The Red Lily, vol 3 | Page 8

up, leaning on the staff of faith, and his step was unequal
because the crutch, being on one side, gave one of his feet an advantage
over the other. That is the reason why your verses are unequal. I have
understood it."
The poet accepted this praise, persuaded that he had unwittingly
deserved it.
"You have faith, Monsieur Choulette," said Therese. "Of what use is it
to you if not to write beautiful verses?"

"Faith serves me to commit sin, Madame."
"Oh, we commit sins without that."
Madame Marmet appeared, equipped for the journey, in the tranquil joy
of returning to her pretty apartment, her little dog Toby, her old friend
Lagrange, and to see again, after the Etruscans of Fiesole, the skeleton
warrior who, among the bonbon boxes, looked out of the window.
Miss Bell escorted her friends to the station in her carriage.
CHAPTER XXV
"WE ARE ROBBING LIFE"
Dechartre came to the carriage to salute the two travellers. Separated
from him, Therese felt what he was to her: he had given to her a new
taste of life, delicious and so vivid, so real, that she felt it on her lips.
She lived under a charm in the dream of seeing him again, and was
surprised when Madame Marmet, along the journey, said: "I think we
are passing the frontier," or "Rose-bushes are in bloom by the seaside."
She was joyful when, after a night at the hotel in Marseilles, she saw
the gray olive-trees in the stony fields, then the mulberry-trees and the
distant profile of Mount Pilate, and the Rhone, and Lyons, and then the
familiar landscapes, the trees raising their summits into bouquets
clothed in tender green, and the lines of poplars beside the rivers. She
enjoyed the plenitude of the hours she lived and the astonishment of
profound joys. And it was with the smile of a sleeper suddenly
awakened that, at the station in Paris, in the light of the station, she
greeted her husband, who was glad to see her. When she kissed
Madame Marmet, she told her that she thanked her with all her heart.
And truly she was grateful to all things, like M. Choulette's St. Francis.
In the coupe, which followed the quays in the luminous dust of the
setting sun, she listened without impatience to her husband confiding to
her his successes as an orator, the intentions of his parliamentary
groups, his projects, his hopes, and the necessity to give two or three
political dinners. She closed her eyes in order to think better. She said

to herself: "I shall have a letter to-morrow, and shall see him again
within eight days." When the coupe passed on the bridge, she looked at
the water, which seemed to roll flames; at the smoky arches; at the
rows of trees; at the heads of the chestnut-trees in bloom on the
Cours-la-Reine; all these familiar aspects seemed to be clothed for her
in novel magnificence. It seemed to her that her love had given a new
color to the universe. And she asked herself whether the trees and the
stones recognized her. She was thinking; "How is it that my silence, my
eyes, and heaven and earth do not tell my dear secret?"
M. Martin-Belleme, thinking she was a little tired, advised her to rest.
And at night, closeted in her room, in the silence wherein she heard the
palpitations of her heart, she wrote to the absent one a letter full of
these words, which are similar to flowers in their perpetual novelty: "I
love you. I am waiting for you. I am happy. I feel you are near me.
There is nobody except you and me in the world. I see from my
window a blue star which trembles, and I look at it, thinking that you
see it in Florence. I have put on my table the little red lily spoon. Come!
Come!" And she found thus, fresh in her mind, the eternal sensations
and images.
For a week she lived an inward life, feeling within her the soft warmth
which remained of the days passed in the Via Alfieri, breathing the
kisses which she had received, and loving herself for being loved. She
took delicate care and displayed attentive taste in new gowns. It was to
herself, too, that she was pleasing. Madly anxious when there was
nothing for her at the postoffice, trembling and joyful when she
received through the small window a letter wherein she recognized the
large handwriting of her beloved, she devoured her reminiscences, her
desires, and her hopes. Thus the hours passed quickly.
The morning of the day when he was to arrive seemed to her to be
odiously long. She was at the station before the train arrived. A delay
had been