There was so much sympathy between our youth and the youthful year and
day; such entire harmony between the light, the heat, the splendor, the
silence, the gentle sounds, the pensive delights of Nature and our own
sensations; we felt so delightfully mingled with the surrounding air
and sky, life and repose; we were so completely all to each other in
this solitude,--that our exuberant but satisfied thoughts and
sensations sufficed us. We did not even seek for words to express them;
but were as the full vase, whose very plenitude renders its contents
motionless. Our hearts could hold no more; but they were capacious
enough to contain all, and nothing sought to escape from them. Our
breathing was scarcely audible.
I know not how long we remained thus seated at the foot of the oak,
mute and motionless beside one another, our faces buried in our hands,
our feet in sunshine on the grass, our heads in shade; but when I
raised my eyes the shadows had retreated before us on the grass, beyond
the folds of Julie's dress. I looked at her, she raised her face as if
by the same impulse which had made me raise mine; and gazing at me
without saying a word, she burst into tears. "Why do you weep?" I asked
with anxious emotion, but in a low tone for fear of disturbing or
diverting the course of her silent thoughts. "From happiness," she
answered. Her lips smiled, while big tears rolled down her cheeks in
shining drops, like the dew of spring. "Yes, from happiness," she
resumed. "This day, this hour, this sky, this spot, this peace, this
silence, this solitude with you, this complete assimilation of our two
souls, which no longer require to converse to comprehend each other,
which breathe in the same aspiration is too much,--too much for mortal
nature that excess of joy may kill, as excess of grief, and which, when
it can draw no cry from the heart, grieves that it cannot sigh, and
mourns that it cannot praise sufficiently."
She stopped for an instant; her cheeks were flushed. I trembled lest
death should seize her in her joy; but her voice soon reassured me.
"Raphael! Raphael!" she exclaimed in a solemn tone, which surprised me,
as if she had been announcing some good tidings, long and anxiously
expected,--"Raphael, there is a God!" "How has he been revealed to you
to-day more clearly than any other day?" I asked. "By love," she
answered, raising slowly to heaven the orbs of her bright, glistening
eyes; "yes, by love, whose torrents have flowed in my heart just now
with a murmuring, gushing fulness that I had never felt before with the
same force, nor yet the same repose. No, I no longer doubt," she
continued in a tone where certitude mingled with joy; "the spring
whence such felicity is poured upon the soul cannot be here below, nor
can it lose itself in this earth after having once gushed forth! There
is a God; there is an eternal love, of which ours is but a drop. We
will together mingle it one day with the divine ocean whence we drew
it! That ocean is God! I see it; feel it; understand it in this instant
by my happiness! Raphael, it is no longer you I love; it is no longer I
you love,--it is God we henceforth adore in one another; you in me, and
I in you, both, in these tears of bliss which reveal to us, and yet
conceal, the immortal fountain of our hearts! Away," she added, with a
still more ardent tone and look,--"away with all the vain names by
which we have hitherto called our attraction towards each other. I know
but one to express it; it is the one which has just been revealed to me
in your eyes: God! God! God!" she exclaimed once more, as though she
had wished to teach her lips a new language. "God is in you; God is in
me for you! God is us; and henceforward the feelings which oppressed us
will no longer be love, but a holy and rapturous adoration! Raphael, do
you understand me? You will no longer be Raphael, you will be my
worship of God!"
We rose in a transport of enthusiasm; we embraced the tree, and blessed
it for the inspiration which had descended from its boughs; we gave it
a name, and called it the tree of adoration.
We then slowly descended the hill of St. Cloud to return to the noise
and turmoil of Paris; but she returned with new-found faith and the
knowledge of God in her heart, and I with the joy of knowing that she
now possessed a bright and inward source of consolation, hope and
peace.