Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XI
<< 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)
knew what was the right thing to do. Everything might have
been quite different. I have often remembered the last evening
I was with you in Rome, and it seemed always that such an
occasion would present itself again, for I left you then because
I thought it was right. Surely, that could not have been the
cause of my losing you? I had never been near a woman
then," he said, looking down. "I was warned by what I had
seen at home. Dreams and fancies became a hell at times, but
that fear was always paramount.
"I am twenty-nine and there has been no beautiful or happy
experience in my life but that short spring spent with you.
Can you not understand that I have never been able to
separate you from my thoughts, that I love you as before? The
only happiness I have known is that you gave me. I cannot
let you go out of my life—not now."
She got up, trembling, and he rose too. Instinctively she
drew back a few steps from him:
"Helge, there has been another."
He stood still, looking at her.
"You say there has been another—and it could have been
I. I don’t care; I want you all the same. I want you now
because you promised me once to be mine."
Terrified, she tried to go past him, but he seized her violently
in his arms. It took a few seconds for her brain to realize that
he was kissing her mouth. She thought she made a resistance,
but was in fact almost passive in his arms. She wanted to
tell him not to, and she wanted to say who the other had been,
but she could not. She would have told him about the child,
but when she remembered the boy she shrank from mentioning
him; she felt she must not drag her child into the disaster she
knew was coming. As this thought crossed her mind she
imagined she felt the dead little one caressing her, and it gave
her a sensation of joy, so that her body relaxed for a second
in his arms.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
