We shall have to leave for Switzerland, for the heat is almost
unbearable. Besides the heat, there is the Sirocco, that comes now and
then like a hot breath from Africa. The sea-breezes somewhat mitigate
the fierceness of this visitor from the desert, but it is none the
less very disagreeable.
The Sirocco acts injuriously on Mr. Davis. The doctor watches him
closely lest he should take opium, and consequently become either very
irritable or else quite stupefied. I notice that in his greatest
fits of anger he is afraid of Laura and myself. Who knows whether a
homicidal mania is not already germinating in the half-insane brain?
or maybe he is afraid we are going to kill him. Generally speaking,
my relation with him is one of the darkest sides of the part I am
enacting. I say one of the darkest, because I am fully aware that
there is more than one. I should not be my own self if I did not
perceive that my soul not only is stagnating, but is getting swiftly
corrupted in the arms of that woman. I cannot even express what
loathing, what bitterness and pangs of conscience, it caused me at
first that I should have plunged myself into the depth of sensuous
raptures so soon after the death of my father. It was not only my
conscience, but also the delicacy of feelings which I undoubtedly
possess, that revolted against it.
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