DOI Artikel:
Cross, Victoria: Theodora: a fragment
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0174
Theodora
170
Spontaneously, whether I would or not, they responded to it, and
my fingers laced themselves tightly round this raorsel of velvet-
covered fire.
We forgot in those few seconds to say the orthodox good-byes ;
she forgot to answer my question. That which we were both
saying to each other, though our lips did not open, was, “So I
should like to hold and embrace you ; ” and she, “ So I should like
to be held and embraced.”
Then she withdrew her hand, and I went out by way of the
drawing-room where we had entered.
In the hall her footman showed me out with extra obsequiousness.
My three-hours’ stay raised me, I suppose, to the rank of more
than an ordinary caller.
It was dark now in the streets, and the temperature must have
been somewhere about zero. I turned my collar up and started
to walk sharply in the direction of my chambers. Walking always
induces in me a tendency to reflection and retrospection, and now,
removed from the excitement of Theodora’s actual presence, my
thoughts lapped quietly over the whole interview, going through it
backwards, like the calming waves ol a receding tide, leaving
lingeringly the sand. There was no doubt that this girl attracted
me very strongly, that the passion born yesterday was nearing
adolescence 3 and there was no doubt, either, that I ought to strangle
it now before it reached maturity. My thoughts, however, turned
impatiently from this question, and kept closing and centring round
the object itself, with maddening persistency. I laughed to myself
as Schopenhauer’s theory shot across me that all impulse to love is
merely the impulse of the genius of the genus to select a fittiny
object which will help in producing a Third Life. Certainly the
genius of the genus in me was weaker than the genius of my own
individuality, in this instance, for Theodora was as unfitted,
according
170
Spontaneously, whether I would or not, they responded to it, and
my fingers laced themselves tightly round this raorsel of velvet-
covered fire.
We forgot in those few seconds to say the orthodox good-byes ;
she forgot to answer my question. That which we were both
saying to each other, though our lips did not open, was, “So I
should like to hold and embrace you ; ” and she, “ So I should like
to be held and embraced.”
Then she withdrew her hand, and I went out by way of the
drawing-room where we had entered.
In the hall her footman showed me out with extra obsequiousness.
My three-hours’ stay raised me, I suppose, to the rank of more
than an ordinary caller.
It was dark now in the streets, and the temperature must have
been somewhere about zero. I turned my collar up and started
to walk sharply in the direction of my chambers. Walking always
induces in me a tendency to reflection and retrospection, and now,
removed from the excitement of Theodora’s actual presence, my
thoughts lapped quietly over the whole interview, going through it
backwards, like the calming waves ol a receding tide, leaving
lingeringly the sand. There was no doubt that this girl attracted
me very strongly, that the passion born yesterday was nearing
adolescence 3 and there was no doubt, either, that I ought to strangle
it now before it reached maturity. My thoughts, however, turned
impatiently from this question, and kept closing and centring round
the object itself, with maddening persistency. I laughed to myself
as Schopenhauer’s theory shot across me that all impulse to love is
merely the impulse of the genius of the genus to select a fittiny
object which will help in producing a Third Life. Certainly the
genius of the genus in me was weaker than the genius of my own
individuality, in this instance, for Theodora was as unfitted,
according