I sank into a deep sleep, dimly aware, at the moment before losing consciousness, of his huge form stealing to my improvised couch with a murmured question as to whether I was quite comfortable.
It was noon when I awoke. He was already up. He hated the idea of being alone, and proposed that we should breakfast together in the Park. I readily fell in with his suggestion.
We spent the day together, talking about all sorts of things, but every subject led us back to her on whose life our own lives seemed to have been grafted.
[III]
I spent the two following days alone, yearning for the solitude of my library, the cellars of which, once the sculpture rooms of the museum, suited my mood. The large room, built in the rococo style and looking on to the "Lions' Court," contained the manuscripts. I spent a great deal of time there, reading at haphazard anything which seemed old enough to draw my attention from recent events. But the more I read, the more the present melted into the past, and Queen Christine's letters, yellow with age, whispered into my ears words of love from the Baroness.
To avoid the company of inquisitive friends, I shunned my usual restaurant. I could not bear the thought of degrading my tongue by confessing my new faith before those scoffers; they should never know. I was jealous of my own personality, which was henceforth consecrated to her only. As I went through the streets, I had a vision of acolites walking before me, their tinkling bells announcing to the passers-by the approach of the Holy of Holies enshrined in the monstrance of my heart. I imagined myself in mourning, deep mourning for a queen, and longed to bid the crowd bare their heads at the passing of my stillborn love, which had no chance of ever quickening into life.
On the third day I was roused from my lethargy, by the rolling of drums and the mournful strains of Chopin's Funeral March. I rushed to the window and noticed the captain marching by at the head of his Guards. He looked up at my window and acknowledged my presence with a nod and a smile. The band was playing his wife's favourite piece, at his orders, and the unsuspicious musicians had no inkling that they played it in her honour for him and for me, and before an even less auspicious audience.
Half-an-hour later the Baron called for me at the library. I took him through the passages in the basement, overcrowded with cupboards and shelves, into the manuscript room. He looked cheerful, and at once communicated to me the contents of a letter he had received from his wife. All was going on well. She had enclosed a note for me. I devoured it with my eyes, trying hard to hide my excitement. She thanked me frankly and graciously for having looked after "her old man"; she said she had felt flattered by my evident grief at parting, and added that she was staying with my "guardian angel," to whom she was getting more and more attached. She expressed great admiration for her character, and, in conclusion, held out hopes of a happy ending. That was all.
So she was in love with me, this "guardian angel" of mine! This monster! The very thought of her now filled me with horror. I was compelled to act the part of a lover against my will; I was condemned to play an abominable farce, perhaps all my life long. The truth of the old adage that one cannot play with fire without burning one's fingers came home to me with terrible force. Caught in my own trap, I pictured to myself in my wrath the detestable creature who had forced herself upon me: she had the eyes of a Mongolian, a sallow face, red arms. With angry satisfaction I recalled her seductive ways, her suspicious behaviour, which more than once had set my friends wondering what species of woman it was with whom I was seen so constantly walking about the parks and suburbs.