ur excess of joy. We remained silent, but that very
silence and our kneeling posture was a language; I knelt full of
adoration, she full of happiness, and our attitude seemed to say, They
adore one another, but a phantom of Death stands between, and though
their eyes drink rapture, they will never be clasped in each other's
arms.

LXI.

I know not how many minutes we remained thus, nor how many thousand
interrogations and answers, what floods of tears, and oceans of joy
passed unexpressed between our mute and closed lips, between our
moistened eyes, between her countenance and mine. Happiness had struck
us motionless, and time had ceased to be. It was eternity in an
instant.

There was a knock at the street door; a sound of feet on the stairs. I
rose, and she resumed, with a faltering step, her place on the sofa. I
sat down on the other side, in the shade, to hide my flushed cheeks and
tearful eyes. A man of already advanced age, of imposing stature, with
a benignant, noble, and beaming countenance, slowly entered the room.
He approached the sofa without speaking, and imprinted a paternal kiss
on Julie's trembling hand. It was Monsieur de Bonald. Spite of the
painful awakening from ecstasy that the knock and arrival of a stranger
had produced in me, I inwardly blessed him for having interrupted that
first look in which reason might have been overpowered by rapture.
There are times when the cold voice of reason is required to still with
its icy tones the fever of the senses, and to strengthen anew the soul
in its holy and energetic resolves.

LXII.

Julie introduced me to M. de Bonald as the young man whose verses he
had read; he was surprised at my youth, and addressed me with
indulgence. He conversed with Julie with the paternal familiarity of a
man whose genius had rendered him illustrious; he had all the serenity
of age, and sought in the company of a young and lovely woman merely a
passing ray of beauty to enchant his eyes, and the charm of her society
during the calm and conversational hours at the close of day. His voice
was deep, as though it came from the heart, and his conversation flowed
with the graceful, yet serious, ease of a mind which seeks to unbend in
repose. Honesty was stamped on his brow, and spoke in the accents of
his voice. As the conversation seemed likely to be prolonged, and the
clock was on the point of striking twelve, I thought it right to take
my leave first, so as to