The autumn was mild, but had set in early. The leaves which had been
blighted by the morning frost fell in roseate showers from the vines
and chestnut-trees. Until noon, the mist overspread the valley, like an
overflowing nocturnal inundation, covering all but the tops of the
highest poplars in the plain; the hillocks rose in view like islands,
and the peaks of mountains appeared as headlands in the midst of ocean;
but when the sun rose higher in the heavens, the mild southerly breeze
drove before it all these vapors of earth. The rushing of the
imprisoned winds in the gorges of the mountains, the murmur of the
waters, and the whispering trees, produced sounds melodious or
powerful, sonorous or melancholy, and seemed in a few minutes to run
through the whole range of earth's joys and sorrows its strength or its
melancholy. They stirred up one's very soul, then died away like the
voices of celestial spirits, that pass and disappear. Silence, such as
the ear has no preception of elsewhere, succeeded, and hushed all to
rest. The sky resumed its almost Italian serenity; the Alps stood out
once more against a cloudless sky; the drops from the dissolving mist
fell pattering on the dry leaves, or shone like brilliants on the
grass. These hours were quickly over; the pale blue shades of evening
glided swiftly on, veiling the horizon with their cold drapery as with
a shroud. It seemed the death of Nature, dying, as youth and beauty
die, with all its charms, and all its serenity.
Scenes such as these exhibiting Nature in its languid beauty were too
much in accordance with my feelings. While they gave an additional
charm to my own languor, they increased it, and I voluntarily plunged
into an abyss of melancholy. But it was a melancholy so replete with
thoughts, impressions, and elevating desires, with so soft a twilight
of the soul, that I had no wish to shake it off. It was a malady the
very consciousness of which was an allurement, rather than a pain, and
in which Death appeared but as a voluptuous vanishing into space. I had
given myself up to the charm, and had determined to keep aloof from
society, which might have dissipated it, and in the midst of the world
to wrap myself in silence, solitude, and reserve. I used my isolation
of mind as a shroud to shut out the sight of men, so as to contemplate
God and Nature only.
Passing by Chambery, I had seen my friend, Louis de ----; I had found
him in the same state of mind as myself, disgusted with the bitterness
of life, his genius, unappreciated, the body worn out by the mind, and
all his better feelings thrown back upon his heart.
Louis had mentioned to me a quiet and secluded house, in the higher
part of the town of Aix, where invalids were admitted to board. The
establishment was conducted by a worthy old doctor (who had retired
from the profession), and communicated with the town by a narrow
pathway, which lay between the streams that issue from the hot springs.
The back of the house looked on a garden surrounded by trellis and vine
arbors; and beyond that there were paths where goats only were to be
seen, which led to the mountain through sloping meadows, and through
woods of chestnut and walnut-trees. Louis had promised to join me at
Aix, as soon as he should have settled some business, consequent on the
death of his mother, which detained him at Chambéry. I looked forward
with pleasure to his arrival, for we understood each other, and the
same feeling of disenchantment was common to us both. Grief knits two
hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings
are far stronger links than common joys. Louis was, at that particular
time, the only person whose society was not distasteful to me, and yet
I awaited his arrival without eagerness or impatience.