Gudrun was sitting with the picture in her lap. She looked up at Gerald, full into his eyes, so that he seemed to be blinded.
“Didn’t he understand her!” she said to Gerald, in a slightly mocking, humorous playfulness. “You’ve only to look at the feet—aren’t they darling, so pretty and tender—oh, they’re really wonderful, they are really—”
She lifted her eyes slowly, with a hot, flaming look into Loerke’s eyes. His soul was filled with her burning recognition, he seemed to grow more uppish and lordly.
Gerald looked at the small, sculptured feet. They were turned together, half covering each other in pathetic shyness and fear. He looked at them a long time, fascinated. Then, in some pain, he put the picture away from him. He felt full of barrenness.
“What was her name?” Gudrun asked Loerke.
“Annette von Weck,” Loerke replied reminiscent. “Ja, sie war hübsch. She was pretty—but she was tiresome. She was a nuisance,—not for a minute would she keep still—not until I’d slapped her hard and made her cry—then she’d sit for five minutes.”
He was thinking over the work, his work, the all important to him.
“Did you really slap her?” asked Gudrun, coolly.
He glanced back at her, reading her challenge.
“Yes, I did,” he said, nonchalant, “harder than I have ever beat anything in my life. I had to, I had to. It was the only way I got the work done.”