Evening lit up the sky with its gleaming tints of copper; little by
little the chattering family groups fell silent, and the darkling trees
assumed the look of long-drawn, solemn colonnades. Alas! it was not
under this familiar aspect that night fell for our captive goldfinch. A
dirty whitewashed wall, on which hung strangely shaped objects, replaced
the sable curtain spangled with stars that twilight spreads over the
countryside. A guttering, flaring candle smoked on the table, bearing
how faint a resemblance to the silver moon! and by its sordid light the
hard-hearted wretch who had robbed him of his liberty was moving to and
fro.
Ah! what right had he, this miserable birdcatcher, this highway robber,
to tear him from the free air, the hedgerows and the green fields? Tiny
though he be, is the bird therefore of no import to the leaves, the
winds, the trees, which without him would be voiceless? Has the blue sky
no need of his outspread wings, his echoing song, the flutter of his
plumage?
What use the pool glittering in the woodland, if he was not there to dip
his beak in it and absorb in a drop of water the red of dawn, the gold
of noon, the deep shadow of the quivering leaves? Is not a little bird
the less a disaster in the forests and orchard-closes, a voice silenced
in the symphony of nature, a furrow left barren in the fields of space,
a bright point vanished from the azure sky? Is not the universe
disturbed for the loss of a little creature wherein all nature is summed
up and glorified?
The man blew out the taper, and a moonbeam shot in at the garret-window
and fell on the poor captive.
It formed, as it were, a luminous rail on which his thoughts glided; and
they always travelled in one direction—to his little _fiancée_, who at
that moment, softly cradled by the night wind, was fast asleep and
dreaming of the great to-morrow.
The moon paled and daylight appeared.
Yonder no doubt all was ready; the harebells were ringing their peal,
the drones were organing their deep music, while the trembling bride,
white as the lilies, was asking herself why her bridegroom did not come.
The cuckoo clanged out the hour of dawn. One and all were ready for the
fête; only _his_ arrival was waited for.
The hours slipped by without his appearing, and little by little the
murmuring and muttering, low at first, grew louder and louder, and rose
into a perfect tempest of cries and jeers and gibes. The chaffinches
were jubilant, the parents disconsolate. And what of her, the poor,
despairing bride? Her pretty innocent eyes could not bear the light of
day; stricken to the heart by this unaccountable desertion, she was
borne away fainting, half dead with shame and sorrow.