Every slight variation in her beauty made a new
pleasure for my eyes, disclosed charms my heart had never known
before; I tried to read a separate emotion or a hope in every change
that passed over her face. This mute converse passed between soul and
soul, like sound and answering echo; and the short-lived delights then
showered upon me have left indelible impressions behind. Her voice
would cause a frenzy in me that I could hardly understand. I could
have copied the example of some prince of Lorraine, and held a live
coal in the hollow of my hand, if her fingers passed caressingly
through my hair the while. I felt no longer mere admiration and
desire: I was under the spell; I had met my destiny. When back again
under my own roof, I still vaguely saw Foedora in her own home, and
had some indefinable share in her life; if she felt ill, I suffered
too. The next day I used to say to her:
"'You were not well yesterday.'
"How often has she not stood before me, called by the power of
ecstasy, in the silence of the night! Sometimes she would break in
upon me like a ray of light, make me drop my pen, and put science and
study to flight in grief and alarm, as she compelled my admiration by
the alluring pose I had seen but a short time before.
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