“To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity,

under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of

waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression,

hunger, nakedness, and suffering.”

“Hah!” said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner.

“If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands better

qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) from the

weight that drags it down, so that the miserable people who

cannot leave it and who have been long wrung to the last point of

endurance, may, in another generation, suffer less; but it is not for

me. There is a curse on it, and on all this land.”

“And you?” said the uncle. “Forgive my curiosity; do you,

under your new philosophy, graciously intend to live?”

“I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even with

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

nobility at their backs, may have to do some daywork.”

“In England, for example?”

“Yes. The family honour, sir, is safe from me in this country.

The family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it in no

other.”

The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bed-chamber

to be lighted. It now shone brightly, through the door of

communication. The Marquis looked that way, and listened for the

retreating step of his valet.

“England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you

have prospered there,” he observed then, turning his calm face to

his nephew with a smile.

“I have already said, that for my prospering there, I am sensible

I may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my Refuge.”

“They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of many.

You know a compatriot who has found a Refuge there? A Doctor?”

“Yes.”

“With a daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” said the Marquis. “You are fatigued. Good night!”

As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a

secrecy in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery to

those words, which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew

forcibly. At the same time, the thin straight lines of the setting of

the eyes, and the thin straight lips, and the markings in the nose,

curved with a sarcasm that looked handsomely diabolic.

“Yes,” repeated the Marquis. “A Doctor with a daughter. Yes.

So commences the new philosophy! You are fatigued. Good

night!”

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone

face outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The

nephew looked at him, in vain, in passing on to the door.

“Good night!” said the uncle. “I look to the pleasure of seeing

you again in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur my