Free Accident by Mihail Sebastian Page B

few tall lilac branches passed, was a girl struggling to break a branch.
    Paul stopped on the spot, afraid of startling her, and hid behind a street lamp, from where he could watch without being seen. He might have taken her for a schoolgirl had she not been dressed with the elegance of a lady. She wore a grey suit, a grey hat with a white brim, white antelope pumps. Below, on the door’s stone ledge, a handbag of the same antelope skin as the pumps had been discarded to allow her to keep her hands free.
    Paul recognized her without difficulty as Ann, although he found it difficult to believe that it was she. Reaching up on the toes of her pumps on the stone ledge, one hand gripping the bars of the door, with the other she fought to grasp the lilac branch, which was beyond her reach. The skirt of her suit slid up above her knees, a rounded, delicate pair of knees that could have belonged to an adolescent girl. The street was empty, although from one moment to the next someone could come along, even if it weren’t the owner of the property that was being plundered. The branch gave way at
last, a large branch with dense, violet bouquets. The girl jumped onto the sidewalk, without hurry, without emotion, shook the sleeves of her jacket down to her wrists, picked up her handbag, looked up the street, then finally, with the lilac branch in her arms, with her blond head concealed among the flowers – although her high forehead poked up above them – she set off boldly up the street with her small, decisive steps.
    Paul watched her move away and it seemed to him as if a train of light hung in her wake. He, too, felt younger. The season, about which he had forgotten, came back to him. The girl’s slight craziness had brought a little light into his day. He would have liked to rush after her to thank her, to kiss her hand; but her let her cross unimpeded at the corner and disappear. Even so, he felt the need to send her a word of warm greeting, the first since he had met her. He remembered that nearby, in PiaÅ£a Senatului, there was a florist. He went in and bought all the lilacs he could find, to the astonishment of the sales clerk, who told him, certainly without irony: “If you need any more, we can get them for you.”
    Furthermore, they were unexpectedly cheap, and with the few hundred lei he had left, Paul bought the whole garden and sent it to Ann, leaves and all, along with a few words written in haste on the back of his business card: Next time you want lilacs, be more careful. If you need a lawyer (articles 306 and 308 of the penal code: “He who takes in a concealed manner an object belonging to another commits theft. Theft is punished with a prison term of between 15 days and two years ...”) I am at your disposal .
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    â€œYou don’t know how ashamed I am,” Ann said to him two days later, receiving him at her home. “If I’d known you were watching me, I would have died of mortification on the spot, with my hands on the door. You’re a man I’ve always been a little afraid of. I don’t know why: don’t ask me why.”
    The apartment was full of lilacs that had been delivered the previous evening. Those that didn’t fit in the flower vases had been placed in jugs of water, in glasses, on the table, on the shelves, in the window.

    â€œI’ll always keep them here. When they wither, I’ll put others in their place. And it’s possible they won’t even wither.”
    She wore a simple navy blue dress with a white collar, which gave her the appearance of a schoolgirl.
    â€œAre you really that young?”
    â€œAre you really that old? I’m afraid of you. I’ve always been afraid of you. You’re so gloomy, so absent! When you say hello to me on the street – and you don’t always say hello – I have the impression that you don’t even see me.”
    She spoke quickly, seemingly afraid of his