Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/55

 It need not be concealed from you that it affected me to look into the retina of two such bright and warm, up-turned eyes, without mentioning the whole warlike array of curls and lips, and forehead, and the Waterloo landscapes of the cheeks. Nadine's terror at the teeth of the brown little doctor made her more charming, and the danger of my situation greater. After holding it for some time, when I thought the operation was finished, she told me the locust had not yet touched her, as I held it two or three Parisian feet too far from the wart. It is true, I had lost myself in her net skin; but I remarked that the cure could not be accomplished, if I did not rest the ball of my right hand slightly on her cheek, in order to hold the wart-eater more firmly over the wart. Now he bit the required wound, and propelled into it as much of his corrosive fluid as he carried with him. I artfully diverted Nadine's pain, which resembled that of a pin pricking, by philosophizing. Man, I said, finds the stoic theory true and forcible for all pain, only not for the present. And when he bleeds from cut wounds, he imagines bruises heal more easily. He therefore defers his practice of the stoic-school until his own schooling is over. O, but then he stands by a running stream, waiting until the waters shall have passed. True firmness bears the bite of a locust, and rejoices at the trial!

Now the operation was happily accomplished, which could easily excite an illness in me. It is true that her countenance had inflicted a deeper wound on me than the wart-eater upon it,—I should fear and examine whether mine, which was just as near to hers, had done as much damage; but Nadine is exceedingly—young. The hearts of young girls, like new waterbutts, at first let everything drop through, until in time, the vessels swell and thus retain their contents.