"But, mistress--"
"Do you want a taste of the whip?"
* * * * *
"You can wait down in the lobby," she said when I had placed the opera-glasses and the program on the edge of her box and adjusted the footstool.
I am standing there and had to lean against the wall for support so as not to fall down with envy and rage--no, rage isn't the right word; it was a mortal fear.
I saw her in her box dressed in blue moiré, with a huge ermine cloak about her bare shoulders; he sat opposite. I saw them devour each other with their eyes. For both of them the stage, Goldoni's Pamela, Salvini, Marini, the public, even the entire world, were non-existent to-night. And I--what was I at that moment?
* * * * *
Today she is attending the ball at the Greek ambassador's. Does she know, that she will meet him there?
At any rate she dressed, as if she did. A heavy sea-green silk dress plastically encloses her divine form, leaving the bust and arms bare. In her hair, which is done into a single flaming knot, a white water- lily blossoms; from it the leaves of reeds interwoven with a few loose strands fall down toward her neck. There no longer is any trace of agitation or trembling feverishness in her being. She is calm, so calm, that I feel my blood congealing and my heart growing cold under her glance. Slowly, with a weary, indolent majesty, she ascends the marble staircase, lets her precious wrap slide off, and listlessly enters the hall, where the smoke of a hundred candles has formed a silvery mist.
For a few moments my eyes follow her in a daze, then I pick up her furs, which without my being aware, had slipped from my hands. They are still warm from her shoulders.
I kiss the spot, and my eyes fill with tears.
* * * * *
He has arrived.
In his black velvet coat extravagantly trimmed with sable, he is a beautiful, haughty despot who plays with the lives and souls of men. He stands in the ante-room, looking around proudly, and his eyes rest on me for an uncomfortably long time.
Under his icy glance I am again seized by a mortal fear. I have a presentiment that this man can enchain her, captivate her, subjugate her, and I feel inferior in contrast with his savage masculinity; I am filled with envy, with jealousy.
I feel that I am a queer weakly creature of brains, merely! And what is most humiliating, I want to hate him, but I can't. Why is that among all the host of servants he has chosen me.