her brother. In the state of weakness in which I had long foundered, the ardours of love had been able to seize hold of my imagination only in the form of fleeting dreams. My senses had remained dumb, my heart did not truly speak until the day my uncle announced my cousin’s departure.
We were returning from the lecture, which I had attended for the first time since my illness.
You know, he told me, that we shall not be lunchingwith Laura today. Cousin Lisbeth came to fetch her early this morning. She did not want anyone to wake you, thinking that you would perhaps feel a little sad at being separated from her.
My uncle believed naively that this little pang of regret would be aborted in the face of the fait accompli; he was most astonished to see me dissolve into tears.
Well, he said, I thought you were cured, and you are not, since you are affected like a child by such a small setback.
The setback was a stab of pain, I loved Laura. It was a true friendship, custom, trust, mutual understanding, and yet Laura did not embody the ideal woman my vision had left within me and which it would have been impossible for me to define. In the crystal I had seen her as taller, more beautiful, more intelligent, more mysterious than I now saw her again in reality. In reality, she was simple, good, cheerful, somewhat positive. It seemed to me that I could have spent my life perfectly happily by her side, but always hoping for a new impetus towards that enchanted world of the vision where she vainly denied having taken me. It seemed to me also that she was deceiving me to make me forget the too-vivid impression, and that the question of whether she would transport me there once more, when my strength permitted it, depended upon her affection for me.
II
T WO YEARS PASSED , during which I worked more fruitfully, but did not see Laura again. She had spent her holidays in the country, and, instead of joining her there, I had been forced to follow my uncle on a geological excursion to the Tyrol. At last Laura reappeared one summer’s day, more beautiful and more amiable than ever.
Well, she said, holding out her two hands to me, you have not grown any more handsome, my fine Alexis; but you have the nice face of an honest boy, which makes you loved and respected. I know that you have become perfectly rational and that you are still hardworking. You don’t break glass display cases with your head any more, on the pretext of walking through amethyst geodes and climbing escarpments of milky-white quartz. You see that, having heard you repeat them during your fever, I know the names of your favourite mountains. Now, you are becoming a mathematician, and that is more serious. I want to thank you and reward you with a confidence and a gift. You should know that I am getting married, and here is my wedding-gift, with my fiancé’s permission.
As she said this, she pointed to Walter with one hand, while with the other she placed upon my finger the pretty white cornelian ring I had so long seen her wearing.
I stood there dumbstruck, and I have no idea of what I was able to say or do to express my humiliation, my jealousy or my despair. It is probable that everything concentrated itself within me to the point of making meappear decently disinterested; for, when I had suppressed the notion of what was surrounding me, I saw neither discontent , nor mockery, nor surprise on the well-meaning faces of my uncle, my cousin and her fiancé. I considered I had escaped lightly from a crisis that might have rendered me odious or ridiculous, and I went to lock myself away in my room with the ring, which I placed in front of me on my table, and which I contemplated with the bitter irony that circumstance demanded.
It was not a common cornelian, it was a very pretty hard stone, veined with opaque and translucent shades. As I looked at them questioningly, I sensed that they were extending around me, that they were filling my little room right up to the
We were returning from the lecture, which I had attended for the first time since my illness.
You know, he told me, that we shall not be lunchingwith Laura today. Cousin Lisbeth came to fetch her early this morning. She did not want anyone to wake you, thinking that you would perhaps feel a little sad at being separated from her.
My uncle believed naively that this little pang of regret would be aborted in the face of the fait accompli; he was most astonished to see me dissolve into tears.
Well, he said, I thought you were cured, and you are not, since you are affected like a child by such a small setback.
The setback was a stab of pain, I loved Laura. It was a true friendship, custom, trust, mutual understanding, and yet Laura did not embody the ideal woman my vision had left within me and which it would have been impossible for me to define. In the crystal I had seen her as taller, more beautiful, more intelligent, more mysterious than I now saw her again in reality. In reality, she was simple, good, cheerful, somewhat positive. It seemed to me that I could have spent my life perfectly happily by her side, but always hoping for a new impetus towards that enchanted world of the vision where she vainly denied having taken me. It seemed to me also that she was deceiving me to make me forget the too-vivid impression, and that the question of whether she would transport me there once more, when my strength permitted it, depended upon her affection for me.
II
T WO YEARS PASSED , during which I worked more fruitfully, but did not see Laura again. She had spent her holidays in the country, and, instead of joining her there, I had been forced to follow my uncle on a geological excursion to the Tyrol. At last Laura reappeared one summer’s day, more beautiful and more amiable than ever.
Well, she said, holding out her two hands to me, you have not grown any more handsome, my fine Alexis; but you have the nice face of an honest boy, which makes you loved and respected. I know that you have become perfectly rational and that you are still hardworking. You don’t break glass display cases with your head any more, on the pretext of walking through amethyst geodes and climbing escarpments of milky-white quartz. You see that, having heard you repeat them during your fever, I know the names of your favourite mountains. Now, you are becoming a mathematician, and that is more serious. I want to thank you and reward you with a confidence and a gift. You should know that I am getting married, and here is my wedding-gift, with my fiancé’s permission.
As she said this, she pointed to Walter with one hand, while with the other she placed upon my finger the pretty white cornelian ring I had so long seen her wearing.
I stood there dumbstruck, and I have no idea of what I was able to say or do to express my humiliation, my jealousy or my despair. It is probable that everything concentrated itself within me to the point of making meappear decently disinterested; for, when I had suppressed the notion of what was surrounding me, I saw neither discontent , nor mockery, nor surprise on the well-meaning faces of my uncle, my cousin and her fiancé. I considered I had escaped lightly from a crisis that might have rendered me odious or ridiculous, and I went to lock myself away in my room with the ring, which I placed in front of me on my table, and which I contemplated with the bitter irony that circumstance demanded.
It was not a common cornelian, it was a very pretty hard stone, veined with opaque and translucent shades. As I looked at them questioningly, I sensed that they were extending around me, that they were filling my little room right up to the
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