The Very Acme of Romantic Love

A Gentleman walked beside a river with his mistress. He was melancholy and silent, for he knew that something was expected of him; but it was difficult to speak because the lady stepped lightly beside him with an inscrutable and serene expression upon her face as if he were not there. Sometimes he suspected that in his absence she gave way to unbounded delight, although it was well understood between them that they were in love.

His unhappiness increased and it became more and more necessary for the gentleman to speak. They approached a bend in the river and he turned to her, saying: "My dear, I would gladly jump into that river to prove the heat of my love for you." And he strode gravely to the riverbank and jumped in.

When he returned, wet and shivering, to her side, his eyes implored some recognition, and the lady, rising to his need, remarked: "I admire the courage with which you get yourself wet through on a relatively (concluded on page 197) Romantic Love (continued from page 143) cold day, yet I cannot acknowledge your act to be a proof of love. You are merely appealing to my sympathy. You calculate I will take you to bed to make you warm again." And she walked on in a huff.

The gentleman turned and caught up with her. He shivered violently, but she was too hurt to speak. Then just as the lovers passed a quarry the gentleman said to her: "You cannot think I intend you to take my broken bones to bed." And turning back dauntlessly, he cast himself into the pit.

The lady waited patiently at the quarry's edge for him to return. She observed how painfully he dragged himself over the flinty stones, tearing his clothes to ribbons and cutting himself in many places; nevertheless, with consummate reason she said: "It is hardly a proof of love to attempt to take your life. It is clear that you can't abide living with me." Dashing a pearl-like tear from her eye, she walked on, leaving him to recover and follow her should he still have a mind for country walks.

When he reached her again he noticed that just beyond them grew a vast tangle of thistles and nettles. Desperately loverlike, he gathered his dwindling strength together and hurled himself forward, crying: "I will live with you yet, though it is agony as this I feel now." And he threw himself without a backward look into the bed of nettles.

As he lay there contorted with pain, for his cold and his scratches now made themselves felt against the hot stings which covered him, he dimly heard the lady say: "If I give you no joy I cannot be so cruel as to bind you still to myself. You may leave me and I will finish my walk alone or in some other less embarrassing company."

It was some while before the gentleman could drag himself forward to follow her again, yet such was his ardor that eventually he reached within shouting distance of her. He called to her, meanwhile reaching out for the sharp blade of a plowshare that was at hand. "Let me then, if I must lose you, cut off these arms that they may never enfold another." And with dignity he rose to his feet and, swinging the blade, cut through his arm just above the elbow.

The lady turned to witness this, and after a short silence in which he turned stony eyes of pain toward her, she said: "Ah, vain boasting man that you are. Vain and foolish, for how can you cut off both arms? You will be unfaithful to me yet, I know. How silly we are when we give ourselves into the capricious arms of a man." With profound sorrow upon her beautiful face, she turned and walked on.

Yet even now the gentleman was determined to prove his love, and he called to her. "Stay a moment more and you shall see. I will follow no other woman. No other woman." And with his remaining arm he systematically hacked at his feet.

At this the lady came running toward him, tears coursing down her cheeks: "What have you done?" she cried. "Look what you have done. You can never walk again upon those fine legs; forever you must crawl, crippled, and how can my love survive so pitiful a sight? Alas, I can never love you now, for you have torn the dignity from everything in you which I did love." And she wept as if her heart were near to breaking, taking care nevertheless to prevent her skirts' becoming soiled from the gore which covered the ground about them.

"It is well," muttered the gentleman through his broken lips. "For, to speak the truth, I have no longer so strong a conviction myself, and to be practical, I can hardly in my present condition sustain the loss of blood so intense a conversation demands."

"But stay a moment," said the lady, drying her eyes. "There is a certain nobility in your suffering; something -- I know not what -- stirs in me again. What can it be?"

"Ah, Gods!" groaned the gentleman, the words coming slowly through his thickened breath. "I see that this love is my destiny, for although I cannot accommodate it, I am unable to run away from, it either." And he breathed harder, hoping to expire, while the lady, kneeling, wept copiously with the painful joy of reawakened love.