“Perhaps it never will come in this life.”
Yes, I had heard aright. Possibly we were each talking of different things; and as a last resource, I said,—
“Perhaps what will never come in this life?”
“Why, love,” he replied, making a slight gesture of impatience, as though I had been unpardonably dull.
“But,” I persisted, determined to understand, “then it will never be at all, for they neither marry nor are given in marriage in the next world.”
“No,” he repeated, “they ‘neither marry nor are given in marriage.’” He said the words over slowly but mechanically, exactly as if he might have said, or thought, the same words over a hundred times before.
That he believed in the immortality of the soul, I quite well knew, for it was the one shoot of his English education, which, springing in early boyhood, had survived, like a foreign plant, amid all the German sophisms. I did not like the strange aspect of his face, and, somewhat ill at ease, I said,—
“Then, what do you mean?” I waited a moment for the answer.
“I can hardly tell you. I have always had a theory of my own—no, not a theory, a belief. I have never undertaken to express it in language, and do not know whether I can render myself intelligible. I think every soul has somewhere in the universe an affinity—I am obliged to use the word for lack of a better one—and I believe that before complete happiness can be attained the two are merged into one. It is not marriage: that is purely earthly. These affinities may possibly meet in this life, though it is hardly probable; but in the ages to come it will occur just as certainly as there is an eternity. Mind, I do not call it marriage. It is the fusing together of two souls, a masculine and feminine, just as they combine chemicals, producing a new substance. I believe, as I said, these two souls may sometimes meet in this life; but it is a destiny that comes to few in centuries, and those few should kneel in everlasting gratitude before their Creator.”
When Reinhart ceased speaking, I could see that he had worked himself almost into a fever, for his eyes were bright and restless, and the blood surged in waves across his usually colorless face. With a rough hand, I had struck the chord whose undecided vibrations had, a month ago, appalled me. The great burden which had so oppressed me settled down again heavier than before. It was not so much what he had said as the expression of his face that filled me anew with anxiety. And struggling under this burden, I made a poor attempt to laugh the matter off.