Page:Undset - Jenny (1921).djvu/89

 She was twenty-eight, and she would not deny to herself that she longed to love and to be loved by a man, to nestle in his arms, young, healthy, and good to look upon as she was. Her blood was hot and she was yearning, but she had eyes that saw clearly, and she had never lied to herself. She had met men now and then and had asked herself: Is he the man?—one or two of them she might have loved if she had tried, if she could have closed her eyes to the one little thing that always was there, making her feel an opposition which she had to master. She had not met any one whom she felt compelled to love, so had not risked it. Cesca would let one man after another kiss and fondle her, and it made no difference; it merely grazed her lips and skin. Not even Hans Hermann, whom she loved, could warm her strangely thin, chilly blood.

She herself was different; her blood was red and hot, and the joy she coveted should be fiery, consuming, but spotlessly clean. She would be loyal and true to the man to whom she gave herself, but he must know how to take her wholly, to possess her body and soul, so that not a single possibility in her would be wasted or left neglected in some corner of her soul—to decay and fester. No, she dared not, would not be reckless—not she. Yet she could understand those who did not trouble their heads about such things; who did not subdue one instinct and call it bad, and give in to another, calling it good, or renounce all the cheap little joys of life, saving up all for the great joy that after all might never come. She was not so sure herself that her road led to the goal—not sure enough not to be impressed sometimes by people who quite cynically admitted that they had no road, no goal, and that to have ideals and morals was like trying to catch the moon on the water.

Once, many years ago, a man had asked her one night to go with him to his rooms, much in the same way as he would have offered to take her out to tea. It was no temptation to her—she knew, besides, that her mother was waiting up for