He keeps much in his
rooms, and communes almost exclusively with the dead. He finds the
dead alone truly satisfactory. Priscilla loves him still and will
always love him, but she is very busy and has little time to think.
She does not let him give her children lessons; instead he plays with
them, and grows old and patient apace.
And now having finished my story, there is nothing left for me to
do but stand aside and watch Priscilla and her husband walking
hand-in-hand farther and farther away from me up a path which I
suppose is the path of glory, into something apparently golden and
rosy, something very glowing and full of promise, that turns out on
closer scrutiny to be their future. It certainly seems radiant enough
to the superficial observer. Even I, who have looked into her soul
and known its hungers, am a little dazzled. Let it not however be
imagined that a person who has been truthful so long as myself is
going to lapse into easy lies at the last, and pretend that she was
uninterruptedly satisfied and happy for the rest of her days.
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