That precious
head reposed in the palm of her hand; the face was slightly flushed
(with anger perhaps). She kept her eyes obstinately fixed on the
pages of a book which she was holding with her other hand. I had
the time to lay my infinite adoration at her feet whose white
insteps gleamed below the dark edge of the fur out of quilted blue
silk bedroom slippers, embroidered with small pearls. I had never
seen them before; I mean the slippers. The gleam of the insteps,
too, for that matter. I lost myself in a feeling of deep content,
something like a foretaste of a time of felicity which must be
quiet or it couldn't be eternal. I had never tasted such perfect
quietness before. It was not of this earth. I had gone far
beyond. It was as if I had reached the ultimate wisdom beyond all
dreams and all passions. She was That which is to be contemplated
to all Infinity.
The perfect stillness and silence made her raise her eyes at last,
reluctantly, with a hard, defensive expression which I had never
seen in them before. And no wonder! The glance was meant for
Therese and assumed in self-defence. For some time its character
did not change and when it did it turned into a perfectly stony
stare of a kind which I also had never seen before.
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