A Woman of Thirty by Honoré de Balzac
page 69 of 251 (27%)
page 69 of 251 (27%)
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She was silent, and let fall the hand which she had stretched out towards the view upon Arthur's. Both admired the wide landscape made up of so much blended beauty. Neither of them spoke. The murmuring voice of the river, the pure air, and the cloudless heaven were all in tune with their thronging thoughts and their youth and the love in their hearts. "Oh! _mon Dieu_, how I love this country!" Julie continued, with growing and ingenuous enthusiasm. "You lived here for a long while, did you not?" she added after a pause. A thrill ran through Lord Grenville at her words. "It was down there," he said, in a melancholy voice, indicating as he spoke a cluster of walnut trees by the roadside, "that I, a prisoner, saw you for the first time." "Yes, but even at that time I felt very sad. This country looked wild to me then, but now----" She broke off, and Lord Grenville did not dare to look at her. "All this pleasure I owe to you," Julie began at last, after a long silence. "Only the living can feel the joy of life, and until now have I not been dead to it all? You have given me more than health, you have made me feel all its worth--" Women have an inimitable talent for giving utterance to strong feelings in colorless words; a woman's eloquence lies in tone and gesture, manner and glance. Lord Grenville hid his face in his hands, |
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