Victoria Read Online Free PDF Page A

ways, and old men stand on tiptoe in their lonely rooms? Alas, love turns the human heart into a mildewed garden, a lush and shameless garden in which grow mysterious, obscene toadstools.
    Doesn’t it make monks prowl by night through closed gardens and press their eyes to the windows of sleepers? And doesn’t it possess nuns with foolishness and darken the understanding of princesses? It can knock a king’s head in the dust, making his hair sweep the road as he whispers lewd words to himself, laughing and sticking out his tongue.
    Such was the nature of love.
    No, no, again it was very different, it was like nothing else in the whole world. It came to earth on a spring night when a young man saw two eyes, two eyes. He stared and saw. He kissed two lips—it was as though two flames met in his heart, a sun flashing at a star. He fell into a pair of arms, and he heard and saw no more in the whole wide world.
    Love is God’s first word, the first thought that sailed through his brain. When he said, “Let there be light!” there was love. And everything that he made was very good, and no part thereof did he wish undone. And love became the world’s beginning and the world’s ruler; but all its ways are full of flowers and blood, flowers and blood.
     
    A day in September.
    This out-of-the-way street was his favorite promenade; here he strolled as in his own room, because he never met anybody, and there were gardens behind both sidewalks, with trees having red and yellow leaves.
    How come Victoria is walking here? What can have brought her this way? He was not mistaken, it was she; and perhaps it was she who had walked there also yesterday evening, when he looked out of his window.
    His heart was thumping. He knew that Victoria was in town, that he had heard; but she moved in circles the miller’s son never entered. Nor did he associate with Ditlef.
    He pulled himself together and walked toward the lady. Didn’t she recognize him? She just walked on, serious and thoughtful, her head carried proudly on her long neck.
    He greeted her.
    “Good morning,” she answered quite softly.
    She didn’t make as if to stop and he walked by in silence. His legs twitched. At the end of the little street he turned around, as he was in the habit of doing. I’ll keep my eyes glued to the sidewalk and not look up, he thought. Only after a dozen steps or so did he look up.
    She had stopped by a window.
    Should he slip away, into the next street? What was she standing there for? The window was a poor one, a small store window in which could be seen a few crossed bars of red soap, grits in a glass jar, and some used postage stamps for sale.
    Maybe he could continue another dozen steps and then turn back?
    At that moment she looked at him, and suddenly she came toward him again. She walked fast, as though she had taken heart, and when she spoke she had difficulty catching her breath. She smiled nervously.
    “Good morning. How nice to meet you.”
    God, how his heart was struggling; it wasn’t beating, it trembled. He tried to say something but wasn’t able to, only his lips moved. Her clothes gave off a scent, her yellow dress, or perhaps it was her mouth. At that moment he had no clear impression of her face, but he recognized her fine shoulders and saw her long, slender hand on the handle of her parasol. It was her right hand. She was wearing a ring on it.
    In the first few seconds he didn’t think about this and had no feeling of distress. Her hand was strangely beautiful.
    “I’ve been in town for a whole week,” she went on, “but I haven’t seen you. Well, yes, I did see you once in the street; somebody told me it was you. You’ve grown so tall.”
    “I knew you were in town,” he mumbled. “Will you be staying long?”
    “A few days. No, not long. I must go home again.”
    “Thanks for giving me a chance to say hello to you,” he said.
    Pause.
    “By the way, I think I’ve lost my way,” she resumed. “I’m