Gossensass was the most beautiful and the most harmonious portion of my whole existence. I scarcely venture to think of it, and yet I think of nothing else. Ah! forever!” He did not dare to send her The Master-Builder, since her presence interpenetrated every line of it like a perfume, and when, we are told, she sent him her photograph, signed “Princess of Orangia,” her too-bold identification of herself with Hilda Wangel hurt him as a rough touch, that finer tact would have avoided. There can be no doubt at all that while she was now largely absorbed by the compliment to her own vanity, he was still absolutely enthralled and bewitched, and that what was fun to her made life and death to him.
This very curious episode,[1] which modifies in several important respects our conception of the dramatist’s character, is analogous with the apparent change of disposition which made Renan surprise his unthinking admirers so suddenly at the epoch of L’Eau de Jouvence and L’Abbesse de Jouarre. It was founded, of course, on that dangerous susceptibility to which an elderly man of genius, whose life had been spent in labor and reflection, may be inclined to re-
- ↑ It was quite unknown until the correspondence—which has not been translated into English—was published by Georg Brandes at the desire of the lady herself (September, 1906).
