At any rate he would not have parted with it for all the world, and when he looked at it as it lay in his hand, he seemed to be looking upon a portion of his own existence.
He had been seated in the theatre a long time before the beginning of the opera. He saw how they lit the lights one by one, he saw how the public sauntered in, he saw how the orchestra filled with musicians, and he saw below the curtain a swarm of pretty feet already upon the stage. Who could say whom they might belong to?
Everything seemed to spin round him, and he hardly seemed to be in the world. And again all around him roared with the din of a thousand voices, as when the wind crashes through the woodland and a tree is mere stubble in its path. The words spoken merged into one constant hum, and he seemed to be a tiny portion of that humming.
Then they began to play in the orchestra, and then the curtain was furled up. The stage represented a wood. Then she stept forth whom all awaited with breathless expectation; and when she stept forth, garlands and bouquets fell thick at her feet; it was a rain of flowers, and the people made the tempest. Through this rain and through this tempest it was impossible to distinguish anything clearly, and yet Venik fancied that he had distinguished something. Then the tempest subsided and the singing began. She sung.
It was Krista in every movement and in every tone. Full well he knew her every movement; full well he knew her every tone. And when she began to sing Venik felt a choking in his throat, and as though no heart beat any longer within him; as though he was no longer alive; as though it could not be the least true which yet was true; as though everything around him was enchantment, and he alone was in that enchantment. Would to Heaven it were only enchantment!
At the first touch, when he saw, heard, and recognized Krista, he felt only unembittered delight. Delight—to see her so beautiful, and to hear her so touchingly powerful, that she seemed like a superior being. As though she had got wings and flown to the stars. It was Krista, but a heaven-descended Krista. It was a different Krista from the one he had known, but it had grown out of the old Krista.
He smiled and the tears stood in his eyes. So near he was to her, so far away he was from her. From the hollow tree hither the road was one which had taken three years to traverse, and he
