It was not altogether
Carlotta's innocence that formed the barrier between us. That
which rendered it impassable was Judith's white face.
Judith's white face will haunt my dreams to-night.
CHAPTER XVI
October 27th
I do not like living. It is thoroughly disagreeable. Today
Judith taunted me with never having lived, and I admitted the
justice of the taunt and regretted in poignant misery the change
from my old conditions. If to live is to have one's reason cast
down and trampled under foot, one's heart aflame with a besotted
passion and one's soul racked with remorse, then am I living in
good sooth--and I would far rather be dead and suffering the
milder pains of Purgatory. Men differently constituted get used
to it, as the eels to skinning. They say _"mea culpa,"_ "damn,"
or _"Kismet,"_ according to their various traditions, and go
forth comforted to their workaday pursuits. I envy them. I
enter this exquisite Torture Chamber, and I shriek at the first
twinge of the thumbscrew and faint at the preliminary embraces of
the scavenger's daughter.
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