the birds like a family assembled and chattering at home in the evening, listening to the light swish of the wind, she let Siegmund predominate; he set the swing of their motion; she rested on him like a bird on a swaying bough.
They argued concerning the way. Siegmund, as usual, submitted to her. They went quite wrong. As they retraced their steps, stealthily, through a poultry farm whose fowls were standing in forlorn groups, once more dismayed by evening, Helena’s pride battled with her new subjugation to Siegmund. She walked head down, saying nothing. He also was silent, but his heart was strong in him. Somewhere in the distance a band was playing “The Watch on the Rhine.”
As they passed the beeches and were near home, Helena said, to try him, and to strike a last blow for her pride:
“I wonder what next Monday will bring us.”
“Quick curtain,” he answered joyously. He was looking down and smiling at her with such careless happiness that she loved him. He was wonderful to her. She loved him, was jealous of every particle of him that evaded her. She wanted to sacrifice to him, make herself a burning altar to him, and she wanted to possess him.
The hours that would be purely their own came too slowly for her.
That night she met his passion with love. It was not his passion she wanted, actually. But she desired that he should want her madly, and that he should have all—everything. It was a wonderful night to him. It restored in him the full “will to live.” But she felt it destroyed her. Her soul seemed blasted.
