"Why does he not marry me? Why not?"
On account of my poverty, and my humble station in life! But could such things come into consideration if a man loved a woman truly? And love me he did, or else how could I account for the interest he took in me, and for his ever ready and never failing devotion? I tried to find something similar among the girls I knew. There was, however, nothing similar. Whenever they touched upon matters of the heart, they smiled a cunning little smile that only disgusted me, but never made me any the wiser.
My poems began to be of a meditative, doleful, over-subtle nature, and he, round whose figure revolved all my dreams, my thoughts, my verses, criticized and corrected the lines, that held all the unspeakable woe and longing of my soul, criticized and corrected them with an odd smile on his face sometimes, and with looks grave, sad, far away, at other times. And then there came nights which brought no slumber to me; nights when I lay awake till daybreak, asking myself that one dull, torturing question, over and over again, until at last its answer flashed quick as lightning into my brain....
One day when we met again, he said:
"I am not quite satisfied with your progress."
"What do you mean?"
"Simply that you are treating one subject in your poems over and over again. That is, of course, not in the least surprising, since you limit your experience of people and their ways to one place only."
My heart beat faster, but I succeeded in hiding my emotion, and answered with some hesitation:
"I, too, have thought of that already." And then I added still more hesitatingly: "And I should like to go away."
We looked at each other now and knew that we lied; but the redeeming words that were in heart and throat died away before the feigned indifference on our faces.