第29章

Saint Drocoveus and the early abbots of Saint-Germain-des-Pres have been occupying me for the past forty years; but I do not know if Ishall be able to write their history before I go to join them.It is already quite a long time since I became an old man.One day last year, on the Pont des Arts, one of my fellow members at the Institute was lamenting before me over the ennui of becoming old.

"Still," Saint-Beuve replied to him, "it is the only way that has yet been found of living a long time."1

A Christian sarcophagus from the catacombs of Rome bears a formula of imprecation, the whole terrible meaning of which I only learned with time.It says: "Whatsoever impious man violates this sepulchre, may he die the last of his own people!" In my capacity of archaeologist, I have opened tombs and disturbed ashes in order to collect the shreds of apparel, metal ornaments, or gems that were mingled with those ashes.But I did it only through that scientific curiosity which does not exclude feelings of reverence and of piety.

May that malediction graven by some one of the first followers of the apostles upon a martyr's tomb never fall upon me! I ought not to fear to survive my own people so long as there are men in the world; for there are always some whom one can love.

But the power of love itself weakens and gradually becomes lost with age, like all the other energies of man.Example proves it; and it is this which terrifies me.Am I sure that I have not myself already suffered this great loss? I should surely have felt it, but for the happy meeting which has rejuvenated me.Poets speak of the Fountain of Youth; it does exist; it gushes up from the earth at every step we take.And one passes by without drinking of it!

The young girl I loved, married of her own choice to a rival, passed, all grey-haired, into the eternal rest.I have found her daughter--so that my life, which before seemed to me without utility, now once more finds a purpose and a reason for being.

To-day I "take the sun," as they say in Provence; I take it on the terrace of the Luxembourg, at the foot of the statue of Marguerite de Navarre.It is a spring sun, intoxicating as young wine.I sit and dream.My thoughts escape from my head like the foam from a bottle of beer.They are light, and their fizzing amuses me.Idream; such a pastime is certainly permissible to an old fellow who has published thirty volumes of texts, and contributed to the 'Journal des Savants' for twenty-six years.I have the satisfaction of feeling that I performed my task as well as it was possible for me to do, and that I utilised to their fullest extent those mediocre faculties with which Nature endowed me.My efforts were not all in vain, and I have contributed, in my own modest way, to that renaissance of historical labours which will remain the honour of this restless century.I shall certainly be counted among those ten or twelve who revealed to France her own literary antiquities.My publication of the poetical works of Gautier de Coincy inaugurated a judicious system and fixed a date.It is in the austere calm of old age that I decree to myself this deserved credit, and God, who sees my heart, knows whether pride or vanity have aught to do with this self-award of justice.

But I am tired; my eyes are dim; my hand trembles, and I see an image of myself in those old me of Homer, whose weakness excluded them from the battle, and who, seated upon the ramparts, lifted up their voices like crickets among the leaves.

So my thoughts were wandering when three young men seated themselves near me.I do not know whether each one of them had come in three boats, like the monkey of Lafontaine, but the three certainly displayed themselves over the space of twelve chairs.I took pleasure in watching them, not because they had anything very extraordinary about them, but because I discerned in them that brave joyous manner which is natural to youth.They were from the schools.I was less assured of it by the books they were carrying than by the character of their physiognomy.For all who busy themselves with the things of the mind can be at once recognised by an indescribably something which is common to all of them.I am very fond of young people;and these pleased me, in spite of a certain provoking wild manner which recalled to me my own college days with marvellous vividness.

But they did not wear velvet doublets and long hair, as we used to do; they did not walk about, as we used to do, "Hell and malediction!"They were quite properly dressed, and neither their costume nor their language had anything suggestive of the Middle Ages.I must also add that they paid considerable attention to the women passing on the terrace, and expressed their admiration of some of them in very animated language.But their reflections, even on this subject, were not of a character to oblige me to flee from my seat.Besides, so long as youth is studious, I think it has a right to its gaieties.