“What do you mean?” I asked in a white heat of unreasonable rage.
“I hope you won’t try to repair things by marrying this—young person.”
“To make an honest woman of her, do you mean?” I asked grimly.
“Yes,” said my aunt.
Then suddenly the Devil leaped into me and stirred all the elements of unrest, anger, and longing together in a cauldron which I suppose was my heart. The result was explosion. I made a step forward with raised hands and my aunt recoiled in alarm.
“By heaven!” I cried, “I would give the soul out of my body to marry her!”
And I stumbled out of the house like a blind man.
From that moment of dazzling revelation till now I have nursed this infinite desire. To say that I love Carlotta is to express Niagara in terms of a fountain. I crave her with everything vital in heart and brain. She is an obsession. The scent of her hair is in my nostrils, the cooing dove-notes of her voice murmur in my ears, I shut my eyes and feel the rose-petals of her lips on my cheek, the witchery of her movements dances before my eyes.
I cannot live without her. Until to-day the house was desolate enough—a ghostly shell of a habitation. Henceforward, without her my very life will be void. My heart has been crying for her these two weeks and I knew it not. Now I know. I could stand on my balcony and lift up my hands toward the south where she abides, and lift up my voice, and cry for her passionately aloud. There is no infernal foolishness in the world that I could not commit tonight. The maddest dingo dog, if he could appreciate my state of being, would learn points in insanity.
It is two o’clock. I must go to sleep. I take from my shelves Epictetus, who might be expected to throw cold water on the most burning fever of the mind. I have not read far before I come across this consolatory apophthegm: “The contest is unequal between a charming girl and a beginner in philosophy.” He is mocking me, the cold-blooded pedagogue! I throw his book across the room. But he is right. I am but a beginner in philosophy. No armour wherein my reason can invest me is of avail against Carlotta. I have no strength to smite. I am helpless.