Middlemarch

CHAPITRE LXIX.

Chapter LXIX follows Lydgate home after Bulstrode refuses to lend him money, confronting him with the full weight of his impending financial ruin. He finds Rosamond prostrate and despairing in her room; the couple share a raw emotional exchange that gives way to Rosamond’s decision to take refuge with her parents. The chapter closes on their fractured tenderness, as Lydgate’s bitterness and Rosamond’s injured dignity widen the gulf between them.

Lydgate’s Bitter Reflections Returning Home

Lydgate’s Bitter Reflections Returning Home As he rides toward Lowick Gate, Lydgate broods on the failure of his appeal to Bulstrode and the absence of any remaining expedient to rescue him from destitution. He recoils from poverty’s shabby makeshifts, knowing they would be intolerable to a wife like Rosamond, and dreads becoming the chief source of her disappointment. Expecting no comfort but his dinner, he resolves to tell Rosamond of the failed application without delay.

Rosamond Found Distraught in Her Room

Rosamond Found Distraught in Her Room On entering the house, Lydgate learns that Dover’s agent has already installed a man inside and that Rosamond has retired to her bedroom. He goes up to find her stretched pale and silent on the bed, her face offering no response to his words or look, blank with despair.

Emotional Exchange Between the Couple

Emotional Exchange Between the Couple Lydgate sits beside her and pleads almost prayerfully for forgiveness, urging that they cling to their love. Her blue eyes fill with tears and her lip trembles; the strong man, overcome by the cumulative weight of the day, lets his head fall beside hers and sobs.

Rosamond’s Announcement to Stay with Parents

Rosamond’s Announcement to Stay with Parents Returning after an early visit to her father, Rosamond reports that her parents wish her to stay with them while matters remain unsettled. Her father has declared he can do nothing about the debt, since paying one would only unleash a half-dozen more, and has suggested she return home only when Lydgate can provide a comfortable house. She quietly asks whether he objects.

Tense Interaction Over Rosamond’s Departure

Tense Interaction Over Rosamond’s Departure Lydgate, masking anguish in bitter irony, tells her there is no hurry and bitterly remarks he may break his neck and ease her burden. Rosamond, repelled by what she sees as unwarranted severity, observes with chill mildness that he plainly does not wish her to go and accuses him of violence. She declares she will stay until he expressly requests otherwise; Lydgate, bruised and shattered, says nothing more and goes out on his rounds.

CHAPITRE LXX.

CHAPTER LXX. follows Bulstrode through a night and day of guarding the dying Raffles, battling the desire for his death, and entangling Lydgate in obligation through a thousand-pound loan, before the chapter ends with his silent surrender of the brandy key to Mrs. Abel.

Bulstrode Inspects Raffles’s Pockets

After Lydgate departs, Bulstrode searches Raffles’s pockets and finds hotel bills—most dated no later than Christmas, save one from that morning at an inn in Bilkley, forty miles from Middlemarch. Raffles’s empty purse and absent luggage suggest he surrendered his portmanteau to cover his fare, leaving Bulstrode reassured that his tormentor has genuinely kept his distance.

Bulstrode Conducts Overnight Vigil With Raffles

Bulstrode sits up alone with Raffles through the night, faithfully enforcing Lydgate’s orders despite the man’s incessant demands for brandy and his claims of sinking. The housekeeper lies down in her clothes on standby, and in the morning twilight Raffles begins to rave as though a doctor were accusing Bulstrode of trying to starve him to death in revenge for imagined betrayals.

Bulstrode Grapples With Desire for Raffles’s Death

Bulstrode’s imperious will carries him through the vigil, but his mind ceaselessly images Raffles’s death as his own deliverance. He struggles to keep his intention to obey Lydgate’s orders separate from his desire for that outcome, acknowledging that medical treatment itself is fallible while insisting that intention alone determines right and wrong.