"No, no, that won't be enough. Keep on gathering them. The entire road from the Trabocco to the house must be strewn. The stairway, the loggia, must be covered."
"But what shall we do for Ascension Day? Won't you leave a single flower for Jesus?"
CHAPTER VII.
She had arrived. She had trod on the flowers, like the Madonna who is going to perform a miracle; she had trod on a carpet of flowers. She had at last arrived! She had at last crossed the threshold!
And now, tired, happy, she presented to her lover's lips a face all bathed in tears, without speaking, with a gesture of inexpressible abandon. Tired, happy, she wept and smiled beneath the innumerable kisses of the adored one. What mattered the recollections of the days from which he had been absent? What mattered the miseries, the chagrins, the anxieties, the heart-breaking struggles against the inexorable brutalities of life? What mattered all the discouragements and all the despairs, in comparison with this supreme joy? She lived, she respired between her lover's arms; she felt herself infinitely loved. All else disappeared, returned to oblivion, seemed to have never existed.
"Oh, Hippolyte, Hippolyte! Oh, my soul! how much, how much I have longed for you! And here you are! And now, you will stay with me a long, long time, will you not? Before leaving me, you will kill me."
And he kissed her on the mouth, on the cheeks, on the neck, on the eyes, insatiable, profoundly thrilled every time he met a tear. Those tears, that smile, that expression of felicity on the tired-looking face, the thought that this woman had not hesitated for a second in consenting; the thought that she had come to him from a great distance, and that, after a fatiguing journey, she wept beneath his kisses, powerless to say a word because her heart was too full—all these passionate and delightful things refined his sensations, freed his desire from impurity, gave him an emotion of almost chaste love, exalted his soul.
Removing the long pin that fastened the hat and veil, he said:
"How tired you must be, my poor Hippolyte! You are very pale!"
Her veil was raised on her brow; she still had on her travelling cloak and her gloves. He removed the veil and hat, with a gesture that was customary with him. The beautiful brown head appeared, unencumbered, with that simple coiffure which made of the hair a sort of adherent helmet, without altering the delicate and elegant outline of the occiput, without hiding any of the nape of the neck.