"Look here now, here's a woman who is healthy and simple."
For that was how he looked upon her soul and body. Because he looked upon her thus, he had felt for her the love that had driven him towards her, his soul taking that direction of positivism and materialism which, after his student days, had at that moment mastered the mysticism of his soul. . . . For he had known then, those moments in which he—tired of his text-books or hardened in the operating-room—had felt the mysticism within him temporarily fading; and it was especially during those intervals of materialism that the young doctor had experienced Mathilde's attraction, the attraction of a healthy, pink-and-white woman who would give him healthy children. At such moments he saw the world, all mankind, renewed by careful selection; the vigorous life-force of the future bursting into luxuriant rose-blossoms which would overwhelm the sickly lilies of these days of "nerves." . . . When, afterwards, the secret forces spoke more loudly within him, then he would suddenly feel himself far removed from his wife, as though he had lost her; and especially in his dark, vague self-insufficiency he lost her entirely, feeling himself nerveless and without power even to return her kisses with any warmth, while his voice in speaking to her remained dull and his grey glance cold, whatever he said and however hard he tried to force himself back into his healthy, positive love for the healthy mother of his two children. . . .
Then he would feel guilty towards her. And the inner conviction of his guilt increased. Was it her fault that he had been able only to give her one half of his soul, that he had it in his power to love her only with the positive half of his nature—however sincere it might be—while he gave her
