Nepenthe--it's sunshine, its relentless paganism--had done the rest. It
shattered his earlier outlook and gave him nothing in exchange.
Nothing, and yet everything. That vision of Angelina! It filled his
inner being with luxurious content; content and uncertainty. It was
there, at the back of every dream, of every intimate thought and every
little worldly phrase that he uttered. He was like a man who, looking
long at the sun, sees its image floating in heaven, on earth--wherever
he casts his eye. Angelina! Nothing else was of any account. How would
it all end? He drifted along in blissful apprehension of what the next
day might bring. She seemed to have become genuinely well-disposed
towards him of late, though in rather a mocking, maternal sort of
fashion.
The poetic vein had definitely run dry. Impossible to make things
rhyme, somehow. Perhaps his passion was too strong for technical
restraints. He tried his hand at prose:
"Your eyes bewilder me. I would liken you to a shaft of sunlight, a
withering flame--a black flame, if such there be--for your grace and
ardour is even as a flame.
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