She hands the casket to me. The letters we wrote each other during our engagement are arranged in it.
"That one," she says, "is the first from you. Is it? Yes—no, it isn't; do you think it is?"
I take the letter, murmur it, and then read it aloud. It spoke of the future, and said, "In a little while, how happy we shall be!"
She comes near, lowers her head, reads the date and whispers:
"Nineteen-two; it's been dead for thirteen years—it's a long time. No, it isn't a long time—I don't know what it ought to be. Here's another—read it."
I go on denuding the letters. We quickly find out what a mistake it was to say we know them by heart. This one has no date—simply the name of a day—Monday, and we believed that would be enough! Now, it is entirely lost and become barren, this anonymous letter in the middle of the rest.
"We don't know them by heart any more," Marie confesses. "Remember ourselves? How could we remember all that?"
* * * * * *
This reading was like that of a book once already read in bygone days. It could not revive again the diligent and fervent hours when our pens were moving—and our lips, too, a little. Indistinctly it brought back, with unfathomable gaps, the adventure lived in three days by others, the people that we were. When I read a letter from her which spoke of caresses to come, Marie stammered, "And she dared to write that!" but she did not blush and was not confused.
Then she shook her head a little, and said dolefully: