However, Charles's aunt lived not far from Laure's mother, and many a time had she vaunted the graces of her nephew's person. According to her account he was as tall and as straight as a gas-lamp-post, as rosy as a Ribston pippin; with eyes as brilliant as a red-hot poker, teeth as white as the inside of a turnip, and his hair curling like the leaves of a Savoy cabbage; in short, he was an Adonis, after her idea of the thing: and Laure, having heard all this, began to feel a sort of anxious palpitating sort of sensation when his coming was talked of, together with sundry other symptoms of wishing very much to fall in love.
At length his arrival was announced, and Madame ---- and Mademoiselle Laure were invited to a soirée at the house of Charles's aunt. Laure got ready in a very great hurry, resolving, primo, to be frightened out of her wits at him; and, secondo, not to speak a word to him. However, the time came, and when she got into the room, she found Monsieur Charles quite as handsome as his aunt had represented: but, to her great surprise, she found him to be quite as timid as herself into the bargain. So Laure took courage upon the strength of his bashfulness; for though it might be very well for one, she saw plainly it would never do for two. The evening passed off gaily, and Laure, as she had determined from the first, went away over head and ears in love, and left the poor young man in quite as uncomfortable a condition.
I need not conduct the reader through all the turnings and windings of their passion. Suffice it to say, that both being very active, and loving each other very hard, they had got on so far in six weeks, that their friends judged it would be necessary to marry them. Upon this Laure's mother and Charles's aunt met in form to discuss preliminaries. They began a few compliments, went on to arrange the money matters, proceeded to differ upon some trivial points, grew a little warm upon the subject, turned up their noses at each other, quarrelled like Turks, and abused each other like pickpockets. Charles's aunt called Laure's mother an old cat, or something equivalent! and Laure's mother vowed that Charles should never have her daughter, "she'd be hanged if he should!"
The two young people were in despair. Laure received a maternal injunction never to speak to that vile young man again: together with a threat of being locked up if she were restive. However, the Sunday after Pâques, Laure's mother was laid up with a bad cold, and from what cause does not appear, but Laure never felt so devout as on that particular day. She would not have staid away from mass for all the world. So to church she went, when, to her surprise and astonishment, she beheld Charles standing in the little chapel of the left aisle. "Laure," said he, as soon as he saw her, "ma chère Laure, let us get out of the town by the back street, and take a walk in the fields."
Laure felt a good deal too much agitated to say her prayers properly, and, looking about the church, she perceived that, as she had come half an hour before the time, there was nobody there, so slipping her arm through that of her lover, she tripped nimbly along with him down the back street, under the Gothic arch and high towers of the old town gate, and in five minutes was walking with him in the fields unobserved.
Now what a long sad pastoral dialogue could one produce between Laure and Charles as they walked along, setting forth, in the language of Florian, and almost in the language of Estelle, the poetical sorrows of disappointed love. It would be too long, however; and the summary of the matter is, that they determined that they were very unhappy--the most miserable people in existence--now that they were separated from each other, there was nothing left in life worth living for. So Laure began to cry, and Charles vowed he would drown himself. Laure thought it was a very good idea, and declared that she would drown herself too. For she had been reading all Saturday a German romance, which taught such things; and she thought what a delightful tale it would make, if she and Charles drowned themselves together; and how all the young ladies would cry when they read it, and what a pretty tomb they would have, with "Ci gissent Charles et Laure, deux amans malheureux!" written upon it in large black letters; and, in short, she arranged it all so comfortably in her own mind, that she resolved she would not wait a minute.
As ill luck would have it, they had just arrived at that rocky point which I have before described, called the Courbúre, when Charles and Laure had worked each other up to the necessary pitch of excitement and despair. The water was before them, and the only question was, who should jump in first, for the little landing-place from which they were to leap would hold but one at a time. Charles declared that he would set the example. Laure vowed it should be no one but herself: Charles insisted, but Laure, being nearest the water, gained the contested point and plunged over.
At that moment the thought of what he was going to do came over Charles's mind with a sad qualm of conscience, and he paused for an instant on the brink. But what could he do? He could not stand by and see the girl he loved drowned before his face, like an intruding rat or a supernumerary kitten. Forbid it heaven! Forbid it love! So in he went too--not at all with the intention of drowning himself, but with that of bringing Laure out; and, being a tolerable swimmer he got hold of her in a minute.
By this time Laure had discovered that drowning was both cold and wet, and by no means so agreeable as she had anticipated, so that when Charles approached, she caught such a firm hold of him as to deprive him of the power of saving her. It is probable that under these circumstances, her very decided efforts to demonstrate her change of opinion might have effected her original intention, and drowned them both, had not a boat come round the Courbure at that very moment. The boatman soon extricated them from their danger, and carried them both hone, exhausted and dripping, to the house of Laure's mother. At first the good lady was terrified out of her wits, and then furiously angry; but ended, however, by declaring, that if ever they drowned themselves again, it should not be for love, and so she married them out of hand.