Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianna woke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes.
Eleanor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt, and before breakfast was ready, they had gone through the subject again and again, and with the same steady conviction and affectionate counsel on Eleanor's side, the same impetuous feelings and varying opinions on Marianne's as before.
Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him. At one moment she was absolutely indifferent to the observation of all the world, at another she would seclude herself from it forever, and at a third could resist it with energy.
In one thing, however, she was uniform when it came to the point in avoiding, where it was possible, the presence of Mrs. Jennings, and in a determined silence when obliged to endure it. Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs. Jennings' entering into her sorrows with any compassion. No, no, no, it cannot be, she cried. She cannot feel. Her kindness is not sympathy.
Her good nature is not tenderness. All that she wants is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it. Eleanor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable refinement of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her on the delicacies of a strong sensibility and the graces of a polished manner.
Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be that are clever and good, Marianne with excellent abilities and an excellent disposition was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on herself.
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Chapter 2: What is the emotional state of Marianne after her relationship with Willoughby?
I had hoped that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for some time it did. But at last, the misery of her situation, for she experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution. And though she had promised me that nothing, but how blindly I relate. I have never told you how this was brought on. We were within a few hours of eloping together for Scotland.
The treachery or the folly of my cousin's maid betrayed us. I was banished to the house of a relation far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement, till my father's point was gained. I had depended on her fortitude too far, and the blow was a severe one.
But had her marriage been happy, so young as I then was, a few months must have reconciled me to it, or at least I should not have now to lament it. This, however, was not the case. My brother had no regard for her. His pleasures were not what they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly.
The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon's, was but too natural. she resigned herself at first to all the misery of her situation, and happy had it been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the remembrance of me occasioned.
But can we wonder that, with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or restrain her, for my father lived only a few months after their marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies, she should fall. Had I remained in England, perhaps, but I meant to promote the happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose had procured my exchange.
The shock which her marriage had given me, he continued in a voice of great agitation, was of trifling weight, was nothing to what I felt when I heard, about two years afterwards, of her divorce. It was that which threw this gloom, even now the recollection of what I suffered. He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few minutes about the room.
Eleanor, affected by his relation and still more by his distress, could not speak. He saw her concern, and coming to her, took her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect. A few minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure. It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned to England.
My first care, when I did arrive, was of course to seek for her, but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy. I could not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of sin.
Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it, that her extravagance and consequent distress had obliged her to dispose of it for some immediate relief,
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