The kitchen door was also open, and a large fire was blazing on the open hearth. My hostess with her serving-maid was busy baking and boiling.
When I bade her good evening, she glanced at me with a roguish smile.
"Ei, ei! A nice time to come home, I must say! But go into the room—supper will be ready presently."
I went into the room.
By the lighted stove sat my wife!
Rapturous joy drove every other thought out of my soul.
I don't know what I said. I wouldn't believe she was there till I had caught her in my arms and embraced her tightly.
'Tis true, 'tis true, 'tis true—loyalty, love, sweet remembrance still belong to this world!
She told me afterwards—very briefly—how ill she had been. She had wanted to come before, but couldn't; as it was, she had left Pest by stealth, and had come with a passport made out under a false name. She had suffered much on the way. She had gone astray in the snowstorm in the beech woods, and it had been as much as she could do to find her way again. She had been terrified by the wolves, whose howls even now resounded from the woods.
And all the while I suffered the mental torture of a man who hears the person who is talking to him and the person who has been talking to him at the same time. I saw the one figure and I saw the other also.