depths behind; in shaded places the hatchings were much more clearly drawn, displaying the meshes of the network; in the brighter parts this misty thread was imperceptible and became lost in a diffused light. In the air there was something drowsy, damply warm, and sweetly dull, which strangely predisposed to melancholy.
“As I went along I thought that with me too autumn was come and the radiant summer vanished never to return; the tree of my soul was perhaps stripped even barer than the trees of the forests; only, on the loftiest bough a single green little leaf remained, swaying and quivering, and full of sadness to see its sisters leave it one by one.
“Remain on the tree, O little leaf the color of hope, cling to the bough with all the strength of thy ribs and fibres; let not thyself be dismayed by the whistlings of the wind, O good little leaf! for, when thou art gone, who will mark whether I be a dead or living tree, and who will restrain the woodman that he cut not my foot with blows of his axe nor make faggots of my boughs? It is not yet the time when trees are bare of leaves, and the sun may yet rid himself of the misty swaddling-clothes which are about him.
“This sight of the dying season impressed me greatly. I thought that time was flying fast, and that I might die without clasping my ideal to my heart.
“As I returned home I formed a resolution. Since I could not make up my mind to speak, I wrote all my destiny on a sheet of paper. Perhaps it is ridiculous to write to some one living in the same house with you, and whom you may see any day at any hour; but I am no longer one to consider what is ridiculous or not.
“I sealed my letter not without trembling and changing color; then, choosing a time when Theodore was out, I placed it on the middle of his table, and fled with as much agitation as though I had performed the most abominable action in the world.”
Rosette's Infatuation
XII
I promised you the continuation of my adventures; but I am so lazy about writing, that I really must love you as the apple of my eye, and know that you are more inquisitive than eve or Psyche, to be able to sit down before a table with a large sheet of white paper which is to be turned quite black, and an ink-bottle deeper than the sea, whose every drop must turn into thoughts, or something like them, without coming to the sudden resolution of mounting on horseback and going at full speed over the eighty enormous leagues which separate us, to tell you viva-voce what I am going to scrawl to you in imperceptible lines, so that I may not be frightened myself at the prodigious volume of my Picaresque odyssey.
“Eighty leagues! to think that there is all this space between me and the person whom I love best in the world! I have a great mind to tear up my letter and have my horse saddled. But I forgot; in the dress that I am wearing I could not approach you and resume the familiar life which we used to lead together when we were very ingenuous and innocent little girls. If I ever go back to petticoats it will certainly be from this motive.
“I left you, I think, at the departure from the inn where I had passed such a comical night, and where my virtue was nearly making shipwreck as it was leaving the harbor. We all set out together, going in the same direction. My companions were in the greatest raptures over the beauty of my house, which is, in fact, a thoroughbred, and one of the best coursers in existence; this raised me at least half a cubit in their estimation, and they added all my mount's deserts to my own. Nevertheless, they seemed to fear that it was too frisky and spirited for me. I bade them calm their fears, and to show them that there was no danger, made it curvet several times; then I cleared rather a high fence, and set off at a gallop.
“The band tried in vain to follow me; I turned bridle when I was far enough away, and returned at full speed to meet them; when I was close to them I checked my horse as he was launched out on his four feet and stopped him short, which, as you know, or, as you do not know, is a genuine feat of strength.
“From esteem they passed at a bound to the profoundest respect. They had not suspected that a young scholar, who had only just left the university, was so good a horseman as all that. This discovery that they made was of greater service to me than if they had recognized in me every theological and cardinal virtue;-instead of treating me as a youngster they spoke to me with a tone of obsequious familiarity which was very gratifying to me.
“I had not laid aside my pride with my clothes: being no longer a woman, I wished to be in every respect a man, and not to be satisfied with having merely the external appearance of one. I had made up my mind to have as a gentleman the success to which, in the character of a woman, I could no longer pretend. What I was most anxious about was to know how I should proceed in order to possess courage; for courage and skill in bodily exercises are the means by which men find it easiest to establish their reputation. It is not that I am timid for a woman, and I am devoid of the idiotic pusillanimity to be seen in many; but from this to the fierce and heedless brutality which is the glory of men there still remains a wide interval, and my intention was to become a little fire- eater, a hector like men of fashion, so that I might be on a good footing in society and enjoy all the advantages of my metamorphosis.
“But the course of events showed me that nothing was easier, and that the recipe for it was very simple.
“I will not relate to you, after the custom of travellers, that I did so many leagues on such a day, and went from such a place to such another, that the roast at the White Horse or the Iron Cross was raw or burnt, the wine sour, and the bed in which I slept hung with figured or flowered curtains; such details are very important and fitting to be preserved for posterity; but posterity must do without them for once, and you must submit to be ignorant of the number of dishes composing my dinner, and whether I slept well or ill during the course of my travels.
“Nor shall I give you an exact description of the different landscapes, the corn-fields and forests, the various modes of cultivation and the hamlet-laden hills which passed in succession before my eyes: it is easy to imagine them; take a little earth, plant a few trees and some blades of grass on it, daub on a bit of greyish or pale blue sky behind, and you will have a very sufficient idea of the moving background against which our little caravan was to be seen. If, in my first letter, I entered into some details of the kind, pray excuse me, I will not relapse into the same fault again: as I had never gone out before, the least thing seemed, to me of enormous importance.
“One of the gentlemen, the sharer of my bed, he whom I had nearly pulled by the sleeve in that memorable night the agonies of which I have described to you at length, conceived a great passion for me, and kept his horse by the side of mine the whole time.
“Except that I would not have accepted him for a lover though he brought me the fairest crown in the world, he was not at all displeasing; he was well-informed, and was not without wit and good humor: only, when he spoke of women, he did so with an air of contempt and irony, for which I would most willingly have torn both his eyes out of his head, and this the more because, for all its exaggeration, there was a great deal in what he said that was cruelly true, and the justice of which my man's attire compelled me to admit.
“He invited me so pressingly and so often to go with him on a visit to one of his sisters, whose widowhood was nearly over, and who was then living at an old mansion with one of his aunts, that I could not refuse him. I made a few objections for form's sake, for in reality I was as ready to go there as anywhere else, and I could attain my end as well in this fashion as in another; and, as he assured me that he would feel quite offended if I did not give him at least a fortnight, I replied that I was willing, and that the matter was settled.
“At the branching of the road, my companion, pointing to the right stroke of this natural Y, said to me: 'It is down there!' The rest gave us a grasp of the hand and departed in the other direction.
“After a few hours' travelling we reached our destination.
“A moat, which was rather broad, but which was filled with abundant and bushy vegetation instead of with water, separated the park from the high-road; it was lined with freestone, and the angles bristled with gigantic iron spikes, which looked as if they had grown like natural plants between the disjointed blocks of the wall. A little one- arched bridge crossed this dry channel and gave access to the gateway.
“An avenue of lofty elms, arched like an arbor and cut in the old style, appeared before you first of all; and, after following it for some time, you arrived at a kind of crossroads.
“The trees looked superannuated rather than old; they appeared to be wearing wigs and white powder; only a little tuft of foliage had been spared to them quite at the top; all the remainder was carefully pruned, so that they might have been taken for huge plumes planted at intervals in the ground.
