DAILY, as I continued my attendance at the seminary of Mdlle. Reuter,
did I find fresh occasions to compare the ideal with the real. What
had I known of female character previously to my arrival at Brussels?
Precious little. And what was my notion of it? Something vague, slight,
gauzy, glittering; now when I came in contact with it I found it to be
a palpable substance enough; very hard too sometimes, and often heavy;
there was metal in it, both lead and iron.
Let the idealists, the dreamers about earthly angel and human flowers,
just look here while I open my portfolio and show them a sketch or
two, pencilled after nature. I took these sketches in the second-class
schoolroom of Mdlle. Reuter’s establishment, where about a hundred
specimens of the genus “jeune fille” collected together offered a
fertile variety of subject. A miscellaneous assortment they were,
differing both in caste and country; as I sat on my estrade and glanced
over the long range of desks, I had under my eye French, English,
Belgians, Austrians, and Prussians. The majority belonged to the class
bourgeois; but there were many countesses, there were the daughters of
two generals and of several colonels, captains, and government EMPLOYES;
these ladies sat side by side with young females destined to be
demoiselles de magasins, and with some Flamandes, genuine aborigines of
the country. In dress all were nearly similar, and in manners there was
small difference; exceptions there were to the general rule, but the
majority gave the tone to the establishment, and that tone was rough,
boisterous, masked by a point-blank disregard of all forbearance towards
each other or their teachers; an eager pursuit by each individual of her
own interest and convenience; and a coarse indifference to the interest
and convenience of every one else. Most of them could lie with audacity
when it appeared advantageous to do so. All understood the art of
speaking fair when a point was to be gained, and could with consummate
skill and at a moment’s notice turn the cold shoulder the instant
civility ceased to be profitable. Very little open quarrelling ever took
place amongst them; but backbiting and talebearing were universal. Close
friendships were forbidden by the rules of the school, and no one girl
seemed to cultivate more regard for another than was just necessary to
secure a companion when solitude would have been irksome. They were each
and all supposed to have been reared in utter unconsciousness of vice.
The precautions used to keep them ignorant, if not innocent, were
innumerable. How was it, then, that scarcely one of those girls having
attained the age of fourteen could look a man in the face with modesty
and propriety? An air of bold, impudent flirtation, or a loose, silly
leer, was sure to answer the most ordinary glance from a masculine eye.
I know nothing of the arcana of the Roman Catholic religion, and I
am not a bigot in matters of theology, but I suspect the root of this
precocious impurity, so obvious, so general in Popish countries, is to
be found in the discipline, if not the doctrines of the Church of Rome.
I record what I have seen: these girls belonged to what are called the
respectable ranks of society; they had all been carefully brought up,
yet was the mass of them mentally depraved. So much for the general
view: now for one or two selected specimens.
The first picture is a full length of Aurelia Koslow, a German fraulein,
or rather a half-breed between German and Russian. She is eighteen years
of age, and has been sent to Brussels to finish her education; she is
of middle size, stiffly made, body long, legs short, bust much developed
but not compactly moulded, waist disproportionately compressed by an
inhumanly braced corset, dress carefully arranged, large feet tortured
into small bottines, head small, hair smoothed, braided, oiled, and
gummed to perfection; very low forehead, very diminutive and vindictive
grey eyes, somewhat Tartar features, rather flat nose, rather high-cheek
bones, yet the ensemble not positively ugly; tolerably good complexion.
So much for person. As to mind, deplorably ignorant and ill-informed:
incapable of writing or speaking correctly even German, her native
tongue, a dunce in French, and her attempts at learning English a mere
farce, yet she has been at school twelve years; but as she invariably
gets her exercises, of every description, done by a fellow pupil, and
reads her lessons off a book concealed in her lap, it is not wonderful
that her progress has been so snail-like. I do not know what Aurelia’s
daily habits of life are, because I have not the opportunity of
observing her at all times; but from what I see of the state of her
desk, books, and papers, I should say she is slovenly and even dirty;
her outward dress, as I have said, is well attended to, but in passing
behind her bench, I have remarked that her neck is gray for want of
washing, and her hair, so glossy with gum and grease, is not such as
one feels tempted to pass the hand over, much less to run the fingers
through. Aurelia’s conduct in class, at least when I am present, is
something extraordinary, considered as an index of girlish innocence.
The moment I enter the room, she nudges her next neighbour and indulges
in a half-suppressed laugh. As I take my seat on the estrade, she
fixes her eye on me; she seems resolved to attract, and, if possible,
monopolize my notice: to this end she launches at me all sorts of looks,
languishing, provoking, leering, laughing. As I am found quite proof
against this sort of artillery--for we scorn what, unasked, is lavishly
offered--she has recourse to the expedient of making noises; sometimes
she sighs, sometimes groans, sometimes utters inarticulate sounds, for
which language has no name. If, in walking up the schoolroom, I pass
near her, she puts out her foot that it may touch mine; if I do not
happen to observe the manoeuvre, and my boot comes in contact with her
brodequin, she affects to fall into convulsions of suppressed laughter;
if I notice the snare and avoid it, she expresses her mortification in
sullen muttering, where I hear myself abused in bad French, pronounced
with an intolerable Low German accent.
Not far from Mdlle. Koslow sits another young lady by name Adele
Dronsart: this is a Belgian, rather low of stature, in form heavy,
with broad waist, short neck and limbs, good red and white complexion,
features well chiselled and regular, well-cut eyes of a clear brown
colour, light brown hair, good teeth, age not much above fifteen, but as
full-grown as a stout young Englishwoman of twenty. This portrait gives
the idea of a somewhat dumpy but good-looking damsel, does it not? Well,
when I looked along the row of young heads, my eye generally stopped at
this of Adele’s; her gaze was ever waiting for mine, and it frequently
succeeded in arresting it. She was an unnatural-looking being--so young,
fresh, blooming, yet so Gorgon-like. Suspicion, sullen ill-temper were
on her forehead, vicious propensities in her eye, envy and panther-like
deceit about her mouth. In general she sat very still; her massive shape
looked as if it could not bend much, nor did her large head--so broad
at the base, so narrow towards the top--seem made to turn readily on her
short neck. She had but two varieties of expression; the prevalent one
a forbidding, dissatisfied scowl, varied sometimes by a most pernicious
and perfidious smile. She was shunned by her fellow-pupils, for, bad as
many of them were, few were as bad as she.
Aurelia and Adele were in the first division of the second class; the
second division was headed by a pensionnaire named Juanna Trista. This
girl was of mixed Belgian and Spanish origin; her Flemish mother was
dead, her Catalonian father was a merchant residing in the ---- Isles,
where Juanna had been born and whence she was sent to Europe to be
educated. I wonder that any one, looking at that girl’s head and
countenance, would have received her under their roof. She had precisely
the same shape of skull as Pope Alexander the Sixth; her organs
of benevolence, veneration, conscientiousness, adhesiveness, were
singularly small, those of self-esteem, firmness, destructiveness,
combativeness, preposterously large; her head sloped up in the penthouse
shape, was contracted about the forehead, and prominent behind; she
had rather good, though large and marked features; her temperament was
fibrous and bilious, her complexion pale and dark, hair and eyes black,
form angular and rigid but proportionate, age fifteen.
Juanna was not very thin, but she had a gaunt visage, and her “regard”
was fierce and hungry; narrow as was her brow, it presented space enough
for the legible graving of two words, Mutiny and Hate; in some one of
her other lineaments I think the eye--cowardice had also its distinct
cipher. Mdlle. Trista thought fit to trouble my first lessons with a
coarse work-day sort of turbulence; she made noises with her mouth like
a horse, she ejected her saliva, she uttered brutal expressions; behind
and below her were seated a band of very vulgar, inferior-looking
Flamandes, including two or three examples of that deformity of person
and imbecility of intellect whose frequency in the Low Countries would
seem to furnish proof that the climate is such as to induce degeneracy
of the human mind and body; these, I soon found, were completely under
her influence, and with their aid she got up and sustained a swinish
tumult, which I was constrained at last to quell by ordering her and two
of her tools to rise from their seats, and, having kept them standing
five minutes, turning them bodily out of the schoolroom: the accomplices
into a large place adjoining called the grands salle; the principal
into a cabinet, of which I closed the door and pocketed the key. This
judgment I executed in the presence of Mdlle. Reuter, who looked much
aghast at beholding so decided a proceeding--the most severe that had
ever been ventured on in her establishment. Her look of affright I
answered with one of composure, and finally with a smile, which perhaps
flattered, and certainly soothed her. Juanna Trista remained in Europe
long enough to repay, by malevolence and ingratitude, all who had ever
done her a good turn; and she then went to join her father in the----
Isles, exulting in the thought that she should there have slaves, whom,
as she said, she could kick and strike at will.
These three pictures are from the life. I possess others, as marked and
as little agreeable, but I will spare my reader the exhibition of them.
Doubtless it will be thought that I ought now, by way of contrast, to
show something charming; some gentle virgin head, circled with a halo,
some sweet personification of innocence, clasping the dove of peace to
her bosom. No: I saw nothing of the sort, and therefore cannot portray
it. The pupil in the school possessing the happiest disposition was
a young girl from the country, Louise Path; she was sufficiently
benevolent and obliging, but not well taught nor well mannered;
moreover, the plague-spot of dissimulation was in her also; honour and
principle were unknown to her, she had scarcely heard their names. The
least exceptionable pupil was the poor little Sylvie I have mentioned
once before. Sylvie was gentle in manners, intelligent in mind; she was
even sincere, as far as her religion would permit her to be so, but her
physical organization was defective; weak health stunted her growth and
chilled her spirits, and then, destined as she was for the cloister,
her whole soul was warped to a conventual bias, and in the tame, trained
subjection of her manner, one read that she had already prepared herself
for her future course of life, by giving up her independence of thought
and action into the hands of some despotic confessor. She permitted
herself no original opinion, no preference of companion or employment;
in everything she was guided by another. With a pale, passive, automaton
air, she went about all day long doing what she was bid; never what she
liked, or what, from innate conviction, she thought it right to do. The
poor little future religieuse had been early taught to make the dictates
of her own reason and conscience quite subordinate to the will of
her spiritual director. She was the model pupil of Mdlle. Reuter’s
establishment; pale, blighted image, where life lingered feebly, but
whence the soul had been conjured by Romish wizard-craft!
A few English pupils there were in this school, and these might be
divided into two classes. 1st. The continental English--the daughters
chiefly of broken adventurers, whom debt or dishonour had driven from
their own country. These poor girls had never known the advantages
of settled homes, decorous example, or honest Protestant education;
resident a few months now in one Catholic school, now in another, as
their parents wandered from land to land--from France to Germany, from
Germany to Belgium--they had picked up some scanty instruction, many bad
habits, losing every notion even of the first elements of religion and
morals, and acquiring an imbecile indifference to every sentiment that
can elevate humanity; they were distinguishable by an habitual look
of sullen dejection, the result of crushed self-respect and constant
browbeating from their Popish fellow-pupils, who hated them as English,
and scorned them as heretics.
The second class were British English. Of these I did not encounter half
a dozen during the whole time of my attendance at the seminary; their
characteristics were clean but careless dress, ill-arranged hair
(compared with the tight and trim foreigners), erect carriage, flexible
figures, white and taper hands, features more irregular, but also more
intellectual than those of the Belgians, grave and modest countenances,
a general air of native propriety and decency; by this last circumstance
alone I could at a glance distinguish the daughter of Albion and
nursling of Protestantism from the foster-child of Rome, the PROTEGEE
of Jesuistry: proud, too, was the aspect of these British girls; at once
envied and ridiculed by their continental associates, they warded off
insult with austere civility, and met hate with mute disdain; they
eschewed company-keeping, and in the midst of numbers seemed to dwell
isolated.
The teachers presiding over this mixed multitude were three in number,
all French--their names Mdlles. Zephyrine, Pelagie, and Suzette; the two
last were commonplace personages enough; their look was ordinary,
their manner was ordinary, their temper was ordinary, their thoughts,
feelings, and views were all ordinary--were I to write a chapter on the
subject I could not elucidate it further. Zephyrine was somewhat more
distinguished in appearance and deportment than Pelagie and Suzette,
but in character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and
dry-hearted. A fourth maitresse I sometimes saw who seemed to come daily
to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or some such flimsy
art; but of her I never had more than a passing glimpse, as she sat in
the CARRE, with her frames and some dozen of the elder pupils about her,
consequently I had no opportunity of studying her character, or even of
observing her person much; the latter, I remarked, had a very English
air for a maitresse, otherwise it was not striking; of character I
should think she possessed but little, as her pupils seemed constantly
“en revolte” against her authority. She did not reside in the house; her
name, I think, was Mdlle. Henri.
Amidst this assemblage of all that was insignificant and defective, much
that was vicious and repulsive (by that last epithet many would have
described the two or three stiff, silent, decently behaved, ill-dressed
British girls), the sensible, sagacious, affable directress shone like a
steady star over a marsh full of Jack-o’-lanthorns; profoundly aware
of her superiority, she derived an inward bliss from that consciousness
which sustained her under all the care and responsibility inseparable
from her position; it kept her temper calm, her brow smooth, her manner
tranquil. She liked--as who would not?--on entering the school-room,
to feel that her sole presence sufficed to diffuse that order and
quiet which all the remonstrances, and even commands, of her underlings
frequently failed to enforce; she liked to stand in comparison, or
rather--contrast, with those who surrounded her, and to know that in
personal as well as mental advantages, she bore away the undisputed
palm of preference--(the three teachers were all plain.) Her pupils she
managed with such indulgence and address, taking always on herself the
office of recompenser and eulogist, and abandoning to her subalterns
every invidious task of blame and punishment, that they all regarded her
with deference, if not with affection; her teachers did not love her,
but they submitted because they were her inferiors in everything; the
various masters who attended her school were each and all in some way
or other under her influence; over one she had acquired power by her
skilful management of his bad temper; over another by little attentions
to his petty caprices; a third she had subdued by flattery; a fourth--a
timid man--she kept in awe by a sort of austere decision of mien; me,
she still watched, still tried by the most ingenious tests--she roved
round me, baffled, yet persevering; I believe she thought I was like
a smooth and bare precipice, which offered neither jutting stone nor
tree-root, nor tuft of grass to aid the climber. Now she flattered
with exquisite tact, now she moralized, now she tried how far I was
accessible to mercenary motives, then she disported on the brink of
affection--knowing that some men are won by weakness--anon, she talked
excellent sense, aware that others have the folly to admire judgment.
I found it at once pleasant and easy to evade all these efforts; it was
sweet, when she thought me nearly won, to turn round and to smile in
her very eyes, half scornfully, and then to witness her scarcely veiled,
though mute mortification. Still she persevered, and at last, I am bound
to confess it, her finger, essaying, proving every atom of the casket,
touched its secret spring, and for a moment the lid sprung open; she
laid her hand on the jewel within; whether she stole and broke it, or
whether the lid shut again with a snap on her fingers, read on, and you
shall know.
It happened that I came one day to give a lesson when I was indisposed;
I had a bad cold and a cough; two hours’ incessant talking left me very
hoarse and tired; as I quitted the schoolroom, and was passing along the
corridor, I met Mdlle. Reuter; she remarked, with an anxious air, that
I looked very pale and tired. “Yes,” I said, “I was fatigued;” and then,
with increased interest, she rejoined, “You shall not go away till you
have had some refreshment.” She persuaded me to step into the parlour,
and was very kind and gentle while I stayed. The next day she was kinder
still; she came herself into the class to see that the windows were
closed, and that there was no draught; she exhorted me with friendly
earnestness not to over-exert myself; when I went away, she gave me
her hand unasked, and I could not but mark, by a respectful and gentle
pressure, that I was sensible of the favour, and grateful for it. My
modest demonstration kindled a little merry smile on her countenance;
I thought her almost charming. During the remainder of the evening, my
mind was full of impatience for the afternoon of the next day to arrive,
that I might see her again.
I was not disappointed, for she sat in the class during the whole of my
subsequent lesson, and often looked at me almost with affection. At four
o’clock she accompanied me out of the schoolroom, asking with solicitude
after my health, then scolding me sweetly because I spoke too loud and
gave myself too much trouble; I stopped at the glass-door which led into
the garden, to hear her lecture to the end; the door was open, it was a
very fine day, and while I listened to the soothing reprimand, I looked
at the sunshine and flowers, and felt very happy. The day-scholars began
to pour from the schoolrooms into the passage.
“Will you go into the garden a minute or two,” asked she, “till they are
gone?”
I descended the steps without answering, but I looked back as much as to
say--
“You will come with me?”
In another minute I and the directress were walking side by side down
the alley bordered with fruit-trees, whose white blossoms were then in
full blow as well as their tender green leaves. The sky was blue, the
air still, the May afternoon was full of brightness and fragrance.
Released from the stifling class, surrounded with flowers and foliage,
with a pleasing, smiling, affable woman at my side--how did I feel? Why,
very enviably. It seemed as if the romantic visions my imagination had
suggested of this garden, while it was yet hidden from me by the jealous
boards, were more than realized; and, when a turn in the alley shut out
the view of the house, and some tall shrubs excluded M. Pelet’s
mansion, and screened us momentarily from the other houses, rising
amphitheatre-like round this green spot, I gave my arm to Mdlle. Reuter,
and led her to a garden-chair, nestled under some lilacs near. She sat
down; I took my place at her side. She went on talking to me with that
ease which communicates ease, and, as I listened, a revelation dawned
in my mind that I was on the brink of falling in love. The dinner-bell
rang, both at her house and M. Pelet’s; we were obliged to part; I
detained her a moment as she was moving away.
“I want something,” said I.
“What?” asked Zoraide naively.
“Only a flower.”
“Gather it then--or two, or twenty, if you like.”
“No--one will do--but you must gather it, and give it to me.”
“What a caprice!” she exclaimed, but she raised herself on her tip-toes,
and, plucking a beautiful branch of lilac, offered it to me with grace.
I took it, and went away, satisfied for the present, and hopeful for the
future.
Certainly that May day was a lovely one, and it closed in moonlight
night of summer warmth and serenity. I remember this well; for, having
sat up late that evening, correcting devoirs, and feeling weary and
a little oppressed with the closeness of my small room, I opened the
often-mentioned boarded window, whose boards, however, I had persuaded
old Madame Pelet to have removed since I had filled the post of
professor in the pensionnat de demoiselles, as, from that time, it
was no longer “inconvenient” for me to overlook my own pupils at their
sports. I sat down in the window-seat, rested my arm on the sill,
and leaned out: above me was the clear-obscure of a cloudless
night sky--splendid moonlight subdued the tremulous sparkle of the
stars--below lay the garden, varied with silvery lustre and deep shade,
and all fresh with dew--a grateful perfume exhaled from the closed
blossoms of the fruit-trees--not a leaf stirred, the night was
breezeless. My window looked directly down upon a certain walk of Mdlle.
Reuter’s garden, called “l’allee defendue,” so named because the pupils
were forbidden to enter it on account of its proximity to the boys’
school. It was here that the lilacs and laburnums grew especially thick;
this was the most sheltered nook in the enclosure, its shrubs screened
the garden-chair where that afternoon I had sat with the young
directress. I need not say that my thoughts were chiefly with her as
I leaned from the lattice, and let my eye roam, now over the walks and
borders of the garden, now along the many-windowed front of the house
which rose white beyond the masses of foliage. I wondered in what part
of the building was situated her apartment; and a single light, shining
through the persiennes of one croisee, seemed to direct me to it.
“She watches late,” thought I, “for it must be now near midnight. She
is a fascinating little woman,” I continued in voiceless soliloquy; “her
image forms a pleasant picture in memory; I know she is not what the
world calls pretty--no matter, there is harmony in her aspect, and I
like it; her brown hair, her blue eye, the freshness of her cheek, the
whiteness of her neck, all suit my taste. Then I respect her talent;
the idea of marrying a doll or a fool was always abhorrent to me: I know
that a pretty doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon;
but when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood
laid in my bosom, a half idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that
I had made of this my equal--nay, my idol--to know that I must pass the
rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what
I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathizing with what I
felt! “Now, Zoraide Reuter,” thought I, “has tact, CARACTERE, judgment,
discretion; has she heart? What a good, simple little smile played
about her lips when she gave me the branch of lilacs! I have thought her
crafty, dissembling, interested sometimes, it is true; but may not much
that looks like cunning and dissimulation in her conduct be only
the efforts made by a bland temper to traverse quietly perplexing
difficulties? And as to interest, she wishes to make her way in the
world, no doubt, and who can blame her? Even if she be truly deficient
in sound principle, is it not rather her misfortune than her fault? She
has been brought up a Catholic: had she been born an Englishwoman, and
reared a Protestant, might she not have added straight integrity to
all her other excellences? Supposing she were to marry an English and
Protestant husband, would she not, rational, sensible as she is, quickly
acknowledge the superiority of right over expediency, honesty over
policy? It would be worth a man’s while to try the experiment; to-morrow
I will renew my observations. She knows that I watch her: how calm she
is under scrutiny! it seems rather to gratify than annoy her.” Here a
strain of music stole in upon my monologue, and suspended it; it was
a bugle, very skilfully played, in the neighbourhood of the park, I
thought, or on the Place Royale. So sweet were the tones, so subduing
their effect at that hour, in the midst of silence and under the
quiet reign of moonlight, I ceased to think, that I might listen more
intently. The strain retreated, its sound waxed fainter and was soon
gone; my ear prepared to repose on the absolute hush of midnight once
more. No. What murmur was that which, low, and yet near and approaching
nearer, frustrated the expectation of total silence? It was some one
conversing--yes, evidently, an audible, though subdued voice spoke in
the garden immediately below me. Another answered; the first voice was
that of a man, the second that of a woman; and a man and a woman I saw
coming slowly down the alley. Their forms were at first in shade, I
could but discern a dusk outline of each, but a ray of moonlight met
them at the termination of the walk, when they were under my very nose,
and revealed very plainly, very unequivocally, Mdlle. Zoraide Reuter,
arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand (I forget which) with my principal,
confidant, and counsellor, M. Francois Pelet. And M. Pelet was saying--
“A quand donc le jour des noces, ma bien-aimee?”
And Mdlle. Reuter answered--
“Mais, Francois, tu sais bien qu’il me serait impossible de me marier
avant les vacances.”
“June, July, August, a whole quarter!” exclaimed the director. “How can
I wait so long?--I who am ready, even now, to expire at your feet with
impatience!”
“Ah! if you die, the whole affair will be settled without any trouble
about notaries and contracts; I shall only have to order a slight
mourning dress, which will be much sooner prepared than the nuptial
trousseau.”
“Cruel Zoraide! you laugh at the distress of one who loves you so
devotedly as I do: my torment is your sport; you scruple not to stretch
my soul on the rack of jealousy; for, deny it as you will, I am certain
you have cast encouraging glances on that school-boy, Crimsworth; he has
presumed to fall in love, which he dared not have done unless you had
given him room to hope.”
“What do you say, Francois? Do you say Crimsworth is in love with me?”
“Over head and ears.”
“Has he told you so?”
“No--but I see it in his face: he blushes whenever your name is
mentioned.” A little laugh of exulting coquetry announced Mdlle.
Reuter’s gratification at this piece of intelligence (which was a lie,
by-the-by--I had never been so far gone as that, after all). M. Pelet
proceeded to ask what she intended to do with me, intimating pretty
plainly, and not very gallantly, that it was nonsense for her to think
of taking such a “blanc-bec” as a husband, since she must be at least
ten years older than I (was she then thirty-two? I should not have
thought it). I heard her disclaim any intentions on the subject--the
director, however, still pressed her to give a definite answer.
“Francois,” said she, “you are jealous,” and still she laughed; then, as
if suddenly recollecting that this coquetry was not consistent with the
character for modest dignity she wished to establish, she proceeded,
in a demure voice: “Truly, my dear Francois, I will not deny that this
young Englishman may have made some attempts to ingratiate himself with
me; but, so far from giving him any encouragement, I have always treated
him with as much reserve as it was possible to combine with civility;
affianced as I am to you, I would give no man false hopes; believe me,
dear friend.” Still Pelet uttered murmurs of distrust--so I judged, at
least, from her reply.
“What folly! How could I prefer an unknown foreigner to you? And
then--not to flatter your vanity--Crimsworth could not bear comparison
with you either physically or mentally; he is not a handsome man at all;
some may call him gentleman-like and intelligent-looking, but for my
part--”
The rest of the sentence was lost in the distance, as the pair, rising
from the chair in which they had been seated, moved away. I waited their
return, but soon the opening and shutting of a door informed me that
they had re-entered the house; I listened a little longer, all was
perfectly still; I listened more than an hour--at last I heard M. Pelet
come in and ascend to his chamber. Glancing once more towards the long
front of the garden-house, I perceived that its solitary light was
at length extinguished; so, for a time, was my faith in love and
friendship. I went to bed, but something feverish and fiery had got into
my veins which prevented me from sleeping much that night.