"Tell me, what would you do if I were to die suddenly?"
"Child!"
"If, for instance, I were dead to-morrow?"
"Won't you be silent?"
I took her head, and kissed her on the mouth, cheeks, eyes, forehead, hair, with light and rapid kisses. She did not attempt to stop me; and even when I ceased, she murmured:
"More!"
"Let us return to our room," I begged her, drawing her away.
She permitted herself to be led.
In our room the balcony was permitted to remain open. And there entered through it, with the light, the musk-like odor of the tea-roses that flourished in the vicinity. Against the bright-colored tapestries, the little blue flowers seemed so faded that they were scarcely distinguishable. A corner of the garden was reflected in the mirror of a closet, receding in it like a chimerical landscape. Juliana's gloves, hat, and bracelet, lying on the table, seemed to have reawakened in this interior the happy life of long ago, to have shed a renewed intimacy.
"To-morrow, to-morrow, we must return here, not later," I said, burning with impatience, feeling an ardor and seduction from every one of these objects. "To-morrow we must sleep here. You wish it, too, do you not?