The physician he bound by a
terrible oath to silence; the nurse he forced back, and, in spite
of her disgust and abhorrence, compelled her to nurse and care
for me. The dead was buried out of sight; and we had rooms in a
distant part of the house, which no one ever entered but my
father and the nurse. Though set apart from my birth as
something accursed, I had the intellect and capacity of - yes,
far greater intellect and capacity than, most children; and, as
years passed by, my father, true to his vow, became himself my
tutor and companion. He did not love me - that was an utter
impossibility; but time so blunts the edge of all things, that
even the nurse became reconciled to me, and my father could
scarcely do less than a stranger. So I was cared for, and
instructed, and educated; and, knowing not what a monstrosity I
was, I loved them both ardently, and lived on happily enough, in
my splendid prison, for my first ten years in this world.
"Then came a change. My nurse died; and it became clear that I
must quit my solitary life, and see the sort of world I lived in.
So my father, seeing all this, sat down in the twilight one night
beside me, and told me the story of my own hideousness.
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