“Souls that pine in loneliness,” he went on, as sarcastic as before, “ought to comfort each other, I think: don’t you?”
There was a pause, as we walked side by side.
“But why knit those fair eyebrows so? Oh, really, you frighten me.... Such malignant eyes! Come, come, I shall do you no harm; why be so cantankerous?”
In a rage and turning my back on him, I walked swiftly away. He made no attempt to follow. On arriving at the gate, where I was safe at last, I looked round. He was standing where he had stood before, and from afar waving me with bared head a graceful farewell.
The incident mortified and abashed me. I had behaved like a silly goose, narrow-minded and ill-tempered; I had spoiled a situation that might have had pleasant or curious developments. Why on earth had I done so?
Was this, again, only a matter of form? The necessity of that regular introduction, so dear to the bourgeoisie, in a drawing-room where two persons are made acquainted with each other by a third? Or was it not rather that dread—now a part of our life—the instinctive dread of things as they are, the eternal need of playing the part of a besieged fort, which defends itself stubbornly in order to surrender on the best terms possible?
As I came out of the park, a carriage driven at full speed passed by me; I saw a couple of feathers and a good deal of fur. Suddenly the coachman pulled up, and Mme. Wildenhoff jumped out and came towards me.
“Ah! how delighted I am to meet you! You won’t get away from me this time. Pray step in: I must make a regular woman of you.”
“With pleasure: but what’s the matter?”
“You shall hear.”