Oh, Rose, Rose, I am an
inexpressibly wretched woman!"
She caught the little warm hands, sympathizingly outstretched towards
her, and pressed them to her neck, where the veins throbbed fast.
"No, don't pity me yet--only listen to me. I am so tired of living on
husks, I seem to be nothing but a husk myself, brainless, soulless,
and empty. I am so tired of sham and pretence, of keeping up
appearances. I hate appearances. They are all false, unreal, loathsome.
Yes, I am a well-trained puppet; I smile and chatter, dance and sing,
am haughtily self-satisfied; but at night--at night my sick heart
cries like a starving child, and I pace the floor with it until I fear
that its wailings will drive me mad. I heap insults on my darling, and
profess to scorn his tenderness, and all the time I could fly to him,
and rain caresses upon him, and hold him closely folded in the arms of
my love perpetually. No, he is not to blame, and Wanda is not to
blame, for all this wretchedness. I don't understand how a woman can
hate her rival. The fact of their loving the same object gives them a
closer kinship than that between twin sisters.
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