One year, one day, I saw them once more opened. I looked
to see who dared to live where she had lived before; and then I saw, in
summer time, at that same window, bathed in sunshine and adorned with
flowers, a young woman whom I did not know playing and smiling with a
new-born child, unconscious that she played upon a grave, that her
smiles were turned to tears in the eyes of a passer-by, and that so
much life seemed as a mockery of death.... Since then, at night, I have
returned; and every year I still return, approach that wall with
faltering steps, and touch that door; and then I sit on the stone
bench, and watch the lights, and listen to the voices from above. I
sometimes fancy that I see the light reflected from her lamp; that I
hear the tones of her voice; that I can knock at that door; that she
expects me; that I can go in--...O Memory, art thou a gift from Heaven,
or pain of Hell!...But I resume my story, since you, my friend, desire
it.
LXXII.
The day after my arrival, Julie had introduced me to the old man, who
was to her a father, and whose latter days she brightened with the
radiance of her mind, her tenderness, and her beauty.
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