Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/324

 welcome, when they go against the men of liberty themselves. But even if his vanity shrank, could he in the end oppose, when she would and when I would?

Would she? She had made the trial, and it had failed. Why not give up the impossible to realise the possible? That she had guarded her love and confidence in me I felt with an unswerving certainty.

Would I? Yes, I would! I said it for the first time in our relations with one another, said it with triumphant joy. To-morrow evening I could be in Copenhagen, and the day after speak with her.

Strange indeed is the dream-nature in human beings! Never, perhaps, in those days, when I had Minna at my side, had I felt so happy as in this moment, when I looked back on our first youthful love and forwards to its consummation in a tested matrimonial love, and these two parts in my will united into a single life.

So true are the myths about "Paradise lost" and "Paradise regained": happiness is a remembrance and a hope.