“With my books!” replied he: there lay a gloomy expression in his eyes.
“O, you should have come half an hour earlier—our cousin was here! He was describing to me the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. O, quite excellently!”
“He is an interesting young man!” said Otto.
“The glorious garden!” pursued Sophie, without remarking the emphasis with which Otto had replied. “Do you not remember, Mr. Thostrup, how Barthélemi has spoken of it? ‘Où tout homme, qui rêve à son pays absent, Retrouve ses parfums et son air caressant.’ In it there is a whole avenue with cages, in which are wild beasts,—lions and tigers! In small court-yards, elephants and buffaloes wander about at liberty! Giraffes nibble the branches of high trees! In the middle of the garden are the courts for bears, only there is a sort of well in which the bears walk about; it is surrounded by no palisades, and you stand upon the precipitous edge! There our cousin stood!”
“But he did not precipitate himself down!” said Otto, with indifference.
“What is the matter?” asked Sophie. “Are you in your elegiac mood? You look as I imagine Victor Hugo when he has not made up his mind about the management of his tragic catastrophe!”
“That is my innate singularity!” replied Otto. “I should have pleasure in springing down among the bears of which you relate!”
“And in dying?” asked Sophie. “No, you must live. ‘C’est le bonheur de vivre Qui fait la gloire de mourir.’”
“You speak a deal of French to-day,” said Otto, with a friendliness of manner intended to soften the bitterness of the tone. “Perhaps your conversation with the lieutenant was in that language?”
“French interests me the most!” replied she. “I will ask our cousin to speak it often with me. His accent is excellent, and he is himself a very interesting man!”