And my disorder was such that I knew I was sick o' jealousy and sore hurt of it to the bones, yet conducted like a mindless creature that, trapped, falls to mutilating itself.
And so I was ever brooding how I might convince her of my indifference; how I might pain her by coldness; how I might subtly acquaint her of my own desirability and then punish her by a display of contempt and a mortifying revelation of the unattainable. Which was to be my proper self.
Jealousy is sure a strange malady and breaketh out in divers disorders in different young men, according to their age and kind.
I was jealous because she had been courted by others; was jealous because she had been caressed by other men; I was wildly jealous because of Steve Watts, their tryst by the lilacs; his picture which I discovered she wore in her bosom; I was madly jealous of her fellowship with my old comrade, Nick, and because, chilled by my uncivil conduct and by my silences, she conversed with him when she spoke at all.
And for all this silly grievance I had no warrant nor any atom of lucid reason. For until I had seen her no woman had ever disturbed me. Until that spring day in the flowering orchard I had never desired love; and if I even desired it now I knew not. I had certainly no desire for marriage or a wife, because I had no thought in my callow head of either.
Only jealousy of others and a desire to be first in her mind possessed me,—a fierce wish to clear out this rabble of suitors which seemed to gather in a very swarm wherever she passed,—so that she should turn to me alone, lean upon me, trust only me in the world to lend her countenance, shelter her, and defend her. And, though God knows I meant her no wrong, nor had passion, so far, played any rôle in this my ridiculous behaviour, I had not so far any clear intention in her regard. A fierce and selfish longing obsessed me to drive others off and keep her for my own where in some calm security we could learn to know each other.
And this—though I did not understand it—was merely the romantic desire of a very young man to study, unhurried and untroubled, the first female who ever had disturbed his peace of mind.
But all was vain and troubled and misty in my mind, and love—or its fretful changeling—weighed on my heart heavily. But I carried double weight: jealousy is a heavy hag, and I was hag-ridden morn and eve and all the livelong day to boot.
All asses are made to be ridden.