Secure in this
fallacy, I worked myself up to the pitch of believing that I was
actually and passionately in love with a woman whose inaccessibility
was, after all, her most winning attraction. Moreover, by writing down,
in this journal, the events and words of the hours we spent together, I
confirmed myself in my false persuasion, and probably imported into the
record of what we said and did an amount of color and hidden
significance that never, as I am now convinced, belonged to it in
reality. Deluded by the notion that I was playing with a fancy, I was
suddenly aroused to find myself imbrued in facts. The whole episode has
profoundly humiliated me, and degraded me in my own esteem.
But I am not at the bottom of the mystery yet. Was I not in love with
Ethel? Surely I was, if love be anything. Then why did I not ask her to
marry me? Would she have refused me? No. That last look she gave me
from under her black veil, when I told her I was going away.... Ah, no,
she would not have refused me. Then why did I hesitate? Was not such a
marriage precisely what I have always longed for? During all these
seven years have I not been bewailing my bachelorhood, and wishing for
an Ethel to cheer my solitary fireside with her gracious presence, to
be interested in my work and hopes, to interest me in her wifely and
maternal ways and aspirations? And when at last all these things were
offered me, why did I shrink back and reject them?
Honestly, I can not explain it.
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