Page 204 - erewhon

no sooner crossed her lips than she bowed her head, gave
me a look as though I were to make no answer, and left me.
The words were few and simple, but the manner with
which they were uttered was ineffable: the scales fell from
my eyes, and I felt that I had no right to try and induce her
to infringe one of the most inviolable customs of her coun-
try, as she needs must do if she were to marry me. I sat for
a long while thinking, and when I remembered the sin and
shame and misery which an unrighteous marriage—for as
such it would be held in Erewhon—would entail, I became
thoroughly ashamed of myself for having been so long self-
blinded. I write coldly now, but I suffered keenly at the time,
and should probably retain a much more vivid recollection
of what I felt, had not all ended so happily.
As for giving up the idea of marrying Arowhena, it never
so much as entered my head to do so: the solution must be
found in some other direction than this. The idea of waiting
till somebody married Zulora was to be no less summarily
dismissed. To marry Arowhena at once in Erewhon—this
had already been abandoned: there remained therefore but
one alternative, and that was to run away with her, and get
her with me to Europe, where there would be no bar to our
union save my own impecuniosity, a matter which gave me
no uneasiness.
To this obvious and simple plan I could see but two ob-
jections that deserved the name,—the first, that perhaps
Arowhena would not come; the second, that it was almost
impossible for me to escape even alone, for the king had
himself told me that I was to consider myself a prisoner on

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