But I attributed these discrepancies to some
vision of memory or to her impatience at the slowness of time which
might have flitted like shadows across the paper as she wrote.
The bracing mountain air, sleep at night, and exercise by day, the
healthy employment of working in the garden and in the farm, soon
restored me to health; but, above all, the approach of autumn, and the
certainty of soon seeing her once more who by her looks would give me
life. The only remaining trace of my sufferings was a gentle and
pensive melancholy which overspread my countenance; it was as the mist
of a summer's morning. My silence seemed to conceal some mystery, and
my instinctive love of solitude made the superstitious peasants of the
mountains believe that I conversed with the Genii of the woods.
All ambition had been extinguished in me by my love. I had made up my
mind for life to my hopeless poverty and obscurity, and my mother's
serene and pious resignation had entered into my heart with her holy
and gentle words. I only indulged the dream of working during ten or
eleven months of the year manually, or with my pen to earn sufficiently
thereby to spend a month or two with Julie every year.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285