.
Any thing but weak and sentimental; any thing but hiding behind your
humanity with its blissful tears. A man who is not made of iron ought
to be a woman--no, he ought to be a nun. You are nothing but a set of
soft-hearted nuns. Yes, it must be so; it is so. A Jew to sit in
judgment on such a man, and an atheist like this Herr Dournay! Yes, the
atheists are the only consistent democrats. All are equal: there's no
longer any higher being, no longer any God; then there's equality, and
you are everybody's equal. Dastards, loafers! May you find goodly
fellowship together! He is the only man. He has done you too much honor
in wanting to belong to you, you are not worthy of him. You are all of
you afraid of Jean Jacques Rousseau, of the fool of equal rights. It is
still to be seen whether the world smothers itself in this mixed mass
of equality, or whether there are heights for it to climb. You ought to
go across the ocean; there's the last decisive battle-field; you are
nothing but a nobility in a holiday uniform. The Southern States stand
erect, and if they fall, there's no more aristocracy; then you'll all
be clipped by the shears of equal rights. Just call the coachman in
here, your brother-man! Don't let him be out there in the rain, he
ought to be sitting with us in the carriage. Or shall I call him for
you?"

She seized the cord, and the coachman reined in. After letting Clodwig
wait in torture for a while, she cried,--

"Drive on, it's nothing."

She turned her head restlessly, this way and that. Her eyes wildly
rolling, and grinding her teeth, she exclaimed in a loud tone:

"Fie upon all the cowards! Oh! if I were only a man!"

Clodwig sat in the corner, shivering. At this moment something clinked
in Bella's mouth, and she put her hand up to it. What is that? Yes, she
took it out--it is so. In her angry gnashing of her teeth, she had
broken a front tooth, which had been tender for a long time, and
required careful treatment. Bella clinched the hand in which she held
the tooth, and pressed her lips together. What has happened to her? The
thought rapidly shot through her, How vexatious it was that she could
no longer ridicule those who wear false teeth; but yet she can, for
nobody will believe that she, Bella, has a false tooth.

They met the Banker waiting for them in the town: he said that he had
sent the message to his house, and was ready.

Bella got out of the carriage, and holding a handkerchief before h