On the Bright Shore
"The wild beast, which feels itself in a net," thought he, "tries first of all to get out. That is its first right—and just that is in accord with nature, hence it is moral. The net around me is not Pani Elzen alone, but all things taken together. I feel perfectly that in marrying her I shall marry a life of lies. That might happen even without her fault, and through the necessity of things—from such a complication one is always free to escape."
And now he pictured other scenes to himself,—scenes which he might see in his flight: broad deserts with water and with sand, unknown lands and people, the sincerity and truth of their primitive life, and finally the variety of events, and all the difference between days to come and the present.
"I ought to have done this long since," said he to himself.
Then a thought entered his mind which could come only to an artist, that if he should leave his betrothed suddenly and go to Paris, for example, the act would belong to
96
