I will put out the candle myself and get myself ready for bed.’

Eduard was overjoyed to hear Ottilie was still writing. ‘For me,’ he thought exultantly, ‘she is busying herself for me!’ Closed in by the darkness, in imagination he saw her sitting there, writing. He stepped towards her, he saw her turn towards him. He felt an unconquerable desire to be close to her once more. But from here there was no way to the entresol where her room was. Now he found himself directly in front of his wife’s door. There was a strange confusion in his soul. He tried to open the door, he found it was locked, he knocked softly, Charlotte did not hear.

She was walking agitatedly up and down her dressing-room. She was repeating to herself again and again what had been going round and round in her mind ever since the Count had brought out his unexpected proposal. She seemed to see the Captain standing before her. His spirit filled the house, his spirit enlivened their walks outside it, and he was to go away and all was to become empty! She told herself everything a woman can tell herself, she even looked ahead to the common but sorry consolation that time would heal even such torments as these. She cursed the time it would take to heal them; she cursed the dead time when they would be healed.

And then finally she sought refuge in tears and it was all the more welcome because she so rarely sought refuge in them. She threw herself on to the sofa and gave herself over to her torment completely. Eduard for his part found it impossible to go away from the door. He knocked again, and a third time more loudly, so that through the stillness of the night Charlotte heard it quite clearly and started up afraid. Her first thought was: it might be, it must be the Captain. Her second thought was: it cannot possibly be the Captain. She thought she must have imagined it; but she had heard it, she wanted to have heard it, she feared to have heard it. She went into the bedroom, she went softly up to the bolted door. She felt ashamed of her fear: it could easily be the Baroness, the Baroness could easily be wanting something! She pulled herself together and called in a firm voice: ‘Is someone there?’ A voice answered softly: ‘It’s me.’ – ‘Who?’ Charlotte asked, unable to distingush the voice. She saw the Captain standing before the door. The voice came again, louder: ‘Eduard!’ She opened the door and her husband stood before her. He greeted her with a joke, and this vein was one she found it possible to continue in. His enigmatic visit he accounted for with enigmatic explanations. Finally he said: ‘Why I have really come I must now confess. I have taken a vow that tonight I shall kiss your shoe.’

‘It is a long time since it has occurred to you to want to do that,’ said Charlotte. ‘All the worse,’ Eduard replied, ‘and all the better!’

She had sat down in a chair so that he should not see how little she had on. He threw himself at her feet and she could not prevent him from kissing her shoe nor, when this came off in his hand, from seizing her foot and pressing it tenderly to his heart.

Charlotte was one of those women who, without intending to and without being put to any effort, continue after they are married to act in the manner of lovers. She never provoked her husband, she hardly responded to his desire, but without coldness or repelling severity she continued to be like a loving bride who is secretly shy of doing even what is now permissible. And this is how Eduard found her to be this night, and in a double sense.