And to my thinking the evidence was strengthened by the fact that a short time ago my brother-in-law had forbidden the doctor his house, because the latter had made advances to my sister.
I was therefore determined not to return to my own country. At home I should be compelled to associate daily with men whom I distrusted, and to escape the ridicule which inevitably falls to the share of the duped husband, I fled to Vienna.
Alone in my hotel, the vision of the wife I had worshipped haunted me. Utterly unable to work, I began a correspondence with her. I wrote her love-letters twice a day. The unknown town affected me like a cemetery. I moved through the thronging crowd like a phantom. But after a while my imagination began to people this solitude. I invented a romantic story for the sole reason of introducing Marie into this dreary desert, and soon life was pulsing everywhere. I pictured her as a famous singer, and to lend my dream a semblance of reality and make of the fine city a more convincing background for her, I made the acquaintance of the director of the Conservatoire. I, who detested the theatre, visited the opera or a concert every night. Everything interested me intensely, because I reported everything to her. No sooner had I arrived at my hotel than I sat down and gave her a minute description of Miss So-and-so's performance, drawing comparisons which were invariably in her own favour.
Her spirit pervaded the picture galleries. I spent an hour before the Venus of Guido Reni in the Belvedere, because she was so like my beloved.
In the end my longing grew so irresistible that I packed my box and returned home as fast as the express could carry me. Surely I was bewitched; there was no means of escape from her.
I had a royal reception.
My love-letters seemed to have rekindled Marie's love. I ran up the little garden to meet her. I covered her face with passionate kisses. I took her little head between my hands.
"Can you really work magic, little witch?"
"What do you mean? Your journey was not an attempt at flight, was it?"