lysees. But already the charm with which, by
the mere act of thinking, my mind was filled as soon as it thought of
her, the privileged position, unique even if it were painful, in which
I was inevitably placed in relation to Gilberte by the contraction of a
scar in my mind, had begun to add to that very mark of her indifference
something romantic, and in the midst of my tears my lips would shape
themselves in a smile which was indeed the timid outline of a kiss. And
when the time came for the postman I said to myself, that evening as on
every other: "I am going to have a letter from Gilberte, she is going to
tell me, at last, that she has never ceased to love me, and to explain
to me the mysterious reason by which she has been forced to conceal her
love from me until now, to put on the appearance of being able to be
happy without seeing me; the reason for which she has assumed the form
of the other Gilberte, who is simply a companion."

Every evening I would beguile myself into imagining this letter,
believing that I was actually reading it, reciting each of its sentences
in turn. Suddenly I would stop, in alarm. I had realised that, if I was
to receive a letter from Gilberte, it could not, in any case, be this
letter, since it was I myself who had just composed it. And from that
moment I would strive to keep my thoughts clear of the words which I
should have liked her to write to me, from fear lest, by first selecting
them myself, I should be excluding just those identical words,--the
dearest, the most desired--from the field of possible events. Even if,
by an almost impossible coincidence, it had been precisely the letter
of my invention that Gilberte had addressed to me of her own accord,
recognising my own work in it I should not have had the impression that
I was receiving something that had not originated in myself, something
real, something new, a happiness external to my mind, independent of my
will, a gift indeed from love.

While I waited I read over again a page which, although it had not been
written to me by Gilberte, came to me, none the less, from her, that
page by Bergotte upon the beauty of the old myths from which Racine
drew his inspiration, which (with the agate marble) I always kept within
reach. I was touched by my friend's kindness in having procured the book
for me; and as everyone is obliged to find some reason for his passion,
so much so that he is glad to find in the creature whom he loves
qu