"Even if we should lose everything! I could no longer love you if I could no longer respect both of us. Are you a coward? Do you crave the reward and refuse to bring the sacrifice? Be as noble as you are beautiful, dare the fatal leap, even at the risk of perishing! Let everything be lost save our honour! If we go on like this, we shall both be guilty in a very short time, for my love is like lightning, which will strike you! I love you as the sun loves the dew—to drink it. Therefore, quick to the scaffold! Sacrifice your head so that you may keep your hands clean! Don't imagine that I could ever debase myself and be content to share you with a third, never, never!"
She feigned resistance, but in reality she threw a grain of powder into the open flames. She complained of her husband and hinted at things, the very thought of which made my blood boil.
He, the numskull, poor as myself, without prospects, indulged in the luxury of two mistresses, while I, the man of talent, the aristocrat of the future, sighed and writhed under the torture of my unsatisfied longings.
But all of a sudden she veered round and tried to calm my excited nerves by reminding me of our agreement to be brother and sister.
"No, not that dangerous game of brother and sister! Let us be man and woman, lover and beloved! This alone is worthy of ourselves! I adore you! I adore everything belonging to you, body and soul, your golden hair and your straightforwardness, the smallest feet that ever wore shoes in Sweden, your candour, your eyes which shine in the dusk, your bewitching smile, your white stocking and your cherry-coloured garter....
"What?"
"Yes, my lovely princess, I have seen everything! And now I want to kiss your throat and the dimples on your shoulders; I will smother you with my kisses, strangle you between my arms as with a necklet. My love for you fills me with the strength of a god. Did you think me delicate? I was an imaginary invalid, or, rather, I pretended to be ill! Beware of the sick lion! Don't come near his den or he will kill you with his caresses! Down with the dishonest mask! I want you and I will have you! I've wanted you from the first moment I set eyes on you! The story of Selma, the Finlander, is nothing but a fairy tale ... the friendship of our dear Baron a lie ... he loathes me, the man of the middle-classes, the provincial, the déclassé, as I loathe him, the aristocrat!"
This avalanche of revelations excited her very little, for it told her nothing new: she had been aware of it without my avowal.
And we separated with the firm resolution not to meet again until she had told her husband everything.