Her lips quivered, and a tear stole down her cheek.
During a whole hour it was nothing but expressions of surprise and vain regrets. To the depths of our being we felt the force of these recollections, causing us to live over an almost forgotten period.
I found in looking at her, in listening to her, my great soul and little body of that sweet other time.
Once more I felt the immensity of the fields and of the sky; the fine smell of the leaves enthralled my senses, and the least sound was melody. Once more I lived the old free life over again. It was before I went to stay at Brussels, when I resided under the paternal roof on the edge of the dense Soignes forest, that Mariette and I were playmates and afterwards lovers.
How well I recollect one halcyon day, the memory of which now comes before me in all its vividness. It was autumn. We were walking alone in the wood. The leaves floated down noiselessly upon the chill November air, leaving the naked branches like black lace against a grey, snow-laden sky. That day she admitted that she loved me, that she would be my wife.
And all around us there was infinite space, coloured by the joyful imaginings of happy youth.
We were speaking of it, when suddenly she withdrew her hand from mine, and a red flush mounted to her forehead.
“But you soon forgot me when you went away,” she said reproachfully. “I waited months, but you never wrote; then I heard how an actress had infatuated you. Yet—you are rich now, and the world looks leniently upon what it calls a wealthy man’s folly.”
I could not prevent myself from frowning.
“You mean Clémentine Sucaret? People coupled our names without cause,” I replied coldly, almost cruelly. Yet I knew she spoke the truth.