Each was to self a stifling secret.
Like all human beings, like me, like us, they wished for what they did not have.

They were beggars.

But they asked /themselves/ for charity.
They asked for help from their /own/ persons.
The boy, a man already, impoverished already by his feminine companion, turned, drawn towards her, and held out his awkward arms, without daring to look at her.
The girl, a woman already, leaned her face on the back of the sofa, her eyes shining.

Her cheeks were plump and rosy, tinted and warmed by her heart.

The skin of her neck, taut and satiny, quivered.