For three years I lived this life of daring dreams during the week, of fear and misery on Sunday, of wonderful plans put off from day to day, and concealed with an hypocrisy possessed only by the timid and innocent.
During the last year, after a vacation passed at Slanic, I made up my mind.
The day she went back to school we hardly dared kiss each other. What cold kisses! We neither of us looked at the other. I remember I looked at the sofa, and it seemed to me as though my lips had touched the hard yellow material instead of those firm, rosy cheeks which were to me a fearful joy.
I made up my mind, and I am sure that no one could have come to a more heroic decision.
To give myself courage, during the first night I thought out the scene which should take place the following Sunday without fail. I did not sleep all night; in the intense darkness I saw the garden, I saw Irinel, I heard myself, I heard her.
The cocks crew. I was lying at full length, my face uppermost, my eyes shut. I was perspiring from the boldness which I had shown during the scene which was running in my mind.
“Irinel, will you come and walk in the garden?”
“No, merci!”
“That will not do, we must go for a walk.”
She understood that I had decided to say something important to her. Such courage impressed and compelled.