wofold astonishment. My eyes
questioned his. Their expression underwent no change. He was really
asking for nothing. Then I smiled and answered, simply:

"I thank you. A woman is always glad to be told that."

Taking off his hat, he rose and bowed. I moved away with a slight
feeling of discomfort: would he commit the stupidity of following me?
Had I made a mistake? No, he resumed his seat. He had not blundered
either.

4

When two people do not know each other and will not meet again, the
words exchanged between them, if they are not mere commonplaces, become
fraught with a strange significance and leave behind them a trail of
melancholy like a mourning-veil; it is the surprise of those voices
which speak to each other and will never be heard again, the fleeting
encounter between glance and glance, the smile which knows not where to
rest and yet would fain enrich the remembrance with a ray of kindness.

The essential image of a human life is contained in a moment like that.
It awakens, hesitates, seeks, thinks that it has found, speaks a word
and relapses into nothingness.

CHAPTER VII

1

Rose's profile stands out in relief against the dark velvet of the box.
Her soft, fair hair parts into two waves that are like two streams of
honey following the curve of her cheek. Her long neck is very white in
the black gown that frames it; and her gloved hands rest near the fan
that lies opened on her knees like a swan's wing. She is sitting
straight up, with her eyes fixed in front of her. Her attitude is as
dignified and cold as a circlet of brilliants on a beautiful forehead.

I am alone, at the back of the box. I prefer to listen like that, in the
shadow, unseen. Is not the attention of a woman who is anything of a
coquette, that slight, fitful attention, always affected a little by the
thought, however unconscious, of the effect which she is producing?

2

I am struck by the general attitude of reverence. In the great silence
through which the music swells, the lives of all those present seem
penetrated with harmony.

I look at them as at so many open temples, which their thoughts have
deserted in order to join one another in an invisible communion. There
is a kind of homage in the bent heads and lowered eyes of the men. The
women are silent. The fans cease fluttering. The souls of the audience
are uplifted like the silent instruments of a human symphony that
mysteriously rises and rises till it mi