Chapter 12

His was a beautiful and attractive old age, to which nothing was wanting but the security of a morrow. It was so disinterested and parental, that it in no wise offended the eye, though associated with a young and lovely woman. It was as an evening shade upon the bloom of morning; but one felt that it was a protecting shade, sheltering but not withering her youth, beauty, and innocence. The features of this celebrated man were regular as the pure outline of antique profiles which time emaciates slightly, but cannot impair. His blue eyes had that softened but penetrating expression of worn-out sight, as if they looked through a slight haze. There was an arch expression of implied meaning in his mouth; and his smile was playful as that of a father to his little children. His hair, which age and study had thinned, was soft and fine, like the down of a swan. His hands were white and taper as the marble hands of the statue of Seneca taking his dying leave of Paulina. There were no wrinkles on his face, which had become thin and pale from the long labor of the mind, for it had never been plump. A few blue and bloodless veins might be traced on the depressed temples; the light of the fire was reflected on the forehead,--that latest beauty of man, which thought chisels and polishes unceasingly. There was in the cheek that delicacy of skin,--that transparency of a face which has grown old within the shade of walls, and which neither wind nor sun have ever tanned; the complexion of woman, which gives an effeminacy to the countenance of old men, and the ethereal, fragile, and impalpable appearance of a vision, that the slightest breath might dispel. His calm and well-weighed expressions, naturally set in clear, concise, and lucid phrase, had all the precision of one who has been used to careful selection in clothing his thoughts for writing or dictation. His sentences were interrupted by long pauses, as if to allow time for them to penetrate the ear, and to be appreciated by the mind of the listener; he relieved them, every now and then, by graceful pleasantry, never degenerating into coarseness, as though he purposely upheld the conversation on these light and sportive wings, to prevent its being borne down by the weight of too continuous ideas.

LXXIV.

I soon learned to love this charming and talented old man. If I am destined to attain old age, I should wish to grow old like him. There was but one thing grieved me as I looked at him,--it was to see him advancing towards death, without believing in Immortality. The natural sciences that he had so deeply studied had accustomed his mind to trust exclusively to the evidence of his senses. Nothing existed for him that was not palpable; what could not be calculated contained no element of certitude in his eyes; matter and figures composed his universe; numbers were his god; the phenomena of Nature were his revelations, Nature herself his Bible and his gospel; his virtue was instinct, not seeing that numbers, phenomena, Nature, and virtue are but hieroglyphs inscribed on the veil of the temple, whose unanimous meaning is--Deity. Sublime but stubborn minds, who wonderfully ascend the steps of science, one by one,--but will never pass the last, which leads to God.

LXXV.

This second father very soon became so fond of me, that he proposed to give me occasionally, in his library, some lessons in those elevated sciences which had rendered him illustrious, and now constituted his chief relaxation. I went to him sometimes in the morning; Julie would come at the same hours. It was a rare and touching spectacle to see that old man seated in the midst of his books,--a monument of human learning and philosophy, of which he had exhausted all the pages during his long life,--discovering the mysteries of Nature and of thought to a youth who stood beside him; while a woman, young and lovely as that ideal philosophy, that loving wisdom,--the Beatrice of the poet of Florence,--attended as his first disciple, and was the fellow-learner of that younger brother. She brought the books, turned over the page, and marked the chapters with her extended rosy finger; she moved amid the spheres, the globes, the instruments, and the heaps of volumes, in the dust of human knowledge; and seemed the soul of Nature disengaging itself from matter, to kindle it and teach it to burn and love.

I learned and understood more in a few days than in years of dry and solitary study; but the frequent infirmities of age in the master too often interrupted these morning lessons.

LXXVI.

I invariably spent a part of my night in the company of her who was to me both night and day, time and eternity. As I have already said, I always arrived when importunate visitors had left the drawing-room. Sometimes I remained long hours on the quay or on the bridge, walking or standing still by turns, and waiting in vain for the inside shutter to open and to give the mute signal on which we had agreed. How have I watched the sluggish waters of the Seine beneath the arches of the bridge, bearing away in their course the trembling rays of the moon, or the reflected light of the windows of the city. How many hours and half hours have I not reckoned as they sounded from the near or distant churches, and cursed their slowness or accused their speed! I knew the tones of every brazen voice in the towers of Paris. There were lucky and unlucky days. Sometimes I went in, without waiting an instant, and only found her husband with her, who spent in lively talk, or friendly conversation, the hours that unbent and prepared him for sleep. At other times I only met one or two friends; they dropped in for a short time, bringing the news or the excitement of the day, and devoted to friendship the first hours of their evening, which they generally concluded in some political drawing-room. These were in general parliamentary men, eminent orators of the two chambers,--Suard, Bonald, Mounier, Reyneval, Lally-Tolendal, the old man with the youthful mind, and Lainé. This latter was the most perfect copy of ancient eloquence and virtue that I have seen to venerate in modern times; he was a Roman in heart, in eloquence, and in appearance, and wanted but the toga to be the Cicero or the Cato of his day. I felt peculiar admiration and tender respect for this personification of a good citizen; he, in his turn, took notice of me, and often distinguished me by some look and word of preference. He has since been my master; and if one day I had to serve my country, or to ascend a tribune, the remembrance of his patriotism and his eloquence would be ever present to me as a model that I could not hope to equal, but might imitate at a distance.

These men came round the little work-table in turn, while Julie sat half reclined upon the sofa. I remained silent and respectful in one corner of the room, far from her, listening, reflecting, admiring, or disapproving inwardly, but scarcely opening my lips unless questioned, and only joining in the conversation by a few timid and cautious words said in a low tone. With a strong conviction on most subjects, I have always felt an extreme shyness in expressing it before such men; they appeared to me infinitely my superiors from age and in authority. Respect for time, for genius, and for fame is part of my nature,--a ray of glory dazzles me; white hairs awe me; an illustrious name bows me voluntarily before it. I have often lost something of my real value by this timidity, but nevertheless I have never regretted it. The consciousness of the superiority of others is a good feeling in youth, as at all ages, for it elevates the ideal standard to which we aspire. Self-confidence in youth is an overweening insolence towards time and Nature. If the feeling of the superiority of others is a delusion, it is at least a delusion which raises human nature, and is better than that which lowers it. Alas, we but too soon reduce it to its true but sad proportions.

These visitors at first paid little attention to me. I used to see them stoop towards Julie, and ask, in a low tone, who I was. My thoughtful countenance and my immovable and modest attitude seemed to surprise and please them; insensibly they drew towards me, or seemed by a gracious and encouraging gesture to address some of their remarks to me. It was an indirect invitation to take my share in the conversation. I said a few words in grateful recognition, but I soon relapsed into my silence and obscurity, for fear of prolonging the conversation by keeping it up. I considered them merely as the frame of a picture; the only real interest I felt was in the face, the speech, and the mind of her from whom I was shut out by their presence.

LXXVII.

What inward joy, what throbbing of the heart, when they retired, and when I heard beneath the gateway the rolling of the carriage which bore away the last of them! We were then alone; the night was far advanced; our security increased at every move of the minute hand as it approached the figure that marked midnight on the dial. Nothing was to be heard but the sound of a few carriages, which, at rare intervals, rattled over the stones of the quay, or the deep breathing of the old concierge, who was stretched sleeping on a bench in the vestibule at the foot of the stairs.

We would first look at each other, as if surprised at our happiness. I would draw nearer to the table where Julie worked by the light of the lamp. The work soon fell from her unheeding hands; our looks expanded, our lips were unsealed, our hearts overflowed. Our choked and hurried words, like the flow of water impeded by too narrow an opening, were at first slowly poured forth, and the torrent of our thoughts trickled out drop by drop. We could not select, among the many things we had to say, those we most wished to impart to each other. Sometimes there was a long silence, caused by the confusion and excess of crowded thoughts which accumulated in our hearts and could not escape. Then they began to flow slowly, like those first drops which show that the cloud is about to dissolve or burst; these words called forth others in response; one voice led on the other, as a falling child draws his companion with him. Our words mingled without order, without answer, and without connection; neither of us would yield the happiness of outstripping the other in the expression of one common feeling. We fancied that we had first felt what we disclosed of our thoughts since the evening's conversation, or the morning's letter. At last this tumultuous overflow, at which we laughed and blushed, after a time subsided, and gave place to a calm effusion of the lips, which poured forth together, or alternately, the plenitude of their expressions. It was a continuous and murmuring transfusion of one soul into another,--an unreserved interchange of our two natures,--a complete transmutation of one into another, by the reciprocal communication of all that breathed, or lived, or burned within us. Never, perhaps, did two beings as irreproachable in their looks, or in their very thoughts, bare their hearts to one another more unreservedly, and reveal the mysterious depths of their feelings. The innocent nudity of our souls was chaste, though unveiled, as light that discovers all, yet sullies nothing. We had nought to reveal but the spotless love which purified as it consumed us.

Our love, by its very purity, was incessantly renewed, with the same light of soul, the same unsullied transports of its first bloom. Each day was like the first; every instant was as that ineffable moment when we felt it dawn within us, and saw it reflected in the heart and looks of another self. Our love would always preserve its flower and its perfume, for the fruit could never be culled.

LXXVIII.

Of all the different means by which God has allowed soul to communicate with soul, through the transparent barrier of the senses, there was not one that our love did not employ to manifest itself,--from the look which conveys most of ourselves, in an almost ethereal ray, to the closed lids, which seem to enfold within us the image we have received, that it may not evaporate; from languor to delirium, from the sigh to the loud cry; from the long silence to those exhaustless words which flow from the lips without pause and without end, which stop the breath, weary the tongue, which we pronounce without hearing them, and which have no other meaning than an impotent effort to say, again and again, what can never be said enough....

Many a time did we talk thus for hours, in whispered tones, leaning on the little table close to each other, without perceiving that our conversation had lasted more than the space of a single aspiration; quite surprised to find that the minutes had flown as swiftly as our words, and that the clock struck the inexorable hour of parting.

Sometimes there would be interrogations and answers as to our most fugitive shades of thought and nature, dialogues in almost unheard whispers, articulate sighs rather than audible words, blushing confessions of our most secret inward repinings, joyful exclamations of surprise at discovering in us both the same impressions reflected from one another, as light in reverberations, the blow in the counterblow, the form in the image. We would exclaim, rising by a simultaneous impulse, "We are not two; we are one single being under two illusive natures! Which will say you unto the other; which will say I? There is no _I_; there is no _you_; but only _we_." ... We would then sink down, overcome with admiration at this wonderful conformity, weeping with delight at this twofold existence, and at having doubled our lives by consecrating them to each other.

LXXIX.

Most generally we used to travel back over the past, step by step, and recall with scrupulous minuteness every place, circumstance, and hour which had brought on, or marked the beginning of our love,--like some young girl who has scattered by the way the unstrung pearls of her precious necklace, and returns upon her steps, her eyes bent upon the ground, to find and gather them up, one by one. We would not lose the recollection of one of those places, or one of those hours, for fear of losing at the same time the hoarded memory of a single joy. We remembered the mountains of Savoy; the valley of Chambéry; the torrents and the lake; the mossy ground, sometimes in shade and sometimes dappled with light, beneath the outstretched arms of the chestnut-trees; the rays between the branches, the glimpse of sky through the leafy dome above our heads, the blue expanse and the white sails at our feet; our first unsought meetings in the mountain paths; our mutual conjectures; our encounters on the lake before we knew each other, sailing in our boats in contrary directions, her dark hair waving in the wind, my indifferent attitude; our looks averted from the crowd; the double enigma that we were to each other, of which the answer was to be eternal love; then the fatal day of the tempest, and her fainting; the mournful night of prayers and tears; the waking in heaven; our return together by moonlight through the avenue of poplars, her hand in mine; her warm tears which my lips had drunk, the first words in which our souls had spoken; our joys, our parting,--we remembered all.

We never wearied of these details. It was as though we had related some story which was not our own. But what was there henceforth in the universe save ourselves? O inexhaustible curiosity of love, thou art not only a childish delight of the hour, thou art love itself, which never tires of contemplating what it possesses, treasures up every impression, each hair, each thrill, each blush, each sigh of the loved one, as a reason for loving more, as a means of feeding anew with each memory the flame of enthusiasm, in which it joys to be consumed!

LXXX.

Julie's tears would sometimes suddenly flow from a strange sadness. She knew me condemned, by this concealed though to us ever-present death, to behold in her but a phantom of happiness, which would vanish ere I could press it to my heart. She grieved and accused herself for having inspired me with a passion which could never bring me joy. "Oh, that I could die, die soon, die young, and still beloved!" would she say. "Yes, die, as I can be to you but the bitter delusion of love and joy; at once your rapture and your woe. Ah, the divinest joys and the most cruel anguish are mingled in my destiny! Oh, that love would kill me; and that you might survive to love after me, as your nature and your heart should love! In dying, I shall be less wretched than I am while feeling that I live by your sacrifices, and doom your youth and your love to a perpetual death!"

"Oh, blaspheme not against such ineffable joy!" I exclaimed, placing my trembling hands beneath her eyes to receive her fast dropping tears. "What base idea have you conceived of him whom God has thought worthy to meet, to understand, and to love you? Are there not more oceans of tenderness and love in this tear which falls warm from your heart, and which I carry to my lips as the life's blood of our tortured love, than in the thousand sated desires and guilty pleasures in which are engulfed such vile attachments as you regret for me? Have I ever seemed to you to desire aught else than this twofold suffering? Does it not make of us both voluntary and pure victims? Is it not an eternal holocaust of love, such as, from Heloise to us, the angels can scarce have witnessed? Have I ever once reproached the Almighty, even in the madness of my solitary nights, for having raised me by you, and for you, above the condition of man? He has given me in you, not a woman to be polluted by the embrace of these mortal arms, but an impalpable and sacred incarnation of immaterial beauty. Does not the celestial fire, which night and day burns so rapturously within me, consume all dross of vulgar desire? Am I aught but flame? A flame as pure and holy as the rays of your soul which first kindled it, and now feed it unceasingly through your beaming eye! Ah, Julie, estimate yourself more worthily, and weep not over sorrows which you imagine you inflict on me! I do not suffer. My life is one perpetual overflow of happiness, filled by you alone,--a repose of sense, a sleep of which you are the dream. You have transformed my nature. I suffer? Oh, would that I could sometimes suffer, that I might have somewhat to offer unto God, were it but the consciousness of a privation, the bitterness of a tear, in return for all he has given me in you! To suffer for you, might, perchance, be the only thing which could add one drop to that cup of happiness which it is given me to quaff. To suffer thus, is it to suffer, or to enjoy? No; thus to live, is, in truth, to die, but it is to die some years earlier to this wretched life, to live beforehand of the life of heaven."

LXXXI.

She believed it, and I myself believed it, as I spoke and raised my hands imploringly towards her. We would part after such converse as this, each preserving, to feed on it separately till the morrow, the impression of the last look, the echo of the last tone, that were to give us patience to live through the long, tedious day. When I had crossed the threshold, I would see her open her window, lean forth amid her flowers on the iron bar of the balcony, and follow my receding figure as long as the misty vapors of the Seine allowed her to discern it on the bridge. Again and again would I turn to send back a sigh and a lingering look, and strive to tear away my soul, which would not be parted from her. It seemed as if my very being were riven asunder,--my spirit to return and dwell with her, while my body alone, as a mere machine, slowly wended its way through the dark and deserted streets to the door of the hotel where I dwelt.

LXXXII.

Thus passed away, without other change than that afforded by my studies, and our ever-varying impressions, the delightful months of winter. They were drawing to a close. The early splendors of spring already began to glance fitfully from the roofs upon the damp and gloomy wilderness of the streets of Paris. My friend V----, recalled by his mother, was gone, and had left me alone in the little room where he had harbored me during my stay. He was to return in the autumn, and had paid for the lodging for a whole year, so that, though absent, he still extended to me his brotherly hospitality. It was with sorrow I saw him depart; none remained to whom I could speak of Julie. The burden of my feelings would now be doubly heavy, when I could no longer relieve myself by resting it on the heart of another; but it was a weight of happiness,--I could still uphold it. It was soon to become a load of anguish, which I could confide to no living being, and least of all to her whom I loved.

My mother wrote me, that straightened means, caused by unexpected reverses of fortune, which had fallen on my father in quick and harsh succession, had reduced to comparative indigence our once open and hospitable paternal home, obliging my poor father to withhold the half of my allowance, to enable him to meet, and that only with much difficulty, the expense of maintaining and educating six other children. It was therefore incumbent upon me, she said, either by my own unaided efforts to maintain myself honorably in Paris, or to return home and live with resignation in the country, sharing the common pittance of all. My mother's tenderness sought beforehand to comfort me under this sad necessity; she dwelt on the joy it would be to her to see me again, and placed before me, in most attractive colors, the prospect of the labors and simple pleasures of a rural life. On the other hand, some of the associates of my early years of gambling and dissipation, who had now fallen into poverty, having met me in Paris, reminded me of sundry trifling obligations which I had contracted towards them, and begged me to come to their assistance. They stripped me thus, by degrees, of the greater part of that little hoard which I had saved by strict economy, to enable me to live longer in Paris. My purse was well-nigh empty, and I began to think of courting fortune through fame. One morning, after a desperate struggle between timidity and love, love triumphed. I concealed beneath my coat my small manuscript, bound in green, containing my verses, my last hope; and though wavering and uncertain in my design, I turned my steps towards the house of a celebrated publisher whose name is associated with the progress of literature and typography in France, Monsieur Didot. I was first attracted to this name because M. Didot, independently of his celebrity as a publisher, enjoyed at that time some reputation as an author. He had published his own verses with all the elegance, pomp and circumstance of a poet who could himself control the approving voice of Fame.

When before M. Didot's door in the Rue Jacob, a door all papered with illustrious names, a redoubled effort on my part was required to cross the threshold, another to ascend the stairs, another still more violent to ring at his door. But I saw the adored image of Julie encouraging me, and her hand impelled me. I dared do anything.