"
Forgive him! Great God! Forgive an injury so wanton, so excuseless!
Every savage instinct in me leapt up at the word.
The manuscript! I felt inclined to shout to him. The manuscript!
Give that back to me and then come and talk about forgiveness. Had
the act and the motive been as loathsome, but the injury, the actual
injury, the positive loss to me been less, I could have forgiven;
but the blow was so sharp, the damage so irremediable, I could not.
Even at his words I seemed to see staring me in the face the months
of toil awaiting me before I could rebuild--if I could ever--the
fabric he had destroyed in half-an-hour.
And crowding upon this came the thought of what he had robbed me of,
the name, the freedom, the power that those vanished paper pages had
been pregnant with for me. He was leaving Paris, he said; and so
might I have been leaving free and successful, leaving to return to
Lucia, but for him.
And now I was to remain--remain here, a prisoner, to work on another
twelve weary months at that most nauseating of tasks, repairing
undone work. To recommence, to take up the old burden, to start it
all over again, now when I had just made myself free! To be shackled
again with the weight of uncertainty and expectancy for another
year, through him, and by God he talked of forgiveness!--to me!--
now!
It was too soon.
Pages:
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149