This was at a moment when the magistrate, overcome with tiredness, had
gone down into the garden of his house and, dark, bent beneath
some implacable thought, like Tarquin cutting the heads off the
tallest poppies with his cane, M. de Villefort was knocking down
the long, dying stems of the hollyhocks that rose on either side of
the path like ghosts of those flowers that had been so brilliant in
the seasons that had passed away.
Why is there no comma before the bolded and? My understanding is that there is an independent clause on each side of the bolded and.
By the way, the subject of the two independent clauses is the same.
Best Answer
You are assuming a rule that I believe is a pseudo-rule (perhaps you could quote this 'rule' from some grammar?) I'd personally have no trouble with
It's clear enough. The addition of a comma before and would not worry me either - I'd add a pause if reading that version.
Here is an endorsement of the optional dropping of that prescriptive comma:
( http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conjunctions.htm )
What disturbs me far more is the rambling and over-punctuated nature of the example sentence. Two at least are needed - the garden-path flavour of the original might even lead some to misconstrue it, being led to believe that ' the subject of the two independent clauses is the same'.