She had been reading a book while Clara was balancing
her cash, and she attempted to replace it. The shelf was a little
too high, and the volume fell upon the ground. It contained
Shelley's Revolt of Islam.
'Have you read Shelley?' said Baruch.
'Every line--when I was much younger.'
'Do you read him now?'
'Not much. I was an enthusiast for him when I was nineteen, but I
find that his subject matter is rather thin, and his themes are a
little worn. He was entirely enslaved by the ideals of the French
Revolution. Take away what the French Revolution contributed to his
poetry, and there is not much left.'
'As a man he is not very attractive to me.'
'Nor to me; I never shall forgive his treatment of Harriet.'
'I suppose he had ceased to love her, and he thought, therefore, he
was justified in leaving her.'
Madge turned and fixed her eyes, unobserved, on Baruch. He was
looking straight at the bookshelves. There was not, and, indeed, how
could there be, any reference to herself.
'I should put it in this way,' she said, 'that he thought he was
justified in sacrificing a woman for the sake of an IMPULSE. Call
this a defect or a crime--whichever you like--it is repellent to me.
It makes no difference to me to know that he believed the impulse to
be divine.'
'I wish,' interrupted Clara, 'you two would choose less exciting
subjects of conversation; my totals will not come right.
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