have crushed her without mercy; but Louise's humble position restrained
me. I feel a pity for the weak which will be my ruin; for the weak are
pitiless towards the strong. Poor Alfred must be an excellent fellow not
to have thrown me out of the window. I was so dull with him, so
provoking, so harsh, so scoffing, that I am astonished that he could
endure me for two minutes. My nerves were in such a state of irritation
that I beheaded with my whip more than five hundred poppies along the
road. I who never have committed an assault upon any foliage, whose
conscience is innocent of the murder of a single flower! For a moment I
had a notion to ask a catafalque of the romantic Marquise. You may judge
from that the disordered state of my faculties and my compl
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