"
She was probably the only person in the world who could say it; the
only one who could see in his countenance the face of the youth of
twenty-three, as a practised eye detects, under a palimpsest, the
effaced, almost invisible characters of the original writing. For her,
his former wealth of brown locks still waved in the place of the
closely cut, thin grey hair; she saw the bushy moustache fine and
curled, the wrinkled skin ruddy and smooth, the somewhat corpulent
figure slender and pliant; she transferred to the man of fifty before
her, feature by feature, the image which lived in her faithful memory,
transfigured and handsomer than the reality had ever been. And Rudolf
did the same. His imagination effaced the little wrinkles around her
eyes and mouth, restored to those dim black eyes the sparkle and
mirthfulness of youth, developed, from the somewhat fleshy outlines,
the graceful forms of the cheeks, chin, neck, bust, which he had once
beheld and loved, recognized the raven braids which alone had lost none
of their beauty, and saw in the faded woman the blooming girl,
surrounded by all the magic of her nineteen years, whom he had left
twenty-seven years ago.
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