Sylvie: souvenirs du Valois

When I caught sight of the waters of the lake sparkling through the branches of willows and hazels, I recognised a spot which I had often visited with my uncle. Here stands to this day, sheltered by a group of pines, the Temple of Philosophy which its founder had not the good fortune to complete. It is built in the form of the temple of the Tiburtine Sibyl, and displays with pride the names of all the great thinkers from Montaigne and Descartes to Rousseau. This unfinished structure is now but a ruin around which the ivy twines its graceful tendrils, while brambles force their way between its disjointed steps. When but a child, I witnessed the celebrations here, where young girls, dressed in white, came to receive prizes for scholarship and good conduct. Where are the roses that girdled the hillside? Hidden by brier and eglantine, they are fast losing all traces of cultivation. As for the laurels, have they been cut down, according to the old song of the maidens who no longer care to roam the forest? No! these shrubs from sweet Italy have withered beneath our unfriendly skies. Happily, the privet of Virgil still thrives as if to emphasize the words of the Master, inscribed above the door, Rerum cognoscere causas. Yes! like so many others, this temple crumbles, and man, weary or thoughtless, passes it by, while indifferent nature reclaims the soil for which art contended, but the thirst for knowledge is eternal, the mainspring of all power and activity.

Here are the poplars of the island and the empty tomb of Rousseau. O Sage! thou gavest us the milk of the strong and we were too weak to receive it! We have forgotten thy lessons which our fathers knew, and we have lost the meaning of thy words, the last faint echoes of ancient wisdom! Still, let us not despair, and like thee, in thy last moments, let us turn our eyes to the sun!

I revisited the castle, the quiet waters about it, the cascade which complains among the rocks, the causeway that unites the two parts of the village with the four dove-cotes that mark the corners, and the green that stretches beyond like a prairie, above which rise wooded slopes; the tower of Gabrielle is reflected from afar in the waters of an artificial lake studded with ephemeral blossoms; the scum is seething, the insects hum. It is best to escape the noxious vapours and seek the rocks and sand of the desert and the waste lands where the pink heath blooms beside green ferns. How sad and lonely it all seems! In by-gone days, Sylvie's enchanting smile, her merry pranks and glad cries enlivened every spot! She was then a wild little creature with bare feet and sun-burned skin, in spite of the straw hat whose long strings floated loosely amid her dark locks. We used to go to the Swiss farm to drink milk, and they said: "How pretty your sweetheart is, little Parisian!" Ah! no peasant lad could have danced with her in those days! She would have none but me for her partner, at the yearly Feast of the Bow.

X.

BIG CURLY-HEAD

I went back to Loisy and they were all awake. Sylvie was dressed like a young lady, almost in the fashion of the city. She led me up to her room with all her old simplicity. Her bright eyes smiled as charmingly as ever, but the decided arch of her brows made her at times look serious. The room was simply decorated, but the furniture was modern: a mirror in a gilt frame had replaced the old-fashioned looking-glass where an idyllic shepherd was depicted offering a nest to a blue and pink shepherdess; the four-post bed, modestly hung with flowered chintz, was succeeded by a little walnut couch with net curtains; canaries occupied the cage at the window where once there were linnets. I was impatient to leave this room, where nothing spoke to me of the past. "Shall you make lace to-day?" I asked Sylvie. "Oh, I do not make lace now; there is no demand for it here, and even at Chantilly the factory is closed." "What is your work then?" She brought forward, from the corner of the room, an iron tool which resembled a long pair of pincers.

"What is that?"

"It is called the machine and is used to hold the leather in place while the gloves are sewed."

"Then you are a glove-maker, Sylvie?"

"Yes, we work here for Dammartin; it pays well now, but I shall not work to-day; let us go wherever you like." I glanced towards Othys, but she shook her head, and I understood that the old aunt was no more. Sylvie called a little boy and bade him saddle an ass. "I am still tired from yesterday," she said, "but the ride will do me good; let us go to Chaâlis."

We set out through the forest, followed by the boy armed with a branch. Sylvie soon wished to stop, and I kissed her as I led her to a seat. Our conversation could no longer be very intimate. I had to talk of my life in Paris, my travels… "How can anyone go so far?" she demanded. "It seems strange to me, when I look at you."

"Oh! of course,"

"Well, admit that you were not so pretty in the old days."

"I cannot tell."

"Do you remember when we were children and you the tallest?"

"And you the wisest?"

"Oh! Sylvie!"

"They put us on an ass, one in each pannier."

"And we said thee and thou to each other? Do you remember how you taught me to catch crawfish under the bridges over the Nonette and the Thève?"

"Do you remember your foster-brother who pulled you out of the water one day?"

"Big Curly-head? It was he who told me to go in."

I made haste to change the subject, because this recollection had brought vividly to mind the time when I used to go into the country, wearing a little English coat which made the peasants laugh. Sylvie was the only one who liked it, but I did not venture to remind her of such a juvenile opinion. For some reason, my mind turned to the old aunt's wedding clothes in which we had arrayed ourselves, and I asked what had become of them.

"Oh! poor aunt," cried Sylvie; "she lent me her gown to wear to the carnival at Dammartin, two years ago, and the next year she died, dear, old aunt!" She sighed and the tears came, so I could not inquire how it chanced that she went to a masquerade, but I perceived that, thanks to her skill, Sylvie was no longer a peasant girl. Her parents had not risen above their former station, and she lived with them, scattering plenty around her like an industrious fairy.

XI.

RETURN

The outlook widened when we left the forest and we found ourselves near the lake of Chaâlis. The galleries of the cloister, the chapel with its pointed arches, the feudal tower and the little castle which had sheltered the loves of Henry IV. and Gabrielle, were bathed in the crimson glow of evening against the dark background of the forest.

"Like one of Walter Scott's landscapes, is it not?" said Sylvie. "And who has told you of Walter Scott?" I inquired. "You must have read much in the past three years! As for me, I try to forget books, and what delights me, is to revisit with you this old abbey where, as little children, we played hide and seek among the ruins. Do you remember, Sylvie, how afraid you were when the keeper told us the story of the Red Monks?"

"Oh, do not speak of it!"

"Well then, sing me the song of the fair maid under the white rose-bush, who was stolen from her father's garden."

"Nobody sings that now."

"Is it possible that you have become a musician?"

"Perhaps."

"Sylvie, Sylvie, I am positive that you sing airs from operas!"

"Why should you complain?"

"Because I loved the old songs and you have forgotten them."

Sylvie warbled a few notes of a grand air from a modern opera… She phrased!

We turned away from the lakeside and approached the green bordered with lime-trees and elms, where we had so often danced. I had the conceit to describe the old Carlovingian walls and to decipher the armorial bearings of the House of Este.

"And you! How much more you have read than I, and how learned you have become!" said Sylvie. I was vexed by her tone of reproach, as I had all the way been seeking a favourable opportunity to resume the tender confidences of the morning, but what could I say, accompanied by a donkey and a very wide-awake lad who pressed nearer and nearer for the pleasure of hearing a Parisian talk? Then I displayed my lack of tact, by relating the vision of Chaâlis which I recalled so vividly. I led Sylvie into the very hall of the castle where I had heard Adrienne sing. "Oh, let me hear you!" I besought her; "let your loved voice ring out beneath these arches and put to flight the spirit that torments me, be it angel or demon!" She repeated the words and sang after me:

"Anges, descendez promptementau fond du purgatoire…"(Angels descend without delayTo dread abyss of purgatory.)

"It is very sad!" she cried.

"It is sublime! An air from Porpora, I think, with words translated in the present century."

"I do not know," she replied.

We came home through the valley, following the Charlepont road which the peasants, without regard to etymology, persistently called Châllepont. The way was deserted, and Sylvie, weary of riding, leaned upon my arm, while I tried to speak of what was in my heart, but, I know not why, could find only trivial words or stilted phrases from some romance that Sylvie might have read. I stopped suddenly then, in true classic style, and she was occasionally amazed by these disjointed rhapsodies. Having reached the walls of Saint S – we had to look well to our steps, on account of the numerous stream-lets winding through the damp marshes.

"What has become of the nun?" I asked suddenly.

"You give me no peace with your nun! Ah, well! it is a sad story!" Not a word more would Sylvie say.

Do women really feel that certain words come from the lips rather than the heart? It does not seem probable, to see how readily they are deceived, and what an inexplicable choice they usually make – there are men who play the comedy of love so well! I never could accustom myself to it, although I know some women lend themselves wittingly to the deception. A love that dates from childhood is, however, sacred, and Sylvie, whom I had seen grow up, was like a sister to me; I could not betray her. Suddenly, a new thought came to me. "At this very hour, I might be at the theatre. What is Aurélie (that was the name of the actress) playing to-night? No doubt the part of the Princess in the new play. How touching she is in the third act! And in the love scene of the second with that wrinkled actor who plays the lover!"

"Lost in thought?" said Sylvie; and she began to sing:

"A Dammartin l'y a trots belles filles:L'y en a z'une plus belle que le jour…"(At Dammartin there are three fair maids,And one of them is fairer than day.)

"Little tease!" I cried, "you know you remember the old songs."

"If you would come here oftener, I would try to remember more of them," she said; "but we must think of realities; you have your affairs at Paris, I have my work here; let us go in early, for I must rise with the sun to-morrow."

XII.

FATHER DODU

I was about to reply, to fall at her feet and offer her my uncle's house which I could purchase, as the little estate had not been apportioned among the numerous heirs, but just then we reached Loisy, where supper awaited us and the onion-soup was diffusing its patriarchal odour. Neighbours had been invited to celebrate the day after the feast, and I recognised at a glance Father Dodu, an old wood-cutter who used to amuse or frighten us, in the evenings by his stories. Shepherd, carrier, gamekeeper, fisherman and even poacher, by turns, Father Dodu made clocks and turnspits in his leisure moments. For a long time he acted as guide to the English tourists at Hermenonville, and while he recounted the last moments of the philosopher, would lead them to Rousseau's favourite spots for meditation. He was the little boy employed to classify the herbs and gather the hemlock twigs from which the sage pressed the juice into his cup of coffee. The landlord of the Golden Cross contested this point and a lasting feud resulted. Father Dodu had once borne the reproach of possessing some very innocent secrets, such as how to cure cows by saying a rhyme backwards and making the sign of the cross with the left foot, but he had renounced these superstitions – thanks, he declared, to his conversations with Jean Jacques.

"That you, little Parisian?" said Father Dodu; "have you come to carry off our pretty girls?"

"I, Father Dodu?"

"You take them into the woods when the wolf is away!"

"Father Dodu, you are the wolf."

"I was as long as I could find sheep, but at present I meet only goats, and they know how to take care of themselves! As for you, why, you are all rascals in Paris. Jean Jacques was right when he said, 'Man grows corrupt in the poisonous air of cities.'"

"Father Dodu, you know very well that men become corrupt everywhere."

"Father Dodu began to roar out a drinking song, and it was impossible to stop him at a questionable couplet that everyone knew by heart. Sylvie would not sing, in spite of our entreaties, on the plea that it was no longer customary to sing at table. I bad already noticed the lover of the ball, seated at her left, and his round face and tumbled hair seemed familiar. He rose and stood behind me, saying, "Have you forgotten me, Parisian?" A good woman who came back to dessert after serving us, whispered in my ear: "Do you not recognize your foster-brother?" Without this warning, I should have made myself ridiculous. "Ah, it is Big Curly-head!" I cried; "the very same who pulled me out of the water." Sylvie burst out laughing at the recollection.

"Without considering," said the youth em-bracing me, "that you had a fine silver watch and on the way home you were more concerned about it than yourself, because it had stopped. You said, 'the creature is drowned does not go tick-tack; what will Uncle say?'" "A watch is a creature," said Father Dodu; "that is what they tell children in Paris!"

Sylvie was sleepy, and I fancied there was no hope for me. She went upstairs, and as I kissed her, said: "Come again to-morrow." Father Dodu remained at table with Sylvain and my foster-brother, and we talked a long time over a bottle of Louvres ratafia.

"All men are equal," said Father Dodu between glasses; "I drink with a pastry-cook as readily as with a prince."

"Where is the pastry-cook?" I asked.

"By your side! There you see a young man who is ambitious to get on in life."

My foster-brother appeared embarrassed and I understood the situation. Fate had reserved for me a foster-brother in the very country made famous by Rousseau, who opposed putting children out to nurse! I learned from Father Dodu that there was much talk of a marriage between Sylvie and Big Curly-head, who wished to open a pastry-shop at Dammartin. I asked no more. Next morning the coach from Nanteuil-le-Haudouin took me back to Paris.

XIII

AURÉLIE

To Paris, a journey of five hours! I was impatient for evening, and eight o'clock found me in my accustomed seat Aurélie infused her own spirit and grace into the lines of the play, the work of a contemporary author evidently inspired by Schiller. In the garden scene she was sublime. During the fourth act, when she did not appear, I went out to purchase a bouquet of Madame Prevost, slipping into it a tender effusion signed An Unknown, "There," thought I, "is something definite for the future," but on the morrow I was on my way to Germany.

Why did I go there? In the hope of com-posing my disordered fancy. If I were to write a book, I could never gain credence for the story of a heart torn by these two conflicting loves. I had lost Sylvie through my own fault, but to see her for a day, sufficed to restore my soul. A glance from her had arrested me on the verge of the abyss, and henceforth I enshrined her as a smiling goddess in the Temple of Wisdom. I felt more than ever reluctant to present myself before Aurélie among the throng of vulgar suitors who shone in the light of her favour for an instant only to fall blinded.

"Some day," said I, "we shall see whether this woman has a heart."

One morning I learned from a newspaper that Aurélie was ill, and I wrote to her from the mountains of Salzburg, a letter so filled with German mysticism that I could hardly hope for a reply, indeed I expected none. I left it to chance or … the unknown.

Months passed, and in the leisure intervals of travel I undertook to embody in poetic action the life-long devotion of the painter Colonna to the fair Laura who was constrained by her relatives to take the veil. Something in the subject lent itself to my habitual train of thought, and as soon as the last verse of the drama was written, I hastened back to France.

Can I avoid repeating in my own history, that of many others? I passed through all the ordeals of the theatre. I "ate the drum and drank the cymbal," according to the apparently meaningless phrase of the initiates at Eleusis, which probably signifies that upon occasion we must stand ready to pass the bounds of reason and absurdity; for me it meant to win and possess my ideal.

Aurélie accepted the leading part in the play which I brought back from Germany. I shall never forget the day she allowed me to read it to her. The love scenes had been arranged expressly for her, and I am positive that I rendered them with feeling. In the conversation that followed I revealed myself as the "Unknown" of the two letters. She said: "You are mad, but come again; I have never found anyone who knew how to love me."

Oh, woman! you seek for love … but what of me?

In the days which followed I wrote probably the most eloquent and touching letters that she ever received. Her answers were full of good sense. Once she was moved, sent for me and confessed that it was hard for her to break an attachment of long standing. "If you love me for myself alone, then you will understand that I can belong to but one."

Two months later, I received an effusive letter which brought me to her feet – in the meantime, someone volunteered an important piece of information. The handsome young man whom I had met one night at the club had just enlisted in the Turkish cavalry.

Races were held at Chantilly the next season, and the theatre troupe to which Aurélie belonged gave a performance. Once in the country, the company was for three days subject to the orders of the director. I had made friends with this worthy man, formerly the Dorante of the comedies of Marivaux and for a long time successful in lovers' parts. His latest triumph was achieved in the play imitated from Schiller, when my opera-glass had discovered all his wrinkles. He had fire, however, and being thin, produced a good effect in the provinces. I accompanied the troupe in the quality of poet, and persuaded the manager to give performances at Senlis and Dammartin. He inclined to Compiègne at first, but Aurélie was of my opinion. Next day, while arrangements with the local authorities were in progress, I ordered horses and we set out on the road to Commelle to breakfast at the castle of Queen Blanche. Aurélie, on horseback, with her blonde hair floating in the wind, rode through the forest like some queen of olden times, and the peasants were dazzled by her appearance. Madame de F– was the only woman they had ever seen so imposing and so graceful. After breakfast we rode down to the villages like Swiss hamlets where the waters of the Nonette turn the busy saw-mills. These scenes, which my remembrance cherished, interested Aurélie, but did not move her to delay. I had planned to conduct her to the castle near Orry, where I had first seen Adrienne on the green. She manifested no emotion. Then I told her all; I revealed the hidden spring of that love which haunted my dreams by night and was realized in her. She listened with attention and said: "You do not love me! You expect me to say 'the actress and the nun are the same'; you are merely arranging a drama and the issue of the plot is lacking. Go! I no longer believe in you."

Her words were an illumination. The unnatural enthusiasm which had possessed me for so long, my dreams, my tears, my despair and my tenderness, – could they mean aught but love? What then is love?

Aurélie played that night at Senlis, and I thought she displayed a weakness for the director, the wrinkled "young lover" of the stage. His character was exemplary, and he had already shown her much kindness.

One day, Aurélie said to me: "There is the man who loves me!"

XIV.

THE LAST LEAF

Such are the fancies that charm and beguile us in the morning of life! I have tried to set them down here, in a disconnected fashion, but many hearts will understand me. One by one our illusions fall like husks, and the kernel thus laid bare is experience. Its taste is bitter, but it yields an acrid flavour that invigorates, – to use an old-fashioned simile. Rousseau says that the aspect of nature is a universal consolation. Sometimes I seek again my groves of Clarens lost in the fog to the north of Paris, but now, all is changed! Hermenonville, the spot where the ancient idyl blossomed again, transplanted by Gessner, thy star has set, the star that glowed for me with two-fold lustre. Blue and rose by turns, like the changeful Aldebaran, it was formed by Adrienne and Sylvie, the two halves of my love. One was the sublime ideal, the other, the sweet reality. What are thy groves and lakes and thy desert to me now? Othys, Montagny, Loiseaux, poor neighbouring hamlets, and Chaâlis now to be restored, you guard for me no treasures of the past. Occasionally, I feel a desire to return to those scenes of lonely musing, where I sadly mark the fleeting traces of a period when affectation invaded nature; sometimes I smile as I read upon the granite rocks certain lines from Boucher, which I once thought sublime, or virtuous maxims inscribed above a fountain or a grotto dedicated to Pan. The swans disdain the stagnant waters of the little lakes excavated at such an expense. The time is no more when the hunt of Condé swept by with its proud riders, and the forest-echoes rang with answering horns! There is to-day no direct route to Hermenonville, and sometimes I go by Creil and Senlis, sometimes by Dammartin.

It is impossible to reach Dammartin before night, so I lodge at the Image of Saint John. They usually give me a neat room hung with old tapestry, with a glass between the windows. This room shows a return to the fashion for bric-à-brac which I renounced long ago. I sleep comfortably under the eider-down covering used there. In the morning, when I throw open the casement wreathed with vines and roses, I gaze with rapture upon a wide green landscape stretching away to the horizon, where a line of poplars stand like sentinels. Here and there the villages nestle guarded by their protecting church-spires. First Othys, then Eve and Ver; Hermenonville would be visible beyond the wood, if it had a belfry, but in that philosophic spot the church has been neglected. Having filled my lungs with the pure air of these uplands, I go down stairs in good humour and start for the pastry-cook's. "Helloa, big Curly-head!" "Helloa, little Parisian!" We greet each other with sly punches in the ribs as we did in childhood, then I climb a certain stair where two children welcome my coming. Sylvie's Athenian smile lights up her classic features, and I say to myself: "Here, perhaps, is the happiness I have missed, and yet…"

Sometimes I call her Lotty, and she sees in me some resemblance to Werther without the pistols, which are out of fashion now. While Big Curly-head is busy with the breakfast, we take the children for a walk through the avenues of limes that border the ruins of the old brick towers of the castle. While the little ones practise with their bows and arrows, we read some poem or a few pages from one of those old books all too short, and long forgotten by the world.

I forgot to say that when Aurélie's troupe gave a performance at Dammartin, I took Sylvie to the play and asked her if she did not think the actress resembled someone she knew.

"Whom, pray?"

"Do you remember Adrienne?"

She laughed merrily, in reply. "What an idea!"

Then, as if in self-reproach, she added with a sigh: "Poor Adrienne! she died at the convent of Saint S – about 1832."

APPENDIX