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THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL 79
of the Asia, "who die when they love." There could
have been no doubt of the genuineness of my passion, for
I had gone back to childhood, obsessed by one thought,
one picture, one single, overpowering sensation, prostrat-
ing me and rendering me unable to do anything but sigh.
To distract my thoughts, I let my eyes travel over the
glorious landscape spread out at my feet. The thousands
of islands bristling with Scotch firs, with here and there a
pine tree, which seemed to swim in the enormous bay,
gradually decreased in size and transformed themselves
into reefs, cliffs and sandbanks, until the huge archipelago
terminated at the grey-green line of the Baltic, Avhere the
breakers dashed against the steep bulwarks of the remotest
cliffs.
The shadows of the drifting clouds fell in coloured
stripes on the surface of the water, passing from dark
brown through all the shades of bottle-green and Prussian
blue to the snowy white of the crested waves. Behind a
fortress, situated on a steep cliff’, rose a column of black
smoke, ascending without a break from an invisible chim-
ney, to be blown down again by the wind on to the foaming
waves. All of a sudden the dark hull of the cargo-boat
which I had just left came into view. The sight wrung my
heart, for the steamer seemed like a witness of my disgrace.
Like a shying horse, I bolted and fled into the wood.
Underneath the pointed arches of the Scotch firs,
through the needles of which the wind whistled, my
anguish increased. Here Ave had been walking together
when the spring sunshine lay on the tender green, when
the Scotch firs put forth their purple blossoms, which
exhale a perfume like that of the Avild strawberry ; when
the juniper scattered its yellow pollen into the wind ; when
the anemones pushed their Avhite heads through the dead
leaves under the hazel bushes. Her little feet had pressed
the soft, brown moss, spread out like a rug, while with a
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