When I returned to M---- on the following Sunday, I looked round from
the top of the mountain for the clump of trees that stood out so
pleasantly on the hillside, screening from the sun a portion of the
gray wall of the house; and it seemed as a dream when in their wonted
place I perceived only heaps of hewn-down trunks whose barked and
bleeding branches strewed the earth around. A sawing-trestle stood
there like an instrument of torture, on which the saw with its grinding
teeth divided the trees. I hurried on with extended arms towards the
outer wall, and trembled as I opened the little garden door.... Alas!
the evergreen oak, one lime-tree, and the oldest elm alone were
standing, and the bench had been drawn in beneath their shade. "They
are sufficient," said my mother, as she advanced towards me, and, to
conceal her tears, threw herself into my arms; "the shade of one tree
is worth that of a whole forest. Besides, to me what shade can equal
yours? Do not be angry. I wrote to your father that the trees were
dying from the top, and that they were hurtful to the kitchen-garden.
Speak no more of them!"... Then leading me into the house, she opened
her desk and drew forth a bag half-filled with money. "Take this," she
said, "and go. The trees will have been amply paid me if you return
well and happy."
I blushed, and with a stifled sob took the bag. There were six hundred
francs in it, which I resolved to bring back untouched to my poor
mother.
I started on foot, like a sportsman, with leathern gaiters on my feet,
and my gun on my shoulder, and took from the bag only one hundred
francs, which I added to the little I had remaining from the proceeds
of my last sale. I could not bear to spend the price of the trees, and
therefore concealed the remainder of the money at the farm, that on my
return I might restore it to her who had so heroically torn it from her
heart for me. I ate and slept at the humblest inns in the villages
through which I passed, and was taken for a poor Swiss student
returning from the University of Strasbourg. I was never charged but
the strict value of the bread I ate, of the candle I burned, and of the
pallet on which I slept. I had brought but one book with me, which I
read at evening on the bench before the inn door; it was Werther, in
German; and the unknown characters confirmed my hosts in the idea that
I was a foreign traveller.
I thus wandered through the long and picturesque gorges of Bugey, and
crossed the Rhône at the foot of the rock of Pierre-Châtel. The
narrowed river eternally rushes past the base of this rock, with a
current wearing as the grindstone and cutting as the knife, as if to
undermine and overthrow the state-prison, whose gloomy shadow saddens
its waters. I slowly ascended the Mont du Chat by the paths of the
chamois-hunters; arrived at its summit, I perceived stretched out
before me in the distance the valleys of Aix, Chambéry, and Annecy; and
at my feet the lake, dappled with rosy tints by the floating rays of
the setting sun. One single image filled for me the immensity of this
horizon; it rose from the chalets where we had met; from the doctor's
garden, the pointed slate roof of whose house I could recognize above
the smoke of the town; from the fig-trees of the little castle of
Bon-Port at the bottom of the opposite creek; from the chestnut-trees
on the hill of Tresserves; from the woods of St. Innocent; from the
island of Châtillon; from the boats which were returning to their
moorings, from all this earth, from all this sky, from all these waves.
I fell on my knees before this horizon filled with one image. I spread
out my arms and folded them again, as if I could have embraced her
spirit by clasping the air which, had swept over these scenes of our
happiness, over all the traces of her footsteps.
I then sat down behind a rock which screened me even from the sight of
the goatherds, as they passed along the path. There I remained, sunk in
contemplation, and reveling in remembrances, till the sun was almost
dipping behind the snow-clad tops of Nivolex. I did not wish to cross
the lake, or enter the town by daylight, as the homeliness of my dress,
the scantiness of my purse, and the frugality of life to which I was
constrained, in order to live some months near Julie, would have seemed
strange to the inmates of the old doctor's house. They formed too great
a contrast with my elegance in dress and habits of life during the
preceding season. I should have made those blush whom I had accosted in
the streets, in the garb of one who had not even the means of locating
himself in a decent hotel in this abode of luxury. I had, therefore,
resolved to slip by night into the humble suburb, bordering a rivulet
which runs through the orchards below the town.
I knew there a poor young serving girl, called Fanchette, who had
married a boatman the year before. She had reserved some beds in the
garret of her cottage, that she might board and lodge one or two poor
invalids at fifteen sous a day. I had engaged one of these rooms, and a
place at the humble board of the good creature. My friend L----, to
whom I had written naming the day of my arrival on the borders of the
lake, had some days previously written to take my lodgings, and warn
Fanchette of my arrival, binding her to secrecy. I had also begged him
to receive, under cover to himself, at Chambéry, any letters that might
be addressed to me from Paris. He was to forward them to me by one of
the drivers of the light carts that run continually between the two
towns. I intended, during my stay at Aix, to remain in the daytime
concealed in my little cottage room, or in the surrounding orchards. I
would only, I thought, go out in the evening; I would go up to the
doctor's house by the skirts of the town; I would enter the garden by
the gate which opened on the country, and pass in delightful
intercourse the solitary evening hours. I would bear with pleasure want
and humiliation, which would be compensated a thousand fold by those
hours of love. I thought thus to conciliate the respect I owed to my
poor mother for the sacrifices she had made, with my devotion to the
idol I came to worship.