Rezanov by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
page 6 of 289 (02%)
page 6 of 289 (02%)
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passion flames. This child woman will go with him.
Ah, but the church, the king of Spain, will they per- mit? And the Czar! Rezanov will see to it that the Czar will clear the way for them through power exercised at Rome and at Madrid. Conditioned upon this, the girl's parents consent. These lovers prate very little of love. Their desire runs too deep for mere speech. It is a desire made up of as much spiritual as carnal fire. It is fierce but steady in ecstacy and agony, indistinguish- able the one from the other. Rezanov, man of the great world, it purifies. Concha it strengthens and makes indomitable. They will abide delay. They will endure in faith and hope--the faith and hope both dimmed by the vague and unshakable intui- tion or premonition that fate has marked them for derision. Nevertheless, they will endure. There is a meeting on a path that overlooks where the white seas strike their tents. It is a meeting of little action, of few words. It is tense with the almost inexpressible, but at its end, confronting the doubtful future, realizing that when Rezanov goes he may not return, this girl tells him: "I will give myself to you forever, how much or little that may mean here on earth. Forever!" And then that scene in the moonlight amid the scent of the Cas- tilian roses, when Concha, as signal of her trust in her lover, lifts the little wisps of hair that conceal |
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