at the rows of trees; at the heads of the chestnut-trees in bloom on the
Cours-la-Reine; all these familiar aspects seemed to be clothed for her
in novel magnificence. It seemed to her that her love had given a new
color to the universe. And she asked herself whether the trees and the
stones recognized her. She was thinking; "How is it that my silence, my
eyes, and heaven and earth do not tell my dear secret?"

M. Martin-Belleme, thinking she was a little tired, advised her to rest.
And at night, closeted in her room, in the silence wherein she heard the
palpitations of her heart, she wrote to the absent one a letter full of
these words, which are similar to flowers in their perpetual novelty:
"I love you. I am waiting for you. I am happy. I feel you are near me.
There is nobody except you and me in the world. I see from my window a
blue star which trembles, and I look at it, thinking that you see it in
Florence. I have put on my table the little red lily spoon. Come!
Come!" And she found thus, fresh in her mind, the eternal sensations and
images.

For a week she lived an inward life, feeling within her the soft warmth
which remained of the days passed in the Via Alfieri, breathing the
kisses which she had received, and loving herself for being loved. She
took delicate care and displayed attentive taste in new gowns. It was to
herself, too, that she was pleasing. Madly anxious when there was
nothing for her at the postoffice, trembling and joyful when she received
through the small window a letter wherein she recognized the large
handwriting of her beloved, she devoured her reminiscences, her desires,
and her hopes. Thus the hours passed quickly.

The morning of the day when he was to arrive seemed to her to be odiously
long. She was at the station before the train arrived. A delay had been