, so small!--small as you were one day when I saw you from the height
of the Campanile in the square at Florence. And I say to myself, as I
said that day: 'A bit of grass would suffice to hide her from me, yet
she is for me the infinite of joy and of pain.'"

He complained of the torments of absence. And he mingled with his
complaints the smiles of fortunate love. He threatened jokingly to
surprise her at Dinard. "Do not be afraid. They will not recognize me. I
shall be disguised as a vender of plaster images. It will not be a lie.
Dressed in gray tunic and trousers, my beard and face covered with white
dust, I shall ring the bell of the Montessuy villa. You may recognize
me, Therese, by the statuettes on the plank placed on my head. They will
all be cupids. There will be faithful Love, jealous Love, tender Love,
vivid Love; there will be many vivid Loves. And I shall shout in the
rude and sonorous language of the artisans of Pisa or of Florence:
'Tutti gli Amori per la Signora Teersinal!"

The last page of this letter was tender and grave. There were pious
effusions in it which reminded Therese of the prayer-books she read
when a child. "I love you, and I love everything in you: the earth that
carries you, on which you weigh so lightly, and which you embellish; the
light that allows me to see you; the air you breathe. I like the bent
tree of my yard because you have seen it. I have walked tonight on the
avenue where I met you one winter night. I have culled a branch of the
boxwood at which you looked. In this city, where you are not, I see only
you."

He said at the end of his letter that he was to dine out. In the absence
of Madame Fusellier, who had gone to the country, he should go to
a wine-shop of the Rue Royale where he was known. And there, in the
indistinct crowd, he should be alone with her.

Therese, made languid by the softness of invisible caresses, closed her
eyes and threw back her head on the armchair. When she heard the noise
of the carriage coming near the house, she opened the second letter. As
soon as she saw the altered handwriting of it, the lines precipitate and
uneven, the distracted look of the address, she was troubled.

Its obscure beginning indicated sudden anguish and black suspicion:
"Therese, Therese, why did you give yourself to me if you were not
giving yourself to me wholly? How does it serve me that you have
deceived me, now that I know what I did not wish to know?"

She stopped;