While she was playing, I walked up and down the room; I passed my hand over my forehead as though to brush away the fog, I stamped my foot, shrugged my shoulders at my own madness; finally, I sat down on a cushion which had fallen to the floor; she came to me. The more I struggled with the spirit of darkness which had seized me, the thicker the night that gathered around my head.
"Verily," I said, "you lie so well? What! that air is yours? Is it possible you can lie so fluently?"
She looked at me with an air of astonishment.
"What is it?" she asked.
Unspeakable anxiety was depicted on her face. Surely she could not believe me fool enough to reproach her for such a harmless bit of pleasantry; she did not see anything serious in that sadness which I felt; but the more trifling the cause, the greater the surprise. At first she thought I, too, must be joking; but when she saw me growing paler every moment, as though about to faint, she stood with open lips and bent body, looking like a statue.
"God of Heaven!" she cried, "is it possible?"
You smile, perhaps, reader, at this page; I, who write it, still shudder as I think of it. Misfortunes have their symptoms as well as diseases, and there is nothing so terrible at sea as a little black point on the horizon.
However, my dear Brigitte drew a little round table into the center of the room and brought out some supper. She had prepared it herself and I did not drink a drop that was not first borne to her lips. The blue light of day, piercing through the curtains, illumined her charming face and tender eyes; she was tired and allowed her head to fall on my shoulder with a thousand terms of endearment.
I could not struggle against such charming abandon, and my heart expanded with joy; I believed I had rid myself of the bad dream that had just tormented me, and I begged her pardon for giving way to a sudden impulse which I, myself, did not understand.
"My friend," I said from the bottom of my heart, "I am very sorry that I unjustly reproached you for a piece of innocent badinage; but if you love me, never lie to me, even in the smallest matter, for a lie is an abomination to me and I can not endure it."