Tragic Comedians, the — Volume 2 by George Meredith
page 34 of 64 (53%)
page 34 of 64 (53%)
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not necessarily think him untrue for charging him with it, there is
already a loosening of the bonds where the accusation has begun. They are not broken because they are loosened: still the loosening of them makes it possible to cut them with less of a snap and less pain. Alvan had relinquished her he loved to brave the tempest in a frail small boat, and he certainly could not have apprehended the furious outbreak she was exposed to. She might so far have exonerated him had she been able to reflect; but she whom he had forced to depend on him in blind reliance, now opened her eyes on an opposite power exercising material rigours. After having enjoyed extraordinary independence for a young woman, she was treated as a refractory child, literally marched through the streets in the custody of her father, who clutched her by the hair- Alvan's beloved golden locks!--and held her under terror of a huge forester's weapon, that he had seized at the first tidings of his daughter's flight to the Jew. He seemed to have a grim indifference to exposure; contempt, with a sense of the humour of it: and this was a satisfaction to him, founded on his practical observance of two or three maxims quite equal to the fullest knowledge of women for rightly managing them: preferable, inasmuch as they are simpler, and, by merely cracking a whip, bring her back to the post, instead of wasting time by hunting her as she likes to run. Police were round his house. The General chattered and shouted of the desperate lawlessness and larcenies of that Jew--the things that Jew would attempt. He dragged her indoors, muttering of his policy in treating her at last to a wholesome despotism. This was the medicine for her--he knew her! Whether he did or not, he knew the potency of his physic. He knew that osiers can be made to bend. With a frightful noise of hammering, he himself nailed up the window- shutters of the room she was locked in hard and fast, and he left her |
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