"Dubourg was quite right: I do love Constance, I adore her! I can never again love anybody else."
Two days after this declaration, the Comte de Montreville, well assured that his son no longer thought of leaving Constance, set out for Dauphiné, in his own carriage, attended by a single servant and a postilion.
XXII
DEATH OF MARGUERITE.—SISTER ANNE LEAVES HER CABIN
Let us now return to the dumb girl in the woods, whom we left awaiting Frédéric's coming, and whom we shall find still awaiting him.
But the trees have lost their foliage; the fields no longer offer to the eye the pleasing prospect of luxuriant vegetation; there is no green turf in the valley, no verdure on the banks of the stream. The leaves have fallen, and the villager's steps are deadened by that which shaded him and embellished his garden a few days since. He tramples under foot the beautiful foliage to which the approach of a harsher season has brought death. Thus do all things pass away. Other foliage will be born, only to die in its turn; and the man who tramples upon it must likewise return to the dust whereon future generations will tread. He fancies himself of some account because his allotted time is longer; but when the ages have dispersed his ashes, what more will he have left behind him than those leaves have done which whirl about in the wind at his feet?
The autumn disposes us to melancholy; it brings reverie and reflection, not to him who lives in the city, detained in the vortex of the world by the necessities of business or pleasure, but to the man of the fields who can contemplate each day the successive changes in the face of nature. Not without emotion does he look upon the forest, whose black, skeleton-like trees seem to be in mourning for the spring; if he walks along a path but lately shaded by dense foliage, if he seeks the thicket where he was wont to rest during the heat of the day, he sees naught but dry branches, often broken by the poor man's hand. The forest is less dark than in summer, for the sunlight finds its way in on all sides. But that brightness, far from embellishing it, robs it of all its charm; one regrets the dark, mysterious paths, through which it is so pleasant to wander in the season of love.
As he watches the approach of the frost and snow, as he contemplates the effects of the winter's cold, man, always buoyed up by hope, says to himself:
"The spring will come again; I shall see once more my leafy lanes, my lawns, and my shrubs."
The spring comes again—but many men do not see it!
Sister Anne observed the change in the season only because it emphasized the length of time that had elapsed since Frédéric left her. The unhappy child could no longer count the days; their number was too great. However, hope had not vanished from her heart; she could not believe that her lover intended to abandon her forever; sometimes, she imagined that he had ceased to live, and then the blackest despair took possession of her thoughts. When that idea forced itself upon her, life seemed to be only one long agony. Could she live on, unsustained by the hope of seeing her lover? Often she longed to die. But she was soon to be a mother; that thought made her cling to life once more; something told her that she must live for her child.