blue proclaimed that winter was done. I looked downward and saw what I
had not seen before: the willow bursting into bud; the hepatica in flower
at the foot of the camellias, which had ceased to bloom; the pear-trees
in the Carmelites' garden flushing red as the sap rose within them; and
upon the dead trunk of a fig-tree was a blackbird, escaped from the
Luxembourg, who, on tiptoe, with throat outstretched, drunk with delight,
answered some far-off call that the wind brought to him, singing, as if
in woodland depths, the rapturous song of the year's new birth. Then,
oh! then, I could contain myself no longer. I ran down the stairs four
at a time, cursing Paris and the Junian Latins who had been cheating me
of the spring. What! live there cut off from the world which was
created for me, tread an artificial earth of stone or asphalt, live with
a horizon of chimneys, see only the sky chopped into irregular strips by
roofs smirched with smoke, and allow this exquisite spring to fleet by
without drinking in her bountiful delight, without renewing in her
youthfulness our youth, always a little staled and overcast by winter!
No, that can not be; I mean to see the spring.

And I have seen it, in truth, though cut and tied into bouquets, for my
aimless steps led me to the Place St. Sulpice, where the flower-sellers
were. There were flowers in plenty, but very few people; it was already
late. None the less did I enjoy the sight of all the plants arranged by
height and kind, from the double hyacinths, dear to hall-porters, to the
first carnations, scarcely in bud, whose pink or white tips just peeped
from their green sheaths; then the bouquets, bundles of the same kinds
and same shades of flowers wrapped up in paper: lilies-of-the-valley,
lilacs, forget-me-nots, mignonette, which being grown under glass has
guarded its honey from the bees to scent the air here. Everyone had a
look of welcome for those exiles. The girls smiled at them without
knowing the reason why. The cabdrivers in line along the sidewalk seemed