He returned to the house where the young girl lived. He could no longer live without her and her laughing conversation, the rustle of her dress as she moved, the tone of her voice as she spoke. He could no longer distinguish in either his heart or his mind between the dead girl and the living. Regardless of the distance, the passage of time, and even death, he loved his old love in this one and loved in her the memory of the first. No longer did he even try to understand. No longer did he wonder whether or not she could be his own.

He was tortured by the thought of the poverty and destitution surrounding the woman he loved. Equally agonizing for him was the love itself, coming as it did so mysteriously and incomprehensibly from twin sources. What could he do? Offer money? But how? By what right? Take on the role of tutor? He looked hardly older than she was; they would be taken for lovers. Marry her off to someone else? This thought suddenly rearing up in his mind terrified him. Then he calmed down. Who would want to marry her when she had nothing, literally not a sou to bring as dowry?

The aunt watched as he returned again and again. She knew that he loved the girl. Still he waited, knowing not at all what for.

One night they found themselves alone. They were chatting quietly side by side on the settee in the little sitting room. Suddenly in a fatherly way he took her hand. He kept hold of it, struggling against a bitter, unwelcome anguish in both his heart and his mind. He dared not relinquish the hand she had given. Yet he knew if he kept it he was lost. All of a sudden she let herself fall into his arms. She had inherited her mother’s fatal passion and already loved him to distraction. Overcome with emotion he placed his lips on the tresses of her blonde hair and, as she raised her head in order to flee, their mouths met. There are certain moments when people go mad as these two did just then.

When he found himself out in the street again he walked blindly straight ahead, not knowing what he was going to do.