rest of us laughed as if you would have liked to be merry with us, but dared not. That time I was in love with the idea of seeing you gay and smiling.
"But I have never loved another human being till now."
He turned his face from her, staring at the jet of water rising in the moonlight, and the new sensation in him rose too, inspiring him with new words, which burst in ecstasy from his lips:
"I love you so much, Jenny, that everything else is of no account. I am not sorry you don't love me in return, for I know you will some day; I feel that my love is strong enough to make you return it. I have time to wait; my happiness will be in loving you.
"When you spoke about being trampled upon and throwing yourself under the train, something happened to me. I could not explain what it was. I knew only that I could not listen to you saying such things. I knew I would never allow it to happen—not for my life. And when you spoke of the child, I felt infinitely sad to think that you had suffered so intensely and that I could not do anything for you. And I was sad too because I wanted you to love me. Everything you said was echoed in my soul—the boundless love and the bitter longing—and I understood that my love for you was just that. While we were in the trattoria and walking out here it has grown more and more clear to me how much you are to me, how I love you—and it seems to me that it has always been so. All I know and remember of you is part of it. I understand now why I have been so depressed since you came here. It was because I saw how you suffered. You were so quiet and sad the first weeks, and then came those fits of dissipation—and I remember that day on the road to Warnemünde, when you were crying against my shoulder—everything that concerns you is part of my love for you.
"I know how it all happened with the other men you have
