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49 - Melmoth The Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin · Melmoth The Wanderer

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  Speaker 1: Kumihi known tantum for esque verai que sueta hunk visare
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  Speaker 1: lacum kurai, sunt at que labori quantum carmenebus quai wheresant
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  Speaker 1: at que guhen enis eumanus animas horace. It is inconceivable
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  Speaker 1: to me, said Dan Aliaga to himself as he pursued
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  Speaker 1: his journey the next day. It is inconceivable to me
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  Speaker 1: how this person forces himself on my company, harasses me
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  Speaker 1: with tales that have no more application to me than
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  Speaker 1: the legend of the Cid, and may be as apocryphal
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  Speaker 1: as the ballad of ren Seval. And now he has
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  Speaker 1: ridden by my side all day, and as if to
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  Speaker 1: make amends for his former, uninvited and unwelcome communicativeness, he
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  Speaker 1: has never once opened his lips. Sen horror, said the stranger,
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  Speaker 1: then speaks loking for the first time, as if he
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  Speaker 1: read Aliaga's thoughts. I acknowledge myself in error for relating
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  Speaker 1: to you a narrative in which you must have felt
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  Speaker 1: there was little to interest you. Permit me to atone
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  Speaker 1: for it by recounting to you a very brief one
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  Speaker 1: in which I flatter myself. You will be disposed to
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  Speaker 1: feel a very peculiar interest. You assure me it will
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  Speaker 1: be brief, said Aliaga. Not only so, but the last
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  Speaker 1: I shall obtrude on your patience, replied the stranger. On
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  Speaker 1: that condition, said Aliaga. In God's name, brother, proceed and
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  Speaker 1: look you handle the matter discreetly as you have said.
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  Speaker 1: There was, said the stranger, a certain Spanish merchant who
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  Speaker 1: set out prosperously in business, but after a few years,
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  Speaker 1: finding his affairs assume an unfavorable aspect. In being tempted
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  Speaker 1: by an offer of partnership with a relative who was
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  Speaker 1: settled in the East Indies, had embarked for those countries
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  Speaker 1: with his wife and son, leaving behind him an infant
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  Speaker 1: daughter in Spain. That was exactly my case, said Aliaga,
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  Speaker 1: wholly unsuspicious of the tendency of this tale. Two years
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  Speaker 1: of successful occupation restored him to opulence and to the
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  Speaker 1: hope of vast and future accumulation. Thus encouraged our Spanish
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  Speaker 1: merchant entertained ideas of settling in the East Indies and
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  Speaker 1: sent over for his young daughter with her nurse, who
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  Speaker 1: embarked for the East Indies with the first opportunity, which
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  Speaker 1: was then very rare. This reminds me exactly of what
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  Speaker 1: occurred to myself, said Aliaga, whose faculties were somewhat up
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  Speaker 1: to The nurse and infant were supposed to have perished
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  Speaker 1: in a storm which wrecked the vessel on an aisle
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  Speaker 1: near the mouth of a river, and in which the
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  Speaker 1: crew and passengers perished. It was said that the nurse
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  Speaker 1: and child alone escaped, that by some extraordinary chance, they
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  Speaker 1: arrived at this aisle, where the nurse died from fatigue
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  Speaker 1: and want of nourishment, and the child survived and grew
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  Speaker 1: up a wild and beautiful daughter of nature, feeding on
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  Speaker 1: fruits and sleeping amid roses, and drinking the pure element,
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  Speaker 1: and inhaling the harmonies of heaven, and repeating to herself
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  Speaker 1: the few Christian words her nurse had taught her, in
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  Speaker 1: answer to the melody of the birds that sung to her,
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  Speaker 1: and of the stream whose waves murmured in accordance to
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  Speaker 1: the pure and holy music of her unearthly heart. I
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  Speaker 1: never heard a word of this before, muttered Aliaga to himself.
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  Speaker 1: The stranger went on. It was said that some vessel
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  Speaker 1: in distress arrived at the isle that the captain had
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  Speaker 1: rescued this lovely, lonely being from the brutality of the sailors,
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  Speaker 1: and discovering from some remains of the Spanish tongue which
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  Speaker 1: she still spoke, and which he supposed must have been
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  Speaker 1: cultivated during the visits of some other wanderer to the Isle,
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  Speaker 1: he undertook like a man of honor to conduct her
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  Speaker 1: to her parents, whose names she could tell, though not
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  Speaker 1: their residence. So acute and tenacious is the memory of infancy.
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  Speaker 1: He fulfilled his promise, and the pure and innocent being
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  Speaker 1: was restored to her family, who were then residing in
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  Speaker 1: the city of Benares. Aliaga at these words stared with
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  Speaker 1: a look of intelligence. Somewhat ghastly, he could not interrupt
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  Speaker 1: the stranger. He drew in his breath and closed his teeth.
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  Speaker 1: I have since heard, said the stranger, that the family
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  Speaker 1: has returned to Spain, that the beautiful in sabitant of
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  Speaker 1: the foreign isle is become the idol of your cavaliers
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  Speaker 1: of Madrid, your loungers of the Prado, your sacra veenses,
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  Speaker 1: your by what other name of contempt shall I call them?
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  Speaker 1: But listen to me. There is an eye fixed on her,
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  Speaker 1: and its fascination is more deadly than that fabled of
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  Speaker 1: the snake. There is an arm extended to seize her,
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  Speaker 1: in whose grasp humanity withers. That arm even now relaxes
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  Speaker 1: for a moment. Its fibers thrill with pity and horror.
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  Speaker 1: It releases the victim for a moment. It even beckons
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  Speaker 1: her father to her aid, Don, Francisco, do you understand me? Now?
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  Speaker 1: Has this tale interest or application for you? He paused,
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  Speaker 1: but Aliaga, chilled with horror, was unable to answer him.
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  Speaker 1: But by a feeble exclamation, if it has resumed, the
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  Speaker 1: stranger lose not a moment to save your daughter, And,
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  Speaker 1: clapping spurs to his mule, he disappeared through a narrow
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  Speaker 1: passage among the rocks, apparently never intended to be trod
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  Speaker 1: by earthly traveler. Aliaga was not a man susceptible of
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  Speaker 1: strong impressions from nature, but if he had been, the
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  Speaker 1: scene amid which this mysterious warning was uttered would have
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  Speaker 1: powerfully ministered to its effect. The time was evening, a
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  Speaker 1: gray and misty twilight hung over every object. The way
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  Speaker 1: lay through a rocky road that wound among mountains, or
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  Speaker 1: rather stony hills, bleak and bare as those which the
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  Speaker 1: weary traveler through the western aisle seas, rising amid the
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  Speaker 1: moors to which they form a contrast without giving a relief.
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  Speaker 1: Heavy rains have made deep gullies amid the hills, and
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  Speaker 1: here and there a mountain stream brawled amid its stony channel,
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  Speaker 1: like a proud and noisy upstart, while the vast chasms
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  Speaker 1: that had been the beds of torrents, which once swept
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  Speaker 1: through them in thunder, now stood gaping and ghastly like
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  Speaker 1: the deserted abodes of ruined nobility. Not a sound broke
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  Speaker 1: on the stillness, except the monotonous echo of the hoofs
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  Speaker 1: of the mules answered from the hollows of the hill,
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  Speaker 1: and the screams of the birds, which, after a few
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  Speaker 1: short circles in the damp and cloudy air, flew back
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  Speaker 1: to their retreats amid the cliffs. It is almost incredible that,
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  Speaker 1: after this warning, enforced as it was by the perfect
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  Speaker 1: acquaintance which the stranger displayed of Aliaga's former life and
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  Speaker 1: family circumstances, it should not have had the effect of
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  Speaker 1: making him hurry homewards immediately, particularly as seems he thought
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  Speaker 1: it of sufficient importance to make it the subject of
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  Speaker 1: correspondence with his wife. So it was. However, at the
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  Speaker 1: moment of the stranger's departure, it was his resolution not
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  Speaker 1: to lose a moment in hastening homewards. But at the
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  Speaker 1: next stage he arrived at there were letters of business
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  Speaker 1: awaiting him. A mercantile correspondent gave him the information of
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  Speaker 1: the probable failure of a house in a distant part
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  Speaker 1: of Spain, where his speedy presence might be of vital consequence.
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  Speaker 1: There were also letters from Mantilla, his intended son in law,
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  Speaker 1: informing him that the state of his father's health was
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  Speaker 1: so precarious it was impossible to leave him till his
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  Speaker 1: fate was decided. As the decisions of fate involved equally
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  Speaker 1: the wealth of the son and the life of the father,
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  Speaker 1: Aliaga could not help thinking there was as much prudence
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  Speaker 1: as affection in this resolution. After reading these letters, Aliaga's
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  Speaker 1: mind began to flow in its usual channel. There is
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  Speaker 1: no breaking through the inveterate habitudes of a thorough paced
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  Speaker 1: mercantile mind, though one rose from the dead. Besides, by
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  Speaker 1: this time, the mysterious image of the stranger's presence and
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  Speaker 1: communications were fading fast from a mind not at all
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  Speaker 1: habituated to visionary impressions. He shook off the terrors of
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  Speaker 1: this visitation by the aid of time, and gave his
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  Speaker 1: courage the credit due to that aid. Thus we all
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  Speaker 1: deal with the illusions of the imagination with this difference,
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  Speaker 1: only that the impassioned recalled them with the tear of regret,
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  Speaker 1: and the unimaginative with the blush of shame. Aliaga set
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  Speaker 1: out for the distant part of Spain, where his his
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  Speaker 1: presence was to save this tottering house in which he
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  Speaker 1: had an extensive concern, and wrote to Donna Clara that
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  Speaker 1: it might be some months before he returned to the
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  Speaker 1: neighborhood of Madrid. End of Chapter thirty three.