Emma expatiated much on the misery of
earthly affections, and the eternal isolation in which the heart remains
entombed.
To show off, or from a naive imitation of this melancholy which called
forth his, the young man declared that he had been awfully bored during
the whole course of his studies. The law irritated him, other vocations
attracted him, and his mother never ceased worrying him in every one
of her letters. As they talked they explained more and more fully the
motives of their sadness, working themselves up in their progressive
confidence. But they sometimes stopped short of the complete exposition
of their thought, and then sought to invent a phrase that might express
it all the same. She did not confess her passion for another; he did not
say that he had forgotten her.
Perhaps he no longer remembered his suppers with girls after masked
balls; and no doubt she did not recollect the rendezvous of old when she
ran across the fields in the morning to her lover's house.
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