She walked away quickly ahead of me from one room to the other. I followed her with that numbness of the senses with which a naked man on a sultry day walks out into the sea; I heard the rustle of her skirts. At last we were there; she threw off her cloak and began to untie the strings of her hat. Her hands were still trembling and in the half-light I again noticed something, pitiful and tired in her face....
But she died with firmness. At the last moment she was transformed; she kissed me, and moving her head back so as to see my face, she whispered to me such tender and moving words that I cannot repeat them.
I wanted to go out and pick some flowers to strew on the death-bed. She would not let me; she was in a hurry and said:
"No, no, you must not ... there are flowers here ... here are your flowers," and she kept on repeating: "And see, I beseech you by all that is sacred to you, kill me!"
"Yes, and then I will kill myself," I said, without for a moment doubting my resolution.
"Oh, I believe you, I believe you," she answered, already apparently half-unconscious....
A moment before her death she said very quietly and simply:
"My God, this is unspeakable!"
And again:
"Where are the flowers you gave me? Kiss me--for the last time."