the brooch till it was broken, and did not stir a finger to save
the gold setting and engraved stone when they fell between the bed and
wall of the room. Then she lay staring at the ceiling, and did not stir
again. It was now quite dark. The lilies and honeysuckle in the great
nosegay outside the window began to smell more strongly, and their
perfume forced itself inexorably on her senses, rendered painfully
acute by fever. She perceived it at every breath she drew, and not for
a minute would it let her forget her wrecked happiness, and the
wretchedness of her heart, till the heavy sweetness of the flowers
became more unendurable than the most pungent odor, and she drew the
coverlet over her head to escape this new torment; but she soon cast
it off again, for she thought she should be suffocated under it. An
intolerable restlessness took possession of her, while the pain in her
injured foot throbbed madly, the cut in her head seemed to burn, and her
temples beat with an agonizing headache that contracted the muscles
of her eyes. Every nerve in her body, every thought of her brain was a
separate torture, and at the same time she felt herself without a stay,
without protection, and wholly abandoned to some cruel influence,
which tossed and tore her soul as the storm tosses the crowns of the
palm-trees.

Without tears, incapable of lying still and yet punished for the
slightest movement by some fresh pain, racked in every joint, not strong
enough in her bewilderment to carry through a single connected thought,
and yet firmly convinced that the perfume she was forced to inhale at
every breath was poisoning her--destroying her--driving her mad--she
lifted her damaged foot out of bed, dragged the other after it, and sat
up on her couch regardless of the pain she felt, and the warnings of the
physician. Her long hair fell dishevelled over her face, her arms, and
her hands, in which she held her aching head; and in this new attitude
the excitement of her brain and heart took fresh development.

She sat gazing at the floor with a freezing gaze, and bitter enmity
towards her sister, hatred towards Pollux, contempt for her father's
miserable weakness, and her own utter blindness, rang wild changes in
her soul. Outside all lay in peaceful calm, and from the house in which
Paulina lived the evening breeze now and again bore the pure tones of
a pious hymn upon her ear. Selene never heeded it, but as the same air
wafted the scent of