"No!" at last burst hoarsely from her scarcely-parted lips. "Go--leave me--I've nothing to hear or say!"
"Allow me to doubt that," he answered with apparent composure. "For in the first place you are ill. The wisest sick people don't know what's good for them, they are in a certain sense irresponsible beings. Whether you have anything to say to me, I do not know, but I, have a great deal to say to you. To begin without circumlocution: I know you're angry with me, because I prevented you from accomplishing your purpose and turning you back on this world, which for some unknown reason, you wished to quit. Do you know why I took this liberty? Not from common philanthropy. I should beware of grabbing the coat tail of the first person I might see making the leap. No, my dear Fräulein, what I did for you I did from common selfishness; for if you were no longer in this world, it would lose it charms for me, like a quartette from which the first violin was missing. Pardon the not very clever comparison, but while your face is so ungraciously averted, I'm glad if I can even patch my sentences together, without making any pretensions to style." She still remained silent, with her forehead pressed against the bare wall and her hands convulsively clasped.
"I don't know for what you have taken me so far," he continued in a smothered voice, as he leaned, against one of the bed posts and secretly wiped his forehead, although the room was by no means warm. "Probably you've not had quite so bad an opinion of me, as I of myself, since I was vain enough to put my best foot forward as far as possible. One thing however, you do not know: as a man I may be a tolerably useless, superfluous and ill-made individual: but as a poodle I'm remarkable. The few persons to whom I attach myself can never shake me off, no matter what they do, or whether I'm agreeable or disagreeable to them. And therefore, I must inform you, that it will be useless to reject me, ill-treat me, or even plunge into the water again to get rid of me; the poodle will leap in after you and bring you out again, even if he's obliged to do it with his teeth.
"I know that if you were to vouchsafe me a word, you would ask by what right I intrude upon you, what you are to me, why I annoy you with the information of my poodle qualities? Dear Fräulein, I might answer that I can no more give you a reason than the poodle could in the same situation; it is mere instinct. But a still better reply would be this: the misfortune of my life, dear friend, has been that I've always done everything by halves. It grieves me deeply, that this time also, in saving your life, I seem to have only half succeeded, and therefore I wish to see if I cannot complete my task, if I devote to it all my energies, my small portion of brains and heart and my large share of obstinacy.
"Don't be offended by the not very choice mode I take of expressing myself, dear Christiane! You may believe that I'm in the most solemn earnest. Do you know what I told the brothers in the tun, when I first saw you and received that well merited dismissal you gave? I said that you were a whole-hearted woman, for whom I had a great respect. And this respect I still feel, and because I believe you to be one of the rare women, to whom an honest man may without the slightest peril offer his heart and hand--"
"Hush! Oh! for God's sake, hush!" she interrupted, starting from her rigid immobility. "Go, go--say no more--each word is like a red hot needle piercing my wounded flesh. You don't know--you shall never know--"
"Nonsense, dear Fräulein! I shall never know! As if I wanted to know anything, as if anything I could learn would be able to change my opinion of you! No, my honored friend, that would not be a poodle's trait. His master may steal spoons, may be the saviour of his native land; it makes no difference to the dog, he licks his hand with equal respect. The motive you had for taking that premature cold bath, I shall never ask to know in this world. Of course you were not entirely yourself, you had been tasting some of the bitter wormy apples, that hung on the tree of knowledge, and the cramps which ensued appeared unendurable. So be it! That belongs to the past, you've rid yourself of the indigestion by a violent remedy, and can gradually regain a taste for the household fare life serves up on an average. Isn't this clear to you, best, dearest of all artists? You would not be what you are, would not play Beethoven as you do, if you had passed by all the abysses and thorney hedges of this life safe and untorn."
He waited a short time for some reply; then he tried again to approach her window, but she turned away with a shrinking gesture, as if he would be degraded should his hands touch hers.
"No, no, no!" she cried in a stifled voice. "You think a thousand times too well of me. I--oh! there's nothing that less deserves to live, that is less able to endure life, than the wretched creature for whom you, self-sacrificing as you are,--but no, draw back your hand; you don't know whom you wish to raise."
"Is it so?" he said quietly. Then we must call things by their right names, that we may understand each other. Statistics and public opinions unite in saying, that of all the women who arbitrarily seek to leave the world, nine-tenths seek death from misplaced affection, deceived, unrequited, or hopeless passion. Should your case be one of these, the common prejudices of the world cannot prevent me from placing my love at your disposal. I know you never can have done anything base, half way, contemptible, which alone could degrade you in my eyes, because it would destroy and give the lie to the image of you which I cherish in my heart. Even if a misplaced love had led you into the arms of an unworthy man, and indignant anguish at a piece of knavish treachery, devilish villainy--He suddenly paused, startled by the fixed, almost Medusa-like gaze, with which she looked him in the face.