LI.
How long were the two months that I had to pass away from Julie in my father's house, before the time came that I could join her in Paris! During the last three or four months, I had exhausted the allowance I received from my father, the secret resources of my mother's indulgence, and the purse of my friends, to pay the debts that dissipation, play, and my travels had made me contract. I had no means of obtaining the small sum I required to go to Paris, and to live there even in seclusion and penury, and was obliged to wait till the month of January, when my quarter's allowance from my father became due. At that time of the year, too, I was in the habit of receiving some little presents from a rich but severe old uncle, and from some good and prudent old aunts. By means of all these resources, I hoped to collect a sum of six or eight hundred francs, which would be sufficient to keep me in Paris for a few months. Privations would be no trial to my vanity, for my life consisted only in my love. All the riches of this world could, in my eyes, only have served to purchase for me the portion of the day that I was to pass with her.
The weary days of expectation were filled with thoughts of her. We devoted to each other every hour of our time. In the morning, on waking, she retired to her room to write to me, and at the same instant I, too, was writing to her; our pages and our thoughts crossed on the road by every post, questioning, answering, and mingling without a day's interruption. There were thus in reality for us only a few hours' absence; in the evening and at night. But even these I consecrated to her: I was surrounded with her letters,—they lay open upon the table, my bed was strewn with them; I learned them by heart. I often repeated to myself the most affecting and impassioned passages, adding in fancy her voice, her gesture, her tone, her look; I would answer her, and thus succeed in producing such a complete delusion of her real presence, that I felt impatient and annoyed when I was summoned to meals, or interrupted by visitors; at these times it seemed as though she were torn from me, or driven away from my room. In my long rambles on the mountains, or in those misty plains without an horizon which border the Saône, I always took her last letter with me, and would sit on the rocks, or on the edge of the water, amid the ice and snow, to read it over and over again. Each time I fancied I discovered some word or expression that had escaped my notice before. I remember that I always instinctively directed my course towards the north, as if each step I took in the direction of Paris brought me nearer to her, and diminished the cruel distance that separated us. Sometimes I went very far on the Paris road under this impression, and when it was time to return, I had always a severe struggle with myself. I felt sorrowful, and would often look back towards that point of the horizon where she dwelt, and walk slowly and heavily home. Oh, how I envied the snow-laden wings of the crows that flew northward through the mist! What a pang I felt as I saw the carriages rolling towards Paris! How many of my useless days of youth would I not have given to be in the place of one of those listless old men who glanced unconcernedly through their carriage windows at the solitary youth by the wayside, whose steps travelled in the contrary direction to his heart. Oh, how interminably long did the short days of December and January appear! There was one bright hour for me, among all my hours,—it was when I heard from my room the step, the voice, and the rattle of the postman, who was distributing the letters in the neighborhood. As soon as I heard him I opened my window; I saw him coming up the street, with his hands full of letters, which he distributed to all the maid-servants, and waited at each door till he received the postage. How I cursed the slowness of the good women, who seemed never to have done reckoning the change into his hand! Before the postman rang at my fathers door I had already flown downstairs, crossed the vestibule, and stood panting at the door. While the old man fumbled among his letters, I strove to discover the envelope of fine post paper, and the pretty English handwriting that distinguished my treasure among all the coarse papers and clumsy superscriptions of commercial or vulgar letters. I seized it with a trembling hand; my eyes swam, my heart beat, and my legs refused their office. I hid the letter in my bosom for fear of meeting some one on the stairs; and lest so frequent a correspondence should appear suspicious to my mother, I would run into my room and bolt my door, so as to devour the pages at leisure, without fear of interruption. How many tears and kisses I impressed on the paper! Alas, when many years afterwards I opened the volume of these letters, how many words effaced by my lips, and that my tears or my transports had washed or torn out, were wanting to the sense of many sentences!