Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XI).djvu/132

Rh morrow which was to bring him new, unknown happiness! It was as though a veil, a delicate, bright veil, hung faintly fluttering before his mental vision; and behind this veil he felt felt the presence of a youthful, motionless, divine image, with a tender smile on its lips, and eyelids severely—with affected severity—downcast. And this image was not the face of Gemma, it was the face of happiness itself! For, behold, at last his hour had come, the veil had vanished, the lips were parting, the eyelashes are raised—his divinity has looked upon him—and at once light as from the sun, and joy and bliss unending! He dreamed of this morrow—and his soul thrilled with joy again in the melting torture of ever-growing expectation!

And this expectation, this torture, hindered nothing. It accompanied every action, and did not prevent anything. It did not prevent him from dining capitally at a third inn with Emil; and only occasionally, like a brief flash of lightning, the thought shot across him, What if any one in the world knew? This suspense did not prevent him from playing leap-frog with Emil after dinner. The game took place on an open green lawn. And the confusion, the stupefaction of Sanin may be imagined! At the very moment when,