To her, it cannot matter. I wanted to marry her,
toward the end, so I could take care of her.--She was poor, you
know--but she would not consent. She left me this, without any message.
I knew her so well, she thought it would be easier for me to forget
her; but now I shall never forget her."
He gave me the little package of leaves, whose rough edges showed that
they had been hurriedly cut from a binding, and then he fell again into
his old lethargic attitude. I am not an imaginative man, but a faint
odor from the paper brought like a flash to my mind the brilliant,
mutinous face, radiant with color and life, that I had seen last across
a sea of white shoulders and black coats at a reception a few weeks
before I went to South America. The writing was the hurried, illegible
hand of an author. I thought grimly that I had probably chanced upon a
much weakened and Americanized Marie Bashkirtseff, for though I had only
been home a few weeks, it goes without saying that I had read a part at
least of the ill-fated young Russian's dairy. Yet in the presence of the
grief-stricken face, outlined against the dark leather chair-back, I
felt a pang of shame at a thought bordering on levity. There was indeed
one likeness: both were the unexpurgated records of hearts laid
ruthlessly bare; both were instinct with life: in every line one could
feel the warm blood throbbing.
Pages:
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108