He has understood. He trembles so visibly that I feel my breasts quiver like twin flowers and my whole being stir. He draws me to him and holds without daring to embrace me, small, panting, fainting away....
The pile has been swallowed up, the Broad Walk has turned black, the beautiful moment has fled through my fault; we have only a few steps farther to go. If I have nothing to give him, may he at least share with me the one idea I still retain.
This idea is the strange knowledge I have of my body, but of a body no longer mine, so lucid has it become, full of resonances, coursing blood, warmth and appeal ... a body of mysterious flesh and tense limbs, as bright as a torch, as sensitive as a soul ... a body I want to give him—my body and my arms.
XX
"No, don't get up, stay where you are; it is I.
"You told me you were not going to work this evening, so I came. I want to talk to you.
"I am going to sit beside you, if you don't mind, on the cushion on the floor under the window, where I like to sit when it is as light as it is now.
"I hesitate, not because it's hard to say. On the contrary, it's too simple, and things too simple are beyond words to express.
"I really have nothing to tell you. You understood. You know. But it is right for me to come and right that the confession I want to make should revert to our love, for it has to do with our love.