Without suspecting my presence, Juliana came to open the door herself. She saw me. She started violently, as if she had seen a phantom, a spectre, some terrifying thing.
"Is it you?" she stammered, in a voice so low that I scarcely heard her.
And, while she spoke, her lips blanched. After the start, she became suddenly more rigid than a Hermes.
And there, on the threshold, we looked at each other, read each other's faces; for an instant, even our souls were fixed upon each other. All about us disappeared; between us, all was said, all was understood, everything was decided, in the space of one second.
What happened next? I do not know, I cannot remember. I remember that, for some time, I had an intermittent consciousness, so to speak, of what happened, with a succession of short eclipses. It was, it seemed to me, a phenomenon analogous to that which results from the enfeeblement of the voluntary attention in the case of certain patients. I lost the faculty of being attentive; I no longer saw, I no longer seized the sense of words, I no longer understood. Then, a moment later, I recovered that faculty, examined the things and persons about me, I became attentive and conscious.
Juliana was seated, and held Natalia on her knees. I, too, had taken a seat. And Maria ran from her to me, from me to her, incessantly, with endless prattle, provoking her sister, asking us a number of questions which we only answered by a nod of the head. That lively chatter broke our silence. In one of the fragments of the phrases that I noticed, Maria said to her sister:
"Ah! is it true that you slept with mamma last night?"
"Yes, because I am little."
"Oh! well, to-night it's my turn. Is it not, mamma? Take me in your bed to-night, mamma."
Juliana did not smile. She remained silent, and seemed absorbed. She had on her knees Natalia, whose shoulders were turned toward her, and whose arms were around her waist; her joined hands rested in the little girl's lap, whiter than the little white dress on which they reposed, taper, painful, so painful that they themselves revealed to me an immensity of sorrow. Juliana remained bent, and, as Natalia's head brushed her mouth, she seemed to press her lips to the child's curls; in such a manner that, when I glanced at her, I could not see the expression of her eyes, but saw only her lowered eyelids, somewhat reddened, and I was constantly agitated internally by this, as if through them I could distinguish the fixity of the pupils that they covered.