From the slight rustling of the pillow he concluded that she turned her face to him.
“Don’t you hear me?”
“Yes, Daniel.”
“You must give me some advice; you must help me: help me and your sister, otherwise I cannot say what may happen.”
He stopped and listened, but there was not a stir: the stillness was absolute.
“It is at times possible to remain silent out of consideration for others,” he continued, “but if the silence is maintained too long, deception follows, and falsehood does not fail. But of what use is candour if it thrusts a knife into the heart of another merely in order to prepare an unblocked path for him who is candid? What good does it do to confess if the other does not understand? Two are already bleeding to death; shall the third meet with the same fate merely in order to say that the matter was talked over? The truth is, too many words have already been spoken, gruesome, shameless words, at the sound of which the innocent night of the senses vanishes. And must one bleed to death when it becomes clearer and clearer that those are not eternal laws against which war is being waged? How can I, dwarf that I am, attack eternal laws? No, it is the frail, mutable customs of human society—? Are you listening, Gertrude?”
A “yes” that sounded like a note from a bird on a distant hill greeted his ears: it was the answer to his question.
“I have reached the point where silence is no longer thinkable: there is no going any farther without you. I will neither exaggerate nor have recourse to conventional phrases: I will not speak of passion nor say that it could not be helped. It is just barely possible that everything can be helped; that a man could always have done differently if he had begun soon enough. But who can ever tell what the future may bring? And passion? There are many varieties of passion. It is the term that every swain, washed and unwashed, uses in referring to his lusts. I had never felt a passion for which a woman was guilty. But now one has seized me with hide and hair. I had imagined that I could get out of it and not bring you into it; impossible! I am burning up with this passion, Gertrude, my whole being has been changed by it; and if help is not given me, I will be ruined.”
For a time there was a death-like stillness in the room; then he continued.