Summer

by Romain Rolland

On the half-light of the room, with its closed shutters, Annette was sitting on her bed, smiling, with her white dressing-gown wrapped about her. Her unbound hair, which she had just washed, covered her shoulders. Through the open windows could be seen the motionless, golden warmth of an August mid-afternoon; without observing it, one felt out there the torpor of the Jardin de Boulogne sleeping in the sunlight. Annette shared in this beatitude.