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Updated: June 2, 2025
He would have courage; he would keep at a distance; he would lose himself in the crowd, would see Bettina less often and less familiarly. To see her no more was a thought he could not support! He wished to remain Bettina's friend, since he could be nothing but her friend; for there was another thought which scarcely entered the mind of Jean.
Sumner had commissioned Malcom to go up to his studio and gather into boxes all his canvases and painting materials; and soon all three were working as fast as they could, with the design of following the others the next morning. Presently Malcom appeared at Bettina's door with the request that she should go up to the studio when she could leave her work for a minute.
Her ill-cut, out-of-date dress, the cheap suit of the hunchbacked boy, who limped patiently along, helped by his crutch, suggested possible explanations which were without doubt connected with the thought which had risen in Bettina's mind, as she had been driven through the broken-hinged entrance gate. What extraordinary disposal was being made of Rosy's money?
Towards midnight her father came home, singing Tasso as usual, and so drunk that he could not stand. He went up to Bettina's bed, and after kissing her affectionately he said to her: "Thou art not mad, my girl." Her answer was that he was not drunk. "Thou art possessed of the devil, my dear child." "Yes, father, and you alone can cure me." "Well, I am ready."
Emerson greatly admired Bettina, and Louisa M. Alcott relates that she first made acquaintance with the famous 'Correspondence' when in her girlhood she was left to browse in Emerson's library. Bettina's influence was most keenly felt by the young, and she had the youth of Germany at her feet. She died in 1859.
In the evening when I came down to supper I found that Bettina's bed had been brought to the kitchen close by her mother's; but it was no concern of mine, and I remained likewise perfectly indifferent to the noise made during the night, and to the confusion which took place in the morning, when she had a fresh fit of convulsions. Doctor Gozzi and his father returned in the evening.
He was a man of a peculiarly uncomplex nature. When, on meeting Bettina, he for the first time fell deeply in love, he had looked upon the matter as a finality, and he had never ceased so to regard it. When she deserted him, without giving him a chance to speak, he had, in the overwhelming bitterness of his heart, forsworn all women. It had never occurred to him to put another in Bettina's place.
One hour before day-break, unable to master any longer my impatience, I made up my mind to go downstairs with bare feet, so as not to wake the dog, and to place myself at the bottom of the stairs within a yard of Bettina's door, which ought to have been opened if she had gone out of her room.
To think that my daughter, my only remaining child, should lack pride and delicacy! Oh, Modeste, you made your father pass two hours in hell when he heard of it; for, after all, your conduct has been the same as Bettina's without the excuse of a heart's seduction; you were a coquette in cold blood, and that sort of coquetry is head-love, the worst vice of French women."
Bettina's laugh was mellow with revelation. "Ah!" she said. "You don't know my point of view; it's plain enough. You see, when I delight in these things, I think I delight most in my delight in them.
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