"Hawthorne, Nathaniel - Egotism or The Bosom Serpent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawthorne Nathaniel)

With this exclamation, Roderick lost his self-control and threw
himself upon the grass, testifying his agony by intricate writhings,
in which Herkimer could not but fancy a resemblance to the motions
of a snake. Then, likewise, was heard that frightful hiss, which often
ran through the sufferer's speech, and crept between the words and
syllables, without interrupting their succession.

"This is awful indeed!" exclaimed the sculptor- "an awful
infliction, whether it be actual or imaginary! Tell me, Roderick
Elliston, is there any remedy for this loathsome evil?"

"Yes, but an impossible one," muttered Roderick, as he lay
wallowing with his face in the grass. "Could I, for one instant,
forget myself, the serpent might not abide within me. It is my
diseased self-contemplation that has engendered and nourished him!"

"Then forget yourself, my husband," said a gentle voice above
him- "forget yourself in the idea of another!"

Rosina had emerged from the arbor, and was bending over him, with
the shadow of his anguish reflected in her countenance, yet so mingled
with hope and unselfish love, that all anguish seemed but an earthly
shadow and a dream. She touched Roderick with her hand. A tremor
shivered through his frame. At that moment, if report be
trustworthy, the sculptor beheld a waving motion through the grass,
and heard a tinkling sound, as if something had plunged into the
fountain. Be the truth as it might, it is certain that Roderick
Elliston sat up, like a man renewed, restored to his right mind, and
rescued from the fiend, which had so miserably overcome him in the
battlefield of his own breast.

"Rosina!" cried he, in broken and passionate tones, but with
nothing of the wild wail that had haunted his voice so long. "Forgive!
Forgive!"

Her happy tears bedewed his face.

"The punishment has been severe," observed the sculptor. "Even
justice might now forgive- how much more a woman's tenderness!
Roderick Elliston, whether the serpent was a physical reptile, or
whether the morbidness of your nature suggested that symbol to your
fancy, the moral of the story is not the less true and strong. A
tremendous Egotism- manifesting itself, in your case, in the form of
jealousy- is as fearful a fiend as ever stole into the human heart.
Can a breast, where it has dwelt so long, be purified?"

"Oh, yes!" said Rosina, with a heavenly smile. "The serpent was but
a dark fantasy, and what it typified was as shadowy as itself. The
past, dismal as it seems, shall fling no gloom upon the future. To