Chapter 7

Illnesses like Armand's have one fortunate thing about them: they
either kill outright or are very soon overcome. A fortnight after
the events which I have just related Armand was convalescent, and
we had already become great friends. During the whole course of
his illness I had hardly left his side.

Spring was profuse in its flowers, its leaves, its birds, its
songs; and my friend's window opened gaily upon his garden, from
which a reviving breath of health seemed to come to him. The
doctor had allowed him to get up, and we often sat talking at the
open window, at the hour when the sun is at its height, from
twelve to two. I was careful not to refer to Marguerite, fearing
lest the name should awaken sad recollections hidden under the
apparent calm of the invalid; but Armand, on the contrary, seemed
to delight in speaking of her, not as formerly, with tears in his
eyes, but with a sweet smile which reassured me as to the state
of his mind.

I had noticed that ever since his last visit to the cemetery, and
the sight which had brought on so violent a crisis, sorrow seemed
to have been overcome by sickness, and Marguerite's death no
longer appeared to him under its former aspect. A kind of
consolation had sprung from the certainty of which he was now
fully persuaded, and in order to banish the sombre picture which
often presented itself to him, he returned upon the happy
recollections of his liaison with Marguerite, and seemed resolved