And when I seize the kiss upon those lips, I know that they are the lips, not of Roslawski, but of Janusz.
And then I am full of terror lest an evil thing has been done that never can be undone—lest something may have fallen away for ever out of my life.
Then do I no longer feel any desire for any one; and I weep in the dark, but silently, not to awaken Martha.
In the morning, I look upon Janusz with hatred and with loathing; and I treat him harshly, though he is indeed in no wise to blame. I merely use him ill, because my soul is a-wandering alone over those ice-plains of mine, is still dreaming cold silvery dreams, is seeking in vain for a fraternal soul.
Is it then really an impossibility to be in love without loving also?
While out shooting to-day, Janusz had just such a gleam in his eyes as he has when he gloats on me.
He is a typical primitive man of a nomad race of hunters, in whom the instinct of conservation manifests itself as vehemently when procuring his own subsistence as when acting for the preservation of the race. Game is to him a vital necessity; so is woman.
I was sorry for the hares he had killed and lectured him with great unction on man’s cruelty in taking the lives of such defenceless innocent creatures.
Just now I was thinking how I should like to lock Janusz up in a nice cage, and have him all to myself. I should give him plenty of food, but neither let him read (that prohibition he would not find very hard) nor talk to any one; so that he, with all his treasures of vitality, might be mine alone. And occasionally I should enter the cage.
I should then be far more spiritually disposed than I am now. At present, my splendid, primitive, untamed beast is hungry and howling, and mars the divine symphony I listen to in my dreams of light.