FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169  
170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   >>   >|  
our absence has been remarked." They walked in silence down the alley which led to the ball-room. Two hours after, all was calm and silent where every thing had been gay and brilliant. The lights were out, and the darkness of night replaced the thousand lamps which a few minutes before were seen to glitter within the palace windows. But one person in all the Hotel of the Duke of Palma was awake. A woman sat alone, in a room of rare elegance, still wearing her ball attire, but with her hair dishevelled and her heart crushed. Her eyes were fixed and dry, and yet red with the tears she had shed. She was in all the brilliancy of youth and beauty, but which was already defaced somewhat, by the iron claws of sorrow, which by sleepless nights and the ravages of jealousy seemed resolved yet more to lacerate her. With her head resting on her hands, beautiful and touching as Canova's Magdalen, she looked with sorrow over the papers which lay strewn on a rich ebony desk before her. A lamp, the upper portion of which was shrouded in blue tulle, cast a pale and sad light over her brow. Her fine white hand rested on the papers which she seemed afraid to touch. "No," said she, "it is impossible; all that these contain are but falsehoods. No, this journal of my heart, written by myself, day by day, cannot be a romance created by the imagination in its delirium. No! all I wrote there was true. I felt the joys and bitternesses, yet it now seems to me a dream. A dream! can it be a dream?" Taking up the papers convulsively she read as follows:--"It is he. I have seen him again and free. I thought that he, like myself, had contracted a life-long obligation. Is this joy or grief? The ties he was about to form, the ties the mere thought of which caused me a terrible anguish, were imposed on me by myself. Oh my God! what have I done? What perfidious demon inspired me when I yielded to another than to him the _right_ to love me? When I promised a love I knew could be given to no other than to him? Why on the day of that fatal marriage did I see him only when I was about to leave the church? I would have broken off had I stood at the foot of the altar--I would have told him who was about to give me his name--ask me not to perjure myself! do not ask me to pledge you a faith I cannot keep! my heart, my soul, my love are his. I thought, alas! because he was not free that I too might cease to be. I fancied my agony to be power, my spite to be cou
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169  
170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
thought
 

papers

 

sorrow

 

Taking

 

convulsively

 
perjure
 
contracted
 

pledge

 
romance
 

fancied


written

 

created

 
bitternesses
 

imagination

 
delirium
 

broken

 
church
 
inspired
 

yielded

 

promised


marriage

 

obligation

 

caused

 

terrible

 

perfidious

 

anguish

 

imposed

 

person

 

glitter

 

minutes


palace

 
windows
 

crushed

 

dishevelled

 

attire

 
elegance
 

wearing

 
silence
 

walked

 
absence

remarked
 

darkness

 
replaced
 
thousand
 

lights

 

brilliant

 
silent
 

shrouded

 
portion
 

strewn