When I had learned my trade, I came to the city. No
labor was too hard for me, no study too difficult. I was becoming
a new man, I saw all that was still lacking, and how to reach it,
and I watched you, unknown, at a distance. Then I heard of your
engagement: you were lost, and something of which I had begun
to dream, became insanity. I determined to trample it out of my
life. The daughter of the master-builder, whose first assistant I
was, had always favored me in her society; and I soon persuaded her
to love me. I fancied, too, that I loved her as most married men
seemed to love their wives; the union would advance me to a
partnership in her father's business, and my fortune would then be
secured. You know what happened; but you do not know how the sight
of your face planted the old madness again in my life, and made me
a miserable husband, a miserable man of wealth, almost a scoffer at
the knowledge I had acquired for your sake.
"When my wife died, taking an only child with her, there was
nothing left to me except the mechanical ambition to make myself,
without you, what I imagined I might have become, through you.
Pages:
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405