LXXVII.
What inward joy, what throbbing of the heart, when they retired, and when I heard beneath the gateway the rolling of the carriage which bore away the last of them! We were then alone; the night was far advanced; our security increased at every move of the minute hand as it approached the figure that marked midnight on the dial. Nothing was to be heard but the sound of a few carriages, which, at rare intervals, rattled over the stones of the quay, or the deep breathing of the old concierge, who was stretched sleeping on a bench in the vestibule at the foot of the stairs.
We would first look at each other, as if surprised at our happiness. I would draw nearer to the table where Julie worked by the light of the lamp. The work soon fell from her unheeding hands; our looks expanded, our lips were unsealed, our hearts overflowed. Our choked and hurried words, like the flow of water impeded by too narrow an opening, were at first slowly poured forth, and the torrent of our thoughts trickled out drop by drop. We could not select, among the many things we had to say, those we most wished to impart to each other. Sometimes there was a long silence, caused by the confusion and excess of crowded thoughts which accumulated in our hearts and could not escape. Then they began to flow slowly, like those first drops which show that the cloud is about to dissolve or burst; these words called forth others in response; one voice led on the other, as a falling child draws his companion with him. Our words mingled without order, without answer, and without connection; neither of us would yield the happiness of outstripping the other in the expression of one common feeling. We fancied that we had first felt what we disclosed of our thoughts since the evening's conversation, or the morning's letter. At last this tumultuous overflow, at which we laughed and blushed, after a time subsided, and gave place to a calm effusion of the lips, which poured forth together, or alternately, the plenitude of their expressions. It was a continuous and murmuring transfusion of one soul into another,—an unreserved interchange of our two natures,—a complete transmutation of one into another, by the reciprocal communication of all that breathed, or lived, or burned within us. Never, perhaps, did two beings as irreproachable in their looks, or in their very thoughts, bare their hearts to one another more unreservedly, and reveal the mysterious depths of their feelings. The innocent nudity of our souls was chaste, though unveiled, as light that discovers all, yet sullies nothing. We had nought to reveal but the spotless love which purified as it consumed us.
Our love, by its very purity, was incessantly renewed, with the same light of soul, the same unsullied transports of its first bloom. Each day was like the first; every instant was as that ineffable moment when we felt it dawn within us, and saw it reflected in the heart and looks of another self. Our love would always preserve its flower and its perfume, for the fruit could never be culled.