Then he thought of her with a fantastic longing that seemed to him
beautiful, immaterial, and innocent. He said to himself, "I don't
shirk my punishment. I'm going to take it. But fair's fair--There's no
occasion to make myself out worse than I really am. Norah has taken
hold of me a great deal more by my int'lect than by the low animal
kind of feelings that are the mark of the abject sinner. I can't live
without her; but if I might live with her, I feel I could be content
to let it all remain quite innocent between us. Yes, I feel I could be
happy with her just as a companion, provided she and I were alone
together, far away from everybody else--yes, I'd take my happiness on
those terms, that she was never to be anything else to me but just
that."
But soon those treacherous nerves restored themselves, the upper and
lower parts of him were all one again, and the diffuse yet darting
pain returned. Anger came too. It seemed that the dead man mocked him,
went on softly laughing at him.
"What a humbug you are"--he gave the dead man words--"what a colossal
humbug. You and your nice Sunday go-to-meeting thoughts. It's so easy,
isn't it? to dress up one's rottenness in pretty sentimental twaddle.
But you don't deceive anybody.
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