the cruelty of this senseless wish, since she, for her own part, was
accustomed to every privation. She loved Steinbock well enough not to
marry him, and too much to give him up to any other woman; she could
not resign herself to be no more than a mother to him, though she saw
that she was mad to think of playing the other part.

These contradictions, this ferocious jealousy, and the joy of having a
man to herself, all agitated her old maid's heart beyond measure.
Really in love as she had been for four years, she cherished the
foolish hope of prolonging this impossible and aimless way of life in
which her persistence would only be the ruin of the man she thought of
as her child. This contest between her instincts and her reason made
her unjust and tyrannical. She wreaked on the young man her vengeance
for her own lot in being neither young, rich, nor handsome; then,
after each fit of rage, recognizing herself wrong, she stooped to
unlimited humility, infinite tenderness. She never could sacrifice to
her idol till she had asserted her power by blows of the axe. In fact,
it was the converse of Shakespeare's _Tempest_--Caliban ruling Ariel
and Prospero.

As to the poor youth himself, high-minded, meditative, and inclined to
be lazy, the desert that his protectress made in his soul might be
seen in his eyes, as in those of a caged lion. The penal servitude
forced on him by Lisbeth did not fulfil the cravings of his heart. His
weariness became a physical malady, and he was dying without daring to
ask, or knowing where to procure, the price of some little necessary
dissipation. On some days of special energy, when a feeling of utter
ill-luck added to his exasperation, he would look at Lisbeth as a
thirsty traveler on a sandy shore must look at the bitter sea-water.