Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part I - I
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
“Mutually possesses, since each possesses the other.”
But she refused to understand love in that sense. In
her opinion love was something disinterested, exalted,
chaste, inexplicable.
She did not love her fiancé, but he was head over ears
in love with her.
When I said so she lost her temper, and then confessed
that she had never loved him.
“And yet you contemplate marrying him?”
“Because he would be lost if I didn’t.”
“Always that mania for saving souls!”
She grew more and more angry; she maintained that
she was not, and never had been, really engaged to him.
We had caught each other lying; what prospects!
There remained nothing for me to do now but to make
a clean breast of it, and contradict my previous statement
that I was “as good as engaged.” This done, we were
at liberty to make use of our freedom.
As she had now no longer any cause for jealousy, the
game began afresh, and this time we played it in deadly
earnest. I confessed my love to her—in writing. She
forwarded the letter to her fiancé. He heaped insults on
my head—by post.
I told her that she must choose between him and me.
But she carefully refrained from doing so, for her object
was to have me, him, and as many more as she could get,
kneeling at her feet and adoring her. She was a flirt, a
mangeuse d’hommes, a chaste polyandrist.
But, perhaps for want of some one better, I had fallen
in love with her, for I loathed casual love-affairs, and the
solitude of my attic bored me.
Towards the end of her stay in town I invited her to
pay me a visit at the library. I wanted to dazzle her,
show myself to her in impressive surroundings, so as to
overawe this arrogant little brain.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
