Sometimes the picture is quite the reverse. The muscles seem tense
and powerful. The eye is set and firm, ferocious in fullness. The step
is quick and heavy. The strength is doubled, and every object has to
yield to the ugliness which attacks it. The form appears to gather
passion more and more with each hour, till, at last, full of violence,
the human frame sways, heaves, and the girl breaks her mood into a
flood of scalding tears. The contest is fierce while it lasts. It is
dreadful to see beauty put on such deformity, but let us be thankful
it is soon over. If the lightning does not strike anywhere, perhaps
all will be clearer after the storm.
These violent squalls are not to be compared with those periods of
long, low mutterings, nor with those seasons of painful silence, hours
of uncertainty, which at times cloud so many girls. Why, the moods
of some persons are like yellow days, dark days, and judgment days.
A girl shuts herself up for an afternoon, for a day, for two days A
stone sepulchre is all about her, and she only reaches out of it when
she wants bread and water. She, herself, does not seem to be in her
body: she is a ghost. When we pass by her tomb-like body, perhaps a
head will nod to us, or lips will mutter monosyllables. If our dress
touches her garments we feel like begging pardon, A kind of horror
and at the same time a sort of pity invade us, yet we are paralyzed
and cannot help her.
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