She felt surrounded by light and love, as perhaps she may have felt before in her secret dreams; and she drank from my words and my presence, and from her own illusions and the fresh springtime, an intoxication of which the memory would perhaps fill her whole life. She did not speak, she sat motionless in the attitude I had praised; but I understood the ineffable things spoken by the eloquent blood in the veins of her beautiful bare hands.
“Let me love her as long as she is of this world!” I repeated to her sisters, while their sad eyes seemed to gaze at me through the branches of the yew-trees. “Let me gather these anemones and strew them on the hair which is so soon to be shaven!”
She sat there almost beatified, and her unconsciousness touched me, for I loved her, and was saying to her: “I love thee, but on condition that to-morrow thou diest. I give thee this flame that thou mayest carry it with thee into thy grave. Such is the necessity which compels us.”
She sat up and pressed her hands over her face, and murmured—
“This sun is stupefying.”
“Would you like to go?” I asked.
“No,” she replied, with a faint smile. “According to your advice, I ought to bathe myself in sunshine. Let us stay here a little longer. You said you wanted to read a few pages.”
She seemed as exhausted as if she had just come out of a swoon.
“Read, there!” she begged, pushing the book towards me.
I took it, opened it, and turned over the leaves here and there, running my eyes over a few lines. The flying shadow of a swallow passed over the pages, and we heard the rustle of wings close by.