Chapter 6

Her command of language was more defective now than ever. She was seized with painful astonishment when she noticed that in matters of daily intercourse Daniel’s mind was not able to penetrate the veil behind which she lived.

He said to himself: she is too heavy. He was dumbfounded at her conduct, and displeased with it.

“The gloomy house oppresses you,” he said in a tone of ill humour, when she smiled in her helpless way.

“Let us run a race,” he said to her one day as they were taking a walk through the country. An old tree in the distance that had been struck by lightning was to be their objective.

They ran as fast as their feet could carry them. At a distance of about ten metres from the tree, Gertrude collapsed. He carried her over to the meadow.

“How heavy you are,” he said.

“Too heavy for you?” she asked with wide-opened eyes. He shrugged his shoulders.

Then she slipped out of his embrace, sprang to her feet, and ran with remarkable swiftness a distance that was twice as long as the one he had staked off; she did not fall; she did not want to fall; she dared not.

Breathing heavily and pale as a corpse, she waited until he came up. But he had no tenderness for her now; he merely scolded. Arm in arm they walked on. Gertrude felt for his hand; he gave it to her, and she pressed it to her bosom.

Daniel was terrified as he looked into her face, and saw her thoughts written there as if in letters of fire: We belong to each other for time and eternity.

That was her confession of faith.