I know not how many minutes we remained thus, nor how many thousand
interrogations and answers, what floods of tears, and oceans of joy
passed unexpressed between our mute and closed lips, between our
moistened eyes, between her countenance and mine. Happiness had struck
us motionless, and time had ceased to be. It was eternity in an
instant.
There was a knock at the street door; a sound of feet on the stairs. I
rose, and she resumed, with a faltering step, her place on the sofa. I
sat down on the other side, in the shade, to hide my flushed cheeks and
tearful eyes. A man of already advanced age, of imposing stature, with
a benignant, noble, and beaming countenance, slowly entered the room.
He approached the sofa without speaking, and imprinted a paternal kiss
on Julie's trembling hand. It was Monsieur de Bonald. Spite of the
painful awakening from ecstasy that the knock and arrival of a stranger
had produced in me, I inwardly blessed him for having interrupted that
first look in which reason might have been overpowered by rapture.
There are times when the cold voice of reason is required to still with
its icy tones the fever of the senses, and to strengthen anew the soul
in its holy and energetic resolves.