"One could not make out what she said. It was in a very low voice."
"Where is the child?"
"Her brother took her away with him to the country."
"And she?"
"She is there too. She was taken away last Monday week."
They began to weep again.
Frau Vogel's voice called Rosa once more. Christophe, left alone again, lived through those days of death. A week, already a week ago…. O God! What had become of her? How it had rained that week!… And all that time he was laughing, he was happy!
In his pocket he felt a little parcel wrapped up in soft paper: they were silver buckles that he had brought her for her shoes. He remembered the evening when he had placed his hand on the little stockinged foot. Her little feet: where were they now? How cold they must be!… He thought the memory of that warm contact was the only one that he had of the beloved creature. He had never dared to touch her, to take her in his arms, to hold her to his breast. She was gone forever, and he had never known her. He knew nothing of her, neither soul nor body. He had no memory of her body, of her life, of her love…. Her love?… What proof had he of that?… He had not even a letter, a token,—nothing. Where could he seek to hold her, in himself, or outside himself?… Oh! Nothing! There was nothing left him but the love he had for her, nothing left him but himself.—And in spite of all, his desperate desire to snatch her from destruction, his need of denying death, made him cling to the last piece of wreckage, in an act of blind faith:
"… he son gia morto: e ben, c'albergo cangi resto in te vivo. C'or mi vedi e piangi, se l'un nell' altro amante si trasforma."
"… I am not dead: I have changed my dwelling. I live still in thee who art faithful to me. The soul of the beloved is merged in the soul of the lover."