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 RAPHAEL 
 
 PAGES OF 
 THE BOOK OF LIFE AT TWENTY. 
 
 BY ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE, 
 
 AXTTHOR OF THE " HISTORY OF THE GIRONDISTS ; OR, PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF THK 
 PATRIOTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION," ETC. 
 
 NEW Y O R K : 
 
 HARPER &. BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 82 CLIFF STREET. 
 
 1849. 
 
 5V
 
 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, and 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 would 
 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 ingl^ori-QUs and^Qbscure d^stiiwconfined him, 
 agaiffl^his^aill, in speculati^imiction^^rihe hafi^ivSvT^s to spread, 
 and no 'surroutTd.iiig ^iv to bear'thej^^up^ He died young, 
 Btrainu ig lu s ^^e into tlip fumre, ana^r^rontl^surv^ing the 
 space a\^rwhach»li^was never to travel^ 
 
 lEv^-y one knows the youthful poitrait of Raphael to whiow 
 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 1 
 
 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 di'ess ; and 
 if 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 Foroz, 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 atmosphei'e of 
 manners and language, which never evaporates entirely. 
 
 In her secluded mountains, with the loved husband of her 
 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 words 
 — "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 pio- 
 phesying his fate, pointed out his star in the heavens, and told 
 his mother to watch over that son with all her heai't. 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. AVe had met 
 since the conclusion of aur 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 stanzas that made us weep : 
 but he never wrote. " Raphael," would I sometimes say, " why 
 do you not write ]" 
 
 "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'?" 
 
 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 hghten 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 
 long 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 fiom 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 ray 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, and 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 
 tower 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 
 hall-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, and entered. Never shall I forget 
 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 was 
 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 PROLOGUE, 
 
 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 wheehng 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 fur 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 grew 
 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, thrown open on the chest, 
 displayed his muscular though attenuated frame, which might 
 yet have appeared majestic, had his v.-eakness 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 chui'chyard, 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?" 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 transfeiTod to dumb an- 
 imals. " Will you spend any time among our mountains 1" 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 V 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 hear 
 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 returaed 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 
 gi'een field adjoining the church, two men, with spades and mat- 
 tuck, 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.
 
 RAPHAEL. 
 
 I. 
 
 THERE are places and climates, seasons and hours, with 
 their outward circumstance, so much in harmony with cer- 
 tain impressions 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 tlie 
 chffs of Brittany, or the wild savannahs from Atala, the mists of 
 Swabia from Werther, or the sunny waves and scoiched-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 
 sap 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, runs 
 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 teiraces, clothed
 
 14 RAPHAEL. 
 
 with walnut and chestnut trees, entwined with clusters of the 
 creeping vine. In the midst of this wild, luxui'iant 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- 
 pect ; 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 and 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 spacious cloisters 
 on the waters of the lake. Screened during the day from the 
 rays of the sun by the high barrier 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 
 v/aters, beneath the shade of the mountain, and from their dingy 
 color can scarcely be distinguished from its dark and 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 Savoy,
 
 RAPHAEL. 15 
 
 Steaming with its hot springs, and redolent of sulphur, is seated 
 on the slope of a hill covered with vineyards, orchards, 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 cither 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 lun 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 p)attering 
 on the dry leaves, or shone like brilliants on the grass. These 
 hours were quickly over j the pale blue shades of evening glided
 
 16 RAPHAEL. 
 
 swiftly on, vailing the horizon with theii- 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 and 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 imappreciated, 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, in 
 the higher part of the town of Aix, where invalids were admit- 
 ted to board. The establishment was conducted by a worthy 
 old doctor (who had retired from the profession), and commu- 
 nicated with the town by a narrow pathway, which lay between 
 the streams that issue from the hot springs. The back of the 
 house looked on a garden, surrounded by trellis and vine arbors; 
 and beyond tliat, 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. — 1 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 retii'ed 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 weaned 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 disordej's; disgusted and satiated 
 of vulgar allurements ; and being naturally of a timid and re- 
 served dispcjsition, without that self-confidence which prompts 
 some men to court adventures, or to seek the familiarity of 
 chance acquaintances, 1 neither wished to see, nor to be seen. 
 Still less did I dream of love. 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 retui-ning 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 l(jng, dark waves of the hair, which 
 was stnoothed 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 da3% 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-stiipped 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, 
 of 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 floweis 
 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, darw. 
 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 tlie I'egions 
 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 peculiai' 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 hicjh and narrov/ 
 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 corners 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 u'hole, 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 ineff'aceable image stamped forever in the memory.
 
 20 RAPHAEL. 
 
 In a word, bers was a contagious sickness of the soul, vailed in 
 a shape of beauty the most majestic and attractive 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 
 tuined 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 cf)uld 
 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. 21 
 
 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 vvliite 
 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 slight creaking of the wooden floor under her tread ; 
 in the rustling of her pen on the paper when she wrote ; in the 
 Vei'y 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 ] I had shaken the dust from 
 my feet, or at least I thought 1 had, and felt no wish to hold to 
 the world once more, by any link of the mind, or of the senses, 
 Btill less by any weakness of the heart. I felt supreme con- 
 tempt for love, €ov 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 ] 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 1 could not 
 follow her] After adoring her for a few days, might I not have 
 to mourn forever her absence 1 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 1 
 Was she not manned 1 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 ] 
 
 All 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 stiive 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 1 never 
 inteiTogated, 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 
 was 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 gi-avitate 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 superior 
 beings by some mysterious sign. They admire without com- 
 prehending, as the blind enjoy the sunshine, who have never 
 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 infirm
 
 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 wei-e 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, and 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 w^eather, thinking 
 far more of her health and safety than of their own gains. On 
 one occasion, however, they wei-e 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 narrow 
 gorges of the valley of the Rhone, stirred up the waves of the
 
 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-increasing 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. 
 We put about immediately, and vvath one heart affronted the 
 tempest and the dangers of the lake, to t:y 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 
 the little bark. 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 stem, 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 so 
 divinely transfigured. Was death the most perfect form of her
 
 RAPHAEL. 25 
 
 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 irregulaily, 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 sin_jle 
 round window, without glass, looking toward the lake. Almost 
 the whole space of this room was occupied by three beds, whi'h 
 could be closed up by wooden doors, like large presses. T* e 
 whole family slept there. We confided the stranger, who was 
 still insensible, to the care of the two girls of the house and their 
 mother, and we stood outside the door, while they extended a 
 mattress near the chimney, and having lighted a fire of fur^.e, 
 undressed her, dried her clothes, chafed her limbs, and wrjing 
 her streaming hair; they then carried her up-stairs, and placed 
 her in one of the beds, on which they had spread clean sheets, 
 which had been warmed with one of the heated hearth stones, 
 according to the custom of the peasants of that country. They 
 tried in vain to make her swallow a few drops of wine and 
 vinegar to bring her to life ; but finding all their efforts unavail- 
 ing, gave way to tears and lamentations, which soon recalled 
 us into the house. " The lady is dead ! the lady is dead ! We 
 can only weep, and send for a priest." The boatmen mingled 
 their cries with those of the women, and increased the confu- 
 sion. I rushed up the ladder and entered the room. The dim 
 twilight still showed the bed over which I bent. I touched hei- 
 forehead ; it was burning hot ; I could distinguish the low and 
 regular breathing which made the coarse brown sheet alter- 
 nately rise and fall on the chest ; I bid the women be quiet, and 
 giving some money to one of the boatmen, ordered him to fetch 
 
 B
 
 26 RAPHAEL. 
 
 a doctor, who, I was told, lived two leagues off, in a little vil- 
 lage on the Mont du Chat. The boatman set off at full speed, 
 the others, comforted by the assurance that the lady was not 
 dead, sat down to eat. The women went and came from the 
 parlor to the cellar, and from the cellar to the poultry-yard, to 
 make preparations for supper. I remained seated on one of 
 the bags of Indian corn at the foot of the bed, my hands clasped 
 on my knees, and my eyes fixed on the inanimate face and 
 closed eyelids of the sufferer. Night had closed in. One of the 
 young girls had fastened the shutter, and suspended a small 
 copper lamp against the wall ; its rays fell on the sheets and on 
 the sleeping countenance, like the light of holy tapers on a 
 death-bed. Since then, I have thus watched, alas ! by other 
 bedsides, but the sleepers never woke ! 
 
 XII. — Never perhaps was the heart of man absorbed for so 
 many long hours in one strange and overwhelming speculation. 
 Suspended between death and love, I was unable to divine, as 
 1 gazed on the angel form that lay sleeping before me, whether 
 this night in its mystery would bnng forth endless anguish, or 
 whether undying love would come in the morning, with return- 
 ing life and joy. In the convulsive movements of her troubled 
 sleep, she had thrown the sheet off one of her shoulders, upon 
 which fell the long luxuriant curls of her lustrous hair. The 
 neck had yielded to the weight of the head which was thrown 
 back on the pillow, and slightly inclined toward the left shoul- 
 der* one of the arms was disengaged from the coverlid, and was 
 placed beneath the head, showing the ivory whiteness of the 
 elbow, which stood out on the coarse brown linen in which the 
 peasant women had dressed her. On one of the fingers of the 
 hand, which was half concealed in the masses of dark hair, there 
 was a small gold ring with a sparkling ruby, on which the rays 
 of the lamp flashed. The girls had lain down on the floor 
 without undressing, and their mother had fallen asleep with her 
 hands folded on the back of a wooden chair. As soon as the 
 cock crowed in the yard, they got up, and taking their wooden 
 shoes in their hands, noiselessly descended the ladder to go to 
 work. I remained alone. 
 
 The first gleams of dawn came through the closed shutter in 
 almost imperceptible streaks of light. I opened the window in 
 the hope that the balmy morning air from the lake and mount- 
 ains, which awakened all nature, would have the same effect on
 
 RAPHAEL. 27 
 
 one, whom I would willingly have revived at the cost of oiy own 
 life. The chill air rushed into the room, and extinguished the 
 expiring lamp. Nothing stirred on the bed, I heard the pooi 
 women below joining in common prayer, before commencing 
 their day's labor. The thought of praying likewise, entered my 
 heart. I felt, as all do who have exhausted the whole strength 
 of their soul, the wish to superadd the force of some mysterious 
 and preterhuman power, to the impotent tension of my ardent 
 desires. I knelt on the floor, with my hands clasped on the 
 edge of the bed, and my eyes liveted on the face of the sleeper. 
 I wept, and prayed long and feiTently ; the tears chased each 
 other down my face, and hid from my blinded eyes the features 
 of the one, whose recovery I so ardently desired. My whole 
 heart and soul were so absorbed in one feeling, and one sensa- 
 tion, that I might have remained hours in the same attitude, 
 without being aware of the lapse of time, or the pain of kneeling 
 on the stone floor; when suddenly, while I was unconsciously 
 wiping away my tears, I felt a hand touch mine, part the hair 
 from my face, and gently rest upon ray head, as if to bless me. 
 I looked up with a cry of delight ; I saw her unclosed eyes, 
 her smiling lips, her hand extended toward mine, and heard 
 these words : " Oh God ! I thank the ! I have now a brother !" 
 
 XIII. — The cool morning air had awakened her, while I was 
 praying by her bedside, with my face buried in my hands. She 
 had noted my ardent pity, and my ardent prayer, and had 
 recognized me by the clear light of morning, which now 
 streamed into the chamber. When she had fainted, she was 
 lonely and indifferent, and had revived under the tender care, 
 and pei-haps the love, of a pitying stranger. She, who, in the 
 neglected flower of her days had been deprived of all the 
 kindred ties of the heart, had unexpectedly found in me, the 
 care and pity, the tears and prayers, of a youthful brother; and 
 that tender name had escaped her lips, at the moment that 
 retui-ning life gave her the consciousness of so great a joy. 
 
 " A brother ! Ah, no, not a brother !" I exclaimed, reverently 
 removing her hand from my brow, as though I had not been 
 worthy of her touch, " not a brother, but a slave ! a living 
 shadow following on your steps, who asks but one blessing of 
 heaven, and one felicity on earth — the right of remembering 
 this night ; who only desires to preserve eternally the image of 
 the superhuman vision he would wish to follow unto death, or
 
 28 RAPHAEL. 
 
 for whom alone he could bear to live." As I faltered out these 
 words in a low voice, the rosy tints of life gradually re-appeared 
 on her cheeks, a sad smile, implying an obstinate unbelief in 
 happiness, played round her mouth, and she raised her eyes to 
 the ceiling, as though they listened to words which responded 
 not to the ear, but to the thoughts. Never was the change from 
 life to death, from a dream to reality, so rapid; on her counte- 
 nance, now blooming with youth and refreshed by rest, surprise, 
 languor, delight, repose, joy and melancholy, timidity and grace, 
 were all painted in quick succession. Her radiance seemed 
 to illumine the dark recess more than the light of morning. 
 There was more languor, more revealings, more sympathy in 
 her looks and silence, than in millions of words. The human 
 face speaks a language to the eye, and in youth, the countenance 
 is an instrument of which one look of passion sweeps the keys. 
 It transmits fi'om sovd to soul mysteries of mute communion, 
 which can not be translated into words. My countenance, too, 
 must have revealed what I felt, to those eyes which were bent 
 so earnestly upon me. My damp clothes, my long disheveled 
 hair, my eyes heavy with watching, my pale and anxious looks, 
 the pious enthusiasm with which I bent before the holiness of 
 Buffering beauty, my emotion, joy, and surprise, the dimness of 
 the room in which I durst not take a step, for fear of dispelling 
 the enchantment of so divine a dream, the first rays of the sun, 
 which showed the tears still glistening in my eyes, all conspired 
 to lend to my countenance a power of expression, and a look of 
 tenderness, which it will doubtless never wear again in the course 
 of a long life. 
 
 Unable to bear any longer the re-action of these feelings, and 
 the internal vibration of such silence, I called up the women. 
 On entering the room, they broke out into repeated exclama- 
 tions of surprise, at the sight of a resurrection which appeared 
 to them a miracle. At the same moment the doctor made his 
 appearance. He prescribed repose, and an infusion of certain 
 plants of the mountain, which allay the irregular movements of 
 the heart. He reassured every one, by telHng us that the lady's 
 malady was one of youth, produced by excessive sensibility, 
 and which time would mitigate ; that it was but a superabun- 
 dance of life, although it often wore the appearance of death ; 
 and was never fatal, except when inward grief or some moral 
 cause changed its character into one of habitual melancholy, or 
 an unconquerable distaste for life. While some of the women
 
 RAPHAEL. 29 
 
 went out into the fields, to gather the simples ordered by the 
 doctor, and others were ironing out her damp clothes in the 
 lower room, I left the house to wander alone among the ruins 
 of the old Abbey. 
 
 XIV. — But my heart was too full of its own emotions to feel 
 interested in the anchorites of the Abbey. The enthusiasm and 
 self-denial of the early monasteries had subsided into a profes- 
 sion ; and at a later period, their lives, unlinked with those of 
 their fellow-beings, had fruitlessly evaporated within these clois- 
 ters, and left no trace behind. I felt no regret as I stood upon 
 their tombs, but only wondered, as I noted how speedily Nature 
 seizes on the empty dwellings and deserted abodes of man, and 
 how superior is the living architecture of shrubs and briers, 
 waving ivy, wall-flowers, and creeping plants, throwing their 
 mantle on the ruined walls, to the cold symmetry of stones, or 
 the lifeless ornaments of the chiseled monuments of men. 
 
 There was now more sunshine, music, and perfume, more 
 holy psalmody of the winds and waters, of birds, and sonorous 
 echoes of the lakes and forests, beneath the crumbling pillars, 
 dismantled nave, and shattered roof of the empty Abbey, than 
 there had been holy tapers, fumes of incense, and monotonous 
 chants, in the ceiemonies and processions that filled it night and 
 day. Nature is the high priest, the noblest decorator, the holi- 
 est poerf, and most inspired musician of God. The young swal- 
 lows in their nest below the broken cornice, greeting their 
 mother with their cheerful chirping ; the sighing of the breeze, 
 which seems to bear to the unpeopled cloisters the sound of 
 flapping sails, the lament of the waves, and the dying notes of 
 the fisherman's song; the balmy emanations which now and 
 then are wafted through the nave; the flowers which shed their 
 leaves upon the tombs, the waving of the green drapery which 
 clothes the walls, the sonorous and reverberated echoes of the 
 stranger's steps upon the vaults where sleep the dead, are all 
 as full of piety, holy thoughts, and unbounded aspirations, as 
 was the monastery in its days of sacred splendor. Man is no 
 longer there, with all his miserable passions contracted by the 
 narrow pale in which they were confined, but not extinguished; 
 but God is there, never so plainly seen as in the works of na- 
 ture ; God whose unshadowed splendor seems to re-enter once 
 more these intellectual graves, whose vaulted roofs no longer 
 intercept the glorious sunshine, and the light of heaven.
 
 30 RAPHAEL. 
 
 XV. — I was not at the time sufficiently composed to under- 
 stand my own feelings. I felt as one just relieved from a heavy 
 burthen, who breathes freely, relaxes his contracted muscles, 
 and walks to and fro in his strength, as though he could devour 
 space, and inhale all the air of heaven. My own heart was 
 the burthen of which I had been relieved, and in giving it to 
 another, I felt as if I had for the first time entered into the full- 
 ness of life. Man is so truly born to love, that it is only when 
 he has the consciousness of loving fully and entirely, that he 
 feels himself really a man. Until then, he is disturbed and 
 restless, inconstant and wandering in his thoughts ; but from 
 thenceforward all his waverings cease, he feels at rest, and sees 
 his destiny before him. 
 
 I sat down upon the ivy-covered wall of a high, dilapidated 
 teiTace, which overlooked the lake. My eyes wandered over 
 the bright expanse of water and the luminous immensity of the 
 sky ; they were so well blended in the azure line of the horizon, 
 that it would have been impossible to define where the sky 
 commenced, and where the lake terminated. .1 seemed to float 
 in the pure ether, or to be merged in a universal ocean. But 
 the inward joy which inundated my soul was far more infinite, 
 radiant, and incommensurate, than the atmosphere with which 
 I seemed to mingle. I could not have defined my joy, or rather 
 my inward serenity. It was as somo unfathomable secret re- 
 vealed to me by feelings instead of words — as the sensation of 
 the eye passing from darkness into light, or as the rapture of 
 some mystical soul, secui'e in the possession of its God. It was 
 dazzling light, intoxication without giddiness, repose without 
 heaviness or immobility. I could have lived on thus during as 
 many thousand years as there were ripples on the lake, or sands 
 upon its shores, without perceiving that more seconds had 
 elapsed than were required for a single aspiration. When the 
 immortal dwellers in heaven first lose the consciousness of the 
 duration of time, they must feel thus ; it was an immutable 
 thought, in the eternity of an instant. 
 
 XVI. — These sensations were not precise, or definable. 
 They wej-e too complete to be scanned ; thought could not 
 divide, or reflection analyze them. They did not take their 
 rise in the loveliness of the superhuman creature that I adored, 
 for the shadow of death still lay between her beauty and my 
 eyes ; — or in the pride of being loved by her, for I knew not
 
 RAPHAEL. 31 
 
 if I was more in her siglit than a dream of morning ; — or in the 
 hope of possessing her cliarms, for my respect was too far above 
 such vile gratification of the senses, even to stoop to them in 
 thought ; or in the satisfaction of displaying my triumph, for 
 selfish vanity held no place in my heart, and I knew no one in 
 that secluded spot before whom 1 could profane my love by 
 disclosing it ; or in the hope of linking her fate with mine, for I 
 knew she was another's ; or in the certainty of seeing her, and 
 the happiness of following her steps, for I was as little free as she 
 was, and in a few days fate was to divide us; nor, lastly, in the cer- 
 tainty of being beloved, for I knew nothing of her heart, except 
 the one word and look of gratitude that she had addressed to me. 
 
 Mine was another feeling ; pure, calm, disinterested and 
 immaterial. It was repose of the heart, after having met with 
 the long sought-for, and till then unfound, object of its restless 
 adoration ; the long desired idol of that vague, unquiet adora- 
 tion of supreme beauty, which agitates the soul until the 
 divinity has been discovered, and that our heart has clung to 
 it as a straw to the magnet, or mingled with it as our sighs 
 with the surrounding air. 
 
 Strange to say, I felt no impatience to see her once more, to 
 hear her voice, to be near her, or to converse freely with one 
 who had become the sole object of my life and thoughts. I 
 had seen her, and she had become part of myself Hence 
 forward nothing could rob my soul of its possession ; far or 
 near, present or absent, I bore her with me ; all else was in- 
 different. Perfect love is patient, because it is absolute, and 
 knows itself to be eternal. No power could tear her from my 
 heart. I felt that henceforward her image was completely 
 mine ; it was to me what light is to the eye that has once seen 
 it, air to the lungs that have once inhaled it, or thought to the 
 mind in which it has once been conceived. I defied Heaven 
 itself to rob me of this divine imbodying of my desires. I had 
 seen her, and that was enough ! For the contemplative, to see 
 is to enjoy ! It scarcely mattered to me whether she loved m?;' 
 or whether she passed me by without perceiving me. I had 
 been touched by her splendor, and was still enveloped in her 
 rays : she could no more withdraw them from me, than the 
 Sun can take from the earth the beams which he has shed upon 
 it. I felt that darkness and night had fled forever from my 
 heart, and that she would evermore shine there, as she then 
 Bhone, though I lived for a thousand years.
 
 32 RAPHAEL. 
 
 XVII. — This conviction gave to my love all the security of 
 immutability, the calm of certainty, the overflowing ecstasy of 
 joy, that would never be impaired. I took no note of time, 
 knowing that I had before me hours without end, and that each 
 in succession would give me back her inward presence. I 
 might be separated from her during a century, without reducing 
 by one day the eternity of my love. I went, and came ; sat 
 down, and got up again. I ran, then stopped, and walked on 
 without feeling the ground beneath my feet, like those phantoms 
 which glide upon earth, upheld by their impalpable etherial 
 nature. I extended my arms to grasp the air, the light, the 
 lake; I would have clasped all Nature in one vast embrace, in 
 thankfulness that she had become incarnate, for me, in a being 
 that united all her charms and splendor, power, and delights. I 
 knelt on the stones and briarsof the ruins withoutfeelingthem, and 
 on the brink of precipices without pei'ceiving them ! I uttered 
 inarticulate words, which were lost in the sound of the noisy 
 waters of the lake ; I strove to pierce the vaults of heaven, and 
 to carry my song of gratitude, and my ecstasy of joy, into the 
 very presence of God ! I was no longer a man, I was a living 
 hymn of praise, prayer, adoration, worship, of overflowing, speech- 
 less thankfulness. I felt an intoxication of the heart, a madness 
 of the soul ; my body had lost the consciousness of its materiality, 
 and I no longer believed in time, or space, or death. The new 
 life of love which had gushed forth in my heart, gave me the con- 
 sciousness, the anticipated enjoyment of the fullness of immortality. 
 
 XVIII. — I was made aware of the flight of time by seeing 
 the meridian sun stiiking on the summit of the Abbey walls. 
 I came down the hill through the woods, bounding from rock 
 to rock, and from tree to tree. My heart beat as though it 
 would burst. As I approached the little inn, I saw the stranger 
 in a sloping meadow beliind the house. She was seated at the 
 foot of a sunny wall, against which the inhabitants of the place had 
 oiled a few stones. Her white dress shone out on the verdant 
 meadow, and the shade of a haystack sci'eened her face from the 
 sun. She was reading in a little book that lay open on her lap, 
 and evei-y now and then interrupted her reading to play with the 
 children from the mountain, who came to offer her flowers, or 
 chestnuts. On seeing me, she attempted to rise, as if to meet 
 me half way, and her gesture was quite sufficient to encourage 
 me to approacli. She received me with a blushing look and
 
 RAPHAEL. 33 
 
 tremulous lip, which I perceived, and which increased my own 
 bashfuhiess. The strangeness of our situation was so embar- 
 rassing, that we remained some time without finding a word to 
 say to each other. At last, with a timid and scarcely intelli- 
 gible gesture, she motioned me to sit down on the hay, not fai 
 from her ; it seemed to me that she had expected me, and had 
 kept a place for me. I sat down respectfully at some distance. 
 Our silence remained unbroken, and it was evident that we 
 were both ineffectually seeking to exchange some of those 
 common-place phrases which may be called the base coin of 
 conversation, and serve to conceal thoughts instead of revealing 
 them. Fearing to say too much or too little, we gave no 
 utterance to what was in our hearts ; we remained mute, and 
 our silence increased our embarrassment. At length our down- 
 cast eyes were raised at the same moment, and met ; I saw such 
 depth of sensibility in hers, and she read in mine so much sup- 
 pressed rapture, truth, and deep feeling, that we could no 
 longer take them off each other's face, and tears rising to our 
 eyes, at the same instant, from both our hearts, we each in- 
 stinctively put up our hands as if to vail our thoughts. 
 
 I know not how long we remained thus. At last, in a trem- 
 bling voice, and with a somewhat constrained and impatient 
 tone, she said: "You have wept over me; I have called you 
 brother, you have adopted me for your sister, and yet we dare 
 not look at each other 1 A tear," she added, " a disinterested 
 tear fiom an unknown heart is more than my life is worth ! — 
 more than it has ever yet called forth !" Then with a slightly 
 reproachful accent, she said : " Am I then become once more 
 a stranger to you, since I no longer require care? Oh ! as to 
 me," she proceeded, in a resolute tone of confidence, " I know 
 nothing of you but your name and countenance, but I know 
 your heart. A century could not tonch me more !" 
 
 " For my part," said I, falteringly, " I would wish to leam 
 nothing, of all that makes you a being like unto ourselves, and 
 bound by the same links as us to this wretched world. I re- 
 quire but to know this: that you have traversed it, and that 
 you have allowed me to contemplate you from afar, and to 
 remember you always !" 
 
 "Oh! do not deceive yourself thus," she replied; "do not 
 see in me a deified delusion of your own heart, I should have 
 to suffer too much when the chimera vanished. View me as I 
 am; as a poor woman, who is -dying in despondency and soli- 
 
 B*
 
 34 RAPHAEL. 
 
 tude, and who will take with her from earth no feeling more 
 divine than that of pity. You will understand this, when I tell 
 you who I am," added she; "but first answer me on one point, 
 which has disquieted me since the day I first saw you in the 
 garden. Why, young and gentle as you seem to be, are you 
 so lonely and so sad ] Why do you fly from the company and 
 conversation of our host, to wander alone on the lake, and in 
 the most secluded parts of the mountains, or to retire into your 
 room] Your light burns far in the night, I am told. Have 
 you some secret in your heart that you confide to solitude 1" 
 £She waited my answer with visible anxiety, and kept her eyes 
 closed, as if to conceal the impression it might make upon her. 
 "My secret," said I, "is to have none; to feel the weight of a 
 heart that no enthusiasm upheld until this hour ; of a heart which 
 T have endeavored to engage in unsatisfactory attachments, and 
 which I have ever been obliged to resume with such bitterness 
 and loathing, as forever to discour-age me, young and feeling 
 as I am, from loving." I then told her, without concealment, 
 as I would have spoken before heaven, of all that could interest 
 her in my life ; 1 related my birth, my humble and poor con- 
 dition ; I spoke of my father, a soldier of former days; my 
 mother, a woman of exquisite sensibility, whose youth had been 
 passed in all the refinement and elegance of letters ; my young 
 sisters, their pious and angelic simplicity ; I mentioned my 
 education among the children of my native mountains; my 
 ready enthusiasm for study ; my involuntary inaction ; my 
 travels; my first thrill of the heart beside the youthful daughter 
 of the Neapolitan fisherman; the unprofitable acquaintances I 
 formed in Paris, — the levity, misconduct, and self-abasement 
 which had been the result ; my desire for a soldier's life, which 
 peace had counteracted the very time I entered the army; my 
 leaving my regiment, my wanderings without an object; my 
 hopeless return to the paternal roof; my wasting melancholy, 
 my wish to die; my weariness of every thing; and lastly, 1 
 spoke of my physical languor, proceeding from heaviness of the 
 soul, and of that premature decrepitude of the heart, and dis- 
 taste of life, which was concealed beneath the appearance and 
 features of a man of four-and-tvventy, I dwelt with inward 
 satisfaction on the disappointments, weariness, and bitterness 
 of my life, for I no longer felt them! A single look had re- 
 generated me. I spoke of myself as of one that was dead ; a 
 new man was born within me. When 1 had ended I raised my
 
 RAPHAEL. 35 
 
 eyes to her, as toward my judge. She was trembling and pale 
 with emotion. " Heavens," she exclaimed, " how yoa alarmed 
 me." " And why V said I. 
 
 " Because," she rejoined, " if you had not been unhappy and 
 lonely here below, there would have been one link the less be- 
 tween us. You would have felt no desire to pity another, and 
 I should have quitted life without having seen a shadow of my- 
 self, save in the heartless mirror where my own cold image is 
 i-eflected." 
 
 " The history of your life," she continued, " is the histoiy of 
 mine, with the change of a few particulars. Only yours com- 
 mences, and mine — " I would not let her conclude. " No, 
 no !" said I, hoarsely, pressing my lips to her feet, which I em- 
 braced convulsively, as if to hold her down to eaith ; " no, no ', 
 you will not, must not die ; or, if you do, I feel two lives will 
 end at once !" 
 
 I was alarmed at my own gesture, and at the exclamation 
 which had involuntarily escaped me ; and I durst not raise my 
 face off the ground, from which she had withdrawn her feet. 
 " Rise," she said, in a grave voice, but without anger ; " do not 
 worship dust ; dust as lowly as that in which you are soiling 
 your bright hair, and which will be scattered as light and as im- 
 palpable by the first autumnal wind. Do not deceive yoursCif 
 as to the poor creature you see before you. I am but the shad- 
 ow of youth, of beauty, and of love ; of the love you will one 
 day feel and inspire, when this shadow shall long have passed 
 away. Keep your heart for those who are to live, and only give 
 to the dying what the dying ask, a gentle hand to support their 
 last steps, and tears to mourn their loss !" 
 
 The grave and serious tone with which she said these words 
 struck to my heart. Yet as I looked on her, and saw the glow- 
 ing tints of the setting sun illumining her face, which shone 
 with hourly increasing youth and serenity of expression, as 
 though a new sun had risen in her heart, I could not believe in 
 death, concealed under these glorious signs of life. Besides, 
 what cared 1 1 If that heavenly vision was death, well ! it was 
 death I loved ! It might be that the vast and perfect love for 
 which I thirsted was only to be found in death ! It might be 
 that God had only showed me its nearly extinguished light on 
 earth, to urge me to follow the trace of its ray into the grave, 
 and from thence to Heaven ! 
 
 " Do not stay dreaming thus," she said, " but listen to me !"
 
 36 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 not 
 wish you to attach yourself to c\, false appearance, a delusion, a 
 dream ; I wish you to know lier 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 
 foi- me, it v/ould be remorse." 
 
 As she spoke there was so much candor on her lips, so much 
 S'.icerity in ber 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 
 I stretched myself on the hay at her feet, and, with my elbow 
 leaning on the ground, I rested my head upon my hand : my 
 eves were riveted upon her lips, of which I strove not to lose a 
 Hingle 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 Eurojjean 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 mo over to my father. He brought 
 me to France when J 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. 37 
 
 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 w^orld, 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 I 
 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,' 
 be 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 her
 
 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 V 
 ' t 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 seiious 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 
 not 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 mei^oly 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; I 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 eterjial youth upon 
 its favorites ; his years would have numbered four times mine, 
 but his regular and majestic features inspired respect for time, 
 and no diss;ust to old ao^e ; and his countenance, where g^enius 
 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 remarkable for their talents or virtues ; he promoted and 
 encouraged all those connections most likely to interest my 
 mind or heait, 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 I 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 gerj\ly 
 parted my hair, tliat I should have feared to disturb my happi- 
 ness by seeking to render it complete. He would sometime.'i, 
 however, playfully rally me on my indifference, and tell mt'
 
 40 RAPHAEL. 
 
 that all that tended to add to my happiness would increase his 
 own. 
 
 " Once, and once only, I thought I loved, and was beloved. 
 A man 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-created 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 most 
 part elderly fnends, would meet and discourse on various topics, 
 with all the freedom of intimacy. These cold, but indulgent 
 hearts inclined toward my youth, fiom 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 orne friend of my own age, by the contact of whose warm 
 heart I mis^ht have dissolved the thoujrhts 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 
 have made me share in the pleasure of those around me. The
 
 RAPHAEL. 41 
 
 next morning, as soon as I was awake, lie would come into my 
 room, and make me relate the impression I had produced, the 
 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'? Is your young heart at twenty as old as minel 
 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; I 
 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 me 
 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 sent 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 mf)re 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 brotlier 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 ]" 
 
 XX. — I sank at her feet overpowered with felicity; and 
 pressed my lips to them without saying a word, I heai'd 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 wliich 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 giva 
 forgetfulness ! 
 
 XXI. — The evening was as warm and preaceful as the pre- 
 ceding day had been cold and stoi'my. The mountains were 
 bathed in a soft purple light which made them appear largg'*
 
 RAPHAEL. 43 
 
 and more distant than usual, and they seemed like hutre floating 
 shadows, tlirough wliose transparency one could perceive the 
 warm sky of Italy which lay beyond. The sky was mottled 
 witli small crimson clouds, like the ensanguined plumes which 
 fall from the wing of the wounded swan, strugghng 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- 
 paient, 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 watei", 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 V I inquired, sadly. — "No," 
 she said ; " it was not pain, it was thought." — " What were you 
 thinking of so intensely ]" I rejoined. — " I was thinking," she
 
 44 RAPHAEL. 
 
 answered, " that if God were at this instant to strike all nature 
 with immobiUty — if the sun were to remain thus, its disk half 
 hidden behind those dark firs, which seem the fi'inged 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 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, neai'er 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 
 love, 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 ? 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, lising 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 eight- 
 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 pi-ofane 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 youi's, and of myself, I only keep back 
 what you wish me to I'etain. Do not be surprised at this 
 language, which is not that of the women of Europe; they love 
 and are 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 believe
 
 46 RAPHAEL. 
 
 in the God who has written his symbol in nature, his law in cm 
 hearts, his morality in our reason. Reason, feeling, and con- 
 science are the only revelation in Avhich I believe. Neither of 
 these oracles of 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 aftbrd 
 our hearts 'i 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 ] 
 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." 
 
 XXTI. — 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 hanie, 
 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 nie." 
 
 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, regi'etting, 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 into 
 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 in 
 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 sot 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 
 uouiing, but I 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 piessure 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 doctor's 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 v/ilh my lips, and threw 
 myself without undressing on my bed. 
 
 XXIV. — In vain I tossed and turned on my j^illow ; 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 
 had 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 
 to 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 ray 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 door, 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 I she was there listening too, 
 with her ear perhaps close to my brow: she might have heard 
 my heart beat. " Are you ill V whispered a voice, which I 
 should have recognized by a single sigh. — " No," I answered,
 
 RAPHAEL. 45 
 
 " but I am too happy ! Excess of joy is as exciting as excess 
 of anguisli. The fever I feel is one of life — I do not 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 1" " I never wish to sleep more," 
 she replied ; " I would not lose one minute of the consciousness 
 of my overwhelming 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 farl Why is this wall 
 between usi" " Is there only this door between us, then," she 
 said ; " and not our will and our vow 1 There ! if you are only 
 I'estrained by this material obstacle, it is removed !" and 1 heard 
 her 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 ineet 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 
 8ofa, 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 
 
 C
 
 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 after 
 her health, and accompanying her in her excursions. He came 
 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 already 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, inteUigible 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 ow^ners, and thought how happy tvv^o 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 filleci with QU««thoiiak t ,. aK d bijjfgne feeling ! 
 
 XXVI. -^^^he B\»^nng, #U'e^^me"tlo wif sTowTy irom 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 ray 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 commenced 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 man 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 ; hmg, 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 was 
 still soft, the waters blue, the clouds wei'e 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 other, and prevented 
 our looks and hearts from evaporating amid the splendor of
 
 52 RAPHAEL. 
 
 ^ 
 
 external nature. We loved them better than the long summer 
 days. Our light was within us, and it shone more brightly 
 when we confined ourselves to the house during the long dark- 
 ness of November evenings, with the moaning of the autumnal 
 ^fH.ds. around us^nd**the» ftr"SLs^-mttift^of*tRe. sleet and hail 
 •HTa^inst'wie w;niaowf?'^lifcie»\v'iRt:jjy farfr seerobd to throw us 
 back upon ourselves, and to cry aloud : llasten to ?ay all that 
 is yet untold in your hearts, and all that must be spoken before 
 man and woman die, for I am the voice of the evil days that 
 are near at hand to part you ! 
 
 XXVIII. — We visited together, in succession, every creek 
 and cove, or sandy beach of the lake, every mountain pass, or 
 ridge ; every grotto, or remote valley ; every cascade hidden 
 among the rocks of Savoy. We saw more sublime or smiling 
 landscapes, more mysterious solitudes, more enchanted deserts, 
 more cottages hanging on the mountain-brow, half-way between 
 the clouds and the abyss, more foaming waters in the sloping 
 meadows, more forests of dark pines disclosing their gloomy 
 colonnades and echoing our steps beneath their domes, than 
 might have hidden a whole world of lovers. To each of these 
 we gave a sigh, a rapture, or a blessing ; we implored them to 
 preserve the memory of the hours we had passed together, of 
 the thoughts they had inspired, the air they had given us, the 
 drop of water we had drunk in the hollow of our hands, the 
 leaf or flower we had gathered, the print of our footsteps on the 
 dewy grass, and to give them back to us one day with the par- 
 ticle of existence that we had left there as we passed ; so that 
 naught might be lost of the bliss that overflowed within us, and 
 that we might receive back each minute of ecstasy, or emana- 
 tion of ourselves, in that faithful treasure-house of Eternity, 
 where nothing is lost, not even the breath we have just exhaled, 
 or the minute we think we have lost. Never, perhaps, since 
 the creation of these lakes, these torrents, and these rocks, did 
 such tender and fervent hymns ascend from these mountains to 
 Heaven ! There was in our souls life and love enough to ani- 
 mate all nature, eailh, air, and water, rocks and trees, cedar 
 and hyssop, and to make them give forth sighs, aspii'ations, 
 voice, perfume, and flame enough, to fill the whole sanctuary of 
 nature, even if more vast and mute than the desert in which we 
 wandered. Had a globe been ci'eated for ourselves alone, we 
 alone would have sufficed to people and to quicken it, to give it
 
 RAPHAEL. 53 
 
 voice and language, praise and love, for all eternity ! And who 
 shall say that the human soul is not infinite 1 Who, beside the 
 woman he adores, before the face of nature, and beneath the 
 eye of God, e'er felt the hmits of existence, or of his power of 
 life and love 1 O Love! the base may fear thee, and the 
 wicked proscribe thee ! Thou art the high priest of this world, 
 the revealer of Immortality, the fii'e of the Altar ! and without 
 thy ray, man would not even dimly comprehend Eternity ! 
 
 XXIX. — These six weeks were to me as a baptism of fire, 
 which transfigured my soul, and cleansed it of all the impurities 
 with which it had been stained. Love was the torch which, 
 while it fired my heart, enlightened all nature, heaven, and 
 eai'th, and showed me to myself. I understood the nothingness 
 of this world, when 1 felt how it vanished before a single spark 
 of true life. I loathed myself as I looked back into the past, 
 and compared it with the purity and perfection of the one I 
 loved. I entered into the heaven of my soul, as my heart and 
 eyes fathomed the ocean of beauty, tenderness, and puiity 
 which expanded hourly in the eyes, in the voice, and in the 
 discourse, of the heavenly creature who had manifested herself 
 to me. How often did I kneel before her, my head bowed to 
 the earth in the attitude and with the feeling of adoration ! 
 How often did I beseech her, as I would a being of another 
 order, to cleanse me in her tears, absorb me in her flame, or to 
 inhale me in her breath ; so that nothing of myself should be 
 left in me, save the purifying water with which she had cleansed 
 me, the flame that had consumed me, or the new breath that 
 she had infused into my new being; so that I might become 
 hei', or she might become me, and that God himself, in calling 
 us to him, sliould not distinguish or divide what the miracle of 
 love had transformed and mingled ! . . . . Oh ! if you have a 
 brother or a son, who has never understood virtue, pray that 
 he may love as I did ! As long as he loves thus, he will be 
 capable of every sacrifice or heroic devotion, to equal the ideal 
 of his love; and when he no longer loves, he will still retain in 
 his soul a remembrance of celestial delights, which will make 
 him turn with disgust from the waters of vice, and his eye will 
 be often secretly uplifted toward the pure spring at which he 
 once knelt to drink. I can not tell the feeling of salutary shame 
 which oppressed me in the presence of the one I loved ; but her 
 repi-oaches were so tender, her. looks so gentle, though pene-
 
 54 RAPHAEL. 
 
 trating, her pardon so divine, that in humbhng myself before 
 her I did not feel myself abased, but rather raised and dignified, 
 I almost mistook for my own and inward light, what was only 
 the reverberation in me of her splendor and purity. Involunta- 
 rily I compared her to all the other women I had approached, 
 except Antonina, who appeared to me like Julie in her artless 
 infancy ; and save my mother, whom she resembled in her vir- 
 tue and maturity, no woman in my eyes could bear the slightest 
 comparison. A single look of hers seemed to throw all my past 
 life into shade. Her discourse revealed to me depths of feeling 
 and refinements of passion, which transported me into unknown 
 regions, where I seemed to breathe for the first time the native 
 air of my own thoughts. All the levity, fickleness, and vanity, 
 the aridity, irony, and bitterness, of the evil days of my youth, 
 disajjpeared, and I scarcely recognized myself. When I left 
 her presence I felt myself good, and thought myself pui-e. 
 Once more, I felt enthusiasm, prayer, inward piety, and the 
 warm tears which flow not from the eyes, but well out like a 
 secret spring fi-om beneath our apparent aridity, and cleanse 
 the heart without enervating it. I vowed never to descend 
 from the celestial but ungiddy heights to which I had been 
 raised by her tender reproaches, her voice, her single presence ! 
 It was as a second innocence of my soul, imparted by the rays 
 of the eternal innocence of her love ! I could not say whether 
 there was most piety, or fascination, in the impression I re- 
 ceived, so much did passion and adoration mingle in equal 
 portions, and in my thoughts change, a thousand times in one 
 minute, love into worship, or worship into love ! Oh ! is not 
 that the height, the very pinnacle of love : enthusiasm in the 
 possession of perfect beauty, and rapture in supreme adora- 
 tion '?.... All she had said seemed to me eternal ; all she had 
 looked on appeared to me sacred. I envied the earth on v.'hich 
 she had trodden ; the sunshine which had enveloped her during 
 our walks appeared to me happy to have touched her. I 
 would have wished to abstract, and separate forever from the 
 liquid plains of air, the air that she had sanctified in breathing 
 it; I would have inclosed the empty place that she had just 
 ceased to fill in space, so that no inferior creature should oc- 
 cupy it so long as the world should last ! In a word, I saw 
 and felt, I worshiped God himself, through the medium of 
 my love ! If life were to last in such a condition of the soul, 
 nature would stand still, the blood would cease to circulate, the
 
 RAPHAEL. 55 
 
 heart forget to beat ; or rather, there would be neither motion, 
 precipitation, nor lassitude, neither life nor death in our senses ; 
 there would be only one endless and living absorption of our 
 being in another's, such as must be the state of the soul at once 
 annihilated and living in God ! 
 
 XXX. — Oh ! joy ! the vile desires of sensual passion were 
 annulled (as she had wished) in the full possession of each 
 others soul; and happiness, as happiness ever does, made me 
 feel better and more pious than I had ever been. God and 
 my love were so mingled in my heart, that my adoration of her 
 became a perpetual adoration of the Supreme Being who had 
 created her. During the day, when we loitered on the sloping 
 hills, or on the borders of the lake, or sat on the root of some 
 tree, in a sunny lawn, to rest, to gaze, and to admire, our con- 
 versation would often, from the natural ovei"flowing of two full 
 hearts, tend toward that fathomless abyss of all thought, the 
 Infinite! and toward Him who alone can fill infinite space: 
 God ! When I pronounced this last word, with the heart-felt 
 gratitude which reveals so much in one single accent, I was 
 surprised to see her averted looks, or remark on her brow and 
 in the corners of her mouth a ti-ace of sad and painful incredu- 
 lity, which seemed to me in contradiction with our enthusiasm. 
 One day, I asked her, timidly, the reason. — " It is that, that 
 word gives me pain," she answered. — " And how" — said I — 
 " how can the word that comprehends all life, all love, and all 
 goodness, give pain to the most perfect of God's creations V 
 — " Alas !" she said, with the tone of a despairing soul ; " that 
 word represents the idea of a Being, whose existence I have 
 passionately desired might not be a dream ; and yet that 
 Being," she added, in a low and mournful tone, " in my eyes, 
 and in those of the sages whose lessons I have received, is but 
 the most marvelous and unreal delusion of our thoughts." — 
 "What!" said I; "your teachers do not believe there is a 
 God 1 But you, who love, how can you disbelieve 1 Does not 
 every throb of our hearts proclaim him"?" — " Oh !" she answer- 
 ed, hastily, " do not interpret as folly the wisdom of those men 
 who have uplifted for me the vails of philosophy, and have 
 caused the broad day of reason and of science to shine before 
 my eyes, instead of the pale and glimmering lamp with which 
 Superstition lights the voluntary darkness, that she willfully 
 casts around her childish divinity. It is in the God of your
 
 56 RAPHAEL. 
 
 mother and my nurse that I no longer believe, and not the God 
 of Nature and of Scien'^e. I believe in a Being who is the 
 Principle and Cause, spring and end of all other beings, or 
 rathei', who is himself the eternity, form, and law of all those 
 beings, visible or invisible, intelligent or unintelligent, animate 
 or inanimate, quick or dead, of which is composed the only real 
 name of this Being of beings, the Infinite ! But the idea of the 
 incommensurable greatness, the sovereign fatality, the inflexible 
 and absolute necessity of all the acts of this Being, whom you 
 call God and we term Law, excludes from our thoughts all pre- 
 cise intelligibility, exact denomination, reasonable imagining, 
 personal manifestation, i-evelation, or incarnation, and the idea 
 of any possible relation between that Being and ourselves, even 
 of homage and of prayer. Wherefoi-e should the Consequence 
 pray to the Cause 1 
 
 " It is a cruel thought," she added ; " for how many blessings, 
 prayers, and tears I should have poured out at his feet since I 
 have loved you ! But," she resumed, " I surprise and pain 
 you ; pray foigive me. Is not truth the first of virtues, if virtue 
 there be 1 On this single point we can not agree ; let us never 
 speak of it. You have been brought up by a pious mother, in 
 the midst of a Christian family, and have inhaled with your first 
 breath the holy credulity of your home. You have been led by 
 the hand into the temples ; you have been shown images, 
 mysteries, and altars ; you have been taught prayers, and told — 
 God is here, who listens and will answer you ; and you believ- 
 ed, for you were not of an age to inquire. Since then, you 
 have discarded these baubles of your childhood, to conceive a 
 less feminine and less puerile God, than this God of the Chris- 
 tian tabernacles; but the first dazzling glare has not departed 
 from your eyes ; the real light that you have thought to see has 
 been blended, unknown to yourself, with that false brightness 
 which fascinated you on your entrance into life ; you have 
 retained two weaknesses of intelligence ; mystery and prayer. 
 There is no mystery !" she said, in a more solemn tone ; " there 
 is only reason, which dispels all mystery! It is man, crafty or 
 credulous man, who invented mystery: God made reason! 
 And prayer does not exist," she continued, mournfully, " for an 
 inflexible law will not relent, and a necessary law can not be 
 changed." 
 
 " '1 he ancients, with that profound wisdom which was often 
 hidden beneath their popular ignorance, knew that full well,
 
 RAPHAEL. , 57 
 
 she added ; " foi- they prayed to all the gods of their invention, 
 but they never implored the supreme law : Destiny." 
 
 She was silent. " It appears to me," I said, after a long 
 pause, " that the teachers who have instilled their wisdom into 
 you, have too much subordinated the feeling, to the reasoning 
 Being, in their theory of the relation of God to man : in a word, 
 they have overlooked the heart in man — the heart, which is the 
 organ of love, as intelligence is the organ of thought. The 
 imaginings of man in respect of God may be puerile and 
 mistaken, but his instincts, which are his unwritten law, must be 
 sometimes right; if not. Nature would have lied in creating 
 him. You do not think Nature a lie," I said, smiling ; " you, 
 who said just now that truth was perhaps the only virtue ] 
 Now, whatever may have been the intention of God in giving 
 those two instincts, mystery and prayer, whether He meant 
 thereby to show that He was the incomprehensible God, and 
 that his name was Mystery ; or, that he desired that all creat- 
 ures should give him honor and pi-aise, and that prayer should 
 be the universal incense of nature — it is most certain that man, 
 when he thinks on God, feels within him two instincts : mystery 
 and adoration. Reason's province," 1 pursued, ''is to enlighten 
 and disperse mystery, more and more every day, but never to 
 dispel it entirely. Prayer is the natural desire of the heart to 
 pour forth unceasingly its supplications, efficacious or not, heard 
 or unheard, as a precious perfume on the feet of God. What 
 matters it if the perfume fall to the ground, or whether it anoint 
 the feet of God ] It is always a tribute of weakness, humility, 
 and adoration. 
 
 "But who can say that it is ever lost"?" I added, in the tone 
 of one whose hopes triumph over his doubts; "who can say 
 that Prayer, the mysterious communication with invisible Om- 
 nipotence, is not in reality the greatest of all the natural or su- 
 pernatural powers of man] Who can say that the supreme 
 and immortal Will has not ordained from all eternity that 
 Prayer should be continually inspired and heard, and that man 
 should thus, by his invocations, participate in the ordering of 
 his own destiny ] Who knows whether God, in his love, and 
 perpetual blessing on the beings which emanate from him, has 
 not established this bond with them, as the invisible chain which 
 links the thoughts of all worlds to hisl Who knows but that, 
 in his majestic solitude, which he peoples alone, he has willed 
 that this living murmur, this continual communing with Nature, 
 
 c*
 
 58 RAPHAEL, 
 
 should ascend and descend continually in all space, from him 
 to all the beings that he vivifies and loves, and from those 
 beings to him? At all events, prayer is the highest privilege of 
 man, since it allows him to speak to God. If God were deaf 
 to our prayers, we should still pray ; for if in his majesty he 
 would not hear us, still prayer would dignify man." 
 
 I saw that my reasonings touched, without convincing her, 
 and that the springs of her soul, which science had dried up, 
 had not yet flowed toward God. But love was to soften her 
 Reli"-ion as it had softened her heart; the delights and anguish 
 of passion were soon to bring forth adoration and prayer, those 
 two perfumes of the souls that burn and languish. The one is 
 full of rapture ; the other full of tears — both are divine ! 
 
 XXXI. — In the mean time, her health improved daily : hap- 
 piness, solitude with a beloved companion (that Paradise of 
 tender souls), and the daily discovery on her part of some new 
 mystery of thought in me which corresponded to her own 
 nature ; the autumnal air in the mountains, which, like stoves 
 heated during summer, preserve the warmth of the sun until the 
 winter snows ; our distant excursions to the chalets, or on the 
 waters; the motion of the boat, or the gentle pace of the mules ; 
 the milk brought frothing from the pastures, in the wooden 
 cups the shepherds carve; and above all, the gentle excitement, 
 the peaceful reverie, the continual infatuation of a heart which 
 fii-st love upheld as with wings, and led on from thought to 
 thought, from dream to dream, through a new-found heaven — 
 all seemed to contribute visibly to her recovery. Every day 
 seemed to bring fresh youth ; it was as a convalescence of the 
 soul, which showed itself on the features. Her face which had 
 been at first slightly marked round the eyes with those dark 
 and bluish tints, which seem like the impress of the fingers of 
 Death, gradually recovered the roundness of the cheek, the 
 mairtling blood, the soft down, and blooming complexion of a 
 young girl who has been on the mountains, and whose cheek 
 has been visited by the first cold bracing winds from the gla- 
 ciers. Her lips had recovered their fullness, her eyes their 
 brightness; the lid no longer drooped, and the eye itself seemed 
 to swim in that continual and luminous mist which rises like a 
 vapor from the burning heart, and is condensed into tears, on 
 the eye, whose fire absorbs these tears, that always rise, and 
 never flow. There was more strength in her attitudes, more
 
 RAPHAEL. 59 
 
 pliancy in her movements; her step was liglit and lively as a 
 child's. Whenever we entered the yard of the house on out 
 return from our rambles, the old doctor and his family would 
 express their surprise at the prodigious change that a day had 
 wrought in her appearance, and wonder at the life and light 
 that s4ie seemed to shed round her. 
 
 In truth, happiness seemed to encompass her with a radiant 
 atmosphere, in which she not only walked herself, but envel- 
 oped all those who looked upon her. This radiance of beauty, 
 this atmosphere of love, are not, as many think only the fancies 
 of a poet ; the poet merely sees more distinctly what escapes 
 the blind or indifferent eye of other men. It has often been 
 said of a lovely woman, that she illumines the darkness of night ; 
 it might be said of Julie that she warmed the surrounding air. 
 I lived and moved, enveloped in this warm emanation of her 
 reviving beauty ; others but felt it as they passed. 
 
 XXXII. — When I was obliged to leave her for a short time, 
 and returned into my room, I felt, even at mid-day, as if I had 
 been immured in a dungeon without air or light. The brightest 
 sun afforded me no light, unless its rays were reflected by her 
 eyes. I admired her more, the moie I saw her ; and could not 
 believe she was a being of the same order as myself. The 
 divine nature of her love had become a part of the creed of my 
 imagination ; and in spirit I was ever prostrate before the being 
 who appeared to me too tender to be a divinity — too divine to 
 be a woman ! I sought a name for her and found none. I 
 called her Mystery ! and under that vague and indefinite title, 
 offered her worship which partook of earth by its tenderness — 
 of a dream by its enthusiasm — of reality by her presence, and 
 of Heaven by my adoration. 
 
 She had obliged me to confess that I had sometimes written 
 verses, but I had never shown her any. She did not much like 
 that artificial and set form of speech, which, when it does not 
 idealize, generally impairs the simplicity of feeling and ex- 
 pression. Her nature was too full of impulse, too feeling, and 
 too serious, to bend itself to all the precision, form, and delay, 
 of written poetry. She was Poetry without a lyre — true as the 
 heart, simple as the untutored thought, dreamy as night, brill- 
 iant as day, swift as lightning, boundless as space ! No rules 
 of harmony could have bounded the infinite music of her mind; 
 her very voice was a perpetual melody, that no cadence of verse
 
 60 RAPHAEL. 
 
 could have equaled. Had I lived long with her, I should never 
 have read or written poeti'y. She was the living poem of Nature 
 and of myself; my thoughts were in her heart, my imagery in 
 her eyes, and my harmony in her voice. 
 
 She had in her room a few volumes of the principal poets of 
 the end of the eighteenth century, and of the empire, such aa 
 Delille and Fontanes, hut their high-sounding and material 
 poety was not suited to us. She had been lulled by the melo- 
 dious murmur of the waves of the tropic, and her soul contained 
 treasures of love, imagination, and melancholy, which all the 
 voices of the air and waters could not have expressed. She 
 would sometimes attempt with me to read these books, on the 
 strength of their reputation, but would throw them down again 
 impatiently ; they gave no sound beneath her touch, like those 
 broken chords which remain voiceless when w« strike the keys. 
 The music of her heart was in mine, but I could never give it 
 forth to the world ; and the verses she was one day to inspire, 
 were destined to sound only on her grave. She never knew 
 before she died who she had loved. In her eyes I was her 
 brother, and it would have mattered little to her that I had 
 been a poet for the rest of the world. Her love saw nothing in 
 me, but myself. 
 
 Once only I involuntarily betrayed before her the poor gift 
 of poetry that I possessed, and which s^-'e neither suspected nor 
 desired in me. My friend Louis * * * had come to stay a few 
 days with us. The evening had been spent till midnight in 
 reading, in confidential talk, in musing, in sadness, and in smiles. 
 We wondered to see three young lives, which a short time be- 
 fore were unknown to each other, now united and identified 
 beneath the same roof, at the same fireside with the same 
 murmur of autumnal winds around, in a cottage of the mount- 
 ains of Savoy; we strove to foresee by what sport of providence, 
 or chance, the stormy winds of life might scatter or reunite us 
 once more. These distants vistas of the horizon of our future 
 lives had saddened us and we remained silent round the little 
 tea-table on which we were leaning. At last, Louis, who was a 
 poet, felt a mournful inspiration rising in his heart, and wished to 
 write it down. She gave him paper and a pencil, and he leaned 
 on the marble chimney-piece and wrote a few stanzas, plaintive 
 and tearful as the funeral strophes of Gilbert. He resembled 
 Gilbert, and he might have written those lines of his which will 
 live as long as the lamentations of Job, in the language of men ;
 
 RAPHAEL. 01 
 
 Au banquet de la vie, inforhme convive, 
 
 J'apparus un jour at je meurs : 
 Je iiieurs, et sur ma tombe, ou lentement j'arrive, 
 
 Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs ! 
 
 Louis's verses had affected me ; I took the pencil from him, 
 and withdrawing for an instant to the end of the room, I wrote 
 in my turn the following verses, which will die with me, un- 
 known to all ; they were the first verses that sprung from my 
 heart, and not from my imagination. I read them out, without 
 daring to raise my eyes on her, to whom they were addressed. 
 
 They ran thus : 
 
 ******* 
 
 but no ! I efface them ! My love was all my genius, and they 
 have departed together ! 
 
 As 1 finished I'eading the verses, I saw on Julie's face, on 
 which the light of the lamp fell, such a tender expression of 
 surprise, and such superhuman beauty, that I stood uncertain, 
 as my verses had expressed it, between the woman and the 
 angel — between love and adoration. This latter feeling pre- 
 dominated at last in my heart, and in that of my friend. We 
 fell on our knees before the sofa, and kissed the end of the 
 black shawl which enveloped her feet. The verses seemed to 
 her merely an instantaneous and solitary expression of my feel- 
 ings toward her ; she praised them, but never mentioned them 
 again. She much preferred our familiar discourse, or even our 
 pensive silence, in each other's company, to these exercises of 
 the mind, which profane our feelings rather than reveal them. 
 Louis left us after a few days. 
 
 XXXIII. — In consequence of these first verses of mine, 
 which were but one feeble strophe of the perpetual hymn of 
 my heart, she requested me to write an ode for her, which she 
 would address as a tribute of admiration, and as a specimen of 
 my talents, to one of the men of her Paris acquaintance, for 
 whom she felt the greatest respect and attachment, M. de 
 Bonald. I knew nothing of him but his name, and the well- 
 deserved renown then attached to it as that of a Christian, a 
 philosopher, and a legislator. I fancied that I was to address 
 a modern Moses, who derived from the rays of another Mount 
 Sinai the divine light which he shed upon human laws. I 
 wrote the ode in one night, and read it the next moniiiig, be- 
 neath a spreading chestnut tree, to her who had inspired it.
 
 62 RAPHAEL. 
 
 Sh^ made me read it three times over, and in the evening she 
 copied it with her light and steady hand. Her writing flew 
 upon the paper hke the shadow of the wings of thought, with 
 the swiftness, elegance, and freedom of a bird upon the wing. 
 The next day she sent it to Paris. M. de Bonald replied by 
 many obliging auguries respecting my talents. This was the 
 beginning of my acquaintance with that most excellent man, 
 whose character I have always admired and loved since, with- 
 Dut sharing his theocratical doctrines. My approval of his 
 creed, of which I knew nothing, was at that time a concession 
 to my love ; at a later period, it would have been an homage 
 rendered to his virtues. M. de Bonald was, like M. de Maistre, 
 a prophet of the past, one of those men whose ideas were of 
 by-gone days, and to whom we bow with veneration, as we see 
 them seated on the threshold of futurity ; they will not pass 
 onward, but tarry to listen to the sublime lament of all that 
 dies in the human mind. 
 
 XXXIV. — Autumn was already gone ; but the sun shone 
 out now and then between the clouds, and lighted and warmed 
 the mild winter which had succeeded. We tried to deceive 
 ourselves, and to say that it was still Autumn, so much did we 
 dread to recognize Winter, that was to separate us. The snow 
 sometimes fell in the morning in light flakes on the roses and 
 everlastings in the garden, like the wliite down of the swans 
 which we often saw traversing the air. At noon the snow 
 melted, and then there were delightful hours on the lake. The 
 last rays of the sun seemed to be warmer when they played on 
 the waters. The fig-trees which hung from the rocks exposed 
 to the south, in the sheltered coves, had kept their wide spread- 
 ing leaves; and the reverberation of the sun upon the rocks, 
 imparted to them the splendid coloring and the warmth of 
 summer evenings. But these hours glided as swiftly by as the 
 stroke of the oars which served to take us round the foam- 
 covered rocks, that form the southern border of the lake. The 
 glancing rays of the sun on the fir-trees, the green moss, the 
 winter birds, more fully feathered and more familiar than those 
 of summer ; the mountain streams, whose white and frothing 
 waters dashed down the sides of the sloping meadows, and, 
 meeting in some ravine, fell with sonorous and splashing mur- 
 murs from the black and shining rocks into the lake ; the 
 cadenced sound of the oar, which seemed to accompany us
 
 RAPHAEL. 63 
 
 with its mysterious and plaintive regrets, like some friendly 
 voice hidden beneath the waters ; the perfect repose we felt in 
 this warm and luminous atmosphere, so near each other, and 
 separated from the world by an abyss of waters, made us feel 
 at times so great an enjoyment in the feeling of existence, such 
 fullness of inward joy, such an overflowing of peace and love, 
 that we might have defied heaven itself to add to our felicity. 
 But with this happiness was mixed the consciousness that it 
 was soon to end ; each stroke of the oar resounded in our 
 hearts as one step of the day that brought us nearer to separa- 
 tion. Who knows whether these trembling leaves may not 
 to-morrow have fallen in the waters ; if this moss on which 
 we still can sit may not to-morrow be covered with a thick 
 mantle of snow ; if this blue sky, these illumined rocks and 
 sparkling waves, may not, during the mists of this next night, 
 be enveloped and confounded in one dim and wintry ocean ] 
 
 A long sigh would escajie our lips at tiioughts like these ; 
 but we never communicated them to each other, for fear of 
 arousing misfortune by naming it. Oh ! who, in the course of 
 his life, has not felt some joy without security and without a 
 morrow; when life seems concentrated in one short hour which 
 we would wish to make eternal, and which we feel slipping 
 away, minute by minute, while we listen to the pendulum which 
 counts the seconds, or look at the hand that seems to gallop o'er 
 the dial, or watch a carriage wheel, of which each turn abridges 
 distance, or hearken to the splashing of a prow that distances 
 the waves, and brings us nearer to the shore where we must 
 descend from the heaven of our dreams, on the bleak and bar- 
 ren strand of harsh reality. 
 
 XXXV. — One sunny evening, when our boat lay in a calm 
 and sheltered creek, formed by the Mont du Chat, and that we 
 wei'e delightfully lulled by the distant sound of a cascade which 
 perpetually murmurs in the grottoes through which it filtrates, 
 before losing itself in the abyss of waters, our boatmen landed 
 to draw some nets they had set the day before. We remained 
 alone in the boat, which was moored to the branch of a fig-tree 
 by a slender rope ; the motion of the boat caused the branch to 
 bend and break, without our being aware of it, and we drifted 
 out to the middle of the bay, nearly three hundred yards from 
 the perpendicular rocks with which it is surrounded. The wa- 
 ters of the lake in this part were of that bronzed color, and had
 
 64 RAPHAEL. 
 
 that molten appearance and look of heavy immobility, which the 
 shade of overhanginj^f cliffs always gives; and the perpendicular 
 rocks which surrounded it indicated the unfathomable depth of 
 its waters. I might have taken up the oars and returned to 
 shore, but we felt a thrill of pleasure at our loneliness, and the 
 absence of any form of living nature. We would have wished 
 to wander thus, on a boundless firmament, instead of on a sea 
 with shores. We no longer heard the voices of the boatmen, 
 who had gone along the Savoy shore, and were now hidden from 
 our view by some projecting rocks ; we only heard the distant 
 trickling of the cascade, the harmonious sighs of the pines, when 
 some playful breeze swept, for an instant, through the still and 
 heavy air, and the low ripple of the water against the sides of 
 the boat, which gently undulated at our slightest movement. 
 
 Our boat lay half in shade and half in sunshine — the head in 
 sunshine, and the stern in shade. I was sitting at Julie's feet 
 in the bottom of the boat, as on the first day when I brought her 
 back from Haute-Combe. We took delight in calling to remem- 
 brance every circumstance of that first day, that mysterious era 
 from which the world commenced for us — for that day was the 
 date of our meeting and of our love ! She was half i-eclining, 
 with one arm hanging over the side of the boat, the other leaned 
 upon my shoulder, and her hand played with a lock of my long 
 hair; my head was thrown back, so that I could only see the 
 heavens above, and her face, which stood out on the blue back 
 ground of the sky. She bent over me, as if to contemplate her 
 sun on my brow, her light in my eyes ; an expression of deep, 
 calm, and ineffable happiness was diffused over her features, 
 and gave to her beauty a radiance and splendor which was in 
 harmony with the surrounding glory of the sky. Suddenly I 
 saw her turn pale and withdraw her arms from the side of the 
 boat, and from my shoulder ; she started up as if awaked from 
 sleep, covered for one instant her face with her two hands, and 
 remained in deep and silent thought; then withdrawing her 
 hands, which were wet with tears, she said, in a tone of calm and 
 serene determination, " Oh ! let us die ! . . ." 
 
 After these words she remained silent for an instant, then re- 
 sumed : '' Yes ! let us die, for earth has nothing more to give, 
 and Heaven nothing more to promise !" She gazed at the sky 
 and mountain, the lake and its translucid waves around us. 
 " Seest thou," she said (it was the first and the last time that 
 .she ever used that form of speech which is tender or solemn,
 
 RAPHAEL. 65 
 
 according as we address God or man), " seest thou that all is 
 ready around us for the hlessed close of our two lives ! Seest 
 thou the sun of the brightest of our days which sets, not to rise 
 for us perhaps to-morrow 'i Seest thou the mountains glass 
 themselves for the last time in the lake ; they stretch out their 
 long shadows toward us, as if to say. Wrap yourselves in this 
 shroud which I extend towai'd you ! See ! the deep and clear, 
 the silent waves have prepared for us a sandy couch from which 
 no man shall wake us, and tell us to be gone ! No human eye 
 can see us. None will know from what mysterious cause the 
 empty bark has been washed ashore upon some rock. No rip- 
 ple on these waters will betray to the curious or the indifferent, 
 the spot where our two bodies slid beneath the wave, in one 
 embrace ; where our two souls rose mingled in the surrounding 
 ether ; no sound of earth will follow us but the slight ripple of 
 
 the closing wave ! Oh ! let us die in this delight of soul, 
 
 and feel of death only its entrancing joy. One day we shall 
 wish to die, and we shall die less happy. I am a few years 
 older than you, and this difference, which is unfelt now, will in- 
 crease with time. The little beauty which has attracted you 
 will early fade, and you will only recall with wonder the mem- 
 ory of your departed enthusiasm. Besides, I am to you but as 
 
 a spirit .... you will seek another happiness I should 
 
 die of jealousy if you found it with another and I should 
 
 die of grief if I saw you unhappy through me ! Oh ! let 
 
 us die, let us die ! let us efface the dark or doubtful future with 
 one last sigh, which will only leave on our lips the unallayed 
 taste of complete felicity." 
 
 At the same moment, my heart spoke to me as forcibly as she 
 did, and said what her voice said to my ear, what her looks said 
 to my eyes, what solemn, mute, funereal nature, in the splen- 
 dor of her last hour, said to all my senses. The two voices that 
 I heard, the inward and the outer voice, said the same words, 
 as if one had been the echo or translation of the other. I for- 
 got the universe, and I answered, " Let us die !" 
 
 I wound the fisherman's ropes which I found in the boat sev- 
 eral times round her body and mine, which were bound as in 
 the same winding sheet. I took her up in my arms, which I had 
 left disengaged in order to precipitate her with me into the 
 lake. 
 
 At the very instant that I was taking the spring which would 
 forever have buried us in the waters, 1 saw her turn pale, her
 
 66 RAPHAEL. 
 
 head drooped, its lifeless weight sank upon my shoulder, and I 
 felt her knees give way beneath her body. Excessive emotion 
 and the joy of dying together, had forestalled death. She had 
 fainted in ray arms. The idea of taking advantage of her in- 
 sensible state to hurry her, unknown to herself, and perhaps 
 against her will, into my grave, struck me with hoiTor ! I fell 
 back into the boat with my burden ; I loosed the ropes that 
 bound us, and laid her on the seat ; I dipped my hands into the 
 lake and sprinkled the cold drops of water on her lips and fore- 
 head. I know not how long she remained thus without color, 
 voice, or motion. When she first opened her eyes and regained 
 consciousness, night was coming on, and the slow drift of the 
 boat had carried us into the middle of the lake. 
 
 " God wills it not," I said. " We live ; what we thought the 
 privilege of our love, was a double crime. Is there no one to 
 whom we belong on earth? no one in Heaven 1" I added, look- 
 ing upward reverentially, as though 1 had seen in the firmament 
 the sovereign Judge and Lord of our destinies. *' Speak no 
 more of it," she said, in a low and hurried tone ; " never speak 
 of it again! You have chosen that I should live; I will live; 
 my crime was not in dying, but in taking you with me !" There 
 was something of bitterness and tender repi'oach in her tone and 
 in her look. "It may be," said I, replying to her thoughts, "it 
 may be that Heaven itself has no such hours as those we have 
 just passed ; but life has ; that is enough to make me love it." 
 She soon recovered her bloom and her serenity. I seized the 
 oars, and slowly rowed back to the little sandy beach, where we 
 heard the voices of the boatmen, who had lighted a fire beneath 
 a projecting rock. We recrossed the lake, and returned home 
 silently and thoughtfully. 
 
 XXXVI. — In the evening, when I went into her room, I 
 found her seated in tears before her little table, where several 
 open letters were lying scattered among the tea-things. " We 
 had better have died at once, for here is the linsi^erinjj death of 
 separation, which begins for me," she said, pointing to some 
 letters which bore the postmark of Paris and Geneva. 
 
 Her husband wrote, that he began to be very anxious at her 
 long absence, at a season of the year when the weather might . 
 become inclement from day to day ; that he felt himself gradu- 
 ally declining, and that he wished to embrace and bless her be- 
 fore he died. His mournful entreaties were intermingled with
 
 RAPHAEL. G7 
 
 many expressions of paternal fondness, and some sportive allu- 
 sions to the fair young brother, who made her forget her other 
 friends. The other letter was from the Genevcse doctor, who was 
 to have come to take her back to Paris. He wrote to say that 
 he was obliged unexpectedly to leave home to attend a German 
 prince who required his care, and that he sent in his stead a 
 respectable, trustworthy man, w4io would accompany her to 
 Paris, and act as her courier on the road. This man had 
 arrived, and her departure was fixed for the day after the 
 morrow ! 
 
 Although this news had been long foreseen, it affected us as 
 though it had been quite unexpected. We passed a long even- 
 ing and nearly half the night in silence, leaning opposite to one 
 another on the little table, and neither daring to look at each 
 other, or to speak, for fear of bursting into tears. We strove 
 to interrupt the speechless agony of our hearts by a few uncon- 
 nected words, but these were said in a deep and hollow voice, 
 which resounded in the room like tear-drops on a coffin. I 
 had instantly determined to go also. 
 
 XXXVII. — The next day was the eve of our separation. The 
 morning, as if to mock us, rose more bright and warm than in 
 the fairest days of October. 
 
 While the trunks were being packed, and the carriage got 
 ready, we started with the mules and guides. We visited both 
 hill and valley, to say farewell, and to make, as it were, a pil- 
 grimage of love to all the spots where we had first seen each 
 other, then met and walked; where we had sat, and talked, and 
 loved, during the long and heavenly intercourse between our- 
 selves and lonely Nature. We began by the lovely hill of 
 Tvesserves, which rises like a verdant cliff between the valley 
 o+' Aix and the lake; its sides, that rise almost perpend iculai'ly 
 ^'^om the water's edge, are covered with chestnut trees, rivalinsr 
 >^ose of Sicily ; through their branches, which overhang the 
 >vater, one sees snatches of the blue lake, or of the sky, accord 
 'Cig as one looks high or low. It was on the velvet of the moss- 
 covered roots of these noble trees, which have seen successive 
 generations of young men and women pass like ants beneath 
 their shade, that we in our contemplative hours had dreamed 
 our fairest dreams. From thence we descended by a sleep de- 
 clivity to a small solitary chateau called Bon Port. This little 
 castle is so embosomed in the chestnut trees of Tresserves on
 
 68 RAPHAEL. 
 
 the land side, and so well hidden on the water side in the deep 
 windings of a sheltered bay, that it is difficult to see it, either 
 from the mountain, or from the little sea of Bourget. A terrace 
 with a few fig-trees divides the chateau from the sandy beach, 
 where the gentle waves continually come rippling in, to lick 
 the shore and raurmuringly expire. Oh, how we envied the 
 fortunate possessors of this retreat unknown to men, hidden in 
 the trees and waters, and only visited by the birds of the lake, 
 the sunshine, and the soft south wind. We blessed it a thou- 
 sand times in its repose, and prayed that it might shelter hearts 
 like ours. 
 
 XXXVIII. — From Bon Port we proceeded toward the high 
 mountains which overlook the valley between Chambery and 
 Geneva, going round by the northern side of the hill of Tres- 
 serves. We saw once more the meadows, the pastures, the 
 cottages hidden beneath the walnut trees, and the grassy slopes, 
 where the young heifers play ; their little bell tinkles continu- 
 ally, to give notice of theii' wandering march through the grass 
 to the shepherd, who tends them at a distance. We ascended 
 to the highest chalets ; the winter wind had already scorched 
 the tips of the grass. We remembered the delightful hours we 
 had spent there, the words we had spoken, the fond delusion 
 we had entertained of an entire separation from the world, the 
 sighs we had confided to the mountain winds and rays to waft 
 them to heaven. We recalled all our hours of peace and hap- 
 piness so swiftly flown, all our words, dreams, gestures, looks, 
 and wishes as one strips a dwelling tliat one leaves of all that 
 that is most precious. We mentally buried all these treasures 
 of memory and hope within the walls of these wooden chalets 
 which would remain closed until the spring, to find them entire 
 on our return, if ever we returned ! 
 
 XXXIX. — We came down by the wooded slopes to the 
 foaming bed of a cascade. There we saw a small funereal 
 monument erected to the memory of a young and lovely wom- 
 an, Madame de Broc ; she fell some years ago into this whirl- 
 pool, whose foaming waters gave up a long while after a part 
 of her white dress, and thus caused her body to be found ii? 
 the deep grotto in which it had been ingulfed. Lovers often 
 come and visit this watery tomb ; their hearts feel heavy, and 
 they draw closer to each other as they think how their fragile
 
 RAPHAEL. 69 
 
 felicity may be dashed to atoms by one false step on the slip- 
 pery rock ! 
 
 From this cascade, which bears the name of Madame de 
 Broc, we walked in silence toward the Chateau de Saint Inno- 
 cent, from whence one commands an extensive view of the 
 whole lake. We got down from our mules beneath the shade 
 of some lofty oaks, which were interspersed here and there with 
 a few patches of heath. It was a lonely place at that time, but 
 since then, a rich planter, on his return to his native land, has 
 built himself a country house, and planted a garden in these, 
 his paternal aci'es. Our mules were turned loose, and left to 
 graze in the wood, under the care of the children who acted as 
 our guides. We walked on alone from tree to tree, from one 
 glade to another on the narrow neck of land, until we reached 
 tlie extreme point, where we saw the shining lake, and heard 
 its splashing waters. This wood of Saint Innocent is a promon- 
 tory that stretches out into the lake at the wildest and most 
 lonely part of its shores; it ends in some rocks of gray granite, 
 which are sometimes washed by the foam of the wind-tossed 
 waves, but are dry and shining when the waters subside into 
 repose. We sat down on two stones close to each other. Be- 
 fore us, the dark pile of the Abbey of Haute-Combe rose on 
 the opposite shore of the lake. Our eyes were fixed on a little 
 white speck that seemed to shine at the foot of the gloomy ter- 
 races of the monastery. It was the fisherman's house, where 
 we had been thrown together by the waves, and united forever 
 by that chance meeting-, it was the room where we had spent 
 that heavenly and yet funereal night which had decided the 
 fate of both our lives! "It was thei-e !" she said, stretching 
 out her arm, and pointing to the bright speck, which was 
 scarcely visible in the distance and darkness of the opposite 
 shore. " Will there come a day and a place," she added, 
 mournfully, in which the memory of all we felt there during 
 those deathless hours will appear to you, in the remoteness of 
 the past, but as that little speck on the dark background of 
 yonder shore ]" 
 
 I could not reply to these words ; her tone, her doubts, the 
 prospect of death, inconstancy, and frailty, and the possibility 
 of forgetfulness, had struck me to the heart, and filled me with 
 sad forebodings, I burst into tears, 1 hid my face in my 
 hands, and turned toward the evening-breeze, that it might di-y 
 my tears in my eyes ; but she had seen them.
 
 70 RAPHAEL. 
 
 " Raphael," she resumed, with greater tenderness : " No ! 
 you will never forget me. I know it; I feel it; but love is 
 short and life is slow. You will live many years beyond me. 
 You will drain all that is sweet, or powerful, or bitter in the 
 cup that nature offers to the lips of man. You will be a man ! 
 1 know it by your sensibility, which is at once manly and femi- 
 nine. You will be a man, to the full extent of all the wretch- 
 edness and dignity of that name, by which God has called one 
 of his strangest creatures ! In one of your aspirations there is 
 breath for a thousand lives ! You will live with all the energy 
 and in the full meaning of the word — life ! I . . ." she stopped 
 for an instant, and raised her eyes and arms to Heaven, as if in 
 thankfulness: "I — I have lived! — I have lived enough," she 
 resumed, in a contented tone, " since I have inhaled, to bear it 
 forever within me, the spirit of the soul that I waited for on 
 earth, and which would vivify me even in death, from whence 
 you once recalled me. ... I shall die young, and without regret 
 now, for I have drained at a single draught the life that you 
 will not exhaust, before your dark hair has become as white 
 as the spray that dashes over your feet. 
 
 " This sky, this lake, these shores, these mountains, have been 
 the scene of my only real life here below. Swear to me to 
 blend so completely in your remembrance this sky, this lake, 
 these shores, these mountains, with my memory, that their im- 
 age and mine may henceforward be inseparable for you ; that 
 this landscape in your eyes, and 1 in your heart, may make but 
 one ... so that," she added, " when you return, after long days, 
 to see once more this lonely spot, to wander beneath these 
 trees, on the margin of these waves, to listen to the breeze and 
 murmuring winds, you may see me once more, as living, as 
 present, and as loving as I am here !".... 
 
 She could say no more, and burst into tears. Oh ! how we 
 wept! how long we wept] The sound of our stifled sobs 
 mingled with the sobbing of the water on the sand. Our tears 
 fell trickling in the water at our feet. After a lapse of fifteen 
 years, I can not write it without tears, even now. 
 
 O man ! fear not for thy affections, and feel no dread lest 
 time should efface them. There is neither to-day nor yesterday 
 in the powerful echoes of memory ; there is only always. He 
 who no longer feels has never felt ! There are two memories : 
 the memory of the senses, which wears out with the senses, and 
 in which perishable things decay ; and the memory of the soul,
 
 RAPHAEL. 71 
 
 for which time does not exist, and which lives over at the same 
 instant every moment of its past and present existence ; it is a 
 faculty of the soul, which, like the soul, enjoys ubiquity, univer- 
 sality, and immortality of spirit. Fear not, ye who love! 
 Time has power over hours, none over the soul. 
 
 XL. — I strove to speak, but could not. My sobs spoke, and 
 my tears promised. We got up to join the muleteers, and 
 returned at sunset by the long avenue of leafless poplars, where 
 we had passed before, when she held my hand so long in the 
 palanquin. As we went through the straggling faubourg of 
 cottages, at the entrance of the town, and crossed the Place to 
 enter the steep street of Aix, sad faces were seen gx'eeting us at 
 the windows and at the doors ; as kind souls watch the de- 
 parture of two belated swallows, who are the last to leave the 
 walls which have sheltered them. Poor women rose from the 
 stone bench where they were spinning before their houses ; 
 children left the goats and donkeys which they were driving 
 home ; all came to address a word, a look, or even a silent bow 
 of recognition to the young lady, and the one they supposed to 
 be her brother. She was so beautiful, so gracious to all, so 
 loved, it seemed as though the last ray of the year was retiring 
 from the valley. 
 
 When we had reached the top of the town, we got down 
 from our mules and dismissed the children. As we did not 
 wish to lose an hour of this last day that still shone on the rose- 
 tinted snows of the Alps, we climbed slowly, and alone, up a 
 narrow path which leads to the garden terrace of a house called 
 the Maison Chevalier. From this terrace, which seems like a 
 platform erected in the center of a panorama, the eye embraces 
 the town, the lake, the passes of the Rhone, and all the peaks 
 of the Alpine landscape. We sat down on the fallen trunk 
 of a tree, and leaned on the parapet wall of the terrace ; we 
 remained mute and motionless, looking by turns at all the 
 different spots, that for the last six weeks had witnessed our 
 looks and steps, our twofold dreams, and our sighs. When all 
 these had one by one faded away in the dim shade of twilight — > 
 when there was only one corner of the horizon, to westward, 
 where a faint light remained, we started up with one accord, 
 and fled precipitately, casting vain and sorrowing looks behind, 
 as if some invisible hand hod driven us out of this Eden, and piti 
 lessly effaced on our steps all the scene of our happiness and love
 
 72 RAPHAEL. 
 
 XLL — We returned home and spent a sad evening, although 
 I was to accompany Julie as far as Lyons on the box of her 
 cariiage. When the hand of her little portable clock marked 
 midnight, I retired, to let her take some rest before morning. 
 She accompanied me to the door ; I opened it, and said as I 
 kissed her hand in the passage; "Good-by till the morrow !" 
 She did not answer, but I heard her murmur, with a sob, behind 
 the closing door : " There is no morrow for us !" 
 
 There were a few days more, but they were shoit and bitter, 
 as the last dregs of a drained cup. We started for Chambery 
 very early in the morning, not to show our pale cheeks and 
 swollen eyelids in broad dayhght, and passed the day there, in 
 a small inn of the Italian faubourg. The wooden galleries of 
 the inn overlooked a garden, with a stream running through it, 
 and for a £ew hours we cheated ourselves into the belief that 
 we were once more in our home at Aix, with its galleiies, its 
 silence, and its solitude. 
 
 XLII. — We wished before we left Chambery and the valley 
 we so much loved, to visit together the humble dwelling of Jean 
 Jacques Rousseau and Madame de Warens, at Les Charmettes. 
 A landscape is but a man, or a woman. What is Vaucluse 
 without Petrarch ] — Sorrento without Tasso ] What is Sicily 
 without Theocritus, or the Paraclet without Heloise 1 What is 
 Anuecy without Madame de Warens 1 What is Chambery 
 without Jean Jacques Rousseau 1 A sky without rays, a voice 
 without echo, a landscape without life ! Man does not only 
 animate his fellow-men, he animates all nature. He carries his 
 own immortality with him into heaven, but bequeaths another 
 to the spots that he has consecrated by his presence ; it is only 
 there we can trace his course, and really converse with his 
 memory. We took with us the volume of the Confessions in 
 which the poet of Les Charmettes describes this rustic retreat. 
 Rousseau was wrecked there by the first storms of his fate, and 
 was rescued by a woman, young, lovely, and adventurous, 
 wrecked and lost like himself. This woman seems to have 
 been a compound of virtues and weaknesses, sensibility and 
 license, piety and independence of thought, formed expresssly 
 by nature to cherish and develop the strange youth, whose 
 mind comprehended that of a sage, a lover, a philosopher, a 
 legislator, and a madman. Another woman might perhaps have 
 produced another life. In a man we can always trace- the
 
 RAPHAEL. 73 
 
 woman whom he first loved. Happy would he have been who 
 had met Madame de Waiens before her profanation ! — She was 
 an idol to be adored, but the idol had been polluted. She 
 herself debased the worship that a young and loving heart 
 tendered her. The amours of this woman and Rousseau 
 appear like a leaf torn from the loves of Daphnis and Chloe, 
 and found soiled and defiled on the bed of a courtesan. It 
 matters not: it was the first love, or the first delirium, if you 
 will, of the young man. The birthplace of that love, the arbor 
 where Rousseau made his first avowal, the room where he 
 blushed at his first emotions, the yard where he gloried in the 
 most humble offices to sen^e his beloved protectress, the spread- 
 ing chestnut trees beneath which they sat together to speak of 
 God, and intermingled their sportive theology with bursts of 
 merriment and childish caresses, the landscape, mysterious and 
 wild as they, which seems so well adapted to them, have all, 
 for the lover, the poet, or the philosopher a deep and hidden 
 attraction. They yield to it without knowing why. For poets 
 this was the first page of that life which was a poem ; for 
 philosophers it was the cradle of a revolution ; for lovers it is the 
 birthplace of first love. 
 
 XLIII. — We followed the stony path at the bottom of the 
 ravine which leads to Charmettes, still talking of this love. 
 We were alone. The goat-herds even had forsaken the dried- 
 up pastures and the leafless hedges. The sun shone now and 
 then between the passing clouds, and its concentrated rays 
 were warmer within the sheltered sides of the ravine. Tlie 
 redbreasts hopped about the bushes almost within our reach. 
 Every now and then we would sit on the southern bank of the 
 road, to read a page or two of the Confessions, and identify 
 ourselves with the place. 
 
 We fancied we saw the young vagrant, in his tattered clothes, 
 knocking at the gate, and delivering, with a blush, his letter of 
 recommendation to the fair recluse, in the lonely path that leads 
 from the house to the church. They were so present to our 
 fancy, that it seemed as though they were expecting us, and 
 that we should see them at the window, or in the garden walkf? 
 of Les Charmettes. We would walk on, then stop again ; tlu 
 spot seemed to attract and to repel us by tunis, as a plnf. 
 where love had been revealed, but where love had been pro 
 faned also. It presented no such perils to us. We were des- 
 
 D
 
 74 RAPHAEL. 
 
 tined to cany away our love from thence, as pure and as divine 
 as we had brought it there within us. 
 
 "Oh!" I inwardly exclaimed, "were I a Rousseau, what 
 might not this other Madame de Warens have made me; she 
 who is as superior to her of Les Charmettes as I am inferior to 
 Rousseau, not in feeling, but in genius." 
 
 Absorbed in these thoughts, we walked up a shelving green- 
 sward, upon which a few walnut trees were scattered here and 
 there. These trees had seen the lovers beneath their shade. 
 To the right, where the pass narrows, so as to appear to form 
 a barrier to the traveler, stands the house of Madame de 
 Warens, on a terrace of rough and ill-cemented stones. It is a 
 little square building of gray stone, with two windows and a 
 door opening on the terrace, and the same on the garden side ; 
 there are three low rooms on the upper story, and a large room 
 on the ground-floor, with no other furniture than a portrait of 
 Madame de Warens in her youth. Her lovely face beams forth 
 from the dust-covered and dingy canvas with beauty, sportive- 
 ness, and pensive grace. Poor charming woman ! Had she 
 not met that Avandering boy on the highway — had she not 
 opened to him her house and heart, his sensitive and suffering 
 genius might have been extinguished in the mire. The meet- 
 ing seemed like the effect of chance ; but it was predestination 
 meeting the great man under the form of his first love. That 
 woman saved him ; she cultivated him ; she excited him in 
 solitude, in liberty, and in love, as the houris of the East thiough 
 pleasure raise up martyrs in their young votaries. She gave him 
 his dreamy imagination, his almost feminine soul, his tender ac- 
 cents, his passion for nature. Her pensive fancy imparted to 
 him enthusiasm ; the enthusiasm of women, of young men, of 
 lovers, of all the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy of his day! 
 She gave him the world, and he proved ungrateful ! . . . . She 
 gave him fame, and he bequeathed opprobrium ! . . . . But pos- 
 terity should be grateful to them, and forgive a weakness that 
 gave us the prophet of liberty. When Rousseau wrote those 
 odious pages against his benefactress, he was no longer Rous- 
 seau, he was a poor madman. Who knows if his morbid and 
 disordered imagination, which made him at that time see au 
 insult in every benefit, and hatred in all friendship, did not show 
 him likewise the courtesan in the loving woman, and wanton- 
 ness instead of love ] I have always suspected it. I defy any 
 rational man to recompose, with a semblance of prnbability,
 
 RAPHAEL. "75 
 
 the character Rousseau gives to the woman he loved, from the 
 contradictory elements which he describes in hei". Those ele- 
 ments exclude each other : if she had soul enough to adore 
 Rousseau, she did not at the same time love Claude Anet ; if 
 she grieved for Claude Anet and Rousseau, she did not love the 
 young hair-dressei\ If she was pious, she did not glory in her 
 weakness, but must have deplored it; if engaging, handsome, 
 and frail, as Rousseau depicts her, she could not be reduced to 
 look for admirers among the vagrants of the streets, or on the 
 highways. If she affected devotion with such a life, she was a 
 calculating hypocrite ; and if a hypocrite, she was not the frank, 
 open, and unreserved creature of the Confessions. The like- 
 ness can not be true; it is a fancy head and a fancy heart. 
 There is some hidden mystery here, which must be attributed 
 rather to the misguided hand of the artist, than to the nature of 
 the woman whom he wished to represent. We must neither 
 accuse the painter, whose discernment was at that time im- 
 paired, nor believe in the portrait, which has disfigured the 
 sketch he at first made, of an adorable creature. 
 
 For my part, I never could believe that Madame de Warens 
 would have recognized herself in the questionable pages of 
 Rousseau's old age. In my fancy, 1 have always restored her 
 to what she was, or what she appeared at Annecy to the young 
 poet — lovely, feeling, tender, frail, though really pious, prodigal 
 of kindness, thirsting after love, and desirous of blending the 
 tender names of mother and of mistress in her affection for the 
 youth that Providence had ct)nfided to her, and whom her love 
 had adopted. This is the true portrait, such as the old men of 
 Chambery and Annecy have told me that their fathers had 
 transmitted to them, Rousseau's mind itself bears witness 
 against his own accusations. Whence would he have derived 
 his sublime and tender piety, his feminine melancholy, his ex- 
 quisite and delicate touches of feeling, if a woman had not 
 bestowed them with her heart. No ! the woman who called 
 into existence such a man, was not a cynical courtesan, but 
 rather a fallen Heloise ; an Heloise fallen by love, and not by 
 vice or depravity. I appeal from Rousseau, the morose old 
 man, calumniating human nature, to Rousseau, the young and 
 ardent lover ; and when I go, as I often do, to muse at Les 
 Charmettes, I seek a Madame de Warens far more touching 
 and attractive in my imagination than in his.
 
 76 RAPHAEL. 
 
 XLIV. — A pool- woman made us some fire in Madame de 
 Warens' room ; accustomed to the visits of strangers, and to 
 their long conversations on the scene of the early days of a 
 celebrated man, she attended to her usual work in the kitchen 
 and in the yard, and left us at liberty to warm ourselves, or to 
 saunter backward and forward from the house to the garden. 
 This little sunny garden, surrounded by a wall which separated 
 it from the vineyards, and overrun with nettles, mallows, and 
 weeds of all kinds, resembled one of those village churchyards 
 where the peasants assemble to bask in the rays of the sun, 
 leaning against the church walls, with their feet on the graves 
 of the dead. The walks so neatly graveled once, were now 
 covered with damp earth and yellow moss, and showed the 
 neglect that had followed on absence. How we would have 
 wished to discover the print of the footsteps of Madame de 
 Warens, when she used to go, basket in hand, from tree to 
 tree, from vine to vine, gathering the pears of the orchard or 
 tlie grapes of the vineyard, and indulging in merry frolic with 
 the pupil or the confessor. But there is no trace of them in 
 their house, save their memory ! That is enough : their name, 
 their remembrance, their image, the sun they saw, the air they 
 breathed, which seems still beaming with their youth, warm 
 with their breath, and filled with their voices, give one back 
 the light, the dreams, the sounds, which shed enchantment 
 round their spring of life. 
 
 I saw by Julie's pensive countenance, and her silent thought- 
 fulness, that the sight of this sanctuary of love and genius im- 
 pressed her as deeply as myself At times she shunned me, 
 and j'emained wrapped in her own thoughts, as if she feared to 
 communicate them; she would go into the house to warm her- 
 self when I was in the garden, and return to sit on the stone 
 bench in the arbor when I joined her at the fire-side. At length 
 I went to her in the arbor; the last yellow leaves hung loosely 
 from the vine, and allowed the sun to penetrate and envelop 
 her with its rays. 
 
 " What is it you wish to think of without me 1" I said, in a 
 tone of tender reproach. " Do I ever think alone V " Alas !" 
 she answered, "you will not believe mc, but I was thinking 
 that I could wish to be Madame de Warens for you, during 
 one single season, even though I were to be forsaken for the 
 remainder of my days, and though shame were to attach to my 
 memory like hers ; even though you proved as ungrateful and
 
 RAPHAEL. 77 
 
 calumniating as Rousseau! .... How happy she was," she 
 continued, gazing up at the sky, as though she sought tlie 
 image ot" the strange creature she envied — " How happy she 
 was ! slie sacrificed herself for him she loved." 
 
 " What ingratitude and what profanation of yourself and of 
 our happiness !" 1 answered, walking slowly back with her to- 
 ward the house, upon the dry leaves, that rustled beneath our feet. 
 
 " Have I then ever, by a single word or look, or by a single 
 sigh, shown that aught was wanting to my bitter but complete 
 felicity ] Can not you, in your angelic fancy, imagine for 
 another Rousseau (if nature could have produced two) another 
 Madame de Warensi A Madame de Warens, young and pure, 
 angel, lover, sister, all at once, bestowhig her whole soul, her 
 immaculate and immortal soul, instead of her perishable charms? 
 bestowing it on a brother who was lost and is found — who was 
 young, misled, and wandering, too, in this world, like the son 
 of the watchmaker; throwing open to that brother, instead of 
 her house and garden, the bright treasures of her affection 
 purifying him in her rays, cleansing him from his first pollutions 
 by her tears, deterring him forever from any grosser pleasure 
 than that of inward possession and contemplation, teaching him 
 to value his very privations far above the sensual enjoyment that 
 man shares with brutes;' pointing out to him his course through 
 life, inciting him to glory and to virtue, and rewarding his 
 sacrifices by this one thought : That fame, virtue, and sacrifices 
 are all taken into account in the heart of his beloved — all accu- 
 mulate in her love, are multiplied by her gratitude, and are 
 added to that treasure of tenderness which is ever increasing 
 here below, to be expended only In Heaven." 
 
 XLV. — Nevertheless, as I spoke thus, I fell quite overcome, 
 with my face hidden in my hands, on a chair that was near the 
 wall, far from hers. 1 remained there without speaking a word. 
 " Let us begone," she said; " I am cold ; this place is not good 
 for us !" We gave some money to the good woman, and we 
 returned slowly to Chambery. 
 
 The next day, Julie was to start for Lyons. In the evening, 
 Louis came to see us at the inn, and I induced him to go with 
 me to spend a few v/eeks at my father's house, which was sit- 
 uated on the road from Paris to Lyons. We then went out 
 together to inquire at the coachmaker's in Chambery for a light 
 caleche, in which we could follow Julie's carriage as far as the
 
 78 RAPHAEL. 
 
 town where we wei'e to separate. We soon found what we 
 sought. 
 
 Before dayhght we were off, traveling in silence through the 
 winding defiles of Savoy, which at Pont-de-Beauvoisin open into 
 the monotonous and stony plains of Dauphiny. At every stage 
 we got down, and went to the first carnage to inquire about 
 the poor invalid. Alas! every turn of the carnage-wheel which 
 took her further from that spring of life which she had found in 
 Savoy, seemed to rob her of her bloom, and to bring back the 
 look of languor and the slow fever, which had struck me as 
 being the beauty of death, the first time I saw her. As the 
 time for our leaving her drew near, she was visibly oppressed 
 with grief. Between La-Tour-du-Pin and Lyons, we got into 
 her carriage for a few leagues, to try and cheer her. I begged 
 her to sing the ballad of Auld Robin Gray for my friend ; she 
 did so, to please me, but at the second verse, which relates the 
 parting of the two lovers, the analogy between our situation, 
 and the hopeless sadness of the ballad, as she sung it, struck 
 her so forcibly, that she burst into tears. She took up a black 
 shawl that she wore that day, and threw it as a vail over her 
 face, and I saw her sobbing a long while beneath the shawl. 
 At the last stage she fell into a fainting fit, which lasted till we 
 reached the hotel where we were to get down, at Lyons. With 
 the assistance of her maid, we carried her up-stairs, and laid her 
 on her bed. In the evening she rallied, and the next day we 
 pui"sued our journey towai'd Macon. 
 
 XLVL — It was thei'e we were to separate definitively. We 
 gave our directions to her courier, and hurried over the adieus 
 for fear of increasing her illness, by prolonging such painful 
 emotions, as one who, with an unflinching hand, hastily bares 
 a wound to spare the sufferer. My friend left for my father's 
 country house, whither I was to follow the next day. 
 
 Louis was no sooner gone, than I felt quite unable to keep 
 my word, I could not rest under the idea of leaving Julie in 
 tears, to prosecute her long winter journey, with only the care 
 of servants, and the thought that she might fall ill in some lonely 
 inn, and die while calling for me in vain, was unbearable. I 
 had no money left ; a good old man who had once lent me 
 twenty-five louis had died during my absence. I took my watch, 
 a gold chain that one of my mother's friends had given me three 
 years before, some trinkets, my epaulets, my sword, and the
 
 RAPHAEL. 79 
 
 gold lace off my uniform, wrapped them all in my cloak, and 
 went to my mother's jeweler, who gave me thirty-five louis for 
 the whole. From thence I huiiied to the mv. where .lulie slept, 
 and called her courier: I told him I should follow the carriage 
 at a distance, to the gates of Paris, but that I did not wish his 
 mistress to know it, for fear she should object to it, out of con- 
 sideration to me. I inquired the names of the towns and the 
 hotels where he intended to get down on the road, in order 
 that I might stop in the same towns, but get down at other 
 hotels. I rewarded him by anticipation and liberally for his 
 secrecy, then ran to the post-house, ordered hoises, and set off 
 half an hour after the departure of the carriage I wished to 
 follow. 
 
 XLVII. — No unforeseen obstacles counteracted the mysteri- 
 ous watchfulness which I exercised, though still invisible. The 
 courier gave notice secretly to the postillions of the approach 
 of another caleche ; and as he ordered horses for me, I always 
 found the relays ready. I accelerated or slackened my speed 
 according as I wished to keep at a distance, or to come nearer 
 to the first carriage, and always questioned the postillions re- 
 specting the health of the young lady they had just driven. 
 From the top of the hills I could see, far down in the plain, 
 the carriage speeding through fog or sunshine, and bearing 
 away my happiness. My thoughts outstripped the horses ; in 
 fancy 1 entered the carriage, and saw Julie asleep, dreaming, 
 perhaps, of me, or awake, and weeping over our bright days 
 forever flown. When I closed my eyes, to see her better, I 
 fancied I heard her breathe. I can scarcely now comprehend 
 that I had strength of mind and self-denial enough to resist, 
 during a journey of one hundred and twenty leagues, the im- 
 pulse that unceasingly impelled me toward that carriage which 
 I followed without attempting to overtake ; my whole soul went 
 with it, and my body alone, insensible to the snow and sleet, 
 followed, and was jolted, tossed, and swung about, without the 
 least consciousness of its own sufferings. But the fear of caus- 
 ing Julie an unexpected shock, which might prove fatal, or of 
 renewing a heart-rending scene of separation, repelled me; and 
 the idea of watching over her safety, like a loving Providence, 
 and with angel-like disinterestedness, nailed me to my resolution. 
 
 The first time, she got down a-t the great hotel of Autun, and 
 T in a little inn of the faubourg close by. Before daylight, the
 
 80 RAP a A E I, . 
 
 two carriages, within sight of each other, were once more run- 
 ning along the wliite and winding road, through the gray plains 
 and druidical oak forests of Upper Burgundy. We stopped in 
 the little town of Avallon ; she in the center, and I at the ex- 
 tremity of the town. The next day we were rolling on toward 
 Sens. The snow which the north wind had accumulated on 
 the barren heights of Lucy-le-Bois and of Vermanton, fell in 
 half-melted flakes on the road, and smothered the sound of the 
 wheels. One could scarcely distinguish the misty horizon at 
 the distance of a few feet, through the whirling cloud of snow 
 that the wind drifted from the adjoining fields. It was no longer 
 possible, by sight or sound, to judge of the distance between 
 the two carriages. Suddenly, I perceived in front, almost 
 touching my horses' heads, Julie's carnage, which was drawn 
 up in the middle of the road. The courier had alighted, and 
 was standing on the steps, calling out for help, and making signs 
 of disti'ess. I leaped out, and flew to the carriage, by a first 
 impulse stronger than prudence : I jumped inside, and saw the 
 maid striving to recall her mistress from a fainting fit, brought 
 on by the weather and fatigue, and perhaps by the storms of 
 the heart. The courier ran to fetch warm water from the distant 
 cottages, and the maid rubbed her mistress's cold feet in her 
 hands, or pressed them to her bosom to warm them. Oh ! what 
 I felt as I held that adored form in my arms during one long 
 hour of insensibility, desiring that she should hear, and dreading 
 lest she should recognize my voice which recalled her to life, 
 none can conceive or describe, unless they, too, have felt life 
 and death thus struggling in their hearts. 
 
 At last, our tender care, the application of the hot water 
 bottles which had been brought by the courier, and the warmth 
 of my hands on hers, recalled heat to the extremities. The 
 color which began to appear in her cheeks, and a long and 
 feeble sigh which escaped her lips, indicated her return to life. 
 I jumped out on the road, so that she might not see me when 
 she opened her eyes, and remained there, behind the carriage 
 my face muffled up in my cloak. I desired the servants to 
 make no mention of my sudden appearance. They soon made 
 a sign to me that she was recovering consciousness, and I heard 
 her voice stammer forth these words, as if in a dream : "Oh ! 
 if Raphael were here! I thought it was Raphael !" I hastily 
 returned to my own carriage ; the horses started afresh, and a 
 wide distance soon lay between us. In the evening, I went to
 
 RAPHAEL. 81 
 
 inquire after her at the inn where she had alighted, at Sens. 
 I was told that siie was quite well, and was sleeping soundly. 
 
 I followed in her track as far as Fossard, a stage near the 
 little town of Montereau ; there the road from Sens to Paris 
 branches off in two directions ; one branch passing through Fon- 
 tainebleau, the other through Melun. This latter being shf)rter, 
 by several leagues, I followed it in order to precede Julie by a 
 kw hours in Paris, and see her get down at her own door. I 
 paid the postillions double, and arrived long before dark at the 
 hotel where I was accustomed to put up in Paris. At night- 
 fall I stationed myself on the quay opposite to Julie's house, 
 that she had so often described to me ; I knew it as if I had lived 
 there all my life. I observed through the windows that huriy- 
 ing to and fro of shadows within, which one sees in a house 
 where some new guest is expected. I could see on the ceiling 
 of her room, the reflection of the fire which had been lighted on 
 the hearth. An old man's face showed itself several times at 
 the window, and appeared to watch and listen to the noises of 
 the quay. It was her husband, her second father. The con- 
 cierge held the door open, and stepped out, from time to time, to 
 watch and listen likewise. Now and then, a pale and rapid 
 gleam of light from the street lamp which swung backward and 
 forward with the gusty wind of December, shot athwart the 
 pavement before the house, and then left it in darkness. At last 
 a traveling carriage swept round the corner of one of the streets 
 which lead to the quay, and stopped before the house. I darted 
 forward and half concealed myself in the shade of a column at 
 the next door to that at which the carriage stopped. I saw the 
 servants rush to the door. I saw Julie alight, and saw the old 
 man embrace her, as a father embraces his child after a long 
 absence ; he then walked heavily up stairs, leaning on the arm 
 of the concierge. The carriage was unpacked, the postillion 
 drove it round to another street to put it up, the door was 
 closed. I returned to my post near the parapet on the river side. 
 
 XLVIII. — I stood a long while contemplating fi-om thence 
 the lighted windows of Julie's house, and sought to discover 
 what was going on inside. I saw the usual stir of an arrival, 
 busy pe(jple carrying trunks, unpacking parcels, and setting all 
 things in order ; when this bustle had a little subsided, when the 
 lights no longer ran backward and forward from room to room, 
 and that the old man's room alone was lighted by the pale rays 
 
 D*
 
 82 RAPHAEL. 
 
 of a night lamp, I could distinguish, through the closed windows 
 of the entresol hene?iih, the motionless shadow of Julie's tall and 
 drooping form on the white curtains. She remained some time 
 in the same attitude; then I saw her open the window spite of 
 the cold, look toward the Seine in my direction, as if her eye 
 had rested upon me from some preternatural revelation of love, 
 then turn toward the north, and gaze at a star that we used to 
 contemplate together, and which we had both agreed to look at 
 in absence, as a meeting-place for our souls in the inaccessible 
 solitude of the firmament. I felt that look fall on my heait like 
 living coals of fire. I knew that our hearts were united in one 
 thought, and my resolution vanished ! I darted forward to rush 
 across the quay, to go beneath her windows, and say one word 
 that might make her recognize her brother at her feet. At the 
 same instant she closed her window. The rolling of carriages 
 covered the sound of my voice ; the light was extinguished at 
 the entresol, and I remained motionless on the quay. The clock 
 of a neighboring edifice struck slowly twelve; I approached the 
 door, and kissed it convulsively without daring to knock. I 
 knelt on the threshold, and prayed to the stones to preserve to 
 me the supreme treasure which I had brought back to confide 
 to these walls, and then slowly withdrew. 
 
 XLIX. — I left Paris the next day, without having seen a 
 single one of the friends I had there. I inwardly rejoiced at 
 not having bestowed one look, one word, or a single step on any 
 one but her. The rest of the world no longer existed for me. 
 Before I left, however, I put into the post a note, dated Paris, 
 and addressed to Julie, which she would receive on waking. 
 The note only contained these words : " I have followed you, 
 I have watched over you though invisible. I would not leave 
 you without knowing that you wei-e under the care of those who 
 love you. Last night, at midnight, when you opened the win- 
 dow, and looked at the star, and sighed, I was there ! Y<ju might 
 have heard my voice. When you read these lines I shall be far 
 away !" 
 
 L. — I traveled day and night in such complete dizziness of 
 thought, that I felt neither cold, hunger, nor distance, and ar- 
 rived at M * * * as if awaking from a dream, and scarcely re- 
 membering that I had been to Paris. I found my friend Louis 
 awaiting me at my father's house in the country. His jDresencc
 
 RAPHAEL. 83 
 
 was soothing to me ; I could at least speak to him of her whom 
 he admired as much as I did. We slept in the same room, and 
 part of GUV nights were spent in talking of the heaveidy vision, 
 by which he had been as dazzled as myself. He considered 
 her as one of those delusions of fancy, one of those women above 
 mortal height, like Tasso's Eleanora, Dante's Beatrix, Petrarch's 
 liaura, or Vittoria Colonna, the loving, the poet, and the heroine 
 at once ; forms that flit across the earth, scarcely touching it, 
 and without tarrying, only to fascinate the eyes of some men. 
 the privileged few of love, to lead on their souls to immortal 
 aspirations, and to be the sursinn cor da of superior imagina- 
 tions. As to Louis, he dared not raise his love as high as his 
 enthusiasm. His sensitive and tender heart, which had been 
 early wounded, was at that time filled with the image of a poor 
 and pious orphan, one of liis own family. His happiness would 
 have been to have married her, and to live in obscurity and peace 
 in a cottage among the hills of Chambery. Want of fortune re- 
 stricted the two poor lovers to a hopeless and tender friendship, 
 from the fear of lowering the name of their family in poverty, or 
 of bequeathing indigence to children. The young girl died 
 some years after of solitude and hopelessness. I have never 
 seen a sweeter face droop and die for the want of a few of for- 
 tune's rays. Her countenance, where might be traced the re- 
 mains of blooming youth, equally ready to revive or to fade for- 
 ever, bore in the highest degree the sublime and touching im- 
 press of that virtue of the unhappy, called resignation. She be- 
 came blind in consequence of the secret teai's she shed during 
 her long years of expectation and uncertainty. I met her once, 
 on my return from one of my journeys to Italy. She was led 
 by the hand through the streets of Chambery, by one of her lit- 
 tle sisters. When she heard my voice she turned pale, and felt 
 for some support with her poor hesitating hand : " Excuse me," 
 she said ; " but when I used formerly to hear that voice, I al- 
 ways heard it with another." Poor giri ! she now listens to her 
 lover's voice in heaven ! 
 
 LT. — How long were the two months that I had to pass away 
 from Julie in ray father's house, before the time came that I 
 could join her in Paris ! During the last three or four months 
 I had exhausted the allowance I received from my father, the 
 secret resources of my mother's indulgence, and the purse of my 
 friends, to pay the debts that dissipation, play, and my travels
 
 84 RAPHAEL. 
 
 had made me contract. I had no means of obtaining the small 
 sum I required to go to Paris, and to live there even in seclu- 
 sion and penury, and was obliged to wait till the month of Jan- 
 uary, when my quarter's allowance from my father became due. 
 At that time of the year, too, I was in the habit of receiving 
 some little presents from a rich but severe old uncle, and from 
 some good and prudent old aunts. By means of all these re- 
 sources, I hoped to collect a sum of six or eight hundred francs, 
 which would be sufficient to keep me in Paris for a few months. 
 Piivations would be no trial to my vanity, for my life consisted 
 only in my love. All the riches of this world could, in my eyes, 
 only have seived to purchase for me the portion of the day that 
 I was to pass with her. 
 
 The weary days of expectation were filled with thoughts of 
 her. We devoted to each other every hour of our time. In the 
 morning, on waking, she retired to her room to write to me, and 
 at the same instant I, too, was writing to her; our pages and 
 our thoughts crossed on the road by every post, questioning, an- 
 bwering, and mingling without a day's interruption. There were 
 thus in reality for us only a few hours' absence ; in the evening 
 and at night. But even these I consecrated to her ; I was sur- 
 rounded with her letters, they lay open upon my table, my bed 
 was strewed with them, I learned them by heart. I often re- 
 peated to myself the most affecting and impassioned passages, 
 adding in fancy her voice, her gesture, her tone, her look; I 
 would answer her, and thus succeed in producing such a com- 
 plete delusion of her real presence, that 1 felt impatient and an- 
 noyed when I was summoned to meals, or interrupted by vis- 
 itors ; at these times it seemed as though she were torn from me, 
 or driven away from my room. In my long rambles on the 
 mountains, or in those misty plains without an horizon which 
 border the Saone, I always took her last letter with me, and 
 would sit on the rocks, or on the edge of the water, amid the 
 ice and snow, to read it over and over again. Each time I fan- 
 cied I discovered some word or expression that had escaped my 
 notice before. I remember that I always instinctively directed 
 my coijrse toward the north, as if each step I took in the di- 
 rection of Paris brought me nearer to her, and diminished the 
 cruel distance that separated us. Sometimes I went very far on 
 the Paris road under this impression, and when it was time tr 
 return 1 had always a severe struggle with myself. I felt sor 
 rowfu), and would often look back toward that point of tho
 
 RAPHAEL. 85 
 
 horizon whei-e she dwelt, and walk slowly and heavily home. 
 Oh"! how I envied the snow-laden wings of the crows that flew 
 northward through the mist ! What a pang I felt as I saw the 
 carriages rolling toward Paris ! How many of my useless days 
 of youth would I not have given to be in the place of one of 
 those listless old men, who glanced unconcernedly through their 
 carriage windows at the solitary youth by the wayside, whose 
 steps traveled in the contrary direction to his heart. Oh ! how 
 interminably long did the short days of December and January 
 appear! There was one bright hour for me, among all my 
 hours ; it was when I heard from my room the step, the voice, 
 and the rattle of the postman, who was distributing the letters 
 in the neighborhood. As soon as I heard him, I opened my 
 window ; I saw him coming up the street, with his hands full 
 of letters, which he distributed to all the maid-servants, and 
 waited at each door till he received the postage. How I cursed 
 the slowness of the good women, who seemed never to have 
 done reckoning the change into his hand! Before the postman 
 rung at my father's door, I had already flown down stairs, crossed 
 the vestibule, and stood panting at the door. While the old man 
 fumbled among his letters, I strove to discover the envelop of 
 fine post paper, and the pretty English hand-writing that distin- 
 guished my treasure among all the~ coarse papers and clumsy 
 superscriptions of commercial or vulgar letters. I seized it with 
 a trembling hand ; my eyes swam, my heait beat, and my legs 
 refused their office. I hid the letter in my bosom, for fear of 
 meeting some one on the stairs ; and lest so frequent a corre- 
 spondence should appear suspicious to my mother, I would run 
 into my room, and bolt my door, so as to devour the pages at 
 leisure, without fear of interruption. How many tears and 
 kisses I impressed on the paper ! Alas ! when many years aft- 
 erward, I opened the volume of these letters, how many words 
 eflTaced by my lips, and that my tears or my transports had 
 washed or torn out, were wanting to the sense of many sen- 
 tences ! 
 
 LIT.==— After breakfast, I used to retire to my upper room, to 
 read my letter over again and to answer it. These were the 
 most feverish and delightful hoiu's in the day. I would take 
 four sheets of the largest and thinnest paper that Julie had sent 
 me on purpose from Paris, and whose every page, commencing 
 very high up, ending very low down, crossed, and written on
 
 86 RAPHAEL. 
 
 the margin, contained thousands of words. These sheets I cov- 
 ered every morning, and found them too scanty and too soon 
 filled for the passionate and tumultuous overflow of my thoughts. 
 In these letters there was no begiiming, no middle, no end, and 
 no grammar; nothing, in short, of what is generally understood 
 by the word style. It was my soul laid bare before another 
 soul, expressing, or I'ather stammering forth, as well as it could, 
 the conflicting emotions that filled it, with the help of the inad- 
 equate language of men. But such language was not made 
 to express unutterable things; its imperfect signs and empty 
 terms, its hollow speeches and its icy words, were melted, like 
 refractory ore, by the concentrated fire of our souls, and cast 
 into an indescribable language, vague, ethereal, flaming and 
 caressing, like the licking tongues of fire, that had no meaning 
 for others, but which we alone understood, as it was part of our- 
 selves. These eff'usions of my heart never ended and never 
 slackened. If the firmament had been a single page, and God 
 had bid me fiU it with my love, it could not have contained one 
 half of what spoke within me ! I never stopped till the four 
 sheets were filled ; yet I always seemed to have said nothing, 
 and in truth I had said nothing ; for who could ever tell what 
 is infinite 1 
 
 LIII. — These letters, which were without any pitiful preten- 
 sions to talent on my part, and were a delight and not a labor, 
 mio-ht have been of marvelous service to me at a later period, 
 if fate had destined me to address my fellow men, or to depict 
 the shades, the transports, or the pains of passion, in works of 
 imagination. Unknown to myself, I struggled desperately, as 
 Jacob wrestled with the angel, against the poorness, the rigid- 
 ity, and the resistance of the language I was forced to use, as 
 1 knew not the language of the skies. The efforts that I made 
 to conquer, bend, smo'oth, extend, spiritualize, color, inflame, 
 or moderate expressions; the wish to render by words the 
 nicest shades of feeling, the most ethereal aspirations of thought, 
 the most irresistible impulses, and the most chaste reserve of 
 passion ; to express looks, attitudes, sighs, silence, and even the 
 annihilation of the heart adoring the invisible object of its love : 
 all these efforts, I repeat, which seemed to bend my pen beneath 
 my fingers like a rebellious instrument, made me sometimes 
 find the very word, expression, or cry that I required to give a 
 voice to the unutterable. I had used no language; but I had
 
 RAPHAEL. 87 
 
 cried forth the cry of my soul ; and I was heard. When I rose 
 from my chair, after this desperate but deHghtful struggle 
 against words, pen, and paper, I remember that, spite of the 
 winter cold in my room, the perspiration stood upon my fore- 
 head, and I used to open the window to cool my fevered brow. 
 
 LIV. — ]\Iy letters were not only a cry of love, they were 
 more frequently full of invocations, contemplation, dreams of 
 the future, prospects of heaven, consolations and prayers. 
 
 My love, which by its nature was debarred from all those 
 enjoyments which relax the heart by satisfying the senses, had 
 opened afresh within me all the springs of piety that had been 
 dried up or polluted by vile pleasures. I felt in ray heart all 
 the purity and elevation of divine love. I strove to bear away 
 with me to heaven, on the wings of my excited and almost mys- 
 tical imagination, that other suffering and discouraged soul ! I 
 spoke of God, who alone was perfect enough to have created 
 her superhuman perfection of beauty, genius, and tenderness ; 
 great enough to contain our boundless aspirations ; infinite and 
 inexhaustible enough to absorb and whelm in Himself the love 
 He had lighted in us, so that His flame in consuming us one 
 by the other, might make us both exhale ourselves in Him ! I 
 comforted Julie under the sacrifice that necessity obliged us to 
 make of complete happiness hei'e below ; I pointed out to her 
 the merit of this self-denial of an instant in the eyes of the Eter- 
 nal Remunerator of our actions. I blessed the mournful and 
 sublime purity of such sacrifices, since they would one day 
 obtain for us a more immaterial and angelic union in the eter- 
 nal atmosphere of pure spirits. I went so far as to speak of 
 myself as happy in my abnegation, and to sing the hymns of the 
 martyrdom of love to which we were by love, by greater love, 
 condemned. I entreated Julie not to think of my grief and not 
 to give way to sorrow herself. I showed a courage and a con- 
 tempt for terrestrial happiness that I possessed, alas ! very often 
 only in woi'ds. I offered up to hei', as a holocaust, all that was 
 human in me. I elevated myself to the immateriality of angels, 
 so that she might not suspect a suffering or a desire in my 
 adoration. I besought her to seek in a tender and sustaining 
 religion, in the shelter of the church, in the mysterious faith of 
 Clirist, the God of tears, in kneeling and in invocation, the hopes, 
 the consolations, and the delights that I had tasted in my child- 
 hood. She had renewed in me all my early feelings of piety.
 
 88 RAPHAEL. 
 
 I composed prayers for her — calm, yet ardent pi'ayers, that as- 
 cend like flames to heaven, but like flames that no wind can 
 cause to vacillate. I begged her to pronounce these prayers at 
 certain hours of the day and night, when I would repeat them 
 also, so that our two minds, united by the same words, might 
 be elevated at the same hour in one invocation ! . . . . All these 
 were wet with my tears, that left their traces on my words, and. 
 were doubtless more powerful and more eloquent than they. 
 I used to go and throw into the post by stealth these letters, the 
 very marrow of my bones ; and felt relieved, on my return, as 
 if I had thrown off a part of the weight of my own heart. 
 
 LV. — Spite of my continual efforts and of the perpetual 
 application of my young and ardent imagination to communicate 
 to my letters the fire that consumed me, to create a language for 
 my sighs, to pour my burning soul upon the paper and make it 
 overleap the distance that divided us ; in this combat against 
 the impotence of words, I was always surpassed by Julie. Her 
 letters had more expression in one phrase than mine in their 
 eight pages ; her heart breathed in the words ; one saw her 
 looks in the lines ; the expression seemed still warm from her 
 lips. In her, nothing evaporated during that slow and dull 
 transition of the feeling to the word, which lets the lava of the 
 heart cool and pale beneath the pen of man. Woman has no 
 style, that is why all she says is so well said. Style is a gar- 
 ment, but the unvailed soul stands forth upon the lips, or be- 
 neath the hand of woman. Like the Venus of speech, it rises 
 from the depths of feeling in its naked beauty ; wakes of itself 
 to life, wonders at its own existence, and is adored ere it knows 
 that it has spoken. 
 
 LVI. — What letters and what ardor ! What tones and ac- 
 cents ! What fire and purity combined, like light and trans- 
 parency in a diamond, like passion and bashfulness on the brow 
 of the young girl who loves ! What powerful simplicity — 
 what inexhaustible eff'usions ! What sudden revivals in the 
 midst of languor ! What sounds and songs ! Then theie 
 would be sadness, recurring like the unexpected notes at the 
 end of an air; caressing words, which seemed to fan the brow 
 like the breath of a fond mother bending over her smiling child ; 
 a voluptuous lulling of half-whispered words, and hushed and 
 dreamy sentences, which wrapped one in rays and murmurs,
 
 RAPHAEL. 
 
 89 
 
 stillness and perfume, and led one gently by the soft and sooth- 
 ing syllables, to the repose of love, the still sleep of the soul, 
 unto the kiss upon the page which said farewell ! Tlie fare- 
 well and the kiss both silently received, as the lips silently 
 impressed them ! I have seen those letters all again ; I have 
 read over, page by page, this correspondence, bound up and 
 classed, after death, by the pious hand of friendship ; one letter 
 answering the other, from the first note down to the last word 
 written by the death-struck hand, to which love still imparted 
 strength. I have read them o'er and burned them with teaus, 
 in secret, as if I committed a crime, and snatching twenty times 
 the half consumed page from the flames to read it once again ! 
 Why did I thus destroy 1 Because their very ashes would have 
 been too burning for this world, and I have scattered them to 
 the winds of heaven! 
 
 LVII. — At length the day came when I could reckon the 
 hours that still separated me from Julie. All the resources 
 that I could command did not amount to a sufficient sum to 
 keep me three or four months in Paris. My mother, who 
 noticed my distress, without guessing its cause, drew from the 
 casket which her fondness had already nearly emptied, a large 
 diamond, mounted as a ring. Alas! it was the last remaining 
 jewel of her youth ! She slipped it secretly into my hand, 
 with tears. " I suffer as much as you can, Raphael," she said, 
 with a mournful look, "to see your unprofitable youth wasted 
 in the idleness of a small town, or in the reveries of a country 
 life. I had always hoped that the gifts of God that, from your 
 infancy, I rejoiced to see in you, would attract the notice of the 
 world, and open to you a career of fortune and honor. The 
 poverty against which we have to struggle does not allow us to 
 bring you forwaixl. Hitherto such has been the will of God, 
 and we must submit with resignation to his ways, which are 
 always the best. Yet it is with grief I see you sinking into 
 that moral languor which always follows fruitless endeavors. 
 Let us try Fate once more. Go, since the earth here seems to 
 burn beneath your feet, go and live for awhile in Paris. Call, 
 with reserve and dignity, on those old friends of your family, 
 who are now in power. Show the talents with which nature 
 and study have endowed you. It is impossible that those at 
 the head of the government should not strive to attract young 
 men able as you would be, to serve, support, and adorn the
 
 99 RAPHAEL. 
 
 reign of the princes whom God has restored to i;s. Your poor 
 father has much to do to bring up his six children, and not to 
 fall below his rank in the distresses of our rustic life. Your 
 other relations are good and kind, but they will not understand 
 that breathing-space and action are necessary to the devouring 
 activity of the mind at twenty. Here is my last jewel ; I had 
 promised my mother never to part with it save from dire neces- 
 sity. Take it, and sell it ; it will serve to maintain you in Paris 
 a few weeks longer. It is the last token of my love, which I 
 stake for you in the lottery of Providence. It must bring you 
 good luck ; for my solicitude, my prayers, my tenderness for 
 you go with it." I took the ring, and kissed my mother's hand; 
 a tear fell upon the diamond. Alas! it served not to allow 
 me to seek or to await the favor of great men or princes who 
 turned away from my obscurity, but to live three months of that 
 divine life of the heart worth centuries of greatness. This 
 sacred diamond was to me as Cleopatra's pearl dissolved in 
 my cup of life, from which I drank happiness and love for 
 a short time. 
 
 LVIII. — I completely altered my habits from that day, from 
 respect for my poor mother's repeated sacrifices, and the con- 
 centration of all ray thoughts in this one ; to see once more 
 my love, and to prolong as much as possible, by the strictest 
 economy, the allotted time I was to spend with Julie. I be- 
 came as calculating, and as sparing of the little gold I took 
 with me, as an old miser. It seemed as though the most 
 trifling sum I spent was an hour of my happiness, or a drop of my 
 felicity that I wasted. I resolved to live like Jean Jacques Rous- 
 seau, on little or nothing, and to retrench from my vanity, my 
 dress or my food, all that I wished to bestow on the rapture of 
 my soul. 1 was not, however, without an undefined hope of 
 making some use of my talents in the cause of my love. These 
 were as yet made known to a few friends only, by some verses ; 
 but in the three last months, I had written, during my sleepless 
 nights, a little volume of poetry, amatory, melancholy, or pious, 
 according as my imagination spoke to me in tender or in serious 
 notes. The whole had been copied out with care, in my best 
 hand-wiiting, and shown to my father, who was an excellent 
 critic, though somewhat severe; a few friends, too, had favor- 
 ably judged some fragments. I had bound up my poetical 
 treasure in green, a color of good omen for my hopes of fame j
 
 RAPHAEL. 91 
 
 but I had not shown it to my mother, whose chaste and pious 
 purity of mind might have taken alarm at the more antique 
 than Christian voluptuousness of some of my elegies. I hoped 
 that the simple grace and the winged enthusiasm of my poetry 
 might please some intelligent publisher, who would buy my 
 volume, or at least consent to print it at his own expense ; and 
 that the public taste, attracted by the novelty of a style spring- 
 ing from the heart, and nursed in the woods, would perhaps 
 confer on me a humble fortune and a name. 
 
 LIX. — I had no need to look for a lodging in Paris. One 
 of my friends, the young Count de V * * *, who had just re- 
 turned from his travels, was to spend the winter and the follow- 
 ing spring there, and had offered to share with me a little 
 entresol that he occupied, over the rooms of the concierge in 
 the magnificent hotel (since pulled down) of the Marechal de 
 Richelieu, in the Rue Neuve St. Augustin. The Count de 
 V * * *, with whom I was in almost daily correspondence, 
 knew all. I had given him a letter of introduction to Julie, 
 that he might know the soul of my soul, and that he might 
 understand, if not my delirium, at least my adoration for that 
 woman. At first sight, he comprehended and almost shared 
 my enthusiasm. In his letters, he always alluded, with tender 
 pity and respect, to that fair vision of melancholy, which seemed 
 hovering between life and death, and only detained on earth, 
 he said, by the ineffable love she bore to me. He always spoke 
 to me of her as of a heavenly gift, sent to ray eyes and heart, 
 and which would raise me above human nature as long as I 
 remained enveloped in her radiance. V * * *, who was per 
 suaded of the holy and superhuman nature of our attachment, 
 considered it as a virtue, and felt no repugnance to being the 
 mediator and confidant of our love : Julie on her part spoke of 
 V^ * * * as the only friend she considered worthy of me, and 
 for whom she would have wished to increase my friendship, 
 instead of detracting from it by a mean jealousy of the heart. 
 Both urged me to come to Paris, but V * * * alone knew the 
 secret motives, and the strictly material impossibility which had 
 detained me till then. Spite of his devofed friendship, of which 
 he gave me, until his death, so many proofs during the troubles 
 of my life, it was not in his power at that time to remove the 
 obstacles that arrested me. His mother had exhausted her 
 means to give him an education befitting his rank, and to allow
 
 92 RAPHAEL. 
 
 him to travel through Europe. He was himself deep in debt, 
 and could only offer me a corner in tlie apartment that his 
 family provided for him. As to all the re.-t, he was, at that 
 time of his life, as poor and as much enslaved as myself by the 
 want so cruelly defined by Horace — Res aiigusta domi. 
 
 I left M * * * in a little oue-iiorse jaunting car, consisting of 
 a wooden seat on an axle-tree, and four poles which supported 
 a tarpaulin to shelter us against tlie rain. These cars changed 
 horses every four or five miles, and served to convey to Paris 
 the masons from the Bourbonnais and from Auvergne, the 
 weary pedestrians they met on the road, and soldiers lamed by 
 their long marches who were glad to sj^are a day's fatigue for a 
 few sous. 1 felt no shame or annoyance at this vulgar mode of 
 conveyance: I would have traveled bare-footed through the 
 snow, and not have felt less proud or less happy, for I was 
 saving thus one or two louis with which I could purchase some 
 days of happiness. I reached the baiTier of Paris without 
 having felt a pebble of ihe road. The night was dark, and it was 
 raining hard ; I took up my portmanteau, and soon after knock- 
 ed at the door of the humble lodging of the Count de V * * *. 
 
 He was waiting for me ; he embraced me, and spoke of her. 
 I was never wearied of questioning and listening to him. That 
 same evening I was to see Julie. V * * * was to announce 
 my arrival, and prepare her for joy. When every visitor had 
 retii-ed from Julie's drawing-room, V * * * was to leave last of 
 all to join me at a little cafe of the neighborhood, where I was 
 to wait fo]- him, and give me notice that she was alone, and that 
 I might throw myself at her feet. It was only after I had 
 learned all these particulars, that I thought of drying my clothes 
 and taking some refreshment. I then took possession of the 
 dark alcove of his ante-room, which was lighted by one round 
 window, and heated by a stove. I dressed myself neatly and 
 simply, so that she I loved might not blush for me before her 
 friends. 
 
 At eleven o'clock V * * * and I went out on foot ; we pro- 
 ceeded together as far as the window which I knew already. 
 There were three carriages at the door, y * * * went up, and 
 I retired to wait for him at the appointed place. How long 
 that hour seemed while I waited for him. How I execrated 
 those visitors who, involuntarily importunate, came in their 
 indifference to dispose of some idle hours, and delayed the 
 reunion of two fond hearts who counted each second of their
 
 RAPHAEL. 93 
 
 maityrtlom by their palpitations ! At last V * * * appeared, I 
 followed rapidly on his steps, he left me at the door, and I 
 went up. 
 
 LX. — If I were to live a thousand times a thousand years, I 
 should never foi'get that instant and that sight ! She was 
 standing up in the light, her elbow resting carelessly on the 
 white marble of the chimney; her tall and slender figure, her 
 ihoulders and her profile, were reflected in the glass ; her face 
 was turned toward the door, her eyes fixed on a little dark 
 ipassage leading to the drawing-room, and her head was bent 
 forward, and slightly inclined on one side, in the attitude of one 
 listening for the sound of approaching footsteps. She was 
 dressed in mourning, in a black silk dress, trimmed with black 
 lace round the neck and the skirt. This profusion of lace, 
 rumpled by the cushions of the sofa to which her indolent and 
 languid life confined her, hung around her like the black and 
 clustering bunches of the elder, shedding its berries in the 
 autumnal wind. The dark color of her gown left only her 
 shoulders, neck, and face in light, and the mourning of her dress 
 seemed completed by the natural mourning of her dark hair, 
 which was gathered up at the back of her head. This uniform- 
 ity of color added to her height, and showed to advantage her 
 graceful and flexible figure. The reflection of the fire in the 
 glass, the light of the lamp on the chimney-piece striking on her 
 cheek, and the animation of impatient expectation and love, 
 shed on her countenance a splendor of youth, bloom, and life, 
 which seemed a transfiguration effected by love. 
 
 My first exclamation was one of joy and delighted surprise at 
 seeing her thus, more living, lovely, and immortal, in my eyes, 
 than I had ever seen her in the brightest days of Savoy. A 
 feeling of deceitful security and eternal possession entered into 
 my heart, as my eyes fell on her. She tried to stammer forth a 
 few words on seeing me, but could not. Her lips trembled 
 with emotion. I fell at her feet, and pressed my lips to the 
 carpet upon which she trod. I then looked up to assure myself 
 that her presence was not a dream. She laid one of her hands 
 upon my hair, which thrilled beneath her touch, and holding by 
 the other to the marble of the chimney-piece, she too fell on her 
 knees before me. We gazed at each other at a distance. We 
 sought words, and found none for our excess of joy. We 
 remained silent ; but that very silence and our kneeling posture
 
 94 RAPHAEL. 
 
 was a language : I knelt full of adoration, she full of happiness : 
 and our attitude seemed to say, They adore one another, but a 
 phantom of Death stands between, and though their eyes drink 
 rapture, they will never be clasped in each other's arms. 
 
 LXI. — I know not how many minutes we remained thus, nor 
 how many thousand interrogations and answers, what floods of 
 tears, and oceans of joy, passed unexpressed between our mute 
 and closed lips, between our moistened eyes, between her 
 countenance and mine. Happiness had struck us motionless, 
 and time had ceased to be. It was eternity in an instant ! 
 
 There was a knock at the street door — a sound of feet on the 
 stairs. I rose, and she resumed with a faltering step her place 
 on the sofa. I sat down on the other side, in the shade, to hide 
 my flushed cheeks and tearful eyes. A man of already ad- 
 vanced age, of imposing stature, with a benignant, noble, and 
 beaming countenance, slowly entered the room. He approach- 
 ed the sofa without speaking, and impi-inted a paternal kiss on 
 Julie's trembling hand. It was Monsieur de Bonald. Spite of 
 the painful awakening from ecstasy that the knock and arrival 
 of a stranger had produced in me, I inwardly blessed him for 
 having interrupted that first look in which reason might have 
 been overpowered by rapture. There are times when the cold 
 voice of reason is required to still with its icy tones the fever of 
 the senses, and to strengthen anew the soul in its holy and 
 energetic resolves. 
 
 LXII. — Julie introduced me to M. de Bonald as the young 
 man whose verses he had read ; he was surprised at my youth, 
 and addressed me with indulgence. He conversed with Julie 
 with the paternal familiarity of a man whose genius had ren- 
 dered him illustrious; he had all the serenity of age, and sought 
 in the company of a young and lovely woman, merely a passing 
 ray of beauty to enchant his eyes, and the charm of her society 
 during the calm and conversational hours of the close of day. 
 His voice was deep, as though it came from the heart, and his 
 conversation flowed with the graceful, yet senous ease of a 
 mind which seeks to unbend in repose. Honesty was stamped 
 on his brow, and spoke in the accents of his voice. As the con- 
 vei'sation seemed likely to be prolonged, and the clock was on 
 the point of striking twelve, I thought it right to take my leave 
 first, so as to create no suspicion of too great famiharity in the
 
 RAPHAEL. 95 
 
 mind of a friend and visitor of older standing than myself in the 
 house. Silence and one single look were the only reward I re- 
 ceived for my long and ardent expectation, and my weary jour- 
 ney ; but I bore away with me her image, and the certainty of 
 seeing her every day ; that was enough ; it was too much ! I 
 wandered a long while on the quays, baring my breast to the 
 night air, and aspiring it with my lips, to allay the fever of hap- 
 piness which possessed me. On my return home, I found that 
 V * * * had been asleep many hours ; as for me, it was daylight, 
 and I had heard the cries of the vendexs in the streets of Paris 
 before I closed my eyes 
 
 My days were filled with one single thought, which I treas- 
 ured up in my heart and would not even allow my countenance 
 to reveal, as a precious perfume, of which one would fear to let 
 a particle evaporate, by exposing the vase that contains it to the 
 outward air. I used to rise with the first rays of light, which 
 always penetrated tardily into the dark alcove of the little ante- 
 room, where my friend gave me shelter like a mendicant of 
 love. I always began the day by a long letter to Julie, which 
 was but a calmer continuation of the conversation of the day 
 before ; in it I poured forth all the thoughts that had suggested 
 themselves since I had left her. Love feels delightful remorse 
 at its tender omissions, accuses, reproaches itself, and feels no 
 rest till they have been repaired; they are gems fallen from the 
 heart or the lips of the loved one, which cause the lover's 
 thoughts to travel back over the past, to gather them up, and 
 to increase the treasure of his feelings. Julie, when she awoke, 
 received my letter, which made it appear to her as though the 
 conversation of the preceding evening had not been interrupted, 
 but had been kept up in whispered tones during her sleep. I 
 always received her answer before noon. 
 
 My heart being thus appeased, after the agitation of the 
 Tiight, my next thought was to calm the impatience for the 
 evening's interview, which began to take possession of me. I 
 strove not to divert ray heart from its one thought, but to interest 
 my eyes and mind, and had laid down as a law to myself to 
 spend several hours in reading and study, to occupy the inter- 
 val between the time when 1 left Julie till wo met again. I 
 wished to improve myself not tor others, but for her; in order 
 that he whom she loved should not disgrace her preference ; 
 and that those superior men who composed her society, and 
 who somelimcs saw me in her diawing-room, standing at a
 
 96 RAPHAEL. 
 
 corner of the fire-place, like a statue of contemplation, should 
 discover in me, if by chance they spoke to me, a soul, an intel- 
 ligence, a hope, or a promise, beneath my timid and silent 
 appearance. Then I had vague dreams of shining exploits, of 
 a stirring destiny, which Julie would watch from afar, and re- 
 joice to see me struggling with men, rising in strength, in great- 
 ness, and in power; I thought she might one day glory secretly 
 in having appreciated me before the crowd, and in having loved 
 me before posterity. 
 
 LXIII. — All this, and still more, my forced leisure, the ob- 
 session of one besetting thought, my contempt for all beside, 
 the want of money to procure other amusement, and the almost 
 claustral reclusion in which I lived, disposed me to a life of 
 more intense and eager study than I had yet led. I passed my 
 whole day seated at a little writing-table, which was placed be- 
 neath the small, round window opening on the yard of the 
 Hotel Richelieu. The room was heated by a Dutch stove ; a 
 screen inclosed my table and chair, and hid me from the obser- 
 vation of the young men of fashion, who often came to see my 
 friend. In the spacious yard below there were sounds of car- 
 riages, then silence, and now and then bright rays of winter 
 sun, struggling against the groveling fog of the streets of Paris, 
 which reminded me a little of the play of light, the sounds of 
 the wind, and the transparent mists of our mountains. Some- 
 times 1 would see a sweet little boy of six or eight years old play- 
 ing there ; he was the son of the concierge. There was some- 
 thing in his face which seemed that of a suffering angel, in his 
 fair hair curled on his forehead, and in his intelligent and ingen- 
 uous countenance, that reminded me of the innocent faces of 
 the children of my own province, and indeed 1 discovered that 
 his family had come originally from a village near that in which 
 my father resided ; had fallen into want, and had been trans- 
 planted to Paris. This child had conceived a fondness for me, 
 from seeing me always at the window above the rooms his 
 mother inhabited, and had, of his own accord and gratuitously, 
 devoted himself to my service. He executed all my messages; 
 brought me my bread, some cheese, or the fruit for my break- 
 fast ; and went every morning to purchase my little provisions 
 at the grocer's. I used to take my frugal repast on my writing- 
 table, in the midst of my open books or interrupted pages. 
 The child had a black dog, which had been forgotten at the
 
 RAPHAEL. 97 
 
 house by some visitor; this dog had ended, like the child, by 
 attaching itself to me, and they could not be made to go down 
 the little wooden stairs when once they had ascended them. 
 During the greater pai't of the day, they lay and played to- 
 gether on the mat at my feet, beneath my table. At a later 
 period I took away the dog with me from Paris, and kept it 
 many years, as a loving and faithful memento of those days 
 of solitude. I lost him in 1820, not without tears, in traversing 
 the forests of the Pontine Marshes, between Rome and Terra- 
 cina. The poor child is become a man, and has learned the art 
 of engraving, which he practices ably at Lyons. My name 
 having resounded since, even in his shop, he came to see me, 
 and wept with joy at beholding me, and with grief at hearing 
 of the loss of the dog. Poor heart of man ! that ever requires 
 what it has once loved, and that sheds tears of the same water, 
 for the loss of an empire, or for the loss of an animal. 
 
 LXIV. — During the thousands of hours in which I was thus 
 confined between the stove, the screen, the window, the child, 
 and the dog, I read over all that antiquity has wiitten, and be- 
 queathed to us, except the poets, with whom we had been sur- 
 feited at school, and in whose verses our wearied eyes saw 
 but the caesura, and the long or short syllables. Sad effect of 
 premature satiety, which withers in the mind of a child the 
 most brightly tinted and perfumed flowers of human thought. 
 But I read over every philosopher, orator, and historian, in his 
 own language. I loved especially those who united the three 
 gi'eat faculties of intelligence, narration, eloquence, and reflec- 
 tion ; the fact, the discourse, and the moral. Thucydides and 
 Tacitus above all others, then Machiavel, the sublime practi- 
 tioner of the diseases of empires, then Cicero, the sonorous vessel 
 which contains all, from the individual tears of the man, the hus- 
 band, the father, and the friend, up to the catastrophes of Rome 
 and of the world, even to his gloomy forebodings of his own fate. 
 There is in Cicero a stratum of divine philosophy and serenity, 
 through which all waters seem to be filtrated and clarified, and 
 through which his great mind flows in torrents of eloquence, 
 wisdom, piety, and harmony. I had, till then, thought him a 
 great, but empty speaker, with little sense contained in his long 
 periods ; I was mistaken. Next to Plato, he is the word of 
 antiquity made man ; his style is the grandest of any language. 
 We suppose him meager, because his drapery is so magnificent ; 
 
 E
 
 98 RAPHAEL. 
 
 Strip him of his purple, and you will still find a vast raind, 
 which has felt, understood, and said, all that there was to com- 
 prehend, to feel, or to say, in his day, in Rome. 
 
 LXV. — As to Tacitus, I did not even attempt to combat my 
 partiality for him. I preferred him even to Thucydides, the 
 Demosthenes of history. Thucydides relates, but does not give 
 life and being. Tacitus is not the historian, but a compendium 
 of mankind. His narration is the counter-blow of the fact in 
 the heart of a free, virtuous, and feeling man. The shudder 
 that one feels as one reads, not only passes over the flesh, but 
 is a shudder of the heart. His sensibility is more than emotion, 
 it is pity ; his judgments are more than vengeance, they are 
 justice; his indignation is more than anger, it is virtue. Our 
 hearts mingle with that of Tacitus, and we feel proud of our 
 kindred with him. Would you make crime impossible to your 
 sons 1 Would you inspire them with the love of virtue] Rear 
 them in the love of Tacitus. If they do not become heroes at 
 such a school. Nature must have created them base or vile. A 
 people who adopted Tacitus as their political gospel, would rise 
 above the common stature of nations ; such a people would 
 enact before God, the tragical drama of mankind in all its 
 grandeur and in all its majesty. As to me, I owe to his writings 
 more than the fibers of the flesh, I owe all the metallic fibers 
 of my being. Should our vulgar and common-place days ever 
 rise to the tragic grandeur of his time, and I become the worthy 
 victim of a worthy cause, I might exclaim in dying, " Give the 
 honor of my life and of my death to the master, and not to the 
 disciple; for it is Tacitus that lived, and dies in me." 
 
 LXVI. — I was also a passionate admirer of orators. I studied 
 ihem with the presentiment of a man who would one day have 
 -o speak to the deaf multitude, and who would strike the chords 
 of human auditories. I studied Demosthenes, Cicero, Mirabeau, 
 and especially Lord Chatham — more striking to my mind than 
 all the rest, because his inspired and lyrical eloquence seems 
 more like a cry than like a voice. It soars above his limited 
 auditory, and the passions of the day, on the loftiest wings of 
 poetry, to the immutable regions of eternal truth and of eternal 
 feeling. Chatham receives truth from the hand of God ; and 
 with him it becomes not only the light, but also the thunder of 
 the debate. Unfortunately, as iu the case of Phidias, at the
 
 RAPHAEL. 99 
 
 Parthenon, we have only fragments — heads, arms, and mutilated 
 trunks — left of" him. But when in thouglit we re-assemble these 
 remains, we produce marvels and divinities of eloquence. I 
 pictured to myself times, events, and passions, like those which 
 upraised these great men, a forum such as those they filled, 
 and like Demosthenes addressing the billows of the sea, I spoke 
 inwardly to tbe phantoms of my imagination. 
 
 LXVII. — About this period, I read for tbe first time the 
 speeches of Fox and Pitt. I thought Fox declamatory, though 
 prosaic ; one of tbose caviling minds, born to gainsay, rathei 
 than to say — lawyers without gowns, with mere lip-conscience, 
 who plead above all for their own popularity. I saw in Pitt 
 a statesman whose words were deeds, and who, in tbe crash of 
 Europe, maintained his country almost alone, on tbe foundation 
 of bis good sense, and the consistency of bis character. Pitt 
 was Mirabeau, with less impulse, and more integrity. Mirabeau 
 and Pitt became, and have ever continued to be, my favorite 
 statesmen of modern days. Compared with them, I saw in 
 Montesquieu only erudite, ingenious, and systematical disserta- 
 tions; Fenelon seemed to me divine, but chimerical; Housseau, 
 more impassioned tban inspired, greater by instinct than by 
 truth ; while Bossuet, witb his golden eloquence and fawning 
 soul, united, in his conduct and bis language before Louis XIV., 
 doctoral despotism with the complaisance of a courtier. From 
 these studies of history and oratory, I naturally passed on to 
 politics. The remembrance of the imperial yoke which had 
 just been shaken off, and my abhorrence of the military rule to 
 which we had been subjected, impelled me toward liberty. On 
 tbe other band, family recollections, the influence of daily asso- 
 ciations, tbe touching situation of a royal family, passing from 
 a throne to a scaffold or to exile, and brought back from exile 
 to a throne ; tbe orpban princess in the palace of ber fatbers, 
 those old men, crowned by misfortune as mucb as by their 
 ancestry ; tbose young princes, schooled by stern adversity, 
 from whom so much might be expected — all made me bope 
 that new-born liberty migbt be made to accord with tbe ancient 
 monarcby of our forefathers. Tbe government would tbus have 
 possessed the two most potent spells in all human affairs — an- 
 tiquity and novelty, memory and bope. It was a fair dream, 
 and most natural at my age. Each succeeding day, bowever, 
 dispelled a portion of this dream : I perceived with grief that
 
 100 RAPHAEL. 
 
 old forms but ill contain new ideas — that monarchy and liberty 
 would never hold together in one bond without a perpetual 
 struggle — that in that struggle tlie strength of the state would 
 be exhausted, that monarchy would be constantly suspected, 
 liberty constantly betrayed. 
 
 LXVIII. — From these general studies I turned to another, 
 that perhaps engrossed my mind the more from the very aridity 
 and dryness of its nature, so far removed from the intoxications 
 of love and fancy in which I lived. I mean political economy, 
 or the science of the wealth of nations. V*** had applied his 
 mind to it with more curiosity than ardor. All the Italian, 
 English, or French books that had been written on the science, 
 lined his shelves and covered his table. We read and discussed 
 them together, noting down the remarks that they suggested. 
 The science of political economy, which at that time laid down, 
 as it still does in the present day, more axioms than truths, and 
 proposed more problems than it can solve, had for us precisely 
 the charm of mystery. It became, moreover, between us an 
 endless theme for those conversations which exercise the intel- 
 ligence without engrossing the mind, and suffer us to feel, even 
 while conversing, the presence of the one secret and continuous 
 thought concealed in the inmost recesses of our hearts. It was 
 an enigma, of which we sought the answer without any great 
 desire to find it. After having read, examined, and noted all 
 that constituted the science at that time, I fancied I could dis- 
 cern a few theoretical principles, true in their generality, doubt- 
 ful in their application, ambitiously aspiring to be classed among 
 absolute truths, often hollow or false in their formula. I had 
 no objection to make, but my instinctive desire of demonstration 
 was not thoroughly satisfied. 1 threw down the books, and 
 awaited the light. Political economy at that time did not exist; 
 being an entirely experimental science, it had neither sufficient 
 maturity nor long standing to affirm so positively. Since then 
 it has progressed, and promises to statesmen a few dogmas 
 which may be applied cautiously to society; a few sources of 
 general comfort, and some new ties of fraternity, to be strength- 
 ened between nations. 
 
 LXIX. — I varied these serious pursuits with the study of 
 diplomacy, or the laws of intercourse between governments, 
 which had always attracted me from my early youth. Chance
 
 RAPHAEL. 101 
 
 directed me to the fountain-head. At the time that I applied 
 myself to political economy, I had written a pamphlet of about 
 a hundred pages, on a subject which at that period attracted a 
 great share of public attention. The title of the pamphlet was: 
 
 W/iat place can the nobility occupy in France uncle?- a constitu- 
 tional government 1 I treated this question, which was a most 
 delicate one at the time, with the instinctive good sense that 
 nature had allotted to me, and with the impartiality of a youth- 
 ful mind ; soaring, without effort, above the vanities from on 
 high, the envy from below, and the prejudices of his day. I 
 spoke with love of the people, with intelligence of our institu- 
 tions, and with respect of that historic nobility whose names 
 were long the name tif France herself, on her battle-fields, in 
 her magistracy, and in foreign lands. I was for the suppression 
 of all privileges of nobility, save the memory of nations, which can 
 not be suppressed ; and proposed an elective peerage, showing, 
 that in a free country, there could be no other nobility than 
 that of election, which is a perpetual stimulus to public duty, 
 and a temporaiy reward of the merit or virtues of its citizens. 
 
 Julie, to whom I had lent the manuscript, in order to initiate 
 her to my labors as to my life, had shown it to Monsieur M***, 
 a clever man, of her intimate acquaintance, for whose judgment 
 she entertained the greatest deference. M. M * * * was the worthy 
 son of an illustrious member of the Constituent Assembly, had 
 been the Emperor's private secretary, and was now a constitu- 
 tional royalist. He was one of those whose minds are never 
 Youthful, who enter mature into the world, and die young, 
 leaving a void in their epoch. M. M * * *, after reading my 
 work, asked Julie who was the political man who had written 
 those pages. She smiled, and confessed that they were the 
 production of a very young man, who had neither name nor 
 experience, and was quite unknown in the political world. 
 M. M * * * required to see me to believe. I was introduced 
 to him, and he received me with kindness, which afterward 
 ripened into a friendship that remained unchanged until his 
 death. My work was never printed ; but M. M * * * in his 
 turn introduced me to his friend M. de Reyneval, a man of 
 
 uminous understanding, open-hearted, and of an attractive and 
 cheei-ful, though grave and laborious mind, and who was at 
 that time the life of our foreign policy. He died, not long 
 ago, while embassador at Madrid. M. de Reyneval, who had 
 read my work, received me with that encouraging grace and
 
 102 RAPHAEL. 
 
 cordial smile, which seems to overleap distance, and always 
 wins at first sight the heart of a young man. He was one of 
 those men from whom it is pleasant to leain, because they seem, 
 BO to speak, to diffuse themselves in teaching, and to give rather 
 than prescribe. One learned more of Europe in a few mornings, 
 by conversing with this most agreeable man, than in a whole 
 diplomatic library. He possessed tact, the innate genius of 
 negotiations. I owe to him my taste for those high political 
 affairs which he handled with full consciousness of their im- 
 portance, but without seeming to feel their weight. His strength 
 made every thing easy, and his ready condescension seemed to 
 infuse gi-ace and heart into business. He encouraged my desire 
 to enter on the diplomatic career; presented me himself to the 
 director of the archives, M. d'Hauterive, and authorized him 
 to allow me access to the collection of our treaties and nego- 
 tiations. M. d'Hauterive, who had grown old over dispatches, 
 might be said to be the unalterable tradition and the living 
 dogma of our diplomacy. With his commanding figure, hollow 
 voice, his thick and powdered hair, his long, bushy eyebrows 
 overshading a deep-set and dim eye, he seemed a living, speak- 
 ing century. He received me as a father, and appeared happy 
 to transmit to me the inheritance of all his hoarded knowledge; 
 he made me read, compulse, and take notes under his own 
 eye, and twice a week I used to study for a few hours under 
 his direction. I love the memory of his green old age, which 
 so prodigally bestowed its experience on a young man whose 
 name he scarcely knew. M. d'Hauterive died duiing the battle 
 of July, 1830, amid the roar of the cannon which annihilated 
 the pohcy of the Bourbons and the treaties of 1815. 
 
 LXX. — Such were my studious and retired habits in my little 
 garret. I wished for nothing more ; my desire to enter on some 
 career was in truth but my mother's ambition for me, and the 
 regret of expending the price of her diamond, without some 
 compensation in my bettered condition. If at that time I had 
 been offered an embassy to quit Paris, and a palace to leave my 
 truckle-bed in the ante-room, I would have closed my eyes not 
 to see, and my ears not to listen to Fortune. I was too happy 
 in my obscurity, thanks to the ray, invisible to others, which 
 warmed and illumined my darkness. 
 
 My happiness dawned as the day declined. I habitually dined 
 at home alone in my cell, and my repast generally consisted of
 
 RAPHAEL. 103 
 
 a slice of boiled meat, some salad, and bread. I drank water 
 only, to save the expense of even a little wine, so necessary to 
 correct the insipid and often unwholesome water of Paris. By 
 this means, twenty sous a day paid for my dinner, and this meal 
 was sufficient not only for myself, but to feed the dog who had 
 adopted me. After dinner, I used to throw myself on the bed, 
 overcome by the application and solitude of the day, and strive 
 thus to abridge by sleep the long, dark hours which yet divided 
 me from the moment when time commenced for me. These 
 wei'e hours which young men of my age spend in theaters, pub- 
 lic places, or the expensive amusements of a capital, as 1 had 
 done before my transformation. I generally awoke about eleven, 
 and then dressed with the simplicity of a young man whose good 
 looks and figure set off his plain attire. I was always neatly 
 shod, with white linen, and a black coat, carefully brushed by 
 my own hands, which I buttoned up to the throat, after the 
 fashion of the young disciples of the schools of the Middle Ages. 
 A military cloak, whose ample folds were thrown over my left 
 shoulder, preserved my dress from being splashed in the streets, 
 and, on the whole, my plain and unpretending costume, which 
 neither aspired to elegance or betrayed my distress, admitted of 
 my passing from my gaiTet to a drawing-room, without either 
 attracting or offending the eye of the indifierent. I always went 
 on foot ; for the price of one evening's coach-hire would have 
 cost me a day of my life of love. I walked on the pavement, 
 keeping close along the walls, to avoid the contact of carriage 
 wheels, and proceeded slowly on tip-toe, for fear of the mud, 
 which in a well-lighted drawing-room would have betrayed the 
 humble pedestrian. I was in no hurry, for I knew that Julie 
 received every evening some of her husband's friends, and I 
 preferred waiting till the last carriage had driven away before 
 I knocked. This reserve on my part arose not only from the 
 fear of the remarks which might be made on my constant pres- 
 ence in the house of so young and lovely a woman, but, above 
 all, from my dislike to share with others her looks and words. 
 It seemed to me that each of those with whom she was obliged 
 to keep up a conversation, robbed me of some part of her pres- 
 ence or her mind. To see her, to hear her, and not to possess 
 her alone, was often a harder trial to me than not to see her at all, 
 
 LXXI. — To pass away the time, I used to walk from one 
 end to the other of a bridge which crossed the Seine nearly op-
 
 104 RAPHAEL- 
 
 posite to the house where Julie lived. How many thousand 
 times I have reckoned the boards of that bridge which resound- 
 ed beneath my feet ! How many copper coins I, have thrown, 
 as I passed and repassed, into the tin cup of the poor blind man, 
 who was seated through rain or snow on the parapet of that 
 bridge ! I prayed that my mite which rung in the heart of the 
 poor, and from thence in the ear of God, might purchase for me 
 m return a long and secure evening, and the departure of some 
 intruder who delayed my happiness. 
 
 Julie, who knew my dislike to meeting strangers at her house, 
 had devised with me a signal which should inform me from afar 
 of the presence or absence of visitors in her little drawing-room. 
 When they were numerous, the two inside shutters of the win- 
 dow were closed, and I could only see a faint streak of light 
 glimmering between the two leaves ; when there were one or 
 two familiar friends, on the point of leaving, one shutter was 
 opened ; and at last, when all were gone, the two shutters were 
 thrown open, the curtains withdrawn, and I could see from the 
 opposite quay the light of the lamp which stood on the little 
 table, where she read or worked while expecting me. I never 
 lost sight of that distant ray, which was visible and intelligible 
 for me alone, amid the thousand lights of windows, lamps, shops, 
 carriages, and cafes, and among all those avenues of fixed or 
 wandering fires which illumine at night the buildings and the 
 horizoti of Paris. All other illuminations no longer existed for 
 me ; there was no other light on earth, no other star in the fir- 
 mament but that small window, which seemed like an open eye, 
 seeking me out in dai kness, and on which my eyes, my thoughts, 
 ray soul, were ever and solely bent. O! incomprehensible pow- 
 er of the infinite nature of man, which can fill the universal 
 space and think it too confined ; or can be concentrated in one 
 bright speck shining through the river mists, amid the ocean of 
 fires of a vast city, and feel his desires, feelings, intelligence, and. 
 love bounded by that small spark which scarce outshines the 
 glow-worm of a summer's evening ! How often have I thought 
 so as I paced the bridge, muffled in my cloak ! How often have 
 I exclaimed, as I gazed at that oval window shining in the dis- 
 tance. Let all the fires of earth be quenched, let all the lumin- 
 ous globes of the firmament be extinguished, but may that feeble 
 light — the mysterious star of our two lives — shine on forever; 
 its glimmering would illumine countless woilds, and suflfice my 
 eyes through all eternity !
 
 RAPHAEL. 105 
 
 Alas ! since then I have seen this star of my youth expire, 
 this burning focus of my eyes and heart extinguislied ! I have 
 seen the shutters of the window closed for many a long year on 
 the funereal darkness of the little room. One year, one day, I 
 saw them once more opened. I looked to see who dared to 
 live where she had lived before; and then I saw, in summer 
 time, at that same window, bathed in sunshine and adorned with 
 flowers, a young woman whom I did not know, playing and 
 smiling with a new-born child ; unconscious that she played 
 upon a grave, that her smiles were turned to tears in the eyes 
 of a passer by, and that so much life seemed as a mockery of 
 
 death Since then, at night, I have returned ; and every 
 
 year I still return, approach that wall with faltering steps, and 
 touch that door; and then I sit on the stone bench, and watch 
 the lights, and listen to the voices from above. I sometimes 
 fancy that I see the light reflected from her lamp — that I hear 
 the tones of her voice — that I can knock at that door — that she 
 
 expects me — that I can go in O ! memory, art thou a 
 
 gift from Heaven ! or pain of hell ! But once 
 
 more I must resume my story. 
 
 LXXII. — The day after my arrival, Julie had introduced me 
 to the old man, who was to her a father, and whose latter days 
 she brightened with the radiance of her mind, her tenderness, 
 and her beauty. He received me as a son. He had learned 
 from her our meeting in Savoy, our fraternal attachment, our 
 daily correspondence, and the aflftnity of our minds, as shown by 
 the conformity of our tastes, ages, and feelings. He knew the 
 entire purity of our attachment, and felt no jealousy, or any 
 anxiety, save for the life, the happiness, and reputation of his 
 ward. He only feared she might have been attracted and de- 
 ceived by that first look, which is sometimes a revelation, and 
 sometimes a delusion of the young, and that she might have be- 
 stowed her heart on a man of the creation of her fancy. My 
 letters, from which she had read him several passages, had some- 
 what reassured him, but it was only from my countenance he 
 could learn whether they were an artful or natural expression 
 of my feelings; for style may deceive, but countenance never 
 can. 
 
 The old man surveyed me with that anxious attention which 
 is often concealed under an appearance of momentary abstrac- 
 tion. But as he saw me more, and questioned me, I could see 
 
 E*
 
 106 RAPHAEL. 
 
 bis searching look clear up, betray an inward satisfaction, soften 
 gradually into one of confidence and good will, and rest upon 
 me with that security and caress of the eye, which, though a 
 mute, is perhaps the best reception at a first interview. My 
 ardent desire to please hira ; the timidity so natural to a young 
 man, who feels that the fate of his heart depends on the judg- 
 ment passed upon him ; the fear that it might not be favorable ; 
 the presence of Julie which disconcerted though it encouraged 
 nie, and all the shades of thought so plainly legible in my mod- 
 est attitude and my flushed cheeks, spoke in my favor better 
 than I could have done myself. The old man took my hand 
 with a paternal gesture, and said, "Compose yourself, and con- 
 sider that you have two friends in this house instead of one. 
 Julie could not have better chosen a brother, and I would not 
 choose another son." He embraced me, and we talked together 
 as if he had known me from my childhood, until an old servant 
 came at ten o'clock, according to his invariable custom, to give 
 him the help of his arm on the stair, and lead him back to his 
 own apartment. 
 
 LXXIII. — His was a beautiful and attractive old age, to 
 which nothing was wanting but the security of a morrow. It 
 was so disinterested and paternal, that it in no wise offended the 
 eye, though associated with a young and lovely woman; it was 
 as an evening shade upon the bloom of morning; but one felt 
 that it was a protecting shade, sheltering, but not withering, her 
 youth, beauty, and innocence. The features of this celebrated 
 man were regular as the pure outline of antique profiles, which 
 time emaciates slightly, but can not impair. His blue eye had 
 that softened but penetrating expression of worn-out sight, as if 
 they looked through a slight haze. There was an arch ex- 
 pression of implied meaning iu his mouth ; and his smile was 
 playful as that of a father to his little children. His hair, which 
 age and study had thinned, was soft and fine, like the down of 
 a swan. His hands were white and taper, as the marble hands 
 of the statue of Seneca taking his dying leave of Paulina. 
 There were no wrinkles on his face, which had become thin 
 and pale from the long labor of the mind, for it had never been 
 plump. A few blue and bloodless veins 7uight be traced on 
 the depressed temples ; and the light of the hearth was reflected 
 on the forehead — that latest beauty of man, which thought 
 chisels and polishes unceasingly. There was in the cheek that
 
 RAPHAEL. 107 
 
 delicacy of skin — that transparency of a face which has grown 
 old within the shade of walls, and which neither wind nor sun 
 has ever tanned ; — the complexion of woman, which gives an 
 effeminacy to the countenance of old men, and the ethereal, 
 fragile, and impalpable appearance of a vision, that the slight- 
 est breath might dispel. His calm and well-weighed expres- 
 sions, naturally set in clear, concise, and lucid phrase, had all 
 the precision of one who has been used to careful selection in 
 clothing his thoughts for writing or dictation. His sentences 
 were interrupted by long pauses, as if to allow time for them 
 to penetrate the ear, and to be appreciated by the mind of the 
 listener : he relieved them, every now and then, by gj-aceful 
 pleasantry, never degenerating into coarseness, as though he 
 purposely upheld the conversation on these light and sportive 
 wings, to prevent its being borne down by the weight of too 
 continuous ideas. 
 
 LXXIV. — I soon learned to love this charming and talented 
 old man. If I am destined to attain old age, I should wish to 
 grow old like him. There was but one thing grieved me as I 
 looked at him — it was, to see him advancing towai'd Death, 
 without believing in Immortality. The natural sciences that he 
 had so deeply studied, had accustomed his mind to trust exclu- 
 sively to the evidence of his senses. Nothing existed for him 
 that was not palpable ; what could not be calculated contained 
 no element of certitude in his eyes ; matter and figures com- 
 posed his universe ; numbers were his god ; the phenomena of 
 nature were his revelations ; Nature herself his Bible and his 
 gospel ; his virtue was instinct — not seeing that numbers, phe- 
 nomena, nature, and virtue, are but hieroglyphs inscribed on 
 the vail of the temple, whose unanimous meaning is — Deity. 
 Sublime but stubborn minds, who wonderfully ascend the steps 
 of science, one by one, — but will never pass the last, which 
 leads to God ! 
 
 LXXV. — This second father very soon became so fond of 
 me, that he proposed to give me occasionally, in his library, 
 some lessons in those elevated sciences which had rendered him 
 illustrious, and now constituted his chief relaxation. I went to 
 him sometimes in the morning ; Julie would come at the same 
 hours. It was a i-are and touching spectacle to see that old 
 man seated in the midst of his books — a monument of human
 
 108 RAPHAEL. 
 
 learning and philosophy, of which he had exhausted all the 
 pages during his long life, discovering the mysteries of nature 
 and of thought to a youth who stood beside him ; while a 
 woman, young and lovely as that ideal Philosophy — that loving 
 Wisdom — the Beatrix of the poet of Florence — attended as his 
 first disciple, and was the fellow-learner of that younger 
 brother. She brought the books, turned over the page, and 
 marked the chapters with her extended rosy finger; she moved 
 amid the spheres, the globes, the instruments, and the heaps of 
 volumes, in the dust of human knowledge ; and seemed the 
 soul of Nature disengaging itself fi'om matter, to kindle it, and 
 teach it to burn and love, 
 
 I learned and understood more in a few days, than in years 
 of dry and solitary study ; but the frequent infirmities of age in 
 the master too often interrupted these morning lessons. 
 
 LXXVI. — I invariably spent a part of my night in the com- 
 pany of her who was to me both night and day, time and eter- 
 uity. As I have already said, I always arrived when importu- 
 nate visitors had left the drawing-room. Sometimes I remained 
 long hours on the quay or on the bridge, walking or standing 
 still by turns, and waiting in vain for the inside shutter to open, 
 and to give the mute signal on which we had agreed. How 
 have I watched the sluggish waters of the Seine beneath the 
 arches of the bridge, bearing away in their course the trembling 
 rays of the moon, or the reflected light of the windows of the 
 city. How many hours and half hours have I not reckoned as 
 they sounded from the near or distant churches, and cursed 
 their slowness or accused their speed ! I know the tones o^ 
 every brazen voice in the towers of Paris. There were lucky 
 and unlucky days. Sometimes I went in, without waiting an 
 instant, and only found her husband with her, who spent in 
 lively talk, or friendly conversation, the hours that unbent and 
 prepared him for sleep. At other times, I only met one or 
 two friends ; they dropped in for a short time, bringing the 
 news or the excitement of the day, and devoted to friendship 
 the first hours of their evening, which they generally concluded 
 in some political drawing-room. These were in general parlia- 
 mentary men, eminent orators of the two chambers — Suard, 
 Bonald, Mounier, Reyneval, Lally-Tolendal, the old man 
 with the youthful mind, and Laine. This latter was the most 
 perfect copy of ancient eloquence and virtue that I have seen
 
 RAPHAEL. 109 
 
 to venerate in modern times ; he was a Roman in heart, in 
 eloquence, and in appearance, and wanted but the toga, to be 
 the Cicero or the Cato of his day. I felt peculiar admiration 
 and tender respect for this personification of a good citizen ; 
 he, in his turn, took notice of me, and often distinguished me 
 by some look and word of preference. He has since been my 
 master; and if one day I had to serve my country, or to ascend 
 a tribune, the remembrance of his patriotism and his eloquence 
 would be ever present to rae, as a model that I could not hope 
 to equal, but might imitate at a distance. 
 
 These men came round the little work-table in turn, whih; 
 Julie sat half reclined upon the sofa. I remained silent and 
 respectful in one corner of the room, far from her, listening, 
 reflecting, admiring, or disapproving inwardly, but scarcely 
 opening my lips, unless questioned, and only joining in the con- 
 veisation by a few timid and cautious words said in a low tone. 
 With a strong conviction on most subjects, I have always felt 
 an extreme shyness in expressing it before such men ; they 
 appeared to me infinitely my superiors from age and in au- 
 thority. Respect for time, for genius, and for fame, is a part 
 of my nature ; a ray of glory dazzles me ; white hairs awe me ; 
 an illustrious name bows me voluntarily before it. I have often 
 lost something of my real value by this timidity ; but neverthe- 
 less I have never regretted it. The consciousness of the supe- 
 riority of others is a good feeling in youth, as at all ages, for it 
 elevates the ideal standard to which we aspire. Self-confidence 
 in youth is an overweening insolence toward time and nature. 
 If the feeling of the superiority of others is a delusion, it is at 
 least a delusion which raises human nature, and is better than 
 that which lowers it. Alas ! we but too soon reduce it to its 
 true but sad proportions ! 
 
 These visitors at first paid little attention to me. I used to 
 see them stoop toward Julie, and ask, in a low tone, who I 
 was. My thoughtful countenance, and my immovable and 
 modest attitude seemed to surprise and please them ; insensibly 
 they drew toward me, or seemed by a gracious and encourag- 
 ing gesture to address some of their remarks to me. It was an 
 indirect invitation to take my share in the conversation. I said 
 a few words in grateful recognition; but I soon relapsed into 
 my silence and obscurity, for fear of prolonging the conversa- 
 tion by keeping it up. I considered them merely as the frame 
 of a picture ; the only real interest I felt was in the face, the
 
 110 RAPHAEL. 
 
 speech, and the mind of her, from whom I was shut out by 
 their presence. 
 
 LXXVIL — What inward joy, what throbbing of the heart, 
 when they retired, and when I heard beneath the gateway the 
 rolling of the carriage which bore away the last of them ! We 
 were then alone ; the night was far advanced ; our security 
 increased at every step of the minute-hand, as it approached 
 the fio^ure that marked midnig-ht on the dial. Nothins' was to 
 be heard but the sound of a few carriages, which, at rare inter- 
 vals, rattled over the stones of the quay, or the deep breathing 
 of the old concierge, who was stretched sleeping on a bench 
 in the vestibule at the foot of the stairs. 
 
 We would first look at each other, as if surpiised at our hap- 
 piness. I would draw nearer to the table where Julie worked 
 by the light of the lamp. The work soon fell from her unheed- 
 ing hands ; — our looks expanded, our lips were unsealed, our 
 hearts overflowed ! Our choked and hurried words, like the 
 flow of water impeded by too narrow an opening, were at first 
 slowly poured forth, and the torrent of our thoughts trickled 
 out drop by drop. We could not select, among the many 
 things we had to say, those we most wished to impart to each 
 other. Sometimes there was a long silence, caused by the 
 confusion and excess of crowded thoughts which accumulated 
 in our hearts, and could not escape. Then they began to flow 
 slowly, like those first drops, which show that the cloud is about 
 to dissolve or burst ; these words called forth others in response ; 
 one voice led on the other, as a falling child draws his com- 
 panion with him. Our words mingled witliout order, without 
 answer, and without connection ; neither of us would yield the 
 happiness of outstripping the other in the expi-ession of one 
 common feeling. Each fancied that he had first felt what he 
 disclosed of our thoughts since the evening's conversation, or 
 the morning's letter. At last, this tumultuous overflow, at 
 which we laughed and blushed, after a time subsided, and 
 gave place to a calm effusion of the lips, which poured forth 
 together, or alternately, the plenitude of their expressions. It 
 was a continuous and murmuring transfusion of one soul into 
 another — an unreserved interchange of our two natures — a 
 complete transmutation of one- into another, by the reciprocal 
 communication of all that breathed, or lived, or burned within 
 us. Never, perhaps, did two beings as irreproachable in their
 
 RAPHAEL. Ill 
 
 looks, or in their very thoughts, bare their hearts to one another 
 more unreservedly, and reveal the mysterious depths of their 
 feelincjs. The innocent nudity of our souls was chaste, though 
 unvailed, as light that discovers all, yet sullies nothing. We 
 bad naught to reveal, but the spotless love which purified as it 
 consumed us. 
 
 Our love, by its very purity, was incessantly renewed, with 
 the same light of soul, the same unsullied transports of its first 
 bloom. Each day was like the first ; every instant was as that 
 ineffable moment when we felt it dawn within us, and saw it 
 reflected in the heart and looks of another self; our love would 
 always presene its flower and its perfume, for the fruit could 
 never be culled. 
 
 LXXVIIT. — Of all the different means by which God has 
 allowed soul to communicate with soul, through the trans- 
 parent barrier of the senses, there was not one that our love 
 did not employ to manifest itself; from the look which conveys 
 most of ourselves in an almost ethereal ray, to the closed lids, 
 which seem to enfold within us the image we have received, 
 that it may not evaporate ; from languor to delirium, from the 
 sigh t-o the loud cry ; from the long silence to those exhaustless 
 words which flow from the lips without pause, and without end ; 
 which stop the breath, weary the tongue, which we pronounce 
 without hearing them, and which have no other meaning than 
 an impotent effort to say, again and again, what can never be 
 said enough ! . . . . 
 
 Many a time did we talk thus for hours, in whispered tones, 
 leaning on the little table, close to each other, without perceiv- 
 ing that our conversation, had lasted more than the space of a 
 single sigh; quite surprised to find that the minutes had flown 
 as swiftly as our words, and that the clock struck the inexora- 
 ble hour of parting. 
 
 Sometimes there would be interrogations and answers, as to 
 our most fugitive shades of thought and nature, dialogues in 
 almost unheard whispers, articulate sighs, rather than audible 
 words, blushing confessions of our most secret inward repinings, 
 joyful exclamations of surprise at discovering in us both the 
 same impressions reflected from one another, as light in rever- 
 beration, the blow in the counterblow, the form in the image. 
 We would exclaim, rising by a simultaneous impulse — we are 
 not two ! we are one sinjjle beinsr under two illusive natures—-
 
 112 RAPHAEL. 
 
 which will say you unto the other ! which will say I ] There is 
 
 no I — there is no you — but only we We would then sink 
 
 down, overcome with admiration at this wonderful conformity: 
 weeping with delight at this twofold existence, and at having 
 doubled our lives by consecrating them to each other. 
 
 LXXIX. — Most generally, we used to ti-avel back over the 
 past, step by step, and recall with scrupulous minuteness every 
 place, circumstance, and hour, which had brought on, or marked 
 the beginning of our love : like some young girl who has scat- 
 tered by the way the unstrung pearls of her precious necklace, 
 and returns upon her steps, her eyes bent upon the ground, to 
 find and gather them up, one by one. We would not lose the 
 recollection of one of those places, or one of those hours, for fear 
 of losing at the same time the hoarded memory of a single joy. 
 We remembered the mountains of Savoy, the valley of Cham- 
 bery, the torrents and the lake ; the mossy ground, sometimes 
 in shade and sometimes dappled with light, beneath the out- 
 stretched arms of the chestnut trees ; the rays between the 
 branches, the glimpse of sky through the leafy dome above 
 our heads, the blue expanse and the white sails at our feet ; our 
 first unsought meetings in the mountain paths, our mutual con- 
 jectures, our encounters on the lake before we knew each other, 
 sailing in our boats in contrary directions ; her dark hair waving 
 in the wind, my indifferent attitude ; our looks averted from the 
 crowd ; the double enigma that we were to each other, of which 
 the answer was to be eternal love ; then the fatal day of the 
 tempest, and her fainting; the mournful night of prayers and 
 tears ; the waking in heaven ; our return together by moonlight 
 through the avenue of poplars, her hand in mine, her warm tears 
 which my lips had drunk, the first words in which our souls had 
 spoken ; our joys, our parting — we remembered all ! 
 
 We never wearied of these details. It was as though we 
 had related some story which was not our own. But what 
 was there henceforward in the universe save ourselves 1 Oh ! 
 inexhaustible curiosity of love, thou art not only a childish de- 
 light of the hour, thou art love itself, which never tires of con- 
 templating what it possesses, treasures up every impression, 
 each hair, eacli thrill, each blush, each sigh of the loved one, 
 as a reason for loving more, as a means of feeding anew with 
 each memory the flame of enthusiasm, in which it joys to be 
 consumed.
 
 RAPHAEL. 113 
 
 LXXX. Julie's tears would sometimes suddenly flow from a 
 strange sadness. She knew me condemned, by tliis concealed 
 though to us ever present death, to behold in her but a phan- 
 tom of happiness, which would vanish ere I could press it to my 
 heart. She grieved and accused herself for having inspired me 
 with a passion which could never liring me joy. " Oh ! tliat I 
 could die, die soon, die young, and still beloved," would she 
 say. " Yes ; die, as I can be to you but the bitter delusion of 
 love and joy ; at once your rapture and your woe. Ah ! the 
 divinest joys and the most cruel anguish are mingled in my des- 
 tiny ! Oh, that love would kill me ; and that you might survive 
 to love after me, as your nature and your heart should love. 
 In dying, I shall be less wretched than I am while feeling that I 
 live by your sacrifices, and doom your youth and your love to 
 a perpetual death ! 
 
 " Oh ! blaspheme not against such ineffable joy," I exclaimed, 
 placing my treinbling hands beneath her eyes to receive her fast 
 dropping tears. " What base idea have you conceived of him 
 whom God has thought worthy to meet, to understand, and to 
 love you ] Are there not more oceans of tenderness and love 
 in this tear which falls warm from your heart, and which I carry 
 to my lips, as the life's blood of our tortured love, than in the 
 thousand sated desires and guilty pleasures in which are ingulfed 
 such vile attachments as you regret for me 1 Have I ever 
 seemed to you to desire aught else than this twofold suffering] 
 Does it not make of u-s both voluntary and pure victims 1 Is it 
 not an eternal holocaust of love, such as from Heloise to us, the 
 angels can scarce have witnessed ? Have I ever once re- 
 proached the Almighty even in the madness of my solitary 
 nights, for having raised me by you, and for you, above the 
 condition of man 1 He has given me in you, not a woman to 
 be polluted by the embrace of these mortal arms, but an im- 
 palpable and sacred incarnation of immaterial beauty. Does 
 not the celestial fire, which night and day burns so rapturously 
 within me, consume all dross of vulgar desire] Am I aught 
 but flame ] A flame as pure and holy as the rays of your soul, 
 which first kindled it, and now feed it unceasingly through your 
 beaming eye 1 Ah, Julie, estimate yourself more worthily, and 
 weep not over sorrows which you imagine you inflict on nye ! 
 I do not suffer. My life is one perpetual overflow of haj^piness, 
 filled by you alone — a repose of sense — a sleep of which you 
 are the dream. You have transformed my nature. I suffer 1
 
 114 RAPHAEL. 
 
 Oh ! would that I could sometimes suffer, that I might have 
 somewhat to offer unto God, were it but the consciousness of a 
 privation, the bitterness of a tear, in return for all He has given 
 rne in you. To suffer for you, might, perchance, be the only 
 thing which could add one drop to that cup of happiness which 
 't is given me to quaff. To suffer thus, is it to suffer, or to 
 enjoy 1 No ; thus to live, is, in trutb, to die ; but it is to die 
 some years earlier to this wretched life, to live beforehand of 
 the life of Heaven. 
 
 LXXXI. — She believed it, and I myself believed it, as I 
 spoke, and raised my hands imploringly toward her. We would 
 part after such converse as this, each preserving, to feed on it 
 separately till the morrow, the impression of the last look, the 
 echo of the last tone, that were to give us patience to live 
 through the long, tedious day. When I had crossed the thresh- 
 old, I would see ber open her window, lean forth amidst her 
 flowers on the iron bar of the balcony, and follow my receding 
 figure as long as the misty vapors of the Seine allowed her to 
 discern it on the bridge. Again, and again, would 1 turn to 
 send back a sigh and a lingering look, and strive to tear away 
 my soul, which would not be parted from her. It seemed as if 
 my very being were riven asunder ; my spirit to return and 
 dwell with her, while my body alone, as a mere machine, 
 slowly wended its way through the dark and deserted streets to 
 the door of the hotel where I dwelt. 
 
 LXXXII. — Thus passed away, without other change than 
 that afforded by my studies, and our ever-varying impressions, 
 the delightful months of winter. They were drawing to a close. 
 The early splendors of spring already began to glance fitfully 
 from the roofs upon the damp and gloomy wilderness of the 
 streets of Paris. Mj^ friend V * * *, recalled by his mother, 
 was gone, and had left me alone in the little room where he 
 had harbored me during my stay. He was to return in the 
 autumn, and had paid for the lodging for a whole year, so that, 
 though absent, he still extended to me his brotherly hospitality. 
 It was with soriow I saw him depart ; none remained to whom 
 I could speak of Julie. The burthen of my feelings would now 
 be doubly heavy, when I could no longer relieve myself by rest- 
 ing it on the heart of another; but it was a weight of happiness 
 — I could still uphold it; it was soon to become a load of
 
 RAPHAEL. 115 
 
 anguish, which T could confide to no living being, and least of 
 all to her whom 1 loved. 
 
 My mothei' wrote me, that straitened means, caused by 
 unexpected reverses of fortune, which had fallen on my father 
 in quick and harsh succession, had reduced to comparative in- 
 digence our once open and hospitable paternal home, obliging 
 my poor father to withhold the half of my allowance, to enable 
 him to meet, and that only with much difficulty, the expense of 
 maintaining and educating six other children. It was therefore 
 incumbent upon me, she said, either by my own unaided efforts 
 to maintain myself honorably in Paris, or to return home and 
 live with resignation in the country, sharing the common pit- 
 tance of all. My mother's tenderness sought beforehand to 
 comfort me under this sad necessity; she dwelt on the joy it 
 would be to her to see me again, and placed before me, in 
 most attractive colors, the prospect of the labors and simple 
 pleasures of a rural life. On the other hand, some of the asso- 
 ciates of my early years of gambling and dissipation, who had 
 now fallen into poverty, having met me in Paris, reminded )ne 
 of sundry trifling obligations which I had contracted toward 
 them, and begged me to come to their assistance. They stripped 
 me thus, by degrees, of the greater part of that little hoard 
 which I had saved by strict economy, to enable me to live 
 longer in Paris. My purse was well-nigh empty, and I began 
 to think of courting fortune through fame. One morning, after 
 a desperate struggle between timidity and love, love triumphed. 
 I concealed beneath my coat my small manuscript, bound in 
 green, containing my verses, my last hope ; and though waver- 
 ing and uncertain in my design, I turned my steps toward the 
 house of a celebrated publisher, whose name is associated with 
 the progress of literature and typography in France, Monsieur 
 Didot. I was first attracted to this name because M. Didot, 
 independently of his celebrity as a publisher, enjoyed at that 
 time some reputation as an author. He had published his own 
 verses with all the elegance, pomp, and circumstance of a poet 
 who could himself control the approving voice of Fame. 
 
 When before M. Didot's door, in the Rue Jacob, a door all 
 papered with illustrious names, a redoubled effort on my part 
 was required to cross the threshold, another to ascend the 
 stairs, another still more violent to ring at his door. But I saw 
 the adored image of Julie encouraging me, and her hand im- 
 pelled me. I dared do any thing.
 
 116 RAPHAEL. 
 
 I was politely received by M. Didot, a middle-aged man, 
 with a precise and commercial air, whose speech was brief and 
 plain, as that of a man who knows the value of minutes. He 
 desired to know what I had to say to him. I stamjnered for 
 some time, and became embarrassed in one of those labyrinths 
 of ambiguous phrases, under which one conceals thoughts that 
 will, and will not come to the point. I thought to gain courage 
 by gaining time; at last, I unbuttoned my coat, drew out the 
 little volume, and presented it humbly, with a trembling hand, 
 to M, Didot. I told him that 1 had written these verses, and 
 wislied to have them published ; not, indeed, to bring me fame 
 (I had not that absurd delusion), but in the hopes of attracting 
 the notice and good-will of influential literary men ; that my 
 poverty would not permit of my going to the expense of print- 
 ing ; and, therefore, I came to submit my work to him, and re- 
 quest him to publish it, should he, after looking over it, deem 
 it worthy of the indulgence or favor of cultivated minds. M. 
 Didot nodded, smiled kindly but somewhat ironically, took my 
 manuscript between two fingers, which seemed accustomed to 
 crumple ])aper contemptuously, and putting down my verses 
 on the table, appointed me to return in a week, for an answer 
 as to the object of my visit. 1 took my leave. The next seven 
 days appeared to me seven centuries. My future prospects, 
 my favor, my mother's consolation or despair, my love — in a 
 word, my life or death, were in the hands of M. Didot. At 
 times, I pictured him to myself reading my verses with the 
 same rapture that had inspired me on ray mountains, or on the 
 brink of my native torrents ; I fancied he saw in tl^em the dew 
 of my heart, the tears of my eyes, the blood of my young 
 veins ; that he called together his literary friends to listen to 
 them, and that I heard from my alcove the sound of their 
 applause. At others, I blushed to think I had exposed to the 
 inspection of a stranger a work so unworthy of seeing the 
 light ; that I had discovered my weakness and my impotence in 
 a vain hope of success, which would be changed into humiliation, 
 instead of being converted into gold and joy within my grasp. 
 Hope, however, as persevering as my distiess, often got the 
 upper hand in my dreams, and led me on from hour to hour, 
 until the day appointed by M. Didot. 
 
 LXXXni. — My heart failed as, on the eighth day, I ascended 
 his stairs. I remained a long while standing on the landing-
 
 RAPHAEL. 117 
 
 place at his door, without danng to ring. At last, some one 
 came out, the door was opened, and I was obliged to go in. 
 M. Didot's face was as unexpressive, and as ambiguous as an 
 oracle. He requested me to be seated, and while looking for 
 my manuscript, which was buried beneath heaps of papers: "I 
 have read your verses, sir," he said ; " there is some talent in 
 them, but no study. They are unlike all that is received and 
 appreciated in our poets. It is difficult to see whence you 
 have derived the language, ideas, and imagery of your poetry, 
 which can not be classed in any definite style. It is a pity, for 
 there is no want of harmony. You must renounce these novel- 
 ties which would lead astray our national genius. Read our 
 masters — Delille, Parny, Michaud, Reynouard, Luce de Lanci- 
 val, Fontanes ; these are the poets that the public loves. You 
 must resemble some one, if you wish to be recognized, and to 
 be read. I should advise you ill, if I induced you to publish 
 this volume, and I should be doing you a sorry service, in pub- 
 lishing it at my expense." So saying, he rose, and gave me 
 back my manuscript. I did not attempt to contest the point 
 with Fate, which spoke in the voice of the oracle. I took up 
 the volume, thanked M. Didot, and offering some excuse for 
 having trespassed on his time, I went down stairs, my legs 
 trembling beneath me, and my eyes moistened with tears. 
 
 Ah ! if M. Didot, who was a kind and feeling man, a patron 
 of letters, could have read in my heart, and have understood 
 that it was neither fame nor fortune that the unknown youth 
 came to beg, with his book in his hand — that it was life and 
 love I sued for, I am sure he would have printed my volume. 
 He would have been repaid in Heaven, at least. 
 
 L XXXIV. — I returned to my room in despair. The child 
 and the dog wondered, for the first time, at my sullen silence, 
 and at the gloom that overspread my countenance. I lighted 
 the stove, and threw in, sheet by sheet, my whole volume, with- 
 out sparing a single page. " Since thou canst not purchase for 
 me a single day of life and love," I exclaimed, as 1 watched it 
 bui'ning, " what care I if the immortality of my name be con- 
 sumed with thee ] Love, not fame, is my immortality." 
 
 That same evening, I went out at nightfall. I sold my poor 
 mother's diamond. Till then, I had kept it in the hope that my 
 verses might have redeemed its value, and that I might pre- 
 serve it untouched. As I handed it to the jeweler, I kissed it
 
 118 RAPHAEL. 
 
 by stealth, and wet it with my tears. He seemed affected him- 
 self, and felt convinced that the diamond was honestly mine, by 
 the grief I testified in disposing of it. The thirty louis he gave 
 me for it fell from my hands as I reckoned them, as if the gold 
 had been the price of a sacrilege. Oh ! how many diamonds, 
 twenty times superior in price, would I not often have given 
 since, to repurchase that same diamond, unique in my eyes ! a 
 fragment of my mother's heart ! one of the last tear-drops from 
 
 her eye ! the light of her love ! On what hand does it 
 
 sparkle now 1 
 
 LXXXV. — Spring had returned. The Tuileries cast each 
 morning upon their idlers the green shade of their leaves, and 
 showered down the fragrant snow of their horse-chestnut trees. 
 From the bridges, I could perceive beyond the stony horizon 
 of Chaillot and Passy, the long line of verdant and undulating 
 hills of Fleury, Meudon, and Saint Cloud. These hills seemed 
 to rise as cool and solitary islands in the midst of a chalky 
 ocean. They raised in my heart feelings of remorse and poig- 
 nant reproach, and were images and remembrances which awaked 
 the craving after nature that had lain dormant for six months. 
 The broken rays of moonlight floated at night upon the tepid 
 waters of the river, and the dreamy orb opened, as far as the 
 Seine could be traced, luminous and fantastic vistas, where the 
 eye lost itself in landscapes of shade and vapor. Involuntarily, 
 the soul followed the eye. The front of the shops, the balconies, 
 and the windows of the quays, were covered with vases of flow- 
 ers, which shed forth their perfume even on the passers-by. At 
 the corners of the streets, or the ends of the bridges, the flower- 
 girls, seated behind screens of flowering plants, waved branches 
 of lilac, as if to embalm the town. In Julie's room, tlie hearth 
 was converted into a mossy grotto; the consoles and tables had 
 each their vases of primroses, violets, lilies of the valley, and 
 roses. Poor flowers, exiles from the fields ! Thus, swallows 
 who have heedlessly flown into a room, bruise their own wings 
 against the walls, while announcing to the poor inhabitants of 
 dismal garrets, the approach of April and its sunny days. The 
 perfume of the flowers penetrated to our hearts, and our 
 thoughts were brought back, under the impression of their 
 fragrance, and the images it evoked, to that Nature in the 
 midst of which we had been so isolated and so happy. We 
 had forgotten her while the days were dark, the sky gloomy,
 
 RAPHAEL. 119 
 
 and the horizon bounded. Shut up in a small room, where we 
 were all in all to each other, we never thought that there was 
 another sky, another sun, another nature beyond our own. 
 These fine, sunny days, glimpses of which we caught from 
 among the roofs of an immense city, recalled them'to our minds. 
 They agitated and saddened us ; they inspired us with an invin- 
 cible desire to contemplate and enjoy them in the fl^rests and 
 solitudes which surround Paris. It seemed to us, while indulg- 
 ing these irresistible longings, and projecting distant walks to- 
 gether in the woods of Fontainebleau, Vincennes, St. Germain, 
 and Versailles, that we should be again, as it were, amid the 
 woods and waters of our Alpine valleys, that, at least, we 
 should see the same sun and the same sliade, and recognize the 
 harmonious sighing of the same winds in the branches. 
 
 Spring, which was restoring to the sky its transparency and 
 to the plants their sap, seemed also to give new youth and 
 pulsation to Julie's heart. The tint upon her cheeks was 
 brighter ; her eyes more blue, their rays more penetrating. 
 There was more emotion in the tone of her voice ; the languor 
 of her frame was relieved by more frequent sighs : there was 
 more elasticity in her walk, more youthfulness in her attitudes ; 
 even in the stillness of her chamber, a pleasant though feverish 
 agitation produced a petulant moving of her feet, and sent the 
 words more hurriedly to her lips. In the evening, Julie would 
 undraw the curtains, and frequently lean forth from her window 
 to watch the pale moonbeams, and inhale the freshness of the 
 water, and the breath of the fragrant breeze which swept 
 along the valley of Meudon, and was wafted even into the 
 apartments on the quay. 
 
 "Oh ! let us give," said I, " a joyous holiday to our hearts 
 amid all our happiness ! Of all God's creatures for whom He 
 reanimates his earth and his heavens, let not us, the most feel- 
 ing and the most grateful, be the only beings for whom they 
 shall have been reanimated in vain. Let us together dive into 
 that air, that light, that verdure; amid those sprouting branch- 
 es, in the flood of life and vegetation, which is even now inun- 
 dating the whole earth ! Let us go, let us see, if naught in tlie 
 works of His creation has grown old by the weight of an added 
 day; if naught in that enthusiasm, which sang and groaned, 
 loved and lamented within us, on the mountains and on the 
 waters of Savoy, has been lowered by one ripple or one note !" 
 — " Yes ! let us go," said she ; " we shall neither feel more, nor
 
 120 RAPHAEL. 
 
 love better, nor bless otherwise, but we shall have made another 
 sky and another spot of earth witness the happiness of two poor 
 mortals. That temple of our love which was in our loved 
 mountains only, will then be wherever I shall have wandered 
 andbreathed with you." The old man encouraged these excur- 
 sions to the fine forests around Paris. He hoped, and the doc- 
 tors led him to expect, that the air laden with life, the influence 
 of the sun, which strengthens all things, with moderate exercise 
 in the open fields, might invigorate the too sensitive delicacy of 
 Julie's nerves, and give elasticity to her heart. Every sunny 
 day, during the five weeks of early spring, I came at noon to 
 fetch her. We entered a close caniage in order to avoid the 
 inquisitive looks and light observations of any of her acquaint- 
 ances whom we might chance to meet, or the remarks that 
 even strangers might have made on seeing so young and lovely 
 a woman alone with a man of my age ; for we were not suffi- 
 ciently alike to pass for brother and sister. We left the car- 
 riage on the skirts of the woods, at the foot of the hills, or at 
 the gates of the parks in the environs of Paris, and sought out 
 at Fleury, at Meudon, at Sevres, at Satory, and at Vincennes, 
 the longest and most solitary paths, carpeted with turf and 
 flowers, untrodden by horses' hoofs, except, perhaps, on the day 
 of a royal hunt. We never met any one, save a few children 
 or poor women busy with their knives digging up endive. 
 Occasionally a startled doe would rustle through the leaves, 
 and springing across the path, after a glance at us, dive into 
 the thicket. We walked in silence, sometimes preceding each 
 other, sometimes arm in arm, or we talked of the future, of the de- 
 light it would be to possess one, out of all these untenanted acres, 
 with a keeper's lodge under one of the old oaks. We dreamed 
 aloud. We picked violets and the wild periwinkle, which we 
 interchanged as hieroglyphics, and preserved in the smooth leaves 
 of the hellebore. To each of these flowery letters we linked a 
 meaning, a remembrance, a look, a sigh, a prayer. We kept 
 them to reperuse when parted; they were destined to recall 
 each precious moment of these blissful hours. 
 
 We often sat in the shade by the side of the path, and opened 
 a book wliich we tried to read ; but we could never turn the 
 first leaf, and ever preferred reading in ourselves the inexhaust- 
 ible pages of our own feelings. I went to fetch milk and brown 
 bread from some neighboring farm; we ate, seated on the grass, 
 throwing the remains of the cup to the ants, and the crumbs of
 
 RAPHAEL. 121 
 
 bread to the birds. At sunset we returned to the tumultuous 
 ocean of Paris, the noise and crowd of wliich jarred upon our 
 hearts. I left Julie, excited by the enjoyment of the day, at 
 her own door, and then went back, overcome with happiness, 
 to my solitary room, the walls of which I would strike and bid 
 them crumble, that I might be restored to the light, nature, and 
 love, which they shut out. I dined without relish, read without 
 understanding ; I lighted my lamp and waited, reckoning the 
 hours as they passed, till the evening was far enough advanced 
 for me to venture again to her door, and renew the enjoyment 
 of the morning. 
 
 LXXXVI. — The next day we recommenced our wanderings. 
 Ah ! in those forests, how many trees, marked by my knife, 
 bear on their roots or bark a sign by which I shall ever recog- 
 nize them ! They are those whose shade she enjoyed ; those 
 beneath which she had breathed new life, had basked in the 
 warmth of the sun, or inhaled the sweet vernal scent of the trees ! 
 The stranger sees, but dreams not, that they are to another the 
 pillars of a temple, whose worshiper is on earth though its 
 divinity is in Heaven ! I still visit them once or twice each 
 spring, on the anniversaries of these walks ; and when the ax 
 lays one low, it seems to me as though it falls upon myself, and 
 carries away a portion of my heart. 
 
 LXXXVII. — On one of the highest and most generally 
 solitary summits of the pai'k of St. Cloud, where the rounded 
 hill descends in two separate slopes, one toward the valley of 
 Sevres, and the other toward the hollow where the chateau 
 stands, there is an open space, where three long avenues meet. 
 From thence the eye discovers fi'om afar the rare passengers 
 that intrude on the solitude of the place. The hill, like a 
 promontory, overlooks the plain of Issy, the course of the Seine, 
 and the road to Versailles; its summit, clothed and ovei'shaded 
 by the forest which fills up the triangular intervals between the 
 three avenues, appears like the rounded basin of a lake of 
 which grass and foliage are the billows. If one looks toward 
 Sevres, one sees only a long and sloping meadow stretching 
 down toward the river like a verdant and undulating cascade, 
 which, after a rapid descent, loses itself at the bottom of the 
 valley in dark masses of thickets stocked wdth deer. Beyond 
 these thickets, on the other side of the Seine, the blue slated 
 
 F
 
 122 RAPHAEL. 
 
 roofs of Meudon, and the waving tops of the majestic trees of 
 its park, stand out in the blue summer sky. We often came to 
 sit on this hill, which has all the elevation of a promontory, the 
 silence and shade of a valley, and the solitude of a desert. The 
 lungs play freer there; the ear is less disturbed by the sounds 
 of earth ; the soul can better wing its flight beyond the horizon 
 of this life. 
 
 We went there one morning early in May, at the hour when 
 the forest is peopled only by the deer, which bound and skip in 
 its lonely paths. Now and then, a gamekeeper crosses the 
 extremity of one of the avenues, like a black speck on the 
 horizon. We sat down under the seventh tree of the semi-circle 
 round the open space, looking toward the meadows of Sevres. 
 Centuries have been required to frame that sturdy oak, and to 
 bend its gnarled branches ; its roots, swelling with sap to 
 nourish and support its trunk, have burst through the sod at its 
 feet, and form a moss-covered seat, of which the oak is the back, 
 and its lower leaves the natural canopy. The morning was as 
 serene and transparent as the waters of the sea at sunrise, under 
 the green headlands of the Islands of the Archipelago. The 
 ardent rays of an almost summer sun fell from the clear sky on 
 the wooded hill, and then I'ose again from out of the thickets in 
 exhalations warm as the waves, which expire in the shade after 
 having imbibed the sunshine. There was no other sound than 
 that of the fall of some dry leaves of the preceding winter, 
 which, as the sap rose and throbbed, fell at the foot of the tree, 
 to make room for the new and tender foliage. Whole flights 
 of birds dashed against the branches round their nests, and 
 there was one vague, universal hum of insects that reveled in 
 the light, and rose and fell, like a living dust, at the least undu- 
 lation of the flowering grass. 
 
 LXXXVIII. — There was so much sympathy between our 
 youth and the youthful year and day — such entire harmony 
 between the light, the heat, the splendor, the silence, the gentle 
 sounds, the pensive delights of nature and our own sensations ; 
 we felt so delightfully mingled with the surrounding air and sky, 
 life and repose ; we were so completely all to each other in 
 this solitude, that our exuberant but satisfied thoughts and 
 sensations sufficed us. We did not even seek for words to 
 express them, but v/ere as the full vase, whose very plenitude 
 renders its contents motionless. Our hearts could hold no more,
 
 RAPHAEL. 123 
 
 but they were capacious enough to contain all, and nothing 
 sought to escape from them. Our breathing was scarcely 
 audible. 
 
 I know not liow long we remained thus seated at the foot of 
 the oak, mute and motionless beside one another, our faces 
 buried in our hands, our feet in sunshine on the grass, our heads 
 in shade ; but when I raised my eyes the shadows had retreated 
 before us on the grass, beyond the folds of Julie's dress. I 
 looked at her, she raised her face as if by the same impulse 
 which had made me raise mine ; and, gazing at me, without 
 saying a word, she burst into tears. "Why do you weep]" I 
 asked, with anxious emotion, but in a low tone, for fear of 
 disturbing or diverting the course of her silent thoughts, 
 "From happiness," she answered. Her lips smiled, while big 
 tears rolled down her cheeks in shining drops, like the dew of 
 Spring. " Yes : from happiness," she resumed ; " this day, this 
 hour, this sky, this spot, this peace, this silence, this solitude 
 with you ; this complete assimilation of our two souls, which 
 no longer require to converse to comprehend each other, and 
 who breathe in the same aspiration, is too much — too much for 
 mortal nature, that excess of joy may kill, as excess of grief; 
 and which, when it can draw no cry from the heart, grieves that 
 it can not sigh, and mourns that it can not praise sufficiently." 
 
 She stopped for an instant — her cheeks were flushed. I 
 trembled lest death should seize her in her joy; but her voice 
 soon reassured me. " Raphael ! Raphael !" she exclaimed, in 
 a solemn tone, which surprised me, as if she had been announ- 
 cing some good tidings, long and anxiously expected — " Ra- 
 phael, rhei-e is a God!" " How has he been revealed to you 
 to-day more clearly than any other day V I asked. " By love," 
 she answered, raising slowly to heaven the orbs of her bright 
 glistening eyes; "yes; by love, whose torrents have flowed in 
 my heart just now with a murmuring, gushing fullness that I 
 had never felt before with the same force, nor yet the same 
 repose. No ! I no longer doubt," she continued, in a tone 
 where certitude mingled with joy ; " the spring whence such 
 felicity is poured upon the soul can not be here below, nor can 
 it lose itself in this earth, after having once gushed forth! 
 There is a God ; there is an eternal love, of which ours is but a 
 drop. We will together mingle it one day with the Divine 
 ocean from whence we drew it ! That ocean is God ! I see 
 it — feel it — understand it in this instant by my happiness!
 
 124 RAPHAEL. 
 
 Raphael, it is no longer you I love — it is no longer I you love ; 
 it is God we henceforward adore in one another; you in me, 
 and I in you, both, in these tears of bliss which reveal to us, 
 and yet conceal, the immortal fountain of our hearts! Away," 
 she added, with a still more ardent tone and look, " away with 
 all the vain names by which we have hitherto called our attrac- 
 tion toward each other. I know but one to express it — it is the 
 one which has just been revealed to me in your eyes : — God ! 
 God ! God !" she exclaimed once more, as though she had 
 wished to teach her lips a new language, " God is in you ! 
 God is in me for you ! God is us 1 and henceforward the 
 feelings which oppressed us will no longer be love, but a holy 
 and rapturous adoration ! Raphael, do you understand me 1 
 You will no longer be Raphael, you will be my worship of 
 God !" 
 
 We rose in a transport of enthusiasm ; we embraced the tree, 
 and blessed it for the inspiration which had descended from its 
 boughs ; we gave it a name, and called it the tree of adoration. 
 
 We then slowly descended the hill of St. Cloud to return to 
 the noise and turmoil of Paris ; but she returned with new- 
 found faith and the knowledge of God in her heart, and I with 
 the joy of knowing that she now possessed a bright and inward 
 source of consolation, hope, and peace. 
 
 LXXXIX. — In a very short time, the expense I was obliged 
 to incur, but which I concealed fiom Julie, in order to accom- 
 pany her on our daily country excursions, had so far exhausted 
 the proceeds of the sale of my mother's last diamond that I had 
 only ten louis left. When each night I reckoned over the limit- 
 ed number of happy days represented by that small sum I was 
 seized with fits of despondency, but I should have blushed to 
 confess my excessive poverty to her I loved. Though far from 
 wealthy, she would have wished to share with me all she 
 possessed, and that would have degraded our intercourse in my 
 eyes. I valued my love more than life, but I would rather have 
 died than have debased my love. 
 
 The sedentary life I had led all the winter in my dismal room, 
 my intense application to study all day, the tension of my 
 thoughts toward one object, the want of sleep at night, but, 
 above all, the moral exhaustion of a heart too weak to bear a 
 continuous ecstasy of ten months, had undermined my constitu- 
 tion. A consuming flame, which burnt unfed, shone through
 
 RAPHAEL. 125 
 
 my wan and pale face. Julie implored me to leave Paris, to 
 try tlie effect of my native air, and to preserve my life, even at 
 the expense of her happiness. She sent me her doctor, to add 
 the authority of science to the entreaties of her love. Her 
 doctor, or ratlicr her friend. Dr. Alain, was one of those men 
 who carry a blessing with them, and whose countenance seems 
 to reflect Heaven by the bedside of the sick poor they visit. He 
 was himself" suffering from a complaint of the heart, brought on 
 by a pure and mysterious passion for one of the loveliest women 
 in Paris. 
 
 He was active, humane, pious, and tolerant, and possessing a 
 small fortune sufficient for his simple wants and charities, 
 practiced only for a few friends or for the poor. His physic 
 was friendship or charity in action. The medical career is so 
 admirable wlieii divested of all cupidity, it brings so much into 
 play the better feelings of our nature, that it often ends by being 
 a virtue after commencing as a profession. With Dr. Alain it 
 was more than a virtue; it had become a passion for relieving 
 the woes of the body and of the soul, which are often so closely 
 linked ! Where Alain brought life, he also took God with him, 
 and made even Death resplendent with serenity and immor- 
 tality. 
 
 I saw him, too, die, some years later, the death of the 
 righteous and the just : he had learned how to die at many 
 death-beds; and when stretched motionless on his, during six 
 months of agony, his eye counted on a little clock, which stood 
 at the foot of his bed, the hours that divided him from eternity. 
 He pressed upon his bosom, with his crossed hands, a crucifix, 
 emblem of patience, and his look never quitted that celestial 
 fi'iend, as though he had conversed at the foot of the cross. 
 When he suffered beyond his powers of endurance, he requested 
 that the crucifix might be approached to his lips, and his 
 prayers were then mingled with thanksgiving. At last, he slept, 
 supported to the end by his hopes, and the memory of the good 
 he had done. He had given the poor and the sick an accumu- 
 lated treasure of good works to carry before him into the 
 presence of the God of the merciful. He died on a wretched 
 bed in a garret, leaving no inheritance. The poor bore his 
 body to the grave, and, in their turn, gave him the burial of 
 charity in the common earth. O, blessed soul! that in memory, 
 I still see smiling on that kind countenance, lighted with inward 
 joy, can so much virtue have been to thee but a deception ?
 
 126 RAPHAEL. 
 
 Hast thou vanished like the reflection of my lamp upon his 
 portrait, when my hand withdraws the light that allowed me to 
 contemplate itl No, no! God is faithful, and can not have 
 deceived thee, who wouldst not have deceived a child. 
 
 XC. — The doctor took a deep and friendly interest in me. 
 It seemed as if Julie had imparted to him a portion of her ten- 
 derness. He understood my complaint, though he concealed 
 his knowledge from me, and was too deeply read in human 
 passion not to recognize its symptoms in us. He ordered me 
 to depart under penalty of death, and induced Julie herself to 
 enforce his commands by communicating to her his fears. He 
 invoked the tender authority of love to tear me from love. He 
 tried to mitigate the pang of separation by the allurement of 
 hope, and ordered me to breathe some time my native air, and 
 then return to the baths of Savoy, where Julie should join me, 
 by his advice, in the beginning of autumn. His principles did 
 not seem startled by the symptoms of mutual passion which he 
 had not failed to perceive between us. Our pure flame was in 
 his eyes a fault, but it was also its own purification. His 
 countenance only expressed the indulgence of man, and the 
 compassion of God. He thus endeavored to save us by loosen- 
 ing the tie which threatened to draw us to one common death. 
 I at length consented to be the first to depart, and Julie swore 
 to follow me soon. Alas ! her tears, her pale face, and trem- 
 bling lips said more than any vows. It was settled that I 
 should leave Paris as soon as my strength permitted me to 
 travel. The eighteenth of May was the day fixed for my de- 
 pai-ture. 
 
 When once we had resolved on our appi'oaching separation, 
 we began to reckon the minutes as hours the hours as days. 
 We would have amassed and concentrated years into the short 
 space of a second, to wrest from time the happiness from 
 which we were to be debarred during so many months. These 
 days were days of rapture, but they had their anguish and their 
 agony; the approaching morrow cast its gloom upon each intei'- 
 view, each look and word, each pressure of the hand. Joys such 
 as these are not joys, but disguised pangs of love and tortures of 
 the heart. We devoted the whole day preceding my departure 
 to our adieus. We wished to say our last farewell not within 
 the shadow of walls, which weigh down the soul, and beneath 
 the eyes of the indifferent, which throw back the feelings on the
 
 RAPHAEL. 127 
 
 heart, but beneath the sky, in the open air, in the Hght, in soh- 
 tude, and in silence. Nature sympalliizes with all the emotions 
 of man; she understands, and, as an invisible confidante, seems 
 to share them. She garners them in heaven and renders them 
 divine. 
 
 XCI. — In the morning a carriage, which I had hired for the 
 day, conveyed us to Monceau. The windows were down, the 
 blinds closed. We traversed the almost deserted streeis of 
 the more elevated parts of Paris, leading to the high walls of 
 the park. This garden was at that time almost exclusively re- 
 served for their own use by the princes to whom it belonged, 
 and could only be entered on presenting tickets of admission, 
 which were very parsimoniously distributed to a few foreigners 
 or travelers desirous of admiring its wonderful vegetation. I 
 had obtained some of these tickets, through one of my mother's 
 early friends, who was attached to the prince's household. I 
 had selected this solitude because I knew its owners were ab- 
 sent, that no admissions were then given, and that the very gar- 
 deners would be away enjoying the leisure of a holiday. 
 
 This magnificent desert, studded with groves of trees, inter- 
 spersed with meadows, and traversed by limpid streams, is also 
 embellished by monuments, columns, and ivy-covered ruins, im- 
 itations of time in which art has copied the old age of stone. 
 That day we knew it would be visited only by the bright sun- 
 beams, the insects, the birds, and us ! Alas ! never were its 
 leaves and its green turf to be watered by so many tears! 
 
 The warm and glowing sky, the light and shade dancing fit- 
 fully on the grass driven by the summer breeze, as the shadow 
 of the wings of one bird pursuing another — the clear note of 
 the nightingale ringing througli the sonorous air — the distinct- 
 ness with which the lilies of the valley, the daisies and the blue 
 periwinkle which carpeted the sloping banks of the clear waters, 
 were reflected in their polished mirror ; all this gladness of 
 nature saddened us, and this luminous serenity of a spring 
 morning, only seemed to contrast the more with the dark cloud 
 which weighed upon our hearts. In vain we sought to deceive 
 ourselves even for a moment by expatiating on the beauty of 
 the landscape, the brilliant tints of the flowers, the perfumes of 
 the air, the depth of the shade, the stillness of those solitudes in 
 which the happiness of a whole world of love might have been 
 sheltered. We carelessly threw on them an unheeding glance.
 
 128 RAPHAEL. 
 
 which quickly fell to the ground ; our voices, when answering 
 with their vain formulas of joy and admiration, betrayed tliu 
 hollovvness of words and the absence of our thoughts which 
 were elsewhere. 
 
 It was in vain we sought a resting-place to pass the long 
 hours of this our last interview ; seating ourselves alternately 
 beneath the most fragrant lilacs, or the green branches of the 
 loftiest cedars, on the fluted fragments of columns half buried in 
 ivy, or by the side of those waters that lay most still within 
 their grassy banks, for scarcely had we chosen one of these sites 
 when some vague disquietude drove us away in search of an- 
 other. Here it was the shade, and there the light ; further on 
 the importunate murmur of the cascade, or the persisting song 
 of the nightingale over our heads, that turned into bitterness all 
 this exuberance of joy, and made it odious in our eyes. When 
 our heart is sad within us, all creation jars upon our feelings, 
 and it could but have added fresh pangs to the grief of two 
 lovers, had the garden of Eden been the scene of their parting. 
 
 At last worn out by wandering for two htjurs, and finding no 
 shelter against ourselves, we sat down near a small bridge 
 across a stream; a little apart, as if the very sound of each oth- 
 er's breathing had been painful, or as if we had wished instinct- 
 ively to conceal from one another the suppressed sobs which 
 were bursting from our hearts. We long watched abstractedly 
 the green and slimy water as it was slowly swept beneath the 
 narrow arch of the bridge. It carried along on its surface, 
 sometimes the white petals of the lily, and sometimes an empty 
 and downy bird's nest which the wind had blown from a tree. 
 We soon saw the body of a poor little swallow, turned on its 
 back, and with extended wings, floating down. It had, doubt- 
 less, been drowned when skimming over the water before its 
 wings were strong enough to bear it on the surface ; it remind- 
 ed us of the swallow which had one day fallen at our feet, from 
 the top of the dismantled tower of the old castle, on the bor- 
 ders of the lake, and which had saddened us as an omen. The 
 dead bird passed slowly before us, and the unruffled sheet of 
 water rolled and engulfed it in the deep darkness below the 
 bridge. When the bird had disappeared, we saw another 
 swallow pass and repass a hundred times beneath the bridge, 
 uttering its little sharp cry of distress, and dashing against the 
 wooden beams of the arch. Involuntarily we looked at each 
 other : I can not tell what our eyes expressed as they met, bu^
 
 RAPHAEL. 129 
 
 the despair of the poor bird found us with our eyelids so over- 
 charged, and our hearts so nearly bursting, thai we both turned 
 away at the same moment, and throwing ourselves with our 
 faces to the ground, sobbed aloud. One tear called forth an- 
 other tear, one thought another thought, one foreboding another 
 foreboding, each sob another sob. We often sti-ove to speak, 
 but the broken voice of the one only made that of the other still 
 more inaudible, and we ended by yielding to nature, and pour- 
 ing forth in silence, during hours marked by the shadows alone, 
 all the tears that rose from their hidden spi'ings. They fell on 
 the grass, sank into the earth, were dried by the winds of 
 heaven, absorbed by the rays of the sun — God took them into 
 account! No drop of anguish remained in our hearts, when 
 we rose face to face, though almost hidden from each other by 
 the tearful vail of our eyes. Such was our farewell; a funeral 
 image, an ocean of tears ; an etei-nal silence. Thus we parted 
 without another look, lest that look should strike us to the earth. 
 Never will the mark of my footsteps be again traced in that 
 desert scene of our love and of our parting. 
 
 XCIf . — The next morning I was rolling along, sad and silent, 
 wrapped in my cloak, among the barren iiills on the road that 
 leads from Paris toward the south. I was stowed away in a 
 public coach, with five or six unknown fellow-travelers, who 
 were gayly discussing the quality of the wine and the price of 
 the last dinner at the inn. I never once opened my lips during 
 that long, sad jouniey. 
 
 My mother received me with that serene and resigned ten- 
 derness, which might have made even misfortune happy in her 
 company. Iler diamond had been spent in vain to advance my 
 fortunes, and I returned home, with shattered health and broken 
 hopes — consumed with melancholy that she attributed to ray 
 unoccupied youth and restless imagination, but of which I care- 
 fully concealed the real cause, for fear of adding an irremediable 
 soiTow to all her other griefs. 
 
 I spent the summer alone in an almost deserted valley in- 
 closed between barren hills, where my father had a little farm, 
 which was worked by a poor family. My mother had sent me 
 there, and commended me to the care of these good people, 
 that I might have a change of air and the benefit of milk diet. 
 My whole occupation was to reckon the days which must inter- 
 vene before I could join Julie in our dear Alpine valley. Her 
 
 F*
 
 130 RAPHAEL. 
 
 letters received and replied to daily, confirmed me in my secu- 
 rity, and dispelled, by their sportive gayety and caressing words, 
 the gloomy and sinister forebodings our last farewell had raised 
 in my heart. Now and then, some desponding word or ex- 
 pression of sadness, which seemed to have unguardedly escaped, 
 or been involuntarily overlooked among lier vistas of happiness, 
 as a dry leaf in the midst of the foliage of spring, sti-uck me as 
 being in contradiction with the calm and blooming health she 
 Bpoke of. But I attributed these discrepancies to some vision 
 of memory or to her impatience at the slowness of time which 
 might have flitted like shadows across the paper as she wrote. 
 
 The bracing mountain air, sleep at night, and exercise by 
 day, the healthy employment of working in the garden and in 
 the farm, soon restored me to health ; but, above all, the approach 
 of autumn, and tlie certainty of soon seeing her once more, who 
 by her looks would give me life. The only remaining trace of 
 my sufferings was a gentle and pensive melancholy which over- 
 spread my countenance ; it was as the mist of a summer's morn- 
 ing. My silence seemed to conceal some mystery, and my in- 
 stinctive love of solitude made the superstitious peasants of the 
 mountains believe that I conversed with the Genii of the woods. 
 
 All ambition had been extinguished in me by my love. I had 
 made up my mind for life to my hopeless poverty and obscurity, 
 and my mother's serene and pious resignation had entered into 
 my heart with her holy and gentle words. I only indulged the 
 dream of working during ten or eleven months of the year man- 
 ually, or with my pen to earn sufficiently thereby to spend a 
 month or two with Julie every year. I thought that if the old 
 man's protection were one day to fail, I would devote myself to 
 her service as a slave, like Rousseau to Madame de Wax-ens ; 
 we would take shelter in some secluded cottage of these mount- 
 ains, or in the well-known chalets of our Savoy ; I would live 
 for her, as she would live for me, without looking back with 
 regret to the empty world, and asking of love no other reward 
 than the hapjiiness of loving 
 
 XCIII. — I was, however, often recalled harshly from my 
 dreamy region, by the cruel penury of my home, which was 
 partly attributable to the unavailing expense incurred for me. 
 Crops had failed during successive years, and revei-ses of fortune 
 had changed the humble mediocrity of my parents into compai-- 
 ative want. When on Sundays, I went to see my mother, she
 
 RAPHAEL. 131 
 
 spoke of her distresses, and, before me, shed tears that she con- 
 cealed from my father and my sisters. I, too, was reduced to 
 extreme destitution. I Hved at the little farm on brown biead, 
 milk, and eggs, and had in secret, sold successively in the neigh- 
 boring town all the books and clothes I had brought from Paris, 
 to procure wherewithal to pay the postage of Julio's letters, for 
 which I would have sold my life's blood. 
 
 The month of September was drawing to a close. Julie 
 wrote me, that her anxiety on the score of her husband's daily 
 declining health (Oh ! pious fraud of love to conceal her own 
 sufferings and lighten my cares) would detain her longer in 
 Paris than she had expected. She pressed me to start at once, 
 and await her in Savoy, where she would join me without fail 
 toward the end of October. The letter was one of tender 
 advice, as that of a sister to a beloved brother. She implored 
 and ordered me, with the sovereign authority of love, to beware 
 of that insidious disease which lurks beneath the flowery surface 
 of youth, and often withei's and consumes it at the very moment 
 we think that we have overcome its power. Inclosed, she sent 
 a consultation and a prescription from good Dr. Alain, ordering 
 me in the most imperative tones, and with the most alarming 
 threats, to remain during a long season at the baths of Aix. I 
 showed this prescription to my mother, to account for my de- 
 parture, and she was so disquieted by it, that she added her en- 
 treaties to the injunctions of the doctor to induce me to go. 
 Alas ! I had in vain applied to a few friends as poor as myself, 
 and to some pitiless usurers, to obtain the trifling sum of twelve 
 louis required for my journey. My father had been absent six 
 months, and my mother would on no account have aggravated 
 his distress and anxiety by asking him for money. In borrow- 
 ing, he would have exposed his poverty, by which he was 
 already too much humbled. I had made up my mind to start 
 with two or three louis only in my purse, in the hopes of bor- 
 rowing the remainder from my friend, L * * *, at Chambery ; 
 when, a few days befoi'e my departure, my mother, during a 
 sleepless night, found in her heart a resource, that a mother's 
 heart could alone have furnished. 
 
 XCIV. — In one of the corners of the little garden that sur 
 rounded our house, there stood a cluster of trees, comprising a 
 few evergreen oaks, two or three lime trees, and seven or eight 
 twisted elms, which were the remains of a wood, planted ceii-
 
 1 32 RAP II A E L. 
 
 turies ago, and had, doubtless, been respected as the genius loci 
 when the hill had been cleared, the house built, and the garden 
 first walled in. These lofty trees in summer time served as a 
 family saloon, in the open air. Their buds in spring, their tints 
 in autumn, and their dry leaves in winter, which were succeeded 
 by the hoar frost hanging from their branches like white hair, 
 had marked the seasons for us. Their shadows, rolled back 
 upon their very feet, or stretched out to the grassy border 
 around, told us the hours better than a dial. Beneath their 
 foliage, our mother had nursed us, lulled us to rest, and taught 
 us our first steps. My father sat there, book in hand, when 
 he returned from shooting ; his shining gun suspended from a 
 branch, his panting dogs crouching beneath the bench. I, too, 
 had spent there the fairest hours of my boyhood, with Homer 
 or Telemachus lying open on the grass before me. I loved to 
 lie flat on the warm turf, my elbows resting on the volume, of 
 whieh a passing fly or lizard would sometimes hide, the lines. 
 The nightingales among the branches sang for our home, though 
 we could never find their nest, or even see the branch from 
 which their song burst forth. This grove was the pride, the 
 recollection, the love of all ! The idea of converting it into a 
 small bag of money, which would leave no memoi-y in the heart 
 — no perpetual joy and shade — would have occurred to no one, 
 save to a mother, trembling with anxiety for the life of an only 
 son. My mother conceived the thought ; and, with the readi- 
 ness and firmness of resolve that distinguished hei-, called for 
 the woodcutters as soon as morning came — fearing lest she 
 should feel remorse, or my entreaties stop her, if she first con- 
 sulted me. She saw the ax laid to their roots, and wept, and 
 turned away her head, not to hear their moan, or witness the 
 fall of these leafy protectors of her youth on the echoing and 
 desolate soil of the garden. 
 
 XCV. — When I returned to M * * * on the following Sun- 
 day, I looked round from the top of the mountain for the clump 
 of trees that stood out so pleasantly on the hill side, screening 
 from the sun a portion of the gray wall of the house ; and it 
 seemed as a dream when in their wonted place I perceived 
 only heaps of hewn down trunks, whose barked and bleeding 
 branches strewed the earth around. A sawing-trestle' stood 
 there, like an instrument of torture, on which the saw with its 
 grinding teeth divided the trees. I hurried on with extended
 
 RAPHAEL. 138 
 
 arras toward the outer wall, and trembled as I opened the 
 
 little garden door Alas ! the evergreen oak, one lime 
 
 tree, and the oldest elm alone were standing, und the bench 
 had been drawn in beneath their shade. " They are sufficient," 
 said my mother, as she advanced toward me, and, to conceal 
 her tears, threw herself into my arms ; " the shade of one tree 
 is worth that of a whole foi'est. Besides, to me what shade 
 can equal yours ] Do not be angry. I wrote to your father 
 that the trees were dying from the top, and that they were 
 hurtful to the kitchen-garden. Speak no more of them !".... 
 Then leading me into the house, she opened her desk and drew 
 forth a b.ag half-filled with money, " Take this," she said, 
 "and go. The trees will have been amply paid me, if you 
 return well and happy." 
 
 I blushed, and with a stifled sob took the bag. There were 
 six hundred francs in it, which I resolved to bring back un- 
 touched to my poor mother. 
 
 I started on foot, like a sportsman, with leathei'n gaiters on my 
 feet, and my gun on my shoulder, and took from the bag only 
 one hundred francs, which I added to the little 1 had remaining 
 from the proceeds of my last sale. I could not bear to spend 
 the pince of the trees, and therefore concealed the remainder of 
 the money at the farm, that on my return I might restore it to 
 her, who had so heroically torn it from her heart for me. I ate 
 and slept at the humblest inns in the \-illages through which I 
 passed, and was taken for a poor Swiss student returning from 
 the University of Strasbourg. I was never charged but the 
 strict value of the bread I ate, of the candle I burned, and of ' 
 the pallet on which I slept. I had brought but one book with 
 me, which I read at evening on the bench before the inn door ; 
 it was Werther, in Geiman ; and the unknown characters con- 
 firmed my hosts in the idea that I was a foreign traveler. 
 
 I thus wandered through the long and picturesque gorges of 
 Bugey, and crossed the Rhone at the foot of the rock of Pierre- 
 Chatel. The narrowed river eternally I'ushes past the base of 
 this rock, with a current wearing as the grind-stone and cutting 
 as the knife, as if to undermine and oveithrow the state prison, 
 whose gloomy shadow saddens its waters. I sk)wly ascended 
 the Mont du Chat by the paths of the chamois hunteis ; arrived 
 at its summit, I perceived stretclied out before me in the dis- 
 tance, the valley of Aix, Chambery, and Annecy; and at my 
 feet the lake, dappled with rosy tints by the floating rays of the
 
 134 RAPHAEL. 
 
 setting sun. One single image filled for me the immensity of 
 this liorizon ; it rose from the chalets where we had met ; from 
 the doctor's garden, the pointed slate roof of whose house I could 
 recognize above the smoke of the town ; from the fig trees of 
 the little castle of Bon-Poit at the bottom of the o])posite creek; 
 from the chestnut trees on the hill of Tresserves ; from the 
 woods of Saint Innocent; from the island of Chatillon ; from 
 the boats which were returning to their moorings, from all this 
 earth, from all this sky, from all these waves ! I fell on my 
 knees before this horizon filled with one image ; I spread out 
 my arms and folded them again, as if I could have embraced 
 her spirit by clasping the air which had swept over these scenes 
 of our happiness, over all the traces of her footsteps ! 
 
 I then sat down behind a rock which screened me even from 
 the sight of the goatherds, as they passed along the path. There 
 I remained, sunk in contemplation, and reveling in remem- 
 brances, till the sun was almost dipping behind the snow-clad 
 tops of Nivoles. I did not wish to cross the lake, or enter the 
 town by daylight, as the homeliness of my dress, the scanti- 
 ness of my purse, and the frugality of life to which I was con- 
 strained, in order to live some months near Julie, would have 
 seemed strange to the inmates of the old doctor's house. They 
 formed too great a contrast with my elegance in dress, and 
 habits of life, during the preceding season. I should have 
 made those blush whom I had accosted in the streets, in the 
 garb of one who had not even the means of locating himself in 
 a decent hotel in this abode of luxury. I had, therefore, re- 
 solved to slip by night into the humble suburb, borderhig a 
 rivulet, which runs through the orchards below the town. 
 
 I knew there a poor young serving girl, called Fauchette, 
 who had married a boatman the year before. She had reserved 
 some beds in the garret of her cottage, that she might board 
 and lodge one or two poor invalids at fifteen sous a day. I had 
 engaged one of these rooms, and a place at the humble board 
 of the good creature. My friend, L * * *, from Chambery, to 
 whom I had written, naming the day of my ai-rival on tlie 
 borders of the lake, had some days previously taken my lodging 
 and warned Fauchette of my arrival, binding her to secrecy. 
 I had also begged him to receive, under ccn'er to himself, at 
 Chambery, any letters that miglit be addressed to me from 
 Paris. He was to forward them to me by one of the drivers 
 of the light carts that run continually between the two towns.
 
 RAPHAEL. 135 
 
 I intended, during my stay at Aix, to remain in the day time 
 concealed in my little cottage room, or in the surrounding 
 orchards. I would only, I thought, go out in the evening ; I 
 would go up to the doctor's house by the skirts of the town; 
 I would enter the garden by the gate which opened on tlie 
 country, and pass in delightful intercourse the solitary evening 
 hours. I would bear with pleasure want and humiliation, which 
 would be compensated a thousand fold by those hours of love. 
 I thought thus to conciliate the respect I owed to my poor 
 mother for the sacrifices she had made, with my devotion to 
 the idol I came to worship. 
 
 XCVI. — From a pious superstition of love, I had calculated 
 my steps during my long pedestrian journey, so as to arrive at 
 the Abbey of Haute-Combe, on the other side of the Mont du 
 Chat, upon the anniversary of the day that the miracle of our 
 meeting, and the revelation of our two hearts, had taken place 
 in the fisherman's inn on the borders of the lake. It seemed 
 to me that days, like all other mortal things, had their destiny, 
 and that in the conjunction of the same sun, the same month, 
 the same date, and in the same spot, I might find something of 
 her I loved. It would be an augui-y, at least, of our speedy 
 and lasting reunion. 
 
 XCVII. — From the brink of the almost perpendicular sides 
 of the Mont du Chat that descend to the lake, I could see on 
 my left the old ruins and the lengthening shadows of the Abbey, 
 which darkened a vast extent of the waters. In a few minutes 
 I reached the spot. The sun was sinking behind the Alps, and 
 the long twilight of autumn enveloped the mountains, the 
 waves, and the shore. I did not stop at the ruins, and passed 
 rapidly through the orchard where we had sat at the foot of 
 the haystack, near the bee hives. The hives and the haystack 
 were still there ; but there was no glow of fire lighting the 
 windows of the little inn, no smoke ascending from the roof, no 
 nets hung out to dry on the palisades of the garden. 
 
 I knocked, no one answered ; 1 shook the wooden latch, and 
 the door opened of itself I entered the little hall with the 
 smoky walls ; the hearth was swept clean, even to the very 
 ashes, and the table and furniture had been removed. The 
 flagstones of the pavement were strewed with straws and 
 feathers, that had fallen from five or six empty swallows' nests
 
 136 HAPHAEL. 
 
 which hung from the blackened beams of the ceiling. I went 
 up the wooden ladder which was fastened to the wall by an 
 iron hook, and served to ascend into the upper room where 
 Julie had awaked from her swoon, with her hand on my fore- 
 head. I entered as one enters a sanctuary or a sepulcher, and 
 looked around ; the wooden beds, the presses, the stools were 
 all gone. The sound of my footsteps frightened a nocturnal 
 bird of prey, that heavily flapped its wings, and after beating 
 against the walls, flew out with a shrill cry, through the open 
 window into the orchard. I could scarcely distinguish the 
 place where I had knelt during that terrible and yet enchanting 
 night, at the bedside of the sleeper or of the dead. I kissed 
 the floor, and sat for a long while on the edge of the window, 
 trying to evoke again in ray memory, the room, the furnitui'e, 
 the bed, the lamp, the hours, which had kept their place within 
 me, though all had been changed during a single year of absence. 
 There was no one in the lonely neighborhood of the cottage 
 who could furnish any information as to the cause of its being 
 thus deserted. I conjectured from the lieaps of fagots which 
 remained in the yard, from the hens and pigeons which returned 
 of themselves to roost in the room, or on the roof, and from the 
 stacks of hay and straw which stood untouched in the orchard, 
 that the family had gone to gather in a late harvest in the high 
 chalets of the mountain, and had not yet come down again. 
 
 The solitude of which I had thus taken possession was sad ; 
 not so sad, however, as the presence of the indiffei-ent in a spot 
 that was sacred in my eyes. I must have controlled before them 
 my looks, my voice, my gestures, and the impressions that as- 
 sailed me. I resolved to pass the night there, and brought up 
 a bundle of fresh straw, which I spread on the floor, on the same 
 spot where Julie had slept her death-like sleep. I leaned ray 
 gun against the wall, and then took out of my knapsack some 
 bread and a goat cheese that I had bought at Seyssel to support 
 me on the road. I went out to eat my supper on a green plat- 
 form above the ruins of the Abbey, by the side of the spring 
 which flows and stops alternately, like the intermittent breathing 
 of the mountain. 
 
 XCVIII. — From the edge of that platform, and from the dis- 
 mantled terraces of the old monastery, at evening time, the eye 
 einbraces the most enchanting horizon that ever delighted an 
 anchorite, a contemplator, or a lover. Behind is the green and
 
 RAPHAEL. 137 
 
 humid slmde of the mountain, with the murmur of its source, and 
 the rustling of its foliage ; and on one side the ruins, the broken 
 walls, with their garlands of ivy, and the dark arcades replete 
 with night and mystery, the lake with its expiring waves slowly 
 rolling, one by one; then fringes of spray at the foot of the rocks, 
 as if to spread its couch and lull its sleep on the fine sands. On 
 the opposite shore, the blue mountains clothed with their trans- 
 jiarent tints ; and on the right, as far as the eye can reach, the 
 luminous track that the sun leaves in crimson light on the sky 
 and on the lake, when it withdraws its splendor. I reveled in 
 this light and shade, in these clouds and waves, I incorporated 
 myself with lovely nature, and thought thus to incorporate in 
 me the image of her who was all nature for me. 1 inwardly 
 said, I saw her there ! I was at that distance from her boat 
 when I saw it struggling against the stonn. There is the shore 
 where she landed ! There is the orchard where we opened our 
 hearts to each other in the sunshine, and where she returned to 
 life to give me two lives. There in the distance aie the tops of 
 the poplars of the great avenue which unrolls its length like a 
 green serpent issuing from the waves ! There are the chalets, 
 mossy turf, and woods of chestnut trees, the sheltered paths upon 
 the highest mountain-plains, where I picked flowers, strawber- 
 ries, and chestnuts to fill her lap ! There she said this ; there 
 I confessed some secret of my soul, and on that spot we re- 
 mained a whole evening silent, our hearts flooded with enthu- 
 siasm, our lips without language ! Upon these waves she wished 
 to die; upon this shore she promised me to live ! Beneath yon- 
 der group of walnut trees, then leafless, she bid me farewell, 
 and promised me that I should see her again befure the new 
 leaves should have turned yellow ! They are about to change : 
 but love is faithful as Nature. In a few days 1 shall see her 
 once more I see her already; for am I not here await- 
 ing her, and thus to wait is it not as though I saw her again ] 
 
 XCIX. — Then I pictured to myself the instant when, from 
 the shady orchards that slope down from the mountains behind 
 the old doctor's house, I should see at last that window of the 
 closed room where she was expected — see it open for the first 
 time, and a woman's face, half-hidden in its long dark hair, ap- 
 pear between the open curtains, dreaming of that brother whom 
 her eye seeks in the glorious landscape, where she, too, sees but 
 him And at that image my heart beat so impetuously
 
 138 RAPHAEL. 
 
 in my breast that I was forced to drive away the fancy for an 
 instant in order to breathe. 
 
 In the mean time, night had ahnost entirely descended from 
 the mountain to the lake. One could only see the waters 
 through a mist that glazed and darkened their wide expanse. 
 Amid the pi'ofound and universal silence which precedes dark- 
 ness, the regular sound of oars which seemed to approach land, 
 smote upon my ear. I soon saw a little speck moving on the 
 waters, and increasing gradually in size until it slid into the lit- 
 tle cove near the fisherman's house, throwing on either side a 
 light fringe of spray. Thinking that it might be the fisherman 
 returning from the Savoy coast to his deserted dwelling, I hur- 
 ried down from the ruins to the shore, to be there when the 
 boat came in. I waited on the sand till the fisherman landed. 
 
 C. — As soon as he saw me he cried out, "Are you, sir, the 
 young Frenchman who is expected at Fauchette's, and to whom 
 I have been ordered to give these papers'?" So saying, he 
 jumped out of the boat, and, wading knee-deep through the 
 water, handed me a thick letter. I felt by its weight that it 
 was an inclosure containing many others. I hastily tore open 
 the first cover, and read indistinctly, in the dim moonlight, a 
 note from my friend L * * *, dated that same morning from 
 Chambery. L * * * informed me that my lodging was taken 
 and prepared for me at Fauchette's poor house in the Fau- 
 bourg, and that no one had yet arrived from Paris at our old 
 friend the doctor's. He added, that, having learned from my- 
 self that I should be that same evening at Haute-Combe to 
 spend the night and a part of the following day, he had taken 
 advantage of the departure of a trusty boatman who was to pass 
 beneath the Abbey walls, to send me a packet of letters, which 
 had arrived two days before, and that I was doubtless eagerly 
 expecting. He purposed joining me at Haute-Combe the fol- 
 lowing day, that we might cross the lake together, and enter the 
 town under the shadow of night. 
 
 CI. — While my eye glanced over the note, I held the packet 
 with a trembling hand. It seemed to me heavy as my fate. I 
 hastened to pay and dismiss the boatman, who was impatient 
 to be off, so as to leave the lake and enter the waters of the 
 Rhone before dark. I only asked him for a piece of candle, to 
 enable me to read my letters; he gave it, and I soon heard the
 
 RAPHAEL. 139 
 
 Strokes of his oars, as they once more cut through the deep sheet 
 of water. I returned overjoyed to the upper room, to see once 
 more the sacred characters of that angel in the very place where 
 she had first revealed herself to me in all her splendor and in 
 all her love. I felt sure that one of those letters must inform 
 me that she had left Paris and would soon be with me. I sat 
 down on the bundle of straw which I had bi'ought up for my 
 bed, and liglited my candle by means of the priming of my gun. 
 1 hastily tore open the cover, and it was only then I perceived 
 that the seal of the first envelope was black, and that the address 
 was in the hand-writing of Dr. Alain. I shuddered as I saw 
 mourning where I had expected to find joy. The other letters 
 slid from my hands an to my knees. 1 dared not read on for 
 
 fear of finding alas! what neither hand, nor eye, nor 
 
 blood, nor tears, nor earth, nor heaven could evermore efface 
 
 Death ! Though my very soul trembled so as 
 
 to make the syllables dance befoi'e my eyes, I read at last these 
 words : 
 
 "Prove yourself a man ! Submit yourself to the will of Him 
 
 whose ways are not our ways ; expect her no longer ! 
 
 Look for her no more on earth ; she has returned to Heaven, 
 
 calling on your name Thursday at sunrise She 
 
 told me all before she died She directed me to send you 
 
 her last thoughts, which she wrote down, till the very instant 
 
 her hand grew cold while tracing your name Love her 
 
 in Christ, who loved us unto death, and live for your mother! 
 
 " Alain." 
 
 CII. — I fell back senseless on the straw, and only recovered 
 consciousness when the cold air of midnight chilled my brow. 
 The light was still burning, and the doctor's letter was grasped 
 convulsively in my hand. The untouched packet had fallen on 
 the floor ; I opened it with my lips, as if I feared to profane the 
 heavenly message by breaking the seal with my fingers. Sev- 
 eral long letters from Julie fell out; they were arranged accord- 
 ing to dates. 
 
 In the first there was : " Raphael ! O my Raphael ! O my 
 brother ! forgive your sister for having so long deceived you. 
 
 I never hoped to see you once more in Savoy ! 
 
 I knew that my days were numbered, and that I could not 
 
 live on till that day of happiness ! When I said at the 
 
 gate of the garden of Monceau, We shall meet again, Raphael,
 
 140 RAPHAEL. 
 
 you did not understand me, but God did. I meant to say 
 We shall meet again, once more to love, to bless eternally 
 in Heaven ! I begged Dr. Alain to aid me in deceiving you, 
 and sending you away fiom Paris. It was my wish, it was my 
 duty, to spare you such a sight of anguish as would have torn 
 your heart asunder, and would have been too much for your 
 
 strength And then again .... forgive me, 1 must tell you 
 
 all — I did not wish you to see me die I wished to spread 
 
 a vail between us some time before death ! . . . . Cold death ! 
 .... I feel it, see it, and shudder at myself in death 1 Raphael! 
 I sought to leave an image of beauty in your eyes, that you 
 might ever contemplate and adore ^. But now, you must not 
 go ... . you must not go to await me in Savoy ! Yet a little 
 while .... two or thi'ee days, perhaps .... and you need seek 
 me nowhere ! But I shall be there, Raphael ! I shall be 
 every where, and always where you are." 
 
 This letter had been moistened with tears, which had un- 
 glazed and stiffened the paper. 
 
 In the other, dated the following night, I read : — 
 
 " Midnight. 
 
 " Raphael, your prayers have drawn down a blessing from 
 Heaven upon me. I thought yesterday of the ti-ee of adora- 
 tion at St. Cloud, at whose foot I saw God through your soul. 
 But there is another holier tree — the Cross !....! have em- 
 braced it I will cling to it evermore Oh, how that 
 
 divine blood cleanses ! how those divine tears purify ! . . . . Yes- 
 terday I sent for a holy priest of whom Alain had spoken. He 
 is an old man who knows every thing; who forgives all ! I have 
 discovered my soul to him, and he has shed on it the love and 
 
 light of God How good is God ! how indulgent, how full 
 
 of loving kindness ! How little we know him ! He suffers 
 me to love you, to have you for my brother, to be your sister 
 here below, if I live ; your guardian angel above, if I die 1 O, 
 Raphael ! let us love him, since he permits that we should love 
 one another as we do !". ... At the end of the letter there was 
 a little cross traced, and, as it were, the impress of a kiss all 
 round. 
 
 Cin. — There was another letter written in a totally altered 
 hand, where the characters crossed and mingled on the page, as 
 if traced in the dark, which said: 
 
 " Raphael ! I must say one word more — to-morrow, perhaps,
 
 RAPHAEL. 141 
 
 I could not. — When I am dead, oh ! do not die ! I shall watch 
 over you from above — I shall be good and powerful, as the 
 loving God, to whom I shall be united, is good and powerful. 
 
 After me, you must love again God will send you another 
 
 sister, who will be, moreover, the pious helpmate of your life. 
 
 .... I will myself ask it of him Fear not to grieve my 
 
 soul, Raphael ! . . . . I — could I be jealous in Heaven of your 
 happiness 1 .... I feel better now I have said this. Alain will 
 
 forward these lines to you, and a lock of my hair I am 
 
 going to sleep !" 
 
 One letter more, almost illegible, contained only these inter- 
 rupted lines : " Raphael ! Raphael ! where are you 1 I have 
 
 had strength to get out of bed I have told the nurse that 
 
 I wished to be left alone to rest. I have dragged myself along 
 
 to the table, where I am writing by the light of the lamp 
 
 But I can see no more .... my eyes swim in darkness .... 
 black spots flit across the paper .... Raphael ! I can no longer 
 write .... Oh, one word more ! " 
 
 Then, in large letters, like those of a child trying to write for 
 the first time, there are two words which occupy a whole line, 
 filling the bottom of the page : " Farewell, Raphael !" 
 
 CIV. — All the letters fell from my hands. I was sobbing 
 without tears, when I perceived another little note in the hand- 
 writing of the old man, her husband ; it had slid between the 
 pages as I was unsealing the first envelope. 
 
 There were only these words : " She breathed her last, her 
 hand in mine, a few hours after writing you her last farewell. 
 
 I have lost my daughter Be my son for the few days I 
 
 have yet to live. She is there upon her bed, as if asleep, with 
 an expression on her features of one whose last thought smiled 
 at seeing something beyond our world. She never was so 
 lovely ; and as I look on her, I require to believe in immortal- 
 ity I loved you through her; for her sake, love me !" 
 
 C V. — ^How strange, and yet how fortunate for human nature, 
 is the impossibility of immediately believing in the complete 
 disappearance of a much-loved being ! Though the evidence 
 of her death lay scattered around, I could not believe that 
 I was forever separated from her. Her remembrance, her 
 image, her features, the sound of her voice, the peculiar turn of 
 her expressions, the charm of her countenance, were so pres-
 
 142 RAPHAEL. 
 
 ent, and, as it were, so incorporate in me, that she seemed 
 more than ever with me ; she appeared to envelop me, to 
 converse with me, to call me by my name, as though I could 
 have risen to meet her, and to see her once more. God leaves 
 a space between the certainty of our loss and the consciousness 
 of reality, like the interval which our senses measure between 
 the instant when the eye sees the ax fall on the tree, and the 
 sound in our ear of the same blow long after. This distance 
 deadens grief, by cheating it. For some time after losing those 
 we love, we have not completely lost them ; we live on by the 
 prolongation of their life in us. We feel as when we have been 
 long watching the setting sun — though its orb has sunk below 
 the horizon, its rays are not set in our eyes — they still shine on 
 our soul. It is only gradually, and as our impressions become 
 more distinct as they cool, that we are made to know the com- 
 plete and heartfelt separation — that we can say, she is dead in 
 me ! For death is not death, but oblivion. 
 
 This phenomenon of grief was shown in its full force in me 
 during that night. God suffered me not to drain at one draught 
 my cup of woe, lest it should overwhelm my very soul — He 
 vouchsafed to me the delusive belief, which I long retained, of 
 her inward presence. In me, before me, and around me, I 
 saw that heavenly being, who had been sent to me for one single 
 year, to direct my thoughts and looks forevermore towai'd the 
 Heaven to which she returned in her spring of youth and love. 
 
 When the poor boatman's candle was burned out, I took up 
 my letters and hid them in my bosom. I kissed a thousand 
 times the floor of the room which had been the cradle, and was 
 now the tomb, of our love. I unconsciously took my gun, and 
 rushed wildly through the mountain passes. The night w^as 
 dark ; the wind had risen. The waves of the lake, dashing 
 against the rocks, lashed them with such hollow blows, and sent 
 forth sounds so like to human voices, that many times I stopped 
 breathless, and turned round, as if I had been called by name. 
 Yes, I was called ; and I was not mistaken ; but the voice 
 came from Heaven ! 
 
 CVI. — You know, my friend, who found me the next morn- 
 ing, wandering among precipices, in the mists of the Rhone ; 
 who raised me up, supported me, and brought me back to my 
 poor mother's arms ! 
 
 Now, fifteen years have rolled by, without sweeping away
 
 RAPHAEL. 143 
 
 in theii- course a single memory of that one great year of my 
 youth. According to Julie's promise to send me from above 
 one who should comfort me, God has exchanged his gift against 
 another — he has not withdrawn it. I often return to visit the 
 valley of Cliambery and the lake of Aix, with her who has 
 made my hopes patient and gentle as felicity. When I sit on 
 the heights of the hill of Tresserves, at the foot of those chestnut 
 trees that have felt her heart beat against their bark ; Avhen I 
 look at the lake, the mountains, snows and meadows, trees and 
 jagged rocks, swimming in a warm atmosphere which seems to 
 bathe all nature in one perfumed liquid ; when I hear the sigh- 
 ing breeze, the humming insects, and the quivering leaves, the 
 waves of the lake breaking on the shore, with the gentle rust- 
 ling sound of silken folds unrolling one by one; when I see the 
 shadow of her whom God has made my companion until my 
 life's end, cast beside mine upon the grass or sand ; when I feel 
 vsrithin me a plenitude that desires nothing before death, and 
 peace untroubled by a single sigh ; methinks I see the blessed 
 soul of her who appeared to me in this spot, rise dazzling and 
 immortal, from every point of the horizon, fill, of herself alone, 
 the sky and waters, shine in that splendor, float in that ether, 
 burn in all those flames. I see it penetrate those waves, 
 breathe in their murmurs; pray, and laud, and sing in that one 
 hymn of life that streams with these cascades from glacier unto 
 lake ; and shed upon the valley and on those who keep her 
 memory, a blessing that the eye seems to see, the ear to hear, 
 the heart to feel ! 
 
 Here ended Raphael's first manuscript.

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482