Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 2, 2025
He looked at the girl and then at Albine, as though he were comparing them one with the other. Albine pulled up one of her sleeves, as if to show that her arm was whiter than that of the pictured girl. Then they subsided into silence again, and gazed at the painting; and for a moment Albine's large blue eyes turned to Serge's grey ones, which were glowing.
But the brambles now lay scattered around like severed bits of rope, the stones had been thrown some distance away, and the breach itself seemed to have been enlarged by some furious hand. 'Ah! I felt sure of it, cried Albine, in accents of supreme despair. 'I begged you to take me away Serge, I beseech you, don't look through it.
'Don't you hear? asked Albine, nervously, as she suddenly stopped short, almost breathless. Serge listened, a prey, in his turn, to the anxiety which the girl could no longer conceal. 'All the coppice seems full of voices, she continued. 'It sounds as though there were people deriding us. Listen! Wasn't that a laugh that sounded from that tree?
'You love me no longer! Albine repeated once more. 'Yes, I do love you. I suffered grievously the other day after I had driven you away.... Oh! I loved you with such passion that, had you come back and thrown yourself in my arms, I should almost have crushed you to death.... And for hours your image remained present before me.
Between the three willows the meadow-land sloped down to the stream, and some crimson poppies had sprung up in the crevices of the decaying old trunks. The foliage of the willows looked like a tent of greenery fixed upon three stakes by the water's edge, beside a rolling prairie. 'This is the place, cried Albine, 'this is the place; and she glided beneath the willows.
When Albine had opened the shutters, behind the large curtains, the genial yellow glow once more warmed a patch of the white calico. But that which impelled Serge to sit up in bed was the sight of the shadowy bough, the branch that for him heralded the return of life.
And when he saw Albine shrug her shoulders with a weary air, he added, in a teasing kind of way, 'You have got tired of looking for your tree, then? They joked about the tree all day and made fun of it. It didn't exist. It was only a nursery-story. Yet they both spoke of it with a slight feeling of awe.
And as they went along, the garden became gradually graver, more discreet; the soughing of the branches died away, the streams hushed their plashing waters, the birds, the beasts, and the insects fell into silence. All around them reigned solemn stillness. Then Albine and Serge instinctively raised their heads.
Albine, however, again touched him on the shoulder. She was growing uneasy and angry. 'Why do you not speak to me? she asked. 'You can't refuse; you will come with me? Remember that I shall die if you refuse. But no! you can't; it is impossible. We lived together once; it was vowed that we should never separate. Twenty times, at least, did you give yourself to me.
Or, at other times, with Duna and Bundas bounding before her, disappearing, returning, disappearing again with yelps of joy, it was Marsa's delight to wander alone under the great limes of the Albine avenue shade over her head, silence about her and then slowly, by way of a little alley bordered with lofty poplars trembling at every breath of wind, to reach the borders of the forest.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking