...of a declaration

He held her close to him, without speaking. He did not need to tell her that he loved her. That single cry, that instant transformation of his whole being, that rise and fall of the breast upon which she reposed so trustfully, that touch of the finger-tips upon her hair - all told her that he loved her. He was silent, and she asked no word of him. 'He is here, he loves me...what else is there?' The calm of utter blessedness, the calm of the quiet harbour, of the goal achieved, that divine calm in which death itself finds meaning and beauty, surged over her like a heavenly wave. She asked for nothing because she had everything. 'My brother, my friend, my beloved,' she whispered, and she herself did not know whose heart it was, his or her own, that throbbed and melted away so sweetly in her breast.

[One The Eve, Turgenev, I. S.]