Thus passed away, without other change than that afforded by my
studies, and our ever-varying impressions, the delightful months of
winter. They were drawing to a close. The early splendors of spring
already began to glance fitfully from the roofs upon the damp and
gloomy wilderness of the streets of Paris. My friend V----, recalled by
his mother, was gone, and had left me alone in the little room where he
had harbored me during my stay. He was to return in the autumn, and had
paid for the lodging for a whole year, so that, though absent, he still
extended to me his brotherly hospitality. It was with sorrow I saw him
depart; none remained to whom I could speak of Julie. The burden of my
feelings would now be doubly heavy, when I could no longer relieve
myself by resting it on the heart of another; but it was a weight of
happiness,--I could still uphold it. It was soon to become a load of
anguish, which I could confide to no living being, and least of all to
her whom I loved.
My mother wrote me, that straightened means, caused by unexpected
reverses of fortune, which had fallen on my father in quick and harsh
succession, had reduced to comparative indigence our once open and
hospitable paternal home, obliging my poor father to withhold the half
of my allowance, to enable him to meet, and that only with much
difficulty, the expense of maintaining and educating six other
children. It was therefore incumbent upon me, she said, either by my
own unaided efforts to maintain myself honorably in Paris, or to return
home and live with resignation in the country, sharing the common
pittance of all. My mother's tenderness sought beforehand to comfort me
under this sad necessity; she dwelt on the joy it would be to her to
see me again, and placed before me, in most attractive colors, the
prospect of the labors and simple pleasures of a rural life. On the
other hand, some of the associates of my early years of gambling and
dissipation, who had now fallen into poverty, having met me in Paris,
reminded me of sundry trifling obligations which I had contracted
towards them, and begged me to come to their assistance. They stripped
me thus, by degrees, of the greater part of that little hoard which I
had saved by strict economy, to enable me to live longer in Paris. My
purse was well-nigh empty, and I began to think of courting fortune
through fame. One morning, after a desperate struggle between timidity
and love, love triumphed. I concealed beneath my coat my small
manuscript, bound in green, containing my verses, my last hope; and
though wavering and uncertain in my design, I turned my steps towards
the house of a celebrated publisher whose name is associated with the
progress of literature and typography in France, Monsieur Didot. I was
first attracted to this name because M. Didot, independently of his
celebrity as a publisher, enjoyed at that time some reputation as an
author. He had published his own verses with all the elegance, pomp and
circumstance of a poet who could himself control the approving voice of
Fame.
When before M. Didot's door in the Rue Jacob, a door all papered with
illustrious names, a redoubled effort on my part was required to cross
the threshold, another to ascend the stairs, another still more violent
to ring at his door. But I saw the adored image of Julie encouraging
me, and her hand impelled me. I dared do anything.
I was politely received by M. Didot, a middle-aged man with a precise
and commercial air, whose speech was brief and plain as that of a man
who knows the value of minutes. He desired to know what I had to say to
him. I stammered for some time, and became embarrassed in one of those
labyrinths of ambiguous phrases under which one conceals thoughts that
will and will not come to the point. I thought to gain courage by
gaining time; at last I unbuttoned my coat, drew out the little volume,
and presented it humbly with a trembling hand to M. Didot. I told him
that I had written these verses, and wished to have them
published,--not indeed to bring me fame (I had not that absurd
delusion), but in the hope of attracting the notice and good-will of
influential literary men; that my poverty would not permit of my going
to the expense of printing; and, therefore, I came to submit my work to
him, and request him to publish it, should he, after looking over it,
deem it worthy of the indulgence or favor of cultivated minds. M. Didot
nodded, smiled kindly, but somewhat ironically, took my manuscript
between two fingers, which seemed accustomed to crumple paper
contemptuously, and putting down my verses on the table, appointed me
to return in a week for an answer as to the object of my visit. I took
my leave. The next seven days appeared to me seven centuries. My future
prospects, my favor, my mother's consolation or despair, my love,--in a
word, my life or death, were in the hands of M. Didot. At times, I
pictured him to myself reading my verses with the same rapture that had
inspired me on my mountains, or on the brink of my native torrents; I
fancied he saw in them the dew of my heart, the tears of my eyes, the
blood of my young veins; that he called together his literary friends
to listen to them, and that I heard from my alcove the sound of their
applause. At others, I blushed to think I had exposed to the inspection
of a stranger a work so unworthy of seeing the light; that I had
discovered my weakness and my impotence in a vain hope of success,
which would be changed into humiliation, instead of being converted
into gold and joy within my grasp. Hope, however, as persevering as my
distress, often got the upper hand in my dreams, and led me on from
hour to hour until the day appointed by M. Didot.