she took pleasure in dressing early, with delicate and subtle taste. her dressing-room, an aesthetic fantasy of vivian bell, with its coarsely varnished pottery, its tall copper pitchers, and its faience pavement, like a chess-board, resembled a fairy’s kitchen. it was rustic and marvellous, and the countess martin could have in it the agreeable surprise of mistaking herself for a fairy. while her maid was dressing her hair, she heard dechartre and choulette talking under her windows. she rearranged all the work pauline had done, and uncovered the line of her nape, which was fine and pure. she looked at herself in the glass, and went into the garden.
dechartre was there, reciting verses of dante, and looking at florence: “at the hour when our mind, a greater stranger to the flesh . . . ”
near him, choulette, seated on the balustrade of the terrace, his legs hanging, and his nose in his beard, was still at work on the figure of misery on his stick.
dechartre resumed the rhymes of the canticle: “at the hour when our mind, a greater stranger to the flesh; and less under the obsession of thoughts, is almost divine in its visions, . . . ”
she approached beside the boxwood hedge, holding a parasol and dressed in a straw-colored gown. the faint sunlight of winter enveloped her in pale gold.
dechartre greeted her joyfully.
she said:
“you are reciting verses that i do not know. i know only metastasio. my teacher liked only metastasio. what is the hour when the mind has divine visions?”
“madame, that hour is the dawn of the day. it may be also the dawn of faith and of love.”
choulette doubted that the poet meant dreams of the morning, which leave at awakening vivid and painful impressions, and which are not altogether strangers to the flesh. but dechartre had quoted these verses in the pleasure of the glorious dawn which he had seen that morning on the golden hills. he had been, for a long time, troubled about the images that one sees in sleep, and he believed that these images were not related to the object that preoccupies one the most, but, on the contrary, to ideas abandoned during the day.
therese recalled her morning dream, the hunter lost in the thicket.
“yes,” said dechartre, “the things we see at night are unfortunate remains of what we have neglected the day before. dreams avenge things one has disdained. they are reproaches of abandoned friends. hence their sadness.”
she was lost in dreams for a moment, then she said:
“that is perhaps true.”
then, quickly, she asked choulette if he had finished the portrait of misery on his stick. misery had now become a figure of piety, and choulette recognized the virgin in it. he had even composed a quatrain which he was to write on it in spiral form — a didactic and moral quatrain. he would cease to write, except in the style of the commandments of god rendered into french verses. the four lines expressed simplicity and goodness. he consented to recite them.
therese rested on the balustrade of the terrace and sought in the distance, in the depth of the sea of light, the peaks of vallambrosa, almost as blue as the sky. jacques dechartre looked at her. it seemed to him that he saw her for the first time, such was the delicacy that he discovered in her face, which tenderness and intelligence had invested with thoughtfulness without altering its young, fresh grace. the daylight which she liked, was indulgent to her. and truly she was pretty, bathed in that light of florence, which caresses beautiful forms and feeds noble thoughts. a fine, pink color rose to her well-rounded cheeks; her eyes, bluish-gray, laughed; and when she talked, the brilliancy of her teeth set off her lips of ardent sweetness. his look embraced her supple bust, her full hips, and the bold attitude of her waist. she held her parasol with her left hand, the other hand played with violets. dechartre had a mania for beautiful hands. hands presented to his eyes a physiognomy as striking as the face — a character, a soul. these hands enchanted him. they were exquisite. he adored their slender fingers, their pink nails, their palms soft and tender, traversed by lines as elegant as arabesques, and rising at the base of the fingers in harmonious mounts. he examined them with charmed attention until she closed them on the handle of her umbrella. then, standing behind her, he looked at her again. her bust and arms, graceful and pure in line, her beautiful form, which was like that of a living amphora, pleased him.
“monsieur dechartre, that black spot over there is the boboli gardens, is it not? i saw the gardens three years ago. there were not many flowers in them. nevertheless, i liked their tall, sombre trees.”
it astonished him that she talked, that she thought. the clear sound of her voice amazed him, as if he never had heard it.
he replied at random. he was awkward. she feigned not to notice it, but felt a deep inward joy. his low voice, which was veiled and softened, seemed to caress her. she said ordinary things:
“that view is beautiful, the weather is fine.”
