Page:Nalkowska - Kobiety (Women).djvu/89

Rh over the emotional faculties is a characteristic of my brain."

"Don't you consider this a disadvantage to you? Such constant vigilance must deprive you of all directness in feeling."

"To some extent, yes. But this want of directness is fully compensated by the very process of observation and analysis, which are a source of intense pleasure to me. Besides, in the place of mere intensity of impression, I attain a far wider range; for my mind has the pleasure of perceiving and discriminating certain nice shades, which escape the notice of others."

A smile rises to Roslawski's lips, and I feel my soul freezing within me.

And now, summer is dead and gone: withered with suffering and desire, the flame-red flower of Life has fallen to the ground. Now once more the infinite ice-plains are stretching all around me. Behold the sun quenched in the black sky, and the greenish Northern Lights rising above the horizon. And my icecold dreams, that had died, now come to life again. And see! that Soul of mine, which trampled my flowers beneath her feet, girds up her loins and goes forth into the snowy