Already saddened on my return to Paris by the havoc and ruin caused by the Revolution, it was but my usual fate to suffer in addition, the terrible sorrow of losing my father.
My mother had died ten years before, and, bitter as was that blow, it was but light in comparison with the wrench of parting with this dearly loved and sympathetic friend.
We had so much in common, our tastes were similar in so many ways, and, since he had gladly acknowledged himself in the wrong over my choice of a profession, we had been so entirely at one.
Ah! that I could have gratified his ardent wish to hear my Requiem, but it was not to be.
I pass over the sorrow of my home-coming, the meeting with my grief-worn sisters, the sight of his empty chair, of his watch—still living, though he was dead!
A strange wish to indulge the luxury of grief crept over me; I must drink this wormwood cup to the dregs; I must revisit Meylan—the early home of my Mountain Star—and live over again my early love and sorrow.
Even now my heart beats faster as I recall my journey. Thirty-three years ago and I, a ghost, come back to my early haunts! As I climb through the vineyards the thoughts, the aspirations, the desires of my childish days crowd in upon me.
Here did I sit with my father, playing Nina to him on my flute; there did Estelle stand.
I turn and take in the whole picture; that blessed house, the garden, the valley, the river, and the far-off Alpine glaciers.
Once more I am young; life and love—a glorious poem—lie before me; on my knees I cry to the hills, the valleys, the heavens: “Estelle! Estelle!”