e was no question that she must awake in hell. She did not dare to
go to the draught, but lay quite still, her head close against the wall,
praying for darkness, crying for relief from this too fierce mentality;
it seemed to be eating up the very substance of her brain.
On the following evening she sat in her armchair watching the clock. It
had struck eleven--that was the time for her going to bed, but the hour
had become a redoubtable one. Bedtime filled her with fear, and the
thought of another sleepless night deprived her of all courage. She did
not dare to go upstairs. She sat in her armchair as if in terror of a
mortal enemy. She had hidden the bottle, but her maid had ordered
another. There were now two, sufficient to procure death, said her
conscience, and since dinner the temptation to commit suicide had been
growing in her brain; like a vulture perched upon a jag of mountain
rock, she could see the temptation watching her. She tried not to see,
but the thought grew blacker and larger--its beak was in her brain, and
she was drawn, as if by talons, tremblingly from her chair. She was so
weak that she could hardly cross the room; but the thought of death
seemed to give her courage, and without it she thought she never would
have had the strength to get upstairs. The attraction was extraordinary,
and her powerlessness to resist it was part of the fascination, and she
looked round the room like a victim looking for the knife. She could not
see the bottle on her dressing-table, and accepting this as a favourable
omen, she undressed and lay down.
After all, she might sleep without having recourse to death; but, lying
on the pillow, she could think of nothing but the slim bottle and the
slim blond cork, and a thick white liquid, and the dark river into
which she would sink, the winding darkness on which she would float, and
she had not strength to think whither it led. Her only thought was not
to see this world any more; her only desire not to think of Ulick or
Owen, and to be tortured no longer by doubt of what was right and what
was wrong. She was aware that she was losing possession of her
self-control, and would be soon drawn into the dreaded but much-desired
abyss; and in this delirium, produced by long insomnia, she began to
conceive her suicide as an act of defiance against God, and she rejoiced
in her hatred of God, who had afflicted her so cruelly--for it was
hatred that had come to her aid, and would enable
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