Never had she appeared to me
more beautiful, more desirable, and more as if she were my own. This
is exactly the only woman in the world who by virtue of certain
natural forces, scarcely known by name, was to attract me, as the
magnet attracts iron, to reign over me, to attach me to her, and
become the aim and completion of my life. Her voice, her shape, her
glances intoxicate me. To-day, when I thus unexpectedly met her, I
thought it was not only her personal charm she carried with her, but
the charm of that early morning, that spring and serene weather, the
joy of all the birds and plants,--in fact, she seemed to be more an
incarnation of beauty and nature than a woman. And it struck me then
that, if nature had created her thus that she should react upon me
more than upon any other man, nature had meant her to be mine, and
that my right had been trodden under foot by this marriage. Who knows
whether all the crookedness of the world does not spring from the
non-fulfilment of certain laws, and whether that be not the cause of
the imperfectness of life?
They are wrong who say that love is blind. On the contrary,
nothing--not the smallest detail--escapes its eyes; it sees everything
in the beloved being, notices everything; but melts it all in one
flame in the great and simple "I love." When I came close to Aniela, I
noticed that her eyes were brilliant as if from recent slumber; that
on her face and the light print dress fell the golden rays of the
morning sun filtering through the young leaves; her hair was tied in
a loose knot, and the flowing morning dress showed the outline of her
shoulders and supple waist, and in its very carelessness had a certain
freshness, which enhanced a thousandfold her charm.
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