She therefore determined to learn German as soon as
she returned to Paris, and, if need be, to stay for some length of
time in Germany in order to master the language quickly and
thoroughly.
She thought and spoke much of the future, and in all her dreams,
plans, and resolves Wilhelm was always, and as a matter of course,
the central figure and sharer of her life. In him her life found its
consummation she had him fast, and would never let him go.
Her love was a curious mixture of ardent passion and melting,
sentimental tenderness. At one moment the Bacchante, drinking long
draughts of love and life from his lips, at another, the innocent
girl who sought and found a chaste felicity in the mere rapturous
contemplation of the man she adored. The longer she knew him, the
deeper she penetrated into his character, the more did the Bacchante
recede and yield her place to the Psyche. The allegory of Wilhelm's
pastel seemed wrong, her own drawing right. She was no bloodthirsty
Sphinx revelling in human victims, but a harmless little cat purring
against the side of the young god. She was diffident, eager to
learn, slow to contradict. She broke herself of her paradoxes, and
concealed her originality. She liked best to listen while he talked.
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