The very sight of that black
binding now irritated me; never did I pass it without experiencing a
sensation that seemed a blending of scorn and fear: scorn of the
ancestral superstitions the book gave voice to: fear of them.
One day I took the book from the shelves and then hurled it across
the room. Stumbling over it some days after this, a spasm of
ungovernable rage came upon me, for terribly was my blood struggling
with Fenella Stanley and Philip Aylwin, and thousands of ancestors,
Romany and Gorgio, who for ages upon ages had been shaping my
destiny. I began to tear out the leaves and throw them on the fire.
But suddenly I perceived the leaves to be covered with marginalia in
my father's manuscript, and with references to Fenella Stanley's
letters--letters which my father seemed to have studied as deeply as
though they were the writings of a great philosopher instead of the
scribblings of an ignorant Gypsy. My eye had caught certain written
words which caused me to clutch at the sheets still burning on the
fire. Too late!--I grasped nothing save a little paper-ash.
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