Do you wonder that I followed you? Do you
despise me? Do you think I still care, because you do? Love is stronger
than the woman loved and for her we do deeds of baseness, unblushingly,
which she would forbid our doing, and for which she despises us when
she hates us, and loves us the more dearly when she loves us at all. You
hate me--then despise me, too, if you will. It is too late to care. I
followed you like a spy, I saw what I expected to see, I have suffered
what I knew I should suffer. You know that I have been away during this
whole month, and that I have travelled thousands of leagues in the hope
of forgetting you."
"And yet I fancied I had seen you within the month," Unorna said, with a
cruel smile.
"They say that ghosts haunt the places they have loved," answered Kafka
unmoved. "If that be true I may have troubled your dreams and you may
have seen me. I have come back broken in body and in heart. I think I
have come back to die here. The life is going out of me, but before it
is quite gone I can say two things. I can tell you that I know you at
last, and that, in spite of the horror of knowing what you are, I love
you still."
"Am I so very horrible?" she asked scornfully.
"You know what you are, better than I can tell you, but not better than
I know. I know even the secret meaning of your moods and caprices. I
know why you are willing to listen to me, this last time, so patiently,
with only now and then a sneer and a cutting laugh.
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