He struggled off the bed, lurched a little and
nearly fell.
"Don't you see I'm not like you? We're intrinsically different. I might
have been like you--once. It's too late now. If I'd been trusted before
this thing gripped me so tight--Marcella, the thing that makes other
people do hard things is missing in me! I've killed it by drinking and
lying! I'm without moral sense, Marcella! Can't you see? I'm castrated
in my mind! There's lots of people like that."
"I don't understand you, Louis," she said weakly. "And--and I haven't
got a dictionary to look up things." He was not listening to her. He
went on raving.
"You mustn't trust me! Do you hear? If a doctor got hold of me, he'd
lock me up! And that would do no real good! Nobody wants to help a
drunkard, nobody tells him how to get a hold on himself. They're
barbarous to us--like they were to the lepers and the loonies in the
Bible."
"I'm not barbarous, Louis. Oh, my dear, my dear--you know I'd do
anything."
"No, but you're a fool and don't understand! Why can't some wise person
do something for me? Marcella, you're a fool, I tell you. You don't
know. You don't understand when I'm lying to you. God, why aren't you
sharp enough--or dirty enough yourself--to see that I'm brain and bone,
a liar? You didn't know that I was drinking champagne at lunch to-day,
did you? Violet would have known! You didn't know I'd two flasks of
whisky in my pockets, and kept getting rid of you a minute to have a
swig, did you? If only you were a liar yourself, you'd understand that I
was!"
She sat back against the foot of the bed, feeling as though all her
bones had melted away.
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