"Here I am," said she, laying her hand on the bed.
"How is it possible?" cried he, drawing up the quilt to his chin as if afraid of the face leaning over him.
"I was anxious about you, I was afraid you might have some attack in the night, and I wanted to be near you." In the tone of her voice, in her look, lay such sincere and natural tenderness as could not be assumed: a woman's instinct is fidelity.
Michael collected himself. His first feeling was alarm, his second self-reproach. This poor woman lying by his bed was the widow of a living man. She had never known a joy in common with her husband; now when he was in pain, she came to share it with him; and then followed the eternal falsehood—he must not accept this tenderness, he must repulse it.
Michael said with forced composure, "Timéa, I beg you not to do this again; do not come into my room. I have been suffering from an infectious illness; I caught the plague on my journey, and I tremble for your life if you approach me. Keep far from me, I adjure you; I wish to be alone, both by day and night. There is nothing the matter with me now, but I feel that I must, for prudence' sake, avoid all those belonging to me; so I beg you earnestly not to do this again, never again." Timéa sighed deeply, cast down her eyes, and left the room. She had not even undressed, but had only lain down in her clothes at her husband's feet.
When she was gone, Michael got up and dressed; his mind was much disturbed. The longer he continued this dual life, the more he felt the conflict of the double duties he had taken on himself. He was responsible for the fate of two noble, self-sacrificing souls. He had made both miserable, and himself more unhappy than either.
What outlet could he find? If only one or other were an every-day creature, so that he could hate and despise her or buy her off! But both were equally nobly gifted: the fate of both was so heavy a charge against the author of it, that no excuse existed. How could he tell Timéa who Noémi was, or Noémi about Timéa? Suppose he were to divide all his wealth between the two, or if he gave his money to one and his heart to the other? But either was alike impossible, for neither was faithless or gave him a right to reject them.
Living at home made Michael yet more ill.
He never left his room all day, spoke to no one, and sat till evening in one place, without doing anything. At last Timéa resorted to a physician. The result of the consultation was that Michael was ordered to the seaside, that the water might restore to him what the land had taken from him. To this advice he replied, "I will not go where there is company." Then they suggested that he should choose some place where the season was over and the visitors gone; there he would find solitude. The cold baths were the important point. He now remembered that in one of the valleys near the Platten See he had a summer villa, which he had bought years ago when he hired the fishing of the Balaton lake, and he had only been there two or three times since. There, said he, would he spend the end of the autumn.
The doctors approved his choice. The districts of Zala and Vessprimer on the banks of the lake are like the Vale of Tempe. Fourteen miles of unbroken garden-land form a charming chain of landscapes, with country-seats strewn here and there. The splendid lake is a sea in miniature, full of loveliness and romance; here is soft Italian air, the people are kind and cordial, the mineral springs curative; nothing could be better for a depressed invalid than to spend the autumn here. So the doctors sent Michael to the Platten See. But they had forgotten that toward the end of the summer hail-storms had laid waste the whole district; and nothing is more depressing than a place ruined by hail. The vineyards, which usually resound during the vintage with joyous cries, now stand deserted: the leaves of the fruit-trees are coppery-green or rusty brown; they take their leave until the coming spring: all is silent and sad; even the roads are overgrown with moss, for no one uses them. In the cornfields, instead of the sheaves of grain, ineradicable weeds abound, and instead of the golden heads, thistles, burdock, and nightshade are rampant, for no one comes to cut them down.