He set his teeth hard, and his fingers clinched as if longing to crush something; and then came a great revulsion, a fierce spasm of remorse, and his features writhed.
"Sinful? Ay! Cruel? O my lost youth! my cursed and wrecked manhood! If there be a hell blacker than my miserable soul, man has not dreamed of nor language painted it. What would I not give for a fresh, pure, and untrampled heart, such as slumbers peacefully in yonder room, with no damning recollections to scare sleep from her pillow? Innocent childhood!"
He threw himself into a chair, and hid his face in his hands; and thus an hour went by, during which he neither moved nor sighed.
Tearing the veil from the past, he reviewed it calmly, relentlessly, vindictively, and at last, rising, he threw his head back, with his wonted defiant air, and his face hardened and darkened as he approached the marble mausoleum, and laid his hand upon the golden key.
"Too late! too late! I can not afford to reflect. The devil himself would shirk the reading of such a record."
He fitted the key in the lock, but paused and laughed scornfully as he slung it back on his chain.
"Pshaw! I am a fool! After all, I shall not need to see them, the silly, childish mood has passed."
He filled a silver goblet with some strong spicy wine, drank it, and taking down Candide, brightened the gas jets, lighted a fresh cigar, and began to read as he resumed his walk: "Lord of himself; that heritage of woe--That fearful empire which the human breast But holds to rob the heart within of rest."