Datasets:

mayflowergmbh

/

booksum_de

like 0

Follow

Mayflower GmbH 26

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 soon as we came to the inn, Ransome led us up the stair to a small room, with a bed in it, and heated like an oven by a great fire of coal. At a table hard by the chimney, a tall, dark, sober-looking man sat writing. In spite of the heat of the room, he wore a thick sea-jacket, buttoned to the neck, and a tall hairy cap drawn down over his ears; yet I never saw any man, not even a judge upon the bench, look cooler, or more studious and self-possessed, than this ship-captain. He got to his feet at once, and coming forward, offered his large hand to Ebenezer. "I am proud to see you, Mr. Balfour," said he, in a fine deep voice, "and glad that ye are here in time. The wind's fair, and the tide upon the turn; we'll see the old coal-bucket burning on the Isle of May before to-night." "Captain Hoseason," returned my uncle, "you keep your room unco hot." "It's a habit I have, Mr. Balfour," said the skipper. "I'm a cold-rife man by my nature; I have a cold blood, sir. There's neither fur, nor flannel--no, sir, nor hot rum, will warm up what they call the temperature. Sir, it's the same with most men that have been carbonadoed, as they call it, in the tropic seas." "Well, well, captain," replied my uncle, "we must all be the way we're made." But it chanced that this fancy of the captain's had a great share in my misfortunes. For though I had promised myself not to let my kinsman out of sight, I was both so impatient for a nearer look of the sea, and so sickened by the closeness of the room, that when he told me to "run down-stairs and play myself awhile," I was fool enough to take him at his word. Away I went, therefore, leaving the two men sitting down to a bottle and a great mass of papers; and crossing the road in front of the inn, walked down upon the beach. With the wind in that quarter, only little wavelets, not much bigger than I had seen upon a lake, beat upon the shore. But the weeds were new to me--some green, some brown and long, and some with little bladders that crackled between my fingers. Even so far up the firth, the smell of the sea-water was exceedingly salt and stirring; the Covenant, besides, was beginning to shake out her sails, which hung upon the yards in clusters; and the spirit of all that I beheld put me in thoughts of far voyages and foreign places. I looked, too, at the seamen with the skiff--big brown fellows, some in shirts, some with jackets, some with coloured handkerchiefs about their throats, one with a brace of pistols stuck into his pockets, two or three with knotty bludgeons, and all with their case-knives. I passed the time of day with one that looked less desperate than his fellows, and asked him of the sailing of the brig. He said they would get under way as soon as the ebb set, and expressed his gladness to be out of a port where there were no taverns and fiddlers; but all with such horrifying oaths, that I made haste to get away from him. This threw me back on Ransome, who seemed the least wicked of that gang, and who soon came out of the inn and ran to me, crying for a bowl of punch. I told him I would give him no such thing, for neither he nor I was of an age for such indulgences. "But a glass of ale you may have, and welcome," said I. He mopped and mowed at me, and called me names; but he was glad to get the ale, for all that; and presently we were set down at a table in the front room of the inn, and both eating and drinking with a good appetite. Here it occurred to me that, as the landlord was a man of that county, I might do well to make a friend of him. I offered him a share, as was much the custom in those days; but he was far too great a man to sit with such poor customers as Ransome and myself, and he was leaving the room, when I called him back to ask if he knew Mr. Rankeillor. "Hoot, ay," says he, "and a very honest man. And, O, by-the-by," says he, "was it you that came in with Ebenezer?" And when I had told him yes, "Ye'll be no friend of his?" he asked, meaning, in the Scottish way, that I would be no relative. I told him no, none. "I thought not," said he, "and yet ye have a kind of gliff* of Mr. Alexander." * Look. I said it seemed that Ebenezer was ill-seen in the country. "Nae doubt," said the landlord. "He's a wicked auld man, and there's many would like to see him girning in the tow*. Jennet Clouston and mony mair that he has harried out of house and hame. And yet he was ance a fine young fellow, too. But that was before the sough** gaed abroad about Mr. Alexander, that was like the death of him." * Rope. ** Report. "And what was it?" I asked. "Ou, just that he had killed him," said the landlord. "Did ye never hear that?" "And what would he kill him for?" said I. "And what for, but just to get the place," said he. "The place?" said I. "The Shaws?" "Nae other place that I ken," said he. "Ay, man?" said I. "Is that so? Was my--was Alexander the eldest son?" "'Deed was he," said the landlord. "What else would he have killed him for?" And with that he went away, as he had been impatient to do from the beginning. Of course, I had guessed it a long while ago; but it is one thing to guess, another to know; and I sat stunned with my good fortune, and could scarce grow to believe that the same poor lad who had trudged in the dust from Ettrick Forest not two days ago, was now one of the rich of the earth, and had a house and broad lands, and might mount his horse tomorrow. All these pleasant things, and a thousand others, crowded into my mind, as I sat staring before me out of the inn window, and paying no heed to what I saw; only I remember that my eye lighted on Captain Hoseason down on the pier among his seamen, and speaking with some authority. And presently he came marching back towards the house, with no mark of a sailor's clumsiness, but carrying his fine, tall figure with a manly bearing, and still with the same sober, grave expression on his face. I wondered if it was possible that Ransome's stories could be true, and half disbelieved them; they fitted so ill with the man's looks. But indeed, he was neither so good as I supposed him, nor quite so bad as Ransome did; for, in fact, he was two men, and left the better one behind as soon as he set foot on board his vessel. The next thing, I heard my uncle calling me, and found the pair in the road together. It was the captain who addressed me, and that with an air (very flattering to a young lad) of grave equality. "Sir," said he, "Mr. Balfour tells me great things of you; and for my own part, I like your looks. I wish I was for longer here, that we might make the better friends; but we'll make the most of what we have. Ye shall come on board my brig for half an hour, till the ebb sets, and drink a bowl with me." Now, I longed to see the inside of a ship more than words can tell; but I was not going to put myself in jeopardy, and I told him my uncle and I had an appointment with a lawyer. "Ay, ay," said he, "he passed me word of that. But, ye see, the boat'll set ye ashore at the town pier, and that's but a penny stonecast from Rankeillor's house." And here he suddenly leaned down and whispered in my ear: "Take care of the old tod;* he means mischief. Come aboard till I can get a word with ye." And then, passing his arm through mine, he continued aloud, as he set off towards his boat: "But, come, what can I bring ye from the Carolinas? Any friend of Mr. Balfour's can command. A roll of tobacco? Indian feather-work? a skin of a wild beast? a stone pipe? the mocking-bird that mews for all the world like a cat? the cardinal bird that is as red as blood?--take your pick and say your pleasure." * Fox. By this time we were at the boat-side, and he was handing me in. I did not dream of hanging back; I thought (the poor fool!) that I had found a good friend and helper, and I was rejoiced to see the ship. As soon as we were all set in our places, the boat was thrust off from the pier and began to move over the waters: and what with my pleasure in this new movement and my surprise at our low position, and the appearance of the shores, and the growing bigness of the brig as we drew near to it, I could hardly understand what the captain said, and must have answered him at random. As soon as we were alongside (where I sat fairly gaping at the ship's height, the strong humming of the tide against its sides, and the pleasant cries of the seamen at their work) Hoseason, declaring that he and I must be the first aboard, ordered a tackle to be sent down from the main-yard. In this I was whipped into the air and set down again on the deck, where the captain stood ready waiting for me, and instantly slipped back his arm under mine. There I stood some while, a little dizzy with the unsteadiness of all around me, perhaps a little afraid, and yet vastly pleased with these strange sights; the captain meanwhile pointing out the strangest, and telling me their names and uses. "But where is my uncle?" said I suddenly. "Ay," said Hoseason, with a sudden grimness, "that's the point." I felt I was lost. With all my strength, I plucked myself clear of him and ran to the bulwarks. Sure enough, there was the boat pulling for the town, with my uncle sitting in the stern. I gave a piercing cry--"Help, help! Murder!"--so that both sides of the anchorage rang with it, and my uncle turned round where he was sitting, and showed me a face full of cruelty and terror. It was the last I saw. Already strong hands had been plucking me back from the ship's side; and now a thunderbolt seemed to strike me; I saw a great flash of fire, and fell senseless. 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.

Am nächsten Morgen erwacht David und beginnt über die Ereignisse der vorherigen Nacht nachzudenken. Gewiss von seiner überlegenen Stärke, begibt er sich zu seinem Onkel, um ihn aus seinem Zimmer zu befreien. Kurz darauf erscheint ein Schiffsjunge an der Tür und überreicht Mr. Balfour einen Brief. Nachdem er den Brief gelesen hat, teilt Ebenezer David mit, dass sie sich auf den Weg nach Queensferry machen müssen, um den Kapitän der "Covenant" zu treffen und später ihren Anwalt zu besuchen. Obwohl David seinem Onkel misstraut, begleitet er ihn, da er das Meer aus der Nähe sehen möchte und auch den Anwalt treffen will. Auf dem Weg zum Boot unterhält sich David mit dem Schiffsjungen Ransom. Der Junge erzählt von seinen gefährlichen Abenteuern auf See und den Grausamkeiten, denen er von seinen Herrschaften ausgesetzt war. Als sie in Queensferry ankommen, betrachtet David die "Covenant" mit Abscheu.

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: ARTHUR DONNITHORNE, you remember, is under an engagement with himself to go and see Mr. Irwine this Friday morning, and he is awake and dressing so early that he determines to go before breakfast, instead of after. The rector, he knows, breakfasts alone at half-past nine, the ladies of the family having a different breakfast-hour; Arthur will have an early ride over the hill and breakfast with him. One can say everything best over a meal. The progress of civilization has made a breakfast or a dinner an easy and cheerful substitute for more troublesome and disagreeable ceremonies. We take a less gloomy view of our errors now our father confessor listens to us over his egg and coffee. We are more distinctly conscious that rude penances are out of the question for gentlemen in an enlightened age, and that mortal sin is not incompatible with an appetite for muffins. An assault on our pockets, which in more barbarous times would have been made in the brusque form of a pistol-shot, is quite a well-bred and smiling procedure now it has become a request for a loan thrown in as an easy parenthesis between the second and third glasses of claret. Still, there was this advantage in the old rigid forms, that they committed you to the fulfilment of a resolution by some outward deed: when you have put your mouth to one end of a hole in a stone wall and are aware that there is an expectant ear at the other end, you are more likely to say what you came out with the intention of saying than if you were seated with your legs in an easy attitude under the mahogany with a companion who will have no reason to be surprised if you have nothing particular to say. However, Arthur Donnithorne, as he winds among the pleasant lanes on horseback in the morning sunshine, has a sincere determination to open his heart to the rector, and the swirling sound of the scythe as he passes by the meadow is all the pleasanter to him because of this honest purpose. He is glad to see the promise of settled weather now, for getting in the hay, about which the farmers have been fearful; and there is something so healthful in the sharing of a joy that is general and not merely personal, that this thought about the hay-harvest reacts on his state of mind and makes his resolution seem an easier matter. A man about town might perhaps consider that these influences were not to be felt out of a child's story-book; but when you are among the fields and hedgerows, it is impossible to maintain a consistent superiority to simple natural pleasures. Arthur had passed the village of Hayslope and was approaching the Broxton side of the hill, when, at a turning in the road, he saw a figure about a hundred yards before him which it was impossible to mistake for any one else than Adam Bede, even if there had been no grey, tailless shepherd-dog at his heels. He was striding along at his usual rapid pace, and Arthur pushed on his horse to overtake him, for he retained too much of his boyish feeling for Adam to miss an opportunity of chatting with him. I will not say that his love for that good fellow did not owe some of its force to the love of patronage: our friend Arthur liked to do everything that was handsome, and to have his handsome deeds recognized. Adam looked round as he heard the quickening clatter of the horse's heels, and waited for the horseman, lifting his paper cap from his head with a bright smile of recognition. Next to his own brother Seth, Adam would have done more for Arthur Donnithorne than for any other young man in the world. There was hardly anything he would not rather have lost than the two-feet ruler which he always carried in his pocket; it was Arthur's present, bought with his pocket-money when he was a fair-haired lad of eleven, and when he had profited so well by Adam's lessons in carpentering and turning as to embarrass every female in the house with gifts of superfluous thread-reels and round boxes. Adam had quite a pride in the little squire in those early days, and the feeling had only become slightly modified as the fair-haired lad had grown into the whiskered young man. Adam, I confess, was very susceptible to the influence of rank, and quite ready to give an extra amount of respect to every one who had more advantages than himself, not being a philosopher or a proletaire with democratic ideas, but simply a stout-limbed clever carpenter with a large fund of reverence in his nature, which inclined him to admit all established claims unless he saw very clear grounds for questioning them. He had no theories about setting the world to rights, but he saw there was a great deal of damage done by building with ill-seasoned timber--by ignorant men in fine clothes making plans for outhouses and workshops and the like without knowing the bearings of things--by slovenly joiners' work, and by hasty contracts that could never be fulfilled without ruining somebody; and he resolved, for his part, to set his face against such doings. On these points he would have maintained his opinion against the largest landed proprietor in Loamshire or Stonyshire either; but he felt that beyond these it would be better for him to defer to people who were more knowing than himself. He saw as plainly as possible how ill the woods on the estate were managed, and the shameful state of the farm-buildings; and if old Squire Donnithorne had asked him the effect of this mismanagement, he would have spoken his opinion without flinching, but the impulse to a respectful demeanour towards a "gentleman" would have been strong within him all the while. The word "gentleman" had a spell for Adam, and, as he often said, he "couldn't abide a fellow who thought he made himself fine by being coxy to's betters." I must remind you again that Adam had the blood of the peasant in his veins, and that since he was in his prime half a century ago, you must expect some of his characteristics to be obsolete. Towards the young squire this instinctive reverence of Adam's was assisted by boyish memories and personal regard so you may imagine that he thought far more of Arthur's good qualities, and attached far more value to very slight actions of his, than if they had been the qualities and actions of a common workman like himself. He felt sure it would be a fine day for everybody about Hayslope when the young squire came into the estate--such a generous open-hearted disposition as he had, and an "uncommon" notion about improvements and repairs, considering he was only just coming of age. Thus there was both respect and affection in the smile with which he raised his paper cap as Arthur Donnithorne rode up. "Well, Adam, how are you?" said Arthur, holding out his hand. He never shook hands with any of the farmers, and Adam felt the honour keenly. "I could swear to your back a long way off. It's just the same back, only broader, as when you used to carry me on it. Do you remember?" "Aye, sir, I remember. It 'ud be a poor look-out if folks didn't remember what they did and said when they were lads. We should think no more about old friends than we do about new uns, then." "You're going to Broxton, I suppose?" said Arthur, putting his horse on at a slow pace while Adam walked by his side. "Are you going to the rectory?" "No, sir, I'm going to see about Bradwell's barn. They're afraid of the roof pushing the walls out, and I'm going to see what can be done with it before we send the stuff and the workmen." "Why, Burge trusts almost everything to you now, Adam, doesn't he? I should think he will make you his partner soon. He will, if he's wise." "Nay, sir, I don't see as he'd be much the better off for that. A foreman, if he's got a conscience and delights in his work, will do his business as well as if he was a partner. I wouldn't give a penny for a man as 'ud drive a nail in slack because he didn't get extra pay for it." "I know that, Adam; I know you work for him as well as if you were working for yourself. But you would have more power than you have now, and could turn the business to better account perhaps. The old man must give up his business sometime, and he has no son; I suppose he'll want a son-in-law who can take to it. But he has rather grasping fingers of his own, I fancy. I daresay he wants a man who can put some money into the business. If I were not as poor as a rat, I would gladly invest some money in that way, for the sake of having you settled on the estate. I'm sure I should profit by it in the end. And perhaps I shall be better off in a year or two. I shall have a larger allowance now I'm of age; and when I've paid off a debt or two, I shall be able to look about me." "You're very good to say so, sir, and I'm not unthankful. But"--Adam continued, in a decided tone--"I shouldn't like to make any offers to Mr. Burge, or t' have any made for me. I see no clear road to a partnership. If he should ever want to dispose of the business, that 'ud be a different matter. I should be glad of some money at a fair interest then, for I feel sure I could pay it off in time." "Very well, Adam," said Arthur, remembering what Mr. Irwine had said about a probable hitch in the love-making between Adam and Mary Burge, "we'll say no more about it at present. When is your father to be buried?" "On Sunday, sir; Mr. Irwine's coming earlier on purpose. I shall be glad when it's over, for I think my mother 'ull perhaps get easier then. It cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they've no way o' working it off, and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the withered tree." "Ah, you've had a good deal of trouble and vexation in your life, Adam. I don't think you've ever been hare-brained and light-hearted, like other youngsters. You've always had some care on your mind." "Why, yes, sir; but that's nothing to make a fuss about. If we're men and have men's feelings, I reckon we must have men's troubles. We can't be like the birds, as fly from their nest as soon as they've got their wings, and never know their kin when they see 'em, and get a fresh lot every year. I've had enough to be thankful for: I've allays had health and strength and brains to give me a delight in my work; and I count it a great thing as I've had Bartle Massey's night-school to go to. He's helped me to knowledge I could never ha' got by myself." "What a rare fellow you are, Adam!" said Arthur, after a pause, in which he had looked musingly at the big fellow walking by his side. "I could hit out better than most men at Oxford, and yet I believe you would knock me into next week if I were to have a battle with you." "God forbid I should ever do that, sir," said Adam, looking round at Arthur and smiling. "I used to fight for fun, but I've never done that since I was the cause o' poor Gil Tranter being laid up for a fortnight. I'll never fight any man again, only when he behaves like a scoundrel. If you get hold of a chap that's got no shame nor conscience to stop him, you must try what you can do by bunging his eyes up." Arthur did not laugh, for he was preoccupied with some thought that made him say presently, "I should think now, Adam, you never have any struggles within yourself. I fancy you would master a wish that you had made up your mind it was not quite right to indulge, as easily as you would knock down a drunken fellow who was quarrelsome with you. I mean, you are never shilly-shally, first making up your mind that you won't do a thing, and then doing it after all?" "Well," said Adam, slowly, after a moment's hesitation, "no. I don't remember ever being see-saw in that way, when I'd made my mind up, as you say, that a thing was wrong. It takes the taste out o' my mouth for things, when I know I should have a heavy conscience after 'em. I've seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you can never do what's wrong without breeding sin and trouble more than you can ever see. It's like a bit o' bad workmanship--you never see th' end o' the mischief it'll do. And it's a poor look-out to come into the world to make your fellow-creatures worse off instead o' better. But there's a difference between the things folks call wrong. I'm not for making a sin of every little fool's trick, or bit o' nonsense anybody may be let into, like some o' them dissenters. And a man may have two minds whether it isn't worthwhile to get a bruise or two for the sake of a bit o' fun. But it isn't my way to be see-saw about anything: I think my fault lies th' other way. When I've said a thing, if it's only to myself, it's hard for me to go back." "Yes, that's just what I expected of you," said Arthur. "You've got an iron will, as well as an iron arm. But however strong a man's resolution may be, it costs him something to carry it out, now and then. We may determine not to gather any cherries and keep our hands sturdily in our pockets, but we can't prevent our mouths from watering." "That's true, sir, but there's nothing like settling with ourselves as there's a deal we must do without i' this life. It's no use looking on life as if it was Treddles'on Fair, where folks only go to see shows and get fairings. If we do, we shall find it different. But where's the use o' me talking to you, sir? You know better than I do." "I'm not so sure of that, Adam. You've had four or five years of experience more than I've had, and I think your life has been a better school to you than college has been to me." "Why, sir, you seem to think o' college something like what Bartle Massey does. He says college mostly makes people like bladders--just good for nothing but t' hold the stuff as is poured into 'em. But he's got a tongue like a sharp blade, Bartle has--it never touches anything but it cuts. Here's the turning, sir. I must bid you good-morning, as you're going to the rectory." "Good-bye, Adam, good-bye." Arthur gave his horse to the groom at the rectory gate, and walked along the gravel towards the door which opened on the garden. He knew that the rector always breakfasted in his study, and the study lay on the left hand of this door, opposite the dining-room. It was a small low room, belonging to the old part of the house--dark with the sombre covers of the books that lined the walls; yet it looked very cheery this morning as Arthur reached the open window. For the morning sun fell aslant on the great glass globe with gold fish in it, which stood on a scagliola pillar in front of the ready-spread bachelor breakfast-table, and by the side of this breakfast-table was a group which would have made any room enticing. In the crimson damask easy-chair sat Mr. Irwine, with that radiant freshness which he always had when he came from his morning toilet; his finely formed plump white hand was playing along Juno's brown curly back; and close to Juno's tail, which was wagging with calm matronly pleasure, the two brown pups were rolling over each other in an ecstatic duet of worrying noises. On a cushion a little removed sat Pug, with the air of a maiden lady, who looked on these familiarities as animal weaknesses, which she made as little show as possible of observing. On the table, at Mr. Irwine's elbow, lay the first volume of the Foulis AEschylus, which Arthur knew well by sight; and the silver coffee-pot, which Carroll was bringing in, sent forth a fragrant steam which completed the delights of a bachelor breakfast. "Hallo, Arthur, that's a good fellow! You're just in time," said Mr. Irwine, as Arthur paused and stepped in over the low window-sill. "Carroll, we shall want more coffee and eggs, and haven't you got some cold fowl for us to eat with that ham? Why, this is like old days, Arthur; you haven't been to breakfast with me these five years." "It was a tempting morning for a ride before breakfast," said Arthur; "and I used to like breakfasting with you so when I was reading with you. My grandfather is always a few degrees colder at breakfast than at any other hour in the day. I think his morning bath doesn't agree with him." Arthur was anxious not to imply that he came with any special purpose. He had no sooner found himself in Mr. Irwine's presence than the confidence which he had thought quite easy before, suddenly appeared the most difficult thing in the world to him, and at the very moment of shaking hands he saw his purpose in quite a new light. How could he make Irwine understand his position unless he told him those little scenes in the wood; and how could he tell them without looking like a fool? And then his weakness in coming back from Gawaine's, and doing the very opposite of what he intended! Irwine would think him a shilly-shally fellow ever after. However, it must come out in an unpremeditated way; the conversation might lead up to it. "I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day," said Mr. Irwine. "No dust has settled on one's mind then, and it presents a clear mirror to the rays of things. I always have a favourite book by me at breakfast, and I enjoy the bits I pick up then so much, that regularly every morning it seems to me as if I should certainly become studious again. But presently Dent brings up a poor fellow who has killed a hare, and when I've got through my 'justicing,' as Carroll calls it, I'm inclined for a ride round the glebe, and on my way back I meet with the master of the workhouse, who has got a long story of a mutinous pauper to tell me; and so the day goes on, and I'm always the same lazy fellow before evening sets in. Besides, one wants the stimulus of sympathy, and I have never had that since poor D'Oyley left Treddleston. If you had stuck to your books well, you rascal, I should have had a pleasanter prospect before me. But scholarship doesn't run in your family blood." "No indeed. It's well if I can remember a little inapplicable Latin to adorn my maiden speech in Parliament six or seven years hence. 'Cras ingens iterabimus aequor,' and a few shreds of that sort, will perhaps stick to me, and I shall arrange my opinions so as to introduce them. But I don't think a knowledge of the classics is a pressing want to a country gentleman; as far as I can see, he'd much better have a knowledge of manures. I've been reading your friend Arthur Young's books lately, and there's nothing I should like better than to carry out some of his ideas in putting the farmers on a better management of their land; and, as he says, making what was a wild country, all of the same dark hue, bright and variegated with corn and cattle. My grandfather will never let me have any power while he lives, but there's nothing I should like better than to undertake the Stonyshire side of the estate--it's in a dismal condition--and set improvements on foot, and gallop about from one place to another and overlook them. I should like to know all the labourers, and see them touching their hats to me with a look of goodwill." "Bravo, Arthur! A man who has no feeling for the classics couldn't make a better apology for coming into the world than by increasing the quantity of food to maintain scholars--and rectors who appreciate scholars. And whenever you enter on your career of model landlord may I be there to see. You'll want a portly rector to complete the picture, and take his tithe of all the respect and honour you get by your hard work. Only don't set your heart too strongly on the goodwill you are to get in consequence. I'm not sure that men are the fondest of those who try to be useful to them. You know Gawaine has got the curses of the whole neighbourhood upon him about that enclosure. You must make it quite clear to your mind which you are most bent upon, old boy--popularity or usefulness--else you may happen to miss both." "Oh! Gawaine is harsh in his manners; he doesn't make himself personally agreeable to his tenants. I don't believe there's anything you can't prevail on people to do with kindness. For my part, I couldn't live in a neighbourhood where I was not respected and beloved. And it's very pleasant to go among the tenants here--they seem all so well inclined to me I suppose it seems only the other day to them since I was a little lad, riding on a pony about as big as a sheep. And if fair allowances were made to them, and their buildings attended to, one could persuade them to farm on a better plan, stupid as they are." "Then mind you fall in love in the right place, and don't get a wife who will drain your purse and make you niggardly in spite of yourself. My mother and I have a little discussion about you sometimes: she says, 'I'll never risk a single prophecy on Arthur until I see the woman he falls in love with.' She thinks your lady-love will rule you as the moon rules the tides. But I feel bound to stand up for you, as my pupil you know, and I maintain that you're not of that watery quality. So mind you don't disgrace my judgment." Arthur winced under this speech, for keen old Mrs. Irwine's opinion about him had the disagreeable effect of a sinister omen. This, to be sure, was only another reason for persevering in his intention, and getting an additional security against himself. Nevertheless, at this point in the conversation, he was conscious of increased disinclination to tell his story about Hetty. He was of an impressible nature, and lived a great deal in other people's opinions and feelings concerning himself; and the mere fact that he was in the presence of an intimate friend, who had not the slightest notion that he had had any such serious internal struggle as he came to confide, rather shook his own belief in the seriousness of the struggle. It was not, after all, a thing to make a fuss about; and what could Irwine do for him that he could not do for himself? He would go to Eagledale in spite of Meg's lameness--go on Rattler, and let Pym follow as well as he could on the old hack. That was his thought as he sugared his coffee; but the next minute, as he was lifting the cup to his lips, he remembered how thoroughly he had made up his mind last night to tell Irwine. No! He would not be vacillating again--he WOULD do what he had meant to do, this time. So it would be well not to let the personal tone of the conversation altogether drop. If they went to quite indifferent topics, his difficulty would be heightened. It had required no noticeable pause for this rush and rebound of feeling, before he answered, "But I think it is hardly an argument against a man's general strength of character that he should be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution doesn't insure one against smallpox or any other of those inevitable diseases. A man may be very firm in other matters and yet be under a sort of witchery from a woman." "Yes; but there's this difference between love and smallpox, or bewitchment either--that if you detect the disease at an early stage and try change of air, there is every chance of complete escape without any further development of symptoms. And there are certain alternative doses which a man may administer to himself by keeping unpleasant consequences before his mind: this gives you a sort of smoked glass through which you may look at the resplendent fair one and discern her true outline; though I'm afraid, by the by, the smoked glass is apt to be missing just at the moment it is most wanted. I daresay, now, even a man fortified with a knowledge of the classics might be lured into an imprudent marriage, in spite of the warning given him by the chorus in the Prometheus." The smile that flitted across Arthur's face was a faint one, and instead of following Mr. Irwine's playful lead, he said, quite seriously--"Yes, that's the worst of it. It's a desperately vexatious thing, that after all one's reflections and quiet determinations, we should be ruled by moods that one can't calculate on beforehand. I don't think a man ought to be blamed so much if he is betrayed into doing things in that way, in spite of his resolutions." "Ah, but the moods lie in his nature, my boy, just as much as his reflections did, and more. A man can never do anything at variance with his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom." "Well, but one may be betrayed into doing things by a combination of circumstances, which one might never have done otherwise." "Why, yes, a man can't very well steal a bank-note unless the bank-note lies within convenient reach; but he won't make us think him an honest man because he begins to howl at the bank-note for falling in his way." "But surely you don't think a man who struggles against a temptation into which he falls at last as bad as the man who never struggles at all?" "No, certainly; I pity him in proportion to his struggles, for they foreshadow the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis. Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before--consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of excuse for us. But I never knew you so inclined for moral discussion, Arthur? Is it some danger of your own that you are considering in this philosophical, general way?" In asking this question, Mr. Irwine pushed his plate away, threw himself back in his chair, and looked straight at Arthur. He really suspected that Arthur wanted to tell him something, and thought of smoothing the way for him by this direct question. But he was mistaken. Brought suddenly and involuntarily to the brink of confession, Arthur shrank back and felt less disposed towards it than ever. The conversation had taken a more serious tone than he had intended--it would quite mislead Irwine--he would imagine there was a deep passion for Hetty, while there was no such thing. He was conscious of colouring, and was annoyed at his boyishness. "Oh no, no danger," he said as indifferently as he could. "I don't know that I am more liable to irresolution than other people; only there are little incidents now and then that set one speculating on what might happen in the future." Was there a motive at work under this strange reluctance of Arthur's which had a sort of backstairs influence, not admitted to himself? Our mental business is carried on much in the same way as the business of the State: a great deal of hard work is done by agents who are not acknowledged. In a piece of machinery, too, I believe there is often a small unnoticeable wheel which has a great deal to do with the motion of the large obvious ones. Possibly there was some such unrecognized agent secretly busy in Arthur's mind at this moment--possibly it was the fear lest he might hereafter find the fact of having made a confession to the rector a serious annoyance, in case he should NOT be able quite to carry out his good resolutions? I dare not assert that it was not so. The human soul is a very complex thing. The idea of Hetty had just crossed Mr. Irwine's mind as he looked inquiringly at Arthur, but his disclaiming indifferent answer confirmed the thought which had quickly followed--that there could be nothing serious in that direction. There was no probability that Arthur ever saw her except at church, and at her own home under the eye of Mrs. Poyser; and the hint he had given Arthur about her the other day had no more serious meaning than to prevent him from noticing her so as to rouse the little chit's vanity, and in this way perturb the rustic drama of her life. Arthur would soon join his regiment, and be far away: no, there could be no danger in that quarter, even if Arthur's character had not been a strong security against it. His honest, patronizing pride in the good-will and respect of everybody about him was a safeguard even against foolish romance, still more against a lower kind of folly. If there had been anything special on Arthur's mind in the previous conversation, it was clear he was not inclined to enter into details, and Mr. Irwine was too delicate to imply even a friendly curiosity. He perceived a change of subject would be welcome, and said, "By the way, Arthur, at your colonel's birthday fete there were some transparencies that made a great effect in honour of Britannia, and Pitt, and the Loamshire Militia, and, above all, the 'generous youth,' the hero of the day. Don't you think you should get up something of the same sort to astonish our weak minds?" The opportunity was gone. While Arthur was hesitating, the rope to which he might have clung had drifted away--he must trust now to his own swimming. In ten minutes from that time, Mr. Irwine was called for on business, and Arthur, bidding him good-bye, mounted his horse again with a sense of dissatisfaction, which he tried to quell by determining to set off for Eagledale without an hour's delay. Book Two 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.

Kapitän Donnithorne macht sich auf den Weg, um mit Herrn Irwine zu frühstücken und ihm von dem Vorfall mit Hetty zu erzählen. Unterwegs trifft er auf Adam, der zur Arbeit läuft. Adam behandelt Kapitän Donnithorne mit großem Respekt, zum Teil aufgrund seines Ranges und weil er glaubt, dass er ein guter Manager sein wird. Sie erinnern sich an die Tage, als Kapitän Donnithorne mit Adam spielte, der fünf Jahre älter ist. Kapitän Donnithorne bietet Adam an, ihn jederzeit zu finanzieren, wenn er sein eigenes Geschäft gründen möchte. Adam lehnt vorerst ab. Kapitän Donnithorne sagt zu Adam, dass er glaubt, dass Adam ihn in einem Kampf besiegen könnte und dass er niemals innere Kämpfe haben sollte. Adam stimmt zu, dass er, sobald er eine Entscheidung getroffen hat, in der Regel nicht mehr mit dem Thema kämpft. Dann macht Kapitän Donnithorne seinen Weg zum Haus von Herrn Irwine. Beim Frühstück mit Herrn Irwine kommt er nah daran, seine Affäre mit Hetty zu enthüllen, sagt es aber nicht. Stattdessen philosophiert er lediglich, dass ein Mann, der mit seinen guten Absichten kämpft, kein wirklicher schlechter Mensch sein kann. Herr Irwine vermutet, dass Kapitän Donnithorne ihm etwas Wichtiges mitteilen möchte, doch er drängt nicht weiter darauf und macht einige allgemeine Aussagen über die Natur des Charakters eines Menschen.

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 V. OLIVIA'S _Garden_. _Enter_ SEBASTIAN. _Seb._ This is the air; that is the glorious sun; This pearl she gave me, I do feel't, and see't: And though 'tis wonder that enwraps me thus, Yet 'tis not madness. Where's Antonio then? I could not find him at the Elephant; His counsel now might do me golden service: For though my soul disputes well with my sense, That this may be some error, but no madness, Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune So far exceed all instance, all discourse, That I am ready to distrust mine eyes, And wrangle with my reason, that persuades me To any other trust, but that I am mad, Or else the lady's mad.--But here she comes. _Enter_ OLIVIA, _and a_ FRIAR. _Oli._ Blame not this haste of mine:--If you mean well, Now go with me, and with this holy man, Into the chantry by: there, before him, And underneath that consecrated roof, Plight me the full assurance of your faith; That my most jealous and too doubtful soul May live at peace: He shall conceal it, Whiles you are willing it shall come to note; What time we will our celebration keep According to my birth.--What do you say? _Seb._ I'll follow this good man, and go with you; And, having sworn truth, ever will be true. _Oli._ Then lead the way, good father: [_Exit_ FRIAR. And heavens so shine, That they may fairly note this act of mine! [_Exeunt._ 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.

Falls dies so ist... Gib mir deine Hand, und lass mich dich in deinen Frauenkleidern sehen. Orsino nähert sich Olivias Haus in Begleitung von Viola und seinen Männern. Die illyrischen Gesetzeshüter kommen herein und suchen nach Orsino, während sie Antonio mit sich schleppen. Orsino, der vor langer Zeit gegen Antonio kämpfte, erkennt ihn als ehrenwerten Feind. Er fragt Antonio, was ihn veranlasst hat, auf Orsinos Gebiet zu kommen, wo Antonio wusste, dass er in Gefahr sein würde. Antonio antwortet, indem er die Geschichte erzählt, wie er Sebastian gerettet, sich mit ihm angefreundet und ihn in diesem feindlichen Land beschützt hat. Er greift Cesario an, den er weiterhin für Sebastian hält, und behauptet, dass Sebastian sein Geld gestohlen und abgestritten hat, ihn zu kennen. Viola und Orsino sind beide verwirrt, denn Viola kennt Antonio tatsächlich nicht. Olivia tritt ein und spricht mit Cesario und glaubt auch, dass er Sebastian ist, den sie gerade geheiratet hat. Orsino, wütend über Cesarios scheinbaren Verrat, droht damit, ihn mit sich fortzunehmen und zu töten. Viola gibt sich geschlagen und bereitet sich darauf vor, mit Orsino in den Tod zu gehen und sagt, dass sie nur ihn liebt. Olivia ist geschockt und glaubt, dass ihr neuer Ehepartner sie verrät. Sie ruft den Priester herein, der denkt, dass der junge Mann vor ihm Sebastian ist, und bezeugt, dass er Olivia gerade mit dem jungen Mann vermählt hat. Orsino ordnet an, dass Olivia und Cesario gemeinsam gehen und nie wieder vor ihm erscheinen sollen. Plötzlich tritt Sir Andrew ein, verletzt und bittet um einen Arzt. Er sagt, dass er und Sir Toby gerade mit Orsinos Diener, Cesario, gekämpft haben. Sir Andrew beschuldigt Cesario des Angriffs, aber die verwirrte Viola antwortet, dass sie nicht verantwortlich ist. Olivia befiehlt Sir Andrew und Sir Toby, sich ärztlich behandeln zu lassen. Schließlich erscheint Sebastian und entschuldigt sich bei Olivia, dass er Sir Toby und Sir Andrew verprügelt hat. Als er Antonio erkennt und seine Schwester noch nicht sieht, ruft Sebastian freudig aus, wie froh er ist, ihn zu sehen. Benommen starren alle anderen auf Sebastian und Viola, die sich schließlich erkennen. Sie befragen einander mit einer Flut von Fragen über ihre Herkunft und Familiengeschichte. Schließlich glauben sie, dass sie ihre verlorenen Geschwister gefunden haben. Viola sagt aufgeregt zu Sebastian, er solle warten, bis sie ihre Frauenkleidung wieder angezogen hat - und plötzlich wird allen klar, dass Cesario eine Frau ist. Orsino, der erkennt, dass Olivia Sebastian geheiratet hat, scheint nicht sonderlich unglücklich darüber, sie zu verlieren. Er wendet sich wieder Viola zu und erinnert sie daran, dass sie verkleidet als Junge ihm oft ihre Liebe geschworen hat. Viola bekräftigt ihre Liebe, und Orsino bittet sie, sich in weiblichen Gewändern zu zeigen. Sie erzählt ihm, dass ihre Kleider bei einem Seemann versteckt sind, der jetzt bei Malvolio dient. Plötzlich erinnern sich alle an das, was mit Malvolio passiert ist. Feste und Fabian kommen mit Malvolios Brief herein, der aus seiner Zelle geliefert wurde. Auf Olivias Befehl liest Feste ihn laut vor. Malvolio schreibt, dass der Brief, der scheinbar von Olivia an ihn geschrieben wurde, sein Verhalten erklären und beweisen wird, dass er nicht verrückt ist. Als Olivia erkennt, dass Malvolio's Schrift nicht wie die eines Verrückten aussieht, ordnet sie an, dass er zu ihnen gebracht wird. Malvolio wird hereingebracht, und er gibt Olivia wütend den Brief, den Maria gefälscht hat, und verlangt zu wissen, warum er so schlecht behandelt wurde. Olivia erkennt Marias Handschrift und leugnet, ihn geschrieben zu haben, versteht aber, was passiert sein muss. Fabian unterbricht, um allen zu erklären, wie - und warum - der Trick gespielt wurde. Er erwähnt beiläufig, dass Sir Toby gerade Maria geheiratet hat. Malvolio, immer noch wütend, schwört Rache und geht abrupt. Orsino schickt jemanden hinter Malvolio her, um Frieden zu schließen und Violas weibliche Kleidung zu finden. Dann kündigt er an, dass die Doppelhochzeit bald gefeiert wird. Alle gehen hinaus, außer Feste, der ein letztes Lied singt, eine seltsam melancholische Melodie über das Erwachsenwerden und Altwerden, und 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. Chapter: 19. GUNNAR COMES INTO THE STORY There was a man whose name was Gunnar. He was one of Unna's kinsmen, and his mother's name was Rannveig (1). Gunnar's father was named Hamond (2). Gunnar Hamond's son dwelt at Lithend, in the Fleetlithe. He was a tall man in growth, and a strong man -- best skilled in arms of all men. He could cut or thrust or shoot if he chose as well with his left as with his right hand, and he smote so swiftly with his sword, that three seemed to flash through the air at once. He was the best shot with the bow of all men, and never missed his mark. He could leap more than his own height, with all his war-gear, and as far backwards as forwards. He could swim like a seal, and there was no game in which it was any good for any one to strive with him; and so it has been said that no man was his match. He was handsome of feature, and fair skinned. His nose was straight, and a little turned up at the end. He was blue-eyed and bright-eyed, and ruddy-cheeked. His hair thick, and of good hue, and hanging down in comely curls. The most courteous of men was he, of sturdy frame and strong will, bountiful and gentle, a fast friend, but hard to please when making them. He was wealthy in goods. His brother's name was Kolskegg; he was a tall strong man, a noble fellow, and undaunted in everything. Another brother's name was Hjort; he was then in his childhood. Orm Skogarnef was a base- born brother of Gunnar's; he does not come into this story. Arnguda was the name of Gunnar's sister. Hroar, the priest at Tongue, had her to wife (3). ENDNOTES: (1) She was the daughter of Sigfuss, the son of Sighvat the Red; he was slain at Sandhol Ferry. (2) He was the son of Gunnar Baugsson, after whom Gunnar's holt is called. Hamond's mother's name was Hrafnhilda. She was the daughter of Storolf Heing's son. Storolf was brother to Hrafn the Speaker of the Law, the son of Storolf was Orin the Strong. (3) He was the son of Uni the Unborn, Gardar's son who found Iceland. Arnguda's son was Hamond the Halt, who dwelt at Hamondstede. 20. OF NJAL AND HIS CHILDREN There was a man whose name was Njal. He was the son of Thorgeir Gelling, the son of Thorolf. Njal's mother's name was Asgerda (1). Njal dwelt at Bergthorsknoll in the land-isles; he had another homestead on Thorolfsfell. Njal was wealthy in goods, and handsome of face; no beard grew on his chin. He was so great a lawyer, that his match was not to be found. Wise too he was, and foreknowing and foresighted (2). Of good counsel, and ready to give it, and all that he advised men was sure to be the best for them to do. Gentle and generous, he unravelled every man's knotty points who came to see him about them. Bergthora was his wife's name; she was Skarphedinn's daughter, a very high- spirited, brave-hearted woman, but somewhat hard-tempered. They had six children, three daughters and three sons, and they all come afterwards into this story. ENDNOTES: (1) She was the daughter of Lord Ar the Silent. She had come out hither to Iceland from Norway, and taken land to the west of Markfleet, between Auldastone and Selialandsmull. Her son was Holt-Thorir, the father of Thorleif Crow, from whom the Wood-dwellers are sprung, and of Thorgrim the Tall, and Skorargeir. (2) This means that Njal was one of those gifted beings who, according to the firm belief of that age, had a more than human insight into things about to happen. It answers very nearly to the Scottish "second sight." 21. UNNA GOES TO SEE GUNNAR Now it must be told how Unna had lost all her ready money. She made her way to Lithend, and Gunnar greeted his kinswoman well. She stayed there that night, and the next morning they sat out of doors and talked. The end of their talk was, that she told him how heavily she was pressed for money. "This is a bad business," he said. "What help wilt thou give me out of my distress?" she asked. He answered, "Take as much money as thou needest from what I have out at interest." "Nay," she said, "I will not waste thy goods." "What then dost thou wish?" "I wish thee to get back my goods out of Hrut's hands," she answered. "That, methinks, is not likely," said he, "when thy father could not get them back, and yet he was a great lawyer, but I know little about law." She answered, "Hrut pushed that matter through rather by boldness than by law; besides, my father was old, and that was why men thought it better not to drive things to the uttermost. And now there is none of my kinsmen to take this suit up if thou hast not daring enough." "I have courage enough," he replied, "to get these goods back; but I do not know how to take the suit up." "Well!" she answered, "go and see Njal of Bergthorsknoll, he will know how to give thee advice. Besides, he is a great friend of thine." "'Tis like enough he will give me good advice, as he gives it to every one else," says Gunnar. So the end of their talk was, that Gunnar undertook her cause, and gave her the money she needed for her housekeeping, and after that she went home. Now Gunnar rides to see Njal, and he made him welcome, and they began to talk at once. Then Gunnar said, "I am come to seek a bit of good advice from thee." Njal replied, "Many of my friends are worthy of this, but still I think I would take more pains for none than for thee." Gunnar said, "I wish to let thee know that I have undertaken to get Unna's goods back from Hrut." "A very hard suit to undertake," said Njal, "and one very hazardous how it will go; but still I will get it up for thee in the way I think likeliest to succeed, and the end will be good if thou breakest none of the rules I lay down; if thou dost, thy life is in danger." "Never fear; I will break none of them," said Gunnar. Then Njal held his peace for a little while, and after that he spoke as follows: -- 22. NJAL'S ADVICE "I have thought over the suit, and it will do so. Thou shalt ride from home with two men at thy back. Over all thou shalt have a great rough cloak, and under that, a russet kirtle of cheap stuff, and under all, thy good clothes. Thou must take a small axe in thy hand, and each of you must have two horses, one fat, the other lean. Thou shalt carry hardware and smith's work with thee hence, and ye must ride off early to-morrow morning, and when ye are come across Whitewater westwards, mind and slouch thy hat well over thy brows. Then men will ask who is this tall man, and thy mates shall say, `Here is Huckster Hedinn the Big, a man from Eyjafirth, who is going about with smith's work for sale.' This Hedinn is ill-tempered and a chatterer -- a fellow who thinks he alone knows everything. Very often he snatches back his wares, and flies at men if everything is not done as he wishes. So thou shalt ride west to Borgarfirth offering all sorts of wares for sale, and be sure often to cry off thy bargains, so that it will be noised abroad that Huckster Hedinn is the worst of men to deal with, and that no lies have been told of his bad behaviour. So thou shalt ride to Northwaterdale, and to Hrutfirth, and Laxriverdale, till thou comest to Hauskuldstede. There thou must stay a night, and sit in the lowest place, and hang thy head down. Hauskuld will tell them all not to meddle nor make with Huckster Hedinn, saying he is a rude unfriendly fellow. Next morning thou must be off early and go to the farm nearest Hrutstede. There thou must offer thy goods for sale, praising up all that is worst, and tinkering up the faults. The master of the house will pry about and find out the faults. Thou must snatch the wares away from him, and speak ill to him. He will say, 'twas not to be hoped that thou wouldst behave well to him, when thou behavest ill to every one else. Then thou shalt fly at him, though it is not thy wont, but mind and spare thy strength, that thou mayest not be found out. Then a man will be sent to Hrutstede to tell Hrut he had best come and part you. He will come at once and ask thee to his house, and thou must accept his offer. Thou shalt greet Hrut and he will answer well. A place will be given thee on the lower bench over against Hrut's high seat. He will ask if thou art from the North, and thou shalt answer that thou art a man of Eyjafirth. He will go on to ask if there are very many famous men there. `Shabby fellows enough and to spare,' thou must answer. `Dost thou know Reykiardale and the parts about?' he will ask. To which thou must answer, `I know all Iceland by heart.' "`Are there any stout champions left in Reykiardale?' he will ask. `Thieves and scoundrels,' thou shalt answer. Then Hrut will smile and think it sport to listen. You two will go on to talk of the men in the Eastfirth Quarter, and thou must always find something to say against them. At last your talk will come Rangrivervale, and then thou must say, there is small choice of men left in those parts since Fiddle Mord died. At the same time sing some stave to please Hrut, for I know thou art a skald. Hrut will ask what makes thee say there is never a man to come in Mord's place? and then thou must answer, that he was so wise a man and so good a taker up of suits, that he never made a false step in upholding his leadership. He will ask, `Dost thou know how matters fared between me and him?' "`I know all about it,' thou must reply, `he took thy wife from thee, and thou hadst not a word to say.' "Then Hrut will ask, `Dost thou not think it was some disgrace to him when he could not get back his goods, though he set the suit on foot?' "`I can answer thee that well enough,' thou must say. `Thou challengedst him to single combat; but he was old, and so his friends advised him not to fight with thee, and then they let the suit fall to the ground.' "`True enough,' Hrut will say. `I said so, and that passed for law among foolish men; but the suit might have been taken up again at another Thing if he had the heart.' "`I know all that,' thou must say. "Then he will ask, `Dost thou know anything about law?' "`Up in the North I am thought to know something about it,' thou shalt say. `But still I should like thee to tell me how this suit should be taken up.' "`What suit dost thou mean?' he will ask. "`A suit,' thou must answer, `which does not concern me. I want to know how a man must set to work who wishes to get back Unna's dower.' "Then Hrut will say, `In this suit I must be summoned so that I can hear the summons, or I must be summoned here in my lawful house.' "`Recite the summons, then,' thou must say, 'and I will say it after thee.' "Then Hrut will summon himself; and mind and pay great heed to every word he says. After that Hrut will bid thee repeat the summons, and thou must do so, and say it all wrong, so that no more than every other word is right. "Then Hrut will smile and not mistrust thee, but say that scarce a word is right. Thou must throw the blame on thy companions, and say they put thee out, and then thou must ask him to say the words first, word by word, and to let thee say the words after him. He will give thee leave, and summon himself in the suit, and thou shalt summon after him there and then, and this time say every word right. When it is done, ask Hrut if that were rightly summoned, and he will answer, `There is no flaw to be found in it.' Then thou shalt say in a loud voice, so that thy companions may hear, `I summon thee in the suit which Unna, Mord's daughter, has made over to me with her plighted hand.' "But when men are sound asleep, you shall rise and take your bridles and saddles, and tread softly, and go out of the house, and put your saddles on your fat horses in the fields, and so ride off on them, but leave the others behind you. You must ride up into the hills away from the home pastures and stay there three nights, for about so long will they seek you. After that ride home south, riding always by night and resting by day. As for us, we will then ride this summer to the Thing, and help thee in thy suit." So Gunnar thanked Njal, and first of all rode home. 23. HUCKSTER HEDINN. Gunnar rode from home two nights afterwards, and two men with him; they rode along until they got on Bluewoodheath and then men on horseback met them and asked who that tall man might be of whom so little was seen. But his companions said it was Huckster Hedinn. Then the others said a worse was not to be looked for behind, when such a man as he went before. Hedinn at once made as though he would have set upon them, but yet each went their way. So Gunnar went on doing everything as Njal had laid it down for him, and when he came to Hauskuldstede he stayed there the night, and thence he went down the dale till he came to the next farm to Hrutstede. There he offered his wares for sale, and Hedinn fell at once upon the farmer. This was told to Hrut, and he sent for Hedinn, and Hedinn went at once to see Hrut, and had a good welcome. Hrut seated him over against himself, and their talk went pretty much as Njal had guessed; but when they came to talk of Rangrivervale, and Hrut asked about the men there, Gunnar sung this stave -- "Men in sooth are slow to find -- So the people speak by stealth, Often this hath reached my ears -- All through Rangar's rolling vales. Still I trow that Fiddle Mord, Tried his hand in fight of yore; Sure was never gold-bestower, Such a man for might and wit." Then Hrut said, "Thou art a skald, Hedinn. But hast thou never heard how things went between me and Mord?" Then Hedinn sung another stave -- "Once I ween I heard the rumour, How the Lord of rings (1) bereft thee; From thine arms earth's offspring (2) tearing, Trickfull he and trustful thou. Then the men, the buckler-bearers, Begged the mighty gold-begetter, Sharp sword oft of old he reddened, Not to stand in strife with thee." So they went on, till Hrut, in answer told him how the suit must be taken up, and recited the summons. Hedinn repeated it all wrong, and Hrut burst out laughing, and had no mistrust. Then he said, Hrut must summon once more, and Hrut did so. Then Hedinn repeated the summons a second time, and this time right, and called his companions to witness how he summoned Hrut in a suit which Unna, Mord's daughter, had made over to him with her plighted hand. At night he went to sleep like other men, but as soon as ever Hrut was sound asleep, they took their clothes and arms, and went out and came to their horses, and rode off across the river, and so up along the bank by Hiardarholt till the dale broke off among the hills, and so there they are upon the fells between Laxriverdale and Hawkdale, having got to a spot where no one could find them unless he had fallen on them by chance. Hauskuld wakes up that night at Hauskuldstede, and roused all his household. "I will tell you my dream," he said. "I thought I saw a great bear go out of this house, and I knew at once this beast's match was not to be found; two cubs followed him, wishing well to the bear, and they all made for Hrutstede and went into the house there. After that I woke. Now I wish to ask if any of you saw aught about yon tall man." Then one man answered him, "I saw how a golden fringe and a bit of scarlet cloth peeped out at his arm, and on his right arm he had a ring of gold." Hauskuld said, "This beast is no man's fetch, but Gunnar's of Lithend, and now methinks I see all about it. Up! let us ride to Hrutstede," And they did so. Hrut lay in his locked bed, and asks who have come there? Hauskuld tells who he is, and asked what guests might be there in the house? "Only Huckster Hedinn is here," says Hrut. "A broader man across the back, it will be, I fear," says Hauskuld, "I guess here must have been Gunnar of Lithend." "Then there has been a pretty trial of cunning," says Hrut. "What has happened?" says Hauskuld. "I told him how to take up Unna's suit, and I summoned myself and he summoned after, and now he can use this first step in the suit, and it is right in law." "There has, indeed, been a great falling off of wit on one side," said Hauskuld, "and Gunnar cannot have planned it all by himself; Njal must be at the bottom of this plot, for there is not his match for wit in all the land." Now they look for Hedinn, but he is already off and away; after that they gathered folk, and looked for them three days, but could not find them. Gunnar rode south from the fell to Hawkdale and so east of Skard, and north to Holtbeaconheath, and so on until he got home. ENDNOTES: (1) "Lord of rings," a periphrasis for a chief, that is, Mord. (2) "Earth's offspring," a periphrasis for woman, that is, Unna. 24. GUNNAR AND HRUT STRIVE AT THE THING. Gunnar rode to the Althing, and Hrut and Hauskuld rode thither too with a very great company. Gunnar pursues his suit, and began by calling on his neighbours to bear witness, but Hrut and his brother had it in their minds to make an onslaught on him, but they mistrusted their strength. Gunnar next went to the court of the men of Broadfirth, and bade Hrut listen to his oath and declaration of the cause of the suit, and to all the proofs which he was about to bring forward. After that he took his oath, and declared his case. After that he brought forward his witnesses of the summons, along with his witnesses that the suit had been handed over to him. All this time Njal was not at the court. Now Gunnar pursued his suit till he called on the defendant to reply. Then Hrut took witness, and said the suit was naught, and that there was a flaw in the pleading; he declared that it had broken down because Gunnar had failed to call those three witnesses which ought to have been brought before the court. The first, that which was taken before the marriage-bed, the second, before the man's door, the third, at the Hill of Laws. By this time Njal was come to the court and said the suit and pleading might still be kept alive if they chose to strive in that way. "No," says Gunnar, "I will not have that; I will do the same to Hrut as he did to Mord my kinsman; or, are those brothers Hrut and Hauskuld so near that they may hear my voice." "Hear it we can," says Hrut. "What dost thou wish?" Gunnar said, "Now all men here present be ear-witnesses, that I challenge thee Hrut to single combat, and we shall fight to-day on the holm, which is here in Oxwater. But if thou wilt not fight with me, then pay up all the money this very day." After that Gunnar sung a stave -- "Yes, so must it be, this morning -- Now my mind is full of fire -- Hrut with me on yonder island Raises roar of helm and shield. All that bear my words bear witness, Warriors grasping Woden's guard, Unless the wealthy wight down payeth Dower of wife with flowing veil." After that Gunnar went away from the court with all his followers. Hrut and Hauskuld went home too, and the suit was never pursued nor defended from that day forth. Hrut said, as soon as he got inside the booth, "This has never happened to me before, that any man has offered me combat and I have shunned it." "Then thou must mean to fight," says Hauskuld, "but that shall not be if I have my way; for thou comest no nearer to Gunnar than Mord would have come to thee, and we had better both of us pay up the money to Gunnar." After that the brothers asked the householders of their own country what they would lay down, and they one and all said they would lay down as much as Hrut wished. "Let us go then," says Hauskuld, "to Gunnar's booth, and pay down the money out of hand." That was told to Gunnar, and he went out into the doorway of the booth, and Hauskuld said, "Now it is thine to take the money." Gunnar said, "Pay it down, then, for I am ready to take it." So they paid down the money truly out of hand, and then Hauskuld said, "Enjoy it now, as thou hast gotten it." Then Gunnar sang another stave: -- "Men who wield the blade of battle Hoarded wealth may well enjoy, Guileless gotten this at least, Golden meed I fearless take; But if we for woman's quarrel, Warriors born to brandish sword, Glut the wolf with manly gore, Worse the lot of both would be." Hrut answered, "Ill will be thy meed for this." "Be that as it may," says Gunnar. Then Hauskuld and his brother went home to their booth, and he had much upon his mind, and said to Hrut, "Will this unfairness of Gunnar's never be avenged?" "Not so," says Hrut; "'twill be avenged on him sure enough, but we shall have no share nor profit in that vengeance. And after all it is most likely that he will turn to our stock to seek for friends." After that they left off speaking of the matter. Gunnar showed Njal the money, and he said, "The suit has gone off well." "Ay," says Gunnar, "but it was all thy doing." Now men rode home from the Thing, and Gunnar got very great honour from the suit. Gunnar handed over all the money to Unna, and would have none of it, but said he thought he ought to look more for help from her and her kin hereafter than from other men. She said, so it should be. 25. UNNA'S SECOND WEDDING There was a man named Valgard, he kept house at Hof by Rangriver, he was the son of Jorund the Priest, and his brother was Wolf Aurpriest (1). Those brothers, Wolf Aurpriest, and Valgard the Guileful, set off to woo Unna, and she gave herself away to Valgard without the advice of any of her kinsfolk. But Gunnar and Njal, and many others thought ill of that, for he was a cross-grained man and had few friends. They begot between them a son, whose name was Mord, and he is long in this story. When he was grown to man's estate, he worked ill to his kinsfolk but worst of all to Gunnar. He was a crafty man in his temper, but spiteful in his counsels. Now we will name Njal's sons. Skarphedinn was the eldest of them. He was a tall man in growth, and strong withal; a good swordsman; he could swim like a seal, the swiftest-looted of men, and bold and dauntless; he had a great flow of words and quick utterance; a good skald too; but still for the most part he kept himself well in hand; his hair was dark brown, with crisp curly locks; he had good eyes; his features were sharp, and his face ashen pale, his nose turned up and his front teeth stuck out, and his mouth was very ugly. Still he was the most soldierlike of men. Grim was the name of Njal's second son. He was fair of face and wore his hair long. His hair was dark, and he was comelier to look on than Skarphedinn. A tall strong man. Helgi was the name of Njal's third son. He too was fair of face and had fine hair. He was a strong man and well-skilled in arms. He was a man of sense and knew well how to behave. They were all unwedded at that time, Njal's sons. Hauskuld was the fourth of Njal's sons. He was baseborn. His mother was Rodny, and she was Hauskuld's daughter, the sister of Ingialld of the Springs. Njal asked Skarphedinn one day if he would take to himself a wife. He bade his father settle the matter. Then Njal asked for his hand Thorhilda, the daughter of Ranvir of Thorolfsfell, and that was why they had another homestead there after that. Skarphedinn got Thorhilda, but he stayed still with his father to the end. Grim wooed Astrid of Deepback; she was a widow and very wealthy. Grim got her to wife, and yet lived on with Njal. ENDNOTES: (1) The son of Ranveig the Silly, the son of Valgard, the son of Aefar, the son of Vemund Wordstopper, the son of Thorolf Hooknose, the son of Thrand the Old, the son of Harold Hilditann, the son of Hraereck Ringscatterer. The mother of Harold Hilditann, was Aud the daughter of Ivar Widefathom, the son of Halfdan the Clever. The brother of Valgard the Guileful was Wolf Aurpriest -- from whom the Pointdwellers sprung -- Wolf Aurpriest was the father of Swart, the father of Lodmund, the father of Sigfus, the father of Saemund the Wise. But from Valgard is sprung Kolbein the Young. 26. OF ASGRIM AND HIS CHILDREN There was a man named Asgrim (1). He was Ellidagrim's son. The brother of Asgrim Ellidagrim's son was Sigfus (2). Gauk Trandil's son was Asgrim's foster-brother, who is said to have been the fairest man of his day, and best skilled in all things; but matters went ill with them, for Asgrim slew Gauk. Asgrim had two sons, and each of them was named Thorhall. They were both hopeful men. Grim was the name of another of Asgrim's sons, and Thorhalla was his daughter's name. She was the fairest of women, and well behaved. Njal came to talk with his son Helgi, and said, "I have thought of a match for thee, if thou wilt follow my advice." "That I will surely," says he, "for I know that thou both meanest me well, and canst do well for me; but whither hast thou turned thine eyes." "We will go and woo Asgrim Ellidagrim's son's daughter, for that is the best choice we can make." ENDNOTES: (1) Ellidagrim was Asgrim's son, Aundot the Crow's son. His mother's name was Jorunn, and she was the daughter of Teit, the son of Kettlebjorn the Old of Mossfell. The mother of Teit was Helga, daughter of Thord Skeggi's son, Hrapp's son, Bjorn's son the Roughfooted, Grim's son, the Lord of Sogn in Norway. The mother of Jorunn was Olof Harvest-heal, daughter of Bodvar, Viking-Kari's son. (2) His daughter was Thorgerda, mother of Sigfus, the father of Saemund the Learned. 27. HELGI NJAL'S SON'S WOOING A little after they rode out across Thurso water, and fared till they came into Tongue. Asgrim was at home, and gave them a hearty welcome; and they were there that night. Next morning they began to talk, and then Njal raised the question of the wooing, and asked for Thorhalla for his son Helgi's hand. Asgrim answered that well, and said there were no men with whom he would be more willing to make this bargain than with them. They fell a-talking then about terms, and the end of it was that Asgrim betrothed his daughter to Helgi, and the bridal day was named. Gunnar was at that feast, and many other of the bestmen. After the feast Njal offered to foster in his house Thorhall, Asgrim's son, and he was with Njal long after. He loved Njal more than his own father. Njal taught him law, so that he became the greatest lawyer in Iceland in those days. 28. HALLVARD COMES OUT TO ICELAND There came a ship out from Norway, and ran into Arnbael's Oyce (1), and the master of the ship was Hallvard the White, a man from the Bay (2). He went to stay at Lithend, and was with Gunnar that winter, and was always asking him to fare abroad with him. Gunnar spoke little about it, but yet said more unlikely things might happen; and about spring he went over to Bergthorsknoll to find out from Njal whether he thought it a wise step in him to go abroad. "I think it is wise," says Njal; "they will think thee there an honourable man, as thou art." "Wilt thou perhaps take my goods into thy keeping while I am away, for I wish my brother Kolskegg to fare with me; but I would that thou shouldst see after my household along with my mother." "I will not throw anything in the way of that," says Njal; "lean on me in this thing as much as thou likest." "Good go with thee for thy words," says Gunnar, and he rides then home. The Easterling (3) fell again to talk with Gunnar that he should fare abroad. Gunnar asked if he had ever sailed to other lands? He said he had sailed to every one of them that lay between Norway and Russia, and so, too, I have sailed to Biarmaland (4). "Wilt thou sail with me eastward ho?" says Gunnar. "That I will of a surety," says he. Then Gunnar made up his mind to sail abroad with him. Njal took all Gunnar's goods into his keeping. ENDNOTES: (1) "Oyce," a north country word for the mouth of a river, from the Icelandic. (2) "The Bay" (comp. ch. ii., and other passages), the name given to the great bay in the east of Norway, the entrance of which from the North Sea is the Cattegat, and at the end of which is the Christiania Firth. The name also applies to the land round the Bay, which thus formed a district, the boundary of which, on the one side, was the promontory called Lindesnaes, or the Naze, and on the other, the Gota-Elf, the river on which the Swedish town of Gottenburg stands, and off the mouth of which lies the island of Hisingen, mentioned shortly after. (3) Easterling, i.e., the Norseman Hallvard. (4) Permia, the country one comes to after doubling the North Cape. 29. GUNNAR GOES ABROAD So Gunnar fared abroad, and Kolskegg with him. They sailed first to Tonsberg (1), and were there that winter. There had then been a shift of rulers in Norway. Harold Grayfell was then dead, and so was Gunnhillda. Earl Hacon the Bad, Sigurd's son, Hacon's son, Gritgarth's son, then ruled the realm. The mother of Hacon was Bergliot, the daughter of Earl Thorir. Her mother was Olof Harvest-heal. She was Harold Fair-hair's daughter. Hallvard asks Gunnar if he would make up his mind to go to Earl Hacon? "No; I will not do that," says Gunnar. "Hast thou ever a long- ship?" "I have two," he says. "Then I would that we two went on warfare; and let us get men to go with us." "I will do that," says Hallvard. After that they went to the Bay, and took with them two ships, and fitted them out thence. They had good choice of men, for much praise was said of Gunnar. "Whither wilt thou first fare?" says Gunnar. "I wish to go south-east to Hisingen, to see my kinsman Oliver," says Hallvard. "What dost thou want of him?" says Gunnar. He answered, "He is a fine brave fellow, and he will be sure to get us some more strength for our voyage." "Then let us go thither," says Gunnar. So, as soon as they were "boun," they held on east to Hisingen, and had there a hearty welcome. Gunnar had only been there a short time ere Oliver made much of him. Oliver asks about his voyage, and Hallvard says that Gunnar wishes to go a-warfaring to gather goods for himself. "There's no use thinking of that," says Oliver, "when ye have no force." "Well," says Hallvard, "then you may add to it." "So I do mean to strengthen Gunnar somewhat," says Oliver; "and though thou reckonest thyself my kith and kin, I think there is more good in him." "What force, now, wilt thou add to ours?" he asks. "Two long-ships, one with twenty, and the other with thirty seats for rowers." "Who shall man them?" asks Hallvard. "I will man one of them with my own house-carles, and the freemen around shall man the other. But still I have found out that strife has come into the river, and I know not whether ye two will be able to get away; for they are in the river." "Who?" says Hallvard. "Brothers twain," says Oliver; "one's name is Vandil, and the other's Karli, sons of Sjolf the Old, east away out of Gothland." Hallvard told Gunnar that Oliver had added some ships to theirs, and Gunnar was glad at that. They busked them for their voyage thence, till they were "allboun." Then Gunnar and Hallvard went before Oliver, and thanked him; he bade them fare warily for the sake of those brothers. ENDNOTES: (1) A town at the mouth of the Christiania Firth. It was a great place for traffic in early times, and was long the only mart in the south-east of Norway. 30. GUNNAR GOES A-SEA-ROVING So Gunnar held on out of the river, and he and Kolskegg were both on board one ship. But Hallvard was on board another. Now, they see the ships before them, and then Gunnar spoke, and said, "Let us be ready for anything if they turn towards us! but else let us have nothing to do with them." So they did that, and made all ready on board their ships. The others parted their ships asunder, and made a fareway between the ships. Gunnar fared straight on between the ships, but Vandil caught up a grappling-iron, and cast it between their ships and Gunnar's ship, and began at once to drag it towards him. Oliver had given Gunnar a good sword; Gunnar now drew it, and had not yet put on his helm. He leapt at once on the forecastle of Vandil's ship, and gave one man his death-blow. Karli ran his ship alongside the other side of Gunnar's ship, and hurled a spear athwart the deck, and aimed at him about the waist. Gunnar sees this, and turned him about so quickly that no eye could follow him, and caught the spear with his left hand, and hurled it back at Karli's ship, and that man got his death who stood before it. Kolskegg snatched up a grapnel and cast it at Karli's ship, and the fluke fell inside the hold, and went out through one of the planks and in rushed the coal-blue sea, and all the men sprang on board other ships. Now Gunnar leapt back to his own ship, and then Hallvard came up, and now a great battle arose. They saw now that their leader was unflinching, and every man did as well as he could. Sometimes Gunnar smote with the sword, and sometimes he hurled the spear, and many a man had his bane at his hand. Kolskegg backed him well. As for Karli, he hastened in a ship to his brother Vandil, and thence they fought that day. During the day Kolskegg took a rest on Gunnar's ship, and Gunnar sees that. Then he sung a song -- "For the eagle ravine-eager, Raven of my race, to-day Better surely hast thou catered, Lord of gold, than for thyself; Here the morn come greedy ravens Many any a rill of wolf (1) to sup, But thee burning thirst down-beareth, Prince of battle's Parliament!" After that Kolskegg took a beaker full of mead, and drank it off, and went on fighting afterwards; and so it came about that those brothers sprang up on the ship of Vandil and his brother, and Kolskegg went on one side, and Gunnar on the other. Against Gunnar came Vandil, and smote at once at him with his sword, and the blow fell on his shield. Gunnar gave the shield a twist as the sword pierced it, and broke it short off at the hilt. Then Gunnar smote back at Vandil, and three swords seemed to be aloft, and Vandil could not see how to shun the blow. Then Gunnar cut both his legs from under him, and at the same time Kolskegg ran Karli through with a spear. After that they took great war spoil. Thence they held on south to Denmark, and thence east to Smoland, (2) and had victory wherever they went. They did not come back in autumn. The next summer they held on to Reval, and fell in there with sea-rovers, and fought at once, and won the fight. After that they steered east to Osel,(3) and lay there somewhile under a ness. There they saw a man coming down from the ness above them; Gunnar went on shore to meet the man, and they had a talk. Gunnar asked him his name, and he said it was Tofi. Gunnar asked again what he wanted. "Thee I want to see," says the man. "Two warships lie on the other side under the ness, and I will tell thee who command them: two brothers are the captains -- one's name is Hallgrim, and the other's Kolskegg. I know them to be mighty men of war; and I know too that they have such good weapons that the like are not to be had. Hallgrim has a bill which he had made by seething- spells; and this is what the spells say, that no weapon shall give him his death-blow save that bill. That thing follows it too that it is known at once when a man is to be slain with that bill, for something sings in it so loudly that it may be heard along way off -- such a strong nature has that bill in it." Then Gunnar sang a song -- "Soon shall I that spearhead seize, And the bold sea-rover slay, Him whose blows on headpiece ring, Heaper up of piles of dead. Then on Endil's courser (4) bounding, O'er the sea-depths I will ride, While the wretch who spells abuseth, Life shall lose in Sigar's storm." (5) "Kolskegg has a short sword; that is also the best of weapons. Force, too, they have -- a third more than ye. They have also much goods, and have stowed them away on land, and I know clearly where they are. But they have sent a spy-ship off the ness, and they know all about you. Now they are getting themselves ready as fast as they can; and as soon as they are `boun,' they mean to run out against you. Now you have either to row away at once, or to busk yourselves as quickly as ye can; but if ye win the day then I will lead you to all their store of goods." Gunnar gave him a golden finger-ring, and went afterwards to his men and told them that war-ships lay on the other side of the ness, "and they know all about us; so let us take to our arms and busk us well, for now there is gain to be got." Then they busked them; and just when they were `boun' they see ships coming up to them. And now a fight sprung up between them, and they fought long, and many men fell. Gunnar slew many a man. Hallgrim and his men leapt on board Gunnar's ship. Gunnar turns to meet him, and Hallgrim thrust at him with his bill. There was a boom athwart the ship, and Gunnar leapt nimbly back over it. Gunnar's shield was just before the boom, and Hallgrim thrust his bill into it, and through it, and so on into the boom. Gunnar cut at Hallgrim's arm hard, and lamed the forearm, but the sword would not bite. Then down fell the bill, and Gunnar seized the bill, and thrust Hallgrim through, and then sang a song -- "Slain is he who spoiled the people, Lashing them with flashing steel; Heard have I how Hallgrim's magic Helm-rod forged in foreign land; All men know, of heart-strings doughty, How this bill hath come to me, Deft in fight, the wolf's dear feeder, Death alone us two shall part." And that vow Gunnar kept, in that he bore the bill while he lived. Those namesakes the two Kolskeggs fought together, and it was a near thing which would get the better of it. Then Gunnar came up, and gave the other Kolskegg his death-blow. After that the sea-rovers begged for mercy. Gunnar let them have that choice, and he let them also count the slain, and take the goods which the dead men owned, but he gave the others whom he spared their arms and their clothing, and bade them be off to the lands that fostered them. So they went off, and Gunnar took all the goods that were left behind. Tofi came to Gunner after the battle, and offered to lead him to that store of goods which the sea-rovers had stowed away, and said that it was both better and larger than that which they had already got. Gunnar said he was willing to go, and so he went ashore, and Tofi before him, to a wood, and Gunnar behind him. They came to a place where a great heap of wood was piled together. Tofi says the goods were under there, then they tossed off the wood, and found under it both gold and silver, clothes, and good weapons. They bore those goods to the ships, and Gunnar asks Tofi in what way he wished him to repay him. Tofi answered, "I am a Dansk man by race, and I wish thou wouldst bring me to my kinsfolk." Gunnar asks why he was there away east? "I was taken by sea-rovers," says Tofi, "and they put me on land here in Osel, and here I have been ever since." ENDNOTES: (1) Rill of wolf -- stream of blood. (2) A province of Sweden. (3) An island in the Baltic, off the coast of Esthonia. (4) "Endil's courser" -- periphrasis for a ship. (5) "Sigar's storm" -- periphrasis for a sea-fight. 31. GUNNAR GOES TO KING HAROLD GORM'S SON AND EARL HACON Gunnar took Tofi on board, and said to Kolskegg and Hallvard, "Now we will hold our course for the north lands." They were well pleased at that, and bade him have his way. So Gunnar sailed from the east with much goods. He had ten ships, and ran in with them to Heidarby in Denmark. King Harold Gorm's son was there up the country, and he was told about Gunnar, and how too that there was no man his match in all Iceland. He sent men to him to ask him to come to him, and Gunnar went at once to see the king, and the king made him a hearty welcome, and sat him down next to himself. Gunnar was there half a month. The king made himself sport by letting Gunnar prove himself in divers feats of strength against his men, and there were none that were his match even in one feat. Then the king said to Gunnar, "It seems to me as though thy peer is not to be found far or near," and the king offered to get Gunnar a wife, and to raise him to great power if he would settle down there. Gunnar thanked the king for his offer and said, "I will first of all sail back to Iceland to see my friends and kinsfolk." "Then thou wilt never come back to us," says the king. "Fate will settle that, lord," says Gunnar. Gunnar gave the king a good long-ship, and much goods besides, and the king gave him a robe of honour, and golden-seamed gloves, and a fillet with a knot of gold on it, and a Russian hat. Then Gunnar fared north to Hisingen. Oliver welcomed him with both hands, and he gave back to Oliver his ships, with their lading, and said that was his share of the spoil. Oliver took the goods, and said Gunnar was a good man and true, and bade him stay with him some while. Hallvard asked Gunnar if he had a mind to go to see Earl Hacon. Gunnar said that was near his heart, "for now I am somewhat proved, but then I was not tried at all when thou badest me do this before." After that they fared north to Drontheim to see Earl Hacon, and he gave Gunnar a hearty welcome, and bade him stay with him that winter, and Gunnar took that offer, and every man thought him a man of great worth. At Yule the Earl gave him a gold ring. Gunnar set his heart on Bergliota, the Earl's kinswoman, and it was often to be seen from the Earl's way, that he would have given her to him to wife if Gunnar had said anything about that. 32. GUNNAR COMES OUT TO ICELAND When the spring came, the Earl asks Gunnar what course he meant to take. He said he would go to Iceland. The Earl said that had been a bad year for grain, "and there will be little sailing out to Iceland, but still thou shalt have meal and timber both in thy ship." Gunnar fitted out his ship as early as he could, and Hallvard fared out with him and Kolskegg. They came out early in the summer, and made Arnbael's Oyce before the Thing met. Gunnar rode home from the ship, but got men to strip her and lay her up. But when they came home all men were glad to see them. They were blithe and merry to their household, nor had their haughtiness grown while they were away. Gunnar asks if Njal were at home; and he was told that he was at home; then he let them saddle his horse, and those brothers rode over to Bergthorsknoll. Njal was glad at their coming, and begged them to stay there that night, and Gunnar told him of his voyages. Njal said he was a man of the greatest mark, "and thou hast been much proved; but still thou wilt be more tried hereafter; for many will envy thee." "With all men I would wish to stand well," says Gunnar. "Much bad will happen," said Njal, "and thou wilt always have some quarrel to ward off." "So be it, then," says Gunnar, "so that I have a good ground on my side." "So will it be too," says Njal, "if thou hast not to smart for others." Njal asked Gunnar if he would ride to the Thing. Gunnar said he was going to ride thither, and asks Njal whether he were going to ride; but he said he would not ride thither, "and if I had my will thou wouldst do the like." Gunnar rode home, and gave Njal good gifts, and thanked him for the care he had taken of his goods. Kolskegg urged him on much to ride to the Thing, saying, "There thy honour will grow, for many will flock to see thee there." "That has been little to my mind," says Gunnar, "to make a show of myself; but I think it good and right to meet good and worthy men." Hallvard by this time was also come thither, and offered to ride to the Thing with them. 33. GUNNAR'S WOOING So Gunnar rode, and they all rode. But when they came to the Thing they were so well arrayed that none could match them in bravery; and men came out of every booth to wonder at them. Gunnar rode to the booths of the men of Rangriver, and was there with his kinsmen. Many men came to see Gunnar, and ask tidings of him; and he was easy and merry to all men, and told them all they wished to hear. It happened one day that Gunnar went away from the Hill of Laws, and passed by the booths of the men from Mossfell; then he saw a woman coming to meet him, and she was in goodly attire; but when they met she spoke to Gunnar at once. He took her greeting well, and asks what woman she might be. She told him her name was Hallgerda, and said she was Hauskuld's daughter, Dalakoll's son. She spoke up boldly to him, and bade him tell her of his voyages; but he said he would not gainsay her a talk. Then they sat them down and talked. She was so clad that she had on a red kirtle, and had thrown over her a scarlet cloak trimmed with needlework down to the waist. Her hair came down to her bosom, and was both fair and full. Gunnar was clad in the scarlet clothes which King Harold Gorm's son had given him; he had also the gold ring on his arm which Earl Hacon had given him. So they talked long out loud, and at last it came about that he asked whether she were unmarried. She said, so it was, "and there are not many who would run the risk of that." "Thinkest thou none good enough for thee?" "Not that," she says, "but I am said to be hard to please in husbands." "How wouldst thou answer, were I to ask for thee?" "That cannot be in thy mind," she says. "It is though," says he. "If thou hast any mind that way, go and see my father." After that they broke off their talk. Gunnar went straightway to the Dalesmen's booths, and met a man outside the doorway, and asks whether Hauskuld were inside the booth? The man says that he was. Then Gunnar went in, and Hauskuld and Hrut made him welcome. He sat down between them, and no one could find out from their talk that there had ever been any misunderstanding between them. At last Gunnar's speech turned thither; how these brothers would answer if he asked for Hallgerda? "Well," says Hauskuld, "if that is indeed thy mind." Gunnar says that he is in earnest, "but we so parted last time, that many would think it unlikely that we should ever be bound together." "How thinkest thou, kinsman Hrut?" says Hauskuld. Hrut answered, "Methinks this is no even match." "How dost thou make that out?" says Gunnar. Hrut spoke, "In this wise will I answer thee about this matter, as is the very truth. Thou art a brisk brave man well to do, and unblemished; but she is much mixed up with ill report, and I will not cheat thee in anything." "Good go with thee for thy words," says Gunnar, "but still I shall hold that for true, that the old feud weighs with ye, if ye will not let me make this match." "Not so," says Hrut, "'t is more because I see that thou art unable to help thyself; but though we make no bargain, we would still be thy friends." "I have talked to her about it," says Gunnar, "and it is not far from her mind." Hrut says, "I know that you have both set your hearts on this match; and, besides, ye two are those who run the most risk as to how it turns out." Hrut told Gunnar unasked all about Hallgerda's temper, and Gunnar at first thought that there was more than enough that was wanting; but at last it came about that they struck a bargain. Then Hallgerda was sent for, and they talked over the business when she was by, and now, as before, they made her betroth herself. The bridal feast was to be at Lithend, and at first they were to set about it secretly; but the end after all was that every one knew of it. Gunnar rode home from the Thing, and came to Bergthorsknoll, and told Njal of the bargain he had made. He took it heavily. Gunnar asks Njal why he thought this so unwise? "Because from her," says Njal, "will arise all kind of ill if she comes hither east." "Never shall she spoil our friendship," says Gunnar. "Ah! but yet that may come very near," says Njal; "and, besides, thou wilt have always to make atonement for her." Gunnar asked Njal to the wedding, and all those as well whom he wished should be at it from Njal's house. Njal promised to go; and after that Gunnar rode home, and then rode about the district to bid men to his wedding. 34. OF THRAIN SIGFUS' SON There was a man named Thrain, he was the son of Sigfus, the son of Sighvat the Red. He kept house at Gritwater on Fleetlithe. He was Gunnar's kinsman, and a man of great mark. He had to wife Thorhillda Skaldwife; she had a sharp tongue of her own, and was given to jeering. Thrain loved her little. He and his wife were bidden to the wedding, and she and Bergthora, Skarphedinn's daughter, Njal's wife, waited on the guests with meat and drink. Kettle was the name of the second son of Sigfus; he kept house in the Mark, east of Markfleet. He had to wife Thorgerda, Njal's daughter. Thorkell was the name of the third son of Sigfus; the fourth's name was Mord; the fifth's Lambi; the sixth's Sigmund; the seventh's Sigurd. These were all Gunnar's kinsmen, and great champions. Gunnar bade them all to the wedding. Gunnar had also bidden Valgard the Guileful, and Wolf Aurpriest, and their sons Runolf and Mord. Hauskuld and Hrut came to the wedding with a very great company, and the sons of Hauskuld, Thorleik, and Olof, were there; the bride, too, came along with them, and her daughter Thorgerda came also, and she was one of the fairest of women; she was then fourteen winters old. Many other women were with her, and besides there were Thorkatla Asgrim Ellidagrim's son's daughter, and Njal's two daughters, Thorgerda and Helga. Gunnar had already many guests to meet them, and he thus arranged his men. He sat on the middle of the bench, and on the inside, away from him, Thrain Sigfus' son, then Wolf Aurpriest, then Valgard the Guileful, then Mord and Runolf, then the other sons of Sigfus, Lambi sat outermost of them. Next to Gunnar on the outside, away from him, sat Njal, then Skarphedinn, then Helgi, then Grim, then Hauskuld Njal's son, then Hafr the Wise, then Ingialld from the Springs, then the sons of Thorir from Holt away east. Thorir would sit outermost of the men of mark, for every one was pleased with the seat he got. Hauskuld, the bride's father, sat on the middle of the bench over against Gunnar, but his sons sat on the inside away from him; Hrut sat on the outside away from Hauskuld, but it is not said how the others were placed. The bride sat in the middle of the cross bench on the dais; but on one hand of her sat her daughter Thorgerda, and on the other Thorkatla Asgrim Ellidagrim's son's daughter. Thorhillda went about waiting on the guests, and Bergthora bore the meat on the board. Now Thrain Sigfus' son kept staring at Thorgerda Glum's daughter; his wife Thorhillda saw this, and she got wroth, and made a couplet upon him. "Thrain," she says, "Gaping mouths are no wise good, Goggle eyne are in thy head." He rose at once up from the board, and said he would put Thorhillda away. "I will not bear her jibes and jeers any longer;" and he was so quarrelsome about this, that he would not be at the feast unless she were driven away. And so it was, that she went away; and now each man sat in his place, and they drank and were glad. Then Thrain began to speak, "I will not whisper about that which is in my mind. This I will ask thee, Hauskuld Dalakoll's son, wilt thou give me to wife Thorgerda, thy kinswoman?" "I do not know that," says Hauskuld; "methinks thou art ill parted from the one thou hadst before. But what kind of man is he, Gunnar?" Gunnar answers, "I will not say aught about the man, because he is near of kin; but say thou about him, Njal," says Gunnar, "for all men will believe it." Njal spoke, and said, "That is to be said of this man, that the man is well to do for wealth, and a proper man in all things. A man, too, of the greatest mark; so that ye may well make this match with him." Then Hauskuld spoke, "What thinkest thou we ought to do, kinsman Hrut?" "Thou mayst make the match, because it is an even one for her," says Hrut. Then they talk about the terms of the bargain, and are soon of one mind on all points. Then Gunnar stands up, and Thrain too, and they go to the cross bench. Gunnar asked that mother and daughter whether they would say yes to this bargain. They said they would find no fault with it, and Hallgerda betrothed her daughter. Then the places of the women were shifted again, and now Thorhalla sate between the brides. And now the feast sped on well, and when it was over, Hauskuld and his company ride west, but the men of Rangriver rode to their own abode. Gunnar gave many men gifts, and that made him much liked. Hallgerda took the housekeeping under her, and stood up for her rights in word and deed. Thorgerda took to housekeeping at Gritwater, and was a good housewife. 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.

19 - In diesem Kapitel wird Gunnar von Hlidarendi vorgestellt, ein praktisch unbesiegbarer Krieger von gleichmütiger und wahrer Weisheit. Er ist auch mit Unn verwandt. 20 - In diesem Kapitel wird Njal vorgestellt, ein glattrasierter Mann, wohlhabend im Besitz mit unglaublicher Kenntnis des Gesetzes. Er gilt als der beste Berater in Island. Seine Frau, Bergthora, hat einen harten Charakter und hat viele Söhne und Töchter mit Njal. 21 - Unn kommt zu Gunnar mit der Beschwerde, dass sie kein Geld mehr hat. Er bietet ihr so viel an, wie sie als Kredit will, aber sie drückt ihren Wunsch nach Hrutsstadir aus. Mord Gigja, ein großer Anwalt wie er war, hatte bereits erfolglos versucht, das Anwesen von Hrut zu entwenden, also findet Gunnar es unwahrscheinlich, dass Unn es jetzt schaffen wird. Unn schickt ihn zu Njal, einem guten Freund von Gunnar, um Rat. Njal ist "eine Weile still", sagt dann aber, dass er einen Plan hat, der funktioniert, wenn Gunnar nicht davon abweicht. 22 - Njal beschreibt einen aufwändigen Trick, bei dem sich Gunnar in einen Mantel kleidet, in Begleitung mehrerer Männer auf Pferden. Diese Männer sollen absichtlich einen Ruf als Rückzieher bei Geschäften bekommen; 'Händler-Hedin', die Figur, die Gunnar vorgeben wird zu sein, muss einen besonders schlechten Ruf als Lügner haben. Gunnar wird dann nach Hoskuldsstadir gehen, einen schlechten Ruf bekommen und am nächsten Morgen nach Hrutsstadir gehen, um defekte Waren anzubieten. Hrut, klug wie er ist, wird diese Probleme bemerken, woraufhin sie in eine leichte körperliche Auseinandersetzung geraten werden. Gunnar wird weggeschickt und kehrt als er selbst gekleidet zurück und wird sich mit Hrut über Männer wie Händler-Hedin anfreunden, was zum Thema führen wird, dass es einen Mangel an guten Männern gibt, wo Mord Gigja herkommt. Gunnar wird dann auf Einzelheiten des Falls eingehen und Informationen darüber sammeln, wie man eine rechtliche Vorladung für den Fall erstellt, unter dem Vorwand, dass Gunnar wissen will, wie man allgemein eine Vorladung erstellt. Als Hrut Gunnar auffordert, dies zu wiederholen, wird er dies schlecht tun, obwohl er jedes Wort auswendig gelernt hat. Hrut wird keinen Verdacht schöpfen. Dann, wenn Gunnar die Vorladung schließlich korrekt reproduziert, wird er leise zu seinen Begleitern sagen: "Hiermit mache ich diese Vorladung in der Angelegenheit, die mir von Unn, der Tochter von Mord, übergeben wurde." Dann wird Gunnar auf den Hügel über Hrutsstadir fliehen und drei Nächte mit den zweiten Pferden warten, bevor er sich so diskret wie möglich nach Hause begibt. 23 - Alles verläuft nach Plan, aber nachdem Gunnar und seine Männer in der Nacht zum Hügel geritten sind, wacht Hoskuld aus einem seltsamen Traum auf. Er träumte, dass ein Bär und mehrere Jungen die Reise gemacht hätten, die Gunnar gemacht hatte, und in der Nähe von Hrutsstadir bleiben würden. Er ritt sofort nach Hrutsstadir und stellte gemeinsam mit Hrut fest, dass Händler-Hedin tatsächlich Gunnar von Hlidarendi war und dass Njal, die einzige Person, die clever genug war, um einen so ausgearbeiteten Plan zu entwickeln, ihn orchestriert hatte. Sie sind jedoch nicht in der Lage, Gunnar zu fangen. 24 - Auf dem Allthing beginnt Gunnar seinen Fall gegen Hrut. Njal fehlt deutlich in den Verhandlungen. Hrut findet ein Loch in ihrer Verteidigung: Gunnar hatte seine drei Zeugen vor dem Prozess nicht entsprechend platziert. Dann tritt Njal vor und kündigt an, dass er den Fall wieder aufnehmen könnte, aber Gunnar lehnt ab. Stattdessen fordert er Hrut zu einem Duell auf der Insel im Oxara-Fluss heraus. Hoskuld und Hrut wissen, dass Hrut keine Chance gegen Gunnar hat, also sammeln sie das Silber, um den Fall beizulegen. Als er das Geld übergibt, sticht Hoskuld Gunnar an und sagt: "Mögest du es genießen, so wie du es verdient hast". Hrut sagt voraus, dass Gunnar in nicht allzu ferner Zukunft zu ihnen wegen Freundschaft kommen wird. Gunnar erhebt keinen Steuer auf das Geld, als er jede Münze an Unn übergibt. 25 - Valgard der Graue, ein hinterhältiger und unbeliebter Mann, kommt zu Unn, um um ihre Hand anzuhalten. Sie stimmt sofort zu, ohne ihre Verwandten zu konsultieren. Sie bekommen schnell einen Sohn und nennen ihn Mord. Er wird zu einem listigen und boshaften Menschen heranwachsen, der eine besondere Abneigung gegenüber Gunnar hat. Als nächstes werden Njals Söhne vorgestellt. Skarphedin, der älteste Sohn, ist ziemlich hässlich, aber ein guter Krieger. Grim ist gutaussehend, groß und stark. Helgi ist der schönste und klügste von allen. Hoskuld, Njals vierter Sohn, ist unehelich geboren. Njal fragt seine Söhne Skarphedin und Grim, ob sie Frauen finden möchten, und beide sagen ja. Njal findet reiche Frauen für sie, um sie zu heiraten. Sie beschließen, bei ihrem Njal zu leben, während sie verheiratet sind. 26 - Njal denkt, Thorhalla, die Tochter von Asgrim, ist eine gute Partie für Helgi. 27 - Der Heiratsantrag läuft gut. Njal bietet sich an, der Pflegevater von Thorhall, dem Bruder von Helgis neuer Frau Thorhalla, zu sein. Er nimmt das Angebot an und die beiden werden sehr eng - vielleicht enger als Thorhall mit seinem eigenen Vater Asgrim. Njal bringt ihm das Gesetz so gut bei, dass er "der größte Anwalt in Island" wurde. 28 - Hallvard der Weiße, ein Seemann, überredet Gunnar, mit ihm ins Ausland zu gehen. Gunnar bittet Njal, sich um sein Anwesen zu kümmern. Sie segeln in die Ostsee und machen zuerst in Norwegen halt. 29 - Gunnhild ist gestorben, und Herzog Hakon Sigurdarson herrscht jetzt über Norwegen. Anstatt in den Dienst des neuen Königs zu treten, beschließen sie, Raubzüge zu machen. Sie halten bei Hallvards Verwandtem Olvir, der Gunnar mag und ihn für "männlicher" hält als Hallvard. Olvir sagt zu, ihm einige Männer für ihr Vorhaben zu stellen. 30 - Gunnar und seine Gefolgsleute stoßen auf einige berüchtigte Wikingerschiffe, die zwei Brüdern Vandil und Karl gehören. Obwohl sie versuchen, es zu vermeiden, verbringen sie den ganzen Tag mit Kämpfen und Töten. Kolskegg, Gunnars Bruder, braucht eine Verschnaufpause, aber nachdem Gunnar ihn lächerlich gemacht hat, trinkt er einen Becher Met und kehrt in den Kampf zurück. Als Vandil nach Gunnar schlägt, fängt er sein Schwert mit seinem Schild und bricht es am Heft. Gunnar schlägt zurück und streckt beide Beine aus. In der Zwischenzeit ersticht Kolskegg Karl mit seinem Speer. Die Beute und der Ruhm gehören wieder Gunnar. Sie haben weiterhin großen Erfolg beim Plündern von Dänemark, Smaland und gegen Wikinger in Reval. Als sie sich auf der Insel Osel ausruhen wollen, nähert sich ihnen ein Mann namens Tofi. Er erzählt ihnen von furchterregenden Bruder-Kriegern auf der anderen Seite der Insel: Hallgrim und Kolskegg. Hallgrim schwingt eine magische Waffe, die ihn unverwundbar macht, es sei denn, seine eigene Waffe trifft ihn. Anscheinend gibt die Waffe, eine Hellebarde, kurz vor ihrem Todesstoß einen lauten Gesang von sich. Tofi weiß, wo sie ihren Schatz aufbewahren, weiß aber auch, dass sie gerade einen großangelegten Angriff gegen Gunnar und seine Gefolgsleute planen. Gunnar schenkt Tofi einen Ring und beschließt, diese Wikinger für ihren Schatz anzugreifen. Gunnar tritt gegen Hallgrim an und kann nach großem Kampf und vielen vergeblichen Schlägen Zugang zur Hellebarde erhalten. Er behält die Waffe von da an bei sich. Die beiden Kolskeggs kämpfen gleich stark gegeneinander, bevor Gunnar kommt, um den Todesstoß zu geben. Gunnar gewährt den überlebenden Wikingern ihre Kleidung und Waffen und lässt sie ziehen. Tofi führt ihn zum Schatz und bittet ihn nur darum, ihn nach Dänemark zu bringen. Er hatte die meiste Zeit seines Lebens auf der Insel gelebt, weil er vor langer Zeit entführt worden war. 31 - Der König von Dänemark hört von Gunnar, bevor sie ankommen, und begrüßt seinen Gefolge bereitwillig. Die Gruppe bleibt einen halben Monat bei ihm, und Gunnar zeigt sich in jedem Spiel als überlegen gegenüber allen Männern des Königs. Der König bietet ihm eine Frau und viel Land an, aber Gunnar möchte zuerst nach Island zurückkehren. Sie tauschen prächtige goldene Geschenke aus, bevor Gunnar aufbricht. Gunnar und seine Gefolgsleute kehren nach Norwegen zurück und verbringen Zeit mit Olvir und Herzog Hakon. Gunnar und die Königsverwandte Bergljot verlieben sich, aber es gibt keine Hochzeit. 32 - Gunnar, Kolskegg und Hallvard kehren rechtzeitig zum Allthing nach Island zurück. Gunnar geht zu Njal, der sagt, dass er aufgrund der vielen Prüfungen, die Gunnar hatte, noch viele weitere haben wird, weil andere Männer neidisch sein werden. Njal sagt, dass er nicht zum Thing gehen wird und wünscht sich, dass Gunnar auch zu diesem Treffen zu Hause bleiben würde. 33 - Trotzdem reitet Gunnar mit seinen Männern ohne Njal zum Thing. Sie beeindrucken alle Männer mit ihren schicken Kleidern. Gunnar wird niemals eingebildet, sondern erzählt den Menschen immer das, was sie hören wollen. Als Gunnar vom Gesetzesfelsen geht, trifft er auf einige ebenso gut gekleidete Frauen, von denen eine Hallgerd ist. Sie bittet ihn, ihr von seinen Reisen zu erzählen, und er wird romantisch neugierig auf sie. Sie sagt, dass kein Mann das Risiko eingeht, sie zu heiraten, weil sie sehr anspruchsvoll ist. Gunnar besteht darauf, ihr einen Heiratsantrag zu machen, aber sie sagt, er müsse mit ihrem Vater Hoskuld sprechen. In einem Zelt konsultiert Gunnar sowohl Hoskuld als auch seinen Bruder Hrut. Während Hoskuld die Verbindung günstig findet, äußert Hrut viele Bedenken. Gunnar scheint zu von Verliebtheit geblendet zu sein, um Hallgerds Charakter richtig einschätzen zu können, auch wenn Hrut es deutlich macht. Als Gunnar Njal von der Vereinbarung erzählt, gibt Njal eine Warnung als Vorahnung: "Jede Art von Übel wird von ihr kommen, wenn sie sich nach Osten bewegt". Trotzdem besteht Gunnar darauf und bittet Njal, zur Zeremonie zu kommen. 34 - Viele Verwandte, Freunde und Verwandte von Freunden sind zur Hochzeit eingeladen. Gunnar setzt sich in die Mitte des Tisches und platziert Thrain Sigfusson, seinen Onkel, und seine anderen Verwandten auf einer Seite, während auf der anderen Seite die Njalssons sitzen. Hallgerd sitzt Gunnar gegenüber, ihre Tochter Thorgerd auf der einen Seite und Thorhalla, die Frau von Helgi Njalsson, auf der anderen. Thrain's Frau spricht ein kurzes ermahnendes Gedicht, um Thrain dazu zu bringen, aufzuhören, Thorgerd anzustarren. Dies ist das zweite Mal, dass ein Couplet in der Saga vorkommt - das erste war Svan's Nebel-Fluch mit einer Ziegenhaut. Thrain springt auf den Tisch und erklärt sich aufgrund ihrer "boshaften Sprache" geschieden. Thrain bittet dann Hoskuld um die Hand seiner Enkelin zur Heirat. Natürlich ist Hoskuld zögerlich. Er bittet Gunnar, über Thrains Charakter zu sprechen, aber er lehnt aufgrund seiner Verwandtschaft und inhärenten Voreingenommenheit ab. Njal und Hrut glauben, dass es eine gleichwertige Verbindung ist und die Heirat gutheißen. Hallgerd und Thorgerd wurden gute Hausfrauen.

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 XIX I IN three years of exile from herself Carol had certain experiences chronicled as important by the Dauntless, or discussed by the Jolly Seventeen, but the event unchronicled, undiscussed, and supremely controlling, was her slow admission of longing to find her own people. II Bea and Miles Bjornstam were married in June, a month after "The Girl from Kankakee." Miles had turned respectable. He had renounced his criticisms of state and society; he had given up roving as horse-trader, and wearing red mackinaws in lumber-camps; he had gone to work as engineer in Jackson Elder's planing-mill; he was to be seen upon the streets endeavoring to be neighborly with suspicious men whom he had taunted for years. Carol was the patroness and manager of the wedding. Juanita Haydock mocked, "You're a chump to let a good hired girl like Bea go. Besides! How do you know it's a good thing, her marrying a sassy bum like this awful Red Swede person? Get wise! Chase the man off with a mop, and hold onto your Svenska while the holding's good. Huh? Me go to their Scandahoofian wedding? Not a chance!" The other matrons echoed Juanita. Carol was dismayed by the casualness of their cruelty, but she persisted. Miles had exclaimed to her, "Jack Elder says maybe he'll come to the wedding! Gee, it would be nice to have Bea meet the Boss as a reg'lar married lady. Some day I'll be so well off that Bea can play with Mrs. Elder--and you! Watch us!" There was an uneasy knot of only nine guests at the service in the unpainted Lutheran Church--Carol, Kennicott, Guy Pollock, and the Champ Perrys, all brought by Carol; Bea's frightened rustic parents, her cousin Tina, and Pete, Miles's ex-partner in horse-trading, a surly, hairy man who had bought a black suit and come twelve hundred miles from Spokane for the event. Miles continuously glanced back at the church door. Jackson Elder did not appear. The door did not once open after the awkward entrance of the first guests. Miles's hand closed on Bea's arm. He had, with Carol's help, made his shanty over into a cottage with white curtains and a canary and a chintz chair. Carol coaxed the powerful matrons to call on Bea. They half scoffed, half promised to go. Bea's successor was the oldish, broad, silent Oscarina, who was suspicious of her frivolous mistress for a month, so that Juanita Haydock was able to crow, "There, smarty, I told you you'd run into the Domestic Problem!" But Oscarina adopted Carol as a daughter, and with her as faithful to the kitchen as Bea had been, there was nothing changed in Carol's life. III She was unexpectedly appointed to the town library-board by Ole Jenson, the new mayor. The other members were Dr. Westlake, Lyman Cass, Julius Flickerbaugh the attorney, Guy Pollock, and Martin Mahoney, former livery-stable keeper and now owner of a garage. She was delighted. She went to the first meeting rather condescendingly, regarding herself as the only one besides Guy who knew anything about books or library methods. She was planning to revolutionize the whole system. Her condescension was ruined and her humility wholesomely increased when she found the board, in the shabby room on the second floor of the house which had been converted into the library, not discussing the weather and longing to play checkers, but talking about books. She discovered that amiable old Dr. Westlake read everything in verse and "light fiction"; that Lyman Cass, the veal-faced, bristly-bearded owner of the mill, had tramped through Gibbon, Hume, Grote, Prescott, and the other thick historians; that he could repeat pages from them--and did. When Dr. Westlake whispered to her, "Yes, Lym is a very well-informed man, but he's modest about it," she felt uninformed and immodest, and scolded at herself that she had missed the human potentialities in this vast Gopher Prairie. When Dr. Westlake quoted the "Paradiso," "Don Quixote," "Wilhelm Meister," and the Koran, she reflected that no one she knew, not even her father, had read all four. She came diffidently to the second meeting of the board. She did not plan to revolutionize anything. She hoped that the wise elders might be so tolerant as to listen to her suggestions about changing the shelving of the juveniles. Yet after four sessions of the library-board she was where she had been before the first session. She had found that for all their pride in being reading men, Westlake and Cass and even Guy had no conception of making the library familiar to the whole town. They used it, they passed resolutions about it, and they left it as dead as Moses. Only the Henty books and the Elsie books and the latest optimisms by moral female novelists and virile clergymen were in general demand, and the board themselves were interested only in old, stilted volumes. They had no tenderness for the noisiness of youth discovering great literature. If she was egotistic about her tiny learning, they were at least as much so regarding theirs. And for all their talk of the need of additional library-tax none of them was willing to risk censure by battling for it, though they now had so small a fund that, after paying for rent, heat, light, and Miss Villets's salary, they had only a hundred dollars a year for the purchase of books. The Incident of the Seventeen Cents killed her none too enduring interest. She had come to the board-meeting singing with a plan. She had made a list of thirty European novels of the past ten years, with twenty important books on psychology, education, and economics which the library lacked. She had made Kennicott promise to give fifteen dollars. If each of the board would contribute the same, they could have the books. Lym Cass looked alarmed, scratched himself, and protested, "I think it would be a bad precedent for the board-members to contribute money--uh--not that I mind, but it wouldn't be fair--establish precedent. Gracious! They don't pay us a cent for our services! Certainly can't expect us to pay for the privilege of serving!" Only Guy looked sympathetic, and he stroked the pine table and said nothing. The rest of the meeting they gave to a bellicose investigation of the fact that there was seventeen cents less than there should be in the Fund. Miss Villets was summoned; she spent half an hour in explosively defending herself; the seventeen cents were gnawed over, penny by penny; and Carol, glancing at the carefully inscribed list which had been so lovely and exciting an hour before, was silent, and sorry for Miss Villets, and sorrier for herself. She was reasonably regular in attendance till her two years were up and Vida Sherwin was appointed to the board in her place, but she did not try to be revolutionary. In the plodding course of her life there was nothing changed, and nothing new. IV Kennicott made an excellent land-deal, but as he told her none of the details, she was not greatly exalted or agitated. What did agitate her was his announcement, half whispered and half blurted, half tender and half coldly medical, that they "ought to have a baby, now they could afford it." They had so long agreed that "perhaps it would be just as well not to have any children for a while yet," that childlessness had come to be natural. Now, she feared and longed and did not know; she hesitatingly assented, and wished that she had not assented. As there appeared no change in their drowsy relations, she forgot all about it, and life was planless. V Idling on the porch of their summer cottage at the lake, on afternoons when Kennicott was in town, when the water was glazed and the whole air languid, she pictured a hundred escapes: Fifth Avenue in a snow-storm, with limousines, golden shops, a cathedral spire. A reed hut on fantastic piles above the mud of a jungle river. A suite in Paris, immense high grave rooms, with lambrequins and a balcony. The Enchanted Mesa. An ancient stone mill in Maryland, at the turn of the road, between rocky brook and abrupt hills. An upland moor of sheep and flitting cool sunlight. A clanging dock where steel cranes unloaded steamers from Buenos Ayres and Tsing-tao. A Munich concert-hall, and a famous 'cellist playing--playing to her. One scene had a persistent witchery: She stood on a terrace overlooking a boulevard by the warm sea. She was certain, though she had no reason for it, that the place was Mentone. Along the drive below her swept barouches, with a mechanical tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, and great cars with polished black hoods and engines quiet as the sigh of an old man. In them were women erect, slender, enameled, and expressionless as marionettes, their small hands upon parasols, their unchanging eyes always forward, ignoring the men beside them, tall men with gray hair and distinguished faces. Beyond the drive were painted sea and painted sands, and blue and yellow pavilions. Nothing moved except the gliding carriages, and the people were small and wooden, spots in a picture drenched with gold and hard bright blues. There was no sound of sea or winds; no softness of whispers nor of falling petals; nothing but yellow and cobalt and staring light, and the never-changing tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot---- She startled. She whimpered. It was the rapid ticking of the clock which had hypnotized her into hearing the steady hoofs. No aching color of the sea and pride of supercilious people, but the reality of a round-bellied nickel alarm-clock on a shelf against a fuzzy unplaned pine wall, with a stiff gray wash-rag hanging above it and a kerosene-stove standing below. A thousand dreams governed by the fiction she had read, drawn from the pictures she had envied, absorbed her drowsy lake afternoons, but always in the midst of them Kennicott came out from town, drew on khaki trousers which were plastered with dry fish-scales, asked, "Enjoying yourself?" and did not listen to her answer. And nothing was changed, and there was no reason to believe that there ever would be change. VI Trains! At the lake cottage she missed the passing of the trains. She realized that in town she had depended upon them for assurance that there remained a world beyond. The railroad was more than a means of transportation to Gopher Prairie. It was a new god; a monster of steel limbs, oak ribs, flesh of gravel, and a stupendous hunger for freight; a deity created by man that he might keep himself respectful to Property, as elsewhere he had elevated and served as tribal gods the mines, cotton-mills, motor-factories, colleges, army. The East remembered generations when there had been no railroad, and had no awe of it; but here the railroads had been before time was. The towns had been staked out on barren prairie as convenient points for future train-halts; and back in 1860 and 1870 there had been much profit, much opportunity to found aristocratic families, in the possession of advance knowledge as to where the towns would arise. If a town was in disfavor, the railroad could ignore it, cut it off from commerce, slay it. To Gopher Prairie the tracks were eternal verities, and boards of railroad directors an omnipotence. The smallest boy or the most secluded grandam could tell you whether No. 32 had a hot-box last Tuesday, whether No. 7 was going to put on an extra day-coach; and the name of the president of the road was familiar to every breakfast table. Even in this new era of motors the citizens went down to the station to see the trains go through. It was their romance; their only mystery besides mass at the Catholic Church; and from the trains came lords of the outer world--traveling salesmen with piping on their waistcoats, and visiting cousins from Milwaukee. Gopher Prairie had once been a "division-point." The roundhouse and repair-shops were gone, but two conductors still retained residence, and they were persons of distinction, men who traveled and talked to strangers, who wore uniforms with brass buttons, and knew all about these crooked games of con-men. They were a special caste, neither above nor below the Haydocks, but apart, artists and adventurers. The night telegraph-operator at the railroad station was the most melodramatic figure in town: awake at three in the morning, alone in a room hectic with clatter of the telegraph key. All night he "talked" to operators twenty, fifty, a hundred miles away. It was always to be expected that he would be held up by robbers. He never was, but round him was a suggestion of masked faces at the window, revolvers, cords binding him to a chair, his struggle to crawl to the key before he fainted. During blizzards everything about the railroad was melodramatic. There were days when the town was completely shut off, when they had no mail, no express, no fresh meat, no newspapers. At last the rotary snow-plow came through, bucking the drifts, sending up a geyser, and the way to the Outside was open again. The brakemen, in mufflers and fur caps, running along the tops of ice-coated freight-cars; the engineers scratching frost from the cab windows and looking out, inscrutable, self-contained, pilots of the prairie sea--they were heroism, they were to Carol the daring of the quest in a world of groceries and sermons. To the small boys the railroad was a familiar playground. They climbed the iron ladders on the sides of the box-cars; built fires behind piles of old ties; waved to favorite brakemen. But to Carol it was magic. She was motoring with Kennicott, the car lumping through darkness, the lights showing mud-puddles and ragged weeds by the road. A train coming! A rapid chuck-a-chuck, chuck-a-chuck, chuck-a-chuck. It was hurling past--the Pacific Flyer, an arrow of golden flame. Light from the fire-box splashed the under side of the trailing smoke. Instantly the vision was gone; Carol was back in the long darkness; and Kennicott was giving his version of that fire and wonder: "No. 19. Must be 'bout ten minutes late." In town, she listened from bed to the express whistling in the cut a mile north. Uuuuuuu!--faint, nervous, distrait, horn of the free night riders journeying to the tall towns where were laughter and banners and the sound of bells--Uuuuu! Uuuuu!--the world going by--Uuuuuuu!--fainter, more wistful, gone. Down here there were no trains. The stillness was very great. The prairie encircled the lake, lay round her, raw, dusty, thick. Only the train could cut it. Some day she would take a train; and that would be a great taking. VII She turned to the Chautauqua as she had turned to the dramatic association, to the library-board. Besides the permanent Mother Chautauqua, in New York, there are, all over these States, commercial Chautauqua companies which send out to every smallest town troupes of lecturers and "entertainers" to give a week of culture under canvas. Living in Minneapolis, Carol had never encountered the ambulant Chautauqua, and the announcement of its coming to Gopher Prairie gave her hope that others might be doing the vague things which she had attempted. She pictured a condensed university course brought to the people. Mornings when she came in from the lake with Kennicott she saw placards in every shop-window, and strung on a cord across Main Street, a line of pennants alternately worded "The Boland Chautauqua COMING!" and "A solid week of inspiration and enjoyment!" But she was disappointed when she saw the program. It did not seem to be a tabloid university; it did not seem to be any kind of a university; it seemed to be a combination of vaudeville performance Y. M. C. A. lecture, and the graduation exercises of an elocution class. She took her doubt to Kennicott. He insisted, "Well, maybe it won't be so awful darn intellectual, the way you and I might like it, but it's a whole lot better than nothing." Vida Sherwin added, "They have some splendid speakers. If the people don't carry off so much actual information, they do get a lot of new ideas, and that's what counts." During the Chautauqua Carol attended three evening meetings, two afternoon meetings, and one in the morning. She was impressed by the audience: the sallow women in skirts and blouses, eager to be made to think, the men in vests and shirt-sleeves, eager to be allowed to laugh, and the wriggling children, eager to sneak away. She liked the plain benches, the portable stage under its red marquee, the great tent over all, shadowy above strings of incandescent bulbs at night and by day casting an amber radiance on the patient crowd. The scent of dust and trampled grass and sun-baked wood gave her an illusion of Syrian caravans; she forgot the speakers while she listened to noises outside the tent: two farmers talking hoarsely, a wagon creaking down Main Street, the crow of a rooster. She was content. But it was the contentment of the lost hunter stopping to rest. For from the Chautauqua itself she got nothing but wind and chaff and heavy laughter, the laughter of yokels at old jokes, a mirthless and primitive sound like the cries of beasts on a farm. These were the several instructors in the condensed university's seven-day course: Nine lecturers, four of them ex-ministers, and one an ex-congressman, all of them delivering "inspirational addresses." The only facts or opinions which Carol derived from them were: Lincoln was a celebrated president of the United States, but in his youth extremely poor. James J. Hill was the best-known railroad-man of the West, and in his youth extremely poor. Honesty and courtesy in business are preferable to boorishness and exposed trickery, but this is not to be taken personally, since all persons in Gopher Prairie are known to be honest and courteous. London is a large city. A distinguished statesman once taught Sunday School. Four "entertainers" who told Jewish stories, Irish stories, German stories, Chinese stories, and Tennessee mountaineer stories, most of which Carol had heard. A "lady elocutionist" who recited Kipling and imitated children. A lecturer with motion-pictures of an Andean exploration; excellent pictures and a halting narrative. Three brass-bands, a company of six opera-singers, a Hawaiian sextette, and four youths who played saxophones and guitars disguised as wash-boards. The most applauded pieces were those, such as the "Lucia" inevitability, which the audience had heard most often. The local superintendent, who remained through the week while the other enlighteners went to other Chautauquas for their daily performances. The superintendent was a bookish, underfed man who worked hard at rousing artificial enthusiasm, at trying to make the audience cheer by dividing them into competitive squads and telling them that they were intelligent and made splendid communal noises. He gave most of the morning lectures, droning with equal unhappy facility about poetry, the Holy Land, and the injustice to employers in any system of profit-sharing. The final item was a man who neither lectured, inspired, nor entertained; a plain little man with his hands in his pockets. All the other speakers had confessed, "I cannot keep from telling the citizens of your beautiful city that none of the talent on this circuit have found a more charming spot or more enterprising and hospitable people." But the little man suggested that the architecture of Gopher Prairie was haphazard, and that it was sottish to let the lake-front be monopolized by the cinder-heaped wall of the railroad embankment. Afterward the audience grumbled, "Maybe that guy's got the right dope, but what's the use of looking on the dark side of things all the time? New ideas are first-rate, but not all this criticism. Enough trouble in life without looking for it!" Thus the Chautauqua, as Carol saw it. After it, the town felt proud and educated. VIII Two weeks later the Great War smote Europe. For a month Gopher Prairie had the delight of shuddering, then, as the war settled down to a business of trench-fighting, they forgot. When Carol talked about the Balkans, and the possibility of a German revolution, Kennicott yawned, "Oh yes, it's a great old scrap, but it's none of our business. Folks out here are too busy growing corn to monkey with any fool war that those foreigners want to get themselves into." It was Miles Bjornstam who said, "I can't figure it out. I'm opposed to wars, but still, seems like Germany has got to be licked because them Junkers stands in the way of progress." She was calling on Miles and Bea, early in autumn. They had received her with cries, with dusting of chairs, and a running to fetch water for coffee. Miles stood and beamed at her. He fell often and joyously into his old irreverence about the lords of Gopher Prairie, but always--with a certain difficulty--he added something decorous and appreciative. "Lots of people have come to see you, haven't they?" Carol hinted. "Why, Bea's cousin Tina comes in right along, and the foreman at the mill, and----Oh, we have good times. Say, take a look at that Bea! Wouldn't you think she was a canary-bird, to listen to her, and to see that Scandahoofian tow-head of hers? But say, know what she is? She's a mother hen! Way she fusses over me--way she makes old Miles wear a necktie! Hate to spoil her by letting her hear it, but she's one pretty darn nice--nice----Hell! What do we care if none of the dirty snobs come and call? We've got each other." Carol worried about their struggle, but she forgot it in the stress of sickness and fear. For that autumn she knew that a baby was coming, that at last life promised to be interesting in the peril of the great change. Könnten Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der obenstehenden 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.

Die Zeit vergeht: Miles Bjornstam findet einen Job in der Mühle und heiratet Bea. Carol organisiert ihre kleine Hochzeit, aber keine der Matriarchinnen der Stadt besucht das neue Paar oder ruft an. Eine ältere Frau namens Oscarina ersetzt Bea und wird bald eine Mutterfigur für Carol. Carol wird Mitglied des Bibliotheksausschusses und obwohl sie überrascht ist, festzustellen, dass die anderen Mitglieder belesen sind, erkennt sie bald, dass sie kein Interesse daran haben, die Bibliothek lebendiger zu machen; sie dient ruhig zwei Jahre lang. Kennicott verdient etwas Geld bei einem Grundstückshandel und deutet an, dass sie sich nun ein Kind leisten können. Carol stimmt zögernd zu, aber sie ergreifen keine Maßnahmen. In diesem Sommer auf der Hütte träumt sie von exotischen Orten. Als sie am See lebt, stellt sie fest, dass sie den Klang der Züge vermisst, die die Verbindung der Stadt zur Außenwelt herstellen. Sie träumt von dem Tag, an dem sie mit dem Zug entkommen kann. Das Chautauqua kommt in die Stadt und Carol ist enttäuscht zu erfahren, dass es sich anstatt einer reisenden Universität eher um ein Unterhaltungsspektakel im Stil des Vaudevilles handelt. Nur ein der vielen Vortragenden deutet an, dass das Erscheinungsbild von Gopher Prairie verbessert werden könnte. In diesem Sommer ist Gopher Prairie kurzzeitig aufgeregt über die Kriegsnachrichten aus Europa, aber die entfernten Ereignisse können die Aufmerksamkeit der Stadt nicht lange halten. Carol besucht Bea und Miles und findet heraus, dass sie glücklich sind, obwohl die Stadt sie als Außenseiter behandelt. Im Herbst wird Carol bewusst, dass sie schwanger 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: SCENE II. Before Brutus' tent, in the camp near Sardis. [Drum. Enter Brutus, Lucilius, Titinius, and Soldiers; Pindarus meeting them; Lucius at some distance.] BRUTUS. Stand, ho! LUCILIUS. Give the word, ho! and stand. BRUTUS. What now, Lucilius! is Cassius near? LUCILIUS. He is at hand; and Pindarus is come To do you salutation from his master. [Pindarus gives a letter to Brutus.] BRUTUS. He greets me well.--Your master, Pindarus, In his own change, or by ill officers, Hath given me some worthy cause to wish Things done, undone: but, if he be at hand, I shall be satisfied. PINDARUS. I do not doubt But that my noble master will appear Such as he is, full of regard and honour. BRUTUS. He is not doubted.--A word, Lucilius: How he received you, let me be resolved. LUCILIUS. With courtesy and with respect enough; But not with such familiar instances, Nor with such free and friendly conference, As he hath used of old. BRUTUS. Thou hast described A hot friend cooling: ever note, Lucilius, When love begins to sicken and decay, It useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith; But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, Make gallant show and promise of their mettle; But, when they should endure the bloody spur, They fall their crests, and, like deceitful jades Sink in the trial. Comes his army on? LUCILIUS. They meant his night in Sard is to be quarter'd: The greater part, the Horse in general, Are come with Cassius. [March within.] BRUTUS. Hark! he is arrived. March gently on to meet him. [Enter Cassius and Soldiers.] CASSIUS. Stand, ho! BRUTUS. Stand, ho! Speak the word along. FIRST SOLDIER. Stand! SECOND SOLDIER. Stand! THIRD SOLDIER. Stand! CASSIUS. Most noble brother, you have done me wrong. BRUTUS. Judge me, you gods! wrong I mine enemies? And, if not so, how should I wrong a brother? CASSIUS. Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs; And when you do them-- BRUTUS. Cassius, be content; Speak your griefs softly, I do know you well. Before the eyes of both our armies here, Which should perceive nothing but love from us, Let us not wrangle; bid them move away; Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs, And I will give you audience. CASSIUS. Pindarus, Bid our commanders lead their charges off A little from this ground. BRUTUS. Lucilius, do you the like; and let no man Come to our tent till we have done our conference.-- Lucius and Titinius, guard our door. [Exeunt.] Können Sie eine geeignete 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.

Außerhalb seines Zeltes im Camp nahe Sardis begrüßt Brutus Titinius und Pindarus, die ihm die Nachricht bringen, dass Cassius sich nähert. Brutus beschwert sich darüber, dass Cassius ihn beleidigt hat, und er freut sich darauf, Cassius' Erklärung zu hören. Pindarus, Cassius' Diener, ist sicher, dass die Erklärung Brutus zufriedenstellen wird. Lucilius sagt, dass Cassius ihn mit angemessenem Protokoll empfangen habe, aber er relativiert seine Aussage und fügt hinzu, dass Cassius' Begrüßung nicht mit seiner gewohnten Zuneigung war. Brutus sagt, dass Lucilius gerade eine abkühlende Freundschaft beschrieben hat und er deutet an, dass Cassius sie enttäuschen könnte, wenn es drauf ankommt. Cassius trifft dann mit dem Großteil seiner Armee ein und beschuldigt sofort Brutus, ihm Unrecht getan zu haben. Brutus antwortet, dass er einem Freund kein Unrecht antun würde, und schlägt vor, dass sie sich in seinem Zelt unterhalten, damit "beide unsere Armeen" sie nicht beim Streit sehen. Die beiden Männer bitten dann ihre Untergebenen, die Armeen wegzuführen und ihre Privatsphäre zu schützen, und sie verlassen alle 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: "And now good-morrow to our waking souls Which watch not one another out of fear; For love all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room, an everywhere." --DR. DONNE. On the second morning after Dorothea's visit to Rosamond, she had had two nights of sound sleep, and had not only lost all traces of fatigue, but felt as if she had a great deal of superfluous strength--that is to say, more strength than she could manage to concentrate on any occupation. The day before, she had taken long walks outside the grounds, and had paid two visits to the Parsonage; but she never in her life told any one the reason why she spent her time in that fruitless manner, and this morning she was rather angry with herself for her childish restlessness. To-day was to be spent quite differently. What was there to be done in the village? Oh dear! nothing. Everybody was well and had flannel; nobody's pig had died; and it was Saturday morning, when there was a general scrubbing of doors and door-stones, and when it was useless to go into the school. But there were various subjects that Dorothea was trying to get clear upon, and she resolved to throw herself energetically into the gravest of all. She sat down in the library before her particular little heap of books on political economy and kindred matters, out of which she was trying to get light as to the best way of spending money so as not to injure one's neighbors, or--what comes to the same thing--so as to do them the most good. Here was a weighty subject which, if she could but lay hold of it, would certainly keep her mind steady. Unhappily her mind slipped off it for a whole hour; and at the end she found herself reading sentences twice over with an intense consciousness of many things, but not of any one thing contained in the text. This was hopeless. Should she order the carriage and drive to Tipton? No; for some reason or other she preferred staying at Lowick. But her vagrant mind must be reduced to order: there was an art in self-discipline; and she walked round and round the brown library considering by what sort of manoeuvre she could arrest her wandering thoughts. Perhaps a mere task was the best means--something to which she must go doggedly. Was there not the geography of Asia Minor, in which her slackness had often been rebuked by Mr. Casaubon? She went to the cabinet of maps and unrolled one: this morning she might make herself finally sure that Paphlagonia was not on the Levantine coast, and fix her total darkness about the Chalybes firmly on the shores of the Euxine. A map was a fine thing to study when you were disposed to think of something else, being made up of names that would turn into a chime if you went back upon them. Dorothea set earnestly to work, bending close to her map, and uttering the names in an audible, subdued tone, which often got into a chime. She looked amusingly girlish after all her deep experience--nodding her head and marking the names off on her fingers, with a little pursing of her lip, and now and then breaking off to put her hands on each side of her face and say, "Oh dear! oh dear!" There was no reason why this should end any more than a merry-go-round; but it was at last interrupted by the opening of the door and the announcement of Miss Noble. The little old lady, whose bonnet hardly reached Dorothea's shoulder, was warmly welcomed, but while her hand was being pressed she made many of her beaver-like noises, as if she had something difficult to say. "Do sit down," said Dorothea, rolling a chair forward. "Am I wanted for anything? I shall be so glad if I can do anything." "I will not stay," said Miss Noble, putting her hand into her small basket, and holding some article inside it nervously; "I have left a friend in the churchyard." She lapsed into her inarticulate sounds, and unconsciously drew forth the article which she was fingering. It was the tortoise-shell lozenge-box, and Dorothea felt the color mounting to her cheeks. "Mr. Ladislaw," continued the timid little woman. "He fears he has offended you, and has begged me to ask if you will see him for a few minutes." Dorothea did not answer on the instant: it was crossing her mind that she could not receive him in this library, where her husband's prohibition seemed to dwell. She looked towards the window. Could she go out and meet him in the grounds? The sky was heavy, and the trees had begun to shiver as at a coming storm. Besides, she shrank from going out to him. "Do see him, Mrs. Casaubon," said Miss Noble, pathetically; "else I must go back and say No, and that will hurt him." "Yes, I will see him," said Dorothea. "Pray tell him to come." What else was there to be done? There was nothing that she longed for at that moment except to see Will: the possibility of seeing him had thrust itself insistently between her and every other object; and yet she had a throbbing excitement like an alarm upon her--a sense that she was doing something daringly defiant for his sake. When the little lady had trotted away on her mission, Dorothea stood in the middle of the library with her hands falling clasped before her, making no attempt to compose herself in an attitude of dignified unconsciousness. What she was least conscious of just then was her own body: she was thinking of what was likely to be in Will's mind, and of the hard feelings that others had had about him. How could any duty bind her to hardness? Resistance to unjust dispraise had mingled with her feeling for him from the very first, and now in the rebound of her heart after her anguish the resistance was stronger than ever. "If I love him too much it is because he has been used so ill:"--there was a voice within her saying this to some imagined audience in the library, when the door was opened, and she saw Will before her. She did not move, and he came towards her with more doubt and timidity in his face than she had ever seen before. He was in a state of uncertainty which made him afraid lest some look or word of his should condemn him to a new distance from her; and Dorothea was afraid of her _own_ emotion. She looked as if there were a spell upon her, keeping her motionless and hindering her from unclasping her hands, while some intense, grave yearning was imprisoned within her eyes. Seeing that she did not put out her hand as usual, Will paused a yard from her and said with embarrassment, "I am so grateful to you for seeing me." "I wanted to see you," said Dorothea, having no other words at command. It did not occur to her to sit down, and Will did not give a cheerful interpretation to this queenly way of receiving him; but he went on to say what he had made up his mind to say. "I fear you think me foolish and perhaps wrong for coming back so soon. I have been punished for my impatience. You know--every one knows now--a painful story about my parentage. I knew of it before I went away, and I always meant to tell you of it if--if we ever met again." There was a slight movement in Dorothea, and she unclasped her hands, but immediately folded them over each other. "But the affair is matter of gossip now," Will continued. "I wished you to know that something connected with it--something which happened before I went away, helped to bring me down here again. At least I thought it excused my coming. It was the idea of getting Bulstrode to apply some money to a public purpose--some money which he had thought of giving me. Perhaps it is rather to Bulstrode's credit that he privately offered me compensation for an old injury: he offered to give me a good income to make amends; but I suppose you know the disagreeable story?" Will looked doubtfully at Dorothea, but his manner was gathering some of the defiant courage with which he always thought of this fact in his destiny. He added, "You know that it must be altogether painful to me." "Yes--yes--I know," said Dorothea, hastily. "I did not choose to accept an income from such a source. I was sure that you would not think well of me if I did so," said Will. Why should he mind saying anything of that sort to her now? She knew that he had avowed his love for her. "I felt that"--he broke off, nevertheless. "You acted as I should have expected you to act," said Dorothea, her face brightening and her head becoming a little more erect on its beautiful stem. "I did not believe that you would let any circumstance of my birth create a prejudice in you against me, though it was sure to do so in others," said Will, shaking his head backward in his old way, and looking with a grave appeal into her eyes. "If it were a new hardship it would be a new reason for me to cling to you," said Dorothea, fervidly. "Nothing could have changed me but--" her heart was swelling, and it was difficult to go on; she made a great effort over herself to say in a low tremulous voice, "but thinking that you were different--not so good as I had believed you to be." "You are sure to believe me better than I am in everything but one," said Will, giving way to his own feeling in the evidence of hers. "I mean, in my truth to you. When I thought you doubted of that, I didn't care about anything that was left. I thought it was all over with me, and there was nothing to try for--only things to endure." "I don't doubt you any longer," said Dorothea, putting out her hand; a vague fear for him impelling her unutterable affection. He took her hand and raised it to his lips with something like a sob. But he stood with his hat and gloves in the other hand, and might have done for the portrait of a Royalist. Still it was difficult to loose the hand, and Dorothea, withdrawing it in a confusion that distressed her, looked and moved away. "See how dark the clouds have become, and how the trees are tossed," she said, walking towards the window, yet speaking and moving with only a dim sense of what she was doing. Will followed her at a little distance, and leaned against the tall back of a leather chair, on which he ventured now to lay his hat and gloves, and free himself from the intolerable durance of formality to which he had been for the first time condemned in Dorothea's presence. It must be confessed that he felt very happy at that moment leaning on the chair. He was not much afraid of anything that she might feel now. They stood silent, not looking at each other, but looking at the evergreens which were being tossed, and were showing the pale underside of their leaves against the blackening sky. Will never enjoyed the prospect of a storm so much: it delivered him from the necessity of going away. Leaves and little branches were hurled about, and the thunder was getting nearer. The light was more and more sombre, but there came a flash of lightning which made them start and look at each other, and then smile. Dorothea began to say what she had been thinking of. "That was a wrong thing for you to say, that you would have had nothing to try for. If we had lost our own chief good, other people's good would remain, and that is worth trying for. Some can be happy. I seemed to see that more clearly than ever, when I was the most wretched. I can hardly think how I could have borne the trouble, if that feeling had not come to me to make strength." "You have never felt the sort of misery I felt," said Will; "the misery of knowing that you must despise me." "But I have felt worse--it was worse to think ill--" Dorothea had begun impetuously, but broke off. Will colored. He had the sense that whatever she said was uttered in the vision of a fatality that kept them apart. He was silent a moment, and then said passionately-- "We may at least have the comfort of speaking to each other without disguise. Since I must go away--since we must always be divided--you may think of me as one on the brink of the grave." While he was speaking there came a vivid flash of lightning which lit each of them up for the other--and the light seemed to be the terror of a hopeless love. Dorothea darted instantaneously from the window; Will followed her, seizing her hand with a spasmodic movement; and so they stood, with their hands clasped, like two children, looking out on the storm, while the thunder gave a tremendous crack and roll above them, and the rain began to pour down. Then they turned their faces towards each other, with the memory of his last words in them, and they did not loose each other's hands. "There is no hope for me," said Will. "Even if you loved me as well as I love you--even if I were everything to you--I shall most likely always be very poor: on a sober calculation, one can count on nothing but a creeping lot. It is impossible for us ever to belong to each other. It is perhaps base of me to have asked for a word from you. I meant to go away into silence, but I have not been able to do what I meant." "Don't be sorry," said Dorothea, in her clear tender tones. "I would rather share all the trouble of our parting." Her lips trembled, and so did his. It was never known which lips were the first to move towards the other lips; but they kissed tremblingly, and then they moved apart. The rain was dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spirit were within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it was one of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with a certain awe. Dorothea sat down on the seat nearest to her, a long low ottoman in the middle of the room, and with her hands folded over each other on her lap, looked at the drear outer world. Will stood still an instant looking at her, then seated himself beside her, and laid his hand on hers, which turned itself upward to be clasped. They sat in that way without looking at each other, until the rain abated and began to fall in stillness. Each had been full of thoughts which neither of them could begin to utter. But when the rain was quiet, Dorothea turned to look at Will. With passionate exclamation, as if some torture screw were threatening him, he started up and said, "It is impossible!" He went and leaned on the back of the chair again, and seemed to be battling with his own anger, while she looked towards him sadly. "It is as fatal as a murder or any other horror that divides people," he burst out again; "it is more intolerable--to have our life maimed by petty accidents." "No--don't say that--your life need not be maimed," said Dorothea, gently. "Yes, it must," said Will, angrily. "It is cruel of you to speak in that way--as if there were any comfort. You may see beyond the misery of it, but I don't. It is unkind--it is throwing back my love for you as if it were a trifle, to speak in that way in the face of the fact. We can never be married." "Some time--we might," said Dorothea, in a trembling voice. "When?" said Will, bitterly. "What is the use of counting on any success of mine? It is a mere toss up whether I shall ever do more than keep myself decently, unless I choose to sell myself as a mere pen and a mouthpiece. I can see that clearly enough. I could not offer myself to any woman, even if she had no luxuries to renounce." There was silence. Dorothea's heart was full of something that she wanted to say, and yet the words were too difficult. She was wholly possessed by them: at that moment debate was mute within her. And it was very hard that she could not say what she wanted to say. Will was looking out of the window angrily. If he would have looked at her and not gone away from her side, she thought everything would have been easier. At last he turned, still resting against the chair, and stretching his hand automatically towards his hat, said with a sort of exasperation, "Good-by." "Oh, I cannot bear it--my heart will break," said Dorothea, starting from her seat, the flood of her young passion bearing down all the obstructions which had kept her silent--the great tears rising and falling in an instant: "I don't mind about poverty--I hate my wealth." In einem Augenblick war Will ihr nahe und hatte seine Arme um sie, aber sie zog ihren Kopf zurück und hielt ihn sanft von sich weg, damit sie weiter sprechen konnte. Ihre großen, tränenreichen Augen schauten ihn ganz einfach an, während sie auf schluchzende und kindliche Weise sagte: "Wir könnten ganz gut von meinem eigenen Vermögen leben - es ist zu viel - siebenhundert Pfund im Jahr - ich brauche so wenig - keine neuen Kleider - und ich werde lernen, was alles kostet." 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.

Zwei Tage nach ihrem Treffen mit Rosamond findet sich Dorothea energisch und unruhig wieder und kann sich nicht auf die Arbeit konzentrieren. Sie bekommt unerwarteten Besuch von Miss Noble, der Tante von Mr. Farebrother. Die alte Dame fragt schüchtern, ob sie Will Ladislaw treffen wird und bittet sie, ihn nicht zu enttäuschen. Als Dorothea zustimmt, verlässt die alte Dame den Raum und schickt Will herein. Er ist sehr zögerlich und ungeschickt. Will erzählt ihr von seiner Verbindung mit dem Pfandhausbesitzer Dunkirk und warum er Bulstrodes Geld abgelehnt hat. Er sagt, dass das Einzige, was er am meisten fürchtet, ist, ihr gutes Bild von ihm zu verlieren. Als sie deutlich macht, dass sie ihm verpflichtet ist, verzweifelt er daran, dass sie jemals heiraten werden, da er immer arm sein wird. Aber nachdem sie ihre gegenseitige Liebe zugegeben haben, fällt es ihnen schwer, sich zu trennen. Will besteht darauf, dass er sie nicht dazu bringen kann, sein Leben in Armut zu teilen. Schließlich löst sie das Problem, indem sie in Verzweiflung ausbricht. Sie schwört, dass sie leicht von ihrem persönlichen Vermögen leben können, vorausgesetzt, sie leben sparsam; und Will gibt dann seinen Gefühlen nach.

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 IX Thus on the chill Lapponian's dreary land, For many a long month lost in snow profound, When Sol from Cancer sends the seasons bland, And in their northern cave the storms hath bound; From silent mountains, straight, with startling sound, Torrents are hurl'd, green hills emerge, and lo, The trees with foliage, cliffs with flow'rs are crown'd; Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling go; And wonder, love, and joy, the peasant's heart o'erflow. BEATTIE Several of her succeeding days passed in suspense, for Ludovico could only learn from the soldiers, that there was a prisoner in the apartment, described to him by Emily, and that he was a Frenchman, whom they had taken in one of their skirmishes, with a party of his countrymen. During this interval, Emily escaped the persecutions of Bertolini, and Verezzi, by confining herself to her apartment; except that sometimes, in an evening, she ventured to walk in the adjoining corridor. Montoni appeared to respect his last promise, though he had prophaned his first; for to his protection only could she attribute her present repose; and in this she was now so secure, that she did not wish to leave the castle, till she could obtain some certainty concerning Valancourt; for which she waited, indeed, without any sacrifice of her own comfort, since no circumstance had occurred to make her escape probable. On the fourth day, Ludovico informed her, that he had hopes of being admitted to the presence of the prisoner; it being the turn of a soldier, with whom he had been for some time familiar, to attend him on the following night. He was not deceived in his hope; for, under pretence of carrying in a pitcher of water, he entered the prison, though, his prudence having prevented him from telling the sentinel the real motive of his visit, he was obliged to make his conference with the prisoner a very short one. Emily awaited the result in her own apartment, Ludovico having promised to accompany Annette to the corridor, in the evening; where, after several hours impatiently counted, he arrived. Emily, having then uttered the name of Valancourt, could articulate no more, but hesitated in trembling expectation. 'The Chevalier would not entrust me with his name, Signora,' replied Ludovico; 'but, when I just mentioned yours, he seemed overwhelmed with joy, though he was not so much surprised as I expected.' 'Does he then remember me?' she exclaimed. 'O! it is Mons. Valancourt,' said Annette, and looked impatiently at Ludovico, who understood her look, and replied to Emily: 'Yes, lady, the Chevalier does, indeed, remember you, and, I am sure, has a very great regard for you, and I made bold to say you had for him. He then enquired how you came to know he was in the castle, and whether you ordered me to speak to him. The first question I could not answer, but the second I did; and then he went off into his ecstasies again. I was afraid his joy would have betrayed him to the sentinel at the door.' 'But how does he look, Ludovico?' interrupted Emily: 'is he not melancholy and ill with this long confinement?'--'Why, as to melancholy, I saw no symptom of that, lady, while I was with him, for he seemed in the finest spirits I ever saw any body in, in all my life. His countenance was all joy, and, if one may judge from that, he was very well; but I did not ask him.' 'Did he send me no message?' said Emily. 'O yes, Signora, and something besides,' replied Ludovico, who searched his pockets. 'Surely, I have not lost it,' added he. 'The Chevalier said, he would have written, madam, if he had had pen and ink, and was going to have sent a very long message, when the sentinel entered the room, but not before he had give me this.' Ludovico then drew forth a miniature from his bosom, which Emily received with a trembling hand, and perceived to be a portrait of herself--the very picture, which her mother had lost so strangely in the fishing-house at La Vallee. Tears of mingled joy and tenderness flowed to her eyes, while Ludovico proceeded--'"Tell your lady," said the Chevalier, as he gave me the picture, "that this has been my companion, and only solace in all my misfortunes. Tell her, that I have worn it next my heart, and that I sent it her as the pledge of an affection, which can never die; that I would not part with it, but to her, for the wealth of worlds, and that I now part with it, only in the hope of soon receiving it from her hands. Tell her"--Just then, Signora, the sentinel came in, and the Chevalier said no more; but he had before asked me to contrive an interview for him with you; and when I told him, how little hope I had of prevailing with the guard to assist me, he said, that was not, perhaps, of so much consequence as I imagined, and bade me contrive to bring back your answer, and he would inform me of more than he chose to do then. So this, I think, lady, is the whole of what passed.' 'How, Ludovico, shall I reward you for your zeal?' said Emily: 'but, indeed, I do not now possess the means. When can you see the Chevalier again?' 'That is uncertain, Signora,' replied he. 'It depends upon who stands guard next: there are not more than one or two among them, from whom I would dare to ask admittance to the prison-chamber.' 'I need not bid you remember, Ludovico,' resumed Emily, 'how very much interested I am in your seeing the Chevalier soon; and, when you do so, tell him, that I have received the picture, and, with the sentiments he wished. Tell him I have suffered much, and still suffer--' She paused. 'But shall I tell him you will see him, lady?' said Ludovico. 'Most certainly I will,' replied Emily. 'But when, Signora, and where?' 'That must depend upon circumstances,' returned Emily. 'The place, and the hour, must be regulated by his opportunities.' 'As to the place, mademoiselle,' said Annette, 'there is no other place in the castle, besides this corridor, where WE can see him in safety, you know; and, as for the hour,--it must be when all the Signors are asleep, if that ever happens!' 'You may mention these circumstances to the Chevalier, Ludovico,' said she, checking the flippancy of Annette, 'and leave them to his judgment and opportunity. Tell him, my heart is unchanged. But, above all, let him see you again as soon as possible; and, Ludovico, I think it is needless to tell you I shall very anxiously look for you.' Having then wished her good night, Ludovico descended the staircase, and Emily retired to rest, but not to sleep, for joy now rendered her as wakeful, as she had ever been from grief. Montoni and his castle had all vanished from her mind, like the frightful vision of a necromancer, and she wandered, once more, in fairy scenes of unfading happiness: As when, beneath the beam Of summer moons, the distant woods among, Or by some flood, all silver'd with the gleam, The soft embodied Fays thro' airy portals stream. A week elapsed, before Ludovico again visited the prison; for the sentinels, during that period, were men, in whom he could not confide, and he feared to awaken curiosity, by asking to see their prisoner. In this interval, he communicated to Emily terrific reports of what was passing in the castle; of riots, quarrels, and of carousals more alarming than either; while from some circumstances, which he mentioned, she not only doubted, whether Montoni meant ever to release her, but greatly feared, that he had designs, concerning her,--such as she had formerly dreaded. Her name was frequently mentioned in the conversations, which Bertolini and Verezzi held together, and, at those times, they were frequently in contention. Montoni had lost large sums to Verezzi, so that there was a dreadful possibility of his designing her to be a substitute for the debt; but, as she was ignorant, that he had formerly encouraged the hopes of Bertolini also, concerning herself, after the latter had done him some signal service, she knew not how to account for these contentions between Bertolini and Verezzi. The cause of them, however, appeared to be of little consequence, for she thought she saw destruction approaching in many forms, and her entreaties to Ludovico to contrive an escape and to see the prisoner again, were more urgent than ever. At length, he informed her, that he had again visited the Chevalier, who had directed him to confide in the guard of the prison, from whom he had already received some instances of kindness, and who had promised to permit his going into the castle for half an hour, on the ensuing night, when Montoni and his companions should be engaged at their carousals. 'This was kind, to be sure,' added Ludovico: 'but Sebastian knows he runs no risque in letting the Chevalier out, for, if he can get beyond the bars and iron doors of the castle, he must be cunning indeed. But the Chevalier desired me, Signora, to go to you immediately, and to beg you would allow him to visit you, this night, if it was only for a moment, for that he could no longer live under the same roof, without seeing you; the hour, he said, he could not mention, for it must depend on circumstances (just as you said, Signora); and the place he desired you would appoint, as knowing which was best for your own safety.' Emily was now so much agitated by the near prospect of meeting Valancourt, that it was some time, before she could give any answer to Ludovico, or consider of the place of meeting; when she did, she saw none, that promised so much security, as the corridor, near her own apartment, which she was checked from leaving, by the apprehension of meeting any of Montoni's guests, on their way to their rooms; and she dismissed the scruples, which delicacy opposed, now that a serious danger was to be avoided by encountering them. It was settled, therefore, that the Chevalier should meet her in the corridor, at that hour of the night, which Ludovico, who was to be upon the watch, should judge safest: and Emily, as may be imagined, passed this interval in a tumult of hope and joy, anxiety and impatience. Never, since her residence in the castle, had she watched, with so much pleasure, the sun set behind the mountains, and twilight shade, and darkness veil the scene, as on this evening. She counted the notes of the great clock, and listened to the steps of the sentinels, as they changed the watch, only to rejoice, that another hour was gone. 'O, Valancourt!' said she, 'after all I have suffered; after our long, long separation, when I thought I should never--never see you more--we are still to meet again! O! I have endured grief, and anxiety, and terror, and let me, then, not sink beneath this joy!' These were moments, when it was impossible for her to feel emotions of regret, or melancholy, for any ordinary interests;--even the reflection, that she had resigned the estates, which would have been a provision for herself and Valancourt for life, threw only a light and transient shade upon her spirits. The idea of Valancourt, and that she should see him so soon, alone occupied her heart. At length the clock struck twelve; she opened the door to listen, if any noise was in the castle, and heard only distant shouts of riot and laughter, echoed feebly along the gallery. She guessed, that the Signor and his guests were at the banquet. 'They are now engaged for the night,' said she; 'and Valancourt will soon be here.' Having softly closed the door, she paced the room with impatient steps, and often went to the casement to listen for the lute; but all was silent, and, her agitation every moment increasing, she was at length unable to support herself, and sat down by the window. Annette, whom she detained, was, in the meantime, as loquacious as usual; but Emily heard scarcely any thing she said, and having at length risen to the casement, she distinguished the chords of the lute, struck with an expressive hand, and then the voice, she had formerly listened to, accompanied it. Now rising love they fann'd, now pleasing dole They breath'd in tender musings through the heart; And now a graver, sacred strain they stole, As when seraphic hands an hymn impart! Emily wept in doubtful joy and tenderness; and, when the strain ceased, she considered it as a signal, that Valancourt was about to leave the prison. Soon after, she heard steps in the corridor;--they were the light, quick steps of hope; she could scarcely support herself, as they approached, but opening the door of the apartment, she advanced to meet Valancourt, and, in the next moment, sunk in the arms of a stranger. His voice--his countenance instantly convinced her, and she fainted away. On reviving, she found herself supported by the stranger, who was watching over her recovery, with a countenance of ineffable tenderness and anxiety. She had no spirits for reply, or enquiry; she asked no questions, but burst into tears, and disengaged herself from his arms; when the expression of his countenance changed to surprise and disappointment, and he turned to Ludovico, for an explanation; Annette soon gave the information, which Ludovico could not. 'O, sir!' said she, in a voice, interrupted with sobs; 'O, sir! you are not the other Chevalier. We expected Monsieur Valancourt, but you are not he! O Ludovico! how could you deceive us so? my poor lady will never recover it--never!' The stranger, who now appeared much agitated, attempted to speak, but his words faltered; and then striking his hand against his forehead, as if in sudden despair, he walked abruptly to the other end of the corridor. Suddenly, Annette dried her tears, and spoke to Ludovico. 'But, perhaps,' said she, 'after all, the other Chevalier is not this: perhaps the Chevalier Valancourt is still below.' Emily raised her head. 'No,' replied Ludovico, 'Monsieur Valancourt never was below, if this gentleman is not he.' 'If you, sir,' said Ludovico, addressing the stranger, 'would but have had the goodness to trust me with your name, this mistake had been avoided.' 'Most true,' replied the stranger, speaking in broken Italian, 'but it was of the utmost consequence to me, that my name should be concealed from Montoni. Madam,' added he then, addressing Emily in French, 'will you permit me to apologize for the pain I have occasioned you, and to explain to you alone my name, and the circumstance, which has led me into this error? I am of France;--I am your countryman;--we are met in a foreign land.' Emily tried to compose her spirits; yet she hesitated to grant his request. At length, desiring, that Ludovico would wait on the stair-case, and detaining Annette, she told the stranger, that her woman understood very little Italian, and begged he would communicate what he wished to say, in that language.--Having withdrawn to a distant part of the corridor, he said, with a long-drawn sigh, 'You, madam, are no stranger to me, though I am so unhappy as to be unknown to you.--My name is Du Pont; I am of France, of Gascony, your native province, and have long admired,--and, why should I affect to disguise it?--have long loved you.' He paused, but, in the next moment, proceeded. 'My family, madam, is probably not unknown to you, for we lived within a few miles of La Vallee, and I have, sometimes, had the happiness of meeting you, on visits in the neighbourhood. I will not offend you by repeating how much you interested me; how much I loved to wander in the scenes you frequented; how often I visited your favourite fishing-house, and lamented the circumstance, which, at that time, forbade me to reveal my passion. I will not explain how I surrendered to temptation, and became possessed of a treasure, which was to me inestimable; a treasure, which I committed to your messenger, a few days ago, with expectations very different from my present ones. I will say nothing of these circumstances, for I know they will avail me little; let me only supplicate from you forgiveness, and the picture, which I so unwarily returned. Your generosity will pardon the theft, and restore the prize. My crime has been my punishment; for the portrait I stole has contributed to nourish a passion, which must still be my torment.' Emily now interrupted him. 'I think, sir, I may leave it to your integrity to determine, whether, after what has just appeared, concerning Mons. Valancourt, I ought to return the picture. I think you will acknowledge, that this would not be generosity; and you will allow me to add, that it would be doing myself an injustice. I must consider myself honoured by your good opinion, but'--and she hesitated,--'the mistake of this evening makes it unnecessary for me to say more.' 'It does, madam,--alas! it does!' said the stranger, who, after a long pause, proceeded.--'But you will allow me to shew my disinterestedness, though not my love, and will accept the services I offer. Yet, alas! what services can I offer? I am myself a prisoner, a sufferer, like you. But, dear as liberty is to me, I would not seek it through half the hazards I would encounter to deliver you from this recess of vice. Accept the offered services of a friend; do not refuse me the reward of having, at least, attempted to deserve your thanks.' 'You deserve them already, sir,' said Emily; 'the wish deserves my warmest thanks. But you will excuse me for reminding you of the danger you incur by prolonging this interview. It will be a great consolation to me to remember, whether your friendly attempts to release me succeed or not, that I have a countryman, who would so generously protect me.'--Monsieur Du Pont took her hand, which she but feebly attempted to withdraw, and pressed it respectfully to his lips. 'Allow me to breathe another fervent sigh for your happiness,' said he, 'and to applaud myself for an affection, which I cannot conquer.' As he said this, Emily heard a noise from her apartment, and, turning round, saw the door from the stair-case open, and a man rush into her chamber. 'I will teach you to conquer it,' cried he, as he advanced into the corridor, and drew a stiletto, which he aimed at Du Pont, who was unarmed, but who, stepping back, avoided the blow, and then sprung upon Verezzi, from whom he wrenched the stiletto. While they struggled in each other's grasp, Emily, followed by Annette, ran further into the corridor, calling on Ludovico, who was, however, gone from the stair-case, and, as she advanced, terrified and uncertain what to do, a distant noise, that seemed to arise from the hall, reminded her of the danger she was incurring; and, sending Annette forward in search of Ludovico, she returned to the spot where Du Pont and Verezzi were still struggling for victory. It was her own cause which was to be decided with that of the former, whose conduct, independently of this circumstance, would, however, have interested her in his success, even had she not disliked and dreaded Verezzi. She threw herself in a chair, and supplicated them to desist from further violence, till, at length, Du Pont forced Verezzi to the floor, where he lay stunned by the violence of his fall; and she then entreated Du Pont to escape from the room, before Montoni, or his party, should appear; but he still refused to leave her unprotected; and, while Emily, now more terrified for him, than for herself, enforced the entreaty, they heard steps ascending the private stair-case. 'O you are lost!' cried she, 'these are Montoni's people.' Du Pont made no reply, but supported Emily, while, with a steady, though eager, countenance, he awaited their appearance, and, in the next moment, Ludovico, alone, mounted the landing-place. Throwing an hasty glance round the chamber, 'Follow me,' said he, 'as you value your lives; we have not an instant to lose!' Emily enquired what had occurred, and whither they were to go? 'I cannot stay to tell you now, Signora,' replied Ludovico: 'fly! fly!' She immediately followed him, accompanied by Mons. Du Pont, down the stair-case, and along a vaulted passage, when suddenly she recollected Annette, and enquired for her. 'She awaits us further on, Signora,' said Ludovico, almost breathless with haste; 'the gates were open, a moment since, to a party just come in from the mountains: they will be shut, I fear, before we can reach them! Through this door, Signora,' added Ludovico, holding down the lamp, 'take care, here are two steps.' Emily followed, trembling still more, than before she had understood, that her escape from the castle, depended upon the present moment; while Du Pont supported her, and endeavoured, as they passed along, to cheer her spirits. 'Speak low, Signor,' said Ludovico, 'these passages send echoes all round the castle.' 'Take care of the light,' cried Emily, 'you go so fast, that the air will extinguish it.' Ludovico now opened another door, where they found Annette, and the party then descended a short flight of steps into a passage, which, Ludovico said, led round the inner court of the castle, and opened into the outer one. As they advanced, confused and tumultuous sounds, that seemed to come from the inner court, alarmed Emily. 'Nay, Signora,' said Ludovico, 'our only hope is in that tumult; while the Signor's people are busied about the men, who are just arrived, we may, perhaps, pass unnoticed through the gates. But hush!' he added, as they approached the small door, that opened into the outer court, 'if you will remain here a moment, I will go to see whether the gates are open, and any body is in the way. Pray extinguish the light, Signor, if you hear me talking,' continued Ludovico, delivering the lamp to Du Pont, 'and remain quite still.' Saying this, he stepped out upon the court, and they closed the door, listening anxiously to his departing steps. No voice, however, was heard in the court, which he was crossing, though a confusion of many voices yet issued from the inner one. 'We shall soon be beyond the walls,' said Du Pont softly to Emily, 'support yourself a little longer, Madam, and all will be well.' But soon they heard Ludovico speaking loud, and the voice also of some other person, and Du Pont immediately extinguished the lamp. 'Ah! it is too late!' exclaimed Emily, 'what is to become of us?' They listened again, and then perceived, that Ludovico was talking with a sentinel, whose voices were heard also by Emily's favourite dog, that had followed her from the chamber, and now barked loudly. 'This dog will betray us!' said Du Pont, 'I will hold him.' 'I fear he has already betrayed us!' replied Emily. Du Pont, however, caught him up, and, again listening to what was going on without, they heard Ludovico say, 'I'll watch the gates the while.' 'Stay a minute,' replied the sentinel, 'and you need not have the trouble, for the horses will be sent round to the outer stables, then the gates will be shut, and I can leave my post.' 'I don't mind the trouble, comrade,' said Ludovico, 'you will do such another good turn for me, some time. Go--go, and fetch the wine; the rogues, that are just come in, will drink it all else.' The soldier hesitated, and then called aloud to the people in the second court, to know why they did not send out the horses, that the gates might be shut; but they were too much engaged, to attend to him, even if they had heard his voice. 'Aye--aye,' said Ludovico, 'they know better than that; they are sharing it all among them; if you wait till the horses come out, you must wait till the wine is drunk. I have had my share already, but, since you do not care about yours, I see no reason why I should not have that too.' 'Hold, hold, not so fast,' cried the sentinel, 'do watch then, for a moment: I'll be with you presently.' 'Don't hurry yourself,' said Ludovico, coolly, 'I have kept guard before now. But you may leave me your trombone,* that, if the castle should be attacked, you know, I may be able to defend the pass, like a hero.' (* A kind of blunderbuss. [A. R.]) 'There, my good fellow,' returned the soldier, 'there, take it--it has seen service, though it could do little in defending the castle. I'll tell you a good story, though, about this same trombone.' 'You'll tell it better when you have had the wine,' said Ludovico. 'There! they are coming out from the court already.' 'I'll have the wine, though,' said the sentinel, running off. 'I won't keep you a minute.' 'Take your time, I am in no haste,' replied Ludovico, who was already hurrying across the court, when the soldier came back. 'Whither so fast, friend--whither so fast?' said the latter. 'What! is this the way you keep watch! I must stand to my post myself, I see.' 'Aye, well,' replied Ludovico, 'you have saved me the trouble of following you further, for I wanted to tell you, if you have a mind to drink the Tuscany wine, you must go to Sebastian, he is dealing it out; the other that Federico has, is not worth having. But you are not likely to have any, I see, for they are all coming out.' 'By St. Peter! so they are,' said the soldier, and again ran off, while Ludovico, once more at liberty, hastened to the door of the passage, where Emily was sinking under the anxiety this long discourse had occasioned; but, on his telling them the court was clear, they followed him to the gates, without waiting another instant, yet not before he had seized two horses, that had strayed from the second court, and were picking a scanty meal among the grass, which grew between the pavement of the first. They passed, without interruption, the dreadful gates, and took the road that led down among the woods, Emily, Monsieur Du Pont and Annette on foot, and Ludovico, who was mounted on one horse, leading the other. Having reached them, they stopped, while Emily and Annette were placed on horseback with their two protectors, when, Ludovico leading the way, they set off as fast as the broken road, and the feeble light, which a rising moon threw among the foliage, would permit. Emily was so much astonished by this sudden departure, that she scarcely dared to believe herself awake; and she yet much doubted whether this adventure would terminate in escape,--a doubt, which had too much probability to justify it; for, before they quitted the woods, they heard shouts in the wind, and, on emerging from them, saw lights moving quickly near the castle above. Du Pont whipped his horse, and with some difficulty compelled him to go faster. 'Ah! poor beast,' said Ludovico, 'he is weary enough;--he has been out all day; but, Signor, we must fly for it, now; for yonder are lights coming this way.' Having given his own horse a lash, they now both set off on a full gallop; and, when they again looked back, the lights were so distant as scarcely to be discerned, and the voices were sunk into silence. The travellers then abated their pace, and, consulting whither they should direct their course, it was determined they should descend into Tuscany, and endeavour to reach the Mediterranean, where they could readily embark for France. Thither Du Pont meant to attend Emily, if he should learn, that the regiment he had accompanied into Italy, was returned to his native country. They were now in the road, which Emily had travelled with Ugo and Bertrand; but Ludovico, who was the only one of the party, acquainted with the passes of these mountains, said, that, a little further on, a bye-road, branching from this, would lead them down into Tuscany with very little difficulty; and that, at a few leagues distance, was a small town, where necessaries could be procured for their journey. 'But, I hope,' added he, 'we shall meet with no straggling parties of banditti; some of them are abroad, I know. However, I have got a good trombone, which will be of some service, if we should encounter any of those brave spirits. You have no arms, Signor?' 'Yes,' replied Du Pont, 'I have the villain's stilletto, who would have stabbed me--but let us rejoice in our escape from Udolpho, nor torment ourselves with looking out for dangers, that may never arrive.' The moon was now risen high over the woods, that hung upon the sides of the narrow glen, through which they wandered, and afforded them light sufficient to distinguish their way, and to avoid the loose and broken stones, that frequently crossed it. They now travelled leisurely, and in profound silence; for they had scarcely yet recovered from the astonishment, into which this sudden escape had thrown them.--Emily's mind, especially, was sunk, after the various emotions it had suffered, into a kind of musing stillness, which the reposing beauty of the surrounding scene and the creeping murmur of the night-breeze among the foliage above contributed to prolong. She thought of Valancourt and of France, with hope, and she would have thought of them with joy, had not the first events of this evening harassed her spirits too much, to permit her now to feel so lively a sensation. Meanwhile, Emily was alone the object of Du Pont's melancholy consideration; yet, with the despondency he suffered, as he mused on his recent disappointment, was mingled a sweet pleasure, occasioned by her presence, though they did not now exchange a single word. Annette thought of this wonderful escape, of the bustle in which Montoni and his people must be, now that their flight was discovered; of her native country, whither she hoped she was returning, and of her marriage with Ludovico, to which there no longer appeared any impediment, for poverty she did not consider such. Ludovico, on his part, congratulated himself, on having rescued his Annette and Signora Emily from the danger, that had surrounded them; on his own liberation from people, whose manners he had long detested; on the freedom he had given to Monsieur Du Pont; on his prospect of happiness with the object of his affections, and not a little on the address, with which he had deceived the sentinel, and conducted the whole of this affair. Thus variously engaged in thought, the travellers passed on silently, for above an hour, a question only being, now and then, asked by Du Pont, concerning the road, or a remark uttered by Annette, respecting objects, seen imperfectly in the twilight. At length, lights were perceived twinkling on the side of a mountain, and Ludovico had no doubt, that they proceeded from the town he had mentioned, while his companions, satisfied by this assurance, sunk again into silence. Annette was the first who interrupted this. 'Holy Peter!' said she, 'What shall we do for money on our journey? for I know neither I, or my lady, have a single sequin; the Signor took care of that!' This remark produced a serious enquiry, which ended in as serious an embarrassment, for Du Pont had been rifled of nearly all his money, when he was taken prisoner; the remainder he had given to the sentinel, who had enabled him occasionally to leave his prison-chamber; and Ludovico, who had for some time found a difficulty, in procuring any part of the wages due to him, had now scarcely cash sufficient to procure necessary refreshment at the first town, in which they should arrive. Their poverty was the more distressing, since it would detain them among the mountains, where, even in a town, they could scarcely consider themselves safe from Montoni. The travellers, however, had only to proceed and dare the future; and they continued their way through lonely wilds and dusky vallies, where the overhanging foliage now admitted, and then excluded the moon-light;--wilds so desolate, that they appeared, on the first glance, as if no human being had ever trode them before. Even the road, in which the party were, did but slightly contradict this error, for the high grass and other luxuriant vegetation, with which it was overgrown, told how very seldom the foot of a traveller had passed it. At length, from a distance, was heard the faint tinkling of a sheep-bell; and, soon after, the bleat of flocks, and the party then knew, that they were near some human habitation, for the light, which Ludovico had fancied to proceed from a town, had long been concealed by intervening mountains. Cheered by this hope, they quickened their pace along the narrow pass they were winding, and it opened upon one of those pastoral vallies of the Apennines, which might be painted for a scene of Arcadia, and whose beauty and simplicity are finely contrasted by the grandeur of the snow-topt mountains above. The morning light, now glimmering in the horizon, shewed faintly, at a little distance, upon the brow of a hill, which seemed to peep from 'under the opening eye-lids of the morn,' the town they were in search of, and which they soon after reached. It was not without some difficulty, that they there found a house, which could afford shelter for themselves and their horses; and Emily desired they might not rest longer than was necessary for refreshment. Her appearance excited some surprise, for she was without a hat, having had time only to throw on her veil before she left the castle, a circumstance, that compelled her to regret again the want of money, without which it was impossible to procure this necessary article of dress. Ludovico, on examining his purse, found it even insufficient to supply present refreshment, and Du Pont, at length, ventured to inform the landlord, whose countenance was simple and honest, of their exact situation, and requested, that he would assist them to pursue their journey; a purpose, which he promised to comply with, as far as he was able, when he learned that they were prisoners escaping from Montoni, whom he had too much reason to hate. But, though he consented to lend them fresh horses to carry them to the next town, he was too poor himself to trust them with money, and they were again lamenting their poverty, when Ludovico, who had been with his tired horses to the hovel, which served for a stable, entered the room, half frantic with joy, in which his auditors soon participated. On removing the saddle from one of the horses, he had found beneath it a small bag, containing, no doubt, the booty of one of the condottieri, who had returned from a plundering excursion, just before Ludovico left the castle, and whose horse having strayed from the inner court, while his master was engaged in drinking, had brought away the treasure, which the ruffian had considered the reward of his exploit. On counting over this, Du Pont found, that it would be more than sufficient to carry them all to France, where he now determined to accompany Emily, whether he should obtain intelligence of his regiment, or not; for, though he had as much confidence in the integrity of Ludovico, as his small knowledge of him allowed, he could not endure the thought of committing her to his care for the voyage; nor, perhaps, had he resolution enough to deny himself the dangerous pleasure, which he might derive from her presence. He now consulted them, concerning the sea-port, to which they should direct their way, and Ludovico, better informed of the geography of the country, said, that Leghorn was the nearest port of consequence, which Du Pont knew also to be the most likely of any in Italy to assist their plan, since from thence vessels of all nations were continually departing. Thither, therefore, it was determined, that they should proceed. Emily, having purchased a little straw hat, such as was worn by the peasant girls of Tuscany, and some other little necessary equipments for the journey, and the travellers, having exchanged their tired horses for others better able to carry them, re-commenced their joyous way, as the sun was rising over the mountains, and, after travelling through this romantic country, for several hours, began to descend into the vale of Arno. And here Emily beheld all the charms of sylvan and pastoral landscape united, adorned with the elegant villas of the Florentine nobles, and diversified with the various riches of cultivation. How vivid the shrubs, that embowered the slopes, with the woods, that stretched amphitheatrically along the mountains! and, above all, how elegant the outline of these waving Apennines, now softening from the wildness, which their interior regions exhibited! At a distance, in the east, Emily discovered Florence, with its towers rising on the brilliant horizon, and its luxuriant plain, spreading to the feet of the Apennines, speckled with gardens and magnificent villas, or coloured with groves of orange and lemon, with vines, corn, and plantations of olives and mulberry; while, to the west, the vale opened to the waters of the Mediterranean, so distant, that they were known only by a blueish line, that appeared upon the horizon, and by the light marine vapour, which just stained the aether above. With a full heart, Emily hailed the waves, that were to bear her back to her native country, the remembrance of which, however, brought with it a pang; for she had there no home to receive, no parents to welcome her, but was going, like a forlorn pilgrim, to weep over the sad spot, where he, who WAS her father, lay interred. Nor were her spirits cheered, when she considered how long it would probably be before she should see Valancourt, who might be stationed with his regiment in a distant part of France, and that, when they did meet, it would be only to lament the successful villany of Montoni; yet, still she would have felt inexpressible delight at the thought of being once more in the same country with Valancourt, had it even been certain, that she could not see him. The intense heat, for it was now noon, obliged the travellers to look out for a shady recess, where they might rest, for a few hours, and the neighbouring thickets, abounding with wild grapes, raspberries, and figs, promised them grateful refreshment. Soon after, they turned from the road into a grove, whose thick foliage entirely excluded the sun-beams, and where a spring, gushing from the rock, gave coolness to the air; and, having alighted and turned the horses to graze, Annette and Ludovico ran to gather fruit from the surrounding thickets, of which they soon returned with an abundance. The travellers, seated under the shade of a pine and cypress grove and on turf, enriched with such a profusion of fragrant flowers, as Emily had scarcely ever seen, even among the Pyrenees, took their simple repast, and viewed, with new delight, beneath the dark umbrage of gigantic pines, the glowing landscape stretching to the sea. Emily and Du Pont gradually became thoughtful and silent; but Annette was all joy and loquacity, and Ludovico was gay, without forgetting the respectful distance, which was due to his companions. The repast being over, Du Pont recommended Emily to endeavour to sleep, during these sultry hours, and, desiring the servants would do the same, said he would watch the while; but Ludovico wished to spare him this trouble; and Emily and Annette, wearied with travelling, tried to repose, while he stood guard with his trombone. When Emily, refreshed by slumber, awoke, she found the sentinel asleep on his post and Du Pont awake, but lost in melancholy thought. As the sun was yet too high to allow them to continue their journey, and as it was necessary, that Ludovico, after the toils and trouble he had suffered, should finish his sleep, Emily took this opportunity of enquiring by what accident Du Pont became Montoni's prisoner, and he, pleased with the interest this enquiry expressed and with the excuse it gave him for talking to her of himself, immediately answered her curiosity. 'I came into Italy, madam,' said Du Pont, 'in the service of my country. In an adventure among the mountains our party, engaging with the bands of Montoni, was routed, and I, with a few of my comrades, was taken prisoner. When they told me, whose captive I was, the name of Montoni struck me, for I remembered, that Madame Cheron, your aunt, had married an Italian of that name, and that you had accompanied them into Italy. It was not, however, till some time after, that I became convinced this was the same Montoni, or learned that you, madam, was under the same roof with myself. I will not pain you by describing what were my emotions upon this discovery, which I owed to a sentinel, whom I had so far won to my interest, that he granted me many indulgences, one of which was very important to me, and somewhat dangerous to himself; but he persisted in refusing to convey any letter, or notice of my situation to you, for he justly dreaded a discovery and the consequent vengeance of Montoni. He however enabled me to see you more than once. You are surprised, madam, and I will explain myself. My health and spirits suffered extremely from want of air and exercise, and, at length, I gained so far upon the pity, or the avarice of the man, that he gave me the means of walking on the terrace.' Emily now listened, with very anxious attention, to the narrative of Du Pont, who proceeded: 'In granting this indulgence, he knew, that he had nothing to apprehend from a chance of my escaping from a castle, which was vigilantly guarded, and the nearest terrace of which rose over a perpendicular rock; he shewed me also,' continued Du Pont, 'a door concealed in the cedar wainscot of the apartment where I was confined, which he instructed me how to open; and which, leading into a passage, formed within the thickness of the wall, that extended far along the castle, finally opened in an obscure corner of the eastern rampart. I have since been informed, that there are many passages of the same kind concealed within the prodigious walls of that edifice, and which were, undoubtedly, contrived for the purpose of facilitating escapes in time of war. Through this avenue, at the dead of night, I often stole to the terrace, where I walked with the utmost caution, lest my steps should betray me to the sentinels on duty in distant parts; for this end of it, being guarded by high buildings, was not watched by soldiers. In one of these midnight wanderings, I saw light in a casement that overlooked the rampart, and which, I observed, was immediately over my prison-chamber. It occurred to me, that you might be in that apartment, and, with the hope of seeing you, I placed myself opposite to the window.' Emily, remembering the figure that had formerly appeared on the terrace, and which had occasioned her so much anxiety, exclaimed, 'It was you then, Monsieur Du Pont, who occasioned me much foolish terror; my spirits were, at that time, so much weakened by long suffering, that they took alarm at every hint.' Du Pont, after lamenting, that he had occasioned her any apprehension, added, 'As I rested on the wall, opposite to your casement, the consideration of your melancholy situation and of my own called from me involuntary sounds of lamentation, which drew you, I fancy, to the casement; I saw there a person, whom I believed to be you. O! I will say nothing of my emotion at that moment; I wished to speak, but prudence restrained me, till the distant foot-step of a sentinel compelled me suddenly to quit my station. 'It was some time, before I had another opportunity of walking, for I could only leave my prison, when it happened to be the turn of one man to guard me; meanwhile I became convinced from some circumstances related by him, that your apartment was over mine, and, when again I ventured forth, I returned to your casement, where again I saw you, but without daring to speak. I waved my hand, and you suddenly disappeared; then it was, that I forgot my prudence, and yielded to lamentation; again you appeared--you spoke--I heard the well-known accent of your voice! and, at that moment, my discretion would have forsaken me again, had I not heard also the approaching steps of a soldier, when I instantly quitted the place, though not before the man had seen me. He followed down the terrace and gained so fast upon me, that I was compelled to make use of a stratagem, ridiculous enough, to save myself. I had heard of the superstition of many of these men, and I uttered a strange noise, with a hope, that my pursuer would mistake it for something supernatural, and desist from pursuit. Luckily for myself I succeeded; the man, it seems, was subject to fits, and the terror he suffered threw him into one, by which accident I secured my retreat. A sense of the danger I had escaped, and the increased watchfulness, which my appearance had occasioned among the sentinels, deterred me ever after from walking on the terrace; but, in the stillness of night, I frequently beguiled myself with an old lute, procured for me by a soldier, which I sometimes accompanied with my voice, and sometimes, I will acknowledge, with a hope of making myself heard by you; but it was only a few evenings ago, that this hope was answered. I then thought I heard a voice in the wind, calling me; yet, even then I feared to reply, lest the sentinel at the prison door should hear me. Was I right, madam, in this conjecture--was it you who spoke?' 'Yes,' said Emily, with an involuntary sigh, 'you was right indeed.' Du Pont, observing the painful emotions, which this question revived, now changed the subject. 'In one of my excursions through the passage, which I have mentioned, I overheard a singular conversation,' said he. 'In the passage!' said Emily, with surprise. 'I heard it in the passage,' said Du Pont, 'but it proceeded from an apartment, adjoining the wall, within which the passage wound, and the shell of the wall was there so thin, and was also somewhat decayed, that I could distinctly hear every word, spoken on the other side. It happened that Montoni and his companions were assembled in the room, and Montoni began to relate the extraordinary history of the lady, his predecessor, in the castle. He did, indeed, mention some very surprising circumstances, and whether they were strictly true, his conscience must decide; I fear it will determine against him. But you, madam, have doubtless heard the report, which he designs should circulate, on the subject of that lady's mysterious fate.' 'I have, sir,' replied Emily, 'and I perceive, that you doubt it.' 'I doubted it before the period I am speaking of,' rejoined Du Pont;--'but some circumstances, mentioned by Montoni, greatly contributed to my suspicions. The account I then heard, almost convinced me, that he was a murderer. I trembled for you;--the more so that I had heard the guests mention your name in a manner, that threatened your repose; and, knowing, that the most impious men are often the most superstitious, I determined to try whether I could not awaken their consciences, and awe them from the commission of the crime I dreaded. I listened closely to Montoni, and, in the most striking passages of his story, I joined my voice, and repeated his last words, in a disguised and hollow tone.' 'But was you not afraid of being discovered?' said Emily. 'I was not,' replied Du Pont; 'for I knew, that, if Montoni had been acquainted with the secret of this passage, he would not have confined me in the apartment, to which it led. I knew also, from better authority, that he was ignorant of it. The party, for some time, appeared inattentive to my voice; but, at length, were so much alarmed, that they quitted the apartment; and, having heard Montoni order his servants to search it, I returned to my prison, which was very distant from this part of the passage.' 'I remember perfectly to have heard of the conversation you mention,' said Emily; 'it spread a general alarm among Montoni's people, and I will own I was weak enough to partake of it.' Monsieur Du Pont and Emily thus continued to converse of Montoni, and then of France, and of the plan of their voyage; when Emily told him, that it was her intention to retire to a convent in Languedoc, where she had been formerly treated with much kindness, and from thence to write to her relation Monsieur Quesnel, and inform him of her conduct. There, she designed to wait, till La Vallee should again be her own, whither she hoped her income would some time permit her to return; for Du Pont now taught her to expect, that the estate, of which Montoni had attempted to defraud her, was not irrecoverably lost, and he again congratulated her on her escape from Montoni, who, he had not a doubt, meant to have detained her for life. The possibility of recovering her aunt's estates for Valancourt and herself lighted up a joy in Emily's heart, such as she had not known for many months; but she endeavoured to conceal this from Monsieur Du Pont, lest it should lead him to a painful remembrance of his rival. They continued to converse, till the sun was declining in the west, when Du Pont awoke Ludovico, and they set forward on their journey. Gradually descending the lower slopes of the valley, they reached the Arno, and wound along its pastoral margin, for many miles, delighted with the scenery around them, and with the remembrances, which its classic waves revived. At a distance, they heard the gay song of the peasants among the vineyards, and observed the setting sun tint the waves with yellow lustre, and twilight draw a dusky purple over the mountains, which, at length, deepened into night. Then the LUCCIOLA, the fire-fly of Tuscany, was seen to flash its sudden sparks among the foliage, while the cicala, with its shrill note, became more clamorous than even during the noon-day heat, loving best the hour when the English beetle, with less offensive sound, winds His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum.* (* Collins. [A. R.]) The travellers crossed the Arno by moon-light, at a ferry, and, learning that Pisa was distant only a few miles down the river, they wished to have proceeded thither in a boat, but, as none could be procured, they set out on their wearied horses for that city. As they approached it, the vale expanded into a plain, variegated with vineyards, corn, olives and mulberry groves; but it was late, before they reached its gates, where Emily was surprised to hear the busy sound of footsteps and the tones of musical instruments, as well as to see the lively groups, that filled the streets, and she almost fancied herself again at Venice; but here was no moon-light sea--no gay gondolas, dashing the waves,--no PALLADIAN palaces, to throw enchantment over the fancy and lead it into the wilds of fairy story. The Arno rolled through the town, but no music trembled from balconies over its waters; it gave only the busy voices of sailors on board vessels just arrived from the Mediterranean; the melancholy heaving of the anchor, and the shrill boatswain's whistle;--sounds, which, since that period, have there sunk almost into silence. They then served to remind Du Pont, that it was probable he might hear of a vessel, sailing soon to France from this port, and thus be spared the trouble of going to Leghorn. As soon as Emily had reached the inn, he went therefore to the quay, to make his enquiries; but, after all the endeavours of himself and Ludovico, they could hear of no bark, destined immediately for France, and the travellers returned to their resting-place. Here also, Du Pont endeavoured to learn where his regiment then lay, but could acquire no information concerning it. The travellers retired early to rest, after the fatigues of this day; and, on the following, rose early, and, without pausing to view the celebrated antiquities of the place, or the wonders of its hanging tower, pursued their journey in the cooler hours, through a charming country, rich with wine, and corn and oil. The Apennines, no longer awful, or even grand, here softened into the beauty of sylvan and pastoral landscape; and Emily, as she descended them, looked down delighted on Leghorn, and its spacious bay, filled with vessels, and crowned with these beautiful hills. She was no less surprised and amused, on entering this town, to find it crowded with persons in the dresses of all nations; a scene, which reminded her of a Venetian masquerade, such as she had witnessed at the time of the Carnival; but here, was bustle, without gaiety, and noise instead of music, while elegance was to be looked for only in the waving outlines of the surrounding hills. Monsieur Du Pont, immediately on their arrival, went down to the quay, where he heard of several French vessels, and of one, that was to sail, in a few days, for Marseilles, from whence another vessel could be procured, without difficulty, to take them across the gulf of Lyons towards Narbonne, on the coast not many leagues from which city he understood the convent was seated, to which Emily wished to retire. He, therefore, immediately engaged with the captain to take them to Marseilles, and Emily was delighted to hear, that her passage to France was secured. Her mind was now relieved from the terror of pursuit, and the pleasing hope of soon seeing her native country--that country which held Valancourt, restored to her spirits a degree of cheerfulness, such as she had scarcely known, since the death of her father. At Leghorn also, Du Pont heard of his regiment, and that it had embarked for France; a circumstance, which gave him great satisfaction, for he could now accompany Emily thither, without reproach to his conscience, or apprehension of displeasure from his commander. During these days, he scrupulously forbore to distress her by a mention of his passion, and she was compelled to esteem and pity, though she could not love him. He endeavoured to amuse her by shewing the environs of the town, and they often walked together on the sea-shore, and on the busy quays, where Emily was frequently interested by the arrival and departure of vessels, participating in the joy of meeting friends, and, sometimes, shedding a sympathetic tear to the sorrow of those, that were separating. It was after having witnessed a scene of the latter kind, that she arranged the following stanzas: THE MARINER Soft came the breath of spring; smooth flow'd the tide; And blue the heaven in its mirror smil'd; The white sail trembled, swell'd, expanded wide, The busy sailors at the anchor toil'd. With anxious friends, that shed the parting tear, The deck was throng'd--how swift the moments fly! The vessel heaves, the farewel signs appear; Mute is each tongue, and eloquent each eye! The last dread moment comes!--The sailor-youth Hides the big drop, then smiles amid his pain, Sooths his sad bride, and vows eternal truth, 'Farewel, my love--we shall--shall meet again!' Long on the stern, with waving hand, he stood; The crowded shore sinks, lessening, from his view, As gradual glides the bark along the flood; His bride is seen no more--'Adieu!--adieu!' The breeze of Eve moans low, her smile is o'er, Dim steals her twilight down the crimson'd west, He climbs the top-most mast, to seek once more The far-seen coast, where all his wishes rest. He views its dark line on the distant sky, And Fancy leads him to his little home, He sees his weeping love, he hears her sigh, He sooths her griefs, and tells of joys to come. Eve yields to night, the breeze to wintry gales, In one vast shade the seas and shores repose; He turns his aching eyes,--his spirit fails, The chill tear falls;--sad to the deck he goes! The storm of midnight swells, the sails are furl'd, Deep sounds the lead, but finds no friendly shore, Fast o'er the waves the wretched bark is hurl'd, 'O Ellen, Ellen! we must meet no more!' Lightnings, that shew the vast and foamy deep, The rending thunders, as they onward roll, The loud, loud winds, that o'er the billows sweep-- Shake the firm nerve, appall the bravest soul! Ah! what avails the seamen's toiling care! The straining cordage bursts, the mast is riv'n; The sounds of terror groan along the air, Then sink afar;--the bark on rocks is driv'n! Fierce o'er the wreck the whelming waters pass'd, The helpless crew sunk in the roaring main! Henry's faint accents trembled in the blast-- 'Farewel, my love!--we ne'er shall meet again!' Oft, at the calm and silent evening hour, When summer-breezes linger on the wave, A melancholy voice is heard to pour Its lonely sweetness o'er poor Henry's grave! And oft, at midnight, airy strains are heard Around the grove, where Ellen's form is laid; Nor is the dirge by village-maidens fear'd, For lovers' spirits guard the holy shade! 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.

Em rekrutiert Ludovico, Annettes Liebling, um herauszufinden, ob Valancourt in den Verliesen ist. Ludovico kann nicht bestätigen, dass der Gefangene definitiv Valancourt ist, aber er bringt seltsame Nachrichten zurück: Es gibt einen Gefangenen im Verlies, der Em definitiv kennt. Was mehr ist, der Gefangene gibt Ludovico das Armband von Ems Mutter, das ein Bild von Em enthält. Erinner dich an Kapitel 1, als Ems Mutter ihr geliebtes Armband verloren hat. Also ist es Em nicht so wichtig, dass ihr Geliebter ein Dieb ist, solange er ihr Geliebter Valancourt ist. Durch Ludovico arrangiert Em ein Treffen mit ihrem mysteriösen Verehrer. Aber es ist nicht Valancourt. Es ist ein zufälliger Franzose namens Du Pont, der schon lange in Em verliebt ist. Er liebt sie mit einem großen "L." Irgendwie ist der arme Kerl in Montonis Verliesen gelandet. Er ist im Begriff, mehr zu sagen, als Verezzi mit einem Schwert auf ihn zukommt. Richtig, es ist wieder Duellzeit. Du Pont schafft es, Verezzi zu schlagen, ohne großes Aufsehen im Schloss zu erregen. Während Verezzi betäubt am Boden liegt, machen Du Pont, Ludovico, Annette und Em sich mit gestohlenen Pferden aus dem Schloss davon. Nutze den Tag, nicht wahr? Ach, es gibt einen kleinen Haken im Plan. Keiner aus der Gruppe hat Bargeld. Aber da alles gut läuft, gibt es auf einem der gestohlenen Pferde eine Tasche mit ein bisschen kaltem, hartem Geld. Die Gruppe setzt sich auf ein Boot nach Marseille, Frankreich, um weit weg von Udolpho und dem bösen Montoni zu kommen. Huzzah!

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: XIV. The Honest Tradesman To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in Fleet-street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number and variety of objects in movement were every day presented. Who could sit upon anything in Fleet-street during the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one ever tending westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple where the sun goes down! With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on duty watching one stream--saving that Jerry had no expectation of their ever running dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopeful kind, since a small part of his income was derived from the pilotage of timid women (mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life) from Tellson's side of the tides to the opposite shore. Brief as such companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher never failed to become so interested in the lady as to express a strong desire to have the honour of drinking her very good health. And it was from the gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolent purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now observed. Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him. It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds were few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in general were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast that Mrs. Cruncher must have been "flopping" in some pointed manner, when an unusual concourse pouring down Fleet-street westward, attracted his attention. Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind of funeral was coming along, and that there was popular objection to this funeral, which engendered uproar. "Young Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, "it's a buryin'." "Hooroar, father!" cried Young Jerry. The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterious significance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that he watched his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear. "What d'ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you want to conwey to your own father, you young Rip? This boy is a getting too many for _me_!" said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. "Him and his hooroars! Don't let me hear no more of you, or you shall feel some more of me. D'ye hear?" "I warn't doing no harm," Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek. "Drop it then," said Mr. Cruncher; "I won't have none of _your_ no harms. Get a top of that there seat, and look at the crowd." His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and hissing round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourning coach there was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings that were considered essential to the dignity of the position. The position appeared by no means to please him, however, with an increasing rabble surrounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, and incessantly groaning and calling out: "Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies!" with many compliments too numerous and forcible to repeat. Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher; he always pricked up his senses, and became excited, when a funeral passed Tellson's. Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this uncommon attendance excited him greatly, and he asked of the first man who ran against him: "What is it, brother? What's it about?" "_I_ don't know," said the man. "Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies!" He asked another man. "Who is it?" "_I_ don't know," returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouth nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and with the greatest ardour, "Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! Spi--ies!" At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case, tumbled against him, and from this person he learned that the funeral was the funeral of one Roger Cly. "Was he a spy?" asked Mr. Cruncher. "Old Bailey spy," returned his informant. "Yaha! Tst! Yah! Old Bailey Spi--i--ies!" "Why, to be sure!" exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which he had assisted. "I've seen him. Dead, is he?" "Dead as mutton," returned the other, "and can't be too dead. Have 'em out, there! Spies! Pull 'em out, there! Spies!" The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea, that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly repeating the suggestion to have 'em out, and to pull 'em out, mobbed the two vehicles so closely that they came to a stop. On the crowd's opening the coach doors, the one mourner scuffled out by himself and was in their hands for a moment; but he was so alert, and made such good use of his time, that in another moment he was scouring away up a bye-street, after shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pocket-handkerchief, and other symbolical tears. These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with great enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops; for a crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monster much dreaded. They had already got the length of opening the hearse to take the coffin out, when some brighter genius proposed instead, its being escorted to its destination amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions being much needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, and the coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen out, while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as could by any exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these volunteers was Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed his spiky head from the observation of Tellson's, in the further corner of the mourning coach. The officiating undertakers made some protest against these changes in the ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near, and several voices remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringing refractory members of the profession to reason, the protest was faint and brief. The remodelled procession started, with a chimney-sweep driving the hearse--advised by the regular driver, who was perched beside him, under close inspection, for the purpose--and with a pieman, also attended by his cabinet minister, driving the mourning coach. A bear-leader, a popular street character of the time, was impressed as an additional ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand; and his bear, who was black and very mangy, gave quite an Undertaking air to that part of the procession in which he walked. Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinite caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destination was the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in the fields. It got there in course of time; insisted on pouring into the burial-ground; finally, accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in its own way, and highly to its own satisfaction. The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity of providing some other entertainment for itself, another brighter genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of impeaching casual passers-by, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase was given to some scores of inoffensive persons who had never been near the Old Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, and they were roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to the sport of window-breaking, and thence to the plundering of public-houses, was easy and natural. At last, after several hours, when sundry summer-houses had been pulled down, and some area-railings had been torn up, to arm the more belligerent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards were coming. Before this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the usual progress of a mob. Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remained behind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with the undertakers. The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from a neighbouring public-house, and smoked it, looking in at the railings and maturely considering the spot. "Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his usual way, "you see that there Cly that day, and you see with your own eyes that he was a young 'un and a straight made 'un." Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turned himself about, that he might appear, before the hour of closing, on his station at Tellson's. Whether his meditations on mortality had touched his liver, or whether his general health had been previously at all amiss, or whether he desired to show a little attention to an eminent man, is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon his medical adviser--a distinguished surgeon--on his way back. Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported No job in his absence. The bank closed, the ancient clerks came out, the usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to tea. "Now, I tell you where it is!" said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, on entering. "If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong to-night, I shall make sure that you've been praying again me, and I shall work you for it just the same as if I seen you do it." The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head. "Why, you're at it afore my face!" said Mr. Cruncher, with signs of angry apprehension. "I am saying nothing." "Well, then; don't meditate nothing. You might as well flop as meditate. You may as well go again me one way as another. Drop it altogether." "Yes, Jerry." "Yes, Jerry," repeated Mr. Cruncher sitting down to tea. "Ah! It _is_ yes, Jerry. That's about it. You may say yes, Jerry." Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations, but made use of them, as people not unfrequently do, to express general ironical dissatisfaction. "You and your yes, Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of his bread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with a large invisible oyster out of his saucer. "Ah! I think so. I believe you." "You are going out to-night?" asked his decent wife, when he took another bite. "Yes, I am." "May I go with you, father?" asked his son, briskly. "No, you mayn't. I'm a going--as your mother knows--a fishing. That's where I'm going to. Going a fishing." "Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don't it, father?" "Never you mind." "Shall you bring any fish home, father?" "If I don't, you'll have short commons, to-morrow," returned that gentleman, shaking his head; "that's questions enough for you; I ain't a going out, till you've been long abed." He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping a most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly holding her in conversation that she might be prevented from meditating any petitions to his disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son to hold her in conversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than he would leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story. "And mind you!" said Mr. Cruncher. "No games to-morrow! If I, as a honest tradesman, succeed in providing a jinte of meat or two, none of your not touching of it, and sticking to bread. If I, as a honest tradesman, am able to provide a little beer, none of your declaring on water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a ugly customer to you, if you don't. _I_'m your Rome, you know." Then he began grumbling again: "With your flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I don't know how scarce you mayn't make the wittles and drink here, by your flopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy: he _is_ your'n, ain't he? He's as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, and not know that a mother's first duty is to blow her boy out?" This touched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured his mother to perform her first duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected, above all things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternal function so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parent. Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until Young Jerry was ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under similar injunctions, obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night with solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearly one o'clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his chair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and other fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles about him in skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher, extinguished the light, and went out. Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when he went to bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of the darkness he followed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down the court, followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasiness concerning his getting into the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and the door stood ajar all night. Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of his father's honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to house fronts, walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held his honoured parent in view. The honoured parent steering Northward, had not gone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and the two trudged on together. Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond the winking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and were out upon a lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up here--and that so silently, that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have supposed the second follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split himself into two. The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stopped under a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of the bank was a low brick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bank and wall the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which the wall--there, risen to some eight or ten feet high--formed one side. Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that Young Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty well defined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate. He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and lay there a little--listening perhaps. Then, they moved away on their hands and knees. It was now Young Jerry's turn to approach the gate: which he did, holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner there, and looking in, he made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass! and all the gravestones in the churchyard--it was a large churchyard that they were in--looking on like ghosts in white, while the church tower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did not creep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then they began to fish. They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured parent appeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew. Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awful striking of the church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off, with his hair as stiff as his father's. But, his long-cherished desire to know more about these matters, not only stopped him in his running away, but lured him back again. They were still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate for the second time; but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was a screwing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figures were strained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away the earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well knew what it would be; but, when he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about to wrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that he made off again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more. He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary than breath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one highly desirable to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffin he had seen was running after him; and, pictured as hopping on behind him, bolt upright, upon its narrow end, always on the point of overtaking him and hopping on at his side--perhaps taking his arm--it was a pursuer to shun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, while it was making the whole night behind him dreadful, he darted out into the roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping out of them like a dropsical boy's kite without tail and wings. It hid in doorways too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and drawing them up to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on the road, and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time it was incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that when the boy got to his own door he had reason for being half dead. And even then it would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a bump on every stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and heavy, on his breast when he fell asleep. From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was awakened after daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, so Young Jerry inferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking the back of her head against the head-board of the bed. "I told you I would," said Mr. Cruncher, "and I did." "Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!" his wife implored. "You oppose yourself to the profit of the business," said Jerry, "and me and my partners suffer. You was to honour and obey; why the devil don't you?" "I try to be a good wife, Jerry," the poor woman protested, with tears. "Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband's business? Is it honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying your husband to disobey him on the wital subject of his business?" "You hadn't taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry." "It's enough for you," retorted Mr. Cruncher, "to be the wife of a honest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind with calculations when he took to his trade or when he didn't. A honouring and obeying wife would let his trade alone altogether. Call yourself a religious woman? If you're a religious woman, give me a irreligious one! You have no more nat'ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames river has of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you." The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminated in the honest tradesman's kicking off his clay-soiled boots, and lying down at his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at him lying on his back, with his rusty hands under his head for a pillow, his son lay down too, and fell asleep again. There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else. Mr. Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, and kept an iron pot-lid by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher, in case he should observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He was brushed and washed at the usual hour, and set off with his son to pursue his ostensible calling. Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father's side along sunny and crowded Fleet-street, was a very different Young Jerry from him of the previous night, running home through darkness and solitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was fresh with the day, and his qualms were gone with the night--in which particulars it is not improbable that he had compeers in Fleet-street and the City of London, that fine morning. "Father," said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to keep at arm's length and to have the stool well between them: "what's a Resurrection-Man?" Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, "How should I know?" "I thought you knowed everything, father," said the artless boy. "Hem! Well," returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting off his hat to give his spikes free play, "he's a tradesman." "What's his goods, father?" asked the brisk Young Jerry. "His goods," said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, "is a branch of Scientific goods." "Persons' bodies, ain't it, father?" asked the lively boy. "I believe it is something of that sort," said Mr. Cruncher. "Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I'm quite growed up!" Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moral way. "It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Be careful to dewelop your talents, and never to say no more than you can help to nobody, and there's no telling at the present time what you may not come to be fit for." As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a few yards in advance, to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. Cruncher added to himself: "Jerry, you honest tradesman, there's hopes wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you, and a recompense to you for his mother!" 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.

Jerry Cruncher sitzt auf einem Hocker vor der Bank von Tellson und beobachtet den starken Verkehr auf der Straße. Er erkennt, dass eine Art Beerdigung die Straße hinunterkommt. Es herrscht großer Aufruhr, da eine Menge gegen die Beerdigung zu sein scheint. Er versucht herauszufinden, wessen Beerdigung es ist und erfährt, dass es die des Polizeispitzels Roger Cly ist, der gegen Charles Darnay ausgesagt hatte. Es gibt nur einen Trauernden, der von der Menge verängstigt wird und wegläuft. Die Menge will den Sarg vom Leichenwagen nehmen, entscheidet sich jedoch stattdessen, ihn bis zum Friedhof zu begleiten und dabei ausgelassen zu feiern. Jerry Cruncher und eine Anzahl anderer Leute drängen sich ebenfalls in den Leichenwagen und bringen den Körper zum Friedhof. Da die Menge nun nichts Besseres zu tun hat, fängt sie an zu randalieren. Jerry Cruncher bleibt auf dem Friedhof, um sich mit den Bestattern zu beraten. Nach der Arbeit geht Jerry Cruncher mit seinem Sohn nach Hause, wo er seine Frau erneut beschuldigt, wieder gegen ihn gebetet zu haben. Später in der Nacht nimmt er eine Schaufel, Brechstange, einen Sack und ein Seil und geht zum Friedhof. Er wird von zwei Begleitern begleitet. Der junge Jerry hat nur vorgegeben, ins Bett zu gehen, und folgt dem Trio. Durch die Tore des Friedhofs sieht er seinen Vater und die beiden Männer ein Grab ausheben, den Sarg herausholen und beginnen, ihn aufzubrechen. Angst vor diesem Anblick rennt der junge Jerry nach Hause und stellt sich vor, von einem riesigen Sarg verfolgt zu werden. Auf dem Friedhof stellen die Männer fest, dass der Sarg leer ist. Das stellt Jerry Cruncher sehr auf. Als er nach Hause zurückkehrt, beschuldigt er seine Frau erneut, gegen ihn gebetet zu haben. Am nächsten Tag informiert Jerry's Sohn seinen Vater, dass er gerne genauso ein Leichendieb wie er sein möchte.

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: Lily, lingering for a moment on the corner, looked out on the afternoon spectacle of Fifth Avenue. It was a day in late April, and the sweetness of spring was in the air. It mitigated the ugliness of the long crowded thoroughfare, blurred the gaunt roof-lines, threw a mauve veil over the discouraging perspective of the side streets, and gave a touch of poetry to the delicate haze of green that marked the entrance to the Park. As Lily stood there, she recognized several familiar faces in the passing carriages. The season was over, and its ruling forces had disbanded; but a few still lingered, delaying their departure for Europe, or passing through town on their return from the South. Among them was Mrs. Van Osburgh, swaying majestically in her C-spring barouche, with Mrs. Percy Gryce at her side, and the new heir to the Gryce millions enthroned before them on his nurse's knees. They were succeeded by Mrs. Hatch's electric victoria, in which that lady reclined in the lonely splendour of a spring toilet obviously designed for company; and a moment or two later came Judy Trenor, accompanied by Lady Skiddaw, who had come over for her annual tarpon fishing and a dip into "the street." This fleeting glimpse of her past served to emphasize the sense of aimlessness with which Lily at length turned toward home. She had nothing to do for the rest of the day, nor for the days to come; for the season was over in millinery as well as in society, and a week earlier Mme. Regina had notified her that her services were no longer required. Mme. Regina always reduced her staff on the first of May, and Miss Bart's attendance had of late been so irregular--she had so often been unwell, and had done so little work when she came--that it was only as a favour that her dismissal had hitherto been deferred. Lily did not question the justice of the decision. She was conscious of having been forgetful, awkward and slow to learn. It was bitter to acknowledge her inferiority even to herself, but the fact had been brought home to her that as a bread-winner she could never compete with professional ability. Since she had been brought up to be ornamental, she could hardly blame herself for failing to serve any practical purpose; but the discovery put an end to her consoling sense of universal efficiency. As she turned homeward her thoughts shrank in anticipation from the fact that there would be nothing to get up for the next morning. The luxury of lying late in bed was a pleasure belonging to the life of ease; it had no part in the utilitarian existence of the boarding-house. She liked to leave her room early, and to return to it as late as possible; and she was walking slowly now in order to postpone the detested approach to her doorstep. But the doorstep, as she drew near it, acquired a sudden interest from the fact that it was occupied--and indeed filled--by the conspicuous figure of Mr. Rosedale, whose presence seemed to take on an added amplitude from the meanness of his surroundings. The sight stirred Lily with an irresistible sense of triumph. Rosedale, a day or two after their chance meeting, had called to enquire if she had recovered from her indisposition; but since then she had not seen or heard from him, and his absence seemed to betoken a struggle to keep away, to let her pass once more out of his life. If this were the case, his return showed that the struggle had been unsuccessful, for Lily knew he was not the man to waste his time in an ineffectual sentimental dalliance. He was too busy, too practical, and above all too much preoccupied with his own advancement, to indulge in such unprofitable asides. In the peacock-blue parlour, with its bunches of dried pampas grass, and discoloured steel engravings of sentimental episodes, he looked about him with unconcealed disgust, laying his hat distrustfully on the dusty console adorned with a Rogers statuette. Lily sat down on one of the plush and rosewood sofas, and he deposited himself in a rocking-chair draped with a starched antimacassar which scraped unpleasantly against the pink fold of skin above his collar. "My goodness--you can't go on living here!" he exclaimed. Lily smiled at his tone. "I am not sure that I can; but I have gone over my expenses very carefully, and I rather think I shall be able to manage it." "Be able to manage it? That's not what I mean--it's no place for you!" "It's what I mean; for I have been out of work for the last week." "Out of work--out of work! What a way for you to talk! The idea of your having to work--it's preposterous." He brought out his sentences in short violent jerks, as though they were forced up from a deep inner crater of indignation. "It's a farce--a crazy farce," he repeated, his eyes fixed on the long vista of the room reflected in the blotched glass between the windows. Lily continued to meet his expostulations with a smile. "I don't know why I should regard myself as an exception----" she began. "Because you ARE; that's why; and your being in a place like this is a damnable outrage. I can't talk of it calmly." She had in truth never seen him so shaken out of his usual glibness; and there was something almost moving to her in his inarticulate struggle with his emotions. He rose with a start which left the rocking-chair quivering on its beam ends, and placed himself squarely before her. "Look here, Miss Lily, I'm going to Europe next week: going over to Paris and London for a couple of months--and I can't leave you like this. I can't do it. I know it's none of my business--you've let me understand that often enough; but things are worse with you now than they have been before, and you must see that you've got to accept help from somebody. You spoke to me the other day about some debt to Trenor. I know what you mean--and I respect you for feeling as you do about it." A blush of surprise rose to Lily's pale face, but before she could interrupt him he had continued eagerly: "Well, I'll lend you the money to pay Trenor; and I won't--I--see here, don't take me up till I've finished. What I mean is, it'll be a plain business arrangement, such as one man would make with another. Now, what have you got to say against that?" Lily's blush deepened to a glow in which humiliation and gratitude were mingled; and both sentiments revealed themselves in the unexpected gentleness of her reply. "Only this: that it is exactly what Gus Trenor proposed; and that I can never again be sure of understanding the plainest business arrangement." Then, realizing that this answer contained a germ of injustice, she added, even more kindly: "Not that I don't appreciate your kindness--that I'm not grateful for it. But a business arrangement between us would in any case be impossible, because I shall have no security to give when my debt to Gus Trenor has been paid." Rosedale received this statement in silence: he seemed to feel the note of finality in her voice, yet to be unable to accept it as closing the question between them. In the silence Lily had a clear perception of what was passing through his mind. Whatever perplexity he felt as to the inexorableness of her course--however little he penetrated its motive--she saw that it unmistakably tended to strengthen her hold over him. It was as though the sense in her of unexplained scruples and resistances had the same attraction as the delicacy of feature, the fastidiousness of manner, which gave her an external rarity, an air of being impossible to match. As he advanced in social experience this uniqueness had acquired a greater value for him, as though he were a collector who had learned to distinguish minor differences of design and quality in some long-coveted object. Lily, perceiving all this, understood that he would marry her at once, on the sole condition of a reconciliation with Mrs. Dorset; and the temptation was the less easy to put aside because, little by little, circumstances were breaking down her dislike for Rosedale. The dislike, indeed, still subsisted; but it was penetrated here and there by the perception of mitigating qualities in him: of a certain gross kindliness, a rather helpless fidelity of sentiment, which seemed to be struggling through the hard surface of his material ambitions. Reading his dismissal in her eyes, he held out his hand with a gesture which conveyed something of this inarticulate conflict. "If you'd only let me, I'd set you up over them all--I'd put you where you could wipe your feet on 'em!" he declared; and it touched her oddly to see that his new passion had not altered his old standard of values. Lily took no sleeping-drops that night. She lay awake viewing her situation in the crude light which Rosedale's visit had shed on it. In fending off the offer he was so plainly ready to renew, had she not sacrificed to one of those abstract notions of honour that might be called the conventionalities of the moral life? What debt did she owe to a social order which had condemned and banished her without trial? She had never been heard in her own defence; she was innocent of the charge on which she had been found guilty; and the irregularity of her conviction might seem to justify the use of methods as irregular in recovering her lost rights. Bertha Dorset, to save herself, had not scrupled to ruin her by an open falsehood; why should she hesitate to make private use of the facts that chance had put in her way? After all, half the opprobrium of such an act lies in the name attached to it. Call it blackmail and it becomes unthinkable; but explain that it injures no one, and that the rights regained by it were unjustly forfeited, and he must be a formalist indeed who can find no plea in its defence. The arguments pleading for it with Lily were the old unanswerable ones of the personal situation: the sense of injury, the sense of failure, the passionate craving for a fair chance against the selfish despotism of society. She had learned by experience that she had neither the aptitude nor the moral constancy to remake her life on new lines; to become a worker among workers, and let the world of luxury and pleasure sweep by her unregarded. She could not hold herself much to blame for this ineffectiveness, and she was perhaps less to blame than she believed. Inherited tendencies had combined with early training to make her the highly specialized product she was: an organism as helpless out of its narrow range as the sea-anemone torn from the rock. She had been fashioned to adorn and delight; to what other end does nature round the rose-leaf and paint the humming-bird's breast? And was it her fault that the purely decorative mission is less easily and harmoniously fulfilled among social beings than in the world of nature? That it is apt to be hampered by material necessities or complicated by moral scruples? These last were the two antagonistic forces which fought out their battle in her breast during the long watches of the night; and when she rose the next morning she hardly knew where the victory lay. She was exhausted by the reaction of a night without sleep, coming after many nights of rest artificially obtained; and in the distorting light of fatigue the future stretched out before her grey, interminable and desolate. She lay late in bed, refusing the coffee and fried eggs which the friendly Irish servant thrust through her door, and hating the intimate domestic noises of the house and the cries and rumblings of the street. Her week of idleness had brought home to her with exaggerated force these small aggravations of the boarding-house world, and she yearned for that other luxurious world, whose machinery is so carefully concealed that one scene flows into another without perceptible agency. At length she rose and dressed. Since she had left Mme. Regina's she had spent her days in the streets, partly to escape from the uncongenial promiscuities of the boarding-house, and partly in the hope that physical fatigue would help her to sleep. But once out of the house, she could not decide where to go; for she had avoided Gerty since her dismissal from the milliner's, and she was not sure of a welcome anywhere else. The morning was in harsh contrast to the previous day. A cold grey sky threatened rain, and a high wind drove the dust in wild spirals up and down the streets. Lily walked up Fifth Avenue toward the Park, hoping to find a sheltered nook where she might sit; but the wind chilled her, and after an hour's wandering under the tossing boughs she yielded to her increasing weariness, and took refuge in a little restaurant in Fifty-ninth Street. She was not hungry, and had meant to go without luncheon; but she was too tired to return home, and the long perspective of white tables showed alluringly through the windows. The room was full of women and girls, all too much engaged in the rapid absorption of tea and pie to remark her entrance. A hum of shrill voices reverberated against the low ceiling, leaving Lily shut out in a little circle of silence. She felt a sudden pang of profound loneliness. She had lost the sense of time, and it seemed to her as though she had not spoken to any one for days. Her eyes sought the faces about her, craving a responsive glance, some sign of an intuition of her trouble. But the sallow preoccupied women, with their bags and note-books and rolls of music, were all engrossed in their own affairs, and even those who sat by themselves were busy running over proof-sheets or devouring magazines between their hurried gulps of tea. Lily alone was stranded in a great waste of disoccupation. She drank several cups of the tea which was served with her portion of stewed oysters, and her brain felt clearer and livelier when she emerged once more into the street. She realized now that, as she sat in the restaurant, she had unconsciously arrived at a final decision. The discovery gave her an immediate illusion of activity: it was exhilarating to think that she had actually a reason for hurrying home. To prolong her enjoyment of the sensation she decided to walk; but the distance was so great that she found herself glancing nervously at the clocks on the way. One of the surprises of her unoccupied state was the discovery that time, when it is left to itself and no definite demands are made on it, cannot be trusted to move at any recognized pace. Usually it loiters; but just when one has come to count upon its slowness, it may suddenly break into a wild irrational gallop. She found, however, on reaching home, that the hour was still early enough for her to sit down and rest a few minutes before putting her plan into execution. The delay did not perceptibly weaken her resolve. She was frightened and yet stimulated by the reserved force of resolution which she felt within herself: she saw it was going to be easier, a great deal easier, than she had imagined. At five o'clock she rose, unlocked her trunk, and took out a sealed packet which she slipped into the bosom of her dress. Even the contact with the packet did not shake her nerves as she had half-expected it would. She seemed encased in a strong armour of indifference, as though the vigorous exertion of her will had finally benumbed her finer sensibilities. She dressed herself once more for the street, locked her door and went out. When she emerged on the pavement, the day was still high, but a threat of rain darkened the sky and cold gusts shook the signs projecting from the basement shops along the street. She reached Fifth Avenue and began to walk slowly northward. She was sufficiently familiar with Mrs. Dorset's habits to know that she could always be found at home after five. She might not, indeed, be accessible to visitors, especially to a visitor so unwelcome, and against whom it was quite possible that she had guarded herself by special orders; but Lily had written a note which she meant to send up with her name, and which she thought would secure her admission. She had allowed herself time to walk to Mrs. Dorset's, thinking that the quick movement through the cold evening air would help to steady her nerves; but she really felt no need of being tranquillized. Her survey of the situation remained calm and unwavering. As she reached Fiftieth Street the clouds broke abruptly, and a rush of cold rain slanted into her face. She had no umbrella and the moisture quickly penetrated her thin spring dress. She was still half a mile from her destination, and she decided to walk across to Madison Avenue and take the electric car. As she turned into the side street, a vague memory stirred in her. The row of budding trees, the new brick and limestone house-fronts, the Georgian flat-house with flowerboxes on its balconies, were merged together into the setting of a familiar scene. It was down this street that she had walked with Selden, that September day two years ago; a few yards ahead was the doorway they had entered together. The recollection loosened a throng of benumbed sensations--longings, regrets, imaginings, the throbbing brood of the only spring her heart had ever known. It was strange to find herself passing his house on such an errand. She seemed suddenly to see her action as he would see it--and the fact of his own connection with it, the fact that, to attain her end, she must trade on his name, and profit by a secret of his past, chilled her blood with shame. What a long way she had travelled since the day of their first talk together! Even then her feet had been set in the path she was now following--even then she had resisted the hand he had held out. All her resentment of his fancied coldness was swept away in this overwhelming rush of recollection. Twice he had been ready to help her--to help her by loving her, as he had said--and if, the third time, he had seemed to fail her, whom but herself could she accuse? . . . Well, that part of her life was over; she did not know why her thoughts still clung to it. But the sudden longing to see him remained; it grew to hunger as she paused on the pavement opposite his door. The street was dark and empty, swept by the rain. She had a vision of his quiet room, of the bookshelves, and the fire on the hearth. She looked up and saw a light in his window; then she crossed the street and entered the house. 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.

Es ist jetzt Ende April. Lily geht die Fifth Avenue entlang und nimmt sich einen Moment Zeit, um die Szene zu betrachten. Sie sieht Mrs. Van Osburgh mit Percy und seinem neuen Sohn. Sie entdeckt auch Mrs. Hatch, Judy Trenor und Lady Skiddaw. Lily wurde kürzlich von ihrem Job bei Madam Regina's entlassen, also kehrt sie mit nichts zu tun nach Hause zurück. Sie ist nicht verärgert über den Verlust ihres Jobs, da sie weiß, dass sie eine nutzlose Arbeiterin war und es verdient hatte. Als sie nach Hause zurückkehrt, findet sie Mr. Rosedale vor, der draußen auf sie wartet. Ein paar Tage nach ihrer ersten Begegnung hatte er sie angerufen, um zu sehen, wie es ihr geht, aber seitdem hat sie nichts mehr von ihm gehört. Lily bringt ihn hinein; er ist entsetzt über ihre Lebensbedingungen. Wieder gerät er ins Stocken und besteht darauf, dass eine Frau wie Lily niemals für ihren Lebensunterhalt arbeiten sollte. Rosedale enthüllt, dass er nächste Woche nach Europa fährt und dass er einfach nicht gehen kann und Lily so zurücklassen kann. Er versteht, was sie wegen ihrer Schuld gegenüber Trenor versucht zu tun, und er respektiert sie dafür. Er schlägt eine strenge geschäftliche Vereinbarung vor, bei der er ihr das Geld leiht, um Gus zurückzuzahlen. Lily lehnt ab und behauptet, dass Trenor ihre Vereinbarung auch als "eine strenge geschäftliche Vereinbarung" bezeichnet hatte. Rosedale ist umso mehr von ihr angezogen, weil sie moralische Skrupel hat. Das macht sie ebenso zu einem raren Sammlerstück wie ihr gutes Aussehen. Lily erkennt, dass Rosedale sein Angebot erneuert, sie zu heiraten, wenn sie sich nur mit Bertha Dorset versöhnen würde. Mehr denn je fühlt sie sich zu Rosedale hingezogen, den sie nun als guten und freundlichen Menschen wahrnimmt. "Wenn du mich nur lassen würdest", sagt er, "dann würde ich dich über ihnen allen stellen! - Ich würde dich an einen Ort bringen, an dem du auf ihnen herumtrampeln könntest!" sagt er. In dieser Nacht nimmt Lily keine Schlafmedikamente. Sie liegt wach und denkt über Rosedales Angebot nach. Schließlich überlegt sie, warum sie überhaupt einer Schuld - finanziell oder moralisch - gegenüber einer Gesellschaft schuldig sein sollte, die sie ohne fairen Prozess verurteilt und verbannt hat. Man hat ihr nie eine Chance gegeben, sich zu verteidigen, bevor sie sie hinauswarfen. Sie weiß, dass sie es unter den Arbeitern nie schaffen könnte, da sie einfach nicht für ein solches Leben gemacht ist. Sie wurde geschaffen, um Luxus und Bequemlichkeit zu wollen - es ist nicht ihre Schuld. Als Lily am nächsten Morgen schließlich aus dem Bett steigt, hat sie keinen Ort, an den sie gehen kann. Sie wurde von ihrem Job entlassen und hat Gerty seitdem nicht mehr besucht. Sie zieht sich an und verlässt ihr Haus, um in den Park zu gehen. Unterwegs hält sie in einem Restaurant an und trinkt Tee. Am Ende des Mahls stellt sie fest, dass sie "unbewusst zu einer endgültigen Entscheidung gekommen ist." Fast aufgeregt eilt Lily nach Hause und ist fest entschlossen und überzeugt, dass es einfacher sein wird, als sie zuvor dachte. Lily schickt einen Brief an Mrs. Dorset, da sie immer nach 17 Uhr zu Hause zu finden ist. Sie sammelt die Briefe ein und verlässt das Haus in Richtung Berthas. Auf dem Weg dorthin wird sie plötzlich an einen Spaziergang erinnert, den sie einmal mit Selden in denselben Straßen gemacht hat. Plötzlich sieht sie, was sie gerade tun wird, mit Seldens Augen, und die Vision erfüllt sie mit Scham. Sie erinnert sich, dass Selden zweimal bereit war, seine Liebe an sie zu geben, und beschließt, ihn anstatt Bertha aufzusuchen.

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: Elizabeth war ziemlich enttäuscht, als sie bei ihrer Ankunft in Lambton keinen Brief von Jane fand. Diese Enttäuschung wiederholte sich an jedem Morgen, den sie dort verbrachten. Doch am dritten Morgen war ihr Jammern vorbei und ihre Schwester wurde durch den Empfang von zwei Briefen gleichzeitig gerechtfertigt, von denen auf einem vermerkt war, dass er irrtümlicherweise an eine andere Adresse geschickt worden war. Elizabeth war darüber nicht überrascht, da Jane die Adresse bemerkenswert schlecht geschrieben hatte. Gerade als die Briefe eintrafen, hatten sie sich auf einen Spaziergang vorbereitet und ihr Onkel und ihre Tante verließen sie, um sie in Ruhe zu genießen. Der versandte Brief musste zuerst bearbeitet werden; er war vor fünf Tagen geschrieben worden. Der Anfang enthielt eine Zusammenfassung aller ihrer kleinen Partys und Verpflichtungen sowie Neuigkeiten aus dem Land, aber die zweite Hälfte, die einen Tag später datiert war und deutliche Erregung zeigte, enthielt wichtige Informationen. Es hatte folgenden Inhalt: "Seitdem ich das oben Geschriebene niedergeschrieben habe, liebe Lizzy, ist etwas sehr Unerwartetes und Ernsthaftes geschehen, aber ich fürchte, dich zu beunruhigen – sei versichert, dass es uns allen gut geht. Was ich dir mitteilen möchte, betrifft die arme Lydia. In der vergangenen Nacht kam ein Kurier um zwölf Uhr, als wir alle ins Bett gegangen waren, von Colonel Forster, um uns zu informieren, dass sie mit einem seiner Offiziere nach Schottland durchgebrannt ist; um die Wahrheit zu sagen, mit Wickham! Stell dir unsere Überraschung vor. Kitty hingegen scheint nicht so ganz überrascht zu sein. Es tut mir sehr, sehr leid. So eine unüberlegte Verbindung auf beiden Seiten! Aber ich bin bereit, das Beste zu hoffen und anzunehmen, dass sein Charakter missverstanden wurde. Dass er leichtsinnig und unvernünftig sein kann, daran kann ich leicht glauben, aber dieser Schritt (und wir können uns darüber freuen) deutet auf nichts Schlechtes im Kern hin. Seine Wahl ist zumindest uneigennützig, denn er muss wissen, dass mein Vater ihr nichts geben kann. Unsere arme Mutter ist sehr betrübt. Mein Vater erträgt es besser. Wie dankbar bin ich, dass wir sie nie wissen ließen, was gegen ihn gesagt wurde; wir müssen es selbst vergessen. Sie sind wahrscheinlich in der Nacht zum Samstag abgereist, wie man vermutet, wurden aber erst gestern Morgen um acht Uhr vermisst. Der Kurier wurde sofort losgeschickt. Meine liebe Lizzy, sie müssen innerhalb von zehn Meilen an uns vorbeigekommen sein. Colonel Forster gibt uns Grund zu der Annahme, dass er bald hier sein wird. Lydia hat einige Zeilen für seine Frau hinterlassen und ihr von ihrem Vorhaben berichtet. Ich muss Schluss machen, denn meine arme Mutter kann ich nicht lange alleine lassen. Ich fürchte, du wirst Schwierigkeiten haben, es zu entziffern, aber ich weiß selbst kaum, was ich geschrieben habe." Ohne sich Zeit zur Überlegung zu nehmen und kaum zu wissen, was sie fühlte, ergriff Elizabeth sofort nach dem Lesen dieses Briefes den anderen und öffnete ihn in größter Ungeduld. Er war einen Tag später als der erste geschrieben worden und folgendermaßen: "Liebste Schwester, mittlerweile hast du meinen hastig geschriebenen Brief erhalten; ich hoffe, dieser hier ist verständlicher, doch obwohl ich nicht in Eile bin, ist mein Kopf so verwirrt, dass ich nicht dafür garantieren kann, zusammenhängend zu sein. Liebste Lizzy, ich weiß kaum, was ich schreiben soll, aber ich habe schlechte Nachrichten für dich, und sie können nicht aufgeschoben werden. So unvernünftig eine Heirat zwischen Mr. Wickham und unserer armen Lydia auch wäre, jetzt sind wir besorgt, dass sie stattgefunden hat, denn es gibt allzu viele Gründe zur Befürchtung, dass sie nicht nach Schottland gefahren sind. Colonel Forster kam gestern an, nachdem er Brighton am Vortag verlassen hatte, nur wenige Stunden nach dem Kurier. Obwohl Lydias kurzer Brief an Mrs. F. sie glauben ließ, dass sie nach Gretna Green fahren würden, fiel Denny etwas ein, das darauf hindeutete, dass W. nie dorthin wollte oder überhaupt Lydia heiraten wollte. Das wurde Colonel F. berichtet, der sofort Alarm schlug und sich in B. auf die Suche machte, um ihre Route zu verfolgen. Er konnte sie leicht bis nach Clapham verfolgen, aber nicht weiter; denn als sie dort ankamen, stiegen sie in einen Mietwagen um und entließen die Kutsche, die sie von Epsom gebracht hatte. Alles, was danach bekannt ist, ist, dass man sie weiterhin auf der Londoner Straße gesehen hat. Ich weiß nicht, was ich denken soll. Nach allen möglichen Nachforschungen auf der Londoner Seite kam Colonel F. nach Hertfordshire und erneuerte sie besorgt an allen Mautstellen und Gasthäusern in Barnet und Hatfield, jedoch ohne Erfolg. Es wurde keine Menschen gesehen, die durchgereist waren. In solch einer Zwangslage wären der Rat und die Hilfe meines Onkels alles auf der Welt; er wird sofort verstehen, was ich empfinde, und ich vertraue auf seine Güte." "Oh, wo ist mein Onkel?" rief Elizabeth, sprang vor Aufregung von ihrem Platz auf und eilte zur Tür, um ihm zu folgen, ohne einen Moment der kostbaren Zeit zu verlieren. Doch als sie die Tür erreichte, wurde sie von einem Diener geöffnet und Mr. Darcy erschien. Sein blasses Gesicht und seine ungestüme Art ließen ihn erschrecken und bevor er sich genug gefasst hatte, um zu sprechen, rief sie, deren Gedanken von Lydias Situation überlagert wurden, hastig aus: "Verzeihen Sie, aber ich muss Sie verlassen. Ich muss Mr. Gardiner sofort wegen einer nicht aufschiebbaren Angelegenheit finden. Ich darf keine Minute verlieren." "Gott im Himmel! Was ist geschehen?" rief er aus, mehr mitfühlend als höflich. Dann besinnte er sich: "Ich werde Sie nicht länger als eine Minute aufhalten, aber lassen Sie mich oder den Diener den Kaufmann und seine Frau suchen gehen. Sie sind nicht gesund genug; Sie können nicht selbst gehen." Elizabeth zögerte, aber ihre Knie zitterten und sie erkannte, wie wenig sie damit gewinnen würde, ihnen zu folgen. Sie rief den Diener zurück und beauftragte ihn, wenn auch in einem atemlosen Ton, der sie fast unverständlich machte, seinen Herrn und seine Herrin sofort nach Hause zu bringen. Als er den Raum verlassen hatte, setzte sie sich hin, unfähig, sich selbst zu unterstützen, und sah so elend aus, dass Darcy es unmöglich machen konnte, sie alleine zu lassen oder darauf zu verzichten, in einem sanften und mitfühlenden Ton zu sagen: "Lassen Sie mich Ihre Dienerin rufen. Gibt es nichts, was Sie nehmen könnten, um sofortige Erleichterung zu bekommen? Ein Glas Wein? Soll ich Ihnen eins holen? Sie sind sehr krank." "Nein, danke", antwortete sie und versuchte, sich zu erholen. "Es ist nichts mit mir. Mir geht es gut. Ich bin nur von schrecklichen Nachrichten, die ich gerade aus Longbourn erhalten habe, bestürzt." Sie brach in Tränen aus, als sie darauf anspielte, und konnte für ein paar Minuten kein weiteres Wort sprechen. Darcy, in elendiger Ungewissheit, konnte nur etwas unverständlich über seine Besorgnis sagen und sie mitfühlend schweigend beobachten. Schließlich sprach sie wieder. "Ich habe gerade einen Brief von Jane bekommen mit schrecklichen Nachrichten. Es kann vor niemandem verborgen werden. Meine jüngste Schwester hat all ihre Freunde verlassen - sie ist durchgebrannt - hat sich in die Gewalt von - von Mr. Wickham gegeben. Sie sind zusammen aus Brighton abgehauen. Sie kennen ihn zu gut, um am Rest zu zweifeln. Sie hat kein Geld, keine Beziehungen, nichts, was ihn verführen könnte - sie ist für immer verschwunden." Darcy war vor Erstaunen wie erstarrt. "Wenn ich bedenke", fügte sie mit noch aufgeregterer Stimme hinzu, "dass _ich_ es hätte verhindern können! Ich, die wusste, was er war. Hätte ich nur einen Teil davon erklärt - einen Teil von dem, was ich gelernt habe, meiner eigenen Familie! Hätte sein Charakter bekannt gewesen, hätte das nicht passieren können. Aber jetzt ist es zu spät, viel zu spät." "Es tut mir wirklich leid", rief Darcy aus, "betrübt - schockiert. Aber ist es sicher, absolut sicher?" "Oh ja! Sie sind zusammen in der Nacht zum Sonntag aus Brighton abgereist und wurden fast bis nach London verfolgt, aber nicht weiter; sie sind sicher nicht nach Schottland gefahren." "Und was wurde unternommen, was wurde versucht, um sie wiederzufinden?" "Mein Vater ist nach London gegangen und Jane hat geschrieben, um meinen Onkel um sofortige Hilfe zu bitten, und wir werden hoffentlich in einer halben Stunde abreisen. Aber nichts kann getan werden; ich weiß sehr wohl, dass nichts getan werden kann. Wie soll man versuchen, einen solchen Mann zur Vernunft zu bringen? Wie sollen sie überhaupt entdeckt werden? Ich habe keinerlei Hoffnung. Es ist auf jede erdenkliche Art schrecklich!" Darcy schüttelte schweigend den Kopf. "Als _mir_ die Augen über seinen wahren Charakter geöffnet wurden - Oh! Hätte ich gewusst, was ich tun sollte, was ich wagen sollte! Aber ich wusste es nicht - ich hatte Angst, zu viel zu tun. Elend, elend, Fehler!" Darcy antwortete nicht. Er schien sie kaum zu hören und ging mit ernster Meditation auf und ab, seine Stirn war in Falten gelegt, seine Miene düster. Elizabeth bemerkte es bald und verstand es sofort. Ihre Macht schwand; alles _musste_ unter einem solchen Beweis von familiärer Schwäche, einer solchen Zusicherung der tiefsten Schande schwinden. Sie konnte weder staunen noch verurteilen, aber der Glaube an seine Selbstbeherrschung brachte ihr keine Trost in ihrer Not. Im Gegenteil, es ließ sie ihre eigenen Wünsche verstehen, und noch nie hatte sie so aufrichtig gefühlt, dass sie ihn geliebt haben könnte, wie jetzt, wo alle Liebe vergeblich sein musste. Aber Selbst, obwohl es sich aufgedrängt hätte, konnte sie nicht vereinnahmen. Lydia - die Demütigung, das Elend, das sie allen brachte, verschlang bald jede private Sorge; und während sie ihr Gesicht mit dem Taschentuch bedeckte, war Elizabeth bald von allem anderen abwesend und wurde erst nach einer Pause von mehreren Minuten durch die Stimme ihres Begleiters auf ihre Situation aufmerksam gemacht, der auf eine Weise, die zwar Mitleid ausdrückte, aber auch Zurückhaltung, sagte: "Ich befürchte, du hast bereits lange auf meine Abwesenheit gehofft, und ich habe nichts vorzubringen, um meinen Aufenthalt zu entschuldigen, außer echter, wenn auch nutzloser, Besorgnis. Wenn nur irgendetwas gesagt oder getan werden könnte, das Trost in solchem Kummer bringen könnte. Aber ich werde dich nicht mit vergeblichen Wünschen quälen, die darum zu bitten scheinen, deinen Dank zu erlangen. Dieses bedauerliche Ereignis wird, fürchte ich, verhindern, dass meine Schwester heute das Vergnügen hat, dich in Pemberley zu sehen." "Oh ja. Sei so nett, dich bei Miss Darcy für uns zu entschuldigen. Sag, dass dringende Angelegenheiten uns sofort nach Hause rufen. Verheimliche die unglückliche Wahrheit, solange es möglich ist. Ich weiß, dass es nicht lange dauern kann." Er versicherte ihr bereitwillig seine Verschwiegenheit, drückte erneut seine Trauer über ihre Not aus, wünschte sich ein glücklicheres Ende als es derzeit zu hoffen war und verließ den Raum mit nur einem ernsten, abschließenden Blick. Als sie den Raum verließ, spürte Elizabeth, wie unwahrscheinlich es war, dass sie sich jemals wieder unter solch herzlicher Verbundenheit sehen würden, wie es ihre verschiedenen Begegnungen in Derbyshire geprägt hatten; und während sie einen rückblickenden Blick auf ihre gesamte Bekanntschaft warf, die so voller Widersprüche und Unterschiede war, seufzte sie über die Eigensinnigkeit jener Gefühle, die jetzt ihre Fortsetzung gefördert hätten und sich früher über ihr Ende gefreut hätten. Wenn Dankbarkeit und Wertschätzung gute Grundlagen für Zuneigung sind, wird Elizabeths Meinungsänderung weder unwahrscheinlich noch fehlerhaft sein. Aber wenn die daraus resultierende Zuneigung als unvernünftig oder unnatürlich angesehen wird, im Vergleich zu dem, was so oft als entstehend bei einem ersten Treffen mit dem Objekt beschrieben wird und sogar noch bevor zwei Worte ausgetauscht wurden, dann kann man in ihrer Verteidigung nichts sagen, außer dass sie der letzten Methode in ihrer Vorliebe für Wickham etwas ausprobiert hatte und dass ihr Misserfolg sie vielleicht dazu berechtigte, die andere, weniger interessante Art der Zuneigung zu suchen. Wie dem auch sei, sie sah ihm mit Bedauern nach; und in diesem frühen Beispiel dafür, was die Schande von Lydia hervorbringen musste, fand sie zusätzlichen Schmerz, als sie über dieses elende Geschäft nachdachte. Nie, seitdem sie Janes zweiten Brief gelesen hatte, hegte sie die Hoffnung, dass Wickham es ernst meinte, sie zu heiraten. Niemand außer Jane, dachte sie, konnte sich eine solche Erwartung machen. Überraschung war das geringste ihrer Gefühle bei dieser Entwicklung. Solange der Inhalt des ersten Briefes in ihrem Kopf war, war sie ganz überrascht - ganz erstaunt, dass Wickham ein Mädchen heiraten sollte, das er unmöglich wegen Geld heiraten konnte; und wie Lydia ihn überhaupt hätte an sich binden können, erschien ihr unbegreiflich. Aber jetzt war alles zu natürlich. Für eine solche Zuneigung wie diese könnte sie ausreichende Reize gehabt haben; und obwohl sie nicht annahm, dass Lydia sich bewusst auf eine Flucht ohne die Absicht der Ehe eingelassen hatte, hatte sie keine Schwierigkeiten zu glauben, dass weder ihre Tugend noch ihr Verstand sie davor bewahren würden, eine leichte Beute zu werden. Während des Aufenthalts des Regiments in Hertfordshire hatte sie nie wahrgenommen, dass Lydia eine Vorliebe für ihn hatte, aber sie war überzeugt, dass Lydia nur Ermutigung brauchte, um sich an jeden zu binden. Mal war ein Offizier, mal ein anderer ihr Liebling, je nachdem wie ihre Aufmerksamkeit sie in ihrer Meinung erhob. Ihre Zuneigung hatte sich ständig geändert, aber nie ohne ein Objekt. Das Unheil des Verständnisfehlers und der falschen Nachsicht gegenüber einem solchen Mädchen - Oh! Wie akut fühlte sie es jetzt. Sie war wild darauf, nach Hause zu kommen - zu hören, zu sehen, vor Ort zu sein, um mit Jane die Sorgen zu teilen, die jetzt ganz auf ihr lasten mussten, in einer Familie so durcheinandergebracht, mit einem abwesenden Vater, einer unfähigen Mutter und ständiger Betreuung. Und obwohl sie fast überzeugt war, dass nichts für Lydia getan werden konnte, schien ihr der Eingriff ihres Aber Wünsche waren vergeblich; oder höchstens konnten sie nur dazu dienen, sie in der Eile und Verwirrung der folgenden Stunde zu amüsieren. Hätte Elizabeth Zeit gehabt, untätig zu sein, wäre sie sicher geblieben, dass jede Beschäftigung für jemanden so elend wie sie unmöglich war; aber sie hatte genauso viel zu tun wie ihre Tante, und unter anderem mussten Notizen an all ihre Freunde in Lambton geschrieben werden, mit falschen Entschuldigungen für ihre plötzliche Abreise. Innerhalb einer Stunde war jedoch alles erledigt; und Mr. Gardiner hatte inzwischen seine Rechnung im Gasthaus beglichen, es blieb also nichts weiter zu tun, außer zu gehen; und Elizabeth, nach all dem Elend des Morgens, fand sich in kürzerer Zeit als sie hätte vermuten können, im Wagen sitzend und auf dem Weg nach Longbourn. 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 Elizabeth und Frau Gardiner im Hotel ankommen, liegen dort zwei Briefe von Jane, einer davon wurde zuvor unsachgemäß zugestellt. Die Gardiners machen einen Spaziergang und überlassen Elizabeth die Neuigkeiten von ihrer Schwester. Der erste Brief bringt schlechte Nachrichten über Lydia. Oberst Forster hatte der Familie mitgeteilt, dass seine Frau einen Brief von Lydia erhalten hatte, in dem sie schrieb, dass sie mit Wickham nach Schottland durchgebrannt ist, um zu heiraten. Elizabeth liest sofort den zweiten Brief, in dem steht, dass es nun Grund zur Annahme gibt, dass sie nicht nach Schottland gegangen sind, um zu heiraten, und dass Wickham vielleicht gar nicht vorhat, Lydia zu heiraten. Die gesamte Familie ist in Aufruhr und Oberst Forster versucht, das Paar zu finden. Mr. Bennet fährt nach London und Jane bittet Elizabeth, sofort nach Hause zu kommen. Elizabeth will gerade ihrem Onkel und ihrer Tante hinterherlaufen, aber als sie die Tür öffnet, steht Darcy dort. Elizabeth schickt den Diener zu den Gardiners und erzählt Darcy, was mit Lydia passiert ist. Darcy sagt, dass es ihn betrübt und wird still. Elizabeth beobachtet ihn und glaubt, dass ihr Einfluss auf ihn schwindet wegen dem schändlichen Verhalten ihrer Familie. Dieser Glaube lässt "sie ihre eigenen Wünsche verstehen; und nie zuvor hatte sie so ehrlich gefühlt, dass sie ihn lieben könnte, wie jetzt, wo alle Liebe vergeblich sein muss." Darcy verlässt den Raum, nachdem er sagt, dass er wünschte, er könnte etwas tun, und als die Gardiners zurückkommen, machen sie sich alle auf den Weg nach Longbourn.

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 morrow brought a very sober-looking morning, the sun making only a few efforts to appear, and Catherine augured from it everything most favourable to her wishes. A bright morning so early in the year, she allowed, would generally turn to rain, but a cloudy one foretold improvement as the day advanced. She applied to Mr. Allen for confirmation of her hopes, but Mr. Allen, not having his own skies and barometer about him, declined giving any absolute promise of sunshine. She applied to Mrs. Allen, and Mrs. Allen's opinion was more positive. "She had no doubt in the world of its being a very fine day, if the clouds would only go off, and the sun keep out." At about eleven o'clock, however, a few specks of small rain upon the windows caught Catherine's watchful eye, and "Oh! dear, I do believe it will be wet," broke from her in a most desponding tone. "I thought how it would be," said Mrs. Allen. "No walk for me today," sighed Catherine; "but perhaps it may come to nothing, or it may hold up before twelve." "Perhaps it may, but then, my dear, it will be so dirty." "Oh! That will not signify; I never mind dirt." "No," replied her friend very placidly, "I know you never mind dirt." After a short pause, "It comes on faster and faster!" said Catherine, as she stood watching at a window. "So it does indeed. If it keeps raining, the streets will be very wet." "There are four umbrellas up already. How I hate the sight of an umbrella!" "They are disagreeable things to carry. I would much rather take a chair at any time." "It was such a nice-looking morning! I felt so convinced it would be dry!" "Anybody would have thought so indeed. There will be very few people in the pump-room, if it rains all the morning. I hope Mr. Allen will put on his greatcoat when he goes, but I dare say he will not, for he had rather do anything in the world than walk out in a greatcoat; I wonder he should dislike it, it must be so comfortable." The rain continued--fast, though not heavy. Catherine went every five minutes to the clock, threatening on each return that, if it still kept on raining another five minutes, she would give up the matter as hopeless. The clock struck twelve, and it still rained. "You will not be able to go, my dear." "I do not quite despair yet. I shall not give it up till a quarter after twelve. This is just the time of day for it to clear up, and I do think it looks a little lighter. There, it is twenty minutes after twelve, and now I shall give it up entirely. Oh! That we had such weather here as they had at Udolpho, or at least in Tuscany and the south of France!--the night that poor St. Aubin died!--such beautiful weather!" At half past twelve, when Catherine's anxious attention to the weather was over and she could no longer claim any merit from its amendment, the sky began voluntarily to clear. A gleam of sunshine took her quite by surprise; she looked round; the clouds were parting, and she instantly returned to the window to watch over and encourage the happy appearance. Ten minutes more made it certain that a bright afternoon would succeed, and justified the opinion of Mrs. Allen, who had "always thought it would clear up." But whether Catherine might still expect her friends, whether there had not been too much rain for Miss Tilney to venture, must yet be a question. It was too dirty for Mrs. Allen to accompany her husband to the pump-room; he accordingly set off by himself, and Catherine had barely watched him down the street when her notice was claimed by the approach of the same two open carriages, containing the same three people that had surprised her so much a few mornings back. "Isabella, my brother, and Mr. Thorpe, I declare! They are coming for me perhaps--but I shall not go--I cannot go indeed, for you know Miss Tilney may still call." Mrs. Allen agreed to it. John Thorpe was soon with them, and his voice was with them yet sooner, for on the stairs he was calling out to Miss Morland to be quick. "Make haste! Make haste!" as he threw open the door. "Put on your hat this moment--there is no time to be lost--we are going to Bristol. How d'ye do, Mrs. Allen?" "To Bristol! Is not that a great way off? But, however, I cannot go with you today, because I am engaged; I expect some friends every moment." This was of course vehemently talked down as no reason at all; Mrs. Allen was called on to second him, and the two others walked in, to give their assistance. "My sweetest Catherine, is not this delightful? We shall have a most heavenly drive. You are to thank your brother and me for the scheme; it darted into our heads at breakfast-time, I verily believe at the same instant; and we should have been off two hours ago if it had not been for this detestable rain. But it does not signify, the nights are moonlight, and we shall do delightfully. Oh! I am in such ecstasies at the thoughts of a little country air and quiet! So much better than going to the Lower Rooms. We shall drive directly to Clifton and dine there; and, as soon as dinner is over, if there is time for it, go on to Kingsweston." "I doubt our being able to do so much," said Morland. "You croaking fellow!" cried Thorpe. "We shall be able to do ten times more. Kingsweston! Aye, and Blaize Castle too, and anything else we can hear of; but here is your sister says she will not go." "Blaize Castle!" cried Catherine. "What is that?" "The finest place in England--worth going fifty miles at any time to see." "What, is it really a castle, an old castle?" "The oldest in the kingdom." "But is it like what one reads of?" "Exactly--the very same." "But now really--are there towers and long galleries?" "By dozens." "Then I should like to see it; but I cannot--I cannot go." "Not go! My beloved creature, what do you mean?" "I cannot go, because"--looking down as she spoke, fearful of Isabella's smile--"I expect Miss Tilney and her brother to call on me to take a country walk. They promised to come at twelve, only it rained; but now, as it is so fine, I dare say they will be here soon." "Not they indeed," cried Thorpe; "for, as we turned into Broad Street, I saw them--does he not drive a phaeton with bright chestnuts?" "I do not know indeed." "Yes, I know he does; I saw him. You are talking of the man you danced with last night, are not you?" "Yes." "Well, I saw him at that moment turn up the Lansdown Road, driving a smart-looking girl." "Did you indeed?" "Did upon my soul; knew him again directly, and he seemed to have got some very pretty cattle too." "It is very odd! But I suppose they thought it would be too dirty for a walk." "And well they might, for I never saw so much dirt in my life. Walk! You could no more walk than you could fly! It has not been so dirty the whole winter; it is ankle-deep everywhere." Isabella corroborated it: "My dearest Catherine, you cannot form an idea of the dirt; come, you must go; you cannot refuse going now." "I should like to see the castle; but may we go all over it? May we go up every staircase, and into every suite of rooms?" "Yes, yes, every hole and corner." "But then, if they should only be gone out for an hour till it is dryer, and call by and by?" "Make yourself easy, there is no danger of that, for I heard Tilney hallooing to a man who was just passing by on horseback, that they were going as far as Wick Rocks." "Then I will. Shall I go, Mrs. Allen?" "Just as you please, my dear." "Mrs. Allen, you must persuade her to go," was the general cry. Mrs. Allen was not inattentive to it: "Well, my dear," said she, "suppose you go." And in two minutes they were off. Catherine's feelings, as she got into the carriage, were in a very unsettled state; divided between regret for the loss of one great pleasure, and the hope of soon enjoying another, almost its equal in degree, however unlike in kind. She could not think the Tilneys had acted quite well by her, in so readily giving up their engagement, without sending her any message of excuse. It was now but an hour later than the time fixed on for the beginning of their walk; and, in spite of what she had heard of the prodigious accumulation of dirt in the course of that hour, she could not from her own observation help thinking that they might have gone with very little inconvenience. To feel herself slighted by them was very painful. On the other hand, the delight of exploring an edifice like Udolpho, as her fancy represented Blaize Castle to be, was such a counterpoise of good as might console her for almost anything. They passed briskly down Pulteney Street, and through Laura Place, without the exchange of many words. Thorpe talked to his horse, and she meditated, by turns, on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys and trap-doors. As they entered Argyle Buildings, however, she was roused by this address from her companion, "Who is that girl who looked at you so hard as she went by?" "Who? Where?" "On the right-hand pavement--she must be almost out of sight now." Catherine looked round and saw Miss Tilney leaning on her brother's arm, walking slowly down the street. She saw them both looking back at her. "Stop, stop, Mr. Thorpe," she impatiently cried; "it is Miss Tilney; it is indeed. How could you tell me they were gone? Stop, stop, I will get out this moment and go to them." But to what purpose did she speak? Thorpe only lashed his horse into a brisker trot; the Tilneys, who had soon ceased to look after her, were in a moment out of sight round the corner of Laura Place, and in another moment she was herself whisked into the marketplace. Still, however, and during the length of another street, she entreated him to stop. "Pray, pray stop, Mr. Thorpe. I cannot go on. I will not go on. I must go back to Miss Tilney." But Mr. Thorpe only laughed, smacked his whip, encouraged his horse, made odd noises, and drove on; and Catherine, angry and vexed as she was, having no power of getting away, was obliged to give up the point and submit. Her reproaches, however, were not spared. "How could you deceive me so, Mr. Thorpe? How could you say that you saw them driving up the Lansdown Road? I would not have had it happen so for the world. They must think it so strange, so rude of me! To go by them, too, without saying a word! You do not know how vexed I am; I shall have no pleasure at Clifton, nor in anything else. I had rather, ten thousand times rather, get out now, and walk back to them. How could you say you saw them driving out in a phaeton?" Thorpe defended himself very stoutly, declared he had never seen two men so much alike in his life, and would hardly give up the point of its having been Tilney himself. Their drive, even when this subject was over, was not likely to be very agreeable. Catherine's complaisance was no longer what it had been in their former airing. She listened reluctantly, and her replies were short. Blaize Castle remained her only comfort; towards that, she still looked at intervals with pleasure; though rather than be disappointed of the promised walk, and especially rather than be thought ill of by the Tilneys, she would willingly have given up all the happiness which its walls could supply--the happiness of a progress through a long suite of lofty rooms, exhibiting the remains of magnificent furniture, though now for many years deserted--the happiness of being stopped in their way along narrow, winding vaults, by a low, grated door; or even of having their lamp, their only lamp, extinguished by a sudden gust of wind, and of being left in total darkness. In the meanwhile, they proceeded on their journey without any mischance, and were within view of the town of Keynsham, when a halloo from Morland, who was behind them, made his friend pull up, to know what was the matter. The others then came close enough for conversation, and Morland said, "We had better go back, Thorpe; it is too late to go on today; your sister thinks so as well as I. We have been exactly an hour coming from Pulteney Street, very little more than seven miles; and, I suppose, we have at least eight more to go. It will never do. We set out a great deal too late. We had much better put it off till another day, and turn round." "It is all one to me," replied Thorpe rather angrily; and instantly turning his horse, they were on their way back to Bath. "If your brother had not got such a d--beast to drive," said he soon afterwards, "we might have done it very well. My horse would have trotted to Clifton within the hour, if left to himself, and I have almost broke my arm with pulling him in to that cursed broken-winded jade's pace. Morland is a fool for not keeping a horse and gig of his own." "No, he is not," said Catherine warmly, "for I am sure he could not afford it." "And why cannot he afford it?" "Because he has not money enough." "And whose fault is that?" "Nobody's, that I know of." Thorpe then said something in the loud, incoherent way to which he had often recourse, about its being a d--thing to be miserly; and that if people who rolled in money could not afford things, he did not know who could, which Catherine did not even endeavour to understand. Disappointed of what was to have been the consolation for her first disappointment, she was less and less disposed either to be agreeable herself or to find her companion so; and they returned to Pulteney Street without her speaking twenty words. As she entered the house, the footman told her that a gentleman and lady had called and inquired for her a few minutes after her setting off; that, when he told them she was gone out with Mr. Thorpe, the lady had asked whether any message had been left for her; and on his saying no, had felt for a card, but said she had none about her, and went away. Pondering over these heart-rending tidings, Catherine walked slowly upstairs. At the head of them she was met by Mr. Allen, who, on hearing the reason of their speedy return, said, "I am glad your brother had so much sense; I am glad you are come back. It was a strange, wild scheme." They all spent the evening together at Thorpe's. Catherine was disturbed and out of spirits; but Isabella seemed to find a pool of commerce, in the fate of which she shared, by private partnership with Morland, a very good equivalent for the quiet and country air of an inn at Clifton. Her satisfaction, too, in not being at the Lower Rooms was spoken more than once. "How I pity the poor creatures that are going there! How glad I am that I am not amongst them! I wonder whether it will be a full ball or not! They have not begun dancing yet. I would not be there for all the world. It is so delightful to have an evening now and then to oneself. I dare say it will not be a very good ball. I know the Mitchells will not be there. I am sure I pity everybody that is. But I dare say, Mr. Morland, you long to be at it, do not you? I am sure you do. Well, pray do not let anybody here be a restraint on you. I dare say we could do very well without you; but you men think yourselves of such consequence." Catherine could almost have accused Isabella of being wanting in tenderness towards herself and her sorrows, so very little did they appear to dwell on her mind, and so very inadequate was the comfort she offered. "Do not be so dull, my dearest creature," she whispered. "You will quite break my heart. It was amazingly shocking, to be sure; but the Tilneys were entirely to blame. Why were not they more punctual? It was dirty, indeed, but what did that signify? I am sure John and I should not have minded it. I never mind going through anything, where a friend is concerned; that is my disposition, and John is just the same; he has amazing strong feelings. Good heavens! What a delightful hand you have got! Kings, I vow! I never was so happy in my life! I would fifty times rather you should have them than myself." Und jetzt darf ich meine Heldin auf die schlaflose Couch entlassen, die das wahre Schicksal einer Heldin ist; auf ein mit Dornen bestreutes und mit Tränen benetztes Kissen. Und glücklich kann sie sich schätzen, wenn sie in den nächsten drei Monaten noch eine weitere gute Nacht Ruhe bekommt. 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.

Am Morgen, an dem sie mit den Tilneys einen Spaziergang auf dem Land unternehmen soll, ist Catherine entsetzt, als sie an einem bewölkten Tag aufwacht. Es beginnt zu regnen, während Catherine aus dem Fenster schaut. Der Spaziergang ist für zwölf Uhr geplant und Catherine wartet bis halb eins auf die Tilneys. Sie wird aufgefordert, eine Kutschfahrt mit John, Isabella und James zu machen. Zuerst lehnt sie ab, aber John erzählt ihr, dass er gerade Henry und Miss Tilney in einer Kutsche aus Bath wegfahren gesehen hat. Catherine stimmt zu, mit John mitzufahren. Sobald sie losfahren, sieht Catherine Henry und Miss Tilney die Straße entlang spazieren. Catherine bittet John, die Kutsche anzuhalten, aber er fährt nur schneller. Catherine tröstet sich damit, dass sie Blaize Castle, ein Landhaus, sehen wird, und sie stellt sich vor, dass es ihre Erwartungen an ein gotisches Schloss mit "gewundenen Gewölben" und einer "niedrigen, quietschenden Tür" erfüllen wird. Allerdings sind sie zu spät losgefahren, um ihr Ziel zu erreichen, und Catherine fühlt sich zum zweiten Mal an diesem Tag enttäuscht. Der Rest der Fahrt ist für Catherine verdorben. Als sie nach Hause zu den Allens kommt, enthüllt der Diener, dass die Tilneys sie nur Minuten nach ihrer Abreise besucht haben. Isabella nimmt Catherines Verzweiflung an diesem Abend, als sie sich bei den Thorpes zum Kartenspielen treffen, nicht ernst.

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: "HETTY, Hetty, don't you know church begins at two, and it's gone half after one a'ready? Have you got nothing better to think on this good Sunday as poor old Thias Bede's to be put into the ground, and him drownded i' th' dead o' the night, as it's enough to make one's back run cold, but you must be 'dizening yourself as if there was a wedding i'stid of a funeral?" "Well, Aunt," said Hetty, "I can't be ready so soon as everybody else, when I've got Totty's things to put on. And I'd ever such work to make her stand still." Hetty was coming downstairs, and Mrs. Poyser, in her plain bonnet and shawl, was standing below. If ever a girl looked as if she had been made of roses, that girl was Hetty in her Sunday hat and frock. For her hat was trimmed with pink, and her frock had pink spots, sprinkled on a white ground. There was nothing but pink and white about her, except in her dark hair and eyes and her little buckled shoes. Mrs. Poyser was provoked at herself, for she could hardly keep from smiling, as any mortal is inclined to do at the sight of pretty round things. So she turned without speaking, and joined the group outside the house door, followed by Hetty, whose heart was fluttering so at the thought of some one she expected to see at church that she hardly felt the ground she trod on. And now the little procession set off. Mr. Poyser was in his Sunday suit of drab, with a red-and-green waistcoat and a green watch-ribbon having a large cornelian seal attached, pendant like a plumb-line from that promontory where his watch-pocket was situated; a silk handkerchief of a yellow tone round his neck; and excellent grey ribbed stockings, knitted by Mrs. Poyser's own hand, setting off the proportions of his leg. Mr. Poyser had no reason to be ashamed of his leg, and suspected that the growing abuse of top-boots and other fashions tending to disguise the nether limbs had their origin in a pitiable degeneracy of the human calf. Still less had he reason to be ashamed of his round jolly face, which was good humour itself as he said, "Come, Hetty--come, little uns!" and giving his arm to his wife, led the way through the causeway gate into the yard. The "little uns" addressed were Marty and Tommy, boys of nine and seven, in little fustian tailed coats and knee-breeches, relieved by rosy cheeks and black eyes, looking as much like their father as a very small elephant is like a very large one. Hetty walked between them, and behind came patient Molly, whose task it was to carry Totty through the yard and over all the wet places on the road; for Totty, having speedily recovered from her threatened fever, had insisted on going to church to-day, and especially on wearing her red-and-black necklace outside her tippet. And there were many wet places for her to be carried over this afternoon, for there had been heavy showers in the morning, though now the clouds had rolled off and lay in towering silvery masses on the horizon. You might have known it was Sunday if you had only waked up in the farmyard. The cocks and hens seemed to know it, and made only crooning subdued noises; the very bull-dog looked less savage, as if he would have been satisfied with a smaller bite than usual. The sunshine seemed to call all things to rest and not to labour. It was asleep itself on the moss-grown cow-shed; on the group of white ducks nestling together with their bills tucked under their wings; on the old black sow stretched languidly on the straw, while her largest young one found an excellent spring-bed on his mother's fat ribs; on Alick, the shepherd, in his new smock-frock, taking an uneasy siesta, half-sitting, half-standing on the granary steps. Alick was of opinion that church, like other luxuries, was not to be indulged in often by a foreman who had the weather and the ewes on his mind. "Church! Nay--I'n gotten summat else to think on," was an answer which he often uttered in a tone of bitter significance that silenced further question. I feel sure Alick meant no irreverence; indeed, I know that his mind was not of a speculative, negative cast, and he would on no account have missed going to church on Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, and "Whissuntide." But he had a general impression that public worship and religious ceremonies, like other non-productive employments, were intended for people who had leisure. "There's Father a-standing at the yard-gate," said Martin Poyser. "I reckon he wants to watch us down the field. It's wonderful what sight he has, and him turned seventy-five." "Ah, I often think it's wi' th' old folks as it is wi' the babbies," said Mrs. Poyser; "they're satisfied wi' looking, no matter what they're looking at. It's God A'mighty's way o' quietening 'em, I reckon, afore they go to sleep." Old Martin opened the gate as he saw the family procession approaching, and held it wide open, leaning on his stick--pleased to do this bit of work; for, like all old men whose life has been spent in labour, he liked to feel that he was still useful--that there was a better crop of onions in the garden because he was by at the sowing--and that the cows would be milked the better if he stayed at home on a Sunday afternoon to look on. He always went to church on Sacrament Sundays, but not very regularly at other times; on wet Sundays, or whenever he had a touch of rheumatism, he used to read the three first chapters of Genesis instead. "They'll ha' putten Thias Bede i' the ground afore ye get to the churchyard," he said, as his son came up. "It 'ud ha' been better luck if they'd ha' buried him i' the forenoon when the rain was fallin'; there's no likelihoods of a drop now; an' the moon lies like a boat there, dost see? That's a sure sign o' fair weather--there's a many as is false but that's sure." "Aye, aye," said the son, "I'm in hopes it'll hold up now." "Mind what the parson says, mind what the parson says, my lads," said Grandfather to the black-eyed youngsters in knee-breeches, conscious of a marble or two in their pockets which they looked forward to handling, a little, secretly, during the sermon. "Dood-bye, Dandad," said Totty. "Me doin' to church. Me dot my neklace on. Dive me a peppermint." Grandad, shaking with laughter at this "deep little wench," slowly transferred his stick to his left hand, which held the gate open, and slowly thrust his finger into the waistcoat pocket on which Totty had fixed her eyes with a confident look of expectation. And when they were all gone, the old man leaned on the gate again, watching them across the lane along the Home Close, and through the far gate, till they disappeared behind a bend in the hedge. For the hedgerows in those days shut out one's view, even on the better-managed farms; and this afternoon, the dog-roses were tossing out their pink wreaths, the nightshade was in its yellow and purple glory, the pale honeysuckle grew out of reach, peeping high up out of a holly bush, and over all an ash or a sycamore every now and then threw its shadow across the path. There were acquaintances at other gates who had to move aside and let them pass: at the gate of the Home Close there was half the dairy of cows standing one behind the other, extremely slow to understand that their large bodies might be in the way; at the far gate there was the mare holding her head over the bars, and beside her the liver-coloured foal with its head towards its mother's flank, apparently still much embarrassed by its own straddling existence. The way lay entirely through Mr. Poyser's own fields till they reached the main road leading to the village, and he turned a keen eye on the stock and the crops as they went along, while Mrs. Poyser was ready to supply a running commentary on them all. The woman who manages a dairy has a large share in making the rent, so she may well be allowed to have her opinion on stock and their "keep"--an exercise which strengthens her understanding so much that she finds herself able to give her husband advice on most other subjects. "There's that shorthorned Sally," she said, as they entered the Home Close, and she caught sight of the meek beast that lay chewing the cud and looking at her with a sleepy eye. "I begin to hate the sight o' the cow; and I say now what I said three weeks ago, the sooner we get rid of her the better, for there's that little yallow cow as doesn't give half the milk, and yet I've twice as much butter from her." "Why, thee't not like the women in general," said Mr. Poyser; "they like the shorthorns, as give such a lot o' milk. There's Chowne's wife wants him to buy no other sort." "What's it sinnify what Chowne's wife likes? A poor soft thing, wi' no more head-piece nor a sparrow. She'd take a big cullender to strain her lard wi', and then wonder as the scratchin's run through. I've seen enough of her to know as I'll niver take a servant from her house again--all hugger-mugger--and you'd niver know, when you went in, whether it was Monday or Friday, the wash draggin' on to th' end o' the week; and as for her cheese, I know well enough it rose like a loaf in a tin last year. And then she talks o' the weather bein' i' fault, as there's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots." "Well, Chowne's been wanting to buy Sally, so we can get rid of her if thee lik'st," said Mr. Poyser, secretly proud of his wife's superior power of putting two and two together; indeed, on recent market-days he had more than once boasted of her discernment in this very matter of shorthorns. "Aye, them as choose a soft for a wife may's well buy up the shorthorns, for if you get your head stuck in a bog, your legs may's well go after it. Eh! Talk o' legs, there's legs for you," Mrs. Poyser continued, as Totty, who had been set down now the road was dry, toddled on in front of her father and mother. "There's shapes! An' she's got such a long foot, she'll be her father's own child." "Aye, she'll be welly such a one as Hetty i' ten years' time, on'y she's got THY coloured eyes. I niver remember a blue eye i' my family; my mother had eyes as black as sloes, just like Hetty's." "The child 'ull be none the worse for having summat as isn't like Hetty. An' I'm none for having her so overpretty. Though for the matter o' that, there's people wi' light hair an' blue eyes as pretty as them wi' black. If Dinah had got a bit o' colour in her cheeks, an' didn't stick that Methodist cap on her head, enough to frighten the cows, folks 'ud think her as pretty as Hetty." "Nay, nay," said Mr. Poyser, with rather a contemptuous emphasis, "thee dostna know the pints of a woman. The men 'ud niver run after Dinah as they would after Hetty." "What care I what the men 'ud run after? It's well seen what choice the most of 'em know how to make, by the poor draggle-tails o' wives you see, like bits o' gauze ribbin, good for nothing when the colour's gone." "Well, well, thee canstna say but what I knowed how to make a choice when I married thee," said Mr. Poyser, who usually settled little conjugal disputes by a compliment of this sort; "and thee wast twice as buxom as Dinah ten year ago." "I niver said as a woman had need to be ugly to make a good missis of a house. There's Chowne's wife ugly enough to turn the milk an' save the rennet, but she'll niver save nothing any other way. But as for Dinah, poor child, she's niver likely to be buxom as long as she'll make her dinner o' cake and water, for the sake o' giving to them as want. She provoked me past bearing sometimes; and, as I told her, she went clean again' the Scriptur', for that says, 'Love your neighbour as yourself'; 'but,' I said, 'if you loved your neighbour no better nor you do yourself, Dinah, it's little enough you'd do for him. You'd be thinking he might do well enough on a half-empty stomach.' Eh, I wonder where she is this blessed Sunday! Sitting by that sick woman, I daresay, as she'd set her heart on going to all of a sudden." "Ah, it was a pity she should take such megrims into her head, when she might ha' stayed wi' us all summer, and eaten twice as much as she wanted, and it 'ud niver ha' been missed. She made no odds in th' house at all, for she sat as still at her sewing as a bird on the nest, and was uncommon nimble at running to fetch anything. If Hetty gets married, theed'st like to ha' Dinah wi' thee constant." "It's no use thinking o' that," said Mrs. Poyser. "You might as well beckon to the flying swallow as ask Dinah to come an' live here comfortable, like other folks. If anything could turn her, I should ha' turned her, for I've talked to her for a hour on end, and scolded her too; for she's my own sister's child, and it behoves me to do what I can for her. But eh, poor thing, as soon as she'd said us 'good-bye' an' got into the cart, an' looked back at me with her pale face, as is welly like her Aunt Judith come back from heaven, I begun to be frightened to think o' the set-downs I'd given her; for it comes over you sometimes as if she'd a way o' knowing the rights o' things more nor other folks have. But I'll niver give in as that's 'cause she's a Methodist, no more nor a white calf's white 'cause it eats out o' the same bucket wi' a black un." "Nay," said Mr. Poyser, with as near an approach to a snarl as his good-nature would allow; "I'm no opinion o' the Methodists. It's on'y tradesfolks as turn Methodists; you nuver knew a farmer bitten wi' them maggots. There's maybe a workman now an' then, as isn't overclever at's work, takes to preachin' an' that, like Seth Bede. But you see Adam, as has got one o' the best head-pieces hereabout, knows better; he's a good Churchman, else I'd never encourage him for a sweetheart for Hetty." "Why, goodness me," said Mrs. Poyser, who had looked back while her husband was speaking, "look where Molly is with them lads! They're the field's length behind us. How COULD you let 'em do so, Hetty? Anybody might as well set a pictur' to watch the children as you. Run back and tell 'em to come on." Mr. and Mrs. Poyser were now at the end of the second field, so they set Totty on the top of one of the large stones forming the true Loamshire stile, and awaited the loiterers Totty observing with complacency, "Dey naughty, naughty boys--me dood." The fact was that this Sunday walk through the fields was fraught with great excitement to Marty and Tommy, who saw a perpetual drama going on in the hedgerows, and could no more refrain from stopping and peeping than if they had been a couple of spaniels or terriers. Marty was quite sure he saw a yellow-hammer on the boughs of the great ash, and while he was peeping, he missed the sight of a white-throated stoat, which had run across the path and was described with much fervour by the junior Tommy. Then there was a little greenfinch, just fledged, fluttering along the ground, and it seemed quite possible to catch it, till it managed to flutter under the blackberry bush. Hetty could not be got to give any heed to these things, so Molly was called on for her ready sympathy, and peeped with open mouth wherever she was told, and said "Lawks!" whenever she was expected to wonder. Molly hastened on with some alarm when Hetty had come back and called to them that her aunt was angry; but Marty ran on first, shouting, "We've found the speckled turkey's nest, Mother!" with the instinctive confidence that people who bring good news are never in fault. "Ah," said Mrs. Poyser, really forgetting all discipline in this pleasant surprise, "that's a good lad; why, where is it?" "Down in ever such a hole, under the hedge. I saw it first, looking after the greenfinch, and she sat on th' nest." "You didn't frighten her, I hope," said the mother, "else she'll forsake it." "No, I went away as still as still, and whispered to Molly--didn't I, Molly?" "Well, well, now come on," said Mrs. Poyser, "and walk before Father and Mother, and take your little sister by the hand. We must go straight on now. Good boys don't look after the birds of a Sunday." "But, Mother," said Marty, "you said you'd give half-a-crown to find the speckled turkey's nest. Mayn't I have the half-crown put into my money-box?" "We'll see about that, my lad, if you walk along now, like a good boy." The father and mother exchanged a significant glance of amusement at their eldest-born's acuteness; but on Tommy's round face there was a cloud. "Mother," he said, half-crying, "Marty's got ever so much more money in his box nor I've got in mine." "Munny, me want half-a-toun in my bots," said Totty. "Hush, hush, hush," said Mrs. Poyser, "did ever anybody hear such naughty children? Nobody shall ever see their money-boxes any more, if they don't make haste and go on to church." This dreadful threat had the desired effect, and through the two remaining fields the three pair of small legs trotted on without any serious interruption, notwithstanding a small pond full of tadpoles, alias "bullheads," which the lads looked at wistfully. The damp hay that must be scattered and turned afresh to-morrow was not a cheering sight to Mr. Poyser, who during hay and corn harvest had often some mental struggles as to the benefits of a day of rest; but no temptation would have induced him to carry on any field-work, however early in the morning, on a Sunday; for had not Michael Holdsworth had a pair of oxen "sweltered" while he was ploughing on Good Friday? That was a demonstration that work on sacred days was a wicked thing; and with wickedness of any sort Martin Poyser was quite clear that he would have nothing to do, since money got by such means would never prosper. "It a'most makes your fingers itch to be at the hay now the sun shines so," he observed, as they passed through the "Big Meadow." "But it's poor foolishness to think o' saving by going against your conscience. There's that Jim Wakefield, as they used to call 'Gentleman Wakefield,' used to do the same of a Sunday as o' weekdays, and took no heed to right or wrong, as if there was nayther God nor devil. An' what's he come to? Why, I saw him myself last market-day a-carrying a basket wi' oranges in't." "Ah, to be sure," said Mrs. Poyser, emphatically, "you make but a poor trap to catch luck if you go and bait it wi' wickedness. The money as is got so's like to burn holes i' your pocket. I'd niver wish us to leave our lads a sixpence but what was got i' the rightful way. And as for the weather, there's One above makes it, and we must put up wi't: it's nothing of a plague to what the wenches are." Notwithstanding the interruption in their walk, the excellent habit which Mrs. Poyser's clock had of taking time by the forelock had secured their arrival at the village while it was still a quarter to two, though almost every one who meant to go to church was already within the churchyard gates. Those who stayed at home were chiefly mothers, like Timothy's Bess, who stood at her own door nursing her baby and feeling as women feel in that position--that nothing else can be expected of them. It was not entirely to see Thias Bede's funeral that the people were standing about the churchyard so long before service began; that was their common practice. The women, indeed, usually entered the church at once, and the farmers' wives talked in an undertone to each other, over the tall pews, about their illnesses and the total failure of doctor's stuff, recommending dandelion-tea, and other home-made specifics, as far preferable--about the servants, and their growing exorbitance as to wages, whereas the quality of their services declined from year to year, and there was no girl nowadays to be trusted any further than you could see her--about the bad price Mr. Dingall, the Treddleston grocer, was giving for butter, and the reasonable doubts that might be held as to his solvency, notwithstanding that Mrs. Dingall was a sensible woman, and they were all sorry for HER, for she had very good kin. Meantime the men lingered outside, and hardly any of them except the singers, who had a humming and fragmentary rehearsal to go through, entered the church until Mr. Irwine was in the desk. They saw no reason for that premature entrance--what could they do in church if they were there before service began?--and they did not conceive that any power in the universe could take it ill of them if they stayed out and talked a little about "bus'ness." Chad Cranage looks like quite a new acquaintance to-day, for he has got his clean Sunday face, which always makes his little granddaughter cry at him as a stranger. But an experienced eye would have fixed on him at once as the village blacksmith, after seeing the humble deference with which the big saucy fellow took off his hat and stroked his hair to the farmers; for Chad was accustomed to say that a working-man must hold a candle to a personage understood to be as black as he was himself on weekdays; by which evil-sounding rule of conduct he meant what was, after all, rather virtuous than otherwise, namely, that men who had horses to be shod must be treated with respect. Chad and the rougher sort of workmen kept aloof from the grave under the white thorn, where the burial was going forward; but Sandy Jim, and several of the farm-labourers, made a group round it, and stood with their hats off, as fellow-mourners with the mother and sons. Others held a midway position, sometimes watching the group at the grave, sometimes listening to the conversation of the farmers, who stood in a knot near the church door, and were now joined by Martin Poyser, while his family passed into the church. On the outside of this knot stood Mr. Casson, the landlord of the Donnithorne Arms, in his most striking attitude--that is to say, with the forefinger of his right hand thrust between the buttons of his waistcoat, his left hand in his breeches pocket, and his head very much on one side; looking, on the whole, like an actor who has only a mono-syllabic part entrusted to him, but feels sure that the audience discern his fitness for the leading business; curiously in contrast with old Jonathan Burge, who held his hands behind him and leaned forward, coughing asthmatically, with an inward scorn of all knowingness that could not be turned into cash. The talk was in rather a lower tone than usual to-day, hushed a little by the sound of Mr. Irwine's voice reading the final prayers of the burial-service. They had all had their word of pity for poor Thias, but now they had got upon the nearer subject of their own grievances against Satchell, the Squire's bailiff, who played the part of steward so far as it was not performed by old Mr. Donnithorne himself, for that gentleman had the meanness to receive his own rents and make bargains about his own timber. This subject of conversation was an additional reason for not being loud, since Satchell himself might presently be walking up the paved road to the church door. And soon they became suddenly silent; for Mr. Irwine's voice had ceased, and the group round the white thorn was dispersing itself towards the church. They all moved aside, and stood with their hats off, while Mr. Irwine passed. Adam and Seth were coming next, with their mother between them; for Joshua Rann officiated as head sexton as well as clerk, and was not yet ready to follow the rector into the vestry. But there was a pause before the three mourners came on: Lisbeth had turned round to look again towards the grave! Ah! There was nothing now but the brown earth under the white thorn. Yet she cried less to-day than she had done any day since her husband's death. Along with all her grief there was mixed an unusual sense of her own importance in having a "burial," and in Mr. Irwine's reading a special service for her husband; and besides, she knew the funeral psalm was going to be sung for him. She felt this counter-excitement to her sorrow still more strongly as she walked with her sons towards the church door, and saw the friendly sympathetic nods of their fellow-parishioners. The mother and sons passed into the church, and one by one the loiterers followed, though some still lingered without; the sight of Mr. Donnithorne's carriage, which was winding slowly up the hill, perhaps helping to make them feel that there was no need for haste. But presently the sound of the bassoon and the key-bugles burst forth; the evening hymn, which always opened the service, had begun, and every one must now enter and take his place. I cannot say that the interior of Hayslope Church was remarkable for anything except for the grey age of its oaken pews--great square pews mostly, ranged on each side of a narrow aisle. It was free, indeed, from the modern blemish of galleries. The choir had two narrow pews to themselves in the middle of the right-hand row, so that it was a short process for Joshua Rann to take his place among them as principal bass, and return to his desk after the singing was over. The pulpit and desk, grey and old as the pews, stood on one side of the arch leading into the chancel, which also had its grey square pews for Mr. Donnithorne's family and servants. Yet I assure you these grey pews, with the buff-washed walls, gave a very pleasing tone to this shabby interior, and agreed extremely well with the ruddy faces and bright waistcoats. And there were liberal touches of crimson toward the chancel, for the pulpit and Mr. Donnithorne's own pew had handsome crimson cloth cushions; and, to close the vista, there was a crimson altar-cloth, embroidered with golden rays by Miss Lydia's own hand. But even without the crimson cloth, the effect must have been warm and cheering when Mr. Irwine was in the desk, looking benignly round on that simple congregation--on the hardy old men, with bent knees and shoulders, perhaps, but with vigour left for much hedge-clipping and thatching; on the tall stalwart frames and roughly cut bronzed faces of the stone-cutters and carpenters; on the half-dozen well-to-do farmers, with their apple-cheeked families; and on the clean old women, mostly farm-labourers' wives, with their bit of snow-white cap-border under their black bonnets, and with their withered arms, bare from the elbow, folded passively over their chests. For none of the old people held books--why should they? Not one of them could read. But they knew a few "good words" by heart, and their withered lips now and then moved silently, following the service without any very clear comprehension indeed, but with a simple faith in its efficacy to ward off harm and bring blessing. And now all faces were visible, for all were standing up--the little children on the seats peeping over the edge of the grey pews, while good Bishop Ken's evening hymn was being sung to one of those lively psalm-tunes which died out with the last generation of rectors and choral parish clerks. Melodies die out, like the pipe of Pan, with the ears that love them and listen for them. Adam was not in his usual place among the singers to-day, for he sat with his mother and Seth, and he noticed with surprise that Bartle Massey was absent too--all the more agreeable for Mr. Joshua Rann, who gave out his bass notes with unusual complacency and threw an extra ray of severity into the glances he sent over his spectacles at the recusant Will Maskery. I beseech you to imagine Mr. Irwine looking round on this scene, in his ample white surplice that became him so well, with his powdered hair thrown back, his rich brown complexion, and his finely cut nostril and upper lip; for there was a certain virtue in that benignant yet keen countenance as there is in all human faces from which a generous soul beams out. And over all streamed the delicious June sunshine through the old windows, with their desultory patches of yellow, red, and blue, that threw pleasant touches of colour on the opposite wall. I think, as Mr. Irwine looked round to-day, his eyes rested an instant longer than usual on the square pew occupied by Martin Poyser and his family. And there was another pair of dark eyes that found it impossible not to wander thither, and rest on that round pink-and-white figure. But Hetty was at that moment quite careless of any glances--she was absorbed in the thought that Arthur Donnithorne would soon be coming into church, for the carriage must surely be at the church-gate by this time. She had never seen him since she parted with him in the wood on Thursday evening, and oh, how long the time had seemed! Things had gone on just the same as ever since that evening; the wonders that had happened then had brought no changes after them; they were already like a dream. When she heard the church door swinging, her heart beat so, she dared not look up. She felt that her aunt was curtsying; she curtsied herself. That must be old Mr. Donnithorne--he always came first, the wrinkled small old man, peering round with short-sighted glances at the bowing and curtsying congregation; then she knew Miss Lydia was passing, and though Hetty liked so much to look at her fashionable little coal-scuttle bonnet, with the wreath of small roses round it, she didn't mind it to-day. But there were no more curtsies--no, he was not come; she felt sure there was nothing else passing the pew door but the house-keeper's black bonnet and the lady's maid's beautiful straw hat that had once been Miss Lydia's, and then the powdered heads of the butler and footman. No, he was not there; yet she would look now--she might be mistaken--for, after all, she had not looked. So she lifted up her eyelids and glanced timidly at the cushioned pew in the chancel--there was no one but old Mr. Donnithorne rubbing his spectacles with his white handkerchief, and Miss Lydia opening the large gilt-edged prayer-book. The chill disappointment was too hard to bear. She felt herself turning pale, her lips trembling; she was ready to cry. Oh, what SHOULD she do? Everybody would know the reason; they would know she was crying because Arthur was not there. And Mr. Craig, with the wonderful hothouse plant in his button-hole, was staring at her, she knew. It was dreadfully long before the General Confession began, so that she could kneel down. Two great drops WOULD fall then, but no one saw them except good-natured Molly, for her aunt and uncle knelt with their backs towards her. Molly, unable to imagine any cause for tears in church except faintness, of which she had a vague traditional knowledge, drew out of her pocket a queer little flat blue smelling-bottle, and after much labour in pulling the cork out, thrust the narrow neck against Hetty's nostrils. "It donna smell," she whispered, thinking this was a great advantage which old salts had over fresh ones: they did you good without biting your nose. Hetty pushed it away peevishly; but this little flash of temper did what the salts could not have done--it roused her to wipe away the traces of her tears, and try with all her might not to shed any more. Hetty had a certain strength in her vain little nature: she would have borne anything rather than be laughed at, or pointed at with any other feeling than admiration; she would have pressed her own nails into her tender flesh rather than people should know a secret she did not want them to know. What fluctuations there were in her busy thoughts and feelings, while Mr. Irwine was pronouncing the solemn "Absolution" in her deaf ears, and through all the tones of petition that followed! Anger lay very close to disappointment, and soon won the victory over the conjectures her small ingenuity could devise to account for Arthur's absence on the supposition that he really wanted to come, really wanted to see her again. And by the time she rose from her knees mechanically, because all the rest were rising, the colour had returned to her cheeks even with a heightened glow, for she was framing little indignant speeches to herself, saying she hated Arthur for giving her this pain--she would like him to suffer too. Yet while this selfish tumult was going on in her soul, her eyes were bent down on her prayer-book, and the eyelids with their dark fringe looked as lovely as ever. Adam Bede thought so, as he glanced at her for a moment on rising from his knees. But Adam's thoughts of Hetty did not deafen him to the service; they rather blended with all the other deep feelings for which the church service was a channel to him this afternoon, as a certain consciousness of our entire past and our imagined future blends itself with all our moments of keen sensibility. And to Adam the church service was the best channel he could have found for his mingled regret, yearning, and resignation; its interchange of beseeching cries for help with outbursts of faith and praise, its recurrent responses and the familiar rhythm of its collects, seemed to speak for him as no other form of worship could have done; as, to those early Christians who had worshipped from their childhood upwards in catacombs, the torch-light and shadows must have seemed nearer the Divine presence than the heathenish daylight of the streets. The secret of our emotions never lies in the bare object, but in its subtle relations to our own past: no wonder the secret escapes the unsympathizing observer, who might as well put on his spectacles to discern odours. But there was one reason why even a chance comer would have found the service in Hayslope Church more impressive than in most other village nooks in the kingdom--a reason of which I am sure you have not the slightest suspicion. It was the reading of our friend Joshua Rann. Where that good shoemaker got his notion of reading from remained a mystery even to his most intimate acquaintances. I believe, after all, he got it chiefly from Nature, who had poured some of her music into this honest conceited soul, as she had been known to do into other narrow souls before his. She had given him, at least, a fine bass voice and a musical ear; but I cannot positively say whether these alone had sufficed to inspire him with the rich chant in which he delivered the responses. The way he rolled from a rich deep forte into a melancholy cadence, subsiding, at the end of the last word, into a sort of faint resonance, like the lingering vibrations of a fine violoncello, I can compare to nothing for its strong calm melancholy but the rush and cadence of the wind among the autumn boughs. This may seem a strange mode of speaking about the reading of a parish clerk--a man in rusty spectacles, with stubbly hair, a large occiput, and a prominent crown. But that is Nature's way: she will allow a gentleman of splendid physiognomy and poetic aspirations to sing woefully out of tune, and not give him the slightest hint of it; and takes care that some narrow-browed fellow, trolling a ballad in the corner of a pot-house, shall be as true to his intervals as a bird. Joshua himself was less proud of his reading than of his singing, and it was always with a sense of heightened importance that he passed from the desk to the choir. Still more to-day: it was a special occasion, for an old man, familiar to all the parish, had died a sad death--not in his bed, a circumstance the most painful to the mind of the peasant--and now the funeral psalm was to be sung in memory of his sudden departure. Moreover, Bartle Massey was not at church, and Joshua's importance in the choir suffered no eclipse. It was a solemn minor strain they sang. The old psalm-tunes have many a wail among them, and the words-- Thou sweep'st us off as with a flood; We vanish hence like dreams-- seemed to have a closer application than usual in the death of poor Thias. The mother and sons listened, each with peculiar feelings. Lisbeth had a vague belief that the psalm was doing her husband good; it was part of that decent burial which she would have thought it a greater wrong to withhold from him than to have caused him many unhappy days while he was living. The more there was said about her husband, the more there was done for him, surely the safer he would be. It was poor Lisbeth's blind way of feeling that human love and pity are a ground of faith in some other love. Seth, who was easily touched, shed tears, and tried to recall, as he had done continually since his father's death, all that he had heard of the possibility that a single moment of consciousness at the last might be a moment of pardon and reconcilement; for was it not written in the very psalm they were singing that the Divine dealings were not measured and circumscribed by time? Adam had never been unable to join in a psalm before. He had known plenty of trouble and vexation since he had been a lad, but this was the first sorrow that had hemmed in his voice, and strangely enough it was sorrow because the chief source of his past trouble and vexation was for ever gone out of his reach. He had not been able to press his father's hand before their parting, and say, "Father, you know it was all right between us; I never forgot what I owed you when I was a lad; you forgive me if I have been too hot and hasty now and then!" Adam thought but little to-day of the hard work and the earnings he had spent on his father: his thoughts ran constantly on what the old man's feelings had been in moments of humiliation, when he had held down his head before the rebukes of his son. When our indignation is borne in submissive silence, we are apt to feel twinges of doubt afterwards as to our own generosity, if not justice; how much more when the object of our anger has gone into everlasting silence, and we have seen his face for the last time in the meekness of death! "Ah! I was always too hard," Adam said to himself. "It's a sore fault in me as I'm so hot and out o' patience with people when they do wrong, and my heart gets shut up against 'em, so as I can't bring myself to forgive 'em. I see clear enough there's more pride nor love in my soul, for I could sooner make a thousand strokes with th' hammer for my father than bring myself to say a kind word to him. And there went plenty o' pride and temper to the strokes, as the devil WILL be having his finger in what we call our duties as well as our sins. Mayhap the best thing I ever did in my life was only doing what was easiest for myself. It's allays been easier for me to work nor to sit still, but the real tough job for me 'ud be to master my own will and temper and go right against my own pride. It seems to me now, if I was to find Father at home to-night, I should behave different; but there's no knowing--perhaps nothing 'ud be a lesson to us if it didn't come too late. It's well we should feel as life's a reckoning we can't make twice over; there's no real making amends in this world, any more nor you can mend a wrong subtraction by doing your addition right." This was the key-note to which Adam's thoughts had perpetually returned since his father's death, and the solemn wail of the funeral psalm was only an influence that brought back the old thoughts with stronger emphasis. So was the sermon, which Mr. Irwine had chosen with reference to Thias's funeral. It spoke briefly and simply of the words, "In the midst of life we are in death"--how the present moment is all we can call our own for works of mercy, of righteous dealing, and of family tenderness. All very old truths--but what we thought the oldest truth becomes the most startling to us in the week when we have looked on the dead face of one who has made a part of our own lives. For when men want to impress us with the effect of a new and wonderfully vivid light, do they not let it fall on the most familiar objects, that we may measure its intensity by remembering the former dimness? Then came the moment of the final blessing, when the forever sublime words, "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding," seemed to blend with the calm afternoon sunshine that fell on the bowed heads of the congregation; and then the quiet rising, the mothers tying on the bonnets of the little maidens who had slept through the sermon, the fathers collecting the prayer-books, until all streamed out through the old archway into the green churchyard and began their neighbourly talk, their simple civilities, and their invitations to tea; for on a Sunday every one was ready to receive a guest--it was the day when all must be in their best clothes and their best humour. Mr. and Mrs. Poyser paused a minute at the church gate: they were waiting for Adam to come up, not being contented to go away without saying a kind word to the widow and her sons. "Well, Mrs. Bede," said Mrs. Poyser, as they walked on together, "you must keep up your heart; husbands and wives must be content when they've lived to rear their children and see one another's hair grey." "Aye, aye," said Mr. Poyser; "they wonna have long to wait for one another then, anyhow. And ye've got two o' the strapping'st sons i' th' country; and well you may, for I remember poor Thias as fine a broad-shouldered fellow as need to be; and as for you, Mrs. Bede, why you're straighter i' the back nor half the young women now." "Eh," said Lisbeth, "it's poor luck for the platter to wear well when it's broke i' two. The sooner I'm laid under the thorn the better. I'm no good to nobody now." Adam never took notice of his mother's little unjust plaints; but Seth said, "Nay, Mother, thee mustna say so. Thy sons 'ull never get another mother." "That's true, lad, that's true," said Mr. Poyser; "and it's wrong on us to give way to grief, Mrs. Bede; for it's like the children cryin' when the fathers and mothers take things from 'em. There's One above knows better nor us." "Ah," said Mrs. Poyser, "an' it's poor work allays settin' the dead above the livin'. We shall all on us be dead some time, I reckon--it 'ud be better if folks 'ud make much on us beforehand, i'stid o' beginnin' when we're gone. It's but little good you'll do a-watering the last year's crop." "Well, Adam," said Mr. Poyser, feeling that his wife's words were, as usual, rather incisive than soothing, and that it would be well to change the subject, "you'll come and see us again now, I hope. I hanna had a talk with you this long while, and the missis here wants you to see what can be done with her best spinning-wheel, for it's got broke, and it'll be a nice job to mend it--there'll want a bit o' turning. You'll come as soon as you can now, will you?" Mr. Poyser paused and looked round while he was speaking, as if to see where Hetty was; for the children were running on before. Hetty was not without a companion, and she had, besides, more pink and white about her than ever, for she held in her hand the wonderful pink-and-white hot-house plant, with a very long name--a Scotch name, she supposed, since people said Mr. Craig the gardener was Scotch. Adam took the opportunity of looking round too; and I am sure you will not require of him that he should feel any vexation in observing a pouting expression on Hetty's face as she listened to the gardener's small talk. Yet in her secret heart she was glad to have him by her side, for she would perhaps learn from him how it was Arthur had not come to church. Not that she cared to ask him the question, but she hoped the information would be given spontaneously; for Mr. Craig, like a superior man, was very fond of giving information. Mr. Craig was never aware that his conversation and advances were received coldly, for to shift one's point of view beyond certain limits is impossible to the most liberal and expansive mind; we are none of us aware of the impression we produce on Brazilian monkeys of feeble understanding--it is possible they see hardly anything in us. Moreover, Mr. Craig was a man of sober passions, and was already in his tenth year of hesitation as to the relative advantages of matrimony and bachelorhood. It is true that, now and then, when he had been a little heated by an extra glass of grog, he had been heard to say of Hetty that the "lass was well enough," and that "a man might do worse"; but on convivial occasions men are apt to express themselves strongly. Martin Poyser held Mr. Craig in honour, as a man who "knew his business" and who had great lights concerning soils and compost; but he was less of a favourite with Mrs. Poyser, who had more than once said in confidence to her husband, "You're mighty fond o' Craig, but for my part, I think he's welly like a cock as thinks the sun's rose o' purpose to hear him crow." For the rest, Mr. Craig was an estimable gardener, and was not without reasons for having a high opinion of himself. He had also high shoulders and high cheek-bones and hung his head forward a little, as he walked along with his hands in his breeches pockets. I think it was his pedigree only that had the advantage of being Scotch, and not his "bringing up"; for except that he had a stronger burr in his accent, his speech differed little from that of the Loamshire people about him. But a gardener is Scotch, as a French teacher is Parisian. "Well, Mr. Poyser," he said, before the good slow farmer had time to speak, "ye'll not be carrying your hay to-morrow, I'm thinking. The glass sticks at 'change,' and ye may rely upo' my word as we'll ha' more downfall afore twenty-four hours is past. Ye see that darkish-blue cloud there upo' the 'rizon--ye know what I mean by the 'rizon, where the land and sky seems to meet?" "Aye, aye, I see the cloud," said Mr. Poyser, "'rizon or no 'rizon. It's right o'er Mike Holdsworth's fallow, and a foul fallow it is." "Well, you mark my words, as that cloud 'ull spread o'er the sky pretty nigh as quick as you'd spread a tarpaulin over one o' your hay-ricks. It's a great thing to ha' studied the look o' the clouds. Lord bless you! Th' met'orological almanecks can learn me nothing, but there's a pretty sight o' things I could let THEM up to, if they'd just come to me. And how are you, Mrs. Poyser?--thinking o' getherin' the red currants soon, I reckon. You'd a deal better gether 'em afore they're o'erripe, wi' such weather as we've got to look forward to. How do ye do, Mistress Bede?" Mr. Craig continued, without a pause, nodding by the way to Adam and Seth. "I hope y' enjoyed them spinach and gooseberries as I sent Chester with th' other day. If ye want vegetables while ye're in trouble, ye know where to come to. It's well known I'm not giving other folks' things away, for when I've supplied the house, the garden's my own spekilation, and it isna every man th' old squire could get as 'ud be equil to the undertaking, let alone asking whether he'd be willing I've got to run my calkilation fine, I can tell you, to make sure o' getting back the money as I pay the squire. I should like to see some o' them fellows as make the almanecks looking as far before their noses as I've got to do every year as comes." "They look pretty fur, though," said Mr. Poyser, turning his head on one side and speaking in rather a subdued reverential tone. "Why, what could come truer nor that pictur o' the cock wi' the big spurs, as has got its head knocked down wi' th' anchor, an' th' firin', an' the ships behind? Why, that pictur was made afore Christmas, and yit it's come as true as th' Bible. Why, th' cock's France, an' th' anchor's Nelson--an' they told us that beforehand." "Pee--ee-eh!" said Mr. Craig. "A man doesna want to see fur to know as th' English 'ull beat the French. Why, I know upo' good authority as it's a big Frenchman as reaches five foot high, an' they live upo' spoon-meat mostly. I knew a man as his father had a particular knowledge o' the French. I should like to know what them grasshoppers are to do against such fine fellows as our young Captain Arthur. Why, it 'ud astonish a Frenchman only to look at him; his arm's thicker nor a Frenchman's body, I'll be bound, for they pinch theirsells in wi' stays; and it's easy enough, for they've got nothing i' their insides." "Where IS the captain, as he wasna at church to-day?" said Adam. "I was talking to him o' Friday, and he said nothing about his going away." "Oh, he's only gone to Eagledale for a bit o' fishing; I reckon he'll be back again afore many days are o'er, for he's to be at all th' arranging and preparing o' things for the comin' o' age o' the 30th o' July. But he's fond o' getting away for a bit, now and then. Him and th' old squire fit one another like frost and flowers." Mr. Craig smiled and winked slowly as he made this last observation, but the subject was not developed farther, for now they had reached the turning in the road where Adam and his companions must say "good-bye." The gardener, too, would have had to turn off in the same direction if he had not accepted Mr. Poyser's invitation to tea. Mrs. Poyser duly seconded the invitation, for she would have held it a deep disgrace not to make her neighbours welcome to her house: personal likes and dislikes must not interfere with that sacred custom. Moreover, Mr. Craig had always been full of civilities to the family at the Hall Farm, and Mrs. Poyser was scrupulous in declaring that she had "nothing to say again' him, on'y it was a pity he couldna be hatched o'er again, an' hatched different." So Adam and Seth, with their mother between them, wound their way down to the valley and up again to the old house, where a saddened memory had taken the place of a long, long anxiety--where Adam would never have to ask again as he entered, "Where's Father?" And the other family party, with Mr. Craig for company, went back to the pleasant bright house-place at the Hall Farm--all with quiet minds, except Hetty, who knew now where Arthur was gone, but was only the more puzzled and uneasy. For it appeared that his absence was quite voluntary; he need not have gone--he would not have gone if he had wanted to see her. She had a sickening sense that no lot could ever be pleasant to her again if her Thursday night's vision was not to be fulfilled; and in this moment of chill, bare, wintry disappointment and doubt, she looked towards the possibility of being with Arthur again, of meeting his loving glance, and hearing his soft words with that eager yearning which one may call the "growing pain" of passion. 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.

Hetty und ihre Tante, Mrs. Poyser, machen sich fertig für die Kirche. Und Hetty sieht gut aus: "Wenn je ein Mädchen aussah, als wäre es aus Rosen gemacht worden, dann war es Hetty mit ihrem Sonntags-Hut und -Kleid". Bald sind alle Poysers bereit und machen sich auf den Weg in einer "kleinen Prozession". Sogar der alte Martin, der ein bisschen krank ist und zuhause bleibt, hat eine Rolle zu spielen. "Als er die Familienprozession kommen sah, öffnete er das Tor und hielt es weit offen, sich auf seinen Stock lehnend - froh, diese kleine Aufgabe zu erfüllen". Wie nett von ihm! Die Poysers schlendern entlang, Totty in ihrer Sonntagsaufmachung, Herr und Frau Poyser lästern über die anderen, weniger talentierten Milchbauern. Die Kinder treiben allerlei Schabernack. Die beiden kleinen Poyser-Jungen machen sich auf die Suche nach einem "gesprenkelten Türkennest". Schließlich erreichen die Poysers den Friedhof. Viele Leute sind für Thias Bedes Beerdigung versammelt. Doch dies ist auch eine gesellschaftliche Veranstaltung. Die Frauen tauschen Klatsch und Rezepte aus; die Männer lungern herum. Und dann enden das Klatschen, die Rezepte und das Herumlungern. Die Menge strömt in die Kirche und setzt sich hin. Aber alle erheben sich, als der Gottesdienst beginnt. Sie schauen respektvoll, als Thias' Beerdigungszug das Gebäude betritt. Das ganze Hayslope ist hier in der Kirche, von den wichtigtuerischen Donnithornes bis zu den ungebildeten Arbeitern, die "den Gottesdienst, nicht sonderlich verständlich, verfolgen". Ja, in diesem Kapitel gibt es jede Menge Leute. Und es gibt zwei, auf die du besonders achten solltest. Hetty ist traurig, dass Arthur der Messe ferngeblieben ist, und verbringt den Gottesdienst damit, "kleine wütende Reden im Stillen zu formulieren". Adam hingegen ist zwischen hoffnungsvoller Liebe zu Hetty und Reue gegenüber seinem verstorbenen Vater hin- und hergerissen. Er quält sich emotional, weil er "so aufgebracht und ungeduldig mit Menschen ist, wenn sie etwas falsch machen". Die Messe ist vorbei. Mrs. Poyser geht zu Lisbeth hinüber und tröstet sie, erinnert sie aber auch daran, dass noch genügend Bedes übrig sind. Hetty unterhält sich mit Mr. Craig, einem schottischen Gärtner, der "wie ein überlegener Mann sehr gerne Informationen gibt". Mr. Craig plaudert ein paar Seiten lang über Landwirtschaft, die Franzosen und viele andere Dinge, die nichts mit dem verstorbenen Thias Bede zu tun haben könnten. Dann fragt Adam, wo Arthur ist. Mr. Craig, der auf dem Donnithorne-Anwesen arbeitet, informiert alle, dass Arthur "nur zum Angeln nach Eagledale gefahren ist". Jetzt ist Adam Mr. Craig los - und wir auch. Aber Hetty hat noch einen ganzen Tag voller Ärgernisse und Ängste vor sich. Sie verlässt die Kirche mit "Enttäuschung und Zweifel", doch mit einem Blick "auf die Möglichkeit, wieder bei Arthur 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: Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of Saint George, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way going southward, the Marshalsea Prison. It had stood there many years before, and it remained there some years afterwards; but it is gone now, and the world is none the worse without it. It was an oblong pile of barrack building, partitioned into squalid houses standing back to back, so that there were no back rooms; environed by a narrow paved yard, hemmed in by high walls duly spiked at top. Itself a close and confined prison for debtors, it contained within it a much closer and more confined jail for smugglers. Offenders against the revenue laws, and defaulters to excise or customs who had incurred fines which they were unable to pay, were supposed to be incarcerated behind an iron-plated door closing up a second prison, consisting of a strong cell or two, and a blind alley some yard and a half wide, which formed the mysterious termination of the very limited skittle-ground in which the Marshalsea debtors bowled down their troubles. Supposed to be incarcerated there, because the time had rather outgrown the strong cells and the blind alley. In practice they had come to be considered a little too bad, though in theory they were quite as good as ever; which may be observed to be the case at the present day with other cells that are not at all strong, and with other blind alleys that are stone-blind. Hence the smugglers habitually consorted with the debtors (who received them with open arms), except at certain constitutional moments when somebody came from some Office, to go through some form of overlooking something which neither he nor anybody else knew anything about. On these truly British occasions, the smugglers, if any, made a feint of walking into the strong cells and the blind alley, while this somebody pretended to do his something: and made a reality of walking out again as soon as he hadn't done it--neatly epitomising the administration of most of the public affairs in our right little, tight little, island. There had been taken to the Marshalsea Prison, long before the day when the sun shone on Marseilles and on the opening of this narrative, a debtor with whom this narrative has some concern. He was, at that time, a very amiable and very helpless middle-aged gentleman, who was going out again directly. Necessarily, he was going out again directly, because the Marshalsea lock never turned upon a debtor who was not. He brought in a portmanteau with him, which he doubted its being worth while to unpack; he was so perfectly clear--like all the rest of them, the turnkey on the lock said--that he was going out again directly. He was a shy, retiring man; well-looking, though in an effeminate style; with a mild voice, curling hair, and irresolute hands--rings upon the fingers in those days--which nervously wandered to his trembling lip a hundred times in the first half-hour of his acquaintance with the jail. His principal anxiety was about his wife. 'Do you think, sir,' he asked the turnkey, 'that she will be very much shocked, if she should come to the gate to-morrow morning?' The turnkey gave it as the result of his experience that some of 'em was and some of 'em wasn't. In general, more no than yes. 'What like is she, you see?' he philosophically asked: 'that's what it hinges on.' 'She is very delicate and inexperienced indeed.' 'That,' said the turnkey, 'is agen her.' 'She is so little used to go out alone,' said the debtor, 'that I am at a loss to think how she will ever make her way here, if she walks.' 'P'raps,' quoth the turnkey, 'she'll take a ackney coach.' 'Perhaps.' The irresolute fingers went to the trembling lip. 'I hope she will. She may not think of it.' 'Or p'raps,' said the turnkey, offering his suggestions from the the top of his well-worn wooden stool, as he might have offered them to a child for whose weakness he felt a compassion, 'p'raps she'll get her brother, or her sister, to come along with her.' 'She has no brother or sister.' 'Niece, nevy, cousin, serwant, young 'ooman, greengrocer.--Dash it! One or another on 'em,' said the turnkey, repudiating beforehand the refusal of all his suggestions. 'I fear--I hope it is not against the rules--that she will bring the children.' 'The children?' said the turnkey. 'And the rules? Why, lord set you up like a corner pin, we've a reg'lar playground o' children here. Children! Why we swarm with 'em. How many a you got?' 'Two,' said the debtor, lifting his irresolute hand to his lip again, and turning into the prison. The turnkey followed him with his eyes. 'And you another,' he observed to himself, 'which makes three on you. And your wife another, I'll lay a crown. Which makes four on you. And another coming, I'll lay half-a-crown. Which'll make five on you. And I'll go another seven and sixpence to name which is the helplessest, the unborn baby or you!' He was right in all his particulars. She came next day with a little boy of three years old, and a little girl of two, and he stood entirely corroborated. 'Got a room now; haven't you?' the turnkey asked the debtor after a week or two. 'Yes, I have got a very good room.' 'Any little sticks a coming to furnish it?' said the turnkey. 'I expect a few necessary articles of furniture to be delivered by the carrier, this afternoon.' 'Missis and little 'uns a coming to keep you company?' asked the turnkey. 'Why, yes, we think it better that we should not be scattered, even for a few weeks.' 'Even for a few weeks, _of_ course,' replied the turnkey. And he followed him again with his eyes, and nodded his head seven times when he was gone. The affairs of this debtor were perplexed by a partnership, of which he knew no more than that he had invested money in it; by legal matters of assignment and settlement, conveyance here and conveyance there, suspicion of unlawful preference of creditors in this direction, and of mysterious spiriting away of property in that; and as nobody on the face of the earth could be more incapable of explaining any single item in the heap of confusion than the debtor himself, nothing comprehensible could be made of his case. To question him in detail, and endeavour to reconcile his answers; to closet him with accountants and sharp practitioners, learned in the wiles of insolvency and bankruptcy; was only to put the case out at compound interest and incomprehensibility. The irresolute fingers fluttered more and more ineffectually about the trembling lip on every such occasion, and the sharpest practitioners gave him up as a hopeless job. 'Out?' said the turnkey, '_he_'ll never get out, unless his creditors take him by the shoulders and shove him out.' He had been there five or six months, when he came running to this turnkey one forenoon to tell him, breathless and pale, that his wife was ill. 'As anybody might a known she would be,' said the turnkey. 'We intended,' he returned, 'that she should go to a country lodging only to-morrow. What am I to do! Oh, good heaven, what am I to do!' 'Don't waste your time in clasping your hands and biting your fingers,' responded the practical turnkey, taking him by the elbow, 'but come along with me.' The turnkey conducted him--trembling from head to foot, and constantly crying under his breath, What was he to do! while his irresolute fingers bedabbled the tears upon his face--up one of the common staircases in the prison to a door on the garret story. Upon which door the turnkey knocked with the handle of his key. 'Come in!' cried a voice inside. The turnkey, opening the door, disclosed in a wretched, ill-smelling little room, two hoarse, puffy, red-faced personages seated at a rickety table, playing at all-fours, smoking pipes, and drinking brandy. 'Doctor,' said the turnkey, 'here's a gentleman's wife in want of you without a minute's loss of time!' The doctor's friend was in the positive degree of hoarseness, puffiness, red-facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy; the doctor in the comparative--hoarser, puffier, more red-faced, more all-fourey, tobaccoer, dirtier, and brandier. The doctor was amazingly shabby, in a torn and darned rough-weather sea-jacket, out at elbows and eminently short of buttons (he had been in his time the experienced surgeon carried by a passenger ship), the dirtiest white trousers conceivable by mortal man, carpet slippers, and no visible linen. 'Childbed?' said the doctor. 'I'm the boy!' With that the doctor took a comb from the chimney-piece and stuck his hair upright--which appeared to be his way of washing himself--produced a professional chest or case, of most abject appearance, from the cupboard where his cup and saucer and coals were, settled his chin in the frowsy wrapper round his neck, and became a ghastly medical scarecrow. The doctor and the debtor ran down-stairs, leaving the turnkey to return to the lock, and made for the debtor's room. All the ladies in the prison had got hold of the news, and were in the yard. Some of them had already taken possession of the two children, and were hospitably carrying them off; others were offering loans of little comforts from their own scanty store; others were sympathising with the greatest volubility. The gentlemen prisoners, feeling themselves at a disadvantage, had for the most part retired, not to say sneaked, to their rooms; from the open windows of which some of them now complimented the doctor with whistles as he passed below, while others, with several stories between them, interchanged sarcastic references to the prevalent excitement. It was a hot summer day, and the prison rooms were baking between the high walls. In the debtor's confined chamber, Mrs Bangham, charwoman and messenger, who was not a prisoner (though she had been once), but was the popular medium of communication with the outer world, had volunteered her services as fly-catcher and general attendant. The walls and ceiling were blackened with flies. Mrs Bangham, expert in sudden device, with one hand fanned the patient with a cabbage leaf, and with the other set traps of vinegar and sugar in gallipots; at the same time enunciating sentiments of an encouraging and congratulatory nature, adapted to the occasion. 'The flies trouble you, don't they, my dear?' said Mrs Bangham. 'But p'raps they'll take your mind off of it, and do you good. What between the buryin ground, the grocer's, the waggon-stables, and the paunch trade, the Marshalsea flies gets very large. P'raps they're sent as a consolation, if we only know'd it. How are you now, my dear? No better? No, my dear, it ain't to be expected; you'll be worse before you're better, and you know it, don't you? Yes. That's right! And to think of a sweet little cherub being born inside the lock! Now ain't it pretty, ain't _that_ something to carry you through it pleasant? Why, we ain't had such a thing happen here, my dear, not for I couldn't name the time when. And you a crying too?' said Mrs Bangham, to rally the patient more and more. 'You! Making yourself so famous! With the flies a falling into the gallipots by fifties! And everything a going on so well! And here if there ain't,' said Mrs Bangham as the door opened, 'if there ain't your dear gentleman along with Dr Haggage! And now indeed we _are_ complete, I _think_!' The doctor was scarcely the kind of apparition to inspire a patient with a sense of absolute completeness, but as he presently delivered the opinion, 'We are as right as we can be, Mrs Bangham, and we shall come out of this like a house afire;' and as he and Mrs Bangham took possession of the poor helpless pair, as everybody else and anybody else had always done, the means at hand were as good on the whole as better would have been. The special feature in Dr Haggage's treatment of the case, was his determination to keep Mrs Bangham up to the mark. As thus: 'Mrs Bangham,' said the doctor, before he had been there twenty minutes, 'go outside and fetch a little brandy, or we shall have you giving in.' 'Thank you, sir. But none on my accounts,' said Mrs Bangham. 'Mrs Bangham,' returned the doctor, 'I am in professional attendance on this lady, and don't choose to allow any discussion on your part. Go outside and fetch a little brandy, or I foresee that you'll break down.' 'You're to be obeyed, sir,' said Mrs Bangham, rising. 'If you was to put your own lips to it, I think you wouldn't be the worse, for you look but poorly, sir.' 'Mrs Bangham,' returned the doctor, 'I am not your business, thank you, but you are mine. Never you mind _me_, if you please. What you have got to do, is, to do as you are told, and to go and get what I bid you.' Mrs Bangham submitted; and the doctor, having administered her potion, took his own. He repeated the treatment every hour, being very determined with Mrs Bangham. Three or four hours passed; the flies fell into the traps by hundreds; and at length one little life, hardly stronger than theirs, appeared among the multitude of lesser deaths. 'A very nice little girl indeed,' said the doctor; 'little, but well-formed. Halloa, Mrs Bangham! You're looking queer! You be off, ma'am, this minute, and fetch a little more brandy, or we shall have you in hysterics.' By this time, the rings had begun to fall from the debtor's irresolute hands, like leaves from a wintry tree. Not one was left upon them that night, when he put something that chinked into the doctor's greasy palm. In the meantime Mrs Bangham had been out on an errand to a neighbouring establishment decorated with three golden balls, where she was very well known. 'Thank you,' said the doctor, 'thank you. Your good lady is quite composed. Doing charmingly.' 'I am very happy and very thankful to know it,' said the debtor, 'though I little thought once, that--' 'That a child would be born to you in a place like this?' said the doctor. 'Bah, bah, sir, what does it signify? A little more elbow-room is all we want here. We are quiet here; we don't get badgered here; there's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors and bring a man's heart into his mouth. Nobody comes here to ask if a man's at home, and to say he'll stand on the door mat till he is. Nobody writes threatening letters about money to this place. It's freedom, sir, it's freedom! I have had to-day's practice at home and abroad, on a march, and aboard ship, and I'll tell you this: I don't know that I have ever pursued it under such quiet circumstances as here this day. Elsewhere, people are restless, worried, hurried about, anxious respecting one thing, anxious respecting another. Nothing of the kind here, sir. We have done all that--we know the worst of it; we have got to the bottom, we can't fall, and what have we found? Peace. That's the word for it. Peace.' With this profession of faith, the doctor, who was an old jail-bird, and was more sodden than usual, and had the additional and unusual stimulus of money in his pocket, returned to his associate and chum in hoarseness, puffiness, red-facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy. Now, the debtor was a very different man from the doctor, but he had already begun to travel, by his opposite segment of the circle, to the same point. Crushed at first by his imprisonment, he had soon found a dull relief in it. He was under lock and key; but the lock and key that kept him in, kept numbers of his troubles out. If he had been a man with strength of purpose to face those troubles and fight them, he might have broken the net that held him, or broken his heart; but being what he was, he languidly slipped into this smooth descent, and never more took one step upward. When he was relieved of the perplexed affairs that nothing would make plain, through having them returned upon his hands by a dozen agents in succession who could make neither beginning, middle, nor end of them or him, he found his miserable place of refuge a quieter refuge than it had been before. He had unpacked the portmanteau long ago; and his elder children now played regularly about the yard, and everybody knew the baby, and claimed a kind of proprietorship in her. 'Why, I'm getting proud of you,' said his friend the turnkey, one day. 'You'll be the oldest inhabitant soon. The Marshalsea wouldn't be like the Marshalsea now, without you and your family.' The turnkey really was proud of him. He would mention him in laudatory terms to new-comers, when his back was turned. 'You took notice of him,' he would say, 'that went out of the lodge just now?' New-comer would probably answer Yes. 'Brought up as a gentleman, he was, if ever a man was. Ed'cated at no end of expense. Went into the Marshal's house once to try a new piano for him. Played it, I understand, like one o'clock--beautiful! As to languages--speaks anything. We've had a Frenchman here in his time, and it's my opinion he knowed more French than the Frenchman did. We've had an Italian here in his time, and he shut _him_ up in about half a minute. You'll find some characters behind other locks, I don't say you won't; but if you want the top sawyer in such respects as I've mentioned, you must come to the Marshalsea.' When his youngest child was eight years old, his wife, who had long been languishing away--of her own inherent weakness, not that she retained any greater sensitiveness as to her place of abode than he did--went upon a visit to a poor friend and old nurse in the country, and died there. He remained shut up in his room for a fortnight afterwards; and an attorney's clerk, who was going through the Insolvent Court, engrossed an address of condolence to him, which looked like a Lease, and which all the prisoners signed. When he appeared again he was greyer (he had soon begun to turn grey); and the turnkey noticed that his hands went often to his trembling lips again, as they had used to do when he first came in. But he got pretty well over it in a month or two; and in the meantime the children played about the yard as regularly as ever, but in black. Then Mrs Bangham, long popular medium of communication with the outer world, began to be infirm, and to be found oftener than usual comatose on pavements, with her basket of purchases spilt, and the change of her clients ninepence short. His son began to supersede Mrs Bangham, and to execute commissions in a knowing manner, and to be of the prison prisonous, of the streets streety. Time went on, and the turnkey began to fail. His chest swelled, and his legs got weak, and he was short of breath. The well-worn wooden stool was 'beyond him,' he complained. He sat in an arm-chair with a cushion, and sometimes wheezed so, for minutes together, that he couldn't turn the key. When he was overpowered by these fits, the debtor often turned it for him. 'You and me,' said the turnkey, one snowy winter's night when the lodge, with a bright fire in it, was pretty full of company, 'is the oldest inhabitants. I wasn't here myself above seven year before you. I shan't last long. When I'm off the lock for good and all, you'll be the Father of the Marshalsea.' The turnkey went off the lock of this world next day. His words were remembered and repeated; and tradition afterwards handed down from generation to generation--a Marshalsea generation might be calculated as about three months--that the shabby old debtor with the soft manner and the white hair, was the Father of the Marshalsea. And he grew to be proud of the title. If any impostor had arisen to claim it, he would have shed tears in resentment of the attempt to deprive him of his rights. A disposition began to be perceived in him to exaggerate the number of years he had been there; it was generally understood that you must deduct a few from his account; he was vain, the fleeting generations of debtors said. All new-comers were presented to him. He was punctilious in the exaction of this ceremony. The wits would perform the office of introduction with overcharged pomp and politeness, but they could not easily overstep his sense of its gravity. He received them in his poor room (he disliked an introduction in the mere yard, as informal--a thing that might happen to anybody), with a kind of bowed-down beneficence. They were welcome to the Marshalsea, he would tell them. Yes, he was the Father of the place. So the world was kind enough to call him; and so he was, if more than twenty years of residence gave him a claim to the title. It looked small at first, but there was very good company there--among a mixture--necessarily a mixture--and very good air. It became a not unusual circumstance for letters to be put under his door at night, enclosing half-a-crown, two half-crowns, now and then at long intervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Father of the Marshalsea. 'With the compliments of a collegian taking leave.' He received the gifts as tributes, from admirers, to a public character. Sometimes these correspondents assumed facetious names, as the Brick, Bellows, Old Gooseberry, Wideawake, Snooks, Mops, Cutaway, the Dogs-meat Man; but he considered this in bad taste, and was always a little hurt by it. In the fulness of time, this correspondence showing signs of wearing out, and seeming to require an effort on the part of the correspondents to which in the hurried circumstances of departure many of them might not be equal, he established the custom of attending collegians of a certain standing, to the gate, and taking leave of them there. The collegian under treatment, after shaking hands, would occasionally stop to wrap up something in a bit of paper, and would come back again calling 'Hi!' He would look round surprised.'Me?' he would say, with a smile. By this time the collegian would be up with him, and he would paternally add,'What have you forgotten? What can I do for you?' 'I forgot to leave this,' the collegian would usually return, 'for the Father of the Marshalsea.' 'My good sir,' he would rejoin, 'he is infinitely obliged to you.' But, to the last, the irresolute hand of old would remain in the pocket into which he had slipped the money during two or three turns about the yard, lest the transaction should be too conspicuous to the general body of collegians. One afternoon he had been doing the honours of the place to a rather large party of collegians, who happened to be going out, when, as he was coming back, he encountered one from the poor side who had been taken in execution for a small sum a week before, had 'settled' in the course of that afternoon, and was going out too. The man was a mere Plasterer in his working dress; had his wife with him, and a bundle; and was in high spirits. 'God bless you, sir,' he said in passing. 'And you,' benignantly returned the Father of the Marshalsea. They were pretty far divided, going their several ways, when the Plasterer called out, 'I say!--sir!' and came back to him. "Es ist nicht viel", sagte der Verputzer und legte einen kleinen Stapel Halbpence in seine Hand, "aber es ist gut gemeint." Der Vater des Marshalsea war bisher noch nie Tribut aus Kupfer angeboten worden. Seine Kinder hatten das oft getan, und er hatte es bereitwillig in die gemeinsame Kasse gesteckt, um Fleisch zu kaufen, das er gegessen hatte, und Getränke, die er getrunken hatte. Aber Leinen mit weißer Kalkfarbe, die ihm Halbpence vor sein Gesicht warf, war neu. "Wie kannst du es wagen!", sagte er zu dem Mann und brach schwach in Tränen aus. Der Verputzer drehte ihn zur Wand, damit sein Gesicht nicht gesehen werden konnte. Die Geste war so feinfühlig und der Mann war so von Reue erfüllt und bat so aufrichtig um Vergebung, dass er ihm nichts anderes als Anerkennung entgegenbringen konnte als: "Ich weiß, du meintest es gut. Sag nichts mehr." "G Können Sie eine passende 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.

Das Marshalsea ist ein Gefängnis, das ursprünglich in zwei Teile aufgeteilt war: einen Teil für diejenigen, die ihre Schulden nicht bezahlen konnten, und einen anderen für Schmuggler. Doch im Laufe der Zeit sind die Gefängnisgebäude verfallen und all diese Gefangenen mischen sich jetzt. Eines Tages wird Mr. Dorrit ins Marshalsea gebracht. Er ist in seinen 40ern, verheiratet, mit zwei Kindern und einem weiteren unterwegs. Er hat fast keine Ahnung, wie hoch seine Schulden sind. - und ihn mit den Firmenschulden alleine gelassen. In der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts wurden schließlich Unternehmen erfunden, und das Investieren in ein Unternehmen wurde eher so, wie wir es heute kennen - du kannst Aktien von General Motors kaufen, aber das macht dich in keiner Weise für dieses Unternehmen verantwortlich.) Also ja. Mr. Dorrit. Schulden. Gefängnis. Seine Frau und Kinder sind mitgekommen, weil wo sollten sie sonst hingehen? Sie sind tatsächlich keine Gefangenen und können kommen und gehen, wie sie wollen. Ein paar Monate später wird seine jüngste Tochter im Gefängnis geboren. Acht Jahre später stirbt seine Frau. Mr. Dorrit hat sich sehr an das Gefängnisleben gewöhnt. Sein Sohn übernimmt den Platz von Mrs. Bangham als Laufbursche des Gefängnisses. Schließlich ist er der am längsten inhaftierte Gefangene und bekommt den Spitznamen "Vater des Marshalsea". Er beginnt stolz auf diesen Titel zu sein und übertreibt, wie viele Jahre er im Gefängnis war, wie vornehm er einst war und wie hoch seine Schulden wirklich sind. Andere Gefangene, die entlassen werden, fangen an, ihm Trinkgeld als eine Art Wohltätigkeit und Respektsgeste zu geben. Er fängt an, diese Gaben zu erwarten und dann zu verlangen.

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: 1st Gent. An ancient land in ancient oracles Is called "law-thirsty": all the struggle there Was after order and a perfect rule. Pray, where lie such lands now? . . . 2d Gent. Why, where they lay of old--in human souls. Mr. Casaubon's behavior about settlements was highly satisfactory to Mr. Brooke, and the preliminaries of marriage rolled smoothly along, shortening the weeks of courtship. The betrothed bride must see her future home, and dictate any changes that she would like to have made there. A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards. And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. On a gray but dry November morning Dorothea drove to Lowick in company with her uncle and Celia. Mr. Casaubon's home was the manor-house. Close by, visible from some parts of the garden, was the little church, with the old parsonage opposite. In the beginning of his career, Mr. Casaubon had only held the living, but the death of his brother had put him in possession of the manor also. It had a small park, with a fine old oak here and there, and an avenue of limes towards the southwest front, with a sunk fence between park and pleasure-ground, so that from the drawing-room windows the glance swept uninterruptedly along a slope of greensward till the limes ended in a level of corn and pastures, which often seemed to melt into a lake under the setting sun. This was the happy side of the house, for the south and east looked rather melancholy even under the brightest morning. The grounds here were more confined, the flower-beds showed no very careful tendance, and large clumps of trees, chiefly of sombre yews, had risen high, not ten yards from the windows. The building, of greenish stone, was in the old English style, not ugly, but small-windowed and melancholy-looking: the sort of house that must have children, many flowers, open windows, and little vistas of bright things, to make it seem a joyous home. In this latter end of autumn, with a sparse remnant of yellow leaves falling slowly athwart the dark evergreens in a stillness without sunshine, the house too had an air of autumnal decline, and Mr. Casaubon, when he presented himself, had no bloom that could be thrown into relief by that background. "Oh dear!" Celia said to herself, "I am sure Freshitt Hall would have been pleasanter than this." She thought of the white freestone, the pillared portico, and the terrace full of flowers, Sir James smiling above them like a prince issuing from his enchantment in a rose-bush, with a handkerchief swiftly metamorphosed from the most delicately odorous petals--Sir James, who talked so agreeably, always about things which had common-sense in them, and not about learning! Celia had those light young feminine tastes which grave and weatherworn gentlemen sometimes prefer in a wife; but happily Mr. Casaubon's bias had been different, for he would have had no chance with Celia. Dorothea, on the contrary, found the house and grounds all that she could wish: the dark book-shelves in the long library, the carpets and curtains with colors subdued by time, the curious old maps and bird's-eye views on the walls of the corridor, with here and there an old vase below, had no oppression for her, and seemed more cheerful than the easts and pictures at the Grange, which her uncle had long ago brought home from his travels--they being probably among the ideas he had taken in at one time. To poor Dorothea these severe classical nudities and smirking Renaissance-Correggiosities were painfully inexplicable, staring into the midst of her Puritanic conceptions: she had never been taught how she could bring them into any sort of relevance with her life. But the owners of Lowick apparently had not been travellers, and Mr. Casaubon's studies of the past were not carried on by means of such aids. Dorothea walked about the house with delightful emotion. Everything seemed hallowed to her: this was to be the home of her wifehood, and she looked up with eyes full of confidence to Mr. Casaubon when he drew her attention specially to some actual arrangement and asked her if she would like an alteration. All appeals to her taste she met gratefully, but saw nothing to alter. His efforts at exact courtesy and formal tenderness had no defect for her. She filled up all blanks with unmanifested perfections, interpreting him as she interpreted the works of Providence, and accounting for seeming discords by her own deafness to the higher harmonies. And there are many blanks left in the weeks of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance. "Now, my dear Dorothea, I wish you to favor me by pointing out which room you would like to have as your boudoir," said Mr. Casaubon, showing that his views of the womanly nature were sufficiently large to include that requirement. "It is very kind of you to think of that," said Dorothea, "but I assure you I would rather have all those matters decided for me. I shall be much happier to take everything as it is--just as you have been used to have it, or as you will yourself choose it to be. I have no motive for wishing anything else." "Oh, Dodo," said Celia, "will you not have the bow-windowed room up-stairs?" Mr. Casaubon led the way thither. The bow-window looked down the avenue of limes; the furniture was all of a faded blue, and there were miniatures of ladies and gentlemen with powdered hair hanging in a group. A piece of tapestry over a door also showed a blue-green world with a pale stag in it. The chairs and tables were thin-legged and easy to upset. It was a room where one might fancy the ghost of a tight-laced lady revisiting the scene of her embroidery. A light bookcase contained duodecimo volumes of polite literature in calf, completing the furniture. "Yes," said Mr. Brooke, "this would be a pretty room with some new hangings, sofas, and that sort of thing. A little bare now." "No, uncle," said Dorothea, eagerly. "Pray do not speak of altering anything. There are so many other things in the world that want altering--I like to take these things as they are. And you like them as they are, don't you?" she added, looking at Mr. Casaubon. "Perhaps this was your mother's room when she was young." "It was," he said, with his slow bend of the head. "This is your mother," said Dorothea, who had turned to examine the group of miniatures. "It is like the tiny one you brought me; only, I should think, a better portrait. And this one opposite, who is this?" "Her elder sister. They were, like you and your sister, the only two children of their parents, who hang above them, you see." "The sister is pretty," said Celia, implying that she thought less favorably of Mr. Casaubon's mother. It was a new opening to Celia's imagination, that he came of a family who had all been young in their time--the ladies wearing necklaces. "It is a peculiar face," said Dorothea, looking closely. "Those deep gray eyes rather near together--and the delicate irregular nose with a sort of ripple in it--and all the powdered curls hanging backward. Altogether it seems to me peculiar rather than pretty. There is not even a family likeness between her and your mother." "No. And they were not alike in their lot." "You did not mention her to me," said Dorothea. "My aunt made an unfortunate marriage. I never saw her." Dorothea wondered a little, but felt that it would be indelicate just then to ask for any information which Mr. Casaubon did not proffer, and she turned to the window to admire the view. The sun had lately pierced the gray, and the avenue of limes cast shadows. "Shall we not walk in the garden now?" said Dorothea. "And you would like to see the church, you know," said Mr. Brooke. "It is a droll little church. And the village. It all lies in a nut-shell. By the way, it will suit you, Dorothea; for the cottages are like a row of alms-houses--little gardens, gilly-flowers, that sort of thing." "Yes, please," said Dorothea, looking at Mr. Casaubon, "I should like to see all that." She had got nothing from him more graphic about the Lowick cottages than that they were "not bad." They were soon on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy borders and clumps of trees, this being the nearest way to the church, Mr. Casaubon said. At the little gate leading into the churchyard there was a pause while Mr. Casaubon went to the parsonage close by to fetch a key. Celia, who had been hanging a little in the rear, came up presently, when she saw that Mr. Casaubon was gone away, and said in her easy staccato, which always seemed to contradict the suspicion of any malicious intent-- "Do you know, Dorothea, I saw some one quite young coming up one of the walks." "Is that astonishing, Celia?" "There may be a young gardener, you know--why not?" said Mr. Brooke. "I told Casaubon he should change his gardener." "No, not a gardener," said Celia; "a gentleman with a sketch-book. He had light-brown curls. I only saw his back. But he was quite young." "The curate's son, perhaps," said Mr. Brooke. "Ah, there is Casaubon again, and Tucker with him. He is going to introduce Tucker. You don't know Tucker yet." Mr. Tucker was the middle-aged curate, one of the "inferior clergy," who are usually not wanting in sons. But after the introduction, the conversation did not lead to any question about his family, and the startling apparition of youthfulness was forgotten by every one but Celia. She inwardly declined to believe that the light-brown curls and slim figure could have any relationship to Mr. Tucker, who was just as old and musty-looking as she would have expected Mr. Casaubon's curate to be; doubtless an excellent man who would go to heaven (for Celia wished not to be unprincipled), but the corners of his mouth were so unpleasant. Celia thought with some dismalness of the time she should have to spend as bridesmaid at Lowick, while the curate had probably no pretty little children whom she could like, irrespective of principle. Mr. Tucker was invaluable in their walk; and perhaps Mr. Casaubon had not been without foresight on this head, the curate being able to answer all Dorothea's questions about the villagers and the other parishioners. Everybody, he assured her, was well off in Lowick: not a cottager in those double cottages at a low rent but kept a pig, and the strips of garden at the back were well tended. The small boys wore excellent corduroy, the girls went out as tidy servants, or did a little straw-plaiting at home: no looms here, no Dissent; and though the public disposition was rather towards laying by money than towards spirituality, there was not much vice. The speckled fowls were so numerous that Mr. Brooke observed, "Your farmers leave some barley for the women to glean, I see. The poor folks here might have a fowl in their pot, as the good French king used to wish for all his people. The French eat a good many fowls--skinny fowls, you know." "I think it was a very cheap wish of his," said Dorothea, indignantly. "Are kings such monsters that a wish like that must be reckoned a royal virtue?" "And if he wished them a skinny fowl," said Celia, "that would not be nice. But perhaps he wished them to have fat fowls." "Yes, but the word has dropped out of the text, or perhaps was subauditum; that is, present in the king's mind, but not uttered," said Mr. Casaubon, smiling and bending his head towards Celia, who immediately dropped backward a little, because she could not bear Mr. Casaubon to blink at her. Dorothea sank into silence on the way back to the house. She felt some disappointment, of which she was yet ashamed, that there was nothing for her to do in Lowick; and in the next few minutes her mind had glanced over the possibility, which she would have preferred, of finding that her home would be in a parish which had a larger share of the world's misery, so that she might have had more active duties in it. Then, recurring to the future actually before her, she made a picture of more complete devotion to Mr. Casaubon's aims in which she would await new duties. Many such might reveal themselves to the higher knowledge gained by her in that companionship. Mr. Tucker soon left them, having some clerical work which would not allow him to lunch at the Hall; and as they were re-entering the garden through the little gate, Mr. Casaubon said-- "You seem a little sad, Dorothea. I trust you are pleased with what you have seen." "I am feeling something which is perhaps foolish and wrong," answered Dorothea, with her usual openness--"almost wishing that the people wanted more to be done for them here. I have known so few ways of making my life good for anything. Of course, my notions of usefulness must be narrow. I must learn new ways of helping people." "Doubtless," said Mr. Casaubon. "Each position has its corresponding duties. Yours, I trust, as the mistress of Lowick, will not leave any yearning unfulfilled." "Indeed, I believe that," said Dorothea, earnestly. "Do not suppose that I am sad." "That is well. But, if you are not tired, we will take another way to the house than that by which we came." Dorothea was not at all tired, and a little circuit was made towards a fine yew-tree, the chief hereditary glory of the grounds on this side of the house. As they approached it, a figure, conspicuous on a dark background of evergreens, was seated on a bench, sketching the old tree. Mr. Brooke, who was walking in front with Celia, turned his head, and said-- "Who is that youngster, Casaubon?" They had come very near when Mr. Casaubon answered-- "That is a young relative of mine, a second cousin: the grandson, in fact," he added, looking at Dorothea, "of the lady whose portrait you have been noticing, my aunt Julia." The young man had laid down his sketch-book and risen. His bushy light-brown curls, as well as his youthfulness, identified him at once with Celia's apparition. "Dorothea, let me introduce to you my cousin, Mr. Ladislaw. Will, this is Miss Brooke." The cousin was so close now, that, when he lifted his hat, Dorothea could see a pair of gray eyes rather near together, a delicate irregular nose with a little ripple in it, and hair falling backward; but there was a mouth and chin of a more prominent, threatening aspect than belonged to the type of the grandmother's miniature. Young Ladislaw did not feel it necessary to smile, as if he were charmed with this introduction to his future second cousin and her relatives; but wore rather a pouting air of discontent. "You are an artist, I see," said Mr. Brooke, taking up the sketch-book and turning it over in his unceremonious fashion. "No, I only sketch a little. There is nothing fit to be seen there," said young Ladislaw, coloring, perhaps with temper rather than modesty. "Oh, come, this is a nice bit, now. I did a little in this way myself at one time, you know. Look here, now; this is what I call a nice thing, done with what we used to call _brio_." Mr. Brooke held out towards the two girls a large colored sketch of stony ground and trees, with a pool. "I am no judge of these things," said Dorothea, not coldly, but with an eager deprecation of the appeal to her. "You know, uncle, I never see the beauty of those pictures which you say are so much praised. They are a language I do not understand. I suppose there is some relation between pictures and nature which I am too ignorant to feel--just as you see what a Greek sentence stands for which means nothing to me." Dorothea looked up at Mr. Casaubon, who bowed his head towards her, while Mr. Brooke said, smiling nonchalantly-- "Bless me, now, how different people are! But you had a bad style of teaching, you know--else this is just the thing for girls--sketching, fine art and so on. But you took to drawing plans; you don't understand morbidezza, and that kind of thing. You will come to my house, I hope, and I will show you what I did in this way," he continued, turning to young Ladislaw, who had to be recalled from his preoccupation in observing Dorothea. Ladislaw had made up his mind that she must be an unpleasant girl, since she was going to marry Casaubon, and what she said of her stupidity about pictures would have confirmed that opinion even if he had believed her. As it was, he took her words for a covert judgment, and was certain that she thought his sketch detestable. There was too much cleverness in her apology: she was laughing both at her uncle and himself. But what a voice! It was like the voice of a soul that had once lived in an Aeolian harp. This must be one of Nature's inconsistencies. There could be no sort of passion in a girl who would marry Casaubon. But he turned from her, and bowed his thanks for Mr. Brooke's invitation. "We will turn over my Italian engravings together," continued that good-natured man. "I have no end of those things, that I have laid by for years. One gets rusty in this part of the country, you know. Not you, Casaubon; you stick to your studies; but my best ideas get undermost--out of use, you know. You clever young men must guard against indolence. I was too indolent, you know: else I might have been anywhere at one time." "That is a seasonable admonition," said Mr. Casaubon; "but now we will pass on to the house, lest the young ladies should be tired of standing." When their backs were turned, young Ladislaw sat down to go on with his sketching, and as he did so his face broke into an expression of amusement which increased as he went on drawing, till at last he threw back his head and laughed aloud. Partly it was the reception of his own artistic production that tickled him; partly the notion of his grave cousin as the lover of that girl; and partly Mr. Brooke's definition of the place he might have held but for the impediment of indolence. Mr. Will Ladislaw's sense of the ludicrous lit up his features very agreeably: it was the pure enjoyment of comicality, and had no mixture of sneering and self-exaltation. "What is your nephew going to do with himself, Casaubon?" said Mr. Brooke, as they went on. "My cousin, you mean--not my nephew." "Yes, yes, cousin. But in the way of a career, you know." "The answer to that question is painfully doubtful. On leaving Rugby he declined to go to an English university, where I would gladly have placed him, and chose what I must consider the anomalous course of studying at Heidelberg. And now he wants to go abroad again, without any special object, save the vague purpose of what he calls culture, preparation for he knows not what. He declines to choose a profession." "He has no means but what you furnish, I suppose." "I have always given him and his friends reason to understand that I would furnish in moderation what was necessary for providing him with a scholarly education, and launching him respectably. I am-therefore bound to fulfil the expectation so raised," said Mr. Casaubon, putting his conduct in the light of mere rectitude: a trait of delicacy which Dorothea noticed with admiration. "He has a thirst for travelling; perhaps he may turn out a Bruce or a Mungo Park," said Mr. Brooke. "I had a notion of that myself at one time." "No, he has no bent towards exploration, or the enlargement of our geognosis: that would be a special purpose which I could recognize with some approbation, though without felicitating him on a career which so often ends in premature and violent death. But so far is he from having any desire for a more accurate knowledge of the earth's surface, that he said he should prefer not to know the sources of the Nile, and that there should be some unknown regions preserved as hunting grounds for the poetic imagination." "Well, there is something in that, you know," said Mr. Brooke, who had certainly an impartial mind. "It is, I fear, nothing more than a part of his general inaccuracy and indisposition to thoroughness of all kinds, which would be a bad augury for him in any profession, civil or sacred, even were he so far submissive to ordinary rule as to choose one." "Perhaps he has conscientious scruples founded on his own unfitness," said Dorothea, who was interesting herself in finding a favorable explanation. "Because the law and medicine should be very serious professions to undertake, should they not? People's lives and fortunes depend on them." "Doubtless; but I fear that my young relative Will Ladislaw is chiefly determined in his aversion to these callings by a dislike to steady application, and to that kind of acquirement which is needful instrumentally, but is not charming or immediately inviting to self-indulgent taste. I have insisted to him on what Aristotle has stated with admirable brevity, that for the achievement of any work regarded as an end there must be a prior exercise of many energies or acquired facilities of a secondary order, demanding patience. I have pointed to my own manuscript volumes, which represent the toil of years preparatory to a work not yet accomplished. But in vain. To careful reasoning of this kind he replies by calling himself Pegasus, and every form of prescribed work 'harness.'" Celia laughed. She was surprised to find that Mr. Casaubon could say something quite amusing. "Well, you know, he may turn out a Byron, a Chatterton, a Churchill--that sort of thing--there's no telling," said Mr. Brooke. "Shall you let him go to Italy, or wherever else he wants to go?" "Yes; I have agreed to furnish him with moderate supplies for a year or so; he asks no more. I shall let him be tried by the test of freedom." "That is very kind of you," said Dorothea, looking up at Mr. Casaubon with delight. "It is noble. After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think." "I suppose it is being engaged to be married that has made you think patience good," said Celia, as soon as she and Dorothea were alone together, taking off their wrappings. "You mean that I am very impatient, Celia." "Yes; when people don't do and say just what you like." Celia had become less afraid of "saying things" to Dorothea since this engagement: cleverness seemed to her more pitiable than ever. Kannst du eine geeignete 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.

Dorothea bereitet ihr neues Zuhause, Lowick, auf ihren bevorstehenden Einzug vor. Das Haus ist ziemlich groß, aber nicht besonders fröhlich; tatsächlich ähnelt es eher Casaubon in seinem Aussehen. Dorothea findet es jedoch angenehm, genauso wie sie auch Casaubon findet; aber wahrscheinlich wird sie bald feststellen, dass sie sich irrt, wenn die Neuheit und Neuheit dieser gesamten Situation nachlässt. Celia selbst mag alles nicht, was Dorothea akzeptiert, und mag daher Lowick und Casaubon gleichermaßen nicht. Casaubon stellt die Gäste Will Ladislaw, seinem Cousin, vor; er mag Dorothea sofort nicht, wegen der Art, wie sie schlecht von sich selbst vor anderen spricht, und weil sie seinen sauren, humorlosen Cousin heiratet. Will ist jung, ziemlich gutaussehend und auch Künstler; er scheint viel besser zu Dorothea zu passen, obwohl eine bessere Partie als Casaubon sicherlich nicht schwer zu finden ist. Ladislaw hat keine Beschäftigung, daher sorgt Casaubon widerwillig für ihn; aber Casaubon und sein Cousin scheinen überhaupt nicht miteinander auszukommen.

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 XXV. In Which Porthos Thinks He Is Pursuing a Duchy. Aramis and Porthos, having profited by the time granted them by Fouquet, did honor to the French cavalry by their speed. Porthos did not clearly understand on what kind of mission he was forced to display so much velocity; but as he saw Aramis spurring on furiously, he, Porthos, spurred on in the same way. They had soon, in this manner, placed twelve leagues between them and Vaux; they were then obliged to change horses, and organize a sort of post arrangement. It was during a relay that Porthos ventured to interrogate Aramis discreetly. "Hush!" replied the latter, "know only that our fortune depends on our speed." As if Porthos had still been the musketeer, without a sou or a _maille_ of 1626, he pushed forward. That magic word "fortune" always means something in the human ear. It means _enough_ for those who have nothing; it means _too much_ for those who have enough. "I shall be made a duke!" said Porthos, aloud. He was speaking to himself. "That is possible," replied Aramis, smiling after his own fashion, as Porthos's horse passed him. Aramis felt, notwithstanding, as though his brain were on fire; the activity of the body had not yet succeeded in subduing that of the mind. All there is of raging passion, mental toothache or mortal threat, raged, gnawed and grumbled in the thoughts of the unhappy prelate. His countenance exhibited visible traces of this rude combat. Free on the highway to abandon himself to every impression of the moment, Aramis did not fail to swear at every start of his horse, at every inequality in the road. Pale, at times inundated with boiling sweats, then again dry and icy, he flogged his horses till the blood streamed from their sides. Porthos, whose dominant fault was not sensibility, groaned at this. Thus traveled they on for eight long hours, and then arrived at Orleans. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. Aramis, on observing this, judged that nothing showed pursuit to be a possibility. It would be without example that a troop capable of taking him and Porthos should be furnished with relays sufficient to perform forty leagues in eight hours. Thus, admitting pursuit, which was not at all manifest, the fugitives were five hours in advance of their pursuers. Aramis thought that there might be no imprudence in taking a little rest, but that to continue would make the matter more certain. Twenty leagues more, performed with the same rapidity, twenty more leagues devoured, and no one, not even D'Artagnan, could overtake the enemies of the king. Aramis felt obliged, therefore, to inflict upon Porthos the pain of mounting on horseback again. They rode on till seven o'clock in the evening, and had only one post more between them and Blois. But here a diabolical accident alarmed Aramis greatly. There were no horses at the post. The prelate asked himself by what infernal machination his enemies had succeeded in depriving him of the means of going further,--he who never recognized chance as a deity, who found a cause for every accident, preferred believing that the refusal of the postmaster, at such an hour, in such a country, was the consequence of an order emanating from above: an order given with a view of stopping short the king-maker in the midst of his flight. But at the moment he was about to fly into a passion, so as to procure either a horse or an explanation, he was struck with the recollection that the Comte de la Fere lived in the neighborhood. "I am not traveling," said he; "I do not want horses for a whole stage. Find me two horses to go and pay a visit to a nobleman of my acquaintance who resides near this place." "What nobleman?" asked the postmaster. "M. le Comte de la Fere." "Oh!" replied the postmaster, uncovering with respect, "a very worthy nobleman. But, whatever may be my desire to make myself agreeable to him, I cannot furnish you with horses, for all mine are engaged by M. le Duc de Beaufort." "Indeed!" said Aramis, much disappointed. "Only," continued the postmaster, "if you will put up with a little carriage I have, I will harness an old blind horse who has still his legs left, and peradventure will draw you to the house of M. le Comte de la Fere." "It is worth a louis," said Aramis. "No, monsieur, such a ride is worth no more than a crown; that is what M. Grimaud, the comte's intendant, always pays me when he makes use of that carriage; and I should not wish the Comte de la Fere to have to reproach me with having imposed on one of his friends." "As you please," said Aramis, "particularly as regards disobliging the Comte de la Fere; only I think I have a right to give you a louis for your idea." "Oh! doubtless," replied the postmaster with delight. And he himself harnessed the ancient horse to the creaking carriage. In the meantime Porthos was curious to behold. He imagined he had discovered a clew to the secret, and he felt pleased, because a visit to Athos, in the first place, promised him much satisfaction, and, in the next, gave him the hope of finding at the same time a good bed and good supper. The master, having got the carriage ready, ordered one of his men to drive the strangers to La Fere. Porthos took his seat by the side of Aramis, whispering in his ear, "I understand." "Aha!" said Aramis, "and what do you understand, my friend?" "We are going, on the part of the king, to make some great proposal to Athos." "Pooh!" said Aramis. "You need tell me nothing about it," added the worthy Porthos, endeavoring to reseat himself so as to avoid the jolting, "you need tell me nothing, I shall guess." "Well! do, my friend; guess away." They arrived at Athos's dwelling about nine o'clock in the evening, favored by a splendid moon. This cheerful light rejoiced Porthos beyond expression; but Aramis appeared annoyed by it in an equal degree. He could not help showing something of this to Porthos, who replied--"Ay! ay! I guess how it is! the mission is a secret one." These were his last words in the carriage. The driver interrupted him by saying, "Gentlemen, we have arrived." Porthos and his companion alighted before the gate of the little chateau, where we are about to meet again our old acquaintances Athos and Bragelonne, the latter of whom had disappeared since the discovery of the infidelity of La Valliere. If there be one saying truer than another, it is this: great griefs contain within themselves the germ of consolation. This painful wound, inflicted upon Raoul, had drawn him nearer to his father again; and God knows how sweet were the consolations which flowed from the eloquent mouth and generous heart of Athos. The wound was not cicatrized, but Athos, by dint of conversing with his son and mixing a little more of his life with that of the young man, had brought him to understand that this pang of a first infidelity is necessary to every human existence; and that no one has loved without encountering it. Raoul listened, again and again, but never understood. Nothing replaces in the deeply afflicted heart the remembrance and thought of the beloved object. Raoul then replied to the reasoning of his father: "Monsieur, all that you tell me is true; I believe that no one has suffered in the affections of the heart so much as you have; but you are a man too great by reason of intelligence, and too severely tried by adverse fortune not to allow for the weakness of the soldier who suffers for the first time. I am paying a tribute that will not be paid a second time; permit me to plunge myself so deeply in my grief that I may forget myself in it, that I may drown even my reason in it." "Raoul! Raoul!" "Listen, monsieur. Never shall I accustom myself to the idea that Louise, the chastest and most innocent of women, has been able to so basely deceive a man so honest and so true a lover as myself. Never can I persuade myself that I see that sweet and noble mask change into a hypocritical lascivious face. Louise lost! Louise infamous! Ah! monseigneur, that idea is much more cruel to me than Raoul abandoned--Raoul unhappy!" Athos then employed the heroic remedy. He defended Louise against Raoul, and justified her perfidy by her love. "A woman who would have yielded to a king because he is a king," said he, "would deserve to be styled infamous; but Louise loves Louis. Young, both, they have forgotten, he his rank, she her vows. Love absolves everything, Raoul. The two young people love each other with sincerity." And when he had dealt this severe poniard-thrust, Athos, with a sigh, saw Raoul bound away beneath the rankling wound, and fly to the thickest recesses of the wood, or the solitude of his chamber, whence, an hour after, he would return, pale, trembling, but subdued. Then, coming up to Athos with a smile, he would kiss his hand, like the dog who, having been beaten, caresses a respected master, to redeem his fault. Raoul redeemed nothing but his weakness, and only confessed his grief. Thus passed away the days that followed that scene in which Athos had so violently shaken the indomitable pride of the king. Never, when conversing with his son, did he make any allusion to that scene; never did he give him the details of that vigorous lecture, which might, perhaps, have consoled the young man, by showing him his rival humbled. Athos did not wish that the offended lover should forget the respect due to his king. And when Bragelonne, ardent, angry, and melancholy, spoke with contempt of royal words, of the equivocal faith which certain madmen draw from promises that emanate from thrones, when, passing over two centuries, with that rapidity of a bird that traverses a narrow strait to go from one continent to the other, Raoul ventured to predict the time in which kings would be esteemed as less than other men, Athos said to him, in his serene, persuasive voice, "You are right, Raoul; all that you say will happen; kings will lose their privileges, as stars which have survived their aeons lose their splendor. But when that moment comes, Raoul, we shall be dead. And remember well what I say to you. In this world, all, men, women, and kings, must live for the present. We can only live for the future for God." This was the manner in which Athos and Raoul were, as usual, conversing, and walking backwards and forwards in the long alley of limes in the park, when the bell which served to announce to the comte either the hour of dinner or the arrival of a visitor, was rung; and, without attaching any importance to it, he turned towards the house with his son; and at the end of the alley they found themselves in the presence of Aramis and Porthos. 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.

Porthos und Aramis fliehen so schnell wie möglich von Vaux. Schließlich fragt Porthos seinen Freund, was los ist. Aramis antwortet, dass ihr Vermögen von ihrer Geschwindigkeit abhängt und Porthos geht natürlich davon aus, dass er einen Herzogstitel erhalten wird. Aramis ist nervös und flippt aus, wie es von einem Mann zu erwarten ist, der erwischt wurde, als er versuchte, den König im Gefängnis einzusperren. Er drängt sie vorwärts und weg von Vaux. Die beiden Männer wechseln an jeder Station die Pferde. An der nächsten Station sind keine frischen Pferde verfügbar. Aramis gerät wieder in Panik und ist überzeugt, dass der König irgendwie dahintersteckt, als er sich daran erinnert, dass Athos in der Nähe wohnt. Aramis bittet den Postmeister um Transport zu Athos' Haus. Porthos ist nun überzeugt, dass sie auf einer geheimen Mission für den König sind. Athos und sein Sohn Raoul sind seitdem La Valliere Raoul für König Ludwig verlassen hat, enger zusammengerückt. Vater und Sohn verbringen nun ihre Zeit damit, über La Valliere, König Ludwig XIV. und die Institution der Monarchie zu sprechen. Sie sind gerade dabei, über eines dieser Themen zu reden, als eine Glocke läutet und den Besuch von Gästen ankündigt.

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: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or, close the wall up with our English dead. -------And you, good yeomen, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture--let us swear That you are worth your breeding. King Henry V Cedric, although not greatly confident in Ulrica's message, omitted not to communicate her promise to the Black Knight and Locksley. They were well pleased to find they had a friend within the place, who might, in the moment of need, be able to facilitate their entrance, and readily agreed with the Saxon that a storm, under whatever disadvantages, ought to be attempted, as the only means of liberating the prisoners now in the hands of the cruel Front-de-Boeuf. "The royal blood of Alfred is endangered," said Cedric. "The honour of a noble lady is in peril," said the Black Knight. "And, by the Saint Christopher at my baldric," said the good yeoman, "were there no other cause than the safety of that poor faithful knave, Wamba, I would jeopard a joint ere a hair of his head were hurt." "And so would I," said the Friar; "what, sirs! I trust well that a fool--I mean, d'ye see me, sirs, a fool that is free of his guild and master of his craft, and can give as much relish and flavour to a cup of wine as ever a flitch of bacon can--I say, brethren, such a fool shall never want a wise clerk to pray for or fight for him at a strait, while I can say a mass or flourish a partisan." And with that he made his heavy halberd to play around his head as a shepherd boy flourishes his light crook. "True, Holy Clerk," said the Black Knight, "true as if Saint Dunstan himself had said it.--And now, good Locksley, were it not well that noble Cedric should assume the direction of this assault?" "Not a jot I," returned Cedric; "I have never been wont to study either how to take or how to hold out those abodes of tyrannic power, which the Normans have erected in this groaning land. I will fight among the foremost; but my honest neighbours well know I am not a trained soldier in the discipline of wars, or the attack of strongholds." "Since it stands thus with noble Cedric," said Locksley, "I am most willing to take on me the direction of the archery; and ye shall hang me up on my own Trysting-tree, an the defenders be permitted to show themselves over the walls without being stuck with as many shafts as there are cloves in a gammon of bacon at Christmas." "Well said, stout yeoman," answered the Black Knight; "and if I be thought worthy to have a charge in these matters, and can find among these brave men as many as are willing to follow a true English knight, for so I may surely call myself, I am ready, with such skill as my experience has taught me, to lead them to the attack of these walls." The parts being thus distributed to the leaders, they commenced the first assault, of which the reader has already heard the issue. When the barbican was carried, the Sable Knight sent notice of the happy event to Locksley, requesting him at the same time, to keep such a strict observation on the castle as might prevent the defenders from combining their force for a sudden sally, and recovering the outwork which they had lost. This the knight was chiefly desirous of avoiding, conscious that the men whom he led, being hasty and untrained volunteers, imperfectly armed and unaccustomed to discipline, must, upon any sudden attack, fight at great disadvantage with the veteran soldiers of the Norman knights, who were well provided with arms both defensive and offensive; and who, to match the zeal and high spirit of the besiegers, had all the confidence which arises from perfect discipline and the habitual use of weapons. The knight employed the interval in causing to be constructed a sort of floating bridge, or long raft, by means of which he hoped to cross the moat in despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was a work of some time, which the leaders the less regretted, as it gave Ulrica leisure to execute her plan of diversion in their favour, whatever that might be. When the raft was completed, the Black Knight addressed the besiegers:--"It avails not waiting here longer, my friends; the sun is descending to the west--and I have that upon my hands which will not permit me to tarry with you another day. Besides, it will be a marvel if the horsemen come not upon us from York, unless we speedily accomplish our purpose. Wherefore, one of ye go to Locksley, and bid him commence a discharge of arrows on the opposite side of the castle, and move forward as if about to assault it; and you, true English hearts, stand by me, and be ready to thrust the raft endlong over the moat whenever the postern on our side is thrown open. Follow me boldly across, and aid me to burst yon sallyport in the main wall of the castle. As many of you as like not this service, or are but ill armed to meet it, do you man the top of the outwork, draw your bow-strings to your ears, and mind you quell with your shot whatever shall appear to man the rampart--Noble Cedric, wilt thou take the direction of those which remain?" "Not so, by the soul of Hereward!" said the Saxon; "lead I cannot; but may posterity curse me in my grave, if I follow not with the foremost wherever thou shalt point the way--The quarrel is mine, and well it becomes me to be in the van of the battle." "Yet, bethink thee, noble Saxon," said the knight, "thou hast neither hauberk, nor corslet, nor aught but that light helmet, target, and sword." "The better!" answered Cedric; "I shall be the lighter to climb these walls. And,--forgive the boast, Sir Knight,--thou shalt this day see the naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the battle as ever ye beheld the steel corslet of a Norman." "In the name of God, then," said the knight, "fling open the door, and launch the floating bridge." The portal, which led from the inner-wall of the barbican to the moat, and which corresponded with a sallyport in the main wall of the castle, was now suddenly opened; the temporary bridge was then thrust forward, and soon flashed in the waters, extending its length between the castle and outwork, and forming a slippery and precarious passage for two men abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of the importance of taking the foe by surprise, the Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw himself upon the bridge, and reached the opposite side. Here he began to thunder with his axe upon the gate of the castle, protected in part from the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the barbican, leaving the counterpoise still attached to the upper part of the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat; the others retreated back into the barbican. The situation of Cedric and of the Black Knight was now truly dangerous, and would have been still more so, but for the constancy of the archers in the barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows upon the battlements, distracting the attention of those by whom they were manned, and thus affording a respite to their two chiefs from the storm of missiles which must otherwise have overwhelmed them. But their situation was eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every moment. "Shame on ye all!" cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; "do ye call yourselves cross-bowmen, and let these two dogs keep their station under the walls of the castle?--Heave over the coping stones from the battlements, an better may not be--Get pick-axe and levers, and down with that huge pinnacle!" pointing to a heavy piece of stone carved-work that projected from the parapet. At this moment the besiegers caught sight of the red flag upon the angle of the tower which Ulrica had described to Cedric. The stout yeoman Locksley was the first who was aware of it, as he was hasting to the outwork, impatient to see the progress of the assault. "Saint George!" he cried, "Merry Saint George for England!--To the charge, bold yeomen!--why leave ye the good knight and noble Cedric to storm the pass alone?--make in, mad priest, show thou canst fight for thy rosary,--make in, brave yeomen!--the castle is ours, we have friends within--See yonder flag, it is the appointed signal--Torquilstone is ours!--Think of honour, think of spoil--One effort, and the place is ours!" With that he bent his good bow, and sent a shaft right through the breast of one of the men-at-arms, who, under De Bracy's direction, was loosening a fragment from one of the battlements to precipitate on the heads of Cedric and the Black Knight. A second soldier caught from the hands of the dying man the iron crow, with which he heaved at and had loosened the stone pinnacle, when, receiving an arrow through his head-piece, he dropped from the battlements into the moat a dead man. The men-at-arms were daunted, for no armour seemed proof against the shot of this tremendous archer. "Do you give ground, base knaves!" said De Bracy; "'Mount joye Saint Dennis!'--Give me the lever!" And, snatching it up, he again assailed the loosened pinnacle, which was of weight enough, if thrown down, not only to have destroyed the remnant of the drawbridge, which sheltered the two foremost assailants, but also to have sunk the rude float of planks over which they had crossed. All saw the danger, and the boldest, even the stout Friar himself, avoided setting foot on the raft. Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against De Bracy, and thrice did his arrow bound back from the knight's armour of proof. "Curse on thy Spanish steel-coat!" said Locksley, "had English smith forged it, these arrows had gone through, an as if it had been silk or sendal." He then began to call out, "Comrades! friends! noble Cedric! bear back, and let the ruin fall." His warning voice was unheard, for the din which the knight himself occasioned by his strokes upon the postern would have drowned twenty war-trumpets. The faithful Gurth indeed sprung forward on the planked bridge, to warn Cedric of his impending fate, or to share it with him. But his warning would have come too late; the massive pinnacle already tottered, and De Bracy, who still heaved at his task, would have accomplished it, had not the voice of the Templar sounded close in his ears:-- "All is lost, De Bracy, the castle burns." "Thou art mad to say so!" replied the knight. "It is all in a light flame on the western side. I have striven in vain to extinguish it." With the stern coolness which formed the basis of his character, Brian de Bois-Guilbert communicated this hideous intelligence, which was not so calmly received by his astonished comrade. "Saints of Paradise!" said De Bracy; "what is to be done? I vow to Saint Nicholas of Limoges a candlestick of pure gold--" "Spare thy vow," said the Templar, "and mark me. Lead thy men down, as if to a sally; throw the postern-gate open--There are but two men who occupy the float, fling them into the moat, and push across for the barbican. I will charge from the main gate, and attack the barbican on the outside; and if we can regain that post, be assured we shall defend ourselves until we are relieved, or at least till they grant us fair quarter." "It is well thought upon," said De Bracy; "I will play my part--Templar, thou wilt not fail me?" "Hand and glove, I will not!" said Bois-Guilbert. "But haste thee, in the name of God!" De Bracy hastily drew his men together, and rushed down to the postern-gate, which he caused instantly to be thrown open. But scarce was this done ere the portentous strength of the Black Knight forced his way inward in despite of De Bracy and his followers. Two of the foremost instantly fell, and the rest gave way notwithstanding all their leader's efforts to stop them. "Dogs!" said De Bracy, "will ye let TWO men win our only pass for safety?" "He is the devil!" said a veteran man-at-arms, bearing back from the blows of their sable antagonist. "And if he be the devil," replied De Bracy, "would you fly from him into the mouth of hell?--the castle burns behind us, villains!--let despair give you courage, or let me forward! I will cope with this champion myself." And well and chivalrous did De Bracy that day maintain the fame he had acquired in the civil wars of that dreadful period. The vaulted passage to which the postern gave entrance, and in which these two redoubted champions were now fighting hand to hand, rung with the furious blows which they dealt each other, De Bracy with his sword, the Black Knight with his ponderous axe. At length the Norman received a blow, which, though its force was partly parried by his shield, for otherwise never more would De Bracy have again moved limb, descended yet with such violence on his crest, that he measured his length on the paved floor. "Yield thee, De Bracy," said the Black Champion, stooping over him, and holding against the bars of his helmet the fatal poniard with which the knights dispatched their enemies, (and which was called the dagger of mercy,)--"yield thee, Maurice de Bracy, rescue or no rescue, or thou art but a dead man." "I will not yield," replied De Bracy faintly, "to an unknown conqueror. Tell me thy name, or work thy pleasure on me--it shall never be said that Maurice de Bracy was prisoner to a nameless churl." The Black Knight whispered something into the ear of the vanquished. "I yield me to be true prisoner, rescue or no rescue," answered the Norman, exchanging his tone of stern and determined obstinacy for one of deep though sullen submission. "Go to the barbican," said the victor, in a tone of authority, "and there wait my further orders." "Yet first, let me say," said De Bracy, "what it imports thee to know. Wilfred of Ivanhoe is wounded and a prisoner, and will perish in the burning castle without present help." "Wilfred of Ivanhoe!" exclaimed the Black Knight--"prisoner, and perish!--The life of every man in the castle shall answer it if a hair of his head be singed--Show me his chamber!" "Ascend yonder winding stair," said De Bracy; "it leads to his apartment--Wilt thou not accept my guidance?" he added, in a submissive voice. "No. To the barbican, and there wait my orders. I trust thee not, De Bracy." During this combat and the brief conversation which ensued, Cedric, at the head of a body of men, among whom the Friar was conspicuous, had pushed across the bridge as soon as they saw the postern open, and drove back the dispirited and despairing followers of De Bracy, of whom some asked quarter, some offered vain resistance, and the greater part fled towards the court-yard. De Bracy himself arose from the ground, and cast a sorrowful glance after his conqueror. "He trusts me not!" he repeated; "but have I deserved his trust?" He then lifted his sword from the floor, took off his helmet in token of submission, and, going to the barbican, gave up his sword to Locksley, whom he met by the way. As the fire augmented, symptoms of it became soon apparent in the chamber, where Ivanhoe was watched and tended by the Jewess Rebecca. He had been awakened from his brief slumber by the noise of the battle; and his attendant, who had, at his anxious desire, again placed herself at the window to watch and report to him the fate of the attack, was for some time prevented from observing either, by the increase of the smouldering and stifling vapour. At length the volumes of smoke which rolled into the apartment--the cries for water, which were heard even above the din of the battle made them sensible of the progress of this new danger. "The castle burns," said Rebecca; "it burns!--What can we do to save ourselves?" "Fly, Rebecca, and save thine own life," said Ivanhoe, "for no human aid can avail me." "I will not fly," answered Rebecca; "we will be saved or perish together--And yet, great God!--my father, my father--what will be his fate!" At this moment the door of the apartment flew open, and the Templar presented himself,--a ghastly figure, for his gilded armour was broken and bloody, and the plume was partly shorn away, partly burnt from his casque. "I have found thee," said he to Rebecca; "thou shalt prove I will keep my word to share weal and woe with thee--There is but one path to safety, I have cut my way through fifty dangers to point it to thee--up, and instantly follow me!" [38] "Alone," answered Rebecca, "I will not follow thee. If thou wert born of woman--if thou hast but a touch of human charity in thee--if thy heart be not hard as thy breastplate--save my aged father--save this wounded knight!" "A knight," answered the Templar, with his characteristic calmness, "a knight, Rebecca, must encounter his fate, whether it meet him in the shape of sword or flame--and who recks how or where a Jew meets with his?" "Savage warrior," said Rebecca, "rather will I perish in the flames than accept safety from thee!" "Thou shalt not choose, Rebecca--once didst thou foil me, but never mortal did so twice." So saying, he seized on the terrified maiden, who filled the air with her shrieks, and bore her out of the room in his arms in spite of her cries, and without regarding the menaces and defiance which Ivanhoe thundered against him. "Hound of the Temple--stain to thine Order--set free the damsel! Traitor of Bois-Guilbert, it is Ivanhoe commands thee!--Villain, I will have thy heart's blood!" "I had not found thee, Wilfred," said the Black Knight, who at that instant entered the apartment, "but for thy shouts." "If thou be'st true knight," said Wilfred, "think not of me--pursue yon ravisher--save the Lady Rowena--look to the noble Cedric!" "In their turn," answered he of the Fetterlock, "but thine is first." And seizing upon Ivanhoe, he bore him off with as much ease as the Templar had carried off Rebecca, rushed with him to the postern, and having there delivered his burden to the care of two yeomen, he again entered the castle to assist in the rescue of the other prisoners. One turret was now in bright flames, which flashed out furiously from window and shot-hole. But in other parts, the great thickness of the walls and the vaulted roofs of the apartments, resisted the progress of the flames, and there the rage of man still triumphed, as the scarce more dreadful element held mastery elsewhere; for the besiegers pursued the defenders of the castle from chamber to chamber, and satiated in their blood the vengeance which had long animated them against the soldiers of the tyrant Front-de-Boeuf. Most of the garrison resisted to the uttermost--few of them asked quarter--none received it. The air was filled with groans and clashing of arms--the floors were slippery with the blood of despairing and expiring wretches. Through this scene of confusion, Cedric rushed in quest of Rowena, while the faithful Gurth, following him closely through the "melee", neglected his own safety while he strove to avert the blows that were aimed at his master. The noble Saxon was so fortunate as to reach his ward's apartment just as she had abandoned all hope of safety, and, with a crucifix clasped in agony to her bosom, sat in expectation of instant death. He committed her to the charge of Gurth, to be conducted in safety to the barbican, the road to which was now cleared of the enemy, and not yet interrupted by the flames. This accomplished, the loyal Cedric hastened in quest of his friend Athelstane, determined, at every risk to himself, to save that last scion of Saxon royalty. But ere Cedric penetrated as far as the old hall in which he had himself been a prisoner, the inventive genius of Wamba had procured liberation for himself and his companion in adversity. When the noise of the conflict announced that it was at the hottest, the Jester began to shout, with the utmost power of his lungs, "Saint George and the dragon!--Bonny Saint George for merry England!--The castle is won!" And these sounds he rendered yet more fearful, by banging against each other two or three pieces of rusty armour which lay scattered around the hall. A guard, which had been stationed in the outer, or anteroom, and whose spirits were already in a state of alarm, took fright at Wamba's clamour, and, leaving the door open behind them, ran to tell the Templar that foemen had entered the old hall. Meantime the prisoners found no difficulty in making their escape into the anteroom, and from thence into the court of the castle, which was now the last scene of contest. Here sat the fierce Templar, mounted on horseback, surrounded by several of the garrison both on horse and foot, who had united their strength to that of this renowned leader, in order to secure the last chance of safety and retreat which remained to them. The drawbridge had been lowered by his orders, but the passage was beset; for the archers, who had hitherto only annoyed the castle on that side by their missiles, no sooner saw the flames breaking out, and the bridge lowered, than they thronged to the entrance, as well to prevent the escape of the garrison, as to secure their own share of booty ere the castle should be burnt down. On the other hand, a party of the besiegers who had entered by the postern were now issuing out into the court-yard, and attacking with fury the remnant of the defenders who were thus assaulted on both sides at once. Animated, however, by despair, and supported by the example of their indomitable leader, the remaining soldiers of the castle fought with the utmost valour; and, being well-armed, succeeded more than once in driving back the assailants, though much inferior in numbers. Rebecca, placed on horseback before one of the Templar's Saracen slaves, was in the midst of the little party; and Bois-Guilbert, notwithstanding the confusion of the bloody fray, showed every attention to her safety. Repeatedly he was by her side, and, neglecting his own defence, held before her the fence of his triangular steel-plated shield; and anon starting from his position by her, he cried his war-cry, dashed forward, struck to earth the most forward of the assailants, and was on the same instant once more at her bridle rein. Athelstane, who, as the reader knows, was slothful, but not cowardly, beheld the female form whom the Templar protected thus sedulously, and doubted not that it was Rowena whom the knight was carrying off, in despite of all resistance which could be offered. "By the soul of Saint Edward," he said, "I will rescue her from yonder over-proud knight, and he shall die by my hand!" "Think what you do!" cried Wamba; "hasty hand catches frog for fish--by my bauble, yonder is none of my Lady Rowena--see but her long dark locks!--Nay, an ye will not know black from white, ye may be leader, but I will be no follower--no bones of mine shall be broken unless I know for whom.--And you without armour too!--Bethink you, silk bonnet never kept out steel blade.--Nay, then, if wilful will to water, wilful must drench.--'Deus vobiscum', most doughty Athelstane!"--he concluded, loosening the hold which he had hitherto kept upon the Saxon's tunic. To snatch a mace from the pavement, on which it lay beside one whose dying grasp had just relinquished it--to rush on the Templar's band, and to strike in quick succession to the right and left, levelling a warrior at each blow, was, for Athelstane's great strength, now animated with unusual fury, but the work of a single moment; he was soon within two yards of Bois-Guilbert, whom he defied in his loudest tone. "Turn, false-hearted Templar! let go her whom thou art unworthy to touch--turn, limb of a hand of murdering and hypocritical robbers!" "Dog!" said the Templar, grinding his teeth, "I will teach thee to blaspheme the holy Order of the Temple of Zion;" and with these words, half-wheeling his steed, he made a demi-courbette towards the Saxon, and rising in the stirrups, so as to take full advantage of the descent of the horse, he discharged a fearful blow upon the head of Athelstane. Well said Wamba, that silken bonnet keeps out no steel blade. So trenchant was the Templar's weapon, that it shore asunder, as it had been a willow twig, the tough and plaited handle of the mace, which the ill-fated Saxon reared to parry the blow, and, descending on his head, levelled him with the earth. "'Ha! Beau-seant!'" exclaimed Bois-Guilbert, "thus be it to the maligners of the Temple-knights!" Taking advantage of the dismay which was spread by the fall of Athelstane, and calling aloud, "Those who would save themselves, follow me!" he pushed across the drawbridge, dispersing the archers who would have intercepted them. He was followed by his Saracens, and some five or six men-at-arms, who had mounted their horses. The Templar's retreat was rendered perilous by the numbers of arrows shot off at him and his party; but this did not prevent him from galloping round to the barbican, of which, according to his previous plan, he supposed it possible De Bracy might have been in possession. "De Bracy! De Bracy!" he shouted, "art thou there?" "I am here," replied De Bracy, "but I am a prisoner." "Can I rescue thee?" cried Bois-Guilbert. "No," replied De Bracy; "I have rendered me, rescue or no rescue. I will be true prisoner. Save thyself--there are hawks abroad--put the seas betwixt you and England--I dare not say more." "Well," answered the Templar, "an thou wilt tarry there, remember I have redeemed word and glove. Be the hawks where they will, methinks the walls of the Preceptory of Templestowe will be cover sufficient, and thither will I, like heron to her haunt." Having thus spoken, he galloped off with his followers. Those of the castle who had not gotten to horse, still continued to fight desperately with the besiegers, after the departure of the Templar, but rather in despair of quarter than that they entertained any hope of escape. The fire was spreading rapidly through all parts of the castle, when Ulrica, who had first kindled it, appeared on a turret, in the guise of one of the ancient furies, yelling forth a war-song, such as was of yore raised on the field of battle by the scalds of the yet heathen Saxons. Her long dishevelled grey hair flew back from her uncovered head; the inebriating delight of gratified vengeance contended in her eyes with the fire of insanity; and she brandished the distaff which she held in her hand, as if she had been one of the Fatal Sisters, who spin and abridge the thread of human life. Tradition has preserved some wild strophes of the barbarous hymn which she chanted wildly amid that scene of fire and of slaughter:-- 1. Whet the bright steel, Sons of the White Dragon! Kindle the torch, Daughter of Hengist! The steel glimmers not for the carving of the banquet, It is hard, broad, and sharply pointed; The torch goeth not to the bridal chamber, It steams and glitters blue with sulphur. Whet the steel, the raven croaks! Light the torch, Zernebock is yelling! Whet the steel, sons of the Dragon! Kindle the torch, daughter of Hengist! 2. The black cloud is low over the thane's castle The eagle screams--he rides on its bosom. Scream not, grey rider of the sable cloud, Thy banquet is prepared! The maidens of Valhalla look forth, The race of Hengist will send them guests. Shake your black tresses, maidens of Valhalla! And strike your loud timbrels for joy! Many a haughty step bends to your halls, Many a helmed head. 3. Dark sits the evening upon the thanes castle, The black clouds gather round; Soon shall they be red as the blood of the valiant! The destroyer of forests shall shake his red crest against them. He, the bright consumer of palaces, Broad waves he his blazing banner, Red, wide and dusky, Over the strife of the valiant: His joy is in the clashing swords and broken bucklers; He loves to lick the hissing blood as it bursts warm from the wound! 4. All must perish! The sword cleaveth the helmet; The strong armour is pierced by the lance; Fire devoureth the dwelling of princes, Engines break down the fences of the battle. All must perish! The race of Hengist is gone-- The name of Horsa is no more! Shrink not then from your doom, sons of the sword! Let your blades drink blood like wine; Feast ye in the banquet of slaughter, By the light of the blazing halls! Strong be your swords while your blood is warm, And spare neither for pity nor fear, For vengeance hath but an hour; Strong hate itself shall expire I also must perish! [39] The towering flames had now surmounted every obstruction, and rose to the evening skies one huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through the adjacent country. Tower after tower crashed down, with blazing roof and rafter; and the combatants were driven from the court-yard. The vanquished, of whom very few remained, scattered and escaped into the neighbouring wood. The victors, assembling in large bands, gazed with wonder, not unmixed with fear, upon the flames, in which their own ranks and arms glanced dusky red. The maniac figure of the Saxon Ulrica was for a long time visible on the lofty stand she had chosen, tossing her arms abroad with wild exultation, as if she reined empress of the conflagration which she had raised. At length, with a terrific crash, the whole turret gave way, and she perished in the flames which had consumed her tyrant. An awful pause of horror silenced each murmur of the armed spectators, who, for the space of several minutes, stirred not a finger, save to sign the cross. The voice of Locksley was then heard, "Shout, yeomen!--the den of tyrants is no more! Let each bring his spoil to our chosen place of rendezvous at the Trysting-tree in the Harthill-walk; for there at break of day will we make just partition among our own bands, together with our worthy allies in this great deed of vengeance." Kannst du eine geeignete 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 Angreifer konstruieren ein langes Floß, mit dem sie den Burggraben überqueren. Der Schwarze Ritter und Cedric sind die ersten, die hinübergehen, und trotz des Pfeilhagels ihrer Männer befinden sie sich in einer prekären Lage. Dann sehen die Angreifer eine rote Fahne, die von der Burg weht, und wissen, dass es Zeit ist, ihren Angriff fortzusetzen. De Bois-Guilbert sagt De Bracy, dass alles verloren ist, weil die Burg in Flammen steht. Trotzdem hat De Bois-Guilbert einen Plan, um den Kampf fortzusetzen. Der Schwarze Ritter kämpft gegen De Bracy und zwingt ihn zur Aufgabe. Als die Burg brennt, drängt Ivanhoe Rebecca zum Fliehen, damit sie zumindest ihr eigenes Leben retten kann. Rebecca lehnt ab, aber dann taucht De Bois-Guilbert auf und bringt sie weg. Der Schwarze Ritter bringt Ivanhoe in Sicherheit, bevor er zur Burg zurückkehrt, um die übrigen Gefangenen zu befreien. Cedric befreit Rowena und übergibt sie Gurth, damit er sie in Sicherheit bringen kann. Die Schlacht intensiviert sich. De Bois-Guilbert entkommt zu Pferd mit Rebecca und wirft Athelstane um, der versucht, ihn aufzuhalten. Die Burg brennt und die Flammen sind von weitem sichtbar. Ulrica steht auf dem Turm und singt ein wildes Lied. Der Turm gibt den Flammen nach und sie stirbt. Diese Handlungskapitel, die den zweiten Teil des Romans zum Ende führen, sprechen für sich. Der Schwarze Ritter und seine Gruppe von Engländern, während sie die französische Burg angreifen, ähneln einem Angriff aus Shakespeares patriotischem Stück Heinrich V., in dem das kleine englische Heer eine viel größere französische Streitmacht besiegt. Gleichzeitig stellt Scott die Ideale der Ritterlichkeit in Frage in der Debatte zwischen Rebecca und Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe legt seinen Fall für die Ritterlichkeit eloquent dar, aber für Rebecca ist es alles nur ein Schwindel - die Ideale von Ruhm und Ehre verdecken einfach die Realität der Gewalt. Der Ritter der Ritterlichkeit muss, so ihre Meinung, alle seine besseren Gefühle "für ein Leben aufgeben, das elend verbracht wird, damit ihr andere ins Elend stürzen könnt".

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> 7--The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends He in the meantime had aroused himself from sleep, sat up, and looked around. Eustacia was sitting in a chair hard by him, and though she held a book in her hand she had not looked into it for some time. "Well, indeed!" said Clym, brushing his eyes with his hands. "How soundly I have slept! I have had such a tremendous dream, too--one I shall never forget." "I thought you had been dreaming," said she. "Yes. It was about my mother. I dreamt that I took you to her house to make up differences, and when we got there we couldn't get in, though she kept on crying to us for help. However, dreams are dreams. What o'clock is it, Eustacia?" "Half-past two." "So late, is it? I didn't mean to stay so long. By the time I have had something to eat it will be after three." "Ann is not come back from the village, and I thought I would let you sleep on till she returned." Clym went to the window and looked out. Presently he said, musingly, "Week after week passes, and yet Mother does not come. I thought I should have heard something from her long before this." Misgiving, regret, fear, resolution, ran their swift course of expression in Eustacia's dark eyes. She was face to face with a monstrous difficulty, and she resolved to get free of it by postponement. "I must certainly go to Blooms-End soon," he continued, "and I think I had better go alone." He picked up his leggings and gloves, threw them down again, and added, "As dinner will be so late today I will not go back to the heath, but work in the garden till the evening, and then, when it will be cooler, I will walk to Blooms-End. I am quite sure that if I make a little advance Mother will be willing to forget all. It will be rather late before I can get home, as I shall not be able to do the distance either way in less than an hour and a half. But you will not mind for one evening, dear? What are you thinking of to make you look so abstracted?" "I cannot tell you," she said heavily. "I wish we didn't live here, Clym. The world seems all wrong in this place." "Well--if we make it so. I wonder if Thomasin has been to Blooms-End lately. I hope so. But probably not, as she is, I believe, expecting to be confined in a month or so. I wish I had thought of that before. Poor Mother must indeed be very lonely." "I don't like you going tonight." "Why not tonight?" "Something may be said which will terribly injure me." "My mother is not vindictive," said Clym, his colour faintly rising. "But I wish you would not go," Eustacia repeated in a low tone. "If you agree not to go tonight I promise to go by myself to her house tomorrow, and make it up with her, and wait till you fetch me." "Why do you want to do that at this particular time, when at every previous time that I have proposed it you have refused?" "I cannot explain further than that I should like to see her alone before you go," she answered, with an impatient move of her head, and looking at him with an anxiety more frequently seen upon those of a sanguine temperament than upon such as herself. "Well, it is very odd that just when I had decided to go myself you should want to do what I proposed long ago. If I wait for you to go tomorrow another day will be lost; and I know I shall be unable to rest another night without having been. I want to get this settled, and will. You must visit her afterwards--it will be all the same." "I could even go with you now?" "You could scarcely walk there and back without a longer rest than I shall take. No, not tonight, Eustacia." "Let it be as you say, then," she replied in the quiet way of one who, though willing to ward off evil consequences by a mild effort, would let events fall out as they might sooner than wrestle hard to direct them. Clym then went into the garden; and a thoughtful languor stole over Eustacia for the remainder of the afternoon, which her husband attributed to the heat of the weather. In the evening he set out on the journey. Although the heat of summer was yet intense the days had considerably shortened, and before he had advanced a mile on his way all the heath purples, browns, and greens had merged in a uniform dress without airiness or graduation, and broken only by touches of white where the little heaps of clean quartz sand showed the entrance to a rabbit burrow, or where the white flints of a footpath lay like a thread over the slopes. In almost every one of the isolated and stunted thorns which grew here and there a nighthawk revealed his presence by whirring like the clack of a mill as long as he could hold his breath, then stopping, flapping his wings, wheeling round the bush, alighting, and after a silent interval of listening beginning to whirr again. At each brushing of Clym's feet white millermoths flew into the air just high enough to catch upon their dusty wings the mellowed light from the west, which now shone across the depressions and levels of the ground without falling thereon to light them up. Yeobright walked on amid this quiet scene with a hope that all would soon be well. Three miles on he came to a spot where a soft perfume was wafted across his path, and he stood still for a moment to inhale the familiar scent. It was the place at which, four hours earlier, his mother had sat down exhausted on the knoll covered with shepherd's-thyme. While he stood a sound between a breathing and a moan suddenly reached his ears. He looked to where the sound came from; but nothing appeared there save the verge of the hillock stretching against the sky in an unbroken line. He moved a few steps in that direction, and now he perceived a recumbent figure almost close to his feet. Among the different possibilities as to the person's individuality there did not for a moment occur to Yeobright that it might be one of his own family. Sometimes furze-cutters had been known to sleep out of doors at these times, to save a long journey homeward and back again; but Clym remembered the moan and looked closer, and saw that the form was feminine; and a distress came over him like cold air from a cave. But he was not absolutely certain that the woman was his mother till he stooped and beheld her face, pallid, and with closed eyes. His breath went, as it were, out of his body and the cry of anguish which would have escaped him died upon his lips. During the momentary interval that elapsed before he became conscious that something must be done all sense of time and place left him, and it seemed as if he and his mother were as when he was a child with her many years ago on this heath at hours similar to the present. Then he awoke to activity; and bending yet lower he found that she still breathed, and that her breath though feeble was regular, except when disturbed by an occasional gasp. "O, what is it! Mother, are you very ill--you are not dying?" he cried, pressing his lips to her face. "I am your Clym. How did you come here? What does it all mean?" At that moment the chasm in their lives which his love for Eustacia had caused was not remembered by Yeobright, and to him the present joined continuously with that friendly past that had been their experience before the division. She moved her lips, appeared to know him, but could not speak; and then Clym strove to consider how best to move her, as it would be necessary to get her away from the spot before the dews were intense. He was able-bodied, and his mother was thin. He clasped his arms round her, lifted her a little, and said, "Does that hurt you?" She shook her head, and he lifted her up; then, at a slow pace, went onward with his load. The air was now completely cool; but whenever he passed over a sandy patch of ground uncarpeted with vegetation there was reflected from its surface into his face the heat which it had imbibed during the day. At the beginning of his undertaking he had thought but little of the distance which yet would have to be traversed before Blooms-End could be reached; but though he had slept that afternoon he soon began to feel the weight of his burden. Thus he proceeded, like Aeneas with his father; the bats circling round his head, nightjars flapping their wings within a yard of his face, and not a human being within call. While he was yet nearly a mile from the house his mother exhibited signs of restlessness under the constraint of being borne along, as if his arms were irksome to her. He lowered her upon his knees and looked around. The point they had now reached, though far from any road, was not more than a mile from the Blooms-End cottages occupied by Fairway, Sam, Humphrey, and the Cantles. Moreover, fifty yards off stood a hut, built of clods and covered with thin turves, but now entirely disused. The simple outline of the lonely shed was visible, and thither he determined to direct his steps. As soon as he arrived he laid her down carefully by the entrance, and then ran and cut with his pocketknife an armful of the dryest fern. Spreading this within the shed, which was entirely open on one side, he placed his mother thereon; then he ran with all his might towards the dwelling of Fairway. Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed, disturbed only by the broken breathing of the sufferer, when moving figures began to animate the line between heath and sky. In a few moments Clym arrived with Fairway, Humphrey, and Susan Nunsuch; Olly Dowden, who had chanced to be at Fairway's, Christian and Grandfer Cantle following helter-skelter behind. They had brought a lantern and matches, water, a pillow, and a few other articles which had occurred to their minds in the hurry of the moment. Sam had been despatched back again for brandy, and a boy brought Fairway's pony, upon which he rode off to the nearest medical man, with directions to call at Wildeve's on his way, and inform Thomasin that her aunt was unwell. Sam and the brandy soon arrived, and it was administered by the light of the lantern; after which she became sufficiently conscious to signify by signs that something was wrong with her foot. Olly Dowden at length understood her meaning, and examined the foot indicated. It was swollen and red. Even as they watched the red began to assume a more livid colour, in the midst of which appeared a scarlet speck, smaller than a pea, and it was found to consist of a drop of blood, which rose above the smooth flesh of her ankle in a hemisphere. "I know what it is," cried Sam. "She has been stung by an adder!" "Yes," said Clym instantly. "I remember when I was a child seeing just such a bite. O, my poor mother!" "It was my father who was bit," said Sam. "And there's only one way to cure it. You must rub the place with the fat of other adders, and the only way to get that is by frying them. That's what they did for him." "'Tis an old remedy," said Clym distrustfully, "and I have doubts about it. But we can do nothing else till the doctor comes." "'Tis a sure cure," said Olly Dowden, with emphasis. "I've used it when I used to go out nursing." "Then we must pray for daylight, to catch them," said Clym gloomily. "I will see what I can do," said Sam. He took a green hazel which he had used as a walking stick, split it at the end, inserted a small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand went out into the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and despatched Susan Nunsuch for a frying pan. Before she had returned Sam came in with three adders, one briskly coiling and uncoiling in the cleft of the stick, and the other two hanging dead across it. "I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he ought to be," said Sam. "These limp ones are two I killed today at work; but as they don't die till the sun goes down they can't be very stale meat." The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in its small black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its back seemed to intensify with indignation. Mrs. Yeobright saw the creature, and the creature saw her--she quivered throughout, and averted her eyes. "Look at that," murmured Christian Cantle. "Neighbours, how do we know but that something of the old serpent in God's garden, that gied the apple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and snakes still? Look at his eye--for all the world like a villainous sort of black currant. 'Tis to be hoped he can't ill-wish us! There's folks in heath who've been overlooked already. I will never kill another adder as long as I live." "Well, 'tis right to be afeard of things, if folks can't help it," said Grandfer Cantle. "'Twould have saved me many a brave danger in my time." "I fancy I heard something outside the shed," said Christian. "I wish troubles would come in the daytime, for then a man could show his courage, and hardly beg for mercy of the most broomstick old woman he should see, if he was a brave man, and able to run out of her sight!" "Even such an ignorant fellow as I should know better than do that," said Sam. "Well, there's calamities where we least expect it, whether or no. Neighbours, if Mrs. Yeobright were to die, d'ye think we should be took up and tried for the manslaughter of a woman?" "No, they couldn't bring it in as that," said Sam, "unless they could prove we had been poachers at some time of our lives. But she'll fetch round." "Now, if I had been stung by ten adders I should hardly have lost a day's work for't," said Grandfer Cantle. "Such is my spirit when I am on my mettle. But perhaps 'tis natural in a man trained for war. Yes, I've gone through a good deal; but nothing ever came amiss to me after I joined the Locals in four." He shook his head and smiled at a mental picture of himself in uniform. "I was always first in the most galliantest scrapes in my younger days!" "I suppose that was because they always used to put the biggest fool afore," said Fairway from the fire, beside which he knelt, blowing it with his breath. "D'ye think so, Timothy?" said Grandfer Cantle, coming forward to Fairway's side with sudden depression in his face. "Then a man may feel for years that he is good solid company, and be wrong about himself after all?" "Never mind that question, Grandfer. Stir your stumps and get some more sticks. 'Tis very nonsense of an old man to prattle so when life and death's in mangling." "Yes, yes," said Grandfer Cantle, with melancholy conviction. "Well, this is a bad night altogether for them that have done well in their time; and if I were ever such a dab at the hautboy or tenor viol, I shouldn't have the heart to play tunes upon 'em now." Susan now arrived with the frying pan, when the live adder was killed and the heads of the three taken off. The remainders, being cut into lengths and split open, were tossed into the pan, which began hissing and crackling over the fire. Soon a rill of clear oil trickled from the carcases, whereupon Clym dipped the corner of his handkerchief into the liquid and anointed the wound. <CHAPTER> </CHAPTER> 8--Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil In the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth, had become considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The consequences which might result from Clym's discovery that his mother had been turned from his door that day were likely to be disagreeable, and this was a quality in events which she hated as much as the dreadful. To be left to pass the evening by herself was irksome to her at any time, and this evening it was more irksome than usual by reason of the excitements of the past hours. The two visits had stirred her into restlessness. She was not wrought to any great pitch of uneasiness by the probability of appearing in an ill light in the discussion between Clym and his mother, but she was wrought to vexation, and her slumbering activities were quickened to the extent of wishing that she had opened the door. She had certainly believed that Clym was awake, and the excuse would be an honest one as far as it went; but nothing could save her from censure in refusing to answer at the first knock. Yet, instead of blaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon the shoulders of some indistinct, colossal Prince of the World, who had framed her situation and ruled her lot. At this time of the year it was pleasanter to walk by night than by day, and when Clym had been absent about an hour she suddenly resolved to go out in the direction of Blooms-End, on the chance of meeting him on his return. When she reached the garden gate she heard wheels approaching, and looking round beheld her grandfather coming up in his car. "I can't stay a minute, thank ye," he answered to her greeting. "I am driving to East Egdon; but I came round here just to tell you the news. Perhaps you have heard--about Mr. Wildeve's fortune?" "No," said Eustacia blankly. "Well, he has come into a fortune of eleven thousand pounds--uncle died in Canada, just after hearing that all his family, whom he was sending home, had gone to the bottom in the Cassiopeia; so Wildeve has come into everything, without in the least expecting it." Eustacia stood motionless awhile. "How long has he known of this?" she asked. "Well, it was known to him this morning early, for I knew it at ten o'clock, when Charley came back. Now, he is what I call a lucky man. What a fool you were, Eustacia!" "In what way?" she said, lifting her eyes in apparent calmness. "Why, in not sticking to him when you had him." "Had him, indeed!" "I did not know there had ever been anything between you till lately; and, faith, I should have been hot and strong against it if I had known; but since it seems that there was some sniffing between ye, why the deuce didn't you stick to him?" Eustacia made no reply, but she looked as if she could say as much upon that subject as he if she chose. "And how is your poor purblind husband?" continued the old man. "Not a bad fellow either, as far as he goes." "He is quite well." "It is a good thing for his cousin what-d'ye-call-her? By George, you ought to have been in that galley, my girl! Now I must drive on. Do you want any assistance? What's mine is yours, you know." "Thank you, Grandfather, we are not in want at present," she said coldly. "Clym cuts furze, but he does it mostly as a useful pastime, because he can do nothing else." "He is paid for his pastime, isn't he? Three shillings a hundred, I heard." "Clym has money," she said, colouring, "but he likes to earn a little." "Very well; good night." And the captain drove on. When her grandfather was gone Eustacia went on her way mechanically; but her thoughts were no longer concerning her mother-in-law and Clym. Wildeve, notwithstanding his complaints against his fate, had been seized upon by destiny and placed in the sunshine once more. Eleven thousand pounds! From every Egdon point of view he was a rich man. In Eustacia's eyes, too, it was an ample sum--one sufficient to supply those wants of hers which had been stigmatized by Clym in his more austere moods as vain and luxurious. Though she was no lover of money she loved what money could bring; and the new accessories she imagined around him clothed Wildeve with a great deal of interest. She recollected now how quietly well-dressed he had been that morning--he had probably put on his newest suit, regardless of damage by briars and thorns. And then she thought of his manner towards herself. "O I see it, I see it," she said. "How much he wishes he had me now, that he might give me all I desire!" In recalling the details of his glances and words--at the time scarcely regarded--it became plain to her how greatly they had been dictated by his knowledge of this new event. "Had he been a man to bear a jilt ill-will he would have told me of his good fortune in crowing tones; instead of doing that he mentioned not a word, in deference to my misfortunes, and merely implied that he loved me still, as one superior to him." Wildeve's silence that day on what had happened to him was just the kind of behaviour calculated to make an impression on such a woman. Those delicate touches of good taste were, in fact, one of the strong points in his demeanour towards the other sex. The peculiarity of Wildeve was that, while at one time passionate, upbraiding, and resentful towards a woman, at another he would treat her with such unparalleled grace as to make previous neglect appear as no discourtesy, injury as no insult, interference as a delicate attention, and the ruin of her honour as excess of chivalry. This man, whose admiration today Eustacia had disregarded, whose good wishes she had scarcely taken the trouble to accept, whom she had shown out of the house by the back door, was the possessor of eleven thousand pounds--a man of fair professional education, and one who had served his articles with a civil engineer. So intent was Eustacia upon Wildeve's fortunes that she forgot how much closer to her own course were those of Clym; and instead of walking on to meet him at once she sat down upon a stone. She was disturbed in her reverie by a voice behind, and turning her head beheld the old lover and fortunate inheritor of wealth immediately beside her. She remained sitting, though the fluctuation in her look might have told any man who knew her so well as Wildeve that she was thinking of him. "How did you come here?" she said in her clear low tone. "I thought you were at home." "I went on to the village after leaving your garden; and now I have come back again--that's all. Which way are you walking, may I ask?" She waved her hand in the direction of Blooms-End. "I am going to meet my husband. I think I may possibly have got into trouble whilst you were with me today." "How could that be?" "By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright." "I hope that visit of mine did you no harm." "None. It was not your fault," she said quietly. By this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered on together, without speaking, for two or three minutes; when Eustacia broke silence by saying, "I assume I must congratulate you." "On what? O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds, you mean. Well, since I didn't get something else, I must be content with getting that." "You seem very indifferent about it. Why didn't you tell me today when you came?" she said in the tone of a neglected person. "I heard of it quite by accident." "I did mean to tell you," said Wildeve. "But I--well, I will speak frankly--I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your star was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard work, as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune to you would be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside him, I could not help feeling too that in many respects he was a richer man than I." At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, "What, would you exchange with him--your fortune for me?" "I certainly would," said Wildeve. "As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change the subject?" "Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you care to hear them. I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds, keep one thousand as ready money, and with the remaining thousand travel for a year or so." "Travel? What a bright idea! Where will you go to?" "From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. Then I shall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot weather comes on. In the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a plan not yet settled, I shall go to Australia and round to India. By that time I shall have begun to have had enough of it. Then I shall probably come back to Paris again, and there I shall stay as long as I can afford to." "Back to Paris again," she murmured in a voice that was nearly a sigh. She had never once told Wildeve of the Parisian desires which Clym's description had sown in her; yet here was he involuntarily in a position to gratify them. "You think a good deal of Paris?" she added. "Yes. In my opinion it is the central beauty-spot of the world." "And in mine! And Thomasin will go with you?" "Yes, if she cares to. She may prefer to stay at home." "So you will be going about, and I shall be staying here!" "I suppose you will. But we know whose fault that is." "I am not blaming you," she said quickly. "Oh, I thought you were. If ever you SHOULD be inclined to blame me, think of a certain evening by Rainbarrow, when you promised to meet me and did not. You sent me a letter; and my heart ached to read that as I hope yours never will. That was one point of divergence. I then did something in haste.... But she is a good woman, and I will say no more." "I know that the blame was on my side that time," said Eustacia. "But it had not always been so. However, it is my misfortune to be too sudden in feeling. O, Damon, don't reproach me any more--I can't bear that." They went on silently for a distance of two or three miles, when Eustacia said suddenly, "Haven't you come out of your way, Mr. Wildeve?" "My way is anywhere tonight. I will go with you as far as the hill on which we can see Blooms-End, as it is getting late for you to be alone." "Don't trouble. I am not obliged to be out at all. I think I would rather you did not accompany me further. This sort of thing would have an odd look if known." "Very well, I will leave you." He took her hand unexpectedly, and kissed it--for the first time since her marriage. "What light is that on the hill?" he added, as it were to hide the caress. She looked, and saw a flickering firelight proceeding from the open side of a hovel a little way before them. The hovel, which she had hitherto always found empty, seemed to be inhabited now. "Since you have come so far," said Eustacia, "will you see me safely past that hut? I thought I should have met Clym somewhere about here, but as he doesn't appear I will hasten on and get to Blooms-End before he leaves." They advanced to the turf-shed, and when they got near it the firelight and the lantern inside showed distinctly enough the form of a woman reclining on a bed of fern, a group of heath men and women standing around her. Eustacia did not recognize Mrs. Yeobright in the reclining figure, nor Clym as one of the standers-by till she came close. Then she quickly pressed her hand up on Wildeve's arm and signified to him to come back from the open side of the shed into the shadow. "It is my husband and his mother," she whispered in an agitated voice. "What can it mean? Will you step forward and tell me?" Wildeve left her side and went to the back wall of the hut. Presently Eustacia perceived that he was beckoning to her, and she advanced and joined him. "It is a serious case," said Wildeve. From their position they could hear what was proceeding inside. "I cannot think where she could have been going," said Clym to someone. "She had evidently walked a long way, but even when she was able to speak just now she would not tell me where. What do you really think of her?" "There is a great deal to fear," was gravely answered, in a voice which Eustacia recognized as that of the only surgeon in the district. "She has suffered somewhat from the bite of the adder; but it is exhaustion which has overpowered her. My impression is that her walk must have been exceptionally long." "I used to tell her not to overwalk herself this weather," said Clym, with distress. "Do you think we did well in using the adder's fat?" "Well, it is a very ancient remedy--the old remedy of the viper-catchers, I believe," replied the doctor. "It is mentioned as an infallible ointment by Hoffman, Mead, and I think the Abbe Fontana. Undoubtedly it was as good a thing as you could do; though I question if some other oils would not have been equally efficacious." "Come here, come here!" was then rapidly said in anxious female tones, and Clym and the doctor could be heard rushing forward from the back part of the shed to where Mrs. Yeobright lay. "Oh, what is it?" whispered Eustacia. "'Twas Thomasin who spoke," said Wildeve. "Then they have fetched her. I wonder if I had better go in--yet it might do harm." For a long time there was utter silence among the group within; and it was broken at last by Clym saying, in an agonized voice, "O Doctor, what does it mean?" The doctor did not reply at once; ultimately he said, "She is sinking fast. Her heart was previously affected, and physical exhaustion has dealt the finishing blow." Then there was a weeping of women, then waiting, then hushed exclamations, then a strange gasping sound, then a painful stillness. "It is all over," said the doctor. Further back in the hut the cotters whispered, "Mrs. Yeobright is dead." Almost at the same moment the two watchers observed the form of a small old-fashioned child entering at the open side of the shed. Susan Nunsuch, whose boy it was, went forward to the opening and silently beckoned to him to go back. "I've got something to tell 'ee, Mother," he cried in a shrill tone. "That woman asleep there walked along with me today; and she said I was to say that I had seed her, and she was a broken-hearted woman and cast off by her son, and then I came on home." A confused sob as from a man was heard within, upon which Eustacia gasped faintly, "That's Clym--I must go to him--yet dare I do it? No--come away!" When they had withdrawn from the neighbourhood of the shed she said huskily, "I am to blame for this. There is evil in store for me." "Was she not admitted to your house after all?" Wildeve inquired. "No, and that's where it all lies! Oh, what shall I do! I shall not intrude upon them--I shall go straight home. Damon, good-bye! I cannot speak to you any more now." They parted company; and when Eustacia had reached the next hill she looked back. A melancholy procession was wending its way by the light of the lantern from the hut towards Blooms-End. Wildeve was nowhere to be seen. </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.

Obwohl Eustacia Einwände erhebt, aus Angst, dass er herausfindet, was sie getan hat, ist Clym entschlossen, keine weitere Zeit zu verschwenden und seine Mutter zu besuchen. Unterwegs entdeckt er sie ohnmächtig und trägt sie zu einer Hütte, die nicht weit entfernt von Blooms-End liegt. Als er mit Hilfe zurückkehrt, stellen sie fest, dass sie von einer Kreuzotter gebissen wurde, und sie beschließen, dass das Einzige, was sie tun können, bis ein Arzt geholt werden kann, die alte Methode ist, sie mit dem Fett einer anderen Kreuzotter zu behandeln. Unterdessen, wartet Eustacia ungeduldig zu Hause und macht sich auf den Weg, um Clym zu treffen, wird aber kurzzeitig durch das Eintreffen von Captain Vye gestoppt, der die Nachricht überbringt, dass Wildeve elftausend Pfund geerbt hat. Als sie Wildeve in einem neuen Licht betrachtet, macht sich Eustacia auf den Weg nach Blooms-End, nur um den Mann zu treffen, der ihre Gedanken einnimmt. Nachdem Wildeve beschreibt, was er mit dem Geld vorhat, und sie dabei sind, sich zu trennen, stoßen sie auf die Gruppe bei der Hütte. Sie verbergen sich hinter der Hütte und erfahren, dass Mrs. Yeobright im Sterben liegt. Sowohl Clym als auch Thomasin sind dort, zusammen mit den Heidebewohnern, und nachdem Mrs. Yeobright gestorben ist, wiederholt Johnny Nunsuch den Kommentar über Clym, den seine Mutter zuvor in Anwesenheit des Kindes gemacht 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: BABBITT'S preparations for leaving the office to its feeble self during the hour and a half of his lunch-period were somewhat less elaborate than the plans for a general European war. He fretted to Miss McGoun, "What time you going to lunch? Well, make sure Miss Bannigan is in then. Explain to her that if Wiedenfeldt calls up, she's to tell him I'm already having the title traced. And oh, b' the way, remind me to-morrow to have Penniman trace it. Now if anybody comes in looking for a cheap house, remember we got to shove that Bangor Road place off onto somebody. If you need me, I'll be at the Athletic Club. And--uh--And--uh--I'll be back by two." He dusted the cigar-ashes off his vest. He placed a difficult unanswered letter on the pile of unfinished work, that he might not fail to attend to it that afternoon. (For three noons, now, he had placed the same letter on the unfinished pile.) He scrawled on a sheet of yellow backing-paper the memorandum: "See abt apt h drs," which gave him an agreeable feeling of having already seen about the apartment-house doors. He discovered that he was smoking another cigar. He threw it away, protesting, "Darn it, I thought you'd quit this darn smoking!" He courageously returned the cigar-box to the correspondence-file, locked it up, hid the key in a more difficult place, and raged, "Ought to take care of myself. And need more exercise--walk to the club, every single noon--just what I'll do--every noon--cut out this motoring all the time." The resolution made him feel exemplary. Immediately after it he decided that this noon it was too late to walk. It took but little more time to start his car and edge it into the traffic than it would have taken to walk the three and a half blocks to the club. II As he drove he glanced with the fondness of familiarity at the buildings. A stranger suddenly dropped into the business-center of Zenith could not have told whether he was in a city of Oregon or Georgia, Ohio or Maine, Oklahoma or Manitoba. But to Babbitt every inch was individual and stirring. As always he noted that the California Building across the way was three stories lower, therefore three stories less beautiful, than his own Reeves Building. As always when he passed the Parthenon Shoe Shine Parlor, a one-story hut which beside the granite and red-brick ponderousness of the old California Building resembled a bath-house under a cliff, he commented, "Gosh, ought to get my shoes shined this afternoon. Keep forgetting it." At the Simplex Office Furniture Shop, the National Cash Register Agency, he yearned for a dictaphone, for a typewriter which would add and multiply, as a poet yearns for quartos or a physician for radium. At the Nobby Men's Wear Shop he took his left hand off the steering-wheel to touch his scarf, and thought well of himself as one who bought expensive ties "and could pay cash for 'em, too, by golly;" and at the United Cigar Store, with its crimson and gold alertness, he reflected, "Wonder if I need some cigars--idiot--plumb forgot--going t' cut down my fool smoking." He looked at his bank, the Miners' and Drovers' National, and considered how clever and solid he was to bank with so marbled an establishment. His high moment came in the clash of traffic when he was halted at the corner beneath the lofty Second National Tower. His car was banked with four others in a line of steel restless as cavalry, while the cross town traffic, limousines and enormous moving-vans and insistent motor-cycles, poured by; on the farther corner, pneumatic riveters rang on the sun-plated skeleton of a new building; and out of this tornado flashed the inspiration of a familiar face, and a fellow Booster shouted, "H' are you, George!" Babbitt waved in neighborly affection, and slid on with the traffic as the policeman lifted his hand. He noted how quickly his car picked up. He felt superior and powerful, like a shuttle of polished steel darting in a vast machine. As always he ignored the next two blocks, decayed blocks not yet reclaimed from the grime and shabbiness of the Zenith of 1885. While he was passing the five-and-ten-cent store, the Dakota Lodging House, Concordia Hall with its lodge-rooms and the offices of fortune-tellers and chiropractors, he thought of how much money he made, and he boasted a little and worried a little and did old familiar sums: "Four hundred fifty plunks this morning from the Lyte deal. But taxes due. Let's see: I ought to pull out eight thousand net this year, and save fifteen hundred of that--no, not if I put up garage and--Let's see: six hundred and forty clear last month, and twelve times six-forty makes--makes--let see: six times twelve is seventy-two hundred and--Oh rats, anyway, I'll make eight thousand--gee now, that's not so bad; mighty few fellows pulling down eight thousand dollars a year--eight thousand good hard iron dollars--bet there isn't more than five per cent. of the people in the whole United States that make more than Uncle George does, by golly! Right up at the top of the heap! But--Way expenses are--Family wasting gasoline, and always dressed like millionaires, and sending that eighty a month to Mother--And all these stenographers and salesmen gouging me for every cent they can get--" The effect of his scientific budget-planning was that he felt at once triumphantly wealthy and perilously poor, and in the midst of these dissertations he stopped his car, rushed into a small news-and-miscellany shop, and bought the electric cigar-lighter which he had coveted for a week. He dodged his conscience by being jerky and noisy, and by shouting at the clerk, "Guess this will prett' near pay for itself in matches, eh?" It was a pretty thing, a nickeled cylinder with an almost silvery socket, to be attached to the dashboard of his car. It was not only, as the placard on the counter observed, "a dandy little refinement, lending the last touch of class to a gentleman's auto," but a priceless time-saver. By freeing him from halting the car to light a match, it would in a month or two easily save ten minutes. As he drove on he glanced at it. "Pretty nice. Always wanted one," he said wistfully. "The one thing a smoker needs, too." Then he remembered that he had given up smoking. "Darn it!" he mourned. "Oh well, I suppose I'll hit a cigar once in a while. And--Be a great convenience for other folks. Might make just the difference in getting chummy with some fellow that would put over a sale. And--Certainly looks nice there. Certainly is a mighty clever little jigger. Gives the last touch of refinement and class. I--By golly, I guess I can afford it if I want to! Not going to be the only member of this family that never has a single doggone luxury!" Thus, laden with treasure, after three and a half blocks of romantic adventure, he drove up to the club. III The Zenith Athletic Club is not athletic and it isn't exactly a club, but it is Zenith in perfection. It has an active and smoke-misted billiard room, it is represented by baseball and football teams, and in the pool and the gymnasium a tenth of the members sporadically try to reduce. But most of its three thousand members use it as a cafe in which to lunch, play cards, tell stories, meet customers, and entertain out-of town uncles at dinner. It is the largest club in the city, and its chief hatred is the conservative Union Club, which all sound members of the Athletic call "a rotten, snobbish, dull, expensive old hole--not one Good Mixer in the place--you couldn't hire me to join." Statistics show that no member of the Athletic has ever refused election to the Union, and of those who are elected, sixty-seven per cent. resign from the Athletic and are thereafter heard to say, in the drowsy sanctity of the Union lounge, "The Athletic would be a pretty good hotel, if it were more exclusive." The Athletic Club building is nine stories high, yellow brick with glassy roof-garden above and portico of huge limestone columns below. The lobby, with its thick pillars of porous Caen stone, its pointed vaulting, and a brown glazed-tile floor like well-baked bread-crust, is a combination of cathedral-crypt and rathskellar. The members rush into the lobby as though they were shopping and hadn't much time for it. Thus did Babbitt enter, and to the group standing by the cigar-counter he whooped, "How's the boys? How's the boys? Well, well, fine day!" Jovially they whooped back--Vergil Gunch, the coal-dealer, Sidney Finkelstein, the ladies'-ready-to-wear buyer for Parcher & Stein's department-store, and Professor Joseph K. Pumphrey, owner of the Riteway Business College and instructor in Public Speaking, Business English, Scenario Writing, and Commercial Law. Though Babbitt admired this savant, and appreciated Sidney Finkelstein as "a mighty smart buyer and a good liberal spender," it was to Vergil Gunch that he turned with enthusiasm. Mr. Gunch was president of the Boosters' Club, a weekly lunch-club, local chapter of a national organization which promoted sound business and friendliness among Regular Fellows. He was also no less an official than Esteemed Leading Knight in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and it was rumored that at the next election he would be a candidate for Exalted Ruler. He was a jolly man, given to oratory and to chumminess with the arts. He called on the famous actors and vaudeville artists when they came to town, gave them cigars, addressed them by their first names, and--sometimes--succeeded in bringing them to the Boosters' lunches to give The Boys a Free Entertainment. He was a large man with hair en brosse, and he knew the latest jokes, but he played poker close to the chest. It was at his party that Babbitt had sucked in the virus of to-day's restlessness. Gunch shouted, "How's the old Bolsheviki? How do you feel, the morning after the night before?" "Oh, boy! Some head! That was a regular party you threw, Verg! Hope you haven't forgotten I took that last cute little jack-pot!" Babbitt bellowed. (He was three feet from Gunch.) "That's all right now! What I'll hand you next time, Georgie! Say, juh notice in the paper the way the New York Assembly stood up to the Reds?" "You bet I did. That was fine, eh? Nice day to-day." "Yes, it's one mighty fine spring day, but nights still cold." "Yeh, you're right they are! Had to have coupla blankets last night, out on the sleeping-porch. Say, Sid," Babbitt turned to Finkelstein, the buyer, "got something wanta ask you about. I went out and bought me an electric cigar-lighter for the car, this noon, and--" "Good hunch!" said Finkelstein, while even the learned Professor Pumphrey, a bulbous man with a pepper-and-salt cutaway and a pipe-organ voice, commented, "That makes a dandy accessory. Cigar-lighter gives tone to the dashboard." "Yep, finally decided I'd buy me one. Got the best on the market, the clerk said it was. Paid five bucks for it. Just wondering if I got stuck. What do they charge for 'em at the store, Sid?" Finkelstein asserted that five dollars was not too great a sum, not for a really high-class lighter which was suitably nickeled and provided with connections of the very best quality. "I always say--and believe me, I base it on a pretty fairly extensive mercantile experience--the best is the cheapest in the long run. Of course if a fellow wants to be a Jew about it, he can get cheap junk, but in the long RUN, the cheapest thing is--the best you can get! Now you take here just th' other day: I got a new top for my old boat and some upholstery, and I paid out a hundred and twenty-six fifty, and of course a lot of fellows would say that was too much--Lord, if the Old Folks--they live in one of these hick towns up-state and they simply can't get onto the way a city fellow's mind works, and then, of course, they're Jews, and they'd lie right down and die if they knew Sid had anted up a hundred and twenty-six bones. But I don't figure I was stuck, George, not a bit. Machine looks brand new now--not that it's so darned old, of course; had it less 'n three years, but I give it hard service; never drive less 'n a hundred miles on Sunday and, uh--Oh, I don't really think you got stuck, George. In the LONG run, the best is, you might say, it's unquestionably the cheapest." "That's right," said Vergil Gunch. "That's the way I look at it. If a fellow is keyed up to what you might call intensive living, the way you get it here in Zenith--all the hustle and mental activity that's going on with a bunch of live-wires like the Boosters and here in the Z.A.C., why, he's got to save his nerves by having the best." Babbitt nodded his head at every fifth word in the roaring rhythm; and by the conclusion, in Gunch's renowned humorous vein, he was enchanted: "Still, at that, George, don't know's you can afford it. I've heard your business has been kind of under the eye of the gov'ment since you stole the tail of Eathorne Park and sold it!" "Oh, you're a great little josher, Verg. But when it comes to kidding, how about this report that you stole the black marble steps off the post-office and sold 'em for high-grade coal!" In delight Babbitt patted Gunch's back, stroked his arm. "That's all right, but what I want to know is: who's the real-estate shark that bought that coal for his apartment-houses?" "I guess that'll hold you for a while, George!" said Finkelstein. "I'll tell you, though, boys, what I did hear: George's missus went into the gents' wear department at Parcher's to buy him some collars, and before she could give his neck-size the clerk slips her some thirteens. 'How juh know the size?' says Mrs. Babbitt, and the clerk says, 'Men that let their wives buy collars for 'em always wear thirteen, madam.' How's that! That's pretty good, eh? How's that, eh? I guess that'll about fix you, George!" "I--I--" Babbitt sought for amiable insults in answer. He stopped, stared at the door. Paul Riesling was coming in. Babbitt cried, "See you later, boys," and hastened across the lobby. He was, just then, neither the sulky child of the sleeping-porch, the domestic tyrant of the breakfast table, the crafty money-changer of the Lyte-Purdy conference, nor the blaring Good Fellow, the Josher and Regular Guy, of the Athletic Club. He was an older brother to Paul Riesling, swift to defend him, admiring him with a proud and credulous love passing the love of women. Paul and he shook hands solemnly; they smiled as shyly as though they had been parted three years, not three days--and they said: "How's the old horse-thief?" "All right, I guess. How're you, you poor shrimp?" "I'm first-rate, you second-hand hunk o' cheese." Reassured thus of their high fondness, Babbitt grunted, "You're a fine guy, you are! Ten minutes late!" Riesling snapped, "Well, you're lucky to have a chance to lunch with a gentleman!" They grinned and went into the Neronian washroom, where a line of men bent over the bowls inset along a prodigious slab of marble as in religious prostration before their own images in the massy mirror. Voices thick, satisfied, authoritative, hurtled along the marble walls, bounded from the ceiling of lavender-bordered milky tiles, while the lords of the city, the barons of insurance and law and fertilizers and motor tires, laid down the law for Zenith; announced that the day was warm-indeed, indisputably of spring; that wages were too high and the interest on mortgages too low; that Babe Ruth, the eminent player of baseball, was a noble man; and that "those two nuts at the Climax Vaudeville Theater this week certainly are a slick pair of actors." Babbitt, though ordinarily his voice was the surest and most episcopal of all, was silent. In the presence of the slight dark reticence of Paul Riesling, he was awkward, he desired to be quiet and firm and deft. The entrance lobby of the Athletic Club was Gothic, the washroom Roman Imperial, the lounge Spanish Mission, and the reading-room in Chinese Chippendale, but the gem of the club was the dining-room, the masterpiece of Ferdinand Reitman, Zenith's busiest architect. It was lofty and half-timbered, with Tudor leaded casements, an oriel, a somewhat musicianless musicians'-gallery, and tapestries believed to illustrate the granting of Magna Charta. The open beams had been hand-adzed at Jake Offutt's car-body works, the hinge; were of hand-wrought iron, the wainscot studded with handmade wooden pegs, and at one end of the room was a heraldic and hooded stone fireplace which the club's advertising-pamphlet asserted to be not only larger than any of the fireplaces in European castles but of a draught incomparably more scientific. It was also much cleaner, as no fire had ever been built in it. Half of the tables were mammoth slabs which seated twenty or thirty men. Babbitt usually sat at the one near the door, with a group including Gunch, Finkelstein, Professor Pumphrey, Howard Littlefield, his neighbor, T. Cholmondeley Frink, the poet and advertising-agent, and Orville Jones, whose laundry was in many ways the best in Zenith. They composed a club within the club, and merrily called themselves "The Roughnecks." To-day as he passed their table the Roughnecks greeted him, "Come on, sit in! You 'n' Paul too proud to feed with poor folks? Afraid somebody might stick you for a bottle of Bevo, George? Strikes me you swells are getting awful darn exclusive!" He thundered, "You bet! We can't afford to have our reps ruined by being seen with you tightwads!" and guided Paul to one of the small tables beneath the musicians'-gallery. He felt guilty. At the Zenith Athletic Club, privacy was very bad form. But he wanted Paul to himself. That morning he had advocated lighter lunches and now he ordered nothing but English mutton chop, radishes, peas, deep-dish apple pie, a bit of cheese, and a pot of coffee with cream, adding, as he did invariably, "And uh--Oh, and you might give me an order of French fried potatoes." When the chop came he vigorously peppered it and salted it. He always peppered and salted his meat, and vigorously, before tasting it. Paul and he took up the spring-like quality of the spring, the virtues of the electric cigar-lighter, and the action of the New York State Assembly. It was not till Babbitt was thick and disconsolate with mutton grease that he flung out: "I wound up a nice little deal with Conrad Lyte this morning that put five hundred good round plunks in my pocket. Pretty nice--pretty nice! And yet--I don't know what's the matter with me to-day. Maybe it's an attack of spring fever, or staying up too late at Verg Gunch's, or maybe it's just the winter's work piling up, but I've felt kind of down in the mouth all day long. Course I wouldn't beef about it to the fellows at the Roughnecks' Table there, but you--Ever feel that way, Paul? Kind of comes over me: here I've pretty much done all the things I ought to; supported my family, and got a good house and a six-cylinder car, and built up a nice little business, and I haven't any vices 'specially, except smoking--and I'm practically cutting that out, by the way. And I belong to the church, and play enough golf to keep in trim, and I only associate with good decent fellows. And yet, even so, I don't know that I'm entirely satisfied!" It was drawled out, broken by shouts from the neighboring tables, by mechanical love-making to the waitress, by stertorous grunts as the coffee filled him with dizziness and indigestion. He was apologetic and doubtful, and it was Paul, with his thin voice, who pierced the fog: "Good Lord, George, you don't suppose it's any novelty to me to find that we hustlers, that think we're so all-fired successful, aren't getting much out of it? You look as if you expected me to report you as seditious! You know what my own life's been." "I know, old man." "I ought to have been a fiddler, and I'm a pedler of tar-roofing! And Zilla--Oh, I don't want to squeal, but you know as well as I do about how inspiring a wife she is.... Typical instance last evening: We went to the movies. There was a big crowd waiting in the lobby, us at the tail-end. She began to push right through it with her 'Sir, how dare you?' manner--Honestly, sometimes when I look at her and see how she's always so made up and stinking of perfume and looking for trouble and kind of always yelping, 'I tell yuh I'm a lady, damn yuh!'--why, I want to kill her! Well, she keeps elbowing through the crowd, me after her, feeling good and ashamed, till she's almost up to the velvet rope and ready to be the next let in. But there was a little squirt of a man there--probably been waiting half an hour--I kind of admired the little cuss--and he turns on Zilla and says, perfectly polite, 'Madam, why are you trying to push past me?' And she simply--God, I was so ashamed!--she rips out at him, 'You're no gentleman,' and she drags me into it and hollers, 'Paul, this person insulted me!' and the poor skate he got ready to fight. "I made out I hadn't heard them--sure! same as you wouldn't hear a boiler-factory!--and I tried to look away--I can tell you exactly how every tile looks in the ceiling of that lobby; there's one with brown spots on it like the face of the devil--and all the time the people there--they were packed in like sardines--they kept making remarks about us, and Zilla went right on talking about the little chap, and screeching that 'folks like him oughtn't to be admitted in a place that's SUPPOSED to be for ladies and gentlemen,' and 'Paul, will you kindly call the manager, so I can report this dirty rat?' and--Oof! Maybe I wasn't glad when I could sneak inside and hide in the dark! "After twenty-four years of that kind of thing, you don't expect me to fall down and foam at the mouth when you hint that this sweet, clean, respectable, moral life isn't all it's cracked up to be, do you? I can't even talk about it, except to you, because anybody else would think I was yellow. Maybe I am. Don't care any longer.... Gosh, you've had to stand a lot of whining from me, first and last, Georgie!" "Rats, now, Paul, you've never really what you could call whined. Sometimes--I'm always blowing to Myra and the kids about what a whale of a realtor I am, and yet sometimes I get a sneaking idea I'm not such a Pierpont Morgan as I let on to be. But if I ever do help by jollying you along, old Paulski, I guess maybe Saint Pete may let me in after all!" "Yuh, you're an old blow-hard, Georgie, you cheerful cut-throat, but you've certainly kept me going." "Why don't you divorce Zilla?" "Why don't I! If I only could! If she'd just give me the chance! You couldn't hire her to divorce me, no, nor desert me. She's too fond of her three squares and a few pounds of nut-center chocolates in between. If she'd only be what they call unfaithful to me! George, I don't want to be too much of a stinker; back in college I'd 've thought a man who could say that ought to be shot at sunrise. But honestly, I'd be tickled to death if she'd really go making love with somebody. Fat chance! Of course she'll flirt with anything--you know how she holds hands and laughs--that laugh--that horrible brassy laugh--the way she yaps, 'You naughty man, you better be careful or my big husband will be after you!'--and the guy looking me over and thinking, 'Why, you cute little thing, you run away now or I'll spank you!' And she'll let him go just far enough so she gets some excitement out of it and then she'll begin to do the injured innocent and have a beautiful time wailing, 'I didn't think you were that kind of a person.' They talk about these demi-vierges in stories--" "These WHATS?" "--but the wise, hard, corseted, old married women like Zilla are worse than any bobbed-haired girl that ever went boldly out into this-here storm of life--and kept her umbrella slid up her sleeve! But rats, you know what Zilla is. How she nags--nags--nags. How she wants everything I can buy her, and a lot that I can't, and how absolutely unreasonable she is, and when I get sore and try to have it out with her she plays the Perfect Lady so well that even I get fooled and get all tangled up in a lot of 'Why did you say's' and 'I didn't mean's.' I'll tell you, Georgie: You know my tastes are pretty fairly simple--in the matter of food, at least. Course, as you're always complaining, I do like decent cigars--not those Flor de Cabagos you're smoking--" "That's all right now! That's a good two-for. By the way, Paul, did I tell you I decided to practically cut out smok--" "Yes you--At the same time, if I can't get what I like, why, I can do without it. I don't mind sitting down to burnt steak, with canned peaches and store cake for a thrilling little dessert afterwards, but I do draw the line at having to sympathize with Zilla because she's so rotten bad-tempered that the cook has quit, and she's been so busy sitting in a dirty lace negligee all afternoon, reading about some brave manly Western hero, that she hasn't had time to do any cooking. You're always talking about 'morals'--meaning monogamy, I suppose. You've been the rock of ages to me, all right, but you're essentially a simp. You--" "Where d' you get that 'simp,' little man? Let me tell you--" "--love to look earnest and inform the world that it's the 'duty of responsible business men to be strictly moral, as an example to the community.' In fact you're so earnest about morality, old Georgie, that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath. All right, you can--" "Wait, wait now! What's--" "--talk about morals all you want to, old thing, but believe me, if it hadn't been for you and an occasional evening playing the violin to Terrill O'Farrell's 'cello, and three or four darling girls that let me forget this beastly joke they call 'respectable life,' I'd 've killed myself years ago. "And business! The roofing business! Roofs for cowsheds! Oh, I don't mean I haven't had a lot of fun out of the Game; out of putting it over on the labor unions, and seeing a big check coming in, and the business increasing. But what's the use of it? You know, my business isn't distributing roofing--it's principally keeping my competitors from distributing roofing. Same with you. All we do is cut each other's throats and make the public pay for it!" "Look here now, Paul! You're pretty darn near talking socialism!" "Oh yes, of course I don't really exactly mean that--I s'pose. Course--competition--brings out the best--survival of the fittest--but--But I mean: Take all these fellows we know, the kind right here in the club now, that seem to be perfectly content with their home-life and their businesses, and that boost Zenith and the Chamber of Commerce and holler for a million population. I bet if you could cut into their heads you'd find that one-third of 'em are sure-enough satisfied with their wives and kids and friends and their offices; and one-third feel kind of restless but won't admit it; and one-third are miserable and know it. They hate the whole peppy, boosting, go-ahead game, and they're bored by their wives and think their families are fools--at least when they come to forty or forty-five they're bored--and they hate business, and they'd go--Why do you suppose there's so many 'mysterious' suicides? Why do you suppose so many Substantial Citizens jumped right into the war? Think it was all patriotism?" Babbitt snorted, "What do you expect? Think we were sent into the world to have a soft time and--what is it?--'float on flowery beds of ease'? Think Man was just made to be happy?" "Why not? Though I've never discovered anybody that knew what the deuce Man really was made for!" "Well we know--not just in the Bible alone, but it stands to reason--a man who doesn't buckle down and do his duty, even if it does bore him sometimes, is nothing but a--well, he's simply a weakling. Mollycoddle, in fact! And what do you advocate? Come down to cases! If a man is bored by his wife, do you seriously mean he has a right to chuck her and take a sneak, or even kill himself?" "Good Lord, I don't know what 'rights' a man has! And I don't know the solution of boredom. If I did, I'd be the one philosopher that had the cure for living. But I do know that about ten times as many people find their lives dull, and unnecessarily dull, as ever admit it; and I do believe that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead of being nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice and patient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we might make life more fun." They drifted into a maze of speculation. Babbitt was elephantishly uneasy. Paul was bold, but not quite sure about what he was being bold. Now and then Babbitt suddenly agreed with Paul in an admission which contradicted all his defense of duty and Christian patience, and at each admission he had a curious reckless joy. He said at last: "Look here, old Paul, you do a lot of talking about kicking things in the face, but you never kick. Why don't you?" "Nobody does. Habit too strong. But--Georgie, I've been thinking of one mild bat--oh, don't worry, old pillar of monogamy; it's highly proper. It seems to be settled now, isn't it--though of course Zilla keeps rooting for a nice expensive vacation in New York and Atlantic City, with the bright lights and the bootlegged cocktails and a bunch of lounge-lizards to dance with--but the Babbitts and the Rieslings are sure-enough going to Lake Sunasquam, aren't we? Why couldn't you and I make some excuse--say business in New York--and get up to Maine four or five days before they do, and just loaf by ourselves and smoke and cuss and be natural?" "Great! Great idea!" Babbitt admired. Not for fourteen years had he taken a holiday without his wife, and neither of them quite believed they could commit this audacity. Many members of the Athletic Club did go camping without their wives, but they were officially dedicated to fishing and hunting, whereas the sacred and unchangeable sports of Babbitt and Paul Riesling were golfing, motoring, and bridge. For either the fishermen or the golfers to have changed their habits would have been an infraction of their self-imposed discipline which would have shocked all right-thinking and regularized citizens. Babbitt blustered, "Why don't we just put our foot down and say, 'We're going on ahead of you, and that's all there is to it!' Nothing criminal in it. Simply say to Zilla--" "You don't say anything to Zilla simply. Why, Georgie, she's almost as much of a moralist as you are, and if I told her the truth she'd believe we were going to meet some dames in New York. And even Myra--she never nags you, the way Zilla does, but she'd worry. She'd say, 'Don't you WANT me to go to Maine with you? I shouldn't dream of going unless you wanted me;' and you'd give in to save her feelings. Oh, the devil! Let's have a shot at duck-pins." During the game of duck-pins, a juvenile form of bowling, Paul was silent. As they came down the steps of the club, not more than half an hour after the time at which Babbitt had sternly told Miss McGoun he would be back, Paul sighed, "Look here, old man, oughtn't to talked about Zilla way I did." "Rats, old man, it lets off steam." "Oh, I know! After spending all noon sneering at the conventional stuff, I'm conventional enough to be ashamed of saving my life by busting out with my fool troubles!" "Old Paul, your nerves are kind of on the bum. I'm going to take you away. I'm going to rig this thing. I'm going to have an important deal in New York and--and sure, of course!--I'll need you to advise me on the roof of the building! And the ole deal will fall through, and there'll be nothing for us but to go on ahead to Maine. I--Paul, when it comes right down to it, I don't care whether you bust loose or not. I do like having a rep for being one of the Bunch, but if you ever needed me I'd chuck it and come out for you every time! Not of course but what you're--course I don't mean you'd ever do anything that would put--that would put a decent position on the fritz but--See how I mean? I'm kind of a clumsy old codger, and I need your fine Eyetalian hand. We--Oh, hell, I can't stand here gassing all day! On the job! S' long! Don't take any wooden money, Paulibus! See you soon! S' long!" 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.

Als er das Büro zum Mittagessen verlässt, entscheidet Babbitt, dass er von nun an zu Fuß zum Athletic Club gehen wird. Gerade in diesem Moment wird ihm jedoch klar, dass es für ihn zu spät ist, dies jetzt zu tun. Als er zur Club fährt, hält er an, um einen elektrischen Zigarettenanzünder zu kaufen. Als er im Athletic Club ankommt, wo viele Männer abhängen und niemand jemals Sport treibt, trifft Babbitt auf eine Gruppe von Kerlen. Es ist ein echter Herrenclub: alle von ihnen haben etwas Geld und alle von ihnen necken sich gerne, wann immer sie können. Ein Typ namens Vergel Gunch macht Babbitt wegen seines Katers Probleme, obwohl Alkohol trinken illegal ist. Dieses Buch spielt während der Prohibition, obwohl es nicht die lärmende, vergnügliche Art von Prohibition darstellt, die wir gewohnt sind zu sehen. Babbitt fragt einen Kumpel von ihm, ob er zu viel für seinen elektrischen Zigarettenanzünder bezahlt hat, aber sein Kumpel sagt ihm, dass er sich keine Sorgen machen soll. Dies wird mit einigen grausamen Bemerkungen über Juden beantwortet, obwohl der Sprecher Sid Finklestein heißt und wahrscheinlich jüdische Wurzeln hat. In diesem Moment sieht Babbitt Paul in den Club kommen und rennt hin, um ihn zu begrüßen. Einige der Tische bitten sie, sich ihnen anzuschließen, aber Babbitt will Paul ganz für sich alleine haben. Babbitt beschließt, sich bei Paul darüber zu offenbaren, wie er sich in letzter Zeit niedergeschlagen fühlt und nicht weiß warum. Er hat das Gefühl, dass er alles getan hat, was er mit seinem Leben tun sollte, und trotzdem fühlt er sich nicht besser. Paul sagt natürlich versteht er. Babbitt weiß, dass sein Freund immer Geiger sein wollte und dass er seine Frau, Zilla, nicht ausstehen kann. Das führt natürlich zu einer langen Rede darüber, wie brutal es für Paul ist, mit Zilla verheiratet zu sein, die ihn wegen jeder Kleinigkeit fertigmacht. Er sagt sogar, dass er sie umbringen würde, wenn er den Mut dazu hätte. Babbitt schlägt eine Scheidung vor, aber Paul weiß, dass Zilla ihn nie gehen lassen wird. Sie quält ihn zu sehr gerne. Während Paul weiter beschwert, fängt er an, Babbitt dafür zu kritisieren, immer so auszusehen, als wäre er ein aufrechter Bürger. Paul sagt jedoch, dass er weiß, dass Babbitt tief im Inneren sehr unmoralische Gedanken haben muss. Babbitt versucht dagegenzuhalten, aber Paul schimpft weiter über ihn. Als Paul schließlich anfängt, über Geschäftsleute im Allgemeinen herzuziehen, beschuldigt Babbitt ihn, ein Sozialist zu sein. Paul zieht sofort zurück, weil dies zu dieser Zeit ein wirklich schmutziges Wort in der amerikanischen Kultur ist. Babbitt argumentiert, dass ein Mann sich zusammenreißen und das tun sollte, was er tun soll, ob es ihm gefällt oder nicht. Andernfalls ist er nur ein Schwächling. Natürlich macht das Gespräch Babbitt immer noch sehr unbehaglich. Paul schlägt schließlich die Idee vor, dass Babbitt und er nach Maine fahren, um für sich zu sein. Babbitt findet die Idee großartig. Paul und Babbitt wissen jedoch beide, dass ihre Frauen misstrauisch werden, wenn die Männer vorschlagen, alleine in den Urlaub zu gehen. Es sieht hoffnungslos aus, aber Babbitt besteht darauf, dass er einen Weg finden wird, alleine mit Paul in den Urlaub zu fahren.

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: A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of Rum Alley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil's Row who were circling madly about the heap and pelting at him. His infantile countenance was livid with fury. His small body was writhing in the delivery of great, crimson oaths. "Run, Jimmie, run! Dey'll get yehs," screamed a retreating Rum Alley child. "Naw," responded Jimmie with a valiant roar, "dese micks can't make me run." Howls of renewed wrath went up from Devil's Row throats. Tattered gamins on the right made a furious assault on the gravel heap. On their small, convulsed faces there shone the grins of true assassins. As they charged, they threw stones and cursed in shrill chorus. The little champion of Rum Alley stumbled precipitately down the other side. His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat was gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood was dripping from a cut in his head. His wan features wore a look of a tiny, insane demon. On the ground, children from Devil's Row closed in on their antagonist. He crooked his left arm defensively about his head and fought with cursing fury. The little boys ran to and fro, dodging, hurling stones and swearing in barbaric trebles. From a window of an apartment house that upreared its form from amid squat, ignorant stables, there leaned a curious woman. Some laborers, unloading a scow at a dock at the river, paused for a moment and regarded the fight. The engineer of a passive tugboat hung lazily to a railing and watched. Over on the Island, a worm of yellow convicts came from the shadow of a building and crawled slowly along the river's bank. A stone had smashed into Jimmie's mouth. Blood was bubbling over his chin and down upon his ragged shirt. Tears made furrows on his dirt-stained cheeks. His thin legs had begun to tremble and turn weak, causing his small body to reel. His roaring curses of the first part of the fight had changed to a blasphemous chatter. In the yells of the whirling mob of Devil's Row children there were notes of joy like songs of triumphant savagery. The little boys seemed to leer gloatingly at the blood upon the other child's face. Down the avenue came boastfully sauntering a lad of sixteen years, although the chronic sneer of an ideal manhood already sat upon his lips. His hat was tipped with an air of challenge over his eye. Between his teeth, a cigar stump was tilted at the angle of defiance. He walked with a certain swing of the shoulders which appalled the timid. He glanced over into the vacant lot in which the little raving boys from Devil's Row seethed about the shrieking and tearful child from Rum Alley. "Gee!" he murmured with interest. "A scrap. Gee!" He strode over to the cursing circle, swinging his shoulders in a manner which denoted that he held victory in his fists. He approached at the back of one of the most deeply engaged of the Devil's Row children. "Ah, what deh hell," he said, and smote the deeply-engaged one on the back of the head. The little boy fell to the ground and gave a hoarse, tremendous howl. He scrambled to his feet, and perceiving, evidently, the size of his assailant, ran quickly off, shouting alarms. The entire Devil's Row party followed him. They came to a stand a short distance away and yelled taunting oaths at the boy with the chronic sneer. The latter, momentarily, paid no attention to them. "What deh hell, Jimmie?" he asked of the small champion. Jimmie wiped his blood-wet features with his sleeve. "Well, it was dis way, Pete, see! I was goin' teh lick dat Riley kid and dey all pitched on me." Some Rum Alley children now came forward. The party stood for a moment exchanging vainglorious remarks with Devil's Row. A few stones were thrown at long distances, and words of challenge passed between small warriors. Then the Rum Alley contingent turned slowly in the direction of their home street. They began to give, each to each, distorted versions of the fight. Causes of retreat in particular cases were magnified. Blows dealt in the fight were enlarged to catapultian power, and stones thrown were alleged to have hurtled with infinite accuracy. Valor grew strong again, and the little boys began to swear with great spirit. "Ah, we blokies kin lick deh hull damn Row," said a child, swaggering. Little Jimmie was striving to stanch the flow of blood from his cut lips. Scowling, he turned upon the speaker. "Ah, where deh hell was yeh when I was doin' all deh fightin?" he demanded. "Youse kids makes me tired." "Ah, go ahn," replied the other argumentatively. Jimmie replied with heavy contempt. "Ah, youse can't fight, Blue Billie! I kin lick yeh wid one han'." "Ah, go ahn," replied Billie again. "Ah," said Jimmie threateningly. "Ah," said the other in the same tone. They struck at each other, clinched, and rolled over on the cobble stones. "Smash 'im, Jimmie, kick deh damn guts out of 'im," yelled Pete, the lad with the chronic sneer, in tones of delight. The small combatants pounded and kicked, scratched and tore. They began to weep and their curses struggled in their throats with sobs. The other little boys clasped their hands and wriggled their legs in excitement. They formed a bobbing circle about the pair. A tiny spectator was suddenly agitated. "Cheese it, Jimmie, cheese it! Here comes yer fader," he yelled. The circle of little boys instantly parted. They drew away and waited in ecstatic awe for that which was about to happen. The two little boys fighting in the modes of four thousand years ago, did not hear the warning. Up the avenue there plodded slowly a man with sullen eyes. He was carrying a dinner pail and smoking an apple-wood pipe. As he neared the spot where the little boys strove, he regarded them listlessly. But suddenly he roared an oath and advanced upon the rolling fighters. "Here, you Jim, git up, now, while I belt yer life out, you damned disorderly brat." He began to kick into the chaotic mass on the ground. The boy Billie felt a heavy boot strike his head. He made a furious effort and disentangled himself from Jimmie. He tottered away, damning. Jimmie arose painfully from the ground and confronting his father, began to curse him. His parent kicked him. "Come home, now," he cried, "an' stop yer jawin', er I'll lam the everlasting head off yehs." They departed. The man paced placidly along with the apple-wood emblem of serenity between his teeth. The boy followed a dozen feet in the rear. He swore luridly, for he felt that it was degradation for one who aimed to be some vague soldier, or a man of blood with a sort of sublime license, to be taken home by a father. 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.

KAPITELZUSAMMENFASSUNGEN MIT ANMERKUNGEN Kapitel 1 Ein kleiner Junge steht auf einem Haufen Schotter und versucht die Ehre von Rum Alley gegen eine Gruppe Jungen von Devils Row zu verteidigen. Er schreit ihnen Flüche hinterher. Einer seiner Freunde aus Rum Alley ruft ihm zu, er solle weglaufen und sich retten, aber er weigert sich wegzulaufen. Er nennt die Jungen von Devils Row "Micks", eine rassistische Bezeichnung für Iren, und sie schreien ihn an und greifen ihn an. Er fällt auf die andere Seite des Schotterhaufens und wird von einer Gruppe Jungen überhäuft. Er ist am ganzen Körper blau und hat eine tiefe Schnittwunde am Kopf. Die anderen Jungen umringen ihn und er verbirgt seinen Kopf mit einem Arm, während er mit dem anderen zuschlägt. Die Jungen rennen herum und werfen mit Steinen nach ihm und schreien Beleidigungen. Um sie herum schauen halbherzig Erwachsene zu. Eine Frau lehnt aus dem Fenster einer nahegelegenen Wohnung, einige Arbeiter halten an, um ein Boot zu beobachten, ein Ingenieur von einem vorbeifahrenden Schleppboot lehnt sich über das Geländer und schaut zu, und eine Gruppe Sträflinge kommt über den Fluss, um zuzuschauen. Einer der Steine trifft Jimmies Mund und verursacht einen dicken Blutfluss. Er schreit und weint gleichzeitig. Die Jungen um ihn herum schreien vor Freude wie Siegesgesänge wilder Bestialität. Aus der Ferne nähert sich ein sechzehnjähriger Junge mit einem chronischen Grinsen im Gesicht dem Streit. Er schlendert herüber und fängt an, auf die Jungen einzutreten, die auf Jimmie sitzen. Sie lassen ab und rennen dann als Gruppe weg. Er sagt "Was zum Teufel, Jimmie?" Jimmie erklärt Pete, dass er geplant hatte, gegen den Riley-Jungen zu kämpfen, und dann haben sich alle gegen ihn verschworen. Jetzt kommen die Kinder aus Rum Alley heraus und umringen Jimmie und Pete. Sie beleidigen die Kinder von Devils Row, die in sicherem Abstand stehen. Sie beginnen, den Kampf in prahlerischer und verzerrter Weise zu diskutieren. Jimmie will wissen, wo sie alle waren, als er sie gebraucht hat, um ihn zu unterstützen. Plötzlich gerät er mit einem der anderen Jungen, die anstatt mit ihm zu kämpfen wegliefen, in einen Kampf. Pete spornt ihn an und ruft "Schlag ihn, Jimmie, tret ihm die verflixten Gedärme raus." Die anderen Jungen stehen aufgeregt da und beobachten den Kampf. Plötzlich ruft einer von ihnen Jimmie zu, dass sein Vater kommt. Bevor sie aufstehen können, kommt ein "Mann mit finsteren Augen" auf sie zu und beginnt wütend auf die kämpfenden Jungen einzutreten. Er befiehlt Jimmie aufzustehen, bevor er ihn umbringt. Jimmie steht auf und sein Vater tritt ihn. Er sagt ihm, er solle jetzt nach Hause kommen. Sie gehen weg. Jimmie ist peinlich berührt, von seinem Vater nach Hause begleitet zu 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: CHAPTER IV I "THE Clarks have invited some folks to their house to meet us, tonight," said Kennicott, as he unpacked his suit-case. "Oh, that is nice of them!" "You bet. I told you you'd like 'em. Squarest people on earth. Uh, Carrie----Would you mind if I sneaked down to the office for an hour, just to see how things are?" "Why, no. Of course not. I know you're keen to get back to work." "Sure you don't mind?" "Not a bit. Out of my way. Let me unpack." But the advocate of freedom in marriage was as much disappointed as a drooping bride at the alacrity with which he took that freedom and escaped to the world of men's affairs. She gazed about their bedroom, and its full dismalness crawled over her: the awkward knuckly L-shape of it; the black walnut bed with apples and spotty pears carved on the headboard; the imitation maple bureau, with pink-daubed scent-bottles and a petticoated pin-cushion on a marble slab uncomfortably like a gravestone; the plain pine washstand and the garlanded water-pitcher and bowl. The scent was of horsehair and plush and Florida Water. "How could people ever live with things like this?" she shuddered. She saw the furniture as a circle of elderly judges, condemning her to death by smothering. The tottering brocade chair squeaked, "Choke her--choke her--smother her." The old linen smelled of the tomb. She was alone in this house, this strange still house, among the shadows of dead thoughts and haunting repressions. "I hate it! I hate it!" she panted. "Why did I ever----" She remembered that Kennicott's mother had brought these family relics from the old home in Lac-qui-Meurt. "Stop it! They're perfectly comfortable things. They're--comfortable. Besides----Oh, they're horrible! We'll change them, right away." Then, "But of course he HAS to see how things are at the office----" She made a pretense of busying herself with unpacking. The chintz-lined, silver-fitted bag which had seemed so desirable a luxury in St. Paul was an extravagant vanity here. The daring black chemise of frail chiffon and lace was a hussy at which the deep-bosomed bed stiffened in disgust, and she hurled it into a bureau drawer, hid it beneath a sensible linen blouse. She gave up unpacking. She went to the window, with a purely literary thought of village charm--hollyhocks and lanes and apple-cheeked cottagers. What she saw was the side of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church--a plain clapboard wall of a sour liver color; the ash-pile back of the church; an unpainted stable; and an alley in which a Ford delivery-wagon had been stranded. This was the terraced garden below her boudoir; this was to be her scenery for---- "I mustn't! I mustn't! I'm nervous this afternoon. Am I sick? . . . Good Lord, I hope it isn't that! Not now! How people lie! How these stories lie! They say the bride is always so blushing and proud and happy when she finds that out, but--I'd hate it! I'd be scared to death! Some day but----Please, dear nebulous Lord, not now! Bearded sniffy old men sitting and demanding that we bear children. If THEY had to bear them----! I wish they did have to! Not now! Not till I've got hold of this job of liking the ash-pile out there! . . . I must shut up. I'm mildly insane. I'm going out for a walk. I'll see the town by myself. My first view of the empire I'm going to conquer!" She fled from the house. She stared with seriousness at every concrete crossing, every hitching-post, every rake for leaves; and to each house she devoted all her speculation. What would they come to mean? How would they look six months from now? In which of them would she be dining? Which of these people whom she passed, now mere arrangements of hair and clothes, would turn into intimates, loved or dreaded, different from all the other people in the world? As she came into the small business-section she inspected a broad-beamed grocer in an alpaca coat who was bending over the apples and celery on a slanted platform in front of his store. Would she ever talk to him? What would he say if she stopped and stated, "I am Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. Some day I hope to confide that a heap of extremely dubious pumpkins as a window-display doesn't exhilarate me much." (The grocer was Mr. Frederick F. Ludelmeyer, whose market is at the corner of Main Street and Lincoln Avenue. In supposing that only she was observant Carol was ignorant, misled by the indifference of cities. She fancied that she was slipping through the streets invisible; but when she had passed, Mr. Ludelmeyer puffed into the store and coughed at his clerk, "I seen a young woman, she come along the side street. I bet she iss Doc Kennicott's new bride, good-looker, nice legs, but she wore a hell of a plain suit, no style, I wonder will she pay cash, I bet she goes to Howland & Gould's more as she does here, what you done with the poster for Fluffed Oats?") II When Carol had walked for thirty-two minutes she had completely covered the town, east and west, north and south; and she stood at the corner of Main Street and Washington Avenue and despaired. Main Street with its two-story brick shops, its story-and-a-half wooden residences, its muddy expanse from concrete walk to walk, its huddle of Fords and lumber-wagons, was too small to absorb her. The broad, straight, unenticing gashes of the streets let in the grasping prairie on every side. She realized the vastness and the emptiness of the land. The skeleton iron windmill on the farm a few blocks away, at the north end of Main Street, was like the ribs of a dead cow. She thought of the coming of the Northern winter, when the unprotected houses would crouch together in terror of storms galloping out of that wild waste. They were so small and weak, the little brown houses. They were shelters for sparrows, not homes for warm laughing people. She told herself that down the street the leaves were a splendor. The maples were orange; the oaks a solid tint of raspberry. And the lawns had been nursed with love. But the thought would not hold. At best the trees resembled a thinned woodlot. There was no park to rest the eyes. And since not Gopher Prairie but Wakamin was the county-seat, there was no court-house with its grounds. She glanced through the fly-specked windows of the most pretentious building in sight, the one place which welcomed strangers and determined their opinion of the charm and luxury of Gopher Prairie--the Minniemashie House. It was a tall lean shabby structure, three stories of yellow-streaked wood, the corners covered with sanded pine slabs purporting to symbolize stone. In the hotel office she could see a stretch of bare unclean floor, a line of rickety chairs with brass cuspidors between, a writing-desk with advertisements in mother-of-pearl letters upon the glass-covered back. The dining-room beyond was a jungle of stained table-cloths and catsup bottles. She looked no more at the Minniemashie House. A man in cuffless shirt-sleeves with pink arm-garters, wearing a linen collar but no tie, yawned his way from Dyer's Drug Store across to the hotel. He leaned against the wall, scratched a while, sighed, and in a bored way gossiped with a man tilted back in a chair. A lumber-wagon, its long green box filled with large spools of barbed-wire fencing, creaked down the block. A Ford, in reverse, sounded as though it were shaking to pieces, then recovered and rattled away. In the Greek candy-store was the whine of a peanut-roaster, and the oily smell of nuts. There was no other sound nor sign of life. She wanted to run, fleeing from the encroaching prairie, demanding the security of a great city. Her dreams of creating a beautiful town were ludicrous. Oozing out from every drab wall, she felt a forbidding spirit which she could never conquer. She trailed down the street on one side, back on the other, glancing into the cross streets. It was a private Seeing Main Street tour. She was within ten minutes beholding not only the heart of a place called Gopher Prairie, but ten thousand towns from Albany to San Diego: Dyer's Drug Store, a corner building of regular and unreal blocks of artificial stone. Inside the store, a greasy marble soda-fountain with an electric lamp of red and green and curdled-yellow mosaic shade. Pawed-over heaps of tooth-brushes and combs and packages of shaving-soap. Shelves of soap-cartons, teething-rings, garden-seeds, and patent medicines in yellow "packages-nostrums" for consumption, for "women's diseases"--notorious mixtures of opium and alcohol, in the very shop to which her husband sent patients for the filling of prescriptions. From a second-story window the sign "W. P. Kennicott, Phys. & Surgeon," gilt on black sand. A small wooden motion-picture theater called "The Rosebud Movie Palace." Lithographs announcing a film called "Fatty in Love." Howland & Gould's Grocery. In the display window, black, overripe bananas and lettuce on which a cat was sleeping. Shelves lined with red crepe paper which was now faded and torn and concentrically spotted. Flat against the wall of the second story the signs of lodges--the Knights of Pythias, the Maccabees, the Woodmen, the Masons. Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market--a reek of blood. A jewelry shop with tinny-looking wrist-watches for women. In front of it, at the curb, a huge wooden clock which did not go. A fly-buzzing saloon with a brilliant gold and enamel whisky sign across the front. Other saloons down the block. From them a stink of stale beer, and thick voices bellowing pidgin German or trolling out dirty songs--vice gone feeble and unenterprising and dull--the delicacy of a mining-camp minus its vigor. In front of the saloons, farmwives sitting on the seats of wagons, waiting for their husbands to become drunk and ready to start home. A tobacco shop called "The Smoke House," filled with young men shaking dice for cigarettes. Racks of magazines, and pictures of coy fat prostitutes in striped bathing-suits. A clothing store with a display of "ox-blood-shade Oxfords with bull-dog toes." Suits which looked worn and glossless while they were still new, flabbily draped on dummies like corpses with painted cheeks. The Bon Ton Store--Haydock & Simons'--the largest shop in town. The first-story front of clear glass, the plates cleverly bound at the edges with brass. The second story of pleasant tapestry brick. One window of excellent clothes for men, interspersed with collars of floral pique which showed mauve daisies on a saffron ground. Newness and an obvious notion of neatness and service. Haydock & Simons. Haydock. She had met a Haydock at the station; Harry Haydock; an active person of thirty-five. He seemed great to her, now, and very like a saint. His shop was clean! Axel Egge's General Store, frequented by Scandinavian farmers. In the shallow dark window-space heaps of sleazy sateens, badly woven galateas, canvas shoes designed for women with bulging ankles, steel and red glass buttons upon cards with broken edges, a cottony blanket, a granite-ware frying-pan reposing on a sun-faded crepe blouse. Sam Clark's Hardware Store. An air of frankly metallic enterprise. Guns and churns and barrels of nails and beautiful shiny butcher knives. Chester Dashaway's House Furnishing Emporium. A vista of heavy oak rockers with leather seats, asleep in a dismal row. Billy's Lunch. Thick handleless cups on the wet oilcloth-covered counter. An odor of onions and the smoke of hot lard. In the doorway a young man audibly sucking a toothpick. The warehouse of the buyer of cream and potatoes. The sour smell of a dairy. The Ford Garage and the Buick Garage, competent one-story brick and cement buildings opposite each other. Old and new cars on grease-blackened concrete floors. Tire advertisements. The roaring of a tested motor; a racket which beat at the nerves. Surly young men in khaki union-overalls. The most energetic and vital places in town. A large warehouse for agricultural implements. An impressive barricade of green and gold wheels, of shafts and sulky seats, belonging to machinery of which Carol knew nothing--potato-planters, manure-spreaders, silage-cutters, disk-harrows, breaking-plows. A feed store, its windows opaque with the dust of bran, a patent medicine advertisement painted on its roof. Ye Art Shoppe, Prop. Mrs. Mary Ellen Wilks, Christian Science Library open daily free. A touching fumble at beauty. A one-room shanty of boards recently covered with rough stucco. A show-window delicately rich in error: vases starting out to imitate tree-trunks but running off into blobs of gilt--an aluminum ash-tray labeled "Greetings from Gopher Prairie"--a Christian Science magazine--a stamped sofa-cushion portraying a large ribbon tied to a small poppy, the correct skeins of embroidery-silk lying on the pillow. Inside the shop, a glimpse of bad carbon prints of bad and famous pictures, shelves of phonograph records and camera films, wooden toys, and in the midst an anxious small woman sitting in a padded rocking chair. A barber shop and pool room. A man in shirt sleeves, presumably Del Snafflin the proprietor, shaving a man who had a large Adam's apple. Nat Hicks's Tailor Shop, on a side street off Main. A one-story building. A fashion-plate showing human pitchforks in garments which looked as hard as steel plate. On another side street a raw red-brick Catholic Church with a varnished yellow door. The post-office--merely a partition of glass and brass shutting off the rear of a mildewed room which must once have been a shop. A tilted writing-shelf against a wall rubbed black and scattered with official notices and army recruiting-posters. The damp, yellow-brick schoolbuilding in its cindery grounds. The State Bank, stucco masking wood. The Farmers' National Bank. An Ionic temple of marble. Pure, exquisite, solitary. A brass plate with "Ezra Stowbody, Pres't." A score of similar shops and establishments. Behind them and mixed with them, the houses, meek cottages or large, comfortable, soundly uninteresting symbols of prosperity. In all the town not one building save the Ionic bank which gave pleasure to Carol's eyes; not a dozen buildings which suggested that, in the fifty years of Gopher Prairie's existence, the citizens had realized that it was either desirable or possible to make this, their common home, amusing or attractive. It was not only the unsparing unapologetic ugliness and the rigid straightness which overwhelmed her. It was the planlessness, the flimsy temporariness of the buildings, their faded unpleasant colors. The street was cluttered with electric-light poles, telephone poles, gasoline pumps for motor cars, boxes of goods. Each man had built with the most valiant disregard of all the others. Between a large new "block" of two-story brick shops on one side, and the fire-brick Overland garage on the other side, was a one-story cottage turned into a millinery shop. The white temple of the Farmers' Bank was elbowed back by a grocery of glaring yellow brick. One store-building had a patchy galvanized iron cornice; the building beside it was crowned with battlements and pyramids of brick capped with blocks of red sandstone. She escaped from Main Street, fled home. She wouldn't have cared, she insisted, if the people had been comely. She had noted a young man loafing before a shop, one unwashed hand holding the cord of an awning; a middle-aged man who had a way of staring at women as though he had been married too long and too prosaically; an old farmer, solid, wholesome, but not clean--his face like a potato fresh from the earth. None of them had shaved for three days. "If they can't build shrines, out here on the prairie, surely there's nothing to prevent their buying safety-razors!" she raged. She fought herself: "I must be wrong. People do live here. It CAN'T be as ugly as--as I know it is! I must be wrong. But I can't do it. I can't go through with it." She came home too seriously worried for hysteria; and when she found Kennicott waiting for her, and exulting, "Have a walk? Well, like the town? Great lawns and trees, eh?" she was able to say, with a self-protective maturity new to her, "It's very interesting." III The train which brought Carol to Gopher Prairie also brought Miss Bea Sorenson. Miss Bea was a stalwart, corn-colored, laughing young woman, and she was bored by farm-work. She desired the excitements of city-life, and the way to enjoy city-life was, she had decided, to "go get a yob as hired girl in Gopher Prairie." She contentedly lugged her pasteboard telescope from the station to her cousin, Tina Malmquist, maid of all work in the residence of Mrs. Luke Dawson. "Vell, so you come to town," said Tina. "Ya. Ay get a yob," said Bea. "Vell. . . . You got a fella now?" "Ya. Yim Yacobson." "Vell. I'm glat to see you. How much you vant a veek?" "Sex dollar." "There ain't nobody pay dat. Vait! Dr. Kennicott, I t'ink he marry a girl from de Cities. Maybe she pay dat. Vell. You go take a valk." "Ya," said Bea. So it chanced that Carol Kennicott and Bea Sorenson were viewing Main Street at the same time. Bea had never before been in a town larger than Scandia Crossing, which has sixty-seven inhabitants. As she marched up the street she was meditating that it didn't hardly seem like it was possible there could be so many folks all in one place at the same time. My! It would take years to get acquainted with them all. And swell people, too! A fine big gentleman in a new pink shirt with a diamond, and not no washed-out blue denim working-shirt. A lovely lady in a longery dress (but it must be an awful hard dress to wash). And the stores! Not just three of them, like there were at Scandia Crossing, but more than four whole blocks! The Bon Ton Store--big as four barns--my! it would simply scare a person to go in there, with seven or eight clerks all looking at you. And the men's suits, on figures just like human. And Axel Egge's, like home, lots of Swedes and Norskes in there, and a card of dandy buttons, like rubies. A drug store with a soda fountain that was just huge, awful long, and all lovely marble; and on it there was a great big lamp with the biggest shade you ever saw--all different kinds colored glass stuck together; and the soda spouts, they were silver, and they came right out of the bottom of the lamp-stand! Behind the fountain there were glass shelves, and bottles of new kinds of soft drinks, that nobody ever heard of. Suppose a fella took you THERE! A hotel, awful high, higher than Oscar Tollefson's new red barn; three stories, one right on top of another; you had to stick your head back to look clear up to the top. There was a swell traveling man in there--probably been to Chicago, lots of times. Oh, the dandiest people to know here! There was a lady going by, you wouldn't hardly say she was any older than Bea herself; she wore a dandy new gray suit and black pumps. She almost looked like she was looking over the town, too. But you couldn't tell what she thought. Bea would like to be that way--kind of quiet, so nobody would get fresh. Kind of--oh, elegant. A Lutheran Church. Here in the city there'd be lovely sermons, and church twice on Sunday, EVERY Sunday! And a movie show! A regular theater, just for movies. With the sign "Change of bill every evening." Pictures every evening! There were movies in Scandia Crossing, but only once every two weeks, and it took the Sorensons an hour to drive in--papa was such a tightwad he wouldn't get a Ford. But here she could put on her hat any evening, and in three minutes' walk be to the movies, and see lovely fellows in dress-suits and Bill Hart and everything! How could they have so many stores? Why! There was one just for tobacco alone, and one (a lovely one--the Art Shoppy it was) for pictures and vases and stuff, with oh, the dandiest vase made so it looked just like a tree trunk! Bea stood on the corner of Main Street and Washington Avenue. The roar of the city began to frighten her. There were five automobiles on the street all at the same time--and one of 'em was a great big car that must of cost two thousand dollars--and the 'bus was starting for a train with five elegant-dressed fellows, and a man was pasting up red bills with lovely pictures of washing-machines on them, and the jeweler was laying out bracelets and wrist-watches and EVERYTHING on real velvet. What did she care if she got six dollars a week? Or two! It was worth while working for nothing, to be allowed to stay here. And think how it would be in the evening, all lighted up--and not with no lamps, but with electrics! And maybe a gentleman friend taking you to the movies and buying you a strawberry ice cream soda! Bea trudged back. "Vell? You lak it?" said Tina. "Ya. Ay lak it. Ay t'ink maybe Ay stay here," said Bea. IV The recently built house of Sam Clark, in which was given the party to welcome Carol, was one of the largest in Gopher Prairie. It had a clean sweep of clapboards, a solid squareness, a small tower, and a large screened porch. Inside, it was as shiny, as hard, and as cheerful as a new oak upright piano. Carol looked imploringly at Sam Clark as he rolled to the door and shouted, "Welcome, little lady! The keys of the city are yourn!" Beyond him, in the hallway and the living-room, sitting in a vast prim circle as though they were attending a funeral, she saw the guests. They were WAITING so! They were waiting for her! The determination to be all one pretty flowerlet of appreciation leaked away. She begged of Sam, "I don't dare face them! They expect so much. They'll swallow me in one mouthful--glump!--like that!" "Why, sister, they're going to love you--same as I would if I didn't think the doc here would beat me up!" "B-but----I don't dare! Faces to the right of me, faces in front of me, volley and wonder!" She sounded hysterical to herself; she fancied that to Sam Clark she sounded insane. But he chuckled, "Now you just cuddle under Sam's wing, and if anybody rubbers at you too long, I'll shoo 'em off. Here we go! Watch my smoke--Sam'l, the ladies' delight and the bridegrooms' terror!" His arm about her, he led her in and bawled, "Ladies and worser halves, the bride! We won't introduce her round yet, because she'll never get your bum names straight anyway. Now bust up this star-chamber!" They tittered politely, but they did not move from the social security of their circle, and they did not cease staring. Carol had given creative energy to dressing for the event. Her hair was demure, low on her forehead with a parting and a coiled braid. Now she wished that she had piled it high. Her frock was an ingenue slip of lawn, with a wide gold sash and a low square neck, which gave a suggestion of throat and molded shoulders. But as they looked her over she was certain that it was all wrong. She wished alternately that she had worn a spinsterish high-necked dress, and that she had dared to shock them with a violent brick-red scarf which she had bought in Chicago. She was led about the circle. Her voice mechanically produced safe remarks: "Oh, I'm sure I'm going to like it here ever so much," and "Yes, we did have the best time in Colorado--mountains," and "Yes, I lived in St. Paul several years. Euclid P. Tinker? No, I don't REMEMBER meeting him, but I'm pretty sure I've heard of him." Kennicott took her aside and whispered, "Now I'll introduce you to them, one at a time." "Tell me about them first." "Well, the nice-looking couple over there are Harry Haydock and his wife, Juanita. Harry's dad owns most of the Bon Ton, but it's Harry who runs it and gives it the pep. He's a hustler. Next to him is Dave Dyer the druggist--you met him this afternoon--mighty good duck-shot. The tall husk beyond him is Jack Elder--Jackson Elder--owns the planing-mill, and the Minniemashie House, and quite a share in the Farmers' National Bank. Him and his wife are good sports--him and Sam and I go hunting together a lot. The old cheese there is Luke Dawson, the richest man in town. Next to him is Nat Hicks, the tailor." "Really? A tailor?" "Sure. Why not? Maybe we're slow, but we are democratic. I go hunting with Nat same as I do with Jack Elder." "I'm glad. I've never met a tailor socially. It must be charming to meet one and not have to think about what you owe him. And do you----Would you go hunting with your barber, too?" "No but----No use running this democracy thing into the ground. Besides, I've known Nat for years, and besides, he's a mighty good shot and----That's the way it is, see? Next to Nat is Chet Dashaway. Great fellow for chinning. He'll talk your arm off, about religion or politics or books or anything." Carol gazed with a polite approximation to interest at Mr. Dashaway, a tan person with a wide mouth. "Oh, I know! He's the furniture-store man!" She was much pleased with herself. "Yump, and he's the undertaker. You'll like him. Come shake hands with him." "Oh no, no! He doesn't--he doesn't do the embalming and all that--himself? I couldn't shake hands with an undertaker!" "Why not? You'd be proud to shake hands with a great surgeon, just after he'd been carving up people's bellies." She sought to regain her afternoon's calm of maturity. "Yes. You're right. I want--oh, my dear, do you know how much I want to like the people you like? I want to see people as they are." "Well, don't forget to see people as other folks see them as they are! They have the stuff. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here? Born and brought up here!" "Bresnahan?" "Yes--you know--president of the Velvet Motor Company of Boston, Mass.--make the Velvet Twelve--biggest automobile factory in New England." "I think I've heard of him." "Sure you have. Why, he's a millionaire several times over! Well, Perce comes back here for the black-bass fishing almost every summer, and he says if he could get away from business, he'd rather live here than in Boston or New York or any of those places. HE doesn't mind Chet's undertaking." "Please! I'll--I'll like everybody! I'll be the community sunbeam!" He led her to the Dawsons. Luke Dawson, lender of money on mortgages, owner of Northern cut-over land, was a hesitant man in unpressed soft gray clothes, with bulging eyes in a milky face. His wife had bleached cheeks, bleached hair, bleached voice, and a bleached manner. She wore her expensive green frock, with its passementeried bosom, bead tassels, and gaps between the buttons down the back, as though she had bought it second-hand and was afraid of meeting the former owner. They were shy. It was "Professor" George Edwin Mott, superintendent of schools, a Chinese mandarin turned brown, who held Carol's hand and made her welcome. When the Dawsons and Mr. Mott had stated that they were "pleased to meet her," there seemed to be nothing else to say, but the conversation went on automatically. "Do you like Gopher Prairie?" whimpered Mrs. Dawson. "Oh, I'm sure I'm going to be ever so happy." "There's so many nice people." Mrs. Dawson looked to Mr. Mott for social and intellectual aid. He lectured: "There's a fine class of people. I don't like some of these retired farmers who come here to spend their last days--especially the Germans. They hate to pay school-taxes. They hate to spend a cent. But the rest are a fine class of people. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here? Used to go to school right at the old building!" "I heard he did." "Yes. He's a prince. He and I went fishing together, last time he was here." The Dawsons and Mr. Mott teetered upon weary feet, and smiled at Carol with crystallized expressions. She went on: "Tell me, Mr. Mott: Have you ever tried any experiments with any of the new educational systems? The modern kindergarten methods or the Gary system?" "Oh. Those. Most of these would-be reformers are simply notoriety-seekers. I believe in manual training, but Latin and mathematics always will be the backbone of sound Americanism, no matter what these faddists advocate--heaven knows what they do want--knitting, I suppose, and classes in wiggling the ears!" The Dawsons smiled their appreciation of listening to a savant. Carol waited till Kennicott should rescue her. The rest of the party waited for the miracle of being amused. Harry and Juanita Haydock, Rita Simons and Dr. Terry Gould--the young smart set of Gopher Prairie. She was led to them. Juanita Haydock flung at her in a high, cackling, friendly voice: "Well, this is SO nice to have you here. We'll have some good parties--dances and everything. You'll have to join the Jolly Seventeen. We play bridge and we have a supper once a month. You play, of course?" "N-no, I don't." "Really? In St. Paul?" "I've always been such a book-worm." "We'll have to teach you. Bridge is half the fun of life." Juanita had become patronizing, and she glanced disrespectfully at Carol's golden sash, which she had previously admired. Harry Haydock said politely, "How do you think you're going to like the old burg?" "I'm sure I shall like it tremendously." "Best people on earth here. Great hustlers, too. Course I've had lots of chances to go live in Minneapolis, but we like it here. Real he-town. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here?" Carol perceived that she had been weakened in the biological struggle by disclosing her lack of bridge. Roused to nervous desire to regain her position she turned on Dr. Terry Gould, the young and pool-playing competitor of her husband. Her eyes coquetted with him while she gushed: "I'll learn bridge. But what I really love most is the outdoors. Can't we all get up a boating party, and fish, or whatever you do, and have a picnic supper afterwards?" "Now you're talking!" Dr. Gould affirmed. He looked rather too obviously at the cream-smooth slope of her shoulder. "Like fishing? Fishing is my middle name. I'll teach you bridge. Like cards at all?" "I used to be rather good at bezique." She knew that bezique was a game of cards--or a game of something else. Roulette, possibly. But her lie was a triumph. Juanita's handsome, high-colored, horsey face showed doubt. Harry stroked his nose and said humbly, "Bezique? Used to be great gambling game, wasn't it?" While others drifted to her group, Carol snatched up the conversation. She laughed and was frivolous and rather brittle. She could not distinguish their eyes. They were a blurry theater-audience before which she self-consciously enacted the comedy of being the Clever Little Bride of Doc Kennicott: "These-here celebrated Open Spaces, that's what I'm going out for. I'll never read anything but the sporting-page again. Will converted me on our Colorado trip. There were so many mousey tourists who were afraid to get out of the motor 'bus that I decided to be Annie Oakley, the Wild Western Wampire, and I bought oh! a vociferous skirt which revealed my perfectly nice ankles to the Presbyterian glare of all the Ioway schoolma'ams, and I leaped from peak to peak like the nimble chamoys, and----You may think that Herr Doctor Kennicott is a Nimrod, but you ought to have seen me daring him to strip to his B. V. D.'s and go swimming in an icy mountain brook." She knew that they were thinking of becoming shocked, but Juanita Haydock was admiring, at least. She swaggered on: "I'm sure I'm going to ruin Will as a respectable practitioner----Is he a good doctor, Dr. Gould?" Kennicott's rival gasped at this insult to professional ethics, and he took an appreciable second before he recovered his social manner. "I'll tell you, Mrs. Kennicott." He smiled at Kennicott, to imply that whatever he might say in the stress of being witty was not to count against him in the commercio-medical warfare. "There's some people in town that say the doc is a fair to middlin' diagnostician and prescription-writer, but let me whisper this to you--but for heaven's sake don't tell him I said so--don't you ever go to him for anything more serious than a pendectomy of the left ear or a strabismus of the cardiograph." No one save Kennicott knew exactly what this meant, but they laughed, and Sam Clark's party assumed a glittering lemon-yellow color of brocade panels and champagne and tulle and crystal chandeliers and sporting duchesses. Carol saw that George Edwin Mott and the blanched Mr. and Mrs. Dawson were not yet hypnotized. They looked as though they wondered whether they ought to look as though they disapproved. She concentrated on them: "But I know whom I wouldn't have dared to go to Colorado with! Mr. Dawson there! I'm sure he's a regular heart-breaker. When we were introduced he held my hand and squeezed it frightfully." "Haw! Haw! Haw!" The entire company applauded. Mr. Dawson was beatified. He had been called many things--loan-shark, skinflint, tightwad, pussyfoot--but he had never before been called a flirt. "He is wicked, isn't he, Mrs. Dawson? Don't you have to lock him up?" "Oh no, but maybe I better," attempted Mrs. Dawson, a tint on her pallid face. For fifteen minutes Carol kept it up. She asserted that she was going to stage a musical comedy, that she preferred cafe parfait to beefsteak, that she hoped Dr. Kennicott would never lose his ability to make love to charming women, and that she had a pair of gold stockings. They gaped for more. But she could not keep it up. She retired to a chair behind Sam Clark's bulk. The smile-wrinkles solemnly flattened out in the faces of all the other collaborators in having a party, and again they stood about hoping but not expecting to be amused. Carol listened. She discovered that conversation did not exist in Gopher Prairie. Even at this affair, which brought out the young smart set, the hunting squire set, the respectable intellectual set, and the solid financial set, they sat up with gaiety as with a corpse. Juanita Haydock talked a good deal in her rattling voice but it was invariably of personalities: the rumor that Raymie Wutherspoon was going to send for a pair of patent leather shoes with gray buttoned tops; the rheumatism of Champ Perry; the state of Guy Pollock's grippe; and the dementia of Jim Howland in painting his fence salmon-pink. Sam Clark had been talking to Carol about motor cars, but he felt his duties as host. While he droned, his brows popped up and down. He interrupted himself, "Must stir 'em up." He worried at his wife, "Don't you think I better stir 'em up?" He shouldered into the center of the room, and cried: "Let's have some stunts, folks." "Yes, let's!" shrieked Juanita Haydock. "Say, Dave, give us that stunt about the Norwegian catching a hen." "You bet; that's a slick stunt; do that, Dave!" cheered Chet Dashaway. Mr. Dave Dyer obliged. All the guests moved their lips in anticipation of being called on for their own stunts. "Ella, come on and recite 'Old Sweetheart of Mine,' for us," demanded Sam. Miss Ella Stowbody, the spinster daughter of the Ionic bank, scratched her dry palms and blushed. "Oh, you don't want to hear that old thing again." "Sure we do! You bet!" asserted Sam. "My voice is in terrible shape tonight." "Tut! Come on!" Sam loudly explained to Carol, "Ella is our shark at elocuting. She's had professional training. She studied singing and oratory and dramatic art and shorthand for a year, in Milwaukee." Miss Stowbody was reciting. As encore to "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," she gave a peculiarly optimistic poem regarding the value of smiles. There were four other stunts: one Jewish, one Irish, one juvenile, and Nat Hicks's parody of Mark Antony's funeral oration. During the winter Carol was to hear Dave Dyer's hen-catching impersonation seven times, "An Old Sweetheart of Mine" nine times, the Jewish story and the funeral oration twice; but now she was ardent and, because she did so want to be happy and simple-hearted, she was as disappointed as the others when the stunts were finished, and the party instantly sank back into coma. They gave up trying to be festive; they began to talk naturally, as they did at their shops and homes. The men and women divided, as they had been tending to do all evening. Carol was deserted by the men, left to a group of matrons who steadily pattered of children, sickness, and cooks--their own shop-talk. She was piqued. She remembered visions of herself as a smart married woman in a drawing-room, fencing with clever men. Her dejection was relieved by speculation as to what the men were discussing, in the corner between the piano and the phonograph. Did they rise from these housewifely personalities to a larger world of abstractions and affairs? She made her best curtsy to Mrs. Dawson; she twittered, "I won't have my husband leaving me so soon! I'm going over and pull the wretch's ears." She rose with a jeune fille bow. She was self-absorbed and self-approving because she had attained that quality of sentimentality. She proudly dipped across the room and, to the interest and commendation of all beholders, sat on the arm of Kennicott's chair. He was gossiping with Sam Clark, Luke Dawson, Jackson Elder of the planing-mill, Chet Dashaway, Dave Dyer, Harry Haydock, and Ezra Stowbody, president of the Ionic bank. Ezra Stowbody was a troglodyte. He had come to Gopher Prairie in 1865. He was a distinguished bird of prey--swooping thin nose, turtle mouth, thick brows, port-wine cheeks, floss of white hair, contemptuous eyes. He was not happy in the social changes of thirty years. Three decades ago, Dr. Westlake, Julius Flickerbaugh the lawyer, Merriman Peedy the Congregational pastor and himself had been the arbiters. That was as it should be; the fine arts--medicine, law, religion, and finance--recognized as aristocratic; four Yankees democratically chatting with but ruling the Ohioans and Illini and Swedes and Germans who had ventured to follow them. But Westlake was old, almost retired; Julius Flickerbaugh had lost much of his practice to livelier attorneys; Reverend (not The Reverend) Peedy was dead; and nobody was impressed in this rotten age of automobiles by the "spanking grays" which Ezra still drove. The town was as heterogeneous as Chicago. Norwegians and Germans owned stores. The social leaders were common merchants. Selling nails was considered as sacred as banking. These upstarts--the Clarks, the Haydocks--had no dignity. They were sound and conservative in politics, but they talked about motor cars and pump-guns and heaven only knew what new-fangled fads. Mr. Stowbody felt out of place with them. But his brick house with the mansard roof was still the largest residence in town, and he held his position as squire by occasionally appearing among the younger men and reminding them by a wintry eye that without the banker none of them could carry on their vulgar businesses. As Carol defied decency by sitting down with the men, Mr. Stowbody was piping to Mr. Dawson, "Say, Luke, when was't Biggins first settled in Winnebago Township? Wa'n't it in 1879?" "Why no 'twa'n't!" Mr. Dawson was indignant. "He come out from Vermont in 1867--no, wait, in 1868, it must have been--and took a claim on the Rum River, quite a ways above Anoka." "He did not!" roared Mr. Stowbody. "He settled first in Blue Earth County, him and his father!" ("What's the point at issue?") Carol whispered to Kennicott. ("Whether this old duck Biggins had an English setter or a Llewellyn. They've been arguing it all evening!") Dave Dyer interrupted to give tidings, "D' tell you that Clara Biggins was in town couple days ago? She bought a hot-water bottle--expensive one, too--two dollars and thirty cents!" "Yaaaaaah!" snarled Mr. Stowbody. "Course. She's just like her grandad was. Never save a cent. Two dollars and twenty--thirty, was it?--two dollars and thirty cents for a hot-water bottle! Brick wrapped up in a flannel petticoat just as good, anyway!" "How's Ella's tonsils, Mr. Stowbody?" yawned Chet Dashaway. While Mr. Stowbody gave a somatic and psychic study of them, Carol reflected, "Are they really so terribly interested in Ella's tonsils, or even in Ella's esophagus? I wonder if I could get them away from personalities? Let's risk damnation and try." "There hasn't been much labor trouble around here, has there, Mr. Stowbody?" she asked innocently. "No, ma'am, thank God, we've been free from that, except maybe with hired girls and farm-hands. Trouble enough with these foreign farmers; if you don't watch these Swedes they turn socialist or populist or some fool thing on you in a minute. Of course, if they have loans you can make 'em listen to reason. I just have 'em come into the bank for a talk, and tell 'em a few things. I don't mind their being democrats, so much, but I won't stand having socialists around. But thank God, we ain't got the labor trouble they have in these cities. Even Jack Elder here gets along pretty well, in the planing-mill, don't you, Jack?" "Yep. Sure. Don't need so many skilled workmen in my place, and it's a lot of these cranky, wage-hogging, half-baked skilled mechanics that start trouble--reading a lot of this anarchist literature and union papers and all." "Do you approve of union labor?" Carol inquired of Mr. Elder. "Me? I should say not! It's like this: I don't mind dealing with my men if they think they've got any grievances--though Lord knows what's come over workmen, nowadays--don't appreciate a good job. But still, if they come to me honestly, as man to man, I'll talk things over with them. But I'm not going to have any outsider, any of these walking delegates, or whatever fancy names they call themselves now--bunch of rich grafters, living on the ignorant workmen! Not going to have any of those fellows butting in and telling ME how to run MY business!" Mr. Elder was growing more excited, more belligerent and patriotic. "I stand for freedom and constitutional rights. If any man don't like my shop, he can get up and git. Same way, if I don't like him, he gits. And that's all there is to it. I simply can't understand all these complications and hoop-te-doodles and government reports and wage-scales and God knows what all that these fellows are balling up the labor situation with, when it's all perfectly simple. They like what I pay 'em, or they get out. That's all there is to it!" "What do you think of profit-sharing?" Carol ventured. Mr. Elder thundered his answer, while the others nodded, solemnly and in tune, like a shop-window of flexible toys, comic mandarins and judges and ducks and clowns, set quivering by a breeze from the open door: "All this profit-sharing and welfare work and insurance and old-age pension is simply poppycock. Enfeebles a workman's independence--and wastes a lot of honest profit. The half-baked thinker that isn't dry behind the ears yet, and these suffragettes and God knows what all buttinskis there are that are trying to tell a business man how to run his business, and some of these college professors are just about as bad, the whole kit and bilin' of 'em are nothing in God's world but socialism in disguise! And it's my bounden duty as a producer to resist every attack on the integrity of American industry to the last ditch. Yes--SIR!" Mr. Elder wiped his brow. Dave Dyer added, "Sure! You bet! What they ought to do is simply to hang every one of these agitators, and that would settle the whole thing right off. Don't you think so, doc?" "You bet," agreed Kennicott. The conversation was at last relieved of the plague of Carol's intrusions and they settled down to the question of whether the justice of the peace had sent that hobo drunk to jail for ten days or twelve. It was a matter not readily determined. Then Dave Dyer communicated his carefree adventures on the gipsy trail: "Yep. I get good time out of the flivver. 'Bout a week ago I motored down to New Wurttemberg. That's forty-three----No, let's see: It's seventeen miles to Belldale, and 'bout six and three-quarters, call it seven, to Torgenquist, and it's a good nineteen miles from there to New Wurttemberg--seventeen and seven and nineteen, that makes, uh, let me see: seventeen and seven 's twenty-four, plus nineteen, well say plus twenty, that makes forty-four, well anyway, say about forty-three or -four miles from here to New Wurttemberg. We got started about seven-fifteen, prob'ly seven-twenty, because I had to stop and fill the radiator, and we ran along, just keeping up a good steady gait----" Mr. Dyer did finally, for reasons and purposes admitted and justified, attain to New Wurttemberg. Once--only once--the presence of the alien Carol was recognized. Chet Dashaway leaned over and said asthmatically, "Say, uh, have you been reading this serial 'Two Out' in Tingling Tales? Corking yarn! Gosh, the fellow that wrote it certainly can sling baseball slang!" The others tried to look literary. Harry Haydock offered, "Juanita is a great hand for reading high-class stuff, like 'Mid the Magnolias' by this Sara Hetwiggin Butts, and 'Riders of Ranch Reckless.' Books. But me," he glanced about importantly, as one convinced that no other hero had ever been in so strange a plight, "I'm so darn busy I don't have much time to read." "I never read anything I can't check against," said Sam Clark. Thus ended the literary portion of the conversation, and for seven minutes Jackson Elder outlined reasons for believing that the pike-fishing was better on the west shore of Lake Minniemashie than on the east--though it was indeed quite true that on the east shore Nat Hicks had caught a pike altogether admirable. The talk went on. It did go on! Their voices were monotonous, thick, emphatic. They were harshly pompous, like men in the smoking-compartments of Pullman cars. They did not bore Carol. They frightened her. She panted, "They will be cordial to me, because my man belongs to their tribe. God help me if I were an outsider!" Smiling as changelessly as an ivory figurine she sat quiescent, avoiding thought, glancing about the living-room and hall, noting their betrayal of unimaginative commercial prosperity. Kennicott said, "Dandy interior, eh? My idea of how a place ought to be furnished. Modern." She looked polite, and observed the oiled floors, hard-wood staircase, unused fireplace with tiles which resembled brown linoleum, cut-glass vases standing upon doilies, and the barred, shut, forbidding unit bookcases that were half filled with swashbuckler novels and unread-looking sets of Dickens, Kipling, O. Henry, and Elbert Hubbard. She perceived that even personalities were failing to hold the party. The room filled with hesitancy as with a fog. People cleared their throats, tried to choke down yawns. The men shot their cuffs and the women stuck their combs more firmly into their back hair. Then a rattle, a daring hope in every eye, the swinging of a door, the smell of strong coffee, Dave Dyer's mewing voice in a triumphant, "The eats!" They began to chatter. They had something to do. They could escape from themselves. They fell upon the food--chicken sandwiches, maple cake, drug-store ice cream. Even when the food was gone they remained cheerful. They could go home, any time now, and go to bed! They went, with a flutter of coats, chiffon scarfs, and good-bys. Carol and Kennicott walked home. "Did you like them?" he asked. "They were terribly sweet to me." "Uh, Carrie----You ought to be more careful about shocking folks. Talking about gold stockings, and about showing your ankles to schoolteachers and all!" More mildly: "You gave 'em a good time, but I'd watch out for that, 'f I were you. Juanita Haydock is such a damn cat. I wouldn't give her a chance to criticize me." "My poor effort to lift up the party! Was I wrong to try to amuse them?" "No! No! Honey, I didn't mean----You were the only up-and-coming person in the bunch. I just mean----Don't get onto legs and all that immoral stuff. Pretty conservative crowd." She was silent, raw with the shameful thought that the attentive circle might have been criticizing her, laughing at her. "Don't, please don't worry!" he pleaded. "Silence." "Gosh; I'm sorry I spoke about it. I just meant----But they were crazy about you. Sam said to me, 'That little lady of yours is the slickest thing that ever came to this town,' he said; and Ma Dawson--I didn't hardly know whether she'd like you or not, she's such a dried-up old bird, but she said, 'Your bride is so quick and bright, I declare, she just wakes me up.'" Carol liked praise, the flavor and fatness of it, but she was so energetically being sorry for herself that she could not taste this commendation. "Please! Come on! Cheer up!" His lips said it, his anxious shoulder said it, his arm about her said it, as they halted on the obscure porch of their house. "Do you care if they think I'm flighty, Will?" "Me? Why, I wouldn't care if the whole world thought you were this or that or anything else. You're my--well, you're my soul!" He was an undefined mass, as solid-seeming as rock. She found his sleeve, pinched it, cried, "I'm glad! It's sweet to be wanted! You must tolerate my frivolousness. You're all I have!" He lifted her, carried her into the house, and with her arms about his neck she forgot Main Street. 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.

Will soon geht, um sein Büro zu überprüfen, und Carol ist enttäuscht von der Geschwindigkeit, mit der er in die Welt der Männerangelegenheiten zurückkehrt. Überwältigt vom düsteren Haus geht Carol zum Schlafzimmerfenster und hofft auf einen malerischen Ausblick. Stattdessen sieht sie die Seite einer Holzkirche und einen kaputten Ford-Lieferwagen. Sie fühlt sich leicht verrückt und flieht aus dem Haus. Während sie geht, fragt sie sich, welche der hässlichen Häuser in sechs Monaten für sie eine Bedeutung haben werden, und sie macht sich Gedanken über die schlechte Ausstellung von Kürbissen in einem Lebensmittelgeschäft. Der Erzähler bemerkt nebenbei, dass der Lebensmittelhändler, Herr Frederick F. Ludelmeyer, sie beobachtet, weiß, wer sie ist, ihre Beine mag, aber ihren Anzug zu schlicht findet. Carol braucht nur zweiunddreißig Minuten, um die ganze Stadt zu sehen. Die fehlende Grünfläche und die Exposition der Stadt gegenüber der Prärie machen sie traurig. Sie sieht Dyer's Drug Store, das Büro ihres Mannes im zweiten Stock, das Rosebud Movie Palace, Howland & Gould's Grocery, Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market, eine Kneipe, ein Tabakgeschäft, The Bon Ton Store, Haydock & Simmons', Axel Egge's General Store, Sam Clark's Hardware Store und andere Geschäfte, die sie ebenfalls nicht beeindrucken. Sie bemerkt, dass die beiden Autowerkstätten die belebtesten Orte in der Stadt sind. Von der heruntergekommenen und chaotischen Stadt deprimiert, kehrt sie schnell nach Hause zurück, wo sie ihrem Mann sagt, dass sie die Stadt interessant findet. Ein junges Bauernmädchen namens Bea Sorenson kommt mit demselben Zug nach Gopher Prairie wie Carol. Sie sucht Arbeit als Dienstmädchen. Nachdem sie ihre Cousine besucht hat, die ihr sagt, dass sie nie sechs Dollar pro Woche verdienen wird, es sei denn, Dr. Kennicotts neue Braut ist bereit, es zu zahlen, geht Bea durch die Stadt und findet alles aufregend und schön. Sie beschließt zu bleiben, egal wie viel sie verdient. Bei einer Willkommensfeier im großen Haus von Sam Clark und seiner Frau fürchtet Carol die Aufmerksamkeit der Gruppe, aber der laute und freundliche Sam nimmt sie unter seine Fittiche. Will stellt sie der Gruppe vor - Harry und Juanita Haydock, Dave Dyer, Jack Elder, Luke Dawson, Nat Hicks, Chet Dashaway und deren Ehefrauen. Will erwähnt auch, dass der Präsident der Velvet Motor Company in Neuengland, Percy Bresnahan, aus Gopher Prairie stammt. Während ihrer Gespräche mit der Gruppe behauptet Carol, dass ihr die Stadt sehr gut gefallen wird. Mehrere Leute erinnern sie daran, dass Percy Bresnahan dort aufgewachsen ist. Juanita Haydock lädt sie ein, der Jolly Seventeen beizutreten, einer Damenbridgegruppe, und ist überrascht zu erfahren, dass Carol noch nie Bridge gespielt hat. Carol versucht witzig und schockierend zu sein und schafft es, die meisten in der Gruppe zu gewinnen. Bald jedoch macht sich Langeweile breit, und Carol erkennt, dass dies in Gopher Prairie die Norm ist. Klatsch unter den Frauen und Sport und Autos unter den Männern dominieren das Gespräch, bis Sam Clark, der sich in seiner Rolle als Gastgeber sieht, nach einigen Einlagen verlangt. Jeder scheint etwas tun zu können; ein Gedicht aufsagen oder ein Lied singen, aber wie Carol bald erkennt, ist das alles, was sie können. Im Laufe ihres ersten Jahres in der Stadt hört sie die Einlage jeder Person viele Male. Bald teilt sich die Party in Männer und Frauen auf, und Carol, gelangweilt von den Gesprächen der Hausfrauen, schließt sich mutig den Männern an. Der alte Bankpräsident, Ezra Stowbody, spricht über die Probleme mit den skandinavischen Einwanderern. Carol findet die Männergespräche genauso langweilig wie die der Frauen. Carol fragt Stowbody nach Gewerkschaften, und alle Männer äußern eine giftige Meinung dazu. Alle verlassen nach dem Essen die Party. Auf dem Heimweg warnt Will sie vor schockierenden Themen und bemerkt, dass es ihm leid tut. Als sie fragt, ob es ihn kümmert, dass die Gruppe sie flatterhaft findet, sagt er nein, weil sie seine Seele ist. Er trägt sie über die Türschwelle des Hauses.

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: Chiswick Mall While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. A black servant, who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton's shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the window of that lady's own drawing-room. "It is Mrs. Sedley's coach, sister," said Miss Jemima. "Sambo, the black servant, has just rung the bell; and the coachman has a new red waistcoat." "Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to Miss Sedley's departure, Miss Jemima?" asked Miss Pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; the Semiramis of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself. "The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, sister," replied Miss Jemima; "we have made her a bow-pot." "Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, 'tis more genteel." "Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up two bottles of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley, and the receipt for making it, in Amelia's box." "And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss Sedley's account. This is it, is it? Very good--ninety-three pounds, four shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John Sedley, Esquire, and to seal this billet which I have written to his lady." In Miss Jemima's eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted the establishment, or when they were about to be married, and once, when poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to write personally to the parents of her pupils; and it was Jemima's opinion that if anything could console Mrs. Birch for her daughter's loss, it would be that pious and eloquent composition in which Miss Pinkerton announced the event. In the present instance Miss Pinkerton's "billet" was to the following effect:-- The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18 MADAM,--After her six years' residence at the Mall, I have the honour and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position in their polished and refined circle. Those virtues which characterize the young English gentlewoman, those accomplishments which become her birth and station, will not be found wanting in the amiable Miss Sedley, whose INDUSTRY and OBEDIENCE have endeared her to her instructors, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has charmed her AGED and her YOUTHFUL companions. In music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety of embroidery and needlework, she will be found to have realized her friends' fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be desired; and a careful and undeviating use of the backboard, for four hours daily during the next three years, is recommended as necessary to the acquirement of that dignified DEPORTMENT AND CARRIAGE, so requisite for every young lady of FASHION. In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be found worthy of an establishment which has been honoured by the presence of THE GREAT LEXICOGRAPHER, and the patronage of the admirable Mrs. Chapone. In leaving the Mall, Miss Amelia carries with her the hearts of her companions, and the affectionate regards of her mistress, who has the honour to subscribe herself, Madam, Your most obliged humble servant, BARBARA PINKERTON P.S.--Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley. It is particularly requested that Miss Sharp's stay in Russell Square may not exceed ten days. The family of distinction with whom she is engaged, desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as possible. This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write her own name, and Miss Sedley's, in the fly-leaf of a Johnson's Dictionary--the interesting work which she invariably presented to her scholars, on their departure from the Mall. On the cover was inserted a copy of "Lines addressed to a young lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton's school, at the Mall; by the late revered Doctor Samuel Johnson." In fact, the Lexicographer's name was always on the lips of this majestic woman, and a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her reputation and her fortune. Being commanded by her elder sister to get "the Dictionary" from the cupboard, Miss Jemima had extracted two copies of the book from the receptacle in question. When Miss Pinkerton had finished the inscription in the first, Jemima, with rather a dubious and timid air, handed her the second. "For whom is this, Miss Jemima?" said Miss Pinkerton, with awful coldness. "For Becky Sharp," answered Jemima, trembling very much, and blushing over her withered face and neck, as she turned her back on her sister. "For Becky Sharp: she's going too." "MISS JEMIMA!" exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the largest capitals. "Are you in your senses? Replace the Dixonary in the closet, and never venture to take such a liberty in future." "Well, sister, it's only two-and-ninepence, and poor Becky will be miserable if she don't get one." "Send Miss Sedley instantly to me," said Miss Pinkerton. And so venturing not to say another word, poor Jemima trotted off, exceedingly flurried and nervous. Miss Sedley's papa was a merchant in London, and a man of some wealth; whereas Miss Sharp was an articled pupil, for whom Miss Pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite enough, without conferring upon her at parting the high honour of the Dixonary. Although schoolmistresses' letters are to be trusted no more nor less than churchyard epitaphs; yet, as it sometimes happens that a person departs this life who is really deserving of all the praises the stone cutter carves over his bones; who IS a good Christian, a good parent, child, wife, or husband; who actually DOES leave a disconsolate family to mourn his loss; so in academies of the male and female sex it occurs every now and then that the pupil is fully worthy of the praises bestowed by the disinterested instructor. Now, Miss Amelia Sedley was a young lady of this singular species; and deserved not only all that Miss Pinkerton said in her praise, but had many charming qualities which that pompous old Minerva of a woman could not see, from the differences of rank and age between her pupil and herself. For she could not only sing like a lark, or a Mrs. Billington, and dance like Hillisberg or Parisot; and embroider beautifully; and spell as well as a Dixonary itself; but she had such a kindly, smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of her own, as won the love of everybody who came near her, from Minerva herself down to the poor girl in the scullery, and the one-eyed tart-woman's daughter, who was permitted to vend her wares once a week to the young ladies in the Mall. She had twelve intimate and bosom friends out of the twenty-four young ladies. Even envious Miss Briggs never spoke ill of her; high and mighty Miss Saltire (Lord Dexter's granddaughter) allowed that her figure was genteel; and as for Miss Swartz, the rich woolly-haired mulatto from St. Kitt's, on the day Amelia went away, she was in such a passion of tears that they were obliged to send for Dr. Floss, and half tipsify her with salvolatile. Miss Pinkerton's attachment was, as may be supposed from the high position and eminent virtues of that lady, calm and dignified; but Miss Jemima had already whimpered several times at the idea of Amelia's departure; and, but for fear of her sister, would have gone off in downright hysterics, like the heiress (who paid double) of St. Kitt's. Such luxury of grief, however, is only allowed to parlour-boarders. Honest Jemima had all the bills, and the washing, and the mending, and the puddings, and the plate and crockery, and the servants to superintend. But why speak about her? It is probable that we shall not hear of her again from this moment to the end of time, and that when the great filigree iron gates are once closed on her, she and her awful sister will never issue therefrom into this little world of history. But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was a dear little creature; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in villains of the most sombre sort, that we are to have for a constant companion so guileless and good-natured a person. As she is not a heroine, there is no need to describe her person; indeed I am afraid that her nose was rather short than otherwise, and her cheeks a great deal too round and red for a heroine; but her face blushed with rosy health, and her lips with the freshest of smiles, and she had a pair of eyes which sparkled with the brightest and honestest good-humour, except indeed when they filled with tears, and that was a great deal too often; for the silly thing would cry over a dead canary-bird; or over a mouse, that the cat haply had seized upon; or over the end of a novel, were it ever so stupid; and as for saying an unkind word to her, were any persons hard-hearted enough to do so--why, so much the worse for them. Even Miss Pinkerton, that austere and godlike woman, ceased scolding her after the first time, and though she no more comprehended sensibility than she did Algebra, gave all masters and teachers particular orders to treat Miss Sedley with the utmost gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her. So that when the day of departure came, between her two customs of laughing and crying, Miss Sedley was greatly puzzled how to act. She was glad to go home, and yet most woefully sad at leaving school. For three days before, little Laura Martin, the orphan, followed her about like a little dog. She had to make and receive at least fourteen presents--to make fourteen solemn promises of writing every week: "Send my letters under cover to my grandpapa, the Earl of Dexter," said Miss Saltire (who, by the way, was rather shabby). "Never mind the postage, but write every day, you dear darling," said the impetuous and woolly-headed, but generous and affectionate Miss Swartz; and the orphan little Laura Martin (who was just in round-hand), took her friend's hand and said, looking up in her face wistfully, "Amelia, when I write to you I shall call you Mamma." All which details, I have no doubt, JONES, who reads this book at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental. Yes; I can see Jones at this minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton and half pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring under the words "foolish, twaddling," &c., and adding to them his own remark of "QUITE TRUE." Well, he is a lofty man of genius, and admires the great and heroic in life and novels; and so had better take warning and go elsewhere. Well, then. The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks, and bonnet-boxes of Miss Sedley having been arranged by Mr. Sambo in the carriage, together with a very small and weather-beaten old cow's-skin trunk with Miss Sharp's card neatly nailed upon it, which was delivered by Sambo with a grin, and packed by the coachman with a corresponding sneer--the hour for parting came; and the grief of that moment was considerably lessened by the admirable discourse which Miss Pinkerton addressed to her pupil. Not that the parting speech caused Amelia to philosophise, or that it armed her in any way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was intolerably dull, pompous, and tedious; and having the fear of her schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss Sedley did not venture, in her presence, to give way to any ebullitions of private grief. A seed-cake and a bottle of wine were produced in the drawing-room, as on the solemn occasions of the visits of parents, and these refreshments being partaken of, Miss Sedley was at liberty to depart. "You'll go in and say good-by to Miss Pinkerton, Becky!" said Miss Jemima to a young lady of whom nobody took any notice, and who was coming downstairs with her own bandbox. "I suppose I must," said Miss Sharp calmly, and much to the wonder of Miss Jemima; and the latter having knocked at the door, and receiving permission to come in, Miss Sharp advanced in a very unconcerned manner, and said in French, and with a perfect accent, "Mademoiselle, je viens vous faire mes adieux." Miss Pinkerton did not understand French; she only directed those who did: but biting her lips and throwing up her venerable and Roman-nosed head (on the top of which figured a large and solemn turban), she said, "Miss Sharp, I wish you a good morning." As the Hammersmith Semiramis spoke, she waved one hand, both by way of adieu, and to give Miss Sharp an opportunity of shaking one of the fingers of the hand which was left out for that purpose. Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very frigid smile and bow, and quite declined to accept the proffered honour; on which Semiramis tossed up her turban more indignantly than ever. In fact, it was a little battle between the young lady and the old one, and the latter was worsted. "Heaven bless you, my child," said she, embracing Amelia, and scowling the while over the girl's shoulder at Miss Sharp. "Come away, Becky," said Miss Jemima, pulling the young woman away in great alarm, and the drawing-room door closed upon them for ever. Then came the struggle and parting below. Words refuse to tell it. All the servants were there in the hall--all the dear friends--all the young ladies--the dancing-master who had just arrived; and there was such a scuffling, and hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the hysterical YOOPS of Miss Swartz, the parlour-boarder, from her room, as no pen can depict, and as the tender heart would fain pass over. The embracing was over; they parted--that is, Miss Sedley parted from her friends. Miss Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes before. Nobody cried for leaving HER. Sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage door on his young weeping mistress. He sprang up behind the carriage. "Stop!" cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate with a parcel. "It's some sandwiches, my dear," said she to Amelia. "You may be hungry, you know; and Becky, Becky Sharp, here's a book for you that my sister--that is, I--Johnson's Dixonary, you know; you mustn't leave us without that. Good-by. Drive on, coachman. God bless you!" And the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome with emotion. But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her pale face out of the window and actually flung the book back into the garden. This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. "Well, I never"--said she--"what an audacious"--Emotion prevented her from completing either sentence. The carriage rolled away; the great gates were closed; the bell rang for the dancing lesson. The world is before the two young ladies; and so, farewell to Chiswick Mall. In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned in the last chapter, and had seen the Dixonary, flying over the pavement of the little garden, fall at length at the feet of the astonished Miss Jemima, the young lady's countenance, which had before worn an almost livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was scarcely more agreeable, and she sank back in the carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying--"So much for the Dixonary; and, thank God, I'm out of Chiswick." Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she had left school, and the impressions of six years are not got over in that space of time. Nay, with some persons those awes and terrors of youth last for ever and ever. I know, for instance, an old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast, with a very agitated countenance, "I dreamed last night that I was flogged by Dr. Raine." Fancy had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that evening. Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, "Boy, take down your pant--"? Well, well, Miss Sedley was exceedingly alarmed at this act of insubordination. "How could you do so, Rebecca?" at last she said, after a pause. "Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order me back to the black-hole?" said Rebecca, laughing. "No: but--" "I hate the whole house," continued Miss Sharp in a fury. "I hope I may never set eyes on it again. I wish it were in the bottom of the Thames, I do; and if Miss Pinkerton were there, I wouldn't pick her out, that I wouldn't. O how I should like to see her floating in the water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry." "Hush!" cried Miss Sedley. "Why, will the black footman tell tales?" cried Miss Rebecca, laughing. "He may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton that I hate her with all my soul; and I wish he would; and I wish I had a means of proving it, too. For two years I have only had insults and outrage from her. I have been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen. I have never had a friend or a kind word, except from you. I have been made to tend the little girls in the lower schoolroom, and to talk French to the Misses, until I grew sick of my mother tongue. But that talking French to Miss Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn't it? She doesn't know a word of French, and was too proud to confess it. I believe it was that which made her part with me; and so thank Heaven for French. Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!" "O Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame!" cried Miss Sedley; for this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered; and in those days, in England, to say, "Long live Bonaparte!" was as much as to say, "Long live Lucifer!" "How can you--how dare you have such wicked, revengeful thoughts?" "Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural," answered Miss Rebecca. "I'm no angel." And, to say the truth, she certainly was not. For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversation (which took place as the coach rolled along lazily by the river side) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occasion to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding her of some person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion; neither of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude, or such as would be put forward by persons of a kind and placable disposition. Miss Rebecca was not, then, in the least kind or placable. All the world used her ill, said this young misanthropist, and we may be pretty certain that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve entirely the treatment they get. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice. This is certain, that if the world neglected Miss Sharp, she never was known to have done a good action in behalf of anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-four young ladies should all be as amiable as the heroine of this work, Miss Sedley (whom we have selected for the very reason that she was the best-natured of all, otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from putting up Miss Swartz, or Miss Crump, or Miss Hopkins, as heroine in her place!) it could not be expected that every one should be of the humble and gentle temper of Miss Amelia Sedley; should take every opportunity to vanquish Rebecca's hard-heartedness and ill-humour; and, by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome, for once at least, her hostility to her kind. Miss Sharp's father was an artist, and in that quality had given lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton's school. He was a clever man; a pleasant companion; a careless student; with a great propensity for running into debt, and a partiality for the tavern. When he was drunk, he used to beat his wife and daughter; and the next morning, with a headache, he would rail at the world for its neglect of his genius, and abuse, with a good deal of cleverness, and sometimes with perfect reason, the fools, his brother painters. As it was with the utmost difficulty that he could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mile round Soho, where he lived, he thought to better his circumstances by marrying a young woman of the French nation, who was by profession an opera-girl. The humble calling of her female parent Miss Sharp never alluded to, but used to state subsequently that the Entrechats were a noble family of Gascony, and took great pride in her descent from them. And curious it is that as she advanced in life this young lady's ancestors increased in rank and splendour. Rebecca's mother had had some education somewhere, and her daughter spoke French with purity and a Parisian accent. It was in those days rather a rare accomplishment, and led to her engagement with the orthodox Miss Pinkerton. For her mother being dead, her father, finding himself not likely to recover, after his third attack of delirium tremens, wrote a manly and pathetic letter to Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her protection, and so descended to the grave, after two bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse. Rebecca was seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound over as an articled pupil; her duties being to talk French, as we have seen; and her privileges to live cost free, and, with a few guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge from the professors who attended the school. She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and with eyes habitually cast down: when they looked up they were very large, odd, and attractive; so attractive that the Reverend Mr. Crisp, fresh from Oxford, and curate to the Vicar of Chiswick, the Reverend Mr. Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss Sharp; being shot dead by a glance of her eyes which was fired all the way across Chiswick Church from the school-pew to the reading-desk. This infatuated young man used sometimes to take tea with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he had been presented by his mamma, and actually proposed something like marriage in an intercepted note, which the one-eyed apple-woman was charged to deliver. Mrs. Crisp was summoned from Buxton, and abruptly carried off her darling boy; but the idea, even, of such an eagle in the Chiswick dovecot caused a great flutter in the breast of Miss Pinkerton, who would have sent away Miss Sharp but that she was bound to her under a forfeit, and who never could thoroughly believe the young lady's protestations that she had never exchanged a single word with Mr. Crisp, except under her own eyes on the two occasions when she had met him at tea. By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she had the dismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she talked to, and turned away from her father's door; many a tradesman had she coaxed and wheedled into good-humour, and into the granting of one meal more. She sate commonly with her father, who was very proud of her wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild companions--often but ill-suited for a girl to hear. But she never had been a girl, she said; she had been a woman since she was eight years old. Oh, why did Miss Pinkerton let such a dangerous bird into her cage? The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the meekest creature in the world, so admirably, on the occasions when her father brought her to Chiswick, used Rebecca to perform the part of the ingenue; and only a year before the arrangement by which Rebecca had been admitted into her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkerton majestically, and with a little speech, made her a present of a doll--which was, by the way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle, discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours. How the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the evening party (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the professors were invited) and how Miss Pinkerton would have raged had she seen the caricature of herself which the little mimic, Rebecca, managed to make out of her doll. Becky used to go through dialogues with it; it formed the delight of Newman Street, Gerrard Street, and the Artists' quarter: and the young painters, when they came to take their gin-and-water with their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior, used regularly to ask Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at home: she was as well known to them, poor soul! as Mr. Lawrence or President West. Once Rebecca had the honour to pass a few days at Chiswick; after which she brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as Miss Jemmy: for though that honest creature had made and given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl's sense of ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister. The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the Mall as to her home. The rigid formality of the place suffocated her: the prayers and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which were arranged with a conventual regularity, oppressed her almost beyond endurance; and she looked back to the freedom and the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret, that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for her father. She had a little room in the garret, where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it was with rage, and not with grief. She had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign. She had never mingled in the society of women: her father, reprobate as he was, was a man of talent; his conversation was a thousand times more agreeable to her than the talk of such of her own sex as she now encountered. The pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress, the foolish good-humour of her sister, the silly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the governesses equally annoyed her; and she had no soft maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the younger children, with whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but she lived among them two years, and not one was sorry that she went away. The gentle tender-hearted Amelia Sedley was the only person to whom she could attach herself in the least; and who could help attaching herself to Amelia? The happiness--the superior advantages of the young women round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. "What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an Earl's grand-daughter," she said of one. "How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds! I am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all her wealth. I am as well bred as the Earl's grand-daughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one passes me by here. And yet, when I was at my father's, did not the men give up their gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening with me?" She determined at any rate to get free from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to act for herself, and for the first time to make connected plans for the future. She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place offered her; and as she was already a musician and a good linguist, she speedily went through the little course of study which was considered necessary for ladies in those days. Her music she practised incessantly, and one day, when the girls were out, and she had remained at home, she was overheard to play a piece so well that Minerva thought, wisely, she could spare herself the expense of a master for the juniors, and intimated to Miss Sharp that she was to instruct them in music for the future. The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonishment of the majestic mistress of the school. "I am here to speak French with the children," Rebecca said abruptly, "not to teach them music, and save money for you. Give me money, and I will teach them." Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from that day. "For five-and-thirty years," she said, and with great justice, "I never have seen the individual who has dared in my own house to question my authority. I have nourished a viper in my bosom." "A viper--a fiddlestick," said Miss Sharp to the old lady, almost fainting with astonishment. "You took me because I was useful. There is no question of gratitude between us. I hate this place, and want to leave it. I will do nothing here but what I am obliged to do." It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she was speaking to Miss Pinkerton? Rebecca laughed in her face, with a horrid sarcastic demoniacal laughter, that almost sent the schoolmistress into fits. "Give me a sum of money," said the girl, "and get rid of me--or, if you like better, get me a good place as governess in a nobleman's family--you can do so if you please." And in their further disputes she always returned to this point, "Get me a situation--we hate each other, and I am ready to go." Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman nose and a turban, and was as tall as a grenadier, and had been up to this time an irresistible princess, had no will or strength like that of her little apprentice, and in vain did battle against her, and tried to overawe her. Attempting once to scold her in public, Rebecca hit upon the before-mentioned plan of answering her in French, which quite routed the old woman. In order to maintain authority in her school, it became necessary to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent, this firebrand; and hearing about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley's family was in want of a governess, she actually recommended Miss Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as she was. "I cannot, certainly," she said, "find fault with Miss Sharp's conduct, except to myself; and must allow that her talents and accomplishments are of a high order. As far as the head goes, at least, she does credit to the educational system pursued at my establishment." And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to her conscience, and the indentures were cancelled, and the apprentice was free. The battle here described in a few lines, of course, lasted for some months. And as Miss Sedley, being now in her seventeenth year, was about to leave school, and had a friendship for Miss Sharp ("'tis the only point in Amelia's behaviour," said Minerva, "which has not been satisfactory to her mistress"), Miss Sharp was invited by her friend to pass a week with her at home, before she entered upon her duties as governess in a private family. Thus the world began for these two young ladies. For Amelia it was quite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it. It was not quite a new one for Rebecca--(indeed, if the truth must be told with respect to the Crisp affair, the tart-woman hinted to somebody, who took an affidavit of the fact to somebody else, that there was a great deal more than was made public regarding Mr. Crisp and Miss Sharp, and that his letter was in answer to another letter). But who can tell you the real truth of the matter? At all events, if Rebecca was not beginning the world, she was beginning it over again. By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike, Amelia had not forgotten her companions, but had dried her tears, and had blushed very much and been delighted at a young officer of the Life Guards, who spied her as he was riding by, and said, "A dem fine gal, egad!" and before the carriage arrived in Russell Square, a great deal of conversation had taken place about the Drawing-room, and whether or not young ladies wore powder as well as hoops when presented, and whether she was to have that honour: to the Lord Mayor's ball she knew she was to go. And when at length home was reached, Miss Amelia Sedley skipped out on Sambo's arm, as happy and as handsome a girl as any in the whole big city of London. Both he and coachman agreed on this point, and so did her father and mother, and so did every one of the servants in the house, as they stood bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in the hall to welcome their young mistress. You may be sure that she showed Rebecca over every room of the house, and everything in every one of her drawers; and her books, and her piano, and her dresses, and all her necklaces, brooches, laces, and gimcracks. She insisted upon Rebecca accepting the white cornelian and the turquoise rings, and a sweet sprigged muslin, which was too small for her now, though it would fit her friend to a nicety; and she determined in her heart to ask her mother's permission to present her white Cashmere shawl to her friend. Could she not spare it? and had not her brother Joseph just brought her two from India? When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls which Joseph Sedley had brought home to his sister, she said, with perfect truth, "that it must be delightful to have a brother," and easily got the pity of the tender-hearted Amelia for being alone in the world, an orphan without friends or kindred. "Not alone," said Amelia; "you know, Rebecca, I shall always be your friend, and love you as a sister--indeed I will." "Ah, but to have parents, as you have--kind, rich, affectionate parents, who give you everything you ask for; and their love, which is more precious than all! My poor papa could give me nothing, and I had but two frocks in all the world! And then, to have a brother, a dear brother! Oh, how you must love him!" Amelia laughed. "What! don't you love him? you, who say you love everybody?" "Yes, of course, I do--only--" "Only what?" "Only Joseph doesn't seem to care much whether I love him or not. He gave me two fingers to shake when he arrived after ten years' absence! He is very kind and good, but he scarcely ever speaks to me; I think he loves his pipe a great deal better than his"--but here Amelia checked herself, for why should she speak ill of her brother? "He was very kind to me as a child," she added; "I was but five years old when he went away." "Isn't he very rich?" said Rebecca. "They say all Indian nabobs are enormously rich." "I believe he has a very large income." "And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?" "La! Joseph is not married," said Amelia, laughing again. Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca, but that young lady did not appear to have remembered it; indeed, vowed and protested that she expected to see a number of Amelia's nephews and nieces. She was quite disappointed that Mr. Sedley was not married; she was sure Amelia had said he was, and she doted so on little children. "I think you must have had enough of them at Chiswick," said Amelia, rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on her friend's part; and indeed in later days Miss Sharp would never have committed herself so far as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have been so easily detected. But we must remember that she is but nineteen as yet, unused to the art of deceiving, poor innocent creature! and making her own experience in her own person. The meaning of the above series of queries, as translated in the heart of this ingenious young woman, was simply this: "If Mr. Joseph Sedley is rich and unmarried, why should I not marry him? I have only a fortnight, to be sure, but there is no harm in trying." And she determined within herself to make this laudable attempt. She redoubled her caresses to Amelia; she kissed the white cornelian necklace as she put it on; and vowed she would never, never part with it. When the dinner-bell rang she went downstairs with her arm round her friend's waist, as is the habit of young ladies. She was so agitated at the drawing-room door, that she could hardly find courage to enter. "Feel my heart, how it beats, dear!" said she to her friend. "No, it doesn't," said Amelia. "Come in, don't be frightened. Papa won't do you any harm." Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy A VERY stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian boots, with several immense neckcloths that rose almost to his nose, with a red striped waistcoat and an apple green coat with steel buttons almost as large as crown pieces (it was the morning costume of a dandy or blood of those days) was reading the paper by the fire when the two girls entered, and bounced off his arm-chair, and blushed excessively, and hid his entire face almost in his neckcloths at this apparition. "It's only your sister, Joseph," said Amelia, laughing and shaking the two fingers which he held out. "I've come home FOR GOOD, you know; and this is my friend, Miss Sharp, whom you have heard me mention." "No, never, upon my word," said the head under the neckcloth, shaking very much--"that is, yes--what abominably cold weather, Miss"--and herewith he fell to poking the fire with all his might, although it was in the middle of June. "He's very handsome," whispered Rebecca to Amelia, rather loud. "Do you think so?" said the latter. "I'll tell him." "Darling! not for worlds," said Miss Sharp, starting back as timid as a fawn. She had previously made a respectful virgin-like curtsey to the gentleman, and her modest eyes gazed so perseveringly on the carpet that it was a wonder how she should have found an opportunity to see him. "Thank you for the beautiful shawls, brother," said Amelia to the fire poker. "Are they not beautiful, Rebecca?" "O heavenly!" said Miss Sharp, and her eyes went from the carpet straight to the chandelier. Joseph still continued a huge clattering at the poker and tongs, puffing and blowing the while, and turning as red as his yellow face would allow him. "I can't make you such handsome presents, Joseph," continued his sister, "but while I was at school, I have embroidered for you a very beautiful pair of braces." "Good Gad! Amelia," cried the brother, in serious alarm, "what do you mean?" and plunging with all his might at the bell-rope, that article of furniture came away in his hand, and increased the honest fellow's confusion. "For heaven's sake see if my buggy's at the door. I CAN'T wait. I must go. D---- that groom of mine. I must go." At this minute the father of the family walked in, rattling his seals like a true British merchant. "What's the matter, Emmy?" says he. "Joseph wants me to see if his--his buggy is at the door. What is a buggy, Papa?" "It is a one-horse palanquin," said the old gentleman, who was a wag in his way. Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter; in which, encountering the eye of Miss Sharp, he stopped all of a sudden, as if he had been shot. "This young lady is your friend? Miss Sharp, I am very happy to see you. Have you and Emmy been quarrelling already with Joseph, that he wants to be off?" "I promised Bonamy of our service, sir," said Joseph, "to dine with him." "O fie! didn't you tell your mother you would dine here?" "But in this dress it's impossible." "Look at him, isn't he handsome enough to dine anywhere, Miss Sharp?" On which, of course, Miss Sharp looked at her friend, and they both set off in a fit of laughter, highly agreeable to the old gentleman. "Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at Miss Pinkerton's?" continued he, following up his advantage. "Gracious heavens! Father," cried Joseph. "There now, I have hurt his feelings. Mrs. Sedley, my dear, I have hurt your son's feelings. I have alluded to his buckskins. Ask Miss Sharp if I haven't? Come, Joseph, be friends with Miss Sharp, and let us all go to dinner." "There's a pillau, Joseph, just as you like it, and Papa has brought home the best turbot in Billingsgate." "Come, come, sir, walk downstairs with Miss Sharp, and I will follow with these two young women," said the father, and he took an arm of wife and daughter and walked merrily off. If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart upon making the conquest of this big beau, I don't think, ladies, we have any right to blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is generally, and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters for her, and that if she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one else in the wide world who would take the trouble off her hands. What causes young people to "come out," but the noble ambition of matrimony? What sends them trooping to watering-places? What keeps them dancing till five o'clock in the morning through a whole mortal season? What causes them to labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln Green toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some "desirable" young man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs? What causes respectable parents to take up their carpets, set their houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of their year's income in ball suppers and iced champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and an unadulterated wish to see young people happy and dancing? Psha! they want to marry their daughters; and, as honest Mrs. Sedley has, in the depths of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little schemes for the settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved but unprotected Rebecca determined to do her very best to secure the husband, who was even more necessary for her than for her friend. She had a vivid imagination; she had, besides, read the Arabian Nights and Guthrie's Geography; and it is a fact that while she was dressing for dinner, and after she had asked Amelia whether her brother was very rich, she had built for herself a most magnificent castle in the air, of which she was mistress, with a husband somewhere in the background (she had not seen him as yet, and his figure would not therefore be very distinct); she had arrayed herself in an infinity of shawls, turbans, and diamond necklaces, and had mounted upon an elephant to the sound of the march in Bluebeard, in order to pay a visit of ceremony to the Grand Mogul. Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct you, and many a fanciful young creature besides Rebecca Sharp has indulged in these delightful day-dreams ere now! Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister Amelia. He was in the East India Company's Civil Service, and his name appeared, at the period of which we write, in the Bengal division of the East India Register, as collector of Boggley Wollah, an honourable and lucrative post, as everybody knows: in order to know to what higher posts Joseph rose in the service, the reader is referred to the same periodical. Boggley Wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy, jungly district, famous for snipe-shooting, and where not unfrequently you may flush a tiger. Ramgunge, where there is a magistrate, is only forty miles off, and there is a cavalry station about thirty miles farther; so Joseph wrote home to his parents, when he took possession of his collectorship. He had lived for about eight years of his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely seeing a Christian face except twice a year, when the detachment arrived to carry off the revenues which he had collected, to Calcutta. Luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for the cure of which he returned to Europe, and which was the source of great comfort and amusement to him in his native country. He did not live with his family while in London, but had lodgings of his own, like a gay young bachelor. Before he went to India he was too young to partake of the delightful pleasures of a man about town, and plunged into them on his return with considerable assiduity. He drove his horses in the Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the Oriental Club was not as yet invented); he frequented the theatres, as the mode was in those days, or made his appearance at the opera, laboriously attired in tights and a cocked hat. On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk of the pleasure of this period of his existence with great enthusiasm, and give you to understand that he and Brummel were the leading bucks of the day. But he was as lonely here as in his jungle at Boggley Wollah. He scarcely knew a single soul in the metropolis: and were it not for his doctor, and the society of his blue-pill, and his liver complaint, he must have died of loneliness. He was lazy, peevish, and a bon-vivant; the appearance of a lady frightened him beyond measure; hence it was but seldom that he joined the paternal circle in Russell Square, where there was plenty of gaiety, and where the jokes of his good-natured old father frightened his amour-propre. His bulk caused Joseph much anxious thought and alarm; now and then he would make a desperate attempt to get rid of his superabundant fat; but his indolence and love of good living speedily got the better of these endeavours at reform, and he found himself again at his three meals a day. He never was well dressed; but he took the hugest pains to adorn his big person, and passed many hours daily in that occupation. His valet made a fortune out of his wardrobe: his toilet-table was covered with as many pomatums and essences as ever were employed by an old beauty: he had tried, in order to give himself a waist, every girth, stay, and waistband then invented. Like most fat men, he would have his clothes made too tight, and took care they should be of the most brilliant colours and youthful cut. When dressed at length, in the afternoon, he would issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park; and then would come back in order to dress again and go and dine with nobody at the Piazza Coffee-House. He was as vain as a girl; and perhaps his extreme shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity. If Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first entrance into life, she is a young person of no ordinary cleverness. The first move showed considerable skill. When she called Sedley a very handsome man, she knew that Amelia would tell her mother, who would probably tell Joseph, or who, at any rate, would be pleased by the compliment paid to her son. All mothers are. If you had told Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she was. Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley would overhear the compliment--Rebecca spoke loud enough--and he did hear, and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine man) the praise thrilled through every fibre of his big body, and made it tingle with pleasure. Then, however, came a recoil. "Is the girl making fun of me?" he thought, and straightway he bounced towards the bell, and was for retreating, as we have seen, when his father's jokes and his mother's entreaties caused him to pause and stay where he was. He conducted the young lady down to dinner in a dubious and agitated frame of mind. "Does she really think I am handsome?" thought he, "or is she only making game of me?" We have talked of Joseph Sedley being as vain as a girl. Heaven help us! the girls have only to turn the tables, and say of one of their own sex, "She is as vain as a man," and they will have perfect reason. The bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their toilettes, quite as proud of their personal advantages, quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as any coquette in the world. Downstairs, then, they went, Joseph very red and blushing, Rebecca very modest, and holding her green eyes downwards. She was dressed in white, with bare shoulders as white as snow--the picture of youth, unprotected innocence, and humble virgin simplicity. "I must be very quiet," thought Rebecca, "and very much interested about India." Now we have heard how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a fine curry for her son, just as he liked it, and in the course of dinner a portion of this dish was offered to Rebecca. "What is it?" said she, turning an appealing look to Mr. Joseph. "Capital," said he. His mouth was full of it: his face quite red with the delightful exercise of gobbling. "Mother, it's as good as my own curries in India." "Oh, I must try some, if it is an Indian dish," said Miss Rebecca. "I am sure everything must be good that comes from there." "Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear," said Mr. Sedley, laughing. Rebecca had never tasted the dish before. "Do you find it as good as everything else from India?" said Mr. Sedley. "Oh, excellent!" said Rebecca, who was suffering tortures with the cayenne pepper. "Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp," said Joseph, really interested. "A chili," said Rebecca, gasping. "Oh yes!" She thought a chili was something cool, as its name imported, and was served with some. "How fresh and green they look," she said, and put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no longer. She laid down her fork. "Water, for Heaven's sake, water!" she cried. Mr. Sedley burst out laughing (he was a coarse man, from the Stock Exchange, where they love all sorts of practical jokes). "They are real Indian, I assure you," said he. "Sambo, give Miss Sharp some water." The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought the joke capital. The ladies only smiled a little. They thought poor Rebecca suffered too much. She would have liked to choke old Sedley, but she swallowed her mortification as well as she had the abominable curry before it, and as soon as she could speak, said, with a comical, good-humoured air, "I ought to have remembered the pepper which the Princess of Persia puts in the cream-tarts in the Arabian Nights. Do you put cayenne into your cream-tarts in India, sir?" Old Sedley began to laugh, and thought Rebecca was a good-humoured girl. Joseph simply said, "Cream-tarts, Miss? Our cream is very bad in Bengal. We generally use goats' milk; and, 'gad, do you know, I've got to prefer it!" "You won't like EVERYTHING from India now, Miss Sharp," said the old gentleman; but when the ladies had retired after dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son, "Have a care, Joe; that girl is setting her cap at you." "Pooh! nonsense!" said Joe, highly flattered. "I recollect, sir, there was a girl at Dumdum, a daughter of Cutler of the Artillery, and afterwards married to Lance, the surgeon, who made a dead set at me in the year '4--at me and Mulligatawney, whom I mentioned to you before dinner--a devilish good fellow Mulligatawney--he's a magistrate at Budgebudge, and sure to be in council in five years. Well, sir, the Artillery gave a ball, and Quintin, of the King's 14th, said to me, 'Sedley,' said he, 'I bet you thirteen to ten that Sophy Cutler hooks either you or Mulligatawney before the rains.' 'Done,' says I; and egad, sir--this claret's very good. Adamson's or Carbonell's?" A slight snore was the only reply: the honest stockbroker was asleep, and so the rest of Joseph's story was lost for that day. But he was always exceedingly communicative in a man's party, and has told this delightful tale many scores of times to his apothecary, Dr. Gollop, when he came to inquire about the liver and the blue-pill. Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with a bottle of claret besides his Madeira at dinner, and he managed a couple of plates full of strawberries and cream, and twenty-four little rout cakes that were lying neglected in a plate near him, and certainly (for novelists have the privilege of knowing everything) he thought a great deal about the girl upstairs. "A nice, gay, merry young creature," thought he to himself. "How she looked at me when I picked up her handkerchief at dinner! She dropped it twice. Who's that singing in the drawing-room? 'Gad! shall I go up and see?" But his modesty came rushing upon him with uncontrollable force. His father was asleep: his hat was in the hall: there was a hackney-coach standing hard by in Southampton Row. "I'll go and see the Forty Thieves," said he, "and Miss Decamp's dance"; and he slipped away gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and disappeared, without waking his worthy parent. "There goes Joseph," said Amelia, who was looking from the open windows of the drawing-room, while Rebecca was singing at the piano. "Miss Sharp has frightened him away," said Mrs. Sedley. "Poor Joe, why WILL he be so shy?" The Green Silk Purse Poor Joe's panic lasted for two or three days; during which he did not visit the house, nor during that period did Miss Rebecca ever mention his name. She was all respectful gratitude to Mrs. Sedley; delighted beyond measure at the Bazaars; and in a whirl of wonder at the theatre, whither the good-natured lady took her. One day, Amelia had a headache, and could not go upon some party of pleasure to which the two young people were invited: nothing could induce her friend to go without her. "What! you who have shown the poor orphan what happiness and love are for the first time in her life--quit YOU? Never!" and the green eyes looked up to Heaven and filled with tears; and Mrs. Sedley could not but own that her daughter's friend had a charming kind heart of her own. As for Mr. Sedley's jokes, Rebecca laughed at them with a cordiality and perseverance which not a little pleased and softened that good-natured gentleman. Nor was it with the chiefs of the family alone that Miss Sharp found favour. She interested Mrs. Blenkinsop by evincing the deepest sympathy in the raspberry-jam preserving, which operation was then going on in the Housekeeper's room; she persisted in calling Sambo "Sir," and "Mr. Sambo," to the delight of that attendant; and she apologised to the lady's maid for giving her trouble in venturing to ring the bell, with such sweetness and humility, that the Servants' Hall was almost as charmed with her as the Drawing Room. Once, in looking over some drawings which Amelia had sent from school, Rebecca suddenly came upon one which caused her to burst into tears and leave the room. It was on the day when Joe Sedley made his second appearance. Amelia hastened after her friend to know the cause of this display of feeling, and the good-natured girl came back without her companion, rather affected too. "You know, her father was our drawing-master, Mamma, at Chiswick, and used to do all the best parts of our drawings." "My love! I'm sure I always heard Miss Pinkerton say that he did not touch them--he only mounted them." "It was called mounting, Mamma. Rebecca remembers the drawing, and her father working at it, and the thought of it came upon her rather suddenly--and so, you know, she--" "The poor child is all heart," said Mrs. Sedley. "I wish she could stay with us another week," said Amelia. "She's devilish like Miss Cutler that I used to meet at Dumdum, only fairer. She's married now to Lance, the Artillery Surgeon. Do you know, Ma'am, that once Quintin, of the 14th, bet me--" "O Joseph, we know that story," said Amelia, laughing. "Never mind about telling that; but persuade Mamma to write to Sir Something Crawley for leave of absence for poor dear Rebecca: here she comes, her eyes red with weeping." "I'm better, now," said the girl, with the sweetest smile possible, taking good-natured Mrs. Sedley's extended hand and kissing it respectfully. "How kind you all are to me! All," she added, with a laugh, "except you, Mr. Joseph." "Me!" said Joseph, meditating an instant departure. "Gracious Heavens! Good Gad! Miss Sharp!' "Yes; how could you be so cruel as to make me eat that horrid pepper-dish at dinner, the first day I ever saw you? You are not so good to me as dear Amelia." "He doesn't know you so well," cried Amelia. "I defy anybody not to be good to you, my dear," said her mother. "The curry was capital; indeed it was," said Joe, quite gravely. "Perhaps there was NOT enough citron juice in it--no, there was NOT." "And the chilis?" "By Jove, how they made you cry out!" said Joe, caught by the ridicule of the circumstance, and exploding in a fit of laughter which ended quite suddenly, as usual. "I shall take care how I let YOU choose for me another time," said Rebecca, as they went down again to dinner. "I didn't think men were fond of putting poor harmless girls to pain." "By Gad, Miss Rebecca, I wouldn't hurt you for the world." "No," said she, "I KNOW you wouldn't"; and then she gave him ever so gentle a pressure with her little hand, and drew it back quite frightened, and looked first for one instant in his face, and then down at the carpet-rods; and I am not prepared to say that Joe's heart did not thump at this little involuntary, timid, gentle motion of regard on the part of the simple girl. It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies of indisputable correctness and gentility will condemn the action as immodest; but, you see, poor dear Rebecca had all this work to do for herself. If a person is too poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he must sweep his own rooms: if a dear girl has no dear Mamma to settle matters with the young man, she must do it for herself. And oh, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't resist them, if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly, it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did. "Egad!" thought Joseph, entering the dining-room, "I exactly begin to feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss Cutler." Many sweet little appeals, half tender, half jocular, did Miss Sharp make to him about the dishes at dinner; for by this time she was on a footing of considerable familiarity with the family, and as for the girls, they loved each other like sisters. Young unmarried girls always do, if they are in a house together for ten days. As if bent upon advancing Rebecca's plans in every way--what must Amelia do, but remind her brother of a promise made last Easter holidays--"When I was a girl at school," said she, laughing--a promise that he, Joseph, would take her to Vauxhall. "Now," she said, "that Rebecca is with us, will be the very time." "O, delightful!" said Rebecca, going to clap her hands; but she recollected herself, and paused, like a modest creature, as she was. "To-night is not the night," said Joe. "Well, to-morrow." "To-morrow your Papa and I dine out," said Mrs. Sedley. "You don't suppose that I'm going, Mrs. Sed?" said her husband, "and that a woman of your years and size is to catch cold, in such an abominable damp place?" "The children must have someone with them," cried Mrs. Sedley. "Let Joe go," said-his father, laughing. "He's big enough." At which speech even Mr. Sambo at the sideboard burst out laughing, and poor fat Joe felt inclined to become a parricide almost. "Undo his stays!" continued the pitiless old gentleman. "Fling some water in his face, Miss Sharp, or carry him upstairs: the dear creature's fainting. Poor victim! carry him up; he's as light as a feather!" "If I stand this, sir, I'm d------!" roared Joseph. "Order Mr. Jos's elephant, Sambo!" cried the father. "Send to Exeter 'Change, Sambo"; but seeing Jos ready almost to cry with vexation, the old joker stopped his laughter, and said, holding out his hand to his son, "It's all fair on the Stock Exchange, Jos--and, Sambo, never mind the elephant, but give me and Mr. Jos a glass of Champagne. Boney himself hasn't got such in his cellar, my boy!" A goblet of Champagne restored Joseph's equanimity, and before the bottle was emptied, of which as an invalid he took two-thirds, he had agreed to take the young ladies to Vauxhall. "The girls must have a gentleman apiece," said the old gentleman. "Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd, he will be so taken up with Miss Sharp here. Send to 96, and ask George Osborne if he'll come." At this, I don't know in the least for what reason, Mrs. Sedley looked at her husband and laughed. Mr. Sedley's eyes twinkled in a manner indescribably roguish, and he looked at Amelia; and Amelia, hanging down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never blushed in her life--at least not since she was eight years old, and when she was caught stealing jam out of a cupboard by her godmother. "Amelia had better write a note," said her father; "and let George Osborne see what a beautiful handwriting we have brought back from Miss Pinkerton's. Do you remember when you wrote to him to come on Twelfth-night, Emmy, and spelt twelfth without the f?" "That was years ago," said Amelia. "It seems like yesterday, don't it, John?" said Mrs. Sedley to her husband; and that night in a conversation which took place in a front room in the second floor, in a sort of tent, hung round with chintz of a rich and fantastic India pattern, and double with calico of a tender rose-colour; in the interior of which species of marquee was a featherbed, on which were two pillows, on which were two round red faces, one in a laced nightcap, and one in a simple cotton one, ending in a tassel--in a CURTAIN LECTURE, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her husband to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe. "It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sedley," said she, "to torment the poor boy so." "My dear," said the cotton-tassel in defence of his conduct, "Jos is a great deal vainer than you ever were in your life, and that's saying a good deal. Though, some thirty years ago, in the year seventeen hundred and eighty--what was it?--perhaps you had a right to be vain--I don't say no. But I've no patience with Jos and his dandified modesty. It is out-Josephing Joseph, my dear, and all the while the boy is only thinking of himself, and what a fine fellow he is. I doubt, Ma'am, we shall have some trouble with him yet. Here is Emmy's little friend making love to him as hard as she can; that's quite clear; and if she does not catch him some other will. That man is destined to be a prey to woman, as I am to go on 'Change every day. It's a mercy he did not bring us over a black daughter-in-law, my dear. But, mark my words, the first woman who fishes for him, hooks him." "She shall go off to-morrow, the little artful creature," said Mrs. Sedley, with great energy. "Why not she as well as another, Mrs. Sedley? The girl's a white face at any rate. I don't care who marries him. Let Joe please himself." And presently the voices of the two speakers were hushed, or were replaced by the gentle but unromantic music of the nose; and save when the church bells tolled the hour and the watchman called it, all was silent at the house of John Sedley, Esquire, of Russell Square, and the Stock Exchange. When morning came, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley no longer thought of executing her threats with regard to Miss Sharp; for though nothing is more keen, nor more common, nor more justifiable, than maternal jealousy, yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the little, humble, grateful, gentle governess would dare to look up to such a magnificent personage as the Collector of Boggley Wollah. The petition, too, for an extension of the young lady's leave of absence had already been despatched, and it would be difficult to find a pretext for abruptly dismissing her. And as if all things conspired in favour of the gentle Rebecca, the very elements (although she was not inclined at first to acknowledge their action in her behalf) interposed to aid her. For on the evening appointed for the Vauxhall party, George Osborne having come to dinner, and the elders of the house having departed, according to invitation, to dine with Alderman Balls at Highbury Barn, there came on such a thunder-storm as only happens on Vauxhall nights, and as obliged the young people, perforce, to remain at home. Mr. Osborne did not seem in the least disappointed at this occurrence. He and Joseph Sedley drank a fitting quantity of port-wine, tete-a-tete, in the dining-room, during the drinking of which Sedley told a number of his best Indian stories; for he was extremely talkative in man's society; and afterwards Miss Amelia Sedley did the honours of the drawing-room; and these four young persons passed such a comfortable evening together, that they declared they were rather glad of the thunder-storm than otherwise, which had caused them to put off their visit to Vauxhall. Osborne was Sedley's godson, and had been one of the family any time these three-and-twenty years. At six weeks old, he had received from John Sedley a present of a silver cup; at six months old, a coral with gold whistle and bells; from his youth upwards he was "tipped" regularly by the old gentleman at Christmas: and on going back to school, he remembered perfectly well being thrashed by Joseph Sedley, when the latter was a big, swaggering hobbadyhoy, and George an impudent urchin of ten years old. In a word, George was as familiar with the family as such daily acts of kindness and intercourse could make him. "Do you remember, Sedley, what a fury you were in, when I cut off the tassels of your Hessian boots, and how Miss--hem!--how Amelia rescued me from a beating, by falling down on her knees and crying out to her brother Jos, not to beat little George?" Jos remembered this remarkable circumstance perfectly well, but vowed that he had totally forgotten it. "Well, do you remember coming down in a gig to Dr. Swishtail's to see me, before you went to India, and giving me half a guinea and a pat on the head? I always had an idea that you were at least seven feet high, and was quite astonished at your return from India to find you no taller than myself." "How good of Mr. Sedley to go to your school and give you the money!" exclaimed Rebecca, in accents of extreme delight. "Yes, and after I had cut the tassels of his boots too. Boys never forget those tips at school, nor the givers." "I delight in Hessian boots," said Rebecca. Jos Sedley, who admired his own legs prodigiously, and always wore this ornamental chaussure, was extremely pleased at this remark, though he drew his legs under his chair as it was made. "Miss Sharp!" said George Osborne, "you who are so clever an artist, you must make a grand historical picture of the scene of the boots. Sedley shall be represented in buckskins, and holding one of the injured boots in one hand; by the other he shall have hold of my shirt-frill. Amelia shall be kneeling near him, with her little hands up; and the picture shall have a grand allegorical title, as the frontispieces have in the Medulla and the spelling-book." "I shan't have time to do it here," said Rebecca. "I'll do it when--when I'm gone." And she dropped her voice, and looked so sad and piteous, that everybody felt how cruel her lot was, and how sorry they would be to part with her. "O that you could stay longer, dear Rebecca," said Amelia. "Why?" answered the other, still more sadly. "That I may be only the more unhap--unwilling to lose you?" And she turned away her head. Amelia began to give way to that natural infirmity of tears which, we have said, was one of the defects of this silly little thing. George Osborne looked at the two young women with a touched curiosity; and Joseph Sedley heaved something very like a sigh out of his big chest, as he cast his eyes down towards his favourite Hessian boots. "Let us have some music, Miss Sedley--Amelia," said George, who felt at that moment an extraordinary, almost irresistible impulse to seize the above-mentioned young woman in his arms, and to kiss her in the face of the company; and she looked at him for a moment, and if I should say that they fell in love with each other at that single instant of time, I should perhaps be telling an untruth, for the fact is that these two young people had been bred up by their parents for this very purpose, and their banns had, as it were, been read in their respective families any time these ten years. They went off to the piano, which was situated, as pianos usually are, in the back drawing-room; and as it was rather dark, Miss Amelia, in the most unaffected way in the world, put her hand into Mr. Osborne's, who, of course, could see the way among the chairs and ottomans a great deal better than she could. But this arrangement left Mr. Joseph Sedley tete-a-tete with Rebecca, at the drawing-room table, where the latter was occupied in knitting a green silk purse. "There is no need to ask family secrets," said Miss Sharp. "Those two have told theirs." "As soon as he gets his company," said Joseph, "I believe the affair is settled. George Osborne is a capital fellow." "And your sister the dearest creature in the world," said Rebecca. "Happy the man who wins her!" With this, Miss Sharp gave a great sigh. When two unmarried persons get together, and talk upon such delicate subjects as the present, a great deal of confidence and intimacy is presently established between them. There is no need of giving a special report of the conversation which now took place between Mr. Sedley and the young lady; for the conversation, as may be judged from the foregoing specimen, was not especially witty or eloquent; it seldom is in private societies, or anywhere except in very high-flown and ingenious novels. As there was music in the next room, the talk was carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though, for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment would not have been disturbed had the talking been ever so loud, so occupied were they with their own pursuits. Almost for the first time in his life, Mr. Sedley found himself talking, without the least timidity or hesitation, to a person of the other sex. Miss Rebecca asked him a great number of questions about India, which gave him an opportunity of narrating many interesting anecdotes about that country and himself. He described the balls at Government House, and the manner in which they kept themselves cool in the hot weather, with punkahs, tatties, and other contrivances; and he was very witty regarding the number of Scotchmen whom Lord Minto, the Governor-General, patronised; and then he described a tiger-hunt; and the manner in which the mahout of his elephant had been pulled off his seat by one of the infuriated animals. How delighted Miss Rebecca was at the Government balls, and how she laughed at the stories of the Scotch aides-de-camp, and called Mr. Sedley a sad wicked satirical creature; and how frightened she was at the story of the elephant! "For your mother's sake, dear Mr. Sedley," she said, "for the sake of all your friends, promise NEVER to go on one of those horrid expeditions." "Pooh, pooh, Miss Sharp," said he, pulling up his shirt-collars; "the danger makes the sport only the pleasanter." He had never been but once at a tiger-hunt, when the accident in question occurred, and when he was half killed--not by the tiger, but by the fright. And as he talked on, he grew quite bold, and actually had the audacity to ask Miss Rebecca for whom she was knitting the green silk purse? He was quite surprised and delighted at his own graceful familiar manner. "For any one who wants a purse," replied Miss Rebecca, looking at him in the most gentle winning way. Sedley was going to make one of the most eloquent speeches possible, and had begun--"O Miss Sharp, how--" when some song which was performed in the other room came to an end, and caused him to hear his own voice so distinctly that he stopped, blushed, and blew his nose in great agitation. "Did you ever hear anything like your brother's eloquence?" whispered Mr. Osborne to Amelia. "Why, your friend has worked miracles." "The more the better," said Miss Amelia; who, like almost all women who are worth a pin, was a match-maker in her heart, and would have been delighted that Joseph should carry back a wife to India. She had, too, in the course of this few days' constant intercourse, warmed into a most tender friendship for Rebecca, and discovered a million of virtues and amiable qualities in her which she had not perceived when they were at Chiswick together. For the affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's bean-stalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night. It is no blame to them that after marriage this Sehnsucht nach der Liebe subsides. It is what sentimentalists, who deal in very big words, call a yearning after the Ideal, and simply means that women are commonly not satisfied until they have husbands and children on whom they may centre affections, which are spent elsewhere, as it were, in small change. Having expended her little store of songs, or having stayed long enough in the back drawing-room, it now appeared proper to Miss Amelia to ask her friend to sing. "You would not have listened to me," she said to Mr. Osborne (though she knew she was telling a fib), "had you heard Rebecca first." "I give Miss Sharp warning, though," said Osborne, "that, right or wrong, I consider Miss Amelia Sedley the first singer in the world." "You shall hear," said Amelia; and Joseph Sedley was actually polite enough to carry the candles to the piano. Osborne hinted that he should like quite as well to sit in the dark; but Miss Sedley, laughing, declined to bear him company any farther, and the two accordingly followed Mr. Joseph. Rebecca sang far better than her friend (though of course Osborne was free to keep his opinion), and exerted herself to the utmost, and, indeed, to the wonder of Amelia, who had never known her perform so well. She sang a French song, which Joseph did not understand in the least, and which George confessed he did not understand, and then a number of those simple ballads which were the fashion forty years ago, and in which British tars, our King, poor Susan, blue-eyed Mary, and the like, were the principal themes. They are not, it is said, very brilliant, in a musical point of view, but contain numberless good-natured, simple appeals to the affections, which people understood better than the milk-and-water lagrime, sospiri, and felicita of the eternal Donizettian music with which we are favoured now-a-days. Conversation of a sentimental sort, befitting the subject, was carried on between the songs, to which Sambo, after he had brought the tea, the delighted cook, and even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, condescended to listen on the landing-place. Among these ditties was one, the last of the concert, and to the following effect: Ah! bleak and barren was the moor, Ah! loud and piercing was the storm, The cottage roof was shelter'd sure, The cottage hearth was bright and warm--An orphan boy the lattice pass'd, And, as he mark'd its cheerful glow, Felt doubly keen the midnight blast, And doubly cold the fallen snow. They mark'd him as he onward prest, With fainting heart and weary limb; Kind voices bade him turn and rest, And gentle faces welcomed him. The dawn is up--the guest is gone, The cottage hearth is blazing still; Heaven pity all poor wanderers lone! Hark to the wind upon the hill! It was the sentiment of the before-mentioned words, "When I'm gone," over again. As she came to the last words, Miss Sharp's "deep-toned voice faltered." Everybody felt the allusion to her departure, and to her hapless orphan state. Joseph Sedley, who was fond of music, and soft-hearted, was in a state of ravishment during the performance of the song, and profoundly touched at its conclusion. If he had had the courage; if George and Miss Sedley had remained, according to the former's proposal, in the farther room, Joseph Sedley's bachelorhood would have been at an end, and this work would never have been written. But at the close of the ditty, Rebecca quitted the piano, and giving her hand to Amelia, walked away into the front drawing-room twilight; and, at this moment, Mr. Sambo made his appearance with a tray, containing sandwiches, jellies, and some glittering glasses and decanters, on which Joseph Sedley's attention was immediately fixed. When the parents of the house of Sedley returned from their dinner-party, they found the young people so busy in talking, that they had not heard the arrival of the carriage, and Mr. Joseph was in the act of saying, "My dear Miss Sharp, one little teaspoonful of jelly to recruit you after your immense--your--your delightful exertions." "Bravo, Jos!" said Mr. Sedley; on hearing the bantering of which well-known voice, Jos instantly relapsed into an alarmed silence, and quickly took his departure. He did not lie awake all night thinking whether or not he was in love with Miss Sharp; the passion of love never interfered with the appetite or the slumber of Mr. Joseph Sedley; but he thought to himself how delightful it would be to hear such songs as those after Cutcherry--what a distinguee girl she was--how she could speak French better than the Governor-General's lady herself--and what a sensation she would make at the Calcutta balls. "It's evident the poor devil's in love with me," thought he. "She is just as rich as most of the girls who come out to India. I might go farther, and fare worse, egad!" And in these meditations he fell asleep. How Miss Sharp lay awake, thinking, will he come or not to-morrow? need not be told here. To-morrow came, and, as sure as fate, Mr. Joseph Sedley made his appearance before luncheon. He had never been known before to confer such an honour on Russell Square. George Osborne was somehow there already (sadly "putting out" Amelia, who was writing to her twelve dearest friends at Chiswick Mall), and Rebecca was employed upon her yesterday's work. As Joe's buggy drove up, and while, after his usual thundering knock and pompous bustle at the door, the ex-Collector of Boggley Wollah laboured up stairs to the drawing-room, knowing glances were telegraphed between Osborne and Miss Sedley, and the pair, smiling archly, looked at Rebecca, who actually blushed as she bent her fair ringlets over her knitting. How her heart beat as Joseph appeared--Joseph, puffing from the staircase in shining creaking boots--Joseph, in a new waistcoat, red with heat and nervousness, and blushing behind his wadded neckcloth. It was a nervous moment for all; and as for Amelia, I think she was more frightened than even the people most concerned. Sambo, who flung open the door and announced Mr. Joseph, followed grinning, in the Collector's rear, and bearing two handsome nosegays of flowers, which the monster had actually had the gallantry to purchase in Covent Garden Market that morning--they were not as big as the haystacks which ladies carry about with them now-a-days, in cones of filigree paper; but the young women were delighted with the gift, as Joseph presented one to each, with an exceedingly solemn bow. "Bravo, Jos!" cried Osborne. "Thank you, dear Joseph," said Amelia, quite ready to kiss her brother, if he were so minded. (And I think for a kiss from such a dear creature as Amelia, I would purchase all Mr. Lee's conservatories out of hand.) "O heavenly, heavenly flowers!" exclaimed Miss Sharp, and smelt them delicately, and held them to her bosom, and cast up her eyes to the ceiling, in an ecstasy of admiration. Perhaps she just looked first into the bouquet, to see whether there was a billet-doux hidden among the flowers; but there was no letter. "Do they talk the language of flowers at Boggley Wollah, Sedley?" asked Osborne, laughing. "Pooh, nonsense!" replied the sentimental youth. "Bought 'em at Nathan's; very glad you like 'em; and eh, Amelia, my dear, I bought a pine-apple at the same time, which I gave to Sambo. Let's have it for tiffin; very cool and nice this hot weather." Rebecca said she had never tasted a pine, and longed beyond everything to taste one. So the conversation went on. I don't know on what pretext Osborne left the room, or why, presently, Amelia went away, perhaps to superintend the slicing of the pine-apple; but Jos was left alone with Rebecca, who had resumed her work, and the green silk and the shining needles were quivering rapidly under her white slender fingers. "What a beautiful, BYOO-OOTIFUL song that was you sang last night, dear Miss Sharp," said the Collector. "It made me cry almost; 'pon my honour it did." "Because you have a kind heart, Mr. Joseph; all the Sedleys have, I think." "It kept me awake last night, and I was trying to hum it this morning, in bed; I was, upon my honour. Gollop, my doctor, came in at eleven (for I'm a sad invalid, you know, and see Gollop every day), and, 'gad! there I was, singing away like--a robin." "O you droll creature! Do let me hear you sing it." "Me? No, you, Miss Sharp; my dear Miss Sharp, do sing it." "Not now, Mr. Sedley," said Rebecca, with a sigh. "My spirits are not equal to it; besides, I must finish the purse. Will you help me, Mr. Sedley?" And before he had time to ask how, Mr. Joseph Sedley, of the East India Company's service, was actually seated tete-a-tete with a young lady, looking at her with a most killing expression; his arms stretched out before her in an imploring attitude, and his hands bound in a web of green silk, which she was unwinding. In this romantic position Osborne and Amelia found the interesting pair, when they entered to announce that tiffin was ready. The skein of silk was just wound round the card; but Mr. Jos had never spoken. "I am sure he will to-night, dear," Amelia said, as she pressed Rebecca's hand; and Sedley, too, had communed with his soul, and said to himself, "'Gad, I'll pop the question at Vauxhall." 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.

Zwei, drei und vier Vanity Fair beginnt im frühen 19. Jahrhundert an einem "sonnigen Morgen im Juni". Fräulein Amelia Sedley und Fräulein Rebecca Sharp verlassen das Internat von Miss Pinkerton. Amelias Vater ist wohlhabend, während Becky eine "Schülerin im Praktikum" war. Sie verlassen das Internat gemeinsam, da Becky für kurze Zeit bei Amelia bleiben soll. Der Erzähler beschreibt Amelia als "unschuldig", aber nicht als Heldin. Amelia's Abschied wird von Lehrern und Schülern groß gefeiert, aber für Becky zeigt niemand Interesse. Letztere gewinnt einen "kleinen Kampf" mit Miss Pinkerton, weil sie mit ihr auf Französisch spricht und sich weigert, ihr angebotene Finger zu schütteln. Die beiden jungen Frauen sitzen im Wagen von Amelia und sind bereit, loszufahren, als Miss Jemima Pinkerton - die Schwester von Miss Pinkerton - Mitleid mit Becky hat und ihr Essen und ein Wörterbuch gibt. Becky wirft das Buch aus dem Fenster, als sie losfahren, und bringt Miss Jemima fast zum "Ohnmächtigwerden vor Schreck". In Kapitel Zwei beschreibt Becky, wie sehr sie das Internat hasst und wie schlecht sie dort behandelt wurde. Sie gibt zu, dass Miss Pinkerton kein Französisch sprechen kann und es genossen hat, sie aus der Fassung zu bringen. Amelia ist schockiert, als Becky "Vive la France" sagt, aber Becky erklärt, dass sie "kein Engel" ist und Rache natürlich ist. Der Erzähler beschreibt sie als "junge Misanthropin". Beckys Hintergrund wird dann umrissen und den Lesern wird erzählt, wie ihr Vater ein Künstler war, der Zeichenunterricht an der Schule gegeben hatte. Ihre Mutter, mittlerweile tot, war Französin und so konnte Becky fließend Französisch sprechen. Ihr Vater bat Miss Pinkerton, Becky anzunehmen, da er Schulden hatte, und sie kam im Alter von 17 Jahren nach seinem Tod in die Schule. Als Schülerin im Praktikum hatte sie die Aufgabe, mit den jüngeren Kindern auf Französisch zu sprechen. Sie lebte dort kostenlos und nutzte die Gelegenheit, auch dort zu lernen. Sie war den Umgang mit ihrem Vater gewohnt, nicht aber die Gesellschaft von Frauen. Sie wurde auch neidisch auf die anderen Schüler und ihre Vorteile. Sie begann, für ihre Zukunft zu planen und lernte Musik, um sich zu helfen. Als sie sich weigerte, sie umsonst zu lehren, nachdem sie dies erreicht hatte, mochte Miss Pinkerton sie nicht. Becky soll eine Woche lang in Amelias Haus in der Russell Square bleiben, bevor sie als Gouvernante arbeitet. Amelia zeigt ihr jedes Zimmer im Haus und Becky sagt, wie gut es sein muss, einen Bruder und reiche, liebevolle Eltern zu haben. Amelia hat einen wohlhabenden unverheirateten Bruder, namens Joseph, und Becky beschließt, ihn zu heiraten, obwohl sie nur wenig Zeit hat, dies zu erreichen. Joseph wird in Kapitel Drei als "sehr korpulenter Mann" beschrieben und er errötet, als Becky und Amelia den Raum betreten. Becky gibt vor, mit ihm zu flirten, während sie gleichzeitig schüchtern sein will. Der Erzähler erinnert den Leser daran, dass es verständlich ist, dass Becky, als Waise, versucht, ihre eigene Zukunft zu arrangieren. Die Eltern anderer Mädchen, wie Amelia, tun dies für sie. Joseph ist nach acht Jahren aus Indien zurückgekehrt, um sich wegen einer Lebererkrankung behandeln zu lassen. Er wohnt in Pensionen und ist schüchtern gegenüber Frauen. Die Familie isst an diesem Abend Curry und Becky wird aus Unwissenheit dazu gebracht, eine Chili zu essen, von der sie dachte, sie sei kühl. Sie nimmt den Scherz mit Humor und fährt fort, Joseph zu schmeicheln. In Kapitel Vier erfahren wir, dass Joseph zwei oder drei Tage lang wegbleibt. In dieser Zeit versucht Becky, sich bei den Sedleys und den Bediensteten einzuschmeicheln. Als Joseph wieder auftaucht, neckt ihn sein Vater, weil er dick ist, und benimmt sich so, wie er es an der Börse tut. Joseph stimmt zu, Becky und Amelia mit nach Vauxhall zu nehmen, und Amelia errötet, als vorgeschlagen wird, dass George Osborne sie begleitet. Im Gegensatz dazu hat Becky seit ihrem achten Lebensjahr nicht mehr errötet. Sie können Vauxhall jedoch aufgrund eines Gewitters nicht besuchen, und die vier müssen stattdessen drinnen bleiben. Osborne wird als Sedleys Patensohn vorgestellt, und es wird deutlich, dass er und Amelia Gefühle füreinander haben. Nachdem er Becky an diesem Abend singen gehört hat, denkt Joseph später darüber nach, wie sie in Indien eine Sensation wäre. Das Kapitel endet damit, dass er Becky und Amelia am nächsten Tag Blumen bringt und beschließt, ihr bei Vauxhall den Hof 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. Kapitel: SZENE V. Die Heide. [Donner. Die drei Hexen treten auf und treffen Hekate.] ERSTE HEXE. Nun, wie stehst du da, Hekate? Du siehst zornig aus. HEKATE. Habe ich nicht Grund dazu, ihr alten Weiber, Frech und dreist? Wie konntet ihr es wagen, Mit Macbeth zu handeln und zu verkehren In Rätseln und Dingen des Todes; Und ich, die Herrin eurer Zauberkünste, Die heimliche Verursacherin allen Unheils, Wurde nie gerufen, um meinen Teil zu tragen, Oder die Herrlichkeit unserer Kunst zu zeigen? Und, was noch schlimmer ist, all das, was ihr getan habt, War nur für einen eigensinnigen Sohn, Boshaft und zornig; der, wie alle anderen auch, Liebt nur für seinen eigenen Nutzen, nicht für euch. Aber jetzt macht Wiedergutmachung: Verschwindet, Und tretet mir morgen früh im Abgrund des Acheron entgegen. Dort wird er kommen, um sein Schicksal zu erfahren. Eure Gefäße und eure Zauber bereitstellen, Eure Beschwörungen und alles andere. Ich gehe in die Luft; diese Nacht werde ich verbringen Bis zu einem düsteren und fatalen Ende. Große Taten müssen vor dem Mittag vollbracht werden: An der Ecke des Mondes Schwebt ein tiefer, dunstiger Tropfen; Ich werde ihn auffangen, bevor er den Boden berührt: Und das, destilliert durch magische List, Wird solch künstliche Geister erwecken, Die durch die Stärke ihrer Illusion Ihn in seine Verwirrung treiben werden: Er wird das Schicksal verachten, den Tod verspotten und tragen Seine Hoffnungen über Weisheit, Anmut und Furcht: Und ihr wisst alle, dass Sicherheit Das größte Feindbild der Sterblichen ist. [Musik und Gesang im Hintergrund, "Komm weg, komm weg" usw.] Horch! Ich werde gerufen; mein kleiner Geist, sieh, Sitze in einer nebligen Wolke und wartet auf mich. [Hinausgehen.] ERSTE HEXE. Los, beeilen wir uns; sie wird bald zurück sein. [Hinausgehen.] 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.

Hekate, die klassische Göttin der Unterwelt, die den Geist der antiken Hexerei repräsentiert, ruft die seltsamen Schwestern zu sich, um sich darüber zu beschweren, dass ihre Rolle im Untergang von Macbeth übersehen wurde und dass sie nun persönlich seinen Untergang vollenden möchte. Die Szene ist für das Verständnis des Stücks nicht notwendig und wurde wahrscheinlich nicht von Shakespeare geschrieben.

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: Dr. Flint had not given me up. Every now and then he would say to my grandmother that I would yet come back, and voluntarily surrender myself; and that when I did, I could be purchased by my relatives, or any one who wished to buy me. I knew his cunning nature too well not to perceive that this was a trap laid for me; and so all my friends understood it. I resolved to match my cunning against his cunning. In order to make him believe that I was in New York, I resolved to write him a letter dated from that place. I sent for my friend Peter, and asked him if he knew any trustworthy seafaring person, who would carry such a letter to New York, and put it in the post office there. He said he knew one that he would trust with his own life to the ends of the world. I reminded him that it was a hazardous thing for him to undertake. He said he knew it, but he was willing to do any thing to help me. I expressed a wish for a New York paper, to ascertain the names of some of the streets. He run his hand into his pocket, and said, "Here is half a one, that was round a cap I bought of a pedler yesterday." I told him the letter would be ready the next evening. He bade me good by, adding, "Keep up your spirits, Linda; brighter days will come by and by." My uncle Phillip kept watch over the gate until our brief interview was over. Early the next morning, I seated myself near the little aperture to examine the newspaper. It was a piece of the New York Herald; and, for once, the paper that systematically abuses the colored people, was made to render them a service. Having obtained what information I wanted concerning streets and numbers, I wrote two letters, one to my grandmother, the other to Dr. Flint. I reminded him how he, a gray-headed man, had treated a helpless child, who had been placed in his power, and what years of misery he had brought upon her. To my grandmother, I expressed a wish to have my children sent to me at the north, where I could teach them to respect themselves, and set them a virtuous example; which a slave mother was not allowed to do at the south. I asked her to direct her answer to a certain street in Boston, as I did not live in New York, though I went there sometimes. I dated these letters ahead, to allow for the time it would take to carry them, and sent a memorandum of the date to the messenger. When my friend came for the letters, I said, "God bless and reward you, Peter, for this disinterested kindness. Pray be careful. If you are detected, both you and I will have to suffer dreadfully. I have not a relative who would dare to do it for me." He replied, "You may trust to me, Linda. I don't forget that your father was my best friend, and I will be a friend to his children so long as God lets me live." It was necessary to tell my grandmother what I had done, in order that she might be ready for the letter, and prepared to hear what Dr. Flint might say about my being at the north. She was sadly troubled. She felt sure mischief would come of it. I also told my plan to aunt Nancy, in order that she might report to us what was said at Dr. Flint's house. I whispered it to her through a crack, and she whispered back, "I hope it will succeed. I shan't mind being a slave all _my_ life, if I can only see you and the children free." I had directed that my letters should be put into the New York post office on the 20th of the month. On the evening of the 24th my aunt came to say that Dr. Flint and his wife had been talking in a low voice about a letter he had received, and that when he went to his office he promised to bring it when he came to tea. So I concluded I should hear my letter read the next morning. I told my grandmother Dr. Flint would be sure to come, and asked her to have him sit near a certain door, and leave it open, that I might hear what he said. The next morning I took my station within sound of that door, and remained motionless as a statue. It was not long before I heard the gate slam, and the well-known footsteps enter the house. He seated himself in the chair that was placed for him, and said, "Well, Martha, I've brought you a letter from Linda. She has sent me a letter, also. I know exactly where to find her; but I don't choose to go to Boston for her. I had rather she would come back of her own accord, in a respectable manner. Her uncle Phillip is the best person to go for her. With _him_, she would feel perfectly free to act. I am willing to pay his expenses going and returning. She shall be sold to her friends. Her children are free; at least I suppose they are; and when you obtain her freedom, you'll make a happy family. I suppose, Martha, you have no objection to my reading to you the letter Linda has written to you." He broke the seal, and I heard him read it. The old villain! He had suppressed the letter I wrote to grandmother, and prepared a substitute of his own, the purport of which was as follows:-- Dear Grandmother: I have long wanted to write to you; but the disgraceful manner in which I left you and my children made me ashamed to do it. If you knew how much I have suffered since I ran away, you would pity and forgive me. I have purchased freedom at a dear rate. If any arrangement could be made for me to return to the south without being a slave, I would gladly come. If not, I beg of you to send my children to the north. I cannot live any longer without them. Let me know in time, and I will meet them in New York or Philadelphia, whichever place best suits my uncle's convenience. Write as soon as possible to your unhappy daughter, Linda. "It is very much as I expected it would be," said the old hypocrite, rising to go. "You see the foolish girl has repented of her rashness, and wants to return. We must help her to do it, Martha. Talk with Phillip about it. If he will go for her, she will trust to him, and come back. I should like an answer to-morrow. Good morning, Martha." As he stepped out on the piazza, he stumbled over my little girl. "Ah, Ellen, is that you?" he said, in his most gracious manner. "I didn't see you. How do you do?" "Pretty well, sir," she replied. "I heard you tell grandmother that my mother is coming home. I want to see her." "Yes, Ellen, I am going to bring her home very soon," rejoined he; "and you shall see her as much as you like, you little curly-headed nigger." This was as good as a comedy to me, who had heard it all; but grandmother was frightened and distressed, because the doctor wanted my uncle to go for me. The next evening Dr. Flint called to talk the matter over. My uncle told him that from what he had heard of Massachusetts, he judged he should be mobbed if he went there after a runaway slave. "All stuff and nonsense, Phillip!" replied the doctor. "Do you suppose I want you to kick up a row in Boston? The business can all be done quietly. Linda writes that she wants to come back. You are her relative, and she would trust _you_. The case would be different if I went. She might object to coming with _me_; and the damned abolitionists, if they knew I was her master, would not believe me, if I told them she had begged to go back. They would get up a row; and I should not like to see Linda dragged through the streets like a common negro. She has been very ungrateful to me for all my kindness; but I forgive her, and want to act the part of a friend towards her. I have no wish to hold her as my slave. Her friends can buy her as soon as she arrives here." Finding that his arguments failed to convince my uncle, the doctor "let the cat out of the bag," by saying that he had written to the mayor of Boston, to ascertain whether there was a person of my description at the street and number from which my letter was dated. He had omitted this date in the letter he had made up to read to my grandmother. If I had dated from New York, the old man would probably have made another journey to that city. But even in that dark region, where knowledge is so carefully excluded from the slave, I had heard enough about Massachusetts to come to the conclusion that slaveholders did not consider it a comfortable place to go in search of a runaway. That was before the Fugitive Slave Law was passed; before Massachusetts had consented to become a "nigger hunter" for the south. My grandmother, who had become skittish by seeing her family always in danger, came to me with a very distressed countenance, and said, "What will you do if the mayor of Boston sends him word that you haven't been there? Then he will suspect the letter was a trick; and maybe he'll find out something about it, and we shall all get into trouble. O Linda, I wish you had never sent the letters." "Don't worry yourself, Grandmother," said I. "The mayor of Boston won't trouble himself to hunt niggers for Dr. Flint. The letters will do good in the end. I shall get out of this dark hole some time or other." "I hope you will, child," replied the good, patient old friend. "You have been here a long time; almost five years; but whenever you do go, it will break your old grandmother's heart. I should be expecting every day to hear that you were brought back in irons and put in jail. God help you, poor child! Let us be thankful that some time or other we shall go 'where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.'" My heart responded, Amen. The fact that Dr. Flint had written to the mayor of Boston convinced me that he believed my letter to be genuine, and of course that he had no suspicion of my being any where in the vicinity. It was a great object to keep up this delusion, for it made me and my friends feel less anxious, and it would be very convenient whenever there was a chance to escape. I resolved, therefore, to continue to write letters from the north from time to time. Two or three weeks passed, and as no news came from the mayor of Boston, grandmother began to listen to my entreaty to be allowed to leave my cell, sometimes, and exercise my limbs to prevent my becoming a cripple. I was allowed to slip down into the small storeroom, early in the morning, and remain there a little while. The room was all filled up with barrels, except a small open space under my trap-door. This faced the door, the upper part of which was of glass, and purposely left uncurtained, that the curious might look in. The air of this place was close; but it was so much better than the atmosphere of my cell, that I dreaded to return. I came down as soon as it was light, and remained till eight o'clock, when people began to be about, and there was danger that some one might come on the piazza. I had tried various applications to bring warmth and feeling into my limbs, but without avail. They were so numb and stiff that it was a painful effort to move; and had my enemies come upon me during the first mornings I tried to exercise them a little in the small unoccupied space of the storeroom, it would have been impossible for me to have escaped. 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.

In seiner Schläue gab Dr. Flint die Suche nach Harriet nicht auf. Sie entschied, dass sie, da er dachte, sie sei in New York, einen Brief von dort aus datieren sollte. Ihr Freund Peter konnte die Briefe - sie schrieb auch einen an ihre Großmutter - zu einer Person bringen, die nach New York reiste und sie in ihrem Namen verschicken würde. Dieser Plan machte ihre Großmutter sehr nervös, da sie sicher war, dass "Unheil daraus entstehen würde". In dem Brief sagte Harriet, dass Antworten an eine Straße in Boston gerichtet werden sollten, da sie nicht in New York lebte, sondern nur gelegentlich dorthin ging. Als Dr. Flint die Briefe erhielt, kam er sofort zu Tante Marthys Haus und las den an sie adressierten laut vor. Aus ihrem Versteck heraus hörte Harriet den Brief und erkannte, dass er die Worte geändert hatte, um es so klingen zu lassen, als ob sie nach Hause kommen wollte. Er wollte Phillip schicken, um sie abzuholen, aber Phillip war nervös wegen Boston, da sie sehr gegen die Sklaverei waren und ein Mann, der nach einem entlaufenen Sklaven suchte, sicher von einer wütenden Menge angegriffen würde. Dr. Flint sagte, er hätte den Bürgermeister von Boston angeschrieben, um Informationen über Harriet zu erhalten. Es kam keine Antwort, und Harriet fühlte sich etwas erleichtert über ihre Situation. Sie kam sogar aus ihrem Versteck heraus, um sich für kurze Zeit zu bewegen, damit sie nicht verkrüppelte.

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 Christmas Holidays Fine old Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had set off his rich gifts of warmth and color with all the heightening contrast of frost and snow. Snow lay on the croft and river-bank in undulations softer than the limbs of infancy; it lay with the neatliest finished border on every sloping roof, making the dark-red gables stand out with a new depth of color; it weighed heavily on the laurels and fir-trees, till it fell from them with a shuddering sound; it clothed the rough turnip-field with whiteness, and made the sheep look like dark blotches; the gates were all blocked up with the sloping drifts, and here and there a disregarded four-footed beast stood as if petrified "in unrecumbent sadness"; there was no gleam, no shadow, for the heavens, too, were one still, pale cloud; no sound or motion in anything but the dark river that flowed and moaned like an unresting sorrow. But old Christmas smiled as he laid this cruel-seeming spell on the outdoor world, for he meant to light up home with new brightness, to deepen all the richness of indoor color, and give a keener edge of delight to the warm fragrance of food; he meant to prepare a sweet imprisonment that would strengthen the primitive fellowship of kindred, and make the sunshine of familiar human faces as welcome as the hidden day-star. His kindness fell but hardly on the homeless,--fell but hardly on the homes where the hearth was not very warm, and where the food had little fragrance; where the human faces had had no sunshine in them, but rather the leaden, blank-eyed gaze of unexpectant want. But the fine old season meant well; and if he has not learned the secret how to bless men impartially, it is because his father Time, with ever-unrelenting unrelenting purpose, still hides that secret in his own mighty, slow-beating heart. And yet this Christmas day, in spite of Tom's fresh delight in home, was not, he thought, somehow or other, quite so happy as it had always been before. The red berries were just as abundant on the holly, and he and Maggie had dressed all the windows and mantlepieces and picture-frames on Christmas eve with as much taste as ever, wedding the thick-set scarlet clusters with branches of the black-berried ivy. There had been singing under the windows after midnight,--supernatural singing, Maggie always felt, in spite of Tom's contemptuous insistence that the singers were old Patch, the parish clerk, and the rest of the church choir; she trembled with awe when their carolling broke in upon her dreams, and the image of men in fustian clothes was always thrust away by the vision of angels resting on the parted cloud. The midnight chant had helped as usual to lift the morning above the level of common days; and then there were the smell of hot toast and ale from the kitchen, at the breakfast hour; the favorite anthem, the green boughs, and the short sermon gave the appropriate festal character to the church-going; and aunt and uncle Moss, with all their seven children, were looking like so many reflectors of the bright parlor-fire, when the church-goers came back, stamping the snow from their feet. The plum-pudding was of the same handsome roundness as ever, and came in with the symbolic blue flames around it, as if it had been heroically snatched from the nether fires, into which it had been thrown by dyspeptic Puritans; the dessert was as splendid as ever, with its golden oranges, brown nuts, and the crystalline light and dark of apple-jelly and damson cheese; in all these things Christmas was as it had always been since Tom could remember; it was only distinguished, if by anything, by superior sliding and snowballs. Christmas was cheery, but not so Mr. Tulliver. He was irate and defiant; and Tom, though he espoused his father's quarrels and shared his father's sense of injury, was not without some of the feeling that oppressed Maggie when Mr. Tulliver got louder and more angry in narration and assertion with the increased leisure of dessert. The attention that Tom might have concentrated on his nuts and wine was distracted by a sense that there were rascally enemies in the world, and that the business of grown-up life could hardly be conducted without a good deal of quarrelling. Now, Tom was not fond of quarrelling, unless it could soon be put an end to by a fair stand-up fight with an adversary whom he had every chance of thrashing; and his father's irritable talk made him uncomfortable, though he never accounted to himself for the feeling, or conceived the notion that his father was faulty in this respect. The particular embodiment of the evil principle now exciting Mr. Tulliver's determined resistance was Mr. Pivart, who, having lands higher up the Ripple, was taking measures for their irrigation, which either were, or would be, or were bound to be (on the principle that water was water), an infringement on Mr. Tulliver's legitimate share of water-power. Dix, who had a mill on the stream, was a feeble auxiliary of Old Harry compared with Pivart. Dix had been brought to his senses by arbitration, and Wakem's advice had not carried _him_ far. No; Dix, Mr. Tulliver considered, had been as good as nowhere in point of law; and in the intensity of his indignation against Pivart, his contempt for a baffled adversary like Dix began to wear the air of a friendly attachment. He had no male audience to-day except Mr. Moss, who knew nothing, as he said, of the "natur' o' mills," and could only assent to Mr. Tulliver's arguments on the _a priori_ ground of family relationship and monetary obligation; but Mr. Tulliver did not talk with the futile intention of convincing his audience, he talked to relieve himself; while good Mr. Moss made strong efforts to keep his eyes wide open, in spite of the sleepiness which an unusually good dinner produced in his hard-worked frame. Mrs. Moss, more alive to the subject, and interested in everything that affected her brother, listened and put in a word as often as maternal preoccupations allowed. "Why, Pivart's a new name hereabout, brother, isn't it?" she said; "he didn't own the land in father's time, nor yours either, before I was married." "New name? Yes, I should think it _is_ a new name," said Mr. Tulliver, with angry emphasis. "Dorlcote Mill's been in our family a hundred year and better, and nobody ever heard of a Pivart meddling with the river, till this fellow came and bought Bincome's farm out of hand, before anybody else could so much as say 'snap.' But I'll _Pivart_ him!" added Mr. Tulliver, lifting his glass with a sense that he had defined his resolution in an unmistakable manner. "You won't be forced to go to law with him, I hope, brother?" said Mrs. Moss, with some anxiety. "I don't know what I shall be forced to; but I know what I shall force _him_ to, with his dikes and erigations, if there's any law to be brought to bear o' the right side. I know well enough who's at the bottom of it; he's got Wakem to back him and egg him on. I know Wakem tells him the law can't touch him for it, but there's folks can handle the law besides Wakem. It takes a big raskil to beat him; but there's bigger to be found, as know more o' th' ins and outs o' the law, else how came Wakem to lose Brumley's suit for him?" Mr. Tulliver was a strictly honest man, and proud of being honest, but he considered that in law the ends of justice could only be achieved by employing a stronger knave to frustrate a weaker. Law was a sort of cock-fight, in which it was the business of injured honesty to get a game bird with the best pluck and the strongest spurs. "Gore's no fool; you needn't tell me that," he observed presently, in a pugnacious tone, as if poor Gritty had been urging that lawyer's capabilities; "but, you see, he isn't up to the law as Wakem is. And water's a very particular thing; you can't pick it up with a pitchfork. That's why it's been nuts to Old Harry and the lawyers. It's plain enough what's the rights and the wrongs of water, if you look at it straight-forrard; for a river's a river, and if you've got a mill, you must have water to turn it; and it's no use telling me Pivart's erigation and nonsense won't stop my wheel; I know what belongs to water better than that. Talk to me o' what th' engineers say! I say it's common sense, as Pivart's dikes must do me an injury. But if that's their engineering, I'll put Tom to it by-and-by, and he shall see if he can't find a bit more sense in th' engineering business than what _that_ comes to." Tom, looking round with some anxiety at this announcement of his prospects, unthinkingly withdrew a small rattle he was amusing baby Moss with, whereupon she, being a baby that knew her own mind with remarkable clearness, instantaneously expressed her sentiments in a piercing yell, and was not to be appeased even by the restoration of the rattle, feeling apparently that the original wrong of having it taken from her remained in all its force. Mrs. Moss hurried away with her into another room, and expressed to Mrs. Tulliver, who accompanied her, the conviction that the dear child had good reasons for crying; implying that if it was supposed to be the rattle that baby clamored for, she was a misunderstood baby. The thoroughly justifiable yell being quieted, Mrs. Moss looked at her sister-in-law and said,-- "I'm sorry to see brother so put out about this water work." "It's your brother's way, Mrs. Moss; I'd never anything o' that sort before I was married," said Mrs. Tulliver, with a half-implied reproach. She always spoke of her husband as "your brother" to Mrs. Moss in any case when his line of conduct was not matter of pure admiration. Amiable Mrs. Tulliver, who was never angry in her life, had yet her mild share of that spirit without which she could hardly have been at once a Dodson and a woman. Being always on the defensive toward her own sisters, it was natural that she should be keenly conscious of her superiority, even as the weakest Dodson, over a husband's sister, who, besides being poorly off, and inclined to "hang on" her brother, had the good-natured submissiveness of a large, easy-tempered, untidy, prolific woman, with affection enough in her not only for her own husband and abundant children, but for any number of collateral relations. "I hope and pray he won't go to law," said Mrs. Moss, "for there's never any knowing where that'll end. And the right doesn't allays win. This Mr. Pivart's a rich man, by what I can make out, and the rich mostly get things their own way." "As to that," said Mrs. Tulliver, stroking her dress down, "I've seen what riches are in my own family; for my sisters have got husbands as can afford to do pretty much what they like. But I think sometimes I shall be drove off my head with the talk about this law and erigation; and my sisters lay all the fault to me, for they don't know what it is to marry a man like your brother; how should they? Sister Pullet has her own way from morning till night." "Well," said Mrs. Moss, "I don't think I should like my husband if he hadn't got any wits of his own, and I had to find head-piece for him. It's a deal easier to do what pleases one's husband, than to be puzzling what else one should do." "If people come to talk o' doing what pleases their husbands," said Mrs. Tulliver, with a faint imitation of her sister Glegg, "I'm sure your brother might have waited a long while before he'd have found a wife that 'ud have let him have his say in everything, as I do. It's nothing but law and erigation now, from when we first get up in the morning till we go to bed at night; and I never contradict him; I only say, 'Well, Mr. Tulliver, do as you like; but whativer you do, don't go to law." Mrs. Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence over her husband. No woman is; she can always incline him to do either what she wishes, or the reverse; and on the composite impulses that were threatening to hurry Mr. Tulliver into "law," Mrs. Tulliver's monotonous pleading had doubtless its share of force; it might even be comparable to that proverbial feather which has the credit or discredit of breaking the camel's back; though, on a strictly impartial view, the blame ought rather to lie with the previous weight of feathers which had already placed the back in such imminent peril that an otherwise innocent feather could not settle on it without mischief. Not that Mrs. Tulliver's feeble beseeching could have had this feather's weight in virtue of her single personality; but whenever she departed from entire assent to her husband, he saw in her the representative of the Dodson family; and it was a guiding principle with Mr. Tulliver to let the Dodsons know that they were not to domineer over _him_, or--more specifically--that a male Tulliver was far more than equal to four female Dodsons, even though one of them was Mrs. Glegg. But not even a direct argument from that typical Dodson female herself against his going to law could have heightened his disposition toward it so much as the mere thought of Wakem, continually freshened by the sight of the too able attorney on market-days. Wakem, to his certain knowledge, was (metaphorically speaking) at the bottom of Pivart's irrigation; Wakem had tried to make Dix stand out, and go to law about the dam; it was unquestionably Wakem who had caused Mr. Tulliver to lose the suit about the right of road and the bridge that made a thoroughfare of his land for every vagabond who preferred an opportunity of damaging private property to walking like an honest man along the highroad; all lawyers were more or less rascals, but Wakem's rascality was of that peculiarly aggravated kind which placed itself in opposition to that form of right embodied in Mr. Tulliver's interests and opinions. And as an extra touch of bitterness, the injured miller had recently, in borrowing the five hundred pounds, been obliged to carry a little business to Wakem's office on his own account. A hook-nosed glib fellow! as cool as a cucumber,--always looking so sure of his game! And it was vexatious that Lawyer Gore was not more like him, but was a bald, round-featured man, with bland manners and fat hands; a game-cock that you would be rash to bet upon against Wakem. Gore was a sly fellow. His weakness did not lie on the side of scrupulosity; but the largest amount of winking, however significant, is not equivalent to seeing through a stone wall; and confident as Mr. Tulliver was in his principle that water was water, and in the direct inference that Pivart had not a leg to stand on in this affair of irrigation, he had an uncomfortable suspicion that Wakem had more law to show against this (rationally) irrefragable inference than Gore could show for it. But then, if they went to law, there was a chance for Mr. Tulliver to employ Counsellor Wylde on his side, instead of having that admirable bully against him; and the prospect of seeing a witness of Wakem's made to perspire and become confounded, as Mr. Tulliver's witness had once been, was alluring to the love of retributive justice. Much rumination had Mr. Tulliver on these puzzling subjects during his rides on the gray horse; much turning of the head from side to side, as the scales dipped alternately; but the probable result was still out of sight, only to be reached through much hot argument and iteration in domestic and social life. That initial stage of the dispute which consisted in the narration of the case and the enforcement of Mr. Tulliver's views concerning it throughout the entire circle of his connections would necessarily take time; and at the beginning of February, when Tom was going to school again, there were scarcely any new items to be detected in his father's statement of the case against Pivart, or any more specific indication of the measures he was bent on taking against that rash contravener of the principle that water was water. Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress, and Mr. Tulliver's heat was certainly more and more palpable. If there had been no new evidence on any other point, there had been new evidence that Pivart was as "thick as mud" with Wakem. "Father," said Tom, one evening near the end of the holidays, "uncle Glegg says Lawyer Wakem _is_ going to send his son to Mr. Stelling. It isn't true, what they said about his going to be sent to France. You won't like me to go to school with Wakem's son, shall you?" "It's no matter for that, my boy," said Mr. Tulliver; "don't you learn anything bad of him, that's all. The lad's a poor deformed creatur, and takes after his mother in the face; I think there isn't much of his father in him. It's a sign Wakem thinks high o' Mr. Sterling, as he sends his son to him, and Wakem knows meal from bran." Mr. Tulliver in his heart was rather proud of the fact that his son was to have the same advantages as Wakem's; but Tom was not at all easy on the point. It would have been much clearer if the lawyer's son had not been deformed, for then Tom would have had the prospect of pitching into him with all that freedom which is derived from a high moral sanction. 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.

Obwohl Tom von seinem Zuhause begeistert ist, ist dieses Weihnachtsfest nicht so glücklich wie die vorherigen. Sein Vater hat eine neue Auseinandersetzung, und Tom ist "abgelenkt von dem Gefühl, dass es Schurkenfeinde in der Welt gibt...". Dieser Streit entsteht mit Herrn Pivart, einem neuen Nachbarn, der plant, sein Grundstück weiter den Fluss hinauf zu bewässern. Herr Tulliver ist der Meinung, dass dies "sicherlich eine Verletzung des legitimen Wasserrechts von Herrn Tulliver" bedeutet. Tulliver versichert Herrn und Frau Moss lautstark, dass dagegen Widerstand geleistet wird. Frau Moss hofft, dass ihr Bruder nicht "gezwungen wird, vor Gericht zu gehen." Tulliver weiß es nicht genau, aber er ist sicher, dass Wakem in dieser Angelegenheit seine Finger im Spiel hat. Frau Moss sagt Frau Tulliver, dass es ihr leid tut, ihren Bruder so "aus der Fassung zu bringen", und Frau Tulliver antwortet, dass sie fürchtet, dass sie von seinen Reden "verrückt wird". Ihre ständige Warnung lautet: "Nun gut, Herr Tulliver, tu, was du willst; aber egal, was du tust, geh nicht vor Gericht." Aber für Herrn Tulliver bedeutet jeder Widerspruch seiner Frau alle weiblichen Dodsons und es ist nur noch sicherer, dass er tun wird, was er will. Aber selbst das "verstärkt seine Neigung dazu", vor Gericht zu gehen, nicht so sehr wie der Gedanke an Wakem, den Oberanwalt. Bis Tom zurück zur Schule geht, hat sich die Situation nicht weiterentwickelt, aber es ist bekannt geworden, dass Wakems Sohn zusammen mit Tom zu Mr. Stelling geschickt wird. Tom fühlt sich unwohl, aber "Herr Tulliver in seinem Innersten war ziemlich stolz darauf, dass sein Sohn dieselben Vorteile wie Wakem haben würde...".

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 Henry Baskerville and Dr. Mortimer were ready upon the appointed day, and we started as arranged for Devonshire. Mr. Sherlock Holmes drove with me to the station and gave me his last parting injunctions and advice. "I will not bias your mind by suggesting theories or suspicions, Watson," said he; "I wish you simply to report facts in the fullest possible manner to me, and you can leave me to do the theorizing." "What sort of facts?" I asked. "Anything which may seem to have a bearing however indirect upon the case, and especially the relations between young Baskerville and his neighbours or any fresh particulars concerning the death of Sir Charles. I have made some inquiries myself in the last few days, but the results have, I fear, been negative. One thing only appears to be certain, and that is that Mr. James Desmond, who is the next heir, is an elderly gentleman of a very amiable disposition, so that this persecution does not arise from him. I really think that we may eliminate him entirely from our calculations. There remain the people who will actually surround Sir Henry Baskerville upon the moor." "Would it not be well in the first place to get rid of this Barrymore couple?" "By no means. You could not make a greater mistake. If they are innocent it would be a cruel injustice, and if they are guilty we should be giving up all chance of bringing it home to them. No, no, we will preserve them upon our list of suspects. Then there is a groom at the Hall, if I remember right. There are two moorland farmers. There is our friend Dr. Mortimer, whom I believe to be entirely honest, and there is his wife, of whom we know nothing. There is this naturalist, Stapleton, and there is his sister, who is said to be a young lady of attractions. There is Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall, who is also an unknown factor, and there are one or two other neighbours. These are the folk who must be your very special study." "I will do my best." "You have arms, I suppose?" "Yes, I thought it as well to take them." "Most certainly. Keep your revolver near you night and day, and never relax your precautions." Our friends had already secured a first-class carriage and were waiting for us upon the platform. "No, we have no news of any kind," said Dr. Mortimer in answer to my friend's questions. "I can swear to one thing, and that is that we have not been shadowed during the last two days. We have never gone out without keeping a sharp watch, and no one could have escaped our notice." "You have always kept together, I presume?" "Except yesterday afternoon. I usually give up one day to pure amusement when I come to town, so I spent it at the Museum of the College of Surgeons." "And I went to look at the folk in the park," said Baskerville. "But we had no trouble of any kind." "It was imprudent, all the same," said Holmes, shaking his head and looking very grave. "I beg, Sir Henry, that you will not go about alone. Some great misfortune will befall you if you do. Did you get your other boot?" "No, sir, it is gone forever." "Indeed. That is very interesting. Well, good-bye," he added as the train began to glide down the platform. "Bear in mind, Sir Henry, one of the phrases in that queer old legend which Dr. Mortimer has read to us, and avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted." I looked back at the platform when we had left it far behind and saw the tall, austere figure of Holmes standing motionless and gazing after us. The journey was a swift and pleasant one, and I spent it in making the more intimate acquaintance of my two companions and in playing with Dr. Mortimer's spaniel. In a very few hours the brown earth had become ruddy, the brick had changed to granite, and red cows grazed in well-hedged fields where the lush grasses and more luxuriant vegetation spoke of a richer, if a damper, climate. Young Baskerville stared eagerly out of the window and cried aloud with delight as he recognized the familiar features of the Devon scenery. "I've been over a good part of the world since I left it, Dr. Watson," said he; "but I have never seen a place to compare with it." "I never saw a Devonshire man who did not swear by his county," I remarked. "It depends upon the breed of men quite as much as on the county," said Dr. Mortimer. "A glance at our friend here reveals the rounded head of the Celt, which carries inside it the Celtic enthusiasm and power of attachment. Poor Sir Charles's head was of a very rare type, half Gaelic, half Ivernian in its characteristics. But you were very young when you last saw Baskerville Hall, were you not?" "I was a boy in my teens at the time of my father's death and had never seen the Hall, for he lived in a little cottage on the South Coast. Thence I went straight to a friend in America. I tell you it is all as new to me as it is to Dr. Watson, and I'm as keen as possible to see the moor." "Are you? Then your wish is easily granted, for there is your first sight of the moor," said Dr. Mortimer, pointing out of the carriage window. Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a gray, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream. Baskerville sat for a long time, his eyes fixed upon it, and I read upon his eager face how much it meant to him, this first sight of that strange spot where the men of his blood had held sway so long and left their mark so deep. There he sat, with his tweed suit and his American accent, in the corner of a prosaic railway-carriage, and yet as I looked at his dark and expressive face I felt more than ever how true a descendant he was of that long line of high-blooded, fiery, and masterful men. There were pride, valour, and strength in his thick brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his large hazel eyes. If on that forbidding moor a difficult and dangerous quest should lie before us, this was at least a comrade for whom one might venture to take a risk with the certainty that he would bravely share it. The train pulled up at a small wayside station and we all descended. Outside, beyond the low, white fence, a wagonette with a pair of cobs was waiting. Our coming was evidently a great event, for station-master and porters clustered round us to carry out our luggage. It was a sweet, simple country spot, but I was surprised to observe that by the gate there stood two soldierly men in dark uniforms who leaned upon their short rifles and glanced keenly at us as we passed. The coachman, a hard-faced, gnarled little fellow, saluted Sir Henry Baskerville, and in a few minutes we were flying swiftly down the broad, white road. Rolling pasture lands curved upward on either side of us, and old gabled houses peeped out from amid the thick green foliage, but behind the peaceful and sunlit countryside there rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister hills. The wagonette swung round into a side road, and we curved upward through deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high banks on either side, heavy with dripping moss and fleshy hart's-tongue ferns. Bronzing bracken and mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the sinking sun. Still steadily rising, we passed over a narrow granite bridge and skirted a noisy stream which gushed swiftly down, foaming and roaring amid the gray boulders. Both road and stream wound up through a valley dense with scrub oak and fir. At every turn Baskerville gave an exclamation of delight, looking eagerly about him and asking countless questions. To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year. Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed. The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles. "Halloa!" cried Dr. Mortimer, "what is this?" A steep curve of heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor, lay in front of us. On the summit, hard and clear like an equestrian statue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern, his rifle poised ready over his forearm. He was watching the road along which we travelled. "What is this, Perkins?" asked Dr. Mortimer. Our driver half turned in his seat. "There's a convict escaped from Princetown, sir. He's been out three days now, and the warders watch every road and every station, but they've had no sight of him yet. The farmers about here don't like it, sir, and that's a fact." "Well, I understand that they get five pounds if they can give information." "Yes, sir, but the chance of five pounds is but a poor thing compared to the chance of having your throat cut. You see, it isn't like any ordinary convict. This is a man that would stick at nothing." "Who is he, then?" "It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer." I remembered the case well, for it was one in which Holmes had taken an interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of the crime and the wanton brutality which had marked all the actions of the assassin. The commutation of his death sentence had been due to some doubts as to his complete sanity, so atrocious was his conduct. Our wagonette had topped a rise and in front of us rose the huge expanse of the moor, mottled with gnarled and craggy cairns and tors. A cold wind swept down from it and set us shivering. Somewhere there, on that desolate plain, was lurking this fiendish man, hiding in a burrow like a wild beast, his heart full of malignancy against the whole race which had cast him out. It needed but this to complete the grim suggestiveness of the barren waste, the chilling wind, and the darkling sky. Even Baskerville fell silent and pulled his overcoat more closely around him. We had left the fertile country behind and beneath us. We looked back on it now, the slanting rays of a low sun turning the streams to threads of gold and glowing on the red earth new turned by the plough and the broad tangle of the woodlands. The road in front of us grew bleaker and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders. Now and then we passed a moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone, with no creeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked down into a cuplike depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs which had been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Two high, narrow towers rose over the trees. The driver pointed with his whip. "Baskerville Hall," said he. Its master had risen and was staring with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. A few minutes later we had reached the lodge-gates, a maze of fantastic tracery in wrought iron, with weather-bitten pillars on either side, blotched with lichens, and surmounted by the boars' heads of the Baskervilles. The lodge was a ruin of black granite and bared ribs of rafters, but facing it was a new building, half constructed, the first fruit of Sir Charles's South African gold. Through the gateway we passed into the avenue, where the wheels were again hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees shot their branches in a sombre tunnel over our heads. Baskerville shuddered as he looked up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at the farther end. "Was it here?" he asked in a low voice. "No, no, the yew alley is on the other side." The young heir glanced round with a gloomy face. "It's no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in such a place as this," said he. "It's enough to scare any man. I'll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you won't know it again, with a thousand candle-power Swan and Edison right here in front of the hall door." The avenue opened into a broad expanse of turf, and the house lay before us. In the fading light I could see that the centre was a heavy block of building from which a porch projected. The whole front was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where a window or a coat of arms broke through the dark veil. From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient, crenelated, and pierced with many loopholes. To right and left of the turrets were more modern wings of black granite. A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke. "Welcome, Sir Henry! Welcome to Baskerville Hall!" A tall man had stepped from the shadow of the porch to open the door of the wagonette. The figure of a woman was silhouetted against the yellow light of the hall. She came out and helped the man to hand down our bags. "You don't mind my driving straight home, Sir Henry?" said Dr. Mortimer. "My wife is expecting me." "Surely you will stay and have some dinner?" "No, I must go. I shall probably find some work awaiting me. I would stay to show you over the house, but Barrymore will be a better guide than I. Good-bye, and never hesitate night or day to send for me if I can be of service." The wheels died away down the drive while Sir Henry and I turned into the hall, and the door clanged heavily behind us. It was a fine apartment in which we found ourselves, large, lofty, and heavily raftered with huge baulks of age-blackened oak. In the great old-fashioned fireplace behind the high iron dogs a log-fire crackled and snapped. Sir Henry and I held out our hands to it, for we were numb from our long drive. Then we gazed round us at the high, thin window of old stained glass, the oak panelling, the stags' heads, the coats of arms upon the walls, all dim and sombre in the subdued light of the central lamp. "It's just as I imagined it," said Sir Henry. "Is it not the very picture of an old family home? To think that this should be the same hall in which for five hundred years my people have lived. It strikes me solemn to think of it." I saw his dark face lit up with a boyish enthusiasm as he gazed about him. The light beat upon him where he stood, but long shadows trailed down the walls and hung like a black canopy above him. Barrymore had returned from taking our luggage to our rooms. He stood in front of us now with the subdued manner of a well-trained servant. He was a remarkable-looking man, tall, handsome, with a square black beard and pale, distinguished features. "Would you wish dinner to be served at once, sir?" "Is it ready?" "In a very few minutes, sir. You will find hot water in your rooms. My wife and I will be happy, Sir Henry, to stay with you until you have made your fresh arrangements, but you will understand that under the new conditions this house will require a considerable staff." "What new conditions?" "I only meant, sir, that Sir Charles led a very retired life, and we were able to look after his wants. You would, naturally, wish to have more company, and so you will need changes in your household." "Do you mean that your wife and you wish to leave?" "Only when it is quite convenient to you, sir." "But your family have been with us for several generations, have they not? I should be sorry to begin my life here by breaking an old family connection." I seemed to discern some signs of emotion upon the butler's white face. "I feel that also, sir, and so does my wife. But to tell the truth, sir, we were both very much attached to Sir Charles, and his death gave us a shock and made these surroundings very painful to us. I fear that we shall never again be easy in our minds at Baskerville Hall." "But what do you intend to do?" "I have no doubt, sir, that we shall succeed in establishing ourselves in some business. Sir Charles's generosity has given us the means to do so. And now, sir, perhaps I had best show you to your rooms." A square balustraded gallery ran round the top of the old hall, approached by a double stair. From this central point two long corridors extended the whole length of the building, from which all the bedrooms opened. My own was in the same wing as Baskerville's and almost next door to it. These rooms appeared to be much more modern than the central part of the house, and the bright paper and numerous candles did something to remove the sombre impression which our arrival had left upon my mind. But the dining-room which opened out of the hall was a place of shadow and gloom. It was a long chamber with a step separating the dais where the family sat from the lower portion reserved for their dependents. At one end a minstrel's gallery overlooked it. Black beams shot across above our heads, with a smoke-darkened ceiling beyond them. With rows of flaring torches to light it up, and the colour and rude hilarity of an old-time banquet, it might have softened; but now, when two black-clothed gentlemen sat in the little circle of light thrown by a shaded lamp, one's voice became hushed and one's spirit subdued. A dim line of ancestors, in every variety of dress, from the Elizabethan knight to the buck of the Regency, stared down upon us and daunted us by their silent company. We talked little, and I for one was glad when the meal was over and we were able to retire into the modern billiard-room and smoke a cigarette. "My word, it isn't a very cheerful place," said Sir Henry. "I suppose one can tone down to it, but I feel a bit out of the picture at present. I don't wonder that my uncle got a little jumpy if he lived all alone in such a house as this. However, if it suits you, we will retire early tonight, and perhaps things may seem more cheerful in the morning." I drew aside my curtains before I went to bed and looked out from my window. It opened upon the grassy space which lay in front of the hall door. Beyond, two copses of trees moaned and swung in a rising wind. A half moon broke through the rifts of racing clouds. In its cold light I saw beyond the trees a broken fringe of rocks, and the long, low curve of the melancholy moor. I closed the curtain, feeling that my last impression was in keeping with the rest. And yet it was not quite the last. I found myself weary and yet wakeful, tossing restlessly from side to side, seeking for the sleep which would not come. Far away a chiming clock struck out the quarters of the hours, but otherwise a deathly silence lay upon the old house. And then suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable. It was the sob of a woman, the muffled, strangling gasp of one who is torn by an uncontrollable sorrow. I sat up in bed and listened intently. The noise could not have been far away and was certainly in the house. For half an hour I waited with every nerve on the alert, but there came no other sound save the chiming clock and the rustle of the ivy on the wall. 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.

An diesem Samstag nimmt Holmes Watson mit zum Bahnhof, um nach Baskerville Hall zu fahren. Holmes bittet Watson, ihm Informationen über Sir Henrys Nachbarn zu schicken. Holmes gibt Watson eine schnelle Liste von Leuten in der Gegend: Mr. und Mrs. Barrymore; Dr. Mortimer; Mrs. Mortimer; Stapleton; Stapletons Schwester; und Mr. Frankland. Als Dr. Mortimer und Sir Henry am Bahnhof ankommen, warnt Holmes Sir Henry davor, alleine loszugehen. Nicht. Sicher. Watson, Dr. Mortimer und Sir Henry fahren mit dem Zug nach Devonshire. Watson bemerkt, dass die Landschaft trostlos und ein wenig traurig ist. Außerdem wachen Soldaten über die Straße zu Sir Henrys Grundstück. Der Fahrer erklärt, dass ein Gefangener auf den Mooren entkommen ist. Und er ist nicht irgendein Gefangener - er ist ein wahnsinniger Mörder namens Selden. Als sie bei Baskerville Hall ankommen, sehen sie, dass es ein ziemlich düsterer Ort ist. Barrymore begrüßt Sir Henry in seinem Familienhaus. Er schlägt außerdem vor, dass Sir Henry anfängt, eine volle Belegschaft von Bediensteten einzustellen, um den alten Ort in Schuss zu halten. Sir Henry fragt sich: plant Barrymore zu kündigen? Seine Familie arbeitet seit Generationen für Baskerville Hall. Tatsächlich möchte Barrymore gehen: er und seine Frau wurden durch Sir Charles' Tod so verstört, dass sie sich im Haus nicht mehr wohl fühlen. In der Mitte der Nacht hört Watson das Geräusch einer weinenden Frau.

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 9. Belmont. A room in PORTIA's house. [Enter NERISSA, with a SERVITOR.] NERISSA. Quick, quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight; The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath, And comes to his election presently. [Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF ARRAGON, PORTIA, and their Trains.] PORTIA. Behold, there stand the caskets, noble Prince: If you choose that wherein I am contain'd, Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemniz'd; But if you fail, without more speech, my lord, You must be gone from hence immediately. ARRAGON. I am enjoin'd by oath to observe three things: First, never to unfold to any one Which casket 'twas I chose; next, if I fail Of the right casket, never in my life To woo a maid in way of marriage; Lastly, If I do fail in fortune of my choice, Immediately to leave you and be gone. PORTIA. To these injunctions every one doth swear That comes to hazard for my worthless self. ARRAGON. And so have I address'd me. Fortune now To my heart's hope! Gold, silver, and base lead. 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.' You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard. What says the golden chest? Ha! let me see: 'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.' What many men desire! that 'many' may be meant By the fool multitude, that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach; Which pries not to th' interior, but, like the martlet, Builds in the weather on the outward wall, Even in the force and road of casualty. I will not choose what many men desire, Because I will not jump with common spirits And rank me with the barbarous multitudes. Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house; Tell me once more what title thou dost bear: 'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.' And well said too; for who shall go about To cozen fortune, and be honourable Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O! that estates, degrees, and offices Were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer! How many then should cover that stand bare; How many be commanded that command; How much low peasantry would then be glean'd From the true seed of honour; and how much honour Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times To be new varnish'd! Well, but to my choice: 'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.' I will assume desert. Give me a key for this, And instantly unlock my fortunes here. [He opens the silver casket.] PORTIA. Too long a pause for that which you find there. ARRAGON. What's here? The portrait of a blinking idiot, Presenting me a schedule! I will read it. How much unlike art thou to Portia! How much unlike my hopes and my deservings! 'Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.' Did I deserve no more than a fool's head? Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better? PORTIA. To offend, and judge, are distinct offices, And of opposed natures. ARRAGON. What is here? 'The fire seven times tried this; Seven times tried that judgment is That did never choose amiss. Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow's bliss; There be fools alive, I wis, Silver'd o'er, and so was this. Take what wife you will to bed, I will ever be your head: So be gone; you are sped.' Still more fool I shall appear By the time I linger here; With one fool's head I came to woo, But I go away with two. Sweet, adieu! I'll keep my oath, Patiently to bear my wroth. [Exit ARAGON with his train.] PORTIA. Thus hath the candle sing'd the moth. O, these deliberate fools! When they do choose, They have the wisdom by their wit to lose. NERISSA. The ancient saying is no heresy: 'Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.' PORTIA. Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa. [Enter a SERVANT.] SERVANT. Where is my lady? PORTIA. Here; what would my lord? SERVANT. Madam, there is alighted at your gate A young Venetian, one that comes before To signify th' approaching of his lord; From whom he bringeth sensible regreets; To wit,--besides commends and courteous breath,-- Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen So likely an ambassador of love. A day in April never came so sweet, To show how costly summer was at hand, As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord. PORTIA. No more, I pray thee; I am half afeard Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee, Thou spend'st such high-day wit in praising him. Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see Quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly. NERISSA. Bassanio, lord Love, if thy will it be! [Exeunt.] 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 Prinz von Arragon ist in Belmont, um sein Glück zu versuchen und Portias Hand in der Ehe zu gewinnen. Als er zu den Truhen gebracht wird, wählt er die silberne aus, überzeugt, dass er "so viel bekommt, wie er verdient". Darin findet er ein Porträt eines blinzelnden Idioten und ein Gedicht, das ihn als Narren verurteilt. Kurz nachdem er abgereist ist, kommt ein Bote an, um Portia mitzuteilen, dass ein vielversprechender junger Venezianer, der wie der perfekte Verehrer erscheint, nach Belmont gekommen ist, um sein Glück beim Truhen-Spiel zu versuchen. In der Hoffnung, dass es Bassanio ist, gehen Portia und Nerissa hinaus, um den neuen Verehrer zu begrüßen.

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 towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. They were neither citadels nor churches, but frankly and beautifully office-buildings. The mist took pity on the fretted structures of earlier generations: the Post Office with its shingle-tortured mansard, the red brick minarets of hulking old houses, factories with stingy and sooted windows, wooden tenements colored like mud. The city was full of such grotesqueries, but the clean towers were thrusting them from the business center, and on the farther hills were shining new houses, homes--they seemed--for laughter and tranquillity. Over a concrete bridge fled a limousine of long sleek hood and noiseless engine. These people in evening clothes were returning from an all-night rehearsal of a Little Theater play, an artistic adventure considerably illuminated by champagne. Below the bridge curved a railroad, a maze of green and crimson lights. The New York Flyer boomed past, and twenty lines of polished steel leaped into the glare. In one of the skyscrapers the wires of the Associated Press were closing down. The telegraph operators wearily raised their celluloid eye-shades after a night of talking with Paris and Peking. Through the building crawled the scrubwomen, yawning, their old shoes slapping. The dawn mist spun away. Cues of men with lunch-boxes clumped toward the immensity of new factories, sheets of glass and hollow tile, glittering shops where five thousand men worked beneath one roof, pouring out the honest wares that would be sold up the Euphrates and across the veldt. The whistles rolled out in greeting a chorus cheerful as the April dawn; the song of labor in a city built--it seemed--for giants. II There was nothing of the giant in the aspect of the man who was beginning to awaken on the sleeping-porch of a Dutch Colonial house in that residential district of Zenith known as Floral Heights. His name was George F. Babbitt. He was forty-six years old now, in April, 1920, and he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay. His large head was pink, his brown hair thin and dry. His face was babyish in slumber, despite his wrinkles and the red spectacle-dents on the slopes of his nose. He was not fat but he was exceedingly well fed; his cheeks were pads, and the unroughened hand which lay helpless upon the khaki-colored blanket was slightly puffy. He seemed prosperous, extremely married and unromantic; and altogether unromantic appeared this sleeping-porch, which looked on one sizable elm, two respectable grass-plots, a cement driveway, and a corrugated iron garage. Yet Babbitt was again dreaming of the fairy child, a dream more romantic than scarlet pagodas by a silver sea. For years the fairy child had come to him. Where others saw but Georgie Babbitt, she discerned gallant youth. She waited for him, in the darkness beyond mysterious groves. When at last he could slip away from the crowded house he darted to her. His wife, his clamoring friends, sought to follow, but he escaped, the girl fleet beside him, and they crouched together on a shadowy hillside. She was so slim, so white, so eager! She cried that he was gay and valiant, that she would wait for him, that they would sail-- Rumble and bang of the milk-truck. Babbitt moaned; turned over; struggled back toward his dream. He could see only her face now, beyond misty waters. The furnace-man slammed the basement door. A dog barked in the next yard. As Babbitt sank blissfully into a dim warm tide, the paper-carrier went by whistling, and the rolled-up Advocate thumped the front door. Babbitt roused, his stomach constricted with alarm. As he relaxed, he was pierced by the familiar and irritating rattle of some one cranking a Ford: snap-ah-ah, snap-ah-ah, snap-ah-ah. Himself a pious motorist, Babbitt cranked with the unseen driver, with him waited through taut hours for the roar of the starting engine, with him agonized as the roar ceased and again began the infernal patient snap-ah-ah--a round, flat sound, a shivering cold-morning sound, a sound infuriating and inescapable. Not till the rising voice of the motor told him that the Ford was moving was he released from the panting tension. He glanced once at his favorite tree, elm twigs against the gold patina of sky, and fumbled for sleep as for a drug. He who had been a boy very credulous of life was no longer greatly interested in the possible and improbable adventures of each new day. He escaped from reality till the alarm-clock rang, at seven-twenty. III It was the best of nationally advertised and quantitatively produced alarm-clocks, with all modern attachments, including cathedral chime, intermittent alarm, and a phosphorescent dial. Babbitt was proud of being awakened by such a rich device. Socially it was almost as creditable as buying expensive cord tires. He sulkily admitted now that there was no more escape, but he lay and detested the grind of the real-estate business, and disliked his family, and disliked himself for disliking them. The evening before, he had played poker at Vergil Gunch's till midnight, and after such holidays he was irritable before breakfast. It may have been the tremendous home-brewed beer of the prohibition-era and the cigars to which that beer enticed him; it may have been resentment of return from this fine, bold man-world to a restricted region of wives and stenographers, and of suggestions not to smoke so much. From the bedroom beside the sleeping-porch, his wife's detestably cheerful "Time to get up, Georgie boy," and the itchy sound, the brisk and scratchy sound, of combing hairs out of a stiff brush. He grunted; he dragged his thick legs, in faded baby-blue pajamas, from under the khaki blanket; he sat on the edge of the cot, running his fingers through his wild hair, while his plump feet mechanically felt for his slippers. He looked regretfully at the blanket--forever a suggestion to him of freedom and heroism. He had bought it for a camping trip which had never come off. It symbolized gorgeous loafing, gorgeous cursing, virile flannel shirts. He creaked to his feet, groaning at the waves of pain which passed behind his eyeballs. Though he waited for their scorching recurrence, he looked blurrily out at the yard. It delighted him, as always; it was the neat yard of a successful business man of Zenith, that is, it was perfection, and made him also perfect. He regarded the corrugated iron garage. For the three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth time in a year he reflected, "No class to that tin shack. Have to build me a frame garage. But by golly it's the only thing on the place that isn't up-to-date!" While he stared he thought of a community garage for his acreage development, Glen Oriole. He stopped puffing and jiggling. His arms were akimbo. His petulant, sleep-swollen face was set in harder lines. He suddenly seemed capable, an official, a man to contrive, to direct, to get things done. On the vigor of his idea he was carried down the hard, clean, unused-looking hall into the bathroom. Though the house was not large it had, like all houses on Floral Heights, an altogether royal bathroom of porcelain and glazed tile and metal sleek as silver. The towel-rack was a rod of clear glass set in nickel. The tub was long enough for a Prussian Guard, and above the set bowl was a sensational exhibit of tooth-brush holder, shaving-brush holder, soap-dish, sponge-dish, and medicine-cabinet, so glittering and so ingenious that they resembled an electrical instrument-board. But the Babbitt whose god was Modern Appliances was not pleased. The air of the bathroom was thick with the smell of a heathen toothpaste. "Verona been at it again! 'Stead of sticking to Lilidol, like I've re-peat-ed-ly asked her, she's gone and gotten some confounded stinkum stuff that makes you sick!" The bath-mat was wrinkled and the floor was wet. (His daughter Verona eccentrically took baths in the morning, now and then.) He slipped on the mat, and slid against the tub. He said "Damn!" Furiously he snatched up his tube of shaving-cream, furiously he lathered, with a belligerent slapping of the unctuous brush, furiously he raked his plump cheeks with a safety-razor. It pulled. The blade was dull. He said, "Damn--oh--oh--damn it!" He hunted through the medicine-cabinet for a packet of new razor-blades (reflecting, as invariably, "Be cheaper to buy one of these dinguses and strop your own blades,") and when he discovered the packet, behind the round box of bicarbonate of soda, he thought ill of his wife for putting it there and very well of himself for not saying "Damn." But he did say it, immediately afterward, when with wet and soap-slippery fingers he tried to remove the horrible little envelope and crisp clinging oiled paper from the new blade. Then there was the problem, oft-pondered, never solved, of what to do with the old blade, which might imperil the fingers of his young. As usual, he tossed it on top of the medicine-cabinet, with a mental note that some day he must remove the fifty or sixty other blades that were also temporarily, piled up there. He finished his shaving in a growing testiness increased by his spinning headache and by the emptiness in his stomach. When he was done, his round face smooth and streamy and his eyes stinging from soapy water, he reached for a towel. The family towels were wet, wet and clammy and vile, all of them wet, he found, as he blindly snatched them--his own face-towel, his wife's, Verona's, Ted's, Tinka's, and the lone bath-towel with the huge welt of initial. Then George F. Babbitt did a dismaying thing. He wiped his face on the guest-towel! It was a pansy-embroidered trifle which always hung there to indicate that the Babbitts were in the best Floral Heights society. No one had ever used it. No guest had ever dared to. Guests secretively took a corner of the nearest regular towel. He was raging, "By golly, here they go and use up all the towels, every doggone one of 'em, and they use 'em and get 'em all wet and sopping, and never put out a dry one for me--of course, I'm the goat!--and then I want one and--I'm the only person in the doggone house that's got the slightest doggone bit of consideration for other people and thoughtfulness and consider there may be others that may want to use the doggone bathroom after me and consider--" He was pitching the chill abominations into the bath-tub, pleased by the vindictiveness of that desolate flapping sound; and in the midst his wife serenely trotted in, observed serenely, "Why Georgie dear, what are you doing? Are you going to wash out the towels? Why, you needn't wash out the towels. Oh, Georgie, you didn't go and use the guest-towel, did you?" It is not recorded that he was able to answer. For the first time in weeks he was sufficiently roused by his wife to look at her. IV Myra Babbitt--Mrs. George F. Babbitt--was definitely mature. She had creases from the corners of her mouth to the bottom of her chin, and her plump neck bagged. But the thing that marked her as having passed the line was that she no longer had reticences before her husband, and no longer worried about not having reticences. She was in a petticoat now, and corsets which bulged, and unaware of being seen in bulgy corsets. She had become so dully habituated to married life that in her full matronliness she was as sexless as an anemic nun. She was a good woman, a kind woman, a diligent woman, but no one, save perhaps Tinka her ten-year-old, was at all interested in her or entirely aware that she was alive. After a rather thorough discussion of all the domestic and social aspects of towels she apologized to Babbitt for his having an alcoholic headache; and he recovered enough to endure the search for a B.V.D. undershirt which had, he pointed out, malevolently been concealed among his clean pajamas. He was fairly amiable in the conference on the brown suit. "What do you think, Myra?" He pawed at the clothes hunched on a chair in their bedroom, while she moved about mysteriously adjusting and patting her petticoat and, to his jaundiced eye, never seeming to get on with her dressing. "How about it? Shall I wear the brown suit another day?" "Well, it looks awfully nice on you." "I know, but gosh, it needs pressing." "That's so. Perhaps it does." "It certainly could stand being pressed, all right." "Yes, perhaps it wouldn't hurt it to be pressed." "But gee, the coat doesn't need pressing. No sense in having the whole darn suit pressed, when the coat doesn't need it." "That's so." "But the pants certainly need it, all right. Look at them--look at those wrinkles--the pants certainly do need pressing." "That's so. Oh, Georgie, why couldn't you wear the brown coat with the blue trousers we were wondering what we'd do with them?" "Good Lord! Did you ever in all my life know me to wear the coat of one suit and the pants of another? What do you think I am? A busted bookkeeper?" "Well, why don't you put on the dark gray suit to-day, and stop in at the tailor and leave the brown trousers?" "Well, they certainly need--Now where the devil is that gray suit? Oh, yes, here we are." He was able to get through the other crises of dressing with comparative resoluteness and calm. His first adornment was the sleeveless dimity B.V.D. undershirt, in which he resembled a small boy humorlessly wearing a cheesecloth tabard at a civic pageant. He never put on B.V.D.'s without thanking the God of Progress that he didn't wear tight, long, old-fashioned undergarments, like his father-in-law and partner, Henry Thompson. His second embellishment was combing and slicking back his hair. It gave him a tremendous forehead, arching up two inches beyond the former hair-line. But most wonder-working of all was the donning of his spectacles. There is character in spectacles--the pretentious tortoiseshell, the meek pince-nez of the school teacher, the twisted silver-framed glasses of the old villager. Babbitt's spectacles had huge, circular, frameless lenses of the very best glass; the ear-pieces were thin bars of gold. In them he was the modern business man; one who gave orders to clerks and drove a car and played occasional golf and was scholarly in regard to Salesmanship. His head suddenly appeared not babyish but weighty, and you noted his heavy, blunt nose, his straight mouth and thick, long upper lip, his chin overfleshy but strong; with respect you beheld him put on the rest of his uniform as a Solid Citizen. The gray suit was well cut, well made, and completely undistinguished. It was a standard suit. White piping on the V of the vest added a flavor of law and learning. His shoes were black laced boots, good boots, honest boots, standard boots, extraordinarily uninteresting boots. The only frivolity was in his purple knitted scarf. With considerable comment on the matter to Mrs. Babbitt (who, acrobatically fastening the back of her blouse to her skirt with a safety-pin, did not hear a word he said), he chose between the purple scarf and a tapestry effect with stringless brown harps among blown palms, and into it he thrust a snake-head pin with opal eyes. A sensational event was changing from the brown suit to the gray the contents of his pockets. He was earnest about these objects. They were of eternal importance, like baseball or the Republican Party. They included a fountain pen and a silver pencil (always lacking a supply of new leads) which belonged in the righthand upper vest pocket. Without them he would have felt naked. On his watch-chain were a gold penknife, silver cigar-cutter, seven keys (the use of two of which he had forgotten), and incidentally a good watch. Depending from the chain was a large, yellowish elk's-tooth-proclamation of his membership in the Brotherly and Protective Order of Elks. Most significant of all was his loose-leaf pocket note-book, that modern and efficient note-book which contained the addresses of people whom he had forgotten, prudent memoranda of postal money-orders which had reached their destinations months ago, stamps which had lost their mucilage, clippings of verses by T. Cholmondeley Frink and of the newspaper editorials from which Babbitt got his opinions and his polysyllables, notes to be sure and do things which he did not intend to do, and one curious inscription--D.S.S. D.M.Y.P.D.F. But he had no cigarette-case. No one had ever happened to give him one, so he hadn't the habit, and people who carried cigarette-cases he regarded as effeminate. Last, he stuck in his lapel the Boosters' Club button. With the conciseness of great art the button displayed two words: "Boosters-Pep!" It made Babbitt feel loyal and important. It associated him with Good Fellows, with men who were nice and human, and important in business circles. It was his V.C., his Legion of Honor ribbon, his Phi Beta Kappa key. With the subtleties of dressing ran other complex worries. "I feel kind of punk this morning," he said. "I think I had too much dinner last evening. You oughtn't to serve those heavy banana fritters." "But you asked me to have some." "I know, but--I tell you, when a fellow gets past forty he has to look after his digestion. There's a lot of fellows that don't take proper care of themselves. I tell you at forty a man's a fool or his doctor--I mean, his own doctor. Folks don't give enough attention to this matter of dieting. Now I think--Course a man ought to have a good meal after the day's work, but it would be a good thing for both of us if we took lighter lunches." "But Georgie, here at home I always do have a light lunch." "Mean to imply I make a hog of myself, eating down-town? Yes, sure! You'd have a swell time if you had to eat the truck that new steward hands out to us at the Athletic Club! But I certainly do feel out of sorts, this morning. Funny, got a pain down here on the left side--but no, that wouldn't be appendicitis, would it? Last night, when I was driving over to Verg Gunch's, I felt a pain in my stomach, too. Right here it was--kind of a sharp shooting pain. I--Where'd that dime go to? Why don't you serve more prunes at breakfast? Of course I eat an apple every evening--an apple a day keeps the doctor away--but still, you ought to have more prunes, and not all these fancy doodads." "The last time I had prunes you didn't eat them." "Well, I didn't feel like eating 'em, I suppose. Matter of fact, I think I did eat some of 'em. Anyway--I tell you it's mighty important to--I was saying to Verg Gunch, just last evening, most people don't take sufficient care of their diges--" "Shall we have the Gunches for our dinner, next week?" "Why sure; you bet." "Now see here, George: I want you to put on your nice dinner-jacket that evening." "Rats! The rest of 'em won't want to dress." "Of course they will. You remember when you didn't dress for the Littlefields' supper-party, and all the rest did, and how embarrassed you were." "Embarrassed, hell! I wasn't embarrassed. Everybody knows I can put on as expensive a Tux. as anybody else, and I should worry if I don't happen to have it on sometimes. All a darn nuisance, anyway. All right for a woman, that stays around the house all the time, but when a fellow's worked like the dickens all day, he doesn't want to go and hustle his head off getting into the soup-and-fish for a lot of folks that he's seen in just reg'lar ordinary clothes that same day." "You know you enjoy being seen in one. The other evening you admitted you were glad I'd insisted on your dressing. You said you felt a lot better for it. And oh, Georgie, I do wish you wouldn't say 'Tux.' It's 'dinner-jacket.'" "Rats, what's the odds?" "Well, it's what all the nice folks say. Suppose Lucile McKelvey heard you calling it a 'Tux.'" "Well, that's all right now! Lucile McKelvey can't pull anything on me! Her folks are common as mud, even if her husband and her dad are millionaires! I suppose you're trying to rub in your exalted social position! Well, let me tell you that your revered paternal ancestor, Henry T., doesn't even call it a 'Tux.'! He calls it a 'bobtail jacket for a ringtail monkey,' and you couldn't get him into one unless you chloroformed him!" "Now don't be horrid, George." "Well, I don't want to be horrid, but Lord! you're getting as fussy as Verona. Ever since she got out of college she's been too rambunctious to live with--doesn't know what she wants--well, I know what she wants!--all she wants is to marry a millionaire, and live in Europe, and hold some preacher's hand, and simultaneously at the same time stay right here in Zenith and be some blooming kind of a socialist agitator or boss charity-worker or some damn thing! Lord, and Ted is just as bad! He wants to go to college, and he doesn't want to go to college. Only one of the three that knows her own mind is Tinka. Simply can't understand how I ever came to have a pair of shillyshallying children like Rone and Ted. I may not be any Rockefeller or James J. Shakespeare, but I certainly do know my own mind, and I do keep right on plugging along in the office and--Do you know the latest? Far as I can figure out, Ted's new bee is he'd like to be a movie actor and--And here I've told him a hundred times, if he'll go to college and law-school and make good, I'll set him up in business and--Verona just exactly as bad. Doesn't know what she wants. Well, well, come on! Aren't you ready yet? The girl rang the bell three minutes ago." V Before he followed his wife, Babbitt stood at the westernmost window of their room. This residential settlement, Floral Heights, was on a rise; and though the center of the city was three miles away--Zenith had between three and four hundred thousand inhabitants now--he could see the top of the Second National Tower, an Indiana limestone building of thirty-five stories. Its shining walls rose against April sky to a simple cornice like a streak of white fire. Integrity was in the tower, and decision. It bore its strength lightly as a tall soldier. As Babbitt stared, the nervousness was soothed from his face, his slack chin lifted in reverence. All he articulated was "That's one lovely sight!" but he was inspired by the rhythm of the city; his love of it renewed. He beheld the tower as a temple-spire of the religion of business, a faith passionate, exalted, surpassing common men; and as he clumped down to breakfast he whistled the ballad "Oh, by gee, by gosh, by jingo" as though it were a hymn melancholy and noble. RELIEVED of Babbitt's bumbling and the soft grunts with which his wife expressed the sympathy she was too experienced to feel and much too experienced not to show, their bedroom settled instantly into impersonality. It gave on the sleeping-porch. It served both of them as dressing-room, and on the coldest nights Babbitt luxuriously gave up the duty of being manly and retreated to the bed inside, to curl his toes in the warmth and laugh at the January gale. The room displayed a modest and pleasant color-scheme, after one of the best standard designs of the decorator who "did the interiors" for most of the speculative-builders' houses in Zenith. The walls were gray, the woodwork white, the rug a serene blue; and very much like mahogany was the furniture--the bureau with its great clear mirror, Mrs. Babbitt's dressing-table with toilet-articles of almost solid silver, the plain twin beds, between them a small table holding a standard electric bedside lamp, a glass for water, and a standard bedside book with colored illustrations--what particular book it was cannot be ascertained, since no one had ever opened it. The mattresses were firm but not hard, triumphant modern mattresses which had cost a great deal of money; the hot-water radiator was of exactly the proper scientific surface for the cubic contents of the room. The windows were large and easily opened, with the best catches and cords, and Holland roller-shades guaranteed not to crack. It was a masterpiece among bedrooms, right out of Cheerful Modern Houses for Medium Incomes. Only it had nothing to do with the Babbitts, nor with any one else. If people had ever lived and loved here, read thrillers at midnight and lain in beautiful indolence on a Sunday morning, there were no signs of it. It had the air of being a very good room in a very good hotel. One expected the chambermaid to come in and make it ready for people who would stay but one night, go without looking back, and never think of it again. Every second house in Floral Heights had a bedroom precisely like this. The Babbitts' house was five years old. It was all as competent and glossy as this bedroom. It had the best of taste, the best of inexpensive rugs, a simple and laudable architecture, and the latest conveniences. Throughout, electricity took the place of candles and slatternly hearth-fires. Along the bedroom baseboard were three plugs for electric lamps, concealed by little brass doors. In the halls were plugs for the vacuum cleaner, and in the living-room plugs for the piano lamp, for the electric fan. The trim dining-room (with its admirable oak buffet, its leaded-glass cupboard, its creamy plaster walls, its modest scene of a salmon expiring upon a pile of oysters) had plugs which supplied the electric percolator and the electric toaster. In fact there was but one thing wrong with the Babbitt house: It was not a home. II Often of a morning Babbitt came bouncing and jesting in to breakfast. But things were mysteriously awry to-day. As he pontifically tread the upper hall he looked into Verona's bedroom and protested, "What's the use of giving the family a high-class house when they don't appreciate it and tend to business and get down to brass tacks?" He marched upon them: Verona, a dumpy brown-haired girl of twenty-two, just out of Bryn Mawr, given to solicitudes about duty and sex and God and the unconquerable bagginess of the gray sports-suit she was now wearing. Ted--Theodore Roosevelt Babbitt--a decorative boy of seventeen. Tinka--Katherine--still a baby at ten, with radiant red hair and a thin skin which hinted of too much candy and too many ice cream sodas. Babbitt did not show his vague irritation as he tramped in. He really disliked being a family tyrant, and his nagging was as meaningless as it was frequent. He shouted at Tinka, "Well, kittiedoolie!" It was the only pet name in his vocabulary, except the "dear" and "hon." with which he recognized his wife, and he flung it at Tinka every morning. He gulped a cup of coffee in the hope of pacifying his stomach and his soul. His stomach ceased to feel as though it did not belong to him, but Verona began to be conscientious and annoying, and abruptly there returned to Babbitt the doubts regarding life and families and business which had clawed at him when his dream-life and the slim fairy girl had fled. Verona had for six months been filing-clerk at the Gruensberg Leather Company offices, with a prospect of becoming secretary to Mr. Gruensberg and thus, as Babbitt defined it, "getting some good out of your expensive college education till you're ready to marry and settle down." But now said Verona: "Father! I was talking to a classmate of mine that's working for the Associated Charities--oh, Dad, there's the sweetest little babies that come to the milk-station there!--and I feel as though I ought to be doing something worth while like that." "What do you mean 'worth while'? If you get to be Gruensberg's secretary--and maybe you would, if you kept up your shorthand and didn't go sneaking off to concerts and talkfests every evening--I guess you'll find thirty-five or forty bones a week worth while!" "I know, but--oh, I want to--contribute--I wish I were working in a settlement-house. I wonder if I could get one of the department-stores to let me put in a welfare-department with a nice rest-room and chintzes and wicker chairs and so on and so forth. Or I could--" "Now you look here! The first thing you got to understand is that all this uplift and flipflop and settlement-work and recreation is nothing in God's world but the entering wedge for socialism. The sooner a man learns he isn't going to be coddled, and he needn't expect a lot of free grub and, uh, all these free classes and flipflop and doodads for his kids unless he earns 'em, why, the sooner he'll get on the job and produce--produce--produce! That's what the country needs, and not all this fancy stuff that just enfeebles the will-power of the working man and gives his kids a lot of notions above their class. And you--if you'd tend to business instead of fooling and fussing--All the time! When I was a young man I made up my mind what I wanted to do, and stuck to it through thick and thin, and that's why I'm where I am to-day, and--Myra! What do you let the girl chop the toast up into these dinky little chunks for? Can't get your fist onto 'em. Half cold, anyway!" Ted Babbitt, junior in the great East Side High School, had been making hiccup-like sounds of interruption. He blurted now, "Say, Rone, you going to--" Verona whirled. "Ted! Will you kindly not interrupt us when we're talking about serious matters!" "Aw punk," said Ted judicially. "Ever since somebody slipped up and let you out of college, Ammonia, you been pulling these nut conversations about what-nots and so-on-and-so-forths. Are you going to--I want to use the car tonight." Babbitt snorted, "Oh, you do! May want it myself!" Verona protested, "Oh, you do, Mr. Smarty! I'm going to take it myself!" Tinka wailed, "Oh, papa, you said maybe you'd drive us down to Rosedale!" and Mrs. Babbitt, "Careful, Tinka, your sleeve is in the butter." They glared, and Verona hurled, "Ted, you're a perfect pig about the car!" "Course you're not! Not a-tall!" Ted could be maddeningly bland. "You just want to grab it off, right after dinner, and leave it in front of some skirt's house all evening while you sit and gas about lite'ature and the highbrows you're going to marry--if they only propose!" "Well, Dad oughtn't to EVER let you have it! You and those beastly Jones boys drive like maniacs. The idea of your taking the turn on Chautauqua Place at forty miles an hour!" "Aw, where do you get that stuff! You're so darn scared of the car that you drive up-hill with the emergency brake on!" "I do not! And you--Always talking about how much you know about motors, and Eunice Littlefield told me you said the battery fed the generator!" "You--why, my good woman, you don't know a generator from a differential." Not unreasonably was Ted lofty with her. He was a natural mechanic, a maker and tinkerer of machines; he lisped in blueprints for the blueprints came. "That'll do now!" Babbitt flung in mechanically, as he lighted the gloriously satisfying first cigar of the day and tasted the exhilarating drug of the Advocate-Times headlines. Ted negotiated: "Gee, honest, Rone, I don't want to take the old boat, but I promised couple o' girls in my class I'd drive 'em down to the rehearsal of the school chorus, and, gee, I don't want to, but a gentleman's got to keep his social engagements." "Well, upon my word! You and your social engagements! In high school!" "Oh, ain't we select since we went to that hen college! Let me tell you there isn't a private school in the state that's got as swell a bunch as we got in Gamma Digamma this year. There's two fellows that their dads are millionaires. Say, gee, I ought to have a car of my own, like lots of the fellows." Babbitt almost rose. "A car of your own! Don't you want a yacht, and a house and lot? That pretty nearly takes the cake! A boy that can't pass his Latin examinations, like any other boy ought to, and he expects me to give him a motor-car, and I suppose a chauffeur, and an areoplane maybe, as a reward for the hard work he puts in going to the movies with Eunice Littlefield! Well, when you see me giving you--" Somewhat later, after diplomacies, Ted persuaded Verona to admit that she was merely going to the Armory, that evening, to see the dog and cat show. She was then, Ted planned, to park the car in front of the candy-store across from the Armory and he would pick it up. There were masterly arrangements regarding leaving the key, and having the gasoline tank filled; and passionately, devotees of the Great God Motor, they hymned the patch on the spare inner-tube, and the lost jack-handle. Their truce dissolving, Ted observed that her friends were "a scream of a bunch-stuck-up gabby four-flushers." His friends, she indicated, were "disgusting imitation sports, and horrid little shrieking ignorant girls." Further: "It's disgusting of you to smoke cigarettes, and so on and so forth, and those clothes you've got on this morning, they're too utterly ridiculous--honestly, simply disgusting." Ted balanced over to the low beveled mirror in the buffet, regarded his charms, and smirked. His suit, the latest thing in Old Eli Togs, was skin-tight, with skimpy trousers to the tops of his glaring tan boots, a chorus-man waistline, pattern of an agitated check, and across the back a belt which belted nothing. His scarf was an enormous black silk wad. His flaxen hair was ice-smooth, pasted back without parting. When he went to school he would add a cap with a long vizor like a shovel-blade. Proudest of all was his waistcoat, saved for, begged for, plotted for; a real Fancy Vest of fawn with polka dots of a decayed red, the points astoundingly long. On the lower edge of it he wore a high-school button, a class button, and a fraternity pin. And none of it mattered. He was supple and swift and flushed; his eyes (which he believed to be cynical) were candidly eager. But he was not over-gentle. He waved his hand at poor dumpy Verona and drawled: "Yes, I guess we're pretty ridiculous and disgusticulus, and I rather guess our new necktie is some smear!" Babbitt barked: "It is! And while you're admiring yourself, let me tell you it might add to your manly beauty if you wiped some of that egg off your mouth!" Verona giggled, momentary victor in the greatest of Great Wars, which is the family war. Ted looked at her hopelessly, then shrieked at Tinka: "For the love o' Pete, quit pouring the whole sugar bowl on your corn flakes!" When Verona and Ted were gone and Tinka upstairs, Babbitt groaned to his wife: "Nice family, I must say! I don't pretend to be any baa-lamb, and maybe I'm a little cross-grained at breakfast sometimes, but the way they go on jab-jab-jabbering, I simply can't stand it. I swear, I feel like going off some place where I can get a little peace. I do think after a man's spent his lifetime trying to give his kids a chance and a decent education, it's pretty discouraging to hear them all the time scrapping like a bunch of hyenas and never--and never--Curious; here in the paper it says--Never silent for one mom--Seen the morning paper yet?" "No, dear." In twenty-three years of married life, Mrs. Babbitt had seen the paper before her husband just sixty-seven times. "Lots of news. Terrible big tornado in the South. Hard luck, all right. But this, say, this is corking! Beginning of the end for those fellows! New York Assembly has passed some bills that ought to completely outlaw the socialists! And there's an elevator-runners' strike in New York and a lot of college boys are taking their places. That's the stuff! And a mass-meeting in Birmingham's demanded that this Mick agitator, this fellow De Valera, be deported. Dead right, by golly! All these agitators paid with German gold anyway. And we got no business interfering with the Irish or any other foreign government. Keep our hands strictly off. And there's another well-authenticated rumor from Russia that Lenin is dead. That's fine. It's beyond me why we don't just step in there and kick those Bolshevik cusses out." "That's so," said Mrs. Babbitt. "And it says here a fellow was inaugurated mayor in overalls--a preacher, too! What do you think of that!" "Humph! Well!" He searched for an attitude, but neither as a Republican, a Presbyterian, an Elk, nor a real-estate broker did he have any doctrine about preacher-mayors laid down for him, so he grunted and went on. She looked sympathetic and did not hear a word. Later she would read the headlines, the society columns, and the department-store advertisements. "What do you know about this! Charley McKelvey still doing the sassiety stunt as heavy as ever. Here's what that gushy woman reporter says about last night:" Never is Society with the big, big S more flattered than when they are bidden to partake of good cheer at the distinguished and hospitable residence of Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. McKelvey as they were last night. Set in its spacious lawns and landscaping, one of the notable sights crowning Royal Ridge, but merry and homelike despite its mighty stone walls and its vast rooms famed for their decoration, their home was thrown open last night for a dance in honor of Mrs. McKelvey's notable guest, Miss J. Sneeth of Washington. The wide hall is so generous in its proportions that it made a perfect ballroom, its hardwood floor reflecting the charming pageant above its polished surface. Even the delights of dancing paled before the alluring opportunities for tete-a-tetes that invited the soul to loaf in the long library before the baronial fireplace, or in the drawing-room with its deep comfy armchairs, its shaded lamps just made for a sly whisper of pretty nothings all a deux; or even in the billiard room where one could take a cue and show a prowess at still another game than that sponsored by Cupid and Terpsichore. There was more, a great deal more, in the best urban journalistic style of Miss Elnora Pearl Bates, the popular society editor of the Advocate-Times. But Babbitt could not abide it. He grunted. He wrinkled the newspaper. He protested: "Can you beat it! I'm willing to hand a lot of credit to Charley McKelvey. When we were in college together, he was just as hard up as any of us, and he's made a million good bucks out of contracting and hasn't been any dishonester or bought any more city councils than was necessary. And that's a good house of his--though it ain't any 'mighty stone walls' and it ain't worth the ninety thousand it cost him. But when it comes to talking as though Charley McKelvey and all that booze-hoisting set of his are any blooming bunch of of, of Vanderbilts, why, it makes me tired!" Timidly from Mrs. Babbitt: "I would like to see the inside of their house though. It must be lovely. I've never been inside." "Well, I have! Lots of--couple of times. To see Chaz about business deals, in the evening. It's not so much. I wouldn't WANT to go there to dinner with that gang of, of high-binders. And I'll bet I make a whole lot more money than some of those tin-horns that spend all they got on dress-suits and haven't got a decent suit of underwear to their name! Hey! What do you think of this!" Mrs. Babbitt was strangely unmoved by the tidings from the Real Estate and Building column of the Advocate-Times: Ashtabula Street, 496--J. K. Dawson to Thomas Mullally, April 17, 15.7 X 112.2, mtg. $4000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nom And this morning Babbitt was too disquieted to entertain her with items from Mechanics' Liens, Mortgages Recorded, and Contracts Awarded. He rose. As he looked at her his eyebrows seemed shaggier than usual. Suddenly: "Yes, maybe--Kind of shame to not keep in touch with folks like the McKelveys. We might try inviting them to dinner, some evening. Oh, thunder, let's not waste our good time thinking about 'em! Our little bunch has a lot liver times than all those plutes. Just compare a real human like you with these neurotic birds like Lucile McKelvey--all highbrow talk and dressed up like a plush horse! You're a great old girl, hon.!" He covered his betrayal of softness with a complaining: "Say, don't let Tinka go and eat any more of that poison nutfudge. For Heaven's sake, try to keep her from ruining her digestion. I tell you, most folks don't appreciate how important it is to have a good digestion and regular habits. Be back 'bout usual time, I guess." He kissed her--he didn't quite kiss her--he laid unmoving lips against her unflushing cheek. He hurried out to the garage, muttering: "Lord, what a family! And now Myra is going to get pathetic on me because we don't train with this millionaire outfit. Oh, Lord, sometimes I'd like to quit the whole game. And the office worry and detail just as bad. And I act cranky and--I don't mean to, but I get--So darn tired!" To George F. Babbitt, as to most prosperous citizens of Zenith, his motor car was poetry and tragedy, love and heroism. The office was his pirate ship but the car his perilous excursion ashore. Among the tremendous crises of each day none was more dramatic than starting the engine. It was slow on cold mornings; there was the long, anxious whirr of the starter; and sometimes he had to drip ether into the cocks of the cylinders, which was so very interesting that at lunch he would chronicle it drop by drop, and orally calculate how much each drop had cost him. This morning he was darkly prepared to find something wrong, and he felt belittled when the mixture exploded sweet and strong, and the car didn't even brush the door-jamb, gouged and splintery with many bruisings by fenders, as he backed out of the garage. He was confused. He shouted "Morning!" to Sam Doppelbrau with more cordiality than he had intended. Babbitt's green and white Dutch Colonial house was one of three in that block on Chatham Road. To the left of it was the residence of Mr. Samuel Doppelbrau, secretary of an excellent firm of bathroom-fixture jobbers. His was a comfortable house with no architectural manners whatever; a large wooden box with a squat tower, a broad porch, and glossy paint yellow as a yolk. Babbitt disapproved of Mr. and Mrs. Doppelbrau as "Bohemian." From their house came midnight music and obscene laughter; there were neighborhood rumors of bootlegged whisky and fast motor rides. They furnished Babbitt with many happy evenings of discussion, during which he announced firmly, "I'm not strait-laced, and I don't mind seeing a fellow throw in a drink once in a while, but when it comes to deliberately trying to get away with a lot of hell-raising all the while like the Doppelbraus do, it's too rich for my blood!" On the other side of Babbitt lived Howard Littlefield, Ph.D., in a strictly modern house whereof the lower part was dark red tapestry brick, with a leaded oriel, the upper part of pale stucco like spattered clay, and the roof red-tiled. Littlefield was the Great Scholar of the neighborhood; the authority on everything in the world except babies, cooking, and motors. He was a Bachelor of Arts of Blodgett College, and a Doctor of Philosophy in economics of Yale. He was the employment-manager and publicity-counsel of the Zenith Street Traction Company. He could, on ten hours' notice, appear before the board of aldermen or the state legislature and prove, absolutely, with figures all in rows and with precedents from Poland and New Zealand, that the street-car company loved the Public and yearned over its employees; that all its stock was owned by Widows and Orphans; and that whatever it desired to do would benefit property-owners by increasing rental values, and help the poor by lowering rents. All his acquaintances turned to Littlefield when they desired to know the date of the battle of Saragossa, the definition of the word "sabotage," the future of the German mark, the translation of "hinc illae lachrimae," or the number of products of coal tar. He awed Babbitt by confessing that he often sat up till midnight reading the figures and footnotes in Government reports, or skimming (with amusement at the author's mistakes) the latest volumes of chemistry, archeology, and ichthyology. But Littlefield's great value was as a spiritual example. Despite his strange learnings he was as strict a Presbyterian and as firm a Republican as George F. Babbitt. He confirmed the business men in the faith. Where they knew only by passionate instinct that their system of industry and manners was perfect, Dr. Howard Littlefield proved it to them, out of history, economics, and the confessions of reformed radicals. Babbitt had a good deal of honest pride in being the neighbor of such a savant, and in Ted's intimacy with Eunice Littlefield. At sixteen Eunice was interested in no statistics save those regarding the ages and salaries of motion-picture stars, but--as Babbitt definitively put it--"she was her father's daughter." The difference between a light man like Sam Doppelbrau and a really fine character like Littlefield was revealed in their appearances. Doppelbrau was disturbingly young for a man of forty-eight. He wore his derby on the back of his head, and his red face was wrinkled with meaningless laughter. But Littlefield was old for a man of forty-two. He was tall, broad, thick; his gold-rimmed spectacles were engulfed in the folds of his long face; his hair was a tossed mass of greasy blackness; he puffed and rumbled as he talked; his Phi Beta Kappa key shone against a spotty black vest; he smelled of old pipes; he was altogether funereal and archidiaconal; and to real-estate brokerage and the jobbing of bathroom-fixtures he added an aroma of sanctity. This morning he was in front of his house, inspecting the grass parking between the curb and the broad cement sidewalk. Babbitt stopped his car and leaned out to shout "Mornin'!" Littlefield lumbered over and stood with one foot up on the running-board. "Fine morning," said Babbitt, lighting--illegally early--his second cigar of the day. "Yes, it's a mighty fine morning," said Littlefield. "Spring coming along fast now." "Yes, it's real spring now, all right," said Littlefield. "Still cold nights, though. Had to have a couple blankets, on the sleeping-porch last night." "Yes, it wasn't any too warm last night," said Littlefield. "But I don't anticipate we'll have any more real cold weather now." "No, but still, there was snow at Tiflis, Montana, yesterday," said the Scholar, "and you remember the blizzard they had out West three days ago--thirty inches of snow at Greeley, Colorado--and two years ago we had a snow-squall right here in Zenith on the twenty-fifth of April." "Is that a fact! Say, old man, what do you think about the Republican candidate? Who'll they nominate for president? Don't you think it's about time we had a real business administration?" "In my opinion, what the country needs, first and foremost, is a good, sound, business-like conduct of its affairs. What we need is--a business administration!" said Littlefield. "I'm glad to hear you say that! I certainly am glad to hear you say that! I didn't know how you'd feel about it, with all your associations with colleges and so on, and I'm glad you feel that way. What the country needs--just at this present juncture--is neither a college president nor a lot of monkeying with foreign affairs, but a good--sound economical--business--administration, that will give us a chance to have something like a decent turnover." "Yes. It isn't generally realized that even in China the schoolmen are giving way to more practical men, and of course you can see what that implies." "Is that a fact! Well, well!" breathed Babbitt, feeling much calmer, and much happier about the way things were going in the world. "Well, it's been nice to stop and parleyvoo a second. Guess I'll have to get down to the office now and sting a few clients. Well, so long, old man. See you tonight. So long." II They had labored, these solid citizens. Twenty years before, the hill on which Floral Heights was spread, with its bright roofs and immaculate turf and amazing comfort, had been a wilderness of rank second-growth elms and oaks and maples. Along the precise streets were still a few wooded vacant lots, and the fragment of an old orchard. It was brilliant to-day; the apple boughs were lit with fresh leaves like torches of green fire. The first white of cherry blossoms flickered down a gully, and robins clamored. Babbitt sniffed the earth, chuckled at the hysteric robins as he would have chuckled at kittens or at a comic movie. He was, to the eye, the perfect office-going executive--a well-fed man in a correct brown soft hat and frameless spectacles, smoking a large cigar, driving a good motor along a semi-suburban parkway. But in him was some genius of authentic love for his neighborhood, his city, his clan. The winter was over; the time was come for the building, the visible growth, which to him was glory. He lost his dawn depression; he was ruddily cheerful when he stopped on Smith Street to leave the brown trousers, and to have the gasoline-tank filled. The familiarity of the rite fortified him: the sight of the tall red iron gasoline-pump, the hollow-tile and terra-cotta garage, the window full of the most agreeable accessories--shiny casings, spark-plugs with immaculate porcelain jackets tire-chains of gold and silver. He was flattered by the friendliness with which Sylvester Moon, dirtiest and most skilled of motor mechanics, came out to serve him. "Mornin', Mr. Babbitt!" said Moon, and Babbitt felt himself a person of importance, one whose name even busy garagemen remembered--not one of these cheap-sports flying around in flivvers. He admired the ingenuity of the automatic dial, clicking off gallon by gallon; admired the smartness of the sign: "A fill in time saves getting stuck--gas to-day 31 cents"; admired the rhythmic gurgle of the gasoline as it flowed into the tank, and the mechanical regularity with which Moon turned the handle. "How much we takin' to-day?" asked Moon, in a manner which combined the independence of the great specialist, the friendliness of a familiar gossip, and respect for a man of weight in the community, like George F. Babbitt. "Fill 'er up." "Who you rootin' for for Republican candidate, Mr. Babbitt?" "It's too early to make any predictions yet. After all, there's still a good month and two weeks--no, three weeks--must be almost three weeks--well, there's more than six weeks in all before the Republican convention, and I feel a fellow ought to keep an open mind and give all the candidates a show--look 'em all over and size 'em up, and then decide carefully." "That's a fact, Mr. Babbitt." "But I'll tell you--and my stand on this is just the same as it was four years ago, and eight years ago, and it'll be my stand four years from now--yes, and eight years from now! What I tell everybody, and it can't be too generally understood, is that what we need first, last, and all the time is a good, sound business administration!" "By golly, that's right!" "How do those front tires look to you?" "Fine! Fine! Wouldn't be much work for garages if everybody looked after their car the way you do." "Well, I do try and have some sense about it." Babbitt paid his bill, said adequately, "Oh, keep the change," and drove off in an ecstasy of honest self-appreciation. It was with the manner of a Good Samaritan that he shouted at a respectable-looking man who was waiting for a trolley car, "Have a lift?" As the man climbed in Babbitt condescended, "Going clear down-town? Whenever I see a fellow waiting for a trolley, I always make it a practice to give him a lift--unless, of course, he looks like a bum." "Wish there were more folks that were so generous with their machines," dutifully said the victim of benevolence. "Oh, no, 'tain't a question of generosity, hardly. Fact, I always feel--I was saying to my son just the other night--it's a fellow's duty to share the good things of this world with his neighbors, and it gets my goat when a fellow gets stuck on himself and goes around tooting his horn merely because he's charitable." The victim seemed unable to find the right answer. Babbitt boomed on: "Pretty punk service the Company giving us on these car-lines. Nonsense to only run the Portland Road cars once every seven minutes. Fellow gets mighty cold on a winter morning, waiting on a street corner with the wind nipping at his ankles." "That's right. The Street Car Company don't care a damn what kind of a deal they give us. Something ought to happen to 'em." Babbitt was alarmed. "But still, of course it won't do to just keep knocking the Traction Company and not realize the difficulties they're operating under, like these cranks that want municipal ownership. The way these workmen hold up the Company for high wages is simply a crime, and of course the burden falls on you and me that have to pay a seven-cent fare! Fact, there's remarkable service on all their lines--considering." "Well--" uneasily. "Darn fine morning," Babbitt explained. "Spring coming along fast." "Yes, it's real spring now." The victim had no originality, no wit, and Babbitt fell into a great silence and devoted himself to the game of beating trolley cars to the corner: a spurt, a tail-chase, nervous speeding between the huge yellow side of the trolley and the jagged row of parked motors, shooting past just as the trolley stopped--a rare game and valiant. And all the while he was conscious of the loveliness of Zenith. For weeks together he noticed nothing but clients and the vexing To Rent signs of rival brokers. To-day, in mysterious malaise, he raged or rejoiced with equal nervous swiftness, and to-day the light of spring was so winsome that he lifted his head and saw. He admired each district along his familiar route to the office: The bungalows and shrubs and winding irregular drive ways of Floral Heights. The one-story shops on Smith Street, a glare of plate-glass and new yellow brick; groceries and laundries and drug-stores to supply the more immediate needs of East Side housewives. The market gardens in Dutch Hollow, their shanties patched with corrugated iron and stolen doors. Billboards with crimson goddesses nine feet tall advertising cinema films, pipe tobacco, and talcum powder. The old "mansions" along Ninth Street, S. E., like aged dandies in filthy linen; wooden castles turned into boarding-houses, with muddy walks and rusty hedges, jostled by fast-intruding garages, cheap apartment-houses, and fruit-stands conducted by bland, sleek Athenians. Across the belt of railroad-tracks, factories with high-perched water-tanks and tall stacks-factories producing condensed milk, paper boxes, lighting-fixtures, motor cars. Then the business center, the thickening darting traffic, the crammed trolleys unloading, and high doorways of marble and polished granite. It was big--and Babbitt respected bigness in anything; in mountains, jewels, muscles, wealth, or words. He was, for a spring-enchanted moment, the lyric and almost unselfish lover of Zenith. He thought of the outlying factory suburbs; of the Chaloosa River with its strangely eroded banks; of the orchard-dappled Tonawanda Hills to the North, and all the fat dairy land and big barns and comfortable herds. As he dropped his passenger he cried, "Gosh, I feel pretty good this morning!" III Epochal as starting the car was the drama of parking it before he entered his office. As he turned from Oberlin Avenue round the corner into Third Street, N.E., he peered ahead for a space in the line of parked cars. He angrily just missed a space as a rival driver slid into it. Ahead, another car was leaving the curb, and Babbitt slowed up, holding out his hand to the cars pressing on him from behind, agitatedly motioning an old woman to go ahead, avoiding a truck which bore down on him from one side. With front wheels nicking the wrought-steel bumper of the car in front, he stopped, feverishly cramped his steering-wheel, slid back into the vacant space and, with eighteen inches of room, manoeuvered to bring the car level with the curb. It was a virile adventure masterfully executed. With satisfaction he locked a thief-proof steel wedge on the front wheel, and crossed the street to his real-estate office on the ground floor of the Reeves Building. The Reeves Building was as fireproof as a rock and as efficient as a typewriter; fourteen stories of yellow pressed brick, with clean, upright, unornamented lines. It was filled with the offices of lawyers, doctors, agents for machinery, for emery wheels, for wire fencing, for mining-stock. Their gold signs shone on the windows. The entrance was too modern to be flamboyant with pillars; it was quiet, shrewd, neat. Along the Third Street side were a Western Union Telegraph Office, the Blue Delft Candy Shop, Shotwell's Stationery Shop, and the Babbitt-Thompson Realty Company. Babbitt could have entered his office from the street, as customers did, but it made him feel an insider to go through the corridor of the building and enter by the back door. Thus he was greeted by the villagers. The little unknown people who inhabited the Reeves Building corridors--elevator-runners, starter, engineers, superintendent, and the doubtful-looking lame man who conducted the news and cigar stand--were in no way city-dwellers. They were rustics, living in a constricted valley, interested only in one another and in The Building. Their Main Street was the entrance hall, with its stone floor, severe marble ceiling, and the inner windows of the shops. The liveliest place on the street was the Reeves Building Barber Shop, but this was also Babbitt's one embarrassment. Himself, he patronized the glittering Pompeian Barber Shop in the Hotel Thornleigh, and every time he passed the Reeves shop--ten times a day, a hundred times--he felt untrue to his own village. Now, as one of the squirearchy, greeted with honorable salutations by the villagers, he marched into his office, and peace and dignity were upon him, and the morning's dissonances all unheard. They were heard again, immediately. Stanley Graff, the outside salesman, was talking on the telephone with tragic lack of that firm manner which disciplines clients: "Say, uh, I think I got just the house that would suit you--the Percival House, in Linton.... Oh, you've seen it. Well, how'd it strike you?... Huh? ...Oh," irresolutely, "oh, I see." As Babbitt marched into his private room, a coop with semi-partition of oak and frosted glass, at the back of the office, he reflected how hard it was to find employees who had his own faith that he was going to make sales. There were nine members of the staff, besides Babbitt and his partner and father-in-law, Henry Thompson, who rarely came to the office. The nine were Stanley Graff, the outside salesman--a youngish man given to cigarettes and the playing of pool; old Mat Penniman, general utility man, collector of rents and salesman of insurance--broken, silent, gray; a mystery, reputed to have been a "crack" real-estate man with a firm of his own in haughty Brooklyn; Chester Kirby Laylock, resident salesman out at the Glen Oriole acreage development--an enthusiastic person with a silky mustache and much family; Miss Theresa McGoun, the swift and rather pretty stenographer; Miss Wilberta Bannigan, the thick, slow, laborious accountant and file-clerk; and four freelance part-time commission salesmen. As he looked from his own cage into the main room Babbitt mourned, "McGoun's a good stenog., smart's a whip, but Stan Graff and all those bums--" The zest of the spring morning was smothered in the stale office air. Normally he admired the office, with a pleased surprise that he should have created this sure lovely thing; normally he was stimulated by the clean newness of it and the air of bustle; but to-day it seemed flat--the tiled floor, like a bathroom, the ocher-colored metal ceiling, the faded maps on the hard plaster walls, the chairs of varnished pale oak, the desks and filing-cabinets of steel painted in olive drab. It was a vault, a steel chapel where loafing and laughter were raw sin. He hadn't even any satisfaction in the new water-cooler! And it was the very best of water-coolers, up-to-date, scientific, and right-thinking. It had cost a great deal of money (in itself a virtue). It possessed a non-conducting fiber ice-container, a porcelain water-jar (guaranteed hygienic), a drip-less non-clogging sanitary faucet, and machine-painted decorations in two tones of gold. He looked down the relentless stretch of tiled floor at the water-cooler, and assured himself that no tenant of the Reeves Building had a more expensive one, but he could not recapture the feeling of social superiority it had given him. He astoundingly grunted, "I'd like to beat it off to the woods right now. And loaf all day. And go to Gunch's again to-night, and play poker, and cuss as much as I feel like, and drink a hundred and nine-thousand bottles of beer." He sighed; he read through his mail; he shouted "Msgoun," which meant "Miss McGoun"; and began to dictate. This was his own version of his first letter: "Omar Gribble, send it to his office, Miss McGoun, yours of twentieth to hand and in reply would say look here, Gribble, I'm awfully afraid if we go on shilly-shallying like this we'll just naturally lose the Allen sale, I had Allen up on carpet day before yesterday and got right down to cases and think I can assure you--uh, uh, no, change that: all my experience indicates he is all right, means to do business, looked into his financial record which is fine--that sentence seems to be a little balled up, Miss McGoun; make a couple sentences out of it if you have to, period, new paragraph. "He is perfectly willing to pro rate the special assessment and strikes me, am dead sure there will be no difficulty in getting him to pay for title insurance, so now for heaven's sake let's get busy--no, make that: so now let's go to it and get down--no, that's enough--you can tie those sentences up a little better when you type 'em, Miss McGoun--your sincerely, etcetera." This is the version of his letter which he received, typed, from Miss McGoun that afternoon: BABBITT-THOMPSON REALTY CO. Homes for Folks Reeves Bldg., Oberlin Avenue & 3d St., N.E Zenith Omar Gribble, Esq., 376 North American Building, Zenith. Dear Mr. Gribble: Your letter of the twentieth to hand. I must say I'm awfully afraid that if we go on shilly-shallying like this we'll just naturally lose the Allen sale. I had Allen up on the carpet day before yesterday, and got right down to cases. All my experience indicates that he means to do business. I have also looked into his financial record, which is fine. He is perfectly willing to pro rate the special assessment and there will be no difficulty in getting him to pay for title insurance. SO LET'S GO! Yours sincerely, As he read and signed it, in his correct flowing business-college hand, Babbitt reflected, "Now that's a good, strong letter, and clear's a bell. Now what the--I never told McGoun to make a third paragraph there! Wish she'd quit trying to improve on my dictation! But what I can't understand is: why can't Stan Graff or Chet Laylock write a letter like that? With punch! With a kick!" The most important thing he dictated that morning was the fortnightly form-letter, to be mimeographed and sent out to a thousand "prospects." It was diligently imitative of the best literary models of the day; of heart-to-heart-talk advertisements, "sales-pulling" letters, discourses on the "development of Will-power," and hand-shaking house-organs, as richly poured forth by the new school of Poets of Business. He had painfully written out a first draft, and he intoned it now like a poet delicate and distrait: SAY, OLD MAN! I just want to know can I do you a whaleuva favor? Honest! No kidding! I know you're interested in getting a house, not merely a place where you hang up the old bonnet but a love-nest for the wife and kiddies--and maybe for the flivver out beyant (be sure and spell that b-e-y-a-n-t, Miss McGoun) the spud garden. Say, did you ever stop to think that we're here to save you trouble? That's how we make a living--folks don't pay us for our lovely beauty! Now take a look: Sit right down at the handsome carved mahogany escritoire and shoot us in a line telling us just what you want, and if we can find it we'll come hopping down your lane with the good tidings, and if we can't, we won't bother you. To save your time, just fill out the blank enclosed. On request will also send blank regarding store properties in Floral Heights, Silver Grove, Linton, Bellevue, and all East Side residential districts. Yours for service, P.S.--Just a hint of some plums we can pick for you--some genuine bargains that came in to-day: SILVER GROVE.--Cute four-room California bungalow, a.m.i., garage, dandy shade tree, swell neighborhood, handy car line. $3700, $780 down and balance liberal, Babbitt-Thompson terms, cheaper than rent. DORCHESTER.--A corker! Artistic two-family house, all oak trim, parquet floors, lovely gas log, big porches, colonial, HEATED ALL-WEATHER GARAGE, a bargain at $11,250. Dictation over, with its need of sitting and thinking instead of bustling around and making a noise and really doing something, Babbitt sat creakily back in his revolving desk-chair and beamed on Miss McGoun. He was conscious of her as a girl, of black bobbed hair against demure cheeks. A longing which was indistinguishable from loneliness enfeebled him. While she waited, tapping a long, precise pencil-point on the desk-tablet, he half identified her with the fairy girl of his dreams. He imagined their eyes meeting with terrifying recognition; imagined touching her lips with frightened reverence and--She was chirping, "Any more, Mist' Babbitt?" He grunted, "That winds it up, I guess," and turned heavily away. For all his wandering thoughts, they had never been more intimate than this. He often reflected, "Nev' forget how old Jake Offutt said a wise bird never goes love-making in his own office or his own home. Start trouble. Sure. But--" In twenty-three years of married life he had peered uneasily at every graceful ankle, every soft shoulder; in thought he had treasured them; but not once had he hazarded respectability by adventuring. Now, as he calculated the cost of repapering the Styles house, he was restless again, discontented about nothing and everything, ashamed of his discontentment, and lonely for the fairy girl. IT was a morning of artistic creation. Fifteen minutes after the purple prose of Babbitt's form-letter, Chester Kirby Laylock, the resident salesman at Glen Oriole, came in to report a sale and submit an advertisement. Babbitt disapproved of Laylock, who sang in choirs and was merry at home over games of Hearts and Old Maid. He had a tenor voice, wavy chestnut hair, and a mustache like a camel's-hair brush. Babbitt considered it excusable in a family-man to growl, "Seen this new picture of the kid--husky little devil, eh?" but Laylock's domestic confidences were as bubbling as a girl's. "Say, I think I got a peach of an ad for the Glen, Mr. Babbitt. Why don't we try something in poetry? Honest, it'd have wonderful pulling-power. Listen: 'Mid pleasures and palaces, Wherever you may roam, You just provide the little bride And we'll provide the home. Do you get it? See--like 'Home Sweet Home.' Don't you--" "Yes, yes, yes, hell yes, of course I get it. But--Oh, I think we'd better use something more dignified and forceful, like 'We lead, others follow,' or 'Eventually, why not now?' Course I believe in using poetry and humor and all that junk when it turns the trick, but with a high-class restricted development like the Glen we better stick to the more dignified approach, see how I mean? Well, I guess that's all, this morning, Chet." II By a tragedy familiar to the world of art, the April enthusiasm of Chet Laylock served only to stimulate the talent of the older craftsman, George F. Babbitt. He grumbled to Stanley Graff, "That tan-colored voice of Chet's gets on my nerves," yet he was aroused and in one swoop he wrote: DO YOU RESPECT YOUR LOVED ONES? When the last sad rites of bereavement are over, do you know for certain that you have done your best for the Departed? You haven't unless they lie in the Cemetery Beautiful, LINDEN LANE the only strictly up-to-date burial place in or near Zenith, where exquisitely gardened plots look from daisy-dotted hill-slopes across the smiling fields of Dorchester. Sole agents BABBITT-THOMPSON REALTY COMPANY Reeves Building He rejoiced, "I guess that'll show Chan Mott and his weedy old Wildwood Cemetery something about modern merchandizing!" III He sent Mat Penniman to the recorder's office to dig out the names of the owners of houses which were displaying For Rent signs of other brokers; he talked to a man who desired to lease a store-building for a pool-room; he ran over the list of home-leases which were about to expire; he sent Thomas Bywaters, a street-car conductor who played at real estate in spare time, to call on side-street "prospects" who were unworthy the strategies of Stanley Graff. But he had spent his credulous excitement of creation, and these routine details annoyed him. One moment of heroism he had, in discovering a new way of stopping smoking. He stopped smoking at least once a month. He went through with it like the solid citizen he was: admitted the evils of tobacco, courageously made resolves, laid out plans to check the vice, tapered off his allowance of cigars, and expounded the pleasures of virtuousness to every one he met. He did everything, in fact, except stop smoking. Two months before, by ruling out a schedule, noting down the hour and minute of each smoke, and ecstatically increasing the intervals between smokes, he had brought himself down to three cigars a day. Then he had lost the schedule. A week ago he had invented a system of leaving his cigar-case and cigarette-box in an unused drawer at the bottom of the correspondence-file, in the outer office. "I'll just naturally be ashamed to go poking in there all day long, making a fool of myself before my own employees!" he reasoned. By the end of three days he was trained to leave his desk, walk to the file, take out and light a cigar, without knowing that he was doing it. This morning it was revealed to him that it had been too easy to open the file. Lock it, that was the thing! Inspired, he rushed out and locked up his cigars, his cigarettes, and even his box of safety matches; and the key to the file drawer he hid in his desk. But the crusading passion of it made him so tobacco-hungry that he immediately recovered the key, walked with forbidding dignity to the file, took out a cigar and a match--"but only one match; if ole cigar goes out, it'll by golly have to stay out!" Later, when the cigar did go out, he took one more match from the file, and when a buyer and a seller came in for a conference at eleven-thirty, naturally he had to offer them cigars. His conscience protested, "Why, you're smoking with them!" but he bullied it, "Oh, shut up! I'm busy now. Of course by-and-by--" There was no by-and-by, yet his belief that he had crushed the unclean habit made him feel noble and very happy. When he called up Paul Riesling he was, in his moral splendor, unusually eager. He was fonder of Paul Riesling than of any one on earth except himself and his daughter Tinka. They had been classmates, roommates, in the State University, but always he thought of Paul Riesling, with his dark slimness, his precisely parted hair, his nose-glasses, his hesitant speech, his moodiness, his love of music, as a younger brother, to be petted and protected. Paul had gone into his father's business, after graduation; he was now a wholesaler and small manufacturer of prepared-paper roofing. But Babbitt strenuously believed and lengthily announced to the world of Good Fellows that Paul could have been a great violinist or painter or writer. "Why say, the letters that boy sent me on his trip to the Canadian Rockies, they just absolutely make you see the place as if you were standing there. Believe me, he could have given any of these bloomin' authors a whale of a run for their money!" Yet on the telephone they said only: "South 343. No, no, no! I said SOUTH--South 343. Say, operator, what the dickens is the trouble? Can't you get me South 343? Why certainly they'll answer. Oh, Hello, 343? Wanta speak Mist' Riesling, Mist' Babbitt talking. . . 'Lo, Paul?" "Yuh." "'S George speaking." "Yuh." "How's old socks?" "Fair to middlin'. How 're you?" "Fine, Paulibus. Well, what do you know?" "Oh, nothing much." "Where you been keepin' yourself?" "Oh, just stickin' round. What's up, Georgie?" "How 'bout lil lunch 's noon?" "Be all right with me, I guess. Club?' "Yuh. Meet you there twelve-thirty." "A' right. Twelve-thirty. S' long, Georgie." IV His morning was not sharply marked into divisions. Interwoven with correspondence and advertisement-writing were a thousand nervous details: calls from clerks who were incessantly and hopefully seeking five furnished rooms and bath at sixty dollars a month; advice to Mat Penniman on getting money out of tenants who had no money. Babbitt's virtues as a real-estate broker--as the servant of society in the department of finding homes for families and shops for distributors of food--were steadiness and diligence. He was conventionally honest, he kept his records of buyers and sellers complete, he had experience with leases and titles and an excellent memory for prices. His shoulders were broad enough, his voice deep enough, his relish of hearty humor strong enough, to establish him as one of the ruling caste of Good Fellows. Yet his eventual importance to mankind was perhaps lessened by his large and complacent ignorance of all architecture save the types of houses turned out by speculative builders; all landscape gardening save the use of curving roads, grass, and six ordinary shrubs; and all the commonest axioms of economics. He serenely believed that the one purpose of the real-estate business was to make money for George F. Babbitt. True, it was a good advertisement at Boosters' Club lunches, and all the varieties of Annual Banquets to which Good Fellows were invited, to speak sonorously of Unselfish Public Service, the Broker's Obligation to Keep Inviolate the Trust of His Clients, and a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker, and a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence, and enabled you to handle Bigger Propositions. But they didn't imply that you were to be impractical and refuse to take twice the value of a house if a buyer was such an idiot that he didn't jew you down on the asking-price. Babbitt spoke well--and often--at these orgies of commercial righteousness about the "realtor's function as a seer of the future development of the community, and as a prophetic engineer clearing the pathway for inevitable changes"--which meant that a real-estate broker could make money by guessing which way the town would grow. This guessing he called Vision. In an address at the Boosters' Club he had admitted, "It is at once the duty and the privilege of the realtor to know everything about his own city and its environs. Where a surgeon is a specialist on every vein and mysterious cell of the human body, and the engineer upon electricity in all its phases, or every bolt of some great bridge majestically arching o'er a mighty flood, the realtor must know his city, inch by inch, and all its faults and virtues." Though he did know the market-price, inch by inch, of certain districts of Zenith, he did not know whether the police force was too large or too small, or whether it was in alliance with gambling and prostitution. He knew the means of fire-proofing buildings and the relation of insurance-rates to fire-proofing, but he did not know how many firemen there were in the city, how they were trained and paid, or how complete their apparatus. He sang eloquently the advantages of proximity of school-buildings to rentable homes, but he did not know--he did not know that it was worth while to know--whether the city schoolrooms were properly heated, lighted, ventilated, furnished; he did not know how the teachers were chosen; and though he chanted "One of the boasts of Zenith is that we pay our teachers adequately," that was because he had read the statement in the Advocate-Times. Himself, he could not have given the average salary of teachers in Zenith or anywhere else. He had heard it said that "conditions" in the County Jail and the Zenith City Prison were not very "scientific;" he had, with indignation at the criticism of Zenith, skimmed through a report in which the notorious pessimist Seneca Doane, the radical lawyer, asserted that to throw boys and young girls into a bull-pen crammed with men suffering from syphilis, delirium tremens, and insanity was not the perfect way of educating them. He had controverted the report by growling, "Folks that think a jail ought to be a bloomin' Hotel Thornleigh make me sick. If people don't like a jail, let 'em behave 'emselves and keep out of it. Besides, these reform cranks always exaggerate." That was the beginning and quite completely the end of his investigations into Zenith's charities and corrections; and as to the "vice districts" he brightly expressed it, "Those are things that no decent man monkeys with. Besides, smatter fact, I'll tell you confidentially: it's a protection to our daughters and to decent women to have a district where tough nuts can raise cain. Keeps 'em away from our own homes." As to industrial conditions, however, Babbitt had thought a great deal, and his opinions may be coordinated as follows: "A good labor union is of value because it keeps out radical unions, which would destroy property. No one ought to be forced to belong to a union, however. All labor agitators who try to force men to join a union should be hanged. In fact, just between ourselves, there oughtn't to be any unions allowed at all; and as it's the best way of fighting the unions, every business man ought to belong to an employers'-association and to the Chamber of Commerce. In union there is strength. So any selfish hog who doesn't join the Chamber of Commerce ought to be forced to." In nothing--as the expert on whose advice families moved to new neighborhoods to live there for a generation--was Babbitt more splendidly innocent than in the science of sanitation. He did not know a malaria-bearing mosquito from a bat; he knew nothing about tests of drinking water; and in the matters of plumbing and sewage he was as unlearned as he was voluble. He often referred to the excellence of the bathrooms in the houses he sold. He was fond of explaining why it was that no European ever bathed. Some one had told him, when he was twenty-two, that all cesspools were unhealthy, and he still denounced them. If a client impertinently wanted him to sell a house which had a cesspool, Babbitt always spoke about it--before accepting the house and selling it. When he laid out the Glen Oriole acreage development, when he ironed woodland and dipping meadow into a glenless, orioleless, sunburnt flat prickly with small boards displaying the names of imaginary streets, he righteously put in a complete sewage-system. It made him feel superior; it enabled him to sneer privily at the Martin Lumsen development, Avonlea, which had a cesspool; and it provided a chorus for the full-page advertisements in which he announced the beauty, convenience, cheapness, and supererogatory healthfulness of Glen Oriole. The only flaw was that the Glen Oriole sewers had insufficient outlet, so that waste remained in them, not very agreeably, while the Avonlea cesspool was a Waring septic tank. The whole of the Glen Oriole project was a suggestion that Babbitt, though he really did hate men recognized as swindlers, was not too unreasonably honest. Operators and buyers prefer that brokers should not be in competition with them as operators and buyers themselves, but attend to their clients' interests only. It was supposed that the Babbitt-Thompson Company were merely agents for Glen Oriole, serving the real owner, Jake Offutt, but the fact was that Babbitt and Thompson owned sixty-two per cent. of the Glen, the president and purchasing agent of the Zenith Street Traction Company owned twenty-eight per cent., and Jake Offutt (a gang-politician, a small manufacturer, a tobacco-chewing old farceur who enjoyed dirty politics, business diplomacy, and cheating at poker) had only ten per cent., which Babbitt and the Traction officials had given to him for "fixing" health inspectors and fire inspectors and a member of the State Transportation Commission. But Babbitt was virtuous. He advocated, though he did not practise, the prohibition of alcohol; he praised, though he did not obey, the laws against motor-speeding; he paid his debts; he contributed to the church, the Red Cross, and the Y. M. C. A.; he followed the custom of his clan and cheated only as it was sanctified by precedent; and he never descended to trickery--though, as he explained to Paul Riesling: "Course I don't mean to say that every ad I write is literally true or that I always believe everything I say when I give some buyer a good strong selling-spiel. You see--you see it's like this: In the first place, maybe the owner of the property exaggerated when he put it into my hands, and it certainly isn't my place to go proving my principal a liar! And then most folks are so darn crooked themselves that they expect a fellow to do a little lying, so if I was fool enough to never whoop the ante I'd get the credit for lying anyway! In self-defense I got to toot my own horn, like a lawyer defending a client--his bounden duty, ain't it, to bring out the poor dub's good points? Why, the Judge himself would bawl out a lawyer that didn't, even if they both knew the guy was guilty! But even so, I don't pad out the truth like Cecil Rountree or Thayer or the rest of these realtors. Fact, I think a fellow that's willing to deliberately up and profit by lying ought to be shot!" Babbitt's value to his clients was rarely better shown than this morning, in the conference at eleven-thirty between himself, Conrad Lyte, and Archibald Purdy. V Conrad Lyte was a real-estate speculator. He was a nervous speculator. Before he gambled he consulted bankers, lawyers, architects, contracting builders, and all of their clerks and stenographers who were willing to be cornered and give him advice. He was a bold entrepreneur, and he desired nothing more than complete safety in his investments, freedom from attention to details, and the thirty or forty per cent. profit which, according to all authorities, a pioneer deserves for his risks and foresight. He was a stubby man with a cap-like mass of short gray curls and clothes which, no matter how well cut, seemed shaggy. Below his eyes were semicircular hollows, as though silver dollars had been pressed against them and had left an imprint. Particularly and always Lyte consulted Babbitt, and trusted in his slow cautiousness. Six months ago Babbitt had learned that one Archibald Purdy, a grocer in the indecisive residential district known as Linton, was talking of opening a butcher shop beside his grocery. Looking up the ownership of adjoining parcels of land, Babbitt found that Purdy owned his present shop but did not own the one available lot adjoining. He advised Conrad Lyte to purchase this lot, for eleven thousand dollars, though an appraisal on a basis of rents did not indicate its value as above nine thousand. The rents, declared Babbitt, were too low; and by waiting they could make Purdy come to their price. (This was Vision.) He had to bully Lyte into buying. His first act as agent for Lyte was to increase the rent of the battered store-building on the lot. The tenant said a number of rude things, but he paid. Now, Purdy seemed ready to buy, and his delay was going to cost him ten thousand extra dollars--the reward paid by the community to Mr. Conrad Lyte for the virtue of employing a broker who had Vision and who understood Talking Points, Strategic Values, Key Situations, Underappraisals, and the Psychology of Salesmanship. Lyte came to the conference exultantly. He was fond of Babbitt, this morning, and called him "old hoss." Purdy, the grocer, a long-nosed man and solemn, seemed to care less for Babbitt and for Vision, but Babbitt met him at the street door of the office and guided him toward the private room with affectionate little cries of "This way, Brother Purdy!" He took from the correspondence-file the entire box of cigars and forced them on his guests. He pushed their chairs two inches forward and three inches back, which gave an hospitable note, then leaned back in his desk-chair and looked plump and jolly. But he spoke to the weakling grocer with firmness. "Well, Brother Purdy, we been having some pretty tempting offers from butchers and a slew of other folks for that lot next to your store, but I persuaded Brother Lyte that we ought to give you a shot at the property first. I said to Lyte, 'It'd be a rotten shame,' I said, 'if somebody went and opened a combination grocery and meat market right next door and ruined Purdy's nice little business.' Especially--" Babbitt leaned forward, and his voice was harsh, "--it would be hard luck if one of these cash-and-carry chain-stores got in there and started cutting prices below cost till they got rid of competition and forced you to the wall!" Purdy snatched his thin hands from his pockets, pulled up his trousers, thrust his hands back into his pockets, tilted in the heavy oak chair, and tried to look amused, as he struggled: "Yes, they're bad competition. But I guess you don't realize the Pulling Power that Personality has in a neighborhood business." The great Babbitt smiled. "That's so. Just as you feel, old man. We thought we'd give you first chance. All right then--" "Now look here!" Purdy wailed. "I know f'r a fact that a piece of property 'bout same size, right near, sold for less 'n eighty-five hundred, 'twa'n't two years ago, and here you fellows are asking me twenty-four thousand dollars! Why, I'd have to mortgage--I wouldn't mind so much paying twelve thousand but--Why good God, Mr. Babbitt, you're asking more 'n twice its value! And threatening to ruin me if I don't take it!" "Purdy, I don't like your way of talking! I don't like it one little bit! Supposing Lyte and I were stinking enough to want to ruin any fellow human, don't you suppose we know it's to our own selfish interest to have everybody in Zenith prosperous? But all this is beside the point. Tell you what we'll do: We'll come down to twenty-three thousand-five thousand down and the rest on mortgage--and if you want to wreck the old shack and rebuild, I guess I can get Lyte here to loosen up for a building-mortgage on good liberal terms. Heavens, man, we'd be glad to oblige you! We don't like these foreign grocery trusts any better 'n you do! But it isn't reasonable to expect us to sacrifice eleven thousand or more just for neighborliness, IS it! How about it, Lyte? You willing to come down?" By warmly taking Purdy's part, Babbitt persuaded the benevolent Mr. Lyte to reduce his price to twenty-one thousand dollars. At the right moment Babbitt snatched from a drawer the agreement he had had Miss McGoun type out a week ago and thrust it into Purdy's hands. He genially shook his fountain pen to make certain that it was flowing, handed it to Purdy, and approvingly watched him sign. The work of the world was being done. Lyte had made something over nine thousand dollars, Babbitt had made a four-hundred-and-fifty dollar commission, Purdy had, by the sensitive mechanism of modern finance, been provided with a business-building, and soon the happy inhabitants of Linton would have meat lavished upon them at prices only a little higher than those down-town. It had been a manly battle, but after it Babbitt drooped. This was the only really amusing contest he had been planning. There was nothing ahead save details of leases, appraisals, mortgages. He muttered, "Makes me sick to think of Lyte carrying off most of the profit when I did all the work, the old skinflint! And--What else have I got to do to-day?... Like to take a good long vacation. Motor trip. Something." He sprang up, rekindled by the thought of lunching with Paul Riesling. 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.

An einem Morgen im April 1920 erwacht George F. Babbitt, ein 46-jähriger Immobilienmakler, in seinem Haus im exklusiven Stadtteil Floral Heights von Zenith, einer mittelgroßen Stadt im Mittleren Westen. Zenith ist eine typisch expandierende moderne Stadt mit neuen Fabriken und Bürogebäuden, modernen Häusern, guten Straßen und Schnellzugverbindungen sowie den üblichen Slums und anderen städtischen Annehmlichkeiten. Babbitt hat rosige Haut und ein kindliches Gesicht mit einer leichten Tendenz zur Fülle. Er wirkt wohlhabend, obwohl sein äußeres Erscheinungsbild geschäftsmäßig und unromantisch ist. Heute Morgen ist er unglücklich aufgewacht - zum Teil, weil er einen Kater nach dem gestrigen Pokerspiel hat, und zum Teil, weil er, wie üblich, von einem Feenmädchen geträumt hat, mit dem er seinem langweiligen, mechanischen Dasein entfliehen kann. Heute Morgen muss er sich der Realität stellen und es dauert eine Weile, bis er sich angepasst hat. Babbitt steht um 7:20 Uhr auf und führt sein reguläres Morgenritual des Waschens und Ankleidens durch. Seine Handlungen und Gedanken sind dieselben wie an nahezu jedem Morgen seines Lebens. Myra Babbitt, seine Frau, steht ebenfalls auf und beginnt ihre Hausarbeiten. Sie ist eine pummelige, reife Frau, die in ein Morgenmantel gekleidet ist. Nach einem typischen Dilemma, ob Babbitt seinen braunen oder grauen Anzug tragen sollte, ist er schließlich fertig angezogen. Bevor Babbitt das Schlafzimmer verlässt, betrachtet er sich im Spiegel und ist stolz auf seinen äußerst respektablen und vornehm wirkenden Auftritt. Er wirft einen Blick aus dem Fenster und sieht die drei Meilen entfernte Innenstadt von Zenith. Die funktionale Schönheit der hohen, glänzenden Wolkenkratzer inspiriert ihn; er empfindet ein beinahe religiöses Gefühl der Ehrfurcht für das moderne städtische Leben in Amerika. Babbitts Haus ist von mittlerem Preis und modern. Es verfügt über alle neuesten Annehmlichkeiten und Geräte und wurde von den besten und stilvollsten Handwerkern entworfen, dekoriert und eingerichtet. Es ähnelt in vieler Hinsicht den anderen Häusern in Floral Heights. Der einzige Fehler des Babbitt-Hauses, so der Autor, ist, dass es kein Zuhause ist. Beim Frühstück werden die Babbitts von ihren drei Kindern begleitet - Verona, 22, eine kürzlich Absolventin von Bryn Mawr und sehr bewusst ihrer Kultur und Raffinesse; Ted - Theodore Roosevelt - Babbitt, 17, ein Schüler der örtlichen High School; und Tinka - Katherine - 10, ein etwas verwöhntes, aber süßes kleines Mädchen. Während der Mahlzeit streitet die Familie über eine Reihe von Kleinigkeiten. Babbitt leidet unter seiner üblichen Morgenreizbarkeit und es wird schließlich notwendig, dass er sie zum Schweigen bringt, indem er laut wird. Die Kinder gehen zur Schule oder zur Arbeit und Babbitt macht sich auf den Weg ins Büro. Auf dem Weg zur Arbeit trifft er seinen Nachbarn Howard Littlefield, einen leitenden Angestellten der Zenith Street Traction Company und einen Inhaber eines Doktortitels in Wirtschaftswissenschaften. Howard ist einer der am besten gebildeten Männer in Floral Heights und Babbitt ist einer der vielen Bewunderer seines Wissens. Die beiden Männer führen ein kurzes, klischeehaftes Gespräch über das Wetter und die aktuelle Politik. Bei seiner Weiterfahrt bekommt Babbitt ein abenteuerliches Gefühl von persönlichem Heldentum, indem er rücksichtslos fährt. An der Tankstelle, an der er anhält, ist der Mechaniker aufmerksam und respektvoll. Dieses Verhalten steigert, wie üblich, Babbitts Selbstwertgefühl und er wird etwas fröhlicher. Wie an jedem anderen Morgen auch, erregt und inspiriert ihn die Fahrt durch die vielen unterschiedlichen und fleißigen Stadtviertel. Babbitts Büro befindet sich im Reeves Building, einem modernen Wolkenkratzer in der Innenstadt. Die Babbitt-Thompson Realty Company hat neun Verkäufer und mehrere Büroangestellte, von denen die meisten bereits fleißig bei der Arbeit sind. Aus irgendeinem unbekannten Grund fühlt sich Babbitt an diesem Morgen jedoch nicht wohl und empfindet nicht die übliche Zufriedenheit beim Anblick der modernen Einrichtungen seines Büros. Nichtsdestotrotz macht er sich an die Arbeit des Tages. Er fühlt sich jedoch weiterhin unruhig. Babbitt sinniert eine Weile über das Feenmädchen aus seinen Träumen und schämt sich dann, denn er ist ein äußerst respektabler Familienvater und hat noch nie etwas unternommen, um seinen Ruf in der Gemeinschaft zu gefährden. Im Laufe des Morgens verfasst Babbitt mehrere zusätzliche Anzeigen, darunter eine ziemlich geschmacklose für einen Friedhof, für den er als Makler tätig ist. Diese Anzeigen sind in qualvoll-unwahren Überschwang geschrieben, aber Babbitt ist stolz darauf und betrachtet sie als stilistische Meisterwerke. Nachdem diese Arbeit erledigt ist, wird ihm langweilig und wie üblich beschließt er, erneut mit dem Rauchen aufzuhören. Danach ruft er Paul Riesling, seinen engsten Freund, an und vereinbart einen Mittagstermin. Der Rest von Babbitts Vormittag ist mit kleinen und routinemäßigen Details ausgefüllt. Nachdem er diese beschrieben hat, bemerkt Lewis, dass Babbitt ein erfolgreicher Immobilienmakler ist, weil er relativ ehrlich und zuverlässig ist, eine gute Verkaufspersönlichkeit hat und fleißig ist. Leider ist Babbitt jedoch, wie viele Männer in seinem Bereich, in den grundlegendsten und wichtigsten Angelegenheiten der Immobilienbranche unwissend, wie z.B. den Prinzipien der wissenschaftlichen Hygiene, der Natur ausreichender Bildungseinrichtungen, der Polizei- und Feuerwehrdienste usw. Dennoch versteht Babbitt Immobilienwerte und ist nicht davor zurückgeschreckt, hin und wieder einen etwas zwielichtigen Deal zu machen, wenn er profitabel ist und einen Anschein von Seriosität hat. Dementsprechend ist Babbitts Firma eine der erfolgreichsten in Zenith. Babbitt scheint ein hochanständiger Mann zu sein. Er befürwortet und preist die Weisheit vieler Gesetze, hält sich aber nicht immer daran. Er ist ein regelmäßiger Spender für seine Kirche und andere verlässliche Wohltätigkeitsorganisationen. Betrügen lehnt er ab - außer wenn es alle anderen machen, oder wenn es notwendig ist, um sich selbst zu schützen. Der Rest des Kapitels enthält eine ausführliche Beschreibung der Art und Weise, wie Babbitt und Conrad Lyte, ein örtlicher Spekulant, einen etwas unehrlichen Immobiliendeal durchziehen und einen netten Gewinn machen, auf Kosten eines hilflosen Lebensmittelhändlers in einem der Wohnviertel von Zenith.

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 III. Eine Straße in der Nähe des Kapitols. [Artemidorus betritt die Bühne und liest ein Papier.] ARTEMIDORUS. "Caesar, hüte dich vor Brutus; sei vorsichtig mit Cassius; komme Casca nicht nahe; halte ein Auge auf Cinna; vertraue Trebonius nicht; merke gut auf Metellus Cimber; Decius Brutus liebt dich nicht; du hast Caius Ligarius unrecht getan. Es gibt nur einen Gedanken bei all diesen Männern, und er richtet sich gegen Caesar. Wenn du nicht unsterblich bist, sieh dich um: Sicherheit weicht einer Verschwörung. Die mächtigen Götter verteidigen dich! Dein Liebender, Artemidorus." Hier werde ich stehen, bis Caesar vorbeikommt, Und als Bittsteller werde ich ihm dies geben. Mein Herz beklagt, dass Tugend nicht leben kann Außerhalb des Greifens der Nachahmung.-- Wenn du das liest, oh Caesar, kannst du leben; Wenn nicht, spinnt das Schicksal mit Verrätern. [Abgang.] 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.

Die Szene eröffnet auf einer Straße in der Nähe des Kapitols. Artemidorus wartet auf Caesar und plant, ihm ein Papier mit den Namen der Verschwörer zu übergeben.

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: 56 CAPTIVITY: THE FIFTH DAY Milady had however achieved a half-triumph, and success doubled her forces. It was not difficult to conquer, as she had hitherto done, men prompt to let themselves be seduced, and whom the gallant education of a court led quickly into her net. Milady was handsome enough not to find much resistance on the part of the flesh, and she was sufficiently skillful to prevail over all the obstacles of the mind. But this time she had to contend with an unpolished nature, concentrated and insensible by force of austerity. Religion and its observances had made Felton a man inaccessible to ordinary seductions. There fermented in that sublimated brain plans so vast, projects so tumultuous, that there remained no room for any capricious or material love--that sentiment which is fed by leisure and grows with corruption. Milady had, then, made a breach by her false virtue in the opinion of a man horribly prejudiced against her, and by her beauty in the heart of a man hitherto chaste and pure. In short, she had taken the measure of motives hitherto unknown to herself, through this experiment, made upon the most rebellious subject that nature and religion could submit to her study. Many a time, nevertheless, during the evening she despaired of fate and of herself. She did not invoke God, we very well know, but she had faith in the genius of evil--that immense sovereignty which reigns in all the details of human life, and by which, as in the Arabian fable, a single pomegranate seed is sufficient to reconstruct a ruined world. Milady, being well prepared for the reception of Felton, was able to erect her batteries for the next day. She knew she had only two days left; that when once the order was signed by Buckingham--and Buckingham would sign it the more readily from its bearing a false name, and he could not, therefore, recognize the woman in question--once this order was signed, we say, the baron would make her embark immediately, and she knew very well that women condemned to exile employ arms much less powerful in their seductions than the pretendedly virtuous woman whose beauty is lighted by the sun of the world, whose style the voice of fashion lauds, and whom a halo of aristocracy gilds with enchanting splendors. To be a woman condemned to a painful and disgraceful punishment is no impediment to beauty, but it is an obstacle to the recovery of power. Like all persons of real genius, Milady knew what suited her nature and her means. Poverty was repugnant to her; degradation took away two-thirds of her greatness. Milady was only a queen while among queens. The pleasure of satisfied pride was necessary to her domination. To command inferior beings was rather a humiliation than a pleasure for her. She should certainly return from her exile--she did not doubt that a single instant; but how long might this exile last? For an active, ambitious nature, like that of Milady, days not spent in climbing are inauspicious days. What word, then, can be found to describe the days which they occupy in descending? To lose a year, two years, three years, is to talk of an eternity; to return after the death or disgrace of the cardinal, perhaps; to return when d'Artagnan and his friends, happy and triumphant, should have received from the queen the reward they had well acquired by the services they had rendered her--these were devouring ideas that a woman like Milady could not endure. For the rest, the storm which raged within her doubled her strength, and she would have burst the walls of her prison if her body had been able to take for a single instant the proportions of her mind. Then that which spurred her on additionally in the midst of all this was the remembrance of the cardinal. What must the mistrustful, restless, suspicious cardinal think of her silence--the cardinal, not merely her only support, her only prop, her only protector at present, but still further, the principal instrument of her future fortune and vengeance? She knew him; she knew that at her return from a fruitless journey it would be in vain to tell him of her imprisonment, in vain to enlarge upon the sufferings she had undergone. The cardinal would reply, with the sarcastic calmness of the skeptic, strong at once by power and genius, "You should not have allowed yourself to be taken." Then Milady collected all her energies, murmuring in the depths of her soul the name of Felton--the only beam of light that penetrated to her in the hell into which she had fallen; and like a serpent which folds and unfolds its rings to ascertain its strength, she enveloped Felton beforehand in the thousand meshes of her inventive imagination. Time, however, passed away; the hours, one after another, seemed to awaken the clock as they passed, and every blow of the brass hammer resounded upon the heart of the prisoner. At nine o'clock, Lord de Winter made his customary visit, examined the window and the bars, sounded the floor and the walls, looked to the chimney and the doors, without, during this long and minute examination, he or Milady pronouncing a single word. Doubtless both of them understood that the situation had become too serious to lose time in useless words and aimless wrath. "Well," said the baron, on leaving her "you will not escape tonight!" At ten o'clock Felton came and placed the sentinel. Milady recognized his step. She was as well acquainted with it now as a mistress is with that of the lover of her heart; and yet Milady at the same time detested and despised this weak fanatic. That was not the appointed hour. Felton did not enter. Two hours after, as midnight sounded, the sentinel was relieved. This time it WAS the hour, and from this moment Milady waited with impatience. The new sentinel commenced his walk in the corridor. At the expiration of ten minutes Felton came. Milady was all attention. "Listen," said the young man to the sentinel. "On no pretense leave the door, for you know that last night my Lord punished a soldier for having quit his post for an instant, although I, during his absence, watched in his place." "Yes, I know it," said the soldier. "I recommend you therefore to keep the strictest watch. For my part I am going to pay a second visit to this woman, who I fear entertains sinister intentions upon her own life, and I have received orders to watch her." "Good!" murmured Milady; "the austere Puritan lies." As to the soldier, he only smiled. "Zounds, Lieutenant!" said he; "you are not unlucky in being charged with such commissions, particularly if my Lord has authorized you to look into her bed." Felton blushed. Under any other circumstances he would have reprimanded the soldier for indulging in such pleasantry, but his conscience murmured too loud for his mouth to dare speak. "If I call, come," said he. "If anyone comes, call me." "I will, Lieutenant," said the soldier. Felton entered Milady's apartment. Milady arose. "You are here!" said she. "I promised to come," said Felton, "and I have come." "You promised me something else." "What, my God!" said the young man, who in spite of his self-command felt his knees tremble and the sweat start from his brow. "You promised to bring a knife, and to leave it with me after our interview." "Say no more of that, madame," said Felton. "There is no situation, however terrible it may be, which can authorize a creature of God to inflict death upon himself. I have reflected, and I cannot, must not be guilty of such a sin." "Ah, you have reflected!" said the prisoner, sitting down in her armchair, with a smile of disdain; "and I also have reflected." "Upon what?" "That I can have nothing to say to a man who does not keep his word." "Oh, my God!" murmured Felton. "You may retire," said Milady. "I will not talk." "Here is the knife," said Felton, drawing from his pocket the weapon which he had brought, according to his promise, but which he hesitated to give to his prisoner. "Let me see it," said Milady. "For what purpose?" "Upon my honor, I will instantly return it to you. You shall place it on that table, and you may remain between it and me." Felton offered the weapon to Milady, who examined the temper of it attentively, and who tried the point on the tip of her finger. "Well," said she, returning the knife to the young officer, "this is fine and good steel. You are a faithful friend, Felton." Felton took back the weapon, and laid it upon the table, as he had agreed with the prisoner. Milady followed him with her eyes, and made a gesture of satisfaction. "Now," said she, "listen to me." The request was needless. The young officer stood upright before her, awaiting her words as if to devour them. "Felton," said Milady, with a solemnity full of melancholy, "imagine that your sister, the daughter of your father, speaks to you. While yet young, unfortunately handsome, I was dragged into a snare. I resisted. Ambushes and violences multiplied around me, but I resisted. The religion I serve, the God I adore, were blasphemed because I called upon that religion and that God, but still I resisted. Then outrages were heaped upon me, and as my soul was not subdued they wished to defile my body forever. Finally--" Milady stopped, and a bitter smile passed over her lips. "Finally," said Felton, "finally, what did they do?" "At length, one evening my enemy resolved to paralyze the resistance he could not conquer. One evening he mixed a powerful narcotic with my water. Scarcely had I finished my repast, when I felt myself sink by degrees into a strange torpor. Although I was without mistrust, a vague fear seized me, and I tried to struggle against sleepiness. I arose. I wished to run to the window and call for help, but my legs refused their office. It appeared as if the ceiling sank upon my head and crushed me with its weight. I stretched out my arms. I tried to speak. I could only utter inarticulate sounds, and irresistible faintness came over me. I supported myself by a chair, feeling that I was about to fall, but this support was soon insufficient on account of my weak arms. I fell upon one knee, then upon both. I tried to pray, but my tongue was frozen. God doubtless neither heard nor saw me, and I sank upon the floor a prey to a slumber which resembled death. "Of all that passed in that sleep, or the time which glided away while it lasted, I have no remembrance. The only thing I recollect is that I awoke in bed in a round chamber, the furniture of which was sumptuous, and into which light only penetrated by an opening in the ceiling. No door gave entrance to the room. It might be called a magnificent prison. "It was a long time before I was able to make out what place I was in, or to take account of the details I describe. My mind appeared to strive in vain to shake off the heavy darkness of the sleep from which I could not rouse myself. I had vague perceptions of space traversed, of the rolling of a carriage, of a horrible dream in which my strength had become exhausted; but all this was so dark and so indistinct in my mind that these events seemed to belong to another life than mine, and yet mixed with mine in fantastic duality. "At times the state into which I had fallen appeared so strange that I believed myself dreaming. I arose trembling. My clothes were near me on a chair; I neither remembered having undressed myself nor going to bed. Then by degrees the reality broke upon me, full of chaste terrors. I was no longer in the house where I had dwelt. As well as I could judge by the light of the sun, the day was already two-thirds gone. It was the evening before when I had fallen asleep; my sleep, then, must have lasted twenty-four hours! What had taken place during this long sleep? "I dressed myself as quickly as possible; my slow and stiff motions all attested that the effects of the narcotic were not yet entirely dissipated. The chamber was evidently furnished for the reception of a woman; and the most finished coquette could not have formed a wish, but on casting her eyes about the apartment, she would have found that wish accomplished. "Certainly I was not the first captive that had been shut up in this splendid prison; but you may easily comprehend, Felton, that the more superb the prison, the greater was my terror. "Yes, it was a prison, for I tried in vain to get out of it. I sounded all the walls, in the hopes of discovering a door, but everywhere the walls returned a full and flat sound. "I made the tour of the room at least twenty times, in search of an outlet of some kind; but there was none. I sank exhausted with fatigue and terror into an armchair. "Meantime, night came on rapidly, and with night my terrors increased. I did not know but I had better remain where I was seated. It appeared that I was surrounded with unknown dangers into which I was about to fall at every instant. Although I had eaten nothing since the evening before, my fears prevented my feeling hunger. "No noise from without by which I could measure the time reached me; I only supposed it must be seven or eight o'clock in the evening, for it was in the month of October and it was quite dark. "All at once the noise of a door, turning on its hinges, made me start. A globe of fire appeared above the glazed opening of the ceiling, casting a strong light into my chamber; and I perceived with terror that a man was standing within a few paces of me. "A table, with two covers, bearing a supper ready prepared, stood, as if by magic, in the middle of the apartment. "That man was he who had pursued me during a whole year, who had vowed my dishonor, and who, by the first words that issued from his mouth, gave me to understand he had accomplished it the preceding night." "Scoundrel!" murmured Felton. "Oh, yes, scoundrel!" cried Milady, seeing the interest which the young officer, whose soul seemed to hang on her lips, took in this strange recital. "Oh, yes, scoundrel! He believed, having triumphed over me in my sleep, that all was completed. He came, hoping that I would accept my shame, as my shame was consummated; he came to offer his fortune in exchange for my love. "All that the heart of a woman could contain of haughty contempt and disdainful words, I poured out upon this man. Doubtless he was accustomed to such reproaches, for he listened to me calm and smiling, with his arms crossed over his breast. Then, when he thought I had said all, he advanced toward me; I sprang toward the table, I seized a knife, I placed it to my breast. "Take one step more," said I, "and in addition to my dishonor, you shall have my death to reproach yourself with." "There was, no doubt, in my look, my voice, my whole person, that sincerity of gesture, of attitude, of accent, which carries conviction to the most perverse minds, for he paused. "'Your death?' said he; 'oh, no, you are too charming a mistress to allow me to consent to lose you thus, after I have had the happiness to possess you only a single time. Adieu, my charmer; I will wait to pay you my next visit till you are in a better humor.' "At these words he blew a whistle; the globe of fire which lighted the room reascended and disappeared. I found myself again in complete darkness. The same noise of a door opening and shutting was repeated the instant afterward; the flaming globe descended afresh, and I was completely alone. "This moment was frightful; if I had any doubts as to my misfortune, these doubts had vanished in an overwhelming reality. I was in the power of a man whom I not only detested, but despised--of a man capable of anything, and who had already given me a fatal proof of what he was able to do." "But who, then was this man?" asked Felton. "I passed the night on a chair, starting at the least noise, for toward midnight the lamp went out, and I was again in darkness. But the night passed away without any fresh attempt on the part of my persecutor. Day came; the table had disappeared, only I had still the knife in my hand. "This knife was my only hope. "I was worn out with fatigue. Sleeplessness inflamed my eyes; I had not dared to sleep a single instant. The light of day reassured me; I went and threw myself on the bed, without parting with the emancipating knife, which I concealed under my pillow. "When I awoke, a fresh meal was served. "This time, in spite of my terrors, in spite of my agony, I began to feel a devouring hunger. It was forty-eight hours since I had taken any nourishment. I ate some bread and some fruit; then, remembering the narcotic mixed with the water I had drunk, I would not touch that which was placed on the table, but filled my glass at a marble fountain fixed in the wall over my dressing table. "And yet, notwithstanding these precautions, I remained for some time in a terrible agitation of mind. But my fears were this time ill-founded; I passed the day without experiencing anything of the kind I dreaded. "I took the precaution to half empty the carafe, in order that my suspicions might not be noticed. "The evening came on, and with it darkness; but however profound was this darkness, my eyes began to accustom themselves to it. I saw, amid the shadows, the table sink through the floor; a quarter of an hour later it reappeared, bearing my supper. In an instant, thanks to the lamp, my chamber was once more lighted. "I was determined to eat only such things as could not possibly have anything soporific introduced into them. Two eggs and some fruit composed my repast; then I drew another glass of water from my protecting fountain, and drank it. "At the first swallow, it appeared to me not to have the same taste as in the morning. Suspicion instantly seized me. I paused, but I had already drunk half a glass. "I threw the rest away with horror, and waited, with the dew of fear upon my brow. "No doubt some invisible witness had seen me draw the water from that fountain, and had taken advantage of my confidence in it, the better to assure my ruin, so coolly resolved upon, so cruelly pursued. "Half an hour had not passed when the same symptoms began to appear; but as I had only drunk half a glass of the water, I contended longer, and instead of falling entirely asleep, I sank into a state of drowsiness which left me a perception of what was passing around me, while depriving me of the strength either to defend myself or to fly. "I dragged myself toward the bed, to seek the only defense I had left--my saving knife; but I could not reach the bolster. I sank on my knees, my hands clasped round one of the bedposts; then I felt that I was lost." Felton became frightfully pale, and a convulsive tremor crept through his whole body. "And what was most frightful," continued Milady, her voice altered, as if she still experienced the same agony as at that awful minute, "was that at this time I retained a consciousness of the danger that threatened me; was that my soul, if I may say so, waked in my sleeping body; was that I saw, that I heard. It is true that all was like a dream, but it was not the less frightful. "I saw the lamp ascend, and leave me in darkness; then I heard the well-known creaking of the door although I had heard that door open but twice. "I felt instinctively that someone approached me; it is said that the doomed wretch in the deserts of America thus feels the approach of the serpent. "I wished to make an effort; I attempted to cry out. By an incredible effort of will I even raised myself up, but only to sink down again immediately, and to fall into the arms of my persecutor." "Tell me who this man was!" cried the young officer. Milady saw at a single glance all the painful feelings she inspired in Felton by dwelling on every detail of her recital; but she would not spare him a single pang. The more profoundly she wounded his heart, the more certainly he would avenge her. She continued, then, as if she had not heard his exclamation, or as if she thought the moment was not yet come to reply to it. "Only this time it was no longer an inert body, without feeling, that the villain had to deal with. I have told you that without being able to regain the complete exercise of my faculties, I retained the sense of my danger. I struggled, then, with all my strength, and doubtless opposed, weak as I was, a long resistance, for I heard him cry out, 'These miserable Puritans! I knew very well that they tired out their executioners, but I did not believe them so strong against their lovers!' "Alas! this desperate resistance could not last long. I felt my strength fail, and this time it was not my sleep that enabled the coward to prevail, but my swoon." Felton listened without uttering any word or sound, except an inward expression of agony. The sweat streamed down his marble forehead, and his hand, under his coat, tore his breast. "My first impulse, on coming to myself, was to feel under my pillow for the knife I had not been able to reach; if it had not been useful for defense, it might at least serve for expiation. "But on taking this knife, Felton, a terrible idea occurred to me. I have sworn to tell you all, and I will tell you all. I have promised you the truth; I will tell it, were it to destroy me." "The idea came into your mind to avenge yourself on this man, did it not?" cried Felton. "Yes," said Milady. "The idea was not that of a Christian, I knew; but without doubt, that eternal enemy of our souls, that lion roaring constantly around us, breathed it into my mind. In short, what shall I say to you, Felton?" continued Milady, in the tone of a woman accusing herself of a crime. "This idea occurred to me, and did not leave me; it is of this homicidal thought that I now bear the punishment." "Continue, continue!" said Felton; "I am eager to see you attain your vengeance!" "Oh, I resolved that it should take place as soon as possible. I had no doubt he would return the following night. During the day I had nothing to fear. "When the hour of breakfast came, therefore, I did not hesitate to eat and drink. I had determined to make believe sup, but to eat nothing. I was forced, then, to combat the fast of the evening with the nourishment of the morning. "Only I concealed a glass of water, which remained after my breakfast, thirst having been the chief of my sufferings when I remained forty-eight hours without eating or drinking. "The day passed away without having any other influence on me than to strengthen the resolution I had formed; only I took care that my face should not betray the thoughts of my heart, for I had no doubt I was watched. Several times, even, I felt a smile on my lips. Felton, I dare not tell you at what idea I smiled; you would hold me in horror--" "Go on! go on!" said Felton; "you see plainly that I listen, and that I am anxious to know the end." "Evening came; the ordinary events took place. During the darkness, as before, my supper was brought. Then the lamp was lighted, and I sat down to table. I only ate some fruit. I pretended to pour out water from the jug, but I only drank that which I had saved in my glass. The substitution was made so carefully that my spies, if I had any, could have no suspicion of it. "After supper I exhibited the same marks of languor as on the preceding evening; but this time, as I yielded to fatigue, or as if I had become familiarized with danger, I dragged myself toward my bed, let my robe fall, and lay down. "I found my knife where I had placed it, under my pillow, and while feigning to sleep, my hand grasped the handle of it convulsively. "Two hours passed away without anything fresh happening. Oh, my God! who could have said so the evening before? I began to fear that he would not come. "At length I saw the lamp rise softly, and disappear in the depths of the ceiling; my chamber was filled with darkness and obscurity, but I made a strong effort to penetrate this darkness and obscurity. "Nearly ten minutes passed; I heard no other noise but the beating of my own heart. I implored heaven that he might come. "At length I heard the well-known noise of the door, which opened and shut; I heard, notwithstanding the thickness of the carpet, a step which made the floor creak; I saw, notwithstanding the darkness, a shadow which approached my bed." "Haste! haste!" said Felton; "do you not see that each of your words burns me like molten lead?" "Then," continued Milady, "then I collected all my strength; I recalled to my mind that the moment of vengeance, or rather, of justice, had struck. I looked upon myself as another Judith; I gathered myself up, my knife in my hand, and when I saw him near me, stretching out his arms to find his victim, then, with the last cry of agony and despair, I struck him in the middle of his breast. "The miserable villain! He had foreseen all. His breast was covered with a coat-of-mail; the knife was bent against it. "'Ah, ah!' cried he, seizing my arm, and wresting from me the weapon that had so badly served me, 'you want to take my life, do you, my pretty Puritan? But that's more than dislike, that's ingratitude! Come, come, calm yourself, my sweet girl! I thought you had softened. I am not one of those tyrants who detain women by force. You don't love me. With my usual fatuity I doubted it; now I am convinced. Tomorrow you shall be free.' "I had but one wish; that was that he should kill me. "'Beware!' said I, 'for my liberty is your dishonor.' "'Explain yourself, my pretty sibyl!' "'Yes; for as soon as I leave this place I will tell everything. I will proclaim the violence you have used toward me. I will describe my captivity. I will denounce this place of infamy. You are placed on high, my Lord, but tremble! Above you there is the king; above the king there is God!' "However perfect master he was over himself, my persecutor allowed a movement of anger to escape him. I could not see the expression of his countenance, but I felt the arm tremble upon which my hand was placed. "'Then you shall not leave this place,' said he. "'Very well,' cried I, 'then the place of my punishment will be that of my tomb. I will die here, and you will see if a phantom that accuses is not more terrible than a living being that threatens!' "'You shall have no weapon left in your power.' "'There is a weapon which despair has placed within the reach of every creature who has the courage to use it. I will allow myself to die with hunger.' "'Come,' said the wretch, 'is not peace much better than such a war as that? I will restore you to liberty this moment; I will proclaim you a piece of immaculate virtue; I will name you the Lucretia of England.' "'And I will say that you are the Sextus. I will denounce you before men, as I have denounced you before God; and if it be necessary that, like Lucretia, I should sign my accusation with my blood, I will sign it.' "'Ah!' said my enemy, in a jeering tone, 'that's quite another thing. My faith! everything considered, you are very well off here. You shall want for nothing, and if you let yourself die of hunger that will be your own fault.' "At these words he retired. I heard the door open and shut, and I remained overwhelmed, less, I confess it, by my grief than by the mortification of not having avenged myself. "He kept his word. All the day, all the next night passed away without my seeing him again. But I also kept my word with him, and I neither ate nor drank. I was, as I told him, resolved to die of hunger. "I passed the day and the night in prayer, for I hoped that God would pardon me my suicide. "The second night the door opened; I was lying on the floor, for my strength began to abandon me. "At the noise I raised myself up on one hand. "'Well,' said a voice which vibrated in too terrible a manner in my ear not to be recognized, 'well! Are we softened a little? Will we not pay for our liberty with a single promise of silence? Come, I am a good sort of a prince,' added he, 'and although I like not Puritans I do them justice; and it is the same with Puritanesses, when they are pretty. Come, take a little oath for me on the cross; I won't ask anything more of you.' "'On the cross,' cried I, rising, for at that abhorred voice I had recovered all my strength, 'on the cross I swear that no promise, no menace, no force, no torture, shall close my mouth! On the cross I swear to denounce you everywhere as a murderer, as a thief of honor, as a base coward! On the cross I swear, if I ever leave this place, to call down vengeance upon you from the whole human race!' "'Beware!' said the voice, in a threatening accent that I had never yet heard. 'I have an extraordinary means which I will not employ but in the last extremity to close your mouth, or at least to prevent anyone from believing a word you may utter.' "I mustered all my strength to reply to him with a burst of laughter. "He saw that it was a merciless war between us--a war to the death. "'Listen!' said he. 'I give you the rest of tonight and all day tomorrow. Reflect: promise to be silent, and riches, consideration, even honor, shall surround you; threaten to speak, and I will condemn you to infamy.' "'You?' cried I. 'You?' "'To interminable, ineffaceable infamy!' "'You?' repeated I. Oh, I declare to you, Felton, I thought him mad! "'Yes, yes, I!' replied he. "'Oh, leave me!' said I. 'Begone, if you do not desire to see me dash my head against that wall before your eyes!' "'Very well, it is your own doing. Till tomorrow evening, then!' "'Till tomorrow evening, then!' replied I, allowing myself to fall, and biting the carpet with rage." Felton leaned for support upon a piece of furniture; and Milady saw, with the joy of a demon, that his strength would fail him perhaps before the end of her recital. 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.

Milady erkennt, dass Felton, als tiefreligiöser Mann, gegen gewöhnliche Verführungen immun ist. Sie muss heute Abend wirklich alles geben! Sie stellt außerdem fest, dass sie nur noch zwei Tage Zeit hat, um erfolgreich zu entkommen, und obwohl sie weiß, dass sie wahrscheinlich ihren Weg zurück aus den Kolonien finden könnte, erträgt sie nicht die Vorstellung, für die Jahre, die es dauern würde, nicht eingeweiht zu sein. Um neun Uhr betritt Lord de Winter den Raum, um sicherzustellen, dass alles sicher ist. Er versichert sich selbst, dass es für Milady unmöglich ist, zu entkommen. Nach Mitternacht betritt Felton Miladys Zimmer. Sie bittet um das Messer. Felton legt es auf den Tisch. Sie erzählt Felton eine lange Geschichte, die ihn fesselt. Die Geschichte geht so: Eine junge und schöne Milady wird von einem bösen Mann gefangen genommen, betäubt und vergewaltigt. Sie wird immer wieder gefangen gehalten und betäubt. Ihr Peiniger verlangt ihre Liebe und bittet sie, ihn zu heiraten. Eines Nachts versteckt sie ein Messer und versucht, ihren Peiniger zu ermorden. Leider trug er einen Kettenpanzer. Ihr Peiniger sagt ihr, dass er sie freilassen wird; Milady droht damit, allen zu erzählen, was passiert ist. In diesem Fall sagt er, müsse er sie gefangen halten. Milady tritt in den Hungerstreik. Felton ist überwältigt.

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 III UNDER the rolling clouds of the prairie a moving mass of steel. An irritable clank and rattle beneath a prolonged roar. The sharp scent of oranges cutting the soggy smell of unbathed people and ancient baggage. Towns as planless as a scattering of pasteboard boxes on an attic floor. The stretch of faded gold stubble broken only by clumps of willows encircling white houses and red barns. No. 7, the way train, grumbling through Minnesota, imperceptibly climbing the giant tableland that slopes in a thousand-mile rise from hot Mississippi bottoms to the Rockies. It is September, hot, very dusty. There is no smug Pullman attached to the train, and the day coaches of the East are replaced by free chair cars, with each seat cut into two adjustable plush chairs, the head-rests covered with doubtful linen towels. Halfway down the car is a semi-partition of carved oak columns, but the aisle is of bare, splintery, grease-blackened wood. There is no porter, no pillows, no provision for beds, but all today and all tonight they will ride in this long steel box-farmers with perpetually tired wives and children who seem all to be of the same age; workmen going to new jobs; traveling salesmen with derbies and freshly shined shoes. They are parched and cramped, the lines of their hands filled with grime; they go to sleep curled in distorted attitudes, heads against the window-panes or propped on rolled coats on seat-arms, and legs thrust into the aisle. They do not read; apparently they do not think. They wait. An early-wrinkled, young-old mother, moving as though her joints were dry, opens a suit-case in which are seen creased blouses, a pair of slippers worn through at the toes, a bottle of patent medicine, a tin cup, a paper-covered book about dreams which the news-butcher has coaxed her into buying. She brings out a graham cracker which she feeds to a baby lying flat on a seat and wailing hopelessly. Most of the crumbs drop on the red plush of the seat, and the woman sighs and tries to brush them away, but they leap up impishly and fall back on the plush. A soiled man and woman munch sandwiches and throw the crusts on the floor. A large brick-colored Norwegian takes off his shoes, grunts in relief, and props his feet in their thick gray socks against the seat in front of him. An old woman whose toothless mouth shuts like a mud-turtle's, and whose hair is not so much white as yellow like moldy linen, with bands of pink skull apparent between the tresses, anxiously lifts her bag, opens it, peers in, closes it, puts it under the seat, and hastily picks it up and opens it and hides it all over again. The bag is full of treasures and of memories: a leather buckle, an ancient band-concert program, scraps of ribbon, lace, satin. In the aisle beside her is an extremely indignant parrakeet in a cage. Two facing seats, overflowing with a Slovene iron-miner's family, are littered with shoes, dolls, whisky bottles, bundles wrapped in newspapers, a sewing bag. The oldest boy takes a mouth-organ out of his coat pocket, wipes the tobacco crumbs off, and plays "Marching through Georgia" till every head in the car begins to ache. The news-butcher comes through selling chocolate bars and lemon drops. A girl-child ceaselessly trots down to the water-cooler and back to her seat. The stiff paper envelope which she uses for cup drips in the aisle as she goes, and on each trip she stumbles over the feet of a carpenter, who grunts, "Ouch! Look out!" The dust-caked doors are open, and from the smoking-car drifts back a visible blue line of stinging tobacco smoke, and with it a crackle of laughter over the story which the young man in the bright blue suit and lavender tie and light yellow shoes has just told to the squat man in garage overalls. The smell grows constantly thicker, more stale. II To each of the passengers his seat was his temporary home, and most of the passengers were slatternly housekeepers. But one seat looked clean and deceptively cool. In it were an obviously prosperous man and a black-haired, fine-skinned girl whose pumps rested on an immaculate horsehide bag. They were Dr. Will Kennicott and his bride, Carol. They had been married at the end of a year of conversational courtship, and they were on their way to Gopher Prairie after a wedding journey in the Colorado mountains. The hordes of the way-train were not altogether new to Carol. She had seen them on trips from St. Paul to Chicago. But now that they had become her own people, to bathe and encourage and adorn, she had an acute and uncomfortable interest in them. They distressed her. They were so stolid. She had always maintained that there is no American peasantry, and she sought now to defend her faith by seeing imagination and enterprise in the young Swedish farmers, and in a traveling man working over his order-blanks. But the older people, Yankees as well as Norwegians, Germans, Finns, Canucks, had settled into submission to poverty. They were peasants, she groaned. "Isn't there any way of waking them up? What would happen if they understood scientific agriculture?" she begged of Kennicott, her hand groping for his. It had been a transforming honeymoon. She had been frightened to discover how tumultuous a feeling could be roused in her. Will had been lordly--stalwart, jolly, impressively competent in making camp, tender and understanding through the hours when they had lain side by side in a tent pitched among pines high up on a lonely mountain spur. His hand swallowed hers as he started from thoughts of the practise to which he was returning. "These people? Wake 'em up? What for? They're happy." "But they're so provincial. No, that isn't what I mean. They're--oh, so sunk in the mud." "Look here, Carrie. You want to get over your city idea that because a man's pants aren't pressed, he's a fool. These farmers are mighty keen and up-and-coming." "I know! That's what hurts. Life seems so hard for them--these lonely farms and this gritty train." "Oh, they don't mind it. Besides, things are changing. The auto, the telephone, rural free delivery; they're bringing the farmers in closer touch with the town. Takes time, you know, to change a wilderness like this was fifty years ago. But already, why, they can hop into the Ford or the Overland and get in to the movies on Saturday evening quicker than you could get down to 'em by trolley in St. Paul." "But if it's these towns we've been passing that the farmers run to for relief from their bleakness----Can't you understand? Just LOOK at them!" Kennicott was amazed. Ever since childhood he had seen these towns from trains on this same line. He grumbled, "Why, what's the matter with 'em? Good hustling burgs. It would astonish you to know how much wheat and rye and corn and potatoes they ship in a year." "But they're so ugly." "I'll admit they aren't comfy like Gopher Prairie. But give 'em time." "What's the use of giving them time unless some one has desire and training enough to plan them? Hundreds of factories trying to make attractive motor cars, but these towns--left to chance. No! That can't be true. It must have taken genius to make them so scrawny!" "Oh, they're not so bad," was all he answered. He pretended that his hand was the cat and hers the mouse. For the first time she tolerated him rather than encouraged him. She was staring out at Schoenstrom, a hamlet of perhaps a hundred and fifty inhabitants, at which the train was stopping. A bearded German and his pucker-mouthed wife tugged their enormous imitation-leather satchel from under a seat and waddled out. The station agent hoisted a dead calf aboard the baggage-car. There were no other visible activities in Schoenstrom. In the quiet of the halt, Carol could hear a horse kicking his stall, a carpenter shingling a roof. The business-center of Schoenstrom took up one side of one block, facing the railroad. It was a row of one-story shops covered with galvanized iron, or with clapboards painted red and bilious yellow. The buildings were as ill-assorted, as temporary-looking, as a mining-camp street in the motion-pictures. The railroad station was a one-room frame box, a mirey cattle-pen on one side and a crimson wheat-elevator on the other. The elevator, with its cupola on the ridge of a shingled roof, resembled a broad-shouldered man with a small, vicious, pointed head. The only habitable structures to be seen were the florid red-brick Catholic church and rectory at the end of Main Street. Carol picked at Kennicott's sleeve. "You wouldn't call this a not-so-bad town, would you?" "These Dutch burgs ARE kind of slow. Still, at that----See that fellow coming out of the general store there, getting into the big car? I met him once. He owns about half the town, besides the store. Rauskukle, his name is. He owns a lot of mortgages, and he gambles in farm-lands. Good nut on him, that fellow. Why, they say he's worth three or four hundred thousand dollars! Got a dandy great big yellow brick house with tiled walks and a garden and everything, other end of town--can't see it from here--I've gone past it when I've driven through here. Yes sir!" "Then, if he has all that, there's no excuse whatever for this place! If his three hundred thousand went back into the town, where it belongs, they could burn up these shacks, and build a dream-village, a jewel! Why do the farmers and the town-people let the Baron keep it?" "I must say I don't quite get you sometimes, Carrie. Let him? They can't help themselves! He's a dumm old Dutchman, and probably the priest can twist him around his finger, but when it comes to picking good farming land, he's a regular wiz!" "I see. He's their symbol of beauty. The town erects him, instead of erecting buildings." "Honestly, don't know what you're driving at. You're kind of played out, after this long trip. You'll feel better when you get home and have a good bath, and put on the blue negligee. That's some vampire costume, you witch!" He squeezed her arm, looked at her knowingly. They moved on from the desert stillness of the Schoenstrom station. The train creaked, banged, swayed. The air was nauseatingly thick. Kennicott turned her face from the window, rested her head on his shoulder. She was coaxed from her unhappy mood. But she came out of it unwillingly, and when Kennicott was satisfied that he had corrected all her worries and had opened a magazine of saffron detective stories, she sat upright. Here--she meditated--is the newest empire of the world; the Northern Middlewest; a land of dairy herds and exquisite lakes, of new automobiles and tar-paper shanties and silos like red towers, of clumsy speech and a hope that is boundless. An empire which feeds a quarter of the world--yet its work is merely begun. They are pioneers, these sweaty wayfarers, for all their telephones and bank-accounts and automatic pianos and co-operative leagues. And for all its fat richness, theirs is a pioneer land. What is its future? she wondered. A future of cities and factory smut where now are loping empty fields? Homes universal and secure? Or placid chateaux ringed with sullen huts? Youth free to find knowledge and laughter? Willingness to sift the sanctified lies? Or creamy-skinned fat women, smeared with grease and chalk, gorgeous in the skins of beasts and the bloody feathers of slain birds, playing bridge with puffy pink-nailed jeweled fingers, women who after much expenditure of labor and bad temper still grotesquely resemble their own flatulent lap-dogs? The ancient stale inequalities, or something different in history, unlike the tedious maturity of other empires? What future and what hope? Carol's head ached with the riddle. She saw the prairie, flat in giant patches or rolling in long hummocks. The width and bigness of it, which had expanded her spirit an hour ago, began to frighten her. It spread out so; it went on so uncontrollably; she could never know it. Kennicott was closeted in his detective story. With the loneliness which comes most depressingly in the midst of many people she tried to forget problems, to look at the prairie objectively. The grass beside the railroad had been burnt over; it was a smudge prickly with charred stalks of weeds. Beyond the undeviating barbed-wire fences were clumps of golden rod. Only this thin hedge shut them off from the plains-shorn wheat-lands of autumn, a hundred acres to a field, prickly and gray near-by but in the blurred distance like tawny velvet stretched over dipping hillocks. The long rows of wheat-shocks marched like soldiers in worn yellow tabards. The newly plowed fields were black banners fallen on the distant slope. It was a martial immensity, vigorous, a little harsh, unsoftened by kindly gardens. The expanse was relieved by clumps of oaks with patches of short wild grass; and every mile or two was a chain of cobalt slews, with the flicker of blackbirds' wings across them. All this working land was turned into exuberance by the light. The sunshine was dizzy on open stubble; shadows from immense cumulus clouds were forever sliding across low mounds; and the sky was wider and loftier and more resolutely blue than the sky of cities . . . she declared. "It's a glorious country; a land to be big in," she crooned. Then Kennicott startled her by chuckling, "D' you realize the town after the next is Gopher Prairie? Home!" III That one word--home--it terrified her. Had she really bound herself to live, inescapably, in this town called Gopher Prairie? And this thick man beside her, who dared to define her future, he was a stranger! She turned in her seat, stared at him. Who was he? Why was he sitting with her? He wasn't of her kind! His neck was heavy; his speech was heavy; he was twelve or thirteen years older than she; and about him was none of the magic of shared adventures and eagerness. She could not believe that she had ever slept in his arms. That was one of the dreams which you had but did not officially admit. She told herself how good he was, how dependable and understanding. She touched his ear, smoothed the plane of his solid jaw, and, turning away again, concentrated upon liking his town. It wouldn't be like these barren settlements. It couldn't be! Why, it had three thousand population. That was a great many people. There would be six hundred houses or more. And----The lakes near it would be so lovely. She'd seen them in the photographs. They had looked charming . . . hadn't they? As the train left Wahkeenyan she began nervously to watch for the lakes--the entrance to all her future life. But when she discovered them, to the left of the track, her only impression of them was that they resembled the photographs. A mile from Gopher Prairie the track mounts a curving low ridge, and she could see the town as a whole. With a passionate jerk she pushed up the window, looked out, the arched fingers of her left hand trembling on the sill, her right hand at her breast. And she saw that Gopher Prairie was merely an enlargement of all the hamlets which they had been passing. Only to the eyes of a Kennicott was it exceptional. The huddled low wooden houses broke the plains scarcely more than would a hazel thicket. The fields swept up to it, past it. It was unprotected and unprotecting; there was no dignity in it nor any hope of greatness. Only the tall red grain-elevator and a few tinny church-steeples rose from the mass. It was a frontier camp. It was not a place to live in, not possibly, not conceivably. The people--they'd be as drab as their houses, as flat as their fields. She couldn't stay here. She would have to wrench loose from this man, and flee. She peeped at him. She was at once helpless before his mature fixity, and touched by his excitement as he sent his magazine skittering along the aisle, stooped for their bags, came up with flushed face, and gloated, "Here we are!" She smiled loyally, and looked away. The train was entering town. The houses on the outskirts were dusky old red mansions with wooden frills, or gaunt frame shelters like grocery boxes, or new bungalows with concrete foundations imitating stone. Now the train was passing the elevator, the grim storage-tanks for oil, a creamery, a lumber-yard, a stock-yard muddy and trampled and stinking. Now they were stopping at a squat red frame station, the platform crowded with unshaven farmers and with loafers--unadventurous people with dead eyes. She was here. She could not go on. It was the end--the end of the world. She sat with closed eyes, longing to push past Kennicott, hide somewhere in the train, flee on toward the Pacific. Something large arose in her soul and commanded, "Stop it! Stop being a whining baby!" She stood up quickly; she said, "Isn't it wonderful to be here at last!" He trusted her so. She would make herself like the place. And she was going to do tremendous things---- She followed Kennicott and the bobbing ends of the two bags which he carried. They were held back by the slow line of disembarking passengers. She reminded herself that she was actually at the dramatic moment of the bride's home-coming. She ought to feel exalted. She felt nothing at all except irritation at their slow progress toward the door. Kennicott stooped to peer through the windows. He shyly exulted: "Look! Look! There's a bunch come down to welcome us! Sam Clark and the missus and Dave Dyer and Jack Elder, and, yes sir, Harry Haydock and Juanita, and a whole crowd! I guess they see us now. Yuh, yuh sure, they see us! See 'em waving!" She obediently bent her head to look out at them. She had hold of herself. She was ready to love them. But she was embarrassed by the heartiness of the cheering group. From the vestibule she waved to them, but she clung a second to the sleeve of the brakeman who helped her down before she had the courage to dive into the cataract of hand-shaking people, people whom she could not tell apart. She had the impression that all the men had coarse voices, large damp hands, tooth-brush mustaches, bald spots, and Masonic watch-charms. She knew that they were welcoming her. Their hands, their smiles, their shouts, their affectionate eyes overcame her. She stammered, "Thank you, oh, thank you!" One of the men was clamoring at Kennicott, "I brought my machine down to take you home, doc." "Fine business, Sam!" cried Kennicott; and, to Carol, "Let's jump in. That big Paige over there. Some boat, too, believe me! Sam can show speed to any of these Marmons from Minneapolis!" Only when she was in the motor car did she distinguish the three people who were to accompany them. The owner, now at the wheel, was the essence of decent self-satisfaction; a baldish, largish, level-eyed man, rugged of neck but sleek and round of face--face like the back of a spoon bowl. He was chuckling at her, "Have you got us all straight yet?" "Course she has! Trust Carrie to get things straight and get 'em darn quick! I bet she could tell you every date in history!" boasted her husband. But the man looked at her reassuringly and with a certainty that he was a person whom she could trust she confessed, "As a matter of fact I haven't got anybody straight." "Course you haven't, child. Well, I'm Sam Clark, dealer in hardware, sporting goods, cream separators, and almost any kind of heavy junk you can think of. You can call me Sam--anyway, I'm going to call you Carrie, seein' 's you've been and gone and married this poor fish of a bum medic that we keep round here." Carol smiled lavishly, and wished that she called people by their given names more easily. "The fat cranky lady back there beside you, who is pretending that she can't hear me giving her away, is Mrs. Sam'l Clark; and this hungry-looking squirt up here beside me is Dave Dyer, who keeps his drug store running by not filling your hubby's prescriptions right--fact you might say he's the guy that put the 'shun' in 'prescription.' So! Well, leave us take the bonny bride home. Say, doc, I'll sell you the Candersen place for three thousand plunks. Better be thinking about building a new home for Carrie. Prettiest Frau in G. P., if you asks me!" Contentedly Sam Clark drove off, in the heavy traffic of three Fords and the Minniemashie House Free 'Bus. "I shall like Mr. Clark . . . I CAN'T call him 'Sam'! They're all so friendly." She glanced at the houses; tried not to see what she saw; gave way in: "Why do these stories lie so? They always make the bride's home-coming a bower of roses. Complete trust in noble spouse. Lies about marriage. I'm NOT changed. And this town--O my God! I can't go through with it. This junk-heap!" Her husband bent over her. "You look like you were in a brown study. Scared? I don't expect you to think Gopher Prairie is a paradise, after St. Paul. I don't expect you to be crazy about it, at first. But you'll come to like it so much--life's so free here and best people on earth." She whispered to him (while Mrs. Clark considerately turned away), "I love you for understanding. I'm just--I'm beastly over-sensitive. Too many books. It's my lack of shoulder-muscles and sense. Give me time, dear." "You bet! All the time you want!" She laid the back of his hand against her cheek, snuggled near him. She was ready for her new home. Kennicott had told her that, with his widowed mother as housekeeper, he had occupied an old house, "but nice and roomy, and well-heated, best furnace I could find on the market." His mother had left Carol her love, and gone back to Lac-qui-Meurt. It would be wonderful, she exulted, not to have to live in Other People's Houses, but to make her own shrine. She held his hand tightly and stared ahead as the car swung round a corner and stopped in the street before a prosaic frame house in a small parched lawn. IV A concrete sidewalk with a "parking" of grass and mud. A square smug brown house, rather damp. A narrow concrete walk up to it. Sickly yellow leaves in a windrow with dried wings of box-elder seeds and snags of wool from the cotton-woods. A screened porch with pillars of thin painted pine surmounted by scrolls and brackets and bumps of jigsawed wood. No shrubbery to shut off the public gaze. A lugubrious bay-window to the right of the porch. Window curtains of starched cheap lace revealing a pink marble table with a conch shell and a Family Bible. "You'll find it old-fashioned--what do you call it?--Mid-Victorian. I left it as is, so you could make any changes you felt were necessary." Kennicott sounded doubtful for the first time since he had come back to his own. "It's a real home!" She was moved by his humility. She gaily motioned good-by to the Clarks. He unlocked the door--he was leaving the choice of a maid to her, and there was no one in the house. She jiggled while he turned the key, and scampered in. . . . It was next day before either of them remembered that in their honeymoon camp they had planned that he should carry her over the sill. In hallway and front parlor she was conscious of dinginess and lugubriousness and airlessness, but she insisted, "I'll make it all jolly." As she followed Kennicott and the bags up to their bedroom she quavered to herself the song of the fat little-gods of the hearth: I have my own home, To do what I please with, To do what I please with, My den for me and my mate and my cubs, My own! She was close in her husband's arms; she clung to him; whatever of strangeness and slowness and insularity she might find in him, none of that mattered so long as she could slip her hands beneath his coat, run her fingers over the warm smoothness of the satin back of his waistcoat, seem almost to creep into his body, find in him strength, find in the courage and kindness of her man a shelter from the perplexing world. "Sweet, so sweet," she whispered. CHAPTER IV I "THE Clarks have invited some folks to their house to meet us, tonight," said Kennicott, as he unpacked his suit-case. "Oh, that is nice of them!" "You bet. I told you you'd like 'em. Squarest people on earth. Uh, Carrie----Would you mind if I sneaked down to the office for an hour, just to see how things are?" "Why, no. Of course not. I know you're keen to get back to work." "Sure you don't mind?" "Not a bit. Out of my way. Let me unpack." But the advocate of freedom in marriage was as much disappointed as a drooping bride at the alacrity with which he took that freedom and escaped to the world of men's affairs. She gazed about their bedroom, and its full dismalness crawled over her: the awkward knuckly L-shape of it; the black walnut bed with apples and spotty pears carved on the headboard; the imitation maple bureau, with pink-daubed scent-bottles and a petticoated pin-cushion on a marble slab uncomfortably like a gravestone; the plain pine washstand and the garlanded water-pitcher and bowl. The scent was of horsehair and plush and Florida Water. "How could people ever live with things like this?" she shuddered. She saw the furniture as a circle of elderly judges, condemning her to death by smothering. The tottering brocade chair squeaked, "Choke her--choke her--smother her." The old linen smelled of the tomb. She was alone in this house, this strange still house, among the shadows of dead thoughts and haunting repressions. "I hate it! I hate it!" she panted. "Why did I ever----" She remembered that Kennicott's mother had brought these family relics from the old home in Lac-qui-Meurt. "Stop it! They're perfectly comfortable things. They're--comfortable. Besides----Oh, they're horrible! We'll change them, right away." Then, "But of course he HAS to see how things are at the office----" She made a pretense of busying herself with unpacking. The chintz-lined, silver-fitted bag which had seemed so desirable a luxury in St. Paul was an extravagant vanity here. The daring black chemise of frail chiffon and lace was a hussy at which the deep-bosomed bed stiffened in disgust, and she hurled it into a bureau drawer, hid it beneath a sensible linen blouse. She gave up unpacking. She went to the window, with a purely literary thought of village charm--hollyhocks and lanes and apple-cheeked cottagers. What she saw was the side of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church--a plain clapboard wall of a sour liver color; the ash-pile back of the church; an unpainted stable; and an alley in which a Ford delivery-wagon had been stranded. This was the terraced garden below her boudoir; this was to be her scenery for---- "I mustn't! I mustn't! I'm nervous this afternoon. Am I sick? . . . Good Lord, I hope it isn't that! Not now! How people lie! How these stories lie! They say the bride is always so blushing and proud and happy when she finds that out, but--I'd hate it! I'd be scared to death! Some day but----Please, dear nebulous Lord, not now! Bearded sniffy old men sitting and demanding that we bear children. If THEY had to bear them----! I wish they did have to! Not now! Not till I've got hold of this job of liking the ash-pile out there! . . . I must shut up. I'm mildly insane. I'm going out for a walk. I'll see the town by myself. My first view of the empire I'm going to conquer!" She fled from the house. She stared with seriousness at every concrete crossing, every hitching-post, every rake for leaves; and to each house she devoted all her speculation. What would they come to mean? How would they look six months from now? In which of them would she be dining? Which of these people whom she passed, now mere arrangements of hair and clothes, would turn into intimates, loved or dreaded, different from all the other people in the world? As she came into the small business-section she inspected a broad-beamed grocer in an alpaca coat who was bending over the apples and celery on a slanted platform in front of his store. Would she ever talk to him? What would he say if she stopped and stated, "I am Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. Some day I hope to confide that a heap of extremely dubious pumpkins as a window-display doesn't exhilarate me much." (The grocer was Mr. Frederick F. Ludelmeyer, whose market is at the corner of Main Street and Lincoln Avenue. In supposing that only she was observant Carol was ignorant, misled by the indifference of cities. She fancied that she was slipping through the streets invisible; but when she had passed, Mr. Ludelmeyer puffed into the store and coughed at his clerk, "I seen a young woman, she come along the side street. I bet she iss Doc Kennicott's new bride, good-looker, nice legs, but she wore a hell of a plain suit, no style, I wonder will she pay cash, I bet she goes to Howland & Gould's more as she does here, what you done with the poster for Fluffed Oats?") II When Carol had walked for thirty-two minutes she had completely covered the town, east and west, north and south; and she stood at the corner of Main Street and Washington Avenue and despaired. Main Street with its two-story brick shops, its story-and-a-half wooden residences, its muddy expanse from concrete walk to walk, its huddle of Fords and lumber-wagons, was too small to absorb her. The broad, straight, unenticing gashes of the streets let in the grasping prairie on every side. She realized the vastness and the emptiness of the land. The skeleton iron windmill on the farm a few blocks away, at the north end of Main Street, was like the ribs of a dead cow. She thought of the coming of the Northern winter, when the unprotected houses would crouch together in terror of storms galloping out of that wild waste. They were so small and weak, the little brown houses. They were shelters for sparrows, not homes for warm laughing people. She told herself that down the street the leaves were a splendor. The maples were orange; the oaks a solid tint of raspberry. And the lawns had been nursed with love. But the thought would not hold. At best the trees resembled a thinned woodlot. There was no park to rest the eyes. And since not Gopher Prairie but Wakamin was the county-seat, there was no court-house with its grounds. She glanced through the fly-specked windows of the most pretentious building in sight, the one place which welcomed strangers and determined their opinion of the charm and luxury of Gopher Prairie--the Minniemashie House. It was a tall lean shabby structure, three stories of yellow-streaked wood, the corners covered with sanded pine slabs purporting to symbolize stone. In the hotel office she could see a stretch of bare unclean floor, a line of rickety chairs with brass cuspidors between, a writing-desk with advertisements in mother-of-pearl letters upon the glass-covered back. The dining-room beyond was a jungle of stained table-cloths and catsup bottles. She looked no more at the Minniemashie House. A man in cuffless shirt-sleeves with pink arm-garters, wearing a linen collar but no tie, yawned his way from Dyer's Drug Store across to the hotel. He leaned against the wall, scratched a while, sighed, and in a bored way gossiped with a man tilted back in a chair. A lumber-wagon, its long green box filled with large spools of barbed-wire fencing, creaked down the block. A Ford, in reverse, sounded as though it were shaking to pieces, then recovered and rattled away. In the Greek candy-store was the whine of a peanut-roaster, and the oily smell of nuts. There was no other sound nor sign of life. She wanted to run, fleeing from the encroaching prairie, demanding the security of a great city. Her dreams of creating a beautiful town were ludicrous. Oozing out from every drab wall, she felt a forbidding spirit which she could never conquer. She trailed down the street on one side, back on the other, glancing into the cross streets. It was a private Seeing Main Street tour. She was within ten minutes beholding not only the heart of a place called Gopher Prairie, but ten thousand towns from Albany to San Diego: Dyer's Drug Store, a corner building of regular and unreal blocks of artificial stone. Inside the store, a greasy marble soda-fountain with an electric lamp of red and green and curdled-yellow mosaic shade. Pawed-over heaps of tooth-brushes and combs and packages of shaving-soap. Shelves of soap-cartons, teething-rings, garden-seeds, and patent medicines in yellow "packages-nostrums" for consumption, for "women's diseases"--notorious mixtures of opium and alcohol, in the very shop to which her husband sent patients for the filling of prescriptions. From a second-story window the sign "W. P. Kennicott, Phys. & Surgeon," gilt on black sand. A small wooden motion-picture theater called "The Rosebud Movie Palace." Lithographs announcing a film called "Fatty in Love." Howland & Gould's Grocery. In the display window, black, overripe bananas and lettuce on which a cat was sleeping. Shelves lined with red crepe paper which was now faded and torn and concentrically spotted. Flat against the wall of the second story the signs of lodges--the Knights of Pythias, the Maccabees, the Woodmen, the Masons. Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market--a reek of blood. A jewelry shop with tinny-looking wrist-watches for women. In front of it, at the curb, a huge wooden clock which did not go. A fly-buzzing saloon with a brilliant gold and enamel whisky sign across the front. Other saloons down the block. From them a stink of stale beer, and thick voices bellowing pidgin German or trolling out dirty songs--vice gone feeble and unenterprising and dull--the delicacy of a mining-camp minus its vigor. In front of the saloons, farmwives sitting on the seats of wagons, waiting for their husbands to become drunk and ready to start home. A tobacco shop called "The Smoke House," filled with young men shaking dice for cigarettes. Racks of magazines, and pictures of coy fat prostitutes in striped bathing-suits. A clothing store with a display of "ox-blood-shade Oxfords with bull-dog toes." Suits which looked worn and glossless while they were still new, flabbily draped on dummies like corpses with painted cheeks. The Bon Ton Store--Haydock & Simons'--the largest shop in town. The first-story front of clear glass, the plates cleverly bound at the edges with brass. The second story of pleasant tapestry brick. One window of excellent clothes for men, interspersed with collars of floral pique which showed mauve daisies on a saffron ground. Newness and an obvious notion of neatness and service. Haydock & Simons. Haydock. She had met a Haydock at the station; Harry Haydock; an active person of thirty-five. He seemed great to her, now, and very like a saint. His shop was clean! Axel Egge's General Store, frequented by Scandinavian farmers. In the shallow dark window-space heaps of sleazy sateens, badly woven galateas, canvas shoes designed for women with bulging ankles, steel and red glass buttons upon cards with broken edges, a cottony blanket, a granite-ware frying-pan reposing on a sun-faded crepe blouse. Sam Clark's Hardware Store. An air of frankly metallic enterprise. Guns and churns and barrels of nails and beautiful shiny butcher knives. Chester Dashaway's House Furnishing Emporium. A vista of heavy oak rockers with leather seats, asleep in a dismal row. Billy's Lunch. Thick handleless cups on the wet oilcloth-covered counter. An odor of onions and the smoke of hot lard. In the doorway a young man audibly sucking a toothpick. The warehouse of the buyer of cream and potatoes. The sour smell of a dairy. The Ford Garage and the Buick Garage, competent one-story brick and cement buildings opposite each other. Old and new cars on grease-blackened concrete floors. Tire advertisements. The roaring of a tested motor; a racket which beat at the nerves. Surly young men in khaki union-overalls. The most energetic and vital places in town. A large warehouse for agricultural implements. An impressive barricade of green and gold wheels, of shafts and sulky seats, belonging to machinery of which Carol knew nothing--potato-planters, manure-spreaders, silage-cutters, disk-harrows, breaking-plows. A feed store, its windows opaque with the dust of bran, a patent medicine advertisement painted on its roof. Ye Art Shoppe, Prop. Mrs. Mary Ellen Wilks, Christian Science Library open daily free. A touching fumble at beauty. A one-room shanty of boards recently covered with rough stucco. A show-window delicately rich in error: vases starting out to imitate tree-trunks but running off into blobs of gilt--an aluminum ash-tray labeled "Greetings from Gopher Prairie"--a Christian Science magazine--a stamped sofa-cushion portraying a large ribbon tied to a small poppy, the correct skeins of embroidery-silk lying on the pillow. Inside the shop, a glimpse of bad carbon prints of bad and famous pictures, shelves of phonograph records and camera films, wooden toys, and in the midst an anxious small woman sitting in a padded rocking chair. A barber shop and pool room. A man in shirt sleeves, presumably Del Snafflin the proprietor, shaving a man who had a large Adam's apple. Nat Hicks's Tailor Shop, on a side street off Main. A one-story building. A fashion-plate showing human pitchforks in garments which looked as hard as steel plate. On another side street a raw red-brick Catholic Church with a varnished yellow door. The post-office--merely a partition of glass and brass shutting off the rear of a mildewed room which must once have been a shop. A tilted writing-shelf against a wall rubbed black and scattered with official notices and army recruiting-posters. The damp, yellow-brick schoolbuilding in its cindery grounds. The State Bank, stucco masking wood. The Farmers' National Bank. An Ionic temple of marble. Pure, exquisite, solitary. A brass plate with "Ezra Stowbody, Pres't." A score of similar shops and establishments. Behind them and mixed with them, the houses, meek cottages or large, comfortable, soundly uninteresting symbols of prosperity. In all the town not one building save the Ionic bank which gave pleasure to Carol's eyes; not a dozen buildings which suggested that, in the fifty years of Gopher Prairie's existence, the citizens had realized that it was either desirable or possible to make this, their common home, amusing or attractive. It was not only the unsparing unapologetic ugliness and the rigid straightness which overwhelmed her. It was the planlessness, the flimsy temporariness of the buildings, their faded unpleasant colors. The street was cluttered with electric-light poles, telephone poles, gasoline pumps for motor cars, boxes of goods. Each man had built with the most valiant disregard of all the others. Between a large new "block" of two-story brick shops on one side, and the fire-brick Overland garage on the other side, was a one-story cottage turned into a millinery shop. The white temple of the Farmers' Bank was elbowed back by a grocery of glaring yellow brick. One store-building had a patchy galvanized iron cornice; the building beside it was crowned with battlements and pyramids of brick capped with blocks of red sandstone. She escaped from Main Street, fled home. She wouldn't have cared, she insisted, if the people had been comely. She had noted a young man loafing before a shop, one unwashed hand holding the cord of an awning; a middle-aged man who had a way of staring at women as though he had been married too long and too prosaically; an old farmer, solid, wholesome, but not clean--his face like a potato fresh from the earth. None of them had shaved for three days. "If they can't build shrines, out here on the prairie, surely there's nothing to prevent their buying safety-razors!" she raged. She fought herself: "I must be wrong. People do live here. It CAN'T be as ugly as--as I know it is! I must be wrong. But I can't do it. I can't go through with it." She came home too seriously worried for hysteria; and when she found Kennicott waiting for her, and exulting, "Have a walk? Well, like the town? Great lawns and trees, eh?" she was able to say, with a self-protective maturity new to her, "It's very interesting." III The train which brought Carol to Gopher Prairie also brought Miss Bea Sorenson. Miss Bea was a stalwart, corn-colored, laughing young woman, and she was bored by farm-work. She desired the excitements of city-life, and the way to enjoy city-life was, she had decided, to "go get a yob as hired girl in Gopher Prairie." She contentedly lugged her pasteboard telescope from the station to her cousin, Tina Malmquist, maid of all work in the residence of Mrs. Luke Dawson. "Vell, so you come to town," said Tina. "Ya. Ay get a yob," said Bea. "Vell. . . . You got a fella now?" "Ya. Yim Yacobson." "Vell. I'm glat to see you. How much you vant a veek?" "Sex dollar." "There ain't nobody pay dat. Vait! Dr. Kennicott, I t'ink he marry a girl from de Cities. Maybe she pay dat. Vell. You go take a valk." "Ya," said Bea. So it chanced that Carol Kennicott and Bea Sorenson were viewing Main Street at the same time. Bea had never before been in a town larger than Scandia Crossing, which has sixty-seven inhabitants. As she marched up the street she was meditating that it didn't hardly seem like it was possible there could be so many folks all in one place at the same time. My! It would take years to get acquainted with them all. And swell people, too! A fine big gentleman in a new pink shirt with a diamond, and not no washed-out blue denim working-shirt. A lovely lady in a longery dress (but it must be an awful hard dress to wash). And the stores! Not just three of them, like there were at Scandia Crossing, but more than four whole blocks! The Bon Ton Store--big as four barns--my! it would simply scare a person to go in there, with seven or eight clerks all looking at you. And the men's suits, on figures just like human. And Axel Egge's, like home, lots of Swedes and Norskes in there, and a card of dandy buttons, like rubies. A drug store with a soda fountain that was just huge, awful long, and all lovely marble; and on it there was a great big lamp with the biggest shade you ever saw--all different kinds colored glass stuck together; and the soda spouts, they were silver, and they came right out of the bottom of the lamp-stand! Behind the fountain there were glass shelves, and bottles of new kinds of soft drinks, that nobody ever heard of. Suppose a fella took you THERE! A hotel, awful high, higher than Oscar Tollefson's new red barn; three stories, one right on top of another; you had to stick your head back to look clear up to the top. There was a swell traveling man in there--probably been to Chicago, lots of times. Oh, the dandiest people to know here! There was a lady going by, you wouldn't hardly say she was any older than Bea herself; she wore a dandy new gray suit and black pumps. She almost looked like she was looking over the town, too. But you couldn't tell what she thought. Bea would like to be that way--kind of quiet, so nobody would get fresh. Kind of--oh, elegant. A Lutheran Church. Here in the city there'd be lovely sermons, and church twice on Sunday, EVERY Sunday! And a movie show! A regular theater, just for movies. With the sign "Change of bill every evening." Pictures every evening! There were movies in Scandia Crossing, but only once every two weeks, and it took the Sorensons an hour to drive in--papa was such a tightwad he wouldn't get a Ford. But here she could put on her hat any evening, and in three minutes' walk be to the movies, and see lovely fellows in dress-suits and Bill Hart and everything! How could they have so many stores? Why! There was one just for tobacco alone, and one (a lovely one--the Art Shoppy it was) for pictures and vases and stuff, with oh, the dandiest vase made so it looked just like a tree trunk! Bea stood on the corner of Main Street and Washington Avenue. The roar of the city began to frighten her. There were five automobiles on the street all at the same time--and one of 'em was a great big car that must of cost two thousand dollars--and the 'bus was starting for a train with five elegant-dressed fellows, and a man was pasting up red bills with lovely pictures of washing-machines on them, and the jeweler was laying out bracelets and wrist-watches and EVERYTHING on real velvet. What did she care if she got six dollars a week? Or two! It was worth while working for nothing, to be allowed to stay here. And think how it would be in the evening, all lighted up--and not with no lamps, but with electrics! And maybe a gentleman friend taking you to the movies and buying you a strawberry ice cream soda! Bea trudged back. "Vell? You lak it?" said Tina. "Ya. Ay lak it. Ay t'ink maybe Ay stay here," said Bea. IV The recently built house of Sam Clark, in which was given the party to welcome Carol, was one of the largest in Gopher Prairie. It had a clean sweep of clapboards, a solid squareness, a small tower, and a large screened porch. Inside, it was as shiny, as hard, and as cheerful as a new oak upright piano. Carol looked imploringly at Sam Clark as he rolled to the door and shouted, "Welcome, little lady! The keys of the city are yourn!" Beyond him, in the hallway and the living-room, sitting in a vast prim circle as though they were attending a funeral, she saw the guests. They were WAITING so! They were waiting for her! The determination to be all one pretty flowerlet of appreciation leaked away. She begged of Sam, "I don't dare face them! They expect so much. They'll swallow me in one mouthful--glump!--like that!" "Why, sister, they're going to love you--same as I would if I didn't think the doc here would beat me up!" "B-but----I don't dare! Faces to the right of me, faces in front of me, volley and wonder!" She sounded hysterical to herself; she fancied that to Sam Clark she sounded insane. But he chuckled, "Now you just cuddle under Sam's wing, and if anybody rubbers at you too long, I'll shoo 'em off. Here we go! Watch my smoke--Sam'l, the ladies' delight and the bridegrooms' terror!" His arm about her, he led her in and bawled, "Ladies and worser halves, the bride! We won't introduce her round yet, because she'll never get your bum names straight anyway. Now bust up this star-chamber!" They tittered politely, but they did not move from the social security of their circle, and they did not cease staring. Carol had given creative energy to dressing for the event. Her hair was demure, low on her forehead with a parting and a coiled braid. Now she wished that she had piled it high. Her frock was an ingenue slip of lawn, with a wide gold sash and a low square neck, which gave a suggestion of throat and molded shoulders. But as they looked her over she was certain that it was all wrong. She wished alternately that she had worn a spinsterish high-necked dress, and that she had dared to shock them with a violent brick-red scarf which she had bought in Chicago. She was led about the circle. Her voice mechanically produced safe remarks: "Oh, I'm sure I'm going to like it here ever so much," and "Yes, we did have the best time in Colorado--mountains," and "Yes, I lived in St. Paul several years. Euclid P. Tinker? No, I don't REMEMBER meeting him, but I'm pretty sure I've heard of him." Kennicott took her aside and whispered, "Now I'll introduce you to them, one at a time." "Tell me about them first." "Well, the nice-looking couple over there are Harry Haydock and his wife, Juanita. Harry's dad owns most of the Bon Ton, but it's Harry who runs it and gives it the pep. He's a hustler. Next to him is Dave Dyer the druggist--you met him this afternoon--mighty good duck-shot. The tall husk beyond him is Jack Elder--Jackson Elder--owns the planing-mill, and the Minniemashie House, and quite a share in the Farmers' National Bank. Him and his wife are good sports--him and Sam and I go hunting together a lot. The old cheese there is Luke Dawson, the richest man in town. Next to him is Nat Hicks, the tailor." "Really? A tailor?" "Sure. Why not? Maybe we're slow, but we are democratic. I go hunting with Nat same as I do with Jack Elder." "I'm glad. I've never met a tailor socially. It must be charming to meet one and not have to think about what you owe him. And do you----Would you go hunting with your barber, too?" "No but----No use running this democracy thing into the ground. Besides, I've known Nat for years, and besides, he's a mighty good shot and----That's the way it is, see? Next to Nat is Chet Dashaway. Great fellow for chinning. He'll talk your arm off, about religion or politics or books or anything." Carol gazed with a polite approximation to interest at Mr. Dashaway, a tan person with a wide mouth. "Oh, I know! He's the furniture-store man!" She was much pleased with herself. "Yump, and he's the undertaker. You'll like him. Come shake hands with him." "Oh no, no! He doesn't--he doesn't do the embalming and all that--himself? I couldn't shake hands with an undertaker!" "Why not? You'd be proud to shake hands with a great surgeon, just after he'd been carving up people's bellies." She sought to regain her afternoon's calm of maturity. "Yes. You're right. I want--oh, my dear, do you know how much I want to like the people you like? I want to see people as they are." "Well, don't forget to see people as other folks see them as they are! They have the stuff. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here? Born and brought up here!" "Bresnahan?" "Yes--you know--president of the Velvet Motor Company of Boston, Mass.--make the Velvet Twelve--biggest automobile factory in New England." "I think I've heard of him." "Sure you have. Why, he's a millionaire several times over! Well, Perce comes back here for the black-bass fishing almost every summer, and he says if he could get away from business, he'd rather live here than in Boston or New York or any of those places. HE doesn't mind Chet's undertaking." "Please! I'll--I'll like everybody! I'll be the community sunbeam!" He led her to the Dawsons. Luke Dawson, lender of money on mortgages, owner of Northern cut-over land, was a hesitant man in unpressed soft gray clothes, with bulging eyes in a milky face. His wife had bleached cheeks, bleached hair, bleached voice, and a bleached manner. She wore her expensive green frock, with its passementeried bosom, bead tassels, and gaps between the buttons down the back, as though she had bought it second-hand and was afraid of meeting the former owner. They were shy. It was "Professor" George Edwin Mott, superintendent of schools, a Chinese mandarin turned brown, who held Carol's hand and made her welcome. When the Dawsons and Mr. Mott had stated that they were "pleased to meet her," there seemed to be nothing else to say, but the conversation went on automatically. "Do you like Gopher Prairie?" whimpered Mrs. Dawson. "Oh, I'm sure I'm going to be ever so happy." "There's so many nice people." Mrs. Dawson looked to Mr. Mott for social and intellectual aid. He lectured: "There's a fine class of people. I don't like some of these retired farmers who come here to spend their last days--especially the Germans. They hate to pay school-taxes. They hate to spend a cent. But the rest are a fine class of people. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here? Used to go to school right at the old building!" "I heard he did." "Yes. He's a prince. He and I went fishing together, last time he was here." The Dawsons and Mr. Mott teetered upon weary feet, and smiled at Carol with crystallized expressions. She went on: "Tell me, Mr. Mott: Have you ever tried any experiments with any of the new educational systems? The modern kindergarten methods or the Gary system?" "Oh. Those. Most of these would-be reformers are simply notoriety-seekers. I believe in manual training, but Latin and mathematics always will be the backbone of sound Americanism, no matter what these faddists advocate--heaven knows what they do want--knitting, I suppose, and classes in wiggling the ears!" The Dawsons smiled their appreciation of listening to a savant. Carol waited till Kennicott should rescue her. The rest of the party waited for the miracle of being amused. Harry and Juanita Haydock, Rita Simons and Dr. Terry Gould--the young smart set of Gopher Prairie. She was led to them. Juanita Haydock flung at her in a high, cackling, friendly voice: "Well, this is SO nice to have you here. We'll have some good parties--dances and everything. You'll have to join the Jolly Seventeen. We play bridge and we have a supper once a month. You play, of course?" "N-no, I don't." "Really? In St. Paul?" "I've always been such a book-worm." "We'll have to teach you. Bridge is half the fun of life." Juanita had become patronizing, and she glanced disrespectfully at Carol's golden sash, which she had previously admired. Harry Haydock said politely, "How do you think you're going to like the old burg?" "I'm sure I shall like it tremendously." "Best people on earth here. Great hustlers, too. Course I've had lots of chances to go live in Minneapolis, but we like it here. Real he-town. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here?" Carol perceived that she had been weakened in the biological struggle by disclosing her lack of bridge. Roused to nervous desire to regain her position she turned on Dr. Terry Gould, the young and pool-playing competitor of her husband. Her eyes coquetted with him while she gushed: "I'll learn bridge. But what I really love most is the outdoors. Can't we all get up a boating party, and fish, or whatever you do, and have a picnic supper afterwards?" "Now you're talking!" Dr. Gould affirmed. He looked rather too obviously at the cream-smooth slope of her shoulder. "Like fishing? Fishing is my middle name. I'll teach you bridge. Like cards at all?" "I used to be rather good at bezique." She knew that bezique was a game of cards--or a game of something else. Roulette, possibly. But her lie was a triumph. Juanita's handsome, high-colored, horsey face showed doubt. Harry stroked his nose and said humbly, "Bezique? Used to be great gambling game, wasn't it?" While others drifted to her group, Carol snatched up the conversation. She laughed and was frivolous and rather brittle. She could not distinguish their eyes. They were a blurry theater-audience before which she self-consciously enacted the comedy of being the Clever Little Bride of Doc Kennicott: "These-here celebrated Open Spaces, that's what I'm going out for. I'll never read anything but the sporting-page again. Will converted me on our Colorado trip. There were so many mousey tourists who were afraid to get out of the motor 'bus that I decided to be Annie Oakley, the Wild Western Wampire, and I bought oh! a vociferous skirt which revealed my perfectly nice ankles to the Presbyterian glare of all the Ioway schoolma'ams, and I leaped from peak to peak like the nimble chamoys, and----You may think that Herr Doctor Kennicott is a Nimrod, but you ought to have seen me daring him to strip to his B. V. D.'s and go swimming in an icy mountain brook." She knew that they were thinking of becoming shocked, but Juanita Haydock was admiring, at least. She swaggered on: "I'm sure I'm going to ruin Will as a respectable practitioner----Is he a good doctor, Dr. Gould?" Kennicott's rival gasped at this insult to professional ethics, and he took an appreciable second before he recovered his social manner. "I'll tell you, Mrs. Kennicott." He smiled at Kennicott, to imply that whatever he might say in the stress of being witty was not to count against him in the commercio-medical warfare. "There's some people in town that say the doc is a fair to middlin' diagnostician and prescription-writer, but let me whisper this to you--but for heaven's sake don't tell him I said so--don't you ever go to him for anything more serious than a pendectomy of the left ear or a strabismus of the cardiograph." No one save Kennicott knew exactly what this meant, but they laughed, and Sam Clark's party assumed a glittering lemon-yellow color of brocade panels and champagne and tulle and crystal chandeliers and sporting duchesses. Carol saw that George Edwin Mott and the blanched Mr. and Mrs. Dawson were not yet hypnotized. They looked as though they wondered whether they ought to look as though they disapproved. She concentrated on them: "But I know whom I wouldn't have dared to go to Colorado with! Mr. Dawson there! I'm sure he's a regular heart-breaker. When we were introduced he held my hand and squeezed it frightfully." "Haw! Haw! Haw!" The entire company applauded. Mr. Dawson was beatified. He had been called many things--loan-shark, skinflint, tightwad, pussyfoot--but he had never before been called a flirt. "He is wicked, isn't he, Mrs. Dawson? Don't you have to lock him up?" "Oh no, but maybe I better," attempted Mrs. Dawson, a tint on her pallid face. For fifteen minutes Carol kept it up. She asserted that she was going to stage a musical comedy, that she preferred cafe parfait to beefsteak, that she hoped Dr. Kennicott would never lose his ability to make love to charming women, and that she had a pair of gold stockings. They gaped for more. But she could not keep it up. She retired to a chair behind Sam Clark's bulk. The smile-wrinkles solemnly flattened out in the faces of all the other collaborators in having a party, and again they stood about hoping but not expecting to be amused. Carol listened. She discovered that conversation did not exist in Gopher Prairie. Even at this affair, which brought out the young smart set, the hunting squire set, the respectable intellectual set, and the solid financial set, they sat up with gaiety as with a corpse. Juanita Haydock talked a good deal in her rattling voice but it was invariably of personalities: the rumor that Raymie Wutherspoon was going to send for a pair of patent leather shoes with gray buttoned tops; the rheumatism of Champ Perry; the state of Guy Pollock's grippe; and the dementia of Jim Howland in painting his fence salmon-pink. Sam Clark had been talking to Carol about motor cars, but he felt his duties as host. While he droned, his brows popped up and down. He interrupted himself, "Must stir 'em up." He worried at his wife, "Don't you think I better stir 'em up?" He shouldered into the center of the room, and cried: "Let's have some stunts, folks." "Yes, let's!" shrieked Juanita Haydock. "Say, Dave, give us that stunt about the Norwegian catching a hen." "You bet; that's a slick stunt; do that, Dave!" cheered Chet Dashaway. Mr. Dave Dyer obliged. All the guests moved their lips in anticipation of being called on for their own stunts. "Ella, come on and recite 'Old Sweetheart of Mine,' for us," demanded Sam. Miss Ella Stowbody, the spinster daughter of the Ionic bank, scratched her dry palms and blushed. "Oh, you don't want to hear that old thing again." "Sure we do! You bet!" asserted Sam. "My voice is in terrible shape tonight." "Tut! Come on!" Sam loudly explained to Carol, "Ella is our shark at elocuting. She's had professional training. She studied singing and oratory and dramatic art and shorthand for a year, in Milwaukee." Miss Stowbody was reciting. As encore to "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," she gave a peculiarly optimistic poem regarding the value of smiles. There were four other stunts: one Jewish, one Irish, one juvenile, and Nat Hicks's parody of Mark Antony's funeral oration. During the winter Carol was to hear Dave Dyer's hen-catching impersonation seven times, "An Old Sweetheart of Mine" nine times, the Jewish story and the funeral oration twice; but now she was ardent and, because she did so want to be happy and simple-hearted, she was as disappointed as the others when the stunts were finished, and the party instantly sank back into coma. They gave up trying to be festive; they began to talk naturally, as they did at their shops and homes. The men and women divided, as they had been tending to do all evening. Carol was deserted by the men, left to a group of matrons who steadily pattered of children, sickness, and cooks--their own shop-talk. She was piqued. She remembered visions of herself as a smart married woman in a drawing-room, fencing with clever men. Her dejection was relieved by speculation as to what the men were discussing, in the corner between the piano and the phonograph. Did they rise from these housewifely personalities to a larger world of abstractions and affairs? She made her best curtsy to Mrs. Dawson; she twittered, "I won't have my husband leaving me so soon! I'm going over and pull the wretch's ears." She rose with a jeune fille bow. She was self-absorbed and self-approving because she had attained that quality of sentimentality. She proudly dipped across the room and, to the interest and commendation of all beholders, sat on the arm of Kennicott's chair. He was gossiping with Sam Clark, Luke Dawson, Jackson Elder of the planing-mill, Chet Dashaway, Dave Dyer, Harry Haydock, and Ezra Stowbody, president of the Ionic bank. Ezra Stowbody was a troglodyte. He had come to Gopher Prairie in 1865. He was a distinguished bird of prey--swooping thin nose, turtle mouth, thick brows, port-wine cheeks, floss of white hair, contemptuous eyes. He was not happy in the social changes of thirty years. Three decades ago, Dr. Westlake, Julius Flickerbaugh the lawyer, Merriman Peedy the Congregational pastor and himself had been the arbiters. That was as it should be; the fine arts--medicine, law, religion, and finance--recognized as aristocratic; four Yankees democratically chatting with but ruling the Ohioans and Illini and Swedes and Germans who had ventured to follow them. But Westlake was old, almost retired; Julius Flickerbaugh had lost much of his practice to livelier attorneys; Reverend (not The Reverend) Peedy was dead; and nobody was impressed in this rotten age of automobiles by the "spanking grays" which Ezra still drove. The town was as heterogeneous as Chicago. Norwegians and Germans owned stores. The social leaders were common merchants. Selling nails was considered as sacred as banking. These upstarts--the Clarks, the Haydocks--had no dignity. They were sound and conservative in politics, but they talked about motor cars and pump-guns and heaven only knew what new-fangled fads. Mr. Stowbody felt out of place with them. But his brick house with the mansard roof was still the largest residence in town, and he held his position as squire by occasionally appearing among the younger men and reminding them by a wintry eye that without the banker none of them could carry on their vulgar businesses. As Carol defied decency by sitting down with the men, Mr. Stowbody was piping to Mr. Dawson, "Say, Luke, when was't Biggins first settled in Winnebago Township? Wa'n't it in 1879?" "Why no 'twa'n't!" Mr. Dawson was indignant. "He come out from Vermont in 1867--no, wait, in 1868, it must have been--and took a claim on the Rum River, quite a ways above Anoka." "He did not!" roared Mr. Stowbody. "He settled first in Blue Earth County, him and his father!" ("What's the point at issue?") Carol whispered to Kennicott. ("Whether this old duck Biggins had an English setter or a Llewellyn. They've been arguing it all evening!") Dave Dyer interrupted to give tidings, "D' tell you that Clara Biggins was in town couple days ago? She bought a hot-water bottle--expensive one, too--two dollars and thirty cents!" "Yaaaaaah!" snarled Mr. Stowbody. "Course. She's just like her grandad was. Never save a cent. Two dollars and twenty--thirty, was it?--two dollars and thirty cents for a hot-water bottle! Brick wrapped up in a flannel petticoat just as good, anyway!" "How's Ella's tonsils, Mr. Stowbody?" yawned Chet Dashaway. While Mr. Stowbody gave a somatic and psychic study of them, Carol reflected, "Are they really so terribly interested in Ella's tonsils, or even in Ella's esophagus? I wonder if I could get them away from personalities? Let's risk damnation and try." "There hasn't been much labor trouble around here, has there, Mr. Stowbody?" she asked innocently. "No, ma'am, thank God, we've been free from that, except maybe with hired girls and farm-hands. Trouble enough with these foreign farmers; if you don't watch these Swedes they turn socialist or populist or some fool thing on you in a minute. Of course, if they have loans you can make 'em listen to reason. I just have 'em come into the bank for a talk, and tell 'em a few things. I don't mind their being democrats, so much, but I won't stand having socialists around. But thank God, we ain't got the labor trouble they have in these cities. Even Jack Elder here gets along pretty well, in the planing-mill, don't you, Jack?" "Yep. Sure. Don't need so many skilled workmen in my place, and it's a lot of these cranky, wage-hogging, half-baked skilled mechanics that start trouble--reading a lot of this anarchist literature and union papers and all." "Do you approve of union labor?" Carol inquired of Mr. Elder. "Me? I should say not! It's like this: I don't mind dealing with my men if they think they've got any grievances--though Lord knows what's come over workmen, nowadays--don't appreciate a good job. But still, if they come to me honestly, as man to man, I'll talk things over with them. But I'm not going to have any outsider, any of these walking delegates, or whatever fancy names they call themselves now--bunch of rich grafters, living on the ignorant workmen! Not going to have any of those fellows butting in and telling ME how to run MY business!" Mr. Elder was growing more excited, more belligerent and patriotic. "I stand for freedom and constitutional rights. If any man don't like my shop, he can get up and git. Same way, if I don't like him, he gits. And that's all there is to it. I simply can't understand all these complications and hoop-te-doodles and government reports and wage-scales and God knows what all that these fellows are balling up the labor situation with, when it's all perfectly simple. They like what I pay 'em, or they get out. That's all there is to it!" "What do you think of profit-sharing?" Carol ventured. Mr. Elder thundered his answer, while the others nodded, solemnly and in tune, like a shop-window of flexible toys, comic mandarins and judges and ducks and clowns, set quivering by a breeze from the open door: "All this profit-sharing and welfare work and insurance and old-age pension is simply poppycock. Enfeebles a workman's independence--and wastes a lot of honest profit. The half-baked thinker that isn't dry behind the ears yet, and these suffragettes and God knows what all buttinskis there are that are trying to tell a business man how to run his business, and some of these college professors are just about as bad, the whole kit and bilin' of 'em are nothing in God's world but socialism in disguise! And it's my bounden duty as a producer to resist every attack on the integrity of American industry to the last ditch. Yes--SIR!" Mr. Elder wiped his brow. Dave Dyer added, "Sure! You bet! What they ought to do is simply to hang every one of these agitators, and that would settle the whole thing right off. Don't you think so, doc?" "You bet," agreed Kennicott. The conversation was at last relieved of the plague of Carol's intrusions and they settled down to the question of whether the justice of the peace had sent that hobo drunk to jail for ten days or twelve. It was a matter not readily determined. Then Dave Dyer communicated his carefree adventures on the gipsy trail: "Yep. I get good time out of the flivver. 'Bout a week ago I motored down to New Wurttemberg. That's forty-three----No, let's see: It's seventeen miles to Belldale, and 'bout six and three-quarters, call it seven, to Torgenquist, and it's a good nineteen miles from there to New Wurttemberg--seventeen and seven and nineteen, that makes, uh, let me see: seventeen and seven 's twenty-four, plus nineteen, well say plus twenty, that makes forty-four, well anyway, say about forty-three or -four miles from here to New Wurttemberg. We got started about seven-fifteen, prob'ly seven-twenty, because I had to stop and fill the radiator, and we ran along, just keeping up a good steady gait----" Mr. Dyer did finally, for reasons and purposes admitted and justified, attain to New Wurttemberg. Once--only once--the presence of the alien Carol was recognized. Chet Dashaway leaned over and said asthmatically, "Say, uh, have you been reading this serial 'Two Out' in Tingling Tales? Corking yarn! Gosh, the fellow that wrote it certainly can sling baseball slang!" The others tried to look literary. Harry Haydock offered, "Juanita is a great hand for reading high-class stuff, like 'Mid the Magnolias' by this Sara Hetwiggin Butts, and 'Riders of Ranch Reckless.' Books. But me," he glanced about importantly, as one convinced that no other hero had ever been in so strange a plight, "I'm so darn busy I don't have much time to read." "I never read anything I can't check against," said Sam Clark. Thus ended the literary portion of the conversation, and for seven minutes Jackson Elder outlined reasons for believing that the pike-fishing was better on the west shore of Lake Minniemashie than on the east--though it was indeed quite true that on the east shore Nat Hicks had caught a pike altogether admirable. The talk went on. It did go on! Their voices were monotonous, thick, emphatic. They were harshly pompous, like men in the smoking-compartments of Pullman cars. They did not bore Carol. They frightened her. She panted, "They will be cordial to me, because my man belongs to their tribe. God help me if I were an outsider!" Smiling as changelessly as an ivory figurine she sat quiescent, avoiding thought, glancing about the living-room and hall, noting their betrayal of unimaginative commercial prosperity. Kennicott said, "Dandy interior, eh? My idea of how a place ought to be furnished. Modern." She looked polite, and observed the oiled floors, hard-wood staircase, unused fireplace with tiles which resembled brown linoleum, cut-glass vases standing upon doilies, and the barred, shut, forbidding unit bookcases that were half filled with swashbuckler novels and unread-looking sets of Dickens, Kipling, O. Henry, and Elbert Hubbard. She perceived that even personalities were failing to hold the party. The room filled with hesitancy as with a fog. People cleared their throats, tried to choke down yawns. The men shot their cuffs and the women stuck their combs more firmly into their back hair. Then a rattle, a daring hope in every eye, the swinging of a door, the smell of strong coffee, Dave Dyer's mewing voice in a triumphant, "The eats!" They began to chatter. They had something to do. They could escape from themselves. They fell upon the food--chicken sandwiches, maple cake, drug-store ice cream. Even when the food was gone they remained cheerful. They could go home, any time now, and go to bed! They went, with a flutter of coats, chiffon scarfs, and good-bys. Carol and Kennicott walked home. "Did you like them?" he asked. "They were terribly sweet to me." "Uh, Carrie----You ought to be more careful about shocking folks. Talking about gold stockings, and about showing your ankles to schoolteachers and all!" More mildly: "You gave 'em a good time, but I'd watch out for that, 'f I were you. Juanita Haydock is such a damn cat. I wouldn't give her a chance to criticize me." "My poor effort to lift up the party! Was I wrong to try to amuse them?" "No! No! Honey, I didn't mean----You were the only up-and-coming person in the bunch. I just mean----Don't get onto legs and all that immoral stuff. Pretty conservative crowd." She was silent, raw with the shameful thought that the attentive circle might have been criticizing her, laughing at her. "Don't, please don't worry!" he pleaded. "Silence." "Gosh; I'm sorry I spoke about it. I just meant----But they were crazy about you. Sam said to me, 'That little lady of yours is the slickest thing that ever came to this town,' he said; and Ma Dawson--I didn't hardly know whether she'd like you or not, she's such a dried-up old bird, but she said, 'Your bride is so quick and bright, I declare, she just wakes me up.'" Carol liked praise, the flavor and fatness of it, but she was so energetically being sorry for herself that she could not taste this commendation. "Please! Come on! Cheer up!" His lips said it, his anxious shoulder said it, his arm about her said it, as they halted on the obscure porch of their house. "Do you care if they think I'm flighty, Will?" "Me? Why, I wouldn't care if the whole world thought you were this or that or anything else. You're my--well, you're my soul!" He was an undefined mass, as solid-seeming as rock. She found his sleeve, pinched it, cried, "I'm glad! It's sweet to be wanted! You must tolerate my frivolousness. You're all I have!" He lifted her, carried her into the house, and with her arms about his neck she forgot Main Street. 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.

Lokaler Zug Nr. 7 rumpelt durch Minnesota ohne Kofferträger, Kissen oder Schlafabteile, aber vollgestopft mit Bauern und ihren unordentlichen Familien, Arbeitern und reisenden Verkäufern. Die Atmosphäre ist dick und abgestanden. Unter den schlampigen Passagieren stechen Dr. Will Kennicott und seine Braut Carol als kühle, saubere und wohlhabende Menschen heraus. Nach einem Jahr des Kennenlernens haben sie geheiratet und kehren nun von ihrer Hochzeitsreise in den Colorado-Bergen zurück. Carol ist deprimiert von der Schmutzigkeit der Städte, die sie vom Zug aus besichtigen, aber ihr Mann versichert ihr, dass Gopher Prairie anders als die anderen sei und weit interessanter. Das frisch vermählte Paar wird am Bahnhof von den Sam Clarks, Dave Dyer, Harry Haydock und seiner Frau Juanita sowie anderen Nachbarn empfangen. In einem Paige-Auto fahren die Clarks die Kennicotts nach Hause in "ein prosaisches Holzhaus in einer kleinen, ausgetrockneten Stadt." Während ihr Mann sie zu Hause willkommen heißt und ihr verspricht, dass sie alle gewünschten Veränderungen vornehmen darf, versucht Carol ihre wahren Gefühle vor ihm zu verbergen. An ihrem ersten Abend in Gopher Prairie werden die Kennicotts zu einer Willkommensfeier für Carol im Haus der Clarks eingeladen. An diesem Nachmittag lässt Dr. Kennicott Carol das Gepäck auspacken und geht in sein Büro. Depressiv durch die Einrichtung, Lage und Architektur des Hauses, in dem sie leben soll, geht sie spazieren, um die Stadt zu erkunden. Da sie die Gleichgültigkeit der Städte gewohnt ist, bemerkt sie nicht, dass sie beobachtet wird, während sie beobachtet. Carol geht zweiunddreißig Minuten und durchquert die Stadt. Das Bon Ton Store ist das größte und sauberste Geschäft. Andere sind weniger attraktiv, wie Axel Egg's General Store, Dashaway's House Furnishing Emporium, Billy's Lunch, Ye Art Shoppe, der Schneiderladen, das Schulgebäude und die State Bank. Die Farmers' National Bank ist zufriedenstellender. Die fehlende Planung, die Minderwertigkeit der Gebäude und die Missachtung der anderen, die jeder Eigentümer gezeigt hat, überwältigen sie. Dennoch ist sie mutig genug, ihrem Mann bei ihrer Rückkehr zu sagen, dass sie die Stadt "sehr interessant" findet. Miss Bea Sorenson, eine kräftige junge Schwedin, kommt mit demselben Zug nach Gopher Prairie, der auch Carol bringt. Die beiden jungen Damen, die sich noch nicht kennen, besichtigen die Stadt am selben Nachmittag mit ganz unterschiedlichen Reaktionen. Bea bewundert Gopher Prairie und beschließt zu bleiben. Sie nimmt sich vor, sich für sechs Dollar pro Woche bei Mrs. Kennicott einzustellen. Die Feier bei Sam Clark ist für Carol schwierig. Sie hat das Gefühl, sich nicht angemessen angezogen zu haben und dass sie von allen Seiten bewertet und kritisiert wird. Um sich stark zu geben, führt sie eine oberflächliche und etwas schockierende Unterhaltung, aber sie schafft es nicht länger als fünfzehn Minuten durchzuhalten. Nach mehreren langweiligen Unterhaltungsspielen teilen sich die Männer und Frauen auf und Carol bleibt bei den Frauen, die nur über Kinder, Krankheiten und Köche sprechen. Sie schließt sich unkonventionell ihrem Mann an und stellt fest, dass auch die Männer über Persönlichkeiten tratschen. Sie stellt ein paar Fragen über Gewerkschaften und Gewinnbeteiligung, erfährt jedoch, dass diese Themen nicht beliebt sind und dass der Konsens darin besteht, alle Agitatoren und Reformisten aufzuhängen. Auf dem Heimweg erinnert Dr. Kennicott seine Frau daran, dass sie "vorsichtiger sein muss, um die Leute nicht zu schockieren."

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. VIII. OF THE BEGINNING OF POLITICAL SOCIETIES. Sect. 95. MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest. Sect. 96. For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority: for that which acts any community, being only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being necessary to that which is one body to move one way; it is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority: or else it is impossible it should act or continue one body, one community, which the consent of every individual that united into it, agreed that it should; and so every one is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority. And therefore we see, that in assemblies, impowered to act by positive laws, where no number is set by that positive law which impowers them, the act of the majority passes for the act of the whole, and of course determines, as having, by the law of nature and reason, the power of the whole. Sect. 97. And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation, to every one of that society, to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it; or else this original compact, whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify nothing, and be no compact, if he be left free, and under no other ties than he was in before in the state of nature. For what appearance would there be of any compact? what new engagement if he were no farther tied by any decrees of the society, than he himself thought fit, and did actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty, as he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of nature hath, who may submit himself, and consent to any acts of it if he thinks fit. Sect. 98. For if the consent of the majority shall not, in reason, be received as the act of the whole, and conclude every individual; nothing but the consent of every individual can make any thing to be the act of the whole: but such a consent is next to impossible ever to be had, if we consider the infirmities of health, and avocations of business, which in a number, though much less than that of a commonwealth, will necessarily keep many away from the public assembly. To which if we add the variety of opinions, and contrariety of interests, which unavoidably happen in all collections of men, the coming into society upon such terms would be only like Cato's coming into the theatre, only to go out again. Such a constitution as this would make the mighty Leviathan of a shorter duration, than the feeblest creatures, and not let it outlast the day it was born in: which cannot be supposed, till we can think, that rational creatures should desire and constitute societies only to be dissolved: for where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as one body, and consequently will be immediately dissolved again. Sect. 99. Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite into a community, must be understood to give up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they unite into society, to the majority of the community, unless they expresly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals, that enter into, or make up a commonwealth. And thus that, which begins and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did, or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world. Sect. 100. To this I find two objections made. First, That there are no instances to be found in story, of a company of men independent, and equal one amongst another, that met together, and in this way began and set up a government. Secondly, It is impossible of right, that men should do so, because all men being born under government, they are to submit to that, and are not at liberty to begin a new one. Sect. 101. To the first there is this to answer, That it is not at all to be wondered, that history gives us but a very little account of men, that lived together in the state of nature. The inconveniences of that condition, and the love and want of society, no sooner brought any number of them together, but they presently united and incorporated, if they designed to continue together. And if we may not suppose men ever to have been in the state of nature, because we hear not much of them in such a state, we may as well suppose the armies of Salmanasser or Xerxes were never children, because we hear little of them, till they were men, and imbodied in armies. Government is every where antecedent to records, and letters seldom come in amongst a people till a long continuation of civil society has, by other more necessary arts, provided for their safety, ease, and plenty: and then they begin to look after the history of their founders, and search into their original, when they have outlived the memory of it: for it is with commonwealths as with particular persons, they are commonly ignorant of their own births and infancies: and if they know any thing of their original, they are beholden for it, to the accidental records that others have kept of it. And those that we have, of the beginning of any polities in the world, excepting that of the Jews, where God himself immediately interposed, and which favours not at all paternal dominion, are all either plain instances of such a beginning as I have mentioned, or at least have manifest footsteps of it. Sect. 102. He must shew a strange inclination to deny evident matter of fact, when it agrees not with his hypothesis, who will not allow, that the beginning of Rome and Venice were by the uniting together of several men free and independent one of another, amongst whom there was no natural superiority or subjection. And if Josephus Acosta's word may be taken, he tells us, that in many parts of America there was no government at all. There are great and apparent conjectures, says he, that these men, speaking of those of Peru, for a long time had neither kings nor commonwealths, but lived in troops, as they do this day in Florida, the Cheriquanas, those of Brazil, and many other nations, which have no certain kings, but as occasion is offered, in peace or war, they choose their captains as they please, 1. i. c. 25. If it be said, that every man there was born subject to his father, or the head of his family; that the subjection due from a child to a father took not away his freedom of uniting into what political society he thought fit, has been already proved. But be that as it will, these men, it is evident, were actually free; and whatever superiority some politicians now would place in any of them, they themselves claimed it not, but by consent were all equal, till by the same consent they set rulers over themselves. So that their politic societies all began from a voluntary union, and the mutual agreement of men freely acting in the choice of their governors, and forms of government. Sect. 103. And I hope those who went away from Sparta with Palantus, mentioned by Justin, 1. iii. c. 4. will be allowed to have been freemen independent one of another, and to have set up a government over themselves, by their own consent. Thus I have given several examples, out of history, of people free and in the state of nature, that being met together incorporated and began a commonwealth. And if the want of such instances be an argument to prove that government were not, nor could not be so begun, I suppose the contenders for paternal empire were better let it alone, than urge it against natural liberty: for if they can give so many instances, out of history, of governments begun upon paternal right, I think (though at best an argument from what has been, to what should of right be, has no great force) one might, without any great danger, yield them the cause. But if I might advise them in the case, they would do well not to search too much into the original of governments, as they have begun de facto, lest they should find, at the foundation of most of them, something very little favourable to the design they promote, and such a power as they contend for. Sect. 104. But to conclude, reason being plain on our side, that men are naturally free, and the examples of history shewing, that the governments of the world, that were begun in peace, had their beginning laid on that foundation, and were made by the consent of the people; there can be little room for doubt, either where the right is, or what has been the opinion, or practice of mankind, about the first erecting of governments. Sect. 105. I will not deny, that if we look back as far as history will direct us, towards the original of commonwealths, we shall generally find them under the government and administration of one man. And I am also apt to believe, that where a family was numerous enough to subsist by itself, and continued entire together, without mixing with others, as it often happens, where there is much land, and few people, the government commonly began in the father: for the father having, by the law of nature, the same power with every man else to punish, as he thought fit, any offences against that law, might thereby punish his transgressing children, even when they were men, and out of their pupilage; and they were very likely to submit to his punishment, and all join with him against the offender, in their turns, giving him thereby power to execute his sentence against any transgression, and so in effect make him the law-maker, and governor over all that remained in conjunction with his family. He was fittest to be trusted; paternal affection secured their property and interest under his care; and the custom of obeying him, in their childhood, made it easier to submit to him, rather than to any other. If therefore they must have one to rule them, as government is hardly to be avoided amongst men that live together; who so likely to be the man as he that was their common father; unless negligence, cruelty, or any other defect of mind or body made him unfit for it? But when either the father died, and left his next heir, for want of age, wisdom, courage, or any other qualities, less fit for rule; or where several families met, and consented to continue together; there, it is not to be doubted, but they used their natural freedom, to set up him, whom they judged the ablest, and most likely, to rule well over them. Conformable hereunto we find the people of America, who (living out of the reach of the conquering swords, and spreading domination of the two great empires of Peru and Mexico) enjoyed their own natural freedom, though, caeteris paribus, they commonly prefer the heir of their deceased king; yet if they find him any way weak, or uncapable, they pass him by, and set up the stoutest and bravest man for their ruler. Sect. 106. Thus, though looking back as far as records give us any account of peopling the world, and the history of nations, we commonly find the government to be in one hand; yet it destroys not that which I affirm, viz. that the beginning of politic society depends upon the consent of the individuals, to join into, and make one society; who, when they are thus incorporated, might set up what form of government they thought fit. But this having given occasion to men to mistake, and think, that by nature government was monarchical, and belonged to the father, it may not be amiss here to consider, why people in the beginning generally pitched upon this form, which though perhaps the father's pre-eminency might, in the first institution of some commonwealths, give a rise to, and place in the beginning, the power in one hand; yet it is plain that the reason, that continued the form of government in a single person, was not any regard, or respect to paternal authority; since all petty monarchies, that is, almost all monarchies, near their original, have been commonly, at least upon occasion, elective. Sect. 107. First then, in the beginning of things, the father's government of the childhood of those sprung from him, having accustomed them to the rule of one man, and taught them that where it was exercised with care and skill, with affection and love to those under it, it was sufficient to procure and preserve to men all the political happiness they sought for in society. It was no wonder that they should pitch upon, and naturally run into that form of government, which from their infancy they had been all accustomed to; and which, by experience, they had found both easy and safe. To which, if we add, that monarchy being simple, and most obvious to men, whom neither experience had instructed in forms of government, nor the ambition or insolence of empire had taught to beware of the encroachments of prerogative, or the inconveniences of absolute power, which monarchy in succession was apt to lay claim to, and bring upon them, it was not at all strange, that they should not much trouble themselves to think of methods of restraining any exorbitances of those to whom they had given the authority over them, and of balancing the power of government, by placing several parts of it in different hands. They had neither felt the oppression of tyrannical dominion, nor did the fashion of the age, nor their possessions, or way of living, (which afforded little matter for covetousness or ambition) give them any reason to apprehend or provide against it; and therefore it is no wonder they put themselves into such a frame of government, as was not only, as I said, most obvious and simple, but also best suited to their present state and condition; which stood more in need of defence against foreign invasions and injuries, than of multiplicity of laws. The equality of a simple poor way of living, confining their desires within the narrow bounds of each man's small property, made few controversies, and so no need of many laws to decide them, or variety of officers to superintend the process, or look after the execution of justice, where there were but few trespasses, and few offenders. Since then those, who like one another so well as to join into society, cannot but be supposed to have some acquaintance and friendship together, and some trust one in another; they could not but have greater apprehensions of others, than of one another: and therefore their first care and thought cannot but be supposed to be, how to secure themselves against foreign force. It was natural for them to put themselves under a frame of government which might best serve to that end, and chuse the wisest and bravest man to conduct them in their wars, and lead them out against their enemies, and in this chiefly be their ruler. Sect. 108. Thus we see, that the kings of the Indians in America, which is still a pattern of the first ages in Asia and Europe, whilst the inhabitants were too few for the country, and want of people and money gave men no temptation to enlarge their possessions of land, or contest for wider extent of ground, are little more than generals of their armies; and though they command absolutely in war, yet at home and in time of peace they exercise very little dominion, and have but a very moderate sovereignty, the resolutions of peace and war being ordinarily either in the people, or in a council. Tho' the war itself, which admits not of plurality of governors, naturally devolves the command into the king's sole authority. Sect. 109. And thus in Israel itself, the chief business of their judges, and first kings, seems to have been to be captains in war, and leaders of their armies; which (besides what is signified by going out and in before the people, which was, to march forth to war, and home again in the heads of their forces) appears plainly in the story of Jephtha. The Ammonites making war upon Israel, the Gileadites in fear send to Jephtha, a bastard of their family whom they had cast off, and article with him, if he will assist them against the Ammonites, to make him their ruler; which they do in these words, And the people made him head and captain over them, Judg. xi, 11. which was, as it seems, all one as to be judge. And he judged Israel, judg. xii. 7. that is, was their captain-general six years. So when Jotham upbraids the Shechemites with the obligation they had to Gideon, who had been their judge and ruler, he tells them, He fought for you, and adventured his life far, and delivered you out of the hands of Midian, Judg. ix. 17. Nothing mentioned of him but what he did as a general: and indeed that is all is found in his history, or in any of the rest of the judges. And Abimelech particularly is called king, though at most he was but their general. And when, being weary of the ill conduct of Samuel's sons, the children of Israel desired a king, like all the nations to judge them, and to go out before them, and to fight their battles, I. Sam viii. 20. God granting their desire, says to Samuel, I will send thee a man, and thou shalt anoint him to be captain over my people Israel, that he may save my people out of the hands of the Philistines, ix. 16. As if the only business of a king had been to lead out their armies, and fight in their defence; and accordingly at his inauguration pouring a vial of oil upon him, declares to Saul, that the Lord had anointed him to be captain over his inheritance, x. 1. And therefore those, who after Saul's being solemnly chosen and saluted king by the tribes at Mispah, were unwilling to have him their king, made no other objection but this, How shall this man save us? v. 27. as if they should have said, this man is unfit to be our king, not having skill and conduct enough in war, to be able to defend us. And when God resolved to transfer the government to David, it is in these words, But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, xiii. 14. As if the whole kingly authority were nothing else but to be their general: and therefore the tribes who had stuck to Saul's family, and opposed David's reign, when they came to Hebron with terms of submission to him, they tell him, amongst other arguments they had to submit to him as to their king, that he was in effect their king in Saul's time, and therefore they had no reason but to receive him as their king now. Also (say they) in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that reddest out and broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel. Sect. 110. Thus, whether a family by degrees grew up into a commonwealth, and the fatherly authority being continued on to the elder son, every one in his turn growing up under it, tacitly submitted to it, and the easiness and equality of it not offending any one, every one acquiesced, till time seemed to have confirmed it, and settled a right of succession by prescription: or whether several families, or the descendants of several families, whom chance, neighbourhood, or business brought together, uniting into society, the need of a general, whose conduct might defend them against their enemies in war, and the great confidence the innocence and sincerity of that poor but virtuous age, (such as are almost all those which begin governments, that ever come to last in the world) gave men one of another, made the first beginners of commonwealths generally put the rule into one man's hand, without any other express limitation or restraint, but what the nature of the thing, and the end of government required: which ever of those it was that at first put the rule into the hands of a single person, certain it is no body was intrusted with it but for the public good and safety, and to those ends, in the infancies of commonwealths, those who had it commonly used it. And unless they had done so, young societies could not have subsisted; without such nursing fathers tender and careful of the public weal, all governments would have sunk under the weakness and infirmities of their infancy, and the prince and the people had soon perished together. Sect. 111. But though the golden age (before vain ambition, and amor sceleratus habendi, evil concupiscence, had corrupted men's minds into a mistake of true power and honour) had more virtue, and consequently better governors, as well as less vicious subjects, and there was then no stretching prerogative on the one side, to oppress the people; nor consequently on the other, any dispute about privilege, to lessen or restrain the power of the magistrate, and so no contest betwixt rulers and people about governors or government: yet, when ambition and luxury in future ages* would retain and increase the power, without doing the business for which it was given; and aided by flattery, taught princes to have distinct and separate interests from their people, men found it necessary to examine more carefully the original and rights of government; and to find out ways to restrain the exorbitances, and prevent the abuses of that power, which they having intrusted in another's hands only for their own good, they found was made use of to hurt them. (*At first, when some certain kind of regiment was once approved, it may be nothing was then farther thought upon for the manner of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and discretion which were to rule, till by experience they found this for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy, did indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured. They saw, that to live by one man's will, became the cause of all men's misery. This constrained them to come unto laws wherein all men might see their duty before hand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 10.) Sect. 112. Thus we may see how probable it is, that people that were naturally free, and by their own consent either submitted to the government of their father, or united together out of different families to make a government, should generally put the rule into one man's hands, and chuse to be under the conduct of a single person, without so much as by express conditions limiting or regulating his power, which they thought safe enough in his honesty and prudence; though they never dreamed of monarchy being lure Divino, which we never heard of among mankind, till it was revealed to us by the divinity of this last age; nor ever allowed paternal power to have a right to dominion, or to be the foundation of all government. And thus much may suffice to shew, that as far as we have any light from history, we have reason to conclude, that all peaceful beginnings of government have been laid in the consent of the people. I say peaceful, because I shall have occasion in another place to speak of conquest, which some esteem a way of beginning of governments. The other objection I find urged against the beginning of polities, in the way I have mentioned, is this, viz. Sect. 113. That all men being born under government, some or other, it is impossible any of them should ever be free, and at liberty to unite together, and begin a new one, or ever be able to erect a lawful government. If this argument be good; I ask, how came so many lawful monarchies into the world? for if any body, upon this supposition, can shew me any one man in any age of the world free to begin a lawful monarchy, I will be bound to shew him ten other free men at liberty, at the same time to unite and begin a new government under a regal, or any other form; it being demonstration, that if any one, born under the dominion of another, may be so free as to have a right to command others in a new and distinct empire, every one that is born under the dominion of another may be so free too, and may become a ruler, or subject, of a distinct separate government. And so by this their own principle, either all men, however born, are free, or else there is but one lawful prince, one lawful government in the world. And then they have nothing to do, but barely to shew us which that is; which when they have done, I doubt not but all mankind will easily agree to pay obedience to him. Sect. 114. Though it be a sufficient answer to their objection, to shew that it involves them in the same difficulties that it doth those they use it against; yet I shall endeavour to discover the weakness of this argument a little farther. All men, say they, are born under government, and therefore they cannot be at liberty to begin a new one. Every one is born a subject to his father, or his prince, and is therefore under the perpetual tie of subjection and allegiance. It is plain mankind never owned nor considered any such natural subjection that they were born in, to one or to the other that tied them, without their own consents, to a subjection to them and their heirs. Sect. 115. For there are no examples so frequent in history, both sacred and profane, as those of men withdrawing themselves, and their obedience, from the jurisdiction they were born under, and the family or community they were bred up in, and setting up new governments in other places; from whence sprang all that number of petty commonwealths in the beginning of ages, and which always multiplied, as long as there was room enough, till the stronger, or more fortunate, swallowed the weaker; and those great ones again breaking to pieces, dissolved into lesser dominions. All which are so many testimonies against paternal sovereignty, and plainly prove, that it was not the natural right of the father descending to his heirs, that made governments in the beginning, since it was impossible, upon that ground, there should have been so many little kingdoms; all must have been but only one universal monarchy, if men had not been at liberty to separate themselves from their families, and the government, be it what it will, that was set up in it, and go and make distinct commonwealths and other governments, as they thought fit. Sect. 116. This has been the practice of the world from its first beginning to this day; nor is it now any more hindrance to the freedom of mankind, that they are born under constituted and ancient polities, that have established laws, and set forms of government, than if they were born in the woods, amongst the unconfined inhabitants, that run loose in them: for those, who would persuade us, that by being born under any government, we are naturally subjects to it, and have no more any title or pretence to the freedom of the state of nature, have no other reason (bating that of paternal power, which we have already answered) to produce for it, but only, because our fathers or progenitors passed away their natural liberty, and thereby bound up themselves and their posterity to a perpetual subjection to the government, which they themselves submitted to. It is true, that whatever engagements or promises any one has made for himself, he is under the obligation of them, but cannot, by any compact whatsoever, bind his children or posterity: for his son, when a man, being altogether as free as the father, any act of the father can no more give away the liberty of the son, than it can of any body else: he may indeed annex such conditions to the land, he enjoyed as a subject of any commonwealth, as may oblige his son to be of that community, if he will enjoy those possessions which were his father's; because that estate being his father's property, he may dispose, or settle it, as he pleases. Sect. 117. And this has generally given the occasion to mistake in this matter; because commonwealths not permitting any part of their dominions to be dismembered, nor to be enjoyed by any but those of their community, the son cannot ordinarily enjoy the possessions of his father, but under the same terms his father did, by becoming a member of the society; whereby he puts himself presently under the government he finds there established, as much as any other subject of that commonwealth. And thus the consent of freemen, born under government, which only makes them members of it, being given separately in their turns, as each comes to be of age, and not in a multitude together; people take no notice of it, and thinking it not done at all, or not necessary, conclude they are naturally subjects as they are men. Sect. 118. But, it is plain, governments themselves understand it otherwise; they claim no power over the son, because of that they had over the father; nor look on children as being their subjects, by their fathers being so. If a subject of England have a child, by an English woman in France, whose subject is he? Not the king of England's; for he must have leave to be admitted to the privileges of it: nor the king of France's; for how then has his father a liberty to bring him away, and breed him as he pleases? and who ever was judged as a traytor or deserter, if he left, or warred against a country, for being barely born in it of parents that were aliens there? It is plain then, by the practice of governments themselves, as well as by the law of right reason, that a child is born a subject of no country or government. He is under his father's tuition and authority, till he comes to age of discretion; and then he is a freeman, at liberty what government he will put himself under, what body politic he will unite himself to: for if an Englishman's son, born in France, be at liberty, and may do so, it is evident there is no tie upon him by his father's being a subject of this kingdom; nor is he bound up by any compact of his ancestors. And why then hath not his son, by the same reason, the same liberty, though he be born any where else? Since the power that a father hath naturally over his children, is the same, where-ever they be born, and the ties of natural obligations, are not bounded by the positive limits of kingdoms and commonwealths. Sect. 119. Every man being, as has been shewed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power, but only his own consent; it is to be considered, what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man's consent, to make him subject to the laws of any government. There is a common distinction of an express and a tacit consent, which will concern our present case. No body doubts but an express consent, of any man entering into any society, makes him a perfect member of that society, a subject of that government. The difficulty is, what ought to be looked upon as a tacit consent, and how far it binds, i.e. how far any one shall be looked on to have consented, and thereby submitted to any government, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And to this I say, that every man, that hath any possessions, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it; whether this his possession be of land, to him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging only for a week; or whether it be barely travelling freely on the highway; and in effect, it reaches as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that government. Sect. 120. To understand this the better, it is fit to consider, that every man, when he at first incorporates himself into any commonwealth, he, by his uniting himself thereunto, annexed also, and submits to the community, those possessions, which he has, or shall acquire, that do not already belong to any other government: for it would be a direct contradiction, for any one to enter into society with others for the securing and regulating of property; and yet to suppose his land, whose property is to be regulated by the laws of the society, should be exempt from the jurisdiction of that government, to which he himself, the proprietor of the land, is a subject. By the same act therefore, whereby any one unites his person, which was before free, to any commonwealth, by the same he unites his possessions, which were before free, to it also; and they become, both of them, person and possession, subject to the government and dominion of that commonwealth, as long as it hath a being. Whoever therefore, from thenceforth, by inheritance, purchase, permission, or otherways, enjoys any part of the land, so annexed to, and under the government of that commonwealth, must take it with the condition it is under; that is, of submitting to the government of the commonwealth, under whose jurisdiction it is, as far forth as any subject of it. Sect. 121. But since the government has a direct jurisdiction only over the land, and reaches the possessor of it, (before he has actually incorporated himself in the society) only as he dwells upon, and enjoys that; the obligation any one is under, by virtue of such enjoyment, to submit to the government, begins and ends with the enjoyment; so that whenever the owner, who has given nothing but such a tacit consent to the government, will, by donation, sale, or otherwise, quit the said possession, he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into any other commonwealth; or to agree with others to begin a new one, in vacuis locis, in any part of the world, they can find free and unpossessed: whereas he, that has once, by actual agreement, and any express declaration, given his consent to be of any commonwealth, is perpetually and indispensably obliged to be, and remain unalterably a subject to it, and can never be again in the liberty of the state of nature; unless, by any calamity, the government he was under comes to be dissolved; or else by some public act cuts him off from being any longer a member of it. Sect. 122. But submitting to the laws of any country, living quietly, and enjoying privileges and protection under them, makes not a man a member of that society: this is only a local protection and homage due to and from all those, who, not being in a state of war, come within the territories belonging to any government, to all parts whereof the force of its laws extends. But this no more makes a man a member of that society, a perpetual subject of that commonwealth, than it would make a man a subject to another, in whose family he found it convenient to abide for some time; though, whilst he continued in it, he were obliged to comply with the laws, and submit to the government he found there. And thus we see, that foreigners, by living all their lives under another government, and enjoying the privileges and protection of it, though they are bound, even in conscience, to submit to its administration, as far forth as any denison; yet do not thereby come to be subjects or members of that commonwealth. Nothing can make any man so, but his actually entering into it by positive engagement, and express promise and compact. This is that, which I think, concerning the beginning of political societies, and that consent which makes any one a member of any commonwealth. Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten 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.

Politische Gesellschaften können ohne die Zustimmung der Regierten nicht existieren. Nur mit Zustimmung kann der Mensch seine natürliche Freiheit aufgeben und mit anderen Menschen in eine bürgerliche Gesellschaft eintreten. Niemand, der nicht beitreten möchte, kann dazu gezwungen werden. Sobald eine bürgerliche Gesellschaft gebildet ist, entscheidet die Mehrheit. Mehrheitsentscheidungen sind notwendig, da es unmöglich wäre, dass jeder einzelne Mensch einem Gesetz zustimmt. Wenn Menschen den Pakt eingehen, müssen sie dieser Mehrheitsregelung zustimmen, denn wenn sie glauben, dass sie sich ihr nicht unterwerfen müssen und weiterhin ihre eigenen Entscheidungen treffen können, sollten sie besser im Naturzustand bleiben, da der Pakt ungültig wäre. Die Mehrheitsregelung ist der logischste Weg, eine Gemeinschaft zu regieren, da einige Männer aufgrund von Gesundheitsproblemen oder geschäftlichen Verpflichtungen nicht teilnehmen können und andere Meinungen haben können, die im Gegensatz zu denen der meisten anderen Männer stehen. Locke schreibt, dass die einzige rechtmäßige Regierung auf der Welt diejenige ist, in der Männer sich darauf einigen, eine politische Gesellschaft zu bilden und ihre natürliche Freiheit aufzugeben, wie sie im Naturzustand existiert. Er erkennt an, dass es möglicherweise zwei Einwände gegen seine Aussage gibt: Erstens, dass es in der Geschichte nie ein Beispiel dafür gegeben hat, dass Menschen sich auf diese Weise zusammengeschlossen haben, um eine Regierung zu bilden, und zweitens, dass Menschen in der Regel unter einer Regierung geboren werden und sich dieser eher unterwerfen, anstatt eine neue zu beginnen. Auf den ersten Einwand antwortet Locke, dass zwar in der Geschichte nur wenige Beispiele für den Aufenthalt von Menschen im Naturzustand existieren, da der Naturzustand in der Regel eher früher als später zur Bildung einer Regierung führt. Es ist jedoch möglich, dass die historischen Aufzeichnungen die Regierungsentstehung nicht abbilden und es daher keine schriftlichen Beweise für die Bildung der Regierung gibt. Rom und Venedig sind zwei Beispiele dafür, wie freie und unabhängige Männer sich zusammengeschlossen haben, um eine politische Gesellschaft zu bilden. Außerdem waren amerikanische Ureinwohner zwar unter der Kontrolle ihres Vaters geboren worden, behielten aber ihre Freiheit und die Fähigkeit, einer politischen Gesellschaft zuzustimmen. Anhänger patriarchalischer Regierungen sind wahrscheinlich nicht daran interessiert, die Ursprünge natürlicher bürgerlicher Gesellschaften zu erforschen, und Locke rät ihnen, dies ohnehin zu vermeiden, da sie möglicherweise feststellen könnten, dass ihre väterliche Regierung tatsächlich durch Zustimmung entstand. Locke versteht, dass die Geschichte zeigt, dass die meisten Gemeinwesen von einem Mann kontrolliert wurden. Dies geschah in der Regel, wie im sechsten Kapitel erörtert, weil eine Familie unabhängig von anderen existierte und dem Vater gesetzgebende und regierende Gewalt zuerkannt wurde, weil er vertrauenswürdig, geachtet und weise war. Nach dem Tod des Vaters wählten jedoch viele dieser Familien keinen Sohn des Vaters als nächsten Erben aus, sondern wählten den fähigsten und würdigsten Mann als Herrscher. Dies kann insbesondere in Amerika, vor allem in Peru und Mexiko, beobachtet werden. Zusammenfassend lässt sich sagen, dass zwar die Geschichte zeigt, dass viele politische Gesellschaften von einem Mann regiert wurden, dies jedoch nicht bedeutet, dass die Regierten nicht zustimmten. Menschen nehmen leicht an, dass die Regierung von Natur aus monarchisch ist, aber Monarchien haben nichts mit väterlicher Autorität zu tun, und die meisten Monarchien waren zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt in ihrer Vergangenheit wählbar. Locke setzt seine Diskussion fort, warum Männer möglicherweise glauben könnten, dass eine Monarchie der natürliche Zustand der Regierung ist. Da die Menschen ihre prägenden Jahre von einem Vater erzogen werden, sind sie an diese Art der Herrschaft gewöhnt. Wenn Männer niemals eine andere Art von Regierung erleben oder absolute Macht in einer vollständig negativen Weise erleben, kann man sich nicht darauf verlassen, dass sie die Macht in mehreren Händen platzieren möchten. Darüber hinaus liegt der Hauptgrund für die anfängliche Unterwerfung unter die Kontrolle eines absoluten Monarchen darin, sich vor ausländischen Feinden zu schützen. Es ist verständlich, dass Männer bereit sind, ihr Vertrauen in einen einzigen mächtigen, tapferen Herrscher zu setzen. Tatsächlich ist in einem Ort wie Amerika, wo das einzige beachtenswerte Problem der Schutz vor Feinden ist, der absolute Herrscher nur in Kriegszeiten absolut, nicht aber in Zeiten des Friedens. Locke gibt außerdem mehrere biblische Beispiele für Herrscher, die nur absolute militärische Macht ausübten; königliche Autorität bestand darin, ein Militärgeneral zu sein. So wurden viele Regierungen gebildet, in denen die Macht in den Händen eines Mannes lag, der keine Einschränkungen seiner Herrschaft hatte. Dies geschah jedoch, wie besprochen, um das Gemeinwohl und die Sicherheit zu erhalten. Eine junge Gesellschaft würde ohne einen Herrscher zusammenbrechen. Locke nennt dies ein "goldenes Zeitalter", ein Zeitalter, das vor dem Ehrgeiz und dem Luxus von Herrschern existierte und sie davon abhielt, vom Gemeinwohl abzuweichen und Interessen zu entwickeln, die von denen ihrer Untertanen abweichen. An diesem Punkt finden es die Menschen notwendig, die Natur und Bildung von Regierungen zu untersuchen und einen Weg zu finden, um Missbräuche absoluter Macht zu verhindern. Diese Männer träumten nie davon, dass Monarchien aufgrund des gottgegebenen Rechts der Könige existierten; diese Theorie ist ein Produkt des modernen Zeitalters und nicht absolut historisch. Tatsächlich zeigt Locke, wie diese Monarchien auf Zustimmung der Regierten basierten. Locke wendet sich nun dem zweiten Einwand bezüglich der Geburt der Menschen unter einer Regierung und der Unmöglichkeit, eine andere Regierung zu bilden, zu. Erster Punkt ist, dass es viele Monarchien in der Welt gibt, nicht nur eine rechtmäßige. Zweitens glaubt er nicht, dass alle Menschen in Unterwerfung und Unterordnung gegenüber ihrem Herrscher geboren werden. Die Geschichte zeigt eine Vielzahl von Beispielen, in denen Menschen Regierungen und Königreiche verlassen und sich ihnen anschließen oder neue gründen, was zeigt, dass väterliche Autorität nicht dazu dient, eine Regierung zu legitimieren. Drittens kann ein Mann Versprechen und Verpflichtungen eingehen, aber seine Kinder sind ihnen nicht unterworfen. Was die meisten Befürworter dieser Sicht, die Locke widerlegt, verwirrt, ist, dass Söhne oft das Erbe ihres Vaters antreten und somit den Gesetzen des Königreichs unterworfen sind. Dies ist jedoch eine Wahl, und auch wenn sich Söhne selten gegen die Erbschaft des Landes entscheiden, bedeutet dies nicht, dass alle in ein Königreich geborenen Menschen von Natur aus dessen Untertanen sind. Regierungen verstehen diesen Umstand, dass ein Kind nicht als Untertan irgendeines Landes oder irgendeiner Regierung geboren wird. Seine Eltern erziehen ihn, bis er das Erwachsenenalter erreicht, und er kann wählen, Bürger des Landes oder der Regierung zu sein, für die er sich entscheidet. Locke geht auf den Begriff der Zustimmung ein und versucht zu erklären, was als ausreichende Zustimmungserklärung betrachtet werden kann und wie weit sie bindet. Zustimmung umfasst natürlich den Besitz von Eigentum in einer politischen Gesellschaft, erstreckt sich aber auch auf diejenigen, die in einer politischen Gesellschaft logieren oder auf ihren Straßen reisen. Wenn ein Mann einer politischen Gesellschaft zustimmt, muss er verstehen, dass sich sein gesamter Besitz nun im Rahmen des Gesetzes dieser Gesellschaft befindet; es ist unlogisch anzunehmen, dass sein Besitz außerhalb des Rahmen der Gesellschaft existiert. Sowohl das Leben als auch das Eigentum eines Menschen unterliegen nun der Herrschaft der Regierung, solange sie existiert, und er muss sich den Gesetzen und Bedingungen der Regierung fügen. Wenn ein Mann sich jedoch entscheidet, sein Land oder seinen Besitz aufzugeben, ist er frei, in ein anderes Gemeinwesen zu ziehen, wenn er dies wünscht, oder sich mit anderen zusammenzutun, um ein neues zu schaffen. Ein oder anderes Gemeinwesen wird immer jede Person regieren, die sich dazu entscheidet, regiert zu werden, es sei denn, die Regierung, der er sich unterwirft, wird aufgelöst. Eine letzte Anmerkung betrifft Ausländer. Locke schreibt, dass allein die Unterwerfung unter die Gesetze eines Gemeinwesens und das Leben unter seinem Schutz nicht bedeutet, dass ein Mann Mitglied dieser Gesellschaft ist. Ein Ausländer kann in einem Gemeinwesen leben wie in einer anderen Familie. Ihr Gewissen diktiert ihnen, dass sie sich den Regeln unterwerfen, aber sie sind erst dann Untertanen, wenn sie ihre Zustimmung offiziell erklären, indem sie einen Pakt eingehen.

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: 37 MILADY'S SECRET D'Artagnan left the hotel instead of going up at once to Kitty's chamber, as she endeavored to persuade him to do--and that for two reasons: the first, because by this means he should escape reproaches, recriminations, and prayers; the second, because he was not sorry to have an opportunity of reading his own thoughts and endeavoring, if possible, to fathom those of this woman. What was most clear in the matter was that d'Artagnan loved Milady like a madman, and that she did not love him at all. In an instant d'Artagnan perceived that the best way in which he could act would be to go home and write Milady a long letter, in which he would confess to her that he and de Wardes were, up to the present moment absolutely the same, and that consequently he could not undertake, without committing suicide, to kill the Comte de Wardes. But he also was spurred on by a ferocious desire of vengeance. He wished to subdue this woman in his own name; and as this vengeance appeared to him to have a certain sweetness in it, he could not make up his mind to renounce it. He walked six or seven times round the Place Royale, turning at every ten steps to look at the light in Milady's apartment, which was to be seen through the blinds. It was evident that this time the young woman was not in such haste to retire to her apartment as she had been the first. At length the light disappeared. With this light was extinguished the last irresolution in the heart of d'Artagnan. He recalled to his mind the details of the first night, and with a beating heart and a brain on fire he re-entered the hotel and flew toward Kitty's chamber. The poor girl, pale as death and trembling in all her limbs, wished to delay her lover; but Milady, with her ear on the watch, had heard the noise d'Artagnan had made, and opening the door, said, "Come in." All this was of such incredible immodesty, of such monstrous effrontery, that d'Artagnan could scarcely believe what he saw or what he heard. He imagined himself to be drawn into one of those fantastic intrigues one meets in dreams. He, however, darted not the less quickly toward Milady, yielding to that magnetic attraction which the loadstone exercises over iron. As the door closed after them Kitty rushed toward it. Jealousy, fury, offended pride, all the passions in short that dispute the heart of an outraged woman in love, urged her to make a revelation; but she reflected that she would be totally lost if she confessed having assisted in such a machination, and above all, that d'Artagnan would also be lost to her forever. This last thought of love counseled her to make this last sacrifice. D'Artagnan, on his part, had gained the summit of all his wishes. It was no longer a rival who was beloved; it was himself who was apparently beloved. A secret voice whispered to him, at the bottom of his heart, that he was but an instrument of vengeance, that he was only caressed till he had given death; but pride, but self-love, but madness silenced this voice and stifled its murmurs. And then our Gascon, with that large quantity of conceit which we know he possessed, compared himself with de Wardes, and asked himself why, after all, he should not be beloved for himself? He was absorbed entirely by the sensations of the moment. Milady was no longer for him that woman of fatal intentions who had for a moment terrified him; she was an ardent, passionate mistress, abandoning herself to love which she also seemed to feel. Two hours thus glided away. When the transports of the two lovers were calmer, Milady, who had not the same motives for forgetfulness that d'Artagnan had, was the first to return to reality, and asked the young man if the means which were on the morrow to bring on the encounter between him and de Wardes were already arranged in his mind. But d'Artagnan, whose ideas had taken quite another course, forgot himself like a fool, and answered gallantly that it was too late to think about duels and sword thrusts. This coldness toward the only interests that occupied her mind terrified Milady, whose questions became more pressing. Then d'Artagnan, who had never seriously thought of this impossible duel, endeavored to turn the conversation; but he could not succeed. Milady kept him within the limits she had traced beforehand with her irresistible spirit and her iron will. D'Artagnan fancied himself very cunning when advising Milady to renounce, by pardoning de Wardes, the furious projects she had formed. But at the first word the young woman started, and exclaimed in a sharp, bantering tone, which sounded strangely in the darkness, "Are you afraid, dear Monsieur d'Artagnan?" "You cannot think so, dear love!" replied d'Artagnan; "but now, suppose this poor Comte de Wardes were less guilty than you think him?" "At all events," said Milady, seriously, "he has deceived me, and from the moment he deceived me, he merited death." "He shall die, then, since you condemn him!" said d'Artagnan, in so firm a tone that it appeared to Milady an undoubted proof of devotion. This reassured her. We cannot say how long the night seemed to Milady, but d'Artagnan believed it to be hardly two hours before the daylight peeped through the window blinds, and invaded the chamber with its paleness. Seeing d'Artagnan about to leave her, Milady recalled his promise to avenge her on the Comte de Wardes. "I am quite ready," said d'Artagnan; "but in the first place I should like to be certain of one thing." "And what is that?" asked Milady. "That is, whether you really love me?" "I have given you proof of that, it seems to me." "And I am yours, body and soul!" "Thanks, my brave lover; but as you are satisfied of my love, you must, in your turn, satisfy me of yours. Is it not so?" "Certainly; but if you love me as much as you say," replied d'Artagnan, "do you not entertain a little fear on my account?" "What have I to fear?" "Why, that I may be dangerously wounded--killed even." "Impossible!" cried Milady, "you are such a valiant man, and such an expert swordsman." "You would not, then, prefer a method," resumed d'Artagnan, "which would equally avenge you while rendering the combat useless?" Milady looked at her lover in silence. The pale light of the first rays of day gave to her clear eyes a strangely frightful expression. "Really," said she, "I believe you now begin to hesitate." "No, I do not hesitate; but I really pity this poor Comte de Wardes, since you have ceased to love him. I think that a man must be so severely punished by the loss of your love that he stands in need of no other chastisement." "Who told you that I loved him?" asked Milady, sharply. "At least, I am now at liberty to believe, without too much fatuity, that you love another," said the young man, in a caressing tone, "and I repeat that I am really interested for the count." "You?" asked Milady. "Yes, I." "And why YOU?" "Because I alone know--" "What?" "That he is far from being, or rather having been, so guilty toward you as he appears." "Indeed!" said Milady, in an anxious tone; "explain yourself, for I really cannot tell what you mean." And she looked at d'Artagnan, who embraced her tenderly, with eyes which seemed to burn themselves away. "Yes; I am a man of honor," said d'Artagnan, determined to come to an end, "and since your love is mine, and I am satisfied I possess it--for I do possess it, do I not?" "Entirely; go on." "Well, I feel as if transformed--a confession weighs on my mind." "A confession!" "If I had the least doubt of your love I would not make it, but you love me, my beautiful mistress, do you not?" "Without doubt." "Then if through excess of love I have rendered myself culpable toward you, you will pardon me?" "Perhaps." D'Artagnan tried with his sweetest smile to touch his lips to Milady's, but she evaded him. "This confession," said she, growing paler, "what is this confession?" "You gave de Wardes a meeting on Thursday last in this very room, did you not?" "No, no! It is not true," said Milady, in a tone of voice so firm, and with a countenance so unchanged, that if d'Artagnan had not been in such perfect possession of the fact, he would have doubted. "Do not lie, my angel," said d'Artagnan, smiling; "that would be useless." "What do you mean? Speak! you kill me." "Be satisfied; you are not guilty toward me, and I have already pardoned you." "What next? what next?" "De Wardes cannot boast of anything." "How is that? You told me yourself that that ring--" "That ring I have! The Comte de Wardes of Thursday and the d'Artagnan of today are the same person." The imprudent young man expected a surprise, mixed with shame--a slight storm which would resolve itself into tears; but he was strangely deceived, and his error was not of long duration. Pale and trembling, Milady repulsed d'Artagnan's attempted embrace by a violent blow on the chest, as she sprang out of bed. It was almost broad daylight. D'Artagnan detained her by her night dress of fine India linen, to implore her pardon; but she, with a strong movement, tried to escape. Then the cambric was torn from her beautiful shoulders; and on one of those lovely shoulders, round and white, d'Artagnan recognized, with inexpressible astonishment, the FLEUR-DE-LIS--that indelible mark which the hand of the infamous executioner had imprinted. "Great God!" cried d'Artagnan, loosing his hold of her dress, and remaining mute, motionless, and frozen. But Milady felt herself denounced even by his terror. He had doubtless seen all. The young man now knew her secret, her terrible secret--the secret she concealed even from her maid with such care, the secret of which all the world was ignorant, except himself. She turned upon him, no longer like a furious woman, but like a wounded panther. "Ah, wretch!" cried she, "you have basely betrayed me, and still more, you have my secret! You shall die." And she flew to a little inlaid casket which stood upon the dressing table, opened it with a feverish and trembling hand, drew from it a small poniard, with a golden haft and a sharp thin blade, and then threw herself with a bound upon d'Artagnan. Although the young man was brave, as we know, he was terrified at that wild countenance, those terribly dilated pupils, those pale cheeks, and those bleeding lips. He recoiled to the other side of the room as he would have done from a serpent which was crawling toward him, and his sword coming in contact with his nervous hand, he drew it almost unconsciously from the scabbard. But without taking any heed of the sword, Milady endeavored to get near enough to him to stab him, and did not stop till she felt the sharp point at her throat. She then tried to seize the sword with her hands; but d'Artagnan kept it free from her grasp, and presenting the point, sometimes at her eyes, sometimes at her breast, compelled her to glide behind the bedstead, while he aimed at making his retreat by the door which led to Kitty's apartment. Milady during this time continued to strike at him with horrible fury, screaming in a formidable way. As all this, however, bore some resemblance to a duel, d'Artagnan began to recover himself little by little. "Well, beautiful lady, very well," said he; "but, PARDIEU, if you don't calm yourself, I will design a second FLEUR-DE-LIS upon one of those pretty cheeks!" "Scoundrel, infamous scoundrel!" howled Milady. But d'Artagnan, still keeping on the defensive, drew near to Kitty's door. At the noise they made, she in overturning the furniture in her efforts to get at him, he in screening himself behind the furniture to keep out of her reach, Kitty opened the door. D'Artagnan, who had unceasingly maneuvered to gain this point, was not at more than three paces from it. With one spring he flew from the chamber of Milady into that of the maid, and quick as lightning, he slammed to the door, and placed all his weight against it, while Kitty pushed the bolts. Then Milady attempted to tear down the doorcase, with a strength apparently above that of a woman; but finding she could not accomplish this, she in her fury stabbed at the door with her poniard, the point of which repeatedly glittered through the wood. Every blow was accompanied with terrible imprecations. "Quick, Kitty, quick!" said d'Artagnan, in a low voice, as soon as the bolts were fast, "let me get out of the hotel; for if we leave her time to turn round, she will have me killed by the servants." "But you can't go out so," said Kitty; "you are naked." "That's true," said d'Artagnan, then first thinking of the costume he found himself in, "that's true. But dress me as well as you are able, only make haste; think, my dear girl, it's life and death!" Kitty was but too well aware of that. In a turn of the hand she muffled him up in a flowered robe, a large hood, and a cloak. She gave him some slippers, in which he placed his naked feet, and then conducted him down the stairs. It was time. Milady had already rung her bell, and roused the whole hotel. The porter was drawing the cord at the moment Milady cried from her window, "Don't open!" The young man fled while she was still threatening him with an impotent gesture. The moment she lost sight of him, Milady tumbled fainting into her chamber. Kannst du eine geeignete 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.

D'Artagnan kehrt nach Hause zurück, um über seine Situation nachzudenken. Offensichtlich ist er bis über beide Ohren in Milady verliebt und sie scheint sich nicht zu kümmern. Doch er will auch, dass Milady leidet, und er will Rache in seinem eigenen Namen. Um elf Uhr geht D'Artagnan direkt in ihr Schlafzimmer. Sie lädt ihn dreist ein, direkt vor Kitty, deren Herz bricht. D'Artagnan ist erfreut, dass er jetzt ihre Zuneigung als er selbst erwidern kann und nicht verkleidet als der Comte de Wardes. Sie machen leidenschaftlich Liebe. Direkt danach fragt Milady ihn, ob er bereit für das Duell ist. D'Artagnan versucht dem Thema auszuweichen, aber Milady besteht darauf. Ein solches Duell ist unmöglich - wie könnte er gegen sich selbst kämpfen? Er fängt an, Miladys vermeintliche Liebe für ihn in Frage zu stellen. Hat sie nicht Angst, dass er im Duell sterben könnte? Schließlich, getrieben von seiner Liebe zu ihr und blindem Glauben, dass sie ihm vergeben würde, wenn sie ihn wirklich liebte, beschließt D'Artagnan, ihr die Wahrheit zu sagen. Er erzählt ihr, dass er wirklich der Comte de Wardes seit dem letzten Donnerstag war. Falscher Zug! Milady dreht durch. Sie schlägt D'Artagnan und springt aus dem Bett. Er greift nach ihrem Nachthemd, um ihre Flucht zu stoppen, aber das Kleid reißt und D'Artagnan sieht eine Lilie auf ihrer Schulter. Milady greift nach einem kleinen Dolch und versucht, ihn zu erstechen. Der junge Mann ist kurzzeitig erschrocken, greift aber schnell nach seinem Schwert. Bald hat er das Schwert an ihrer Kehle und macht sich auf den Weg ins Zimmer von Kitty. Er und Kitty sichern schnell die Schlösser. Milady versucht weiterhin, sich durch die Tür zu stechen. D'Artagnan sagt Kitty, dass er aus dem Gebäude fliehen muss. Kitty macht ihn darauf aufmerksam, dass D'Artagnan nackt ist. Er bittet um etwas Kleidung und sie stattet ihn mit "einem geblümten Gewand, einer großen Kapuze und einem Umhang" aus. Während er entkommt, schreit Milady nach allen Dienern.

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 just a quarter before twelve o'clock when we got into the churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark with occasional gleams of moonlight between the rents of the heavy clouds that scudded across the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing slightly in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared that the proximity to a place laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset him; but he bore himself well. I took it that the very mystery of the proceeding was in some way a counteractant to his grief. The Professor unlocked the door, and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved the difficulty by entering first himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door. He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to the coffin. Arthur stepped forward hesitatingly; Van Helsing said to me:-- "You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that coffin?" "It was." The Professor turned to the rest saying:-- "You hear; and yet there is no one who does not believe with me." He took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin. Arthur looked on, very pale but silent; when the lid was removed he stepped forward. He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or, at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness; he was still silent. Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and we all looked in and recoiled. The coffin was empty! For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by Quincey Morris:-- "Professor, I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn't ask such a thing ordinarily--I wouldn't so dishonour you as to imply a doubt; but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour. Is this your doing?" "I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed nor touched her. What happened was this: Two nights ago my friend Seward and I came here--with good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which was then sealed up, and we found it, as now, empty. We then waited, and saw something white come through the trees. The next day we came here in day-time, and she lay there. Did she not, friend John?" "Yes." "That night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing, and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at sundown the Un-Dead can move. I waited here all the night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was most probable that it was because I had laid over the clamps of those doors garlic, which the Un-Dead cannot bear, and other things which they shun. Last night there was no exodus, so to-night before the sundown I took away my garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But bear with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be. So"--here he shut the dark slide of his lantern--"now to the outside." He opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the door behind him. Oh! but it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and passing--like the gladness and sorrow of a man's life; how sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay; how humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing's conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has to stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug of tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a definite way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like thin, wafer-like biscuit, which was carefully rolled up in a white napkin; next he took out a double-handful of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into thin strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its setting in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near also, as they too were curious. He answered:-- "I am closing the tomb, so that the Un-Dead may not enter." "And is that stuff you have put there going to do it?" asked Quincey. "Great Scott! Is this a game?" "It is." "What is that which you are using?" This time the question was by Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered:-- "The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence." It was an answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt individually that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the Professor's, a purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of things, it was impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching horror; and yet I, who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night. There was a long spell of silence, a big, aching void, and then from the Professor a keen "S-s-s-s!" He pointed; and far down the avenue of yews we saw a white figure advance--a dim white figure, which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a fair-haired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We were starting forward, but the Professor's warning hand, seen by us as he stood behind a yew-tree, kept us back; and then as we looked the white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognised the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we all advanced too; the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide; by the concentrated light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the lips were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe. We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen. When Lucy--I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape--saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur; when she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands. She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said:-- "Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!" There was something diabolically sweet in her tones--something of the tingling of glass when struck--which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb. When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsing's iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of the flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely, blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death--if looks could kill--we saw it at that moment. And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of entry. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur:-- "Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?" Arthur threw himself on his knees, and hid his face in his hands, as he answered:-- "Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like this ever any more;" and he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down; coming close to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on in horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own, pass in through the interstice where scarce a knife-blade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense of relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty to the edges of the door. When this was done, he lifted the child and said: "Come now, my friends; we can do no more till to-morrow. There is a funeral at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton lock the gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do; but not like this of to-night. As for this little one, he is not much harm, and by to-morrow night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the police will find him, as on the other night; and then to home." Coming close to Arthur, he said:-- "My friend Arthur, you have had a sore trial; but after, when you look back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter waters, my child. By this time to-morrow you will, please God, have passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters; so do not mourn overmuch. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me." Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other on the way. We had left the child in safety, and were tired; so we all slept with more or less reality of sleep. * * * * * _29 September, night._--A little before twelve o'clock we three--Arthur, Quincey Morris, and myself--called for the Professor. It was odd to notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by half-past one, and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton under the belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag; it was manifestly of fair weight. When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the Professor to the tomb. He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing it behind us. Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit, and also two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck, by melting their own ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light sufficient to work by. When he again lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin we all looked--Arthur trembling like an aspen--and saw that the body lay there in all its death-beauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape without her soul. I could see even Arthur's face grow hard as he looked. Presently he said to Van Helsing:-- "Is this really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape?" "It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you all see her as she was, and is." She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth--which it made one shudder to see--the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity. Van Helsing, with his usual methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and placing them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and some plumbing solder, and then a small oil-lamp, which gave out, when lit in a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at fierce heat with a blue flame; then his operating knives, which he placed to hand; and last a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer, such as in households is used in the coal-cellar for breaking the lumps. To me, a doctor's preparations for work of any kind are stimulating and bracing, but the effect of these things on both Arthur and Quincey was to cause them a sort of consternation. They both, however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet. When all was ready, Van Helsing said:-- "Before we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the Un-Dead. When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that die from the preying of the Un-Dead becomes themselves Un-Dead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die; or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become _nosferatu_, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have fill us with horror. The career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun. Those children whose blood she suck are not as yet so much the worse; but if she live on, Un-Dead, more and more they lose their blood and by her power over them they come to her; and so she draw their blood with that so wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease; the tiny wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their plays unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when this now Un-Dead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free. Instead of working wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. To this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the night when sleep is not: 'It was my hand that sent her to the stars; it was the hand of him that loved her best; the hand that of all she would herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose?' Tell me if there be such a one amongst us?" We all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory; he stepped forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as snow:-- "My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!" Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder, and said:-- "Brave lad! A moment's courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It will be a fearful ordeal--be not deceived in that--but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great; from this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you all the time." "Go on," said Arthur hoarsely. "Tell me what I am to do." "Take this stake in your left hand, ready to place the point over the heart, and the hammer in your right. Then when we begin our prayer for the dead--I shall read him, I have here the book, and the others shall follow--strike in God's name, that so all may be well with the dead that we love and that the Un-Dead pass away." Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might. The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. His face was set, and high duty seemed to shine through it; the sight of it gave us courage so that our voices seemed to ring through the little vault. And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still. The terrible task was over. The hammer fell from Arthur's hand. He reeled and would have fallen had we not caught him. The great drops of sweat sprang from his forehead, and his breath came in broken gasps. It had indeed been an awful strain on him; and had he not been forced to his task by more than human considerations he could never have gone through with it. For a few minutes we were so taken up with him that we did not look towards the coffin. When we did, however, a murmur of startled surprise ran from one to the other of us. We gazed so eagerly that Arthur rose, for he had been seated on the ground, and came and looked too; and then a glad, strange light broke over his face and dispelled altogether the gloom of horror that lay upon it. There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity. True that there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and pain and waste; but these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth to what we knew. One and all we felt that the holy calm that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and symbol of the calm that was to reign for ever. Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder, and said to him:-- "And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven?" The reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old man's hand in his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said:-- "Forgiven! God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, and me peace." He put his hands on the Professor's shoulder, and laying his head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood unmoving. When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him:-- "And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning devil now--not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is the devil's Un-Dead. She is God's true dead, whose soul is with Him!" Arthur bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the tomb; the Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the point of it in the body. Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with garlic. We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the coffin-lid, and gathering up our belongings, came away. When the Professor locked the door he gave the key to Arthur. Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it seemed as if all nature were tuned to a different pitch. There was gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy. Before we moved away Van Helsing said:-- "Now, my friends, one step of our work is done, one the most harrowing to ourselves. But there remains a greater task: to find out the author of all this our sorrow and to stamp him out. I have clues which we can follow; but it is a long task, and a difficult, and there is danger in it, and pain. Shall you not all help me? We have learned to believe, all of us--is it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do we not promise to go on to the bitter end?" Each in turn, we took his hand, and the promise was made. Then said the Professor as we moved off:-- Zwei Nächte später wirst du mich treffen und um sieben Uhr mit Freund John zu Abend essen. Ich werde zwei weitere Personen bitten, zwei, die du noch nicht kennst; und ich werde bereit sein, all unsere Arbeit zu zeigen und unsere Pläne zu entfalten. Freund John, du kommst mit mir nach Hause, denn ich habe viel zu besprechen und du kannst mir helfen. Heute Nacht reise ich nach Amsterdam, but ich werde morgen Nacht zurückkehren. Und dann beginnt unsere große Suche. Aber zuerst werde ich viel zu sagen haben, damit du weißt, was zu tun ist und was gefürchtet werden muss. Dann werden wir unser Versprechen erneuern; denn uns steht eine schreckliche Aufgabe bevor, und sobald unsere Füße auf dem Pflugschar sind, dürfen wir nicht zurückweichen. 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.

Um Mitternacht sehen Dr. Seward, Van Helsing, Arthur und heilige Geister auf dem Grab von Lucy eine weiße Gestalt mit einem Kind namens Quincey Morris zum Friedhof gehen, um den Sarg zu öffnen. Der Sarg war leer. Van Helsing erklärt den anderen die seltsamen Vorkommnisse. Sie legen die heiligen Geister auf Lucys Grab und sie lässt das Kind fallen. Ihre Lippen tropfen von fleischigem Blut. Sie versucht, Arthur zu verführen, aber Van Helsing zeigt ihr das Kreuzzeichen. Sie ist zwischen dem Kreuz und den Geistern auf dem Grab gefangen. Alle Männer erklären sich bereit, ihr zu helfen, während sie den Anblick des Wesens verabscheuen. In der nächsten Nacht betreten sie das Grab und legen einen Pflock auf das Wesen und töten es.

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 youth stared at the land in front of him. Its foliages now seemed to veil powers and horrors. He was unaware of the machinery of orders that started the charge, although from the corners of his eyes he saw an officer, who looked like a boy a-horseback, come galloping, waving his hat. Suddenly he felt a straining and heaving among the men. The line fell slowly forward like a toppling wall, and, with a convulsive gasp that was intended for a cheer, the regiment began its journey. The youth was pushed and jostled for a moment before he understood the movement at all, but directly he lunged ahead and began to run. He fixed his eye upon a distant and prominent clump of trees where he had concluded the enemy were to be met, and he ran toward it as toward a goal. He had believed throughout that it was a mere question of getting over an unpleasant matter as quickly as possible, and he ran desperately, as if pursued for a murder. His face was drawn hard and tight with the stress of his endeavor. His eyes were fixed in a lurid glare. And with his soiled and disordered dress, his red and inflamed features surmounted by the dingy rag with its spot of blood, his wildly swinging rifle and banging accouterments, he looked to be an insane soldier. As the regiment swung from its position out into a cleared space the woods and thickets before it awakened. Yellow flames leaped toward it from many directions. The forest made a tremendous objection. The line lurched straight for a moment. Then the right wing swung forward; it in turn was surpassed by the left. Afterward the center careered to the front until the regiment was a wedge-shaped mass, but an instant later the opposition of the bushes, trees, and uneven places on the ground split the command and scattered it into detached clusters. The youth, light-footed, was unconsciously in advance. His eyes still kept note of the clump of trees. From all places near it the clannish yell of the enemy could be heard. The little flames of rifles leaped from it. The song of the bullets was in the air and shells snarled among the tree-tops. One tumbled directly into the middle of a hurrying group and exploded in crimson fury. There was an instant's spectacle of a man, almost over it, throwing up his hands to shield his eyes. Other men, punched by bullets, fell in grotesque agonies. The regiment left a coherent trail of bodies. They had passed into a clearer atmosphere. There was an effect like a revelation in the new appearance of the landscape. Some men working madly at a battery were plain to them, and the opposing infantry's lines were defined by the gray walls and fringes of smoke. It seemed to the youth that he saw everything. Each blade of the green grass was bold and clear. He thought that he was aware of every change in the thin, transparent vapor that floated idly in sheets. The brown or gray trunks of the trees showed each roughness of their surfaces. And the men of the regiment, with their starting eyes and sweating faces, running madly, or falling, as if thrown headlong, to queer, heaped-up corpses--all were comprehended. His mind took a mechanical but firm impression, so that afterward everything was pictured and explained to him, save why he himself was there. But there was a frenzy made from this furious rush. The men, pitching forward insanely, had burst into cheerings, moblike and barbaric, but tuned in strange keys that can arouse the dullard and the stoic. It made a mad enthusiasm that, it seemed, would be incapable of checking itself before granite and brass. There was the delirium that encounters despair and death, and is heedless and blind to the odds. It is a temporary but sublime absence of selfishness. And because it was of this order was the reason, perhaps, why the youth wondered, afterward, what reasons he could have had for being there. Presently the straining pace ate up the energies of the men. As if by agreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed. The volleys directed against them had had a seeming windlike effect. The regiment snorted and blew. Among some stolid trees it began to falter and hesitate. The men, staring intently, began to wait for some of the distant walls of smoke to move and disclose to them the scene. Since much of their strength and their breath had vanished, they returned to caution. They were become men again. The youth had a vague belief that he had run miles, and he thought, in a way, that he was now in some new and unknown land. The moment the regiment ceased its advance the protesting splutter of musketry became a steadied roar. Long and accurate fringes of smoke spread out. From the top of a small hill came level belchings of yellow flame that caused an inhuman whistling in the air. The men, halted, had opportunity to see some of their comrades dropping with moans and shrieks. A few lay under foot, still or wailing. And now for an instant the men stood, their rifles slack in their hands, and watched the regiment dwindle. They appeared dazed and stupid. This spectacle seemed to paralyze them, overcome them with a fatal fascination. They stared woodenly at the sights, and, lowering their eyes, looked from face to face. It was a strange pause, and a strange silence. Then, above the sounds of the outside commotion, arose the roar of the lieutenant. He strode suddenly forth, his infantile features black with rage. "Come on, yeh fools!" he bellowed. "Come on! Yeh can't stay here. Yeh must come on." He said more, but much of it could not be understood. He started rapidly forward, with his head turned toward the men. "Come on," he was shouting. The men stared with blank and yokel-like eyes at him. He was obliged to halt and retrace his steps. He stood then with his back to the enemy and delivered gigantic curses into the faces of the men. His body vibrated from the weight and force of his imprecations. And he could string oaths with the facility of a maiden who strings beads. The friend of the youth aroused. Lurching suddenly forward and dropping to his knees, he fired an angry shot at the persistent woods. This action awakened the men. They huddled no more like sheep. They seemed suddenly to bethink them of their weapons, and at once commenced firing. Belabored by their officers, they began to move forward. The regiment, involved like a cart involved in mud and muddle, started unevenly with many jolts and jerks. The men stopped now every few paces to fire and load, and in this manner moved slowly on from trees to trees. The flaming opposition in their front grew with their advance until it seemed that all forward ways were barred by the thin leaping tongues, and off to the right an ominous demonstration could sometimes be dimly discerned. The smoke lately generated was in confusing clouds that made it difficult for the regiment to proceed with intelligence. As he passed through each curling mass the youth wondered what would confront him on the farther side. The command went painfully forward until an open space interposed between them and the lurid lines. Here, crouching and cowering behind some trees, the men clung with desperation, as if threatened by a wave. They looked wild-eyed, and as if amazed at this furious disturbance they had stirred. In the storm there was an ironical expression of their importance. The faces of the men, too, showed a lack of a certain feeling of responsibility for being there. It was as if they had been driven. It was the dominant animal failing to remember in the supreme moments the forceful causes of various superficial qualities. The whole affair seemed incomprehensible to many of them. As they halted thus the lieutenant again began to bellow profanely. Regardless of the vindictive threats of the bullets, he went about coaxing, berating, and bedamning. His lips, that were habitually in a soft and childlike curve, were now writhed into unholy contortions. He swore by all possible deities. Once he grabbed the youth by the arm. "Come on, yeh lunkhead!" he roared. "Come on! We'll all git killed if we stay here. We've on'y got t' go across that lot. An' then"--the remainder of his idea disappeared in a blue haze of curses. The youth stretched forth his arm. "Cross there?" His mouth was puckered in doubt and awe. "Certainly. Jest 'cross th' lot! We can't stay here," screamed the lieutenant. He poked his face close to the youth and waved his bandaged hand. "Come on!" Presently he grappled with him as if for a wrestling bout. It was as if he planned to drag the youth by the ear on to the assault. The private felt a sudden unspeakable indignation against his officer. He wrenched fiercely and shook him off. "Come on yerself, then," he yelled. There was a bitter challenge in his voice. They galloped together down the regimental front. The friend scrambled after them. In front of the colors the three men began to bawl: "Come on! come on!" They danced and gyrated like tortured savages. The flag, obedient to these appeals, bended its glittering form and swept toward them. The men wavered in indecision for a moment, and then with a long, wailful cry the dilapidated regiment surged forward and began its new journey. Over the field went the scurrying mass. It was a handful of men splattered into the faces of the enemy. Toward it instantly sprang the yellow tongues. A vast quantity of blue smoke hung before them. A mighty banging made ears valueless. The youth ran like a madman to reach the woods before a bullet could discover him. He ducked his head low, like a football player. In his haste his eyes almost closed, and the scene was a wild blur. Pulsating saliva stood at the corners of his mouth. Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairing fondness for this flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty and invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that bended its form with an imperious gesture to him. It was a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Because no harm could come to it he endowed it with power. He kept near, as if it could be a saver of lives, and an imploring cry went from his mind. In the mad scramble he was aware that the color sergeant flinched suddenly, as if struck by a bludgeon. He faltered, and then became motionless, save for his quivering knees. He made a spring and a clutch at the pole. At the same instant his friend grabbed it from the other side. They jerked at it, stout and furious, but the color sergeant was dead, and the corpse would not relinquish its trust. For a moment there was a grim encounter. The dead man, swinging with bended back, seemed to be obstinately tugging, in ludicrous and awful ways, for the possession of the flag. It was past in an instant of time. They wrenched the flag furiously from the dead man, and, as they turned again, the corpse swayed forward with bowed head. One arm swung high, and the curved hand fell with heavy protest on the friend's unheeding shoulder. 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.

Als die Männer auf den Feind zustürmen, scheint Henry alles mit vollständiger und absoluter Klarheit zu sehen. Jedes Grashalm, jeder Baumstamm, die einzelnen Leichen sind ihm plötzlich in einer Weise klar, wie es bisher noch nie der Fall war. Er und die anderen Männer zögern, als würden sie ihren eigenen Tod spüren, aber ihr Leutnant schreit sie an in einem "blauen Dunst von Flüchen". Der Leutnant könne "Schwüre aneinanderreihen wie eine Jungfrau Perlen" Die Männer rennen vorwärts, inklusive Henry, der plötzlich seinen "inneren Kriegsgeist" wiedergefunden hat. Der Fahnenträger wird angeschossen und lässt beinahe die Flagge fallen, aber Henry der Kriegsgeist schnappt sich die Flagge und rennt mit ihr direkt auf den Feind zu, mit Wilsons 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. Chapter: Her situation was, indeed, one of no common trial and difficulty. While she felt the most eager and burning desire to penetrate the mystery in which Oliver's history was enveloped, she could not but hold sacred the confidence which the miserable woman with whom she had just conversed, had reposed in her, as a young and guileless girl. Her words and manner had touched Rose Maylie's heart; and, mingled with her love for her young charge, and scarcely less intense in its truth and fervour, was her fond wish to win the outcast back to repentance and hope. They purposed remaining in London only three days, prior to departing for some weeks to a distant part of the coast. It was now midnight of the first day. What course of action could she determine upon, which could be adopted in eight-and-forty hours? Or how could she postpone the journey without exciting suspicion? Mr. Losberne was with them, and would be for the next two days; but Rose was too well acquainted with the excellent gentleman's impetuosity, and foresaw too clearly the wrath with which, in the first explosion of his indignation, he would regard the instrument of Oliver's recapture, to trust him with the secret, when her representations in the girl's behalf could be seconded by no experienced person. These were all reasons for the greatest caution and most circumspect behaviour in communicating it to Mrs. Maylie, whose first impulse would infallibly be to hold a conference with the worthy doctor on the subject. As to resorting to any legal adviser, even if she had known how to do so, it was scarcely to be thought of, for the same reason. Once the thought occurred to her of seeking assistance from Harry; but this awakened the recollection of their last parting, and it seemed unworthy of her to call him back, when--the tears rose to her eyes as she pursued this train of reflection--he might have by this time learnt to forget her, and to be happier away. Disturbed by these different reflections; inclining now to one course and then to another, and again recoiling from all, as each successive consideration presented itself to her mind; Rose passed a sleepless and anxious night. After more communing with herself next day, she arrived at the desperate conclusion of consulting Harry. 'If it be painful to him,' she thought, 'to come back here, how painful it will be to me! But perhaps he will not come; he may write, or he may come himself, and studiously abstain from meeting me--he did when he went away. I hardly thought he would; but it was better for us both.' And here Rose dropped the pen, and turned away, as though the very paper which was to be her messenger should not see her weep. She had taken up the same pen, and laid it down again fifty times, and had considered and reconsidered the first line of her letter without writing the first word, when Oliver, who had been walking in the streets, with Mr. Giles for a body-guard, entered the room in such breathless haste and violent agitation, as seemed to betoken some new cause of alarm. 'What makes you look so flurried?' asked Rose, advancing to meet him. 'I hardly know how; I feel as if I should be choked,' replied the boy. 'Oh dear! To think that I should see him at last, and you should be able to know that I have told you the truth!' 'I never thought you had told us anything but the truth,' said Rose, soothing him. 'But what is this?--of whom do you speak?' 'I have seen the gentleman,' replied Oliver, scarcely able to articulate, 'the gentleman who was so good to me--Mr. Brownlow, that we have so often talked about.' 'Where?' asked Rose. 'Getting out of a coach,' replied Oliver, shedding tears of delight, 'and going into a house. I didn't speak to him--I couldn't speak to him, for he didn't see me, and I trembled so, that I was not able to go up to him. But Giles asked, for me, whether he lived there, and they said he did. Look here,' said Oliver, opening a scrap of paper, 'here it is; here's where he lives--I'm going there directly! Oh, dear me, dear me! What shall I do when I come to see him and hear him speak again!' With her attention not a little distracted by these and a great many other incoherent exclamations of joy, Rose read the address, which was Craven Street, in the Strand. She very soon determined upon turning the discovery to account. 'Quick!' she said. 'Tell them to fetch a hackney-coach, and be ready to go with me. I will take you there directly, without a minute's loss of time. I will only tell my aunt that we are going out for an hour, and be ready as soon as you are.' Oliver needed no prompting to despatch, and in little more than five minutes they were on their way to Craven Street. When they arrived there, Rose left Oliver in the coach, under pretence of preparing the old gentleman to receive him; and sending up her card by the servant, requested to see Mr. Brownlow on very pressing business. The servant soon returned, to beg that she would walk upstairs; and following him into an upper room, Miss Maylie was presented to an elderly gentleman of benevolent appearance, in a bottle-green coat. At no great distance from whom, was seated another old gentleman, in nankeen breeches and gaiters; who did not look particularly benevolent, and who was sitting with his hands clasped on the top of a thick stick, and his chin propped thereupon. 'Dear me,' said the gentleman, in the bottle-green coat, hastily rising with great politeness, 'I beg your pardon, young lady--I imagined it was some importunate person who--I beg you will excuse me. Be seated, pray.' 'Mr. Brownlow, I believe, sir?' said Rose, glancing from the other gentleman to the one who had spoken. 'That is my name,' said the old gentleman. 'This is my friend, Mr. Grimwig. Grimwig, will you leave us for a few minutes?' 'I believe,' interposed Miss Maylie, 'that at this period of our interview, I need not give that gentleman the trouble of going away. If I am correctly informed, he is cognizant of the business on which I wish to speak to you.' Mr. Brownlow inclined his head. Mr. Grimwig, who had made one very stiff bow, and risen from his chair, made another very stiff bow, and dropped into it again. 'I shall surprise you very much, I have no doubt,' said Rose, naturally embarrassed; 'but you once showed great benevolence and goodness to a very dear young friend of mine, and I am sure you will take an interest in hearing of him again.' 'Indeed!' said Mr. Brownlow. 'Oliver Twist you knew him as,' replied Rose. The words no sooner escaped her lips, than Mr. Grimwig, who had been affecting to dip into a large book that lay on the table, upset it with a great crash, and falling back in his chair, discharged from his features every expression but one of unmitigated wonder, and indulged in a prolonged and vacant stare; then, as if ashamed of having betrayed so much emotion, he jerked himself, as it were, by a convulsion into his former attitude, and looking out straight before him emitted a long deep whistle, which seemed, at last, not to be discharged on empty air, but to die away in the innermost recesses of his stomach. Mr. Browlow was no less surprised, although his astonishment was not expressed in the same eccentric manner. He drew his chair nearer to Miss Maylie's, and said, 'Do me the favour, my dear young lady, to leave entirely out of the question that goodness and benevolence of which you speak, and of which nobody else knows anything; and if you have it in your power to produce any evidence which will alter the unfavourable opinion I was once induced to entertain of that poor child, in Heaven's name put me in possession of it.' 'A bad one! I'll eat my head if he is not a bad one,' growled Mr. Grimwig, speaking by some ventriloquial power, without moving a muscle of his face. 'He is a child of a noble nature and a warm heart,' said Rose, colouring; 'and that Power which has thought fit to try him beyond his years, has planted in his breast affections and feelings which would do honour to many who have numbered his days six times over.' 'I'm only sixty-one,' said Mr. Grimwig, with the same rigid face. 'And, as the devil's in it if this Oliver is not twelve years old at least, I don't see the application of that remark.' 'Do not heed my friend, Miss Maylie,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'he does not mean what he says.' 'Yes, he does,' growled Mr. Grimwig. 'No, he does not,' said Mr. Brownlow, obviously rising in wrath as he spoke. 'He'll eat his head, if he doesn't,' growled Mr. Grimwig. 'He would deserve to have it knocked off, if he does,' said Mr. Brownlow. 'And he'd uncommonly like to see any man offer to do it,' responded Mr. Grimwig, knocking his stick upon the floor. Having gone thus far, the two old gentlemen severally took snuff, and afterwards shook hands, according to their invariable custom. 'Now, Miss Maylie,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'to return to the subject in which your humanity is so much interested. Will you let me know what intelligence you have of this poor child: allowing me to promise that I exhausted every means in my power of discovering him, and that since I have been absent from this country, my first impression that he had imposed upon me, and had been persuaded by his former associates to rob me, has been considerably shaken.' Rose, who had had time to collect her thoughts, at once related, in a few natural words, all that had befallen Oliver since he left Mr. Brownlow's house; reserving Nancy's information for that gentleman's private ear, and concluding with the assurance that his only sorrow, for some months past, had been not being able to meet with his former benefactor and friend. 'Thank God!' said the old gentleman. 'This is great happiness to me, great happiness. But you have not told me where he is now, Miss Maylie. You must pardon my finding fault with you,--but why not have brought him?' 'He is waiting in a coach at the door,' replied Rose. 'At this door!' cried the old gentleman. With which he hurried out of the room, down the stairs, up the coachsteps, and into the coach, without another word. When the room-door closed behind him, Mr. Grimwig lifted up his head, and converting one of the hind legs of his chair into a pivot, described three distinct circles with the assistance of his stick and the table; sitting in it all the time. After performing this evolution, he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the room at least a dozen times, and then stopping suddenly before Rose, kissed her without the slightest preface. 'Hush!' he said, as the young lady rose in some alarm at this unusual proceeding. 'Don't be afraid. I'm old enough to be your grandfather. You're a sweet girl. I like you. Here they are!' In fact, as he threw himself at one dexterous dive into his former seat, Mr. Brownlow returned, accompanied by Oliver, whom Mr. Grimwig received very graciously; and if the gratification of that moment had been the only reward for all her anxiety and care in Oliver's behalf, Rose Maylie would have been well repaid. 'There is somebody else who should not be forgotten, by the bye,' said Mr. Brownlow, ringing the bell. 'Send Mrs. Bedwin here, if you please.' The old housekeeper answered the summons with all dispatch; and dropping a curtsey at the door, waited for orders. 'Why, you get blinder every day, Bedwin,' said Mr. Brownlow, rather testily. 'Well, that I do, sir,' replied the old lady. 'People's eyes, at my time of life, don't improve with age, sir.' 'I could have told you that,' rejoined Mr. Brownlow; 'but put on your glasses, and see if you can't find out what you were wanted for, will you?' The old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. But Oliver's patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to his first impulse, he sprang into her arms. 'God be good to me!' cried the old lady, embracing him; 'it is my innocent boy!' 'My dear old nurse!' cried Oliver. 'He would come back--I knew he would,' said the old lady, holding him in her arms. 'How well he looks, and how like a gentleman's son he is dressed again! Where have you been, this long, long while? Ah! the same sweet face, but not so pale; the same soft eye, but not so sad. I have never forgotten them or his quiet smile, but have seen them every day, side by side with those of my own dear children, dead and gone since I was a lightsome young creature.' Running on thus, and now holding Oliver from her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to her and passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul laughed and wept upon his neck by turns. Leaving her and Oliver to compare notes at leisure, Mr. Brownlow led the way into another room; and there, heard from Rose a full narration of her interview with Nancy, which occasioned him no little surprise and perplexity. Rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in her friend Mr. Losberne in the first instance. The old gentleman considered that she had acted prudently, and readily undertook to hold solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself. To afford him an early opportunity for the execution of this design, it was arranged that he should call at the hotel at eight o'clock that evening, and that in the meantime Mrs. Maylie should be cautiously informed of all that had occurred. These preliminaries adjusted, Rose and Oliver returned home. Rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor's wrath. Nancy's history was no sooner unfolded to him, than he poured forth a shower of mingled threats and execrations; threatened to make her the first victim of the combined ingenuity of Messrs. Blathers and Duff; and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the assistance of those worthies. And, doubtless, he would, in this first outbreak, have carried the intention into effect without a moment's consideration of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in part, by corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow, who was himself of an irascible temperament, and party by such arguments and representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his hotbrained purpose. 'Then what the devil is to be done?' said the impetuous doctor, when they had rejoined the two ladies. 'Are we to pass a vote of thanks to all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?' 'Not exactly that,' rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; 'but we must proceed gently and with great care.' 'Gentleness and care,' exclaimed the doctor. 'I'd send them one and all to--' 'Never mind where,' interposed Mr. Brownlow. 'But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view.' 'What object?' asked the doctor. 'Simply, the discovery of Oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived.' 'Ah!' said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief; 'I almost forgot that.' 'You see,' pursued Mr. Brownlow; 'placing this poor girl entirely out of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should we bring about?' 'Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability,' suggested the doctor, 'and transporting the rest.' 'Very good,' replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling; 'but no doubt they will bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time, and if we step in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very Quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own interest--or at least to Oliver's, which is the same thing.' 'How?' inquired the doctor. 'Thus. It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this man, Monks, upon his knees. That can only be done by stratagem, and by catching him when he is not surrounded by these people. For, suppose he were apprehended, we have no proof against him. He is not even (so far as we know, or as the facts appear to us) concerned with the gang in any of their robberies. If he were not discharged, it is very unlikely that he could receive any further punishment than being committed to prison as a rogue and vagabond; and of course ever afterwards his mouth would be so obstinately closed that he might as well, for our purposes, be deaf, dumb, blind, and an idiot.' 'Then,' said the doctor impetuously, 'I put it to you again, whether you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be considered binding; a promise made with the best and kindest intentions, but really--' 'Do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray,' said Mr. Brownlow, interrupting Rose as she was about to speak. 'The promise shall be kept. I don't think it will, in the slightest degree, interfere with our proceedings. But, before we can resolve upon any precise course of action, it will be necessary to see the girl; to ascertain from her whether she will point out this Monks, on the understanding that he is to be dealt with by us, and not by the law; or, if she will not, or cannot do that, to procure from her such an account of his haunts and description of his person, as will enable us to identify him. She cannot be seen until next Sunday night; this is Tuesday. I would suggest that in the meantime, we remain perfectly quiet, and keep these matters secret even from Oliver himself.' Although Mr. Losberne received with many wry faces a proposal involving a delay of five whole days, he was fain to admit that no better course occurred to him just then; and as both Rose and Mrs. Maylie sided very strongly with Mr. Brownlow, that gentleman's proposition was carried unanimously. 'I should like,' he said, 'to call in the aid of my friend Grimwig. He is a strange creature, but a shrewd one, and might prove of material assistance to us; I should say that he was bred a lawyer, and quitted the Bar in disgust because he had only one brief and a motion of course, in twenty years, though whether that is recommendation or not, you must determine for yourselves.' 'I have no objection to your calling in your friend if I may call in mine,' said the doctor. 'We must put it to the vote,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'who may he be?' 'That lady's son, and this young lady's--very old friend,' said the doctor, motioning towards Mrs. Maylie, and concluding with an expressive glance at her niece. Rose blushed deeply, but she did not make any audible objection to this motion (possibly she felt in a hopeless minority); and Harry Maylie and Mr. Grimwig were accordingly added to the committee. 'We stay in town, of course,' said Mrs. Maylie, 'while there remains the slightest prospect of prosecuting this inquiry with a chance of success. I will spare neither trouble nor expense in behalf of the object in which we are all so deeply interested, and I am content to remain here, if it be for twelve months, so long as you assure me that any hope remains.' 'Good!' rejoined Mr. Brownlow. 'And as I see on the faces about me, a disposition to inquire how it happened that I was not in the way to corroborate Oliver's tale, and had so suddenly left the kingdom, let me stipulate that I shall be asked no questions until such time as I may deem it expedient to forestall them by telling my own story. Believe me, I make this request with good reason, for I might otherwise excite hopes destined never to be realised, and only increase difficulties and disappointments already quite numerous enough. Come! Supper has been announced, and young Oliver, who is all alone in the next room, will have begun to think, by this time, that we have wearied of his company, and entered into some dark conspiracy to thrust him forth upon the world.' With these words, the old gentleman gave his hand to Mrs. Maylie, and escorted her into the supper-room. Mr. Losberne followed, leading Rose; and the council was, for the present, effectually broken up. Upon the night when Nancy, having lulled Mr. Sikes to sleep, hurried on her self-imposed mission to Rose Maylie, there advanced towards London, by the Great North Road, two persons, upon whom it is expedient that this history should bestow some attention. They were a man and woman; or perhaps they would be better described as a male and female: for the former was one of those long-limbed, knock-kneed, shambling, bony people, to whom it is difficult to assign any precise age,--looking as they do, when they are yet boys, like undergrown men, and when they are almost men, like overgrown boys. The woman was young, but of a robust and hardy make, as she need have been to bear the weight of the heavy bundle which was strapped to her back. Her companion was not encumbered with much luggage, as there merely dangled from a stick which he carried over his shoulder, a small parcel wrapped in a common handkerchief, and apparently light enough. This circumstance, added to the length of his legs, which were of unusual extent, enabled him with much ease to keep some half-dozen paces in advance of his companion, to whom he occasionally turned with an impatient jerk of the head: as if reproaching her tardiness, and urging her to greater exertion. Thus, they had toiled along the dusty road, taking little heed of any object within sight, save when they stepped aside to allow a wider passage for the mail-coaches which were whirling out of town, until they passed through Highgate archway; when the foremost traveller stopped and called impatiently to his companion, 'Come on, can't yer? What a lazybones yer are, Charlotte.' 'It's a heavy load, I can tell you,' said the female, coming up, almost breathless with fatigue. 'Heavy! What are yer talking about? What are yer made for?' rejoined the male traveller, changing his own little bundle as he spoke, to the other shoulder. 'Oh, there yer are, resting again! Well, if yer ain't enough to tire anybody's patience out, I don't know what is!' 'Is it much farther?' asked the woman, resting herself against a bank, and looking up with the perspiration streaming from her face. 'Much farther! Yer as good as there,' said the long-legged tramper, pointing out before him. 'Look there! Those are the lights of London.' 'They're a good two mile off, at least,' said the woman despondingly. 'Never mind whether they're two mile off, or twenty,' said Noah Claypole; for he it was; 'but get up and come on, or I'll kick yer, and so I give yer notice.' As Noah's red nose grew redder with anger, and as he crossed the road while speaking, as if fully prepared to put his threat into execution, the woman rose without any further remark, and trudged onward by his side. 'Where do you mean to stop for the night, Noah?' she asked, after they had walked a few hundred yards. 'How should I know?' replied Noah, whose temper had been considerably impaired by walking. 'Near, I hope,' said Charlotte. 'No, not near,' replied Mr. Claypole. 'There! Not near; so don't think it.' 'Why not?' 'When I tell yer that I don't mean to do a thing, that's enough, without any why or because either,' replied Mr. Claypole with dignity. 'Well, you needn't be so cross,' said his companion. 'A pretty thing it would be, wouldn't it to go and stop at the very first public-house outside the town, so that Sowerberry, if he come up after us, might poke in his old nose, and have us taken back in a cart with handcuffs on,' said Mr. Claypole in a jeering tone. 'No! I shall go and lose myself among the narrowest streets I can find, and not stop till we come to the very out-of-the-wayest house I can set eyes on. 'Cod, yer may thanks yer stars I've got a head; for if we hadn't gone, at first, the wrong road a purpose, and come back across country, yer'd have been locked up hard and fast a week ago, my lady. And serve yer right for being a fool.' 'I know I ain't as cunning as you are,' replied Charlotte; 'but don't put all the blame on me, and say I should have been locked up. You would have been if I had been, any way.' 'Yer took the money from the till, yer know yer did,' said Mr. Claypole. 'I took it for you, Noah, dear,' rejoined Charlotte. 'Did I keep it?' asked Mr. Claypole. 'No; you trusted in me, and let me carry it like a dear, and so you are,' said the lady, chucking him under the chin, and drawing her arm through his. This was indeed the case; but as it was not Mr. Claypole's habit to repose a blind and foolish confidence in anybody, it should be observed, in justice to that gentleman, that he had trusted Charlotte to this extent, in order that, if they were pursued, the money might be found on her: which would leave him an opportunity of asserting his innocence of any theft, and would greatly facilitate his chances of escape. Of course, he entered at this juncture, into no explanation of his motives, and they walked on very lovingly together. In pursuance of this cautious plan, Mr. Claypole went on, without halting, until he arrived at the Angel at Islington, where he wisely judged, from the crowd of passengers and numbers of vehicles, that London began in earnest. Just pausing to observe which appeared the most crowded streets, and consequently the most to be avoided, he crossed into Saint John's Road, and was soon deep in the obscurity of the intricate and dirty ways, which, lying between Gray's Inn Lane and Smithfield, render that part of the town one of the lowest and worst that improvement has left in the midst of London. Through these streets, Noah Claypole walked, dragging Charlotte after him; now stepping into the kennel to embrace at a glance the whole external character of some small public-house; now jogging on again, as some fancied appearance induced him to believe it too public for his purpose. At length, he stopped in front of one, more humble in appearance and more dirty than any he had yet seen; and, having crossed over and surveyed it from the opposite pavement, graciously announced his intention of putting up there, for the night. 'So give us the bundle,' said Noah, unstrapping it from the woman's shoulders, and slinging it over his own; 'and don't yer speak, except when yer spoke to. What's the name of the house--t-h-r--three what?' 'Cripples,' said Charlotte. 'Three Cripples,' repeated Noah, 'and a very good sign too. Now, then! Keep close at my heels, and come along.' With these injunctions, he pushed the rattling door with his shoulder, and entered the house, followed by his companion. There was nobody in the bar but a young Jew, who, with his two elbows on the counter, was reading a dirty newspaper. He stared very hard at Noah, and Noah stared very hard at him. If Noah had been attired in his charity-boy's dress, there might have been some reason for the Jew opening his eyes so wide; but as he had discarded the coat and badge, and wore a short smock-frock over his leathers, there seemed no particular reason for his appearance exciting so much attention in a public-house. 'Is this the Three Cripples?' asked Noah. 'That is the dabe of this 'ouse,' replied the Jew. 'A gentleman we met on the road, coming up from the country, recommended us here,' said Noah, nudging Charlotte, perhaps to call her attention to this most ingenious device for attracting respect, and perhaps to warn her to betray no surprise. 'We want to sleep here to-night.' 'I'b dot certaid you cad,' said Barney, who was the attendant sprite; 'but I'll idquire.' 'Show us the tap, and give us a bit of cold meat and a drop of beer while yer inquiring, will yer?' said Noah. Barney complied by ushering them into a small back-room, and setting the required viands before them; having done which, he informed the travellers that they could be lodged that night, and left the amiable couple to their refreshment. Now, this back-room was immediately behind the bar, and some steps lower, so that any person connected with the house, undrawing a small curtain which concealed a single pane of glass fixed in the wall of the last-named apartment, about five feet from its flooring, could not only look down upon any guests in the back-room without any great hazard of being observed (the glass being in a dark angle of the wall, between which and a large upright beam the observer had to thrust himself), but could, by applying his ear to the partition, ascertain with tolerable distinctness, their subject of conversation. The landlord of the house had not withdrawn his eye from this place of espial for five minutes, and Barney had only just returned from making the communication above related, when Fagin, in the course of his evening's business, came into the bar to inquire after some of his young pupils. 'Hush!' said Barney: 'stradegers id the next roob.' 'Strangers!' repeated the old man in a whisper. 'Ah! Ad rub uds too,' added Barney. 'Frob the cuttry, but subthig in your way, or I'b bistaked.' Fagin appeared to receive this communication with great interest. Mounting a stool, he cautiously applied his eye to the pane of glass, from which secret post he could see Mr. Claypole taking cold beef from the dish, and porter from the pot, and administering homeopathic doses of both to Charlotte, who sat patiently by, eating and drinking at his pleasure. 'Aha!' he whispered, looking round to Barney, 'I like that fellow's looks. He'd be of use to us; he knows how to train the girl already. Don't make as much noise as a mouse, my dear, and let me hear 'em talk--let me hear 'em.' He again applied his eye to the glass, and turning his ear to the partition, listened attentively: with a subtle and eager look upon his face, that might have appertained to some old goblin. 'So I mean to be a gentleman,' said Mr. Claypole, kicking out his legs, and continuing a conversation, the commencement of which Fagin had arrived too late to hear. 'No more jolly old coffins, Charlotte, but a gentleman's life for me: and, if yer like, yer shall be a lady.' 'I should like that well enough, dear,' replied Charlotte; 'but tills ain't to be emptied every day, and people to get clear off after it.' 'Tills be blowed!' said Mr. Claypole; 'there's more things besides tills to be emptied.' 'What do you mean?' asked his companion. 'Pockets, women's ridicules, houses, mail-coaches, banks!' said Mr. Claypole, rising with the porter. 'But you can't do all that, dear,' said Charlotte. 'I shall look out to get into company with them as can,' replied Noah. 'They'll be able to make us useful some way or another. Why, you yourself are worth fifty women; I never see such a precious sly and deceitful creetur as yer can be when I let yer.' 'Lor, how nice it is to hear yer say so!' exclaimed Charlotte, imprinting a kiss upon his ugly face. 'There, that'll do: don't yer be too affectionate, in case I'm cross with yer,' said Noah, disengaging himself with great gravity. 'I should like to be the captain of some band, and have the whopping of 'em, and follering 'em about, unbeknown to themselves. That would suit me, if there was good profit; and if we could only get in with some gentleman of this sort, I say it would be cheap at that twenty-pound note you've got,--especially as we don't very well know how to get rid of it ourselves.' After expressing this opinion, Mr. Claypole looked into the porter-pot with an aspect of deep wisdom; and having well shaken its contents, nodded condescendingly to Charlotte, and took a draught, wherewith he appeared greatly refreshed. He was meditating another, when the sudden opening of the door, and the appearance of a stranger, interrupted him. The stranger was Mr. Fagin. And very amiable he looked, and a very low bow he made, as he advanced, and setting himself down at the nearest table, ordered something to drink of the grinning Barney. 'A pleasant night, sir, but cool for the time of year,' said Fagin, rubbing his hands. 'From the country, I see, sir?' 'How do yer see that?' asked Noah Claypole. 'We have not so much dust as that in London,' replied Fagin, pointing from Noah's shoes to those of his companion, and from them to the two bundles. 'Yer a sharp feller,' said Noah. 'Ha! ha! only hear that, Charlotte!' 'Why, one need be sharp in this town, my dear,' replied the Jew, sinking his voice to a confidential whisper; 'and that's the truth.' Fagin followed up this remark by striking the side of his nose with his right forefinger,--a gesture which Noah attempted to imitate, though not with complete success, in consequence of his own nose not being large enough for the purpose. However, Mr. Fagin seemed to interpret the endeavour as expressing a perfect coincidence with his opinion, and put about the liquor which Barney reappeared with, in a very friendly manner. 'Good stuff that,' observed Mr. Claypole, smacking his lips. 'Dear!' said Fagin. 'A man need be always emptying a till, or a pocket, or a woman's reticule, or a house, or a mail-coach, or a bank, if he drinks it regularly.' Mr. Claypole no sooner heard this extract from his own remarks than he fell back in his chair, and looked from the Jew to Charlotte with a countenance of ashy paleness and excessive terror. 'Don't mind me, my dear,' said Fagin, drawing his chair closer. 'Ha! ha! it was lucky it was only me that heard you by chance. It was very lucky it was only me.' 'I didn't take it,' stammered Noah, no longer stretching out his legs like an independent gentleman, but coiling them up as well as he could under his chair; 'it was all her doing; yer've got it now, Charlotte, yer know yer have.' 'No matter who's got it, or who did it, my dear,' replied Fagin, glancing, nevertheless, with a hawk's eye at the girl and the two bundles. 'I'm in that way myself, and I like you for it.' 'In what way?' asked Mr. Claypole, a little recovering. 'In that way of business,' rejoined Fagin; 'and so are the people of the house. You've hit the right nail upon the head, and are as safe here as you could be. There is not a safer place in all this town than is the Cripples; that is, when I like to make it so. And I have taken a fancy to you and the young woman; so I've said the word, and you may make your minds easy.' Noah Claypole's mind might have been at ease after this assurance, but his body certainly was not; for he shuffled and writhed about, into various uncouth positions: eyeing his new friend meanwhile with mingled fear and suspicion. 'I'll tell you more,' said Fagin, after he had reassured the girl, by dint of friendly nods and muttered encouragements. 'I have got a friend that I think can gratify your darling wish, and put you in the right way, where you can take whatever department of the business you think will suit you best at first, and be taught all the others.' 'Yer speak as if yer were in earnest,' replied Noah. 'What advantage would it be to me to be anything else?' inquired Fagin, shrugging his shoulders. 'Here! Let me have a word with you outside.' 'There's no occasion to trouble ourselves to move,' said Noah, getting his legs by gradual degrees abroad again. 'She'll take the luggage upstairs the while. Charlotte, see to them bundles.' This mandate, which had been delivered with great majesty, was obeyed without the slightest demur; and Charlotte made the best of her way off with the packages while Noah held the door open and watched her out. 'She's kept tolerably well under, ain't she?' he asked as he resumed his seat: in the tone of a keeper who had tamed some wild animal. 'Quite perfect,' rejoined Fagin, clapping him on the shoulder. 'You're a genius, my dear.' 'Why, I suppose if I wasn't, I shouldn't be here,' replied Noah. 'But, I say, she'll be back if yer lose time.' 'Now, what do you think?' said Fagin. 'If you was to like my friend, could you do better than join him?' 'Is he in a good way of business; that's where it is!' responded Noah, winking one of his little eyes. 'The top of the tree; employs a power of hands; has the very best society in the profession.' 'Regular town-maders?' asked Mr. Claypole. 'Not a countryman among 'em; and I don't think he'd take you, even on my recommendation, if he didn't run rather short of assistants just now,' replied Fagin. 'Should I have to hand over?' said Noah, slapping his breeches-pocket. 'It couldn't possibly be done without,' replied Fagin, in a most decided manner. 'Twenty pound, though--it's a lot of money!' 'Not when it's in a note you can't get rid of,' retorted Fagin. 'Number and date taken, I suppose? Payment stopped at the Bank? Ah! It's not worth much to him. It'll have to go abroad, and he couldn't sell it for a great deal in the market.' 'When could I see him?' asked Noah doubtfully. 'To-morrow morning.' 'Where?' 'Here.' 'Um!' said Noah. 'What's the wages?' 'Live like a gentleman--board and lodging, pipes and spirits free--half of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns,' replied Mr. Fagin. Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately (and more unlikely things had come to pass), he gradually relented, and said he thought that would suit him. 'But, yer see,' observed Noah, 'as she will be able to do a good deal, I should like to take something very light.' 'A little fancy work?' suggested Fagin. 'Ah! something of that sort,' replied Noah. 'What do you think would suit me now? Something not too trying for the strength, and not very dangerous, you know. That's the sort of thing!' 'I heard you talk of something in the spy way upon the others, my dear,' said Fagin. 'My friend wants somebody who would do that well, very much.' 'Why, I did mention that, and I shouldn't mind turning my hand to it sometimes,' rejoined Mr. Claypole slowly; 'but it wouldn't pay by itself, you know.' 'That's true!' observed the Jew, ruminating or pretending to ruminate. 'No, it might not.' 'What do you think, then?' asked Noah, anxiously regarding him. 'Something in the sneaking way, where it was pretty sure work, and not much more risk than being at home.' 'What do you think of the old ladies?' asked Fagin. 'There's a good deal of money made in snatching their bags and parcels, and running round the corner.' 'Don't they holler out a good deal, and scratch sometimes?' asked Noah, shaking his head. 'I don't think that would answer my purpose. Ain't there any other line open?' 'Stop!' said Fagin, laying his hand on Noah's knee. 'The kinchin lay.' 'What's that?' demanded Mr. Claypole. 'The kinchins, my dear,' said Fagin, 'is the young children that's sent on errands by their mothers, with sixpences and shillings; and the lay is just to take their money away--they've always got it ready in their hands,--then knock 'em into the kennel, and walk off very slow, as if there were nothing else the matter but a child fallen down and hurt itself. Ha! ha! ha!' 'Ha! ha!' roared Mr. Claypole, kicking up his legs in an ecstasy. 'Lord, that's the very thing!' 'To be sure it is,' replied Fagin; 'and you can have a few good beats chalked out in Camden Town, and Battle Bridge, and neighborhoods like that, where they're always going errands; and you can upset as many kinchins as you want, any hour in the day. Ha! ha! ha!' With this, Fagin poked Mr. Claypole in the side, and they joined in a burst of laughter both long and loud. 'Well, that's all right!' said Noah, when he had recovered himself, and Charlotte had returned. 'What time to-morrow shall we say?' 'Will ten do?' asked Fagin, adding, as Mr. Claypole nodded assent, 'What name shall I tell my good friend.' 'Mr. Bolter,' replied Noah, who had prepared himself for such emergency. 'Mr. Morris Bolter. This is Mrs. Bolter.' 'Mrs. Bolter's humble servant,' said Fagin, bowing with grotesque politeness. 'I hope I shall know her better very shortly.' 'Do you hear the gentleman, Charlotte?' thundered Mr. Claypole. 'Yes, Noah, dear!' replied Mrs. Bolter, extending her hand. 'She calls me Noah, as a sort of fond way of talking,' said Mr. Morris Bolter, late Claypole, turning to Fagin. 'You understand?' 'Oh yes, I understand--perfectly,' replied Fagin, telling the truth for once. 'Good-night! Good-night!' With many adieus and good wishes, Mr. Fagin went his way. Noah Claypole, bespeaking his good lady's attention, proceeded to enlighten her relative to the arrangement he had made, with all that haughtiness and air of superiority, becoming, not only a member of the sterner sex, but a gentleman who appreciated the dignity of a special appointment on the kinchin lay, in London and its vicinity. 'And so it was you that was your own friend, was it?' asked Mr. Claypole, otherwise Bolter, when, by virtue of the compact entered into between them, he had removed next day to Fagin's house. ''Cod, I thought as much last night!' 'Every man's his own friend, my dear,' replied Fagin, with his most insinuating grin. 'He hasn't as good a one as himself anywhere.' 'Except sometimes,' replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of the world. 'Some people are nobody's enemies but their own, yer know.' 'Don't believe that,' said Fagin. 'When a man's his own enemy, it's only because he's too much his own friend; not because he's careful for everybody but himself. Pooh! pooh! There ain't such a thing in nature.' 'There oughn't to be, if there is,' replied Mr. Bolter. 'That stands to reason. Some conjurers say that number three is the magic number, and some say number seven. It's neither, my friend, neither. It's number one. 'Ha! ha!' cried Mr. Bolter. 'Number one for ever.' 'In a little community like ours, my dear,' said Fagin, who felt it necessary to qualify this position, 'we have a general number one, without considering me too as the same, and all the other young people.' 'Oh, the devil!' exclaimed Mr. Bolter. 'You see,' pursued Fagin, affecting to disregard this interruption, 'we are so mixed up together, and identified in our interests, that it must be so. For instance, it's your object to take care of number one--meaning yourself.' 'Certainly,' replied Mr. Bolter. 'Yer about right there.' 'Well! You can't take care of yourself, number one, without taking care of me, number one.' 'Number two, you mean,' said Mr. Bolter, who was largely endowed with the quality of selfishness. 'No, I don't!' retorted Fagin. 'I'm of the same importance to you, as you are to yourself.' 'I say,' interrupted Mr. Bolter, 'yer a very nice man, and I'm very fond of yer; but we ain't quite so thick together, as all that comes to.' 'Only think,' said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders, and stretching out his hands; 'only consider. You've done what's a very pretty thing, and what I love you for doing; but what at the same time would put the cravat round your throat, that's so very easily tied and so very difficult to unloose--in plain English, the halter!' Mr. Bolter put his hand to his neckerchief, as if he felt it inconveniently tight; and murmured an assent, qualified in tone but not in substance. 'The gallows,' continued Fagin, 'the gallows, my dear, is an ugly finger-post, which points out a very short and sharp turning that has stopped many a bold fellow's career on the broad highway. To keep in the easy road, and keep it at a distance, is object number one with you.' 'Of course it is,' replied Mr. Bolter. 'What do yer talk about such things for?' 'Only to show you my meaning clearly,' said the Jew, raising his eyebrows. 'To be able to do that, you depend upon me. To keep my little business all snug, I depend upon you. The first is your number one, the second my number one. The more you value your number one, the more careful you must be of mine; so we come at last to what I told you at first--that a regard for number one holds us all together, and must do so, unless we would all go to pieces in company.' 'That's true,' rejoined Mr. Bolter, thoughtfully. 'Oh! yer a cunning old codger!' Mr. Fagin saw, with delight, that this tribute to his powers was no mere compliment, but that he had really impressed his recruit with a sense of his wily genius, which it was most important that he should entertain in the outset of their acquaintance. To strengthen an impression so desirable and useful, he followed up the blow by acquainting him, in some detail, with the magnitude and extent of his operations; blending truth and fiction together, as best served his purpose; and bringing both to bear, with so much art, that Mr. Bolter's respect visibly increased, and became tempered, at the same time, with a degree of wholesome fear, which it was highly desirable to awaken. 'It's this mutual trust we have in each other that consoles me under heavy losses,' said Fagin. 'My best hand was taken from me, yesterday morning.' 'You don't mean to say he died?' cried Mr. Bolter. 'No, no,' replied Fagin, 'not so bad as that. Not quite so bad.' 'What, I suppose he was--' 'Wanted,' interposed Fagin. 'Yes, he was wanted.' 'Very particular?' inquired Mr. Bolter. 'No,' replied Fagin, 'not very. He was charged with attempting to pick a pocket, and they found a silver snuff-box on him,--his own, my dear, his own, for he took snuff himself, and was very fond of it. They remanded him till to-day, for they thought they knew the owner. Ah! he was worth fifty boxes, and I'd give the price of as many to have him back. You should have known the Dodger, my dear; you should have known the Dodger.' 'Well, but I shall know him, I hope; don't yer think so?' said Mr. Bolter. 'I'm doubtful about it,' replied Fagin, with a sigh. 'If they don't get any fresh evidence, it'll only be a summary conviction, and we shall have him back again after six weeks or so; but, if they do, it's a case of lagging. They know what a clever lad he is; he'll be a lifer. They'll make the Artful nothing less than a lifer.' 'What do you mean by lagging and a lifer?' demanded Mr. Bolter. 'What's the good of talking in that way to me; why don't yer speak so as I can understand yer?' Fagin was about to translate these mysterious expressions into the vulgar tongue; and, being interpreted, Mr. Bolter would have been informed that they represented that combination of words, 'transportation for life,' when the dialogue was cut short by the entry of Master Bates, with his hands in his breeches-pockets, and his face twisted into a look of semi-comical woe. 'It's all up, Fagin,' said Charley, when he and his new companion had been made known to each other. 'What do you mean?' 'They've found the gentleman as owns the box; two or three more's a coming to 'dentify him; and the Artful's booked for a passage out,' replied Master Bates. 'I must have a full suit of mourning, Fagin, and a hatband, to wisit him in, afore he sets out upon his travels. To think of Jack Dawkins--lummy Jack--the Dodger--the Artful Dodger--going abroad for a common twopenny-halfpenny sneeze-box! I never thought he'd a done it under a gold watch, chain, and seals, at the lowest. Oh, why didn't he rob some rich old gentleman of all his walables, and go out as a gentleman, and not like a common prig, without no honour nor glory!' With this expression of feeling for his unfortunate friend, Master Bates sat himself on the nearest chair with an aspect of chagrin and despondency. 'What do you talk about his having neither honour nor glory for!' exclaimed Fagin, darting an angry look at his pupil. 'Wasn't he always the top-sawyer among you all! Is there one of you that could touch him or come near him on any scent! Eh?' 'Not one,' replied Master Bates, in a voice rendered husky by regret; 'not one.' 'Then what do you talk of?' replied Fagin angrily; 'what are you blubbering for?' ''Cause it isn't on the rec-ord, is it?' said Charley, chafed into perfect defiance of his venerable friend by the current of his regrets; ''cause it can't come out in the 'dictment; 'cause nobody will never know half of what he was. How will he stand in the Newgate Calendar? P'raps not be there at all. Oh, my eye, my eye, wot a blow it is!' 'Ha! ha!' cried Fagin, extending his right hand, and turning to Mr. Bolter in a fit of chuckling which shook him as though he had the palsy; 'see what a pride they take in their profession, my dear. Ain't it beautiful?' Mr. Bolter nodded assent, and Fagin, after contemplating the grief of Charley Bates for some seconds with evident satisfaction, stepped up to that young gentleman and patted him on the shoulder. 'Never mind, Charley,' said Fagin soothingly; 'it'll come out, it'll be sure to come out. They'll all know what a clever fellow he was; he'll show it himself, and not disgrace his old pals and teachers. Think how young he is too! What a distinction, Charley, to be lagged at his time of life!' 'Well, it is a honour that is!' said Charley, a little consoled. 'He shall have all he wants,' continued the Jew. 'He shall be kept in the Stone Jug, Charley, like a gentleman. Like a gentleman! With his beer every day, and money in his pocket to pitch and toss with, if he can't spend it.' 'No, shall he though?' cried Charley Bates. 'Ay, that he shall,' replied Fagin, 'and we'll have a big-wig, Charley: one that's got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we'll read it all in the papers--"Artful Dodger--shrieks of laughter--here the court was convulsed"--eh, Charley, eh?' 'Ha! ha!' laughed Master Bates, 'what a lark that would be, wouldn't it, Fagin? I say, how the Artful would bother 'em wouldn't he?' 'Would!' cried Fagin. 'He shall--he will!' 'Ah, to be sure, so he will,' repeated Charley, rubbing his hands. 'I think I see him now,' cried the Jew, bending his eyes upon his pupil. 'So do I,' cried Charley Bates. 'Ha! ha! ha! so do I. I see it all afore me, upon my soul I do, Fagin. What a game! What a regular game! All the big-wigs trying to look solemn, and Jack Dawkins addressing of 'em as intimate and comfortable as if he was the judge's own son making a speech arter dinner--ha! ha! ha!' In fact, Mr. Fagin had so well humoured his young friend's eccentric disposition, that Master Bates, who had at first been disposed to consider the imprisoned Dodger rather in the light of a victim, now looked upon him as the chief actor in a scene of most uncommon and exquisite humour, and felt quite impatient for the arrival of the time when his old companion should have so favourable an opportunity of displaying his abilities. 'We must know how he gets on to-day, by some handy means or other,' said Fagin. 'Let me think.' 'Shall I go?' asked Charley. 'Not for the world,' replied Fagin. 'Are you mad, my dear, stark mad, that you'd walk into the very place where--No, Charley, no. One is enough to lose at a time.' 'You don't mean to go yourself, I suppose?' said Charley with a humorous leer. 'That wouldn't quite fit,' replied Fagin shaking his head. 'Then why don't you send this new cove?' asked Master Bates, laying his hand on Noah's arm. 'Nobody knows him.' 'Why, if he didn't mind--' observed Fagin. 'Mind!' interposed Charley. 'What should he have to mind?' 'Really nothing, my dear,' said Fagin, turning to Mr. Bolter, 'really nothing.' 'Oh, I dare say about that, yer know,' observed Noah, backing towards the door, and shaking his head with a kind of sober alarm. 'No, no--none of that. It's not in my department, that ain't.' 'Wot department has he got, Fagin?' inquired Master Bates, surveying Noah's lank form with much disgust. 'The cutting away when there's anything wrong, and the eating all the wittles when there's everything right; is that his branch?' 'Never mind,' retorted Mr. Bolter; 'and don't yer take liberties with yer superiors, little boy, or yer'll find yerself in the wrong shop.' Master Bates laughed so vehemently at this magnificent threat, that it was some time before Fagin could interpose, and represent to Mr. Bolter that he incurred no possible danger in visiting the police-office; that, inasmuch as no account of the little affair in which he had engaged, nor any description of his person, had yet been forwarded to the metropolis, it was very probable that he was not even suspected of having resorted to it for shelter; and that, if he were properly disguised, it would be as safe a spot for him to visit as any in London, inasmuch as it would be, of all places, the very last, to which he could be supposed likely to resort of his own free will. Persuaded, in part, by these representations, but overborne in a much greater degree by his fear of Fagin, Mr. Bolter at length consented, with a very bad grace, to undertake the expedition. By Fagin's directions, he immediately substituted for his own attire, a waggoner's frock, velveteen breeches, and leather leggings: all of which articles the Jew had at hand. He was likewise furnished with a felt hat well garnished with turnpike tickets; and a carter's whip. Thus equipped, he was to saunter into the office, as some country fellow from Covent Garden market might be supposed to do for the gratification of his curiousity; and as he was as awkward, ungainly, and raw-boned a fellow as need be, Mr. Fagin had no fear but that he would look the part to perfection. These arrangements completed, he was informed of the necessary signs and tokens by which to recognise the Artful Dodger, and was conveyed by Master Bates through dark and winding ways to within a very short distance of Bow Street. Having described the precise situation of the office, and accompanied it with copious directions how he was to walk straight up the passage, and when he got into the side, and pull off his hat as he went into the room, Charley Bates bade him hurry on alone, and promised to bide his return on the spot of their parting. Noah Claypole, or Morris Bolter as the reader pleases, punctually followed the directions he had received, which--Master Bates being pretty well acquainted with the locality--were so exact that he was enabled to gain the magisterial presence without asking any question, or meeting with any interruption by the way. He found himself jostled among a crowd of people, chiefly women, who were huddled together in a dirty frowsy room, at the upper end of which was a raised platform railed off from the rest, with a dock for the prisoners on the left hand against the wall, a box for the witnesses in the middle, and a desk for the magistrates on the right; the awful locality last named, being screened off by a partition which concealed the bench from the common gaze, and left the vulgar to imagine (if they could) the full majesty of justice. There were only a couple of women in the dock, who were nodding to their admiring friends, while the clerk read some depositions to a couple of policemen and a man in plain clothes who leant over the table. A jailer stood reclining against the dock-rail, tapping his nose listlessly with a large key, except when he repressed an undue tendency to conversation among the idlers, by proclaiming silence; or looked sternly up to bid some woman 'Take that baby out,' when the gravity of justice was disturbed by feeble cries, half-smothered in the mother's shawl, from some meagre infant. The room smelt close and unwholesome; the walls were dirt-discoloured; and the ceiling blackened. There was an old smoky bust over the mantel-shelf, and a dusty clock above the dock--the only thing present, that seemed to go on as it ought; for depravity, or poverty, or an habitual acquaintance with both, had left a taint on all the animate matter, hardly less unpleasant than the thick greasy scum on every inanimate object that frowned upon it. Noah looked eagerly about him for the Dodger; but although there were several women who would have done very well for that distinguished character's mother or sister, and more than one man who might be supposed to bear a strong resemblance to his father, nobody at all answering the description given him of Mr. Dawkins was to be seen. He waited in a state of much suspense and uncertainty until the women, being committed for trial, went flaunting out; and then was quickly relieved by the appearance of another prisoner who he felt at once could be no other than the object of his visit. It was indeed Mr. Dawkins, who, shuffling into the office with the big coat sleeves tucked up as usual, his left hand in his pocket, and his hat in his right hand, preceded the jailer, with a rolling gait altogether indescribable, and, taking his place in the dock, requested in an audible voice to know what he was placed in that 'ere disgraceful sitivation for. 'Hold your tongue, will you?' said the jailer. 'I'm an Englishman, ain't I?' rejoined the Dodger. 'Where are my priwileges?' 'You'll get your privileges soon enough,' retorted the jailer, 'and pepper with 'em.' 'We'll see wot the Secretary of State for the Home Affairs has got to say to the beaks, if I don't,' replied Mr. Dawkins. 'Now then! Wot is this here business? I shall thank the madg'strates to dispose of this here little affair, and not to keep me while they read the paper, for I've got an appointment with a genelman in the City, and as I am a man of my word and wery punctual in business matters, he'll go away if I ain't there to my time, and then pr'aps ther won't be an action for damage against them as kep me away. Oh no, certainly not!' At this point, the Dodger, with a show of being very particular with a view to proceedings to be had thereafter, desired the jailer to communicate 'the names of them two files as was on the bench.' Which so tickled the spectators, that they laughed almost as heartily as Master Bates could have done if he had heard the request. 'Silence there!' cried the jailer. 'What is this?' inquired one of the magistrates. 'A pick-pocketing case, your worship.' 'Has the boy ever been here before?' 'He ought to have been, a many times,' replied the jailer. 'He has been pretty well everywhere else. _I_ know him well, your worship.' 'Oh! you know me, do you?' cried the Artful, making a note of the statement. 'Wery good. That's a case of deformation of character, any way.' Here there was another laugh, and another cry of silence. 'Now then, where are the witnesses?' said the clerk. 'Ah! that's right,' added the Dodger. 'Where are they? I should like to see 'em.' This wish was immediately gratified, for a policeman stepped forward who had seen the prisoner attempt the pocket of an unknown gentleman in a crowd, and indeed take a handkerchief therefrom, which, being a very old one, he deliberately put back again, after trying it on his own countenance. For this reason, he took the Dodger into custody as soon as he could get near him, and the said Dodger, being searched, had upon his person a silver snuff-box, with the owner's name engraved upon the lid. This gentleman had been discovered on reference to the Court Guide, and being then and there present, swore that the snuff-box was his, and that he had missed it on the previous day, the moment he had disengaged himself from the crowd before referred to. He had also remarked a young gentleman in the throng, particularly active in making his way about, and that young gentleman was the prisoner before him. 'Have you anything to ask this witness, boy?' said the magistrate. 'I wouldn't abase myself by descending to hold no conversation with him,' replied the Dodger. 'Have you anything to say at all?' 'Do you hear his worship ask if you've anything to say?' inquired the jailer, nudging the silent Dodger with his elbow. 'I beg your pardon,' said the Dodger, looking up with an air of abstraction. 'Did you redress yourself to me, my man?' 'I never see such an out-and-out young wagabond, your worship,' observed the officer with a grin. 'Do you mean to say anything, you young shaver?' 'No,' replied the Dodger, 'not here, for this ain't the shop for justice: besides which, my attorney is a-breakfasting this morning with the Wice President of the House of Commons; but I shall have something to say elsewhere, and so will he, and so will a wery numerous and 'spectable circle of acquaintance as'll make them beaks wish they'd never been born, or that they'd got their footmen to hang 'em up to their own hat-pegs, afore they let 'em come out this morning to try it on upon me. I'll--' 'There! He's fully committed!' interposed the clerk. 'Take him away.' 'Come on,' said the jailer. 'Oh ah! I'll come on,' replied the Dodger, brushing his hat with the palm of his hand. 'Ah! (to the Bench) it's no use your looking frightened; I won't show you no mercy, not a ha'porth of it. _You'll_ pay for this, my fine fellers. I wouldn't be you for something! I wouldn't go free, now, if you was to fall down on your knees and ask me. Here, carry me off to prison! Take me away!' With these last words, the Dodger suffered himself to be led off by the collar; threatening, till he got into the yard, to make a parliamentary business of it; and then grinning in the officer's face, with great glee and self-approval. Having seen him locked up by himself in a little cell, Noah made the best of his way back to where he had left Master Bates. After waiting here some time, he was joined by that young gentleman, who had prudently abstained from showing himself until he had looked carefully abroad from a snug retreat, and ascertained that his new friend had not been followed by any impertinent person. The two hastened back together, to bear to Mr. Fagin the animating news that the Dodger was doing full justice to his bringing-up, and establishing for himself a glorious reputation. Adept as she was, in all the arts of cunning and dissimulation, the girl Nancy could not wholly conceal the effect which the knowledge of the step she had taken, wrought upon her mind. She remembered that both the crafty Jew and the brutal Sikes had confided to her schemes, which had been hidden from all others: in the full confidence that she was trustworthy and beyond the reach of their suspicion. Vile as those schemes were, desperate as were their originators, and bitter as were her feelings towards Fagin, who had led her, step by step, deeper and deeper down into an abyss of crime and misery, whence was no escape; still, there were times when, even towards him, she felt some relenting, lest her disclosure should bring him within the iron grasp he had so long eluded, and he should fall at last--richly as he merited such a fate--by her hand. But, these were the mere wanderings of a mind unable wholly to detach itself from old companions and associations, though enabled to fix itself steadily on one object, and resolved not to be turned aside by any consideration. Her fears for Sikes would have been more powerful inducements to recoil while there was yet time; but she had stipulated that her secret should be rigidly kept, she had dropped no clue which could lead to his discovery, she had refused, even for his sake, a refuge from all the guilt and wretchedness that encompasses her--and what more could she do! She was resolved. Though all her mental struggles terminated in this conclusion, they forced themselves upon her, again and again, and left their traces too. She grew pale and thin, even within a few days. At times, she took no heed of what was passing before her, or no part in conversations where once, she would have been the loudest. At other times, she laughed without merriment, and was noisy without a moment afterwards--she sat silent and dejected, brooding with her head upon her hands, while the very effort by which she roused herself, told, more forcibly than even these indications, that she was ill at ease, and that her thoughts were occupied with matters very different and distant from those in the course of discussion by her companions. It was Sunday night, and the bell of the nearest church struck the hour. Sikes and the Jew were talking, but they paused to listen. The girl looked up from the low seat on which she crouched, and listened too. Eleven. 'An hour this side of midnight,' said Sikes, raising the blind to look out and returning to his seat. 'Dark and heavy it is too. A good night for business this.' 'Ah!' replied Fagin. 'What a pity, Bill, my dear, that there's none quite ready to be done.' 'You're right for once,' replied Sikes gruffly. 'It is a pity, for I'm in the humour too.' Fagin sighed, and shook his head despondingly. 'We must make up for lost time when we've got things into a good train. That's all I know,' said Sikes. 'That's the way to talk, my dear,' replied Fagin, venturing to pat him on the shoulder. 'It does me good to hear you.' 'Does you good, does it!' cried Sikes. 'Well, so be it.' 'Ha! ha! ha!' laughed Fagin, as if he were relieved by even this concession. 'You're like yourself to-night, Bill. Quite like yourself.' 'I don't feel like myself when you lay that withered old claw on my shoulder, so take it away,' said Sikes, casting off the Jew's hand. 'It make you nervous, Bill,--reminds you of being nabbed, does it?' said Fagin, determined not to be offended. 'Reminds me of being nabbed by the devil,' returned Sikes. 'There never was another man with such a face as yours, unless it was your father, and I suppose _he_ is singeing his grizzled red beard by this time, unless you came straight from the old 'un without any father at all betwixt you; which I shouldn't wonder at, a bit.' Fagin offered no reply to this compliment: but, pulling Sikes by the sleeve, pointed his finger towards Nancy, who had taken advantage of the foregoing conversation to put on her bonnet, and was now leaving the room. 'Hallo!' cried Sikes. 'Nance. Where's the gal going to at this time of night?' 'Not far.' 'What answer's that?' retorted Sikes. 'Do you hear me?' 'I don't know where,' replied the girl. 'Then I do,' said Sikes, more in the spirit of obstinacy than because he had any real objection to the girl going where she listed. 'Nowhere. Sit down.' 'I'm not well. I told you that before,' rejoined the girl. 'I want a breath of air.' 'Put your head out of the winder,' replied Sikes. 'There's not enough there,' said the girl. 'I want it in the street.' 'Then you won't have it,' replied Sikes. With which assurance he rose, locked the door, took the key out, and pulling her bonnet from her head, flung it up to the top of an old press. 'There,' said the robber. 'Now stop quietly where you are, will you?' 'It's not such a matter as a bonnet would keep me,' said the girl turning very pale. 'What do you mean, Bill? Do you know what you're doing?' 'Know what I'm--Oh!' cried Sikes, turning to Fagin, 'she's out of her senses, you know, or she daren't talk to me in that way.' 'You'll drive me on the something desperate,' muttered the girl placing both hands upon her breast, as though to keep down by force some violent outbreak. 'Let me go, will you,--this minute--this instant.' 'No!' said Sikes. 'Tell him to let me go, Fagin. He had better. It'll be better for him. Do you hear me?' cried Nancy stamping her foot upon the ground. 'Hear you!' repeated Sikes turning round in his chair to confront her. 'Aye! And if I hear you for half a minute longer, the dog shall have such a grip on your throat as'll tear some of that screaming voice out. Wot has come over you, you jade! Wot is it?' 'Let me go,' said the girl with great earnestness; then sitting herself down on the floor, before the door, she said, 'Bill, let me go; you don't know what you are doing. You don't, indeed. For only one hour--do--do!' 'Cut my limbs off one by one!' cried Sikes, seizing her roughly by the arm, 'If I don't think the gal's stark raving mad. Get up.' 'Not till you let me go--not till you let me go--Never--never!' screamed the girl. Sikes looked on, for a minute, watching his opportunity, and suddenly pinioning her hands dragged her, struggling and wrestling with him by the way, into a small room adjoining, where he sat himself on a bench, and thrusting her into a chair, held her down by force. She struggled and implored by turns until twelve o'clock had struck, and then, wearied and exhausted, ceased to contest the point any further. With a caution, backed by many oaths, to make no more efforts to go out that night, Sikes left her to recover at leisure and rejoined Fagin. 'Whew!' said the housebreaker wiping the perspiration from his face. 'Wot a precious strange gal that is!' 'You may say that, Bill,' replied Fagin thoughtfully. 'You may say that.' 'Wot did she take it into her head to go out to-night for, do you think?' asked Sikes. 'Come; you should know her better than me. Wot does it mean?' 'Obstinacy; woman's obstinacy, I suppose, my dear.' 'Well, I suppose it is,' growled Sikes. 'I thought I had tamed her, but she's as bad as ever.' 'Worse,' said Fagin thoughtfully. 'I never knew her like this, for such a little cause.' 'Nor I,' said Sikes. 'I think she's got a touch of that fever in her blood yet, and it won't come out--eh?' 'Like enough.' 'I'll let her a little blood, without troubling the doctor, if she's took that way again,' said Sikes. Fagin nodded an expressive approval of this mode of treatment. 'She was hanging about me all day, and night too, when I was stretched on my back; and you, like a blackhearted wolf as you are, kept yourself aloof,' said Sikes. 'We was poor too, all the time, and I think, one way or other, it's worried and fretted her; and that being shut up here so long has made her restless--eh?' 'That's it, my dear,' replied the Jew in a whisper. 'Hush!' As he uttered these words, the girl herself appeared and resumed her former seat. Her eyes were swollen and red; she rocked herself to and fro; tossed her head; and, after a little time, burst out laughing. 'Why, now she's on the other tack!' exclaimed Sikes, turning a look of excessive surprise on his companion. Fagin nodded to him to take no further notice just then; and, in a few minutes, the girl subsided into her accustomed demeanour. Whispering Sikes that there was no fear of her relapsing, Fagin took up his hat and bade him good-night. He paused when he reached the room-door, and looking round, asked if somebody would light him down the dark stairs. 'Light him down,' said Sikes, who was filling his pipe. 'It's a pity he should break his neck himself, and disappoint the sight-seers. Show him a light.' Nancy followed the old man downstairs, with a candle. When they reached the passage, he laid his finger on his lip, and drawing close to the girl, said, in a whisper. 'What is it, Nancy, dear?' 'What do you mean?' replied the girl, in the same tone. 'The reason of all this,' replied Fagin. 'If _he_'--he pointed with his skinny fore-finger up the stairs--'is so hard with you (he's a brute, Nance, a brute-beast), why don't you--' 'Well?' said the girl, as Fagin paused, with his mouth almost touching her ear, and his eyes looking into hers. 'No matter just now. We'll talk of this again. You have a friend in me, Nance; a staunch friend. I have the means at hand, quiet and close. If you want revenge on those that treat you like a dog--like a dog! worse than his dog, for he humours him sometimes--come to me. I say, come to me. He is the mere hound of a day, but you know me of old, Nance.' 'I know you well,' replied the girl, without manifesting the least emotion. 'Good-night.' She shrank back, as Fagin offered to lay his hand on hers, but said good-night again, in a steady voice, and, answering his parting look with a nod of intelligence, closed the door between them. Fagin walked towards his home, intent upon the thoughts that were working within his brain. He had conceived the idea--not from what had just passed though that had tended to confirm him, but slowly and by degrees--that Nancy, wearied of the housebreaker's brutality, had conceived an attachment for some new friend. Her altered manner, her repeated absences from home alone, her comparative indifference to the interests of the gang for which she had once been so zealous, and, added to these, her desperate impatience to leave home that night at a particular hour, all favoured the supposition, and rendered it, to him at least, almost matter of certainty. The object of this new liking was not among his myrmidons. He would be a valuable acquisition with such an assistant as Nancy, and must (thus Fagin argued) be secured without delay. There was another, and a darker object, to be gained. Sikes knew too much, and his ruffian taunts had not galled Fagin the less, because the wounds were hidden. The girl must know, well, that if she shook him off, she could never be safe from his fury, and that it would be surely wreaked--to the maiming of limbs, or perhaps the loss of life--on the object of her more recent fancy. 'With a little persuasion,' thought Fagin, 'what more likely than that she would consent to poison him? Women have done such things, and worse, to secure the same object before now. There would be the dangerous villain: the man I hate: gone; another secured in his place; and my influence over the girl, with a knowledge of this crime to back it, unlimited.' These things passed through the mind of Fagin, during the short time he sat alone, in the housebreaker's room; and with them uppermost in his thoughts, he had taken the opportunity afterwards afforded him, of sounding the girl in the broken hints he threw out at parting. There was no expression of surprise, no assumption of an inability to understand his meaning. The girl clearly comprehended it. Her glance at parting showed _that_. But perhaps she would recoil from a plot to take the life of Sikes, and that was one of the chief ends to be attained. 'How,' thought Fagin, as he crept homeward, 'can I increase my influence with her? What new power can I acquire?' Such brains are fertile in expedients. If, without extracting a confession from herself, he laid a watch, discovered the object of her altered regard, and threatened to reveal the whole history to Sikes (of whom she stood in no common fear) unless she entered into his designs, could he not secure her compliance? 'I can,' said Fagin, almost aloud. 'She durst not refuse me then. Not for her life, not for her life! I have it all. The means are ready, and shall be set to work. I shall have you yet!' He cast back a dark look, and a threatening motion of the hand, towards the spot where he had left the bolder villain; and went on his way: busying his bony hands in the folds of his tattered garment, which he wrenched tightly in his grasp, as though there were a hated enemy crushed with every motion of his fingers. The old man was up, betimes, next morning, and waited impatiently for the appearance of his new associate, who after a delay that seemed interminable, at length presented himself, and commenced a voracious assault on the breakfast. 'Bolter,' said Fagin, drawing up a chair and seating himself opposite Morris Bolter. 'Well, here I am,' returned Noah. 'What's the matter? Don't yer ask me to do anything till I have done eating. That's a great fault in this place. Yer never get time enough over yer meals.' 'You can talk as you eat, can't you?' said Fagin, cursing his dear young friend's greediness from the very bottom of his heart. 'Oh yes, I can talk. I get on better when I talk,' said Noah, cutting a monstrous slice of bread. 'Where's Charlotte?' 'Out,' said Fagin. 'I sent her out this morning with the other young woman, because I wanted us to be alone.' 'Oh!' said Noah. 'I wish yer'd ordered her to make some buttered toast first. Well. Talk away. Yer won't interrupt me.' There seemed, indeed, no great fear of anything interrupting him, as he had evidently sat down with a determination to do a great deal of business. 'You did well yesterday, my dear,' said Fagin. 'Beautiful! Six shillings and ninepence halfpenny on the very first day! The kinchin lay will be a fortune to you.' 'Don't you forget to add three pint-pots and a milk-can,' said Mr. Bolter. 'No, no, my dear. The pint-pots were great strokes of genius: but the milk-can was a perfect masterpiece.' 'Pretty well, I think, for a beginner,' remarked Mr. Bolter complacently. 'The pots I took off airy railings, and the milk-can was standing by itself outside a public-house. I thought it might get rusty with the rain, or catch cold, yer know. Eh? Ha! ha! ha!' Fagin affected to laugh very heartily; and Mr. Bolter having had his laugh out, took a series of large bites, which finished his first hunk of bread and butter, and assisted himself to a second. 'I want you, Bolter,' said Fagin, leaning over the table, 'to do a piece of work for me, my dear, that needs great care and caution.' 'I say,' rejoined Bolter, 'don't yer go shoving me into danger, or sending me any more o' yer police-offices. That don't suit me, that don't; and so I tell yer.' 'That's not the smallest danger in it--not the very smallest,' said the Jew; 'it's only to dodge a woman.' 'An old woman?' demanded Mr. Bolter. 'A young one,' replied Fagin. 'I can do that pretty well, I know,' said Bolter. 'I was a regular cunning sneak when I was at school. What am I to dodge her for? Not to--' 'Not to do anything, but to tell me where she goes, who she sees, and, if possible, what she says; to remember the street, if it is a street, or the house, if it is a house; and to bring me back all the information you can.' 'What'll yer give me?' asked Noah, setting down his cup, and looking his employer, eagerly, in the face. 'If you do it well, a pound, my dear. One pound,' said Fagin, wishing to interest him in the scent as much as possible. 'And that's what I never gave yet, for any job of work where there wasn't valuable consideration to be gained.' 'Who is she?' inquired Noah. 'One of us.' 'Oh Lor!' cried Noah, curling up his nose. 'Yer doubtful of her, are yer?' 'She has found out some new friends, my dear, and I must know who they are,' replied Fagin. 'I see,' said Noah. 'Just to have the pleasure of knowing them, if they're respectable people, eh? Ha! ha! ha! I'm your man.' 'I knew you would be,' cried Fagin, elated by the success of his proposal. 'Of course, of course,' replied Noah. 'Where is she? Where am I to wait for her? Where am I to go?' 'All that, my dear, you shall hear from me. I'll point her out at the proper time,' said Fagin. 'You keep ready, and leave the rest to me.' That night, and the next, and the next again, the spy sat booted and equipped in his carter's dress: ready to turn out at a word from Fagin. Six nights passed--six long weary nights--and on each, Fagin came home with a disappointed face, and briefly intimated that it was not yet time. On the seventh, he returned earlier, and with an exultation he could not conceal. It was Sunday. 'She goes abroad to-night,' said Fagin, 'and on the right errand, I'm sure; for she has been alone all day, and the man she is afraid of will not be back much before daybreak. Come with me. Quick!' Noah started up without saying a word; for the Jew was in a state of such intense excitement that it infected him. They left the house stealthily, and hurrying through a labyrinth of streets, arrived at length before a public-house, which Noah recognised as the same in which he had slept, on the night of his arrival in London. It was past eleven o'clock, and the door was closed. It opened softly on its hinges as Fagin gave a low whistle. They entered, without noise; and the door was closed behind them. Scarcely venturing to whisper, but substituting dumb show for words, Fagin, and the young Jew who had admitted them, pointed out the pane of glass to Noah, and signed to him to climb up and observe the person in the adjoining room. 'Is that the woman?' he asked, scarcely above his breath. Fagin nodded yes. 'I can't see her face well,' whispered Noah. 'She is looking down, and the candle is behind her. 'Stay there,' whispered Fagin. He signed to Barney, who withdrew. In an instant, the lad entered the room adjoining, and, under pretence of snuffing the candle, moved it in the required position, and, speaking to the girl, caused her to raise her face. 'I see her now,' cried the spy. 'Plainly?' 'I should know her among a thousand.' He hastily descended, as the room-door opened, and the girl came out. Fagin drew him behind a small partition which was curtained off, and they held their breaths as she passed within a few feet of their place of concealment, and emerged by the door at which they had entered. 'Hist!' cried the lad who held the door. 'Dow.' Noah exchanged a look with Fagin, and darted out. 'To the left,' whispered the lad; 'take the left had, and keep od the other side.' He did so; and, by the light of the lamps, saw the girl's retreating figure, already at some distance before him. He advanced as near as he considered prudent, and kept on the opposite side of the street, the better to observe her motions. She looked nervously round, twice or thrice, and once stopped to let two men who were following close behind her, pass on. She seemed to gather courage as she advanced, and to walk with a steadier and firmer step. The spy preserved the same relative distance between them, and followed: with his eye upon her. Können Sie 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.

Rose versucht, zu entscheiden, was sie mit den Informationen tun soll, die ihr gegeben wurden. Sie denkt nicht, dass sie es Mr. Losberne sagen sollte, wegen seiner Unbesonnenheit, und sie denkt auch nicht, dass sie es Mrs. Maylie sagen sollte, denn ihre erste Reaktion wäre es, es Mr. Losberne zu sagen. Nach einer schwierigen Nacht entscheidet sie sich dazu, zu Harry mit den Informationen zu gehen. Als sie sich darauf vorbereitet, einen Brief an Harry zu schreiben, stürmt Oliver herein und sagt, dass er Mr. Brownlow gesehen hat. Oliver hatte nicht die Möglichkeit mit ihm zu sprechen, aber er hat jetzt seine Adresse und will ihn sofort besuchen. Rose begleitet ihn und lässt Oliver im Wagen warten, während sie mit Mr. Brownlow spricht. Auch Mr. Grimwig ist dort und sie erzählt ihnen, dass sie eine Freundin von Oliver ist. Beide Männer sind schockiert und Mr. Brownlow bittet um Beweise, dass er so freundlich und gut ist, wie sie sagt. Sie erzählt ihm Olivers Geschichte und sobald er hört, dass Oliver im Wagen draußen ist, rennt er zu ihm. Sie kehren gemeinsam ins Studierzimmer zurück und Mr. Brownlow ruft nach Mrs. Bedwin, die begeistert ist, Oliver zu sehen. In einem anderen Raum erzählt Rose Mr. Brownlow die Geschichte, die Nancy ihr erzählt hat. Mr. Brownlow erzählt es auch Mr. Losberne, der in der Tat ziemlich wütend ist, aber Mr. Brownlow kann ihn davon abhalten, etwas Dummes zu tun. Mr. Brownlow denkt, sie sollten bis Sonntag warten, um Nancy zu treffen, und so viele Informationen über Monks wie möglich von ihr zu bekommen, um ihn zu finden und Olivers Abstammung zu entdecken. Sie sind alle einverstanden. Noah Claypole und Charlotte gehen zusammen nach London, weg von den Sowerberrys, weil Charlotte Geld aus der Kasse genommen hat, um es Noah zu geben. Sie stoßen auf die Three Cripples und beschließen, dort zu übernachten. Drinnen ist nur Barney, der sagt, dass er sich erkundigen wird, ob sie heute Nacht dort schlafen können. Er führt sie in einen hinteren Raum, der leicht zu beobachten ist, und sagt ihnen, dass sie dort übernachten können. Barney geht zurück in den vorderen Raum, als Fagin hereinkommt. Barney warnt ihn, leise zu sein, weil sich Fremde im nächsten Raum befinden, und deutet an, dass sie Fagins Art von Leuten sein könnten. Fagin hört Noah und Charlottes Gespräch, das von Noahs Wunsch handelt, ein reicher Dieb zu sein, und tritt dann in den hinteren Raum ein. Fagin sagt ihnen, dass sie, wenn sie an diesem Geschäft interessiert sind, in der perfekten Kneipe dafür sind. Fagin nennt seine Bedingungen und bietet ihnen Jobs bei ihm an, die Noah annimmt. Fagin beginnt Noah auszubilden und erzählt ihm dabei, dass sein bester Junge, der gewiefte Dodger, gerade verhaftet wurde. Charley Bates kommt herein und erzählt Fagin, dass sie den Besitzer der Schnupftabakdose gefunden haben, die der Dodger gestohlen hat, und dass er ins Gefängnis kommt. Sie wollen den Dodger im Gefängnis besuchen, also bittet Fagin Noah hinzugehen, da man ihn nicht auf der Polizeiwache wiedererkennen wird. Noah ist widerwillig, aber letztendlich überredet ihn seine Angst vor Fagin. Auf der Wache sieht Noah endlich jemanden, der der Beschreibung des Dodgers entspricht. Der Dodger liefert eine Show ab, bekommt aber eine volle Strafe. Nancy hat Schwierigkeiten, mit ihrer Schuld umzugehen, Sikes und Fagin zu verraten - so schlimm wie sie auch sind, sie will nicht, dass sie durch ihre Hand sterben. Aufgrund ihrer emotionalen Turbulenzen gelingt es ihr nicht, sich normal zu verhalten. Am Sonntagabend, wenn die Kirchenglocken elf schlagen, reden Sikes und Fagin, während Nancy schweigend dasitzt. Während ihres Gesprächs versucht sie zu entkommen, aber sie bemerken es. Als sie versucht, den Fragen von Sikes auszuweichen, wohin sie geht, weigert er sich, sie gehen zu lassen. Sie fordert und bittet Sikes, sie gehen zu lassen, und kämpft gegen ihn an, bis Mitternacht, wenn sie schließlich aufgibt. Fagin und Sikes diskutieren darüber, was wohl mit ihr los ist. Fagin, bereit zu gehen, bittet Nancy, ihn mit einem Licht die Treppe hinunter zu begleiten. Als sie alleine sind, sagt er ihr, dass er sich Sorgen macht, dass ihr Verhalten eine Folge von Sikes' Brutalität ihr gegenüber ist, und er sagt, dass sie in ihm eine Freundin hat, egal was passiert. Es stellt sich heraus, dass das daran liegt, dass Fagin überzeugt ist, dass Nancy eine Zuneigung zu einem neuen Mann hat. Das passt ihm, weil solch ein Mann für ihn nützlich sein könnte und Sikes' Nutzen abgenommen hat, weil er zu viel weiß. Fagin beschließt, Nancy davon zu überzeugen, Sikes zu vergiften, und seine Worte zu ihr im Flur sind der Beginn dieses Versuchs. Um mehr Macht über sie zu erlangen, beschließt Fagin herauszufinden, wer ihr neuer Mann ist, damit er sie erpressen kann, und er weiß, dass Sikes sie töten würde, wenn Fagin ihm davon erzählte. Am nächsten Morgen wartet Fagin darauf, dass Noah aufsteht, um mit ihm zu sprechen. Er bittet Noah, Nancy zu folgen und Fagin alles zu erzählen, was sie tut, und wenn er es gut macht, gibt Fagin ihm ein Pfund. Am nächsten Sonntag bekommt Noah endlich seine Chance. Fagin bringt ihn zu den Three Cripples, wo Noah ihr Gesicht ansieht, damit er ihr folgen kann. Er verfolgt sie, als sie die Cripples verlässt.

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 VI. Britain. The palace Enter IMOGEN alone IMOGEN. A father cruel and a step-dame false; A foolish suitor to a wedded lady That hath her husband banish'd. O, that husband! My supreme crown of grief! and those repeated Vexations of it! Had I been thief-stol'n, As my two brothers, happy! but most miserable Is the desire that's glorious. Blessed be those, How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills, Which seasons comfort. Who may this be? Fie! Enter PISANIO and IACHIMO PISANIO. Madam, a noble gentleman of Rome Comes from my lord with letters. IACHIMO. Change you, madam? The worthy Leonatus is in safety, And greets your Highness dearly. [Presents a letter] IMOGEN. Thanks, good sir. You're kindly welcome. IACHIMO. [Aside] All of her that is out of door most rich! If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare, She is alone th' Arabian bird, and I Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend! Arm me, audacity, from head to foot! Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight; Rather, directly fly. IMOGEN. [Reads] 'He is one of the noblest note, to whose kindnesses I am most infinitely tied. Reflect upon him accordingly, as you value your trust. LEONATUS.' So far I read aloud; But even the very middle of my heart Is warm'd by th' rest and takes it thankfully. You are as welcome, worthy sir, as I Have words to bid you; and shall find it so In all that I can do. IACHIMO. Thanks, fairest lady. What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes To see this vaulted arch and the rich crop Of sea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt The fiery orbs above and the twinn'd stones Upon the number'd beach, and can we not Partition make with spectacles so precious 'Twixt fair and foul? IMOGEN. What makes your admiration? IACHIMO. It cannot be i' th' eye, for apes and monkeys, 'Twixt two such shes, would chatter this way and Contemn with mows the other; nor i' th' judgment, For idiots in this case of favour would Be wisely definite; nor i' th' appetite; Sluttery, to such neat excellence oppos'd, Should make desire vomit emptiness, Not so allur'd to feed. IMOGEN. What is the matter, trow? IACHIMO. The cloyed will- That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub Both fill'd and running- ravening first the lamb, Longs after for the garbage. IMOGEN. What, dear sir, Thus raps you? Are you well? IACHIMO. Thanks, madam; well.- Beseech you, sir, Desire my man's abode where I did leave him. He's strange and peevish. PISANIO. I was going, sir, To give him welcome. Exit IMOGEN. Continues well my lord? His health beseech you? IACHIMO. Well, madam. IMOGEN. Is he dispos'd to mirth? I hope he is. IACHIMO. Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there So merry and so gamesome. He is call'd The Britain reveller. IMOGEN. When he was here He did incline to sadness, and oft-times Not knowing why. IACHIMO. I never saw him sad. There is a Frenchman his companion, one An eminent monsieur that, it seems, much loves A Gallian girl at home. He furnaces The thick sighs from him; whiles the jolly Briton- Your lord, I mean- laughs from's free lungs, cries 'O, Can my sides hold, to think that man- who knows By history, report, or his own proof, What woman is, yea, what she cannot choose But must be- will's free hours languish for Assured bondage?' IMOGEN. Will my lord say so? IACHIMO. Ay, madam, with his eyes in flood with laughter. It is a recreation to be by And hear him mock the Frenchman. But heavens know Some men are much to blame. IMOGEN. Not he, I hope. IACHIMO. Not he; but yet heaven's bounty towards him might Be us'd more thankfully. In himself, 'tis much; In you, which I account his, beyond all talents. Whilst I am bound to wonder, I am bound To pity too. IMOGEN. What do you pity, sir? IACHIMO. Two creatures heartily. IMOGEN. Am I one, sir? You look on me: what wreck discern you in me Deserves your pity? IACHIMO. Lamentable! What, To hide me from the radiant sun and solace I' th' dungeon by a snuff? IMOGEN. I pray you, sir, Deliver with more openness your answers To my demands. Why do you pity me? IACHIMO. That others do, I was about to say, enjoy your- But It is an office of the gods to venge it, Not mine to speak on't. IMOGEN. You do seem to know Something of me, or what concerns me; pray you- Since doubting things go ill often hurts more Than to be sure they do; for certainties Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing, The remedy then born- discover to me What both you spur and stop. IACHIMO. Had I this cheek To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch, Whose every touch, would force the feeler's soul To th' oath of loyalty; this object, which Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye, Fixing it only here; should I, damn'd then, Slaver with lips as common as the stairs That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands Made hard with hourly falsehood- falsehood as With labour; then by-peeping in an eye Base and illustrious as the smoky light That's fed with stinking tallow- it were fit That all the plagues of hell should at one time Encounter such revolt. IMOGEN. My lord, I fear, Has forgot Britain. IACHIMO. And himself. Not I Inclin'd to this intelligence pronounce The beggary of his change; but 'tis your graces That from my mutest conscience to my tongue Charms this report out. IMOGEN. Let me hear no more. IACHIMO. O dearest soul, your cause doth strike my heart With pity that doth make me sick! A lady So fair, and fasten'd to an empery, Would make the great'st king double, to be partner'd With tomboys hir'd with that self exhibition Which your own coffers yield! with diseas'd ventures That play with all infirmities for gold Which rottenness can lend nature! such boil'd stuff As well might poison poison! Be reveng'd; Or she that bore you was no queen, and you Recoil from your great stock. IMOGEN. Reveng'd? How should I be reveng'd? If this be true- As I have such a heart that both mine ears Must not in haste abuse- if it be true, How should I be reveng'd? IACHIMO. Should he make me Live like Diana's priest betwixt cold sheets, Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps, In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it. I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure, More noble than that runagate to your bed, And will continue fast to your affection, Still close as sure. IMOGEN. What ho, Pisanio! IACHIMO. Let me my service tender on your lips. IMOGEN. Away! I do condemn mine ears that have So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable, Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue, not For such an end thou seek'st, as base as strange. Thou wrong'st a gentleman who is as far From thy report as thou from honour; and Solicits here a lady that disdains Thee and the devil alike.- What ho, Pisanio!- The King my father shall be made acquainted Of thy assault. If he shall think it fit A saucy stranger in his court to mart As in a Romish stew, and to expound His beastly mind to us, he hath a court He little cares for, and a daughter who He not respects at all.- What ho, Pisanio! IACHIMO. O happy Leonatus! I may say The credit that thy lady hath of thee Deserves thy trust, and thy most perfect goodness Her assur'd credit. Blessed live you long, A lady to the worthiest sir that ever Country call'd his! and you his mistress, only For the most worthiest fit! Give me your pardon. I have spoke this to know if your affiance Were deeply rooted, and shall make your lord That which he is new o'er; and he is one The truest manner'd, such a holy witch That he enchants societies into him, Half all men's hearts are his. IMOGEN. You make amends. IACHIMO. He sits 'mongst men like a descended god: He hath a kind of honour sets him off More than a mortal seeming. Be not angry, Most mighty Princess, that I have adventur'd To try your taking of a false report, which hath Honour'd with confirmation your great judgment In the election of a sir so rare, Which you know cannot err. The love I bear him Made me to fan you thus; but the gods made you, Unlike all others, chaffless. Pray your pardon. IMOGEN. All's well, sir; take my pow'r i' th' court for yours. IACHIMO. My humble thanks. I had almost forgot T' entreat your Grace but in a small request, And yet of moment too, for it concerns Your lord; myself and other noble friends Are partners in the business. IMOGEN. Pray what is't? IACHIMO. Some dozen Romans of us, and your lord- The best feather of our wing- have mingled sums To buy a present for the Emperor; Which I, the factor for the rest, have done In France. 'Tis plate of rare device, and jewels Of rich and exquisite form, their values great; And I am something curious, being strange, To have them in safe stowage. May it please you To take them in protection? IMOGEN. Willingly; And pawn mine honour for their safety. Since My lord hath interest in them, I will keep them In my bedchamber. IACHIMO. They are in a trunk, Attended by my men. I will make bold To send them to you only for this night; I must aboard to-morrow. IMOGEN. O, no, no. IACHIMO. Yes, I beseech; or I shall short my word By length'ning my return. From Gallia I cross'd the seas on purpose and on promise To see your Grace. IMOGEN. I thank you for your pains. But not away to-morrow! IACHIMO. O, I must, madam. Therefore I shall beseech you, if you please To greet your lord with writing, do't to-night. I have outstood my time, which is material 'To th' tender of our present. IMOGEN. I will write. Send your trunk to me; it shall safe be kept And truly yielded you. You're very welcome. Exeunt 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.

Im Palast von Cymbeline gibt die Königin Anweisungen, Blumen zu pflücken, während der Tau noch auf dem Boden liegt. Dann fragt sie den Arzt Cornelius, ob er die Medikamente mitgebracht hat. Er präsentiert ihr eine Schachtel, aber sein Gewissen veranlasst ihn zu fragen, warum sie diese langsamen, aber tödlichen Gifte benötigt. Verärgert, dass sie in Frage gestellt wird, antwortet sie, dass der Arzt sie zwar in den Kräuterkünsten des Destillierens und der Parfümherstellung unterwiesen hat, sie aber ihre Fähigkeiten erweitern möchte, indem sie diese Verbindungen an nichtmenschlichen Subjekten - implizit Tieren - testet. Cornelius ist nicht beeindruckt und weist darauf hin, dass sie nur ihr Herz verhärten wird. Die Königin beendet das Gespräch abrupt und Pisanio tritt ein. In einem inneren Monolog offenbart die Königin, dass sie beabsichtigt, ihre Gifte zuerst an ihm auszuprobieren, da er auf Posthumus' Seite steht und für ihren Sohn in der Frage nach Imogen ein "Feind" ist. Als sie Cornelius entlässt, bemerkt er in Gedanken, dass er von ihrer Boshaftigkeit weiß und sicherstellen wird, dass sie keinen Schaden anrichtet. Die von ihm ihr gegebenen Medikamente sind nicht die tödlichen Gifte, die sie verlangt hat, sondern Tränke zum "Betäuben und Taubmachen der Sinne für eine Weile". Sie wird sie an Katzen und Hunden ausprobieren und später an Menschen, aber der Effekt wird nur dazu führen, dass die Geister vorübergehend eingesperrt werden, nur damit das Subjekt erfrischt aufwacht. Die Königin hofft, dass Imogens Gefühle für Posthumus abkühlen werden. Sie verspricht Pisanio, dass sie ihn, wenn er ihr mitteilt, dass Imogen Cloten liebt, genauso groß machen wird wie seinen Herrn Posthumus. Tatsächlich wird er größer sein, da Posthumus nicht zurückkehren kann; Posthumus kann auch nicht für Pisanio sorgen. Die Königin lässt dann die Schachtel fallen und Pisanio nimmt sie auf. Die Königin drängt ihn, sie als ein Zeichen weiterer Gunstgeschenke anzunehmen, die sie ihm zukommen lassen will, und behauptet, dass sie mit ihrem Inhalt bereits fünfmal das Leben des Königs gerettet hat. Sie befiehlt Pisanio, Imogen mitzuteilen, was sie tun muss. Sie erinnert ihn daran, dass er, wenn er ihren Wunsch erfüllt, immer noch seine Geliebte Imogen und auch Cloten hat, die ihm Beförderung verschaffen werden. Zusätzlich wird sie den König dazu überreden, ihm zu gewähren, was er auch immer wünscht, und sie selbst wird verpflichtet sein, ihn zu belohnen. Pisanio geht, ohne zu antworten, und die Königin offenbart, dass sie ihm misstraut, da sie glaubt, dass er immer noch loyal zu Posthumus und Imogen ist. Sie sagt, wenn er das einnimmt, was sie für Gift hält, wird Imogen keine Unterstützung haben. Wenn Imogen weiterhin trotz der Königin trotzt, wird auch sie vergiftet, und Cloten wird Erbe des Throns von Cymbeline. Pisanio kommt wieder herein, um dem Publikum mitzuteilen, dass er sich lieber selbst erwürgen würde, als Posthumus untreu zu 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: A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet Journeying down the Rhone on a summer's day, you have perhaps felt the sunshine made dreary by those ruined villages which stud the banks in certain parts of its course, telling how the swift river once rose, like an angry, destroying god, sweeping down the feeble generations whose breath is in their nostrils, and making their dwellings a desolation. Strange contrast, you may have thought, between the effect produced on us by these dismal remnants of commonplace houses, which in their best days were but the sign of a sordid life, belonging in all its details to our own vulgar era, and the effect produced by those ruins on the castled Rhine, which have crumbled and mellowed into such harmony with the green and rocky steeps that they seem to have a natural fitness, like the mountain-pine; nay, even in the day when they were built they must have had this fitness, as if they had been raised by an earth-born race, who had inherited from their mighty parent a sublime instinct of form. And that was a day of romance; If those robber-barons were somewhat grim and drunken ogres, they had a certain grandeur of the wild beast in them,--they were forest boars with tusks, tearing and rending, not the ordinary domestic grunter; they represented the demon forces forever in collision with beauty, virtue, and the gentle uses of life; they made a fine contrast in the picture with the wandering minstrel, the soft-lipped princess, the pious recluse, and the timid Israelite. That was a time of color, when the sunlight fell on glancing steel and floating banners; a time of adventure and fierce struggle,--nay, of living, religious art and religious enthusiasm; for were not cathedrals built in those days, and did not great emperors leave their Western palaces to die before the infidel strongholds in the sacred East? Therefore it is that these Rhine castles thrill me with a sense of poetry; they belong to the grand historic life of humanity, and raise up for me the vision of an echo. But these dead-tinted, hollow-eyed, angular skeletons of villages on the Rhone oppress me with the feeling that human life--very much of it--is a narrow, ugly, grovelling existence, which even calamity does not elevate, but rather tends to exhibit in all its bare vulgarity of conception; and I have a cruel conviction that the lives these ruins are the traces of were part of a gross sum of obscure vitality, that will be swept into the same oblivion with the generations of ants and beavers. Perhaps something akin to this oppressive feeling may have weighed upon you in watching this old-fashioned family life on the banks of the Floss, which even sorrow hardly suffices to lift above the level of the tragi-comic. It is a sordid life, you say, this of the Tullivers and Dodsons, irradiated by no sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith; moved by none of those wild, uncontrollable passions which create the dark shadows of misery and crime; without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants, that hard, submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of what nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life. Here one has conventional worldly notions and habits without instruction and without polish, surely the most prosaic form of human life; proud respectability in a gig of unfashionable build; worldliness without side-dishes. Observing these people narrowly, even when the iron hand of misfortune has shaken them from their unquestioning hold on the world, one sees little trace of religion, still less of a distinctively Christian creed. Their belief in the Unseen, so far as it manifests itself at all, seems to be rather a pagan kind; their moral notions, though held with strong tenacity, seem to have no standard beyond hereditary custom. You could not live among such people; you are stifled for want of an outlet toward something beautiful, great, or noble; you are irritated with these dull men and women, as a kind of population out of keeping with the earth on which they live,--with this rich plain where the great river flows forever onward, and links the small pulse of the old English town with the beatings of the world's mighty heart. A vigorous superstition, that lashes its gods or lashes its own back, seems to be more congruous with the mystery of the human lot, than the mental condition of these emmet-like Dodsons and Tullivers. I share with you this sense of oppressive narrowness; but it is necessary that we should feel it, if we care to understand how it acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie,--how it has acted on young natures in many generations, that in the onward tendency of human things have risen above the mental level of the generation before them, to which they have been nevertheless tied by the strongest fibres of their hearts. The suffering, whether of martyr or victim, which belongs to every historical advance of mankind, is represented in this way in every town, and by hundreds of obscure hearths; and we need not shrink from this comparison of small things with great; for does not science tell us that its highest striving is after the ascertainment of a unity which shall bind the smallest things with the greatest? In natural science, I have understood, there is nothing petty to the mind that has a large vision of relations, and to which every single object suggests a vast sum of conditions. It is surely the same with the observation of human life. Certainly the religious and moral ideas of the Dodsons and Tullivers were of too specific a kind to be arrived at deductively, from the statement that they were part of the Protestant population of Great Britain. Their theory of life had its core of soundness, as all theories must have on which decent and prosperous families have been reared and have flourished; but it had the very slightest tincture of theology. If, in the maiden days of the Dodson sisters, their Bibles opened more easily at some parts than others, it was because of dried tulip-petals, which had been distributed quite impartially, without preference for the historical, devotional, or doctrinal. Their religion was of a simple, semi-pagan kind, but there was no heresy in it,--if heresy properly means choice,--for they didn't know there was any other religion, except that of chapel-goers, which appeared to run in families, like asthma. How _should_ they know? The vicar of their pleasant rural parish was not a controversialist, but a good hand at whist, and one who had a joke always ready for a blooming female parishioner. The religion of the Dodsons consisted in revering whatever was customary and respectable; it was necessary to be baptized, else one could not be buried in the church-yard, and to take the sacrament before death, as a security against more dimly understood perils; but it was of equal necessity to have the proper pall-bearers and well-cured hams at one's funeral, and to leave an unimpeachable will. A Dodson would not be taxed with the omission of anything that was becoming, or that belonged to that eternal fitness of things which was plainly indicated in the practice of the most substantial parishioners, and in the family traditions,--such as obedience to parents, faithfulness to kindred, industry, rigid honesty, thrift, the thorough scouring of wooden and copper utensils, the hoarding of coins likely to disappear from the currency, the production of first-rate commodities for the market, and the general preference of whatever was home-made. The Dodsons were a very proud race, and their pride lay in the utter frustration of all desire to tax them with a breach of traditional duty or propriety. A wholesome pride in many respects, since it identified honor with perfect integrity, thoroughness of work, and faithfulness to admitted rules; and society owes some worthy qualities in many of her members to mothers of the Dodson class, who made their butter and their fromenty well, and would have felt disgraced to make it otherwise. To be honest and poor was never a Dodson motto, still less to seem rich though being poor; rather, the family badge was to be honest and rich, and not only rich, but richer than was supposed. To live respected, and have the proper bearers at your funeral, was an achievement of the ends of existence that would be entirely nullified if, on the reading of your will, you sank in the opinion of your fellow-men, either by turning out to be poorer than they expected, or by leaving your money in a capricious manner, without strict regard to degrees of kin. The right thing must always be done toward kindred. The right thing was to correct them severely, if they were other than a credit to the family, but still not to alienate from them the smallest rightful share in the family shoebuckles and other property. A conspicuous quality in the Dodson character was its genuineness; its vices and virtues alike were phases of a proud honest egoism, which had a hearty dislike to whatever made against its own credit and interest, and would be frankly hard of speech to inconvenient "kin," but would never forsake or ignore them,--would not let them want bread, but only require them to eat it with bitter herbs. The same sort of traditional belief ran in the Tulliver veins, but it was carried in richer blood, having elements of generous imprudence, warm affection, and hot-tempered rashness. Mr. Tulliver's grandfather had been heard to say that he was descended from one Ralph Tulliver, a wonderfully clever fellow, who had ruined himself. It is likely enough that the clever Ralph was a high liver, rode spirited horses, and was very decidedly of his own opinion. On the other hand, nobody had ever heard of a Dodson who had ruined himself; it was not the way of that family. If such were the views of life on which the Dodsons and Tullivers had been reared in the praiseworthy past of Pitt and high prices, you will infer from what you already know concerning the state of society in St. Ogg's, that there had been no highly modifying influence to act on them in their maturer life. It was still possible, even in that later time of anti-Catholic preaching, for people to hold many pagan ideas, and believe themselves good church-people, notwithstanding; so we need hardly feel any surprise at the fact that Mr. Tulliver, though a regular church-goer, recorded his vindictiveness on the fly-leaf of his Bible. It was not that any harm could be said concerning the vicar of that charming rural parish to which Dorlcote Mill belonged; he was a man of excellent family, an irreproachable bachelor, of elegant pursuits,--had taken honors, and held a fellowship. Mr. Tulliver regarded him with dutiful respect, as he did everything else belonging to the church-service; but he considered that church was one thing and common-sense another, and he wanted nobody to tell _him_ what commonsense was. Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for themselves under unfavorable circumstances have been supplied by nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that they will get a hold on very unreceptive surfaces. The spiritual seed which had been scattered over Mr. Tulliver had apparently been destitute of any corresponding provision, and had slipped off to the winds again, from a total absence of hooks. 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.

Das ist ein verrückter Kapiteltitel, also lassen Sie uns das zuerst erklären. Bossuet bezieht sich auf einen französischen Bischof, der im 17. Jahrhundert lebte. Und der Kapiteltitel bezieht sich auf ein Buch, das Bossuet geschrieben hat, eine Geschichte des englischen Protestantismus. Der Titel ist also eine merkwürdige Art zu sagen, dass wir über einen Typ von Protestantismus hören werden, über den Bossuet nicht in seinem Buch geschrieben hat. Auch der Titel des vierten Buches, "Tal der Demütigung", bezieht sich auf ein anderes Buch, Bunyans Pilgerreise. OK, gehen wir weiter zu diesem zugegebenermaßen seltsamen Kapitel... Der Erzähler schweift ein wenig über Schlösser am Rhein, einem Fluss in Deutschland, ab. Diese Schlösser sind sehr romantisch und cool. Aber dann beschreibt der Erzähler einige Häuser am Fluss Rhone, die arm sind, heruntergekommen und deprimierend. Das ist eine riesige Metapher über zwei verschiedene Arten von Geschichte: die romantische Geschichte von Schlössern und Abenteuern und die deprimierende Geschichte anonymer armer Leute. OK, das ist alles nur eine Vorbereitung dafür, dass der Erzähler anfängt, über das deprimierende Leben der Familien entlang des Flosses zu sprechen. Der Erzähler richtet sich direkt an das Publikum und stellt fest, dass "wir" wahrscheinlich verrückt würden, wenn wir unter dummen, engstirnigen Leuten wie den Tullivers und den Wakems leben würden. Aber Moment, da ist noch mehr. Der Erzähler stimmt zu, dass das Leben von Tom und Maggie wirklich deprimierend ist. Aber der Erzähler sagt, dass wir all diese Dinge sehen müssen und diese sehr detaillierten Erzählungen erhalten müssen, um zu verstehen, wie die Umstände von Toms und Maggies Dasein sie beeinflussen. Im Grunde genommen tragen Umstände wie wo sie leben und welche Familien ihnen helfen, zu Toms und Maggies Charakteren bei. Jetzt wechseln wir zur Religion. Der Erzähler gibt uns einen ausführlichen Überblick über die Art von Religion, die der Dodson-Clan praktiziert. Die Dodsons sind gute Protestanten. Aber Religion ist für die Dodsons und andere wie sie keine Frage des Glaubens. Es geht um Gewohnheit, Brauchtum und soziale Anerkennung. Die Hauptüberzeugungen der Dodsons drehen sich um Geld und Blut: immer sparsam sein, hart arbeiten und immer der Familie treu sein. Die Tullivers haben die gleichen Überzeugungen und Bräuche wie die Dodsons, obwohl sie etwas emotionaler sind und zu verrückten Plänen neigen. Insgesamt sind die Familien, die St. Ogg's bevölkern, im Wesentlichen gleich und St. Ogg's insgesamt mangelt es wirklich an Spiritualität. So endet das seltsamste Kapitel im 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: Events moved rapidly during the next few days. The reproduction, in the Chronicle, of the article from the Afro-American Banner, with Carteret's inflammatory comment, took immediate effect. It touched the Southern white man in his most sensitive spot. To him such an article was an insult to white womanhood, and must be resented by some active steps,--mere words would be no answer at all. To meet words with words upon such a subject would be to acknowledge the equality of the negro and his right to discuss or criticise the conduct of the white people. The colored people became alarmed at the murmurings of the whites, which seemed to presage a coming storm. A number of them sought to arm themselves, but ascertained, upon inquiring at the stores, that no white merchant would sell a negro firearms. Since all the dealers in this sort of merchandise were white men, the negroes had to be satisfied with oiling up the old army muskets which some of them possessed, and the few revolvers with which a small rowdy element generally managed to keep themselves supplied. Upon an effort being made to purchase firearms from a Northern city, the express company, controlled by local men, refused to accept the consignment. The white people, on the other hand, procured both arms and ammunition in large quantities, and the Wellington Grays drilled with great assiduity at their armory. All this went on without any public disturbance of the town's tranquillity. A stranger would have seen nothing to excite his curiosity. The white people did their talking among themselves, and merely grew more distant in their manner toward the colored folks, who instinctively closed their ranks as the whites drew away. With each day that passed the feeling grew more tense. The editor of the Afro-American Banner, whose office had been quietly garrisoned for several nights by armed negroes, became frightened, and disappeared from the town between two suns. The conspirators were jubilant at the complete success of their plans. It only remained for them to so direct this aroused public feeling that it might completely accomplish the desired end,--to change the political complexion of the city government and assure the ascendency of the whites until the amendment should go into effect. A revolution, and not a riot, was contemplated. With this end in view, another meeting was called at Carteret's office. "We are now ready," announced General Belmont, "for the final act of this drama. We must decide promptly, or events may run away from us." "What do you suggest?" asked Carteret. "Down in the American tropics," continued the general, "they have a way of doing things. I was in Nicaragua, ten years ago, when Paterno's revolution drove out Igorroto's government. It was as easy as falling off a log. Paterno had the arms and the best men. Igorroto was not looking for trouble, and the guns were at his breast before he knew it. We have the guns. The negroes are not expecting trouble, and are easy to manage compared with the fiery mixture that flourishes in the tropics." "I should not advocate murder," returned Carteret. "We are animated by high and holy principles. We wish to right a wrong, to remedy an abuse, to save our state from anarchy and our race from humiliation. I don't object to frightening the negroes, but I am opposed to unnecessary bloodshed." "I'm not quite so particular," struck in McBane. "They need to be taught a lesson, and a nigger more or less wouldn't be missed. There's too many of 'em now." "Of course," continued Carteret, "if we should decide upon a certain mode of procedure, and the negroes should resist, a different reasoning might apply; but I will have no premeditated murder." "In Central and South America," observed the general reflectively, "none are hurt except those who get in the way." "There'll be no niggers hurt," said McBane contemptuously, "unless they strain themselves running. One white man can chase a hundred of 'em. I've managed five hundred at a time. I'll pay for burying all the niggers that are killed." The conference resulted in a well-defined plan, to be put into operation the following day, by which the city government was to be wrested from the Republicans and their negro allies. "And now," said General Belmont, "while we are cleansing the Augean stables, we may as well remove the cause as the effect. There are several negroes too many in this town, which will be much the better without them. There's that yellow lawyer, Watson. He's altogether too mouthy, and has too much business. Every nigger that gets into trouble sends for Watson, and white lawyers, with families to support and social positions to keep up, are deprived of their legitimate source of income." "There's that damn nigger real estate agent," blurted out McBane. "Billy Kitchen used to get most of the nigger business, but this darky has almost driven him to the poorhouse. A white business man is entitled to a living in his own profession and his own home. That nigger don't belong here nohow. He came from the North a year or two ago, and is hand in glove with Barber, the nigger editor, which is enough of itself to damn him. _He'll_ have to go!" "How about the collector of the port?" "We'd better not touch him. It would bring the government down upon us, which we want to avoid. We don't need to worry about the nigger preachers either. They want to stay here, where the loaves and the fishes are. We can make 'em write letters to the newspapers justifying our course, as a condition of their remaining." "What about Billings?" asked McBane. Billings was the white Republican mayor. "Is that skunk to be allowed to stay in town?" "No," returned the general, "every white Republican office-holder ought to be made to go. This town is only big enough for Democrats, and negroes who can be taught to keep their place." "What about the colored doctor," queried McBane, "with the hospital, and the diamond ring, and the carriage, and the other fallals?" "I shouldn't interfere with Miller," replied the general decisively. "He's a very good sort of a negro, doesn't meddle with politics, nor tread on any one else's toes. His father was a good citizen, which counts in his favor. He's spending money in the community too, and contributes to its prosperity." "That sort of nigger, though, sets a bad example," retorted McBane. "They make it all the harder to keep the rest of 'em down." "'One swallow does not make a summer,'" quoted the general. "When we get things arranged, there'll be no trouble. A stream cannot rise higher than its fountain, and a smart nigger without a constituency will no longer be an object of fear. I say, let the doctor alone." "He'll have to keep mighty quiet, though," muttered McBane discontentedly. "I don't like smart niggers. I've had to shoot several of them, in the course of my life." "Personally, I dislike the man," interposed Carteret, "and if I consulted my own inclinations, would say expel him with the rest; but my grievance is a personal one, and to gratify it in that way would be a loss to the community. I wish to be strictly impartial in this matter, and to take no step which cannot be entirely justified by a wise regard for the public welfare." "What's the use of all this hypocrisy, gentlemen?" sneered McBane. "Every last one of us has an axe to grind! The major may as well put an edge on his. We'll never get a better chance to have things our way. If this nigger doctor annoys the major, we'll run him out with the rest. This is a white man's country, and a white man's city, and no nigger has any business here when a white man wants him gone!" Carteret frowned darkly at this brutal characterization of their motives. It robbed the enterprise of all its poetry, and put a solemn act of revolution upon the plane of a mere vulgar theft of power. Even the general winced. "I would not consent," he said irritably, "to Miller's being disturbed." McBane made no further objection. There was a discreet knock at the door. "Come in," said Carteret. Jerry entered. "Mistuh Ellis wants ter speak ter you a minute, suh," he said. Carteret excused himself and left the room. "Jerry," said the general, "you lump of ebony, the sight of you reminds me! If your master doesn't want you for a minute, step across to Mr. Brown's and tell him to send me three cocktails." "Yas, suh," responded Jerry, hesitating. The general had said nothing about paying. "And tell him, Jerry, to charge them. I'm short of change to-day." "Yas, suh; yas, suh," replied Jerry, as he backed out of the presence, adding, when he had reached the hall: "Dere ain' no change fer Jerry dis time, sho': I'll jes' make dat _fo_' cocktails, an' de gin'l won't never know de diffe'nce. I ain' gwine 'cross de road fer nothin', not ef I knows it." Half an hour later, the conspirators dispersed. They had fixed the hour of the proposed revolution, the course to be pursued, the results to be obtained; but in stating their equation they had overlooked one factor,--God, or Fate, or whatever one may choose to call the Power that holds the destinies of man in the hollow of his hand. 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.

Der Artikel wird in der Morning Chronicle veröffentlicht und die Wirkung ist sofort spürbar. Die Weißen beginnen von Gewalt zu murmeln und die Schwarzen versuchen, sich zu bewaffnen. Allerdings will ihnen kein weißer Mensch Schusswaffen verkaufen, also müssen sie sich mit alten Militärgewehren und Revolvern begnügen. Eine bewaffnete Gruppe bewacht das Büro des Herausgebers des Afro-American Banner; weil er sich bedroht fühlt, verschwindet er eines Abends aus der Stadt. Die drei Verschwörer sind sehr zufrieden mit der Arbeit, die sie geleistet haben. General Belmont schlägt vor, dass sie mit dem "finale Akt dieses Dramas" beginnen sollen. Er erzählt ihnen, wie er Zeuge von Paternos Revolution gegen Igorroto in Nicaragua war und wie Paterno, mit Waffen und Männern, die herrschende Regierung leicht vertrieb. Dies, so sagt Belmont ihnen, ist ihre Chance, die Republikaner aus Wellington zu vertreiben. McBane geht noch einen Schritt weiter und schlägt vor, dass mehrere Personen getötet werden sollten, doch Carteret weigert sich, an vorsätzlicher Tötung teilzunehmen. Die Gruppe erstellt eine Liste von allen Schwarzen und Republikanern, die aus der Stadt vertrieben werden sollen. Es wird beschlossen, dass die schwarzen Prediger und Dr. Miller bleiben dürfen, obwohl Carteret zugibt, eine persönliche Beschwerde gegen Miller zu haben. McBane nennt dies Heuchelei und sagt: "Wenn dieser Negerarzt dem Major auf die Nerven geht, werden wir ihn gemeinsam mit den anderen vertreiben. Dies ist ein Land der Weißen und eine Stadt der Weißen, und kein Neger hat hier etwas zu suchen, wenn ein Weißer ihn loswerden will." Dies brutal klare Statement "beraubte das Unternehmen all seiner Poesie und stellte einen feierlichen Akt der Revolution auf die Ebene eines vulgären Machtmissbrauchs. Die Stunde der Revolution ist festgelegt, doch die Verschwörer übersehen eine Tatsache - "Gott oder Schicksal oder wie auch immer man die Macht nennen mag, die das Schicksal der Menschen in der Hand hält.

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: THERE was a curious social situation in Black Hawk. All the young men felt the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to town to earn a living, and, in nearly every case, to help the father struggle out of debt, or to make it possible for the younger children of the family to go to school. Those girls had grown up in the first bitter-hard times, and had got little schooling themselves. But the younger brothers and sisters, for whom they made such sacrifices and who have had "advantages," never seem to me, when I meet them now, half as interesting or as well educated. The older girls, who helped to break up the wild sod, learned so much from life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they had all, like Antonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tender age from an old country to a new. I can remember a score of these country girls who were in service in Black Hawk during the few years I lived there, and I can remember something unusual and engaging about each of them. Physically they were almost a race apart, and out-of-door work had given them a vigor which, when they got over their first shyness on coming to town, developed into a positive carriage and freedom of movement, and made them conspicuous among Black Hawk women. That was before the day of High-School athletics. Girls who had to walk more than half a mile to school were pitied. There was not a tennis court in the town; physical exercise was thought rather inelegant for the daughters of well-to-do families. Some of the High-School girls were jolly and pretty, but they stayed indoors in winter because of the cold, and in summer because of the heat. When one danced with them their bodies never moved inside their clothes; their muscles seemed to ask but one thing--not to be disturbed. I remember those girls merely as faces in the schoolroom, gay and rosy, or listless and dull, cut off below the shoulders, like cherubs, by the ink-smeared tops of the high desks that were surely put there to make us round-shouldered and hollow-chested. The daughters of Black Hawk merchants had a confident, uninquiring belief that they were "refined," and that the country girls, who "worked out," were not. The American farmers in our county were quite as hard-pressed as their neighbors from other countries. All alike had come to Nebraska with little capital and no knowledge of the soil they must subdue. All had borrowed money on their land. But no matter in what straits the Pennsylvanian or Virginian found himself, he would not let his daughters go out into service. Unless his girls could teach a country school, they sat at home in poverty. The Bohemian and Scandinavian girls could not get positions as teachers, because they had had no opportunity to learn the language. Determined to help in the struggle to clear the homestead from debt, they had no alternative but to go into service. Some of them, after they came to town, remained as serious and as discreet in behavior as they had been when they ploughed and herded on their father's farm. Others, like the three Bohemian Marys, tried to make up for the years of youth they had lost. But every one of them did what she had set out to do, and sent home those hard-earned dollars. The girls I knew were always helping to pay for ploughs and reapers, brood-sows, or steers to fatten. One result of this family solidarity was that the foreign farmers in our county were the first to become prosperous. After the fathers were out of debt, the daughters married the sons of neighbors,--usually of like nationality,--and the girls who once worked in Black Hawk kitchens are to-day managing big farms and fine families of their own; their children are better off than the children of the town women they used to serve. I thought the attitude of the town people toward these girls very stupid. If I told my schoolmates that Lena Lingard's grandfather was a clergyman, and much respected in Norway, they looked at me blankly. What did it matter? All foreigners were ignorant people who could n't speak English. There was not a man in Black Hawk who had the intelligence or cultivation, much less the personal distinction, of Antonia's father. Yet people saw no difference between her and the three Marys; they were all Bohemians, all "hired girls." I always knew I should live long enough to see my country girls come into their own, and I have. To-day the best that a harassed Black Hawk merchant can hope for is to sell provisions and farm machinery and automobiles to the rich farms where that first crop of stalwart Bohemian and Scandinavian girls are now the mistresses. The Black Hawk boys looked forward to marrying Black Hawk girls, and living in a brand-new little house with best chairs that must not be sat upon, and hand-painted china that must not be used. But sometimes a young fellow would look up from his ledger, or out through the grating of his father's bank, and let his eyes follow Lena Lingard, as she passed the window with her slow, undulating walk, or Tiny Soderball, tripping by in her short skirt and striped stockings. The country girls were considered a menace to the social order. Their beauty shone out too boldly against a conventional background. But anxious mothers need have felt no alarm. They mistook the mettle of their sons. The respect for respectability was stronger than any desire in Black Hawk youth. Our young man of position was like the son of a royal house; the boy who swept out his office or drove his delivery wagon might frolic with the jolly country girls, but he himself must sit all evening in a plush parlor where conversation dragged so perceptibly that the father often came in and made blundering efforts to warm up the atmosphere. On his way home from his dull call, he would perhaps meet Tony and Lena, coming along the sidewalk whispering to each other, or the three Bohemian Marys in their long plush coats and caps, comporting themselves with a dignity that only made their eventful histories the more piquant. If he went to the hotel to see a traveling man on business, there was Tiny, arching her shoulders at him like a kitten. If he went into the laundry to get his collars, there were the four Danish girls, smiling up from their ironing-boards, with their white throats and their pink cheeks. The three Marys were the heroines of a cycle of scandalous stories, which the old men were fond of relating as they sat about the cigar-stand in the drug-store. Mary Dusak had been housekeeper for a bachelor rancher from Boston, and after several years in his service she was forced to retire from the world for a short time. Later she came back to town to take the place of her friend, Mary Svoboda, who was similarly embarrassed. The three Marys were considered as dangerous as high explosives to have about the kitchen, yet they were such good cooks and such admirable housekeepers that they never had to look for a place. The Vannis' tent brought the town boys and the country girls together on neutral ground. Sylvester Lovett, who was cashier in his father's bank, always found his way to the tent on Saturday night. He took all the dances Lena Lingard would give him, and even grew bold enough to walk home with her. If his sisters or their friends happened to be among the onlookers on "popular nights," Sylvester stood back in the shadow under the cottonwood trees, smoking and watching Lena with a harassed expression. Several times I stumbled upon him there in the dark, and I felt rather sorry for him. He reminded me of Ole Benson, who used to sit on the draw-side and watch Lena herd her cattle. Later in the summer, when Lena went home for a week to visit her mother, I heard from Antonia that young Lovett drove all the way out there to see her, and took her buggy-riding. In my ingenuousness I hoped that Sylvester would marry Lena, and thus give all the country girls a better position in the town. Sylvester dallied about Lena until he began to make mistakes in his work; had to stay at the bank until after dark to make his books balance. He was daft about her, and every one knew it. To escape from his predicament he ran away with a widow six years older than himself, who owned a half-section. This remedy worked, apparently. He never looked at Lena again, nor lifted his eyes as he ceremoniously tipped his hat when he happened to meet her on the sidewalk. So that was what they were like, I thought, these white-handed, high-collared clerks and bookkeepers! I used to glare at young Lovett from a distance and only wished I had some way of showing my contempt for him. 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.

Jim und die Harlings sind begeistert vom Frühling. Sie sind jeden Tag draußen und helfen Mrs. Harling und Antonia beim Pflanzen und Pflegen des Gartens. Jim schreibt, dass der kommende Sommer alles verändern würde, aber dass niemand es an dem Tag wusste, als die Vannis mit ihrer reisenden Tanzkompanie in die Stadt kommen. Sie errichten ihr Zelt auf einem freien Grundstück neben der dänischen Wäscherei und Kinder kommen tagsüber zum Tanzunterricht. Sie halten sehr gute Ordnung mit Zeit und Anstand. Jeden Samstagabend gibt es einen Tanz. Die Jungen aus dem Land kommen von den umliegenden Bauernhöfen, genauso wie die Mädchen aus dem Land, einschließlich Antonia. Die jungen Männer des Progressive Euchre Clubs kommen auch zu den Tänzen, damit sie mit "den angestellten Mädchen" tanzen können, obwohl ihre Freundinnen wütend auf sie sein 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: For several subsequent days I saw little of Mr. Rochester. In the mornings he seemed much engaged with business, and, in the afternoon, gentlemen from Millcote or the neighbourhood called, and sometimes stayed to dine with him. When his sprain was well enough to admit of horse exercise, he rode out a good deal; probably to return these visits, as he generally did not come back till late at night. During this interval, even Adele was seldom sent for to his presence, and all my acquaintance with him was confined to an occasional rencontre in the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery, when he would sometimes pass me haughtily and coldly, just acknowledging my presence by a distant nod or a cool glance, and sometimes bow and smile with gentlemanlike affability. His changes of mood did not offend me, because I saw that I had nothing to do with their alternation; the ebb and flow depended on causes quite disconnected with me. One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio; in order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents: the gentlemen went away early, to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs. Fairfax informed me; but the night being wet and inclement, Mr. Rochester did not accompany them. Soon after they were gone he rang the bell: a message came that I and Adele were to go downstairs. I brushed Adele's hair and made her neat, and having ascertained that I was myself in my usual Quaker trim, where there was nothing to retouch--all being too close and plain, braided locks included, to admit of disarrangement--we descended, Adele wondering whether the _petit coffre_ was at length come; for, owing to some mistake, its arrival had hitherto been delayed. She was gratified: there it stood, a little carton, on the table when we entered the dining-room. She appeared to know it by instinct. "Ma boite! ma boite!" exclaimed she, running towards it. "Yes, there is your 'boite' at last: take it into a corner, you genuine daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it," said the deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside. "And mind," he continued, "don't bother me with any details of the anatomical process, or any notice of the condition of the entrails: let your operation be conducted in silence: tiens-toi tranquille, enfant; comprends-tu?" Adele seemed scarcely to need the warning--she had already retired to a sofa with her treasure, and was busy untying the cord which secured the lid. Having removed this impediment, and lifted certain silvery envelopes of tissue paper, she merely exclaimed-- "Oh ciel! Que c'est beau!" and then remained absorbed in ecstatic contemplation. "Is Miss Eyre there?" now demanded the master, half rising from his seat to look round to the door, near which I still stood. "Ah! well, come forward; be seated here." He drew a chair near his own. "I am not fond of the prattle of children," he continued; "for, old bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations connected with their lisp. It would be intolerable to me to pass a whole evening _tete-a-tete_ with a brat. Don't draw that chair farther off, Miss Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed it--if you please, that is. Confound these civilities! I continually forget them. Nor do I particularly affect simple-minded old ladies. By-the-bye, I must have mine in mind; it won't do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to one; and blood is said to be thicker than water." He rang, and despatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon arrived, knitting-basket in hand. "Good evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose. I have forbidden Adele to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting with repletion: have the goodness to serve her as auditress and interlocutrice; it will be one of the most benevolent acts you ever performed." Adele, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax, than she summoned her to her sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with the porcelain, the ivory, the waxen contents of her "boite;" pouring out, meantime, explanations and raptures in such broken English as she was mistress of. "Now I have performed the part of a good host," pursued Mr. Rochester, "put my guests into the way of amusing each other, I ought to be at liberty to attend to my own pleasure. Miss Eyre, draw your chair still a little farther forward: you are yet too far back; I cannot see you without disturbing my position in this comfortable chair, which I have no mind to do." I did as I was bid, though I would much rather have remained somewhat in the shade; but Mr. Rochester had such a direct way of giving orders, it seemed a matter of course to obey him promptly. We were, as I have said, in the dining-room: the lustre, which had been lit for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of light; the large fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and ample before the lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, save the subdued chat of Adele (she dared not speak loud), and, filling up each pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes. Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different to what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern--much less gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether with wine or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable. He was, in short, in his after-dinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also more self- indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite- hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too--not without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling. He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze fastened on his physiognomy. "You examine me, Miss Eyre," said he: "do you think me handsome?" I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware--"No, sir." "Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you," said he: "you have the air of a little _nonnette_; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you mean by it?" "Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied that it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little consequence, or something of that sort." "You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence, indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under my ear! Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have all my limbs and all my features like any other man?" "Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no pointed repartee: it was only a blunder." "Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise me: does my forehead not please you?" He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen. "Now, ma'am, am I a fool?" "Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in return whether you are a philanthropist?" "There again! Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended to pat my head: and that is because I said I did not like the society of children and old women (low be it spoken!). No, young lady, I am not a general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience;" and he pointed to the prominences which are said to indicate that faculty, and which, fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving, indeed, a marked breadth to the upper part of his head: "and, besides, I once had a kind of rude tenderness of heart. When I was as old as you, I was a feeling fellow enough, partial to the unfledged, unfostered, and unlucky; but Fortune has knocked me about since: she has even kneaded me with her knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am hard and tough as an India-rubber ball; pervious, though, through a chink or two still, and with one sentient point in the middle of the lump. Yes: does that leave hope for me?" "Hope of what, sir?" "Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?" "Decidedly he has had too much wine," I thought; and I did not know what answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether he was capable of being re-transformed? "You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night." With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his arm on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence. "I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night," he repeated, "and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these can talk. Adele is a degree better, but still far below the mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will: you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here. I have almost forgotten you since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to draw you out--to learn more of you--therefore speak." Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive smile either. "Speak," he urged. "What about, sir?" "Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the manner of treating it entirely to yourself." Accordingly I sat and said nothing: "If he expects me to talk for the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed himself to the wrong person," I thought. "You are dumb, Miss Eyre." I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes. "Stubborn?" he said, "and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don't wish to treat you like an inferior: that is" (correcting himself), "I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years' difference in age and a century's advance in experience. This is legitimate, _et j'y tiens_, as Adele would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one point--cankering as a rusty nail." He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so. "I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir--quite willing; but I cannot introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you? Ask me questions, and I will do my best to answer them." "Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right to be a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on the grounds I stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and that I have battled through a varied experience with many men of many nations, and roamed over half the globe, while you have lived quietly with one set of people in one house?" "Do as you please, sir." "That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a very evasive one. Reply clearly." "I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience." "Humph! Promptly spoken. But I won't allow that, seeing that it would never suit my case, as I have made an indifferent, not to say a bad, use of both advantages. Leaving superiority out of the question, then, you must still agree to receive my orders now and then, without being piqued or hurt by the tone of command. Will you?" I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester _is_ peculiar--he seems to forget that he pays me 30 pounds per annum for receiving his orders. "The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing expression; "but speak too." "I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders." "Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary ground, will you agree to let me hector a little?" "No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget it, and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in his dependency, I agree heartily." "And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?" "I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a salary." "Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; therefore, keep to yourself, and don't venture on generalities of which you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of one's meaning are the usual rewards of candour. Not three in three thousand raw school-girl-governesses would have answered me as you have just done. But I don't mean to flatter you: if you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it. And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions: for what I yet know, you may be no better than the rest; you may have intolerable defects to counterbalance your few good points." "And so may you," I thought. My eye met his as the idea crossed my mind: he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been spoken as well as imagined-- "Yes, yes, you are right," said he; "I have plenty of faults of my own: I know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you. God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself. I started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you--wiser--almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure--an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?" "How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?" "All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen--quite your equal. Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the better kind, and you see I am not so. You would say you don't see it; at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, by-the-bye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at interpreting its language). Then take my word for it,--I am not a villain: you are not to suppose that--not to attribute to me any such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put on life. Do you wonder that I avow this to you? Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances' secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations." "How do you know?--how can you guess all this, sir?" "I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were writing my thoughts in a diary. You would say, I should have been superior to circumstances; so I should--so I should; but you see I was not. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level. I wish I had stood firm--God knows I do! Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life." "Repentance is said to be its cure, sir." "It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform--I have strength yet for that--if--but where is the use of thinking of it, hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and I _will_ get it, cost what it may." "Then you will degenerate still more, sir." "Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure? And I may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the moor." "It will sting--it will taste bitter, sir." "How do you know?--you never tried it. How very serious--how very solemn you look: and you are as ignorant of the matter as this cameo head" (taking one from the mantelpiece). "You have no right to preach to me, you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are absolutely unacquainted with its mysteries." "I only remind you of your own words, sir: you said error brought remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of existence." "And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flittered across my brain was an error. I believe it was an inspiration rather than a temptation: it was very genial, very soothing--I know that. Here it comes again! It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put on the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit so fair a guest when it asks entrance to my heart." "Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel." "Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the eternal throne--between a guide and a seducer?" "I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more misery if you listen to it." "Not at all--it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself uneasy. Here, come in, bonny wanderer!" He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being. "Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the pilgrim--a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine." "To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing, I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection;--one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure." "Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am paving hell with energy." "Sir?" "I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint. Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have been." "And better?" "And better--so much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You seem to doubt me; I don't doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes and Persians, that both are right." "They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise them." "They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute: unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules." "That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it is liable to abuse." "Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not to abuse it." "You are human and fallible." "I am: so are you--what then?" "The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted." "What power?" "That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,--'Let it be right.'" "'Let it be right'--the very words: you have pronounced them." "_May_ it be right then," I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides, sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my penetration; at least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which accompanies a conviction of ignorance. "Where are you going?" "To put Adele to bed: it is past her bedtime." "You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx." "Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I am certainly not afraid." "You _are_ afraid--your self-love dreads a blunder." "In that sense I do feel apprehensive--I have no wish to talk nonsense." "If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre? Don't trouble yourself to answer--I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother--or father, or master, or what you will--to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. You are still bent on going?" "It has struck nine, sir." "Never mind,--wait a minute: Adele is not ready to go to bed yet. My position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the room, favours observation. While talking to you, I have also occasionally watched Adele (I have my own reasons for thinking her a curious study,--reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you some day). She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones. 'Il faut que je l'essaie!' cried she, 'et a l'instant meme!' and she rushed out of the room. She is now with Sophie, undergoing a robing process: in a few minutes she will re-enter; and I know what I shall see,--a miniature of Celine Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the rising of--But never mind that. However, my tenderest feelings are about to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether it will be realised." Ere long, Adele's little foot was heard tripping across the hall. She entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk stockings and small white satin sandals. "Est-ce que ma robe va bien?" cried she, bounding forwards; "et mes souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!" And spreading out her dress, she chasseed across the room till, having reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him on tip-toe, then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming-- "Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonte;" then rising, she added, "C'est comme cela que maman faisait, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?" "Pre-cise-ly!" was the answer; "and, 'comme cela,' she charmed my English gold out of my British breeches' pocket. I have been green, too, Miss Eyre,--ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you now than once freshened me. My Spring is gone, however, but it has left me that French floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I would fain be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but half a liking to the blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work. I'll explain all this some day. Good-night." Können Sie eine geeignete 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.

Eine Weile sieht Jane Rochester nicht oft; er hat viel zu tun und geht oft reiten. Manchmal ist er hochmütig oder kalt, aber sie kann erkennen, dass er einfach schlecht gelaunt ist und dass seine Einstellung nichts mit ihr zu tun hat. Eines Abends lässt Rochester Jane und Adele nach dem Abendessen rufen. Eine Schachtel mit Geschenken, die Rochester für Adele gekauft hat, ist angekommen, und er stellt sie damit in eine Ecke, genau wie manche Eltern ein Kind mit dem Fernsehen beschäftigen, um es ruhig zu stellen. Er ruft Mrs. Fairfax herein, damit Adele mit ihr über die Geschenke sprechen kann, während er mit Jane spricht. Rochester besteht ständig darauf, dass Jane ihren Stuhl näher zu ihm bringen soll, anstatt sich in den Schatten zurückzuziehen, so dass er ihr Gesicht nicht sehen kann. Er scheint besser gelaunt zu sein als sonst, aber er ist immer noch nicht sonderlich gut darin, höflich zu sein; er neigt dazu, sie herumzukommandieren. Plötzlich fragt Rochester Jane, ob sie ihn für gutaussehend hält, weil sie ihn so anstarrt. Ohne nachzudenken, gibt sie eine ehrliche Antwort: nein. Jane bereut sofort, dass sie nicht etwas Gesellschaftlich Akzeptableres gesagt hat, wie "Schönheit liegt im Auge des Betrachters", aber es scheint Rochester nicht zu stören - im Gegenteil, er scheint froh zu sein, dass sie ehrlich ist. Er bittet sie, ihn zu kritisieren, und sie betrachtet seinen Schädel und sein Gesicht. Basierend auf der Form von Rochesters Schädel schlägt Jane vor, dass er vielleicht nicht besonders wohltätig ist - und sie hat absolut recht, wenn man seine Reaktion betrachtet. Rochester erzählt ein wenig über sich selbst und deutet an, dass er in jungen Jahren den Menschen den Vorteil des Zweifels gegeben hat, aber heutzutage ziemlich abgestumpft ist. Er fragt Jane, ob sie glaubt, dass er wieder zu "Fleisch" werden kann, aber sie weiß nicht genug über seine Vergangenheit, um das beurteilen zu können. Er ist jedoch froh, dass er sie verwirrt hat, denn das hält sie davon ab, ihn mit durchdringendem Blick anzustarren. Das wird wirklich interessant! Schade, dass er fast doppelt so alt ist wie sie. Jane denkt weiterhin über Rochesters Aussehen nach; sie denkt, dass viele Menschen ihn hässlich finden könnten, aber irgendetwas an seiner Ausstrahlung macht ihn imposant. Rochester sagt ihr, dass er heute Abend redebedürftig ist, und befiehlt Jane, mit ihm über etwas zu plaudern. Er ist wirklich nicht besonders gut im Smalltalk. Jane weiß nicht, worüber er gerne spricht, also sagt sie nichts. Rochester versucht, seine Einstellung gegenüber Jane ein wenig zu erklären; obwohl er etwas abrupt ist und sie dazu neigt, ihr Befehle zu geben, anstatt zu fragen, will er sie nicht als minderwertig behandeln. Zumindest erklärt er, betrachtet er sich nur als ihr Vorgesetzter, weil er so viel älter und erfahrener ist als sie. Daher werde er sie manchmal herumkommandieren und "meisterlich" sein, aber sie müsse ihm vergeben. Jane widerspricht ihm: Nur weil er älter ist und mehr getan hat, bedeutet das nicht, dass er weiser ist, sagt sie ihm. Es hängt davon ab, was er mit diesen siebzehn Jahren gemacht hat, die er voraus hat; vielleicht hat er nichts gelernt. Er muss zugeben, dass sie recht hat, aber er will dennoch in der Lage sein, sie manchmal herumzukommandieren, und versucht eine Entschuldigung zu finden. Jane lächelt darüber - immerhin bezahlt er sie dafür, seine Befehle entgegenzunehmen, was er anscheinend vergessen hat. Sie erinnert ihn daran, und er greift das auf: Wäre es in Ordnung, wenn er den ganzen höflichen Unsinn weglässt? Wird sie einfach denken, er sei unhöflich? Jane ist etwas vorsichtig bei diesem Punkt; sie hat nichts gegen informelles Verhalten, aber nicht gegen unhöfliches Verhalten. Kein Gehalt würde es ausgleichen, sagt sie, dafür wirklich schlecht behandelt zu werden. Rochester denkt, dass viele Menschen nicht die Prinzipien von Jane haben und sich für Geld schlecht behandeln lassen würden, aber er ist beeindruckt von ihren Antworten, ihrer Tendenz, für sich selbst einzustehen, und ihrer starken Persönlichkeit. Dann ändert Rochester seine Meinung ein wenig: Jane ist ungewöhnlich, sagt er, aber vielleicht hat sie Fehler, die ihre guten Eigenschaften ausgleichen. Jane sagt nichts, aber es ist klar, dass sie dasselbe über ihn denkt. Rochester räumt ein, dass er eine durchwachsene Vergangenheit hat, aber ein Großteil davon wird von den Umständen verursacht. Auch das weiß Jane nicht - und wir wissen es bis jetzt nicht genau -, worüber er genau spricht, aber es hört sich ziemlich schäbig und wirklich interessant an. Als nächstes sagt Rochester Jane, dass eine ihrer Hauptaufgaben im Leben darin besteht, zuzuhören. Hatten Sie jemals diesen einen Freund, dem irgendwie jeder seine persönlichen Probleme erzählt? So, als ob sie gar nicht danach fragen würden, aber etwas alle dazu bringt, dieser bestimmten Person alles zu erzählen? Rochester glaubt, dass Jane eine solche Person sein wird, aber vielleicht sucht er nur eine Entschuldigung dafür, ihr bereits so viel erzählt zu haben. Rochester spricht über Reue und dass er seine vergangenen Fehler bedauert, egal welche das sind. Jane rät ihm, Buße zu tun, und Rochester sagt, dass Veränderung besser ist als Reue, aber dass etwas seiner Reform im Wege steht. Jane sagt, dass er nur schlechter und schlechter wird, wenn er weiterhin nach Freude greift, ohne sich zu ändern, und dass seine Freuden sowieso sauer werden. Es gefällt ihm nicht, belehrt zu werden, und er wehrt sich dagegen, aber Jane bleibt bei ihrer Meinung. Nun versucht Rochester zu behaupten, dass die "Versuchungen", die er verspürt, tatsächlich eine "Inspiration" sind, dass es ein Engel und kein Teufel ist. Wir sind verrückt danach zu erfahren, wogegen er eigentlich versucht ist. Jane sagt ihm, dass es trotzdem eine Versuchung ist, egal was er sagt, und er sollte widerstehen. Rochester wird hier etwas zu aufgeregt und ahmt dramatisch nach, wie er die "Engel" oder "Dämonen" oder was auch immer diese Idee ist, in sich aufnimmt. Jane ist zu diesem Zeitpunkt wirklich verwirrt, beharrt jedoch darauf, dass Rochester, wenn er sich nicht gut fühlt, sich tatsächlich bemühen sollte, sich zu verändern. Rochester erzählt Jane, dass er sich ändern wird und dass er, wenn das, was er tut, unmoralisch ist, dann ein neues moralisches Gesetz verkünden wird, um es richtig zu machen. Jane behauptet, dass alles, was Moral braucht, um sich zu ändern, um in Ordnung zu sein, offensichtlich unmoralisch ist. Sie diskutieren eine Weile über Ethik, und Jane behält die Oberhand. Im Grunde will Rochester etwas tun, wir wissen nicht was, und Jane kann aus seinen Äußerungen erkennen, dass es falsch ist, obwohl sie nicht weiß, was es ist oder warum. Jane beendet das Gespräch, indem sie aufsteht und Adele ins Bett bringt. Rochester macht sich Sorgen, dass er sie vertrieben hat, indem er solche seltsamen Dinge gesagt hat, aber sie versichert ihm, dass sie keine Angst vor ihm hat, auch wenn sie etwas verwirrt ist. Rochester erkennt, dass Jane von Natur aus nicht so streng und zurückhaltend ist - es ist die Wirkung von Lowood, sagt er, und es wird abklingen. Er beschreibt sie als einen eingekerkerten Vogel, der frei sein möchte. Sie sagt dazu nicht viel, aber es ähnelt sehr ihrer Selbstbeschreibung am Anfang des letzten Kapitels. Während Jane und Rochester miteinander reden, rennt Adele hinaus, um eines der Kleider anzuprobieren, die zu den neuen Geschenken von Rochester gehören. Als sie zurückkommt und im Kleid herumtobt, sieht sie ihrer Mutter sehr ähnlich. Rochester deutet seine Verbindung zu Adeles Mutter - Celine Varens - an. Es ist noch nicht klar, welche tatsächliche Beziehung Rochester zu Adele hat, aber wenn er mit ihrer Mutter "verwickelt" war, können wir vermuten, dass er vielleicht ihr Vater 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: 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 Kannst du eine geeignete 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.

Posthumus spricht mit einem britischen Lord, der vor der Schlacht geflohen ist. Posthumus sagt, dass dies keine Schande sei, da alles für die Briten verloren schien, bis die Götter eingriffen. Er erzählt dem Lord, wie ein alter Mann und zwei Jungen - offensichtlich Belarius, Arviragus und Guiderius - die Schlacht gewendet haben, indem sie die Briten daran hinderten zu fliehen und sie dazu brachten, gegen die Römer zu kämpfen. Die Römer wurden besiegt und Lucius wurde gefangen genommen. Posthumus, enttäuscht, dass er nicht in der Schlacht gestorben ist, hat sich wieder in römische Kleidung gekleidet. Er tritt vor und gibt sich den Briten zu erkennen, in der Hoffnung, gefangen genommen und hingerichtet zu werden. Sie fangen ihn ein und planen, ihn zum König zu bringen.

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? 'We teach boxing and self-defense by mail. Many pupils have written saying that after a few lessons they've outboxed bigger and heavier opponents. The lessons start with simple movements practised before your mirror--holding out your hand for a coin, the breast-stroke in swimming, etc. Before you realize it you are striking scientifically, ducking, guarding and feinting, just as if you had a real opponent before you.'" "Oh, baby, maybe I wouldn't like that!" Ted chanted. "I'll tell the world! Gosh, I'd like to take one fellow I know in school that's always shooting off his mouth, and catch him alone--" "Nonsense! The idea! Most useless thing I ever heard of!" Babbitt fulminated. "Well, just suppose I was walking with Mama or Rone, and somebody passed a slighting remark or used improper language. What would I do?" "Why, you'd probably bust the record for the hundred-yard dash!" "I WOULD not! I'd stand right up to any mucker that passed a slighting remark on MY sister and I'd show him--" "Look here, young Dempsey! If I ever catch you fighting I'll whale the everlasting daylights out of you--and I'll do it without practising holding out my hand for a coin before the mirror, too!" "Why, Ted dear," Mrs. Babbitt said placidly, "it's not at all nice, your talking of fighting this way!" "Well, gosh almighty, that's a fine way to appreciate--And then suppose I was walking with YOU, Ma, and somebody passed a slighting remark--" "Nobody's going to pass no slighting remarks on nobody," Babbitt observed, "not if they stay home and study their geometry and mind their own affairs instead of hanging around a lot of poolrooms and soda-fountains and places where nobody's got any business to be!" "But gooooooosh, Dad, if they DID!" Mrs. Babbitt chirped, "Well, if they did, I wouldn't do them the honor of paying any attention to them! Besides, they never do. You always hear about these women that get followed and insulted and all, but I don't believe a word of it, or it's their own fault, the way some women look at a person. I certainly never 've been insulted by--" "Aw shoot. Mother, just suppose you WERE sometime! Just SUPPOSE! Can't you suppose something? Can't you imagine things?" "Certainly I can imagine things! The idea!" "Certainly your mother can imagine things--and suppose things! Think you're the only member of this household that's got an imagination?" Babbitt demanded. "But what's the use of a lot of supposing? Supposing never gets you anywhere. No sense supposing when there's a lot of real facts to take into considera--" "Look here, Dad. Suppose--I mean, just--just suppose you were in your office and some rival real-estate man--" "Realtor!" "--some realtor that you hated came in--" "I don't hate any realtor." "But suppose you DID!" "I don't intend to suppose anything of the kind! There's plenty of fellows in my profession that stoop and hate their competitors, but if you were a little older and understood business, instead of always going to the movies and running around with a lot of fool girls with their dresses up to their knees and powdered and painted and rouged and God knows what all as if they were chorus-girls, then you'd know--and you'd suppose--that if there's any one thing that I stand for in the real-estate circles of Zenith, it is that we ought to always speak of each other only in the friendliest terms and institute a spirit of brotherhood and cooperation, and so I certainly can't suppose and I can't imagine my hating any realtor, not even that dirty, fourflushing society sneak, Cecil Rountree!" "But--" "And there's no If, And or But about it! But if I WERE going to lambaste somebody, I wouldn't require any fancy ducks or swimming-strokes before a mirror, or any of these doodads and flipflops! Suppose you were out some place and a fellow called you vile names. Think you'd want to box and jump around like a dancing-master? You'd just lay him out cold (at least I certainly hope any son of mine would!) and then you'd dust off your hands and go on about your business, and that's all there is to it, and you aren't going to have any boxing-lessons by mail, either!" "Well but--Yes--I just wanted to show how many different kinds of correspondence-courses there are, instead of all the camembert they teach us in the High." "But I thought they taught boxing in the school gymnasium." "That's different. They stick you up there and some big stiff amuses himself pounding the stuffin's out of you before you have a chance to learn. Hunka! Not any! But anyway--Listen to some of these others." The advertisements were truly philanthropic. One of them bore the rousing headline: "Money! Money!! Money!!!" The second announced that "Mr. P. R., formerly making only eighteen a week in a barber shop, writes to us that since taking our course he is now pulling down $5,000 as an Osteo-vitalic Physician;" and the third that "Miss J. L., recently a wrapper in a store, is now getting Ten Real Dollars a day teaching our Hindu System of Vibratory Breathing and Mental Control." Ted had collected fifty or sixty announcements, from annual reference-books, from Sunday School periodicals, fiction-magazines, and journals of discussion. One benefactor implored, "Don't be a Wallflower--Be More Popular and Make More Money--YOU Can Ukulele or Sing Yourself into Society! By the secret principles of a Newly Discovered System of Music Teaching, any one--man, lady or child--can, without tiresome exercises, special training or long drawn out study, and without waste of time, money or energy, learn to play by note, piano, banjo, cornet, clarinet, saxophone, violin or drum, and learn sight-singing." The next, under the wistful appeal "Finger Print Detectives Wanted--Big Incomes!" confided: "YOU red-blooded men and women--this is the PROFESSION you have been looking for. There's MONEY in it, BIG money, and that rapid change of scene, that entrancing and compelling interest and fascination, which your active mind and adventurous spirit crave. Think of being the chief figure and directing factor in solving strange mysteries and baffling crimes. This wonderful profession brings you into contact with influential men on the basis of equality, and often calls upon you to travel everywhere, maybe to distant lands--all expenses paid. NO SPECIAL EDUCATION REQUIRED." "Oh, boy! I guess that wins the fire-brick necklace! Wouldn't it be swell to travel everywhere and nab some famous crook!" whooped Ted. "Well, I don't think much of that. Doggone likely to get hurt. Still, that music-study stunt might be pretty fair, though. There's no reason why, if efficiency-experts put their minds to it the way they have to routing products in a factory, they couldn't figure out some scheme so a person wouldn't have to monkey with all this practising and exercises that you get in music." Babbitt was impressed, and he had a delightful parental feeling that they two, the men of the family, understood each other. He listened to the notices of mail-box universities which taught Short-story Writing and Improving the Memory, Motion-picture-acting and Developing the Soul-power, Banking and Spanish, Chiropody and Photography, Electrical Engineering and Window-trimming, Poultry-raising and Chemistry. "Well--well--" Babbitt sought for adequate expression of his admiration. "I'm a son of a gun! I knew this correspondence-school business had become a mighty profitable game--makes suburban real-estate look like two cents!--but I didn't realize it'd got to be such a reg'lar key-industry! Must rank right up with groceries and movies. Always figured somebody'd come along with the brains to not leave education to a lot of bookworms and impractical theorists but make a big thing out of it. Yes, I can see how a lot of these courses might interest you. I must ask the fellows at the Athletic if they ever realized--But same time, Ted, you know how advertisers, I means some advertisers, exaggerate. I don't know as they'd be able to jam you through these courses as fast as they claim they can." "Oh sure, Dad; of course." Ted had the immense and joyful maturity of a boy who is respectfully listened to by his elders. Babbitt concentrated on him with grateful affection: "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. Kannst du eine geeignete 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.

Nachdem er einem potenziellen Kunden eine Wohnung im Bezirk Linton gezeigt hat, nimmt Babbitt Henry Thompson mit, um bei Noel Ryland, einem weiteren Mitglied des Boosters' Club, ein rabattiertes Zeeco-Auto zu finden. Zurück im Büro verweigert er Stanley Graff eine Bonuszahlung. Als er am Abend geht, nimmt er eine spöttisch kalte Stimmung seiner Mitarbeiter wahr. Am Abendessenstisch streitet George Babbitt mit seinen drei Kindern über die Art des Autos, das sie kaufen sollen, was ihn wieder entmutigt und nach seiner Reise mit Paul sehnen lässt. Ted argumentiert, dass ein traditionelles College ihm nur unpraktisches Wissen vermitteln würde und er besser bedient wäre, Korrespondenzkurse in öffentlichem Reden, Toasten, Geschichtenerzählen und männlichem Auftreten zu belegen. Obwohl George beinahe von den vielen gesammelten Werbeanzeigen überzeugt ist, entscheidet er sich letztendlich dafür, dass ein B. A. zu viele soziale Vorteile bietet, um es zu ignorieren. In der Sonnenveranda überdenkt George, dass seine Verlobung mit Myra ungewollt war. Er wusste immer, dass er sie nicht liebte, aber er hatte nie den Mut, sie zu enttäuschen. Er erkennt, dass sie höchstwahrscheinlich genauso unzufrieden war wie er und gesteht, dass sie eine "gute Ehefrau" war. Er zeigt ihr eine kurze Zuneigungsgeste, indem er ihr über das Haar streicht.

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: _1 October, evening._--I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anything. The very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to him had proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected debauch. I learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor soul, that he was only the assistant to Smollet, who of the two mates was the responsible person. So off I drove to Walworth, and found Mr. Joseph Smollet at home and in his shirtsleeves, taking a late tea out of a saucer. He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good, reliable type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own. He remembered all about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful dog's-eared notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle about the seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries in thick, half-obliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the boxes. There were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and left at 197, Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which he deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey. If then the Count meant to scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, these places were chosen as the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more fully. The systematic manner in which this was done made me think that he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of London. He was now fixed on the far east of the northern shore, on the east of the southern shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to be left out of his diabolical scheme--let alone the City itself and the very heart of fashionable London in the south-west and west. I went back to Smollet, and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had been taken from Carfax. He replied:-- "Well, guv'nor, you've treated me wery 'an'some"--I had given him half a sovereign--"an' I'll tell yer all I know. I heard a man by the name of Bloxam say four nights ago in the 'Are an' 'Ounds, in Pincher's Alley, as 'ow he an' his mate 'ad 'ad a rare dusty job in a old 'ouse at Purfect. There ain't a-many such jobs as this 'ere, an' I'm thinkin' that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut." I asked if he could tell me where to find him. I told him that if he could get me the address it would be worth another half-sovereign to him. So he gulped down the rest of his tea and stood up, saying that he was going to begin the search then and there. At the door he stopped, and said:-- "Look 'ere, guv'nor, there ain't no sense in me a-keepin' you 'ere. I may find Sam soon, or I mayn't; but anyhow he ain't like to be in a way to tell ye much to-night. Sam is a rare one when he starts on the booze. If you can give me a envelope with a stamp on it, and put yer address on it, I'll find out where Sam is to be found and post it ye to-night. But ye'd better be up arter 'im soon in the mornin', or maybe ye won't ketch 'im; for Sam gets off main early, never mind the booze the night afore." This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny to buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change. When she came back, I addressed the envelope and stamped it, and when Smollet had again faithfully promised to post the address when found, I took my way to home. We're on the track anyhow. I am tired to-night, and want sleep. Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale; her eyes look as though she had been crying. Poor dear, I've no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, for she herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision. * * * * * _2 October, evening._--A long and trying and exciting day. By the first post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on which was written with a carpenter's pencil in a sprawling hand:-- "Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for the depite." I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina. She looked heavy and sleepy and pale, and far from well. I determined not to wake her, but that, when I should return from this new search, I would arrange for her going back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home, with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here amongst us and in ignorance. I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and told him where I was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest so soon as I should have found out anything. I drove to Walworth and found, with some difficulty, Potter's Court. Mr. Smollet's spelling misled me, as I asked for Poter's Court instead of Potter's Court. However, when I had found the court, I had no difficulty in discovering Corcoran's lodging-house. When I asked the man who came to the door for the "depite," he shook his head, and said: "I dunno 'im. There ain't no such a person 'ere; I never 'eard of 'im in all my bloomin' days. Don't believe there ain't nobody of that kind livin' ere or anywheres." I took out Smollet's letter, and as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name of the court might guide me. "What are you?" I asked. "I'm the depity," he answered. I saw at once that I was on the right track; phonetic spelling had again misled me. A half-crown tip put the deputy's knowledge at my disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam, who had slept off the remains of his beer on the previous night at Corcoran's, had left for his work at Poplar at five o'clock that morning. He could not tell me where the place of work was situated, but he had a vague idea that it was some kind of a "new-fangled ware'us"; and with this slender clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve o'clock before I got any satisfactory hint of such a building, and this I got at a coffee-shop, where some workmen were having their dinner. One of these suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a new "cold storage" building; and as this suited the condition of a "new-fangled ware'us," I at once drove to it. An interview with a surly gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam; he was sent for on my suggesting that I was willing to pay his day's wages to his foreman for the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing. When I had promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he told me that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly, and had taken from this house to the latter nine great boxes--"main heavy ones"--with a horse and cart hired by him for this purpose. I asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly, to which he replied:-- "Well, guv'nor, I forgits the number, but it was only a few doors from a big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built. It was a dusty old 'ouse, too, though nothin' to the dustiness of the 'ouse we tooked the bloomin' boxes from." "How did you get into the houses if they were both empty?" "There was the old party what engaged me a-waitin' in the 'ouse at Purfleet. He 'elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an' him a old feller, with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldn't throw a shadder." How this phrase thrilled through me! "Why, 'e took up 'is end o' the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and me a-puffin' an' a-blowin' afore I could up-end mine anyhow--an' I'm no chicken, neither." "How did you get into the house in Piccadilly?" I asked. "He was there too. He must 'a' started off and got there afore me, for when I rung of the bell he kem an' opened the door 'isself an' 'elped me to carry the boxes into the 'all." "The whole nine?" I asked. "Yus; there was five in the first load an' four in the second. It was main dry work, an' I don't so well remember 'ow I got 'ome." I interrupted him:-- "Were the boxes left in the hall?" "Yus; it was a big 'all, an' there was nothin' else in it." I made one more attempt to further matters:-- "You didn't have any key?" "Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent, he opened the door 'isself an' shut it again when I druv off. I don't remember the last time--but that was the beer." "And you can't remember the number of the house?" "No, sir. But ye needn't have no difficulty about that. It's a 'igh 'un with a stone front with a bow on it, an' 'igh steps up to the door. I know them steps, 'avin' 'ad to carry the boxes up with three loafers what come round to earn a copper. The old gent give them shillin's, an' they seein' they got so much, they wanted more; but 'e took one of them by the shoulder and was like to throw 'im down the steps, till the lot of them went away cussin'." I thought that with this description I could find the house, so, having paid my friend for his information, I started off for Piccadilly. I had gained a new painful experience; the Count could, it was evident, handle the earth-boxes himself. If so, time was precious; for, now that he had achieved a certain amount of distribution, he could, by choosing his own time, complete the task unobserved. At Piccadilly Circus I discharged my cab, and walked westward; beyond the Junior Constitutional I came across the house described, and was satisfied that this was the next of the lairs arranged by Dracula. The house looked as though it had been long untenanted. The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up. All the framework was black with time, and from the iron the paint had mostly scaled away. It was evident that up to lately there had been a large notice-board in front of the balcony; it had, however, been roughly torn away, the uprights which had supported it still remaining. Behind the rails of the balcony I saw there were some loose boards, whose raw edges looked white. I would have given a good deal to have been able to see the notice-board intact, as it would, perhaps, have given some clue to the ownership of the house. I remembered my experience of the investigation and purchase of Carfax, and I could not but feel that if I could find the former owner there might be some means discovered of gaining access to the house. There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side, and nothing could be done; so I went round to the back to see if anything could be gathered from this quarter. The mews were active, the Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation. I asked one or two of the grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me anything about the empty house. One of them said that he heard it had lately been taken, but he couldn't say from whom. He told me, however, that up to very lately there had been a notice-board of "For Sale" up, and that perhaps Mitchell, Sons, & Candy, the house agents, could tell me something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name of that firm on the board. I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant know or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled away. It was now growing dusk, and the autumn night was closing in, so I did not lose any time. Having learned the address of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I was soon at their office in Sackville Street. The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but uncommunicative in equal proportion. Having once told me that the Piccadilly house--which throughout our interview he called a "mansion"--was sold, he considered my business as concluded. When I asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and paused a few seconds before replying:-- "It is sold, sir." "Pardon me," I said, with equal politeness, "but I have a special reason for wishing to know who purchased it." Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. "It is sold, sir," was again his laconic reply. "Surely," I said, "you do not mind letting me know so much." "But I do mind," he answered. "The affairs of their clients are absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy." This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said:-- "Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their confidence. I am myself a professional man." Here I handed him my card. "In this instance I am not prompted by curiosity; I act on the part of Lord Godalming, who wishes to know something of the property which was, he understood, lately for sale." These words put a different complexion on affairs. He said:-- "I would like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially would I like to oblige his lordship. We once carried out a small matter of renting some chambers for him when he was the Honourable Arthur Holmwood. If you will let me have his lordship's address I will consult the House on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his lordship by to-night's post. It will be a pleasure if we can so far deviate from our rules as to give the required information to his lordship." I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked him, gave the address at Dr. Seward's and came away. It was now dark, and I was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Aerated Bread Company and came down to Purfleet by the next train. I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale, but she made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful, it wrung my heart to think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused her inquietude. Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking on at our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our confidence. It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of keeping her out of our grim task. She seems somehow more reconciled; or else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders. I am glad we made our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our growing knowledge would be torture to her. I could not tell the others of the day's discovery till we were alone; so after dinner--followed by a little music to save appearances even amongst ourselves--I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed. The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me as though she would detain me; but there was much to be talked of and I came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no difference between us. When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire in the study. In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply read it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of my own information; when I had finished Van Helsing said:-- "This has been a great day's work, friend Jonathan. Doubtless we are on the track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, then our work is near the end. But if there be some missing, we must search until we find them. Then shall we make our final _coup_, and hunt the wretch to his real death." We all sat silent awhile and all at once Mr. Morris spoke:-- "Say! how are we going to get into that house?" "We got into the other," answered Lord Godalming quickly. "But, Art, this is different. We broke house at Carfax, but we had night and a walled park to protect us. It will be a mighty different thing to commit burglary in Piccadilly, either by day or night. I confess I don't see how we are going to get in unless that agency duck can find us a key of some sort; perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in the morning." Lord Godalming's brows contracted, and he stood up and walked about the room. By-and-by he stopped and said, turning from one to another of us:-- "Quincey's head is level. This burglary business is getting serious; we got off once all right; but we have now a rare job on hand--unless we can find the Count's key basket." As nothing could well be done before morning, and as it would be at least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming should hear from Mitchell's, we decided not to take any active step before breakfast time. For a good while we sat and smoked, discussing the matter in its various lights and bearings; I took the opportunity of bringing this diary right up to the moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to bed.... Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regular. Her forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks even in her sleep. She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she did this morning. To-morrow will, I hope, mend all this; she will be herself at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy! _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _1 October._--I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His moods change so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they always mean something more than his own well-being, they form a more than interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him after his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding destiny. He was, in fact, commanding destiny--subjectively. He did not really care for any of the things of mere earth; he was in the clouds and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals. I thought I would improve the occasion and learn something, so I asked him:-- "What about the flies these times?" He smiled on me in quite a superior sort of way--such a smile as would have become the face of Malvolio--as he answered me:-- "The fly, my dear sir, has one striking feature; its wings are typical of the aerial powers of the psychic faculties. The ancients did well when they typified the soul as a butterfly!" I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost logically, so I said quickly:-- "Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it?" His madness foiled his reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face as, shaking his head with a decision which I had but seldom seen in him, he said:-- "Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want." Here he brightened up; "I am pretty indifferent about it at present. Life is all right; I have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to study zooephagy!" This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on:-- "Then you command life; you are a god, I suppose?" He smiled with an ineffably benign superiority. "Oh no! Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doings. If I may state my intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things purely terrestrial, somewhat in the position which Enoch occupied spiritually!" This was a poser to me. I could not at the moment recall Enoch's appositeness; so I had to ask a simple question, though I felt that by so doing I was lowering myself in the eyes of the lunatic:-- "And why with Enoch?" "Because he walked with God." I could not see the analogy, but did not like to admit it; so I harked back to what he had denied:-- "So you don't care about life and you don't want souls. Why not?" I put my question quickly and somewhat sternly, on purpose to disconcert him. The effort succeeded; for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into his old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon me as he replied:-- "I don't want any souls, indeed, indeed! I don't. I couldn't use them if I had them; they would be no manner of use to me. I couldn't eat them or----" He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over his face, like a wind-sweep on the surface of the water. "And doctor, as to life, what is it after all? When you've got all you require, and you know that you will never want, that is all. I have friends--good friends--like you, Dr. Seward"; this was said with a leer of inexpressible cunning. "I know that I shall never lack the means of life!" I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he saw some antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on the last refuge of such as he--a dogged silence. After a short time I saw that for the present it was useless to speak to him. He was sulky, and so I came away. Later in the day he sent for me. Ordinarily I would not have come without special reason, but just at present I am so interested in him that I would gladly make an effort. Besides, I am glad to have anything to help to pass the time. Harker is out, following up clues; and so are Lord Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study poring over the record prepared by the Harkers; he seems to think that by accurate knowledge of all details he will light upon some clue. He does not wish to be disturbed in the work, without cause. I would have taken him with me to see the patient, only I thought that after his last repulse he might not care to go again. There was also another reason: Renfield might not speak so freely before a third person as when he and I were alone. I found him sitting out in the middle of the floor on his stool, a pose which is generally indicative of some mental energy on his part. When I came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on his lips:-- "What about souls?" It was evident then that my surmise had been correct. Unconscious cerebration was doing its work, even with the lunatic. I determined to have the matter out. "What about them yourself?" I asked. He did not reply for a moment but looked all round him, and up and down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for an answer. "I don't want any souls!" he said in a feeble, apologetic way. The matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I determined to use it--to "be cruel only to be kind." So I said:-- "You like life, and you want life?" "Oh yes! but that is all right; you needn't worry about that!" "But," I asked, "how are we to get the life without getting the soul also?" This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up:-- "A nice time you'll have some time when you're flying out there, with the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing and twittering and miauing all round you. You've got their lives, you know, and you must put up with their souls!" Something seemed to affect his imagination, for he put his fingers to his ears and shut his eyes, screwing them up tightly just as a small boy does when his face is being soaped. There was something pathetic in it that touched me; it also gave me a lesson, for it seemed that before me was a child--only a child, though the features were worn, and the stubble on the jaws was white. It was evident that he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance, and, knowing how his past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign to himself, I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and go with him. The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him, speaking pretty loud so that he would hear me through his closed ears:-- "Would you like some sugar to get your flies round again?" He seemed to wake up all at once, and shook his head. With a laugh he replied:-- "Not much! flies are poor things, after all!" After a pause he added, "But I don't want their souls buzzing round me, all the same." "Or spiders?" I went on. "Blow spiders! What's the use of spiders? There isn't anything in them to eat or"--he stopped suddenly, as though reminded of a forbidden topic. "So, so!" I thought to myself, "this is the second time he has suddenly stopped at the word 'drink'; what does it mean?" Renfield seemed himself aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract my attention from it:-- "I don't take any stock at all in such matters. 'Rats and mice and such small deer,' as Shakespeare has it, 'chicken-feed of the larder' they might be called. I'm past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chop-sticks, as to try to interest me about the lesser carnivora, when I know of what is before me." "I see," I said. "You want big things that you can make your teeth meet in? How would you like to breakfast on elephant?" "What ridiculous nonsense you are talking!" He was getting too wide awake, so I thought I would press him hard. "I wonder," I said reflectively, "what an elephant's soul is like!" The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his high-horse and became a child again. "I don't want an elephant's soul, or any soul at all!" he said. For a few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement. "To hell with you and your souls!" he shouted. "Why do you plague me about souls? Haven't I got enough to worry, and pain, and distract me already, without thinking of souls!" He looked so hostile that I thought he was in for another homicidal fit, so I blew my whistle. The instant, however, that I did so he became calm, and said apologetically:-- "Forgive me, Doctor; I forgot myself. You do not need any help. I am so worried in my mind that I am apt to be irritable. If you only knew the problem I have to face, and that I am working out, you would pity, and tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not put me in a strait-waistcoat. I want to think and I cannot think freely when my body is confined. I am sure you will understand!" He had evidently self-control; so when the attendants came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew. Renfield watched them go; when the door was closed he said, with considerable dignity and sweetness:-- "Dr. Seward, you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me that I am very, very grateful to you!" I thought it well to leave him in this mood, and so I came away. There is certainly something to ponder over in this man's state. Several points seem to make what the American interviewer calls "a story," if one could only get them in proper order. Here they are:-- Will not mention "drinking." Fears the thought of being burdened with the "soul" of anything. Has no dread of wanting "life" in the future. Despises the meaner forms of life altogether, though he dreads being haunted by their souls. Logically all these things point one way! he has assurance of some kind that he will acquire some higher life. He dreads the consequence--the burden of a soul. Then it is a human life he looks to! And the assurance--? Merciful God! the Count has been to him, and there is some new scheme of terror afoot! * * * * * _Later._--I went after my round to Van Helsing and told him my suspicion. He grew very grave; and, after thinking the matter over for a while asked me to take him to Renfield. I did so. As we came to the door we heard the lunatic within singing gaily, as he used to do in the time which now seems so long ago. When we entered we saw with amazement that he had spread out his sugar as of old; the flies, lethargic with the autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried to make him talk of the subject of our previous conversation, but he would not attend. He went on with his singing, just as though we had not been present. He had got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a note-book. We had to come away as ignorant as we went in. His is a curious case indeed; we must watch him to-night. _Letter, Mitchell, Sons and Candy to Lord Godalming._ _"1 October._ "My Lord, "We are at all times only too happy to meet your wishes. We beg, with regard to the desire of your Lordship, expressed by Mr. Harker on your behalf, to supply the following information concerning the sale and purchase of No. 347, Piccadilly. The original vendors are the executors of the late Mr. Archibald Winter-Suffield. The purchaser is a foreign nobleman, Count de Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the purchase money in notes 'over the counter,' if your Lordship will pardon us using so vulgar an expression. Beyond this we know nothing whatever of him. "We are, my Lord, "Your Lordship's humble servants, "MITCHELL, SONS & CANDY." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _2 October._--I placed a man in the corridor last night, and told him to make an accurate note of any sound he might hear from Renfield's room, and gave him instructions that if there should be anything strange he was to call me. After dinner, when we had all gathered round the fire in the study--Mrs. Harker having gone to bed--we discussed the attempts and discoveries of the day. Harker was the only one who had any result, and we are in great hopes that his clue may be an important one. Before going to bed I went round to the patient's room and looked in through the observation trap. He was sleeping soundly, and his heart rose and fell with regular respiration. This morning the man on duty reported to me that a little after midnight he was restless and kept saying his prayers somewhat loudly. I asked him if that was all; he replied that it was all he heard. There was something about his manner so suspicious that I asked him point blank if he had been asleep. He denied sleep, but admitted to having "dozed" for a while. It is too bad that men cannot be trusted unless they are watched. To-day Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are looking after horses. Godalming thinks that it will be well to have horses always in readiness, for when we get the information which we seek there will be no time to lose. We must sterilise all the imported earth between sunrise and sunset; we shall thus catch the Count at his weakest, and without a refuge to fly to. Van Helsing is off to the British Museum looking up some authorities on ancient medicine. The old physicians took account of things which their followers do not accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be useful to us later. I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats. * * * * * Später. - Wir haben uns wieder getroffen. Es scheint, dass wir endlich auf der richtigen Spur sind und unsere Arbeit morgen der Anfang vom Ende sein könnte. Ich frage mich, ob Renfields Ruhe etwas damit zu tun hat. Seine Stimmungen haben immer den Handlungen des Grafen gefolgt, sodass die kommende Vernichtung des Monsters auf subtile Weise zu ihm dringen könnte. Wenn wir nur einen Hinweis darauf hätten, was in seinem Kopf vor sich ging, zwischen dem Zeitpunkt meines Streits mit ihm heute und seiner Wiederaufnahme des Fliegenfangens, könnte es uns einen wertvollen Hinweis liefern. Er scheint jetzt für eine Weile ruhig zu sein... Ist er es wirklich? Dieser wilde Schrei schien aus seinem Zimmer zu kommen... Der Pfleger stürmte in mein Zimmer und sagte mir, dass Renfield irgendwie einen Unfall hatte. Er hatte ihn schreien gehört; und als er zu ihm ging, fand er ihn mit dem Gesicht auf dem Boden liegend, ganz mit Blut bedeckt. Ich muss sofort gehen... 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.

Harker setzt seine Suche nach den Erdkisten von Dracula fort. Indem er verschiedene Hilfsarbeiter, die mit den Kisten gearbeitet haben, mit Geld und Alkohol besticht, findet er heraus, wohin mehrere der Kisten gegangen sind, seit sie in Carfax angekommen sind. Am wichtigsten ist, dass Harker erfährt, dass neun "große schwere" Kisten in ein Haus in der Piccadilly gebracht wurden - ein Hinweis darauf, dass Draculas Fähigkeit, sich in der Stadt zu bewegen, zunimmt. Noch beunruhigender ist, dass der Arbeiter, der die Kisten nach Piccadilly und auch in ein Haus in Purfleet gebracht hat, Harker erzählt, dass der Mann, der ihn eingestellt hat, selber wartete, um beim Ausladen der schweren Fracht zu helfen. Der Mann war unnatürlich stark und so dünn "dass man denken könnte, er könne keinen Schatten werfen". Dieser Mann, weiß Harker, ist Graf Dracula. Der Plan der Männer besteht nun darin, alle fehlenden Kisten zu finden und die "importierte Erde" in ihnen zu sterilisieren, damit Dracula keinen Zufluchtsort mehr in ihnen finden kann. Dann werden sie in der Lage sein, den Vampir zu zerstören. In der Zwischenzeit hat Seward ein beunruhigendes Gespräch mit Renfield. Die kryptischen Kommentare des Patienten führen schließlich dazu, dass Seward erkennt, dass Renfield "eine Art Versicherung hat, dass er ein höheres Leben erlangen wird", aber "die Konsequenz - die Last der Seele - fürchtet". Seward weiß jetzt, dass Renfield irgendwie Kontakt mit Dracula hatte und fürchtet, dass menschliches Leben in Gefahr ist. Später, zu Sewards Erstaunen, stellt er fest, dass Renfield seine alte Gewohnheit wieder aufgenommen hat, Zucker auszustreuen, um Fliegen zu fangen - eine Gewohnheit, die er vor einiger Zeit aufgegeben hatte. Am nächsten Tag informiert ein Pfleger Seward, dass Renfield einen Unfall hatte. Der Patient wurde blutüberströmt auf dem Boden liegend gefunden. Seward macht sich auf den Weg, um nachzuforschen.

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. Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house [Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.] PORTIA. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world. NERISSA. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean: superfluity come sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer. PORTIA. Good sentences, and well pronounced. NERISSA. They would be better, if well followed. PORTIA. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose'! I may neither choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none? NERISSA. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations; therefore the lott'ry that he hath devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning chooses you, will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? PORTIA. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and according to my description, level at my affection. NERISSA. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. PORTIA. Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts that he can shoe him himself; I am much afeard my lady his mother play'd false with a smith. NERISSA. Then is there the County Palatine. PORTIA. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'An you will not have me, choose.' He hears merry tales and smiles not: I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these two! NERISSA. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon? PORTIA. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man. If a throstle sing he falls straight a-capering; he will fence with his own shadow; if I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him. NERISSA. What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of England? PORTIA. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and you will come into the court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but alas, who can converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. NERISSA. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? PORTIA. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was able; I think the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed under for another. NERISSA. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew? PORTIA. Very vilely in the morning when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him. NERISSA. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him. PORTIA. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge. NERISSA. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me with their determinations, which is indeed to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition, depending on the caskets. PORTIA. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant them a fair departure. NERISSA. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat? PORTIA. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he called. NERISSA. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. PORTIA. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise. [Enter a SERVANT.] How now! what news? SERVANT. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brings word the Prince his master will be here to-night. PORTIA. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach; if he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me. Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before. Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door. [Exeunt] 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.

In Belmont diskutiert Portia mit ihrer Vertrauten Nerissa die Bedingungen des Testaments ihres Vaters. Gemäß dem Testament ihres verstorbenen Vaters darf Portia keinen Mann nach eigenem Ermessen heiraten. Stattdessen muss sie sich allen Freiern zur Verfügung stellen und denjenigen akzeptieren, der "richtig" von den "drei Truhen aus Gold, Silber und Blei" wählt. Nerissa versucht Portia zu trösten und sagt ihr, dass ihr Vater sicherlich wusste, was er tat; wer auch immer der Mann sein mag, der letztendlich "richtig" wählt, wird sicherlich "einer sein, der dich richtig lieben wird". Portia ist sich da nicht so sicher. Keiner ihrer derzeitigen Verehrer ist der Typ Mann, den sie wählen würde, wenn sie wählen könnte. Sie kann es jedoch nicht, denn sie hat ihr Wort gegeben, dass sie den letzten Wünschen ihres Vaters gehorchen würde. Nerissa bittet sie, die Herren, die um sie geworben haben, noch einmal zu überdenken, und nennt die Verehrer, die nach Belmont gekommen sind - einen neapolitanischen Prinzen, den Count Palatine, einen französischen Lord Monsieur Le Bon, einen jungen englischen Baron Falconbridge, einen schottischen Lord und einen jungen Deutschen, den Neffen des Herzogs von Sachsen. Portia kommentiert sarkastisch ihre individuellen Fehler und findet jeden einzelnen von ihnen als Ehemann unerwünscht. Glücklicherweise haben sie alle beschlossen, nach Hause zurückzukehren, da sie nicht bereit sind, das Risiko einzugehen, dass sie die falsche Truhe wählen - was bedeutet, dass sie für den Rest ihres Lebens Junggesellen bleiben. Nerissa erinnert dann ihre Herrin an einen Gentleman, der nach Belmont gekommen ist, als Portias Vater noch am Leben war - sein Name war Bassanio, ein Venezianer, ein Gelehrter und ein Soldat. Portia erinnert sich an ihn und lobt ihn hoch: "Er, von allen Männern, die meine unvernünftigen Augen je gesehen haben, war derjenige, der eine schöne Dame am meisten verdiente." Ein Diener unterbricht das Gespräch und verkündet, dass ein neuer Verehrer, der Fürst von Marokko, an diesem Abend eintreffen 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 soon as I had perused this epistle I went to the master, and informed him that his sister had arrived at the Heights, and sent me a letter expressing her sorrow for Mrs. Linton's situation, and her ardent desire to see him; with a wish that he would transmit to her, as early as possible, some token of forgiveness by me. 'Forgiveness!' said Linton. 'I have nothing to forgive her, Ellen. You may call at Wuthering Heights this afternoon, if you like, and say that I am not angry, but I'm sorry to have lost her; especially as I can never think she'll be happy. It is out of the question my going to see her, however: we are eternally divided; and should she really wish to oblige me, let her persuade the villain she has married to leave the country.' 'And you won't write her a little note, sir?' I asked, imploringly. 'No,' he answered. 'It is needless. My communication with Heathcliff's family shall be as sparing as his with mine. It shall not exist!' Mr. Edgar's coldness depressed me exceedingly; and all the way from the Grange I puzzled my brains how to put more heart into what he said, when I repeated it; and how to soften his refusal of even a few lines to console Isabella. I daresay she had been on the watch for me since morning: I saw her looking through the lattice as I came up the garden causeway, and I nodded to her; but she drew back, as if afraid of being observed. I entered without knocking. There never was such a dreary, dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented! I must confess, that if I had been in the young lady's place, I would, at least, have swept the hearth, and wiped the tables with a duster. But she already partook of the pervading spirit of neglect which encompassed her. Her pretty face was wan and listless; her hair uncurled: some locks hanging lankly down, and some carelessly twisted round her head. Probably she had not touched her dress since yester evening. Hindley was not there. Mr. Heathcliff sat at a table, turning over some papers in his pocket-book; but he rose when I appeared, asked me how I did, quite friendly, and offered me a chair. He was the only thing there that seemed decent; and I thought he never looked better. So much had circumstances altered their positions, that he would certainly have struck a stranger as a born and bred gentleman; and his wife as a thorough little slattern! She came forward eagerly to greet me, and held out one hand to take the expected letter. I shook my head. She wouldn't understand the hint, but followed me to a sideboard, where I went to lay my bonnet, and importuned me in a whisper to give her directly what I had brought. Heathcliff guessed the meaning of her manoeuvres, and said--'If you have got anything for Isabella (as no doubt you have, Nelly), give it to her. You needn't make a secret of it: we have no secrets between us.' 'Oh, I have nothing,' I replied, thinking it best to speak the truth at once. 'My master bid me tell his sister that she must not expect either a letter or a visit from him at present. He sends his love, ma'am, and his wishes for your happiness, and his pardon for the grief you have occasioned; but he thinks that after this time his household and the household here should drop intercommunication, as nothing could come of keeping it up.' Mrs. Heathcliff's lip quivered slightly, and she returned to her seat in the window. Her husband took his stand on the hearthstone, near me, and began to put questions concerning Catherine. I told him as much as I thought proper of her illness, and he extorted from me, by cross-examination, most of the facts connected with its origin. I blamed her, as she deserved, for bringing it all on herself; and ended by hoping that he would follow Mr. Linton's example and avoid future interference with his family, for good or evil. 'Mrs. Linton is now just recovering,' I said; 'she'll never be like she was, but her life is spared; and if you really have a regard for her, you'll shun crossing her way again: nay, you'll move out of this country entirely; and that you may not regret it, I'll inform you Catherine Linton is as different now from your old friend Catherine Earnshaw, as that young lady is different from me. Her appearance is changed greatly, her character much more so; and the person who is compelled, of necessity, to be her companion, will only sustain his affection hereafter by the remembrance of what she once was, by common humanity, and a sense of duty!' 'That is quite possible,' remarked Heathcliff, forcing himself to seem calm: 'quite possible that your master should have nothing but common humanity and a sense of duty to fall back upon. But do you imagine that I shall leave Catherine to his _duty_ and _humanity_? and can you compare my feelings respecting Catherine to his? Before you leave this house, I must exact a promise from you that you'll get me an interview with her: consent, or refuse, I _will_ see her! What do you say?' 'I say, Mr. Heathcliff,' I replied, 'you must not: you never shall, through my means. Another encounter between you and the master would kill her altogether.' 'With your aid that may be avoided,' he continued; 'and should there be danger of such an event--should he be the cause of adding a single trouble more to her existence--why, I think I shall be justified in going to extremes! I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then--if you don't believe me, you don't know me--till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!' 'And yet,' I interrupted, 'you have no scruples in completely ruining all hopes of her perfect restoration, by thrusting yourself into her remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving her in a new tumult of discord and distress.' 'You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?' he said. 'Oh, Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would comprehend my future--_death_ and _hell_: existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolised by him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him what he has not?' 'Catherine and Edgar are as fond of each other as any two people can be,' cried Isabella, with sudden vivacity. 'No one has a right to talk in that manner, and I won't hear my brother depreciated in silence!' 'Your brother is wondrous fond of you too, isn't he?' observed Heathcliff, scornfully. 'He turns you adrift on the world with surprising alacrity.' 'He is not aware of what I suffer,' she replied. 'I didn't tell him that.' 'You have been telling him something, then: you have written, have you?' 'To say that I was married, I did write--you saw the note.' 'And nothing since?' 'No.' 'My young lady is looking sadly the worse for her change of condition,' I remarked. 'Somebody's love comes short in her case, obviously; whose, I may guess; but, perhaps, I shouldn't say.' 'I should guess it was her own,' said Heathcliff. 'She degenerates into a mere slut! She is tired of trying to please me uncommonly early. You'd hardly credit it, but the very morrow of our wedding she was weeping to go home. However, she'll suit this house so much the better for not being over nice, and I'll take care she does not disgrace me by rambling abroad.' 'Well, sir,' returned I, 'I hope you'll consider that Mrs. Heathcliff is accustomed to be looked after and waited on; and that she has been brought up like an only daughter, whom every one was ready to serve. You must let her have a maid to keep things tidy about her, and you must treat her kindly. Whatever be your notion of Mr. Edgar, you cannot doubt that she has a capacity for strong attachments, or she wouldn't have abandoned the elegancies, and comforts, and friends of her former home, to fix contentedly, in such a wilderness as this, with you.' 'She abandoned them under a delusion,' he answered; 'picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and acting on the false impressions she cherished. But, at last, I think she begins to know me: I don't perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first; and the senseless incapability of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her infatuation and herself. It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you! If it be achieved, I have cause to return thanks. Can I trust your assertion, Isabella? Are you sure you hate me? If I let you alone for half a day, won't you come sighing and wheedling to me again? I daresay she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you: it wounds her vanity to have the truth exposed. But I don't care who knows that the passion was wholly on one side: and I never told her a lie about it. She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness. The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog; and when she pleaded for it, the first words I uttered were a wish that I had the hanging of every being belonging to her, except one: possibly she took that exception for herself. But no brutality disgusted her: I suppose she has an innate admiration of it, if only her precious person were secure from injury! Now, was it not the depth of absurdity--of genuine idiotcy, for that pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach to dream that I could love her? Tell your master, Nelly, that I never, in all my life, met with such an abject thing as she is. She even disgraces the name of Linton; and I've sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she could endure, and still creep shamefully cringing back! But tell him, also, to set his fraternal and magisterial heart at ease: that I keep strictly within the limits of the law. I have avoided, up to this period, giving her the slightest right to claim a separation; and, what's more, she'd thank nobody for dividing us. If she desired to go, she might: the nuisance of her presence outweighs the gratification to be derived from tormenting her!' 'Mr. Heathcliff,' said I, 'this is the talk of a madman; your wife, most likely, is convinced you are mad; and, for that reason, she has borne with you hitherto: but now that you say she may go, she'll doubtless avail herself of the permission. You are not so bewitched, ma'am, are you, as to remain with him of your own accord?' 'Take care, Ellen!' answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully; there was no misdoubting by their expression the full success of her partner's endeavours to make himself detested. 'Don't put faith in a single word he speaks. He's a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being! I've been told I might leave him before; and I've made the attempt, but I dare not repeat it! Only, Ellen, promise you'll not mention a syllable of his infamous conversation to my brother or Catherine. Whatever he may pretend, he wishes to provoke Edgar to desperation: he says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over him; and he sha'n't obtain it--I'll die first! I just hope, I pray, that he may forget his diabolical prudence and kill me! The single pleasure I can imagine is to die, or to see him dead!' 'There--that will do for the present!' said Heathcliff. 'If you are called upon in a court of law, you'll remember her language, Nelly! And take a good look at that countenance: she's near the point which would suit me. No; you're not fit to be your own guardian, Isabella, now; and I, being your legal protector, must retain you in my custody, however distasteful the obligation may be. Go up-stairs; I have something to say to Ellen Dean in private. That's not the way: up-stairs, I tell you! Why, this is the road upstairs, child!' He seized, and thrust her from the room; and returned muttering--'I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething; and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain.' 'Do you understand what the word pity means?' I said, hastening to resume my bonnet. 'Did you ever feel a touch of it in your life?' 'Put that down!' he interrupted, perceiving my intention to depart. 'You are not going yet. Come here now, Nelly: I must either persuade or compel you to aid me in fulfilling my determination to see Catherine, and that without delay. I swear that I meditate no harm: I don't desire to cause any disturbance, or to exasperate or insult Mr. Linton; I only wish to hear from herself how she is, and why she has been ill; and to ask if anything that I could do would be of use to her. Last night I was in the Grange garden six hours, and I'll return there to-night; and every night I'll haunt the place, and every day, till I find an opportunity of entering. If Edgar Linton meets me, I shall not hesitate to knock him down, and give him enough to insure his quiescence while I stay. If his servants oppose me, I shall threaten them off with these pistols. But wouldn't it be better to prevent my coming in contact with them, or their master? And you could do it so easily. I'd warn you when I came, and then you might let me in unobserved, as soon as she was alone, and watch till I departed, your conscience quite calm: you would be hindering mischief.' I protested against playing that treacherous part in my employer's house: and, besides, I urged the cruelty and selfishness of his destroying Mrs. Linton's tranquillity for his satisfaction. 'The commonest occurrence startles her painfully,' I said. 'She's all nerves, and she couldn't bear the surprise, I'm positive. Don't persist, sir! or else I shall be obliged to inform my master of your designs; and he'll take measures to secure his house and its inmates from any such unwarrantable intrusions!' "In diesem Fall werde ich Maßnahmen ergreifen, um dich zu sichern, Frau!", rief Heathcliff aus. "Du wirst Wuthering Heights nicht verlassen, bis morgen früh. Es ist eine dumme Behauptung, dass Catherine mich nicht ertragen könnte; und was das Überraschen betrifft, wünsche ich es nicht: Du musst sie vorbereiten - frage sie, ob ich kommen darf. Du sagst, sie erwähnt nie meinen Namen und ich werde ihr nie erwähnt. Wem sollte sie mich dann erwähnen, wenn ich ein verbotenes Thema im Haus bin? Sie denkt, ihr seid alle Spione für ihren Mann. Oh, ich habe keinen Zweifel, dass sie in der Hölle unter euch ist! Ich schätze, an ihrem Schweigen erkenne ich am deutlichsten, was sie fühlt. Du sagst, sie ist oft unruhig und besorgt aussehend: ist das ein Beweis für Ruhe? Du redest davon, dass ihr Verstand nicht feststeht. Wie zum Teufel sollte es bei ihrer schrecklichen Isolation auch anders sein? Und dieses fade, armselige Wesen, das sie aus 'Pflicht' und 'Menschlichkeit' begleitet! Aus 'Mitleid' und 'Nächstenliebe'! Es wäre genauso gut, eine Eiche in einen Blumentopf zu pflanzen und erwarten, dass sie gedeiht, wie sich vorstellen zu können, dass er sie in der flachen Erde seiner oberflächlichen Sorgen wiederbeleben kann. Lassen wir es gleich klären: Wirst du hier bleiben und kämpfe ich mich zu Catherine durch Linton und seinen Diener? Oder wirst du mein Freund sein, wie du es bisher warst, und tun, was ich verlange? Entscheide dich! Denn es gibt keinen Grund, noch eine Minute zu verweilen, wenn du weiterhin in deiner hartnäckigen Boshaftigkeit beharrst!" Nun gut, Mr. Lockwood, ich argumentierte und beschwerte mich und lehnte ihn rundweg fifty Mal ab, aber schließlich zwang er mich zu einer Einigung. Ich versprach, einen Brief von ihm an meine Herrin zu überbringen; und sollte sie einwilligen, versprach ich ihm, ihm mitzuteilen, wann Linton wieder abwesend sein würde, damit er kommen und sich einschleichen 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, wenn auch zweckmäßig. Ich dachte, ich würde eine weitere Explosion verhindern, indem ich zustimmte; und ich dachte auch, dass es eine günstige Krise in Catherines geistiger Krankheit herbeiführen könnte: Und dann erinnerte ich mich an Mr. Edgars strenge Rüge, dass ich Klatsch trug; und ich versuchte alle Unruhe in dieser Angelegenheit zu beseitigen, indem ich mit häufiger Wiederholung beteuerte, dass dieser Vertrauensbruch, wenn er so harte Bezeichnung verdient hätte, der letzte sein sollte. Trotzdem war meine Heimreise trauriger als meine Reise dorthin; und viele Bedenken hatte ich, bevor ich mich überwinden konnte, den Brief in Mrs. Lintons Hände zu legen. Aber hier ist Kenneth; ich werde runtergehen und ihm sagen, wie viel besser es dir geht. Meine Geschichte ist traurig, wie wir sagen, und wird einen weiteren Morgen verschlingen. Traurig und düster! überlegte ich, als die gute Frau hinunterging, um den Arzt zu empfangen: und nicht gerade von der Art, die ich gewählt hätte, um mich zu unterhalten. Aber egal! Ich werde heilsame Medizin aus Mrs. Deans bitteren Kräutern extrahieren; und zuallererst sollte ich mich vor der Faszination hüten, die in Catherine Heathcliffs brillanten Augen lauert. Ich wäre in einer seltsamen Lage, wenn ich mein Herz an diese junge Dame hingäbe und sich herausstellte, dass die Tochter eine Neuauflage der Mutter ist. 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.

Edgar weigert sich, Isabella zu vergeben, und schickt Nelly nichts mit, als sie Wuthering Heights besucht. Heathcliff ist begierig darauf, Neuigkeiten über Catherines Situation zu hören, und verlangt von Nelly, ein Treffen zwischen den beiden zu arrangieren. Nelly lehnt ab, aber ihre Ablehnung veranlasst Heathcliff, Nelly dazu zu zwingen, in Wuthering Heights zu bleiben, indem er behauptet, er werde alleine gehen. Nelly fürchtet, was passieren könnte, wenn das geschehen würde, und willigt widerwillig in seinen Wunsch ein, einen Brief an Catherine zu überbringen.

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 brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the four Pickwickians assemble on the morning of the twenty-second day of December, in the year of grace in which these, their faithfully-recorded adventures, were undertaken and accomplished. Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away. Gay and merry was the time; and right gay and merry were at least four of the numerous hearts that were gladdened by its coming. And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual goodwill, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight; and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilised nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blessed and happy! How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does Christmas time awaken! We write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which, year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow; the hands we grasped, have grown cold; the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstances connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but yesterday! Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home! But we are so taken up and occupied with the good qualities of this saint Christmas, that we are keeping Mr. Pickwick and his friends waiting in the cold on the outside of the Muggleton coach, which they have just attained, well wrapped up in great-coats, shawls, and comforters. The portmanteaus and carpet-bags have been stowed away, and Mr. Weller and the guard are endeavouring to insinuate into the fore- boot a huge cod-fish several sizes too large for it--which is snugly packed up, in a long brown basket, with a layer of straw over the top, and which has been left to the last, in order that he may repose in safety on the half-dozen barrels of real native oysters, all the property of Mr. Pickwick, which have been arranged in regular order at the bottom of the receptacle. The interest displayed in Mr. Pickwick's countenance is most intense, as Mr. Weller and the guard try to squeeze the cod-fish into the boot, first head first, and then tail first, and then top upward, and then bottom upward, and then side-ways, and then long-ways, all of which artifices the implacable cod-fish sturdily resists, until the guard accidentally hits him in the very middle of the basket, whereupon he suddenly disappears into the boot, and with him, the head and shoulders of the guard himself, who, not calculating upon so sudden a cessation of the passive resistance of the cod-fish, experiences a very unexpected shock, to the unsmotherable delight of all the porters and bystanders. Upon this, Mr. Pickwick smiles with great good-humour, and drawing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket, begs the guard, as he picks himself out of the boot, to drink his health in a glass of hot brandy-and-water; at which the guard smiles too, and Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman, all smile in company. The guard and Mr. Weller disappear for five minutes, most probably to get the hot brandy-and-water, for they smell very strongly of it, when they return, the coachman mounts to the box, Mr. Weller jumps up behind, the Pickwickians pull their coats round their legs and their shawls over their noses, the helpers pull the horse-cloths off, the coachman shouts out a cheery 'All right,' and away they go. They have rumbled through the streets, and jolted over the stones, and at length reach the wide and open country. The wheels skim over the hard and frosty ground; and the horses, bursting into a canter at a smart crack of the whip, step along the road as if the load behind them-- coach, passengers, cod-fish, oyster-barrels, and all--were but a feather at their heels. They have descended a gentle slope, and enter upon a level, as compact and dry as a solid block of marble, two miles long. Another crack of the whip, and on they speed, at a smart gallop, the horses tossing their heads and rattling the harness, as if in exhilaration at the rapidity of the motion; while the coachman, holding whip and reins in one hand, takes off his hat with the other, and resting it on his knees, pulls out his handkerchief, and wipes his forehead, partly because he has a habit of doing it, and partly because it's as well to show the passengers how cool he is, and what an easy thing it is to drive four-in-hand, when you have had as much practice as he has. Having done this very leisurely (otherwise the effect would be materially impaired), he replaces his handkerchief, pulls on his hat, adjusts his gloves, squares his elbows, cracks the whip again, and on they speed, more merrily than before. A few small houses, scattered on either side of the road, betoken the entrance to some town or village. The lively notes of the guard's key- bugle vibrate in the clear cold air, and wake up the old gentleman inside, who, carefully letting down the window-sash half-way, and standing sentry over the air, takes a short peep out, and then carefully pulling it up again, informs the other inside that they're going to change directly; on which the other inside wakes himself up, and determines to postpone his next nap until after the stoppage. Again the bugle sounds lustily forth, and rouses the cottager's wife and children, who peep out at the house door, and watch the coach till it turns the corner, when they once more crouch round the blazing fire, and throw on another log of wood against father comes home; while father himself, a full mile off, has just exchanged a friendly nod with the coachman, and turned round to take a good long stare at the vehicle as it whirls away. And now the bugle plays a lively air as the coach rattles through the ill-paved streets of a country town; and the coachman, undoing the buckle which keeps his ribands together, prepares to throw them off the moment he stops. Mr. Pickwick emerges from his coat collar, and looks about him with great curiosity; perceiving which, the coachman informs Mr. Pickwick of the name of the town, and tells him it was market-day yesterday, both of which pieces of information Mr. Pickwick retails to his fellow-passengers; whereupon they emerge from their coat collars too, and look about them also. Mr. Winkle, who sits at the extreme edge, with one leg dangling in the air, is nearly precipitated into the street, as the coach twists round the sharp corner by the cheesemonger's shop, and turns into the market-place; and before Mr. Snodgrass, who sits next to him, has recovered from his alarm, they pull up at the inn yard where the fresh horses, with cloths on, are already waiting. The coachman throws down the reins and gets down himself, and the other outside passengers drop down also; except those who have no great confidence in their ability to get up again; and they remain where they are, and stamp their feet against the coach to warm them--looking, with longing eyes and red noses, at the bright fire in the inn bar, and the sprigs of holly with red berries which ornament the window. But the guard has delivered at the corn-dealer's shop, the brown paper packet he took out of the little pouch which hangs over his shoulder by a leathern strap; and has seen the horses carefully put to; and has thrown on the pavement the saddle which was brought from London on the coach roof; and has assisted in the conference between the coachman and the hostler about the gray mare that hurt her off fore-leg last Tuesday; and he and Mr. Weller are all right behind, and the coachman is all right in front, and the old gentleman inside, who has kept the window down full two inches all this time, has pulled it up again, and the cloths are off, and they are all ready for starting, except the 'two stout gentlemen,' whom the coachman inquires after with some impatience. Hereupon the coachman, and the guard, and Sam Weller, and Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, and all the hostlers, and every one of the idlers, who are more in number than all the others put together, shout for the missing gentlemen as loud as they can bawl. A distant response is heard from the yard, and Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman come running down it, quite out of breath, for they have been having a glass of ale a-piece, and Mr. Pickwick's fingers are so cold that he has been full five minutes before he could find the sixpence to pay for it. The coachman shouts an admonitory 'Now then, gen'l'm'n,' the guard re-echoes it; the old gentleman inside thinks it a very extraordinary thing that people _will _get down when they know there isn't time for it; Mr. Pickwick struggles up on one side, Mr. Tupman on the other; Mr. Winkle cries 'All right'; and off they start. Shawls are pulled up, coat collars are readjusted, the pavement ceases, the houses disappear; and they are once again dashing along the open road, with the fresh clear air blowing in their faces, and gladdening their very hearts within them. Such was the progress of Mr. Pickwick and his friends by the Muggleton Telegraph, on their way to Dingley Dell; and at three o'clock that afternoon they all stood high and dry, safe and sound, hale and hearty, upon the steps of the Blue Lion, having taken on the road quite enough of ale and brandy, to enable them to bid defiance to the frost that was binding up the earth in its iron fetters, and weaving its beautiful network upon the trees and hedges. Mr. Pickwick was busily engaged in counting the barrels of oysters and superintending the disinterment of the cod-fish, when he felt himself gently pulled by the skirts of the coat. Looking round, he discovered that the individual who resorted to this mode of catching his attention was no other than Mr. Wardle's favourite page, better known to the readers of this unvarnished history, by the distinguishing appellation of the fat boy. 'Aha!' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Aha!' said the fat boy. As he said it, he glanced from the cod-fish to the oyster-barrels, and chuckled joyously. He was fatter than ever. 'Well, you look rosy enough, my young friend,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'I've been asleep, right in front of the taproom fire,' replied the fat boy, who had heated himself to the colour of a new chimney-pot, in the course of an hour's nap. 'Master sent me over with the chay-cart, to carry your luggage up to the house. He'd ha' sent some saddle-horses, but he thought you'd rather walk, being a cold day.' 'Yes, yes,' said Mr. Pickwick hastily, for he remembered how they had travelled over nearly the same ground on a previous occasion. 'Yes, we would rather walk. Here, Sam!' 'Sir,' said Mr. Weller. 'Help Mr. Wardle's servant to put the packages into the cart, and then ride on with him. We will walk forward at once.' Having given this direction, and settled with the coachman, Mr. Pickwick and his three friends struck into the footpath across the fields, and walked briskly away, leaving Mr. Weller and the fat boy confronted together for the first time. Sam looked at the fat boy with great astonishment, but without saying a word; and began to stow the luggage rapidly away in the cart, while the fat boy stood quietly by, and seemed to think it a very interesting sort of thing to see Mr. Weller working by himself. 'There,' said Sam, throwing in the last carpet-bag, 'there they are!' 'Yes,' said the fat boy, in a very satisfied tone, 'there they are.' 'Vell, young twenty stun,' said Sam, 'you're a nice specimen of a prize boy, you are!' Thank'ee,' said the fat boy. 'You ain't got nothin' on your mind as makes you fret yourself, have you?' inquired Sam. 'Not as I knows on,' replied the fat boy. 'I should rayther ha' thought, to look at you, that you was a-labourin' under an unrequited attachment to some young 'ooman,' said Sam. The fat boy shook his head. 'Vell,' said Sam, 'I am glad to hear it. Do you ever drink anythin'?' 'I likes eating better,' replied the boy. 'Ah,' said Sam, 'I should ha' s'posed that; but what I mean is, should you like a drop of anythin' as'd warm you? but I s'pose you never was cold, with all them elastic fixtures, was you?' 'Sometimes,' replied the boy; 'and I likes a drop of something, when it's good.' 'Oh, you do, do you?' said Sam, 'come this way, then!' The Blue Lion tap was soon gained, and the fat boy swallowed a glass of liquor without so much as winking--a feat which considerably advanced him in Mr. Weller's good opinion. Mr. Weller having transacted a similar piece of business on his own account, they got into the cart. 'Can you drive?' said the fat boy. 'I should rayther think so,' replied Sam. 'There, then,' said the fat boy, putting the reins in his hand, and pointing up a lane, 'it's as straight as you can go; you can't miss it.' With these words, the fat boy laid himself affectionately down by the side of the cod-fish, and, placing an oyster-barrel under his head for a pillow, fell asleep instantaneously. 'Well,' said Sam, 'of all the cool boys ever I set my eyes on, this here young gen'l'm'n is the coolest. Come, wake up, young dropsy!' But as young dropsy evinced no symptoms of returning animation, Sam Weller sat himself down in front of the cart, and starting the old horse with a jerk of the rein, jogged steadily on, towards the Manor Farm. Meanwhile, Mr. Pickwick and his friends having walked their blood into active circulation, proceeded cheerfully on. The paths were hard; the grass was crisp and frosty; the air had a fine, dry, bracing coldness; and the rapid approach of the gray twilight (slate-coloured is a better term in frosty weather) made them look forward with pleasant anticipation to the comforts which awaited them at their hospitable entertainer's. It was the sort of afternoon that might induce a couple of elderly gentlemen, in a lonely field, to take off their greatcoats and play at leap-frog in pure lightness of heart and gaiety; and we firmly believe that had Mr. Tupman at that moment proffered 'a back,' Mr. Pickwick would have accepted his offer with the utmost avidity. However, Mr. Tupman did not volunteer any such accommodation, and the friends walked on, conversing merrily. As they turned into a lane they had to cross, the sound of many voices burst upon their ears; and before they had even had time to form a guess to whom they belonged, they walked into the very centre of the party who were expecting their arrival--a fact which was first notified to the Pickwickians, by the loud 'Hurrah,' which burst from old Wardle's lips, when they appeared in sight. First, there was Wardle himself, looking, if that were possible, more jolly than ever; then there were Bella and her faithful Trundle; and, lastly, there were Emily and some eight or ten young ladies, who had all come down to the wedding, which was to take place next day, and who were in as happy and important a state as young ladies usually are, on such momentous occasions; and they were, one and all, startling the fields and lanes, far and wide, with their frolic and laughter. The ceremony of introduction, under such circumstances, was very soon performed, or we should rather say that the introduction was soon over, without any ceremony at all. In two minutes thereafter, Mr. Pickwick was joking with the young ladies who wouldn't come over the stile while he looked--or who, having pretty feet and unexceptionable ankles, preferred standing on the top rail for five minutes or so, declaring that they were too frightened to move--with as much ease and absence of reserve or constraint, as if he had known them for life. It is worthy of remark, too, that Mr. Snodgrass offered Emily far more assistance than the absolute terrors of the stile (although it was full three feet high, and had only a couple of stepping-stones) would seem to require; while one black-eyed young lady in a very nice little pair of boots with fur round the top, was observed to scream very loudly, when Mr. Winkle offered to help her over. All this was very snug and pleasant. And when the difficulties of the stile were at last surmounted, and they once more entered on the open field, old Wardle informed Mr. Pickwick how they had all been down in a body to inspect the furniture and fittings-up of the house, which the young couple were to tenant, after the Christmas holidays; at which communication Bella and Trundle both coloured up, as red as the fat boy after the taproom fire; and the young lady with the black eyes and the fur round the boots, whispered something in Emily's ear, and then glanced archly at Mr. Snodgrass; to which Emily responded that she was a foolish girl, but turned very red, notwithstanding; and Mr. Snodgrass, who was as modest as all great geniuses usually are, felt the crimson rising to the crown of his head, and devoutly wished, in the inmost recesses of his own heart, that the young lady aforesaid, with her black eyes, and her archness, and her boots with the fur round the top, were all comfortably deposited in the adjacent county. But if they were social and happy outside the house, what was the warmth and cordiality of their reception when they reached the farm! The very servants grinned with pleasure at sight of Mr. Pickwick; and Emma bestowed a half-demure, half-impudent, and all-pretty look of recognition, on Mr. Tupman, which was enough to make the statue of Bonaparte in the passage, unfold his arms, and clasp her within them. The old lady was seated with customary state in the front parlour, but she was rather cross, and, by consequence, most particularly deaf. She never went out herself, and like a great many other old ladies of the same stamp, she was apt to consider it an act of domestic treason, if anybody else took the liberty of doing what she couldn't. So, bless her old soul, she sat as upright as she could, in her great chair, and looked as fierce as might be--and that was benevolent after all. 'Mother,' said Wardle, 'Mr. Pickwick. You recollect him?' 'Never mind,' replied the old lady, with great dignity. 'Don't trouble Mr. Pickwick about an old creetur like me. Nobody cares about me now, and it's very nat'ral they shouldn't.' Here the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her lavender-coloured silk dress with trembling hands. 'Come, come, ma'am,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'I can't let you cut an old friend in this way. I have come down expressly to have a long talk, and another rubber with you; and we'll show these boys and girls how to dance a minuet, before they're eight-and-forty hours older.' The old lady was rapidly giving way, but she did not like to do it all at once; so she only said, 'Ah! I can't hear him!' 'Nonsense, mother,' said Wardle. 'Come, come, don't be cross, there's a good soul. Recollect Bella; come, you must keep her spirits up, poor girl.' The good old lady heard this, for her lip quivered as her son said it. But age has its little infirmities of temper, and she was not quite brought round yet. So, she smoothed down the lavender-coloured dress again, and turning to Mr. Pickwick said, 'Ah, Mr. Pickwick, young people was very different, when I was a girl.' 'No doubt of that, ma'am,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'and that's the reason why I would make much of the few that have any traces of the old stock'--and saying this, Mr. Pickwick gently pulled Bella towards him, and bestowing a kiss upon her forehead, bade her sit down on the little stool at her grandmother's feet. Whether the expression of her countenance, as it was raised towards the old lady's face, called up a thought of old times, or whether the old lady was touched by Mr. Pickwick's affectionate good- nature, or whatever was the cause, she was fairly melted; so she threw herself on her granddaughter's neck, and all the little ill-humour evaporated in a gush of silent tears. A happy party they were, that night. Sedate and solemn were the score of rubbers in which Mr. Pickwick and the old lady played together; uproarious was the mirth of the round table. Long after the ladies had retired, did the hot elder wine, well qualified with brandy and spice, go round, and round, and round again; and sound was the sleep and pleasant were the dreams that followed. It is a remarkable fact that those of Mr. Snodgrass bore constant reference to Emily Wardle; and that the principal figure in Mr. Winkle's visions was a young lady with black eyes, and arch smile, and a pair of remarkably nice boots with fur round the tops. Mr. Pickwick was awakened early in the morning, by a hum of voices and a pattering of feet, sufficient to rouse even the fat boy from his heavy slumbers. He sat up in bed and listened. The female servants and female visitors were running constantly to and fro; and there were such multitudinous demands for hot water, such repeated outcries for needles and thread, and so many half-suppressed entreaties of 'Oh, do come and tie me, there's a dear!' that Mr. Pickwick in his innocence began to imagine that something dreadful must have occurred--when he grew more awake, and remembered the wedding. The occasion being an important one, he dressed himself with peculiar care, and descended to the breakfast- room. There were all the female servants in a bran new uniform of pink muslin gowns with white bows in their caps, running about the house in a state of excitement and agitation which it would be impossible to describe. The old lady was dressed out in a brocaded gown, which had not seen the light for twenty years, saving and excepting such truant rays as had stolen through the chinks in the box in which it had been laid by, during the whole time. Mr. Trundle was in high feather and spirits, but a little nervous withal. The hearty old landlord was trying to look very cheerful and unconcerned, but failing signally in the attempt. All the girls were in tears and white muslin, except a select two or three, who were being honoured with a private view of the bride and bridesmaids, upstairs. All the Pickwickians were in most blooming array; and there was a terrific roaring on the grass in front of the house, occasioned by all the men, boys, and hobbledehoys attached to the farm, each of whom had got a white bow in his button-hole, and all of whom were cheering with might and main; being incited thereto, and stimulated therein by the precept and example of Mr. Samuel Weller, who had managed to become mighty popular already, and was as much at home as if he had been born on the land. A wedding is a licensed subject to joke upon, but there really is no great joke in the matter after all;--we speak merely of the ceremony, and beg it to be distinctly understood that we indulge in no hidden sarcasm upon a married life. Mixed up with the pleasure and joy of the occasion, are the many regrets at quitting home, the tears of parting between parent and child, the consciousness of leaving the dearest and kindest friends of the happiest portion of human life, to encounter its cares and troubles with others still untried and little known--natural feelings which we would not render this chapter mournful by describing, and which we should be still more unwilling to be supposed to ridicule. Let us briefly say, then, that the ceremony was performed by the old clergyman, in the parish church of Dingley Dell, and that Mr. Pickwick's name is attached to the register, still preserved in the vestry thereof; that the young lady with the black eyes signed her name in a very unsteady and tremulous manner; that Emily's signature, as the other bridesmaid, is nearly illegible; that it all went off in very admirable style; that the young ladies generally thought it far less shocking than they had expected; and that although the owner of the black eyes and the arch smile informed Mr. Wardle that she was sure she could never submit to anything so dreadful, we have the very best reasons for thinking she was mistaken. To all this, we may add, that Mr. Pickwick was the first who saluted the bride, and that in so doing he threw over her neck a rich gold watch and chain, which no mortal eyes but the jeweller's had ever beheld before. Then, the old church bell rang as gaily as it could, and they all returned to breakfast. 'Vere does the mince-pies go, young opium-eater?' said Mr. Weller to the fat boy, as he assisted in laying out such articles of consumption as had not been duly arranged on the previous night. The fat boy pointed to the destination of the pies. 'Wery good,' said Sam, 'stick a bit o' Christmas in 'em. T'other dish opposite. There; now we look compact and comfortable, as the father said ven he cut his little boy's head off, to cure him o' squintin'.' As Mr. Weller made the comparison, he fell back a step or two, to give full effect to it, and surveyed the preparations with the utmost satisfaction. 'Wardle,' said Mr. Pickwick, almost as soon as they were all seated, 'a glass of wine in honour of this happy occasion!' 'I shall be delighted, my boy,' said Wardle. 'Joe--damn that boy, he's gone to sleep.' No, I ain't, sir,' replied the fat boy, starting up from a remote corner, where, like the patron saint of fat boys--the immortal Horner-- he had been devouring a Christmas pie, though not with the coolness and deliberation which characterised that young gentleman's proceedings. 'Fill Mr. Pickwick's glass.' 'Yes, sir.' The fat boy filled Mr. Pickwick's glass, and then retired behind his master's chair, from whence he watched the play of the knives and forks, and the progress of the choice morsels from the dishes to the mouths of the company, with a kind of dark and gloomy joy that was most impressive. 'God bless you, old fellow!' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Same to you, my boy,' replied Wardle; and they pledged each other, heartily. 'Mrs. Wardle,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'we old folks must have a glass of wine together, in honour of this joyful event.' The old lady was in a state of great grandeur just then, for she was sitting at the top of the table in the brocaded gown, with her newly- married granddaughter on one side, and Mr. Pickwick on the other, to do the carving. Mr. Pickwick had not spoken in a very loud tone, but she understood him at once, and drank off a full glass of wine to his long life and happiness; after which the worthy old soul launched forth into a minute and particular account of her own wedding, with a dissertation on the fashion of wearing high-heeled shoes, and some particulars concerning the life and adventures of the beautiful Lady Tollimglower, deceased; at all of which the old lady herself laughed very heartily indeed, and so did the young ladies too, for they were wondering among themselves what on earth grandma was talking about. When they laughed, the old lady laughed ten times more heartily, and said that these always had been considered capital stories, which caused them all to laugh again, and put the old lady into the very best of humours. Then the cake was cut, and passed through the ring; the young ladies saved pieces to put under their pillows to dream of their future husbands on; and a great deal of blushing and merriment was thereby occasioned. 'Mr. Miller,' said Mr. Pickwick to his old acquaintance, the hard-headed gentleman, 'a glass of wine?' 'With great satisfaction, Mr. Pickwick,' replied the hard-headed gentleman solemnly. 'You'll take me in?' said the benevolent old clergyman. 'And me,' interposed his wife. 'And me, and me,' said a couple of poor relations at the bottom of the table, who had eaten and drunk very heartily, and laughed at everything. Mr. Pickwick expressed his heartfelt delight at every additional suggestion; and his eyes beamed with hilarity and cheerfulness. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly rising. 'Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear!' cried Mr. Weller, in the excitement of his feelings. 'Call in all the servants,' cried old Wardle, interposing to prevent the public rebuke which Mr. Weller would otherwise most indubitably have received from his master. 'Give them a glass of wine each to drink the toast in. Now, Pickwick.' Amidst the silence of the company, the whispering of the women-servants, and the awkward embarrassment of the men, Mr. Pickwick proceeded-- 'Ladies and gentlemen--no, I won't say ladies and gentlemen, I'll call you my friends, my dear friends, if the ladies will allow me to take so great a liberty--' Here Mr. Pickwick was interrupted by immense applause from the ladies, echoed by the gentlemen, during which the owner of the eyes was distinctly heard to state that she could kiss that dear Mr. Pickwick. Whereupon Mr. Winkle gallantly inquired if it couldn't be done by deputy: to which the young lady with the black eyes replied 'Go away,' and accompanied the request with a look which said as plainly as a look could do, 'if you can.' 'My dear friends,' resumed Mr. Pickwick, 'I am going to propose the health of the bride and bridegroom--God bless 'em (cheers and tears). My young friend, Trundle, I believe to be a very excellent and manly fellow; and his wife I know to be a very amiable and lovely girl, well qualified to transfer to another sphere of action the happiness which for twenty years she has diffused around her, in her father's house. (Here, the fat boy burst forth into stentorian blubberings, and was led forth by the coat collar, by Mr. Weller.) I wish,' added Mr. Pickwick-- 'I wish I was young enough to be her sister's husband (cheers), but, failing that, I am happy to be old enough to be her father; for, being so, I shall not be suspected of any latent designs when I say, that I admire, esteem, and love them both (cheers and sobs). The bride's father, our good friend there, is a noble person, and I am proud to know him (great uproar). He is a kind, excellent, independent-spirited, fine- hearted, hospitable, liberal man (enthusiastic shouts from the poor relations, at all the adjectives; and especially at the two last). That his daughter may enjoy all the happiness, even he can desire; and that he may derive from the contemplation of her felicity all the gratification of heart and peace of mind which he so well deserves, is, I am persuaded, our united wish. So, let us drink their healths, and wish them prolonged life, and every blessing!' Mr. Pickwick concluded amidst a whirlwind of applause; and once more were the lungs of the supernumeraries, under Mr. Weller's command, brought into active and efficient operation. Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. Pickwick; Mr. Pickwick proposed the old lady. Mr. Snodgrass proposed Mr. Wardle; Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. Snodgrass. One of the poor relations proposed Mr. Tupman, and the other poor relation proposed Mr. Winkle; all was happiness and festivity, until the mysterious disappearance of both the poor relations beneath the table, warned the party that it was time to adjourn. At dinner they met again, after a five-and-twenty mile walk, undertaken by the males at Wardle's recommendation, to get rid of the effects of the wine at breakfast. The poor relations had kept in bed all day, with the view of attaining the same happy consummation, but, as they had been unsuccessful, they stopped there. Mr. Weller kept the domestics in a state of perpetual hilarity; and the fat boy divided his time into small alternate allotments of eating and sleeping. The dinner was as hearty an affair as the breakfast, and was quite as noisy, without the tears. Then came the dessert and some more toasts. Then came the tea and coffee; and then, the ball. The best sitting-room at Manor Farm was a good, long, dark-panelled room with a high chimney-piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. At the upper end of the room, seated in a shady bower of holly and evergreens were the two best fiddlers, and the only harp, in all Muggleton. In all sorts of recesses, and on all kinds of brackets, stood massive old silver candlesticks with four branches each. The carpet was up, the candles burned bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth, and merry voices and light-hearted laughter rang through the room. If any of the old English yeomen had turned into fairies when they died, it was just the place in which they would have held their revels. If anything could have added to the interest of this agreeable scene, it would have been the remarkable fact of Mr. Pickwick's appearing without his gaiters, for the first time within the memory of his oldest friends. 'You mean to dance?' said Wardle. 'Of course I do,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'Don't you see I am dressed for the purpose?' Mr. Pickwick called attention to his speckled silk stockings, and smartly tied pumps. '_You _in silk stockings!' exclaimed Mr. Tupman jocosely. 'And why not, sir--why not?' said Mr. Pickwick, turning warmly upon him. 'Oh, of course there is no reason why you shouldn't wear them,' responded Mr. Tupman. 'I imagine not, sir--I imagine not,' said Mr. Pickwick, in a very peremptory tone. Mr. Tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious matter; so he looked grave, and said they were a pretty pattern. 'I hope they are,' said Mr. Pickwick, fixing his eyes upon his friend. 'You see nothing extraordinary in the stockings, _as_ stockings, I trust, Sir?' 'Certainly not. Oh, certainly not,' replied Mr. Tupman. He walked away; and Mr. Pickwick's countenance resumed its customary benign expression. 'We are all ready, I believe,' said Mr. Pickwick, who was stationed with the old lady at the top of the dance, and had already made four false starts, in his excessive anxiety to commence. 'Then begin at once,' said Wardle. 'Now!' Up struck the two fiddles and the one harp, and off went Mr. Pickwick into hands across, when there was a general clapping of hands, and a cry of 'Stop, stop!' 'What's the matter?' said Mr. Pickwick, who was only brought to, by the fiddles and harp desisting, and could have been stopped by no other earthly power, if the house had been on fire. 'Where's Arabella Allen?' cried a dozen voices. 'And Winkle?'added Mr. Tupman. 'Here we are!' exclaimed that gentleman, emerging with his pretty companion from the corner; as he did so, it would have been hard to tell which was the redder in the face, he or the young lady with the black eyes. 'What an extraordinary thing it is, Winkle,' said Mr. Pickwick, rather pettishly, 'that you couldn't have taken your place before.' 'Not at all extraordinary,' said Mr. Winkle. 'Well,' said Mr. Pickwick, with a very expressive smile, as his eyes rested on Arabella, 'well, I don't know that it _was _extraordinary, either, after all.' However, there was no time to think more about the matter, for the fiddles and harp began in real earnest. Away went Mr. Pickwick--hands across--down the middle to the very end of the room, and half-way up the chimney, back again to the door--poussette everywhere--loud stamp on the ground--ready for the next couple--off again--all the figure over once more--another stamp to beat out the time--next couple, and the next, and the next again--never was such going; at last, after they had reached the bottom of the dance, and full fourteen couple after the old lady had retired in an exhausted state, and the clergyman's wife had been substituted in her stead, did that gentleman, when there was no demand whatever on his exertions, keep perpetually dancing in his place, to keep time to the music, smiling on his partner all the while with a blandness of demeanour which baffles all description. Long before Mr. Pickwick was weary of dancing, the newly-married couple had retired from the scene. There was a glorious supper downstairs, notwithstanding, and a good long sitting after it; and when Mr. Pickwick awoke, late the next morning, he had a confused recollection of having, severally and confidentially, invited somewhere about five-and-forty people to dine with him at the George and Vulture, the very first time they came to London; which Mr. Pickwick rightly considered a pretty certain indication of his having taken something besides exercise, on the previous night. 'And so your family has games in the kitchen to-night, my dear, has they?' inquired Sam of Emma. 'Yes, Mr. Weller,' replied Emma; 'we always have on Christmas Eve. Master wouldn't neglect to keep it up on any account.' 'Your master's a wery pretty notion of keeping anythin' up, my dear,' said Mr. Weller; 'I never see such a sensible sort of man as he is, or such a reg'lar gen'l'm'n.' Oh, that he is!' said the fat boy, joining in the conversation; 'don't he breed nice pork!' The fat youth gave a semi-cannibalic leer at Mr. Weller, as he thought of the roast legs and gravy. 'Oh, you've woke up, at last, have you?' said Sam. The fat boy nodded. 'I'll tell you what it is, young boa-constructer,' said Mr. Weller impressively; 'if you don't sleep a little less, and exercise a little more, wen you comes to be a man you'll lay yourself open to the same sort of personal inconwenience as was inflicted on the old gen'l'm'n as wore the pigtail.' 'What did they do to him?' inquired the fat boy, in a faltering voice. 'I'm a-going to tell you,' replied Mr. Weller; 'he was one o' the largest patterns as was ever turned out--reg'lar fat man, as hadn't caught a glimpse of his own shoes for five-and-forty year.' 'Lor!' exclaimed Emma. 'No, that he hadn't, my dear,' said Mr. Weller; 'and if you'd put an exact model of his own legs on the dinin'-table afore him, he wouldn't ha' known 'em. Well, he always walks to his office with a wery handsome gold watch-chain hanging out, about a foot and a quarter, and a gold watch in his fob pocket as was worth--I'm afraid to say how much, but as much as a watch can be--a large, heavy, round manufacter, as stout for a watch, as he was for a man, and with a big face in proportion. "You'd better not carry that 'ere watch," says the old gen'l'm'n's friends, "you'll be robbed on it," says they. "Shall I?" says he. "Yes, you will," says they. "Well," says he, "I should like to see the thief as could get this here watch out, for I'm blessed if I ever can, it's such a tight fit," says he, "and wenever I vants to know what's o'clock, I'm obliged to stare into the bakers' shops," he says. Well, then he laughs as hearty as if he was a-goin' to pieces, and out he walks agin with his powdered head and pigtail, and rolls down the Strand with the chain hangin' out furder than ever, and the great round watch almost bustin' through his gray kersey smalls. There warn't a pickpocket in all London as didn't take a pull at that chain, but the chain 'ud never break, and the watch 'ud never come out, so they soon got tired of dragging such a heavy old gen'l'm'n along the pavement, and he'd go home and laugh till the pigtail wibrated like the penderlum of a Dutch clock. At last, one day the old gen'l'm'n was a-rollin' along, and he sees a pickpocket as he know'd by sight, a-coming up, arm in arm with a little boy with a wery large head. "Here's a game," says the old gen'l'm'n to himself, "they're a-goin' to have another try, but it won't do!" So he begins a- chucklin' wery hearty, wen, all of a sudden, the little boy leaves hold of the pickpocket's arm, and rushes head foremost straight into the old gen'l'm'n's stomach, and for a moment doubles him right up with the pain. "Murder!" says the old gen'l'm'n. "All right, Sir," says the pickpocket, a-wisperin' in his ear. And wen he come straight agin, the watch and chain was gone, and what's worse than that, the old gen'l'm'n's digestion was all wrong ever afterwards, to the wery last day of his life; so just you look about you, young feller, and take care you don't get too fat.' As Mr. Weller concluded this moral tale, with which the fat boy appeared much affected, they all three repaired to the large kitchen, in which the family were by this time assembled, according to annual custom on Christmas Eve, observed by old Wardle's forefathers from time immemorial. From the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old Wardle had just suspended, with his own hands, a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of general and most delightful struggling and confusion; in the midst of which, Mr. Pickwick, with a gallantry that would have done honour to a descendant of Lady Tollimglower herself, took the old lady by the hand, led her beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all courtesy and decorum. The old lady submitted to this piece of practical politeness with all the dignity which befitted so important and serious a solemnity, but the younger ladies, not being so thoroughly imbued with a superstitious veneration for the custom, or imagining that the value of a salute is very much enhanced if it cost a little trouble to obtain it, screamed and struggled, and ran into corners, and threatened and remonstrated, and did everything but leave the room, until some of the less adventurous gentlemen were on the point of desisting, when they all at once found it useless to resist any longer, and submitted to be kissed with a good grace. Mr. Winkle kissed the young lady with the black eyes, and Mr. Snodgrass kissed Emily; and Mr. Weller, not being particular about the form of being under the mistletoe, kissed Emma and the other female servants, just as he caught them. As to the poor relations, they kissed everybody, not even excepting the plainer portions of the young lady visitors, who, in their excessive confusion, ran right under the mistletoe, as soon as it was hung up, without knowing it! Wardle stood with his back to the fire, surveying the whole scene, with the utmost satisfaction; and the fat boy took the opportunity of appropriating to his own use, and summarily devouring, a particularly fine mince-pie, that had been carefully put by, for somebody else. Now, the screaming had subsided, and faces were in a glow, and curls in a tangle, and Mr. Pickwick, after kissing the old lady as before mentioned, was standing under the mistletoe, looking with a very pleased countenance on all that was passing around him, when the young lady with the black eyes, after a little whispering with the other young ladies, made a sudden dart forward, and, putting her arm round Mr. Pickwick's neck, saluted him affectionately on the left cheek; and before Mr. Pickwick distinctly knew what was the matter, he was surrounded by the whole body, and kissed by every one of them. It was a pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick in the centre of the group, now pulled this way, and then that, and first kissed on the chin, and then on the nose, and then on the spectacles, and to hear the peals of laughter which were raised on every side; but it was a still more pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick, blinded shortly afterwards with a silk handkerchief, falling up against the wall, and scrambling into corners, and going through all the mysteries of blind-man's buff, with the utmost relish for the game, until at last he caught one of the poor relations, and then had to evade the blind-man himself, which he did with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the admiration and applause of all beholders. The poor relations caught the people who they thought would like it, and, when the game flagged, got caught themselves. When they all tired of blind-man's buff, there was a great game at snap- dragon, and when fingers enough were burned with that, and all the raisins were gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper, and a mighty bowl of wassail, something smaller than an ordinary wash-house copper, in which the hot apples were hissing and bubbling with a rich look, and a jolly sound, that were perfectly irresistible. 'This,' said Mr. Pickwick, looking round him, 'this is, indeed, comfort.' 'Our invariable custom,' replied Mr. Wardle. 'Everybody sits down with us on Christmas Eve, as you see them now--servants and all; and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories. Trundle, my boy, rake up the fire.' Up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred. The deep red blaze sent forth a rich glow, that penetrated into the farthest corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face. 'Come,' said Wardle, 'a song--a Christmas song! I'll give you one, in default of a better.' 'Bravo!' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Fill up,' cried Wardle. 'It will be two hours, good, before you see the bottom of the bowl through the deep rich colour of the wassail; fill up all round, and now for the song.' Thus saying, the merry old gentleman, in a good, round, sturdy voice, commenced without more ado-- A CHRISTMAS CAROL 'I care not for Spring; on his fickle wing Let the blossoms and buds be borne; He woos them amain with his treacherous rain, And he scatters them ere the morn. An inconstant elf, he knows not himself, Nor his own changing mind an hour, He'll smile in your face, and, with wry grimace, He'll wither your youngest flower. 'Let the Summer sun to his bright home run, He shall never be sought by me; When he's dimmed by a cloud I can laugh aloud And care not how sulky he be! For his darling child is the madness wild That sports in fierce fever's train; And when love is too strong, it don't last long, As many have found to their pain. 'A mild harvest night, by the tranquil light Of the modest and gentle moon, Has a far sweeter sheen for me, I ween, Than the broad and unblushing noon. But every leaf awakens my grief, As it lieth beneath the tree; So let Autumn air be never so fair, It by no means agrees with me. 'But my song I troll out, for _Christmas _Stout, The hearty, the true, and the bold; A bumper I drain, and with might and main Give three cheers for this Christmas old! We'll usher him in with a merry din That shall gladden his joyous heart, And we'll keep him up, while there's bite or sup, And in fellowship good, we'll part. 'In his fine honest pride, he scorns to hide One jot of his hard-weather scars; They're no disgrace, for there's much the same trace On the cheeks of our bravest tars. Then again I sing till the roof doth ring And it echoes from wall to wall--To the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night, As the King of the Seasons all!' This song was tumultuously applauded--for friends and dependents make a capital audience--and the poor relations, especially, were in perfect ecstasies of rapture. Again was the fire replenished, and again went the wassail round. 'How it snows!' said one of the men, in a low tone. 'Snows, does it?' said Wardle. 'Rough, cold night, Sir,' replied the man; 'and there's a wind got up, that drifts it across the fields, in a thick white cloud.' 'What does Jem say?' inquired the old lady. 'There ain't anything the matter, is there?' 'No, no, mother,' replied Wardle; 'he says there's a snowdrift, and a wind that's piercing cold. I should know that, by the way it rumbles in the chimney.' 'Ah!' said the old lady, 'there was just such a wind, and just such a fall of snow, a good many years back, I recollect--just five years before your poor father died. It was a Christmas Eve, too; and I remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins that carried away old Gabriel Grub.' 'The story about what?' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Oh, nothing, nothing,' replied Wardle. 'About an old sexton, that the good people down here suppose to have been carried away by goblins.' 'Suppose!' ejaculated the old lady. 'Is there anybody hardy enough to disbelieve it? Suppose! Haven't you heard ever since you were a child, that he _was _carried away by the goblins, and don't you know he was?' 'Very well, mother, he was, if you like,' said Wardle laughing. 'He _was_ carried away by goblins, Pickwick; and there's an end of the matter.' 'No, no,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'not an end of it, I assure you; for I must hear how, and why, and all about it.' Wardle smiled, as every head was bent forward to hear, and filling out the wassail with no stinted hand, nodded a health to Mr. Pickwick, and began as follows-- But bless our editorial heart, what a long chapter we have been betrayed into! We had quite forgotten all such petty restrictions as chapters, we solemnly declare. So here goes, to give the goblin a fair start in a new one. A clear stage and no favour for the goblins, ladies and gentlemen, if you please. 'In an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long, long while ago--so long, that the story must be a true one, because our great-grandfathers implicitly believed it--there officiated as sexton and grave-digger in the churchyard, one Gabriel Grub. It by no means follows that because a man is a sexton, and constantly surrounded by the emblems of mortality, therefore he should be a morose and melancholy man; your undertakers are the merriest fellows in the world; and I once had the honour of being on intimate terms with a mute, who in private life, and off duty, was as comical and jocose a little fellow as ever chirped out a devil-may-care song, without a hitch in his memory, or drained off a good stiff glass without stopping for breath. But notwithstanding these precedents to the contrary, Gabriel Grub was an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow--a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket--and who eyed each merry face, as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill- humour, as it was difficult to meet without feeling something the worse for. 'A little before twilight, one Christmas Eve, Gabriel shouldered his spade, lighted his lantern, and betook himself towards the old churchyard; for he had got a grave to finish by next morning, and, feeling very low, he thought it might raise his spirits, perhaps, if he went on with his work at once. As he went his way, up the ancient street, he saw the cheerful light of the blazing fires gleam through the old casements, and heard the loud laugh and the cheerful shouts of those who were assembled around them; he marked the bustling preparations for next day's cheer, and smelled the numerous savoury odours consequent thereupon, as they steamed up from the kitchen windows in clouds. All this was gall and wormwood to the heart of Gabriel Grub; and when groups of children bounded out of the houses, tripped across the road, and were met, before they could knock at the opposite door, by half a dozen curly-headed little rascals who crowded round them as they flocked upstairs to spend the evening in their Christmas games, Gabriel smiled grimly, and clutched the handle of his spade with a firmer grasp, as he thought of measles, scarlet fever, thrush, whooping-cough, and a good many other sources of consolation besides. 'In this happy frame of mind, Gabriel strode along, returning a short, sullen growl to the good-humoured greetings of such of his neighbours as now and then passed him, until he turned into the dark lane which led to the churchyard. Now, Gabriel had been looking forward to reaching the dark lane, because it was, generally speaking, a nice, gloomy, mournful place, into which the townspeople did not much care to go, except in broad daylight, and when the sun was shining; consequently, he was not a little indignant to hear a young urchin roaring out some jolly song about a merry Christmas, in this very sanctuary which had been called Coffin Lane ever since the days of the old abbey, and the time of the shaven-headed monks. As Gabriel walked on, and the voice drew nearer, he found it proceeded from a small boy, who was hurrying along, to join one of the little parties in the old street, and who, partly to keep himself company, and partly to prepare himself for the occasion, was shouting out the song at the highest pitch of his lungs. So Gabriel waited until the boy came up, and then dodged him into a corner, and rapped him over the head with his lantern five or six times, just to teach him to modulate his voice. And as the boy hurried away with his hand to his head, singing quite a different sort of tune, Gabriel Grub chuckled very heartily to himself, and entered the churchyard, locking the gate behind him. 'He took off his coat, set down his lantern, and getting into the unfinished grave, worked at it for an hour or so with right good-will. But the earth was hardened with the frost, and it was no very easy matter to break it up, and shovel it out; and although there was a moon, it was a very young one, and shed little light upon the grave, which was in the shadow of the church. At any other time, these obstacles would have made Gabriel Grub very moody and miserable, but he was so well pleased with having stopped the small boy's singing, that he took little heed of the scanty progress he had made, and looked down into the grave, when he had finished work for the night, with grim satisfaction, murmuring as he gathered up his things-- Brave lodgings for one, brave lodgings for one, A few feet of cold earth, when life is done; A stone at the head, a stone at the feet, A rich, juicy meal for the worms to eat; Rank grass overhead, and damp clay around, Brave lodgings for one, these, in holy ground! '"Ho! ho!" laughed Gabriel Grub, as he sat himself down on a flat tombstone which was a favourite resting-place of his, and drew forth his wicker bottle. "A coffin at Christmas! A Christmas box! Ho! ho! ho!" '"Ho! ho! ho!" repeated a voice which sounded close behind him. 'Gabriel paused, in some alarm, in the act of raising the wicker bottle to his lips, and looked round. The bottom of the oldest grave about him was not more still and quiet than the churchyard in the pale moonlight. The cold hoar frost glistened on the tombstones, and sparkled like rows of gems, among the stone carvings of the old church. The snow lay hard and crisp upon the ground; and spread over the thickly-strewn mounds of earth, so white and smooth a cover that it seemed as if corpses lay there, hidden only by their winding sheets. Not the faintest rustle broke the profound tranquillity of the solemn scene. Sound itself appeared to be frozen up, all was so cold and still. '"It was the echoes," said Gabriel Grub, raising the bottle to his lips again. '"It was _not_," said a deep voice. 'Gabriel started up, and stood rooted to the spot with astonishment and terror; for his eyes rested on a form that made his blood run cold. 'Seated on an upright tombstone, close to him, was a strange, unearthly figure, whom Gabriel felt at once, was no being of this world. His long, fantastic legs which might have reached the ground, were cocked up, and crossed after a quaint, fantastic fashion; his sinewy arms were bare; and his hands rested on his knees. On his short, round body, he wore a close covering, ornamented with small slashes; a short cloak dangled at his back; the collar was cut into curious peaks, which served the goblin in lieu of ruff or neckerchief; and his shoes curled up at his toes into long points. On his head, he wore a broad-brimmed sugar-loaf hat, garnished with a single feather. The hat was covered with the white frost; and the goblin looked as if he had sat on the same tombstone very comfortably, for two or three hundred years. He was sitting perfectly still; his tongue was put out, as if in derision; and he was grinning at Gabriel Grub with such a grin as only a goblin could call up. '"It was _not _the echoes," said the goblin. 'Gabriel Grub was paralysed, and could make no reply. '"What do you do here on Christmas Eve?" said the goblin sternly. '"I came to dig a grave, Sir," stammered Gabriel Grub. '"What man wanders among graves and churchyards on such a night as this?" cried the goblin. '"Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!" screamed a wild chorus of voices that seemed to fill the churchyard. Gabriel looked fearfully round--nothing was to be seen. '"What have you got in that bottle?" said the goblin. '"Hollands, sir," replied the sexton, trembling more than ever; for he had bought it of the smugglers, and he thought that perhaps his questioner might be in the excise department of the goblins. '"Who drinks Hollands alone, and in a churchyard, on such a night as this?" said the goblin. '"Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!" exclaimed the wild voices again. 'The goblin leered maliciously at the terrified sexton, and then raising his voice, exclaimed-- '"And who, then, is our fair and lawful prize?" 'To this inquiry the invisible chorus replied, in a strain that sounded like the voices of many choristers singing to the mighty swell of the old church organ--a strain that seemed borne to the sexton's ears upon a wild wind, and to die away as it passed onward; but the burden of the reply was still the same, "Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!" 'The goblin grinned a broader grin than before, as he said, "Well, Gabriel, what do you say to this?" 'The sexton gasped for breath. '"What do you think of this, Gabriel?" said the goblin, kicking up his feet in the air on either side of the tombstone, and looking at the turned-up points with as much complacency as if he had been contemplating the most fashionable pair of Wellingtons in all Bond Street. '"It's--it's--very curious, Sir," replied the sexton, half dead with fright; "very curious, and very pretty, but I think I'll go back and finish my work, Sir, if you please." '"Work!" said the goblin, "what work?" '"The grave, Sir; making the grave," stammered the sexton. '"Oh, the grave, eh?" said the goblin; "who makes graves at a time when all other men are merry, and takes a pleasure in it?" 'Again the mysterious voices replied, "Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!" '"I am afraid my friends want you, Gabriel," said the goblin, thrusting his tongue farther into his cheek than ever--and a most astonishing tongue it was--"I'm afraid my friends want you, Gabriel," said the goblin. '"Under favour, Sir," replied the horror-stricken sexton, "I don't think they can, Sir; they don't know me, Sir; I don't think the gentlemen have ever seen me, Sir." '"Oh, yes, they have," replied the goblin; "we know the man with the sulky face and grim scowl, that came down the street to-night, throwing his evil looks at the children, and grasping his burying-spade the tighter. We know the man who struck the boy in the envious malice of his heart, because the boy could be merry, and he could not. We know him, we know him." 'Here, the goblin gave a loud, shrill laugh, which the echoes returned twentyfold; and throwing his legs up in the air, stood upon his head, or rather upon the very point of his sugar-loaf hat, on the narrow edge of the tombstone, whence he threw a Somerset with extraordinary agility, right to the sexton's feet, at which he planted himself in the attitude in which tailors generally sit upon the shop-board. '"I--I--am afraid I must leave you, Sir," said the sexton, making an effort to move. '"Leave us!" said the goblin, "Gabriel Grub going to leave us. Ho! ho! ho!" 'As the goblin laughed, the sexton observed, for one instant, a brilliant illumination within the windows of the church, as if the whole building were lighted up; it disappeared, the organ pealed forth a lively air, and whole troops of goblins, the very counterpart of the first one, poured into the churchyard, and began playing at leap-frog with the tombstones, never stopping for an instant to take breath, but "overing" the highest among them, one after the other, with the most marvellous dexterity. The first goblin was a most astonishing leaper, and none of the others could come near him; even in the extremity of his terror the sexton could not help observing, that while his friends were content to leap over the common-sized gravestones, the first one took the family vaults, iron railings and all, with as much ease as if they had been so many street-posts. 'At last the game reached to a most exciting pitch; the organ played quicker and quicker, and the goblins leaped faster and faster, coiling themselves up, rolling head over heels upon the ground, and bounding over the tombstones like footballs. The sexton's brain whirled round with the rapidity of the motion he beheld, and his legs reeled beneath him, as the spirits flew before his eyes; when the goblin king, suddenly darting towards him, laid his hand upon his collar, and sank with him through the earth. 'When Gabriel Grub had had time to fetch his breath, which the rapidity of his descent had for the moment taken away, he found himself in what appeared to be a large cavern, surrounded on all sides by crowds of goblins, ugly and grim; in the centre of the room, on an elevated seat, was stationed his friend of the churchyard; and close behind him stood Gabriel Grub himself, without power of motion. '"Cold to-night," said the king of the goblins, "very cold. A glass of something warm here!" 'At this command, half a dozen officious goblins, with a perpetual smile upon their faces, whom Gabriel Grub imagined to be courtiers, on that account, hastily disappeared, and presently returned with a goblet of liquid fire, which they presented to the king. '"Ah!" cried the goblin, whose cheeks and throat were transparent, as he tossed down the flame, "this warms one, indeed! Bring a bumper of the same, for Mr. Grub." 'It was in vain for the unfortunate sexton to protest that he was not in the habit of taking anything warm at night; one of the goblins held him while another poured the blazing liquid down his throat; the whole assembly screeched with laughter, as he coughed and choked, and wiped away the tears which gushed plentifully from his eyes, after swallowing the burning draught. '"And now," said the king, fantastically poking the taper corner of his sugar-loaf hat into the sexton's eye, and thereby occasioning him the most exquisite pain; "and now, show the man of misery and gloom, a few of the pictures from our own great storehouse!" 'As the goblin said this, a thick cloud which obscured the remoter end of the cavern rolled gradually away, and disclosed, apparently at a great distance, a small and scantily furnished, but neat and clean apartment. A crowd of little children were gathered round a bright fire, clinging to their mother's gown, and gambolling around her chair. The mother occasionally rose, and drew aside the window-curtain, as if to look for some expected object; a frugal meal was ready spread upon the table; and an elbow chair was placed near the fire. A knock was heard at the door; the mother opened it, and the children crowded round her, and clapped their hands for joy, as their father entered. He was wet and weary, and shook the snow from his garments, as the children crowded round him, and seizing his cloak, hat, stick, and gloves, with busy zeal, ran with them from the room. Then, as he sat down to his meal before the fire, the children climbed about his knee, and the mother sat by his side, and all seemed happiness and comfort. 'But a change came upon the view, almost imperceptibly. The scene was altered to a small bedroom, where the fairest and youngest child lay dying; the roses had fled from his cheek, and the light from his eye; and even as the sexton looked upon him with an interest he had never felt or known before, he died. His young brothers and sisters crowded round his little bed, and seized his tiny hand, so cold and heavy; but they shrank back from its touch, and looked with awe on his infant face; for calm and tranquil as it was, and sleeping in rest and peace as the beautiful child seemed to be, they saw that he was dead, and they knew that he was an angel looking down upon, and blessing them, from a bright and happy Heaven. 'Again the light cloud passed across the picture, and again the subject changed. The father and mother were old and helpless now, and the number of those about them was diminished more than half; but content and cheerfulness sat on every face, and beamed in every eye, as they crowded round the fireside, and told and listened to old stories of earlier and bygone days. Slowly and peacefully, the father sank into the grave, and, soon after, the sharer of all his cares and troubles followed him to a place of rest. The few who yet survived them, kneeled by their tomb, and watered the green turf which covered it with their tears; then rose, and turned away, sadly and mournfully, but not with bitter cries, or despairing lamentations, for they knew that they should one day meet again; and once more they mixed with the busy world, and their content and cheerfulness were restored. The cloud settled upon the picture, and concealed it from the sexton's view. '"What do you think of _that_?" said the goblin, turning his large face towards Gabriel Grub. 'Gabriel murmured out something about its being very pretty, and looked somewhat ashamed, as the goblin bent his fiery eyes upon him. '"You a miserable man!" said the goblin, in a tone of excessive contempt. "You!" He appeared disposed to add more, but indignation choked his utterance, so he lifted up one of his very pliable legs, and, flourishing it above his head a little, to insure his aim, administered a good sound kick to Gabriel Grub; immediately after which, all the goblins in waiting crowded round the wretched sexton, and kicked him without mercy, according to the established and invariable custom of courtiers upon earth, who kick whom royalty kicks, and hug whom royalty hugs. '"Show him some more!" said the king of the goblins. 'At these words, the cloud was dispelled, and a rich and beautiful landscape was disclosed to view--there is just such another, to this day, within half a mile of the old abbey town. The sun shone from out the clear blue sky, the water sparkled beneath his rays, and the trees looked greener, and the flowers more gay, beneath its cheering influence. The water rippled on with a pleasant sound, the trees rustled in the light wind that murmured among their leaves, the birds sang upon the boughs, and the lark carolled on high her welcome to the morning. Yes, it was morning; the bright, balmy morning of summer; the minutest leaf, the smallest blade of grass, was instinct with life. The ant crept forth to her daily toil, the butterfly fluttered and basked in the warm rays of the sun; myriads of insects spread their transparent wings, and revelled in their brief but happy existence. Man walked forth, elated with the scene; and all was brightness and splendour. '"_You _a miserable man!" said the king of the goblins, in a more contemptuous tone than before. And again the king of the goblins gave his leg a flourish; again it descended on the shoulders of the sexton; and again the attendant goblins imitated the example of their chief. 'Many a time the cloud went and came, and many a lesson it taught to Gabriel Grub, who, although his shoulders smarted with pain from the frequent applications of the goblins' feet thereunto, looked on with an interest that nothing could diminish. He saw that men who worked hard, and earned their scanty bread with lives of labour, were cheerful and happy; and that to the most ignorant, the sweet face of Nature was a never-failing source of cheerfulness and joy. He saw those who had been delicately nurtured, and tenderly brought up, cheerful under privations, and superior to suffering, that would have crushed many of a rougher grain, because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of happiness, contentment, and peace. He saw that women, the tenderest and most fragile of all God's creatures, were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they bore, in their own hearts, an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and devotion. Above all, he saw that men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair surface of the earth; and setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and respectable sort of world after all. No sooner had he formed it, than the cloud which had closed over the last picture, seemed to settle on his senses, and lull him to repose. One by one, the goblins faded from his sight; and, as the last one disappeared, he sank to sleep. 'The day had broken when Gabriel Grub awoke, and found himself lying at full length on the flat gravestone in the churchyard, with the wicker bottle lying empty by his side, and his coat, spade, and lantern, all well whitened by the last night's frost, scattered on the ground. The stone on which he had first seen the goblin seated, stood bolt upright before him, and the grave at which he had worked, the night before, was not far off. At first, he began to doubt the reality of his adventures, but the acute pain in his shoulders when he attempted to rise, assured him that the kicking of the goblins was certainly not ideal. He was staggered again, by observing no traces of footsteps in the snow on which the goblins had played at leap-frog with the gravestones, but he speedily accounted for this circumstance when he remembered that, being spirits, they would leave no visible impression behind them. So, Gabriel Grub got on his feet as well as he could, for the pain in his back; and, brushing the frost off his coat, put it on, and turned his face towards the town. 'But he was an altered man, and he could not bear the thought of returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his reformation disbelieved. He hesitated for a few moments; and then turned away to wander where he might, and seek his bread elsewhere. 'The lantern, the spade, and the wicker bottle were found, that day, in the churchyard. There were a great many speculations about the sexton's fate, at first, but it was speedily determined that he had been carried away by the goblins; and there were not wanting some very credible witnesses who had distinctly seen him whisked through the air on the back of a chestnut horse blind of one eye, with the hind-quarters of a lion, and the tail of a bear. At length all this was devoutly believed; and the new sexton used to exhibit to the curious, for a trifling emolument, a good-sized piece of the church weathercock which had been accidentally kicked off by the aforesaid horse in his aerial flight, and picked up by himself in the churchyard, a year or two afterwards. 'Unfortunately, these stories were somewhat disturbed by the unlooked- for reappearance of Gabriel Grub himself, some ten years afterwards, a ragged, contented, rheumatic old man. He told his story to the clergyman, and also to the mayor; and in course of time it began to be received as a matter of history, in which form it has continued down to this very day. The believers in the weathercock tale, having misplaced their confidence once, were not easily prevailed upon to part with it again, so they looked as wise as they could, shrugged their shoulders, touched their foreheads, and murmured something about Gabriel Grub having drunk all the Hollands, and then fallen asleep on the flat tombstone; and they affected to explain what he supposed he had witnessed in the goblin's cavern, by saying that he had seen the world, and grown wiser. But this opinion, which was by no means a popular one at any time, gradually died off; and be the matter how it may, as Gabriel Grub was afflicted with rheumatism to the end of his days, this story has at least one moral, if it teach no better one--and that is, that if a man turn sulky and drink by himself at Christmas time, he may make up his mind to be not a bit the better for it: let the spirits be never so good, or let them be even as many degrees beyond proof, as those which Gabriel Grub saw in the goblin's cavern.' Well, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick, as that favoured servitor entered his bed-chamber, with his warm water, on the morning of Christmas Day, 'still frosty?' 'Water in the wash-hand basin's a mask o' ice, Sir,' responded Sam. 'Severe weather, Sam,' observed Mr. Pickwick. 'Fine time for them as is well wropped up, as the Polar bear said to himself, ven he was practising his skating,' replied Mr. Weller. 'I shall be down in a quarter of an hour, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick, untying his nightcap. 'Wery good, sir,' replied Sam. 'There's a couple o' sawbones downstairs.' 'A couple of what!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, sitting up in bed. 'A couple o' sawbones,' said Sam. 'What's a sawbones?' inquired Mr. Pickwick, not quite certain whether it was a live animal, or something to eat. 'What! Don't you know what a sawbones is, sir?' inquired Mr. Weller. 'I thought everybody know'd as a sawbones was a surgeon.' 'Oh, a surgeon, eh?' said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. 'Just that, sir,' replied Sam. 'These here ones as is below, though, ain't reg'lar thoroughbred sawbones; they're only in trainin'.' In other words they're medical students, I suppose?' said Mr. Pickwick. Sam Weller nodded assent. 'I am glad of it,' said Mr. Pickwick, casting his nightcap energetically on the counterpane. 'They are fine fellows--very fine fellows; with judgments matured by observation and reflection; and tastes refined by reading and study. I am very glad of it.' 'They're a-smokin' cigars by the kitchen fire,' said Sam. 'Ah!' observed Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his hands, 'overflowing with kindly feelings and animal spirits. Just what I like to see.' And one on 'em,' said Sam, not noticing his master's interruption, 'one on 'em's got his legs on the table, and is a-drinking brandy neat, vile the t'other one--him in the barnacles--has got a barrel o' oysters atween his knees, which he's a-openin' like steam, and as fast as he eats 'em, he takes a aim vith the shells at young dropsy, who's a sittin' down fast asleep, in the chimbley corner.' 'Eccentricities of genius, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'You may retire.' Sam did retire accordingly. Mr. Pickwick at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, went down to breakfast. 'Here he is at last!' said old Mr. Wardle. 'Pickwick, this is Miss Allen's brother, Mr. Benjamin Allen. Ben we call him, and so may you, if you like. This gentleman is his very particular friend, Mr.--' 'Mr. Bob Sawyer,' interposed Mr. Benjamin Allen; whereupon Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen laughed in concert. Mr. Pickwick bowed to Bob Sawyer, and Bob Sawyer bowed to Mr. Pickwick. Bob and his very particular friend then applied themselves most assiduously to the eatables before them; and Mr. Pickwick had an opportunity of glancing at them both. Mr. Benjamin Allen was a coarse, stout, thick-set young man, with black hair cut rather short, and a white face cut rather long. He was embellished with spectacles, and wore a white neckerchief. Below his single-breasted black surtout, which was buttoned up to his chin, appeared the usual number of pepper-and-salt coloured legs, terminating in a pair of imperfectly polished boots. Although his coat was short in the sleeves, it disclosed no vestige of a linen wristband; and although there was quite enough of his face to admit of the encroachment of a shirt collar, it was not graced by the smallest approach to that appendage. He presented, altogether, rather a mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas. Mr. Bob Sawyer, who was habited in a coarse, blue coat, which, without being either a greatcoat or a surtout, partook of the nature and qualities of both, had about him that sort of slovenly smartness, and swaggering gait, which is peculiar to young gentlemen who smoke in the streets by day, shout and scream in the same by night, call waiters by their Christian names, and do various other acts and deeds of an equally facetious description. He wore a pair of plaid trousers, and a large, rough, double-breasted waistcoat; out of doors, he carried a thick stick with a big top. He eschewed gloves, and looked, upon the whole, something like a dissipated Robinson Crusoe. Such were the two worthies to whom Mr. Pickwick was introduced, as he took his seat at the breakfast-table on Christmas morning. 'Splendid morning, gentlemen,' said Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Bob Sawyer slightly nodded his assent to the proposition, and asked Mr. Benjamin Allen for the mustard. 'Have you come far this morning, gentlemen?' inquired Mr. Pickwick. 'Blue Lion at Muggleton,' briefly responded Mr. Allen. 'You should have joined us last night,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'So we should,' replied Bob Sawyer, 'but the brandy was too good to leave in a hurry; wasn't it, Ben?' 'Certainly,' said Mr. Benjamin Allen; 'and the cigars were not bad, or the pork-chops either; were they, Bob?' 'Decidedly not,' said Bob. The particular friends resumed their attack upon the breakfast, more freely than before, as if the recollection of last night's supper had imparted a new relish to the meal. 'Peg away, Bob,' said Mr. Allen, to his companion, encouragingly. 'So I do,' replied Bob Sawyer. And so, to do him justice, he did. 'Nothing like dissecting, to give one an appetite,' said Mr. Bob Sawyer, looking round the table. Mr. Pickwick slightly shuddered. 'By the bye, Bob,' said Mr. Allen, 'have you finished that leg yet?' 'Nearly,' replied Sawyer, helping himself to half a fowl as he spoke. 'It's a very muscular one for a child's.' Is it?' inquired Mr. Allen carelessly. 'Very,' said Bob Sawyer, with his mouth full. 'I've put my name down for an arm at our place,' said Mr. Allen. 'We're clubbing for a subject, and the list is nearly full, only we can't get hold of any fellow that wants a head. I wish you'd take it.' 'No,' replied 'Bob Sawyer; 'can't afford expensive luxuries.' 'Nonsense!' said Allen. 'Can't, indeed,' rejoined Bob Sawyer, 'I wouldn't mind a brain, but I couldn't stand a whole head.' Hush, hush, gentlemen, pray,' said Mr. Pickwick, 'I hear the ladies.' As Mr. Pickwick spoke, the ladies, gallantly escorted by Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman, returned from an early walk. 'Why, Ben!' said Arabella, in a tone which expressed more surprise than pleasure at the sight of her brother. 'Come to take you home to-morrow,' replied Benjamin. Mr. Winkle turned pale. 'Don't you see Bob Sawyer, Arabella?' inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, somewhat reproachfully. Arabella gracefully held out her hand, in acknowledgment of Bob Sawyer's presence. A thrill of hatred struck to Mr. Winkle's heart, as Bob Sawyer inflicted on the proffered hand a perceptible squeeze. 'Ben, dear!' said Arabella, blushing; 'have--have--you been introduced to Mr. Winkle?' 'I have not been, but I shall be very happy to be, Arabella,' replied her brother gravely. Here Mr. Allen bowed grimly to Mr. Winkle, while Mr. Winkle and Mr. Bob Sawyer glanced mutual distrust out of the corners of their eyes. The arrival of the two new visitors, and the consequent check upon Mr. Winkle and the young lady with the fur round her boots, would in all probability have proved a very unpleasant interruption to the hilarity of the party, had not the cheerfulness of Mr. Pickwick, and the good humour of the host, been exerted to the very utmost for the common weal. Mr. Winkle gradually insinuated himself into the good graces of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and even joined in a friendly conversation with Mr. Bob Sawyer; who, enlivened with the brandy, and the breakfast, and the talking, gradually ripened into a state of extreme facetiousness, and related with much glee an agreeable anecdote, about the removal of a tumour on some gentleman's head, which he illustrated by means of an oyster-knife and a half-quartern loaf, to the great edification of the assembled company. Then the whole train went to church, where Mr. Benjamin Allen fell fast asleep; while Mr. Bob Sawyer abstracted his thoughts from worldly matters, by the ingenious process of carving his name on the seat of the pew, in corpulent letters of four inches long. 'Now,' said Wardle, after a substantial lunch, with the agreeable items of strong beer and cherry-brandy, had been done ample justice to, 'what say you to an hour on the ice? We shall have plenty of time.' 'Capital!' said Mr. Benjamin Allen. 'Prime!' ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer. 'You skate, of course, Winkle?' said Wardle. 'Ye-yes; oh, yes,' replied Mr. Winkle. 'I--I--am _rather _out of practice.' 'Oh, _do_ skate, Mr. Winkle,' said Arabella. 'I like to see it so much.' 'Oh, it is _so_ graceful,' said another young lady. A third young lady said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was 'swan-like.' 'I should be very happy, I'm sure,' said Mr. Winkle, reddening; 'but I have no skates.' This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had a couple of pair, and the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more downstairs; whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely uncomfortable. Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy and Mr. Weller, having shovelled and swept away the snow which had fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a dexterity which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvellous, and described circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, and the ladies; which reached a pitch of positive enthusiasm, when old Wardle and Benjamin Allen, assisted by the aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions, which they called a reel. All this time, Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, had been forcing a gimlet into the sole of his feet, and putting his skates on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very complicated and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who knew rather less about skates than a Hindoo. At length, however, with the assistance of Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly screwed and buckled on, and Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet. 'Now, then, Sir,' said Sam, in an encouraging tone; 'off vith you, and show 'em how to do it.' 'Stop, Sam, stop!' said Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold of Sam's arms with the grasp of a drowning man. 'How slippery it is, Sam!' 'Not an uncommon thing upon ice, Sir,' replied Mr. Weller. 'Hold up, Sir!' This last observation of Mr. Weller's bore reference to a demonstration Mr. Winkle made at the instant, of a frantic desire to throw his feet in the air, and dash the back of his head on the ice. 'These--these--are very awkward skates; ain't they, Sam?' inquired Mr. Winkle, staggering. 'I'm afeerd there's a orkard gen'l'm'n in 'em, Sir,' replied Sam. 'Now, Winkle,' cried Mr. Pickwick, quite unconscious that there was anything the matter. 'Come; the ladies are all anxiety.' 'Yes, yes,' replied Mr. Winkle, with a ghastly smile. 'I'm coming.' 'Just a-goin' to begin,' said Sam, endeavouring to disengage himself. 'Now, Sir, start off!' 'Stop an instant, Sam,' gasped Mr. Winkle, clinging most affectionately to Mr. Weller. 'I find I've got a couple of coats at home that I don't want, Sam. You may have them, Sam.' 'Thank'ee, Sir,' replied Mr. Weller. 'Never mind touching your hat, Sam,' said Mr. Winkle hastily. 'You needn't take your hand away to do that. I meant to have given you five shillings this morning for a Christmas box, Sam. I'll give it you this afternoon, Sam.' 'You're wery good, sir,' replied Mr. Weller. 'Just hold me at first, Sam; will you?' said Mr. Winkle. 'There--that's right. I shall soon get in the way of it, Sam. Not too fast, Sam; not too fast.' Mr. Winkle, stooping forward, with his body half doubled up, was being assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller, in a very singular and un-swan-like manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite bank-- 'Sam!' 'Sir?' 'Here. I want you.' 'Let go, Sir,' said Sam. 'Don't you hear the governor a-callin'? Let go, sir.' With a violent effort, Mr. Weller disengaged himself from the grasp of the agonised Pickwickian, and, in so doing, administered a considerable impetus to the unhappy Mr. Winkle. With an accuracy which no degree of dexterity or practice could have insured, that unfortunate gentleman bore swiftly down into the centre of the reel, at the very moment when Mr. Bob Sawyer was performing a flourish of unparalleled beauty. Mr. Winkle struck wildly against him, and with a loud crash they both fell heavily down. Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind, in skates. He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile; but anguish was depicted on every lineament of his countenance. 'Are you hurt?' inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, with great anxiety. 'Not much,' said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his back very hard. 'I wish you'd let me bleed you,' said Mr. Benjamin, with great eagerness. 'No, thank you,' replied Mr. Winkle hurriedly. 'I really think you had better,' said Allen. 'Thank you,' replied Mr. Winkle; 'I'd rather not.' 'What do _you _think, Mr. Pickwick?' inquired Bob Sawyer. Mr. Pickwick was excited and indignant. He beckoned to Mr. Weller, and said in a stern voice, 'Take his skates off.' 'No; but really I had scarcely begun,' remonstrated Mr. Winkle. 'Take his skates off,' repeated Mr. Pickwick firmly. The command was not to be resisted. Mr. Winkle allowed Sam to obey it, in silence. 'Lift him up,' said Mr. Pickwick. Sam assisted him to rise. Mr. Pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and, beckoning his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon him, and uttered in a low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable words-- 'You're a humbug, sir.' A what?' said Mr. Winkle, starting. 'A humbug, Sir. I will speak plainer, if you wish it. An impostor, sir.' With those words, Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel, and rejoined his friends. While Mr. Pickwick was delivering himself of the sentiment just recorded, Mr. Weller and the fat boy, having by their joint endeavours cut out a slide, were exercising themselves thereupon, in a very masterly and brilliant manner. Sam Weller, in particular, was displaying that beautiful feat of fancy-sliding which is currently denominated 'knocking at the cobbler's door,' and which is achieved by skimming over the ice on one foot, and occasionally giving a postman's knock upon it with the other. It was a good long slide, and there was something in the motion which Mr. Pickwick, who was very cold with standing still, could not help envying. 'It looks a nice warm exercise that, doesn't it?' he inquired of Wardle, when that gentleman was thoroughly out of breath, by reason of the indefatigable manner in which he had converted his legs into a pair of compasses, and drawn complicated problems on the ice. 'Ah, it does, indeed,' replied Wardle. 'Do you slide?' 'I used to do so, on the gutters, when I was a boy,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'Try it now,' said Wardle. 'Oh, do, please, Mr. Pickwick!' cried all the ladies. 'I should be very happy to afford you any amusement,' replied Mr. Pickwick, 'but I haven't done such a thing these thirty years.' 'Pooh! pooh! Nonsense!' said Wardle, dragging off his skates with the impetuosity which characterised all his proceedings. 'Here; I'll keep you company; come along!' And away went the good-tempered old fellow down the slide, with a rapidity which came very close upon Mr. Weller, and beat the fat boy all to nothing. Mr. Pickwick paused, considered, pulled off his gloves and put them in his hat; took two or three short runs, baulked himself as often, and at last took another run, and went slowly and gravely down the slide, with his feet about a yard and a quarter apart, amidst the gratified shouts of all the spectators. 'Keep the pot a-bilin', Sir!' said Sam; and down went Wardle again, and then Mr. Pickwick, and then Sam, and then Mr. Winkle, and then Mr. Bob Sawyer, and then the fat boy, and then Mr. Snodgrass, following closely upon each other's heels, and running after each other with as much eagerness as if their future prospects in life depended on their expedition. It was the most intensely interesting thing, to observe the manner in which Mr. Pickwick performed his share in the ceremony; to watch the torture of anxiety with which he viewed the person behind, gaining upon him at the imminent hazard of tripping him up; to see him gradually expend the painful force he had put on at first, and turn slowly round on the slide, with his face towards the point from which he had started; to contemplate the playful smile which mantled on his face when he had accomplished the distance, and the eagerness with which he turned round when he had done so, and ran after his predecessor, his black gaiters tripping pleasantly through the snow, and his eyes beaming cheerfulness and gladness through his spectacles. And when he was knocked down (which happened upon the average every third round), it was the most invigorating sight that can possibly be imagined, to behold him gather up his hat, gloves, and handkerchief, with a glowing countenance, and resume his station in the rank, with an ardour and enthusiasm that nothing Could abate. The sport was at its height, the sliding was at the quickest, the laughter was at the loudest, when a sharp smart crack was heard. There was a quick rush towards the bank, a wild scream from the ladies, and a shout from Mr. Tupman. A large mass of ice disappeared; the water bubbled up over it; Mr. Pickwick's hat, gloves, and handkerchief were floating on the surface; and this was all of Mr. Pickwick that anybody could see. Dismay and anguish were depicted on every countenance; the males turned pale, and the females fainted; Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle grasped each other by the hand, and gazed at the spot where their leader had gone down, with frenzied eagerness; while Mr. Tupman, by way of rendering the promptest assistance, and at the same time conveying to any persons who might be within hearing, the clearest possible notion of the catastrophe, ran off across the country at his utmost speed, screaming 'Fire!' with all his might. It was at this moment, when old Wardle and Sam Weller were approaching the hole with cautious steps, and Mr. Benjamin Allen was holding a hurried consultation with Mr. Bob Sawyer on the advisability of bleeding the company generally, as an improving little bit of professional practice--it was at this very moment, that a face, head, and shoulders, emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and spectacles of Mr. Pickwick. 'Keep yourself up for an instant--for only one instant!' bawled Mr. Snodgrass. 'Yes, do; let me implore you--for my sake!' roared Mr. Winkle, deeply affected. The adjuration was rather unnecessary; the probability being, that if Mr. Pickwick had declined to keep himself up for anybody else's sake, it would have occurred to him that he might as well do so, for his own. 'Do you feel the bottom there, old fellow?' said Wardle. 'Yes, certainly,' replied Mr. Pickwick, wringing the water from his head and face, and gasping for breath. 'I fell upon my back. I couldn't get on my feet at first.' The clay upon so much of Mr. Pickwick's coat as was yet visible, bore testimony to the accuracy of this statement; and as the fears of the spectators were still further relieved by the fat boy's suddenly recollecting that the water was nowhere more than five feet deep, prodigies of valour were performed to get him out. After a vast quantity of splashing, and cracking, and struggling, Mr. Pickwick was at length fairly extricated from his unpleasant position, and once more stood on dry land. 'Oh, he'll catch his death of cold,' said Emily. 'Dear old thing!' said Arabella. 'Let me wrap this shawl round you, Mr. Pickwick.' 'Ah, that's the best thing you can do,' said Wardle; 'and when you've got it on, run home as fast as your legs can carry you, and jump into bed directly.' A dozen shawls were offered on the instant. Three or four of the thickest having been selected, Mr. Pickwick was wrapped up, and started off, under the guidance of Mr. Weller; presenting the singular phenomenon of an elderly gentleman, dripping wet, and without a hat, with his arms bound down to his sides, skimming over the ground, without any clearly-defined purpose, at the rate of six good English miles an hour. But Mr. Pickwick cared not for appearances in such an extreme case, and urged on by Sam Weller, he kept at the very top of his speed until he reached the door of Manor Farm, where Mr. Tupman had arrived some five minutes before, and had frightened the old lady into palpitations of the heart by impressing her with the unalterable conviction that the kitchen chimney was on fire--a calamity which always presented itself in glowing colours to the old lady's mind, when anybody about her evinced the smallest agitation. Mr. Pickwick paused not an instant until he was snug in bed. Sam Weller lighted a blazing fire in the room, and took up his dinner; a bowl of punch was carried up afterwards, and a grand carouse held in honour of his safety. Old Wardle would not hear of his rising, so they made the bed the chair, and Mr. Pickwick presided. A second and a third bowl were ordered in; and when Mr. Pickwick awoke next morning, there was not a symptom of rheumatism about him; which proves, as Mr. Bob Sawyer very justly observed, that there is nothing like hot punch in such cases; and that if ever hot punch did fail to act as a preventive, it was merely because the patient fell into the vulgar error of not taking enough of it. The jovial party broke up next morning. Breakings-up are capital things in our school-days, but in after life they are painful enough. Death, self-interest, and fortune's changes, are every day breaking up many a happy group, and scattering them far and wide; and the boys and girls never come back again. We do not mean to say that it was exactly the case in this particular instance; all we wish to inform the reader is, that the different members of the party dispersed to their several homes; that Mr. Pickwick and his friends once more took their seats on the top of the Muggleton coach; and that Arabella Allen repaired to her place of destination, wherever it might have been--we dare say Mr. Winkle knew, but we confess we don't--under the care and guardianship of her brother Benjamin, and his most intimate and particular friend, Mr. Bob Sawyer. Before they separated, however, that gentleman and Mr. Benjamin Allen drew Mr. Pickwick aside with an air of some mystery; and Mr. Bob Sawyer, thrusting his forefinger between two of Mr. Pickwick's ribs, and thereby displaying his native drollery, and his knowledge of the anatomy of the human frame, at one and the same time, inquired-- 'I say, old boy, where do you hang out?' Mr. Pickwick replied that he was at present suspended at the George and Vulture. 'I wish you'd come and see me,' said Bob Sawyer. 'Nothing would give me greater pleasure,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'There's my lodgings,' said Mr. Bob Sawyer, producing a card. 'Lant Street, Borough; it's near Guy's, and handy for me, you know. Little distance after you've passed St. George's Church--turns out of the High Street on the right hand side the way.' 'I shall find it,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Come on Thursday fortnight, and bring the other chaps with you,' said Mr. Bob Sawyer; 'I'm going to have a few medical fellows that night.' Mr. Pickwick expressed the pleasure it would afford him to meet the medical fellows; and after Mr. Bob Sawyer had informed him that he meant to be very cosy, and that his friend Ben was to be one of the party, they shook hands and separated. We feel that in this place we lay ourself open to the inquiry whether Mr. Winkle was whispering, during this brief conversation, to Arabella Allen; and if so, what he said; and furthermore, whether Mr. Snodgrass was conversing apart with Emily Wardle; and if so, what _he_ said. To this, we reply, that whatever they might have said to the ladies, they said nothing at all to Mr. Pickwick or Mr. Tupman for eight-and-twenty miles, and that they sighed very often, refused ale and brandy, and looked gloomy. If our observant lady readers can deduce any satisfactory inferences from these facts, we beg them by all means to do so. 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.

In festlicher Stimmung nehmen die Pickwickianer die Kutsche nach Muggleton, eine Fahrt, die allen Spaß macht. Dort werden sie von Joe, dem Dicken Jungen, empfangen und von Muggleton aus gehen sie zum Bauernhof der Wardles, wo sie herzlich empfangen werden. Die Wardles werden von mehreren jungen Frauen besucht, Freunde der Wardle-Mädchen, die gekommen sind, um Isabella mit Herrn Trundle zu sehen. Winkle beginnt eine Romanze mit einer der jungen Damen, Arabella Allen, und Snodgrass freut sich, Emily wiederzusehen. Die nächsten Tage werden der Hochzeit und dem Hochzeitsfrühstück, Kartenspielen, Tanzen, Festmahlen, Trinken und Toasten, Singen, Flirten, Kuss-Spielen und Geschichtenerzählen gewidmet. Alle sind in bester Stimmung. Voller Urlaubsfreude erzählt der alte Mr. Wardle die Geschichte der Kobolde, die einen Totengräber gestohlen haben. Gabriel Grub, ein gemeiner, menschenfeindlicher Totengräber, geht an Heiligabend ein Grab ausheben und verprügelt auf dem Weg einen kleinen Jungen. Die Arbeit ist schwer, und als Grub sich ausruht, um etwas zu trinken, trifft er den König der Kobolde, der ihn beschuldigt, ein böser, gehässiger Kerl zu sein. Es folgt ein kurzer Prozess, in dem er von den Kobolden verurteilt wird, die ihn in eine unterirdische Höhle bringen und gnadenlos treten. Sie zeigen ihm auch Szenen des Lebens, die Güte, Fröhlichkeit und Schönheit preisen. Am nächsten Morgen erwacht er als geläuterter Mann und verlässt die Gegend für zehn Jahre. Als er zurückkommt, ist er alt, arm, aber glücklich und er erzählt, was ihm passiert ist. Eines Morgens steht Mr. Pickwick auf und findet zwei Medizinstudenten in der Küche der Wardles. Ben Allen und Bob Sawyer sind unhöfliche, schlampige, lebenslustige junge Männer, die beim Frühstück fröhlich über die Sektion von Körpern sprechen. Winkle kommt mit seiner Freundin Arabella Allen herein, die überrascht ist, ihren Bruder Ben zu sehen. Winkle ist eifersüchtig auf Bob Sawyers Aufmerksamkeiten für Arabella. Alle gehen zur Kirche und anschließend beginnt eine Schlittschuh-Party. Winkle zeigt seine Ungeschicklichkeit. Die Schlittschuhläufer sind voller Fröhlichkeit, bis Mr. Pickwick ins Eis bricht. Schließlich wird er herausgeholt und er eilt nach Hause ins Bett, wo er eine Menge Punsch trinkt, was ihn vor einer Krankheit rettet. Am nächsten Morgen brechen die Festlichkeiten auf. Bob Sawyer lädt Mr. Pickwick zu einer Party in London ein; Winkle und Snodgrass nehmen Abschied von ihren Liebsten; und die Pickwickianer kehren nach London 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: SCENE IV. Another part of the field. [Alarum. Enter, fighting, Soldiers of both armies; then Brutus, young Cato, Lucilius, and Others.] BRUTUS. Yet, countrymen, O, yet hold up your heads! CATO. What bastard doth not? Who will go with me? I will proclaim my name about the field:-- I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho! A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend; I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho! [Charges the enemy.] BRUTUS. And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I; Brutus, my country's friend; know me for Brutus! [Exit, charging the enemy. Cato is overpowered, and falls.] LUCILIUS. O young and noble Cato, art thou down? Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius; And mayst be honour'd, being Cato's son. FIRST SOLDIER. Yield, or thou diest. LUCILIUS. Only I yield to die: There is so much that thou wilt kill me straight; [Offering money.] Kill Brutus, and be honour'd in his death. FIRST SOLDIER. We must not. A noble prisoner! SECOND SOLDIER. Room, ho! Tell Antony, Brutus is ta'en. FIRST SOLDIER. I'll tell the news. Here comes the General.-- [Enter Antony.] Brutus is ta'en, Brutus is ta'en, my lord. ANTONY. Where is he? LUCILIUS. Safe, Antony; Brutus is safe enough: I dare assure thee that no enemy Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus: The gods defend him from so great a shame! When you do find him, or alive or dead, He will be found like Brutus, like himself. ANTONY. This is not Brutus, friend; but, I assure you, A prize no less in worth. Keep this man safe, Give him all kindness; I had rather have Such men my friends than enemies. Go on, And see whether Brutus be alive or dead; And bring us word unto Octavius' tent How everything is chanced. [Exeunt.] 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.

Brutus erscheint erneut und führt immer noch seine Truppen an. Er sagt seinen Männern, dass sie weiter kämpfen sollen und lässt sie mitten in der Schlacht zurück. Cato kämpft tapfer, wird aber getötet. Lucillius gibt vor, Brutus zu sein, fordert die Soldaten heraus, wird aber schnell gefangen genommen. Die Soldaten rufen nach Antonius, in der Annahme, sie hätten endlich Brutus gefangen. Antonius kommt und erkennt Lucillius und sagt seinen Soldaten, dass sie zwar nicht Brutus gefangen haben, aber dennoch einen Edelmann erwischt haben. Er befiehlt seinen Soldaten, weiterzukämpfen.

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 IV. O For that warning voice, which he who saw Th' APOCALYPS, heard cry in Heaven aloud, Then when the Dragon, put to second rout, Came furious down to be reveng'd on men, WO TO THE INHABITANTS ON EARTH! that now, While time was, our first Parents had bin warnd The coming of thir secret foe, and scap'd Haply so scap'd his mortal snare; for now SATAN, now first inflam'd with rage, came down, The Tempter ere th' Accuser of man-kind, To wreck on innocent frail man his loss Of that first Battel, and his flight to Hell: Yet not rejoycing in his speed, though bold, Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast, Begins his dire attempt, which nigh the birth Now rowling, boiles in his tumultuous brest, And like a devillish Engine back recoiles Upon himself; horror and doubt distract His troubl'd thoughts, and from the bottom stirr The Hell within him, for within him Hell He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell One step no more then from himself can fly By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair That slumberd, wakes the bitter memorie Of what he was, what is, and what must be Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue. Sometimes towards EDEN which now in his view Lay pleasant, his grievd look he fixes sad, Sometimes towards Heav'n and the full-blazing Sun, Which now sat high in his Meridian Towre: Then much revolving, thus in sighs began. O thou that with surpassing Glory crownd, Look'st from thy sole Dominion like the God Of this new World; at whose sight all the Starrs Hide thir diminisht heads; to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy Spheare; Till Pride and worse Ambition threw me down Warring in Heav'n against Heav'ns matchless King: Ah wherefore! he deservd no such return From me, whom he created what I was In that bright eminence, and with his good Upbraided none; nor was his service hard. What could be less then to afford him praise, The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks, How due! yet all his good prov'd ill in me, And wrought but malice; lifted up so high I sdeind subjection, and thought one step higher Would set me highest, and in a moment quit The debt immense of endless gratitude, So burthensome, still paying, still to ow; Forgetful what from him I still receivd, And understood not that a grateful mind By owing owes not, but still pays, at once Indebted and dischargd; what burden then? O had his powerful Destiny ordaind Me some inferiour Angel, I had stood Then happie; no unbounded hope had rais'd Ambition. Yet why not? som other Power As great might have aspir'd, and me though mean Drawn to his part; but other Powers as great Fell not, but stand unshak'n, from within Or from without, to all temptations arm'd. Hadst thou the same free Will and Power to stand? Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse, But Heav'ns free Love dealt equally to all? Be then his Love accurst, since love or hate, To me alike, it deals eternal woe. Nay curs'd be thou; since against his thy will Chose freely what it now so justly rues. Me miserable! which way shall I flie Infinite wrauth, and infinite despaire? Which way I flie is Hell; my self am Hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep Still threatning to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n. O then at last relent: is there no place Left for Repentance, none for Pardon left? None left but by submission; and that word DISDAIN forbids me, and my dread of shame Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduc'd With other promises and other vaunts Then to submit, boasting I could subdue Th' Omnipotent. Ay me, they little know How dearly I abide that boast so vaine, Under what torments inwardly I groane; While they adore me on the Throne of Hell, With Diadem and Scepter high advanc'd The lower still I fall, onely Supream In miserie; such joy Ambition findes. But say I could repent and could obtaine By Act of Grace my former state; how soon Would highth recal high thoughts, how soon unsay What feign'd submission swore: ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void. For never can true reconcilement grow Where wounds of deadly hate have peirc'd so deep: Which would but lead me to a worse relapse And heavier fall: so should I purchase deare Short intermission bought with double smart. This knows my punisher; therefore as farr From granting hee, as I from begging peace: All hope excluded thus, behold in stead Of us out-cast, exil'd, his new delight, Mankind created, and for him this World. So farwel Hope, and with Hope farwel Fear, Farwel Remorse: all Good to me is lost; Evil be thou my Good; by thee at least Divided Empire with Heav'ns King I hold By thee, and more then half perhaps will reigne; As Man ere long, and this new World shall know. Thus while he spake, each passion dimm'd his face Thrice chang'd with pale, ire, envie and despair, Which marrd his borrow'd visage, and betraid Him counterfet, if any eye beheld. For heav'nly mindes from such distempers foule Are ever cleer. Whereof hee soon aware, Each perturbation smooth'd with outward calme, Artificer of fraud; and was the first That practisd falshood under saintly shew, Deep malice to conceale, couch't with revenge: Yet not anough had practisd to deceive URIEL once warnd; whose eye pursu'd him down The way he went, and on th' ASSYRIAN mount Saw him disfigur'd, more then could befall Spirit of happie sort: his gestures fierce He markd and mad demeanour, then alone, As he suppos'd, all unobserv'd, unseen. So on he fares, and to the border comes Of EDEN, where delicious Paradise, Now nearer, Crowns with her enclosure green, As with a rural mound the champain head Of a steep wilderness, whose hairie sides With thicket overgrown, grottesque and wilde, Access deni'd; and over head up grew Insuperable highth of loftiest shade, Cedar, and Pine, and Firr, and branching Palm, A Silvan Scene, and as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woodie Theatre Of stateliest view. Yet higher then thir tops The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung: Which to our general Sire gave prospect large Into his neather Empire neighbouring round. And higher then that Wall a circling row Of goodliest Trees loaden with fairest Fruit, Blossoms and Fruits at once of golden hue Appeerd, with gay enameld colours mixt: On which the Sun more glad impress'd his beams Then in fair Evening Cloud, or humid Bow, When God hath showrd the earth; so lovely seemd That Lantskip: And of pure now purer aire Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires Vernal delight and joy, able to drive All sadness but despair: now gentle gales Fanning thir odoriferous wings dispense Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole Those balmie spoiles. As when to them who saile Beyond the CAPE OF HOPE, and now are past MOZAMBIC, off at Sea North-East windes blow SABEAN Odours from the spicie shoare Of ARABIE the blest, with such delay Well pleas'd they slack thir course, and many a League Cheard with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles. So entertaind those odorous sweets the Fiend Who came thir bane, though with them better pleas'd Then ASMODEUS with the fishie fume, That drove him, though enamourd, from the Spouse Of TOBITS Son, and with a vengeance sent From MEDIA post to AEGYPT, there fast bound. Now to th' ascent of that steep savage Hill SATAN had journied on, pensive and slow; But further way found none, so thick entwin'd, As one continu'd brake, the undergrowth Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplext All path of Man or Beast that past that way: One Gate there onely was, and that look'd East On th' other side: which when th' arch-fellon saw Due entrance he disdaind, and in contempt, At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound Of Hill or highest Wall, and sheer within Lights on his feet. As when a prowling Wolfe, Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, Watching where Shepherds pen thir Flocks at eeve In hurdl'd Cotes amid the field secure, Leaps o're the fence with ease into the Fould: Or as a Thief bent to unhoord the cash Of some rich Burgher, whose substantial dores, Cross-barrd and bolted fast, fear no assault, In at the window climbes, or o're the tiles; So clomb this first grand Thief into Gods Fould: So since into his Church lewd Hirelings climbe. Thence up he flew, and on the Tree of Life, The middle Tree and highest there that grew, Sat like a Cormorant; yet not true Life Thereby regaind, but sat devising Death To them who liv'd; nor on the vertue thought Of that life-giving Plant, but only us'd For prospect, what well us'd had bin the pledge Of immortalitie. So little knows Any, but God alone, to value right The good before him, but perverts best things To worst abuse, or to thir meanest use. Beneath him with new wonder now he views To all delight of human sense expos'd In narrow room Natures whole wealth, yea more, A Heaven on Earth, for blissful Paradise Of God the Garden was, by him in the East Of EDEN planted; EDEN stretchd her Line From AURAN Eastward to the Royal Towrs Of great SELEUCIA, built by GRECIAN Kings, Or where the Sons of EDEN long before Dwelt in TELASSAR: in this pleasant soile His farr more pleasant Garden God ordaind; Out of the fertil ground he caus'd to grow All Trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste; And all amid them stood the Tree of Life, High eminent, blooming Ambrosial Fruit Of vegetable Gold; and next to Life Our Death the Tree of Knowledge grew fast by, Knowledge of Good bought dear by knowing ill. Southward through EDEN went a River large, Nor chang'd his course, but through the shaggie hill Pass'd underneath ingulft, for God had thrown That Mountain as his Garden mould high rais'd Upon the rapid current, which through veins Of porous Earth with kindly thirst up drawn, Rose a fresh Fountain, and with many a rill Waterd the Garden; thence united fell Down the steep glade, and met the neather Flood, Which from his darksom passage now appeers, And now divided into four main Streams, Runs divers, wandring many a famous Realme And Country whereof here needs no account, But rather to tell how, if Art could tell, How from that Saphire Fount the crisped Brooks, Rowling on Orient Pearl and sands of Gold, With mazie error under pendant shades Ran Nectar, visiting each plant, and fed Flours worthy of Paradise which not nice Art In Beds and curious Knots, but Nature boon Powrd forth profuse on Hill and Dale and Plaine, Both where the morning Sun first warmly smote The open field, and where the unpierc't shade Imbround the noontide Bowrs: Thus was this place, A happy rural seat of various view; Groves whose rich Trees wept odorous Gumms and Balme, Others whose fruit burnisht with Golden Rinde Hung amiable, HESPERIAN Fables true, If true, here onely, and of delicious taste: Betwixt them Lawns, or level Downs, and Flocks Grasing the tender herb, were interpos'd, Or palmie hilloc, or the flourie lap Of som irriguous Valley spread her store, Flours of all hue, and without Thorn the Rose: Another side, umbrageous Grots and Caves Of coole recess, o're which the mantling Vine Layes forth her purple Grape, and gently creeps Luxuriant; mean while murmuring waters fall Down the slope hills, disperst, or in a Lake, That to the fringed Bank with Myrtle crownd, Her chrystall mirror holds, unite thir streams. The Birds thir quire apply; aires, vernal aires, Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune The trembling leaves, while Universal PAN Knit with the GRACES and the HOURS in dance Led on th' Eternal Spring. Not that faire field Of ENNA, where PROSERPIN gathring flours Her self a fairer Floure by gloomie DIS Was gatherd, which cost CERES all that pain To seek her through the world; nor that sweet Grove Of DAPHNE by ORONTES, and th' inspir'd CASTALIAN Spring might with this Paradise Of EDEN strive; nor that NYSEIAN Ile Girt with the River TRITON, where old CHAM, Whom Gentiles AMMON call and LIBYAN JOVE, Hid AMALTHEA and her Florid Son Young BACCHUS from his Stepdame RHEA'S eye; Nor where ABASSIN Kings thir issue Guard, Mount AMARA, though this by som suppos'd True Paradise under the ETHIOP Line By NILUS head, enclos'd with shining Rock, A whole dayes journey high, but wide remote From this ASSYRIAN Garden, where the Fiend Saw undelighted all delight, all kind Of living Creatures new to sight and strange: Two of far nobler shape erect and tall, Godlike erect, with native Honour clad In naked Majestie seemd Lords of all, And worthie seemd, for in thir looks Divine The image of thir glorious Maker shon, Truth, Wisdome, Sanctitude severe and pure, Severe, but in true filial freedom plac't; Whence true autoritie in men; though both Not equal, as thir sex not equal seemd; For contemplation hee and valour formd, For softness shee and sweet attractive Grace, Hee for God only, shee for God in him: His fair large Front and Eye sublime declar'd Absolute rule; and Hyacinthin Locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung Clustring, but not beneath his shoulders broad: Shee as a vail down to the slender waste Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dissheveld, but in wanton ringlets wav'd As the Vine curles her tendrils, which impli'd Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway, And by her yeilded, by him best receivd, Yeilded with coy submission, modest pride, And sweet reluctant amorous delay. Nor those mysterious parts were then conceald, Then was not guiltie shame, dishonest shame Of natures works, honor dishonorable, Sin-bred, how have ye troubl'd all mankind With shews instead, meer shews of seeming pure, And banisht from mans life his happiest life, Simplicitie and spotless innocence. So passd they naked on, nor shund the sight Of God or Angel, for they thought no ill: So hand in hand they passd, the lovliest pair That ever since in loves imbraces met, ADAM the goodliest man of men since borne His Sons, the fairest of her Daughters EVE. Under a tuft of shade that on a green Stood whispering soft, by a fresh Fountain side They sat them down, and after no more toil Of thir sweet Gardning labour then suffic'd To recommend coole ZEPHYR, and made ease More easie, wholsom thirst and appetite More grateful, to thir Supper Fruits they fell, Nectarine Fruits which the compliant boughes Yeilded them, side-long as they sat recline On the soft downie Bank damaskt with flours: The savourie pulp they chew, and in the rinde Still as they thirsted scoop the brimming stream; Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles Wanted, nor youthful dalliance as beseems Fair couple, linkt in happie nuptial League, Alone as they. About them frisking playd All Beasts of th' Earth, since wilde, and of all chase In Wood or Wilderness, Forrest or Den; Sporting the Lion rampd, and in his paw Dandl'd the Kid; Bears, Tygers, Ounces, Pards Gambold before them, th' unwieldy Elephant To make them mirth us'd all his might, & wreathd His Lithe Proboscis; close the Serpent sly Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine His breaded train, and of his fatal guile Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass Coucht, and now fild with pasture gazing sat, Or Bedward ruminating: for the Sun Declin'd was hasting now with prone carreer To th' Ocean Iles, and in th' ascending Scale Of Heav'n the Starrs that usher Evening rose: When SATAN still in gaze, as first he stood, Scarce thus at length faild speech recoverd sad. O Hell! what doe mine eyes with grief behold, Into our room of bliss thus high advanc't Creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps, Not Spirits, yet to heav'nly Spirits bright Little inferior; whom my thoughts pursue With wonder, and could love, so lively shines In them Divine resemblance, and such grace The hand that formd them on thir shape hath pourd. Ah gentle pair, yee little think how nigh Your change approaches, when all these delights Will vanish and deliver ye to woe, More woe, the more your taste is now of joy; Happie, but for so happie ill secur'd Long to continue, and this high seat your Heav'n Ill fenc't for Heav'n to keep out such a foe As now is enterd; yet no purpos'd foe To you whom I could pittie thus forlorne Though I unpittied: League with you I seek, And mutual amitie so streight, so close, That I with you must dwell, or you with me Henceforth; my dwelling haply may not please Like this fair Paradise, your sense, yet such Accept your Makers work; he gave it me, Which I as freely give; Hell shall unfould, To entertain you two, her widest Gates, And send forth all her Kings; there will be room, Not like these narrow limits, to receive Your numerous ofspring; if no better place, Thank him who puts me loath to this revenge On you who wrong me not for him who wrongd. And should I at your harmless innocence Melt, as I doe, yet public reason just, Honour and Empire with revenge enlarg'd, By conquering this new World, compels me now To do what else though damnd I should abhorre. So spake the Fiend, and with necessitie, The Tyrants plea, excus'd his devilish deeds. Then from his loftie stand on that high Tree Down he alights among the sportful Herd Of those fourfooted kindes, himself now one, Now other, as thir shape servd best his end Neerer to view his prey, and unespi'd To mark what of thir state he more might learn By word or action markt: about them round A Lion now he stalkes with fierie glare, Then as a Tiger, who by chance hath spi'd In some Purlieu two gentle Fawnes at play, Strait couches close, then rising changes oft His couchant watch, as one who chose his ground Whence rushing he might surest seise them both Grip't in each paw: when ADAM first of men To first of women EVE thus moving speech, Turnd him all eare to heare new utterance flow. Sole partner and sole part of all these joyes, Dearer thy self then all; needs must the Power That made us, and for us this ample World Be infinitly good, and of his good As liberal and free as infinite, That rais'd us from the dust and plac't us here In all this happiness, who at his hand Have nothing merited, nor can performe Aught whereof hee hath need, hee who requires From us no other service then to keep This one, this easie charge, of all the Trees In Paradise that beare delicious fruit So various, not to taste that onely Tree Of knowledge, planted by the Tree of Life, So neer grows Death to Life, what ere Death is, Som dreadful thing no doubt; for well thou knowst God hath pronounc't it death to taste that Tree, The only sign of our obedience left Among so many signes of power and rule Conferrd upon us, and Dominion giv'n Over all other Creatures that possesse Earth, Aire, and Sea. Then let us not think hard One easie prohibition, who enjoy Free leave so large to all things else, and choice Unlimited of manifold delights: But let us ever praise him, and extoll His bountie, following our delightful task To prune these growing Plants, & tend these Flours, Which were it toilsom, yet with thee were sweet. To whom thus Eve repli'd. O thou for whom And from whom I was formd flesh of thy flesh, And without whom am to no end, my Guide And Head, what thou hast said is just and right. For wee to him indeed all praises owe, And daily thanks, I chiefly who enjoy So farr the happier Lot, enjoying thee Preeminent by so much odds, while thou Like consort to thy self canst no where find. That day I oft remember, when from sleep I first awak't, and found my self repos'd Under a shade on flours, much wondring where And what I was, whence thither brought, and how. Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound Of waters issu'd from a Cave and spread Into a liquid Plain, then stood unmov'd Pure as th' expanse of Heav'n; I thither went With unexperienc't thought, and laid me downe On the green bank, to look into the cleer Smooth Lake, that to me seemd another Skie. As I bent down to look, just opposite, A Shape within the watry gleam appeerd Bending to look on me, I started back, It started back, but pleasd I soon returnd, Pleas'd it returnd as soon with answering looks Of sympathie and love, there I had fixt Mine eyes till now, and pin'd with vain desire, Had not a voice thus warnd me, What thou seest, What there thou seest fair Creature is thy self, With thee it came and goes: but follow me, And I will bring thee where no shadow staies Thy coming, and thy soft imbraces, hee Whose image thou art, him thou shall enjoy Inseparablie thine, to him shalt beare Multitudes like thy self, and thence be call'd Mother of human Race: what could I doe, But follow strait, invisibly thus led? Till I espi'd thee, fair indeed and tall, Under a Platan, yet methought less faire, Less winning soft, less amiablie milde, Then that smooth watry image; back I turnd, Thou following cryd'st aloud, Return fair EVE, Whom fli'st thou? whom thou fli'st, of him thou art, His flesh, his bone; to give thee being I lent Out of my side to thee, neerest my heart Substantial Life, to have thee by my side Henceforth an individual solace dear; Part of my Soul I seek thee, and thee claim My other half: with that thy gentle hand Seisd mine, I yeilded, and from that time see How beauty is excelld by manly grace And wisdom, which alone is truly fair. So spake our general Mother, and with eyes Of conjugal attraction unreprov'd, And meek surrender, half imbracing leand On our first Father, half her swelling Breast Naked met his under the flowing Gold Of her loose tresses hid: he in delight Both of her Beauty and submissive Charms Smil'd with superior Love, as JUPITER On JUNO smiles, when he impregns the Clouds That shed MAY Flowers; and press'd her Matron lip With kisses pure: aside the Devil turnd For envie, yet with jealous leer maligne Ey'd them askance, and to himself thus plaind. Sight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two Imparadis't in one anothers arms The happier EDEN, shall enjoy thir fill Of bliss on bliss, while I to Hell am thrust, Where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire, Among our other torments not the least, Still unfulfill'd with pain of longing pines; Yet let me not forget what I have gain'd From thir own mouths; all is not theirs it seems: One fatal Tree there stands of Knowledge call'd, Forbidden them to taste: Knowledge forbidd'n? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should thir Lord Envie them that? can it be sin to know, Can it be death? and do they onely stand By Ignorance, is that thir happie state, The proof of thir obedience and thir faith? O fair foundation laid whereon to build Thir ruine! Hence I will excite thir minds With more desire to know, and to reject Envious commands, invented with designe To keep them low whom knowledge might exalt Equal with Gods; aspiring to be such, They taste and die: what likelier can ensue? But first with narrow search I must walk round This Garden, and no corner leave unspi'd; A chance but chance may lead where I may meet Some wandring Spirit of Heav'n, by Fountain side, Or in thick shade retir'd, from him to draw What further would be learnt. Live while ye may, Yet happie pair; enjoy, till I return, Short pleasures, for long woes are to succeed. So saying, his proud step he scornful turn'd, But with sly circumspection, and began Through wood, through waste, o're hil, o're dale his roam. Mean while in utmost Longitude, where Heav'n With Earth and Ocean meets, the setting Sun Slowly descended, and with right aspect Against the eastern Gate of Paradise Leveld his eevning Rayes: it was a Rock Of Alablaster, pil'd up to the Clouds, Conspicuous farr, winding with one ascent Accessible from Earth, one entrance high; The rest was craggie cliff, that overhung Still as it rose, impossible to climbe. Betwixt these rockie Pillars GABRIEL sat Chief of th' Angelic Guards, awaiting night; About him exercis'd Heroic Games Th' unarmed Youth of Heav'n, but nigh at hand Celestial Armourie, Shields, Helmes, and Speares Hung high with Diamond flaming, and with Gold. Thither came URIEL, gliding through the Eeven On a Sun beam, swift as a shooting Starr In AUTUMN thwarts the night, when vapors fir'd Impress the Air, and shews the Mariner From what point of his Compass to beware Impetuous winds: he thus began in haste. GABRIEL, to thee thy cours by Lot hath giv'n Charge and strict watch that to this happie place No evil thing approach or enter in; This day at highth of Noon came to my Spheare A Spirit, zealous, as he seem'd, to know More of th' Almighties works, and chiefly Man Gods latest Image: I describ'd his way Bent all on speed, and markt his Aerie Gate; But in the Mount that lies from EDEN North, Where he first lighted, soon discernd his looks Alien from Heav'n, with passions foul obscur'd: Mine eye pursu'd him still, but under shade Lost sight of him; one of the banisht crew I fear, hath ventur'd from the deep, to raise New troubles; him thy care must be to find. To whom the winged Warriour thus returnd: URIEL, no wonder if thy perfet sight, Amid the Suns bright circle where thou sitst, See farr and wide: in at this Gate none pass The vigilance here plac't, but such as come Well known from Heav'n; and since Meridian hour No Creature thence: if Spirit of other sort, So minded, have oreleapt these earthie bounds On purpose, hard thou knowst it to exclude Spiritual substance with corporeal barr. But if within the circuit of these walks In whatsoever shape he lurk, of whom Thou telst, by morrow dawning I shall know. So promis'd hee, and URIEL to his charge Returnd on that bright beam, whose point now raisd Bore him slope downward to the Sun now fall'n Beneath th' AZORES; whither the prime Orb, Incredible how swift, had thither rowl'd Diurnal, or this less volubil Earth By shorter flight to th' East, had left him there Arraying with reflected Purple and Gold The Clouds that on his Western Throne attend: Now came still Eevning on, and Twilight gray Had in her sober Liverie all things clad; Silence accompanied, for Beast and Bird, They to thir grassie Couch, these to thir Nests Were slunk, all but the wakeful Nightingale; She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleas'd: now glow'd the Firmament With living Saphirs: HESPERUS that led The starrie Host, rode brightest, till the Moon Rising in clouded Majestie, at length Apparent Queen unvaild her peerless light, And o're the dark her Silver Mantle threw. When ADAM thus to EVE: Fair Consort, th' hour Of night, and all things now retir'd to rest Mind us of like repose, since God hath set Labour and rest, as day and night to men Successive, and the timely dew of sleep Now falling with soft slumbrous weight inclines Our eye-lids; other Creatures all day long Rove idle unimploid, and less need rest; Man hath his daily work of body or mind Appointed, which declares his Dignitie, And the regard of Heav'n on all his waies; While other Animals unactive range, And of thir doings God takes no account. Tomorrow ere fresh Morning streak the East With first approach of light, we must be ris'n, And at our pleasant labour, to reform Yon flourie Arbors, yonder Allies green, Our walks at noon, with branches overgrown, That mock our scant manuring, and require More hands then ours to lop thir wanton growth: Those Blossoms also, and those dropping Gumms, That lie bestrowne unsightly and unsmooth, Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease; Mean while, as Nature wills, Night bids us rest. To whom thus EVE with perfet beauty adornd. My Author and Disposer, what thou bidst Unargu'd I obey; so God ordains, God is thy Law, thou mine: to know no more Is womans happiest knowledge and her praise. With thee conversing I forget all time, All seasons and thir change, all please alike. Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest Birds; pleasant the Sun When first on this delightful Land he spreads His orient Beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flour, Glistring with dew; fragrant the fertil earth After soft showers; and sweet the coming on Of grateful Eevning milde, then silent Night With this her solemn Bird and this fair Moon, And these the Gemms of Heav'n, her starrie train: But neither breath of Morn when she ascends With charm of earliest Birds, nor rising Sun On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, floure, Glistring with dew, nor fragrance after showers, Nor grateful Evening mild, nor silent Night With this her solemn Bird, nor walk by Moon, Or glittering Starr-light without thee is sweet. But wherfore all night long shine these, for whom This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes? To whom our general Ancestor repli'd. Daughter of God and Man, accomplisht EVE, Those have thir course to finish, round the Earth, By morrow Eevning, and from Land to Land In order, though to Nations yet unborn, Ministring light prepar'd, they set and rise; Least total darkness should by Night regaine Her old possession, and extinguish life In Nature and all things, which these soft fires Not only enlighten, but with kindly heate Of various influence foment and warme, Temper or nourish, or in part shed down Thir stellar vertue on all kinds that grow On Earth, made hereby apter to receive Perfection from the Suns more potent Ray. These then, though unbeheld in deep of night, Shine not in vain, nor think, though men were none, That heav'n would want spectators, God want praise; Millions of spiritual Creatures walk the Earth Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep: All these with ceasless praise his works behold Both day and night: how often from the steep Of echoing Hill or Thicket have we heard Celestial voices to the midnight air, Sole, or responsive each to others note Singing thir great Creator: oft in bands While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk With Heav'nly touch of instrumental sounds In full harmonic number joind, thir songs Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to Heaven. Thus talking hand in hand alone they pass'd On to thir blissful Bower; it was a place Chos'n by the sovran Planter, when he fram'd All things to mans delightful use; the roofe Of thickest covert was inwoven shade Laurel and Mirtle, and what higher grew Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side ACANTHUS, and each odorous bushie shrub Fenc'd up the verdant wall; each beauteous flour, IRIS all hues, Roses, and Gessamin Rear'd high thir flourisht heads between, and wrought Mosaic; underfoot the Violet, Crocus, and Hyacinth with rich inlay Broiderd the ground, more colour'd then with stone Of costliest Emblem: other Creature here Beast, Bird, Insect, or Worm durst enter none; Such was thir awe of man. In shadier Bower More sacred and sequesterd, though but feignd, PAN or SILVANUS never slept, nor Nymph, Nor FAUNUS haunted. Here in close recess With Flowers, Garlands, and sweet-smelling Herbs Espoused EVE deckt first her Nuptial Bed, And heav'nly Quires the Hymenaean sung, What day the genial Angel to our Sire Brought her in naked beauty more adorn'd, More lovely then PANDORA, whom the Gods Endowd with all thir gifts, and O too like In sad event, when to the unwiser Son Of JAPHET brought by HERMES, she ensnar'd Mankind with her faire looks, to be aveng'd On him who had stole JOVES authentic fire. Thus at thir shadie Lodge arriv'd, both stood, Both turnd, and under op'n Skie ador'd The God that made both Skie, Air, Earth & Heav'n Which they beheld, the Moons resplendent Globe And starrie Pole: Thou also mad'st the Night, Maker Omnipotent, and thou the Day, Which we in our appointed work imployd Have finisht happie in our mutual help And mutual love, the Crown of all our bliss Ordain'd by thee, and this delicious place For us too large, where thy abundance wants Partakers, and uncropt falls to the ground. But thou hast promis'd from us two a Race To fill the Earth, who shall with us extoll Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake, And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep. This said unanimous, and other Rites Observing none, but adoration pure Which God likes best, into thir inmost bower Handed they went; and eas'd the putting off These troublesom disguises which wee wear, Strait side by side were laid, nor turnd I weene ADAM from his fair Spouse, nor EVE the Rites Mysterious of connubial Love refus'd: Whatever Hypocrites austerely talk Of puritie and place and innocence, Defaming as impure what God declares Pure, and commands to som, leaves free to all. Our Maker bids increase, who bids abstain But our Destroyer, foe to God and Man? Haile wedded Love, mysterious Law, true source Of human ofspring, sole proprietie, In Paradise of all things common else. By thee adulterous lust was driv'n from men Among the bestial herds to raunge, by thee Founded in Reason, Loyal, Just, and Pure, Relations dear, and all the Charities Of Father, Son, and Brother first were known. Farr be it, that I should write thee sin or blame, Or think thee unbefitting holiest place, Perpetual Fountain of Domestic sweets, Whose Bed is undefil'd and chast pronounc't, Present, or past, as Saints and Patriarchs us'd. Here Love his golden shafts imploies, here lights His constant Lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile Of Harlots, loveless, joyless, unindeard, Casual fruition, nor in Court Amours Mixt Dance, or wanton Mask, or Midnight Bal, Or Serenate, which the starv'd Lover sings To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain. These lulld by Nightingales imbraceing slept, And on thir naked limbs the flourie roof Showrd Roses, which the Morn repair'd. Sleep on, Blest pair; and O yet happiest if ye seek No happier state, and know to know no more. Now had night measur'd with her shaddowie Cone Half way up Hill this vast Sublunar Vault, And from thir Ivorie Port the Cherubim Forth issuing at th' accustomd hour stood armd To thir night watches in warlike Parade, When GABRIEL to his next in power thus spake. UZZIEL, half these draw off, and coast the South With strictest watch; these other wheel the North, Our circuit meets full West. As flame they part Half wheeling to the Shield, half to the Spear. From these, two strong and suttle Spirits he calld That neer him stood, and gave them thus in charge. ITHURIEL and ZEPHON, with wingd speed Search through this Garden, leav unsearcht no nook, But chiefly where those two fair Creatures Lodge, Now laid perhaps asleep secure of harme. This Eevning from the Sun's decline arriv'd Who tells of som infernal Spirit seen Hitherward bent (who could have thought?) escap'd The barrs of Hell, on errand bad no doubt: Such where ye find, seise fast, and hither bring. So saying, on he led his radiant Files, Daz'ling the Moon; these to the Bower direct In search of whom they sought: him there they found Squat like a Toad, close at the eare of EVE; Assaying by his Devilish art to reach The Organs of her Fancie, and with them forge Illusions as he list, Phantasms and Dreams, Or if, inspiring venom, he might taint Th' animal Spirits that from pure blood arise Like gentle breaths from Rivers pure, thence raise At least distemperd, discontented thoughts, Vain hopes, vain aimes, inordinate desires Blown up with high conceits ingendring pride. Him thus intent ITHURIEL with his Spear Touch'd lightly; for no falshood can endure Touch of Celestial temper, but returns Of force to its own likeness: up he starts Discoverd and surpriz'd. As when a spark Lights on a heap of nitrous Powder, laid Fit for the Tun som Magazin to store Against a rumord Warr, the Smuttie graine With sudden blaze diffus'd, inflames the Aire: So started up in his own shape the Fiend. Back stept those two fair Angels half amaz'd So sudden to behold the grieslie King; Yet thus, unmovd with fear, accost him soon. Which of those rebell Spirits adjudg'd to Hell Com'st thou, escap'd thy prison, and transform'd, Why satst thou like an enemie in waite Here watching at the head of these that sleep? Know ye not then said SATAN, filld with scorn, Know ye not me? ye knew me once no mate For you, there sitting where ye durst not soare; Not to know mee argues your selves unknown, The lowest of your throng; or if ye know, Why ask ye, and superfluous begin Your message, like to end as much in vain? To whom thus ZEPHON, answering scorn with scorn. Think not, revolted Spirit, thy shape the same, Or undiminisht brightness, to be known As when thou stoodst in Heav'n upright and pure; That Glorie then, when thou no more wast good, Departed from thee, and thou resembl'st now Thy sin and place of doom obscure and foule. But come, for thou, be sure, shalt give account To him who sent us, whose charge is to keep This place inviolable, and these from harm. So spake the Cherube, and his grave rebuke Severe in youthful beautie, added grace Invincible: abasht the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Vertue in her shape how lovly, saw, and pin'd His loss; but chiefly to find here observd His lustre visibly impar'd; yet seemd Undaunted. If I must contend, said he, Best with the best, the Sender not the sent, Or all at once; more glorie will be wonn, Or less be lost. Thy fear, said ZEPHON bold, Will save us trial what the least can doe Single against thee wicked, and thence weak. The Fiend repli'd not, overcome with rage; But like a proud Steed reind, went hautie on, Chaumping his iron curb: to strive or flie He held it vain; awe from above had quelld His heart, not else dismai'd. Now drew they nigh The western point, where those half-rounding guards Just met, & closing stood in squadron joind Awaiting next command. To whom thir Chief GABRIEL from the Front thus calld aloud. O friends, I hear the tread of nimble feet Hasting this way, and now by glimps discerne ITHURIEL and ZEPHON through the shade, And with them comes a third of Regal port, But faded splendor wan; who by his gate And fierce demeanour seems the Prince of Hell, Not likely to part hence without contest; Stand firm, for in his look defiance lours. He scarce had ended, when those two approachd And brief related whom they brought, wher found, How busied, in what form and posture coucht. To whom with stern regard thus GABRIEL spake. Why hast thou, SATAN, broke the bounds prescrib'd To thy transgressions, and disturbd the charge Of others, who approve not to transgress By thy example, but have power and right To question thy bold entrance on this place; Imploi'd it seems to violate sleep, and those Whose dwelling God hath planted here in bliss? To whom thus SATAN with contemptuous brow. GABRIEL, thou hadst in Heav'n th' esteem of wise, And such I held thee; but this question askt Puts me in doubt. Lives ther who loves his pain? Who would not, finding way, break loose from Hell, Though thither doomd? Thou wouldst thy self, no doubt, And boldly venture to whatever place Farthest from pain, where thou mightst hope to change Torment with ease, & soonest recompence Dole with delight, which in this place I sought; To thee no reason; who knowst only good, But evil hast not tri'd: and wilt object His will who bound us? let him surer barr His Iron Gates, if he intends our stay In that dark durance: thus much what was askt. The rest is true, they found me where they say; But that implies not violence or harme. Thus hee in scorn. The warlike Angel mov'd, Disdainfully half smiling thus repli'd. O loss of one in Heav'n to judge of wise, Since SATAN fell, whom follie overthrew, And now returns him from his prison scap't, Gravely in doubt whether to hold them wise Or not, who ask what boldness brought him hither Unlicenc't from his bounds in Hell prescrib'd; So wise he judges it to fly from pain However, and to scape his punishment. So judge thou still, presumptuous, till the wrauth, Which thou incurr'st by flying, meet thy flight Seavenfold, and scourge that wisdom back to Hell, Which taught thee yet no better, that no pain Can equal anger infinite provok't. But wherefore thou alone? wherefore with thee Came not all Hell broke loose? is pain to them Less pain, less to be fled, or thou then they Less hardie to endure? courageous Chief, The first in flight from pain, had'st thou alleg'd To thy deserted host this cause of flight, Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive. To which the Fiend thus answerd frowning stern. Not that I less endure, or shrink from pain, Insulting Angel, well thou knowst I stood Thy fiercest, when in Battel to thy aide The blasting volied Thunder made all speed And seconded thy else not dreaded Spear. But still thy words at random, as before, Argue thy inexperience what behooves From hard assaies and ill successes past A faithful Leader, not to hazard all Through wayes of danger by himself untri'd. I therefore, I alone first undertook To wing the desolate Abyss, and spie This new created World, whereof in Hell Fame is not silent, here in hope to find Better abode, and my afflicted Powers To settle here on Earth, or in mid Aire; Though for possession put to try once more What thou and thy gay Legions dare against; Whose easier business were to serve thir Lord High up in Heav'n, with songs to hymne his Throne, And practis'd distances to cringe, not fight. To whom the warriour Angel soon repli'd. To say and strait unsay, pretending first Wise to flie pain, professing next the Spie, Argues no Leader, but a lyar trac't, SATAN, and couldst thou faithful add? O name, O sacred name of faithfulness profan'd! Faithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew? Armie of Fiends, fit body to fit head; Was this your discipline and faith ingag'd, Your military obedience, to dissolve Allegeance to th' acknowledg'd Power supream? And thou sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem Patron of liberty, who more then thou Once fawn'd, and cring'd, and servilly ador'd Heav'ns awful Monarch? wherefore but in hope To dispossess him, and thy self to reigne? But mark what I arreede thee now, avant; Flie thither whence thou fledst: if from this houre Within these hallowd limits thou appeer, Back to th' infernal pit I drag thee chaind, And Seale thee so, as henceforth not to scorne The facil gates of hell too slightly barrd. So threatn'd hee, but SATAN to no threats Gave heed, but waxing more in rage repli'd. Then when I am thy captive talk of chaines, Proud limitarie Cherube, but ere then Farr heavier load thy self expect to feel From my prevailing arme, though Heavens King Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy Compeers, Us'd to the yoak, draw'st his triumphant wheels In progress through the rode of Heav'n Star-pav'd. While thus he spake, th' Angelic Squadron bright Turnd fierie red, sharpning in mooned hornes Thir Phalanx, and began to hemm him round With ported Spears, as thick as when a field Of CERES ripe for harvest waving bends Her bearded Grove of ears, which way the wind Swayes them; the careful Plowman doubting stands Least on the threshing floore his hopeful sheaves Prove chaff. On th' other side SATAN allarm'd Collecting all his might dilated stood, Like TENERIFF or ATLAS unremov'd: His stature reacht the Skie, and on his Crest Sat horror Plum'd; nor wanted in his graspe What seemd both Spear and Shield: now dreadful deeds Might have ensu'd, nor onely Paradise In this commotion, but the Starrie Cope Of Heav'n perhaps, or all the Elements At least had gon to rack, disturbd and torne With violence of this conflict, had not soon Th' Eternal to prevent such horrid fray Hung forth in Heav'n his golden Scales, yet seen Betwixt ASTREA and the SCORPION signe, Wherein all things created first he weighd, The pendulous round Earth with ballanc't Aire In counterpoise, now ponders all events, Battels and Realms: in these he put two weights The sequel each of parting and of fight; The latter quick up flew, and kickt the beam; Which GABRIEL spying, thus bespake the Fiend. SATAN, I know thy strength, and thou knowst mine, Neither our own but giv'n; what follie then To boast what Arms can doe, since thine no more Then Heav'n permits, nor mine, though doubld now To trample thee as mire: for proof look up, And read thy Lot in yon celestial Sign Where thou art weigh'd, & shown how light, how weak, If thou resist. The Fiend lookt up and knew His mounted scale aloft: nor more; but fled Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night. THE END OF THE FOURTH BOOK. PARADISE LOST Können Sie eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten 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.

Satan landet auf dem Gipfel des Mount Niphates, etwas nördlich vom Paradies, dem Garten Eden. Er ergreift Zweifel an der Aufgabe, die vor ihm liegt; als er die Schönheit und Unschuld der Erde sieht, erinnert er sich daran, was er einst war. Sogar kurzzeitig überlegt er, ob er Vergebung finden könnte, wenn er Reue zeigte. Aber die Hölle folgt ihm, wohin er auch geht - Satan ist tatsächlich die Verkörperung der Hölle. Wenn er den Vater um Vergebung bitten würde, weiß er, dass es ein falsches Geständnis wäre; er schlussfolgert, dass er selbst wenn er in den Himmel zurückkehren würde, sich nicht beugen könnte. Wissend, dass Erlösung oder Rettung ihm nicht gewährt werden kann, entschließt er sich, weiterhin Sünden und Böses zu begehen. Er bemerkt nicht, dass er während seines inneren Zweifels versehentlich seine teuflische Natur offenbart hat. Er wird von Uriel beobachtet, dem Erzengel, den er dazu gebracht hat, ihm den Weg zu weisen. Uriel bemerkt seine widersprüchlichen Gesichtsausdrücke und da alle Engel einen dauerhaft fröhlichen Ausdruck im Gesicht haben, schließt Uriel daraus, dass Satan kein Engel sein kann. Satan nähert sich nun Eden, das von einer großen Dickichtmauer umgeben ist. Er springt leicht darüber wie ein Wolf, der ein Schafgehege betritt. Drinnen sieht er eine idyllische Welt mit allen Arten von Tieren und Bäumen. Er sieht den höchsten der Bäume, den Baum des Lebens - und daneben den verbotenen Baum der Erkenntnis. Er setzt sich auf den Baum des Lebens, verkleidet als Kormoran, einen großen Seevogel. Schließlich bemerkt er zwei Kreaturen, die aufrecht unter den anderen Tieren gehen. Sie gehen nackt ohne Scham und arbeiten angenehm und pflegen den Garten. Satans Schmerz und Neid nehmen zu, als er diese neue schöne Rasse sieht, geschaffen nachdem er und seine Legionen gefallen sind. Er hätte sie lieben können, aber jetzt wird seine Verdammnis durch ihre Zerstörung gerächt. Er beobachtet sie weiterhin und der Mann, Adam, spricht. Er sagt Eva, nicht über die Arbeit zu klagen, die sie tun müssen, sondern Gott gehorsam zu sein, denn Gott hat ihnen so viele Segnungen gegeben und nur eine Einschränkung: sie dürfen nicht von der Frucht des Baumes der Erkenntnis essen. Eva stimmt von ganzem Herzen zu und sie umarmen sich. Eva erzählt Adam von ihrem ersten Erwachen, als sie zum Leben kam und sich fragte, wer und wo sie war. Sie fand einen Fluss und folgte ihm flussaufwärts bis zu seiner Quelle. Ihr Weg führte sie zu einem klaren, glatten See und Eva schaute in den See und sah ein Bild auf seiner Oberfläche, das sie bald als ihr eigenes entdeckt. Sie hört eine Stimme, die ihr erklärt, dass sie aus Adam gemacht wurde und mit ihm zur Mutter der menschlichen Rasse werden wird. Satan sieht seine Chance, während er Adam und Eva überblickt. Wenn der Vater ihnen eine Regel gegeben hat, könnten sie dazu gebracht werden, sie zu brechen. Er lässt die beiden für eine Weile allein und geht, um von anderen Engeln mehr zu erfahren. In der Zwischenzeit tritt Uriel vor den Erzengel Gabriel am Tor des Eden und erzählt ihm von dem Gestaltwandel-Geist, den er vom Hügel aus gesehen hat. Beide vermuten, dass es sich um einen der Gefallenen handeln könnte. Gabriel verspricht, dass sie ihn bis zum Morgen im Garten finden werden, wenn der Geist dort ist. Zu dieser Zeit beenden Adam und Eva ihre Arbeit des Tages. Sie gehen in ihre laubige Laube und preisen Gott und einander für ihr glückliches Leben und nach einem kurzen Gebet liegen sie beieinander - sie lieben sich ohne Sünde, weil Lust ihre Natur noch nicht verunreinigt hat. Die Nacht bricht herein und Gabriel schickt Suchtrupps in den Garten. Zwei seiner Engel finden Satan, der als Kröte verkleidet ist und in das Ohr von Eva flüstert, während sie schläft. Sie ziehen ihn vor Gabriel, der ihn erkennt und wissen will, was er im Paradies macht. Satan täuscht zunächst Unschuld vor, da sie keinen Beweis haben, dass er Böses im Sinn hat. Aber Gabriel weiß, dass er ein Lügner ist und droht, ihn zurück in die Hölle zu ziehen. Von dieser Bedrohung in Wut versetzt, bereitet sich Satan darauf vor, gegen ihn zu kämpfen. Die beiden stehen sich für eine entscheidende Schlacht gegenüber, aber ein Zeichen aus dem Himmel - das Erscheinen eines Paares goldener Waagen am Himmel - hält sie auf. Satan erkennt das Zeichen als Bedeutung, dass er nicht gewinnen könnte, und fliegt davon.

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: Scaena Secunda. Der König, Prinz von Wales und andere treten auf. König. Meine Herren, gebt uns Raum. Der Prinz von Wales und ich müssen uns privat beraten. Aber bleibt in der Nähe, denn wir werden euch bald brauchen. Alle Lords treten ab. Ich weiß nicht, ob es der Himmel will, dass ich für irgendeinen verärgerten Dienst, den ich getan habe, in seinem geheimen Urteil Rache und eine Geißel gegen mich erzüchtet. Aber du tust in deinem Lebensweg mich glauben lassen, dass du nur dazu bestimmt bist, der heißen Vergeltung und der Rute des Himmels zu dienen, um meine Fehlentscheidungen zu bestrafen. Sag mir also, könnten solch unerhörte und anspruchslose Begierden, solche armseligen, nackte, lasterhafte, niedrige Versuche, solche dürftigen Freuden, ungehobelte Gesellschaft, wie du sie begleitest und mit ihnen verbunden bist, mit der Größe deines Blutes einhergehen und mit deinem fürstlichen Herzen mithalten? Prinz. Wenn es Ihrer Majestät gefällt, würde ich gerne alle Vergehen mit so klaren Ausreden vergeben, wie ich selbstverständlich viele von mir bereinigen kann, mit denen ich beschuldigt werde. Dennoch lasst mich um solche Entschuldigungen bitten, als Widerlegung vieler erdachter Geschichten, die oft das Ohr der Großen erreichen müssen, durch lächelnde Schmeichler und niederträchtige Nachrichtenverbreiter. Für manches, was wahr ist, in dem meine Jugend fehlerhaft herumgewandert ist, möge mir aufgrund meines aufrichtigen Bekenntnisses Vergebung gewährt werden. König. Der Himmel vergebe dir: Dennoch lasst mich, Harry, wundern über deine Gefühle, die einen Schritt außerhalb des Verhaltens all deiner Vorfahren liegen. Deinen Platz im Rat hast du grob verloren, eine Pflicht, die nun von deinem jüngeren Bruder erfüllt wird. Und du bist fast ein Fremder den Herzen des ganzen Hofes und den Prinzen meines Blutes. Die Hoffnung und Erwartung deiner Zeit ist zerstört, und die Seele eines jeden Mannes denkt vorhersagend an deinen Fall. Wäre ich so häufig in der Öffentlichkeit gewesen, so häufig vor den Augen der Menschen gezeigt worden, so verbraucht und trivial in der Gesellschaft des Volkes; die Meinung, die mir zur Krone verholfen hat, hätte weiterhin der Besitznahme die Treue gehalten, und mich in eine ruflose Verbannung geschickt, einen Kerl ohne Auszeichnung, ohne wahrscheinliches Schicksal. Durch Seltenheit meiner Sichtbarkeit konnte ich mich nicht bewegen, ohne dass wie ein Komet ich bestaunt wurde, dass die Menschen ihren Kindern erzählen würden: Das ist er. Andere würden sagen: Wo, welcher ist Bullingbrooke. Und dann stahl ich jegliche Höflichkeit vom Himmel, und kleidete mich in solche Demut, dass ich die Loyalität aus den Herzen der Menschen zog, lautstarke Schreie und Begrüßungen aus ihren Mündern, sogar in Anwesenheit des gekrönten Königs. So gelang es mir, meine Persönlichkeit frisch und neu zu halten, meine Gegenwart wie eine pontifikale Robe, nie gesehen, aber bestaunt. Und so erschien mein Zustand, selten, aber prunkvoll, wie ein Festmahl, gewonnen durch Rarität, solche Feierlichkeit. Der überstürzte König flanierte auf und ab, mit flachen Scherzbolden und leichtfertigen Witzbolde, schnell entzündet, schnell verbrannt, verwirrte er seinen Stand, mischte seine Herrschaft mit spöttischen Narren, hatte seinen großen Namen durch ihre Verachtung entweiht, und gab seinem Gesicht, entgegen seinem Namen, den Raum, über spöttische Jungen zu lachen und standzuhalten jeder bartlosen törichten Vergleichung; er wurde ein Begleiter der gewöhnlichen Straßen, verpfändete sich der Popularität: Dadurch, dass er täglich von den Augen der Menschen verschlungen wurde, suchten sie in ihm die Honigsucht satt, und begannen zu verabscheuen den Geschmack der Süße, von der ein wenig mehr als ein wenig, bei weitem zu viel ist. So war, wenn er gesehen werden musste, er nur wie der Kuckuck im Juni, gehört, aber nicht beachtet; gesehen, aber mit solchen Augen, die mit der Gemeinschaft krank und stumpf sind, die keine außergewöhnliche Bewunderung bieten, wie sie Sonnenmajestät gegenüber erweisen, wenn sie selten von bewundernden Augen scheint: sondern eher träge wurde und ihre Augenlider senkte, schlief in seinem Gesicht ein und machte eine solche Miene, wie sie trübe Männer gegenüber ihren Gegnern haben, gesättigt, voll und rund von seiner Anwesenheit. Und genau in dieser Linie stehst du, Harry: Denn du hast dein fürstliches Privileg verloren, durch schändliche Teilnahme. Kein Auge ist müde von deinem gewöhnlichen Anblick, außer meines, das sich danach sehnte, dich mehr zu sehen: Was nun dazu führt, dass es selbst mit törichter Zärtlichkeit sich selbst erblindet. Prinz. In Zukunft werde ich, mein dreimal gnädiger Herr, mehr ich selbst sein. König. Vor der ganzen Welt warst du bis zu dieser Stunde Richard, als ich aus Frankreich in Rauenspurgh landete; Und genauso wie ich damals war, ist Percy jetzt: Nun bei meinem Zepter und meiner Seele, hat er ein würdigeres Interesse am Staat als du, der Schatten der Thronfolge; Denn er hat keinerlei Recht, und auch keine Ähnlichkeit zum Recht. Er führt Heeresscharen ins Feld im Königreich, wendet den Kopf gegen die bewaffneten Löwenmäuler; Und da er den Jahren ebenso wenig schuldig ist wie du, führt er alte Lords und ehrwürdige Bischöfe zu blutigen Schlachten und zu kämpfenden Waffen. Welche niemals endende Ehre hat er erlangt, Gegen den berühmten Douglas? dessen hohe Taten, dessen heiße Überfälle und großer Name in der Waffenkunst, laut allen Soldaten höchste Anerkennung findet, als Hauptmann und militärische Ehrentitel. Durch alle Königreiche, die Christus anerkennen, hat der kühne Mars dreimal, als er noch in Windeln war, diesen jungen Krieger bei seinen Unternehmen besiegt, ihn einmal gefangen genommen, ihn freigelassen und einen Freund aus ihm gemacht, um den Mund von tiefem Trotz zu füllen und den Frieden und die Sicherheit unseres Throns zu erschüttern. Und was sagst du dazu? Percy, Northumberland, der Erzbischof von York, Douglas, Mortimer, verbünden sich gegen uns und erheben sich. Aber warum erzähle ich dir diese Neuigkeiten? Warum, Harry, erzähle ich dir von meinen Feinden, du, der mein nächster und liebster Feind bist? Du, der durch Vasallenschrecken, niedrige Neigungen und eine Laune des Zorns sogar gegen mich kämpfen könntest, unter Percys Bezahlung seinen Fersen hinterher jagen und vor seinen Blicken verbeugen, um zu zeigen, wie sehr du entartet bist. Prinz. Glauben Sie das nicht, Sie werden es nicht so finden: Und der Himmel vergebe denen, die Ihre Majestät so sehr von mir abgelenkt haben: Ich werde dies alles an Percys Kopf rächen, und an einem glorreichen Blunt. So ist das Geschäft, über das ich sprechen will. Lord Mortimer von Schottland hat Wort geschickt, dass Douglas und die englischen Rebellen am elften dieses Monats in Shrewsbury trafen: Sie sind ein mächtiges und furchteinflößendes Haupt, (wenn Versprechen von allen Seiten gehalten werden) wie jemals ein schmutziges Spiel im Staat angeboten wurde. König. Der Graf von Westmoreland ist heute aufgebrochen: Mit ihm mein Sohn, Lord John of Lancaster, Denn diese Meldung ist fünf Tage alt. Am nächsten Mittwoch, Harry, wirst du aufbrechen: Am Donnerstag werden wir selbst marschieren. Unser Treffen ist in Bridgenorth: und Harry, du wirst marschieren durch Gloucestershire: nach diesem Bericht Werden sich unsere Truppen in etwa zwölf Tagen in Bridgenorth treffen. Unsere Hände sind voller Geschäft: lass uns gehen, Vorteil macht ihn fett, während die Menschen zögern. Abgang. Szene Drei. Falstaff und Bardolph treten auf. Falst. Bardolph, bin ich nicht elend verfallen, seit dieser letzten Aktion? Bin ich nicht schwächer geworden? Mein Haut hängt an mir wie das lose Kleid einer alten Dame: Ich bin vertrocknet wie ein alter Apfeljohn. Nun, ich bereue und das schnell, solange ich noch in gewisser Weise bin: Bald werde ich mutlos sein und dann werde ich keine Kraft haben, zu bereuen. Und wenn ich vergessen hätte, wovon ein Kircheninneres gemacht ist, dann bin ich ein Pfefferkorn, ein Brauereipferd, das Innerste einer Kirche. Gesellschaft, eine böse Gesellschaft hat mich ruiniert. Bard. Sir John, du bist so mürrisch, du kannst nicht mehr lange leben. Blase. Nun da ist es: Komm, sing mir ein anzügliches Lied, mach mich fröhlich; Ich war so tugendhaft, wie es ein Gentleman sein muss, brav genug, schwor wenig, habe nicht mehr als sieben Mal in der Woche gewürfelt, bin nicht öfter als einmal in eine Dirnenwohnung gegangen und das in einem Viertelstunden-Abstand, habe Geld zurückgezahlt, das ich mir geliehen habe, drei oder vier Mal; Ich habe gut gelebt und in Maß und Ordnung: und nun führe ich ein Leben außerhalb aller Regeln, außerhalb der Ordnung. Bard. Warum, du bist so fett, Sir John, dass du aus allen Maßen fallen musst; aus jeglichem vernünftigen Maß, Sir John. Blase. Verbesser dein Gesicht und ich werde dein Leben verbessern: Du bist unser Admiral, du trägst die Laterne im Heck, aber sie ist in der Nase von dir; Du bist der Ritter der brennenden Lampe. Bard. Warum, Sir John, mein Gesicht tut dir nicht weh. Blase. Nein, ich schwöre: Ich mache so guten Gebrauch davon wie manch ein Mann mit einem Totenkopf oder einer Memento Mori-Maske. Ich sehe dein Gesicht nie, ohne an das Höllenfeuer und den reichen Mann zu denken, der in Purpur gekleidet lebte; denn dort brennt er, brennt. Wenn du auch nur auf irgendeine Weise tugendhaft wärst, würde ich bei deinem Gesicht schwören; mein Eid würde lauten: "Bei diesem Feuer": Aber du bist völlig verdorben; und wärst du das nicht, wäre dein Gesicht das Licht in deinem Gesicht, die Sonne der vollständigen Dunkelheit. Als du in der Nacht den Gads Hügel hinaufstürmtest, um mein Pferd einzufangen, wenn ich nicht geglaubt hätte, dass du ein Irrlicht oder ein Bündel von Irrlichtern gewesen wärst, dann wäre kein Geld sinnvoll gewesen. Oh, du bist ein ewiger Triumph, ein ewiges Freudenfeuer-Licht: du hast mich tausend Mark an Fackeln und Laternen gespart, indem wir abends von Taverne zu Taverne mit dir gegangen sind: Aber der Sack, den du mir gegeben hast, hätte mir Lichter genauso billig gekauft wie die teuersten Kerzenmacher in Europa. Ich habe deine Feuersalamander mit Feuer versorgt, jederzeit seit nun zweiunddreißig Jahren, der Himmel möge mir dafür danken. Bard. Wäre mein Gesicht in deinem Bauch. Blase. Dann bin ich sicher, Sodbrennen zu bekommen. Gastwirt tritt auf. Gastwirt. Wie jetzt, liebe Partlet die Henne, hast du noch nicht herausgefunden, wer mich ausgeraubt hat? Wirtin. Sir John, was denkst du, Sir John? Denkst du, ich habe Diebe in meinem Haus? Ich habe durchsucht, ich habe gefragt, mein Mann auch, Mann für Mann, Junge für Junge, Diener für Diener: kein Haar ist jemals in meinem Haus verloren gegangen. Blase. Du lügst, Wirtin: Bardolph wurde geschoren und hat viele Haare verloren; und ich schwöre, meine Tasche wurde geplündert: Komm schon, du bist eine Frau, geh schon. Wirtin. Wer, ich? Ich trotze dir: Ich wurde noch nie in meinem eigenen Haus so genannt. Blase. Geh schon, ich kenne dich gut genug. Wirtin. Nein, Sir John, du kennst mich nicht, Sir John: Du schuldest mir Geld, Sir John, und jetzt suchst du Streit, um mich zu betrügen: Ich habe dir ein Dutzend Hemden gekauft. Blase. Faul, widerliche Faul: Ich habe sie Bäckersfrauen gegeben und sie daraus Segeltücher gemacht. Gastwirtin. Jetzt, als eine wahre Frau, Holland für acht Schillinge pro Ellen: Du schuldest hier auch noch Geld, Sir John, für deine Kost und Getränke und das Geld, das du geliehen bekommen hast, vierundzwanzig Pfund. Blase. Er hatte seinen Teil davon, lasst ihn zahlen. Gastwirtin. Er? Ach, er ist arm, er hat nichts. Blase. Wie? Arm? Schau sein Gesicht an: Was sagst du zu "reich"? Lass sie ihm die Nase schmieden, lass sie seine Wangen schmieden, ich werde keinem den kleinsten Betrag bezahlen. Was, willst du mich für einen Knirps halten? Soll ich in meiner Herberge nicht in Ruhe sein können, ohne dass man mir die Tasche leert? Mir wurde ein Siegelring meines Großvaters gestohlen, im Wert von vierzig Mark. Gastwirtin. Ich habe den Prinzen oft sagen hören, ich weiß nicht wie oft, dass dieser Ring aus Kupfer war. Blase. Wie? Der Prinz ist ein Wicht, ein Tölpel: Und wäre er hier, würde ich ihn wie einen Hund verprügeln, wenn er so etwas sagen würde. Der Prinz tritt auf und marschiert, und Falstaff trifft ihn und spielt auf seinem Knüppel wie auf einer Pfeife. Blase. Wie jetzt, Junge? Ist der Wind in dieser Tür? Müssen wir alle marschieren? Bard. Ja, zu zweit, nach Newgate-Art. Gastwirtin. Mein Herr, ich bitte dich, hör mich an. Prinz. Was sagst du, Fräulein Quick? Wie geht es deinem Ehemann? Ich mag ihn gut, er ist ein ehrlicher Mann. Gastwirtin. Gut, mein Herr, höre mich an. Blase. Lass sie in Ruhe und hör mir zu. Prinz. Was sagst du, Jack? Falst. Die andere Nacht bin ich hier hinter dem Arras eingeschlafen und mir wurde die Tasche aufgeknöpft: Dieses Haus ist ein Freudenhaus geworden, sie pl Wirtin: Ich habe keinen Grund, dem Himmel zu danken, ich möchte, dass du das weißt: Ich bin die Frau eines ehrlichen Mannes. Und abgesehen von deinem Rittertum bist du ein Schurke, mich so zu nennen. Falst: Abgesehen von deiner Weiblichkeit bist du ein Tier, wenn du etwas anderes sagst. Wirtin: Sag, welches Tier, du Schurke? Fal: Welches Tier? Ein Fischotter. Prinz: Ein Otter, Sir John? Warum ein Otter? Fal: Warum? Sie ist weder Fisch noch Fleisch; ein Mann weiß nicht, wo er sie hat. Wirtin: Du bist ein ungerechter Mann, so etwas zu sagen; du oder irgendjemand weiß, wo man mich finden kann, du Schurke. Prinz: Du sagst die Wahrheit, Wirtin, und er verleumdet dich sehr. Wirtin: Das tut er auch bei Ihnen, mein Herr, und er hat neulich gesagt, Sie schulden ihm tausend Pfund. Prinz: Schurke, schulde ich dir tausend Pfund? Falst: Tausend Pfund, Hal? Millionen. Deine Liebe ist eine Million wert: Du schuldest mir deine Liebe. Wirtin: Nein, mein Herr, er hat dich Jack genannt und gesagt, er würde dich verprügeln. Fal: Habe ich das gesagt, Bardolph? Bar: Ja, Sir John, das haben Sie gesagt. Fal: Ja, wenn er gesagt hat, mein Ring sei aus Kupfer. Prinz: Ich sage, er ist aus Kupfer. Traust du dich, dein Wort jetzt zu halten? Fal: Warum Hal? Du weißt, als Mann traue ich mich; aber als Prinz fürchte ich dich, so wie ich das Brüllen eines Löwenwelpen fürchte. Prinz: Und warum nicht wie ein Löwe? Fal: Der König selbst ist wie ein Löwe zu fürchten. Denkst du, ich fürchte dich so wie deinen Vater? Wenn ja, dann soll mein Gürtel reißen. Prinz: Oh, wenn das passieren würde, wie würden deine Eingeweide um deine Knie fallen. Aber sag mal: Hier ist kein Platz für Glauben, Wahrheit oder Ehrlichkeit in diesem Busen von dir: Er ist voll mit Eingeweiden und Magen. Kannst du einer ehrlichen Frau vorwerfen, dich beklaut zu haben? Warum du Frechling, impertinenter, fettbauchiger Schurke, wenn in deiner Tasche nur Rechnungen von Gasthäusern, Notizen von Bordellen und ein armseliger Penny Zuckerware wären, um dich lange reden zu lassen: Wenn deine Tasche mit irgendwelchen anderen Untaten außer diesen angereichert wäre, dann bin ich ein Schurke. Und dennoch bleibst du dabei, du nimmst kein Unrecht hin. Schämst du dich nicht? Fal: Hörst du, Hal? Du weißt, im Zustand der Unschuld fiel Adam. Und was sollte armer Jack Falstaff in diesen kriminellen Tagen tun? Du siehst, ich habe mehr Fleisch als ein anderer Mann und daher auch mehr Schwäche. Gibst du zu, dass du in meine Tasche gegriffen hast? Prinz: So scheint es nach der Geschichte. Fal: Wirtin, ich vergebe dir. Geh, mache das Frühstück bereit, liebe deinen Ehemann, kümmere dich um deine Diener und sei freundlich zu deinen Gästen. Du wirst mich für jeden vernünftigen Grund zugänglich finden. Du siehst, ich bin immer noch besänftigt. Nun gut, bitte geh. (Herausgehen der Wirtin) Nun, Hal, wie ist das mit den Neuigkeiten am Hof wegen des Raubs, Junge? Wie ist das beantwortet worden? Prinz: Oh, mein süßes Rindfleisch, ich muss immer noch dein guter Engel sein. Das Geld ist wieder zurückgezahlt. Fal: Oh, das Zurückzahlen gefällt mir nicht, das sind doppelte Arbeit. Prinz: Ich bin gut mit meinem Vater befreundet und darf alles tun. Fal: Raub mir als Erstes das Schatzamt und tue es auch mit ungewaschenen Händen. Bard: Zu Befehl, mein Herr. Prinz: Ich habe einen Auftrag für dich, Jack. Eine Infanterieeinheit. Fal: Ich wünschte, es wäre Kavallerie. Wo finde ich jemanden, der gut stehlen kann? Oh, für einen feinen Dieb von zweiundzwanzig oder so: Ich bin schrecklich unvorbereitet. Nun gut, Gott sei Dank für diese Rebellen, sie beleidigen nur die Tugendhaften. Ich lobe sie, ich preise sie. Prinz: Bardolph. Bar: Mein Herr. Prinz: Trage diesen Brief zu Lord John of Lancaster, zu meinem Bruder John. Diesen hier an meinen Herrn von Westmerland. Geh, Peto, zu Pferd, denn du und ich haben noch dreißig Meilen zu reiten, bevor es Zeit zum Abendessen ist. Jack, triff mich morgen um zwei Uhr nachmittags im Tempelhof. Dort wirst du von deinem Auftrag erfahren und dort Geld und Anweisung für deine Ausrüstung erhalten. Das Land brennt, Percie steht auf hohen Positionen, und entweder sie oder wir müssen uns niedriger hinlegen. Fal: Seltene Worte! Tapfere Welt. Wirtin, mein Frühstück, komm. Oh, ich wünschte, dieses Gasthaus wäre meine Trommel. (Abgang aller) Kannst du eine passende 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.

König Heinrich hält Hof, als Prinz Hal eintrifft. Er entlässt sofort seine Lords und wendet sich seinem Sohn zu. Wie Hal und Falstaff erwartet hatten, hält der König Hal einen missbilligenden Vortrag. Er fragt laut, ob Gott ihn für irgendeine schlechte Tat bestraft, indem er ihm einen so verantwortungslosen Sohn gibt, und er tadelt Hal für sein niedriges Benehmen und seine Gesellschaft. Prinz Hal gibt zu, dass er nachgelassen hat und bittet um Vergebung, obwohl er behauptet, nicht so schlimm gewesen zu sein, wie es das Gerücht besagt. Der König erklärt dann die Lage und seine Sorgen über Hals Verhalten. Hals jüngerer Bruder musste seinen Platz bei Meetings und Räten einnehmen. Hal fehlt es an der angemessenen Würde des Amtes; er ist wie Richard II., ein "hüpfender König", der "oberflächlichen Spaßmachern" nachgegeben hat und am Ende von seinen Untertanen verachtet wurde. Ein ähnliches Schicksal wird Hal ereilen, wenn er sich nicht ändert. Der König setzt sein Verhalten dem von Hotspur gegenüber, der derzeit ein besserer Thronerbe als Hal zu sein scheint, aufgrund seiner Tapferkeit und Führungsqualitäten. Er suggeriert sogar, dass Hal sich niedrig genug zeigt, um gegen ihn unter Hotspurs Bezahlung zu kämpfen. Prinz Hal schwört, sich zu ändern und sich "auf Percys Kopf" zu bewähren. Der König überträgt daraufhin die Verantwortung für die Führung der königlichen Streitkräfte auf Hals Schultern. Während diese Angelegenheit geklärt wird, tritt Sir Walter Blunt ein und verkündet, dass sich die Rebellen mit ihren Truppen in Shrewsbury versammelt haben. Der König teilt Blunt mit, dass Westmoreland und Prinz John bereits eine Armee zum Schlachtfeld führen. Er erklärt weiter, dass sowohl Hal als auch er eine Armee führen werden und dass alle ihre vereinten Streitkräfte sich in zwölf Tagen in Bridgenorth treffen 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: WHEN the dinner was over, and the first draughts from the great cask of birthday ale were brought up, room was made for the broad Mr. Poyser at the side of the table, and two chairs were placed at the head. It had been settled very definitely what Mr. Poyser was to do when the young squire should appear, and for the last five minutes he had been in a state of abstraction, with his eyes fixed on the dark picture opposite, and his hands busy with the loose cash and other articles in his breeches pockets. When the young squire entered, with Mr. Irwine by his side, every one stood up, and this moment of homage was very agreeable to Arthur. He liked to feel his own importance, and besides that, he cared a great deal for the good-will of these people: he was fond of thinking that they had a hearty, special regard for him. The pleasure he felt was in his face as he said, "My grandfather and I hope all our friends here have enjoyed their dinner, and find my birthday ale good. Mr. Irwine and I are come to taste it with you, and I am sure we shall all like anything the better that the rector shares with us." All eyes were now turned on Mr. Poyser, who, with his hands still busy in his pockets, began with the deliberateness of a slow-striking clock. "Captain, my neighbours have put it upo' me to speak for 'em to-day, for where folks think pretty much alike, one spokesman's as good as a score. And though we've mayhappen got contrairy ways o' thinking about a many things--one man lays down his land one way an' another another--an' I'll not take it upon me to speak to no man's farming, but my own--this I'll say, as we're all o' one mind about our young squire. We've pretty nigh all on us known you when you war a little un, an' we've niver known anything on you but what was good an' honorable. You speak fair an' y' act fair, an' we're joyful when we look forrard to your being our landlord, for we b'lieve you mean to do right by everybody, an' 'ull make no man's bread bitter to him if you can help it. That's what I mean, an' that's what we all mean; and when a man's said what he means, he'd better stop, for th' ale 'ull be none the better for stannin'. An' I'll not say how we like th' ale yet, for we couldna well taste it till we'd drunk your health in it; but the dinner was good, an' if there's anybody hasna enjoyed it, it must be the fault of his own inside. An' as for the rector's company, it's well known as that's welcome t' all the parish wherever he may be; an' I hope, an' we all hope, as he'll live to see us old folks, an' our children grown to men an' women an' Your Honour a family man. I've no more to say as concerns the present time, an' so we'll drink our young squire's health--three times three." Hereupon a glorious shouting, a rapping, a jingling, a clattering, and a shouting, with plentiful da capo, pleasanter than a strain of sublimest music in the ears that receive such a tribute for the first time. Arthur had felt a twinge of conscience during Mr. Poyser's speech, but it was too feeble to nullify the pleasure he felt in being praised. Did he not deserve what was said of him on the whole? If there was something in his conduct that Poyser wouldn't have liked if he had known it, why, no man's conduct will bear too close an inspection; and Poyser was not likely to know it; and, after all, what had he done? Gone a little too far, perhaps, in flirtation, but another man in his place would have acted much worse; and no harm would come--no harm should come, for the next time he was alone with Hetty, he would explain to her that she must not think seriously of him or of what had passed. It was necessary to Arthur, you perceive, to be satisfied with himself. Uncomfortable thoughts must be got rid of by good intentions for the future, which can be formed so rapidly that he had time to be uncomfortable and to become easy again before Mr. Poyser's slow speech was finished, and when it was time for him to speak he was quite light-hearted. "I thank you all, my good friends and neighbours," Arthur said, "for the good opinion of me, and the kind feelings towards me which Mr. Poyser has been expressing on your behalf and on his own, and it will always be my heartiest wish to deserve them. In the course of things we may expect that, if I live, I shall one day or other be your landlord; indeed, it is on the ground of that expectation that my grandfather has wished me to celebrate this day and to come among you now; and I look forward to this position, not merely as one of power and pleasure for myself, but as a means of benefiting my neighbours. It hardly becomes so young a man as I am to talk much about farming to you, who are most of you so much older, and are men of experience; still, I have interested myself a good deal in such matters, and learned as much about them as my opportunities have allowed; and when the course of events shall place the estate in my hands, it will be my first desire to afford my tenants all the encouragement a landlord can give them, in improving their land and trying to bring about a better practice of husbandry. It will be my wish to be looked on by all my deserving tenants as their best friend, and nothing would make me so happy as to be able to respect every man on the estate, and to be respected by him in return. It is not my place at present to enter into particulars; I only meet your good hopes concerning me by telling you that my own hopes correspond to them--that what you expect from me I desire to fulfil; and I am quite of Mr. Poyser's opinion, that when a man has said what he means, he had better stop. But the pleasure I feel in having my own health drunk by you would not be perfect if we did not drink the health of my grandfather, who has filled the place of both parents to me. I will say no more, until you have joined me in drinking his health on a day when he has wished me to appear among you as the future representative of his name and family." Perhaps there was no one present except Mr. Irwine who thoroughly understood and approved Arthur's graceful mode of proposing his grandfather's health. The farmers thought the young squire knew well enough that they hated the old squire, and Mrs. Poyser said, "he'd better not ha' stirred a kettle o' sour broth." The bucolic mind does not readily apprehend the refinements of good taste. But the toast could not be rejected and when it had been drunk, Arthur said, "I thank you, both for my grandfather and myself; and now there is one more thing I wish to tell you, that you may share my pleasure about it, as I hope and believe you will. I think there can be no man here who has not a respect, and some of you, I am sure, have a very high regard, for my friend Adam Bede. It is well known to every one in this neighbourhood that there is no man whose word can be more depended on than his; that whatever he undertakes to do, he does well, and is as careful for the interests of those who employ him as for his own. I'm proud to say that I was very fond of Adam when I was a little boy, and I have never lost my old feeling for him--I think that shows that I know a good fellow when I find him. It has long been my wish that he should have the management of the woods on the estate, which happen to be very valuable, not only because I think so highly of his character, but because he has the knowledge and the skill which fit him for the place. And I am happy to tell you that it is my grandfather's wish too, and it is now settled that Adam shall manage the woods--a change which I am sure will be very much for the advantage of the estate; and I hope you will by and by join me in drinking his health, and in wishing him all the prosperity in life that he deserves. But there is a still older friend of mine than Adam Bede present, and I need not tell you that it is Mr. Irwine. I'm sure you will agree with me that we must drink no other person's health until we have drunk his. I know you have all reason to love him, but no one of his parishioners has so much reason as I. Come, charge your glasses, and let us drink to our excellent rector--three times three!" This toast was drunk with all the enthusiasm that was wanting to the last, and it certainly was the most picturesque moment in the scene when Mr. Irwine got up to speak, and all the faces in the room were turned towards him. The superior refinement of his face was much more striking than that of Arthur's when seen in comparison with the people round them. Arthur's was a much commoner British face, and the splendour of his new-fashioned clothes was more akin to the young farmer's taste in costume than Mr. Irwine's powder and the well-brushed but well-worn black, which seemed to be his chosen suit for great occasions; for he had the mysterious secret of never wearing a new-looking coat. "This is not the first time, by a great many," he said, "that I have had to thank my parishioners for giving me tokens of their goodwill, but neighbourly kindness is among those things that are the more precious the older they get. Indeed, our pleasant meeting to-day is a proof that when what is good comes of age and is likely to live, there is reason for rejoicing, and the relation between us as clergyman and parishioners came of age two years ago, for it is three-and-twenty years since I first came among you, and I see some tall fine-looking young men here, as well as some blooming young women, that were far from looking as pleasantly at me when I christened them as I am happy to see them looking now. But I'm sure you will not wonder when I say that among all those young men, the one in whom I have the strongest interest is my friend Mr. Arthur Donnithorne, for whom you have just expressed your regard. I had the pleasure of being his tutor for several years, and have naturally had opportunities of knowing him intimately which cannot have occurred to any one else who is present; and I have some pride as well as pleasure in assuring you that I share your high hopes concerning him, and your confidence in his possession of those qualities which will make him an excellent landlord when the time shall come for him to take that important position among you. We feel alike on most matters on which a man who is getting towards fifty can feel in common with a young man of one-and-twenty, and he has just been expressing a feeling which I share very heartily, and I would not willingly omit the opportunity of saying so. That feeling is his value and respect for Adam Bede. People in a high station are of course more thought of and talked about and have their virtues more praised, than those whose lives are passed in humble everyday work; but every sensible man knows how necessary that humble everyday work is, and how important it is to us that it should be done well. And I agree with my friend Mr. Arthur Donnithorne in feeling that when a man whose duty lies in that sort of work shows a character which would make him an example in any station, his merit should be acknowledged. He is one of those to whom honour is due, and his friends should delight to honour him. I know Adam Bede well--I know what he is as a workman, and what he has been as a son and brother--and I am saying the simplest truth when I say that I respect him as much as I respect any man living. But I am not speaking to you about a stranger; some of you are his intimate friends, and I believe there is not one here who does not know enough of him to join heartily in drinking his health." As Mr. Irwine paused, Arthur jumped up and, filling his glass, said, "A bumper to Adam Bede, and may he live to have sons as faithful and clever as himself!" No hearer, not even Bartle Massey, was so delighted with this toast as Mr. Poyser. "Tough work" as his first speech had been, he would have started up to make another if he had not known the extreme irregularity of such a course. As it was, he found an outlet for his feeling in drinking his ale unusually fast, and setting down his glass with a swing of his arm and a determined rap. If Jonathan Burge and a few others felt less comfortable on the occasion, they tried their best to look contented, and so the toast was drunk with a goodwill apparently unanimous. Adam was rather paler than usual when he got up to thank his friends. He was a good deal moved by this public tribute--very naturally, for he was in the presence of all his little world, and it was uniting to do him honour. But he felt no shyness about speaking, not being troubled with small vanity or lack of words; he looked neither awkward nor embarrassed, but stood in his usual firm upright attitude, with his head thrown a little backward and his hands perfectly still, in that rough dignity which is peculiar to intelligent, honest, well-built workmen, who are never wondering what is their business in the world. "I'm quite taken by surprise," he said. "I didn't expect anything o' this sort, for it's a good deal more than my wages. But I've the more reason to be grateful to you, Captain, and to you, Mr. Irwine, and to all my friends here, who've drunk my health and wished me well. It 'ud be nonsense for me to be saying, I don't at all deserve th' opinion you have of me; that 'ud be poor thanks to you, to say that you've known me all these years and yet haven't sense enough to find out a great deal o' the truth about me. You think, if I undertake to do a bit o' work, I'll do it well, be my pay big or little--and that's true. I'd be ashamed to stand before you here if it wasna true. But it seems to me that's a man's plain duty, and nothing to be conceited about, and it's pretty clear to me as I've never done more than my duty; for let us do what we will, it's only making use o' the sperrit and the powers that ha' been given to us. And so this kindness o' yours, I'm sure, is no debt you owe me, but a free gift, and as such I accept it and am thankful. And as to this new employment I've taken in hand, I'll only say that I took it at Captain Donnithorne's desire, and that I'll try to fulfil his expectations. I'd wish for no better lot than to work under him, and to know that while I was getting my own bread I was taking care of his int'rests. For I believe he's one o those gentlemen as wishes to do the right thing, and to leave the world a bit better than he found it, which it's my belief every man may do, whether he's gentle or simple, whether he sets a good bit o' work going and finds the money, or whether he does the work with his own hands. There's no occasion for me to say any more about what I feel towards him: I hope to show it through the rest o' my life in my actions." There were various opinions about Adam's speech: some of the women whispered that he didn't show himself thankful enough, and seemed to speak as proud as could be; but most of the men were of opinion that nobody could speak more straightfor'ard, and that Adam was as fine a chap as need to be. While such observations were being buzzed about, mingled with wonderings as to what the old squire meant to do for a bailiff, and whether he was going to have a steward, the two gentlemen had risen, and were walking round to the table where the wives and children sat. There was none of the strong ale here, of course, but wine and dessert--sparkling gooseberry for the young ones, and some good sherry for the mothers. Mrs. Poyser was at the head of this table, and Totty was now seated in her lap, bending her small nose deep down into a wine-glass in search of the nuts floating there. "How do you do, Mrs. Poyser?" said Arthur. "Weren't you pleased to hear your husband make such a good speech to-day?" "Oh, sir, the men are mostly so tongue-tied--you're forced partly to guess what they mean, as you do wi' the dumb creaturs." "What! you think you could have made it better for him?" said Mr. Irwine, laughing. "Well, sir, when I want to say anything, I can mostly find words to say it in, thank God. Not as I'm a-finding faut wi' my husband, for if he's a man o' few words, what he says he'll stand to." "I'm sure I never saw a prettier party than this," Arthur said, looking round at the apple-cheeked children. "My aunt and the Miss Irwines will come up and see you presently. They were afraid of the noise of the toasts, but it would be a shame for them not to see you at table." He walked on, speaking to the mothers and patting the children, while Mr. Irwine satisfied himself with standing still and nodding at a distance, that no one's attention might be disturbed from the young squire, the hero of the day. Arthur did not venture to stop near Hetty, but merely bowed to her as he passed along the opposite side. The foolish child felt her heart swelling with discontent; for what woman was ever satisfied with apparent neglect, even when she knows it to be the mask of love? Hetty thought this was going to be the most miserable day she had had for a long while, a moment of chill daylight and reality came across her dream: Arthur, who had seemed so near to her only a few hours before, was separated from her, as the hero of a great procession is separated from a small outsider in the crowd. 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.

Der gesunde Trink Arthur und Mr. Irwine betreten den Esssaal des Kreuzgangs und alle Pächter stehen auf. Mr. Poyser hält eine Rede, sagt dass alle einer Meinung über Arthur sind: "Du sprichst redlich und handelst redlich". Arthur fühlt einen leichten Stich, denkt aber, dass er das Lob verdient hat, weil er im Grunde ein guter Mensch ist. Er weiß, dass nichts Schlimmes mit Hetty passieren wird, denn beim nächsten Mal wird er ihr sagen, dass es vorbei ist. Arthur verspricht im Gegenzug ein guter Landlord zu sein und kündigt dann die Ernennung von Adam Bede an und stellt Mr. Irwine vor. Mr. Irwine trinkt auf Arthur und sagt, dass er "deine hohen Hoffnungen teile" und lobt dann Adam Bede als wichtige Person, obwohl er nicht von hoher Stellung ist. Alle trinken auf Adam, der antwortet, dass ein Mann seine Pflicht tut und er glaubt, dass Arthur zu denen gehört, die die Welt besser hinterlassen als sie sie gefunden haben. Mr. Irwine fragt Mrs. Poyser, ob ihr die Rede ihres Mannes gefallen hat, und sie antwortet, dass er gut genug war, aber sie findet, dass Männer "sprachlos" sind wie "die stummen Kreaturen". Sie hingegen dankt Gott, dass sie keine Probleme mit Worten 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: My present situation was one in which all voluntary thought was swallowed up and lost. I was hurried away by fury; revenge alone endowed me with strength and composure; it modelled my feelings, and allowed me to be calculating and calm, at periods when otherwise delirium or death would have been my portion. My first resolution was to quit Geneva for ever; my country, which, when I was happy and beloved, was dear to me, now, in my adversity, became hateful. I provided myself with a sum of money, together with a few jewels which had belonged to my mother, and departed. And now my wanderings began, which are to cease but with life. I have traversed a vast portion of the earth, and have endured all the hardships which travellers, in deserts and barbarous countries, are wont to meet. How I have lived I hardly know; many times have I stretched my failing limbs upon the sandy plain, and prayed for death. But revenge kept me alive; I dared not die, and leave my adversary in being. When I quitted Geneva, my first labour was to gain some clue by which I might trace the steps of my fiendish enemy. But my plan was unsettled; and I wandered many hours around the confines of the town, uncertain what path I should pursue. As night approached, I found myself at the entrance of the cemetery where William, Elizabeth, and my father, reposed. I entered it, and approached the tomb which marked their graves. Every thing was silent, except the leaves of the trees, which were gently agitated by the wind; the night was nearly dark; and the scene would have been solemn and affecting even to an uninterested observer. The spirits of the departed seemed to flit around, and to cast a shadow, which was felt but seen not, around the head of the mourner. The deep grief which this scene had at first excited quickly gave way to rage and despair. They were dead, and I lived; their murderer also lived, and to destroy him I must drag out my weary existence. I knelt on the grass, and kissed the earth, and with quivering lips exclaimed, "By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night, and by the spirits that preside over thee, I swear to pursue the daemon, who caused this misery, until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict. For this purpose I will preserve my life: to execute this dear revenge, will I again behold the sun, and tread the green herbage of earth, which otherwise should vanish from my eyes for ever. And I call on you, spirits of the dead; and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work. Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me." I had begun my adjuration with solemnity, and an awe which almost assured me that the shades of my murdered friends heard and approved my devotion; but the furies possessed me as I concluded, and rage choaked my utterance. I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and fiendish laugh. It rung on my ears long and heavily; the mountains re-echoed it, and I felt as if all hell surrounded me with mockery and laughter. Surely in that moment I should have been possessed by phrenzy, and have destroyed my miserable existence, but that my vow was heard, and that I was reserved for vengeance. The laughter died away: when a well-known and abhorred voice, apparently close to my ear, addressed me in an audible whisper--"I am satisfied: miserable wretch! you have determined to live, and I am satisfied." I darted towards the spot from which the sound proceeded; but the devil eluded my grasp. Suddenly the broad disk of the moon arose, and shone full upon his ghastly and distorted shape, as he fled with more than mortal speed. I pursued him; and for many months this has been my task. Guided by a slight clue, I followed the windings of the Rhone, but vainly. The blue Mediterranean appeared; and, by a strange chance, I saw the fiend enter by night, and hide himself in a vessel bound for the Black Sea. I took my passage in the same ship; but he escaped, I know not how. Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I have ever followed in his track. Sometimes the peasants, scared by this horrid apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself, who feared that if I lost all trace I should despair and die, often left some mark to guide me. The snows descended on my head, and I saw the print of his huge step on the white plain. To you first entering on life, to whom care is new, and agony unknown, how can you understand what I have felt, and still feel? Cold, want, and fatigue, were the least pains which I was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil, and carried about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good followed and directed my steps, and, when I most murmured, would suddenly extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Sometimes, when nature, overcome by hunger, sunk under the exhaustion, a repast was prepared for me in the desert, that restored and inspirited me. The fare was indeed coarse, such as the peasants of the country ate; but I may not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had invoked to aid me. Often, when all was dry, the heavens cloudless, and I was parched by thirst, a slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed the few drops that revived me, and vanish. I followed, when I could, the courses of the rivers; but the daemon generally avoided these, as it was here that the population of the country chiefly collected. In other places human beings were seldom seen; and I generally subsisted on the wild animals that crossed my path. I had money with me, and gained the friendship of the villagers by distributing it, or bringing with me some food that I had killed, which, after taking a small part, I always presented to those who had provided me with fire and utensils for cooking. My life, as it passed thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed sleep! often, when most miserable, I sank to repose, and my dreams lulled me even to rapture. The spirits that guarded me had provided these moments, or rather hours, of happiness, that I might retain strength to fulfil my pilgrimage. Deprived of this respite, I should have sunk under my hardships. During the day I was sustained and inspirited by the hope of night: for in sleep I saw my friends, my wife, and my beloved country; again I saw the benevolent countenance of my father, heard the silver tones of my Elizabeth's voice, and beheld Clerval enjoying health and youth. Often, when wearied by a toilsome march, I persuaded myself that I was dreaming until night should come, and that I should then enjoy reality in the arms of my dearest friends. What agonizing fondness did I feel for them! how did I cling to their dear forms, as sometimes they haunted even my waking hours, and persuade myself that they still lived! At such moments vengeance, that burned within me, died in my heart, and I pursued my path towards the destruction of the daemon, more as a task enjoined by heaven, as the mechanical impulse of some power of which I was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of my soul. What his feelings were whom I pursued, I cannot know. Sometimes, indeed, he left marks in writing on the barks of the trees, or cut in stone, that guided me, and instigated my fury. "My reign is not yet over," (these words were legible in one of these inscriptions); "you live, and my power is complete. Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not too tardily, a dead hare; eat, and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we have yet to wrestle for our lives; but many hard and miserable hours must you endure, until that period shall arrive." Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will I omit my search, until he or I perish; and then with what ecstacy shall I join my Elizabeth, and those who even now prepare for me the reward of my tedious toil and horrible pilgrimage. As I still pursued my journey to the northward, the snows thickened, and the cold increased in a degree almost too severe to support. The peasants were shut up in their hovels, and only a few of the most hardy ventured forth to seize the animals whom starvation had forced from their hiding-places to seek for prey. The rivers were covered with ice, and no fish could be procured; and thus I was cut off from my chief article of maintenance. The triumph of my enemy increased with the difficulty of my labours. One inscription that he left was in these words: "Prepare! your toils only begin: wrap yourself in furs, and provide food, for we shall soon enter upon a journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred." My courage and perseverance were invigorated by these scoffing words; I resolved not to fail in my purpose; and, calling on heaven to support me, I continued with unabated fervour to traverse immense deserts, until the ocean appeared at a distance, and formed the utmost boundary of the horizon. Oh! how unlike it was to the blue seas of the south! Covered with ice, it was only to be distinguished from land by its superior wildness and ruggedness. The Greeks wept for joy when they beheld the Mediterranean from the hills of Asia, and hailed with rapture the boundary of their toils. I did not weep; but I knelt down, and, with a full heart, thanked my guiding spirit for conducting me in safety to the place where I hoped, notwithstanding my adversary's gibe, to meet and grapple with him. Some weeks before this period I had procured a sledge and dogs, and thus traversed the snows with inconceivable speed. I know not whether the fiend possessed the same advantages; but I found that, as before I had daily lost ground in the pursuit, I now gained on him; so much so, that when I first saw the ocean, he was but one day's journey in advance, and I hoped to intercept him before he should reach the beach. With new courage, therefore, I pressed on, and in two days arrived at a wretched hamlet on the seashore. I inquired of the inhabitants concerning the fiend, and gained accurate information. A gigantic monster, they said, had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and many pistols; putting to flight the inhabitants of a solitary cottage, through fear of his terrific appearance. He had carried off their store of winter food, and, placing it in a sledge, to draw which he had seized on a numerous drove of trained dogs, he had harnessed them, and the same night, to the joy of the horror-struck villagers, had pursued his journey across the sea in a direction that led to no land; and they conjectured that he must speedily be destroyed by the breaking of the ice, or frozen by the eternal frosts. On hearing this information, I suffered a temporary access of despair. He had escaped me; and I must commence a destructive and almost endless journey across the mountainous ices of the ocean,--amidst cold that few of the inhabitants could long endure, and which I, the native of a genial and sunny climate, could not hope to survive. Yet at the idea that the fiend should live and be triumphant, my rage and vengeance returned, and, like a mighty tide, overwhelmed every other feeling. After a slight repose, during which the spirits of the dead hovered round, and instigated me to toil and revenge, I prepared for my journey. I exchanged my land sledge for one fashioned for the inequalities of the frozen ocean; and, purchasing a plentiful stock of provisions, I departed from land. I cannot guess how many days have passed since then; but I have endured misery, which nothing but the eternal sentiment of a just retribution burning within my heart could have enabled me to support. Immense and rugged mountains of ice often barred up my passage, and I often heard the thunder of the ground sea, which threatened my destruction. But again the frost came, and made the paths of the sea secure. By the quantity of provision which I had consumed I should guess that I had passed three weeks in this journey; and the continual protraction of hope, returning back upon the heart, often wrung bitter drops of despondency and grief from my eyes. Despair had indeed almost secured her prey, and I should soon have sunk beneath this misery; when once, after the poor animals that carried me had with incredible toil gained the summit of a sloping ice mountain, and one sinking under his fatigue died, I viewed the expanse before me with anguish, when suddenly my eye caught a dark speck upon the dusky plain. I strained my sight to discover what it could be, and uttered a wild cry of ecstacy when I distinguished a sledge, and the distorted proportions of a well-known form within. Oh! with what a burning gush did hope revisit my heart! warm tears filled my eyes, which I hastily wiped away, that they might not intercept the view I had of the daemon; but still my sight was dimmed by the burning drops, until, giving way to the emotions that oppressed me, I wept aloud. But this was not the time for delay; I disencumbered the dogs of their dead companion, gave them a plentiful portion of food; and, after an hour's rest, which was absolutely necessary, and yet which was bitterly irksome to me, I continued my route. The sledge was still visible; nor did I again lose sight of it, except at the moments when for a short time some ice rock concealed it with its intervening crags. I indeed perceptibly gained on it; and when, after nearly two days' journey, I beheld my enemy at no more than a mile distant, my heart bounded within me. But now, when I appeared almost within grasp of my enemy, my hopes were suddenly extinguished, and I lost all trace of him more utterly than I had ever done before. A ground sea was heard; the thunder of its progress, as the waters rolled and swelled beneath me, became every moment more ominous and terrific. I pressed on, but in vain. The wind arose; the sea roared; and, as with the mighty shock of an earthquake, it split, and cracked with a tremendous and overwhelming sound. The work was soon finished: in a few minutes a tumultuous sea rolled between me and my enemy, and I was left drifting on a scattered piece of ice, that was continually lessening, and thus preparing for me a hideous death. In this manner many appalling hours passed; several of my dogs died; and I myself was about to sink under the accumulation of distress, when I saw your vessel riding at anchor, and holding forth to me hopes of succour and life. I had no conception that vessels ever came so far north, and was astounded at the sight. I quickly destroyed part of my sledge to construct oars; and by these means was enabled, with infinite fatigue, to move my ice-raft in the direction of your ship. I had determined, if you were going southward, still to trust myself to the mercy of the seas, rather than abandon my purpose. I hoped to induce you to grant me a boat with which I could still pursue my enemy. But your direction was northward. You took me on board when my vigour was exhausted, and I should soon have sunk under my multiplied hardships into a death, which I still dread,--for my task is unfulfilled. Oh! when will my guiding spirit, in conducting me to the daemon, allow me the rest I so much desire; or must I die, and he yet live? If I do, swear to me, Walton, that he shall not escape; that you will seek him, and satisfy my vengeance in his death. Yet, do I dare ask you to undertake my pilgrimage, to endure the hardships that I have undergone? No; I am not so selfish. Yet, when I am dead, if he should appear; if the ministers of vengeance should conduct him to you, swear that he shall not live--swear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated woes, and live to make another such a wretch as I am. He is eloquent and persuasive; and once his words had even power over my heart: but trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiend-like malice. Hear him not; call on the manes of William, Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth, my father, and of the wretched Victor, and thrust your sword into his heart. I will hover near, and direct the steel aright. 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.

Als die Nacht hereinbrach, befand ich mich am Eingang des Friedhofs, wo William, Elizabeth und mein Vater ruhten. Die Geister der Verstorbenen schienen umherzufliegen und einen Schatten zu werfen, der vom Betrachter gefühlt, aber nicht gesehen werden konnte, um den Kopf des Trauernden herum. Victor bittet die Geister der Toten um Hilfe in seinem Rachefeldzug und er spürt ihre Zustimmung. Dann gibt es einen lauten und teuflischen Lacher von dem Monster, das Victor einlädt, ihm zu folgen. Von Genf aus beginnt die Verfolgung durch das Mittelmeer und das Schwarze Meer, durch Russland, ins Nordland und immer weiter in den hohen Norden zum Polarkreis. Das Monster scheint ermüdungslos reisen zu können, während Victor schwächer wird und ihn nur der Durst nach Rache am Leben hält. Das Monster stiehlt ein Hundeschlitten-Team und Victor kann ihm nie ganz einholen. Allerdings kommen sie sich auf dem knackenden Eis nahe und genau zu diesem Zeitpunkt findet Robert Walton Victor auf seinem Eisschollen im Arktischen Ozean. Victor bittet Robert, seine Suche fortzusetzen, um das Monster zu zerstören, falls er scheitert.

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 found them winding of Marcello's corpse. And there was such a solemn melody, 'Twixt doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies,-- Such as old grandames, watching by the dead, Are wont to outwear the night with. --Old Play The mode of entering the great tower of Coningsburgh Castle is very peculiar, and partakes of the rude simplicity of the early times in which it was erected. A flight of steps, so deep and narrow as to be almost precipitous, leads up to a low portal in the south side of the tower, by which the adventurous antiquary may still, or at least could a few years since, gain access to a small stair within the thickness of the main wall of the tower, which leads up to the third story of the building,--the two lower being dungeons or vaults, which neither receive air nor light, save by a square hole in the third story, with which they seem to have communicated by a ladder. The access to the upper apartments in the tower which consist in all of four stories, is given by stairs which are carried up through the external buttresses. By this difficult and complicated entrance, the good King Richard, followed by his faithful Ivanhoe, was ushered into the round apartment which occupies the whole of the third story from the ground. Wilfred, by the difficulties of the ascent, gained time to muffle his face in his mantle, as it had been held expedient that he should not present himself to his father until the King should give him the signal. There were assembled in this apartment, around a large oaken table, about a dozen of the most distinguished representatives of the Saxon families in the adjacent counties. They were all old, or, at least, elderly men; for the younger race, to the great displeasure of the seniors, had, like Ivanhoe, broken down many of the barriers which separated for half a century the Norman victors from the vanquished Saxons. The downcast and sorrowful looks of these venerable men, their silence and their mournful posture, formed a strong contrast to the levity of the revellers on the outside of the castle. Their grey locks and long full beards, together with their antique tunics and loose black mantles, suited well with the singular and rude apartment in which they were seated, and gave the appearance of a band of ancient worshippers of Woden, recalled to life to mourn over the decay of their national glory. Cedric, seated in equal rank among his countrymen, seemed yet, by common consent, to act as chief of the assembly. Upon the entrance of Richard (only known to him as the valorous Knight of the Fetterlock) he arose gravely, and gave him welcome by the ordinary salutation, "Waes hael", raising at the same time a goblet to his head. The King, no stranger to the customs of his English subjects, returned the greeting with the appropriate words, "Drinc hael", and partook of a cup which was handed to him by the sewer. The same courtesy was offered to Ivanhoe, who pledged his father in silence, supplying the usual speech by an inclination of his head, lest his voice should have been recognised. When this introductory ceremony was performed, Cedric arose, and, extending his hand to Richard, conducted him into a small and very rude chapel, which was excavated, as it were, out of one of the external buttresses. As there was no opening, saving a little narrow loop-hole, the place would have been nearly quite dark but for two flambeaux or torches, which showed, by a red and smoky light, the arched roof and naked walls, the rude altar of stone, and the crucifix of the same material. Before this altar was placed a bier, and on each side of this bier kneeled three priests, who told their beads, and muttered their prayers, with the greatest signs of external devotion. For this service a splendid "soul-scat" was paid to the convent of Saint Edmund's by the mother of the deceased; and, that it might be fully deserved, the whole brethren, saving the lame Sacristan, had transferred themselves to Coningsburgh, where, while six of their number were constantly on guard in the performance of divine rites by the bier of Athelstane, the others failed not to take their share of the refreshments and amusements which went on at the castle. In maintaining this pious watch and ward, the good monks were particularly careful not to interrupt their hymns for an instant, lest Zernebock, the ancient Saxon Apollyon, should lay his clutches on the departed Athelstane. Nor were they less careful to prevent any unhallowed layman from touching the pall, which, having been that used at the funeral of Saint Edmund, was liable to be desecrated, if handled by the profane. If, in truth, these attentions could be of any use to the deceased, he had some right to expect them at the hands of the brethren of Saint Edmund's, since, besides a hundred mancuses of gold paid down as the soul-ransom, the mother of Athelstane had announced her intention of endowing that foundation with the better part of the lands of the deceased, in order to maintain perpetual prayers for his soul, and that of her departed husband. Richard and Wilfred followed the Saxon Cedric into the apartment of death, where, as their guide pointed with solemn air to the untimely bier of Athelstane, they followed his example in devoutly crossing themselves, and muttering a brief prayer for the weal of the departed soul. This act of pious charity performed, Cedric again motioned them to follow him, gliding over the stone floor with a noiseless tread; and, after ascending a few steps, opened with great caution the door of a small oratory, which adjoined to the chapel. It was about eight feet square, hollowed, like the chapel itself, out of the thickness of the wall; and the loop-hole, which enlightened it, being to the west, and widening considerably as it sloped inward, a beam of the setting sun found its way into its dark recess, and showed a female of a dignified mien, and whose countenance retained the marked remains of majestic beauty. Her long mourning robes and her flowing wimple of black cypress, enhanced the whiteness of her skin, and the beauty of her light-coloured and flowing tresses, which time had neither thinned nor mingled with silver. Her countenance expressed the deepest sorrow that is consistent with resignation. On the stone table before her stood a crucifix of ivory, beside which was laid a missal, having its pages richly illuminated, and its boards adorned with clasps of gold, and bosses of the same precious metal. "Noble Edith," said Cedric, after having stood a moment silent, as if to give Richard and Wilfred time to look upon the lady of the mansion, "these are worthy strangers, come to take a part in thy sorrows. And this, in especial, is the valiant Knight who fought so bravely for the deliverance of him for whom we this day mourn." "His bravery has my thanks," returned the lady; "although it be the will of Heaven that it should be displayed in vain. I thank, too, his courtesy, and that of his companion, which hath brought them hither to behold the widow of Adeling, the mother of Athelstane, in her deep hour of sorrow and lamentation. To your care, kind kinsman, I intrust them, satisfied that they will want no hospitality which these sad walls can yet afford." The guests bowed deeply to the mourning parent, and withdrew from their hospitable guide. Another winding stair conducted them to an apartment of the same size with that which they had first entered, occupying indeed the story immediately above. From this room, ere yet the door was opened, proceeded a low and melancholy strain of vocal music. When they entered, they found themselves in the presence of about twenty matrons and maidens of distinguished Saxon lineage. Four maidens, Rowena leading the choir, raised a hymn for the soul of the deceased, of which we have only been able to decipher two or three stanzas:-- Dust unto dust, To this all must; The tenant hath resign'd The faded form To waste and worm-- Corruption claims her kind. Through paths unknown Thy soul hath flown, To seek the realms of woe, Where fiery pain Shall purge the stain Of actions done below. In that sad place, By Mary's grace, Brief may thy dwelling be Till prayers and alms, And holy psalms, Shall set the captive free. While this dirge was sung, in a low and melancholy tone, by the female choristers, the others were divided into two bands, of which one was engaged in bedecking, with such embroidery as their skill and taste could compass, a large silken pall, destined to cover the bier of Athelstane, while the others busied themselves in selecting, from baskets of flowers placed before them, garlands, which they intended for the same mournful purpose. The behaviour of the maidens was decorous, if not marked with deep affliction; but now and then a whisper or a smile called forth the rebuke of the severer matrons, and here and there might be seen a damsel more interested in endeavouring to find out how her mourning-robe became her, than in the dismal ceremony for which they were preparing. Neither was this propensity (if we must needs confess the truth) at all diminished by the appearance of two strange knights, which occasioned some looking up, peeping, and whispering. Rowena alone, too proud to be vain, paid her greeting to her deliverer with a graceful courtesy. Her demeanour was serious, but not dejected; and it may be doubted whether thoughts of Ivanhoe, and of the uncertainty of his fate, did not claim as great a share in her gravity as the death of her kinsman. To Cedric, however, who, as we have observed, was not remarkably clear-sighted on such occasions, the sorrow of his ward seemed so much deeper than any of the other maidens, that he deemed it proper to whisper the explanation--"She was the affianced bride of the noble Athelstane."--It may be doubted whether this communication went a far way to increase Wilfred's disposition to sympathize with the mourners of Coningsburgh. Having thus formally introduced the guests to the different chambers in which the obsequies of Athelstane were celebrated under different forms, Cedric conducted them into a small room, destined, as he informed them, for the exclusive accomodation of honourable guests, whose more slight connexion with the deceased might render them unwilling to join those who were immediately effected by the unhappy event. He assured them of every accommodation, and was about to withdraw when the Black Knight took his hand. "I crave to remind you, noble Thane," he said, "that when we last parted, you promised, for the service I had the fortune to render you, to grant me a boon." "It is granted ere named, noble Knight," said Cedric; "yet, at this sad moment---" "Of that also," said the King, "I have bethought me--but my time is brief--neither does it seem to me unfit, that, when closing the grave on the noble Athelstane, we should deposit therein certain prejudices and hasty opinions." "Sir Knight of the Fetterlock," said Cedric, colouring, and interrupting the King in his turn, "I trust your boon regards yourself and no other; for in that which concerns the honour of my house, it is scarce fitting that a stranger should mingle." "Nor do I wish to mingle," said the King, mildly, "unless in so far as you will admit me to have an interest. As yet you have known me but as the Black Knight of the Fetterlock--Know me now as Richard Plantagenet." "Richard of Anjou!" exclaimed Cedric, stepping backward with the utmost astonishment. "No, noble Cedric--Richard of England!--whose deepest interest--whose deepest wish, is to see her sons united with each other.--And, how now, worthy Thane! hast thou no knee for thy prince?" "To Norman blood," said Cedric, "it hath never bended." "Reserve thine homage then," said the Monarch, "until I shall prove my right to it by my equal protection of Normans and English." "Prince," answered Cedric, "I have ever done justice to thy bravery and thy worth--Nor am I ignorant of thy claim to the crown through thy descent from Matilda, niece to Edgar Atheling, and daughter to Malcolm of Scotland. But Matilda, though of the royal Saxon blood, was not the heir to the monarchy." "I will not dispute my title with thee, noble Thane," said Richard, calmly; "but I will bid thee look around thee, and see where thou wilt find another to be put into the scale against it." "And hast thou wandered hither, Prince, to tell me so?" said Cedric--"To upbraid me with the ruin of my race, ere the grave has closed o'er the last scion of Saxon royalty?"--His countenance darkened as he spoke.--"It was boldly--it was rashly done!" "Not so, by the holy rood!" replied the King; "it was done in the frank confidence which one brave man may repose in another, without a shadow of danger." "Thou sayest well, Sir King--for King I own thou art, and wilt be, despite of my feeble opposition.--I dare not take the only mode to prevent it, though thou hast placed the strong temptation within my reach!" "And now to my boon," said the King, "which I ask not with one jot the less confidence, that thou hast refused to acknowledge my lawful sovereignty. I require of thee, as a man of thy word, on pain of being held faithless, man-sworn, and 'nidering', [581] to forgive and receive to thy paternal affection the good knight, Wilfred of Ivanhoe. In this reconciliation thou wilt own I have an interest--the happiness of my friend, and the quelling of dissension among my faithful people." "And this is Wilfred!" said Cedric, pointing to his son. "My father!--my father!" said Ivanhoe, prostrating himself at Cedric's feet, "grant me thy forgiveness!" "Thou hast it, my son," said Cedric, raising him up. "The son of Hereward knows how to keep his word, even when it has been passed to a Norman. But let me see thee use the dress and costume of thy English ancestry--no short cloaks, no gay bonnets, no fantastic plumage in my decent household. He that would be the son of Cedric, must show himself of English ancestry.--Thou art about to speak," he added, sternly, "and I guess the topic. The Lady Rowena must complete two years' mourning, as for a betrothed husband--all our Saxon ancestors would disown us were we to treat of a new union for her ere the grave of him she should have wedded--him, so much the most worthy of her hand by birth and ancestry--is yet closed. The ghost of Athelstane himself would burst his bloody cerements and stand before us to forbid such dishonour to his memory." It seemed as if Cedric's words had raised a spectre; for, scarce had he uttered them ere the door flew open, and Athelstane, arrayed in the garments of the grave, stood before them, pale, haggard, and like something arisen from the dead! [59] The effect of this apparition on the persons present was utterly appalling. Cedric started back as far as the wall of the apartment would permit, and, leaning against it as one unable to support himself, gazed on the figure of his friend with eyes that seemed fixed, and a mouth which he appeared incapable of shutting. Ivanhoe crossed himself, repeating prayers in Saxon, Latin, or Norman-French, as they occurred to his memory, while Richard alternately said, "Benedicite", and swore, "Mort de ma vie!" In the meantime, a horrible noise was heard below stairs, some crying, "Secure the treacherous monks!"--others, "Down with them into the dungeon!"--others, "Pitch them from the highest battlements!" "In the name of God!" said Cedric, addressing what seemed the spectre of his departed friend, "if thou art mortal, speak!--if a departed spirit, say for what cause thou dost revisit us, or if I can do aught that can set thy spirit at repose.--Living or dead, noble Athelstane, speak to Cedric!" "I will," said the spectre, very composedly, "when I have collected breath, and when you give me time--Alive, saidst thou?--I am as much alive as he can be who has fed on bread and water for three days, which seem three ages--Yes, bread and water, Father Cedric! By Heaven, and all saints in it, better food hath not passed my weasand for three livelong days, and by God's providence it is that I am now here to tell it." "Why, noble Athelstane," said the Black Knight, "I myself saw you struck down by the fierce Templar towards the end of the storm at Torquilstone, and as I thought, and Wamba reported, your skull was cloven through the teeth." "You thought amiss, Sir Knight," said Athelstane, "and Wamba lied. My teeth are in good order, and that my supper shall presently find--No thanks to the Templar though, whose sword turned in his hand, so that the blade struck me flatlings, being averted by the handle of the good mace with which I warded the blow; had my steel-cap been on, I had not valued it a rush, and had dealt him such a counter-buff as would have spoilt his retreat. But as it was, down I went, stunned, indeed, but unwounded. Others, of both sides, were beaten down and slaughtered above me, so that I never recovered my senses until I found myself in a coffin--(an open one, by good luck)--placed before the altar of the church of Saint Edmund's. I sneezed repeatedly--groaned--awakened and would have arisen, when the Sacristan and Abbot, full of terror, came running at the noise, surprised, doubtless, and no way pleased to find the man alive, whose heirs they had proposed themselves to be. I asked for wine--they gave me some, but it must have been highly medicated, for I slept yet more deeply than before, and wakened not for many hours. I found my arms swathed down--my feet tied so fast that mine ankles ache at the very remembrance--the place was utterly dark--the oubliette, as I suppose, of their accursed convent, and from the close, stifled, damp smell, I conceive it is also used for a place of sepulture. I had strange thoughts of what had befallen me, when the door of my dungeon creaked, and two villain monks entered. They would have persuaded me I was in purgatory, but I knew too well the pursy short-breathed voice of the Father Abbot.--Saint Jeremy! how different from that tone with which he used to ask me for another slice of the haunch!--the dog has feasted with me from Christmas to Twelfth-night." "Have patience, noble Athelstane," said the King, "take breath--tell your story at leisure--beshrew me but such a tale is as well worth listening to as a romance." "Ay but, by the rood of Bromeholm, there was no romance in the matter!" said Athelstane.--"A barley loaf and a pitcher of water--that THEY gave me, the niggardly traitors, whom my father, and I myself, had enriched, when their best resources were the flitches of bacon and measures of corn, out of which they wheedled poor serfs and bondsmen, in exchange for their prayers--the nest of foul ungrateful vipers--barley bread and ditch water to such a patron as I had been! I will smoke them out of their nest, though I be excommunicated!" "But, in the name of Our Lady, noble Athelstane," said Cedric, grasping the hand of his friend, "how didst thou escape this imminent danger--did their hearts relent?" "Did their hearts relent!" echoed Athelstane.--"Do rocks melt with the sun? I should have been there still, had not some stir in the Convent, which I find was their procession hitherward to eat my funeral feast, when they well knew how and where I had been buried alive, summoned the swarm out of their hive. I heard them droning out their death-psalms, little judging they were sung in respect for my soul by those who were thus famishing my body. They went, however, and I waited long for food--no wonder--the gouty Sacristan was even too busy with his own provender to mind mine. At length down he came, with an unstable step and a strong flavour of wine and spices about his person. Good cheer had opened his heart, for he left me a nook of pasty and a flask of wine, instead of my former fare. I ate, drank, and was invigorated; when, to add to my good luck, the Sacristan, too totty to discharge his duty of turnkey fitly, locked the door beside the staple, so that it fell ajar. The light, the food, the wine, set my invention to work. The staple to which my chains were fixed, was more rusted than I or the villain Abbot had supposed. Even iron could not remain without consuming in the damps of that infernal dungeon." "Take breath, noble Athelstane," said Richard, "and partake of some refreshment, ere you proceed with a tale so dreadful." "Partake!" quoth Athelstane; "I have been partaking five times to-day--and yet a morsel of that savoury ham were not altogether foreign to the matter; and I pray you, fair sir, to do me reason in a cup of wine." The guests, though still agape with astonishment, pledged their resuscitated landlord, who thus proceeded in his story:--He had indeed now many more auditors than those to whom it was commenced, for Edith, having given certain necessary orders for arranging matters within the Castle, had followed the dead-alive up to the stranger's apartment attended by as many of the guests, male and female, as could squeeze into the small room, while others, crowding the staircase, caught up an erroneous edition of the story, and transmitted it still more inaccurately to those beneath, who again sent it forth to the vulgar without, in a fashion totally irreconcilable to the real fact. Athelstane, however, went on as follows, with the history of his escape:-- "Finding myself freed from the staple, I dragged myself up stairs as well as a man loaded with shackles, and emaciated with fasting, might; and after much groping about, I was at length directed, by the sound of a jolly roundelay, to the apartment where the worthy Sacristan, an it so please ye, was holding a devil's mass with a huge beetle-browed, broad-shouldered brother of the grey-frock and cowl, who looked much more like a thief than a clergyman. I burst in upon them, and the fashion of my grave-clothes, as well as the clanking of my chains, made me more resemble an inhabitant of the other world than of this. Both stood aghast; but when I knocked down the Sacristan with my fist, the other fellow, his pot-companion, fetched a blow at me with a huge quarter-staff." "This must be our Friar Tuck, for a count's ransom," said Richard, looking at Ivanhoe. "He may be the devil, an he will," said Athelstane. "Fortunately he missed the aim; and on my approaching to grapple with him, took to his heels and ran for it. I failed not to set my own heels at liberty by means of the fetter-key, which hung amongst others at the sexton's belt; and I had thoughts of beating out the knave's brains with the bunch of keys, but gratitude for the nook of pasty and the flask of wine which the rascal had imparted to my captivity, came over my heart; so, with a brace of hearty kicks, I left him on the floor, pouched some baked meat, and a leathern bottle of wine, with which the two venerable brethren had been regaling, went to the stable, and found in a private stall mine own best palfrey, which, doubtless, had been set apart for the holy Father Abbot's particular use. Hither I came with all the speed the beast could compass--man and mother's son flying before me wherever I came, taking me for a spectre, the more especially as, to prevent my being recognised, I drew the corpse-hood over my face. I had not gained admittance into my own castle, had I not been supposed to be the attendant of a juggler who is making the people in the castle-yard very merry, considering they are assembled to celebrate their lord's funeral--I say the sewer thought I was dressed to bear a part in the tregetour's mummery, and so I got admission, and did but disclose myself to my mother, and eat a hasty morsel, ere I came in quest of you, my noble friend." "And you have found me," said Cedric, "ready to resume our brave projects of honour and liberty. I tell thee, never will dawn a morrow so auspicious as the next, for the deliverance of the noble Saxon race." "Talk not to me of delivering any one," said Athelstane; "it is well I am delivered myself. I am more intent on punishing that villain Abbot. He shall hang on the top of this Castle of Coningsburgh, in his cope and stole; and if the stairs be too strait to admit his fat carcass, I will have him craned up from without." "But, my son," said Edith, "consider his sacred office." "Consider my three days' fast," replied Athelstane; "I will have their blood every one of them. Front-de-Boeuf was burnt alive for a less matter, for he kept a good table for his prisoners, only put too much garlic in his last dish of pottage. But these hypocritical, ungrateful slaves, so often the self-invited flatterers at my board, who gave me neither pottage nor garlic, more or less, they die, by the soul of Hengist!" "But the Pope, my noble friend,"--said Cedric-- "But the devil, my noble friend,"--answered Athelstane; "they die, and no more of them. Were they the best monks upon earth, the world would go on without them." "For shame, noble Athelstane," said Cedric; "forget such wretches in the career of glory which lies open before thee. Tell this Norman prince, Richard of Anjou, that, lion-hearted as he is, he shall not hold undisputed the throne of Alfred, while a male descendant of the Holy Confessor lives to dispute it." "How!" said Athelstane, "is this the noble King Richard?" "It is Richard Plantagenet himself," said Cedric; "yet I need not remind thee that, coming hither a guest of free-will, he may neither be injured nor detained prisoner--thou well knowest thy duty to him as his host." "Ay, by my faith!" said Athelstane; "and my duty as a subject besides, for I here tender him my allegiance, heart and hand." "My son," said Edith, "think on thy royal rights!" "Think on the freedom of England, degenerate Prince!" said Cedric. "Mother and friend," said Athelstane, "a truce to your upbraidings--bread and water and a dungeon are marvellous mortifiers of ambition, and I rise from the tomb a wiser man than I descended into it. One half of those vain follies were puffed into mine ear by that perfidious Abbot Wolfram, and you may now judge if he is a counsellor to be trusted. Since these plots were set in agitation, I have had nothing but hurried journeys, indigestions, blows and bruises, imprisonments and starvation; besides that they can only end in the murder of some thousands of quiet folk. I tell you, I will be king in my own domains, and nowhere else; and my first act of dominion shall be to hang the Abbot." "And my ward Rowena," said Cedric--"I trust you intend not to desert her?" "Father Cedric," said Athelstane, "be reasonable. The Lady Rowena cares not for me--she loves the little finger of my kinsman Wilfred's glove better than my whole person. There she stands to avouch it--Nay, blush not, kinswoman, there is no shame in loving a courtly knight better than a country franklin--and do not laugh neither, Rowena, for grave-clothes and a thin visage are, God knows, no matter of merriment--Nay, an thou wilt needs laugh, I will find thee a better jest--Give me thy hand, or rather lend it me, for I but ask it in the way of friendship.--Here, cousin Wilfred of Ivanhoe, in thy favour I renounce and abjure---Hey! by Saint Dunstan, our cousin Wilfred hath vanished!--Yet, unless my eyes are still dazzled with the fasting I have undergone, I saw him stand there but even now." All now looked around and enquired for Ivanhoe, but he had vanished. It was at length discovered that a Jew had been to seek him; and that, after very brief conference, he had called for Gurth and his armour, and had left the castle. "Fair cousin," said Athelstane to Rowena, "could I think that this sudden disappearance of Ivanhoe was occasioned by other than the weightiest reason, I would myself resume--" But he had no sooner let go her hand, on first observing that Ivanhoe had disappeared, than Rowena, who had found her situation extremely embarrassing, had taken the first opportunity to escape from the apartment. "Certainly," quoth Athelstane, "women are the least to be trusted of all animals, monks and abbots excepted. I am an infidel, if I expected not thanks from her, and perhaps a kiss to boot--These cursed grave-clothes have surely a spell on them, every one flies from me.--To you I turn, noble King Richard, with the vows of allegiance, which, as a liege-subject--" But King Richard was gone also, and no one knew whither. At length it was learned that he had hastened to the court-yard, summoned to his presence the Jew who had spoken with Ivanhoe, and after a moment's speech with him, had called vehemently to horse, thrown himself upon a steed, compelled the Jew to mount another, and set off at a rate, which, according to Wamba, rendered the old Jew's neck not worth a penny's purchase. "By my halidome!" said Athelstane, "it is certain that Zernebock hath possessed himself of my castle in my absence. I return in my grave-clothes, a pledge restored from the very sepulchre, and every one I speak to vanishes as soon as they hear my voice!--But it skills not talking of it. Come, my friends--such of you as are left, follow me to the banquet-hall, lest any more of us disappear--it is, I trust, as yet tolerably furnished, as becomes the obsequies of an ancient Saxon noble; and should we tarry any longer, who knows but the devil may fly off with the supper?" 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.

Wir kehren zurück zu Scotts "Old Play" für das Epigraph dieses Kapitels. Der Sprecher dieser Zeilen beschreibt eine Trauer-Zeremonie. König Richard und Ivanhoe betreten das Coningsburgh Castle. Bei Athelstanes Beerdigung sind etwa ein Dutzend Vertreter alter sächsischer Familien aus der Gegend anwesend. Als König Richard den Raum betritt, erkennt Cedric ihn als den Schwarzen Ritter. Ivanhoe versteckt seine Identität vor seinem Vater. Cedric führt die beiden Männer in eine Kapelle, in der sich eine Frau in Schwarz befindet. Dies ist Edith, Athelstanes Mutter. Cedric stellt Edith den "ehrenwerten Fremden" vor. Er lenkt besonders ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf den Schwarzen Ritter, als edlen Verteidiger der Sachsen. Cedric führt seine beiden Gäste in einen anderen Raum. Dort befinden sich etwa zwanzig sächsische Frauen. Rowena und drei andere Mädchen singen ein Gebet für Athelstanes Seele. Anschließend führt Cedric die beiden Männer in einen Raum, in dem sie übernachten können. Der Schwarze Ritter erinnert Cedric daran, dass er ihm einen Gefallen schuldet. Dann offenbart der Schwarze Ritter, dass er König Richard I. ist. Cedric weigert sich, vor einem Normannen zu knien. König Richard verspricht, dass er sowohl König der Normannen als auch der Sachsen ist. Er ist nicht der rechtmäßige König von England, erwidert Cedric. König Richard fragt, ob Cedric noch andere Optionen im Sinn hat. Cedric ist wütend, dass König Richard ihn mit Athelstanes Tod verspottet, da Athelstane das letzte lebende sächsische Königshaus war. Cedric erkennt, dass König Richard König bleibt, egal was er sagt. König Richard ruft seinen Gefallen ein. Er möchte, dass Cedric seinem Sohn vergibt. Cedric erkennt dann, dass sein zweiter Gast niemand anders als Ivanhoe ist. Ivanhoe wirft sich vor die Füße seines Vaters. Cedric stimmt zu, seinem Sohn zu verzeihen. Aber er erinnert Ivanhoe daran, dass Rowena gemäß sächsischem Brauch zwei Jahre lang in Trauer bleiben muss. In diesem Moment taucht aus dem Nichts... Athelstane auf! Er lebt! Er erzählt seine Geschichte: Athelstane wurde nicht von Bois-Guilbert getötet, sondern nur bewusstlos geschlagen. Er wacht in einem offenen Sarg in der nahegelegenen Kirche St. Edmund's auf. Anstatt ihn gehen zu lassen, halten ihn die Mönche der Kirche gefangen. Da Athelstane keinen Erben hat, glauben die Mönche, sie könnten sein Vermögen erben. Natürlich können sie nicht erben, solange Athelstane noch am Leben ist, daher die erzwungene Gefangenschaft. Athelstane sitzt drei Tage im Keller der Kirche, an die Wand gekettet und trinkt nur Brot und Wasser. Als die Mönche ihre Kirche verlassen, um an Athelstanes Beerdigung teilzunehmen, kommt ein betrunkener Mönch die Treppe hinunter. Er lässt Wein und Fleisch für Athelstane zurück, anstelle von Wasser und Brot. Ermutigt durch dieses bessere Essen beginnt Athelstane an seinen Ketten zu ziehen und schließlich befreit er sich. Athelstane schleicht nach oben und findet zwei Männer beim Trinken. Einer von ihnen ist der Vogelfreie Mönch, der versucht, Athelstane zu schlagen. Athelstane schlägt ihn bewusstlos und stiehlt ein Pferd aus dem Stall, um zu entkommen. Nun möchte Athelstane die Mönche der Kirche St. Edmund töten, um sich zu rächen. Cedric stellt Athelstane König Richard vor. Athelstane schwört dem König sofort Loyalität. Athelstanes Mutter und Cedric sind beide wütend, dass er nicht versucht, seinen rechtmäßigen Thron zurückzugewinnen. Aber Athelstane will nichts mit Plänen für das Königreich zu tun haben. Das ist es, was ihn überhaupt von den Mönchen gefangen genommen hat. Er möchte nur ein bequemes Leben auf seinen eigenen Ländereien führen. Athelstane erzählt Cedric, dass Rowena in Ivanhoe verliebt ist. Als sie sich alle umschauen, sehen sie, dass Ivanhoe verschwunden ist. Offenbar kam ein jüdischer Mann mit einer Nachricht für ihn vorbei. Ivanhoe zog seine Rüstung an, nahm Gurth und verließ das Schloss. Rowena ist so peinlich berührt von Athelstanes Enthüllung ihrer Gefühle für Ivanhoe, dass sie den Raum verlässt. König Richard, der herausfindet, wohin Ivanhoe gegangen ist, geht ebenfalls.

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 II. Ein Lager in der Nähe von Forres. (Ein Alarm ertönt. König Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox und ihre Gefolgsleute treten auf und treffen auf einen blutenden Soldaten.) DUNCAN. Wer ist dieser blutige Mann? Er kann berichten, wie es scheint, vom Aufstand, dem neuesten Stand. MALCOLM. Das ist der Sergeant, der wie ein guter und tapferer Soldat kämpfte gegen meine Gefangenschaft. Hail, tapferer Freund! Sag dem König von den Ereignissen des Kampfes, so wie du es zurückgelassen hast. SOLDAT. Es stand auf Messers Schneide; wie zwei erschöpfte Schwimmer, die sich aneinander klammern und ihre Kräfte aufbrauchen. Der gnadenlose Macdonwald, - würdig gegenüber, ein Rebell zu sein, - denn die vervielfältigten Schurkereien der Natur stürzen sich auf ihn - aus den westlichen Inseln werden ihm Krieger und Söldner gestellt; und das Schicksal, das über seinen verdammten Streit lächelt, zeigte sich wie eine Hure eines Rebellen. Aber das alles ist zu schwach; denn der tapfere Macbeth - ja, er verdient diesen Namen - verachtet das Schicksal, mit seinem gezückten Stahl, der mit blutiger Ausführung dampfte, schnitzte er sich seinen Weg, bis er dem Sklaven begegnete; und er schüttelte ihm nicht die Hand, sagte ihm nicht Lebewohl, bis er ihn vom Bauchnabel bis zum Kinn öffnete und seinen Kopf auf unsere Festungsmauern setzte. DUNCAN. Oh tapferer Cousin! Würdiger Gentleman! SOLDAT. So wie der Sonnenaufgang seine Reflexion zeigt und schiffbrüchige Stürme und schreckliches Donnergrollen auslöst; genauso aus dieser Quelle, von der Trost zu kommen schien, schwillt das Unbehagen an. Merke, König von Schottland, merke: Kaum hatte die Gerechtigkeit, mit bewaffneter Tapferkeit, diese flinken Krieger gezwungen, auf ihre Fersen zu vertrauen, da begann der norwegische Lord, günstige Umstände prüfend, mit polierten Waffen und neuen Truppenverstärkungen, einen neuen Angriff. DUNCAN. Hat das unsere Hauptleute, Macbeth und Banquo, entmutigt? SOLDAT. Ja; wie Spatzen gegen Adler oder die Hasen gegen den Löwen. Wenn ich die Wahrheit sage, dann muss ich berichten, dass sie wie Kanonen waren, überladen mit doppelten Schüssen; sie verdoppelten ihre Schläge gegen den Feind: Es sei denn, sie wollten sich in blutigen Wunden baden oder ein weiteres Golgatha gedenken, das kann ich nicht sagen: - Aber ich bin schwach; meine Wunden schreien nach Hilfe. DUNCAN. Deine Worte passen so gut zu dir wie deine Wunden; sie zeugen von Ehre zugleich. - Geh, hol ihm Chirurgen. (Der Soldat verlässt die Szene, begleitet von Gefolgsleuten.) Wer kommt hier? MALCOLM. Der verdienstvolle Thane von Ross. LENNOX. Welche Eile sieht man in seinen Augen! So sollte er aussehen, der seltsame Dinge zu berichten scheint. (Ross betritt die Szene.) ROSS. Gott schütze den König! DUNCAN. Woher kommst du, verdienstvoller Thane? ROSS. Aus Fife, großer König; wo die norwegischen Banner den Himmel verspotten und unser Volk frieren lassen. Der Norweger selbst, mit entsetzlichen Zahlen, unterstützt von dem treulosesten Verräter dem Thane von Cawdor, begann einen düsteren Konflikt; bis Bellonas Bräutigam, eingewickelt in seine Balance, sich ihm mit selbstvergleichenden Argumenten stellte, Punkt für Punkt rebellisch, Arm gegen Arm, und seinen verschwenderischen Geist kontrollierte: und um es abzuschließen, fiel der Sieg an uns. DUNCAN. Großes Glück! ROSS. Jetzt verlangt Sweno, der König von Norwegen, nach einem Kompromiss; und wir würden ihm kein Begräbnis für seine Männer gewähren bis er, am Saint Colme's-inche, zehntausend Dollar zu unserem allgemeinen Gebrauch ausschütte. DUNCAN. Dieser Thane von Cawdor wird uns nicht mehr täuschen, unserem Herzen zugute - verkünde seinen Tod, und begrüße Macbeth mit seinem früheren Titel. ROSS. Ich werde es erledigen. DUNCAN. Das, was er verloren hat, hat der edle Macbeth gewonnen. (Sie gehen ab.) Kannst du eine passende Zusammenfassung der oben genannten 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.

Duncan, seine beiden Söhne und Lennox verbringen Zeit mit ihren Begleitern auf einem Militärlager in Schottland. Die Truppen von König Duncan sind beschäftigt, da sie gegen den König von Norwegen und den Verräter Macdonwald kämpfen. Ein verwundeter Hauptmann kommt frisch vom Schlachtfeld, wo er kämpfte, um Duncans Sohn Malcolm vor Gefangennahme zu retten. Was gibt es Neues? Nun, sagt der Hauptmann, die Schlacht lief schnell schlecht, bis der tapfere Macbeth sich seinen Weg durch die "Masse" an Feindessoldaten gebahnt und den verräterischen Macdonwald entrailt hat. Es wird viel darüber gesprochen, wie mutig Macbeth angesichts scheinbar unmöglicher Widrigkeiten war, und der Hauptmann fährt fort mit seiner Geschichte: Nachdem Macbeth Macdonwalds Eingeweide über den Boden verstreut hatte, flammte die Schlacht erneut auf, als der "norwegische Herr" neue Männer auf das Feld brachte, aber auch das schreckte Macbeth und Banquo nicht ab, die ihre Bemühungen nur verdoppelten. Oh, könnte jemand dem Hauptmann einen Chirurgen holen? Er blutet ziemlich überall. Der Thane von Ross kommt von einer anderen Schlacht, wo auch Macbeth ordentlich aufgeräumt hat. Sweno, der König von Norwegen, darf seine Männer nicht beerdigen, bis er den Schotten zehntausend Dollar übergeben hat. Duncan verkündet dann, dass der verräterische Thane von Cawdor hingerichtet wird und Macbeth, verantwortlich für den Sieg, seinen Titel erhalten soll. Ross wird losgeschickt, um die Nachricht Macbeth mitzuteilen.

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 LIX. The Bulletin. The Duc de Beaufort wrote to Athos. The letter destined for the living only reached the dead. God had changed the address. "MY DEAR COMTE," wrote the prince, in his large, school-boy's hand,--"a great misfortune has struck us amidst a great triumph. The king loses one of the bravest of soldiers. I lose a friend. You lose M. de Bragelonne. He has died gloriously, so gloriously that I have not the strength to weep as I could wish. Receive my sad compliments, my dear comte. Heaven distributes trials according to the greatness of our hearts. This is an immense one, but not above your courage. Your good friend, "LE DUC DE BEAUFORT." The letter contained a relation written by one of the prince's secretaries. It was the most touching recital, and the most true, of that dismal episode which unraveled two existences. D'Artagnan, accustomed to battle emotions, and with a heart armed against tenderness, could not help starting on reading the name of Raoul, the name of that beloved boy who had become a shade now--like his father. "In the morning," said the prince's secretary, "monseigneur commanded the attack. Normandy and Picardy had taken positions in the rocks dominated by the heights of the mountain, upon the declivity of which were raised the bastions of Gigelli. "The cannon opened the action; the regiments marched full of resolution; the pikemen with pikes elevated, the musket-bearers with their weapons ready. The prince followed attentively the march and movements of the troops, so as to be able to sustain them with a strong reserve. With monseigneur were the oldest captains and his aides-de-camp. M. le Vicomte de Bragelonne had received orders not to leave his highness. In the meantime the enemy's cannon, which at first thundered with little success against the masses, began to regulate their fire, and the balls, better directed, killed several men near the prince. The regiments formed in column, and, advancing against the ramparts, were rather roughly handled. There was a sort of hesitation in our troops, who found themselves ill-seconded by the artillery. In fact, the batteries which had been established the evening before had but a weak and uncertain aim, on account of their position. The upward direction of the aim lessened the justness of the shots as well as their range. "Monseigneur, comprehending the bad effect of this position on the siege artillery, commanded the frigates moored in the little road to commence a regular fire against the place. M. de Bragelonne offered himself at once to carry this order. But monseigneur refused to acquiesce in the vicomte's request. Monseigneur was right, for he loved and wished to spare the young nobleman. He was quite right, and the event took upon itself to justify his foresight and refusal; for scarcely had the sergeant charged with the message solicited by M. de Bragelonne gained the seashore, when two shots from long carbines issued from the enemy's ranks and laid him low. The sergeant fell, dyeing the sand with his blood; observing which, M. de Bragelonne smiled at monseigneur, who said to him, 'You see, vicomte, I have saved your life. Report that, some day, to M. le Comte de la Fere, in order that, learning it from you, he may thank me.' The young nobleman smiled sadly, and replied to the duke, 'It is true, monseigneur, that but for your kindness I should have been killed, where the poor sergeant has fallen, and should be at rest.' M. de Bragelonne made this reply in such a tone that monseigneur answered him warmly, '_Vrai Dieu!_ Young man, one would say that your mouth waters for death; but, by the soul of Henry IV., I have promised your father to bring you back alive; and, please the Lord, I mean to keep my word.' "Monseigneur de Bragelonne colored, and replied, in a lower voice, 'Monseigneur, pardon me, I beseech you. I have always had a desire to meet good opportunities; and it is so delightful to distinguish ourselves before our general, particularly when that general is M. le Duc de Beaufort.' "Monseigneur was a little softened by this; and, turning to the officers who surrounded him, gave different orders. The grenadiers of the two regiments got near enough to the ditches and intrenchments to launch their grenades, which had but small effect. In the meanwhile, M. d'Estrees, who commanded the fleet, having seen the attempt of the sergeant to approach the vessels, understood that he must act without orders, and opened fire. Then the Arabs, finding themselves seriously injured by the balls from the fleet, and beholding the destruction and the ruin of their walls, uttered the most fearful cries. Their horsemen descended the mountain at a gallop, bent over their saddles, and rushed full tilt upon the columns of infantry, which, crossing their pikes, stopped this mad assault. Repulsed by the firm attitude of the battalion, the Arabs threw themselves with fury towards the _etat-major_, which was not on its guard at that moment. "The danger was great; monseigneur drew his sword; his secretaries and people imitated him; the officers of the suite engaged in combat with the furious Arabs. It was then M. de Bragelonne was able to satisfy the inclination he had so clearly shown from the commencement of the action. He fought near the prince with the valor of a Roman, and killed three Arabs with his small sword. But it was evident that his bravery did not arise from that sentiment of pride so natural to all who fight. It was impetuous, affected, even forced; he sought to glut, intoxicate himself with strife and carnage. He excited himself to such a degree that monseigneur called to him to stop. He must have heard the voice of monseigneur, because we who were close to him heard it. He did not, however, stop, but continued his course to the intrenchments. As M. de Bragelonne was a well-disciplined officer, this disobedience to the orders of monseigneur very much surprised everybody, and M. de Beaufort redoubled his earnestness, crying, 'Stop, Bragelonne! Where are you going? Stop,' repeated monseigneur, 'I command you!' "We all, imitating the gesture of M. le duc, we all raised our hands. We expected that the cavalier would turn bridle; but M. de Bragelonne continued to ride towards the palisades. "'Stop, Bragelonne!' repeated the prince, in a very loud voice, 'stop! in the name of your father!' "At these words M. de Bragelonne turned round; his countenance expressed a lively grief, but he did not stop; we then concluded that his horse must have run away with him. When M. le duc saw cause to conclude that the vicomte was no longer master of his horse, and had watched him precede the first grenadiers, his highness cried, 'Musketeers, kill his horse! A hundred pistoles for the man who kills his horse!' But who could expect to hit the beast without at least wounding his rider? No one dared the attempt. At length one presented himself; he was a sharp-shooter of the regiment of Picardy, named Luzerne, who took aim at the animal, fired, and hit him in the quarters, for we saw the blood redden the hair of the horse. Instead of falling, the cursed jennet was irritated, and carried him on more furiously than ever. Every Picard who saw this unfortunate young man rushing on to meet certain death, shouted in the loudest manner, 'Throw yourself off, monsieur le vicomte!--off!--off! throw yourself off!' M. de Bragelonne was an officer much beloved in the army. Already had the vicomte arrived within pistol-shot of the ramparts, when a discharge was poured upon him that enshrouded him in fire and smoke. We lost sight of him; the smoke dispersed; he was on foot, upright; his horse was killed. "The vicomte was summoned to surrender by the Arabs, but he made them a negative sign with his head, and continued to march towards the palisades. This was a mortal imprudence. Nevertheless the entire army was pleased that he would not retreat, since ill-chance had led him so near. He marched a few paces further, and the two regiments clapped their hands. It was at this moment the second discharge shook the walls, and the Vicomte de Bragelonne again disappeared in the smoke; but this time the smoke dispersed in vain; we no longer saw him standing. He was down, with his head lower than his legs, among the bushes, and the Arabs began to think of leaving their intrenchments to come and cut off his head or take his body--as is the custom with the infidels. But Monseigneur le Duc de Beaufort had followed all this with his eyes, and the sad spectacle drew from him many painful sighs. He then cried aloud, seeing the Arabs running like white phantoms among the mastic-trees, 'Grenadiers! lancers! will you let them take that noble body?' "Saying these words and waving his sword, he himself rode towards the enemy. The regiments, rushing in his steps, ran in their turn, uttering cries as terrible as those of the Arabs were wild. "The combat commenced over the body of M. de Bragelonne, and with such inveteracy was it fought that a hundred and sixty Arabs were left upon the field, by the side of at least fifty of our troops. It was a lieutenant from Normandy who took the body of the vicomte on his shoulders and carried it back to the lines. The advantage was, however, pursued, the regiments took the reserve with them, and the enemy's palisades were utterly destroyed. At three o'clock the fire of the Arabs ceased; the hand-to-hand fight lasted two hours; it was a massacre. At five o'clock we were victorious at all points; the enemy had abandoned his positions, and M. le duc ordered the white flag to be planted on the summit of the little mountain. It was then we had time to think of M. de Bragelonne, who had eight large wounds in his body, through which almost all his blood had welled away. Still, however, he had breathed, which afforded inexpressible joy to monseigneur, who insisted on being present at the first dressing of the wounds and the consultation of the surgeons. There were two among them who declared M. de Bragelonne would live. Monseigneur threw his arms around their necks, and promised them a thousand louis each if they could save him. "The vicomte heard these transports of joy, and whether he was in despair, or whether he suffered much from his wounds, he expressed by his countenance a contradiction, which gave rise to reflection, particularly in one of the secretaries when he had heard what follows. The third surgeon was the brother of Sylvain de Saint-Cosme, the most learned of them all. He probed the wounds in his turn, and said nothing. M. de Bragelonne fixed his eyes steadily upon the skillful surgeon, and seemed to interrogate his every movement. The latter, upon being questioned by monseigneur, replied that he saw plainly three mortal wounds out of eight, but so strong was the constitution of the wounded, so rich was he in youth, and so merciful was the goodness of God, that perhaps M. de Bragelonne might recover, particularly if he did not move in the slightest manner. Frere Sylvain added, turning towards his assistants, 'Above everything, do not allow him to move, even a finger, or you will kill him;' and we all left the tent in very low spirits. That secretary I have mentioned, on leaving the tent, thought he perceived a faint and sad smile glide over the lips of M. de Bragelonne when the duke said to him, in a cheerful, kind voice, 'We will save you, vicomte, we will save you yet.' "In the evening, when it was believed the wounded youth had taken some repose, one of the assistants entered his tent, but rushed out again immediately, uttering loud cries. We all ran up in disorder, M. le duc with us, and the assistant pointed to the body of M. de Bragelonne upon the ground, at the foot of his bed, bathed in the remainder of his blood. It appeared that he had suffered some convulsion, some delirium, and that he had fallen; that the fall had accelerated his end, according to the prognosis of Frere Sylvain. We raised the vicomte; he was cold and dead. He held a lock of fair hair in his right hand, and that hand was tightly pressed upon his heart." Then followed the details of the expedition, and of the victory obtained over the Arabs. D'Artagnan stopped at the account of the death of poor Raoul. "Oh!" murmured he, "unhappy boy! a suicide!" And turning his eyes towards the chamber of the chateau, in which Athos slept in eternal sleep, "They kept their words with each other," said he, in a low voice; "now I believe them to be happy; they must be reunited." And he returned through the parterre with slow and melancholy steps. All the village--all the neighborhood--were filled with grieving neighbors relating to each other the double catastrophe, and making preparations for the funeral. 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.

Wir erhalten eine Kopie des Briefes, den Beaufort an Athos geschrieben hat. Beaufort schreibt, dass Raoul glorreich gestorben ist und fügt einen Bericht über den Tod bei. Es läuft wie folgt ab: Der Angriff begann am Morgen. Gemäß den Anweisungen bleibt Raoul in der Nähe von Beaufort. Als eine Aufgabe, bei der er schwerem Beschuss ausgesetzt wäre, erledigt werden muss, meldet sich Raoul freiwillig. Beaufort lehnt ab und versucht, den jungen Mann zu schonen. Der Mann, der die Aufgabe übernimmt, wird schließlich getötet. Beaufort bittet Raoul, dies zur Kenntnis zu nehmen, da er Athos versprochen hat, ihn lebend zurückzubringen. Die feindlichen Truppen werden bombardiert und schließlich verlassen sie das Fort, um am Boden zu kämpfen. Das Korps befindet sich im Kampf. Raoul ist Teil der Gruppe, die Beaufort umgibt. Raoul tötet drei Soldaten. Beaufort befiehlt ihm aufzuhören, aber Raoul reitet zum Fort. Alle schreien ihn an, anzuhalten, und als er das nicht tut, nehmen sie an, dass sein Pferd mit ihm durchgeht. Sie zielen auf das Pferd, schießen aber vor Angst, Raoul zu treffen, nicht. Schließlich trifft ein Scharfschütze das Pferd. Raoul läuft weiter zu Fuß zum Fort. Raoul geht zu Boden, als das Fort getroffen wird. Und so beginnt der Kampf um Raouls Leichnam: Die Araber wollen ihn, aber die Franzosen weigern sich, ihn ihnen zu überlassen. Sie kämpfen miteinander. Schließlich bergen sie Raouls Leichnam. Er ist auf wundersame Weise am Leben, hat aber viel Blut verloren. Die Ärzte prognostizieren, dass er sich vollständig erholen wird, wenn er sich ausruht und keinen Finger rührt. Später in dieser Nacht findet ein Assistent Raoul tot am Boden, ein Haarbüschel fest an sein Herz gedrückt. Voller Trauer stellt D'Artagnan fest, dass Vater und Sohn endlich wieder vereint sein müssen.

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 ask your pardon once more," said Candide to the Baron, "your pardon, reverend father, for having run you through the body." "Say no more about it," answered the Baron. "I was a little too hasty, I own, but since you wish to know by what fatality I came to be a galley-slave I will inform you. After I had been cured by the surgeon of the college of the wound you gave me, I was attacked and carried off by a party of Spanish troops, who confined me in prison at Buenos Ayres at the very time my sister was setting out thence. I asked leave to return to Rome to the General of my Order. I was appointed chaplain to the French Ambassador at Constantinople. I had not been eight days in this employment when one evening I met with a young Ichoglan, who was a very handsome fellow. The weather was warm. The young man wanted to bathe, and I took this opportunity of bathing also. I did not know that it was a capital crime for a Christian to be found naked with a young Mussulman. A cadi ordered me a hundred blows on the soles of the feet, and condemned me to the galleys. I do not think there ever was a greater act of injustice. But I should be glad to know how my sister came to be scullion to a Transylvanian prince who has taken shelter among the Turks." "But you, my dear Pangloss," said Candide, "how can it be that I behold you again?" "It is true," said Pangloss, "that you saw me hanged. I should have been burnt, but you may remember it rained exceedingly hard when they were going to roast me; the storm was so violent that they despaired of lighting the fire, so I was hanged because they could do no better. A surgeon purchased my body, carried me home, and dissected me. He began with making a crucial incision on me from the navel to the clavicula. One could not have been worse hanged than I was. The executioner of the Holy Inquisition was a sub-deacon, and knew how to burn people marvellously well, but he was not accustomed to hanging. The cord was wet and did not slip properly, and besides it was badly tied; in short, I still drew my breath, when the crucial incision made me give such a frightful scream that my surgeon fell flat upon his back, and imagining that he had been dissecting the devil he ran away, dying with fear, and fell down the staircase in his flight. His wife, hearing the noise, flew from the next room. She saw me stretched out upon the table with my crucial incision. She was seized with yet greater fear than her husband, fled, and tumbled over him. When they came to themselves a little, I heard the wife say to her husband: 'My dear, how could you take it into your head to dissect a heretic? Do you not know that these people always have the devil in their bodies? I will go and fetch a priest this minute to exorcise him.' At this proposal I shuddered, and mustering up what little courage I had still remaining I cried out aloud, 'Have mercy on me!' At length the Portuguese barber plucked up his spirits. He sewed up my wounds; his wife even nursed me. I was upon my legs at the end of fifteen days. The barber found me a place as lackey to a knight of Malta who was going to Venice, but finding that my master had no money to pay me my wages I entered the service of a Venetian merchant, and went with him to Constantinople. One day I took it into my head to step into a mosque, where I saw an old Iman and a very pretty young devotee who was saying her paternosters. Her bosom was uncovered, and between her breasts she had a beautiful bouquet of tulips, roses, anemones, ranunculus, hyacinths, and auriculas. She dropped her bouquet; I picked it up, and presented it to her with a profound reverence. I was so long in delivering it that the Iman began to get angry, and seeing that I was a Christian he called out for help. They carried me before the cadi, who ordered me a hundred lashes on the soles of the feet and sent me to the galleys. I was chained to the very same galley and the same bench as the young Baron. On board this galley there were four young men from Marseilles, five Neapolitan priests, and two monks from Corfu, who told us similar adventures happened daily. The Baron maintained that he had suffered greater injustice than I, and I insisted that it was far more innocent to take up a bouquet and place it again on a woman's bosom than to be found stark naked with an Ichoglan. We were continually disputing, and received twenty lashes with a bull's pizzle when the concatenation of universal events brought you to our galley, and you were good enough to ransom us." "Well, my dear Pangloss," said Candide to him, "when you had been hanged, dissected, whipped, and were tugging at the oar, did you always think that everything happens for the best?" "I am still of my first opinion," answered Pangloss, "for I am a philosopher and I cannot retract, especially as Leibnitz could never be wrong; and besides, the pre-established harmony is the finest thing in the world, and so is his _plenum_ and _materia subtilis_." 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.

Während die Gruppe reist, um Cunegonde zu retten, erzählen der Baron und Pangloss ihre Geschichten. Der Baron hegt keinen Groll gegen Candide, weil er ihn erstochen hat. Nachdem seine Wunde geheilt war, griffen ihn spanische Truppen an und schickten ihn ins Gefängnis nach Buenos Aires. Der Baron kehrte schließlich nach Rom zurück, um seinen Jesuitenorden zu dienen, wurde jedoch nackt beim Baden mit einem jungen Türken erwischt und in die Galeeren geschickt. Der Henker, der Pangloss hängen sollte, war unerfahren im Hängen und machte den Strick schlecht, so dass Pangloss überlebte. Ein Chirurg kaufte Pangloss' Körper zum Sezieren. Nachdem Pangloss aufgeschnitten wurde, kam er wieder zu Bewusstsein und der überraschte Chirurg nähte ihn wieder zu. Pangloss reiste dann nach Konstantinopel. Er betrat eine Moschee und sah eine hübsche junge Frau ihr Blumensträußchen aus ihrem Busen fallen lassen. Pangloss hob es auf und legte es "mit den respektvollsten Aufmerksamkeiten" zurück in ihren Busen. Ihr männlicher Begleiter dachte, er würde zu lange damit dauern, also ließ er Pangloss verhaften. Pangloss wurde dann ausgepeitscht und in die Galeeren geschickt. Dennoch glaubt er immer noch, dass die vorgegebene Harmonie die "schönste Vorstellung der Welt" 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: IT was late June, almost July, when Corey took up his life in Boston again, where the summer slips away so easily. If you go out of town early, it seems a very long summer when you come back in October; but if you stay, it passes swiftly, and, seen foreshortened in its flight, seems scarcely a month's length. It has its days of heat, when it is very hot, but for the most part it is cool, with baths of the east wind that seem to saturate the soul with delicious freshness. Then there are stretches of grey westerly weather, when the air is full of the sentiment of early autumn, and the frying, of the grasshopper in the blossomed weed of the vacant lots on the Back Bay is intershot with the carol of crickets; and the yellowing leaf on the long slope of Mt. Vernon Street smites the sauntering observer with tender melancholy. The caterpillar, gorged with the spoil of the lindens on Chestnut, and weaving his own shroud about him in his lodgment on the brick-work, records the passing of summer by mid-July; and if after that comes August, its breath is thick and short, and September is upon the sojourner before he has fairly had time to philosophise the character of the town out of season. But it must have appeared that its most characteristic feature was the absence of everybody he knew. This was one of the things that commended Boston to Bromfield Corey during the summer; and if his son had any qualms about the life he had entered upon with such vigour, it must have been a relief to him that there was scarcely a soul left to wonder or pity. By the time people got back to town the fact of his connection with the mineral paint man would be an old story, heard afar off with different degrees of surprise, and considered with different degrees of indifference. A man has not reached the age of twenty-six in any community where he was born and reared without having had his capacity pretty well ascertained; and in Boston the analysis is conducted with an unsparing thoroughness which may fitly impress the un-Bostonian mind, darkened by the popular superstition that the Bostonians blindly admire one another. A man's qualities are sifted as closely in Boston as they doubtless were in Florence or Athens; and, if final mercy was shown in those cities because a man was, with all his limitations, an Athenian or Florentine, some abatement might as justly be made in Boston for like reason. Corey's powers had been gauged in college, and he had not given his world reason to think very differently of him since he came out of college. He was rated as an energetic fellow, a little indefinite in aim, with the smallest amount of inspiration that can save a man from being commonplace. If he was not commonplace, it was through nothing remarkable in his mind, which was simply clear and practical, but through some combination of qualities of the heart that made men trust him, and women call him sweet--a word of theirs which conveys otherwise indefinable excellences. Some of the more nervous and excitable said that Tom Corey was as sweet as he could live; but this perhaps meant no more than the word alone. No man ever had a son less like him than Bromfield Corey. If Tom Corey had ever said a witty thing, no one could remember it; and yet the father had never said a witty thing to a more sympathetic listener than his own son. The clear mind which produced nothing but practical results reflected everything with charming lucidity; and it must have been this which endeared Tom Corey to every one who spoke ten words with him. In a city where people have good reason for liking to shine, a man who did not care to shine must be little short of universally acceptable without any other effort for popularity; and those who admired and enjoyed Bromfield Corey loved his son. Yet, when it came to accounting for Tom Corey, as it often did in a community where every one's generation is known to the remotest degrees of cousinship, they could not trace his sweetness to his mother, for neither Anna Bellingham nor any of her family, though they were so many blocks of Wenham ice for purity and rectangularity, had ever had any such savour; and, in fact, it was to his father, whose habit of talk wronged it in himself, that they had to turn for this quality of the son's. They traced to the mother the traits of practicality and common-sense in which he bordered upon the commonplace, and which, when they had dwelt upon them, made him seem hardly worth the close inquiry they had given him. While the summer wore away he came and went methodically about his business, as if it had been the business of his life, sharing his father's bachelor liberty and solitude, and expecting with equal patience the return of his mother and sisters in the autumn. Once or twice he found time to run down to Mt. Desert and see them; and then he heard how the Philadelphia and New York people were getting in everywhere, and was given reason to regret the house at Nahant which he had urged to be sold. He came back and applied himself to his desk with a devotion that was exemplary rather than necessary; for Lapham made no difficulty about the brief absences which he asked, and set no term to the apprenticeship that Corey was serving in the office before setting off upon that mission to South America in the early winter, for which no date had yet been fixed. The summer was a dull season for the paint as well as for everything else. Till things should brisk up, as Lapham said, in the fall, he was letting the new house take a great deal of his time. AEsthetic ideas had never been intelligibly presented to him before, and he found a delight in apprehending them that was very grateful to his imaginative architect. At the beginning, the architect had foreboded a series of mortifying defeats and disastrous victories in his encounters with his client; but he had never had a client who could be more reasonably led on from one outlay to another. It appeared that Lapham required but to understand or feel the beautiful effect intended, and he was ready to pay for it. His bull-headed pride was concerned in a thing which the architect made him see, and then he believed that he had seen it himself, perhaps conceived it. In some measure the architect seemed to share his delusion, and freely said that Lapham was very suggestive. Together they blocked out windows here, and bricked them up there; they changed doors and passages; pulled down cornices and replaced them with others of different design; experimented with costly devices of decoration, and went to extravagant lengths in novelties of finish. Mrs. Lapham, beginning with a woman's adventurousness in the unknown region, took fright at the reckless outlay at last, and refused to let her husband pass a certain limit. He tried to make her believe that a far-seeing economy dictated the expense; and that if he put the money into the house, he could get it out any time by selling it. She would not be persuaded. "I don't want you should sell it. And you've put more money into it now than you'll ever get out again, unless you can find as big a goose to buy it, and that isn't likely. No, sir! You just stop at a hundred thousand, and don't you let him get you a cent beyond. Why, you're perfectly bewitched with that fellow! You've lost your head, Silas Lapham, and if you don't look out you'll lose your money too." The Colonel laughed; he liked her to talk that way, and promised he would hold up a while. "But there's no call to feel anxious, Pert. It's only a question what to do with the money. I can reinvest it; but I never had so much of it to spend before." "Spend it, then," said his wife; "don't throw it away! And how came you to have so much more money than you know what to do with, Silas Lapham?" she added. "Oh, I've made a very good thing in stocks lately." "In stocks? When did you take up gambling for a living?" "Gambling? Stuff! What gambling? Who said it was gambling?" "You have; many a time." "Oh yes, buying and selling on a margin. But this was a bona fide transaction. I bought at forty-three for an investment, and I sold at a hundred and seven; and the money passed both times." "Well, you better let stocks alone," said his wife, with the conservatism of her sex. "Next time you'll buy at a hundred and seven and sell at forty three. Then where'll you be?" "Left," admitted the Colonel. "You better stick to paint a while yet." The Colonel enjoyed this too, and laughed again with the ease of a man who knows what he is about. A few days after that he came down to Nantasket with the radiant air which he wore when he had done a good thing in business and wanted his wife's sympathy. He did not say anything of what had happened till he was alone with her in their own room; but he was very gay the whole evening, and made several jokes which Penelope said nothing but very great prosperity could excuse: they all understood these moods of his. "Well, what is it, Silas?" asked his wife when the time came. "Any more big-bugs wanting to go into the mineral paint business with you?" "Something better than that." "I could think of a good many better things," said his wife, with a sigh of latent bitterness. "What's this one?" "I've had a visitor." "Who?" "Can't you guess?" "I don't want to try. Who was it?" "Rogers." Mrs. Lapham sat down with her hands in her lap, and stared at the smile on her husband's face, where he sat facing her. "I guess you wouldn't want to joke on that subject, Si," she said, a little hoarsely, "and you wouldn't grin about it unless you had some good news. I don't know what the miracle is, but if you could tell quick----" She stopped like one who can say no more. "I will, Persis," said her husband, and with that awed tone in which he rarely spoke of anything but the virtues of his paint. "He came to borrow money of me, and I lent him it. That's the short of it. The long----" "Go on," said his wife, with gentle patience. "Well, Pert, I was never so much astonished in my life as I was to see that man come into my office. You might have knocked me down with--I don't know what." "I don't wonder. Go on!" "And he was as much embarrassed as I was. There we stood, gaping at each other, and I hadn't hardly sense enough to ask him to take a chair. I don't know just how we got at it. And I don't remember just how it was that he said he came to come to me. But he had got hold of a patent right that he wanted to go into on a large scale, and there he was wanting me to supply him the funds." "Go on!" said Mrs. Lapham, with her voice further in her throat. "I never felt the way you did about Rogers, but I know how you always did feel, and I guess I surprised him with my answer. He had brought along a lot of stock as security----" "You didn't take it, Silas!" his wife flashed out. "Yes, I did, though," said Lapham. "You wait. We settled our business, and then we went into the old thing, from the very start. And we talked it all over. And when we got through we shook hands. Well, I don't know when it's done me so much good to shake hands with anybody." "And you told him--you owned up to him that you were in the wrong, Silas?" "No, I didn't," returned the Colonel promptly; "for I wasn't. And before we got through, I guess he saw it the same as I did." "Oh, no matter! so you had the chance to show how you felt." "But I never felt that way," persisted the Colonel. "I've lent him the money, and I've kept his stocks. And he got what he wanted out of me." "Give him back his stocks!" "No, I shan't. Rogers came to borrow. He didn't come to beg. You needn't be troubled about his stocks. They're going to come up in time; but just now they're so low down that no bank would take them as security, and I've got to hold them till they do rise. I hope you're satisfied now, Persis," said her husband; and he looked at her with the willingness to receive the reward of a good action which we all feel when we have performed one. "I lent him the money you kept me from spending on the house." "Truly, Si? Well, I'm satisfied," said Mrs. Lapham, with a deep tremulous breath. "The Lord has been good to you, Silas," she continued solemnly. "You may laugh if you choose, and I don't know as I believe in his interfering a great deal; but I believe he's interfered this time; and I tell you, Silas, it ain't always he gives people a chance to make it up to others in this life. I've been afraid you'd die, Silas, before you got the chance; but he's let you live to make it up to Rogers." "I'm glad to be let live," said Lapham stubbornly, "but I hadn't anything to make up to Milton K. Rogers. And if God has let me live for that----" "Oh, say what you please, Si! Say what you please, now you've done it! I shan't stop you. You've taken the one spot--the one SPECK--off you that was ever there, and I'm satisfied." "There wa'n't ever any speck there," Lapham held out, lapsing more and more into his vernacular; "and what I done I done for you, Persis." "And I thank you for your own soul's sake, Silas." "I guess my soul's all right," said Lapham. "And I want you should promise me one thing more." "Thought you said you were satisfied?" "I am. But I want you should promise me this: that you won't let anything tempt you--anything!--to ever trouble Rogers for that money you lent him. No matter what happens--no matter if you lose it all. Do you promise?" "Why, I don't ever EXPECT to press him for it. That's what I said to myself when I lent it. And of course I'm glad to have that old trouble healed up. I don't THINK I ever did Rogers any wrong, and I never did think so; but if I DID do it--IF I did--I'm willing to call it square, if I never see a cent of my money back again." "Well, that's all," said his wife. They did not celebrate his reconciliation with his old enemy--for such they had always felt him to be since he ceased to be an ally--by any show of joy or affection. It was not in their tradition, as stoical for the woman as for the man, that they should kiss or embrace each other at such a moment. She was content to have told him that he had done his duty, and he was content with her saying that. But before she slept she found words to add that she always feared the selfish part he had acted toward Rogers had weakened him, and left him less able to overcome any temptation that might beset him; and that was one reason why she could never be easy about it. Now she should never fear for him again. This time he did not explicitly deny her forgiving impeachment. "Well, it's all past and gone now, anyway; and I don't want you should think anything more about it." He was man enough to take advantage of the high favour in which he stood when he went up to town, and to abuse it by bringing Corey down to supper. His wife could not help condoning the sin of disobedience in him at such a time. Penelope said that between the admiration she felt for the Colonel's boldness and her mother's forbearance, she was hardly in a state to entertain company that evening; but she did what she could. Irene liked being talked to better than talking, and when her sister was by she was always, tacitly or explicitly, referring to her for confirmation of what she said. She was content to sit and look pretty as she looked at the young man and listened to her sister's drolling. She laughed and kept glancing at Corey to make sure that he was understanding her. When they went out on the veranda to see the moon on the water, Penelope led the way and Irene followed. They did not look at the moonlight long. The young man perched on the rail of the veranda, and Irene took one of the red-painted rocking-chairs where she could conveniently look at him and at her sister, who sat leaning forward lazily and running on, as the phrase is. That low, crooning note of hers was delicious; her face, glimpsed now and then in the moonlight as she turned it or lifted it a little, had a fascination which kept his eye. Her talk was very unliterary, and its effect seemed hardly conscious. She was far from epigram in her funning. She told of this trifle and that; she sketched the characters and looks of people who had interested her, and nothing seemed to have escaped her notice; she mimicked a little, but not much; she suggested, and then the affair represented itself as if without her agency. She did not laugh; when Corey stopped she made a soft cluck in her throat, as if she liked his being amused, and went on again. The Colonel, left alone with his wife for the first time since he had come from town, made haste to take the word. "Well, Pert, I've arranged the whole thing with Rogers, and I hope you'll be satisfied to know that he owes me twenty thousand dollars, and that I've got security from him to the amount of a fourth of that, if I was to force his stocks to a sale." "How came he to come down with you?" asked Mrs. Lapham. "Who? Rogers?" "Mr. Corey." "Corey? Oh!" said Lapham, affecting not to have thought she could mean Corey. "He proposed it." "Likely!" jeered his wife, but with perfect amiability. "It's so," protested the Colonel. "We got talking about a matter just before I left, and he walked down to the boat with me; and then he said if I didn't mind he guessed he'd come along down and go back on the return boat. Of course I couldn't let him do that." "It's well for you you couldn't." "And I couldn't do less than bring him here to tea." "Oh, certainly not." "But he ain't going to stay the night--unless," faltered Lapham, "you want him to." "Oh, of course, I want him to! I guess he'll stay, probably." "Well, you know how crowded that last boat always is, and he can't get any other now." Mrs. Lapham laughed at the simple wile. "I hope you'll be just as well satisfied, Si, if it turns out he doesn't want Irene after all." "Pshaw, Persis! What are you always bringing that up for?" pleaded the Colonel. Then he fell silent, and presently his rude, strong face was clouded with an unconscious frown. "There!" cried his wife, startling him from his abstraction. "I see how you'd feel; and I hope that you'll remember who you've got to blame." "I'll risk it," said Lapham, with the confidence of a man used to success. From the veranda the sound of Penelope's lazy tone came through the closed windows, with joyous laughter from Irene and peals from Corey. "Listen to that!" said her father within, swelling up with inexpressible satisfaction. "That girl can talk for twenty, right straight along. She's better than a circus any day. I wonder what she's up to now." "Oh, she's probably getting off some of those yarns of hers, or telling about some people. She can't step out of the house without coming back with more things to talk about than most folks would bring back from Japan. There ain't a ridiculous person she's ever seen but what she's got something from them to make you laugh at; and I don't believe we've ever had anybody in the house since the girl could talk that she hain't got some saying from, or some trick that'll paint 'em out so't you can see 'em and hear 'em. Sometimes I want to stop her; but when she gets into one of her gales there ain't any standing up against her. I guess it's lucky for Irene that she's got Pen there to help entertain her company. I can't ever feel down where Pen is." "That's so," said the Colonel. "And I guess she's got about as much culture as any of them. Don't you?" "She reads a great deal," admitted her mother. "She seems to be at it the whole while. I don't want she should injure her health, and sometimes I feel like snatchin' the books away from her. I don't know as it's good for a girl to read so much, anyway, especially novels. I don't want she should get notions." "Oh, I guess Pen'll know how to take care of herself," said Lapham. "She's got sense enough. But she ain't so practical as Irene. She's more up in the clouds--more of what you may call a dreamer. Irene's wide-awake every minute; and I declare, any one to see these two together when there's anything to be done, or any lead to be taken, would say Irene was the oldest, nine times out of ten. It's only when they get to talking that you can see Pen's got twice as much brains." "Well," said Lapham, tacitly granting this point, and leaning back in his chair in supreme content. "Did you ever see much nicer girls anywhere?" His wife laughed at his pride. "I presume they're as much swans as anybody's geese." "No; but honestly, now!" "Oh, they'll do; but don't you be silly, if you can help it, Si." The young people came in, and Corey said it was time for his boat. Mrs. Lapham pressed him to stay, but he persisted, and he would not let the Colonel send him to the boat; he said he would rather walk. Outside, he pushed along toward the boat, which presently he could see lying at her landing in the bay, across the sandy tract to the left of the hotels. From time to time he almost stopped in his rapid walk, as a man does whose mind is in a pleasant tumult; and then he went forward at a swifter pace. "She's charming!" he said, and he thought he had spoken aloud. He found himself floundering about in the deep sand, wide of the path; he got back to it, and reached the boat just before she started. The clerk came to take his fare, and Corey looked radiantly up at him in his lantern-light, with a smile that he must have been wearing a long time; his cheek was stiff with it. Once some people who stood near him edged suddenly and fearfully away, and then he suspected himself of having laughed outright. 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.

Silas gibt zu viel Geld für Erweiterungen des Hauses aus, und Mrs. Lapham hat Einwände. Sie ist sehr erleichtert, als er enthüllt, dass er das übrig gebliebene Geld, das er für das Haus ausgeben wollte, an Rogers verliehen hat, der in irgendein Geschäftsunternehmen investieren möchte. Persis hat auch Einwände gegen Silas' Plan, Tom Corey mit Irene zu verkuppeln, und hat ihm verboten, Tom mit nach Hause zu bringen. Doch Lapham nutzt ihre gute Laune über das Darlehen an Rogers aus, um ihre Geduld zu belasten und bringt Corey zum Essen nach Hause. Als Tom nach einem Gespräch mit Penelope und Irene geht, findet er sich selbst sagen: "Sie ist bezaubernd!" und lacht laut.

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 trees began softly to sing a hymn of twilight. The sun sank until slanted bronze rays struck the forest. There was a lull in the noises of insects as if they had bowed their beaks and were making a devotional pause. There was silence save for the chanted chorus of the trees. Then, upon this stillness, there suddenly broke a tremendous clangor of sounds. A crimson roar came from the distance. The youth stopped. He was transfixed by this terrific medley of all noises. It was as if worlds were being rended. There was the ripping sound of musketry and the breaking crash of the artillery. His mind flew in all directions. He conceived the two armies to be at each other panther fashion. He listened for a time. Then he began to run in the direction of the battle. He saw that it was an ironical thing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid. But he said, in substance, to himself that if the earth and the moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision. As he ran, he became aware that the forest had stopped its music, as if at last becoming capable of hearing the foreign sounds. The trees hushed and stood motionless. Everything seemed to be listening to the crackle and clatter and earshaking thunder. The chorus pealed over the still earth. It suddenly occurred to the youth that the fight in which he had been was, after all, but perfunctory popping. In the hearing of this present din he was doubtful if he had seen real battle scenes. This uproar explained a celestial battle; it was tumbling hordes a-struggle in the air. Reflecting, he saw a sort of a humor in the point of view of himself and his fellows during the late encounter. They had taken themselves and the enemy very seriously and had imagined that they were deciding the war. Individuals must have supposed that they were cutting the letters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of brass, or enshrining their reputations forever in the hearts of their countrymen, while, as to fact, the affair would appear in printed reports under a meek and immaterial title. But he saw that it was good, else, he said, in battle every one would surely run save forlorn hopes and their ilk. He went rapidly on. He wished to come to the edge of the forest that he might peer out. As he hastened, there passed through his mind pictures of stupendous conflicts. His accumulated thought upon such subjects was used to form scenes. The noise was as the voice of an eloquent being, describing. Sometimes the brambles formed chains and tried to hold him back. Trees, confronting him, stretched out their arms and forbade him to pass. After its previous hostility this new resistance of the forest filled him with a fine bitterness. It seemed that Nature could not be quite ready to kill him. But he obstinately took roundabout ways, and presently he was where he could see long gray walls of vapor where lay battle lines. The voices of cannon shook him. The musketry sounded in long irregular surges that played havoc with his ears. He stood regardant for a moment. His eyes had an awestruck expression. He gawked in the direction of the fight. Presently he proceeded again on his forward way. The battle was like the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him. Its complexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him. He must go close and see it produce corpses. He came to a fence and clambered over it. On the far side, the ground was littered with clothes and guns. A newspaper, folded up, lay in the dirt. A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm. Farther off there was a group of four or five corpses keeping mournful company. A hot sun had blazed upon the spot. In this place the youth felt that he was an invader. This forgotten part of the battle ground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, in the vague apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise and tell him to begone. He came finally to a road from which he could see in the distance dark and agitated bodies of troops, smoke-fringed. In the lane was a blood-stained crowd streaming to the rear. The wounded men were cursing, groaning, and wailing. In the air, always, was a mighty swell of sound that it seemed could sway the earth. With the courageous words of the artillery and the spiteful sentences of the musketry mingled red cheers. And from this region of noises came the steady current of the maimed. One of the wounded men had a shoeful of blood. He hopped like a schoolboy in a game. He was laughing hysterically. One was swearing that he had been shot in the arm through the commanding general's mismanagement of the army. One was marching with an air imitative of some sublime drum major. Upon his features was an unholy mixture of merriment and agony. As he marched he sang a bit of doggerel in a high and quavering voice: "Sing a song 'a vic'try, A pocketful 'a bullets, Five an' twenty dead men Baked in a--pie." Parts of the procession limped and staggered to this tune. Another had the gray seal of death already upon his face. His lips were curled in hard lines and his teeth were clinched. His hands were bloody from where he had pressed them upon his wound. He seemed to be awaiting the moment when he should pitch headlong. He stalked like the specter of a soldier, his eyes burning with the power of a stare into the unknown. There were some who proceeded sullenly, full of anger at their wounds, and ready to turn upon anything as an obscure cause. An officer was carried along by two privates. He was peevish. "Don't joggle so, Johnson, yeh fool," he cried. "Think m' leg is made of iron? If yeh can't carry me decent, put me down an' let some one else do it." He bellowed at the tottering crowd who blocked the quick march of his bearers. "Say, make way there, can't yeh? Make way, dickens take it all." They sulkily parted and went to the roadsides. As he was carried past they made pert remarks to him. When he raged in reply and threatened them, they told him to be damned. The shoulder of one of the tramping bearers knocked heavily against the spectral soldier who was staring into the unknown. The youth joined this crowd and marched along with it. The torn bodies expressed the awful machinery in which the men had been entangled. Orderlies and couriers occasionally broke through the throng in the roadway, scattering wounded men right and left, galloping on followed by howls. The melancholy march was continually disturbed by the messengers, and sometimes by bustling batteries that came swinging and thumping down upon them, the officers shouting orders to clear the way. There was a tattered man, fouled with dust, blood and powder stain from hair to shoes, who trudged quietly at the youth's side. He was listening with eagerness and much humility to the lurid descriptions of a bearded sergeant. His lean features wore an expression of awe and admiration. He was like a listener in a country store to wondrous tales told among the sugar barrels. He eyed the story-teller with unspeakable wonder. His mouth was agape in yokel fashion. The sergeant, taking note of this, gave pause to his elaborate history while he administered a sardonic comment. "Be keerful, honey, you 'll be a-ketchin' flies," he said. The tattered man shrank back abashed. After a time he began to sidle near to the youth, and in a different way try to make him a friend. His voice was gentle as a girl's voice and his eyes were pleading. The youth saw with surprise that the soldier had two wounds, one in the head, bound with a blood-soaked rag, and the other in the arm, making that member dangle like a broken bough. After they had walked together for some time the tattered man mustered sufficient courage to speak. "Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he timidly said. The youth, deep in thought, glanced up at the bloody and grim figure with its lamblike eyes. "What?" "Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it? "Yes," said the youth shortly. He quickened his pace. But the other hobbled industriously after him. There was an air of apology in his manner, but he evidently thought that he needed only to talk for a time, and the youth would perceive that he was a good fellow. "Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he began in a small voice, and then he achieved the fortitude to continue. "Dern me if I ever see fellers fight so. Laws, how they did fight! I knowed th' boys 'd like when they onct got square at it. Th' boys ain't had no fair chanct up t' now, but this time they showed what they was. I knowed it 'd turn out this way. Yeh can't lick them boys. No, sir! They're fighters, they be." He breathed a deep breath of humble admiration. He had looked at the youth for encouragement several times. He received none, but gradually he seemed to get absorbed in his subject. "I was talkin' 'cross pickets with a boy from Georgie, onct, an' that boy, he ses, 'Your fellers 'll all run like hell when they onct hearn a gun,' he ses. 'Mebbe they will,' I ses, 'but I don't b'lieve none of it,' I ses; 'an' b'jiminey,' I ses back t' 'um, 'mebbe your fellers 'll all run like hell when they onct hearn a gun,' I ses. He larfed. Well, they didn't run t' day, did they, hey? No, sir! They fit, an' fit, an' fit." His homely face was suffused with a light of love for the army which was to him all things beautiful and powerful. After a time he turned to the youth. "Where yeh hit, ol' boy?" he asked in a brotherly tone. The youth felt instant panic at this question, although at first its full import was not borne in upon him. "What?" he asked. "Where yeh hit?" repeated the tattered man. "Why," began the youth, "I--I--that is--why--I--" He turned away suddenly and slid through the crowd. His brow was heavily flushed, and his fingers were picking nervously at one of his buttons. He bent his head and fastened his eyes studiously upon the button as if it were a little problem. The tattered man looked after him in astonishment. 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.

Henry läuft zurück in die Richtung, aus der er gekommen ist. Der Lärm der Schlacht ist unglaublich. Er erkennt, dass die vorherigen Schlachten im Vergleich dazu nichts sind. Überall liegen tote Männer. Verwundete, blutende Männer hinken umher, heulen und stürzen zu Boden. Er sieht einen verletzten Mann mit einem Schuh voller Blut, der wie "ein Schuljunge in einem Spiel" hüpft und hysterisch lacht. Ein "zerfetzter Mann" klammert sich an Henry und versucht mit ihm zu reden. Er fragt Henry immer wieder, wo er verwundet ist. Henry entfernt sich so weit wie möglich von dem zerfetzten 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. Kapitel: Es geschah, dass Mrs. Pomfret an diesem Donnerstagmorgen einen leichten Streit mit Mrs. Best, der Haushälterin, hatte. Das hatte für Hetty zwei äußerst praktische Konsequenzen. Zum einen ließ sich Mrs. Pomfret Tee auf ihr Zimmer schicken, und zum anderen inspirierte dieser Vorfall die vorbildliche Dienstmagd zu so lebhaften Erinnerungen an frühere Vorkommnisse im Verhalten von Mrs. Best und an Dialoge, in denen Mrs. Best eindeutig im Nachteil gegenüber Mrs. Pomfret war, dass Hetty keine größere Geistesgegenwart benötigte, als für ihre Nadelarbeit und ab und zu ein "Ja" oder "Nein" einzufügen. Sie hätte gerne früher ihren Hut aufgesetzt, nur hatte sie Captain Donnithorne gesagt, dass sie normalerweise um acht Uhr losginge, und wenn er nun wieder zum Grove ginge und sie nicht da wäre! Würde er kommen? Ihre kleine, schmetterlingshafte Seele flatterte unaufhörlich zwischen Erinnerungen und zweifelhaften Erwartungen hin und her. Schließlich stand der Minutenzeiger der altmodischen Mes.. As for Arthur, he rushed back through the wood, as if he wanted to put a wide space between himself and Hetty. He would not go to the Hermitage again; he remembered how he had debated with himself there before dinner, and it had all come to nothing--worse than nothing. He walked right on into the Chase, glad to get out of the Grove, which surely was haunted by his evil genius. Those beeches and smooth limes--there was something enervating in the very sight of them; but the strong knotted old oaks had no bending languor in them--the sight of them would give a man some energy. Arthur lost himself among the narrow openings in the fern, winding about without seeking any issue, till the twilight deepened almost to night under the great boughs, and the hare looked black as it darted across his path. He was feeling much more strongly than he had done in the morning: it was as if his horse had wheeled round from a leap and dared to dispute his mastery. He was dissatisfied with himself, irritated, mortified. He no sooner fixed his mind on the probable consequences of giving way to the emotions which had stolen over him to-day--of continuing to notice Hetty, of allowing himself any opportunity for such slight caresses as he had been betrayed into already--than he refused to believe such a future possible for himself. To flirt with Hetty was a very different affair from flirting with a pretty girl of his own station: that was understood to be an amusement on both sides, or, if it became serious, there was no obstacle to marriage. But this little thing would be spoken ill of directly, if she happened to be seen walking with him; and then those excellent people, the Poysers, to whom a good name was as precious as if they had the best blood in the land in their veins--he should hate himself if he made a scandal of that sort, on the estate that was to be his own some day, and among tenants by whom he liked, above all, to be respected. He could no more believe that he should so fall in his own esteem than that he should break both his legs and go on crutches all the rest of his life. He couldn't imagine himself in that position; it was too odious, too unlike him. And even if no one knew anything about it, they might get too fond of each other, and then there could be nothing but the misery of parting, after all. No gentleman, out of a ballad, could marry a farmer's niece. There must be an end to the whole thing at once. It was too foolish. And yet he had been so determined this morning, before he went to Gawaine's; and while he was there something had taken hold of him and made him gallop back. It seemed he couldn't quite depend on his own resolution, as he had thought he could; he almost wished his arm would get painful again, and then he should think of nothing but the comfort it would be to get rid of the pain. There was no knowing what impulse might seize him to-morrow, in this confounded place, where there was nothing to occupy him imperiously through the livelong day. What could he do to secure himself from any more of this folly? There was but one resource. He would go and tell Irwine--tell him everything. The mere act of telling it would make it seem trivial; the temptation would vanish, as the charm of fond words vanishes when one repeats them to the indifferent. In every way it would help him to tell Irwine. He would ride to Broxton Rectory the first thing after breakfast to-morrow. Arthur had no sooner come to this determination than he began to think which of the paths would lead him home, and made as short a walk thither as he could. He felt sure he should sleep now: he had had enough to tire him, and there was no more need for him to think. Kannst du eine passende 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.

Abends im Wald kann Hetty kaum bei ihrer Handarbeit im Zimmer von Mrs. Pomfret denken und eilt nach drei Stunden dort davon, in der Hoffnung, Arthur auf dem Heimweg zu sehen. Sie geht durch den Wald und sucht nach ihm an jeder Ecke und kurz bevor sie denkt, dass er nicht kommt, bricht sie in Tränen aus. Er kommt um die Ecke und seine Vorsätze zerfallen. Er hatte geplant, förmlich mit ihr zu sein und zu erklären, dass sie sich nicht mehr treffen dürfen, aber als er Hetty weinen sieht, wird er beschützend und legt seinen Arm um sie. Sie sagt, sie weint, weil sie dachte, er würde nicht kommen. Sie küssen sich und gehen bis ans Ende des Waldes. Arthurs Gewissen beginnt ihn zu plagen. Er weiß, dass es nicht dasselbe ist wie mit einem Mädchen seiner eigenen Klasse zu flirten. Das kann beiden nur schaden, da er sie nicht heiraten kann oder auch nur mit ihr gesehen werden kann. Er ist verwirrt von seinem eigenen Mangel an Kontrolle und beschließt, es Herrn Irwine zu gestehen, der ihm helfen 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: Mrs. Touchett hatte vor ihrer Ankunft in Paris den Tag ihrer Abreise festgelegt und war Mitte Februar südwärts gereist. Sie unterbrach ihre Reise, um ihren Sohn, der in San Remo, an der italienischen Mittelmeerküste, einen langweiligen, hellen Winter unter einem langsam weißen Regenschirm verbracht hatte, zu besuchen. Isabel begleitete ihre Tante selbstverständlich, obwohl Mrs. Touchett ihr, gemäß ihrem gewöhnlichen logischen Denken, verschiedene Alternativen vorgelegt hatte. "Now, of course, you're completely your own mistress and are as free as the bird on the bough. I don't mean you were not so before, but you're at present on a different footing--property erects a kind of barrier. You can do a great many things if you're rich which would be severely criticised if you were poor. You can go and come, you can travel alone, you can have your own establishment: I mean of course if you'll take a companion--some decayed gentlewoman, with a darned cashmere and dyed hair, who paints on velvet. You don't think you'd like that? Of course you can do as you please; I only want you to understand how much you're at liberty. You might take Miss Stackpole as your dame de compagnie; she'd keep people off very well. I think, however, that it's a great deal better you should remain with me, in spite of there being no obligation. It's better for several reasons, quite apart from your liking it. I shouldn't think you'd like it, but I recommend you to make the sacrifice. Of course whatever novelty there may have been at first in my society has quite passed away, and you see me as I am--a dull, obstinate, narrow-minded old woman." "I don't think you're at all dull," Isabel had replied to this. "But you do think I'm obstinate and narrow-minded? I told you so!" said Mrs. Touchett with much elation at being justified. Isabel blieb vorerst bei ihrer Tante, denn trotz ihrer exzentrischen Impulse hegte sie großen Respekt für das, was üblicherweise als anständig angesehen wurde, und eine junge Dame ohne sichtbare Verwandte erschien ihr immer wie eine Blume ohne Laub. Es war wahr, dass Mrs. Touchetts Unterhaltung nie wieder so brilliant erschienen war wie an jenem ersten Nachmittag in Albany, als sie in ihrem feuchten Regenmantel saß und die Möglichkeiten skizzierte, die Europa für eine geschmackvolle junge Person bieten würde. Dies war jedoch zum großen Teil das eigene Verschulden des Mädchens; sie hatte einen Einblick in die Erfahrungen ihrer Tante bekommen, und ihre Fantasie antizipierte ständig die Urteile und Emotionen einer Frau, die nur über wenig von derselben Fähigkeit verfügte. Abgesehen davon hatte Mrs. Touchett eine große Stärke; sie war so ehrlich wie ein Zirkel. Es gab einen Trost in ihrer Steifheit und Festigkeit; man wusste genau, wo man sie finden konnte und war nie von zufälligen Begegnungen und Zusammenstößen bedroht. Betrat man ihr eigenes Gebiet, war sie vollkommen präsent, aber in Bezug auf das Gebiet ihres Nachbarn war sie nie übermäßig neugierig. Isabel entwickelte schließlich eine Art unausgesprochenes Mitleid für sie; es schien etwas so trostloses in der Verfassung einer Person zu geben, deren Natur, sozusagen, so wenig Oberfläche hatte - so beschränkt ein Gesicht den Anhaftungen menschlichen Kontakts gegenüber darbot. Nichts Zärtliches, nichts Mitfühlendes hatte jemals eine Chance gehabt, sich daran festzusetzen - keine windgetragene Blüte, kein vertraut erweichendes Moos. Ihre angebotene, ihre passive Weite war in anderen Worten etwa die einer Messerschneide. Isabel hatte dennoch Grund zu der Annahme, dass sie im Laufe ihres Lebens mehr von den Rücksichten auf etwas Dunkles und von Bequemlichkeit Abweichendes machte - mehr davon, als sie unabhängig von sich selbst forderte. Sie lernte, die Konsequenz der Konsistenz zu opfern, angesichts von Überlegungen dieses minderen Grades, deren Rechtfertigung im speziellen Fall zu finden sein muss. Es war nicht zum Ruhm ihrer absoluten Redlichkeit, dass sie den längsten Weg nach Florenz genommen hatte, um einige Wochen bei ihrem kranken Sohn zu verbringen; da es in früheren Jahren eine ihrer bestimmtesten Überzeugungen gewesen war, dass Ralph, wenn er sie sehen wollte, sich daran erinnern durfte, dass im Palazzo Crescentini eine große Wohnung namens Viertel des Signorino vorhanden war. "I want to ask you something," Isabel said to this young man the day after her arrival at San Remo--"something I've thought more than once of asking you by letter, but that I've hesitated on the whole to write about. Face to face, nevertheless, my question seems easy enough. Did you know your father intended to leave me so much money?" Ralph stretched his legs a little further than usual and gazed a little more fixedly at the Mediterranean. "What does it matter, my dear Isabel, whether I knew? My father was very obstinate." "So," said the girl, "you did know." "Yes; he told me. We even talked it over a little." "What did he do it for?" asked Isabel abruptly. "Why, as a kind of compliment." "A compliment on what?" "On your so beautifully existing." "He liked me too much," she presently declared. "That's a way we all have." "If I believed that I should be very unhappy. Fortunately I don't believe it. I want to be treated with justice; I want nothing but that." "Very good. But you must remember that justice to a lovely being is after all a florid sort of sentiment." "I'm not a lovely being. How can you say that, at the very moment when I'm asking such odious questions? I must seem to you delicate!" "You seem to me troubled," said Ralph. "I am troubled." "About what?" For a moment she answered nothing; then she broke out: "Do you think it good for me suddenly to be made so rich? Henrietta doesn't." "Oh, hang Henrietta!" said Ralph coarsely, "If you ask me I'm delighted at it." "Is that why your father did it--for your amusement?" "I differ with Miss Stackpole," Ralph went on more gravely. "I think it very good for you to have means." Isabel looked at him with serious eyes. "I wonder whether you know what's good for me--or whether you care." "If I know depend upon it I care. Shall I tell you what it is? Not to torment yourself." "Not to torment you, I suppose you mean." "You can't do that; I'm proof. Take things more easily. Don't ask yourself so much whether this or that is good for you. Don't question your conscience so much--it will get out of tune like a strummed piano. Keep it for great occasions. Don't try so much to form your character--it's like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose. Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself. Most things are good for you; the exceptions are very rare, and a comfortable income's not one of them." Ralph paused, smiling; Isabel had listened quickly. "You've too much power of thought--above all too much conscience," Ralph added. "It's out of all reason, the number of things you think wrong. Put back your watch. Diet your fever. Spread your wings; rise above the ground. It's never wrong to do that." She had listened eagerly, as I say; and it was her nature to understand quickly. "I wonder if you appreciate what you say. If you do, you take a great responsibility." "You frighten me a little, but I think I'm right," said Ralph, persisting in cheer. "All the same what you say is very true," Isabel pursued. "You could say nothing more true. I'm absorbed in myself--I look at life too much as a doctor's prescription. Why indeed should we perpetually be thinking whether things are good for us, as if we were patients lying in a hospital? Why should I be so afraid of not doing right? As if it mattered to the world whether I do right or wrong!" "You're a capital person to advise," said Ralph; "you take the wind out of my sails!" She looked at him as if she had not heard him--though she was following out the train of reflexion "Ah," antwortete Ralph mit einem errötenden Gesicht, das das Mädchen bemerkte, "wenn du es bist, dann bin ich ganz verkauft!" Der Charme der Mittelmeerküste vertiefte sich nur noch für unsere Heldin, denn es war die Schwelle zur Italien, das Tor zu Bewunderungen. Italien, bisher nur unvollständig gesehen und gefühlt, erstreckte sich vor ihr als ein Land der Verheißung, ein Land, in dem die Liebe zum Schönen durch endloses Wissen getröstet werden könnte. Immer, wenn sie mit ihrem Cousin am Strand spazieren ging - und sie war seine tägliche Begleiterin - schaute sie mit sehnsuchtsvollen Augen über das Meer, zu dem Ort, an dem sie wusste, dass Genua lag. Sie freute sich jedoch, an diesem größeren Abenteuer Halt zu machen; schon das Vorgeplänkel erzeugte solch eine Aufregung. Es wirkte außerdem wie eine friedliche Zwischenzeit, wie ein Schweigen der Trommel und Flöte in einer Karriere, die sie bisher kaum als aufgeregt betrachten konnte, aber von der sie sich ständig ein Bild machte anhand ihrer Hoffnungen, Ängste, Fantasien, Ambitionen und Vorlieben, die sie selbst in einer ausreichend dramatischen Weise widerspiegelte. Madame Merle hatte Frau Touchett vorausgesagt, dass ihre junge Freundin nachdem sie ein paar Mal ihre Hand in ihre Tasche gesteckt hätte, sich mit dem Gedanken versöhnen würde, dass ihr ein großzügiger Onkel ein Vermögen hinterlassen hätte; und das Ereignis bestätigte einmal mehr die Scharfsichtigkeit dieser Dame. Ralph Touchett hatte seine Cousine dafür gelobt, dass sie moralisch entflammbar war, das bedeutet, dass sie schnell einen Hinweis als guten Rat aufnahm. Sein Rat hatte vielleicht dazu beigetragen; sie hatte jedenfalls schon vor ihrer Abreise aus San Remo sich daran gewöhnt, sich reich zu fühlen. Dieses Bewusstsein fand seinen Platz in einer eher dichten kleinen Gruppe von Vorstellungen über sich selbst, und oft war es keineswegs das Unangenehmste. Es setzte ständig tausend gute Absichten voraus. Sie verlor sich in einem Labyrinth von Visionen; die großartigen Dinge, die ein reiches, unabhängiges, großzügiges Mädchen tun könnte, das Ereignisse und Verpflichtungen auf eine weite menschliche Art und Weise betrachtete, waren in ihrer Masse erhaben. Ihr Reichtum wurde daher in ihrem Kopf zu einem Teil ihres besseren Selbst; es verlieh ihr Bedeutung, gab ihr sogar in ihrer eigenen Vorstellung eine gewisse idealisierte Schönheit. Was er für sie in der Vorstellung anderer Menschen bedeutete, ist eine andere Sache, und zu diesem Punkt müssen wir auch bald kommen. Die Visionen, von denen ich gerade gesprochen habe, waren mit anderen Debatten vermischt. Isabel dachte lieber an die Zukunft als an die Vergangenheit; aber manchmal, wenn sie dem Murmeln der Mittelmeerwellen lauschte, nahm ihr Blick einen rückwärtsgewandten Flug. Er ruhte auf zwei Figuren, die trotz zunehmender Entfernung immer noch deutlich erkennbar waren; sie waren ohne Schwierigkeiten als Caspar Goodwood und Lord Warburton identifizierbar. Es war seltsam, wie schnell diese Bilder der Energie in den Hintergrund des Lebens unserer jungen Frau geraten waren. Es lag in ihrer Veranlagung, jederzeit den Glauben an die Realität abwesender Dinge zu verlieren; sie konnte ihren Glauben im Bedarfsfall mit Anstrengung wieder herbeirufen, aber die Anstrengung war oft schmerzhaft, selbst wenn die Realität angenehm gewesen war. Die Vergangenheit neigte dazu, tot auszusehen, und ihre Wiederbelebung zeigte eher das leichenhafte Licht eines Jüngsten Tages. Das Mädchen war außerdem nicht geneigt, anzunehmen, dass sie in den Gedanken anderer Menschen existierte - sie hatte nicht die Eitelkeit zu glauben, dass sie unauslöschliche Spuren hinterließ. Sie konnte verletzt sein, wenn sie entdeckte, dass sie vergessen worden war; aber von all den Freiheiten war diejenige, die sie selbst am süßesten fand, die Freiheit, zu vergessen. Sie hatte ihre letzten Geldscheine, sentimentale gesprochen, weder an Caspar Goodwood noch an Lord Warburton vergeudet, und konnte dennoch nicht umhin, dass sie ihr spürbar in der Schuld standen. Sie hatte sich natürlich daran erinnert, dass sie von Mr. Goodwood noch einmal hören würde; aber dies würde erst in anderthalb Jahren der Fall sein, und in dieser Zeit könnten viele Dinge passieren. Sie hatte in der Tat versäumt, sich zu sagen, dass ihr amerikanischer Verehrer ein anderes Mädchen finden könnte, das ihm bequemer wäre; denn obwohl es sicher war, dass viele andere Mädchen das sein würden, hatte sie nicht den geringsten Glauben daran, dass diese Eigenschaft ihn anziehen würde. Aber sie überlegte, dass sie selbst die Demütigung des Wandels erfahren könnte, dass sie tatsächlich, was das anbelangt, zu dem Ende der Dinge kommen könnte, die nicht Caspar waren (obwohl es so viele von ihnen schien), und Ruhe in den Elementen seiner Anwesenheit finden könnte, die ihr jetzt als Hindernisse für die feinere Atmung erschienen. Es war vorstellbar, dass diese Hindernisse irgendwann einmal eine Art verdeckten Segens werden würden - ein klarer und ruhiger Hafen, umgeben von einer mutigen Granitmole. Aber dieser Tag konnte nur in seiner Reihenfolge kommen, und sie konnte nicht mit verschränkten Händen darauf warten. Dass Lord Warburton ihr Bild weiterhin pflegen sollte, schien ihr mehr zu sein, als ein edles Demut oder ein aufgeklärter Stolz in Betracht ziehen sollte. Sie hatte sich so deutlich vorgenommen, keine Erinnerung an das, was zwischen ihnen passiert war, zu bewahren, dass eine entsprechende Anstrengung seinerseits äußerst gerecht wäre. Dies war nicht, wie es scheinen mag, nur eine Theorie, die mit Sarkasmus durchzogen war. Isabel glaubte aufrichtig, dass sein Lordship in der gewöhnlichen Phrase über seine Enttäuschung hinwegkommen würde. Er war tief betroffen gewesen - das glaubte sie, und sie war immer noch in der Lage, Freude aus diesem Glauben zu ziehen; aber es war absurd, dass ein Mann, der sowohl intelligent als auch ehrlich behandelt wurde, eine Narbe pflegen sollte, die zu jeder Wunde außer Verhältnis stand. Englische Männer mochten es außerdem, bequem zu sein, sagte Isabel, und es konnte auf lange Sicht wenig Trost für Lord Warburton geben, über ein selbstgenügsames amerikanisches Mädchen nachzudenken, das nur eine flüchtige Bekanntschaft gewesen war. Sie schmeichelte sich, dass sie, sollte sie von heute auf morgen hören, dass er eine junge Frau seines eigenen Landes geheiratet hatte, die es mehr verdient hatte als sie, diese Nachricht ohne Schmerz, ja sogar ohne Überraschung aufnehmen würde. Es hätte bewiesen, dass er glaubte, sie sei standhaft - was sie ihm erscheinen wollte. Das allein war ihrer Würde gegenüber erfreulich. 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.

Frau Touchett bereitet sich darauf vor, Paris für Italien zu verlassen. Sie teilt Isabel vor ihrer Abreise mit, dass sie jetzt eine klare Wahl habe, ob sie bei ihr bleiben oder ihren eigenen Weg gehen möchte. Sie sagt, dass "Eigentum eine Art Barriere errichtet" und dass eine reiche Frau viele Dinge tun kann, die stark verurteilt würden, wenn sie es nicht wäre. Isabel möchte bei ihrer Tante bleiben, da sie immer großen Wert darauf gelegt hat, das Richtige und Anständige zu tun, und sie denkt, dass eine junge Frau ohne Verwandte nicht sehr anständig ist. Isabel und Frau Touchett machen auf ihrem Weg nach Italien einen Zwischenstopp in San Remo, um Ralph zu besuchen. Isabel genießt die Zeit mit ihm. Eines Tages fragt sie ihn, ob er wusste, dass sein Vater ihr das Geld hinterlassen würde. Er sagt, dass er es kurz mit seinem Vater besprochen hat. Sie möchte wissen, warum sie so viel hinterlassen wurde. Ralph sagt, es war ein Kompliment dafür, wie wunderbar sie existiert. Isabel ist damit nicht zufrieden. Sie sagt, sie möchte gerecht behandelt werden. Sie möchte wissen, ob er mit Henrietta Stackpole übereinstimmt, dass das Vermögen schlecht für sie sein wird. Ralph ist ungeduldig mit dieser Art zu denken. Er sagt, Isabel sollte aufhören, sich über das Richtige und Falsche im Leben Gedanken zu machen. Er sagt, dass das meiste im Leben gut ist und ein Vermögen sicherlich dazu gehört. Er sagt ihr, sie solle ihre Flügel ausbreiten. Isabel freut sich, das zu hören. Sie stimmt zu, dass sie ihr Leben normalerweise wie ein ärztliches Rezept behandelt, sich fragend, was gut für sie ist und was nicht. Während sie mit Ralph am Strand entlang spaziert, kann sie über das Wasser schauen und sich Italien vorstellen. Sie denkt an es als ein Land der Versprechen. Sie kann es kaum erwarten, es zu sehen. Sie denkt, es wird ein "größeres Abenteuer" sein. Sie gewöhnt sich an ihr Vermögen. Es wird Teil ihres "besseren Selbst". Während sie diese Zeit hat, denkt sie über Caspar Goodwood und Lord Warburton nach. Sie erkennt die Freiheit, nicht an sie denken zu müssen. Sie weiß, dass sie nur noch anderthalb Jahre Zeit hat, bevor sie sich mit Caspar auseinandersetzen muss. Sie denkt, dass er in dieser Zeit jemand anderen finden könnte und merkt, dass es sie verletzen würde. Sie denkt andererseits, dass sie sich für Lord Warburton freuen würde, falls er jemand anderen finden würde.

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: For some time Alan volleyed upon the door, and his knocking only roused the echoes of the house and neighbourhood. At last, however, I could hear the noise of a window gently thrust up, and knew that my uncle had come to his observatory. By what light there was, he would see Alan standing, like a dark shadow, on the steps; the three witnesses were hidden quite out of his view; so that there was nothing to alarm an honest man in his own house. For all that, he studied his visitor awhile in silence, and when he spoke his voice had a quaver of misgiving. "What's this?" says he. "This is nae kind of time of night for decent folk; and I hae nae trokings* wi' night-hawks. What brings ye here? I have a blunderbush." * Dealings. "Is that yoursel', Mr. Balfour?" returned Alan, stepping back and looking up into the darkness. "Have a care of that blunderbuss; they're nasty things to burst." "What brings ye here? and whae are ye?" says my uncle, angrily. "I have no manner of inclination to rowt out my name to the country-side," said Alan; "but what brings me here is another story, being more of your affair than mine; and if ye're sure it's what ye would like, I'll set it to a tune and sing it to you." "And what is't?" asked my uncle. "David," says Alan. "What was that?" cried my uncle, in a mighty changed voice. "Shall I give ye the rest of the name, then?" said Alan. There was a pause; and then, "I'm thinking I'll better let ye in," says my uncle, doubtfully. "I dare say that," said Alan; "but the point is, Would I go? Now I will tell you what I am thinking. I am thinking that it is here upon this doorstep that we must confer upon this business; and it shall be here or nowhere at all whatever; for I would have you to understand that I am as stiffnecked as yoursel', and a gentleman of better family." This change of note disconcerted Ebenezer; he was a little while digesting it, and then says he, "Weel, weel, what must be must," and shut the window. But it took him a long time to get down-stairs, and a still longer to undo the fastenings, repenting (I dare say) and taken with fresh claps of fear at every second step and every bolt and bar. At last, however, we heard the creak of the hinges, and it seems my uncle slipped gingerly out and (seeing that Alan had stepped back a pace or two) sate him down on the top doorstep with the blunderbuss ready in his hands. "And, now" says he, "mind I have my blunderbush, and if ye take a step nearer ye're as good as deid." "And a very civil speech," says Alan, "to be sure." "Na," says my uncle, "but this is no a very chanty kind of a proceeding, and I'm bound to be prepared. And now that we understand each other, ye'll can name your business." "Why," says Alan, "you that are a man of so much understanding, will doubtless have perceived that I am a Hieland gentleman. My name has nae business in my story; but the county of my friends is no very far from the Isle of Mull, of which ye will have heard. It seems there was a ship lost in those parts; and the next day a gentleman of my family was seeking wreck-wood for his fire along the sands, when he came upon a lad that was half drowned. Well, he brought him to; and he and some other gentleman took and clapped him in an auld, ruined castle, where from that day to this he has been a great expense to my friends. My friends are a wee wild-like, and not so particular about the law as some that I could name; and finding that the lad owned some decent folk, and was your born nephew, Mr. Balfour, they asked me to give ye a bit call and confer upon the matter. And I may tell ye at the off-go, unless we can agree upon some terms, ye are little likely to set eyes upon him. For my friends," added Alan, simply, "are no very well off." My uncle cleared his throat. "I'm no very caring," says he. "He wasnae a good lad at the best of it, and I've nae call to interfere." "Ay, ay," said Alan, "I see what ye would be at: pretending ye don't care, to make the ransom smaller." "Na," said my uncle, "it's the mere truth. I take nae manner of interest in the lad, and I'll pay nae ransome, and ye can make a kirk and a mill of him for what I care." "Hoot, sir," says Alan. "Blood's thicker than water, in the deil's name! Ye cannae desert your brother's son for the fair shame of it; and if ye did, and it came to be kennt, ye wouldnae be very popular in your country-side, or I'm the more deceived." "I'm no just very popular the way it is," returned Ebenezer; "and I dinnae see how it would come to be kennt. No by me, onyway; nor yet by you or your friends. So that's idle talk, my buckie," says he. "Then it'll have to be David that tells it," said Alan. "How that?" says my uncle, sharply. "Ou, just this way," says Alan. "My friends would doubtless keep your nephew as long as there was any likelihood of siller to be made of it, but if there was nane, I am clearly of opinion they would let him gang where he pleased, and be damned to him!" "Ay, but I'm no very caring about that either," said my uncle. "I wouldnae be muckle made up with that." "I was thinking that," said Alan. "And what for why?" asked Ebenezer. "Why, Mr. Balfour," replied Alan, "by all that I could hear, there were two ways of it: either ye liked David and would pay to get him back; or else ye had very good reasons for not wanting him, and would pay for us to keep him. It seems it's not the first; well then, it's the second; and blythe am I to ken it, for it should be a pretty penny in my pocket and the pockets of my friends." "I dinnae follow ye there," said my uncle. "No?" said Alan. "Well, see here: you dinnae want the lad back; well, what do ye want done with him, and how much will ye pay?" My uncle made no answer, but shifted uneasily on his seat. "Come, sir," cried Alan. "I would have you to ken that I am a gentleman; I bear a king's name; I am nae rider to kick my shanks at your hall door. Either give me an answer in civility, and that out of hand; or by the top of Glencoe, I will ram three feet of iron through your vitals." "Eh, man," cried my uncle, scrambling to his feet, "give me a meenit! What's like wrong with ye? I'm just a plain man and nae dancing master; and I'm tryin to be as ceevil as it's morally possible. As for that wild talk, it's fair disrepitable. Vitals, says you! And where would I be with my blunderbush?" he snarled. "Powder and your auld hands are but as the snail to the swallow against the bright steel in the hands of Alan," said the other. "Before your jottering finger could find the trigger, the hilt would dirl on your breast-bane." "Eh, man, whae's denying it?" said my uncle. "Pit it as ye please, hae't your ain way; I'll do naething to cross ye. Just tell me what like ye'll be wanting, and ye'll see that we'll can agree fine." "Troth, sir," said Alan, "I ask for nothing but plain dealing. In two words: do ye want the lad killed or kept?" "O, sirs!" cried Ebenezer. "O, sirs, me! that's no kind of language!" "Killed or kept!" repeated Alan. "O, keepit, keepit!" wailed my uncle. "We'll have nae bloodshed, if you please." "Well," says Alan, "as ye please; that'll be the dearer." "The dearer?" cries Ebenezer. "Would ye fyle your hands wi' crime?" "Hoot!" said Alan, "they're baith crime, whatever! And the killing's easier, and quicker, and surer. Keeping the lad'll be a fashious* job, a fashious, kittle business." * Troublesome. "I'll have him keepit, though," returned my uncle. "I never had naething to do with onything morally wrong; and I'm no gaun to begin to pleasure a wild Hielandman." "Ye're unco scrupulous," sneered Alan. "I'm a man o' principle," said Ebenezer, simply; "and if I have to pay for it, I'll have to pay for it. And besides," says he, "ye forget the lad's my brother's son." "Well, well," said Alan, "and now about the price. It's no very easy for me to set a name upon it; I would first have to ken some small matters. I would have to ken, for instance, what ye gave Hoseason at the first off-go?" "Hoseason!" cries my uncle, struck aback. "What for?" "For kidnapping David," says Alan. "It's a lee, it's a black lee!" cried my uncle. "He was never kidnapped. He leed in his throat that tauld ye that. Kidnapped? He never was!" "That's no fault of mine nor yet of yours," said Alan; "nor yet of Hoseason's, if he's a man that can be trusted." "What do ye mean?" cried Ebenezer. "Did Hoseason tell ye?" "Why, ye donnered auld runt, how else would I ken?" cried Alan. "Hoseason and me are partners; we gang shares; so ye can see for yoursel' what good ye can do leeing. And I must plainly say ye drove a fool's bargain when ye let a man like the sailor-man so far forward in your private matters. But that's past praying for; and ye must lie on your bed the way ye made it. And the point in hand is just this: what did ye pay him?" "Has he tauld ye himsel'?" asked my uncle. "That's my concern," said Alan. "Weel," said my uncle, "I dinnae care what he said, he leed, and the solemn God's truth is this, that I gave him twenty pound. But I'll be perfec'ly honest with ye: forby that, he was to have the selling of the lad in Caroliny, whilk would be as muckle mair, but no from my pocket, ye see." "Thank you, Mr. Thomson. That will do excellently well," said the lawyer, stepping forward; and then mighty civilly, "Good-evening, Mr. Balfour," said he. And, "Good-evening, Uncle Ebenezer," said I. And, "It's a braw nicht, Mr. Balfour," added Torrance. Never a word said my uncle, neither black nor white; but just sat where he was on the top door-step and stared upon us like a man turned to stone. Alan filched away his blunderbuss; and the lawyer, taking him by the arm, plucked him up from the doorstep, led him into the kitchen, whither we all followed, and set him down in a chair beside the hearth, where the fire was out and only a rush-light burning. There we all looked upon him for a while, exulting greatly in our success, but yet with a sort of pity for the man's shame. "Come, come, Mr. Ebenezer," said the lawyer, "you must not be down-hearted, for I promise you we shall make easy terms. In the meanwhile give us the cellar key, and Torrance shall draw us a bottle of your father's wine in honour of the event." Then, turning to me and taking me by the hand, "Mr. David," says he, "I wish you all joy in your good fortune, which I believe to be deserved." And then to Alan, with a spice of drollery, "Mr. Thomson, I pay you my compliment; it was most artfully conducted; but in one point you somewhat outran my comprehension. Do I understand your name to be James? or Charles? or is it George, perhaps?" "And why should it be any of the three, sir?" quoth Alan, drawing himself up, like one who smelt an offence. "Only, sir, that you mentioned a king's name," replied Rankeillor; "and as there has never yet been a King Thomson, or his fame at least has never come my way, I judged you must refer to that you had in baptism." This was just the stab that Alan would feel keenest, and I am free to confess he took it very ill. Not a word would he answer, but stepped off to the far end of the kitchen, and sat down and sulked; and it was not till I stepped after him, and gave him my hand, and thanked him by title as the chief spring of my success, that he began to smile a bit, and was at last prevailed upon to join our party. By that time we had the fire lighted, and a bottle of wine uncorked; a good supper came out of the basket, to which Torrance and I and Alan set ourselves down; while the lawyer and my uncle passed into the next chamber to consult. They stayed there closeted about an hour; at the end of which period they had come to a good understanding, and my uncle and I set our hands to the agreement in a formal manner. By the terms of this, my uncle bound himself to satisfy Rankeillor as to his intromissions, and to pay me two clear thirds of the yearly income of Shaws. So the beggar in the ballad had come home; and when I lay down that night on the kitchen chests, I was a man of means and had a name in the country. Alan and Torrance and Rankeillor slept and snored on their hard beds; but for me who had lain out under heaven and upon dirt and stones, so many days and nights, and often with an empty belly, and in fear of death, this good change in my case unmanned me more than any of the former evil ones; and I lay till dawn, looking at the fire on the roof and planning the future. 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.

Ich komme in mein Königreich David, Alan und Rankeillor gehen zum House of Shaws. Alan geht alleine zur Tür und klopft an. Er sagt Ebenezer, dass er aus einer Familie in der Nähe der Isle of Mull stammt und dass sie David nach dem Schiffsunglück entdeckt und behalten haben. Sie halten ihn jetzt als Lösegeld fest. Ebenezer will nicht für ihn bezahlen, also sagt Alan, dass sie ihn umbringen werden. Ebenezer möchte das nicht, also sagt Alan, dass er bezahlen muss, wenn er will, dass sie David am Leben lassen. Ebenezer handelt über den Preis, gibt dabei zu, dass er David ursprünglich geschickt hatte, um Sklave in den Karolinas zu werden. Daraufhin zeigen sich Rankeillor und David. Ebenezer ist schockiert und bleibt sprachlos. Es gibt eine kleine Feier, während Rankeillor und Ebenezer sich zurückziehen, um eine Vereinbarung auszuarbeiten. David soll zwei Drittel des jährlichen Einkommens von Shaws bekommen, während Ebenezer das andere Drittel und das Anwesen behält.

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. Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way. He liked very much to have his friends come and see him; and from various united causes, from his long residence at Hartfield, and his good nature, from his fortune, his house, and his daughter, he could command the visits of his own little circle, in a great measure, as he liked. He had not much intercourse with any families beyond that circle; his horror of late hours, and large dinner-parties, made him unfit for any acquaintance but such as would visit him on his own terms. Fortunately for him, Highbury, including Randalls in the same parish, and Donwell Abbey in the parish adjoining, the seat of Mr. Knightley, comprehended many such. Not unfrequently, through Emma's persuasion, he had some of the chosen and the best to dine with him: but evening parties were what he preferred; and, unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company, there was scarcely an evening in the week in which Emma could not make up a card-table for him. Real, long-standing regard brought the Westons and Mr. Knightley; and by Mr. Elton, a young man living alone without liking it, the privilege of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the elegancies and society of Mr. Woodhouse's drawing-room, and the smiles of his lovely daughter, was in no danger of being thrown away. After these came a second set; among the most come-at-able of whom were Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies almost always at the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were fetched and carried home so often, that Mr. Woodhouse thought it no hardship for either James or the horses. Had it taken place only once a year, it would have been a grievance. Mrs. Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived with her single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married. Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her into outward respect. She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman whom no one named without good-will. It was her own universal good-will and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved every body, was interested in every body's happiness, quicksighted to every body's merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother, and so many good neighbours and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself. She was a great talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse, full of trivial communications and harmless gossip. Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a School--not of a seminary, or an establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality, upon new principles and new systems--and where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity--but a real, honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. Mrs. Goddard's school was in high repute--and very deservedly; for Highbury was reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she had an ample house and garden, gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands. It was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked after her to church. She was a plain, motherly kind of woman, who had worked hard in her youth, and now thought herself entitled to the occasional holiday of a tea-visit; and having formerly owed much to Mr. Woodhouse's kindness, felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat parlour, hung round with fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose a few sixpences by his fireside. These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able to collect; and happy was she, for her father's sake, in the power; though, as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for the absence of Mrs. Weston. She was delighted to see her father look comfortable, and very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well; but the quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated. As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of the present day, a note was brought from Mrs. Goddard, requesting, in most respectful terms, to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with her; a most welcome request: for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen, whom Emma knew very well by sight, and had long felt an interest in, on account of her beauty. A very gracious invitation was returned, and the evening no longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion. Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard's school, and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history. She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young ladies who had been at school there with her. She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great sweetness, and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the acquaintance. She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith's conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging--not inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk--and yet so far from pushing, shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement. Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes, and all those natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury and its connexions. The acquaintance she had already formed were unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had just parted, though very good sort of people, must be doing her harm. They were a family of the name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by character, as renting a large farm of Mr. Knightley, and residing in the parish of Donwell--very creditably, she believed--she knew Mr. Knightley thought highly of them--but they must be coarse and unpolished, and very unfit to be the intimates of a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance to be quite perfect. _She_ would notice her; she would improve her; she would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good society; she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking; highly becoming her own situation in life, her leisure, and powers. She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and listening, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that the evening flew away at a very unusual rate; and the supper-table, which always closed such parties, and for which she had been used to sit and watch the due time, was all set out and ready, and moved forwards to the fire, before she was aware. With an alacrity beyond the common impulse of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to the credit of doing every thing well and attentively, with the real good-will of a mind delighted with its own ideas, did she then do all the honours of the meal, and help and recommend the minced chicken and scalloped oysters, with an urgency which she knew would be acceptable to the early hours and civil scruples of their guests. Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouse's feelings were in sad warfare. He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome made him rather sorry to see any thing put on it; and while his hospitality would have welcomed his visitors to every thing, his care for their health made him grieve that they would eat. Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could, with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might constrain himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to say: "Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body else; but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see--one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a _little_ bit of tart--a _very_ little bit. Ours are all apple-tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to _half_ a glass of wine? A _small_ half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could disagree with you." Emma allowed her father to talk--but supplied her visitors in a much more satisfactory style, and on the present evening had particular pleasure in sending them away happy. The happiness of Miss Smith was quite equal to her intentions. Miss Woodhouse was so great a personage in Highbury, that the prospect of the introduction had given as much panic as pleasure; but the humble, grateful little girl went off with highly gratified feelings, delighted with the affability with which Miss Woodhouse had treated her all the evening, and actually shaken hands with her at last! 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.

Mr. Woodhouse ist gerne in Gesellschaft, aber er zieht es vor, dass die Leute zu ihm kommen, anstatt selbst zu reisen, und tatsächlich kommen die Leute. Die Westons, Mr. Knightley und Mr. Elton kommen ihn besuchen, ebenso wie Mrs. Bates, eine alte Witwe, und ihre Tochter Miss Bates, eine eher alberne und geschwätzige, aber gutmütige Frau. Auch Mrs. Goddard, die Schulleiterin, ist zu Besuch. Eines Tages bringt Mrs. Goddard Miss Smith, eine Schülerin von ihrer Schule, mit. Mrs. Goddard hat Harriet Smith aufgezogen, und niemand weiß, wer ihre Eltern sind. Emma ist von ihrer Schönheit und ihrem Wesen ganz eingenommen und beschließt bis zum Ende des Abends, sich mit ihr anzufreunden. Sie beschließt, sie zu formen und von ihren minderwertigen Freunden fernzuhalten, hauptsächlich der Familie Martin, die einen Bauernhof von Mr. Knightley mietet. Diese Besuche machen Mr. Woodhouse glücklich, da er gerne in Gesellschaft ist, aber es betrübt ihn, die Leute beim Abendessen zu sehen. Er hält das Essen für ungesund und würde es lieber sehen, wenn alle Haferbrei essen.

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." 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.

Als Kapitel 53 beginnt, geht Adam "auf dem Heimweg, am Mittwochabend, im sechs Uhr Sonnenlicht". Dann hört er Musik. Offensichtlich haben sich eine ganze Menge Hayslope-Arbeiter auf dem Hof der Farm versammelt, zusammen mit unseren alten Freunden Bartle Massey und Herrn Craig. Martin Poyser führt den Vorsitz, serviert Fleisch aus und findet es angenehm "zu sehen, wie die anderen ihr Abendessen genießen". Aww. Und obwohl Adam Bede kaum noch 50 Seiten vor sich hat, gibt uns Eliot immer noch neue Charaktere. Wir lernen Tom Saft kennen, der sein Erntedankfest-Roastbeef liebt und "die Rolle des alten Spaßmachers" auf dem Poyser-Bauernhof spielt. Wir lernen den alten Kester Bale kennen, der seit Anbeginn der Zeit auf dem Farmhof zu sein scheint. Da ist auch Alick der Schäfer, der schon früher einige Auftritte hatte. Und Tim der Fuhrmann, der anscheinend nicht so gut mit Alick auskommt. Und der große, skrupellose Ben Tholoway, der "mehr als einmal dabei erwischt wurde, wie er das Getreide seines Meisters in seinen Taschen wegtrug". Was haben diese Charaktere mit irgendetwas zu tun? Nun, wenn das Roastbeef fertig ist, singen all diese "neuen Jungs" ein Lied zu Ehren ihres Gastgebers Martin Poyser. Herr Craig fängt an, "über Politik zu reden". Er hat Verachtung für viele Personen: Englands Verwalter, Frankreichs Soldaten, die anderen Diener Donnithornes. Allerdings hat er nette Worte für Napoleon: "Ich werde nicht leugnen, dass er ein bisschen klug sein mag - er ist kein gebürtiger Franzose, wie ich verstehe - aber was hat er außer Mounseers hinter sich?" Adam fühlt sich beleidigt. Wenn die Franzosen solche Weicheier sind, dann gibt es "keinen Verdienst" darin, sie zu besiegen. Aber Politik ist so ein heikles Thema. Das Gespräch wendet sich schnell der gerade abgereisten Dinah zu. Sie ist die einzige Frau, die Bartle ertragen kann, aber sie bringt ihn trotzdem zu einer seiner seltsamen frauenfeindlichen Tiraden. Was alle, vor allem Mrs. Poyser, zum Lachen bringt. Die Dinge stehen noch nicht fest, aber Adam und Bartle haben beschlossen, zu gehen. Adam "hatte sich danach gesehnt zu gehen, seit er gehört hatte, dass Dinah nicht im Haus war".

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 ENEMY'S CAMP The red glare of the torch lighting up the interior of the blockhouse showed me the worst of my apprehensions realized. The pirates were in possession of the house and stores; there was the cask of cognac, there were the pork and bread, as before; and, what tenfold increased my horror, not a sign of any prisoner. I could only judge that all had perished, and my heart smote me sorely that I had not been there to perish with them. There were six of the buccaneers, all told; not another man was left alive. Five of them were on their feet, flushed and swollen, suddenly called out of the first sleep of drunkenness. The sixth had only risen upon his elbow; he was deadly pale, and the blood-stained bandage round his head told that he had recently been wounded, and still more recently dressed. I remembered the man who had been shot and run back among the woods in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he. The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long John's shoulder. He himself, I thought, looked somewhat paler and more stern than I was used to. He still wore his fine broadcloth suit in which he had fulfilled his mission, but it was bitterly the worse for wear, daubed with clay and torn with sharp briers of the wood. "So," said he, "here's Jim Hawkins, shiver my timbers! dropped in, like, eh? Well, come, I take that friendly." And thereupon he sat down across the brandy-cask, and began to fill a pipe. "Give me the loan of a link, Dick," said he; and then, when he had a good light, "That'll do, my lad," he added, "stick the glim in the wood heap; and you, gentlemen, bring yourselves to!--you needn't stand up for Mr. Hawkins; _he'll_ excuse you, you may lay to that. And so, Jim"--stopping the tobacco--"here you are, and quite a pleasant surprise for poor old John. I see you were smart when first I set my eyes on you, but this here gets away from me clean, it do." To all this, as may be well supposed, I made no answer. They had set me with my back against the wall, and I stood there, looking Silver in the face, pluckily enough, I hope, to all outward appearance, but with black despair in my heart. Silver took a whiff or two of his pipe with great composure, and then ran on again: "Now, you see, Jim, so be as you _are_ here," says he, "I'll give you a piece of my mind. I've always liked you, I have, for a lad of spirit, and the picter of my own self when I was young and handsome. I always wanted you to jine and take your share, and die a gentleman, and now, my cock, you've got to. Cap'n Smollett's a fine seaman, as I'll own up to any day, but stiff on discipline. 'Dooty is dooty,' says he, and right he is. Just you keep clear of the cap'n. The doctor himself is gone dead again you--'ungrateful scamp' was what he said; and the short and long of the whole story is about here: You can't go back to your own lot, for they won't have you; and, without you start a third ship's company all by yourself, which might be lonely, you'll have to jine with Cap'n Silver." So far so good. My friends, then, were still alive, and though I partly believed the truth of Silver's statement, that the cabin party were incensed at me for my desertion, I was more relieved than distressed by what I heard. "I don't say nothing as to your being in our hands," continued Silver, "though there you are, and you may lay to it. I'm all for argyment; I never seen good come out o' threatening. If you like the service, well, you'll jine; and if you don't, Jim, why, you're free to answer no--free and welcome, shipmate; and if fairer can be said by mortal seaman, shiver my sides!" "Am I to answer, then?" I asked, with a very tremulous voice. Through all this sneering talk I was made to feel the threat of death that overhung me, and my cheeks burned and my heart beat painfully in my breast. "Lad," said Silver, "no one's a-pressing of you. Take your bearings. None of us won't hurry you, mate; time goes so pleasant in your company, you see." "Well," says I, growing a bit bolder, "if I'm to choose, I declare I have a right to know what's what, and why you're here, and where my friends are." "Wot's wot?" repeated one of the buccaneers, in a deep growl. "Ah, he'd be a lucky one as knowed that!" "You'll, perhaps, batten down your hatches till you're spoke to, my friend," cried Silver, truculently, to this speaker. And then, in his first gracious tones, he replied to me: "Yesterday morning, Mr. Hawkins," said he, "in the dogwatch, down came Doctor Livesey with a flag of truce. Says he: 'Cap'n Silver, you're sold out. Ship's gone!' Well, maybe we'd been taking a glass, and a song to help it round. I won't say no. Leastways, none of us had looked out. We looked out, and, by thunder! the old ship was gone. I never seen a pack o' fools look fishier; and you may lay to that, if I tells you that I looked the fishiest. 'Well,' says the doctor, 'let's bargain.' We bargained, him and I, and here we are; stores, brandy, blockhouse, the firewood you was thoughtful enough to cut, and, in a manner of speaking, the whole blessed boat, from crosstrees to keelson. As for them, they've tramped; I don't know where's they are." He drew again quietly at his pipe. "And lest you should take it into that head of yours," he went on, "that you was included in the treaty, here's the last word that was said: 'How many are you,' says I, 'to leave?' 'Four,' says he--'four, and one of us wounded. As for that boy, I don't know where he is, confound him,' says he, 'nor I don't much care. We're about sick of him.' These was his words." "Is that all?" I asked. "Well, it's all you're to hear, my son," returned Silver. "And now I am to choose?" "And now you are to choose, and you may lay to that," said Silver. "Well," said I, "I am not such a fool but I know pretty well what I have to look for. Let the worst come to the worst, it's little I care. I've seen too many die since I fell in with you. But there's a thing or two I have to tell you," I said, and by this time I was quite excited; "and the first is this: Here you are, in a bad way; ship lost, treasure lost, men lost; your whole business gone to wreck; and if you want to know who did it--it was I! I was in the apple barrel the night we sighted land, and I heard you, John, and you, Dick Johnson, and Hands, who is now at the bottom of the sea, and told every word you said before the hour was out. And as for the schooner, it was I who cut her cable, and it was I who killed the men you had aboard of her, and it was I who brought her where you'll never see her more, not one of you. The laugh's on my side; I've had the top of this business from the first; I no more fear you than I fear a fly. Kill me, if you please, or spare me. But one thing I'll say, and no more; if you spare me, bygones are bygones, and when you fellows are in court for piracy, I'll save you all I can. It is for you to choose. Kill another and do yourselves no good, or spare me and keep a witness to save you from the gallows." I stopped, for, I tell you, I was out of breath, and, to my wonder, not a man of them moved, but all sat staring at me like as many sheep. And while they were still staring I broke out again: "And now, Mr. Silver," I said, "I believe you're the best man here, and if things go to the worst, I'll take it kind of you to let the doctor know the way I took it." "I'll bear it in mind," said Silver, with an accent so curious that I could not, for the life of me, decide whether he were laughing at my request or had been favorably affected by my courage. "I'll put one to that," cried the old mahogany-faced seaman--Morgan by name--whom I had seen in Long John's public-house upon the quays of Bristol. "It was him that knowed Black Dog." "Well, and see here," added the sea-cook, "I'll put another again to that, by thunder! for it was this same boy that faked the chart from Billy Bones. First and last we've split upon Jim Hawkins!" "Then here goes!" said Morgan, with an oath. And he sprang up, drawing his knife as if he had been twenty. "Avast, there!" cried Silver. "Who are you, Tom Morgan? Maybe you thought you were captain here, perhaps. By the powers, but I'll teach you better! Cross me and you'll go where many a good man's gone before you, first and last, these thirty year back--some to the yardarm, shiver my sides! and some by the board, and all to feed the fishes. There's never a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day a'terward, Tom Morgan, you may lay to that." Morgan paused, but a hoarse murmur rose from the others. "Tom's right," said one. "I stood hazing long enough from one," added another. "I'll be hanged if I'll be hazed by you, John Silver." "Did any of you gentlemen want to have it out with _me_?" roared Silver, bending far forward from his position on the keg, with his pipe still glowing in his right hand. "Put a name on what you're at; you ain't dumb, I reckon. Him that wants shall get it. Have I lived this many years to have a son of a rum puncheon cock his hat athwart my hawser at the latter end of it? You know the way; you're all gentlemen o' fortune, by your account. Well, I'm ready. Take a cutlass, him that dares, and I'll see the color of his inside, crutch and all, before that pipe's empty." Not a man stirred; not a man answered. "That's your sort, is it?" he added, returning his pipe to his mouth. "Well, you're a gay lot to look at, any way. Not worth much to fight, you ain't. P'r'aps you can understand King George's English. I'm cap'n here by 'lection. I'm cap'n here because I'm the best man by a long sea-mile. You won't fight, as gentlemen o' fortune should; then, by thunder, you'll obey, and you may lay to it! I like that boy, now; I never seen a better boy than that. He's more a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house, and what I say is this: Let me see him that'll lay a hand on him--that's what I say, and you may lay to it." There was a long pause after this. I stood straight up against the wall, my heart still going like a sledgehammer, but with a ray of hope now shining in my bosom. Silver leant back against the wall, his arms crossed, his pipe in the corner of his mouth, as calm as though he had been in church; yet his eye kept wandering furtively, and he kept the tail of it on his unruly followers. They, on their part, drew gradually together toward the far end of the blockhouse, and the low hiss of their whispering sounded in my ears continuously, like a stream. One after another they would look up, and the red light of the torch would fall for a second on their nervous faces; but it was not toward me, it was toward Silver that they turned their eyes. "You seem to have a lot to say," remarked Silver, spitting far into the air. "Pipe up and let me hear it, or lay to." "Ax your pardon, sir," returned one of the men; "you're pretty free with some of the rules, maybe you'll kindly keep an eye upon the rest. This crew's dissatisfied; this crew don't vally bullying a marlinspike; this crew has its rights like other crews, I'll make so free as that; and by your own rules I take it we can talk together. I ax your pardon, sir, acknowledging you for to be capting at this present, but I claim my right and steps outside for a council." And with an elaborate sea-salute this fellow, a long, ill-looking, yellow-eyed man of five-and-thirty, stepped coolly toward the door and disappeared out of the house. One after another the rest followed his example, each making a salute as he passed, each adding some apology. "According to rules," said one. "Foc's'le council," said Morgan. And so with one remark or another, all marched out and left Silver and me alone with the torch. The sea-cook instantly removed his pipe. "Now, look you here, Jim Hawkins," he said in a steady whisper that was no more than audible, "you're within half a plank of death, and, what's a long sight worse, of torture. They're going to throw me off. But you mark, I stand by you through thick and thin. I didn't mean to; no, not till you spoke up. I was about desperate to lose that much blunt, and be hanged into the bargain. But I see you was the right sort. I says to myself: You stand by Hawkins, John, and Hawkins'll stand by you. You're his last card, and by the living thunder, John, he's yours! Back to back, says I. You save your witness and he'll save your neck!" I began dimly to understand. "You mean all's lost?" I asked. "Ay, by gum, I do!" he answered. "Ship gone, neck gone--that's the size of it. Once I looked into that bay, Jim Hawkins, and seen no schooner--well, I'm tough, but I gave out. As for that lot and their council, mark me, they're outright fools and cowards. I'll save your life--if so be as I can--from them. But see here, Jim--tit for tat--you save Long John from swinging." I was bewildered; it seemed a thing so hopeless he was asking--he, the old buccaneer, the ringleader throughout. "What I can do, that I'll do," I said. "It's a bargain!" cried Long John. "You speak up plucky, and by thunder, I've a chance." He hobbled to the torch, where it stood propped among the firewood, and took a fresh light to his pipe. "Understand me, Jim," he said, returning. "I've a head on my shoulders, I have. I'm on squire's side now. I know you've got that ship safe somewheres. How you done it I don't know, but safe it is. I guess Hands and O'Brien turned soft. I never much believed in neither of _them_. Now you mark me. I ask no questions, nor I won't let others. I know when a game's up, I do; and I know a lad that's stanch. Ah, you that's young--you and me might have done a power of good together!" He drew some cognac from the cask into a tin cannikin. "Will you taste, messmate?" he asked, and when I had refused, "Well, I'll take a drain myself, Jim," said he. "I need a caulker, for there's trouble on hand. And, talking o' trouble, why did that doctor give me the chart, Jim?" My face expressed a wonder so unaffected that he saw the needlessness of further questions. "Ah, well, he did, though," said he. "And there's something under that, no doubt--something, surely, under that, Jim--bad or good." And he took another swallow of the brandy, shaking his great fair head like a man who looks forward to the worst. Können Sie eine geeignete 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.

Jim ist entsetzt. Die Piraten haben das Fort und die Vorräte eingenommen. Sechs Piraten sind noch am Leben, fünf von ihnen sind betrunken und einer bleich - sein Kopf ist verbunden und Jim denkt, dass er derjenige ist, der während der ersten Schlacht verwundet wurde und in den Wald geflohen ist. Long John Silver holt seine Pfeife heraus, macht es sich bequem und fragt Jim, wie zum Teufel er dort hingekommen ist. Jim antwortet nicht. Er versucht tapfer auszusehen, ist sich aber innerlich sicher, dass alles verloren ist. Long John Silver sagt, dass Jim nicht zu seinen Freunden zurückkehren kann; Doktor Livesey und Kapitän Smollett halten ihn für undiszipliniert und undankbar. Jim ist erleichtert zu hören, dass zumindest seine Freunde noch am Leben sind. Er will wissen, was vor sich geht. Einer der anderen Piraten meldet sich zu Wort und sagt, dass sie das alle gerne wissen würden. Long John Silver sagt dem Piraten, er solle den Mund halten. Dann wendet sich Long John Silver an Jim und spricht ihn mit "Mr. Hawkins" an. Er erklärt, dass Doktor Livesey am Tag zuvor mit einer weißen Flagge zu den Piraten gegangen ist. Doktor Livesey teilte den Piraten mit, dass das Schiff weg war. Long John Silver gibt zu, dass sie alle betrunken waren und es nicht einmal bemerkt haben. Also haben Doktor Livesey und Long John Silver verhandelt. Doktor Livesey hat den Piraten das Fort, die Vorräte und das Feuerholz überlassen und ist mit seinen Freunden weggegangen, wohin auch immer - Long John Silver hat keine Ahnung. Jim sagt egal, schlimmer könnte es nicht mehr werden. Da er bereits so viel Ärger hat, beschließt er zu prahlen. Er erzählt Long John Silver, dass es alles dank ihm ist, dass Silvers Pläne schiefgelaufen sind. Jim ist derjenige, der die Pläne der Piraten belauscht und dem Kapitän und dem Gentleman erzählt hat, und er ist derjenige, der die Leinen des Schoners durchgeschnitten und das Boot treiben lassen hat. Jim ruft aus, dass es ihm egal ist, ob Long John Silver ihn jetzt tötet. Er bietet an, dass, wenn die Piraten ihn frei lassen, er vor Gericht aussagen wird, um sie vor dem Hängen in England zu bewahren. Alle Piraten sind völlig sprachlos. Tom Morgan meldet sich zu Wort und sagt, dass es stimmen muss - es war Jim, der Black Dog in der Kneipe in Bristol erkannt hat. Und Long John Silver stimmt zu, dass Jim derjenige ist, der die Karte von Billy Bones genommen hat. Tom Morgan versucht, Jim zu erstechen, aber Long John Silver hält ihn zurück. Die anderen Piraten sind einig, dass Tom Morgan Recht hat. Long John Silver will wissen, ob sich jemand traut, gegen ihn zu kämpfen. Niemand rührt sich. Jim verspürt plötzlich etwas Hoffnung. Die anderen Piraten ziehen sich langsam an das andere Ende des Forts zurück. Long John Silver sagt ihnen, dass sie sich melden sollen, wenn sie etwas zu sagen haben. Einer der Piraten sagt Long John Silver, dass er zwar durch Wahl Kapitän ist, aber niemand mit der Art, wie die Dinge laufen, zufrieden ist. Er verlangt, mit Long John Silver draußen zu reden. Schließlich schließen sich ihm alle anderen Piraten an und warten auf Long John Silver. Long John Silver flüstert Jim zu. Er sagt, er weiß, dass das Spiel vorbei ist. Als er sah, dass die Hispaniola weg war, wusste er, dass nichts mehr zu tun ist. Also wird er sein Bestes tun, um Jims Leben zu retten, aber Jim muss versprechen, sein Bestes zu tun, um ihn vor dem Hängen zu retten. Jim weiß nicht, wie er das tun soll, wenn Long John Silver der Anführer des ganzen Aufruhrs war, aber er verspricht es zu versuchen. Long John Silver fragt dann, ob Jim erklären kann, warum Doktor Livesey ihm die Schatzkarte gegeben hat. Jim sieht so erstaunt aus über diese Nachricht, dass Long John Silver erkennt, dass Jim auch keine Ahnung 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: DAS MUTTERSCHAFTHEIM BRENT HOUSE, HACKNEY Dieses Heim erfüllt einen ähnlichen Zweck wie das in Lorne House, allerdings sind die jungen Frauen, die hier aufgenommen werden und auf ihre Entbindung warten, in der Regel nicht so hochgestellt. Im Garten auf der Rückseite des Hauses saßen etwa vierzig Mädchen in einer Art Unterstand, der sie vor dem Regen schützte. Einige von ihnen waren am Arbeiten, andere unterhielten sich, während sich andere gedrückt und schweigend abseits hielten. Die meisten dieser jungen Frauen erwarteten in Kürze Mütter zu werden. Einige von ihnen hatten bereits ihre Babys, da es siebzehn Babys im Heim gab, die aus dem zentralen Mütterkrankenhaus verdrängt worden waren. Darunter befanden sich einige sehr traurige Fälle, von denen einige Mädchen aus gutem Hause waren und hier aufgenommen wurden, weil sie nichts bezahlen konnten. An eine von ihnen, eine ausländische junge Dame, erinnere ich mich. Ihre traurige Geschichte werde ich nicht erzählen. Man fand sie verängstigt und halb wahnsinnig durch die Straßen einer Hafenstadt irren und die Mitarbeiter der Heilsarmee brachten sie an diesen Ort. In diesem Haus gibt es einen Raum, in dem ehemalige Patientinnen, die in Dienst sind, ihre Babys mitbringen können, wenn sie Urlaub haben. Bei meinem Besuch waren zwei oder drei dieser Frauen hier und es war ein ergreifender Anblick, sie mit den Babys spielen und ihnen Essen geben zu sehen, von denen sie getrennt waren. In diesem und anderen Mutterschaftsheimen der Heilsarmee ist es üblich, einmal im Monat einen sogenannten Sozialabend zu veranstalten. Bei diesen Anlässen kommen fünfzig oder mehr ehemalige Bewohnerinnen mit ihren Kindern, die sie von den verschiedenen Pflegestellen mitgebracht haben, und genießen für ein paar Stunden ihre Gesellschaft, bevor sie sie zu den Pflegestellen zurückbringen und wieder an die Arbeit gehen, was auch immer sie tun. Durch diese freundliche Regelung haben diese armen Mütter die Möglichkeit, gelegentlich etwas Zeit mit ihren Kindern zu verbringen, was sie natürlich sehr schätzen. Kannst du eine passende 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.

Dr. Rivers kehrt nach Craiglockhart zurück und erzählt Bryce von dem Jobangebot in London. Bryce ermutigt ihn, es anzunehmen und erklärt, dass er aufgrund seiner andauernden Meinungsverschiedenheiten mit seinen Vorgesetzten darüber, wie das Krankenhaus geführt werden soll, sowieso bald gehen wird. Dr. Rivers kann sich Craiglockhart nicht ohne Bryce vorstellen und Bryce fühlt genauso. Doch Dr. Rivers sieht seine Arbeit im Krankenhaus immer noch als sinnvoll an. Später kommt Sassoon zu Dr. Rivers und bittet ihn um einen neuen Zimmergenossen. Sein aktueller ist unerträglich, behauptet Sassoon, weil er den Schmerz und die Schäden des Krieges mit simplen Platitüden abtut. Dr. Rivers ermutigt Sassoon, die zehn Tage bis zur Versetzung seines Zimmergenossen abzuwarten. Sassoon beschreibt dann seine Halluzinationen und erklärt, dass sie genug gedämpft sind, um real zu wirken. Dr. Rivers erzählt, dass er einst das Pfeifen der Toten gehört hat, als er die Bräuche der Einheimischen auf den Salomonen studierte. Er war auf einer Beerdigung, bei der erwartet wird, dass die Toten Geräusche machen; Rivers kann nicht sicher sein, ob er in eine Massenhalluzination gezogen wurde oder ob er tatsächlich tote Seelen pfeifen hörte. Sassoon erklärt, dass in seinen Visionen verstorbene Soldaten ihn verwirrt ansehen und sich fragen, warum er nicht an vorderster Front ist. Von Schuldgefühlen geplagt, erzählt Sassoon dem Arzt, dass er zugestimmt hat, an die Front zurückzukehren.

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: XII. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL. Walking in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and perhaps actually under the influence of a species of somnambulism, Mr. Dimmesdale reached the spot where, now so long since, Hester Prynne had lived through her first hours of public ignominy. The same platform or scaffold, black and weather-stained with the storm or sunshine of seven long years, and foot-worn, too, with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house. The minister went up the steps. It was an obscure night of early May. An unvaried pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. If the same multitude which had stood as eye-witnesses while Hester Prynne sustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, they would have discerned no face above the platform, nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark gray of the midnight. But the town was all asleep. There was no peril of discovery. The minister might stand there, if it so pleased him, until morning should redden in the east, without other risk than that the dank and chill night-air would creep into his frame, and stiffen his joints with rheumatism, and clog his throat with catarrh and cough; thereby defrauding the expectant audience of to-morrow's prayer and sermon. No eye could see him, save that ever-wakeful one which had seen him in his closet, wielding the bloody scourge. Why, then, had he come hither? Was it but the mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself! A mockery at which angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced, with jeering laughter! He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure. Poor, miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime? Crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their choice either to endure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert their fierce and savage strength for a good purpose, and fling it off at once! This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance. And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort of his will, or power to restrain himself, he shrieked aloud; an outcry that went pealing through the night, and was beaten back from one house to another, and reverberated from the hills in the background; as if a company of devils, detecting so much misery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the sound, and were bandying it to and fro. "It is done!" muttered the minister, covering his face with his hands. "The whole town will awake, and hurry forth, and find me here!" But it was not so. The shriek had perhaps sounded with a far greater power, to his own startled ears, than it actually possessed. The town did not awake; or, if it did, the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either for something frightful in a dream, or for the noise of witches; whose voices, at that period, were often heard to pass over the settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with Satan through the air. The clergyman, therefore, hearing no symptoms of disturbance, uncovered his eyes and looked about him. At one of the chamber-windows of Governor Bellingham's mansion, which stood at some distance, on the line of another street, he beheld the appearance of the old magistrate himself, with a lamp in his hand, a white night-cap on his head, and a long white gown enveloping his figure. He looked like a ghost, evoked unseasonably from the grave. The cry had evidently startled him. At another window of the same house, moreover, appeared old Mistress Hibbins, the Governor's sister, also with a lamp, which, even thus far off, revealed the expression of her sour and discontented face. She thrust forth her head from the lattice, and looked anxiously upward. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, this venerable witch-lady had heard Mr. Dimmesdale's outcry, and interpreted it, with its multitudinous echoes and reverberations, as the clamor of the fiends and night-hags, with whom she was well known to make excursions into the forest. Detecting the gleam of Governor Bellingham's lamp, the old lady quickly extinguished her own, and vanished. Possibly, she went up among the clouds. The minister saw nothing further of her motions. The magistrate, after a wary observation of the darkness,--into which, nevertheless, he could see but little further than he might into a mill-stone,--retired from the window. The minister grew comparatively calm. His eyes, however, were soon greeted by a little, glimmering light, which, at first a long way off, was approaching up the street. It threw a gleam of recognition on here a post, and there a garden-fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here, again, an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the doorstep. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard; and that the gleam of the lantern would fall upon him, in a few moments more, and reveal his long-hidden secret. As the light drew nearer, he beheld, within its illuminated circle, his brother clergyman,--or, to speak more accurately, his professional father, as well as highly valued friend,--the Reverend Mr. Wilson; who, as Mr. Dimmesdale now conjectured, had been praying at the bedside of some dying man. And so he had. The good old minister came freshly from the death-chamber of Governor Winthrop, who had passed from earth to heaven within that very hour. And now, surrounded, like the saint-like personages of olden times, with a radiant halo, that glorified him amid this gloomy night of sin,--as if the departed Governor had left him an inheritance of his glory, or as if he had caught upon himself the distant shine of the celestial city, while looking thitherward to see the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates,--now, in short, good Father Wilson was moving homeward, aiding his footsteps with a lighted lantern! The glimmer of this luminary suggested the above conceits to Mr. Dimmesdale, who smiled,--nay, almost laughed at them,--and then wondered if he were going mad. As the Reverend Mr. Wilson passed beside the scaffold, closely muffling his Geneva cloak about him with one arm, and holding the lantern before his breast with the other, the minister could hardly restrain himself from speaking. "A good evening to you, venerable Father Wilson! Come up hither, I pray you, and pass a pleasant hour with me!" Good heavens! Had Mr. Dimmesdale actually spoken? For one instant, he believed that these words had passed his lips. But they were uttered only within his imagination. The venerable Father Wilson continued to step slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy pathway before his feet, and never once turning his head towards the guilty platform. When the light of the glimmering lantern had faded quite away, the minister discovered, by the faintness which came over him, that the last few moments had been a crisis of terrible anxiety; although his mind had made an involuntary effort to relieve itself by a kind of lurid playfulness. Shortly afterwards, the like grisly sense of the humorous again stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought. He felt his limbs growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold. Morning would break, and find him there. The neighborhood would begin to rouse itself. The earliest riser, coming forth in the dim twilight, would perceive a vaguely defined figure aloft on the place of shame; and, half crazed betwixt alarm and curiosity, would go, knocking from door to door, summoning all the people to behold the ghost--as he needs must think it--of some defunct transgressor. A dusky tumult would flap its wings from one house to another. Then--the morning light still waxing stronger--old patriarchs would rise up in great haste, each in his flannel gown, and matronly dames, without pausing to put off their night-gear. The whole tribe of decorous personages, who had never heretofore been seen with a single hair of their heads awry, would start into public view, with the disorder of a nightmare in their aspects. Old Governor Bellingham would come grimly forth, with his King James's ruff fastened askew; and Mistress Hibbins, with some twigs of the forest clinging to her skirts, and looking sourer than ever, as having hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride; and good Father Wilson, too, after spending half the night at a death-bed, and liking ill to be disturbed, thus early, out of his dreams about the glorified saints. Hither, likewise, would come the elders and deacons of Mr. Dimmesdale's church, and the young virgins who so idolized their minister, and had made a shrine for him in their white bosoms; which now, by the by, in their hurry and confusion, they would scantly have given themselves time to cover with their kerchiefs. All people, in a word, would come stumbling over their thresholds, and turning up their amazed and horror-stricken visages around the scaffold. Whom would they discern there, with the red eastern light upon his brow? Whom, but the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, half frozen to death, overwhelmed with shame, and standing where Hester Prynne had stood! Carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture, the minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great peal of laughter. It was immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh, in which, with a thrill of the heart,--but he knew not whether of exquisite pain, or pleasure as acute,--he recognized the tones of little Pearl. "Pearl! Little Pearl!" cried he after a moment's pause; then, suppressing his voice,--"Hester! Hester Prynne! Are you there?" "Yes; it is Hester Prynne!" she replied, in a tone of surprise; and the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the sidewalk, along which she had been passing. "It is I, and my little Pearl." "Whence come you, Hester?" asked the minister. "What sent you hither?" "I have been watching at a death-bed," answered Hester Prynne;--"at Governor Winthrop's death-bed, and have taken his measure for a robe, and am now going homeward to my dwelling." "Come up hither, Hester, thou and little Pearl," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. "Ye have both been here before, but I was not with you. Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together!" She silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform, holding little Pearl by the hand. The minister felt for the child's other hand, and took it. The moment that he did so, there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system. The three formed an electric chain. "Minister!" whispered little Pearl. "What wouldst thou say, child?" asked Mr. Dimmesdale. "Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?" inquired Pearl. "Nay; not so, my little Pearl," answered the minister; for, with the new energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure, that had so long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him; and he was already trembling at the conjunction in which--with a strange joy, nevertheless--he now found himself. "Not so, my child. I shall, indeed, stand with thy mother and thee one other day, but not to-morrow." Pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. But the minister held it fast. "A moment longer, my child!" said he. "But wilt thou promise," asked Pearl, "to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noontide?" "Not then, Pearl," said the minister, "but another time." "And what other time?" persisted the child. "At the great judgment day," whispered the minister,--and, strangely enough, the sense that he was a professional teacher of the truth impelled him to answer the child so. "Then, and there, before the judgment-seat, thy mother, and thou, and I must stand together. But the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!" Pearl laughed again. [Illustration: "They stood in the noon of that strange splendor"] But, before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors, which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out to waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. So powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. The great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the street, with the distinctness of mid-day, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light. The wooden houses, with their jutting stories and quaint gable-peaks; the doorsteps and thresholds, with the early grass springing up about them; the garden-plots, black with freshly turned earth; the wheel-track, little worn, and, even in the market-place, margined with green on either side;--all were visible, but with a singularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before. And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two. They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another. There was witchcraft in little Pearl's eyes, and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elvish. She withdrew her hand from Mr. Dimmesdale's, and pointed across the street. But he clasped both his hands over his breast, and cast his eyes towards the zenith. Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena, that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernatural source. Thus, a blazing spear, a sword of flame, a bow, or a sheaf of arrows, seen in the midnight sky, prefigured Indian warfare. Pestilence was known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimson light. We doubt whether any marked event, for good or evil, ever befell New England, from its settlement down to Revolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of this nature. Not seldom, it had been seen by multitudes. Oftener, however, its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eye-witness, who beheld the wonder through the colored, magnifying, and distorting medium of his imagination, and shaped it more distinctly in his after-thought. It was, indeed, a majestic idea, that the destiny of nations should be revealed, in these awful hieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. A scroll so wide might not be deemed too expansive for Providence to write a people's doom upon. The belief was a favorite one with our forefathers, as betokening that their infant commonwealth was under a celestial guardianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness. But what shall we say, when an individual discovers a revelation addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record! In such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate! We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart, that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter,--the letter A,--marked out in lines of dull red light. Not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point, burning duskily through a veil of cloud; but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it; or, at least, with so little definiteness, that another's guilt might have seen another symbol in it. There was a singular circumstance that characterized Mr. Dimmesdale's psychological state, at this moment. All the time that he gazed upward to the zenith, he was, nevertheless, perfectly aware that little Pearl was pointing her finger towards old Roger Chillingworth, who stood at no great distance from the scaffold. The minister appeared to see him, with the same glance that discerned the miraculous letter. To his features, as to all other objects, the meteoric light imparted a new expression; or it might well be that the physician was not careful then, as at all other times, to hide the malevolence with which he looked upon his victim. Certainly, if the meteor kindled up the sky, and disclosed the earth, with an awfulness that admonished Hester Prynne and the clergyman of the day of judgment, then might Roger Chillingworth have passed with them for the arch-fiend, standing there with a smile and scowl, to claim his own. So vivid was the expression, or so intense the minister's perception of it, that it seemed still to remain painted on the darkness, after the meteor had vanished, with an effect as if the street and all things else were at once annihilated. "Who is that man, Hester?" gasped Mr. Dimmesdale, overcome with terror. "I shiver at him! Dost thou know the man? I hate him, Hester!" She remembered her oath, and was silent. "I tell thee, my soul shivers at him!" muttered the minister again. "Who is he? Who is he? Canst thou do nothing for me? I have a nameless horror of the man!" "Minister," said little Pearl, "I can tell thee who he is!" "Quickly, then, child!" said the minister, bending his ear close to her lips. "Quickly!--and as low as thou canst whisper." Pearl mumbled something into his ear, that sounded, indeed, like human language, but was only such gibberish as children may be heard amusing themselves with, by the hour together. At all events, if it involved any secret information in regard to old Roger Chillingworth, it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, and did but increase the bewilderment of his mind. The elvish child then laughed aloud. "Dost thou mock me now?" said the minister. "Thou wast not bold!--thou wast not true!"--answered the child. "Thou wouldst not promise to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noontide!" "Worthy Sir," answered the physician, who had now advanced to the foot of the platform. "Pious Master Dimmesdale, can this be you? Well, well, indeed! We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straitly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep. Come, good Sir, and my dear friend, I pray you, let me lead you home!" "How knewest thou that I was here?" asked the minister, fearfully. "Verily, and in good faith," answered Roger Chillingworth, "I knew nothing of the matter. I had spent the better part of the night at the bedside of the worshipful Governor Winthrop, doing what my poor skill might to give him ease. He going home to a better world, I, likewise, was on my way homeward, when this strange light shone out. Come with me, I beseech you, Reverend Sir; else you will be poorly able to do Sabbath duty to-morrow. Aha! see now, how they trouble the brain,--these books!--these books! You should study less, good Sir, and take a little pastime; or these night-whimseys will grow upon you." "I will go home with you," said Mr. Dimmesdale. With a chill despondency, like one awaking, all nerveless, from an ugly dream, he yielded himself to the physician, and was led away. The next day, however, being the Sabbath, he preached a discourse which was held to be the richest and most powerful, and the most replete with heavenly influences, that had ever proceeded from his lips. Souls, it is said more souls than one, were brought to the truth by the efficacy of that sermon, and vowed within themselves to cherish a holy gratitude towards Mr. Dimmesdale throughout the long hereafter. But, as he came down the pulpit steps, the gray-bearded sexton met him, holding up a black glove, which the minister recognized as his own. "It was found," said the sexton, "this morning, on the scaffold where evil-doers are set up to public shame. Satan dropped it there, I take it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence. But, indeed, he was blind and foolish, as he ever and always is. A pure hand needs no glove to cover it!" "Thank you, my good friend," said the minister, gravely, but startled at heart; for, so confused was his remembrance, that he had almost brought himself to look at the events of the past night as visionary. "Yes, it seems to be my glove, indeed!" "And since Satan saw fit to steal it, your reverence must needs handle him without gloves, henceforward," remarked the old sexton, grimly smiling. "But did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night?--a great red letter in the sky,--the letter A, which we interpret to stand for Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof!" "No," answered the minister, "I had not heard of it." [Illustration] [Illustration] 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.

Nachdem er das Haus verlassen hat, geht Dimmesdale zum Schafott, wo Hester Prynne sieben Jahre zuvor stand, mit ihrem Zeichen der Schande und Pearl in den Armen. Nun, in der feuchten, kühlen Luft der bewölkten Maisnacht, steigt Dimmesdale die Stufen hinauf, während die Stadt schläft. Als er sich darüber im Klaren ist, wie absurd es ist, dass er jetzt dort sicher und unbemerkt stehen kann, wo er sieben Jahre zuvor vor den Stadtbewohnern hätte stehen sollen, überkommt ihn ein solcher Selbsthass, dass er hinaus in die Nacht schreit. Hester und Pearl, die gerade vom Sterbebett von Governor Winthrop zurückkehren, besteigen das Schafott und die drei stehen Hand in Hand, Hester und Dimmesdale verbunden durch Pearl. Zweimal fragt Pearl Dimmesdale, ob er am nächsten Tag mittags wieder dort stehen wird. Der Pfarrer antwortet, dass er am "großen Tag des Gerichts" dort stehen wird. Während er spricht, erleuchtet ein seltsames Licht den Himmel und das Schafott. Als Dimmesdale hinaufschaut, scheint er in Form eines riesigen Buchstabens A ein dumpfes rotes Licht am Himmel zu sehen. Gleichzeitig bemerkt Dimmesdale, dass Pearl auf Roger Chillingworth zeigt, der neben ihnen steht und grimmig zu ihnen hochlächelt. Von Angst überwältigt, fragt Dimmesdale Hester nach der wahren Identität von Chillingworth. In Erinnerung an ihr Versprechen an Chillingworth, bleibt Hester stumm. Nach der Predigt am nächsten Morgen erschreckt der Totengräber den Pfarrer, indem er ihm einen seiner Handschuhe zurückgibt, der auf dem Schafott gefunden wurde. Der Totengräber fragt auch nach dem großen roten Buchstaben A, der in der vergangenen Nacht am Himmel erschienen 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. Während Uncas diese Anordnung seiner Truppen traf, war der Wald still und, mit Ausnahme derer, die sich im Rat getroffen hatten, erschien er so unbewohnt wie direkt nach der Erschaffung durch ihren allmächtigen Schöpfer. Das Auge konnte in jede Richtung durch die langen und schattigen Baumalleen schweifen, aber nirgendwo war ein Gegenstand zu sehen, der nicht zum friedlichen und schlafenden Bild der Landschaft gehörte. Hier und da hörte man einen Vogel zwischen den Zweigen der Buchen flattern und gelegentlich ließ ein Eichhörnchen eine Nuss fallen, was für einen Moment die aufgeschreckten Blicke der Gruppe auf den Ort zog. Doch sobald die zufällige Unterbrechung vorbei war, hörte man den Wind über ihren Köpfen murmeln, entlang der grünen und welligen Oberfläche des Waldes, der sich ununterbrochen, außer von Fluss oder See, über eine so große Region erstreckte. Über das Gebiet der Wildnis, das zwischen den Delawaren und dem Dorf ihrer Feinde lag, schien es, als ob der Fuß eines Menschen nie getreten hätte, so atemlos und tief war die Stille, in der sie lag. Doch Hawkeye, dessen Aufgabe ihn an vorderster Front in das Abenteuer führte, kannte den Charakter derjenigen, mit denen er sich anlegen würde, nur zu gut, um dem heimtückischen Frieden zu trauen. Als er sah, dass seine kleine Truppe versammelt war, warf der Pfadfinder "Killdeer" in die Hohlkehle seines Armes und gab ein stummes Signal, dass ihm gefolgt würde. Er führte sie viele Ellen weit nach hinten und in das Flussbett eines kleinen Baches, den sie auf ihrer Vormarsch durchquert hatten. Dort hielt er an und sprach auf Delaware, wobei er fragte: "Weiß einer meiner jungen Männer, wohin uns dieser Fluss führen wird?" Ein Delaware streckte eine Hand aus, mit den beiden Fingern getrennt, und veranschaulichte, wie sie an der Wurzel verbunden waren, und antwortete: "Noch bevor die Sonne ihre eigene Länge zurücklegt, wird das kleine Wasser im großen sein." Dann fügte er hinzu und zeigte in die Richtung, von der er sprach: "Die beiden bieten genug für die Biber." "Ich dachte mir so", erwiderte der Pfadfinder und warf einen Blick nach oben auf die Öffnung in den Baumkronen, "aufgrund des Verlaufs und der Lage der Berge. Männer, wir bleiben im Schutz der Ufer, bis wir den Geruch der Huronen wahrnehmen." Seine Begleiter gaben die übliche kurze Zustimmungsbekundung, aber sie bemerkten, dass ihr Anführer persönlich den Weg führen wollte, woraufhin einer oder zwei Zeichen gaben, dass etwas nicht stimmte. Hawkeye, der die Bedeutung ihrer bedeutungsvollen Blicke verstand, wandte sich um und bemerkte, dass seine Gruppe bis hierhin vom Singmeister verfolgt worden war. "Wissen Sie, mein Freund", fragte der Pfadfinder ernst und vielleicht mit einem kleinen Anflug von stolzem Verdienst in seiner Art, "dass dies eine Gruppe von Kriegern ist, die für den verzweifeltsten Einsatz ausgewählt wurde und das Kommando von jemandem übernommen hat, der, wenn es jemand anderes mit besserem Aussehen sagen könnte, nicht dafür bekannt ist, sie untätig zu lassen. Es könnte nicht fünf, es könnten nicht dreißig Minuten vergehen, bevor wir auf den Körper eines Huronen, lebendig oder tot, treten." "Obwohl man es mir nicht in Worten angedeutet hat", erwiderte David, dessen Gesicht ein wenig gerötet war und deren normalerweise ruhige und bedeutungslose Augen mit einem Ausdruck ungewöhnlichen Feuers glänzten, "haben Ihre Männer mich an die Kinder Jakobs erinnert, die gegen die Sichemiter in den Krieg zogen, weil sie gottlos danach strebten, eine Frau eines Volkes zu heiraten, das vom Herrn begünstigt wurde. Nun, ich bin weit gereist und habe viel Zeit mit dem Mädchen verbracht, das ihr sucht; und obwohl ich kein Kriegsmann bin, mit meiner Lenden gerafft und meinem Schwert geschärft, würde ich doch gerne einen Schlag in ihrem Namen führen." Der Pfadfinder zögerte, als ob er die Chancen einer so seltsamen Anwerbung in seinem Kopf abwägen würde, bevor er antwortete: "Ihr kennt den Gebrauch keiner Waffe. Ihr führt kein Gewehr mit euch; und glaubt mir, was die Mingos nehmen, werden sie völlig freiwillig wieder geben." "Obwohl ich kein prahlender und blutdürstiger Goliath bin", erwiderte David und zog eine Schleuder unter seiner bunt gefärbten und unbeholfenen Kleidung hervor, "habe ich das Beispiel des jüdischen Jungen nicht vergessen. Mit diesem alten Kriegsinstrument habe ich mich in meiner Jugend viel geübt, und vielleicht ist mir die Fertigkeit nicht ganz abhandengekommen." "Ach!" sagte Hawkeye und betrachtete das Hirschlederband und den Schutz, mit einem kalten und entmutigenden Blick, "das Ding könnte seine Arbeit unter Pfeilen oder sogar Messern tun; aber diese Mengwe haben von den Franzosen eine gut eingeritzte Läufe, die einen Mann umhaut. Doch es scheint eure Gabe zu sein, ungehindert durch Feuer zu gehen; und da ihr bisher begünstigt wurdet - Major, ihr habt euer Gewehr nicht gespannt; ein einziger Schuss vor der Zeit wären genau zwanzig Skalps umsonst verloren - Sänger, ihr könnt uns folgen; vielleicht werden wir euch fürs Rufmachen brauchen." "Ich danke Ihnen, Freund", erwiderte David und versah sich wie sein königlicher Namensvetter mit Kieselsteinen aus dem Bach, "obwohl ich nicht danach verlangt habe zu töten, wäre meine Seele beunruhigt gewesen, wenn Sie mich weggeschickt hätten." "Denkt daran", fügte der Pfadfinder hinzu und klopfte sich bedeutsam an die Stelle seines Kopfes, an der Gamut noch schmerzte, "wir kommen zum Kämpfen und nicht zum Musizieren. Bis das allgemeine Kampfgeheul erklingt, spricht nichts außer das Gewehr." David nickte, um seine Zustimmung zu bekunden, und dann gab Hawkeye einen weiteren prüfenden Blick auf seine Anhänger und gab das Signal zum Weitergehen. Ihr Weg führte sie die Strecke von einer Meile entlang des Flussbetts. Obwohl sie durch die steilen Ufer und das dichte Gebüsch, das den Fluss säumte, vor großer Gefahr der Beobachtung geschützt waren, wurden keine Vorsichtsmaßnahmen bei einem indianischen Angriff vernachlässigt. Ein Krieger kroch eher als dass er ging, an jeder Flanke, um gelegentlich einen Blick in den Wald zu erhaschen; und alle paar Minuten hielt die Gruppe an und lauschte auf feindliche Geräusche mit einer Feinheit der Sinne, die einem Menschen in einem weniger natürlichen Zustand kaum vorstellbar wäre. Ihr Marsch wurde jedoch nicht gestört, und sie erreichten den Punkt, an dem der kleinere Fluss im größeren verschwand, ohne den kleinsten Hinweis darauf, dass ihr Fortschritt bemerkt worden war. Hier hielt der Pfadfinder erneut an, um die Zeichen des Waldes zu befragen. "Es sieht so aus, als ob wir einen guten Tag für einen Kampf haben werden", sagte er auf Englisch und wandte sich an Heyward und warf einen Blick nach oben auf die Wolken, die begannen, sich in breiten Schichten über das Firmament zu bewegen. "Eine helle Sonne und ein glänzender Lauf sind keine Freunde der guten Sicht. Alles ist günstig; sie haben den Wind, der ihre Geräusche und ihren Rauch herunterbringen wird, was an sich schon kein kleines Ding ist; während es bei uns erst einen Schuss und dann eine klare Sicht geben wird. Aber hier endet unsere Deckung; die Biber hatten den Lauf dieses Flusses jahrhundertelang, und zwischen ihrem Futter und ihren Dämmen gibt es, wie ihr seht, viele abgeschälte Stämme, aber nur wenige lebende Bäume." In der Tat hatte Hawkeye mit diesen wenigen Worten keine schlechte Beschreibung der Aussicht gegeben, die sich ihnen jetzt vor ihnen erstreckte. Der Bach hatte eine unregelmäßige Breite, manchmal schoss er durch enge Spalten in den Felsen und breitete sich an anderen Stellen über Morgenland aus, bildete kleine Bereiche, die Teiche Alle diese kleinen Einzelheiten wurden vom Späher mit einer Ernsthaftigkeit und einem Interesse bemerkt, die wahrscheinlich noch nie zuvor so angezogen hatten. Er wusste, dass das Huronenlager eine kurze halbe Meile den Bach hinauf lag und war aufgrund seiner Angst vor einer versteckten Gefahr sehr beunruhigt, als er keinerlei Spuren der Anwesenheit seines Feindes fand. Ein- oder zweimal war er versucht, den Befehl zum Angriff zu geben und das Dorf überraschend anzugreifen, aber seine Erfahrung ermahnte ihn schnell von der Gefahr eines so nutzlosen Experiments. Dann lauschte er aufmerksam und mit quälender Unsicherheit auf Geräusche der Feindseligkeit in dem Gebiet, wo Uncas zurückgelassen wurde, aber nichts war hörbar außer dem Seufzen des Windes, der begann, über die Brust des Waldes in Böen zu fegen, die auf einen Sturm hinwiesen. Schließlich, eher seinem ungewöhnlichen Ungeduld nachgebend als aufgrund seines Wissens, entschied er sich, die Dinge zum Abschluss zu bringen, indem er seine Kräfte enttarnte und vorsichtig, aber beständig den Fluss hinauf vorging. Der Späher hatte sich, während er seine Beobachtungen machte, in einem Busch geschützt aufgehalten, und seine Begleiter lagen immer noch im Bett des Canyon, durch den der kleinere Bach mündete. Aber als sie sein leises, aber verständliches Signal hörten, schlichen sich alle wie dunkle Gespenster den Hang hinauf und arrangierten sich lautlos um ihn herum. Hawkeye, der in die gewünschte Richtung zeigte, marschierte voran, die Truppe trennte sich in einzelne Dateien und folgte seinen Fußstapfen so genau, dass bis auf Heyward und David kaum erkennbar war, dass es mehr als ein Mann war. Die Gruppe war jedoch kaum entdeckt worden, als ein Gewehrfeuer aus einem Dutzend Gewehren hinter ihnen zu hören war, und ein Delaware sprang hoch in die Luft wie ein verwundetes Reh und fiel in voller Länge tot zu Boden. "Ach, ich habe etwas Teuflisches wie das befürchtet!", rief der Späher auf Englisch aus und fügte mit der Schnelligkeit des Denkens in seiner angenommenen Sprache hinzu: "Deckung, Männer, und Angriff!" Die Gruppe zerstreute sich auf dieses Kommando hin, und bevor Heyward sich von seinem Erstaunen erholt hatte, befand er sich alleine mit David. Glücklicherweise hatten sich die Huronen bereits zurückgezogen und er war vor ihrem Feuer in Sicherheit. Aber dieser Zustand sollte offensichtlich von kurzer Dauer sein, da der Späher das Beispiel gab, den Rückzug fortzusetzen, indem er sein Gewehr abfeuerte und sich von Baum zu Baum warf, während sein Feind langsam an Boden verlor. Es schien, als ob der Angriff von einer sehr kleinen Gruppe der Huronen ausgeführt worden war, die jedoch zunahm, während sie sich auf ihre Freunde zurückzog, bis das Rückfeuer sehr nahezu, wenn nicht sogar gleich, dem der vorrückenden Delawaren war. Heyward mischte sich unter die Kämpfenden und ahmte die notwendige Vorsicht seiner Begleiter nach, indem er schnell mit seinem eigenen Gewehr schoss. Der Kampf wurde nun heiß und anhaltend. Nur wenige wurden verletzt, da beide Seiten ihre Körper so gut wie möglich durch die Bäume schützten und tatsächlich nie einen Teil ihres Körpers offenbarten, außer beim Zielen. Aber die Chancen wurden allmählich ungünstig für Hawkeye und seine Truppe. Der scharfsichtige Späher erkannte die Gefahr, ohne zu wissen, wie er sie beheben konnte. Er sah, dass ein Rückzug gefährlicher war als seine Position zu halten, während er feststellte, dass sein Feind Männer an seiner Flanke aussandte, was die Aufgabe, sich selbst zu bedecken, für die Delawaren so schwierig machte, dass ihr Feuer fast verstummt war. In diesem peinlichen Moment, als sie begannen zu denken, dass der ganze feindliche Stamm sie allmählich umzingelte, hörten sie den Kampfschrei und das Klirren von Waffen, das unter den Bögen des Waldes an der Stelle zu hören war, an der Uncas stationiert war - einem Tal, das gewissermaßen unter dem Boden lag, auf dem Hawkeye und seine Truppe kämpften. Die Auswirkungen dieses Angriffs waren sofort, und für den Späher und seine Freunde äußerst erleichternd. Es schien, als ob der Feind, während seine eigene Überraschung erwartet worden war und daher fehlgeschlagen war, nun selbst in seinem Ziel und in seinen Zahlen getäuscht worden und zu wenig Kräfte übrig hatte, um der wütenden Attacke des jungen Mohikaners standzuhalten. Dies wurde doppelt deutlich, durch die schnelle Art und Weise, wie der Waldkampf aufwärts in Richtung des Dorfes rollte, und durch die sofortige Verringerung der Anzahl ihrer Angreifer, die zur Hilfe eilten, um den Hauptpunkt der Verteidigung aufrechtzuerhalten. Hawkeye animierte seine Anhänger mit seiner Stimme und seinem eigenen Beispiel und gab dann das Signal, auf ihre Feinde loszugehen. Der Angriff in dieser primitiven Art des Krieges bestand lediglich darin, von Deckung zu Deckung vorzurücken, dem Feind näher zu kommen. Dieser Manöver wurde sofort und erfolgreich befolgt. Die Huronen wurden dazu gezwungen, sich zurückzuziehen, und der Schauplatz des Kampfes verlagerte sich schnell von dem offeneren Gelände, auf dem er begonnen hatte, zu einem Ort, an dem sich die Angegriffenen an einem Dickicht festklammerten. Hier wurde der Kampf langwierig, mühsam und schien von zweifelhaftem Ausgang zu sein, da die Delawaren, obwohl keiner von ihnen fiel, aufgrund des Nachteils feudeten, unter dem sie sich befanden, stark bluteten. In dieser Krise fand Hawkeye einen Weg, sich hinter denselben Baum zu stellen, der auch Heyward Schutz bot. Die meisten seiner eigenen Kämpfer waren in Hörweite, etwas rechts von ihm, wo sie eine schnelle, wenn auch nutzlose, Salve auf ihre gedeckten Feinde abgaben. "Sie sind ein junger Mann, Major", sagte der Späher und ließ den Schaft von "Killdeer" auf den Boden fallen und lehnte sich ein wenig erschöpft auf das Gewehrlauf, nachdem er sich zuvor angestrengt hatte. "Und vielleicht ist es Ihnen gegeben, irgendwann in der Zukunft gegen diese Höllenbruten, die Mingos, Armeen zu führen. Hier können Sie die Philosophie eines Indianerkampfes sehen. Sie besteht hauptsächlich aus einer geschickten Hand, einem schnellen Auge und einer guten Deckung. Nun, wenn Sie hier eine Kompanie der Royal Americans hätten, wie würden Sie sie in dieser Angelegenheit vorgehen lassen?" "Die Bajonette würden sich ihren Weg bahnen." "Ja, in dem, was du sagst, steckt weißer Grund. Aber ein Mann muss sich hier in der Wildnis fragen, wie viele Leben er entbehren kann. Nein, Pferd", fuhr der Späher fort, den Kopf hin und her zu bewegen, um die Geräusche des entfernten Kampfes aufzufangen, "ich schäme mich zu sagen, muss früher oder später darüber entscheiden. Die Tiere sind besser als Menschen und zu Pferd müssen wir schließlich kommen. Ein beschlagener Huf auf einem Mokassin eines Rothauts, und wenn sein Gewehr erst entleert ist, wird er nie anhalten, es wieder zu laden." "Dies ist ein Thema, das besser zu einem anderen Zeitpunkt diskutiert werden könnte "Dort spricht der Sagamore!", rief Hawkeye und antwortete dem Ruf mit seiner eigenen stentorischen Stimme. "Wir haben sie jetzt von vorne und hinten!" Der Effekt auf die Huronen war sofort spürbar. Entmutigt durch den Angriff von einer Seite, die ihnen keine Möglichkeit zur Deckung ließ, stießen ihre Krieger einen gemeinsamen Schrei der Enttäuschung aus und brachen geschlossen auf, sie verteilten sich über die Lichtung, ohne Rücksicht auf irgendetwas außer auf die Flucht. Dabei fielen viele durch Kugeln und Schläge der verfolgenden Delawaren. Wir wollen nicht innehalten, um das Treffen zwischen dem Scout und Chingachgook im Detail zu beschreiben oder das berührende Gespräch zwischen Duncan und Munro. Ein paar kurze und hastige Worte reichten aus, um beiden Seiten die Lage zu erklären. Dann wies Hawkeye seine Truppe auf den Sagamore hin und übertrug die Oberherrschaft in die Hände des Mohikanerhäuptlings. Chingachgook übernahm den Platz, den seine Geburt und Erfahrung ihm mit so herausragendem Anspruch gaben, mit der ernsten Würde, die den Befehlen eines einheimischen Kriegers immer Kraft verleiht. Dem Scout folgend führte er die Gruppe zurück durch das Dickicht, seine Männer skalpierten die gefallenen Huronen und versteckten die Leichen ihrer eigenen Toten, während sie voranschritten, bis sie einen Punkt erreichten, an dem der ehemalige Anführer bereit war, eine Pause einzulegen. Die Krieger, die sich in dem vorherigen Kampf wieder frei durchatmen konnten, wurden nun auf einem kleinen Abschnitt ebener Erde aufgestellt, der von ausreichend vielen Bäumen besät war, um sie zu verbergen. Das Land fiel ziemlich steil vor ihnen ab, und vor ihren Augen erstreckte sich über mehrere Meilen ein schmaler, dunkler und bewaldeter Talgrund. Durch diesen dichten und dunklen Wald kämpfte Uncas immer noch mit dem Hauptteil der Huronen. Der Mohikaner und seine Freunde schritten zum Rand des Hügels und lauschten mit geschulten Ohren den Geräuschen des Kampfes. Ein paar Vögel schwebten über der grünen Brust des Tals, erschreckt von ihren verborgenen Nestern, und hier und da erhob sich eine leichte, dampfartige Wolke, die sich bereits mit der Atmosphäre vermischte und auf irgendeine Stelle hinwies, wo der Kampf heftig und standhaft ausgefochten wurde. "Der Kampf kommt die Anhöhe herauf," sagte Duncan und zeigte in die Richtung einer neuen Schussentladung. "Wir sind zu sehr in der Mitte ihrer Linie, um effektiv zu sein." "Sie werden in die Senke neigen, wo der Schutz dichter ist," sagte der Scout, "und dann stehen wir gut an ihrer Flanke. Geh, Sagamore; du wirst kaum rechtzeitig sein, um den Kriegsruf auszustoßen und die jungen Männer anzuführen. Ich werde diesen Kampf mit Kriegern meiner eigenen Farbe führen. Du kennst mich, Mohikaner; kein einziger Hurone wird den Hügel überqueren und in deinen Rücken eindringen, ohne auf 'Killdeer' zu stoßen." Der indianische Häuptling hielt einen weiteren Moment inne, um die Zeichen des Kampfes zu betrachten, der nun schnell die Anhöhe heraufrollte, ein klares Zeichen, dass die Delawaren triumphierten; und er verließ diesen Ort tatsächlich erst, als er durch die Kugeln seiner Freunde, die bereits begannen wie die hagelnden Körner vor dem Sturm zu pochen, daran erinnert wurde, dass er sich in der Nähe seiner Freunde, aber auch seiner Feinde befand. Hawkeye und seine drei Begleiter zogen sich ein paar Schritte zurück, um Schutz zu suchen, und warteten ruhig auf den Ausgang, was nur durch große Übung in einer solchen Situation vermittelt werden kann. Es dauerte nicht lange, bis der Klang der Gewehre das Echo des Waldes verlor und wie Waffen klang, die in der offenen Luft abgefeuert wurden. Dann tauchten Krieger hier und da auf, die bis an den Rand des Waldes getrieben wurden und sich im offenen Gelände wieder sammelten, als ob dies der Ort wäre, an dem der letzte Widerstand geleistet werden sollte. Bald wurden sie von den anderen begleitet, bis eine lange Reihe dunkler Gestalten zu sehen war, die sich mit der Hartnäckigkeit der Verzweiflung an den Schutz klammerten. Heyward wurde ungeduldig und wandte seine Augen ängstlich in Richtung Chingachgook. Der Häuptling saß auf einem Felsen und sein ruhiger Blick war das Einzige, was sichtbar war, als würde er das Schauspiel mit einem so bedächtigen Auge betrachten, als habe er sich dort nur aufgestellt, um den Kampf zu betrachten. "Die Zeit ist gekommen, dass die Delawaren zuschlagen!" sagte Duncan. "Nicht so, nicht so," erwiderte der Scout, "wenn er sich seinen Freunden nähert, wird er sie wissen lassen, dass er hier ist. Sieh, sieh; die Schurken verstecken sich in dieser Gruppe von Kiefern, wie Bienen, die sich nach ihrem Flug niederlassen. Beim Herrn, eine Squaw könnte einen Schuss in die Mitte einer solchen Ansammlung dunkler Haut legen!" In diesem Moment ertönte der Kriegsruf, und ein Dutzend Huronen fielen durch den Beschuss von Chingachgook und seinen Gefolgsleuten. Der darauf folgende Schrei wurde von einem einzelnen Kriegsruf aus dem Wald beantwortet, und ein Schrei schallte durch die Luft, der so klang, als ob tausend Kehlen in einem gemeinsamen Angriff vereint wären. Die Huronen stolperten und verließen die Mitte ihrer Linie, und Uncas trat aus dem Wald durch die entstandene Lücke, an der Spitze von hundert Kriegern. Mit winkenden Händen zeigte der junge Häuptling seinen Anhängern den Feind, die sich aufteilten und in die Verfolgung gingen. Der Krieg teilte sich nun auf, beide Flügel der gebrochenen Huronen suchten erneut Schutz im Wald und wurden von den siegreichen Kriegern der Lenape heftig verfolgt. Eine Minute mochte vergangen sein, aber die Geräusche entfernten sich bereits in verschiedene Richtungen und verloren allmählich ihre Deutlichkeit unter den nachhallenden Bögen des Waldes. Eine kleine Gruppe von Huronen jedoch hatte es abgelehnt, Schutz zu suchen und zog sich langsam und widerwillig den Hang hinauf, den Chingachgook und sein Gefolge gerade verlassen hatten, um sich enger in das Gefecht einzumischen. Magua war in dieser Gruppe hervorstechend, sowohl durch sein wildes und barbarisches Aussehen als auch durch die Luft hoher Autorität, die er noch aufrechterhielt. In seiner Eile, der Verfolgung Nachdruck zu verleihen, hatte Uncas sich fast alleine zurückgelassen; aber in dem Moment, als seine Augen die Gestalt von Le Subtil erblickten, waren alle anderen Überlegungen vergessen. Seinen Schlachtruf erhebend, der etwa sechs oder sieben Krieger herbeirief und ungeachtet der Diskrepanz ihrer Zahlen, stürzte er sich auf seinen Feind. Le Renard, der die Bewegung beobachtete, hielt inne, um ihn mit heimlicher Freude zu empfangen. Doch im Moment, als er dachte, dass die Tollkühnheit seines hitzigen jungen Angreifers ihn in seine Fänge gelassen habe, erklang ein weiterer Schrei, und La Longue Carabine wurde gesehen, wie sie zur Rettung heraneilte, begleitet von all seinen weißen Gefährten. Der Hurone drehte sich sofort um und begann hastig den Hang hinauf zu fliehen. Es war keine Zeit für Begrüßungen oder Glückwünsche; denn Uncas, obwohl er sich der Anwesenheit seiner Freunde nicht bewusst war, setzte die Verfolgung mit der Geschwindigkeit des Windes fort. Vergeblich rief Hawkeye ihm zu, die Deckung zu respektieren; der junge Mohikaner trotzte dem gefährlichen Feuer seiner Feinde und zwang sie bald zu einer Flucht, die so schnell war wie seine eigene rasende Geschwindigkeit. Glücklicherweise war das Rennen von kurzer Dauer und die weißen Männer wurden durch ihre Position begünstigt, sonst hätte Aber Uncas, der ihn vergeblich im Getümmel gesucht hatte, sprang vorwärts, um ihn zu verfolgen; Hawkeye, Heyward und David drängten immer noch auf seinen Fußspuren. Das Einzige, was der Späher bewirken konnte, war, die Mündung seines Gewehrs ein wenig vor seinem Freund zu halten, was jedoch jedem Zweck eines verzauberten Schildes diente. Einmal schien Magua entschlossen zu sein, einen weiteren und endgültigen Versuch zu unternehmen, seine Verluste zu rächen, doch gab er seine Absicht auf, sobald sie klar wurde, und sprang in ein Dickicht aus Büschen, dem seine Feinde folgten, und trat plötzlich in den bereits bekannten Höhleneingang ein. Hawkeye, der nur darauf verzichtet hatte, zu schießen, um Uncas nicht zu verletzen, gab einen Schrei des Erfolgs von sich und verkündete laut, dass sie nun sicher seien ihr Ziel erreicht zu haben. Die Verfolger stürzten in den langen und schmalen Eingang, gerade rechtzeitig, um einen flüchtigen Blick auf die sich zurückziehenden Huronen zu erhaschen. Ihr Durchgang durch die natürlichen Galerien und unterirdischen Abteilungen der Höhle wurde von den Schreien und Rufen von Hunderten von Frauen und Kindern begleitet. Der Ort, der von seinem trüben und unsicheren Licht beleuchtet wurde, erschien wie die Schatten der Unterwelt, in denen unglückliche Geister und wilde Dämonen in Scharen herumgeisterten. Dennoch behielt Uncas Magua im Auge, als hätte das Leben für ihn nur ein einziges Ziel. Heyward und der Späher drängten weiter auf seine Verfolgung, motiviert, wenn auch möglicherweise in geringerem Maße, von einem gemeinsamen Gefühl. Doch ihr Weg in diesen dunklen und düsteren Gängen wurde immer verworrener und die Blicke auf die sich zurückziehenden Krieger immer undeutlicher und seltener; für einen Moment glaubte man, die Spur sei verloren, als ein weißes Gewand am Ende eines Ganges flatterte, der in Richtung des Berges zu führen schien. "Es ist Cora!", rief Heyward mit einer Stimme, in der Horror und Freude wild gemischt waren. "Cora! Cora!", echote Uncas und beugte sich vor wie ein Hirsch. "Es ist die Jungfrau!", rief der Späher. "Mut, Frau; wir kommen - wir kommen!" Die Verfolgung wurde mit einer Energie wieder aufgenommen, die durch diesen kurzen Blick auf die Gefangene noch zehnfach verstärkt wurde. Aber der Weg war steinig, zerklüftet und an manchen Stellen nahezu unpassierbar. Uncas warf sein Gewehr weg und sprang kopfüber vorwärts. Heyward ahmte unüberlegt sein Beispiel nach, wurde aber kurz darauf durch den Schrei eines Schusses ermahnt, den die Huronen die Zeit fanden, den Felsen hinunter zu schießen, und dessen Kugel dem jungen Mohikaner sogar eine leichte Wunde zufügte. "Wir müssen uns zusammentun!" sagte der Späher und überholte seine Freunde mit einem verzweifelten Sprung. "Die Schurken schießen uns alle von dieser Entfernung aus an, und seht, sie halten die Jungfrau so, dass sie sich selbst schützen!" Obwohl seine Worte unbeachtet blieben, oder besser gesagt, ungehört wurden, folgten ihm seine Gefährten seinem Beispiel und kamen durch unglaubliche Anstrengungen den Flüchtenden nahe genug, um zu erkennen, dass Cora von den beiden Kriegern getragen wurde, während Magua die Richtung und Art ihrer Flucht vorschrieb. In diesem Moment wurden die Gestalten aller vier vor einer Öffnung am Himmel deutlich sichtbar und verschwanden dann. Fast wahnsinnig vor Enttäuschung erhöhten Uncas und Heyward ihre bereits übermenschlichen Anstrengungen und verließen die Höhle auf der Seite des Berges, gerade rechtzeitig, um die Route der Verfolgten zu verfolgen. Der Weg führte den Anstieg hinauf und blieb weiterhin gefährlich und anstrengend. Der Späher war durch sein Gewehr gehindert und wurde vielleicht nicht von so tiefem Interesse an der Gefangenen getragen wie seine Gefährten, sodass er sie passieren ließ, während Uncas wiederum die Führung von Heyward übernahm. Auf diese Weise wurden Felsen, Abgründe und Schwierigkeiten in kürzester Zeit überwunden, was zu einer anderen Zeit und unter anderen Umständen fast unüberwindlich gewesen wäre. Aber die ungestümen jungen Männer wurden belohnt, als sie feststellten, dass die Huronen aufgrund von Coras Gewicht im Rennen an Boden verloren. "Steh, Hund der Wyandots!", rief Uncas und schwenkte seine glänzende Tomahawk vor Magua. "Ein Delaware-Mädchen ruft: Bleibe!" "Ich werde nicht weitergehen", rief Cora aus und trat unerwartet auf einen Felsen, der kurz vor dem Gipfel des Berges über einem tiefen Abgrund hing. "Töte mich, wenn du willst, abscheulicher Hurone; ich gehe nicht weiter." Die Unterstützerin der Jungfrau hob mit der böswilligen Freude, die man den Teufeln zuschreibt, bereitwillig ihre Tomahawks, aber Magua hielt die erhobenen Arme zurück. Der Huronen-Häuptling warf nachdem er die Waffen, die er seinen Begleitern abgenommen hatte, über den Felsen geworfen hatte, sein Messer und wandte sich seiner Gefangenen mit einem Blick zu, in dem wütende Leidenschaften wild miteinander kämpften. "Frau," sagte er, "wähle: das Wigwam oder das Messer von Le Subtil!" Cora beachtete ihn nicht, sondern kniete nieder, hob ihre Augen gen Himmel und streckte ihre Arme aus und sprach mit sanfter und doch vertrauensvoller Stimme: "Ich bin dein! Tu mit mir, was du für richtig hältst!" "Frau", wiederholte Magua heiser und versuchte vergeblich, einen Blick aus ihrem ruhigen und strahlenden Auge zu erhaschen, "wähle!" Aber Cora hörte und befolgte seine Bitte nicht. Die Gestalt des Huronen bebte in jeder Faser, er hob seinen Arm hoch, ließ ihn dann jedoch mit einem verwirrten Ausdruck wieder sinken, wie jemand, der zweifelt. Noch einmal rang er mit sich selbst und hob die scharfe Waffe erneut an; aber in dem Moment wurde ein durchdringender Schrei über ihnen gehört, und Uncas erschien, von einer furchterregenden Höhe, wild auf den Sims springend. Magua wich einen Schritt zurück, und einer seiner Gehilfen nutzte die Gelegenheit und versenkte sein eigenes Messer in die Brust von Cora. Der Hurone stürzte wie ein Tiger auf seinen sich zurückziehenden und bereits schuldigen Landsmann; aber die fallende Gestalt Uncas' trennte die unnatürlichen Kämpfer. Von diesem Zwischenfall abgehalten und von dem soeben begangenen Mord wütend gemacht, versenkte Magua seine Waffe im Rücken des bekämpften Delaware und stieß dabei einen unnatürlichen Schrei aus. Aber Uncas erhob sich von dem Schlag, wie sich der verwundete Panther gegen seinen Feind wendet, und schlug den Mörder Coras nieder, indem er seine letzte schwindende Kraft einsetzte. Dann wandte er sich mit einem strengen und festen Blick an Le Subtil und zeigte mit dem Ausdruck seiner Augen alles an, was er getan hätte, wenn die Kraft ihn nicht verlassen hätte. Der Letztere ergriff den kraftlosen Arm des widerstandslosen Delaware und stach ihm drei Mal hintereinander sein Messer in die Brust, bevor sein Opfer, das den Blick immer noch gnadenlos auf seinen Feind gerichtet hatte, tot zu Boden fiel. "Erbarmen! Erbarmen! Hurone", rief Heyward von oben mit einer von Horror fast erstick Er lachte rau und machte einen verzweifelten Sprung, aber verfehlte sein Ziel; obwohl er einen Strauch an der Spitze erreichte, den er fest umklammerte. Die Gestalt von Hawkeye hatte sich wie ein Tier zusammengekauert, das zum Sprung ansetzen wollte, und sein Körper bebte so heftig vor Aufregung, dass der Mündungsflammen des halb erhobenen Gewehrs wie ein im Wind flatterndes Blatt wirkte. Ohne sich durch nutzlose Anstrengungen zu erschöpfen, ließ der listige Magua seinen Körper bis zur Länge seiner Arme herunterfallen und fand einen Schutthaufen, auf dem seine Füße ruhen konnten. Dann mobilisierte er all seine Kräfte und versuchte es erneut, und hatte soweit Erfolg, dass er seine Knie an den Rand des Berges zog. Jetzt, wo der Körper seines Feindes am dichtesten beieinander war, zog die aufgeregte Waffe des Aufklärers an seine Schulter. Die umliegenden Felsen waren nicht ruhiger als das Gewehr in dem Moment, als es seinen Inhalt ausschüttete. Die Arme des Huronen entspannten sich und sein Körper fiel etwas zurück, während seine Knie immer noch an ihrer Position blieben. Er blickte seinen Feind mit einem gnadenlosen Ausdruck an, schüttelte eine Hand in grimmiger Herausforderung. Aber seine Griffnachließ und sein dunkler Körper konnte für einen flüchtigen Augenblick beobachtet werden, wie er mit dem Kopf nach unten durch die Luft schnitt, ehe er an der Fransengruppe von Sträuchern vorbeiglitt, die sich an den Berg klammerten, während er in seinem rasenden Flug zur Zerstörung entschwand. 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.

Die Waldszene ist ansprechend friedlich und ruhig, als Hawkeye seine Männer in Richtung Rückseite führt, wo sie an einem Bach halten und erfahren, dass sie vom Gesangslehrer verfolgt wurden. Nachdem er an eine biblische Schlacht erinnert wurde, ist Gamut entschlossen, sich im Namen von Cora mit den Kriegern zu verbünden. Hawkeye hat Zweifel, auch als der Sänger eine Schleuder herausholt und Steine dafür aufhebt, aber der Verfolger darf mit ihnen weitergehen, während sie den Bach entlanggehen, bis er in einen größeren Strom in der Nähe des Biberweihers mündet. Als sie den neuen Strom hinaufgehen, fallen zwölf Gewehre hinter ihnen ab und ein Delaware fällt tot um. In der wütenden Schlacht, die folgt, weichen die Huronen zurück, bis Hawkeyes Gruppe in eine ungünstige Lage gerät. Glücklicherweise eröffnen jedoch Uncas' Truppen das Feuer auf der anderen Flanke. In der anschließenden Sturm- und Nahkampf stehen Huronensoldaten gegen Hawkeyes Männer, werden besiegt und gleichzeitig fliehen Chingachgook und Munro in die Szene. Als der Rest des Kampfes den Hügel zu ihnen hinaufkommt, werden auch die anderen Huronen in die Flucht geschlagen, wobei Magua auffällig und schnell in das Dorf zurückweicht. Es gelingt ihm, weiter zu entkommen, und er und zwei Kameraden flitzen davon und betreten den Mund der Höhle, gefolgt von Uncas, Hawkeye, Heyward und Gamut. Die Verfolger verlieren fast die Sicht auf das Trio, sehen aber das weiße Gewand von Cora am Ende eines Durchgangs, der den Berg hinaufführt. Übereilt lassen Heyward und Uncas ihre Gewehre zurück, um schneller zu werden, und nehmen die Führung bei der Verfolgung der Huronen und ihrer Geisel durch eine Öffnung an der Seite des Berges. Auf einem Abgrund weigert sich Cora weiterzugehen. Magua bedroht sie mit einem Messer, aber ringt mit sich selbst, als einer seiner Gefährten sie in die Brust sticht. Verrückt geworden, stürzt sich Magua auf den Huronen, gerade als Uncas, der von einem Vorsprung springt, zwischen ihnen fällt, und Magua sticht ihm in den Rücken, während er noch am Boden liegt. Trotzdem erhebt sich der Mohikaner und sammelt genug schwindende Kraft, um den Mörder von Cora zu töten, wird aber selbst durch drei weitere Stiche von Maguas Messer erledigt. Heyward ist zu weit weg, um mehr zu tun als zu schreien, aber Gamut von oben wirft einen Stein gegen den Kopf des anderen Huronen und stellt eine Bedrohung für Magua dar, der über eine breite Kluft springt. Er verspottet seine Verfolger und macht einen weiteren Sprung, der ihn in Sicherheit bringen soll, aber er fällt zu kurz und ergreift einen Busch am Rande. Gerade als er seine Knie an den Rand des Berges bekommen hat, verwundet ihn eine Kugel aus Hawkeyes Gewehr. Es gibt einen Moment der Spannung, während Magua seinen Feinden trotzig in die Augen sieht; dann lockert sich sein Griff und er stürzt in den Tod.

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: OF THE USE OF FEET The suburb of Cottonville bordered a creek, a starveling, wet-weather stream which offered the sole suggestion of sewerage. The village was cut in two by this natural division. It clung to the shelving sides of the shallow ravine; it was scattered like bits of refuse on the numerous railroad embankments, where building was unhandy and streets almost impossible, to be convenient to the mills. Six big factories in all, some on one side of the state line and some on the other, daily breathed in their live current of operatives and exhaled them again to fill the litter of flimsy shanties. The road which wound down from the heights ran through the middle of the village and formed its main street. Across the ravine from it, reached by a wooden bridge, stood a pretentious frame edifice, a boarding-house built by the Gloriana mill for the use of its office force and mechanics. Men were lounging on the wide porches of this structure in Sabbath-afternoon leisure, smoking and singing. The young Southern male of any class is usually melodious. Across the hollow came the sounds of a guitar and a harmonica. "Listen a minute, Shade. Ain't that pretty? I know that tune," said Johnnie, and she began to hum softly under her breath, her girlish heart responding to the call. "Hush," admonished Buckheath harshly. "You don't want to be runnin' after them fellers. It's some of the loom-fixers." In silence he led the way past the great mill buildings of red brick, square and unlovely but many-windowed and glowing, alight, throbbing with the hum of pent industry. Johnnie gazed steadily up at those windows; the glow within was other than that which gilded turret and pinnacle and fairy isle in the Western sky, yet perchance this light might be a lamp to the feet of one who wished to climb that way. Her adventurous spirit rose to the challenge, and she said softly, more to herself than to the man: "I'm a-goin' to be a boss hand in there. I'm goin' to get the highest wages of any girl in the mill, time I learn my trade, because I'm goin' to try harder 'n anybody." Shade looked around at her, curiously. Her beauty, her air of superiority, still repelled him--such fancy articles were not apt to be of much use--but this sounded like a woman who might be valuable to her master. Johnnie returned his gaze with the frank good will of a child, and suddenly he forgot everything but the adorable lift of her pink lip over the shining white teeth. The young fellow now halted at the step of a big frame house. The outside was of an extent to seem fairly pretentious; yet so mean was the construction, so sparing of window and finish, that the building showed itself instantly for what it was--the cheap boarding-house of a mill town. A group of tired-looking girls sitting on the step in blessed Sunday idleness and cheap Sunday finery stared as he and Johnnie ascended and crossed the porch. One of these, a tall lank woman of perhaps thirty years, got up and followed a few hesitating paces, apparently more as a matter of curiosity than with any hospitable intent. A man with a round red face and a bald pate whose curly fringe of grizzled, reddish hair made him look like a clown in a pantomime, motioned them with a surly thumb toward the back of the house, where clattering preparations for supper were audible and odoriferous. The old fellow sat in a splint-bottomed chair of extra size and with arms. This he had kicked back against the wall of the house, so that his short legs did not reach the floor, the big carpet-slippered feet finding rest on the rung of the chair. His attitude was one of relaxation. The face, broad, flat, small of eye and wide of mouth, did indeed suggest the clown countenance; yet there was in it, and in the whole personality, something of the Eastern idol, the journeyman attempt of crude humanity to represent power. And the potential cruelty of the type slept in his placid countenance as surely as ever in the dreaming face of Shiva, the destroyer. "Mrs. Bence--Aunt Mavity," called Shade, advancing into the narrow hall. In answer a tired-faced woman came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her checked apron. "Good Lord, if it ain't Johnnie! I was 'feared she Wouldn't git here to-night," she ejaculated when she saw the girl. "Take her out on the porch, Shade; I ain't got a minute now. Pap's poorly again, and I'm obliged to put the late supper on the table for them thar gals--the night shift's done eat and gone. I'll show her whar she's to sleep at, after while. I don't just rightly know whar Pap aimed to have her stay," she concluded hastily, as something boiled over on the stove. Johnnie set her bundle down in the corner of the kitchen. "I'll help," she said simply, as she drew the excited coffee-pot to a corner of the range and dosed it judiciously with cold water. "Well, now, that's mighty good of you," panted worried Mavity Bence. "How queer things comes 'round," she ruminated as they dished up the biscuits and fried pork. "I helped you into the very world, Johnnie. I lived neighbour to your maw, and they wasn't nobody else to be with her when you was born, and I went over. I never suspicioned that you would be helpin' me git supper down here in the settlement inside o' twenty year." Johnnie ran and fetched and carried, as though she had never done anything else in her life, intent on the one task. She was alive in every fibre of her young body; she saw, she heard, as these words cannot always be truthfully applied to people. "Did Shade tell you anything about Louvania?" inquired the woman at length. "No," replied Johnnie softly, "but I seen it in the paper." Louvania Bence, the only remaining child of the widow, had, two weeks before, left her work at the mill, taken the trolley in to Watauga, walked out upon the county bridge across the Tennessee and jumped off. Johnnie had read the published account, passed from hand to hand in the mountains where Pap Himes and Mavity Bence had troops of kin and where Louvania was born. The statement ran that there was no love affair, and that the girl's distaste for her work at the cotton mill must have been the reason for the suicide. "That there talk in the newspaper wasn't right," Louvania's mother choked. "They wasn't a word of truth in it. You know in reason that if Louvany hated to work in the mill as bad as all that she'd have named it to me--her own mother--and she never did. She never spoke a word like it, only to say now and ag'in, as we all do, that it was hard, and that she'd--well, she did 'low she'd ruther be dead, as gals will; but she couldn't have meant it. Do you think she could have meant it, Johnnie?" The faded eyes, clouded now by tears, stared up into Johnnie's clear young orbs. "Of course she couldn't have meant it," Johnnie comforted her. "Why, I'm sure it's fine to work in the mill. If she didn't feel so, she'd have told you the thing. She must have been out of her mind. People always are when they--do that." "That's what I keep a-thinkin'," the poor mother said, clinging pathetically to that which gave her consolation and cheer. "I say to myself that it must have been some brain disease took her all of a sudden and made her crazy that-a-way; because God knows she had nothing to fret her nor drive her to such." By this time the meal was on the table, and the girls trooped in from the porch. The old man with the bald pate was seating himself at the head of the board, and Johnnie asked the privilege of helping wait on table. "No, you ain't a-goin' to," Mrs. Bence said hospitably, pushing her into a seat. "If you start in to work in the morning, like I reckon you will, you ain't got no other time to get acquainted with the gals but right now. You set down. We don't take much waitin' on. We all pass things, and reach for what we want." In the smoky illumination of the two ill-cleaned lamps which stood one at each end of the table, Johnnie's fair face shone out like a star. The tall woman who had shown a faint interest in them on the porch was seated just opposite. Her bulging light-blue eyes scarcely left the newcomer's countenance as she absent-mindedly filled her mouth. She was a scant, stringy-looking creature, despite her height; the narrow back was hooped like that of an old woman and the shoulders indrawn, so that the chest was cramped, and sent forth a wheezy, flatted voice that sorted ill with her inches; her round eyes had no speculation in them; her short chin was obstinate without power; the thin, half-gray hair that wanted to curl feebly about her lined forehead was stripped away and twisted in a knot no bigger than a walnut, at the back of a bent head. For some time the old man at the end of the table stowed himself methodically with victuals; his air was that of a man packing a box; then he brought his implements to half-rest, as it were, and gave a divided attention to the new boarder. "What did I hear them call yo' name?" he inquired gruffly. Johnnie repeated her title and gave him one of those smiles that went with most of her speeches. It seemed to suggest things to the old sinner. "Huh," he grunted; "I riccollect ye now. Yo' pap was a Consadine, but you're old Virgil Passmore's grandchild. One of the borryin' Passmores," he added, staring coolly at Johnnie. "Virge was a fine, upstandin' old man. You've got the favour of him--if you wasn't a gal." He evidently shared Schopenhauer's distaste for "the low-statured, wide-hipped, narrow-shouldered sex." The girls about the table were all listening eagerly. Johnnie had the sensation of a freshman who has walked out on the campus too well dressed. "Virge was a great beau in his day," continued Pap, reminiscently. "He liked to wear good clothes, too. I mind how he borried Abner Wimberly's weddin' coat and wore it something like ten year--showed it off fine--it fitted him enough sight better than it ever fitted little old Ab. Then he comes back to Wimberly at the end of so long a time with the buttons. He says, says he, 'Looks like that thar cloth yo' coat was made of wasn't much 'count, Ab,' says he. 'I think Jeeters cheated ye on it. But the buttons was good. The buttons wore well. And them I'm bringin' back, 'caze you may have use for 'em, and I have none, now the coat's gone. Also, what I borry I return, as everybody knows.' That was your granddaddy." There was a tremendous giggling about the board as the old man made an end. Johnnie herself smiled, though her face was scarlet. She had no words to tell her tormentor that the borrowing trait in her tribe which had earned them the name of the borrowing Passmores proceeded not from avarice, which ate into Pap Himes's very marrow, but from its reverse trait of generosity. She knew vaguely that they would have shared with a neighbour their last bite or dollar, and had thus never any doubt of being shared with nor any shame in the asking. "Yes," pursued Himes, surveying Johnnie chucklingly, "I mind when you was born. Has your Uncle Pros found his silver mine yet?" "My mother has often told me how good you and Mrs. Bence was to us when I was little," answered Johnnie mildly. "No, sir, Uncle Pros hasn't found his silver mine yet--but he's still a-hunting for it." The reply appeared to delight Himes. He laughed immoderately, even as Buckheath had done. "I'll bet he is," he agreed. "Pros Passmore's goin' to hunt that there silver mine till he finds another hole in the ground about six feet long and six feet deep--that's what he's a-goin' to do." The hasty supper was well under way now. Mrs. Bence brought the last of the hot bread, and shuffled into a seat. The old man at the head of the board returned to his feeding, but with somewhat moderated voracity. At length, pretty fully gorged, he raised his head from over his plate and looked about him for diversion. Again his attention was directed to the new girl. "Air ye wedded?" he challenged suddenly. She shook her head and laughed. "Got your paigs sot for to git any one?" he followed up his investigations. Johnnie laughed more than ever, and blushed again. "How old air ye?" demanded her inquisitor. "Eighteen? 'Most nineteen? Good Lord! You're a old maid right now. Well, don't you let twenty go by without gittin' your hooks on a man. My experience is that when a gal gits to be twenty an' ain't wedded--or got her paigs sot for to wed--she's left. Left," he concluded impressively. That quick smile of Johnnie's responded. "I reckon I'll do my best," she agreed reasonably; "but some folks can do that and miss it." Himes nodded till he set the little red curls all bobbing around the bare spot. "Uh-huh," he approved, "I reckon that's so. Women is plenty, and men hard to git. Here's Mandy Meacham, been puttin' in her best licks for thirty year or more, an' won't never make it." Johnnie did not need to be told which one was Mandy. The sallow cheek of the tall woman across from her reddened; the short chin wabbled a bit more than the mastication of the biscuit in hand demanded; a moisture appeared in the inexpressive blue eyes; but she managed a shaky laugh to assist the chorus which always followed Pap Himes's little jokes. The old man held a sort of state among these poor girls, and took tribute of admiration, as he had taken tribute of life and happiness from daughter and granddaughter. Gideon Himes was not actively a bad man; he was as without personal malice as malaria. When it makes miserable those about it, or robs a girl of her pink cheeks, her bright eyes, her joy of life, wearing the elasticity out of her step and making an old woman of her before her time, we do not fly into a rage at it--we avoid it. The Pap Himeses of this world are to be avoided if possible. Mandy stared at her plate in mortified silence. Johnnie wished she could think of something pleasant to say to the poor thing, when her attention was diverted by the old man once more addressing herself. "You look stout and hearty; if you learn to weave as fast as you ort, and git so you can tend five or six looms, I'll bet you git a husband," he remarked in a burst of generosity. "I'll bet you do; and what's more, I'll speak a good word for ye. A gal that's a peart weaver's mighty apt to find a man. You learn your looms if you want to git wedded--and I know in reason you do--it's about all gals of your age thinks of." When supper was over Johnnie was a little surprised to see the tall woman approach Pap Himes like a small child begging a favour of a harsh taskmaster. "Can't that there new girl bunk with me?" she inquired earnestly. "I had the intention to give her Louvany's bed," Pap returned promptly. "As long as nobody's with you, I reckon I don't care; but if one comes in, you take 'em, and she goes with Mavity, mind. I cain't waste room, poor as I am." Piloted by the tall girl, Johnnie climbed the narrow stair to a long bare room where a row of double beds accommodated eight girls. The couch she was to occupy had been slept in during the day by a mill hand who was on night turn, and it had not been remade. Deftly Johnnie straightened and spread it, while her partner grumbled. "What's the use o' doin' that?" Mandy inquired, stretching herself and yawning portentously. "We'll jist muss it all up in about two minutes. When you've worked in a mill as long as I have you'll git over the notion of makin' your bed, for hit's _but_ a notion." Johnnie laughed across her shoulder. "I'd just as soon do it," she reassured her companion. "I do love smooth bedclothes; looks like I dream better on 'em and under 'em." Mandy sat down on the edge of the bed, interfering considerably with the final touches Johnnie was putting to it. "You're a right good gal," she opined patronizingly, "but foolish. The new ones always is foolish. I can put you up to a-many a thing that'll help you along, though, and I'm willin' to do it." Again Johnnie smiled at her, that smile of enveloping sweetness and tenderness. It made something down in the left side of poor Mandy's slovenly dress-bodice vibrate and tingle. "I'll thank you mightily," said Johnnie Consadine, "mightily." And knew not how true a word she spoke. "You see," counselled Mandy from the bed into which she had rolled with most of her clothes on, "you want to get in with Miss Lydia Sessions and the Uplift ladies, and them thar swell folks." Johnnie nodded, busily at work making a more elaborated night toilet than the others, who were going to bed all about them, paying little attention to their conversation. "Miss Lyddy she ain't as young as she once was, and the boys has quit hangin' 'round her as much as they used to; so now she has took up with good works," the girl on the bed explained with a directness which Miss Sessions would not perhaps have appreciated. "Her and some other of the nobby folks has started what they call a Uplift club amongst the mill girls. Thar's a big room whar you dance--if you can--and whar they give little suppers for us with not much to eat; and thar's a place where they sorter preach to ye--lecture she calls it. I don't know what-all Miss Lyddy hain't got for her club. But you jist go, and listen, and say how much obliged you are, an she'll do a lot for you, besides payin' your wages to get you out of the mill any day she wants you for the Upliftin' business." Mandy had a gasp, which occurred between sentences and at the end of certain words, with grotesque effect. Johnnie was to find that this gasp was always very much to the fore when Mandy was being uplifted. It then served variously as the gasp of humility, gratitude, admiration; the gasp of chaste emotion, the gasp of reprobation toward others who did not come forward to be uplifted. "Did you say there was books at that club?" inquired Johnnie out of the darkness--she had now extinguished the light. "Can a body learn things from the lectures?" "Uh-huh," agreed Mandy sleepily; "but you don't have to read 'em--the books. They lend 'em to you, and you take 'em home, and after so long a time you take 'em back sayin' how much good they done you. That's the way. If Mr. Stoddard's 'round, he'll ask you questions about 'em; but Miss Lyddy won't--she hates to find out that any of her plans ain't workin'." For a long time there was silence. Mandy was just dropping off into her first heavy sleep, when a whispering voice asked, "Is Mr. Stoddard--has he got right brown eyes and right brown hair, and does he ride in one of these--one of these--" "Good land!" grumbled the addressed, "I thought it was mornin' and I had to git up! You ort to been asleep long ago. Yes, Mr. Stoddard's got sorter brown eyes and hair, and he rides in a otty-mobile. How did you know?" But Mandy was too tired to stay awake to marvel over that. Her rhythmic snores soon proved that she slept, while Johnnie lay thinking of the various proffers she had that evening received of a lamp to her feet, a light on her path. And she would climb--yes, she would climb. Not by the road Pap Himes pointed out; not by the devious path Mandy Meacham suggested; but by the rugged road of good, honest toil, to heights where was the power and the glory, she would certainly strive. She conned over the new things which this day had brought. Again she saw the auto swing around the curve and halt; she got the outline of the man's bent head against the evening sky. They were singing again over at the mechanics' boarding-house; the sound came across to her window; the vibrant wires, the chorus of deep male voices, even the words she knew they were using but could not distinguish, linked themselves in some fashion with memory of a man's eyes, his smile, his air of tender deference as he cherished her broken flower. Something caught in her throat and choked. Her mind veered to the figures on the porch of that Palace of Pleasure; the girl with the ball tossing it to the young fellow below on the lawn. In memory she descended the hill, coming down into the shadows with each step, looking back to the heights and the light. Well, she had said that if one had feet one might climb, and to-night the old man had tried to train her to his pace for attaining heart's desire. In the midst of a jumble of autos and shining mill windows, she watched the room grow ghostly with the light of a late-risen moon. Suddenly afar off she heard the "honk! honk! honk!" which had preceded the advent of the car on the ridge road. Getting up, she stole, to the one window which the long room afforded. It gave upon the main street of the village. "Honk! honk! honk!" She gazed toward the steep from which the sounds seemed to come. There, flashing in and out of the greenery, appeared half a dozen pairs of fiery eyes. A party of motorists were going in to Watauga, starting from the Country Club on the Ridge crest. Johnnie watched them, fascinated. As the foremost car swept down the road and directly beneath her window, its driver, whom she recognized with a little shiver, by the characteristic carriage of his head, swerved the machine out and stopped it at the curb below. The others passed, calling gay inquiries to him. "We're all right," she heard a well-remembered voice reply. "You go ahead--we'll be there before you." The slim, gray-clad figure in the seat beside him laughed softly and fluttered a white handkerchief as the last car went on. "Now!" exulted the voice. "I'll put on my goggles and cap and we'll show them what running is. 'It's they'll take the high road and we'll take the low, And we'll be in Watauga befo-o-ore them!'" Even as he spoke he adjusted his costume, and Johnnie saw the car shoot forward like a living creature eager on the trail. She sighed as she looked after them. Feet--of what use were feet to follow such a flight as that? 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.

Herr Tench sitzt an seinem Arbeitstisch und schreibt einen Brief an seine Frau Sylvia, mit der er seit vielen Jahren keinen Kontakt mehr hatte. Es fällt ihm schwer, mit dem Brief anzufangen, seine Gedanken schweifen ab und er denkt an den Fremden, der sein Haus besucht hat. Jemand klopft an die Tür und er legt den Brief vorerst beiseite. Padre Jose geht in einem Friedhof spazieren und trifft dort auf eine Gruppe von Leuten, die ein kleines Mädchen begraben. Sie bitten ihn, für sie zu beten, aber Padre Jose lehnt ab, da er sich der Gefahr bewusst ist, in der er sich befindet. Unter ständiger Überwachung der örtlichen Behörden lebend, weiß er, dass er den Menschen nicht vertrauen kann, Geheimnisse zu bewahren, und eine solche Zeremonie unter so vielen Menschen durchzuführen, wäre in der Tat gefährlich. Die Menschen fangen an zu weinen und flehen ihn an, ihnen zu helfen, aber Padre Jose weigert sich weiterhin, ihrer Bitte nachzukommen, und fühlt sich gedemütigt und nutzlos. Eine Frau liest ihren Kindern erneut die Geschichte von Juan, dem jungen Märtyrer, vor. Der Junge erklärt in einem Wutanfall, dass er nichts davon glaubt. Seine Mutter schickt ihn wütend aus dem Zimmer. Er erzählt seinem Vater, was passiert ist, und sein Vater seufzt einfach, anstatt wütend auf die Ungezogenheit seines Sohnes zu reagieren. Nicht ein Mann von großem Glauben, erklärt der Vater des Jungen, dass er den Untergang der Kirche bedauert, da sie ein Gemeinschaftsgefühl vermittelte. Während sie Coral Fellows eine Geschichtsstunde gibt, beklagt sich Frau Fellows über Müdigkeit und legt ihr Buch zur Seite. Coral nutzt die Gelegenheit, um ihre Mutter zu fragen, ob sie an Gott glaubt. Ihre Mutter fragt Coral, mit wem sie über solche Dinge gesprochen hat. Coral geht dann nach draußen, um eine Bananenlieferung zu überprüfen, und merkt, dass sich ihr Vater nicht um das Geschäft gekümmert hat und unauffindbar ist, also fängt sie an zu arbeiten. Dann fühlt sie sich krank. Der Leutnant findet den Jefe beim Billardspielen und fragt ihn, ob er mit dem Gouverneur gesprochen hat. Der Jefe sagt, dass der Gouverneur dem Leutnant autorisiert hat, jedes Mittel zu benutzen, um den verbotenen Priester festzunehmen, unter der Bedingung, dass er ihn vor Beginn der Regenzeit fängt. Der Leutnant sagt dem Jefe, dass er seine Idee umsetzen wird, Geiseln aus den Dörfern zu nehmen, und dass er in der Heimatstadt und der Pfarrei des Priesters, Concepcion, beginnen wird. Der Leutnant verabschiedet sich vom Jefe und geht alleine zur Polizeistation. Unterwegs wirft ein Junge einen Stein auf ihn und als er gefragt wird, was er tut, antwortet das Kind, dass es ein Spiel spielt und vorgibt, dass der Stein eine Bombe und der Leutnant ein Gringo sei. Zufrieden mit dieser Antwort zeigt der Leutnant dem jungen Jungen unbedrohlich seine Waffe und geht weg, in dem Wunsch, alles aus dem Leben des Kindes zu beseitigen, was ihn in Unwissenheit hält. Er fühlt sich weiterhin dem Zweck verpflichtet, den Priester zu finden und hinzurichten.

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 edel; doch sehe ich, Dass dein ehrenhafter Charakter geformt werden kann, Von dem, wozu er bestimmt ist: daher ist es angemessen, dass edle Geister stets bei ihresgleichen bleiben; Denn wer ist so standhaft, dass er nicht verführt werden kann? Caesar ist mir nicht wohlgesinnt, aber er liebt Brutus; Wenn ich jetzt Brutus und er Cassius wäre, Würde er mich nicht erfreuen. Ich werde diese Nacht, mit verschiedenen Händen, sie an seine Fenster werfen, als ob sie von verschiedenen Bürgern kämen, Schriften, die alle auf die hohe Meinung hinauslaufen die Rom von seinem Namen hat; worin vage Caesars Ambition angedeutet werden soll: Und danach soll Caesar sich sicher niederlassen; Denn wir werden ihn erschüttern oder noch schlimmere Tage ertragen. [Abgang] 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.

An einem anderen öffentlichen Ort in Rom begegnet Caesar, begleitet von seinen Anhängern, einem Wahrsager, der ihm rät, sich vor den Iden des März in Acht zu nehmen. Caesar ignoriert ihn und hält ihn für einen Träumer. Caesar und seine Entourage gehen fort und lassen Cassius und Brutus alleine, um ein Gespräch zu führen. Cassius erwähnt, dass Brutus in letzter Zeit nicht so freundlich zu ihm war wie sonst. Brutus antwortet, dass es nichts Persönliches ist; er ist von einigen privaten Angelegenheiten beunruhigt, was sich auf sein Verhalten anderen gegenüber auswirkt. Cassius lässt durchblicken, dass er Brutus besser kennt als Brutus sich selbst. Er schlägt vor, dass andere in Rom, die unter der Unterdrückung durch Caesar leiden, wünschen, dass Brutus die Augen für ihr Schicksal öffnet und etwas dagegen unternimmt. Er verspricht Brutus etwas über sich zu erzählen, von dem er bisher noch nichts weiß. Während Rufe aus der Menschenmenge außerhalb der Bühne zu hören sind, äußert Brutus seine Befürchtung, dass das Volk Caesar zu ihrem König wählen wird. Obwohl er Caesar liebt, möchte Brutus nicht, dass er zum König gekrönt wird. Cassius hält daraufhin eine lange Rede, in der er erklärt, dass Caesar nicht geeignet ist, das hohe Amt zu bekleiden, das er innehat. Er äußert seine Frustration über die untergeordnete Position, die er im Vergleich zu Caesar einnimmt, obwohl er genauso frei geboren wurde wie der Mann, der jetzt herrscht. Cassius erzählt von einem Vorfall, der zeigte, dass er ein besserer Schwimmer als Caesar war. Er beobachtete auch Caesar, als dieser Fieber hatte, und war nicht beeindruckt. Caesar zitterte und stöhnte, seine Augen sahen trübe aus und seine Stimme klang schwach, wie die eines kranken Mädchens. Und doch herrscht dieser Caesar, der körperlich schwach ist, über Rom. Weitere Rufe aus der Menschenmenge draußen sind zu hören, was Brutus als Zeichen deutet, dass Caesar neue Ehren zuteilwerden. Cassius setzt seine Kritik gegenüber Caesar fort und beklagt die Tatsache, dass so viel Macht in einer Person konzentriert ist. Er kritisiert die Römer dafür, dass sie es zulassen. Brutus sagt, dass er Cassius' Worte in Betracht ziehen werde, sich aber noch nicht festlegen will. Caesar und seine Entourage kehren zurück. Caesar sagt Mark Antonius, dass Cassius ein gefährlicher Mann sei, fügt jedoch hastig hinzu, dass er keine Angst vor ihm habe, da er niemanden fürchte. Aber Männer wie Cassius, beobachtet Caesar, ruhen nie, solange jemand anderes Macht über sie hat. Nachdem Caesar gegangen ist, erklärt Casca Cassius und Brutus, dass Antonius Caesar dreimal eine Krone angeboten hat. Jedes Mal lehnte Caesar sie ab, aber jedes Mal zögerte er es mit größerer Unwilligkeit. Die Menge jubelte, als er sie zum dritten Mal ablehnte, woraufhin Caesar einen epileptischen Anfall hatte und mit schaumigem Mund zu Boden fiel. Kurz bevor er zusammenbrach, öffnete er theatralisch sein Wams und bot der Menge seine Kehle zum Durchschneiden an. Casca erwähnt auch, dass Flavius und Murellus hingerichtet wurden, weil sie Kronen von Caesar-Statuen entfernten. Ihre Handlungen wurden als Verrat angesehen. Nachdem alle gegangen sind, bleibt Cassius allein zurück. Er denkt nach, dass es zwar möglich ist, dass Brutus ein edler Mann ist, aber es ist möglich, ihn von seinen natürlichen Anlagen abzulenken und ihn dazu zu bringen, sich der Verschwörung anzuschließen, Caesar zu töten. Cassius plant, einige Briefe in unterschiedlicher Handschrift zu schreiben und sie in der Nacht durch Brutus' Fenster zu werfen, als kämen sie von verschiedenen römischen Bürgern. Die Briefe werden bestätigen, wie hoch Brutus in der öffentlichen Meinung steht und auf Caesars Ambitionen hinweisen.

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 made what change I could in my appearance; and blithe was I to look in the glass and find the beggarman a thing of the past, and David Balfour come to life again. And yet I was ashamed of the change too, and, above all, of the borrowed clothes. When I had done, Mr. Rankeillor caught me on the stair, made me his compliments, and had me again into the cabinet. "Sit ye down, Mr. David," said he, "and now that you are looking a little more like yourself, let me see if I can find you any news. You will be wondering, no doubt, about your father and your uncle? To be sure it is a singular tale; and the explanation is one that I blush to have to offer you. For," says he, really with embarrassment, "the matter hinges on a love affair." "Truly," said I, "I cannot very well join that notion with my uncle." "But your uncle, Mr. David, was not always old," replied the lawyer, "and what may perhaps surprise you more, not always ugly. He had a fine, gallant air; people stood in their doors to look after him, as he went by upon a mettle horse. I have seen it with these eyes, and I ingenuously confess, not altogether without envy; for I was a plain lad myself and a plain man's son; and in those days it was a case of Odi te, qui bellus es, Sabelle." "It sounds like a dream," said I. "Ay, ay," said the lawyer, "that is how it is with youth and age. Nor was that all, but he had a spirit of his own that seemed to promise great things in the future. In 1715, what must he do but run away to join the rebels? It was your father that pursued him, found him in a ditch, and brought him back multum gementem; to the mirth of the whole country. However, majora canamus--the two lads fell in love, and that with the same lady. Mr. Ebenezer, who was the admired and the beloved, and the spoiled one, made, no doubt, mighty certain of the victory; and when he found he had deceived himself, screamed like a peacock. The whole country heard of it; now he lay sick at home, with his silly family standing round the bed in tears; now he rode from public-house to public-house, and shouted his sorrows into the lug of Tom, Dick, and Harry. Your father, Mr. David, was a kind gentleman; but he was weak, dolefully weak; took all this folly with a long countenance; and one day--by your leave!--resigned the lady. She was no such fool, however; it's from her you must inherit your excellent good sense; and she refused to be bandied from one to another. Both got upon their knees to her; and the upshot of the matter for that while was that she showed both of them the door. That was in August; dear me! the same year I came from college. The scene must have been highly farcical." I thought myself it was a silly business, but I could not forget my father had a hand in it. "Surely, sir, it had some note of tragedy," said I. "Why, no, sir, not at all," returned the lawyer. "For tragedy implies some ponderable matter in dispute, some dignus vindice nodus; and this piece of work was all about the petulance of a young ass that had been spoiled, and wanted nothing so much as to be tied up and soundly belted. However, that was not your father's view; and the end of it was, that from concession to concession on your father's part, and from one height to another of squalling, sentimental selfishness upon your uncle's, they came at last to drive a sort of bargain, from whose ill results you have recently been smarting. The one man took the lady, the other the estate. Now, Mr. David, they talk a great deal of charity and generosity; but in this disputable state of life, I often think the happiest consequences seem to flow when a gentleman consults his lawyer, and takes all the law allows him. Anyhow, this piece of Quixotry on your father's part, as it was unjust in itself, has brought forth a monstrous family of injustices. Your father and mother lived and died poor folk; you were poorly reared; and in the meanwhile, what a time it has been for the tenants on the estate of Shaws! And I might add (if it was a matter I cared much about) what a time for Mr. Ebenezer!" "And yet that is certainly the strangest part of all," said I, "that a man's nature should thus change." "True," said Mr. Rankeillor. "And yet I imagine it was natural enough. He could not think that he had played a handsome part. Those who knew the story gave him the cold shoulder; those who knew it not, seeing one brother disappear, and the other succeed in the estate, raised a cry of murder; so that upon all sides he found himself evited. Money was all he got by his bargain; well, he came to think the more of money. He was selfish when he was young, he is selfish now that he is old; and the latter end of all these pretty manners and fine feelings you have seen for yourself." "Well, sir," said I, "and in all this, what is my position?" "The estate is yours beyond a doubt," replied the lawyer. "It matters nothing what your father signed, you are the heir of entail. But your uncle is a man to fight the indefensible; and it would be likely your identity that he would call in question. A lawsuit is always expensive, and a family lawsuit always scandalous; besides which, if any of your doings with your friend Mr. Thomson were to come out, we might find that we had burned our fingers. The kidnapping, to be sure, would be a court card upon our side, if we could only prove it. But it may be difficult to prove; and my advice (upon the whole) is to make a very easy bargain with your uncle, perhaps even leaving him at Shaws where he has taken root for a quarter of a century, and contenting yourself in the meanwhile with a fair provision." I told him I was very willing to be easy, and that to carry family concerns before the public was a step from which I was naturally much averse. In the meantime (thinking to myself) I began to see the outlines of that scheme on which we afterwards acted. "The great affair," I asked, "is to bring home to him the kidnapping?" "Surely," said Mr. Rankeillor, "and if possible, out of court. For mark you here, Mr. David: we could no doubt find some men of the Covenant who would swear to your reclusion; but once they were in the box, we could no longer check their testimony, and some word of your friend Mr. Thomson must certainly crop out. Which (from what you have let fall) I cannot think to be desirable." "Well, sir," said I, "here is my way of it." And I opened my plot to him. "But this would seem to involve my meeting the man Thomson?" says he, when I had done. "I think so, indeed, sir," said I. "Dear doctor!" cries he, rubbing his brow. "Dear doctor! No, Mr. David, I am afraid your scheme is inadmissible. I say nothing against your friend, Mr. Thomson: I know nothing against him; and if I did--mark this, Mr. David!--it would be my duty to lay hands on him. Now I put it to you: is it wise to meet? He may have matters to his charge. He may not have told you all. His name may not be even Thomson!" cries the lawyer, twinkling; "for some of these fellows will pick up names by the roadside as another would gather haws." "You must be the judge, sir," said I. But it was clear my plan had taken hold upon his fancy, for he kept musing to himself till we were called to dinner and the company of Mrs. Rankeillor; and that lady had scarce left us again to ourselves and a bottle of wine, ere he was back harping on my proposal. When and where was I to meet my friend Mr. Thomson; was I sure of Mr. T.'s discretion; supposing we could catch the old fox tripping, would I consent to such and such a term of an agreement--these and the like questions he kept asking at long intervals, while he thoughtfully rolled his wine upon his tongue. When I had answered all of them, seemingly to his contentment, he fell into a still deeper muse, even the claret being now forgotten. Then he got a sheet of paper and a pencil, and set to work writing and weighing every word; and at last touched a bell and had his clerk into the chamber. "Torrance," said he, "I must have this written out fair against to-night; and when it is done, you will be so kind as put on your hat and be ready to come along with this gentleman and me, for you will probably be wanted as a witness." "What, sir," cried I, as soon as the clerk was gone, "are you to venture it?" "Why, so it would appear," says he, filling his glass. "But let us speak no more of business. The very sight of Torrance brings in my head a little droll matter of some years ago, when I had made a tryst with the poor oaf at the cross of Edinburgh. Each had gone his proper errand; and when it came four o'clock, Torrance had been taking a glass and did not know his master, and I, who had forgot my spectacles, was so blind without them, that I give you my word I did not know my own clerk." And thereupon he laughed heartily. I said it was an odd chance, and smiled out of politeness; but what held me all the afternoon in wonder, he kept returning and dwelling on this story, and telling it again with fresh details and laughter; so that I began at last to be quite put out of countenance and feel ashamed for my friend's folly. Towards the time I had appointed with Alan, we set out from the house, Mr. Rankeillor and I arm in arm, and Torrance following behind with the deed in his pocket and a covered basket in his hand. All through the town, the lawyer was bowing right and left, and continually being button-holed by gentlemen on matters of burgh or private business; and I could see he was one greatly looked up to in the county. At last we were clear of the houses, and began to go along the side of the haven and towards the Hawes Inn and the Ferry pier, the scene of my misfortune. I could not look upon the place without emotion, recalling how many that had been there with me that day were now no more: Ransome taken, I could hope, from the evil to come; Shuan passed where I dared not follow him; and the poor souls that had gone down with the brig in her last plunge. All these, and the brig herself, I had outlived; and come through these hardships and fearful perils without scath. My only thought should have been of gratitude; and yet I could not behold the place without sorrow for others and a chill of recollected fear. I was so thinking when, upon a sudden, Mr. Rankeillor cried out, clapped his hand to his pockets, and began to laugh. "Why," he cries, "if this be not a farcical adventure! After all that I said, I have forgot my glasses!" At that, of course, I understood the purpose of his anecdote, and knew that if he had left his spectacles at home, it had been done on purpose, so that he might have the benefit of Alan's help without the awkwardness of recognising him. And indeed it was well thought upon; for now (suppose things to go the very worst) how could Rankeillor swear to my friend's identity, or how be made to bear damaging evidence against myself? For all that, he had been a long while of finding out his want, and had spoken to and recognised a good few persons as we came through the town; and I had little doubt myself that he saw reasonably well. As soon as we were past the Hawes (where I recognised the landlord smoking his pipe in the door, and was amazed to see him look no older) Mr. Rankeillor changed the order of march, walking behind with Torrance and sending me forward in the manner of a scout. I went up the hill, whistling from time to time my Gaelic air; and at length I had the pleasure to hear it answered and to see Alan rise from behind a bush. He was somewhat dashed in spirits, having passed a long day alone skulking in the county, and made but a poor meal in an alehouse near Dundas. But at the mere sight of my clothes, he began to brighten up; and as soon as I had told him in what a forward state our matters were and the part I looked to him to play in what remained, he sprang into a new man. "And that is a very good notion of yours," says he; "and I dare to say that you could lay your hands upon no better man to put it through than Alan Breck. It is not a thing (mark ye) that any one could do, but takes a gentleman of penetration. But it sticks in my head your lawyer-man will be somewhat wearying to see me," says Alan. Accordingly I cried and waved on Mr. Rankeillor, who came up alone and was presented to my friend, Mr. Thomson. "Mr. Thomson, I am pleased to meet you," said he. "But I have forgotten my glasses; and our friend, Mr. David here" (clapping me on the shoulder), "will tell you that I am little better than blind, and that you must not be surprised if I pass you by to-morrow." This he said, thinking that Alan would be pleased; but the Highlandman's vanity was ready to startle at a less matter than that. "Why, sir," says he, stiffly, "I would say it mattered the less as we are met here for a particular end, to see justice done to Mr. Balfour; and by what I can see, not very likely to have much else in common. But I accept your apology, which was a very proper one to make." "And that is more than I could look for, Mr. Thomson," said Rankeillor, heartily. "And now as you and I are the chief actors in this enterprise, I think we should come into a nice agreement; to which end, I propose that you should lend me your arm, for (what with the dusk and the want of my glasses) I am not very clear as to the path; and as for you, Mr. David, you will find Torrance a pleasant kind of body to speak with. Only let me remind you, it's quite needless he should hear more of your adventures or those of--ahem--Mr. Thomson." Accordingly these two went on ahead in very close talk, and Torrance and I brought up the rear. Night was quite come when we came in view of the house of Shaws. Ten had been gone some time; it was dark and mild, with a pleasant, rustling wind in the south-west that covered the sound of our approach; and as we drew near we saw no glimmer of light in any portion of the building. It seemed my uncle was already in bed, which was indeed the best thing for our arrangements. We made our last whispered consultations some fifty yards away; and then the lawyer and Torrance and I crept quietly up and crouched down beside the corner of the house; and as soon as we were in our places, Alan strode to the door without concealment and began to knock. 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.

Davie ist erfreut, eher wie er selbst und weniger wie ein Bettler auszusehen. Mr. Rankeillor bringt ihn erneut in sein Büro und bietet ihm an, ihm die ganze Geschichte von seinem Vater und seinem Onkel zu erzählen. Als er jünger war, war Ebenezer Balfour ein gut aussehender Gentleman mit einem guten Wesen. Er rannte 1715 davon, um sich den jakobitischen Rebellen anzuschließen, und sein Bruder, Davies Vater, ging ihm hinterher, um ihn zurückzuholen. Nun, Davies Vater schaffte es tatsächlich, Ebenezer zurückzuholen, aber nur nachdem beide sich in dieselbe Dame verliebt hatten. Beide kämpften darum, wer sie haben sollte. Ebenezer war verwöhnt und sich sicher, seinen Willen zu bekommen, während Davies Vater schwach war und schließlich zugunsten von Ebenezer aufgab. Aber die Dame wählte Davies Vater, und Ebenezer konnte es nicht ertragen. Schließlich trafen die beiden Brüder eine Vereinbarung: Ebenezer würde das Shaws-Anwesen bekommen, wenn Davies das Mädchen bekäme. Diese Vereinbarung war eine Katastrophe: Davies Familie war arm, während Ebenezers Ruf enorm unter dem plötzlichen, mysteriösen Verschwinden seines Bruders litt. Rankeillor sagt Davie, dass das Shaws-Anwesen ihm gehört, ganz gleich, was sein Vater vereinbart hat. Aber um eine große, unordentliche Klage zu vermeiden, schlägt Rankeillor vor, dass Davie Ebenezer erlaubt, auf Shaws zu bleiben und sich mit einer fairen Geldsumme zufriedenzugeben. Das klingt gut für Davie, und er beginnt einen Plan zu schmieden, um Ebenezer dazu zu bringen, seine Sichtweise zu akzeptieren. Der ganze Plan hängt von der Entführung von Davie ab, was Ebenezer ziemlich schlecht aussehen lässt. Der Plot erfordert auch, dass Rankeillor "Mr. Thomson" trifft, was er anfangs zu sehr um seine Position besorgt ablehnt. Aber schließlich, nachdem er den ganzen Tag darüber nachgedacht hat, stimmt Rankeillor zu. Rankeillor ruft seinen Schreiber, Torrance, herein und sagt ihm, dass er als Zeuge gebraucht wird. Dann erzählt er Davie eine seltsame Geschichte darüber, dass er seine Brille vor Kurzem vergessen habe; ohne sie konnte er seinen eigenen Schreiber nicht erkennen. Dann machen sich die drei Männer auf den Weg zum Ort, an dem sich Davie mit Alan treffen soll. Unterwegs ruft Rankeillor plötzlich aus, dass er seine Brille vergessen hat. Plötzlich versteht Davie: Indem Rankeillor so viel Aufhebens um seine eigene Kurzsichtigkeit macht, kann er Alan treffen, ohne ein glaubwürdiger Zeuge seines Aussehens zu werden. Davie trifft sich mit Alan und erklärt ihm seinen Plan, und Alan stimmt zu. Gemeinsam gehen sie in Richtung des Hauses von Shaws, Davie begleitet von Torrance, dem Schreiber, während Alan und Rankeillor ein Stück weiter die Straße entlang eng zusammen reden. Sobald sie am Haus angekommen sind, verstecken sich Rankeillor, Torrance und Davie, während Alan an die Tür klopft.

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: Day after day, week after week, passed away on my return to Geneva; and I could not collect the courage to recommence my work. I feared the vengeance of the disappointed fiend, yet I was unable to overcome my repugnance to the task which was enjoined me. I found that I could not compose a female without again devoting several months to profound study and laborious disquisition. I had heard of some discoveries having been made by an English philosopher, the knowledge of which was material to my success, and I sometimes thought of obtaining my father's consent to visit England for this purpose; but I clung to every pretence of delay, and could not resolve to interrupt my returning tranquillity. My health, which had hitherto declined, was now much restored; and my spirits, when unchecked by the memory of my unhappy promise, rose proportionably. My father saw this change with pleasure, and he turned his thoughts towards the best method of eradicating the remains of my melancholy, which every now and then would return by fits, and with a devouring blackness overcast the approaching sunshine. At these moments I took refuge in the most perfect solitude. I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat, watching the clouds, and listening to the rippling of the waves, silent and listless. But the fresh air and bright sun seldom failed to restore me to some degree of composure; and, on my return, I met the salutations of my friends with a readier smile and a more cheerful heart. It was after my return from one of these rambles that my father, calling me aside, thus addressed me:-- "I am happy to remark, my dear son, that you have resumed your former pleasures, and seem to be returning to yourself. And yet you are still unhappy, and still avoid our society. For some time I was lost in conjecture as to the cause of this; but yesterday an idea struck me, and if it is well founded, I conjure you to avow it. Reserve on such a point would be not only useless, but draw down treble misery on us all." I trembled violently at this exordium, and my father continued-- "I confess, my son, that I have always looked forward to your marriage with your cousin as the tie of our domestic comfort, and the stay of my declining years. You were attached to each other from your earliest infancy; you studied together, and appeared, in dispositions and tastes, entirely suited to one another. But so blind is the experience of man, that what I conceived to be the best assistants to my plan may have entirely destroyed it. You, perhaps, regard her as your sister, without any wish that she might become your wife. Nay, you may have met with another whom you may love; and, considering yourself as bound in honour to your cousin, this struggle may occasion the poignant misery which you appear to feel." "My dear father, re-assure yourself. I love my cousin tenderly and sincerely. I never saw any woman who excited, as Elizabeth does, my warmest admiration and affection. My future hopes and prospects are entirely bound up in the expectation of our union." "The expression of your sentiments on this subject, my dear Victor, gives me more pleasure than I have for some time experienced. If you feel thus, we shall assuredly be happy, however present events may cast a gloom over us. But it is this gloom, which appears to have taken so strong a hold of your mind, that I wish to dissipate. Tell me, therefore, whether you object to an immediate solemnization of the marriage. We have been unfortunate, and recent events have drawn us from that every-day tranquillity befitting my years and infirmities. You are younger; yet I do not suppose, possessed as you are of a competent fortune, that an early marriage would at all interfere with any future plans of honour and utility that you may have formed. Do not suppose, however, that I wish to dictate happiness to you, or that a delay on your part would cause me any serious uneasiness. Interpret my words with candour, and answer me, I conjure you, with confidence and sincerity." I listened to my father in silence, and remained for some time incapable of offering any reply. I revolved rapidly in my mind a multitude of thoughts, and endeavoured to arrive at some conclusion. Alas! to me the idea of an immediate union with my cousin was one of horror and dismay. I was bound by a solemn promise, which I had not yet fulfilled, and dared not break; or, if I did, what manifold miseries might not impend over me and my devoted family! Could I enter into a festival with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck, and bowing me to the ground. I must perform my engagement, and let the monster depart with his mate, before I allowed myself to enjoy the delight of an union from which I expected peace. I remembered also the necessity imposed upon me of either journeying to England, or entering into a long correspondence with those philosophers of that country, whose knowledge and discoveries were of indispensable use to me in my present undertaking. The latter method of obtaining the desired intelligence was dilatory and unsatisfactory: besides, any variation was agreeable to me, and I was delighted with the idea of spending a year or two in change of scene and variety of occupation, in absence from my family; during which period some event might happen which would restore me to them in peace and happiness: my promise might be fulfilled, and the monster have departed; or some accident might occur to destroy him, and put an end to my slavery for ever. These feelings dictated my answer to my father. I expressed a wish to visit England; but, concealing the true reasons of this request, I clothed my desires under the guise of wishing to travel and see the world before I sat down for life within the walls of my native town. I urged my entreaty with earnestness, and my father was easily induced to comply; for a more indulgent and less dictatorial parent did not exist upon earth. Our plan was soon arranged. I should travel to Strasburgh, where Clerval would join me. Some short time would be spent in the towns of Holland, and our principal stay would be in England. We should return by France; and it was agreed that the tour should occupy the space of two years. My father pleased himself with the reflection, that my union with Elizabeth should take place immediately on my return to Geneva. "These two years," said he, "will pass swiftly, and it will be the last delay that will oppose itself to your happiness. And, indeed, I earnestly desire that period to arrive, when we shall all be united, and neither hopes or fears arise to disturb our domestic calm." "I am content," I replied, "with your arrangement. By that time we shall both have become wiser, and I hope happier, than we at present are." I sighed; but my father kindly forbore to question me further concerning the cause of my dejection. He hoped that new scenes, and the amusement of travelling, would restore my tranquillity. I now made arrangements for my journey; but one feeling haunted me, which filled me with fear and agitation. During my absence I should leave my friends unconscious of the existence of their enemy, and unprotected from his attacks, exasperated as he might be by my departure. But he had promised to follow me wherever I might go; and would he not accompany me to England? This imagination was dreadful in itself, but soothing, inasmuch as it supposed the safety of my friends. I was agonized with the idea of the possibility that the reverse of this might happen. But through the whole period during which I was the slave of my creature, I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of the moment; and my present sensations strongly intimated that the fiend would follow me, and exempt my family from the danger of his machinations. It was in the latter end of August that I departed, to pass two years of exile. Elizabeth approved of the reasons of my departure, and only regretted that she had not the same opportunities of enlarging her experience, and cultivating her understanding. She wept, however, as she bade me farewell, and entreated me to return happy and tranquil. "We all," said she, "depend upon you; and if you are miserable, what must be our feelings?" I threw myself into the carriage that was to convey me away, hardly knowing whither I was going, and careless of what was passing around. I remembered only, and it was with a bitter anguish that I reflected on it, to order that my chemical instruments should be packed to go with me: for I resolved to fulfil my promise while abroad, and return, if possible, a free man. Filled with dreary imaginations, I passed through many beautiful and majestic scenes; but my eyes were fixed and unobserving. I could only think of the bourne of my travels, and the work which was to occupy me whilst they endured. After some days spent in listless indolence, during which I traversed many leagues, I arrived at Strasburgh, where I waited two days for Clerval. He came. Alas, how great was the contrast between us! He was alive to every new scene; joyful when he saw the beauties of the setting sun, and more happy when he beheld it rise, and recommence a new day. He pointed out to me the shifting colours of the landscape, and the appearances of the sky. "This is what it is to live;" he cried, "now I enjoy existence! But you, my dear Frankenstein, wherefore are you desponding and sorrowful?" In truth, I was occupied by gloomy thoughts, and neither saw the descent of the evening star, nor the golden sun-rise reflected in the Rhine.--And you, my friend, would be far more amused with the journal of Clerval, who observed the scenery with an eye of feeling and delight, than to listen to my reflections. I, a miserable wretch, haunted by a curse that shut up every avenue to enjoyment. We had agreed to descend the Rhine in a boat from Strasburgh to Rotterdam, whence we might take shipping for London. During this voyage, we passed by many willowy islands, and saw several beautiful towns. We staid a day at Manheim, and, on the fifth from our departure from Strasburgh, arrived at Mayence. The course of the Rhine below Mayence becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly, and winds between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine, indeed, presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you view rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with the dark Rhine rushing beneath; and, on the sudden turn of a promontory, flourishing vineyards, with green sloping banks, and a meandering river, and populous towns, occupy the scene. We travelled at the time of the vintage, and heard the song of the labourers, as we glided down the stream. Even I, depressed in mind, and my spirits continually agitated by gloomy feelings, even I was pleased. I lay at the bottom of the boat, and, as I gazed on the cloudless blue sky, I seemed to drink in a tranquillity to which I had long been a stranger. And if these were my sensations, who can describe those of Henry? He felt as if he had been transported to Fairy-land, and enjoyed a happiness seldom tasted by man. "I have seen," he said, "the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance, were it not for the most verdant islands that relieve the eye by their gay appearance; I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water, and gave you an idea of what the water-spout must be on the great ocean, and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain, where the priest and his mistress were overwhelmed by an avalanche, and where their dying voices are still said to be heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind; I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud: but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange; but there is a charm in the banks of this divine river, that I never before saw equalled. Look at that castle which overhangs yon precipice; and that also on the island, almost concealed amongst the foliage of those lovely trees; and now that group of labourers coming from among their vines; and that village half-hid in the recess of the mountain. Oh, surely, the spirit that inhabits and guards this place has a soul more in harmony with man, than those who pile the glacier, or retire to the inaccessible peaks of the mountains of our own country." Clerval! beloved friend! even now it delights me to record your words, and to dwell on the praise of which you are so eminently deserving. He was a being formed in the "very poetry of nature." His wild and enthusiastic imagination was chastened by the sensibility of his heart. His soul overflowed with ardent affections, and his friendship was of that devoted and wondrous nature that the worldly-minded teach us to look for only in the imagination. But even human sympathies were not sufficient to satisfy his eager mind. The scenery of external nature, which others regard only with admiration, he loved with ardour: ---- ----"The sounding cataract Haunted _him_ like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to him An appetite; a feeling, and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, or any interest Unborrowed from the eye." And where does he now exist? Is this gentle and lovely being lost for ever? Has this mind so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful and magnificent, which formed a world, whose existence depended on the life of its creator; has this mind perished? Does it now only exist in my memory? No, it is not thus; your form so divinely wrought, and beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits and consoles your unhappy friend. Pardon this gush of sorrow; these ineffectual words are but a slight tribute to the unexampled worth of Henry, but they soothe my heart, overflowing with the anguish which his remembrance creates. I will proceed with my tale. Beyond Cologne we descended to the plains of Holland; and we resolved to post the remainder of our way; for the wind was contrary, and the stream of the river was too gentle to aid us. Our journey here lost the interest arising from beautiful scenery; but we arrived in a few days at Rotterdam, whence we proceeded by sea to England. It was on a clear morning, in the latter days of December, that I first saw the white cliffs of Britain. The banks of the Thames presented a new scene; they were flat, but fertile, and almost every town was marked by the remembrance of some story. We saw Tilbury Fort, and remembered the Spanish armada; Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich, places which I had heard of even in my country. At length we saw the numerous steeples of London, St. Paul's towering above all, and the Tower famed in English history. London was our present point of rest; we determined to remain several months in this wonderful and celebrated city. Clerval desired the intercourse of the men of genius and talent who flourished at this time; but this was with me a secondary object; I was principally occupied with the means of obtaining the information necessary for the completion of my promise, and quickly availed myself of the letters of introduction that I had brought with me, addressed to the most distinguished natural philosophers. If this journey had taken place during my days of study and happiness, it would have afforded me inexpressible pleasure. But a blight had come over my existence, and I only visited these people for the sake of the information they might give me on the subject in which my interest was so terribly profound. Company was irksome to me; when alone, I could fill my mind with the sights of heaven and earth; the voice of Henry soothed me, and I could thus cheat myself into a transitory peace. But busy uninteresting joyous faces brought back despair to my heart. I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my fellow-men; this barrier was sealed with the blood of William and Justine; and to reflect on the events connected with those names filled my soul with anguish. But in Clerval I saw the image of my former self; he was inquisitive, and anxious to gain experience and instruction. The difference of manners which he observed was to him an inexhaustible source of instruction and amusement. He was for ever busy; and the only check to his enjoyments was my sorrowful and dejected mien. I tried to conceal this as much as possible, that I might not debar him from the pleasures natural to one who was entering on a new scene of life, undisturbed by any care or bitter recollection. I often refused to accompany him, alleging another engagement, that I might remain alone. I now also began to collect the materials necessary for my new creation, and this was to me like the torture of single drops of water continually falling on the head. Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver, and my heart to palpitate. After passing some months in London, we received a letter from a person in Scotland, who had formerly been our visitor at Geneva. He mentioned the beauties of his native country, and asked us if those were not sufficient allurements to induce us to prolong our journey as far north as Perth, where he resided. Clerval eagerly desired to accept this invitation; and I, although I abhorred society, wished to view again mountains and streams, and all the wondrous works with which Nature adorns her chosen dwelling-places. We had arrived in England at the beginning of October, and it was now February. We accordingly determined to commence our journey towards the north at the expiration of another month. In this expedition we did not intend to follow the great road to Edinburgh, but to visit Windsor, Oxford, Matlock, and the Cumberland lakes, resolving to arrive at the completion of this tour about the end of July. I packed my chemical instruments, and the materials I had collected, resolving to finish my labours in some obscure nook in the northern highlands of Scotland. We quitted London on the 27th of March, and remained a few days at Windsor, rambling in its beautiful forest. This was a new scene to us mountaineers; the majestic oaks, the quantity of game, and the herds of stately deer, were all novelties to us. From thence we proceeded to Oxford. As we entered this city, our minds were filled with the remembrance of the events that had been transacted there more than a century and a half before. It was here that Charles I. had collected his forces. This city had remained faithful to him, after the whole nation had forsaken his cause to join the standard of parliament and liberty. The memory of that unfortunate king, and his companions, the amiable Falkland, the insolent Gower, his queen, and son, gave a peculiar interest to every part of the city, which they might be supposed to have inhabited. The spirit of elder days found a dwelling here, and we delighted to trace its footsteps. If these feelings had not found an imaginary gratification, the appearance of the city had yet in itself sufficient beauty to obtain our admiration. The colleges are ancient and picturesque; the streets are almost magnificent; and the lovely Isis, which flows beside it through meadows of exquisite verdure, is spread forth into a placid expanse of waters, which reflects its majestic assemblage of towers, and spires, and domes, embosomed among aged trees. I enjoyed this scene; and yet my enjoyment was embittered both by the memory of the past, and the anticipation of the future. I was formed for peaceful happiness. During my youthful days discontent never visited my mind; and if I was ever overcome by _ennui_, the sight of what is beautiful in nature, or the study of what is excellent and sublime in the productions of man, could always interest my heart, and communicate elasticity to my spirits. But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit, what I shall soon cease to be--a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others, and abhorrent to myself. We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling among its environs, and endeavouring to identify every spot which might relate to the most animating epoch of English history. Our little voyages of discovery were often prolonged by the successive objects that presented themselves. We visited the tomb of the illustrious Hampden, and the field on which that patriot fell. For a moment my soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable fears to contemplate the divine ideas of liberty and self-sacrifice, of which these sights were the monuments and the remembrancers. For an instant I dared to shake off my chains, and look around me with a free and lofty spirit; but the iron had eaten into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my miserable self. We left Oxford with regret, and proceeded to Matlock, which was our next place of rest. The country in the neighbourhood of this village resembled, to a greater degree, the scenery of Switzerland; but every thing is on a lower scale, and the green hills want the crown of distant white Alps, which always attend on the piny mountains of my native country. We visited the wondrous cave, and the little cabinets of natural history, where the curiosities are disposed in the same manner as in the collections at Servox and Chamounix. The latter name made me tremble, when pronounced by Henry; and I hastened to quit Matlock, with which that terrible scene was thus associated. From Derby still journeying northward, we passed two months in Cumberland and Westmoreland. I could now almost fancy myself among the Swiss mountains. The little patches of snow which yet lingered on the northern sides of the mountains, the lakes, and the dashing of the rocky streams, were all familiar and dear sights to me. Here also we made some acquaintances, who almost contrived to cheat me into happiness. The delight of Clerval was proportionably greater than mine; his mind expanded in the company of men of talent, and he found in his own nature greater capacities and resources than he could have imagined himself to have possessed while he associated with his inferiors. "I could pass my life here," said he to me; "and among these mountains I should scarcely regret Switzerland and the Rhine." But he found that a traveller's life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are for ever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties. We had scarcely visited the various lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and conceived an affection for some of the inhabitants, when the period of our appointment with our Scotch friend approached, and we left them to travel on. For my own part I was not sorry. I had now neglected my promise for some time, and I feared the effects of the daemon's disappointment. He might remain in Switzerland, and wreak his vengeance on my relatives. This idea pursued me, and tormented me at every moment from which I might otherwise have snatched repose and peace. I waited for my letters with feverish impatience: if they were delayed, I was miserable, and overcome by a thousand fears; and when they arrived, and I saw the superscription of Elizabeth or my father, I hardly dared to read and ascertain my fate. Sometimes I thought that the fiend followed me, and might expedite my remissness by murdering my companion. When these thoughts possessed me, I would not quit Henry for a moment, but followed him as his shadow, to protect him from the fancied rage of his destroyer. I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me. I was guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime. I visited Edinburgh with languid eyes and mind; and yet that city might have interested the most unfortunate being. Clerval did not like it so well as Oxford; for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing to him. But the beauty and regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, its romantic castle, and its environs, the most delightful in the world, Arthur's Seat, St. Bernard's Well, and the Pentland Hills, compensated him for the change, and filled him with cheerfulness and admiration. But I was impatient to arrive at the termination of my journey. We left Edinburgh in a week, passing through Coupar, St. Andrews, and along the banks of the Tay, to Perth, where our friend expected us. But I was in no mood to laugh and talk with strangers, or enter into their feelings or plans with the good humour expected from a guest; and accordingly I told Clerval that I wished to make the tour of Scotland alone. "Do you," said I, "enjoy yourself, and let this be our rendezvous. I may be absent a month or two; but do not interfere with my motions, I entreat you: leave me to peace and solitude for a short time; and when I return, I hope it will be with a lighter heart, more congenial to your own temper." Henry wished to dissuade me; but, seeing me bent on this plan, ceased to remonstrate. He entreated me to write often. "I had rather be with you," he said, "in your solitary rambles, than with these Scotch people, whom I do not know: hasten then, my dear friend, to return, that I may again feel myself somewhat at home, which I cannot do in your absence." Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some remote spot of Scotland, and finish my work in solitude. I did not doubt but that the monster followed me, and would discover himself to me when I should have finished, that he might receive his companion. With this resolution I traversed the northern highlands, and fixed on one of the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene labours. It was a place fitted for such a work, being hardly more than a rock, whose high sides were continually beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely affording pasture for a few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its inhabitants, which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare. Vegetables and bread, when they indulged in such luxuries, and even fresh water, was to be procured from the main land, which was about five miles distant. On the whole island there were but three miserable huts, and one of these was vacant when I arrived. This I hired. It contained but two rooms, and these exhibited all the squalidness of the most miserable penury. The thatch had fallen in, the walls were unplastered, and the door was off its hinges. I ordered it to be repaired, bought some furniture, and took possession; an incident which would, doubtless, have occasioned some surprise, had not all the senses of the cottagers been benumbed by want and squalid poverty. As it was, I lived ungazed at and unmolested, hardly thanked for the pittance of food and clothes which I gave; so much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations of men. In this retreat I devoted the morning to labour; but in the evening, when the weather permitted, I walked on the stony beach of the sea, to listen to the waves as they roared, and dashed at my feet. It was a monotonous, yet ever-changing scene. I thought of Switzerland; it was far different from this desolate and appalling landscape. Its hills are covered with vines, and its cottages are scattered thickly in the plains. Its fair lakes reflect a blue and gentle sky; and, when troubled by the winds, their tumult is but as the play of a lively infant, when compared to the roarings of the giant ocean. In this manner I distributed my occupations when I first arrived; but, as I proceeded in my labour, it became every day more horrible and irksome to me. Sometimes I could not prevail on myself to enter my laboratory for several days; and at other times I toiled day and night in order to complete my work. It was indeed a filthy process in which I was engaged. During my first experiment, a kind of enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my employment; my mind was intently fixed on the sequel of my labour, and my eyes were shut to the horror of my proceedings. But now I went to it in cold blood, and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands. Thus situated, employed in the most detestable occupation, immersed in a solitude where nothing could for an instant call my attention from the actual scene in which I was engaged, my spirits became unequal; I grew restless and nervous. Every moment I feared to meet my persecutor. Sometimes I sat with my eyes fixed on the ground, fearing to raise them lest they should encounter the object which I so much dreaded to behold. I feared to wander from the sight of my fellow-creatures, lest when alone he should come to claim his companion. In the mean time I worked on, and my labour was already considerably advanced. I looked towards its completion with a tremulous and eager hope, which I dared not trust myself to question, but which was intermixed with obscure forebodings of evil, that made my heart sicken in my bosom. Können Sie eine passende 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.

Diese Kapitel konzentrieren sich auf Victors Abreise aus Genf. Zunächst geht er nach England, wo er weiterführende Informationen erhält, die er für die neue Schöpfung benötigt. Anschließend sucht er nach einem verlassenen Ort, an dem er in Ruhe an diesem Projekt arbeiten kann. Obwohl Victor vor dem Monster Angst hat, erlaubt es sein Gewissen ihm nicht, an seiner neuen Aufgabe weiterzuarbeiten. Daher verschiebt er die Arbeit immer wieder. Victors Vater schlägt vor, dass er Elizabeth heiraten sollte. Aber er verschiebt es auf das Jahr nach seiner Rückkehr von seiner Auslandsreise. Er soll sich auch mit seinem Freund Henry in Straßburg treffen. Er bricht mit seinen Instrumenten Ende September zu seiner Reise auf und kommt in Straßburg an. Er wartet hier auf Clerval, der hier eintreffen soll. Sie reisen entlang des Rheins von Straßburg nach Rotterdam und gehen dann nach London. Sie besuchen auch Köln und Holland und erreichen im Dezember Großbritannien. In London erhalten sie einen Brief von einem Bekannten, der sie nach Schottland einlädt. Im März brechen sie nach Schottland auf, besuchen Oxford, Matlock, Cumberland und Windsor und beenden ihre Reise bis Ende Juli. Victor drückt den Wunsch aus, alleine nach Schottland zu reisen. Er möchte nach einem abgelegenen Ort suchen, an dem er mit seiner Arbeit beginnen kann. Er kommt in die nördlichen Highlands und lässt sich auf "einem der entlegensten der Orkneys als Ort seiner Arbeit nieder". Auf der Insel gibt es drei Hütten, von denen eine sehr isoliert ist. Er mietet sie für sein Labor. Die Hütte ist in einem miserablen Zustand, und er lässt sie reparieren und kauft einige Möbel dafür. Seine Wahl eines solchen Ortes sorgt für Stirnrunzeln, aber das ist für Victor unwichtig, denn er hat bereits mit der Arbeit an der Kreatur begonnen. Im Nu ist er fast fertig damit.

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: Thus, like the sad presaging raven, that tolls The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, And in the shadow of the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings; Vex'd and tormented, runs poor Barrabas, With fatal curses towards these Christians. --Jew of Malta The Disinherited Knight had no sooner reached his pavilion, than squires and pages in abundance tendered their services to disarm him, to bring fresh attire, and to offer him the refreshment of the bath. Their zeal on this occasion was perhaps sharpened by curiosity, since every one desired to know who the knight was that had gained so many laurels, yet had refused, even at the command of Prince John, to lift his visor or to name his name. But their officious inquisitiveness was not gratified. The Disinherited Knight refused all other assistance save that of his own squire, or rather yeoman--a clownish-looking man, who, wrapt in a cloak of dark-coloured felt, and having his head and face half-buried in a Norman bonnet made of black fur, seemed to affect the incognito as much as his master. All others being excluded from the tent, this attendant relieved his master from the more burdensome parts of his armour, and placed food and wine before him, which the exertions of the day rendered very acceptable. The Knight had scarcely finished a hasty meal, ere his menial announced to him that five men, each leading a barbed steed, desired to speak with him. The Disinherited Knight had exchanged his armour for the long robe usually worn by those of his condition, which, being furnished with a hood, concealed the features, when such was the pleasure of the wearer, almost as completely as the visor of the helmet itself, but the twilight, which was now fast darkening, would of itself have rendered a disguise unnecessary, unless to persons to whom the face of an individual chanced to be particularly well known. The Disinherited Knight, therefore, stept boldly forth to the front of his tent, and found in attendance the squires of the challengers, whom he easily knew by their russet and black dresses, each of whom led his master's charger, loaded with the armour in which he had that day fought. "According to the laws of chivalry," said the foremost of these men, "I, Baldwin de Oyley, squire to the redoubted Knight Brian de Bois-Guilbert, make offer to you, styling yourself, for the present, the Disinherited Knight, of the horse and armour used by the said Brian de Bois-Guilbert in this day's Passage of Arms, leaving it with your nobleness to retain or to ransom the same, according to your pleasure; for such is the law of arms." The other squires repeated nearly the same formula, and then stood to await the decision of the Disinherited Knight. "To you four, sirs," replied the Knight, addressing those who had last spoken, "and to your honourable and valiant masters, I have one common reply. Commend me to the noble knights, your masters, and say, I should do ill to deprive them of steeds and arms which can never be used by braver cavaliers.--I would I could here end my message to these gallant knights; but being, as I term myself, in truth and earnest, the Disinherited, I must be thus far bound to your masters, that they will, of their courtesy, be pleased to ransom their steeds and armour, since that which I wear I can hardly term mine own." "We stand commissioned, each of us," answered the squire of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, "to offer a hundred zecchins in ransom of these horses and suits of armour." "It is sufficient," said the Disinherited Knight. "Half the sum my present necessities compel me to accept; of the remaining half, distribute one moiety among yourselves, sir squires, and divide the other half betwixt the heralds and the pursuivants, and minstrels, and attendants." The squires, with cap in hand, and low reverences, expressed their deep sense of a courtesy and generosity not often practised, at least upon a scale so extensive. The Disinherited Knight then addressed his discourse to Baldwin, the squire of Brian de Bois-Guilbert. "From your master," said he, "I will accept neither arms nor ransom. Say to him in my name, that our strife is not ended--no, not till we have fought as well with swords as with lances--as well on foot as on horseback. To this mortal quarrel he has himself defied me, and I shall not forget the challenge.--Meantime, let him be assured, that I hold him not as one of his companions, with whom I can with pleasure exchange courtesies; but rather as one with whom I stand upon terms of mortal defiance." "My master," answered Baldwin, "knows how to requite scorn with scorn, and blows with blows, as well as courtesy with courtesy. Since you disdain to accept from him any share of the ransom at which you have rated the arms of the other knights, I must leave his armour and his horse here, being well assured that he will never deign to mount the one nor wear the other." "You have spoken well, good squire," said the Disinherited Knight, "well and boldly, as it beseemeth him to speak who answers for an absent master. Leave not, however, the horse and armour here. Restore them to thy master; or, if he scorns to accept them, retain them, good friend, for thine own use. So far as they are mine, I bestow them upon you freely." Baldwin made a deep obeisance, and retired with his companions; and the Disinherited Knight entered the pavilion. "Thus far, Gurth," said he, addressing his attendant, "the reputation of English chivalry hath not suffered in my hands." "And I," said Gurth, "for a Saxon swineherd, have not ill played the personage of a Norman squire-at-arms." "Yea, but," answered the Disinherited Knight, "thou hast ever kept me in anxiety lest thy clownish bearing should discover thee." "Tush!" said Gurth, "I fear discovery from none, saving my playfellow, Wamba the Jester, of whom I could never discover whether he were most knave or fool. Yet I could scarce choose but laugh, when my old master passed so near to me, dreaming all the while that Gurth was keeping his porkers many a mile off, in the thickets and swamps of Rotherwood. If I am discovered---" "Enough," said the Disinherited Knight, "thou knowest my promise." "Nay, for that matter," said Gurth, "I will never fail my friend for fear of my skin-cutting. I have a tough hide, that will bear knife or scourge as well as any boar's hide in my herd." "Trust me, I will requite the risk you run for my love, Gurth," said the Knight. "Meanwhile, I pray you to accept these ten pieces of gold." "I am richer," said Gurth, putting them into his pouch, "than ever was swineherd or bondsman." "Take this bag of gold to Ashby," continued his master, "and find out Isaac the Jew of York, and let him pay himself for the horse and arms with which his credit supplied me." "Nay, by St Dunstan," replied Gurth, "that I will not do." "How, knave," replied his master, "wilt thou not obey my commands?" "So they be honest, reasonable, and Christian commands," replied Gurth; "but this is none of these. To suffer the Jew to pay himself would be dishonest, for it would be cheating my master; and unreasonable, for it were the part of a fool; and unchristian, since it would be plundering a believer to enrich an infidel." "See him contented, however, thou stubborn varlet," said the Disinherited Knight. "I will do so," said Gurth, taking the bag under his cloak, and leaving the apartment; "and it will go hard," he muttered, "but I content him with one-half of his own asking." So saying, he departed, and left the Disinherited Knight to his own perplexed ruminations; which, upon more accounts than it is now possible to communicate to the reader, were of a nature peculiarly agitating and painful. We must now change the scene to the village of Ashby, or rather to a country house in its vicinity belonging to a wealthy Israelite, with whom Isaac, his daughter, and retinue, had taken up their quarters; the Jews, it is well known, being as liberal in exercising the duties of hospitality and charity among their own people, as they were alleged to be reluctant and churlish in extending them to those whom they termed Gentiles, and whose treatment of them certainly merited little hospitality at their hand. In an apartment, small indeed, but richly furnished with decorations of an Oriental taste, Rebecca was seated on a heap of embroidered cushions, which, piled along a low platform that surrounded the chamber, served, like the estrada of the Spaniards, instead of chairs and stools. She was watching the motions of her father with a look of anxious and filial affection, while he paced the apartment with a dejected mien and disordered step; sometimes clasping his hands together--sometimes casting his eyes to the roof of the apartment, as one who laboured under great mental tribulation. "O, Jacob!" he exclaimed--"O, all ye twelve Holy Fathers of our tribe! what a losing venture is this for one who hath duly kept every jot and tittle of the law of Moses--Fifty zecchins wrenched from me at one clutch, and by the talons of a tyrant!" "But, father," said Rebecca, "you seemed to give the gold to Prince John willingly." "Willingly? the blotch of Egypt upon him!--Willingly, saidst thou?--Ay, as willingly as when, in the Gulf of Lyons, I flung over my merchandise to lighten the ship, while she laboured in the tempest--robed the seething billows in my choice silks--perfumed their briny foam with myrrh and aloes--enriched their caverns with gold and silver work! And was not that an hour of unutterable misery, though my own hands made the sacrifice?" "But it was a sacrifice which Heaven exacted to save our lives," answered Rebecca, "and the God of our fathers has since blessed your store and your gettings." "Ay," answered Isaac, "but if the tyrant lays hold on them as he did to-day, and compels me to smile while he is robbing me?--O, daughter, disinherited and wandering as we are, the worst evil which befalls our race is, that when we are wronged and plundered, all the world laughs around, and we are compelled to suppress our sense of injury, and to smile tamely, when we would revenge bravely." "Think not thus of it, my father," said Rebecca; "we also have advantages. These Gentiles, cruel and oppressive as they are, are in some sort dependent on the dispersed children of Zion, whom they despise and persecute. Without the aid of our wealth, they could neither furnish forth their hosts in war, nor their triumphs in peace, and the gold which we lend them returns with increase to our coffers. We are like the herb which flourisheth most when it is most trampled on. Even this day's pageant had not proceeded without the consent of the despised Jew, who furnished the means." "Daughter," said Isaac, "thou hast harped upon another string of sorrow. The goodly steed and the rich armour, equal to the full profit of my adventure with our Kirjath Jairam of Leicester--there is a dead loss too--ay, a loss which swallows up the gains of a week; ay, of the space between two Sabbaths--and yet it may end better than I now think, for 'tis a good youth." "Assuredly," said Rebecca, "you shall not repent you of requiting the good deed received of the stranger knight." "I trust so, daughter," said Isaac, "and I trust too in the rebuilding of Zion; but as well do I hope with my own bodily eyes to see the walls and battlements of the new Temple, as to see a Christian, yea, the very best of Christians, repay a debt to a Jew, unless under the awe of the judge and jailor." So saying, he resumed his discontented walk through the apartment; and Rebecca, perceiving that her attempts at consolation only served to awaken new subjects of complaint, wisely desisted from her unavailing efforts--a prudential line of conduct, and we recommend to all who set up for comforters and advisers, to follow it in the like circumstances. The evening was now becoming dark, when a Jewish servant entered the apartment, and placed upon the table two silver lamps, fed with perfumed oil; the richest wines, and the most delicate refreshments, were at the same time displayed by another Israelitish domestic on a small ebony table, inlaid with silver; for, in the interior of their houses, the Jews refused themselves no expensive indulgences. At the same time the servant informed Isaac, that a Nazarene (so they termed Christians, while conversing among themselves) desired to speak with him. He that would live by traffic, must hold himself at the disposal of every one claiming business with him. Isaac at once replaced on the table the untasted glass of Greek wine which he had just raised to his lips, and saying hastily to his daughter, "Rebecca, veil thyself," commanded the stranger to be admitted. Just as Rebecca had dropped over her fine features a screen of silver gauze which reached to her feet, the door opened, and Gurth entered, wrapt in the ample folds of his Norman mantle. His appearance was rather suspicious than prepossessing, especially as, instead of doffing his bonnet, he pulled it still deeper over his rugged brow. "Art thou Isaac the Jew of York?" said Gurth, in Saxon. "I am," replied Isaac, in the same language, (for his traffic had rendered every tongue spoken in Britain familiar to him)--"and who art thou?" "That is not to the purpose," answered Gurth. "As much as my name is to thee," replied Isaac; "for without knowing thine, how can I hold intercourse with thee?" "Easily," answered Gurth; "I, being to pay money, must know that I deliver it to the right person; thou, who are to receive it, will not, I think, care very greatly by whose hands it is delivered." "O," said the Jew, "you are come to pay moneys?--Holy Father Abraham! that altereth our relation to each other. And from whom dost thou bring it?" "From the Disinherited Knight," said Gurth, "victor in this day's tournament. It is the price of the armour supplied to him by Kirjath Jairam of Leicester, on thy recommendation. The steed is restored to thy stable. I desire to know the amount of the sum which I am to pay for the armour." "I said he was a good youth!" exclaimed Isaac with joyful exultation. "A cup of wine will do thee no harm," he added, filling and handing to the swineherd a richer drought than Gurth had ever before tasted. "And how much money," continued Isaac, "has thou brought with thee?" "Holy Virgin!" said Gurth, setting down the cup, "what nectar these unbelieving dogs drink, while true Christians are fain to quaff ale as muddy and thick as the draff we give to hogs!--What money have I brought with me?" continued the Saxon, when he had finished this uncivil ejaculation, "even but a small sum; something in hand the whilst. What, Isaac! thou must bear a conscience, though it be a Jewish one." "Nay, but," said Isaac, "thy master has won goodly steeds and rich armours with the strength of his lance, and of his right hand--but 'tis a good youth--the Jew will take these in present payment, and render him back the surplus." "My master has disposed of them already," said Gurth. "Ah! that was wrong," said the Jew, "that was the part of a fool. No Christians here could buy so many horses and armour--no Jew except myself would give him half the values. But thou hast a hundred zecchins with thee in that bag," said Isaac, prying under Gurth's cloak, "it is a heavy one." "I have heads for cross-bow bolts in it," said Gurth, readily. "Well, then"--said Isaac, panting and hesitating between habitual love of gain and a new-born desire to be liberal in the present instance, "if I should say that I would take eighty zecchins for the good steed and the rich armour, which leaves me not a guilder's profit, have you money to pay me?" "Barely," said Gurth, though the sum demanded was more reasonable than he expected, "and it will leave my master nigh penniless. Nevertheless, if such be your least offer, I must be content." "Fill thyself another goblet of wine," said the Jew. "Ah! eighty zecchins is too little. It leaveth no profit for the usages of the moneys; and, besides, the good horse may have suffered wrong in this day's encounter. O, it was a hard and a dangerous meeting! man and steed rushing on each other like wild bulls of Bashan! The horse cannot but have had wrong." "And I say," replied Gurth, "he is sound, wind and limb; and you may see him now, in your stable. And I say, over and above, that seventy zecchins is enough for the armour, and I hope a Christian's word is as good as a Jew's. If you will not take seventy, I will carry this bag" (and he shook it till the contents jingled) "back to my master." "Nay, nay!" said Isaac; "lay down the talents--the shekels--the eighty zecchins, and thou shalt see I will consider thee liberally." Gurth at length complied; and telling out eighty zecchins upon the table, the Jew delivered out to him an acquittance for the horse and suit of armour. The Jew's hand trembled for joy as he wrapped up the first seventy pieces of gold. The last ten he told over with much deliberation, pausing, and saying something as he took each piece from the table, and dropt it into his purse. It seemed as if his avarice were struggling with his better nature, and compelling him to pouch zecchin after zecchin while his generosity urged him to restore some part at least to his benefactor, or as a donation to his agent. His whole speech ran nearly thus: "Seventy-one--seventy-two; thy master is a good youth--seventy-three, an excellent youth--seventy-four--that piece hath been clipt within the ring--seventy-five--and that looketh light of weight--seventy-six--when thy master wants money, let him come to Isaac of York--seventy-seven--that is, with reasonable security." Here he made a considerable pause, and Gurth had good hope that the last three pieces might escape the fate of their comrades; but the enumeration proceeded.--"Seventy-eight--thou art a good fellow--seventy-nine--and deservest something for thyself---" Here the Jew paused again, and looked at the last zecchin, intending, doubtless, to bestow it upon Gurth. He weighed it upon the tip of his finger, and made it ring by dropping it upon the table. Had it rung too flat, or had it felt a hair's breadth too light, generosity had carried the day; but, unhappily for Gurth, the chime was full and true, the zecchin plump, newly coined, and a grain above weight. Isaac could not find in his heart to part with it, so dropt it into his purse as if in absence of mind, with the words, "Eighty completes the tale, and I trust thy master will reward thee handsomely.--Surely," he added, looking earnestly at the bag, "thou hast more coins in that pouch?" Gurth grinned, which was his nearest approach to a laugh, as he replied, "About the same quantity which thou hast just told over so carefully." He then folded the quittance, and put it under his cap, adding,--"Peril of thy beard, Jew, see that this be full and ample!" He filled himself unbidden, a third goblet of wine, and left the apartment without ceremony. "Rebecca," said the Jew, "that Ishmaelite hath gone somewhat beyond me. Nevertheless his master is a good youth--ay, and I am well pleased that he hath gained shekels of gold and shekels of silver, even by the speed of his horse and by the strength of his lance, which, like that of Goliath the Philistine, might vie with a weaver's beam." As he turned to receive Rebecca's answer, he observed, that during his chattering with Gurth, she had left the apartment unperceived. In the meanwhile, Gurth had descended the stair, and, having reached the dark antechamber or hall, was puzzling about to discover the entrance, when a figure in white, shown by a small silver lamp which she held in her hand, beckoned him into a side apartment. Gurth had some reluctance to obey the summons. Rough and impetuous as a wild boar, where only earthly force was to be apprehended, he had all the characteristic terrors of a Saxon respecting fawns, forest-fiends, white women, and the whole of the superstitions which his ancestors had brought with them from the wilds of Germany. He remembered, moreover, that he was in the house of a Jew, a people who, besides the other unamiable qualities which popular report ascribed to them, were supposed to be profound necromancers and cabalists. Nevertheless, after a moment's pause, he obeyed the beckoning summons of the apparition, and followed her into the apartment which she indicated, where he found to his joyful surprise that his fair guide was the beautiful Jewess whom he had seen at the tournament, and a short time in her father's apartment. She asked him the particulars of his transaction with Isaac, which he detailed accurately. "My father did but jest with thee, good fellow," said Rebecca; "he owes thy master deeper kindness than these arms and steed could pay, were their value tenfold. What sum didst thou pay my father even now?" "Eighty zecchins," said Gurth, surprised at the question. "In this purse," said Rebecca, "thou wilt find a hundred. Restore to thy master that which is his due, and enrich thyself with the remainder. Haste--begone--stay not to render thanks! and beware how you pass through this crowded town, where thou mayst easily lose both thy burden and thy life.--Reuben," she added, clapping her hands together, "light forth this stranger, and fail not to draw lock and bar behind him." Reuben, a dark-brow'd and black-bearded Israelite, obeyed her summons, with a torch in his hand; undid the outward door of the house, and conducting Gurth across a paved court, let him out through a wicket in the entrance-gate, which he closed behind him with such bolts and chains as would well have become that of a prison. "By St Dunstan," said Gurth, as he stumbled up the dark avenue, "this is no Jewess, but an angel from heaven! Ten zecchins from my brave young master--twenty from this pearl of Zion--Oh, happy day!--Such another, Gurth, will redeem thy bondage, and make thee a brother as free of thy guild as the best. And then do I lay down my swineherd's horn and staff, and take the freeman's sword and buckler, and follow my young master to the death, without hiding either my face or my name." 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.

Die Knappen der besiegten Ritter kommen zum Pavillon des Enterbten Ritters, um ihre Pferde und Rüstungen anzubieten, wie es die Gesetze der Ritterlichkeit vorschreiben. Der Ritter lehnt es ab, sie anzunehmen, akzeptiert jedoch ein Lösegeld von hundert Zechinen. Die Hälfte behält er für sich; die andere Hälfte lässt er unter den Knappen, Herolden und anderen Offiziellen des Turniers aufteilen. Allerdings lehnt er es ab, Lösegeld von De Bois-Guilbert anzunehmen, da ihr Streit nicht beendet ist. Der Ritter gibt dann seinem Gehilfen, der in Wirklichkeit der Schweinehirte Gurth ist und sich verkleidet hat, einen Beutel Gold, um Isaak seine Schulden zurückzuzahlen. Isaak soll sich nehmen, was er möchte, aus dem Beutel nehmen. Empört sagt Gurth, er werde Isaak nur die Hälfte dessen geben, was er möchte. In dem Haus in der Nähe von Ashby, in dem er und Rebecca wohnen, schimpft Isaak über das Geld, das Prinz John ihm abgenommen hat. Rebecca versucht, ihn zu trösten. Isaak erwartet auch nicht, dass der Enterbte Ritter ihn zurückzahlen wird. Als Gurth mit seiner Mission ankommt, ist Isaak überrascht, aber glücklich. Er bittet um achtzig Zechinen. Gurth bietet siebzig oder nichts an. Isaak widerspricht und zählt achtzig Zechinen aus. Dann bemerkt er, dass noch Geld im Beutel von Gurth ist, und Gurth sagt, dass der Rest genauso viel ausmacht, wie Isaak genommen hat. Nachdem Gurth die Wohnung verlassen hat, hält Rebecca ihn im Flur auf und bringt ihn in eine Seitenwohnung. Sie gibt ihm einen Beutel mit hundert Zechinen und sagt ihm, dass er dem Ritter das ihm gebührende zurückgeben und den Rest für sich behalten soll.

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: Carteret fished from the depths of the waste-basket and handed to the general an eighteen by twenty-four sheet, poorly printed on cheap paper, with a "patent" inside, a number of advertisements of proprietary medicines, quack doctors, and fortune-tellers, and two or three columns of editorial and local news. Candor compels the admission that it was not an impressive sheet in any respect, except when regarded as the first local effort of a struggling people to make public expression of their life and aspirations. From this point of view it did not speak at all badly for a class to whom, a generation before, newspapers, books, and learning had been forbidden fruit. "It's an elegant specimen of journalism, isn't it?" laughed the general, airily. "Listen to this 'ad':-- "'Kinky, curly hair made straight by one application of our specific. Our face bleach will turn the skin of a black or brown person four or five shades lighter, and of a mulatto perfectly white. When you get the color you wish, stop using the preparation.' "Just look at those heads!--'Before using' and 'After using.' We'd better hurry, or there'll be no negroes to disfranchise! If they don't stop till they get the color they desire, and the stuff works according to contract, they'll all be white. Ah! what have we here? This looks as though it might be serious." Opening the sheet the general read aloud an editorial article, to which Carteret listened intently, his indignation increasing in strength from the first word to the last, while McBane's face grew darkly purple with anger. The article was a frank and somewhat bold discussion of lynching and its causes. It denied that most lynchings were for the offense most generally charged as their justification, and declared that, even of those seemingly traced to this cause, many were not for crimes at all, but for voluntary acts which might naturally be expected to follow from the miscegenation laws by which it was sought, in all the Southern States, to destroy liberty of contract, and, for the purpose of maintaining a fanciful purity of race, to make crimes of marriages to which neither nature nor religion nor the laws of other states interposed any insurmountable barrier. Such an article in a Northern newspaper would have attracted no special attention, and might merely have furnished food to an occasional reader for serious thought upon a subject not exactly agreeable; but coming from a colored man, in a Southern city, it was an indictment of the laws and social system of the South that could not fail of creating a profound sensation. "Infamous--infamous!" exclaimed Carteret, his voice trembling with emotion. "The paper should be suppressed immediately." "The impudent nigger ought to be horsewhipped and run out of town," growled McBane. "Gentlemen," said the general soothingly, after the first burst of indignation had subsided, "I believe we can find a more effective use for this article, which, by the way, will not bear too close analysis,--there's some truth in it, at least there's an argument." "That is not the point," interrupted Carteret. "No," interjected McBane with an oath, "that ain't at all the point. Truth or not, no damn nigger has any right to say it." "This article," said Carteret, "violates an unwritten law of the South. If we are to tolerate this race of weaklings among us, until they are eliminated by the stress of competition, it must be upon terms which we lay down. One of our conditions is violated by this article, in which our wisdom is assailed, and our women made the subject of offensive comment. We must make known our disapproval." "I say lynch the nigger, break up the press, and burn down the newspaper office," McBane responded promptly. "Gentlemen," interposed the general, "would you mind suspending the discussion for a moment, while I mind Jerry across the street? I think I can then suggest a better plan." Carteret rang the bell for Jerry, who answered promptly. He had been expecting such a call ever since the gentlemen had gone in. "Jerry," said the general, "step across to Brown's and tell him to send me three Calhoun cocktails. Wait for them,--here's the money." "Yas, suh," replied Jerry, taking the proffered coin. "And make has'e, charcoal," added McBane, "for we're gettin' damn dry." A momentary cloud of annoyance darkened Carteret's brow. McBane had always grated upon his aristocratic susceptibilities. The captain was an upstart, a product of the democratic idea operating upon the poor white man, the descendant of the indentured bondservant and the socially unfit. He had wealth and energy, however, and it was necessary to make use of him; but the example of such men was a strong incentive to Carteret in his campaign against the negro. It was distasteful enough to rub elbows with an illiterate and vulgar white man of no ancestry,--the risk of similar contact with negroes was to be avoided at any cost. He could hardly expect McBane to be a gentleman, but when among men of that class he might at least try to imitate their manners. A gentleman did not order his own servants around offensively, to say nothing of another's. The general had observed Carteret's annoyance, and remarked pleasantly while they waited for the servant's return:-- "Jerry, now, is a very good negro. He's not one of your new negroes, who think themselves as good as white men, and want to run the government. Jerry knows his place,--he is respectful, humble, obedient, and content with the face and place assigned to him by nature." "Yes, he's one of the best of 'em," sneered McBane. "He'll call any man 'master' for a quarter, or 'God' for half a dollar; for a dollar he'll grovel at your feet, and for a cast-off coat you can buy an option on his immortal soul,--if he has one! I've handled niggers for ten years, and I know 'em from the ground up. They're all alike,--they're a scrub race, an affliction to the country, and the quicker we're rid of 'em all the better." Carteret had nothing to say by way of dissent. McBane's sentiments, in their last analysis, were much the same as his, though he would have expressed them less brutally. "The negro," observed the general, daintily flicking the ash from his cigar, "is all right in his place and very useful to the community. We lived on his labor for quite a long time, and lived very well. Nevertheless we are better off without slavery, for we can get more out of the free negro, and with less responsibility. I really do not see how we could get along without the negroes. If they were all like Jerry, we'd have no trouble with them." Having procured the drinks, Jerry, the momentary subject of the race discussion which goes on eternally in the South, was making his way back across the street, somewhat disturbed in mind. "O Lawd!" he groaned, "I never troubles trouble till trouble troubles me; but w'en I got dem drinks befo', Gin'l Belmont gimme half a dollar an' tol' me ter keep de change. Dis time he didn' say nothin' 'bout de change. I s'pose he jes' fergot erbout it, but w'at is a po' nigger gwine ter do w'en he has ter conten' wid w'ite folks's fergitfulniss? I don' see no way but ter do some fergittin' myse'f. I'll jes' stan' outside de do' here till dey gits so wrop' up in deir talk dat dey won' 'member nothin' e'se, an' den at de right minute I'll ban' de glasses 'roun, an' moa' lackly de gin'l 'll fergit all 'bout de change." While Jerry stood outside, the conversation within was plainly audible, and some inkling of its purport filtered through his mind. "Now, gentlemen," the general was saying, "here's my plan. That editorial in the negro newspaper is good campaign matter, but we should reserve it until it will be most effective. Suppose we just stick it in a pigeon-hole, and let the editor,--what's his name?" "The nigger's name is Barber," replied McBane. "I'd like to have him under me for a month or two; he'd write no more editorials." "Let Barber have all the rope he wants," resumed the general, "and he'll be sure to hang himself. In the mean time we will continue to work up public opinion,--we can use this letter privately for that purpose,--and when the state campaign opens we'll print the editorial, with suitable comment, scatter it broadcast throughout the state, fire the Southern heart, organize the white people on the color line, have a little demonstration with red shirts and shotguns, scare the negroes into fits, win the state for white supremacy, and teach our colored fellow citizens that we are tired of negro domination and have put an end to it forever. The Afro-American Banner will doubtless die about the same time." "And so will the editor!" exclaimed McBane ferociously; "I'll see to that. But I wonder where that nigger is with them cocktails? I'm so thirsty I could swallow blue blazes." "Here's yo' drinks, gin'l," announced Jerry, entering with the glasses on a tray. The gentlemen exchanged compliments and imbibed--McBane at a gulp, Carteret with more deliberation, leaving about half the contents of his glass. The general drank slowly, with every sign of appreciation. "If the illustrious statesman," he observed, "whose name this mixture bears, had done nothing more than invent it, his fame would still deserve to go thundering down the endless ages." "It ain't bad liquor," assented McBane, smacking his lips. Jerry received the empty glasses on the tray and left the room. He had scarcely gained the hall when the general called him back. "O Lawd!" groaned Jerry, "he's gwine ter ax me fer de change. Yas, suh, yas, suh; comin', gin'l, comin', suh!" "You may keep the change, Jerry," said the general. Jerry's face grew radiant at this announcement. "Yas, suh, gin'l; thank y', suh; much obleedzed, suh. I wuz jus' gwine ter fetch it in, suh, w'en I had put de tray down. Thank y', suh, truly, suh!" Jerry backed and bowed himself out into the hall. "Dat wuz a close shave," he muttered, as he swallowed the remaining contents of Major Carteret's glass. "I 'lowed dem twenty cents wuz gone dat time,--an' whar I wuz gwine ter git de money ter take my gal ter de chu'ch festibal ter-night, de Lawd only knows!--'less'n I borried it offn Mr. Ellis, an' I owes him sixty cents a'ready. But I wonduh w'at dem w'ite folks in dere is up ter? Dere's one thing sho',--dey're gwine ter git after de niggers some way er 'nuther, an' w'en dey does, whar is Jerry gwine ter be? Dat's de mos' impo'tantes' question. I'm gwine ter look at dat newspaper dey be'n talkin' 'bout, an' 'less'n my min' changes might'ly, I'm gwine ter keep my mouf shet an' stan' in wid de Angry-Saxon race,--ez dey calls deyse'ves nowadays,--an' keep on de right side er my bread an' meat. Wat nigger ever give me twenty cents in all my bawn days?" "By the way, major," said the general, who lingered behind McBane as they were leaving, "is Miss Clara's marriage definitely settled upon?" "Well, general, not exactly; but it's the understanding that they will marry when they are old enough." "I was merely thinking," the general went on, "that if I were you I'd speak to Tom about cards and liquor. He gives more time to both than a young man can afford. I'm speaking in his interest and in Miss Clara's,--we of the old families ought to stand together." "Thank you, general, for the hint. I'll act upon it." This political conference was fruitful in results. Acting upon the plans there laid out, McBane traveled extensively through the state, working up sentiment in favor of the new movement. He possessed a certain forceful eloquence; and white supremacy was so obviously the divine intention that he had merely to affirm the doctrine in order to secure adherents. General Belmont, whose business required him to spend much of the winter in Washington and New York, lost no opportunity to get the ear of lawmakers, editors, and other leaders of national opinion, and to impress upon them, with persuasive eloquence, the impossibility of maintaining existing conditions, and the tremendous blunder which had been made in conferring the franchise upon the emancipated race. Carteret conducted the press campaign, and held out to the Republicans of the North the glittering hope that, with the elimination of the negro vote, and a proper deference to Southern feeling, a strong white Republican party might be built up in the New South. How well the bait took is a matter of history,--but the promised result is still in the future. The disfranchisement of the negro has merely changed the form of the same old problem. The negro had no vote before the rebellion, and few other rights, and yet the negro question was, for a century, the pivot of American politics. It plunged the nation into a bloody war, and it will trouble the American government and the American conscience until a sustained attempt is made to settle it upon principles of justice and equity. The personal ambitions entertained by the leaders of this movement are but slightly involved in this story. McBane's aims have been touched upon elsewhere. The general would have accepted the nomination for governor of the state, with a vision of a senatorship in the future. Carteret hoped to vindicate the supremacy of his race, and make the state fit for his son to live in, and, incidentally, he would not refuse any office, worthy of his dignity, which a grateful people might thrust upon him. So powerful a combination of bigot, self-seeking demagogue, and astute politician was fraught with grave menace to the peace of the state and the liberties of the people,--by which is meant the whole people, and not any one class, sought to be built up at the expense of another. 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 schwarze Zeitung der Stadt enthält einen Leitartikel über Lynchjustiz. Er argumentiert, dass Lynchjustiz ein Versuch der weißen herrschenden Klasse ist, eine ungerechte Regel über die Afroamerikaner aufrechtzuerhalten. Er argumentiert auch, dass weder Religion, noch Natur, noch staatliches Recht interrassische Ehen verbieten sollten. McBane und Carteret sind empört. McBane erklärt wütend, dass der Herausgeber "ausgepeitscht und aus der Stadt gejagt werden sollte". General Belmont sagt ihnen, dass der Artikel später von Nutzen sein könnte. Carteret erklärt immer noch wütend, dass der Artikel ein "ungeschriebenes Gesetz des Südens" verletzt. Wenn wir diese Rasse von Schwächlingen unter uns dulden sollen, bis sie durch den Wettbewerbsdruck ausgelöscht sind, muss dies auf den von uns festgelegten Bedingungen geschehen. Der General ruft Jerry herein und schickt ihn zu Brown's für zwei "Calhoun Cocktails". McBane ist unhöflich zu Jerry und das ärgert Carteret. McBane, denkt er bei sich selbst, stammt aus einer niedrigeren Klasse von weißen Menschen. Auch wenn er jetzt reich ist, war sein Vater nichts weiter als ein Sklaventreiber. Jerry ist besorgt, dass General Belmont ihm kein Wechselgeld angeboten hat, und beschließt, so zu tun, als hätte er es vergessen und es für sich zu behalten. Während die Männer trinken, schlägt Belmont vor, dass die Männer den Artikel vorerst beiseite legen sollten. Sie sollten sich stattdessen darauf konzentrieren, die öffentliche Meinung gegen die schwarze Gemeinschaft zu beeinflussen. Zur Wahlzeit werden sie den Leitartikel drucken und die Wählerschaft entlang racialer Linien spalten, um den Staat "für die weiße Vorherrschaft" zu gewinnen. Als die Männer das Büro verlassen, schlägt Belmont vor, dass Carteret mit Tom Delamere über seine Kartenspiel- und Trinkgewohnheiten sprechen soll, da diese nicht für Männer ihrer aristokratischen Herkunft geeignet sind. In den nächsten Monaten arbeiten die drei Männer unermüdlich daran, die Meinung gegen die Afroamerikaner im Süden zu beeinflussen. Der Erzähler behauptet: "Wie gut der Köder angenommen wurde, ist eine historische Frage - aber das versprochene Ergebnis liegt immer noch in der Zukunft. Die Rassenfrage war für ein Jahrhundert der Dreh- und Angelpunkt der amerikanischen Politik."

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 XLI. In Which the Squirrel Falls,--the Adder Flies. It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The king, full of impatience, went to his cabinet on the terrace, and kept opening the door of the corridor, to see what his secretaries were doing. M. Colbert, seated in the same place M. de Saint-Aignan had so long occupied in the morning, was chatting in a low voice with M. de Brienne. The king opened the door suddenly, and addressed them. "What is it you are saying?" "We were speaking of the first sitting of the States," said M. de Brienne, rising. "Very well," replied the king, and returned to his room. Five minutes after, the summons of the bell recalled Rose, whose hour it was. "Have you finished your copies?" asked the king. "Not yet, sire." "See if M. d'Artagnan has returned." "Not yet, sire." "It is very strange," murmured the king. "Call M. Colbert." Colbert entered; he had been expecting this all the morning. "Monsieur Colbert," said the king, very sharply; "you must ascertain what has become of M. d'Artagnan." Colbert in his calm voice replied, "Where does your majesty desire him to be sought for?" "Eh! monsieur! do you not know on what I have sent him?" replied Louis, acrimoniously. "Your majesty did not inform me." "Monsieur, there are things that must be guessed; and you, above all, are apt to guess them." "I might have been able to imagine, sire; but I do not presume to be positive." Colbert had not finished these words when a rougher voice than that of the king interrupted the interesting conversation thus begun between the monarch and his clerk. "D'Artagnan!" cried the king, with evident joy. D'Artagnan, pale and in evidently bad humor, cried to the king, as he entered, "Sire, is it your majesty who has given orders to my musketeers?" "What orders?" said the king. "About M. Fouquet's house?" "None!" replied Louis. "Ha!" said D'Artagnan, biting his mustache; "I was not mistaken, then; it was monsieur here;" and he pointed to Colbert. "What orders? Let me know," said the king. "Orders to turn the house topsy-turvy, to beat M. Fouquet's servants, to force the drawers, to give over a peaceful house to pillage! _Mordioux!_ these are savage orders!" "Monsieur!" said Colbert, turning pale. "Monsieur," interrupted D'Artagnan, "the king alone, understand,--the king alone has a right to command my musketeers; but, as to you, I forbid you to do it, and I tell you so before his majesty; gentlemen who carry swords do not sling pens behind their ears." "D'Artagnan! D'Artagnan!" murmured the king. "It is humiliating," continued the musketeer; "my soldiers are disgraced. I do not command _reitres_, thank you, nor clerks of the intendant, _mordioux!_" "Well! but what is all this about?" said the king with authority. "About this, sire; monsieur--monsieur, who could not guess your majesty's orders, and consequently could not know I was gone to arrest M. Fouquet; monsieur, who has caused the iron cage to be constructed for his patron of yesterday--has sent M. de Roncherolles to the lodgings of M. Fouquet, and, under the pretense of securing the surintendant's papers, they have taken away the furniture. My musketeers have been posted round the house all the morning; such were my orders. Why did any one presume to order them to enter? Why, by forcing them to assist in this pillage, have they been made accomplices in it? _Mordioux!_ we serve the king, we do; but we do not serve M. Colbert!" [5] "Monsieur d'Artagnan," said the king, sternly, "take care; it is not in my presence that such explanations, and made in such a tone, should take place." "I have acted for the good of the king," said Colbert, in a faltering voice. "It is hard to be so treated by one of your majesty's officers, and that without redress, on account of the respect I owe the king." "The respect you owe the king," cried D'Artagnan, his eyes flashing fire, "consists, in the first place, in making his authority respected, and his person beloved. Every agent of a power without control represents that power, and when people curse the hand which strikes them, it is the royal hand that God reproaches, do you hear? Must a soldier, hardened by forty years of wounds and blood, give you this lesson, monsieur? Must mercy be on my side, and ferocity on yours? You have caused the innocent to be arrested, bound, and imprisoned!" "Accomplices, perhaps, of M. Fouquet," said Colbert. "Who told you M. Fouquet had accomplices, or even that he was guilty? The king alone knows that; his justice is not blind! When he says, 'Arrest and imprison' such and such a man, he is obeyed. Do not talk to me, then, any more of the respect you owe the king, and be careful of your words, that they may not chance to convey the slightest menace; for the king will not allow those to be threatened who do him service by others who do him disservice; and if in case I should have, which God forbid! a master so ungrateful, I would make myself respected." Thus saying, D'Artagnan took his station haughtily in the king's cabinet, his eyes flashing, his hand on his sword, his lips trembling, affecting much more anger than he really felt. Colbert, humiliated and devoured with rage, bowed to the king as if to ask his permission to leave the room. The king, thwarted alike in pride and in curiosity, knew not which part to take. D'Artagnan saw him hesitate. To remain longer would have been a mistake: it was necessary to score a triumph over Colbert, and the only method was to touch the king so near the quick, that his majesty would have no other means of extrication but choosing between the two antagonists. D'Artagnan bowed as Colbert had done; but the king, who, in preference to everything else, was anxious to have all the exact details of the arrest of the surintendant of the finances from him who had made him tremble for a moment,--the king, perceiving that the ill-humor of D'Artagnan would put off for half an hour at least the details he was burning to be acquainted with,--Louis, we say, forgot Colbert, who had nothing new to tell him, and recalled his captain of the musketeers. "In the first place," said he, "let me see the result of your commission, monsieur; you may rest yourself hereafter." D'Artagnan, who was just passing through the doorway, stopped at the voice of the king, retraced his steps, and Colbert was forced to leave the closet. His countenance assumed almost a purple hue, his black and threatening eyes shone with a dark fire beneath their thick brows; he stepped out, bowed before the king, half drew himself up in passing D'Artagnan, and went away with death in his heart. D'Artagnan, on being left alone with the king, softened immediately, and composing his countenance: "Sire," said he, "you are a young king. It is by the dawn that people judge whether the day will be fine or dull. How, sire, will the people, whom the hand of God has placed under your law, argue of your reign, if between them and you, you allow angry and violent ministers to interpose their mischief? But let us speak of myself, sire, let us leave a discussion that may appear idle, and perhaps inconvenient to you. Let us speak of myself. I have arrested M. Fouquet." "You took plenty of time about it," said the king, sharply. D'Artagnan looked at the king. "I perceive that I have expressed myself badly. I announced to your majesty that I had arrested Monsieur Fouquet." "You did; and what then?" "Well! I ought to have told your majesty that M. Fouquet had arrested me; that would have been more just. I re-establish the truth, then; I have been arrested by M. Fouquet." It was now the turn of Louis XIV. to be surprised. His majesty was astonished in his turn. D'Artagnan, with his quick glance, appreciated what was passing in the heart of his master. He did not allow him time to put any questions. He related, with that poetry, that picturesqueness, which perhaps he alone possessed at that period, the escape of Fouquet, the pursuit, the furious race, and, lastly, the inimitable generosity of the surintendant, who might have fled ten times over, who might have killed the adversary in the pursuit, but who had preferred imprisonment, perhaps worse, to the humiliation of one who wished to rob him of his liberty. In proportion as the tale advanced, the king became agitated, devouring the narrator's words, and drumming with his finger-nails upon the table. "It results from all this, sire, in my eyes, at least, that the man who conducts himself thus is a gallant man, and cannot be an enemy to the king. That is my opinion, and I repeat it to your majesty. I know what the king will say to me, and I bow to it,--reasons of state. So be it! To my ears that sounds highly respectable. But I am a soldier, and I have received my orders, my orders are executed--very unwillingly on my part, it is true, but they are executed. I say no more." "Where is M. Fouquet at this moment?" asked Louis, after a short silence. "M. Fouquet, sire," replied D'Artagnan, "is in the iron cage that M. Colbert had prepared for him, and is galloping as fast as four strong horses can drag him, towards Angers." "Why did you leave him on the road?" "Because your majesty did not tell me to go to Angers. The proof, the best proof of what I advance, is that the king desired me to be sought for but this minute. And then I had another reason." "What is that?" "Whilst I was with him, poor M. Fouquet would never attempt to escape." "Well!" cried the king, astonished. "Your majesty ought to understand, and does understand, certainly, that my warmest wish is to know that M. Fouquet is at liberty. I have given him one of my brigadiers, the most stupid I could find among my musketeers, in order that the prisoner might have a chance of escaping." "Are you mad, Monsieur d'Artagnan?" cried the king, crossing his arms on his breast. "Do people utter such enormities, even when they have the misfortune to think them?" "Ah! sire, you cannot expect that I should be an enemy to M. Fouquet, after what he has just done for you and me. No, no; if you desire that he should remain under your lock and bolt, never give him in charge to me; however closely wired might be the cage, the bird would, in the end, take wing." "I am surprised," said the king, in his sternest tone, "you did not follow the fortunes of the man M. Fouquet wished to place upon my throne. You had in him all you want--affection, gratitude. In my service, monsieur, you will only find a master." "If M. Fouquet had not gone to seek you in the Bastile, sire," replied D'Artagnan, with a deeply impressive manner, "one single man would have gone there, and I should have been that man--you know that right well, sire." The king was brought to a pause. Before that speech of his captain of the musketeers, so frankly spoken and so true, the king had nothing to offer. On hearing D'Artagnan, Louis remembered the D'Artagnan of former times; him who, at the Palais Royal, held himself concealed behind the curtains of his bed, when the people of Paris, led by Cardinal de Retz, came to assure themselves of the presence of the king; the D'Artagnan whom he saluted with his hand at the door of his carriage, when repairing to Notre Dame on his return to Paris; the soldier who had quitted his service at Blois; the lieutenant he had recalled to be beside his person when the death of Mazarin restored his power; the man he had always found loyal, courageous, devoted. Louis advanced towards the door and called Colbert. Colbert had not left the corridor where the secretaries were at work. He reappeared. "Colbert, did you make a perquisition on the house of M. Fouquet?" "Yes, sire." "What has it produced?" "M. de Roncherolles, who was sent with your majesty's musketeers, has remitted me some papers," replied Colbert. "I will look at them. Give me your hand." "My hand, sire!" "Yes, that I may place it in that of M. d'Artagnan. In fact, M. d'Artagnan," added he, with a smile, turning towards the soldier, who, at sight of the clerk, had resumed his haughty attitude, "you do not know this man; make his acquaintance." And he pointed to Colbert. "He has been made but a moderately valuable servant in subaltern positions, but he will be a great man if I raise him to the foremost rank." "Sire!" stammered Colbert, confused with pleasure and fear. "I always understood why," murmured D'Artagnan in the king's ear; "he was jealous." "Precisely, and his jealousy confined his wings." "He will henceforward be a winged-serpent," grumbled the musketeer, with a remnant of hatred against his recent adversary. But Colbert, approaching him, offered to his eyes a physiognomy so different from that which he had been accustomed to see him wear; he appeared so good, so mild, so easy; his eyes took the expression of an intelligence so noble, that D'Artagnan, a connoisseur in physiognomies, was moved, and almost changed in his convictions. Colbert pressed his hand. "That which the king has just told you, monsieur, proves how well his majesty is acquainted with men. The inveterate opposition I have displayed, up to this day, against abuses and not against men, proves that I had it in view to prepare for my king a glorious reign, for my country a great blessing. I have many ideas, M. d'Artagnan. You will see them expand in the sun of public peace; and if I have not the good fortune to conquer the friendship of honest men, I am at least certain, monsieur, that I shall obtain their esteem. For their admiration, monsieur, I would give my life." This change, this sudden elevation, this mute approbation of the king, gave the musketeer matter for profound reflection. He bowed civilly to Colbert, who did not take his eyes off him. The king, when he saw they were reconciled, dismissed them. They left the room together. As soon as they were out of the cabinet, the new minister, stopping the captain, said: "Is it possible, M. d'Artagnan, that with such an eye as yours, you did not, at the first glance, at the first impression, discover what sort of man I am?" "Monsieur Colbert," replied the musketeer, "a ray of the sun in our eyes prevents us from seeing the most vivid flame. The man in power radiates, you know; and since you are there, why should you continue to persecute him who had just fallen into disgrace, and fallen from such a height?" "I, monsieur!" said Colbert; "oh, monsieur! I would never persecute him. I wished to administer the finances and to administer them alone, because I am ambitious, and, above all, because I have the most entire confidence in my own merit; because I know that all the gold of this country will ebb and flow beneath my eyes, and I love to look at the king's gold; because, if I live thirty years, in thirty years not a _denir_ of it will remain in my hands; because, with that gold, I will build granaries, castles, cities, and harbors; because I will create a marine, I will equip navies that shall waft the name of France to the most distant people; because I will create libraries and academies; because I will make France the first country in the world, and the wealthiest. These are the motives for my animosity against M. Fouquet, who prevented my acting. And then, when I shall be great and strong, when France is great and strong, in my turn, then, will I cry, 'Mercy'!" "Mercy, did you say? then ask his liberty of the king. The king is only crushing him on _your_ account." Colbert again raised his head. "Monsieur," said he, "you know that is not so, and that the king has his own personal animosity against M. Fouquet; it is not for me to teach you that." "But the king will grow tired; he will forget." "The king never forgets, M. d'Artagnan. Hark! the king calls. He is going to issue an order. I have not influenced him, have I? Listen." The king, in fact, was calling his secretaries. "Monsieur d'Artagnan," said he. "I am here, sire." "Give twenty of your musketeers to M. de Saint-Aignan, to form a guard for M. Fouquet." D'Artagnan and Colbert exchanged looks. "And from Angers," continued the king, "they will conduct the prisoner to the Bastile, in Paris." "You were right," said the captain to the minister. "Saint-Aignan," continued the king, "you will have any one shot who shall attempt to speak privately with M. Fouquet, during the journey." "But myself, sire," said the duke. "You, monsieur, you will only speak to him in the presence of the musketeers." The duke bowed and departed to execute his commission. D'Artagnan was about to retire likewise; but the king stopped him. "Monsieur," said he, "you will go immediately, and take possession of the isle and fief of Belle-Ile-en-Mer." "Yes, sire. Alone?" "You will take a sufficient number of troops to prevent delay, in case the place should be contumacious." A murmur of courtly incredulity rose from the group of courtiers. "That shall be done," said D'Artagnan. "I saw the place in my infancy," resumed the king, "and I do not wish to see it again. You have heard me? Go, monsieur, and do not return without the keys." Colbert went up to D'Artagnan. "A commission which, if you carry it out well," said he, "will be worth a marechal's baton to you." "Why do you employ the words, 'if you carry it out well'?" "Because it is difficult." "Ah! in what respect?" "You have friends in Belle-Isle, Monsieur d'Artagnan; and it is not an easy thing for men like you to march over the bodies of their friends to obtain success." D'Artagnan hung his head in deepest thought, whilst Colbert returned to the king. A quarter of an hour after, the captain received the written order from the king, to blow up the fortress of Belle-Isle, in case of resistance, with power of life and death over all the inhabitants or refugees, and an injunction not to allow one to escape. "Colbert was right," thought D'Artagnan; "for me the baton of a marechal of France will cost the lives of my two friends. Only they seem to forget that my friends are not more stupid than the birds, and that they will not wait for the hand of the fowler to extend over their wings. I will show them that hand so plainly, that they will have quite time enough to see it. Poor Porthos! Poor Aramis! No; my fortune should shall not cost your wings a feather." Having thus determined, D'Artagnan assembled the royal army, embarked it at Paimboeuf, and set sail, without the loss of an unnecessary minute. 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.

Es ist zwei Uhr nachmittags und der König ist besorgt über D'Artagnans Aufenthaltsort. Der König fragt Colbert, der keine Ahnung hat, wo der Kapitän ist. Schließlich betritt D'Artagnan selbst den Raum. Er ist schlecht gelaunt. Jemand hat die Musketiere beauftragt, Fouquets Haus zu durchsuchen. D'Artagnan besteht darauf, dass nur der König das Recht hat, den Musketieren Befehle zu erteilen. Colbert antwortet, dass er im Interesse des Königs gehandelt habe. D'Artagnan macht weiterhin Colbert Vorwürfe. Der König zögert, unsicher darüber, was er tun soll. D'Artagnan tut so, als ob er gehen will. Aber der König möchte Einzelheiten über die Verhaftung wissen. D'Artagnan erzählt die ganze Geschichte, ohne ein Detail auszulassen, und gibt zu, dass er nicht bereit war, den ehemaligen Minister zu verhaften. D'Artagnan gesteht weiterhin, dass Fouquet niemals fliehen würde, solange D'Artagnan sein Wächter ist, aber dass D'Artagnan seine Aufgabe als Wächter bewusst schlecht erledigen würde. Verständlicherweise ist der König nicht erfreut. Der König ruft Colbert zurück in den Raum und lässt ihn mit D'Artagnan die Hände schütteln, der überrascht ist, wie sich Colberts Gesicht in das eines edlen und intelligenten Mannes verwandelt. D'Artagnan und Colbert verlassen zusammen den Raum. D'Artagnan tadelt seinen Begleiter für sein Verhalten gegenüber Fouquet. Colbert erklärt sich damit, dass Fouquet ihn von der Größe zurückgehalten habe. D'Artagnan bittet Colbert, sich beim König für Fouquet einzusetzen, aber Colbert weist darauf hin, dass der König seine eigenen Groll gegenüber dem Mann hegt. Der König ruft nach D'Artagnan und fordert ihn auf, zwanzig seiner Männer als Wache für Fouquet auszuwählen, der für die Bastille bestimmt ist. Was D'Artagnan betrifft, so befiehlt der König ihm, Belle-Île mit so vielen Truppen wie nötig in Besitz zu nehmen. Colbert sagt D'Artagnan, dass eine solche Tat einen Marschallstab wert sei, weist aber darauf hin, dass es auf Kosten seiner beiden Freunde gehen werde. D'Artagnan ist entschlossen, seinen Freunden nicht zu schaden. Er versammelt seine Männer und macht sich auf den 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: A banqueting hall in TIMON'S house Music. Tables set out; servants attending. Enter divers LORDS, friends of TIMON, at several doors FIRST LORD. The good time of day to you, sir. SECOND LORD. I also wish it to you. I think this honourable lord did but try us this other day. FIRST LORD. Upon that were my thoughts tiring when we encount'red. I hope it is not so low with him as he made it seem in the trial of his several friends. SECOND LORD. It should not be, by the persuasion of his new feasting. FIRST LORD. I should think so. He hath sent me an earnest inviting, which many my near occasions did urge me to put off; but he hath conjur'd me beyond them, and I must needs appear. SECOND LORD. In like manner was I in debt to my importunate business, but he would not hear my excuse. I am sorry, when he sent to borrow of me, that my provision was out. FIRST LORD. I am sick of that grief too, as I understand how all things go. SECOND LORD. Every man here's so. What would he have borrowed of you? FIRST LORD. A thousand pieces. SECOND LORD. A thousand pieces! FIRST LORD. What of you? SECOND LORD. He sent to me, sir- here he comes. Enter TIMON and attendants TIMON. With all my heart, gentlemen both! And how fare you? FIRST LORD. Ever at the best, hearing well of your lordship. SECOND LORD. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship. TIMON. [Aside] Nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds are men- Gentlemen, our dinner will not recompense this long stay; feast your ears with the music awhile, if they will fare so harshly o' th' trumpet's sound; we shall to't presently. FIRST LORD. I hope it remains not unkindly with your lordship that I return'd you an empty messenger. TIMON. O sir, let it not trouble you. SECOND LORD. My noble lord- TIMON. Ah, my good friend, what cheer? SECOND LORD. My most honourable lord, I am e'en sick of shame that, when your lordship this other day sent to me, I was so unfortunate a beggar. TIMON. Think not on't, sir. SECOND LORD. If you had sent but two hours before- TIMON. Let it not cumber your better remembrance. [The banquet brought in] Come, bring in all together. SECOND LORD. All cover'd dishes! FIRST LORD. Royal cheer, I warrant you. THIRD LORD. Doubt not that, if money and the season can yield it. FIRST LORD. How do you? What's the news? THIRD LORD. Alcibiades is banish'd. Hear you of it? FIRST AND SECOND LORDS. Alcibiades banish'd! THIRD LORD. 'Tis so, be sure of it. FIRST LORD. How? how? SECOND LORD. I pray you, upon what? TIMON. My worthy friends, will you draw near? THIRD LORD. I'll tell you more anon. Here's a noble feast toward. SECOND LORD. This is the old man still. THIRD LORD. Will't hold? Will't hold? SECOND LORD. It does; but time will- and so- THIRD LORD. I do conceive. TIMON. Each man to his stool with that spur as he would to the lip of his mistress; your diet shall be in all places alike. Make not a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon the first place. Sit, sit. The gods require our thanks: You great benefactors, sprinkle our society with thankfulness. For your own gifts make yourselves prais'd; but reserve still to give, lest your deities be despised. Lend to each man enough, that one need not lend to another; for were your god-heads to borrow of men, men would forsake the gods. Make the meat be beloved more than the man that gives it. Let no assembly of twenty be without a score of villains. If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of them be- as they are. The rest of your foes, O gods, the senators of Athens, together with the common lag of people, what is amiss in them, you gods, make suitable for destruction. For these my present friends, as they are to me nothing, so in nothing bless them, and to nothing are they welcome. Uncover, dogs, and lap. [The dishes are uncovered and seen to he full of warm water] SOME SPEAK. What does his lordship mean? SOME OTHER. I know not. TIMON. May you a better feast never behold, You knot of mouth-friends! Smoke and lukewarm water Is your perfection. This is Timon's last; Who, stuck and spangled with your flatteries, Washes it off, and sprinkles in your faces [Throwing the water in their faces] Your reeking villainy. Live loath'd and long, Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites, Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears, You fools of fortune, trencher friends, time's flies, Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-lacks! Of man and beast the infinite malady Crust you quite o'er! What, dost thou go? Soft, take thy physic first; thou too, and thou. Stay, I will lend thee money, borrow none. [Throws the dishes at them, and drives them out] What, all in motion? Henceforth be no feast Whereat a villain's not a welcome guest. Burn house! Sink Athens! Henceforth hated be Of Timon man and all humanity! Exit Re-enter the LORDS FIRST LORD. How now, my lords! SECOND LORD. Know you the quality of Lord Timon's fury? THIRD LORD. Push! Did you see my cap? FOURTH LORD. I have lost my gown. FIRST LORD. He's but a mad lord, and nought but humours sways him. He gave me a jewel th' other day, and now he has beat it out of my hat. Did you see my jewel? THIRD LORD. Did you see my cap? SECOND LORD. Here 'tis. FOURTH LORD. Here lies my gown. FIRST LORD. Let's make no stay. SECOND LORD. Lord Timon's mad. THIRD LORD. I feel't upon my bones. FOURTH LORD. One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones. Exeunt 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.

Wir hoffen, ihr habt eure sonntägliche Schale mitgebracht, denn das Festmahl steht kurz bevor. Die ganze Bande ist da: Lucullus, Lucius, Sempronius, Ventidius und die anderen Herren und Senatoren erscheinen bei Timons Haus. Die Jungs sind alle ein wenig schüchtern wegen der Sache mit dem Geldverleih an Timon. Aber dann kommen sie ins Gespräch und sie nehmen an, dass Timon sie nur veralbert hat. Die Gerüchte müssen falsch sein, denken sie. Timon kann doch kein Geld mehr haben, oder? Er hat nur ihre Freundschaft auf die Probe gestellt, indem er sie um Geld gefragt hat. Es ist alles gut, sagen sie einander. Dann erfinden sie alle falsche Gründe, warum sie Timon kein Geld geliehen haben. Hoffentlich ist das alles vergessen... und das muss es sein, denn als Timon einen Moment später eintritt, begrüßt er sie alle so, als ob nichts passiert wäre. Als die Männer den Tisch sehen, sind sie sich sicher, dass alles in Ordnung ist, denn sie sehen nur bedeckte Gerichte. Sie wissen, was das bedeutet: Geschenkezeit. Sie nehmen an, dass die Gerichte alle bedeckt sind, weil sie so üppig sind, dass die Enthüllung genauso aufregend sein wird wie die Geschenke selbst. Nun, diese Jungs haben teilweise recht. Timon spricht ein Tischgebet... aber es ist nicht der Typ, den wir in der Sonntagsschule gelernt haben. Timon ist zynisch und empört. Er sagt, dass er für seine Freunde, die ihm nichts bedeuten, dankbar ist, also wird er ihnen mit nichts segnen. Niemand scheint das wirklich zu begreifen - zumindest nicht, bis sie die Gerichte vor sich aufdecken. Unter den Deckeln befinden sich eine Menge Steine und warmes Wasser. Was zur Hölle ist das für eine Dinnerparty? Die Männer sind wirklich verwirrt. Das ist der Moment, in dem Timon anfängt, sich zu erklären. Er sagt ihnen, dass er weiß, dass sie Schurken sind. Er wirft ihnen das Wasser ins Gesicht. Timon nennt die Typen "Parasiten", "Zerstörer" und "Teller-Freunde". Dann wirft er Steine auf sie. Überraschenderweise rennen sie alle weg. Timon beendet seine leidenschaftliche Rede, indem er sagt, dass er Athen hasst. Ach ja, und die ganze Menschheit hasst es auch. Boo-yah. Nachdem Timon weg ist, schleichen sich die Männer zurück, um ihre Sachen zu holen. Sie mögen zwar verlegen sein, aber das ist kein Grund, ein perfekt gutes Kleid oder einen Schmuck zurückzulassen. Die Männer sind sich auch einig, dass Timon verrückt ist. Das ist die einzige Erklärung dafür, warum er sauer auf sie wurde, nicht wahr? Riiiiiichtig.

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 XVII. TOWARDS THE END OF WHICH THE HERB-DOCTOR PROVES HIMSELF A FORGIVER OF INJURIES. In a kind of ante-cabin, a number of respectable looking people, male and female, way-passengers, recently come on board, are listlessly sitting in a mutually shy sort of silence. Holding up a small, square bottle, ovally labeled with the engraving of a countenance full of soft pity as that of the Romish-painted Madonna, the herb-doctor passes slowly among them, benignly urbane, turning this way and that, saying:-- "Ladies and gentlemen, I hold in my hand here the Samaritan Pain Dissuader, thrice-blessed discovery of that disinterested friend of humanity whose portrait you see. Pure vegetable extract. Warranted to remove the acutest pain within less than ten minutes. Five hundred dollars to be forfeited on failure. Especially efficacious in heart disease and tic-douloureux. Observe the expression of this pledged friend of humanity.--Price only fifty cents." In vain. After the first idle stare, his auditors--in pretty good health, it seemed--instead of encouraging his politeness, appeared, if anything, impatient of it; and, perhaps, only diffidence, or some small regard for his feelings, prevented them from telling him so. But, insensible to their coldness, or charitably overlooking it, he more wooingly than ever resumed: "May I venture upon a small supposition? Have I your kind leave, ladies and gentlemen?" To which modest appeal, no one had the kindness to answer a syllable. "Well," said he, resignedly, "silence is at least not denial, and may be consent. My supposition is this: possibly some lady, here present, has a dear friend at home, a bed-ridden sufferer from spinal complaint. If so, what gift more appropriate to that sufferer than this tasteful little bottle of Pain Dissuader?" Again he glanced about him, but met much the same reception as before. Those faces, alien alike to sympathy or surprise, seemed patiently to say, "We are travelers; and, as such, must expect to meet, and quietly put up with, many antic fools, and more antic quacks." "Ladies and gentlemen," (deferentially fixing his eyes upon their now self-complacent faces) "ladies and gentlemen, might I, by your kind leave, venture upon one other small supposition? It is this: that there is scarce a sufferer, this noonday, writhing on his bed, but in his hour he sat satisfactorily healthy and happy; that the Samaritan Pain Dissuader is the one only balm for that to which each living creature--who knows?--may be a draughted victim, present or prospective. In short:--Oh, Happiness on my right hand, and oh, Security on my left, can ye wisely adore a Providence, and not think it wisdom to provide?--Provide!" (Uplifting the bottle.) What immediate effect, if any, this appeal might have had, is uncertain. For just then the boat touched at a houseless landing, scooped, as by a land-slide, out of sombre forests; back through which led a road, the sole one, which, from its narrowness, and its being walled up with story on story of dusk, matted foliage, presented the vista of some cavernous old gorge in a city, like haunted Cock Lane in London. Issuing from that road, and crossing that landing, there stooped his shaggy form in the door-way, and entered the ante-cabin, with a step so burdensome that shot seemed in his pockets, a kind of invalid Titan in homespun; his beard blackly pendant, like the Carolina-moss, and dank with cypress dew; his countenance tawny and shadowy as an iron-ore country in a clouded day. In one hand he carried a heavy walking-stick of swamp-oak; with the other, led a puny girl, walking in moccasins, not improbably his child, but evidently of alien maternity, perhaps Creole, or even Camanche. Her eye would have been large for a woman, and was inky as the pools of falls among mountain-pines. An Indian blanket, orange-hued, and fringed with lead tassel-work, appeared that morning to have shielded the child from heavy showers. Her limbs were tremulous; she seemed a little Cassandra, in nervousness. No sooner was the pair spied by the herb-doctor, than with a cheerful air, both arms extended like a host's, he advanced, and taking the child's reluctant hand, said, trippingly: "On your travels, ah, my little May Queen? Glad to see you. What pretty moccasins. Nice to dance in." Then with a half caper sang-- "'Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle; The cow jumped over the moon.' Come, chirrup, chirrup, my little robin!" Which playful welcome drew no responsive playfulness from the child, nor appeared to gladden or conciliate the father; but rather, if anything, to dash the dead weight of his heavy-hearted expression with a smile hypochondriacally scornful. Sobering down now, the herb-doctor addressed the stranger in a manly, business-like way--a transition which, though it might seem a little abrupt, did not appear constrained, and, indeed, served to show that his recent levity was less the habit of a frivolous nature, than the frolic condescension of a kindly heart. "Excuse me," said he, "but, if I err not, I was speaking to you the other day;--on a Kentucky boat, wasn't it?" "Never to me," was the reply; the voice deep and lonesome enough to have come from the bottom of an abandoned coal-shaft. "Ah!--But am I again mistaken, (his eye falling on the swamp-oak stick,) or don't you go a little lame, sir?" "Never was lame in my life." "Indeed? I fancied I had perceived not a limp, but a hitch, a slight hitch;--some experience in these things--divined some hidden cause of the hitch--buried bullet, may be--some dragoons in the Mexican war discharged with such, you know.--Hard fate!" he sighed, "little pity for it, for who sees it?--have you dropped anything?" Why, there is no telling, but the stranger was bowed over, and might have seemed bowing for the purpose of picking up something, were it not that, as arrested in the imperfect posture, he for the moment so remained; slanting his tall stature like a mainmast yielding to the gale, or Adam to the thunder. The little child pulled him. With a kind of a surge he righted himself, for an instant looked toward the herb-doctor; but, either from emotion or aversion, or both together, withdrew his eyes, saying nothing. Presently, still stooping, he seated himself, drawing his child between his knees, his massy hands tremulous, and still averting his face, while up into the compassionate one of the herb-doctor the child turned a fixed, melancholy glance of repugnance. The herb-doctor stood observant a moment, then said: "Surely you have pain, strong pain, somewhere; in strong frames pain is strongest. Try, now, my specific," (holding it up). "Do but look at the expression of this friend of humanity. Trust me, certain cure for any pain in the world. Won't you look?" "No," choked the other. "Very good. Merry time to you, little May Queen." And so, as if he would intrude his cure upon no one, moved pleasantly off, again crying his wares, nor now at last without result. A new-comer, not from the shore, but another part of the boat, a sickly young man, after some questions, purchased a bottle. Upon this, others of the company began a little to wake up as it were; the scales of indifference or prejudice fell from their eyes; now, at last, they seemed to have an inkling that here was something not undesirable which might be had for the buying. But while, ten times more briskly bland than ever, the herb-doctor was driving his benevolent trade, accompanying each sale with added praises of the thing traded, all at once the dusk giant, seated at some distance, unexpectedly raised his voice with-- "What was that you last said?" The question was put distinctly, yet resonantly, as when a great clock-bell--stunning admonisher--strikes one; and the stroke, though single, comes bedded in the belfry clamor. All proceedings were suspended. Hands held forth for the specific were withdrawn, while every eye turned towards the direction whence the question came. But, no way abashed, the herb-doctor, elevating his voice with even more than wonted self-possession, replied-- "I was saying what, since you wish it, I cheerfully repeat, that the Samaritan Pain Dissuader, which I here hold in my hand, will either cure or ease any pain you please, within ten minutes after its application." "Does it produce insensibility?" "By no means. Not the least of its merits is, that it is not an opiate. It kills pain without killing feeling." "You lie! Some pains cannot be eased but by producing insensibility, and cannot be cured but by producing death." Beyond this the dusk giant said nothing; neither, for impairing the other's market, did there appear much need to. After eying the rude speaker a moment with an expression of mingled admiration and consternation, the company silently exchanged glances of mutual sympathy under unwelcome conviction. Those who had purchased looked sheepish or ashamed; and a cynical-looking little man, with a thin flaggy beard, and a countenance ever wearing the rudiments of a grin, seated alone in a corner commanding a good view of the scene, held a rusty hat before his face. But, again, the herb-doctor, without noticing the retort, overbearing though it was, began his panegyrics anew, and in a tone more assured than before, going so far now as to say that his specific was sometimes almost as effective in cases of mental suffering as in cases of physical; or rather, to be more precise, in cases when, through sympathy, the two sorts of pain cooeperated into a climax of both--in such cases, he said, the specific had done very well. He cited an example: Only three bottles, faithfully taken, cured a Louisiana widow (for three weeks sleepless in a darkened chamber) of neuralgic sorrow for the loss of husband and child, swept off in one night by the last epidemic. For the truth of this, a printed voucher was produced, duly signed. While he was reading it aloud, a sudden side-blow all but felled him. It was the giant, who, with a countenance lividly epileptic with hypochondriac mania, exclaimed-- "Profane fiddler on heart-strings! Snake!" More he would have added, but, convulsed, could not; so, without another word, taking up the child, who had followed him, went with a rocking pace out of the cabin. "Regardless of decency, and lost to humanity!" exclaimed the herb-doctor, with much ado recovering himself. Then, after a pause, during which he examined his bruise, not omitting to apply externally a little of his specific, and with some success, as it would seem, plained to himself: "No, no, I won't seek redress; innocence is my redress. But," turning upon them all, "if that man's wrathful blow provokes me to no wrath, should his evil distrust arouse you to distrust? I do devoutly hope," proudly raising voice and arm, "for the honor of humanity--hope that, despite this coward assault, the Samaritan Pain Dissuader stands unshaken in the confidence of all who hear me!" But, injured as he was, and patient under it, too, somehow his case excited as little compassion as his oratory now did enthusiasm. Still, pathetic to the last, he continued his appeals, notwithstanding the frigid regard of the company, till, suddenly interrupting himself, as if in reply to a quick summons from without, he said hurriedly, "I come, I come," and so, with every token of precipitate dispatch, out of the cabin the herb-doctor went. Kannst du eine passende 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.

Mehr Menschen sind auf das Schiff gegangen. Diese Gruppe neuer Leute sitzt in einem Raum, irgendwie schüchtern und sehr ruhig. Wir sehen den Kräuterarzt, wie er eine weitere Mischung anpreist. Diesmal ist es der Samariter-Schmerz-Abschrecker - gut gegen alle Arten von Schmerzen - Geist, Körper und Seele. Die Menschenmenge starrt nur den Kräuterarzt an. Sie alle scheinen gesund zu sein. Der Kräuterarzt versucht es erneut und fragt die Frauen, ob sie kranke, bettlägerige Freunde zuhause haben, die dieses als Geschenk zu schätzen wüssten. Stille. Ungerührt von der Apathie der Menge, fährt der Kräuterarzt mit einer anderen Taktik fort: Du bist jetzt in Ordnung, aber du könntest um die Mittagszeit plötzlich furchtbare Schmerzen haben. Keine Antwort. Gerade dann steigt ein weiterer neuer Passagier auf das Schiff und betritt den Raum. Wir sprechen hier von einem furchterregend dramatischen Auftritt, Leute. Stellt euch den ruhigen, großen, dunklen Outlaw-Typen vor, wie er auf eine Saloon zugeht. Er ist ein Mann voller Geheimnisse. Er humpelt und hat ein kleines Mädchen mit strahlend dunklen Augen, tief wie die Ewigkeit. Sie lassen sich nichts gefallen. Der Kräuterarzt geht zu diesen neuen Passagieren und macht den absolut falschen Schachzug, wenn er mit Kindern spricht: Er benimmt sich wie ein fröhlicher Stümper. Er nimmt das Mädchen bei der Hand, singt für sie und versucht, sie zum Mitsingen zu bewegen. Sie starrt ihn nur an. Ihr Vater sieht ihn verächtlich an. Der Kräuterarzt macht die "Kenne ich dich nicht von der Kentucky?"-Nummer. Der Mann antwortet nein. Der Kräuterarzt schlägt ihm seinen Samariter-Schmerz-Abschrecker als Heilmittel für seine Gehbehinderung vor. Der Mann lehnt ab. Er setzt sich mit Schwierigkeiten hin. Ein weiterer Typ kommt an - diesmal viel weniger dramatisch. Er kommt nicht von der Küste wie diese Menschenmenge, sondern von einem anderen Teil des Schiffes. Er kauft eine Flasche Samariter-Schmerz-Abschrecker. Dies scheint ein Zeichen für die anderen Versammelten zu sein, und einige kaufen ein paar Flaschen. Vom Platz aus fragt der Vater den Kräuterarzt, dass er das gerade Gesagte für die Menschenmenge wiederholen solle. Gerne: Dieses Zeug lindert Schmerzen in zehn Minuten. Vater: Macht es einen schläfrig oder taub? Kräuterarzt: Nein, du behältst dein Gehirnspiel. Vater: Lügen. Du bist ein lügender Lügner, der lügt. Die Menge ist wieder still. Diejenigen, die bereits einige der Medikamente gekauft haben, fühlen sich schäbig. Der Kräuterarzt wischt es beiseite und erzählt eine Geschichte darüber, wie diese Mischung nicht nur körperliches Leiden, sondern auch seelische und emotionale Schmerzen heilen kann. Er behauptet, einer Frau geholfen zu haben, die vor Schmerz über den Tod ihres Mannes und Kindes litt. Der Vater kann es nicht länger ertragen. Er explodiert vor dem Kräuterarzt, nennt ihn eine Schlange und verlässt den Raum. Der Kräuterarzt macht eine Pause und erzählt sein inneres Monolog für das Publikum: Er ist zweifellos verletzt, aber er wird sich nicht herablassen und so zornig werden wie dieser Mann. Stattdessen hofft er, dass das Publikum dieses Verhalten sehen und Vertrauen zu ihm haben wird. Der Kräuterarzt erhält nur kalte Blicke von der Menge. Beim seltsamerweise Shakespeare-haften Abgang reagiert der Kräuterarzt auf eine Stimme, die nur er hört und die ihn ruft.

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: A charming introduction to a hermit's life! Four weeks' torture, tossing, and sickness! Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons! And oh, this dearth of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible intimation of Kenneth that I need not expect to be out of doors till spring! Mr. Heathcliff has just honoured me with a call. About seven days ago he sent me a brace of grouse--the last of the season. Scoundrel! He is not altogether guiltless in this illness of mine; and that I had a great mind to tell him. But, alas! how could I offend a man who was charitable enough to sit at my bedside a good hour, and talk on some other subject than pills and draughts, blisters and leeches? This is quite an easy interval. I am too weak to read; yet I feel as if I could enjoy something interesting. Why not have up Mrs. Dean to finish her tale? I can recollect its chief incidents, as far as she had gone. Yes: I remember her hero had run off, and never been heard of for three years; and the heroine was married. I'll ring: she'll be delighted to find me capable of talking cheerfully. Mrs. Dean came. 'It wants twenty minutes, sir, to taking the medicine,' she commenced. 'Away, away with it!' I replied; 'I desire to have--' 'The doctor says you must drop the powders.' 'With all my heart! Don't interrupt me. Come and take your seat here. Keep your fingers from that bitter phalanx of vials. Draw your knitting out of your pocket--that will do--now continue the history of Mr. Heathcliff, from where you left off, to the present day. Did he finish his education on the Continent, and come back a gentleman? or did he get a sizar's place at college, or escape to America, and earn honours by drawing blood from his foster-country? or make a fortune more promptly on the English highways?' 'He may have done a little in all these vocations, Mr. Lockwood; but I couldn't give my word for any. I stated before that I didn't know how he gained his money; neither am I aware of the means he took to raise his mind from the savage ignorance into which it was sunk: but, with your leave, I'll proceed in my own fashion, if you think it will amuse and not weary you. Are you feeling better this morning?' 'Much.' 'That's good news.' * * * * * I got Miss Catherine and myself to Thrushcross Grange; and, to my agreeable disappointment, she behaved infinitely better than I dared to expect. She seemed almost over-fond of Mr. Linton; and even to his sister she showed plenty of affection. They were both very attentive to her comfort, certainly. It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn. There were no mutual concessions: one stood erect, and the others yielded: and who can be ill-natured and bad-tempered when they encounter neither opposition nor indifference? I observed that Mr. Edgar had a deep-rooted fear of ruffling her humour. He concealed it from her; but if ever he heard me answer sharply, or saw any other servant grow cloudy at some imperious order of hers, he would show his trouble by a frown of displeasure that never darkened on his own account. He many a time spoke sternly to me about my pertness; and averred that the stab of a knife could not inflict a worse pang than he suffered at seeing his lady vexed. Not to grieve a kind master, I learned to be less touchy; and, for the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because no fire came near to explode it. Catherine had seasons of gloom and silence now and then: they were respected with sympathising silence by her husband, who ascribed them to an alteration in her constitution, produced by her perilous illness; as she was never subject to depression of spirits before. The return of sunshine was welcomed by answering sunshine from him. I believe I may assert that they were really in possession of deep and growing happiness. It ended. Well, we _must_ be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering; and it ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one's interest was not the chief consideration in the other's thoughts. On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering. It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building. I set my burden on the house-steps by the kitchen-door, and lingered to rest, and drew in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air; my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance, when I heard a voice behind me say,--'Nelly, is that you?' It was a deep voice, and foreign in tone; yet there was something in the manner of pronouncing my name which made it sound familiar. I turned about to discover who spoke, fearfully; for the doors were shut, and I had seen nobody on approaching the steps. Something stirred in the porch; and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair. He leant against the side, and held his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself. 'Who can it be?' I thought. 'Mr. Earnshaw? Oh, no! The voice has no resemblance to his.' 'I have waited here an hour,' he resumed, while I continued staring; 'and the whole of that time all round has been as still as death. I dared not enter. You do not know me? Look, I'm not a stranger!' A ray fell on his features; the cheeks were sallow, and half covered with black whiskers; the brows lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular. I remembered the eyes. 'What!' I cried, uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor, and I raised my hands in amazement. 'What! you come back? Is it really you? Is it?' 'Yes, Heathcliff,' he replied, glancing from me up to the windows, which reflected a score of glittering moons, but showed no lights from within. 'Are they at home? where is she? Nelly, you are not glad! you needn't be so disturbed. Is she here? Speak! I want to have one word with her--your mistress. Go, and say some person from Gimmerton desires to see her.' 'How will she take it?' I exclaimed. 'What will she do? The surprise bewilders me--it will put her out of her head! And you _are_ Heathcliff! But altered! Nay, there's no comprehending it. Have you been for a soldier?' 'Go and carry my message,' he interrupted, impatiently. 'I'm in hell till you do!' He lifted the latch, and I entered; but when I got to the parlour where Mr. and Mrs. Linton were, I could not persuade myself to proceed. At length I resolved on making an excuse to ask if they would have the candles lighted, and I opened the door. They sat together in a window whose lattice lay back against the wall, and displayed, beyond the garden trees, and the wild green park, the valley of Gimmerton, with a long line of mist winding nearly to its top (for very soon after you pass the chapel, as you may have noticed, the sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of the glen). Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour; but our old house was invisible; it rather dips down on the other side. Both the room and its occupants, and the scene they gazed on, looked wondrously peaceful. I shrank reluctantly from performing my errand; and was actually going away leaving it unsaid, after having put my question about the candles, when a sense of my folly compelled me to return, and mutter, 'A person from Gimmerton wishes to see you ma'am.' 'What does he want?' asked Mrs. Linton. 'I did not question him,' I answered. 'Well, close the curtains, Nelly,' she said; 'and bring up tea. I'll be back again directly.' She quitted the apartment; Mr. Edgar inquired, carelessly, who it was. 'Some one mistress does not expect,' I replied. 'That Heathcliff--you recollect him, sir--who used to live at Mr. Earnshaw's.' 'What! the gipsy--the ploughboy?' he cried. 'Why did you not say so to Catherine?' 'Hush! you must not call him by those names, master,' I said. 'She'd be sadly grieved to hear you. She was nearly heartbroken when he ran off. I guess his return will make a jubilee to her.' Mr. Linton walked to a window on the other side of the room that overlooked the court. He unfastened it, and leant out. I suppose they were below, for he exclaimed quickly: 'Don't stand there, love! Bring the person in, if it be anyone particular.' Ere long, I heard the click of the latch, and Catherine flew up-stairs, breathless and wild; too excited to show gladness: indeed, by her face, you would rather have surmised an awful calamity. 'Oh, Edgar, Edgar!' she panted, flinging her arms round his neck. 'Oh, Edgar darling! Heathcliff's come back--he is!' And she tightened her embrace to a squeeze. 'Well, well,' cried her husband, crossly, 'don't strangle me for that! He never struck me as such a marvellous treasure. There is no need to be frantic!' 'I know you didn't like him,' she answered, repressing a little the intensity of her delight. 'Yet, for my sake, you must be friends now. Shall I tell him to come up?' 'Here,' he said, 'into the parlour?' 'Where else?' she asked. He looked vexed, and suggested the kitchen as a more suitable place for him. Mrs. Linton eyed him with a droll expression--half angry, half laughing at his fastidiousness. 'No,' she added, after a while; 'I cannot sit in the kitchen. Set two tables here, Ellen: one for your master and Miss Isabella, being gentry; the other for Heathcliff and myself, being of the lower orders. Will that please you, dear? Or must I have a fire lighted elsewhere? If so, give directions. I'll run down and secure my guest. I'm afraid the joy is too great to be real!' She was about to dart off again; but Edgar arrested her. '_You_ bid him step up,' he said, addressing me; 'and, Catherine, try to be glad, without being absurd. The whole household need not witness the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother.' I descended, and found Heathcliff waiting under the porch, evidently anticipating an invitation to enter. He followed my guidance without waste of words, and I ushered him into the presence of the master and mistress, whose flushed cheeks betrayed signs of warm talking. But the lady's glowed with another feeling when her friend appeared at the door: she sprang forward, took both his hands, and led him to Linton; and then she seized Linton's reluctant fingers and crushed them into his. Now, fully revealed by the fire and candlelight, I was amazed, more than ever, to behold the transformation of Heathcliff. He had grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom my master seemed quite slender and youth-like. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton's; it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and his manner was even dignified: quite divested of roughness, though stern for grace. My master's surprise equalled or exceeded mine: he remained for a minute at a loss how to address the ploughboy, as he had called him. Heathcliff dropped his slight hand, and stood looking at him coolly till he chose to speak. 'Sit down, sir,' he said, at length. 'Mrs. Linton, recalling old times, would have me give you a cordial reception; and, of course, I am gratified when anything occurs to please her.' 'And I also,' answered Heathcliff, 'especially if it be anything in which I have a part. I shall stay an hour or two willingly.' He took a seat opposite Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him as if she feared he would vanish were she to remove it. He did not raise his to her often: a quick glance now and then sufficed; but it flashed back, each time more confidently, the undisguised delight he drank from hers. They were too much absorbed in their mutual joy to suffer embarrassment. Not so Mr. Edgar: he grew pale with pure annoyance: a feeling that reached its climax when his lady rose, and stepping across the rug, seized Heathcliff's hands again, and laughed like one beside herself. 'I shall think it a dream to-morrow!' she cried. 'I shall not be able to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more. And yet, cruel Heathcliff! you don't deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three years, and never to think of me!' 'A little more than you have thought of me,' he murmured. 'I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard below, I meditated this plan--just to have one glimpse of your face, a stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterwards settle my score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on myself. Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of meeting me with another aspect next time! Nay, you'll not drive me off again. You were really sorry for me, were you? Well, there was cause. I've fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice; and you must forgive me, for I struggled only for you!' 'Catherine, unless we are to have cold tea, please to come to the table,' interrupted Linton, striving to preserve his ordinary tone, and a due measure of politeness. 'Mr. Heathcliff will have a long walk, wherever he may lodge to-night; and I'm thirsty.' She took her post before the urn; and Miss Isabella came, summoned by the bell; then, having handed their chairs forward, I left the room. The meal hardly endured ten minutes. Catherine's cup was never filled: she could neither eat nor drink. Edgar had made a slop in his saucer, and scarcely swallowed a mouthful. Their guest did not protract his stay that evening above an hour longer. I asked, as he departed, if he went to Gimmerton? 'No, to Wuthering Heights,' he answered: 'Mr. Earnshaw invited me, when I called this morning.' Mr. Earnshaw invited _him_! and _he_ called on Mr. Earnshaw! I pondered this sentence painfully, after he was gone. Is he turning out a bit of a hypocrite, and coming into the country to work mischief under a cloak? I mused: I had a presentiment in the bottom of my heart that he had better have remained away. About the middle of the night, I was wakened from my first nap by Mrs. Linton gliding into my chamber, taking a seat on my bedside, and pulling me by the hair to rouse me. 'I cannot rest, Ellen,' she said, by way of apology. 'And I want some living creature to keep me company in my happiness! Edgar is sulky, because I'm glad of a thing that does not interest him: he refuses to open his mouth, except to utter pettish, silly speeches; and he affirmed I was cruel and selfish for wishing to talk when he was so sick and sleepy. He always contrives to be sick at the least cross! I gave a few sentences of commendation to Heathcliff, and he, either for a headache or a pang of envy, began to cry: so I got up and left him.' 'What use is it praising Heathcliff to him?' I answered. 'As lads they had an aversion to each other, and Heathcliff would hate just as much to hear him praised: it's human nature. Let Mr. Linton alone about him, unless you would like an open quarrel between them.' 'But does it not show great weakness?' pursued she. 'I'm not envious: I never feel hurt at the brightness of Isabella's yellow hair and the whiteness of her skin, at her dainty elegance, and the fondness all the family exhibit for her. Even you, Nelly, if we have a dispute sometimes, you back Isabella at once; and I yield like a foolish mother: I call her a darling, and flatter her into a good temper. It pleases her brother to see us cordial, and that pleases me. But they are very much alike: they are spoiled children, and fancy the world was made for their accommodation; and though I humour both, I think a smart chastisement might improve them all the same.' 'You're mistaken, Mrs. Linton,' said I. 'They humour you: I know what there would be to do if they did not. You can well afford to indulge their passing whims as long as their business is to anticipate all your desires. You may, however, fall out, at last, over something of equal consequence to both sides; and then those you term weak are very capable of being as obstinate as you.' 'And then we shall fight to the death, sha'n't we, Nelly?' she returned, laughing. 'No! I tell you, I have such faith in Linton's love, that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate.' I advised her to value him the more for his affection. 'I do,' she answered, 'but he needn't resort to whining for trifles. It is childish and, instead of melting into tears because I said that Heathcliff was now worthy of anyone's regard, and it would honour the first gentleman in the country to be his friend, he ought to have said it for me, and been delighted from sympathy. He must get accustomed to him, and he may as well like him: considering how Heathcliff has reason to object to him, I'm sure he behaved excellently!' 'What do you think of his going to Wuthering Heights?' I inquired. 'He is reformed in every respect, apparently: quite a Christian: offering the right hand of fellowship to his enemies all around!' 'He explained it,' she replied. 'I wonder as much as you. He said he called to gather information concerning me from you, supposing you resided there still; and Joseph told Hindley, who came out and fell to questioning him of what he had been doing, and how he had been living; and finally, desired him to walk in. There were some persons sitting at cards; Heathcliff joined them; my brother lost some money to him, and, finding him plentifully supplied, he requested that he would come again in the evening: to which he consented. Hindley is too reckless to select his acquaintance prudently: he doesn't trouble himself to reflect on the causes he might have for mistrusting one whom he has basely injured. But Heathcliff affirms his principal reason for resuming a connection with his ancient persecutor is a wish to install himself in quarters at walking distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where we lived together; and likewise a hope that I shall have more opportunities of seeing him there than I could have if he settled in Gimmerton. He means to offer liberal payment for permission to lodge at the Heights; and doubtless my brother's covetousness will prompt him to accept the terms: he was always greedy; though what he grasps with one hand he flings away with the other.' 'It's a nice place for a young man to fix his dwelling in!' said I. 'Have you no fear of the consequences, Mrs. Linton?' 'None for my friend,' she replied: 'his strong head will keep him from danger; a little for Hindley: but he can't be made morally worse than he is; and I stand between him and bodily harm. The event of this evening has reconciled me to God and humanity! I had risen in angry rebellion against Providence. Oh, I've endured very, very bitter misery, Nelly! If that creature knew how bitter, he'd be ashamed to cloud its removal with idle petulance. It was kindness for him which induced me to bear it alone: had I expressed the agony I frequently felt, he would have been taught to long for its alleviation as ardently as I. However, it's over, and I'll take no revenge on his folly; I can afford to suffer anything hereafter! Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I'd not only turn the other, but I'd ask pardon for provoking it; and, as a proof, I'll go make my peace with Edgar instantly. Good-night! I'm an angel!' In this self-complacent conviction she departed; and the success of her fulfilled resolution was obvious on the morrow: Mr. Linton had not only abjured his peevishness (though his spirits seemed still subdued by Catherine's exuberance of vivacity), but he ventured no objection to her taking Isabella with her to Wuthering Heights in the afternoon; and she rewarded him with such a summer of sweetness and affection in return as made the house a paradise for several days; both master and servants profiting from the perpetual sunshine. Heathcliff--Mr. Heathcliff I should say in future--used the liberty of visiting at Thrushcross Grange cautiously, at first: he seemed estimating how far its owner would bear his intrusion. Catherine, also, deemed it judicious to moderate her expressions of pleasure in receiving him; and he gradually established his right to be expected. He retained a great deal of the reserve for which his boyhood was remarkable; and that served to repress all startling demonstrations of feeling. My master's uneasiness experienced a lull, and further circumstances diverted it into another channel for a space. His new source of trouble sprang from the not anticipated misfortune of Isabella Linton evincing a sudden and irresistible attraction towards the tolerated guest. She was at that time a charming young lady of eighteen; infantile in manners, though possessed of keen wit, keen feelings, and a keen temper, too, if irritated. Her brother, who loved her tenderly, was appalled at this fantastic preference. Leaving aside the degradation of an alliance with a nameless man, and the possible fact that his property, in default of heirs male, might pass into such a one's power, he had sense to comprehend Heathcliff's disposition: to know that, though his exterior was altered, his mind was unchangeable and unchanged. And he dreaded that mind: it revolted him: he shrank forebodingly from the idea of committing Isabella to its keeping. He would have recoiled still more had he been aware that her attachment rose unsolicited, and was bestowed where it awakened no reciprocation of sentiment; for the minute he discovered its existence he laid the blame on Heathcliff's deliberate designing. We had all remarked, during some time, that Miss Linton fretted and pined over something. She grew cross and wearisome; snapping at and teasing Catherine continually, at the imminent risk of exhausting her limited patience. We excused her, to a certain extent, on the plea of ill-health: she was dwindling and fading before our eyes. But one day, when she had been peculiarly wayward, rejecting her breakfast, complaining that the servants did not do what she told them; that the mistress would allow her to be nothing in the house, and Edgar neglected her; that she had caught a cold with the doors being left open, and we let the parlour fire go out on purpose to vex her, with a hundred yet more frivolous accusations, Mrs. Linton peremptorily insisted that she should get to bed; and, having scolded her heartily, threatened to send for the doctor. Mention of Kenneth caused her to exclaim, instantly, that her health was perfect, and it was only Catherine's harshness which made her unhappy. 'How can you say I am harsh, you naughty fondling?' cried the mistress, amazed at the unreasonable assertion. 'You are surely losing your reason. When have I been harsh, tell me?' 'Yesterday,' sobbed Isabella, 'and now!' 'Yesterday!' said her sister-in-law. 'On what occasion?' 'In our walk along the moor: you told me to ramble where I pleased, while you sauntered on with Mr. Heathcliff!' 'And that's your notion of harshness?' said Catherine, laughing. 'It was no hint that your company was superfluous? We didn't care whether you kept with us or not; I merely thought Heathcliff's talk would have nothing entertaining for your ears.' 'Oh, no,' wept the young lady; 'you wished me away, because you knew I liked to be there!' 'Is she sane?' asked Mrs. Linton, appealing to me. 'I'll repeat our conversation, word for word, Isabella; and you point out any charm it could have had for you.' 'I don't mind the conversation,' she answered: 'I wanted to be with--' 'Well?' said Catherine, perceiving her hesitate to complete the sentence. 'With him: and I won't be always sent off!' she continued, kindling up. 'You are a dog in the manger, Cathy, and desire no one to be loved but yourself!' 'You are an impertinent little monkey!' exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in surprise. 'But I'll not believe this idiotcy! It is impossible that you can covet the admiration of Heathcliff--that you consider him an agreeable person! I hope I have misunderstood you, Isabella?' 'No, you have not,' said the infatuated girl. 'I love him more than ever you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you would let him!' 'I wouldn't be you for a kingdom, then!' Catherine declared, emphatically: and she seemed to speak sincerely. 'Nelly, help me to convince her of her madness. Tell her what Heathcliff is: an unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation; an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone. I'd as soon put that little canary into the park on a winter's day, as recommend you to bestow your heart on him! It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head. Pray, don't imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior! He's not a rough diamond--a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I never say to him, "Let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them;" I say, "Let them alone, because _I_ should hate them to be wronged:" and he'd crush you like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge. I know he couldn't love a Linton; and yet he'd be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectations: avarice is growing with him a besetting sin. There's my picture: and I'm his friend--so much so, that had he thought seriously to catch you, I should, perhaps, have held my tongue, and let you fall into his trap.' Miss Linton regarded her sister-in-law with indignation. 'For shame! for shame!' she repeated, angrily. 'You are worse than twenty foes, you poisonous friend!' 'Ah! you won't believe me, then?' said Catherine. 'You think I speak from wicked selfishness?' 'I'm certain you do,' retorted Isabella; 'and I shudder at you!' 'Good!' cried the other. 'Try for yourself, if that be your spirit: I have done, and yield the argument to your saucy insolence.'-- 'And I must suffer for her egotism!' she sobbed, as Mrs. Linton left the room. 'All, all is against me: she has blighted my single consolation. But she uttered falsehoods, didn't she? Mr. Heathcliff is not a fiend: he has an honourable soul, and a true one, or how could he remember her?' 'Banish him from your thoughts, Miss,' I said. 'He's a bird of bad omen: no mate for you. Mrs. Linton spoke strongly, and yet I can't contradict her. She is better acquainted with his heart than I, or any one besides; and she never would represent him as worse than he is. Honest people don't hide their deeds. How has he been living? how has he got rich? why is he staying at Wuthering Heights, the house of a man whom he abhors? They say Mr. Earnshaw is worse and worse since he came. They sit up all night together continually, and Hindley has been borrowing money on his land, and does nothing but play and drink: I heard only a week ago--it was Joseph who told me--I met him at Gimmerton: "Nelly," he said, "we's hae a crowner's 'quest enow, at ahr folks'. One on 'em 's a'most getten his finger cut off wi' hauding t' other fro' stickin' hisseln loike a cawlf. That's maister, yeah knaw, 'at 's soa up o' going tuh t' grand 'sizes. He's noan feared o' t' bench o' judges, norther Paul, nur Peter, nur John, nur Matthew, nor noan on 'em, not he! He fair likes--he langs to set his brazened face agean 'em! And yon bonny lad Heathcliff, yah mind, he's a rare 'un. He can girn a laugh as well 's onybody at a raight divil's jest. Does he niver say nowt of his fine living amang us, when he goes to t' Grange? This is t' way on 't:--up at sun-down: dice, brandy, cloised shutters, und can'le-light till next day at noon: then, t'fooil gangs banning und raving to his cham'er, makking dacent fowks dig thur fingers i' thur lugs fur varry shame; un' the knave, why he can caint his brass, un' ate, un' sleep, un' off to his neighbour's to gossip wi' t' wife. I' course, he tells Dame Catherine how her fathur's goold runs into his pocket, and her fathur's son gallops down t' broad road, while he flees afore to oppen t' pikes!" Now, Miss Linton, Joseph is an old rascal, but no liar; and, if his account of Heathcliff's conduct be true, you would never think of desiring such a husband, would you?' 'You are leagued with the rest, Ellen!' she replied. 'I'll not listen to your slanders. What malevolence you must have to wish to convince me that there is no happiness in the world!' Whether she would have got over this fancy if left to herself, or persevered in nursing it perpetually, I cannot say: she had little time to reflect. The day after, there was a justice-meeting at the next town; my master was obliged to attend; and Mr. Heathcliff, aware of his absence, called rather earlier than usual. Catherine and Isabella were sitting in the library, on hostile terms, but silent: the latter alarmed at her recent indiscretion, and the disclosure she had made of her secret feelings in a transient fit of passion; the former, on mature consideration, really offended with her companion; and, if she laughed again at her pertness, inclined to make it no laughing matter to her. She did laugh as she saw Heathcliff pass the window. I was sweeping the hearth, and I noticed a mischievous smile on her lips. Isabella, absorbed in her meditations, or a book, remained till the door opened; and it was too late to attempt an escape, which she would gladly have done had it been practicable. 'Come in, that's right!' exclaimed the mistress, gaily, pulling a chair to the fire. 'Here are two people sadly in need of a third to thaw the ice between them; and you are the very one we should both of us choose. Heathcliff, I'm proud to show you, at last, somebody that dotes on you more than myself. I expect you to feel flattered. Nay, it's not Nelly; don't look at her! My poor little sister-in-law is breaking her heart by mere contemplation of your physical and moral beauty. It lies in your own power to be Edgar's brother! No, no, Isabella, you sha'n't run off,' she continued, arresting, with feigned playfulness, the confounded girl, who had risen indignantly. 'We were quarrelling like cats about you, Heathcliff; and I was fairly beaten in protestations of devotion and admiration: and, moreover, I was informed that if I would but have the manners to stand aside, my rival, as she will have herself to be, would shoot a shaft into your soul that would fix you for ever, and send my image into eternal oblivion!' 'Catherine!' said Isabella, calling up her dignity, and disdaining to struggle from the tight grasp that held her, 'I'd thank you to adhere to the truth and not slander me, even in joke! Mr. Heathcliff, be kind enough to bid this friend of yours release me: she forgets that you and I are not intimate acquaintances; and what amuses her is painful to me beyond expression.' As the guest answered nothing, but took his seat, and looked thoroughly indifferent what sentiments she cherished concerning him, she turned and whispered an earnest appeal for liberty to her tormentor. 'By no means!' cried Mrs. Linton in answer. 'I won't be named a dog in the manger again. You _shall_ stay: now then! Heathcliff, why don't you evince satisfaction at my pleasant news? Isabella swears that the love Edgar has for me is nothing to that she entertains for you. I'm sure she made some speech of the kind; did she not, Ellen? And she has fasted ever since the day before yesterday's walk, from sorrow and rage that I despatched her out of your society under the idea of its being unacceptable.' 'I think you belie her,' said Heathcliff, twisting his chair to face them. 'She wishes to be out of my society now, at any rate!' And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises. The poor thing couldn't bear that; she grew white and red in rapid succession, and, while tears beaded her lashes, bent the strength of her small fingers to loosen the firm clutch of Catherine; and perceiving that as fast as she raised one finger off her arm another closed down, and she could not remove the whole together, she began to make use of her nails; and their sharpness presently ornamented the detainer's with crescents of red. 'There's a tigress!' exclaimed Mrs. Linton, setting her free, and shaking her hand with pain. 'Begone, for God's sake, and hide your vixen face! How foolish to reveal those talons to him. Can't you fancy the conclusions he'll draw? Look, Heathcliff! they are instruments that will do execution--you must beware of your eyes.' 'I'd wrench them off her fingers, if they ever menaced me,' he answered, brutally, when the door had closed after her. 'But what did you mean by teasing the creature in that manner, Cathy? You were not speaking the truth, were you?' 'I assure you I was,' she returned. 'She has been dying for your sake several weeks, and raving about you this morning, and pouring forth a deluge of abuse, because I represented your failings in a plain light, for the purpose of mitigating her adoration. But don't notice it further: I wished to punish her sauciness, that's all. I like her too well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize and devour her up.' 'And I like her too ill to attempt it,' said he, 'except in a very ghoulish fashion. You'd hear of odd things if I lived alone with that mawkish, waxen face: the most ordinary would be painting on its white the colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day or two: they detestably resemble Linton's.' 'Delectably!' observed Catherine. 'They are dove's eyes--angel's!' 'She's her brother's heir, is she not?' he asked, after a brief silence. 'I should be sorry to think so,' returned his companion. 'Half a dozen nephews shall erase her title, please heaven! Abstract your mind from the subject at present: you are too prone to covet your neighbour's goods; remember _this_ neighbour's goods are mine.' 'If they were _mine_, they would be none the less that,' said Heathcliff; 'but though Isabella Linton may be silly, she is scarcely mad; and, in short, we'll dismiss the matter, as you advise.' From their tongues they did dismiss it; and Catherine, probably, from her thoughts. The other, I felt certain, recalled it often in the course of the evening. I saw him smile to himself--grin rather--and lapse into ominous musing whenever Mrs. Linton had occasion to be absent from the apartment. I determined to watch his movements. My heart invariably cleaved to the master's, in preference to Catherine's side: with reason I imagined, for he was kind, and trustful, and honourable; and she--she could not be called _opposite_, yet she seemed to allow herself such wide latitude, that I had little faith in her principles, and still less sympathy for her feelings. I wanted something to happen which might have the effect of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr. Heathcliff quietly; leaving us as we had been prior to his advent. His visits were a continual nightmare to me; and, I suspected, to my master also. His abode at the Heights was an oppression past explaining. I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring and destroy. 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.

Catherine und Edgar sind glücklich im Thrushcross Grange und Edgar gibt Catherine alles, was sie möchte. Eines Tages im September hört Ellen, wie sie Äpfel sammelt, jemanden ihren Namen rufen und findet Heathcliff im Garten. Er sagt ihr, dass sie reingehen und Catherine sagen soll, dass jemand sie sehen möchte, aber nicht verraten soll, wer es ist. Sie tut es und als Catherine nach ihrem Treffen mit dem Fremden zurückkommt, ist sie atemlos vor Glück. Edgar scheint ihn nicht hereinbitten zu wollen und hält Catherines Verhalten für albern. Ellen bemerkt, wie sehr Heathcliff sich verändert hat. Er ist ein älterer, gutaussehender Mann, intelligent und würdevoll. Heathcliff und Catherine werden völlig voneinander eingenommen und Edgar wird irritiert. Als er nach dem Tee geht, erzählt Heathcliff Ellen, dass er nach Wuthering Heights geht, da Hindley ihn eingeladen hat, dort zu bleiben. Ellen ist überrascht und hat das Gefühl, dass es besser gewesen wäre, wenn Heathcliff ferngeblieben wäre. Am nächsten Tag besuchen Catherine und Isabella Wuthering Heights und bald ist Heathcliff ein regelmäßiger Besucher im Thrushcross Grange. Es entstehen neue Schwierigkeiten, als deutlich wird, dass Isabella sich zu Heathcliff hingezogen fühlt. Als Catherine sie damit konfrontiert, gibt Isabella zu, dass sie ihn liebt. Catherine rät ihr ernsthaft davon ab und sagt, dass sie Heathcliff überhaupt nicht kennt und dass er sie nicht lieben könnte, sondern sie vielleicht wegen ihres Vermögens heiraten würde. Ellen sagt Isabella, sie solle auf Catherine hören. Sie fährt fort und sagt, dass Heathcliff kein guter Mann für sie ist und dass sie von Joseph gehört habe, dass er und Hindley auf dem Anwesen nichts tun außer Trinken und Spielen. Edgar ist nicht zu Hause, daher ruft Heathcliff früher als üblich an. Isabella ist entsetzt, als Catherine ihm sagt, dass sie in ihn verliebt ist. Er starrt sie finster an, sagt aber nichts und Catherine hält sie fest, damit sie nicht gehen kann. Schließlich gräbt Isabella ihre Nägel in Catherine, damit sie sie loslässt, und verlässt den Raum. Als Catherine Heathcliff warnt, dass er sich vor ihren Krallen hüten sollte, antwortet er, dass er sie ihr von den Fingern reißen würde, wenn sie je eine Bedrohung darstellten. Catherine sagt Heathcliff, dass sie Isabella zu sehr mag, um ihn sie haben zu lassen, und er sagt, dass er nicht interessiert sei, aber Ellen kann erkennen, dass er immer noch darüber nachdenkt.

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: NOTWITHSTANDING Mr. Craig's prophecy, the dark-blue cloud dispersed itself without having produced the threatened consequences. "The weather"--as he observed the next morning--"the weather, you see, 's a ticklish thing, an' a fool 'ull hit on't sometimes when a wise man misses; that's why the almanecks get so much credit. It's one o' them chancy things as fools thrive on." This unreasonable behaviour of the weather, however, could displease no one else in Hayslope besides Mr. Craig. All hands were to be out in the meadows this morning as soon as the dew had risen; the wives and daughters did double work in every farmhouse, that the maids might give their help in tossing the hay; and when Adam was marching along the lanes, with his basket of tools over his shoulder, he caught the sound of jocose talk and ringing laughter from behind the hedges. The jocose talk of hay-makers is best at a distance; like those clumsy bells round the cows' necks, it has rather a coarse sound when it comes close, and may even grate on your ears painfully; but heard from far off, it mingles very prettily with the other joyous sounds of nature. Men's muscles move better when their souls are making merry music, though their merriment is of a poor blundering sort, not at all like the merriment of birds. And perhaps there is no time in a summer's day more cheering than when the warmth of the sun is just beginning to triumph over the freshness of the morning--when there is just a lingering hint of early coolness to keep off languor under the delicious influence of warmth. The reason Adam was walking along the lanes at this time was because his work for the rest of the day lay at a country-house about three miles off, which was being put in repair for the son of a neighbouring squire; and he had been busy since early morning with the packing of panels, doors, and chimney-pieces, in a waggon which was now gone on before him, while Jonathan Burge himself had ridden to the spot on horseback, to await its arrival and direct the workmen. This little walk was a rest to Adam, and he was unconsciously under the charm of the moment. It was summer morning in his heart, and he saw Hetty in the sunshine--a sunshine without glare, with slanting rays that tremble between the delicate shadows of the leaves. He thought, yesterday when he put out his hand to her as they came out of church, that there was a touch of melancholy kindness in her face, such as he had not seen before, and he took it as a sign that she had some sympathy with his family trouble. Poor fellow! That touch of melancholy came from quite another source, but how was he to know? We look at the one little woman's face we love as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings. It was impossible for Adam not to feel that what had happened in the last week had brought the prospect of marriage nearer to him. Hitherto he had felt keenly the danger that some other man might step in and get possession of Hetty's heart and hand, while he himself was still in a position that made him shrink from asking her to accept him. Even if he had had a strong hope that she was fond of him--and his hope was far from being strong--he had been too heavily burdened with other claims to provide a home for himself and Hetty--a home such as he could expect her to be content with after the comfort and plenty of the Farm. Like all strong natures, Adam had confidence in his ability to achieve something in the future; he felt sure he should some day, if he lived, be able to maintain a family and make a good broad path for himself; but he had too cool a head not to estimate to the full the obstacles that were to be overcome. And the time would be so long! And there was Hetty, like a bright-cheeked apple hanging over the orchard wall, within sight of everybody, and everybody must long for her! To be sure, if she loved him very much, she would be content to wait for him: but DID she love him? His hopes had never risen so high that he had dared to ask her. He was clear-sighted enough to be aware that her uncle and aunt would have looked kindly on his suit, and indeed, without this encouragement he would never have persevered in going to the Farm; but it was impossible to come to any but fluctuating conclusions about Hetty's feelings. She was like a kitten, and had the same distractingly pretty looks, that meant nothing, for everybody that came near her. But now he could not help saying to himself that the heaviest part of his burden was removed, and that even before the end of another year his circumstances might be brought into a shape that would allow him to think of marrying. It would always be a hard struggle with his mother, he knew: she would be jealous of any wife he might choose, and she had set her mind especially against Hetty--perhaps for no other reason than that she suspected Hetty to be the woman he HAD chosen. It would never do, he feared, for his mother to live in the same house with him when he was married; and yet how hard she would think it if he asked her to leave him! Yes, there was a great deal of pain to be gone through with his mother, but it was a case in which he must make her feel that his will was strong--it would be better for her in the end. For himself, he would have liked that they should all live together till Seth was married, and they might have built a bit themselves to the old house, and made more room. He did not like "to part wi' th' lad": they had hardly ever been separated for more than a day since they were born. But Adam had no sooner caught his imagination leaping forward in this way--making arrangements for an uncertain future--than he checked himself. "A pretty building I'm making, without either bricks or timber. I'm up i' the garret a'ready, and haven't so much as dug the foundation." Whenever Adam was strongly convinced of any proposition, it took the form of a principle in his mind: it was knowledge to be acted on, as much as the knowledge that damp will cause rust. Perhaps here lay the secret of the hardness he had accused himself of: he had too little fellow-feeling with the weakness that errs in spite of foreseen consequences. Without this fellow-feeling, how are we to get enough patience and charity towards our stumbling, falling companions in the long and changeful journey? And there is but one way in which a strong determined soul can learn it--by getting his heart-strings bound round the weak and erring, so that he must share not only the outward consequence of their error, but their inward suffering. That is a long and hard lesson, and Adam had at present only learned the alphabet of it in his father's sudden death, which, by annihilating in an instant all that had stimulated his indignation, had sent a sudden rush of thought and memory over what had claimed his pity and tenderness. But it was Adam's strength, not its correlative hardness, that influenced his meditations this morning. He had long made up his mind that it would be wrong as well as foolish for him to marry a blooming young girl, so long as he had no other prospect than that of growing poverty with a growing family. And his savings had been so constantly drawn upon (besides the terrible sweep of paying for Seth's substitute in the militia) that he had not enough money beforehand to furnish even a small cottage, and keep something in reserve against a rainy day. He had good hope that he should be "firmer on his legs" by and by; but he could not be satisfied with a vague confidence in his arm and brain; he must have definite plans, and set about them at once. The partnership with Jonathan Burge was not to be thought of at present--there were things implicitly tacked to it that he could not accept; but Adam thought that he and Seth might carry on a little business for themselves in addition to their journeyman's work, by buying a small stock of superior wood and making articles of household furniture, for which Adam had no end of contrivances. Seth might gain more by working at separate jobs under Adam's direction than by his journeyman's work, and Adam, in his overhours, could do all the "nice" work that required peculiar skill. The money gained in this way, with the good wages he received as foreman, would soon enable them to get beforehand with the world, so sparingly as they would all live now. No sooner had this little plan shaped itself in his mind than he began to be busy with exact calculations about the wood to be bought and the particular article of furniture that should be undertaken first--a kitchen cupboard of his own contrivance, with such an ingenious arrangement of sliding-doors and bolts, such convenient nooks for stowing household provender, and such a symmetrical result to the eye, that every good housewife would be in raptures with it, and fall through all the gradations of melancholy longing till her husband promised to buy it for her. Adam pictured to himself Mrs. Poyser examining it with her keen eye and trying in vain to find out a deficiency; and, of course, close to Mrs. Poyser stood Hetty, and Adam was again beguiled from calculations and contrivances into dreams and hopes. Yes, he would go and see her this evening--it was so long since he had been at the Hall Farm. He would have liked to go to the night-school, to see why Bartle Massey had not been at church yesterday, for he feared his old friend was ill; but, unless he could manage both visits, this last must be put off till to-morrow--the desire to be near Hetty and to speak to her again was too strong. As he made up his mind to this, he was coming very near to the end of his walk, within the sound of the hammers at work on the refitting of the old house. The sound of tools to a clever workman who loves his work is like the tentative sounds of the orchestra to the violinist who has to bear his part in the overture: the strong fibres begin their accustomed thrill, and what was a moment before joy, vexation, or ambition, begins its change into energy. All passion becomes strength when it has an outlet from the narrow limits of our personal lot in the labour of our right arm, the cunning of our right hand, or the still, creative activity of our thought. Look at Adam through the rest of the day, as he stands on the scaffolding with the two-feet ruler in his hand, whistling low while he considers how a difficulty about a floor-joist or a window-frame is to be overcome; or as he pushes one of the younger workmen aside and takes his place in upheaving a weight of timber, saying, "Let alone, lad! Thee'st got too much gristle i' thy bones yet"; or as he fixes his keen black eyes on the motions of a workman on the other side of the room and warns him that his distances are not right. Look at this broad-shouldered man with the bare muscular arms, and the thick, firm, black hair tossed about like trodden meadow-grass whenever he takes off his paper cap, and with the strong barytone voice bursting every now and then into loud and solemn psalm-tunes, as if seeking an outlet for superfluous strength, yet presently checking himself, apparently crossed by some thought which jars with the singing. Perhaps, if you had not been already in the secret, you might not have guessed what sad memories what warm affection, what tender fluttering hopes, had their home in this athletic body with the broken finger-nails--in this rough man, who knew no better lyrics than he could find in the Old and New Version and an occasional hymn; who knew the smallest possible amount of profane history; and for whom the motion and shape of the earth, the course of the sun, and the changes of the seasons lay in the region of mystery just made visible by fragmentary knowledge. It had cost Adam a great deal of trouble and work in overhours to know what he knew over and above the secrets of his handicraft, and that acquaintance with mechanics and figures, and the nature of the materials he worked with, which was made easy to him by inborn inherited faculty--to get the mastery of his pen, and write a plain hand, to spell without any other mistakes than must in fairness be attributed to the unreasonable character of orthography rather than to any deficiency in the speller, and, moreover, to learn his musical notes and part-singing. Besides all this, he had read his Bible, including the apocryphal books; Poor Richard's Almanac, Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, The Pilgrim's Progress, with Bunyan's Life and Holy War, a great deal of Bailey's Dictionary, Valentine and Orson, and part of a History of Babylon, which Bartle Massey had lent him. He might have had many more books from Bartle Massey, but he had no time for reading "the commin print," as Lisbeth called it, so busy as he was with figures in all the leisure moments which he did not fill up with extra carpentry. Adam, you perceive, was by no means a marvellous man, nor, properly speaking, a genius, yet I will not pretend that his was an ordinary character among workmen; and it would not be at all a safe conclusion that the next best man you may happen to see with a basket of tools over his shoulder and a paper cap on his head has the strong conscience and the strong sense, the blended susceptibility and self-command, of our friend Adam. He was not an average man. Yet such men as he are reared here and there in every generation of our peasant artisans--with an inheritance of affections nurtured by a simple family life of common need and common industry, and an inheritance of faculties trained in skilful courageous labour: they make their way upwards, rarely as geniuses, most commonly as painstaking honest men, with the skill and conscience to do well the tasks that lie before them. Their lives have no discernible echo beyond the neighbourhood where they dwelt, but you are almost sure to find there some good piece of road, some building, some application of mineral produce, some improvement in farming practice, some reform of parish abuses, with which their names are associated by one or two generations after them. Their employers were the richer for them, the work of their hands has worn well, and the work of their brains has guided well the hands of other men. They went about in their youth in flannel or paper caps, in coats black with coal-dust or streaked with lime and red paint; in old age their white hairs are seen in a place of honour at church and at market, and they tell their well-dressed sons and daughters, seated round the bright hearth on winter evenings, how pleased they were when they first earned their twopence a-day. Others there are who die poor and never put off the workman's coat on weekdays. They have not had the art of getting rich, but they are men of trust, and when they die before the work is all out of them, it is as if some main screw had got loose in a machine; the master who employed them says, "Where shall I find their like?" 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.

Adam geht zur Arbeit und denkt über Hetty nach. Mit dem Tod von Thias Bede hat Adam eine bessere Chance, etwas Geld zu verdienen, um zu heiraten. Er beschließt, dass er und Seth in ihrer Freizeit hochwertige Möbel herstellen sollten, um etwas extra Geld zu verdienen. Er entscheidet auch, dass er am Abend nach der Arbeit auf den Hall Farm gehen wird, um Hetty zu sehen und das Spinnrad von Mrs. Poyser zu reparieren. In der Werkstatt ist Adam in seinem Element und fühlt sich wohl, während er seine Arbeit verrichtet, und er summt leise Hymnen.

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: Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love. Her ideas only varied as to the how much. At first, she thought it was a good deal; and afterwards, but little. She had great pleasure in hearing Frank Churchill talked of; and, for his sake, greater pleasure than ever in seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weston; she was very often thinking of him, and quite impatient for a letter, that she might know how he was, how were his spirits, how was his aunt, and what was the chance of his coming to Randalls again this spring. But, on the other hand, she could not admit herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed for employment than usual; she was still busy and cheerful; and, pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults; and farther, though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing elegant letters; the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his side was that she _refused_ _him_. Their affection was always to subside into friendship. Every thing tender and charming was to mark their parting; but still they were to part. When she became sensible of this, it struck her that she could not be very much in love; for in spite of her previous and fixed determination never to quit her father, never to marry, a strong attachment certainly must produce more of a struggle than she could foresee in her own feelings. "I do not find myself making any use of the word _sacrifice_," said she.--"In not one of all my clever replies, my delicate negatives, is there any allusion to making a sacrifice. I do suspect that he is not really necessary to my happiness. So much the better. I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be more." Upon the whole, she was equally contented with her view of his feelings. "_He_ is undoubtedly very much in love--every thing denotes it--very much in love indeed!--and when he comes again, if his affection continue, I must be on my guard not to encourage it.--It would be most inexcusable to do otherwise, as my own mind is quite made up. Not that I imagine he can think I have been encouraging him hitherto. No, if he had believed me at all to share his feelings, he would not have been so wretched. Could he have thought himself encouraged, his looks and language at parting would have been different.--Still, however, I must be on my guard. This is in the supposition of his attachment continuing what it now is; but I do not know that I expect it will; I do not look upon him to be quite the sort of man--I do not altogether build upon his steadiness or constancy.--His feelings are warm, but I can imagine them rather changeable.--Every consideration of the subject, in short, makes me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved.--I shall do very well again after a little while--and then, it will be a good thing over; for they say every body is in love once in their lives, and I shall have been let off easily." When his letter to Mrs. Weston arrived, Emma had the perusal of it; and she read it with a degree of pleasure and admiration which made her at first shake her head over her own sensations, and think she had undervalued their strength. It was a long, well-written letter, giving the particulars of his journey and of his feelings, expressing all the affection, gratitude, and respect which was natural and honourable, and describing every thing exterior and local that could be supposed attractive, with spirit and precision. No suspicious flourishes now of apology or concern; it was the language of real feeling towards Mrs. Weston; and the transition from Highbury to Enscombe, the contrast between the places in some of the first blessings of social life was just enough touched on to shew how keenly it was felt, and how much more might have been said but for the restraints of propriety.--The charm of her own name was not wanting. _Miss_ _Woodhouse_ appeared more than once, and never without a something of pleasing connexion, either a compliment to her taste, or a remembrance of what she had said; and in the very last time of its meeting her eye, unadorned as it was by any such broad wreath of gallantry, she yet could discern the effect of her influence and acknowledge the greatest compliment perhaps of all conveyed. Compressed into the very lowest vacant corner were these words--"I had not a spare moment on Tuesday, as you know, for Miss Woodhouse's beautiful little friend. Pray make my excuses and adieus to her." This, Emma could not doubt, was all for herself. Harriet was remembered only from being _her_ friend. His information and prospects as to Enscombe were neither worse nor better than had been anticipated; Mrs. Churchill was recovering, and he dared not yet, even in his own imagination, fix a time for coming to Randalls again. Gratifying, however, and stimulative as was the letter in the material part, its sentiments, she yet found, when it was folded up and returned to Mrs. Weston, that it had not added any lasting warmth, that she could still do without the writer, and that he must learn to do without her. Her intentions were unchanged. Her resolution of refusal only grew more interesting by the addition of a scheme for his subsequent consolation and happiness. His recollection of Harriet, and the words which clothed it, the "beautiful little friend," suggested to her the idea of Harriet's succeeding her in his affections. Was it impossible?--No.--Harriet undoubtedly was greatly his inferior in understanding; but he had been very much struck with the loveliness of her face and the warm simplicity of her manner; and all the probabilities of circumstance and connexion were in her favour.--For Harriet, it would be advantageous and delightful indeed. "I must not dwell upon it," said she.--"I must not think of it. I know the danger of indulging such speculations. But stranger things have happened; and when we cease to care for each other as we do now, it will be the means of confirming us in that sort of true disinterested friendship which I can already look forward to with pleasure." It was well to have a comfort in store on Harriet's behalf, though it might be wise to let the fancy touch it seldom; for evil in that quarter was at hand. As Frank Churchill's arrival had succeeded Mr. Elton's engagement in the conversation of Highbury, as the latest interest had entirely borne down the first, so now upon Frank Churchill's disappearance, Mr. Elton's concerns were assuming the most irresistible form.--His wedding-day was named. He would soon be among them again; Mr. Elton and his bride. There was hardly time to talk over the first letter from Enscombe before "Mr. Elton and his bride" was in every body's mouth, and Frank Churchill was forgotten. Emma grew sick at the sound. She had had three weeks of happy exemption from Mr. Elton; and Harriet's mind, she had been willing to hope, had been lately gaining strength. With Mr. Weston's ball in view at least, there had been a great deal of insensibility to other things; but it was now too evident that she had not attained such a state of composure as could stand against the actual approach--new carriage, bell-ringing, and all. Poor Harriet was in a flutter of spirits which required all the reasonings and soothings and attentions of every kind that Emma could give. Emma felt that she could not do too much for her, that Harriet had a right to all her ingenuity and all her patience; but it was heavy work to be for ever convincing without producing any effect, for ever agreed to, without being able to make their opinions the same. Harriet listened submissively, and said "it was very true--it was just as Miss Woodhouse described--it was not worth while to think about them--and she would not think about them any longer" but no change of subject could avail, and the next half-hour saw her as anxious and restless about the Eltons as before. At last Emma attacked her on another ground. "Your allowing yourself to be so occupied and so unhappy about Mr. Elton's marrying, Harriet, is the strongest reproach you can make _me_. You could not give me a greater reproof for the mistake I fell into. It was all my doing, I know. I have not forgotten it, I assure you.--Deceived myself, I did very miserably deceive you--and it will be a painful reflection to me for ever. Do not imagine me in danger of forgetting it." Harriet felt this too much to utter more than a few words of eager exclamation. Emma continued, "I have not said, exert yourself Harriet for my sake; think less, talk less of Mr. Elton for my sake; because for your own sake rather, I would wish it to be done, for the sake of what is more important than my comfort, a habit of self-command in you, a consideration of what is your duty, an attention to propriety, an endeavour to avoid the suspicions of others, to save your health and credit, and restore your tranquillity. These are the motives which I have been pressing on you. They are very important--and sorry I am that you cannot feel them sufficiently to act upon them. My being saved from pain is a very secondary consideration. I want you to save yourself from greater pain. Perhaps I may sometimes have felt that Harriet would not forget what was due--or rather what would be kind by me." This appeal to her affections did more than all the rest. The idea of wanting gratitude and consideration for Miss Woodhouse, whom she really loved extremely, made her wretched for a while, and when the violence of grief was comforted away, still remained powerful enough to prompt to what was right and support her in it very tolerably. "You, who have been the best friend I ever had in my life--Want gratitude to you!--Nobody is equal to you!--I care for nobody as I do for you!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how ungrateful I have been!" Such expressions, assisted as they were by every thing that look and manner could do, made Emma feel that she had never loved Harriet so well, nor valued her affection so highly before. "There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart," said she afterwards to herself. "There is nothing to be compared to it. Warmth and tenderness of heart, with an affectionate, open manner, will beat all the clearness of head in the world, for attraction, I am sure it will. It is tenderness of heart which makes my dear father so generally beloved--which gives Isabella all her popularity.--I have it not--but I know how to prize and respect it.--Harriet is my superior in all the charm and all the felicity it gives. Dear Harriet!--I would not change you for the clearest-headed, longest-sighted, best-judging female breathing. Oh! the coldness of a Jane Fairfax!--Harriet is worth a hundred such--And for a wife--a sensible man's wife--it is invaluable. I mention no names; but happy the man who changes Emma for Harriet!" 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.

Emma zweifelt nicht daran, dass sie verliebt ist, fragt sich jedoch, wie sehr sie Frank Churchill lieben kann, wenn sie während seiner Abwesenheit nicht weniger glücklich ist. Sie erkennt, dass sie nicht aus Liebe zu ihrem Versprechen, nie zu heiraten oder ihren Vater zu verlassen, verliebt ist. Emma beginnt zu überlegen, ob Frank stattdessen gut zu Harriet passen könnte. Emma kritisiert Harriet, dass sie sich Sorgen um Mr. Elton macht und behauptet, dass es eine ständige Erinnerung an ihren Fehler ist. Sie bittet Harriet, weniger von Mr. Elton zu sprechen, um ihretwillen, und Harriet entschuldigt sich dafür, undankbar 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: XII. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL. Walking in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and perhaps actually under the influence of a species of somnambulism, Mr. Dimmesdale reached the spot where, now so long since, Hester Prynne had lived through her first hours of public ignominy. The same platform or scaffold, black and weather-stained with the storm or sunshine of seven long years, and foot-worn, too, with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house. The minister went up the steps. It was an obscure night of early May. An unvaried pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. If the same multitude which had stood as eye-witnesses while Hester Prynne sustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, they would have discerned no face above the platform, nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark gray of the midnight. But the town was all asleep. There was no peril of discovery. The minister might stand there, if it so pleased him, until morning should redden in the east, without other risk than that the dank and chill night-air would creep into his frame, and stiffen his joints with rheumatism, and clog his throat with catarrh and cough; thereby defrauding the expectant audience of to-morrow's prayer and sermon. No eye could see him, save that ever-wakeful one which had seen him in his closet, wielding the bloody scourge. Why, then, had he come hither? Was it but the mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself! A mockery at which angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced, with jeering laughter! He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure. Poor, miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime? Crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their choice either to endure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert their fierce and savage strength for a good purpose, and fling it off at once! This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance. And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort of his will, or power to restrain himself, he shrieked aloud; an outcry that went pealing through the night, and was beaten back from one house to another, and reverberated from the hills in the background; as if a company of devils, detecting so much misery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the sound, and were bandying it to and fro. "It is done!" muttered the minister, covering his face with his hands. "The whole town will awake, and hurry forth, and find me here!" But it was not so. The shriek had perhaps sounded with a far greater power, to his own startled ears, than it actually possessed. The town did not awake; or, if it did, the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either for something frightful in a dream, or for the noise of witches; whose voices, at that period, were often heard to pass over the settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with Satan through the air. The clergyman, therefore, hearing no symptoms of disturbance, uncovered his eyes and looked about him. At one of the chamber-windows of Governor Bellingham's mansion, which stood at some distance, on the line of another street, he beheld the appearance of the old magistrate himself, with a lamp in his hand, a white night-cap on his head, and a long white gown enveloping his figure. He looked like a ghost, evoked unseasonably from the grave. The cry had evidently startled him. At another window of the same house, moreover, appeared old Mistress Hibbins, the Governor's sister, also with a lamp, which, even thus far off, revealed the expression of her sour and discontented face. She thrust forth her head from the lattice, and looked anxiously upward. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, this venerable witch-lady had heard Mr. Dimmesdale's outcry, and interpreted it, with its multitudinous echoes and reverberations, as the clamor of the fiends and night-hags, with whom she was well known to make excursions into the forest. Detecting the gleam of Governor Bellingham's lamp, the old lady quickly extinguished her own, and vanished. Possibly, she went up among the clouds. The minister saw nothing further of her motions. The magistrate, after a wary observation of the darkness,--into which, nevertheless, he could see but little further than he might into a mill-stone,--retired from the window. The minister grew comparatively calm. His eyes, however, were soon greeted by a little, glimmering light, which, at first a long way off, was approaching up the street. It threw a gleam of recognition on here a post, and there a garden-fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here, again, an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the doorstep. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard; and that the gleam of the lantern would fall upon him, in a few moments more, and reveal his long-hidden secret. As the light drew nearer, he beheld, within its illuminated circle, his brother clergyman,--or, to speak more accurately, his professional father, as well as highly valued friend,--the Reverend Mr. Wilson; who, as Mr. Dimmesdale now conjectured, had been praying at the bedside of some dying man. And so he had. The good old minister came freshly from the death-chamber of Governor Winthrop, who had passed from earth to heaven within that very hour. And now, surrounded, like the saint-like personages of olden times, with a radiant halo, that glorified him amid this gloomy night of sin,--as if the departed Governor had left him an inheritance of his glory, or as if he had caught upon himself the distant shine of the celestial city, while looking thitherward to see the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates,--now, in short, good Father Wilson was moving homeward, aiding his footsteps with a lighted lantern! The glimmer of this luminary suggested the above conceits to Mr. Dimmesdale, who smiled,--nay, almost laughed at them,--and then wondered if he were going mad. As the Reverend Mr. Wilson passed beside the scaffold, closely muffling his Geneva cloak about him with one arm, and holding the lantern before his breast with the other, the minister could hardly restrain himself from speaking. "A good evening to you, venerable Father Wilson! Come up hither, I pray you, and pass a pleasant hour with me!" Good heavens! Had Mr. Dimmesdale actually spoken? For one instant, he believed that these words had passed his lips. But they were uttered only within his imagination. The venerable Father Wilson continued to step slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy pathway before his feet, and never once turning his head towards the guilty platform. When the light of the glimmering lantern had faded quite away, the minister discovered, by the faintness which came over him, that the last few moments had been a crisis of terrible anxiety; although his mind had made an involuntary effort to relieve itself by a kind of lurid playfulness. Shortly afterwards, the like grisly sense of the humorous again stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought. He felt his limbs growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold. Morning would break, and find him there. The neighborhood would begin to rouse itself. The earliest riser, coming forth in the dim twilight, would perceive a vaguely defined figure aloft on the place of shame; and, half crazed betwixt alarm and curiosity, would go, knocking from door to door, summoning all the people to behold the ghost--as he needs must think it--of some defunct transgressor. A dusky tumult would flap its wings from one house to another. Then--the morning light still waxing stronger--old patriarchs would rise up in great haste, each in his flannel gown, and matronly dames, without pausing to put off their night-gear. The whole tribe of decorous personages, who had never heretofore been seen with a single hair of their heads awry, would start into public view, with the disorder of a nightmare in their aspects. Old Governor Bellingham would come grimly forth, with his King James's ruff fastened askew; and Mistress Hibbins, with some twigs of the forest clinging to her skirts, and looking sourer than ever, as having hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride; and good Father Wilson, too, after spending half the night at a death-bed, and liking ill to be disturbed, thus early, out of his dreams about the glorified saints. Hither, likewise, would come the elders and deacons of Mr. Dimmesdale's church, and the young virgins who so idolized their minister, and had made a shrine for him in their white bosoms; which now, by the by, in their hurry and confusion, they would scantly have given themselves time to cover with their kerchiefs. All people, in a word, would come stumbling over their thresholds, and turning up their amazed and horror-stricken visages around the scaffold. Whom would they discern there, with the red eastern light upon his brow? Whom, but the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, half frozen to death, overwhelmed with shame, and standing where Hester Prynne had stood! Carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture, the minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great peal of laughter. It was immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh, in which, with a thrill of the heart,--but he knew not whether of exquisite pain, or pleasure as acute,--he recognized the tones of little Pearl. "Pearl! Little Pearl!" cried he after a moment's pause; then, suppressing his voice,--"Hester! Hester Prynne! Are you there?" "Yes; it is Hester Prynne!" she replied, in a tone of surprise; and the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the sidewalk, along which she had been passing. "It is I, and my little Pearl." "Whence come you, Hester?" asked the minister. "What sent you hither?" "I have been watching at a death-bed," answered Hester Prynne;--"at Governor Winthrop's death-bed, and have taken his measure for a robe, and am now going homeward to my dwelling." "Come up hither, Hester, thou and little Pearl," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. "Ye have both been here before, but I was not with you. Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together!" She silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform, holding little Pearl by the hand. The minister felt for the child's other hand, and took it. The moment that he did so, there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system. The three formed an electric chain. "Minister!" whispered little Pearl. "What wouldst thou say, child?" asked Mr. Dimmesdale. "Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?" inquired Pearl. "Nay; not so, my little Pearl," answered the minister; for, with the new energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure, that had so long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him; and he was already trembling at the conjunction in which--with a strange joy, nevertheless--he now found himself. "Not so, my child. I shall, indeed, stand with thy mother and thee one other day, but not to-morrow." Pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. But the minister held it fast. "A moment longer, my child!" said he. "But wilt thou promise," asked Pearl, "to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noontide?" "Not then, Pearl," said the minister, "but another time." "And what other time?" persisted the child. "At the great judgment day," whispered the minister,--and, strangely enough, the sense that he was a professional teacher of the truth impelled him to answer the child so. "Then, and there, before the judgment-seat, thy mother, and thou, and I must stand together. But the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!" Pearl laughed again. [Illustration: "They stood in the noon of that strange splendor"] But, before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors, which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out to waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. So powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. The great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the street, with the distinctness of mid-day, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light. The wooden houses, with their jutting stories and quaint gable-peaks; the doorsteps and thresholds, with the early grass springing up about them; the garden-plots, black with freshly turned earth; the wheel-track, little worn, and, even in the market-place, margined with green on either side;--all were visible, but with a singularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before. And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two. They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another. There was witchcraft in little Pearl's eyes, and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elvish. She withdrew her hand from Mr. Dimmesdale's, and pointed across the street. But he clasped both his hands over his breast, and cast his eyes towards the zenith. Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena, that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernatural source. Thus, a blazing spear, a sword of flame, a bow, or a sheaf of arrows, seen in the midnight sky, prefigured Indian warfare. Pestilence was known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimson light. We doubt whether any marked event, for good or evil, ever befell New England, from its settlement down to Revolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of this nature. Not seldom, it had been seen by multitudes. Oftener, however, its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eye-witness, who beheld the wonder through the colored, magnifying, and distorting medium of his imagination, and shaped it more distinctly in his after-thought. It was, indeed, a majestic idea, that the destiny of nations should be revealed, in these awful hieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. A scroll so wide might not be deemed too expansive for Providence to write a people's doom upon. The belief was a favorite one with our forefathers, as betokening that their infant commonwealth was under a celestial guardianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness. But what shall we say, when an individual discovers a revelation addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record! In such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate! We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart, that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter,--the letter A,--marked out in lines of dull red light. Not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point, burning duskily through a veil of cloud; but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it; or, at least, with so little definiteness, that another's guilt might have seen another symbol in it. There was a singular circumstance that characterized Mr. Dimmesdale's psychological state, at this moment. All the time that he gazed upward to the zenith, he was, nevertheless, perfectly aware that little Pearl was pointing her finger towards old Roger Chillingworth, who stood at no great distance from the scaffold. The minister appeared to see him, with the same glance that discerned the miraculous letter. To his features, as to all other objects, the meteoric light imparted a new expression; or it might well be that the physician was not careful then, as at all other times, to hide the malevolence with which he looked upon his victim. Certainly, if the meteor kindled up the sky, and disclosed the earth, with an awfulness that admonished Hester Prynne and the clergyman of the day of judgment, then might Roger Chillingworth have passed with them for the arch-fiend, standing there with a smile and scowl, to claim his own. So vivid was the expression, or so intense the minister's perception of it, that it seemed still to remain painted on the darkness, after the meteor had vanished, with an effect as if the street and all things else were at once annihilated. "Who is that man, Hester?" gasped Mr. Dimmesdale, overcome with terror. "I shiver at him! Dost thou know the man? I hate him, Hester!" She remembered her oath, and was silent. "I tell thee, my soul shivers at him!" muttered the minister again. "Who is he? Who is he? Canst thou do nothing for me? I have a nameless horror of the man!" "Minister," said little Pearl, "I can tell thee who he is!" "Quickly, then, child!" said the minister, bending his ear close to her lips. "Quickly!--and as low as thou canst whisper." Pearl mumbled something into his ear, that sounded, indeed, like human language, but was only such gibberish as children may be heard amusing themselves with, by the hour together. At all events, if it involved any secret information in regard to old Roger Chillingworth, it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, and did but increase the bewilderment of his mind. The elvish child then laughed aloud. "Dost thou mock me now?" said the minister. "Thou wast not bold!--thou wast not true!"--answered the child. "Thou wouldst not promise to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noontide!" "Worthy Sir," answered the physician, who had now advanced to the foot of the platform. "Pious Master Dimmesdale, can this be you? Well, well, indeed! We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straitly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep. Come, good Sir, and my dear friend, I pray you, let me lead you home!" "How knewest thou that I was here?" asked the minister, fearfully. "Verily, and in good faith," answered Roger Chillingworth, "I knew nothing of the matter. I had spent the better part of the night at the bedside of the worshipful Governor Winthrop, doing what my poor skill might to give him ease. He going home to a better world, I, likewise, was on my way homeward, when this strange light shone out. Come with me, I beseech you, Reverend Sir; else you will be poorly able to do Sabbath duty to-morrow. Aha! see now, how they trouble the brain,--these books!--these books! You should study less, good Sir, and take a little pastime; or these night-whimseys will grow upon you." "I will go home with you," said Mr. Dimmesdale. With a chill despondency, like one awaking, all nerveless, from an ugly dream, he yielded himself to the physician, and was led away. The next day, however, being the Sabbath, he preached a discourse which was held to be the richest and most powerful, and the most replete with heavenly influences, that had ever proceeded from his lips. Souls, it is said more souls than one, were brought to the truth by the efficacy of that sermon, and vowed within themselves to cherish a holy gratitude towards Mr. Dimmesdale throughout the long hereafter. But, as he came down the pulpit steps, the gray-bearded sexton met him, holding up a black glove, which the minister recognized as his own. "It was found," said the sexton, "this morning, on the scaffold where evil-doers are set up to public shame. Satan dropped it there, I take it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence. But, indeed, he was blind and foolish, as he ever and always is. A pure hand needs no glove to cover it!" "Thank you, my good friend," said the minister, gravely, but startled at heart; for, so confused was his remembrance, that he had almost brought himself to look at the events of the past night as visionary. "Yes, it seems to be my glove, indeed!" "And since Satan saw fit to steal it, your reverence must needs handle him without gloves, henceforward," remarked the old sexton, grimly smiling. "But did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night?--a great red letter in the sky,--the letter A, which we interpret to stand for Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof!" "No," answered the minister, "I had not heard of it." [Illustration] [Illustration] Kannst du 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.

Dimmesdale geht zur Richtplattform, wo Hester Prynne ihre öffentliche Prüfung durchgemacht hat. Er steht dort und wartet nur darauf, dass jemand faules Obst nach ihm wirft, aber niemand erscheint. Er gibt einen kleinen Schrei von sich und versucht die Leute dazu zu bringen, ihn zu beschämen, aber die einzigen, die sich bewegen, sind Governor Bellingham und seine Schwester. Mistress Hibbins hört ihn, aber der Erzähler sagt uns, dass sie wahrscheinlich denkt, dass es nur die freundlichen Hexen aus der Nachbarschaft sind, die Krach machen. Dimmesdale beruhigt sich genug, um zu bemerken, dass sein Freund und Mitpfarrer Reverend Mr. Wilson sich nähert. Er kommt vom Sterbebett von Governor Winthrop und sieht ganz heilig und heiligenhaft aus, der Lampenschein umgibt ihn wie ein Heiligenschein. Er bemerkt Dimmesdale nicht, der auf der Plattform herumlauert, und Dimmesdale spricht nicht. Dimmesdale stellt sich vor, was passieren würde, wenn er am nächsten Morgen immer noch dort wäre, und er amüsiert sich offensichtlich darüber, sich vorzustellen, dass seine Gemeinde entdeckt, dass ihr geliebter Pfarrer ein großer Sünder ist, denn er bricht in Gelächter aus. Überraschung! Pearl lacht zurück. Er ruft sie an und Pearl antwortet. Hester ist auch bei ihr. Sie kommen vom Haus von Governor Winthrop, wo sie seinen Körper vermessen hat, um sein Totenhemd zu machen. Die beiden schließen sich ihm auf der Richtplattform an. Dimmesdale und Hester sind durch Pearl verbunden, da jeder von ihnen eine ihrer Hände hält. Pearl fragt ihn, ob er morgen um zwölf Uhr mit ihr und ihrer Mutter dort stehen wird. Nein - aber er wird an ihrem Urteilstag bei ihnen stehen. Wie tröstlich. Gerade dann gibt es einen hellen Lichtschein am Horizont, der entweder ein Meteor oder ein großes Symbol ist. Auch jetzt sieht der Pfarrer sehr symbolisch aus, mit der Hand auf seinem Herzen; Hester Prynne, mit dem scharlachroten Buchstaben auf ihrem Herzen; und Pearl, selbst ein Symbol. Pearl grinst ein wenig und zeigt auf etwas, und Dimmesdale sieht, dass etwas wie ein riesiger Buchstabe A in rotem Licht markiert ist. Und dann sieht er Roger Chillingworth, den Dimmesdale endlich bemerkt, der ziemlich böse aussieht. Pearl und Dimmesdale haben einen kleinen Streit, der damit endet, dass Pearl ihnen im Grunde sagt, dass er schlecht ist, weil er nicht versprochen hat, dort mit ihr und ihrer Mutter zu stehen. Gerade dann tritt Chillingworth vor und überredet Dimmesdale, mit ihm nach Hause zu kommen. Am nächsten Tag hält Dimmesdale eine hervorragende Predigt. Als er von der Kanzel herunterkommt, reicht ihm der Küster einen Handschuh, seinen Handschuh, den der Küster auf der Richtplattform gefunden hatte. Die Theorie des Küsters? Satan muss ihn dort fallen gelassen haben. Übrigens, sagt der Küster, hat Dimmesdale gestern Abend den Buchstaben A am Himmel gesehen? Es war ein Zeichen für den Tod von Governor Winthrop, der jetzt sicher ein Engel 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: SZENE V ORGON, ELMIRE, DAMIS, TARTUFFE DAMIS Vater, wir haben Neuigkeiten, die deine Ankunft begrüßen, Die ganz neu und überraschend sind. Du wurdest gut bezahlt für deine liebevolle Fürsorge, Und dieser feine Herr belohnt deine Liebe Äußerst großzügig, mit Eifer, der nicht weniger sucht Als deine Schande, wie sich nun herausgestellt hat. Ich habe gerade ihn dabei erwischt, wie er deiner Frau Die schändliche Offerte einer schuldigen Liebe machte. Sie, etwas zu sanft und diskret, Bestand darauf, dass die Sache geheim gehalten werden sollte; Aber ich werde solche Schamlosigkeit nicht dulden, Noch dich so sehr Unrecht tun, indem ich es geheim halte. ELMIRE Ja, ich glaube, dass eine Ehefrau ihren Ehemann Niemals mit solch nichtigen Gerüchten belästigen sollte; Die Ehre einer Frau hängt nicht davon ab, dies zu erzählen; Es reicht aus, wenn sie sich selbst verteidigt; So denke ich zumindest; Damis, du hättest nicht gesprochen, Wenn du meinem Rat gefolgt wärst. 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.

Als Orgon den Raum betritt, lässt Damis die Katze aus dem Sack. Er erzählt Orgon alles über Tartuffs "Ehebrecherisches Angebot", wie Elmire es geheim halten wollte, und wie er, Damis, Orgon einfach Bescheid wissen musste. Elmire verteidigt ihre Position, sagt Damis, dass er hätte schweigen sollen, und geht.

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 I Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate, And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate, Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore. Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore, And in the doubtful war, before he won The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town; His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine, And settled sure succession in his line, From whence the race of Alban fathers come, And the long glories of majestic Rome. O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate; What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate; For what offense the Queen of Heav'n began To persecute so brave, so just a man; Involv'd his anxious life in endless cares, Expos'd to wants, and hurried into wars! Can heav'nly minds such high resentment show, Or exercise their spite in human woe? Against the Tiber's mouth, but far away, An ancient town was seated on the sea; A Tyrian colony; the people made Stout for the war, and studious of their trade: Carthage the name; belov'd by Juno more Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore. Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav'n were kind, The seat of awful empire she design'd. Yet she had heard an ancient rumor fly, (Long cited by the people of the sky,) That times to come should see the Trojan race Her Carthage ruin, and her tow'rs deface; Nor thus confin'd, the yoke of sov'reign sway Should on the necks of all the nations lay. She ponder'd this, and fear'd it was in fate; Nor could forget the war she wag'd of late For conqu'ring Greece against the Trojan state. Besides, long causes working in her mind, And secret seeds of envy, lay behind; Deep graven in her heart the doom remain'd Of partial Paris, and her form disdain'd; The grace bestow'd on ravish'd Ganymed, Electra's glories, and her injur'd bed. Each was a cause alone; and all combin'd To kindle vengeance in her haughty mind. For this, far distant from the Latian coast She drove the remnants of the Trojan host; And sev'n long years th' unhappy wand'ring train Were toss'd by storms, and scatter'd thro' the main. Such time, such toil, requir'd the Roman name, Such length of labor for so vast a frame. Now scarce the Trojan fleet, with sails and oars, Had left behind the fair Sicilian shores, Ent'ring with cheerful shouts the wat'ry reign, And plowing frothy furrows in the main; When, lab'ring still with endless discontent, The Queen of Heav'n did thus her fury vent: "Then am I vanquish'd? must I yield?" said she, "And must the Trojans reign in Italy? So Fate will have it, and Jove adds his force; Nor can my pow'r divert their happy course. Could angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen, The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men? She, for the fault of one offending foe, The bolts of Jove himself presum'd to throw: With whirlwinds from beneath she toss'd the ship, And bare expos'd the bosom of the deep; Then, as an eagle gripes the trembling game, The wretch, yet hissing with her father's flame, She strongly seiz'd, and with a burning wound Transfix'd, and naked, on a rock she bound. But I, who walk in awful state above, The majesty of heav'n, the sister wife of Jove, For length of years my fruitless force employ Against the thin remains of ruin'd Troy! What nations now to Juno's pow'r will pray, Or off'rings on my slighted altars lay?" Thus rag'd the goddess; and, with fury fraught. The restless regions of the storms she sought, Where, in a spacious cave of living stone, The tyrant Aeolus, from his airy throne, With pow'r imperial curbs the struggling winds, And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds. This way and that th' impatient captives tend, And, pressing for release, the mountains rend. High in his hall th' undaunted monarch stands, And shakes his scepter, and their rage commands; Which did he not, their unresisted sway Would sweep the world before them in their way; Earth, air, and seas thro' empty space would roll, And heav'n would fly before the driving soul. In fear of this, the Father of the Gods Confin'd their fury to those dark abodes, And lock'd 'em safe within, oppress'd with mountain loads; Impos'd a king, with arbitrary sway, To loose their fetters, or their force allay. To whom the suppliant queen her pray'rs address'd, And thus the tenor of her suit express'd: "O Aeolus! for to thee the King of Heav'n The pow'r of tempests and of winds has giv'n; Thy force alone their fury can restrain, And smooth the waves, or swell the troubled main- A race of wand'ring slaves, abhorr'd by me, With prosp'rous passage cut the Tuscan sea; To fruitful Italy their course they steer, And for their vanquish'd gods design new temples there. Raise all thy winds; with night involve the skies; Sink or disperse my fatal enemies. Twice sev'n, the charming daughters of the main, Around my person wait, and bear my train: Succeed my wish, and second my design; The fairest, Deiopeia, shall be thine, And make thee father of a happy line." To this the god: "'T is yours, O queen, to will The work which duty binds me to fulfil. These airy kingdoms, and this wide command, Are all the presents of your bounteous hand: Yours is my sov'reign's grace; and, as your guest, I sit with gods at their celestial feast; Raise tempests at your pleasure, or subdue; Dispose of empire, which I hold from you." He said, and hurl'd against the mountain side His quiv'ring spear, and all the god applied. The raging winds rush thro' the hollow wound, And dance aloft in air, and skim along the ground; Then, settling on the sea, the surges sweep, Raise liquid mountains, and disclose the deep. South, East, and West with mix'd confusion roar, And roll the foaming billows to the shore. The cables crack; the sailors' fearful cries Ascend; and sable night involves the skies; And heav'n itself is ravish'd from their eyes. Loud peals of thunder from the poles ensue; Then flashing fires the transient light renew; The face of things a frightful image bears, And present death in various forms appears. Struck with unusual fright, the Trojan chief, With lifted hands and eyes, invokes relief; And, "Thrice and four times happy those," he cried, "That under Ilian walls before their parents died! Tydides, bravest of the Grecian train! Why could not I by that strong arm be slain, And lie by noble Hector on the plain, Or great Sarpedon, in those bloody fields Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields Of heroes, whose dismember'd hands yet bear The dart aloft, and clench the pointed spear!" Thus while the pious prince his fate bewails, Fierce Boreas drove against his flying sails, And rent the sheets; the raging billows rise, And mount the tossing vessels to the skies: Nor can the shiv'ring oars sustain the blow; The galley gives her side, and turns her prow; While those astern, descending down the steep, Thro' gaping waves behold the boiling deep. Three ships were hurried by the southern blast, And on the secret shelves with fury cast. Those hidden rocks th' Ausonian sailors knew: They call'd them Altars, when they rose in view, And show'd their spacious backs above the flood. Three more fierce Eurus, in his angry mood, Dash'd on the shallows of the moving sand, And in mid ocean left them moor'd aland. Orontes' bark, that bore the Lycian crew, (A horrid sight!) ev'n in the hero's view, From stem to stern by waves was overborne: The trembling pilot, from his rudder torn, Was headlong hurl'd; thrice round the ship was toss'd, Then bulg'd at once, and in the deep was lost; And here and there above the waves were seen Arms, pictures, precious goods, and floating men. The stoutest vessel to the storm gave way, And suck'd thro' loosen'd planks the rushing sea. Ilioneus was her chief: Alethes old, Achates faithful, Abas young and bold, Endur'd not less; their ships, with gaping seams, Admit the deluge of the briny streams. Meantime imperial Neptune heard the sound Of raging billows breaking on the ground. Displeas'd, and fearing for his wat'ry reign, He rear'd his awful head above the main, Serene in majesty; then roll'd his eyes Around the space of earth, and seas, and skies. He saw the Trojan fleet dispers'd, distress'd, By stormy winds and wintry heav'n oppress'd. Full well the god his sister's envy knew, And what her aims and what her arts pursue. He summon'd Eurus and the western blast, And first an angry glance on both he cast; Then thus rebuk'd: "Audacious winds! from whence This bold attempt, this rebel insolence? Is it for you to ravage seas and land, Unauthoriz'd by my supreme command? To raise such mountains on the troubled main? Whom I- but first 't is fit the billows to restrain; And then you shall be taught obedience to my reign. Hence! to your lord my royal mandate bear- The realms of ocean and the fields of air Are mine, not his. By fatal lot to me The liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea. His pow'r to hollow caverns is confin'd: There let him reign, the jailer of the wind, With hoarse commands his breathing subjects call, And boast and bluster in his empty hall." He spoke; and, while he spoke, he smooth'd the sea, Dispell'd the darkness, and restor'd the day. Cymothoe, Triton, and the sea-green train Of beauteous nymphs, the daughters of the main, Clear from the rocks the vessels with their hands: The god himself with ready trident stands, And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands; Then heaves them off the shoals. Where'er he guides His finny coursers and in triumph rides, The waves unruffle and the sea subsides. As, when in tumults rise th' ignoble crowd, Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud; And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly, And all the rustic arms that fury can supply: If then some grave and pious man appear, They hush their noise, and lend a list'ning ear; He soothes with sober words their angry mood, And quenches their innate desire of blood: So, when the Father of the Flood appears, And o'er the seas his sov'reign trident rears, Their fury falls: he skims the liquid plains, High on his chariot, and, with loosen'd reins, Majestic moves along, and awful peace maintains. The weary Trojans ply their shatter'd oars To nearest land, and make the Libyan shores. Within a long recess there lies a bay: An island shades it from the rolling sea, And forms a port secure for ships to ride; Broke by the jutting land, on either side, In double streams the briny waters glide. Betwixt two rows of rocks a sylvan scene Appears above, and groves for ever green: A grot is form'd beneath, with mossy seats, To rest the Nereids, and exclude the heats. Down thro' the crannies of the living walls The crystal streams descend in murm'ring falls: No haulsers need to bind the vessels here, Nor bearded anchors; for no storms they fear. Sev'n ships within this happy harbor meet, The thin remainders of the scatter'd fleet. The Trojans, worn with toils, and spent with woes, Leap on the welcome land, and seek their wish'd repose. First, good Achates, with repeated strokes Of clashing flints, their hidden fire provokes: Short flame succeeds; a bed of wither'd leaves The dying sparkles in their fall receives: Caught into life, in fiery fumes they rise, And, fed with stronger food, invade the skies. The Trojans, dropping wet, or stand around The cheerful blaze, or lie along the ground: Some dry their corn, infected with the brine, Then grind with marbles, and prepare to dine. Aeneas climbs the mountain's airy brow, And takes a prospect of the seas below, If Capys thence, or Antheus he could spy, Or see the streamers of Caicus fly. No vessels were in view; but, on the plain, Three beamy stags command a lordly train Of branching heads: the more ignoble throng Attend their stately steps, and slowly graze along. He stood; and, while secure they fed below, He took the quiver and the trusty bow Achates us'd to bear: the leaders first He laid along, and then the vulgar pierc'd; Nor ceas'd his arrows, till the shady plain Sev'n mighty bodies with their blood distain. For the sev'n ships he made an equal share, And to the port return'd, triumphant from the war. The jars of gen'rous wine (Acestes' gift, When his Trinacrian shores the navy left) He set abroach, and for the feast prepar'd, In equal portions with the ven'son shar'd. Thus while he dealt it round, the pious chief With cheerful words allay'd the common grief: "Endure, and conquer! Jove will soon dispose To future good our past and present woes. With me, the rocks of Scylla you have tried; Th' inhuman Cyclops and his den defied. What greater ills hereafter can you bear? Resume your courage and dismiss your care, An hour will come, with pleasure to relate Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate. Thro' various hazards and events, we move To Latium and the realms foredoom'd by Jove. Call'd to the seat (the promise of the skies) Where Trojan kingdoms once again may rise, Endure the hardships of your present state; Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate." These words he spoke, but spoke not from his heart; His outward smiles conceal'd his inward smart. The jolly crew, unmindful of the past, The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste. Some strip the skin; some portion out the spoil; The limbs, yet trembling, in the caldrons boil; Some on the fire the reeking entrails broil. Stretch'd on the grassy turf, at ease they dine, Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with wine. Their hunger thus appeas'd, their care attends The doubtful fortune of their absent friends: Alternate hopes and fears their minds possess, Whether to deem 'em dead, or in distress. Above the rest, Aeneas mourns the fate Of brave Orontes, and th' uncertain state Of Gyas, Lycus, and of Amycus. The day, but not their sorrows, ended thus. When, from aloft, almighty Jove surveys Earth, air, and shores, and navigable seas, At length on Libyan realms he fix'd his eyes- Whom, pond'ring thus on human miseries, When Venus saw, she with a lowly look, Not free from tears, her heav'nly sire bespoke: "O King of Gods and Men! whose awful hand Disperses thunder on the seas and land, Disposing all with absolute command; How could my pious son thy pow'r incense? Or what, alas! is vanish'd Troy's offense? Our hope of Italy not only lost, On various seas by various tempests toss'd, But shut from ev'ry shore, and barr'd from ev'ry coast. You promis'd once, a progeny divine Of Romans, rising from the Trojan line, In after times should hold the world in awe, And to the land and ocean give the law. How is your doom revers'd, which eas'd my care When Troy was ruin'd in that cruel war? Then fates to fates I could oppose; but now, When Fortune still pursues her former blow, What can I hope? What worse can still succeed? What end of labors has your will decreed? Antenor, from the midst of Grecian hosts, Could pass secure, and pierce th' Illyrian coasts, Where, rolling down the steep, Timavus raves And thro' nine channels disembogues his waves. At length he founded Padua's happy seat, And gave his Trojans a secure retreat; There fix'd their arms, and there renew'd their name, And there in quiet rules, and crown'd with fame. But we, descended from your sacred line, Entitled to your heav'n and rites divine, Are banish'd earth; and, for the wrath of one, Remov'd from Latium and the promis'd throne. Are these our scepters? these our due rewards? And is it thus that Jove his plighted faith regards?" To whom the Father of th' immortal race, Smiling with that serene indulgent face, With which he drives the clouds and clears the skies, First gave a holy kiss; then thus replies: "Daughter, dismiss thy fears; to thy desire The fates of thine are fix'd, and stand entire. Thou shalt behold thy wish'd Lavinian walls; And, ripe for heav'n, when fate Aeneas calls, Then shalt thou bear him up, sublime, to me: No councils have revers'd my firm decree. And, lest new fears disturb thy happy state, Know, I have search'd the mystic rolls of Fate: Thy son (nor is th' appointed season far) In Italy shall wage successful war, Shall tame fierce nations in the bloody field, And sov'reign laws impose, and cities build, Till, after ev'ry foe subdued, the sun Thrice thro' the signs his annual race shall run: This is his time prefix'd. Ascanius then, Now call'd Iulus, shall begin his reign. He thirty rolling years the crown shall wear, Then from Lavinium shall the seat transfer, And, with hard labor, Alba Longa build. The throne with his succession shall be fill'd Three hundred circuits more: then shall be seen Ilia the fair, a priestess and a queen, Who, full of Mars, in time, with kindly throes, Shall at a birth two goodly boys disclose. The royal babes a tawny wolf shall drain: Then Romulus his grandsire's throne shall gain, Of martial tow'rs the founder shall become, The people Romans call, the city Rome. To them no bounds of empire I assign, Nor term of years to their immortal line. Ev'n haughty Juno, who, with endless broils, Earth, seas, and heav'n, and Jove himself turmoils; At length aton'd, her friendly pow'r shall join, To cherish and advance the Trojan line. The subject world shall Rome's dominion own, And, prostrate, shall adore the nation of the gown. An age is ripening in revolving fate When Troy shall overturn the Grecian state, And sweet revenge her conqu'ring sons shall call, To crush the people that conspir'd her fall. Then Caesar from the Julian stock shall rise, Whose empire ocean, and whose fame the skies Alone shall bound; whom, fraught with eastern spoils, Our heav'n, the just reward of human toils, Securely shall repay with rites divine; And incense shall ascend before his sacred shrine. Then dire debate and impious war shall cease, And the stern age be soften'd into peace: Then banish'd Faith shall once again return, And Vestal fires in hallow'd temples burn; And Remus with Quirinus shall sustain The righteous laws, and fraud and force restrain. Janus himself before his fane shall wait, And keep the dreadful issues of his gate, With bolts and iron bars: within remains Imprison'd Fury, bound in brazen chains; High on a trophy rais'd, of useless arms, He sits, and threats the world with vain alarms." He said, and sent Cyllenius with command To free the ports, and ope the Punic land To Trojan guests; lest, ignorant of fate, The queen might force them from her town and state. Down from the steep of heav'n Cyllenius flies, And cleaves with all his wings the yielding skies. Soon on the Libyan shore descends the god, Performs his message, and displays his rod: The surly murmurs of the people cease; And, as the fates requir'd, they give the peace: The queen herself suspends the rigid laws, The Trojans pities, and protects their cause. Meantime, in shades of night Aeneas lies: Care seiz'd his soul, and sleep forsook his eyes. But, when the sun restor'd the cheerful day, He rose, the coast and country to survey, Anxious and eager to discover more. It look'd a wild uncultivated shore; But, whether humankind, or beasts alone Possess'd the new-found region, was unknown. Beneath a ledge of rocks his fleet he hides: Tall trees surround the mountain's shady sides; The bending brow above a safe retreat provides. Arm'd with two pointed darts, he leaves his friends, And true Achates on his steps attends. Lo! in the deep recesses of the wood, Before his eyes his goddess mother stood: A huntress in her habit and her mien; Her dress a maid, her air confess'd a queen. Bare were her knees, and knots her garments bind; Loose was her hair, and wanton'd in the wind; Her hand sustain'd a bow; her quiver hung behind. She seem'd a virgin of the Spartan blood: With such array Harpalyce bestrode Her Thracian courser and outstripp'd the rapid flood. "Ho, strangers! have you lately seen," she said, "One of my sisters, like myself array'd, Who cross'd the lawn, or in the forest stray'd? A painted quiver at her back she bore; Varied with spots, a lynx's hide she wore; And at full cry pursued the tusky boar." Thus Venus: thus her son replied again: "None of your sisters have we heard or seen, O virgin! or what other name you bear Above that style- O more than mortal fair! Your voice and mien celestial birth betray! If, as you seem, the sister of the day, Or one at least of chaste Diana's train, Let not an humble suppliant sue in vain; But tell a stranger, long in tempests toss'd, What earth we tread, and who commands the coast? Then on your name shall wretched mortals call, And offer'd victims at your altars fall." "I dare not," she replied, "assume the name Of goddess, or celestial honors claim: For Tyrian virgins bows and quivers bear, And purple buskins o'er their ankles wear. Know, gentle youth, in Libyan lands you are- A people rude in peace, and rough in war. The rising city, which from far you see, Is Carthage, and a Tyrian colony. Phoenician Dido rules the growing state, Who fled from Tyre, to shun her brother's hate. Great were her wrongs, her story full of fate; Which I will sum in short. Sichaeus, known For wealth, and brother to the Punic throne, Possess'd fair Dido's bed; and either heart At once was wounded with an equal dart. Her father gave her, yet a spotless maid; Pygmalion then the Tyrian scepter sway'd: One who condemn'd divine and human laws. Then strife ensued, and cursed gold the cause. The monarch, blinded with desire of wealth, With steel invades his brother's life by stealth; Before the sacred altar made him bleed, And long from her conceal'd the cruel deed. Some tale, some new pretense, he daily coin'd, To soothe his sister, and delude her mind. At length, in dead of night, the ghost appears Of her unhappy lord: the specter stares, And, with erected eyes, his bloody bosom bares. The cruel altars and his fate he tells, And the dire secret of his house reveals, Then warns the widow, with her household gods, To seek a refuge in remote abodes. Last, to support her in so long a way, He shows her where his hidden treasure lay. Admonish'd thus, and seiz'd with mortal fright, The queen provides companions of her flight: They meet, and all combine to leave the state, Who hate the tyrant, or who fear his hate. They seize a fleet, which ready rigg'd they find; Nor is Pygmalion's treasure left behind. The vessels, heavy laden, put to sea With prosp'rous winds; a woman leads the way. I know not, if by stress of weather driv'n, Or was their fatal course dispos'd by Heav'n; At last they landed, where from far your eyes May view the turrets of new Carthage rise; There bought a space of ground, which (Byrsa call'd, From the bull's hide) they first inclos'd, and wall'd. But whence are you? what country claims your birth? What seek you, strangers, on our Libyan earth?" To whom, with sorrow streaming from his eyes, And deeply sighing, thus her son replies: "Could you with patience hear, or I relate, O nymph, the tedious annals of our fate! Thro' such a train of woes if I should run, The day would sooner than the tale be done! From ancient Troy, by force expell'd, we came- If you by chance have heard the Trojan name. On various seas by various tempests toss'd, At length we landed on your Libyan coast. The good Aeneas am I call'd- a name, While Fortune favor'd, not unknown to fame. My household gods, companions of my woes, With pious care I rescued from our foes. To fruitful Italy my course was bent; And from the King of Heav'n is my descent. With twice ten sail I cross'd the Phrygian sea; Fate and my mother goddess led my way. Scarce sev'n, the thin remainders of my fleet, From storms preserv'd, within your harbor meet. Myself distress'd, an exile, and unknown, Debarr'd from Europe, and from Asia thrown, In Libyan desarts wander thus alone." His tender parent could no longer bear; But, interposing, sought to soothe his care. "Whoe'er you are- not unbelov'd by Heav'n, Since on our friendly shore your ships are driv'n- Have courage: to the gods permit the rest, And to the queen expose your just request. Now take this earnest of success, for more: Your scatter'd fleet is join'd upon the shore; The winds are chang'd, your friends from danger free; Or I renounce my skill in augury. Twelve swans behold in beauteous order move, And stoop with closing pinions from above; Whom late the bird of Jove had driv'n along, And thro' the clouds pursued the scatt'ring throng: Now, all united in a goodly team, They skim the ground, and seek the quiet stream. As they, with joy returning, clap their wings, And ride the circuit of the skies in rings; Not otherwise your ships, and ev'ry friend, Already hold the port, or with swift sails descend. No more advice is needful; but pursue The path before you, and the town in view." Thus having said, she turn'd, and made appear Her neck refulgent, and dishevel'd hair, Which, flowing from her shoulders, reach'd the ground. And widely spread ambrosial scents around: In length of train descends her sweeping gown; And, by her graceful walk, the Queen of Love is known. The prince pursued the parting deity With words like these: "Ah! whither do you fly? Unkind and cruel! to deceive your son In borrow'd shapes, and his embrace to shun; Never to bless my sight, but thus unknown; And still to speak in accents not your own." Against the goddess these complaints he made, But took the path, and her commands obey'd. They march, obscure; for Venus kindly shrouds With mists their persons, and involves in clouds, That, thus unseen, their passage none might stay, Or force to tell the causes of their way. This part perform'd, the goddess flies sublime To visit Paphos and her native clime; Where garlands, ever green and ever fair, With vows are offer'd, and with solemn pray'r: A hundred altars in her temple smoke; A thousand bleeding hearts her pow'r invoke. They climb the next ascent, and, looking down, Now at a nearer distance view the town. The prince with wonder sees the stately tow'rs, Which late were huts and shepherds' homely bow'rs, The gates and streets; and hears, from ev'ry part, The noise and busy concourse of the mart. The toiling Tyrians on each other call To ply their labor: some extend the wall; Some build the citadel; the brawny throng Or dig, or push unwieldly stones along. Some for their dwellings choose a spot of ground, Which, first design'd, with ditches they surround. Some laws ordain; and some attend the choice Of holy senates, and elect by voice. Here some design a mole, while others there Lay deep foundations for a theater; From marble quarries mighty columns hew, For ornaments of scenes, and future view. Such is their toil, and such their busy pains, As exercise the bees in flow'ry plains, When winter past, and summer scarce begun, Invites them forth to labor in the sun; Some lead their youth abroad, while some condense Their liquid store, and some in cells dispense; Some at the gate stand ready to receive The golden burthen, and their friends relieve; All with united force, combine to drive The lazy drones from the laborious hive: With envy stung, they view each other's deeds; The fragrant work with diligence proceeds. "Thrice happy you, whose walls already rise!" Aeneas said, and view'd, with lifted eyes, Their lofty tow'rs; then, entiring at the gate, Conceal'd in clouds (prodigious to relate) He mix'd, unmark'd, among the busy throng, Borne by the tide, and pass'd unseen along. Full in the center of the town there stood, Thick set with trees, a venerable wood. The Tyrians, landing near this holy ground, And digging here, a prosp'rous omen found: From under earth a courser's head they drew, Their growth and future fortune to foreshew. This fated sign their foundress Juno gave, Of a soil fruitful, and a people brave. Sidonian Dido here with solemn state Did Juno's temple build, and consecrate, Enrich'd with gifts, and with a golden shrine; But more the goddess made the place divine. On brazen steps the marble threshold rose, And brazen plates the cedar beams inclose: The rafters are with brazen cov'rings crown'd; The lofty doors on brazen hinges sound. What first Aeneas this place beheld, Reviv'd his courage, and his fear expell'd. For while, expecting there the queen, he rais'd His wond'ring eyes, and round the temple gaz'd, Admir'd the fortune of the rising town, The striving artists, and their arts' renown; He saw, in order painted on the wall, Whatever did unhappy Troy befall: The wars that fame around the world had blown, All to the life, and ev'ry leader known. There Agamemnon, Priam here, he spies, And fierce Achilles, who both kings defies. He stopp'd, and weeping said: "O friend! ev'n here The monuments of Trojan woes appear! Our known disasters fill ev'n foreign lands: See there, where old unhappy Priam stands! Ev'n the mute walls relate the warrior's fame, And Trojan griefs the Tyrians' pity claim." He said (his tears a ready passage find), Devouring what he saw so well design'd, And with an empty picture fed his mind: For there he saw the fainting Grecians yield, And here the trembling Trojans quit the field, Pursued by fierce Achilles thro' the plain, On his high chariot driving o'er the slain. The tents of Rhesus next his grief renew, By their white sails betray'd to nightly view; And wakeful Diomede, whose cruel sword The sentries slew, nor spar'd their slumb'ring lord, Then took the fiery steeds, ere yet the food Of Troy they taste, or drink the Xanthian flood. Elsewhere he saw where Troilus defied Achilles, and unequal combat tried; Then, where the boy disarm'd, with loosen'd reins, Was by his horses hurried o'er the plains, Hung by the neck and hair, and dragg'd around: The hostile spear, yet sticking in his wound, With tracks of blood inscrib'd the dusty ground. Meantime the Trojan dames, oppress'd with woe, To Pallas' fane in long procession go, In hopes to reconcile their heav'nly foe. They weep, they beat their breasts, they rend their hair, And rich embroider'd vests for presents bear; But the stern goddess stands unmov'd with pray'r. Thrice round the Trojan walls Achilles drew The corpse of Hector, whom in fight he slew. Here Priam sues; and there, for sums of gold, The lifeless body of his son is sold. So sad an object, and so well express'd, Drew sighs and groans from the griev'd hero's breast, To see the figure of his lifeless friend, And his old sire his helpless hand extend. Himself he saw amidst the Grecian train, Mix'd in the bloody battle on the plain; And swarthy Memnon in his arms he knew, His pompous ensigns, and his Indian crew. Penthisilea there, with haughty grace, Leads to the wars an Amazonian race: In their right hands a pointed dart they wield; The left, for ward, sustains the lunar shield. Athwart her breast a golden belt she throws, Amidst the press alone provokes a thousand foes, And dares her maiden arms to manly force oppose. Thus while the Trojan prince employs his eyes, Fix'd on the walls with wonder and surprise, The beauteous Dido, with a num'rous train And pomp of guards, ascends the sacred fane. Such on Eurotas' banks, or Cynthus' height, Diana seems; and so she charms the sight, When in the dance the graceful goddess leads The choir of nymphs, and overtops their heads: Known by her quiver, and her lofty mien, She walks majestic, and she looks their queen; Latona sees her shine above the rest, And feeds with secret joy her silent breast. Such Dido was; with such becoming state, Amidst the crowd, she walks serenely great. Their labor to her future sway she speeds, And passing with a gracious glance proceeds; Then mounts the throne, high plac'd before the shrine: In crowds around, the swarming people join. She takes petitions, and dispenses laws, Hears and determines ev'ry private cause; Their tasks in equal portions she divides, And, where unequal, there by lots decides. Another way by chance Aeneas bends His eyes, and unexpected sees his friends, Antheus, Sergestus grave, Cloanthus strong, And at their backs a mighty Trojan throng, Whom late the tempest on the billows toss'd, And widely scatter'd on another coast. The prince, unseen, surpris'd with wonder stands, And longs, with joyful haste, to join their hands; But, doubtful of the wish'd event, he stays, And from the hollow cloud his friends surveys, Impatient till they told their present state, And where they left their ships, and what their fate, And why they came, and what was their request; For these were sent, commission'd by the rest, To sue for leave to land their sickly men, And gain admission to the gracious queen. Ent'ring, with cries they fill'd the holy fane; Then thus, with lowly voice, Ilioneus began: "O queen! indulg'd by favor of the gods To found an empire in these new abodes, To build a town, with statutes to restrain The wild inhabitants beneath thy reign, We wretched Trojans, toss'd on ev'ry shore, From sea to sea, thy clemency implore. Forbid the fires our shipping to deface! Receive th' unhappy fugitives to grace, And spare the remnant of a pious race! We come not with design of wasteful prey, To drive the country, force the swains away: Nor such our strength, nor such is our desire; The vanquish'd dare not to such thoughts aspire. A land there is, Hesperia nam'd of old; The soil is fruitful, and the men are bold- Th' Oenotrians held it once- by common fame Now call'd Italia, from the leader's name. To that sweet region was our voyage bent, When winds and ev'ry warring element Disturb'd our course, and, far from sight of land, Cast our torn vessels on the moving sand: The sea came on; the South, with mighty roar, Dispers'd and dash'd the rest upon the rocky shore. Those few you see escap'd the Storm, and fear, Unless you interpose, a shipwreck here. What men, what monsters, what inhuman race, What laws, what barb'rous customs of the place, Shut up a desart shore to drowning men, And drive us to the cruel seas again? If our hard fortune no compassion draws, Nor hospitable rights, nor human laws, The gods are just, and will revenge our cause. Aeneas was our prince: a juster lord, Or nobler warrior, never drew a sword; Observant of the right, religious of his word. If yet he lives, and draws this vital air, Nor we, his friends, of safety shall despair; Nor you, great queen, these offices repent, Which he will equal, and perhaps augment. We want not cities, nor Sicilian coasts, Where King Acestes Trojan lineage boasts. Permit our ships a shelter on your shores, Refitted from your woods with planks and oars, That, if our prince be safe, we may renew Our destin'd course, and Italy pursue. But if, O best of men, the Fates ordain That thou art swallow'd in the Libyan main, And if our young Iulus be no more, Dismiss our navy from your friendly shore, That we to good Acestes may return, And with our friends our common losses mourn." Thus spoke Ilioneus: the Trojan crew With cries and clamors his request renew. The modest queen a while, with downcast eyes, Ponder'd the speech; then briefly thus replies: "Trojans, dismiss your fears; my cruel fate, And doubts attending an unsettled state, Force me to guard my coast from foreign foes. Who has not heard the story of your woes, The name and fortune of your native place, The fame and valor of the Phrygian race? We Tyrians are not so devoid of sense, Nor so remote from Phoebus' influence. Whether to Latian shores your course is bent, Or, driv'n by tempests from your first intent, You seek the good Acestes' government, Your men shall be receiv'd, your fleet repair'd, And sail, with ships of convoy for your guard: Or, would you stay, and join your friendly pow'rs To raise and to defend the Tyrian tow'rs, My wealth, my city, and myself are yours. And would to Heav'n, the Storm, you felt, would bring On Carthaginian coasts your wand'ring king. My people shall, by my command, explore The ports and creeks of ev'ry winding shore, And towns, and wilds, and shady woods, in quest Of so renown'd and so desir'd a guest." Rais'd in his mind the Trojan hero stood, And long'd to break from out his ambient cloud: Achates found it, and thus urg'd his way: "From whence, O goddess-born, this long delay? What more can you desire, your welcome sure, Your fleet in safety, and your friends secure? One only wants; and him we saw in vain Oppose the Storm, and swallow'd in the main. Orontes in his fate our forfeit paid; The rest agrees with what your mother said." Scarce had he spoken, when the cloud gave way, The mists flew upward and dissolv'd in day. The Trojan chief appear'd in open sight, August in visage, and serenely bright. His mother goddess, with her hands divine, Had form'd his curling locks, and made his temples shine, And giv'n his rolling eyes a sparkling grace, And breath'd a youthful vigor on his face; Like polish'd ivory, beauteous to behold, Or Parian marble, when enchas'd in gold: Thus radiant from the circling cloud he broke, And thus with manly modesty he spoke: "He whom you seek am I; by tempests toss'd, And sav'd from shipwreck on your Libyan coast; Presenting, gracious queen, before your throne, A prince that owes his life to you alone. Fair majesty, the refuge and redress Of those whom fate pursues, and wants oppress, You, who your pious offices employ To save the relics of abandon'd Troy; Receive the shipwreck'd on your friendly shore, With hospitable rites relieve the poor; Associate in your town a wand'ring train, And strangers in your palace entertain: What thanks can wretched fugitives return, Who, scatter'd thro' the world, in exile mourn? The gods, if gods to goodness are inclin'd; If acts of mercy touch their heav'nly mind, And, more than all the gods, your gen'rous heart. Conscious of worth, requite its own desert! In you this age is happy, and this earth, And parents more than mortal gave you birth. While rolling rivers into seas shall run, And round the space of heav'n the radiant sun; While trees the mountain tops with shades supply, Your honor, name, and praise shall never die. Whate'er abode my fortune has assign'd, Your image shall be present in my mind." Thus having said, he turn'd with pious haste, And joyful his expecting friends embrac'd: With his right hand Ilioneus was grac'd, Serestus with his left; then to his breast Cloanthus and the noble Gyas press'd; And so by turns descended to the rest. The Tyrian queen stood fix'd upon his face, Pleas'd with his motions, ravish'd with his grace; Admir'd his fortunes, more admir'd the man; Then recollected stood, and thus began: "What fate, O goddess-born; what angry pow'rs Have cast you shipwrack'd on our barren shores? Are you the great Aeneas, known to fame, Who from celestial seed your lineage claim? The same Aeneas whom fair Venus bore To fam'd Anchises on th' Idaean shore? It calls into my mind, tho' then a child, When Teucer came, from Salamis exil'd, And sought my father's aid, to be restor'd: My father Belus then with fire and sword Invaded Cyprus, made the region bare, And, conqu'ring, finish'd the successful war. From him the Trojan siege I understood, The Grecian chiefs, and your illustrious blood. Your foe himself the Dardan valor prais'd, And his own ancestry from Trojans rais'd. Enter, my noble guest, and you shall find, If not a costly welcome, yet a kind: For I myself, like you, have been distress'd, Till Heav'n afforded me this place of rest; Like you, an alien in a land unknown, I learn to pity woes so like my own." She said, and to the palace led her guest; Then offer'd incense, and proclaim'd a feast. Nor yet less careful for her absent friends, Twice ten fat oxen to the ships she sends; Besides a hundred boars, a hundred lambs, With bleating cries, attend their milky dams; And jars of gen'rous wine and spacious bowls She gives, to cheer the sailors' drooping souls. Now purple hangings clothe the palace walls, And sumptuous feasts are made in splendid halls: On Tyrian carpets, richly wrought, they dine; With loads of massy plate the sideboards shine, And antique vases, all of gold emboss'd (The gold itself inferior to the cost), Of curious work, where on the sides were seen The fights and figures of illustrious men, From their first founder to the present queen. The good Aeneas, paternal care Iulus' absence could no longer bear, Dispatch'd Achates to the ships in haste, To give a glad relation of the past, And, fraught with precious gifts, to bring the boy, Snatch'd from the ruins of unhappy Troy: A robe of tissue, stiff with golden wire; An upper vest, once Helen's rich attire, From Argos by the fam'd adultress brought, With golden flow'rs and winding foliage wrought, Her mother Leda's present, when she came To ruin Troy and set the world on flame; The scepter Priam's eldest daughter bore, Her orient necklace, and the crown she wore Of double texture, glorious to behold, One order set with gems, and one with gold. Instructed thus, the wise Achates goes, And in his diligence his duty shows. But Venus, anxious for her son's affairs, New counsels tries, and new designs prepares: That Cupid should assume the shape and face Of sweet Ascanius, and the sprightly grace; Should bring the presents, in her nephew's stead, And in Eliza's veins the gentle poison shed: For much she fear'd the Tyrians, double-tongued, And knew the town to Juno's care belong'd. These thoughts by night her golden slumbers broke, And thus alarm'd, to winged Love she spoke: "My son, my strength, whose mighty pow'r alone Controls the Thund'rer on his awful throne, To thee thy much-afflicted mother flies, And on thy succor and thy faith relies. Thou know'st, my son, how Jove's revengeful wife, By force and fraud, attempts thy brother's life; And often hast thou mourn'd with me his pains. Him Dido now with blandishment detains; But I suspect the town where Juno reigns. For this 't is needful to prevent her art, And fire with love the proud Phoenician's heart: A love so violent, so strong, so sure, As neither age can change, nor art can cure. How this may be perform'd, now take my mind: Ascanius by his father is design'd To come, with presents laden, from the port, To gratify the queen, and gain the court. I mean to plunge the boy in pleasing sleep, And, ravish'd, in Idalian bow'rs to keep, Or high Cythera, that the sweet deceit May pass unseen, and none prevent the cheat. Take thou his form and shape. I beg the grace But only for a night's revolving space: Thyself a boy, assume a boy's dissembled face; That when, amidst the fervor of the feast, The Tyrian hugs and fonds thee on her breast, And with sweet kisses in her arms constrains, Thou may'st infuse thy venom in her veins." The God of Love obeys, and sets aside His bow and quiver, and his plumy pride; He walks Iulus in his mother's sight, And in the sweet resemblance takes delight. The goddess then to young Ascanius flies, And in a pleasing slumber seals his eyes: Lull'd in her lap, amidst a train of Loves, She gently bears him to her blissful groves, Then with a wreath of myrtle crowns his head, And softly lays him on a flow'ry bed. Cupid meantime assum'd his form and face, Foll'wing Achates with a shorter pace, And brought the gifts. The queen already sate Amidst the Trojan lords, in shining state, High on a golden bed: her princely guest Was next her side; in order sate the rest. Then canisters with bread are heap'd on high; Th' attendants water for their hands supply, And, having wash'd, with silken towels dry. Next fifty handmaids in long order bore The censers, and with fumes the gods adore: Then youths, and virgins twice as many, join To place the dishes, and to serve the wine. The Tyrian train, admitted to the feast, Approach, and on the painted couches rest. All on the Trojan gifts with wonder gaze, But view the beauteous boy with more amaze, His rosy-color'd cheeks, his radiant eyes, His motions, voice, and shape, and all the god's disguise; Nor pass unprais'd the vest and veil divine, Which wand'ring foliage and rich flow'rs entwine. But, far above the rest, the royal dame, (Already doom'd to love's disastrous flame,) With eyes insatiate, and tumultuous joy, Beholds the presents, and admires the boy. The guileful god about the hero long, With children's play, and false embraces, hung; Then sought the queen: she took him to her arms With greedy pleasure, and devour'd his charms. Unhappy Dido little thought what guest, How dire a god, she drew so near her breast; But he, not mindless of his mother's pray'r, Works in the pliant bosom of the fair, And molds her heart anew, and blots her former care. The dead is to the living love resign'd; And all Aeneas enters in her mind. Now, when the rage of hunger was appeas'd, The meat remov'd, and ev'ry guest was pleas'd, The golden bowls with sparkling wine are crown'd, And thro' the palace cheerful cries resound. From gilded roofs depending lamps display Nocturnal beams, that emulate the day. A golden bowl, that shone with gems divine, The queen commanded to be crown'd with wine: The bowl that Belus us'd, and all the Tyrian line. Then, silence thro' the hall proclaim'd, she spoke: "O hospitable Jove! we thus invoke, With solemn rites, thy sacred name and pow'r; Bless to both nations this auspicious hour! So may the Trojan and the Tyrian line In lasting concord from this day combine. Thou, Bacchus, god of joys and friendly cheer, And gracious Juno, both be present here! And you, my lords of Tyre, your vows address To Heav'n with mine, to ratify the peace." The goblet then she took, with nectar crown'd (Sprinkling the first libations on the ground,) And rais'd it to her mouth with sober grace; Then, sipping, offer'd to the next in place. 'T was Bitias whom she call'd, a thirsty soul; He took challenge, and embrac'd the bowl, With pleasure swill'd the gold, nor ceas'd to draw, Till he the bottom of the brimmer saw. The goblet goes around: Iopas brought His golden lyre, and sung what ancient Atlas taught: The various labors of the wand'ring moon, And whence proceed th' eclipses of the sun; Th' original of men and beasts; and whence The rains arise, and fires their warmth dispense, And fix'd and erring stars dispose their influence; What shakes the solid earth; what cause delays The summer nights and shortens winter days. With peals of shouts the Tyrians praise the song: Those peals are echo'd by the Trojan throng. Th' unhappy queen with talk prolong'd the night, And drank large draughts of love with vast delight; Of Priam much enquir'd, of Hector more; Then ask'd what arms the swarthy Memnon wore, What troops he landed on the Trojan shore; The steeds of Diomede varied the discourse, And fierce Achilles, with his matchless force; At length, as fate and her ill stars requir'd, To hear the series of the war desir'd. "Relate at large, my godlike guest," she said, "The Grecian stratagems, the town betray'd: The fatal issue of so long a war, Your flight, your wand'rings, and your woes, declare; For, since on ev'ry sea, on ev'ry coast, Your men have been distress'd, your navy toss'd, Sev'n times the sun has either tropic view'd, The winter banish'd, and the spring renew'd." 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.

Virgil beginnt damit, sein Thema anzukündigen. Er wird die Geschichte erzählen, wie Aeneas seinen Weg von Troja nach Italien gefunden hat und den Vorläufer der heutigen Stadt Rom gegründet hat. Virgil enthüllt auch, dass Aeneas eine wirklich schwere Zeit haben wird. Das erklärt er damit, dass die Göttin Juno sauer auf ihn ist. Juno - der römische Name der griechischen Göttin Hera - ist aus zwei Gründen sauer auf Aeneas. Der erste Grund ist, weil Aeneas ein Trojaner ist. Juno hasst die Trojaner, weil Paris, ein trojanischer Prinz, Venus statt ihr und Minerva in einem Schönheitswettbewerb ausgewählt hat. Dadurch haben die beiden olympischen Idol-Verlierer die Seite der Griechen im Trojanischen Krieg ergriffen. Der zweite Grund, warum Juno Aeneas hasst, ist, weil sie Karthago, eine phönizische Stadt in Nordafrika, liebt. Juno weiß, dass Rom und Karthago viele Jahre später dazu bestimmt sind, eine Reihe von drei großen Kriegen zu führen. Diese Kriege, die Punischen Kriege genannt werden, führten zur völligen Zerstörung Karthagos. Da Aeneas auf dem Weg ist, Rom zu gründen - nun, du verstehst schon. Juno hat zunächst Sichtkontakt zu Aeneas und seiner Flotte, als sie an Sizilien vorbeisegeln. Das gefällt Juno überhaupt nicht, und sie beschließt, ihm das Leben schwer zu machen, ob den Schicksalsschwestern das gefällt oder nicht. Das Erste, was sie tut, ist zu Aeolus zu gehen, dem König der Winde. Juno sagt Aeolus, er solle das Meer gegen die Trojaner aufwühlen; sie sagt, sie würde ihm eine ihrer Nymphen zur Heirat geben, im Austausch für seine Mühe. Aeolus sagt Juno, dass ihr Wunsch sein Befehl ist - schließlich hat sie ihm bereits eine Menge süßer Sachen gegeben. Er nimmt seinen Speer und schlägt auf den Berg, in dem die Winde eingesperrt sind. Der Ostwind und der Südwind kommen heraus. Sie eilen dorthin, wo die Trojaner segeln, und erzeugen einen Sturm gegen sie. Als der Sturm anfängt, Aeneas ruft aus, wie sehr er wünscht, in seinem Zuhause in Troja gestorben zu sein. Das wäre viel besser gewesen als der Tod, der ihnen bevorsteht. Tatsächlich sieht es schlecht aus: Drei Schiffe zerschellen und drei bleiben auf Sandbänken stecken. Genau dann jedoch hört Neptun, der Gott des Meeres, den Radau über ihm. Er streckt seine Augen aus dem Wasser und ist mit dem, was er sieht, nicht zufrieden. Neptun sagt den Winden sofort die Meinung, weil sie ohne seine Erlaubnis das Meer aufgewühlt haben. Kaum ist er mit dem Sprechen fertig, hört der Sturm auf. Nach diesem knappen Ausflug entscheiden Aeneas und seine verbliebenen Schiffe, zum nächstgelegenen Land zu fahren. Das ist zufällig Libyen. Sobald sie in einem bequemen natürlichen Hafen angelegt haben, gehen Aeneas und seine Männer von Bord. Sie machen ein Feuer und essen Korn am Strand. In der Zwischenzeit erklimmen Aeneas und sein Kamerad Achates einen nahegelegenen Hügel, um das Meer nach Anzeichen der verlorenen Schiffe abzusuchen. Er sieht sie nicht. Stattdessen findet er eine Gruppe wilder Hirsche. Aeneas jagt ihnen hinterher und schießt auf sieben - einen für jedes seiner Schiffe. Dann bringt er sie ans Ufer und hält seinen Männern eine Rede, in der er sie daran erinnert, wie viel sie bereits gelitten haben. Er sagt ihnen, dass sie die positiven Seiten sehen sollen - eines Tages könnten sie sogar nostalgisch auf diese Schwierigkeiten zurückblicken. Uns wird gesagt, dass Aeneas für seine Männer tapfer wirkt - innerlich empfindet er jedoch mehr Kummer über den Verlust seiner Gefährten als jeder andere. In der Zwischenzeit stärken sich die Trojaner durch das Braten der Hirsche. An diesem Abend schaut Jupiter, der König der Götter, auf die Welt hinab. Da kommt Venus, die Göttin der Liebe und auch Aeneas' Mutter, zu ihm. Venus beschwert sich bei Jupiter darüber, wie sehr Aeneas und seine Männer leiden müssen, während andere Trojaner wie ein gewisser Antenor bereits verschiedene Teile Italiens besiedelt haben. Jupiter sagt: "Beruhige dich. Ich werde Aeneas immer noch nach Italien lassen." Er erklärt dann, wie Aeneas, wenn er in Italien angekommen ist, gegen den lokalen Stamm der Rutuler Krieg führen muss. Danach wird er nur drei Jahre regieren - aber dann wird sein Sohn Ascanius weitere dreißig Jahre in der neuen Hauptstadt Alba Longa herrschen. Alba Longa wird für drei Jahrhunderte der Sitz der Trojaner in Italien sein, bis die Königin und Priesterin Ilia von Mars, dem Kriegsgott, schwanger wird und Romulus und Remus zur Welt bringt. Romulus wird Rom gründen. Jupiter sagt, er werde den Römern unbegrenzte Macht geben. Diese Macht wird während der Herrschaft von Cäsar ihren Höhepunkt erreichen und eine Ära des großen Friedens herbeiführen. Dann schickt Jupiter den Gott Hermes hinunter, um die Karthager Aeneas und die anderen Trojaner willkommen zu heißen. In dieser Nacht liegt Aeneas wach und denkt nach. Er beschließt, am nächsten Tag auf Erkundungstour zu gehen. Und genau das tut er - wieder einmal mit seinem Kumpel Achates. Während sie im Wald spazieren gehen, treffen Aeneas und Achates auf Venus, die sich als junge Jägerin verkleidet hat. Aeneas ahnt etwas und fragt die Jägerin, welche Göttin sie sei. Aber Venus bleibt bei ihrer Verkleidung und sagt, dass sie nur ein gewöhnliches Mädchen aus der Gegend sei. Venus erzählt Aeneas dann, was passiert ist. Sie erklärt, wie Dido, die lokale Königin, einst mit Sychaeus, dem reichsten Mann der Stadt Tyros, verheiratet war. Ihr Bruder Pygmalion war der König von Tyros. Leider war Pygmalion sehr gierig und endete damit, Sychaeus für sein Geld zu töten. Es gelang ihm, was er getan hatte, für eine Weile vor Dido geheim zu halten - dann erschien Sychaeus ihr in einem Traum und erklärte, was passiert war. Sychaeus sagte Dido, sie solle die Stadt sofort verlassen und sagte ihr auch, wo ein Schatz begraben sei, um ihre Reise zu finanzieren. Dido sammelte einige andere Männer aus Tyros und segelte nach Nordafrika, wo sie jetzt sind und wo sie die Stadt Karthago baut. Nachdem sie ihre Geschichte beendet hat, fragt Venus Aeneas, wer er ist. Aeneas antwortet, indem er seinen Namen, seine Mission und seine Lieblingsfarbe angibt - Moment, das letzte streiche ich. Er endet damit, wie sehr er vom Sturm getroffen wurde und wie viele seiner Gefährten er verloren hat. Venus sagt: "Mach dir keine Sorgen um sie." Um ihren Punkt zu veranschaulichen, zeigt sie ihm, wie zwölf Schwäne friedlich umherfliegen, obwohl sie vor kurzem von einem Adler gejagt wurden. Venus interpretiert dies als ein Zeichen dafür, dass alles in Ordnung ist. Dann verabschiedet sich die Göttin und Aeneas erkennt sie dabei. "Hey, Mama!", ruft er aus, "Was soll das mit den Verkleidungen? Ich möchte einfach nur ein wenig Zeit mit dir verbringen!" Aber Venus antwortet nicht. Stattdessen hüllt sie Aeneas und Achates in eine Wolke aus Nebel, die sie unsichtbar macht. Dadurch können sie ins Herz von Karthago gehen. Um sie herum sind die Menschen fleißig wie Bienen beim Bau der neuen Stadt. Aeneas ist eifersüchtig. Inmitten der Stadt bauen die Trojaner einen Tempel für Juno. Aeneas geht zum Tempel. An seinen Toren sieht er verschiedene Szenen aus dem Trojanischen Krieg. Dann kommt Königin Dido mit einer Gruppe von Begleitern herein. Sie nimmt ihren Platz vor Junos Schrein ein. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt kommen Vertreter von allen Schiffen, von denen Aeneas dachte, dass er sie verloren hätte - gesund und munter, genau wie Juno vorhergesagt hatte. Die Trojaner erklären Dido, wer sie sind und wohin sie gehen. Sie beschweren sich über die rauhe Behandlung durch die Einheimischen und sagen, dass die Götter auf ihrer Seite sind. Sie bitten um Erlaubnis, sich so lange in der Gegend aufzuhalten, um ihre Schiffe zu reparieren; dann werden sie entweder wie geplant nach Latium segeln oder stattdessen nach Sizilien fahren, wo sich ein anderer Trojaner namens Acestes zum König gemacht hat. Daraufhin entschuldigt sich Dido für alle Schwierigkeiten, die sie erlebt haben; sie erklärt, dass sie die Sicherheitsmaßnahmen verstärkt hat, während ihre Stadt sich aus den Füßen macht. Dann sagt sie ihnen, dass sie von Aeneas gehört hat. Sie sagt, die Trojaner könnten überallhin gehen, begleitet von Karthagischen Wachen. Oder, wenn sie wollten, könnten sie als gleichberechtigte Bürger in Karthago bleiben. Sie sagt, sie wünschte, Aeneas wäre da und verspricht, Suchtrupps an die Küste zu schicken, um ihn zu finden. Gerade in dem Moment verschwindet der Nebel von Achates und Aeneas. Gleichzeitig macht Venus Aeneas superschön und beeindruckend. Aeneas bedankt sich bei Dido für ihre Gastfreundschaft. Dido ist von Aeneas beeindruckt und sagt ihm das auch, während sie erklärt, dass auch sie eine Ausgestoßene aus Tyros ist. Sie führt Aeneas in ihr Palast und erklärt, dass es ein Festtag ist. Aeneas denkt an seinen Sohn Ascanius und schickt Achates zurück ins Lager, um ihn zum Fest zu bringen. Er sagt ihm auch, er solle einige Geschenke für Dido mitbringen. Die Göttin Venus beschließt, dass Amor - der Gott der Liebe - Ascanius' Gestalt annehmen soll, damit er Dido mit Liebe infizieren kann. Sie sagt Amor, dass sie den echten Ascanius weg in einem ihrer Schreine verstecken wird, damit niemand etwas merkt. Genau das passiert. Als Amor mit den Geschenken ankommt, geht er zuerst zu Aeneas und sagt "Hallo, Papa." Dann geht er zu Dido und setzt sich auf ihren Schoß. Amor entflammt Dido mit Liebe für Aeneas und nimmt ihr langsam die Erinnerung an ihren toten Ehemann Sychaeus. Am Ende des Festes füllt Dido eine riesige Schale mit Wein, trinkt daraus und gibt sie herum. Zur gleichen Zeit singt der Poet Iopas ein Lied über das Universum und die Natur. Dido, die von Minute zu Minute begeisterter wird, stellt Aeneas eine Frage nach der anderen zum Trojanischen Krieg. Schließlich fragt sie ihn, wie Troja erobert wurde und wie er nach Nordafrika gekommen 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: Ob ich mich als Held meines eigenen Lebens erweisen werde oder ob diese Position von jemand anderem eingenommen wird, zeigen diese Seiten. Um mein Leben mit dem Beginn meines Lebens zu beginnen, halte ich fest, dass ich (wie mir berichtet wurde und glaube) an einem Freitag, um Mitternacht geboren wurde. Es wurde bemerkt, dass die Uhr zu schlagen begann und ich gleichzeitig zu weinen begann. In Anbetracht des Tages und der Stunde meiner Geburt erklärte die Krankenschwester und einige kluge Frauen aus der Nachbarschaft, die mehrere Monate lang ein lebhaftes Interesse an mir hatten, bevor wir uns persönlich kennenlernten, zunächst, dass ich in meinem Leben Pech haben würde; und zweitens, dass ich Geister und Seelen sehen durfte; beide Gaben wurden, wie sie glaubten, allen unglücklichen Säuglingen beiderlei Geschlechts verliehen, die kurz vor Mitternacht in der Nacht eines Freitags geboren wurden. Auf das erste Thema möchte ich hier nichts sagen, weil nichts besser zeigen kann als meine Geschichte, ob diese Vorhersage durch das Ergebnis bestätigt oder widerlegt wurde. Zum zweiten Punkt möchte ich nur bemerken, dass ich diese Eigenschaft noch nicht erworben habe, es sei denn, ich habe einen Teil meines Erbes bereits als Baby ausgegeben. Aber ich beschwere mich nicht darüber, dass mir dieses Eigentum vorenthalten wurde; und wenn jemand anderes es derzeit genießt, soll er es gerne behalten. Ich wurde mit einer Fruchtblase geboren, die in den Zeitungen zum Verkauf angeboten wurde, zum günstigen Preis von fünfzehn Guineen. Ob die Seeleute damals knapp bei Kasse waren oder ob sie wenig Vertrauen hatten und lieber Korkjacken bevorzugten, weiß ich nicht; alles was ich weiß ist, dass es nur ein einziges Gebot gab, das von einem mit dem Wechslereigeschäft verbundenen Anwalt abgegeben wurde, der zwei Pfund in bar und den Rest in Sherry anbot, aber ablehnte, garantiert vor dem Ertrinken zu sein, wenn es um einen höheren Preis ging. Folglich wurde die Anzeige zu einem erheblichen Verlust zurückgezogen - denn was Sherry betrifft, so waren das eigene Sherry meiner armen Mutter damals auf dem Markt - und zehn Jahre später wurde die Fruchtblase in einer Tombola in unserer Gegend an 50 Mitglieder zum Preis von einem halben Kronenpro Kopf angeboten, und der Gewinner durfte fünf Schillinge ausgeben. Ich war selbst dabei und ich erinnere mich, dass ich mich ziemlich unwohl und verwirrt fühlte, dass ein Teil von mir auf diese Weise verkauft wurde. Ich erinnere mich, dass die Fruchtblase von einer alten Dame mit einem Handkorb gewonnen wurde, die ziemlich widerwillig die vereinbarten fünf Schillinge herausnahm, alles in Halfpennies, und zweieinhalb Pence zu wenig hatte - da es eine immense Zeit dauerte und eine große Verschwendung von Arithmetik, um sie vergeblich zu überzeugen. Es ist eine Tatsache, die dort unten lange als bemerkenswert in Erinnerung bleiben wird, dass sie niemals ertrunken ist, sondern triumphal im Bett mit 92 Jahren starb. Ich habe gehört, dass sie bis zum Schluss stolz darauf war, dass sie in ihrem Leben nie auf dem Wasser gewesen war, außer auf einer Brücke; und dass sie immer wieder über ihren Tee (den sie sehr mochte) ihren Ärger über die Gottlosigkeit von Seeleuten und anderen zum Ausdruck brachte, die sich die Frechheit erlauben, in der Welt herumzumäandern. Es war vergeblich, ihr vorzuführen, dass einige Annehmlichkeiten, vielleicht auch der Tee, aus dieser anstößigen Praxis resultierten. Sie kehrte immer mit noch größerem Nachdruck und mit einem instinktiven Wissen um die Stärke ihres Widerspruchs zurück: "Lass uns nicht herumgammeln". Um hier nicht zu weit auszuschweifen, werde ich nun zu meiner Geburt zurückkehren. Ich wurde in Blunderstone, in Suffolk, oder "dort in der Nähe", wie man in Schottland sagt, geboren. Ich war ein posthumes Kind. Mein Vater hatte sechs Monate vor meiner Geburt die Augen in dieser Welt geschlossen, als meine aufgingen. Es ist mir auch jetzt noch etwas Seltsames, dass er mich nie gesehen hat; und etwas noch Seltsameres in der schattenhaften Erinnerung, die ich an meine ersten kindlichen Assoziationen mit seinem weißen Grabstein im Friedhof habe und an das undefinierbare Mitleid, das ich dafür empfand, dass er dort allein in der dunklen Nacht lag, während unser kleines Wohnzimmer warm und hell vor Feuer und Kerzenlicht war und die Türen unseres Hauses - manchmal schien es mir fast grausam - gegen ihn verschlossen und verriegelt waren. Eine Tante meines Vaters und folglich eine Urgroßtante von mir, über die ich später noch mehr berichten werde, war die bedeutendste Persönlichkeit unserer Familie. Miss Trotwood, oder Miss Betsey, wie meine arme Mutter sie immer nannte, wenn sie ihre Furcht vor dieser einschüchternden Person auch nur ansatzweise überwand (was selten genug vorkam), war mit einem jüngeren Mann verheiratet, der sehr gut aussehend war - wenn man es im Sinne des bescheidenen Sprichworts "Schön ist, was schön tut" betrachtet -, denn es gab viele Gerüchte, dass er Miss Betsey geschlagen und sogar einmal, bei einer umstrittenen Frage der Versorgung, einige hastige, aber bestimmte Vorkehrungen getroffen hatte, sie aus dem Fenster im zweiten Stock zu werfen. Diese Anzeichen einer Unvereinbarkeit des Charakters veranlassten Miss Betsey, ihn abzufinden und eine Trennung im gegenseitigen Einvernehmen herbeizuführen. Er ging mit seinem Kapital nach Indien und dort wurde, gemäß einer wilden Legende in unserer Familie, berichtet, dass er einmal auf einem Elefanten reitend in Begleitung eines Pavians gesehen wurde; aber ich denke, es muss ein Babu oder eine Begum gewesen sein. Wie auch immer, aus Indien erreichten uns innerhalb von zehn Jahren Nachrichten von seinem Tod. Wie es meiner Tante zusetzte, wusste niemand; denn unmittelbar nach der Trennung nahm sie wieder ihren Mädchennamen an, kaufte sich ein Häuschen in einem Weiler an der Küste, weit weg, und richtete sich dort als alleinstehende Frau mit einer Dienstmagd ein und lebte fortan in unerbittlicher Zurückgezogenheit. Mein Vater war meines Wissens einmal ihr Liebling gewesen; aber sie war tödlich beleidigt durch seine Heirat, mit der Begründung, dass meine Mutter 'eine Wachspuppe' sei. Sie hatte meine Mutter nie gesehen, aber sie wusste, dass sie noch keine zwanzig war. Mein Vater und Miss Betsey trafen sich nie wieder. Als er heiratete, war er doppelt so alt wie meine Mutter und von zarter Konstitution. Ein Jahr später starb er, wie bereits erwähnt, sechs Monate bevor ich auf die Welt kam. So war die Situation am Nachmittag dieses ereignisreichen und wichtigen Freitags. Daher kann ich zu diesem Zeitpunkt nicht behaupten, gewusst zu haben, wie die Dinge standen, oder eine Erinnerung, die auf die Beweise meiner eigenen Sinne zurückgeht, von dem zu haben, was folgt. Meine Mutter saß am Kamin, aber sie war schlecht gelaunt und sehr niedergeschlagen, sie betrachtete ihn durch ihre Tränen und sorgte sich schwer um sich selbst und den vaterlosen kleinen Fremden, der bereits von einigen Vorahnungsnadeln im Schrank im Obergeschoss in eine Welt willkommen geheißen wurde, die überhaupt nicht aufgeregt über seine Ankunft war; meine Mutter also, wie gesagt, saß Meine Mutter antwortete, dass sie dieses Vergnügen hatte. Und sie hatte ein unangenehmes Bewusstsein, nicht zu implizieren, dass es ein überwältigendes Vergnügen gewesen war. "Nun siehst du sie", sagte Miss Betsey. Meine Mutter senkte den Kopf und bat sie hereinzukommen. Sie gingen in das Wohnzimmer, aus dem meine Mutter gekommen war, das Feuer im besten Raum auf der anderen Seite des Flurs war nicht angezündet - tatsächlich nicht angezündet worden, seit der Beerdigung meines Vaters; und als sie beide saßen und Miss Betsey nichts sagte, begann meine Mutter, nach vergeblichen Versuchen, sich zurückzuhalten, zu weinen. "Oh, tu, tu, tu!", sagte Miss Betsey eilig. "Tu das nicht! Komm, komm!" Meine Mutter konnte trotzdem nicht anders und weinte, bis sie ihren Kummer herausgelassen hatte. "Nimm deine Kappe ab, Kind", sagte Miss Betsey, "und lass mich dich sehen." Meine Mutter hatte zu viel Angst vor ihr, um diesem seltsamen Wunsch nicht nachzukommen, wenn sie dazu geneigt gewesen wäre. Deshalb tat sie, wie ihr gesagt wurde, und tat es mit so nervösen Händen, dass ihr Haar (das üppig und schön war) ihr ins Gesicht fiel. "Nun, das ist ja zum Teufel!", rief Miss Betsey aus. "Du bist ja ein richtiges Baby!" Meine Mutter hatte zweifellos ein ungewöhnlich jugendliches Aussehen, selbst für ihr Alter; sie senkte den Kopf, als wäre es ihre Schuld, arme Sache, und sagte schluchzend, dass sie in der Tat fürchtete, sie sei nur eine kindische Witwe und würde auch nur eine kindische Mutter sein, wenn sie lebte. In einer kurzen Pause, die folgte, hatte sie den Gedanken, dass sie fühlte, wie Miss Betsey ihr Haar berührte, und das mit keineswegs unbeholfener Hand; aber als sie sie in ihrer ängstlichen Hoffnung anschaute, sah sie, wie die Dame mit dem Saum ihres Kleides hochgesteckt, ihren Händen auf einem Knie gefaltet und ihren Füßen am Kamin sitzend, finster auf das Feuer blickte. "Um Himmels willen", sagte Miss Betsey plötzlich, "warum Rookery?" "Meinst du das Haus, Madame?" fragte meine Mutter. "Warum Rookery?", sagte Miss Betsey. "Kocherei wäre angebrachter gewesen, wenn ihr irgendwelche praktischen Vorstellungen von Leben gehabt hättet, ihr beiden." "Der Name war die Wahl von Mr. Copperfield", erwiderte meine Mutter. "Als er das Haus kaufte, gefiel es ihm, zu denken, dass sich dort Raben aufhalten." Der Abendwind hatte gerade eben solchen Aufruhr verursacht, unter einigen hohen alten Ulmen am Ende des Gartens, dass sowohl meine Mutter als auch Miss Betsey den Blick dorthin werfen mussten. Als die Ulmen einander neigten, wie Riesen, die Geheimnisse flüsterten, und nach ein paar Sekunden solcher Ruhe in heftige Aufregung gerieten und ihre wilden Arme warfen, als wären ihre letzten Vertraulichkeiten wirklich zu böse für ihr Seelenheil, baumelten einige verwitterte, zerlumpte Altrabennester, die ihre obersten Zweige belasteten, wie Wracks auf einem stürmischen Meer. "Wo sind die Vögel?", fragte Miss Betsey. "Die...?" Meine Mutter dachte gerade an etwas anderes. "Die Raben - was ist aus ihnen geworden?", fragte Miss Betsey. "Es gab hier seitdem wir hier wohnen keine mehr", sagte meine Mutter. "Wir dachten - Mr. Copperfield dachte - es sei ein ziemlich großer Rabenwald; aber die Nester waren sehr alt, und die Vögel haben sie seit langer Zeit verlassen." "David Copperfield in Reinkultur!", rief Miss Betsey aus. "David Copperfield vom Scheitel bis zur Sohle! Bezeichnet ein Haus als Rabenwald, obwohl kein Rabe da ist, und vertraut den Vögeln, nur weil er die Nester sieht!" "Mr. Copperfield", erwiderte meine Mutter, "ist tot, und wenn du es wagst, schlecht von ihm zu mir zu sprechen..." Meine arme liebe Mutter hatte, vermute ich, einen flüchtigen Moment die Absicht, einen körperlichen Angriff auf meine Tante zu verüben, die sie leicht mit einer Hand hätte erledigen können, selbst wenn meine Mutter für eine solche Begegnung besser trainiert gewesen wäre als an diesem Abend. Aber das verflog mit der Bewegung des Aufstehens von ihrem Stuhl; und sie setzte sich wieder sehr demütig hin und wurde ohnmächtig. Als sie zu sich kam, oder als Miss Betsey sie wiederhergestellt hatte, wer auch immer es war, fand sie Letztere am Fenster stehen. Die Dämmerung war inzwischen zu Dunkelheit geworden; und nur schwach, wie sie einander sahen, konnten sie das nicht ohne Hilfe des Feuers tun. "Nun?", sagte Miss Betsey und kehrte auf ihren Stuhl zurück, als hätte sie nur einen flüchtigen Blick auf die Aussicht geworfen; "und wann erwartest du...?" "Ich bin ganz aufgeregt", stotterte meine Mutter. "Ich weiß nicht, was los ist. Ich werde sterben, da bin ich mir sicher!" "Nein, nein, nein", sagte Miss Betsey. "Trink erstmal Tee." "Oh mein Gott, oh mein Gott, glauben Sie, es wird mir gut tun?", rief meine Mutter hilflos. "Natürlich wird es das", sagte Miss Betsey. "Es ist nur Einbildung. Wie nennst du dein Mädchen?" "Ich weiß nicht, ob es ein Mädchen sein wird, noch nicht, Madame", sagte meine Mutter unschuldig. "Selig das Baby!" rief Miss Betsey aus und zitierte unbewusst das zweite Sentiment des Nadelkissens in der Schublade oben, aber sie bezog es auf meine Mutter anstatt auf mich. "Das meine ich nicht. Ich meine dein Dienstmädchen." "Peggotty," sagte meine Mutter. "Peggotty!" wiederholte Miss Betsey empört. "Willst du sagen, Kind, dass sich irgendein Mensch in eine christliche Kirche begeben hat und sich Peggotty hat nennen lassen?" "Es ist ihr Nachname", sagte meine Mutter schwach. "Mr. Copperfield hat sie so genannt, weil ihr Vorname derselbe war wie meiner." "Hier! Peggotty!", rief Miss Betsey und öffnete die Tür zum Wohnzimmer. "Tee. Deine Herrin ist ein wenig unwohl. Beeile dich." Nachdem sie dieses Befehl mit so viel Autorität erlassen hatte, als wäre sie seit Langem eine anerkannte Autorität im Haus, seitdem es ein Haus war, und nachdem sie sich umgeschaut hatte, um der erstaunten Peggotty zu begegnen, die bei dem Klang einer fremden Stimme den Flur entlang mit einer Kerze kam, schloss Miss Betsey wieder die Tür und setzte sich wie zuvor hin: mit den Füßen am Kamin, den Rock ihres Kleides hochgesteckt und die Hände auf einem Knie gefaltet. "Du hast von einem Mädchen gesprochen", sagte Miss Betsey. "Ich bin mir sicher, es wird ein Mädchen. Ich habe das Gefühl, es muss ein Mädchen werden. Nun, Kind, von dem Moment an, da dieses Mädchen geboren wird -" "Vielleicht ein Junge", wagte meine Mutter einzuwenden. "Ich sage dir, ich habe das Gefühl, es muss ein Mädchen sein", erwiderte Miss Betsey. "Widersprich nicht. Von dem Moment an, da dieses Mädchen geboren wird, Kind, möchte ich ihr Freundin sein. Ich möchte ihre Patentante sein, und ich bitte dich, sie Betsey Trotwood Copperfield zu nennen. Es dürfen keine Fehler im Leben von DIESE Betsey Trotwood sein. Man darf IHRE Gefühle nicht auf die leichte Schulter nehmen, du arme Liebste. Sie muss guterzogen sein und davor bewahrt werden, leichtsinniges Vertrauen dort zu setzen, wo es nicht "Ha! Armes Baby!" grübelte Miss Betsey, mit ihrer Stirn immer noch zum Feuer gerichtet. "Weißt du etwas?" "Ich bitte um Verzeihung, gnädige Frau", stotterte meine Mutter. "Zum Beispiel etwas über das Hausführen?" sagte Miss Betsey. "Nicht viel, fürchte ich", antwortete meine Mutter. "Nicht so viel, wie ich mir wünschen würde. Aber Mr. Copperfield hat mich unterrichtet-" ("Viel wusste er davon selbst nicht!") sagte Miss Betsey in einer Klammer-Sekunde. -"Und ich hoffte, mich verbessert zu haben, weil ich sehr daran interessiert war zu lernen und er sehr geduldig, um mich zu unterrichten, wenn das große Unglück seines Todes" - meine Mutter brach hier wieder zusammen und konnte nicht weiter. "Nun, nun!" sagte Miss Betsey - "Ich habe mein Haushaltsbuch regelmäßig geführt und jeden Abend mit Mr. Copperfield abgeglichen", rief meine Mutter in einem anderen Moment der Verzweiflung aus und brach erneut zusammen. "Nun, nun!" sagte Miss Betsey. "Weinen Sie nicht mehr." - "Und ich bin sicher, dass wir nie ein Wort darüber gestritten haben, außer wenn Mr. Copperfield Einwände gegen meine Dreien und Fünfen hatte, die zu sehr wie einander aussahen, oder gegen meine lockeren Schwänze an den Siebenen und Neunen", fuhr meine Mutter in einem weiteren Moment fort und brach erneut zusammen. "Du machst dich krank", sagte Miss Betsey, "und du weißt, dass es weder für dich noch für meine Patentochter gut ist. Komm! Du darfst es nicht tun!" Dieses Argument trug dazu bei, meine Mutter zu beruhigen, obwohl ihre zunehmende Unwohlsein eine größere Rolle spielte. Es gab eine Zeit der Stille, die nur von Miss Betseys gelegentlichen Ausrufen von "Ha!" unterbrochen wurde, während sie mit den Füßen auf dem Kamingitter saß. "David hatte sich mit seinem Geld eine Rente gekauft, das weiß ich", sagte sie. "Was hat er für dich getan?" "Herr Copperfield", antwortete meine Mutter mit einiger Schwierigkeit, "war so rücksichtsvoll und gut, den Rückfall eines Teils davon für mich abzusichern." "Wie viel?" fragte Miss Betsey. "Hundertundfünf Pfund im Jahr", sagte meine Mutter. "Er hätte es schlechter machen können", sagte meine Tante. Das Wort passte zur Situation. Meine Mutter ging es so viel schlechter, dass Peggotty, als sie mit dem Teetablett und den Kerzen herein kam und auf den ersten Blick sah, wie krank sie war - wie Miss Betsey es schon früher gesehen hätte, wenn genug Licht da gewesen wäre - sie mit aller Eile nach oben in ihr eigenes Zimmer brachte und sofort Ham Peggotty, ihren Neffen, der seit einigen Tagen im Haus versteckt war, ohne dass meine Mutter davon wusste, als speziellen Boten im Notfall losgeschickt hat, um die Krankenschwester und den Arzt zu holen. Diese verbündeten Kräfte waren ziemlich erstaunt, als sie innerhalb von wenigen Minuten nacheinander ankamen und eine unbekannte Dame von furchterregendem Aussehen vorfanden, die mit dem Hut über dem linken Arm vor dem Feuer saß und ihre Ohren mit Juwelierswatte verstopfte. Da Peggotty nichts von ihr wusste und meine Mutter nichts von ihr sagte, war sie ein Rätsel im Wohnzimmer; und die Tatsache, dass sie einen Vorrat an Juwelierswatte in ihrer Tasche hatte und den Artikel auf diese Weise in ihre Ohren steckte, beeinträchtigte nicht die Feierlichkeit ihrer Anwesenheit. Nachdem der Arzt oben gewesen war und wieder herunterkam und sich wohl überzeugt hatte, dass eine Wahrscheinlichkeit bestand, dass diese unbekannte Dame und er selbst für einige Stunden von Angesicht zu Angesicht sitzen mussten, bemühte er sich, höflich und gesprächig zu sein. Er war der sanftmütigste seiner Geschlechtsgenossen, der mildeste der kleinen Männer. Er schlich in und aus einem Raum, um möglichst wenig Platz einzunehmen. Er ging so leise wie das Gespenst in Hamlet und langsamer. Er hielt seinen Kopf schief, teilweise in bescheidener Geringschätzung für sich selbst, teilweise in bescheidener Anpassung an alle anderen. Es ist nichts zu sagen, dass er kein Wort auf einen Hund werfen konnte. Er hätte einem tollwütigen Hund ein Wort (sanft) oder ein halbes Wort oder ein Bruchstück eines Wortes anbieten können; denn er sprach so langsam wie er ging; aber er wäre nicht unhöflich zu ihm gewesen, und er hätte für keine materielle Erwägung schnell mit ihm sein können. Mr. Chillip, der milde Mr. Chillip, der eigentlich mal Dr. Chillip war und der Medizin studiert hat, konnte in einer solchen Zeit unmöglich Groll empfinden. Er schlich sofort ins Wohnzimmer, sobald er frei war, und sagte zu meiner Tante in seinem sanftmütigsten Ton: "Nun, ma'am, ich freue mich, Ihnen zu gratulieren." "Worüber denn?" sagte meine Tante scharf. Mr. Chillip war wieder beunruhigt durch die äußerste Strenge von meiner Tantes Verhalten; also machte er ihr einen kleinen Knicks und gab ihr ein kleines Lächeln, um sie zu besänftigen. "Mein Gott, was treibt er da!" rief meine Tante ungeduldig. "Kann er nicht sprechen?" "Beruhigen Sie sich, meine liebe gnädige Frau", sagte Herr Chillip mit sanfter Stimme. "Es besteht keine Notwendigkeit mehr zur Besorgnis, gnädige Frau. Seien Sie ruhig." Es wurde später fast als Wunder betrachtet, dass meine Tante ihn zu dieser Zeit nicht geschüttelt hat und dass sie nicht alles aus ihm herausgeschüttelt hat, was er zu sagen hatte. Sie schüttelte nur den Kopf über ihn, aber auf eine Art und Weise, dass er erbebte. "Nun, Ma'am", fuhr Mr. Chillip fort, sobald er den Mut gefasst hatte, "ich freue mich, Ihnen zu gratulieren. Alles ist jetzt vorüber, Ma'am und gut vorbei." Während der fünf Minuten oder so, die Mr. Chillip dafür aufwendete, diese Rede zu halten, wird er von meiner Tante genau beobachtet. "Wie geht es ihr?" sagte meine Tante und verschränkte die Arme, wobei sie ihren Hut noch auf einem von ihnen trug. "Nun, meine Dame, sie wird bald ziemlich bequem sein, hoffe ich", erwiderte Herr Chillip. "Genauso bequem, wie man es von einer jungen Mutter unter diesen traurigen häuslichen Umständen erwarten kann. Es besteht kein Einwand, dass Sie sie bald besuchen können, meine Dame. Es könnte ihr guttun." "Und SIE. Wie geht es IHR?" sagte meine Tante schroff. Herr Chillip legte seinen Kopf ein wenig schief und sah meine Tante wie ein liebenswürdiger Vogel an. "Das Baby", sagte meine Tante. "Wie geht es ihr?" "Meine Dame", erwiderte Herr Chillip, "ich dachte, Sie wüssten es bereits. Es ist ein Junge." Meine Tante sagte kein Wort, nahm jedoch ihren Hut an den Bändern wie eine Schleuder, zielte damit einen Schlag auf Herrn Chillips Kopf, setzte ihn gebückt auf, ging hinaus und kam nie wieder zurück. Sie verschwand wie eine unzufriedene Fee oder wie eine jener übernatürlichen Wesen, von denen allgemein angenommen wurde, dass ich berechtigt war, sie zu sehen, und sie kam nie wieder zurück. Nein. Ich lag in meinem Korb und meine Mutter lag in ihrem Bett, aber Betsey Trotwood Copperfield war für immer im Land der Träume und Schatten, der gewaltigen Region, aus der ich erst kürzlich gereist war, und das Licht auf dem Fenster unseres Zimmers schien auf die irdische Schwelle aller solchen Reisenden und auf den Hügel über den Aschen und dem Staub, der einst er war, ohne den ich nie gewesen wäre. Kannst du eine passende 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.

Ich werde geboren Ein älterer David Copperfield erzählt die Geschichte seines Lebens. Er beginnt damit zu sagen, dass nur das folgende Schreiben zeigen kann, wer der Held seiner Geschichte ist. Er erzählt von seiner einfachen Geburt, die um Mitternacht an einem Freitag stattfand. Eine alte Frau aus der Nachbarschaft hat ihm gesagt, dass die Zeit seiner Geburt darauf hinweist, dass er unglücklich sein und Geister und Erscheinungen sehen können wird. Davids Vater ist bereits tot, als David geboren wird. Am Tag von Davids Geburt taucht Davids Tante, Miss Betsey Trotwood, auf und spricht mit Davids Mutter, Clara. Miss Betsey teilt Clara mit, dass sie das Sorgerecht für das Mädchen übernehmen möchte, das Clara bald gebären wird. Miss Betsey möchte das Mädchen so erziehen, dass Männer sie niemals ausnutzen, so wie Miss Betsey in ihrem eigenen Leben ausgenutzt wurde. Als David geboren wird und Mr. Chillip, der Arzt, Miss Betsey mitteilt, dass Clara einen Jungen bekommen hat, stürmt Miss Betsey aus dem Haus und kehrt nie 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: How is the consternation of the party to be described? To the greater number it was a moment of absolute horror. Sir Thomas in the house! All felt the instantaneous conviction. Not a hope of imposition or mistake was harboured anywhere. Julia's looks were an evidence of the fact that made it indisputable; and after the first starts and exclamations, not a word was spoken for half a minute: each with an altered countenance was looking at some other, and almost each was feeling it a stroke the most unwelcome, most ill-timed, most appalling! Mr. Yates might consider it only as a vexatious interruption for the evening, and Mr. Rushworth might imagine it a blessing; but every other heart was sinking under some degree of self-condemnation or undefined alarm, every other heart was suggesting, "What will become of us? what is to be done now?" It was a terrible pause; and terrible to every ear were the corroborating sounds of opening doors and passing footsteps. Julia was the first to move and speak again. Jealousy and bitterness had been suspended: selfishness was lost in the common cause; but at the moment of her appearance, Frederick was listening with looks of devotion to Agatha's narrative, and pressing her hand to his heart; and as soon as she could notice this, and see that, in spite of the shock of her words, he still kept his station and retained her sister's hand, her wounded heart swelled again with injury, and looking as red as she had been white before, she turned out of the room, saying, "_I_ need not be afraid of appearing before him." Her going roused the rest; and at the same moment the two brothers stepped forward, feeling the necessity of doing something. A very few words between them were sufficient. The case admitted no difference of opinion: they must go to the drawing-room directly. Maria joined them with the same intent, just then the stoutest of the three; for the very circumstance which had driven Julia away was to her the sweetest support. Henry Crawford's retaining her hand at such a moment, a moment of such peculiar proof and importance, was worth ages of doubt and anxiety. She hailed it as an earnest of the most serious determination, and was equal even to encounter her father. They walked off, utterly heedless of Mr. Rushworth's repeated question of, "Shall I go too? Had not I better go too? Will not it be right for me to go too?" but they were no sooner through the door than Henry Crawford undertook to answer the anxious inquiry, and, encouraging him by all means to pay his respects to Sir Thomas without delay, sent him after the others with delighted haste. Fanny was left with only the Crawfords and Mr. Yates. She had been quite overlooked by her cousins; and as her own opinion of her claims on Sir Thomas's affection was much too humble to give her any idea of classing herself with his children, she was glad to remain behind and gain a little breathing-time. Her agitation and alarm exceeded all that was endured by the rest, by the right of a disposition which not even innocence could keep from suffering. She was nearly fainting: all her former habitual dread of her uncle was returning, and with it compassion for him and for almost every one of the party on the development before him, with solicitude on Edmund's account indescribable. She had found a seat, where in excessive trembling she was enduring all these fearful thoughts, while the other three, no longer under any restraint, were giving vent to their feelings of vexation, lamenting over such an unlooked-for premature arrival as a most untoward event, and without mercy wishing poor Sir Thomas had been twice as long on his passage, or were still in Antigua. The Crawfords were more warm on the subject than Mr. Yates, from better understanding the family, and judging more clearly of the mischief that must ensue. The ruin of the play was to them a certainty: they felt the total destruction of the scheme to be inevitably at hand; while Mr. Yates considered it only as a temporary interruption, a disaster for the evening, and could even suggest the possibility of the rehearsal being renewed after tea, when the bustle of receiving Sir Thomas were over, and he might be at leisure to be amused by it. The Crawfords laughed at the idea; and having soon agreed on the propriety of their walking quietly home and leaving the family to themselves, proposed Mr. Yates's accompanying them and spending the evening at the Parsonage. But Mr. Yates, having never been with those who thought much of parental claims, or family confidence, could not perceive that anything of the kind was necessary; and therefore, thanking them, said, "he preferred remaining where he was, that he might pay his respects to the old gentleman handsomely since he _was_ come; and besides, he did not think it would be fair by the others to have everybody run away." Fanny was just beginning to collect herself, and to feel that if she staid longer behind it might seem disrespectful, when this point was settled, and being commissioned with the brother and sister's apology, saw them preparing to go as she quitted the room herself to perform the dreadful duty of appearing before her uncle. Too soon did she find herself at the drawing-room door; and after pausing a moment for what she knew would not come, for a courage which the outside of no door had ever supplied to her, she turned the lock in desperation, and the lights of the drawing-room, and all the collected family, were before her. As she entered, her own name caught her ear. Sir Thomas was at that moment looking round him, and saying, "But where is Fanny? Why do not I see my little Fanny?"--and on perceiving her, came forward with a kindness which astonished and penetrated her, calling her his dear Fanny, kissing her affectionately, and observing with decided pleasure how much she was grown! Fanny knew not how to feel, nor where to look. She was quite oppressed. He had never been so kind, so _very_ kind to her in his life. His manner seemed changed, his voice was quick from the agitation of joy; and all that had been awful in his dignity seemed lost in tenderness. He led her nearer the light and looked at her again--inquired particularly after her health, and then, correcting himself, observed that he need not inquire, for her appearance spoke sufficiently on that point. A fine blush having succeeded the previous paleness of her face, he was justified in his belief of her equal improvement in health and beauty. He inquired next after her family, especially William: and his kindness altogether was such as made her reproach herself for loving him so little, and thinking his return a misfortune; and when, on having courage to lift her eyes to his face, she saw that he was grown thinner, and had the burnt, fagged, worn look of fatigue and a hot climate, every tender feeling was increased, and she was miserable in considering how much unsuspected vexation was probably ready to burst on him. Sir Thomas was indeed the life of the party, who at his suggestion now seated themselves round the fire. He had the best right to be the talker; and the delight of his sensations in being again in his own house, in the centre of his family, after such a separation, made him communicative and chatty in a very unusual degree; and he was ready to give every information as to his voyage, and answer every question of his two sons almost before it was put. His business in Antigua had latterly been prosperously rapid, and he came directly from Liverpool, having had an opportunity of making his passage thither in a private vessel, instead of waiting for the packet; and all the little particulars of his proceedings and events, his arrivals and departures, were most promptly delivered, as he sat by Lady Bertram and looked with heartfelt satisfaction on the faces around him--interrupting himself more than once, however, to remark on his good fortune in finding them all at home--coming unexpectedly as he did--all collected together exactly as he could have wished, but dared not depend on. Mr. Rushworth was not forgotten: a most friendly reception and warmth of hand-shaking had already met him, and with pointed attention he was now included in the objects most intimately connected with Mansfield. There was nothing disagreeable in Mr. Rushworth's appearance, and Sir Thomas was liking him already. By not one of the circle was he listened to with such unbroken, unalloyed enjoyment as by his wife, who was really extremely happy to see him, and whose feelings were so warmed by his sudden arrival as to place her nearer agitation than she had been for the last twenty years. She had been _almost_ fluttered for a few minutes, and still remained so sensibly animated as to put away her work, move Pug from her side, and give all her attention and all the rest of her sofa to her husband. She had no anxieties for anybody to cloud _her_ pleasure: her own time had been irreproachably spent during his absence: she had done a great deal of carpet-work, and made many yards of fringe; and she would have answered as freely for the good conduct and useful pursuits of all the young people as for her own. It was so agreeable to her to see him again, and hear him talk, to have her ear amused and her whole comprehension filled by his narratives, that she began particularly to feel how dreadfully she must have missed him, and how impossible it would have been for her to bear a lengthened absence. Mrs. Norris was by no means to be compared in happiness to her sister. Not that _she_ was incommoded by many fears of Sir Thomas's disapprobation when the present state of his house should be known, for her judgment had been so blinded that, except by the instinctive caution with which she had whisked away Mr. Rushworth's pink satin cloak as her brother-in-law entered, she could hardly be said to shew any sign of alarm; but she was vexed by the _manner_ of his return. It had left her nothing to do. Instead of being sent for out of the room, and seeing him first, and having to spread the happy news through the house, Sir Thomas, with a very reasonable dependence, perhaps, on the nerves of his wife and children, had sought no confidant but the butler, and had been following him almost instantaneously into the drawing-room. Mrs. Norris felt herself defrauded of an office on which she had always depended, whether his arrival or his death were to be the thing unfolded; and was now trying to be in a bustle without having anything to bustle about, and labouring to be important where nothing was wanted but tranquillity and silence. Would Sir Thomas have consented to eat, she might have gone to the housekeeper with troublesome directions, and insulted the footmen with injunctions of despatch; but Sir Thomas resolutely declined all dinner: he would take nothing, nothing till tea came--he would rather wait for tea. Still Mrs. Norris was at intervals urging something different; and in the most interesting moment of his passage to England, when the alarm of a French privateer was at the height, she burst through his recital with the proposal of soup. "Sure, my dear Sir Thomas, a basin of soup would be a much better thing for you than tea. Do have a basin of soup." Sir Thomas could not be provoked. "Still the same anxiety for everybody's comfort, my dear Mrs. Norris," was his answer. "But indeed I would rather have nothing but tea." "Well, then, Lady Bertram, suppose you speak for tea directly; suppose you hurry Baddeley a little; he seems behindhand to-night." She carried this point, and Sir Thomas's narrative proceeded. At length there was a pause. His immediate communications were exhausted, and it seemed enough to be looking joyfully around him, now at one, now at another of the beloved circle; but the pause was not long: in the elation of her spirits Lady Bertram became talkative, and what were the sensations of her children upon hearing her say, "How do you think the young people have been amusing themselves lately, Sir Thomas? They have been acting. We have been all alive with acting." "Indeed! and what have you been acting?" "Oh! they'll tell you all about it." "The _all_ will soon be told," cried Tom hastily, and with affected unconcern; "but it is not worth while to bore my father with it now. You will hear enough of it to-morrow, sir. We have just been trying, by way of doing something, and amusing my mother, just within the last week, to get up a few scenes, a mere trifle. We have had such incessant rains almost since October began, that we have been nearly confined to the house for days together. I have hardly taken out a gun since the 3rd. Tolerable sport the first three days, but there has been no attempting anything since. The first day I went over Mansfield Wood, and Edmund took the copses beyond Easton, and we brought home six brace between us, and might each have killed six times as many, but we respect your pheasants, sir, I assure you, as much as you could desire. I do not think you will find your woods by any means worse stocked than they were. _I_ never saw Mansfield Wood so full of pheasants in my life as this year. I hope you will take a day's sport there yourself, sir, soon." For the present the danger was over, and Fanny's sick feelings subsided; but when tea was soon afterwards brought in, and Sir Thomas, getting up, said that he found that he could not be any longer in the house without just looking into his own dear room, every agitation was returning. He was gone before anything had been said to prepare him for the change he must find there; and a pause of alarm followed his disappearance. Edmund was the first to speak-- "Something must be done," said he. "It is time to think of our visitors," said Maria, still feeling her hand pressed to Henry Crawford's heart, and caring little for anything else. "Where did you leave Miss Crawford, Fanny?" Fanny told of their departure, and delivered their message. "Then poor Yates is all alone," cried Tom. "I will go and fetch him. He will be no bad assistant when it all comes out." To the theatre he went, and reached it just in time to witness the first meeting of his father and his friend. Sir Thomas had been a good deal surprised to find candles burning in his room; and on casting his eye round it, to see other symptoms of recent habitation and a general air of confusion in the furniture. The removal of the bookcase from before the billiard-room door struck him especially, but he had scarcely more than time to feel astonished at all this, before there were sounds from the billiard-room to astonish him still farther. Some one was talking there in a very loud accent; he did not know the voice--more than talking--almost hallooing. He stepped to the door, rejoicing at that moment in having the means of immediate communication, and, opening it, found himself on the stage of a theatre, and opposed to a ranting young man, who appeared likely to knock him down backwards. At the very moment of Yates perceiving Sir Thomas, and giving perhaps the very best start he had ever given in the whole course of his rehearsals, Tom Bertram entered at the other end of the room; and never had he found greater difficulty in keeping his countenance. His father's looks of solemnity and amazement on this his first appearance on any stage, and the gradual metamorphosis of the impassioned Baron Wildenheim into the well-bred and easy Mr. Yates, making his bow and apology to Sir Thomas Bertram, was such an exhibition, such a piece of true acting, as he would not have lost upon any account. It would be the last--in all probability--the last scene on that stage; but he was sure there could not be a finer. The house would close with the greatest eclat. There was little time, however, for the indulgence of any images of merriment. It was necessary for him to step forward, too, and assist the introduction, and with many awkward sensations he did his best. Sir Thomas received Mr. Yates with all the appearance of cordiality which was due to his own character, but was really as far from pleased with the necessity of the acquaintance as with the manner of its commencement. Mr. Yates's family and connexions were sufficiently known to him to render his introduction as the "particular friend," another of the hundred particular friends of his son, exceedingly unwelcome; and it needed all the felicity of being again at home, and all the forbearance it could supply, to save Sir Thomas from anger on finding himself thus bewildered in his own house, making part of a ridiculous exhibition in the midst of theatrical nonsense, and forced in so untoward a moment to admit the acquaintance of a young man whom he felt sure of disapproving, and whose easy indifference and volubility in the course of the first five minutes seemed to mark him the most at home of the two. Tom understood his father's thoughts, and heartily wishing he might be always as well disposed to give them but partial expression, began to see, more clearly than he had ever done before, that there might be some ground of offence, that there might be some reason for the glance his father gave towards the ceiling and stucco of the room; and that when he inquired with mild gravity after the fate of the billiard-table, he was not proceeding beyond a very allowable curiosity. A few minutes were enough for such unsatisfactory sensations on each side; and Sir Thomas having exerted himself so far as to speak a few words of calm approbation in reply to an eager appeal of Mr. Yates, as to the happiness of the arrangement, the three gentlemen returned to the drawing-room together, Sir Thomas with an increase of gravity which was not lost on all. "I come from your theatre," said he composedly, as he sat down; "I found myself in it rather unexpectedly. Its vicinity to my own room--but in every respect, indeed, it took me by surprise, as I had not the smallest suspicion of your acting having assumed so serious a character. It appears a neat job, however, as far as I could judge by candlelight, and does my friend Christopher Jackson credit." And then he would have changed the subject, and sipped his coffee in peace over domestic matters of a calmer hue; but Mr. Yates, without discernment to catch Sir Thomas's meaning, or diffidence, or delicacy, or discretion enough to allow him to lead the discourse while he mingled among the others with the least obtrusiveness himself, would keep him on the topic of the theatre, would torment him with questions and remarks relative to it, and finally would make him hear the whole history of his disappointment at Ecclesford. Sir Thomas listened most politely, but found much to offend his ideas of decorum, and confirm his ill-opinion of Mr. Yates's habits of thinking, from the beginning to the end of the story; and when it was over, could give him no other assurance of sympathy than what a slight bow conveyed. "This was, in fact, the origin of _our_ acting," said Tom, after a moment's thought. "My friend Yates brought the infection from Ecclesford, and it spread--as those things always spread, you know, sir--the faster, probably, from _your_ having so often encouraged the sort of thing in us formerly. It was like treading old ground again." Mr. Yates took the subject from his friend as soon as possible, and immediately gave Sir Thomas an account of what they had done and were doing: told him of the gradual increase of their views, the happy conclusion of their first difficulties, and present promising state of affairs; relating everything with so blind an interest as made him not only totally unconscious of the uneasy movements of many of his friends as they sat, the change of countenance, the fidget, the hem! of unquietness, but prevented him even from seeing the expression of the face on which his own eyes were fixed--from seeing Sir Thomas's dark brow contract as he looked with inquiring earnestness at his daughters and Edmund, dwelling particularly on the latter, and speaking a language, a remonstrance, a reproof, which _he_ felt at his heart. Not less acutely was it felt by Fanny, who had edged back her chair behind her aunt's end of the sofa, and, screened from notice herself, saw all that was passing before her. Such a look of reproach at Edmund from his father she could never have expected to witness; and to feel that it was in any degree deserved was an aggravation indeed. Sir Thomas's look implied, "On your judgment, Edmund, I depended; what have you been about?" She knelt in spirit to her uncle, and her bosom swelled to utter, "Oh, not to _him_! Look so to all the others, but not to _him_!" Mr. Yates was still talking. "To own the truth, Sir Thomas, we were in the middle of a rehearsal when you arrived this evening. We were going through the three first acts, and not unsuccessfully upon the whole. Our company is now so dispersed, from the Crawfords being gone home, that nothing more can be done to-night; but if you will give us the honour of your company to-morrow evening, I should not be afraid of the result. We bespeak your indulgence, you understand, as young performers; we bespeak your indulgence." "My indulgence shall be given, sir," replied Sir Thomas gravely, "but without any other rehearsal." And with a relenting smile, he added, "I come home to be happy and indulgent." Then turning away towards any or all of the rest, he tranquilly said, "Mr. and Miss Crawford were mentioned in my last letters from Mansfield. Do you find them agreeable acquaintance?" Tom was the only one at all ready with an answer, but he being entirely without particular regard for either, without jealousy either in love or acting, could speak very handsomely of both. "Mr. Crawford was a most pleasant, gentleman-like man; his sister a sweet, pretty, elegant, lively girl." Mr. Rushworth could be silent no longer. "I do not say he is not gentleman-like, considering; but you should tell your father he is not above five feet eight, or he will be expecting a well-looking man." Sir Thomas did not quite understand this, and looked with some surprise at the speaker. "If I must say what I think," continued Mr. Rushworth, "in my opinion it is very disagreeable to be always rehearsing. It is having too much of a good thing. I am not so fond of acting as I was at first. I think we are a great deal better employed, sitting comfortably here among ourselves, and doing nothing." Sir Thomas looked again, and then replied with an approving smile, "I am happy to find our sentiments on this subject so much the same. It gives me sincere satisfaction. That I should be cautious and quick-sighted, and feel many scruples which my children do _not_ feel, is perfectly natural; and equally so that my value for domestic tranquillity, for a home which shuts out noisy pleasures, should much exceed theirs. But at your time of life to feel all this, is a most favourable circumstance for yourself, and for everybody connected with you; and I am sensible of the importance of having an ally of such weight." Sir Thomas meant to be giving Mr. Rushworth's opinion in better words than he could find himself. He was aware that he must not expect a genius in Mr. Rushworth; but as a well-judging, steady young man, with better notions than his elocution would do justice to, he intended to value him very highly. It was impossible for many of the others not to smile. Mr. Rushworth hardly knew what to do with so much meaning; but by looking, as he really felt, most exceedingly pleased with Sir Thomas's good opinion, and saying scarcely anything, he did his best towards preserving that good opinion a little longer. Edmund's first object the next morning was to see his father alone, and give him a fair statement of the whole acting scheme, defending his own share in it as far only as he could then, in a soberer moment, feel his motives to deserve, and acknowledging, with perfect ingenuousness, that his concession had been attended with such partial good as to make his judgment in it very doubtful. He was anxious, while vindicating himself, to say nothing unkind of the others: but there was only one amongst them whose conduct he could mention without some necessity of defence or palliation. "We have all been more or less to blame," said he, "every one of us, excepting Fanny. Fanny is the only one who has judged rightly throughout; who has been consistent. _Her_ feelings have been steadily against it from first to last. She never ceased to think of what was due to you. You will find Fanny everything you could wish." Sir Thomas saw all the impropriety of such a scheme among such a party, and at such a time, as strongly as his son had ever supposed he must; he felt it too much, indeed, for many words; and having shaken hands with Edmund, meant to try to lose the disagreeable impression, and forget how much he had been forgotten himself as soon as he could, after the house had been cleared of every object enforcing the remembrance, and restored to its proper state. He did not enter into any remonstrance with his other children: he was more willing to believe they felt their error than to run the risk of investigation. The reproof of an immediate conclusion of everything, the sweep of every preparation, would be sufficient. There was one person, however, in the house, whom he could not leave to learn his sentiments merely through his conduct. He could not help giving Mrs. Norris a hint of his having hoped that her advice might have been interposed to prevent what her judgment must certainly have disapproved. The young people had been very inconsiderate in forming the plan; they ought to have been capable of a better decision themselves; but they were young; and, excepting Edmund, he believed, of unsteady characters; and with greater surprise, therefore, he must regard her acquiescence in their wrong measures, her countenance of their unsafe amusements, than that such measures and such amusements should have been suggested. Mrs. Norris was a little confounded and as nearly being silenced as ever she had been in her life; for she was ashamed to confess having never seen any of the impropriety which was so glaring to Sir Thomas, and would not have admitted that her influence was insufficient--that she might have talked in vain. Her only resource was to get out of the subject as fast as possible, and turn the current of Sir Thomas's ideas into a happier channel. She had a great deal to insinuate in her own praise as to _general_ attention to the interest and comfort of his family, much exertion and many sacrifices to glance at in the form of hurried walks and sudden removals from her own fireside, and many excellent hints of distrust and economy to Lady Bertram and Edmund to detail, whereby a most considerable saving had always arisen, and more than one bad servant been detected. But her chief strength lay in Sotherton. Her greatest support and glory was in having formed the connexion with the Rushworths. _There_ she was impregnable. She took to herself all the credit of bringing Mr. Rushworth's admiration of Maria to any effect. "If I had not been active," said she, "and made a point of being introduced to his mother, and then prevailed on my sister to pay the first visit, I am as certain as I sit here that nothing would have come of it; for Mr. Rushworth is the sort of amiable modest young man who wants a great deal of encouragement, and there were girls enough on the catch for him if we had been idle. But I left no stone unturned. I was ready to move heaven and earth to persuade my sister, and at last I did persuade her. You know the distance to Sotherton; it was in the middle of winter, and the roads almost impassable, but I did persuade her." "I know how great, how justly great, your influence is with Lady Bertram and her children, and am the more concerned that it should not have been." "My dear Sir Thomas, if you had seen the state of the roads _that_ day! I thought we should never have got through them, though we had the four horses of course; and poor old coachman would attend us, out of his great love and kindness, though he was hardly able to sit the box on account of the rheumatism which I had been doctoring him for ever since Michaelmas. I cured him at last; but he was very bad all the winter--and this was such a day, I could not help going to him up in his room before we set off to advise him not to venture: he was putting on his wig; so I said, 'Coachman, you had much better not go; your Lady and I shall be very safe; you know how steady Stephen is, and Charles has been upon the leaders so often now, that I am sure there is no fear.' But, however, I soon found it would not do; he was bent upon going, and as I hate to be worrying and officious, I said no more; but my heart quite ached for him at every jolt, and when we got into the rough lanes about Stoke, where, what with frost and snow upon beds of stones, it was worse than anything you can imagine, I was quite in an agony about him. And then the poor horses too! To see them straining away! You know how I always feel for the horses. And when we got to the bottom of Sandcroft Hill, what do you think I did? You will laugh at me; but I got out and walked up. I did indeed. It might not be saving them much, but it was something, and I could not bear to sit at my ease and be dragged up at the expense of those noble animals. I caught a dreadful cold, but _that_ I did not regard. My object was accomplished in the visit." "I hope we shall always think the acquaintance worth any trouble that might be taken to establish it. There is nothing very striking in Mr. Rushworth's manners, but I was pleased last night with what appeared to be his opinion on one subject: his decided preference of a quiet family party to the bustle and confusion of acting. He seemed to feel exactly as one could wish." "Yes, indeed, and the more you know of him the better you will like him. He is not a shining character, but he has a thousand good qualities; and is so disposed to look up to you, that I am quite laughed at about it, for everybody considers it as my doing. 'Upon my word, Mrs. Norris,' said Mrs. Grant the other day, 'if Mr. Rushworth were a son of your own, he could not hold Sir Thomas in greater respect.'" Sir Thomas gave up the point, foiled by her evasions, disarmed by her flattery; and was obliged to rest satisfied with the conviction that where the present pleasure of those she loved was at stake, her kindness did sometimes overpower her judgment. It was a busy morning with him. Conversation with any of them occupied but a small part of it. He had to reinstate himself in all the wonted concerns of his Mansfield life: to see his steward and his bailiff; to examine and compute, and, in the intervals of business, to walk into his stables and his gardens, and nearest plantations; but active and methodical, he had not only done all this before he resumed his seat as master of the house at dinner, he had also set the carpenter to work in pulling down what had been so lately put up in the billiard-room, and given the scene-painter his dismissal long enough to justify the pleasing belief of his being then at least as far off as Northampton. The scene-painter was gone, having spoilt only the floor of one room, ruined all the coachman's sponges, and made five of the under-servants idle and dissatisfied; and Sir Thomas was in hopes that another day or two would suffice to wipe away every outward memento of what had been, even to the destruction of every unbound copy of Lovers' Vows in the house, for he was burning all that met his eye. Mr. Yates was beginning now to understand Sir Thomas's intentions, though as far as ever from understanding their source. He and his friend had been out with their guns the chief of the morning, and Tom had taken the opportunity of explaining, with proper apologies for his father's particularity, what was to be expected. Mr. Yates felt it as acutely as might be supposed. To be a second time disappointed in the same way was an instance of very severe ill-luck; and his indignation was such, that had it not been for delicacy towards his friend, and his friend's youngest sister, he believed he should certainly attack the baronet on the absurdity of his proceedings, and argue him into a little more rationality. He believed this very stoutly while he was in Mansfield Wood, and all the way home; but there was a something in Sir Thomas, when they sat round the same table, which made Mr. Yates think it wiser to let him pursue his own way, and feel the folly of it without opposition. He had known many disagreeable fathers before, and often been struck with the inconveniences they occasioned, but never, in the whole course of his life, had he seen one of that class so unintelligibly moral, so infamously tyrannical as Sir Thomas. He was not a man to be endured but for his children's sake, and he might be thankful to his fair daughter Julia that Mr. Yates did yet mean to stay a few days longer under his roof. The evening passed with external smoothness, though almost every mind was ruffled; and the music which Sir Thomas called for from his daughters helped to conceal the want of real harmony. Maria was in a good deal of agitation. It was of the utmost consequence to her that Crawford should now lose no time in declaring himself, and she was disturbed that even a day should be gone by without seeming to advance that point. She had been expecting to see him the whole morning, and all the evening, too, was still expecting him. Mr. Rushworth had set off early with the great news for Sotherton; and she had fondly hoped for such an immediate _eclaircissement_ as might save him the trouble of ever coming back again. But they had seen no one from the Parsonage, not a creature, and had heard no tidings beyond a friendly note of congratulation and inquiry from Mrs. Grant to Lady Bertram. It was the first day for many, many weeks, in which the families had been wholly divided. Four-and-twenty hours had never passed before, since August began, without bringing them together in some way or other. It was a sad, anxious day; and the morrow, though differing in the sort of evil, did by no means bring less. A few moments of feverish enjoyment were followed by hours of acute suffering. Henry Crawford was again in the house: he walked up with Dr. Grant, who was anxious to pay his respects to Sir Thomas, and at rather an early hour they were ushered into the breakfast-room, where were most of the family. Sir Thomas soon appeared, and Maria saw with delight and agitation the introduction of the man she loved to her father. Her sensations were indefinable, and so were they a few minutes afterwards upon hearing Henry Crawford, who had a chair between herself and Tom, ask the latter in an undervoice whether there were any plans for resuming the play after the present happy interruption (with a courteous glance at Sir Thomas), because, in that case, he should make a point of returning to Mansfield at any time required by the party: he was going away immediately, being to meet his uncle at Bath without delay; but if there were any prospect of a renewal of Lovers' Vows, he should hold himself positively engaged, he should break through every other claim, he should absolutely condition with his uncle for attending them whenever he might be wanted. The play should not be lost by _his_ absence. "From Bath, Norfolk, London, York, wherever I may be," said he; "I will attend you from any place in England, at an hour's notice." It was well at that moment that Tom had to speak, and not his sister. He could immediately say with easy fluency, "I am sorry you are going; but as to our play, _that_ is all over--entirely at an end" (looking significantly at his father). "The painter was sent off yesterday, and very little will remain of the theatre to-morrow. I knew how _that_ would be from the first. It is early for Bath. You will find nobody there." "It is about my uncle's usual time." "When do you think of going?" "I may, perhaps, get as far as Banbury to-day." "Whose stables do you use at Bath?" was the next question; and while this branch of the subject was under discussion, Maria, who wanted neither pride nor resolution, was preparing to encounter her share of it with tolerable calmness. To her he soon turned, repeating much of what he had already said, with only a softened air and stronger expressions of regret. But what availed his expressions or his air? He was going, and, if not voluntarily going, voluntarily intending to stay away; for, excepting what might be due to his uncle, his engagements were all self-imposed. He might talk of necessity, but she knew his independence. The hand which had so pressed hers to his heart! the hand and the heart were alike motionless and passive now! Her spirit supported her, but the agony of her mind was severe. She had not long to endure what arose from listening to language which his actions contradicted, or to bury the tumult of her feelings under the restraint of society; for general civilities soon called his notice from her, and the farewell visit, as it then became openly acknowledged, was a very short one. He was gone--he had touched her hand for the last time, he had made his parting bow, and she might seek directly all that solitude could do for her. Henry Crawford was gone, gone from the house, and within two hours afterwards from the parish; and so ended all the hopes his selfish vanity had raised in Maria and Julia Bertram. Julia could rejoice that he was gone. His presence was beginning to be odious to her; and if Maria gained him not, she was now cool enough to dispense with any other revenge. She did not want exposure to be added to desertion. Henry Crawford gone, she could even pity her sister. With a purer spirit did Fanny rejoice in the intelligence. She heard it at dinner, and felt it a blessing. By all the others it was mentioned with regret; and his merits honoured with due gradation of feeling--from the sincerity of Edmund's too partial regard, to the unconcern of his mother speaking entirely by rote. Mrs. Norris began to look about her, and wonder that his falling in love with Julia had come to nothing; and could almost fear that she had been remiss herself in forwarding it; but with so many to care for, how was it possible for even _her_ activity to keep pace with her wishes? Another day or two, and Mr. Yates was gone likewise. In _his_ departure Sir Thomas felt the chief interest: wanting to be alone with his family, the presence of a stranger superior to Mr. Yates must have been irksome; but of him, trifling and confident, idle and expensive, it was every way vexatious. In himself he was wearisome, but as the friend of Tom and the admirer of Julia he became offensive. Sir Thomas had been quite indifferent to Mr. Crawford's going or staying: but his good wishes for Mr. Yates's having a pleasant journey, as he walked with him to the hall-door, were given with genuine satisfaction. Mr. Yates had staid to see the destruction of every theatrical preparation at Mansfield, the removal of everything appertaining to the play: he left the house in all the soberness of its general character; and Sir Thomas hoped, in seeing him out of it, to be rid of the worst object connected with the scheme, and the last that must be inevitably reminding him of its existence. Mrs. Norris contrived to remove one article from his sight that might have distressed him. The curtain, over which she had presided with such talent and such success, went off with her to her cottage, where she happened to be particularly in want of green baize. 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! Fanny's consequence increased on the departure of her cousins. Becoming, as she then did, the only young woman in the drawing-room, the only occupier of that interesting division of a family in which she had hitherto held so humble a third, it was impossible for her not to be more looked at, more thought of and attended to, than she had ever been before; and "Where is Fanny?" became no uncommon question, even without her being wanted for any one's convenience. Not only at home did her value increase, but at the Parsonage too. In that house, which she had hardly entered twice a year since Mr. Norris's death, she became a welcome, an invited guest, and in the gloom and dirt of a November day, most acceptable to Mary Crawford. Her visits there, beginning by chance, were continued by solicitation. Mrs. Grant, really eager to get any change for her sister, could, by the easiest self-deceit, persuade herself that she was doing the kindest thing by Fanny, and giving her the most important opportunities of improvement in pressing her frequent calls. Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her aunt Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the Parsonage; and being descried from one of the windows endeavouring to find shelter under the branches and lingering leaves of an oak just beyond their premises, was forced, though not without some modest reluctance on her part, to come in. A civil servant she had withstood; but when Dr. Grant himself went out with an umbrella, there was nothing to be done but to be very much ashamed, and to get into the house as fast as possible; and to poor Miss Crawford, who had just been contemplating the dismal rain in a very desponding state of mind, sighing over the ruin of all her plan of exercise for that morning, and of every chance of seeing a single creature beyond themselves for the next twenty-four hours, the sound of a little bustle at the front door, and the sight of Miss Price dripping with wet in the vestibule, was delightful. The value of an event on a wet day in the country was most forcibly brought before her. She was all alive again directly, and among the most active in being useful to Fanny, in detecting her to be wetter than she would at first allow, and providing her with dry clothes; and Fanny, after being obliged to submit to all this attention, and to being assisted and waited on by mistresses and maids, being also obliged, on returning downstairs, to be fixed in their drawing-room for an hour while the rain continued, the blessing of something fresh to see and think of was thus extended to Miss Crawford, and might carry on her spirits to the period of dressing and dinner. The two sisters were so kind to her, and so pleasant, that Fanny might have enjoyed her visit could she have believed herself not in the way, and could she have foreseen that the weather would certainly clear at the end of the hour, and save her from the shame of having Dr. Grant's carriage and horses out to take her home, with which she was threatened. As to anxiety for any alarm that her absence in such weather might occasion at home, she had nothing to suffer on that score; for as her being out was known only to her two aunts, she was perfectly aware that none would be felt, and that in whatever cottage aunt Norris might chuse to establish her during the rain, her being in such cottage would be indubitable to aunt Bertram. It was beginning to look brighter, when Fanny, observing a harp in the room, asked some questions about it, which soon led to an acknowledgment of her wishing very much to hear it, and a confession, which could hardly be believed, of her having never yet heard it since its being in Mansfield. To Fanny herself it appeared a very simple and natural circumstance. She had scarcely ever been at the Parsonage since the instrument's arrival, there had been no reason that she should; but Miss Crawford, calling to mind an early expressed wish on the subject, was concerned at her own neglect; and "Shall I play to you now?" and "What will you have?" were questions immediately following with the readiest good-humour. She played accordingly; happy to have a new listener, and a listener who seemed so much obliged, so full of wonder at the performance, and who shewed herself not wanting in taste. She played till Fanny's eyes, straying to the window on the weather's being evidently fair, spoke what she felt must be done. "Another quarter of an hour," said Miss Crawford, "and we shall see how it will be. Do not run away the first moment of its holding up. Those clouds look alarming." "But they are passed over," said Fanny. "I have been watching them. This weather is all from the south." "South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it; and you must not set forward while it is so threatening. And besides, I want to play something more to you--a very pretty piece--and your cousin Edmund's prime favourite. You must stay and hear your cousin's favourite." Fanny felt that she must; and though she had not waited for that sentence to be thinking of Edmund, such a memento made her particularly awake to his idea, and she fancied him sitting in that room again and again, perhaps in the very spot where she sat now, listening with constant delight to the favourite air, played, as it appeared to her, with superior tone and expression; and though pleased with it herself, and glad to like whatever was liked by him, she was more sincerely impatient to go away at the conclusion of it than she had been before; and on this being evident, she was so kindly asked to call again, to take them in her walk whenever she could, to come and hear more of the harp, that she felt it necessary to be done, if no objection arose at home. Such was the origin of the sort of intimacy which took place between them within the first fortnight after the Miss Bertrams' going away--an intimacy resulting principally from Miss Crawford's desire of something new, and which had little reality in Fanny's feelings. Fanny went to her every two or three days: it seemed a kind of fascination: she could not be easy without going, and yet it was without loving her, without ever thinking like her, without any sense of obligation for being sought after now when nobody else was to be had; and deriving no higher pleasure from her conversation than occasional amusement, and _that_ often at the expense of her judgment, when it was raised by pleasantry on people or subjects which she wished to be respected. She went, however, and they sauntered about together many an half-hour in Mrs. Grant's shrubbery, the weather being unusually mild for the time of year, and venturing sometimes even to sit down on one of the benches now comparatively unsheltered, remaining there perhaps till, in the midst of some tender ejaculation of Fanny's on the sweets of so protracted an autumn, they were forced, by the sudden swell of a cold gust shaking down the last few yellow leaves about them, to jump up and walk for warmth. "This is pretty, very pretty," said Fanny, looking around her as they were thus sitting together one day; "every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with its growth and beauty. Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of the field, never thought of as anything, or capable of becoming anything; and now it is converted into a walk, and it would be difficult to say whether most valuable as a convenience or an ornament; and perhaps, in another three years, we may be forgetting--almost forgetting what it was before. How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!" And following the latter train of thought, she soon afterwards added: "If any one faculty of our nature may be called _more_ wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out." Miss Crawford, untouched and inattentive, had nothing to say; and Fanny, perceiving it, brought back her own mind to what she thought must interest. "It may seem impertinent in _me_ to praise, but I must admire the taste Mrs. Grant has shewn in all this. There is such a quiet simplicity in the plan of the walk! Not too much attempted!" "Yes," replied Miss Crawford carelessly, "it does very well for a place of this sort. One does not think of extent _here_; and between ourselves, till I came to Mansfield, I had not imagined a country parson ever aspired to a shrubbery, or anything of the kind." "I am so glad to see the evergreens thrive!" said Fanny, in reply. "My uncle's gardener always says the soil here is better than his own, and so it appears from the growth of the laurels and evergreens in general. The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! In some countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence. You will think me rhapsodising; but when I am out of doors, especially when I am sitting out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of wondering strain. One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy." "To say the truth," replied Miss Crawford, "I am something like the famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV.; and may declare that I see no wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in it. If anybody had told me a year ago that this place would be my home, that I should be spending month after month here, as I have done, I certainly should not have believed them. I have now been here nearly five months; and, moreover, the quietest five months I ever passed." "_Too_ quiet for you, I believe." "I should have thought so _theoretically_ myself, but," and her eyes brightened as she spoke, "take it all and all, I never spent so happy a summer. But then," with a more thoughtful air and lowered voice, "there is no saying what it may lead to." Fanny's heart beat quick, and she felt quite unequal to surmising or soliciting anything more. Miss Crawford, however, with renewed animation, soon went on-- "I am conscious of being far better reconciled to a country residence than I had ever expected to be. I can even suppose it pleasant to spend _half_ the year in the country, under certain circumstances, very pleasant. An elegant, moderate-sized house in the centre of family connexions; continual engagements among them; commanding the first society in the neighbourhood; looked up to, perhaps, as leading it even more than those of larger fortune, and turning from the cheerful round of such amusements to nothing worse than a _tete-a-tete_ with the person one feels most agreeable in the world. There is nothing frightful in such a picture, is there, Miss Price? One need not envy the new Mrs. Rushworth with such a home as _that_." "Envy Mrs. Rushworth!" was all that Fanny attempted to say. "Come, come, it would be very un-handsome in us to be severe on Mrs. Rushworth, for I look forward to our owing her a great many gay, brilliant, happy hours. I expect we shall be all very much at Sotherton another year. Such a match as Miss Bertram has made is a public blessing; for the first pleasures of Mr. Rushworth's wife must be to fill her house, and give the best balls in the country." Fanny was silent, and Miss Crawford relapsed into thoughtfulness, till suddenly looking up at the end of a few minutes, she exclaimed, "Ah! here he is." It was not Mr. Rushworth, however, but Edmund, who then appeared walking towards them with Mrs. Grant. "My sister and Mr. Bertram. I am so glad your eldest cousin is gone, that he may be Mr. Bertram again. There is something in the sound of Mr. _Edmund_ Bertram so formal, so pitiful, so younger-brother-like, that I detest it." "How differently we feel!" cried Fanny. "To me, the sound of _Mr._ Bertram is so cold and nothing-meaning, so entirely without warmth or character! It just stands for a gentleman, and that's all. But there is nobleness in the name of Edmund. It is a name of heroism and renown; of kings, princes, and knights; and seems to breathe the spirit of chivalry and warm affections." "I grant you the name is good in itself, and _Lord_ Edmund or _Sir_ Edmund sound delightfully; but sink it under the chill, the annihilation of a Mr., and Mr. Edmund is no more than Mr. John or Mr. Thomas. Well, shall we join and disappoint them of half their lecture upon sitting down out of doors at this time of year, by being up before they can begin?" Edmund met them with particular pleasure. It was the first time of his seeing them together since the beginning of that better acquaintance which he had been hearing of with great satisfaction. A friendship between two so very dear to him was exactly what he could have wished: and to the credit of the lover's understanding, be it stated, that he did not by any means consider Fanny as the only, or even as the greater gainer by such a friendship. "Well," said Miss Crawford, "and do you not scold us for our imprudence? What do you think we have been sitting down for but to be talked to about it, and entreated and supplicated never to do so again?" "Perhaps I might have scolded," said Edmund, "if either of you had been sitting down alone; but while you do wrong together, I can overlook a great deal." "They cannot have been sitting long," cried Mrs. Grant, "for when I went up for my shawl I saw them from the staircase window, and then they were walking." "And really," added Edmund, "the day is so mild, that your sitting down for a few minutes can be hardly thought imprudent. Our weather must not always be judged by the calendar. We may sometimes take greater liberties in November than in May." "Upon my word," cried Miss Crawford, "you are two of the most disappointing and unfeeling kind friends I ever met with! There is no giving you a moment's uneasiness. You do not know how much we have been suffering, nor what chills we have felt! But I have long thought Mr. Bertram one of the worst subjects to work on, in any little manoeuvre against common sense, that a woman could be plagued with. I had very little hope of _him_ from the first; but you, Mrs. Grant, my sister, my own sister, I think I had a right to alarm you a little." "Do not flatter yourself, my dearest Mary. You have not the smallest chance of moving me. I have my alarms, but they are quite in a different quarter; and if I could have altered the weather, you would have had a good sharp east wind blowing on you the whole time--for here are some of my plants which Robert _will_ leave out because the nights are so mild, and I know the end of it will be, that we shall have a sudden change of weather, a hard frost setting in all at once, taking everybody (at least Robert) by surprise, and I shall lose every one; and what is worse, cook has just been telling me that the turkey, which I particularly wished not to be dressed till Sunday, because I know how much more Dr. Grant would enjoy it on Sunday after the fatigues of the day, will not keep beyond to-morrow. These are something like grievances, and make me think the weather most unseasonably close." "The sweets of housekeeping in a country village!" said Miss Crawford archly. "Commend me to the nurseryman and the poulterer." "My dear child, commend Dr. Grant to the deanery of Westminster or St. Paul's, and I should be as glad of your nurseryman and poulterer as you could be. But we have no such people in Mansfield. What would you have me do?" "Oh! you can do nothing but what you do already: be plagued very often, and never lose your temper." "Thank you; but there is no escaping these little vexations, Mary, live where we may; and when you are settled in town and I come to see you, I dare say I shall find you with yours, in spite of the nurseryman and the poulterer, perhaps on their very account. Their remoteness and unpunctuality, or their exorbitant charges and frauds, will be drawing forth bitter lamentations." "I mean to be too rich to lament or to feel anything of the sort. A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. It certainly may secure all the myrtle and turkey part of it." "You intend to be very rich?" said Edmund, with a look which, to Fanny's eye, had a great deal of serious meaning. "To be sure. Do not you? Do not we all?" "I cannot intend anything which it must be so completely beyond my power to command. Miss Crawford may chuse her degree of wealth. She has only to fix on her number of thousands a year, and there can be no doubt of their coming. My intentions are only not to be poor." "By moderation and economy, and bringing down your wants to your income, and all that. I understand you--and a very proper plan it is for a person at your time of life, with such limited means and indifferent connexions. What can _you_ want but a decent maintenance? You have not much time before you; and your relations are in no situation to do anything for you, or to mortify you by the contrast of their own wealth and consequence. Be honest and poor, by all means--but I shall not envy you; I do not much think I shall even respect you. I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich." "Your degree of respect for honesty, rich or poor, is precisely what I have no manner of concern with. I do not mean to be poor. Poverty is exactly what I have determined against. Honesty, in the something between, in the middle state of worldly circumstances, is all that I am anxious for your not looking down on." "But I do look down upon it, if it might have been higher. I must look down upon anything contented with obscurity when it might rise to distinction." "But how may it rise? How may my honesty at least rise to any distinction?" This was not so very easy a question to answer, and occasioned an "Oh!" of some length from the fair lady before she could add, "You ought to be in parliament, or you should have gone into the army ten years ago." "_That_ is not much to the purpose now; and as to my being in parliament, I believe I must wait till there is an especial assembly for the representation of younger sons who have little to live on. No, Miss Crawford," he added, in a more serious tone, "there _are_ distinctions which I should be miserable if I thought myself without any chance--absolutely without chance or possibility of obtaining--but they are of a different character." A look of consciousness as he spoke, and what seemed a consciousness of manner on Miss Crawford's side as she made some laughing answer, was sorrowfull food for Fanny's observation; and finding herself quite unable to attend as she ought to Mrs. Grant, by whose side she was now following the others, she had nearly resolved on going home immediately, and only waited for courage to say so, when the sound of the great clock at Mansfield Park, striking three, made her feel that she had really been much longer absent than usual, and brought the previous self-inquiry of whether she should take leave or not just then, and how, to a very speedy issue. With undoubting decision she directly began her adieus; and Edmund began at the same time to recollect that his mother had been inquiring for her, and that he had walked down to the Parsonage on purpose to bring her back. Fanny's hurry increased; and without in the least expecting Edmund's attendance, she would have hastened away alone; but the general pace was quickened, and they all accompanied her into the house, through which it was necessary to pass. Dr. Grant was in the vestibule, and as they stopt to speak to him she found, from Edmund's manner, that he _did_ mean to go with her. He too was taking leave. She could not but be thankful. In the moment of parting, Edmund was invited by Dr. Grant to eat his mutton with him the next day; and Fanny had barely time for an unpleasant feeling on the occasion, when Mrs. Grant, with sudden recollection, turned to her and asked for the pleasure of her company too. This was so new an attention, so perfectly new a circumstance in the events of Fanny's life, that she was all surprise and embarrassment; and while stammering out her great obligation, and her "but she did not suppose it would be in her power," was looking at Edmund for his opinion and help. But Edmund, delighted with her having such an happiness offered, and ascertaining with half a look, and half a sentence, that she had no objection but on her aunt's account, could not imagine that his mother would make any difficulty of sparing her, and therefore gave his decided open advice that the invitation should be accepted; and though Fanny would not venture, even on his encouragement, to such a flight of audacious independence, it was soon settled, that if nothing were heard to the contrary, Mrs. Grant might expect her. "And you know what your dinner will be," said Mrs. Grant, smiling--"the turkey, and I assure you a very fine one; for, my dear," turning to her husband, "cook insists upon the turkey's being dressed to-morrow." "Very well, very well," cried Dr. Grant, "all the better; I am glad to hear you have anything so good in the house. But Miss Price and Mr. Edmund Bertram, I dare say, would take their chance. We none of us want to hear the bill of fare. A friendly meeting, and not a fine dinner, is all we have in view. A turkey, or a goose, or a leg of mutton, or whatever you and your cook chuse to give us." The two cousins walked home together; and, except in the immediate discussion of this engagement, which Edmund spoke of with the warmest satisfaction, as so particularly desirable for her in the intimacy which he saw with so much pleasure established, it was a silent walk; for having finished that subject, he grew thoughtful and indisposed for any other. "But why should Mrs. Grant ask Fanny?" said Lady Bertram. "How came she to think of asking Fanny? Fanny never dines there, you know, in this sort of way. I cannot spare her, and I am sure she does not want to go. Fanny, you do not want to go, do you?" "If you put such a question to her," cried Edmund, preventing his cousin's speaking, "Fanny will immediately say No; but I am sure, my dear mother, she would like to go; and I can see no reason why she should not." "I cannot imagine why Mrs. Grant should think of asking her? She never did before. She used to ask your sisters now and then, but she never asked Fanny." "If you cannot do without me, ma'am--" said Fanny, in a self-denying tone. "But my mother will have my father with her all the evening." "To be sure, so I shall." "Suppose you take my father's opinion, ma'am." "That's well thought of. So I will, Edmund. I will ask Sir Thomas, as soon as he comes in, whether I can do without her." "As you please, ma'am, on that head; but I meant my father's opinion as to the _propriety_ of the invitation's being accepted or not; and I think he will consider it a right thing by Mrs. Grant, as well as by Fanny, that being the _first_ invitation it should be accepted." "I do not know. We will ask him. But he will be very much surprised that Mrs. Grant should ask Fanny at all." There was nothing more to be said, or that could be said to any purpose, till Sir Thomas were present; but the subject involving, as it did, her own evening's comfort for the morrow, was so much uppermost in Lady Bertram's mind, that half an hour afterwards, on his looking in for a minute in his way from his plantation to his dressing-room, she called him back again, when he had almost closed the door, with "Sir Thomas, stop a moment--I have something to say to you." Her tone of calm languor, for she never took the trouble of raising her voice, was always heard and attended to; and Sir Thomas came back. Her story began; and Fanny immediately slipped out of the room; for to hear herself the subject of any discussion with her uncle was more than her nerves could bear. She was anxious, she knew--more anxious perhaps than she ought to be--for what was it after all whether she went or staid? but if her uncle were to be a great while considering and deciding, and with very grave looks, and those grave looks directed to her, and at last decide against her, she might not be able to appear properly submissive and indifferent. Her cause, meanwhile, went on well. It began, on Lady Bertram's part, with--"I have something to tell you that will surprise you. Mrs. Grant has asked Fanny to dinner." "Well," said Sir Thomas, as if waiting more to accomplish the surprise. "Edmund wants her to go. But how can I spare her?" "She will be late," said Sir Thomas, taking out his watch; "but what is your difficulty?" Edmund found himself obliged to speak and fill up the blanks in his mother's story. He told the whole; and she had only to add, "So strange! for Mrs. Grant never used to ask her." "But is it not very natural," observed Edmund, "that Mrs. Grant should wish to procure so agreeable a visitor for her sister?" "Nothing can be more natural," said Sir Thomas, after a short deliberation; "nor, were there no sister in the case, could anything, in my opinion, be more natural. Mrs. Grant's shewing civility to Miss Price, to Lady Bertram's niece, could never want explanation. The only surprise I can feel is, that this should be the _first_ time of its being paid. Fanny was perfectly right in giving only a conditional answer. She appears to feel as she ought. But as I conclude that she must wish to go, since all young people like to be together, I can see no reason why she should be denied the indulgence." "But can I do without her, Sir Thomas?" "Indeed I think you may." "She always makes tea, you know, when my sister is not here." "Your sister, perhaps, may be prevailed on to spend the day with us, and I shall certainly be at home." "Very well, then, Fanny may go, Edmund." The good news soon followed her. Edmund knocked at her door in his way to his own. "Well, Fanny, it is all happily settled, and without the smallest hesitation on your uncle's side. He had but one opinion. You are to go." "Thank you, I am _so_ glad," was Fanny's instinctive reply; though when she had turned from him and shut the door, she could not help feeling, "And yet why should I be glad? for am I not certain of seeing or hearing something there to pain me?" In spite of this conviction, however, she was glad. Simple as such an engagement might appear in other eyes, it had novelty and importance in hers, for excepting the day at Sotherton, she had scarcely ever dined out before; and though now going only half a mile, and only to three people, still it was dining out, and all the little interests of preparation were enjoyments in themselves. She had neither sympathy nor assistance from those who ought to have entered into her feelings and directed her taste; for Lady Bertram never thought of being useful to anybody, and Mrs. Norris, when she came on the morrow, in consequence of an early call and invitation from Sir Thomas, was in a very ill humour, and seemed intent only on lessening her niece's pleasure, both present and future, as much as possible. "Upon my word, Fanny, you are in high luck to meet with such attention and indulgence! You ought to be very much obliged to Mrs. Grant for thinking of you, and to your aunt for letting you go, and you ought to look upon it as something extraordinary; for I hope you are aware that there is no real occasion for your going into company in this sort of way, or ever dining out at all; and it is what you must not depend upon ever being repeated. Nor must you be fancying that the invitation is meant as any particular compliment to _you_; the compliment is intended to your uncle and aunt and me. Mrs. Grant thinks it a civility due to _us_ to take a little notice of you, or else it would never have come into her head, and you may be very certain that, if your cousin Julia had been at home, you would not have been asked at all." Mrs. Norris had now so ingeniously done away all Mrs. Grant's part of the favour, that Fanny, who found herself expected to speak, could only say that she was very much obliged to her aunt Bertram for sparing her, and that she was endeavouring to put her aunt's evening work in such a state as to prevent her being missed. "Oh! depend upon it, your aunt can do very well without you, or you would not be allowed to go. _I_ shall be here, so you may be quite easy about your aunt. And I hope you will have a very _agreeable_ day, and find it all mighty _delightful_. But I must observe that five is the very awkwardest of all possible numbers to sit down to table; and I cannot but be surprised that such an _elegant_ lady as Mrs. Grant should not contrive better! And round their enormous great wide table, too, which fills up the room so dreadfully! Had the doctor been contented to take my dining-table when I came away, as anybody in their senses would have done, instead of having that absurd new one of his own, which is wider, literally wider than the dinner-table here, how infinitely better it would have been! and how much more he would have been respected! for people are never respected when they step out of their proper sphere. Remember that, Fanny. Five--only five to be sitting round that table. However, you will have dinner enough on it for ten, I dare say." Mrs. Norris fetched breath, and went on again. "The nonsense and folly of people's stepping out of their rank and trying to appear above themselves, makes me think it right to give _you_ a hint, Fanny, now that you are going into company without any of us; and I do beseech and entreat you not to be putting yourself forward, and talking and giving your opinion as if you were one of your cousins--as if you were dear Mrs. Rushworth or Julia. _That_ will never do, believe me. Remember, wherever you are, you must be the lowest and last; and though Miss Crawford is in a manner at home at the Parsonage, you are not to be taking place of her. And as to coming away at night, you are to stay just as long as Edmund chuses. Leave him to settle _that_." "Yes, ma'am, I should not think of anything else." "And if it should rain, which I think exceedingly likely, for I never saw it more threatening for a wet evening in my life, you must manage as well as you can, and not be expecting the carriage to be sent for you. I certainly do not go home to-night, and, therefore, the carriage will not be out on my account; so you must make up your mind to what may happen, and take your things accordingly." Her niece thought it perfectly reasonable. She rated her own claims to comfort as low even as Mrs. Norris could; and when Sir Thomas soon afterwards, just opening the door, said, "Fanny, at what time would you have the carriage come round?" she felt a degree of astonishment which made it impossible for her to speak. "My dear Sir Thomas!" cried Mrs. Norris, red with anger, "Fanny can walk." "Walk!" repeated Sir Thomas, in a tone of most unanswerable dignity, and coming farther into the room. "My niece walk to a dinner engagement at this time of the year! Will twenty minutes after four suit you?" "Yes, sir," was Fanny's humble answer, given with the feelings almost of a criminal towards Mrs. Norris; and not bearing to remain with her in what might seem a state of triumph, she followed her uncle out of the room, having staid behind him only long enough to hear these words spoken in angry agitation-- "Quite unnecessary! a great deal too kind! But Edmund goes; true, it is upon Edmund's account. I observed he was hoarse on Thursday night." But this could not impose on Fanny. She felt that the carriage was for herself, and herself alone: and her uncle's consideration of her, coming immediately after such representations from her aunt, cost her some tears of gratitude when she was alone. The coachman drove round to a minute; another minute brought down the gentleman; and as the lady had, with a most scrupulous fear of being late, been many minutes seated in the drawing-room, Sir Thomas saw them off in as good time as his own correctly punctual habits required. "Now I must look at you, Fanny," said Edmund, with the kind smile of an affectionate brother, "and tell you how I like you; and as well as I can judge by this light, you look very nicely indeed. What have you got on?" "The new dress that my uncle was so good as to give me on my cousin's marriage. I hope it is not too fine; but I thought I ought to wear it as soon as I could, and that I might not have such another opportunity all the winter. I hope you do not think me too fine." "A woman can never be too fine while she is all in white. No, I see no finery about you; nothing but what is perfectly proper. Your gown seems very pretty. I like these glossy spots. Has not Miss Crawford a gown something the same?" In approaching the Parsonage they passed close by the stable-yard and coach-house. "Heyday!" said Edmund, "here's company, here's a carriage! who have they got to meet us?" And letting down the side-glass to distinguish, "'Tis Crawford's, Crawford's barouche, I protest! There are his own two men pushing it back into its old quarters. He is here, of course. This is quite a surprise, Fanny. I shall be very glad to see him." There was no occasion, there was no time for Fanny to say how very differently she felt; but the idea of having such another to observe her was a great increase of the trepidation with which she performed the very awful ceremony of walking into the drawing-room. In the drawing-room Mr. Crawford certainly was, having been just long enough arrived to be ready for dinner; and the smiles and pleased looks of the three others standing round him, shewed how welcome was his sudden resolution of coming to them for a few days on leaving Bath. A very cordial meeting passed between him and Edmund; and with the exception of Fanny, the pleasure was general; and even to _her_ there might be some advantage in his presence, since every addition to the party must rather forward her favourite indulgence of being suffered to sit silent and unattended to. She was soon aware of this herself; for though she must submit, as her own propriety of mind directed, in spite of her aunt Norris's opinion, to being the principal lady in company, and to all the little distinctions consequent thereon, she found, while they were at table, such a happy flow of conversation prevailing, in which she was not required to take any part--there was so much to be said between the brother and sister about Bath, so much between the two young men about hunting, so much of politics between Mr. Crawford and Dr. Grant, and of everything and all together between Mr. Crawford and Mrs. Grant, as to leave her the fairest prospect of having only to listen in quiet, and of passing a very agreeable day. She could not compliment the newly arrived gentleman, however, with any appearance of interest, in a scheme for extending his stay at Mansfield, and sending for his hunters from Norfolk, which, suggested by Dr. Grant, advised by Edmund, and warmly urged by the two sisters, was soon in possession of his mind, and which he seemed to want to be encouraged even by her to resolve on. Her opinion was sought as to the probable continuance of the open weather, but her answers were as short and indifferent as civility allowed. She could not wish him to stay, and would much rather not have him speak to her. Her two absent cousins, especially Maria, were much in her thoughts on seeing him; but no embarrassing remembrance affected _his_ spirits. Here he was again on the same ground where all had passed before, and apparently as willing to stay and be happy without the Miss Bertrams, as if he had never known Mansfield in any other state. She heard them spoken of by him only in a general way, till they were all re-assembled in the drawing-room, when Edmund, being engaged apart in some matter of business with Dr. Grant, which seemed entirely to engross them, and Mrs. Grant occupied at the tea-table, he began talking of them with more particularity to his other sister. With a significant smile, which made Fanny quite hate him, he said, "So! Rushworth and his fair bride are at Brighton, I understand; happy man!" "Yes, they have been there about a fortnight, Miss Price, have they not? And Julia is with them." "And Mr. Yates, I presume, is not far off." "Mr. Yates! Oh! we hear nothing of Mr. Yates. I do not imagine he figures much in the letters to Mansfield Park; do you, Miss Price? I think my friend Julia knows better than to entertain her father with Mr. Yates." "Poor Rushworth and his two-and-forty speeches!" continued Crawford. "Nobody can ever forget them. Poor fellow! I see him now--his toil and his despair. Well, I am much mistaken if his lovely Maria will ever want him to make two-and-forty speeches to her"; adding, with a momentary seriousness, "She is too good for him--much too good." And then changing his tone again to one of gentle gallantry, and addressing Fanny, he said, "You were Mr. Rushworth's best friend. Your kindness and patience can never be forgotten, your indefatigable patience in trying to make it possible for him to learn his part--in trying to give him a brain which nature had denied--to mix up an understanding for him out of the superfluity of your own! _He_ might not have sense enough himself to estimate your kindness, but I may venture to say that it had honour from all the rest of the party." Fanny coloured, and said nothing. "It is as a dream, a pleasant dream!" he exclaimed, breaking forth again, after a few minutes' musing. "I shall always look back on our theatricals with exquisite pleasure. There was such an interest, such an animation, such a spirit diffused. Everybody felt it. We were all alive. There was employment, hope, solicitude, bustle, for every hour of the day. Always some little objection, some little doubt, some little anxiety to be got over. I never was happier." With silent indignation Fanny repeated to herself, "Never happier!--never happier than when doing what you must know was not justifiable!--never happier than when behaving so dishonourably and unfeelingly! Oh! what a corrupted mind!" "We were unlucky, Miss Price," he continued, in a lower tone, to avoid the possibility of being heard by Edmund, and not at all aware of her feelings, "we certainly were very unlucky. Another week, only one other week, would have been enough for us. I think if we had had the disposal of events--if Mansfield Park had had the government of the winds just for a week or two, about the equinox, there would have been a difference. Not that we would have endangered his safety by any tremendous weather--but only by a steady contrary wind, or a calm. I think, Miss Price, we would have indulged ourselves with a week's calm in the Atlantic at that season." He seemed determined to be answered; and Fanny, averting her face, said, with a firmer tone than usual, "As far as _I_ am concerned, sir, I would not have delayed his return for a day. My uncle disapproved it all so entirely when he did arrive, that in my opinion everything had gone quite far enough." She had never spoken so much at once to him in her life before, and never so angrily to any one; and when her speech was over, she trembled and blushed at her own daring. He was surprised; but after a few moments' silent consideration of her, replied in a calmer, graver tone, and as if the candid result of conviction, "I believe you are right. It was more pleasant than prudent. We were getting too noisy." And then turning the conversation, he would have engaged her on some other subject, but her answers were so shy and reluctant that he could not advance in any. Miss Crawford, who had been repeatedly eyeing Dr. Grant and Edmund, now observed, "Those gentlemen must have some very interesting point to discuss." "The most interesting in the world," replied her brother--"how to make money; how to turn a good income into a better. Dr. Grant is giving Bertram instructions about the living he is to step into so soon. I find he takes orders in a few weeks. They were at it in the dining-parlour. I am glad to hear Bertram will be so well off. He will have a very pretty income to make ducks and drakes with, and earned without much trouble. I apprehend he will not have less than seven hundred a year. Seven hundred a year is a fine thing for a younger brother; and as of course he will still live at home, it will be all for his _menus_ _plaisirs_; and a sermon at Christmas and Easter, I suppose, will be the sum total of sacrifice." His sister tried to laugh off her feelings by saying, "Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves. You would look rather blank, Henry, if your _menus_ _plaisirs_ were to be limited to seven hundred a year." "Perhaps I might; but all _that_ you know is entirely comparative. Birthright and habit must settle the business. Bertram is certainly well off for a cadet of even a baronet's family. By the time he is four or five and twenty he will have seven hundred a year, and nothing to do for it." Miss Crawford _could_ have said that there would be a something to do and to suffer for it, which she could not think lightly of; but she checked herself and let it pass; and tried to look calm and unconcerned when the two gentlemen shortly afterwards joined them. "Bertram," said Henry Crawford, "I shall make a point of coming to Mansfield to hear you preach your first sermon. I shall come on purpose to encourage a young beginner. When is it to be? Miss Price, will not you join me in encouraging your cousin? Will not you engage to attend with your eyes steadily fixed on him the whole time--as I shall do--not to lose a word; or only looking off just to note down any sentence preeminently beautiful? We will provide ourselves with tablets and a pencil. When will it be? You must preach at Mansfield, you know, that Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram may hear you." "I shall keep clear of you, Crawford, as long as I can," said Edmund; "for you would be more likely to disconcert me, and I should be more sorry to see you trying at it than almost any other man." "Will he not feel this?" thought Fanny. "No, he can feel nothing as he ought." The party being now all united, and the chief talkers attracting each other, she remained in tranquillity; and as a whist-table was formed after tea--formed really for the amusement of Dr. Grant, by his attentive wife, though it was not to be supposed so--and Miss Crawford took her harp, she had nothing to do but to listen; and her tranquillity remained undisturbed the rest of the evening, except when Mr. Crawford now and then addressed to her a question or observation, which she could not avoid answering. Miss Crawford was too much vexed by what had passed to be in a humour for anything but music. With that she soothed herself and amused her friend. The assurance of Edmund's being so soon to take orders, coming upon her like a blow that had been suspended, and still hoped uncertain and at a distance, was felt with resentment and mortification. She was very angry with him. She had thought her influence more. She _had_ begun to think of him; she felt that she had, with great regard, with almost decided intentions; but she would now meet him with his own cool feelings. It was plain that he could have no serious views, no true attachment, by fixing himself in a situation which he must know she would never stoop to. She would learn to match him in his indifference. She would henceforth admit his attentions without any idea beyond immediate amusement. If _he_ could so command his affections, _hers_ should do her no harm. 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.

Sir Thomas unerwartete Rückkehr versetzt alle in Panik. Sie versuchen, ihm die Theatralik in bestem Licht zu präsentieren, aber er ist deutlich missbilligend. Erschöpft von seiner Reise, möchte Sir Thomas allein mit seiner Familie sein. Er drängt Yates zum Aufbruch und würde sogar Henry und Mary Crawford verbannen, obwohl seine Familie dies verhindert. Sir Thomas begrüßt Fanny mit besonderer Freundlichkeit, was sie überrascht und erfreut. Er ist beeindruckt von ihrer erwachsenen Schönheit und Haltung. Edmund gibt seinem Vater einen weiteren positiven Bericht über Fanny und sagt ihm, dass sie die einzige war, die sich konsequent gegen die Aufführung des Stücks ausgesprochen hat. Frau Norris nutzt die erste Gelegenheit, um Sir Thomas an alles zu erinnern, was sie für die Familie getan hat, während er abwesend war, einschließlich der Organisation von Marias Verlobung. Sir Thomas, abgestoßen von der Art der Frau und nicht besonders beeindruckt von Rushworth, tadelt sie dafür, dass sie die Theatralik nicht verhindert hat. Henry Crawford macht einen letzten Besuch in Mansfield Park und reist dann nach Bath ab. Mit Sir Thomas zurück an der Macht wird Mansfield zu einem ernsthafteren Ort, zur Entsetzung einiger und zur Freude anderer. Edmund spricht erneut mit Fanny über Mary Crawfords gute Eigenschaften. In der Zwischenzeit ist Sir Thomas sehr besorgt über Marias Ehe mit Rushworth. Es ist offensichtlich, dass der Mann ein Idiot ist und dass Maria nicht besonders von ihm hält. Sir Thomas bietet Maria einen Ausweg an und sagt ihr, dass er die Verlobung für sie lösen wird. Bitter über Henrys Abreise versichert Maria ihm, dass sie tatsächlich Rushworth heiraten möchte. Das Paar heiratet schnell und reist zusammen mit Julia nach Brighton. Mit dem Weggang der beiden Bertram-Töchter wird Fanny zur Favoritin in Mansfield, unentbehrlich für Lady Bertram, von der sie zu mögen beginnt, und geliebt von ihrem Onkel. Bald wird sie auch im Haus der Grants zur Favoritin, wo Mary Crawford immer noch untergebracht ist. Nachdem sie an einem regnerischen Tag Zuflucht dort nehmen muss, freundet sich Fanny mit Mary an. Bald deutet Mary ihre Gefühle für Edmund an, und Fanny ist in Konflikt und hält sich zurück. Mary beschädigt jedoch erneut ihren eigenen Fall bei Edmund, indem sie gedankenlose Kommentare über Reichtum und seine Berufswahl macht. Der Höhepunkt der neuen Freundschaft zwischen Fanny und Mary kommt, als Fanny zusammen mit Edmund zum Essen bei den Grants eingeladen wird. Frau Norris und Lady Bertram sind verblüfft, doch Sir Thomas bringt Fanny dazu, die Einladung anzunehmen. Frau Norris nutzt die Gelegenheit für eine weitere unglaublich grausame Tirade über Fannys "Platz" in der Familie und versucht sogar, Sir Thomas daran zu hindern, den Wagen für Fanny zu schicken. Zur Überraschung der Cousins ist Henry Crawford beim Abendessen anwesend, gerade erst aus Bath angekommen. Henry macht mehrere anzügliche Kommentare über Maria und Julia, die Fanny ärgern. Er kritisiert auch Sir Thomas für die Unterbindung der Theatralik; Fanny antwortet auf seine Kritik an ihrem Onkel mit einem starken Tadel, der Henry zu beeindrucken scheint. Henry und Mary führen dann eine private Diskussion über Edmunds finanzielle Situation als jüngerer Sohn seines Vaters; es ist deutlich, dass Mary persönliches Interesse an der Situation hat. Im Laufe des Abends wird Mary immer verärgerter über Edmunds Desinteresse an Reichtum und Mode.

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! 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.

Akt III beginnt mit Hauptmann Bluntschli, der in der sogenannten Petkoff-Bibliothek hart arbeitet, die eigentlich nur ein Raum mit einem einzigen Bücherregal ist. Er koordiniert Truppenbewegungen und bereitet Papiere für Sergius' Unterschrift vor. Major Petkoff sitzt und liest Zeitung, schaut jedoch ab und zu auf und fragt Bluntschli, ob er helfen kann. Sergius steht über dem Hauptmann und ist offensichtlich frustriert von dessen überlegenen Fähigkeiten. Der Major wünscht sich seinen alten Mantel zurück, der aus dem blauen Schrank verschwunden ist. Catherine besteht darauf, dass er dort ist und der Major wettet mit ihr ein Schmuckstück, dass er es nicht ist. Nicola wird geschickt, um ihn zu holen, und berichtet, dass er im blauen Schrank hing, wie Catherine sagte. Der arme Major ist völlig verwirrt. Bluntschli beendet die Arbeit an den Papieren und schickt Sergius los, um die Befehle umzusetzen. Anschließend bittet er den Major vertraulich, mit Sergius mitzugehen und ihn zu überwachen. Major Petkoff stimmt zu, fragt jedoch Catherine, ob sie mitkommen möchte, da sie auf die Truppen einschüchternder wirken wird als er. Der Schweizer Söldner staunt über die Inkompetenz des bulgarischen Majors. Allein mit dem Hauptmann erzählt Raina Bluntschli, dass jemand die Anekdote über einen Schweizer Söldner, der in das Zimmer einer bulgarischen Dame eingebrochen ist, an Sergius und Major Petkoff weitergegeben hat. Bluntschli entschuldigt sich und behauptet, er habe es nur einer einzigen nahestehenden und vertrauenswürdigen Person erzählt. Raina erwidert, dass wenn Sergius wüsste, dass die Anekdote von ihr handelte, er Hauptmann Bluntschli zum Duell herausfordern würde. Sie behauptet, dass sie von dem Lügen gegenüber Sergius sehr aufgebracht sei und führt eine empörte Aufführung für Hauptmann Bluntschlis Nutzen auf. Sie behauptet lächerlicherweise, sie habe in ihrem Leben nur zwei Lügen erzählt: als sie den bulgarischen Soldaten sagte, dass kein serbischer Offizier in ihrem Zimmer sei, und als sie die Geschichte über die Schokoladencreme-Soldatenverzierung erfunden habe. Bluntschli sagt ihr direkt, dass er ihre anmaßende Aufführung nicht glaubt und entwaffnet sie damit. Raina gesteht, dass sie sich immer gerne romantisch gibt, schon seit ihrer Kindheit. Bluntschli ist der Einzige, der hinter ihre Fassade blicken konnte. Sie macht sich Sorgen, dass Bluntschli sie verachten muss, doch der Hauptmann sagt ihr, dass er sie trotzdem bewundert und vergöttert. Raina fragt laut, was Bluntschli von dem Porträt hält, das sie ihm gegeben hat: ein Foto von sich selbst, signiert und gewidmet an den Schokoladencreme-Soldaten. Sie hat das Porträt in die Tasche des Mantels gesteckt, in dem Bluntschli aus dem Haus geschmuggelt wurde. Bluntschli verrät, dass er die Manteltaschen nie durchsucht hat und das unterschriebene Porträt übersehen hat. Er hat den Mantel verpfändet, um ihn während des Krieges sicher aufzubewahren, nach dem Krieg aber wieder zurückgekauft und ist sich nun unsicher, ob das Porträt noch in der Tasche ist. Raina ist aufgebracht, dass er den Mantel verpfändet hat, und beschuldigt ihn, einen "kleinlichen, händlerischen Geist" zu haben. Louka kommt in den Raum und bringt Bluntschli einen Stapel Briefe. Eines der Telegramme informiert den Schweizer Soldaten über den Tod seines Vaters. Raina zeigt Mitgefühl für den Hauptmann, aber Bluntschlis Reaktion ist seltsam gedämpft: er scheint leicht bedrückt und überrascht. Bluntschli kündigt an, dass er sofort abreisen muss, um sein Erbe zu regeln: eine Kette von Hotels. Nachdem er gegangen ist, macht Louka sich über Rainas mangelnde Emotionen bezüglich des Hauptmanns lustig; überwältigt flieht Raina aus dem Raum und weint fast. Nicola bemerkt Loukas seltsame Art, den Arm zu verbergen, um ihre Verletzung zu verstecken, und schimpft mit ihr. Nicola enthüllt, dass Sergius ihm zwanzig Lewas aus Dummheit gegeben und der Schweizer Söldner ihm strategisch zehn Lewas gegeben hat, um sich für seine Unterstützung von Catherines und Rainas Lügen über ihn zu bedanken. Nicola bietet Louka etwas von dem Geld an, doch sie lehnt es verachtend ab und sagt, dass er immer der Diener von jemandem sein wird. Zornig erwidert Nicola, dass er es war, der Louka zu einer Dame gemacht hat. Er sagt, dass er Louka lieber als Kundin hätte als als Ehefrau und insinuiert, dass Sergius sie in einem anderen Leben geheiratet hätte. Louka antwortet, dass sie Nicola lieber als Diener als als Ehemann hätte. Nicola rät ihr, dass sie sich, um wirklich eine Dame zu sein, so verhalten muss, als erwarte sie immer ihren Willen. Louka geht beleidigt weg. Sergius tritt ein und entschuldigt sich für die Unterbrechung; Nicola erwidert, dass er Louka nur dafür schimpfte, dass sie die Bücher in der Bibliothek liest, was "über ihrer Stellung liegt". Sergius geht zu Louka und untersucht ihren Arm nach der Verletzung, bietet an, sie zu heilen. Louka weist ihn ab und fragt ihn, ob er wirklich ein tapferer Mann ist. Sergius antwortet selbstbewusst, dass er es ist. Das Dienstmädchen fragt sich, ob er den Mut hätte, eine Frau zu heiraten, die er liebt, selbst wenn sie aus einer niedrigeren Klasse stammt. Sergius behauptet, dass er es tun würde, aber dass er mit Raina verlobt ist. Louka erwidert, dass Raina Sergius jetzt niemals heiraten wird, nachdem Bluntschli zurückgekehrt ist, und enthüllt, dass der Schweizer Söldner Rainas heimliche Liebe ist. Sergius ist empört und weigert sich zu glauben, dass die romantische Raina ihn verraten könnte. Louka weist scharfsinnig darauf hin, dass Raina sich weigern würde zu glauben, dass der romantische Sergius sie verraten könnte, aber das hat er dennoch getan. Sergius erkennt, dass er mit jeder seiner Handlungen seine Ideale verspottet. Dann sagt er auf seltsame Weise zu Louka, dass sie sein ist und wenn er sie noch einmal berührt, wird es als seine Braut sein. Louka, skeptisch, verlässt den Raum, als Bluntschli zurückkommt und besorgt wirkt. Sergius konfrontiert Bluntschli und fordert ihn zu einem Duell heraus; der Hauptmann akzeptiert, ohne genau zu wissen, worum es bei dem Duell geht. Sergius schlägt vor, dass sie mit Säbeln zu Pferd kämpfen, aber Bluntschli zieht es vor, am Boden zu kämpfen, da das Reiten zu gefährlich ist und er nicht die Absicht hat, Sergius zu töten. Als Fechtmeister ist der Hauptmann zuversichtlich, dass er Sergius entwaffnen kann, ohne ihn zu verletzen. Raina tritt auf, als sie gerade dabei sind, die Einzelheiten des Duells zu klären, und fragt ängstlich nach dem Grund. Sergius beschuldigt Raina, Bluntschli zu lieben, und sagt, dass sie dem Hauptmann "Gefälligkeiten" gewährt hat, die er nie genossen hat. Bluntschli belehrt Sergius und erklärt, dass er unter Waffengewalt in das Zimmer gekommen ist und Raina mit dem Tod bedroht hat, wenn sie sich widersetzt. Raina bestätigt die Geschichte. Sergius besteht dennoch darauf, dass etwas zwischen dem Schweizer Soldaten und seiner Verlobten passiert sein muss, da Bluntschli zurückgekommen ist, um sie zu sehen. Sergius enthüllt, dass Bluntschlis vertraute Bekannte ihm nichts von dem Vorfall erzählt haben, und Raina folgert, dass Louka ihm von ihrer Schwärmerei für Bluntschli erzählt haben muss. Sie wirft Sergius eine Anschuldigung entgegen und sagt, dass sie ihn im Garten mit Louka gesehen hat. Sergius erkennt, dass ihre Beziehung eine Farce ist, und zieht sich vom Duell zurück, da er nur gegen Männer kämpfen kann, nicht gegen Maschinen wie den Hauptmann. Raina informiert Sergius, dass Louka bereits mit Nicola verlobt ist, der sein neuer Rivale ist. Raina beschuldigt Sergius, Louka auszuspionieren. Als Sergius mit Beleidigungen antwortet, wendet sich Raina empört an Bluntschli, der erklärt, dass Sergius sich irgendwie verteidigen muss. Bluntschli fragt, wo Louka ist, und Raina beschuldigt sie, draußen an der Tür gelauscht zu haben. Obwohl Sergius ihr empört in Schutz nimmt, findet er sie im Flur. Louka erklärt ungeniert, dass ihre Liebe auf dem Spiel steht, eine Liebe, die stärker ist als alles, was Raina auch für ihren Schokoladencreme-Soldaten fühlen mag. Sergius ist verwirrt und denkt, Louka beziehe sich auf die Verzierung des Kuchens, die Raina zuvor zubereitet hat. In diesem Moment betritt Major Petkoff den Raum und behauptet, jemand habe seinen Mantel getragen, der zerrissen und ausgeleiert ist. Nicola bringt den Mantel von Catherine herein, die ihn geflickt hat. Raina nimmt ihn von Nicola und hilft ihrem Vater dabei, ihn anzuziehen, und nimmt dabei geschickt das Foto heraus. Als der Major sich setzt, sucht er das Bild und stellt fest, dass er etwas Seltsames gefunden hat: ein Foto von Raina mit einer Widmung an ihren Schokoladencreme-Soldaten. Er kann es nicht finden und ist misstrauisch; er befragt Nicola zu Rainas Geschichte über die zerbrochene Kuchenverzierung. Petkoff beglückwünscht Sergius dazu, der Schokoladencreme-Soldat zu sein. Während Sergius wütend erklärt, dass er es nicht ist, gesteht Bluntschli, Rainas Schokoladencreme-Soldat zu sein. Major Petkoff verlangt von Raina, dass sie ihm sagt, mit welchem der beiden Männer sie verlobt ist. Sie antwortet, dass sie mit keinem von ihnen verlobt ist, da Sergius in Louka verliebt ist. Petkoff sagt wütend zu Sergius, dass Louka bereits mit Nicola verlobt ist. Der alte Diener kommt vor und erklärt, dass die Verlobung nur dazu diente, Louka zu schützen, und dass er sich freut, sie nun als Kundin zu haben, da sie in den Adel einheiratet. Beeindruckt von seiner Praktikabilität kündigt Bluntschli an, dass er Nicola als Hotelmanager einstellen wird. Louka verlangt von Sergius eine Entschuldigung, dass er sie im Garten verletzt hat, und er tut dies mit einem Kuss und macht sie zu seiner Braut. Catherine kommt herein und sieht Sergius Louka umarmen, und ist entsetzt. Bluntschli beglückwünscht Sergius jedoch zu seiner praktischen Entscheidung. Louka verteidigt sich gegenüber Catherine und sagt, dass sie Raina keinen Schaden zugefügt hat, da sie ohnehin den Schweizer Soldaten heiraten sollte. Bluntschli ist von Loukas Bemerkung unglaublich überrascht, da er nichts von Rainas Liebe zu ihm wusste. Bluntschli hält die Idee, sie zu heiraten, für unsinnig; er beschreibt Raina als junges Mädchen im Alter von siebzehn Jahren. Er gibt zu, romantisch und ein wenig dumm zu sein, da er zurück zum Haus gekommen ist, um sie wiederzusehen, protestiert aber, dass sie nur ein Kind ist. Verletzt und wütend entgegnet Raina, dass sie tatsächlich dreiundzwanzig Jahre alt ist. Bluntschli nimmt diesen Schock auf und fragt sofort Major Petkoff nach Rainas Hand in der Ehe. Die Petkoffs zögern und erklären, dass Raina an einen komfortablen Lebensstil gewöhnt ist, der über den Möglichkeiten eines gewöhnlichen Hauptmanns liegt. Als Antwort zieht Bluntschli das Telegramm heraus, das seinen Vater Tod verkündet, und liest laut über sein Erbe der Hotels vor, die eine unanständige Anzahl von Gegenständen beinhalten. Major Petkoff fragt kindisch, ob er der Kaiser der Schweiz ist, aber Bluntschli antwortet, dass er ein freier Bürger ist. Raina lehnt Bluntschlis Heiratsantrag zunächst ab und erklärt, dass sie nicht mit materiellen Dingen gekauft werden kann. Bluntschli akzeptiert ihre Antwort nicht und erinnert sie an die Freundlichkeit, die sie ihm zeigte, als er als Bettler zu ihr kam. Schließlich erliegt Raina ihrem Schokoladencreme-Soldaten und stimmt zu. Bluntschli bereitet sich darauf vor zu gehen, und weist den Major an, die Bewegungen eines Regiments zu koordinieren, bittet Sergius, seine Hochzeit mit Louka bis zu seiner Rückkehr zu verschieben, und verspricht, in zwei Wochen zurückzukehren.

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: In dem Miss Sharp und Miss Sedley sich auf die Eröffnung der Kampagne vorbereiten Als Miss Sharp die heroische Tat vollbracht hatte, die im letzten Kapitel erwähnt wurde, und das "Dixonary" über den Bürgersteig des kleinen Gartens fliegen sah, schließlich den erstaunten Miss Jemima zu Füßen fiel, nahm das Gesicht des jungen Mädchens, das zuvor einen fast leichenbläslichen Ausdruck des Hasses getragen hatte, ein Lächeln an, das vielleicht kaum angenehmer war, und sie sank in ihrer Kutsche in einer entspannten Stimmung zurück und sagte dabei: "Das war's dann mit dem 'Dixonary'; und Gott sei Dank, ich bin raus aus Chiswick." Miss Sedley war fast genauso beunruhigt über die trotzigische Tat wie Miss Jemima; bedenken Sie doch, dass sie gerade erst eine Minute zuvor die Schule verlassen hatte und die Eindrücke von sechs Jahren in dieser kurzen Zeit noch nicht abgelegt hatte. Bei manchen Menschen halten solche Einschüchterungen und Ängste der Jugend für immer und ewig an. Ich kenne zum Beispiel einen alten Herrn von 68 Jahren, der eines Morgens sehr erregt zu mir beim Frühstück sagte: "Ich habe gestern Nacht geträumt, dass ich von Dr. Raine ausgepeitscht wurde." Die Fantasie hatte ihn an diesem Abend um fünfundfünfzig Jahre zurückversetzt. Dr. Raine und seine Rute waren in seinem Herzen immer noch genauso furchteinflößend wie damals, als er dreizehn war. Wenn der Doktor mit einer großen Birke leibhaftig vor ihm erschienen wäre, selbst im Alter von achtundsechzig Jahren, und mit strenger Stimme gesagt hätte: "Junge, zieh deine Hose runter--"? Nun ja, nun ja, Miss Sedley war über diese Auflehnung sehr besorgt. "Warum hast du das getan, Rebecca?", sagte sie schließlich nach einer Pause. "Nun ja, glaubst du, Miss Pinkerton wird heraustrkommen und mich zurück in den Schwarzen Kerker befehlen?", sagte Rebecca und lachte. "Nein, aber--" "Ich hasse das ganze Haus", fuhr Miss Sharp in Wut fort. "Ich hoffe, ich werde es nie wiedersehen. Ich wünschte, es wäre auf dem Grund der Themse; und wenn Miss Pinkerton da wäre, würde ich sie nicht retten, das würde ich nicht. Oh, wie gern würde ich sie dort drüben im Wasser treiben sehen, Turban und alles, mit ihrem langen Zug hinter ihr her wehend, und ihre Nase wie der Schnabel einer Barkasse." "Psst!", rief Miss Sedley. "Nun, wird der schwarze Diener die Geschichte ausplaudern?", rief Miss Rebecca lachend. "Er kann zurückgehen und Miss Pinkerton erzählen, dass ich sie mit meiner ganzen Seele hasse; und ich wünschte, er könnte es tun; und ich wünschte, ich hätte eine Möglichkeit, es zu beweisen. Zwei Jahre lang habe ich nichts als Beleidigungen und Mistbehandlungen von ihr ertragen müssen. Ich wurde schlimmer behandelt als jeder Dienstbote in der Küche. Ich hatte nie einen Freund oder ein freundliches Wort, außer von dir. Ich musste mich um die kleinen Mädchen im unteren Klassenzimmer kümmern und mit den Misses französisch sprechen, bis ich meines eigenen Muttersprache überdrüssig wurde. Aber dieses Französischreden mit Miss Pinkerton war wirklich lustig, nicht wahr? Sie konnte kein Wort Französisch und war zu stolz, es zuzugeben. Ich glaube das war es, was sie dazu gebracht hat, mich gehen zu lassen; und dafür sei Frankreich gedankt. Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!" "Oh Rebecca, Rebecca, schäm dich!", rief Miss Sedley aus, denn dies war die größte Gotteslästerung, die Rebecca bisher ausgestoßen hatte; und in jenen Tagen, in England, war es genauso schlimm, "Hoch lebe Bonaparte!" zu sagen, wie zu sagen, "Hoch lebe Luzifer!" "Wie kannst du--wie wagst du es, solche bösen, rachsüchtigen Gedanken zu haben?" "Rache mag böse sein, aber sie ist natürlich", antwortete Miss Rebecca. "Ich bin kein Engel." Und um die Wahrheit zu sagen, das war sie mit Sicherheit nicht. Es ist anzumerken, dass während dieses kleinen Gesprächs (das stattfand, als der Wagen gemächlich am Fluss entlang rollte), obwohl Miss Rebecca Sharp zweimal dem Himmel gedankt hat, war es erstens dafür, dass sie eine Person losgeworden ist, die sie gehasst hat, und zweitens dafür, dass sie ihre Feinde irgendwie in Verwirrung oder Verlegenheit gebracht hat. Beides sind keine sehr liebenswürdigen Beweggründe für religiöse Dankbarkeit und würden von Personen mit einer freundlichen und verträglichen Disposition nicht vorgebracht werden. Miss Rebecca war also nicht im Geringsten freundlich oder verträglich. Die ganze Welt behandelte sie schlecht, sagte diese junge Menschenfeindin, und wir können ziemlich sicher sein, dass Personen, die von der ganzen Welt schlecht behandelt werden, die Behandlung, die sie bekommen, vollkommen verdienen. Die Welt ist ein Spiegel und gibt jedem das Spiegelbild seines eigenen Gesichts zurück. Wenn du sie angreifst, wird sie dich sauer ansehen; lache mit ihr und über sie, und sie ist ein fröhlicher Begleiter; und so können sich alle jungen Menschen entscheiden. Sicher ist, dass wenn die Welt Miss Sharp vernachlässigt hätte, man nie eine gute Tat in ihrem Namen gehört hätte; und man konnte nicht erwarten, dass vierundzwanzig junge Damen alle so liebenswürdig sein könnten wie die Heldin dieses Werkes, Miss Amelia Sedley (die wir ausgewählt haben gerade weil sie die liebenswürdigste von allen war, sonst hätte uns nichts daran gehindert, Miss Swartz oder Miss Crump oder Miss Hopkins an ihrer Stelle zur Heldin zu machen!). Man konnte nicht erwarten, dass jeder von der bescheidenen und sanften Natur von Miss Amelia Sedley sein würde, dass er jede Gelegenheit ergreifen würde, um Rebecca's mitleidloses Herz und ihre schlechte Laune zu besiegen und durch tausend freundliche Worte und Taten wenigstens einmal ihre Feindschaft gegenüber ihrer Art zu überwinden. Miss Sharps Vater war Künstler und hattte in dieser Eigenschaft Zeichenunterricht in Miss Pinkertons Schule gegeben. Er war ein kluger Mann, ein angenehmer Begleiter, ein nachlässiger Student mit großer Anfälligkeit für Schulden und einer Vorliebe für das Wirtshaus. Wenn er betrunken war, pflegte er seine Frau und Tochter zu schlagen. Am nächsten Morgen schimpfte er dann mit pochendem Kopf auf die Welt wegen ihrer Vernachlässigung seines Genies und beleidigte mit viel Geschick und manchmal mit vollkommenem Recht die Narren, seine malenden Kollegen. Da er sich mit größter Schwierigkeit über Wasser halten konnte und Schulden für eine Meile rund um Soho, wo er lebte, hatte, dachte er, seine Umstände dadurch zu verbessern, dass er eine junge Frau französischer Nationalität heiratete, die beruflich eine Opernsängerin war. Über den bescheidenen Beruf ihrer Mutter sprach Miss Sharp nie, sondern behauptete später sogar, die Entrechats seien ein nobles Geschlecht aus Gascony, und sie sei stolz auf ihre Abstammung von ihnen. Kurios ist, dass die Vorfahren dieser jungen Dame an Rang und Pracht zunahmen, je älter sie wurde. Rebeccas Mutter war irgendwo gebildet worden, und ihre Tochter sprach rein und mit einem pariser Akzent Französisch. Das war damals eine recht seltene Fähigkeit und führte zu ihrem Engagement bei der angesehenen Miss Pinkerton. Da ihre Mutter gestorben war und ihr Vater sich, nach seinem An der Seite vieler hoher und lebhafter junger Damen in der Anstalt wirkte Rebecca Sharp wie ein Kind. Aber sie hatte die traurige Vorsprungskraft der Armut. Viele Schuldeneintreiber hatte sie bereits abgewimmelt und sie von der Tür ihres Vaters weggeschickt; sie hatte so manchen Geschäftsmann überredet und beschwatzt, bis er gute Laune hatte und noch eine Mahlzeit gewährte. Normalerweise saß sie bei ihrem Vater, der sehr stolz auf ihren Witz war und hörte den Gesprächen seiner wilden Kameraden zu - oft ungeeignet für ein Mädchen. Aber sie war nie ein Mädchen gewesen, sagte sie; sie sei seit ihrem achten Lebensjahr eine Frau gewesen. Oh, warum hatte Miss Pinkerton einen solch gefährlichen Vogel in ihren Käfig gelassen? Tatsache ist, die alte Dame glaubte, Rebecca sei das sanftmütigste Wesen der Welt, so bewunderte sie Rebecca, wenn ihr Vater sie nach Chiswick brachte, dass sie die Rolle der Unschuldigen spielte; und nur ein Jahr bevor die Vereinbarung getroffen wurde, durch die Rebecca in ihr Haus aufgenommen wurde und als Rebecca sechzehn Jahre alt war, schenkte Miss Pinkerton ihr majestätisch und mit einer kleinen Rede eine Puppe - die übrigens das konfiszierte Eigentum von Miss Swindle war, entdeckt dabei, wie sie in Schulstunden heimlich damit spielte. Wie Vater und Tochter lachten, als sie nach der Abendfeier gemeinsam nach Hause gingen (es war bei den Reden, zu denen alle Professoren eingeladen waren) und wie Miss Pinkerton getobt hätte, hätte sie die Karikatur von sich selbst gesehen, die das kleine Nachahmer-Kind Rebecca aus ihrer Puppe gemacht hatte. Becky ging Dialoge damit durch; es war die Freude von Newman Street, Gerrard Street und dem Künstlerviertel: und die jungen Maler baten Rebecca regelmäßig, wenn sie mit ihrem faulen, leichtlebigen, cleveren und fröhlichen Mentor ihr Gin und Wasser trinken kamen, ob Miss Pinkerton zuhause sei: Sie war ihnen, arme Seele, genauso bekannt wie Mr. Lawrence oder Präsident West. Rebecca hatte einst die Ehre, einige Tage in Chiswick zu verbringen; danach brachte sie Jemima mit und richtete eine weitere Puppe als Miss Jemmy ein: Obwohl dieses ehrliche Wesen genug Gelee und Kuchen für drei Kinder gemacht und ihr zum Abschied ein Sieben-Schilling-Stück gegeben hatte, war der Spottgeist des Mädchens weit stärker als ihre Dankbarkeit und sie opferte Miss Jemmy genauso erbarmungslos wie ihre Schwester. Die Katastrophe kam und sie wurde wie nach Hause in den Mall gebracht. Die strenge Formalität des Ortes erstickte sie; die Gebete und Mahlzeiten, die Lektionen und Spaziergänge, die mit klösterlicher Regelmäßigkeit arrangiert waren, lasteten fast unerträglich auf ihr, und sie erinnerte sich sehnsüchtig an die Freiheit und die Armut des alten Ateliers in Soho, dass jeder, auch sie selbst, davon ausging, sie sei vor Kummer um ihren Vater verzehrt. Sie hatte ein kleines Zimmer auf dem Dachboden, in dem die Dienstmädchen sie nachts gehen und weinen hörten; aber es war Wut und nicht Trauer. Sie hatte sich bis jetzt nicht viel verstellt, aber ihre Einsamkeit brachte ihr das Vorspielen bei. Sie hatte nie in der Gesellschaft von Frauen verkehrt: Ihr Vater, so verwerflich er auch war, war ein talentierter Mann; sein Gespräch war tausendmal angenehmer für sie als das Gerede der Frauen, die sie nun traf. Die anmaßende Eitelkeit der alten Schuldirektorin, die alberne gute Laune ihrer Schwester, das dumme Geschwätz und Geplapper der älteren Mädchen und die steife Richtigkeit der Erzieherinnen ärgerten sie gleichermaßen; und sie hatte kein weiches mütterliches Herz, dieses unglückliche Mädchen, sonst hätten sie das Geplapper und die Gespräche der jüngeren Kinder, deren Betreuung größtenteils ihr oblag, besänftigt und interessiert. Aber sie lebte zwei Jahre lang unter ihnen, und keiner bedauerte es, dass sie ging. Die sanftmütige Amelia Sedley war die einzige Person, an die sie sich einigermaßen anhängen konnte; und wer konnte es ihr verdenken? Das Glück - die überlegenen Vorteile der jungen Frauen um sie herum - verursachten Rebecca unbeschreibliche Neidgefühle. "Was stellt dieses Mädchen sich nur vor, nur weil sie Enkelin eines Earls ist?", sagte sie über eines. "Wie schleimen sie sich vor dieser Creolin hin, wegen ihrer hunderttausend Pfund! Ich bin tausendmal klüger und charmanter als dieses Wesen, trotz ihrem Reichtum. Was den Stammbaum der Enkelin des Earls angeht, bin ich genauso vornehm wie sie; und dennoch beachtet mich hier jeder nicht. Aber als ich bei meinem Vater zu Gast war, haben nicht die Männer ihre lustigsten Bälle und Partys abgesagt, um den Abend mit mir zu verbringen?" Jedenfalls hatte sie sich fest entschlossen, dem Gefängnis zu entkommen, in dem sie sich befand, und begann nun zum ersten Mal, für sich selbst und für die Zukunft zusammenhängende Pläne zu schmieden. Sie nutzte also die ihr gebotenen Möglichkeiten zum Studium aus, und da sie bereits Musikerin und eine gute Linguistin war, durchlief sie rasch den kleinen Studiengang, der damals für Damen als notwendig galt. Ihre Musik übte sie unermüdlich und eines Tages, als die Mädchen unterwegs waren und sie zu Hause geblieben war, wurde sie dabei belauscht, wie sie ein Stück so gut spielte, dass Minerva klugerweise beschloss, sich die Kosten für einen Lehrer für die Jüngeren zu sparen, und Miss Sharp mitteilte, dass sie sie in Zukunft im Musikunterricht unterrichten solle. Das Mädchen lehnte ab; zum ersten Mal und zum Erstaunen der majestätischen Schuleiterin. "Ich bin hier, um mit den Kindern Französisch zu sprechen", sagte Rebecca abrupt, "nicht um sie Musik zu lehren und Geld für Sie zu sparen. Geben Sie mir Geld, und ich werde es ihnen beibringen." Minerva war gezwungen nachzugeben und mochte sie von diesem Tag an nicht mehr. "Seit fünfunddreißig Jahren", sagte sie und mit gutem Grund, "habe ich niemals denjenigen gesehen, der es gewagt hat, in meinem eigenen Haus meine Autorität in Frage zu stellen. Ich habe eine Viper in meinem Schoß genährt." "Viper - Quatsch", sagte Miss Sharp zu der alten Dame und fiel fast in Ohnmacht vor Erstaunen. "Sie haben mich genommen, weil ich nützlich war. Es gibt keine Frage der Dankbarkeit zwischen uns. Ich hasse diesen Ort und möchte ihn verlassen. Ich werde hier nur das tun, wozu ich gezwungen bin." Vergeblich fragte die alte Dame sie, ob sie wisse, dass sie mit Miss Pinkerton spreche? Rebecca lachte ihr ins Gesicht, mit einem schrecklichen, sarkastischen, dämonischen Lachen, das die Schuldirektorin fast in Ohnmacht fallen ließ. "Geben Sie mir eine Geldsumme", sagte das Mädchen, "und entlassen Sie mich - oder, wenn Ihnen das lieber ist, besorgen Sie mir einen guten Platz als Gouvernante in einer Adelsfamilie - Sie können das tun, wenn Sie wollen." Und in ihren weiteren Streitigkeiten kehrte sie immer wieder zu diesem Punkt zurück: "Besorgen Sie mir eine Anstellung - wir hassen uns und ich bin bereit zu gehen." Würdige Miss Pinkerton, obwohl sie eine römische Nase und einen Turban hatte und so groß wie ein Grenadier war und bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt eine unwiderstehliche Prinzessin gewesen war, hatte keine Willenskraft oder Stärke wie ihr kleiner Lehrling. Vergeblich versuchte sie, sie öffentlich zu So begann die Welt für diese beiden jungen Damen. Für Amelia war es eine ganz neue, frische und strahlende Welt mit all ihrer Schönheit. Für Rebecca war es nicht ganz neu - (tatsächlich, wenn die Wahrheit über die Crisp-Affäre gesagt werden muss, deutete die Tart Frau jemandem an, der die Tatsache einer anderen Person mitteilte, dass es viel mehr gab, als öffentlich über Mr. Crisp und Miss Sharp bekannt war, und dass sein Brief eine Antwort auf einen anderen Brief war). Aber wer kann dir die wirkliche Wahrheit sagen? Auf jeden Fall, selbst wenn Rebecca nicht die Welt begann, begann sie sie von vorne. Als die jungen Damen den Kensington Mautpfosten erreichten, hatte Amelia ihre Begleiterinnen nicht vergessen, aber ihre Tränen getrocknet, sie errötet sehr und war erfreut über einen jungen Offizier der Life Guards, der sie entdeckte, als er vorbeiritt und sagte: "Eine verdammt hübsche Frau, verdammt noch mal!" Und bevor der Wagen in Russell Square ankam, hatte schon viel Gespräch über den Ballsaal stattgefunden und ob junge Damen auch Puder und Reifröcke bei ihren Auftritten trugen und ob sie diese Ehre haben würde; sie wusste, dass sie zum Ball des Lord Mayor gehen würde. Und als sie schließlich nach Hause kamen, sprang Miss Amelia Sedley fröhlich und schön an Sambo's Arm hinaus - ein Mädchen so glücklich und hübsch wie jedes in der großen Stadt London. Sowohl er als auch der Kutscher stimmten dem zu, genauso wie ihr Vater und ihre Mutter und jeder der Diener im Haus, während sie im Flur standen, sich verbeugten, verneigten und lächelten, um ihre junge Herrin willkommen zu heißen. Du kannst dir sicher sein, dass sie Rebecca jedes Zimmer des Hauses gezeigt hat, sowie alles in jeder ihrer Schubladen; ihre Bücher, ihr Klavier, ihre Kleider und all ihren Schmuck, Broschen, Spitzen und Tand. Sie bestand darauf, dass Rebecca die weißen Cornelian- und Türkisringe annahm und ein süßes geblümtes Musselin-Kleid, das ihr jetzt zu klein ist, aber ihrer Freundin perfekt passen würde; sie beschloss insgeheim, ihre Mutter um Erlaubnis zu bitten, ihr den weißen Kaschmirschal zu schenken. Kann sie ihn nicht entbehren? Und hat ihr Bruder Joseph nicht gerade zwei aus Indien mitgebracht? Als Rebecca die beiden prächtigen Kaschmirschals sah, die Joseph Sedley seiner Schwester mitgebracht hatte, sagte sie mit vollkommener Wahrheit, "es muss herrlich sein, einen Bruder zu haben" und erlangte so mühelos das Mitleid der zärtlichen Amelia, weil sie allein in der Welt war, eine Waise ohne Freunde oder Verwandte. "Nicht allein", sagte Amelia, "du weißt doch, Rebecca, ich werde immer deine Freundin sein und dich wie eine Schwester lieben - wirklich, ich werde es." "Aber du hast doch Eltern, wie du sie hast - liebe, reiche, liebevolle Eltern, die dir alles geben, was du verlangst; und ihre Liebe, die kostbarer als alles ist! Mein armer Papa konnte mir nichts geben, und ich hatte nur zwei Kleider in der ganzen Welt! Und dann, einen Bruder zu haben, einen lieben Bruder! Oh, wie sehr musst du ihn lieben!" Amelia lachte. "Was? Liebst du ihn nicht? Du, die behauptet, jeden zu lieben?" "Ja, natürlich tue ich das - nur-" "Nur was?" "Nur Joseph scheint nicht sehr daran interessiert zu sein, ob ich ihn liebe oder nicht. Er hat mir zwei Finger zum Händeschütteln gegeben, als er nach zehn Jahren Abwesenheit ankam! Er ist sehr nett und gut, aber spricht kaum mit mir; ich glaube, er liebt seine Pfeife viel mehr als seine-" aber hier hielt Amelia inne, warum sollte sie schlecht über ihren Bruder sprechen? "Er war sehr freundlich zu mir als Kind", fügte sie hinzu, "ich war erst fünf Jahre alt, als er wegging." "Ist er nicht sehr reich?" fragte Rebecca. "Sie sagen, alle indischen Reichen sind enorm wohlhabend." "Ich glaube, er hat ein sehr hohes Einkommen." "Und ist deine Schwägerin eine nette hübsche Frau?" "Lass mal! Joseph ist nicht verheiratet", sagte Amelia wieder lachend. Vielleicht hatte sie diese Tatsache bereits Rebecca gegenüber erwähnt, aber die junge Frau schien sich nicht daran erinnert zu haben; sie schwor sogar, dass sie erwartet hatte, eine Vielzahl von Amelias Neffen und Nichten zu sehen. Sie war ziemlich enttäuscht, dass Mr. Sedley nicht verheiratet war; sie war sicher, dass Amelia gesagt hatte, dass er es sei und sie mochte kleine Kinder so sehr. "Ich denke, du hattest schon genug von ihnen in Chiswick", sagte Amelia, etwas verwundert über die plötzliche Zärtlichkeit ihrer Freundin; und tatsächlich hätte Miss Sharp sich in späteren Tagen niemals so weit vorgetraut, um Meinungen zu äußern, deren Unwahrheit so leicht hätte entdeckt werden können. Aber wir müssen bedenken, dass sie erst neunzehn ist und noch nicht mit der Kunst des Täuschens vertraut ist, arme unschuldige Kreatur! und dass sie ihre eigenen Erfahrungen am eigenen Leib macht. Die Bedeutung der obenstehenden Reihe von Fragen, wie sie im Herzen dieser einfallsreichen jungen Frau übersetzt wurde, war ganz einfach: "Wenn Mr. Joseph Sedley reich und unverheiratet ist, warum sollte ich ihn dann nicht heiraten? Ich habe nur eine Woche Zeit, aber es schadet nicht, es zu versuchen." Und sie beschloss, diesen lobenswerten Versuch zu unternehmen. Sie verstärkte ihre Zärtlichkeiten für Amelia; sie küsste die weiße Cornelian-Halskette, als sie sie anzog, und schwor, dass sie sie niemals, niemals hergeben würde. Als die Abendessen-Glocke läutete, ging sie mit dem Arm um Amelias Taille die Treppe hinunter, wie es junge Damen zu tun pflegen. Zu sehr aufgeregt stand sie vor der Tür zum Salon, dass sie kaum den Mut fand, einzutreten. "Fühle mein Herz, wie es schlägt, Liebes!" sagte sie zu ihrer Freundin. "Nein, tut es nicht", sagte Amelia. "Komm schon, hab keine Angst. Papa wird dir nicht schaden." 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.

Amelia ist durch Beckys Aktion, das Wörterbuch aus dem Kutschenfenster zu werfen, etwas geschockt. Das passt zu ihr - sie ist immer vornehm und bereit, Autoritäten zu gehorchen. Becky hingegen nicht. Nun erfahren wir etwas mehr über Rebecca Sharp. Ihr Vater war ein armer, halb alkoholabhängiger Künstler. Ihre Mutter war eine französische "Opern-Mädchen". Daher kommt Beckys fließende Französischkenntnis und auch, warum sie sich selbst als "Frau seit sie acht Jahre alt war" beschreibt. Es ist nicht ganz klar, was das bedeutet. Entweder liegt es daran, dass sie für die Künstlerfreunde ihres Vaters Modell gestanden hat, oder daran, dass sie viel Zeit damit verbracht hat, Handwerker davon abzuhalten, ihren Vater wegen Schulden festnehmen zu lassen. Alles in allem also eine schreckliche Kindheit. Ihr Vater unterrichtete Kunst in Miss Pinkertons Schule, und Becky gab sich der Schulleiterin gegenüber als schüchternes, unschuldiges Mädchen aus. Als Mr. Sharp starb, nahm Miss Pinkerton Becky als Lehrling an. Becky hasste den Ort und wie eingebildet alle Schüler und Lehrer dort waren. Aber sie freundete sich mit Amelia an. Sie lernte außerdem fleißig und wurde sehr gut im Singen und Klavierspielen. Miss Pinkerton versuchte, sie dazu zu bringen, zusätzlich zu den Französischstunden auch Musikunterricht zu geben, aber Becky wies sie zurück. Miss Pinkerton beschloss daraufhin, Becky so schnell wie möglich loszuwerden, und fand ihr eine Stelle als Gouvernante bei der Familie von Sir Pitt Crawley. Und das ist, wie Amelia und Becky sich in der Kutsche wiederfinden. Sie kommen im Londoner Haus der Sedleys an, das bürgerlich-schick ist. Es stellt sich heraus, dass Amelia einen älteren, unverheirateten und sehr wohlhabenden Bruder namens Jos hat, der gerade von seinem Job in Indien zurückkehrte. Becky beschließt, ihn zu heiraten. Becky versucht, einen schnellen Herzschlag vorzutäuschen, aber Amelia durchschaut das ziemlich schnell. Der Erzähler sagt uns, dass Beckys Illusionen und Täuschungen bald viel besser werden. Sie ist eine schnelle Lernerin.

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: Dr. Flint, ein Arzt in der Nachbarschaft, hatte die Schwester meiner Herrin geheiratet und ich war jetzt das Eigentum ihrer kleinen Tochter. Es war nicht ohne Murren, dass ich mich auf mein neues Zuhause vorbereitete; und was meine Unzufriedenheit noch verstärkte, war die Tatsache, dass auch mein Bruder William von derselben Familie gekauft wurde. Mein Vater hatte von Natur aus und aufgrund seiner Tätigkeit als geschickter Mechaniker mehr das Gefühl eines Freien, als es unter Sklaven üblich war. Mein Bruder war ein temperamentvoller Junge; und da er unter solchen Einflüssen aufwuchs, verabscheute er täglich den Namen Herr und Herrin. Eines Tages, als sein Vater und seine Herrin ihn gleichzeitig riefen, zögerte er zwischen den beiden; er war perplex, wer den stärkeren Anspruch auf seinen Gehorsam hatte. Er entschied sich schließlich, zu seiner Herrin zu gehen. Als mein Vater ihn dafür tadelte, antwortete er: "Ihr habt mich beide gerufen und ich wusste nicht, zu wem ich zuerst gehen sollte." "Du bist MEIN Kind", antwortete unser Vater, "und wenn ich dich rufe, solltest du sofort kommen, selbst wenn du durch Feuer und Wasser gehen musst." Armer Willie! Er sollte nun seine erste Lektion in Gehorsam gegenüber einem Herrn lernen. Unsere Großmutter versuchte, uns mit hoffnungsvollen Worten zu ermutigen, und diese fanden einen Widerhall in den gutgläubigen Herzen der Jugend. Als wir unser neues Zuhause betraten, wurden wir mit kalten Blicken, kalten Worten und kalter Behandlung konfrontiert. Wir waren froh, als die Nacht kam. Auf meinem schmalen Bett stöhnte und weinte ich, ich fühlte mich so verlassen und allein. Ich war dort fast ein Jahr lang, als eine liebe kleine Freundin von mir beerdigt wurde. Ich hörte ihre Mutter schluchzen, als die Erde auf den Sarg ihres einzigen Kindes fiel, und ich wandte mich vom Grab ab und war dankbar, dass ich noch etwas hatte, das ich lieben konnte. Ich traf meine Großmutter, die sagte: "Komm mit mir, Linda", und an ihrem Ton wusste ich, dass etwas Trauriges passiert war. Sie führte mich weg von den Menschen und sagte dann: "Mein Kind, dein Vater ist tot." Tot! Wie konnte ich das glauben? Er war so plötzlich gestorben, dass ich nicht einmal gehört hatte, dass er krank war. Ich ging mit meiner Großmutter nach Hause. Mein Herz rebellierte gegen Gott, der mir Mutter, Vater, Herrin und Freund genommen hatte. Die gute Großmutter versuchte mich zu trösten. "Wer kennt die Wege Gottes?" sagte sie. "Vielleicht wurden sie freundlicherweise vor den kommenden bösen Tagen genommen." Ich habe später oft darüber nachgedacht. Sie versprach, eine Mutter für ihre Enkel zu sein, soweit es ihr erlaubt war, und gestärkt von ihrer Liebe kehrte ich zu meinem Herrn zurück. Ich dachte, mir würde erlaubt sein, am nächsten Morgen das Haus meines Vaters zu besuchen, aber man befahl mir, Blumen zu holen, damit das Haus meiner Herrin für eine Abendparty geschmückt werden könnte. Ich verbrachte den Tag damit, Blumen zu sammeln und sie zu Girlanden zu weben, während der leblose Körper meines Vaters weniger als eine Meile von mir entfernt lag. Was kümmerten sich meine Besitzer darum? Er war nur ein Stück Eigentum. Außerdem meinten sie, er habe seine Kinder verdorben, indem er ihnen beigebracht habe, dass sie Menschen seien. Dies war eine garstige Lehre für einen Sklaven, um zu lehren; frevelhaft von ihm und gefährlich für die Herren. Am nächsten Tag folgte ich seinem sterblichen Überrest zu einem bescheidenen Grab neben dem meiner lieben Mutter. Es gab Menschen, die den Wert meines Vaters kannten und sein Andenken respektierten. Mein Zuhause erschien mir jetzt noch trostloser als je zuvor. Das Lachen der kleinen sklavenlosen Kinder klang schroff und grausam. Es war egoistisch, so über die Freude anderer zu fühlen. Mein Bruder ging mit einem sehr ernsten Gesicht umher. Ich versuchte, ihn zu trösten, indem ich sagte: "Sei tapfer, Willie; heller Tage werden kommen." "Du weißt nichts darüber, Linda", antwortete er. "Wir müssen hier den Rest unseres Lebens bleiben; wir werden niemals frei sein." Ich argumentierte, dass wir älter und stärker werden und dass es uns vielleicht bald erlaubt sein könnte, unsere eigene Zeit zu mieten, und dann könnten wir Geld verdienen, um unsere Freiheit zu kaufen. William erklärte, dass dies viel einfacher zu sagen als zu tun sei; außerdem beabsichtigte er nicht, seine Freiheit zu "kaufen". Wir führten täglich Kontroversen zu diesem Thema. In Dr. Flints Haus wurde den Sklavenmahlzeiten kaum Beachtung geschenkt. Wenn sie ein Stück Essen erwischen konnten, während es serviert wurde, umso besser. Ich machte mir darüber keine Sorgen, denn auf meinen verschiedenen Botengängen kam ich am Haus meiner Großmutter vorbei, wo es immer etwas für mich übrig gab. Mir wurde oft mit Bestrafung gedroht, wenn ich dort stehen blieb; und meine Großmutter, um mich nicht aufzuhalten, stand oft am Tor mit etwas für mein Frühstück oder Mittagessen. Ich war ihr all meinen Trost, geistlicher oder zeitlicher Natur, schuldig. Es war ihre harte Arbeit, die meine dürftige Garderobe versorgte. Ich erinnere mich lebhaft an das Linsey-Wollkleid, das mir jedes Jahr im Winter von Frau Flint gegeben wurde. Wie ich es hasste! Es war eines der Zeichen der Sklaverei. Während meine Großmutter mich also aus ihren harten Ersparnissen unterstützte, wurden die dreihundert Dollar, die sie ihrer Herrin geliehen hatte, nie zurückgezahlt. Als ihre Herrin starb, wurde ihr Schwiegersohn, Dr. Flint, zum Testamentsvollstrecker ernannt. Als meine Großmutter sich bei ihm um die Bezahlung erkundigte, sagte er, dass das Vermögen überschuldet sei und das Gesetz die Zahlung verbiete. Es verbot ihm jedoch nicht, die Silberleuchter zu behalten, die mit diesem Geld gekauft worden waren. Ich nehme an, sie werden in der Familie von Generation zu Generation weitergereicht. Die Herrin meiner Großmutter hatte ihr immer versprochen, dass sie nach ihrem Tod frei sein würde; und es wurde gesagt, dass sie dieses Versprechen in ihrem Testament eingelöst hat. Aber als das Vermögen abgewickelt wurde, teilte Dr. Flint der treuen alten Dienerin mit, dass es unter den gegebenen Umständen notwendig sei, sie zu verkaufen. Am festgesetzten Tag wurde die übliche Anzeige veröffentlicht, in der verkündet wurde, dass es eine "öffentliche Versteigerung von Negern, Pferden, usw." geben würde. Dr. Flint kam, um meiner Großmutter zu sagen, dass er nicht bereit sei, ihre Gefühle zu verletzen, indem er sie zur Versteigerung stellte, und dass er es vorziehen würde, sie privat zu verkaufen. Meine Großmutter durchschaute seine Heuchelei; sie verstand sehr gut, dass er sich für diese Aufgabe schämte. Sie war eine sehr energische Frau, und wenn er niedrig genug war, sie zu verkaufen, obwohl ihre Herrin beabsichtigte, dass sie frei sein sollte, dann war sie entschlossen, dass die Öffentlichkeit es erfahren sollte. Sie hatte lange Zeit viele Familien mit Keksen und Konserven versorgt; daher war "Tante Marthy", wie sie genannt wurde, weithin bekannt, und jeder, der sie kannte, respektierte ihren Verstand und ihren guten Charakter. Auch ihre langjährige und treue Dienstzeit in der Familie war bekannt, ebenso wie die Absicht ihrer Herrin, sie freizulassen. Als der Verkaufstag kam, nahm sie ihren Platz unter den Sklaven ein, und beim ersten Aufruf sprang sie auf den Auktionsblock. Viele Stimmen riefen: "Schande! Schande! Wer wird DICH, Tante Marthy, verkaufen? Steh nicht da! Das ist kein Ort für DICH." Ohne ein Wort zu sagen, wartete sie ruhig auf ihr Schicksal. Niemand bot etwas für sie. Schließlich sagte eine Frau Flint, wie viele Frauen im Süden, hatte völlig mangelnde Energie. Sie hatte nicht die Kraft, ihre Haushaltsangelegenheiten zu leiten; aber ihre Nerven waren so stark, dass sie in ihrem Sessel sitzen und zusehen konnte, wie eine Frau ausgepeitscht wurde, bis das Blut von jedem Hieb der Peitsche tropfte. Sie war Mitglied der Kirche; aber das Teilnehmen am Abendmahl schien sie nicht in einen christlichen Gemütszustand zu versetzen. Wenn das Mittagessen an diesem bestimmten Sonntag nicht zur exakten Zeit serviert wurde, würde sie sich in die Küche stellen und warten, bis es aufgetragen war, und dann in alle Töpfe und Pfannen spucken, die zum Kochen verwendet wurden. Sie tat dies, um zu verhindern, dass der Koch und ihre Kinder ihre karge Nahrung mit den Resten der Brühe und anderen Überbleibseln ergänzten. Die Sklaven konnten nichts zu essen bekommen, außer dem, was sie ihnen geben wollte. Essen wurde drei Mal am Tag abgewogen, in Pfund und Unzen. Ich kann Ihnen versichern, dass sie ihnen keine Chance gab, Weizenbrot aus ihrem Mehlbehälter zu essen. Sie wusste, wie viele Kekse ein Quart Mehl ergab und genau welche Größe sie haben sollten. Dr. Flint war ein Feinschmecker. Die Köchin hat nie eine Mahlzeit an seinen Tisch geschickt, ohne Furcht und Zittern; denn wenn es ein Gericht gab, das ihm nicht gefiel, würde er entweder befehlen, sie auspeitschen zu lassen oder sie zwingen, jeden Bissen in seiner Gegenwart zu essen. Die arme, hungrige Frau hätte vielleicht nichts dagegen gehabt, es zu essen; aber sie hatte etwas dagegen, dass ihr Herr es ihr in den Hals stopfte, bis sie daran erstickte. Sie hatten einen Haushund, der im Haus eine Plage war. Die Köchin wurde angewiesen, ihm einigen Maisbrei zu machen. Er weigerte sich zu essen, und als sein Kopf darüber gehalten wurde, floss der Schaum aus seinem Mund in die Schüssel. Einige Minuten später starb er. Als Dr. Flint herein kam, sagte er, dass der Brei nicht gut gekocht worden war und das war der Grund, warum das Tier ihn nicht aß. Er rief die Köchin und zwang sie, ihn zu essen. Er dachte, dass der Magen der Frau stärker war als der des Hundes; aber ihr Leiden danach bewies, dass er sich irrte. Diese arme Frau ertrug viele Grausamkeiten von ihrem Herrn und ihrer Herrin; manchmal wurde sie einen ganzen Tag und eine ganze Nacht lang von ihrem stillenden Baby weggesperrt. Als ich einige Wochen lang in der Familie gewesen war, wurde einer der Plantagensklaven auf Befehl seines Herrn in die Stadt gebracht. Es war fast Dunkelheit, als er ankam, und Dr. Flint befahl, ihn ins Arbeitslager zu bringen und ihn an den Balken zu binden, so dass seine Füße gerade den Boden nicht berühren konnten. In dieser Situation sollte er warten, bis der Arzt seinen Tee getrunken hatte. Ich werde diese Nacht nie vergessen. Noch nie zuvor in meinem Leben hatte ich Hunderte von Schlägen gehört, in Abfolge, auf einen Menschen fallen. Sein klagendes Stöhnen und sein "O bitte nicht, Massa" hallten monatelang in meinem Ohr nach. Es gab viele Spekulationen über die Ursache dieser schrecklichen Strafe. Manche sagten, der Herr beschuldigte ihn, Mais gestohlen zu haben; andere sagten, der Sklave habe sich in Gegenwart des Aufsehers mit seiner Frau gestritten und seinen Herrn beschuldigt, der Vater ihres Kindes zu sein. Sie waren beide schwarz und das Kind war sehr hell. Am nächsten Morgen ging ich ins Arbeitslager und sah die Peitsche immer noch vom Blut feucht und die Boards waren alle mit Blut bedeckt. Der arme Mann lebte noch und stritt weiterhin mit seiner Frau. Ein paar Monate später übergab Dr. Flint sie beide einem Sklavenhändler. Der schuldige Mann steckte ihre Werte in die Tasche und hatte die Zufriedenheit zu wissen, dass sie aus seinem Blickfeld und Gehör waren. Als die Mutter dem Händler übergeben wurde, sagte sie: "Du hast versprochen, mich gut zu behandeln." Darauf antwortete er: "Du hast deine Zunge zu weit ausgefahren; verdammt dich!" Sie hatte vergessen, dass es ein Verbrechen für einen Sklaven war, zu sagen, wer der Vater ihres Kindes war. Neben dem Eigentümer kommt die Verfolgung in solchen Fällen auch von anderen. Ich sah einmal ein junges Sklavenmädchen sterben, kurz nachdem sie ein fast weißes Kind zur Welt gebracht hatte. In ihrer Qual rief sie: "Oh Herr, komm und nimm mich!" Ihre Herrin stand neben ihr und verspottete sie wie ein verkörpertes Dämon. "Du leidest, nicht wahr?" rief sie aus. "Das freut mich. Du verdienst alles, und noch mehr." Die Mutter des Mädchens sagte: "Das Baby ist tot, Gott sei Dank; und ich hoffe, dass mein armes Kind bald im Himmel sein wird." "Himmel!" entgegnete die Herrin. "Es gibt keinen solchen Ort für solche wie sie und ihre Bastarde." Die arme Mutter wandte sich schluchzend ab. Ihre sterbende Tochter rief sie schwach und als sie sich über sie beugte, hörte ich sie sagen: "Kummer dich nicht so, Mutter; Gott weiß alles darüber; und ER wird Erbarmen mit mir haben." Ihre Leiden wurden danach so intensiv, dass ihre Herrin es nicht aushielt; aber als sie den Raum verließ, lag das spöttische Lächeln immer noch auf ihren Lippen. Sieben Kinder nannten sie Mutter. Die arme schwarze Frau hatte nur das eine Kind, dessen Augen sie im Tode schließen sah, während sie Gott dafür dankte, dass er sie von der größeren Bitterkeit des Lebens weggenommen hatte. 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.

Dr. Flint, ein Nachbarschaftsarzt, hatte die Schwester der Herrin von Linda Brent geheiratet, und Linda ist nun das Eigentum ihrer jungen Tochter. Die Familie kaufte auch ihren Bruder William. Das Kapitel beginnt mit einem Vorfall, der William betrifft, der von seinem Vater streng getadelt wird, weil er seiner Herrin statt seinem Vater antwortet, nachdem er von beiden gerufen wurde. Linda erzählt dann von der Beerdigung ihrer Freundin, dem plötzlichen, unerwarteten Tod ihres Vaters und dem Verkauf ihrer Großmutter. Die Herrin ihrer Großmutter hatte immer versprochen, dass ihre Großmutter nach ihrem Tod ihre Freiheit bekommen würde. Aber als die Herrin stirbt, bricht Dr. Flint dieses Versprechen und bietet Linda's Großmutter zum Verkauf an. Allerdings kauft die Schwester der verstorbenen Herrin sie und schließlich erhält ihre Großmutter ihre Freiheit. Dieses Kapitel enthält anschauliche Berichte über die Grausamkeit und Brutalität der Flints - und der benachbarten Sklavenhalter - gegenüber ihren Sklaven.

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. Am Ende von drei Wochen konnte ich mein Zimmer verlassen und mich im Haus bewegen. Und beim ersten Mal, als ich abends aufstand, bat ich Catherine, mir vorzulesen, weil meine Augen schwach waren. Wir waren in der Bibliothek, der Herr war bereits schlafen gegangen: Sie stimmte zu, eher widerwillig, wie ich dachte; und da ich mir vorstellte, dass meine Art von Büchern ihr nicht gefallen würde, bat ich sie, sich bei der Wahl dessen, was sie las, selbst zu entscheiden. Sie wählte einen ihrer eigenen Favoriten aus und las etwa eine Stunde lang fortlaufend, dann kamen häufige Fragen. „Ellen, bist du nicht müde? Solltest du dich nicht hinlegen? Du wirst krank, wenn du so lange wach bleibst, Ellen.“ "Nein, nein, Liebes, ich bin nicht müde", antwortete ich ständig. Als sie mich unveränderlich sah, versuchte sie eine andere Methode, ihre Abneigung gegen ihre Beschäftigung zu zeigen. Sie fing an zu gähnen und sich zu strecken und sagte: "Ellen, ich bin müde." "Dann hör auf und reden wir", antwortete ich. Das war schlimmer: Sie ärgerte sich und seufzte und schaute auf ihre Uhr, bis es acht war, und ging schließlich in ihr Zimmer, völlig übermüdet; darauf deuteten ihr missmutiger, müder Blick und das ständige Reiben ihrer Augen hin. In der folgenden Nacht schien sie noch ungeduldiger zu sein; und am dritten Tag, seitdem ich wieder bei ihr war, klagte sie über Kopfschmerzen und verließ mich. Ich fand ihr Verhalten merkwürdig; und nachdem ich eine lange Zeit allein geblieben war, beschloss ich, nachzusehen, ob es ihr besser ging, und sie zu fragen, ob sie nicht auf dem Sofa liegen möchte, anstatt im Dunkeln nach oben zu gehen. Keine Catherine konnte ich oben finden, und keine unten. Die Bediensteten versicherten, sie hätten sie nicht gesehen. Ich lauschte an Mr. Edgars Tür; alles war still. Ich kehrte in ihr Zimmer zurück, löschte meine Kerze aus und setzte mich ans Fenster. Der Mond schien hell; eine Schneeschicht bedeckte den Boden, und ich überlegte, dass sie möglicherweise auf den Gedanken gekommen war, im Garten spazieren zu gehen, um sich zu erfrischen. Ich entdeckte eine Gestalt, die entlang des inneren Zauns des Parks kroch; aber es war nicht meine junge Herrin: Als sie ans Licht kam, erkannte ich einen der Stallknechte. Er blieb eine beträchtliche Zeit stehen und betrachtete den Weg des Wagens durch die Anlagen; dann machte er sich mit energischem Schritt davon, als hätte er etwas entdeckt, und tauchte bald darauf wieder auf und führte das Pony von Miss; und dort war sie, gerade abgestiegen und ging an seiner Seite. Der Mann brachte sie heimlich über das Gras zum Stall. Cathy trat durch das Fenster des Zeichenzimmers ein und glitt geräuschlos zu mir, wo ich auf sie wartete. Sie schloss die Tür leise, legte ihre schneeweißen Schuhe ab, band ihren Hut ab und war dabei, unbewusst meiner Beobachtung ihre Hülle abzulegen, als ich plötzlich aufstand und mich zu erkennen gab. Die Überraschung ließ sie einen Moment erstarrt stehen: sie stieß einen unverständlichen Ausruf aus und blieb stehen. "Meine liebe Miss Catherine", begann ich, durch ihre jüngste Freundlichkeit zu sehr beeindruckt, um sie anzuschimpfen, "wo bist du in dieser Stunde herumgeritten? Und warum versuchst du mich zu täuschen, indem du eine Geschichte erzählst? Wo warst du? Sprich!" "Am Ende des Parks", stammelte sie. "Ich habe keine Geschichte erzählt." "Nirgendwo anders?" fragte ich. "Nein", war die gemurmelte Antwort. "Oh, Catherine!", rief ich traurig aus. "Du weißt, dass du etwas falsch gemacht hast, sonst würdest du nicht gezwungen sein, mir eine Lüge zu erzählen. Das trifft mich sehr. Ich wäre lieber drei Monate lang krank als von dir eine bewusste Lüge zu hören." Sie sprang vor und brach in Tränen aus, warf ihre Arme um meinen Hals. "Nun, Ellen, ich habe so Angst, dass du wütend wirst", sagte sie. "Versprich, nicht wütend zu sein, und du wirst die Wahrheit erfahren: Ich hasse es, sie zu verstecken." Wir setzten uns auf die Fensterbank; ich versicherte ihr, dass ich nicht schimpfen würde, egal was ihr Geheimnis sein mochte, und ich hatte es natürlich erraten; also begann sie. "Ich war in Wuthering Heights, Ellen, und seitdem du krank geworden bist, habe ich keinen Tag verpasst; außer dreimal davor und zweimal danach, als du dein Zimmer verlassen hast. Ich gab Michael Bücher und Bilder, damit er Minny jeden Abend vorbereitet und sie zurück in den Stall bringt: Du darfst auch nicht mit ihm schimpfen, weißt du. Ich war um halb sieben Uhr abends in den Heights und blieb normalerweise bis halb neun Uhr, dann galoppierte ich nach Hause. Ich bin nicht dorthin gegangen, um mich zu amüsieren: Ich war oft die ganze Zeit unglücklich. Ab und zu war ich glücklich: vielleicht einmal in der Woche. Zuerst habe ich gedacht, es wird schwierig sein, dich zu überreden, mir mein Wort gegenüber Linton zu erlauben: Denn ich hatte versprochen, am nächsten Tag noch einmal vorbeizukommen, als wir ihn verlassen haben; aber da du an diesem Tag oben geblieben bist, bin ich um diese Probleme herumgekommen. Während Michael am Nachmittag das Schloss des Parktors wieder verschloss, bekam ich den Schlüssel und erzählte ihm, dass mein Cousin wollte, dass ich ihn besuche, da er krank ist und nicht auf die Grange kommen kann; und dass Papa dagegen sein würde, dass ich gehe: und dann habe ich mit ihm über das Pony verhandelt. Er liest gerne und denkt daran, bald zu heiraten; also hat er angeboten, dass er, wenn ich ihm Bücher aus der Bibliothek leihen würde, das tun würde, was ich möchte: aber ich habe ihm lieber meine eigenen gegeben, und das hat ihn mehr zufriedengestellt. Bei meinem zweiten Besuch schien Linton in guter Stimmung zu sein; und Zillah (das ist ihre Haushälterin) hat uns ein sauberes Zimmer und ein gutes Feuer gemacht und uns gesagt, dass Joseph auf einem Gebetstreffen sei und Hareton Earnshaw mit seinen Hunden unterwegs sei - wie ich später erfahren habe, um unsere Wälder von Fasane zu berauben - da könnten wir tun, was wir wollten. Sie brachte mir etwas warmen Wein und Lebkuchen und war äußerst gutmütig, und Linton saß in dem Sessel und ich in dem kleinen Schaukelstuhl auf dem Herdstein, und wir lachten und unterhielten uns so fröhlich und fanden so viel zu sagen: Wir planten, wohin wir im Sommer gehen und was wir tun würden. Ich muss das nicht wiederholen, denn du würdest es albern nennen. Einmal waren wir jedoch kurz davor, uns zu streiten. Er sagte, die angenehmste Art, einen heißen Julitag zu verbringen, sei vom Morgen bis zum Abend auf einer Heidebank inmitten der Moore zu liegen, während die Bienen träumerisch zwischen den Blüten summen und die Lerchen hoch oben singen und der blaue Himmel und die helle Sonne beständig und wolkenlos scheinen. Das war seine vollkommenste Vorstellung vom Glück im Himmel: Meine Vorstellung war es, in einem raschelnden grünen Baum zu schaukeln, mit einem Westwind, der weht, und hellen weißen Wolken, die schnell darüber hinwegziehen; und nicht nur Lerchen, sondern auch Singdrosseln und Amseln und Hänflingen und Kuckucken, die von allen Seiten Musik ausschütten, und die Moore aus der Ferne betrachten, die sich in kühle, dunkle Täler aufteilen; gleichzeitig große Wellen von langem Gras, die sich in Wellen im Wind wiegen; und Wäldern und klingendem Wasser und der ganzen Welt, die wach und wild vor Freude ist. Er wollte, dass alles in einer Ekstase des Friedens liegt; Ich wollte, dass alles in einem glorreichen Jubel funkelt und tanzt. Ich sagte, dass sein Himmel nur halb lebendig wäre; und er sagte, meiner wäre betrunken: Ich sagte, dass ich in seinem einschlafen würde; und er sagte, er könnte in meinem nicht atmen und fing an, sehr bissig zu werden. Schließlich einigten wir uns darauf, beides auszuprobieren, sobald das richtige Wetter käme; und dann Nachdem ich eine Stunde stillgesessen hatte, betrachtete ich den großen Raum mit seinem glatten unteppicheten Boden und dachte daran, wie schön es wäre, darin zu spielen, wenn wir den Tisch entfernen würden. Ich bat Linton, Zillah hereinzurufen, um uns zu helfen, und wir könnten eine Runde Blindekuh spielen; sie sollte versuchen, uns zu fangen, so wie du es früher gemacht hast, Ellen. Aber er wollte nicht; es machte ihm keinen Spaß, sagte er. Aber er willigte ein, mit mir Ball zu spielen. Wir fanden zwei in einem Schrank, zusammen mit einem Haufen alter Spielzeuge, Kreisel, Reifen und Federbälle. Einer war mit C. markiert und der andere mit H. Ich wollte den C. haben, weil das für Catherine stand und das H. für Heathcliff, seinen Namen, sein könnte; aber das Gehirn kam aus dem H. und Linton mochte es nicht. Ich habe ihn ständig geschlagen und er wurde wieder mürrisch, hustete und kehrte auf seinen Stuhl zurück. An diesem Abend jedoch erlangte er leicht seine gute Laune wieder: Er war begeistert von zwei oder drei schönen Liedern - deinen Liedern, Ellen; und als ich gehen musste, bat und flehte er mich an, am nächsten Abend wiederzukommen; und ich versprach es. Minny und ich flogen wie Luft nach Hause und ich träumte von Wuthering Heights und meinem süßen, lieben Cousin bis zum Morgen. "Am nächsten Tag war ich traurig, zum Teil weil es dir schlecht ging und zum Teil, weil ich wünschte, mein Vater wüsste und meine Ausflüge billigte: aber es war wunderschönes Mondlicht nach dem Tee; und als ich ritt, verzog sich die Dunkelheit. Ich werde einen weiteren glücklichen Abend haben, dachte ich mir; und was mich noch mehr erfreut, mein hübscher Linton auch. Ich trabte durch ihren Garten und war gerade dabei, umzukehren und zur Rückseite zu gehen, als dieser Kerl Earnshaw auf mich traf, mein Zaumzeug ergriff und mich bat, durch den Haupteingang hereinzugehen. Er tätschelte Minnys Hals und sagte, sie sei ein hübsches Tier, und es schien, als ob er wollte, dass ich mit ihm spreche. Ich sagte ihm nur, dass er mein Pferd in Ruhe lassen solle, sonst würde es ihn treten. Er antwortete mit seinem vulgären Akzent: "Es würde nicht groß Schaden anrichten, wenn es das täte"; und lächelte, als er sich die Beine ansah. Ich hatte halb Lust, ihn es ausprobieren zu lassen; jedoch ging er weg, um die Tür zu öffnen, und als er den Riegel hob, schaute er nach oben zur Inschrift und sagte mit einer dummen Mischung aus Ungeschicktheit und Freude: "Miss Catherine! Jetzt kann ich das lesen." "Wunderbar", rief ich aus. "Lasst uns euch hören - ihr seid wirklich klug geworden!" Er buchstabierte und zog den Namen - "Hareton Earnshaw". "Und die Zahlen?" rief ich ermutigend, da er anhielt. "Das kann ich noch nicht sagen", antwortete er. "Oh du Dummkopf!" sagte ich und lachte herzlich über sein Versagen. Der Narr starrte mich an, mit einem Grinsen um die Lippen und einem finsteren Blick, als ob er unsicher wäre, ob er nicht in mein Gelächter einstimmen sollte; ob es nicht angenehme Vertrautheit oder tatsächlich Verachtung war. Ich löste seine Zweifel, indem ich plötzlich wieder ernst wurde und ihn aufforderte wegzugehen, denn ich war gekommen, um Linton zu sehen, nicht ihn. Er errötete - das sah ich im Mondlicht - ließ seine Hand vom Riegel und zog sich beleidigt zurück, ein Bild gedemütigter Eitelkeit. Er dachte wohl, er sei ebenso begabt wie Linton, weil er seinen eigenen Namen buchstabieren konnte; und war außerordentlich verlegen, dass ich nicht dasselbe dachte. "Stopp, Miss Catherine, meine Liebe!" - unterbrach ich sie. "Ich werde dich nicht schelten, aber mir gefällt dein Verhalten dort nicht. Wenn du bedacht hättest, dass Hareton genauso dein Cousin ist wie Master Heathcliff, hättest du erkannt, wie unangemessen es war, sich so zu benehmen. Es war lobenswerter Ehrgeiz für ihn, genauso begabt zu sein wie Linton; und wahrscheinlich hat er nicht nur gelernt, um sich zu präsentieren: du hast ihn vorher wegen seiner Unwissenheit beschämt, da bin ich sicher; und er wollte es wiedergutmachen und dich erfreuen. Über seinen unvollkommenen Versuch zu spotten war sehr schlechtes Benehmen. Wärest du unter den gleichen Umständen aufgewachsen, wärst du weniger unhöflich? Er war genauso ein schnelles und intelligentes Kind wie du; und es verletzt mich, dass er jetzt verachtet wird, weil dieser undankbare Heathcliff ihn so ungerecht behandelt hat." "Nun, Ellen, du wirst deswegen nicht weinen, oder?" rief sie überrascht über meine Ernsthaftigkeit. "Aber warte, und du wirst hören, ob er seine ABC gemeistert hat, um mich zu erfreuen; und ob es sich lohnt, nett zu dem Dummkopf zu sein. Ich betrat den Raum; Linton lag auf dem Sessel und stand halb auf, um mich zu begrüßen. "Ich bin heute Abend krank, Catherine, Liebes", sagte er. "Du musst die ganze Unterhaltung führen und lass mich zuhören. Komm und setz dich zu mir. Ich war sicher, dass du dein Wort nicht brechen würdest, und ich werde dich vor deiner Abreise erneut bitten." Ich wusste nun, dass ich ihn nicht ärgern durfte, da er krank war; und ich sprach leise, stellte keine Fragen und vermied es, ihn auf irgendeine Weise zu reizen. Ich hatte einige meiner schönsten Bücher für ihn mitgebracht: Er bat mich, ein wenig daraus vorzulesen, und ich wollte gerade nachgeben, als Earnshaw die Tür aufbrach und voller Absicht auf uns zukam, Linton am Arm packte und von seinem Platz herunterzog. "Geh in dein Zimmer!" sagte er mit einer fast unverständlichen Stimme aus Leidenschaft, und sein Gesicht sah geschwollen und wütend aus. "Bring sie dorthin, wenn sie dich besuchen kommt: du wirst mich nicht davon abhalten. Verschwindet beide!" Er fluchte uns und ließ Linton keine Zeit zu antworten, er warf ihn fast in die Küche; und er ballte seine Faust, als ich folgte, anscheinend darauf aus, mich niederzuschlagen. Ich hatte für einen Moment Angst und ließ ein Buch fallen; er trat es nach mir und schloss uns aus. Ich hörte ein bösartiges, knackendes Lachen am Feuer und als ich mich umdrehte, sah ich den abscheulichen Joseph dort stehen, wie er seine knochigen Hände rieb und vor Erregung zitterte. "Ich war mir sicher, dass er euch herausschmeißen würde! Er ist ein großartiger Junge! Er hat den richtigen Geist in sich! Er weiß - ja, er weiß, genauso wie ich, wer dort der Herr sein sollte - Ech, Ech, Ech! Er hat richtig gehandelt! Ech, Ech, Ech!" "Wo sollen wir hingehen?" fragte ich meinen Cousin und ignorierte das hämische Lachen des alten Unholds. Linton war weiß und zitterte. Er war damals nicht hübsch, Ellen: oh nein! Er sah entsetzlich aus; denn sein schmales Gesicht und seine großen Augen waren von einem Ausdruck rasender, ohnmächtiger Wut gezeichnet. Er griff nach dem Türgriff und rüttelte daran: sie war von innen verriegelt. "Wenn du mich nicht reinlässt, bringe ich dich um! - Wenn du mich nicht reinlässt, bringe ich dich um!" schrie er eher als dass er es sagte. "Teufel! Teufel! - Ich bringe dich um! Ich bringe dich um!" Joseph stieß sein knarrendes Lachen erneut aus. "Da ist er, das ist der Vater!", rief er. "Das ist der Vater! Wir haben immer ein bisschen von beiden Seiten in uns. Kümmere dich nicht darum, Hareton, Junge - fürchte dich nicht - er kann nicht an dich herankommen!" Ich ergriff Lintons Hände und versuchte, ihn wegzuziehen; aber er schrie so schrecklich, dass ich mich nicht traute, weiterzumachen. Schließlich erstickten seine Schreie in einem furchtbaren Hustenanfall; Blut spritzte aus seinem Mund und er fiel auf den Boden. Mit Angst erfüllt rannte ich in den Hof und rief so laut ich konnte nach Zillah. Sie hörte mich bald: Sie melkte die Kühe in einem Schuppen hinter der Scheune und eilte von ihrer Arbeit herüber, um zu fragen, was los war? Ich hatte nicht genug Luft, um es zu erklären; ich zog sie herein und suchte nach Linton. Earnshaw war herausgekommen, um das Unheil zu begutachten, das er angerichtet hatte, und brachte das arme Ding gerade die Treppe hinauf. Zillah und ich stiegen hinter ihm her auf; aber er hielt mich oben auf der Treppe auf und sagte, ich sollte nicht hineingehen: Ich müsse nach Hause gehen. Ich rief aus, dass er Linton getötet hatte, und ich würde eintreten. Joseph sperrte die Tür zu und erklärte, dass ich "keinen solchen Unsinn" machen solle, und fragte mich, ob ich "ebenso verrückt wie er" sein würde. Ich stand weinend dort, bis die Haushälterin wieder auftauchte. Sie behauptete, er werde sich gleich besser fühlen, aber er könne mit diesem Schreien und Lärm nicht umgehen; und sie nahm mich und trug mich fast ins Haus. 'Ellen, ich war bereit, mir die Haare vom Kopf zu reißen! Ich schluchzte und weinte so sehr, dass meine Augen fast blind waren; und der Schurke, mit dem du so mitfühlst, stand dagegenüber: ging hin und wieder davon aus, dass ich "still sein solle" und bestritt, dass es seine Schuld war; und schließlich, erschrocken durch meine Behauptungen, ich werde es Papa erzählen und er werde ins Gefängnis kommen und gehängt werden, fing er selbst an zu schluchzen und eilte davon, um seine feige Aufregung zu verstecken. Trotzdem war ich ihn nicht los: Als sie mich schließlich zwangen zu gehen und ich mich ein paar hundert Meter vom Grundstück entfernt hatte, tauchte er plötzlich aus dem Schatten am Straßenrand auf, hielt Minny an und packte mich. '"Miss Catherine, es tut mir leid", begann er, "aber das ist schon zu viel -" 'Ich gab ihm mit meiner Peitsche einen Schlag in der Hoffnung, dass er mich vielleicht umbringen würde. Er ließ los und fluchte laut, und ich galoppierte nach Hause und war fast außer mir. 'Ich habe dir an diesem Abend keine gute Nacht gewünscht, und ich bin am nächsten Tag nicht nach Wuthering Heights gegangen: Ich wollte wirklich gehen; aber ich war seltsam aufgeregt und fürchtete, dass Linton tot sein könnte, manchmal; und manchmal schauderte ich bei dem Gedanken, Hareton zu begegnen. Am dritten Tag fasste ich Mut: Zumindest konnte ich die Spannung nicht länger ertragen und schlich mich wieder fort. Ich ging um fünf Uhr und lief; in der Hoffnung, dass ich unbemerkt ins Haus und in Lintons Zimmer gelangen kann. Allerdings gaben die Hunde mir Bescheid, dass ich näher kam. Zillah empfing mich und sagte, dass der Junge sich gut erhole, und führte mich in ein kleines, ordentliches, mit Teppich ausgelegtes Zimmer, wo ich zu meiner unaussprechlichen Freude Linton auf einem kleinen Sofa sah, wie er eines meiner Bücher las. Aber er sprach weder mit mir noch schaute er mich eine ganze Stunde lang an, Ellen: Er hat so eine unglückliche Stimmung. Und was mich völlig verwirrte, als er dann doch den Mund aufmachte, war es, um die Lüge zu verbreiten, dass ich den Aufruhr verursacht hätte und Hareton keine Schuld daran trug! Unfähig zu antworten, außer leidenschaftlich, stand ich auf und verließ das Zimmer. Er rief mir leise "Catherine!" hinterher. Er hatte nicht damit gerechnet, dass ich antworten würde; aber ich kehrte nicht um; und der folgende Tag war der zweite Tag, an dem ich zu Hause blieb und fast den Entschluss fasste, ihn nie wieder zu besuchen. Aber es war so elend, ins Bett zu gehen und aufzustehen und nie etwas über ihn zu hören, dass mein Entschluss sich auflöste, noch bevor er richtig gefasst war. Es schien falsch, die Reise einmal anzutreten; jetzt schien es falsch zu verzichten. Michael kam und fragte, ob er Minny satteln solle; Ich sagte "Ja" und betrachtete es als meine Pflicht, da sie mich über die Hügel trug. Ich musste an den vorderen Fenstern vorbei, um zum Hof zu gelangen; es hatte keinen Sinn, meine Anwesenheit zu verbergen. '"Der junge Herr ist im Haus", sagte Zillah, als sie sah, wie ich auf das Wohnzimmer zusteuerte. Ich ging hinein; Earnshaw war ebenfalls da, aber er verließ den Raum sofort. Linton saß halb schläfrig in einem großen Sessel; als ich zum Kamin aufging, begann ich in ernstem Ton, teilweise in der Hoffnung, dass es wahr sei: '"Da du mich nicht magst, Linton, und da du denkst, dass ich absichtlich gekommen bin, um dir weh zu tun, und vorgebe, dass ich es jedes Mal tue, ist dies unser letztes Treffen: Lass uns Abschied nehmen; und sag Mr. Heathcliff, dass du keine Lust hast, mich zu sehen, und dass er keine weiteren Lügen darüber erfinden darf." '"Setz dich hin und nimm deinen Hut ab, Catherine", antwortete er. "Du bist so viel glücklicher als ich, du solltest auch besser sein. Papa spricht genug von meinen Mängeln und zeigt genug Verachtung für mich, um es natürlich zu machen, dass ich an mir selbst zweifle. Ich zweifle, ob ich nicht ganz so wertlos bin, wie er mich oft nennt; und dann werde ich so gereizt und bitter und hasse jeden! Ich bin wertlos und schlecht gelaunt und habe fast immer eine schlechte Laune; und wenn du willst, kannst du auf Wiedersehen sagen: Du wirst eine Störung los. Aber Catherine, tu mir diese Gerechtigkeit an: Glaube, dass ich, wenn ich so süß und nett und gut sein könnte wie du, es genauso gerne und mehr noch sein würde, als glücklich und gesund. Und glaube, dass deine Güte mich tiefer lieben lässt, als wenn ich deine Liebe verdient hätte: und obwohl ich nicht helfen kann und konnte, meine Natur dir gegenüber zu zeigen, bedauere ich es und bereue es; und werde es bereuen und bedauern, bis ich sterbe!" Ich fühlte, dass er die Wahrheit sprach, und ich fühlte, dass ich ihm vergeben musste; und obwohl wir uns im nächsten Moment wieder streiten würden, müsste ich ihm erneut vergeben. Wir haben uns versöhnt; aber wir haben beide die ganze Zeit geweint: nicht nur aus Trauer; trotzdem war ich traurig, dass Linton eine solch verzerrte Natur hatte. Er wird seinen Freunden nie Ruhe lassen und er wird selbst nie Ruhe finden! Seit dieser Nacht gehe ich immer in sein kleines Wohnzimmer; denn sein Vater ist am nächsten Tag zurückgekehrt. Etwa drei Mal, glaube ich, waren wir fröhlich und hoffnungsvoll, wie am ersten Abend; der Rest meiner Besuche war traurig und problematisch: mal wegen seiner Selbstsucht und Boshaftigkeit, mal wegen seiner Leiden; aber ich habe gelernt, ersteres fast genauso wenig zu verurteilen wie letzteres zu empfinden. Mr. Heathcliff meidet mich absichtlich: Ich habe ihn kaum gesehen. Letzten Sonntag, in der Tat, kam ich früher als gewöhnlich und hörte ihn Linton für sein Verhalten am Abend zuvor grausam beschimpfen. Ich kann nicht sagen, wie er davon wusste, es sei denn, er hat zugehört. Linton hatte sich sicherlich provokant verhalten: aber es ging niemanden außer mich etwas an, und ich unterbrach Mr. Heathcliffs Vortrag, indem ich hereinkam und es ihm sagte. Er platzte in Gelächter aus und ging weg, wobei er sagte, dass er froh sei, dass ich diese Sichtweise eingenommen habe. Seit Ich habe laut darüber nachgedacht, in Anwesenheit meines Herrn; direkt von ihrem Zimmer zu seinem Zimmer gehend und die ganze Geschichte erzählend: mit Ausnahme ihrer Gespräche mit ihrem Cousin und jeglicher Erwähnung von Hareton. Herr Linton war alarmiert und bekümmert, mehr als er mir gegenüber zugegeben hätte. Am Morgen erfuhr Catherine von meinem Verrat ihres Vertrauens und sie erfuhr auch, dass ihre geheimen Besuche enden sollten. Vergeblich weinte und wand sich Catherine gegen das Verbot und flehte ihren Vater an, Mitleid mit Linton zu haben: Alles, was sie als Trost erhielt, war die Zusage, dass er schreiben und ihm erlauben würde, wann immer er wollte zur Grange zu kommen; aber mit der Erklärung, dass er nicht länger damit rechnen dürfe, Catherine auf Wuthering Heights zu sehen. Vielleicht hätte er, wenn er sich des Charakters und des Gesundheitszustands seines Neffen bewusst gewesen wäre, sogar diesen geringen Trost zurückgehalten. Kannst du 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.

Drei Wochen später ging es Ellen viel besser und sie entdeckte Cathys abendliche Besuche auf Wuthering Heights. Cathy erzählte ihr, was passiert war: Cathy bestach eine Dienerin mit ihren Büchern, um sich um das Satteln ihres Ponys zu kümmern und ihre Eskapaden geheim zu halten. Bei ihrem zweiten Besuch hatten sie und Linton einen Streit darüber, wie man einen Sommerabend am besten verbringt: Linton wollte sich im Heidekraut hinlegen und träumen, und sie wollte in einer Baumkrone mit den Vögeln schaukeln. Er wollte in einer Ekstase des Friedens liegen; "Cathy erklärte: "Ich wollte, dass alles funkelt und in einem glorreichen Jubiläum tanzt." Sie versöhnten sich und spielten Ball, bis Linton unglücklich wurde, weil er immer verlor, aber wie üblich tröstete Cathy ihn dafür. Cathy freute sich auf ihren nächsten Besuch, aber als sie ankam, traf sie auf Hareton, der ihr zeigte, wie er seinen Namen lesen gelernt hatte. Sie verspottete ihn dafür. Als sie Linton vorlas, kam Hareton wütend herein und befahl ihnen in die Küche. Aus seinem Lieblingszimmer ausgesperrt, inszenierte Linton einen erschreckenden Wutausbruch, mit einem Ausdruck "fruchtloser, machtloser Wut" und schrie, dass er Hareton töten würde. Joseph wies darauf hin, dass er den Charakter seines Vaters zeigte. Linton hustete Blut und fiel in Ohnmacht; Cathy holte Zillah. Hareton trug den Jungen die Treppe hinauf, ließ aber nicht zu, dass Cathy folgte. Als sie weinte, begann Hareton sein Verhalten zu bereuen. Cathy schlug ihn mit ihrer Peitsche und ritt nach Hause. Am dritten Tag weigerte sich Linton, mit ihr zu sprechen, außer um sie für die Ereignisse des vorherigen Tages zu beschuldigen, und sie ging fort, indem sie beschloss, nicht zurückzukehren. Allerdings tat sie dies letztendlich doch und nahm Linton wegen seines unhöflichen Verhaltens zur Rede. Er gab zu, dass er wertlos war, aber sagte, dass sie viel glücklicher als er sei und Nachsicht zeigen solle. Heathcliff hasste ihn und er war sehr unglücklich auf Wuthering Heights. Allerdings liebte er Cathy. Cathy bedauerte, dass Linton eine verzerrte Natur hatte, und fühlte sich verpflichtet, seine Freundin zu sein. Sie hatte bemerkt, dass Heathcliff sie mied und rügte Linton, wenn er sich ihr gegenüber nicht gut verhielt. Ellen erzählte Edgar von den Besuchen und er verbot Cathy, nach Wuthering Heights zurückzukehren, schrieb jedoch an Linton, dass er auf das Grange kommen könne, wenn er wollte.

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: Cyrano, Le Bret. CYRANO (to Le Bret): Now talk--I listen. (He stands at the buffet, and placing before him first the macaroon): Dinner!. . . (then the grapes): Dessert!. . . (then the glass of water): Wine!. . . (he seats himself): So! And now to table! Ah! I was hungry, friend, nay, ravenous! (eating): You said--? LE BRET: These fops, would-be belligerent, Will, if you heed them only, turn your head!. . . Ask people of good sense if you would know The effect of your fine insolence-- CYRANO (finishing his macaroon): Enormous! LE BRET: The Cardinal. . . CYRANO (radiant): The Cardinal--was there? LE BRET: Must have thought it. . . CYRANO: Original, i' faith! LE BRET: But. . . CYRANO: He's an author. 'Twill not fail to please him That I should mar a brother-author's play. LE BRET: You make too many enemies by far! CYRANO (eating his grapes): How many think you I have made to-night? LE BRET: Forty, no less, not counting ladies. CYRANO: Count! LE BRET: Montfleury first, the bourgeois, then De Guiche, The Viscount, Baro, the Academy. . . CYRANO: Enough! I am o'erjoyed! LE BRET: But these strange ways, Where will they lead you, at the end? Explain Your system--come! CYRANO: I in a labyrinth Was lost--too many different paths to choose; I took. . . LE BRET: Which? CYRANO: Oh! by far the simplest path. . . Decided to be admirable in all! LE BRET (shrugging his shoulders): So be it! But the motive of your hate To Montfleury--come, tell me! CYRANO (rising): This Silenus, Big-bellied, coarse, still deems himself a peril-- A danger to the love of lovely ladies, And, while he sputters out his actor's part, Makes sheep's eyes at their boxes--goggling frog! I hate him since the evening he presumed To raise his eyes to hers. . .Meseemed I saw A slug crawl slavering o'er a flower's petals! LE BRET (stupefied): How now? What? Can it be. . .? CYRANO (laughing bitterly): That I should love?. . . (Changing his tone, gravely): I love. LE BRET: And may I know?. . .You never said. . . CYRANO: Come now, bethink you!. . .The fond hope to be Beloved, e'en by some poor graceless lady, Is, by this nose of mine for aye bereft me; --This lengthy nose which, go where'er I will, Pokes yet a quarter-mile ahead of me; But I may love--and who? 'Tis Fate's decree I love the fairest--how were't otherwise? LE BRET: The fairest?. . . CYRANO: Ay, the fairest of the world, Most brilliant--most refined--most golden-haired! LE BRET: Who is this lady? CYRANO: She's a danger mortal, All unsuspicious--full of charms unconscious, Like a sweet perfumed rose--a snare of nature, Within whose petals Cupid lurks in ambush! He who has seen her smile has known perfection, --Instilling into trifles grace's essence, Divinity in every careless gesture; Not Venus' self can mount her conch blown sea-ward, As she can step into her chaise a porteurs, Nor Dian fleet across the woods spring-flowered, Light as my Lady o'er the stones of Paris!. . . LE BRET: Sapristi! all is clear! CYRANO: As spiderwebs! LE BRET: Your cousin, Madeleine Robin? CYRANO: Roxane! LE BRET: Well, but so much the better! Tell her so! She saw your triumph here this very night! CYRANO: Look well at me--then tell me, with what hope This vile protuberance can inspire my heart! I do not lull me with illusions--yet At times I'm weak: in evening hours dim I enter some fair pleasance, perfumed sweet; With my poor ugly devil of a nose I scent spring's essence--in the silver rays I see some knight--a lady on his arm, And think 'To saunter thus 'neath the moonshine, I were fain to have my lady, too, beside!' Thought soars to ecstasy. . .O sudden fall! --The shadow of my profile on the wall! LE BRET (tenderly): My friend!. . . CYRANO: My friend, at times 'tis hard, 'tis bitter, To feel my loneliness--my own ill-favor. . . LE BRET (taking his hand): You weep? CYRANO: No, never! Think, how vilely suited Adown this nose a tear its passage tracing! I never will, while of myself I'm master, let the divinity of tears--their beauty Be wedded to such common ugly grossness. Nothing more solemn than a tear--sublimer; And I would not by weeping turn to laughter The grave emotion that a tear engenders! LE BRET: Never be sad! What's love?--a chance of Fortune! CYRANO (shaking his head): Look I a Caesar to woo Cleopatra? A Tito to aspire to Berenice? LE BRET: Your courage and your wit!--The little maid Who offered you refreshment even now, Her eyes did not abhor you--you saw well! CYRANO (impressed): True! LE BRET: Well, how then?. . .I saw Roxane herself Was death-pale as she watched the duel. CYRANO: Pale? LE BRET: Her heart, her fancy, are already caught! Put it to th' touch! CYRANO: That she may mock my face? That is the one thing on this earth I fear! THE PORTER (introducing some one to Cyrano): Sir, some one asks for you. . . CYRANO (seeing the duenna): God! her duenna! 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.

LeBret ist entsetzt über die Handlungen von Cyrano im Theater. Er ist sicher, dass sein Freund aufgrund seines eigenartigen Verhaltens viele Feinde gemacht hat. Cyrano jedoch ist stolz darauf, wie er gehandelt hat. Er fühlt, dass er das Richtige getan hat und hat ein reines Gewissen. Das ist Cyrano wichtig, der versucht, "in allem bewundernswert zu sein". Cyrano enthüllt den wahren Grund für seinen Hass auf Montfleury. Der Schauspieler hatte Roxane verliebte Blicke zugeworfen, in die, wie Cyrano gesteht, er selbst verliebt ist. Le Bret erzählt Cyrano, dass Roxane von seinem Sieg über Valvert tief beeindruckt zu sein schien. Er ermutigt dann seinen Freund, Roxane von seiner Liebe zu erzählen, aber Cyrano lehnt ab. Aufgrund seines Aussehens glaubt er, dass sie niemals an ihm romantisch interessiert sein könnte. Tatsächlich befürchtet er, dass sie ihm ins Gesicht lachen könnte.

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 TWO -- THE ARRIVAL 1--Tidings of the Comer On the fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain ephemeral operations were apt to disturb, in their trifling way, the majestic calm of Egdon Heath. They were activities which, beside those of a town, a village, or even a farm, would have appeared as the ferment of stagnation merely, a creeping of the flesh of somnolence. But here, away from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among which mere walking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man could imagine himself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they attracted the attention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep, and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks at a safe distance. The performance was that of bringing together and building into a stack the furze faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for the captain's use during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at the end of the dwelling, and the men engaged in building it were Humphrey and Sam, the old man looking on. It was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o'clock; but the winter solstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun caused the hour to seem later than it actually was, there being little here to remind an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experience of the sky as a dial. In the course of many days and weeks sunrise had advanced its quarters from northeast to southeast, sunset had receded from northwest to southwest; but Egdon had hardly heeded the change. Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like a kitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping chimney-corner. The air was still, and while she lingered a moment here alone sounds of voices in conversation came to her ears directly down the chimney. She entered the recess, and, listening, looked up the old irregular shaft, with its cavernous hollows, where the smoke blundered about on its way to the square bit of sky at the top, from which the daylight struck down with a pallid glare upon the tatters of soot draping the flue as seaweed drapes a rocky fissure. She remembered: the furze-stack was not far from the chimney, and the voices were those of the workers. Her grandfather joined in the conversation. "That lad ought never to have left home. His father's occupation would have suited him best, and the boy should have followed on. I don't believe in these new moves in families. My father was a sailor, so was I, and so should my son have been if I had had one." "The place he's been living at is Paris," said Humphrey, "and they tell me 'tis where the king's head was cut off years ago. My poor mother used to tell me about that business. 'Hummy,' she used to say, 'I was a young maid then, and as I was at home ironing Mother's caps one afternoon the parson came in and said, "They've cut the king's head off, Jane; and what 'twill be next God knows."'" "A good many of us knew as well as He before long," said the captain, chuckling. "I lived seven years under water on account of it in my boyhood--in that damned surgery of the Triumph, seeing men brought down to the cockpit with their legs and arms blown to Jericho.... And so the young man has settled in Paris. Manager to a diamond merchant, or some such thing, is he not?" "Yes, sir, that's it. 'Tis a blazing great business that he belongs to, so I've heard his mother say--like a king's palace, as far as diments go." "I can well mind when he left home," said Sam. "'Tis a good thing for the feller," said Humphrey. "A sight of times better to be selling diments than nobbling about here." "It must cost a good few shillings to deal at such a place." "A good few indeed, my man," replied the captain. "Yes, you may make away with a deal of money and be neither drunkard nor glutton." "They say, too, that Clym Yeobright is become a real perusing man, with the strangest notions about things. There, that's because he went to school early, such as the school was." "Strange notions, has he?" said the old man. "Ah, there's too much of that sending to school in these days! It only does harm. Every gatepost and barn's door you come to is sure to have some bad word or other chalked upon it by the young rascals--a woman can hardly pass for shame sometimes. If they'd never been taught how to write they wouldn't have been able to scribble such villainy. Their fathers couldn't do it, and the country was all the better for it." "Now, I should think, Cap'n, that Miss Eustacia had about as much in her head that comes from books as anybody about here?" "Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic nonsense in her head it would be better for her," said the captain shortly; after which he walked away. "I say, Sam," observed Humphrey when the old man was gone, "she and Clym Yeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair--hey? If they wouldn't I'll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for certain, and learned in print, and always thinking about high doctrine--there couldn't be a better couple if they were made o' purpose. Clym's family is as good as hers. His father was a farmer, that's true; but his mother was a sort of lady, as we know. Nothing would please me better than to see them two man and wife." "They'd look very natty, arm-in-crook together, and their best clothes on, whether or no, if he's at all the well-favoured fellow he used to be." "They would, Humphrey. Well, I should like to see the chap terrible much after so many years. If I knew for certain when he was coming I'd stroll out three or four miles to meet him and help carry anything for'n; though I suppose he's altered from the boy he was. They say he can talk French as fast as a maid can eat blackberries; and if so, depend upon it we who have stayed at home shall seem no more than scroff in his eyes." "Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn't he?" "Yes; but how he's coming from Budmouth I don't know." "That's a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. I wonder such a nice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come home into it. What a nunnywatch we were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren't married at all, after singing to 'em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if I should like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by a man. It makes the family look small." "Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. Her health is suffering from it, I hear, for she will bide entirely indoors. We never see her out now, scampering over the furze with a face as red as a rose, as she used to do." "I've heard she wouldn't have Wildeve now if he asked her." "You have? 'Tis news to me." While the furze-gatherers had desultorily conversed thus Eustacia's face gradually bent to the hearth in a profound reverie, her toe unconsciously tapping the dry turf which lay burning at her feet. The subject of their discourse had been keenly interesting to her. A young and clever man was coming into that lonely heath from, of all contrasting places in the world, Paris. It was like a man coming from heaven. More singular still, the heathmen had instinctively coupled her and this man together in their minds as a pair born for each other. That five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia with visions enough to fill the whole blank afternoon. Such sudden alternations from mental vacuity do sometimes occur thus quietly. She could never have believed in the morning that her colourless inner world would before night become as animated as water under a microscope, and that without the arrival of a single visitor. The words of Sam and Humphrey on the harmony between the unknown and herself had on her mind the effect of the invading Bard's prelude in the Castle of Indolence, at which myriads of imprisoned shapes arose where had previously appeared the stillness of a void. Involved in these imaginings she knew nothing of time. When she became conscious of externals it was dusk. The furze-rick was finished; the men had gone home. Eustacia went upstairs, thinking that she would take a walk at this her usual time; and she determined that her walk should be in the direction of Blooms-End, the birthplace of young Yeobright and the present home of his mother. She had no reason for walking elsewhere, and why should she not go that way? The scene of the daydream is sufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen. To look at the palings before the Yeobrights' house had the dignity of a necessary performance. Strange that such a piece of idling should have seemed an important errand. She put on her bonnet, and, leaving the house, descended the hill on the side towards Blooms-End, where she walked slowly along the valley for a distance of a mile and a half. This brought her to a spot in which the green bottom of the dale began to widen, the furze bushes to recede yet further from the path on each side, till they were diminished to an isolated one here and there by the increasing fertility of the soil. Beyond the irregular carpet of grass was a row of white palings, which marked the verge of the heath in this latitude. They showed upon the dusky scene that they bordered as distinctly as white lace on velvet. Behind the white palings was a little garden; behind the garden an old, irregular, thatched house, facing the heath, and commanding a full view of the valley. This was the obscure, removed spot to which was about to return a man whose latter life had been passed in the French capital--the centre and vortex of the fashionable world. </CHAPTER> <CHAPTER> 2--The People at Blooms-End Make Ready All that afternoon the expected arrival of the subject of Eustacia's ruminations created a bustle of preparation at Blooms-End. Thomasin had been persuaded by her aunt, and by an instinctive impulse of loyalty towards her cousin Clym, to bestir herself on his account with an alacrity unusual in her during these most sorrowful days of her life. At the time that Eustacia was listening to the rick-makers' conversation on Clym's return, Thomasin was climbing into a loft over her aunt's fuelhouse, where the store-apples were kept, to search out the best and largest of them for the coming holiday-time. The loft was lighted by a semicircular hole, through which the pigeons crept to their lodgings in the same high quarters of the premises; and from this hole the sun shone in a bright yellow patch upon the figure of the maiden as she knelt and plunged her naked arms into the soft brown fern, which, from its abundance, was used on Egdon in packing away stores of all kinds. The pigeons were flying about her head with the greatest unconcern, and the face of her aunt was just visible above the floor of the loft, lit by a few stray motes of light, as she stood halfway up the ladder, looking at a spot into which she was not climber enough to venture. "Now a few russets, Tamsin. He used to like them almost as well as ribstones." Thomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook, where more mellow fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. Before picking them out she stopped a moment. "Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?" she said, gazing abstractedly at the pigeon-hole, which admitted the sunlight so directly upon her brown hair and transparent tissues that it almost seemed to shine through her. "If he could have been dear to you in another way," said Mrs. Yeobright from the ladder, "this might have been a happy meeting." "Is there any use in saying what can do no good, Aunt?" "Yes," said her aunt, with some warmth. "To thoroughly fill the air with the past misfortune, so that other girls may take warning and keep clear of it." Thomasin lowered her face to the apples again. "I am a warning to others, just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are," she said in a low voice. "What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to them? 'Tis absurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me think that I do, by the way they behave towards me? Why don't people judge me by my acts? Now, look at me as I kneel here, picking up these apples--do I look like a lost woman?... I wish all good women were as good as I!" she added vehemently. "Strangers don't see you as I do," said Mrs. Yeobright; "they judge from false report. Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly to blame." "How quickly a rash thing can be done!" replied the girl. Her lips were quivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that she could hardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued industriously searching to hide her weakness. "As soon as you have finished getting the apples," her aunt said, descending the ladder, "come down, and we'll go for the holly. There is nobody on the heath this afternoon, and you need not fear being stared at. We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in our preparations." Thomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together they went through the white palings to the heath beyond. The open hills were airy and clear, and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it often appears on a fine winter day, in distinct planes of illumination independently toned, the rays which lit the nearer tracts of landscape streaming visibly across those further off; a stratum of ensaffroned light was imposed on a stratum of deep blue, and behind these lay still remoter scenes wrapped in frigid grey. They reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a conical pit, so that the tops of the trees were not much above the general level of the ground. Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the bushes, as she had done under happier circumstances on many similar occasions, and with a small chopper that they had brought she began to lop off the heavily berried boughs. "Don't scratch your face," said her aunt, who stood at the edge of the pit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green and scarlet masses of the tree. "Will you walk with me to meet him this evening?" "I should like to. Else it would seem as if I had forgotten him," said Thomasin, tossing out a bough. "Not that that would matter much; I belong to one man; nothing can alter that. And that man I must marry, for my pride's sake." "I am afraid--" began Mrs. Yeobright. "Ah, you think, 'That weak girl--how is she going to get a man to marry her when she chooses?' But let me tell you one thing, Aunt: Mr. Wildeve is not a profligate man, any more than I am an improper woman. He has an unfortunate manner, and doesn't try to make people like him if they don't wish to do it of their own accord." "Thomasin," said Mrs. Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye upon her niece, "do you think you deceive me in your defence of Mr. Wildeve?" "How do you mean?" "I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has changed its colour since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him, and that you act a part to me." "He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him." "Now, I put it to you: would you at this present moment agree to be his wife if that had not happened to entangle you with him?" Thomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed. "Aunt," she said presently, "I have, I think, a right to refuse to answer that question." "Yes, you have." "You may think what you choose. I have never implied to you by word or deed that I have grown to think otherwise of him, and I never will. And I shall marry him." "Well, wait till he repeats his offer. I think he may do it, now that he knows--something I told him. I don't for a moment dispute that it is the most proper thing for you to marry him. Much as I have objected to him in bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure. It is the only way out of a false position, and a very galling one." "What did you tell him?" "That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours." "Aunt," said Thomasin, with round eyes, "what DO you mean?" "Don't be alarmed; it was my duty. I can say no more about it now, but when it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I said it." Thomasin was perforce content. "And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for the present?" she next asked. "I have given my word to. But what is the use of it? He must soon know what has happened. A mere look at your face will show him that something is wrong." Thomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree. "Now, hearken to me," she said, her delicate voice expanding into firmness by a force which was other than physical. "Tell him nothing. If he finds out that I am not worthy to be his cousin, let him. But, since he loved me once, we will not pain him by telling him my trouble too soon. The air is full of the story, I know; but gossips will not dare to speak of it to him for the first few days. His closeness to me is the very thing that will hinder the tale from reaching him early. If I am not made safe from sneers in a week or two I will tell him myself." The earnestness with which Thomasin spoke prevented further objections. Her aunt simply said, "Very well. He should by rights have been told at the time that the wedding was going to be. He will never forgive you for your secrecy." "Yes, he will, when he knows it was because I wished to spare him, and that I did not expect him home so soon. And you must not let me stand in the way of your Christmas party. Putting it off would only make matters worse." "Of course I shall not. I do not wish to show myself beaten before all Egdon, and the sport of a man like Wildeve. We have enough berries now, I think, and we had better take them home. By the time we have decked the house with this and hung up the mistletoe, we must think of starting to meet him." Thomasin came out of the tree, shook from her hair and dress the loose berries which had fallen thereon, and went down the hill with her aunt, each woman bearing half the gathered boughs. It was now nearly four o'clock, and the sunlight was leaving the vales. When the west grew red the two relatives came again from the house and plunged into the heath in a different direction from the first, towards a point in the distant highway along which the expected man was to return. </CHAPTER> <CHAPTER> 3--How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream Eustacia stood just within the heath, straining her eyes in the direction of Mrs. Yeobright's house and premises. No light, sound, or movement was perceptible there. The evening was chilly; the spot was dark and lonely. She inferred that the guest had not yet come; and after lingering ten or fifteen minutes she turned again towards home. She had not far retraced her steps when sounds in front of her betokened the approach of persons in conversation along the same path. Soon their heads became visible against the sky. They were walking slowly; and though it was too dark for much discovery of character from aspect, the gait of them showed that they were not workers on the heath. Eustacia stepped a little out of the foot-track to let them pass. They were two women and a man; and the voices of the women were those of Mrs. Yeobright and Thomasin. They went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared to discern her dusky form. There came to her ears in a masculine voice, "Good night!" She murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round. She could not, for a moment, believe that chance, unrequested, had brought into her presence the soul of the house she had gone to inspect, the man without whom her inspection would not have been thought of. She strained her eyes to see them, but was unable. Such was her intentness, however, that it seemed as if her ears were performing the functions of seeing as well as hearing. This extension of power can almost be believed in at such moments. The deaf Dr. Kitto was probably under the influence of a parallel fancy when he described his body as having become, by long endeavour, so sensitive to vibrations that he had gained the power of perceiving by it as by ears. She could follow every word that the ramblers uttered. They were talking no secrets. They were merely indulging in the ordinary vivacious chat of relatives who have long been parted in person though not in soul. But it was not to the words that Eustacia listened; she could not even have recalled, a few minutes later, what the words were. It was to the alternating voice that gave out about one-tenth of them--the voice that had wished her good night. Sometimes this throat uttered Yes, sometimes it uttered No; sometimes it made inquiries about a time worn denizen of the place. Once it surprised her notions by remarking upon the friendliness and geniality written in the faces of the hills around. The three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her ear. Thus much had been granted her; and all besides withheld. No event could have been more exciting. During the greater part of the afternoon she had been entrancing herself by imagining the fascination which must attend a man come direct from beautiful Paris--laden with its atmosphere, familiar with its charms. And this man had greeted her. With the departure of the figures the profuse articulations of the women wasted away from her memory; but the accents of the other stayed on. Was there anything in the voice of Mrs. Yeobright's son--for Clym it was--startling as a sound? No; it was simply comprehensive. All emotional things were possible to the speaker of that "good night." Eustacia's imagination supplied the rest--except the solution to one riddle. What COULD the tastes of that man be who saw friendliness and geniality in these shaggy hills? On such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through a highly charged woman's head; and they indicate themselves on her face; but the changes, though actual, are minute. Eustacia's features went through a rhythmical succession of them. She glowed; remembering the mendacity of the imagination, she flagged; then she freshened; then she fired; then she cooled again. It was a cycle of aspects, produced by a cycle of visions. Eustacia entered her own house; she was excited. Her grandfather was enjoying himself over the fire, raking about the ashes and exposing the red-hot surface of the turves, so that their lurid glare irradiated the chimney-corner with the hues of a furnace. "Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?" she said, coming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth. "I wish we were. They seem to be very nice people." "Be hanged if I know why," said the captain. "I liked the old man well enough, though he was as rough as a hedge. But you would never have cared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure." "Why shouldn't I?" "Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. They sit in the kitchen, drink mead and elder-wine, and sand the floor to keep it clean. A sensible way of life; but how would you like it?" "I thought Mrs. Yeobright was a ladylike woman? A curate's daughter, was she not?" "Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did; and I suppose she has taken kindly to it by this time. Ah, I recollect that I once accidentally offended her, and I have never seen her since." That night was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one which she hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable one. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia's situation before. It had as many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many fluctuations as the northern lights, as much colour as a parterre in June, and was as crowded with figures as a coronation. To Queen Scheherazade the dream might have seemed not far removed from commonplace; and to a girl just returned from all the courts of Europe it might have seemed not more than interesting. But amid the circumstances of Eustacia's life it was as wonderful as a dream could be. There was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation scenes a less extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly appeared behind the general brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to wondrous music, and her partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her through the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being closed. The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came into her ear from under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman in Paradise. Suddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers, dived into one of the pools of the heath, and came out somewhere into an iridescent hollow, arched with rainbows. "It must be here," said the voice by her side, and blushingly looking up she saw him removing his casque to kiss her. At that moment there was a cracking noise, and his figure fell into fragments like a pack of cards. She cried aloud. "O that I had seen his face!" Eustacia awoke. The cracking had been that of the window shutter downstairs, which the maid-servant was opening to let in the day, now slowly increasing to Nature's meagre allowance at this sickly time of the year. "O that I had seen his face!" she said again. "'Twas meant for Mr. Yeobright!" When she became cooler she perceived that many of the phases of the dream had naturally arisen out of the images and fancies of the day before. But this detracted little from its interest, which lay in the excellent fuel it provided for newly kindled fervour. She was at the modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called "having a fancy for." It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest will. The perfervid woman was by this time half in love with a vision. The fantastic nature of her passion, which lowered her as an intellect, raised her as a soul. If she had had a little more self-control she would have attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning, and so have killed it off. If she had had a little less pride she might have gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights' premises at Blooms-End at any maidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But Eustacia did neither of these things. She acted as the most exemplary might have acted, being so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day upon the Egdon hills, and kept her eyes employed. The first occasion passed, and he did not come that way. She promenaded a second time, and was again the sole wanderer there. The third time there was a dense fog; she looked around, but without much hope. Even if he had been walking within twenty yards of her she could not have seen him. At the fourth attempt to encounter him it began to rain in torrents, and she turned back. The fifth sally was in the afternoon; it was fine, and she remained out long, walking to the very top of the valley in which Blooms-End lay. She saw the white paling about half a mile off; but he did not appear. It was almost with heart-sickness that she came home and with a sense of shame at her weakness. She resolved to look for the man from Paris no more. But Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner had Eustacia formed this resolve than the opportunity came which, while sought, had been entirely withholden. </CHAPTER> 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.

Eustacia belauscht ihren Großvater sowie Humphrey und Sam, wie sie über die Art des Lebens sprechen, das Clym Yeobright in Paris geführt hat. Humphrey deutet an, dass Eustacia und Clym ein schönes Paar abgeben würden, wenn Captain Vye weg ist. Durch das Gespräch gerät Eustacia ins Tagträumen über Clym und sie geht hinunter, um sich das Yeobright-Haus anzusehen. In der Zwischenzeit bereiten sich Mrs. Yeobright und Thomasin auf Clyms Ankunft vor: sie holen Äpfel aus dem Dachboden des Brennholzhauses und sammeln Stechpalme auf der Heide. Thomasin weigert sich, Mrs. Yeobrights Frage zu beantworten, ob sie immer noch Wildeve liebt, und lässt sich von der älteren Frau versprechen, Clym nichts von ihren Problemen zu erzählen. In der Nacht, als Clym ankommen soll, wartet Eustacia auf der Heide darauf, einen Blick auf ihn zu erhaschen, während er vorbeigeht. Als er mit Mrs. Yeobright und Thomasin vorbeigeht, kann Eustacia ihn nicht sehen, aber seine Stimme hören. Das führt dazu, dass sie einen ungewöhnlichen Traum von ihm hat. In den nächsten Tagen geht sie in der Hoffnung, ihn zu treffen, hinaus, trifft ihn jedoch 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. Kapitel: Mr. Bennets Eigentum bestand fast ausschließlich aus einem Grundbesitz von zweitausend Pfund pro Jahr, der bedauerlicherweise für seine Töchter einem entlegenen Verwandten vererbt war, im Falle dass keine männlichen Erben vorhanden wären, und das Vermögen ihrer Mutter, obwohl ausreichend für ihre Lebenssituation, konnte das Defizit von ihm nur schwer ausgleichen. Ihr Vater war Rechtsanwalt in Meryton gewesen und hatte ihr viertausend Pfund hinterlassen. Sie hatte eine Schwester, die einen Mr. Philips geheiratet hatte, der früher Angestellter bei ihrem Vater gewesen war und ihn im Geschäft ersetzt hatte, und einen Bruder, der sich in London in einem angesehenen Handelsberuf niedergelassen hatte. Das Dorf Longbourn lag nur eine Meile von Meryton entfernt; eine äußerst günstige Entfernung für die jungen Damen, die normalerweise drei oder vier Mal pro Woche dorthin verführt wurden, um ihrer Tante ihre Aufwartung zu machen und in einem Hutladen auf der anderen Straßenseite vorbeizuschauen. Die beiden jüngsten Mitglieder der Familie, Catherine und Lydia, gaben sich besonders häufig diesen Aufmerksamkeiten hin; ihre Köpfe waren leerer als die ihrer Schwestern, und wenn nichts Besseres angeboten wurde, war ein Spaziergang nach Meryton nötig, um ihre Morgenstunden zu amüsieren und für das Abendessen Gesprächsstoff zu liefern; und wie auch immer das Land im Allgemeinen von Neuigkeiten frei sein mochte, schafften sie es immer, etwas von ihrer Tante zu erfahren. Zurzeit wurden sie tatsächlich sowohl durch die Ankunft eines Milizregiments in der Umgebung als auch durch das Glück der letzten Tage mit Neuigkeiten und Glückseligkeit versorgt; es sollte den ganzen Winter über bleiben, und Meryton war der Hauptquartierort. Besuche bei Mrs. Philips lieferten ihnen nun äußerst interessante Informationen. Jeden Tag erweiterte sich ihr Wissen über die Namen und Verbindungen der Offiziere. Ihre Unterkünfte waren kein Geheimnis mehr, und schließlich lernten sie die Offiziere selbst kennen. Mr. Philips besuchte sie alle, und das eröffnete seinen Nichten eine bis dahin unbekannte Quelle des Glücks. Sie konnten nur noch von Offizieren reden; und Mr. Bingleys Vermögen, dessen Erwähnung ihre Mutter sehr lebhaft gestimmt hätte, war in ihren Augen nichts wert im Vergleich zur Uniform eines Fähnrichs. Nachdem er an einem Morgen ihrem Enthusiasmus zu diesem Thema zugehört hatte, stellte Mr. Bennet ruhig fest: "Nach allem, was ich mir aus eurer Art zu sprechen zusammenreimen kann, müsst ihr zwei der dümmsten Mädchen im ganzen Land sein. Ich habe es schon seit einiger Zeit vermutet, aber jetzt bin ich überzeugt." Catherine war verunsichert und gab keine Antwort, aber Lydia äußerte mit völliger Gleichgültigkeit weiterhin ihre Bewunderung für Hauptmann Carter und ihre Hoffnung, ihn im Laufe des Tages zu sehen, da er am nächsten Morgen nach London fahren würde. "Ich bin erstaunt, meine Liebe", sagte Mrs. Bennet, "dass du so bereit bist, deine eigenen Kinder für dumm zu halten. Wenn ich gering von den Kindern irgendjemand anderem denken wollte, dann sollten es nicht meine eigenen sein." "Wenn meine Kinder tatsächlich dumm sind, hoffe ich, dass ich immer vernünftig genug sein werde, das zu erkennen." "Ja - aber so wie es derzeit aussieht, sind sie alle sehr clever." Dies ist der einzige Punkt, in dem wir uns meiner Ansicht nach nicht einig sind. Ich hatte gehofft, dass unsere Meinungen in jeder Hinsicht übereinstimmen würden, aber ich muss mich von dir abweichen und unsere beiden jüngsten Töchter für außergewöhnlich dumm halten." "Mein lieber Mr. Bennet, du darfst von solchen Mädchen nicht erwarten, denselben Verstand wie ihre Eltern zu haben. Wenn sie unser Alter erreichen, werden sie bestimmt nicht mehr an Offiziere denken als wir. Ich erinnere mich an die Zeit, als mir ein roter Rock selbst sehr gut gefallen hat - und das tut er immer noch in meinem Herzen; und wenn ein schlauer junger Oberst, mit fünf oder sechs tausend Pfund im Jahr, eine meiner Töchter möchte, werde ich nicht nein sagen; und ich fand Colonel Forster kürzlich bei Sir Williams sehr gutaussehend in seiner Uniform." "Mama," rief Lydia, "meine Tante sagt, dass Colonel Forster und Hauptmann Carter nicht mehr so oft zu Miss Watson gehen wie zu Beginn; sie sieht sie jetzt sehr oft in Clarkes Bibliothek stehen." Mrs. Bennet wurde daran gehindert zu antworten, als der Diener mit einem Brief für Miss Bennet eintrat; er kam von Netherfield, und der Diener wartete auf eine Antwort. Mrs. Bennets Augen leuchteten vor Freude, und sie rief voller Ungeduld aus, während ihre Tochter las: "Nun, Jane, von wem ist er? Was steht drin? Was sagt er? Nun, Jane, beeil dich und erzähl uns; beeil dich, meine Liebe." "Es ist von Miss Bingley", sagte Jane und las ihn dann laut vor. "Meine liebe Freundin, "Wenn du nicht so mitfühlend bist, heute mit Louisa und mir zu speisen, werden wir uns für den Rest unseres Lebens wahrscheinlich hassen, denn ein ganzer Tag tete-a-tete zwischen zwei Frauen kann nie ohne einen Streit enden. Komm so schnell wie möglich nach Erhalt dieses. Mein Bruder und die Herren werden mit den Offizieren speisen. Deine immer, "CAROLINE BINGLEY." "Mit den Offizieren!" rief Lydia aus. "Ich frage mich, warum uns Tante nicht davon erzählt hat." "Gastmahl", sagte Mrs. Bennet, "das ist sehr unglücklich." "Kann ich den Wagen haben?" fragte Jane. "Nein, meine Liebe, du solltest lieber zu Pferd gehen, da es wahrscheinlich regnen wird; und dann musst du über Nacht bleiben." "Das wäre ein guter Plan", sagte Elizabeth, "wenn du sicher sein könntest, dass sie nicht anbieten, sie nach Hause zu bringen." "Oh! Aber die Herren werden Mr. Bingleys Kutsche haben, um nach Meryton zu fahren; und die Hursts haben keine eigenen Pferde." "Ich würde viel lieber im Kutschen fahren." "Aber, mein Liebes, dein Vater kann die Pferde nicht entbehren, da bin ich sicher. Sie werden auf der Farm gebraucht, nicht wahr, Mr. Bennet?" "Sie werden auf der Farm viel öfter gebraucht, als ich sie bekommen kann." "Aber wenn du sie heute hast", sagte Elizabeth, "dann ist der Zweck meiner Mutter erfüllt." Schließlich konnte sie ihrem Vater doch die Anerkennung dafür entlocken, dass die Pferde verplant waren. Jane musste also zu Pferd gehen, und ihre Mutter begleitete sie bis zur Tür und gab viele frohe Vorhersagen für einen schlechten Tag ab. Ihre Hoffnungen wurden erfüllt; Jane war noch nicht lange weg, als es stark zu regnen begann. Ihre Schwestern waren besorgt um sie, aber ihre Mutter war erfreut. Der Regen hielt den ganzen Abend ununterbrochen an; Jane konnte definitiv nicht zurückkommen. "Das war wirklich eine glückliche Idee von mir!" sagte Mrs. Bennet mehr als einmal, als ob ihr allein das Verdienst zukommen würde, es regnen zu lassen. Bis zum nächsten Morgen war sie jedoch nicht über das volle Glück ihrer Erfindung informiert. Das Frühstück war kaum vorbei, als ein Diener von Netherfield den folgenden Brief für Elizabeth brachte: "Meine liebste Lizzy, "Ich fühle mich heute Morgen sehr unwohl, was vermutlich darauf zurückzuführen ist, dass ich gestern durch und durch nass geworden bin In Meryton trennten sie sich; die beiden Jüngsten begaben sich zu den Unterkünften einer der Offiziersfrauen, und Elizabeth setzte ihren Spaziergang alleine fort, überquerte schnell Feld um Feld, sprang über Stufen und Pfützen mit ungeduldiger Aktivität und fand sich schließlich erschöpft, mit schmutzigen Socken und einem vom Sport erhitzten Gesicht, in Sichtweite des Hauses. Sie wurde in das Frühstückszimmer geführt, in dem alle außer Jane versammelt waren, und ihr Erscheinen erregte viel Überraschung. Dass sie so früh am Tag drei Meilen in diesem schmutzigen Wetter und alleine gegangen war, schien Mrs. Hurst und Miss Bingley fast unglaublich, und Elizabeth war überzeugt, dass sie sie deswegen verachteten. Sie wurde jedoch sehr höflich von ihnen empfangen, und in dem Benehmen ihrer Brüder war etwas mehr als Höflichkeit vorhanden: Es gab gute Laune und Freundlichkeit. Mr. Darcy sagte sehr wenig, und Mr. Hurst überhaupt nichts. Ersterer war zwischen der Bewunderung für den Glanz, den die Bewegung ihrer Haut verliehen hatte, und der Zweifel, ob der Anlass es rechtfertigte, dass sie so weit alleine gekommen war, hin- und hergerissen. Letzterer dachte nur an sein Frühstück. Ihre Nachfragen nach ihrer Schwester wurden nicht gerade positiv beantwortet. Miss Bennet hatte schlecht geschlafen und war zwar auf, aber sehr fiebrig und nicht gut genug, um ihr Zimmer zu verlassen. Elizabeth war froh, sofort zu ihr gebracht zu werden, und Jane, die nur aus Angst, Alarm oder Unannehmlichkeiten zu verursachen, davon abgehalten wurde, in ihrem Brief auszudrücken, wie sehr sie sich nach einem solchen Besuch sehnte, war überglücklich über ihr Erscheinen. Sie konnte jedoch nicht viel sprechen, und als Miss Bingley sie zusammen alleine ließ, konnte sie außer Ausdrücken der Dankbarkeit für die außergewöhnliche Freundlichkeit, mit der sie behandelt wurde, kaum etwas sagen. Elizabeth begleitete sie schweigend. Als das Frühstück vorbei war, wurden sie von den Schwestern begleitet, und Elizabeth begann, sie selbst zu mögen, als sie sah, wie viel Zuneigung und Besorgnis sie für Jane zeigten. Der Apotheker kam und nachdem er seine Patientin untersucht hatte, sagte er, wie zu erwarten war, dass sie sich eine starke Erkältung eingefangen hatte und dass sie versuchen müssten, sie loszuwerden. Er riet ihr, ins Bett zurückzukehren und versprach ihr ein paar Tränke. Der Rat wurde bereitwillig befolgt, da die fiebrigen Symptome zunahmen und ihr Kopf heftig schmerzte. Elizabeth verließ das Zimmer keinen Moment lang, und auch die anderen Damen waren selten abwesend. Da die Herren unterwegs waren, hatten sie tatsächlich nichts anderes zu tun. Als die Uhr drei schlug, wusste Elizabeth, dass sie gehen musste, und sagte das sehr widerwillig. Miss Bingley bot ihr die Kutsche an, und sie brauchte nur ein wenig Überredung, um sie anzunehmen, als Jane so besorgt war, sich von ihr zu trennen, dass Miss Bingley gezwungen war, das Angebot des Wagens in eine Einladung umzuwandeln, vorerst in Netherfield zu bleiben. Elizabeth stimmte sehr dankbar zu, und ein Diener wurde nach Longbourn geschickt, um die Familie über ihren Aufenthalt zu informieren und eine Kleiderlieferung mitzubringen. Um fünf Uhr zogen sich die beiden Damen zum Umkleiden zurück, und um halb sieben wurde Elizabeth zum Abendessen gerufen. Auf die höflichen Nachfragen, die dann eintrafen und unter denen sie das Vergnügen hatte, das überlegene Interesse von Mr. Bingley zu erkennen, konnte sie keine allzu liebe Antwort geben. Jane ging es keineswegs besser. Als die Schwestern das hörten, wiederholten sie drei oder vier Mal, wie sehr sie betrübt waren, wie schockierend es war, eine Erkältung zu haben, und wie sehr sie selbst Krankheit verabscheuten; und dann dachten sie nicht weiter darüber nach, und ihre Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber Jane, wenn sie nicht unmittelbar vor ihnen war, brachte Elizabeth wieder zu ihrer ursprünglichen Missbilligung. Ihr Bruder war in der Tat der einzige der Gruppe, dem sie einigermaßen wohlwollend gegenübertreten konnte. Seine Sorge um Jane war offensichtlich, und seine Aufmerksamkeiten ihr gegenüber sehr angenehm; sie verhinderten, dass sie sich so sehr wie eine Eindringling fühlte, wie sie von den anderen wahrgenommen wurde. Von den anderen bekam sie sehr wenig Aufmerksamkeit. Miss Bingley war von Mr. Darcy in Beschlag genommen, ihre Schwester kaum weniger; und Mr. Hurst, neben dem Elizabeth saß, war ein träger Mann, der lebte, um nur zu essen, zu trinken und Karten zu spielen, und der, als er bemerkte, dass sie ein einfaches Gericht einem Ragout vorzog, nichts mit ihr zu sagen hatte. Als das Abendessen vorbei war, kehrte sie direkt zu Jane zurück, und Miss Bingley fing sofort an, sie zu beschimpfen, als sie den Raum verließ. Ihr Benehmen wurde als sehr schlecht betrachtet, einer Mischung aus Stolz und Unverschämtheit; sie hatte keine Unterhaltung, keinen Stil, keinen Geschmack, keine Schönheit. Mrs. Hurst dachte das Gleiche und fügte hinzu: "Sie hat nichts vorzuweisen außer ihrer ausgezeichneten Laufkraft. Ich werde ihr Aussehen heute Morgen nie vergessen. Sie sah wirklich fast wild aus." "Stimmt, Louisa. Ich konnte mein Gesicht kaum wahren. Völlig unsinnig, überhaupt zu kommen! Warum muss _sie_ in der Gegend herumtoben, nur weil ihre Schwester erkältet ist? Ihr Haar so unordentlich, so ungepflegt!" "Ja, und ihr Unterrock; ich hoffe, du hast ihren Unterrock gesehen, sechs Zoll tief im Schlamm, da bin ich mir absolut sicher; und das Kleid, das heruntergelassen wurde, um es zu verbergen, hat seine Arbeit nicht getan." "Dein Bild mag sehr genau sein, Louisa", sagte Bingley, "aber das ist alles an mir vorbeigegangen. Ich fand, dass Miss Elizabeth Bennet, als sie heute Morgen in den Raum kam, bemerkenswert gut aussah. Ihr schmutziger Unterrock entging meiner Aufmerksamkeit völlig." ""Du hast es bemerkt, Mr. Darcy, da bin ich sicher", sagte Miss Bingley, "und ich glaube, du würdest nicht wünschen, _deine Schwester_ eine solche Vorführung machen zu sehen." "Ganz sicher nicht." "Drei Meilen, oder vier Meilen, oder fünf Meilen, oder wie viel immer es war, über ihre Knöchel im Schlamm und alleine, ganz alleine! Was könnte sie damit gemeint haben? Es scheint mir eine abscheuliche Art von überheblicher Unabhängigkeit zu zeigen, eine sehr ländliche Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber Anstand." "Es zeigt eine Zuneigung zu ihrer Schwester, die sehr erfreulich ist", sagte Bingley. "Ich fürchte, Mr. Darcy", bemerkte Miss Bingley halb flüsternd, "diese Begebenheit hat Ihre Bewunderung für ihre schönen Augen eher beeinflusst." "Ganz und gar nicht", antwortete er, "sie waren durch die Bewegung erhellt." Eine kurze Pause folgte auf diese Äußerung, und Mrs. Hurst fing wieder an: "Ich habe eine übertriebene Wertschätzung für Jane Bennet. Sie ist wirklich ein sehr süßes Mädchen, und ich wünsche mit ganzem Herzen, dass sie gut verheiratet wird. Aber bei einem solchen Vater und einer solchen Mutter und solch niedrigen Beziehungen fürchte ich, dass es keine Chance gibt." "Ich glaube du hast gesagt, Und ich wünschte, meine Sammlung wäre größer, zum Nutzen für Sie und meinen eigenen Ruf. Aber ich bin ein fauler Kerl und obwohl ich nicht viele habe, habe ich mehr, als ich je anschaue." Elizabeth versicherte ihm, dass sie sich mit denen im Raum perfekt arrangieren könne. "Ich bin erstaunt", sagte Miss Bingley, "dass mein Vater so eine kleine Büchersammlung hinterlassen hat. Welch herrliche Bibliothek Sie in Pemberley haben, Mr. Darcy!" "Sie sollte gut sein", antwortete er, "es ist das Werk vieler Generationen." "Und dann haben Sie selbst so viel dazu beigetragen, Sie kaufen immer Bücher." "Ich kann die Vernachlässigung einer Familienbibliothek in solchen Tagen wie diesen nicht verstehen." "Vernachlässigung! Ich bin sicher, Sie vernachlässigen nichts, was zur Schönheit dieses edlen Ortes beitragen kann. Charles, wenn Sie _Ihr_ Haus bauen, hoffe ich, dass es halb so entzückend wie Pemberley sein wird." "Das hoffe ich auch." "Aber ich würde Ihnen wirklich raten, Ihren Kauf in dieser Nachbarschaft zu tätigen und Pemberley als eine Art Vorbild zu nehmen. Es gibt kein schöneres County in England als Derbyshire." "Von ganzem Herzen", sagte Bingley, "ich werde Pemberley selbst kaufen, wenn Darcy es mir verkauft." "Ich spreche von Möglichkeiten, Charles." "Auf mein Wort, Caroline, ich denke, dass man Pemberley eher kaufen als nachahmen kann." Elizabeth wurde so sehr von dem, was sich zugetragen hatte, gefangen genommen, dass sie kaum noch Aufmerksamkeit für ihr Buch hatte. Bald legte sie es ganz beiseite, näherte sich dem Kartentisch und stellte sich zwischen Mr. Bingley und seiner ältesten Schwester auf, um das Spiel zu beobachten. "Ist Miss Darcy seit dem Frühjahr viel gewachsen?" sagte Miss Bingley. "Wird sie so groß wie ich sein?" "Ich denke schon. Sie ist jetzt ungefähr so groß wie Miss Elizabeth Bennet oder vielleicht sogar größer." "Wie sehr wünsche ich mir, sie wiederzusehen! Ich habe noch nie jemanden getroffen, der mich so sehr begeistert hat. Solch ein Gesichtsausdruck, solche Manieren! Und so außerordentlich begabt für ihr Alter! Ihr Klavierspiel ist exquisit." "Es erstaunt mich", sagte Bingley, "wie junge Damen die Geduld haben können, so überaus begabt zu sein, wie sie es alle sind." "Alle jungen Damen begabt! Mein lieber Charles, was meinst du?" "Ja, alle von ihnen, denke ich. Sie malen alle Tische, bedecken Bildschirme und nähen Beutel. Ich kenne kaum jemanden, der dies nicht kann, und ich bin sicher, dass mir bei der ersten Begegnung mit einer jungen Dame nie gesagt wurde, dass sie sehr begabt sei." "Deine Liste der gewöhnlichen Fähigkeiten von Frauen", sagte Darcy, "ist zu wahr. Das Wort wird auf viele Frauen angewendet, die es nicht verdienen, außer dass sie ein Täschchen netten oder einen Bildschirm bedecken können. Aber ich stimme dir bei deiner Einschätzung von Frauen im Allgemeinen nicht zu. Ich kann damit prahlen, mehr als eine Handvoll zu kennen, die wirklich begabt sind, in meinem gesamten Bekanntenkreis." "Und ich auch, da bin ich mir sicher", sagte Miss Bingley. "Dann", bemerkte Elizabeth, "musst du viel in deiner Vorstellung von einer begabten Frau verstehen." "Ja, da verstehe ich viel darunter." "Oh! sicher", rief ihre treue Assistentin aus, "niemand kann als wirklich begabt angesehen werden, der nicht wesentlich mehr kann, als allgemein üblich ist. Eine Frau muss ein gründliches Wissen in Musik, Singen, Zeichnen, Tanzen und den modernen Sprachen haben, um das Wort zu verdienen. Und zusätzlich dazu muss sie etwas Bestimmtes in ihrem Auftreten und Gehstil, in der Tonlage ihrer Stimme, ihrer Art und Weise zu sprechen haben, oder das Wort wird nur halb verdient sein." "All das muss sie besitzen", fügte Darcy hinzu, "und darüber hinaus muss sie noch etwas Substanzielleres hinzufügen, nämlich die Verbesserung ihres Geistes durch umfangreiches Lesen." "Ich bin nicht mehr überrascht, dass du _nur_ sechs begabte Frauen kennst. Ich wundere mich eher, dass du überhaupt welche kennst." "Bist du so streng zu deinem eigenen Geschlecht, dass du die Möglichkeit von all dem bezweifelst?" "_Ich_ habe eine solche Frau noch nie gesehen. _Ich_ habe noch nie solche Fähigkeit, solchen Geschmack, solche Hingabe und solche Eleganz gesehen, wie du es beschreibst, vereint." Frau Hurst und Miss Bingley protestierten gegen die Ungerechtigkeit ihres implizierten Zweifels und beteuerten beide, dass sie viele Frauen kennen, die dieser Beschreibung entsprechen. Doch Mr. Hurst rief sie zur Ordnung wegen ihrer Unaufmerksamkeit auf das, was gerade stattfand. Da jegliche Unterhaltung dadurch beendet war, verließ Elizabeth kurz darauf den Raum. "Eliza Bennet", sagte Miss Bingley, als die Tür hinter ihr geschlossen war, "ist eine dieser jungen Damen, die versuchen, sich beim anderen Geschlecht zu empfehlen, indem sie ihr eigenes herabsetzen, und bei vielen Männern gelingt es wahrscheinlich sogar. Aber meiner Meinung nach ist das eine erbärmliche List, eine sehr niedrige Kunst." "Zweifellos", antwortete Darcy, an den sich diese Bemerkung hauptsächlich richtete, "es steckt Erbärmlichkeit in _allen_ Künsten, zu denen Damen manchmal herabsteigen, um zu verführen. Alles, was mit List zu tun hat, ist verachtenswert." Miss Bingley war mit dieser Antwort nicht ganz zufrieden und fuhr nicht fort, das Thema weiterzuführen. Elizabeth schloss sich ihnen wieder an, um nur zu sagen, dass ihre Schwester schlimmer geworden sei und dass sie sie nicht verlassen könne. Bingley drängte darauf, dass Mr. Jones sofort gerufen werde, während seine Schwestern, überzeugt, dass kein Landarzt von Nutzen sein könnte, vorschlugen, einen Kurier in die Stadt zu schicken, um einen der angesehensten Ärzte zu holen. Davon wollte sie jedoch nichts hören. Aber sie war nicht so abgeneigt, dem Vorschlag ihres Bruders nachzukommen und es wurde vereinbart, dass Mr. Jones früh am Morgen gerufen werden sollte, wenn Miss Bennet nicht eindeutig besser war. Bingley war ziemlich unwohl dabei; seine Schwestern erklärten, dass sie elend seien. Sie trösteten sich jedoch mit Duettgesängen nach dem Abendessen, während er nichts besseres fand, um seine Gefühle zu erleichtern, als seiner Haushälterin Anweisung zu geben, dass der kranken Frau und ihrer Schwester alle mögliche Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt werden sollte. Elizabeth verbrachte den Großteil der Nacht im Zimmer ihrer Schwester und hatte am Morgen das Vergnügen, eine akzeptable Antwort auf die Anfragen, die sie sehr früh von Mr. Bingley durch ein Hausmädchen und einige Zeit später von den beiden eleganten Damen erhielt, die sich um seine Schwestern kümmerten, schicken zu können. Trotz dieser Verbesserung bat sie jedoch darum, eine Notiz nach Longbourn zu schicken und ihre Mutter darum zu bitten, Jane zu besuchen und sich selbst ein Bild von ihrer Situation zu machen. Die Notiz wurde sofort abgeschickt und ihr Inhalt ebenso schnell erfüllt. Mrs. Bennet, begleitet von ihren beiden jüngsten Töchtern, erreichte Netherfield bald nach dem Familienfrühstück. Hätte sie Jane in offensichtlicher Gefahr gefunden, so wäre Mrs. Bennet sehr unglücklich gewesen. Da sie jedoch nach "Oh ja! Ich verstehe dich perfekt." "Ich wünschte, ich könnte das als ein Kompliment nehmen. Aber so leicht durchschaut zu werden, ist bedauerlich, fürchte ich." "So ist es nun mal. Es folgt nicht notwendigerweise, dass ein tiefgründiger, komplizierter Charakter mehr oder weniger schätzbar ist als ein Charakter wie deiner." "Lizzy," rief ihre Mutter, "denk daran, wo du bist, und redest nicht wild herum, wie du es zu Hause darfst." "Ich wusste vorher nicht, dass du ein Charakterforscher bist. Das muss ein amüsantes Studium sein." "Ja, aber komplizierte Charaktere sind am amüsantesten. Sie haben zumindest diesen Vorteil." "Das Land kann im Allgemeinen nur wenige Themen für ein solches Studium liefern. In einer ländlichen Umgebung bewegst du dich in einer sehr begrenzten und gleichförmigen Gesellschaft." "Aber die Menschen selbst verändern sich so sehr, dass es immer etwas Neues an ihnen zu beobachten gibt." "Ja, in der Tat", rief Mrs. Bennet empört über seine Art, von einer ländlichen Umgebung zu sprechen. "Ich versichere Ihnen, dass in der Country genauso viel los ist wie in der Stadt." Jeder war überrascht; und Darcy wandte sich nach einem Moment des Betrachtens schweigend ab. Mrs. Bennet, die glaubte, einen vollständigen Sieg über ihn errungen zu haben, fuhr in ihrem Triumph fort. "Ich kann nicht sehen, dass London irgendeinen großen Vorteil gegenüber dem Land hat, abgesehen von den Geschäften und öffentlichen Orten. Das Land ist viel angenehmer, nicht wahr, Mr. Bingley?" "Wenn ich auf dem Land bin", antwortete er, "möchte ich nie weggehen; und wenn ich in der Stadt bin, ist es ziemlich dasselbe. Beide haben ihre Vorteile, und ich kann in beiden gleich glücklich sein." "Ja, das liegt daran, dass du die richtige Einstellung hast. Aber dieser Herr", sagte sie und sah Darcy an, "schien zu denken, dass das Land überhaupt nichts ist." "Tatsächlich, Mama, du irrst dich", sagte Elizabeth und errötete für ihre Mutter. "Du hast Mr. Darcy vollkommen missverstanden. Er meinte nur, dass es auf dem Land nicht so viele verschiedene Menschen gibt wie in der Stadt, was du zugeben musst." "Gewiss, mein Liebes, niemand hat behauptet, dass es so ist; aber was das Kennenlernen vieler Menschen in dieser Nachbarschaft betrifft, glaube ich, dass es wenige größere gibt. Ich weiß, wir speisen mit vierundzwanzig Familien." Nur die Sorge um Elizabeth ermöglichte es Bingley, seine Haltung zu bewahren. Seine Schwester war weniger zimperlich und warf Mr. Darcy mit einem sehr aussagekräftigen Lächeln einen Blick zu. Elizabeth fragte nun, um ihre Mutter abzulenken, ob Charlotte Lucas seit ihrer Abreise nach Longbourn zurückgekehrt sei. "Ja, sie hat gestern mit ihrem Vater angerufen. Welch angenehmer Mann Sir William ist, Mr. Bingley, nicht wahr? So sehr der Mann der Mode! So vornehm und so unkompliziert! Er hat immer etwas zu sagen für jeden. Das ist meine Vorstellung von guter Erziehung; und diejenigen, die sich für sehr wichtig halten und nie den Mund aufmachen, irren sich völlig." "Hat Charlotte mit euch zu Abend gegessen?" "Nein, sie ist nach Hause gegangen. Ich glaube, sie wurde für die Mince Pies gebraucht. Ich halte immer Diener, die ihre Arbeit alleine erledigen können. Meine Töchter werden anders erzogen. Aber jeder soll selbst urteilen, und die Lucases sind sehr nette Mädchen, versichere ich Ihnen. Es ist schade, dass sie nicht hübsch sind! Nicht dass ich finde, dass Charlotte so sehr unattraktiv ist, aber sie ist eben unsere besondere Freundin." "Sie scheint eine sehr angenehme junge Frau zu sein", sagte Bingley. "Oh ja! Aber Sie müssen zugeben, dass sie sehr unattraktiv ist. Lady Lucas selbst hat das oft gesagt und mich um Janes Schönheit beneidet. Ich ziehe es zwar nicht vor, mein eigenes Kind zu rühmen, aber Jane sieht wirklich außergewöhnlich gut aus. Das sagen alle. Meiner eigenen Parteilichkeit vertraue ich nicht. Als sie erst fünfzehn war, gab es einen Herrn bei meinem Bruder Gardiner in der Stadt, der so verliebt in sie war, dass meine Schwägerin sicher war, er würde ihr einen Heiratsantrag machen, bevor wir weggingen. Aber das tat er dann doch nicht. Vielleicht hielt er sie für zu jung. Wie dem auch sei, er schrieb einige Verse über sie, und sie waren sehr hübsch." "Und damit endete seine Zuneigung", sagte Elizabeth ungeduldig. "Es gab sicherlich viele, die auf die gleiche Weise überwunden wurden. Ich frage mich, wer zuerst entdeckt hat, dass Gedichte die Liebe vertreiben können!" "Ich habe immer gedacht, dass Gedichte die Nahrung der Liebe sind", sagte Darcy. "Für eine starke, robuste, gesunde Liebe mag das zutreffen. Alles nährt, was bereits stark ist. Aber wenn es nur eine oberflächliche, dünne Art von Neigung ist, bin ich überzeugt, dass ein gutes Sonett sie vollständig austrocknen wird." Darcy lächelte nur, und die allgemeine Pause, die darauf folgte, ließ Elizabeth zittern, dass ihre Mutter sich wieder bloßstellen würde. Sie sehnte sich danach zu sprechen, konnte aber nichts finden, was sie sagen konnte. Nach einer kurzen Stille begann Mrs. Bennet erneut, Mr. Bingley für seine Freundlichkeit gegenüber Jane zu danken, und entschuldigte sich dafür, dass sie ihn auch mit Lizzy belästigte. Mr. Bingley war in seiner Antwort unverfälscht höflich und zwang seine jüngere Schwester ebenfalls zur Höflichkeit und dazu, zu sagen, was die Situation erforderte. Sie erfüllte ihre Rolle zwar nicht besonders gnädig, aber Mrs. Bennet war zufrieden und ließ kurz darauf ihren Wagen bestellen. Bei diesem Signal trat die jüngste ihrer Töchter vor. Die beiden Mädchen hatten während des gesamten Besuchs flüsternd miteinander gesprochen, und das Ergebnis war, dass die Jüngste Mr. Bingley beschuldigen sollte, bei seiner ersten Ankunft im Land einen Ball in Netherfield versprochen zu haben. Lydia war ein stämmiges, gut gewachsenes Mädchen von fünfzehn Jahren mit einer schönen Gesichtsfarbe und einem gutmütigen Gesichtsausdruck; eine Lieblingstochter ihrer Mutter, deren Zuneigung sie schon in jungen Jahren ins öffentliche Leben gebracht hatte. Sie hatte hohe Lebensfreude und eine Art natürliche Selbstgefälligkeit, die durch die Aufmerksamkeit der Offiziere, denen der gute Tisch ihres Onkels und ihre eigene lockere Art empfahlen, zur Sicherheit geworden war. Sie war also durchaus in der Lage, Mr. Bingley auf das Thema des Balls anzusprechen, und erinnerte ihn abrupt an sein Versprechen und fügte hinzu, dass es das schändlichste wäre, wenn er es nicht einhalten würde. Seine Antwort auf diesen plötzlichen Angriff war für die Ohren ihrer Mutter delightful. "Ich bin vollkommen bereit, Ihnen zu versichern, dass ich mein Versprechen einhalten werde; und wenn Ihre Schwester sich erholt hat, können Sie gerne den Tag des Balls benennen. Aber Sie würden sicherlich nicht tanzen wollen, während sie krank ist." Lydia erklärte sich zufrieden. "Oh ja, es wäre viel besser, auf Jane's Genesung zu warten, und bis dahin wäre höchstwahrscheinlich Captain Carter wieder in Meryton. Und wenn Sie Ihren Ball gegeben haben", fügte sie hinzu, "werde ich darauf bestehen, dass auch "Ich habe es ihr bereits einmal auf deine Bitte hin gesagt." "Ich befürchte, dir gefällt dein Stift nicht. Lass mich ihn für dich reparieren. Ich repariere Stifte bemerkenswert gut." "Danke, aber ich repariere meine eigenen immer selbst." "Wie schaffst du es, so gleichmäßig zu schreiben?" Er schwieg. "Richte deiner Schwester aus, dass ich mich über ihre Verbesserungen auf der Harfe freue, und lass sie wissen, dass ich von ihrem wunderschönen kleinen Tischdesign begeistert bin und es für unendlich überlegen gegenüber Miss Grantleys halte." "Darf ich deine Begeisterung aufschieben, bis ich wieder schreibe? Im Moment habe ich keinen Platz, um ihr gerecht zu werden." "Oh, das spielt keine Rolle. Ich werde sie im Januar sehen. Aber schreibst du immer solch lange charmante Briefe an sie, Mr. Darcy?" "Sie sind in der Regel lang, aber ob immer charmant, steht nicht mir zu entscheiden." "Für mich gilt die Regel, dass jemand, der einen langen Brief mühelos schreiben kann, nicht schlecht schreiben kann." "Das gilt nicht als Kompliment für Darcy, Caroline", rief ihr Bruder aus, "weil er nicht mühelos schreibt. Er studiert zu viel für Worte mit vier Silben. Tust du das nicht, Darcy?" "Mein Schreibstil unterscheidet sich sehr von deinem." "Oh!", rief Miss Bingley aus, "Charles schreibt auf die unverantwortlichste Weise. Er lässt die Hälfte seiner Wörter aus und verschmiert den Rest." "Meine Ideen fließen so schnell, dass ich keine Zeit habe, sie auszudrücken. Dadurch vermitteln meine Briefe manchmal überhaupt keine Ideen an meine Korrespondenten." "Deine Bescheidenheit, Mr. Bingley", sagte Elizabeth, "muss jeglichen Tadel entwaffnen." "Es gibt nichts Trügerischeres", sagte Darcy, "als der Anschein von Bescheidenheit. Oft handelt es sich dabei nur um Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber Meinungen und manchmal um eine indirekte Prahlerei." "Und welchen der beiden bezeichnest du als meinen kleinen letzten Akt der Bescheidenheit?" "Die indirekte Prahlerei. Denn du bist wirklich stolz auf deine Schreibfehler, weil du sie als Ausdruck einer schnellen Gedankenflut und einer nachlässigen Ausführung betrachtest, die, wenn auch nicht schätzenswert, zumindest höchst interessant ist. Die Fähigkeit, etwas schnell zu erledigen, wird immer sehr geschätzt und oft ohne Beachtung der Unvollkommenheit der Leistung. Als du heute Morgen Mrs. Bennet sagtest, dass du, wenn du dich dazu entschließt, Netherfield zu verlassen, in fünf Minuten weg wärst, war es sozusagen eine Lobeshymne, ein Kompliment an dich selbst. Aber was ist so lobenswert an einer Eile, die sehr notwendige Aufgaben unerledigt lässt und für dich oder jemand anderen keinen wirklichen Vorteil bringt?" "Aber, das ist zu viel", rief Bingley, "sich zur Nachtzeit an all die unsinnigen Dinge zu erinnern, die morgens gesagt wurden. Und dennoch, bei meinem Ehrenwort, ich glaubte, was ich über mich selbst sagte, für wahr, und ich glaube es auch jetzt. Zumindest habe ich das Charakteristikum der unnötigen Hektik nicht angenommen, um mich vor den Damen hervorzutun." "Ich nehme an, du glaubst es; aber ich bin keineswegs davon überzeugt, dass du mit solcher Geschwindigkeit verschwinden würdest. Dein Verhalten wäre genauso zufällig wie das jedes anderen Mannes, den ich kenne. Und wenn, während du gerade auf dein Pferd steigst, ein Freund sagen würde: 'Bingley, du solltest besser bis nächste Woche bleiben', würdest du es wahrscheinlich tun, du würdest wahrscheinlich nicht gehen - und mit einem weiteren Wort könntest du einen Monat bleiben." "Du hast nur bewiesen", rief Elizabeth, "dass Mr. Bingley seiner eigenen Veranlagung nicht gerecht geworden ist. Du hast ihn jetzt viel mehr zur Schau gestellt als er selbst." "Ich freue mich sehr", sagte Bingley, "dass du das, was mein Freund sagt, in ein Kompliment über die Liebenswürdigkeit meines Charakters umwandelst. Aber ich befürchte, du gibst dem Ganzen eine Wendung, die dieser Herr in keiner Weise beabsichtigt hat. Denn er würde mich sicherlich für besser halten, wenn ich unter solchen Umständen eine klare Verneinung abgebe und so schnell wie möglich davonreite." "Würde Mr. Darcy dann die Hastigkeit deines ursprünglichen Vorhabens als durch deine Hartnäckigkeit wettgemacht betrachten?" "Bei meinem Wort, ich kann die Sache nicht genau erklären. Darcy muss für sich selbst sprechen." "Du erwartest von mir, dass ich Rechenschaft ablege über Meinungen, die du als meine bezeichnest, obwohl ich sie niemals anerkannt habe. Doch selbst wenn wir uns deiner Darstellung zufolge auf den Fall einlassen, musst du bedenken, Miss Bennet, dass der Freund, der angeblich seine Rückkehr ins Haus und die Verzögerung seines Plans wünschte, dies nur gewünscht und ohne ein Argument zugunsten seiner Angemessenheit vorgebracht hat." "Leichtsinnig der _Überredung_ eines Freundes nachzugeben, ist für dich kein Verdienst." "Ohne Überzeugung nachzugeben, ist keine Anerkennung für das Verständnis beider Seiten." "Mir scheint, Mr. Darcy, dass Sie der Einfluss von Freundschaft und Zuneigung nichts zutrauen. Eine Rücksichtnahme auf den Bittsteller würde oft dazu führen, dass man einer Bitte sofort nachkommt, ohne auf Argumente zu warten. Ich spreche hier nicht speziell von einem Fall wie dem von Mr. Bingley. Vielleicht sollten wir bis zum Eintreten des Umstands warten, bevor wir die Angemessenheit seines Verhaltens erörtern. Aber im Allgemeinen und in gewöhnlichen Fällen zwischen Freunden, in denen der eine von dem anderen gebeten wird, eine nicht besonders wichtige Entscheidung zu ändern, würdest du schlecht von dieser Person denken, wenn sie der Bitte nachkommt, ohne darauf zu warten, dass man sie mit Argumenten überzeugt?" "Wäre es nicht ratsam, bevor wir uns mit diesem Thema weiter beschäftigen, den Grad der Bedeutung, der dieser Bitte zukommen soll, sowie den Grad der Vertrautheit zwischen den Parteien etwas genauer festzulegen?" "Auf jeden Fall", rief Bingley, "lasst uns alle Einzelheiten hören, ohne die Größenverhältnisse zu vergessen; denn das wird im Argument, Miss Bennet, schwerer wiegen, als du es dir vorstellen kannst. Ich versichere dir, wenn Darcy im Vergleich zu mir nicht so ein groß gewachsener Bursche wäre, würde ich ihm nicht halb so viel Achtung erweisen. Ich schwöre, ich kenne keine bedrohlichere Erscheinung als Darcy, zu bestimmten Anlässen und an bestimmten Orten, besonders in seinem eigenen Haus und an einem Sonntagabend, wenn er nichts zu tun hat." Mr. Darcy lächelte, aber Elizabeth glaubte zu erkennen, dass er leicht beleidigt war und daher ihr Lachen zurückhielt. Miss Bingley verübelte die Beleidigung, die er erlitten hatte, und tadelte ihren Bruder für solche Unsinnigkeiten. "Ich sehe, was du vorhast, Bingley", sagte sein Freund, "du magst keine Argumente und möchtest das zum Schweigen bringen." "Vielleicht tue ich das. Argumente gleichen zu sehr Streitigkeiten. Wenn du und Miss Bennet eure streiten wollt, bis ich den Raum verlasse, werde ich sehr dankbar sein. Und dann könnt ihr über mich sagen, was immer ihr wollt." "Was du verlangst", sagte Elizabeth, "ist keine Opferbereitschaft meinerseits; und Mr. Darcy täte gut daran, seinen Brief zu beenden." Mr. Darcy befolgte ihren Rat und beendete seinen Brief. Als dieses Geschäft vorbei war, wandte er sich an Miss Bingley und Elizabeth und bat um etwas Musik. Miss Bingley bewegte sich flink zum Klavier und nach einer höflichen Bitte, dass Elizabeth den Vortritt haben sollte, was diese "Oh!" sagte sie, "ich habe dich gehört; aber ich konnte nicht sofort herausfinden, was ich als Antwort sagen sollte. Du wolltest, ich weiß, dass ich 'Ja' sage, um das Vergnügen zu haben, über meinen Geschmack zu verachten; aber ich freue mich immer, solche Pläne zu vereiteln und jemanden um ihren geplanten Verachtung zu betrügen. Ich habe daher beschlossen, dir zu sagen, dass ich überhaupt keinen Reigen tanzen möchte - und verachte mich jetzt, wenn du dich traust." "Tatsächlich traue ich mich nicht." Elizabeth war erstaunt über seine Galanterie, da sie eher erwartet hatte, ihn zu kränken; aber ihre Art hatte eine Mischung aus Süße und Schalkhaftigkeit, die es ihr schwer machte, jemanden zu beleidigen; und Darcy war noch nie so von einer Frau bezaubert gewesen wie von ihr. Er glaubte wirklich, dass er, wenn es nicht um die Minderwertigkeit ihrer Verbindungen ginge, in ein gewisses Risiko geraten könnte. Miss Bingley sah oder ahnte genug, um eifersüchtig zu sein; und ihre große Sorge um die Genesung ihrer lieben Freundin Jane erhielt Unterstützung von ihrem Wunsch, Elizabeth loszuwerden. Sie versuchte oft, Darcy zu provozieren, indem sie von ihrer vermeintlichen Ehe sprach und sein Glück in einer solchen Allianz plante. "Ich hoffe", sagte sie, als sie am nächsten Tag zusammen im Gebüsch spazieren gingen, "du wirst deiner Schwiegermutter ein paar Hinweise geben, wenn dieses wünschenswerte Ereignis eintritt, um den Vorteil des Schweigens hervorzuheben; und wenn du es erreichen kannst, versuch den jüngeren Mädchen nach den Offizieren zu suchen. - Und, wenn ich so ein heikles Thema erwähnen darf, versuche diese kleine Art von Überheblichkeit und Unverschämtheit, die deine Dame besitzt, etwas einzudämmen." "Hast du noch etwas anderes für mein häusliches Glück vorzuschlagen?" "Oh ja. Lass die Porträts deines Onkels und Tante Philips in der Galerie in Pemberley platzieren. Stelle sie neben deinen Großonkel, dem Richter. Sie sind in derselben Branche, weißt du; nur in verschiedenen Linien. Was das Bild von Elizabeth betrifft, solltest du nicht versuchen, es machen zu lassen, denn welcher Maler könnte diesen schönen Augen gerecht werden?" "Es wäre in der Tat nicht einfach, ihren Ausdruck einzufangen, aber ihre Farbe, Form und ihre Wimpern, die bemerkenswert fein sind, könnten kopiert werden." In diesem Moment wurden sie von Mrs. Hurst und Elizabeth selbst von einem anderen Spaziergang getroffen. "Ich wusste nicht, dass du spazieren gehen wolltest", sagte Miss Bingley in Verwirrung, aus Angst, sie könnten belauscht worden sein. "Ihr habt uns fürchterlich schlecht behandelt," antwortete Mrs. Hurst, "indem ihr ohne uns zu sagen, dass ihr rausgeht, abgehauen seid." Dann nahm sie den freien Arm von Mr. Darcy und ließ Elizabeth alleine gehen. Der Weg ließ gerade mal drei Personen zu. Mr. Darcy fühlte ihre Unhöflichkeit und sagte sofort: "Dieser Weg ist nicht breit genug für unsere Gruppe. Wir gehen besser in die Allee." Aber Elizabeth, die überhaupt keine Lust hatte, bei ihnen zu bleiben, antwortete lachend: "Nein, nein, bleibt wo ihr seid. Ihr seht bezaubernd zusammen aus und scheint besonders vorteilhaft zu sein. Die malerische Wirkung würde durch einen Vierten ruiniert werden. Auf Wiedersehen." Dann lief sie fröhlich davon und freute sich, während sie umherirrte, darauf, in einem oder zwei Tagen wieder zu Hause zu sein. Jane hatte sich bereits so weit erholt, dass sie beabsichtigte, für ein paar Stunden an diesem Abend ihr Zimmer zu verlassen. Als die Frauen nach dem Abendessen den Raum verließen, lief Elizabeth zu ihrer Schwester und begleitete sie in das Wohnzimmer, nachdem sie festgestellt hatte, dass sie gut vor Kälte geschützt war. Dort wurde sie von ihren beiden Freunden herzlich begrüßt und Elizabeth hatte sie noch nie so angenehm erlebt wie in der Stunde, die verging, bevor die Herren erschienen. Ihre Gesprächskünste waren beträchtlich. Sie konnten eine Veranstaltung genau beschreiben, eine Anekdote mit Humor erzählen und über ihre Bekannten lachen. Aber als die Herren eintraten, war Jane nicht mehr das erste Objekt der Aufmerksamkeit. Miss Bingleys Augen waren sofort auf Darcy gerichtet, und sie hatte noch etwas zu sagen, bevor er viele Schritte weitergegangen war. Er wandte sich direkt an Miss Bennet und beglückwünschte sie höflich; auch Mr. Hurst machte ihr eine leichte Verbeugung und sagte, er sei "sehr froh"; aber ausführlicher und herzlicher war Bingleys Begrüßung. Er war voller Freude und Aufmerksamkeit. Die erste halbe Stunde wurde damit verbracht, das Feuer aufzuhäufen, aus Angst, dass sie unter dem Raumwechsel leiden könnten; und auf seinen Wunsch hin zog sie auf die andere Seite des Kamins, um weiter von der Tür entfernt zu sein. Dann setzte er sich neben sie und sprach kaum mit jemand anderem. Elizabeth, die in der gegenüberliegenden Ecke arbeitete, sah das alles mit großer Freude. Als der Tee vorbei war, erinnerte Mr. Hurst seine Schwägerin an den Kartentisch - aber vergeblich. Sie hatte privaten Informationen erhalten, dass Mr. Darcy keine Lust auf Karten hatte; und Mr. Hurst fand bald heraus, dass sogar sein offener Wunsch abgelehnt wurde. Sie versicherte ihm, dass niemand vorhatte, zu spielen, und das Schweigen der ganzen Gruppe schien es zu rechtfertigen. Mr. Hurst hatte also nichts zu tun, außer sich auf eine der Sofas auszustrecken und einzuschlafen. Darcy nahm ein Buch zur Hand; Miss Bingley tat dasselbe; und Mrs. Hurst, hauptsächlich damit beschäftigt, mit ihren Armbändern und Ringen zu spielen, beteiligte sich ab und zu an der Unterhaltung ihres Bruders mit Miss Bennet. Miss Bingleys Aufmerksamkeit war ebenso sehr darauf gerichtet, Darcys Fortschritte in seinem Buch zu beobachten wie auf ihr eigenes Lesen; und ständig stellte sie entweder eine Frage oder schaute auf seine Seite. Sie konnte ihn jedoch nicht dazu bewegen, sich in ein Gespräch zu vertiefen; er antwortete nur auf ihre Frage und las weiter. Schließlich, völlig erschöpft von dem Versuch, sich mit ihrem eigenen Buch zu unterhalten, das sie nur gewählt hatte, weil es der zweite Band von seinem war, gähnte sie laut auf und sagte: "Es ist so angenehm, einen Abend auf diese Weise zu verbringen! Ich sage euch, es gibt nichts Schöneres als Lesen! Wie viel schneller langweilt man sich an allem anderen als an einem Buch! - Wenn ich ein eigenes Haus habe, werde ich unglücklich sein, wenn ich keine ausgezeichnete Bibliothek habe." Niemand antwortete. Sie gähnte erneut, warf ihr Buch beiseite und blickte im Raum umher, auf der Suche nach etwas Unterhaltung. Als sie ihren Bruder über einen Ball mit Miss Bennet sprechen hörte, drehte sie sich plötzlich zu ihm um und sagte: "Ach übrigens, Charles, meinst du es wirklich ernst, einen Ball in Netherfield zu veranstalten? - Ich würde dir raten, bevor du dich dazu entscheidest, die Wünsche der Anwesenden zu konsultieren; ich irre mich sehr, wenn nicht einige von uns, für die ein Ball eher eine Strafe als ein Vergnügen wäre." "Wenn du Darcy meinst", rief ihr Bruder, "dann kann er, wenn er will, ins Bett "Es macht mir absolut nichts aus, sie zu erklären", sagte er, sobald sie ihm das Wort gab. "Ihr habt euch für diese Methode des Abendverweilens entschieden, entweder weil ihr Vertrauen zueinander habt und geheime Angelegenheiten zu besprechen habt oder weil ihr euch bewusst seid, dass eure Figuren beim Spazierengehen am besten zur Geltung kommen; wenn es das Erste ist, dann wäre ich euch nur im Weg und wenn es das Zweite ist, kann ich euch viel besser bewundern, während ich am Feuer sitze." "Oh! Entsetzlich!" rief Miss Bingley. "Ich habe noch nie etwas so Abscheuliches gehört. Wie sollen wir ihn für eine solche Rede bestrafen?" "Nichts einfacher als das, wenn ihr nur den Wunsch dazu habt", sagte Elizabeth. "Wir können uns alle gegenseitig quälen und bestrafen. Neckt ihn - lacht über ihn. Als enge Vertraute müsst ihr doch wissen, wie man das macht." "Aber bei meinem Ehrenwort - das weiß ich nicht. Ich versichere euch, dass meine intime Vertrautheit mich das noch nicht gelehrt hat. Die Gelassenheit im Wesen und Geistesgegenwart zu bedrängen! Nein, nein - ich glaube, dort kann er uns trotzen. Und was das Lachen betrifft, wir wollen uns bitte nicht selbst bloßstellen, indem wir versuchen, ohne Grund zu lachen. Mr. Darcy kann sich selbst feiern." "Mr. Darcy sollte nicht verspottet werden!" rief Elizabeth. "Das ist ein außergewöhnlicher Vorteil und außergewöhnlich hoffe ich, dass es weiterhin so bleibt, denn es wäre ein großer Verlust für mich, viele solche Bekanntschaften zu haben. Ich liebe es nämlich sehr zu lachen." "Miss Bingley", sagte er, "hat mir mehr zugemutet als ich leisten kann. Die klügsten und besten Männer, ja, die weisesten und besten Taten können durch eine Person, deren Ziel im Leben ein Scherz ist, lächerlich gemacht werden." "Gewiss", antwortete Elizabeth. "Es gibt solche Menschen, aber ich hoffe, dass ich nicht einer von ihnen bin. Ich hoffe, niemals das zu verspotten, was klug und gut ist. Torheiten und Unsinn, Launen und Ungereimtheiten erheitern mich, das gebe ich zu, und darüber lache ich, wann immer ich kann. Aber das seid ihr vermutlich eben nicht." "Vielleicht ist das nicht für jeden möglich. Aber es war das Ziel meines Lebens, diese Schwächen zu vermeiden, die oft ein starkes Verständnis der Lächerlichkeit aussetzen." "Solche wie Eitelkeit und Stolz." "Ja, Eitelkeit ist wirklich eine Schwäche. Aber Stolz - bei einer wahren Überlegenheit des Geistes wird der Stolz immer gut geregelt sein." Elizabeth wandte sich ab, um ein Lächeln zu verbergen. "Ich nehme an, deine Untersuchung von Mr. Darcy ist beendet", sagte Miss Bingley. "Und sag mal, was ist das Ergebnis?" "Ich bin vollkommen davon überzeugt, dass Mr. Darcy keine Fehler hat. Er gibt es selbst ohne Verstellung zu." "Nein", sagte Darcy. "Ich habe keine solche Behauptung aufgestellt. Ich habe genug Fehler, aber ich hoffe, sie betreffen nicht mein Verständnis. Mein Temperament traue ich mich nicht zu bürgen. Ich glaube es ist zu wenig nachgiebig, sicherlich zu wenig für die Bequemlichkeit der Welt. Ich kann die Torheiten und Laster anderer nicht so schnell vergessen, wie ich sollte, und auch nicht ihre Vergehen gegen mich. Meine Gefühle werden nicht bei jedem Versuch, sie zu bewegen, aufgeblasen. Mein Temperament würde vielleicht als nachtragend bezeichnet werden. Mein gutes Urteil, einmal verloren, ist für immer verloren." "Das ist in der Tat ein Fehler!" rief Elizabeth. "Unerbittlicher Groll ist eine Schwäche in einem Charakter. Aber du hast deinen Fehler gut gewählt. Ich kann darüber wirklich nicht lachen. Du bist vor mir sicher." "Ich glaube, in jeder Persönlichkeit gibt es eine Tendenz zu einem bestimmten Übel, einem natürlichen Defekt, den selbst die beste Erziehung nicht überwinden kann." "Und dein Defekt ist die Neigung, jeden zu hassen." "Und deiner", antwortete er mit einem Lächeln, "ist absichtlich, sie zu missverstehen." "Lass uns ein wenig Musik haben", rief Miss Bingley, die von einem Gespräch, an dem sie keinen Anteil hatte, müde war. "Louisa, du hast sicher nichts dagegen, dass ich Mr. Hurst wecke." Ihre Schwester hatte keinen Einwand, und das Klavier wurde geöffnet. Darcy, nach einigen Momenten der Besinnung, war froh darüber. Er begann die Gefahr zu spüren, Elizabeth zu viel Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken. Aufgrund einer Vereinbarung zwischen den Schwestern schrieb Elizabeth am nächsten Morgen an ihre Mutter und bat darum, dass der Wagen im Laufe des Tages für sie geschickt werde. Aber Mrs. Bennet, die berechnet hatte, dass ihre Töchter bis zum folgenden Dienstag in Netherfield bleiben würden, was genau das Ende von Janes Woche bedeuten würde, konnte sich nicht dazu bringen, sie schon vorher mit Freude zu empfangen. Ihre Antwort war daher nicht ermutigend, zumindest nicht im Sinne von Elizabeths Wunsch, denn sie war ungeduldig, nach Hause zu kommen. Mrs. Bennet ließ ihnen ausrichten, dass sie den Wagen erst am Dienstag haben könnten, und in ihrer Postskriptum wurde hinzugefügt, dass sie ihnen, wenn Mr. Bingley und seine Schwester darauf bestehen sollten, länger zu bleiben, dies gut ertragen könnte. Gegen ein längeres Verweilen war Elizabeth jedoch entschlossen - und sie erwartete es auch nicht wirklich - im Gegenteil, sie fürchtete, dass sie überflüssig lange bleiben und als Eindringlinge angesehen würden. Daher drängte sie Jane, sofort den Wagen von Mr. Bingley auszuleihen, und schließlich wurde beschlossen, dass ihr ursprünglicher Plan, Netherfield an diesem Morgen zu verlassen, erwähnt und die Bitte vorgebracht werden sollte. Die Mitteilung löste viele Beteuerungen der Besorgnis aus und es wurde genug gesagt, um Jane dazu zu bringen, zumindest bis zum nächsten Tag zu bleiben. Bis morgen wurde ihre Abreise verschoben. Miss Bingley bereute dann, dass sie die Verzögerung vorgeschlagen hatte, denn ihre Eifersucht und Abneigung gegen die eine Schwester übertrafen bei weitem ihre Zuneigung zur anderen. Der Hausherr hörte mit echtem Bedauern, dass sie so bald gehen würden und versuchte wiederholt, Miss Bennet davon zu überzeugen, dass es für sie nicht sicher wäre - dass sie sich noch nicht genug erholt hätte. Aber Jane blieb unbeirrt, wo sie sich im Recht fühlte. Für Mr. Darcy war es eine willkommene Nachricht. Elizabeth war schon lange genug in Netherfield gewesen. Sie zog ihn mehr an, als er wollte - und Miss Bingley war unfreundlich zu ihr und quälte ihn mehr als gewöhnlich. Er beschloss klugerweise, besonders vorsichtig zu sein, dass kein Zeichen von Bewunderung jetzt entfliehen sollte, nichts, was sie mit der Hoffnung auf Beeinflussung seines Glücks erheben könnte. Er war sich bewusst, dass wenn eine solche Idee aufgekommen wäre, sein Verhalten während des letzten Tages ein erhebliches Gewicht gehabt hätte, um sie zu bestätigen oder zu zerschlagen. Fest entschlossen sprach er kaum zehn Worte mit ihr während des ganzen Samstags und obwohl sie zu einer gewissen Zeit eine halbe Stunde lang allein gelassen wurden, hielt er sich gewissenhaft an sein Buch und sah sie nicht einmal an. Am Sonntag, nach dem Gottesdienst, fand die Trennung statt, die für fast alle sehr angenehm war. Miss Bingleys Höflichkeit gegenüber Elizabeth nahm endlich sehr schnell zu, genauso wie ihre Zuneigung zu Jane. Und als sie sich verabschiedeten und Jane versicherte, dass es für sie immer ein Vergnügen sein würde, sie entweder in Longbourn oder Netherfield zu sehen und sie her Die Person, von der ich spreche, ist ein Gentleman und ein Fremder. Mrs. Bennets Augen funkelten.--"Ein Gentleman und ein Fremder! Es ist Mr. Bingley da bin ich mir sicher. Warum, Jane - du hast kein Wort darüber verloren; du hinterlistiges Ding! Nun, ich bin sicher, ich werde mich sehr freuen, Mr. Bingley zu sehen. Aber, um Himmels willen! Wie unglücklich! Heute gibt es keinen Fisch zu bekommen. Lydia, mein Schatz, läute die Glocke. Ich muss sofort mit Hill sprechen." "Es ist _nicht_ Mr. Bingley", sagte ihr Ehemann, "es ist eine Person, die ich in meinem ganzen Leben noch nie gesehen habe." Dies löste allgemeine Verwunderung aus, und er hatte das Vergnügen, von seiner Frau und seinen fünf Töchtern gleichzeitig eifrig befragt zu werden. Nachdem er sich einige Zeit mit ihrer Neugier unterhalten hatte, erklärte er folgendermaßen: "Vor etwa einem Monat erhielt ich diesen Brief, und vor etwa zwei Wochen antwortete ich darauf, denn ich hielt es für einen Fall von einiger Feinfühligkeit, der frühzeitige Aufmerksamkeit erforderte. Es ist von meinem Cousin, Mr. Collins, der, wenn ich tot bin, euch alle aus diesem Haus vertreiben kann, wann immer es ihm gefällt." "Oh! mein Lieber", rief seine Frau aus, "ich kann es nicht ertragen, das erwähnt zu hören. Bitte sprich nicht von diesem abscheulichen Mann. Ich finde es wirklich am schlimmsten, dass dein Erbe deinen eigenen Kindern vorenthalten wird; und ich bin sicher, wenn ich du gewesen wäre, hätte ich schon lange versucht, etwas dagegen zu unternehmen." Jane und Elizabeth versuchten, ihr die Natur eines eingeschränkten Erbes zu erklären. Sie hatten es schon oft versucht, aber das Thema war für Mrs. Bennet außerhalb der Reichweite der Vernunft, und sie fuhr bitter gegen die Grausamkeit fort, ein Anwesen einer Familie mit fünf Töchtern gegenüber einem Mann zu sichern, für den sich niemand interessierte. "Es ist sicherlich eine sehr in unserer Beziehung ungerechte Angelegenheit", sagte Mr. Bennet, "und nichts kann Mr. Collins von der Schuld, Longbourn zu erben, reinwaschen. Aber wenn du seinen Brief hörst, wirst du vielleicht durch seine Art, sich auszudrücken, ein wenig erweicht werden." "Nein, dessen bin ich mir sicher nicht; und ich denke, es war sehr unverschämt von ihm, dir überhaupt zu schreiben, und sehr heuchlerisch. Ich hasse solche falschen Freunde. Warum konnte er nicht weiter mit dir streiten, wie sein Vater es vor ihm getan hat?" "Nun ja, er scheint tatsächlich einige kindliche Bedenken in dieser Hinsicht gehabt zu haben, wie du hören wirst." _Hunsford, in der Nähe von Westerham, Kent, 15. Oktober._ LIEBER HERR, Der bestehende Zwist zwischen Ihnen und meinem kürzlich geehrten Vater hat mir immer viel Unbehagen bereitet, und seit ich das Unglück hatte, ihn zu verlieren, habe ich oft den Wunsch gehabt, die Kluft zu überbrücken; aber für einige Zeit hielt ich mich von meinen eigenen Zweifeln zurück, aus Furcht, dass es respektlos gegen sein Andenken erscheinen könnte, wenn ich mit jemandem auf guten Fuß stehe, mit dem es ihm immer gefallen hat, im Streit zu liegen.- "Da hast du es, Mrs. Bennet."- Mein Geist ist jedoch jetzt auf das Thema konzentriert, denn nachdem ich an Ostern meine Ordination erhalten hatte, hatte ich das Glück, die Unterstützung der Hochwohlgeborenen Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Witwe von Sir Lewis de Bourgh, in Anspruch nehmen zu dürfen, deren Großzügigkeit und Wohltätigkeit mich zum wertvollen Pfarramt dieser Gemeinde befördert hat, wo ich mich redlich bemühen werde, mich Ladyship gegenüber dankbar und respektvoll zu verhalten und stets bereit sein werde, die Riten und Zeremonien, die durch die Kirche von England eingesetzt sind, durchzuführen. Als Geistlicher fühle ich mich darüber hinaus verpflichtet, den Segen des Friedens in allen Familien innerhalb meines Einflussbereichs zu fördern und einzurichten; und auf dieser Grundlage habe ich die Hoffnung, dass mein gegenwärtiges Angebot des guten Willens sehr lobenswert ist und dass die Tatsache, dass ich in der Erbfolge von Longbourn Anwesen an der nächsten Stelle stehe, auf deiner Seite freundlich übersehen wird und dich nicht dazu veranlasst, den angebotenen Olivenzweig abzulehnen. Ich kann nicht anders als besorgt sein, dass ich die liebenswürdigen Töchter verschädigen werde, und ich bitte um Verzeihung dafür sowie um die Bereitschaft, ihnen jede mögliche Wiedergutmachung zu leisten - aber davon später. Wenn du keine Einwände hast, mich in deinem Haus zu empfangen, erlaube ich mir, dich und deine Familie am Montag, dem 18. November, um vier Uhr zu besuchen, und werde wahrscheinlich bis zum folgenden Samstag, dem 29. November, deine Gastfreundschaft in Anspruch nehmen, was keine Unannehmlichkeiten verursacht, da Lady Catherine nichts dagegen einzuwenden hat, dass ich sonntags gelegentlich abwesend bin, vorausgesetzt, dass ein anderer Geistlicher damit betraut ist, den Gottesdienst an diesem Tag zu leiten. Ich bleibe, lieber Herr, mit Respektbekundungen an Ihre Dame und Ihre Töchter, Ihr Wohlwünscher und Freund, WILLIAM COLLINS." "Um vier Uhr also können wir diesen Frieden stiftenden Gentleman erwarten," sagte Mr. Bennet, als er den Brief zusammenfaltete. "Er scheint ein äußerst gewissenhafter und höflicher junger Mann zu sein, auf mein Wort; und ich habe keinen Zweifel daran, dass er eine wertvolle Bekanntschaft sein wird, vor allem, wenn Lady Catherine so nachsichtig ist, ihn uns wieder besuchen zu lassen." "In dem, was er über die Mädchen sagt, steckt etwas Vernunft; und wenn er bereit ist, ihnen Wiedergutmachung zu leisten, werde ich ihn nicht davon abhalten." "Auch wenn es schwierig ist", sagte Jane, "zu erraten, wie er uns die Wiedergutmachung zuteil werden lassen will, die er für angemessen hält, so ist der Wunsch doch sicherlich zu seinem Vorteil." Elizabeth war vor allem von seiner außergewöhnlichen Ehrerbietung gegenüber Lady Catherine und seiner freundlichen Absicht, seine Gemeindemitglieder zu taufen, zu verheiraten und zu beerdigen, beeindruckt. "Er muss eine seltsame Persönlichkeit sein, denke ich", sagte sie. "Ich kann ihn nicht einschätzen. Es ist etwas sehr pompöses in seinem Stil. Und was meint er damit, sich für das Erben zu entschuldigen? Wir können nicht annehmen, dass er es verhindern würde, wenn er könnte. Kann er ein vernünftiger Mann sein, Sir?" "Nein, meine Liebe; das glaube ich nicht. Ich habe große Hoffnungen, dass er das genaue Gegenteil sein wird. In seinem Brief gibt es eine Mischung aus Kriecherei und Selbstbewusstsein, die vielversprechend ist. Ich bin ungeduldig, ihn zu sehen." "In Bezug auf den Stil", sagte Mary, "scheint sein Brief nicht fehlerhaft zu sein. Die Idee des Olivenzweigs ist vielleicht nicht völlig neu, aber ich finde, dass sie gut ausgedrückt ist." Für Catherine und Lydia waren weder der Brief noch sein Verfasser in irgendeinem Maße interessant. Es war so gut wie unmöglich, dass ihr Cousin in Er wurde durch eine Einladung zum Abendessen unterbrochen, und die Mädchen lächelten einander an. Sie waren nicht die einzigen Objekte von Mr. Collins' Bewunderung. Der Saal, das Esszimmer und alle Möbel wurden begutachtet und gelobt; und seine Lobeshymnen wären fast Mrs. Bennets Herz berührt hätten nicht die demütigende Annahme, dass er alles als sein zukünftiges Eigentum betrachtete. Auch das Abendessen selbst wurde sehr bewundert; und er wollte wissen, welcher seiner hübschen Cousinen die hervorragende Kochkunst zu verdanken sei. Doch hier wurde er von Mrs. Bennet eines Besseren belehrt, die ihm mit etwas Schärfe versicherte, dass sie sehr wohl in der Lage seien, einen guten Koch zu halten, und dass ihre Töchter nichts in der Küche zu tun hätten. Er bat um Verzeihung dafür, sie verärgert zu haben. Mit sanfterer Stimme erklärte sie, dass sie überhaupt nicht beleidigt sei; aber er entschuldigte sich weiter für etwa eine Viertelstunde. Während des Abendessens sprach Mr. Bennet kaum ein Wort; aber als die Diener gegangen waren, dachte er, es sei an der Zeit, mit seinem Gast zu sprechen, und begann daher ein Thema, in dem er erwartete, dass er glänzen würde, indem er bemerkte, dass er mit seiner Patronin sehr viel Glück habe. Lady Catherine de Bourghs Aufmerksamkeit für seine Wünsche und ihre Rücksichtnahme auf sein Wohl erschienen ihm sehr bemerkenswert. Mr. Bennet hätte es nicht besser wählen können. Mr. Collins schwärmte von ihr. Das Thema erweckte in ihm eine außergewöhnliche Feierlichkeit des Verhaltens, und mit einem sehr wichtigen Gesichtsausdruck beteuerte er, dass er in seinem Leben noch nie ein derartiges Verhalten bei einer Person von Rang erlebt habe - eine solche Liebenswürdigkeit und Herablassung, wie er sie selbst von Lady Catherine erfahren habe. Sie hatte großzügigerweise beide Predigten, die er bereits vor ihr gehalten hatte, gebilligt. Sie hatte ihn auch zweimal zum Essen nach Rosings eingeladen und ihn erst letzten Samstag abend zum Kartenspiel geholt. Lady Catherine wurde von vielen als stolz angesehen, aber _er_ hatte niemals etwas anderes als Liebenswürdigkeit in ihr gesehen. Sie hatte immer mit ihm gesprochen, wie sie es mit jedem anderen Herrn getan hätte; sie hatte keine Einwände dagegen, dass er in der Gesellschaft der Nachbarschaft verkehrt, noch dagegen, dass er seine Pfarrei gelegentlich für eine Woche oder zwei verlässt, um seine Verwandten zu besuchen. Sie hatte sogar herablassend empfohlen, dass er so bald wie möglich heiraten solle, vorausgesetzt, er wähle mit Bedacht; und sie hatte ihn sogar in seiner bescheidenen Pfarrwohnung besucht, wo sie alle Umbauten, die er vorgenommen hatte, vollkommen gebilligt hatte und sogar selbst einige vorgeschlagen hatte - einige Regale in den Schränken oben. "Das ist sehr angemessen und höflich, da bin ich sicher", sagte Mrs. Bennet, "und ich bin sicher, sie ist eine sehr angenehme Frau. Es ist schade, dass große Damen im Allgemeinen nicht mehr wie sie sind. Lebt sie in Ihrer Nähe, Herr?" "Der Garten, in dem meine bescheidene Behausung steht, ist nur durch eine Gasse von Rosings Park, dem Wohnsitz Ihrer Ladyship, getrennt." "Ich glaube, Sie sagten, sie sei eine Witwe, Herr? Hat sie eine Familie?" "Sie hat eine einzige Tochter, die Erbin von Rosings und sehr umfangreichen Besitztümern." "Ach!", rief Mrs. Bennet und schüttelte den Kopf, "dann ist sie besser dran als viele Mädchen. Und was für ein Mädchen ist sie? Ist sie hübsch?" "Sie ist ein sehr bezauberndes junges Mädchen. Lady Catherine selbst sagt, dass Miss De Bourgh in Bezug auf wahre Schönheit weit über die hübschesten ihres Geschlechts steht; weil es etwas in ihren Zügen gibt, das die junge Frau von vornehmer Herkunft kennzeichnet. Unglücklicherweise hat sie eine kränkliche Konstitution, die sie daran gehindert hat, Fortschritte in vielen Fähigkeiten zu machen, die ihr sonst nicht fehlen würden; wie mir von der Dame, die ihre Ausbildung beaufsichtigt hat und immer noch bei ihnen lebt, mitgeteilt wurde. Aber sie ist vollkommen liebenswert und lässt sich oft herab, mit ihrem kleinen Phaeton und ihren Ponys an meiner bescheidenen Behausung vorbeizufahren." "Ist sie präsentiert worden? Ich erinnere mich nicht, dass ihr Name unter den Damen am Hofe stand." "Ihr mittelmäßiger Gesundheitszustand verhindert leider, dass sie in die Stadt kommt; und dadurch, wie ich Lady Catherine eines Tages selbst sagte, wurde der britische Hof seines strahlendsten Schmuckstücks beraubt. Ihre Ladyship schien von der Idee angetan zu sein, und Sie können sich vorstellen, dass es mir in jeder Hinsicht ein Vergnügen ist, diese kleinen delikaten Komplimente anzubieten, die bei Damen immer willkommen sind. Ich habe Lady Catherine schon mehr als einmal bemerkt, dass ihre charmante Tochter wie geschaffen ist, eine Herzogin zu sein, und dass der höchste Rang, anstatt ihr Bedeutung zu verleihen, durch sie geschmückt würde. - Das sind die Art von kleinen Dingen, die ihre Ladyship erfreuen, und es ist eine Art von Aufmerksamkeit, die ich mich besonders verpflichtet fühle zu erweisen." "Sie urteilen ganz richtig", sagte Mr. Bennet, "und es ist glücklich für Sie, dass Sie das Talent besitzen, mit Feingefühl zu schmeicheln. Darf ich fragen, ob diese angenehmen Aufmerksamkeiten aus dem Impuls des Augenblicks herrühren oder das Ergebnis früherer Studien sind?" "Sie entstehen hauptsächlich aus dem, was gerade passiert, und obwohl ich mich manchmal damit amüsiere, solche kleinen eleganten Komplimente vorzuschlagen und zu arrangieren, die für gewöhnliche Gelegenheiten geeignet sind, möchte ich ihnen immer einen möglichst ungezwungenen Anschein geben." Mr. Bennets Erwartungen wurden voll erfüllt. Sein Cousin war so absurd, wie er gehofft hatte, und er hörte ihm mit größtem Vergnügen zu, während er gleichzeitig die größte Ruhe der Miene bewahrte und außer gelegentlichen Blicken auf Elizabeth keine Partnerin in seinem Vergnügen benötigte. Gegen Teatime war die Dosis jedoch genug gewesen, und Mr. Bennet war froh, seinen Gast wieder ins Wohnzimmer zu bringen, und als der Tee vorbei war, ihn zu bitten, den Damen vorzulesen. Mr. Collins stimmte gerne zu, und ein Buch wurde hervorgeholt; aber als er es erblickte (denn alles kündigte an, dass es aus einer Leihbibliothek stammte), trat er zurück und bat um Verzeihung und erklärte, dass er niemals Romane lese. Kitty starrte ihn an, und Lydia rief aus. Weitere Bücher wurden produziert, und nach einigem Überlegen wählte er Fordyce's Predigten. Lydia gähnte, als er das Buch öffnete, und noch bevor er mit sehr monotoner Feierlichkeit drei Seiten gelesen hatte, unterbrach sie ihn mit den Worten: "Weißt du, Mama, dass mein Onkel Philips darüber spricht, Richard zu entlassen, und wenn er das tut, wird Colonel Forster ihn einstellen. Meine Tante hat mir das selbst am Samstag erzählt. Morgen werde ich nach Meryton gehen, um mehr darüber zu hören und zu fragen, wann Mr. Denny aus der Stadt zurückkommt." Lydia wurde von ihren beiden ältesten Schwestern gebeten, den Mund zu halten; aber Mr. Collins, sehr beleidigt, legte sein Buch beiseite und sagte: "Ich habe oft bemerkt, wie wenig junge Damen an Büchern von ernstem Charakter interessiert sind, obwohl sie ausschließlich zu ihrem Nutzen geschrieben sind. Es erstaunt mich, ich gestehe es; denn sicherlich gibt es nichts, was für sie so vorteilhaft ist wie Unterricht. Aber ich werde meine junge Cousine nicht weiter belästigen." Dann wandte er sich an Mr. Bennet und bot sich als sein Gegner beim Backgammon an. Mr. Bennet nahm die Herausforderung an und bemerkte, dass er sehr weise handle, indem er die Mädchen mit ihren belanglosen Vergnügungen allein ließe. Mrs. Bennet und ihre Töchter entschuldigten sich sehr höflich für Lydias Unterbrechung und versprachen, dass es nicht wieder vorkommen würde, wenn er sein Buch fortsetzen würde. Aber Mr. Collins setzte sich nach der Versicherung, dass er seiner jungen Cousine nichts Böses wollte und ihr Verhalten nie als Beleidigung ansehen würde, mit Mr. Bennet an einen anderen Tisch und bereitete sich auf Backgammon vor. Kannst du eine angemessene Zusammenfassung der oben genannten 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.

In diesem Kapitel führt Austen den Entail ein, einen alten britischen Brauch, der darauf abzielt, den Familienbesitz innerhalb der Blutlinie zu halten. In diesem Fall kann Longbourn nur an einen männlichen Erben übertragen werden. Da die Bennets nur Töchter haben, drohen sie bei Mr. Bennets Tod das Anwesen an einen entfernten Verwandten zu verlieren. Lydia und Kitty besuchen oft ihre Tante, Mrs. Phillips, in der nahegelegenen Stadt Meryton. Nach der Ankunft eines Milizenregiments nehmen sie ihre Besuche aufgrund ihrer Vorliebe fürs Flirten mit den Soldaten häufiger wahr. Mr. Bennet beschwert sich oft über die Dummheit seiner beiden jüngeren Töchter, aber Mrs. Bennet betrachtet ihre Obsession mit den Offizieren nicht als Grund zur Besorgnis. Jane erhält eine Einladung von den Bingley-Mädchen zum Abendessen bei Netherfield. Mrs. Bennet instruiert Jane, mit dem Pferd zu reiten, in der Hoffnung, dass der Regen Jane zwingen wird, die Nacht dort zu verbringen und eine Gelegenheit hat, mit Mr. Bingley zu interagieren. Jane mag den Plan ihrer Mutter nicht, hat jedoch keine andere Wahl, als mitzumachen. Der Plan funktioniert jedoch zu gut. Nicht nur der Regen hält Jane in Netherfield fest, sondern sie erkrankt auch, weil sie auf dem Ritt dorthin durchnässt wird. Die Bingley-Familie erwartet, dass Jane bei Netherfield bleibt, bis sie sich erholt hat. Nachdem die Bennets den Brief über Janes Krankheit erhalten haben, besteht Elizabeth darauf, ihre Schwester in Netherfield zu besuchen. Sie geht durch die nassen Felder, da keine Pferde verfügbar sind. Als Elizabeth in Netherfield ankommt, ist sie zerzaust und ihr Kleid ist voller Schlamm. Die Bingley-Schwestern sind schockiert über ihr unordentliches Erscheinungsbild. Darcy hingegen bemerkt leise, dass die Bewegungsfreiheit Elizabeths Teint verbessert hat. Inzwischen hat sich Janes Zustand verschlechtert und sie kann ihr Bett nicht verlassen. Elizabeth kümmert sich den ganzen Tag mit großer Sorge um ihre Schwester. Jane möchte nicht, dass Elizabeth ihren Platz verlässt, daher lädt Caroline die jüngere Bennet-Schwester ein, die Nacht in Netherfield zu bleiben. Kapitel 8 Nach dem Abendessen verlässt Elizabeth den Tisch, um sich um Jane zu kümmern, und die anderen beginnen, über sie zu sprechen. Caroline kritisiert Elizabeths Stolz und hartnäckige Unabhängigkeit, während Herr Bingley und Darcy ihre Hingabe zu Jane bewundern. Die Bingley-Schwestern spotten auch über die niedrigen familiären Verbindungen der Bennets. Bingley scheint sich jedoch nicht um den sozialen Status der Bennets zu kümmern, obwohl Darcy niedrigen Status als Hindernis für die Heiratschancen der Bennet-Mädchen betrachtet. Nachdem Jane eingeschlafen ist, gesellt sich Elizabeth zu den anderen ins Wohnzimmer und beteiligt sich an einer Unterhaltung darüber, was es bedeutet, eine gebildete Frau zu sein. Während des gesamten Streits sind Elizabeth und Darcy häufig anderer Meinung, obwohl sie mit großem Witz argumentieren. Darcy und Caroline geben unrealistische Kriterien vor, um eine Frau als gebildet zu bezeichnen, was Elizabeth dazu veranlasst auszurufen, dass sie in ihrem Leben noch nie eine solche Frau getroffen hat. Kapitel 9 Elizabeth bittet darum, dass ihre Mutter Jane besuchen soll, und Bingley kommt der Bitte nach. Als Mrs. Bennet ankommt, freut sie sich zu sehen, dass Jane sich schließlich erholen wird, aber immer noch krank genug ist, um in Netherfield zu bleiben. Mrs. Bennet fehlt die Subtilität und ihre Absichten werden allen in Netherfield sehr klar. Sie ist auch offen unhöflich zu Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth ist von dem Verhalten ihrer Mutter peinlich berührt und freut sich, als Mrs. Bennet geht. Kapitel 10 Abends im Wohnzimmer schreibt Darcy einen Brief an seine Schwester, während Caroline alberne Kommentare abgibt, die darauf abzielen, seinen Schreibstil zu schmeicheln. Er ignoriert ihre Flirtversuche. Die Gruppe verspottet Bingley liebevoll für seinen anpassungsfähigen Charakter, aber Elizabeth verteidigt ihn und deutet an, dass es eine Tugend ist, den Überredungen seiner Freunde nachzugeben. Wieder findet der Großteil des Streits zwischen Elizabeth und Darcy statt. Später singen die Bingley-Schwestern und spielen Klavier. Elizabeth bemerkt, wie oft Mr. Darcy sie ansieht, und nimmt an, dass es ein Zeichen seiner Missbilligung ist. Als Mr. Darcy sie zum Tanz auffordert, glaubt Elizabeth, dass sein Antrag sarkastisch ist, und antwortet mit einer witzigen Absage. Caroline bemerkt die Interaktion und neckt Mr. Darcy privat über die Möglichkeit, in eine einfache Familie wie die Bennets einzuheiraten. Kapitel 11 Nach dem Abendessen fühlt sich Jane gut genug, um sich den anderen im Wohnzimmer anzuschließen. Elizabeth ist erfreut zu sehen, dass Bingley Jane so viel Aufmerksamkeit schenkt. In der Zwischenzeit setzt Caroline ihre Versuche fort, Darcy für sich zu gewinnen, und gibt sogar vor, das Lesen zu lieben. Anschließend geht sie durch den Raum, um Darcys Bewunderung zu erregen. Es gelingt ihr nicht, seine Aufmerksamkeit zu erregen, also lädt sie Elizabeth ein, mit ihr zu gehen. Sie bemerkt, dass Darcy sein Buch beiseite legt und sie beobachtet. Die Gruppe unterhält sich über Darcys Charakter, und Darcy gibt zu, dass er dazu neigt, nachtragend zu sein. Elizabeth züchtigt ihn für seine Aussage, dass er seinen ersten Eindruck von einer Person niemals ändert. Kapitel 12 Sobald Jane wieder gesund ist, planen die Bennets, Netherfield zu verlassen. Mrs. Bennet ist nicht bereit, den Wagen zu schicken, in der Hoffnung, dass ihre Töchter länger bleiben, aber die Mädchen fragen, ob sie Bingleys Wagen ausleihen dürfen. Er gewährt ihnen die Bitte. Jeder außer Mr. Bingley ist froh, Jane und Elizabeth gehen zu sehen. Darcy ist froh, der Gefahr von Elizabeths Gesellschaft entkommen zu sein, und Miss Bingley ist froh, ihre Konkurrenz los zu sein. Kapitel 13 Der Erzählstrang kehrt zurück nach Longbourn. Beim Frühstück am nächsten Tag gibt Herr Bennet bekannt, dass die Familie einen Besucher erwartet: Mr. Collins, den entfernten Cousin, der als nächstes im Entail für den Longbourn-Besitz steht. Obwohl niemand in der Familie jemals Mr. Collins getroffen hat, hat Mrs. Bennet von Anfang an eine Abneigung gegen ihn wegen des Entails. Mr. Bennet liest den Brief von Mr. Collins an die Familie vor. Darin erklärt Collins, dass er kürzlich ordiniert wurde und Patronage von einer Aristokratin namens Lady Catherine De Bourgh erhält. Mr. Collins trifft am nächsten Nachmittag pünktlich ein. Er ist 25 Jahre alt, groß und stämmig, mit ernster Miene und sehr formalen Manieren. Er neigt dazu, in langen, übertrieben überschwänglichen Monologen zu sprechen. Vor dem Abendessen gibt Mr. Collins zu, dass das Entail der Bennet-Familie Schwierigkeiten bereitet und bekennt seinen Wunsch, gutzumachen. Er behauptet, dass er nach Longbourn gekommen ist, um die jungen Damen des Hauses "bewundern" zu können. Bevor er seine Bedeutung erklären kann, wird zum Abendessen gerufen. Während des Abendessens äußert Mr. Collins seine Bewunderung für das Haus und die Qualität des Essens. Kapitel 14 Nach dem Abendessen lädt Mr. Bennet Mr. Collins ein, über seine Gönnerin Lady Catherine zu sprechen. Mr. Collins beschreibt Lady Catherine mit großer Feierlichkeit und effusivem Lob und bemerkt ihre große Liebenswürdigkeit ihm gegenüber, trotz ihres hohen Rangs. Er beschreibt auch Lady Catherines Tochter, Miss de Bourgh, als sehr charmant, aber eher kränklich. Collins hatte sich bemüht, Lady Catherine zu gewinnen, indem er ihre Tochter mit schmeichelnden Phrasen überhäufte. Nach dieser Darbietung beschließt Mr. Bennet, dass Mr. Collins lächerlich ist. Nach dem Tee bittet Mr. Bennet Mr. Collins, laut vorzulesen. Mr. Collins erklärt, dass er nie Romane liest und beginnt stattdessen mit monotoner Feierlichkeit aus einem Buch mit Predigten vorzulesen. Nach einigen Seiten unterbricht Lydia die Lesung, um ihre Mutter eine Frage über ihren Onkel Philips zu stellen. Mr. Collins ist beleidigt, aber er versteht den Wink und hört nach einer kurzen Zurechtweisung von Lydias Leichtfertigkeit mit dem Lesen auf. Danach schlägt er vor, eine Partie Backgammon zu spielen.

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 LAST OF THE BLIND MAN My curiosity, in a sense, was stronger than my fear; for I could not remain where I was, but crept back to the bank again, whence, sheltering my head behind a bush of broom, I might command the road before our door. I was scarcely in position ere my enemies began to arrive, seven or eight of them, running hard, their feet beating out of time along the road, and the man with the lantern some paces in front. Three men ran together, hand in hand; and I made out, even through the mist, that the middle man of this trio was the blind beggar. The next moment his voice showed me that I was right. "Down with the door!" he cried. "Ay, ay, sir!" answered two or three; and a rush was made upon the "Admiral Benbow," the lantern-bearer following; and then I could see them pause, and hear speeches passed in a lower key, as if they were surprised to find the door open. But the pause was brief, for the blind man again issued his commands. His voice sounded louder and higher, as if he were afire with eagerness and rage. "In, in, in!" he shouted, and cursed them for their delay. Four or five of them obeyed at once, two remaining on the road with the formidable beggar. There was a pause, then a cry of surprise, and then a voice shouting from the house: "Bill's dead!" But the blind man swore at them again for their delay. "Search him, some of you shirking lubbers, and the rest of you aloft and get the chest," he cried. I could hear their feet rattling up our old stairs, so that the house must have shook with it. Promptly afterward fresh sounds of astonishment arose; the window of the captain's room was thrown open with a slam and a jingle of broken glass, and a man leaned out into the moonlight, head and shoulders, and addressed the blind beggar on the road below him. [Illustration: _"Pew!" he cried, "they've been before us"_ (Page 34)] "Pew!" he cried, "they've been before us. Someone's turned the chest out alow and aloft." "Is it there?" roared Pew. "The money's there." The blind man cursed the money. "Flint's fist, I mean," he cried. "We don't see it here, nohow," returned the man. "Here, you below there, is it on Bill?" cried the blind man again. At that, another fellow, probably he who had remained below to search the captain's body, came to the door of the inn. "Bill's been overhauled a'ready," said he, "nothin' left." "It's these people of the inn--it's that boy. I wish I had put his eyes out!" cried the blind man, Pew. "They were here no time ago--they had the door bolted when I tried it. Scatter, lads, and find 'em." "Sure enough, they left their glim here," said the fellow from the window. "Scatter and find 'em! Rout the house out!" reiterated Pew, striking with his stick upon the road. Then there followed a great to-do through all our old inn, heavy feet pounding to and fro, furniture all thrown over, doors kicked in, until the very rocks re-echoed, and the men came out again, one after another, on the road, and declared that we were nowhere to be found. And just then the same whistle that had alarmed my mother and myself over the dead captain's money was once more clearly audible through the night, but this time twice repeated. I had thought it to be the blind man's trumpet, so to speak, summoning his crew to the assault; but I now found that it was a signal from the hillside toward the hamlet, and, from its effect upon the buccaneers, a signal to warn them of approaching danger. "There's Dirk again," said one. "Twice! We'll have to budge, mates." "Budge, you skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first--you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs. Oh, shiver my soul," he cried, "if I had eyes!" This appeal seemed to produce some effect, for two of the fellows began to look here and there among the lumber, but half-heartedly, I thought, and with half an eye to their own danger all the time, while the rest stood irresolute on the road. "You have your hands on thousands, you fools, and you hang a leg! You'd be as rich as kings if you could find it, and you know it's here, and you stand there skulking. There wasn't one of you dared face Bill, and I did it--a blind man! And I'm to lose my chance for you! I'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when I might be rolling in a coach! If you had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit, you would catch them still." "Hang it, Pew, we've got the doubloons!" grumbled one. "They might have hid the blessed thing," said another. "Take the Georges, Pew, and don't stand here squalling." Squalling was the word for it; Pew's anger rose so high at these objections; till at last, his passion completely taking the upper hand, he struck at them right and left in his blindness, and his stick sounded heavily on more than one. These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind miscreant, threatened him in horrid terms, and tried in vain to catch the stick and wrest it from his grasp. This quarrel was the saving of us; for while it was still raging, another sound came from the top of the hill on the side of the hamlet--the tramp of horses galloping. Almost at the same time a pistol-shot, flash, and report came from the hedge side. And that was plainly the last signal of danger, for the buccaneers turned at once and ran, separating in every direction, one seaward along the cove, one slant across the hill, and so on, so that in half a minute not a sign of them remained but Pew. Him they had deserted, whether in sheer panic or out of revenge for his ill words and blows, I know not; but there he remained behind, tapping up and down the road in a frenzy, and groping and calling for his comrades. Finally he took the wrong turn, and ran a few steps past me, towards the hamlet, crying: "Johnny, Black Dog, Dirk," and other names, "you won't leave old Pew, mates--not old Pew?" Just then the noise of horses topped the rise, and four or five riders came in sight in the moonlight, and swept at full gallop down the slope. At this Pew saw his error, turned with a scream, and ran straight for the ditch, into which he rolled. But he was on his feet again in a second, and made another dash, now utterly bewildered, right under the nearest of the coming horses. The rider tried to save him, but in vain. Down went Pew with a cry that rang high into the night, and the four hoofs trampled and spurned him and passed by. He fell on his side, then gently collapsed upon his face, and moved no more. I leaped to my feet and hailed the riders. They were pulling up, at any rate, horrified at the accident, and I soon saw what they were. One, tailing out behind the rest, was a lad that had gone from the hamlet to Doctor Livesey's; the rest were revenue officers, whom he had met by the way, and with whom he had had the intelligence to return at once. Some news of the lugger in Kitt's Hole had found its way to Supervisor Dance, and set him forth that night in our direction, and to that circumstance my mother and I owed our preservation from death. Pew was dead, stone dead. As for my mother, when we had carried her up to the hamlet, a little cold water and salts very soon brought her back again, and she was none the worse for her terror, though she still continued to deplore the balance of the money. In the meantime the supervisor rode on, as fast as he could, to Kitt's Hole; but his men had to dismount and grope down the dingle, leading, and sometimes supporting, their horses, and in continual fear of ambushes; so it was no great matter for surprise that when they got down to the Hole the lugger was already under way, though still close in. He hailed her. A voice replied, telling him to keep out of the moonlight, or he would get some lead in him, and at the same time a bullet whistled close by his arm. Soon after, the lugger doubled the point and disappeared. Mr. Dance stood there, as he said, "like a fish out of water," and all he could do was to dispatch a man to B---- to warn the cutter. "And that," said he, "is just about as good as nothing. They've got off clean, and there's an end. Only," he added, "I'm glad I trod on Master Pew's corns"; for by this time he had heard my story. I went back with him to the "Admiral Benbow," and you cannot imagine a house in such a state of smash; the very clock had been thrown down by these fellows in their furious hunt after my mother and myself; and though nothing had actually been taken away except the captain's money-bag and a little silver from the till, I could see at once that we were ruined. Mr. Dance could make nothing of the scene. "They got the money, you say? Well, then, Hawkins, what in fortune were they after? More money, I suppose?" "No, sir; not money, I think," replied I. "In fact, sir, I believe I have the thing in my breast-pocket; and, to tell you the truth, I should like to get it put in safety." "To be sure, boy; quite right," said he. "I'll take it, if you like." "I thought, perhaps, Doctor Livesey--" I began. "Perfectly right," he interrupted, very cheerily, "perfectly right--a gentleman and a magistrate. And, now I come to think of it, I might as well ride round there myself and report to him or squire. Master Pew's dead, when all's done; not that I regret it, but he's dead, you see, and people will make it out against an officer of his Majesty's revenue, if make it out they can. Now, I'll tell you, Hawkins, if you like, I'll take you along." I thanked him heartily for the offer, and we walked back to the hamlet where the horses were. By the time I had told mother of my purpose they were all in the saddle. "Dogger," said Mr. Dance, "you have a good horse; take up this lad behind you." As soon as I was mounted, holding on to Dogger's belt, the supervisor gave the word, and the party struck out at a bouncing trot on the road to Doctor Livesey's house. [Illustration] 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 Neugierde von Jim besteht auch in diesen schwierigen Zeiten. Versteckt hinter Büschen sieht Jim sieben oder acht Männer auf das Gasthaus zurennen. Jim entdeckt den blinden Bettler, der den Männern befiehlt, die Tür einzubrechen und einzutreten. Als die Plünderer Bill tot und die Schatztruhe bereits geöffnet und ihres Schatzes beraubt vorfinden, schließt der Bettler daraus, dass Jim dafür verantwortlich ist und in der Nähe sein muss. Er befiehlt seinen Männern, Jim und seine Mutter zu finden und das Gasthaus zu zerstören. Ein pfeifendes Geräusch ist zu hören, ähnlich wie das, was Jim und seine Mutter zuvor gehört hatten. Daraufhin halten die Männer ihre Aktivitäten an und bereiten sich schnell darauf vor, zu gehen. Pew, der blinde Bettler, versucht, sie mit dem Schatz, der sie erwartet, zum Bleiben zu verlocken. Dies funktioniert nicht und sehr zur Erleichterung von Jim beginnen sie, untereinander zu streiten. Die Männer hören das Geräusch von vier oder fünf herannahenden Reitern, die in vollem Galopp in Sicht kommen. Die Männer lassen Pew im Stich und rennen weg. Auch der blinde Mann versucht sein Bestes, um sich zu retten, aber er wird von den Pferden niedergewalzt und fällt tot um. Jim und seine Mutter sind gerettet und erleichtert, als Supervisor Dance und seine Zollbeamten rechtzeitig erscheinen. In der Hoffnung, einige Männer aufzuspüren, die am Kitts Hole stationiert waren, kehrt Mr. Dance zurück, um festzustellen, dass sie bereits abgereist sind. Stolz darauf, Pew gefangen genommen zu haben, kehrt Mr. Dance mit Jim zum zerstörten Gasthaus zurück. Er fragt Jim, wonach die Männer gesucht haben, und Jim sagt ihm, dass das Geheimnis sicher in seiner Tasche ist und dass er es Dr. Livesey übergeben möchte. Mr. Dance akzeptiert Jims Entscheidung ohne jeglichen Widerspruch und bietet ihm eine Fahrt zu Dr. Livesey an. Nachdem er seiner Mutter mitgeteilt hat, wohin er geht, bringt einer von Mr. Dances Männern Jim zum Haus von Dr. Livesey.

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 would be useless to explain how in due time the last fifty dollars was in sight. The seven hundred, by his process of handling, had only carried them into June. Before the final hundred mark was reached he began to indicate that a calamity was approaching. "I don't know," he said one day, taking a trivial expenditure for meat as a text, "it seems to take an awful lot for us to live." "It doesn't seem to me," said Carrie, "that we spend very much." "My money is nearly gone," he said, "and I hardly know where it's gone to." "All that seven hundred dollars?" asked Carrie. "All but a hundred." He looked so disconsolate that it scared her. She began to see that she herself had been drifting. She had felt it all the time. "Well, George," she exclaimed, "why don't you get out and look for something? You could find something." "I have looked," he said. "You can t make people give you a place." She gazed weakly at him and said: "Well, what do you think you will do? A hundred dollars won't last long." "I don't know," he said. "I can't do any more than look." Carrie became frightened over this announcement. She thought desperately upon the subject. Frequently she had considered the stage as a door through which she might enter that gilded state which she had so much craved. Now, as in Chicago, it came as a last resource in distress. Something must be done if he did not get work soon. Perhaps she would have to go out and battle again alone. She began to wonder how one would go about getting a place. Her experience in Chicago proved that she had not tried the right way. There must be people who would listen to and try you--men who would give you an opportunity. They were talking at the breakfast table, a morning or two later, when she brought up the dramatic subject by saying that she saw that Sarah Bernhardt was coming to this country. Hurstwood had seen it, too. "How do people get on the stage, George?" she finally asked, innocently. "I don't know," he said. "There must be dramatic agents." Carrie was sipping coffee, and did not look up. "Regular people who get you a place?" "Yes, I think so," he answered. Suddenly the air with which she asked attracted his attention. "You're not still thinking about being an actress, are you?" he asked. "No," she answered, "I was just wondering." Without being clear, there was something in the thought which he objected to. He did not believe any more, after three years of observation, that Carrie would ever do anything great in that line. She seemed too simple, too yielding. His idea of the art was that it involved something more pompous. If she tried to get on the stage she would fall into the hands of some cheap manager and become like the rest of them. He had a good idea of what he meant by THEM. Carrie was pretty. She would get along all right, but where would he be? "I'd get that idea out of my head, if I were you. It's a lot more difficult than you think." Carrie felt this to contain, in some way, an aspersion upon her ability. "You said I did real well in Chicago," she rejoined. "You did," he answered, seeing that he was arousing opposition, "but Chicago isn't New York, by a big jump." Carrie did not answer this at all. It hurt her. "The stage," he went on, "is all right if you can be one of the big guns, but there's nothing to the rest of it. It takes a long while to get up." "Oh, I don't know," said Carrie, slightly aroused. In a flash, he thought he foresaw the result of this thing. Now, when the worst of his situation was approaching, she would get on the stage in some cheap way and forsake him. Strangely, he had not conceived well of her mental ability. That was because he did not understand the nature of emotional greatness. He had never learned that a person might be emotionally--instead of intellectually--great. Avery Hall was too far away for him to look back and sharply remember. He had lived with this woman too long. "Well, I do," he answered. "If I were you I wouldn't think of it. It's not much of a profession for a woman." "It's better than going hungry," said Carrie. "If you don't want me to do that, why don't you get work yourself?" There was no answer ready for this. He had got used to the suggestion. "Oh, let up," he answered. The result of this was that she secretly resolved to try. It didn't matter about him. She was not going to be dragged into poverty and something worse to suit him. She could act. She could get something and then work up. What would he say then? She pictured herself already appearing in some fine performance on Broadway; of going every evening to her dressing-room and making up. Then she would come out at eleven o'clock and see the carriages ranged about, waiting for the people. It did not matter whether she was the star or not. If she were only once in, getting a decent salary, wearing the kind of clothes she liked, having the money to do with, going here and there as she pleased, how delightful it would all be. Her mind ran over this picture all the day long. Hurstwood's dreary state made its beauty become more and more vivid. Curiously this idea soon took hold of Hurstwood. His vanishing sum suggested that he would need sustenance. Why could not Carrie assist him a little until he could get something? He came in one day with something of this idea in his mind. "I met John B. Drake to-day," he said. "He's going to open a hotel here in the fall. He says that he can make a place for me then." "Who is he?" asked Carrie. "He's the man that runs the Grand Pacific in Chicago." "Oh," said Carrie. "I'd get about fourteen hundred a year out of that." "That would be good, wouldn't it?" she said, sympathetically. "If I can only get over this summer," he added, "I think I'll be all right. I'm hearing from some of my friends again." Carrie swallowed this story in all its pristine beauty. She sincerely wished he could get through the summer. He looked so hopeless. "How much money have you left?" "Only fifty dollars." "Oh, mercy," she exclaimed, "what will we do? It's only twenty days until the rent will be due again." Hurstwood rested his head on his hands and looked blankly at the floor. "Maybe you could get something in the stage line?" he blandly suggested. "Maybe I could," said Carrie, glad that some one approved of the idea. "I'll lay my hand to whatever I can get," he said, now that he saw her brighten up. "I can get something." She cleaned up the things one morning after he had gone, dressed as neatly as her wardrobe permitted, and set out for Broadway. She did not know that thoroughfare very well. To her it was a wonderful conglomeration of everything great and mighty. The theatres were there--these agencies must be somewhere about. She decided to stop in at the Madison Square Theatre and ask how to find the theatrical agents. This seemed the sensible way. Accordingly, when she reached that theatre she applied to the clerk at the box office. "Eh?" he said, looking out. "Dramatic agents? I don't know. You'll find them in the 'Clipper,' though. They all advertise in that." "Is that a paper?" said Carrie. "Yes," said the clerk, marvelling at such ignorance of a common fact. "You can get it at the news-stands," he added politely, seeing how pretty the inquirer was. Carrie proceeded to get the "Clipper," and tried to find the agents by looking over it as she stood beside the stand. This could not be done so easily. Thirteenth Street was a number of blocks off, but she went back, carrying the precious paper and regretting the waste of time. Hurstwood was already there, sitting in his place. "Where were you?" he asked. "I've been trying to find some dramatic agents." He felt a little diffident about asking concerning her success. The paper she began to scan attracted his attention. "What have you got there?" he asked. "The 'Clipper.' The man said I'd find their addresses in here." "Have you been all the way over to Broadway to find that out? I could have told you." "Why didn't you?" she asked, without looking up. "You never asked me," he returned. She went hunting aimlessly through the crowded columns. Her mind was distracted by this man's indifference. The difficulty of the situation she was facing was only added to by all he did. Self-commiseration brewed in her heart. Tears trembled along her eyelids but did not fall. Hurstwood noticed something. "Let me look." To recover herself she went into the front room while he searched. Presently she returned. He had a pencil, and was writing upon an envelope. "Here're three," he said. Carrie took it and found that one was Mrs. Bermudez, another Marcus Jenks, a third Percy Weil. She paused only a moment, and then moved toward the door. "I might as well go right away," she said, without looking back. Hurstwood saw her depart with some faint stirrings of shame, which were the expression of a manhood rapidly becoming stultified. He sat a while, and then it became too much. He got up and put on his hat. "I guess I'll go out," he said to himself, and went, strolling nowhere in particular, but feeling somehow that he must go. Carrie's first call was upon Mrs. Bermudez, whose address was quite the nearest. It was an old-fashioned residence turned into offices. Mrs. Bermudez's offices consisted of what formerly had been a back chamber and a hall bedroom, marked "Private." As Carrie entered she noticed several persons lounging about--men, who said nothing and did nothing. While she was waiting to be noticed, the door of the hall bedroom opened and from it issued two very mannish-looking women, very tightly dressed, and wearing white collars and cuffs. After them came a portly lady of about forty-five, light-haired, sharp-eyed, and evidently good-natured. At least she was smiling. "Now, don't forget about that," said one of the mannish women. "I won't," said the portly woman. "Let's see," she added, "where are you the first week in February?" "Pittsburg," said the woman. "I'll write you there." "All right," said the other, and the two passed out. Instantly the portly lady's face became exceedingly sober and shrewd. She turned about and fixed on Carrie a very searching eye. "Well," she said, "young woman, what can I do for you?" "Are you Mrs. Bermudez?" "Yes." "Well," said Carrie, hesitating how to begin, "do you get places for persons upon the stage?" "Yes." "Could you get me one?" "Have you ever had any experience?" "A very little," said Carrie. "Whom did you play with?" "Oh, with no one," said Carrie. "It was just a show gotten----" "Oh, I see," said the woman, interrupting her. "No, I don't know of anything now." Carrie's countenance fell. "You want to get some New York experience," concluded the affable Mrs. Bermudez. "We'll take your name, though." Carrie stood looking while the lady retired to her office. "What is your address?" inquired a young lady behind the counter, taking up the curtailed conversation. "Mrs. George Wheeler," said Carrie, moving over to where she was writing. The woman wrote her address in full and then allowed her to depart at her leisure. She encountered a very similar experience in the office of Mr. Jenks, only he varied it by saying at the close: "If you could play at some local house, or had a programme with your name on it, I might do something." In the third place the individual asked: "What sort of work do you want to do?" "What do you mean?" said Carrie. "Well, do you want to get in a comedy or on the vaudeville or in the chorus?" "Oh, I'd like to get a part in a play," said Carrie. "Well," said the man, "it'll cost you something to do that." "How much?" said Carrie, who, ridiculous as it may seem, had not thought of this before. "Well, that's for you to say," he answered shrewdly. Carrie looked at him curiously. She hardly knew how to continue the inquiry. "Could you get me a part if I paid?" "If we didn't you'd get your money back." "Oh," she said. The agent saw he was dealing with an inexperienced soul, and continued accordingly. "You'd want to deposit fifty dollars, anyway. No agent would trouble about you for less than that." Carrie saw a light. "Thank you," she said. "I'll think about it." She started to go, and then bethought herself. "How soon would I get a place?" she asked. "Well, that's hard to say," said the man. "You might get one in a week, or it might be a month. You'd get the first thing that we thought you could do." "I see," said Carrie, and then, half-smiling to be agreeable, she walked out. The agent studied a moment, and then said to himself: "It's funny how anxious these women are to get on the stage." Carrie found ample food for reflection in the fifty-dollar proposition. "Maybe they'd take my money and not give me anything," she thought. She had some jewelry--a diamond ring and pin and several other pieces. She could get fifty dollars for those if she went to a pawnbroker. Hurstwood was home before her. He had not thought she would be so long seeking. "Well?" he said, not venturing to ask what news. "I didn't find out anything to-day," said Carrie, taking off her gloves. "They all want money to get you a place." "How much?" asked Hurstwood. "Fifty dollars." "They don't want anything, do they?" "Oh, they're like everybody else. You can't tell whether they'd ever get you anything after you did pay them." "Well, I wouldn't put up fifty on that basis," said Hurstwood, as if he were deciding, money in hand. "I don't know," said Carrie. "I think I'll try some of the managers." Hurstwood heard this, dead to the horror of it. He rocked a little to and fro, and chewed at his finger. It seemed all very natural in such extreme states. He would do better later on. When Carrie renewed her search, as she did the next day, going to the Casino, she found that in the opera chorus, as in other fields, employment is difficult to secure. Girls who can stand in a line and look pretty are as numerous as labourers who can swing a pick. She found there was no discrimination between one and the other of applicants, save as regards a conventional standard of prettiness and form. Their own opinion or knowledge of their ability went for nothing. "Where shall I find Mr. Gray?" she asked of a sulky doorman at the stage entrance of the Casino. "You can't see him now; he's busy." "Do you know when I can see him?" "Got an appointment with him?" "No." "Well, you'll have to call at his office." "Oh, dear!" exclaimed Carrie. "Where is his office?" He gave her the number. She knew there was no need of calling there now. He would not be in. Nothing remained but to employ the intermediate hours in search. The dismal story of ventures in other places is quickly told. Mr. Daly saw no one save by appointment. Carrie waited an hour in a dingy office, quite in spite of obstacles, to learn this fact of the placid, indifferent Mr. Dorney. "You will have to write and ask him to see you." So she went away. At the Empire Theatre she found a hive of peculiarly listless and indifferent individuals. Everything ornately upholstered, everything carefully finished, everything remarkably reserved. At the Lyceum she entered one of those secluded, under-stairway closets, berugged and bepaneled, which causes one to feel the greatness of all positions of authority. Here was reserve itself done into a box-office clerk, a doorman, and an assistant, glorying in their fine positions. "Ah, be very humble now--very humble indeed. Tell us what it is you require. Tell it quickly, nervously, and without a vestige of self-respect. If no trouble to us in any way, we may see what we can do." This was the atmosphere of the Lyceum--the attitude, for that matter, of every managerial office in the city. These little proprietors of businesses are lords indeed on their own ground. Carrie came away wearily, somewhat more abashed for her pains. Hurstwood heard the details of the weary and unavailing search that evening. "I didn't get to see any one," said Carrie. "I just walked, and walked, and waited around." Hurstwood only looked at her. "I suppose you have to have some friends before you can get in," she added, disconsolately. Hurstwood saw the difficulty of this thing, and yet it did not seem so terrible. Carrie was tired and dispirited, but now she could rest. Viewing the world from his rocking-chair, its bitterness did not seem to approach so rapidly. To-morrow was another day. To-morrow came, and the next, and the next. Carrie saw the manager at the Casino once. "Come around," he said, "the first of next week. I may make some changes then." He was a large and corpulent individual, surfeited with good clothes and good eating, who judged women as another would horseflesh. Carrie was pretty and graceful. She might be put in even if she did not have any experience. One of the proprietors had suggested that the chorus was a little weak on looks. The first of next week was some days off yet. The first of the month was drawing near. Carrie began to worry as she had never worried before. "Do you really look for anything when you go out?" she asked Hurstwood one morning as a climax to some painful thoughts of her own. "Of course I do," he said pettishly, troubling only a little over the disgrace of the insinuation. "I'd take anything," she said, "for the present. It will soon be the first of the month again." She looked the picture of despair. Hurstwood quit reading his paper and changed his clothes. "He would look for something," he thought. "He would go and see if some brewery couldn't get him in somewhere. Yes, he would take a position as bartender, if he could get it." It was the same sort of pilgrimage he had made before. One or two slight rebuffs, and the bravado disappeared. "No use," he thought. "I might as well go on back home." Now that his money was so low, he began to observe his clothes and feel that even his best ones were beginning to look commonplace. This was a bitter thought. Carrie came in after he did. "I went to see some of the variety managers," she said, aimlessly. "You have to have an act. They don't want anybody that hasn't." "I saw some of the brewery people to-day," said Hurstwood. "One man told me he'd try to make a place for me in two or three weeks." In the face of so much distress on Carrie's part, he had to make some showing, and it was thus he did so. It was lassitude's apology to energy. Monday Carrie went again to the Casino. "Did I tell you to come around to day?" said the manager, looking her over as she stood before him. "You said the first of the week," said Carrie, greatly abashed. "Ever had any experience?" he asked again, almost severely. Carrie owned to ignorance. He looked her over again as he stirred among some papers. He was secretly pleased with this pretty, disturbed-looking young woman. "Come around to the theatre to-morrow morning." Carrie's heart bounded to her throat. "I will," she said with difficulty. She could see he wanted her, and turned to go. "Would he really put her to work? Oh, blessed fortune, could it be?" Already the hard rumble of the city through the open windows became pleasant. A sharp voice answered her mental interrogation, driving away all immediate fears on that score. "Be sure you're there promptly," the manager said roughly. "You'll be dropped if you're not." Carrie hastened away. She did not quarrel now with Hurstwood's idleness. She had a place--she had a place! This sang in her ears. In her delight she was almost anxious to tell Hurstwood. But, as she walked homeward, and her survey of the facts of the case became larger, she began to think of the anomaly of her finding work in several weeks and his lounging in idleness for a number of months. "Why don't he get something?" she openly said to herself. "If I can he surely ought to. It wasn't very hard for me." She forgot her youth and her beauty. The handicap of age she did not, in her enthusiasm, perceive. Thus, ever, the voice of success. Still, she could not keep her secret. She tried to be calm and indifferent, but it was a palpable sham. "Well?" he said, seeing her relieved face. "I have a place." "You have?" he said, breathing a better breath. "Yes." "What sort of a place is it?" he asked, feeling in his veins as if now he might get something good also. "In the chorus," she answered. "Is it the Casino show you told me about?" "Yes," she answered. "I begin rehearsing to-morrow." There was more explanation volunteered by Carrie, because she was happy. At last Hurstwood said: "Do you know how much you'll get?" "No, I didn't want to ask," said Carrie. "I guess they pay twelve or fourteen dollars a week." "About that, I guess," said Hurstwood. There was a good dinner in the flat that evening, owing to the mere lifting of the terrible strain. Hurstwood went out for a shave, and returned with a fair-sized sirloin steak. "Now, to-morrow," he thought, "I'll look around myself," and with renewed hope he lifted his eyes from the ground. On the morrow Carrie reported promptly and was given a place in the line. She saw a large, empty, shadowy play-house, still redolent of the perfumes and blazonry of the night, and notable for its rich, oriental appearance. The wonder of it awed and delighted her. Blessed be its wondrous reality. How hard she would try to be worthy of it. It was above the common mass, above idleness, above want, above insignificance. People came to it in finery and carriages to see. It was ever a centre of light and mirth. And here she was of it. Oh, if she could only remain, how happy would be her days! "What is your name?" said the manager, who was conducting the drill. "Madenda," she replied, instantly mindful of the name Drouet had selected in Chicago. "Carrie Madenda." "Well, now, Miss Madenda," he said, very affably, as Carrie thought, "you go over there." Then he called to a young woman who was already of the company: "Miss Clark, you pair with Miss Madenda." This young lady stepped forward, so that Carrie saw where to go, and the rehearsal began. Carrie soon found that while this drilling had some slight resemblance to the rehearsals as conducted at Avery Hall, the attitude of the manager was much more pronounced. She had marvelled at the insistence and superior airs of Mr. Millice, but the individual conducting here had the same insistence, coupled with almost brutal roughness. As the drilling proceeded, he seemed to wax exceedingly wroth over trifles, and to increase his lung power in proportion. It was very evident that he had a great contempt for any assumption of dignity or innocence on the part of these young women. "Clark," he would call--meaning, of course, Miss Clark--"why don't you catch step there?" "By fours, right! Right, I said, right! For heaven's sake, get on to yourself! Right!" and in saying this he would lift the last sounds into a vehement roar. "Maitland! Maitland!" he called once. A nervous, comely-dressed little girl stepped out. Carrie trembled for her out of the fulness of her own sympathies and fear. "Yes, sir," said Miss Maitland. "Is there anything the matter with your ears?" "No, sir." "Do you know what 'column left' means?" "Yes, sir." "Well, what are you stumbling around the right for? Want to break up the line?" "I was just" "Never mind what you were just. Keep your ears open." Carrie pitied, and trembled for her turn. Yet another suffered the pain of personal rebuke. "Hold on a minute," cried the manager, throwing up his hands, as if in despair. His demeanour was fierce. "Elvers," he shouted, "what have you got in your mouth?" "Nothing," said Miss Elvers, while some smiled and stood nervously by. "Well, are you talking?" "No, sir." "Well, keep your mouth still then. Now, all together again." At last Carrie's turn came. It was because of her extreme anxiety to do all that was required that brought on the trouble. She heard some one called. "Mason," said the voice. "Miss Mason." She looked around to see who it could be. A girl behind shoved her a little, but she did not understand. "You, you!" said the manager. "Can't you hear?" "Oh," said Carrie, collapsing, and blushing fiercely. "Isn't your name Mason?" asked the manager. "No, sir," said Carrie, "it's Madenda." "Well, what's the matter with your feet? Can't you dance?" "Yes, sir," said Carrie, who had long since learned this art. "Why don't you do it then? Don't go shuffling along as if you were dead. I've got to have people with life in them." Carrie's cheek burned with a crimson heat. Her lips trembled a little. "Yes, sir," she said. It was this constant urging, coupled with irascibility and energy, for three long hours. Carrie came away worn enough in body, but too excited in mind to notice it. She meant to go home and practise her evolutions as prescribed. She would not err in any way, if she could help it. When she reached the flat Hurstwood was not there. For a wonder he was out looking for work, as she supposed. She took only a mouthful to eat and then practised on, sustained by visions of freedom from financial distress--"The sound of glory ringing in her ears." When Hurstwood returned he was not so elated as when he went away, and now she was obliged to drop practice and get dinner. Here was an early irritation. She would have her work and this. Was she going to act and keep house? "I'll not do it," she said, "after I get started. He can take his meals out." Each day thereafter brought its cares. She found it was not such a wonderful thing to be in the chorus, and she also learned that her salary would be twelve dollars a week. After a few days she had her first sight of those high and mighties--the leading ladies and gentlemen. She saw that they were privileged and deferred to. She was nothing--absolutely nothing at all. At home was Hurstwood, daily giving her cause for thought. He seemed to get nothing to do, and yet he made bold to inquire how she was getting along. The regularity with which he did this smacked of some one who was waiting to live upon her labour. Now that she had a visible means of support, this irritated her. He seemed to be depending upon her little twelve dollars. "How are you getting along?" he would blandly inquire. "Oh, all right," she would reply. "Find it easy?" "It will be all right when I get used to it." His paper would then engross his thoughts. "I got some lard," he would add, as an afterthought. "I thought maybe you might want to make some biscuit." The calm suggestion of the man astonished her a little, especially in the light of recent developments. Her dawning independence gave her more courage to observe, and she felt as if she wanted to say things. Still she could not talk to him as she had to Drouet. There was something in the man's manner of which she had always stood in awe. He seemed to have some invisible strength in reserve. One day, after her first week's rehearsal, what she expected came openly to the surface. "We'll have to be rather saving," he said, laying down some meat he had purchased. "You won't get any money for a week or so yet." "No," said Carrie, who was stirring a pan at the stove. "I've only got the rent and thirteen dollars more," he added. "That's it," she said to herself. "I'm to use my money now." Instantly she remembered that she had hoped to buy a few things for herself. She needed clothes. Her hat was not nice. "What will twelve dollars do towards keeping up this flat?" she thought. "I can't do it. Why doesn't he get something to do?" The important night of the first real performance came. She did not suggest to Hurstwood that he come and see. He did not think of going. It would only be money wasted. She had such a small part. The advertisements were already in the papers; the posters upon the bill-boards. The leading lady and many members were cited. Carrie was nothing. As in Chicago, she was seized with stage fright as the very first entrance of the ballet approached, but later she recovered. The apparent and painful insignificance of the part took fear away from her. She felt that she was so obscure it did not matter. Fortunately, she did not have to wear tights. A group of twelve were assigned pretty golden-hued skirts which came only to a line about an inch above the knee. Carrie happened to be one of the twelve. In standing about the stage, marching, and occasionally lifting up her voice in the general chorus, she had a chance to observe the audience and to see the inauguration of a great hit. There was plenty of applause, but she could not help noting how poorly some of the women of alleged ability did. "I could do better than that," Carrie ventured to herself, in several instances. To do her justice, she was right. After it was over she dressed quickly, and as the manager had scolded some others and passed her, she imagined she must have proved satisfactory. She wanted to get out quickly, because she knew but few, and the stars were gossiping. Outside were carriages and some correct youths in attractive clothing, waiting. Carrie saw that she was scanned closely. The flutter of an eyelash would have brought her a companion. That she did not give. One experienced youth volunteered, anyhow. "Not going home alone, are you?" he said. Carrie merely hastened her steps and took the Sixth Avenue car. Her head was so full of the wonder of it that she had time for nothing else. "Did you hear any more from the brewery?" she asked at the end of the week, hoping by the question to stir him on to action. "No," he answered, "they're not quite ready yet. I think something will come of that, though." She said nothing more then, objecting to giving up her own money, and yet feeling that such would have to be the case. Hurstwood felt the crisis, and artfully decided to appeal to Carrie. He had long since realised how good-natured she was, how much she would stand. There was some little shame in him at the thought of doing so, but he justified himself with the thought that he really would get something. Rent day gave him his opportunity. "Well," he said, as he counted it out, "that's about the last of my money. I'll have to get something pretty soon." Carrie looked at him askance, half-suspicious of an appeal. "If I could only hold out a little longer I think I could get something. Drake is sure to open a hotel here in September." "Is he?" said Carrie, thinking of the short month that still remained until that time. "Would you mind helping me out until then?" he said appealingly. "I think I'll be all right after that time." "No," said Carrie, feeling sadly handicapped by fate. "We can get along if we economise. I'll pay you back all right." "Oh, I'll help you," said Carrie, feeling quite hardhearted at thus forcing him to humbly appeal, and yet her desire for the benefit of her earnings wrung a faint protest from her. "Why don't you take anything, George, temporarily?" she said. "What difference does it make? Maybe, after a while, you'll get something better." "I will take anything," he said, relieved, and wincing under reproof. "I'd just as leave dig on the streets. Nobody knows me here." "Oh, you needn't do that," said Carrie, hurt by the pity of it. "But there must be other things." "I'll get something!" he said, assuming determination. Then he went back to his paper. What Hurstwood got as the result of this determination was more self-assurance that each particular day was not the day. At the same time, Carrie passed through thirty days of mental distress. Her need of clothes--to say nothing of her desire for ornaments--grew rapidly as the fact developed that for all her work she was not to have them. The sympathy she felt for Hurstwood, at the time he asked her to tide him over, vanished with these newer urgings of decency. He was not always renewing his request, but this love of good appearance was. It insisted, and Carrie wished to satisfy it, wished more and more that Hurstwood was not in the way. Hurstwood reasoned, when he neared the last ten dollars, that he had better keep a little pocket change and not become wholly dependent for car-fare, shaves, and the like; so when this sum was still in his hand he announced himself as penniless. "I'm clear out," he said to Carrie one afternoon. "I paid for some coal this morning, and that took all but ten or fifteen cents." "I've got some money there in my purse." Hurstwood went to get it, starting for a can of tomatoes. Carrie scarcely noticed that this was the beginning of the new order. He took out fifteen cents and bought the can with it. Thereafter it was dribs and drabs of this sort, until one morning Carrie suddenly remembered that she would not be back until close to dinner time. "We're all out of flour," she said; "you'd better get some this afternoon. We haven't any meat, either. How would it do if we had liver and bacon?" "Suits me," said Hurstwood. "Better get a half or three-quarters of a pound of that." "Half 'll be enough," volunteered Hurstwood. She opened her purse and laid down a half dollar. He pretended not to notice it. Hurstwood bought the flour--which all grocers sold in 3 1/2-pound packages--for thirteen cents and paid fifteen cents for a half-pound of liver and bacon. He left the packages, together with the balance of twenty-two cents, upon the kitchen table, where Carrie found it. It did not escape her that the change was accurate. There was something sad in realising that, after all, all that he wanted of her was something to eat. She felt as if hard thoughts were unjust. Maybe he would get something yet. He had no vices. That very evening, however, on going into the theatre, one of the chorus girls passed her all newly arrayed in a pretty mottled tweed suit, which took Carrie's eye. The young woman wore a fine bunch of violets and seemed in high spirits. She smiled at Carrie good-naturedly as she passed, showing pretty, even teeth, and Carrie smiled back. "She can afford to dress well," thought Carrie, "and so could I, if I could only keep my money. I haven't a decent tie of any kind to wear." She put out her foot and looked at her shoe reflectively. "I'll get a pair of shoes Saturday, anyhow; I don't care what happens." One of the sweetest and most sympathetic little chorus girls in the company made friends with her because in Carrie she found nothing to frighten her away. She was a gay little Manon, unwitting of society's fierce conception of morality, but, nevertheless, good to her neighbour and charitable. Little license was allowed the chorus in the matter of conversation, but, nevertheless, some was indulged in. "It's warm to-night, isn't it?" said this girl, arrayed in pink fleshings and an imitation golden helmet. She also carried a shining shield. "Yes; it is," said Carrie, pleased that some one should talk to her. "I'm almost roasting," said the girl. Carrie looked into her pretty face, with its large blue eyes, and saw little beads of moisture. "There's more marching in this opera than ever I did before," added the girl. "Have you been in others?" asked Carrie, surprised at her experience. "Lots of them," said the girl; "haven't you?" "This is my first experience." "Oh, is it? I thought I saw you the time they ran 'The Queen's Mate' here." "No," said Carrie, shaking her head; "not me." This conversation was interrupted by the blare of the orchestra and the sputtering of the calcium lights in the wings as the line was called to form for a new entrance. No further opportunity for conversation occurred, but the next evening, when they were getting ready for the stage, this girl appeared anew at her side. "They say this show is going on the road next month." "Is it?" said Carrie. "Yes; do you think you'll go?" "I don't know; I guess so, if they'll take me." "Oh, they'll take you. I wouldn't go. They won't give you any more, and it will cost you everything you make to live. I never leave New York. There are too many shows going on here." "Can you always get in another show?" "I always have. There's one going on up at the Broadway this month. I'm going to try and get in that if this one really goes." Carrie heard this with aroused intelligence. Evidently it wasn't so very difficult to get on. Maybe she also could get a place if this show went away. "Do they all pay about the same?" she asked. "Yes. Sometimes you get a little more. This show doesn't pay very much." "I get twelve," said Carrie. "Do you?" said the girl. "They pay me fifteen, and you do more work than I do. I wouldn't stand it if I were you. They're just giving you less because they think you don't know. You ought to be making fifteen." "Well, I'm not," said Carrie. "Well, you'll get more at the next place if you want it," went on the girl, who admired Carrie very much. "You do fine, and the manager knows it." To say the truth, Carrie did unconsciously move about with an air pleasing and somewhat distinctive. It was due wholly to her natural manner and total lack of self-consciousness. "Do you suppose I could get more up at the Broadway?" "Of course you can," answered the girl. "You come with me when I go. I'll do the talking." Carrie heard this, flushing with thankfulness. She liked this little gaslight soldier. She seemed so experienced and self-reliant in her tinsel helmet and military accoutrements. "My future must be assured if I can always get work this way," thought Carrie. Still, in the morning, when her household duties would infringe upon her and Hurstwood sat there, a perfect load to contemplate, her fate seemed dismal and unrelieved. It did not take so very much to feed them under Hurstwood's close-measured buying, and there would possibly be enough for rent, but it left nothing else. Carrie bought the shoes and some other things, which complicated the rent problem very seriously. Suddenly, a week from the fatal day, Carrie realised that they were going to run short. "I don't believe," she exclaimed, looking into her purse at breakfast, "that I'll have enough to pay the rent." "How much have you?" inquired Hurstwood. "Well, I've got twenty-two dollars, but there's everything to be paid for this week yet, and if I use all I get Saturday to pay this, there won't be any left for next week. Do you think your hotel man will open his hotel this month?" "I think so," returned Hurstwood. "He said he would." After a while, Hurstwood said: "Don't worry about it. Maybe the grocer will wait. He can do that. We've traded there long enough to make him trust us for a week or two." "Do you think he will?" she asked. "I think so." On this account, Hurstwood, this very day, looked grocer Oeslogge clearly in the eye as he ordered a pound of coffee, and said: "Do you mind carrying my account until the end of every week?" "No, no, Mr. Wheeler," said Mr. Oeslogge. "Dat iss all right." Hurstwood, still tactful in distress, added nothing to this. It seemed an easy thing. He looked out of the door, and then gathered up his coffee when ready and came away. The game of a desperate man had begun. Rent was paid, and now came the grocer. Hurstwood managed by paying out of his own ten and collecting from Carrie at the end of the week. Then he delayed a day next time settling with the grocer, and so soon had his ten back, with Oeslogge getting his pay on this Thursday or Friday for last Saturday's bill. This entanglement made Carrie anxious for a change of some sort. Hurstwood did not seem to realise that she had a right to anything. He schemed to make what she earned cover all expenses, but seemed not to trouble over adding anything himself. "He talks about worrying," thought Carrie. "If he worried enough he couldn't sit there and wait for me. He'd get something to do. No man could go seven months without finding something if he tried." The sight of him always around in his untidy clothes and gloomy appearance drove Carrie to seek relief in other places. Twice a week there were matinees, and then Hurstwood ate a cold snack, which he prepared himself. Two other days there were rehearsals beginning at ten in the morning and lasting usually until one. Now, to this Carrie added a few visits to one or two chorus girls, including the blue-eyed soldier of the golden helmet. She did it because it was pleasant and a relief from dulness of the home over which her husband brooded. The blue-eyed soldier's name was Osborne--Lola Osborne. Her room was in Nineteenth Street near Fourth Avenue, a block now given up wholly to office buildings. Here she had a comfortable back room, looking over a collection of back yards in which grew a number of shade trees pleasant to see. "Isn't your home in New York?" she asked of Lola one day. "Yes; but I can't get along with my people. They always want me to do what they want. Do you live here?" "Yes," said Carrie. "With your family?" Carrie was ashamed to say that she was married. She had talked so much about getting more salary and confessed to so much anxiety about her future, that now, when the direct question of fact was waiting, she could not tell this girl. "With some relatives," she answered. Miss Osborne took it for granted that, like herself, Carrie's time was her own. She invariably asked her to stay, proposing little outings and other things of that sort until Carrie began neglecting her dinner hours. Hurstwood noticed it, but felt in no position to quarrel with her. Several times she came so late as scarcely to have an hour in which to patch up a meal and start for the theatre. "Do you rehearse in the afternoons?" Hurstwood once asked, concealing almost completely the cynical protest and regret which prompted it. "No; I was looking around for another place," said Carrie. As a matter of fact she was, but only in such a way as furnished the least straw of an excuse. Miss Osborne and she had gone to the office of the manager who was to produce the new opera at the Broadway and returned straight to the former's room, where they had been since three o'clock. Carrie felt this question to be an infringement on her liberty. She did not take into account how much liberty she was securing. Only the latest step, the newest freedom, must not be questioned. Hurstwood saw it all clearly enough. He was shrewd after his kind, and yet there was enough decency in the man to stop him from making any effectual protest. In his almost inexplicable apathy he was content to droop supinely while Carrie drifted out of his life, just as he was willing supinely to see opportunity pass beyond his control. He could not help clinging and protesting in a mild, irritating, and ineffectual way, however--a way that simply widened the breach by slow degrees. A further enlargement of this chasm between them came when the manager, looking between the wings upon the brightly lighted stage where the chorus was going through some of its glittering evolutions, said to the master of the ballet: "Who is that fourth girl there on the right--the one coming round at the end now?" "Oh," said the ballet-master, "that's Miss Madenda." "She's good looking. Why don't you let her head that line?" "I will," said the man. "Just do that. She'll look better there than the woman you've got." "All right. I will do that," said the master. The next evening Carrie was called out, much as if for an error. "You lead your company to night," said the master. "Yes, sir," said Carrie. "Put snap into it," he added. "We must have snap." "Yes, sir," replied Carrie. Astonished at this change, she thought that the heretofore leader must be ill; but when she saw her in the line, with a distinct expression of something unfavourable in her eye, she began to think that perhaps it was merit. She had a chic way of tossing her head to one side, and holding her arms as if for action--not listlessly. In front of the line this showed up even more effectually. "That girl knows how to carry herself," said the manager, another evening. He began to think that he should like to talk with her. If he hadn't made it a rule to have nothing to do with the members of the chorus, he would have approached her most unbendingly. "Put that girl at the head of the white column," he suggested to the man in charge of the ballet. This white column consisted of some twenty girls, all in snow-white flannel trimmed with silver and blue. Its leader was most stunningly arrayed in the same colours, elaborated, however, with epaulets and a belt of silver, with a short sword dangling at one side. Carrie was fitted for this costume, and a few days later appeared, proud of her new laurels. She was especially gratified to find that her salary was now eighteen instead of twelve. Hurstwood heard nothing about this. "I'll not give him the rest of my money," said Carrie. "I do enough. I am going to get me something to wear." As a matter of fact, during this second month she had been buying for herself as recklessly as she dared, regardless of the consequences. There were impending more complications rent day, and more extension of the credit system in the neighbourhood. Now, however, she proposed to do better by herself. Her first move was to buy a shirt waist, and in studying these she found how little her money would buy--how much, if she could only use all. She forgot that if she were alone she would have to pay for a room and board, and imagined that every cent of her eighteen could be spent for clothes and things that she liked. At last she picked upon something, which not only used up all her surplus above twelve, but invaded that sum. She knew she was going too far, but her feminine love of finery prevailed. The next day Hurstwood said: "We owe the grocer five dollars and forty cents this week." "Do we?" said Carrie, frowning a little. She looked in her purse to leave it. "I've only got eight dollars and twenty cents altogether." "We owe the milkman sixty cents," added Hurstwood. "Yes, and there's the coal man," said Carrie. Hurstwood said nothing. He had seen the new things she was buying; the way she was neglecting household duties; the readiness with which she was slipping out afternoons and staying. He felt that something was going to happen. All at once she spoke: "I don't know," she said; "I can't do it all. I don't earn enough." This was a direct challenge. Hurstwood had to take it up. He tried to be calm. "I don't want you to do it all," he said. "I only want a little help until I can get something to do." "Oh, yes," answered Carrie. "That's always the way. It takes more than I can earn to pay for things. I don't see what I'm going to do. "Well, I've tried to get something," he exclaimed. What do you want me to do?" "You couldn't have tried so very hard," said Carrie. "I got something." "Well, I did," he said, angered almost to harsh words. "You needn't throw up your success to me. All I asked was a little help until I could get something. I'm not down yet. I'll come up all right." He tried to speak steadily, but his voice trembled a little. Carrie's anger melted on the instant. She felt ashamed. "Well," she said, "here's the money," and emptied it out on the table. "I haven't got quite enough to pay it all. If they can wait until Saturday, though, I'll have some more." "You keep it," said Hurstwood sadly. "I only want enough to pay the grocer." She put it back, and proceeded to get dinner early and in good time. Her little bravado made her feel as if she ought to make amends. In a little while their old thoughts returned to both. "She's making more than she says," thought Hurstwood. "She says she's making twelve, but that wouldn't buy all those things. I don't care. Let her keep her money. I'll get something again one of these days. Then she can go to the deuce." He only said this in his anger, but it prefigured a possible course of action and attitude well enough. "I don't care," thought Carrie. "He ought to be told to get out and do something. It isn't right that I should support him." In these days Carrie was introduced to several youths, friends of Miss Osborne, who were of the kind most aptly described as gay and festive. They called once to get Miss Osborne for an afternoon drive. Carrie was with her at the time. "Come and go along," said Lola. "No, I can't," said Carrie. "Oh, yes, come and go. What have you got to do?" "I have to be home by five," said Carrie. "What for?" "Oh, dinner." "They'll take us to dinner," said Lola. "Oh, no," said Carrie. "I won't go. I can't." "Oh, do come. They're awful nice boys. We'll get you back in time. We're only going for a drive in Central Park." Carrie thought a while, and at last yielded. "Now, I must be back by half-past four," she said. The information went in one ear of Lola and out the other. After Drouet and Hurstwood, there was the least touch of cynicism in her attitude toward young men--especially of the gay and frivolous sort. She felt a little older than they. Some of their pretty compliments seemed silly. Still, she was young in heart and body and youth appealed to her. "Oh, we'll be right back, Miss Madenda," said one of the chaps, bowing. "You wouldn't think we'd keep you over time, now, would you?" "Well, I don't know," said Carrie, smiling. They were off for a drive--she, looking about and noticing fine clothing, the young men voicing those silly pleasantries and weak quips which pass for humour in coy circles. Carrie saw the great park parade of carriages, beginning at the Fifty-ninth Street entrance and winding past the Museum of Art to the exit at One Hundred and Tenth Street and Seventh Avenue. Her eye was once more taken by the show of wealth--the elaborate costumes, elegant harnesses, spirited horses, and, above all, the beauty. Once more the plague of poverty galled her, but now she forgot in a measure her own troubles so far as to forget Hurstwood. He waited until four, five, and even six. It was getting dark when he got up out of his chair. "I guess she isn't coming home," he said, grimly. "That's the way," he thought. "She's getting a start now. I'm out of it." Carrie had really discovered her neglect, but only at a quarter after five, and the open carriage was now far up Seventh Avenue, near the Harlem River. "What time is it?" she inquired. "I must be getting back." "A quarter after five," said her companion, consulting an elegant, open-faced watch. "Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Carrie. Then she settled back with a sigh. "There's no use crying over spilt milk," she said. "It's too late." "Of course it is," said the youth, who saw visions of a fine dinner now, and such invigorating talk as would result in a reunion after the show. He was greatly taken with Carrie. "We'll drive down to Delmonico's now and have something there, won't we, Orrin?" "To be sure," replied Orrin, gaily. Carrie thought of Hurstwood. Never before had she neglected dinner without an excuse. They drove back, and at 6.15 sat down to dine. It was the Sherry incident over again, the remembrance of which came painfully back to Carrie. She remembered Mrs. Vance, who had never called again after Hurstwood's reception, and Ames. At this figure her mind halted. It was a strong, clean vision. He liked better books than she read, better people than she associated with. His ideals burned in her heart. "It's fine to be a good actress," came distinctly back. What sort of an actress was she? "What are you thinking about, Miss Madenda?" inquired her merry companion. "Come, now, let's see if I can guess." "Oh, no," said Carrie. "Don't try." She shook it off and ate. She forgot, in part, and was merry. When it came to the after-theatre proposition, however, she shook her head. "No," she said, "I can't. I have a previous engagement." "Oh, now, Miss Madenda," pleaded the youth. "No," said Carrie, "I can't. You've been so kind, but you'll have to excuse me." The youth looked exceedingly crestfallen. "Cheer up, old man," whispered his companion. "We'll go around, anyhow. She may change her mind." Können Sie eine passende 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.

Wie in Chicago kommt Carrie die Idee, im Theater zu arbeiten, als letzte Ressource in einer Notlage. Eines Morgens verkündet sie beim Frühstück ihren Plan, einen Job zu finden. Hurstwood fürchtet insgeheim, dass sie erfolgreich wird und ihn verlässt. Er versteht Carries geistige Fähigkeiten nicht; er realisiert nicht, dass eine Person "emotional -- anstatt intellektuell -- großartig" sein kann. Um Carrie davon abzuhalten, konkrete Pläne zu machen, lügt Hurstwood, dass er durch einen alten Freund einen Job in einem Hotel bekommen wird und dass er wieder von seinen "Kontakten" hört. Er überlegt, dass Carrie vorübergehend arbeiten könnte, bis der Job verwirklicht wird. Als Carrie eines Tages nach Arbeit sucht, kehrt sie mit einem Exemplar des Clipper zurück, in dem die Namen und Adressen der New Yorker Theateragenten aufgelistet sind. Hurstwood wählt einige willkürlich aus und Carrie besucht sie erfolglos, da minimale Erfahrung und eine Kaution erforderlich sind, bevor ein Agent eine junge Schauspielerin in seine Obhut nehmen will. Carrie beschließt, direkt die Theatermanager aufzusuchen. Während sie an verschiedenen Theatern der Stadt anhält, muss sich Carrie mit allerlei wichtigtuerischen Typen auseinandersetzen, von pompösen Portiers und Kassenklarkarten über die "Herren" selbst dieser kleinen Unternehmen. Alle erwarten, dass sie sehr demütig ist, und sie missbilligen ihre kleine Störung ihrer kostbaren Zeit. Schließlich sagt der Manager des Casinos Carrie, dass sie in der nächsten Woche wiederkommen solle, möglicherweise gebe es dann eine Stelle in der Tanzchorlinie. Nachdem die Woche des Wartens vorbei ist, kehrt Carrie zum Casino-Theater zurück, wo ihr gesagt wird, dass sie am nächsten Morgen zum Proben erscheinen soll. Während das Mädchen nach Hause geht, verwandelt sich ihre Freude in Unzufriedenheit mit Hurstwood, dessen "Handicap des Alters" sie nicht versteht. Noch einmal nimmt sie den Namen Carrie Madenda an und arbeitet als junge Chorlinie-Harde an jeder Tagesrepetition, mit dem "Klang des Ruhms in ihren Ohren". Es scheint Carrie, dass Hurstwood beschlossen hat, zu Hause herumzusitzen und auf ihre wöchentlichen zwölf Dollar zu warten. Das ärgert sie, weil sie ungeduldig ist, sich mit ihrem Gehalt neue Kleidung kaufen zu können. Hurstwood bleibt in der Eröffnungsnacht zu Hause. Das Stück ist ein Erfolg und Carrie hat einige Zeit Arbeit. Während Carrie hart im Theater arbeitet, sitzt Hurstwood einen Monat lang zu Hause und liest Zeitung, seine Entschlossenheit, Arbeit zu suchen, wird zunehmend von der Überzeugung "dass jeder bestimmte Tag nicht der Tag" ist, überlagert. Einige Dollar für Rasur und Fahrtkosten auf die Seite legend, verkündet er Carrie schließlich, dass ihm das Geld ausgegangen ist. Nun sind die beiden vollständig von ihr abhängig. Wenn Hurstwood Geld für Haushaltsausgaben "borgt", gibt er Carrie immer das genaue Wechselgeld zurück. Im Theater freundet sich Carrie mit Lola Osborne, einer "kleinen Gaslicht-Soldatin" an. Die beiden verbringen viel Freizeit damit, neue Arbeit zu suchen und einzukaufen. Der Theatermanager und der Ballettmeister sind sich einig, dass Carrie eine viel bessere Tänzerin ist als der Durchschnitt der Mädchen und geben ihr die Verantwortung für eine "Linie" und erhöhen ihr Gehalt auf achtzehn Dollar. Trotzdem stellt sich heraus, dass Carrie nach dem Kauf einiger Dinge für sich selbst immer wieder feststellt, dass sie einfach nicht zwei Personen unterstützen kann. Carrie nutzt jede Gelegenheit, um weg von Hurstwood zu sein und das Haus zu verlassen, was bei ihm zu milden und wirkungslosen Protesten gegen ihre Abwesenheit führt. Dies trägt nur dazu bei, die Kluft zwischen ihnen zu vergrößern. Während Carrie eines Tages Lola besucht, kommen zwei der Bewunderer der jungen Dame vorbei, um sie zum Fahren abzuholen. Carrie wird überredet, sich ihnen anzuschließen, und vergisst natürlich, rechtzeitig nach Hause zurückzukehren, um für Hurstwood zu kochen. Während er zu Hause sitzt und vor sich hinmurmelt, dass Carrie jetzt Erfolg hat und er "daneben" ist, speist Carrie im berühmten Delmonico's Restaurant. Die Umgebung erinnert sie an die Zeit, als sie mit den Vance und Bob Ames zu Abend aß, deren Ideale "in ihrem Herzen brannten". Ein Gefühl der Verpflichtung zwingt sie, nach der Vorstellung direkt nach Hause zu gehen, und so muss sie das Angebot der Jungen ablehnen, den Tag weiter zu feiern.

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: Ralph kam zu dem Schluss, dass Isabels Abschied von ihrem Freund in den gegebenen Umständen etwas peinlich sein könnte, und er ging zum Hotel vor Isabel, die etwas verspätet mit einem unaufgeforderten Protest in ihren Augen folgte. Die beiden machten die Reise nach Gardencourt in fast ununterbrochener Stille, und der Diener, der sie am Bahnhof empfing, hatte keine besseren Nachrichten über Mr. Touchett, was Ralph dazu veranlasste, sich erneut zu beglückwünschen, dass Sir Matthew Hope versprochen hatte, mit dem Zug um fünf Uhr zu kommen und die Nacht zu verbringen. Ralph erfuhr, dass seine Mutter den ganzen Tag bei dem alten Mann gewesen war und gerade in diesem Moment bei ihm war; und diese Tatsache ließ Ralph zu dem Schluss kommen, dass seine Mutter einfach nur eine entspannte Gelegenheit wollte. Die feineren Naturen waren diejenigen, die in größeren Momenten hervorstachen. Isabel ging in ihr eigenes Zimmer und bemerkte im ganzen Haus diese wahrnehmbare Stille, die einer Krise vorausgeht. Nach einer Stunde ging sie jedoch auf der Suche nach ihrer Tante nach unten, um sie nach Mr. Touchett zu fragen. Sie ging in die Bibliothek, aber Mrs. Touchett war nicht da, und da das Wetter, das zuvor feucht und kalt gewesen war, nun völlig verdorben war, war es unwahrscheinlich, dass sie ihren üblichen Spaziergang im Garten gemacht hatte. Isabel war kurz davor, anzurufen, um eine Frage an ihr Zimmer zu schicken, als dieser Plan schnell einem unerwarteten Klang - dem Klang leiser Musik, die offenbar aus dem Salon kam - wich. Sie wusste, dass ihre Tante nie Klavier spielte, und der Musiker war daher wahrscheinlich Ralph, der aus seinem eigenen Vergnügen spielte. Dass er sich jetzt dieser Beschäftigung gewidmet hatte, deutete anscheinend darauf hin, dass seine Sorge um seinen Vater gelindert worden war. Das Mädchen machte sich also mit fast wiederhergestellter Fröhlichkeit auf den Weg zur Quelle der Harmonie. Das Wohnzimmer in Gardencourt war ein Raum von großer Weite, und da das Klavier am Ende des Raumes stand, das von der Tür, durch die sie eingetreten war, am weitesten entfernt war, wurde ihre Ankunft von der Person, die vor dem Instrument saß, nicht bemerkt. Diese Person war weder Ralph noch seine Mutter; es war eine Dame, die Isabel sofort als Fremde erkannte, obwohl sie ihr den Rücken zukehrte. Isabel betrachtete diesen Rücken - einen üppigen und gut gekleideten - einige Minuten lang überrascht. Die Dame war natürlich eine Besucherin, die während ihrer Abwesenheit angekommen war und von keinem der Diener erwähnt worden war - einem davon der Diener ihrer Tante -, mit denen sie seit ihrer Rückkehr gesprochen hatte. Isabel hatte jedoch bereits gelernt, mit welchen Schätzen an Zurückhaltung die Aufgabe des Befehlesempfangens einhergehen kann, und sie war sich besonders bewusst, von der Dienerin ihrer Tante mit Trockenheit behandelt worden zu sein, durch deren Hände sie vielleicht etwas zu misstrauisch hindurchgeglitten war und einen Effekt von Gefieder, aber umso glänzender. Das Erscheinen eines Gastes selbst war keineswegs beunruhigend; sie hatte sich noch nicht von einem jungen Glauben losgesagt, dass jede neue Bekanntschaft einen bedeutenden Einfluss auf ihr Leben haben würde. Als sie diese Reflexionen angestellt hatte, wurde ihr bewusst, dass die Dame am Klavier außergewöhnlich gut spielte. Sie spielte etwas von Schubert - Isabel wusste nicht, was, erkannte aber Schubert - und sie berührte das Klavier mit ihrer eigenen Zurückhaltung. Es zeigte Geschicklichkeit, es zeigte Gefühl; Isabel setzte sich lautlos auf den nächstgelegenen Stuhl und wartete, bis das Stück zu Ende war. Als es zu Ende war, verspürte sie einen starken Wunsch, dem Spieler zu danken, und stand von ihrem Platz auf, um dies zu tun, während die Fremde sich gleichzeitig schnell umdrehte, als sei sie gerade erst auf Isabels Anwesenheit aufmerksam geworden. "Das ist sehr schön, und Ihr Spiel macht es noch schöner", sagte Isabel mit all dem jungen Strahlen, mit dem sie normalerweise eine wahrhaftige Begeisterung zum Ausdruck brachte. "Du denkst also, dass ich Mr. Touchett nicht gestört habe?", antwortete die Musikerin so süß wie dieses Kompliment verdient. "Das Haus ist so groß und sein Zimmer so weit entfernt, dass ich dachte, ich könnte es wagen, besonders da ich nur mit den Fingerspitzen gespielt habe." "Sie ist eine Französin", dachte Isabel bei sich, "sie sagt das, als sei sie Französin." Und diese Vermutung machte den Besucher für unsere spekulative Heldin interessanter. "Ich hoffe, es geht meinem Onkel gut", fügte Isabel hinzu. "Ich denke, dass es ihn wirklich besser fühlen ließe, solch schöne Musik zu hören." Die Dame lächelte und differenzierte. "Ich fürchte, es gibt Momente im Leben, in denen selbst Schubert uns nichts zu sagen hat. Wir müssen jedoch zugeben, dass dies unsere schlimmsten sind." "Ich bin jetzt nicht in diesem Zustand", sagte Isabel. "Im Gegenteil, ich würde mich sehr freuen, wenn Sie noch etwas spielen würden." "Wenn es Ihnen Freude bereitet - gerne." Und diese zuvorkommende Person nahm wieder ihren Platz ein und schlug ein paar Akkorde an, während Isabel sich näher am Instrument niederließ. Plötzlich hielt die Neuankömmling mit den Händen auf den Tasten inne, drehte sich halb um und sah über ihre Schulter. Sie war vierzig Jahre alt und nicht hübsch, obwohl ihr Ausdruck entzückte. "Verzeihen Sie", sagte sie, "sind Sie die Nichte - die junge Amerikanerin?" "Ich bin die Nichte meiner Tante", antwortete Isabel schlicht. Die Dame am Klavier blieb einen Moment länger sitzen und warf ihren interessierten Blick über ihre Schulter. "Das ist gut; wir sind Landsleute." Und dann spielte sie. "Ach, dann ist sie doch nicht Französin", murmelte Isabel; und da die gegenteilige Vermutung sie romantisch gemacht hatte, könnte es scheinen, dass diese Offenbarung einen Abfall markiert hätte. Aber das war nicht der Fall; noch seltener als Französin zu sein schien es, unter solch interessanten Umständen Amerikanerin zu sein. Die Dame spielte auf dieselbe Weise wie zuvor, leise und feierlich, und während sie spielte, vertieften sich die Schatten im Raum. Die Herbstdämmerung setzte ein, und von ihrem Platz aus konnte Isabel den Regen sehen, der nun in aller Ernsthaftigkeit den kalten Rasen wusch und der Wind, der die großen Bäume schüttelte. Als die Musik schließlich aufhörte, stand ihre Begleiterin auf, kam mit einem Lächeln näher und sagte, noch bevor Isabel Zeit hatte, sich erneut zu bedanken: "Ich bin sehr froh, dass Sie zurückgekommen sind; ich habe viel über Sie gehört." Isabel fand sie sehr anziehend, sprach jedoch trotzdem mit einer gewissen Schroffheit auf diese Aussage. "Von wem haben Sie von mir gehört?" Die Fremde zögerte einen Moment und antwortete dann: "Von Ihrem Onkel. Ich bin seit drei Tagen hier, und am ersten Tag durfte ich ihn in seinem Zimmer besuchen kommen. Danach hat er ständig von Ihnen gesprochen." "Da Sie mich nicht kannten, muss Sie das ziemlich gelangweilt haben." "Es hat mich neugierig auf Sie gemacht. Umso mehr, als ich seitdem - da Ihre Tante so viel bei Mr. Touchett ist - ziemlich alleine war und von meiner eigenen Gesellschaft ziemlich müde geworden bin. "Sie ist zu sehr von Geheimnissen besessen", sagte Frau Touchett. "Das ist ihr großes Fehler." "Ah", rief Madame Merle aus, "ich habe große Fehler, aber ich glaube nicht, dass das einer davon ist; es ist sicherlich nicht der größte. Ich wurde im Marinehafen von Brooklyn geboren. Mein Vater war ein hoher Offizier in der United States Navy und hatte zu dieser Zeit eine verantwortungsvolle Position in dieser Einrichtung. Ich nehme an, ich sollte das Meer lieben, aber ich hasse es. Das ist der Grund, warum ich nicht nach Amerika zurückkehre. Ich liebe das Land; das Wichtige ist, etwas zu lieben." Isabel, als sachlicher Zeuge, war nicht von der Charakterisierung von Mrs. Touchett's Besucherin beeindruckt, die ein ausdrucksstarkes, kommunikatives, reaktionsfreudiges Gesicht hatte, das keineswegs auf eine heimliche Veranlagung schließen ließ, wie Isabel meinte. Es war ein Gesicht, das von einer Fülle der Natur und von schnellen und freien Bewegungen zeugte und obwohl es keiner regelmäßigen Schönheit entsprach, äußerst einnehmend und anziehend war. Madame Merle war eine große, faire, glatte Frau; alles an ihr war rund und voll, aber ohne jene Anhäufungen, die auf Schwere hinweisen. Ihre Züge waren dick, aber in perfekter Proportion und Harmonie, und ihr Teint hatte eine gesunde Klarheit. Ihre grauen Augen waren klein, aber voller Licht und unfähig für Dummheit - unfähig, laut einiger Leute, sogar für Tränen; sie hatte einen großzügigen Mund mit vollen Lippen, der sich, wenn sie lächelte, auf die linke Seite zog, eine Eigenart, die die meisten Leute sehr seltsam, manche sehr gekünstelt und wenige sehr anmutig fanden. Isabel tendierte dazu, sich in die letzte Kategorie einzureihen. Madame Merle hatte dickes, blondes Haar, das auf eine irgendwie "klassische" Art arrangiert war, so wie Isabel urteilte - wie eine Juno oder eine Niobe; und große weiße Hände, von perfekter Form, einer so perfekten Form, dass ihre Besitzerin darauf bestand, sie ungeschmückt zu lassen und keine Schmuckringe zu tragen. Isabel hatte sie zuerst, wie bereits gesehen, für eine Französin gehalten, aber bei genauerer Beobachtung hätte man sie eher als Deutsche einstufen können - eine Deutsche von hohem Rang, vielleicht eine Österreicherin, eine Baroness, eine Gräfin, eine Prinzessin. Es wäre niemals angenommen worden, dass sie in Brooklyn zur Welt gekommen war - obwohl man zweifellos kein Argument hätte durchbringen können, dass die Ausstrahlung von Distinktion, die sie in so hohem Maße auszeichnete, mit einer solchen Geburt unvereinbar sei. Es stimmte, dass das Nationalbanner unmittelbar über ihrer Wiege geweht hatte und die frische Freiheit der Sterne und Streifen einen Einfluss auf ihre Einstellung zum Leben dort genommen haben konnte. Und doch hatte sie offenbar nichts von der aufgeregten, flatternden Qualität eines Stücks Bunting im Wind; ihre Art drückte die Ruhe und das Selbstbewusstsein aus, die aus einer großen Erfahrung herrühren. Erfahrung hatte jedoch ihre Jugend nicht erstickt; sie hatte sie einfach mitfühlend und geschmeidig gemacht. Sie war in einem Wort eine Frau mit starken Impulsen, die in bewundernswerter Ordnung gehalten wurden. Dies gefiel Isabel als ideale Kombination. Während die drei Damen beim Tee saßen, machte Isabel sich diese Gedanken, aber bald wurde die Zeremonie durch die Ankunft des großen Arztes aus London unterbrochen, der sofort ins Wohnzimmer geleitet wurde. Frau Touchett führte ihn in die Bibliothek für ein privates Gespräch; und dann trennten sich auch Madame Merle und Isabel, um sich beim Abendessen wieder zu treffen. Der Gedanke, mehr von dieser interessanten Frau zu sehen, milderte Isabels Gefühl der Traurigkeit, die sich nun über Gardencourt legte. Als sie vor dem Abendessen ins Wohnzimmer kam, fand sie den Raum leer vor; aber im Laufe eines Augenblicks kam Ralph herein. Seine Sorge um seinen Vater hatte sich gemildert; Sir Matthew Hope hatte eine weniger düstere Sicht auf seinen Zustand als er selbst. Der Arzt empfahl, dass nur die Krankenschwester in den nächsten drei oder vier Stunden bei dem alten Mann bleiben sollte, sodass Ralph, seine Mutter und der große Arzt selbst am Tisch zu Abend essen konnten. Frau Touchett und Sir Matthew erschienen; Madame Merle war die Letzte. Bevor sie kam, sprach Isabel mit Ralph, der vor dem Kamin stand. "Wer ist eigentlich diese Madame Merle?" "Die klügste Frau, die ich kenne, einschließlich dir selbst", sagte Ralph. "Ich fand sie sehr angenehm." "Ich war mir sicher, dass du sie sehr angenehm finden würdest." "Ist das der Grund, warum du sie eingeladen hast?" "Ich habe sie nicht eingeladen, und als wir aus London zurückkamen, wusste ich nicht, dass sie hier ist. Niemand hat sie eingeladen. Sie ist eine Freundin meiner Mutter, und kurz nachdem du und ich in die Stadt gegangen sind, hat meine Mutter einen Brief von ihr bekommen. Sie war nach England gereist (sie lebt normalerweise im Ausland, obwohl sie viel Zeit hier verbracht hat), und sie hat um Erlaubnis gebeten, für ein paar Tage herzukommen. Sie ist eine Frau, die solche Vorschläge mit vollstem Vertrauen machen kann; sie ist überall herzlich willkommen. Und bei meiner Mutter hätte es keine Frage des Zögerns gegeben; sie ist die einzige Person auf der Welt, die meine Mutter sehr bewundert. Wenn sie nicht sie selbst wäre (was sie schließlich viel bevorzugt), würde sie gerne Madame Merle sein. Es wäre wirklich eine große Veränderung." "Nun, sie ist sehr charmant", sagte Isabel. "Und sie spielt wunderschön." "Sie macht alles wunderbar. Sie ist vollkommen." Isabel sah ihren Cousin einen Moment lang an. "Du magst sie nicht." "Ganz im Gegenteil, ich war einmal in sie verliebt." "Und sie mochte dich nicht, und deshalb magst du sie nicht." "Wie können wir über solche Dinge diskutiert haben? Monsieur Merle war damals noch am Leben." "Ist er jetzt tot?" "Das sagt sie zumindest." "Glaubst du ihr nicht?" "Doch, weil die Aussage mit den Wahrscheinlichkeiten übereinstimmt. Der Ehemann von Madame Merle wäre wahrscheinlich verstorben." Isabel starrte ihren Cousin wieder an. "Ich verstehe nicht, was du meinst. Du meinst etwas - das du nicht meinst. Wer war Monsieur Merle?" "Der Ehemann von Madame." "Du bist sehr abscheulich. Hat sie Kinder?" "Nicht das kleinste Kind - zum Glück." "Zum Glück?" "Für das Kind meine ich glücklicherweise. Sie würde es sicherlich verderben." Isabel war offensichtlich kurz davor, ihrem Cousin zum dritten Mal zu versichern, dass er abscheulich sei; aber die Diskussion wurde durch die Ankunft der Dame unterbrochen, die das Thema war. Sie kam rasch herein, entschuldigte sich dafür, dass sie spät dran war, befestigte ein Armband und war in dunkelblauem Satin gekleidet, das ein weißes Dekolleté entblößte, das nutzlos von einer seltsamen silbernen Halskette bedeckt war. Ralph bot ihr seinen Arm an, mit der übertriebenen Präzision eines Mannes, der kein Liebhaber mehr ist. Selbst wenn dies immer noch sein Zustand wäre, hätte Ralph jedoch anderes zu denken gehabt. Der große Arzt verbrachte die Nacht in Gardencourt und kehrte am nächsten Tag nach London zurück, nach einer weiteren Konsultation mit Mr. Touchetts eigenem Hausarzt, der Ralphs Wunsch, den Patienten am folgenden Tag erneut zu sehen, unterstützte. Am folgenden Tag erschien Sir Matthew Hope erneut in Gardencourt und nahm nun eine weniger ermutigende Sicht auf den alten Mann ein, der sich in den vierundzwanzig Stunden weiter verschlechtert hatte. Seine Schwäche war extrem, "Es wird keine Notwendigkeit geben, es zu leugnen, wenn du es nicht sagst", antwortete der alte Mann. "Warum sollten wir uns gerade jetzt verstellen? Wir haben uns nie verstellt. Irgendwann muss ich sterben, und es ist besser, zu sterben, wenn man krank ist, als wenn man gesund ist. Ich bin sehr krank - so krank wie ich jemals sein werde. Ich hoffe, du willst nicht beweisen, dass es mir jemals schlechter gehen wird als jetzt? Das wäre schade. Nicht? Na also." Nachdem er diesen ausgezeichneten Punkt gemacht hatte, wurde er ruhig. Aber das nächste Mal, als Ralph bei ihm war, begann er wieder zu reden. Die Krankenschwester war zum Abendessen gegangen und Ralph war allein in der Verantwortung, nachdem er gerade Mrs. Touchett abgelöst hatte, die seit dem Abendessen Wache gehalten hatte. Das Zimmer wurde nur vom flackernden Feuer beleuchtet, das in letzter Zeit notwendig geworden war, und Ralphs großer Schatten wurde auf Wand und Decke projiziert, wobei die Umrisse ständig wechselten, aber immer grotesk blieben. "Wer ist bei mir? Ist es mein Sohn?", fragte der alte Mann. "Ja, es ist dein Sohn, Daddy." "Und gibt es sonst niemanden?" "Niemand sonst." Herr Touchett sagte eine Weile nichts; dann sagte er: "Ich möchte ein wenig reden." "Wird es dich nicht müde machen?", wandte Ralph ein. "Es spielt keine Rolle, wenn es so ist. Ich werde lange ruhen. Ich möchte über DICH reden." Ralph hatte sich dem Bett genähert; er saß vorgebeugt und hatte seine Hand auf seines Vaters. "Du solltest ein fröhlicheres Thema wählen." "Du warst immer fröhlich; ich war stolz auf deine Fröhlichkeit. Ich würde mich freuen, wenn du etwas unternehmen würdest." "Wenn du uns verlässt", sagte Ralph, "werde ich nichts tun außer dich vermissen." "Genauso ist es, was ich nicht möchte; darum möchte ich darüber reden. Du musst ein neues Interesse finden." "Ich möchte kein neues Interesse, Daddy. Ich habe mehr alte Interessen, als ich weiß, was ich damit tun soll." Der alte Mann lag da und betrachtete seinen Sohn; sein Gesicht war das Gesicht eines Sterbenden, aber seine Augen waren die Augen von Daniel Touchett. Er schien Ralphs Interessen abzuschätzen. "Natürlich hast du deine Mutter", sagte er schließlich. "Du wirst dich um sie kümmern." "Meine Mutter wird sich immer selbst kümmern", erwiderte Ralph. "Nun", sagte sein Vater, "vielleicht wird sie im Alter ein wenig Hilfe benötigen." "Ich werde das nicht sehen. Sie wird mich überleben." "Sehr wahrscheinlich wird sie das; aber das ist kein Grund...!" Herr Touchett ließ seinen Satz in einem hilflosen, aber nicht ganz quengeligen Seufzer verklingen und schwieg erneut. "Mach dir keine Sorgen um uns", sagte sein Sohn, "Meine Mutter und ich kommen gut miteinander klar, weißt du." "Ihr kommt klar, indem ihr immer getrennt voneinander lebt; das ist nicht natürlich." "Wenn du uns verlässt, werden wir uns wahrscheinlich öfter sehen." "Nun", bemerkte der alte Mann mit wandernder Unzusammenhängendheit, "es kann nicht gesagt werden, dass mein Tod einen großen Unterschied in Mamas Leben machen wird." "Es wird wahrscheinlich mehr machen, als du denkst." "Nun, sie wird mehr Geld haben", sagte Herr Touchett. "Ich habe ihr einen guten Teil hinterlassen, so als ob sie eine gute Ehefrau gewesen wäre." "Das war sie, Daddy, nach ihrer eigenen Theorie. Sie hat dich nie gestört." "Ah, manche Sorgen machen Freude", murmelte Herr Touchett. "Die, die du mir zum Beispiel bereitet hast. Aber deine Mutter ist weniger... weniger... wie soll ich es nennen? weniger aus dem Weg gegangen, seit ich krank bin. Ich nehme an, sie weiß, dass ich es bemerkt habe." "Ich werde es ihr sicher sagen; ich bin so froh, dass du es erwähnst." "Es wird für sie keinen Unterschied machen; sie tut es nicht, um mich zu erfreuen. Sie tut es, um... um..." Und er lag eine Weile da und versuchte zu überlegen, warum sie es tut. "Sie tut es, weil es ihr passt. Aber davon möchte ich nicht reden", fügte er hinzu. "Es geht um dich. Du wirst es sehr gut haben." "Ja", sagte Ralph, "das weiß ich. Aber ich hoffe, du hast nicht vergessen, worüber wir vor einem Jahr gesprochen haben - als ich dir genau gesagt habe, wie viel Geld ich brauchen würde und dich gebeten habe, den Rest sinnvoll zu verwenden." "Ja, ja, ich erinnere mich. Ich habe ein neues Testament gemacht - innerhalb weniger Tage. Ich vermute, das war das erste Mal, dass so etwas passiert ist - ein junger Mann versucht ein Testament gegen sich machen zu lassen." "Es ist nicht gegen mich", sagte Ralph. "Es wäre gegen mich, eine große Summe verwalten zu müssen. Es ist für einen Mann in meinem Gesundheitszustand unmöglich, viel Geld auszugeben, und genug ist so gut wie ein Fest." "Nun, du wirst genug haben - und noch etwas mehr. Es wird mehr als genug für einen sein - es wird genug für zwei geben." "Das ist zu viel", sagte Ralph. "Ah, sag das nicht. Das Beste, was du tun kannst, wenn ich nicht mehr da bin, ist zu heiraten." Ralph hatte vorausgesehen, worauf sein Vater hinauswollte, und dieser Vorschlag war keineswegs neu. Es war seit langem die einfallsreichste Art von Mr. Touchett gewesen, den optimistischen Blick auf die mögliche Dauer seines Sohnes zu werfen. Ralph hatte es normalerweise scherzhaft behandelt, aber die gegenwärtigen Umstände verboten das Scherzhafte. Er fiel einfach in seinem Stuhl zurück und erwiderte den bittenden Blick seines Vaters. "Wenn ich mit einer Frau, die nicht sehr gern bei mir war, ein sehr glückliches Leben hatte", sagte der alte Mann und trieb seine Begeisterung noch weiter, "welch ein Leben könnte man dann nicht führen, wenn man eine Person heiratete, die anders ist als Mrs. Touchett. Es gibt mehr, die anders sind als sie." Ralph sagte immer noch nichts, und nach einer Pause fuhr sein Vater leise fort: "Was hältst du von deiner Cousine?" Daraufhin erschrak Ralph, erwiderte die Frage jedoch mit einem gequälten Lächeln. "Verstehe ich dich richtig, dass du vorschlägst, dass ich Isabel heiraten soll?" "Nun, darauf läuft es am Ende hinaus. Magst du Isabel?" "Ja, sehr gerne." Und Ralph stand von seinem Stuhl auf und ging zum Feuer. Er stand einen Moment davor und dann bückte er sich und rührte mechanisch darin um. "Ich mag Isabel sehr gerne", wiederholte er. "Nun", sagte sein Vater, "ich weiß, sie mag dich. Sie hat mir erzählt, wie sehr sie dich mag." "Hat sie gesagt, dass sie mich heiraten möchte?" "Nein, aber sie kann nichts gegen dich haben. Und sie ist die charmanteste junge Dame, die ich je gesehen habe. Und sie würde gut zu dir sein. Ich habe viel darüber nachgedacht." "Das habe ich auch", sagte Ralph und kehrte wieder zum Bett zurück. "Das will ich dir nicht verschweigen." "Du bist also in sie verliebt? Ich denke, du solltest es sein. Es ist, als ob sie extra gekommen wäre." "Nein, ich bin nicht in sie verliebt; aber ich wäre es, wenn... wenn bestimmte Dinge anders wären." "Ah, die Dinge sind immer anders, als sie sein könnten", sagte der alte Mann. "Wenn du darauf wartest, dass sie sich ändern, wirst du nie etwas tun. Ich weiß nicht, ob du es weißt", fuhr er fort; "aber ich denke, dass es keinen Schaden hat, darauf hinzuweisen zu einer Stunde wie dieser: Vor kurzem wollte jemand Isabel heir "Es wird dich nur ermüden, lieber Vater", sagte Ralph, der sich über die Zähigkeit seines Vaters und seine Kraft, darauf zu bestehen, wunderte. "Wo werden wir alle sein?" "Wo wirst du sein, wenn ich nicht für dich sorge? Du wirst nichts mit der Bank zu tun haben und du wirst mich nicht haben, um dich zu versorgen. Du sagst, du hast so viele Interessen, aber ich kann sie nicht verstehen." Ralph lehnte sich mit verschränkten Armen in seinem Stuhl zurück; seine Augen verharrten einige Zeit in Meditation. Schließlich sagte er mit der Haltung eines Mannes, der sich mutig zusammenreißt: "Ich habe ein großes Interesse an meiner Cousine", sagte er, "aber nicht die Art von Interesse, die du dir wünschst. Ich werde nicht mehr lange leben, aber ich hoffe, ich werde noch lange genug leben, um zu sehen, was sie aus sich macht. Sie ist völlig unabhängig von mir; ich kann kaum Einfluss auf ihr Leben nehmen. Aber ich möchte gerne etwas für sie tun." "Was möchtest du tun?" "Ich möchte ihr etwas Wind in die Segel geben." "Was meinst du damit?" "Ich möchte ihr die Möglichkeit geben, einige der Dinge zu tun, die sie möchte. Sie möchte zum Beispiel die Welt sehen. Ich möchte Geld in ihre Tasche legen." "Ach, ich bin froh, dass du daran gedacht hast", sagte der alte Mann. "Aber ich habe auch daran gedacht. Ich habe ihr ein Vermächtnis hinterlassen - fünftausend Pfund." "Das ist großartig; es ist sehr nett von dir. Aber ich würde gerne noch etwas mehr tun." Etwas von dieser versteckten Schärfe, mit der Daniel Touchett ein Leben lang gelernt hatte, einem finanziellen Vorschlag zuzuhören, verharrte noch in dem Gesicht, in dem der Kranke den Geschäftsmann nicht ausgelöscht hatte. "Ich werde es gerne prüfen", sagte er leise. "Isabel ist arm. Meine Mutter erzählt mir, dass sie nur wenige hundert Dollar im Jahr hat. Ich würde sie gerne reich machen." "Was meinst du mit reich?" "Ich nenne Leute reich, wenn sie in der Lage sind, die Bedürfnisse ihrer Vorstellungskraft zu erfüllen. Isabel hat viel Vorstellungskraft." "Das hast du auch, mein Sohn", sagte Mr. Touchett und hörte sehr aufmerksam, aber etwas verwirrt zu. "Du sagst mir, ich werde genug Geld für zwei haben. Was ich möchte, ist, dass du mich freundlicherweise von meinem Überfluss befreist und ihn Isabel gibst. Teile mein Erbe in zwei gleiche Hälften und gib ihr die zweite." "Damit sie machen kann, was sie will?" "Ganz genau, was sie will." "Und ohne Gegenleistung?" "Was für eine Gegenleistung könnte es geben?" "Die, von der ich bereits gesprochen habe." "Dass sie jemanden oder jemanden heiratet? Es ist gerade, um alles in dieser Art zu beseitigen, dass ich meinen Vorschlag mache. Wenn sie ein einfaches Einkommen hat, wird sie nie heiraten müssen, um sich zu versorgen. Das ist es, was ich klug verhindern will. Sie möchte frei sein, und dein Vermächtnis wird sie frei machen." "Nun, du scheinst es durchdacht zu haben", sagte Mr. Touchett. "Aber ich sehe nicht, warum du dich an mich wendest. Das Geld wird dir gehören und du kannst es ihr leicht selbst geben." Ralph starrte offen. "Ach, lieber Vater, ich kann Isabel kein Geld anbieten!" Der alte Mann stöhnte. "Sag mir nicht, dass du nicht in sie verliebt bist! Willst du, dass ich den Ruhm dafür habe?" "Ganz und gar. Ich möchte einfach nur eine Klausel in deinem Testament haben, ohne die geringste Bezugnahme auf mich." "Willst du also ein neues Testament machen?" "Ein paar Worte reichen aus; du kannst es beim nächsten Mal erledigen, wenn du etwas lebendiger bist." "Du musst dann Mr. Hilary telegrammieren. Ich werde nichts ohne meinen Anwalt tun." "Du wirst Mr. Hilary morgen sehen." "Er wird denken, dass wir uns gestritten haben, du und ich", sagte der alte Mann. "Sehr wahrscheinlich; Ich möchte, dass er es denkt", sagte Ralph und lächelte. "Und um die Idee umzusetzen, gebe ich dir Bescheid, dass ich sehr scharf, ganz schrecklich und merkwürdig mit dir sein werde." Der Humor dieser Aussage schien seinen Vater zu berühren, der eine Weile still dastand und es in sich aufnahm. "Ich werde alles tun, was du willst", sagte Mr. Touchett schließlich, "aber ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob es richtig ist. Du sagst, du willst ihr Wind in die Segel geben, aber hast du keine Angst, dass du zu viel gibst?" "Ich würde gerne sehen, wie sie vor dem Wind fährt!" antwortete Ralph. "Du sprichst, als ob es nur zur Belustigung wäre." "Das ist es auch, zu einem großen Teil." "Nun, ich glaube nicht, dass ich es verstehe", sagte Mr. Touchett seufzend. "Junge Männer sind ganz anders als ich damals. Wenn ich mich für ein Mädchen interessiert habe, wollte ich mehr als nur sie ansehen." "Du hast Bedenken, die ich nicht gehabt hätte, und du hast Ideen, die ich auch nicht gehabt hätte. Du sagst, Isabel möchte frei sein und dass ihr Reichtum sie davon abhalten wird, aus Geldgründen zu heiraten. Glaubst du, dass sie jemand ist, der das tun würde?" "Ganz und gar nicht. Aber sie hat weniger Geld als je zuvor. Ihr Vater hat ihr früher alles gegeben, weil er sein Kapital ausgegeben hat. Sie hat nichts außer den Brosamen von dem Fest, von dem sie leben kann, und sie weiß nicht wirklich, wie mager sie sind - das muss sie noch lernen. Meine Mutter hat mir alles darüber erzählt. Isabel wird es lernen, wenn sie wirklich auf die Welt geworfen wird, und es wäre für mich sehr schmerzhaft, zu denken, dass sie sich bewusst wird, dass sie eine Menge Bedürfnisse hat, die sie nicht erfüllen kann." "Ich habe ihr fünftausend Pfund hinterlassen. Damit kann sie viele Bedürfnisse erfüllen." "Das kann sie in der Tat. Aber sie würde es wahrscheinlich in zwei oder drei Jahren ausgeben." "Du denkst, sie wäre verschwenderisch?" "Ganz sicher", sagte Ralph und lächelte gelassen. Armer Mr. Touchetts Scharfsinn wich nun der Verwirrung, und seine Verwirrung weichte nun der Bewunderung. "Nun, du hast es durchdrungen!", wiederholte er. "Aber ich sehe nicht, was du daraus gewinnen wirst." Ralph lehnte sich über die Kissen seines Vaters und strich sanft darüber; ihm war bewusst, dass ihr Gespräch unnötig verlängert worden war. "Ich werde genau das Gute daraus ziehen, das ich vorhin sagte, ich wollte Isabel zugänglich machen - das, meine Vorstellungen erfüllt zu haben. Aber es ist skandalös, wie ich deine Großzügigkeit ausgenutzt habe!" 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.

Ralph und Isabel kehren nach Gardencourt zurück. Isabel, besorgt um ihren Onkel, sucht ihre Tante auf. Isabel hört Musik spielen und vermutet, dass Ralph am Klavier spielt. Zu ihrer Überraschung entdeckt sie eine charmante Fremde, die Schubert am Klavier spielt. Die Fremde ist Madame Merle, eine gute Freundin von Mrs. Touchett. Sie ist Amerikanerin, aber eher geheimnisvoll über ihre Herkunft. Sie traf Mrs. Touchett ursprünglich in Florenz. Isabel fragt Ralph nach Madame Merle. Ralph sagt, dass sie in ihrer Perfektion vollkommen ist, und gesteht, dass er früher in sie verliebt war. Ob er es ernst meint, ist wie immer nicht sicher. Obwohl sich Mr. Touchetts Gesundheit nach der Ankunft von Dr. Hope zu verbessern schien, nimmt sie erneut einen schlechten Verlauf. Mr. Touchett scheint bereit zu sterben, trotz Ralphs Flehen, optimistisch zu denken. Mr. Touchett besteht darauf, dass er und Ralph ein privates Gespräch führen. Mr. Touchett möchte sicherstellen, dass Ralph sich und seine Mutter nach seinem Tod versorgen kann. Mr. Touchett möchte, dass Ralph Isabel heiratet und hofft auf ein gutes Leben für seinen Sohn, trotz Ralphs eigener schlechter Gesundheit. Ralph gesteht, dass er sehr an Isabel hängt, aber nicht in sie verliebt ist. Stattdessen bittet Ralph seinen Vater, sein Erbe zu teilen und die Hälfte an Isabel zu geben. Die Summe würde 60.000 Pfund betragen. Ralph möchte Isabel von Geldsorgen befreien. Er weiß, dass sie eine große Vorstellungskraft hat und möchte ihr ermöglichen, zu tun, was immer sie möchte, ohne von einem Mann abhängig zu sein. Mr. Touchett befürchtet, dass ihr das zu viel Freiheit geben würde und dass Goldgräberinnen ihr nachstellen würden. Ralph sagt, dass er sich darüber nicht allzu viele Gedanken macht. Mr. Touchett stimmt Ralphs Wunsch zu und bittet darum, dass sein Anwalt, Mr. Hilary, am nächsten Tag nach Gardencourt gebracht 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: And yet he thinks,--ha, ha, ha, ha,--he thinks I am the tool and servant of his will. Well, let it be; through all the maze of trouble His plots and base oppression must create, I'll shape myself a way to higher things, And who will say 'tis wrong? --Basil, a Tragedy No spider ever took more pains to repair the shattered meshes of his web, than did Waldemar Fitzurse to reunite and combine the scattered members of Prince John's cabal. Few of these were attached to him from inclination, and none from personal regard. It was therefore necessary, that Fitzurse should open to them new prospects of advantage, and remind them of those which they at present enjoyed. To the young and wild nobles, he held out the prospect of unpunished license and uncontrolled revelry; to the ambitious, that of power, and to the covetous, that of increased wealth and extended domains. The leaders of the mercenaries received a donation in gold; an argument the most persuasive to their minds, and without which all others would have proved in vain. Promises were still more liberally distributed than money by this active agent; and, in fine, nothing was left undone that could determine the wavering, or animate the disheartened. The return of King Richard he spoke of as an event altogether beyond the reach of probability; yet, when he observed, from the doubtful looks and uncertain answers which he received, that this was the apprehension by which the minds of his accomplices were most haunted, he boldly treated that event, should it really take place, as one which ought not to alter their political calculations. "If Richard returns," said Fitzurse, "he returns to enrich his needy and impoverished crusaders at the expense of those who did not follow him to the Holy Land. He returns to call to a fearful reckoning, those who, during his absence, have done aught that can be construed offence or encroachment upon either the laws of the land or the privileges of the crown. He returns to avenge upon the Orders of the Temple and the Hospital, the preference which they showed to Philip of France during the wars in the Holy Land. He returns, in fine, to punish as a rebel every adherent of his brother Prince John. Are ye afraid of his power?" continued the artful confident of that Prince, "we acknowledge him a strong and valiant knight; but these are not the days of King Arthur, when a champion could encounter an army. If Richard indeed comes back, it must be alone,--unfollowed--unfriended. The bones of his gallant army have whitened the sands of Palestine. The few of his followers who have returned have straggled hither like this Wilfred of Ivanhoe, beggared and broken men.--And what talk ye of Richard's right of birth?" he proceeded, in answer to those who objected scruples on that head. "Is Richard's title of primogeniture more decidedly certain than that of Duke Robert of Normandy, the Conqueror's eldest son? And yet William the Red, and Henry, his second and third brothers, were successively preferred to him by the voice of the nation, Robert had every merit which can be pleaded for Richard; he was a bold knight, a good leader, generous to his friends and to the church, and, to crown the whole, a crusader and a conqueror of the Holy Sepulchre; and yet he died a blind and miserable prisoner in the Castle of Cardiff, because he opposed himself to the will of the people, who chose that he should not rule over them. It is our right," he said, "to choose from the blood royal the prince who is best qualified to hold the supreme power--that is," said he, correcting himself, "him whose election will best promote the interests of the nobility. In personal qualifications," he added, "it was possible that Prince John might be inferior to his brother Richard; but when it was considered that the latter returned with the sword of vengeance in his hand, while the former held out rewards, immunities, privileges, wealth, and honours, it could not be doubted which was the king whom in wisdom the nobility were called on to support." These, and many more arguments, some adapted to the peculiar circumstances of those whom he addressed, had the expected weight with the nobles of Prince John's faction. Most of them consented to attend the proposed meeting at York, for the purpose of making general arrangements for placing the crown upon the head of Prince John. It was late at night, when, worn out and exhausted with his various exertions, however gratified with the result, Fitzurse, returning to the Castle of Ashby, met with De Bracy, who had exchanged his banqueting garments for a short green kirtle, with hose of the same cloth and colour, a leathern cap or head-piece, a short sword, a horn slung over his shoulder, a long bow in his hand, and a bundle of arrows stuck in his belt. Had Fitzurse met this figure in an outer apartment, he would have passed him without notice, as one of the yeomen of the guard; but finding him in the inner hall, he looked at him with more attention, and recognised the Norman knight in the dress of an English yeoman. "What mummery is this, De Bracy?" said Fitzurse, somewhat angrily; "is this a time for Christmas gambols and quaint maskings, when the fate of our master, Prince John, is on the very verge of decision? Why hast thou not been, like me, among these heartless cravens, whom the very name of King Richard terrifies, as it is said to do the children of the Saracens?" "I have been attending to mine own business," answered De Bracy calmly, "as you, Fitzurse, have been minding yours." "I minding mine own business!" echoed Waldemar; "I have been engaged in that of Prince John, our joint patron." "As if thou hadst any other reason for that, Waldemar," said De Bracy, "than the promotion of thine own individual interest? Come, Fitzurse, we know each other--ambition is thy pursuit, pleasure is mine, and they become our different ages. Of Prince John thou thinkest as I do; that he is too weak to be a determined monarch, too tyrannical to be an easy monarch, too insolent and presumptuous to be a popular monarch, and too fickle and timid to be long a monarch of any kind. But he is a monarch by whom Fitzurse and De Bracy hope to rise and thrive; and therefore you aid him with your policy, and I with the lances of my Free Companions." "A hopeful auxiliary," said Fitzurse impatiently; "playing the fool in the very moment of utter necessity.--What on earth dost thou purpose by this absurd disguise at a moment so urgent?" "To get me a wife," answered De Bracy coolly, "after the manner of the tribe of Benjamin." "The tribe of Benjamin?" said Fitzurse; "I comprehend thee not." "Wert thou not in presence yester-even," said De Bracy, "when we heard the Prior Aymer tell us a tale in reply to the romance which was sung by the Minstrel?--He told how, long since in Palestine, a deadly feud arose between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the Israelitish nation; and how they cut to pieces well-nigh all the chivalry of that tribe; and how they swore by our blessed Lady, that they would not permit those who remained to marry in their lineage; and how they became grieved for their vow, and sent to consult his holiness the Pope how they might be absolved from it; and how, by the advice of the Holy Father, the youth of the tribe of Benjamin carried off from a superb tournament all the ladies who were there present, and thus won them wives without the consent either of their brides or their brides' families." "I have heard the story," said Fitzurse, "though either the Prior or thou has made some singular alterations in date and circumstances." "I tell thee," said De Bracy, "that I mean to purvey me a wife after the fashion of the tribe of Benjamin; which is as much as to say, that in this same equipment I will fall upon that herd of Saxon bullocks, who have this night left the castle, and carry off from them the lovely Rowena." "Art thou mad, De Bracy?" said Fitzurse. "Bethink thee that, though the men be Saxons, they are rich and powerful, and regarded with the more respect by their countrymen, that wealth and honour are but the lot of few of Saxon descent." "And should belong to none," said De Bracy; "the work of the Conquest should be completed." "This is no time for it at least," said Fitzurse "the approaching crisis renders the favour of the multitude indispensable, and Prince John cannot refuse justice to any one who injures their favourites." "Let him grant it, if he dare," said De Bracy; "he will soon see the difference betwixt the support of such a lusty lot of spears as mine, and that of a heartless mob of Saxon churls. Yet I mean no immediate discovery of myself. Seem I not in this garb as bold a forester as ever blew horn? The blame of the violence shall rest with the outlaws of the Yorkshire forests. I have sure spies on the Saxon's motions--To-night they sleep in the convent of Saint Wittol, or Withold, or whatever they call that churl of a Saxon Saint at Burton-on-Trent. Next day's march brings them within our reach, and, falcon-ways, we swoop on them at once. Presently after I will appear in mine own shape, play the courteous knight, rescue the unfortunate and afflicted fair one from the hands of the rude ravishers, conduct her to Front-de-Boeuf's Castle, or to Normandy, if it should be necessary, and produce her not again to her kindred until she be the bride and dame of Maurice de Bracy." "A marvellously sage plan," said Fitzurse, "and, as I think, not entirely of thine own device.--Come, be frank, De Bracy, who aided thee in the invention? and who is to assist in the execution? for, as I think, thine own band lies as far off as York." "Marry, if thou must needs know," said De Bracy, "it was the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert that shaped out the enterprise, which the adventure of the men of Benjamin suggested to me. He is to aid me in the onslaught, and he and his followers will personate the outlaws, from whom my valorous arm is, after changing my garb, to rescue the lady." "By my halidome," said Fitzurse, "the plan was worthy of your united wisdom! and thy prudence, De Bracy, is most especially manifested in the project of leaving the lady in the hands of thy worthy confederate. Thou mayst, I think, succeed in taking her from her Saxon friends, but how thou wilt rescue her afterwards from the clutches of Bois-Guilbert seems considerably more doubtful--He is a falcon well accustomed to pounce on a partridge, and to hold his prey fast." "He is a Templar," said De Bracy, "and cannot therefore rival me in my plan of wedding this heiress;--and to attempt aught dishonourable against the intended bride of De Bracy--By Heaven! were he a whole Chapter of his Order in his single person, he dared not do me such an injury!" "Then since nought that I can say," said Fitzurse, "will put this folly from thy imagination, (for well I know the obstinacy of thy disposition,) at least waste as little time as possible--let not thy folly be lasting as well as untimely." "I tell thee," answered De Bracy, "that it will be the work of a few hours, and I shall be at York--at the head of my daring and valorous fellows, as ready to support any bold design as thy policy can be to form one.--But I hear my comrades assembling, and the steeds stamping and neighing in the outer court.--Farewell.--I go, like a true knight, to win the smiles of beauty." "Like a true knight?" repeated Fitzurse, looking after him; "like a fool, I should say, or like a child, who will leave the most serious and needful occupation, to chase the down of the thistle that drives past him.--But it is with such tools that I must work;--and for whose advantage?--For that of a Prince as unwise as he is profligate, and as likely to be an ungrateful master as he has already proved a rebellious son and an unnatural brother.--But he--he, too, is but one of the tools with which I labour; and, proud as he is, should he presume to separate his interest from mine, this is a secret which he shall soon learn." The meditations of the statesman were here interrupted by the voice of the Prince from an interior apartment, calling out, "Noble Waldemar Fitzurse!" and, with bonnet doffed, the future Chancellor (for to such high preferment did the wily Norman aspire) hastened to receive the orders of the future sovereign. Kannst du eine passende 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.

Waldemar Fitzurse nutzt all seine politische Geschicklichkeit, um die Unterstützer von Prinz John zu mobilisieren. Sie planen, ihn zum König zu machen. Fitzurse trifft dann auf De Bracy, der wie ein Jäger gekleidet ist und einen Langbogen trägt. De Bracy sagt, dass er plant, die Begleitung von Cedric anzugreifen und Rowena als seine Braut zu entführen. Aufgrund seiner Verkleidung wird die Entführung den Gesetzlosen des Waldes angelastet werden. Anschließend plant er, wieder in seiner üblichen Kleidung aufzutreten und Rowena zu retten. Er beabsichtigt, sie zum Schloss von Front-de-Boeuf oder nach Normandie zu begleiten und sie zu heiraten. De Bois-Guilbert soll bei diesem Plan helfen; er und seine Männer werden sich ebenfalls als Gesetzlose verkleiden.

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: When the woods again began to pour forth the dark-hued masses of the enemy the youth felt serene self-confidence. He smiled briefly when he saw men dodge and duck at the long screechings of shells that were thrown in giant handfuls over them. He stood, erect and tranquil, watching the attack begin against a part of the line that made a blue curve along the side of an adjacent hill. His vision being unmolested by smoke from the rifles of his companions, he had opportunities to see parts of the hard fight. It was a relief to perceive at last from whence came some of these noises which had been roared into his ears. Off a short way he saw two regiments fighting a little separate battle with two other regiments. It was in a cleared space, wearing a set-apart look. They were blazing as if upon a wager, giving and taking tremendous blows. The firings were incredibly fierce and rapid. These intent regiments apparently were oblivious of all larger purposes of war, and were slugging each other as if at a matched game. In another direction he saw a magnificent brigade going with the evident intention of driving the enemy from a wood. They passed in out of sight and presently there was a most awe-inspiring racket in the wood. The noise was unspeakable. Having stirred this prodigious uproar, and, apparently, finding it too prodigious, the brigade, after a little time, came marching airily out again with its fine formation in nowise disturbed. There were no traces of speed in its movements. The brigade was jaunty and seemed to point a proud thumb at the yelling wood. On a slope to the left there was a long row of guns, gruff and maddened, denouncing the enemy, who, down through the woods, were forming for another attack in the pitiless monotony of conflicts. The round red discharges from the guns made a crimson flare and a high, thick smoke. Occasional glimpses could be caught of groups of the toiling artillerymen. In the rear of this row of guns stood a house, calm and white, amid bursting shells. A congregation of horses, tied to a long railing, were tugging frenziedly at their bridles. Men were running hither and thither. The detached battle between the four regiments lasted for some time. There chanced to be no interference, and they settled their dispute by themselves. They struck savagely and powerfully at each other for a period of minutes, and then the lighter-hued regiments faltered and drew back, leaving the dark-blue lines shouting. The youth could see the two flags shaking with laughter amid the smoke remnants. Presently there was a stillness, pregnant with meaning. The blue lines shifted and changed a trifle and stared expectantly at the silent woods and fields before them. The hush was solemn and churchlike, save for a distant battery that, evidently unable to remain quiet, sent a faint rolling thunder over the ground. It irritated, like the noises of unimpressed boys. The men imagined that it would prevent their perched ears from hearing the first words of the new battle. Of a sudden the guns on the slope roared out a message of warning. A spluttering sound had begun in the woods. It swelled with amazing speed to a profound clamor that involved the earth in noises. The splitting crashes swept along the lines until an interminable roar was developed. To those in the midst of it it became a din fitted to the universe. It was the whirring and thumping of gigantic machinery, complications among the smaller stars. The youth's ears were filled up. They were incapable of hearing more. On an incline over which a road wound he saw wild and desperate rushes of men perpetually backward and forward in riotous surges. These parts of the opposing armies were two long waves that pitched upon each other madly at dictated points. To and fro they swelled. Sometimes, one side by its yells and cheers would proclaim decisive blows, but a moment later the other side would be all yells and cheers. Once the youth saw a spray of light forms go in houndlike leaps toward the waving blue lines. There was much howling, and presently it went away with a vast mouthful of prisoners. Again, he saw a blue wave dash with such thunderous force against a gray obstruction that it seemed to clear the earth of it and leave nothing but trampled sod. And always in their swift and deadly rushes to and fro the men screamed and yelled like maniacs. Particular pieces of fence or secure positions behind collections of trees were wrangled over, as gold thrones or pearl bedsteads. There were desperate lunges at these chosen spots seemingly every instant, and most of them were bandied like light toys between the contending forces. The youth could not tell from the battle flags flying like crimson foam in many directions which color of cloth was winning. His emaciated regiment bustled forth with undiminished fierceness when its time came. When assaulted again by bullets, the men burst out in a barbaric cry of rage and pain. They bent their heads in aims of intent hatred behind the projected hammers of their guns. Their ramrods clanged loud with fury as their eager arms pounded the cartridges into the rifle barrels. The front of the regiment was a smoke-wall penetrated by the flashing points of yellow and red. Wallowing in the fight, they were in an astonishingly short time resmudged. They surpassed in stain and dirt all their previous appearances. Moving to and fro with strained exertion, jabbering the while, they were, with their swaying bodies, black faces, and glowing eyes, like strange and ugly friends jigging heavily in the smoke. The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a hidden receptacle of his mind new and portentous oaths suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lashlike over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in nowise impaired his resources. The youth, still the bearer of the colors, did not feel his idleness. He was deeply absorbed as a spectator. The crash and swing of the great drama made him lean forward, intent-eyed, his face working in small contortions. Sometimes he prattled, words coming unconsciously from him in grotesque exclamations. He did not know that he breathed; that the flag hung silently over him, so absorbed was he. A formidable line of the enemy came within dangerous range. They could be seen plainly--tall, gaunt men with excited faces running with long strides toward a wandering fence. At sight of this danger the men suddenly ceased their cursing monotone. There was an instant of strained silence before they threw up their rifles and fired a plumping volley at the foes. There had been no order given; the men, upon recognizing the menace, had immediately let drive their flock of bullets without waiting for word of command. But the enemy were quick to gain the protection of the wandering line of fence. They slid down behind it with remarkable celerity, and from this position they began briskly to slice up the blue men. These latter braced their energies for a great struggle. Often, white clinched teeth shone from the dusky faces. Many heads surged to and fro, floating upon a pale sea of smoke. Those behind the fence frequently shouted and yelped in taunts and gibelike cries, but the regiment maintained a stressed silence. Perhaps, at this new assault the men recalled the fact that they had been named mud diggers, and it made their situation thrice bitter. They were breathlessly intent upon keeping the ground and thrusting away the rejoicing body of the enemy. They fought swiftly and with a despairing savageness denoted in their expressions. The youth had resolved not to budge whatever should happen. Some arrows of scorn that had buried themselves in his heart had generated strange and unspeakable hatred. It was clear to him that his final and absolute revenge was to be achieved by his dead body lying, torn and gluttering, upon the field. This was to be a poignant retaliation upon the officer who had said "mule drivers," and later "mud diggers," for in all the wild graspings of his mind for a unit responsible for his sufferings and commotions he always seized upon the man who had dubbed him wrongly. And it was his idea, vaguely formulated, that his corpse would be for those eyes a great and salt reproach. The regiment bled extravagantly. Grunting bundles of blue began to drop. The orderly sergeant of the youth's company was shot through the cheeks. Its supports being injured, his jaw hung afar down, disclosing in the wide cavern of his mouth a pulsing mass of blood and teeth. And with it all he made attempts to cry out. In his endeavor there was a dreadful earnestness, as if he conceived that one great shriek would make him well. The youth saw him presently go rearward. His strength seemed in nowise impaired. He ran swiftly, casting wild glances for succor. Others fell down about the feet of their companions. Some of the wounded crawled out and away, but many lay still, their bodies twisted into impossible shapes. The youth looked once for his friend. He saw a vehement young man, powder-smeared and frowzled, whom he knew to be him. The lieutenant, also, was unscathed in his position at the rear. He had continued to curse, but it was now with the air of a man who was using his last box of oaths. For the fire of the regiment had begun to wane and drip. The robust voice, that had come strangely from the thin ranks, was growing rapidly weak. 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.

Henry und die Männer ruhen sich kurz aus. Dann beginnen Gewehre und Kanonen zu toben und die Soldaten sind wieder mittendrin. Henry ist jetzt offizieller Fahnenträger. Das Regiment ist zu müde, um so schnell wieder zu kämpfen. Plötzlich sind die Truppen den Konföderierten so nahe, dass sie sie zum ersten Mal sehen können. Das verwandelt die Maultiertreiber in Maultierschlächter. Henry ist so aufgedreht, dass er glaubt, er sollte auf diesem Schlachtfeld sterben, nur um den "Maultiertreiber" zu ärgern. Es freut ihn zu sehen, dass Wilson und der Leutnant noch nicht angeschossen wurden.

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 WHEN he was away from her, while he kicked about the garage and swept the snow off the running-board and examined a cracked hose-connection, he repented, he was alarmed and astonished that he could have flared out at his wife, and thought fondly how much more lasting she was than the flighty Bunch. He went in to mumble that he was "sorry, didn't mean to be grouchy," and to inquire as to her interest in movies. But in the darkness of the movie theater he brooded that he'd "gone and tied himself up to Myra all over again." He had some satisfaction in taking it out on Tanis Judique. "Hang Tanis anyway! Why'd she gone and got him into these mix-ups and made him all jumpy and nervous and cranky? Too many complications! Cut 'em out!" He wanted peace. For ten days he did not see Tanis nor telephone to her, and instantly she put upon him the compulsion which he hated. When he had stayed away from her for five days, hourly taking pride in his resoluteness and hourly picturing how greatly Tanis must miss him, Miss McGoun reported, "Mrs. Judique on the 'phone. Like t' speak t' you 'bout some repairs." Tanis was quick and quiet: "Mr. Babbitt? Oh, George, this is Tanis. I haven't seen you for weeks--days, anyway. You aren't sick, are you?" "No, just been terribly rushed. I, uh, I think there'll be a big revival of building this year. Got to, uh, got to work hard." "Of course, my man! I want you to. You know I'm terribly ambitious for you; much more than I am for myself. I just don't want you to forget poor Tanis. Will you call me up soon?" "Sure! Sure! You bet!" "Please do. I sha'n't call you again." He meditated, "Poor kid! . . . But gosh, she oughtn't to 'phone me at the office.... She's a wonder--sympathy 'ambitious for me.' . . . But gosh, I won't be made and compelled to call her up till I get ready. Darn these women, the way they make demands! It'll be one long old time before I see her! . . . But gosh, I'd like to see her to-night--sweet little thing.... Oh, cut that, son! Now you've broken away, be wise!" She did not telephone again, nor he, but after five more days she wrote to him: Have I offended you? You must know, dear, I didn't mean to. I'm so lonely and I need somebody to cheer me up. Why didn't you come to the nice party we had at Carrie's last evening I remember she invited you. Can't you come around here to-morrow Thur evening? I shall be alone and hope to see you. His reflections were numerous: "Doggone it, why can't she let me alone? Why can't women ever learn a fellow hates to be bulldozed? And they always take advantage of you by yelling how lonely they are. "Now that isn't nice of you, young fella. She's a fine, square, straight girl, and she does get lonely. She writes a swell hand. Nice-looking stationery. Plain. Refined. I guess I'll have to go see her. Well, thank God, I got till to-morrow night free of her, anyway. "She's nice but--Hang it, I won't be MADE to do things! I'm not married to her. No, nor by golly going to be! "Oh, rats, I suppose I better go see her." II Thursday, the to-morrow of Tanis's note, was full of emotional crises. At the Roughnecks' Table at the club, Verg Gunch talked of the Good Citizens' League and (it seemed to Babbitt) deliberately left him out of the invitations to join. Old Mat Penniman, the general utility man at Babbitt's office, had Troubles, and came in to groan about them: his oldest boy was "no good," his wife was sick, and he had quarreled with his brother-in-law. Conrad Lyte also had Troubles, and since Lyte was one of his best clients, Babbitt had to listen to them. Mr. Lyte, it appeared, was suffering from a peculiarly interesting neuralgia, and the garage had overcharged him. When Babbitt came home, everybody had Troubles: his wife was simultaneously thinking about discharging the impudent new maid, and worried lest the maid leave; and Tinka desired to denounce her teacher. "Oh, quit fussing!" Babbitt fussed. "You never hear me whining about my Troubles, and yet if you had to run a real-estate office--Why, to-day I found Miss Bannigan was two days behind with her accounts, and I pinched my finger in my desk, and Lyte was in and just as unreasonable as ever." He was so vexed that after dinner, when it was time for a tactful escape to Tanis, he merely grumped to his wife, "Got to go out. Be back by eleven, should think." "Oh! You're going out again?" "Again! What do you mean 'again'! Haven't hardly been out of the house for a week!" "Are you--are you going to the Elks?" "Nope. Got to see some people." Though this time he heard his own voice and knew that it was curt, though she was looking at him with wide-eyed reproach, he stumped into the hall, jerked on his ulster and furlined gloves, and went out to start the car. He was relieved to find Tanis cheerful, unreproachful, and brilliant in a frock of brown net over gold tissue. "You poor man, having to come out on a night like this! It's terribly cold. Don't you think a small highball would be nice?" "Now, by golly, there's a woman with savvy! I think we could more or less stand a highball if it wasn't too long a one--not over a foot tall!" He kissed her with careless heartiness, he forgot the compulsion of her demands, he stretched in a large chair and felt that he had beautifully come home. He was suddenly loquacious; he told her what a noble and misunderstood man he was, and how superior to Pete, Fulton Bemis, and the other men of their acquaintance; and she, bending forward, chin in charming hand, brightly agreed. But when he forced himself to ask, "Well, honey, how's things with YOU," she took his duty-question seriously, and he discovered that she too had Troubles: "Oh, all right but--I did get so angry with Carrie. She told Minnie that I told her that Minnie was an awful tightwad, and Minnie told me Carrie had told her, and of course I told her I hadn't said anything of the kind, and then Carrie found Minnie had told me, and she was simply furious because Minnie had told me, and of course I was just boiling because Carrie had told her I'd told her, and then we all met up at Fulton's--his wife is away--thank heavens!--oh, there's the dandiest floor in his house to dance on--and we were all of us simply furious at each other and--Oh, I do hate that kind of a mix-up, don't you? I mean--it's so lacking in refinement, but--And Mother wants to come and stay with me for a whole month, and of course I do love her, I suppose I do, but honestly, she'll cramp my style something dreadful--she never can learn not to comment, and she always wants to know where I'm going when I go out evenings, and if I lie to her she always spies around and ferrets around and finds out where I've been, and then she looks like Patience on a Monument till I could just scream. And oh, I MUST tell you--You know I never talk about myself; I just hate people who do, don't you? But--I feel so stupid to-night, and I know I must be boring you with all this but--What would you do about Mother?" He gave her facile masculine advice. She was to put off her mother's stay. She was to tell Carrie to go to the deuce. For these valuable revelations she thanked him, and they ambled into the familiar gossip of the Bunch. Of what a sentimental fool was Carrie. Of what a lazy brat was Pete. Of how nice Fulton Bemis could be--"course lots of people think he's a regular old grouch when they meet him because he doesn't give 'em the glad hand the first crack out of the box, but when they get to know him, he's a corker." Aber da sie bereits jede dieser Analysen gewissenhaft durchgegangen waren, stockte das Gespräch. Babbitt versuchte intellektuell zu sein und sich mit allgemeinen Themen zu befassen. Er sagte einige wirklich vernünftige Dinge über Abrüstung, Toleranz und Liberalismus; aber ihm schien, dass allgemeine Themen Tanis nur interessierten, wenn sie sie auf Pete, Carrie oder sie selbst anwenden konnte. Er war alarmierend bewusst von ihrer Stille. Er versuchte, sie wieder zum Plaudern zu bringen, aber die Stille breitete sich wie eine graue Präsenz aus und schwebte zwischen ihnen. "Ich, äh -" er kämpfte. "Es fällt mir auf - es fällt mir auf, dass die Arbeitslosigkeit abnimmt." "Vielleicht bekommt Pete dann einen anständigen Job." Stille. Verzweifelt versuchte er es: "Was ist los, alte Liebste? Du scheinst heute Abend irgendwie ruhig zu sein." "Bin ich? Ach, das bin ich nicht. Aber - intere Können Sie 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.

Obwohl George versucht, Tanis zu meiden und die Affäre zu beenden, zieht sie ihn immer wieder mit Telefonanrufen und Briefen zurück. Obwohl er seinen Verpflichtungen gegenüber ihr gegenüber abgeneigt ist, geht er zu ihr. Sofort ist er von ihrem Mitgefühl und grenzenlosem Interesse an ihm fasziniert, aber er wird entmutigt, als sie anfängt, über ihre eigenen Probleme zu sprechen, die sich um belanglose Missverständnisse unter ihren Freunden drehen. Das Gespräch flaut ab und Tanis enthüllt plötzlich ihre Angst, dass Babbitt sie nicht liebt. Sie zwingt ihn, ihr seine Liebe zu versichern, und dieser Druck beschädigt seine Anziehungskraft und macht ihn flüchten wollen. Er bricht die Affäre abrupt ab, fühlt sich schuldig, Tanis verletzt zu haben, aber er freut sich wieder über seine Freiheit.

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: When the inmates of the house, attracted by Oliver's cries, hurried to the spot from which they proceeded, they found him, pale and agitated, pointing in the direction of the meadows behind the house, and scarcely able to articulate the words, 'The Jew! the Jew!' Mr. Giles was at a loss to comprehend what this outcry meant; but Harry Maylie, whose perceptions were something quicker, and who had heard Oliver's history from his mother, understood it at once. 'What direction did he take?' he asked, catching up a heavy stick which was standing in a corner. 'That,' replied Oliver, pointing out the course the man had taken; 'I missed them in an instant.' 'Then, they are in the ditch!' said Harry. 'Follow! And keep as near me, as you can.' So saying, he sprang over the hedge, and darted off with a speed which rendered it matter of exceeding difficulty for the others to keep near him. Giles followed as well as he could; and Oliver followed too; and in the course of a minute or two, Mr. Losberne, who had been out walking, and just then returned, tumbled over the hedge after them, and picking himself up with more agility than he could have been supposed to possess, struck into the same course at no contemptible speed, shouting all the while, most prodigiously, to know what was the matter. On they all went; nor stopped they once to breathe, until the leader, striking off into an angle of the field indicated by Oliver, began to search, narrowly, the ditch and hedge adjoining; which afforded time for the remainder of the party to come up; and for Oliver to communicate to Mr. Losberne the circumstances that had led to so vigorous a pursuit. The search was all in vain. There were not even the traces of recent footsteps, to be seen. They stood now, on the summit of a little hill, commanding the open fields in every direction for three or four miles. There was the village in the hollow on the left; but, in order to gain that, after pursuing the track Oliver had pointed out, the men must have made a circuit of open ground, which it was impossible they could have accomplished in so short a time. A thick wood skirted the meadow-land in another direction; but they could not have gained that covert for the same reason. 'It must have been a dream, Oliver,' said Harry Maylie. 'Oh no, indeed, sir,' replied Oliver, shuddering at the very recollection of the old wretch's countenance; 'I saw him too plainly for that. I saw them both, as plainly as I see you now.' 'Who was the other?' inquired Harry and Mr. Losberne, together. 'The very same man I told you of, who came so suddenly upon me at the inn,' said Oliver. 'We had our eyes fixed full upon each other; and I could swear to him.' 'They took this way?' demanded Harry: 'are you sure?' 'As I am that the men were at the window,' replied Oliver, pointing down, as he spoke, to the hedge which divided the cottage-garden from the meadow. 'The tall man leaped over, just there; and the Jew, running a few paces to the right, crept through that gap.' The two gentlemen watched Oliver's earnest face, as he spoke, and looking from him to each other, seemed to feel satisfied of the accuracy of what he said. Still, in no direction were there any appearances of the trampling of men in hurried flight. The grass was long; but it was trodden down nowhere, save where their own feet had crushed it. The sides and brinks of the ditches were of damp clay; but in no one place could they discern the print of men's shoes, or the slightest mark which would indicate that any feet had pressed the ground for hours before. 'This is strange!' said Harry. 'Strange?' echoed the doctor. 'Blathers and Duff, themselves, could make nothing of it.' Notwithstanding the evidently useless nature of their search, they did not desist until the coming on of night rendered its further prosecution hopeless; and even then, they gave it up with reluctance. Giles was dispatched to the different ale-houses in the village, furnished with the best description Oliver could give of the appearance and dress of the strangers. Of these, the Jew was, at all events, sufficiently remarkable to be remembered, supposing he had been seen drinking, or loitering about; but Giles returned without any intelligence, calculated to dispel or lessen the mystery. On the next day, fresh search was made, and the inquiries renewed; but with no better success. On the day following, Oliver and Mr. Maylie repaired to the market-town, in the hope of seeing or hearing something of the men there; but this effort was equally fruitless. After a few days, the affair began to be forgotten, as most affairs are, when wonder, having no fresh food to support it, dies away of itself. Meanwhile, Rose was rapidly recovering. She had left her room: was able to go out; and mixing once more with the family, carried joy into the hearts of all. But, although this happy change had a visible effect on the little circle; and although cheerful voices and merry laughter were once more heard in the cottage; there was at times, an unwonted restraint upon some there: even upon Rose herself: which Oliver could not fail to remark. Mrs. Maylie and her son were often closeted together for a long time; and more than once Rose appeared with traces of tears upon her face. After Mr. Losberne had fixed a day for his departure to Chertsey, these symptoms increased; and it became evident that something was in progress which affected the peace of the young lady, and of somebody else besides. At length, one morning, when Rose was alone in the breakfast-parlour, Harry Maylie entered; and, with some hesitation, begged permission to speak with her for a few moments. 'A few--a very few--will suffice, Rose,' said the young man, drawing his chair towards her. 'What I shall have to say, has already presented itself to your mind; the most cherished hopes of my heart are not unknown to you, though from my lips you have not heard them stated.' Rose had been very pale from the moment of his entrance; but that might have been the effect of her recent illness. She merely bowed; and bending over some plants that stood near, waited in silence for him to proceed. 'I--I--ought to have left here, before,' said Harry. 'You should, indeed,' replied Rose. 'Forgive me for saying so, but I wish you had.' 'I was brought here, by the most dreadful and agonising of all apprehensions,' said the young man; 'the fear of losing the one dear being on whom my every wish and hope are fixed. You had been dying; trembling between earth and heaven. We know that when the young, the beautiful, and good, are visited with sickness, their pure spirits insensibly turn towards their bright home of lasting rest; we know, Heaven help us! that the best and fairest of our kind, too often fade in blooming.' There were tears in the eyes of the gentle girl, as these words were spoken; and when one fell upon the flower over which she bent, and glistened brightly in its cup, making it more beautiful, it seemed as though the outpouring of her fresh young heart, claimed kindred naturally, with the loveliest things in nature. 'A creature,' continued the young man, passionately, 'a creature as fair and innocent of guile as one of God's own angels, fluttered between life and death. Oh! who could hope, when the distant world to which she was akin, half opened to her view, that she would return to the sorrow and calamity of this! Rose, Rose, to know that you were passing away like some soft shadow, which a light from above, casts upon the earth; to have no hope that you would be spared to those who linger here; hardly to know a reason why you should be; to feel that you belonged to that bright sphere whither so many of the fairest and the best have winged their early flight; and yet to pray, amid all these consolations, that you might be restored to those who loved you--these were distractions almost too great to bear. They were mine, by day and night; and with them, came such a rushing torrent of fears, and apprehensions, and selfish regrets, lest you should die, and never know how devotedly I loved you, as almost bore down sense and reason in its course. You recovered. Day by day, and almost hour by hour, some drop of health came back, and mingling with the spent and feeble stream of life which circulated languidly within you, swelled it again to a high and rushing tide. I have watched you change almost from death, to life, with eyes that turned blind with their eagerness and deep affection. Do not tell me that you wish I had lost this; for it has softened my heart to all mankind.' 'I did not mean that,' said Rose, weeping; 'I only wish you had left here, that you might have turned to high and noble pursuits again; to pursuits well worthy of you.' 'There is no pursuit more worthy of me: more worthy of the highest nature that exists: than the struggle to win such a heart as yours,' said the young man, taking her hand. 'Rose, my own dear Rose! For years--for years--I have loved you; hoping to win my way to fame, and then come proudly home and tell you it had been pursued only for you to share; thinking, in my daydreams, how I would remind you, in that happy moment, of the many silent tokens I had given of a boy's attachment, and claim your hand, as in redemption of some old mute contract that had been sealed between us! That time has not arrived; but here, with not fame won, and no young vision realised, I offer you the heart so long your own, and stake my all upon the words with which you greet the offer.' 'Your behaviour has ever been kind and noble.' said Rose, mastering the emotions by which she was agitated. 'As you believe that I am not insensible or ungrateful, so hear my answer.' 'It is, that I may endeavour to deserve you; it is, dear Rose?' 'It is,' replied Rose, 'that you must endeavour to forget me; not as your old and dearly-attached companion, for that would wound me deeply; but, as the object of your love. Look into the world; think how many hearts you would be proud to gain, are there. Confide some other passion to me, if you will; I will be the truest, warmest, and most faithful friend you have.' There was a pause, during which, Rose, who had covered her face with one hand, gave free vent to her tears. Harry still retained the other. 'And your reasons, Rose,' he said, at length, in a low voice; 'your reasons for this decision?' 'You have a right to know them,' rejoined Rose. 'You can say nothing to alter my resolution. It is a duty that I must perform. I owe it, alike to others, and to myself.' 'To yourself?' 'Yes, Harry. I owe it to myself, that I, a friendless, portionless, girl, with a blight upon my name, should not give your friends reason to suspect that I had sordidly yielded to your first passion, and fastened myself, a clog, on all your hopes and projects. I owe it to you and yours, to prevent you from opposing, in the warmth of your generous nature, this great obstacle to your progress in the world.' 'If your inclinations chime with your sense of duty--' Harry began. 'They do not,' replied Rose, colouring deeply. 'Then you return my love?' said Harry. 'Say but that, dear Rose; say but that; and soften the bitterness of this hard disappointment!' 'If I could have done so, without doing heavy wrong to him I loved,' rejoined Rose, 'I could have--' 'Have received this declaration very differently?' said Harry. 'Do not conceal that from me, at least, Rose.' 'I could,' said Rose. 'Stay!' she added, disengaging her hand, 'why should we prolong this painful interview? Most painful to me, and yet productive of lasting happiness, notwithstanding; for it _will_ be happiness to know that I once held the high place in your regard which I now occupy, and every triumph you achieve in life will animate me with new fortitude and firmness. Farewell, Harry! As we have met to-day, we meet no more; but in other relations than those in which this conversation have placed us, we may be long and happily entwined; and may every blessing that the prayers of a true and earnest heart can call down from the source of all truth and sincerity, cheer and prosper you!' 'Another word, Rose,' said Harry. 'Your reason in your own words. From your own lips, let me hear it!' 'The prospect before you,' answered Rose, firmly, 'is a brilliant one. All the honours to which great talents and powerful connections can help men in public life, are in store for you. But those connections are proud; and I will neither mingle with such as may hold in scorn the mother who gave me life; nor bring disgrace or failure on the son of her who has so well supplied that mother's place. In a word,' said the young lady, turning away, as her temporary firmness forsook her, 'there is a stain upon my name, which the world visits on innocent heads. I will carry it into no blood but my own; and the reproach shall rest alone on me.' 'One word more, Rose. Dearest Rose! one more!' cried Harry, throwing himself before her. 'If I had been less--less fortunate, the world would call it--if some obscure and peaceful life had been my destiny--if I had been poor, sick, helpless--would you have turned from me then? Or has my probable advancement to riches and honour, given this scruple birth?' 'Do not press me to reply,' answered Rose. 'The question does not arise, and never will. It is unfair, almost unkind, to urge it.' 'If your answer be what I almost dare to hope it is,' retorted Harry, 'it will shed a gleam of happiness upon my lonely way, and light the path before me. It is not an idle thing to do so much, by the utterance of a few brief words, for one who loves you beyond all else. Oh, Rose: in the name of my ardent and enduring attachment; in the name of all I have suffered for you, and all you doom me to undergo; answer me this one question!' 'Then, if your lot had been differently cast,' rejoined Rose; 'if you had been even a little, but not so far, above me; if I could have been a help and comfort to you in any humble scene of peace and retirement, and not a blot and drawback in ambitious and distinguished crowds; I should have been spared this trial. I have every reason to be happy, very happy, now; but then, Harry, I own I should have been happier.' Busy recollections of old hopes, cherished as a girl, long ago, crowded into the mind of Rose, while making this avowal; but they brought tears with them, as old hopes will when they come back withered; and they relieved her. 'I cannot help this weakness, and it makes my purpose stronger,' said Rose, extending her hand. 'I must leave you now, indeed.' 'I ask one promise,' said Harry. 'Once, and only once more,--say within a year, but it may be much sooner,--I may speak to you again on this subject, for the last time.' 'Not to press me to alter my right determination,' replied Rose, with a melancholy smile; 'it will be useless.' 'No,' said Harry; 'to hear you repeat it, if you will--finally repeat it! I will lay at your feet, whatever of station of fortune I may possess; and if you still adhere to your present resolution, will not seek, by word or act, to change it.' 'Then let it be so,' rejoined Rose; 'it is but one pang the more, and by that time I may be enabled to bear it better.' She extended her hand again. But the young man caught her to his bosom; and imprinting one kiss on her beautiful forehead, hurried from the room. 'And so you are resolved to be my travelling companion this morning; eh?' said the doctor, as Harry Maylie joined him and Oliver at the breakfast-table. 'Why, you are not in the same mind or intention two half-hours together!' 'You will tell me a different tale one of these days,' said Harry, colouring without any perceptible reason. 'I hope I may have good cause to do so,' replied Mr. Losberne; 'though I confess I don't think I shall. But yesterday morning you had made up your mind, in a great hurry, to stay here, and to accompany your mother, like a dutiful son, to the sea-side. Before noon, you announce that you are going to do me the honour of accompanying me as far as I go, on your road to London. And at night, you urge me, with great mystery, to start before the ladies are stirring; the consequence of which is, that young Oliver here is pinned down to his breakfast when he ought to be ranging the meadows after botanical phenomena of all kinds. Too bad, isn't it, Oliver?' 'I should have been very sorry not to have been at home when you and Mr. Maylie went away, sir,' rejoined Oliver. 'That's a fine fellow,' said the doctor; 'you shall come and see me when you return. But, to speak seriously, Harry; has any communication from the great nobs produced this sudden anxiety on your part to be gone?' 'The great nobs,' replied Harry, 'under which designation, I presume, you include my most stately uncle, have not communicated with me at all, since I have been here; nor, at this time of the year, is it likely that anything would occur to render necessary my immediate attendance among them.' 'Well,' said the doctor, 'you are a queer fellow. But of course they will get you into parliament at the election before Christmas, and these sudden shiftings and changes are no bad preparation for political life. There's something in that. Good training is always desirable, whether the race be for place, cup, or sweepstakes.' Harry Maylie looked as if he could have followed up this short dialogue by one or two remarks that would have staggered the doctor not a little; but he contented himself with saying, 'We shall see,' and pursued the subject no farther. The post-chaise drove up to the door shortly afterwards; and Giles coming in for the luggage, the good doctor bustled out, to see it packed. 'Oliver,' said Harry Maylie, in a low voice, 'let me speak a word with you.' Oliver walked into the window-recess to which Mr. Maylie beckoned him; much surprised at the mixture of sadness and boisterous spirits, which his whole behaviour displayed. 'You can write well now?' said Harry, laying his hand upon his arm. 'I hope so, sir,' replied Oliver. 'I shall not be at home again, perhaps for some time; I wish you would write to me--say once a fort-night: every alternate Monday: to the General Post Office in London. Will you?' 'Oh! certainly, sir; I shall be proud to do it,' exclaimed Oliver, greatly delighted with the commission. 'I should like to know how--how my mother and Miss Maylie are,' said the young man; 'and you can fill up a sheet by telling me what walks you take, and what you talk about, and whether she--they, I mean--seem happy and quite well. You understand me?' 'Oh! quite, sir, quite,' replied Oliver. 'I would rather you did not mention it to them,' said Harry, hurrying over his words; 'because it might make my mother anxious to write to me oftener, and it is a trouble and worry to her. Let it be a secret between you and me; and mind you tell me everything! I depend upon you.' Oliver, quite elated and honoured by a sense of his importance, faithfully promised to be secret and explicit in his communications. Mr. Maylie took leave of him, with many assurances of his regard and protection. The doctor was in the chaise; Giles (who, it had been arranged, should be left behind) held the door open in his hand; and the women-servants were in the garden, looking on. Harry cast one slight glance at the latticed window, and jumped into the carriage. 'Drive on!' he cried, 'hard, fast, full gallop! Nothing short of flying will keep pace with me, to-day.' 'Halloa!' cried the doctor, letting down the front glass in a great hurry, and shouting to the postillion; 'something very short of flying will keep pace with _me_. Do you hear?' Jingling and clattering, till distance rendered its noise inaudible, and its rapid progress only perceptible to the eye, the vehicle wound its way along the road, almost hidden in a cloud of dust: now wholly disappearing, and now becoming visible again, as intervening objects, or the intricacies of the way, permitted. It was not until even the dusty cloud was no longer to be seen, that the gazers dispersed. And there was one looker-on, who remained with eyes fixed upon the spot where the carriage had disappeared, long after it was many miles away; for, behind the white curtain which had shrouded her from view when Harry raised his eyes towards the window, sat Rose herself. 'He seems in high spirits and happy,' she said, at length. 'I feared for a time he might be otherwise. I was mistaken. I am very, very glad.' Tears are signs of gladness as well as grief; but those which coursed down Rose's face, as she sat pensively at the window, still gazing in the same direction, seemed to tell more of sorrow than of joy. Mr. Bumble sat in the workhouse parlour, with his eyes moodily fixed on the cheerless grate, whence, as it was summer time, no brighter gleam proceeded, than the reflection of certain sickly rays of the sun, which were sent back from its cold and shining surface. A paper fly-cage dangled from the ceiling, to which he occasionally raised his eyes in gloomy thought; and, as the heedless insects hovered round the gaudy net-work, Mr. Bumble would heave a deep sigh, while a more gloomy shadow overspread his countenance. Mr. Bumble was meditating; it might be that the insects brought to mind, some painful passage in his own past life. Nor was Mr. Bumble's gloom the only thing calculated to awaken a pleasing melancholy in the bosom of a spectator. There were not wanting other appearances, and those closely connected with his own person, which announced that a great change had taken place in the position of his affairs. The laced coat, and the cocked hat; where were they? He still wore knee-breeches, and dark cotton stockings on his nether limbs; but they were not _the_ breeches. The coat was wide-skirted; and in that respect like _the_ coat, but, oh how different! The mighty cocked hat was replaced by a modest round one. Mr. Bumble was no longer a beadle. There are some promotions in life, which, independent of the more substantial rewards they offer, require peculiar value and dignity from the coats and waistcoats connected with them. A field-marshal has his uniform; a bishop his silk apron; a counsellor his silk gown; a beadle his cocked hat. Strip the bishop of his apron, or the beadle of his hat and lace; what are they? Men. Mere men. Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine. Mr. Bumble had married Mrs. Corney, and was master of the workhouse. Another beadle had come into power. On him the cocked hat, gold-laced coat, and staff, had all three descended. 'And to-morrow two months it was done!' said Mr. Bumble, with a sigh. 'It seems a age.' Mr. Bumble might have meant that he had concentrated a whole existence of happiness into the short space of eight weeks; but the sigh--there was a vast deal of meaning in the sigh. 'I sold myself,' said Mr. Bumble, pursuing the same train of relection, 'for six teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a milk-pot; with a small quantity of second-hand furniture, and twenty pound in money. I went very reasonable. Cheap, dirt cheap!' 'Cheap!' cried a shrill voice in Mr. Bumble's ear: 'you would have been dear at any price; and dear enough I paid for you, Lord above knows that!' Mr. Bumble turned, and encountered the face of his interesting consort, who, imperfectly comprehending the few words she had overheard of his complaint, had hazarded the foregoing remark at a venture. 'Mrs. Bumble, ma'am!' said Mr. Bumble, with a sentimental sternness. 'Well!' cried the lady. 'Have the goodness to look at me,' said Mr. Bumble, fixing his eyes upon her. (If she stands such a eye as that,' said Mr. Bumble to himself, 'she can stand anything. It is a eye I never knew to fail with paupers. If it fails with her, my power is gone.') Whether an exceedingly small expansion of eye be sufficient to quell paupers, who, being lightly fed, are in no very high condition; or whether the late Mrs. Corney was particularly proof against eagle glances; are matters of opinion. The matter of fact, is, that the matron was in no way overpowered by Mr. Bumble's scowl, but, on the contrary, treated it with great disdain, and even raised a laugh thereat, which sounded as though it were genuine. On hearing this most unexpected sound, Mr. Bumble looked, first incredulous, and afterwards amazed. He then relapsed into his former state; nor did he rouse himself until his attention was again awakened by the voice of his partner. 'Are you going to sit snoring there, all day?' inquired Mrs. Bumble. 'I am going to sit here, as long as I think proper, ma'am,' rejoined Mr. Bumble; 'and although I was _not_ snoring, I shall snore, gape, sneeze, laugh, or cry, as the humour strikes me; such being my prerogative.' '_Your_ prerogative!' sneered Mrs. Bumble, with ineffable contempt. 'I said the word, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble. 'The prerogative of a man is to command.' 'And what's the prerogative of a woman, in the name of Goodness?' cried the relict of Mr. Corney deceased. 'To obey, ma'am,' thundered Mr. Bumble. 'Your late unfortunate husband should have taught it you; and then, perhaps, he might have been alive now. I wish he was, poor man!' Mrs. Bumble, seeing at a glance, that the decisive moment had now arrived, and that a blow struck for the mastership on one side or other, must necessarily be final and conclusive, no sooner heard this allusion to the dead and gone, than she dropped into a chair, and with a loud scream that Mr. Bumble was a hard-hearted brute, fell into a paroxysm of tears. But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble's soul; his heart was waterproof. Like washable beaver hats that improve with rain, his nerves were rendered stouter and more vigorous, by showers of tears, which, being tokens of weakness, and so far tacit admissions of his own power, pleased and exalted him. He eyed his good lady with looks of great satisfaction, and begged, in an encouraging manner, that she should cry her hardest: the exercise being looked upon, by the faculty, as strongly conducive to health. 'It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper,' said Mr. Bumble. 'So cry away.' As he discharged himself of this pleasantry, Mr. Bumble took his hat from a peg, and putting it on, rather rakishly, on one side, as a man might, who felt he had asserted his superiority in a becoming manner, thrust his hands into his pockets, and sauntered towards the door, with much ease and waggishness depicted in his whole appearance. Now, Mrs. Corney that was, had tried the tears, because they were less troublesome than a manual assault; but, she was quite prepared to make trial of the latter mode of proceeding, as Mr. Bumble was not long in discovering. The first proof he experienced of the fact, was conveyed in a hollow sound, immediately succeeded by the sudden flying off of his hat to the opposite end of the room. This preliminary proceeding laying bare his head, the expert lady, clasping him tightly round the throat with one hand, inflicted a shower of blows (dealt with singular vigour and dexterity) upon it with the other. This done, she created a little variety by scratching his face, and tearing his hair; and, having, by this time, inflicted as much punishment as she deemed necessary for the offence, she pushed him over a chair, which was luckily well situated for the purpose: and defied him to talk about his prerogative again, if he dared. 'Get up!' said Mrs. Bumble, in a voice of command. 'And take yourself away from here, unless you want me to do something desperate.' Mr. Bumble rose with a very rueful countenance: wondering much what something desperate might be. Picking up his hat, he looked towards the door. 'Are you going?' demanded Mrs. Bumble. 'Certainly, my dear, certainly,' rejoined Mr. Bumble, making a quicker motion towards the door. 'I didn't intend to--I'm going, my dear! You are so very violent, that really I--' At this instant, Mrs. Bumble stepped hastily forward to replace the carpet, which had been kicked up in the scuffle. Mr. Bumble immediately darted out of the room, without bestowing another thought on his unfinished sentence: leaving the late Mrs. Corney in full possession of the field. Mr. Bumble was fairly taken by surprise, and fairly beaten. He had a decided propensity for bullying: derived no inconsiderable pleasure from the exercise of petty cruelty; and, consequently, was (it is needless to say) a coward. This is by no means a disparagement to his character; for many official personages, who are held in high respect and admiration, are the victims of similar infirmities. The remark is made, indeed, rather in his favour than otherwise, and with a view of impressing the reader with a just sense of his qualifications for office. But, the measure of his degradation was not yet full. After making a tour of the house, and thinking, for the first time, that the poor-laws really were too hard on people; and that men who ran away from their wives, leaving them chargeable to the parish, ought, in justice to be visited with no punishment at all, but rather rewarded as meritorious individuals who had suffered much; Mr. Bumble came to a room where some of the female paupers were usually employed in washing the parish linen: when the sound of voices in conversation, now proceeded. 'Hem!' said Mr. Bumble, summoning up all his native dignity. 'These women at least shall continue to respect the prerogative. Hallo! hallo there! What do you mean by this noise, you hussies?' With these words, Mr. Bumble opened the door, and walked in with a very fierce and angry manner: which was at once exchanged for a most humiliated and cowering air, as his eyes unexpectedly rested on the form of his lady wife. 'My dear,' said Mr. Bumble, 'I didn't know you were here.' 'Didn't know I was here!' repeated Mrs. Bumble. 'What do _you_ do here?' 'I thought they were talking rather too much to be doing their work properly, my dear,' replied Mr. Bumble: glancing distractedly at a couple of old women at the wash-tub, who were comparing notes of admiration at the workhouse-master's humility. '_You_ thought they were talking too much?' said Mrs. Bumble. 'What business is it of yours?' 'Why, my dear--' urged Mr. Bumble submissively. 'What business is it of yours?' demanded Mrs. Bumble, again. 'It's very true, you're matron here, my dear,' submitted Mr. Bumble; 'but I thought you mightn't be in the way just then.' 'I'll tell you what, Mr. Bumble,' returned his lady. 'We don't want any of your interference. You're a great deal too fond of poking your nose into things that don't concern you, making everybody in the house laugh, the moment your back is turned, and making yourself look like a fool every hour in the day. Be off; come!' Mr. Bumble, seeing with excruciating feelings, the delight of the two old paupers, who were tittering together most rapturously, hesitated for an instant. Mrs. Bumble, whose patience brooked no delay, caught up a bowl of soap-suds, and motioning him towards the door, ordered him instantly to depart, on pain of receiving the contents upon his portly person. What could Mr. Bumble do? He looked dejectedly round, and slunk away; and, as he reached the door, the titterings of the paupers broke into a shrill chuckle of irrepressible delight. It wanted but this. He was degraded in their eyes; he had lost caste and station before the very paupers; he had fallen from all the height and pomp of beadleship, to the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery. 'All in two months!' said Mr. Bumble, filled with dismal thoughts. 'Two months! No more than two months ago, I was not only my own master, but everybody else's, so far as the porochial workhouse was concerned, and now!--' It was too much. Mr. Bumble boxed the ears of the boy who opened the gate for him (for he had reached the portal in his reverie); and walked, distractedly, into the street. He walked up one street, and down another, until exercise had abated the first passion of his grief; and then the revulsion of feeling made him thirsty. He passed a great many public-houses; but, at length paused before one in a by-way, whose parlour, as he gathered from a hasty peep over the blinds, was deserted, save by one solitary customer. It began to rain, heavily, at the moment. This determined him. Mr. Bumble stepped in; and ordering something to drink, as he passed the bar, entered the apartment into which he had looked from the street. The man who was seated there, was tall and dark, and wore a large cloak. He had the air of a stranger; and seemed, by a certain haggardness in his look, as well as by the dusty soils on his dress, to have travelled some distance. He eyed Bumble askance, as he entered, but scarcely deigned to nod his head in acknowledgment of his salutation. Mr. Bumble had quite dignity enough for two; supposing even that the stranger had been more familiar: so he drank his gin-and-water in silence, and read the paper with great show of pomp and circumstance. It so happened, however: as it will happen very often, when men fall into company under such circumstances: that Mr. Bumble felt, every now and then, a powerful inducement, which he could not resist, to steal a look at the stranger: and that whenever he did so, he withdrew his eyes, in some confusion, to find that the stranger was at that moment stealing a look at him. Mr. Bumble's awkwardness was enhanced by the very remarkable expression of the stranger's eye, which was keen and bright, but shadowed by a scowl of distrust and suspicion, unlike anything he had ever observed before, and repulsive to behold. When they had encountered each other's glance several times in this way, the stranger, in a harsh, deep voice, broke silence. 'Were you looking for me,' he said, 'when you peered in at the window?' 'Not that I am aware of, unless you're Mr.--' Here Mr. Bumble stopped short; for he was curious to know the stranger's name, and thought in his impatience, he might supply the blank. 'I see you were not,' said the stranger; an expression of quiet sarcasm playing about his mouth; 'or you have known my name. You don't know it. I would recommend you not to ask for it.' 'I meant no harm, young man,' observed Mr. Bumble, majestically. 'And have done none,' said the stranger. Another silence succeeded this short dialogue: which was again broken by the stranger. 'I have seen you before, I think?' said he. 'You were differently dressed at that time, and I only passed you in the street, but I should know you again. You were beadle here, once; were you not?' 'I was,' said Mr. Bumble, in some surprise; 'porochial beadle.' 'Just so,' rejoined the other, nodding his head. 'It was in that character I saw you. What are you now?' 'Master of the workhouse,' rejoined Mr. Bumble, slowly and impressively, to check any undue familiarity the stranger might otherwise assume. 'Master of the workhouse, young man!' 'You have the same eye to your own interest, that you always had, I doubt not?' resumed the stranger, looking keenly into Mr. Bumble's eyes, as he raised them in astonishment at the question. 'Don't scruple to answer freely, man. I know you pretty well, you see.' 'I suppose, a married man,' replied Mr. Bumble, shading his eyes with his hand, and surveying the stranger, from head to foot, in evident perplexity, 'is not more averse to turning an honest penny when he can, than a single one. Porochial officers are not so well paid that they can afford to refuse any little extra fee, when it comes to them in a civil and proper manner.' The stranger smiled, and nodded his head again: as much to say, he had not mistaken his man; then rang the bell. 'Fill this glass again,' he said, handing Mr. Bumble's empty tumbler to the landlord. 'Let it be strong and hot. You like it so, I suppose?' 'Not too strong,' replied Mr. Bumble, with a delicate cough. 'You understand what that means, landlord!' said the stranger, drily. The host smiled, disappeared, and shortly afterwards returned with a steaming jorum: of which, the first gulp brought the water into Mr. Bumble's eyes. 'Now listen to me,' said the stranger, after closing the door and window. 'I came down to this place, to-day, to find you out; and, by one of those chances which the devil throws in the way of his friends sometimes, you walked into the very room I was sitting in, while you were uppermost in my mind. I want some information from you. I don't ask you to give it for nothing, slight as it is. Put up that, to begin with.' As he spoke, he pushed a couple of sovereigns across the table to his companion, carefully, as though unwilling that the chinking of money should be heard without. When Mr. Bumble had scrupulously examined the coins, to see that they were genuine, and had put them up, with much satisfaction, in his waistcoat-pocket, he went on: 'Carry your memory back--let me see--twelve years, last winter.' 'It's a long time,' said Mr. Bumble. 'Very good. I've done it.' 'The scene, the workhouse.' 'Good!' 'And the time, night.' 'Yes.' 'And the place, the crazy hole, wherever it was, in which miserable drabs brought forth the life and health so often denied to themselves--gave birth to puling children for the parish to rear; and hid their shame, rot 'em in the grave!' 'The lying-in room, I suppose?' said Mr. Bumble, not quite following the stranger's excited description. 'Yes,' said the stranger. 'A boy was born there.' 'A many boys,' observed Mr. Bumble, shaking his head, despondingly. 'A murrain on the young devils!' cried the stranger; 'I speak of one; a meek-looking, pale-faced boy, who was apprenticed down here, to a coffin-maker--I wish he had made his coffin, and screwed his body in it--and who afterwards ran away to London, as it was supposed. 'Why, you mean Oliver! Young Twist!' said Mr. Bumble; 'I remember him, of course. There wasn't a obstinater young rascal--' 'It's not of him I want to hear; I've heard enough of him,' said the stranger, stopping Mr. Bumble in the outset of a tirade on the subject of poor Oliver's vices. 'It's of a woman; the hag that nursed his mother. Where is she?' 'Where is she?' said Mr. Bumble, whom the gin-and-water had rendered facetious. 'It would be hard to tell. There's no midwifery there, whichever place she's gone to; so I suppose she's out of employment, anyway.' 'What do you mean?' demanded the stranger, sternly. 'That she died last winter,' rejoined Mr. Bumble. The man looked fixedly at him when he had given this information, and although he did not withdraw his eyes for some time afterwards, his gaze gradually became vacant and abstracted, and he seemed lost in thought. For some time, he appeared doubtful whether he ought to be relieved or disappointed by the intelligence; but at length he breathed more freely; and withdrawing his eyes, observed that it was no great matter. With that he rose, as if to depart. But Mr. Bumble was cunning enough; and he at once saw that an opportunity was opened, for the lucrative disposal of some secret in the possession of his better half. He well remembered the night of old Sally's death, which the occurrences of that day had given him good reason to recollect, as the occasion on which he had proposed to Mrs. Corney; and although that lady had never confided to him the disclosure of which she had been the solitary witness, he had heard enough to know that it related to something that had occurred in the old woman's attendance, as workhouse nurse, upon the young mother of Oliver Twist. Hastily calling this circumstance to mind, he informed the stranger, with an air of mystery, that one woman had been closeted with the old harridan shortly before she died; and that she could, as he had reason to believe, throw some light on the subject of his inquiry. 'How can I find her?' said the stranger, thrown off his guard; and plainly showing that all his fears (whatever they were) were aroused afresh by the intelligence. 'Only through me,' rejoined Mr. Bumble. 'When?' cried the stranger, hastily. 'To-morrow,' rejoined Bumble. 'At nine in the evening,' said the stranger, producing a scrap of paper, and writing down upon it, an obscure address by the water-side, in characters that betrayed his agitation; 'at nine in the evening, bring her to me there. I needn't tell you to be secret. It's your interest.' With these words, he led the way to the door, after stopping to pay for the liquor that had been drunk. Shortly remarking that their roads were different, he departed, without more ceremony than an emphatic repetition of the hour of appointment for the following night. On glancing at the address, the parochial functionary observed that it contained no name. The stranger had not gone far, so he made after him to ask it. 'What do you want?' cried the man, turning quickly round, as Bumble touched him on the arm. 'Following me?' 'Only to ask a question,' said the other, pointing to the scrap of paper. 'What name am I to ask for?' 'Monks!' rejoined the man; and strode hastily, away. It was a dull, close, overcast summer evening. The clouds, which had been threatening all day, spread out in a dense and sluggish mass of vapour, already yielded large drops of rain, and seemed to presage a violent thunder-storm, when Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, turning out of the main street of the town, directed their course towards a scattered little colony of ruinous houses, distant from it some mile and a-half, or thereabouts, and erected on a low unwholesome swamp, bordering upon the river. They were both wrapped in old and shabby outer garments, which might, perhaps, serve the double purpose of protecting their persons from the rain, and sheltering them from observation. The husband carried a lantern, from which, however, no light yet shone; and trudged on, a few paces in front, as though--the way being dirty--to give his wife the benefit of treading in his heavy footprints. They went on, in profound silence; every now and then, Mr. Bumble relaxed his pace, and turned his head as if to make sure that his helpmate was following; then, discovering that she was close at his heels, he mended his rate of walking, and proceeded, at a considerable increase of speed, towards their place of destination. This was far from being a place of doubtful character; for it had long been known as the residence of none but low ruffians, who, under various pretences of living by their labour, subsisted chiefly on plunder and crime. It was a collection of mere hovels: some, hastily built with loose bricks: others, of old worm-eaten ship-timber: jumbled together without any attempt at order or arrangement, and planted, for the most part, within a few feet of the river's bank. A few leaky boats drawn up on the mud, and made fast to the dwarf wall which skirted it: and here and there an oar or coil of rope: appeared, at first, to indicate that the inhabitants of these miserable cottages pursued some avocation on the river; but a glance at the shattered and useless condition of the articles thus displayed, would have led a passer-by, without much difficulty, to the conjecture that they were disposed there, rather for the preservation of appearances, than with any view to their being actually employed. In the heart of this cluster of huts; and skirting the river, which its upper stories overhung; stood a large building, formerly used as a manufactory of some kind. It had, in its day, probably furnished employment to the inhabitants of the surrounding tenements. But it had long since gone to ruin. The rat, the worm, and the action of the damp, had weakened and rotted the piles on which it stood; and a considerable portion of the building had already sunk down into the water; while the remainder, tottering and bending over the dark stream, seemed to wait a favourable opportunity of following its old companion, and involving itself in the same fate. It was before this ruinous building that the worthy couple paused, as the first peal of distant thunder reverberated in the air, and the rain commenced pouring violently down. 'The place should be somewhere here,' said Bumble, consulting a scrap of paper he held in his hand. 'Halloa there!' cried a voice from above. Following the sound, Mr. Bumble raised his head and descried a man looking out of a door, breast-high, on the second story. 'Stand still, a minute,' cried the voice; 'I'll be with you directly.' With which the head disappeared, and the door closed. 'Is that the man?' asked Mr. Bumble's good lady. Mr. Bumble nodded in the affirmative. 'Then, mind what I told you,' said the matron: 'and be careful to say as little as you can, or you'll betray us at once.' Mr. Bumble, who had eyed the building with very rueful looks, was apparently about to express some doubts relative to the advisability of proceeding any further with the enterprise just then, when he was prevented by the appearance of Monks: who opened a small door, near which they stood, and beckoned them inwards. 'Come in!' he cried impatiently, stamping his foot upon the ground. 'Don't keep me here!' The woman, who had hesitated at first, walked boldly in, without any other invitation. Mr. Bumble, who was ashamed or afraid to lag behind, followed: obviously very ill at ease and with scarcely any of that remarkable dignity which was usually his chief characteristic. 'What the devil made you stand lingering there, in the wet?' said Monks, turning round, and addressing Bumble, after he had bolted the door behind them. 'We--we were only cooling ourselves,' stammered Bumble, looking apprehensively about him. 'Cooling yourselves!' retorted Monks. 'Not all the rain that ever fell, or ever will fall, will put as much of hell's fire out, as a man can carry about with him. You won't cool yourself so easily; don't think it!' With this agreeable speech, Monks turned short upon the matron, and bent his gaze upon her, till even she, who was not easily cowed, was fain to withdraw her eyes, and turn them towards the ground. 'This is the woman, is it?' demanded Monks. 'Hem! That is the woman,' replied Mr. Bumble, mindful of his wife's caution. 'You think women never can keep secrets, I suppose?' said the matron, interposing, and returning, as she spoke, the searching look of Monks. 'I know they will always keep _one_ till it's found out,' said Monks. 'And what may that be?' asked the matron. 'The loss of their own good name,' replied Monks. 'So, by the same rule, if a woman's a party to a secret that might hang or transport her, I'm not afraid of her telling it to anybody; not I! Do you understand, mistress?' 'No,' rejoined the matron, slightly colouring as she spoke. 'Of course you don't!' said Monks. 'How should you?' Bestowing something half-way between a smile and a frown upon his two companions, and again beckoning them to follow him, the man hastened across the apartment, which was of considerable extent, but low in the roof. He was preparing to ascend a steep staircase, or rather ladder, leading to another floor of warehouses above: when a bright flash of lightning streamed down the aperture, and a peal of thunder followed, which shook the crazy building to its centre. 'Hear it!' he cried, shrinking back. 'Hear it! Rolling and crashing on as if it echoed through a thousand caverns where the devils were hiding from it. I hate the sound!' He remained silent for a few moments; and then, removing his hands suddenly from his face, showed, to the unspeakable discomposure of Mr. Bumble, that it was much distorted and discoloured. 'These fits come over me, now and then,' said Monks, observing his alarm; 'and thunder sometimes brings them on. Don't mind me now; it's all over for this once.' Thus speaking, he led the way up the ladder; and hastily closing the window-shutter of the room into which it led, lowered a lantern which hung at the end of a rope and pulley passed through one of the heavy beams in the ceiling: and which cast a dim light upon an old table and three chairs that were placed beneath it. 'Now,' said Monks, when they had all three seated themselves, 'the sooner we come to our business, the better for all. The woman know what it is, does she?' The question was addressed to Bumble; but his wife anticipated the reply, by intimating that she was perfectly acquainted with it. 'He is right in saying that you were with this hag the night she died; and that she told you something--' 'About the mother of the boy you named,' replied the matron interrupting him. 'Yes.' 'The first question is, of what nature was her communication?' said Monks. 'That's the second,' observed the woman with much deliberation. 'The first is, what may the communication be worth?' 'Who the devil can tell that, without knowing of what kind it is?' asked Monks. 'Nobody better than you, I am persuaded,' answered Mrs. Bumble: who did not want for spirit, as her yoke-fellow could abundantly testify. 'Humph!' said Monks significantly, and with a look of eager inquiry; 'there may be money's worth to get, eh?' 'Perhaps there may,' was the composed reply. 'Something that was taken from her,' said Monks. 'Something that she wore. Something that--' 'You had better bid,' interrupted Mrs. Bumble. 'I have heard enough, already, to assure me that you are the man I ought to talk to.' Mr. Bumble, who had not yet been admitted by his better half into any greater share of the secret than he had originally possessed, listened to this dialogue with outstretched neck and distended eyes: which he directed towards his wife and Monks, by turns, in undisguised astonishment; increased, if possible, when the latter sternly demanded, what sum was required for the disclosure. 'What's it worth to you?' asked the woman, as collectedly as before. 'It may be nothing; it may be twenty pounds,' replied Monks. 'Speak out, and let me know which.' 'Add five pounds to the sum you have named; give me five-and-twenty pounds in gold,' said the woman; 'and I'll tell you all I know. Not before.' 'Five-and-twenty pounds!' exclaimed Monks, drawing back. 'I spoke as plainly as I could,' replied Mrs. Bumble. 'It's not a large sum, either.' 'Not a large sum for a paltry secret, that may be nothing when it's told!' cried Monks impatiently; 'and which has been lying dead for twelve years past or more!' 'Such matters keep well, and, like good wine, often double their value in course of time,' answered the matron, still preserving the resolute indifference she had assumed. 'As to lying dead, there are those who will lie dead for twelve thousand years to come, or twelve million, for anything you or I know, who will tell strange tales at last!' 'What if I pay it for nothing?' asked Monks, hesitating. 'You can easily take it away again,' replied the matron. 'I am but a woman; alone here; and unprotected.' 'Not alone, my dear, nor unprotected, neither,' submitted Mr. Bumble, in a voice tremulous with fear: '_I_ am here, my dear. And besides,' said Mr. Bumble, his teeth chattering as he spoke, 'Mr. Monks is too much of a gentleman to attempt any violence on porochial persons. Mr. Monks is aware that I am not a young man, my dear, and also that I am a little run to seed, as I may say; bu he has heerd: I say I have no doubt Mr. Monks has heerd, my dear: that I am a very determined officer, with very uncommon strength, if I'm once roused. I only want a little rousing; that's all.' As Mr. Bumble spoke, he made a melancholy feint of grasping his lantern with fierce determination; and plainly showed, by the alarmed expression of every feature, that he _did_ want a little rousing, and not a little, prior to making any very warlike demonstration: unless, indeed, against paupers, or other person or persons trained down for the purpose. 'You are a fool,' said Mrs. Bumble, in reply; 'and had better hold your tongue.' 'He had better have cut it out, before he came, if he can't speak in a lower tone,' said Monks, grimly. 'So! He's your husband, eh?' 'He my husband!' tittered the matron, parrying the question. 'I thought as much, when you came in,' rejoined Monks, marking the angry glance which the lady darted at her spouse as she spoke. 'So much the better; I have less hesitation in dealing with two people, when I find that there's only one will between them. I'm in earnest. See here!' He thrust his hand into a side-pocket; and producing a canvas bag, told out twenty-five sovereigns on the table, and pushed them over to the woman. 'Now,' he said, 'gather them up; and when this cursed peal of thunder, which I feel is coming up to break over the house-top, is gone, let's hear your story.' The thunder, which seemed in fact much nearer, and to shiver and break almost over their heads, having subsided, Monks, raising his face from the table, bent forward to listen to what the woman should say. The faces of the three nearly touched, as the two men leant over the small table in their eagerness to hear, and the woman also leant forward to render her whisper audible. The sickly rays of the suspended lantern falling directly upon them, aggravated the paleness and anxiety of their countenances: which, encircled by the deepest gloom and darkness, looked ghastly in the extreme. 'When this woman, that we called old Sally, died,' the matron began, 'she and I were alone.' 'Was there no one by?' asked Monks, in the same hollow whisper; 'No sick wretch or idiot in some other bed? No one who could hear, and might, by possibility, understand?' 'Not a soul,' replied the woman; 'we were alone. _I_ stood alone beside the body when death came over it.' 'Good,' said Monks, regarding her attentively. 'Go on.' 'She spoke of a young creature,' resumed the matron, 'who had brought a child into the world some years before; not merely in the same room, but in the same bed, in which she then lay dying.' 'Ay?' said Monks, with quivering lip, and glancing over his shoulder, 'Blood! How things come about!' 'The child was the one you named to him last night,' said the matron, nodding carelessly towards her husband; 'the mother this nurse had robbed.' 'In life?' asked Monks. 'In death,' replied the woman, with something like a shudder. 'She stole from the corpse, when it had hardly turned to one, that which the dead mother had prayed her, with her last breath, to keep for the infant's sake.' 'She sold it,' cried Monks, with desperate eagerness; 'did she sell it? Where? When? To whom? How long before?' 'As she told me, with great difficulty, that she had done this,' said the matron, 'she fell back and died.' 'Without saying more?' cried Monks, in a voice which, from its very suppression, seemed only the more furious. 'It's a lie! I'll not be played with. She said more. I'll tear the life out of you both, but I'll know what it was.' 'She didn't utter another word,' said the woman, to all appearance unmoved (as Mr. Bumble was very far from being) by the strange man's violence; 'but she clutched my gown, violently, with one hand, which was partly closed; and when I saw that she was dead, and so removed the hand by force, I found it clasped a scrap of dirty paper.' 'Which contained--' interposed Monks, stretching forward. 'Nothing,' replied the woman; 'it was a pawnbroker's duplicate.' 'For what?' demanded Monks. 'In good time I'll tell you.' said the woman. 'I judge that she had kept the trinket, for some time, in the hope of turning it to better account; and then had pawned it; and had saved or scraped together money to pay the pawnbroker's interest year by year, and prevent its running out; so that if anything came of it, it could still be redeemed. Nothing had come of it; and, as I tell you, she died with the scrap of paper, all worn and tattered, in her hand. The time was out in two days; I thought something might one day come of it too; and so redeemed the pledge.' 'Where is it now?' asked Monks quickly. '_There_,' replied the woman. And, as if glad to be relieved of it, she hastily threw upon the table a small kid bag scarcely large enough for a French watch, which Monks pouncing upon, tore open with trembling hands. It contained a little gold locket: in which were two locks of hair, and a plain gold wedding-ring. 'It has the word "Agnes" engraved on the inside,' said the woman. 'There is a blank left for the surname; and then follows the date; which is within a year before the child was born. I found out that.' 'And this is all?' said Monks, after a close and eager scrutiny of the contents of the little packet. 'All,' replied the woman. Mr. Bumble drew a long breath, as if he were glad to find that the story was over, and no mention made of taking the five-and-twenty pounds back again; and now he took courage to wipe the perspiration which had been trickling over his nose, unchecked, during the whole of the previous dialogue. 'I know nothing of the story, beyond what I can guess at,' said his wife addressing Monks, after a short silence; 'and I want to know nothing; for it's safer not. But I may ask you two questions, may I?' 'You may ask,' said Monks, with some show of surprise; 'but whether I answer or not is another question.' '--Which makes three,' observed Mr. Bumble, essaying a stroke of facetiousness. 'Is that what you expected to get from me?' demanded the matron. 'It is,' replied Monks. 'The other question?' 'What do you propose to do with it? Can it be used against me?' 'Never,' rejoined Monks; 'nor against me either. See here! But don't move a step forward, or your life is not worth a bulrush.' With these words, he suddenly wheeled the table aside, and pulling an iron ring in the boarding, threw back a large trap-door which opened close at Mr. Bumble's feet, and caused that gentleman to retire several paces backward, with great precipitation. 'Look down,' said Monks, lowering the lantern into the gulf. 'Don't fear me. I could have let you down, quietly enough, when you were seated over it, if that had been my game.' Thus encouraged, the matron drew near to the brink; and even Mr. Bumble himself, impelled by curiousity, ventured to do the same. The turbid water, swollen by the heavy rain, was rushing rapidly on below; and all other sounds were lost in the noise of its plashing and eddying against the green and slimy piles. There had once been a water-mill beneath; the tide foaming and chafing round the few rotten stakes, and fragments of machinery that yet remained, seemed to dart onward, with a new impulse, when freed from the obstacles which had unavailingly attempted to stem its headlong course. 'If you flung a man's body down there, where would it be to-morrow morning?' said Monks, swinging the lantern to and fro in the dark well. 'Twelve miles down the river, and cut to pieces besides,' replied Bumble, recoiling at the thought. Monks drew the little packet from his breast, where he had hurriedly thrust it; and tying it to a leaden weight, which had formed a part of some pulley, and was lying on the floor, dropped it into the stream. It fell straight, and true as a die; clove the water with a scarcely audible splash; and was gone. The three looking into each other's faces, seemed to breathe more freely. 'There!' said Monks, closing the trap-door, which fell heavily back into its former position. 'If the sea ever gives up its dead, as books say it will, it will keep its gold and silver to itself, and that trash among it. We have nothing more to say, and may break up our pleasant party.' 'By all means,' observed Mr. Bumble, with great alacrity. 'You'll keep a quiet tongue in your head, will you?' said Monks, with a threatening look. 'I am not afraid of your wife.' 'You may depend upon me, young man,' answered Mr. Bumble, bowing himself gradually towards the ladder, with excessive politeness. 'On everybody's account, young man; on my own, you know, Mr. Monks.' 'I am glad, for your sake, to hear it,' remarked Monks. 'Light your lantern! And get away from here as fast as you can.' It was fortunate that the conversation terminated at this point, or Mr. Bumble, who had bowed himself to within six inches of the ladder, would infallibly have pitched headlong into the room below. He lighted his lantern from that which Monks had detached from the rope, and now carried in his hand; and making no effort to prolong the discourse, descended in silence, followed by his wife. Monks brought up the rear, after pausing on the steps to satisfy himself that there were no other sounds to be heard than the beating of the rain without, and the rushing of the water. They traversed the lower room, slowly, and with caution; for Monks started at every shadow; and Mr. Bumble, holding his lantern a foot above the ground, walked not only with remarkable care, but with a marvellously light step for a gentleman of his figure: looking nervously about him for hidden trap-doors. The gate at which they had entered, was softly unfastened and opened by Monks; merely exchanging a nod with their mysterious acquaintance, the married couple emerged into the wet and darkness outside. They were no sooner gone, than Monks, who appeared to entertain an invincible repugnance to being left alone, called to a boy who had been hidden somewhere below. Bidding him go first, and bear the light, he returned to the chamber he had just quitted. On the evening following that upon which the three worthies mentioned in the last chapter, disposed of their little matter of business as therein narrated, Mr. William Sikes, awakening from a nap, drowsily growled forth an inquiry what time of night it was. The room in which Mr. Sikes propounded this question, was not one of those he had tenanted, previous to the Chertsey expedition, although it was in the same quarter of the town, and was situated at no great distance from his former lodgings. It was not, in appearance, so desirable a habitation as his old quarters: being a mean and badly-furnished apartment, of very limited size; lighted only by one small window in the shelving roof, and abutting on a close and dirty lane. Nor were there wanting other indications of the good gentleman's having gone down in the world of late: for a great scarcity of furniture, and total absence of comfort, together with the disappearance of all such small moveables as spare clothes and linen, bespoke a state of extreme poverty; while the meagre and attenuated condition of Mr. Sikes himself would have fully confirmed these symptoms, if they had stood in any need of corroboration. The housebreaker was lying on the bed, wrapped in his white great-coat, by way of dressing-gown, and displaying a set of features in no degree improved by the cadaverous hue of illness, and the addition of a soiled nightcap, and a stiff, black beard of a week's growth. The dog sat at the bedside: now eyeing his master with a wistful look, and now pricking his ears, and uttering a low growl as some noise in the street, or in the lower part of the house, attracted his attention. Seated by the window, busily engaged in patching an old waistcoat which formed a portion of the robber's ordinary dress, was a female: so pale and reduced with watching and privation, that there would have been considerable difficulty in recognising her as the same Nancy who has already figured in this tale, but for the voice in which she replied to Mr. Sikes's question. 'Not long gone seven,' said the girl. 'How do you feel to-night, Bill?' 'As weak as water,' replied Mr. Sikes, with an imprecation on his eyes and limbs. 'Here; lend us a hand, and let me get off this thundering bed anyhow.' Illness had not improved Mr. Sikes's temper; for, as the girl raised him up and led him to a chair, he muttered various curses on her awkwardness, and struck her. 'Whining are you?' said Sikes. 'Come! Don't stand snivelling there. If you can't do anything better than that, cut off altogether. D'ye hear me?' 'I hear you,' replied the girl, turning her face aside, and forcing a laugh. 'What fancy have you got in your head now?' 'Oh! you've thought better of it, have you?' growled Sikes, marking the tear which trembled in her eye. 'All the better for you, you have.' 'Why, you don't mean to say, you'd be hard upon me to-night, Bill,' said the girl, laying her hand upon his shoulder. 'No!' cried Mr. Sikes. 'Why not?' 'Such a number of nights,' said the girl, with a touch of woman's tenderness, which communicated something like sweetness of tone, even to her voice: 'such a number of nights as I've been patient with you, nursing and caring for you, as if you had been a child: and this the first that I've seen you like yourself; you wouldn't have served me as you did just now, if you'd thought of that, would you? Come, come; say you wouldn't.' 'Well, then,' rejoined Mr. Sikes, 'I wouldn't. Why, damme, now, the girls's whining again!' 'It's nothing,' said the girl, throwing herself into a chair. 'Don't you seem to mind me. It'll soon be over.' 'What'll be over?' demanded Mr. Sikes in a savage voice. 'What foolery are you up to, now, again? Get up and bustle about, and don't come over me with your woman's nonsense.' At any other time, this remonstrance, and the tone in which it was delivered, would have had the desired effect; but the girl being really weak and exhausted, dropped her head over the back of the chair, and fainted, before Mr. Sikes could get out a few of the appropriate oaths with which, on similar occasions, he was accustomed to garnish his threats. Not knowing, very well, what to do, in this uncommon emergency; for Miss Nancy's hysterics were usually of that violent kind which the patient fights and struggles out of, without much assistance; Mr. Sikes tried a little blasphemy: and finding that mode of treatment wholly ineffectual, called for assistance. 'What's the matter here, my dear?' said Fagin, looking in. 'Lend a hand to the girl, can't you?' replied Sikes impatiently. 'Don't stand chattering and grinning at me!' With an exclamation of surprise, Fagin hastened to the girl's assistance, while Mr. John Dawkins (otherwise the Artful Dodger), who had followed his venerable friend into the room, hastily deposited on the floor a bundle with which he was laden; and snatching a bottle from the grasp of Master Charles Bates who came close at his heels, uncorked it in a twinkling with his teeth, and poured a portion of its contents down the patient's throat: previously taking a taste, himself, to prevent mistakes. 'Give her a whiff of fresh air with the bellows, Charley,' said Mr. Dawkins; 'and you slap her hands, Fagin, while Bill undoes the petticuts.' These united restoratives, administered with great energy: especially that department consigned to Master Bates, who appeared to consider his share in the proceedings, a piece of unexampled pleasantry: were not long in producing the desired effect. The girl gradually recovered her senses; and, staggering to a chair by the bedside, hid her face upon the pillow: leaving Mr. Sikes to confront the new comers, in some astonishment at their unlooked-for appearance. 'Why, what evil wind has blowed you here?' he asked Fagin. 'No evil wind at all, my dear, for evil winds blow nobody any good; and I've brought something good with me, that you'll be glad to see. Dodger, my dear, open the bundle; and give Bill the little trifles that we spent all our money on, this morning.' In compliance with Mr. Fagin's request, the Artful untied this bundle, which was of large size, and formed of an old table-cloth; and handed the articles it contained, one by one, to Charley Bates: who placed them on the table, with various encomiums on their rarity and excellence. 'Sitch a rabbit pie, Bill,' exclaimed that young gentleman, disclosing to view a huge pasty; 'sitch delicate creeturs, with sitch tender limbs, Bill, that the wery bones melt in your mouth, and there's no occasion to pick 'em; half a pound of seven and six-penny green, so precious strong that if you mix it with biling water, it'll go nigh to blow the lid of the tea-pot off; a pound and a half of moist sugar that the niggers didn't work at all at, afore they got it up to sitch a pitch of goodness,--oh no! Two half-quartern brans; pound of best fresh; piece of double Glo'ster; and, to wind up all, some of the richest sort you ever lushed!' Uttering this last panegyric, Master Bates produced, from one of his extensive pockets, a full-sized wine-bottle, carefully corked; while Mr. Dawkins, at the same instant, poured out a wine-glassful of raw spirits from the bottle he carried: which the invalid tossed down his throat without a moment's hesitation. 'Ah!' said Fagin, rubbing his hands with great satisfaction. 'You'll do, Bill; you'll do now.' 'Do!' exclaimed Mr. Sikes; 'I might have been done for, twenty times over, afore you'd have done anything to help me. What do you mean by leaving a man in this state, three weeks and more, you false-hearted wagabond?' 'Only hear him, boys!' said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders. 'And us come to bring him all these beau-ti-ful things.' 'The things is well enough in their way,' observed Mr. Sikes: a little soothed as he glanced over the table; 'but what have you got to say for yourself, why you should leave me here, down in the mouth, health, blunt, and everything else; and take no more notice of me, all this mortal time, than if I was that 'ere dog.--Drive him down, Charley!' 'I never see such a jolly dog as that,' cried Master Bates, doing as he was desired. 'Smelling the grub like a old lady a going to market! He'd make his fortun' on the stage that dog would, and rewive the drayma besides.' 'Hold your din,' cried Sikes, as the dog retreated under the bed: still growling angrily. 'What have you got to say for yourself, you withered old fence, eh?' 'I was away from London, a week and more, my dear, on a plant,' replied the Jew. 'And what about the other fortnight?' demanded Sikes. 'What about the other fortnight that you've left me lying here, like a sick rat in his hole?' 'I couldn't help it, Bill. I can't go into a long explanation before company; but I couldn't help it, upon my honour.' 'Upon your what?' growled Sikes, with excessive disgust. 'Here! Cut me off a piece of that pie, one of you boys, to take the taste of that out of my mouth, or it'll choke me dead.' 'Don't be out of temper, my dear,' urged Fagin, submissively. 'I have never forgot you, Bill; never once.' 'No! I'll pound it that you han't,' replied Sikes, with a bitter grin. 'You've been scheming and plotting away, every hour that I have laid shivering and burning here; and Bill was to do this; and Bill was to do that; and Bill was to do it all, dirt cheap, as soon as he got well: and was quite poor enough for your work. If it hadn't been for the girl, I might have died.' 'There now, Bill,' remonstrated Fagin, eagerly catching at the word. 'If it hadn't been for the girl! Who but poor ould Fagin was the means of your having such a handy girl about you?' 'He says true enough there!' said Nancy, coming hastily forward. 'Let him be; let him be.' Nancy's appearance gave a new turn to the conversation; for the boys, receiving a sly wink from the wary old Jew, began to ply her with liquor: of which, however, she took very sparingly; while Fagin, assuming an unusual flow of spirits, gradually brought Mr. Sikes into a better temper, by affecting to regard his threats as a little pleasant banter; and, moreover, by laughing very heartily at one or two rough jokes, which, after repeated applications to the spirit-bottle, he condescended to make. 'It's all very well,' said Mr. Sikes; 'but I must have some blunt from you to-night.' 'I haven't a piece of coin about me,' replied the Jew. 'Then you've got lots at home,' retorted Sikes; 'and I must have some from there.' 'Lots!' cried Fagin, holding up is hands. 'I haven't so much as would--' 'I don't know how much you've got, and I dare say you hardly know yourself, as it would take a pretty long time to count it,' said Sikes; 'but I must have some to-night; and that's flat.' 'Well, well,' said Fagin, with a sigh, 'I'll send the Artful round presently.' 'You won't do nothing of the kind,' rejoined Mr. Sikes. 'The Artful's a deal too artful, and would forget to come, or lose his way, or get dodged by traps and so be perwented, or anything for an excuse, if you put him up to it. Nancy shall go to the ken and fetch it, to make all sure; and I'll lie down and have a snooze while she's gone.' After a great deal of haggling and squabbling, Fagin beat down the amount of the required advance from five pounds to three pounds four and sixpence: protesting with many solemn asseverations that that would only leave him eighteen-pence to keep house with; Mr. Sikes sullenly remarking that if he couldn't get any more he must accompany him home; with the Dodger and Master Bates put the eatables in the cupboard. The Jew then, taking leave of his affectionate friend, returned homeward, attended by Nancy and the boys: Mr. Sikes, meanwhile, flinging himself on the bed, and composing himself to sleep away the time until the young lady's return. In due course, they arrived at Fagin's abode, where they found Toby Crackit and Mr. Chitling intent upon their fifteenth game at cribbage, which it is scarcely necessary to say the latter gentleman lost, and with it, his fifteenth and last sixpence: much to the amusement of his young friends. Mr. Crackit, apparently somewhat ashamed at being found relaxing himself with a gentleman so much his inferior in station and mental endowments, yawned, and inquiring after Sikes, took up his hat to go. 'Has nobody been, Toby?' asked Fagin. 'Not a living leg,' answered Mr. Crackit, pulling up his collar; 'it's been as dull as swipes. You ought to stand something handsome, Fagin, to recompense me for keeping house so long. Damme, I'm as flat as a juryman; and should have gone to sleep, as fast as Newgate, if I hadn't had the good natur' to amuse this youngster. Horrid dull, I'm blessed if I an't!' With these and other ejaculations of the same kind, Mr. Toby Crackit swept up his winnings, and crammed them into his waistcoat pocket with a haughty air, as though such small pieces of silver were wholly beneath the consideration of a man of his figure; this done, he swaggered out of the room, with so much elegance and gentility, that Mr. Chitling, bestowing numerous admiring glances on his legs and boots till they were out of sight, assured the company that he considered his acquaintance cheap at fifteen sixpences an interview, and that he didn't value his losses the snap of his little finger. 'Wot a rum chap you are, Tom!' said Master Bates, highly amused by this declaration. 'Not a bit of it,' replied Mr. Chitling. 'Am I, Fagin?' 'A very clever fellow, my dear,' said Fagin, patting him on the shoulder, and winking to his other pupils. 'And Mr. Crackit is a heavy swell; an't he, Fagin?' asked Tom. 'No doubt at all of that, my dear.' 'And it is a creditable thing to have his acquaintance; an't it, Fagin?' pursued Tom. 'Very much so, indeed, my dear. They're only jealous, Tom, because he won't give it to them.' 'Ah!' cried Tom, triumphantly, 'that's where it is! He has cleaned me out. But I can go and earn some more, when I like; can't I, Fagin?' 'To be sure you can, and the sooner you go the better, Tom; so make up your loss at once, and don't lose any more time. Dodger! Charley! It's time you were on the lay. Come! It's near ten, and nothing done yet.' In obedience to this hint, the boys, nodding to Nancy, took up their hats, and left the room; the Dodger and his vivacious friend indulging, as they went, in many witticisms at the expense of Mr. Chitling; in whose conduct, it is but justice to say, there was nothing very conspicuous or peculiar: inasmuch as there are a great number of spirited young bloods upon town, who pay a much higher price than Mr. Chitling for being seen in good society: and a great number of fine gentlemen (composing the good society aforesaid) who established their reputation upon very much the same footing as flash Toby Crackit. 'Now,' said Fagin, when they had left the room, 'I'll go and get you that cash, Nancy. This is only the key of a little cupboard where I keep a few odd things the boys get, my dear. I never lock up my money, for I've got none to lock up, my dear--ha! ha! ha!--none to lock up. It's a poor trade, Nancy, and no thanks; but I'm fond of seeing the young people about me; and I bear it all, I bear it all. Hush!' he said, hastily concealing the key in his breast; 'who's that? Listen!' The girl, who was sitting at the table with her arms folded, appeared in no way interested in the arrival: or to care whether the person, whoever he was, came or went: until the murmur of a man's voice reached her ears. The instant she caught the sound, she tore off her bonnet and shawl, with the rapidity of lightning, and thrust them under the table. The Jew, turning round immediately afterwards, she muttered a complaint of the heat: in a tone of languor that contrasted, very remarkably, with the extreme haste and violence of this action: which, however, had been unobserved by Fagin, who had his back towards her at the time. 'Bah!' he whispered, as though nettled by the interruption; 'it's the man I expected before; he's coming downstairs. Not a word about the money while he's here, Nance. He won't stop long. Not ten minutes, my dear.' Laying his skinny forefinger upon his lip, the Jew carried a candle to the door, as a man's step was heard upon the stairs without. He reached it, at the same moment as the visitor, who, coming hastily into the room, was close upon the girl before he observed her. It was Monks. 'Only one of my young people,' said Fagin, observing that Monks drew back, on beholding a stranger. 'Don't move, Nancy.' The girl drew closer to the table, and glancing at Monks with an air of careless levity, withdrew her eyes; but as he turned towards Fagin, she stole another look; so keen and searching, and full of purpose, that if there had been any bystander to observe the change, he could hardly have believed the two looks to have proceeded from the same person. 'Any news?' inquired Fagin. 'Great.' 'And--and--good?' asked Fagin, hesitating as though he feared to vex the other man by being too sanguine. 'Not bad, any way,' replied Monks with a smile. 'I have been prompt enough this time. Let me have a word with you.' The girl drew closer to the table, and made no offer to leave the room, although she could see that Monks was pointing to her. The Jew: perhaps fearing she might say something aloud about the money, if he endeavoured to get rid of her: pointed upward, and took Monks out of the room. 'Not that infernal hole we were in before,' she could hear the man say as they went upstairs. Fagin laughed; and making some reply which did not reach her, seemed, by the creaking of the boards, to lead his companion to the second story. Before the sound of their footsteps had ceased to echo through the house, the girl had slipped off her shoes; and drawing her gown loosely over her head, and muffling her arms in it, stood at the door, listening with breathless interest. The moment the noise ceased, she glided from the room; ascended the stairs with incredible softness and silence; and was lost in the gloom above. The room remained deserted for a quarter of an hour or more; the girl glided back with the same unearthly tread; and, immediately afterwards, the two men were heard descending. Monks went at once into the street; and the Jew crawled upstairs again for the money. When he returned, the girl was adjusting her shawl and bonnet, as if preparing to be gone. 'Why, Nance!' exclaimed the Jew, starting back as he put down the candle, 'how pale you are!' 'Pale!' echoed the girl, shading her eyes with her hands, as if to look steadily at him. 'Quite horrible. What have you been doing to yourself?' 'Nothing that I know of, except sitting in this close place for I don't know how long and all,' replied the girl carelessly. 'Come! Let me get back; that's a dear.' With a sigh for every piece of money, Fagin told the amount into her hand. They parted without more conversation, merely interchanging a 'good-night.' When the girl got into the open street, she sat down upon a doorstep; and seemed, for a few moments, wholly bewildered and unable to pursue her way. Suddenly she arose; and hurrying on, in a direction quite opposite to that in which Sikes was awaiting her returned, quickened her pace, until it gradually resolved into a violent run. After completely exhausting herself, she stopped to take breath: and, as if suddenly recollecting herself, and deploring her inability to do something she was bent upon, wrung her hands, and burst into tears. It might be that her tears relieved her, or that she felt the full hopelessness of her condition; but she turned back; and hurrying with nearly as great rapidity in the contrary direction; partly to recover lost time, and partly to keep pace with the violent current of her own thoughts: soon reached the dwelling where she had left the housebreaker. If she betrayed any agitation, when she presented herself to Mr. Sikes, he did not observe it; for merely inquiring if she had brought the money, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, he uttered a growl of satisfaction, and replacing his head upon the pillow, resumed the slumbers which her arrival had interrupted. It was fortunate for her that the possession of money occasioned him so much employment next day in the way of eating and drinking; and withal had so beneficial an effect in smoothing down the asperities of his temper; that he had neither time nor inclination to be very critical upon her behaviour and deportment. That she had all the abstracted and nervous manner of one who is on the eve of some bold and hazardous step, which it has required no common struggle to resolve upon, would have been obvious to the lynx-eyed Fagin, who would most probably have taken the alarm at once; but Mr. Sikes lacking the niceties of discrimination, and being troubled with no more subtle misgivings than those which resolve themselves into a dogged roughness of behaviour towards everybody; and being, furthermore, in an unusually amiable condition, as has been already observed; saw nothing unusual in her demeanor, and indeed, troubled himself so little about her, that, had her agitation been far more perceptible than it was, it would have been very unlikely to have awakened his suspicions. As that day closed in, the girl's excitement increased; and, when night came on, and she sat by, watching until the housebreaker should drink himself asleep, there was an unusual paleness in her cheek, and a fire in her eye, that even Sikes observed with astonishment. Mr. Sikes being weak from the fever, was lying in bed, taking hot water with his gin to render it less inflammatory; and had pushed his glass towards Nancy to be replenished for the third or fourth time, when these symptoms first struck him. 'Why, burn my body!' said the man, raising himself on his hands as he stared the girl in the face. 'You look like a corpse come to life again. What's the matter?' 'Matter!' replied the girl. 'Nothing. What do you look at me so hard for?' 'What foolery is this?' demanded Sikes, grasping her by the arm, and shaking her roughly. 'What is it? What do you mean? What are you thinking of?' 'Of many things, Bill,' replied the girl, shivering, and as she did so, pressing her hands upon her eyes. 'But, Lord! What odds in that?' The tone of forced gaiety in which the last words were spoken, seemed to produce a deeper impression on Sikes than the wild and rigid look which had preceded them. 'I tell you wot it is,' said Sikes; 'if you haven't caught the fever, and got it comin' on, now, there's something more than usual in the wind, and something dangerous too. You're not a-going to--. No, damme! you wouldn't do that!' 'Do what?' asked the girl. 'There ain't,' said Sikes, fixing his eyes upon her, and muttering the words to himself; 'there ain't a stauncher-hearted gal going, or I'd have cut her throat three months ago. She's got the fever coming on; that's it.' Fortifying himself with this assurance, Sikes drained the glass to the bottom, and then, with many grumbling oaths, called for his physic. The girl jumped up, with great alacrity; poured it quickly out, but with her back towards him; and held the vessel to his lips, while he drank off the contents. 'Now,' said the robber, 'come and sit aside of me, and put on your own face; or I'll alter it so, that you won't know it agin when you do want it.' The girl obeyed. Sikes, locking her hand in his, fell back upon the pillow: turning his eyes upon her face. They closed; opened again; closed once more; again opened. He shifted his position restlessly; and, after dozing again, and again, for two or three minutes, and as often springing up with a look of terror, and gazing vacantly about him, was suddenly stricken, as it were, while in the very attitude of rising, into a deep and heavy sleep. The grasp of his hand relaxed; the upraised arm fell languidly by his side; and he lay like one in a profound trance. 'The laudanum has taken effect at last,' murmured the girl, as she rose from the bedside. 'I may be too late, even now.' She hastily dressed herself in her bonnet and shawl: looking fearfully round, from time to time, as if, despite the sleeping draught, she expected every moment to feel the pressure of Sikes's heavy hand upon her shoulder; then, stooping softly over the bed, she kissed the robber's lips; and then opening and closing the room-door with noiseless touch, hurried from the house. A watchman was crying half-past nine, down a dark passage through which she had to pass, in gaining the main thoroughfare. 'Has it long gone the half-hour?' asked the girl. 'It'll strike the hour in another quarter,' said the man: raising his lantern to her face. 'And I cannot get there in less than an hour or more,' muttered Nancy: brushing swiftly past him, and gliding rapidly down the street. Many of the shops were already closing in the back lanes and avenues through which she tracked her way, in making from Spitalfields towards the West-End of London. The clock struck ten, increasing her impatience. She tore along the narrow pavement: elbowing the passengers from side to side; and darting almost under the horses' heads, crossed crowded streets, where clusters of persons were eagerly watching their opportunity to do the like. 'The woman is mad!' said the people, turning to look after her as she rushed away. When she reached the more wealthy quarter of the town, the streets were comparatively deserted; and here her headlong progress excited a still greater curiosity in the stragglers whom she hurried past. Some quickened their pace behind, as though to see whither she was hastening at such an unusual rate; and a few made head upon her, and looked back, surprised at her undiminished speed; but they fell off one by one; and when she neared her place of destination, she was alone. It was a family hotel in a quiet but handsome street near Hyde Park. As the brilliant light of the lamp which burnt before its door, guided her to the spot, the clock struck eleven. She had loitered for a few paces as though irresolute, and making up her mind to advance; but the sound determined her, and she stepped into the hall. The porter's seat was vacant. She looked round with an air of incertitude, and advanced towards the stairs. 'Now, young woman!' said a smartly-dressed female, looking out from a door behind her, 'who do you want here?' 'A lady who is stopping in this house,' answered the girl. 'A lady!' was the reply, accompanied with a scornful look. 'What lady?' 'Miss Maylie,' said Nancy. The young woman, who had by this time, noted her appearance, replied only by a look of virtuous disdain; and summoned a man to answer her. To him, Nancy repeated her request. 'What name am I to say?' asked the waiter. 'It's of no use saying any,' replied Nancy. 'Nor business?' said the man. 'No, nor that neither,' rejoined the girl. 'I must see the lady.' 'Come!' said the man, pushing her towards the door. 'None of this. Take yourself off.' 'I shall be carried out if I go!' said the girl violently; 'and I can make that a job that two of you won't like to do. Isn't there anybody here,' she said, looking round, 'that will see a simple message carried for a poor wretch like me?' This appeal produced an effect on a good-tempered-faced man-cook, who with some of the other servants was looking on, and who stepped forward to interfere. 'Take it up for her, Joe; can't you?' said this person. 'What's the good?' replied the man. 'You don't suppose the young lady will see such as her; do you?' This allusion to Nancy's doubtful character, raised a vast quantity of chaste wrath in the bosoms of four housemaids, who remarked, with great fervour, that the creature was a disgrace to her sex; and strongly advocated her being thrown, ruthlessly, into the kennel. 'Do what you like with me,' said the girl, turning to the men again; 'but do what I ask you first, and I ask you to give this message for God Almighty's sake.' The soft-hearted cook added his intercession, and the result was that the man who had first appeared undertook its delivery. 'What's it to be?' said the man, with one foot on the stairs. 'That a young woman earnestly asks to speak to Miss Maylie alone,' said Nancy; 'and that if the lady will only hear the first word she has to say, she will know whether to hear her business, or to have her turned out of doors as an impostor.' 'I say,' said the man, 'you're coming it strong!' 'You give the message,' said the girl firmly; 'and let me hear the answer.' The man ran upstairs. Nancy remained, pale and almost breathless, listening with quivering lip to the very audible expressions of scorn, of which the chaste housemaids were very prolific; and of which they became still more so, when the man returned, and said the young woman was to walk upstairs. 'It's no good being proper in this world,' said the first housemaid. 'Brass can do better than the gold what has stood the fire,' said the second. The third contented herself with wondering 'what ladies was made of'; and the fourth took the first in a quartette of 'Shameful!' with which the Dianas concluded. Regardless of all this: for she had weightier matters at heart: Nancy followed the man, with trembling limbs, to a small ante-chamber, lighted by a lamp from the ceiling. Here he left her, and retired. The girl's life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most noisome of the stews and dens of London, but there was something of the woman's original nature left in her still; and when she heard a light step approaching the door opposite to that by which she had entered, and thought of the wide contrast which the small room would in another moment contain, she felt burdened with the sense of her own deep shame, and shrunk as though she could scarcely bear the presence of her with whom she had sought this interview. But struggling with these better feelings was pride,--the vice of the lowest and most debased creatures no less than of the high and self-assured. The miserable companion of thieves and ruffians, the fallen outcast of low haunts, the associate of the scourings of the jails and hulks, living within the shadow of the gallows itself,--even this degraded being felt too proud to betray a feeble gleam of the womanly feeling which she thought a weakness, but which alone connected her with that humanity, of which her wasting life had obliterated so many, many traces when a very child. She raised her eyes sufficiently to observe that the figure which presented itself was that of a slight and beautiful girl; then, bending them on the ground, she tossed her head with affected carelessness as she said: 'It's a hard matter to get to see you, lady. If I had taken offence, and gone away, as many would have done, you'd have been sorry for it one day, and not without reason either.' 'I am very sorry if any one has behaved harshly to you,' replied Rose. 'Do not think of that. Tell me why you wished to see me. I am the person you inquired for.' The kind tone of this answer, the sweet voice, the gentle manner, the absence of any accent of haughtiness or displeasure, took the girl completely by surprise, and she burst into tears. 'Oh, lady, lady!' she said, clasping her hands passionately before her face, 'if there was more like you, there would be fewer like me,--there would--there would!' 'Sit down,' said Rose, earnestly. 'If you are in poverty or affliction I shall be truly glad to relieve you if I can,--I shall indeed. Sit down.' 'Let me stand, lady,' said the girl, still weeping, 'and do not speak to me so kindly till you know me better. It is growing late. Is--is--that door shut?' 'Yes,' said Rose, recoiling a few steps, as if to be nearer assistance in case she should require it. 'Why?' 'Because,' said the girl, 'I am about to put my life and the lives of others in your hands. I am the girl that dragged little Oliver back to old Fagin's on the night he went out from the house in Pentonville.' 'You!' said Rose Maylie. 'I, lady!' replied the girl. 'I am the infamous creature you have heard of, that lives among the thieves, and that never from the first moment I can recollect my eyes and senses opening on London streets have known any better life, or kinder words than they have given me, so help me God! Do not mind shrinking openly from me, lady. I am younger than you would think, to look at me, but I am well used to it. The poorest women fall back, as I make my way along the crowded pavement.' 'What dreadful things are these!' said Rose, involuntarily falling from her strange companion. 'Thank Heaven upon your knees, dear lady,' cried the girl, 'that you had friends to care for and keep you in your childhood, and that you were never in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness, and--and--something worse than all--as I have been from my cradle. I may use the word, for the alley and the gutter were mine, as they will be my deathbed.' 'I pity you!' said Rose, in a broken voice. 'It wrings my heart to hear you!' 'Heaven bless you for your goodness!' rejoined the girl. 'If you knew what I am sometimes, you would pity me, indeed. But I have stolen away from those who would surely murder me, if they knew I had been here, to tell you what I have overheard. Do you know a man named Monks?' 'No,' said Rose. 'He knows you,' replied the girl; 'and knew you were here, for it was by hearing him tell the place that I found you out.' 'I never heard the name,' said Rose. 'Then he goes by some other amongst us,' rejoined the girl, 'which I more than thought before. Some time ago, and soon after Oliver was put into your house on the night of the robbery, I--suspecting this man--listened to a conversation held between him and Fagin in the dark. I found out, from what I heard, that Monks--the man I asked you about, you know--' 'Yes,' said Rose, 'I understand.' '--That Monks,' pursued the girl, 'had seen him accidently with two of our boys on the day we first lost him, and had known him directly to be the same child that he was watching for, though I couldn't make out why. A bargain was struck with Fagin, that if Oliver was got back he should have a certain sum; and he was to have more for making him a thief, which this Monks wanted for some purpose of his own.' 'For what purpose?' asked Rose. 'He caught sight of my shadow on the wall as I listened, in the hope of finding out,' said the girl; 'and there are not many people besides me that could have got out of their way in time to escape discovery. But I did; and I saw him no more till last night.' 'And what occurred then?' 'I'll tell you, lady. Last night he came again. Again they went upstairs, and I, wrapping myself up so that my shadow would not betray me, again listened at the door. The first words I heard Monks say were these: "So the only proofs of the boy's identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin." They laughed, and talked of his success in doing this; and Monks, talking on about the boy, and getting very wild, said that though he had got the young devil's money safely now, he'd rather have had it the other way; for, what a game it would have been to have brought down the boast of the father's will, by driving him through every jail in town, and then hauling him up for some capital felony which Fagin could easily manage, after having made a good profit of him besides.' 'What is all this!' said Rose. 'The truth, lady, though it comes from my lips,' replied the girl. 'Then, he said, with oaths common enough in my ears, but strange to yours, that if he could gratify his hatred by taking the boy's life without bringing his own neck in danger, he would; but, as he couldn't, he'd be upon the watch to meet him at every turn in life; and if he took advantage of his birth and history, he might harm him yet. "In short, Fagin," he says, "Jew as you are, you never laid such snares as I'll contrive for my young brother, Oliver."' 'His brother!' exclaimed Rose. 'Those were his words,' said Nancy, glancing uneasily round, as she had scarcely ceased to do, since she began to speak, for a vision of Sikes haunted her perpetually. 'And more. When he spoke of you and the other lady, and said it seemed contrived by Heaven, or the devil, against him, that Oliver should come into your hands, he laughed, and said there was some comfort in that too, for how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds would you not give, if you had them, to know who your two-legged spaniel was.' 'You do not mean,' said Rose, turning very pale, 'to tell me that this was said in earnest?' 'He spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did,' replied the girl, shaking her head. 'He is an earnest man when his hatred is up. I know many who do worse things; but I'd rather listen to them all a dozen times, than to that Monks once. It is growing late, and I have to reach home without suspicion of having been on such an errand as this. I must get back quickly.' 'But what can I do?' said Rose. 'To what use can I turn this communication without you? Back! Why do you wish to return to companions you paint in such terrible colors? If you repeat this information to a gentleman whom I can summon in an instant from the next room, you can be consigned to some place of safety without half an hour's delay.' 'I wish to go back,' said the girl. 'I must go back, because--how can I tell such things to an innocent lady like you?--because among the men I have told you of, there is one: the most desperate among them all; that I can't leave: no, not even to be saved from the life I am leading now.' 'Your having interfered in this dear boy's behalf before,' said Rose; 'your coming here, at so great a risk, to tell me what you have heard; your manner, which convinces me of the truth of what you say; your evident contrition, and sense of shame; all lead me to believe that you might yet be reclaimed. Oh!' said the earnest girl, folding her hands as the tears coursed down her face, 'do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first--the first, I do believe, who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion. Do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things.' 'Lady,' cried the girl, sinking on her knees, 'dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!' 'It is never too late,' said Rose, 'for penitence and atonement.' 'It is,' cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind; 'I cannot leave him now! I could not be his death.' 'Why should you be?' asked Rose. 'Nothing could save him,' cried the girl. 'If I told others what I have told you, and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die. He is the boldest, and has been so cruel!' 'Is it possible,' cried Rose, 'that for such a man as this, you can resign every future hope, and the certainty of immediate rescue? It is madness.' 'I don't know what it is,' answered the girl; 'I only know that it is so, and not with me alone, but with hundreds of others as bad and wretched as myself. I must go back. Whether it is God's wrath for the wrong I have done, I do not know; but I am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill usage; and I should be, I believe, if I knew that I was to die by his hand at last.' 'What am I to do?' said Rose. 'I should not let you depart from me thus.' 'You should, lady, and I know you will,' rejoined the girl, rising. 'You will not stop my going because I have trusted in your goodness, and forced no promise from you, as I might have done.' 'Of what use, then, is the communication you have made?' said Rose. 'This mystery must be investigated, or how will its disclosure to me, benefit Oliver, whom you are anxious to serve?' 'You must have some kind gentleman about you that will hear it as a secret, and advise you what to do,' rejoined the girl. 'But where can I find you again when it is necessary?' asked Rose. 'I do not seek to know where these dreadful people live, but where will you be walking or passing at any settled period from this time?' 'Will you promise me that you will have my secret strictly kept, and come alone, or with the only other person that knows it; and that I shall not be watched or followed?' asked the girl. 'I promise you solemnly,' answered Rose. 'Every Sunday night, from eleven until the clock strikes twelve,' said the girl without hesitation, 'I will walk on London Bridge if I am alive.' 'Stay another moment,' interposed Rose, as the girl moved hurriedly towards the door. 'Think once again on your own condition, and the opportunity you have of escaping from it. You have a claim on me: not only as the voluntary bearer of this intelligence, but as a woman lost almost beyond redemption. Will you return to this gang of robbers, and to this man, when a word can save you? What fascination is it that can take you back, and make you cling to wickedness and misery? Oh! is there no chord in your heart that I can touch! Is there nothing left, to which I can appeal against this terrible infatuation!' 'When ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are,' replied the girl steadily, 'give away your hearts, love will carry you all lengths--even such as you, who have home, friends, other admirers, everything, to fill them. When such as I, who have no certain roof but the coffinlid, and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man, and let him fill the place that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us? Pity us, lady--pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left, and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and a pride, into a new means of violence and suffering.' 'You will,' said Rose, after a pause, 'take some money from me, which may enable you to live without dishonesty--at all events until we meet again?' 'Not a penny,' replied the girl, waving her hand. 'Do not close your heart against all my efforts to help you,' said Rose, stepping gently forward. 'I wish to serve you indeed.' 'You would serve me best, lady,' replied the girl, wringing her hands, 'if you could take my life at once; for I have felt more grief to think of what I am, to-night, than I ever did before, and it would be something not to die in the hell in which I have lived. God bless you, sweet lady, and send as much happiness on your head as I have brought shame on mine!' Thus speaking, and sobbing aloud, the unhappy creature turned away; while Rose Maylie, overpowered by this extraordinary interview, which had more the semblance of a rapid dream than an actual occurrence, sank into a chair, and endeavoured to collect her wandering thoughts. 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.

Alle kommen zu Olivers Schrei, und Harry führt die Verfolgung von Fagin und dem anderen Mann an. Sie finden keine Spur von ihnen und denken daher, dass Oliver es vielleicht geträumt hat, aber Oliver ist sich sicher, dass es echt war. Sie suchen weiter und machen in den nächsten Tagen Nachforschungen in der Stadt, aber es ergibt sich nichts und so wird die Sache vergessen. Inzwischen wird Rose immer stärker, aber irgendetwas scheint sie immer noch zu bedrücken. Harry macht sich bereit zu gehen, aber bevor er geht, bittet er Rose um ein paar Momente allein. Harry gesteht seine langjährige Liebe zu Rose, aber sie bittet ihn, sie zu vergessen, weil sie unter ihm steht und einen Makel auf ihrem Namen hat und ihm in seinem Fortschritt in der Welt im Weg wäre. Sie betrachtet es als ihre Pflicht, ihn abzulehnen, zum Wohl von ihm und seinen Freunden. Harry akzeptiert dies, bittet aber um einen Gefallen: eines Tages seine Bewerbung erneut zu prüfen, was Rose zustimmt. Bevor er mit Mr. Losberne geht, bittet Harry Oliver, ihm heimlich jeden zweiten Montag zu schreiben und ihm mitzuteilen, wie es Mrs. Maylie und Rose geht. Oliver verspricht, diese Pflicht zu erfüllen. Mr. Bumble sitzt im Aufenthaltsraum des Armenhauses und sieht recht bedrückt aus. An seiner Kleidung ist deutlich zu erkennen, dass er nicht mehr der Kirchspieldiener ist. Durch die Heirat mit Mrs. Corney wurde er Herr des Armenhauses, und die Position des Kirchspieldieners wurde an jemand anderen vergeben. Mr. Bumble ist der Meinung, dass er sich für zu wenig an die nun Mrs. Bumble verkauft hat, die ihn dabei belauscht, wie er sich beschwert, und wütend wird. Es sind zwei Monate seit ihrer Hochzeit vergangen, und sie kämpfen um die Vorherrschaft. Mrs. Bumble schafft es, die Oberhand zu gewinnen, was Mr. Bumble überrascht. Es wird noch schlimmer, als Mrs. Bumble ihn vor den Armenhäuslern blamiert, die ihn lachen hören. Um sich besser zu fühlen, geht Mr. Bumble in eine Kneipe, in der ein Fremder sitzt, der offensichtlich von weit her gereist ist. Dieser Fremde spricht mit Mr. Bumble und sagt, dass er ihn kannte, als er der Kirchspieldiener war. Der Fremde gibt zu, dass er in die Stadt gekommen ist, um Mr. Bumble einige Informationen zu fragen. Er steckt Mr. Bumble ein paar Souveräne zu und fragt nach Informationen über die Frau, die Olivers Mutter bei seiner Geburt pflegte. Mr. Bumble erzählt dem Fremden, dass sie letzten Winter gestorben ist. Mr. Bumble, der eine Gelegenheit für weitere Gewinne wittert, bietet dem Fremden ein Treffen mit Mrs. Corney an, die in der Nacht, als Old Sally starb, bei ihr war. Der Fremde sagt Mr. Bumble, dass er Monks heißt. Mr. und Mrs. Bumble gehen zur Adresse, die ihnen Monks gegeben hat, um sich mit ihm zu treffen. Es ist stürmisch, und das Donnern scheint Monks in seltsame Zustände zu versetzen. Mrs. Bumble verhandelt mit Monks und sagt, dass er ihr fünfundzwanzig Pfund zahlen muss, bevor sie ihm ihre Informationen gibt. Er zahlt ihr, und Mrs. Bumble erzählt ihm, was sie weiß, was sich herausstellt, dass es sich um das Medaillon selbst handelt, das sie vom Pfandhaus eingelöst hat. Monks wirft das Medaillon in den Fluss unter ihnen und sagt den Bumbles, dass sie nicht mehr darüber sprechen sollen. Die Bumbles stimmen zu und gehen. Bill Sikes lebt immer noch in der gleichen Nachbarschaft, aber jetzt in einer kleineren und schäbigeren Wohnung. Sikes selbst ist ebenfalls viel schlechter dran, da es ihm sehr schlecht geht. Nancy ist bei ihm, auch sie ist stark mitgenommen. Sie ist tatsächlich so schwach, dass sie in Ohnmacht fällt. Fagin, der gewiefte Dodger und Charley Bates kommen herein und versuchen zu helfen. Nancy kommt wieder zu sich und geht ins Bett, während Sikes fragt, was die Besucher dort machen. Sie haben ihm etwas Essen und Spirituosen mitgebracht, die er schnell isst, aber nicht dankbar ist, da es das erste Mal ist, dass sie ihm helfen, seitdem er drei Wochen lang krank ist. Fagin gewinnt nach und nach sein Vertrauen, und nach einigem Zureden stimmt er zu, Nancy mit nach Hause zu nehmen und Bill etwas Geld zu geben. Sie kehren zu Fagins zurück, wo Fagin sich darauf vorbereitet, das Geld für Nancy zu holen, aber inne hält, als er jemanden näherkommen hört. Es ist Monks, dem Nancy vorgibt, keine Beachtung zu schenken, aber in Wirklichkeit sehr genau studiert. Monks möchte alleine mit Fagin sprechen, also gehen sie nach oben und lassen Nancy zurück. Sie zieht ihre Schuhe aus und schleicht ihnen nach und kehrt kurz vor ihnen zurück in das Zimmer. Fagin gibt ihr das Geld, und sie geht. Sie kehrt jedoch nicht zu Sikes zurück, sondern rennt in die entgegengesetzte Richtung davon, aber als sie müde wird, setzt sie sich nur auf eine Stufe und weint, kehrt dann aber um und kehrt zu Sikes' Behausung zurück. Am nächsten Tag benimmt sich Nancy seltsam, aber Sikes ist so beschäftigt mit seinem neuen Geld, dass er es nicht bemerkt. Aber bis zum Abend ist ihre Unruhe so groß geworden, dass er es auch bemerkt. Er ist jedoch zu müde, um es ernst zu nehmen, und schläft schließlich ein. Sobald er schläft, zieht sie sich sofort an und verlässt die Wohnung. Sie beeilt sich, besorgt, dass sie zu spät kommen könnte. Sie kommt schließlich in einem Familienhotel an, wo sie Miss Maylie treffen möchte. Die Bediensteten wollen Nancy nicht nach oben lassen, aber jemand stimmt zu, ihre Nachricht zu überbringen, und Rose erklärt sich bereit, sie zu treffen. Nancy, während sie auf Miss Maylie wartet, empfindet ein Gefühl von Scham darüber, wie der Kontrast zwischen ihnen beiden sein wird und wie Miss Maylies tiefgründige Freundlichkeit und Mangel an Hochmut sie zum Weinen bringt, als sie ankommt. Sie erzählt Miss Maylie, dass sie diejenige ist, die Oliver entführt und ihn zu Fagin zurückgebracht hat, als er bei Mr. Brownlow lebte. Nancy erklärt, dass sie in dem ersten Gespräch, das sie zwischen Monks und Fagin belauscht hat, erfahren hat, dass Monks Oliver mit dem Dodger und Bates gesehen und Fagin gesagt hat, dass er ihn bezahlen würde, wenn er ihn zurückbringt und zu einem Dieb macht. Dann erfährt sie beim zweiten Mal, als sie die beiden Männer belauscht, dass Monks, nachdem er den Beweis für Olivers Abstammung beseitigt hat, sich nun dasjenige gesichert hat, was eigentlich das Erbe des Jungen wäre, und sie erfährt, dass Monks sein Bruder ist. Nancy sagt, dass sie gehen muss, bevor Sikes oder jemand bemerkt, dass sie weg ist, aber Rose bittet sie zu bleiben und gerettet zu werden. Nancy sagt, dass sie gehen muss, sie kann nicht gerettet werden, weil sie Sikes nicht verlassen kann und dadurch seinen Tod verursacht. Rose und Nancy vereinbaren, dass Nancy solange sie lebt, jeden Sonntagabend zwischen elf und Mitternacht auf der London Bridge gehen wird, damit Rose sie finden kann, wenn sie Oliver helfen 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: CHAPTER. VII. OF POLITICAL OR CIVIL SOCIETY. Sect. 77. GOD having made man such a creature, that in his own judgment, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination to drive him into society, as well as fitted him with understanding and language to continue and enjoy it. The first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children; to which, in time, that between master and servant came to be added: and though all these might, and commonly did meet together, and make up but one family, wherein the master or mistress of it had some sort of rule proper to a family; each of these, or all together, came short of political society, as we shall see, if we consider the different ends, ties, and bounds of each of these. Sect. 78. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman; and tho' it consist chiefly in such a communion and right in one another's bodies as is necessary to its chief end, procreation; yet it draws with it mutual support and assistance, and a communion of interests too, as necessary not only to unite their care and affection, but also necessary to their common off-spring, who have a right to be nourished, and maintained by them, till they are able to provide for themselves. Sect. 79. For the end of conjunction, between male and female, being not barely procreation, but the continuation of the species; thisconjunction betwixt male and female ought to last, even after procreation, so long as is necessary to the nourishment and support of the young ones, who are to be sustained by those that got them, till they are able to shift and provide for themselves. This rule, which the infinite wise maker hath set to the works of his hands, we find the inferior creatures steadily obey. In those viviparous animals which feed on grass, the conjunction between male and female lasts no longer than the very act of copulation; because the teat of the dam being sufficient to nourish the young, till it be able to feed on grass, the male only begets, but concerns not himself for the female or young, to whose sustenance he can contribute nothing. But in beasts of prey the conjunction lasts longer: because the dam not being able well to subsist herself, and nourish her numerous off-spring by her own prey alone, a more laborious, as well as more dangerous way of living, than by feeding on grass, the assistance of the male is necessary to the maintenance of their common family, which cannot subsist till they are able to prey for themselves, but by the joint care of male and female. The same is to be observed in all birds, (except some domestic ones, where plenty of food excuses the cock from feeding, and taking care of the young brood) whose young needing food in the nest, the cock and hen continue mates, till the young are able to use their wing, and provide for themselves. Sect. 80. And herein I think lies the chief, if not the only reason, why the male and female in mankind are tied to a longer conjunction than other creatures, viz. because the female is capable of conceiving, and de facto is commonly with child again, and brings forth too a new birth, long before the former is out of a dependency for support on his parents help, and able to shift for himself, and has all the assistance is due to him from his parents: whereby the father, who is bound to take care for those he hath begot, is under an obligation to continue in conjugal society with the same woman longer than other creatures, whose young being able to subsist of themselves, before the time of procreation returns again, the conjugal bond dissolves of itself, and they are at liberty, till Hymen at his usual anniversary season summons them again to chuse new mates. Wherein one cannot but admire the wisdom of the great Creator, who having given to man foresight, and an ability to lay up for the future, as well as to supply the present necessity, hath made it necessary, that society of man and wife should be more lasting, than of male and female amongst other creatures; that so their industry might be encouraged, and their interest better united, to make provision and lay up goods for their common issue, which uncertain mixture, or easy and frequent solutions of conjugal society would mightily disturb. Sect. 81. But tho' these are ties upon mankind, which make the conjugal bonds more firm and lasting in man, than the other species of animals; yet it would give one reason to enquire, why this compact, where procreation and education are secured, and inheritance taken care for, may not be made determinable, either by consent, or at a certain time, or upon certain conditions, as well as any other voluntary compacts, there being no necessity in the nature of the thing, nor to the ends of it, that it should always be for life; I mean, to such as are under no restraint of any positive law, which ordains all such contracts to be perpetual. Sect. 82. But the husband and wife, though they have but one common concern, yet having different understandings, will unavoidably sometimes have different wills too; it therefore being necessary that the last determination, i. e. the rule, should be placed somewhere; it naturally falls to the man's share, as the abler and the stronger. But this reaching but to the things of their common interest and property, leaves the wife in the full and free possession of what by contract is her peculiar right, and gives the husband no more power over her life than she has over his; the power of the husband being so far from that of an absolute monarch, that the wife has in many cases a liberty to separate from him, where natural right, or their contract allows it; whether that contract be made by themselves in the state of nature, or by the customs or laws of the country they live in; and the children upon such separation fall to the father or mother's lot, as such contract does determine. Sect. 83. For all the ends of marriage being to be obtained under politic government, as well as in the state of nature, the civil magistrate doth not abridge the right or power of either naturally necessary to those ends, viz. procreation and mutual support and assistance whilst they are together; but only decides any controversy that may arise between man and wife about them. If it were otherwise, and that absolute sovereignty and power of life and death naturally belonged to the husband, and were necessary to the society between man and wife, there could be no matrimony in any of those countries where the husband is allowed no such absolute authority. But the ends of matrimony requiring no such power in the husband, the condition of conjugal society put it not in him, it being not at all necessary to that state. Conjugal society could subsist and attain its ends without it; nay, community of goods, and the power over them, mutual assistance and maintenance, and other things belonging to conjugal society, might be varied and regulated by that contract which unites man and wife in that society, as far as may consist with procreation and the bringing up of children till they could shift for themselves; nothing being necessary to any society, that is not necessary to the ends for which it is made. Sect. 84. The society betwixt parents and children, and the distinct rights and powers belonging respectively to them, I have treated of so largely, in the foregoing chapter, that I shall not here need to say any thing of it. And I think it is plain, that it is far different from a politic society. Sect. 85. Master and servant are names as old as history, but given to those of far different condition; for a freeman makes himself a servant to another, by selling him, for a certain time, the service he undertakes to do, in exchange for wages he is to receive: and though this commonly puts him into the family of his master, and under the ordinary discipline thereof; yet it gives the master but a temporary power over him, and no greater than what is contained in the contract between them. But there is another sort of servants, which by a peculiar name we call slaves, who being captives taken in a just war, are by the right of nature subjected to the absolute dominion and arbitrary power of their masters. These men having, as I say, forfeited their lives, and with it their liberties, and lost their estates; and being in the state of slavery, not capable of any property, cannot in that state be considered as any part of civil society; the chief end whereof is the preservation of property. Sect. 86. Let us therefore consider a master of a family with all these subordinate relations of wife, children, servants, and slaves, united under the domestic rule of a family; which, what resemblance soever it may have in its order, offices, and number too, with a little commonwealth, yet is very far from it, both in its constitution, power and end: or if it must be thought a monarchy, and the paterfamilias the absolute monarch in it, absolute monarchy will have but a very shattered and short power, when it is plain, by what has been said before, that the master of the family has a very distinct and differently limited power, both as to time and extent, over those several persons that are in it; for excepting the slave (and the family is as much a family, and his power as paterfamilias as great, whether there be any slaves in his family or no) he has no legislative power of life and death over any of them, and none too but what a mistress of a family may have as well as he. And he certainly can have no absolute power over the whole family, who has but a very limited one over every individual in it. But how a family, or any other society of men, differ from that which is properly political society, we shall best see, by considering wherein political society itself consists. Sect. 87. Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrouled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men; but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it. But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto, punish the offences of all those of that society; there, and there only is political society, where every one of the members hath quitted this natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it. And thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire, by settled standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties; and by men having authority from the community, for the execution of those rules, decides all the differences that may happen between any members of that society concerning any matter of right; and punishes those offences which any member hath committed against the society, with such penalties as the law has established: whereby it is easy to discern, who are, and who are not, in political society together. Those who are united into one body, and have a common established law and judicature to appeal to, with authority to decide controversies between them, and punish offenders, are in civil society one with another: but those who have no such common appeal, I mean on earth, are still in the state of nature, each being, where there is no other, judge for himself, and executioner; which is, as I have before shewed it, the perfect state of nature. Sect. 88. And thus the commonwealth comes by a power to set down what punishment shall belong to the several transgressions which they think worthy of it, committed amongst the members of that society, (which is the power of making laws) as well as it has the power to punish any injury done unto any of its members, by any one that is not of it, (which is the power of war and peace;) and all this for the preservation of the property of all the members of that society, as far as is possible. But though every man who has entered into civil society, and is become a member of any commonwealth, has thereby quitted his power to punish offences, against the law of nature, in prosecution of his own private judgment, yet with the judgment of offences, which he has given up to the legislative in all cases, where he can appeal to the magistrate, he has given a right to the commonwealth to employ his force, for the execution of the judgments of the commonwealth, whenever he shall be called to it; which indeed are his own judgments, they being made by himself, or his representative. And herein we have the original of the legislative and executive power of civil society, which is to judge by standing laws, how far offences are to be punished, when committed within the commonwealth; and also to determine, by occasional judgments founded on the present circumstances of the fact, how far injuries from without are to be vindicated; and in both these to employ all the force of all the members, when there shall be need. Sect. 89. Where-ever therefore any number of men are so united into one society, as to quit every one his executive power of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political, or civil society. And this is done, where-ever any number of men, in the state of nature, enter into society to make one people, one body politic, under one supreme government; or else when any one joins himself to, and incorporates with any government already made: for hereby he authorizes the society, or which is all one, the legislative thereof, to make laws for him, as the public good of the society shall require; to the execution whereof, his own assistance (as to his own decrees) is due. And this puts men out of a state of nature into that of a commonwealth, by setting up a judge on earth, with authority to determine all the controversies, and redress the injuries that may happen to any member of the commonwealth; which judge is the legislative, or magistrates appointed by it. And where-ever there are any number of men, however associated, that have no such decisive power to appeal to, there they are still in the state of nature. Sect. 90. Hence it is evident, that absolute monarchy, which by some men is counted the only government in the world, is indeed inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil-government at all: for the end of civil society, being to avoid, and remedy those inconveniencies of the state of nature, which necessarily follow from every man's being judge in his own case, by setting up a known authority, to which every one of that society may appeal upon any injury received, or controversy that may arise, and which every one of the society ought to obey;* where-ever any persons are, who have not such an authority to appeal to, for the decision of any difference between them, there those persons are still in the state of nature; and so is every absolute prince, in respect of those who are under his dominion. (*The public power of all society is above every soul contained in the same society; and the principal use of that power is, to give laws unto all that are under it, which laws in such cases we must obey, unless there be reason shewed which may necessarily inforce, that the law of reason, or of God, doth enjoin the contrary, Hook. Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 16.) Sect. 91. For he being supposed to have all, both legislative and executive power in himself alone, there is no judge to be found, no appeal lies open to any one, who may fairly, and indifferently, and with authority decide, and from whose decision relief and redress may be expected of any injury or inconviency, that may be suffered from the prince, or by his order: so that such a man, however intitled, Czar, or Grand Seignior, or how you please, is as much in the state of nature, with all under his dominion, as he is with the rest of mankind: for where-ever any two men are, who have no standing rule, and common judge to appeal to on earth, for the determination of controversies of right betwixt them, there they are still in the state of* nature, and under all the inconveniencies of it, with only this woful difference to the subject, or rather slave of an absolute prince: that whereas, in the ordinary state of nature, he has a liberty to judge of his right, and according to the best of his power, to maintain it; now, whenever his property is invaded by the will and order of his monarch, he has not only no appeal, as those in society ought to have, but as if he were degraded from the common state of rational creatures, is denied a liberty to judge of, or to defend his right; and so is exposed to all the misery and inconveniencies, that a man can fear from one, who being in the unrestrained state of nature, is yet corrupted with flattery, and armed with power. (*To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries and wrongs, i.e. such as attend men in the state of nature, there was no way but only by growing into composition and agreement amongst themselves, by ordaining some kind of govemment public, and by yielding themselves subject thereunto, that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govem, by them the peace, tranquillity and happy estate of the rest might be procured. Men always knew that where force and injury was offered, they might be defenders of themselves; they knew that however men may seek their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury unto others, it was not to be suffered, but by all men, and all good means to be withstood. Finally, they knew that no man might in reason take upon him to determine his own right, and according to his own determination proceed in maintenance thereof, in as much as every man is towards himself, and them whom he greatly affects, partial; and therefore that strifes and troubles would be endless, except they gave their common consent, all to be ordered by some, whom they should agree upon, without which consent there would be no reason that one man should take upon him to be lord or judge over another, Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 10.) Sect. 92. For he that thinks absolute power purifies men's blood, and corrects the baseness of human nature, need read but the history of this, or any other age, to be convinced of the contrary. He that would have been insolent and injurious in the woods of America, would not probably be much better in a throne; where perhaps learning and religion shall be found out to justify all that he shall do to his subjects, and the sword presently silence all those that dare question it: for what the protection of absolute monarchy is, what kind of fathers of their countries it makes princes to be and to what a degree of happiness and security it carries civil society, where this sort of government is grown to perfection, he that will look into the late relation of Ceylon, may easily see. Sect. 93. In absolute monarchies indeed, as well as other governments of the world, the subjects have an appeal to the law, and judges to decide any controversies, and restrain any violence that may happen betwixt the subjects themselves, one amongst another. This every one thinks necessary, and believes he deserves to be thought a declared enemy to society and mankind, who should go about to take it away. But whether this be from a true love of mankind and society, and such a charity as we owe all one to another, there is reason to doubt: for this is no more than what every man, who loves his own power, profit, or greatness, may and naturally must do, keep those animals from hurting, or destroying one another, who labour and drudge only for his pleasure and advantage; and so are taken care of, not out of any love the master has for them, but love of himself, and the profit they bring him: for if it be asked, what security, what fence is there, in such a state, against the violence and oppression of this absolute ruler? the very question can scarce be borne. They are ready to tell you, that it deserves death only to ask after safety. Betwixt subject and subject, they will grant, there must be measures, laws and judges, for their mutual peace and security: but as for the ruler, he ought to be absolute, and is above all such circumstances; because he has power to do more hurt and wrong, it is right when he does it. To ask how you may be guarded from harm, or injury, on that side where the strongest hand is to do it, is presently the voice of faction and rebellion: as if when men quitting the state of nature entered into society, they agreed that all of them but one, should be under the restraint of laws, but that he should still retain all the liberty of the state of nature, increased with power, and made licentious by impunity. This is to think, that men are so foolish, that they take care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by pole-cats, or foxes; but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions. Sect. 94. But whatever flatterers may talk to amuse people's understandings, it hinders not men from feeling; and when they perceive, that any man, in what station soever, is out of the bounds of the civil society which they are of, and that they have no appeal on earth against any harm, they may receive from him, they are apt to think themselves in the state of nature, in respect of him whom they find to be so; and to take care, as soon as they can, to have that safety and security in civil society, for which it was first instituted, and for which only they entered into it. And therefore, though perhaps at first, (as shall be shewed more at large hereafter in the following part of this discourse) some one good and excellent man having got a pre-eminency amongst the rest, had this deference paid to his goodness and virtue, as to a kind of natural authority, that the chief rule, with arbitration of their differences, by a tacit consent devolved into his hands, without any other caution, but the assurance they had of his uprightness and wisdom; yet when time, giving authority, and (as some men would persuade us) sacredness of customs, which the negligent, and unforeseeing innocence of the first ages began, had brought in successors of another stamp, the people finding their properties not secure under the government, as then it was, (whereas government has no other end but the preservation of* property) could never be safe nor at rest, nor think themselves in civil society, till the legislature was placed in collective bodies of men, call them senate, parliament, or what you please. By which means every single person became subject, equally with other the meanest men, to those laws, which he himself, as part of the legislative, had established; nor could any one, by his own authority; avoid the force of the law, when once made; nor by any pretence of superiority plead exemption, thereby to license his own, or the miscarriages of any of his dependents.** No man in civil society can be exempted from the laws of it: for if any man may do what he thinks fit, and there be no appeal on earth, for redress or security against any harm he shall do; I ask, whether he be not perfectly still in the state of nature, and so can be no part or member of that civil society; unless any one will say, the state of nature and civil society are one and the same thing, which I have never yet found any one so great a patron of anarchy as to affirm. (*Am Anfang, als eine bestimmte Art von Regiment festgelegt wurde, wurde möglicherweise nichts weiter über die Art der Regierung nachgedacht, sondern alle ließen ihrer Weisheit und ihrem Urteilsvermögen freien Lauf, die regieren sollten, bis sie durch Erfahrung feststellten, dass dies für alle Teile sehr unpraktisch war. Die Sache, die sie als Heilmittel ersannen, erhöhte tatsächlich nur die Wunde, die sie hätte heilen sollen. Sie sahen ein, dass das Leben nach dem Willen eines einzigen Menschen die Ursache für das Elend aller Menschen wurde. Dies zwang sie dazu, Gesetze zu erlassen, in denen alle Menschen ihre Pflicht im Voraus sehen und die Strafen für deren Übertretung kennen konnten. Hooker's Eccl. Pol. l. i. sect. 10.) (**Da das Zivilgesetz die Handlung des gesamten Staatskörpers ist, übertrumpft es daher jedes einzelne Teil dieses Körpers. Hooker, ibid.) 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.

Gott hat den Menschen nicht erschaffen, damit er alleine ist; seine natürliche Neigung besteht darin, in Gesellschaft mit anderen Menschen zu leben. Die Arten von Beziehungen umfassen die zwischen einem Mann und seiner Ehefrau, einem Mann und seinen Kindern und einem Herrn und seinem Diener. Die Beziehung zwischen einem Mann und seiner Ehefrau war die erste Gesellschaft, die erschaffen wurde, und sie existierte nicht allein zum Zweck der Fortpflanzung, sondern um gegenseitige Unterstützung, Zuneigung und die Fähigkeit zur besseren Ernährung und Erziehung von Kindern zu bieten. Fortpflanzung führt auch zur Fortsetzung der menschlichen Rasse, daher liegt die Pflicht der Eltern nicht nur darin, Kinder zu zeugen, sondern sie auch aufzuziehen. Eine Frau kann schwanger werden, selbst wenn sie bereits ältere Kinder hat, was die Notwendigkeit der fortgesetzten Anwesenheit und Versorgung des Vaters mit sich bringt. Gott wollte, dass diese Vereinigung von Mann und Frau länger als bei anderen Spezies besteht, weil sie dadurch ihr Leben verbessern konnten. Locke gibt jedoch zu bedenken, dass es vernünftig wäre, wenn sich ein Ehepaar nach dem Ende der Aufgabe, ihre Kinder aufzuziehen, trennen würde. Es ist nur natürlich, dass in einer Ehe die Regel oder letzte Entscheidung bei einem Mitglied liegt: nämlich beim Mann. Allerdings ist seine Macht über seine Frau nicht absolut und wenn sie ihren Vertrag brechen und sich von ihm trennen möchte, hat sie das natürliche Recht dazu. In einer Gesellschaft, in der es eine Regierung gibt, hat die Regierung nur die Macht, Streitigkeiten zwischen Ehemann und Ehefrau zu schlichten. Nur in Gesellschaften, in denen der Ehemann absolute Autorität über seine Ehefrau hatte, konnte ein absoluter Herrscher eine solche Kontrolle über die Ehen seiner Untergebenen haben. Die Ehe im Allgemeinen erfordert nicht, dass absolute Macht auf den Ehemann übertragen wird. Locke behandelt dann die Beziehung zwischen Herrn und Diener, wie er die Beziehung zwischen Eltern und Kind im vorherigen Kapitel diskutiert hat. Es gibt offensichtliche Unterschiede zwischen Dienern und Sklaven, denn Diener stehen nur vorübergehend unter der Macht eines Herrn und geben dabei nicht ihr Leben und ihre Freiheit auf. Eine Familie und eine absolute Monarchie mögen auf den ersten Blick ähnlich erscheinen, sie unterscheiden sich jedoch deutlich voneinander. Die Macht des Vaters, wie im vorherigen Kapitel detailliert beschrieben, ist relativ kurz und erstreckt sich nicht auf das Leben, die Freiheit oder das Eigentum seiner Ehefrau, Kinder oder Diener. Locke setzt seine Diskussion darüber fort, wie eine Familie sich von einer politischen Gesellschaft unterscheidet. Menschen werden frei und gleich geboren, sie haben die vollkommene Unabhängigkeit, ihr Leben, ihre Freiheit und ihr Eigentum so zu verwalten, wie sie es für richtig halten, und jeden Mann zu bestrafen, der versucht, gegen die Naturgesetze zu verstoßen. Eine politische Gesellschaft kann jedoch nur existieren, wenn sich die Menschen bereit erklären, ihr Recht zur Verwaltung von Eigentum und Bestrafung von Übertretern an die bestätigten Autoritätspersonen abzugeben. Männer, die in einer Gesellschaft leben, in der es ein etabliertes Gesetz und vereinbarte Vollstrecker und Wahrer des Gesetzes gibt, leben in einer bürgerlichen Gesellschaft miteinander. Diejenigen, die sich nicht auf eine gemeinsame Anrufung einigen können, befinden sich weiterhin im Naturzustand. Die Gemeinschaft hat nun die Macht, Strafen für Gesetzesverstöße zu erlassen und vor allem das Eigentum der Mitglieder der Gesellschaft zu schützen. Diejenigen, die der Bildung der Gemeinschaft zugestimmt haben, haben ihre eigene Fähigkeit, zu urteilen und zu bestrafen, aufgegeben, und so finden wir die Ursprünge der gesetzgeberischen und exekutiven Macht der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Diese Mächte bestehen darin, zu entscheiden, wann und wie Übertreter des Gesetzes bestraft werden und welche Wiedergutmachungen erfolgen sollen, wenn Verstöße auftreten. Wenn die Menschen einverstanden sind, ihre natürlichen Strafrechte aufzugeben, wird eine bürgerliche Gesellschaft geschaffen. Sie autorisieren nun die Regierung, Gesetze für sich selbst und zum Wohl der Gesellschaft zu erlassen. Sobald es irgendeinen Richter auf Erden gibt, an den sich Menschen wenden können, existiert eine bürgerliche Gesellschaft. Wenn es ihn nicht gibt, bleibt der Naturzustand bestehen. Locke behauptet, dass eine absolute Monarchie mit einer bürgerlichen Gesellschaft unvereinbar ist und tatsächlich gar keine bürgerliche Regierung darstellt. Der Zweck einer bürgerlichen Gesellschaft besteht darin, eine anerkannte Autorität anzurufen, aber ein absoluter Monarch muss niemandem um Zustimmung bitten. Er ist das Gesetz und es gibt niemanden, dem er Rechenschaft ablegen muss. Tatsächlich befindet er sich immer noch im Naturzustand gegenüber seinen Untertanen, wenn er ein absoluter Monarch ohne jegliche anzurufende Autorität ist. Leider haben diese Untertanen nicht die Fähigkeit, wie im wahren Naturzustand, ihn zu schützen und seine Rechte zu verteidigen. In absoluten Monarchien sowie in anderen Regierungsformen haben die Untertanen das Recht, sich auf das Gesetz zu berufen. In absoluten Monarchien gibt es jedoch kein Recht auf Berufung und anschließende Bestrafung der Übertreter aufgrund von Liebe, Zuneigung oder Wohltätigkeit auf Seiten des Monarchen. Es ist nur deshalb vorhanden, weil der Monarch diejenigen erhalten muss, die für ihn arbeiten und ihm Gewinn bringen. Der Monarch kann Streitigkeiten zwischen zwei Untertanen schlichten, aber es kann niemals einen Streit zwischen einem Untertanen und dem Monarchen geben. Es ist lächerlich, dass Männer beschließen sollten, eine Gesellschaft zu gründen, in der alle außer einem den Gesetzen unterworfen sind. Locke zieht den Vergleich, dass Männer zwar Gefahr durch Wiesel und Füchse vermeiden wollen, sich aber stattdessen dazu entscheiden, von einem Löwen gefressen zu werden. Im letzten Abschnitt dieses Kapitels erkennt Locke an, dass Männer sich im Naturzustand sehen können, wenn ihr absoluter Herrscher außerhalb der Grenzen der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft ist und sie keinen Anruf mehr auf Erden haben. Es ist möglich, dass ein Herrscher anfangs ausgezeichnet und tugendhaft schien und eine natürliche Autorität verdiente, aber im Laufe der Zeit haben entweder er oder seine Nachfolger die natürliche Freiheit seiner Untertanen verletzt. Nur ein gemeinschaftliches Governing Body, wie ein Parlament oder Senat, könnte diese Situation beheben. Niemand wäre dem anderen überlegen oder hätte zu viel Macht. In einer bürgerlichen Gesellschaft müssen alle Menschen den Gesetzen folgen, sonst sind sie wieder im Naturzustand, und wie Locke abschließt, sind bürgerliche Gesellschaft und Naturzustand sicherlich nicht dasselbe.

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: Every morning now brought its regular duties--shops were to be visited; some new part of the town to be looked at; and the pump-room to be attended, where they paraded up and down for an hour, looking at everybody and speaking to no one. The wish of a numerous acquaintance in Bath was still uppermost with Mrs. Allen, and she repeated it after every fresh proof, which every morning brought, of her knowing nobody at all. They made their appearance in the Lower Rooms; and here fortune was more favourable to our heroine. The master of the ceremonies introduced to her a very gentlemanlike young man as a partner; his name was Tilney. He seemed to be about four or five and twenty, was rather tall, had a pleasing countenance, a very intelligent and lively eye, and, if not quite handsome, was very near it. His address was good, and Catherine felt herself in high luck. There was little leisure for speaking while they danced; but when they were seated at tea, she found him as agreeable as she had already given him credit for being. He talked with fluency and spirit--and there was an archness and pleasantry in his manner which interested, though it was hardly understood by her. After chatting some time on such matters as naturally arose from the objects around them, he suddenly addressed her with--"I have hitherto been very remiss, madam, in the proper attentions of a partner here; I have not yet asked you how long you have been in Bath; whether you were ever here before; whether you have been at the Upper Rooms, the theatre, and the concert; and how you like the place altogether. I have been very negligent--but are you now at leisure to satisfy me in these particulars? If you are I will begin directly." "You need not give yourself that trouble, sir." "No trouble, I assure you, madam." Then forming his features into a set smile, and affectedly softening his voice, he added, with a simpering air, "Have you been long in Bath, madam?" "About a week, sir," replied Catherine, trying not to laugh. "Really!" with affected astonishment. "Why should you be surprised, sir?" "Why, indeed!" said he, in his natural tone. "But some emotion must appear to be raised by your reply, and surprise is more easily assumed, and not less reasonable than any other. Now let us go on. Were you never here before, madam?" "Never, sir." "Indeed! Have you yet honoured the Upper Rooms?" "Yes, sir, I was there last Monday." "Have you been to the theatre?" "Yes, sir, I was at the play on Tuesday." "To the concert?" "Yes, sir, on Wednesday." "And are you altogether pleased with Bath?" "Yes--I like it very well." "Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again." Catherine turned away her head, not knowing whether she might venture to laugh. "I see what you think of me," said he gravely--"I shall make but a poor figure in your journal tomorrow." "My journal!" "Yes, I know exactly what you will say: Friday, went to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trimmings--plain black shoes--appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed me by his nonsense." "Indeed I shall say no such thing." "Shall I tell you what you ought to say?" "If you please." "I danced with a very agreeable young man, introduced by Mr. King; had a great deal of conversation with him--seems a most extraordinary genius--hope I may know more of him. That, madam, is what I wish you to say." "But, perhaps, I keep no journal." "Perhaps you are not sitting in this room, and I am not sitting by you. These are points in which a doubt is equally possible. Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenour of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal? My dear madam, I am not so ignorant of young ladies' ways as you wish to believe me; it is this delightful habit of journaling which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Everybody allows that the talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female. Nature may have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping a journal." "I have sometimes thought," said Catherine, doubtingly, "whether ladies do write so much better letters than gentlemen! That is--I should not think the superiority was always on our side." "As far as I have had opportunity of judging, it appears to me that the usual style of letter-writing among women is faultless, except in three particulars." "And what are they?" "A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance of grammar." "Upon my word! I need not have been afraid of disclaiming the compliment. You do not think too highly of us in that way." "I should no more lay it down as a general rule that women write better letters than men, than that they sing better duets, or draw better landscapes. In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes." They were interrupted by Mrs. Allen: "My dear Catherine," said she, "do take this pin out of my sleeve; I am afraid it has torn a hole already; I shall be quite sorry if it has, for this is a favourite gown, though it cost but nine shillings a yard." "That is exactly what I should have guessed it, madam," said Mr. Tilney, looking at the muslin. "Do you understand muslins, sir?" "Particularly well; I always buy my own cravats, and am allowed to be an excellent judge; and my sister has often trusted me in the choice of a gown. I bought one for her the other day, and it was pronounced to be a prodigious bargain by every lady who saw it. I gave but five shillings a yard for it, and a true Indian muslin." Mrs. Allen was quite struck by his genius. "Men commonly take so little notice of those things," said she; "I can never get Mr. Allen to know one of my gowns from another. You must be a great comfort to your sister, sir." "I hope I am, madam." "And pray, sir, what do you think of Miss Morland's gown?" "It is very pretty, madam," said he, gravely examining it; "but I do not think it will wash well; I am afraid it will fray." "How can you," said Catherine, laughing, "be so--" She had almost said "strange." "I am quite of your opinion, sir," replied Mrs. Allen; "and so I told Miss Morland when she bought it." "But then you know, madam, muslin always turns to some account or other; Miss Morland will get enough out of it for a handkerchief, or a cap, or a cloak. Muslin can never be said to be wasted. I have heard my sister say so forty times, when she has been extravagant in buying more than she wanted, or careless in cutting it to pieces." "Bath is a charming place, sir; there are so many good shops here. We are sadly off in the country; not but what we have very good shops in Salisbury, but it is so far to go--eight miles is a long way; Mr. Allen says it is nine, measured nine; but I am sure it cannot be more than eight; and it is such a fag--I come back tired to death. Now, here one can step out of doors and get a thing in five minutes." Mr. Tilney was polite enough to seem interested in what she said; and she kept him on the subject of muslins till the dancing recommenced. Catherine feared, as she listened to their discourse, that he indulged himself a little too much with the foibles of others. "What are you thinking of so earnestly?" said he, as they walked back to the ballroom; "not of your partner, I hope, for, by that shake of the head, your meditations are not satisfactory." Catherine coloured, and said, "I was not thinking of anything." "That is artful and deep, to be sure; but I had rather be told at once that you will not tell me." "Well then, I will not." Vielen Dank; bald werden wir uns besser kennen lernen, da ich autorisiert bin, dich jedes Mal, wenn wir uns treffen, in dieser Sache zu ärgern, und nichts auf der Welt fördert die Intimität so sehr. Sie tanzten erneut; und als die Versammlung endete, trennten sie sich, zumindest auf Seiten der Dame, mit einer starken Neigung, die Bekanntschaft fortzusetzen. Ob sie so viel an ihn dachte, während sie ihren warmen Wein und Wasser trank und sich aufs Bett vorbereitete, um von ihm zu träumen, kann nicht ermittelt werden; aber ich hoffe, es war nicht mehr als in einem leichten Schlummer oder höchstens einem morgendlichen Dösen; denn wenn es wahr ist, wie ein berühmter Schriftsteller behauptet hat, dass sich keine junge Dame in jemanden verlieben kann, bevor die Liebe des Herrn erklärt ist,* dann ist es sehr unangebracht, dass sich eine junge Dame von einem Herrn träumt, bevor der Herr bekannt ist, von ihr geträumt zu haben. Wie geeignet Mr. Tilney als Träumer oder Liebhaber sein könnte, war vielleicht noch nicht in Mr. Allens Kopf gekommen, aber dass er als gewöhnlicher Bekannter für seine junge Beschützte nicht beanstandet wurde, davon war er durch Erkundigungen überzeugt; denn er hatte sich früh am Abend die Mühe gemacht, herauszufinden, wer ihr Tanzpartner war, und hatte die Zusicherung erhalten, dass Mr. Tilney ein Geistlicher sei und aus einer sehr angesehenen Familie in Gloucestershire stamme. 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.

Catherine und Mrs. Allen besuchen die Lower Rooms, einen Treffpunkt für die High Society. Da Catherine keinen Tanzpartner hat, stellt der Zeremonienmeister sie einem jungen Mann namens Henry Tilney vor, dessen Charme und gutes Aussehen Catherine beeindrucken. Sie tanzen und unterhalten sich dann. Henry amüsiert Catherine, indem er eine gekünstelte Haltung annimmt und ihr Fragen stellt, die langweiligen Smalltalk verspotten: "Wie lange bist du schon in Bath?" und "Warst du schon beim Konzert?" Henry stellt dann eine Hypothese auf, was Catherine über ihn in ihrem Tagebuch schreiben würde. Er vermutet, dass sie eine sehr trockene Kritik schreiben würde. Sie protestiert, und er erfindet einen schmeichelhafteren Eintrag. Das Gespräch dreht sich um das Briefeschreiben. Henry behauptet, dass Frauen bessere Briefeschreiberinnen sind als Männer, mit Ausnahme von drei Problemen: "einem generellen Mangel an Thema, einer völligen Ignoranz gegenüber Satzzeichen und einer sehr häufigen Unkenntnis der Grammatik." Henry wendet seinen Witz auf Mrs. Allens Obsession für Kleidung an und beschreibt, wie er Muslin zu einem guten Preis für seine Schwester Eleanor gekauft hat. Henry und Catherine tanzen ein zweites Mal und trennen sich dann. Catherine geht ins Bett und denkt an Henry, und der Erzähler warnt uns davor, dass Catherine einen schwerwiegenden Fehler gemacht hat - sie hat sich in einen Mann verliebt, bevor sie weiß, dass er in sie verliebt ist. Mr. Allen hat kurzzeitig Henrys Hintergrund geprüft und herausgefunden, dass er Geistlicher aus angesehenem Hause in Gloucestershire ist.