In melancholy scorn she sent a scoffing laugh after Frau Laue. This, then, was the stroke of good fortune which fate had in store for the morrow? Once more she was to cringe to man's puerile supremacy, and live in enervating servitude--vegetate amidst fleeting and unprofitable pleasures in a perfumed lethargy, or be goaded by ennui and disgust to walk the streets.
Yet, if he came the next day, she knew she would not have the power to resist. Richard would only have to look at her with that whipped-dog expression, which was something quite new for him, and the mere thought of which filled her with a shamefaced tenderness, and she would throw her arms round his neck and have a good cry on his shoulder.
Was it worth waiting another to-morrow for that? No; better to die to-day.
To-day! A feeling of ecstasy came over her. She ran about the room, with folded hands, weeping and exulting. She would be a heroine like Isolde, a martyr for her love.
And there the railings of the bridge were waiting ready for her. How they would creak and groan when she set her feet on them!
Now the sing-song in her head was so loud that she thought it must kill her. The air resounded with a whirl of tones. The walls echoed them. The noise of the street, the capital's roar of traffic, all sang ... "Die--die--die!"
She pulled off her evening wrapper and dressed herself to go out. At first she thought of putting on one of the badly fitting dresses because they were connected with Konrad, but her heart failed her.
"Die beautifully," Hedda Gabler had said.
"If only I had his photograph that I might take a farewell look into his eyes," she thought. But she had nothing but his letters and a few verses. They should accompany her on her last walk.
They lay at the bottom of the leather trunk, which was still concealed in Frau Laue's box-room, though there had long been no one from whom it was necessary to conceal it. As she rummaged in its depths to find the little packet, she put her hand by accident on the roll of old music manuscript.