“I always imagined that love was something vulgar and … terribly revolting. You see, I still can’t deal with it; at the same time it frightens me and masters me. And now I’m glad that I’m like any other woman. When I was little I was afraid of water. They showed me the strokes of swimming on dry land, but I would not go near the lake; I got the idea that it was full of spiders, and one day I was suddenly seized by some sort of courage or desperation, shut my eyes, cried out and sprang in. Don’t ask me how proud I was afterwards; it was as if I had passed an examination, as if I knew everything, as if I had changed into another person. As if I had grown up at last. …”
That evening she came into the laboratory, uneasy and worried. When he took her into his arms she said agitatedly: “He’s opened his eye, he’s opened his eye, oh!” She was thinking of the old Hagen; in the afternoon she had had a long conversation with Uncle Rohn but would not speak about it. It seemed that she was striving to get away from something; she threw herself into Prokop’s arms so passionately and devotedly that he had the impression that she wanted to blot everything out at all costs. Finally she lay still, her eyes closed, completely limp. He thought that she had fallen asleep but then she began to whisper: “Darling, I shall do something terrible, but you mustn’t leave me. Swear to me, swear to me,” she insisted wildly and sprang to her feet, immediately, however, getting control of herself again. “Ah! no. What could you swear to do? I’ve read in the cards that you will go away. If you want to, do it now before it’s too late.”
Prokop naturally jumped up, saying that she wanted to get rid of him, that her Tartar pride had rushed to her head, and similar things. She became very excited and charged him with being base and harsh, saying that he would answer for it, that … that … But scarcely had she said it than she flung her arms round his neck, repentant: “I’m a beast. I wasn’t thinking of that. You know, a princess ought never to shout, but I shout at you … as if I were your wife. Strike me, I beg you. Wait, I’ll show you that I’m capable. …” She released him and suddenly, as she was, began to tidy up the laboratory, wetting a cloth under the tap and cleaning the whole floor on her knees. She meant it for an act of repentance, but somehow she found the work pleasant, became radiant, worked with a will, humming to herself a song which she had picked up somewhere from the servants. He wanted to raise her to her feet. “No; wait,” she defended herself, “there’s a bit over there.” And she crawled with the cloth underneath a chair.
“Come here,” she said in a moment, surprised. Still mumbling reproaches he sat down next to her. She was squatting, her arms clasped round her knees. “Just see what a chair looks like from underneath. I’ve never seen such a thing before.” She placed on his face a hand which was still damp from the wet rag. “You’re as rough as the under side of this chair; that’s the most lovely thing about you. I’ve only seen other people on their smooth, polished side, but you, when one first looks at you, you’re like a beam with cracks in it—everything that holds the human frame together. If one runs one’s finger over you one gets a splinter in it, but all the same you’re beautifully made. One begins to realize something else … something more important than what one gets from the smooth side. That’s you.”
She nestled against him. “I feel as if I were in a tent, or a log hut,” she whispered, entranced. “I never used to play with dolls, but sometimes … secretly … I used to go out with the gardener’s boys and climb trees with them. … Then they wondered at home why my clothes were torn. And when I used to climb with them my heart beat with fear so wonderfully. When I’m with you I have the same wonderful fear that I had then.
“Now I’m thoroughly hidden,” she said happily, leaning her head against his knees. “Nobody can find me, and I’m rough, like the bottom of that chair; an ordinary woman, not thinking about anything, only being soothed. … Why is a person so happy when he’s hidden? Now I know what happiness is: One must close one’s eyes and become tiny … quite tiny, waiting to be discovered. …”
She rocked herself to and fro contentedly while he smoothed her dishevelled hair; but her widely opened eyes looked past his head into the distance.
Suddenly she turned her face to him. “What were you thinking about?”
He moved his eyes away shyly. He could not tell her that he saw before him the Tartar princess in all her glory, a proud and commanding figure which now … in pain and yearning. …
“Nothing, nothing,” he muttered, looking down at the happy and contented face against his knees, and stroked her dark cheek, which flushed with tender passion.
XXXVI
He would have done better if he had not come that evening, but he compelled himself to because she had forbidden him to appear. Oncle Charles was particularly charming to him. By an unlucky accident he had seen the two of them on an inappropriate occasion pressing one another’s hands; finally he had put up his monocle to see better, upon which the Princess snatched her hand away and blushed like a schoolgirl. Oncle Charles came across to her, drew her aside, and whispered something into her ear. After that she did not return, but Rohn appeared instead and
