Chapter 14 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to name the motive behind the rescue. Felix makes “a solemn vow to deliver him” at the trial, in “horror and indignation”, before he has seen Safie. At the grate he scorns the merchant’s promises of wealth. Then he sees Safie and owns to himself that the captive has “a treasure” worth the risk. He is “too delicate to accept” her hand as payment, yet he looks forward to the marriage “as to the consummation of his happiness”. The student decides what the work was for. The chapter does not say he freed the merchant in order to win her, and the card should not.

One reading

Justice. The vow comes first, made in anger at a flagrant sentence, before Safie is in the story. He refuses the money with contempt, and he refuses her hand when it is offered as a fee. Safie becomes his hope, but the cause was his already.

• He made, at that moment, a solemn vow to deliver him and then looked around for the means.
• Felix was too delicate to accept this offer

Another reading

Safie, more and more. The vow starts the work, but the chapter shows her feeding it: her letters warm his zeal, and the marriage becomes the height of his happiness. By Leghorn he stays on “in expectation of that event”. He will not take her as payment, and he still hopes for her as a reward.

• the zeal of Felix was warmed by several letters that he received from this lovely girl
• yet he looked forward to the probability of the event as to the consummation of his happiness

Listen for

• Notices the order: the vow is made “at that moment” of the verdict, before Felix has seen Safie.
• Notices “owning to his own mind”: he admits the hope only to himself.
• Weighs “too delicate to accept” beside “looked forward”: he refuses a bargain and keeps a hope.
• Keeps clear of saying he freed the merchant to win Safie; the chapter keeps the contempt and the hope side by side.

If stuck

• What does Felix do at the moment he hears the court’s decision?
• What does the merchant offer him, and how does Felix answer?
• What does Felix admit to himself when he sees Safie at the grate?

A strong answer A strong response names a motive and holds it against the page. One reader says justice: the vow comes at the verdict, before Safie appears, and he scorns both the money and the offer of her hand as payment. Another says Safie came to share the work: her letters warm his zeal, and at Leghorn he waits “in expectation of that event”. The best answers notice that the chapter keeps both, a man who refuses reward and still hopes for one. That matters for what his ruin can teach a listener.

What it asks It asks the student to look into a pause. Safie’s mother, a Christian Arab who was seized and made a slave, “spurned the bondage” of her life and taught her daughter “an independence of spirit”; the lessons were “indelibly impressed”. Turkey is “abhorrent” to Safie, and “her religion and her feelings” are both against it. Yet when her father tells her he will sail for Constantinople in a few hours and leave her to follow, she “hesitated some time” before she “formed her determination”. The page names the pause, not its cause, so the student reads the cause from her situation. Answers should stay with what she faces in the chapter, and the harsh words about the harem are Safie’s, as the creature retells her letters, not the guide’s.

One reading

The road. Turkey is already settled: her religion and her feelings refuse it. What she weighs is the way out. She would go with one servant to a country whose language she does not know, to find a man she knows of only from her father’s papers, and he is now poor and exiled. The pause is the weight of that risk, and she goes anyway.

• A residence in Turkey was abhorrent to her; her religion and her feelings were alike averse to it.
• By some papers of her father which fell into her hands she heard of the exile of her lover and learnt the name of the spot where he then resided.

Another reading

Her father. Going means leaving him for good, while he flees for his life. She once thanked Felix “in the most ardent terms” for saving him, and she chose to stay with him at Leghorn until he left. Her plan is the one “it would become her to pursue”: she asks what is right for a daughter, not only what she wants. Her mother’s lessons pull one way and her tie to her father the other.

• She thanked him in the most ardent terms for his intended services towards her parent
• Safie resolved to remain with her father until the moment of his departure
• When alone, Safie resolved in her own mind the plan of conduct that it would become her to pursue in this emergency.

Listen for

• Notices “When alone”: she decides by herself, after her father has given his orders and gone.
• Notices that she learns where Felix is from her father’s papers, so she chooses him knowing he is poor and exiled, the same news that turned her father against him.
• Notices that her mother, once a captive who would not accept her bondage, gave her the reasons to refuse Turkey, so the pause is about something else.
• Keeps to what the page gives: it says she hesitated, not why, so a strong answer reasons from her situation and does not invent her thoughts.

If stuck

• What does Safie’s father plan for her when he sails?
• How does Safie learn where Felix is, and what has happened to him by then?
• If she goes, what does she leave behind, and what will she face on the road?

A strong answer A strong response names what was on each side of the pause and points to the page. One reader says the road: Turkey is already ruled out by “her religion and her feelings”, so she weighs a long journey with one servant to a poor exile she has traced through her father’s papers. Another says her father: she thanked Felix “in the most ardent terms” for saving him and stayed with him until he left, and her plan is the one “it would become her to pursue”, a daughter’s question as well as a lover’s. The best answers notice that the page gives the pause and the choice, not the reasons, and that her mother’s lessons answer only half of what she had to weigh.

What it asks It asks about an aside. In the middle of the love story, the creature turns to his listener. He has copies of Safie’s letters, made with writing tools he found “means” to get while he lived in the hovel. He will give them to Victor before he leaves; for now, with the sun “far declined”, he gives only their substance. The student decides why the teller thinks his tale needs proof, and what he means by “my tale”. The chapter has only his promise, and the card should not say the letters prove anything.

One reading

Because of who is telling it. A teller who promises proof expects to be doubted. So he offers documents, as a witness offers exhibits. Even his admission that there was a reason he “could not learn” is a careful witness’s habit.

• Before I depart I will give them to you; they will prove the truth of my tale
• for some reason which I could not learn

Another reading

Because “my tale” is his own story, not only the family’s. The copies would show that he lived close enough to the cottage to handle its letters, and that he can write. If the letters are real, so is his life beside the family, and so is the goodness he says he learned there.

• I found means, during my residence in the hovel, to procure the implements of writing
• the letters were often in the hands of Felix or Agatha

Listen for

• Notices that the copies, if he hands them over, would show he can write, and that he was near enough to the family to copy what they read.
• Notices that he promises the letters and does not hand them over; the chapter has only his promise.
• Notices “as the sun is already far declined”: the teller is short of time, and the listener is in front of him.
• May notice “for some reason which I could not learn”: he marks what he does not know.

If stuck

• Who is the creature telling this history to?
• What does he say he will do with the letters, and when?
• Besides what Safie wrote, what do the copies show about him?

A strong answer A strong response gives the aside a reason and grounds it. One reader hears a teller who expects doubt: he offers documents, and he even marks the one fact he “could not learn”. Another hears “my tale” as his own story: the copies would show that he lived beside the family and could write, so the history is part of his case for himself. The best answers notice that the letters are only promised, and ask what it means that a stranger’s story needs papers to be believed.

What it asks It asks the student to account for a small gift sent at the moment of betrayal. At the grate the merchant tried to win Felix “by promises of reward and wealth”, and Felix “rejected his offers with contempt”. Now Felix is ruined, the promise of Safie is broken, and the merchant sends money after all: “a pittance”, to aid him, “as he said, in some plan of future maintenance”. The account reaches the creature as what “Felix soon learned”, in a sentence that calls the gift an insult and the man “the treacherous Turk”. The student builds a thesis on why the merchant sends anything, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The chapter gives his stated reason and the telling’s scorn, not his mind. The card judges one man, never a people.

One reading

To close the account. He once offered Felix “reward and wealth” for his life. Now that Felix is poor and far away, a token pays off the debt in the very coin Felix scorned. Sent while he breaks his promise of Safie, it tells Felix the bargain is over. The insult is in the size.

• endeavoured to kindle the zeal of his deliverer by promises of reward and wealth
• insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money to aid him, as he said, in some plan of future maintenance.

Another reading

Because some part of him still owes it. He is a frightened man, not a man without shame: he deceives Felix while he feels himself in his deliverer’s power, and he flees because he expects to be handed back to France. The money, however small, admits a debt he will not pay with his daughter. The words “insultingly” and “as he said” belong to the telling, from what Felix learned; the merchant’s own word was help.

• he knew that he was still in the power of his deliverer if he should choose to betray him
• he should speedily be delivered up to the French government

Listen for

• Notices the echo: the merchant first tried to buy Felix’s zeal “by promises of reward and wealth”, and the last thing he sends is money.
• Notices “as he said”: the merchant’s reason reaches us through a teller who doubts it.
• Notices that the whole account is what “Felix soon learned”, retold by the creature, in the sentence that names “the treacherous Turk”.
• Judges one man’s act, not a people; the harsh words belong to the speakers inside the story.

If stuck

• What did the merchant offer Felix at the prison window, and how did Felix answer?
• What has happened to Felix by the time the money comes?
• Who tells us the money was sent “insultingly”, and how did they learn it?

A strong answer A strong thesis gives the gift a reason and argues it from the page. A student might argue that the money closes the account: the man who once offered “reward and wealth” for his life now sends “a pittance” while he breaks his promise of Safie, paying a debt of honour in the one coin Felix scorned. The strongest objection is that the telling, not the merchant, calls the gift an insult. His own reason reaches us only “as he said”, in a sentence that also names him “the treacherous Turk”, and his deceit grows from fear of being “delivered up”. A good revision might hold him to the broken promise while granting that the history is surer of his motive than its evidence is, and keep the judgment on one man, never a people.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh Felix’s share in his family’s ruin. The creature opens the history by naming another cause: “The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin.” But the escape was Felix’s plot. He got passports in his father’s and sister’s names, and his father “aided the deceit”. When the plot is found out, De Lacey and Agatha are thrown into prison while Felix is at Leghorn with Safie. Felix answers at once: he gives himself up “to the vengeance of the law”, and fails. The family loses its fortune and its country. The student builds a thesis on how much of the ruin is Felix’s to answer for, meets the strongest objection, and revises. The chapter does not say what would have happened had he stayed away or come back sooner, and the card should not guess.

One reading

A large share. The plan was his, and it used his father’s name. His father and sister lie in a “noisome dungeon” because of a plot Felix made, while he waits at Leghorn in hope of his marriage. The thought is “torture” to him, and he answers it by giving himself up: his own admission that the debt is his.

• Felix had procured passports in the name of his father, sister, and himself.
• His blind and aged father and his gentle sister lay in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free air

Another reading

A small one. His father chose the risk with open eyes and hid himself to help. The ruin comes from a government “greatly enraged” that strips a blind old man and his daughter of everything for undoing a sentence all Paris thought unjust, and from the man who repaid the rescue with betrayal. The creature himself names the cause, and it is not Felix.

• He had previously communicated his plan to the former, who aided the deceit
• The government of France were greatly enraged at the escape of their victim
• The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin.

Listen for

• Notices that the creature names the merchant “the cause of their ruin” at the start, before he tells of Felix’s plot.
• Notices “their victim”: the teller’s word for the merchant, as the government held him.
• Notices that the father “aided the deceit”, so the risk was shared.
• Notices that Felix answers at once (he “hastened to Paris” and gave himself up), and that “He did not succeed.”

If stuck

• Whose plan was the escape, and whose names were on the passports?
• What happens to De Lacey and Agatha when the plot is found out, and where is Felix then?
• Why might the creature name Safie’s father, and not Felix, as the cause of their ruin?

A strong answer A strong thesis names Felix’s share and defends it from the page. A student might argue that much of it is his: the plot was his, the passports carried his father’s name, and his father and sister lay in a “noisome dungeon” while he waited at Leghorn for his marriage. The thought was “torture” to him, and he gave himself up as if the debt were his. The strongest objection is that De Lacey “aided the deceit” with open eyes, that a government “greatly enraged” punished a blind father and his daughter for undoing an unjust sentence, and that the creature himself names a different cause: “The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin.” A good revision might say Felix answers for the risk, and does answer for it when he gives himself up, while the ruin belongs to those who punished and betrayed him. It should not guess what would have happened had he acted otherwise.

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. The creature has learned the history of the family he hides beside. It is a rescue repaid with ruin, exile and betrayal, and a foreign girl who defies her father and is brought to the cottage by a stranger’s care. He says it is a history that “could not fail to impress itself deeply on my mind”. The student builds a thesis on whether it should give him hope or fear, tests it against the strongest other reading, and revises. The chapter tells the family’s past, not a meeting with him, and the card must not say how they will treat him.

One reading

Fear. In this history a court condemns a stranger for his religion and his wealth, not for what he did. The man Felix saves repays him with deceit and a pittance. Goodness is ruinous to the good, and strangers are judged before they act. A hidden stranger has every reason to stay hidden.

• it was judged that his religion and wealth rather than the crime alleged against him had been the cause of his condemnation
• insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money

Another reading

Hope. The same history is full of strangers well received. Felix risks everything for a condemned foreigner. Safie travels from Italy to Germany to find him, and when she is left alone without the language, the woman of the house where they stayed sees her safely to the cottage. Most of the kindness in this history comes from the people now in the cottage he lives beside.

• his horror and indignation were uncontrollable when he heard the decision of the court
• She fell, however, into good hands.

Listen for

• Notices where the kindness and the cruelty come from: a court and one frightened man on one side, the family and a stranger on the other.
• Notices that Safie comes to the cottage “unacquainted with the language of the country”, and that her arrival “infused new life” into Felix.
• Weighs the family’s goodness against what the world did to it: a reader can draw hope from the first and fear from the second.
• Keeps clear of saying how the family will treat the creature, or that he has shown himself to them.

If stuck

• What did Felix do for a stranger, and what did it cost him?
• Who helps Safie when she is left alone in a strange country?
• Which person in this history is most like the creature?

A strong answer A strong thesis takes a side on what the history should teach its hidden listener, and earns it. A student might argue for fear: a court condemns a stranger for his religion and his wealth, and the man Felix saves repays him with deceit and “a pittance of money”. In this history goodness ruins the good, and strangers are judged before they act. The strongest objection is that the same history is full of strangers well received: Felix risks everything for a condemned foreigner, and Safie, left alone without the language, falls “into good hands”. A good revision might say the history gives grounds for both and sorts them: the cruelty comes from a court and a frightened man, the kindness from the family he lives beside and from a stranger who helped one of them. It should stop short of saying how that family will receive him.