We remained in the embrasure of the window, by each other's side, both silent. From the adjoining rooms came the sound of the voices of Maria, Natalia, and Edith, indistinctly. The perfume of the hawthorn was dissipated. The curtains that hung from the arch of the alcove permitted a view of the bed in its depth, and my eyes wandered ceaselessly toward it, searching the shadows, almost concupiscent.
Juliana had lowered her head, perhaps because she also felt the delicious and agonizing weight of the silence. The light breeze toyed with a loose curl on her temple. The restless agitation of that dark curl, in which were light scattered threads of gold, on that temple white as a wafer, made me languorous. And, as I gazed at her, I saw again on her neck the little brown mole which, in former days, had so often curiously attracted me.
Then, incapable of containing myself, with a mixture of apprehension and hardihood, I raised my hand to arrange the curl; and my fingers trembled on her hair, and they brushed against the ear, the neck, but lightly, very lightly, with the most furtive of caresses.
"What are you doing?" said Juliana, shaken by a start, turning on me a bewildered look, trembling perhaps more than I.
She left the window. Then, feeling that I was following her, she made several steps as if to flee, dismayed.
"Ah! Juliana, why, why?" I cried, stopping short.
Then immediately I added:
"It is true. I am still unworthy. Pardon!"
At that moment the two bells of the chapel began to chime. And Maria and Natalia rushed into the room, ran up to their mother with cries of joy, and hung around her neck, one after the other, covering her face with kisses; then, leaving their mother, they came to me, and I raised them in my arms, one after the other.
The two bells chimed furiously; the whole of the Badiola seemed to be invaded by the thrill of the bronze. It was Holy Saturday, the hour of the Resurrection.