He drew aside the crimson curtain and let the evening sun shine upon her. He walked softly to and fro in the saloon, and every time he passed her couch turned on her his ardent gaze. That man has now loved Mary Percy longer than he ever loved any woman before, and I daresay her face has by this time become to him a familiar and household face. It may be told, by the way in which his eye seeks the delicate and pallid features and rests on their lines, that he finds settled pleasure in the contemplation. In all moods, at all times, he likes them. Her temper is changeful; she is not continual sunshine; she weeps sometimes, and frets and teazes him not unfrequently with womanish jealousies. I don't think another woman lives on earth in whom he would bear these changes for a moment. From her, they almost please him. He finds an amusement in playing with her fears - piquing or soothing them as caprice directs.
She slept still, but now he stoops to wake her. He separated her clasped hands and took one in his own. Disturbed by the movement, she drew that hand hastily and petulantly away, and turned on her couch with a murmur. He laughed, and the laugh woke her. Rising, she looked at him and smiled. Still she seemed weary, and when he placed himself beside her she dropped her head on his shoulder and would have slept again. But the Duke would not permit this: he was come for his evening's amusement, and his evening's amusement he would have, whether she was fit to yield it or not. In answer to his prohibitory and disturbing movements she said,
'Adrian, I am tired.'
'Too tired to talk to me?' he asked.
'No, Adrian, but let me lean against you.'
Still he held her off.
'Come,' said he. 'Open your eyes and fasten your hair up; it is hanging on your neck like a mermaid's.' The Duchess raised her hand to her hair; it was indeed all loose and dishevelled over her shoulders. She got up to arrange it, and the occupation roused her. Having smoothed the auburn braids before a mirror, and touched and retouched her loosened dress till it resumed its usual aspect of fastidious neatness, she walked to the window.
'The sun is gone,' said she. 'I am too late to see it set.' And she pensively smiled as her eye lingered on the soft glory which the sun, just departed, had left in its track. 'That is the West!' she exclaimed; and, turning to Zamorna, added quickly, 'What if you had been born a great imaginative Angrian?'
'Well, I should have played the fool as I have done by marrying a little imaginative Senegambian.'
'And,' she continued, talking half to herself and half to him, 'I should have had a very different feeling towards you then to what I have now. I should have fancied you cared nothing about my country so far off, with its wide wild woodlands. I should have thought all your heart was wrapt in this land, so fair and rich, teeming with energy and life, but still, Adrian, not with the romance of the West.'
'And what do you think now, my Sappho?'
'That you are not a grand awful foreigner absorbed in your kingdom as the grandest land of the earth, looking at me as an exotic, listening to my patriotic rhapsodies as sentimental dreams, but a son of Senegambia as I am a daughter - a thousand times more glorious to me, because you are the most glorious thing my own land ever flung from her fire-fertilized soil! I looked at you when those Angrians were howling round you today, and remembered that you were my countryman, not theirs - and all at once their alien senses, their foreign hearts, seemed to have discerned something uncongenial in you, the great stranger, and they rose under your control, yelling rebelliously.'
'Mary!' exclaimed the Duke, laughingly approaching her. 'Mary, what ails you this evening? Let me look - is it the same quiet little winsome face I am accustomed to see?' He raised her face and gazed but she turned with a quick movement away.
'Don't, Adrian. I have been dreaming about Percy Hall. When will you let me go there?'
'Any time. Set off tonight if you please.'
'That is nonsense, and I am serious. I must go sometime - but you never let [me] do anything I wish.'
'Indeed! You dared not say so, if you were not far too much indulged.'
'Let me go, and come with me in about a month when you have settled matters at Adrianopolis - promise, Adrian.'
'I'll let you go willingly enough,' returned Zamorna, sitting down and beginning to look vexatious. 'But as for asking me to leave Angria again for at least a year and a day - none but an over-fondled wife would think of preferring an unreasonable request.'
'It is not unreasonable, and I suppose you want me to leave you? I'd never allow you to go fifteen hundred miles if I could help it.'
'No,' returned His Grace. 'Nor fifteen hundred yards either. You'd keep me like a china ornament in your drawing-room. Come, dismiss that pet! What is it all about?'
'Adrian, you look so scornful.'
He took up a book which lay in the window-seat, and began to read. The Duchess stood a while looking at him, and knitting her arched and even brows. He turned over page after page, and by the composure of his brow expressed interest in what he was reading and an intention to proceed. Her Grace is by no means the victim of caprice, though now and then she seems daringly to play with weapons few besides would venture to handle. On this occasion her tact, so nice as to be infallible, informed her that the pet was carried far enough. She sat down, then, by Zamorna's side; leant over and looked at the book; it was poetry - a volume of Byron. Her attention, likewise, was arrested; and she continued to read, turning the page with her slender [finger], after looking into the Duke's face at the conclusion of each leaf to see if he was ready to proceed. She was so quiet, her hair so softly fanned his cheek as she leaned her head towards him, the contact of her gentle hand now and then touching his, of her smooth and silken dress, was so endearing, that it quickly appeased the incipient ire her whim of perverseness had raised; and when, in about half an hour, she ventured to close the obnoxious volume and take it from his hand, the action met with no resistance - nothing but a shake of the head, half-reproving, half-indulgent.
Little more was said by either Duke or Duchess, or at least their further conversation was audible to no mortal ear. The shades of dusk were gathering in the room; the very latest beam of sunset was passing from its gilded walls. They sat in the deep recess of the window side by side, a cloudless moon looking down from the sky upon them and lighting their faces with her smile. Mary leant her happy head on a breast she thought she might trust - happy in that belief, even though it were a delusion. Zamorna had been kind, even fond, and, for aught she knew, faithful, ever since their last blissful meeting at Adrianopolis, and she had learnt how to rest in his arms with a feeling of security, not trembling lest when she most needed the support it might all at once be torn away. During their late visit to Northangerland he had shewn her marked attention, conscious that tenderness bestowed on her was the surest method of soothing her father's heart, and words could not express half the rapture of her feelings when, more than once, seated between the Earl and Duke on such an evening as this, she had perceived that both regarded her as the light and hope of their lives. Language had not revealed this to her. Her father is a man of few words on sentimental matters; her husband, of none at all, though very vigorous in his actions; but Northangerland cheered in her presence, and Zamorna watched her from morning till night, following all her movements with a keen and searching glance.
Is that Hannah Rowley tapping at the door? She says tea is [ready], and Mr Surena impatient to get into the shop again. Goodbye, reader.
June 28th 1838
BOCCACCIO * Mrs Rosie and the Priest
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS * As kingfishers catch fire
The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue
THOMAS DE QUINCEY * On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE * Aphorisms on Love and Hate
JOHN RUSKIN * Traffic
PU SONGLING * Wailing Ghosts
JONATHAN SWIFT * A Modest Proposal
Three Tang Dynasty Poets
WALT WHITMAN * On the Beach at Night Alone
KENKO * A
Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees
BALTASAR GRACIAN * How to Use Your Enemies
JOHN KEATS * The Eve of St Agnes
THOMAS HARDY * Woman much missed
GUY DE MAUPASSANT * Femme Fatale
MARCO POLO * Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls
SUETONIUS * Caligula
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON * Olalla
KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS * The Communist Manifesto
PETRONIUS * Trimalchio's Feast
JOHANN PETER HEBEL * How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher's Dog
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN * The Tinder Box
RUDYARD KIPLING * The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows
DANTE * Circles of Hell
HENRY MAYHEW * Of Street Piemen
HAFEZ * The nightingales are drunk
GEOFFREY CHAUCER * The Wife of Bath
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE * How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing
THOMAS NASHE * The Terrors of the Night
EDGAR ALLAN POE * The Tell-Tale Heart
MARY KINGSLEY * A Hippo Banquet
JANE AUSTEN * The Beautifull Cassandra
ANTON CHEKHOV * Gooseberries
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE * Well, they are gone, and here must I remain
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE * Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings
CHARLES DICKENS * The Great Winglebury Duel
HERMAN MELVILLE * The Maldive Shark
ELIZABETH GASKELL * The Old Nurse's Story
NIKOLAY LESKOV * The Steel Flea
HONORE DE BALZAC * The Atheist's Mass
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN * The Yellow Wall-Paper
C. P. CAVAFY * Remember, Body ...
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY * The Meek One
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT * A Simple Heart
NIKOLAI GOGOL * The Nose
SAMUEL PEPYS * The Great Fire of London
EDITH WHARTON * The Reckoning
HENRY JAMES * The Figure in the Carpet
WILFRED OWEN * Anthem For Doomed Youth
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART * My Dearest Father
PLATO * Socrates' Defence
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI * Goblin Market
Sindbad the Sailor
SOPHOCLES * Antigone
RYUNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA * The Life of a Stupid Man
LEO TOLSTOY * How Much Land Does A Man Need?
GIORGIO VASARI * Leonardo da Vinci
OSCAR WILDE * Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
SHEN FU * The Old Man of the Moon
AESOP * The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon
MATSUO BASHO * Lips too Chilled
EMILY BRONTE * The Night is Darkening Round Me
JOSEPH CONRAD * To-morrow
RICHARD HAKLUYT * The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe
KATE CHOPIN * A Pair of Silk Stockings
CHARLES DARWIN * It was snowing butterflies
BROTHERS GRIMM * The Robber Bridegroom
CATULLUS * I Hate and I Love
HOMER * Circe and the Cyclops
D. H. LAWRENCE * Il Duro
KATHERINE MANSFIELD * Miss Brill
OVID * The Fall of Icarus
SAPPHO * Come Close
IVAN TURGENEV * Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands
VIRGIL * O Cruel Alexis
H. G. WELLS * A Slip under the Microscope
HERODOTUS * The Madness of Cambyses
Speaking of Siva
The Dhammapada
JANE AUSTEN * Lady Susan
JEAN-JACQUES ROSSEAU * The Body Politic
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE * The World is Full of Foolish Men
H. G. WELLS * The Sea Raiders
LIVY * Hannibal
CHARLES DICKENS * To Be Read at Dusk
LEO TOLSTOY * The Death of Ivan Ilyich
MARK TWAIN * The Stolen White Elephant
WILLIAM BLAKE * Tyger, Tyger
SHERIDAN LE FANU * Green Tea
The Yellow Book
OLAUDAH EQUIANO * Kidnapped
EDGAR ALLAN POE * A Modern Detective
The Suffragettes
MARGERY KEMPE * How To Be a Medieval Woman
JOSEPH CONRAD * Typhoon
GIACOMO CASANOVA * The Nun of Murano
W. B. YEATS * A terrible beauty is born
THOMAS HARDY * The Withered Arm
EDWARD LEAR * Nonsense
ARISTOPHANES * The Frogs
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE * Why I Am so Clever
RAINER MARIA RILKE * Letters to a Young Poet
LEONID ANDREYEV * Seven Hanged
LEWIS CARROLL * O frabjous day!
JOHN GAY * Trivia: or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London
E. T. A. HOFFMANN * The Sandman
DANTE * Love that moves the sun and other stars
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN * The Queen of Spades
ANTON CHEKHOV * A Nervous Breakdown
KAKUZO OKAKURA * The Book of Tea
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE * Is this a dagger which I see before me?
EMILY DICKINSON * My life had stood a loaded gun
LONGUS * Daphnis and Chloe
MARY SHELLEY * Matilda
GEORGE ELIOT * The Lifted Veil
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY * White Nights
OSCAR WILDE * Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast
VIRGINIA WOOLF * Flush
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE * Lot No. 249
The Rule of Benedict
WASHINGTON IRVING * Rip Van Winkle
Anecdotes of the Cynics
VICTOR HUGO * Waterloo
CHARLOTTE BRONTE * Stancliffe's Hotel
littleblackclassics.com
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN CLASSICS
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This edition published in Penguin Classics 2016
Editorial matter copyright (c) Heather Glen, 2006
The moral right of the editor has been asserted Text reproduced courtesy of The Bronte Parsonage Museum ISBN: 978-0-241-25171-3