Lola came up as I was scribbling this on my knees in the garden.
"What are you writing there?"
"I am recasting Hamlet's soliloquy," I replied, "and I feel all the
better for it."
"Here is your egg and brandy."
I swallowed it and handed her back the glass.
"I feel all the better for that, too."
As I sat in the shade of the little stone summer-house within the Greek
portico, she lingered in the blazing sunshine, a figure all glorious
health and supple curves, and the stray brown hairs above the brown mass
gleamed with the gold of a Giotto aureole. She stood, a duskily glowing,
radiant emblem of life against the background of spring greenery and
rioting convolvulus. I drew a full breath and looked at her as
if magnetised. I had the very oddest sensation. She seemed, in
Shakespearean phrase, to rain influence upon me. As if she read the
stirrings of my blood, she smiled and said:
"After all, confess, isn't it good to be alive?"
A thrill of physical well-being swept through me. I leaped to my feet.
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