"
"Sooner shall you make the mother abandon the child of her
bosom; nay, sooner cause the shadow to relinquish the substance,
than separate me from your side. Our beings are amalgamated, as
it were, and consociated in one, and never shall I depart from this
country until I can carry you in triumph with me."
I can in nowise describe the effect this appalling speech had on
me. It was like the announcement of death to one who had of late
deemed himself free, if not of something worse than death, and of
longer continuance. There was I doomed to remain in misery,
subjugated, soul and body, to one whose presence was become
more intolerable to me than aught on earth could compensate.
And at that moment, when he beheld the anguish of my soul, he
could not conceal that he enjoyed it. I was troubled for an answer,
for which he was waiting: it became incumbent on me to say
something after such a protestation of attachment; and, in some
degree to shake the validity of it, I asked, with great simplicity,
where he had been all this while?
"Your crimes and your extravagances forced me from your side
for a season," said he, "but now that I hope the day of grace is
returned, I am again drawn towards you by an affection that has
neither bounds nor interest; an affection for which I receive not
even the poor return of gratitude, and which seems to have its
radical sources in fascination.
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