In the Days of My Youth Part 69

And still she never dreamed how dear she had grown to me. She never knew how the very air seemed purer to me because she breathed it. She never guessed how I watched the light from her window night after night--how I listened to every murmur in her chamber--how I watched and waited for the merest glimpse of her as she pa.s.sed by--how her lightest glance hurried the pulses through my heart--how her coldest word was garnered up in the treasure-house of my memory! What cared she, though to her I had dedicated all the "book and volume of my brain;" hallowed its every page with blazonings of her name; and illuminated it, for love of her, with fair images, and holy thoughts, and forms of saints and angels

"Innumerable, of stains and splendid dyes As are the tiger-moth's deep damask'd wings?"

Ah me! her hand was never yet outstretched to undo its golden clasps--her eye had never yet deigned to rest upon its records. To her I was nothing, or less than nothing--a fellow-student, a fellow-lodger, a stranger.

And yet I loved her "with a love that was more than love"--with a love dearer than life and stronger than death--a love that, day after day, struck its roots deeper and farther into my very soul, never thence to be torn up here or hereafter.

CHAPTER XLIII.

ON A WINTER'S EVENING.

After a more than usually severe winter, the early spring came, crowned with rime instead of primroses. Paris was intensely cold. In March the Seine was still frozen, and snow lay thickly on the house-tops. Quiet at all times, the little nook in which I lived became monastically still, and at night, when the great gates were closed, and the footsteps of the pa.s.sers-by fell noiselessly upon the trodden snow, you might have heard a whisper from one side of the street to the other. There was to me something indescribably delightful about this silent solitude in the heart of a great city.

Sitting beside the fire one evening, enjoying the profound calm of the place, attending from time to time to my little coffee-pot on the hob, and slowly turning the pages of a favorite author, I luxuriate in a state of mind half idle, half studious. Leaving off presently to listen to some sound which I hear, or fancy I hear, in the adjoining room, I wonder for the twentieth time whether Hortense has yet returned from her long day's teaching; and so rise--open my window--and look out. Yes; the light from her reading-lamp streams out at last across the snow-laden balcony. Heigho! it is something even to know that she is there so near me--divided only by a thin part.i.tion!

Trying to comfort myself with this thought, I close the window again and return to my book, more restless and absent than before. Sitting thus, with the unturned leaf lingering between my thumb and forefinger, I hear a rapid footfall on the stairs, and a musical whistle which, growing louder as it draws nearer, breaks off at my door, and is followed by a prolonged a.s.sault and battery of the outer panels.

"Welcome, noisiest of visitors!" I exclaim, knowing it to be Muller before I even open the door. "You are quite a stranger. You have not been near me for a fortnight."

"It will not be your fault, Signor Book-worm, if I don't become a stranger _au pied de la lettre_" replies he, cheerily. "Why, man, it is close upon three weeks since you have crossed the threshold of my door.

The Quartier Latin is aggrieved by your neglect, and the fine arts t'other side of the water languish and are forlorn."

So saying, he shakes the snow from his coat like a St. Bernard mastiff, perches his cap on the head of the plaster Niobe that adorns my chimney-piece, and lays aside the folio which he had been carrying under his arm. I, in the meanwhile, have wheeled an easy-chair to the fire, brought out a bottle of Chambertin, and piled on more wood in honor of my guest.

"You can't think," said I, shaking hands with him for the second time, "how glad I am that you have come round to-night."

"I quite believe it," replied he. "You must be bored to death, if these old busts are all the society you keep. _Sacre nom d'une pipe_! how can a fellow keep up his conviviality by the perpetual contemplation of Niobe and Jupiter Tonans? What do you mean by living such a life as this? Have you turned Trappist? Shall I head a subscription to present you with a skull and an hour-gla.s.s?"

"I'll have the skull made into a drinking-cup, if you do. Take some wine."

Muller filled his gla.s.s, tasted with the air of a connoisseur, and nodded approvingly.

"Chambertin, by the G.o.d Bacchus!" said he. "Napoleon's favorite wine, and mine--evidence of the sympathy that exists between the truly great."

And, draining the gla.s.s, he burst into a song in praise of French wines, beginning--

"Le Chambertin rend joyeux, Le Nuits rend infatigable, Le Volnay rend amoureux, Le Champagne rend amiable.

Grisons-nous, mes chers amis, L'ivresse Vaut la richesse; Pour moi, des que le suis gris, Je possede tout Paris!"

"Oh hush!" said I, uneasily; "not so loud, pray!"

"Why not?"

"The--the neighbors, you know. We cannot do as we would in the Quartier Latin."

"Nonsense, my dear fellow. You don't swear yourself to silence when you take apartments in a _hotel meuble_! You might as well live in a penitentiary!--

'De bouchons faisons un tas, Et s'il faut avoir la goutte, Au moins que ce ne soit pas Pour n'avoir bu qu'une goutte!'"

"Nay, I implore you!" I interposed again. "The landlord ..."

"Hang the landlord!

'Grisons-nous--'"

"Well, but--but there is a lady in the next room ..."

Muller laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

"_Allons done_!" said he, "why not have told the truth at first? Oh, you sly rogue! You _gaillard_! This is your seclusion, is it? This is your love of learning--this the secret of your researches into science and art! What art, pray? Ovid's 'Art of Love,' I'll be sworn!"

"Laugh on, pray," I said, feeling my face and my temper growing hot; "but that lady, who is a stranger to me"....

"Oh--oh--oh!" cried Muller.

"Who is a stranger to me," I repeated, "and who pa.s.ses her evenings in study, must not be annoyed by noises in my room. Surely, my dear fellow, you know me well enough to understand whether I am in jest or in earnest."

Muller laid his hand upon my sleeve.

"Enough--enough," he said, smiling good-naturedly. "You are right, and I will be as dumb as Plato. What is the lady's name."

"Dufresnoy," I answered, somewhat reluctantly. "Mademoiselle Dufresnoy."

"Ay, but her Christian name!"

"Her Christian name," I faltered, more reluctant still. "I--I--"

"Don't say you don't know," said Muller, maliciously. "It isn't worth while. After all, what does it matter? Here's to her health, all the same--_a votre sante_, Mademoiselle Dufresnoy! What! not drink her health, though I have filled your gla.s.s on purpose?"

There was no help for it, so I took the gla.s.s and drank the toast with the best grace I could.

"And now, tell me," continued my companion, drawing nearer to the fire and settling himself with a confidential air that was peculiarly provoking, "what is she like? Young or old? Dark or fair? Plain or pretty?"

"Old," said I, desperately. "Old and ugly. Fifty at the least. Squints horribly."

Then, thinking that I had been a little too emphatic, I added:--

"But a very ladylike person, and exceedingly well-informed,"

Muller looked at me gravely, and filled his gla.s.s again.

"I think I know the lady," said he.

"Indeed?"

"Yes--by your description. You forgot to add, however, that she is gray."