The Emancipated

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George Gissing. The Emancipated

PART I

CHAPTER I. NORTHERNERS IN SUNLIGHT

CHAPTER II. CECILY DORAN

CHAPTER III. THE BOARDING-HOUSE ON THE MERGELLINA

CHAPTER IV. MIRIAM'S BROTHER

CHAPTER V. THE ARTIST ASTRAY

CHAPTER VI. CAPTIVE TRAVELLERS

CHAPTER VII. THE MARTYR

CHAPTER VIII. PROOF AGAINST ILLUSION

CHAPTER IX. IN THE DEAD CITY

CHAPTER X. THE DECLARATION

CHAPTER XI. THE APPEAL TO AUTHORITY

CHAPTER XII. ON THE HEIGHTS

CHAPTER XIII. ECHO AND PRELUDE

CHAPTER XIV. ON THE WINGS OF THE MORNING

CHAPTER XV "WOLF!"

CHAPTER XVI. LETTERS

PART II

CHAPTER I. A CORNER OF SOCIETY

CHAPTER II. THE PROPRIETIES DEFENDED

CHAPTER III. GRADATION

CHAPTER IV. THE DENYERS IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER V. MULTUM IN PARVO

CHAPTER VI. AT PAESTUM

CHAPTER VII. LEARNING AND TEACHING

CHAPTER VIII. STUMBLINGS

CHAPTER IX. SILENCES

CHAPTER X. ELGAR AT WORK

CHAPTER XI. IN DUE COURSE

CHAPTER XII. CECILY'S RETURN

CHAPTER XIII. ONWARD TO THE VAGUE

CHAPTER XIV. SUGGESTION AND ASSURANCE

CHAPTER XV. PEACE IN SHOW AND PEACE IN TRUTH

CHAPTER XVI. THE TWO FACES

CHAPTER XVII. END AND BEGINNING

Отрывок из книги

By a window looking from Posillipo upon the Bay of Naples sat an English lady, engaged in letter-writing. She was only in her four-and-twentieth year, but her attire of subdued mourning indicated widowhood already at the stage when it is permitted to make quiet suggestion of freedom rather than distressful reference to loss; the dress, however, was severely plain, and its grey coldness, which would well have harmonized with an English sky in this month of November, looked alien in the southern sunlight. There was no mistaking her nationality; the absorption, the troubled earnestness with which she bent over her writing, were peculiar to a cast of features such as can be found only in our familiar island; a physiognomy not quite pure in outline, vigorous in general effect and in detail delicate; a proud young face, full of character and capacity, beautiful in chaste control. Sorrowful it was not, but its paleness and thinness expressed something more than imperfect health of body; the blue-grey eyes, when they wandered for a moment in an effort of recollection, had a look of weariness, even of ennui; the lips moved as if in nervous impatience until she had found the phrase or the thought for which her pen waited. Save for these intervals, she wrote with quick decision, in a large clear hand, never underlining, but frequently supplying the emphasis of heavy stroke in her penning of a word. At the end of her letters came a signature excellent in individuality: "Miriam Baske."

The furniture of her room was modern, and of the kind demanded by wealthy forestieri in the lodgings they condescend to occupy. On the variegated tiles of the floor were strewn rugs and carpets; the drapery was bright, without much reference to taste in the ordering of hues; a handsome stove served at present to support leafy plants, a row of which also stood on the balcony before the window. Round the ceiling ran a painted border of foliage and flowers. The chief ornament of the walls was a large and indifferent copy of Raphael's "St. Cecilia;" there were, too, several gouache drawings of local scenery: a fiery night-view of Vesuvius, a panorama of the Bay, and a very blue Blue Grotto. The whole was blithe, sunny, Neapolitan; sufficiently unlike a sitting-room in Redheck House, Bartles, Lancashire, which Mrs. Baske had in her mind as she wrote.

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"For being so absurd as to question sometimes whether my responsibility doesn't extend beyond stock and share. I ask myself whether Doran—who so befriended me, and put such trust in me, and paid me so well in advance for the duties I was to undertake—didn't take it for granted that I should exercise some influence in the matter of his daughter's education? Is she growing up what he would have wished her to be? And if—"

"Why, it's no easy thing to say what views he had on this subject. The lax man, we know, is often enough severe with his own womankind. But as you have given me no description of what Cecily really is, I can offer no judgment. Wait till I have seen her. Doubtless she fulfils her promise of being beautiful?"

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