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Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924

"Chance"

He must have been bereft of his senses. She must fatally
detest and fear him. Nothing could make up for such brutality. And yet
somehow he resented this very attitude which seemed to him completely
justifiable. Surely he was not too monstrous (morally) to be looked at
frankly sometimes. But no! She wouldn't. Well, perhaps, some day . . .
Only he was not going ever to attempt to beg for forgiveness. With the
repulsion she felt for his person she would certainly misunderstand the
most guarded words, the most careful advances. Never! Never!
It would occur to Anthony at the end of such meditations that death was
not an unfriendly visitor after all. No wonder then that even young
Powell, his faculties having been put on the alert, began to think that
there was something unusual about the man who had given him his chance in
life. Yes, decidedly, his captain was "strange." There was something
wrong somewhere, he said to himself, never guessing that his young and
candid eyes were in the presence of a passion profound, tyrannical and
mortal, discovering its own existence, astounded at feeling itself
helpless and dismayed at finding itself incurable.


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