I--"
A brusque movement of his arm, flinging her hand away, stopped her
short. Heyst had again lost control of himself. He would have shouted,
if shouting had been in his character.
"No, this earth must be the appointed hatching planet of calumny enough
to furnish the whole universe. I feel a disgust at my own person, as if
I had tumbled into some filthy hole. Pah! And you--all you can say is
that you won't judge me; that you--"
She raised her head at this attack, though indeed he had not turned to
her.
"I don't believe anything bad of you," she repeated. "I couldn't."
He made a gesture as if to say:
"That's sufficient."
In his soul and in his body he experienced a nervous reaction from
tenderness. All at once, without transition, he detested her. But only
for a moment. He remembered that she was pretty, and, more, that she
had a special grace in the intimacy of life. She had the secret of
individuality which excites--and escapes.
He jumped up and began to walk to and fro. Presently his hidden fury
fell into dust within him, like a crazy structure, leaving behind
emptiness, desolation, regret. His resentment was not against the girl,
but against life itself--that commonest of snares, in which he felt
himself caught, seeing clearly the plot of plots and unconsoled by the
lucidity of his mind.
He swerved and, stepping up to her, sank to the ground by her side.
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