You eat the fruit and fling it away: bite my heart, it is yours!
Blest be the wound your teeth make!—I kiss your hand.
You want me—all; but, possessing all, you will possess nothing.
You leave nothing but ruins.—I kiss your hand.
To-morrow your hand, caressing me, will kill me.
Even as I kiss it, I await the mortal stroke of your hand.
Kill me! Strike! In doing me evil, you will do me good.
You deliver me, destroyer.—I kiss your hand.
Every blow that makes me bleed breaks a bond.
You tear away the chains with the flesh.—I kiss your hand.
You break the prison of my body, murderer,
And through the breach my life escapes.—I kiss your hand.
I am the broken soil from which rises the grain
Of the sorrow that you sowed.—I kiss your hand.
Sow the sacred sorrow! May all the sorrow of the world
Come to ripeness in my breast.—I kiss your hand, I kiss your
hand. . . .
Tempest, sea-waves crashing against the rocks, a soul laden with spray, flashing with lightning, a surf foaming with passions and tears dashed up towards the sky. . . .
And at the last cry of the wild birds the soul fell back suddenly. And Annette, exhausted, flung herself on her bed and slept.