IX.
But the next week he was again hopeful, even confident, of Hilda’s love. He had written to her and she had answered him. Rejoicing!
His hopes were rising quickly. If only he could make her appreciate his poems! He felt that she disliked his verses. She did not seem to understand that the poems he had shown her were inspired by her and were meant for her eyes alone.
One day he felt the fateful moment had come. He was again at his uncle’s villa. It was early October, the family was preparing to leave for their city home. It was a gloomy day, gray clouds in the sky, winds chasing withered leaves against tree trunks and fences. Yet there was joy in his heart. Hilda had praised one of his poems. He hung upon her words as if they had emanated from the lips of the greatest critic.
“If you only knew how many more beautiful poems you could inspire me to write,” he was saying enthusiastically, with plaintive begging in his voice.
“How?”
She said this absently, between two numbers of embroidery stitches she was counting.
“By promising that you’ll marry me some day.”
She seemed caught unawares. She dropped a few stitches and seemed annoyed.
Her head moved from side to side without looking up. She seemed very busy with her needle.
“Can’t you even give me hope—in the distant future?”
The color in her cheek was rising.
“You mustn’t think of me, Albert,” she said, without raising her eyes. “It’s impossible.” The last few words were spoken under her breath, scarcely audible.
Silence. He did not plead, he made no attempt at persuasion. There was the finality of death in her tone.
He returned to the city in a state of utter hopelessness. Conquest was denied everywhere.
He imputed to her a thousand motives for rejecting him; he blamed his uncle; he saw his aunt at the bottom of it. His sorrow deepened as the days passed. He sat in his room and brooded and then wandered through the streets like a restless vagrant. He was telling himself he would never survive this blow, and out of his poignant pain and the anguish of his soul sprang verses of despair.
His agony had become unendurable. Nothing mattered now. He did not care whether he pleased his uncle; he did not care whether he stayed at the bank or was dismissed. His sorrow was unbearable. He had to talk, to some one about it. He finally unbosomed himself to his friend, Christian. It was nearly midnight, his tallow candle sputtering.