Since he had been in love with her, he said, he had walked so lightly and was supported by such joy that his feet did not touch the earth.  He had only one fear, which was that he might be dreaming, and might awake unknown to her.  Doubtless he was only dreaming.  And what a dream!  He was like one intoxicated and singing.  He had not his reason, happily.  Absent, he saw her continually.  “Yes, I see you near me; I see your lashes shading eyes the gray of which is more delicious than all the blue of the sky and the flowers; your lips, which have the taste of a marvellous fruit; your cheeks, where laughter puts two adorable dimples; I see you beautiful and desired, but fleeing and gliding away; and when I open my arms, you have gone; and I see you afar on the long, long beach, not taller than a fairy, in your pink gown, under your parasol.  Oh, so small!—­small as you were one day when I saw you from the height of the Campanile in the square at Florence.  And I say to myself, as I said that day:  ’A bit of grass would suffice to hide her from me, yet she is for me the infinite of joy and of pain.’”

He complained of the torments of absence.  And he mingled with his complaints the smiles of fortunate love.  He threatened jokingly to surprise her at Dinard.  “Do not be afraid.  They will not recognize me.  I shall be disguised as a vender of plaster images.  It will not be a lie.  Dressed in gray tunic and trousers, my beard and face covered with white dust, I shall ring the bell of the Montessuy villa.  You may recognize me, Therese, by the statuettes on the plank placed on my head.  They will all be cupids.  There will be faithful Love, jealous Love, tender Love, vivid Love; there will be many vivid Loves.  And I shall shout in the rude and sonorous language of the artisans of Pisa or of Florence:  ’Tutti gli Amori per la Signora Teersinal!”

The last page of this letter was tender and grave.  There were pious effusions in it which reminded Therese of the prayer-books she read when a child.  “I love you, and I love everything in you:  the earth that carries you, on which you weigh so lightly, and which you embellish; the light that allows me to see you; the air you breathe.  I like the bent tree of my yard because you have seen it.  I have walked tonight on the avenue where I met you one winter night.  I have culled a branch of the boxwood at which you looked.  In this city, where you are not, I see only you.”

He said at the end of his letter that he was to dine out.  In the absence of Madame Fusellier, who had gone to the country, he should go to a wine-shop of the Rue Royale where he was known.  And there, in the indistinct crowd, he should be alone with her.

Therese, made languid by the softness of invisible caresses, closed her eyes and threw back her head on the armchair.  When she heard the noise of the carriage coming near the house, she opened the second letter.  As soon as she saw the altered handwriting of it, the lines precipitate and uneven, the distracted look of the address, she was troubled.