And day after day Leonora would
come to him and would announce the results of their
deliberations.
They were like judges debating over the sentence upon a criminal;
they were like ghouls with an immobile corpse in a tomb beside
them. I don't think that Leonora was any more to blame than the
girl--though Leonora was the more active of the two. Leonora, as I
have said, was the perfectly normal woman. I mean to say that in
normal circumstances her desires were those of the woman who is
needed by society. She desired children, decorum, an
establishment; she desired to avoid waste, she desired to keep up
appearances. She was utterly and entirely normal even in her
utterly undeniable beauty. But I don't mean to say that she acted
perfectly normally in this perfectly abnormal situation. All the
world was mad around her and she herself, agonized, took on the
complexion of a mad woman; of a woman very wicked; of the
villain of the piece. What would you have? Steel is a normal,
hard, polished substance. But, if you put it in a hot fire it will
become red, soft, and not to be handled. If you put it in a fire still
more hot it will drip away. It was like that with Leonora.
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