“Come, dear. Come with me. Let us go, and forget everything but our united happiness.”
Disengaging herself brusquely, she escaped him, with an instinctive rebellion, and trying to stand up, this cry came at last from her:
“No, no! I cannot go. I no longer have the power to do so.”
However, again lamenting her fate, still torn by the contest in her soul, hesitating and stammering, she again turned towards him imploringly.
“I beg you to be good and not hurry me too much, but wait awhile. I would so gladly obey you, in order to prove to you my love; I would like above all to go away on your arm to that beautiful far-away country, where we could live royally in the castle of your dreams. It seems to me an easy thing to do, so often have I myself planned our flight. Yet now, what shall I say to you? It appears to me quite an impossibility; it is as if a door had suddenly been walled up between us and prevented me from going out.”
He wished to try to fascinate her again, but she quieted him with a movement of her hands.
“No; do not say anything more. It is very singular, but in proportion as you utter such sweet, such tender words, which ought to convince me, fear takes possession of me and chills me to the heart. My God! What is the matter with me? It is really that which you say which drives me from you. If you continue, I can no longer listen to you; you will be obliged to go away. Yet wait—wait a little longer!”
She walked very slowly about the room, anxiously seeking to resume her self-control, while he looked at her in despair.
“I thought to have loved you no longer; but it was certainly only a feeling of pique, since just now, as soon as I found you again at my feet, my heart beat rapidly, and my first impulse was to follow you as if I were your slave. Then, if I love you, why am I afraid of you? What is it that prevents me from leaving this room, as if invisible hands were holding me back by my whole body, and even by each hair of my head?”
She had stopped near her bed; then she went as far as the wardrobe, then to the different articles of furniture, one after the other. They all seemed united to her person by invisible ties. Especially the walls of the room, the grand whiteness of the mansard roof, enveloped her with a robe of purity, that she could leave behind her only with tears; and henceforth all this would be a part of her being; the spirit of her surroundings had entered into her. And she realised this fact stronger than ever when she found herself opposite her working-frame, which was resting at the side of the table under the lamplight. Her heart softened as she saw the half-made rose, which she would never finish were she to go away in this secret, criminal manner. The years of work were brought back to her mind: those quiet, happy years, during which life had been one long experience of peace and honesty, so that now she rebelled at the thought of committing a fault and of thus fleeing in the arms of her lover. Each day in this little, fresh house of the embroiderers, the active and pure life she had led there, away from all worldly temptations, had, as it were, made over all the blood in her veins.