Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XII
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She was dead, and she had never been his. He was the one
she should have loved and belonged to, for she was the only one
he had ever loved. He had never touched or seen her beautiful,
slim, white body that enclosed her soul like a velvet sheath about
a thin, feeble blade. Others had possessed it, and had not
understood what a strange and rare treasure had happened to
fall into their hands. It lay buried in the grave, a prey to
ugly change until it was consumed and reduced to a handful of
dust in the earth.
Gunnar was shaking with sobs.
Others had loved her, soiled, and destroyed her, not knowing
what they did—and she had never been his.
As long as he lived there would be moments when he would
feel the same agony about it as now.
Yet he was the only one who owned her at the last; in his
hand only would her golden hair sparkle, and she herself was
living in him now; her soul and her image were reflected in
him clear and firm as in still water. She was dead; she had
no more sorrow—it stayed with him instead, to go on living, not
to die until he died himself, and because it was living it would
grow and change. What it would be like in ten years, he did
not know, but it might grow to something great and beautiful.
As long as he lived there would be moments when he
would feel the same strange, deep joy that it was so, as he
felt now.
He remembered dimly what he had been thinking in the early
morning hour when he was walking on the terrace overhead
while she was ending her life. He had been enraged with her.
How could she do it? He had begged and implored to be
allowed to help her, to carry her away from the abyss she was
nearing, but she had pushed him away and thrown herself down
before his eyes—exactly in the way a woman would—an
obstinate, irresponsible, foolish way.
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