We shall travel. Italy, beloved of
Judith, is calling me. Probably Florence will be our settled
home. I shall give up this house of madness. The clean sweet
love of Judith will purify my heart of this poisonous passion,
and in the end there will be peace.
I have taken Carlotta's photograph from its frame and cast it
into the fire, thus burning her for her witchcraft. I watched
the flames leap and curl. The last look she gave me before they
licked away her face had its infinite allurement, its devilish
sorcery so intensified in the fierce yellow light, that the
yearning for her clutched me by the throat and shook me through
all my being.
But it is over now. I have done with Carlotta. If she thinks I
am going to sit and let the wind which comes over Primrose Hill
drive me mad like Gastibelza, _l'homme a la carabine_, in Victor
Hugo's poem, she is vastly mistaken. From this hour henceforth I
swear she is nothing to me; I will eat and sleep and laugh as if
she had never existed. Polyphemus, curled up in Carlotta's old
place on the sofa, regards me with his sardonic eye.
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