"Dearest Carl," he wrote, as he always spoke to me, in English, "I wish you could see the Chevalier now, how well he looks, and how he enjoys this beautiful country. We have been to see all the pictures and the palaces, and all the theatres; we have heard all the cathedral services, and climbed over all the mountains,—for, Carl, we went also to Switzerland; and when I saw the 'Mer de Glace,' I thought it was like that music. Now we are in a villa all marble, not white, but a soft, pale-gray color, and there are orange-trees upon the grass. All about are green hills, and behind them hills of blue, and the sky here is like no other sky, for it is always the same, without clouds, and yet as dark as our sky at night; but yet at the same time it is day, and the sun is very clear. The moon and stars are big, but there is something in the air that makes me always want to cry. It is melancholy, and a very quiet country,—it seems quite dead after Germany; but then we do live away from the towns.
"The Chevalier is writing continually, except when he is out, and the Herr Aronach is very good,—does not notice me much, which I like. His whole thoughts are upon the Chevalier, I think, and no wonder. Carl, I am getting on fast with my studies, am learning Italian," etc. There was more in the little letter; but from such a babe I could not expect the information I wanted. Maria and her suite—as I always called her brother Joseph and the little Josephine—had left Cecilia for Christmas Day, which they were to spend with some acquaintance a few leagues off, and a friend, too, of Anastase, who, indeed, accompanied them. On Christmas Eve I was quite alone; for though I had received many invitations, I had accepted none, and I went over to the old place where I had lived with Aronach, to see the illuminations in every house. It was a chilly, elfin time to me; but I got through it, and sang about the angels in the church next day.
To my miraculous astonishment Maria returned alone, long before Josephine and her brother, and even without Anastase. He, it appeared, had gone to Paris to hear a new opera, and also to play at several places on the road. It was only five days after Christmas that she came and fetched me from my own room, where I was shut in practising, to her own home. When she appeared, rolled in furs, I was fain to suppose her another than herself, produced by the oldest of all old gentlemen for my edification, and I screamed aloud, for she had entered without knocking, or I had not heard her. She would not speak to me then and there, saving only to invite me, and on the road, which was lightened over with snow, she scarcely spoke more; but arrived on that floor I was so fond of, and screened by the winter hangings from the air, while the soft warmth of the stove bade all idea of winter make away, we sat down together upon the sofa to talk. I inquired why she had returned so soon.
"Carl," she said, smoothing down her hair, and laying over my knees the furry cloak, "I am altering very much, I think, or else I have become a woman too suddenly. I don't care about these things any longer."
"What things, Maria,—fur mantles, or hair so long that you can tread upon it?"
"No, Carl. But I forget that I was not talking to you yesterday, nor yet the day before, nor for many days; and I have been dreaming more than ever since I saw you."
"What about?"
"Many unknown things,—chiefly how different everything is here from what it ought to be. Carl, I used to love Christmas and Easter and St. John's Day; now they are all like so many cast-off children's pictures. I can have no imagination, I am afraid, or else it is all drawn away somewhere else. Do you know, Carl, that I came away because I could not bear to stay with those creatures after Florimond was gone? Florimond is, like me, a dreamer too; and much as I used to wonder at his melancholy, it is just now quite clear to me that nothing else is worth while."
"Anastase melancholy? Well, so he is, except when he is playing; but then I fancied that was because he is so abstracted, and so bound to music hand and foot, as well as heart and soul."
"Very well, Carl, you are always right; but my melancholy, and such I believe his to be, is exquisite pleasure,—too fine a joy to breathe in, Carl. How people fume themselves about affairs that only last an hour, and music and joy are forever."