“How happy I am, Elaine, and how I love you!”
and I kissed her almost timidly, on the dimple.
She trembled, as if from the pain of a burn, blushed
deeply and with an affectionate look, she said:
“I love you also, Jacques, and I am very happy!”
That embarrassment, that sudden emotion which revealed
the perfect spotlessness of a pure mind, the instinctive
recoil of virginity, that childlike innocence, that
blush of modesty, delighted me above everything as
a presage of happiness. It seemed to me as if
I were unworthy of her; I was almost ashamed of bringing
her, and of putting into her small, saint-like hands
the remains of a damaged heart, that had been polluted
by debauchery, that miserable thing which had served
as a toy for unworthy mistresses, which was intoxicated
with lies, and felt as if it would die of bitterness
and disgust....
How quickly she has become accustomed to me, how suddenly
she has turned into a woman and become metamorphosed;
already she no longer is at all like the artless girl,
the sensitive child, to whom I did not know what to
say, and whose sudden questions disconcerted me!
She is coquettish, and there is seduction in her attitudes,
in her gestures, in her laugh and in her touch.
One might think that she was trying her power over
me, and that she guesses that I no longer have any
will of my own. She does with me whatever she
likes, and I am quite incapable of resisting the beautiful
charm that emanates from her, and I feel carried away
by her caressing hands, and so happy that I am at
times frightened at the excess of my own felicity.
My life now passes amidst the most delicious of punishments,
those afternoons and evenings that we spend together,
those unconstrained moments when, sitting on the sofa
together, she rests her head on my shoulder, holds
my hands and half shuts her beautiful eyes while we
settle what our future life shall be, when I cover
her with kisses and inhale the odor of all those little
hairs that are as fine as silk and are like a halo
round her imperial brow, excite me, unsettle me, kill
me, and yet I feel inclined to shed tears, when the
time comes for us to part, and I really only exist
when I am with Elaine.
I can scarcely sleep; I see her rise up in the darkness,
delicate, fair and pink, so supple, so elegant with
her small waist and tiny hands and feet, her graceful
head and that look of mockery and of coaxing which
lies in her smile, that brightness of dawn which illuminates
her looks, that when I think that she is going to
become my wife, I feel inclined to sing, and to shout
out my amorous folly into the silence of the night.
Elaine also seems to be at the end of her strength,
has grown languid and nervous; she would like to wipe
out the fortnight that we still have to wait, and
so little does she hide her longing, that one of her
uncles, Colonel d’Orthez, said after dinner the
other evening: “By Jove, my children, one
would take you for two soldiers who are looking forward
to their furlough!”
