Chapter 13

�Can it be that she loves me?� I asked myself next morning, directly I awoke. I did not want to look into myself. I felt that her image, the image of the �girl with the affected laugh,� had crept close into my heart, and that I should not easily get rid of it. I went to L—— and stayed there the whole day, but I saw Acia only by glimpses. She was not well; she had a headache. She came downstairs for a minute, with a bandage round her forehead, looking white and thin, her eyes half-closed. With a faint smile she said, �It will soon be over, it�s nothing; everything�s soon over, isn�t it?� and went away. I felt bored and, as it were, listlessly sad, yet I could not make up my mind to go for a long while, and went home late, without seeing her again.

The next morning passed in a sort of half slumber of the consciousness. I tried to set to work, and could not; I tried to do nothing and not to think—and that was a failure too. I strolled about the town, returned home, went out again.

�Are you Herr N——?� I heard a childish voice ask suddenly behind me. I looked round; a little boy was standing before me. �This is for you from Fra�lein Annette,� he said, handing me a note.

I opened it and recognised the irregular rapid handwriting of Acia. �I must see you to-day,� she wrote to me; �come to-day at four o�clock to the stone chapel on the road near the ruin. I have done a most foolish thing to-day.� Come, for God�s sake; you shall know all about it.� Tell the messenger, yes.�

�Is there an answer?� the boy asked me.

�Say, yes,� I replied. The boy ran off.