You are on my side." Frail, swept away by a
breath, but at the same time in harmony, not with the season, with the
hour; a promise of that immediate pleasure which the day will deny or
fulfil, and thereby of the one paramount immediate pleasure, the pleasure
of loving and of being loved; more soft, more warm upon tie stone than
even moss is; alive, a ray of sunshine sufficing for its birth, and for
the birth of joy, even in the heart of winter.
And on those days when all other vegetation had disappeared, when the fine
jerkins of green leather which covered the trunks of the old trees were
hidden beneath the snow; after the snow had ceased to fall, but when the
sky was still too much overcast for me to hope that Gilberte would venture
out, then suddenly--inspiring my mother to say: "Look, it's quite fine
now; I think you might perhaps try going to the Champs-Elysees after
all."--On the mantle of snow that swathed the balcony, the sun had
appeared and was stitching seams of gold, with embroidered patches of dark
shadow. That day we found no one there, or else a solitary girl, on the
point of departure, who assured me that Gilberte was not coming.
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