In all Catherine's appearances you feel the impulse towards satisfaction of a soul frustrated of its passion, avenging itself on the body that betrayed it. It has killed Catherine's body. It will kill Heathcliff's; for it _must_ get through to him. And he knows it. Heathcliff's brutalities, his cruelties, the long-drawn accomplishment of his revenge, are subordinate to this supreme inner drama, this wearing down of the flesh by the lust of a remorseless spirit. Here are the last scenes of the final act. Heathcliff is failing. "'Nelly,' he says, 'there's a strange change approaching: I'm in its shadow at present. I take so little interest in my daily life, that I hardly remember to eat or drink. Those two who have left the room'" (Catherine Linton and Hareton) "'are the only objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me.... Five minutes ago, Hareton seemed a personification of my youth, not a human being: I felt to him in such a variety of ways that it would have been impossible to have accosted him rationally. In the first place, his startling likeness to Catherine connected him fearfully with her. That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least: for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped in the flags? In every cloud, in every tree--filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day--I am devoured with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women--my own features--mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her.'... "'But what do you mean by a _change_, Mr. Heathcliff?' I said, alarmed at his manner.... "'I shall not know till it comes,' he said, 'I'm only half conscious of it now.'" A few days pass. He grows more and more abstracted and detached. One morning Nelly Dean finds him downstairs, risen late. "I put a basin of coffee before him. He drew it nearer, and then rested his arms on the table, and looked at the opposite wall, as I supposed, surveying one particular portion, up and down, with glittering, restless eyes, and with such eager interest that he stopped breathing during half a minute together.... "'Mr. Heathcliff! master!' I cried, 'don't, for God's sake stare as if you saw an unearthly vision.' "'Don't, for God's sake, shout so loud,' he replied. 'Turn round, and tell me, are we by ourselves?' "'Of course,' was my answer, 'of course we are.' "Still, I involuntarily obeyed him, as if I were not quite sure. With a sweep of his hand he cleared a space in front of the breakfast-things, and leant forward more at his ease.