Does some
disease of the mind or body, by contracting your muscles, bring back
of a morning the wild horses that tear you in pieces at night, as with
Damiens once upon a time? Were you driven to sup off your own dog in a
garret, uncooked and without salt? Have your children ever cried, 'I
am hungry'? Have you sold your mistress' hair to hazard the money at
play? Have you ever drawn a sham bill of exchange on a fictitious
uncle at a sham address, and feared lest you should not be in time to
take it up? Come now, I am attending! If you were going to drown
yourself for some woman, or by way of a protest, or out of sheer
dulness, I disown you. Make your confession, and no lies! I don't at
all want a historical memoir. And, above all things, be as concise as
your clouded intellect permits; I am as critical as a professor, and
as sleepy as a woman at her vespers."
"You silly fool!" said Raphael. "When has not suffering been keener
for a more susceptible nature? Some day when science has attained to a
pitch that enables us to study the natural history of hearts, when
they are named and classified in genera, sub-genera, and families;
into crustaceae, fossils, saurians, infusoria, or whatever it is,
--then, my dear fellow, it will be ascertained that there are natures
as tender and fragile as flowers, that are broken by the slight bruises
that some stony hearts do not even feel----"
"For pity's sake, spare me thy exordium," said Emile, as, half
plaintive, half amused, he took Raphael's hand.
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