“Too beautiful? We could not be too beautiful! I assure you it is thus that I picture us to myself, thus that I see us; and thus it is that we are. There! see if it is not the pure reality.”
She took the old fifteenth century Bible which was beside her, and showed him the simple wood engraving.
“You see it is exactly the same.”
He smiled gently at this tranquil and extraordinary affirmation.
“Oh, you laugh, you look only at the details of the picture. It is the spirit which it is necessary to penetrate. And look at the other engravings, it is the same theme in all—Abraham and Hagar, Ruth and Boaz. And you see they are all handsome and happy.”
Then they ceased to laugh, leaning over the old Bible whose pages she turned with her white fingers, he standing behind her, his white beard mingling with her blond, youthful tresses.
Suddenly he whispered to her softly:
“But you, so young, do you never regret that you have chosen me—me, who am so old, as old as the world?”
She gave a start of surprise, and turning round looked at him.
“You old! No, you are young, younger than I!”