_ Are you
satisfied?"
"I suppose, I'll have to be?"
"You don't have to."
"Well then, I want to--"
"Splendid. That is how a man speaks. Here is my hand."
* * * * *
For ten days I have been with her every hour, except at night. All
the time I was allowed to look into her eyes, hold her hands, listen
to what she said, accompany her wherever she went.
My love seems to me like a deep, bottomless abyss, into which I
subside deeper and deeper. There is nothing now which could save me
from it.
This afternoon we were resting on the meadow at the foot of the
Venus-statue. I plucked flowers and tossed them into her lap; she
wound them into wreaths with which we adorned our goddess.
Suddenly Wanda looked at me so strangely that my senses became
confused and passion swept over my head like a conflagration. Losing
command over myself, I threw my arms about her and clung to her lips,
and she--she drew me close to her heaving breast.
"Are you angry?" I then asked her.
"I am never angry at anything that is natural--" she replied, "but
_I_ am afraid you suffer."
"Oh, I am suffering frightfully."
"Poor friend!" she brushed my disordered hair back from my fore-
head. "I hope it isn't through any fault of mine."
"No--" I replied,--"and yet my love for you has become a sort of
madness. The thought that I might lose you, perhaps actually lose
you, torments me day and night.
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