“It must be lovely at Maisons, in the Vale of Violets!” but she added, quickly:
“We are better here, much better! And it even seems to me that I have always, always lived here in this beautiful castle, where you have sheltered me, like a swallow beaten by the wind.”
There was, beneath the window, stretching out like a ribbon of silver, a road, which the mica dust caused, at times, in the sunlight to resemble a river. Marsa often looked out on this road, imagining that she saw again the massive dam upon the Seine, or wondering whether a band of Tzigani would not appear there with the April days.
“I should like,” she said one day to Andras, “to hear again the airs my people used to play.”
She found that, with the returning spring, she was more feeble than she had ever been. The first warmth in the air entered her veins like a sweet intoxication. Her head felt heavy, and in her whole body she felt a pleasant languor. She had wished to sink thus to rest, as nature was awakening.
The doctor seemed very uneasy at this languidness, of which Marsa said:
“It is delicious!”
He whispered one evening to Andras:
“It is grave!”
Another sorrow was to come into the life of the Prince, who had known so many.