"We are happy then," I said to myself, "there is no excitement now.
How glad I am that I can now look at her through my spectacles."
"I feared lest some instinct should warn me to beware.
I escaped from her arms, and ran home and seized the glasses and
bounded back again to Preciosa. As I entered the room I was heated, my
head was swimming with confused apprehension, my eyes must have
glared. Preciosa was frightened, and rising from her seat, stood with
an inquiring glance of surprise in her eyes. But I was bent with
frenzy upon my purpose. I was merely aware that she was in the room. I
saw nothing else. I heard nothing. I cared for nothing, but to see her
through that magic glass, and feel at once, all the fulness of
blissful perfection which that would reveal. Preciosa stood before the
mirror, but alarmed at my wild and eager movements, unable to
distinguish what I had in my hands, and seeing me raise them suddenly
to my face, she shrieked with terror, and fell fainting upon the
floor, at the very moment that I placed the glasses before my eyes,
and beheld--myself, reflected in the mirror, before which she had been
standing.
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