And he would say it not only for my own sake, but also for Susanna's, for he was very fond of her, and would very unwillingly see her led into what, from a human point of view, could only end in sorrow.
One thing I must consider, he continued--after a long pause, during which he seemed to be considering whether he should say all he had to say, and finally decided upon doing so--and that was, that my unfortunate hereditary disposition did not allow of my thinking of marriage; it might, he went on with a gesture, as if performing a last, decisive operation on the candle, even be regarded in the same light as if a leper married without heeding that he thereby transmitted his disease to his children.

I must not, however--here he rose and laid his hand consolingly on my shoulder--take these things too much to heart.
The most bitter remedies--and unfortunately the truth was such--are generally the wholesomest, and for my sick, dreaming nature, he thought, after earnest, mature consideration, that the unvarnished truth was the only means of giving health and salvation.
After once more holding up the candle over me, he retired with, a serious nod; be could easily see that for the moment I was not in a condition to carry on any conversation, or give him any answer.
It was, in all friendliness, the death-blow to all my dreams and illusions.
I felt stunned by the blow, although my inward understanding had not yet taken it in clearly.

My life's old foreboding of misfortune was now at last confirmed.

Susanna had therefore, for me, been but borrowed sunshine now, and my hopes were to be extinguished for ever.
I lay perfectly calm, rather seeing this with my mind's eye than thinking it, while the music sounded faintly from the ball-room, and little by little I felt myself with a dull pain die away, as it were, from everything that was dear to me in the world.

My body seemed to stiffen under the sorrow, and Susanna's face, without a gleam of life in it, stood before me like something unnatural: my love was a dead history.
As I still lay in a dull, motionless stupor, through which everything without appeared to me in a half mist, the door opened, and a lady came in.