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 overwhelmed her. On these other occasions solace in the usual form had usually quickly offered itself. She sighed as she considered her weakness and for a moment she envied Tamara, that Georgian queen who lured her lovers to her palace in the mountains, where they danced, ate, drank, loved, and then were stabbed by the satiated monarch, who caused their bodies to be tossed into the roaring torrent beneath her window. Only for a brief space did she envy Tamara, for almost immediately it was apparent to her how much more satisfactory was her own manner of desire; her own love was so lasting, gave her pleasure for so many months; even the subsequent pain, the tragic metamorphosis to disillusion, was not an emotion to be lightly regarded. Sometimes, indeed, in retrospect, the Countess almost believed that it was the pain that gave her the most vital happiness; that it was for this that she seemed destined, realizing dimly what was always ahead of her, to interminably repeat the pattern. However that might be, she summed up the whole matter in a single phrase: what had happened, it came to her with an anticipatory thrill, both delicious and agonizing, both perturbed and undisturbed by the knowledge that this affair would assuredly end as the others had ended, was what had always happened, always would happen: she had again fallen in love. She weighed herself: her capacity for experiencing the amorous passion appeared to be immeasurable; she saw herself as a