"Why didn't you wake me? Oh, gently, Maurice! You forget that I've just done my hair."
"To-day I shall forget everything. Let me look at you again ... right into your eyes."
"To-day you believe I'm real, don't you? Are you satisfied?"
"And you, Louise, you?—Say you're happy, too!"
They came upon the FRIEDRICH AUGUST TURM, a stone tower, standing on the highest point of the hill, beside a large quarry; and, too idly happy to refuse, climbed the stone steps, led by a persuasive old pensioner, who, on the platform at the top, adjusted the telescope, and pointed out the distant landmarks, with something of an owner's pride. On this morning, Maurice would not have been greatly surprised to hear that the streaky headline of the Dover coast was visible: he had eyes for her alone, as, with assumed interest, she followed the old man's hand, learned where Leipzig lay, and how, on a clear day, its many spires could be distinguished.
"Over there, Maurice ... a little more to the right. How far away we seem!"
Leaning against the parapet, he continued to look at her. The few ordinary words meant in reality something quite different. It was as if she had said to him: "Yes, yes, be at rest—I am still yours;" and he told himself, with a feverish pleasure, that, from now on, everything she said in the presence of others would be a cloak for what she really meant to say. He had been right, there was a new tone in her voice this morning, an imperceptible vibration, a sensuous undertone, which seemed to have been left over from those moments when it had quivered like a roughly touched string beneath a bow. Going down the steps behind her, he heard her dress swish from step to step, and saw the fine grace of her strong, supple body. At a bend in the stair, he held her back and kissed her neck, just where the hair stopped growing. On the ground-floor, she paused to pick out a trifle from a table set with mementoes. The old man praised his wares with zeal, taking up this and that in his old, reddened hands, on which the skin was drawn and glazed, like a coating of gelatine. Louise chose a carved wooden pen; a tiny round of glass was set in the handle, through which might be seen a view of the tower, with an encircling motto.
After this, he had her to himself, for the rest of the day. They sat on a seat that was screened by trees, and thickly grown about. His arm lay along the back of the bench, and every now and then his hand sought and pressed the warm, soft round of her shoulder. In this attitude, he poured out his heart to her. Hitherto, the very essence of his love had been taciturn endurance; now, he felt how infinitely much he had to say to her: all that he had undergone since knowing her first, all the hopes and feelings that had so long been pent up in him, struggled to escape. Now, there was no hindrance to his telling her everything; it was not only permissible, but right that he should: henceforth there must be no strangeness between them, no knowledge, pleasant or unpleasant, that she did not share. And he went back, and dwelt on details and events long past, which, unknown to himself, his memory had stored up; but it was chiefly the restless misery of the past half year that was his theme—he took the same pleasure in reciting it, now that it was over, as the convalescent in relating his sufferings. Besides that, it was easier, there being nothing to conceal; whereas, in referring to an earlier time, a certain name had to be shirked and gone round about, like a plague-spot. His impassioned words knew no halt; he was amazed at his own eloquence. And the burden of months fell away from him as he talked.
The receptiveness of her silence spurred him on. She sat motionless, with loosely clasped hands; and spots of light settled on her bare head, and on the white stuff of her dress. Occasionally, at something he said, a smile would raise the corners of her mouth; sometimes, but less often, she turned her head with incredulous eyes. But, though she was emotionally so irresponsive, Maurice had the feeling that she was content, even happy, to sit inactive at his side, and listen to his story.
Each of these first wonderful days was of the same pattern. They themselves lost count of time, so like was one day to another; and yet each that passed was a little eternity in itself. The weather was superb, and to them, in their egotism, it came to seem in the order of things that they should rise in the morning to cloudless skies and golden sunshine; that the cool green seclusion of the woods should be theirs, where they were more securely shut off from the world than inside the house. Louise lay on the moss, with her arms under her head, or sat with her back against a tree-trunk. Maurice was always in front of her, so that he could see her face as he talked—this face of which he could never see enough.