In addition to many trying and strange characteristics possessed by
Erika, Providence had bestowed upon her one which at this time stood
her in stead. Upon any severe agitating experience a few hours of cool,
hard self-consciousness were sure to ensue,--hours in which she was
perfectly able to appear in the world with dry eyes, and not even the
keenest observer could perceive any change in her, save that her laugh
was perhaps more frequent and more silvery.
This condition of mind was far from being an agreeable one: moreover,
the reaction afterwards was terrible: nevertheless, thanks to this
moral paralysis, Erika was able in critical moments to preserve
appearances.
The day on which, as she supposed, her happiness, her faith, the entire
purpose of her life, lay in ruins about her, was occupied with social
duties of every description. She performed them all,--an afternoon tea,
with lawn-tennis, a dinner, and at last a supper with music at the
Austrian Consul's.
And even when the old Countess on their way home from the Consul's
proposed that they should look in at Frau von Neerwinden's, upon whom
they had not called since the memorable evening when Minona read, Erika
declared herself quite willing to do so. Perhaps this was because she
had a secret hope of meeting Lozoncyi there; for she longed to see him,
to show him how entirely he had been mistaken if he had supposed----
Ah! what pretexts we invent to deceive ourselves as to the cowardly
impulses of our desires!
But he was not at Frau von Neerwinden's, where the old Countess found
herself so well entertained, however, that she passed an hour,
discussing the latest Venetian scandal, in which Erika took no
interest. She strolled away from the group of elderly guests and
through the open glass doors leading out upon a balcony above the
water, where she seemed quite forgotten by those within the apartment.
Beneath her on the dark surface of the lagoon the gondolas were
crowding from all quarters around a bark whence came music and song.
They glided past over the black water, a broad stream of humanity
attracted as by a magnetic needle, lured by a voice. Nearer and nearer
came the song, until it swept past beneath Erika's balcony:
"Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie,
Toi, qui n'as pas d'amour?"
And above her glimmered the stars, myriads of worlds, sparkling, and
shining down disdainfully upon wretched humanity writhing and striving
in its efforts to attain paltry ends, so vastly important in its own
estimation.
Erika lay awake all night long, oppressed by a terrible burden,--not
grief for a happiness of which she had dreamed and which had proved to
be impossible, but something infinitely harder to be borne by a person
of her temperament, the sense of disgrace.
So long as she had been firmly convinced that he loved her, far from
resenting the unconventional expression of his admiration, she had
taken pleasure in it. But now the whole matter bore another aspect in
her eyes. She remembered with painful distinctness the superficial,
frivolous theories of life which he had advanced upon their first
acquaintance. Love! yes, he might perhaps have experienced what he
designated thus, but at the thought her cheeks burned. She had pleased
him, as hundreds before her had done, and in the full consciousness of
the ties of marriage by which he was bound he had allowed himself to
make love to her as he would have done to any common flirt. When at
last, in entire faith in the sincerity--yes, in the sacredness--of his
feeling for her, she had generously laid bare her heart before him, he
had been simply terrified by the revelation.
"He is probably laughing at me now," she said to herself, trembling in
every limb. Then, with infinite bitterness, she added, "No; he is
probably reproaching himself, and wondering at my folly."
It was enough to drive her insane. She buried her burning face in her
pillow, and groaned aloud.
She shed not a tear throughout the night, and she appeared punctually
as usual at the breakfast-table, but in the midst of the pleasant
little meal, which was always taken in her grandmother's boudoir, she
was overcome by an intense weariness; she longed to flee to some dark
corner where no one could find her and there let the tears flow freely.
The meal was, however, unusually prolonged. The old Countess, who had
quite forgotten her vexation at Lozoncyi's concealment of his marriage,
and who had been vastly entertained the previous evening at Frau von
Neerwinden's, was in an excellent humour, and was full of conversation,
in which she showed herself both amusing and witty.
Erika forced herself to laugh and to seem gay, when, just as she felt
unable to endure the situation for another moment, Luedecke appeared
with a note for her. It had come, he informed her, the day before,
shortly after the ladies had gone out to dinner, and he begged to be
forgiven for having forgotten to deliver it.
"Old donkey!" the Countess Lenzdorff murmured. Erika opened the
note with trembling hands. It came from Fraeulein Horst, the poor
music-teacher. She wrote that she had been worse for a couple of days,
and had made up her mind to go home. With pathetic gratitude and
sincere admiration she desired to take leave of Erika thus in writing,
since her weak condition would not allow her to call upon her.
Really distressed, and a little ashamed of having of late somewhat
neglected the poor creature, Erika had a gondola called, and went
immediately to the Pension Weber. When she asked in the hall of the
establishment for Fraeulein Horst, the dismay painted on every face at
once revealed to her the truth: the poor music-teacher had passed away.
She asked to be taken to the room where the dead woman lay; and as
Attilio, the hotel waiter, conducted her thither, he told how there had
been for a long time no hope of the invalid's recovery; the day before
yesterday the last symptom had appeared,--a restless longing for
change,--for travel; her departure had been fixed for this evening;
they had all hoped so that she would get off; but she had died here:
they had found her dead in bed this very morning, her candle burnt down
into the socket, and her open book on her bed. Oh, yes, it was very sad
to die so, away from home, and it was very unpleasant for the
establishment. Eccellenza had no idea of the injury it was to the
Pension! The Signor Baron in the first story had declared that he would
not spend another night there.
As Attilio finished, he unlocked the room where the body lay, and
ushered in Erika. She motioned to him to leave her alone.
The room was darkened. Erika drew aside the curtains a little. There
was a crucifix among the medicine-bottles on the table beside the bed,
and a book, open apparently at the place where the dead woman had been
last reading. It was a German translation of 'Romeo and Juliet:' it
was open at the balcony scene, 'It is the nightingale, and not the
lark----'
Erika kneeled down at the bedside, buried her face in the coverlet, and
wept bitterly. When Attilio came to remind her gently not to stay long,
she arose and followed him with bowed head from the room.
As she was going down the stairs, she heard a harsh grating voice
with a slight Polish accent call, "Sophy, Sophy, are you ready?"
and then from the end of the corridor two figures appeared, one a
short, thick-set woman heavily laden with a bundle of shawls, a
travelling-bag, and several umbrellas, and looking up at a man who
walked beside her, his hands in the pockets of his plaid jacket, his
eye-glass in his eye, allowing himself with much condescension to be
adored. They were Strachinsky and his second wife.
"II signore Barone," murmured Attilio.
Strachinsky glanced towards Erika: he frowned and looked away. She was
glad that he did so, for in her dejected condition she could hardly
have brought herself to speak to the couple. Her whole soul was filled
with a desire to creep away to some quiet spot where she might find
relief in tears.
She sent away her gondola, and hurried through the narrow streets to
the Piazza San Zacharie. There she took refuge in the church of the
same name.
It was empty: not even a tourist was present to gaze upon the beauty of
the famous Gianbellini.
She crouched down in the darkest corner upon the hard stones, and
there, leaning her head upon the rush seat of a church chair, she wept
more uncontrollably than she had done beside the corpse of the poor
music-teacher. All at once she felt that she was no longer alone. She
looked up. Beside her stood Lozoncyi.
She arose, doing what she could to summon her pride to her aid. "What
strange chance brings you here?" she asked him.
"No chance whatever," he replied. "I saw you enter the church, and I
followed you."
"Ah!" By a supreme effort she forced herself to assume an indifferent
tone. "I have just been to the Pension Weber to take leave of my poor
music-teacher. I found her dead. You may imagine----"
He shook his head: "And you would have me believe that the tears you
have just shed are for that poor creature? It is hardly worth the
trouble. Countess Erika, I have followed you to speak with you
undisturbed for the last time, to thank you, and to entreat your
forgiveness. Be frank with me, as I shall be with you. Let us have the
consolation of knowing that, when we parted, the heart of each was laid
bare to the other: it will be but poor comfort, after all."
He uttered the words with so decided a casting aside of all disguise
that Erika's pride availed her nothing. In vain did she seek for words
in which to reply. She looked in his face, and was startled to see it
so wan and haggard.
"You see," he said, perceiving her dismay, "that in this case your
wounded pride may be entirely satisfied; you can easily dispense with
it. Compared with the torture I have endured since the day before
yesterday evening, your pain is mere child's play. Oh, I pray you,"--he
spoke in somewhat of his old impatient tone, the tone of a man whose
wishes are usually complied with gladly,--"sit down for a moment: this
is our last opportunity for speaking with each other. I owe you an
explanation. You have a right to ask me how I came to conceal from you
that I was married. To that I can only reply that I never speak of my
marriage. I am not proud of my wife; I never take her into society with
me; few of the friends whom I have here are aware that I am married,
although I do not intentionally make a secret of it. I frequently
travel alone, and last autumn the relations between my wife and myself,
from causes unnecessary to relate, became of so strained a nature that
we agreed to separate for a time. I avoided, when I could, even the
thought of her. In spite of all this, I ought not to have refrained
from acquainting you with my circumstances; nor should I have done so
if I had dreamed---- You shrink, but we have agreed that for once in
our lives, entirely casting aside pretence, we will tell each other the
truth. In this case there is nothing in it that can offend your pride.
I had conceived an enthusiasm for you when you were a very little girl.
Shall I say that I loved you from the first moment that I saw you? No!
you excited my curiosity, my wonder; I could not help thinking of you.
A veritable angel with wings would not have been more wonderful to me
than such a being as yourself. I did not wish to believe in you. At
times I called you too high-strung, at times I said to myself that
yours was simply a cold nature. You know how I avoided you,--avoided
you when I could not take my eyes off you; and then--then--you have no
idea of how my heart beat when I went to you to beg to be allowed to
paint your portrait. From that time all speculation with regard to you
was at an end: I blissfully and gratefully accepted the miracle
revealed to me; nay, I ceased to regard you as a miracle; you were for
me the key to a pure, noble life, of which I had hitherto never
dreamed. And I began to long for this life: the disgust I had hitherto
felt for the whole world I now felt for myself; and then all was over
with me. I had no longer any thought save of you; my whole soul was
filled with eager anticipation of the short time I could pass with you;
when you were gone I used to sit for hours in my studio, recalling in
memory your every look and word. The budding freshness of your being,
which needed only a little sunshine to blossom forth gloriously, your
profound capacity for enthusiasm, the wealth of affection concealed
beneath a coldness of manner, and withal the proud, unsullied purity of
your heart, mind, and soul--oh, God! how lovely it all was! But you
were so far removed from me; a universe separated us. Never, no, never
for one moment did I dream of your bestowing one thought of love upon
me. Then, when, conscious that the joy which had come to be my life was
so soon to end, I went to you in most melancholy mood, the day before
yesterday evening, your look, the tone of your voice, set my brain on
fire. I left you and wandered about the streets like one possessed.
When at last I went home, I shut myself up in the studio and began to
dream. I pictured what my life might have been had I been free to clasp
in my arms the bliss that might have been mine. I seemed to feel your
presence, so pure, so holy, and yet so tender and loving. The life at
which I had always sneered--a home-life--seemed to me the only one
worth living, if lived with you. I dreamed it in every detail; I
thought how my art could be ennobled and purified through you,--my art,
which until now had been little more than the cry of a tortured soul.
My former life lay far behind me, like some foul swamp from which you
had rescued me. How I adored you! how tenderly and truly I reverenced
you! Then on a sudden I awoke to the consciousness of how impossible it
all was. I crept out into the garden, where in the early dawn all
looked pale and fading like my dying dream. I forced myself to think:
it pained me so to think!--but I forced myself to do so, to draw
conclusions. Whichever way my thoughts turned, they led to despair,--to
separation from you. I could not resist the conviction that it was my
duty to end all intercourse with you as quickly as possible. What next
occurred you know yourself. But you never can dream of what I endured
from the time when you entered my studio yesterday morning until the
moment when you followed me into the garden and there among the roses
held out your hands to me, your eyes filled with light, everything
about you so chaste, so grave, so tender; no, that agony you never can
imagine! Not to be able to fall at your feet, to take you in my arms
and say, 'My heaven, my queen, my every thought, my life, my art, shall
all be one prayer of gratitude to you!' To live a joyless life when joy
is all unknown is nothing,--a matter of course. But when an angel opens
wide the gates of Paradise for one, and one must say, 'No, I dare not!'
it is horrible! one cannot believe it possible to survive it!" He
ceased.
Erika had listened to him with bowed head. Every word that he had
uttered had been balm to her wounded pride, and at the same time had
excited that which was most easily stirred within her, the tenderest,
warmest emotion of her heart,--her compassion. She had, it is true, a
vague consciousness that it was not right that she should listen to
such words from a married man, but she stifled it with the excuse that
it was their last interview.
His eyes sought hers: apparently he expected her to speak; but her lips
refused to frame a sentence, although there was a question which she
longed to ask.
He leaned towards her. "There is something you would fain ask," he
whispered. "Tell me what it is."
"I--I"--at last she managed to say,--"I cannot comprehend what induced
you to marry that woman."
He shrugged his shoulders: "No, nor can I, now, myself. How can I make
you understand that in the world in' which I lived there were no women
who inspired me with respect? it was made up of my fellow-students, and
of women in no wise superior to the one of whom we are speaking. I was
convinced that all her sex were either like her, or were harsh old
maids, like my aunt Illona. Ten years older than I, she controlled my
thoughts and my actions; I could not do without her, and at last I
married her for fear lest some one of my fellow-students should take
her from me." He paused.
Erika drew her breath painfully.
"Shortly afterwards came fame," he began anew, "suddenly,--over-night,
as it were,--and all doors were flung wide for me. I do not want to
represent myself to you as a better man than I am: I do not deny that
all went smoothly in the beginning. I did not suffer from the burden
with which I had laden my life. Dozens of my fellows lived just
as I did. She relieved me of every petty care, she removed every
obstacle from my path, she undertook all my transactions with the
picture-dealers, she was everything that I was not,--practical,
cautious, energetic. I went into society without her,--she was content
that it should be so,--and I enjoyed in intercourse with other women
that charm which was lacking in my home. I felt no disgust then at my
own want of all true perception. The fashionable circles which I
frequented were in no wise in advance, so far as a lofty standard of
morality was concerned, of those in which I had lived hitherto. Whence
does a young artist nowadays derive his knowledge of so-called refined
society? From a few exaggerated women who befriend him half the time
because they are wearying for a new toy. We poor fellows have but
little opportunity to sound the depths of a true, pure womanly nature,
least of all in the beginning of our career. It never occurred to
me to think what my life might have been under other influences,
until---- Oh, Erika, Erika, why did you so transform me? Why did you
drag me from the mire which was my element, to leave me to perish?"
She put both hands to her temples. "What can I do?" she murmured,
hoarsely. "What can I do?"
There she stood, pale and still, trembling with sympathy and
compassion, needing help and helpless, more beautiful than ever, with
cheeks flushed and eyes bright with fever.
On a sudden the cannon from San Giorgio announced the hour of noon, and
instantly all the bells in Venice began to swing their brazen tongues.
Erika awaked as from a dream. "I must go," she said. "My grandmother is
expecting me."
"This is farewell forever," he murmured.
He bowed his head and turned away. She could not endure the sight of
his agony. Approaching him, and laying her hand upon his arm, she
began, "Do you really believe that you owe no duty to your wife?"
"None!" He could not understand why she should ask the question.
"Then--then----" she stammered, "why not obtain a divorce?"
He gazed at her for an instant. "And you could then consent to be my
wife? You, the beautiful, idolized Countess Erika Lenzdorff, the wife
of a poor, divorced artist?"
"Yes," she replied, firmly. Then, offering him her hand, and once more
lifting to his her clear, pure eyes, she left the church. In an
inspired frenzy of self-sacrifice, as it were, she crossed the Piazza,
where the grass grew between the uneven stones of the pavement, and
above which the gray clouds were floating.
She was as if borne aloft by an inspiration that elevated her whole
being. Suddenly she became aware of a discord in her sensations. On her
ear there fell, sung to the tinkling accompaniment of a guitar,--the
words,--
"Tu m'hai bagnato il seno mio di lagrime,
T'amo d'immenso amor."
Looking up, she perceived the same repulsive musicians that had so
shocked her awhile ago on the Piazza San Stefano.
She hastened her steps; but the sound long pursued her, 'T'amo
d'immenso amor!' until it died away with a last 'amor.'
She frowned. She was indignant, that the wondrous, sacred word should
be thus profaned.
There was no brightness in the future to which Erika looked forward. Of
this she was fully aware. They must go forth into the world, he and
she, with none to wish them God-speed, none to bless them. And yet the
melancholy which shrouded their love made it doubly dear to her. The
craving for suffering which for some time past had thrilled her excited
nerves now stirred within her. Had she not been seeking it lately
everywhere,--in poetry, in music, in art?
She passed the day in this state of enthusiastic exaltation. At
night she slept better than she had for long, but shortly after she
awaked she was assailed by a distracting, feverish agitation. No
arrangement had been made as to how she should get the intelligence
from Lozoncyi with regard to his wife's consent to a divorce. Would he
bring the information himself? would he send her a note? Ten o'clock
struck,--half-past ten,--eleven,--and no message came. Her hands, her
lips, her brow, burned with fever; she drew her breath with difficulty.
About eleven o'clock the old Countess went to take her forenoon walk.
She had been gone but a short time when Luedecke announced Herr von
Lozoncyi.
Erika had him shown up, and the first glance which she cast at his face
told her that for him there was no possibility of a release.
Without a word she held out her hand to him. His hand was icy cold and
trembled in her clasp; he looked pale and wretched,--the picture of
misery.
Possessed absolutely by the pity that had filled her soul, she saw in
his face only torturing despair at not being able to rid his life of
what so degraded it. What could she do for him now? What sacrifice
could she make?
"Sit down," she said, awkwardly, after a pause.
"It is not worth while," he rejoined, in the dull tone of a man crushed
to the earth beneath a heavy burden. "I have been waiting for an hour
to see you alone, that I might tell you that which must be told. I have
spoken with--my wife. She will not consent to a divorce, and without
her consent no divorce is possible. She has never given me any legal
cause for a separation,--no, never, strange as it may seem in a woman
of her class. Yesterday evening I spoke to her, and there was a
terrible scene; and now,"--his voice grew fainter,--"now all is over."
He laid his hand upon the back of a chair, as if to support himself,
and paused for a moment, then resumed: "I ought to have written to
you,--it would have been far better,--far,--but I could not deny myself
one more sight of you. Farewell. Now all is over."
She stood as if rooted to the spot, pale, mute, searching feverishly
for some consolation for him. What more could she offer him? There was
a gulf as of death between them. She sought some path that would lead
across it,--in vain. She felt faint and giddy.
"Farewell," he murmured. "Thanks--thanks for all--the joy--for all the
sorrow---- Good God! how dear it has been!" His voice broke; he turned
away, holding out to her, for the last time, a slender, trembling hand.
Why at sight of that hand did memory recall so vividly the half-starved
artist lad after whom as a tiny girl she had run to relieve his misery?
And now she could do nothing for him,--nothing! Really nothing?
Suddenly it flashed upon her.
She had but to hold out her arms, to forget herself, and his anguish
would be transformed to bliss. Compassion grew within her and took
possession of her like insanity; her soul was shaken as by an
earthquake; what had been above was now beneath, and from the chaos one
thought emerged, at first formless as a dream, then waxing clearer,
until it took shape as a command, gradually obtaining absolute
mastership of her.
She raised her head, proud, resolved. "Have you the courage to break
with all your present life, and to begin a new one with me?" she asked.
"A new life?" he murmured, and, vaguely, uncertainly, as if unable to
trust his senses and fearing to lend words to what was monstrous and
impossible, he added, "With you?"
"Yes."
He recoiled a step, and looked her full in the face, speechless,
breathless.
A burning blush rose to her cheeks. "You have not the courage," she
said, sternly. "Well, then----" With an imperious gesture she turned
away.
But he detained her. "Not the courage?" he cried, seizing her hand and
carrying it to his lips. "Offer a cup of pure water to a man perishing
of thirst, and ask him if he has the courage to drink! The question is
not of me, but of you. Have you the faintest idea of the meaning of
what you have said?"
She shook her head: "I have learned to look life in the face; I know
what I am doing. I know what the consequences of my act will be; I know
that I resign all intercourse with my fellow-beings, saving only with
yourself; that my only refuge on earth will be at your side; I know
that I shall be a lost creature in the eyes of the world; and yet, if I
may cherish the conviction that thereby I can redeem your shattered
existence, that I can purify and ennoble your life, I am ready."
Her voice, always soft and full of that quality which goes straight to
the heart, was veiled and vibrating; her hands were clasped upon her
breast, her head was proudly erect, and her eyes seemed larger than
usual from the ecstasy that shone in them. She was supernaturally
lovely, and never had the chaste purity peculiar to her beauty
been more distinctly stamped upon her face than at this moment when
she--she, Erika Lenzdorff--was voluntarily proposing to follow a
married man through the world as his mistress.
"Erika!" There was boundless exultation in his voice; he took one step
towards her to clasp her in his arms and to press the first kiss upon
her lips. But she repulsed him, overcome, it seemed, by sudden distress
and dread, and when he repeated, in a tone of dismay and reproach,
"Erika!" she passed her hand across her brow, and murmured, "My entire
life belongs to you. Do not grudge me a few hours of reflection and
preparation."
He smiled at her reserve, and contented himself with pressing his lips
tenderly again and again upon her hand, as he said, caressingly,
"Preparation? Oh, my darling, my darling! Meet me to-night at the
railway-station at ten, and we will start for Florence. Leave all the
rest to me."
"To-night it would be impossible," she said: "it is our reception
evening. I could not leave without giving rise to a search for me."
"Then to-morrow?" he persisted, speaking very quickly in his beguiling,
irresistible voice. Everything about him betrayed the feverish
insistence of a man who suddenly gives free rein to a passion which he
has hitherto with difficulty held in check.
"To-morrow," she repeated, anxiously,--"to-morrow----"
"Do not delay, Erika, if you are really resolved."
"To-morrow be it, then!" The words came syllable by syllable from her
lips in a kind of dull staccato.
"Erika!" His eyes shone, his whole being seemed transfigured.
"Yes," she went on, "Constance Muehlberg has arranged an excursion to
Chioggia to-morrow in a steamer she has chartered. My grandmother is to
chaperon the party. At the last moment I will refuse to accompany her,
and I shall then be free. When shall I come?"
They decided upon taking the train leaving between eight and nine in
the evening for Vienna. Then other necessary details were arranged, a
process unutterably distasteful to Erika, to whom it seemed like making
the business arrangements for a funeral. She suffered intensely in thus
descending to blank, prosaic reality from the visionary heights to
which she had soared.
At last everything had been discussed: there was nothing more to be
said. A great dread then stole over her: she grew very silent.
"I cannot believe in my bliss," he murmured. "You stand there in your
white robes so chaste and grave, with that holy light in your eyes,
more like a martyr awaiting death than a loving woman ready to break
through all barriers to----"
There was something in this description of the situation that offended
her,--offended her so deeply that with what was almost harshness she
interrupted him, saying, "And now, I pray you, go!"
He looked at her in some dismay. She cast down her eyes, and with
flaming cheeks stammered, "My grandmother will return in a few moments:
I should not like to see you in her presence."
"You are right," he said, changing colour. "Your grandmother has always
been so kind to me, and now----"
"Ah, go!"
"May I not come to see you at some time during the day to-morrow?"
"No."
"In the evening, then,--at eight?"
She looked him full in the face, stern resolve in her eyes. "I shall be
punctual," she said.
"To-morrow at eight," he whispered.
"To-morrow at eight," she repeated.
A minute afterwards he stood alone in the sunlit space behind the
hotel.
He rubbed his eyes, seeming to waken slowly from a lovely and most
improbable dream.
At first he felt only exhilaration, the joy of a near approach to a
long-desired but unhoped-for goal.
"To-morrow at eight," he whispered to himself several times. Then on a
sudden the keen edge of his delight was blunted; his joy seemed to slip
through his fingers; he could not retain it.
He recalled the entire scene through which he had just passed. He saw
the girl's expression of face, he heard the sound of her voice. It was
all lovely, exquisitely lovely, but, after all, there was something
inharmonious, unnatural in it. This very girl who had of her own free
impulse proposed to fly with him had never, during their long
consultation, been impelled to utter one word of affection for him, and
he himself was conscious that he could not have demanded it of her. She
had been gentle, enthusiastic, self-sacrificing,--yes, self-sacrificing
even to fanaticism. Self-sacrificing! he repeated the word to himself
in an undertone: it had seized hold of his imagination as portraying
precisely her attitude and bearing. Self-sacrificing,--yes, but not the
slightest evidence had she given him of warm, passionate affection. He
frowned, as he walked on thoughtfully.
"How does she picture to herself the future, I wonder?" Distinctly in
his memory rang her words, "I know that I resign all intercourse with
my fellow-beings, saving with yourself; that my only refuge on earth
will be at your side; I know that I shall be a lost creature in the
eyes of the world; and yet, if I can only cherish the conviction that I
can thereby redeem your shattered existence, that I can purify and
ennoble your life, I am ready."
How ravishing she had been whilst uttering these words! and beautiful,
pathetic words they were; but----
He shivered, in spite of the Venetian May sunshine. Some chord of
overwrought feeling suddenly snapped; a stifling sensation of
ungrateful and almost angry rebellion against an undeserved happiness
assailed him. How could this be? He was paralyzed by a cowardly dread.
He was ashamed of this revulsion of feeling, and struggled against it
with angry self-contempt, but he could not shake it off. He had a vague
consciousness that he must always be thus shamed in Erika's presence.
To avoid being so he should have to incite himself to a degree of
high-souled enthusiasm which was unnatural and inconvenient. "Purify
and ennoble his life!" What did that mean? "Purify? ennoble?"