"I want to tell you something," I said: "I want to tell you all."
"Speak, Lucy; come near; speak. Who prizes you, if I do not? Who is
your friend, if not Emanuel? Speak!"
I spoke. All escaped from my lips. I lacked not words now; fast I
narrated; fluent I told my tale; it streamed on my tongue. I went back
to the night in the park; I mentioned the medicated draught--why it
was given--its goading effect--how it had torn rest from under my
head, shaken me from my couch, carried me abroad with the lure of a
vivid yet solemn fancy--a summer-night solitude on turf, under trees,
near a deep, cool lakelet. I told the scene realized; the crowd, the
masques, the music, the lamps, the splendours, the guns booming afar,
the bells sounding on high. All I had encountered I detailed, all I
had recognised, heard, and seen; how I had beheld and watched himself:
how I listened, how much heard, what conjectured; the whole history,
in brief, summoned to his confidence, rushed thither, truthful,
literal, ardent, bitter.
|