第34章

Monsieur de Lessay, who was more of a geometrician than D'Alembert, and more of a philosopher than Jean Jacques, was also more of a royalist than Louis XVIII.But his love for the King was nothing to his hate for the Emperor.He had joined the conspiracy of Georges against the First Consul; but in the framing of the indictment he was not included among the inculpated parties, having been either ignored or despised, and this injury he never could forgive Bonaparte, whom he called the Ogre of Corsica, and to whom he used to say he would never have confided even the command of a regiment, so pitiful a soldier he judged him to be.

"In 1820, Monsieur de Lessay, who had then been a widower for many years, married again, at the age of sixty, a very young woman, whom he pitilessly kept at work preparing maps for him, and who gave him a daughter some years after their marriage, and died in childbed.

My mother had nursed her during her brief illness, and had taken care of the child.The name of that child was Clementine.

"It was from the time of that birth and that death that the relations between our family and Monsieur de Lessay began.In the meanwhile I had been growing dull as I began to leave my true childhood behind me.I had lost the charming power of being able to see and feel; and things no longer caused me those delicious surprises which form the enchantment of the more tender age.For the same reason, perhaps, I have no distinct remembrance of the period following the birth of Clementine; I only know that a few months afterwards I had a misfortune, the mere thought of which still wrings my heart.I lost my mother.A great silence, a great coldness, and a great darkness seemed all at once to fill the house.

"I fell into a sort of torpor.My father sent me to the lycee, but I could only arouse myself from my lethargy with the greatest of effort.

"Still, I was not altogether a dullard, and my professors were able to teach me almost everything they wanted, namely, a little Greek and a great deal of Latin.My acquaintances were confined to the ancients.I learned to esteem Miltiades, and to admire Themistocles.

I became familiar with Quintus Fabius, as far, at least, as it was possible to become familiar with so great a Consul.Proud of these lofty acquaintances, I scarcely ever condescended to notice little Clementine and her old father, who, in any event, went away to Normandy one fine morning without my having deigned to give a moment's thought to their possible return.

"They came back, however, Madame, they came back! Influences of Heaven, forces of nature, all ye mysterious powers which vouchsafe to man the ability to love, you know how I again beheld Clementine!

They re-entered our melancholy home.Monsieur de Lessay no longer wore a wig.Bald, with a few grey locks about his ruddy temples, he had all the aspect of robust old age.But that divine being whom I saw all resplendent, as she leaned upon his arm--she whose presence illuminated the old faded parlour--she was not an apparition! It was Clementine herself! I am speaking the simple truth: her violet eyes seemed to me in that moment supernatural, and even to-day I cannot imagine how those two living jewels could have endured the fatigues of life, or become subjected to the corruption of death.

"She betrayed a little shyness in greeting my father, whom she did not remember.Her complexion was slightly pink, and her half-open lips smiled with that smile which makes one think of the Infinite--perhaps because it betrays no particular thought, and expresses only the joy of living and the bliss of being beautiful.Under a pink hood her face shone like a gem in an open casket; she wore a cashmere scarf over a robe of white muslin plaited at the waist, from beneath which protruded the tip of a little Morocco shoe....

Oh! you must not make fun of me, dear Madame, that was the fashion of the time; and I do not know whether our new fashions have nearly so much simplicity, brightness, and decorous grace.

"Monsieur de Lessay informed us that, in consequence of having undertaken the publication of a historical atlas, he had come back to live in Paris, and that he would be pleased to occupy his former apartment, if it was still vacant.My father asked Mademoiselle de Lessay whether she was pleased to visit the capital.She appeared to be, for her smile blossomed out in reply.She smiled at the windows that looked out upon the green and luminous garden; she smiled at the bronze Marius seated among the ruins of Carthage above the dial of the clock; she smiled a the old yellow-velveted arm-chairs, and at the poor student who was afraid to lift his eyes to look at her.From that day--how I loved her!

"But here we are already a the Rue de Severs, and in a little while we shall be in sight of your windows.I am a very bad story-teller;and if I were--by some impossible chance--to take it into my head to compose a novel, I know I should never succeed.I have been drawing out to tiresome length a narrative which I must finish briefly; for there is a certain delicacy, a certain grace of soul, which an old man could not help offending by an complacent expatiation upon the sentiments of even the purest love.Let us take a short turn on this boulevard, lined with convents; and my recital will be easily finished within the distance separating us from that little spire you see over there....