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Strauch, Dora; Brockmann, Walter / Satan came to Eden
(1936)
Chapter XX: The stage is set, pp. 204-210
Page 205
The Stage Is Set 205 ware. From this it was not hard to deduce the ambitious dwelling the Baroness had it in mind to build. For further information, con- tractors were requested to inquire at "Hotel Paradise Refound." This public attack on Frederick and me naturally infuriated me at first, but afterwards I tried to treat it with the same indifference that Frederick did. Wittmer made it the more difficult to do this by informing us that we were the butt of much vituperation at the Baroness's camp, and that I especially was accused by her of much scandalous and highly vicious behavior. So far, I knew, she had not had much opportunity to spread such stories beyond her immediate and unimportant circle, but it was deeply humiliating and painful to me to think that acquaintances of ours might visit her when calling at the island, and perhaps believe the things she said. But there was nothing to do about it, and I could only hope that the good opinion of people who had found me otherwise would remain proof against her calumnies. When we are enduring great physical suffering, depression takes. more powerful hold upon us than when we are well, and at that time I was going through acute physical torment. My teeth had become so bad that they now had to be drawn, not one but all of them, and this with primitive instruments-for Frederick had not brought his dental equipment-and no anesthetic whatever. Nor did we have a single pain-relieving drug. I shall never forget the agony I went through during those weeks and months. I had suffered a great deal of pain in my life, but nothing in comparison with this. It pulled me down until my resistance was utterly gone. I was too much of a wreck to profit by my own admonitions to myself, and all the weary assurances of my mind, telling me that this woman with her malignant attacks should be a touchstone of my power over myself, were like a voice heard talking words one can under- stand but has somehow lost the meaning of. In the mental apathy and bodily torment of that period, I think I could have let myself be driven from the island and hardly known it. I felt utterly destroyed and desolate and it was only with the greatest effort that I was able to force myself to attend to the animals I was so fond of, and show them still the little marks of affection they were accustomed to receive from me. Dur-
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