XVIII
She was still asleep, lost in that terrible slumber which, assuredly was more like death than like life. Her black eyelids, her livid lips, her ashen cheeks, her cold flesh, I scanned vehemently for some faint, deep-seated flush that would bespeak the coursing of a little blood, at least, through a few of her arteries.... In vain! In vain!
An endless minute passed. I had bent forward over the bed to gaze upon her, not daring to stir the coverlets with the merest touch of my fingers. Finally, from her sunken chest the sound of stronger breathing seemed to come; and simultaneously on both her cheeks I could distinguish the pallid but reassuring blush I had waited for, so long, so ardently....
What now took place was like a swift, miraculous resurrection. Her whole countenance regained its color gradually, her pulse beat more strongly, her beautiful breast began to raise the comforters in a regular rhythmic heaving. I lowered my head till my face almost rested on her eyelids, my lips ready to welcome with a kiss the first opening of her eyes; I could feel the vital warmth again returning to her forehead and cheeks. She sighed inaudibly and her lips sketched a smile. I could restrain my caress no longer. It was under a passionate shower of kisses from me that she returned to consciousness....
Oh gods of Heaven and Hell! All this was but a few weeks ago! Yet how many ages have died, how many aeons have sunk into eternity, since that kiss was mine?
She said:
“Oh, I have been asleep!... And you were here, saucy boy!”
She knotted her silken arms about my neck; and I felt her body—how light, how alarmingly light it was!—stiffen a little as she drew herself up languidly under the coverlets....
She also said:
“Dearest, dearest love!... Oh, how tired I am!... It seems as though I could never again lift my head or stir a finger!... Never, never again!... But you love your poor little girl, don’t you?... Look out, Monsieur! Perhaps your doll is broken!...”