Angelika opened it—grew crimson; for he wrote that the result of his most serious considerations was, that neither she nor her children should be injured by him. He was an honourable man who would bear his own responsibilities, not let others be burdened by them.
Angelika handed the letter to her friend, then tore up the one which she had been writing, and left the house.
Her friend stood thinking to herself—The good that is in us must go bail for the evil, so we must rest and be satisfied.
The discovery which she had made had often been made before, but it was none the less true.
CHAPTER 5
The next day they were married. That night, long after his wife had fallen into her usual healthy sleep, Rafael thought sorrowfully of his lost Paradise. HE could not sleep. As he lay there he seemed to look out over a meadow, which had no springtime, and therefore no flowers. He retraced the events of the past day. His would be a marred life which had never known the sweet joys of courtship.
Angelika did not share his beliefs. She was a stern realist, a sneering sceptic, in the most literal sense a cynic.
Her even breathing, her regular features, seemed to answer him. "Hey-dey, my boy, we shall be merry for a thousand years! Better sleep now, you will need sleep if you mean to try which of us is the stronger."
The next day their marriage was the marvel of the town and neighbourhood.
"Just like his mother!" people exclaimed; "what promise there was in her! She might have chosen so as to have been now in one of the best positions in the country—when, lo and behold! she went and made the most idiotic marriage. The most idiotic? No, the son's is more idiotic still." And so on and so forth.