She turns round. "Quick, we ought to be back already." Her smile is so confiding and my heart so happy, she is so radiant, so wholesome and her presence is so forceful that some day, I say to myself, the name of friendship will have to be the same as of love.
An arbor at the water's edge. Cool green leaves. Flowers. Boughs striped with sunshine. Close by, the peacefulness of a sleepy stream.
We had decided to celebrate our second wedding anniversary here. We rose early in the morning, set out arm in arm, keeping step, and came to this springtime nook as if to a rendezvous arranged by spring itself.
The setting for our lunch was all it should be--the midday sun blazing down upon the surrounding country, the table garlanded with flowers, the scenery framed in the arch of the arbor.
He was seated close beside me. I saw his profile against the bank and the misty line where the horizon was falling asleep. His wandering gaze was caught by everything and rested on nothing. He seemed to be summing up each breath of nature, each line, each feature, and he had eyes only--this being a day apart from other days--for the broad effects of the great stretch of landscape.
A halt. We count on our fingers, we hold a mental roll-call before turning back.... Presently, when we start on our homeward walk, the great amphitheatre of vapors, the slope fringed with trees, the belt of mist will each one by one be making their quivering signs.
Two years. What has my love become, my hope, the spirit without end which dwelt within me?... We are two, that is all.
The same current of the spirit--if not the same spirit--drives its waves through us. The same flame--if not the same heart--mounts within us. The same love of truth--if not the same truth--throws the light of day between us. And nothing but silence is needed for us to be close and united.
We love each other better than ever; we no longer talk to each other.
Had anyone said to me the first day of our marriage: "You will want to explain everything to him, what you are, what you see, what you wish; you will want to find out from him what he is, what he sees, what he wishes; you will also want to find out what in both of you is reconcilable and perhaps, above all, what is irreconcilable: this is his concern or interest, this is your concern or interest," I should have nodded my head. "Yes, exactly."