"No--a book--I went to sleep late."
My ears were burning as though I had held them against a hot stove.
The veranda seemed to be giving way under me. Do you know, at that moment a thought crossed my mind that overwhelmed me? Irinel was only Irinel, but, with my uncle, what courage I should need! How would he, an old man of pious habits, regard in his old age a marriage within the prohibited degree among members of his own family?
Why did he stand in front of me? Why did he look at me like that? He understood me and was appraising me! His look spoke, though his lips most certainly did not move. I heard the words passing through his mind as distinctly as though some one had whispered in my ear:
"I never could have believed, nephew, that you would have turned my child's head! What would your mother say were she alive to see this?"
Why did not my uncle turn away from me? Was he looking at me or elsewhere? What else was there to see? I do not know if the fault was great, but the judge was cruel. And my judge grew bigger, like a Titan, like a wall between me and Irinel. In my ears there rang what I am convinced was the sentence he had secretly passed on me: "What a depraved youth! The old are passing away, and with them disappear the old moral ideas!"
I was ready to sink under my chair. My uncle said to me:
"Iorgu, you have not had any coffee. It seems to me you are not well, are you?"
What irony! Were his words more gentle than before? Useless thought! I understood him. God defend you from a good man who disapproves of you. It's bad enough to feel oneself guilty before a good and upright man.
Why was punishment for mankind invented? Punishment is the reward of sin. I could have wished that my uncle would pronounce his sentence of punishment. But no, he has taken me prisoner, he has judged me and, instead of punishing me, he stoops to give me coffee and two rolls. In all my life I had never experienced a greater agony.
No doubt he had seen us walking silently together, not gaily as we used to do. He understood why Irinel stayed in the house on one or two Sundays. Of course he knew why I did not go to sleep till early dawn, and who knows, he might have heard me calling in my dreams:
"Irinel, Irinel, I love you! Do you love me?"
What would my uncle think of his daughter married to his sister's son? It would mean asking for a dispensation. Would it not be turning such a religious man into an object of derision in his old age? And for what reason? Just through the caprice of a boy whom he had brought up and cared for.
Irinel and I had grown up together more like brother and sister than cousins! If there had only been a question of the civil right! But the laws of the Church! How could one trample them underfoot?
Throughout the week, early in the morning, at night and through the day, at meals and during school hours, this thought occupied my mind!
"It is impossible! It is impossible! I wonder that I did not see that sooner."
About six o'clock on Saturday our old carriage turned into the courtyard; inside was my uncle and by him sat Irinel. From the oak steps of the veranda I watched the white hair and the golden curls and, scarcely able to control my tears, I said to myself: "It is impossible."
Irinel sprang from the carriage and came up to me. She was happy. We kissed each other, but, believe me, she seemed to kiss in the air.
"What's the matter, Iorgu? You are very pale. You are thinner, or does it only seem so to me?"
Before I could answer her my uncle hastened, hastened to say:
"I don't know what's the matter with Iorgu. It seems to me he is ill, but he will not say so."
Oh! Oh! You don't know what is the matter with me, uncle? You don't know what is the matter? It seems to you I am ill? I do not want to tell you? Do you say what is the matter with you? You are a good man, but what a hypocrite----
He thinks I do not understand him.
To Irinel I say gently:
"There is nothing the matter, Irinel. But you, are you well?"
And so it went on--nearly a whole year of depression.
Why should I tell you that I grew thinner and paler, that I often shivered, and with secret pleasure, exaggerated a little cough when I walked in the garden with Irinel? You have seen so many thin and pale men, and you have read so many novels in which consumptive lovers either shoot themselves or throw themselves into the sea, so that if I told you that I grew thinner, that I took to playing billiards, that I began to drink, and that once I drank three half bottles in succession, you would only yawn.
There is nothing remarkable in the love and depression of a nervous person. Who would remain, even for an instant, with a man who suffers in silence? And I kept silence from St. Mary's day to St. Peter's.
"What is the matter with you?"
"Nothing."
"Are you ill?"
"No, uncle; no, dear Irinel."
At last the momentous day arrived! Irinel finished the last year of her education. On the 20th of June she left school for good.
That very day she asked my uncle abruptly to what watering-place we were going, and on hearing came into my room.
Stretched upon my bed, I was reading the wonderful discourse of Cogalniceanu's, printed in front of the "Chronicles." I made up my mind to read law and study literature and history.
When I saw her I jumped up. She whirled round on one foot, and her gown seemed like a big convolvulus; and after this revolution she stopped in front of me, laughing and clapping her hands. She made me a curtsy as she daintily lifted up her skirt on either side between two fingers, and asked me coyly:
"Mon cher cousin, can you guess where we are going to this summer?"
"No, Irinel," I replied, exaggerating the cough which was becoming more and more of a silly habit.
"What will you give me if I tell you?"
And after once more whirling round while her gown swept across my feet, and laughing and clapping, she asked me most sedately:
"Will you kiss my hand with respect, like a grown-up person's, if I tell you?"
"Yes, Irinel."
And the cough again played its part.
"No, you must kiss my hand first."
She held out her hand to me, which I kissed sadly, but with pleasure.
"And now this one!"
"And that one, Irinel."
"To Mehadia! To Mehadia! Won't it be beautiful? I am bored with Slanic."
She ran about the house so quickly that her petticoats worked up above her knees. I blushed; she blushed; then breaking into a silvery laugh she threw herself upon me and said: