Page 738 - the-portrait-of-a-lady

howl like a wolf. I’ve a great hope, I’ve a great need, of that.
I was vile this morning; I was horrid,’ she said.
‘If Isabel was in the stupid state of mind you mention she
probably didn’t perceive it,’ Osmond answered.
‘It was precisely my deviltry that stupefied her. I couldn’t
help it; I was full of something bad. Perhaps it was some-
thing good; I don’t know. You’ve not only dried up my tears;
you’ve dried up my soul.’
‘It’s not I then that am responsible for my wife’s condi-
tion,’ Osmond said. ‘It’s pleasant to think that I shall get the
benefit of your influence upon her. Don’t you know the soul
is an immortal principle? How can it suffer alteration?’
‘I don’t believe at all that it’s an immortal principle. I be-
lieve it can perfectly be destroyed. That’s what has happened
to mine, which was a very good one to start with; and it’s
you I have to thank for it. You’re very bad,’ she added with
gravity in her emphasis.
‘Is this the way we’re to end?’ Osmond asked with the
same studied coldness.
‘I don’t know how we’re to end. I wish I did! How do bad
people end?-especially as to their common crimes. You have
made me as bad as yourself.’
‘I don’t understand you. You seem to me quite good
enough,’ said Osmond, his conscious indifference giving an
extreme effect to the words.
Madame Merle’s self-possession tended on the contrary
to diminish, and she was nearer losing it than on any occa-
sion on which we have had the pleasure of meeting her. The
glow of her eye turned sombre; her smile betrayed a painful

738 The Portrait of a Lady