Page:Later Life (1919).djvu/227

see now what that was: he was young; it was at first mere play-acting, just like a comedy; then it became passion, very quickly, a mad impulse, an almost feverish impulse to hold him in my arms. That is all dead. Passion is dead . . . This is a dream, a young girl's dream. It is the beginning. It is absurd; and I am often ashamed of it, for my own sake. But I cannot resist it: it envelops me, just as the spring sunshine and the scent of the may and the cherry-blossom in the Woods envelop one with languorous sweetness. I cannot resist it, I can not resist it. My eyes go towards those clouds, my soul goes towards those clouds, my dreams go towards them . . . and I love him, I love him . . . I feel ashamed: sometimes I dare not look my son in the face . . . I love him, I love him; and I feel ashamed: sometimes I dare not go across the street, as though people would notice it, by the light on my face . . . But ah, no, that light does not shine from me, because I am old! It does from Marianne, poor child, but not from me . . . oh, thank God for that! . . . I want to struggle against it, but it is stronger than I; and, when I think of him, I feel as if I were numbed here in my chair. When he comes into the room, I tremble, powerless to make a movement. Let me be ashamed of myself, argue with myself, struggle as I may, it is so, it is something real, as though I had never felt anything real in my life: it is a dream and it is also reality . . ."