. . . . .
"That is the confession I wanted to make to you, Anna. I wanted this story of love, which is a quarter of a century old, never to end. It was so real and thrilling, it was such a big thing, that I told it to you in all simplicity, to you who will survive. After that I came to love you and I do love you. I offer to you as to a sovereign the image of the little creature who will always be seventeen."
He sighed. What he said proved to me once more the inadequacy of religion to comfort the human heart.
"Now I adore you and you alone—I who adored her, I whom she adored. How can there possibly be a paradise where one would find happiness again?"
His voice rose, his inert arms trembled. He came out of his profound immobility for a moment.
"Ah, /you/ are the one, /you/ are the one—/you/ alone."
And a great cry of impotence broke from him.
"Anna, Anna, if you and I had been really married, if we had lived together as man and wife, if we had had children, if you had been beside me as you are this evening, but really beside me!"
He fell back. He had cried out so loud that even if there had been no breach in the wall, I should have heard him in my room. He voiced his whole dream, he threw it out passionately. This sincerity, which was indifferent to everything, had a definite significance which bruised my heart.
"Forgive me. Forgive me. It is almost blasphemy. I could not help it."