You have looked at me and talked to me, have smiled and
answered; you have sat at my side pensive and silent; side by side with
me you have lived your own inner life, that inscrutable and inaccessible
existence of which I know nothing--can never know anything--- and your
soul has taken full and absolute possession of mine to its deepest
depths, but without ever a thought, without being aware of it, as the
ocean swallows up a river.--What is my love to you? What is any one's
love to you? The word has too often been profaned, and the sentiment too
often a make-believe.--I do not offer you love. But surely you will not
refuse the humble tribute of devotion that my spirit offers up to a
being nobler and higher than itself.'
She walked on at the same slow pace, her head bent, her face bloodless,
towards a seat at the further end of the wood and facing the sea.
It was a wide semicircle of white marble with a back running round the
entire length and, for sole ornamentation, a lion's paw at each end as a
support. It recalled those antique seats on which, in some island of the
Archipelago or in Greece or Pompeii, ladies reclined and listened to a
reading from the poets, under the shade of the oleanders, within sight
of the sea. Here the arbutus cast the shadow of its blossom and its
fruit, and in contrast to the marble, the coral of the stems seemed more
vivid than elsewhere.
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