But--she
remembered it now--when her child was born, this little waif, the fruit
of a man's hot, malicious hour, she wrapped it in her arms, pressed its
delicate flesh to the silken folds of her bosom, and weeping, whispered
only: "My child, my little, little child!"
She had never, as many a wife far from her husband has done, talked to
her child of its father, told it of his beauty and his virtues, arrayed
it day by day in sweet linen and pretty adornments, as if he were just
then knocking at her door; she had never imagined what he would say when
he did come. What could such a father think of his child, born of a
woman whose very life he had intended as an insult? No, she had loved
it for father and mother also. She had tried to be good, a good mother,
living a life unutterably lonely, hard in all that it involved of study,
new duty, translation, and burial of primitive emotions. And with all
the care and tearful watchfulness that had been needed, she had grown so
proud, so exacting--exacting for her child, proud for herself.
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