Reading the paper, I stood in squares and at cross-roads
and waited. Ill at ease, I goaded myself through the streets, as though
dragged hither and thither in a stream of molten metal; I loitered in
the cafe and the bookshop. But my mind was so absorbed that the waiter
or dealer who brought me what I had ordered startled me as if from
sleep. My eye saw Mara wandering in the park, resting at the fountain,
sitting beside me on the bench under the erythrina, transparent, like a
figure formed of water, in a rain of drops of fire; and my heart was
filled with a longing to which I had willed it should not yield.

At noon when, unheeding the shadeless heat, I sauntered toward a bridge
which spanned the deep valley of the river--there in the middle of the
road, engulfed by the undulating air, there walked Mara! The desire of
my conceit, to avoid her, was of no avail against my overpowering joy.
I stepped up to her. How daintily she moved in the obedient folds of
her brownish-gray garment, beneath the hem of which the tip of her red
shoe peeped out and disappeared again. Like a blossom of the softest
red the clasp of her girdle shone beneath her breast. Her eyes seemed
to me full of the joy of meeting again, as they gleamed forth from the
shade of her hat. My will gave itself up and died, as shame dies.
Whispering her name as a greeting, I turned round when I reached her,
and by her side I retraced my steps. She looked straight ahead, a
childlike smile softened the expression of her mouth, heretofore so
serious, and her lips blossomed red in her white face. I strode along
beside her and lost myself. Why do I not snatch her to my bosom? Why do
I not kiss myself to death on her lips?

Yes--why did I not do that?

When I chanced to become aware that she avoided the populous streets,
then indeed there came to me a fleeting consciousness, an angry pain at
my weakness, and I turned into the main street. She remained by my
side. If you do not do her will, then she will do yours. Because you
did not go to her, she came to you! And as I had purposed, I meant now
to subject her to my will. But in my distracted excitement I could
think out no plan; nothing occurred to me but to go aimlessly hither
and thither, to turn back, and to stand still. And in this very
inability I recognized how fully I was under her spell.

I began to speak.

"Mara, if you wish to put me to the test, give me a task that I can
comprehend, that I can struggle