I know not how it was, but the levity of this speech, given as it was, made my cheek flush till it actually seemed to burn.
“Nay, nay, I didn’t mean you to blush so deeply,” said she, “And what a dear, sweet, innocent kind of life you must have been leading here, on this romantic lake, to be capable of such soft emotions! Oh, dear!” sighed she, weariedly. “You men have an immense advantage in your affairs of the heart; you can always begin as freshly with each new affection, and be as youthful in sentiment with each new love, as we are with our only passion. Now I see it all; you have been getting up a ‘tendre’ here for somebody or other:—not Taglioni, I hope, for I see that is her Villa yonder,—There, don’t look indignant. This same Lake of Como has long been known to be the paradise of danseuses and opera-singers; and I thought it possible you might have dramatised a little love-story to favour the illusion. Well, well,” said she, sighing, “so that you have not fallen in love with poor Lucy Howard——”
“And why not with her?” said I, starting, while in my quick-beating heart and burning temples a sense of torturing pain went through me.
“Why not with her?” reiterated she, pausing at each word, and fixing her eyes steadfastly on me, with a look where no affected astonishment existed; “why not with her?—did you say this?”
“I did; and do ask, What is there to make it strange that one like her should inspire the deepest sentiment of devotion, even from one whose days are so surely numbered as mine are—so unworthy to hope—to win her?”
“Then you really are unaware! Well, I must say this was not treating you fairly. I thought every one knew it, however; and I conclude they themselves reasoned in the same way. Come, I suppose I must explain; though, from your terrified face and staring eyeballs, I wish the task had devolved on some other. Be calm and collected, or I shall never venture upon it.—Well, poor dear Lucy inherits her mother’s malady—she is insane!”
Broken half-words, stray fragments of speech, met my ears, for she went on to talk of the terrible theme with the volubility of one who revelled in a story of such thrilling horror. I, however, neither heard nor remembered more; passages of well-remembered interest flashed upon my mind, but, like scenes lit up by some lurid light, glowed with meanings too direful to dwell on.
How I parted from her—how I left the Villa and came hither, travelling day and night, till exhausted strength could bear no more—are still memories too faint to recall; the realities of these last few days have less vividness than my own burning, wasting thoughts: nor can I, by any effort, separate the terrible recital she gave from my own reflections upon it.
I must never recur to this again—nor will I reopen the page whereon it is written: I have written this to test my own powers of mind, lest I too——
Shakspeare, who knew the heart as none, save the inspired, have ever known it, makes it the test of sanity to recall the events of a story in the same precise order, time after time, neither changing nor inverting them. This is Lear’s reply to the accusation of madness, when yet his intelligence was unclouded,—“I will the matter re-word, which madness would gabble from.”