On a tiny scrap of paper stood the following words, hurriedly scribbled
in pencil:
‘Good-bye, we shall not see each other again. It is not through pride
that I’m going away--no, I can’t help it. Yesterday when I was crying
before you, if you had said one word to me, only one word--I should
have stayed. You did not say it. It seems it is better so.… Good-bye
for ever!’
One word.… Oh, madman that I was! That word … I had repeated it the
night before with tears, I had flung it to the wind, I had said it
over and over again among the empty fields … but I did not say it to
her, I did not tell her I loved her.… Indeed, I could not have uttered
that word then. When I met her in that fatal room, I had as yet no
clear consciousness of my love; it had not fully awakened even when I
was sitting with her brother in senseless and burdensome silence … it
flamed up with irrepressible force only a few instants later, when,
terrified by the possibility of misfortune, I began to seek and call
her … but then it was already too late. ‘But that’s impossible!’ I
shall be told; I don’t know whether it’s possible, I know that it’s the
truth. Acia would not have gone away if there had been the faintest
shade of coquetry in her, and if her position had not been a false one.
She could not put up with what any other girl would have endured; I
did not realise that. My evil genius had arrested an avowal on my lips
at my last interview with Gagin at the darkened window, and the last
thread I might have caught at, had slipped out of my fingers.
The same day I went back with my portmanteau packed, to L., and started
for Cologne. I remember the steamer was already off, and I was taking a
mental farewell of those streets, all those spots which I was never to
forget--when I caught sight of Hannchen. She was sitting on a seat near
the river. Her face was pale but not sad; a handsome young fellow was
standing beside her, laughing and telling her some story; while on the
other side of the Rhine my little Madonna peeped out of the green of
the old ash-tree as mournfully as ever.