She arrived at this woman's house early one afternoon, and found her alone. The paralytic asked to be read to and Nacha began reading aloud the interminable novel her employer was engaged upon. Nacha had felt depressed and nervous when she arrived, although she had no special reason for feeling so; but this narrative full of absurd adventures, related in an even more absurd style, amused and diverted her. She read for nearly an hour. The paralytic, by no means stupid nor illiterate, had no very high opinion of such hair-raising stories; but she had no other book on hand to entertain herself with. At three o'clock the servant, with a suggestion of mystery in her manner, called her mistress out of the room. The paralytic rolled herself down the hall to the parlor. In a short time she returned and told Nacha someone wanted to see her.
"Who is it? Tell me! If you don't I won't go—I can't—"
Her heart was pounding violently as if it were the clapper of a swinging bell. Fear vibrated through her and an indefinable distress; though she knew that Monsalvat was there ... and yet ... trembling, she hesitated, not knowing whether to run away or throw herself into his arms.
"It's a friend of yours. Why do you want to know who it is? I don't know him. He looks all right, and that's enough for me. He's waiting for you. Go along! I tell you he's a friend—but what's the matter with you? Are you afraid of something? If there is anything wrong I won't let you go—"
This put an end to Nacha's indecision. Fear of not seeing him took possession of her, soul and body, and pushed her down the corridor to the room where he was waiting. She was still trembling; she did not know what she was going to say, nor how she was going to act, and she wanted to cry. Even at the door she hesitated, and felt faint; everything grew blurred around her. She heard the voice of the paralytic following her down the hall, calling, "Go in! Go right in!" She heard a voice clamoring from her heart commanding her to open the door.—Then what happened she never knew. Someone must have opened the door from within, and then closed it. She was trembling and weeping, her hands pressed to her face. She could not see Monsalvat; but she felt his presence beside her.
When she raised her eyes she saw what anguish was, an anguish made up of torturing memories, and the presentiment of a fatality even then rearing insuperable obstacles between them; yet this pain only added to the intense joy of that moment.
"Nacha, why did you drive me away that afternoon? That was the beginning of all the unhappiness I have had since. Perhaps I didn't act as I should have done. Well, then, I ask you to forgive me. Since that day I have thought only of you. The problem of your life has become the problem of mine. I have searched for you in all the places I could think of—and how it hurt, Nacha, not to find you...."
They stood there facing one another, her hands in his. Nacha, in her emotion, lowered her head. She did not know how to act with this man who was so simple and so good. She felt that she too must be frank and straightforward. She had no right to conceal anything from him, disguise her real thoughts, lie to him. She could not foresee what the outcome of this meeting was to be. Should she let herself be carried along by whatever happened? If Monsalvat should want her, why she was his, body and soul! If not, what then?
And now she was beside him on the sofa, listening to what he was saying; and while he told her of all the efforts he had made to find her he wondered if the woman sitting beside him could be worthy of a passion such as his. Fearful of analyzing his emotion, fearful that his thoughts might dwell too long on this doubt, he tried to put all his feeling and enthusiasm into his story. His words summoned before Nacha, breathlessly listening, the long caravan of his dreams, his life of other years, and his life now; he talked to her of the ideals which tormented him, and without which he could not live; and he told her that at last he had found out the purpose of a man's life: to work for others, to live for those who have need of us.