A sweeping draught. It brings in the voice of a young man. I want to leave. The two Loiseaus hover about him. "What a surprise! How nice!" They rub their hands. "Come in and sit down!"
It is too late to leave; the stranger is already bowing to me, and the mingled exclamations pretty well hide my stammering. I am so ashamed of myself for stammering.
The newcomer seats himself near the fire on the little black chair to the right of Migo. He wants the lamp to stay unlighted. But it is no longer the same. Our silence has been routed, and the languor, and the warmth also....
I am in a good position to observe him. How old? Thirty-four, thirty-five perhaps. Is he really handsome? Hard to say. He is too dark. His face is strongly chiseled, his cheeks sunken, his forehead hard as a hammer. The long line of his jaw lends refinement to his countenance, which is lit by eyes fearlessly open, in which the gray, in spots, seems steeped in phosphorous. His gestures are repressed and rather commanding. He talks little, but when he does talk his fire contrasts with the rarity of his words, gives them value, makes them seem to issue all alive from the bowels of the earth, while he sits with his body upright, as if at a distance, the flicker from the hearth enamelling, then removing, the burnished black of his hair ... I bethink myself: we have not yet had tea. I hope it will be just right this evening.
One by one I take out of their hiding-place the cups with the gold lines, the lovely ones, the only embroidered tea-cloth, the teapot with the golden spout, and the flowers, wan in the night. I set the luxury of these things on the table. With my head shrouded in the light-dark and my shoulders swathed in a fleece of shadow, how good it is to be among them, screened by my movements, not sitting but standing so that I can look upon the happy trio. Him especially. For alongside of him, who hardly speaks, the two Loiseaus, beaming and voluble, seem suddenly tame and stunted.
A pleasant sight, quite new to me, this group of three faces on which a common childhood springs to life, fond joys shared in the past, and names that are no more. They have almost forgotten that a woman is present. This reassures me.
But if he, when he raises his eyes and sees me, is going to remember I am a woman and turn to me too civilly and kindle the usual warfare under the bland honey of the customary phrases! No ... not he ... not this man. He is so frank and so fine with his two friends; what he says is so right, and he speaks so directly, without straining for effect. No, not he.
I offer each of them a trembling cup which they accept without trembling. Then I quickly withdraw again to the protecting shadow where my place is hollowed out, to listen to this amazing presence which my heart scans.
He has spoken to me.
He has spoken to me as never yet a man has spoken: without trying to see or please me, without any ulterior thoughts, just as he speaks to the two Loiseaus, probably just as he speaks to himself when alone. It does happen, then, that from the depths of simple obscurity, unexpectedly, one hears real words, real naked words from a man?