“You are very ill, Miriam!” said Kenyon, much shocked at her appearance. “I had not thought of this.”
“No; not so ill as I seem to you,” she answered; adding despondently, “yet I am ill enough, I believe, to die, unless some change speedily occurs.”
“What, then, is your disorder?” asked the sculptor; “and what the remedy?”
“The disorder!” repeated Miriam. “There is none that I know of save too much life and strength, without a purpose for one or the other. It is my too redundant energy that is slowly—or perhaps rapidly—wearing me away, because I can apply it to no use. The object, which I am bound to consider my only one on earth, fails me utterly. The sacrifice which I yearn to make of myself, my hopes, my everything, is coldly put aside. Nothing is left for me but to brood, brood, brood, all day, all night, in unprofitable longings and repinings.”
“This is very sad, Miriam,” said Kenyon.
“Ay, indeed; I fancy so,” she replied, with a short, unnatural laugh.
“With all your activity of mind,” resumed he, “so fertile in plans as I have known you, can you imagine no method of bringing your resources into play?”
“My mind is not active any longer,” answered Miriam, in a cold, indifferent tone. “It deals with one thought and no more. One recollection paralyzes it. It is not remorse; do not think it! I put myself out of the question, and feel neither regret nor penitence on my own behalf. But what benumbs me, what robs me of all power,-it is no secret for a woman to tell a man, yet I care not though you know it, —is the certainty that I am, and must ever be, an object of horror in Donatello’s sight.”
The sculptor—a young man, and cherishing a love which insulated him from the wild experiences which some men gather—was startled to perceive how Miriam’s rich, ill-regulated nature impelled her to fling herself, conscience and all, on one passion, the object of which intellectually seemed far beneath her.
“How have you obtained the certainty of which you speak?” asked he, after a pause.