Zofloya

Dare my guilty heart admit the horrible acknowledgement that I love you still?

She turned of an ashy paleness as cold hatred and desire for revenge took possession of her vindictive soul.

Wretch! by the time you receive this, I shall be far from pursuit, if such your meanness or your revenge should lead you to attempt. Know that it was I who directed to your faithless and unworthy breast that hand which failed in executing its office!—it was I who intended, and who hoped, that the accursed stilletto, which erred in its duty, should have found a bloody sheath in the recesses of your heart! Yes, miscreant, it was Megalina strozzi, who beheld you on the Laguna, accompanied by the minion, whose temerity robbed her of your love—oh! and if a look could kill, mine should have blasted her to the earth!

Victoria’s heart was a stranger to every gentle, noble, or superior feeling. The ambitious, the selfish, the wild, and the turbulent were her’s. Her’s were the stormy passions of the soul, goading on to ruin and despair—Berenza’s were mild, philosophic, though proudly tenacious. His were as the even stream, calm, yet deep—her’s as the foaming cataract, rushing headlong from the rocky steep, and raging in the abyss below! She was not susceptible of a single sentiment, vibrating from a tender movement of the heart: she could not feel gratitude; she could not, therefore, feel affection. She could inflict pain without remorse, and she could bitterly revenge the slightest attempt to inflict it on herself. The wildest passions predominated in her bosom; to gratify them she possessed an unshrinking relentless soul, that would not startle at the darkest crime. Unhappy girl! whom Nature organised when offended with mankind, and whom education, that might have corrected, tended only to confirm in depravity.

No, her’s was not the countenance of a Madona—it was not of angelic mould; yet, though there was a fierceness in it, it was not certainly a repelling, but a beautiful fierceness—dark, noble, strongly expressive, every lineament bespoke the mind which animated it. True, no mild, no gentle, no endearing virtues, were depicted there; but while you gazed upon her, you observed not the want of any charm. Her smile was fascination itself; and in her large dark eyes, which sparkled with incomparable radiance, you read the traces of a strong and resolute mind, capable of attempting any thing undismayed by consequences; and well and truly did they speak. Her figure, though above the middle height, was symmetry itself; she was as the tall and graceful antelope; her air was dignified and commanding, yet free from stiffness; she moved along with head erect, and with step firm and majestic; nor was her carriage ever degraded by levity or affectation.