CHAPTER XXXIX.
Thursday evening was a time of great rejoicing with me whenever a terrible storm descended upon Limoise, and thus made it impossible for me to return home that night.
It happened occasionally; and since I had had the experience, I used to hope that it might occur often, and especially did I wish for a storm when I had failed to prepare my lessons. One inhuman professor had instituted Thursday tasks, and it was necessary for me to drag my text and copy-books with me to Limoise; my beloved holidays, spent in the sweet open air, were overcast by their dark shadow.
One evening at about eight o'clock the much desired storm broke upon us with superb fury. Lucette and I were in the large drawing-room that resounded with the noise of the thunder, and we felt none too safe there. Its great wall-spaces were broken by only two or three old engravings in ancient frames. Lucette, under her mother's direction, was putting the finishing touches to a piece of needle work, and, on the rather worn-out piano, I was playing, with the soft pedal down, one of Rameau's dances; the old-fashioned music sounded exquisite to me as it mingled with the noise of the great thunder claps.
When Lucette's work was completed, she turned over the leaves of my copy-book lying on the table. After she had examined it she gave me a meaning look, intended only for my eyes, that said as plainly as a look can that she knew I had neglected my task. Suddenly she asked: “where did you leave your Duruy's 'History'?”
My Duruy's “History”! Where indeed had I left it? It was a new book with scarcely a blot in it. Great heavens! I had forgotten it and left it out of doors at the far end of the garden in the most removed asparagus bed. For my historical studies I had selected the asparagus bed which was like a bit of copse, for the feathery green plants, past their season, grew high and luxuriant; a hazel glen, leafy and impenetrable, and as shady as a verdant grotto, was the spot I had chosen for the more exacting and laborious work of Latin versification. As this time I was scolded by Lucette's mother for my great carelessness, we decided to go immediately and rescue the book.
We organized a search party, and at the head of it went a servant who carried a stable-lantern; Lucette and I walked behind him. Our feet were protected from the wet ground by wooden shoes, and with much difficulty we held over us a large umbrella that the wind constantly turned inside out.
Once outside I was no longer afraid; I opened my eyes wide and listened with all my ears. Oh! how wonderful, and yet how sinister, the end of the garden looked seen by those sudden and great flashes of green light that shimmered and trembled about us from time to time, and then left us blind in the blackness of the stormy night. And I shall never forget the impression made upon me by the continual crashing of the branches of the trees in the near-by oak forest.
We found Duruy's “History” in the asparagus bed all water soaked and mud bespattered. Before the storm the snails, exhilarated no doubt by the promise of rain, had crawled over the book and they had left their slimy, glistening traces upon it.