"Life might still be sweet!" she sighed, in a voice wherein was the miracle of hope born anew.
The heart of her beloved became like a fruit suddenly ripened by a miraculous ray. Joy, delight, and tenderness spread through his whole being. Once more he reveled in the joy of the moment, as if it were the last of life. Love was exalted above Destiny.
"Do you love me? Tell me?"
She made no answer, but she opened wide her eyes, and the vastness of the universe was within the circle of those pupils. Never was boundless love more powerfully signified by mortal woman.
"Ah, life with thee is sweet, sweet—yesterday as well as to-morrow!"
He seemed intoxicated with her, with the sunlight, the grass, the divine sky, as with something never before seen or possessed. The prisoner leaving his stifling cell, the convalescent who beholds the sea after looking death in the face, are not more intoxicated.
"Would you like to go now? Shall we leave our melancholy behind us? Would you like to go to a country where there is no autumn?"
—The autumn is in myself, and I carry it everywhere—she thought; but she smiled the slight smile with which she veiled her sadness.—It is I—it is I that must go away alone; I will disappear; I will go far-away and die, my love, O my love!—
During this moment of respite, she had not succeeded either in conquering her sadness or reviving her hope; but her anguish was softened, and she had lost all bitterness and rancor.