I travelled day and night in such complete dizziness of thought that I
felt neither cold, hunger nor distance, and arrived at M---- as if
awaking from a dream, and scarcely remembered that I had been to Paris.
I found my friend Louis awaiting me at my father's house in the
country. His presence was soothing to me; I could at least speak to him
of her whom he admired as much as I did. We slept in the same room, and
part of our nights were spent in talking of the heavenly vision, by
which he had been as dazzled as myself. He considered her as one of
those delusions of fancy, one of those women above mortal height, like
Tasso's Eleanora, Dante's Beatrice, Petrarch's Laura, or Vittoria
Colonna, the lover, the poet, and the heroine at once,--forms that flit
across the earth, scarcely touching it, and without tarrying, only to
fascinate the eyes of some men, the privileged few of love, to lead on
their souls to immortal aspirations, and to be the _sursum corda_ of
superior imaginations. As to Louis, he dared not raise his love as high
as his enthusiasm. His sensitive and tender heart, which had been early
wounded, was at that time filled with the image of a poor and pious
orphan, one of his own family. His happiness would have been to have
married her, and to live in obscurity and peace in a cottage among the
hills of Chambéry. Want of fortune restricted the two poor lovers to a
hopeless and tender friendship, from the fear of lowering the name of
their family in poverty, or of bequeathing indigence to children. The
young girl died some years after, of solitude and hopelessness. I have
never seen a sweeter face droop and die for the want of a few of
fortune's rays. Her countenance, where might be traced the remains of
blooming youth, equally ready to revive or to fade forever, bore in the
highest degree the sublime and touching impress of that virtue of the
unhappy, called resignation. She became blind in consequence of the
secret tears she shed during her long years of expectation and
uncertainty. I met her once, on my return from one of my journeys to
Italy. She was led by the hand through the streets of Chambéry, by one
of her little sisters. When she heard my voice, she turned pale, and
felt for some support with her poor hesitating hand: "Pardon me," she
said; "but when I used formerly to hear that voice, I always heard with
it another." Poor girl! she now listens to her lover's voice in heaven.