José — page 289: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

282 JOSE. attached to him as firmly as the hopes of a devotee to Paradise, but though I would willingly forfeit my life for him I could never be his. Pepita is like the wild bird, and not adapted to the manners of well- bred people; all her love is powerless to balance her deficiencies. Not for the world would she exchange a short lived moment of bliss for the torturing neces- sity of again renouncing home and happiness, just | because she is different from others and cannot change herself.” “Jose, but a word!” cried Green, leaping to his feet. “No! no!” she interrupted him, extending both hands to keep him back. “Manya night have I wrestled with myself before arriving at a clear — understanding; happiness to me is a forbidden Paradise from which the angel with the sword will drive me back into the desert.” Bob uttered a short growl, and gazed moodily at the floor. Green had succeeded in seizing one of her hands and firmly held it clasped in his. “Shall we have not one calm word, Pepita?” he demanded. “I can so well understand your feeling and appreciate the motives that caused you to plunge into the wilderness as well, indeed, as if every point had been made clear to me, but do you on that score wish to blot out the happiness from both our lives. You are strong. Pepita; your mind is master of your will, and you have conquered more difficult obstacles than that which now so formidably looms up before your vision. I will not now urge you to anything from selfish motives; but go back with us to civilization; only let me care for you one year—one year in which you shall not once see me; then I will ask you to decide. You are yet Eomichooks.co m