He had thumbed it well in past years, searching it for
passages of violence and denunciation. Now holy superstition seized him
in the midst of the work of the devil, surrounding him with an almost
medieval instinct. He seized the ancient book, as it were to deliver its
incantations against everyone destroying his peace, stealing from him
that which he prized beyond all earthly things.
Take this woman away from him, this child-wife from his sixty-five years,
and what was left for him? She was the garden of spring in which his old
age roamed at ease luxuriously. She was the fruit of the tree of
pleasure. She was that which made him young again, renewed in him youth
and the joys of youth. Take her away, the flower that smelled so sweet
and luscious, the thing that he had held so often to his lips and to his
breast? Take away what was his, by every holy right, because it was all
according to the law of the land and of the Holy Gospel, and what was
left? Only old age, the empty house bereft of a fair young mistress,
something to smile at and to curse, if need be, since it was his own by
the laws of God and man.
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