His
mind was like a white-walled, pure chamber, furnished with, say, six
straw-bottomed chairs, and he was always placing and displacing them
in various combinations. But they were always the same chairs. He was
extremely easy to live with; but then he got hold of this coal idea--or,
rather, the idea got hold of him, it entered into that scantily
furnished chamber of which I have just spoken, and sat on all the
chairs. There was no dislodging it, you know! It was going to make his
fortune, my fortune, everybody's fortune. In past years, in moments of
doubt that will come to a man determined to remain free from absurdities
of existence, I often asked myself, with a momentary dread, in what way
would life try to get hold of me? And this was the way. He got it into
his head that he could do nothing without me. And was I now, he asked
me, to spurn and ruin him? Well, one morning--I wonder if he had gone
down on his knees to pray that night!--one morning I gave in."
Heyst tugged violently at a tuft of dried grass, and cast it away from
him with a nervous gesture.
"I gave in," he repeated.
Looking towards him with a movement of her eyes only, the girl noticed
the strong feeling on his face with that intense interest which his
person awakened in her mind and in her heart. But it soon passed away,
leaving only a moody expression.
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