“Oh, I am suffering frightfully.” “Poor friend!” she brushed my disordered hair back from my fore-head. “I hope it isn’t through any fault of mine.” “No—” I replied,—“and yet my love for you has become a sort of madness. The thought that I might lose you, perhaps actually lose you, torments me day and night.” “But you don’t yet possess me,” said Wanda, and again she looked at me with that vibrant, consuming expression, which had already once before carried me away. Then she rose, and with her small transparent hands placed a wreath of blue anemones upon the ringletted white head of Venus. Half against my will I threw my arm around her body. “I can no longer live without you, oh wonderful woman,” I said. “Believe me, believe only this once, that this time it is not a phrase, not a thing of dreams. I feel deep down in my innermost soul, that my life belongs inseparably with yours. If you leave me, I shall perish, go to pieces.” “That will hardly be necessary, for I love you,” she took hold of my chin, “you foolish man!” “But you will be mine only under conditions, while I belong to you unconditionally—” “That isn’t wise, Severin,” she replied almost with a start. “Don’t you know me yet, do you absolutely refuse to know me? I am good when I am treated seriously and reasonably, but when you abandon yourself too absolutely to me, I grow arrogant—” “So be it, be arrogant, be despotic,” I cried in the fulness of exaltation, “only be mine, mine forever.” I lay at her feet, embracing her knees. “Things will end badly, my friend,” she said soberly, without moving. “It shall never end,” I cried excitedly, almost violently. “Only death shall part us. If you cannot be mine, all mine and for always, then _I want to be your slave_, serve you, suffer everything from you, if only you won’t drive me away.” “Calm yourself,” she said, bending down and kissing my forehead, “I am really very fond of you, but your way is not the way to win and hold me.” “I want to do everything, absolutely everything, that you want, only not to lose you,” I cried, “only not that, I cannot bear the thought.” “Do get up.” I obeyed. “You are a strange person,” continued Wanda. “You wish to possess me at any price?” “Yes, at any price.” “But of what value, for instance, would that be?”—She pondered; a lurking uncanny expression entered her eyes—“If I no longer loved you, if I belonged to another.” A shudder ran through me. I looked at her She stood firmly and confident before me, and her eyes disclosed a cold gleam. “You see,” she continued, “the very thought frightens you.” A beautiful smile suddenly illuminated her face.