to live, first of all.' ...
And what then? What else do you wish?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do know...."

"You are very indiscreet."

"Yes, very."

"It embarrasses me to tell you...."

"Tell me in my ear. No one will overhear."

She smiled:

"I would like ..." (she hesitated).

"I would like just a _little bit_ of happiness...."

(They were quite close the one to the other.)

She went on:

"Is that too much to ask?... They have often told me that I'm an
egotist; and as for me, I sometimes say to myself: What has one a right
to? When one sees so many wretchednesses, so much pain about one, you
hardly dare to ask.... But in spite of all my heart does insist and
cries out: Yes, I have the right, I have the right to a very little
portion of happiness.... Tell me very frankly, is that being an egotist?
Do you think that wrong?"

He was overcome by an infinite pity. That cry of the heart, that poor
little naive cry stirred him down to his soul. Tears came to his eyes.
Side by side on the bench, leaning one against the other, they felt the
warmth of their legs. He would have liked to turn toward her and take
her in his arms. He did not dare move for fear of not remaining in
control of his emotion. Immovable, they looked straight forward at the
ground before their feet. Very swiftly, in a low ardent voice, almost
without moving his lips, he said:

"Oh, my darling little body! Oh, my heart! Would I could hold your
little feet in my hands, upon my mouth.... I would like to eat you
all...."

Without budging and very low and very quickly, just as he had spoken,
she replied full of trouble: "Crazy! Foolish boy! Silence! I beg of
you...."

A stroller-by of a certain age limped slowly past them. They felt their
two bodies melt together with tenderness....

Nobody left on the walk. A sparrow with ruffled feathers was dusting
itself in the sand. The fountain shed its lucent droplets. Timidly their
faces turned one toward the other; and scarcely had their eyes met each
other, when like the rush of birds their mouths met, frightened and
closely pressed--and then they flew apart. Luce sprang up, departed. He
also had risen. She said to him: "Stay here."

They did not dare to look at one another any longer. He murmured:

"Luce! That little bit ... that little bit of happiness ... say, now we
have it!"

* * * * *

THE weather caused an interruption to the lunches by the fountain of the
sparrows. Fogs c