self-deception, or rather retrogression of her instincts, led her into touches of mysticism.  The story of little Sonia who had fallen in love with the ten-year-old Wilhelm at first sight, to die shortly afterward with his name upon her lips, made a deep impression on her, and set her dreaming.  “When sweet little Sonia died I was born.”  Now this was not quite accurate, as Pilar must have been at least two or three years old at the time, but mystic raptures take no count of time.  “My life is a continuation of hers.  Your Spanish love inherited the soul of your little Russian.  Thus I have been yours since my birth—­and before.  I loved you before ever I knew you.  I have had a presentiment of you, have felt and expected you from the beginning.  Hence my troubled seeking all the time, hence my horror and shuddering when I discovered that I was mistaken, that it was not the one I yearned for whose image I bore secretly in my heart.  Now I see why I was so irresistibly drawn to you from the first moment I set eyes on you.  The man of my dreams stood in bodily shape before me.  Here at last was my heart’s dear image in flesh and blood.  I had no need to get to know you; I knew you already.  My own, my Wilhelm.”

Real tears rolled down her cheeks as she spoke, and Wilhelm was not sufficiently blase to scoff at the doting nonsense of a love-sick woman.  Love has enormous power, and at its heat all firmness, all resistance, melts away.  Pilar’s affection filled Wilhelm with heartfelt emotion and gratitude.  He denied himself the right of judging her, suspecting or doubting her, or of discovering dark spots upon her shining orb.  As she was forever at his side, and made it her sole care to occupy him entirely, body and soul, his whole world was soon filled by her and her alone.  Wherever he looked his eyes fell upon her; she intercepted his view on all sides.  Her shadow fell even upon his past, as far back as his childhood.  He failed to notice that whole days passed now without his giving a thought to Schrotter or Paul, and he was quite surprised when he discovered that he had left a letter from the former unanswered for a week.  His former life began to fade and grow dim, and, compared to the sun-flooded, glowing present, looked like the dark background of a courtyard beside an open space in the full blaze of a summer day.

The whole society of the place was deeply interested in the handsome couple, who took so little trouble to conceal their love.  The young people thought it most affecting, the older ones, especially the ladies, turned up their noses, with the remark that even people on their honeymoon might put some restraint upon themselves on the beach, or in the street.  Wilhelm and Pilar were quite unconscious of the talk for which they furnished the material.  They had no eyes for anybody but each other.  They were unconscious of the flight of time.  Their lives passed as in a morning dream, or a wondrous fairy-tale, where two lovers wander in a sunny garden among great flowers and singing birds, or rest, surrounded by attendant sprites, who fulfill each wish before it is uttered.