Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - On the bright shore.djvu/29

 a soft voice; "for though everything which is good in me were more stifled than it is, it would bloom out afresh were I near you, so much depends on those with whom one associates—I should like to say something; but I am afraid—"

"Say it."

"You will not think me fanciful, or even worse? I am not fanciful; I talk like a sober-minded woman who states only that which is real, and looks at things coolly. At your side, for example, I should regain my former spirit, as calm and collected as when I was a girl; and now I am almost a grandmother—thirty-five years of age."

Svirski looked at her with a clear face, very nearly in love; then he raised her hand slowly to his lips, and said,—

"Ah! In comparison with me you are really a child. Forty-eight is my age—and that is my picture!" said he, pointing to the setting sun.

She began to gaze at that light which was reflected in her shining eyes, and said, in a