1834. In these three books I should like to show our present feminism,
already armed, and introduced to us according to George Sand's early
ideas.


_Indiana_ is the story of a woman who had made an unfortunate marriage.
At the age of nineteen she had married Colonel Delmare. Colonels were
very much in vogue in those days, and the fact that he had attained that
rank proves that he was much older than she was. Colonel Delmare was an
honest, straightforward man in the Pharisaical sense of the word. This
simply means that he had never robbed or killed any one. He had no
delicacy and no charm, and, fond as he was of his own authority, he
was a domestic tyrant. Indiana was very unhappy between this execrable
husband and a cousin of hers, Ralph, a man who is twice over English,
in the first place because his name is Brown, and then because he is
phlegmatic. Ralph is delightful and most excellent, and it is on his
account that she is insensible to the charms of Raymon de Ramieres an
elegant and distinguished young man who is a veritable lady-killer.

Space forbids us to go into all the episodes of this story, but the
crisis is that Colonel Delmare is ruined, and his business affairs call
him to the Isle of Bourbon. He intends to take Indiana with him, but she
refuses to accompany him. She knows quite well that Raymon will do all
he can to prevent her going. She hurries away to him, offers herself to
him, and volunteers to remain with him always. It is unnecessary to give
Raymon's reply to this charming proposal. Poor Indiana receives a very
wet blanket on a cold winter's night.


She therefore starts for the Isle of Bourbon, and, some time after her