He walked across the room and went on talking:
“A man’s honest love goes for nothing, when one of these gentry has laid eyes on his wife. Then he is degraded to the mere husband ... a dull and clumsy person ... the owner of something which he cannot own. Then there awakes in my wife’s mind a longing for something which she does not possess. Her peace has turned into weariness and the love which her marriage offered into an empty custom. She resigns herself. And the silly words of every silly book sing in her ears. She knows that no love endures for ever ... that marriage is odious. Impatient sighs rise up in her soul, embitter her days and sadden her nights. Then she changes the gold of love for small coin and fritters it away, while the lights shine forth and the music strikes up.”
He folded his hands about his neck and stood by her chair and looked before him:
“Adelheid,” he said ... “I cannot understand that the men who occasion this state of things are allowed to go free among us. And we honor them as the most distinguished of mankind. When we see a poor cripple, a shudder comes over us ... am I not right, Adelheid? We are disgusted with a face full of pain. But these lepers beam before our eyes with a radiance and a beauty that know no equal.”
He walked up and down for a while and time passed and there was silence in the room.
Then he sat down in his chair, where it stood by the balcony-door, among the red flowers.
He was tired and closed his eyes. Now and then, he opened them, when a carriage drove across the square or a cry sounded. Then he closed them again and fell into a drowsiness in which everything was present to him and painful.
And then suddenly he started up.
Fru Adelheid was lying before him on the floor, with her cheek against his knee. His hand was wet with her tears.
“Don’t be angry with me, Cordt!”