No
miracle that ever was wrought could revive the least little atom of the
love that was dead. The only thing that need occupy him now was the
carnal body, and that was divine as ever.
He indulged long in pleasurable meditation on this episode. What
particularly took his fancy was the arch and graceful touch Elena had
given to her caprice. The thought of the boa evoked the image of Donna
Maria's coils, and so, confusedly, all the amorous fancies he had woven
round that virginal mass of hair by which, once on a time, the very
school-girls of the Florentine convent had been enthralled. And again he
let his two loves melt into one and form the third--the Ideal.
The musing mood still upon him while he dressed for dinner, he thought
to himself--'Yesterday, a grand scene of passion almost ending in tears;
to-day, a little episode of mute sensuality--and I seemed to myself as
sincere in my sentiment yesterday as I was in my sensations to-day.
Added to which, scarcely an hour before Elena's kiss, I had a moment of
lofty lyrical emotion at Donna Maria's side. Of all this not one vestige
remains. To-morrow, most assuredly I shall begin the same game over
again. I am unstable as water; incoherent, inconsistent, a very
chameleon! All my efforts towards unity of purpose are for ever vain. I
must resign myself to my fate. The law of my being is comprised in the
one word--_Nunc_--the will of the Law be done!'
He laughed at himself, and from that moment began a new phase of his
moral degradation.
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