time of trial. Sit down here opposite me like a sensible man, and
let go my hands and try to understand all that I have to say to you.
You see, your sweetheart is no longer young, and much too experienced
and worldly not to keep her senses about her, and think for two even at
such a time, hard as it may be. I will not retract a word of what I
just confessed--that I will not relinquish the happiness of feeling
myself to belong to you, because you are not yet free. I love you all
the more dearly for what I now know, for the delicacy with which you
have tried to spare her who has so cruelly wounded you; for the fact
that you have not sought, even at the cost of a public trial, to break
the bond that holds you together; for the affection that has grown up
within you for your child, so that you do not hesitate to sacrifice
your liberty for its sake. Whether this sacrifice is necessary we will
consider more fully. But let this be as it may, let human justice come
to our aid or not: this I know, that from this time forth I will devote
my life to you, that I could no longer belong to myself even if I
tried. Everything else seems petty beside it, and there must be some
place in the world where we shall find our happiness in one another.
But one thing must happen first; you must learn to know me thoroughly.
Do not smile and say needless things that I know beforehand. You really
do not know me as I am, or as I know you, because I have seen your art
and know your life, and more especially because I, as a woman who has
been looking at the world for thirty-one years, know human nature much
better than a man like you, who have the additional disadvantage of
being an artist, and therefore blinded by a touch of beauty. Do you not
see that in ten years I shall be an old woman, no longer like your Eve,
and then what would you think of me, unless my inner being was
necessary to your life and worthy of your love and constancy? And for
that reason you must resolve to let a barrier remain between us for a
whole year yet. You may be sure it has cost me a hard struggle to lay
such a condition on myself; we have already lost so many happy years of
youth. It seems cruel that, in addition to all this, we must have a
long engagement. But the more dearly I love you, and wretched as I
should be if you did not stand the test, the more bravely I must and
will adhere to my resolution. Then, besides, have I not to win your
child's heart, so that it will no