She never
relinquished her soul, never fell into confidence, so in a sense we
always remained strangers, for it is when lovers tell their illusions
and lonelinesses that they know each other, the fiercest spasm tells
us little, and it is forgotten, whereas the moment when a woman sighs
and breaks into a simple confidence is remembered years afterwards,
and brings her before us though she be underground or a thousand miles
away. These intimacies she had not, but there was something true and
real in her, something which I cannot find words to express to-day;
she was a clever woman, that was it, and that is why I pay her the
homage of an annual visit. These courteous visits began twenty years
ago; they are not always pleasant, yet I endure them. Our conversation
is often laboured, there are awkward and painful pauses, and during
these pauses we sit looking at each other, thinking no doubt of the
changes that time has wrought. One of her chief charms was her
figure--one of the prettiest I have ever seen--and she still retains a
good deal of its grace. But she shows her age in her hands; they have
thickened at the joints, and they were such beautiful hands. Last year
she spoke of herself as an old woman, and the remark seemed to me
disgraceful and useless, for no man cares to hear a woman whom he has
loved call herself old; why call attention to one's age, especially
when one does not look it? and last year she looked astonishingly
young for fifty-five; that was her age, she said.
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