Section 2

I had cast Nettie off in an eloquent epistle, had really imagined
the affair was over forever--"I've done with women," I said to
Parload--and then there was silence for more than a week.

Before that week was over I was wondering with a growing emotion
what next would happen between us.

I found myself thinking constantly of Nettie, picturing her--sometimes
with stern satisfaction, sometimes with sympathetic remorse--mourning,
regretting, realizing the absolute end that had come between us.
At the bottom of my heart I no more believed that there was an end
between us, than that an end would come to the world. Had we not
kissed one another, had we not achieved an atmosphere of whispering
nearness, breached our virgin shyness with one another? Of course
she was mine, of course I was hers, and separations and final
quarrels and harshness and distance were no more than flourishes
upon that eternal fact. So at least I felt the thing, however I
shaped my thoughts.

Whenever my imagination got to work as that week drew to its close,
she came in as a matter of course, I thought of her recurrently
all day and dreamt of her at night. On Saturday night I dreamt of
her very vividly. Her face was flushed and wet with tears, her
hair a little disordered, and when I spoke to her she turned away.
In some manner this dream left in my mind a feeling of distress
and anxiety. In the morning I had a raging thirst to see her.