"Boris!" calls Natalie, half to herself. She cannot go to meet him--she cannot. Trembling in her whole body, she stands there, in the carved Gothic portal, against the bright golden background of the lighted hall; stands there in her white dress, between the tall, pale lilies, like an angel before the door of a church, into which a wicked sinner would like to slip.
"Is it you, at last?" she breathes out.
"Yes; I am somewhat late. You know, with one's colleagues, one must offend no one; it is always so."
How rough his voice sounds! How fleetingly, how hastily he kisses her. Is she dreaming?
"How are you; how are the children?" He steps in the hall, blinking uneasily in the light.
Is this really the man to whose coming she has so foolishly, so breathlessly looked forward? This irritable, heavy man with the tumbled clothes, the badly arranged hair, the fearfully altered face, with a new expression of God knows what! Her feet refuse her their service; she catches hold of a support, and sinks down in a chair.
"How pale you are, Natalie!" says he. "Are you ill?"
"No--no--only--I have waited for you since five o'clock. I--I thought you would never find the way back to us."
For an instant he hesitates; then he sinks at her feet, embraces her knees with both arms. He, who at parting had not shed a tear, now, at their meeting, sobs like a desperate one. What pretext, what falsehood can he utter? As if his colleagues could have withheld him if he had only really wished to come home!
"O Natalie! Natalie! Pardon me. We all fear to return to Heaven when we have accustomed ourselves to Earth. Natalie! be good to me; never let me leave you again."