I
dwelt with inward satisfaction on the disappointments, weariness, and
bitterness of my life, for I no longer felt them! A single look had
regenerated me. I spoke of myself as of one that was dead; a new man
was born within me. When I had ended, I raised my eyes to her, as
towards my judge. She was trembling and pale with emotion. "Heavens,"
she exclaimed, "how you alarmed me!" "And why?" said I. "Because," she
rejoined, "if you had not been unhappy and lonely here below, there
would have been one link the less between us. You would have felt no
desire to pity another; and I should have quitted life without having
seen a shadow of myself, save in the heartless mirror where my own cold
image is reflected."
"The history of your life," she continued, "is the history of mine,
with the change of a few particulars. Only yours commences, and mine--"
I would not let her conclude. "No, no!" said I hoarsely pressing my
lips to her feet, which I embraced convulsively as if to hold her down
to earth; "no, no! you will not, must not die; or, if you do, I feel
two lives will end at once!"
I was alarmed at my own gesture and at the exclamation which had
involuntarily escaped me; and I durst not raise my face off the ground,
from which she had withdrawn her feet.
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