At the
corners of the streets, or the ends of the bridges, the flower-girls,
seated behind screens of flowering plants, waved branches of lilac, as
if to embalm the town. In Julie's room the hearth was converted into a
mossy grotto; the consoles and tables had each their vases of
primroses, violets, lilies of the valley, and roses. Poor flowers,
exiles from the fields! Thus swallows who have heedlessly flown into a
room bruise their own wings against the walls, while announcing to the
poor inhabitants of dismal garrets the approach of April and its sunny
days. The perfume of the flowers penetrated to our hearts, and our
thoughts were brought back, under the impression of their fragrance and
the images it evoked, to that Nature in the midst of which we had been
so isolated and so happy. We had forgotten her while the days were
dark, the sky gloomy, and the horizon bounded. Shut up in a small room
where we were all in all to each other, we never thought that there was
another sky, another sun, another nature beyond our own.
Pages:
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260