"I don't know what it was," he thought, "but, once I was alone with her, I had . . . I had to say it . . . How can I be of any use in the world, when I am such a dreamer? . . . Women! Have women ever woven into my life anything beyond the most commonplace threads? Have I ever confided in a woman before, or felt that irresistible impulse to open my heart, as I did this afternoon, in that weak moment of enchantment? Why to her, why to her? Why not to others, before her, and why first to her? . . . Must my life always be this clumsy groping with dreams on one side and facts on the other? But why, why should I have spoken like that: what was the overpowering impulse that made me tell her those strange things, that made it impossible for me to do anything else? Are our actions then so independent of ourselves that we just behave according to the laws of the most secret forces in and above us? . . . Do I know what it was in me that made me speak like that, that compelled me to speak like that? It was like an irresistible temptation, it was like a path that sloped down to delectable valleys and it was as if angels or demons—I don't know which—pushed and pushed me and whispered, 'Tell it all . . . and go down the path . . . You'll see how beautiful it is, you'll see how beautiful it becomes!' She . . . just listened, without speaking, without moving. What did she think? Nothing, most likely. She heard nothing,
