"And you burn less now for it? Tell me that."
"I do not burn any longer, I weary for it to be over; I desire to hear it once, and then you may take it away, and I will never see it any more."
"That is quite as unnatural as the excessive desire,—to have fatigued of what you loved. But, Maria, I trust this weariness of yours will not appear before the Chevalier, after all his pains and interest."
"I hope so too, Florimond; but I do not know."
It did not. The next day the Chevalier came over to Cecilia, and slept that night in the village. The tremendous consequence of the next twenty-four hours might almost have erased, as a rolling sea, all identical remembrance; and, indeed, it has sufficed to leave behind it what is as but a picture once discerned, and then forever darkened,—the cool, early romance of the wreaths and garlands (for we all rose at dawn to decorate the entrance, the corridors, the hall, the reception-room), the masses of May-bloom and lilies that arrived with the sun; the wild beauty overhanging everything; the mysterious freshness I have mentioned, or some effects just so conceived, before.
I myself adorned with laurels and lilies the conductor's desk, and the whole time as much in a dream as ever when asleep,—at all events I could even realize less. Maria was not at hand, nor could I see her, she breakfasted alone with Anastase; and although I shall never know what happened between them that morning, I have ever rejoiced that she did so.
When our floral arrangements were perfected I could not even criticise them. I flew to my bed and sat down upon it, holding my violin, my dearest, in my arms; there I rested, perhaps slept. Strange thoughts were mine in that short time, which seemed immeasurably lengthening,—most like dreams, too, those very thoughts, for they were all rushing to a crisis. I recalled my cue, however, and what that alarming peal of a drum meant, sounding through the avenues of Cecilia.
As we ever cast off things behind, my passion could only hold upon the future. I was but, with all my speed, just in time to fall into procession with the rest. The chorus first singing, the band in the midst, behind, our professors in order, and on either side our own dark lines the female pupils,—a double streak of white. I have not alluded to our examinations, with which, however, I had had little enough to do. But we all pressed forward in contemporaneous state, and so entered the antechamber of the hall. It was the most purely brilliant scene I ever saw, prepared under the eye of the masters in our universal absence; I could recognize but one taste, but one eye, one hand, in that blending of all deep with all most dazzling flower-tints.
One double garland, a harp in a circle,—the symbol of immortal harmony,—wrought out of snowy roses and azure ribbons, hung exactly above the table; but the table was itself covered with snowy damask, fold upon fluted fold, so that nothing, whatever lay beneath it, could be given to the gaze.
Through the antechamber to the decorated hall we passed, and then a lapse of music half restored me to myself,—only half, despite the overture of his, with choral relief, with intersong, that I had never heard before, and that he had written only for us: despite his presence, his conducting charm.