I strove to speak, but could not. My sobs spoke, and my tears promised.
We got up to join the muleteers, and returned at sunset by the long
avenue of leafless poplars, where we had passed before, when she held
my hand so long in the palanquin. As we went through the straggling
faubourg of cottages, at the entrance of the town, and crossed the
Place to enter the steep street of Aix, sad faces were seen greeting us
at the windows and at the doors; as kind souls watch the departure of
two belated swallows, who are the last to leave the walls which have
sheltered them. Poor women rose from the stone bench where they were
spinning before their houses; children left the goats and donkeys which
they were driving home; all came to address a word, a look, or even a
silent bow of recognition to the young lady, and the one they supposed
to be her brother. She was so beautiful, so gracious to all, so loved,
it seemed as though the last ray of the year was retiring from the
valley.
When we had reached the top of the town, we got down from our mules and
dismissed the children. As we did not wish to lose an hour of this last
day that still shone on the rose-tinted snows of the Alps, we climbed
slowly, and alone, up a narrow path which leads to the garden terrace
of a house called the Maison Chevalier. From this terrace, which seems
like a platform erected in the centre of a panorama, the eye embraces
the town, the lake, the passes of the Rhône, and all the peaks of the
Alpine landscape. We sat down on the fallen trunk of a tree, and leaned
on the parapet wall of the terrace; we remained mute and motionless,
looking by turns at all the different spots, that for the last six
weeks had witnessed our looks and steps, our twofold dreams, and our
sighs. When all these had one by one faded away in the dim shade of
twilight; when there was only one corner of the horizon, to westward,
where a faint light remained,--we started up with one accord, and fled
precipitately, casting vain and sorrowing looks behind as if some
invisible hand had driven us out of this Eden, and pitilessly effaced
on our steps all the scene of our happiness and love.