With the first day of spring, when the awakening earth puts on its
garment of green, and the warm, fragrant air fans our faces and fills
our lungs and appears even to penetrate to our hearts, we experience a
vague, undefined longing for freedom, for happiness, a desire to run, to
wander aimlessly, to breathe in the spring. The previous winter
having been unusually severe, this spring feeling was like a form of
intoxication in May, as if there were an overabundant supply of sap.
One morning on waking I saw from my window the blue sky glowing in the
sun above the neighboring houses. The canaries hanging in the windows
were singing loudly, and so were the servants on every floor; a cheerful
noise rose up from the streets, and I went out, my spirits as bright as
the day, to go--I did not exactly know where. Everybody I met seemed to
be smiling; an air of happiness appeared to pervade everything in the
warm light of returning spring. One might almost have said that a breeze
of love was blowing through the city, and the sight of the young women
whom I saw in the streets in their morning toilets, in the depths of
whose eyes there lurked a hidden tenderness, and who walked with languid
grace, filled my heart with agitation.
Without knowing how or why, I found myself on the banks of the Seine.
Steamboats were starting for Suresnes, and suddenly I was seized by an
unconquerable desire to take a walk through the woods. The deck of the
Mouche was covered with passengers, for the sun in early spring draws
one out of the house, in spite of themselves, and everybody moves about,
goes and comes and talks to his neighbor.
I had a girl neighbor; a little work-girl, no doubt, who possessed the
true Parisian charm: a little head, with light curly hair, which looked
like a shimmer of light as it danced in the wind, came down to her
ears, and descended to the nape of her neck, where it became such
fine, light-colored clown that one could scarcely see it, but felt an
irresistible desire to shower kisses on it.
Under my persistent gaze, she turned her head toward me, and then
immediately looked down, while a slight crease at the side of her mouth,
that was ready to break out into a smile, also showed a fine, silky,
pale down which the sun was gilding a little.
The calm river grew wider; the atmosphere was warm and perfectly still,
but a murmur of life seemed to fill all space.
My neighbor raised her eyes again, and this time, as I was still looking
at her, she smiled decidedly. She was charming, and in her passing
glance I saw a thousand things, which I had hitherto been ignorant of,
for I perceived unknown depths, all the charm of tenderness, all the
poetry which we dream of, all the happiness which we are continually in
search of. I felt an insane longing to open my arms and to carry her off
somewhere, so as to whisper the sweet music of words of love into her
ears.
I was just about to address her when somebody touched me on
the shoulder, and as I turned round in some surprise, I saw an
ordinary-looking man, who was neither young nor old, and who gazed at me
sadly.
“I should like to speak to you,” he said.