V

Martin lay awake a long time, unable to sleep. It was the little pale girl with the black eyes that left him no rest. She had stood there so pale and still and lonely; she had not taken anyone’s arm or laughed or chattered like the others. She had surely been seduced and deserted; she perhaps had a little child that would freeze or starve to death if she didn’t get it food and clothes by selling her body. How he would kiss her if he had her in his arms now, how he would caress her and give her the tenderest names, so as to make her forget who she was, a common streetwalker, and who he was, a chance customer like all the rest! With whom was she now? With Planius, maybe. What could Planius be to her? He was no better looking than Martin and he was as stupid as a codfish. He had been one of the worst grinds and had only had a plain “graduated” on his certificate. Why should she pick out just him? But she, to be sure, had made no choice; she had just taken the first that came along. Martin understood this and found it quite natural. She had given away her heart and soul and had no longer anything to give but her body, so why should she deny that to anyone when it was her profession to sell it and when she had already got as deep in the mire as a human being can get? Yet still, if Martin could meet her and she could get to know him, perhaps she might become fond of him and begin a new life. For her he would give up everything⁠—all his dreams of poetic fame and his future; he would choose some profession in which he could immediately earn her and his upkeep; they would be married and live far away from men in a little house by a lake deep in the woods. They would row among the rushes in a little boat and dream away the hours, they would land on an island and be together there all night, while the stars burned above their heads. He would kiss away all sorrow, all dark memories from her brow, and would be as fond of her little child as if it was his own.⁠ ⁠…

But while Martin let his fancy wander thus, he knew quite clearly at the same time that under all these reveries lay nothing but desire⁠—a young man’s hunger for a woman’s white body. And the further on into the night this lasted, while he lay awake and stared at the gray dawn light trickling in through the blinds, the more bitterly he regretted that he had said no to the other girl, the fat one.