"'I should think one ought to know that best one's self,' he replied.

"'What if one does not think it worth while to take any notice of it?'

This time she spoke without bitterness, modestly and quietly as she always spoke, and yet every word cut me to the quick.

"('Oh, Martha, why did you repulse me?' a voice within me cried.)

"And thereupon she broke into a short laugh, and asked how things were at home, and whether uncle and aunt were well.

"'First I should like to know how my uncle and my aunt are,' he said, and looked into the four corners of the room.

"I was so glad to see the strained mood giving way, that I burst into a loud laugh at his comical search.

"Both looked at me in astonishment as if they only just remembered my presence.

"'And what do you say to our child?' asked Martha, taking my hand in motherly fashion, 'does she please you?'

"'Better now already,' he said, scrutinising me, 'before, she was too stiff for me.'

"'I could hardly put my arms round your neck at once?' I replied.

"'Why not?' he asked, smiling complacently, 'do you think there is no room for you there?'

"'No,' said I, to let him know at once how to take me, 'that room is not the place for me.'

"He looked at me quite taken aback, and then remarked, nodding his head--

"'By Jingo, the little woman is pretty sharp.'

"I was going to reply something, but at that moment papa entered the room.

"At table I constantly kept my eye on the two, without however being able to notice anything suspicious.

"Their eyes hardly met.

"'Afterwards when the old people are taking their nap,' I thought to myself, 'they are sure to try and make their escape.' But I was mistaken. They quietly remained in the sitting-room, and did not even seem anxious to get me out of the way. He sat in the sofa-corner smoking, she, five paces away at the window, with some needlework.

"'Perhaps they are too shy,' I thought, 'and are waiting till an opportunity presents itself.' I marked a few signs and slipped out.

Then for half an hour I crouched in my room with a beating heart and counted the minutes till I might go back again.

"'Now he will go up to her,' I said to myself, 'will take her hands and look long into her eyes. "Do you still love me?" he will ask; and she, blushing rosy red, will sink with tear-dimmed gaze upon his breast.'

"I closed my eyes and sighed. My temples were throbbing; I felt more and more how my fancies intoxicated me, and then I went on picturing to myself how he would drop on his knees before her and, with ardent looks, stammer forth glowing declarations of love and faithfulness.

"I knew by heart everything that he was saying to her at this moment, no less than what she was answering. I could have acted as prompter to them both. When the half-hour was over, I held counsel with myself whether I should grant them a few moments longer. I was at present their fate and as such I smilingly showered my favours upon them.

"'Let them drain their cup of bliss to the last drop!' said I, and resolved to take a walk through the garden yet. But curiosity overpowered me so that I turned back half-way.

"Softly I crept up to the door, but hardly did I find courage to turn the handle. The thought of what I was about to see almost took my breath away.

"And what did I see now, after all?

"There he still sat in his sofa-corner as before, and had smoked his cigar down to a tiny stump; but in her embroidery there was a flower which had not been there before.

"'Why do you shrug your shoulders so contemptuously?' asked Martha, and Robert added, 'It seems I do not meet with her ladyship's gracious approval.'

"'So,' thought I, 'for all my kindness I get sneers into the bargain,'

and went out slamming the door after me. That same night, I, foolish young creature that I was, lay awake till nearly morning, and pictured to myself how I, Olga Bremer, would have behaved had I been in the place of those two. First I was Robert, then Martha; I felt, I spoke, I acted for them, and through the silence of my bedroom there sounded the pa.s.sionate whisperings of ardent, world-despising love.

"As things were much too straightforward to please me, I invented a number of additional obstacles--our parents' refusal, nocturnal meetings at the frontier trench, surprise by the Cossacks, imprisonment, paternal, maledictions, flight, and finally death together in the waves; for only hereby, so it seemed to me, could true love be worthily sealed and confirmed.

"When I got up in the morning my head whirled, and yellow and green lights danced before my eyes.

"Martha clasped her hands in horror at my appearance, and Robert, who was sitting again for a change in a sofa-corner, and once again sending forth clouds of smoke all around, remarked--

"'Have you been crying or dancing all night?'

"'Dancing,' I replied, 'on the Brocken, with other witches.'

"'One positively cannot get a sensible word out of the girl,' he said, shaking his head.

"'As you cry into the wood,' replied I.

"'Oh! I am as still as a mouse already,' he remarked, laughing, 'else I shall get such a dish of aspersion to begin the day with, as I have never swallowed in all my life.'

"Martha looked at me reproachfully, and I ran out into the park where it was darkest and hid my burning face in the cool ma.s.s of leaves.

"I was near crying.

"'So this is my fate,' I moaned, 'to be misunderstood by the whole world, to stand there alone and despised though my heart is full of pa.s.sionate love, to wither unheeded in some corner, while every other being finds its companion and stills its longings in an ardent embrace.'

"Yes, I had so vividly pictured to myself Martha's love that I had finally come to think myself the heroine of it.

"Thus, of course, disenchantment could not fail to come.

"And if only the two had made some further effort to keep pace with the flights of my imagination! But the longer Robert remained in our house, the more I watched Martha's intercourse with him, the more did I become convinced that all interest was unnecessarily wasted upon them.

"She--the type of a timid, insipid, housewife, subject to any fatality of every-day life.

"He--a clumsy, dull, work-a-day fellow, incapable of any degree of emotion.

"In this strain I philosophised as long as the bitter feeling that I was unnoticed and superfluous wholly filled my soul. Then there came an event which not only disposed me to be more lenient, but also gave a new direction to my ideas about this stranger cousin.

"It was on the fourth day of his visit when he unexpectedly stepped up to me and said: