We cannot
know what to-morrow may bring."
This she remembered suddenly with all her heart.
"Come nearer to me, Fanny. Why are you sitting so far away?"
She sat down nearer to him; she put all her fingers tightly round his
wrist.
"I am not always sure that you are there, Julien; that you exist."
"Yet I am substantial enough."
"No, you are most phantom-like. It is the thought of parting that checks
my earnestness; as though I had an impulse to save myself. It is the
thought of parting that turns you into a ghost, already parted with;
that sheds a light of unreality over you when I am distant. Something in
me makes ready for that parting, flees from you, and I cannot stay it,
steals itself, and I cannot break through it. I have known you so short
a time. I have had nothing but pleasure from you; isn't it possible that
I can escape without pain?"
"Is it?"
"No, no, no!" She laid her cheek upon his hand. "Do something to make it
easier. Must it be that when you go you go completely? Promise me at
least that it will be gradual, that you will try to see me when you have
taken up your other life."
"But if I can't? If you are ordered back to Metz?"
"Why should I be? But, if I am, promise me that you will try. If it is
only an artifice, beguile me with it; I will believe in any promise."
"You don't need to ask me to promise; you know you don't need to make me
promise.
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