Page 187
"Are you telling me," I demanded, "that you mean to leave me again for this creature? You think I will stand for it?"
"And what are you saying to me, Marius, that you will force me?" Her voice was low, distant.
"But you've told me you're weak, you've told me you're a slave. Is this not asking for me to force you?"
She shook her head. She was ready to weep. Again I wanted to pull down her hair, to see it loose, to take the jewels out of it. I wanted to take her face in my hands.
I did it. I held her face too roughly.
"Pandora, listen to me," I said. "One hundred years ago, I learnt from a strange mortal that in your wanderings with this creature you circled again and again the city of Dresden. And learning this, I moved myself to this city to wait for you. Not a night has passed that I have not awakened to look through Dresden to find you.
"Now that I have you in my arms I have no intention of abandoning you. "
She shook her head. She seemed for a moment incapable of speech. I felt that she was imprisoned in her strange fashionable garments and lost in some painful reverie.
"But what can I give you, Marius, but what you've already learnt? The knowledge that I live still, that I endure, that I wander? With or without Arjun, what does it matter?"
She turned her eyes to me, wondering.
"And what do I learn from you except that you go on, and that you endure¡ªthat those demons in Rome did not destroy you as they claimed, that you were burnt, yes, I can see that in the color of your skin, but you survive. Marius, what more is there?"
"What on Earth are you saying!" I demanded. I was suddenly furious. "Pandora, we have each other! Good Lord. We have time. As we come together now, time begins for us all over again!"
"Does it, Marius? I don't know," she replied. "Marius, I'm not strong enough. "
"Pandora, that's mad!" I said.
"Oh, you are so angry and it is so like our quarrels of old. "
"No, it's not!" I declared. "It's nothing like our quarrels of old because it's about nothing. Now I'm taking you from here. I'm taking you to my palace, and I shall deal with Arjun as best as I can afterwards. "
"You can't do such a thing," she said sharply. "Marius, I've been with him for hundreds of years. You think you can simply come between us?"
"I want you, Pandora. I shall settle for nothing else. And if such a time comes that you want to leave me¡ª. "
"Yes, and what if it does come," she said angrily, "then what shall I do when there is no Arjun on account of you!"
I fell silent. I was in a rage. She was staring at me intently. Her face was full of feeling. Her breast heaved under the tight satin.
"Do you love me?" I demanded.
"Completely," she said in her angry voice.
"Then you are coming with me!"
I took her by the hand.
No one moved to stop us as we left the palace.
As soon as I had her in the carriage, I kissed her wantonly as mortals kiss and wanted to sink my teeth into her throat but she forbade it.
"Let me have that intimacy!" I begged. "For the love of Heaven, Pandora, it's Marius who is speaking to you. Listen to me. Let us share blood and blood. "
"Don't you think I want to?" she asked. "I'm afraid. "
"Afraid of what?" I demanded. "Tell me what you fear. I'll make it vanish. "
The carriage rolled on out of Dresden and through the forest towards my palace.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187 (Reading here)
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203