"Why else should I require to stand there absolved before my own conscience, if not in order that I might one day become his? As if everlasting fate itself had not reared up a wall between us, reaching up from the depths of her grave as high as the stars.
"And if some demon should ever whisper into his ear, advising him to stretch out his hand for me, what else could I do but repulse him, as if for his audacity? But he will never do such a thing. I have succeeded in keeping him at a distance. Let him believe that I have a poor opinion of him, let him believe that I am haughty and unfeeling through self-love. I shall know how to guard my heart's secret.
"If only one thing were not so!
"Sometimes, especially at night, when I am staring into the darkness, a wild, mad longing comes over me with such power, that I feel as if I must succumb to it. It seizes me like a feverish delirium; it dims my senses, and makes my blood boil in my veins; it is the longing to lie just for once upon his breast, and there to weep my heart out. For in those nights my tears were dried up. I have never been able to weep since the day when I found Martha lying on her sick-bed.
* * * * *
"A fortnight later.
"It has come to pass. He loves me. He came to woo me. Now I know that there is an expiation! These tortures must indeed purify! Jesus, I have lost my childish faith in Thee, but Thou wast a man. Thou hast suffered like me. Thee I implore--no, this is madness! Come to your senses, woman; pull yourself together. Is there not an everlasting resting-place, whither you may flee by your own free will, if your strength is no longer equal to the misery of this life? Who is to prevent you?
"He loves me. I have attained it. But in order that he might love me, Martha had first to perish, I myself had to sink down into an abyss of guilt and shame from which no power in heaven or on earth can save me.
"I am dead. Dead shall be my desires and my hopes, and my rebellious blood, which wells up seething at thought of him. I will soon compel it to be calm; and if not----.
"Oh, how he stood before me, timidly stammering forth word by word. How shyly and imploringly his eye sought mine, and yet how he hardly dared to raise his glance from the ground. How, in his awkwardness, he twisted the ends of his beard round his fingers, and stamped his foot when he could not find the right word! Oh, my poor dear, big child, did you not see how my every limb was trembling with the desire to rush towards you and hold you tight for all eternity, did you not see how my lips were twitching with the temptation to press themselves upon yours, and to hang there till their last breath?