"It is very good of you still to give me a choice between the next few days but, as indeed I have already hinted to you in my former letter, it is, unfortunately, absolutely impossible for me to do just as I like during that time. Believe me, I regret that it is so, at least as much as you do.

"Once more a thousand thanks and a thousand greetings and I trust that we will be able to arrange a delightful time when next we meet.

"Don't forget me completely,

"Your

"EMIL."

When she had finished reading the letter she was quite calm; she paid the commissionaire the fee he demanded and found that, for a person in her circumstances, it was by no means insignificant. Then she sat down at the table and tried to collect her thoughts. She realized immediately that she could no longer remain in Vienna, and her only regret was that there was no train which could take her home at once. On the table stood the half empty bottle of wine, bread crumbs were scattered beside the plate, on the bed lay her spring jacket, beside it were the flowers which he had sent her that very morning.

What could it all mean? Was it at an end?

Indistinctly, but so that it seemed that it must bear some relation to her recent experiences, there occurred to her a sentence which she had once read. It was about men who desire nothing more than "to attain their object…" But she had always considered that to be a phrase of the novelists. But, after all, it was surely not a letter of farewell that she was holding in her hand, was it?… Was it really not a letter of farewell? Might not these kind words be also lies?… Also lies—that was it!… For the first time the positive word forced itself into her thoughts…. Lies!… Then it was certain that, when he brought her home the previous night, he had already made up his mind not to see her again. And the appointment for the present day and his desire to see her again that day were lies….

She went over the events of the previous evening in her mind, and she asked herself what could she have said or done to put him out of humour or disappoint him…. Really, it had all been so beautiful, and Emil had seemed so happy, just as happy as she had been … was all that going to prove to have been a lie too?… How could she tell?… Perhaps, after all, she had put him out of humour without being aware that she was doing so…. She had, indeed, been nothing more or less than a good woman all her life…. Who could say whether she had not been guilty of something clumsy or stupid?… whether she had not been ludicrous and repellent in some moment when she had believed herself to be sacrificing, tender, enchanted and enchanting?… But what did she know of all these things?… And, all at once, she felt something almost in the nature of repentance that she had set out upon her adventure so utterly unprepared, that, until the previous day, she had been so chaste and good, that she had not had other lovers before Emil…. Then she remembered, too, that he had evaded her shy questions and requests on the subject of his violin playing, as if he had not wanted to admit her into that sphere of his life. He had thus remained strange to her, intentionally strange, so far as concerned the very things which were of the deepest and most vital importance to him. All at once she realized that she had no more in common with him than the pleasures of a night, and that the present morning had found them both as far apart from one another as they had been during all the years in which they had each led a separate existence.

And then jealousy again flared up within her…. But she felt as though she was always thus, as though every conceivable emotion had always been present within her … love and distrust, and hope and penitence, and yearning and jealousy … and, for the first time in her life, she was so stirred, even to the very depths of her soul, that she understood those who in their despair have hurled themselves out of a window to meet their death…. And she perceived that the present state of affairs was impossible, that only certainty could be of any avail to her…. She must go to him and ask him … but she must ask in the manner of one who is holding a knife to another's breast….