What inward joy, what throbbing of the heart, when they retired, and
when I heard beneath the gateway the rolling of the carriage which bore
away the last of them! We were then alone; the night was far advanced;
our security increased at every move of the minute hand as it
approached the figure that marked midnight on the dial. Nothing was to
be heard but the sound of a few carriages, which, at rare intervals,
rattled over the stones of the quay, or the deep breathing of the old
concierge, who was stretched sleeping on a bench in the vestibule at
the foot of the stairs.
We would first look at each other, as if surprised at our happiness. I
would draw nearer to the table where Julie worked by the light of the
lamp. The work soon fell from her unheeding hands; our looks expanded,
our lips were unsealed, our hearts overflowed. Our choked and hurried
words, like the flow of water impeded by too narrow an opening, were at
first slowly poured forth, and the torrent of our thoughts trickled out
drop by drop. We could not select, among the many things we had to say,
those we most wished to impart to each other. Sometimes there was a
long silence, caused by the confusion and excess of crowded thoughts
which accumulated in our hearts and could not escape. Then they began
to flow slowly, like those first drops which show that the cloud is
about to dissolve or burst; these words called forth others in
response; one voice led on the other, as a falling child draws his
companion with him. Our words mingled without order, without answer,
and without connection; neither of us would yield the happiness of
outstripping the other in the expression of one common feeling. We
fancied that we had first felt what we disclosed of our thoughts since
the evening's conversation, or the morning's letter. At last this
tumultuous overflow, at which we laughed and blushed, after a time
subsided, and gave place to a calm effusion of the lips, which poured
forth together, or alternately, the plenitude of their expressions. It
was a continuous and murmuring transfusion of one soul into
another,--an unreserved interchange of our two natures,--a complete
transmutation of one into another, by the reciprocal communication of
all that breathed, or lived, or burned within us. Never, perhaps, did
two beings as irreproachable in their looks, or in their very thoughts,
bare their hearts to one another more unreservedly, and reveal the
mysterious depths of their feelings. The innocent nudity of our souls
was chaste, though unveiled, as light that discovers all, yet sullies
nothing. We had nought to reveal but the spotless love which purified
as it consumed us.
Our love, by its very purity, was incessantly renewed, with the same
light of soul, the same unsullied transports of its first bloom. Each
day was like the first; every instant was as that ineffable moment when
we felt it dawn within us, and saw it reflected in the heart and looks
of another self. Our love would always preserve its flower and its
perfume, for the fruit could never be culled.