Chapter 28

"Strange thing! Again, when I had left my study, and was passing through
the familiar rooms, again the hope came to me that nothing had happened.
But the odor of the drugs, iodoform and phenic acid, brought me back to
a sense of reality.

"'No, everything has happened.'

"In passing through the hall, beside the children's chamber, I saw
little Lise. She was looking at me, with eyes that were full of fear. I
even thought that all the children were looking at me. As I approached
the door of our sleeping-room, a servant opened it from within, and
came out. The first thing that I noticed was HER light gray dress upon
a chair, all dark with blood. On our common bed she was stretched, with
knees drawn up.

"She lay very high, upon pillows, with her chemise half open. Linen had
been placed upon the wound. A heavy smell of iodoform filled the room.
Before, and more than anything else, I was astonished at her face, which
was swollen and bruised under the eyes and over a part of the nose. This
was the result of the blow that I had struck her with my elbow, when
she had tried to hold me back. Of beauty there was no trace left. I saw
something hideous in her. I stopped upon the threshold.

"'Approach, approach her,' said her sister.

"'Yes, probably she repents,' thought I; 'shall I forgive her? Yes, she
is dying, I must forgive her,' I added, trying to be generous.

"I approached the bedside. With difficulty she raised her eyes, one of
which was swollen, and uttered these words haltingly:

"'You have accomplished what you desired. You have killed me.'

"And in her face, through the physical sufferings, in spite of the
approach of death, was expressed the same old hatred, so familiar to me.

"'The children . . . I will not give them to you . . . all the
same. . . . She (her sister) shall take them.' . . .

"But of that which I considered essential, of her fault, of her treason,
one would have said that she did not think it necessary to say even a
word.

"'Yes, revel in what you have done.'

"And she sobbed.

"At the door stood her sister with the children.

"'Yes, see what you have done!'

"I cast a glance at the children, and then at her bruised and swollen
face, and for the first time I forgot myself (my rights, my pride), and
for the first time I saw in her a human being, a sister.

"And all that which a moment before had been so offensive to me now
seemed to me so petty,--all this jealousy,--and, on the contrary, what
I had done seemed to me so important that I felt like bending over,
approaching my face to her hand, and saying:

"'Forgive me!'