Felicitas returned from her last interview with Leo, glowing and intoxicated with the idea of death. What a harmonious ending it would be to die in the arms of her lover, breathing her last breath on his lips.
She recalled a picture that she had once seen in Königsberg, afterwards famous all over the continent It was called "Tired of Life," and represented a man and a woman who had bound themselves together with ropes, and were about to hurl themselves from some steps in the foreground into the sea. She had felt an envious tremour then, and now all at once the old foolish dream was to be fulfilled at Leo's side.
She had nothing to bind her to life; in every way it would be best to quit it. Ulrich became more and more of an invalid, and less and less disposed to make things bearable for her. The society of the neighbourhood afforded her no consolation; the women hated her, the men persecuted her with their love; and one was as unsatisfying and dull as the other. The future promised her nothing. She saw herself slowly fading away, bored to extinction by discussion about the crops and new scientific theories of drainage, of farm and dairy management. To die now would be a thousand times preferable.
"If only I had my little Paul," she thought, "there would at least be something to live for," and the momentary re-awakening of the maternal instinct within her filled her eyes with hot tears.
But in the midst of her tender compassion for herself and her dead child, the thought seized her like an icy hand, that in a few days, she, like him, would be lying in the dark damp earth. Was it possible? could it be?
In a year--or better still in ten years' time, after this love had burned itself out, it would be all very well. But now, when a new ready-made happiness lay before them, and would have to be left untasted, unenjoyed? Would it not be folly?
Once more she thought of the picture "Tired of life," and derived a little solace from it.
The man had not been in the least like Leo. As far as she could remember, he had worn a velvet coat like an artist, or something of the kind. Oh yes, artists, with their wide views and great minds, were the men who understood the hearts of women, and how to drag them into eternity. She wasn't sure about the velvet coat after all. But the woman's white satin dress she remembered distinctly; it had fitted like gleaming armour over the bust. That wasn't the fashion now, but what did fashions matter when one was going to die? The only thing that mattered was to look beautiful in death. And she began to consider what she should put on. Among her peignoirs and sautes de lit, she possessed one of softest crêpe de chine which fell in straight Greek folds, and was drawn in above the waist by a golden girdle. She had ordered it from Paris before her second marriage, and had been keeping it for some special occasion. This occasion would certainly have arrived now if Leo had not got hold of the stupid idea that they must creep out into the night-mists to put an end to themselves.
In any case, she would not forego the pleasure of trying on the artistic garment. She locked the doors, put shades of pink gauze on the toilette-table candles, and undressed. As she stood before the glass, her figure in the graceful Greek draperies illumined seductively by the subdued purple light, she was ravished by the sight of her own beauty.
He must see her like this. Just for one second, and all thought of dying would be abandoned. How glad she was that she had extracted that promise from him at the last, to come and fetch her. When she met him thus attired, what else could he do but snatch her in his arms, and instead of dying with her in the gruesome manner that he had proposed, he would tread again at her side the primrose path of passion, which Rhaden's jealousy had so hatefully interrupted.