o the heart, cherishing its hidden transports, its
unuttered hopes, its illusions which gleam and fall to fragments like
the gossamer of a summer's night?

Such neutral pleasures help to soothe a nature irritated by long
contemplation of the person beloved. They were to me, I dare not say to
her, like those fissures in a dam through which the water finds a vent
and avoids disaster. Abstinence brings deadly exhaustion, which a
few crumbs falling from heaven like manna in the desert, suffices to
relieve. Sometimes I found my Henriette standing before these bouquets
with pendant arms, lost in agitated reverie, thoughts swelling her
bosom, illumining her brow as they surged in waves and sank again,
leaving lassitude and languor behind them. Never again have I made a
bouquet for any one. When she and I had created this language and formed
it to our uses, a satisfaction filled our souls like that of a slave who
escapes his masters.

During the rest of this month as I came from the meadows through the
gardens I often saw her face at the window, and when I reached the salon
she was ready at her embroidery frame. If I did not arrive at the hour
expected (though never appointed), I saw a white form wandering on the
terrace, and when I joined her she would say, "I came to meet you; I
must show a few attentions to my youngest child."

The miserable games of backgammon had come to end. The count's late
purchases took all his time in going hither and thither about the
property, surveying, examining, and marking the boundaries of his new
possessions. He had orders to give, rural works to overlook which needed
a master's eye,--all of them planned and decided on by his wife and
himself. We often went to meet him, the countess and I, with the
children, who amused themselves on the way by running after insects,
stag-beetles, darning-needles, they too making their bouquets, or to
speak more truly, their bundles of flowers. To walk beside the woman we
love, to take her on our arm, to guide her steps,--these are illimitable
joys that suffice a lifetime. Confidence is then complete. We went
alone, we returned with the "general," a title given to the count when
he was good-humored. These two ways of taking the same path gave light
and shade to our pleasure, a secret known only to hearts debarred from
union. Our talk, so free as we went, had hidden significations as
we returned, when either of us gave an answer to some furtive
interrogation,