1
rose's profile stands out in relief against the dark velvet of the box. her soft, fair hair parts into two waves that are like two streams of honey following the curve of her cheek. her long neck is very white in the black gown that frames it; and her gloved hands rest near the fan that lies opened on her knees like a swan's wing. she is sitting straight up, with her eyes fixed in front of her. her attitude is as dignified and cold as a circlet of brilliants on a beautiful forehead.
i am alone, at the back of the box. i prefer to listen like that, in the shadow, unseen. is not the attention of a woman who is anything of a coquette, that slight, fitful attention, always affected a little by the thought, however unconscious, of the effect which she is producing?
2
i am struck by the general attitude of reverence. in the great silence through which the music swells, the lives of all those present seem penetrated with harmony.
i look at them as at so many open temples, which their thoughts have deserted in order to join one another in an invisible communion. there is a kind of homage in the bent heads and lowered eyes of the men. the women are silent. the fans cease fluttering. the souls of the audience are uplifted like the silent instruments of a human symphony that mysteriously rises and rises till it mingles with the other and is absorbed in it. if some part of us exists beyond words and forms, if our thought sometimes floats in regions of pure mentality, is it not this principle deprived of consciousness which bathes in the tremulous waves of sound?
3
and rose is also listening. but rose listens without hearing. she, whom the most beautiful things leave unmoved, here preserves an appearance of absolute
attention better than any one else in the audience. she listens in that passive manner which is characteristic of her nature. she lives a waking sleep. there is no consciousness, no effort, but neither any desire.
when the orchestra fills the house with a song of gladness, i forget my anxiety and let my imagination soar into its heights and weave romances around that strange, cold beauty; but, if the music stops, if rose moves or speaks, then it comes to earth again with some simple little plan, quite practical and quite ordinary.
4
she leant forward and i saw glittering under the electric lamp the little silver chain which she wore round her neck on the day when i saw her first, in the normandy cornfields, standing amid the tall golden sheaves; and, as i recalled that first impression, the difference between then and now came like a blinding flash. in the cool morning breeze, the sickles advance with the sound and the surge of waves; and the golden expanse bows before the oncoming death. the sky is blue, the village steeple
shimmers in the sunlight, a great calm reigns ... and a woman stands there, bending over the ground. what have i done? what have i done? was not everything better so?
