In the evening we went to prepare our tree: it was in a lovely copse, a quarter of a league or so from the pretty village of Haramont, which I have since attempted to make famous in Ange Pitou and Conscience l'innocent. At the foot of this tree, all whose branches we cut off, to make way for our lime twigs, we built a hut of branches and covered it with fern fronds, Next day, we were at our post before daybreak; when the sun rose and shone on our stiff tree, we found the sport had begun. It was a strange thing that, although when younger I had taken such pleasure in this sport that I often lay sleepless the night before, this present snaring had no power to distract my heart from the anguish weighing upon it.
O Sorrow, thou sublime mystery by which a man's spirit is raised and his soul expanded! Sorrow, without which there would be no poetry, for poetry is nearly always made up of joy and hope in equal parts, with an equivalent amount of sorrow!
Sorrow, which leaves its trace for life; a furrow moistened by tears, whence Prayer springs, the mother of those three heavenly, noble daughters, whose names are Faith, Hope and Charity! The benediction of a poet is ever thine, O Sorrow!
We had taken bread and wine with us; we had breakfasted and had dinner; the catch was plentiful, and would have been entirely satisfactory at any other time. We had reached the day's end, the hour when the blackbird whistles or the robin sings, when the first shadows creep silently to the heart of the wood;—suddenly I was startled from my reverie (if one can so call a formless chaos of thoughts through which no light had shone) by the sharp sound of a violin and by happy shouts of laughter. Violin and laughter came nearer, and I soon began to see through the trees that a player and a wedding party were coming from Haramont and going towards Villers-Cotterets; they were taking a narrow side-path, and would pass within twenty paces of me—young girls in white dresses, youths in blue or black clothes, with large bouquets and streaming ribbons.
I put my head out of our hut and uttered a cry. This wedding party was Adèle's! The young girl with the white veil and the bouquet of orange blossom who walked in front, and gave her arm to her husband, was Adèle! Her aunt lived at Haramont. After mass they had been to the wedding breakfast with the aunt; they had gone by the high road in the morning; they were returning at night by the shorter way. This short cut, as I have said, ran within twenty paces of our hut. What I had fled from had come to find me! Adèle did not see me; she did not know that she was passing near me: she was leaning against the shoulder of the man to whom she now belonged in the eyes of man and of God, while he had his arm round her waist and held her closely to him.
I gazed for a long time on that file of white dresses which, in the growing darkness, looked like a procession of ghosts. I heaved a sigh when it had disappeared. My first dream had just vanished, my first illusion been shattered!
[CHAPTER VIII]
I leave Villers-Cotterets to be second or third clerk at Crespy—M. Lefèvre—His character—My journeys to Villers-Cotterets—The Pélerinage à Ermenonville—Athénaïs—New matter sent to Adolphe—An uncontrollable desire to pay a visit to Paris—How this desire was accomplished—The journey—Hôtel des Vieux-Augustins—Adolphe-Sylla—Talma