Page:Francesca Carrara 3.pdf/5

2 been occupied with the thousand cares which his state required; to smooth his pillow, to bathe his feverish temples, to bend over him, and to try to lighten the languid hours of his weary waking, had unconsciously beguiled the time. Moreover, though she knew that his disease was fatal—though every morning she dreaded lest he should not live till night, and every night lest it should bring no morrow—still she was not prepared. Death came, and then she knew that in her heart she had believed, she had trusted, that Guido would not die. For the first time in her life, she felt that existence could be a blank. I believe this is a feeling which sooner or later is known to all. Who has not paused upon some portion of their existence, and felt its burden greater than they could bear?—who has not looked back to the past with that passion of hopelessness, which deems that life can never more be what it has been,—with a consciousness that the dearer emotions are exhausted, while in their place have arisen but vacancy and weariness? You feel as if you could never be interested in any thing again—nay you do not even desire it;—your heart is divided between bitterness and indifference.

Francesca was conscious that this moral torpor increased upon her every hour. She loathed any