forgot that I had ever had wife or child—all was an utter blank to me; my memory of the past had, for the time, flown; nor did it return until some months after my marriage. And even when memory returned to me, I saw no harm in my second marriage after a lapse of over three thousand years. My first wife and my family and their descendants for generations and generations must have returned to the gases and to the dust from which they were made. Nor had my thoughts or my feelings any objections to second marriages, as such was in accordance with the laws and customs of my time."
I appealed with all my soul's fervour to the court to do what was most likely, in their opinion, to restore my dearly beloved Meda to happiness and social position. If anything, I said, that can be done to me, even unto my death, will help her, let it be done. I saw that my appeal touched the hearts of all in the court; I saw that many were moved to tears; but I also saw in the solemn, thoughtful faces of my judges that my fate was sealed.
