However, he had not yet seen _Her_. My radiant Raymonde would restore order in my heart. We were to take luncheon at the lodge before going to the mayor’s office. The religious ceremony was to be celebrated on the following day. Raymonde appeared in her plain street dress, almost entirely devoid of trimming or ornament, and for the first time I noticed those faults in attire which cost youth so little. “She is charming,” Ducal said to me in an undertone. “She has a little gown--” He hesitated a moment, then continued: “A delightful little gown. My compliments.” In words such as these the sneer is as plain as day, and I tasted its poison. It spoiled my pleasure. Why should I have attached any significance to what he said? I was like a mediocre artist or savant, who, not completely absorbed in his work, keeps his ears open for external sounds, for the voice of the critics, of rivals and of public opinion. The most beautiful love that could have illumined my youth did not shield me from such petty slights. Oh, dissipations of time and energy! Why must we perceive the greatest wonder of this life, that we can live but once, only when it has been put irreparably beyond our reach, when, like some perfect form arrested in the marble, or cloaked by night we cannot see it moving past? * * * My farmers, woodcutters and the neighbouring peasants, who adored M. Mairieux, but for whom I was a distant and puzzling landlord, had, during the night, covered with branches of fir trees the road which led from the lodge to the little church. They had despoiled the borders of the forest, in order that on this day of festivity we might walk on green boughs. It was late autumn in the forest, bare of leaves, but on the road it was spring. And in our hearts? Ah! Mine would have burst with joy, with that sheer joy which no impurity can spot, if Pierre Ducal had not been there. But he was there, piercing the least detail with his gimlet eyes. I should have been indifferent to him, and I hated him. He absorbed part of my attention, he prevented me from abandoning myself without reserve to the current of my love. Raymonde, her Book of Hours in her hand, slender and delicate, the contour of her face and the varying shades of gold in her hair softened despite the sunlight by her veil, looked in her white dress like one of those old missal pictures so radiant that it stands out from a golden background. Knowing the delicacy of her feelings I expected to see her agitated, but inwardly and outwardly she was peace. And seeing her thus I recalled the words she had said to me: “My Soul is so high that I can hardly hold it down.” I almost looked for wings, and it seemed to me that I could hear them beat. The first time I made a flight in my aeroplane, I distinctly saw a vision of Raymonde on the road strewn with foliage for the procession.