"Do you love her?" I asked.
"I was taken captive at once by her beauty," he answered. "She objected that this sudden love must be an illusion; and I tried for a time to think the same. But, before long, suffering taught me the sincerity of my love. I dare not say whether it is senseless or right or usual; but, as long as a feeling gives us nothing but joy, we are unable to recognise it, we doubt it, we smile at it as a light and fleeting thing. Let anguish come, however, with tears and dread; and it is as though the seal of reality were placed on our heart. Then we believe in our love."
I repeated, pensively and happily:
"Do you really love her?"
"Yes, I can say so honestly."
He hesitated a little and, speaking very slowly, as though picking his words from amid his memories, said:
"When we are sincere, we are bound to confess that the love which encircles all the movements of our body follows the movements of its strength or its weakness equally. It has its hours of exasperation, it is sometimes a tide that rises and floods everything: the past, the present, the future, the will, the spirit, the flesh. Then all becomes peaceful; the waves subside and we think that we love no more. We do love, however, but with a more detached joy. We have stepped outside love, as it were, and we contemplate its extent."
My breath came quickly and my hands, clasped on the table, were pressed close together. My heart was bursting with gladness for my Roseline. He saw my emotion and questioned me with deeper interest.
I replied without hesitation:
"I am happy in this love which comes to Rose so simply and candidly."