d pleased when she
saw him, and displeased if he appeared to forget her for a day. But
what he could not understand was that her head seemed as full as ever
of her usual acquaintances, and that she was capable of spending some
time in theaters, concerts, and society without looking for him. Full
too of talk of her frocks and neighbors, without wishing to interrupt
the empty gossip with a look or a kiss to let him know that she was
conscious of his presence, and in the middle of her idle talk to say
nevertheless that her heart was with him. On the other hand, she showed
the tenderest sympathy for him. She longed for a picture of his rooms
in the Dorotheenstrasse, where he lived and thought of her. She had
been to see his house in the Kochstrasse from the outside. She was
apparently proud of him, and repeated to him all the flattering remarks
which people made on his appearance and cleverness, with as much
satisfaction, as if she spoke of one of her own people. Still all this
was only on the surface, and he often had the impression that her
feeling for him was weakened at its foundation both by her cold
intelligence, and by her pleasure in worldly things.

And he? Did he love her as he should, before he had the right to bind
her to him for life? His earnestness and exalted morality looked upon
marriage as a rash adventure full of alarming secrets. Was it possible
that their two lives should be so blended together that they should
withstand every accident of fate? He meant to give himself entirely, to
keep nothing back, and to be true in body and soul. Was he sure that he
could keep the vow, and that no sinful wishes should come to break it?
Already he was thinking that he might not be always happy with her.
Certainly her beauty, her wit, the attraction of her fresh, healthy
youth charmed him, and when she spoke to him with her sweet voice, he
had to shut his eyes and hold himself together, not to fall at her feet
and bury his head in her dress. But he feared for himself, for his
honor, that a sensual attraction should hardly outlast possession. His
innermost being was painfully troubled. Never an elevated word from
her! Never a deep and serious thought! Often he reflected that the
faults of her upbringing were the inevitable results of her life in the
midst of idle people, and that it would be possible to deepen and widen
her mind and sensations. If he could only go with her to a desert
island, alone with the loneliness o