imprecations, and incoherent words which rushed from his lips would
have made an observer think of the old tales of satanic possession in
the Middle Ages. Imagine my position!

"Go into the garden," said the countess, pressing my hand.

I left the room before the count could notice my disappearance. On the
terrace, where I slowly walked about, I heard his shouts and then his
moans from the bedroom which adjoined the dining-room. Also I heard at
intervals through that tempest of sound the voice of an angel, which
rose like the song of a nightingale as the rain ceases. I walked about
under the acacias in the loveliest night of the month of August,
waiting for the countess to join me. I knew she would come; her
gesture promised it. For several days an explanation seemed to float
between us; a word would suffice to send it gushing from the spring,
overfull, in our souls. What timidity had thus far delayed a perfect
understanding between us? Perhaps she loved, as I did, these
quiverings of the spirit which resembled emotions of fear and numbed
the sensibilities while we held our life unuttered within us,
hesitating to unveil its secrets with the modesty of the young girl
before the husband she loves. An hour passed. I was sitting on the
brick balustrade when the sound of her footsteps blending with the
undulating ripple of her flowing gown stirred the calm air of the
night. These are sensations to which the heart suffices not.

"Monsieur de Mortsauf is sleeping," she said. "When he is thus I give
him an infusion of poppies, a cup of water in which a few poppies have
been steeped; the attacks are so infrequent that this simple remedy
never loses its effect--Monsieur," she continued, changing her tone
and using the most persuasive inflexion of her voice, "this most