waistcoat and breathed freely. And then his thoughts took their own course ruthlessly.

"I am becoming a hypocrite simply out of consideration for her. One lie is piled up on another, and some day it will all come down with a crash. What a coarse woman she is! And it was from her that I believed I should learn and be refined into a higher being. It is all optical delusion and deceit. All this 'love' is merely a piece of trickery on the part of nature to dazzle one's sight."

He tried to picture to himself what was now happening in the dining-room. She would naturally weep and appeal with her eyes to those present as if to ask whether she was not very unfortunate with such a husband. It was indeed her habit so to appeal with her eyes, and when he expected an answer from her, she always turned her looks on those around as if asking for help against her oppressor. He was always treated as a tyrant, although out of pure kindness he had made himself her slave. There was no help for it!

He found himself down by the harbour, and caught sight of the swimming-baths—that was just what he wanted. Quickly he plunged into the sea, and swam far out into the darkness. His soul, tortured by mosquito-stings and nettle-pricks, was able to cool itself, and he felt how he left a wake of dirt behind him. He lay on his back and gazed at the starry sky, but at the same moment heard a whistling and splashing behind him. It was a great steamer coming in, and he had to get out of the way to save His life. He made for the lamp-lit shore and saw the hotel with all its lights.

When he had dressed, he felt an unmeasured sorrow—sorrow over his lost paradise. At the same time all bitterness had passed away.

In this mood he entered his room and found his wife seated at the writing-table. She rose and threw herself into his arms without a word of apology; naturally enough he did not desire it, and she had no idea of having done wrong.

They sat down and wept together over their vanished love, for that it had gone there was no doubt. But it had gone without their will, and they sorrowed over it, as over some dear friend which they had not killed but could not save. They were confronted by a fact before which they were helpless; love the good genius who magnifies every trifle, rejuvenates what is old, beautifies what is ugly, had abandoned them, and life stretched before them in naked monotony.

But it did not occur to them that they would be separated or were separated, for their grief itself was an experience they shared, which held them together. They were also united in a common grudge against Fate, which had so deceived them in their tenderest emotions. In their great dejection they were not capable of such a strong feeling as hate. They only felt resentment and indignation at Fate, which was their scapegoat and lightning-conductor.

They had never talked so harmoniously and so intimately before, and while their voices assumed a more affectionate tone, they formed a firm resolve to go home and commence their domestic life. He talked himself into a state of enthusiasm at the thought of home, where one could exclude all evil influences, and where peace and harmony would reign. She also dilated on the same topic with similar warmth till they had forgotten their sorrow. And when they had forgotten it, they smiled as before, and behold! love was again there, and not dead at all; its death was also a delusion and so was all their grief.

III

He had realised his youthful dream of a wife and a home, and for eight days the young wife also thought that her dream had come true. But on the ninth day she wanted to go out.

"Where?" he asked.

"Say, yourself!"

No, she must say. He proposed the opera, but Wagner was being performed there, and she could not bear him. The theatre? No, there they had Maeterlinck, and that was silly. He did not wish to go to an operetta, for they always ridiculed what he now regarded as sacred. Nor did he like the circus, where there were only horses and queer women.

So the discussion went on and they privately discovered a great quantity of divergences in tastes and principles. In order to please her, he proposed an operetta, but she would not accept the sacrifice. He suggested that they should give a party, but then they discovered that there was no one to invite, for they had separated from their friends, and their friends from them.

So they sat there, still in harmony, and considered their destiny together, without having yet begun to blame each other. They stayed at home, and felt bored.

Next day, the same scene was repeated. He now saw that his happiness was at stake; therefore he took courage, and said in a friendly way but decidedly, "Dress yourself and we will go to an operetta." She beamed, put on her new dress, and was quickly ready. When he saw her so happy and pretty, he felt a stab in his heart, and thought to himself, "Now she brightens up, when she can dress for others and not for me." When he then conducted her to the theatre, he felt as though he were escorting a stranger, for her thoughts were already in the auditorium, which was her stage, where she wished to appear, and where she could now appear under her husband's escort without being insulted.

Since they could already divine each other's thoughts, this alienation, while they were on the way, changed into something like hostility. They longed to be in the theatre in order to find something to divert their emotions, though he felt as though he were going to an execution.

When they came to the ticket-office there were no tickets left.

Then her face changed, and when she looked at him, and thought she saw an expression of satisfaction, which possibly was latent there, she broke out, "That pleases you?"

He wished to deny it, but could not, for it was true. On the way home he felt as though he were dragging a corpse with him, and that a hostile one.

The fact that she had discovered his very natural thought, which he had self-denyingly repressed, hurt him like a rudeness for one has no right to punish the thoughts of another. He would have borne it more easily if there had been no tickets left, for he was already accustomed to be a scapegoat. But now he lamented over his lost happiness, and that he had not the power to amuse her.

When she observed that he was not angry, but only sad, she despised him. They came home in ominous silence; she went straight to her bedroom and shut the door. He sat down in the dining-room, where he lit the lamps and candles, for the darkness seemed to be closing round him.

Then he heard a cry from the bedroom, the cry of a child, but of a grown one. When he came in he saw a sight which tore his heart. She was on her knees, her hands stretched towards him, wailing as she wept, "Don't be angry with me, don't be hard; you put out the light round me, you stifle me with your severity; I am a child that trusts life and must have sunshine."

He could find no answer, for she seemed sincere. And he could not defend himself, for that meant arraigning her thoughts, which he also could not do.

Dumb with despair, he went into his room and felt crushed. He had pillaged her youth, shut her up, torn out her joy by the roots. He had not the light which this tender flower needed, and she withered under his hand. These self-reproaches broke down all the self-confidence he had hitherto possessed; he felt unworthy of her love, or of any woman's, and felt himself a murderer who had killed her happiness.

After he had suffered all these pangs of conscience he began to examine himself calmly and with sober common sense.

"What have I done?" he asked himself. "What have I done to her? All the good that I could; I have done her will in everything. I did not wish to go out in the evening, when I had come home after the work of the day, and I did not wish to see an operetta. An operetta was formerly a matter of indifference to me, but now it is distasteful, since