So those splendid and tumultuous creatures with their magnetism
and their passions--those two that I really loved--have gone from
this earth. It is no doubt best for them. What would Nancy have
made of Edward if she had succeeded in living with him; what
would Edward have made of her? For there was about Nancy a
touch of cruelty--a touch of definite actual cruelty that made her
desire to see people suffer. Yes, she desired to see Edward suffer.
And, by God, she gave him hell.
She gave him an unimaginable hell. Those two women pursued
that poor devil and flayed the skin off him as if they had done it
with whips. I tell you his mind bled almost visibly. I seem to see
him stand, naked to the waist, his forearms shielding his eyes, and
flesh hanging from him in rags. I tell you that is no exaggeration
of what I feel. It was as if Leonora and Nancy banded themselves
together to do execution, for the sake of humanity, upon the body
of a man who was at their disposal. They were like a couple of
Sioux who had got hold of an Apache and had him well tied to a
stake. I tell you there was no end to the tortures they inflicted
upon him.
Night after night he would hear them talking; talking; maddened,
sweating, seeking oblivion in drink, he would lie there and hear
the voices going on and on.
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