it hatred, though some
sparkles of the light in which she had appeared before him on the
memorable night of his return home with his Bride, occasionally hung
about her still. He knew now that she was beautiful; he did not dispute
that she was graceful and winning, and that in the bright dawn of her
womanhood she had come upon him, a surprise. But he turned even this
against her. In his sullen and unwholesome brooding, the unhappy man,
with a dull perception of his alienation from all hearts, and a vague
yearning for what he had all his life repelled, made a distorted picture
of his rights and wrongs, and justified himself with it against her. The
worthier she promised to be of him, the greater claim he was disposed to
antedate upon her duty and submission. When had she ever shown him duty
and submission? Did she grace his life--or Edith's? Had her attractions
been manifested first to him--or Edith? Why, he and she had never been,
from her birth, like father and child! They had always been estranged.
She had crossed him every way and everywhere. She was leagued against
him now. Her very beauty softened natures that were obdurate to him, and
insulted him with an unnatural triumph.

It may have been that in all this there were mutterings of an awakened
feeling in his breast, however selfishly aroused by his position of
disadvantage, in comparison with what she might have made his life. But
he silenced the distant thunder with the rolling of his sea of pride.
He would bear nothing but his pride. And in his pride, a heap of
inconsistency, and misery, and self-inflicted torment, he hated her.

To the moody, stubborn, sullen demon, that possessed him, his wife
opposed her different pride in its full force. They never could have led
a happy life together; but nothing could have made it more unhappy, than
the wilful and determined warfare of such elements. His pride was set
upon maintaining his magnificent supremacy, and forcing recognition of
it from her. She would have been racked to death, and turned but her
haughty glance of calm inflexible disdain upon him, to the last. Such
recognition from Edith! He little knew through what a storm and struggle
she had been driven onward to the crowning honour of his hand. He little
knew how much she thought she had conceded, when she suffered him to
call her wife.

Mr Dombey was resolved to show her that he was supreme. There must be no
will but his. Proud he desired that she should b