She is mine!
She belongs to me, and to no one, no one else!"
Svava finds this feeling perfectly natural, and reciprocates it. She
ardently believes that he brings her as fresh a heart as she brings him;
that his past is as free from contaminating experience as is her own.
When, therefore, she obtains proof to the contrary, in an indignant
revulsion of feeling, she hurls her glove in his face and breaks the
engagement. This act is, I fancy, intended to be half symbolic. The
young girl expresses not only her personal sense of outrage; but she
flings a challenge in the face of the whole community, which by its
indulgence made his transgression easy. She discovers that what in her
would have been a crime is in him a lapse, readily forgiven. Her whole
soul revolts against this inequality of conditions; and in terminating
their relation, which has lost all its beauty, she wishes to cut off all
chance of its future resumption.
In order to determine whether this sentiment of passionate virginity
(which in effect makes the marriage vow of fidelity retroactive) is not,
in the present condition of the world, a trifle overstrained, I have
submitted the question to two refined women for whom I have a high
regard.
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