“The lightnings that flashed from the old man’s eyes, the beatings of his beard against his breast, and his fiery language, made him like to a god. Overcome by his majesty, I fell at the father’s knees, and asked pardon for my anger. ‘My son,’ he replied, in a tone so mild that a feeling of remorse entered my soul, ‘it was not for myself that I reprimanded you. Alas! you are right, my dear child: I have done but very little in these forests, and God has no servant more unworthy than myself. But, my son, it is Heaven--Heaven, I say--that should never be accused! Pardon me if I have offended you, and let us listen to your sister. There may still perhaps be some remedy; do not let us tire of hoping. Chactas, the religion which has made a virtue of hope is a Divine religion!’ “‘My young friend,’ resumed Atala, ‘you have been a witness of my struggles, and nevertheless you have seen but the smallest portion of them. I concealed the rest from you. No; the black slave who moistens the hot sands of the Floridas with his sweat is less miserable than Atala has been. Urging you to flight, and yet certain to die if you left me; fearful of flying with you to the desert, and still panting after the shade of the woods--ah! if it had only been required of me to abandon my relations, my friends, my country! if even (frightful thought!) I should only have incurred the loss of my soul! But thy shadow, O my mother! thy shadow was always there, reminding me of thy tortures! I heard thy complaints; I saw the flames of hell consuming thee. My nights were barren, and haunted by phantoms, my days were disconsolate; the evening dew dried as it fell upon my burning skin; I opened my lips to the breezes, and the breezes, far from refreshing me, became heated with the fire of my breath. What torture it was for me, Chactas, to see you constantly near me, far from all mankind, in the depths of the solitude, and to feel that there was an invincible barrier between you and myself! To have passed my life at your feet, to have waited upon you like a slave, to have prepared your repasts and your couch in some unknown corner of the universe, would have been for me supreme happiness. That happiness was within my reach, yet I could not enjoy it. What plans I have imagined! What dreams have passed through this sad heart of mine! Occasionally, when I fixed my eyes upon you, I went so far as to encourage desires that were as foolish as they were culpable: sometimes I wished I were the only creature living with you upon the earth: at other times, feeling a divinity that stopped me in my horrible transports, I seemed to desire that that divinity might be annihilated, provided that, pressed in your arms, I might roll from abyss to abyss with the ruins of God and of the world! Even now--shall I say it?--now that eternity is about to swallow me up, that I am going to appear before the inexorable Judge; at the moment when, from obedience