Brothers, have you never imagined that, on a certain autumn evening, you met amid the grain fields a brunette of sixteen? She smiled upon you as she flitted by, then was lost among the wheat heads. That night you dreamed of her, and, on the morrow, at the same hour, took the path from the town. The dear vision passed, smiled again, leaving you a new dream for your next sleep. Months, years elapsed. Every day your famished heart was satisfied with a smile and never desired more. An entire lifetime would not be long enough for you to exhaust the glance of the young harvest-girl.
CHAPTER IV
[TEMPTATION]
Last evening, I had a bright fire on the hearth. I was rich enough to have two candles, and had lighted them both, regardless of the morrow.
I surprised myself singing, as I prepared for a night of toil. The mansarde laughed to find itself warm and luminous.
As I sat down, I heard on the stairway the sound of voices and hurried steps. Doors opened and shut. Then, amid the silence that ensued, stifled cries came up to me. I sprang to my feet, vaguely disturbed, and listened. The noise ceased. I was about to resume my chair, when some one ran up-stairs and called out to me that a woman, my neighbor, had a nervous attack. My help was asked. I held the door open, but saw only the dark and gloomy stairway.
I put on a warmer coat and went down, forgetting even to take one of my candles. On the floor below I stopped, not knowing what room to enter. I did not hear a sound; I was surrounded by thick darkness. At last I saw a thin thread of light through a half open door. I gave the door a push.
The chamber was the sister of mine: large, irregular and out of repair. But, as I had left my mansarde in a flood of flame and brightness, the gloom and cold of this place filled my heart with pity and sadness. Damp air struck against my face; a miserable candle, burning on one corner of the mantelpiece, flickered in the blast from the stairway, without permitting me at first to see the objects before me.
I had paused upon the threshold. Finally I distinguished the bed: the sheets, thrown off and twisted, had slipped to the floor; scattered garments lay about on the coverlet.
In the midst of these rags was stretched out a vague, white form. I should have thought I saw a corpse, if the candle had not given me occasional glimpses of a hand hanging out of the bed and agitated by rapid convulsions.