“Olivier, my friend, my only friend, I pray you to tell me that you love her. I know it, I feel it from all that you do. I cannot doubt it. I am dying of it, but I wish to know it from your own lips.”
As he still resisted, she fell on her knees at his feet. Her voice shook.
“Oh, my friend, my only friend! Is it true that you love her?”
“No, no, no!” he exclaimed, as he tried to make her rise. “I swear to you that I do not.”
She reached up her hand to his mouth and pressed it there tight, stammering: “Oh, do not lie! I suffer too much!”
Then, letting her head fall on this man's knees, she sobbed.
He could see only the back of her neck, a mass of blond hair, mingled with many white threads, and he was filled with immense pity, immense grief.
Seizing that heavy hair in both hands he raised her head violently, turning toward himself two bewildered eyes, from which tears were flowing. And then on those tearful eyes he pressed his lips many times, repeating:
“Any! Any! My dear, my dear Any!”
Then she, attempting to smile, and speaking in that hesitating voice of children when choking with grief, said: