Sealed Lips — page 172: what you’re looking at

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

164 SEALED LIPS, the complete annihilation of his body seemed to him a happy and salutary diversion. The blinding dust, the scorching sun, his choking thirst are to him like caresses when he thinks of the hours that he passed not long since, in his comfortable cham- ber in Paris, lulled by the pleasures of luxurious hospitality and his soul torn by a hopeless agony. Oh! if only this torture would calm down! If only a sympathetic voice would promise him that he should forget at the last turn of the road, with what joy he would ride for days, entire weeks even with- out complaint. To only forget! Each bounding step cried out aname, acrowd of inexorable re- membrances, invisible but tenacious, and never changing, haunted him. When Mohammed turned in his red leather saddle to see if all was well, his great dark eyes made the young man tremble as he thought of that other look, which asked him with such silent despair the tender question, to which he had replied by a falsehood. It was so as not to tell the truth, for now, above all times, he must keep silent; it was to lie more surely, that he had gone far from her to this great wall of mountains, at the foot of which he could confide his secret to the rocks and trees, the sole confidants of his trouble. They were nearing their destination; already the hillocks began to appear, clusters of pine trees were to be seen. Before undertaking the steep ascent the guide, by a motion of his hand, advised a short halt, for he made ita point of honor, and felt that Gomiucl O}( 0) KS (Cl QO)