Elective Affinities Read Online Free PDF Page A

irresponsible and foolish manner to leave in misery and oppression two of the noblest natures on earth, who are moreover so close to our hearts, merely so as not to expose ourselves to danger. If this should not be called selfishnessI know not what should! Take Ottilie, let me have the Captain, and in God’s name let us make a trial of it!’
    ‘We might well venture to do so,’ Charlotte said doubtfully, ‘if the danger were to us alone. But do you consider it advisable to have the Captain and Ottilie sharing the same roof, a man of about your age, of the age – I may flatter you with this only because we are quite alone – at which a man first becomes capable of love and worthy of love, and a girl with Ottilie’s advantages?’
    ‘I really cannot see why you have so high an opinion of Ottilie!’ Eduard replied. ‘I can explain it only by supposing she has inherited your affection for her mother. It is true she is pretty, and I recall that the Captain pointed her out to me when we came back a year ago and met her with you at your aunt’s. She is pretty, she possesses in particular lovely eyes; yet I cannot say she made the least impression on me.’
    ‘That is very commendable in you,’ said Charlotte, ‘for I was there too, was I not? Although she is far younger than I, yet the presence of your more elderly friend charmed you so thoroughly you overlooked the beauty that was yet in bud. This too is part of what you are like and why I am so happy to share my life with you.’
    Charlotte gave the impression of talking very frankly and openly, but she was keeping something concealed, and that was that she had deliberately produced Ottilie in front of Eduard when he came back so as to throw so advantageous a match in the way of her foster-daughter. At that time she no longer thought of Eduard in connection with herself. The Captain too had been suborned to draw Eduard’s attention to Ottilie, but Eduard had been obstinately mindful of his youthful love for Charlotte, and he had looked neither to right nor left, but was thinking only that he might now be going to find it possible to seize at last the possession he wanted so much but which events seemed to have put beyond his reach for ever.
    The couple were about to go down to the mansion across the new park when a servant came clambering up towards them laughing, and called out from below: ‘Come along quick, sir! Come along quick, madam! Herr Mittler has just come bursting in. He has roused us all up and told us to go and look for you and ask you if you need him. “Ask if they need me, d’you hear!” was his words. “And make haste, make haste!”’
    ‘The strange fellow!’ Eduard exclaimed. ‘Has he not arrived at just the right moment, Charlotte?’ Turning to the servant, he said: ‘Go back quickly! Tell him we do need him, very much! Ask him to dismount, take care of his horse, invite him in and offer him some breakfast. We are just coming.
    ‘Let us take the shortest way back,’ he said to his wife, and went off down the path through the churchyard which he usually avoided. He was very surprised when he discovered that here too Charlotte had provided for the demands of sensibility. With every consideration for the ancient monuments she had managed to level and arrange everything in such a way as to create a pleasant place which was nice to look at and which set the imagination working.
    The oldest memorial of all had been put in a place of suitable honour. In the order of their antiquity the gravestones were erected against the wall, inserted into it, or lodged in some other way. The base of the church itself was ornamented and augmented by this arrangement. Eduard felt very moved when, entering through the little gateway, he saw the place. He pressed Charlotte’s hand and tears came into his eyes.
    But they went out of them the next instant when the eccentric guest appeared. Incapable of sitting quietly in the mansion he had ridden at full