There is nothing remarkable in the love and depression of a nervous person. Who would remain, even for an instant, with a man who suffers in silence? And I kept silence from St. Mary’s day to St. Peter’s.
“What is the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you ill?”
“No, uncle; no, dear Irinel.”
At last the momentous day arrived! Irinel finished the last year of her education. On the 20th of June she left school for good.
That very day she asked my uncle abruptly to what watering-place we were going, and on hearing came into my room.
Stretched upon my bed, I was reading the wonderful discourse of Cogalniceanu’s, printed in front of the “Chronicles.” I made up my mind to read law and study literature and history.
When I saw her I jumped up. She whirled round on one foot, and her gown seemed like a big convolvulus; and after this revolution she stopped in front of me, laughing and clapping her hands. She made me a curtsy as she daintily lifted up her skirt on either side between two fingers, and asked me coyly:
“Mon cher cousin, can you guess where we are going to this summer?”