CHAPTER LXXVI.
Paul knew by heart many verses of a forbidden poet named Alfred de Musset. The strange quality of these verses troubled me, and yet I was fascinated by them. In class he would whisper them, in a scarcely perceptible voice, into my ear; and although my conscience accused me, I used to allow him to begin:
Jacque was very quiet as he looked at Marie,
I know not what that sleeping maiden
Had of mystery in her features, the noblest ever seen.
In my brother's study, where from time to time, when I was overwhelmed with sorrow over his departure, I isolated myself, I had seen on a shelf in his book-case a large volume of this poet's works, and often I had been tempted to take it down; but my parents had said to me: “You are not to touch any of the books that are there without permission from us,” and my conscience always gave me pause.
As to asking for permission, I knew only too well that my request would be refused.
CHAPTER LXXVII.
I will here recount a dream that I had in my fourteenth year. It came to me during one of those mild and sweet nights that are ushered in by a long and delicious twilight.
In the room where I had spent all the years of my childhood I had been lulled to sleep by the sound of songs that the sailors and young girls sang as they danced around the flower-twined May-pole. Until the moment of deep sleep I had listened to those very old national airs which the children of the people were singing in a loud, free voice, but distance softened and mellowed and poetized the voices as they traversed the tranquil silence; strangely enough I had been soothed by the noisy mirth and overflowing joyousness of these beings who, during their fleeting youth, are so much more artless than we, and more oblivious of death.
In my dream it was twilight, not a sad one however, but on the contrary, the air was soft and mild and overflowing with sweet odors like that of a real May night. I was in the yard of our house, the aspect of which was not changed in any particular, but as I walked beside the walls all abloom with jasmine, honeysuckle and roses, I felt restless and troubled as if I was seeking for some unnamable something; I seemed to have a consciousness that someone, whom I wished ardently to see, awaited my coming; I felt as if there was about to happen to me something so strange and wonderful as to intoxicate me by its very advance.