commotion ceased; the blood subsided into its natural channels; my
heart resumed its place. I use such words as mortal weakness can to
express the sensations I felt. I came to myself thus, gazing at him,
confounded, at once by the extraordinary passion which I had gone
through, and its sudden cessation. "The matter?" I cried; "I don't
know what is the matter."

My father had pushed his spectacles up from his eyes. He appeared to me
as faces appear in a fever, all glorified with light which is not in
them,--his eyes glowing, his white hair shining like silver; but his
looks were severe. "You are not a boy, that I should reprove you; but you
ought to know better," he said.

Then I explained to him, so far as I was able, what had happened. Had
happened? Nothing had happened. He did not understand me; nor did I, now
that it was over, understand myself; but he saw enough to make him aware
that the disturbance in me was serious, and not caused by any folly of my
own. He was very kind as soon as he had assured himself of this, and
talked, taking pains to bring me back to unexciting subjects. He had a
letter in his hand with a very deep border of black when I came in. I
observed it, without taking any notice or associating it with anything I
knew. He had many correspondents; and although we were excellent friends,
we had never been on those confidential terms which warrant one man in
asking another from whom a special letter has come. We were not so near
to each other as this, though we were father and son. After a while I
went back to my own room, and finished the evening in my usual way,
without any return of the excitement which, now that it was over, looked
to me like some extraordinary dream. What had it meant? Had it meant
anything? I said to myself that it must be purely physical, something
gone temporarily amiss, which had righted itself. It was physical; the