A railway employee gave them information.
"The train for Cecchina passes here at half-past four."
"We can manage, then," continued Hippolyte. "It is now half-past two.
Now, from this moment, I declare that I will assume the management of
this journey. You will simply permit yourself to be conducted. Come,
my little George. Keep close to me, and take good care that you don't
lose yourself."
She spoke to him as to a baby, in jest. They both felt full of gayety.
"Where is Segni? Where is Paliano?"
No village could be seen in the neighborhood. The low hills spread
their uncertain verdure beneath a gray sky. Near the road, a single
little tree, knotted and gnarled, swayed in the humid atmosphere.
As it still poured, the two wanderers sought shelter at the station, in
a small room, with a chimney-piece without a fire. On a wall hung an
old map in tatters, its surface a network of black lines. On another
wall hung a square of pasteboard advertising an elixir. Opposite to the
chimney, which had not even the memory of a fire, a couch, covered with
a waxed cloth, was losing its species of stuffing by a thousand wounds.
"Look!" cried Hippolyte, who was reading the _Baedeker_. "At Segni
there is the Gaetanino Hostelry."
This designation made them laugh.
"Suppose we smoke a cigarette?" said George. "It is three o'clock. It
was at this time that I entered the church, two years ago."
And, once more, the memory of the great day occupied his mind. During
several minutes they smoked without speaking, listening to the rain,
which had increased in force. Through the drenched window-panes they
saw the frail little tree, twisting and bending under the squall.
"My love is of older date than yours," said George. "It was born before
that day."
She protested.
He, fascinated by the profound charm of the days irrevocably passed,
continued tenderly: "I can see you again as you passed the first time.
What an ineffaceable impression! It was towards evening, when the lights
begin to be lit, when waves of azure fall on the streets.
"I was alone before the windows of Alinari. I was looking at the
figures, but distinguished them with difficulty. It was an indefinable
sensation--some lassitude, much sadness, with I know not what vague
desire for ideality. That evening I had an ardent thirst for poetry,
elevation, refined and spiritual things. Was it a presentiment?"
He made a long pause; but Hippolyte said nothing, waiting for him to
continue, engrossed in the exquisite pleasure of listening to him among
the light smoke of the cigarettes, which seemed to envelop the veiled
memories in still another veil.
"It was in February. I was paying a visit to Orvieto at that very time.
I even believe that if I was then at Alinari's, it was to ask him for a
photograph of the reliquary. And you passed! Since then, on two or
three other occasions--two or three, not more--I have seen you as pale,
that singular pallor. You cannot imagine, Hippolyte, how pale you were.
Never have I seen its equal. I thought: 'How can that woman keep up?
She cannot have a single drop of blood in her veins.' It was a
supernatural pallor, which in the flood of azure falling from the sky to
the pavement gave you the appearance of a creature without a body. I
paid no attention to the man who accompanied you; I did not wish to
follow you; I did not receive even as much as a look from you. I recall
another detail. You stopped a few steps farther on, because a
lamp-lighter blocked the pavement. Ah! I still see in the air the
scintillation of the small flame at the summit of the staff; I see the
sudden lighting of the gas which bathed you in light."
Hippolyte smiled, but somewhat sadly, with that sadness which oppresses
the heart of women when they regard their portraits taken in former
days.
"Yes, I was pale," she said. "I had only quitted my bed a few weeks
before, after a three months' illness. I had been at death's door."
A gust of rain dashed against the window-panes. The little tree could
be seen bending and twisting under the wind in an almost circular
movement, as if some hand were attempting to uproot it. For several
minutes they both watched the fury of the elements, which, in the
bleakness, nakedness, and inert torpor of the surrounding country, took
on a strange appearance of conscious life. Hippolyte felt almost
compassion. The imaginary suffering of the tree placed them face to
face with their own sufferings. They mentally considered the great
solitude which lay all around the station, a miserable hut before which
passed from time to time a train-load of divers travellers, each of whom
carried in his own bosom a different inquietude. Sad images rapidly
succeeded one another in their thoughts, suggested by the same things
they had seen an hour before with joyous eyes. And when the images
faded away, when their consciences, ceasing to be impressed, returned to
themselves again, they both found, at the bottom of their being, a
unique and inexpressible anguish--a regret for days irrevocably lost.
Their love had behind it a long _past_. It dragged behind it, through
the years, an immense and obscure net, full of dead things.
"What's the matter?" asked Hippolyte, her voice slightly changed.
"What's the matter with you?" asked George, looking fixedly at her.
Neither replied to the question. They remained silent, and renewed
their gaze through the windows. The heavens seemed to smile tearfully.
A faint glimmer lit up a hillock, bathed it in a fugitive golden glow,
died away. Other sun-rays tried to pierce the moisture-laden
cloud-banks, then disappeared.
"Hippolyte Sanzio!" said George, pronouncing the name slowly, as if to
enjoy its charm. "How my heart beat when I finally learned that was
your name! How many things have I seen and felt in that name! It was
the name of one of my sisters, who is dead. That beautiful name was
familiar to me. With profound emotion, I immediately thought, 'Oh! if
my lips could only resume their dear custom.' That day, from morning
until night, the recollections of my dead sister mingled exquisitely
with my secret dream. I did not go in search of you; I forbade myself
such pursuit; I would never be importunate; yet, at heart, I had an
inexplicable confidence. I was sure that, sooner or later, you would
know me and love me. What delicious sensations were mine! I lived
outside of the reality; my soul fed only on music and exalting books.
One day it happened that I saw you at a concert given by Gian Sgambati;
but I saw you only just as you were about to leave the hall. You gave
me a glance. Another time, again, you looked at me--maybe you remember?
It was when we met at the entrance to the Via del Babuino, opposite the
Piale Library."
"Yes, I remember."
"You had a little girl with you."
"Yes; Cecilia--one of my nieces."
"I stopped on the sidewalk--so as to allow you to pass. I noticed that
we were both of the same height. You were less pale than usual. A
momentary feeling of pride flashed through me."
"You had guessed correctly," said Hippolyte.
"You remember? It was towards the end of March. I waited with growing
confidence. I lived from day to day absorbed in thoughts of the great
passion which I felt approaching. As I had seen you twice with a small
bouquet of violets, I filled all my house with violets. Oh! that
beginning of spring I shall never forget! And the morning slumbers, so
light, so transparent! And those slow, dreamy awakenings, in which,
while my eyes were becoming used to the light, my mind still delayed
before resuming the sentiment of reality! I recall that certain
childish artifices sufficed to throw me into a species of illusionary
intoxication. I remember, one day, at a concert, while listening to a
Beethoven sonata, in which a frequent and periodic return of a sublime
and passionate phrase recurred, I exalted myself almost to a state of
madness by the interior repetition of a poetical phrase in which your
name occurred."
Hippolyte smiled; but, hearing him speak with an evident preference for
all the first manifestations of his love, at the bottom of her heart she
felt displeased. Did those days seem sweeter to him than the
present--were those distant recollections his dearest recollections?
George went on: "All the disdain which I have for a commonplace
existence would never have sufficed to inspire me with the dream of an
asylum as fantastic and mysterious as the abandoned oratory of the Via
Belsiana. Do you recall it? The door at the head of the steps, opening
on the street, was shut, and had been for years perhaps. One passed
through a side alley which reeked of wine, and in which there was the
red sign of a cabaret, with a large cork. Do you remember it? The
entrance was at the rear, and one had to pass through a sacristy
scarcely large enough to hold a priest and sacristan. It was the
entrance to the sanctuary of Wisdom. What curious-looking old men, and
women, on all sides, in the worm-eaten stalls! Where had Alexander
Memmi been, to procure his audience? Doubtless you did not know, dear
one, that you personified Beauty in this council of the music-mad. Mr.
Martlet, you see, is one of the most confirmed Buddhists of our epoch;
and his wife has written a book on the _Philosophy of Music_. The lady
seated near you was Margherita Traube Boll, a celebrated doctor who is
carrying on her defunct husband's investigations into the visual
functions. The necromancer, in the long greenish cloak, who entered on
tiptoe, was a Jew--a German physician, Dr. Fleichl, a superb pianist, a
fanatic on Bach. The priest seated beneath the cross was Count
Castracane, an immortal botanist. Another botanist, a bacteriologist, a
microscopist, named Cuboni, was sitting in front of him. And there was
also Jacopo Moleschott, that unforgettable old man, frank, enormous;
also Blaserna, the collaborator of Helmholtz in the theory of sound; and
Mr. Davys, a philosophical painter, a Preraphaelite plunged into
Brahmanism. The others, less numerous, were all superior people, rare
minds given to the highest speculations of modern science, cold
investigators of life and passionate adorers of dreams."
He interrupted himself in order to conjure up the picture, and then went
on:
"These savants listened to the music with religious enthusiasm; one
assumed an inspired attitude; others made unconscious gestures, in
imitation of the chapel-master; others, in low tones, joined in chant
with the choir. The choir, of men and women, occupied the rostrum, the
painted wood of which still showed traces of gilding. In front the young
girls formed a group, with their partitions kept on a level with their
faces. Below, on the roughly made stands of the violinists, burned
candles, spots of gold on a dark blue background. Here and there their
small flames were reflected by the varnished body of an instrument, put
a luminous point on the tip of a bow. Alexander Memmi, somewhat stiff,
bald, with a short black beard and gold spectacles, kept time with
severe and sober gestures. At the close of every piece a murmur arose
in the chapel, and laughs, badly suppressed, descended from the gallery,
amidst the rustling of music-pages being turned. When the sky
brightened, the candle-flames grew pale; and a cross very high up, which
had figured in former years in solemn processions, a cross all
ornamented with golden olives and foliage, seemed as if detached from
the wall, in a burst of light. The white and bald heads of the auditors
shone on the oaken backs. Then all at once, by a new change in the sky,
the shadow again began to creep among these things, like a light mist.
A scarcely perceptible wave of some subtle odor--incense or
benzoin?--invaded the nave.
"On the single altar, in glass vases, two bouquets of violets, somewhat
faded, exhaled the breath of spring; and this double-fading perfume was
like the poesy of dreams which the music evoked in the souls of the old
men, while close by, in quite different souls, there developed another
dream: like an aurora on melting snows."
It pleased him to reconstruct this scene, to render it poetical--to warm
it again with lyric breath.
"Is it not preposterous, unbelievable?" he cried. "At Rome, in the city
of intellectual inertia, a master of music, a Buddhist who has published
two volumes of essays on the philosophy of Schopenhauer, indulges in the
luxury of having a mass by Sebastian Bach executed for his own pleasure,
in a mysterious chapel before an audience of great music-mad savants,
whose daughters sing in the chorus. Is it not a page from Hoffmann? On
an afternoon of a somewhat gray but warm spring--these old philosophers
quit their laboratories, where they have obstinately striven to wrest
from life one of its secrets; and they assemble in a hidden oratory in
order to satisfy, almost to intoxication, the passion that has drawn
together their hearts, to leave their earthly bodies, and live ideally
in dreams. And, in the midst of this old men's gathering, an exquisite
musical idyll unfolds between the cousin of the Buddhist and the friend
of the Buddhist, ideally speaking. And when the mass is finished, the
Buddhist, suspecting nothing, presents the future lover to the divine
Hippolyte Sanzio."
He began to laugh, and then arose. "I have made, it seems to me, a
commemoration according to rule."
For an instant Hippolyte remained somewhat absorbed, then she said: "Do
you remember, it was on a Saturday, the eve of Palm Sunday?"
She also arose, approached George, and kissed his cheek.
"Shall we go now? It is no longer raining."
They went out and strolled along the wet pavement, which reflected the
subdued sunlight. The cold air made them shiver. Roundabout, the
undulating hills were covered with verdure and furrowed with luminous
streaks; here an there large pools of water reflected the pale image of
a sky whose deep azure spread out between the flaky clouds. The little
tree, dripping with rain, was illumined at intervals.
"That little tree will remain as one of our remembrances," said
Hippolyte, stopping to look at it. "It is so lonely, so lonely."
The bell announced the approach of the train, it was a quarter past
four. A railway employee offered to get their tickets. "When shall we
arrive at Albano?" George asked.
"About seven o'clock."
"It will be night," said Hippolyte.
As she felt rather cold, she took George's arm; and she was pleased to
think that they would arrive at a strange hotel this chilly evening, and
that they would dine alone before a bright fire.
George perceived that she trembled, and asked: "Do you wish to go in
again?"
"No," she replied. "You see, the sun's coming out. I shall warm up."
An indefinable desire for intimacy had seized her. She pressed closely
to him, became suddenly caressing, and her voice, look, contact,
gestures--and all her being--were full of seduction. She wished to shed
over the loved one the most feminine of her charms; she wished to
intoxicate him, to dazzle him with a display of present happiness
capable of eclipsing the reflection of bygone happiness. She wished to
appear to him more amiable, more adorable, more desirable than ever
before. A fear assailed her--an atrocious fear--that he might regret
the woman of long ago, sigh for the vanished delights, believe that then
only had he attained the height of intoxication. "His recollections,"
she thought, "have filled my soul with so much melancholy! I have
restrained my tears with difficulty. And he too, perhaps, is sad at
heart. How heavily the past hangs over our love! Perhaps he is tired
of me? Perhaps he is unaware of this weariness, and does not avow it to
himself, willing to live under the illusion? But he is perhaps
incapable now of finding any happiness in me. If I am still dear to
him, it is perhaps only because he recognizes in me an object for his
dear sorrows. Alas! I too, when with him, taste true happiness only at
rare intervals; I suffer too, and yet I love him, and I love my
suffering, and my only desire is to please him, and I cannot imagine
life without this love. Why then are we so sad, since we love one
another?"
She leaned heavily on her lover's arm, gazing at him with eyes to which
the shadow of her thoughts imparted an expression of profound
tenderness.
"Two years ago, about the same hour, we left the chapel together; and he
spoke to me of things in no way connected with love, in a voice which
moved my heart, which touched my soul as if with a caress of the lips;
and this ideal caress I enjoyed like a long kiss. I trembled, I
trembled incessantly, because I felt an unknown feeling born in me. Oh!
it was a divine hour! We have reached our second anniversary to-day,
and we still love one another. Just now he spoke; and if his voice
affected me differently than it used to do, it still moves me to the
bottom of my soul. We have before us a delightful evening. Why regret
the days that are gone? Our liberty, our present intimacy, are they not
worth the incertitude and hesitations of that time? Even our memories,
so numerous, do they not add a new charm to our love? I love him--I
give myself up to him entirely; in the presence of his desire I no
longer know modesty. In two years he has transformed me; he has made of
me another woman; he has given me new senses, a new soul, a new
intelligence. I am creation. He can intoxicate himself through me as he
would through one of his own thoughts. I belong entirely to him, now
and forever."
Then, passionately pressing her form against his, she asked, "Are you
not happy?"
The tone in which she spoke moved him; and, as if suddenly enveloped by
a warm breath, he experienced a thrill of real happiness.
"Yes, I am happy," he answered.
And when the locomotive whistle was heard, their hearts had the same
palpitation.
At last they were alone in their compartment. She closed all the
windows, waited until the train was again in motion; they fell into each
other's arms, kissed each other, and repeated all the caressing names
which their tenderness of the last two years had used.
Then they sat still, side by side, a vague smile on their lips and in
their eyes, and with the sensation that, little by little, the rapid
coursing of their blood was abating. Through the windows they watched
the monotonous country as it rushed by and disappeared into the
violet-colored fog.
"Rest your head on my knees, and lie down," said Hippolyte.
He laid his head on her knee. She said: "The wind has disarranged your
mustache." With her finger-tips she raised several of the light hairs
which had fallen on his mouth. He kissed her finger-tips. She passed
her hand through his hair. She said: "You, too, have very long
eyelashes."
To admire his lashes, she closed his eyes. Then she caressed his brow
and temples; she made him kiss once more each one of her fingers, one
after the other, her head bent over George. And from beneath, George
saw her mouth open with infinite slowness, saw unfold the snowy
whiteness of her teeth. She closed her mouth, then again slowly opened
it, with an almost insensible movement--like a flower with two petals;
and a pearly whiteness shone from within. This delightful sport threw
them into a state of languor; they forgot everything--they were happy.
The monotonous motion of the train soothed them. In low tones they
exchanged terms of adoration.
"This is our first journey together," she said, smiling. "It is the
first time we are alone in a train."
She took delight in repeating that this was a new experience for them.
George, who had already felt the spur of desire, became more animated.
He raised himself up, he kissed her on the neck, just on the Twins; he
whispered something in her ear. An inexpressible light lit up
Hippolyte's eyes, but she answered with vivacity: "No, no, we must be
good until this evening. We must wait."
Once more she saw a vision of the silent hotel, of the furnished
chamber, of the large bed hidden beneath a white mosquito curtain.
"At this season of the year," she said, in order to distract her lover's
attention, "there will scarcely be anyone at Albano. How nice it will
be, all alone in an empty hotel. We shall be taken for a young couple."
She wrapped herself in her mantle with a thrill, and leaned against
George's shoulder.
"It is cold to-day, isn't it? When we arrive we'll light a big fire,
and we'll take a cup of tea."
For them it was an acute pleasure to imagine the approaching
intoxication. They spoke in low tones, communicating the ardor of their
blood, exchanging burning promises. But, as they talked of future
voluptuousness, their present desire grew, became irresistible. They
lapsed into silence, they united their lips; they heard nothing more but
the tumultuous beating of their arteries.
* * * * *
Afterwards, it seemed to them both as if a veil had been torn from
before their eyes, that an internal mist was being dissipated--that the
enchantment was broken. The fire in the imaginary chamber went out; the
bed seemed icy, and the silence of the empty hotel became heavy.
Hippolyte leaned her head against the back of the seat, watching the
vast, monotonous country disappearing in the darkness.
At her side, George had again fallen beneath the empire of his
perfidious thoughts. A horrible vision tortured him, against which it
was impossible for him to contend, because he saw it with the eyes of
his soul, those eyes, pupil-less, that no force of will can shut.
"Of what are you thinking?" asked Hippolyte, uneasy.
"Of you."
He thought of her, of her wedding-trip--of the ways in which the newly
married generally act. "Without the least doubt, she found herself
alone with her husband just as she is now with me. And it is perhaps
this remembrance which causes her sadness." He thought also of the
rapid adventures between two stations, of the sudden disquietude caused
by a look--of the seizures of sensuality during the suffocating length
of an afternoon during the dog-days. "What horror! What horror!" He
started violently, a particular kind of start that Hippolyte knew too
well to be a sure symptom of the malady which afflicted her lover. She
took his hand in hers and asked:
"Are you in pain?"
He nodded, looking at her with an unhappy smile. But she had not the
courage to push her questioning further, because she feared a bitter and
heart-breaking answer. She preferred to remain silent; but she kissed
him on his forehead--a long kiss, as usual, in the hope of unloosening
the tangle of cruel reflections.
"Here we are at Cecchina!" she cried with relief, as she heard the
whistle announcing their arrival. "Quick--quick, love, we must get
down."
In order to amuse him, she affected gayety. She lowered the window and
looked out.
"The evening is cold, but beautiful. Make haste, love. This is our
anniversary. We must be happy."
The sound of her strong and tender voice drove away his gloominess. On
alighting in the fresh air, he felt himself restored to serenity.
A sky, limpid as a diamond, curved like a vault over the country
drenched with water. In the transparent atmosphere there still flitted
beams of crepuscular light. The stars came out one by one, as if shaken
on the staffs of invisible lamp-bearers.
"We must be happy." George heard internally the echo of Hippolyte's
remark; and his soul swelled with indefinite aspirations. On this
solemn and pure night the quiet chamber, the flaming hearth, the bed
with its white-gauze draperies, appeared to him to be elements too
humble for happiness. "It is our anniversary--we must be happy." Of
what had he thought--what was he doing, at this same hour two years ago?
He had wandered aimlessly through the streets, pressed on by an
instinctive desire to seek more deserted spots, yet attracted
nevertheless towards the populous quarters, where his pride and joy
seemed to grow by contrast with the common life; where the ambient
noises of the city sounded in his ears only like a distant murmur.
*CHAPTER V.*
The old hotel of Ludovico Togni, with the walls of its long vestibule
done in stucco and painted to imitate marble, with its landing-places
with green doors, decorated all over with commemorative stones, gave an
immediate impression of quasi-conventional peace. All the furniture had
an aspect of being heirlooms. The beds, the chairs, the sofas, the
couches, the chests of drawers, had the style of another age, now fallen
into disuse. The delicately colored ceilings, bright yellow and
sky-blue, were decorated at their centres with garlands of roses or
other usual symbols, such as a lyre, a torch, or a quiver. On the
paper-hangings and woollen carpet the bouquets of flowers had faded, and
had become almost invisible; the window curtains, white and modest, hung
from poles from which the gilt had worn off; the _rococo_ mirrors, while
reflecting these antique images in a dull mist, imparted to them that
air of melancholy, and almost of unreality, which solitary pools
sometimes give at their edges.
"How pleased I am to be here!" cried Hippolyte, penetrated by the charm
of this peaceful spot. "I wish I could stay here forever."
And she drew herself up in the great armchair, her head leaning against
the back, which was decorated with a crescent, a modest crochet-work in
white cotton.
She thought once more of her dead aunt Jane and of her distant infancy.
"Poor aunt!" she said; "she had, I recall, a house like this--a house in
which, for a century, the furniture had not been moved from its place.
I always recollect her unhappiness when I broke one of those glass
globes beneath which artificial flowers are preserved, you know. I
remember she cried over it. Poor old aunt! I can see her black-lace
cap, with her white curls which hung down her cheeks."
She spoke slowly, pausing from time to time, her gaze fixed on the fire
which flamed in the fireplace; and, every now and then, so as to smile
at George, she raised her eyes, which were somewhat downcast and
surrounded by dark violet rings; while from the street arose the
monotonous and regular noise of pavers beating the pavement.
"In the house, I can recall, there was a large hay-loft with two or
three windows, where we kept the pigeons. You reached the loft by means
of a small, straight stairway, against the wall of which hung, heaven
knows since when, skins of hares, hairless and dried, stretched from two
ends of crossed reeds. Every day I carried food to the pigeons. As soon
as they heard me coming, they clustered around the door. When I
entered, it was a veritable assault. Then I would sit on the floor and
scatter the barley all around me. The pigeons surrounded me; they were
all white, and I watched them pecking up their food. The sound of a
flute stole in from a neighboring house; always the same air at the same
hour. This music seemed delicious to me. I listened, my head raised to
the window, my mouth wide open, as if to drink in the notes which
showered. From time to time a belated pigeon arrived, beating her wings
on my head, and filling my hair with white feathers. And the invisible
flute went on playing. The air still rings in my ears; I could hum it.
That is how I acquired a passion for music, in a dovecote, when a
child."
And she repeated mentally the air of the ancient flute of Albano; she
enjoyed its sweetness with a melancholy comparable to that of the wife
who, after many years, discovers a forgotten sugar-plum at the bottom of
her wedding-box. There was an interval of silence. A bell sounded in
the corridor of the peaceful residence.
"I remember. A lame turtle-dove hopped into the room; and it was one of
my aunt's greatest favorites.
"One day a little girl of the neighborhood came to play with me--a
pretty little blond girl named Clarisse. My aunt was confined to bed by
a cold. We amused ourselves on the terrace, to the great damage of the
vases of pinks. The turtle-dove appeared on the sill, looked at us
without suspicion, and squatted down in a corner to enjoy the sunshine.
Scarcely had Clarisse perceived it, however, when she started forward to
seize it. The poor little creature tried to escape by hopping away, but
it limped so comically that we could not control our laughter. Clarisse
caught it; she was a cruel child. From laughing, we were both as drunk.
The turtle-dove trembled with fear in our hands.
"Clarisse plucked one of its feathers; then (I shudder still when I
think of it) she plucked the dove almost entirely, before my eyes, with
peals of laughter which made me laugh too. One could have believed that
she was intoxicated. The poor creature, despoiled of its feathers,
bleeding, escaped into the house as soon as it was liberated. We
started to pursue it, but, almost at the same moment, we heard the
tinkle of the bell, and the calls of my aunt who was coughing in her
bed. Clarisse escaped rapidly by the stairway; I hid myself behind the
curtains. The turtle-dove died that same night. My aunt sent me to
Rome, convinced that I was guilty of this barbarity. Alas! I never saw
Aunt Jane again. How I have wept! My remorse will last forever."
She spoke slowly, pausing from time to time, fixing her dilated eyes on
the flaming hearth, which almost magnetized her, which began to overcome
her with a hypnotic torpor, while from the street arose the monotonous
and regular noise of pavers beating the pavement.
*CHAPTER VI.*
One day the lovers came back from Lake Nemi somewhat fatigued. They had
dined at the Cesarini Villa, beneath showy camellias in bloom. Alone,
with the emotion felt only by him who contemplates the most secret of
secret things, they had contemplated the Mirror of Diana, as cold, as
impenetrable to the view as the deep blue of a glacier.
As usual, they ordered tea. Hippolyte, who was looking for something in
a valise, turned suddenly towards George, showing him a packet tied with
a ribbon.
"You see, these are your letters. They never leave me."