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_ During the second year, precisely at the point in this history
which the reader has now reached, it chanced that this habit of
the Luxembourg was interrupted, without Marius himself being quite
aware why, and nearly six months elapsed, during which he did not set
foot in the alley. One day, at last, he returned thither once more;
it was a serene summer morning, and Marius was in joyous mood,
as one is when the weather is fine. It seemed to him that he had
in his heart all the songs of the birds that he was listening to,
and all the bits of blue sky of which he caught glimpses through
the leaves of the trees.
He went straight to "his alley," and when he reached the end of it
he perceived, still on the same bench, that well-known couple.
Only, when he approached, it certainly was the same man; but it seemed
to him that it was no longer the same girl. The person whom he now
beheld was a tall and beautiful creature, possessed of all the most
charming lines of a woman at the precise moment when they are still
combined with all the most ingenuous graces of the child; a pure
and fugitive moment, which can be expressed only by these two words,--
"fifteen years." She had wonderful brown hair, shaded with threads
of gold, a brow that seemed made of marble, cheeks that seemed made
of rose-leaf, a pale flush, an agitated whiteness, an exquisite mouth,
whence smiles darted like sunbeams, and words like music, a head
such as Raphael would have given to Mary, set upon a neck that Jean
Goujon would have attributed to a Venus. And, in order that nothing
might be lacking to this bewitching face, her nose was not handsome--
it was pretty; neither straight nor curved, neither Italian nor Greek;
it was the Parisian nose, that is to say, spiritual, delicate,
irregular, pure,--which drives painters to despair, and charms poets.
When Marius passed near her, he could not see her eyes, which were
constantly lowered. He saw only her long chestnut lashes,
permeated with shadow and modesty.
This did not prevent the beautiful child from smiling as she
listened to what the white-haired old man was saying to her,
and nothing could be more fascinating than that fresh smile,
combined with those drooping eyes.
For a moment, Marius thought that she was another daughter of the
same man, a sister of the former, no doubt. But when the invariable
habit of his stroll brought him, for the second time, near the bench,
and he had examined her attentively, he recognized her as the same.
In six months the little girl had become a young maiden; that was all.
Nothing is more frequent than this phenomenon. There is a moment
when girls blossom out in the twinkling of an eye, and become roses
all at once. One left them children but yesterday; today, one finds
them disquieting to the feelings.
This child had not only grown, she had become idealized.
As three days in April suffice to cover certain trees with flowers,
six months had sufficed to clothe her with beauty. Her April
had arrived.
One sometimes sees people, who, poor and mean, seem to wake up,
pass suddenly from indigence to luxury, indulge in expenditures
of all sorts, and become dazzling, prodigal, magnificent, all of
a sudden. That is the result of having pocketed an income; a note
fell due yesterday. The young girl had received her quarterly income.
And then, she was no longer the school-girl with her felt hat,
her merino gown, her scholar's shoes, and red hands; taste had
come to her with beauty; she was a well-dressed person, clad with
a sort of rich and simple elegance, and without affectation.
She wore a dress of black damask, a cape of the same material,
and a bonnet of white crape. Her white gloves displayed the delicacy
of the hand which toyed with the carved, Chinese ivory handle of
a parasol, and her silken shoe outlined the smallness of her foot.
When one passed near her, her whole toilette exhaled a youthful and
penetrating perfume.
As for the man, he was the same as usual.
The second time that Marius approached her, the young girl raised
her eyelids; her eyes were of a deep, celestial blue, but in that
veiled azure, there was, as yet, nothing but the glance of a child.
She looked at Marius indifferently, as she would have stared at the brat
running beneath the sycamores, or the marble vase which cast a shadow
on the bench, and Marius, on his side, continued his promenade,
and thought about something else.
He passed near the bench where the young girl sat, five or six times,
but without even turning his eyes in her direction.
On the following days, he returned, as was his wont, to the Luxembourg;
as usual, he found there "the father and daughter;" but he paid
no further attention to them. He thought no more about the girl
now that she was beautiful than he had when she was homely.
He passed very near the bench where she sat, because such was
his habit. _
Read next: VOLUME III: BOOK SIXTH - THE CONJUNCTION OF TWO STARS: CHAPTER III. Effect of the Spring
Read previous: VOLUME III: BOOK SIXTH - THE CONJUNCTION OF TWO STARS: CHAPTER I. The Sobriquet; Mode of Formation of Family Names
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