And again:
“The next time we go for a ride....”
I, meanwhile, kept drawing my two hands down caressingly over her silky hair and silky arms, hungrily absorbing every possible sensation of that living reality which was in her as her very self.... And I thought.... What was I, indeed, but a corpse, listening from the depths of a grave to living beings conversing on the sod overhead ...?
Yes, a corpse....
My gaze was fixed upon her bright sea-green eyes, and upon her delicate, gaily chirping lips; and within me was a scream of desperate anguish!
“You, you are my destroyer ... you! You crossed my path, and I followed you; and you guided me, almost by the hand, to the yawning gateway of the tomb! Yes, that was true: a will-o’-the-wisp of the deadliest lineage, leading the luckless wayfarer blindly to destruction! And I succumbed! Everything is lost ... for me! But now ... can’t you see, can’t you feel, my agony? You are gay? You laugh? You chatter? Is it not written on my face, is it not written in my heart, that I am doomed, that I shall never, never more set eyes upon you? Yes, it is all written there—my love, my fate, my death! And if you fail to read, it is because you know not how to read; and if you know not how to read, it is because you do not love. Oh my dear lost love! Oh my fragile Goddess! You do not love me ... so you will not miss me, overmuch.... You will find another man to love.... Youth will erase unhappy memories.... You will begin life anew ... life anew! Better thus! Much better thus! I ... I love you! I am saving you! I love you!”
And this last phrase I pronounced aloud, as though I were answering in those three words all that she had been saying to me:
“I love you ...!”