ung between
him and the world, so that he saw only me,--at least----What am I
dreaming of? All manner of illusions haunt me. Who said anything about
ten years? I have been married ten years. Happy, then, ten years? Oh,
no! One day he woke.--How close the room is! I want some air. Why don't
they do something----

Once, in the pride of a fool, I fear having made some confidence, some
recital of my joy to ears that never had any. Did I say I would not lose
him? Did I say I could live just on the memory of that summer? I lash
myself that I must remember it! that I ever loved him! When he stirred,
when the mist left him, when he found a mere passion had blinded him,
when he spread his easel, when he abandoned love,--was I wretched? I,
too, abandoned love!--more,--I hated! All who hate are wretched. But he
was bound to me! Yes, he might move restlessly,--it only clanked his
chains. Did he wound me? I was cruel. He never spoke. He became
artist,--ceased to be man,--was more indifferent than the cloud. He
could paint me then,--and, revealed and bare, all our histories written
in me, he hung me up beside my ancestors. There I hang. Come from thy
frame, thou substance, and let this troubled phantom go! Come! for he
gave my life to thee. In thee he shut and sealed it all, and left me as
the empty husk. Did she come then? No! I sent for her. I meant to teach
him that he was yet a man,--to open before him a gulf of anguish; but
_I_ slipped down it. Then I dogged them; they never spoke alone; I
intercepted the eye's language; I withered their wintry smiles to
frowns; I stifled their sighs; I checked their breath, their motion.
Idle words passed our lips; we three lived in a real world of silence,
agonized mutes. She went. Summer by summer my father brought her to us.
Always memory was kindled afresh, always sorrow kept smouldering. Once
she came; I lay here; she has not left me since. He,--he also comes; he
has soothed pain with that loveless eye, carried me in untender arms,
watched calmly beside my delirious nights. He who loved beauty has
learned disgust. Why should I care? I, from the slave of bald form,
enlarged him to the master of gorgeous color; his blaze is my ashes. He
studies me. I owe him nothing.

Is it near morning? Have I dozed again? Night is long. The great
hall-clock is striking,--throb after throb on the darkness. I remember,
when I was a child, watching its lengthened pendulum swing as if time
were its own, and