lunabee34

Link to Volume 2 and Reading Schedule

Chapters 32-33 pages 320-end

Othmar and Yseulte stay at Amyot the entire spring and summer. The narrative compares the estate to a book and to a grave, which fascinates me. Is this marriage no different, no better, than the convent? Fritz questions whether she's actually worse off with Othmar than at the convent.

Othmar is hiding from Nadine at Amyot; Fritz tells him he has to go to Paris and be seen. Othmar thinks his residence in Paris (decorated by his father) is decorated in poor taste and vulgar.

Yseulte sees that Othmar is bored but thinks this is natural because of her age and that she'll be more interesting to him as she grows older.

Othmar tells Yseulte that women of the world crush their souls and waste all their gifts, but he isn't worried that she'll be one of them. He wants her to circulate in society because he wants her to have friends to ease the disappointment of finally realizing he doesn't love her. He knows this is a vulgar impulse.

Othmar is compared to Hamlet, the quintessential Victorian man of neuroses. LOL

Fritz shares Nadine's lack of religious beliefs and laments the loss of an older/more traditional atheism without all the neuroses of the current era.

Yseulte has a boating accident that causes a miscarriage. Othmar doesn't experience the gut-wrenching grief that Yseulte experiences; in fact, he feels almost nothing. He sounds clinically depressed to me.

The second volume of the novel ends with this quote: "for love is fate, and will neither be commanded for gainsaid."