“It is fantastic, like your insane self,” he said, with a forced smile, which cut me, somehow, more than if he had groaned.
“Fantastic! I don’t know what you mean. What good would it be to me to see him with strangers? I should only make myself miserable with wishing to have him. I don’t know what you mean by fantastic.”
He drew a long breath. “So be it, then,” said he, at last. “And he need know nothing about his father. I may even see him from time to time without his knowing—see him growing into a man like you, Friedel; it would be worth the separation, even if one had not to make a merit of necessity; yes, well worth it.”
“Like me? Nie, mein lieber; he shall be something rather better than I am, let us hope,” said I; “but there is time enough to talk about it.”
“Oh, yes! In a year or two from now,” said he, almost inaudibly. “The worst of it is that in a case like this, the years go so fast, so cursedly fast.”
I could make no answer to this, and he added, “Give me thy hand upon it, Friedel.”
I held out my hand. We had risen, and stood looking steadfastly into each other’s eyes.
“I wish I were—what I might have been—to pay you for this,” he said, hesitatingly, wringing my hand and laying his left for a moment on my shoulder; then, without another word, went into his room, shutting the door after him.
I remained still—sadder, gladder than I had ever been before. Never had I so intensely felt the deep, eternal sorrow of life—that sorrow which can be avoided by none who rightly live; yet never had life towered before me so rich and so well worth living out, so capable of high exultation, pure purpose, full satisfaction, and sufficient reward. My quarrel with existence was made up.