Daniel had never talked to Eleanore in this way before. As she looked at him, overcome almost by the passion of his words, and saw him standing there so utterly fearless, so unyielding and unpitying, her breast heaved with a sigh, and she said: “God grant that you succeed, and that you live to enjoy the fruits of your ambition.”
“It is all a matter of fate, Eleanore,” he replied.
He demanded the quartette; it was sent back to him.
From then on Eleanore suppressed even the slightest sense of discontent that arose in her heart. She felt that he needed cruelty and harshness for his small life in order to preserve love and patience for the great life.
Yes, she prayed to Heaven that she might leave him harsh and cruel.
XVI
“Eleanore is my wife,” said Daniel every now and then; he would even stop in the middle of the street in order to enjoy to the full, and preserve if possible, the blessed realisation of this fact.
He always knew it. Yet when he was with Eleanore he frequently forgot her presence. There were days when he would pass by her as though she were some chance acquaintance.
Then there were other days when his happiness made him sceptical; he would say: “Is it then really happiness? Am I happy? If so, why is it that I do not feel my happiness more fervently, terribly?”