"Hey? hey?" he went on, shaking Maria by the
shoulders. "Where is it? Is it here? Tell me where it is. Tell me, or
I'll do for you!"
"It ain't here," cried Maria, wrenching from him. "It ain't anywhere.
What gold plate? What are you talking about? I don't remember nothing
about no gold plate at all."
No, Maria did not remember. The trouble and turmoil of her mind
consequent upon the birth of her child seemed to have readjusted her
disordered ideas upon this point. Her mania had come to a crisis, which
in subsiding had cleared her brain of its one illusion. She did not
remember. Or it was possible that the gold plate she had once remembered
had had some foundation in fact, that her recital of its splendors had
been truth, sound and sane. It was possible that now her FORGETFULNESS
of it was some form of brain trouble, a relic of the dementia of
childbirth. At all events Maria did not remember; the idea of the gold
plate had passed entirely out of her mind, and it was now Zerkow who
labored under its hallucination. It was now Zerkow, the raker of the
city's muck heap, the searcher after gold, that saw that wonderful
service in the eye of his perverted mind. It was he who could now
describe it in a language almost eloquent.
Pages:
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294