There was no abatement of my regard to her;why was she so changed?Isaid to her,"Ah!Sarah,when I think that it is only a year ago that you were everything to me I could wish,and that now you seem lost to me for ever,the month of May (the name of which ought to be a signal for joy and hope)strikes chill to my heart.--How different is this meeting from that delicious parting,when you seemed never weary of repeating the proofs of your regard and tenderness,and it was with difficulty we tore ourselves asunder at last!I am ten thousand times fonder of you than I was then,and ten thousand times more unhappy!""You have no reason to be so;my feelings towards you are the same as they ever were."I told her "She was my all of hope or comfort:my passion for her grew stronger every time I saw her."She answered,"She was sorry for it;for THAT she never could return."I said something about looking ill:she said in her pretty,mincing,emphatic way,"I despise looks!"So,thought I,it is not that;and she says there's no one else:it must be some strange air she gives herself,in consequence of the approaching change in my circumstances.She has been probably advised not to give up till all is fairly over,and then she will be my own sweet girl again.All this time she was standing just outside the door,my hand in hers (would that they could have grown together!)she was dressed in a loose morning-gown,her hair curled beautifully;she stood with her profile to me,and looked down the whole time.No expression was ever more soft or perfect.Her whole attitude,her whole form,was dignity and bewitching grace.I said to her,"You look like a queen,my love,adorned with your own graces!"
I grew idolatrous,and would have kneeled to her.She made a movement,as if she was displeased.I tried to draw her towards me.She wouldn't.I then got up,and offered to kiss her at parting.I found she obstinately refused.This stung me to the quick.It was the first time in her life she had ever done so.There must be some new bar between us to produce these continued denials;and she had not even esteem enough left to tell me so.I followed her half-way down-stairs,but to no purpose,and returned into my room,confirmed in my most dreadful surmises.I could bear it no longer.I gave way to all the fury of disappointed hope and jealous passion.I was made the dupe of trick and cunning,killed with cold,sullen scorn;and,after all the agony I had suffered,could obtain no explanation why I was subjected to it.
I was still to be tantalized,tortured,made the cruel sport of one,for whom I would have sacrificed all.I tore the locket which contained her hair (and which I used to wear continually in my bosom,as the precious token of her dear regard)from my neck,and trampled it in pieces.I then dashed the little Buonaparte on the ground,and stamped upon it,as one of her instruments of mockery.I could not stay in the room;I could not leave it;my rage,my despair were uncontroulable.I shrieked curses on her name,and on her false love;and the scream I uttered (so pitiful and so piercing was it,that the sound of it terrified me)instantly brought the whole house,father,mother,lodgers and all,into the room.They thought I was destroying her and myself.I had gone into the bedroom,merely to hide away from myself,and as I came out of it,raging-mad with the new sense of present shame and lasting misery,Mrs.F----said,"She's in there!He has got her in there!"thinking the cries had proceeded from her,and that I had been offering her violence."Oh! no,"I said,"She's in no danger from me;I am not the person;"and tried to burst from this scene of degradation.The mother endeavoured to stop me,and said,"For God's sake,don't go out,Mr.-----!for God's sake,don't!"Her father,who was not,I believe,in the secret,and was therefore justly scandalised at such outrageous conduct,said angrily,"Let him go!Why should he stay?"I however sprang down stairs,and as they called out to me,"What is it?--What has she done to you?"I answered,"She has murdered me!--She has destroyed me for ever!--She has doomed my soul to perdition!"I rushed out of the house,thinking to quit it forever;but I was no sooner in the street,than the desolation and the darkness became greater,more intolerable;and the eddying violence of my passion drove me back to the source,from whence it sprung.This unexpected explosion,with the conjectures to which it would give rise,could not be very agreeable to the precieuse or her family;and when I went back,the father was waiting at the door,as if anticipating this sudden turn of my feelings,with no friendly aspect.
I said,"I have to beg pardon,Sir;but my mad fit is over,and I wish to say a few words to you in private."He seemed to hesitate,but some uneasy forebodings on his own account,probably,prevailed over his resentment;or,perhaps (as philosophers have a desire to know the cause of thunder)it was a natural curiosity to know what circumstances of provocation had given rise to such an extraordinary scene of confusion.
