After a slight hesitation, sustaining with the greatest difficulty the heavy care that bowed her head, she answered:
"We'll go on Tuesday, if you wish."
"Very well. Tuesday, then, Calisto," I said to the old man, in such a happy tone that I was surprised at it myself so sudden and spontaneous had been the rapture of my soul. "Expect us Tuesday morning. We will bring our lunch. Make no preparations. Do you understand? Let the house remain closed. I wish to open the door myself, and to open the windows myself, one after the other. Do you understand?"
A strange happiness, without a single cloud, agitated me, urged me on to puerile actions and puerile and almost foolish remarks, that I could hardly restrain. I should have liked to embrace Calisto, to stroke his fine, white beard, take him in my arms, speak to him of the Lilacs, of the past, of the "good old time," in a prolixity of words, under the grand Easter sun.
"Once more I see before me a simple, sincere man, a faithful heart," I thought, regarding him. And once more I felt security, as if the affection of this old man were for me a second talisman against the blows of fate.
Once more, since the close of the preceding evening, my soul expanded, stimulated by the abundance of joy that impregnated the atmosphere, that emanated from every being. That morning, one would have thought that the Badiola was the shrine of a pilgrimage. Not one peasant failed to bring his offering and well-wishes. My mother received upon her blessed hands a thousand kisses of men, women, and children. At the mass that was celebrated in the chapel a dense crowd was present. It overflowed the porch and spread over the lawn, full of religious zeal beneath the azure vault. The silver bells rang merrily in the still air with joyous, almost melodic harmony. On the tower, the inscription on the sundial said: Hora est benefaciendi. And on this glorious morning, on which one felt, so to speak, all the gratitude due to long kindness mounting toward the sweet maternal house, these three words seemed like a chant.
How then could I retain my perfidious doubt, suspicions, troubled recollections? What could I have to fear after having seen my mother press her lips on Juliana's smiling brow, after having seen my brother press in his noble and loyal hand the delicate and pale hand of her who was for him a second incarnation of Constance.
VI.
The thought of the excursion to the Lilacs occupied me all that day and again the day following, without interruption. Never, I think, had the longing for the hour agreed upon for a first rendezvous filled me with such ardent impatience.
The disturbance of the senses contributed also to enshroud and dull my conscience. I wanted to reconquer Juliana body and soul. The name of the Lilacs reawakened in me memories, recollections, not only of a sweet idyll, but also of ardent passion. Without being aware of it, I had perhaps sharpened my longing by the inevitable images that suspicion engenders; it was a latent poison that I bore in me. Up to then, in fact, it had seemed to me that my dominant emotion was entirely spiritual, and, in the expectation of the great day, I had taken delight in imagining the conversation that I would hold with the woman whose pardon I wished to obtain. Now, on the contrary, what I saw, was less the pathetic scene that would take place between us than the scene that must be the immediate consequence. Gradually, by a rapid and irresistible elimination, a single image excluded all the others, invaded me, mastered me, became fixed, clear, precise in the smallest particulars. "It is after lunch. A small glass of Chablis has sufficed to disturb Juliana, who does not drink wine, so to speak. The afternoon becomes warmer and warmer; the odor of the roses, of the corn-flag, of the lilacs, become violent; the swallows pass and repass with a deafening twittering. We are alone, both invaded by an unbearable internal tremor. And, suddenly, I say to her: 'Shall we go and look at our old room?' It is the old nuptial chamber, that intentionally I had omitted to open during our first walk through the villa. We enter. There is a low humming noticeable, the same humming that one thinks one hears in the deep folds of certain shells; but it is only the murmur of my arteries. She also, no doubt, hears this humming; but it is only the murmur of her arteries. All around is silent; one would think that the swallows have ceased warbling. I want to speak, and, at my first word, that sticks in my throat, she falls into my arms, almost fainting."