“Why don’t you answer me?” she urged, and raised herself, showing the pale face amid its wilderness of brown hair.
He had no answer for her. He feared the insufficiency of any explanation, as well as the replies that she would find.
“What is the meaning of it all? What ails you, dearest?” Eva drew him toward her, and clung to him, and kissed his eyes thirstily.
“I’ll ask him to avoid your presence,” said Christian. And suddenly he saw himself and Voss in the farm yard of Nettersheim, saw the kneeling men and maid servants, the old rusty lantern, the dead woman, and the carpenter who was measuring her for her coffin.
“Tell me what he means to you,” whispered Eva. “It seems to me suddenly as though you were gone. Where are you really? Tell me, dear friend.”
“You should have let me love you in those old days in Paris,” said Christian gently, and softly rested his cheek against her bosom, “in those days when Crammon and I came to you.”
“Speak, only speak,” Eva breathed, seeking to hide the fright in her heart.
Her eyes gleamed, and her skin was like luminous white satin. In the darkness her face had a spiritualized thinness; the restrained charm of her gestures mastered the hour, and her smile was deep and intricate of meaning, and everything about her was play and mirroring and raptness and unexpected magic. Christian looked upon her.
“Do you remember words that you once spoke to me?” he asked. “You said: ‘Love is an art like poetry or music, and he who does not understand that, finds no grace in love’s sight.’ Were not those your words?”