"For the sake of his art. And is not that worth more than I?"
"No, a thousand times no! For the sake of his art? A silly phrase. Such a miserable fellow! How does he think he can produce art worth anything, when he is such a chicken-hearted fool, who does not dare to face life, and how can he expect to put real feeling into his pictures, when he plays with himself and with you?"
"But suppose he had only said so. If for a time he had been obliged to work alone, and therefore wouldn't bind me, but trusted that my love was firm and constant enough to last, and he himself had waited faithfully, and worked, and now had been disappointed?"
I walked irritably up and down the little room. The thought of Mr. Axel Stephensen as a faithful lover, sitting in Denmark, and working in order to be able to unite his life with hers, seemed to me, after all I had heard of him, to be so very far apart from the truth, that I was on the point of laughing ironically; but a look at the beloved girl, whose misplaced belief did so much honour to her soul, disarmed my bitterness, and only a deep painful sigh escaped me.
Minna still stood close to the window with her back turned towards it, leaning on an old-fashioned chest of drawers that was covered with cheap knick-knacks and faded and soiled photographs. She supported herself on the edge with both hands and looked down on the floor.
"I am to be unhappy and to make others unhappy, too," she murmured, as if she was speaking to herself.
"Minna, Minna!" I exclaimed in despair, stopping in front of her and stretching out my arms towards her, "You must not say that, with me and to me you cannot possibly say that."
