"No, it's no good your trying that," the woman broke in. "I know what you're thinking of now. You hate me, loathe me, as I am now. And you're asking yourself if it really can be the same little bit of a child that used to sit on your knee and look up to you as if you were God Himself! No—I'm not—there's nothing left but bitterness. Can't you understand? Oh, we're coarse and sour and harsh and all the rest—all that you've made us. But I'll tell you what we are besides—ourselves, ourselves, for all that!"
She rose up from the sofa, and crossing the room, sat down on a chair close to where Olof was seated. Then, lowering her voice a little, she went on, as if striving with words and look to penetrate his soul:
"We are women—do you know what that means? And we long for love—all of us, good or bad—or, no, there is neither good nor bad among us, we are alike. We long for you, and for love. But how? Ah, you should know! Answer me, as you would to God Himself: of all the women you have known, has any one of them ever craved your body? Answer, and speak the truth!"
"No—no … it is true!" stammered Olof confusedly.
"Good that you can be honest at least. And that is just what makes the gulf between us. For you, the body is all and everything, but not for us. We can feel the same desire, perhaps—after you have taught us. But the thing we long for in our innermost heart—you never give us. You give us moments of intoxication, no more. And we are foolish enough to trust you. We are cheated of our due, but we hope on; we come to you and beg and pray for it, until at last we realise that you can give us nothing but what in itself, by itself, only fills us with loathing…."
Olof breathed hard, as in a moment's respite at the stake, with the lash still threatening above his head.
"Yes, that is your way. You take us—but why will you never take us wholly? You give us money, or fine clothes, a wedding ring even—but never yourselves, never the thing we longed for in you from the first. You look on love as a pastime only; for us, it is life itself. But you never understand, only wash your hands of it all, and go your own ways self-satisfied as ever."
Olof was ashy pale and his eyelids quivered nervously.
The woman's face had lost its scornful look, the hardness of her features had relaxed. She was silent a moment, and when she spoke again, seemed altogether changed. She spoke softly and gently, with a tremor in her voice.
"Even you, Olof, even you do not understand. I know what you are thinking now. You ask, what right have I to reproach you, seeing that I was never yours as—as the others were? It is true, but for all that you were more closely bound to me, with a deeper tie, than with the others. What do I care for them? They do not matter—it is nothing to me if they ever existed or not. But you and I—we were united, though perhaps you cannot understand…. Olof! When I sat close to you, in your arms, I felt that my blood belonged to you, and that feeling I have never altogether lost. It is you I have been seeking through all these years—you, and something to still the longing you set to grow in my soul. Men fondled me with coarse hands, and had their will of me—and I thought of your caresses; it was with you, with you I sinned!"