And, when I...came forward, more timid than...a little child, she did not run away...no, no...she stayed...she waited for me....I even believe... daroga...that she put out her forehead...a little...oh, not much...just a little... like a living bride.... And...and...I...kissed her!... I!...I!...I! ..And she did not die!...and after I had kissed her, she went on standing there, close to me, as if it were perfectly natural... Oh, how good it is, daroga, to kiss somebody on the forehead!...You can't tell!... But I! I!...My mother, daroga, my poor, unhappy mother would never ...let me kiss her....She used to run away... and throw me my mask! ...Nor any other woman...ever, ever!...Ah, you can understand, my happiness was so great, I cried. And I fell at her feet, crying ...and I kissed her feet...her little feet...crying. You're crying, too, daroga...and she cried also...the angel cried!... Listen, daroga...listen to this....While I was at her feet...I heard her say, `Poor, unhappy Erik!' ... And she took my hand!...I had become no more, you know, than a poor dog ready to die for her....I mean it, daroga!... I held in my hand a ring, a plain gold ring which I had given her ...which she had lost...and which I had found again... a wedding-ring, you know....I slipped it into her little hand and said, `There!...Take it!...Take it for you...and him! ...It shall be my wedding-present a present from your poor, unhappy Erik.....I know you love the boy...don't cry any more! ...She asked me, in a very soft voice, what I meant.... Then I made her understand that, where she was concerned, I was only a poor dog, ready to die for her...but that she could marry the young man when she pleased, because she had cried with me and mingled her tears with mine!..." ...Then Christine kissed me, for the first time, herself, here, on the forehead--don't look, daroga!--here, on the forehead...on my forehead, mine--don't look, daroga!--and they went off together. ...Christine had stopped crying....I alone cried.... I seemed to hear such real pitiful despair and misery in his voice that I looked up at his masked face with compassion. I could not see his eyes behind the mask, but I saw two, three, four tears run down from its edge I was lying, with my head on the knee of the man in the black cloak and the black mask. He was bathing my temples with a gentle care and attentiveness which seemed far more horrible to bear than the brutality he had shown when he carried me away. Why, you love him! Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves His Don Juan Triumphant (for I had not a doubt but that he had rushed to his masterpiece to forget the horror of the moment) seemed to me at first one long, awful, magnificent sob, in which poor Erik had placed all his cursed misery. ..It showed me Erik banging his poor, hideous head against the walls of that hell, and staying away from people, so as not to frighten them. it was not his frightful threats when setting me free that helped me to keep my word, but the harrowing sobs which he gave on the threshold of the tomb.. "The requiem mass is not at all gay," Erik's voice resumed, "whereas the wedding mass--you can take my word for it--is magnificent! One must take a resolution and know one's own mind! I can't go on living like this, like a mole in a burrow! Don Juan Triumphant is finished; and now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays. I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased." "Well, what did you see? Think! You saw branches And what are the branches?" asked the terrible voice. "There's a gibbet! That is why I call my wood the torture-chamber!...You see, it's all a joke. I never express myself like other people...I never do anything like other people.. But I am very tired of it!... I'm sick and tired of having a forest and a torture-chamber in my house and of living like a mountebank, in a house with a false bottom!...I'm tired of it! I want to have a nice, quiet flat, with ordinary doors and windows and a wife inside it, like anybody else! A wife whom I can love and take out on Sundays and keep amused on week-days...Here, shall I show you some card-tricks? That will help us to pass a few minutes, while waiting for eleven o'clock to-morrow evening....My dear little Christine!...Are you listening to me?...Tell me you love me!... No, you don't love me...but no matter, you will!...Once, you could not look at my mask because you knew what was behind. ...And now you don't mind looking at it and you forget what is behind!...One can get used to everything...if one wishes. ...Plenty of young people who did not care for each other before marriage have adored each other since! Oh, I don't know what I am talking about! But you would have lots of fun with me. For instance, I am the greatest ventriloquist that ever lived, I am the first ventriloquist in the world!...You're laughing.... Perhaps you don't believe me? Listen."