LXXVIII.
Of all the different means by which God has allowed soul to communicate with soul, through the transparent barrier of the senses, there was not one that our love did not employ to manifest itself,—from the look which conveys most of ourselves, in an almost ethereal ray, to the closed lids, which seem to enfold within us the image we have received, that it may not evaporate; from languor to delirium, from the sigh to the loud cry; from the long silence to those exhaustless words which flow from the lips without pause and without end, which stop the breath, weary the tongue, which we pronounce without hearing them, and which have no other meaning than an impotent effort to say, again and again, what can never be said enough….
Many a time did we talk thus for hours, in whispered tones, leaning on the little table close to each other, without perceiving that our conversation had lasted more than the space of a single aspiration; quite surprised to find that the minutes had flown as swiftly as our words, and that the clock struck the inexorable hour of parting.
Sometimes there would be interrogations and answers as to our most fugitive shades of thought and nature, dialogues in almost unheard whispers, articulate sighs rather than audible words, blushing confessions of our most secret inward repinings, joyful exclamations of surprise at discovering in us both the same impressions reflected from one another, as light in reverberations, the blow in the counterblow, the form in the image. We would exclaim, rising by a simultaneous impulse, "We are not two; we are one single being under two illusive natures! Which will say you unto the other; which will say I? There is no I; there is no you; but only we." … We would then sink down, overcome with admiration at this wonderful conformity, weeping with delight at this twofold existence, and at having doubled our lives by consecrating them to each other.