‘I can’t commend your choice, though,’ I observed.
‘What am I to read then?’ she cried; and flinging the book on the
table, she added--‘so I’d better go and play the fool,’ and ran out
into the garden.
That same day, in the evening, I was reading Gagin _Hermann und
Dorothea_. Acia at first kept fidgeting about us, then all at once she
stopped, listened, softly sat down by me, and heard the reading through
to the end. The next day I hardly knew her again, till I guessed it had
suddenly occurred to her to be as domestic and discreet as Dorothea.
In fact I saw her as a half-enigmatic creature. Vain, self-conscious to
the last degree, she attracted me even when I was irritated by her. Of
one thing only I felt more and more convinced; and that was, that she
was not Gagin’s sister. His manner with her was not like a brother’s,
it was too affectionate, too considerate, and at the same time a little
constrained.
A curious incident apparently confirmed my suspicions.
One evening, when I reached the vineyard where the Gagins lived, I
found the gate fastened. Without losing much time in deliberation, I
made my way to a broken-down place I had noticed before in the hedge
and jumped over it. Not far from this spot there was a little arbour
of acacias on one side of the path. I got up to it and was just about
to pass it.… Suddenly I was struck by Acia’s voice passionately and
tearfully uttering the following words:
‘No, I’ll love no one but you, no, no, I will love you only, for ever!’
‘Come, Acia, calm yourself,’ said Gagin; ‘you know I believe you.’
Their voices came from the arbour. I could see them both through the
thin net-work of leaves. They did not notice me.
‘You, you only,’ she repeated, and she flung herself on his neck, and
with broken sobs began kissing him and clinging to his breast.
‘Come, come,’ he repeated, lightly passing his hand over her hair.
For a few instants I stood motionless.… Suddenly I started--should I go
up to them?--‘On no consideration,’ flashed through my head. With rapid
footsteps I turned back to the hedge, leaped over it into the road, and
almost running, went home. I smiled, rubbed my hands, wondered at the
chance which had so suddenly confirmed my surmises (I did not for one
instant doubt their accuracy) and yet there was a great bitterness in
my heart. What accomplished hypocrites they are, though, I thought. And
what for? Why should he try to take me in? I shouldn’t have expected it
of him.… And what a touching scene of reconciliation!