Once more a thunderclap resounds. He is gone. I am all alone amid my ice-plains: and I live yet.
Bound I am, with fetters made of ice. The silvery wings of my soul are glittering under the canopy of heaven, and in the greenish splendour of the Northern Lights. She would not share with me my years of burning heat, and now she will not have me share this realm of hers. A snake is lying on my bosom, and, coiled about my neck, sucks the warm blood thence....
We bid good-night to Obojanski, and go out into the street together.
“I have to tell you something; or, rather, I have one question, only one, to put to you.” These are my first words.
“I am quite at your service.”
From the instant when I begin to speak, the sense of dread passes away from me, and an immense quietude takes its place.
“I must, however, lay down one condition. I will have from you no other answer save the word Yes or No. I do not wish—and this is of consequence to me—to hear any comments whatever. Do you agree?”
“Most willingly,” he returns, with a smile; “the condition that you lay down I certainly shall keep.”
“You must know then,” I go on, “that, since I became acquainted with you, I have known you for the only man who could make me happy. Some time ago, another man, one who deserves my sympathy and whom I trust, asked me to marry him. Being of opinion that, in the last resort, the knowledge that one is greatly loved may serve as a substitute for happiness, I have taken a month to think the matter over. My decision depends upon your answer. I ought perhaps to add that I can foresee what this is likely to be; but that I am very anxious to get absolute certainty on this point, lest I should at some future time have to reproach myself with having let my chance of happiness go by.”
There is a silence.