contract, was neither more nor less seared, rather it seemed as if her
youth, in its full blossom, was slowly turned to stone by an anguish
intolerable because it was barren. She suffered through herself and
for herself. How could it end save in self-absorption? Ugly torturing
thoughts probed her conscience. Candid self-examination pronounced
that she was double, there were two selves within her; a woman who
felt and a woman who thought; a self that suffered and a self that
could fain suffer no longer. Her mind traveled back to the joys of
childish days; they had gone by, and she had never known how happy
they were. Scenes crowded up in her memory as in a bright mirror
glass, to demonstrate the deception of a marriage which, all that it
should be in the eyes of the world, was in reality wretched. What had
the delicate pride of young womanhood done for her--the bliss
foregone, the sacrifices made to the world? Everything in her
expressed love, awaited love; her movements still were full of perfect
grace; her smile, her charm, were hers as before; why? she asked
herself. The sense of her own youth and physical loveliness no more
affected her than some meaningless reiterated sound. Her very beauty
had grown intolerable to her as a useless thing. She shrank aghast
from the thought that through the rest of life she must remain an
incomplete creature; had not the inner self lost its power of
receiving impressions with that zest, that exquisite sense of
freshness which is the spring of so much of life's gladness? The
impressions of the future would for the most part be effaced as soon
as received, and many of the thoughts which once would have moved her
now would move her no more.

After the childhood of the creature dawns the childhood of the heart;
but this second infancy was over, her lover had taken it down with him
into the grave. The longings of youth remained; she was young yet; but