The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877

by Various

MISS MISANTHROPE.

The little town of Dukes-Keeton, in one of the more northern of the midland counties, had in its older days two great claims to consideration. One was a park, the other a sweetmeat. The noble family whose name had passed through many generations of residence at the place had always left their great park so freely open to every one, that it came to be like the common property of the public, and the town had grown into fame by the manufacture of the sweetmeat which bore its name almost everywhere in the track of the meteor-flag of England. But as time went on other places took to manufacturing the sweetmeat so much better, and selling it so much more successfully than "Keeton," as the town was commonly called, could do, that "Keeton" itself had long since retired from the business, and was content to import the delicacy which still bore its own name in consignments of canisters from Manchester or London. During many years the heir of the noble family had deserted the park, and absolutely never came near it or near England even, and everything that gave the town a distinct reason for existence seemed to be passing rapidly into tradition. It had lain out of the track of the railway system for a long time, and when the railway system at length enclosed it in its arms, the attention seemed to have come too late. All the heat of life appeared to have chilled out of Dukes-Keeton in the mean time, and it lay now between two railways almost as inanimate and hopeless a lump as the child to whom the Erl-king's touch is fatal in his father's arms.

The park, with its huge palace-like, barrack-like house, not a castle, and too great to be called merely a hall, lies almost immediately outside the town. From streets and shops the visitor passes straightway through the gates of the great enclosure. Every stranger who has seen the house is taken at once to see another object of interest.

In the centre of the park was a broad, clear space, made by the felling and removing of every tree, until it spread there sharp and hard as a burnt-out patch in a forest. Gravel and small shells made the pavement of this space, and thus formed a new contrast with the turf, the grasses, and the underwood of the park all around. In the midst of this open space there rose a large circular building: a tower low in height when the bulk enclosed by its circumference was considered, and standing on a great square platform of solid masonry with steps on each of its sides. The tower itself reminded one of the tomb of Cecilia Metella, or some other of the tombs that still stand near Rome. It was in fact the mausoleum which it had pleased the father of the present owner to have erected for himself during his lifetime. He lavished money on it, cared nothing for the cost of materials and labor, planned it out himself, watched every detail, and stood by the workmen as they toiled. Within he had prepared a lordly reception-room for his dead body when he should come to die. A superb sarcophagus of porphyry, fit to have received the remains of a Cæsar, was there. When the work was done and all was ready, the lonely owner visited it every day, unlocked its massive gate, and went in, and sat sometimes for hours in his own mausoleum. He was growing insane, people thought, in these later days, and they counted on his soon becoming an actual madman. So far, however, he showed no greater madness than in wasting his money on a huge tomb, and wasting so much of his time in visiting it prematurely. The tomb proved a vanity in a double sense. For the noble owner was seized with a sudden mania for travel, and resolved to go round the world. Somewhere in mid ocean he was attacked by fever, or what alarmed people called the plague, and he died, and his body had to be committed without much delay or ceremonial to the sea. He had built his monument to no purpose. He was never to occupy it. It stood a vast and solid gibe at the vanity of its founder.

Over the great gate through which the mausoleum was entered were three heads sculptured in stone. One was that of a man in the prime of manhood, with lips and eyebrows contracted and puckered, forehead wrinkled, eyes full of anxious strain, all telling of care, of pain, of sleepless struggle against difficulty, watchfulness to ward off danger. This was Life. The next was the face of the same man with the eyes closed and the cheeks sunken, and the expression of one who had fallen into sleep from pain—the struggle and agony gone indeed, but their shadow still resting on the brows and the lips: and that of course was Death. The third piece of carving showed the same face still, but now with clear eyes looking broadly and brightly forward, and with features all noble, serene, and glad. This was Eternity. These three faces were the wonder and admiration of the neighborhood, and had been for now some years back employed to solve the problem of existence for all the little lads and lasses of Keeton who might otherwise have failed sometimes to see the harmonious purpose working in all things. The sculptor had it all his own way, and took care that Life should have the worst of it. Keeton was in almost all its conditions a place of rather sleepy contentment, and its people could be trusted to take just as much of the moral as was good for them, and not to carry to extremes the lesson as to the discomfort and dissatisfaction of the probationary life-period. Otherwise there might perhaps be a chance that impressionable, not to say morbid, persons would desire to hurry very rapidly through the dark and anxious vestibule of life in order to get into the broad bright temple of Eternity.

Some thought like this was passing through the mind of Miss Minola Grey, who sat on the steps of the tomb and looked up into the faces illustrative of man's struggle and final success. Life had long been wearing a hard and difficult appearance to her, and she would perhaps have been glad enough sometimes if she could have got into the haven of quiet waters which, in the minds of so many people and in so many symbolic representations, is made to stand for Eternity. She was a handsome, graceful girl, rather tall, fair-haired, with deep bluish gray eyes which seemed to darken as they looked earnestly at any one—eyes which might be described in Matthew Arnold's words as "too expressive to be blue, too lovely to be gray"—with a broad forehead, from which the hair was thrown back in disregard of passing fashions. Perhaps it was her attitude, as she leaned her chin upon her hand and looked up at the mausoleum—perhaps it was the presence of that gloomy building itself—that made her face seem like an illustration of melancholy. Certainly her face was pale and a little wanting in fulness, and the lips were of the kind that one can always think of as tremulous with emotion of some kind. This was a beautiful summer evening, and all the park around was green, sunny, and glad. The dry bare spot on which the tomb was built seemed like a gray and withering leaf on a bright branch; and the figure of the girl was more in keeping with the melancholy shadow of the mausoleum than the joyousness of the sun and the trees and the whole scene all around.

Indeed, there was a good deal of melancholy in the girl's mind at that moment. She was taking leave of the place: had come to say it a farewell. That park had been her playground, her studio, her stage, her world of fancy and romance and poetry since her infancy. She had driven her brother as a horse there, and had played with him at hunting lions. She had studied landscape drawing there from the days when a half staggery stroke with some blotches out of it was supposed to represent a tree, and a thing shaped like the trade-mark on Mr. Bass's beer bottles stood for a mountain. As she grew up she came there to read and to idle and to think. There she revelled in all the boundless fancies and extravagant ambitions of a clever, half-poetic child. There she was in turn the heroine of every book that delighted her, and the heroine of stories which had never been put into print. Heroes of surpassing beauty, strength, courage, and devotion had rambled under these trees for years with her, nor had the new-comer's presence ever been made a cause of jealousy or complaint by the one whom his coming displaced. They were a strange procession of all complexions and garbs. Achilles the golden-haired had been with her in his day, and so had the melancholy Master of Ravenswood: and the young Djalma, the lover of Adrienne of the "Juif Errant," forgotten of English girls to-day; and Nello, the proud gondolier lad with the sweet voice, who was loved by the mother and the daughter of the Aldinis; and the unnamed youth who went mad for Maud; and Henry Esmond, and Stunning Warrington, and Jane Eyre's Rochester, and ever so many else. Each and all of these in turn loved her and was passionately loved by her, and all had done great things for her; and for each she had done far greater things. She had made them victorious, crowned them with laurels, died for them. It was a peculiarity of her temperament that when she read some pathetic story it was not at the tragic passages that her tears came. It was not the deaths that touched her most. It was when she read of bold and generous things suddenly done, of splendid self-sacrifice, of impossible rescue and superhuman heroism, that she could not keep down her feelings, and was glad when only the watching, untelltale trees could see the tears in her eyes.

She had, however, two heroes chief over all the rest, whose story she found it impossible to keep apart, and whom she blended commonly into one odd compound. These were Hamlet and Alceste, the "Misanthrope" of Molière. It was sometimes Alceste who offered to be buried quick with Ophelia in the grave; and it was often Hamlet who interjected his scraps of poetic cynicism between the pretty and scandalous prattlings of Célimène and her petticoaterie. But perhaps Alceste came nearest to the heart of our young maid as she grew up. She said to herself over and over again that "C'est n'estimer rien qu'estimer tout le monde." She refused "d'un cœur la vaste complaisance qui ne fait de mérite aucune différence," and declared that "pour le trancher net l'ami du genre humain n'est point du tout mon fait." No doubt there was unconscious or only half conscious affectation in this, as there is in the ways of almost all young people who are fond of reading; and her way of thinking herself a girl-Alceste would probably have vanished with other whims, or been supplanted by fancies of imitation caught from other models, if everything had gone well with her. But several causes conspired as she grew into a woman to make her think very seriously that Alceste was not wrong in his general estimate of men and their merits. She was intensely fond of her mother, and when her mother died her father married again, his second wife being a young woman who put him under the most absolute control, being not by any means an ill-natured person, but only strong-willed, serene, and stupid. Then her brother, to whom she was devoted, and who was her absolute confidant, went away to Canada, declaring he would not stand a stepmother, and that as soon as his sister grew old enough to put away domestic control he would send for her; and he soon got married and became a prominent member of the Dominion Legislature, and in none of his not over frequent letters said a word about his promise to send for her. Now, her father was some time dead; her stepmother had married Mr. Saulsbury, an elderly Nonconformist minister, who was shocked at all the ways of Alceste's admirer, and with whom she could not get on. It would take a very sweet and resigned nature to make one who had had these experiences absolutely in love with the human race, and especially with men; and Alceste accordingly became more dear than ever to Miss Grey.

Now she was about to leave the place and open of her own accord a new chapter in life. She had to escape at once from the dislike of some and the still less endurable liking of others. She was determined to go, and yet as she looked around upon the place, and all its dear sweet memories filled her, it is no wonder if she envied the calmness of the face that symbolized eternal rest. At last she broke down, and covered her face with her hands, and gave herself up to tears.

Her quick ears, however, heard sounds which she knew were not those of the rustling woods. She started to her feet and dried her eyes hastily. Straight before her now there lay the long broad path through the trees which led up to the gate of the mausoleum. The air was so exquisitely pure and still that the footfall of a person approaching could be distinctly heard by the girl, although the newcomer was yet far away. She could see him, however, and recognized him, and she had no doubt that he had seen her. A thought of escape at first occurred to her; but she gave it up in a moment, for she knew that the person approaching had come to seek her, and must have seen her before she saw him. So she sat down again defiantly and waited. She did not look his way, although he raised his hat to her more than once.

As he comes near we can see that he is a handsome, rather stiff looking man, with full formal dark whiskers, clearly cut face, and white teeth. His hat is very shiny. He wears a black frock coat buttoned across the chest, and dark trowsers, and dainty little boots, and gray gloves, and has a diamond pin in his necktie. He is Mr. Augustus Sheppard, a very considerable person indeed in the town. Dukes-Keeton, it should be said, had three classes or estates. The noble owners of the park and the guests whom they used to bring to visit them in their hospitable days made one estate. The upper class of the town made another estate; and the working people and the poor generally made the third. These three classes (there were at present only two of them represented in Keeton) were divided by barriers which it never occurred to any imagination to think of getting over. Mr. Augustus Sheppard was a leading man among the townspeople. His father was a solicitor and land agent of old standing, and Mr. Augustus followed his father's profession, and now did by far the greater part of its work. He was a member of the Church of England of course, but he made it part of his duty to be on the best terms with the Dissenters, for Keeton was growing to be very strong in dissent of late years. Mr. Augustus Sheppard had done a great deal for the mental and other improvement of the town. It was he who got up the Mutual Improvement Society, and made himself responsible for the rent of the hall in which the winter course of lectures, organized by him, used to take place; and he always gave a lecture himself every season, and he took the chair very often and introduced other lecturers. He always worked most cordially with the Rev. Mr. Saulsbury in trying to restrict the number of public houses, and he was one of the few persons whom Mrs. Saulsbury cordially admired. He had a word of formal kindness for every one, and was never heard to say an ill-natured thing of any one behind his or her back. He was vaguely believed to be ambitious of worldly success, but only in a proper and becoming way, and far-seeing people looked forward to finding him one day in the House of Commons.

As he came near the mausoleum he raised his hat again, and then the girl acknowledged his salute and stood up.

"A very lovely evening, Miss Grey."

"Yes," said Miss Grey, and no more.

"I have been at your house, Miss Grey, and saw your people; and I heard that possibly you were in the park. I thought perhaps you would have been at home. When I saw you last night you seemed to believe that you would be at home all the day." This was said in a gentle tone of implied reproach.

"You spoke then of walking in the park, Mr. Sheppard."

"And I have kept my word, you see," Mr. Sheppard said, not observing the implied reason for her change of purpose.

"Yes, I see it now," she answered, as one who should say, "I did not count upon it then."

Of all men else, Minola Grey would have avoided him. She knew only too well what he had come for. She would perhaps have disliked him for that in any case, but she certainly disliked him on his own account. His formal and heavy manners impressed her disagreeably, and she liked to say things that puzzled and startled him. It was a pleasure to her to throw some paradox or odd saying at him, and watch his awkward attempts to catch it, and then while he was just on the point of getting at some idea of it to bewilder him with some new enigma. To her he seemed to be what he was not, simply a sham, a heavy piece of hypocrisy. Formalism and ostentatious piety she recognized as part of the business of a Nonconformist minister, in whom they were excusable, as his grave garb would be, but they seemed insufferably out of place when adopted by a layman and a man of the world, who was still young.

"I am glad to have found you at last," Mr. Sheppard said, with a grave smile.

"You might have found me at first," Minola said, quoting from Artemus Ward, "if you had come a little sooner, Mr. Sheppard. I have only lately escaped here."

"I wish I had known, and I would have come a great deal sooner. May I take the liberty of sitting beside you?"

"I am going to stand, Mr. Sheppard. But that need not prevent you from sitting."

"I should not think of sitting unless you do. Shall we walk a little among the trees? This is a gloomy spot for a young lady."

"I prefer to stand here for a little, Mr. Sheppard, but don't let me keep you from enjoying a walk."

"Enjoying a walk?" he said, with a grave smile and solemn emphasis. "Enjoying a walk, Miss Grey—and without you?"

She deliberately avoided meeting the glance with which he was endeavoring to give additional meaning to this polite speech. She knew that he had come to make love to her; and though she was longing to have the whole thing done with, as it must be settled one way or the other, she detested and dreaded the ordeal, and would have put it off if she could. So she did not give any sign of having understood or even heard his words, and the opportunity for going on with his purpose, which he had hoped to extract, was lost for the moment. In truth, Mr. Sheppard was afraid of this girl, and she knew it, and liked him none the more for it.

"I have been studying something with great interest, Mr. Sheppard," she began, as if determined to cut him off from his chance for the present. "I have made a discovery."

"Indeed, Miss Grey? Yes—I saw that you were in deep contemplation as I came along, and I wondered within myself what could have been the subject of your thoughts."

She colored a little and looked suddenly at him, asking herself whether he could have seen her tears. His face, however, gave no explanation, and she felt assured that he had not seen them.

"I have found, Mr. Sheppard, that some of the weaknesses of men are alive in the insect world."

"Indeed, Miss Grey? Some of the affections of men do indeed live, we are told, in the insect world. So beautifully ordained is everything——"

"The affectations I meant, not the affections of men, Mr. Sheppard. Could you ever have believed that an insect would be capable of a deliberate attempt at imposture?"

"I should certainly not have looked for anything of the kind, Miss Grey. But there is unfortunately so much of evil mixed up with all——"

"So there is. I was going to tell you that as I came here and passed through the garden, my attention was directed—is not that the proper way to put it?"

"To put it, Miss Grey?"

"Yes; my attention was directed to a large, heavy, respectable blue-bottle fly. He kept flying from flower to flower, and burying his stupid head in every one in turn, and making a ridiculous noise. I watched his movements for a long time. It was evident to the meanest understanding that he was trying to attract attention and was hoping the eyes of the world were on him. You should have seen his pretence at enjoying the flowers and drinking in sweetness from them—and he stayed longest on the wrong flowers!"

"Dear me! Now why did he do that?"

"Because he didn't know any better, and he was trying to make us think he did."

"But, Miss Grey—a fly—a blue-bottle! Now really—how did you know what he was thinking of?"

"I watched him closely—and I found him out at last. Have you not guessed what the meaning of the whole thing was?"

"Well, Miss Grey, I can't say that I quite understand it just yet; but I am sure I shall be greatly interested on hearing the explanation."

"It was simply the imposture of a blue-bottle trying to pass himself off as a bee! It was man's affectation put under the microscope!"

Mr. Sheppard looked up at her in the hope of catching from her face some clear intimation as to whether she was in jest or earnest, and demeaning himself accordingly. But her eyes were cast down and he could not make out the riddle. Driven by desperation, he dashed in, to prevent the possible propounding of another before he had time to come to his point.

"All the professions of men are not affectations, Miss Grey! Oh, no: far from it indeed. There are some feelings in our breasts which are only too real!"

She saw that the declaration was coming now and must be confronted.

"I have long wished for an opportunity of revealing to you some of my feelings, Miss Grey, and I hope the chance has now arrived. May I speak?"

"I can't prevent you from speaking, Mr. Sheppard."

"You will hear me?"

He was in such fear of her and so awkward about the terms of his declaration of love that he kept clutching at every little straw that seemed to give him something to hold on to for a moment's rest and respite.

"I had better hear you, I suppose," she said with an air of profound depression, "if you will go on, Mr. Sheppard. But if you would please me, you would stop where you are and say no more."

"You know what I am going to say, Miss Grey—you must have known it this long time. I have asked your natural guardians and advisers, and they encourage me to speak. Oh, Miss Grey—I love you. May I hope that I may look forward to the happiness of one day making you my wife?"

It was all out now, and she was glad. The rest would be easy. He looked even then so prosaic and formal that she did not believe in any of his professed emotions, and she was therefore herself unmoved.

"No, Mr. Sheppard," she said, looking calmly at him straight in the face. "Such a day will never come. Nothing that I have seen in life makes me particularly anxious to be married; and I could not marry you."

He had expected evasion, but not bluntness. He knew well enough that the girl did not love him, but he had believed that he could persuade her to marry him. Now her pointblank refusal completely staggered him.

"Why not, Miss Grey?" was all he could say at first.

"Because, Mr. Sheppard, I really much prefer not to marry you."

"There is not any one else?" he asked, his face for the first time showing emotion and anger.

The faint light of a melancholy smile crossed Minola's face. He grew more angry.

"Miss Grey—now, you must tell me that! I have a right to ask—yes: and your people would expect me to ask. You must tell me that."

"Well," she said, "if you force me to it, and if you will have an answer, I must give you one, Mr. Sheppard. I have a lover already, and I mean to keep him."

Mr. Sheppard was positively shocked by the suddenness and coolness of this revelation. He recovered himself, however, and took refuge in unbelief.

"Miss Grey, you don't mean it, I know—I can't believe it. Why, I have known you and seen you grow up since you were a child. Mrs. Saulsbury couldn't but know——"

"Mrs. Saulsbury knows nothing of me: we know nothing of each other. I have a lover, Mr. Sheppard, for all that. Do you want to know his name?"

"I should like to know his name, certainly," the breathless Sheppard stammered out.

"His name is Alceste——"

"A Frenchman!" Sheppard was aghast.

"A Frenchman truly—a French gentleman—a man of truth and courage and spirit and honor and everything good. A man who wouldn't tell a lie or do a mean thing, or flatter a silly woman, or persecute a very unhappy girl—no, not to save his soul, Mr. Sheppard. Do you happen to know any such man?"

"No such man lives in Keeton." He was surprised into simple earnestness. "At least I don't know of any such man."

"No; you and he are not likely to come together and be very familiar. Well, Mr. Sheppard, that is the man to whom I am engaged, and I mean to keep my engagement. You can tell Mrs. Saulsbury if you like."

"But you haven't told me his other name."

"Oh—I don't know his other name."

"Miss Grey! Don't know his other name?"

"No: and I don't think he has any other name. He has but the one name for me, and I don't want any second."

"Where does he live, then—may I ask?"

"Oh, yes—I may as well tell you all now, since I have told you so much. He only lives in a book, Mr. Sheppard; in what you would call a play," she added with contemptuous expression.

"Oh, come now—I thought you were only amusing yourself." A smile of reviving satisfaction stole over his face. "I'm not much afraid of a rival like that, Miss Grey—if he is my only rival."

"I don't know why you talk of a rival," the young woman answered, with a scornful glance at him; "but I can assure you he would be the most dangerous rival a living man could have. When I find a man like him, Mr. Sheppard, I hope he will ask me to marry him; indeed, when I find such a man I'll ask him to marry me—and if he be the man I take him for, he'll refuse me. I have told you all the truth now, Mr. Sheppard, and I hope you will think I need not say any more."

"Still, I'm not quite without hope that something may be done," Mr. Sheppard said. "How if I were to study your hero's ways and try to be like him, Miss Grey?"

A great brown heavy velvety bee at the moment came booming along, his ponderous flight almost level with the ground and not far above it. He sailed in and out among the trees and branches, now burying himself for a few seconds in some hollow part of a trunk, and then plodding through air again.

"Do you think it would be of any use, Mr. Sheppard," she calmly asked, "if that honest bee were to study the ways of the eagle?"

"You are not complimentary, Miss Grey," he said, reddening.

"No: I don't believe in compliments: I very much prefer truth."

"Still there are ways of conveying the truth—and of course I never professed to be anything very great and heroic——"

He was decidedly hurt now.

"Mr. Sheppard," she said, in a softer and more appealing tone, "I don't want to quarrel with you or with anybody, and please don't drive me on to make myself out any worse than I am. I don't care about you, and I never could. We never could get on together. I don't care for any man—I don't like men at all. I wouldn't marry you if you were an emperor. But I don't say anything against you; at least I wouldn't if you would only let me alone. I am very unhappy sometimes—almost always now; but at least I mean to make no one unhappy but myself."

"That's what comes of books and poetry and solitary walks and nonsense! Why can't you listen to the advice of those who love you?"

She turned upon him angrily again.

"Well, I am not speaking of myself now, but of your—your people, who only desire your good. Mr. Saulsbury, Mrs. Saulsbury——"

"Once for all, Mr. Sheppard, I shall not take their advice; and if you would have me think of you with any kindness at all, any memory not disagreeable and—and detestable, you will not talk to me of their advice. Even if I had been inclined to care for you, Mr. Sheppard, you took a wrong way when you came in their name and talked of their authority. Next time you ask a girl to marry you, Mr. Sheppard, do it in your own name."

He caught eagerly at the kind of negative hope that seemed to be held out to him.

"If that's an objection," he began, "I assure you that I came quite of my own motion, and I am the last man in the world to endeavor to bring any unfair means to bear. Of course it is not as if they were your own parents, and I can quite understand how a young lady must feel——"

"I don't know much of how young ladies feel," Minola said quietly, "but I know how I feel, Mr. Sheppard, and you know it too. Take my last word. I'll never marry you. You only waste your time, and perhaps the time of somebody else as well—some good girl, Mr. Sheppard, who would be glad to marry you and whom you will be quite ready to make love to the day after to-morrow."

Her heart was hardened against him now, for she thought him mean and craven and unmanly. Perhaps, according to her familiar creed, she ought rather to have thought him manly, meanness being in that sense one of the attributes of man. She did not believe in the genuineness of his love, and in any case no thought was more odious to her than that of a man pressing a girl to marry him if she did not love him and was not ready to meet him half way.

There was a curious contrast between these two figures as they stood on the steps of that great empty tomb. The contrast was all the more singular and even the more striking because the two might easily have been described in such terms as would seem to suggest no contrast. If they were described as a handsome young man (for he was scarcely more than thirty) and a handsome young woman, the description would be correct. He was rather tall, she was rather tall; but he was formal, severe, respectable, and absolutely unpicturesque—she was picturesque in every motion. His well-made clothes sat stiffly on him, and the first idea he conveyed was that he was carefully dressed. Even a woman would not have thought, at the first glance at least, of how she was dressed. She only impressed one with a sense of the presence of graceful and especially emotional womanhood. The longer one looked at the two the deeper the contrast seemed to become. Both, for example, had rather thin lips; but his were rigid, precise, and seeming to part with a certain deliberation and even difficulty. Hers appeared, even when she was silent, to be tremulous with expression. After a while it would have seemed to an observer, if any observing eye were there, that no power on earth could have brought these two into companionship.

"I won't take this as your final answer," he said, after one or two unsuccessful efforts to speak. "You will consider this again, and give it some serious reflection."

She only shook her head, and once more seated herself on the steps of the monument as if to suggest that now the interview was over.

"You are not walking homeward?" he asked.

"I am staying here for awhile."

He bade her good morning and walked slowly away. A rejected lover looks to great disadvantage when he has to walk away. He ought to leap on the back of a horse, and spur him fiercely and gallop off; or the curtain ought to fall and so finish up with him. Otherwise, even the most heroic figure has something of the look of one sneaking off like a dog told imperatively to "go home." Mr. Sheppard felt very uncomfortable at the thought that he probably did not seem dignified in the eyes of Miss Grey. He once glanced back uneasily, but perhaps it was not a relief to find that she was not looking in his direction.