The Trespasser

They heard the wash of a steamer crossing the bay. The water seemed

populous in the night-time, with dark, uncanny comings and goings.

Siegmund was considering.

'What _was_ the matter with you?' he asked.

She leaned over him, took his head in her lap, holding his face between

her two hands as she answered in a low, grave voice, very wise and old

in experience: 'Why, you see, dear, you won't understand. But there was such a greyish

darkness, and through it--the crying of lives I have touched....' His heart suddenly shrank and sank down. She acknowledged then that she

also had helped to injure Beatrice and his children. He coiled

with shame.

'....A crying of lives against me, and I couldn't silence them, nor

escape out of the darkness. I wanted you--I saw you in front, whistling

the Spring Song, but I couldn't find you--it was not you--I couldn't

find you.' She kissed his eyes and his brows.

'No, I don't see it,' he said. 'You would always be you. I could think

of hating you, but you'd still be yourself.' She made a moaning, loving sound. Full of passionate pity, she moved her

mouth on his face, as a woman does on her child that has hurt itself.

'Sometimes,' she murmured, in a low, grieved confession, 'you lose me.' He gave a brief laugh.

'I lose you!' he repeated. 'You mean I lose my attraction for you, or my

hold over you, and then you--?' He did not finish. She made the same grievous murmuring noise over him.

'It shall not be any more,' she said.

'All right,' he replied, 'since you decide it.' She clasped him round the chest and fondled him, distracted with pity.

'You mustn't be bitter,' she murmured.

'Four days is enough,' he said. 'In a fortnight I should be intolerable

to you. I am not masterful.' 'It is not so, Siegmund,' she said sharply.

'I give way always,' he repeated. 'And then--tonight!' 'Tonight, tonight!' she cried in wrath. 'Tonight I have been a fool!' 'And I?' he asked.

'You--what of you?' she cried. Then she became sad. 'I have little

perverse feelings,' she lamented.

'And I can't bear to compel anything, for fear of hurting it. So I'm

always pushed this way and that, like a fool.' 'You don't know how you hurt me, talking so,' she said.

He kissed her. After a moment he said: 'You are not like other folk. "_Ihr Lascheks seid ein anderes

Geschlecht_." I thought of you when we read it.' 'Would you rather have me more like the rest, or more unlike, Siegmund?

Which is it?' 'Neither,' he said. 'You are _you_.' They were quiet for a space. The only movement in the night was the

faint gambolling of starlight on the water. The last person had passed

in black silhouette between them and the sea.