UfcRARY W,vrit> f C-WoffW. IRVINF \ RAPHAEL; OR, PAGES OF BY ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE, AUTHOE OF THE "HISTORY OF THE GIRONDISTS; OR, PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF TUB PATRIOTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION," ETC. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE t87 r. PROLOGUE, THE real name of the friend who wrote these pages was not Raphael. We often called him so in sport, because in his boyhood he much resembled a youthful portrait of Raphael, which may be seen in the Barberini gallery at Rome, at the Pitti palace in Florence, arid at the Museum of the Louvre. We had given him the name, too, because the distinctive feature of this youth's character was his lively sense of the Beautiful in nature and art ; a sense so keen, that his mind was, so to speak, merely the shadowing forth of the ideal or material beauty scattered throughout the works of God and man. This feeling was the result of his exquisite and almost morbid sensibility morbid, at least, until time had somewhat blunted it. We would some- times, in allusion to those who, from, their ardent longings to re visit their country, are called home-sick, say that he was heaven- sick, and he would smile, and say that we were right. This love of the Beautiful made him unhappy ; in another situation it might have rendered him illustrious. Had he held a pencil, he would have painted the Virgin of Foligno ; as a sculptor, he would have chiseled the Psyche of Canova ; had he known the language in which sounds are written, he would have noted the aerial lament of the sea-breeze sighing among the fibers of Italian pines, or the breathing of a sleeping girl who dreams of one she will not name ; had he been a poet, he would have written the stanzas of Tasso's Erminia, the moonlight talk of Shakspeare's Romeo and? Juliet, or Byron's portrait of Haidee. He loved the Good as well as the Beautiful ; but he loved not virtue for its holiness, he loved it for its beauty. He wi.uld have been aspiring in imagination, although he was not ambi- tious by character. Had he lived in those ancient republics where men obtained their full development through liberty, as the free, unfettered body develops itself in pure air and open sunshine, he would have aspired to every summit, like Caesar, 6 PROLOGUE. he would have spoken as Demosthenes, and would have died as Cato. But his inglorious and obscure destiny confined him, against his will, in speculative inaction he had wings to spread, and no surrounding ah' to bear them up. He died young, straining his gaze into the future, and ardently surveying the space over which he was never to travel. Every one knows the youthful portrait of Raphael to which I have alluded. It represents a youth of sixteen, whose face is somewhat paled by the rays of a Roman sun, but on whose cheek still blooms the soft down of childhood. A glancing ray of light seems to play on the velvet of the cheek. He leans his elbow on a table ; the arm is bent upward to support the head, which rests on the palm of the hand, and the admirably- modeled fingers are lightly imprinted on the cheek and chin ; the delicate mouth is thoughtful and melancholy, the nose is slender at its rise, and slightly tinged with blue, as though the azure veins shone through the fair transparency of the skin ; the eyes are of that dark, heavenly hue which the Apennine wears at the approach of dawn ; they gaze earnestly forward, but are slightly raised to heaven, as though they ever looked higher than nature ; a liquid luster illuminates their inmost depths, like rays dissolved in dew or tears. On the scarcely arched brow, beneath the delicate skin, we trace the muscles, those responsive chords of the instrument of thought; the tem- ples seem to throb with reflection ; the ear appears to listen ; the dark hair, unskillfully cut by a sister, or some young com- panion of the studio, casts a shadow upon the hand and cheek, and a small cap of black velvet, placed on the crown of the head, shades the brow. One can not pass before this portrait without musing sadly, one knows not why. It represents the reverie of youthful genius pausing on the threshold of its des- tiny. What will be the fate of that soul standing at the portal of life ] Now, in idea, add six years to the age of that dreaming boy; suppose the features bolder, the complexion more bronzed ; place a few furrows on the brow, slightly dim the look, sadden the lips, give height to the figure, and throw out the muscles in bolder relief; let the Italian costume of the days of Leo X. be exchanged for the somber and plain uniform of a youth bred in the simplicity of rural life, who seeks no elegance in dress; and '^f the pensive and languid attitude be retained, you will have the striking likeness of our " Raphael" at the age of twenty. PROLOGUE. He was of a poor, though ancient family, from the mountain- ous province of Forez, and his father, whose sole dignity was that of honor (worth all others), had, like the nobles of Spain, exchanged the sword for the plough. His mother, still young and handsome, seemed his sister, so much did they resemble each other. She had been bred amid the luxurious elegan- cies of a capital ; and as the balmy essence of the rose perfumes the crystal vase of the seraglio in which it has once been con- tained, so she, too, had preserved that fragrant atmosphere of manners and language, which never evaporates entirely. In her secluded mountains, with the loved husband of hei choice, and with her children, in whom she had complacently centered all the pride of her maternal heart, she had regretted nothing. She closed the fair book of youth at these three worda " God, husband, children." Raphael especially was her best beloved. She would have purchased for him a kingly destiny; but, alas ! she had only her heart with which to raise him up, for their slender fortune, and their dreams of prosperity, would ever and anon crumble to their very foundation beneath the hand of fate. Two holy men, driven by persecution to the mountains, had, soon after the Reign of Terror, taken refuge in her house. They had been persecuted as members of a mystical religious sect, which dimly predicted a renovation of the age. They loved Raphael, who was then a mere child, and, obscurely pro- phesying his fate, pointed out his star in the heavens, and told his mother to watch over that son with all her heart. She re- proached herself for being too credulous, for she was very pious ; but still she believed them. In such matters, a mother is so easy of belief? Her credulity supported her under many trials, but spurred her to efforts beyond her means to educate Raphael, and ultimately deceived her. I had known Raphael since he was twelve years old, and next to his mother he loved me best on earth. We had met since the conclusion of our studies, first in Paris, then at Rome, whither he had been taken by one of his father's relatives, for the purpose of copying manuscripts in the Vatican Library. There he had acquired the impassioned language and the genius of Italy. He spoke Italian better than his mother tongue. At evening he would sit beneath the pines of the Villa Pamphili, and gazing on the setting sun and on the white fragments scat- tered on the plain, like the bleached bones of departed Rome, 8 PROLOGUE. would pour forth extemporaneous stanaas that made us weep : but he never wrote. " Raphael," would I sometimes say, " why do you not write V "Ah !" would he answer, "does the wind write what it sighs in this harmonious canopy of leaves'? Does the sea write the wail of its shores 1 Naught that has been written is truly, really beautiful, and the heart of man never discloses its best and most divine portion. It is impossible ! The instrument is of flesh, and the note is of fire ! Between what is felt, and what is expressed," would he add, mournfully, " there is the same distance as between the soul and the twenty-six letters of an alphabet ! Immensity of distance ! Think you a flute of reeds can give an idea of the harmony of the spheres V I left him to return to Paris. He was at that time striving, through his mother's interest, to obtain some situation in which he might by active employment remove from his soul its heavy weight, and lighten the oppressive burthen of his fate. Men of his own age sought him, and women looked graciously on him as he passed them by. But he never went into society, and of all women he loved his mother only. We suddenly lost sight of him for three years ; though we afterward learned that he had been seen in Switzerland, Ger- many, and Savoy ; and that in winter he passed many hours of his nights on a bridge, or on one of the quays of Paris. He had all the appearance of extreme destitution. It was only many years afterward that we learned more. We constantly thought of him, though absent, for he was one of those who could defy the forgetfulness of friends. Chance reunited us once more after an interval of twelve years. It so happened that I had inherited a small estate in his province, and when I went there to dispose of it, I inquired after Raphael. I was told that he had lost father, mother, and wife in the space of a few years ; that after these pangs of the heart, he had had to bear the blows of fortune, and that of all the domain of his fathers, nothing now remained to him but the old dismantled tower on the edge of the ravine, the garden, orchard, and meadow, with a few acres of unproductive land. These he ploughed himself, with two miserable cows ; and was only distinguished from his peasant neighbors by the book which he carried to the field, and which he would sometimes hold in one hand, while the other directed the plough. For many weeks, however, he had not been seen to leave his wretched PROLOGUE. 9 abode. It was supposed that he had started on one of those Jong journeys which with him lasted years. " It would be a pity," it was said, " for every one in the neighborhood loves him; though poor, he does as much good as any rich man Many a warm piece of cloth has been made from the wool of his sheep ; at night he teaches the little children of the sur- rounding hamlets how to read and write, or draw. He warms them at his hearth, and shares his bread with them, though God knows he has not much to spare when crops are short, as this year." It was thus all spoke of Raphael. I wished to visit at least the abode of my friend, and was directed to the foot of the hillock, on the summit of which stood the blackened tower, with its surrounding sheds and stables, amidst a group of hazel trees. A trunk of a tree, which had been thrown across, enabled me to pass over the almost dried-up torrent of the ravine, and I climbed the steep path, the loose stones giving way under my feet. Two cows and three sheep were grazing on the barren sides of the hillock, arid were tended by an old half-blind serv- ant, who was telling his beads, seated on an ancient escutcheon of stone, which had fallen from the arch of the doorway. He told me that Raphael was not gone, but had been ill for the last two months ; that it was plain he would never leave the lower but for the churchyard; and the old man pointed with his meager hand to the burying ground on the opposite hill. I asked if I could see Raphael. " Oh, yes," said the old man ; " go up the steps, and draw the string of the latch of the great \iall-door on the left. You will find him stretched on his bed, as gentle as an angel, and," added he, drawing the back of his hand across his eyes, "as simple as a child!" I mounted the steep and worn-out steps which wound round the outside of the tower, and ended at a small platform, covered by a tiled roof, the broken tiles of which strewed the stone steps. I lifted the latch of the door on my left, arid entered. Never shall I furget the sight. The chamber was vast, occupying all the space between the four walls of the tower; it was lighted from two windows, with stone cross-bars, and the dusty and broken lozenge-shaped panes of glass were set in lead. The huge beams of the ceiling were blackened by smoke, the floor waa paved with bricks, and in a high chimney with roughly fluted wooden jambs, an iron pot filled with potatoes was suspended over a fire, where a long' branch was burning, or rather smoking, A* 10 r ROT.OG v A. The only articles of furniture were two high-backed arm-chairs, covered with a plain colored stuff, of which it was impossible to guess the original color; a large table, half covered with an unbleached linen table cloth, in which a loaf was wrapped, the other half being strewed pell-mell with papers and books; and, lastly, a rickety, worm-eaten four-post bedstead, with its blue serge curtains looped back to admit the rays of the sun, and the air from the open window. A man who was still young, but attenuated by consumption and want, was seated on the edge of the bed, occupied in throwing crumbs to a whole host of swallows, which were wheeling their flight around him. The birds flew away at the noise of my approach, and perch- ed on the cornice of the hall, or on the tester of the bed. I recognized Raphael, pale and thin as he was ! His countenance, though no longer youthful, had not lost its peculiar character; but a change had come over its loveliness, and its beauty was now of the grave. Rembrandt would have wished for no better model for his Christ in the garden of Olives. His dark hair clustered thickly on his shoulders, and was thrown back in disorder, as by the weary hand of the laborer, when the sweat and toil of the day is over. The long untrimmed beard prew with a natural symmetry that disclosed the graceful curve of the lip, and the contour of the cheek ; there was still the noble out- line of the nose, the fair and delicate complexion, the pensive, and now sunken eye ! His shirt, thi'own open on the chest, displayed his muscular though attenuated frame, which might yet have appeared majestic, had his weakness allowed him to sit erect. He knew me at a glance, made one step forward with extended arms, and fell back upon the bed. We first wept, and then talked together. He related the past; how, when he had thought to cull the flowers or fruits of life, his hopes had ever been marred by fortune or by death : the loss of his father, mother, wife, and child; his reverses of fortune, and the com- pulsory sale of his ancestral domain : he told how he retired to his ruined home, with no other companionship than that of his mother's old herdsman, who served him without pay, for the love he bore to his house; and lastly, spoke of the consuming languor which would sweep him away with the autumnal leaves, and lay him in the churchyard, beside those he had loved so well ! His intense imaginative faculty might be seen strong PROLOGUE. 11 even in death, and in idea he loved to endow with a fanciful sympathy the turf and flowers which would blossom on his grave. " Do you know what grieves me most 1 ?" said he, pointing to the fringe of little birds which were perched round the top of his bed " it is to think that, next spring, these poor little ones, my latest friends, will seek for me in vain in the tower. They will no longer find the broken pane through which to fly in ; and on the floor, the little flocks of wool from my mattress with which to build their nests ; but the old nurse, to whom I be- queath my little all, will take care of them as long as she lives," he resumed, as if to comfort himself with the idea "and after her Well! God will, for He feedeth the young ravens." He seemed moved while speaking of these little creatures. It was easy to see that he had long been weaned from the sym- pathy of men, and that the whole tenderness of his soul, which had been repulsed by them, was now transferred to dumb an- imals. " Will you spend any time among our mountains ?" he inquired. "Yes," I replied. " So much the better," he added; " you will close my eyes, and take care that my grave is dug as close as possible to those of my mother, wife, and child." He then begged me to draw toward him a large chest of carved wood, which was concealed beneath a bag of Indian corn at one end of the room. I placed the chest upon the bed, and from it he drew a quantity of papers which he tore silently to pieces for half an hour, and then bid his old nurse sweep them into the fire. There were verses in many languages, and innumerable pages of fragments, separated by dates, like memoranda. " Why should you burn all these 1" I timidly suggested ; " has not man a moral as well as a material inheritance to bequeath to those who come after him 1 You are perhaps destroying thoughts and feelings which might have quickened a soul." " What matters it 1" he said ; " there are tears enough in this world, and we need not deposit a few more in the heart of man. These," said he, showing the verses, " are the cast off, useless feathers of my soul ; it has moulted since then, and spread its bolder wings for eternity !" He then continued to burn and de- stroy, while I looked out of the broken window at the dreary landscape. At length, he called me once more to the bedside. " Here," said he, " save this one little manuscript, which I have not cour- age to burn. When I am gone, my poor nurse would make bags for her seeds with it, and I would not that the name which 12 PROLOGUE. fills its pages should be profaned ; take and keep it till you heal that I am no more. After my death you may burn it, or pre- serve it till your old age, to think of me sometimes as you glance over it." I hid the roll of paper beneath my cloak, and took my leave, resolving inwardly to return the next day to soothe the last mo- ments of Raphael by my care and friendly discourse. As I de- scended the steps, I saw about twenty little children with their wooden shoes in their hands, who had come to take the lessons which he gave them, even on his death-bed. A little further on I met the village priest, who had come to spend the evening with him. I bowed respectfully, and as he noted my swollen eyes, he returned my salute with an air of mournful sympathy. The next day I returned to the tower; Raphael had died during the night, and the village bell was already tolling for his burial. Women and children were standing at their doors, look- ing mournfully in the direction of the tower, and in the little green field adjoining the church, two men, with spades and mat- tock, were digging a grave at the foot of a cross. I drew near to the door; a cloud of twittering swallows were fluttering round the open windows, darting in and out, as though the spoiler had robbed their nests. Since then I have read these pages, and now know why he loved to be surrounded by these birds, and what memories they waked in him, even to his dying day. i. THERE are places and climates, seasons and hours, witn their outward circumstance, so much in harmony with cer- tain impi'essions of the heart, that nature and the soul of man appear to be parts of one vast whole ; and if we separate the stage from the drama, or the drama from the stage, the whole scene fades, and the feeling vanishes. If we take from Rene the cliffs of Brittany, or the wild savannahs from Atala, the mists of Svvabia from Werther, or the sunny waves and scorched-up hills from Paul and Virginia, we can neither understand Chateau- briand, Bernardin de St. Pierre, or Werther. Places and events are closely linked, for nature is the same in the eye as in the heart of man. We are earth's children, and life is the same in jap as in blood : all that the earth, our mother, feels and ex- presses to the eye by her form and aspect, in melancholy or in splendor, finds an echo within us. One can not thoroughly enter into certain feelings, save in the spot where they first had birth. II. At the entrance of Savoy, that natural labyrinth of deep valleys, which descend like so many torrents from the Simplon, St. Bernard, and Mount Cenis, and direct their course toward France and Switzerland, one wider valley separates at Cham- bery from the Alpine chain, and, striking off toward Geneva and Annecy, displays its verdant bed, intersected with lakes and rivers, between the Mont du Chat and the almost mural mount- ains of Beauges. On the left, the Mont du Chat, like a gigantic rampart, rung in one uninterrupted ridge for the space of two leagues, mark- ing the horizon with a dark and scarcely undulated line. A few jagged peaks of gray rock at the eastern extremity, alone break the almost geometrical monotony of its appearance, and tell that it was the hand of God, and not of man, that piled up these huge masses. Toward Chambery, the mountain descends by gentle steps to the plain, and forms natural terraces, clothed 14 RAPHAEL. with walnut and chestnut trees, entwined with clusters of the creeping vine. In the midst of this wild, luxuriant vegetation, one sees here and there some country house shining through the trees, the tall spire of a humble village, or the old dark towers and battlements of some castle of a bygone age. The plain was once a vast lake, and has preserved the hollowed form, the indented shores, and advanced promontories of its former as- ooct; but in lieu of the spreading waters, there are the yellow waves of the bending corn, or the undulating summit of the ver- dant poplars. Here arid there, a piece of rising ground, which was once an island, may be seen with its clusters of thatched roofs, half hidden among the branches. Beyond this dried-up basin, the Mont du Chat rises more abrupt and bold, its base washed by the waters of a lake as blue as the firmament above it. This lake, which is not more than six leagues in length, va- ries in breadth from one to three leagues, and is surrounded and hemmed in with bold, steep rocks on the French side; on the Savoy side, on the contrary, it winds unmolested into several creeks and small bays, bordered by vine-covered hillocks and well wooded slopes, and skirted by fig-trees, whose branches dip into its very waters. The lake then dwindles away gradually to the foot of the rocks of Chatillon, which open to afford a passage for the overflow of its waters into the Rhone. The burial-place of the princes of the house of Savoy, the abbey of Haute-Combe, stands on the northern side, upon its foundation of granite, and projects the vast shadow of its spaciotis cloisters on the waters of the lake. Screened during the day from the rays of the sun by the high banier of the Mont du Chat, the edifice, from the obscurity which envelops it, seems emblemat- ical of the eternal night awaiting at its gates, the- princes who descend from a throne into its vaults. Toward evening, how- ever, a ray of the setting sun strikes and reverberates on its walls, as a beacon to mark the haven of life at the close of day. A few fishing boats, without sails, glide silently on the deep waters, beneath the shade of the mountain, and from their dingy color can scarcely be distinguished from its dark an'd rocky sides. Eagles, with their dusky plumage, incessantly hover over the cliffs and boats, as if to rob the nets of their prey, or make a sudden stoop at the birds which follow in the wake of the boats. III. At no great distance, the little town of Aix, in RAPHAEL. 15 steaming with its hot springs, and redolent of sulphur, is seated on the slope of a hill covered with vineyards, oi-chards, and meadows. A long avenue of poplars, the growth of a century, connects the lake with the town, and reminds one of those far stretching rows of cypresses which lead to Turkish cemeteries. The meadows and fields, on either side of this road, are inter sected by the rocky beds of the often dried-up mountain tor- rents, and shaded by giant walnut trees, upon whose boughs, vines as sturdy as those of the woods of America, hang their clustering branches. Here and there a distant vista of the lake shows its surface, alternately sparkling or lead colored, as the passing cloud or the hour of the day may make it. When I arrived at Aix, the crowd had already left it. The hotels and public places, where strangers and idlers flock during the summer, were then closed. All were gone, save a few in- firm paupers, seated in the sun, at the door of the lowest de- scription of inns ; and some invalids, past all hope of recovery, who might be seen, during the hottest hours of the day, drag- ging their feeble steps along, and treading the withered leaves that had fallen from the poplars during the night. IV. The autumn was mild, but had set in early. The leaves which had been blighted by the morning frost, fell in roseate showers from the vines and chestnut trees. Until noon, the mist overspread the valley like an overflowing nocturnal inundation, covering all but the tops of the highest poplars in the plain the hillocks rose in view like islands, and the peaks of mount ains appeared as headlands in the midst of ocean ; but when the sun rose higher in the heavens, the mild southerly breeze drove before it all these vapors of earth. The rushing of the impris- oned winds in the gorges of the mountains, the murmur of the waters, and the whispering trees, produced sounds melodious or powerful, sonorous or melancholy, and seemed in a few min utes to run through the whole range of earth's joys and sorrows its strength or its melancholy. They stirred up one's very soul, then died away like the voices of celestial spirits, that pass and disappear. Silence, such as the ear has no perception of else- where, succeeded, and hushed all to rest. The sky resumed its almost Italian serenity ; the Alps stood out once more against a cloudless sky ; the drops from the dissolving mist fell pattering on the dry leaves, or shone like brilliants on the grass. These hours were quickly over ; the pale blue shades of evening glided 16 RAPHAEL. Bwiftly on, vailing the horizon with their cold drapery as with a shroud. It seemed the death of Nature, dying, as youth and beauty die, with all its charms, and all its serenity. Scenes such as these, exhibiting nature in its languid beauty, were too much in accordance with my feelings. While they gave an additional charm to my own languor, they increased it, and I voluntarily plunged into an abyss of melancholy. But it was a melancholy so replete with thoughts, impressions, and elevating desires, with so soft a twilight of the soul, that I had no wish to shake it off. It was a malady, the very consciousness of which was an allurement, rather than a pain, and in which death appeared but as a voluptuous vanishing into space. I had given myself up to the charm, and had determined to keep aloof from society, which might have dissipated it, and in the midst of the world to wrap myself in silence, solitude, and reserve. I used my isolation of mind as a shroud to shut out the sight of men, so as to -contemplate God arid nature only. Passing by Chambery, I had seen my friend, Louis de * * *, I had found him in the same state of mind as myself, disgusted with the bitterness of life, his genius unappreciated, the body worn out by the mind, and all his better feelings thrown back upon his heart. Louis had mentioned to me a quiet and secluded house, ii the higher part of the town of Aix, where invalids were admit ted to board. The establishment was conducted by a worth) old doctor (who had retired from the profession), and commu nicated with the town by a narrow pathway, which lay betweei the streams that issue from the hot springs. The back of tht house looked on a garden, surrounded by trellis and vine arbors; and beyond that, there were paths where goats only were to be seen, which led to the mountain through sloping meadows, and through woods of chestnut and walnut trees. Louis had promised to join me at Aix, as soon as he should have settled some business, consequent on the death of his mother, which detained him at Chambery. I looked forward with pleasure to his arrival, for we understood each other, and the same feel- ing of disenchantment was common to us both. Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can ; and com- mon sufferings are far stronger links than common joys. Louis was, at that particular time, the only person whose society was not distasteful to me, and yet I waited his arrival without eager- ness or impatience. RAPHAEL. 17 V. I was kindly and graciously received in the house of the old doctor, and a room was allotted to me, which overlooked the garden and the country beyond. Almost all the other rooms were untenanted, and the long table d'hote was deserted. At meal times, a few invalids from Chambery and Turin, who had over-staid the season, assembled with the family. These boarders had arrived late, when most of the visitors of the baths were already gone, in hopes of finding cheaper lodgings, and a style of living in accordance with their poverty. There was no one with whom I could converse, or form a passing acquaint- ance. This the old doctor and his wife soon saw, and threw the blame on the advanced season, and on the bathers who had left too soon. They often spoke with visible enthusiasm, and tender and compassionate respect, of a young stranger, a lady, who had remained at the baths in a weak and languid state of health, which it was feared would degenerate into slow consumption. She had lived alone with her maid for the last three months, in one of the most retired apartments of the house, taking her meals in her own rooms ; and was never seen except at her window that looked toward the garden, or on the stairs, when she returned from a donkey ride in the mountains. I felt compassion for this young creature, a stranger like myself in a foreign land, who must be ill, since she had come in quest of health, and was doubtless sad, since she avoided the bustle and even the sight of company; but I felt no desire to see her, spite of the admiration her grace and beauty had excited on those around me. My worn-out heart was wearied with wretched and short-lived attachments, of which I blushed to preserve the memories ; not one of which I could recur to with pious regret, save that of poor Antonina. I was penitent and ashamed of my past follies and disorders; disgusted and satiated of vulgar allurements ; and being naturally of a timid and re- served disposition, without that self-confidence which prompts some men to court adventures, or to seek the familiarity of chance acquaintances, I neither wished to see, nor to be seen. Still less did I dream of l#ve. On the contrary, I rejoiced, in my stern and mistaken pride, to think that I had forever stifled that weakness in my heart, and that I was alone to feel, or to suffer in this nether world. As to happiness, I no longer be- lieved in it. VI. I passed my days in my room, with no other company 18 RAPHAEL. than some books which my friend had sent me from Chambery. In the afternoon, I used to ramble alone amid the wild mount- ains which, on the Italian side, form the boundary of the valley of Aix; and returning home in the evening, harassed and fa- tigued, would sit down to supper, and then retire to my room, and spend whole hours seated at my window. I gazed at the blue firmament above, which, like the abyss attracting him who leans over it, ever attracts the thoughts of men, as though it had secrets to reveal. Sleep found me still wandering on a sea of thoughts, and seeking no shore. When morning came, I was awaked by the rays of the sun, and by the murmur of the hot springs ; and I would plunge into my bath, and after breakfast recommence the same rambles, and the same melancholy mus- ings as the day before. Sometimes in the evening, when I looked out of my window into the garden, I saw another lighted window, not far from my own, and the face of a female, who, with one hand throwing back the long black tresses from her brow, gazed like myself on the mountains, the sky, and moonlit garden. I could only distinguish the pale, pure, and almost transparent profile, and the long, dark waves of the hair, which was smoothed down at the temples. I used to see this face standing out on the brilliant background of the window, which was lighted from a lamp in the bed-room. At times, too, I had heard a woman's voice saying a few words, or giving some orders in the apartment. The slightly foreign, though pure accent, the vibrations of that soft, languid, and yet marvelously sonorous voice, of which I heard the harmony without under- standing the words, had interested me. Long after my window was closed, that voice remained in my ear like the prolonged sound of an echo. I had never heard any like it, even in Italy; it sounded through the half-closed teeth like those small metallic lyres that the children of the islands of the Archipelago use when they play on the sea-shore. It was more like a ringing sound than like a voice; I had noticed it, little dreaming that that voice would ring loud and deep forever through my life. The next day I thought no more of it. One day, however, on returning home earlier, and entering by the little garden-door near the arbor, I had a nearer view of the stranger, who was sealed on a bench under the southern wall, enjoying the warm rays of the sun. She thought herself alone, for she had not heard the sound of the door as I closed it behind me, and I could contemplate her unobserved. We RAPHAEL. 19 were within twenty paces of each other, and were only separated by a vine, which was half-stripped of its leaves : the shade of the vine-leaves and the rays of the sun played and chased each other alternately over her face. She appeared larger than life, as she sat like one of those marble statues enveloped in drapery, cf which we admire the beauty without distinguishing the form. The folds of her dress were loose and flowing, and the drapery of a white shawl, folded closely round her, showed only her slender and rather attenuated hands, which were crossed on her lap. In one she carelessly held one of those red flowers which grow in the mountains beneath the snow, and are called, I know not why, "poets' flowers." One end of her shawl was thrown over her head like a hood, to protect her from the damp evening air. She was bent languidly forward, her head inclined upon her left shoulder ; and the eyelids, with their long, darn, lashes, were closed against the dazzling rays of the sun. Her complexion was pale, her features motionless, and her counte- nance so expressive of profound and silent meditation, that she resembled a statue of Death ; but of that death which bears away the soul beyond the reach of human woes to the regions of eternal light and love. The sound of my footsteps on the dry leaves made her look up. Her large, half-closed eyes were of that peculiar tint resembling the color of lapis lazuli, streaked with brown, and the drooping lid had that natural fringe of long, dark lashes, which Eastern women strive by art to imitate, in order to impart a voluptuous wildness to their look, and energy even to their languor. The light of those eyes seemed to come from a distance which I have never measured in any other mortal eye. It was as the rays of the stars, which seem to seek us out, and to approach us as we gaze, and yet have traveled millions of miles through the heavens. The high and narrow forehead seemed as if compressed by intense thought, and joined the nose by an almost straight and Grecian line. The lips were thin, and slightly depressed at the confers with an habit- ual expression of sadness ; the teeth of pearl, rather than of ivory, as is the case with the daughters of the sea, or islands. The face was oval, slightly emaciated in the lower part and at the temples, and, on the whole, she seemed rather an imbodying of thought than a human being. Besides this general expression of reverie, there was a languid look of suffering and passion, which made it impossible to gaze once on that face without bearing its ineffaceable image stamped forever in the memory. 20 RAPHAEL. In a word, hers was a contagious sickness of the soul, vailed ir: a shape of beauty the most majestic and atti active that the dreams of mortal man ever imbodied. I passed rapidly before her, bowing respectfully, and my deferential air and downcast eyes seemed to ask forgiveness for having disturbed her. A slight blush tinged her pale cheeks at my approach. I returned to my room, trembling and wondering that the evening air should thus have chilled me. A few minutes later, I saw her re-enter the house, and cast one indifferent look at my window. I saw her again on the following days, at the same hour, both in the garden and in the court, but never dared to think of accosting her. I even met her sometimes near the chalets, with the little girls who drove her donkey, or picked strawberries for her; at other times, in her boat on the lake: but I never showed any sign of recognition or interest, beyond a grave and respectful bow. She would return it, with an air of melancholy abstraction, and we each went our separate ways, on the hills or on the waters. VII. And yet, when I had not met her in the course of the day, I felt sad and disturbed ; when evening came, I would go down to the garden, I knew not why, and stay there, with my eyes riveted on her windows, spite of the cold night air. I could not make up my mind to return to the house, until I had caught a glimpse of her shadow on the curtains, or heard a note of her piano, or one of the strange tones of her voice. The apartment she occupied was contiguous to my room, from which it was separated by a strong oaken door, with two bolts. I could hear confusedly the sound of her footsteps, the rustling of her gown, or the crumpling of the leaves of her book as she turned over the pages. I sometimes fancied I heard her breathe. Instinctively I placed my writing-table, on which my lamp stood, near the door, for I felt less lonely when I heard these sounds of life around me. 'It seemed to me that this unknown neighbor, who insensibly occupied all my time, shared my life. In a word, before I had the slightest idea that I loved, I had already all the thoughts, the fancies, and the refinements of passion. Love did not consist for me in one particular symptom, look, or con- fession, in any one external circumstance against which I could have fortified myself; it was as an invisible miasma diffused in the surrounding atmosphere ; it was in the air and light, in the expiring season, in my lonely life, in the mysterious proximity RAPHAEL. iJJ of another equally isolated existence; in the long excursions which took me from her, and made me feel the more forcibly the unconscious attraction which recalled me ; in her white dress, seen at a distance through the mountain firs; in her dark hair loosened by the wind on the lake ; in the light at her win- dow; in the alight creaking of the wooden floor under her tread ; in the rustling of her pen on the paper when she wrote ; in the very silence of those long autumnal evenings which she spent in reading, writing, or in thought, within a few paces of me ; and lastly, in the fascination of her fantastic beauty, too much seen though scarcely beheld, and which, when I closed my eyes, I etill saw through the wall, as though it had been transparent. With this feeling, however, there mingled no desire or eager curiosity on my part to find out the secret reason of her solitude, or to break down the fragile barrier of our almost voluntary separation. What to me was this woman, whom I had met by chance among the mountains of a foreign land, ill in health and sick at heart though she might be 1 I had shaken the dust from my feet, or at least I thought I had, and felt no wish to hold to the world once more, by any link of the mind, or of the senses, still less by any weakness of the heart. I felt supreme con tempt for love, for under its name I had met only with affecta- tion, coquetry, fickleness, and levity ; if I except the love of Antonina, which had been but a childish ecstasy, a flower fallen from the stem before its hour of perfume. VIII. Again ! who was this woman 1 Was she a being like myself, or one of those visions which, like living meteors, shoot athwart the sky of our imagination, dazzling the eye ] Was she of my own country, or from some distant land, from some island of the tropics, or the far East, whither I could not follow her] After adoring her for a few days, might I not have to mourn forever her absence ] Was her heart free to respond to mine ? Was it likely that enthralling beauty such as hers, should have traversed the world and reached maturity, without kindling love in some of those upon whom the glance of her eye had fallen ] Had she a father or a mother, brothers or sisters '? Was she not married ] Was there not one man in the world who, though separated from her by inexplicable circumstances, lived for her only, as she lived for him ? A .1 this I said to myself, to drive away this one besetting, hopeless fancy. I scorned even to make inquiries. I was too 22 RAPHAEL. much of a stoic to strive to penetrate the unknown, and thought it more dignified, or, perhaps, more pleasant, to go on dream- ing in uncertainty. IX. The old doctor and his family had not the pride of heart that induced me to respect her secret. At table, our hosts, with the curiosity natural to all those who live by strangers, would interpret every circumstance, discuss every probability, and col- lect even the vaguest notions concerning the stranger. I soon learned all that had transpired respecting her, although I never interrogated, and even studiously avoided making her the sub ject of our discourse. In vain I sought to turn the conversation into another channel ; every day the same subject recurred ; men) women, children, bathers and servants, the guides of the mountains, and the boatmen on the lake, had all been equally struck and charmed by her, although she spoke to no one. She way an object of universal respect and admiration. There are some beings who, by their dazzling radiance, draw all around them into their sphere of attraction, without desiring, or even perceiving it. It seems as though certain natures were like the suns of some moral system, obliging the looks, thoughts, and hearts of their satellites to gravitate around them. Their moral and physical beauty is a spell, their fascination a chain, love is but their emanation. We track their upward course from earth to heaven, and when they vanish in their youth and beauty, all else seems dark to the eye that has been blinded by their brilliancy. The vulgar, even, recognize these superioi beings by some mysterious sign. They admire without com prehending, as the blind enjoy the sunshine, who have nevci seen the sun. X. It was thus I learned that the young stranger lived in Paris. Her husband was an old man, who had rendered his name illustrious, at the close of the last century, by many dis- coveries which held a high place in the history of science. He had been struck with the beauty and talent of this young girl, and had adopted her, in order to bequeath to her his name and fortune. She loved him as a father, wrote to him every day, and sent him a journal of her feelings and impressions. Two years ago, she had fallen into a declining state, which had alarmed him. She had been recommended to remove south- ward and try change of air, and her husband being too infirr^ RAPHAEL. 23 to accompany her, had confided her to the care of some friends from Lausanne, with whom she had traveled all over Italy and Switzerland. The change had not restored her to health, and a Genevese doctor, fearing a disease of the heart, had recom- mended the baths of Aix ; he was to come to fetch her, and take her back to Paris at the beginning of the winter. This was all I learned of a life already so dear. Still I per- sisted in fancying that all these details were indifferent to me I felt a tender pity for this enchanting and beautiful being, blighted in the flower of youth by a disease which, while it consumes life, renders the sensations more acute, arid stimulates the flame which it is destined to extinguish. When I met the stranger on the staircase, I sought to discover the trace of her sufferings in the scarcely-perceptible lines of pain round her somewhat pale lips, or in the dark circle which want of sleep had left round her beautiful blue eyes. I was interested by her beauty, but still more by the shadow of death by which she was overcast, and which made her appear more as a phantom of the night than as a reality. This was all. Our lives rolled on ; we continued to live in close proximity, as far as distance was con- cerned ; but morally, as widely separated as ever. XI. I. had given up my mountain excursions since the snow had fallen on the highest peaks of Savoy, for the gentle warmth of the latter days of October seemed to have taken refuge in the valley; and on the banks of the lake the weather was still mild. The long avenue of poplars was my delight, with its gleams of sunshine, waving tops, and murmuring branches. I spent, also, a great part of my time on the water. The boatmen all knew me, and I am told they still remember how we used to sail into the wildest creeks and remotest bays of France and Savoy. The young stranger, too, would sometimes embark in the mid- dle of the day for less distant expeditions. The boatmen, who were proud of her confidence, always took care to give her notice of the least symptom of wind or cold weather, thinking far more of her health and safety than of their own gains. On one occasion, however, they were themselves deceived. They had undertaken to row her safely over to Haute-Combe, on the opposite shore of the lake, in order to visit the ruins of the Abbey. They had scarcely got over two-thirds of the distance, when a sudden gust of wind, rushing forth from the r. arrow gorges of the valley of the Rhone, stirred up the vaves of th 24 RAPHAEL. lake, and produced one of those short seas which so often prove fatal. The sail of the little boat was soon gone, and it seemed like a nutshell dancing on the still-inci'easing waves. It was impossible to think of returning, and full half an hour of fatigue and danger must elapse, before the boat could be moored in safety under the hanging cliffs of Haute-Combe. Fate willed that my wandering sail should be on the lake at the same hour. I was in a larger boat, with four stout oarsmen, and was going to visit M. de Chatillon, a relation of my Chambery friend. His chateau was situated on the summit of a rock, in a small island at one end of the lake. A few strokes of the oar would have brought us into the harbor of Chatillon ; but I, who had uncon- sciously been watching the other boat, and saw it struggling against the wind, perceived the danger in which it was placed. VVe put about immediately, and with one heart affronted the tempest and the dangers of the lake, to try and succor the little craft, which every now and then disappeared, and was lost in a mist of foam and spray. My anxiety was intense, during the hour that was required to cross the lake, before we could join \he little bai'k. When we came up to it, the shore was close at hand, and one long wave lodged it in safety before our eyes, on the sand at the foot of the ruined Abbey. We shouted for joy, and rushed through the water to the boat, in order to carry the invalid ashore. The poor boatman was making* signs of distress, and calling for help ; he was pointing to the bottom of the boat, at something we could not see. On reaching the spot where he stood, we found that the stranger had fainted, and was lying at the bottom of the boat. Her body and arms were completely immersed in water, and her head rested like that of a corpse against the little wooden chest at the stern, in which the boatmen put their tackle and provisions. Her hair streamed in disorder about her neck and shoulders, like the dark wings of a lifeless bird floating on the surface of the waters. Her face, from which all color had not fled, was calm and peaceful as in slumber, and shone with that preternatural beauty death leaves on the countenance of those who die young ; like the last and fairest ray of retiring life, lingering on the brow from which it is about to depart, or the first beam of dawning immortality, on the features which are henceforward to be hallowed in the memory of those who sur- vive. I had never before, and have never since, seen her sr. divinely transfigured. Was death the most perfect form of her RAPHAEL. celestial beauty, or did Providence intend this first and solemn impression, as a foreshadowing of that unchangeable image of beauty, which I was destined to entomb in my memory, and eternally evoke? We jumped into the boat, to take up the apparently dying woman, and carry her beyond the rocks. I placed my hand upon her heart, and approached my ear to her lips, as I would to those of a sleeping infant. The heart beat irregularly, but with strong pulsations ; the breath was warm, and I saw that she had only fainted from terror and from cold. One of the boatmen took up her feet, I supported the shoulders and the head, which rested on my breast. She gave no sign of life while we carried her thus to a fisherman's house, below the rocks of Haute-Combe, which serves as an inn for the boatmen, when they conduct strangers to the ruins. This poor dwelling consisted merely in one long, dark, smoky room, furnished with a table upon which were wine, bread, and cheese. A wooden ladder led to an upper room, which was lighted by a single round window, without glass, looking toward the lake. Almost the whole space of this room was occupied by three beds, whr.-h could be closed up by wooden doors, like large presses. T v e whole family slept there. We confided the stranger, who was RAPHAEL. This was not said with the accent of one who loves, and affects a sportive seriousness, but with the tone of a still youthful moth- er, or an elder sister counseling a brother or a son : " I do noi wish you to attach yourself to a false appearance, a delusion, a dream ; I wish you to know her to whom you so rashly pledge a heart which she could only retain by deceiving you. False- hood has always been so odious and so impossible to me that I could not desire the supreme felicity of Heaven if I must enter Heaven by deceit. Stolen happiness would not be happiness for me, it would be remorse." As she spoke there was so much candor on her lips, so much sincerity in her tone, and limpid purity in her eyes, that I fan- cied as I looked at her, that under her pure and lovely form 1 saw immortal Truth, in the broad light of day, pouring her voice into the ear, her look into the eye, and her soul into the heart 1 stretched myself on the hay at her feet, and, with my elbow leaning on the ground, I rested my head upon my hand : my eyes were riveted upon her lips, of which I strove not to lose a single motion, a single modulation, or a single sigh. XIX. " I was born," she said, " in the same land as Virgin- ia (for the poet's fancy has given a real birth-place to his dream), in an island of the tropics ; you may have guessed it from the color of my hair, and from my complexion, which is paler than that of European women. You must have perceived, too, the accent which still lingers on my lips. In truth, I rather wish to preserve that accent as my only memento of my native land ; it recalls to my mind the plaintive and harmonious sounds of the sea-breeze, that are heard at noon beneath the lofty palms. You may also have noticed that incorrigible indolence of walk and attitude, so different from the vivacity of French women, which indicates in the creole a wild and natural frankness, that knows not how to feign or to dissemble. " My family name is D * * *, and my own is Julie. My mother was lost in a boat in attempting to leave our native isl- and during an insurrection of the blacks. I was washed ashore and saved by a black woman, who took care of me for several years, and then delivered me over to my father. He brought me to France when I was six years old, with an elder sister, and a short time after he died in poverty and exile in the house of some poor relations, who had hospitably received us in Brit- tany. The second mother whom I had found in exile, provided RAPHAEL. 31 for my education until her death, and at twelve years old I was adopted by the government as being the daughter of a man who had done some service to his country. I was brought up in all the luxurious splendor, and amid the choice friendships of those sumptuous houses in which the state receives the daughters of those who die for their country. I grew in years, in talent, and also, it was said, in beauty. Mine was a grave and saddened grace, like the flower of some tropical plant, blooming awhile beneath a foreign sky. But my useless beauty, and my unavail- ing talents, gladdened no eye or heart beyond the narrow pre- cincts in which I was confined. My companions with whom I had formed those close intimacies which make the friends of childhood the kindred of the heart, had all left, one by one, to join their mothers, or to follow their husbands. No mother took me home ; no relation came to visit me ; no young man heard of me, or sought me for his wife. I was saddened by these successive departures of all my friends, and felt sorrowful to think I was forsaken by the whole world, and doomed to an eternal bereavement of the heart, without ever having loved. I often wept in secret, and regretted that the poor black woman had not allowed me to perish in the waves of my native shore, more merciful to me than the ocean of the world on which 1 was cast. " Now and then, an old man of great celebrity would come to visit, in the name of the emperor, the national house of educa- tion, and inquire into the progress of the pupils in the arts and sciences, which were taught by the first masters of the capital ; I was always pointed out to him as the brightest example of the education bestowed on the orphans. He invariably treated me with peculiar predilection from my childhood. ' How I regret,' he would sometimes say, loud enough for me to hear, 'that I have no son !' " One day I was called down to the parlor of the superior. I found there my illustrious and venerable friend, who seemed as discomposed as I was myself. ' My child/ said he, at length, ' years roll on for every one ; slowly for you, swiftly for me ; you are now seventeen ; in a few months you will have attained the age at which you must leave this house for the world; but there is no world to receive you. You have no country, no home, no fortune, and no family in France ; your unprotected and dependent situation has made me feel anxious on your ac count for many years. The life of a young girl, who earns hei 38 RAPHAEL. livelihood by her labor, is full of snares and bitterness, and a home offered by friends is both precarious and humiliating to the spirit. The extreme beauty that nature has bestowed upon you will, by its brightness, dispel the obscurity of your fate, and attract vice, as the brightness of gold induces theft. Where do you mean to take shelter from the sorrows and dangers of life T 1 I know not,' I answered ; ' and I have thought sometimes that death alone can save me from my fate !' ' Oh !' he replied, with a sad and irresolute smile, ' I have thought of another mode of escape, but 1 scarcely dare propose it.' ' Speak, without fear, sir,' I answered ; ' you have during so many years spoken to me with the look and accent of a father, that I shall fancy I am obeying mine, in obeying you.' ' Ah ! he would be happy in- deed,' he replied, ' who had a daughter such as you ! Forgive me if I have sometimes indulged in such a dream ! Listen to me,' he added, in a more tender and serious tone, ' and answer me in thorough frankness and liberty of heart. " ' My life is drawing to a close ; the grave will soon open to receive me, and I have no relations to whom to bequeath my only wealth, the unaspiring celebrity of my name, and the hum- ble fortune that I have acquired by my labors. Hitherto I have lived alone, completely absorbed by the studies that have con- sumed and dignified my life. I draw near to the close of my existence, and I am painfully aware that I have not commenced to live, since I have not thought of loving. It is too late to re- trace my steps, and follow the path of happiness instead of that of glory, which I have unfortunately chosen ; and yet I would ot die without leaving in some memory that prolongation of existence in the existence of another, which is called affection, the only immortality in which I believe ! I can not hope for more than gratitude, and I feel that it is from you that I should wish to obtain it. But,' added he, more timidly, ' for that, you must consent to accept, in the eyes of the world, and for the world only, the name, the hand, and the affection of an old man, who would be a father under the name of husband, and who, as such, would merely seek the right of receiving you into his house, and loving you as his child.' " He stopped, and refused that day to hear the answer which was already hovering on my lips. He was the only man among all the visitors of the house who had evinced any feeling toward me, beyond that vulgar and almost insolent admiration, which shows itself in looks and exclamations, and is as much an offense RAPHAEL. 39 as an homage. I knew nothing of love ; 1 only felt an absence of all family ties which I thought the tenderness of my adoptive father would replace. I was offered a safe and honorable refuge against the dangers of the life in which I was to enter in a few months ; and a name which would be as a diadem to the woman who bore it. His hair had grown white, it was true, but under the touch of fame, which bestows eternal youth upon its favorites; his years would have numbered four times mine, but his regular and majestic features inspired respect for time, and no disgust to old age ; and his countenance, where genius and goodness were combined, possessed that beauty of declin- ing age, which attracts the eye and affection even of childhood. " The very day I quitted forever the Orphan Establishment, I entered my husband's house, not as his wife, but as his daughter. The world gave him the name of husband, but he never suffered me to call him any thing but father, and he was such to me in care and tenderness. He made me the adored and radiating center of a select and distinguished circle, com- posed for the greater part of those old men, eminent in letters, politics, or philosophy, who had been the glory of the preceding century, and had escaped the fury of the revolution, and the voluntary servitude of the empire. He selected for me friends and guides among those women of the same period, who were most I'emarkable for their talents or virtues ; he promoted and encouraged all those connections most likely to interest my mind or heart, and to diversify the monotonous life I led in an old man's house ; and far from being severe or jealous in respect of my acquaintances, he sought by the most courteous attention to attract all those distinguished men whose society might have charms for me. He would have liked whoever I had chosen, and would have been pleased if T had shown pref- erence to any one among the crowd. I was the worshiped idol of the house, and the general idolatry of which I was the object, went far, perhaps, to guard me against any individual predilection. I was too happy and too much flattered, to in- quire into the state of my own heart, and besides, there was so much paternal tenderness in my husband's manner toward me, although he only showed his fondness by sometimes holding me to his heart, and kissing my forehead, from which he gently parted my hair, that I should have feared to disturb my happi- ness by seeking to render it complete. He would sometime. \ however, playfully rally me on my indifference, and tell rm 40 RAPHAEL. that all that tended to add to ray happiness would increase hia own. "Once, and once only, I thought I loved, and was beloved. A nian whose genius had rendered him illustrious, who was powerful from his high favor with the emperor, and who was doubly captivating by his renown and appearance, although he had passed the meridian of life, sought me with a signal devo- tion that deceived me. I was not elated with pride, but rather with gratitude and surprise. I loved him for a time, or rather I loved a self-ci~eated delusion under his name. I might have yielded to the charm of such a feeling, had I not discovered, that what I supposed to be a passionate attachment of the heart, was on his part only an infatuation of the senses. When I per- ceived the real nature of his love, it became odious to me, and I blushed to think how I had been deceived ; I took back my heart, and wrapped myself once more in the cold monotony of my happiness. " The morning was spent in deep and engaging studies with my husband, whose willing disciple 1 was. During the day, we took long and solitary walks in the woods of St. Cloud or of Meudon ; and in the evening, a few grave, and for the mos' part, elderly friends, would meet and discourse on various topics with all the freedom of intimacy. These cold, but indulgen! hearts inclined toward my youth, from that natural bias which makes the love of the aged descend on the youthful, as the streams of snow-covered summits flow downward to the plain. But these hoary heads seemed to shed their snows on me, and my youth pined and wasted away in the ungenial atmosphere of age. There lay too great a space of years, between their hearts and mine ! Oh ! what would I not have given to have had one friend of my own age, by the contact of whose warm heart I might have dissolved the thoughts that froze within me, as the dew of morning congeals upon the plants that grow too near these mountain glaciers. " My husband often looked sadly at me, and seemed alarmed at my pale face, and languid voice. He would have desired, at any cost, to give air and motion to my heart. He continu- ally tried to induce me to mingle in divei'sions which might dispel my melancholy, and would use gentle force to oblige me to appear at balls and theaters, in the hope that the natural pride which my youth and beauty might have given me, would nave made me share in the pleasure of those around roe. The RAPHAEL. 41 next morning, as soon as I was awake, he would come into inj room, and make me relate the impression I had produced, tht admiration I had attracted, and even speak of the hearts that I had seemed to touch. And you, would he say, in a tone of gentle interrogation, do you share none of these feelings that you inspire 1 ? Is your young heart at twenty as old as mine 1 Oh ! that I could see you single out from among all these admirers, one superior being, who might one day, by his love, render your happiness complete, and when I am gone, continue my affection for you under a younger and more tender form ! Your affection suffices me, I would answer; I feel no pain; 1 desire nothing, I am happy ! Yes, he would rejoin, you are happy, but you are growing old at twenty ! Oh ! remember that it is your task to close my eyes ! Live and love ! oh, do but live, that I may not survive you. " He called in one doctor after another ; they wearied ma with questions, and all agreed in saying that I was threatened with spasms of the heart. The fainting fits, incident to the disease, had begun to show themselves. I required, it was said, to break through the usual routine of my life, to relinquish for some time my sedentary habits, and seek a complete change of air and scene, in order to give me that stimulus and energy that my tropical nature required, and which it had lost in the cold and misty atmosphere of Paris. My husband did not hes- itate one moment between the hope of prolonging my life, and the happiness of keeping me near him. As he could not, by reason of his age and occupations, accompany me, he confided me to the care of friends who were traveling in Switzerland and Italy, with two daughters of my own age. I traveled with that family two years ; I have seen mountains and seas that reminded me of those of my native land ; I have breathed the balmy and stimulating air of the waves and glaciers, but nothing has restored to me the youth that has withered in my heart, although it sometimes appears to bloom on my face, so as to deceive even me. The doctors of Geneva have sejpt me here, as the last resource of their art ; they have advised me to pro- long my stay as long as one ray of sun lingers in the autumnal sky ; then I shall rejoin my husband. Alas ! that I could have shown him his daughter, once more young, and radiant with health and hope ! But I feel that I shall return only to sadden his latter days, and perhaps to expire in his arms ! Well," she rejoined, in a resigned and almost joyful tone, " I shall not 42 RAPHAEL. now leave earth without having seen my long-expected brother; the brother of the soul, that some secret instinct taught me to expect, and whose image, foreshadowed in my fancy, had made me indifferent to all real beings! Yes," she said, covering her eyes with her rosy taper fingers, between which I saw one or two tears trickle; "Oh ! yes, the dream of all my nights was imbodied in you this morning, when I awoke ! . . . . Oh ! if it were not too late to live on, I would wish to live for centuries, to prolong the consciousness of that look, which seemed to weep over me, of that heart that pitied me, of that voice," she added, unvailing her eyes, which were raised to Heaven, " of that voice that called me sister ! . . . . That tender name will never more be taken from me," she added, with a look and tone of gentle interrogation, " during life, or after death V XX. I sank at her feet overpowered with felicity; and pressed my lips to them without saying a word, I heard the step of the boatmen, who came to tell us that the lake was calm, and that there was but just sufficient daylight left, to cross over to the Savoy shore. Wo rose to follow them, with un- steady steps, as if intoxicated with joy. Oh ! who can describe what I experienced, as I felt the weight of her pliant but ex- hausted frame hanging delightfully on my arm, as though she wished to feel, and make me feel, that I was henceforward her only support in weakness, her only trust in sorrow, the only link by which she held to earth. Methinks I hear, even now, though fifteen years have passed since that hour, the sound of the dry leaves as they rustled beneath our tread ; I see our two long shadows blended into one, which the sun cast on the left side on the grass of the orchard, and which seemed like a living shroud tracking the steps of youth and love, to envelop them before their time. I feel the gentle warmth of her shoulder against my heart, and the touch of one of the tresses of her hair, which the wind of the lake waved against my face, and which my lips strove to retain and to kiss ! O Time ! what eternities of joy thou buriest in one such minute ! or rather, how powerless art thou against memory ! how impotent to give forgetfulness ! XXI. The evening was as warm and preaceful as the pre- ceding day had been cold and stormy. The mountains were bathed in a soft purple light which made them appear larg-ji RAPHAEL. 45 and more distant than usual, and they seemed like huge floating shadows, through whose transparency one could perceive the warm sky of Itnly which lay beyond. The sky was mottled with small crimson clouds, like the ensanguined plumes which fall from the wing of the wounded swan, struggling in the grasp of an eagle. The wind had subsided as evening came on ; the silvery rip pling waves threw a slight fringe of spray around the rocks, from which the dripping branches of the fig-trees depended. The smoke from the cottages, which lay scattered on the Mont du Chat, rose here and there, and crept upward along the mountain sides, while the cascades fell into the ravines below, like a smoke of waters. The waves of the lake were so trans- parent, that as we leaned over the side of the boat, we could see the reflection of the oars and of our own faces, and so warm, that as we drew our fingers through them, we felt but a volup tuous caress of the waters. We were separated from the boat- men by a small curtain, as in the gondolas of Venice. She was lying on one of the benches of the boat, like on a couch, with her elbow resting upon a cushion ; she was enveloped in shawls to protect her from the damp of evening, and my cloak was placed in several folds upon her feet; her face, at times, in shade, was at others illumined by the last rosy tints of the sun, which seemed suspended over the dark firs of the Grande Chartreuse. I was lying on a heap of nets at the bottom of the boat; my heart was full, my lips were mute, my eyes were fixed on hers ! What need had we to speak, when the sun, the hour, the mountains, the air and water, the voluptuous balancing of the boat, the light ripple of the murmuring waters as we divided them, our looks, our silence, and our hearts, which beat in unison all spoke so eloquently for us. We rather seemed to fear instinctively that the least sound of voice, or words, would jar discordantly on such enchanting silence. We seemed to glide from the azure of the lake to the azure of the horizon, without seeing the shores we left, or the shores on which we were about to land. I heard one longer and more deep-drawn sigh fall slowly from her lips, as though her bosom, oppressed by some secret weight, had at one breath exhaled the aspirations of a long life. I felt alarmed. " Are you in pain 1" I inquired, sadly. " No," she said ; " it was not pain, it was thought." " What were you thinking of so intensely 1" I rejoined. " I was thinking," she 44 RAPHAEL. answered, " that if God were at this instant to strike all nature with immobility if the sun were to remain thus, its disk half hidden behind those dark firs, which seem the fringed lashes of the eye of heaven if light and shade remained thus blended in the atmosphere, this lake in its same transparency, this air as balmy, these two shores forever at the same distance from this boat, the same ray of ethereal light on your brow, the same look of pity reflected from your eyes in mine, this same fullness of joy in my heart, I should comprehend what I have never com- prehended since I first began to think, or to dream." "What]" said I, anxiously. " Eternity in one instant, and the infinite in one sensation !" she exclaimed, half leaning over the edge of the boat, as if to look at the water and to spare me the embar- rassment of an answer. I was awkward enough to reply by some common-place phrase of vulgar gallantry, which unfortu- nately rose to my lips, instead of the chaste and ineffable adora- tion which inundated my heart. It was something to the effect, that such happiness 4 would not suffice me, if it were not the promise of another and a greater felicity. She understood me but too well, and blushed, on my account rather than her own. She turned to me with all the emotion of profaned purity de- picted on her face, and in accents as tender, but more solemn and heartfelt, than any that had yet fallen from her lips : "You have given me pain," she said, in a low voice: "come hither, nearer to me, and listen : I know not if what I feel for you, and what you appear to feel for me, be what is termed Jove, in the obscure and confused language of this world, in which the same words serve to express feelings that bear no resemblance to each other, save in the sound they yield upon the lips of man. I do not wish to know it ; and you ! oh ! I beseech you, never seek to know it! but this I know, that it is the most supreme and entire happiness that the soul of one created being can draw from the soul, the eyes, and the voice of another being like to herself, of a being who till now was wanting to her happiness, and of whom she completes the ex- istence. Besides this boundless happiness, this mutual response of thought to thought, of heart to heart, of soul to soul, which blends them in one indivisible existence, and makes them as inseparable as the ray of yonder setting sun, and the beam of yonder rising moon, when they meet in this same sky, and ascend in mingled light in the same ether is there another joy, gross image of the one I feel, as far removed from the eternal and RAPHAEL. 45 immaterial union of our souls, as dust is from these stars, or a minute from eternity ] I know not ! and I will not, can not know !" she added, in a tone of disdainful sadness. " But," she resumed, with a confiding look and attitude, which seemed to make her wholly mine, " what do words signify 1 I love you ! all nature would say it for me, if I did not ; or rather, let me proclaim it first, for both : We love each other!" " Oh ! say, say it once more, say it a thousand times," I ex- claimed, rising like a madman, and walking backward and for- ward in the boat, which shook beneath my feet : " Let us say it together, say it to God and man, say it to Heaven and earth, say it to the mute, unheeding elements ! Say it eternally, and let all nature repeat it eternally with us ! ..." I fell on my knees before her, with my hands clasped, and my disordered hair falling over my face. " Be calm," she said, placing her fingers on my lips, " and let. me speak without interruption to the end." I sat down, and remained silent. " I have said," she resumed, " or rather I have not said I have called out to you from the depths of my soul, that I love you! "I love you with all the accumulated power of the expect- ations, dreams, and impatient longings of a sterile life of eigbt- and-twenty years, passed in watching and not seeing, in seeking and not finding, what some presentiment taught me to expect, and you have revealed to me. But alas ! 1 have known and loved you too late, if you understand love as most men do, and as you seemed to comprehend it when you spoke just now, those light and profane words. Listen to me once more," she added, " and understand me ; I am yours, wholly yours. I be- long to you as I do to myself, and I may say so without wrong ing the adoptive father, who never considered me but as a daughter. I am wholly yours, and of myself, I only keep back what you wish me to retain. Do not be surprised at this language, which is not that of the women of Europe; they love and ai'e beloved tamely, and would fear to weaken the senti- ments they inspire by avowing a secret that they wish to have wrested from them. I differ from them by my country, by my feelings, and by my education. I have lived with a philosopher in the society of free-thinkers, unshackled by the belief and ob- servances of the religion they have undermined, and have none of the superstitions, weaknesses, and scruples, which make ordinary women bow before another judge than their con- science. The God of their childhood is not my God. I be'ieve 46 RAPHAEL,. in the God who has written his symbol in nature, his law in oui hearts, his morality in our reason. Reason, feeling, and con- science are the only revelation in which I believe. Neither of these oracles o? my life forbid me to be yours, and the impulse of my whole soul would cast me into your arms, if you could only be happy at that price. But shall you or I place our hap- piness in a fugitive delirium of the senses, which can not give half the enjoyment that its voluntary renunciation would afford our hearts? Shall we not more fully believe in the immaterial- ity and eternity of our love, if it remains, like a pure thought, in those regions which are inaccessible to change and death, than if it were degraded and profaned by unworthy delights 1 If ever," she added, after a short silence, and blushing deeply, " if ever, in a moment of frenzy and incredulity, you exacted from me such a proof of abnegation, the sacrifice would not only be one of dignity, but of existence; in robbing my love of its innocency, you would rob me of life ; when you thought to embrace happiness, you would clasp only death in your arms ; I am but a shade, and in one sigh I may exhale my soul ! . . ." We remained silent for some time. At last, with a deep- drawn sigh, I said, " I understand you, and in my heart I had sworn the eternal innocency of my love, before you had done speaking, or required it of me." XXTT. My resigned tone seemed to delight her, and to redouble the confiding charm of her manner. Night had spread over all, the stars glassed themselves' in the lake, and the silence of Nature lulled the earth to rest. The winds, the trees and waves were hushed, to let us listen to all the fugitive impressions of feeling and of thought that whisper in the hearts of the happy. The boatmen sang snatches of their drawling and monotonous chants, which seem like the noted modulations of the waves on the shore. I was reminded of her voice, which seemed ever to sound in my ear, and I exclaimed, "Oh, that you would mark this enchanting night for me, by some sweet tones addressed to these winds and waves, so that they may be forever full of you." I made a sign to the boatmen to be silent, and to stifle the sound of their oars, from which the drops came trickling back into the lake, like a musical accompaniment of silvery notes. She sang a Scotch ballad, half naval and half pastoral, in which a young girl, whose sailor lover has left her to seek wealth beyond the seas, relates how her parents, wearied RAPHAEL. 47 of waiting his return, had induced her to marry an old man with whom she might have been happy, but for the remem brance of her early love. The ballad begins thus : " When the sheep are in the fauld and the ky at hame, And a' the weary warld to rest are gane, The waes of my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e, While my gude-man lies sound by me." After each verse there is a long reverie, sung in vague notes, without words, which lulls the heart with unspeakable melan- choly, and brings tears into the eyes and voice. Each succeed- ing verse takes up the story in the dull and distant tone of memory, weeping, regretting, yet resigned. If the Greek strophes of Sappho are the very fire of love, these Scotch notes are the very life's blood and tears of a heart stricken to death by Fate. I know not who wrote the music, but whoever he may be, thanks be to him for having found in a few notes, and in the mournful melody of a voice, the expression of infinite human sadness. I have never since then heard the first meas- ure of that air, without flying from it as one pursued by a spirit ; and when I wish to soften my heart by a tear, I sing within myself the plaintive burden of that song, and feel ready to weep ! I, who never weep ! XXIII. We reached the little mole that stretches out intt the lake where the boats are moored ; it is the harbor of Aix and is situated at about half a league from the town. It was. midnight ; and there were no longer any carriages or donkeys* on the pier to convey strangers to the town. The distance was too great for a delicate, suffering woman to walk ; and after knocking fruitlessly at the doors of one or two cottages iu the vicinity of the lake, the boatmen proposed carrying the lady to Aix. They cheerfully slipped their oars from the rings which fastened them to the boat, and tied them together with the ropes of their nets; then they placed one of the cushions of the boat on these, ropes,- and thus formed a soft and flexible kind of litter for the stranger. Four of them then took up the oars, and each placing one end on his shoulder, they set off with the palanquin, to which they imparted no other motion than that of their steps. I would have wished to have my share in the pleasure of bearing their precious burden, but was repulsed by them with jealous eagerness. I walked beside the litter with 48 RAPHAEL. my right hand in hers, so that she might cling to me when the movement of her conveyance was too rough. I thus prevented her slipping off the narrow cushion on which she was stretched. We walked in this manner slowly and silently in the moonlight down the long avenue of poplars ! Oh ! how short that avenue seemed to me, and how I wished that it could have led us on thus to the last step of both our lives ! She did not speak, and I said nothing, hut 1 felt the whole weight of her body trustingly sus- pended to my arm ; I felt both her cold hands clasp mine, and from time to time an involuntary pressure or a warmer breath upon them, made me feel that she had approached her lips to my hand to warm it. Never was silence so eloquent in its mute revealings ! We enjoyed the happiness of a century in one hour! By the time we arrived at the old doctors house and that we had deposited the invalid at her chamber door, the whole world that lay between us had disappeared. My hand was wet with her tears ; I dried them with my lips, and threw myself without undressing on my bed. XXIV. In vain I tossed and turned on my pillow ; I could not sleep. The thousand impressions of the preceding days were traced so vividly on my mind, that I could not believe they were past, and I seemed to hear and see over again, all I dad seen or heard the previous day. The fever of my soul had extended to my body. I rose and laid down again without finding repose. At last I gave it up. I tried by bodily motion co calm the agitation of my mind ; I opened the window, turned over the leaves of books which I did not understand as I read them ; paced up and down, and changed the position of my table and my chair a dozen times, without finding a place where I could bear to spend the night. All this noise was heard in the adjoining room ; and my steps disturbed the poor invalid, who, doubtless, was as wakeful as I was. I heard a light step on the creaking floor approach the bolted oak door which sepa- rated her sitting-room from my bed-room ; I listened with my ear close to the dooi% and heard a suppressed breathing, and the rustle of a silk gown against the wall. The light of a lamp shone through the chinks of the door, and streamed from be- neath it on my floor. It was she ! she was there listening too, with her ear perhaps close to my brow : she might have heard my heart beat. " Are you ill f" whispered a voice, which I should have recognized by a single sigh. " No," I answered, RAPHAEL. 4> " but I am too happy ! Excess of joy is as exciting as excess of anguish. The fever I feel is one of life I do net wish to dispel it, or to fly from it, but I am sitting up to enjoy it." " Child that you are !" she said, " go and sleep while I watch ; it is now my turn to watch over you." " But you," whispered I, "why are you not sleeping]" " I never wish to sleep more," she replied ; " I would not lose one minute of the consciousness of my overwnelming bliss. I have but little time in which to enjoy my happiness, and do not like to give any portion of it to forgetfulness in sleep. I came to sit here in the hopes of hearing you, or at any rate to feel nearer to you." " Oh ! why still so far ?" I murmured ; " why so far 1 Why is this wall between us 1 ?" " Is there only this docvr between us, then," she said ; " and not our will and our vow 1 There ! if you are only restrained by this material obstacle, it is removed !" and I heard ner withdraw the bolt on her side. " Yes," she continued, " if there be not in you some feeling stronger than love itself to subdue and master your passion, you can pass. Yes," she added, with an accent at once more solemn and more impas- sioned, " I will owe nothing but to yourself you may pass ; you will meet with love equal to your own, but such love would be my death " I was overcome by the violence of my feelings, the impetuous impulse of my heart that impelled me toward that voice, and the moral violence that repulsed me, and I fell as one mortally wounded on the threshold of that closed door. As to her, I heard her sit down on a cushion which she had taken from a sofa, and thrown on the floor. During the greater part of the night we continued to converse in a low tone, through the in tervals between the floor and the rough wood-work of the door. Who can describe the outpourings of our hearts, the words un- used in the ordinary language of men, that seemed to be wafted like night dreams between heaven and earth, and were inter- rupted by silence, in which our hearts and not our lips com- muned, and revealed their unutterable thoughts 1 At length the intervals of silence became longer, the voices grew fainter, and, overcome with fatigue, I fell asleep, with my hands clasped on my knees, and my cheek leaning against the wall. XXV. The sun was already high in the heavens when I woke, and my room was flooded with light. The redbreasts were chirping and pecking at the vines and currant bushes 50 RAPHAEL. beneath my windows; all nature seemed to be illumined and adorned, and to have awakened before me, to usher in and welcome this first day of my new life. All the sounds and noises in the house seemed joyful as I was. I heard the light steps of the maid who went and came in the passage, to carry breakfast to her mistress, the childish voices of the little girls of the mountains, who brought flowers from the edge of the glaciers, and the tinkling bells and stamping hoofs of the mules which were waiting in the yard to carry her to the lake or to the mountain. I changed my soiled and dusty clothes, I bathed my red and swollen eyes, smoothed my disordered hair, put on my leather gaiters, like a chamois hunter of the Alps, and taking my gun in hand, I went down to join the old doctor and his family at the breakfast table. At breakfast they talked of the storm on the lake, of the danger in which the stranger had been, her fainting at Haute- Combe, her absence during two days, and my good fortune in having met with her and brought her home. 1 begged the doctor to request for me the favor of inquiring in person aftei her health, and accompanying her in her excursions. He camt down again with her ; she looked lovelier and more interesting than ever, and happiness seemed to have given her fresh youth She enchanted every one, but she looked only at me : I alone understood her looks and words with their double meaning. The guides hoisted her joyfully on the seat, with the swinging foot- board, which serves as a saddle for the women of Savoy ; and I walked beside the mule with the tinkling bells, which was that day to carry her to the highest chalets of the mountain. We passed the whole day there, but we scarcely spoke, so well did we akeady understand each other without words. Sometimes we stood contemplating the cheerful valley of Chambery, which appeared to widen as we mounted higher ; or we loitered on the edge of cascades, whose sun-tinted vapors enveloped us in watery rainbows, that seemed to be the mys- terious halo of our love ; or we would gather the latest flowers of earth, on the sloping meadows before the chalets, and ex- change them between us, as the letters of the fragrant alphabet of nature, intelligible to us alone ; or we gathered chestnuts, which we brought home to roast at night by her fire ; or we sat under shelter of the highest chalets, which were already abandoned by their owners, and thought how happy two beings like ourselves might be, confined by fate to one of these deserted RAPHAEL. 51 huts, made from rough boards and trunks of trees ; so near the stars, so near the murmuring winds, the snows and glaciers, but divided from man by solitude, and sufficing to each other during a life filled with one thought, and but one feeling ! XXVI. In the evening, we came down slowly from the mountain, with saddened looks, as though we had been leaving our domains and happiness behind us. She retired to her apartment, and I remained below to sup with our host and his guests. After supper, I knocked, as had been agreed upon, at her door: she received me as she might a friend of childhood after a long absence. Henceforward I spent all my days and all my evenings in the same manner; I generally found her reclining on a sofa with a white cover, which was placed in a corner, between the fire-place and the window ; upon a small table, on which stood a brass lamp, there were some books, the letters she had received or commence'd during the day, a little, common tea-pot which she gave me when she went away, and which has always stood upon my chimney since and two cups of blue and pink china, in which we used to take tea at mid- night. The old doctor would sometimes go up with me, to chat with his fair patient ; but after half an hour's conversation, the good old inan would find out that my presence went further than his advice or his baths, to re-establish the health that was so precious to us all, and would leave us to our books and con- versation. At midnight, I kissed the hand she extended to me across the table, and went to my own room ; but I never retired to rest until all was silent in hers. XXVII. We led this delightful, two-fold life during six long or short weeks ; long, when I call to mind the numberless pal- pitations of joy in our hearts, but short, when I remember the imperceptible rapidity of the hours that filled them. By a mir- acle of Providence, which does not occur once in ten years, the season seemed to connive at our happiness, and to conspire with us to prolong it. The whole month of October, and half November, seemed like a new but leafless spring: the air waa still soft, the waters blue, the clouds were rosy, and the sun shone brightly. The days were shorter, it is true, but the long evenings spent beside her fire, drew us closer together: they made us more exclusively present to each othei, and prevented our looks and hearts from evaporating amid the splendor of 52 RAPHAEL. external nature. We love