Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter XXXII. Nooks in the human heart.
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TttE SKJUTS-BOY. 269
prepared his favourite dishes for him, and he enjoyed her smiling
lips and friendly words. But ber painful inward strife, ber
ang#fish, ber heart-rending prayers, as she besought the ##Iost
]-Iigh, upon ber knecs, fo grant ber power fo enable ber fo forgeg
l#im, whose naine she did no# even dare fo proclaim, but who
was hcr only and stcadfast though# ;–all this Wir6n did nog
see. Ite did hot even divine what passions and emotio.ns were
raging within #rirginia’s cold bosom.
"Passion," says a celebrated author, "resembles the sphinx
of olden rimes" at firs#, i# raises wi#hin the human heart a
beautiful head crowned with the flowers of imagination, uplifting
ifs eyes towards heaven with a stalle of innocence ; then if
grows up, and becomes a lion, whose strength is the more awful
as the hear# that feeds it is more noble. It sits thre#teningly
near the verge of the abyss, and demands an answer fo the
enigma of lire ; and woe fo him who dates fo deceive it !"
Assessor Wirén stood before his wife with ]3orgenstierna’s
letter in his hand, and heard ber say, in her old icy manner,
"Such things happcn every day !"–but he, nevertheless, saw, ai
the saine moment, the smile that played over ber lips, which
warmed and delighted his hear#; then if appeared fo him as
though he was awaking from a long dream; and he thought, for
the first rime, that this smile might be a studied mockery, as
one can cause a wired doll fo smile. The false play of hér lips
contrasted dis#tstingly with her snow-white cheeks, from which,
a few seconds before, every trace of colour had vanished.
"You smile, #irginia–why do you smile?" imlt#ired Wirén,
in a sharp, almost severe tone.
#ir#nia’s smile had disappeared ; she arose, her be«.ring was
still more stiff than usual, and, with a slight motion of ber head,
she answcred-
"You shall never again bave cau, sc fo put such a question fo
me. I shall stalle no more."
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