Wanda's sufferings are
too much like my own to permit me even to dislike her. She has rich
beauty, a rarely luxuriant vitality, and the immense advantage of
being free to show her love in a natural way. I have nothing but my
love for her lover! If I could only trample on it, despise it, spurn
it, but I can't, I can't! My love is stronger than my pride, stronger
than my life. It is not a mere fancy of yesterday, it has grown and
strengthened with my years."
"I remember one evening in York, last spring," Helene continued, "when
it was warm enough to leave doors and windows open to admit the free
breeze from the lake; I happened to pass a wretched little shanty in
the lower part of the town. A commonplace woman within was cooking
supper in plain sight of the street, and I thought what a miserable
lot must be hers. Then her husband, a grimy-looking workman came home,
and she put her toil-worn hands about his neck, and gave him a welcome
that left me dazed and desolate, filled with unbearable pain and envy,
because I knew then, as I know now, that for my darling and me there
can be no sweet home-coming, no interposition of my love between him
and the sordid cares of the day.
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