She left the studio with all speed, and went to her dressing-room. She stood there before the large mirror, and let down her luxuriant hair, staring into the mirror, while upon her closely pressed lips lay the question. Art thou then so old? She opened her lips, like one ill with fever, like one parched with thirst, panting to drink. Her eyes beamed with a joyous brightness, as she said to herself: Thou art beautiful. Thou art able to judge of thyself as impartially as thou wouldest a stranger. But what means this silly infatuation?
She took the long tresses of her hair in both hands, and held them crossed under her chin; she was terrified as she now perceived, for the first time, how strong a likeness she bore to the bust of Medusa in the guest-chamber above.
"Yes, I will be Medusa! He shall be shattered, turned into stone, annihilated! He shall kneel to me, and then I will trample him under my feet!" She raised her foot, but immediately covered her face with both hands, while tears flowed from her eyes.
"Forgive, forgive my pride, my madness!" was the cry uttered within her. Fierce irritation and passionate emotion, pride and humility, contended together within her breast, and it seemed as if the chill of that morning serenade had been all at once removed, and the heart had unfolded itself, as some long-closed calyx unfolds its petals. A longing sprang up within her—a longing for home, as in some wayward child who has run away from its parents into the woods—a longing for some place of shelter and rest,—a home: where is it? where?
She yearned for a soul to which she could lay open all her own soul.
"Forgive me! forgive!" was echoed and re-echoed within her. At first it was directed to Clodwig, and now to Eric.
"Forgive! forgive my pride! But thou canst not know how proud I have been: and I sacrificed to thee more than a thousand others, more than the whole world, can even conceive and comprehend."
She shuddered at being alone, rang for her dressing-maid, and made an elaborate toilet.
"Tell me how old I am. Do you not know?" she suddenly asked.
The dressing-maid was startled at the question, and not returning an immediate answer, Bella continued:—