Even after I had returned home I did not taste them,
since, every day, the necessity which made me hope that on the morrow I
should arrive at the clear, calm, happy contemplation of Gilberte, that
she would at last confess her love for me, explaining to me the reasons by
which she had been obliged, hitherto, to conceal it, that same necessity
forced me to regard the past as of no account, to look ahead of me only,
to consider the little advantages that she had given me not in themselves
and as if they were self-sufficient, but like fresh rungs of the ladder on
which I might set my feet, which were going to allow me to advance a step
further and finally to attain the happiness which I had not yet
encountered.
If, at times, she shewed me these marks of her affection, she troubled me
also by seeming not to be pleased to see me, and this happened often on
the very days on which I had most counted for the realisation of my hopes.
I was sure that Gilberte was coming to the Champs-Elysees, and I felt an
elation which seemed merely the anticipation of a great happiness
when--going into the drawing-room in the morning to kiss Mamma, who was
already dressed to go out, the coils of her black hair elaborately built
up, and her beautiful hands, plump and white, fragrant still with soap--I
had been apprised, by seeing a column of dust standing by itself in the
air above the piano, and by hearing a barrel-organ playing, beneath the
window, _En revenant de la revue_, that the winter had received, until
nightfall, an unexpected, radiant visit from a day of spring.
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