edith wharton

her words pelted me like hail:

"he just took what he wanted; sifted and sorted you to suit his taste; burnt out the gold and left a heap of cinders. and you let him. you let yourself be cut in bits...and used or discarded. while all the while every drop of blood in you belonged to him. but he's shylock and you have bled to death of the pound of flesh he has cut out of you..."

she thinks the pound of flesh you took was a little too near the heart...she expressed an unwillingness to be taken "with reservations." she thinks you would have loved her better if you had loved someone else first.