We were embarrassed in each other’s presence; some one acted as a restraint upon us.  Who was it?  No one was there but Raymond, one of my best friends, who had arrived the evening before and was soon to depart in order to marry his cousin, young, pretty and rich!  It is singular that he, so gentle, so confiding, so unreserved, so chivalrous, should have appeared to me sharp, taciturn, rough, almost dull,—­and my feelings towards him were full of bitterness and spite.  Can friendship be but lukewarm hate?  I fear so, for I often felt a savage desire to quarrel with Raymond and seize him by the throat.  He talked of a blade of grass, a fly, of the most indifferent object, and I felt wounded as if by a personality.  Everything he did offended me; if he stood up I was indignant, if he sat down I became furious; every movement of his seemed a provocation; why did I not perceive this sooner?  How does it happen that the man for whom I entertain such a strong natural aversion should have been my friend for ten years?  How strange that I should not have been aware of this antipathy sooner!

And you, ordinarily so natural, so easy in your manners, became constrained; you scarcely answered me when he was present.  The simplest expression agitated you; it seemed as if you had to give an account to some one of every word, and that you were afraid of a scolding, like a young girl who is brought by her mother into the drawing-room for the first time.

One evening, I was sitting by you on the sofa, reading to you that sublime elegy of the great poet, La Tristesse d’Olympio; Raymond entered.  You rose abruptly, like a guilty child, assumed an humble and repentant attitude, asking forgiveness with your eyes.  In what secret compact, what hidden covenant, had you failed?

The look with which Raymond answered yours doubtless contained your pardon, for you resumed your seat, but moved away from me so as not to abuse the accorded grace; I continued to read, but you no longer listened—­you were absorbed in a delicious revery through which floated vaguely the lines of the poet.  I was at your feet, and never have I felt so far away from you.  The space between us, too narrow for another to occupy, was an abyss.

What invisible hand dashed me down from my heaven?  Who drove me, in my unconsciousness, as far from you as the equator from the pole?  Yesterday your eyes, bathed in light and life, turned softly towards me; your hand rested willingly in mine.  You accepted my love, unavowed but understood; for I hate those declarations which remind one of a challenge.  If one has need to say that he loves, he is not worth loving; speech is intended for indifferent beings; talking is a means of keeping silent; you must have seen, in my glance, by the trembling of my voice, in my sudden changes of color, by the impalpable caress of my manner, that I love you madly.

It was when Raymond looked at you that I began to appreciate the depth of my passion.  I felt as if some one had thrust a red-hot iron into my heart.  Ah! what a wretched country France is!  If I were in Turkey, I would bear you off on my Arab steed, shut you up in a harem, with walls bristling with cimetars, surrounded by a deep moat; black eunuchs should sleep before the threshold of your chamber, and at night, instead of dogs, lions should guard the precincts!