Then, silence was re-established; all the strangers had departed, and we were left alone. I had resolved to sleep at the Coup du Milieu that I might enjoy, on the morrow, the dew, the white brightness of the dawn. While the servants were making preparations to accommodate us, Laurence and I walked out into the garden, at the further end of which we seated ourselves upon a bench. The night was mild, starry and transparent; vague sounds arose from the earth; a horn, on a neighboring height, complained in a faint and caressing tone. The plain, with its great masses of black, motionless foliage, stretched out its mysterious limits; it seemed to sleep, quivering, agitated by a dream of love.
Our chamber was damp. It was on the ground floor, low, new and already degraded. Pieces of furniture were absent from their appointed places. On the ceiling lovers had traced their names by passing the flame of a candle over the plaster; the knotty and straggling letters spread out, broad and black. I took a knife, and, like a child, cut the date beneath a heart-shaped window which opened upon the country, without either grating or shutter.
The bed was excellent, if the chamber did not present a handsome appearance. In the morning, on awaking, while still half asleep, I saw, upon the wall facing me, a sight which I could not comprehend and which filled me with terror. The chamber was yet dark; in the midst of the darkness, on the wall, an enormous heart was bleeding. I imagined that I felt my breast empty, and despairingly began to search within me for my love. I felt my love biting at my vitals, and then I realized that the sun had risen and that its rays were pouring in copious floods through the heart-shaped window.
Laurence arose; we opened the door and the window. A current of coolness entered, bearing into the chamber all the odors of the delightful country. The acacias, planted almost at the threshold, exhaled a milder and sweeter perfume than on the preceding evening. The purity of dawn rested upon the sky and upon the earth.
Laurence drank a cup of milk, and, before returning to Paris, I expressed a desire to climb to the wood of Verrières, in order to carry back with me, in my heart, a breath of the pure air of the morning. Above, in the wood, we walked with lingering steps along the verdant paths. The forest was like a beautiful bride on the day after the wedding; it had delicious tears, a youthful languor, a damp coolness, lukewarm and penetrating perfumes. The sunlight at the horizon slipped along obliquely, between the trees, in broad sheets; there was I know not what mildness in those golden rays which rolled down to earth like supple and dazzling silken veils. And, amid the coolness, we heard the stir of the awakening wood, those thousands of little sounds which bear witness to the life of the springs and of the plants; above our heads floated the songs of birds, beneath our feet were the murmurs of insects; all around us were sudden cracklings, the gurgling noises of flowing waters, deep and mysterious sighs which seemed to issue from the knotty sides of the oak trees. We advanced slowly, feeling an intense and indescribable delight in lingering amid sunlight and shadow drinking in the fresh air, striving to seize the confused words which the hawthorns seemed to address to us as we passed by them. Oh! the gentle and smiling morning, all soaked with happy tears, all softened with joy and youth! The country had reached that adorable age when old Nature has for a few days the delicate grace of infancy.
I returned to Paris with Laurence on my arm, young and strong, intoxicated with light and spring, my heart full of dew and love. I loved worthily, as a true man should, and I believed that I was so loved in return.
CHAPTER XX
[A BITTER AVOWAL]
Spring has vanished; I have awakened from my dream.
I know not the limit of my pitiful childishness; I know not what miserable soul dwells within me. The reality penetrates me, shakes me; my flesh is either acutely tortured or wildly delighted by what is; I am like a body of exquisite sonorousness, which vibrates at the slightest sensation; I have a sharp and clear perception of the society which surrounds me. And my soul is pleased to refuse the truth; it escapes from my flesh, it disdains my senses, it lives elsewhere amid deception and hope. It is thus that I walk through life. I know and I see, I blind myself and I dream. While I advance beneath the rain, in the midst of the mud, while I am profoundly conscious of all the cold, of all the dampness, I can, by means of a strange faculty, make the sun shine, be warm, create for myself a mild and delicate sky, without ceasing to feel the gloomy sky which presses down upon my shoulders. I do not ignore anything, I do not forget anything. I live doubly. I carry into my dreams the same frankness which I carry into real sensations. I have thus two parallel existences, equally alive, equally intense—one which passes here below, in my poverty, another which passes above, in the immense and deep purity of the blue sky.