high hills were fashioned of a mere rubble and refuse from off the knees of the mountains. Here one day's march carried them no farther, it seemed, than a dreamer's clogged pace bears him in a nightmare. They skirted a shoulder painfully for hours, and, behold, it was but an outlying boss in an outlying buttress of the main pile! A rounded meadow revealed itself, when they had reached it, for a vast tableland running far into the valley. Three days later, it was a dim fold in the earth to southward. 'Surely the Gods live here!' said Kim, beaten down by the silence and the appalling sweep and dispersal of the cloud-shadows after rain. 'This is no place for men!' 'Long and long ago,' said the lama, as to himself, 'it was asked of the Lord whether the world were everlasting. On this the Excellent One returned no answer ... When I was in Ceylon, a wise Seeker confirmed that from the gospel which is written in Pali. Certainly, since we know the way to Freedom, the question were unprofitable, but--look, and know illusion, chela! These--are the true Hills! They are like my hills by Suchzen. Never were such hills!' Above them, still enormously above them, earth towered away towards the snow-line, where from east to west across hundreds of miles, ruled as with a ruler, the last of the bold birches stopped. Above that, in scarps and blocks upheaved, the rocks strove to fight their heads above the white smother. Above these again, changeless since the world's beginning, but changing to every mood of sun and cloud, lay out the eternal snow. They could see blots and blurs on its face where storm and wandering wullie-wa got up to dance. Below them, as they stood, the forest slid away in a sheet of blue-green for mile upon mile; below the forest was a village in its sprinkle of terraced fields and steep grazing-grounds. Below the village they knew, though a thunderstorm worried and growled there for the moment, a pitch of twelve or fifteen hundred feet gave to the moist valley where the streams gather that are the mothers of young Sutluj. As usual, the lama had led Kim by cow-track and by-road, far from the main route along which Hurree Babu, that 'fearful man', had bucketed three days before through a storm to which nine Englishmen out of ten would have given full right of way. Hurree was no game-shot--the snick of a trigger made him change colour--but, as he himself would have said, he was 'fairly effeecient stalker', and he had raked the huge valley with a pair of cheap binoculars to some purpose. Moreover, the white of worn canvas tents against green carries far. Hurree Babu had seen all he wanted to see when he sat on the threshing-floor of Ziglaur, twenty miles away as the eagle flies, and forty by road--that is to say, two small dots which one day were just below the snow-line, and the next had moved downward perhaps six inches on the hillside. Once cleaned out and set to the work, his fat bare legs could cover a surprising amount of ground, and this was the reason why, while Kim and the lama lay in a leaky hut at Ziglaur till the storm should be over-past, an oily, wet, but always smiling Bengali, talking the best of English with the vilest of phrases, was ingratiating himself with two sodden and rather rheumatic foreigners. He had arrived, revolving many wild schemes, on the heels of a thunderstorm which had split a pine over against their camp, and so convinced a dozen or two forcibly impressed baggage-coolies the day was inauspicious for farther travel that with one accord they had thrown down their loads and jibbed. They were subjects of a Hill Rajah who farmed out their services, as is the custom, for his private gain; and, to add to their personal distresses, the strange Sahibs had already threatened them with rifles. The most of them knew rifles and Sahibs of old: they were trackers and shikarris of the Northern valleys, keen after bear and wild goat; but they had never been thus treated in their lives. So the forest took them to her bosom, and, for all oaths and clamour, refused to restore. There was no need to feign madness or--the Babu had thought of another means of securing a welcome. He wrung out his wet clothes, slipped on his patent-leather shoes, opened the blue-and-white umbrella, and with mincing gait and a heart beating against his tonsils appeared as 'agent for His Royal Highness, the Rajah of Rampur, gentlemen. What can I do for you, please?' The gentlemen were delighted. One was visibly French, the other Russian, but they spoke English not much inferior to the Babu's. They begged his kind offices. Their native servants had gone sick at Leh. They had hurried on because they were anxious to bring the spoils of the chase to Simla ere the skins grew moth-eaten. They bore a general letter of introduction (the Babu salaamed to it orientally) to all Government officials. No, they had not met any other shooting-parties en route. They did for themselves. They had plenty of supplies. They only wished to push on as soon as might be. At this he waylaid a cowering hillman among the trees, and after three minutes' talk and a little silver (one cannot be economical upon State service, though Hurree's heart bled at the waste) the eleven coolies and the three hangers-on reappeared. At least the Babu would be a witness to their oppression. 'My royal master, he will be much annoyed, but these people are onlee common people and grossly ignorant. If your honours will kindly overlook unfortunate affair, I shall be much pleased. In a little while rain will stop and we can then proceed. You have been shooting, eh? That is fine performance!' He skipped nimbly from one kilta to the next, making pretence to adjust each conical basket. The Englishman is not, as a rule, familiar with the Asiatic, but he would not strike across the wrist a kindly Babu who had accidentally upset a kilta with a red oilskin top. On the other hand, he would not press drink upon a Babu were he never so friendly, nor would he invite him to meat. The strangers did all these things, and asked many questions--about women mostly--to which Hurree returned gay and unstudied answers. They gave him a glass of whitish fluid like to gin, and then more; and in a little time his gravity departed from him. He became thickly treasonous, and spoke in terms of sweeping indecency of a Government which had forced upon him a white man's education and neglected to supply him with a white man's salary. He babbled tales of oppression and wrong till the tears ran down his cheeks for the miseries of his land. Then he staggered off, singing love-songs of Lower Bengal, and collapsed upon a wet tree-trunk. Never was so unfortunate a product of English rule in India more unhappily thrust upon aliens. 'They are all just of that pattern,' said one sportsman to the other in French. 'When we get into India proper thou wilt see. I should like to visit his Rajah. One might speak the good word there. It is possible that he has heard of us and wishes to signify his good-will.' 'We have not time. We must get into Simla as soon as may be,' his companion replied. 'For my own part, I wish our reports had been sent back from Hilas, or even Leh.' 'The English post is better and safer. Remember we are given all facilities--and Name of God!--they give them to us too! Is it unbelievable stupidity?' 'It is pride--pride that deserves and will receive punishment.' 'Yes! To fight a fellow-Continental in our game is something. There is a risk attached, but these people--bah! It is too easy.' 'Pride--all pride, my friend.' 'Now what the deuce is good of Chandernagore being so close to Calcutta and all,' said Hurree, snoring open-mouthed on the sodden moss, 'if I cannot understand their French? They talk so particularly fast! It would have been much better to cut their beastly throats.' When he presented himself again he was racked with a headache--penitent, and volubly afraid that in his drunkenness he might have been indiscreet. He loved the British Government--it was the source of all prosperity and honour, and his master at Rampur held the very same opinion. Upon this the men began to deride him and to quote past words, till step by step, with deprecating smirks, oily grins, and leers of infinite cunning, the poor Babu was beaten out of his defences and forced to speak--truth. When Lurgan was told the tale later, he mourned aloud that he could not have been in the place of the stubborn, inattentive coolies, who with grass mats over their heads and the raindrops puddling in their footprints, waited on the weather. All the Sahibs of their acquaintance--rough-clad men joyously returning year after year to their chosen gullies--had servants and cooks and orderlies, very often hillmen. These Sahibs travelled without any retinue. Therefore they were poor Sahibs, and ignorant; for no Sahib in his senses would follow a Bengali's advice. But the Bengali, appearing from somewhere, had given them money, and could make shift with their dialect. Used to comprehensive ill-treatment from their own colour, they suspected a trap somewhere, and stood by to run if occasion offered. Then through the new-washed air, steaming with delicious earth-smells, the Babu led the way down the slopes--walking ahead of the coolies in pride; walking behind the foreigners in humility. His thoughts were many and various. The least of them would have interested his companions beyond words. But he was an agreeable guide, ever keen to point out the beauties of his royal master's domain. He peopled the hills with anything thev had a mind to slay--thar, ibex, or markhor, and bear by Elisha's allowance. He discoursed of botany and ethnology with unimpeachable inaccuracy, and his store of local legends--he had been a trusted agent of the State for fifteen years, remember--was inexhaustible. 'Decidedly this fellow is an original,' said the taller of the two foreigners. 'He is like the nightmare of a Viennese courier.' 'He represents in little India in transition--the monstrous hybridism of East and West,' the Russian replied. 'It is we who can deal with Orientals.' 'He has lost his own country and has not acquired any other. But he has a most complete hatred of his conquerors. Listen. He confided to me last night,' said the other. Under the striped umbrella Hurree Babu was straining ear and brain to follow the quick-poured French, and keeping both eyes on a kilta full of maps and documents--an extra-large one with a double red oil-skin cover. He did not wish to steal anything. He only desired to know what to steal, and, incidentally, how to get away when he had stolen it. He thanked all the Gods of Hindustan, and Herbert Spencer, that there remained some valuables to steal. On the second day the road rose steeply to a grass spur above the forest; and it was here, about sunset, that they came across an aged lama--but they called him a bonze--sitting cross-legged above a mysterious chart held down by stones, which he was explaining to a young man, evidently a neophyte, of singular, though unwashen, beauty. The striped umbrella had been sighted half a march away, and Kim had suggested a halt till it came up to them. 'Ha!' said Hurree Babu, resourceful as Puss-in-Boots. 'That is eminent local holy man. Probably subject of my royal master.' 'What is he doing? It is very curious.' 'He is expounding holy picture--all hand-worked.' The two men stood bareheaded in the wash of the afternoon sunlight low across the gold-coloured grass. The sullen coolies, glad of the check, halted and slid down their loads. 'Look!' said the Frenchman. 'It is like a picture for the birth of a religion--the first teacher and the first disciple. Is he a Buddhist?' 'Of some debased kind,' the other answered. 'There are no true Buddhists among the Hills. But look at the folds of the drapery. Look at his eyes--how insolent! Why does this make one feel that we are so young a people?' The speaker struck passionately at a tall weed. 'We have nowhere left our mark yet. Nowhere! That, do you understand, is what disquiets me.' He scowled at the placid face, and the monumental calm of the pose. 'Have patience. We shall make your mark together--we and you young people. Meantime, draw his picture.' The Babu advanced loftily; his back out of all keeping with his deferential speech, or his wink towards Kim. 'Holy One, these be Sahibs. My medicines cured one of a flux, and I go into Simla to oversee his recovery. They wish to see thy picture--' 'To heal the sick is always good. This is the Wheel of Life,' said the lama, 'the same I showed thee in the hut at Ziglaur when the rain fell.' 'And to hear thee expound it.' The lama's eyes lighted at the prospect of new listeners. 'To expound the Most Excellent Way is good. Have they any knowledge of Hindi, such as had the Keeper of Images?' 'A little, maybe.' Hereat, simply as a child engrossed with a new game, the lama threw back his head and began the full-throated invocation of the Doctor of Divinity ere he opens the full doctrine. The strangers leaned on their alpenstocks and listened. Kim, squatting humbly, watched the red sunlight on their faces, and the blend and parting of their long shadows. They wore un-English leggings and curious girt-in belts that reminded him hazily of the pictures in a book in St Xavier's library "The Adventures of a Young Naturalist in Mexico" was its name. Yes, they looked very like the wonderful M. Sumichrast of that tale, and very unlike the 'highly unscrupulous folk' of Hurree Babu's imagining. The coolies, earth-coloured and mute, crouched reverently some twenty or thirty yards away, and the Babu, the slack of his thin gear snapping like a marking-flag in the chill breeze, stood by with an air of happy proprietorship. 'These are the men,' Hurree whispered, as the ritual went on and the two whites followed the grass-blade sweeping from Hell to Heaven and back again. 'All their books are in the large kilta with the reddish top--books and reports and maps--and I have seen a King's letter that either Hilas or Bunar has written. They guard it most carefully. They have sent nothing back from Hilas or Leh. That is sure.' 'Who is with them?' 'Only the beegar-coolies. They have no servants. They are so close they cook their own food.' 'But what am I to do?' 'Wait and see. Only if any chance comes to me thou wilt know where to seek for the papers.' 'This were better in Mahbub Ali's hands than a Bengali's,' said Kim scornfully. 'There are more ways of getting to a sweetheart than butting down a wall.' 'See here the Hell appointed for avarice and greed. Flanked upon the one side by Desire and on the other by Weariness.' The lama warmed to his work, and one of the strangers sketched him in the quick-fading light. 'That is enough,' the man said at last brusquely. 'I cannot understand him, but I want that picture. He is a better artist than I. Ask him if he will sell it.' 'He says "No, sar,"' the Babu replied. The lama, of course, would no more have parted with his chart to a casual wayfarer than an archbishop would pawn the holy vessels of his cathedral. All Tibet is full of cheap reproductions of the Wheel; but the lama was an artist, as well as a wealthy Abbot in his own place. 'Perhaps in three days, or four, or ten, if I perceive that the Sahib is a Seeker and of good understanding, I may myself draw him another. But this was used for the initiation of a novice. Tell him so, hakim.' 'He wishes it now--for money.' The lama shook his head slowly and began to fold up the Wheel. The Russian, on his side, saw no more than an unclean old man haggling over a dirty piece of paper. He drew out a handful of rupees, and snatched half-jestingly at the chart, which tore in the lama's grip. A low murmur of horror went up from the coolies--some of whom were Spiti men and, by their lights, good Buddhists. The lama rose at the insult; his hand went to the heavy iron pencase that is the priest's weapon, and the Babu danced in agony. 'Now you see--you see why I wanted witnesses. They are highly unscrupulous people. Oh, sar! sar! You must not hit holyman!' 'Chela! He has defiled the Written Word!' It was too late. Before Kim could ward him off, the Russian struck the old man full on the face. Next instant he was rolling over and over downhill with Kim at his throat. The blow had waked every unknown Irish devil in the boy's blood, and the sudden fall of his enemy did the rest. The lama dropped to his knees, half-stunned; the coolies under their loads fled up the hill as fast as plainsmen run aross the level. They had seen sacrilege unspeakable, and it behoved them to get away before the Gods and devils of the hills took vengeance. The Frenchman ran towards the lama, fumbling at his revolver with some notion of making him a hostage for his companion. A shower of cutting stones--hillmen are very straight shots--drove him away, and a coolie from Ao-chung snatched the lama into the stampede. All came about as swiftly as the sudden mountain-darkness. 'They have taken the baggage and all the guns,' yelled the Frenchman, firing blindly into the twilight. 'All right, sar! All right! Don't shoot. I go to rescue,' and Hurree, pounding down the slope, cast himself bodily upon the delighted and astonished Kim, who was banging his breathless foe's head against a boulder. 'Go back to the coolies,' whispered the Babu in his ear. 'They have the baggage. The papers are in the kilta with the red top, but look through all. Take their papers, and specially the murasla [King's letter]. Go! The other man comes!' Kim tore uphill. A revolver-bullet rang on a rock by his side, and he cowered partridge-wise. 'If you shoot,' shouted Hurree, 'they will descend and annihilate us. I have rescued the gentleman, sar. This is particularly dangerous.' 'By Jove!' Kim was thinking hard in English. 'This is dam'-tight place, but I think it is self-defence.' He felt in his bosom for Mahbub's gift, and uncertainly--save for a few practice shots in the Bikanir desert, he had never used the little gun--pulled the trigger. 'What did I say, sar!' The Babu seemed to be in tears. 'Come down here and assist to resuscitate. We are all up a tree, I tell you.' The shots ceased. There was a sound of stumbling feet, and Kim hurried upward through the gloom, swearing like a cat--or a country-bred. 'Did they wound thee, chela?' called the lama above him. 'No. And thou?' He dived into a clump of stunted firs. 'Unhurt. Come away. We go with these folk to Shamlegh-under-the-Snow.' 'But not before we have done justice,' a voice cried. 'I have got the Sahibs' guns--all four. Let us go down.' 'He struck the Holy One--we saw it! Our cattle will be barren--our wives will cease to bear! The snows will slide upon us as we go home... Atop of all other oppression too!' The little fir-clump filled with clamouring coolies--panic-stricken, and in their terror capable of anything. The man from Ao-chung clicked the breech-bolt of his gun impatiently, and made as to go downhill. 'Wait a little, Holy One; they cannot go far. Wait till I return,' said he. 'It is this person who has suffered wrong,' said the lama, his hand over his brow. 'For that very reason,' was the reply. 'If this person overlooks it, your hands are clean. Moreover, ye acquire merit by obedience.' 'Wait, and we will all go to Shamlegh together,' the man insisted. For a moment, for just so long as it needs to stuff a cartridge into a breech-loader, the lama hesitated. Then he rose to his feet, and laid a finger on the man's shoulder. 'Hast thou heard? I say there shall be no killing--I who was Abbot of Such-zen. Is it any lust of thine to be re-born as a rat, or a snake under the eaves--a worm in the belly of the most mean beast? Is it thy wish to--' The man from Ao-chung fell to his knees, for the voice boomed like a Tibetan devil-gong. 'Ai! ai!' cried the Spiti men. 'Do not curse us--do not curse him. It was but his zeal, Holy One! ... Put down the rifle, fool!' 'Anger on anger! Evil on evil! There will be no killing. Let the priest-beaters go in bondage to their own acts. Just and sure is the Wheel, swerving not a hair! They will be born many times--in torment.' His head drooped, and he leaned heavily on Kim's shoulder. 'I have come near to great evil, chela,' he whispered in that dead hush under the pines. 'I was tempted to loose the bullet; and truly, in Tibet there would have been a heavy and a slow death for them ... He struck me across the face ... upon the flesh ...' He slid to the ground, breathing heavily, and Kim could hear the over-driven heart bump and check. 'Have they hurt him to the death?' said the Ao-chung man, while the others stood mute. Kim knelt over the body in deadly fear. 'Nay,' he cried passionately, 'this is only a weakness.' Then he remembered that he was a white man, with a white man's camp-fittings at his service. 'Open the kiltas! The Sahibs may have a medicine.' 'Oho! Then I know it,' said the Ao-chung man with a laugh. 'Not for five years was I Yankling Sahib's shikarri without knowing that medicine. I too have tasted it. Behold!' He drew from his breast a bottle of cheap whisky--such as is sold to explorers at Leh--and cleverly forced a little between the lama's teeth. 'So I did when Yankling Sahib twisted his foot beyond Astor. Aha! I have already looked into their baskets--but we will make fair division at Shamlegh. Give him a little more. It is good medicine. Feel! His heart goes better now. Lay his head down and rub a little on the chest. If he had waited quietly while I accounted for the Sahibs this would never have come. But perhaps the Sahibs may chase us here. Then it would not be wrong to shoot them with their own guns, heh?' 'One is paid, I think, already,' said Kim between his teeth. 'I kicked him in the groin as we went downhill. Would I had killed him!' 'It is well to be brave when one does not live in Rampur,' said one whose hut lay within a few miles of the Rajah's rickety palace. 'If we get a bad name among the Sahibs, none will employ us as shikarris any more.' 'Oh, but these are not Angrezi Sahibs--not merry-minded men like Fostum Sahib or Yankling Sahib. They are foreigners--they cannot speak Angrezi as do Sahibs.' Here the lama coughed and sat up, groping for the rosary. 'There shall be no killing,' he murmured. 'Just is the Wheel! Evil on evil--' 'Nay, Holy One. We are all here.' The Ao-chung man timidly patted his feet. 'Except by thy order, no one shall be slain. Rest awhile. We will make a little camp here, and later, as the moon rises, we go to Shamlegh-under-the-Snow.' 'After a blow,' said a Spiti man sententiously, 'it is best to sleep.' 'There is, as it were, a dizziness at the back of my neck, and a pinching in it. Let me lay my head on thy lap, chela. I am an old man, but not free from passion ... We must think of the Cause of Things.' 'Give him a blanket. We dare not light a fire lest the Sahibs see.' 'Better get away to Shamlegh. None will follow us to Shamlegh.' This was the nervous Rampur man. 'I have been Fostum Sahib's shikarri, and I am Yankling Sahib's shikarri. I should have been with Yankling Sahib now but for this cursed beegar [the corvee]. Let two men watch below with the guns lest the Sahibs do more foolishness. I shall not leave this Holy One.' They sat down a little apart from the lama, and, after listening awhile, passed round a water-pipe whose receiver was an old Day and Martin blacking-bottle. The glow of the red charcoal as it went from hand to hand lit up the narrow, blinking eyes, the high Chinese cheek-bones, and the bull-throats that melted away into the dark duffle folds round the shoulders. They looked like kobolds from some magic mine--gnomes of the hills in conclave. And while they talked, the voices of the snow-waters round them diminished one by one as the night-frost choked and clogged the runnels. 'How he stood up against us!' said a Spiti man admiring. 'I remember an old ibex, out Ladakh-way, that Dupont Sahib missed on a shoulder-shot, seven seasons back, standing up just like him. Dupont Sahib was a good shikarri.' 'Not as good as Yankling Sahib.' The Ao-chung man took a pull at the whisky-bottle and passed it over. 'Now hear me--unless any other man thinks he knows more.' The challenge was not taken up. 'We go to Shamlegh when the moon rises. There we will fairly divide the baggage between us. I am content with this new little rifle and all its cartridges.' 'Are the bears only bad on thy holding? said a mate, sucking at the pipe. 'No; but musk-pods are worth six rupees apiece now, and thy women can have the canvas of the tents and some of the cooking-gear. We will do all that at Shamlegh before dawn. Then we all go our ways, remembering that we have never seen or taken service with these Sahibs, who may, indeed, say that we have stolen their baggage.' 'That is well for thee, but what will our Rajah say?' 'Who is to tell him? Those Sahibs, who cannot speak our talk, or the Babu, who for his own ends gave us money? Will he lead an army against us? What evidence will remain? That we do not need we shall throw on Shamlegh-midden, where no man has yet set foot.' 'Who is at Shamlegh this summer?' The place was only a grazing centre of three or four huts.' 'The Woman of Shamlegh. She has no love for Sahibs, as we know. The others can be pleased with little presents; and here is enough for us all.' He patted the fat sides of the nearest basket. 'But--but--' 'I have said they are not true Sahibs. All their skins and heads were bought in the bazar at Leh. I know the marks. I showed them to ye last march.' 'True. They were all bought skins and heads. Some had even the moth in them.' That was a shrewd argument, and the Ao-chung man knew his fellows. 'If the worst comes to the worst, I shall tell Yankling Sahib, who is a man of a merry mind, and he will laugh. We are not doing any wrong to any Sahibs whom we know. They are priest-beaters. They frightened us. We fled! Who knows where we dropped the baggage? Do ye think Yankling Sahib will permit down-country police to wander all over the hills, disturbing his game? It is a far cry from Simla to Chini, and farther from Shamlegh to Shamlegh-midden.' 'So be it, but I carry the big kilta. The basket with the red top that the Sahibs pack themselves every morning.' 'Thus it is proved,' said the Shamlegh man adroitly, 'that they are Sahibs of no account. Who ever heard of Fostum Sahib, or Yankling Sahib, or even the little Peel Sahib that sits up of nights to shoot serow--I say, who, ever heard of these Sahibs coming into the hills without a down-country cook, and a bearer, and--and all manner of well-paid, high-handed and oppressive folk in their tail? How can they make trouble? What of the kilta?' 'Nothing, but that it is full of the Written Word--books and papers in which they wrote, and strange instruments, as of worship.' 'Shamlegh-midden will take them all.' 'True! But how if we insult the Sahibs' Gods thereby! I do not like to handle the Written Word in that fashion. And their brass idols are beyond my comprehension. It is no plunder for simple hill-folk.' 'The old man still sleeps. Hst! We will ask his chela.' The Ao-chung man refreshed himself, and swelled with pride of leadership. 'We have here,' he whispered, 'a kilta whose nature we do not know.' 'But I do,' said Kim cautiously. The lama drew breath in natural, easy sleep, and Kim had been thinking of Hurree's last words. As a player of the Great Game, he was disposed just then to reverence the Babu. 'It is a kilta with a red top full of very wonderful things, not to be handled by fools.' 'I said it; I said it,' cried the bearer of that burden. 'Thinkest thou it will betray us?' 'Not if it be given to me. I can draw out its magic. Otherwise it will do great harm.' 'A priest always takes his share.' Whisky was demoralizing the Ao-chung man. 'It is no matter to me.' Kim answered, with the craft of his mother-country. 'Share it among you, and see what comes!' 'Not I. I was only jesting. Give the order. There is more than enough for us all. We go our way from Shamlegh in the dawn.' They arranged and re-arranged their artless little plans for another hour, while Kim shivered with cold and pride. The humour of the situation tickled the Irish and the Oriental in his soul. Here were the emissaries of the dread Power of the North, very possibly as great in their own land as Mahbub or Colonel Creighton, suddenly smitten helpless. One of them, he privately knew, would be lame for a time. They had made promises to Kings. Tonight they lay out somewhere below him, chartless, foodless, tentless, gunless--except for Hurree Babu, guideless. And this collapse of their Great Game (Kim wondered to whom they would report it), this panicky bolt into the night, had come about through no craft of Hurree's or contrivance of Kim's, but simply, beautifully, and inevitably as the capture of Mahbub's fakir-friends by the zealous young policeman at Umballa. 'They are there--with nothing; and, by Jove, it is cold! I am here with all their things. Oh, they will be angry! I am sorry for Hurree Babu.' Kim might have saved his pity, for though at that moment the Bengali suffered acutely in the flesh, his soul was puffed and lofty. A mile down the hill, on the edge of the pine-forest, two half-frozen men--one powerfully sick at intervals--were varying mutual recriminations with the most poignant abuse of the Babu, who seemed distraught with terror. They demanded a plan of action. He explained that they were very lucky to be alive; that their coolies, if not then stalking them, had passed beyond recall; that the Rajah, his master, was ninety miles away, and, so far from lending them money and a retinue for the Simla journey, would surely cast them into prison if he heard that they had hit a priest. He enlarged on this sin and its consequences till they bade him change the subject. Their one hope, said he, was unostentatious flight from village to village till they reached civilization; and, for the hundredth time dissolved in tears, he demanded of the high stars why the Sahibs 'had beaten holy man'. Ten steps would have taken Hurree into the creaking gloom utterly beyond their reach--to the shelter and food of the nearest village, where glib-tongued doctors were scarce. But he preferred to endure cold, belly-pinch, bad words, and occasional blows in the company of his honoured employers. Crouched against a tree-trunk, he sniffed dolefully. 'And have you thought,' said the uninjured man hotly, 'what sort of spectacle we shall present wandering through these hills among these aborigines?' Hurree Babu had thought of little else for some hours, but the remark was not to his address. 'We cannot wander! I can hardly walk,' groaned Kim's victim. 'Perhaps the holy man will be merciful in loving-kindness, sar, otherwise--' 'I promise myself a peculiar pleasure in emptying my revolver into that young bonze when next we meet,' was the unchristian answer. 'Revolvers! Vengeance! Bonzes!' Hurree crouched lower. The war was breaking out afresh. 'Have you no consideration for our loss? The baggage! The baggage!' He could hear the speaker literally dancing on the grass. 'Everything we bore! Everything we have secured! Our gains! Eight months' work! Do you know what that means? "Decidedly it is we who can deal with Orientals!" Oh, you have done well.' They fell to it in several tongues, and Hurree smiled. Kim was with the kiltas, and in the kiltas lay eight months of good diplomacy. There was no means of communicating with the boy, but he could be trusted. For the rest, Hurree could so stage-manage the journey through the hills that Hilas, Bunar, and four hundred miles of hill-roads should tell the tale for a generation. Men who cannot control their own coolies are little respected in the Hills, and the hillman has a very keen sense of humour. 'If I had done it myself,' thought Hurree, 'it would not have been better; and, by Jove, now I think of it, of course I arranged it myself. How quick I have been! Just when I ran downhill I thought it! Thee outrage was accidental, but onlee me could have worked it--ah--for all it was dam'-well worth. Consider the moral effect upon these ignorant peoples! No treaties--no papers--no written documents at all--and me to interpret for them. How I shall laugh with the Colonel! I wish I had their papers also: but you cannot occupy two places in space simultaneously. Thatt is axiomatic.' Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben stehenden Absätze schreiben?

Du bist ein freundlicher und hilfreicher KI-Assistent. Deine Aufgabe ist es, faktenreiche, kohärente und für den Nutzer einfach zu verstehende Zusammenfassungen zu schreiben. Hierbei beziehst du dich ausschließlich aus denen dir gegebenen bzw. vom Nutzer bereitstellten Texten. Du beziehst dich nur auf Fakten und von vorhandene Informationen. Du denkst dir keine Antworten aus und antwortest ehrlich, falls du eine Antwort nicht kennst.

Als sie mit dem Aufstieg in die Ausläufer des Himalayas beginnen, könnte der Lama nicht glücklicher sein; er fühlt sich endlich auf eigenem Terrain. Kim dagegen ist hungrig, kalt und müde - definitiv nicht in Bestform. Dennoch wird Kim stärker, während er weiter aufsteigt und diese frische Bergluft atmet. Der Babu folgt ihnen auf der Straße - er scheint sich in diesem ganzen Gebiet sehr gut auszukennen. Schließlich erreichen sie ein Tal mitten in hohen Bergen, feucht von Bächen, die in den Fluss Sutluj fließen. Während Kim und der Lama die Nacht im Tal verbringen, eilt der Babu voraus, um die beiden Europäer zu treffen. Sie wollen jemanden vor Ort, der ihnen hilft, nach Simla zu gelangen, und der Babu bietet sich als Führer an. Der Babu stellt auch überzeugend dar, dass er die Engländer hasst, was die beiden europäischen Jungs vollständig glauben. Als der Babu diese beiden Ausländer und ihre Bediensteten führt, findet er Kim und den Lama auf der Straße. Er gibt Kim heimlich das Zeichen, dass diese beiden Männer Die Männer sind, nach denen sie gesucht haben. Der Babu lädt die beiden Männer auch ein, sich die Zeichnung des Lamas vom Großen Rad des Daseins anzusehen. Der Lama beginnt zu erklären, wie das buddhistische Modell der menschlichen Existenz funktioniert - der Russe sagt schnell, dass er den Lama nicht verstehen kann, aber seine Zeichnung kaufen möchte. Der Lama lehnt ab, und der Russe streckt seine Hand aus, als wolle er ihm die Zeichnung entreißen. Der Russe schlägt dem Lama direkt ins Gesicht, und Kim stürzt sich auf ihn. Alle Träger rennen so schnell wie möglich in die Hügel davon - sie wissen, dass es extrem viel Unglück bringt, einen Heiligen zu schlagen, und sie wollen nicht in der Nähe sein, wenn die Götter Blitz und Donner schicken. Der Babu springt auf Kim, als verteidige er den Russen, warnt aber in Wirklichkeit Kim, dass er den Trägern hinterherrennen und ihre Papiere bekommen soll. Ein Schuss trifft einen Felsen in der Nähe von Kim, also zieht Kim die Waffe, die er von Mahbub Ali bekommen hat, und schießt zurück. Er und der Lama suchen Schutz hinter einigen Bäumen. Die Träger wollen alle Europäer aus Rache für die gerade begangene Sakrilegie erschießen. Der Lama befiehlt den Trägern, niemanden zu töten, gesteht Kim jedoch, dass er in Versuchung war, die Männer zu erschießen, und dass er zutiefst von seiner moralischen Schwäche erschüttert ist. Er sinkt zu Boden, teilweise wegen seiner Verletzung, aber auch wegen seiner Enttäuschung über sich selbst. Die Träger beschließen, die Beute der Europäer untereinander aufzuteilen. Kim tritt ein und sagt, dass sie die Tasche mit Büchern und Instrumenten nicht nehmen sollten - sie enthält magische Werkzeuge, die nur Kim sicher handhaben kann. In der Zwischenzeit begleitet der Babu die beiden Europäer. Er sagt ihnen immer wieder, dass sie jetzt keine Wahl haben, als von Dorf zu Dorf zu schleichen, bis sie in eine Stadt gelangen können. Ihr Gepäck ist längst weg, und sie werden in große Schwierigkeiten geraten, wenn sie sich an die Könige wenden - schließlich ist es hier das Schlimmste, einen Heiligen zu schlagen. Die starken Worte des Babu überzeugen die Europäer, die sich sofort miteinander streiten. Und die ganze Bedrohung durch die russischen Spione zerfällt.

Nachfolgend findest du Texte aus unterschiedlichen Quellen. Merke dir diese und beantworte die Frage im Anschluss (am Ende). Sollten die Texte nicht in der Sprache des Nutzers sein, beantworte die Frage ungeachtet dessen in der Sprache des Nutzers bzw in meiner Sprache. Chapter: "His heart The lowliest duties on itself did lay." --WORDSWORTH. On that June evening when Mr. Farebrother knew that he was to have the Lowick living, there was joy in the old fashioned parlor, and even the portraits of the great lawyers seemed to look on with satisfaction. His mother left her tea and toast untouched, but sat with her usual pretty primness, only showing her emotion by that flush in the cheeks and brightness in the eyes which give an old woman a touching momentary identity with her far-off youthful self, and saying decisively-- "The greatest comfort, Camden, is that you have deserved it." "When a man gets a good berth, mother, half the deserving must come after," said the son, brimful of pleasure, and not trying to conceal it. The gladness in his face was of that active kind which seems to have energy enough not only to flash outwardly, but to light up busy vision within: one seemed to see thoughts, as well as delight, in his glances. "Now, aunt," he went on, rubbing his hands and looking at Miss Noble, who was making tender little beaver-like noises, "There shall be sugar-candy always on the table for you to steal and give to the children, and you shall have a great many new stockings to make presents of, and you shall darn your own more than ever!" Miss Noble nodded at her nephew with a subdued half-frightened laugh, conscious of having already dropped an additional lump of sugar into her basket on the strength of the new preferment. "As for you, Winny"--the Vicar went on--"I shall make no difficulty about your marrying any Lowick bachelor--Mr. Solomon Featherstone, for example, as soon as I find you are in love with him." Miss Winifred, who had been looking at her brother all the while and crying heartily, which was her way of rejoicing, smiled through her tears and said, "You must set me the example, Cam: _you_ must marry now." "With all my heart. But who is in love with me? I am a seedy old fellow," said the Vicar, rising, pushing his chair away and looking down at himself. "What do you say, mother?" "You are a handsome man, Camden: though not so fine a figure of a man as your father," said the old lady. "I wish you would marry Miss Garth, brother," said Miss Winifred. "She would make us so lively at Lowick." "Very fine! You talk as if young women were tied up to be chosen, like poultry at market; as if I had only to ask and everybody would have me," said the Vicar, not caring to specify. "We don't want everybody," said Miss Winifred. "But _you_ would like Miss Garth, mother, shouldn't you?" "My son's choice shall be mine," said Mrs. Farebrother, with majestic discretion, "and a wife would be most welcome, Camden. You will want your whist at home when we go to Lowick, and Henrietta Noble never was a whist-player." (Mrs. Farebrother always called her tiny old sister by that magnificent name.) "I shall do without whist now, mother." "Why so, Camden? In my time whist was thought an undeniable amusement for a good churchman," said Mrs. Farebrother, innocent of the meaning that whist had for her son, and speaking rather sharply, as at some dangerous countenancing of new doctrine. "I shall be too busy for whist; I shall have two parishes," said the Vicar, preferring not to discuss the virtues of that game. He had already said to Dorothea, "I don't feel bound to give up St. Botolph's. It is protest enough against the pluralism they want to reform if I give somebody else most of the money. The stronger thing is not to give up power, but to use it well." "I have thought of that," said Dorothea. "So far as self is concerned, I think it would be easier to give up power and money than to keep them. It seems very unfitting that I should have this patronage, yet I felt that I ought not to let it be used by some one else instead of me." "It is I who am bound to act so that you will not regret your power," said Mr. Farebrother. His was one of the natures in which conscience gets the more active when the yoke of life ceases to gall them. He made no display of humility on the subject, but in his heart he felt rather ashamed that his conduct had shown laches which others who did not get benefices were free from. "I used often to wish I had been something else than a clergyman," he said to Lydgate, "but perhaps it will be better to try and make as good a clergyman out of myself as I can. That is the well-beneficed point of view, you perceive, from which difficulties are much simplified," he ended, smiling. The Vicar did feel then as if his share of duties would be easy. But Duty has a trick of behaving unexpectedly--something like a heavy friend whom we have amiably asked to visit us, and who breaks his leg within our gates. Hardly a week later, Duty presented itself in his study under the disguise of Fred Vincy, now returned from Omnibus College with his bachelor's degree. "I am ashamed to trouble you, Mr. Farebrother," said Fred, whose fair open face was propitiating, "but you are the only friend I can consult. I told you everything once before, and you were so good that I can't help coming to you again." "Sit down, Fred, I'm ready to hear and do anything I can," said the Vicar, who was busy packing some small objects for removal, and went on with his work. "I wanted to tell you--" Fred hesitated an instant and then went on plungingly, "I might go into the Church now; and really, look where I may, I can't see anything else to do. I don't like it, but I know it's uncommonly hard on my father to say so, after he has spent a good deal of money in educating me for it." Fred paused again an instant, and then repeated, "and I can't see anything else to do." "I did talk to your father about it, Fred, but I made little way with him. He said it was too late. But you have got over one bridge now: what are your other difficulties?" "Merely that I don't like it. I don't like divinity, and preaching, and feeling obliged to look serious. I like riding across country, and doing as other men do. I don't mean that I want to be a bad fellow in any way; but I've no taste for the sort of thing people expect of a clergyman. And yet what else am I to do? My father can't spare me any capital, else I might go into farming. And he has no room for me in his trade. And of course I can't begin to study for law or physic now, when my father wants me to earn something. It's all very well to say I'm wrong to go into the Church; but those who say so might as well tell me to go into the backwoods." Fred's voice had taken a tone of grumbling remonstrance, and Mr. Farebrother might have been inclined to smile if his mind had not been too busy in imagining more than Fred told him. "Have you any difficulties about doctrines--about the Articles?" he said, trying hard to think of the question simply for Fred's sake. "No; I suppose the Articles are right. I am not prepared with any arguments to disprove them, and much better, cleverer fellows than I am go in for them entirely. I think it would be rather ridiculous in me to urge scruples of that sort, as if I were a judge," said Fred, quite simply. "I suppose, then, it has occurred to you that you might be a fair parish priest without being much of a divine?" "Of course, if I am obliged to be a clergyman, I shall try and do my duty, though I mayn't like it. Do you think any body ought to blame me?" "For going into the Church under the circumstances? That depends on your conscience, Fred--how far you have counted the cost, and seen what your position will require of you. I can only tell you about myself, that I have always been too lax, and have been uneasy in consequence." "But there is another hindrance," said Fred, coloring. "I did not tell you before, though perhaps I may have said things that made you guess it. There is somebody I am very fond of: I have loved her ever since we were children." "Miss Garth, I suppose?" said the Vicar, examining some labels very closely. "Yes. I shouldn't mind anything if she would have me. And I know I could be a good fellow then." "And you think she returns the feeling?" "She never will say so; and a good while ago she made me promise not to speak to her about it again. And she has set her mind especially against my being a clergyman; I know that. But I can't give her up. I do think she cares about me. I saw Mrs. Garth last night, and she said that Mary was staying at Lowick Rectory with Miss Farebrother." "Yes, she is very kindly helping my sister. Do you wish to go there?" "No, I want to ask a great favor of you. I am ashamed to bother you in this way; but Mary might listen to what you said, if you mentioned the subject to her--I mean about my going into the Church." "That is rather a delicate task, my dear Fred. I shall have to presuppose your attachment to her; and to enter on the subject as you wish me to do, will be asking her to tell me whether she returns it." "That is what I want her to tell you," said Fred, bluntly. "I don't know what to do, unless I can get at her feeling." "You mean that you would be guided by that as to your going into the Church?" "If Mary said she would never have me I might as well go wrong in one way as another." "That is nonsense, Fred. Men outlive their love, but they don't outlive the consequences of their recklessness." "Not my sort of love: I have never been without loving Mary. If I had to give her up, it would be like beginning to live on wooden legs." "Will she not be hurt at my intrusion?" "No, I feel sure she will not. She respects you more than any one, and she would not put you off with fun as she does me. Of course I could not have told any one else, or asked any one else to speak to her, but you. There is no one else who could be such a friend to both of us." Fred paused a moment, and then said, rather complainingly, "And she ought to acknowledge that I have worked in order to pass. She ought to believe that I would exert myself for her sake." There was a moment's silence before Mr. Farebrother laid down his work, and putting out his hand to Fred said-- "Very well, my boy. I will do what you wish." That very day Mr. Farebrother went to Lowick parsonage on the nag which he had just set up. "Decidedly I am an old stalk," he thought, "the young growths are pushing me aside." He found Mary in the garden gathering roses and sprinkling the petals on a sheet. The sun was low, and tall trees sent their shadows across the grassy walks where Mary was moving without bonnet or parasol. She did not observe Mr. Farebrother's approach along the grass, and had just stooped down to lecture a small black-and-tan terrier, which would persist in walking on the sheet and smelling at the rose-leaves as Mary sprinkled them. She took his fore-paws in one hand, and lifted up the forefinger of the other, while the dog wrinkled his brows and looked embarrassed. "Fly, Fly, I am ashamed of you," Mary was saying in a grave contralto. "This is not becoming in a sensible dog; anybody would think you were a silly young gentleman." "You are unmerciful to young gentlemen, Miss Garth," said the Vicar, within two yards of her. Mary started up and blushed. "It always answers to reason with Fly," she said, laughingly. "But not with young gentlemen?" "Oh, with some, I suppose; since some of them turn into excellent men." "I am glad of that admission, because I want at this very moment to interest you in a young gentleman." "Not a silly one, I hope," said Mary, beginning to pluck the roses again, and feeling her heart beat uncomfortably. "No; though perhaps wisdom is not his strong point, but rather affection and sincerity. However, wisdom lies more in those two qualities than people are apt to imagine. I hope you know by those marks what young gentleman I mean." "Yes, I think I do," said Mary, bravely, her face getting more serious, and her hands cold; "it must be Fred Vincy." "He has asked me to consult you about his going into the Church. I hope you will not think that I consented to take a liberty in promising to do so." "On the contrary, Mr. Farebrother," said Mary, giving up the roses, and folding her arms, but unable to look up, "whenever you have anything to say to me I feel honored." "But before I enter on that question, let me just touch a point on which your father took me into confidence; by the way, it was that very evening on which I once before fulfilled a mission from Fred, just after he had gone to college. Mr. Garth told me what happened on the night of Featherstone's death--how you refused to burn the will; and he said that you had some heart-prickings on that subject, because you had been the innocent means of hindering Fred from getting his ten thousand pounds. I have kept that in mind, and I have heard something that may relieve you on that score--may show you that no sin-offering is demanded from you there." Mr. Farebrother paused a moment and looked at Mary. He meant to give Fred his full advantage, but it would be well, he thought, to clear her mind of any superstitions, such as women sometimes follow when they do a man the wrong of marrying him as an act of atonement. Mary's cheeks had begun to burn a little, and she was mute. "I mean, that your action made no real difference to Fred's lot. I find that the first will would not have been legally good after the burning of the last; it would not have stood if it had been disputed, and you may be sure it would have been disputed. So, on that score, you may feel your mind free." "Thank you, Mr. Farebrother," said Mary, earnestly. "I am grateful to you for remembering my feelings." "Well, now I may go on. Fred, you know, has taken his degree. He has worked his way so far, and now the question is, what is he to do? That question is so difficult that he is inclined to follow his father's wishes and enter the Church, though you know better than I do that he was quite set against that formerly. I have questioned him on the subject, and I confess I see no insuperable objection to his being a clergyman, as things go. He says that he could turn his mind to doing his best in that vocation, on one condition. If that condition were fulfilled I would do my utmost in helping Fred on. After a time--not, of course, at first--he might be with me as my curate, and he would have so much to do that his stipend would be nearly what I used to get as vicar. But I repeat that there is a condition without which all this good cannot come to pass. He has opened his heart to me, Miss Garth, and asked me to plead for him. The condition lies entirely in your feeling." Mary looked so much moved, that he said after a moment, "Let us walk a little;" and when they were walking he added, "To speak quite plainly, Fred will not take any course which would lessen the chance that you would consent to be his wife; but with that prospect, he will try his best at anything you approve." "I cannot possibly say that I will ever be his wife, Mr. Farebrother: but I certainly never will be his wife if he becomes a clergyman. What you say is most generous and kind; I don't mean for a moment to correct your judgment. It is only that I have my girlish, mocking way of looking at things," said Mary, with a returning sparkle of playfulness in her answer which only made its modesty more charming. "He wishes me to report exactly what you think," said Mr. Farebrother. "I could not love a man who is ridiculous," said Mary, not choosing to go deeper. "Fred has sense and knowledge enough to make him respectable, if he likes, in some good worldly business, but I can never imagine him preaching and exhorting, and pronouncing blessings, and praying by the sick, without feeling as if I were looking at a caricature. His being a clergyman would be only for gentility's sake, and I think there is nothing more contemptible than such imbecile gentility. I used to think that of Mr. Crowse, with his empty face and neat umbrella, and mincing little speeches. What right have such men to represent Christianity--as if it were an institution for getting up idiots genteelly--as if--" Mary checked herself. She had been carried along as if she had been speaking to Fred instead of Mr. Farebrother. "Young women are severe: they don't feel the stress of action as men do, though perhaps I ought to make you an exception there. But you don't put Fred Vincy on so low a level as that?" "No, indeed, he has plenty of sense, but I think he would not show it as a clergyman. He would be a piece of professional affectation." "Then the answer is quite decided. As a clergyman he could have no hope?" Mary shook her head. "But if he braved all the difficulties of getting his bread in some other way--will you give him the support of hope? May he count on winning you?" "I think Fred ought not to need telling again what I have already said to him," Mary answered, with a slight resentment in her manner. "I mean that he ought not to put such questions until he has done something worthy, instead of saying that he could do it." Mr. Farebrother was silent for a minute or more, and then, as they turned and paused under the shadow of a maple at the end of a grassy walk, said, "I understand that you resist any attempt to fetter you, but either your feeling for Fred Vincy excludes your entertaining another attachment, or it does not: either he may count on your remaining single until he shall have earned your hand, or he may in any case be disappointed. Pardon me, Mary--you know I used to catechise you under that name--but when the state of a woman's affections touches the happiness of another life--of more lives than one--I think it would be the nobler course for her to be perfectly direct and open." Mary in her turn was silent, wondering not at Mr. Farebrother's manner but at his tone, which had a grave restrained emotion in it. When the strange idea flashed across her that his words had reference to himself, she was incredulous, and ashamed of entertaining it. She had never thought that any man could love her except Fred, who had espoused her with the umbrella ring, when she wore socks and little strapped shoes; still less that she could be of any importance to Mr. Farebrother, the cleverest man in her narrow circle. She had only time to feel that all this was hazy and perhaps illusory; but one thing was clear and determined--her answer. "Since you think it my duty, Mr. Farebrother, I will tell you that I have too strong a feeling for Fred to give him up for any one else. I should never be quite happy if I thought he was unhappy for the loss of me. It has taken such deep root in me--my gratitude to him for always loving me best, and minding so much if I hurt myself, from the time when we were very little. I cannot imagine any new feeling coming to make that weaker. I should like better than anything to see him worthy of every one's respect. But please tell him I will not promise to marry him till then: I should shame and grieve my father and mother. He is free to choose some one else." "Then I have fulfilled my commission thoroughly," said Mr. Farebrother, putting out his hand to Mary, "and I shall ride back to Middlemarch forthwith. With this prospect before him, we shall get Fred into the right niche somehow, and I hope I shall live to join your hands. God bless you!" "Oh, please stay, and let me give you some tea," said Mary. Her eyes filled with tears, for something indefinable, something like the resolute suppression of a pain in Mr. Farebrother's manner, made her feel suddenly miserable, as she had once felt when she saw her father's hands trembling in a moment of trouble. "No, my dear, no. I must get back." In three minutes the Vicar was on horseback again, having gone magnanimously through a duty much harder than the renunciation of whist, or even than the writing of penitential meditations. It is but a shallow haste which concludeth insincerity from what outsiders call inconsistency--putting a dead mechanism of "ifs" and "therefores" for the living myriad of hidden suckers whereby the belief and the conduct are wrought into mutual sustainment. Mr. Bulstrode, when he was hoping to acquire a new interest in Lowick, had naturally had an especial wish that the new clergyman should be one whom he thoroughly approved; and he believed it to be a chastisement and admonition directed to his own shortcomings and those of the nation at large, that just about the time when he came in possession of the deeds which made him the proprietor of Stone Court, Mr. Farebrother "read himself" into the quaint little church and preached his first sermon to the congregation of farmers, laborers, and village artisans. It was not that Mr. Bulstrode intended to frequent Lowick Church or to reside at Stone Court for a good while to come: he had bought the excellent farm and fine homestead simply as a retreat which he might gradually enlarge as to the land and beautify as to the dwelling, until it should be conducive to the divine glory that he should enter on it as a residence, partially withdrawing from his present exertions in the administration of business, and throwing more conspicuously on the side of Gospel truth the weight of local landed proprietorship, which Providence might increase by unforeseen occasions of purchase. A strong leading in this direction seemed to have been given in the surprising facility of getting Stone Court, when every one had expected that Mr. Rigg Featherstone would have clung to it as the Garden of Eden. That was what poor old Peter himself had expected; having often, in imagination, looked up through the sods above him, and, unobstructed by perspective, seen his frog-faced legatee enjoying the fine old place to the perpetual surprise and disappointment of other survivors. But how little we know what would make paradise for our neighbors! We judge from our own desires, and our neighbors themselves are not always open enough even to throw out a hint of theirs. The cool and judicious Joshua Rigg had not allowed his parent to perceive that Stone Court was anything less than the chief good in his estimation, and he had certainly wished to call it his own. But as Warren Hastings looked at gold and thought of buying Daylesford, so Joshua Rigg looked at Stone Court and thought of buying gold. He had a very distinct and intense vision of his chief good, the vigorous greed which he had inherited having taken a special form by dint of circumstance: and his chief good was to be a moneychanger. From his earliest employment as an errand-boy in a seaport, he had looked through the windows of the moneychangers as other boys look through the windows of the pastry-cooks; the fascination had wrought itself gradually into a deep special passion; he meant, when he had property, to do many things, one of them being to marry a genteel young person; but these were all accidents and joys that imagination could dispense with. The one joy after which his soul thirsted was to have a money-changer's shop on a much-frequented quay, to have locks all round him of which he held the keys, and to look sublimely cool as he handled the breeding coins of all nations, while helpless Cupidity looked at him enviously from the other side of an iron lattice. The strength of that passion had been a power enabling him to master all the knowledge necessary to gratify it. And when others were thinking that he had settled at Stone Court for life, Joshua himself was thinking that the moment now was not far off when he should settle on the North Quay with the best appointments in safes and locks. Enough. We are concerned with looking at Joshua Rigg's sale of his land from Mr. Bulstrode's point of view, and he interpreted it as a cheering dispensation conveying perhaps a sanction to a purpose which he had for some time entertained without external encouragement; he interpreted it thus, but not too confidently, offering up his thanksgiving in guarded phraseology. His doubts did not arise from the possible relations of the event to Joshua Rigg's destiny, which belonged to the unmapped regions not taken under the providential government, except perhaps in an imperfect colonial way; but they arose from reflecting that this dispensation too might be a chastisement for himself, as Mr. Farebrother's induction to the living clearly was. This was not what Mr. Bulstrode said to any man for the sake of deceiving him: it was what he said to himself--it was as genuinely his mode of explaining events as any theory of yours may be, if you happen to disagree with him. For the egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief. However, whether for sanction or for chastisement, Mr. Bulstrode, hardly fifteen months after the death of Peter Featherstone, had become the proprietor of Stone Court, and what Peter would say "if he were worthy to know," had become an inexhaustible and consolatory subject of conversation to his disappointed relatives. The tables were now turned on that dear brother departed, and to contemplate the frustration of his cunning by the superior cunning of things in general was a cud of delight to Solomon. Mrs. Waule had a melancholy triumph in the proof that it did not answer to make false Featherstones and cut off the genuine; and Sister Martha receiving the news in the Chalky Flats said, "Dear, dear! then the Almighty could have been none so pleased with the almshouses after all." Affectionate Mrs. Bulstrode was particularly glad of the advantage which her husband's health was likely to get from the purchase of Stone Court. Few days passed without his riding thither and looking over some part of the farm with the bailiff, and the evenings were delicious in that quiet spot, when the new hay-ricks lately set up were sending forth odors to mingle with the breath of the rich old garden. One evening, while the sun was still above the horizon and burning in golden lamps among the great walnut boughs, Mr. Bulstrode was pausing on horseback outside the front gate waiting for Caleb Garth, who had met him by appointment to give an opinion on a question of stable drainage, and was now advising the bailiff in the rick-yard. Mr. Bulstrode was conscious of being in a good spiritual frame and more than usually serene, under the influence of his innocent recreation. He was doctrinally convinced that there was a total absence of merit in himself; but that doctrinal conviction may be held without pain when the sense of demerit does not take a distinct shape in memory and revive the tingling of shame or the pang of remorse. Nay, it may be held with intense satisfaction when the depth of our sinning is but a measure for the depth of forgiveness, and a clenching proof that we are peculiar instruments of the divine intention. The memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama. At this moment Mr. Bulstrode felt as if the sunshine were all one with that of far-off evenings when he was a very young man and used to go out preaching beyond Highbury. And he would willingly have had that service of exhortation in prospect now. The texts were there still, and so was his own facility in expounding them. His brief reverie was interrupted by the return of Caleb Garth, who also was on horseback, and was just shaking his bridle before starting, when he exclaimed-- "Bless my heart! what's this fellow in black coming along the lane? He's like one of those men one sees about after the races." Mr. Bulstrode turned his horse and looked along the lane, but made no reply. The comer was our slight acquaintance Mr. Raffles, whose appearance presented no other change than such as was due to a suit of black and a crape hat-band. He was within three yards of the horseman now, and they could see the flash of recognition in his face as he whirled his stick upward, looking all the while at Mr. Bulstrode, and at last exclaiming:-- "By Jove, Nick, it's you! I couldn't be mistaken, though the five-and-twenty years have played old Boguy with us both! How are you, eh? you didn't expect to see _me_ here. Come, shake us by the hand." To say that Mr. Raffles' manner was rather excited would be only one mode of saying that it was evening. Caleb Garth could see that there was a moment of struggle and hesitation in Mr. Bulstrode, but it ended in his putting out his hand coldly to Raffles and saying-- "I did not indeed expect to see you in this remote country place." "Well, it belongs to a stepson of mine," said Raffles, adjusting himself in a swaggering attitude. "I came to see him here before. I'm not so surprised at seeing you, old fellow, because I picked up a letter--what you may call a providential thing. It's uncommonly fortunate I met you, though; for I don't care about seeing my stepson: he's not affectionate, and his poor mother's gone now. To tell the truth, I came out of love to you, Nick: I came to get your address, for--look here!" Raffles drew a crumpled paper from his pocket. Almost any other man than Caleb Garth might have been tempted to linger on the spot for the sake of hearing all he could about a man whose acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed to imply passages in the banker's life so unlike anything that was known of him in Middlemarch that they must have the nature of a secret to pique curiosity. But Caleb was peculiar: certain human tendencies which are commonly strong were almost absent from his mind; and one of these was curiosity about personal affairs. Especially if there was anything discreditable to be found out concerning another man, Caleb preferred not to know it; and if he had to tell anybody under him that his evil doings were discovered, he was more embarrassed than the culprit. He now spurred his horse, and saying, "I wish you good evening, Mr. Bulstrode; I must be getting home," set off at a trot. "You didn't put your full address to this letter," Raffles continued. "That was not like the first-rate man of business you used to be. 'The Shrubs,'--they may be anywhere: you live near at hand, eh?--have cut the London concern altogether--perhaps turned country squire--have a rural mansion to invite me to. Lord, how many years it is ago! The old lady must have been dead a pretty long while--gone to glory without the pain of knowing how poor her daughter was, eh? But, by Jove! you're very pale and pasty, Nick. Come, if you're going home, I'll walk by your side." Mr. Bulstrode's usual paleness had in fact taken an almost deathly hue. Five minutes before, the expanse of his life had been submerged in its evening sunshine which shone backward to its remembered morning: sin seemed to be a question of doctrine and inward penitence, humiliation an exercise of the closet, the bearing of his deeds a matter of private vision adjusted solely by spiritual relations and conceptions of the divine purposes. And now, as if by some hideous magic, this loud red figure had risen before him in unmanageable solidity--an incorporate past which had not entered into his imagination of chastisements. But Mr. Bulstrode's thought was busy, and he was not a man to act or speak rashly. "I was going home," he said, "but I can defer my ride a little. And you can, if you please, rest here." "Thank you," said Raffles, making a grimace. "I don't care now about seeing my stepson. I'd rather go home with you." "Your stepson, if Mr. Rigg Featherstone was he, is here no longer. I am master here now." Raffles opened wide eyes, and gave a long whistle of surprise, before he said, "Well then, I've no objection. I've had enough walking from the coach-road. I never was much of a walker, or rider either. What I like is a smart vehicle and a spirited cob. I was always a little heavy in the saddle. What a pleasant surprise it must be to you to see me, old fellow!" he continued, as they turned towards the house. "You don't say so; but you never took your luck heartily--you were always thinking of improving the occasion--you'd such a gift for improving your luck." Mr. Raffles seemed greatly to enjoy his own wit, and swung his leg in a swaggering manner which was rather too much for his companion's judicious patience. "If I remember rightly," Mr. Bulstrode observed, with chill anger, "our acquaintance many years ago had not the sort of intimacy which you are now assuming, Mr. Raffles. Any services you desire of me will be the more readily rendered if you will avoid a tone of familiarity which did not lie in our former intercourse, and can hardly be warranted by more than twenty years of separation." "You don't like being called Nick? Why, I always called you Nick in my heart, and though lost to sight, to memory dear. By Jove! my feelings have ripened for you like fine old cognac. I hope you've got some in the house now. Josh filled my flask well the last time." Mr. Bulstrode had not yet fully learned that even the desire for cognac was not stronger in Raffles than the desire to torment, and that a hint of annoyance always served him as a fresh cue. But it was at least clear that further objection was useless, and Mr. Bulstrode, in giving orders to the housekeeper for the accommodation of the guest, had a resolute air of quietude. There was the comfort of thinking that this housekeeper had been in the service of Rigg also, and might accept the idea that Mr. Bulstrode entertained Raffles merely as a friend of her former master. When there was food and drink spread before his visitor in the wainscoted parlor, and no witness in the room, Mr. Bulstrode said-- "Your habits and mine are so different, Mr. Raffles, that we can hardly enjoy each other's society. The wisest plan for both of us will therefore be to part as soon as possible. Since you say that you wished to meet me, you probably considered that you had some business to transact with me. But under the circumstances I will invite you to remain here for the night, and I will myself ride over here early to-morrow morning--before breakfast, in fact, when I can receive any Communication you have to make to me." "With all my heart," said Raffles; "this is a comfortable place--a little dull for a continuance; but I can put up with it for a night, with this good liquor and the prospect of seeing you again in the morning. You're a much better host than my stepson was; but Josh owed me a bit of a grudge for marrying his mother; and between you and me there was never anything but kindness." Mr. Bulstrode, hoping that the peculiar mixture of joviality and sneering in Raffles' manner was a good deal the effect of drink, had determined to wait till he was quite sober before he spent more words upon him. But he rode home with a terribly lucid vision of the difficulty there would be in arranging any result that could be permanently counted on with this man. It was inevitable that he should wish to get rid of John Raffles, though his reappearance could not be regarded as lying outside the divine plan. The spirit of evil might have sent him to threaten Mr. Bulstrode's subversion as an instrument of good; but the threat must have been permitted, and was a chastisement of a new kind. It was an hour of anguish for him very different from the hours in which his struggle had been securely private, and which had ended with a sense that his secret misdeeds were pardoned and his services accepted. Those misdeeds even when committed--had they not been half sanctified by the singleness of his desire to devote himself and all he possessed to the furtherance of the divine scheme? And was he after all to become a mere stone of stumbling and a rock of offence? For who would understand the work within him? Who would not, when there was the pretext of casting disgrace upon him, confound his whole life and the truths he had espoused, in one heap of obloquy? In his closest meditations the life-long habit of Mr. Bulstrode's mind clad his most egoistic terrors in doctrinal references to superhuman ends. But even while we are talking and meditating about the earth's orbit and the solar system, what we feel and adjust our movements to is the stable earth and the changing day. And now within all the automatic succession of theoretic phrases--distinct and inmost as the shiver and the ache of oncoming fever when we are discussing abstract pain, was the forecast of disgrace in the presence of his neighbors and of his own wife. For the pain, as well as the public estimate of disgrace, depends on the amount of previous profession. To men who only aim at escaping felony, nothing short of the prisoner's dock is disgrace. But Mr. Bulstrode had aimed at being an eminent Christian. It was not more than half-past seven in the morning when he again reached Stone Court. The fine old place never looked more like a delightful home than at that moment; the great white lilies were in flower, the nasturtiums, their pretty leaves all silvered with dew, were running away over the low stone wall; the very noises all around had a heart of peace within them. But everything was spoiled for the owner as he walked on the gravel in front and awaited the descent of Mr. Raffles, with whom he was condemned to breakfast. It was not long before they were seated together in the wainscoted parlor over their tea and toast, which was as much as Raffles cared to take at that early hour. The difference between his morning and evening self was not so great as his companion had imagined that it might be; the delight in tormenting was perhaps even the stronger because his spirits were rather less highly pitched. Certainly his manners seemed more disagreeable by the morning light. "As I have little time to spare, Mr. Raffles," said the banker, who could hardly do more than sip his tea and break his toast without eating it, "I shall be obliged if you will mention at once the ground on which you wished to meet with me. I presume that you have a home elsewhere and will be glad to return to it." "Why, if a man has got any heart, doesn't he want to see an old friend, Nick?--I must call you Nick--we always did call you young Nick when we knew you meant to marry the old widow. Some said you had a handsome family likeness to old Nick, but that was your mother's fault, calling you Nicholas. Aren't you glad to see me again? I expected an invite to stay with you at some pretty place. My own establishment is broken up now my wife's dead. I've no particular attachment to any spot; I would as soon settle hereabout as anywhere." "May I ask why you returned from America? I considered that the strong wish you expressed to go there, when an adequate sum was furnished, was tantamount to an engagement that you would remain there for life." "Never knew that a wish to go to a place was the same thing as a wish to stay. But I did stay a matter of ten years; it didn't suit me to stay any longer. And I'm not going again, Nick." Here Mr. Raffles winked slowly as he looked at Mr. Bulstrode. "Do you wish to be settled in any business? What is your calling now?" "Thank you, my calling is to enjoy myself as much as I can. I don't care about working any more. If I did anything it would be a little travelling in the tobacco line--or something of that sort, which takes a man into agreeable company. But not without an independence to fall back upon. That's what I want: I'm not so strong as I was, Nick, though I've got more color than you. I want an independence." "That could be supplied to you, if you would engage to keep at a distance," said Mr. Bulstrode, perhaps with a little too much eagerness in his undertone. "That must be as it suits my convenience," said Raffles coolly. "I see no reason why I shouldn't make a few acquaintances hereabout. I'm not ashamed of myself as company for anybody. I dropped my portmanteau at the turnpike when I got down--change of linen--genuine--honor bright--more than fronts and wristbands; and with this suit of mourning, straps and everything, I should do you credit among the nobs here." Mr. Raffles had pushed away his chair and looked down at himself, particularly at his straps. His chief intention was to annoy Bulstrode, but he really thought that his appearance now would produce a good effect, and that he was not only handsome and witty, but clad in a mourning style which implied solid connections. "If you intend to rely on me in any way, Mr. Raffles," said Bulstrode, after a moment's pause, "you will expect to meet my wishes." "Ah, to be sure," said Raffles, with a mocking cordiality. "Didn't I always do it? Lord, you made a pretty thing out of me, and I got but little. I've often thought since, I might have done better by telling the old woman that I'd found her daughter and her grandchild: it would have suited my feelings better; I've got a soft place in my heart. But you've buried the old lady by this time, I suppose--it's all one to her now. And you've got your fortune out of that profitable business which had such a blessing on it. You've taken to being a nob, buying land, being a country bashaw. Still in the Dissenting line, eh? Still godly? Or taken to the Church as more genteel?" This time Mr. Raffles' slow wink and slight protrusion of his tongue was worse than a nightmare, because it held the certitude that it was not a nightmare, but a waking misery. Mr. Bulstrode felt a shuddering nausea, and did not speak, but was considering diligently whether he should not leave Raffles to do as he would, and simply defy him as a slanderer. The man would soon show himself disreputable enough to make people disbelieve him. "But not when he tells any ugly-looking truth about _you_," said discerning consciousness. And again: it seemed no wrong to keep Raffles at a distance, but Mr. Bulstrode shrank from the direct falsehood of denying true statements. It was one thing to look back on forgiven sins, nay, to explain questionable conformity to lax customs, and another to enter deliberately on the necessity of falsehood. But since Bulstrode did not speak, Raffles ran on, by way of using time to the utmost. "I've not had such fine luck as you, by Jove! Things went confoundedly with me in New York; those Yankees are cool hands, and a man of gentlemanly feelings has no chance with them. I married when I came back--a nice woman in the tobacco trade--very fond of me--but the trade was restricted, as we say. She had been settled there a good many years by a friend; but there was a son too much in the case. Josh and I never hit it off. However, I made the most of the position, and I've always taken my glass in good company. It's been all on the square with me; I'm as open as the day. You won't take it ill of me that I didn't look you up before. I've got a complaint that makes me a little dilatory. I thought you were trading and praying away in London still, and didn't find you there. But you see I was sent to you, Nick--perhaps for a blessing to both of us." Mr. Raffles ended with a jocose snuffle: no man felt his intellect more superior to religious cant. And if the cunning which calculates on the meanest feelings in men could be called intellect, he had his share, for under the blurting rallying tone with which he spoke to Bulstrode, there was an evident selection of statements, as if they had been so many moves at chess. Meanwhile Bulstrode had determined on his move, and he said, with gathered resolution-- "You will do well to reflect, Mr. Raffles, that it is possible for a man to overreach himself in the effort to secure undue advantage. Although I am not in any way bound to you, I am willing to supply you with a regular annuity--in quarterly payments--so long as you fulfil a promise to remain at a distance from this neighborhood. It is in your power to choose. If you insist on remaining here, even for a short time, you will get nothing from me. I shall decline to know you." "Ha, ha!" said Raffles, with an affected explosion, "that reminds me of a droll dog of a thief who declined to know the constable." "Your allusions are lost on me sir," said Bulstrode, with white heat; "the law has no hold on me either through your agency or any other." "You can't understand a joke, my good fellow. I only meant that I should never decline to know you. But let us be serious. Your quarterly payment won't quite suit me. I like my freedom." Here Raffles rose and stalked once or twice up and down the room, swinging his leg, and assuming an air of masterly meditation. At last he stopped opposite Bulstrode, and said, "I'll tell you what! Give us a couple of hundreds--come, that's modest--and I'll go away--honor bright!--pick up my portmanteau and go away. But I shall not give up my Liberty for a dirty annuity. I shall come and go where I like. Perhaps it may suit me to stay away, and correspond with a friend; perhaps not. Have you the money with you?" "No, I have one hundred," said Bulstrode, feeling the immediate riddance too great a relief to be rejected on the ground of future uncertainties. "I will forward you the other if you will mention an address." "No, I'll wait here till you bring it," said Raffles. "I'll take a stroll and have a snack, and you'll be back by that time." Mr. Bulstrode's sickly body, shattered by the agitations he had gone through since the last evening, made him feel abjectly in the power of this loud invulnerable man. At that moment he snatched at a temporary repose to be won on any terms. He was rising to do what Raffles suggested, when the latter said, lifting up his finger as if with a sudden recollection-- "I did have another look after Sarah again, though I didn't tell you; I'd a tender conscience about that pretty young woman. I didn't find her, but I found out her husband's name, and I made a note of it. But hang it, I lost my pocketbook. However, if I heard it, I should know it again. I've got my faculties as if I was in my prime, but names wear out, by Jove! Sometimes I'm no better than a confounded tax-paper before the names are filled in. However, if I hear of her and her family, you shall know, Nick. You'd like to do something for her, now she's your step-daughter." "Doubtless," said Mr. Bulstrode, with the usual steady look of his light-gray eyes; "though that might reduce my power of assisting you." As he walked out of the room, Raffles winked slowly at his back, and then turned towards the window to watch the banker riding away--virtually at his command. His lips first curled with a smile and then opened with a short triumphant laugh. "But what the deuce was the name?" he presently said, half aloud, scratching his head, and wrinkling his brows horizontally. He had not really cared or thought about this point of forgetfulness until it occurred to him in his invention of annoyances for Bulstrode. "It began with L; it was almost all l's I fancy," he went on, with a sense that he was getting hold of the slippery name. But the hold was too slight, and he soon got tired of this mental chase; for few men were more impatient of private occupation or more in need of making themselves continually heard than Mr. Raffles. He preferred using his time in pleasant conversation with the bailiff and the housekeeper, from whom he gathered as much as he wanted to know about Mr. Bulstrode's position in Middlemarch. After all, however, there was a dull space of time which needed relieving with bread and cheese and ale, and when he was seated alone with these resources in the wainscoted parlor, he suddenly slapped his knee, and exclaimed, "Ladislaw!" That action of memory which he had tried to set going, and had abandoned in despair, had suddenly completed itself without conscious effort--a common experience, agreeable as a completed sneeze, even if the name remembered is of no value. Raffles immediately took out his pocket-book, and wrote down the name, not because he expected to use it, but merely for the sake of not being at a loss if he ever did happen to want it. He was not going to tell Bulstrode: there was no actual good in telling, and to a mind like that of Mr. Raffles there is always probable good in a secret. He was satisfied with his present success, and by three o'clock that day he had taken up his portmanteau at the turnpike and mounted the coach, relieving Mr. Bulstrode's eyes of an ugly black spot on the landscape at Stone Court, but not relieving him of the dread that the black spot might reappear and become inseparable even from the vision of his hearth. BOOK VI. THE WIDOW AND THE WIFE. "Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore; Per che si fa gentil eio ch'ella mira: Ov'ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira, E cui saluta fa tremar lo core. Sicche, bassando il viso, tutto smore, E d'ogni suo difetto allor sospira: Fuggon dinanzi a lei Superbia ed Ira: Aiutatemi, donne, a farle onore. Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile Nasce nel core a chi parlar la sente; Ond'e beato chi prima la vide. Quel ch'ella par quand' un poco sorride, Non si puo dicer, ne tener a mente, Si e nuovo miracolo gentile." --DANTE: la Vita Nuova. By that delightful morning when the hay-ricks at Stone Court were scenting the air quite impartially, as if Mr. Raffles had been a guest worthy of finest incense, Dorothea had again taken up her abode at Lowick Manor. After three months Freshitt had become rather oppressive: to sit like a model for Saint Catherine looking rapturously at Celia's baby would not do for many hours in the day, and to remain in that momentous babe's presence with persistent disregard was a course that could not have been tolerated in a childless sister. Dorothea would have been capable of carrying baby joyfully for a mile if there had been need, and of loving it the more tenderly for that labor; but to an aunt who does not recognize her infant nephew as Bouddha, and has nothing to do for him but to admire, his behavior is apt to appear monotonous, and the interest of watching him exhaustible. This possibility was quite hidden from Celia, who felt that Dorothea's childless widowhood fell in quite prettily with the birth of little Arthur (baby was named after Mr. Brooke). "Dodo is just the creature not to mind about having anything of her own--children or anything!" said Celia to her husband. "And if she had had a baby, it never could have been such a dear as Arthur. Could it, James? "Not if it had been like Casaubon," said Sir James, conscious of some indirectness in his answer, and of holding a strictly private opinion as to the perfections of his first-born. "No! just imagine! Really it was a mercy," said Celia; "and I think it is very nice for Dodo to be a widow. She can be just as fond of our baby as if it were her own, and she can have as many notions of her own as she likes." "It is a pity she was not a queen," said the devout Sir James. "But what should we have been then? We must have been something else," said Celia, objecting to so laborious a flight of imagination. "I like her better as she is." Hence, when she found that Dorothea was making arrangements for her final departure to Lowick, Celia raised her eyebrows with disappointment, and in her quiet unemphatic way shot a needle-arrow of sarcasm. "What will you do at Lowick, Dodo? You say yourself there is nothing to be done there: everybody is so clean and well off, it makes you quite melancholy. And here you have been so happy going all about Tipton with Mr. Garth into the worst backyards. And now uncle is abroad, you and Mr. Garth can have it all your own way; and I am sure James does everything you tell him." "I shall often come here, and I shall see how baby grows all the better," said Dorothea. "But you will never see him washed," said Celia; "and that is quite the best part of the day." She was almost pouting: it did seem to her very hard in Dodo to go away from the baby when she might stay. "Dear Kitty, I will come and stay all night on purpose," said Dorothea; "but I want to be alone now, and in my own home. I wish to know the Farebrothers better, and to talk to Mr. Farebrother about what there is to be done in Middlemarch." Dorothea's native strength of will was no longer all converted into resolute submission. She had a great yearning to be at Lowick, and was simply determined to go, not feeling bound to tell all her reasons. But every one around her disapproved. Sir James was much pained, and offered that they should all migrate to Cheltenham for a few months with the sacred ark, otherwise called a cradle: at that period a man could hardly know what to propose if Cheltenham were rejected. The Dowager Lady Chettam, just returned from a visit to her daughter in town, wished, at least, that Mrs. Vigo should be written to, and invited to accept the office of companion to Mrs. Casaubon: it was not credible that Dorothea as a young widow would think of living alone in the house at Lowick. Mrs. Vigo had been reader and secretary to royal personages, and in point of knowledge and sentiments even Dorothea could have nothing to object to her. Mrs. Cadwallader said, privately, "You will certainly go mad in that house alone, my dear. You will see visions. We have all got to exert ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as other people call them by. To be sure, for younger sons and women who have no money, it is a sort of provision to go mad: they are taken care of then. But you must not run into that. I dare say you are a little bored here with our good dowager; but think what a bore you might become yourself to your fellow-creatures if you were always playing tragedy queen and taking things sublimely. Sitting alone in that library at Lowick you may fancy yourself ruling the weather; you must get a few people round you who wouldn't believe you if you told them. That is a good lowering medicine." "I never called everything by the same name that all the people about me did," said Dorothea, stoutly. "But I suppose you have found out your mistake, my dear," said Mrs. Cadwallader, "and that is a proof of sanity." Dorothea was aware of the sting, but it did not hurt her. "No," she said, "I still think that the greater part of the world is mistaken about many things. Surely one may be sane and yet think so, since the greater part of the world has often had to come round from its opinion." Mrs. Cadwallader said no more on that point to Dorothea, but to her husband she remarked, "It will be well for her to marry again as soon as it is proper, if one could get her among the right people. Of course the Chettams would not wish it. But I see clearly a husband is the best thing to keep her in order. If we were not so poor I would invite Lord Triton. He will be marquis some day, and there is no denying that she would make a good marchioness: she looks handsomer than ever in her mourning." "My dear Elinor, do let the poor woman alone. Such contrivances are of no use," said the easy Rector. "No use? How are matches made, except by bringing men and women together? And it is a shame that her uncle should have run away and shut up the Grange just now. There ought to be plenty of eligible matches invited to Freshitt and the Grange. Lord Triton is precisely the man: full of plans for making the people happy in a soft-headed sort of way. That would just suit Mrs. Casaubon." "Let Mrs. Casaubon choose for herself, Elinor." "That is the nonsense you wise men talk! How can she choose if she has no variety to choose from? A woman's choice usually means taking the only man she can get. Mark my words, Humphrey. If her friends don't exert themselves, there will be a worse business than the Casaubon business yet." "For heaven's sake don't touch on that topic, Elinor! It is a very sore point with Sir James. He would be deeply offended if you entered on it to him unnecessarily." "I have never entered on it," said Mrs Cadwallader, opening her hands. "Celia told me all about the will at the beginning, without any asking of mine." "Yes, yes; but they want the thing hushed up, and I understand that the young fellow is going out of the neighborhood." Mrs. Cadwallader said nothing, but gave her husband three significant nods, with a very sarcastic expression in her dark eyes. Dorothea quietly persisted in spite of remonstrance and persuasion. So by the end of June the shutters were all opened at Lowick Manor, and the morning gazed calmly into the library, shining on the rows of note-books as it shines on the weary waste planted with huge stones, the mute memorial of a forgotten faith; and the evening laden with roses entered silently into the blue-green boudoir where Dorothea chose oftenest to sit. At first she walked into every room, questioning the eighteen months of her married life, and carrying on her thoughts as if they were a speech to be heard by her husband. Then, she lingered in the library and could not be at rest till she had carefully ranged all the note-books as she imagined that he would wish to see them, in orderly sequence. The pity which had been the restraining compelling motive in her life with him still clung about his image, even while she remonstrated with him in indignant thought and told him that he was unjust. One little act of hers may perhaps be smiled at as superstitious. The Synoptical Tabulation for the use of Mrs. Casaubon, she carefully enclosed and sealed, writing within the envelope, "I could not use it. Do you not see now that I could not submit my soul to yours, by working hopelessly at what I have no belief in--Dorothea?" Then she deposited the paper in her own desk. That silent colloquy was perhaps only the more earnest because underneath and through it all there was always the deep longing which had really determined her to come to Lowick. The longing was to see Will Ladislaw. She did not know any good that could come of their meeting: she was helpless; her hands had been tied from making up to him for any unfairness in his lot. But her soul thirsted to see him. How could it be otherwise? If a princess in the days of enchantment had seen a four-footed creature from among those which live in herds come to her once and again with a human gaze which rested upon her with choice and beseeching, what would she think of in her journeying, what would she look for when the herds passed her? Surely for the gaze which had found her, and which she would know again. Life would be no better than candle-light tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been, to issues of longing and constancy. It was true that Dorothea wanted to know the Farebrothers better, and especially to talk to the new rector, but also true that remembering what Lydgate had told her about Will Ladislaw and little Miss Noble, she counted on Will's coming to Lowick to see the Farebrother family. The very first Sunday, _before_ she entered the church, she saw him as she had seen him the last time she was there, alone in the clergyman's pew; but _when_ she entered his figure was gone. In the week-days when she went to see the ladies at the Rectory, she listened in vain for some word that they might let fall about Will; but it seemed to her that Mrs. Farebrother talked of every one else in the neighborhood and out of it. "Probably some of Mr. Farebrother's Middlemarch hearers may follow him to Lowick sometimes. Do you not think so?" said Dorothea, rather despising herself for having a secret motive in asking the question. "If they are wise they will, Mrs. Casaubon," said the old lady. "I see that you set a right value on my son's preaching. His grandfather on my side was an excellent clergyman, but his father was in the law:--most exemplary and honest nevertheless, which is a reason for our never being rich. They say Fortune is a woman and capricious. But sometimes she is a good woman and gives to those who merit, which has been the case with you, Mrs. Casaubon, who have given a living to my son." Mrs. Farebrother recurred to her knitting with a dignified satisfaction in her neat little effort at oratory, but this was not what Dorothea wanted to hear. Poor thing! she did not even know whether Will Ladislaw was still at Middlemarch, and there was no one whom she dared to ask, unless it were Lydgate. But just now she could not see Lydgate without sending for him or going to seek him. Perhaps Will Ladislaw, having heard of that strange ban against him left by Mr. Casaubon, had felt it better that he and she should not meet again, and perhaps she was wrong to wish for a meeting that others might find many good reasons against. Still "I do wish it" came at the end of those wise reflections as naturally as a sob after holding the breath. And the meeting did happen, but in a formal way quite unexpected by her. One morning, about eleven, Dorothea was seated in her boudoir with a map of the land attached to the manor and other papers before her, which were to help her in making an exact statement for herself of her income and affairs. She had not yet applied herself to her work, but was seated with her hands folded on her lap, looking out along the avenue of limes to the distant fields. Every leaf was at rest in the sunshine, the familiar scene was changeless, and seemed to represent the prospect of her life, full of motiveless ease--motiveless, if her own energy could not seek out reasons for ardent action. The widow's cap of those times made an oval frame for the face, and had a crown standing up; the dress was an experiment in the utmost laying on of crape; but this heavy solemnity of clothing made her face look all the younger, with its recovered bloom, and the sweet, inquiring candor of her eyes. Her reverie was broken by Tantripp, who came to say that Mr. Ladislaw was below, and begged permission to see Madam if it were not too early. "I will see him," said Dorothea, rising immediately. "Let him be shown into the drawing-room." The drawing-room was the most neutral room in the house to her--the one least associated with the trials of her married life: the damask matched the wood-work, which was all white and gold; there were two tall mirrors and tables with nothing on them--in brief, it was a room where you had no reason for sitting in one place rather than in another. It was below the boudoir, and had also a bow-window looking out on the avenue. But when Pratt showed Will Ladislaw into it the window was open; and a winged visitor, buzzing in and out now and then without minding the furniture, made the room look less formal and uninhabited. "Glad to see you here again, sir," said Pratt, lingering to adjust a blind. "I am only come to say good-by, Pratt," said Will, who wished even the butler to know that he was too proud to hang about Mrs. Casaubon now she was a rich widow. "I understand, Mr. Ladislaw. Poverty can indeed be a great hardship, especially when it separates us from those we care for. I did not mean to dismiss your feelings. I apologize if my words came across that way." "Sorrow comes in so many ways. Two years ago I had no notion of that--I mean of the unexpected way in which trouble comes, and ties our hands, and makes us silent when we long to speak. I used to despise women a little for not shaping their lives more, and doing better things. I was very fond of doing as I liked, but I have almost given it up," she ended, smiling playfully. "I have not given up doing as I like, but I can very seldom do it," said Will. He was standing two yards from her with his mind full of contradictory desires and resolves--desiring some unmistakable proof that she loved him, and yet dreading the position into which such a proof might bring him. "The thing one most longs for may be surrounded with conditions that would be intolerable." At this moment Pratt entered and said, "Sir James Chettam is in the library, madam." "Ask Sir James to come in here," said Dorothea, immediately. It was as if the same electric shock had passed through her and Will. Each of them felt proudly resistant, and neither looked at the other, while they awaited Sir James's entrance. After shaking hands with Dorothea, he bowed as slightly as possible to Ladislaw, who repaid the slightness exactly, and then going towards Dorothea, said-- "I must say good-by, Mrs. Casaubon; and probably for a long while." Dorothea put out her hand and said her good-by cordially. The sense that Sir James was depreciating Will, and behaving rudely to him, roused her resolution and dignity: there was no touch of confusion in her manner. And when Will had left the room, she looked with such calm self-possession at Sir James, saying, "How is Celia?" that he was obliged to behave as if nothing had annoyed him. And what would be the use of behaving otherwise? Indeed, Sir James shrank with so much dislike from the association even in thought of Dorothea with Ladislaw as her possible lover, that he would himself have wished to avoid an outward show of displeasure which would have recognized the disagreeable possibility. If any one had asked him why he shrank in that way, I am not sure that he would at first have said anything fuller or more precise than "_That_ Ladislaw!"--though on reflection he might have urged that Mr. Casaubon's codicil, barring Dorothea's marriage with Will, except under a penalty, was enough to cast unfitness over any relation at all between them. His aversion was all the stronger because he felt himself unable to interfere. But Sir James was a power in a way unguessed by himself. Entering at that moment, he was an incorporation of the strongest reasons through which Will's pride became a repellent force, keeping him asunder from Dorothea. Hath she her faults? I would you had them too. They are the fruity must of soundest wine; Or say, they are regenerating fire Such as hath turned the dense black element Into a crystal pathway for the sun. If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that there are plenty more to come. To Dorothea, still in that time of youth when the eyes with their long full lashes look out after their rain of tears unsoiled and unwearied as a freshly opened passion-flower, that morning's parting with Will Ladislaw seemed to be the close of their personal relations. He was going away into the distance of unknown years, and if ever he came back he would be another man. The actual state of his mind--his proud resolve to give the lie beforehand to any suspicion that he would play the needy adventurer seeking a rich woman--lay quite out of her imagination, and she had interpreted all his behavior easily enough by her supposition that Mr. Casaubon's codicil seemed to him, as it did to her, a gross and cruel interdict on any active friendship between them. Their young delight in speaking to each other, and saying what no one else would care to hear, was forever ended, and become a treasure of the past. For this very reason she dwelt on it without inward check. That unique happiness too was dead, and in its shadowed silent chamber she might vent the passionate grief which she herself wondered at. For the first time she took down the miniature from the wall and kept it before her, liking to blend the woman who had been too hardly judged with the grandson whom her own heart and judgment defended. Can any one who has rejoiced in woman's tenderness think it a reproach to her that she took the little oval picture in her palm and made a bed for it there, and leaned her cheek upon it, as if that would soothe the creatures who had suffered unjust condemnation? She did not know then that it was Love who had come to her briefly, as in a dream before awaking, with the hues of morning on his wings--that it was Love to whom she was sobbing her farewell as his image was banished by the blameless rigor of irresistible day. She only felt that there was something irrevocably amiss and lost in her lot, and her thoughts about the future were the more readily shapen into resolve. Ardent souls, ready to construct their coming lives, are apt to commit themselves to the fulfilment of their own visions. One day that she went to Freshitt to fulfil her promise of staying all night and seeing baby washed, Mrs. Cadwallader came to dine, the Rector being gone on a fishing excursion. It was a warm evening, and even in the delightful drawing-room, where the fine old turf sloped from the open window towards a lilied pool and well-planted mounds, the heat was enough to make Celia in her white muslin and light curls reflect with pity on what Dodo must feel in her black dress and close cap. But this was not until some episodes with baby were over, and had left her mind at leisure. She had seated herself and taken up a fan for some time before she said, in her quiet guttural-- "Dear Dodo, do throw off that cap. I am sure your dress must make you feel ill." "I am so used to the cap--it has become a sort of shell," said Dorothea, smiling. "I feel rather bare and exposed when it is off." "I must see you without it; it makes us all warm," said Celia, throwing down her fan, and going to Dorothea. It was a pretty picture to see this little lady in white muslin unfastening the widow's cap from her more majestic sister, and tossing it on to a chair. Just as the coils and braids of dark-brown hair had been set free, Sir James entered the room. He looked at the released head, and said, "Ah!" in a tone of satisfaction. "It was I who did it, James," said Celia. "Dodo need not make such a slavery of her mourning; she need not wear that cap any more among her friends." "My dear Celia," said Lady Chettam, "a widow must wear her mourning at least a year." "Not if she marries again before the end of it," said Mrs. Cadwallader, who had some pleasure in startling her good friend the Dowager. Sir James was annoyed, and leaned forward to play with Celia's Maltese dog. "That is very rare, I hope," said Lady Chettam, in a tone intended to guard against such events. "No friend of ours ever committed herself in that way except Mrs. Beevor, and it was very painful to Lord Grinsell when she did so. Her first husband was objectionable, which made it the greater wonder. And severely she was punished for it. They said Captain Beevor dragged her about by the hair, and held up loaded pistols at her." "Oh, if she took the wrong man!" said Mrs. Cadwallader, who was in a decidedly wicked mood. "Marriage is always bad then, first or second. Priority is a poor recommendation in a husband if he has got no other. I would rather have a good second husband than an indifferent first." "My dear, your clever tongue runs away with you," said Lady Chettam. "I am sure you would be the last woman to marry again prematurely, if our dear Rector were taken away." "Oh, I make no vows; it might be a necessary economy. It is lawful to marry again, I suppose; else we might as well be Hindoos instead of Christians. Of course if a woman accepts the wrong man, she must take the consequences, and one who does it twice over deserves her fate. But if she can marry blood, beauty, and bravery--the sooner the better." "I think the subject of our conversation is very ill-chosen," said Sir James, with a look of disgust. "Suppose we change it." "Not on my account, Sir James," said Dorothea, determined not to lose the opportunity of freeing herself from certain oblique references to excellent matches. "If you are speaking on my behalf, I can assure you that no question can be more indifferent and impersonal to me than second marriage. It is no more to me than if you talked of women going fox-hunting: whether it is admirable in them or not, I shall not follow them. Pray let Mrs. Cadwallader amuse herself on that subject as much as on any other." "My dear Mrs. Casaubon," said Lady Chettam, in her stateliest way, "you do not, I hope, think there was any allusion to you in my mentioning Mrs. Beevor. It was only an instance that occurred to me. She was step-daughter to Lord Grinsell: he married Mrs. Teveroy for his second wife. There could be no possible allusion to you." "Oh no," said Celia. "Nobody chose the subject; it all came out of Dodo's cap. Mrs. Cadwallader only said what was quite true. A woman could not be married in a widow's cap, James." "Hush, my dear!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "I will not offend again. I will not even refer to Dido or Zenobia. Only what are we to talk about? I, for my part, object to the discussion of Human Nature, because that is the nature of rectors' wives." Later in the evening, after Mrs. Cadwallader was gone, Celia said privately to Dorothea, "Really, Dodo, taking your cap off made you like yourself again in more ways than one. You spoke up just as you used to do, when anything was said to displease you. But I could hardly make out whether it was James that you thought wrong, or Mrs. Cadwallader." "Neither," said Dorothea. "James spoke out of delicacy to me, but he was mistaken in supposing that I minded what Mrs. Cadwallader said. I should only mind if there were a law obliging me to take any piece of blood and beauty that she or anybody else recommended." "But you know, Dodo, if you ever did marry, it would be all the better to have blood and beauty," said Celia, reflecting that Mr. Casaubon had not been richly endowed with those gifts, and that it would be well to caution Dorothea in time. "Don't be anxious, Kitty; I have quite other thoughts about my life. I shall never marry again," said Dorothea, touching her sister's chin, and looking at her with indulgent affection. Celia was nursing her baby, and Dorothea had come to say good-night to her. "Really--quite?" said Celia. "Not anybody at all--if he were very wonderful indeed?" Dorothea shook her head slowly. "Not anybody at all. I have delightful plans. I should like to take a great deal of land, and drain it, and make a little colony, where everybody should work, and all the work should be done well. I should know every one of the people and be their friend. I am going to have great consultations with Mr. Garth: he can tell me almost everything I want to know." "Then you _will_ be happy, if you have a plan, Dodo?" said Celia. "Perhaps little Arthur will like plans when he grows up, and then he can help you." Sir James was informed that same night that Dorothea was really quite set against marrying anybody at all, and was going to take to "all sorts of plans," just like what she used to have. Sir James made no remark. To his secret feeling there was something repulsive in a woman's second marriage, and no match would prevent him from feeling it a sort of desecration for Dorothea. He was aware that the world would regard such a sentiment as preposterous, especially in relation to a woman of one-and-twenty; the practice of "the world" being to treat of a young widow's second marriage as certain and probably near, and to smile with meaning if the widow acts accordingly. But if Dorothea did choose to espouse her solitude, he felt that the resolution would well become her. 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Nun, da Farebrother der neue Rektor von Lowick ist, schlägt seine Schwester vor, dass er Mary Garth fragen könnte, ob sie ihn heiraten will. Er hat sie schon lange heimlich geliebt. Allerdings kommt Fred, der sein Studium abgeschlossen hat, zu Farebrother und bittet ihn, Mary nach ihren Gefühlen für ihn auszufragen. Dadurch gerät Farebrother in eine unangenehme Situation. Seine Selbstlosigkeit und sein Mangel an Egoismus kommen zum Vorschein, als er im Namen von Fred mit Mary spricht. Mary erzählt Farebrother, dass sie Fred liebt. Bulstrode kauft Stone Court von Featherstones Erben, Joshua Riggs. Als Bulstrode sein neues Anwesen betrachtet und sich über Featherstone triumphierend fühlt, trifft er auf Raffles, den Stiefvater von Riggs. Raffles begrüßt Bulstrode als Bekannten aus der Vergangenheit. Es ist offensichtlich, dass er ein Geheimnis von Bulstrode kennt und dass Bulstrode versucht, ihn zu kaufen. Raffles möchte Geld, aber noch mehr möchte er Bulstrode wegen einiger Verfehlungen in der Vergangenheit quälen und Macht über ihn haben. Raffles macht Andeutungen über eine Familie, die Bulstrode Unrecht getan haben soll, und erinnert sich schließlich an den Namen "Ladislaw". Bulstrode bezahlt Raffles etwas Geld, damit er verschwindet, aber er ist besorgt, dass er zurückkommen wird. Nach drei Monaten mit Celia ist Dorothea bereit, mit "ihrer natürlichen Willensstärke" nach Lowick zurückzugehen, um ihr Vermögen für Gutes einzusetzen. Sie überprüft ihre 18 Monate des Ehelebens und erkennt jetzt, dass sie ihre Seele nicht Casaubon unterwerfen konnte, um sein Werk zu beenden. Mrs. Cadwallader versucht bereits, eine neue Partie für sie zu finden, um sie von Will fernzuhalten, aber Dorothea sehnt sich danach, ihn zu sehen. Sie besucht die Farebrothers in der Hoffnung, ihm zu begegnen. Schließlich kommt Ladislaw nach Lowick, um sich zu verabschieden; er verlässt die Stadt, um sein Glück in der Welt zu machen. Er ist zu stolz, um eine reiche Witwe umschwärmen, ohne etwas auf seiner Seite zu haben. Das Gespräch ist unangenehm. Beide Herzen sehnen sich nacheinander, aber es gibt eine unsichtbare Barriere zwischen ihnen, und sie können nicht offen darüber reden. Er erzählt ihr, dass er Rechtsanwalt werden und eine politische Karriere anstreben wird. Sie lobt seinen Ehrgeiz. Gerade in diesem Moment kommt Sir James herein und da sie wissen, wie unangenehm das aussieht, verabschieden sie sich scheinbar für eine lange Zeit, ohne dass etwas geklärt ist.