Dragonwyck

Her lips were drawn to his like a moth to a flame.

He was all sin and mystery, and Miranda feared the pleasures he offered as she feared the fires of hell. Yet when she succumbed at last, it was not because her body was weak but because her mind was curious.

Miranda looked up at him through a haze of desire, her will consumed by a fierce crackling heat, just like the dry twigs of the old woman's fire.

Yes," Nicholas replied, in a bored voice. "The name is Dutch. Dragonwyck, meaning place of the dragon. It derives from an Indian legend about a flying serpent whose eyes were fire and whose flaming breath withered the corn." "Heavens!" With a light laugh, Miranda asked her new employer if the red men had sent forth a champion to do battle with the dragon. The patroon's face was dark, unsmiling. "To appease him the wise men of the tribe sacrificed a pure maiden on the rocky bluff you see above you." Miranda's laughter died. Something in Nicholas Van Ryn's cruel, handsome features made her imagine herself in the Indian maiden's place.

Her body consented willingly to all that her soul found most abhorrent. As Nicholas had promised, there was a hellish delight in knowing she was damned.

He wasn't strong. He was weak. The weakest thing in the world. A man who lives only for himself

Miranda was shocked to hear Nicholas speak of slavery in glowing terms, as an efficient agricultural system. This wasn't the South! Yet as she surveyed her employer's strong dark profile in secret from beneath her long lashes, she was forced to conclude that the role of master suited Nicholas Van Ryn perfectly. Even when she closed her eyes, the impression of cruelty and power remained. But it was herself she saw as the darky slave, stripped of her free will and trembling at her master's approach.

God's will usually seemed to coincide with her father's, and against this partnership there was no hope of appeal.

all cruelty and passion must burn away at last to leave behind them only pity.

She had not, as yet, enough introspection to realize that part of his fascination for her had arisen from his unpredictability, and her conception of him as a mysterious being from a superior world who had miraculously condescended to desire her. Nor did she realize how tightly she was enmeshed by his physical attraction, a bondage woven not only from the magnetism of his body but from the very fear and pain he caused her

How can he be so cruel to me at times—and then like this? she thought. And again her awakening perceptions gave her the answer. He would hurt her himself, take pleasure in doing so, but he would not allow her to be injured by anyone or anything else

in that hushed hour between midnight and dawn when Morpheus’ sable hands touch the rosy finger tips of Aurora and even the fairies are slumbering on their flowery couches,

Look, bimba—In my country we have a—how you say?—a proverb. Amare, cantare, mangiare.—Loving, singing, eating—these are God’s three gifts. You don’ need more.

I guess every disaster, every tragedy in the world, my lad, is caused by someone’s selfishness and refusal to recognize the rights of others.

And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.

You’ve read some of my stuff?” he asked eagerly, adding with bitterness, “ ‘The Raven,’ I suppose. Such fame as I have appears to rest entirely on the plumage of that gloomy bird.