Page:Auerbach-Spinozanovel.djvu/108

86 bear the future together. Almost without hope of any result, and merely to fulfil love's last duty, I sent off the letter.

My breast filled with a thousand cares and anxieties, and blaming our ancestors, who had laid on us a daily, ever-recurring, inglorious martyrdom, and doubled-faced religion, as an inheritance, I sauntered one day along the country road. There I saw a carriage advancing at a slow rate; I approached. A look, a cry, and Manuela was in my arms. As if by magical attraction had she lightly sprung over the side of the carriage. I quickly got into the conveyance with her, and drew the curtains, then drove towards the gate. Don Antonio sat by Manuela, wrapped in a large woollen rug; he, too, congratulated himself on the lucky accident that had allowed us to meet so soon.

"If I had gone much longer over hill and dale," he said, "Manuela would have brought me to you as a corpse; the journey rattled all my limbs together so, that I thought I was on the rack again. You have succeeded to your heart's content, have you not, Manuela, now you have persuaded the old fool to this long journey? Yes, yes; my life is worth nothing now; the sooner I die the better, is it not. Never mind, I shall not last long."

With a mocking laugh he scowled at us both, and pushed Manuela's arm away.

If his former refusal had seemed diabolical