The new life of love which had gushed forth in my heart gave me
the consciousness, the anticipated enjoyment, of the fulness of
immortality.
XVIII.
I was made aware of the flight of time by seeing the meridian sun
striking on the summit of the Abbey walls. I came down the hill through
the woods bounding from rock to rock, and from tree to tree. My heart
beat as though it would burst. As I approached the little inn, I saw
the stranger in a sloping meadow behind the house. She was seated at
the foot of a sunny wall, against which the inhabitants of the place
had piled a few stones. Her white dress shone out on the verdant
meadow, and the shade of a haystack screened her face from the sun. She
was reading in a little book that lay open on her lap, and every now
and then interrupted her reading to play with the children from the
mountain, who came to offer her flowers, or chestnuts. On seeing me,
she attempted to rise as if to meet me half-way, and her gesture was
quite sufficient to encourage me to approach.
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