They have not come, and they will
not come. The longer they put off their coming, the less they are
likely to give me this joy. I know them. They have never cared to
guess my disappointments, my sorrows, my wants; they never cared to
know my life; they will have no presentiment of my death; they do not
even know the secret of my tenderness for them. Yes, I see it all now.
I have laid my heart open so often, that they take everything I do for
them as a matter of course. They might have asked me for the very eyes
out of my head and I would have bidden them to pluck them out. They
think that all fathers are like theirs. You should always make your
value felt. Their own children will avenge me. Why, for their own
sakes they should come to me! Make them understand that they are
laying up retribution for their own deathbeds. All crimes are summed
up in this one. . . . Go to them; just tell them that if they stay
away it will be parricide! There is enough laid to their charge
already without adding that to the list. Cry aloud as I do now,
'Nasie! Delphine! here! Come to your father; the father who has been
so kind to you is lying ill!'--Not a sound; no one comes! Then am I do
die like a dog? This is to be my reward--I am forsaken at the last.
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