FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126  
127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   >>   >|  
d thought of leaving the country, of fleeing from her love; how she had employed every precaution against me; how she had sought advice from her aunt, from Mercanson and from the cure; how she had vowed to herself that she would die rather than yield, and how all that had been dissipated by a single word of mine, a glance, an incident; and with every confession a kiss. She said that whatever I saw in her room that pleased my taste, whatever bagatelle on her table attracted my attention, she would give me; that whatever she did in the future, in the morning, in the evening, at any hour, I should regulate as I pleased; that the judgments of the world did not concern her; that if she had appeared to care for them, it was only to send me away; but that she wished to be happy and close her ears, that she was thirty years of age and had not long to be loved by me. "And you will love me a long time? Are those fine words, with which you have beguiled me, true?" And then loving reproaches because I had been late in coming to her; that she had put on her slippers in order that I might see her foot, but that she was no longer beautiful; that she could wish she were; that she had been at fifteen. She went here and there, silly with love, rosy with joy; and she did not know what to imagine, what to say or do, in order to give herself and all that she had. I was lying on the sofa; I felt, at every word she spoke, a bad hour of my past life slipping away from me. I watched the star of love rising in my sky, and it seemed to me I was like a tree filled with sap that shakes off its dry leaves in order to attire itself in new foliage. She sat down at the piano and told me she was going to play an air by Stradella. More than all else I love sacred music, and that morceau which she had sung for me a number of times gave me great pleasure. "Yes," she said when she had finished, "but you are very much mistaken, the air is mine, and I have made you believe it was Stradella's." "It is yours?" "Yes, and I told you it was by Stradella in order to see what you would say of it. I never play my own music when I happen to compose any; but I wanted to try it with you, and you see it has succeeded since you were deceived." What a monstrous machine is man! What could be more innocent? A bright child might have adopted that ruse to surprise his teacher. She laughed heartily the while, but I felt a strange coldness as if a dark cloud had set
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126  
127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Stradella
 

pleased

 

slipping

 
sacred
 

morceau

 

rising

 

shakes

 

filled

 

leaves

 

watched


foliage

 
attire
 

bright

 
adopted
 
innocent
 

deceived

 

monstrous

 

machine

 

surprise

 

coldness


strange

 

teacher

 

laughed

 

heartily

 

succeeded

 
mistaken
 

finished

 

pleasure

 

compose

 

wanted


happen

 

number

 
attracted
 

attention

 

future

 

bagatelle

 

morning

 

evening

 

appeared

 

concern


regulate
 
judgments
 

confession

 

incident

 

employed

 
precaution
 

sought

 
fleeing
 
country
 

thought