Middlemarch

Eliot opens with a precise portrait of what Casaubon's intellectual ambitions have actually produced: not the Key to all Mythologies, but "a morbid consciousness that others did not give him the place which he had not demonstrably merited — a perpetual suspicious conjecture that the views entertained of him were not to his advantage — a melancholy absence of passion in his efforts at achievement, and a passionate resistance to the confession that he had achieved nothing." Against this, Casaubon has now begun "to frame possibilities for the future which were somehow more embittering than anything his mind had dwelt on before" — namely, that if he should die, Will Ladislaw is waiting in the neighborhood to win Dorothea. His jealousy is not of a coarse kind: he does not suspect Dorothea of wrongdoing. He is jealous of her opinion, of the sway her ardent mind might give to Will's influence, and of the future possibilities to which this might lead. He rehearses his case against Will in bitter internal monologue, concluding: "He thinks of an easy conquest and of entering into my nest. That I will hinder!" This suspicion at last overcomes his proud reticence. He sends for Lydgate and meets him for their consultation in the Yew-tree Walk — "a lovely afternoon; the leaves from the lofty limes were falling silently across the sombre evergreens, while the lights and shadows slept side by side: there was no sound but the cawing of the rooks, which to the accustomed ear is a lullaby, or that last solemn lullaby, a dirge." Lydgate, energetic and in his prime, feels compassion at the sight of the bent scholar's figure advancing toward him: "Poor fellow — some men with his years are like lions; one can tell nothing of their age except that they are full grown." Casaubon's request is clothed in his formal sing-song: "my life, on all collateral accounts insignificant, derives a possible importance from the incompleteness of labors which have extended through all its best years." He asks for the plain truth. Lydgate gives it: "I believe that you are suffering from what is called fatty degeneration of the heart, a disease which was first divined and explored by Laennec, the man who gave us the stethoscope... death from this disease is often sudden. At the same time, no such result can be predicted. Your condition may be consistent with a tolerably comfortable life for another fifteen years, or even more." Casaubon thanks him with quiet dignity, asks whether Lydgate had communicated this to Mrs. Casaubon, and on learning that he had implied the possible issues, waves Lydgate away with "I thank you" and turns to remark on the rare beauty of the day. Lydgate departs. Casaubon paces the walk alone — "the little shadows of bird or leaf that fleeted across the isles of sunlight, stole along in silence as in the presence of a sorrow." Eliot's reflection: "Here was a man who now for the first time found himself looking into the eyes of death... When the commonplace 'We must all die' transforms itself suddenly into the acute consciousness 'I must die—and soon,' then death grapples us, and his fingers are cruel." His mind does not change its lifelong bias on such an occasion; his passionate longings "clung low and mist-like in very shady places." Dorothea, seeing Lydgate ride away, goes into the garden to go to her husband. She hesitates, fearing to offend him, then approaches. He glances at her with a chill that increases her timidity, yet she takes his arm. He keeps his hands behind him and allows "her pliant arm to cling with difficulty against his rigid arm." There was something horrible to Dorothea in that unresponsive hardness. "It is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted." He enters the library and shuts himself in. She goes to her boudoir, throws herself in a chair in the dazzling sunrays, and her suppressed anger breaks out: "What have I done — what am I — that he should treat me so? He never knows what is in my mind — he never cares... He wishes he had never married me." She looks at all the paths of her young hope which she will never find again. She says bitterly: "It is his fault, not mine." In such a crisis, Eliot observes, some women begin to hate. Casaubon sends a message that he will dine in the library and wishes to be alone. Dorothea does not dine either. But as evening deepens into night, the thought that her husband has just looked into the eyes of death rises beside her anger like a shadowy monitor. "The energy that would animate a crime is not more than is wanted to inspire a resolved submission, when the noble habit of the soul reasserts itself." She goes to stand outside in the darkness near the stairs. When Casaubon appears with his candle, his face more haggard than before, he says with gentle surprise: "Dorothea! Were you waiting for me?" "Come, my dear, come. You are young, and need not to extend your life by watching." She puts her hand into his, and they go along the corridor together.