that . . . But scarcely had she said it than she flung her arms round his neck, repentant: “I’m a beast. I wasn’t thinking of that. You know, a princess ought never to shout, but I shout at you . . . as if I were your wife. Strike me, I beg you. Wait, I’ll show you that I’m capable. . . .” She released him and suddenly, as she was, began to tidy up the laboratory, wetting a cloth under the tap and cleaning the whole floor on her knees. She meant it for an act of repentance, but somehow she found the work pleasant, became radiant, worked with a will, humming to herself a song which she had picked up somewhere from the servants. He wanted to raise her to her feet. “No; wait,” she defended herself, “there’s a bit over there.” And she crawled with the cloth underneath a chair.
“Come here,” she said in a moment, surprised. Still mumbling reproaches he sat down next to her. She was squatting, her arms clasped round her knees. “Just see what a chair looks like from underneath. I’ve never seen such a thing before.” She placed on his face a hand which was still damp from the wet rag. “You’re as rough as the under side of this chair; that’s the most lovely thing about you. I’ve only seen other people on their smooth, polished side, but you, when one first looks at you, you’re like a beam with cracks in it—everything that holds the human frame together. If one runs one’s finger over you one gets a splinter in it, but all the same you're beautifully made. One begins to realize something else . . . something more important than what one gets from the smooth side. That’s you.”
