'Of that prelude there is but one phrase which finds a place in this sad
finale: So many hairs on my head, so many thorns in my woeful destiny!
'I am going, and what will he do when I am far away? What will Francesca
do?
'The change in Francesca still remains incomprehensible,
inexplicable--an enigma that torments and bewilders me. She loves
him--but since when?--and does he know it? Confess, oh, my soul, to this
fresh misery. A new poison is added to that already infecting me--I am
jealous!
'But I am prepared for any suffering, even the most horrible; I know
well the martyrdom that awaits me; I know that the anguish of these days
is as nought compared to that which I must face presently, the terrible
cross on which my soul must hang. I am ready. All I ask, oh my God, is a
respite, a short respite for the hours that remain to me here. To-morrow
I shall have need of all my strength.
'How strangely sometimes the incidents of one's life repeat themselves!
This evening in the drawing-room, I seemed to have gone back to the 16th
of September, when I first played and sang and my thoughts began to
occupy themselves with him. This evening again I was seated at the
piano, and the same subdued light illumined the room, and next door
Manuel and the Marchese were at the card-table. I played the Gavotte _of
the Yellow Ladies_, of which Francesca is so fond and which I heard some
one trying to play on the 16th of September while I sat up in my room
and began my nightly vigils of unrest.
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