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.
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