Our journey to Hoboken was all too short that night. Never had horse-car or ferry-boat advanced with such velocity before. As we left the church she asked, “Did you notice how my voice trembled in my solo?
“It only added to its effect,” I answered. “Were you nervous?”
“Oh, no, I was happy, so happy that I could not control my voice.”
Ah, but I had a full heart as I walked home that night. The future was all radiant radiant beyond my wildest dream. It frightened me. Such perfect bliss seemed scarcely possible, seemed too great and glorious to last. And yet had not Veronika’s own lips promised it? and sealed the promise with a kiss that burned still where she had placed it? It was useless for me to go to bed; it was useless for me to stay in the house. I put on my hat and went out and spent the night pacing up and down before her door. And as soon as the morning was far enough advanced I rang the bell and invited myself to breakfast with her; and after breakfast I helped her to wash the dishes, to Mr. Tikulski’s unutterable disapproval—it was “unteeknified,” he said—and after that I accompanied her as far as the first house where she had to give a lesson.
While writing the above I had almost forgotten. Now I remember. I must stop for a space to get used to remembering again that she is dead.
YES, she is dead. That is the truth. If truth is good, as men proclaim it to be, then goodness is intrinsically cruel. That Veronika is dead is the truth which lies like a hot coal upon my consciousness, and goads me along as I tell this tale. And the manner of her death and the speediness of it—I must tell all.
And yet, although I know her to be dead, although I repeat to myself a hundred times a day, “She is dead, dead, dead,” and although, God help me, I think I realize too well that she is dead, yet to this day I can scarcely bring myself to believe it. Truth as it is, it seems to be in utter contradiction to the rest of truth. Even those who have abandoned faith in Religion, still profess faith in Nature, saying, “Nature is provident, beneficent, and wise; Nature is alive with beauty.” And at most times, it seems as if these assertions were not to be contested. Yet, how can they be true when Nature contained the possibility of Veronika’s death? How can Nature be wise, and yet have permitted that maiden life to be destroyed?—provident, and yet have flung away her finest product?—beneficent, and yet have torn bleeding from my life all that made my life worth living?—beautiful, and yet have quenched the beautifying light of Veronika’s presence, and hushed the voice that made the world musical? The mere fact that Veronika could die gives the lie to the Nature-worshipers. In the light of that fact, or rather in the darkness of it, it is mockery to sing songs of praise to Nature.—That is why it is so hard for me to believe—to believe a thing which annihilates the harmony of the universe, and proclaims the optimism of the philosophers to be a delusion, a superstition. How could I believe my senses if I should hear Christine Nilsson utter a hideous false note? So is it hard for me to believe that Nature has allowed Veronika to die. And yet it is the truth, the unmistakable, irrevocable, relentless truth.