Phyllis’s Reviews > The Betrothed > Status Update

Which, if this story hasn't displeased you, should make you think kindly of the man who wrote it and, also, a little, of the man who revised it. But if we have only succeeded in boring you instead, believe me, we didn't do so on purpose.

Perpetua:
"Everyone else is doing their best. So will we. Excuse me, but don't you have something else to do besides getting in my way? Don't you realize that we are all trying to save our skin? Do you think the soldiers are coming only for you? You might give me a hand at a time like this instead of getting in my way with your whining and fretting."

But what is history, Don Ferrante would often ask, without politics? A guide who walks and walks and walks with no one following him to learn the way, is wasting his steps. Just as politics without history is a man walking without a guide.

The women vied with one another in congratulations, sympathy, and questions; they exclaimed their sadness at hearing that Lucia would be leaving the next day. The men competed with one another in volunteering services: Each one wanted to stand guard over their cottage that night. This fact inspired our anonymous author to formulate a proverb: If you dont want too many helpers, then try not to need them!

"Don't be surprised," she said. "When you know the world as well as I do, you'll see that there's nothing to be surprised at. Nobles are all a little bit mad: some more, some less, some in one way, some in another. It's best to just let them talk, especially when you need them. Pretend that you're taking them seriously, as if they were saying reasonable things.”

The utterances of a powerful and evil man are both piercing and elusive.He'll fret and fume at your suspicions of him at the same time as he confirms them. He'll insult you and say he's offended, ridicule you and consult your opinion, terrify and whine, be rude and irreproachable.

"If a powerful man intent on committing an injustice always had to explain why, the world would be a different place."

For here, as in many other instances, there were two opposing customs, and no decision had been rendered on which of the two should prevail. This created the opportunity for a war to break out every time an absent man ran into someone else of the same temperament.

…and the groom left at last, his heart in turmoil. He kept repeating to himself the same strange words. "In the end there is justice in this world." For a man overcome by grief truly does not know what he is saying.