The streets of St. Petersburg, the city itself, nihilism, Russia, the
czar had ceased to exist for me, however. Whatever she may have seen
upon the street that had brought that startled cry to her lips, and had
made her turn about and grasp my arm, had also brought into her
countenance an expression of such overwhelming and overpowering concern
for me, that I knew with a perfect knowledge in that instant, that Zara
loved me.
Have you ever been swayed by an impulse that is utterly beyond your
control, and before which all other considerations degenerate to such
utter insignificance as not to exist at all?
It was such an one that controlled me then.
As she drew me toward the window, and would have directed my gaze
through it, her own eyes held unflinchingly to mine, and mine held hers
with a compelling power which she did not seek to resist, and could not
have controlled, even if she had made the effort.
Whatever it may have been, out there in the street, that had alarmed
her, she forgot it, and my arms were around her, her lithe, sinuous,
pulsing body was crushed madly against my own, and our lips had met
before either of us realized it. We had mutually recognized the strange
and overwhelming instinct of love, that had asserted its control over
both at the self-same instant. I forgot the world, the flesh and the
devil, the czar, Russia, and nihilism, and she forgot even that
uppermost terror that was tearing at her heart, in that supreme moment
of the rapturous recognition of love.
We were unconscious of the fact that we were standing directly before
the window, where we must have been for the moment in full view of
persons passing in the street; we had forgotten everything, save each
other.
We were both silent; there was no occasion for words; our souls were
speaking to each other in a language of their own, God-given and
complete, which leaves nothing to be understood, which comprehends all
things.
In such supreme moments as that one was, heart speaks to heart with a
complete understanding which passeth all human knowledge, and which can
be understood only by the two who are most concerned, and by God, who
created such impulses.
Presently we were back again beside the low divan. She was seated upon
the edge of it, and I was beside her, with one knee on the floor,
clasping both her hands in one of mine, while the other still encircled
her body, holding her tightly against me in that rhapsody of love which
overawes all sense of understanding.
Her head rested lightly upon my shoulder; stray tresses of her hair
brushed against my temple and my cheek; her half-parted lips, glowing
like newly opened rose-buds, never attained a distance of more than an
inch from mine, and for the most part they were together, as lightning
conductors of every thrill that pulsed through her being and mine.