She was still asleep, lost in that terrible slumber which, assuredly
was more like death than like life. Her black eyelids, her livid lips,
her ashen cheeks, her cold flesh, I scanned vehemently for some faint,
deep-seated flush that would bespeak the coursing of a little blood, at
least, through a few of her arteries.... In vain! In vain!
An endless minute passed. I had bent forward over the bed to gaze
upon her, not daring to stir the coverlets with the merest touch of
my fingers. Finally, from her sunken chest the sound of stronger
breathing seemed to come; and simultaneously on both her cheeks I could
distinguish the pallid but reassuring blush I had waited for, so long,
so ardently....
What now took place was like a swift, miraculous resurrection. Her
whole countenance regained its color gradually, her pulse beat more
strongly, her beautiful breast began to raise the comforters in a
regular rhythmic heaving. I lowered my head till my face almost rested
on her eyelids, my lips ready to welcome with a kiss the first opening
of her eyes; I could feel the vital warmth again returning to her
forehead and cheeks. She sighed inaudibly and her lips sketched a
smile. I could restrain my caress no longer. It was under a passionate
shower of kisses from me that she returned to consciousness....
Oh gods of Heaven and Hell! All this was but a few weeks ago! Yet how
many ages have died, how many aeons have sunk into eternity, since that
kiss was mine?
She said:
“Oh, I have been asleep!... And you were here, saucy boy!”
She knotted her silken arms about my neck; and I felt her body--how
light, how alarmingly light it was!--stiffen a little as she drew
herself up languidly under the coverlets....
She also said:
“Dearest, dearest love!... Oh, how tired I am!... It seems as though
I could never again lift my head or stir a finger!... Never, never
again!... But you love your poor little girl, don’t you?... Look out,
Monsieur! Perhaps your doll is broken!...”
She said no more--just then; because my lips had smothered her last
words.
As she sat up, I piled the pillows behind her. Her hair of greenish
gold poured in a sparkling torrent down over her body. Her white
arms still encircled my neck. She laughed--that laugh of mischievous
girlish gaiety which I had always so much adored in her. I released
myself from her embrace; and resting a knee upon the bed, and throwing
an arm around her wonderful shoulders, I plunged my gaze into the
bright lucid depths of her eyes.... And I forgot, I forgot, everything,
everything!...
She said:
“Why, my hair is all down! I seem to have lost every comb, every pin to
my name!” And she laughed aloud.