VI.


I passed my days in my room with no other company than some books which
my friend had sent me from Chambéry. In the afternoon, I used to ramble
alone amid the wild mountains which, on the Italian side, form the
boundary of the valley of Aix; and returning home in the evening,
harassed and fatigued, would sit down to supper, and then retire to my
room and spend whole hours seated at my window. I gazed at the blue
firmament above, which, like the abyss attracting him who leans over
it, ever attracts the thoughts of men as though it had secrets to
reveal. Sleep found me still wandering on a sea of thoughts, and
seeking no shore. When morning came, I was awaked by the rays of the
sun and by the murmur of the hot springs; and I would plunge into my
bath, and after breakfast recommence the same rambles and the same
melancholy musings as the day before. Sometimes in the evening, when I
looked out of my window into the garden, I saw another lighted window
not far from my own and the face of a female, who, with one hand
throwing back the long black tresses from her brow, gazed like myself
on the mountains, the sky, and moonlit garden. I could only distinguish
the pale, pure, and almost transparent profile and the long, dark waves
of the hair, which was smoothed down at the temples. I used to see this
face standing out on the brilliant background of the window, which was
lighted from a lamp in the bedroom. At times, too, I had heard a
woman's voice saying a few words or giving some orders in the
apartment. The slightly foreign, though pure accent, the vibrations of
that soft, languid, and yet marvellously sonorous voice, of which I
heard the harmony without understanding the words had interested me.
Long after my window was closed that voice remained in my ear like the
prolonged sound of an echo. I had never heard any like it, even in