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surface--not a shade on their enamel--not an indenture in their
edges--but what that period of her smile had sufficed to brand in upon
my memory. I saw them now even more unequivocally than I beheld
them then. The teeth!--the teeth!--they were here, and there, and
everywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long, narrow, and
excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in the
very moment of their first terrible development. Then came the full
fury of my monomania, and I struggled in vain against its strange and
irresistible influence. In the multiplied objects of the external world
I had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these I longed with a phrenzied
desire. All other matters and all different interests became absorbed in
their single contemplation. They--they alone were present to the mental
eye, and they, in their sole individuality, became the essence of
my mental life. I held them in every light. I turned them in every
attitude. I surveyed their characteristics. I dwelt upon their
peculiarities. I pondered upon their conformation. I mused upon the
alteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them in
imagination a sensitive and sentient power, and even when unassisted by
the lips, a capability of moral expression. Of Mademoiselle Salle it
has been well said, "Que tous ses pas etaient des sentiments," and
of Berenice I more seriously believed que toutes ses dents etaient des
idees. Des idees!--ah here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me!
Des idees!--ah therefore it was that I coveted them so madly! I felt
that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace, in giving me
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