She seized his clothes with her hands and half raised herself, so that her white face was close to his:
“Cordt ... can’t you wait for me?... I am coming....”
Then she released her hold and sank in a heap on the floor:
“No ... no ... I cannot do what you wish.”
He rose to his feet and stood before her and looked into the fire:
“It’s your will that is sick, Adelheid,” he said.
He walked across the room and stood at the balcony-door and looked out. Then he came back and sat in his chair again:
“You know where the great joy lies. And you know that it would be yours and mine, if you could reach it. But you cannot. There is no sense of perspective in your life ... everything to you seems quite close or quite far, quite small or quite big. You are like Martens and the others. You belong to them, because your will is weak, like theirs. You are becoming like them.”
“No, Cordt.”
“Yes, you are like them. You are a woman and you are refined and therefore you dread the mire. But you belong to them. You and I are mortal enemies. If you were she whom my son had chosen for his wife, I should tremble for his happiness. And you had the happiness which you seek ... nay, the happiness that exists. You set the cup to your lips when you were young enough to stand wine and old enough to know that it was good.”