And it had not been so; the precious years, far from each other, had been wasted ... by him: he had told her so; by her: oh, her vain, wasted years!...
No, fate had not willed it. And yet, now that at last, at last, the honest, simple, true life had kindled into flame, now that, after first thinking of others—of Henri, of Marianne—she had also thought of herself, also thought of him, could not an outward physical life also be kindled after that inward, spiritual life, far from everything and everybody around them, in another country and another world, a life in which she would be beside him, a life of harmony which might be tinged with the melancholy of that late awakening but would still be perfect harmony and perfect happiness?...
She lay back in her chair, her hands hanging limply beside her, as if she lacked the energy now to grasp the tempting illusion, afraid of losing it and afraid of seizing it and then recognizing it as an illusion....
And the sultry air seemed to be pressing upon her softly and languorously until she panted and her lips parted and her eyes closed only to open again, wider than before; and in that atmosphere of ecstasy it appeared to her that the distant lightning-streaks yonder, the noiseless flashes over the wide sea which she divined yonder, yonder, far away, were themselves the swift effulgence of her thoughts and illusions and regrets: a gleam and gone, a gleam and gone. When it gleamed, came the smiling hope that things could become and remain as she thought; when the light faded, came doubt ... yet not so deep but that the night tempted and lured her:
“Hope again ... think once more ... dream again.... It may be ... it is not impossible.... It is reality, pure, simple reality; it will mean the happiness of those two poor children, Henri and Marianne; it will be the happiness of you two, him and you, the woman whose life blossomed late.... It is possible: hope it again, think, dream it again; for what is impossibility, when truth once stands revealed, however late? See, the truth stands revealed; the lightning flashes; sometimes the whole sky is illumined at once; the low clouds drift along; behind them ... behind them lies the infinity of eternity, of everything that may happen!”
The room was quite dark; she herself alone remained a white blur in the window-frame; and the night, the air, the lights were there outside, wide and eternal. And, in the sweet languor of the late summer hour, of the sultry night, of her uncontrollable illusion and hopes, she felt as though she were uplifted by a flood of radiant ecstasy, by a winged joy that carried her with it towards the sea yonder, towards the bright rifts of the lightning-flashes, towards the distance of futurity, eternity and everything that might happen.... And she let herself be borne along; and in that moment a certainty came over her, penetrated deep down in her, like a divinely-implanted conviction, that it would be as she had dreamed and hoped and wished, that so it would happen, at long last, because life’s chiefest grace was at length descending upon her....
Yes, it would happen like that: she knew it, she saw it in the future. She saw herself living by his side, in his heart, in his arms; living for herself and him; living for each other in all things; she saw it shine out radiantly with each lightning-flash in the radiant shining of those future years. She saw them, those children of the past, with the dew upon them, smiling to each other as though they who, as boy and girl, had unconsciously sought each other had grown into a young man and a maiden who had found each other ... after the mystery of the cloud-veil and of the distant river under the spreading leaves; and they now went on together: their paths ran up towards the glittering cities of the future, which reared their crystal domes under the revealing skies, while from out their riot of towers sunbeams flashed and struck a thousand colours from the crystal domes....
A wind rose, as though waking in the very bed of the slumbering night, and leapt to the sky. A cool breath drifted straight out of the sultry, louring clouds; a few drops pattered upon the leaves. And the wind carried the storm farther, carried the revelation with it; the lightning flashed twice, thrice more ... vanished ... paled away.... Not until it had travelled far, very far, would the wind let loose the clouds, would the night-rain fall ... so Constance thought, vaguely....
And she sighed deeply, as though waking out of her languor of ecstasy, now that the night, after that rising wind, was no longer so sultry and oppressive. She stood up, wearily, closed the window, saw a morning pallor already dawning through the trees....
And she lay down and fell asleep: yes, that was what would happen, it would be like that; she felt certain of it: that future would come; the paths ran to the crystal-domed city; she was going to it with him ... with him!...