Raphael; Or, Pages of the Book of Life at Twenty

by Alphonse de Lamartine

Again, who was this woman? Was she a being like myself, or one of those visions which, like living meteors, shoot athwart the sky of our imagination, dazzling the eye? Was she of my own country, or from some distant land, from some island of the tropics, or the far East, whither I could not follow her? After adoring her for a few days, might I not have to mourn forever her absence? Was her heart free to respond to mine? Was it likely that enthralling beauty such as hers should have traversed the world and reached maturity without kindling love in some of those upon whom the glance of her eye had fallen? Had she a father or a mother, brothers or sisters? Was she not married? Was there not one man in the world who, though separated from her by inexplicable circumstances, lived for her only, as she lived for him?

All this I said to myself, to drive away this one besetting, hopeless fancy. I scorned even to make inquiries. I was too much of a stoic to strive to penetrate the unknown, and thought it more dignified, or perhaps more pleasant, to go on dreaming in uncertainty.

IX.

The old doctor and his family had not the pride of heart that induced me to respect her secret. At table our hosts, with the curiosity natural to all those who live by strangers, would interpret every circumstance, discuss every probability, and collect even the vaguest notions concerning the stranger. I soon learned all that had transpired respecting her, although I never interrogated and even studiously avoided making her the subject of our discourse. In vain I sought to turn the conversation into another channel; every day the same subject recurred; men, women, children, bathers, and servants, the guides of the mountains, and the boatmen on the lake, had all been equally struck and charmed by her, although she spoke to no one. She was an object of universal respect and admiration.

There are some beings who, by their dazzling radiance, draw all around them into their sphere of attraction without desiring or even perceiving it. It seems as though certain natures were like the suns of some moral system, obliging the looks, thoughts, and hearts of their satellites to gravitate around them. Their moral and physical beauty is a spell, their fascination a chain, love is but their emanation. We track their upward course from earth to heaven, and when they vanish in their youth and beauty, all else seems dark to the eye that has been blinded by their brilliancy. The vulgar, even, recognize these superior beings by some mysterious sign. They admire without comprehending, as the blind enjoy the sunshine, who have never seen the sun.

X.

It was thus I learned that the young stranger lived in Paris. Her husband was an old man, who had rendered his name illustrious, at the close of the last century, by many discoveries which held a high place in the history of science. He had been struck with the beauty and talent of this young girl, and had adopted her in order to bequeath to her his name and fortune. She loved him as a father, wrote to him every day, and sent him a journal of her feelings and impressions. Two years ago she had fallen into a declining state, which had alarmed him. She had been recommended to remove southward and try change of air, and her husband, being too infirm to accompany her, had confided her to the care of some friends from Lausanne, with whom she had travelled all over Italy and Switzerland. The change had not restored her to health, and a Genevese doctor, fearing a disease of the heart, had recommended the baths of Aix; he was to come to fetch her, and take her back to Paris at the beginning of the winter.

This was all I learned of a life already so dear. Still I persisted in fancying that all these details were indifferent to me. I felt a tender pity for this enchanting and beautiful being, blighted in the flower of youth by a disease which, while it consumes life, renders the sensations more acute and stimulates the flame which it is destined to extinguish. When I met the stranger on the staircase, I sought to discover the trace of her sufferings in the scarcely perceptible lines of pain round her somewhat pale lips, or in the dark circle which want of sleep had left round her beautiful blue eyes. I was interested by her beauty, but still more by the shadow of death by which she was overcast, and which made her appear more as a phantom of the night than as a reality. This was all. Our lives rolled on; we continued to live in close proximity as far as distance was concerned, but morally, as widely separated as ever.

XI.

I had given up my mountain excursions since the snow had fallen on the highest peaks of Savoy, for the gentle warmth of the latter days of October seemed to have taken refuge in the valley; and on the banks of the lake the weather was still mild. The long avenue of poplars was my delight, with its gleams of sunshine, waving tops, and murmuring branches. I spent, also, a great part of my time on the water. The boatmen all knew me, and I am told they still remember how we used to sail into the wildest creeks and remotest bays of France and Savoy. The young stranger, too, would sometimes embark in the middle of the day for less distant expeditions. The boatmen, who were proud of her confidence, always took care to give her notice of the least symptom of wind or cold weather, thinking far more of her health and safety than of their own gains. On one occasion, however, they were themselves deceived. They had undertaken to row her safely over to Haute-Combe, on the opposite shore of the lake, in order to visit the ruins of the Abbey. They had scarcely got over two-thirds of the distance, when a sudden gust of wind, rushing forth from the narrow gorges of the valley of the Rhône, stirred up the waves of the lake, and produced one of those short seas which so often prove fatal. The sail of the little boat was soon gone, and it seemed like a nutshell dancing on the still-increasing waves. It was impossible to think of returning, and full half an hour of fatigue and danger must elapse before the boat could be moored in safety under the hanging cliffs of Haute-Combe. Fate willed that my wandering sail should be on the lake at the same hour. I was in a larger boat, with four stout oarsmen, and was going to visit M. de Chatillon, a relation of my Chambéry friend. His chateau was situated on the summit of a rock, in a small island at one end of the lake. A few strokes of the oar would have brought us into the harbor of Chatillon, but I, who had unconsciously been watching the other boat and saw it struggling against the wind, perceived the danger in which it was placed. We put about immediately, and with one heart affronted the tempest and the dangers of the lake, to try and succor the little craft, which every now and then disappeared, and was lost in a mist of foam and spray. My anxiety was intense during the hour that was required to cross the lake before we could join the little bark. When we came up to it, the shore was close at hand, and one long wave lodged it in safety before our eyes on the sand at the foot of the ruined Abbey.