Psychology Applied to Modern Life Adjustment in the 21st Century 11th Edition Weiten Solutions Manual
- 1. Psychology Applied to Modern Life Adjustment in the 21st Century 11th Edition Weiten Solutions Manual download https://testbankdeal.com/product/psychology-applied-to-modern- life-adjustment-in-the-21st-century-11th-edition-weiten- solutions-manual/ Visit testbankdeal.com today to download the complete set of test bank or solution manual
- 2. We believe these products will be a great fit for you. Click the link to download now, or visit testbankdeal.com to discover even more! Psychology Applied to Modern Life Adjustment in the Century 21st Edition Weiten Test Bank https://testbankdeal.com/product/psychology-applied-to-modern-life- adjustment-in-the-century-21st-edition-weiten-test-bank/ Psychology Applied to Modern Life Adjustment in the 21st Century 12th Edition Weiten Test Bank https://testbankdeal.com/product/psychology-applied-to-modern-life- adjustment-in-the-21st-century-12th-edition-weiten-test-bank/ Psychology Applied to Modern Life Adjustment in the 21st Century 9th Edition Weiten Test Bank https://testbankdeal.com/product/psychology-applied-to-modern-life- adjustment-in-the-21st-century-9th-edition-weiten-test-bank/ Family in Transition 17th Edition Skolnick Test Bank https://testbankdeal.com/product/family-in-transition-17th-edition- skolnick-test-bank/
- 3. Labor Economics 6th Edition Borjas Test Bank https://testbankdeal.com/product/labor-economics-6th-edition-borjas- test-bank/ Concepts in Federal Taxation 2016 23rd Edition Murphy Solutions Manual https://testbankdeal.com/product/concepts-in-federal- taxation-2016-23rd-edition-murphy-solutions-manual/ Fundamentals of Financial Management 15th Edition Brigham Test Bank https://testbankdeal.com/product/fundamentals-of-financial- management-15th-edition-brigham-test-bank/ Chemistry 12th Edition Chang Solutions Manual https://testbankdeal.com/product/chemistry-12th-edition-chang- solutions-manual/ Multinational Financial Management 9th Edition Shapiro Solutions Manual https://testbankdeal.com/product/multinational-financial- management-9th-edition-shapiro-solutions-manual/
- 4. Exploring Microsoft Office Excel 2016 Comprehensive 1st Edition Mulbery Test Bank https://testbankdeal.com/product/exploring-microsoft-office- excel-2016-comprehensive-1st-edition-mulbery-test-bank/
- 5. 97 CHAPTER 7 SOCIAL THINKING AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE LEARNING OBJECTIVES Forming Impressions of Others (APA Goals 1, 4) • Cite the five sources of information people use to form impressions of others. • Understand the key differences between snap judgments and systematic judgments. • Define attributions and describe two attribution-based expectancies that can distort observers’ perceptions. • Recognize four important cognitive distortions and how they operate. • Identify some ways in which perceptions of others are efficient, selective, and consistent. The Problem of Prejudice (APA Goals 4, 8) • Explain how “old-fashioned” and modern discrimination differ. • Understand how authoritarianism and cognitive distortions can contribute to prejudice. • Clarify how intergroup competition and threats to social identity can foster prejudice. • Describe the operation of several strategies for reducing prejudice. The Power of Persuasion (APA Goals 4, 7) • Cite the key elements in the persuasion process and how each one operates. • Discuss the evidence on one-sided versus two-sided messages and the value of arousing fear or positive feelings in persuasion. • Explain how the two cognitive routes to persuasion operate. The Power of Social Pressure (APA Goal 1) • Summarize what Asch discovered about conformity. • Discuss the difference between normative and informational influences on conformity. • Describe Milgram’s research on obedience to authority and how to resist inappropriate demands of authority figures. Application: Seeing Through Compliance Tactics (APA Goals 3, 9) • Describe compliance strategies based on the principles of consistency and reciprocity • Discuss how the principle of scarcity can increase a person’s desire for something.
- 6. 98 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER OUTLINE I. Forming Impressions A. Person perception is the process of forming impressions of others B. Key sources of information 1. Appearance 2. Verbal behavior 3. Actions 4. Nonverbal messages 5. Situations C. Snap judgments versus systematic judgments 1. Snap judgments are those that are made quickly and based on only a few bits of information and preconceptions; they may not be accurate 2. Systematic judgments involve taking time to observe the person in a variety of situations and to compare the person’s behavior with that of others D. Attributions are inferences that people draw about the causes of their own behavior, others' behavior, and events 1. Three key dimensions of attributions a. Internal/external b. Stable/unstable c. Controllable/uncontrollable 2. Types of attributions people make about others can have major impact on social interactions 3. People are selective about making attributions; most likely to make them in specific cases a. When others behave in unexpected or negative ways b. When events are personally relevant c. Motives underlying someone’s behavior are suspicious E. Perceiver expectations 1. Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek information that supports one's beliefs while not pursuing disconfirming information a. For first impressions "believing is seeing" rather than "seeing is believing" b. Confirmation bias also occurs via selective recall to fit one's view of others c. Presenting people with information that is inconsistent with their perceptions and preferences can encourage them to engage in more divergent thinking 2. Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when expectations about a person cause the person to behave in ways that confirm the expectations a. Three steps involved in a self-fulfilling prophecy 1) Perceiver has initial impression of someone (target person) 2) Perceiver behaves toward target person in a way that is consistent with expectations 3) Target person adjusts behavior to perceiver's actions b. Perceiver mistakenly attributes target person's behavior to internal causes F. Cognitive distortions 1. Social Categorization
- 7. 99 a. People tend to perceive those similar to themselves as members of ingroup ("us") and those dissimilar as members of outgroup ("them") b. Categorizing has important consequences 1) Attitudes tend to be less favorable toward outgroup members 2) The outgroup homogeneity effect occurs when we see outgroup members as being much more alike and seeing members of one's ingroup as unique individuals 3) Heightens visibility of outgroup members when only a few of them are in a large group 4) People are even likely to see outgroup members as looking more like each other than they actually do 2. Stereotypes are widely held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their membership in a particular group a. Some examples include ethnicity, race, gender b. Also based on physical appearance (e.g., what-is-beautiful-is-good stereotype) 1) Attractive people are perceived more favorably than justified 2) Although cross-culturally people associated attractiveness with positive qualities, cultural values determine which qualities are considered desirable c. Stereotypes can exist outside a person’s awareness and occur automatically d. Exerting self-control is one way to reduce prejudice e. Imagining an encounter between oneself and an outgroup member can reduce hostile feelings linked to stereotyping f. The persistence of stereotypes 1) Function to reduce complexity to simplicity 2) Confirmation bias 3) Self-fulfilling prophecy 3. Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to explain other people's behavior as the result of personal, rather than situational, factors a. Different from stereotyping because it's based on actual behavior b. Making attributions is a two-step process 1) Occurring spontaneously, observers make an internal attribution 2) Only with cognitive effort and attention, observers weigh the impact of the situation and adjust their inference c. Evidence suggests that the two steps may link to different types of brain activity d. Americans (reflecting individualistic culture) tend to use internal attributions more so than Hindus, Chinese, Japanese, or Koreans (reflecting collectivistic culture) 4. Defensive attribution is a tendency to blame victims for their misfortune, so that one feels less likely to be victimized in a similar way G. Key themes in person perception 1. Efficiency a. People prefer to exert minimal cognitive effort and time b. Result is error-prone judgments 2. Selectivity a. "People see what they expect to see" b. Lecturer labeled as "warm" or "cold" results in varied ratings 3. Consistency a. Primacy effect occurs when initial information carries more weight than subsequent information b. Initial negative impressions may be especially hard to change
- 8. 100 CHAPTER 7 II. The Problem of Prejudice A. Prejudice versus discrimination 1. Prejudice is a negative attitude toward members of a group 2. Discrimination involves behaving differently, usually unfairly, toward the members of a group 3. Tend to go together, but that is not always the case 4. Prejudices and stereotypes can be triggered without conscious awareness and can have consequences for behavior B. "Old-fashioned" versus modern discrimination 1. Over the past 40 years, prejudice and discrimination in the U.S. has diminished, racial segregation is no longer legal 2. "Old-fashioned" discrimination against minority groups has declined 3. More subtle forms of prejudice and discrimination have emerged a. With modern discrimination, people may privately harbor negative attitudes toward minorities but express them only when they feel justified or safe b. Aversive racism is an indirect, subtle, ambiguous form of racism that occurs when the conscious endorsement of egalitarian ideals is in conflict with non- conscious, negative reactions to minority group members C. Causes of prejudice 1. Authoritarianism a. Early research identified an authoritarian personality type, characterized by prejudice toward any group perceived to be different from one’s self b. Now termed right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), it is characterized by authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism c. RWA correlates with prejudice and discrimination d. Two key factors underlie RWA prejudice 1) Organizing social world into ingroups and outgroups 2) Tendency toward self-righteousness, fear of change e. Social dominance orientation (SDO) involves preference for inequality among groups, hierarchy, domination 2. Cognitive distortions and expectations a. Social categorization predisposes people to divide the social world into ingroups and outgroups b. Although racial stereotypes have declined in the last 50 years, they still occur c. People are particularly likely to make the fundamental attribution error when evaluating targets of prejudice d. Perceiving negative characteristics as being dispositionally based due to group membership is labeled as the ultimate attribution error e. Defensive attributions, when people unfairly blame victims of adversity to reassure themselves that the same thing won’t happen to them, can contribute to prejudice f. Expectations can also foster and maintain prejudice 3. Competition between groups a. Based on early research by Muzafer Sherif and colleagues (Robber’s Cave summer camp study) b. Effects of competition on prejudice often occurs in the real world c. Perception of threats to ingroup more problematic than actual threats 4. Threats to social identity
- 9. 101 a. Social identity theory states that self-esteem is partly determined by one’s social identity or collective self, which is tied to one’s group memberships b. Threats to social identity provoke prejudice and discrimination c. Most common response is to show in-group favoritism d. Outgroup derogation may also occur, to criticize outgroups perceived as threatening e. "Ingroup love" not "outgroup hate" underlies most discrimination f. Ingroup favoritism is often subtle and can be triggered by arbitrary and inconsequential factors, such as shared musical tastes 5. Stereotype threat a. Occurs when individuals are the targets of a stereotype by others to characterize the group they belong to b. Feelings of stereotype vulnerability can undermine group members’ performance on academic tests, D. Reducing prejudice 1. Cognitive strategies a. Stereotypes may kick in automatically, unintentionally b. But can intentionally inhibit stereotyping, prejudice with shift from automatic processing to controlled processing, or from mindlessness to mindfulness 2. Intergroup contact a. Based on principle of superordinate goals (or cooperative interdependence): requiring two groups to work together to achieve a mutual goal b. Four necessary conditions for reducing intergroup hostility 1) Groups must work together for common goal 2) Must be successful outcomes to cooperative efforts 3) Group members must have opportunity to establish meaningful connections 4) Must ensure equal status contact c. To test the contact hypothesis in a field study, white college students were randomly assigned to share a dorm with a white or a black roommate 1) Students in the interracial rooms did report less satisfaction with their roommates than those with same-race assignments 2) But more positively, students living in the interracial rooms were found to be less prejudiced across time compared to those with same-race living arrangements III. The Power of Persuasion A. Persuasion defined 1. Persuasion involves the communication of arguments and information intended to change another person's attitudes 2. Attitudes are beliefs and feelings about people, objects, and ideas a. Beliefs are thoughts and judgments b. The "feeling" component refers to positive/negative aspect of attitude, as well as strength of feeling B. The elements of the persuasion process 1. Source is the person who sends a communication a. Credibility of source is important factor 1) Expertise can give a person credibility 2) Trustworthiness of source is even more important than expertise
- 10. 102 CHAPTER 7 b. Likeability also increases effectiveness of source 1) Physical attractiveness can affect likeability 2) Similarity of source to target also an important factor 2. Message is the information transmitted by the source a. Two-sided arguments generally more effective than one-sided arguments 1) One-sided arguments work only when audience is uneducated about issue 2) One-sided arguments work if audience is favorably disposed to message b. Arousal of fear may increase effectiveness of message if people feel susceptible to the threat, within limits c. Generating positive feelings can be effective 3. Receiver is the person to whom the message is sent a. Mood can matter: optimistic people process uplifting messages better than pessimists b. Some people have a need for cognition, the tendency to seek out and enjoy effortful thought, problem-solving activities, and in-depth analysis. Such people are more likely to be convinced by high-quality arguments rather than superficial analyses c. Forewarning may reduce effectiveness d. People display disconfirmation bias when evaluating arguments incompatible with their existing beliefs e. People from different cultures respond to different themes in persuasive messages C. The whys of persuasion 1. According to the elaboration likelihood model, an individual’s thoughts about a persuasive message (rather than the message itself) determine whether attitude change will occur 2. When people are distracted, tired, etc., they may be persuaded by cues along the peripheral route, the usual route of persuasion 3. With the central route, the receiver cognitively elaborates on the message 4. Two requirements for central route to override peripheral route a. Receivers must be motivated to process message b. Receivers must be able to understand message 5. Attitudes formed via central route are longer lasting, better predict actual behavior IV. The Power of Social Pressure A. Conformity and compliance pressures 1. Conformity occurs when people yield to real or imagined social pressure 2. We are apt to explain the behavior of other people as conforming but not think of our own actions this way 3. The dynamics of conformity are illustrated by classic experiment in which Solomon Asch examined effect of group pressure on conformity in unambiguous situations a. Participants varied considerably in tendency to conform, although 28% conformed on more than half the trials b. Two important factors were group size and unanimity 1) Conformity increased as group size increased from two to four, peaked at seven, then leveled off 2) Group size had little effect in presence of another dissenter, underscoring importance of unanimity 4. Conformity versus compliance
- 11. 103 a. Later studies indicated that Asch's participants were not really changing their beliefs b. Theorists concluded that Asch's experiments evoked a type of conformity, called compliance (when people yield to social pressure in their public behavior, even though their private beliefs have not changed) 5. The whys of conformity a. Normative influence operates when people conform to social norms for fear of negative social consequences b. Informational influence operates when people look to others for how to behave in ambiguous situations 6. Resisting conformity pressures a. Conformity can range from harmless fun to tragic consequences b. The bystander effect is the tendency for individuals to be less likely to provide help when others are present than when they are alone c. Suggestions for resisting conformity pressures include 1) Pay more attention to social forces 2) Try to identify one other dissenter 3) Consider inviting along a friend with similar views B. Pressure from authority figures 1. The dynamics of obedience: Stanley Milgram demonstrated the power of obedience (a form of compliance that occurs when people follow direct commands, usually from someone in a position of authority) a. A "teacher" (participant) was instructed to administer electric shocks to a "learner" (confederate) b. Although apparatus was fake, participant thought he was administering increasingly stronger shocks c. Twenty-six of 40 participants (65%) administered all 30 levels of shock 2. The causes of obedience a. Demands on participants were escalated gradually b. Authority figure claimed responsibility c. Subjects evaluated their actions on how well they were living up to expectations of authority figure, not in terms of the victim 3. To obey or not to obey a. With “crimes of obedience,” social pressures can cause morally repugnant behavior b. Aligning oneself with supportive others can decrease obedience to risky demands V. Application: Seeing through Compliance Tactics A. The consistency principle 1. The foot-in-the-door technique involves getting people to agree to a small request to increase the chances that they will agree to a larger request later 2. The lowball technique involves getting someone to commit to an attractive proposition before its hidden costs are revealed B. The reciprocity principle 1. Reciprocity principle: the rule that one should pay back in kind what one receives from others 2. Norm is so powerful, it works even when
- 12. 104 CHAPTER 7 a. Gift is uninvited b. Gift comes from someone you dislike c. Gift results in an uneven exchange 3. Reciprocity-based influence tactics include a. The door-in-the-face technique, which involves making a very large request that is likely to be turned down to increase the chances that people will agree to a smaller request later b. Other examples such as free samples, business dinners C. The scarcity principle 1. Telling people they can’t have something makes them want it more 2. Reactance occurs when people want what they can’t have 3. Examples include “limited supplies,” “time is running out” DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Our perceptions of other people are influenced by their physical appearance, including the clothes they wear. Can you think of some examples of how your perceptions are affected by the way people dress? How do you think your attire affects others' perceptions of you? 2. What are everyday examples of the self-fulfilling prophecy at work? For instance, if you expect rude service from a cashier versus expecting friendliness? If you expect a blind date to be boring versus fun? 3. In the textbook, the authors suggest that because people know that verbal behavior is more easily manipulated than nonverbal behavior, they often rely on nonverbal cues to determine the truth of what others say. Do you find yourself relying on nonverbal cues in social situations? What specific nonverbal cues do you think are “dead giveaways” for certain thoughts or attitudes? 4. Do you think there may be gender differences in the ability to identify and make use of information from nonverbal behavior? Can you cite an example or two to support your answer? 5. Evidence indicates that people tend to attribute their own behavior to situational (external) causes, and observers tend to attribute the same actions to the individual's dispositional (internal) qualities. Can you think of some explanations for these tendencies? 6. Do you tend to think of attractive people as more competent and better adjusted than those who are less attractive? Why do you think this is the case? 7. Given that perceptual inaccuracies promote racial prejudice, what do you think could be done to reduce problems that occur as a result of racial prejudice, particularly in schools? 8. Some researchers suggest that elections are determined mainly by the public's impressions of the candidates rather than the candidates' views on important issues. Do you think this is the case? If so, what are some possible explanations for this behavior on the part of voters?
- 13. 105 9. Can you think of any specific advertisements that you think would be particularly effective in getting people to purchase products? Describe the qualities these ads have that make them so effective, referring to the list of persuasive techniques from the applications section of the textbook. 10. When you think of advertising and spokespersons, what people come to mind? What source factors seem to make these individuals particularly strong as spokespersons? 11. In what situations is obedience to authority desirable or even necessary? In what situations can it be problematic? 12. In your opinion, what are the main ethical problems with Stanley Milgram's study of obedience to authority? Do you think the scientific contributions of the study outweigh the ethical concerns? 13. How could the findings of the Robber’s Cave study be applied to problems with prejudice and discrimination among children in today’s schools? 14. The Application section discusses several compliance tactics. When and where have you seen any of these in use? Did they appear to be effective? 15. Blind obedience to authority can have disastrous consequences. So, why does obedience exist? Does it serve a purpose in society? How can one draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate types of obedience? DEMONSTRATIONS AND ACTIVITIES Campus Stereotypes and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies (APA Goals 4, 9): In order to make students aware of how universal the cognitive activity of stereotyping is, ask them to list the qualities that they associate with the following people: Football Player (Athlete) Engineering Major English Major Cheerleader Drama Club Member Honor Student Part-time Student Freshman Single Mother Fraternity Brother/Sorority Sister After the students have listed the qualities for themselves, have them call out their answers and list them on the board. Although there will be some variations, there will most likely be many qualities in common identified by most students in the room, even though (upon further questioning) the students will also acknowledge that the members of each group who are known to them are far more diverse than the stereotypes that are held. They will also be compelled to admit that they hold the stereotypes. This is instructive because people so often are reticent to admit this, as they automatically associate the relatively neutral, universal categorizing activity of stereotyping with prejudice.
- 14. 106 CHAPTER 7 Discussing the qualities that are present in the group members is also an interesting way to introduce the notion of the influence of role on behavior (in other words, it may be unclear to all of us the degree to which that people in each category have the qualities because of the expectation that they should be that way). The What-Is-Beautiful-Is-Good Stereotype (APA Goals 4, 9): The textbook discusses how attractive people are often seen as more competent, better adjusted, etc. than unattractive people. Students often react to this information with disbelief, convinced that no one would evaluate people in such a shallow manner. If you conduct this exercise before discussing person perception, you can "catch" your students using the stereotype, making the point in convincing fashion. Obtain a yearbook from your school that is several years old (or collect pictures from the Internet) and have a group of students from another class select five pictures each of attractive and unattractive men and women. You may also want to include some pictures from the middle of the attractiveness spectrum so that the difference between the two groups of pictures isn't too obvious. You could tell your students that before you begin the chapter dealing with person perception, you want to examine their ability to perceive certain characteristics in others. Show your class the pictures you have cut from the yearbook and have them rate each picture using the rating scale shown below (or your own version). You might want to tell your class that because the pictures are of former students, you know the actual characteristics on which they are being rated. The question of interest, of course, is how the ratings of the attractive individuals differ from those of the unattractive individuals. The results should provide clear support for the "what-is-beautiful-is-good" stereotype. Friendly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Unfriendly Reliable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Unreliable Intelligent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Unintelligent Popular 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Unpopular Modest 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Not modest Sociable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Unsociable Honest 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Dishonest Athletic 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Unathletic The Fundamental Attribution Error (APA Goal 1): Watson (1987) developed this demonstration based on an experiment conducted by Ross, Amabile, and Steinmetz (1977). To do the exercise, you need to form pairs of students who do not know each other very well and have them sit together. Tell them they are going to play a game in which one person is the contestant and the other is the quiz master. Randomly determine each role by flipping a coin. You might assign those whose names are closer to the beginning of the alphabet to "heads" and the others to "tails" so that all pairs can be assigned at the same time. Have the quiz masters make up five challenging general-knowledge questions (e.g., the capital of a distant state, the U.S. President in a certain year) or use questions from a game like Trivial Pursuit. Have each quiz master ask his or her contestant the questions and immediately say whether the answers are correct or not. Then have everyone anonymously fill out a question sheet like the one shown below. After you have collected the sheets, you can explain the purpose of the exercise. Tally the results on the board by the role played, contestant or quiz master. Generally, contestants will be rated as having less knowledge than quiz masters. You can discuss how the ratings show that students are ignoring the situation and attributing behavior to dispositional factors (i.e., knowledge). Have
- 15. 107 students imagine playing the game a second time, with the roles reversed and discuss how their attributions might change. Explain to them that the exercise is set up in such a way that it favors the quiz master and places the contestant at a disadvantage, thus evoking the fundamental attribution error. Question Sheet Did you: Give questions Ask questions Compare how knowledgeable your partner seems relative to yourself. Be as honest as possible. Your answer will be kept confidential. My partner is much I am much more more knowledgeable 1 2 3 4 5 knowledgeable Ross, L.D., Amabile, T.M., & Steinmetz, J.L. (1977). Social roles, social control, and biases in social-perception processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 485-494. Watson, D.L. (1987). The fundamental attribution error. In V.P. Makosky, L.G. Whittemore, & A.M. Rogers (Eds.), Activities handbook for the teaching of psychology: Vol. 2 (pp. 135- 137). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Culture, Persuasion, and Advertising (APA Goal 8): To conduct this activity, you'll need an array of visual advertisements. These can easily be found online through an image search. You can gather these images yourself, or have the students find advertisements themselves as part of the activity. Choose a general category of product, such as beverages or automobiles, and collect advertisements from various countries and across various decades. During your classroom presentation of persuasion, remind the students about the qualities associated with collectivistic and individualistic cultures. Then share the various ads with them and ask them to help you categorize each as individualistic or collectivistic in their focus. Keep a running tally to determine whether advertisements from more collectivistic cultures tend to promote conformity and advertisements from the United States (a highly individualistic culture) tend to promote uniqueness. Along with the cross-cultural comparison, you can look at whether advertisements in the past century in the United States have shown a shifting focus from conformity to uniqueness. Although you can find many advertisements through a general online search engine, following is a list of sites with various types of advertisements: http://tobaccofreekids.org/adgallery/ Search tobacco advertising by country http://www.plan59.com/ American advertisements from the 1950s http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html Historic advertisements archived by the Library of Congress Obedience in the Classroom (APA Goal 5): Hunter (1981) and Halonen (1986) developed an exercise that you can use before you discuss obedience to make the topic more meaningful to your students. Halonen suggests using this exercise on the first day of class; Hunter suggests using another instructor to conduct the exercise if it is not the first day of class. First, you should make some requests that seem perfectly normal in the context of the classroom (e.g., asking everyone to move toward the front of the room, asking students to remove
- 16. 108 CHAPTER 7 everything from the top of their desks). You should gradually make the requests stranger (e.g., require notes to be taken only in pencil, have students take off their watches, have everyone raise a hand on which they have a ring). Finally, the requests should escalate to complete bizarreness, so that people look silly by complying (e.g., have people with blonde hair stand up and face the back of the room while the rest of the class applauds, have students flap their arms and cluck like a chicken). Ask students why they did what you requested. Typically, you will find that the instructor is perceived as an authority figure that should be obeyed. You should then be able to generate a lively discussion focusing on obedience. For example, should authority figures always be obeyed? How can blind obedience to authority be overcome? Once students have experienced an obedience situation themselves, Milgram's research becomes more credible, more interesting, and easier to understand. Halonen, J. (1986). Teaching Critical Thinking in Psychology. Milwaukee: Alverno Productions. Hunter, W.J. (1981). Obedience to authority. In L.T. Benjamin, Jr., & K.D. Lowman (Eds.), Activities Handbook for the Teaching of Psychology (pp. 149-150). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Blaming the Victim (APA Goals 1, 3): Bloyd (1990) developed this exercise based on a story from Dolgoff and Feldstein (1984). Read your class the following story: Once upon a time, a husband and a wife lived together in a part of the city separated by a river from places of employment, shopping, and entertainment. The husband had to work nights. Each evening, he left his wife and took the ferry to work, returning in the morning The wife soon tired of this arrangement. Restless and lonely, she would take the next ferry into town and develop relationships with a series of lovers. Anxious to preserve her marriage, she always returned home before her husband. In fact, her relationships were always limited. When they threatened to become too intense, she would precipitate a quarrel with her current lover and begin a new relationship. One night, she caused such a quarrel with a man we will call Lover 1. He slammed the door in her face, and she started back to the ferry. Suddenly, she realized that she had forgotten to bring money for her return fare. She swallowed her pride and returned to Lover 1's apartment. But Lover 1 was vindictive and angry because of the quarrel. He slammed the door on his former lover, leaving her with no money. She remembered that a previous lover, who we shall call Lover 2, lived just a few doors away. Surely he would give her the ferry fare. However, Lover 2 was still so hurt from their old quarrel that he, too, refused her the money. Now the hour was late and the woman was getting desperate. She rushed down to the ferry and pleaded with the ferryboat captain. He knew her as a regular customer. She asked if he could let her ride free and if she could pay the next night. But the captain insisted that rules were rules and that he could not let her ride without paying the fare. Dawn would soon be breaking, and her husband would be returning from work. The woman remembered that there was a free bridge about a mile further on. But the road to the bridge was a dangerous one, known to be frequented by highwaymen. Nonetheless, she had to get home, so she took the road. On the way a highwayman stepped out of the bushes and demanded her money.
- 17. Discovering Diverse Content Through Random Scribd Documents
- 18. was being acted, and where he perceived nothing save that one form, when it came within his sight, with the grace of movement, the charm of attitude, which were especial to Nadine Napraxine. He thought the coming and going of her many guests would never end; that the buzz of the many voices would never cease. Once or twice men and women whom he knew came into the little room, and sat down there for a few moments; then he was forced to rise and speak to them, to say he knew not what. But he took his seat again immediately, and resumed his silent vigil. Some of them looked at him in surprise, for his expression was strange, and his black Georgian eyes were misty yet fierce; but he was not conscious of the notice he excited, he was only conscious that she never glanced towards him, never summoned him, once. The two hours seemed to him endless. When seven had struck, the last carriage rolled away from before the windows, the last lingering visitor, the Duc de Prangins—he who had killed young d’Ivrea—made his profound bow over her hand, and took himself and his elegant witticisms and his admirable manners back to the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo. When the doors had closed on him, Nadine Napraxine stood a moment alone in the centre of her salon; then swiftly turned, and came towards Seliedoff. He rose, and awaited her sullenly. Her right hand was clenched as though it grasped the handle of a knout, and was about to use it; a terrible anger shone from the lustre of her eyes; her lips were pale with the force of her displeasure. ‘How dare you! how dare you!’ she said between her teeth. So might an empress have spoken to a moujik. To have waited unbidden in her room, seen by all the world, sulking there as though he were a lover once favoured, now dispossessed; making of himself a spectacle, a ridicule, a theme for the comment and chatter of society—it seemed to her such intolerable presumption, such infinite insolence, that she could have struck him
- 19. with her clenched hand if her dignity had not forbade her. For all her world to see this love-sick boy half-hidden in an inner room, as though by her welcome and authority! She, who had dismissed kings as others dismiss lackeys when she had found them too presuming, could find no chastisement vast enough for such a sin against her authority and her repute. Seliedoff was but a spoilt child; he had had his own will and way unchecked all his short life, and all his companions and servants had existed only for his pleasure. A foolish and doting mother had never bridled his wishes or tamed his passions. Before Nadine Napraxine alone had the arrogant young noble become submissive, suppliant, and humble. Now, in his torture and his sense of wrong, the natural self-will and fury of a spoilt child crossed, of an adoring youth checked and repudiated, broke away from the bonds of fear in which she had always held them. He answered her with a torrent of words, unconsidered and unwise, beyond all pardon. ‘You have treated me like a dog!’ he said in conclusion, his voice choked in his throat, the veins of his forehead injected. ‘You have caressed me, called me, allowed me every liberty, been pleased with my every folly; and now you turn me out of your house as you would turn the dog if he misbehaved himself. But I am not a dog, I am a man, and that you shall know, by God——’ He came nearer to her, his eyes red and covetous, his boyish face inflamed with fiercest passion, his arms flung out to seize her. She looked at him, such a look as she would have given to a madman to control, and awe him; he paused, trembled, dared not draw nearer to her. She was deeply, implacably offended by what had passed. For him to permit himself such language and such actions, seemed to her as intolerable an insult as if the African boy in her service had dared to disobey her. It was the first time that anyone had ever ventured to insult her; it irritated all her delicacy, infuriated all her pride. She
- 20. never paused to think what provocation she had given; she would have struck him dead with a glance had she been able. ‘You are unwell, and delirious,’ she said in her serenest, chillest tones. ‘You know neither what you do or say. I have been kind to you, and you have presumed to misinterpret my kindness. Your cousin would treat you like a hound, if he knew. But you are ill, so there is excuse for you. Go home, and I will send you my physicians.’ Then she rang; and when a servant entered from the antechamber she turned to him: ‘M. le Comte Seliedoff desires his carriage.’ The boy looked at her with a terrible look in his eyes—pitiful, baffled, imploring, delirious. ‘Nadine, Nadine,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘will you send me away like that—to die?’ But she had passed, with her slow soft grace, into the adjoining room. He heard her say to Melville, who had been asked there: ‘You are after my hours, Monsignore, but you are always welcome.’ Seliedoff, with a mist like blood before his eyes, staggered out of the little salon into the mild primrose-scented evening air, hearing, as in a dream, the voices of the servants who told him that his horses waited. ‘She will never forgive; she will never forgive,’ he thought, with a sickening sense that this one moment of insanity had severed him for ever from the woman he worshipped. ‘She will never forgive; I shall never enter her house again!’ All the lovely scene stretching before him in its peace and luxuriance, as the stars came out in the deep blue skies and the
- 21. daylight still lingered upon shore and sea, was blotted out for him by a red haze as of blood and of tears.
- 22. CHAPTER XXVI. Meanwhile Melville, who had come to take his leave before proceeding to Paris under orders from the Vatican, found his hostess evidently ennuyée; she was not in her usual serene humour. ‘What has irritated you, Princess?’ that very observant person presumed at last to ask. ‘Have you actually discovered that doubled rose-leaf of whose existence you have been always sure and I always sceptical?’ ‘The doubled rose-leaf is that enormous nuisance, la bêtise humaine,’ she replied with ennui, breaking off some blossoms of an odontoglossum standing near her. ‘It is like the fog in London, it penetrates everywhere, you cannot escape it; there has been no rose-glass made which could shut it out. If Balzac had written for centuries, he would never have come to an end of it. Do you ever find any variety in your confessional? I never do in my drawing- rooms.’ ‘And yet who should find it, if not Madame Napraxine?’ said Melville, who, when in his worldly moods, did not especially care to be reminded that he was a churchman. ‘I do not know who should,—I know that I never do,’ she replied. ‘I have made la chasse au caractère ever since I was old enough to know what character meant; and my only wonder is how, out of such a sameness of material, St.-Simon and La Bruyère and Ste.- Beuve, and all those people who write so well, ever were able to make such entertaining books. I suppose it is done by the same sort of science which enables mathematicians to make endless permutations out of four numbers. For myself, I should like other numbers than those we know by rote.’
- 23. ‘Good heavens!’ thought Melville, ‘when men have died because she laughed! Is that so very commonplace? or, is it not tragic enough?’ Aloud he said, in his courtliest manner: ‘Princess, I fear the sameness of human nature tries you so greatly because of the sameness of the emotions which you excite in it; I can imagine that too much adoration may cloy like too much sugar. Also, in your chasse au caractère you have, like all who hunt, left behind you a certain little bourgeois quality called pity; an absurd little quality, no doubt, still one which helps observation. I am sure you have read Tourguenieff’s little story of the quail?’ ‘Yes; but one eats them still, you know, just the same as if he had never written it. Pity may be a microscope, I do not know; besides, you must admit that a quail is a much lovelier little life than a man’s, and so can excite it so much more easily. A quail is quite a charming little bird. Myself, I never eat birds at all; it is barbarous.’ ‘What I meant to say was,’ suggested Melville, ‘that, in that tiny tale, Tourguenieff, like a poet, as he was, at heart, describes precisely what sympathy will do to open the intelligence to the closed lives of others, whether bird or man. Perhaps, madame, sympathy would even do something to smooth the creases out of your rose-leaf—if you tried it.’ ‘I suppose I am not sympathetic,’ said Nadine Napraxine, stripping the petals of the odontoglossum; ‘they all say so. But I think it is their own fault; they are so uninteresting.’ ‘The quail,’ said Melville, ‘to almost everybody is only a little juicy morsel to be wrapped in a vine-leaf and roasted; but Tourguenieff had the vision to see in it the courage of devotion, the heroism of maternity, the loveliness of its life, the infinite pathos of its death. Yet, the exceptional estimate of the student’s view of it was quite as true as the general view of the epicure.’ ‘Am I an epicure?’ said Nadine Napraxine, amused.
- 24. ‘Spiritually, intellectually, you are,’ replied Melville; ‘and so nothing escapes the fastidiousness of your taste; yet perhaps, madame, something may escape the incompleteness of your sympathies.’ ‘That is very possible; but, as I observed to Lady Brancepeth when she made me a similar reproach, one is as one is made. One is Tourguenieff or one is Brillat-Savarin, all that is arranged beforehand for one—somewhere.’ Melville had learned the ways of the world too well not to know how to glide easily, with closed eyes and averted ears, over such irreverences; but he ventured to say: ‘One cannot dispute the fact of natural idiosyncrasy and inclination, of course; but may not one’s self-culture be as much of the character as of the mind? Might it not become as interesting to strive and expand one’s moral as one’s intellectual horizon? It seems so to me, at the least.’ She laughed, and rang a little silver bell for Mahmoud to bring them some fresh tea. ‘My dear Monsignore,’ she said, with amusement and admiration; ‘for enwrapping a kernel of religious advice in an envelope of agreeable social conversation, there is not your equal anywhere—you may well be beloved of the Propaganda! But, alas! it is all wasted on me.’ Melville reddened a little with irritation: ‘I understand,’ he answered. ‘I fear, Princess, that you are like Virschow or Paul Bert, who are so absorbed in cutting, burning, and electrifying the nerves of dogs that the dog, as a sentient creature, a companion, and a friend, is wholly unknown to them. Humanity, poor Humanity, is your dog.’ ‘Will you have some tea?’ she said, as Mahmoud brought in her service made by goldsmiths of the Deccan, who sat on mats under their banana trees, with the green parrots flying over the aloes and the euphorbia, and who produced work beside which all the best
- 25. which Europe can do with her overgrown workshops is clumsy, inane, and vulgar. ‘What you suggested was very pretty,’ she continued, pouring out the clear golden stream on the slices of lemon; ‘and I had no right to laugh at you for wrapping up a sermon in nougat. Of course the character ought to be trained and developed just like the body and the mind, only nobody thinks so; no education is conducted on those lines. And so, though we overstrain the second, and pamper the third, we wholly neglect the first. I imagine that it never occurs to anyone out of the schoolroom to restrain a bad impulse or uproot a bad quality. Why should it? We are all too busy in trying to be amused, and failing. Do you not think it was always so in the world? Do you suppose La Bruyère, for instance, ever turned his microscope on himself? And do you think, if he had done, that any amount of self-scrutiny would have made La Bruyère Pascal or Vincent de Paul?’ ‘No; but it might have made him comprehend them, or their likenesses. I did not mean to moralise, madame; I merely meant that the issue of self-analysis is sympathy, whilst the issue of the anatomy of other organisations is cruelty even where it may be wisdom.’ ‘That may be true in general, and I daresay is so; but the exception proves the rule, and I am the exception. Whenever I do think about myself I only arrive at two conclusions; the one, that I am not as well amused as I ought to be considering the means I have at my disposal, and the other is that, if I were quite sure that anything would amuse me very much, I should sacrifice everything else to enjoy it. Neither of those results is objective in its sympathies; and you would not, I suppose, call either of them moral.’ ‘I certainly should not,’ said Melville, ‘except that there is always a certain amount of moral health in any kind of perfect frankness.’ ‘I am always perfectly frank,’ said the Princess Nadine; ‘so is Bismarck. But the world has made up its mind that we are both of us always feigning.’
- 26. ‘That is the world’s revenge for being ruled by each of you.’ ‘Is it permitted in these serious days for churchmen to make pretty speeches? I prefer your scoldings, they are more uncommon.’ ‘The kindness which permits them is uncommon,’ said Melville, as he took up his tea-cup. ‘Ah! I can be kind,’ said Nadine Napraxine. ‘ Ask Mahmoud and my little dog. But then Mahmoud is dumb, and the dog is—a dog. If humanity were my dog, too, as you say, I should make it aphone!’ ‘Poor humanity!’ said Melville, with a sigh. ‘If it would not offend you, Princess, there are two lines of Mürger which always seem to me to exactly describe the attitude, or rather the altitude, from which you regard all our sorrows and follies.’ ‘And they are?’ ‘They are those in which he thinks he hears: “Le fifre au son aigu railler le violoncelle, Qui pleure sous l’archet ses notes de crystal;” only we must substitute for aigu some prettier word, say perlé.’ She laughed, thinking of Boris Seliedoff, with more perception of his absurdities than of his offences, as her first movement of wrath subsided into that ironical serenity which was most natural to her of all her varying moods. ‘The violoncello does not know itself why it weeps,’ she replied, ‘so why should the fife not laugh at it? Really, if I were not so impious a being, I would join your Church for the mere pleasure of confessing to you; you have such fine penetration, such delicate suggestion. But then, there is no living being who understands women as a Catholic priest does who is also a man of the world. Adieu! or rather, I hope, au revoir. You are going away for Lent? Ours will soon be here. I shock every Russian because I pay no heed to its sanctity. Did you ever find, even amongst your people, any creatures so superstitious in their religion as Russians? Platon is certainly the
- 27. least moral man the sun shines on, but he would not violate a fast nor neglect a rite to save his life. It is too funny! Myself, I have fish from the Baltic and soups (very nasty ones) from Petersburg, and deem that quite concession enough to Carême. My dear Monsignore, why should there be salvation in salmon and sin in a salmis?’ Melville was not at all willing to enter on that grave and large question with so incorrigible a mocker. He took his leave, and bowed himself out from her presence; whilst Nadine Napraxine went to her own rooms to dress for dinner and look at the domino which she would wear some hours later at a masked ball which was to take place that night in her own house in celebration of the last evening of the Catholic Carnival. ‘Le masque est si charmant que j’ai peur du visage,’ she murmured inconsequently, as she glanced at the elegant disguise and the Venetian costume to be worn beneath it which had been provided for her. ‘That is the sort of feeling which one likes to inspire, and which one also prefers to feel. Always the mask, smiling, mysterious, unintelligible, seductive, suggestive of all kinds of unrealised, and therefore of unexhausted pleasures; never the face beneath it, the face which frowns and weeps and shows everything, is unlovely, only just because it is known and must in due time even grow wrinkled and yellow. How agreeable the world would be if no one ever took off their masks or their gloves!’
- 28. CHAPTER XXVII. On the following day as she returned from her drive, she was met, to her great surprise, by Napraxine, who descended the steps of the house with a face unusually pale, and a manner unusually grave. ‘What can possibly be the matter, Platon?’ she said, with a vague sense of alarm, but with her inevitable mockery of him dominating her transient anxiety. ‘Have you had a culotte yonder? Has Athenais gone away with my jewel-safe? Or have our friends the Nihilists fired Zaraizoff?’ Napraxine gave her his hand to help her to alight. ‘Do not jest,’ he said simply. ‘Boris has shot himself.’ ‘Boris?—Boris Fédorovitch?’ She spoke in astonishment and anger rather than sorrow: an impatient frown contracted her delicate brows, though she grew ashen pale. Why would men do these things? Napraxine was silent, but when they had entered the house he spoke very sadly, almost sternly. ‘This afternoon he had lost a hundred thousand francs; no doubt on purpose to have an excuse. The ruse can deceive nobody. A Count Seliedoff could lose as much all day for a year, and make no sign. He shot himself in the gardens, within a few yards of us all.’ He paused and looked at his wife. A shadow passed over her face without changing its narcissus-like fairness; she shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly, her eyes had had for a moment an expression of awe and regret, but, beyond any other sentiment with her, were her impatience and irritation.
- 29. ‘Why will men be so stupid?’ she thought. ‘As if it did any good! The foolish boy!’ ‘Nadine,’ murmured her husband in a voice that was timid even in its expostulation and reproach. ‘I am sorry for Boris; for the other I have never cared, but for Boris;—you know that I promised his mother to take what care I could of him—and now—and now—and so young as he was!—and how shall I tell her?—My God!’ She was silent; a genuine pain was on her face, though still mingled with the more personal emotion of impatience and annoyance. ‘It was no fault of yours!’ she said at last, as she saw two great tears roll down her husband’s cheeks. ‘Yes, it was,’ muttered Platon Napraxine. ‘I let him know you.’ The direct accusation banished the softer pain which had for the minute moved her; she was at all times intolerant of censure or of what she resented as a too intimate interference; and here her own surprise at an unlooked-for tragedy, and her own self-consciousness of having been more or less the cause and creatress of it, stung her with an unwelcome and intolerable truth. ‘You are insolent,’ she said, with the regard which always daunted Napraxine, and made him feel himself an offender against her, even when he was entirely in the right. ‘You are insolent,’ she repeated. ‘Do you mean to insinuate that I am responsible for Seliedoff’s suicide? One would suppose you were a journalist seeking chantage!’ The power which she at all times possessed over her husband making him unwilling to irritate, afraid to offend her, and without courage before her slightest sign of anger, rendered him timid now. He hesitated and grew pale, but the great sorrow and repentance which were at work in him gave him more resolution than usual; he was very pale, and the tears rolled down his cheeks unchecked. ‘Every one knows that Boris loved you,’ he said simply. ‘All the world knows that; he was a boy, he could not conceal it; I cannot tell what
- 30. you did to him, but something which broke his heart. You know I never say anything; you give me no title. I am as much of a stranger to you as if we had met yesterday; and do not fancy I am ever— jealous—as men are sometimes. I know you would laugh at me, and besides, you care for none of them any more than you care for me. I should be a fool to wish for more than that;—if it be always like that, I shall never say anything. Only you might have spared this lad. He was so young and my cousin, and the only one left to his mother.‘ He paused, in stronger agitation than he cared to allow her to see. It was the first time for years that he had ventured to speak to her in any sort of earnestness or of upbraiding. She had allotted him his share in her life, a very distant one; and he had accepted it without dispute or lament, if not without inward revolt; it was for the first time for years that he presumed to show her he had observed her actions and had disapproved them, to hint that he was not the mere lay figure, the mere good-natured dolt, ‘bon comme du pain,’ and as commonplace, which she had always considered him. She looked at him a little curiously; there was a dangerous irritation in her glance, yet a touch of emotion was visible in her as she said with impatience, ‘You are growing theatrical. It does not become you. Boris was a boy, foolish as boys are; he had no mind; he was a mere spoilt child; he was grown up in inches, not in character; so many Russians are. If he have killed himself, who can help it? They should have kept him at home. Why do you play yourself? He is not the first.’ ‘No, he is not the first,’ said Napraxine, with a curt bitterness. ‘He is not the first, and it was not play; he only played to have an excuse. He thought of your name, perhaps of mine; he did not wish the world to know he died because you laughed at him.’ ‘Laughed! I used to laugh; why not? He was amusing before he grew tragical. I rebuked him yesterday, for he deserved it. Everyone scolds boys. It is good for them. No one supposes——’ her tone was impatient and contemptuous, but her lips quivered a little; she was
- 31. sorry that the boy was dead, though she would not say so. It hurt her, though it annoyed her more. ‘Did he—did he suffer?’ she asked, abruptly. Napraxine took out of the breast-pocket of his coat a sheet of note- paper, and gave it her. ‘He died instantly, if you mean that,’ he answered. ‘He knew enough to aim well. They brought me that note; he had written it last night, I think.’ In the broad, rude handwriting of the young Seliedoff there was written:— ‘Pardonnez-moi, mon cousin: je l’adore, et elle se moque de moi; je ne peux pas vivre, mais j’aurai soin que le monde n’en sache rien. Soignez ma pauvre mère. Tout à vous de cœur ‘Boris Fédorovitch.’ She read it with a mist before her eyes, and gave it back to him without a word. Napraxine looked at her wistfully; he wondered if he had killed himself whether she would have cared more than she cared now— no, he knew she would have cared as little, even less. ‘You say nothing?’ he murmured wistfully. ‘What is there to say?’ she answered. ‘It was a boy’s blunder. It was a grievous folly. But no one could foresee it.’ ‘That is all the lament you give him?’ ‘Would it please you better if I were weeping over his corpse? I regret his death profoundly; but I confess that I am also unspeakably annoyed at it. I detest melodramas. I detest tragedies. The world will say, as you have the good taste to say, that I have been at fault. I am not a coquette, and a reputation of being one gives me no satisfaction. As you justly observed, no one will believe that a Count Seliedoff destroyed his life because he lost money at
- 32. play. Therefore, they will say, as you have been so good as to say, that the blame lies with me. And such accusations offend me.’ She spoke very quietly, but with a tone which seemed chill as the winter winds of the White Sea, to Napraxine, whose soul was filled with remorse, dismay, and bewildered pain. Then she made him a slight gesture of farewell and left him. As usual, he was entirely right in the reproaches he had made, yet she had had the power to make himself feel at once foolish and at fault, at once coarse and theatrical. ‘Poor Boris!’ he muttered, as he drew his hand across his wet lashes. Had it been worth while to die at three-and-twenty years old, in full command of all which the world envies, only to have that cruel sacrifice called a boy’s blunder? His heart ached and his thoughts went, he knew not why, to his two young children away in the birch forests by the Baltic Sea. She would not care any more if she heard on the morrow that they were as dead in their infancy as Boris Seliedoff was in his youth, lying under the aloes and the palms of Monte Carlo in the southern sunshine. Platon Napraxine was a stupid man, a man not very sensitive or very tender of feeling, a man who could often console himself with coarse pleasures and purchasable charms for wounds given to his affections or his pride; but he was a man of quick compunction and warm emotions; he felt before the indifference of his wife as though he stretched out his hand to touch a wall of ice, when what he longed for was the sympathetic answering clasp of human fingers. He brushed the unusual moisture from his eyes, and went to fulfil all those innumerable small observances which so environ, embitter, and diminish the dignity of death to the friends of every dead creature. Meanwhile, Nadine passed on to her own rooms, and let her waiting- woman change her clothes. A momentary wish, wicked as a venomous snake, and swift as fire, had darted through her thoughts.
- 33. ‘Why had not Othmar died like that? I would have loved his memory all my life!’ she thought, with inconsistency. Though she had almost refused to acknowledge it, the suicide of Seliedoff pained and saddened her. Foremost of all was her irritation that she who disliked tragedies, who abhorred publicity, who disbelieved in passion, should be thus subject to having her name in the mouths of men in connection with a melodrama which, terrible as it was, yet offended her by its vulgarity and its stupidity. The hour and the scene chosen were vulgar; the transparency of the pretext was stupid. It was altogether, as she had said, a boy’s blunder—a blunder, frightful, irreparable, with the horror of youth misspent and life self-destroyed upon it—still a blunder. She thought, with impatience, that what they called love was only a spoilt child’s whim and passionate outcry which, denied, ended in a child’s wild, foolish fit of rage, with no more wisdom in it than the child has. All Europe would say that, indirectly, she had been the cause of his death; every one had seen him, moping and miserable, in her rooms the previous day. She disliked a sensational triumph, which was fit for her husband’s mistresses, for Lia, for Aurélie, for la belle Fernande. Men were always doing these foolish things for her. She had been angry certainly: who would not have been so? He had been ridiculous, as youth and intense emotion and unreasonable suffering constantly are in the sight of others. There had been only one man who had not seemed to her absurd when passion had moved him, and that had only been because he had remained master of himself even in his greatest self- abandonment. If it had been Othmar who had been lying dead there with the bullet in his breast, she would have felt—she was not sure what she would have felt—some pleasure, some pain. Instead, he was at Amyôt finding what pleasures he might in a virginal love, like a spring snowdrop, timid and afraid. She, who always analysed her own soul without indulgence or self-delusion, was disgusted at the impulses which moved her now.
- 34. ‘After all,’ she thought, ‘Goethe was right; we are always capable of crime, even the best of us; only one must be Goethe to be capable of acknowledging that.’ She sat alone awhile, thoughtful and regretful; indisposed to accept the blame of others, yet not unwilling to censure herself if she saw cause. But she saw no cause here; it was no fault of hers if men loved her as she passed by them without seeing they were there. True, she had been annoyed with the youth; she had been irritated by him; she had treated him a little as some women treat a dog,—a smile one day, the whip the next; but she had thought so little about him all the time, except that his high spirits were infectious and his face was boyishly beautiful, and that it had diverted her to annoy Geraldine. But who could have supposed that it would end thus? And amidst her pain and her astonishment was foremost a great irritation at his want of thought for her. The journals, with their innuendoes, their initials, their transparent mysteries; the condolences and the curiosities of her own society; the reproaches of his family; the long ceremonious Russian mourning and Russian rites—‘ Quelle corvée!’ she murmured impatiently, as at some pebble in her embroidered shoe, at some clove of garlic in her delicate dinner. After all, were the great sorrows of life one-half so unendurable in themselves as the tiresome annoyances with which the foolish habits of men have environed them? That our friend dies is pain enough, why must we have also the nuisance of following his funeral? ‘Men only think of themselves!’ she said irritably, in her own unconscious egotism. If Boris Seliedoff had considered her as he should have done, he would not have killed himself within three miles of her garden terrace, at a moment when all their own gossiping world was crowding on the sunny shores of the Mediterranean. A sense of the wrong done to herself divided the regret, tinged almost with remorse, which weighed on her.
- 35. As she moved through her boudoir to write the inevitable and most difficult letter which must be penned to his mother far away in the province of the Ekaterinoslaf, a photograph, in a frame of blue plush, caught her eye as it stood amongst all the pretty costly nothings of her writing-table. It was a photograph of Seliedoff; it had been tinted with an artist’s skill, and the boyish handsome mouth smiled tenderly and gaily at her. For almost the first time in her life she felt the tears rise to her throat and eyes. She laid the picture face downward, and wept.
- 36. CHAPTER XXVIII. A few days later when the remains of Boris Seliedoff had been removed to Russia, there to find their last home in the sombre mausoleum of his family on their vast estates in Ekaterinoslaf, Geraldine, who was one of the few who were admitted to La Jacquemerille in these days of mourning, coming thither one afternoon to find her in the garden alone and to entreat for permission to follow her in the various travels which she was about to undertake, since the Riviera had grown distasteful to her, was accosted by her abruptly, if in her delicate languor she could ever be termed abrupt: ‘My dear Ralph,’ she said briefly, ‘why do you not go home?’ Geraldine drew his breath quickly, and stared at her. ‘Go home!’ he repeated stupidly. ‘Well, you have a home; you have several homes,’ she said, with her usual impatience at being questioned or misunderstood by wits slower than her own. ‘You are an Englishman; you must have a million and one duties. It is utterly wrong to live so much away from your properties. We do it, but I do not think it matters what we do. Whether we be here or there, it is always the stewards who rule everything, but in your country it is different. Your sister says you can do a great deal of good. I cannot imagine what good you should do, but no doubt she knows. I do not like England myself. Your châteaux are very fine, but the life in them is very tiresome. You all eat far too much and far too often, and you have lingering superstitions about Sunday; your women are always three months behind Paris, and never wear shoes like their gowns; your talk is always of games, and shooting, and flat-racing. You are not an amusing people; you never will be. You have too much of the
- 37. Teuton, and the Hollander, and the Dane in you. Your stage makes one yawn, your books make one sleep, your country-houses make one do both. Your women clothe themselves in Newmarket coats, get red faces, and like to go over wet fields; your men are well built very often, but they move ill; they have no désinvolture, they have no charm. The whole thing is tiresome. I shall never willingly go to England; but you, as a great English noble, ought to go there, and stay there——’ ‘And marry there!’ said Geraldine, bitterly. ‘Is that the medicine you prescribe for all your friends?’ ‘Of course you will marry some time,’ she said indifferently. ‘Men of your position always do; they think they owe it to their country. But whether you marry or not, go home and be useful. You have idled quite too much time away in following our changes of residence.’ He turned pale, and his eyes grew dark with subdued anger. ‘You want to be rid of me!’ ‘Ah, that is just the kind of rough, rude thing which an Englishman always says. It is the reason why Englishmen do not please women much. No Italian or Frenchman or Russian would make such a stupid, almost brutal, remark as that; he would respect his own dignity and the courtesy of words too greatly.’ ‘We are unpolished, even at our best; you have told me so fifty times,’ he said sullenly. ‘Well, let me be a savage, then, and ask for a savage mercy; a plain answer. You want me away?’ Nadine’s eyes grew very cold. ‘I never say uncivil things,’ she answered, with an accent that was chill as the mistral. ‘But since for once you divine one’s meaning, I will not deny the accuracy of your divination.’ She blew a little cloud from a tiny cigarette as she paused. She expressed, as clearly as though she had spoken, the fact that her companion was as little to her as that puff of smoke.
- 38. ‘Does sincerity count for nothing?’ he muttered stupidly. ‘Sincerity!’ she echoed. ‘Ah! English people always speak as if they had a monopoly of sincerity, like a monopoly of salt or a monopoly of coal! My dear Lord Geraldine, I am not doubting your sincerity in the very least; it is not that which is wanting in you——’ ‘What is?’ he asked in desperation. ‘So much!’ said the Princess Napraxine with a little comprehensive smile and sigh. ‘If you would deign to speak definitely—’ he murmured in bitter pain, which he strove clumsily to make into the likeness of serenity and irony. ‘Oh, if you wish for details!—It is just that kind of wish for details which shows what you fail in so very much; tact, finesse, observation, flexibility. My dear friend, you are thoroughly insular! Everything is comprised in that!’ He was silent. ‘I have not the least wish to vex you,’ she continued. ‘I am quite sorry to vex you, but if you will press me——A painter teased me the other day to go to his studio and see what he had done for the salon. I made him polite excuses, the weather, my health, my engagements, the usual phrases, but he would not be satisfied with them, he continued to insist, so at last he had the truth. I told him that I detested almost all modern art, and that I did not know why anyone encouraged it at all when it was within everyone’s power to have at least line-engravings of the old masters. He was not pleased —take warning. Do not be as stupid as he.’ Geraldine understood, and his tanned cheek grew white with pain. He was a proud man, and had been made vain by his world. He was bitterly and cruelly humbled, but the love he had for her made him almost unconscious of the offence to him, so overwhelming in its cruelty was the sentence of exile which he received.
- 39. He did not speak at once, for he could not be sure to command his voice, and he shrank from betraying what he felt. She rose, and threw the cigarette over the balustrade into the sea, and turned to go indoors. She had said what her wishes were, and she expected to have them obeyed without more discussion. But the young man rose too, and barred her way. He had only one consciousness, that he was on the point of banishment from the only woman whom he had cared for through two whole years. It had become so integral a part of his life that he should follow Nadine Napraxine as the moon follows the earth, that exile from her presence seemed to him the most terrible of disasters, the most unendurable of chastisements. ‘After all this time, do you only tell me to go away?’ he muttered, conscious of the lameness and impotency of his own words, which might well only move her laughter. But a certain anger rather than amusement was what they stirred in her; there was in them an implied right, an implied reproach, which were both what she was utterly indisposed to admit his title to use. ‘All this time!’ she echoed; ‘all what time? You are leading a very idle life, and all your excellent friends say that you leave many duties neglected; I advise you to return to them.’ ‘Is it the end of all?’ he said, while his lips trembled in his own despite. ‘All? All what? The end? No; it is the end to nothing that I know of; I should rather suppose that you would make it the beginning—of a perfectly proper life at home. Evelyn Brancepeth says you ought to reduce all your farmers’ rents; go and do it; it will make you popular in your own county. I know you good English always fancy that you can quench revolutions with a little weak tea of that sort. As if people who hate you will not hate you just the same whether they pay you half a guinea, or half a crown, for every sod of ground! Our Tsar Alexander thought the same sort of thing en grand, and did it;
- 40. but it has not answered with him. To be sure, he was even sillier—he expected slaves to be grateful!’ ‘You really mean that you are tired of my presence?’ he said, with no sense of anything except the immense desolation which seemed suddenly to cover all his life. ‘You will put the dots on all your i’s!’ she said impatiently. ‘That kind of love of explanation is so English; all your political men’s time is wasted in it. Nobody in England understands à demi-mot, or appreciates the prettiness of a hint.’ ‘I understand well enough—too well,’ he muttered, with a sigh that was choked in its birth. ‘But—but—I suppose I am a fool; I did not think you really cared much—yet I always fancied—I suppose I had no right—but surely we have been friends at the least?’ His knowledge of the world and of women ought to have stopped the question unuttered; but a great pain, an intense disappointment, had mastered him, and left him with no more tact or wisdom than if he had been a mere lad fresh from college. It cost him much to make his reproach so measured, his words so inoffensive. He began to understand why men had said that Nadine Napraxine was more perilous in her chastity and her spiritual cruelty than the most impassioned Alcina. She looked at him with a little astonishment mingled with a greater offence. ‘Friends? certainly; why not?’ she said, with entire indifference. ‘Who is talking of enmity? In plain words, since you like them so much, you do—bore me just a little; you are too often here; you have a certain manner in society which might make gossips remark it. You do not seem to comprehend that one may see too much of the most agreeable person under the sun. It is, perhaps, a mistake ever to see much of anyone; at least, I think so. Briefly, I do not wish to have any more stories for Nice and its neighbourhood; this one of Boris Seliedoff is quite enough! They are beginning to give me a kind of reputation of being a tueuse d’hommes. It is so vulgar, that kind
- 41. of thing. They are beginning to call me Marie Stuart; it is absurd, but I do not like that sort of absurdities. I had nothing to do with the folly of poor Boris, but no one will ever believe it; he will always be considered my victim. It is true you are certain not to kill yourself; Englishmen always kill a tiger or a pig if they are unhappy, never themselves. I am not afraid of your doing any kind of harm; you will only go home and see your farmers and please your family; and you will give big breakfasts in uncomfortable tents, and be toasted, and your county newspapers will have all sorts of amiable paragraphs about you, and sometime or other you will marry—why not? Please stand back a little and let me pass; we shall meet in Paris next year when you take a holiday on your reduced rents.’ She laughed a little, for the first time since Seliedoff’s suicide; her own words amused her. Those poor English gentlemen, who fancied they would stem the great salt tide of class hatred, the ever-heaving ocean of plebeian envy, by the little paper fence of a reduced rental! Poor Abels, deluding themselves with the idea that they could disarm the jealousy of their Cains with a silver penny! But the thoughts of Geraldine were far away from any political ironies with which she might entertain her own discursive mind. ‘Nadine, Nadine,’ he said stupidly, ‘you cannot be so cruel. I have always obeyed you; I have never murmured; I have been like your dog; I have been content on so little. Other men would have rebelled, but I—I——’ Her languid eyes opened widely upon him in haughty surprise and rebuke. ‘Now you talk like a jeune premier of the Gymnase!’ she said, contemptuously. ‘Rebelled? Content? What words are those? You have been a pleasant acquaintance—amongst many. You cannot say you have been ever more. If you have begun to misunderstand that, go where you can recover your good sense. I have liked you; so has Prince Napraxine. Do not force us to consider our esteem misplaced.’
- 42. She spoke coldly, almost severely; then, with an enchanting smile, she held out her hand. ‘Come, we will part friends, though you are disposed to bouder like a boy. You know something of the world; learn to look as if you had learned at least its first lesson—good temper. Affect it if you have it not! And—never outstay a welcome!’ He looked at her and his chest heaved with a heavy sigh that was almost a sob. Passionate upbraiding rose to his lips, a thousand reproaches for delusive affabilities, for patiently-endured caprices, for wasted hours and wasted hopes, and wasted energies, all rose to his mouth in hot hard words of senseless, irrepressible pain; but they remained unuttered. He dared not offend her beyond pardon, he dared not exile himself beyond recall. He was conscious of the futility of any reproach which he could bring, of the absence of any title which he could allege. For two years he had been her bondsman, her spaniel, her submissive servant in the full sight of the world, yet looking backward he could not recall any sign or word or glance which could have justified him in the right to call himself her lover. She had accepted his services, permitted his presence—no more; and yet, he felt himself as bitterly wronged, as cruelly deluded, as ever man could have been by woman. There is a little song which has been given world-wide fame by the sweetest singer of our time: the little song which is called, ‘Si vous n’avez rien à me dire.’ Just so vague, and so intense, as is the reproach of the song, was the cry of his heart against her now. If she had never cared, had never meant, why then——? But he dared not formulate his injury in words; he knew that it would condemn him never to see her face again except in crowds as strangers saw it. He had never really believed that she would care for him as he cared for her, but it had always seemed to him that habit would in the end become affection, that the continual and familiar intercourse which he had obtained with her would become in time necessary to her, an association, a custom, a friendship not
- 43. lightly to be discarded. He had believed that patience would do more for him than passion; he had endured all her caprices, followed all her movements, incurred the ridicule of men, and, what was worse, his own self-contempt, in the belief that, with her, Festina lente was the sole possible rule of victory. And now she cast him aside, with no more thought than she left to her maids a fan of an old fashion, a glove that had been worn once! She gave him no time to recover the shock with which he had heard his sentence of exile, but, with a little kindly indifferent gesture, passed him and went into the house. He had not the courage of Othmar; he had never had as much title as Othmar to deem himself preferred to the multitude; looking back on the two years which he had consecrated to her memory and her service, he could not honestly recall a single word or glance or sign which could have justified him in believing himself betrayed. She had accepted his homage as she accepted the bouquets which men sent her, to die in masses in her ante-chambers. His pain was intolerable, his disappointment was altogether out of proportion to the frail, vague hopes which he had cherished; but he felt also that his position was absurd, untenable; he had never been her lover, he had none of the rights of a lover; he was only one of many who had failed to please her, who had unconsciously blundered, who had committed the one unpardonable sin of wearying her. Resistance could only make him ridiculous in her eyes. She had plainly intimated that she was tired of his acquaintance and companionship. It was an intense suffering to him, but it was not one which he could show to the world, or in which he could seek the world’s sympathy. If he had failed to please her—failed, despite all his opportunities, to obtain any hold upon her sympathies—it was such a failure as is only grotesque in the esteem of men, and contemptible in the sight of women.
- 44. ‘A qui la faute?’ she would have said herself, with a pitiless amusement, which the world would only have echoed. It was late in February, but already spring in the Riviera; a brilliant sun was dancing on all the million and one pretty things in her boudoir, for she liked light, and could afford, with her exquisite complexion and her flower-like mouth, to laugh at the many less fortunate of her sex, who dared not be seen without all the devices of red glass and rose-coloured transparencies and muffled sunbeams. She caressed her little dog, and bade the negro boy bring her some tea, and stretched herself out on a long low chair with a pleasant sense of freedom from a disagreeable duty done and over. ‘I will never be intimate with an Englishman again,’ she thought. ‘They cannot understand; they think they must be either your Cæsar or nullus: it is so stupid; and then, when you are tired, they grumble. Other men say nothing to you, but they fight somebody else,—which is so much better. It is only the Englishman who grumbles, and abuses you as if you were the weather!’ The idea amused her. Through her open windows she could see the sea. She saw the boat of Geraldine, with its red-capped crew pulling straightway to the westward; he was going to his yacht; the affair was over peaceably; he would not kill himself like Seliedoff. Her husband would miss him for a little time, but he was used to men who made themselves his ardent and assiduous friends for a few months or more, and then were no more seen about his house, being banished by her; he was wont to call such victims the Zephyrs after that squadron of the mutinous in the Algerian army, which receives all those condemned and rejected by their chiefs. He would ask no questions; he would understand that his old companion had joined the rest; he had never cared for the fate of any save for that of young Seliedoff. There were always men by the score ready to amuse, distract, and feast with Prince Napraxine.
- 45. She drank her yellow tea with its slice of lemon, and enjoyed the unwonted repose of half an hour’s solitude. She was conscious at once of a certain relief in the definite exile of her late companion, yet of a certain magnanimity, inasmuch as she would enable other women to presume that he had grown tired of his allegiance. But the latter consideration weighed little with her; she had been too satiated with triumph not to be indifferent to it, and she was at all times careless of the opinions of others. She would miss him a little, as one misses a well-trained servant, but there would be so many others ready to fill his place. Whenever her groom-of-the-chambers told her hall-porter to say ‘Madame reçoit,’ her rooms were filled with young men ready to obey her slightest sign or wildest whim as poodles or spaniels those of their masters. There were not a few who, like Geraldine, regulated their seasons and their sojourns by the capricious movements of the Princess Napraxine, as poor benighted shepherds follow the gyrations of an ignis-fatuus. Whether north, south, east, or west, wherever she was momentarily resident, there was always seen her corps de garde. As she sat alone now for the brief half-hour before her usual drive, her past drifted before her recollection in clear colours, as though she were quite old. She remembered her childhood, spent at the embassies of great cities, where her father was the idol of all that was distinguished and of much that was dissolute; the most courtly, the most witty, the most elegant, of great diplomatists. She remembered how, sitting in her mother’s barouche in the Bois or the Prater, or petted and caressed by sovereigns and statesmen in her mother’s drawing-rooms, she had seen so much with her opal-like eyes, heard so much with her sea-shell-like ears, and had, at ten years old, said to Count Platoff, ‘Je serai honnête femme; ce sera plus chic;’ and how his peal of laughter had disconcerted her own serious mood and solemnity of resolve. Then she remembered how, when she was seventeen years old, her mother had advised her to marry her cousin; and how her father, when she had been tempted to ask his support of her own adverse wishes, had twisted his silken white moustaches with a little shrug of his shoulders, and had said:
- 46. ‘Mais, mon enfant, je ne sais—nous sommes presque ruinés; ça me plaira—et un mari, c’est si peu de chose!’ ‘Si peu de chose!’ she thought, now; and yet a bullet that you drag after you, a note of discord always in your music, a stone in your ball slipper, dance you ever so lightly—an inevitable ennui always awaiting you! ‘If they had not been in such haste, I should have met Othmar and have married him!’ she mused, with that frankness which was never missing from her self-communion. ‘Life would have looked differently;——I would have made him the foremost man in Europe; he has the powers needful, but he has no ambitions; his millions have stifled them.’ She thought, with something that was almost envy, of the fate of Yseulte, and with a remembrance, which was almost disgust, of the early hours of her own marriage, when all the delicacy and purity of her own girlhood had revolted against the brutality of obligations which she had in her ignorance submitted to accept. How could she care for the children born of that intolerable degradation to which no habit or time had had power to reconcile her? In her own eyes she had been as much violated as any slave bought in the market. ‘If I had daughters, they should at least know to what they surrendered themselves before they were given away in marriage,’ she had often reflected, with a bitter remembrance of the absolute innocence in which she herself had repeated the vows, and broken the glass, which had indissolubly united her to her cousin Platon. Then, with the irony even of herself, and the doubt even of herself, which were stronger than any other instincts in her, she laughed at her own momentary sentiment. ‘I dare say I should have been tired of him in six months,’ she thought, ‘and very likely we should have hated one another in
- 47. another six. He would not have been as easy as Platon; he would have had his prejudices——’ Before her mind there rose the vision of a place she had once seen as she had sailed in a yacht down the Adriatic one cool autumnal month; a place not far from Ragusa, somewhat farther to the southward; a fantastic pile, half Greek, half Turkish, with an old Gothic keep built by Quattrocentisto Venetians rising in its midst; gardens of palms and woods of ilex sloping from it to meet the lapis- lazuli-hued sea, cliffs of all the colours of precious stones towering up behind it into the white clouds and the dazzling sunshine. Fascinated by the aspect of the place, she had asked its name and owner, and the Austrians with her had answered her, ‘It is called Zama, and it belongs to the Othmars.’ She had often remembered the Herzegovinian castle, lonely as Miramar after the tragedy of Quetaro. ‘I would not have lived at Amyôt, but at Zama,’ she thought now; then, angry and impatient of herself, she dismissed her fancies as you banish with a light clap of your hands a flock of importunate birds, which fly away as fast as they have come.
- 48. CHAPTER XXIX. ‘Are you very happy?’ said Baron Fritz to Yseulte in his occasional visits to Amyôt. And she answered without words, with a blush and a smile which were much warmer than words. He saw that she was perfectly happy, as yet; that whatever thorns might be beneath the nuptial couch, they had not touched her. He did not venture to put the same question to Othmar. There were times when he would no more have interrogated his nephew than he would have put fire to a pile of powder; he had at once the vague fear and the abundant contempt which a thoroughly practical, artificial, and worldly man has for one whose dreams and desires are wholly unintelligible to him. ‘Otho,’ he said once to her, ‘is like an Eastern sorcerer who holds the magic ring with which he can wish for anything under heaven; but, as he cannot command immortality, all his life slips through his fingers before he has decided on what is most worth wishing for. Do you understand?’ Yseulte did not understand; to her this sorcerer, if not benignant to himself, had at least given all her soul desired. He treated her with the most constant tenderness, with the most generous delicacy, with the most solicitous care; if in his love there might be some of the heat of passion, some of the ardours of possession, lacking, it was not the spiritual affection and the childish innocence of so young a girl which could be capable of missing those, or be conscious of their absence. To Yseulte, love was at once a revelation and a profanation: she shrank from it even whilst she yielded to it; it was not to such a temperament as hers that any lover could ever have seemed cold.
- 49. Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world, offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth. That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to self-development guides and children's books. More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading. Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and personal growth every day! testbankdeal.com