It has set, it has plunged beneath the horizon, and suddenly all is dark.
Over the darkened landscape in the vast pearl-colored sky spreads the
melancholy chill which follows the farewell of day. The white smoke from
the city has turned gray, the river is like a dulled mirror. A moment
ago, in the sun's last rays, the dead leaves, as they fell, looked like a
golden rain, now they seem a dark snow.

Where are all your illusions and hopes of other days, Amedee Violette?
You think this evening of the rapid flight of years, of the snowy flakes
of winter which are beginning to fall on your temples. You have the
proof to-day of the impossibility of absolutely requited love in this
world. You know that happiness, or what is called so, exists only by
snatches and lasts only a moment, and how commonplace it often is and how
sad the next day! You depend upon your art for consolation. Oppressed
by the monotonous ennui of living, you ask for the forgetfulness that
only the intoxication of poetry and dreams can give you. Alas! Poor
sentimentalist, your youth is ended!

And still the leaves fall!