h her elbows upon the railing, her eyes fixed upon the river.

He sought for what he ought to say to her and could find nothing. He did
not even arrive at disentangling his own emotions; all that he was
sensible of was joy at feeling her there close to him, come back again,
and a shameful cowardice, a craving to pardon everything, to permit
everything, provided she never left him.

At last, at the end of some minutes, he asked her in a very gentle voice:

"Do you wish that we should leave? It will be nicer in the boat."

She answered: "Yes, my puss."

And he assisted her into the skiff, pressing her hands, all softened,
with some tears still in his eyes. Then she looked at him with a smile
and they kissed each other anew.

They re-ascended the river very slowly, skirting the bank planted with
willows, covered with grass, bathed and still in the afternoon warmth.
When they had returned to the Restaurant Grillon, it was barely six
o'clock. Then leaving their boat they set off on foot on the island
towards Bezons, across the fields and along the high poplars which
bordered the river. The long grass ready to be mowed was full of flowers.
The sun, which was sinking, showed himself from beneath a sheet of red
light, and in the tempered heat of the closing day the floating
exhalations from the grass, mingled with the damp scents from the river,
filled the air with a soft languor, with a happy light, as though with a
vapor of well-being.

A soft weakness overtakes the heart, and a species of communion with this
splendid calm of evening, with this vague and mysterious chilliness of
outspread life, with the keen and melancholy poetry which seems to arise
from flowers and things, develops itself revealed at this sweet and
pensive time to the senses.

He felt all that; but she did not understand anything of it, for her
part. They walked side by side; and, suddenly tired of being silent, she
sang. She sang with her shrill and false voice, something which pervaded
the streets, an air catching the memory, which rudely destroyed the
profound and serene harmony of the evening.

Then he looked at her and he felt an unsurpassable abyss between them.
She beat the grass with her parasol, her head slightly inclined,
contemplating her feet and singing, spinning out the notes, attempting
trills, and venturing on shakes. Her smooth little brow, of which he was
so fond, was at that time absolutely empty! empty! There was nothing
therei