Like a great autumn-leaf I fall, for I am dying,--dying!
Yes, death finds me more beautiful than life made me; but have I lost
nothing? Great Heaven, I have lost all!
A fancy comes to me, that to-day was my birthday. I have forgotten to
mark time; but if it was, I am thirty-two years old. I remember
birthdays of a child,--loving, cordial days. No one remembers to-day.
Why should they? But I ache for a little love. Thirty-two,--that is
young to die! I am too fair, too rich, for death!--not his fit spoil! Is
there no one to save me? no help? can I not escape? Ah, what a vain
eagerness! what an idle hope! Fall back again, heart! Escape? I do not
desire to. Come, come, kind rest! I am tired.
That cap-string has loosened now, and all this golden cataract of hair
has rushed out over the piled pillows. It oppresses and terrifies me. If
I could speak, it seems to me that I would ask Louise to come and bind
it up. Won't she turn and see?
Have I been asleep? What is this in my hands? The amber gods? Oh, yes! I
asked to see them again; I like their smell, I think.
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