Her head moved from side to side without looking up. She seemed very busy with her needle.
“Can’t you even give me hope—in the distant future?”
The color in her cheek was rising.
“You mustn’t think of me, Albert,” she said, without raising her eyes. “It’s impossible.” The last few words were spoken under her breath, scarcely audible.
Silence. He did not plead, he made no attempt at persuasion. There was the finality of death in her tone.
He returned to the city in a state of utter hopelessness. Conquest was denied everywhere.
He imputed to her a thousand motives for rejecting him; he blamed his uncle; he saw his aunt at the bottom of it. His sorrow deepened as the days passed. He sat in his room and brooded and then wandered through the streets like a restless vagrant. He was telling himself he would never survive this blow, and out of his poignant pain and the anguish of his soul sprang verses of despair.
His agony had become unendurable. Nothing mattered now. He did not care whether he pleased his uncle; he did not care whether he stayed at the bank or was dismissed. His sorrow was unbearable. He had to talk, to some one about it. He finally unbosomed himself to his friend, Christian. It was nearly midnight, his tallow candle sputtering.
X.
Having finished the letter he left his room. He meant to take a stroll, as he often did late at night when despair seized him.