"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----
"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.