nd.

"I went to keep my appointment; the queen of my heart met me; I saw her
calm, pure, serene. And here I must confess that I have always thought
that Othello was not only stupid, but showed very bad taste. Only a man
who is half a Negro could behave so: indeed Shakespeare felt this when
he called his play 'The Moor of Venice.' The sight of the woman we love
is such a balm to the heart that it must dispel anguish, doubt,
and sorrow. All my rage vanished. I could smile again. Hence this
cheerfulness, which at my age now would be the most atrocious
dissimulation, was the result of my youth and my love. My jealousy once
buried, I had the power of observation. My ailing condition was evident;
the horrible doubts that had fermented in me increased it. At last I
found an opening for putting in these words: 'You have had no one with
you this morning?' making a pretext of the uneasiness I had felt in the
fear lest she should have disposed of her time after receiving my first
note.--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'only a man could have such ideas! As if
I could think of anything but your suffering. Till the moment when I
received your second note I could think only of how I could contrive to
see you.'--'And you were alone?'--'Alone,' said she, looking at me with
a face of innocence so perfect that it must have been his distrust of
such a look as that which made the Moor kill Desdemona. As she lived
alone in the house, the word was a fearful lie. One single lie destroys
the absolute confidence which to some souls is the very foundation of
happiness.

"To explain to you what passed in me at that moment it must be assumed
that we have an internal self of which the exterior _I_ is but the husk;
that this self, as brilliant as light, is as fragile as a shade--well,
that beautiful self was in me thenceforth for ever shrouded in crape.
Yes; I felt a cold and fleshless hand cast over me the winding-sheet
of experience, dooming me to the eternal mourning into which the first
betrayal plunges the soul. As I cast my eyes down that she might not
observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhat restored my strength:
'If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy of you!'

"I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to my eyes
to an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on driving me
home with the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full of a
solicitude and tenderness that might have deceived the Moor of Venice
whom I