I could not at once feel it a relief that my fancies had all been
dissipated into thin air. Physically I was much broken down, but, with
my natural elasticity, quickly recovered. Yet in my relations towards
the other sex I was torn as I had never been before. My soul, or more
exactly, that part of my psychical life bordering on the other sex, was
like a deep, unploughed field, waiting for seed.
It was not much more than a month before the field was sown. Amongst my
Danish acquaintances there was only one, a young and very beautiful
widow, upon whom, placed as I was with regard to Mile. Mathilde, I had
definitely counted. I should have taken the young Spaniard to her; she
alone would have understood her--they would have been friends.
There had for a long time been warm feelings of sympathy between her
and me. It so chanced that she drew much closer to me immediately after
the decisive word had been spoken. She became, consequently, the only
one to whom I touched upon the wild fancies to which I had given myself
up, and confided the dreams with which I had wasted my time. She
listened to me sympathetically, no little amazed at my being so devoid
of practical common sense. She stood with both feet on the earth; but
she had one capacity that I had not met with before in any young
woman--the capacity for enthusiasm. She had dark eyes, with something
melancholy in their depths; but when she spoke of anything that roused
her enthusiasm, her eyes shone like stars.
She pointed out how preposterous it was in me to wish to seek so far
away a happiness that perhaps was very close to me, and how even more
preposterous to neglect, as I had done, my studies and intellectual
aims for a fantastic love. And for the first time in my life, a young
woman spoke to me of my abilities and of the impression she had
received of them, partly through the reading of the trifles that I had
had printed, partly, and more particularly, through her long talks with
me. Neither the little French girl nor the young Spanish lady had ever
spoken to me of myself, my talents, or my future; this Danish woman
declared that she knew me through and through. And the new thing about
it all, the thing hitherto unparalleled in my experience, was that she
believed in me. More than that: she had the highest possible conception
of my abilities, asserted in contradiction to my own opinion, that I
was already a man of unusual mark, and was ardently ambitious for me.
Just at this moment, when so profoundly disheartened, and when in idle
hopes and plans I had lost sight of my higher goal, by her firm belief
in me she imparted to me augmented self-respect. Her confidence in me
gave me increasing confidence in myself, and a vehement gratitude awoke
in me for the good she thus did me.
Then it happened that one day, without preamble, she admitted that the
interest she felt in me was not merely an intellectual one; things had
now gone so far that she could think of nothing but me.
My whole nature was shaken to its foundations. Up to this time I had
only regarded her as my friend and comforter, had neither felt nor
fought against any personal attraction. But she had scarcely spoken,
before she was transformed in my eyes. The affection I had thirsted for
was offered to me here. The heart I had felt the need of was this
heart. And it was not only a heart that was offered me, but a passion
that scorned scruples.
In my austere youth hitherto, I had not really had erotic experiences
whatever. I had led the chaste life of the intellectual worker. My
thoughts had been the thoughts of a man; they had ascended high and had
delved deep, but my love affairs had been the enthusiasms and fancies
of a half-grown boy, chimeras and dreams. This young woman was my first
living erotic reality.
And suddenly, floodgates seemed to open within me. Streams of lava,
streams of molten fire, rushed out over my soul. I loved for the first
time like a man.
The next few days I went about as if lifted above the earth; in the
theatre, in the evening, I could not follow the performance, but sat in
the pit with my face in my hands, full of my new destiny, as though my
heart would burst.
And yet it was more a physical state, an almost mechanical outcome of
what to me was overwhelmingly new, association with a woman. It was not
because it was just this particular woman. For my emotional nature was
so composite that even in the first moment of my bliss I did not regard
this bliss as unmixed. From the very first hour, I felt a gnawing
regret that it was not I who had desired her, but she who had chosen
me, so that my love in my heart of hearts was only a reflection of hers.