Time is big with my
revenge; time will spoil your beauty, and yours will be a solitary
death; and glory waits for me!'
"'Thanks for your peroration!' she said, repressing a yawn; the wish
that she might never see me again was expressed in her whole bearing.
"That remark silenced me. I flung at her a glance full of hatred, and
hurried away.
"Foedora must be forgotten; I must cure myself of my infatuation, and
betake myself once more to my lonely studies, or die. So I set myself
tremendous tasks; I determined to complete my labors. For fifteen days
I never left my garret, spending whole nights in pallid thought. I
worked with difficulty, and by fits and starts, despite my courage and
the stimulation of despair. The music had fled. I could not exorcise
the brilliant mocking image of Foedora. Something morbid brooded over
every thought, a vague longing as dreadful as remorse. I imitated the
anchorites of the Thebaid. If I did not pray as they did, I lived a
life in the desert like theirs, hewing out my ideas as they were wont
to hew their rocks. I could at need have girdled my waist with spikes,
that physical suffering might quell mental anguish.
"One evening Pauline found her way into my room.
"'You are killing yourself,' she said imploringly; 'you should go out
and see your friends----'
"'Pauline, you were a true prophet; Foedora is killing me, I want to
die.
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