Victoria Read Online Free PDF Page B

you; only a few are not, and they aren’t published. But I don’t suppose you have read those that are published either. Now I’ve started on a big book. God, how grateful I am to you! I’m so full of you, and that’s all my joy. I would always see or hear something that reminded me of you, all day, at night too. I’ve written your name on the ceiling, I lie there looking up at it; but the maid who tidies my room can’t see it, I’ve written it very small so I can have it all to myself. It gives me a certain happiness.”
    She turned away, opened her bodice and took out a piece of paper.
    “Look here!” she said, breathing heavily. “I cut it out and kept it. I don’t mind telling you, I read it at night. It was Papa who first showed it to me, and I went over to the window to read it. ‘Where is it? I can’t find it,’ I said, turning the page of the newspaper. But I found it easily and was already reading it. And I was so happy.”
    The paper gave off a fragrance from her breast; she opened it herself and showed it to him, one of his early poems, four brief stanzas to her, to the lady on the white horse. It was a heart’s naïve, fervent confession, eruptions that couldn’t be held back but leaped up from the lines, like stars coming out in the sky.
    “Yes,” he said, “I wrote that. It was a long time ago, I wrote it one night when the poplars kept rustling outside my window. Why, you’re really going to keep it? Thank you! You’ve put it away. Ah,” he exclaimed, thrilled, speaking in an undertone, “just think how close you are to me right now, sitting here. I can feel your arm against mine, your body radiates warmth. Many a time when I was alone, I shivered with emotion thinking about you; but now I feel warm. The last time I was home you were lovely too, but you’re lovelier now. It’s your eyes and your eyebrows, your smile—oh, I don’t know, it’s all of it, everything about you.”
    She smiled and looked at him with half-closed eyes shining deep blue under her long lashes. Her complexion had a warm glow to it. She seemed overcome by a feeling of intense joy, reaching out to him with an unconscious movement of her hand.
    “Thank you!” she said.
    “No, Victoria, don’t thank me,” he replied. Borne toward her heart and soul, as on a tide, he wanted to say more, more; there were confused outbursts, as though he were drunk. “But Victoria, if you love me a little . . . I don’t know one way or the other, but tell me you do even if it isn’t true. Please! Oh, I would promise you to make something of myself, something great, something almost unheard of. You have no idea what I could make of myself; sometimes when I think hard about it, I feel I’m brimful of things waiting to be done. Many a time my cup is filled to overflowing, and I dance about my room at night because I’m full of visions. There is a man in the next room, he can’t sleep and knocks on the wall. At daybreak he comes to my room, furious. That’s all right, I don’t mind him. By then I’ve thought about you for so long that you seem to be there with me. I go up to the window and start singing; there is a hint of daylight already and the poplars are rustling outside. ‘Good night!’ I say, face to face with the morning. That’s for you. She’s still sleeping, I think to myself. Good night, God bless her! Then I turn in. And so it goes, night after night. But I never imagined you were as lovely as you are. This is how I’ll remember you when you’re gone, the way you are now. I’ll remember you so clearly. . . .”
    “You won’t be coming home?”
    “No. I’m not ready yet. Yes, I’ll come. I’m going away now. I’m not ready, I want to do all sorts of things. Do you still wander about in the garden at home sometimes? Do you ever go out in the evening? I could meet you, say hello to you perhaps, that’s all. But if you love me a little, if you can bear me, put up with me, then say . . . give me the