And the estimable and attractive woman beckoned him, with her loveliest smile, to sit beside the sofa, on a low stool.
It made Johannes feel as if he had been brought, nearly benumbed, into a warm room. Pleasant tinglings coursed down his back, and a fine feeling of contentment and security came over him. The countess rested her soft, delicate hand upon his own, and looked into his eyes, kindly. How beautiful she was! And what a sweet, caressing voice she had! All the distress of those recent days was more than amended.
"I am going to speak to you, my dear Johannes, as if you were much older than you are. You really do seem to me older and wiser than your years would lead one to expect."
Johannes was charmed.
"You must know, then, that my life has been full of suffering. Sorrow has been, so to speak, my constant companion, from earliest youth."
Johannes' heart was aglow with compassion. In well-chosen words, and in the flowing English that Johannes more admired than comprehended, the lady continued:
"My marriage was very unhappy. Constrained by my parents I married a rich man whom I did not love. He is dead now. I will not speak any evil of him."
Johannes that instant made up his mind to a certainty that the man had been a wretch.
"Neither will I trouble you with the story of all our misery. It suffices to say that we did not belong to each other, and each embittered the other's life. After six years of torture—it was nothing else—something happened ... what usually happens in such cases.... Do you understand?"
Johannes, greatly to his vexation, did not understand, and he felt himself to be very stupid.