Useless Beauty

1. Chapter I

a.  1-4 (approximate page numbers) “About half-past…be repeated.”    How do the Countess and the Count deal with each other in the first pages?  What effect is each trying to have on the other.
     What does the countess want now that she did not ask for in the past?
      According to her, how has the Count treated her during the eleven years of their marriage? What does he want, according to her?  Why?

b.  4- 5 “He had seized…at a quick trot.”  What is the Count’s response to his wife’s demands and her analysis of his character?  What does she reveal to him?  How? What seems to be her goal?  What thoughts and questions do you have about her revelation to him?

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2.   Chapter II Interpret the Countess’s thoughts and feelings in her room after the dinner in which the Count stormed out.  What desires seem to have motivated her revelation to her husband?  Note that she may have more than one motivation.

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3.  Chapter III

a.  According to the first two paragraphs, what seems to be the motivation or motivations for single men to go to the opera.

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c. c b. What picture does Bernard paint of the Countess and the Count?

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 c.  c. What is Roger’s opinion of the first eleven years of the Countess’s marriage and of women in general?  From what does natural or human beauty come from?  Explain in detail. 

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d.   What is God’s role in the universe according to Roger?  What are the two purposes of man’s mouth, nose, ear.  Which of these functions expresses God’s desires, according to him?  Which does man use to create beauty and reply to God?  What emotion motivates man to create beauty?  How does Salins picture God?  What does his interpretation of the relation between God and man say about the Countess and the Count? 

4.  Chapter IV 11-14 Has the Countess satisfied the desires you mention in question 2?  How does the Count convince the Countess to tell him the truth?  How does she convince him that she is now telling the truth?  What does he suddenly realize?  What does this realization have to do with Salins’s theory?  What do you think of the Countess’s actions in this story?  Does Salins’s theory help you understand them?

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