I drew up an arm-chair for her from the balcony, and she sank into it.
"As you are going down," she said, "see if my cloak is at Calisto's. I did not leave it in the carriage, did I? I feel a little cold."
In fact, she was shivering.
"Shall I close the balcony?"
"No, no. Let me look at the garden. How beautiful it is now! Do you see? How beautiful it is!"
The garden, here and there, had vague golden tones. The blooming cimes of the lilac-trees took on an ardent violet tone in the fading light; and as, below, the rest of the flowering branches formed a bluish-gray mass that undulated in the wind, one could have imagined it the reflections of a changeable moiré. At the fountain, the weeping willows bent their graceful tresses. The water seen between the trees had the soft brilliancy of mother-of-pearl. This motionless brilliancy, these weeping trees, that delightful forest of flowers in that fading gold, composed an illusory, enchanting, unreal picture.
For several minutes we both remained silent beneath the empire of this magic. A confused melancholy enveloped my soul; the sombre despair that lies at the root of all human love arose within me. Before this ideal spectacle, my physical fatigue, the torpor of my senses, seemed to become heavier. I had become the prey of an uneasiness, a discontent, an indefinable remorse, like one experiences after an indulgence that has been too acute or too prolonged. I suffered.
Juliana said to me, as if in a dream:
"Yes, now, I would like to close my eyes never to reopen them again."
She added, with a thrill: