XLIV.


A poor woman made us some fire in Madame de Warens' room; accustomed to
the visit of strangers, and to their long conversations on the scene of
the early days of a celebrated man, she attended to her usual work in
the kitchen and in the yard, and left us at liberty to warm ourselves,
or to saunter backwards and forwards from the house to the garden. This
little sunny garden, surrounded by a wall which separated it from the
vineyards, and overrun with nettles, mallows, and weeds of all kinds,
resembled one of those village churchyards where the peasants assemble
to bask in the rays of the sun, leaning against the church-walls, with
their feet on the graves of the dead. The walks, so neatly gravelled
once, were now covered with damp earth and yellow moss, and showed the
neglect that had followed on absence. How we would have wished to
discover the print of the footsteps of Madame de Warens, when she used
to go, basket in hand, from tree to tree, from vine to vine, gathering
the pears of the orchard or the grapes of the vineyard, and indulging
in merry frolic with, the pupil or the confessor. But there is no trace
of them in their house, save their memory. That is enough; their name,
their remembrance, their image, the sun they saw, the air they
breathed, which seems still beaming with their youth, warm with their
breath, and filled with their voices, give one back the light, the
dreams, the sounds, which shed enchantment round their spring of life.

I saw by Julie's pensive countenance, and her silent thoughtfulness,
that the sight of this sanctuary of love and genius impressed her as
deeply as myself. At times she shunned me, and remained wrapped in her