"That's true," she said. "But I never thought of it. I was ... bewildered perhaps. I should not have done that; I had a fixed idea that I had to row back. If I hadn't been able to keep on rowing, I should certainly.... Don't refuse my thanks, I beg of you: accept them."
She put out her hand; he pressed it. He looked up at her with quiet surprise and failed to understand her. He did not doubt but that she had that morning left the castle with the intention of committing suicide. Had she felt remorse on the water, or had she not dared? Did she want to live on and did she therefore turn back? Was she so shallow that she had already recovered from the great grief which had crushed her the night before? Did she realize that life rolls with indifferent chariot-wheels over everything, whether joy or pain, that is part of ourselves and that it is best to care for nothing and also to feel nothing? What of all this applied to her? He was unable to fathom it. And once more he saw himself standing perplexed before the question of love! What was this feeling worth, if it weighed so little in a woman's heart? How much did it weigh with him for Alexa? What was it then?... Or was it something ... something quite different?
At dinner Valérie talked as usual and he continued not to understand her. It irritated him, his want of penetration of the human heart: how could he develop it? A future ruler ought to be able to see things at a glance.... And suddenly, perhaps merely because of his desire for human knowledge, the thought arose within him that she was concealing her emotions, that perhaps she was still suffering intensely, but that she was pretending and bearing up: was she not a princess of the blood? They all learnt that, they of the blood, to pretend, to bear up! It was bred in their bones. He looked at her askance, as he sat next to her: she was quietly talking across him to the queen. He did not know whether he had guessed right and he still hesitated between the two thoughts: was she bearing up, or was she shallow? But, yet he was happy at being able to hesitate about her and to refute that first suspicion of shallowness by his second thought. He was happy in this, not solely because of Valérie, that she should be better than he had thought at first; he was happy especially for the general conclusion which he was able to draw: that a person is mostly better, thinks more deeply, cherishes nobler feelings than he allows to appear in the everyday commonplaces of life, which compel him to occupy himself with momentary trifles and phrases. A delicate satisfaction took possession of him that he had thought this out so, a contentment that he had discovered something beautiful in life: a beautiful secret. Everybody knew it perhaps, but nobody let it be perceived. Oh yes, people were good; the world was good, in its essence! Only a strange mystery compelled it to seem different, a strange tyranny of the universal order of things.
He glanced around the long table. Every face wore a look of kindness and sympathy. He was attached to his uncle so calm, gentle and strong, with the seeming dogged silence of his Norse character, with his tranquil smile and now and then a little gleam of fun, aimed especially at the old aunts, but also at the children and even at the equerries, the ladies-in-waiting. He knew that his uncle was a thinker, a philosopher; he would have liked to have a long discussion with him on points of philosophy. He was fond also of his aunt, a first-rate queen: what a lot she did for her country, what a number of charities she called into existence; a first-rate mother: how sensibly she performed her difficult task, the bringing up of royal children! She was more beloved in her country than was his mother, whom yet he adored, in hers; she had more tact, less fear, less haughtiness also towards the crowd. It should perhaps have been the other way about: his mother queen here, her sister empress yonder....
And the crown-prince, with his simple manliness; Herman, with his joviality; the younger brothers, with their vigorous, boyish chaff: how fond he was of them! Sofie, Wanda, the children: how he liked them all! He even liked the aunts and the devoted old mistress of the household. Oh, the world was good, people were good! And Valérie was not indifferent, but suffered in quiet silence, as a princess of the blood must suffer, with unclouded eyes and a smile!
After dinner Queen Olga took Othomar's arm:
"Come with me for a moment," she said.
The rain had ceased; a footman opened the French windows. Behind the dining-room lay a long terrace looking upon the woods. The queen put her arm in Othomar's and began to walk up and down with him:
"And so you are going to leave us?" she asked.
He looked at her with a smile: