6.02.2005

Adeline "endeavoured to compose her spirits, and addressed a short prayer to that Being who had hitherto protected her in every danger. While she was thus employed, her mind gradually became elevated and re-assured; a sublime complacency filled her heart, and she sat down once more to pursue the narrative."
THE : COMING

S E N T E N C E
"Several lines that immediately followed were obliterated.--
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * 'He had told me I should not be permitted to live long, not more than three days, and bade me chuse whether I would die by poison or the sword. O the agonies of that moment! Great God! thou seest my sufferings! I often viewed, with a momentary hope of escaping, the high grated windows of my prison--all things within the compass of possibility I was resolved to try, and with an eager desperation I climbed towards the casements, but my foot slipped, and falling back to the floor, I was stunned by the blow. On recovering, the first sounds I heard were the steps of a person entering my prison. A recollection of the past returned, and deplorable was my condition. I shuddered at what was to come.'
" Just like Adeline just a page ago. " 'The same man approached; he looked at me at first with pity, but his countenance soon recovered its natural ferocity. Yet he did not then come to execute the purposes of his employer: I am reserved to another day--Great God, thy will be done!' "

Even here the manuscript appears to continue, but not our access to it: "Adeline could not go on... Her mind was now in such a state, that she found it impossible to pursue the story in the MS. though, to avoid the tortures of suspense, she had attempted it." In the end, the panic drives her to wake up the La Mottes and surrender the manuscript to Monsieur without finding out for herself how it ends--a sacrifice which brings no comfort but derision as "La Motte, for reasons best known to himself, attempted to ridicule the discovery and fears of Adeline, till she, with a seriousness that checked him, entreated he would desist." And there the matter of the manuscript seems to rest for a while.

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