Resolutely she had gone on upon her joyless path, not doubting that her course was right. It had seemed to her that there was no other way possible; that, stretching her hand to him across the gulf of shame that severed them, she would do nothing to raise him, but only fall herself, degraded to his likeness.
So it had always seemed to her.
Now alone the misgiving arose in her whether she had mistaken arrogance for duty; whether, cleaving so closely to the traditions of honour, she had forgotten the obligations of mercy. Had it been any other thing, any other sin, she thought, rather than this, which struck at the very root of all the trusts, of all the faiths, which she had most venerated as the legacy of her fathers!——
Sometimes it seemed to her as though, were that time of torture to be lived through again, she would not send him from her; she would say to him:
'What we love once we love for ever. Shall there be joy in heaven over those who repent, yet no forgiveness for them upon earth?'
Sometimes it seemed to lier as though even now, after these years, she still ought to summon him and say this. But time passed on and passed away, and it remained unsaid.
She rode often through the same woods, now in full leaf, with sunny waters tumbling and sparkling through their flower-filled moss, but he crossed her path no more. He might have come thither, she thought, in some brief hope of possible reconciliation to her, and then his courage might have failed him, and he might have returned to whatsoever distant climate held him, whatsoever manner of life consoled him. That he might dwell amidst the hills, unseen of men, for her sake, never once seemed to her possible. Egon Vàsàrhely might have done that; but not he—he loved the world.
The summer weighed wearily upon her. The light, the fragrance, the gaiety of nature hurt her. In winter all the earth seemed of accord with herself; it was silent, stern, solitary. The keen winds, the glittering snow, the air that was like a bath of ice, the sense of absolute isolation and seclusion which the winter brought with it were precious to her. Not even the pretty figures of the children running through the bowers of blossom and of foliage could make the summer otherwise than oppressive and mournful to her.
Sometimes she thought of how it had been on other summer nights, when he had wandered with her through the white lines of the lilies by the starlight, or sent the melodies of Schumann and of Beethoven out upon the dewy, balmy air. Then she could bear no more to look upon the moonlit gardens.
The love she had borne him stirred at those times beneath the gravestones of scorn and wrath and almost hatred which she had heaped upon it, to keep it buried far down for evermore. All the echoes of passion came to her at those moments; she despised herself because she felt that she would give her soul to feel his lips on hers again. She was ashamed that the mere sight of him could thus have moved her. Again and again she recalled noble acts, beautiful thoughts, which had been his; again and again she recalled the early hours of their love with burning cheeks and longing heart. She could have scourged herself to banish those memories, those desires. They were terrible and irresistible to her as the visions that assailed the saints of the Thebaïd. Her whole soul softened to him, yearned for him, forgave him. Then she would shrink in disdain from her own weakness, and pace her chamber like a wounded lioness.