WEDDING RING
391
the coffin to the ground and see its emptiness burst open and to laugh
in triumph. But I did not, and I saw the coffin sink beneath the level
of the earth on which we stood and receive the first clods,
"As soon as the sound of the first clods striking the coffin came
to me, I felt a great relief, and then a most overmastering desire. I
looked toward her. She was kneeling at the foot of the grave, with
what thoughts I could not know. Her head was inclined slightly and
the veil was over her face. The bright sun poured over her black-clad
figure. I could not take my eyes from the sight. The posture seemed
to accentuate the charms of her person and to suggest to my in–
flamed senses the suppleness of her members. Even the funereal tint
of her costume seemed to add to the provocation. The sunshine was
hot upon my neck and could be felt through the stuff of my coat upon
my shoulders. It was preternaturally bright so that I was blinded by
it and my eyes were blinded and my senses swam. But all the while
I could hear, as from a great distance, the scraping of the spades
upon the piled earth and the muffled sound of earth falling into the
excavation."
That evening
qass
went to the summer house in the garden. It
was not by appointment, simply on impulse. He waited there a long
time, but she finally appeared, dressed in black "which was scarce
d:1rker than the night." He did not speak, or make any sign as she ap–
proached, "gliding like a shadow among shadows," but remained
standing where he had been, in the deepest obscurity of the summer
house. Even when she entered, he did not betray his presence. "I can
not be certain that any premeditation was in my silence. It was promp–
ted by an overpowering impulse which gripped me and sealed my
throat and froze my limbs. Before that moment, and afterwards, I
knew that it
is
dishonorable to spy upon another, but at the moment
no such considerations presented themselves. I had to keep my eyes
fixed upon her as she stood there thinking herself alone in the dark–
ness of the structure. I had the fancy that since she thought herself
alone I might penetrate into her being, that I might learn what
change, what effect, had been wrought by the death of her husband.
The passion which had seized me to the very extent of paroxysm
that afternoon at the very brink of my friend's grave was gone. I was
perfectly cold now. But I had to know, to try to know. It was as
though I might know myself by knowing her. (It is the human defect
-to try to know oneself by the self of another. One can only know
oneself in God and in His great eye.)
"She entered the summer house and sank upon one of the
