Middlemarch George Eliot (essential reading txt) 📖

thing I ever saw. It is a blot on the morning. I cannot bear to think that anyone should die and leave no love behind.”

She was going to say more, but she saw her husband enter and seat himself a little in the background. The difference his presence made to her was not always a happy one: she felt that he often inwardly objected to her speech.

“Positively,” exclaimed Mrs. Cadwallader, “there is a new face come out from behind that broad man queerer than any of them: a little round head with bulging eyes⁠—a sort of frog-face⁠—do look. He must be of another blood, I think.”

“Let me see!” said Celia, with awakened curiosity, standing behind Mrs. Cadwallader and leaning forward over her head. “Oh, what an odd face!” Then with a quick change to another sort of surprised expression, she added, “Why, Dodo, you never told me that Mr. Ladislaw was come again!”

Dorothea felt a shock of alarm: everyone noticed her sudden paleness as she looked up immediately at her uncle, while Mr. Casaubon looked at her.

“He came with me, you know; he is my guest⁠—puts up with me at the Grange,” said Mr. Brooke, in his easiest tone, nodding at Dorothea, as if the announcement were just what she might have expected. “And we have brought the picture at the top of the carriage. I knew you would be pleased with the surprise, Casaubon. There you are to the very life⁠—as Aquinas, you know. Quite the right sort of thing. And you will hear young Ladislaw talk about it. He talks uncommonly well⁠—points out this, that, and the other⁠—knows art and everything of that kind⁠—companionable, you know⁠—is up with you in any track⁠—what I’ve been wanting a long while.”

Mr. Casaubon bowed with cold politeness, mastering his irritation, but only so far as to be silent. He remembered Will’s letter quite as well as Dorothea did; he had noticed that it was not among the letters which had been reserved for him on his recovery, and secretly concluding that Dorothea had sent word to Will not to come to Lowick, he had shrunk with proud sensitiveness from ever recurring to the subject. He now inferred that she had asked her uncle to invite Will to the Grange; and she felt it impossible at that moment to enter into any explanation.

Mrs. Cadwallader’s eyes, diverted from the churchyard, saw a good deal of dumb show which was not so intelligible to her as she could have desired, and could not repress the question, “Who is Mr. Ladislaw?”

“A young relative of Mr. Casaubon’s,” said Sir James, promptly. His good-nature often made him quick and clear-seeing in personal matters, and he had divined from Dorothea’s glance at her husband that there was some alarm in her mind.

“A very nice young fellow⁠—Casaubon has done everything for him,” explained Mr. Brooke. “He repays your expense in him, Casaubon,” he went on, nodding encouragingly. “I hope he will stay with me a long while and we shall make something of my documents. I have plenty of ideas and facts, you know, and I can see he is just the man to put them into shape⁠—remembers what the right quotations are, omne tulit punctum, and that sort of thing⁠—gives subjects a kind of turn. I invited him some time ago when you were ill, Casaubon; Dorothea said you couldn’t have anybody in the house, you know, and she asked me to write.”

Poor Dorothea felt that every word of her uncle’s was about as pleasant as a grain of sand in the eye to Mr. Casaubon. It would be altogether unfitting now to explain that she had not wished her uncle to invite Will Ladislaw. She could not in the least make clear to herself the reasons for her husband’s dislike to his presence⁠—a dislike painfully impressed on her by the scene in the library; but she felt the unbecomingness of saying anything that might convey a notion of it to others. Mr. Casaubon, indeed, had not thoroughly represented those mixed reasons to himself; irritated feeling with him, as with all of us, seeking rather for justification than for self-knowledge. But he wished to repress outward signs, and only Dorothea could discern the changes in her husband’s face before he observed with more of dignified bending and singsong than usual⁠—

“You are exceedingly hospitable, my dear sir; and I owe you acknowledgments for exercising your hospitality towards a relative of mine.”

The funeral was ended now, and the churchyard was being cleared.

“Now you can see him, Mrs. Cadwallader,” said Celia. “He is just like a miniature of Mr. Casaubon’s aunt that hangs in Dorothea’s boudoir⁠—quite nice-looking.”

“A very pretty sprig,” said Mrs. Cadwallader, dryly. “What is your nephew to be, Mr. Casaubon?”

“Pardon me, he is not my nephew. He is my cousin.”

“Well, you know,” interposed Mr. Brooke, “he is trying his wings. He is just the sort of young fellow to rise. I should be glad to give him an opportunity. He would make a good secretary, now, like Hobbes, Milton, Swift⁠—that sort of man.”

“I understand,” said Mrs. Cadwallader. “One who can write speeches.”

“I’ll fetch him in now, eh, Casaubon?” said Mr. Brooke. “He wouldn’t come in till I had announced him, you know. And we’ll go down and look at the picture. There you are to the life: a deep subtle sort of thinker with his forefinger on the page, while Saint Bonaventure or somebody else, rather fat and florid, is looking up at the Trinity. Everything is symbolical, you know⁠—the higher style of art: I like that up to a certain point, but not too far⁠—it’s rather straining to keep up with, you know. But you are at home in that, Casaubon. And your painter’s flesh is good⁠—solidity, transparency, everything of that sort. I went into that a great deal at one time. However, I’ll go and fetch Ladislaw.”

XXXV

Non, je ne comprends pas de plus charmant plaisir
Que de voir d’heritiers une troupe affligee
Le maintien interdit, et la mine allongee,
Lire un long testament ou pales, etonnes
On leur laisse un bonsoir