The Marble Faun Volume 1 - Page 122/130

She arose from the young man's side, and stood before him with a sad,

commiserating aspect; it was the look of a ruined soul, bewailing,

in him, a grief less than what her profounder sympathies imposed upon

herself.

"Donatello, we must part," she said, with melancholy firmness. "Yes;

leave me! Go back to your old tower, which overlooks the green valley

you have told me of among the Apennines. Then, all that has passed will

be recognized as but an ugly dream. For in dreams the conscience sleeps,

and we often stain ourselves with guilt of which we should be incapable

in our waking moments. The deed you seemed to do, last night, was

no more than such a dream; there was as little substance in what you

fancied yourself doing. Go; and forget it all!"

"Ah, that terrible face!" said Donatello, pressing his hands over his

eyes. "Do you call that unreal?"

"Yes; for you beheld it with dreaming eyes," replied Miriam. "It was

unreal; and, that you may feel it so, it is requisite that you see this

face of mine no more. Once, you may have thought it beautiful; now, it

has lost its charm. Yet it would still retain a miserable potency' to

bring back the past illusion, and, in its train, the remorse and anguish

that would darken all your life. Leave me, therefore, and forget me."

"Forget you, Miriam!" said Donatello, roused somewhat from his apathy of

despair.

"If I could remember you, and behold you, apart from that frightful

visage which stares at me over your shoulder, that were a consolation,

at least, if not a joy."

"But since that visage haunts you along with mine," rejoined Miriam,

glancing behind her, "we needs must part. Farewell, then! But if

ever--in distress, peril, shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most

poignant, whatever burden heaviest--you should require a life to be

given wholly, only to make your own a little easier, then summon me! As

the case now stands between us, you have bought me dear, and find me of

little worth. Fling me away, therefore! May you never need me more! But,

if otherwise, a wish--almost an unuttered wish will bring me to you!"

She stood a moment, expecting a reply. But Donatello's eyes had again

fallen on the ground, and he had not, in his bewildered mind and

overburdened heart, a word to respond.

"That hour I speak of may never come," said Miriam. "So

farewell--farewell forever."

"Farewell," said Donatello.

His voice hardly made its way through the environment of unaccustomed

thoughts and emotions which had settled over him like a dense and dark

cloud. Not improbably, he beheld Miriam through so dim a medium that she

looked visionary; heard her speak only in a thin, faint echo.