"
Esther ventured to criticise Wharton's style; she thought it severe,
monotonous, and sometimes strained.
"Wharton's real notion of art," said Hazard, "is a volcano. You may be a
volcano at rest, or extinct, or in full eruption, but a volcano of some
kind you have got to be. In one of his violent moods he once made me go
over to Sicily with him, and dragged me to the top of Etna. It
fascinated him, and I thought he meant to jump into it and pull me after
him, but at that time he was a sort of used-up volcano himself."
"Then there is really something mysterious about his life?" asked
Catherine.
"Only that he made a very unhappy marriage which he dislikes to think
about," replied Hazard. "As an artist it did him good, but it ruined his
peace and comfort, if he ever had any. He would never have made the
mistake, if he had not been more ignorant of the world than any mortal
that ever drew breath, but, as I was saying, a volcano was like a
rattlesnake to him, and the woman he married was a volcano."
"What has become of her?" asked Esther.
"I have not dared to ask for years. No one seems to know whether she is
living or dead."
"Did he leave her?"
"No; she left him. He was to the last fascinated by her, so much so
that, after she left him, when I persuaded him to quit Paris, he
insisted on going to Avignon and Vaucluse, because Petrarch had been
under the same sort of fascination, and Wharton thought himself the only
man in the world who could understand Petrarch.
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