"Yes, I am the one to blame for it. But listen. I had expected to purchase peace with the money I gave her. I was mistaken. The wild thoughts kept going round and round in my brain worse and worse. I buried myself in my work. It was just then that I conceived the central thought for my 'Immortality of the Idea.' No use. Peace did not come that way. "And so a whole year went by, and another New Year's eve arrived. I was sitting beside her on this seat once again. This time you were at home, but you were lying asleep on the sofa in the next room, tired out by a jollification at the club. Sitting there, close beside her, looking at her pale face, the recollection of the New Year's eve before came back and overwhelmed me irresistibly. Just to feel her head at my neck once again, just to kiss her once again, and then let come what may! Our glances met for an instant. It seemed to me that a secret understanding flashed into her eyes. I could not control myself any longer. I dropped at her feet and hid my burning face in her lap. "I lay there like that, motionless, for possibly two seconds, when I felt her hand cool on my head and heard her say softly and gently: "'You must be good.' "Yes, I must be good. I must not deceive the man sleeping in the next room so trustfully. I jumped up and looked about, disconcerted. She picked up a book from the table and handed it to me. I knew what she meant and opened the book at random and started to read aloud. I do not know what I read. The letters danced before my eyes. But gradually the storm in my soul subsided, and when it struck twelve and you, with a sleepy look in your eyes, came in to wish us a Happy New Year, I felt as though that instant of sin lay far, far behind me, in an era long past. "From that time on I became calmer. I knew she did not return my love and I had nothing to hope for from her but compassion. The years went by. Your children grew up and married. We three grew old. You gave up sowing wild oats and lived for only the one woman, like myself. I did not stop loving her. No, that was impossible. But my love took on other forms. It discarded earthly desires and turned into a spiritual communion. You often used to laugh when you heard us philosophising. But had you divined how my soul became one with hers, it would have made you very jealous. And now she's dead. Perhaps by next New Year's eve we shall have followed her. That is why it is high time for me to unburden myself of my secret and say to you, 'Franz, I once did you a wrong. Forgive me!'" He held out his hand to his friend pleadingly, but Franz answered testily: "Bah, stuff and nonsense! A lot to forgive! This news of yours, this confession, is stale. I've known it for ages. She herself told me all about it forty years ago. And now I'll tell you the reason I ran after women the way I did until I was an old man--because, when she told me, she also said that you were the only man she had ever loved."