I was startled, and a shiver ran through me. A noise as of a whirlwind murmured confusedly in my ears; my throat w^as filled with a hot suffocating fragrance, and I felt as if the air I breathed had grown solid and came in morsels.
"Janka, Janka," he whispered again, as if struggling with his deep perturbation; for he was greatly moved.
In a sort of hypnotic trance, I stared hard into his dimly glistening eyes. I kissed his mouth. … All my soul, with all its faculties, transported from the infinitely distant confines of the world of thought, was concentrated and poured out in that one kiss of mine!
Ah! I cannot understand what it w^as that at such a moment held me back, since I and all that was mine had now been transformed and had passed into one desire alone. It was no longer thirst, it was hunger—raging, ravenous hunger. I clung to him with all my might, and whispered and stammered a string of broken incoherent words; and, in a delirium of mingled agony and bliss, I sighed under my breath:
"Oh, my only one; oh, my own!"
And afterwards—afterwards, when he had
