By
degrees she lay motionless. This frightened me; but very soon I heard
a sleeper's heavy, regular breathing. I drew the rustling silk
curtains apart, left my post, went to the foot of the bed, and gazed
at her with feelings that I cannot define. She was so enchanting as
she lay like a child, with her arm above her head; but the sweetness
of the fair, quiet visage, surrounded by the lace, only irritated me.
I had not been prepared for the torture to which I was compelled to
submit.
"'_Mon Dieu_!' that scrap of a thought which I understood not, but must
even take as my sole light, had suddenly modified my opinion of
Foedora. Trite or profoundly significant, frivolous or of deep import,
the words might be construed as expressive of either pleasure or pain,
of physical or of mental suffering. Was it a prayer or a malediction,
a forecast or a memory, a fear or a regret? A whole life lay in that
utterance, a life of wealth or of penury; perhaps it contained a
crime!
"The mystery that lurked beneath this fair semblance of womanhood grew
afresh; there were so many ways of explaining Foedora, that she became
inexplicable. A sort of language seemed to flow from between her lips.
I put thoughts and feelings into the accidents of her breathing,
whether weak or regular, gentle, or labored.
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