Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XII
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colour and form of it would change, but it would never be
effaced. Every hour of the day it was different, but it was
always there, and always would be. On the morning when he
had run for the doctor, leaving the other man alone with her,
he had wanted to tell Helge Gram all he knew, and in such a
way that his heart would turn to ashes like his own had done;
but in the days that followed all he knew became a secret
between him and the dead woman—the secret of their love.
All that had happened had happened because of her being what
she was, and as such he had loved her. Helge Gram was a
casual, indifferent stranger to him and to her, and he had no
more wish to avenge himself on him than he had pity for his
sorrow and dread at the mystery.
And he understood that what had happened was natural
because she was made as she was. Her mind swayed and bent
for a gust of wind, because it had grown so upright and slender;
he had thought she could grow as a tree grows, and had not
understood that she was only a flower, a rich, fragile stem,
springing up to be kissed by the sun and to let all the heavy,
longing buds break into bloom. She had only been a little
girl after all, and to his eternal sorrow he had not understood
it until too late.
For she could not right herself again when once she had been
bent; she was like a lily, that does not grow from the root
again if the first stalk has been broken. There was nothing
supple or luxuriant about her mind—but he loved her such as
she was. And she was his only, for he alone knew how fair
and delicate she had been—so strong in her desire to grow
straight, and yet so frail and brittle, and with delicate honour,
from which a spot never could be washed away because it made
so deep a mark. She was dead. He had been alone with his
love many nights and days, and he would be alone with it all
the days and nights of his life.
He had stifled his cries of despair many a night in his pillows.
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