Helena's stout neighbour, who, it seemed, was from Dresden, began to
tell anecdotes. He was a _raconteur_ of the naïve type: he talked with
face, hands, with his whole body. Now and again he would give little
spurts in his seat. After one of these he must have become aware of
Helena--who felt as if she were enveloped by a soft stove--struggling to
escape his compression. He stopped short, lifted his hat, and smiling
beseechingly, said in his persuasive way: 'I am sorry. I am sorry. I compress you!' He glanced round in
perplexity, seeking some escape or remedy. Finding none, he turned to
her again, after having squeezed hard against his lady to free
Helena, and said: 'Forgive me, I am sorry.' 'You are forgiven,' replied Helena, suddenly smiling into his face with
her rare winsomeness. The whole party, attentive, relaxed into a smile
at this. The good humour was complete.
'Thank you,' said the German gratefully.
Helena turned away. The talk began again like the popping of corn; the
_raconteur_ resumed his anecdote. Everybody was waiting to laugh. Helena
rapidly wearied of trying to follow the tale. Siegmund had made no
attempt. He had watched, with the others, the German's apologies, and
the sight of his lover's face had moved him more than he could tell.
She had a peculiar, childish wistfulness at times, and with this an
intangible aloofness that pierced his heart. It seemed to him he should
never know her. There was a remoteness about her, an estrangement
between her and all natural daily things, as if she were of an unknown
race that never can tell its own story. This feeling always moved
Siegmund's pity to its deepest, leaving him poignantly helpless. This
same foreignness, revealed in other ways, sometimes made him hate her.
It was as if she would sacrifice him rather than renounce her foreign
birth. There was something in her he could never understand, so that
never, never could he say he was master of her as she was of him
the mistress.
As she smiled and turned away from the German, mute, uncomplaining, like
a child wise in sorrow beyond its years, Siegmund's resentment against
her suddenly took fire, and blazed him with sheer pain of pity. She was
very small. Her quiet ways, and sometimes her impetuous clinging made
her seem small; for she was very strong. But Siegmund saw her now,
small, quiet, uncomplaining, living for him who sat and looked at her.
But what would become of her when he had left her, when she was alone,
little foreigner as she was, in this world, which apologizes when it has
done the hurt, too blind to see beforehand? Helena would be left behind;
death was no way for her. She could not escape thus with him from this
house of strangers which she called 'life'. She had to go on alone, like
a foreigner who cannot learn the strange language.