“I hear you!”
There was a moment of silence. They had stopped and Phil looked at them. He was astounded by the change in Socrate. His beard was unkempt, and he lowered his head with an air at once humble and aggressive. He spoke to Helia with looks which he tried to render touching. On his ragged garments were bits of straw, as if he had slept in a stack. It was clear that Socrate had been wandering around the neighborhood for several days, waiting for Helia. He must have met her by chance and, yielding to his entreaties, she had followed him to have, alone with him, a final explanation.
Helia was pale, tired from her journey, as Poufaille had said. Her black eyes shone feverishly. In her modest black gown she seemed to Phil more beautiful than ever, and more refined. She scarcely turned her head toward Socrate; and her glance at him was that of scornful pity.
“You who were so good to me,” the tearful voice went on.
“Too good, it is true!” answered Helia. “I saw your wretchedness,—that you were starving,—and I believed in your genius. I would have been proud to help a poet,—to have had something to do, no matter how little, with the production of a masterpiece. I sinned by pride; I thought I could lift myself in the eyes of others—especially in his eyes,” she added slowly. “I thought I was acting for the best; I was wrong!”
“It is wrong to aid one who does nothing!”
“Ah!” replied the man, with his look of a beaten dog, “it is not my fault if I have not fulfilled my dream. Society is pitiless to thinkers! Those who march to a lofty goal are disdained by the common herd!”
Socrate, as he spoke, clenched his fist. Phil could see his fingers working spasmodically—ah! if he could only strangle the whole world! Helia did not let her eyes fall so low. She fixed them on the face of Socrate, scorning his impotent gestures.
“Silence! You are only grotesque!”