im through every form of debasement which
she might desire, and each time would leave him with less energy to
protest, accepting the most disgraceful situations in exchange for
love.... And it would always be so! And he who but a few months before
used to consider himself a hard and overbearing man, would end by
pleading and weeping if she should go away!... Ah, misery!...

In hours of tranquillity, when satiety made them converse placidly like
two friends of the same sex, Ulysses would avoid allusions to the past,
questioning her only about her actual life. These questions were
chiefly concerned with the doctor's mysterious work; he wished to know
with the interest that the slightest actions of a beloved person always
inspire, the part that Freya was playing in them. Did he not belong now
to the same association since he was obeying its orders?...

The responses were very incomplete. She had limited herself to obeying
the doctor, who knew everything.... Then she hesitated and corrected
herself. No, her friend could not know everything, because above her
were the count and other personages who used to come from time to time
to visit her like passing tourists. And the chain of agents, from the
lowest to the highest, were lost in mysterious heights that made Freya
turn pale, imposing on her eyes and voice an expression of
superstitious respect.

She was free to speak only of her work, and she did this very
cautiously, relating the measures she had employed, but without
mentioning her co-workers nor stating what her final aim was to be. The
most of the time she had been moved about without knowing toward what
her efforts were converging, like a whirling wheel which knows only its
immediate environments and is ignorant of the machinery as a whole and
the class of production to which it contributes.

Ulysses marveled at the grotesque and dubious proceedings employed by
the agents of the spy system.

"But that is like the paper novels! They are ridiculous and worn-out
measures that any one can learn from books and melodramas."

Freya assented. For that very reason they were employing them. The
surest way of bewildering the enemy was to avail themselves of obvious
methods; thus the modern world, so intelligent and subtle, would refuse
to believe in them. By simply telling the truth, Bismarck had deceived
all European diplomacy, for the very reason that nobody was expecting
the truth from his lips.

German espionage was