“The son of a rich peasant, I was sent to Paris to complete my studies. During four years passed in that great city, I retained the awkwardness of my manners, the simplicity of my language, but I rapidly lost the ingenuousness of my sentiments. I returned to these mountains, almost learned, but almost incredulous in all those points of faith which enable a man to pass his life contentedly beneath a thatched roof, in the society of his wife and children, without caring to look beyond the cross above the village cemetery.
“Whilst contemplating the love of William and of Eva, I had reverted to my former simple peasant-nature. I began to dream of a virtuous, affectionate wife, diligent and frugal, embellishing my house by her care and order. I saw myself proud of the gentle severity of her features, revealing to all the chaste and faithful spouse. Very different were these reveries from those that haunted me at Paris after joyous evenings spent with my comrades. Suddenly, horrible calamity descended like a thunderbolt upon Eva Meredith. This time I was slower to appreciate the lesson I daily received. Eva sat constantly at the window, her sad gaze fixed upon the heavens. The attitude, common in persons of meditative mood, attracted my attention but little. Her persistence in it at last struck me. My book open upon my knees, I looked at Mrs Meredith; and well assured she would not detect my gaze, I examined her attentively. She still gazed at the sky—my eyes followed the direction of hers. ‘Ah,’ I said to myself with a half smile, ‘she thinks to rejoin him there!’ Then I resumed my book, thinking how fortunate it was for the weakness of women that such thoughts came to the relief of their sorrows.
“I have already told you that my student’s life had put evil thoughts into my head. Every day, however, I saw Eva in the same attitude, and every day my reflections were recalled to the same subject. Little by little I came to think her dream a good one, and to regret I could not credit its reality. The soul, heaven, eternal life, all that the old priest had formerly taught me, glided through my imagination as I sat at eventide before the open window. ‘The doctrine of the old curé,’ I said to myself, ‘was more comforting than the cold realities science has revealed to me.’ Then I looked at Eva, who still looked to heaven, whilst the bells of the village church sounded sweetly in the distance, and the rays of the setting sun made the steeple cross glitter against the sky. I often returned to sit opposite the poor widow, persevering in her grief as in her holy hopes.
“‘What!’ I thought, ‘can so much love address itself to a few particles of dust, already mingled with the mould; are all these sighs wasted on empty air? William departed in the freshness of his age, his affections yet vivid, his heart in its early bloom. She loved him but a year, one little year—and is all over for her? Above our heads is there nothing but void? Love—that sentiment so strong within us—is it but a flame placed in the obscure prison of our body, where it shines, burns, and is finally extinguished by the fall of the frail wall surrounding it? Is a little dust all that remains of our loves, and hopes, and passions—of all that moves, agitates, and exalts us?’
“There was deep silence in the recesses of my soul. I had ceased to think. I was as if slumbering between what I no longer denied, and what I did not yet believe. At last, one night, when Eva joined her hands to pray, beneath the most beautiful starlit sky possible to behold, I know not how it was, but I found my hands also clasped, and my lips opened to murmur a prayer. Then, by a happy chance, and for the first time, Eva Meredith looked round, as if a secret instinct had whispered her that my soul harmonised with hers.
“‘Thanks,’ said she, holding out her hand, ‘keep him in your memory, and pray for him sometimes.’
“‘Oh, madam!’ I exclaimed, ‘may we all meet again in a better world, whether our lives have been long or short, happy or full of trial.’
“‘His immortal soul looks down upon us!’ she replied in a grave voice, whilst her gaze, at once sad and bright, reverted to the star-spangled heavens.
“Since that evening, when performing the duties of my profession, I have often witnessed death; but never without speaking to the sorrowing survivors a few consoling words on a better life than this one; and those words were words of conviction.
“At last, a month after these incidents, Eva Meredith gave birth to a son. When they brought her her child,—‘William!’ exclaimed the poor widow; and tears, soothing tears too long denied to her grief, escaped in torrents from her eyes. The child bore that much-loved name of William, and a little cradle was placed close to the mother’s bed. Then Eva’s gaze, long directed to heaven, returned earthwards. She looked to her child now, as she had previously looked to her God. She bent over him to seek his father’s features. Providence had permitted an exact resemblance between William and the son he was fated not to see. A great change occurred around us. Eva, who had consented to live until her child’s existence was detached from hers, was now, I could plainly see, willing to live on, because she felt that this little being needed the protection of her love. She passed the days and evenings seated beside his cradle; and when I went to see her, oh! then she questioned me as to what she should do for him, she explained what he had suffered, and asked what could be done to save him from pain. For her child she feared the heat of a ray of sun, the chill of the lightest breeze. Bending over him, she shielded him with her body, and warmed him with her kisses. One day, I almost thought I saw her smile at him. But she never would sing, whilst rocking his cradle, to lull him to sleep; she called one of her women, and said, ‘Sing to my son that he may sleep.’ Then she listened, letting her tears flow softly upon little William’s brow. Poor child! he was handsome, gentle, easy to rear. But, as if his mother’s sorrow had affected him even before his birth, the child was melancholy: he seldom cried, but he never smiled: he was quiet; and at that age quiet seems to denote suffering. I fancied that all the tears shed over the cradle froze that poor little soul. I would fain have seen William’s arms twined caressingly round his mother’s neck. I would have had him return the kisses lavished upon him. ‘But what am I thinking about?’ I then said to myself; ‘is it reasonable to expect that a little creature, not yet a year upon the earth, should understand that it is sent hither to love and console this woman?’