Page:Nalkowska - Kobiety (Women).djvu/270

258 renders concrete even the most abstract of things.

Something is tearing my soul; it is the impossibility of any delusion about &hellip;

Ah, do not, do not bite thus at my throat! &hellip; I cannot weep! &hellip; And do not make the sharp-edged music of the violin soft by the dark velvet touch of your smooth hand! &hellip; And do not, do not press my bosom so; my heart will burst! &hellip; And do not hug my body with that tender embrace, that Lesbian caress! &hellip; Nor twine like ivy round my feet, uttering that awful moan for blighted joys! &hellip;

Witold, O Witold! behold, I return to you! O sleep, O life! Yes, I return. &hellip;

I have written the following short note to Witold to-day:

"If you wish, you may come. J. D."

It breathed the spite—the unavailing and very plebeian spite—of my humiliation. I fully recognized this: and yet I chose to send the note, thus styled.

I expected that he would come like a conqueror, triumphant and self-assured; and