...of an officer

It was, in fact, on the occasion of a wedding that she found herself placed at table next to a man like no one she had ever met before, had never even imagined could exist: one of the groomsmen, an officer wearing a midnight-blue tunic with red braid anchors embroidered on the collar, his expression (with his square beard, his moustaches waxed to points, his transparent, liquid, china-blue eyes in a sunburned face, his manners not so much taciturn as reserved, deliberate) rather like that of a disciplined barbarian, stamped with a tranquil assurance which, it too, was the contrary of what was betrayed by the little songs and quatrains scribbled on the backs of those postcards she was collecting less for the gratification of a much-courted young lady than in the way others collect stamps or match covers. Subsequently, when in his turn he sent postcards to her, mailed from almost everywhere in the world, he soberly confined himself to writing his name under three figures indicating the day, the month, and the year - as if he were already certain of the uselessness, if not even the indecency, of any discourse, as if doubtless she as well had already reached that stage where a date and a name (the first one's, for form's sake, with the signature preceded by "warmest thought," then "best regards," then "faithfully," then nothing more than the name...) sufficed - just as no doubt they did not say much to each other that first time, talking about anything at all except themselves, neither one of them hearing, listening further to what they were saying, perhaps even avoiding looking at each other, while, deafened by the vague racket of the conversations and the clatter of crystal and silver that surrounded them...

[The Acacia, Simon, C.]