After Paul Sillery’s departure Amedee turned over in his mind various other recollections of former days. He has been a trifle estranged from Madame Roger since his marriage to Maria, but he sometimes takes little Maurice to see her. She has sheltered and given each of Colonel Lantz’s daughters a dowry. Pretty Rosine Combarieu’s face rises up before him, his childhood’s companion, whom he met at Bullier’s and never has seen since. What has become of the poor little creature? Amedee almost hopes that she is dead. Ah, how sad these old memories are in the autumn, when the leaves are falling and the sun is setting!
It has set, it has plunged beneath the horizon, and suddenly all is dark. Over the darkened landscape in the vast pearl-colored sky spreads the melancholy chill which follows the farewell of day. The white smoke from the city has turned gray, the river is like a dulled mirror. A moment ago, in the sun’s last rays, the dead leaves, as they fell, looked like a golden rain, now they seem a dark snow.
Where are all your illusions and hopes of other days, Amedee Violette? You think this evening of the rapid flight of years, of the snowy flakes of winter which are beginning to fall on your temples. You have the proof to-day of the impossibility of absolutely requited love in this world. You know that happiness, or what is called so, exists only by snatches and lasts only a moment, and how commonplace it often is and how sad the next day! You depend upon your art for consolation. Oppressed by the monotonous ennui of living, you ask for the forgetfulness that only the intoxication of poetry and dreams can give you. Alas! Poor sentimentalist, your youth is ended!
And still the leaves fall!
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
Break in his memory, like a book with several leaves torn out
Dreams, instead of living
Egotists and cowards always have a reason for everything
Eternally condemned to kill each other in order to live
Fortunate enough to keep those one loves
God forgive the timid and the prattler!
Good form consists, above all things, in keeping silent
Happiness exists only by snatches and lasts only a moment
He does not know the miseries of ambition and vanity
He almost regretted her
How sad these old memorics are in the autumn
Inoffensive tree which never had harmed anybody
Intimate friend, whom he has known for about five minutes
It was all delightfully terrible!
Learned that one leaves college almost ignorant
Mild, unpretentious men who let everybody run over them
My good fellow, you are quite worthless as a man of pleasure
Never travel when the heart is troubled!
Not more honest than necessary
Now his grief was his wife, and lived with him
Paint from nature
Poor France of Jeanne d’Arc and of Napoleon
Redouble their boasting after each defeat
Society people condemned to hypocrisy and falsehood
Take their levity for heroism
Tediousness seems to ooze out through their bindings
The leaves fall! the leaves fall!
The sincere age when one thinks aloud
Tired smile of those who have not long to live
Trees are like men; there are some that have no luck
Universal suffrage, with its accustomed intelligence
Upon my word, there are no ugly ones (women)
Very young, and was in love with love
Voice of the heart which alone has power to reach the heart
Were certain against all reason
When he sings, it is because he has something to sing about