He goes to-morrow, so far so good, but what of the intervening period?
Could any more refined torture be imagined than that I, who love her as
I love my own soul, should have to sit here, whilst scarcely a mile
away, probably at this very moment as I write, that gross brute is
privileged to kiss her, to look at her, to--oh! it's unbearable. When I
think of that hog, for though I've never seen him, I've seen his
photograph, and I know instinctively that he _is_ gross, fresh, as she
says, from a drinking bout, should at this moment be permitted to raise
his pigs' eyes and look into those glorious wells of violet light; when
I think that his is the privilege to see those masses of black hair
fall in uncontrolled splendour, then I understand to the full the deep
pleasures of murder.
I would give anything to destroy this man, and could shake the
Englishman by the hand who fires the delivering bullet!
Steady! Steady! What do I write? No! I mean it, every word of it. Yet
of all the mysteries, and to me Zoe is a mass of them, surely the
strangest of all is contained in the question: Why does she live with
him?
She doesn't love him, she's practically told me so. In fact, I know she
doesn't. Let me reason it out by logic. She lives with him, whether
voluntarily or involuntarily. Suppose it be voluntarily, then her
reasons must be (a) Love; (b) Fascination; (c) Some secret reason. If
she is living with him involuntarily it must be: (d) He has a hold on
her; (e) For financial reasons.
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