[The Tragic Comedians by George Meredith]@TWC D-Link bookThe Tragic Comedians CHAPTER IV 5/40
So, I, as the weaker, had to perish, as he would have done had I been the stronger; I admitted it, and sent my emperor my respectful adieux, with directions for the avoiding of assassins. Mademoiselle, by delaying your departure seven days you would have saved me from death.
You see, the official is the artificial man, and I ought to have known there is no natural man left in us to weigh against the artificial.
I counted on the emperor's personal affection, forgetting that princes cannot be our friends.' 'You died bravely ?' Clotilde entered into the extravagance with a happy simulation of zest. 'Simply, we will say.
My time had come, and I took no sturdy pose, but let the life-stream run its course for a less confined embankment. Sapphire sea, sapphire sky: one believes in life there, thrills with it, when life is ebbing: ay, as warmly as when life is at the flow in our sick and shrivelled North--the climate for dried fish! Verily the second death of hearing that a gold-haired Lucretia had been on the island seven days earlier, was harder to bear.
Tell me frankly--the music in Italy ?' 'Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous.' 'Excellent!' his eyes flashed delightedly.
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