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Of these Marx says, "These letters, one has not the right, perhaps, to declare them outright creations of fancy; at all events, there is no judicial proof of this, no more than of their authenticity, if they are not imagined, they are certainly translated... from Beethoven into the Bettine speech.
"Pillows, eight or ten of them, wine, and my blue wrapper; Jean will be asleep; Bettine will get it for you; that is all, I think;" and he went carefully away, to bear the startling news out to Congreve Hall; and Olive was left to her lonely vigil, for the troupe arrived presently from the theatre, and the maid was obliged to attend to Madame T . Most of the performers had rooms on the third floor, and after a loiter down stairs, came up noisily, singing and chatting right by the sick-room, and Olive was horrified to hear that they stopped next door, from which place the merriment continued to flow forth unceasing.
Bettine drew a deep breath. "Go on some more," she said. "I like listening to you." "Do you like her?" said William. "No. She's awful greedy. Did you know she was awful greedy?" "I can b'lieve it," said William. "I can b'lieve anything of anyone wot talks in that squeaky voice." "Jus' watch her when she's eatin' cakes she goes on eatin' and eatin' and eatin'."
"Do not try," he answered, pressing the hand she had held out to him, and looking at her with eyes she could not have failed to read had she not been in such a tumult of absorbing thoughts, and then he went carefully out, and Olive, bidding sleepy Bettine to lie down, took her seat again by the bed, and daylight came up brightly, while she watched Ernestine's sleeping face, with eyes that were continually blinded by thankful tears.
She was offered, it seems, "Les Caprices de Marianne," but meantime the poet's "Bettine" failed, and the actress distrustfully turned away from him. An undertaking to appear in the "Medea" of Legouvé landed her in a protracted lawsuit.
He plunged his hands into his pockets and brought out two marbles, a piece of clay, and a broken toy gun. "You can have 'em all," he said in reckless generosity. "You keep 'em for me," said Bettine sweetly. "I hope you dance next me at the Maypole when Evangeline's Queen. Won't it be lovely?" and she sighed. "Lovely?" exploded William. "Huh!" "Won't you like it?" said Bettine wonderingly.
There was Babbette, and Nannette, and Pierrot, and Jeannot, I cannot tell them all, but Jean knew every name. "Come, Bettine and Marie. Come, Pierrot and Croisette. Come, pretty ones all," he called as he led them from the fold that day. "I will carry you to the meadows where the daisies grow."
The charge is utterly groundless; and in the case of Bettine has been refuted by irrefragable proof. To say that he was wanting in love, heartless, cold, is ridiculously false. Yet the charge is constantly reiterated in the face of facts, reiterated with undoubting assurance and a certain complacency which seems to say, "Thank God! we are not as this man was."
It ceased abruptly as William and Bettine appeared. William's father, mother and sister were in the front row. Robert was not there. Robert had declined to come to anything in which that little wretch was to perform. He'd jolly well had enough of that little wretch to last his lifetime, thank you very much.
There is none of the social goods that may not be purchased too dear, and mere amiableness must not take rank with high aims and self-subsistency. Bettine replies to Goethe's mother, who chides her disregard of dress, "If I cannot do as I have a mind, in our poor Frankfort, I shall not carry things far." And the youth must rate at its true mark the inconceivable levity of local opinion.
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