Anthony Trollope

“ Oh, Linda."
"Nothing shall make me marry a man whom I cannot love."
"You fancy, then, that you love that reprobate?" Linda was silent. "Is it so? Tell me. I have a right to demand an answer to that question."
"I do love him," said Linda. Using the moment for reflection allowed to her as best she could, she thought that she saw the best means of escape in this avowal. Surely her aunt would not press her to marry one man when she had declared that she loved another.
"Then, indeed, you are a castaway."
"I am no castaway, aunt Charlotte," said Linda, rising to her feet. ”

“ What could be her aunt's idea of reverence? "If she does that, she will love him also."
"Yes,—if she does," said Linda.
"And will not this be much more likely, if the husband be older than his wife?"
"A year or two," said Linda, timidly.
"Not a year or two only, but so much so as to make him graver and wiser, and fit to be in command over her. Will not the woman so ruled be safer than she who trusts herself with one who is perhaps as weak and inexperienced as herself?" Madame Staubach paused, but Linda would not answer the question. ”

“ Linda could not bring herself to answer this, but sat beating the floor with her foot, and with her face turned away and her eyes fixed upon the wall. She was no longer sobbing now, but was hardening herself against her aunt. She was resolving that she would be a castaway,—that she would have nothing more to do with godliness, or even with decency. She had found godliness and decency too heavy to be borne. In all her life, had not that moment in which Ludovic had held her tight bound by his arm round her waist been the happiest? ”

“ As Madame Staubach thought of heaven then, a girl who loved and was allowed to indulge her love could hardly go to heaven. "Let it be so," she said to Peter Steinmarc after a few days of weak vacillation,—"let it be so. I think that it will be good for her." Then Peter Steinmarc swore that it would be good for Linda—that it should be good for Linda. His care should be so great that Linda might never doubt the good. "Peter Steinmarc, I am thinking of her soul," said Madame Staubach. "I am thinking of that too," said Peter; "one has, you know, to think of everything in turns." ”

“ Nobody, it is true, could have forced her to marry Peter Steinmarc. There was no law, no custom in Nuremberg, which would have assisted her aunt, or Peter, or even the much-esteemed and venerable Herr Molk himself, in compelling her to submit to such nuptials. She was free to exercise her own choice, if only she had had strength to assert her freedom. But youth, which rebels so often against the authority and wisdom of age, is also subject to much tyranny from age. Linda did not know the strength of her own position, had not learned to recognise the fact of her own individuality. ”

“ And we see what comes of such lovemaking. Oh, Linda! God forbid that you should fall into that snare! If you will think of it, what is it but harlotry?"
"Aunt Charlotte, do not say such horrible things."
"A woman when she becomes a man's wife should see, above all things, that she is not tempted by the devil after this fashion. Remember, Linda, how he goeth about,—ever after our souls,—like a roaring lion. And it is in this way specially that he goeth about after the souls of young women." ”

“ Would Fanny condescend to speak to her, or would Fanny's husband allow his wife to hold any communion with such a castaway? How might she dare to hope that her old friend would do other than shun her, or, at the very least, scorn her, and pass her as a thing unseen? And yet, through all the days of their life, there had been in Linda's world a supposition that Linda was the good young woman, and that Fanny Heisse was, if not a castaway, one who had made the frivolities of the world so dear to her that she could be accounted as little better than a castaway. ”

“ Linda was determined to silence him, even if she could not silence her aunt. "Herr Steinmarc," she said, "I have explained to my aunt that this kind of thing from you must cease. It must be made to cease. If you are a man you will not persecute me by a proposal which I have told you already is altogether out of the question. If there were not another man in all Nuremberg, I would not have you. You may perhaps make me hate you worse than anybody in the world; but you cannot possibly do anything else. Go to my aunt and you will find that I have told her the same." ”

“ Oh, my child, repentance is still possible to you, and with repentance there will come at length grace and salvation. Mary Magdalene was blessed,—was specially blessed among women."
"Pshaw!" said Linda, indignantly. What had she to do with Mary Magdalene? The reality of her position then came upon her, and not the facts of that position which she had for a moment almost endeavoured to simulate.
"Do you not hate yourself for what you have done?"
"No, no, no. But I hate Peter Steinmarc, and I hate Herr Molk, and if you are so cruel to me I shall hate you. I have done nothing wrong. ”

“ She was in this state when Tetchen crept up to her room, on that evening on which Peter had been with Herr Molk. "Fraulein," said Tetchen, "you are very unkind to me."
"Never mind," said Linda, not looking up into the woman's face.
"I have done everything in my power for you, as though you had been my own."
"I am not your own. I don't want you to do anything for me."
"I love you dearly, and I love him,—Ludovic. Have I not done everything in my power to save you from the man you hate?" ”

“ But when she had been told that she must die,—that her days were indeed numbered, and that no return to Nuremberg was possible for her,—she did speak a word of Peter Steinmarc. "Tell him, aunt Charlotte, from me," she said, "that I prayed for him when I was dying, and that I forgave him. You know, aunt Charlotte, it was impossible that I should marry him. A woman must not marry a man whom she does not love." Madame Staubach did not venture to say a word in her own justification. She did not dare even to recur to the old tenets of her fierce religion, while Linda still lived. ”

“ Linda must be taught not only to acknowledge, but in very fact to understand and perceive, that this world is a vale of tears, that its paths are sharp to the feet, and that they who walk through it should walk in mourning and tribulation. What though her young heart should be broken by the lesson,—be broken after the fashion in which human hearts are made to suffer? To Madame Staubach's mind a broken heart and a contrite spirit were pretty much the same thing. ”

“ She could understand nothing of that forgiveness of which Linda had spoken; and had not Linda confessed that she loved this man? Would she not rather have hated him who had so intruded upon her, had there been real intrusion in the visit?
"You have done that," she said, "which would destroy the character of any girl in Nuremberg."
"If you mean, aunt Charlotte, that the thing which has happened would destroy the character of any girl in Nuremberg, it may perhaps be true. If so, I am very unfortunate."
"Have you not told me that you love him?"
"I do;—I do;—I do! One cannot help one's love. ”

“ After this there was silence for some minutes, and then Madame Staubach spoke again. "My dear, have you thought at all about—marriage?"
"Not much, aunt Charlotte."
"I daresay not, Linda; and yet it is a subject on which a young woman should think much before she either accepts or rejects a proposed husband."
"It is enough to know that one doesn't like a man."
"No, that is not enough. You should examine the causes of your dislike. And as far as mere dislike goes, you should get over it, if it be unjust. You ought to do that, whoever may be the person in question." ”

“ Was it possible that her aunt was about to be married to Peter Steinmarc? But she said nothing; and after a while her aunt went on very slowly with her proposition. "Yes, Linda, some settlement for your future life should be made. You know that the house in which we live is your own."
"It is yours and mine together, aunt."
"No, Linda; the house is your own. And the furniture in it is yours too; so that Herr Steinmarc is your lodger. It is right that you should understand all this; but I think too well of my own child to believe that she will ever on that account be disobedient or unruly." ”

“ Had it been her aunt's purpose to rebuke her for aught that she had done, her aunt's manner and look would have been very different,—would have been hard, severe, and full of denunciation. As it was, Madame Staubach almost hesitated in her words, and certainly had assumed much less than her accustomed austerity.
"I hope, Linda, that you know that I love you."
"I am sure that you love me, aunt Charlotte. But why do you ask me?"
"If there be any one in this world that I do love, it is you, my child. Who else is there left to me? ”

“ It is a great shame to give a girl an old lover like Peter Steinmarc, and ask her to marry him. I wouldn't have married Peter Steinmarc for all the uncles and all the aunts in creation; nor yet for father,—though father would never have thought of such a thing. I think a girl should choose a lover for herself, though how she is to do so if she is to be kept moping at home always, I cannot tell. If I were treated as you are I think I should ask somebody to jump over the river to me."
"I have asked nobody. But, Fanny, how did you know it?" ”

“ Even while Linda was kneeling at her feet convulsed with sobs, she told the poor girl, with all the severity of language which she could use, of the vileness of the iniquity of that night's proceedings. Linda had been false to her friend, false to her vows, false to her God, immodest, unclean, had sinned against all the laws by which women bind themselves together for good conduct,—had in fact become a castaway in very deed. There was nothing that a female could do more vile, more loathsome than that which Linda had done. ”

“ No disgrace would be so bad as the prospect of that marriage. Therefore, as she journeyed homeward, sitting opposite to her aunt, she endeavoured to console herself by reflecting that his suit to her would surely be at an end. Would it ever reach his dull heart that she had consented to destroy her own character, to undergo ill-repute and the scorn of all honest people, in order that she might not be forced into the horror of a marriage with him? Could he be made to understand that in her flight from Nuremberg her great motive had been to fly from him? ”

“ She was thinking now whether she would fly round upon her aunt and astonish her tyrant by a declaration of principles that should be altogether new. Then came the question again in the same hard voice, "Did he not tell you that you had better take Peter Steinmarc for your husband?"
"I won't take Peter Steinmarc for my husband," said Linda; and she did in part effect that flying round of which she had been thinking. "I won't take Peter Steinmarc for my husband, let the man say what he may. How can I marry him if I hate him? He is a—beast."
Then Madame Staubach groaned. ”

“ For in Nuremberg it is the religion of the community that no house shall fall into decay, that no form of city beauty shall be allowed to vanish, that nothing of picturesque antiquity shall be changed. From age to age, though stones and bricks are changed, the buildings are the same, and the medieval forms remain, delighting the taste of the traveller as they do the pride of the burgher. Thus it was that Herr Steinmarc, the clerk of the magistrates in Nuremberg, had for his use as pleasant an abode as the city could furnish him. ”