"Maria, call Miss Edith."
The governess came in.
"Edith, please take these flowers to the music-room; put them into vases. Take care not to prick yourself."
Maria and Natalia wanted to carry a part of the bunch. We remained alone. She went once more to the window, and leaned against it, her back turned toward the light.
"Have you anything to do? Do you wish me to go?" I asked.
"No, no; stay, be seated. Tell me about your walk this morning. How far did you go?"
She spoke with some precipitation. As the window support was at about the height of her waist, she had placed her elbows on it, and her bust was inclined backward, framed by the rectangle of the window. Her face, turned directly toward me, was entirely shaded, particularly about the orbits of the eyes; but her hair, on the summit of which fell the light, formed a slight aureole; the light also touched the tops of her shoulders. One of her feet—the one that supported the weight of her body—was raised, drawing up the dress, partly disclosing the ash-colored stocking and the patent-leather slipper. In that attitude, in that light, her entire person possessed extraordinarily seductive power. A section of bluish and voluptuous landscape, pinked out between the two window-posts, formed a distant background behind her head.
And then, instantaneously, as if by a crushing revelation, I saw once more in her the desirable woman; and all my blood fired up at the memory of, and the desire of, her caresses.
I spoke to her, my eyes fixed on her. And the more I gazed on her, the more disturbed I became. She also, no doubt, must have read my look, since her uneasiness became visible. I thought, with poignant internal anxiety: "If I only dared? If I went closer to her? If I took her in my arms?" The apparent assurance that I sought to put in my frivolous remarks rapidly abandoned me. My disturbance grew. My embarrassment became insupportable. From the adjoining rooms came the sound of the voices of Maria, Natalia, and Edith, indistinctly.
I arose, approached the window, and stood beside Juliana. I was on the point of bending toward her to speak at last the words that I had so many times repeated to myself in imaginary conversations. But the fear of a probable interruption stopped me. I thought that perhaps the moment was badly chosen, that perhaps I should not have the time to say all to her, to open all my heart to her, to relate my intimate life during the last few weeks, the mysterious convalescence of my soul, the awakening of my most tender fibres, the arousing of my most delicate dreams, the depth of my new sensation, the tenacity of my hope. I thought that I should not have the time to recount in detail the recent episodes, to make those little, innocent confessions to her, so delicious to the ear of the woman who loves, fresh with sincerity, more persuasive than any eloquence. In fact, I must succeed in convincing her of a great truth, perhaps incredible to her after so many disillusions; succeed in convincing her that now my return was no longer deceptive, but sincere, definite, necessitated by a vital desire of my entire being. Of course, she was still distrustful; of course, her distrust was the cause of her reserve. Between us the shadow of an atrocious recollection ever interposed itself. It was for me to banish this shadow, to draw my soul and hers so closely together that nothing more could interpose between them. But, for that, a favorable occasion was required in some secret and silent place, inhabited only by memories. That place was the Lilacs.