"Yes," she continued, "if there be
not in you some feeling stronger than love itself to subdue and master
your passion, you can pass. Yes," she added with an accent at once more
solemn and more impassioned, "I will owe nothing but to yourself,--you
may pass; you will meet with love equal to your own, but such love
would be my death...."
I was overcome by the violence of my feelings, the impetuous impulse of
my heart that impelled me towards that voice, and the moral violence
that repulsed me; and I fell as one mortally wounded on the threshold
of that closed door. As to her, I heard her sit down on a cushion which
she had taken from a sofa, and thrown on the floor. During the greater
part of the night we continued to converse in a low tone, through the
intervals between the floor and the rough wood-work of the door. Who
can describe the outpourings of our hearts, the words unused in the
ordinary language of men that seemed to be wafted like night-dreams
between heaven and earth, and were interrupted by silence in which our
hearts and not our lips communed revealed their unutterable thoughts?
At length the intervals of silence became longer, the voices grew
faster and, overcome with fatigue, I fell asleep, with my hand clasped
on my knees, and my cheek leaning against the wall.
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