"Why does everybody sacrifice their health, their happiness, their all, but for ambition and the love of power? It is true, as long as this little beauty lasts, I might be courted as a woman, but never should I be worshipped as—I may say—a god.—No, no, there is something too delightful in that adoration, something too pleasant in witnessing a crowd of fools stare, and men of three times my age, falling down and kissing the hem of my garment. This is, indeed, adoration! the delight arising from it is so great, that all other passions are crushed by it—it absorbs all other feelings, and has closed my heart even against love, Japhet. I could not, I would not debase myself, sink so low in my own estimation, as to allow so paltry a passion to have dominion over me; and, indeed, now that I am so wedded to stimulants, even if I were no longer a prophetess, it never could."
"But is not intoxication one of the most debasing of all habits?"
"I grant you, in itself, but with me and in my situation it is different. I fall to rise again, and higher. I cannot be what I am without I simulate—I cannot simulate without stimulants, therefore it is but a means to a great and glorious ambition."
I had more conversation with her before I left, but nothing appeared to move her resolution, and I left her lamenting, in the first place, that she had abjured love, because, notwithstanding the orris root, which she kept in her mouth to take away the smell of the spirits, I found myself very much taken with such beauty of person, combined with so much vigour of mind; and in the second, that one so young should carry on a system of deceit and self-destruction. When I rose to go away she put five guineas in my hand, to enable me to purchase what she required. "Add to this one small favour," said I, "Aramathea—allow me a kiss."
"A kiss," replied she, with scorn; "no, Japhet, look upon me, for it is the last time you will behold my youth; look upon me as a sepulchre, fair without but unsavoury and rottenness within. Let me do you a greater kindness, let me awaken your dormant energies, and plant that ambition in your soul, which may lead to all that is great and good—a better path and more worthy of a man than the one which I have partly chosen, and partly destiny has decided for me. Look upon me as your friend; although perhaps, you truly say, no friend unto myself. Farewell—remember that to-morrow you will send the medicine which I require."
I left her, and returned home: it was late. I went to bed, and having disclosed as much to Timothy as I could safely venture to do, I fell fast asleep, but her figure and her voice haunted me in my dreams. At one time, she appeared before me in her painted, enamelled face, and then the mask fell off, and I fell at her feet to worship her extreme beauty; then her beauty would vanish, and she would appear an image of loathsomeness and deformity, and I felt suffocated with the atmosphere impregnated with the smell of liquor. I would wake and compose myself again, glad to be rid of the horrid dream, but again would she appear, with a hydra's tail, like Sin in Milton's Paradise Lost, wind herself round me, her beautiful face gradually changing into that of a skeleton. I cried out with terror, and awoke to sleep no more, and effectually cured by my dream of the penchant which I felt towards Miss Aramathea Judd.
Chapter VI
My prescriptions very effective and palatable, but I lose my patient—The feud equal to that of the Montagues and the Capulets—Results different—Mercutio comes off unhurt.
The next day I sent Timothy to purchase some highly rectified white brandy, which I coloured with a blue tincture, and added to it a small proportion of the essence of cinnamon, to disguise the smell; a dozen large vials, carefully tied up and sealed, were despatched to her abode. She now seldom called unless it was early in the morning; I made repeated visits to her house to receive money, but no longer to make love. One day I requested permission to be present at their meeting, and to this she gave immediate consent; indeed we were on the most intimate terms, and when she perceived that I no longer attempted to play the fool, I was permitted to remain for hours with her in conversation. She had, as she told me she intended, re-enamelled and painted her face, but knowing what beauty was concealed underneath, I no longer felt any disgust.