"
"Well, the chief thing is to enjoy good health. One can wait for better
days."
"Oh! nobody enjoys good health; still one waits all the same."
And now one evening, at the end of the twelve years, as Morange went in
to see her, he detected that the atmosphere of the little drawing-room
was changed, quivering as it were with restrained delight amid the
eternal silence.
"Nothing fresh since yesterday, dear madame?"
"Yes, my friend, there's something fresh."
"Something favorable I hope, then; something pleasant that you have been
waiting for?"
"Something that I have been waiting for--yes! What one knows how to wait
for always comes."
He looked at her in surprise, feeling almost anxious when he saw how
altered she was, with glittering eyes and quick gestures. What fulfilment
of her desires, after so many years of immutable mourning, could have
resuscitated her like that? She smiled, she breathed vigorously, as if
she were relieved of the enormous weight which had so long crushed and
immured her. But when he asked the cause of her great happiness she said:
"I will not tell you yet, my friend. Perhaps I do wrong to rejoice; for
everything is still very vague and doubtful.
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