Princess Zara

The streets of St. Petersburg, the city itself, nihilism, Russia, the

czar had ceased to exist for me, however. Whatever she may have seen

upon the street that had brought that startled cry to her lips, and had

made her turn about and grasp my arm, had also brought into her

countenance an expression of such overwhelming and overpowering concern

for me, that I knew with a perfect knowledge in that instant, that Zara

loved me.

Have you ever been swayed by an impulse that is utterly beyond your

control, and before which all other considerations degenerate to such

utter insignificance as not to exist at all?

It was such an one that controlled me then.

As she drew me toward the window, and would have directed my gaze

through it, her own eyes held unflinchingly to mine, and mine held hers

with a compelling power which she did not seek to resist, and could not

have controlled, even if she had made the effort.

Whatever it may have been, out there in the street, that had alarmed

her, she forgot it, and my arms were around her, her lithe, sinuous,

pulsing body was crushed madly against my own, and our lips had met

before either of us realized it. We had mutually recognized the strange

and overwhelming instinct of love, that had asserted its control over

both at the self-same instant. I forgot the world, the flesh and the

devil, the czar, Russia, and nihilism, and she forgot even that

uppermost terror that was tearing at her heart, in that supreme moment

of the rapturous recognition of love.

We were unconscious of the fact that we were standing directly before

the window, where we must have been for the moment in full view of

persons passing in the street; we had forgotten everything, save each

other.

We were both silent; there was no occasion for words; our souls were

speaking to each other in a language of their own, God-given and

complete, which leaves nothing to be understood, which comprehends all

things.

In such supreme moments as that one was, heart speaks to heart with a

complete understanding which passeth all human knowledge, and which can

be understood only by the two who are most concerned, and by God, who

created such impulses.

Presently we were back again beside the low divan. She was seated upon

the edge of it, and I was beside her, with one knee on the floor,

clasping both her hands in one of mine, while the other still encircled

her body, holding her tightly against me in that rhapsody of love which

overawes all sense of understanding.

Her head rested lightly upon my shoulder; stray tresses of her hair

brushed against my temple and my cheek; her half-parted lips, glowing

like newly opened rose-buds, never attained a distance of more than an

inch from mine, and for the most part they were together, as lightning

conductors of every thrill that pulsed through her being and mine.