Second Part Chapter 52

MME. GASTON TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE
The Chalet.

So, after a silence of two years, you are pricked by curiosity, and
want to know why I have not written. My dear Renee, there are no
words, no images, no language to express my happiness. That we have
strength to bear it sums up all I could say. It costs us no effort,
for we are in perfect sympathy.

The whole two years have known no note
of discord in the harmony, no jarring word in the interchange of
feeling, no shade of difference in our lightest wish. Not one in this
long succession of days has failed to bear its own peculiar fruit; not
a moment has passed without being enriched by the play of fancy. So
far are we from dreading the canker of monotony in our life, that our
only fear is lest it should not be long enough to contain all the
poetic creations of a love as rich and varied in its development as
Nature herself.

Of disappointment not a trace! We find more pleasure
in being together than on the first day, and each hour as it goes by
discloses fresh reason for our love. Every day as we take our evening
stroll after dinner, we tell each other that we really must go and see
what is doing in Paris, just as one might talk of going to
Switzerland.

"Only think," Gaston will exclaim, "such and such a boulevard is being
made, the Madeleine is finished. We ought to see it. Let us go
to-morrow." And to-morrow comes, and we are in no hurry to get up, and we
breakfast in our bedroom. Then midday is on us, and it is too hot; a
siesta seems appropriate. Then Gaston wishes to look at me, and he
gazes on my face as though it were a picture, losing himself in this
contemplation, which, as you may suppose, is not one-sided. Tears rise
to the eyes of both as we think of our love and tremble. I am still
the mistress, pretending, that is, to give less than I receive, and I
revel in this deception.