"Do you remember," Casti continued, "when all my talk used to be
about Rome, and how I planned to see it one day--see it again. I
should say? Strange to think that I really was born in Rome. I used
to call myself a Roman, you know, and grow hot with pride when I
thought of it. Those were dreams. Oh, I was to do wonderful things!
Poetry was to make me rich, and then I would go and live in Italy,
and fill my lungs with the breath of the Forum, and write my great
Epic. How good that we can't foresee our lives!"
"I wish to heaven," Waymark exclaimed, when they were parting, "that
you would be a man and shake this monstrous yoke from off your neck!
It is that that is killing you. Give yourself a chance. Defy
everything and make yourself free."
Julian shook his head sadly.
"Too late! I haven't the courage. My mind weakens with my body."
He went to his lodgings, and, as he anticipated, found that Harriet
had not yet come home. She was almost always out very late, and he
had learnt too well what t expect on her return. In spite of her
illness, of which she made the most when it suited her purpose, she
was able t wander about at all hours with the acquaintances her
husband did not even know by name, and Julian had no longer the
strength even to implore her to have pity on him.
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