Such were my studious and retired habits in my little room. I wished for nothing more; my desire to enter on some career was in truth but my mother's ambition for me, and the regret of expending the price of her diamond, without some compensation in my bettered condition. If at that time I had been offered an embassy to quit Paris, and a palace to leave my truckle-bed in the ante-room, I would have closed my eyes not to see, and my ears not to listen to Fortune. I was too happy in my obscurity, thanks to the ray, invisible to others, which warmed and illumined my darkness.
My happiness dawned as the day declined. I habitually dined at home alone in my cell, and my repast generally consisted of a slice of boiled meat, some salad, and bread. I drank water only, to save the expense of even a little wine, so necessary to correct the insipid and often unwholesome water of Paris. By this means, twenty sous a day paid for my dinner, and this meal was sufficient not only for myself but to feed the dog who had adopted me. After dinner, I used to throw myself on my bed, overcome by the application and solitude of the day, and strove thus to abridge by sleep the long, dark hours which yet divided me from the moment when time commenced for me. These were hours which young men of my age spend in theatres, public places, or the expensive amusements of a capital, as I had done before my transformation. I generally awaked about eleven, and then dressed with the simplicity of a young man whose good looks and figure set off his plain attire. I was always neatly shod, besides having white linen and a black coat, carefully brushed by my own hands, which I buttoned up to the throat, after the fashion of the young disciples of the schools of the Middle Ages. A military cloak, whose ample folds were thrown over my left shoulder, preserved my dress from being splashed in the streets, and, on the whole, my plain and unpretending costume, which neither aspired to elegance nor betrayed my distress, admitted of my passing from my solitude to a drawing-room without either attracting or offending the eye of the indifferent. I always went on foot; for the price of one evening's coach-hire would have cost me a day of my life of love. I walked on the pavement, keeping close along the walls to avoid the contact of carriage-wheels, and proceeded slowly on tip-toe for fear of the mud, which in a well-lighted drawing-room would have betrayed the humble pedestrian. I was in no hurry, for I knew that Julie received every evening some of her husband's friends, and I preferred waiting till the last carriage had driven away before I knocked. This reserve on my part arose not only from the fear of the remarks which might be made concerning my constant presence in the house of so young and lovely a woman, but, above all, from my dislike to share with others her looks and words. It seemed to me that each of those with whom she was obliged to keep up a conversation robbed me of some part of her presence or her mind. To see her, to hear her, and not to possess her alone, were often a harder trial to me than not to see her at all.
LXXI.
To pass away the time I used to walk from one end to the other of a bridge which crossed the Seine nearly opposite to the house where Julie lived. How many thousand times I have reckoned the boards of that bridge, which resounded beneath my feet! How many copper coins I have thrown, as I passed and repassed, into the tin cup of the poor blind man, who was seated through rain or snow on the parapet of that bridge! I prayed that my mite which rung in the heart of the poor, and from thence in the ear of God, might purchase for me in return a long and secure evening, and the departure of some intruder who delayed my happiness.
Julie, who knew my dislike to meeting strangers at her house, had devised with me a signal which should inform me from afar of the presence or absence of visitors in her little drawing-room. When they were numerous, the two inside shutters of the window were closed, and I could only see a faint streak of light glimmering between the two leaves; when there were one or two familiar friends, on the point of leaving, one shutter was opened; and at last, when all were gone, the two shutters were thrown open, the curtains withdrawn, and I could see from the opposite quay the light of the lamp which stood on the little table, where she read or worked while expecting me. I never lost sight of that distant ray, which was visible and intelligible for me alone, amid the thousand lights of windows, lamps, shops, carriages, and cafés, and among all those avenues of fixed or wandering fires which illumine at night the buildings and the horizon of Paris. All other illuminations no longer existed for me,—there was no other light on earth, no other star in the firmament but that small window, which seemed like an open eye seeking me out in darkness, and on which my eyes, my thoughts, my soul, were ever and solely bent. O incomprehensible power of the infinite nature of man, which can fill the universal space and think it too confined; or can be concentrated in one bright speck shining through the river mists, amid the ocean of fires of a vast city, and feel its desires, feelings, intelligence, and love bounded by that small spark which scarce outshines the glowworm of a summer's evening! How often have I thus thought as I paced the bridge, muffled in my cloak! How often have I exclaimed, as I gazed at that oval window shining in the distance: Let all the fires of earth be quenched, let all the luminous globes of the firmament be extinguished, but may that feeble light—the mysterious star of our two lives—shine on forever; its glimmering would illumine countless worlds, and suffice my eyes through all eternity!
Alas, since then I have seen this star of my youth expire, this burning focus of my eyes and heart extinguished! I have seen the shutters of the window closed for many a long year on the funereal darkness of that little room. One year, one day, I saw them once more opened. I looked to see who dared to live where she had lived before; and then I saw, in summer time, at that same window, bathed in sunshine and adorned with flowers, a young woman whom I did not know playing and smiling with a new-born child, unconscious that she played upon a grave, that her smiles were turned to tears in the eyes of a passer-by, and that so much life seemed as a mockery of death…. Since then, at night, I have returned; and every year I still return, approach that wall with faltering steps, and touch that door; and then I sit on the stone bench, and watch the lights, and listen to the voices from above. I sometimes fancy that I see the light reflected from her lamp; that I hear the tones of her voice; that I can knock at that door; that she expects me; that I can go in—…O Memory, art thou a gift from Heaven, or pain of Hell!…But I resume my story, since you, my friend, desire it.
LXXII.
The day after my arrival, Julie had introduced me to the old man, who was to her a father, and whose latter days she brightened with the radiance of her mind, her tenderness, and her beauty. He received me as a son. He had learned from her our meeting in Savoy, our fraternal attachment, our daily correspondence, and the affinity of our minds, as shown by the conformity of our tastes, ages, and feelings. He knew the entire purity of our attachment, and felt no jealousy, or any anxiety, save for the life, the happiness, and reputation of his ward. He only feared she might have been attracted and deceived by that first look, which is sometimes a revelation, and sometimes a delusion of the young, and that she might have bestowed her heart on a man of the creation of her fancy. My letters, from which she had read him several passages, had somewhat reassured him, but it was only from my countenance he could learn whether they were an artful or natural expression of my feelings; for style may deceive, but the countenance never can.
The old man surveyed me with that anxious attention which is often concealed under an appearance of momentary abstraction. But as he saw me more, and questioned me, I could see his searching look clear up, betray an inward satisfaction, soften gradually into one of confidence and good-will, and rest upon me with that security and caress of the eye, which though a mute is perhaps the best reception at a first interview. My ardent desire to please him; the timidity so natural to a young man, who feels that the fate of his heart depends on the judgment passed upon him; the fear that it might not be favorable; the presence of Julie, which disconcerted though it encouraged me; and all the shades of thought so plainly legible in my modest attitude and my flushed cheeks,—spoke in my favor better than I could have done myself. The old man took my hand with a paternal gesture, and said, "Compose yourself; and consider that you have two friends in this house, instead of one. Julie could not have better chosen a brother, and I would not choose another son." He embraced me, and we talked together as if he had known me from my childhood, until an old servant came at ten o'clock, according to his invariable custom, to give him the help of his arm on the stair, and lead him back to his own apartment.