Carmilla

by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love;

but I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence.

But, I suspect, in all lives there are certain emotional scenes—those in which our passions have been most wildly and terribly roused—that are above all others the most vaguely and dimly remembered.

“You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one forever.”

“But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live together.

“I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, “unless it should be with you.”

You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know.

Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood.

“and she is, if possible, a greater coward than I.”