The first of these days⁠—to which the snow, a symbol of the powers that were able to deprive me of the sight of Gilberte, imparted the sadness of a day of separation, almost the aspect of a day of departure, because it changed the outward form and almost forbade the use of the customary scene of our only encounters, now altered, covered, as it were, in dust-sheets⁠—that day, none the less, marked a stage in the progress of my love, for it was, in a sense, the first sorrow that she was to share with me.