"And this," cried Astræa, "is the generosity I was to have received at your hands—this the magnanimity your friend gave you credit for!"
"There was a condition to my magnanimity which you have forgotten. Had you fulfilled that condition, I would have poured out my heart's blood at your feet, could it have made you more secure and happy. Why did you not forsake him, and trust to my generosity? No; you clung to him. You maddened me, and left me nothing but—revenge. Did you suppose he could escape me? I have no other life but this—to follow you as the executioner follows the condemned to the scaffold, and make his life a curse to him, as he has made mine to me. There's justice in that—call it cruel, if you please; 'tis just—just—just!"
"'Tis monstrous, and will draw down the punishment of Heaven on your head."
"Heaven will judge strictly between us. What am I? What have I to live for? You have poisoned the earth for me. Every spot where we have been together is accursed to me. I dare not look on the old haunts. I dare not seek new scenes, for my soul is lonely, and no pleasure or delight of nature can reach it. I should go mad were I not near you; it supplies me with work—something to employ me—to keep my
hands from self-destruction. I weave stratagems all night, and watch my time all day, day after day, patiently, to execute them. I have but one purpose to fulfill, and when that is done, life is over. If I live long enough to drive him mad, as he has maddened me, I shall be content, and go to my grave happy. And I will do it; every hour gives me more strength. I see the end nearer and nearer—it grows upon me. I awaken to my business early; it is my first thought—my last; it never leaves me. Day after day I have watched you, and have tracked you home at last. And here it is you live—you, Astræa, whom I loved—whom I still—no, not that! You live here with him—his wife! You call yourself his wife? Ha! ha! That is good—his wife! I wonder to see you living, Astræa. I should have looked for your corpse in this room rather than the living Astræa—the proud, soaring, ambitious Astræa! Why do you not die? It would be happier for you?"
During the latter part of this speech, Astræa, who had made a great struggle throughout to sustain the attitude she had "taken" in the first instance, grew weak from terror and exhaustion, and sunk or tottered upon a chair. The inflections of voice with which these inhuman taunts were delivered, ending in a tone that came apparently, if I may so express it, laden with tears from the heart of the speaker, were so ingeniously varied and so skillfully employed, that it would have been impossible, even for an indifferent listener, to have heard them without being alternately agitated and enraged. For my part, a kind of frenzy possessed me. I restrained myself as long as I could. I tried to obey poor Astræa's injunction, for, seeing how much I had wronged her in my thoughts, and what misery she must have suffered and concealed on my account, I felt that I ought to spare her any further alarm my forbearance could avert. But the harrowing scoffs of the fiend were beyond my endurance—my self-control gave way at last, and bursting open the door of the room in which I was concealed, I rushed out upon the malignant wretch, who, to do him justice, courageously turned upon me, and met me with his eyes glaring fiercely as of old.
"Devil!" I exclaimed, "what do you do here? What do you want? Revenge? Take it—in any shape you will. Only rid me of your presence, lest I spurn you with my foot, and trample upon you."
"You should have told me," he said, turning with an air of mockery to Astræa, "that he was listening in the next room. I would have dressed my phrases accordingly."
"Again, I ask you why you come here? Answer me, or leave the room at once."
"Why do I come here? To gladden myself by looking at your wretchedness. You are worse than I am—sunk below me a thousand fathoms deep in degradation—every finger is pointed at you—you are steeped in scorn—despised and loathed. I came to see this. It makes me supremely happy."