The autumn was mild, but had set in
early. The leaves which had been blighted by
the morning frost fell in roseate showers from the
vines and chestnut-trees. Until noon, the mist
overspread the valley, like an overflowing nocturnal
inundation, covering all but the tops of the highest
poplars in the plain; the hillocks rose in view like
islands, and the peaks of mountains appeared as headlands
in the midst of ocean; but when the sun rose higher
in the heavens, the mild southerly breeze drove before
it all these vapors of earth. The rushing of the
imprisoned winds in the gorges of the mountains, the
murmur of the waters, and the whispering trees, produced
sounds melodious or powerful, sonorous or melancholy,
and seemed in a few minutes to run through the whole
range of earth’s joys and sorrows its strength
or its melancholy. They stirred up one’s
very soul, then died away like the voices of celestial
spirits, that pass and disappear. Silence, such
as the ear has no preception of elsewhere, succeeded,
and hushed all to rest. The sky resumed its almost
Italian serenity; the Alps stood out once more against
a cloudless sky; the drops from the dissolving mist
fell pattering on the dry leaves, or shone like brilliants
on the grass. These hours were quickly over;
the pale blue shades of evening glided swiftly on,
veiling the horizon with their cold drapery as with
a shroud. It seemed the death of Nature, dying,
as youth and beauty die, with all its charms, and
all its serenity.
Scenes such as these exhibiting Nature
in its languid beauty were too much in accordance
with my feelings. While they gave an additional
charm to my own languor, they increased it, and I voluntarily
plunged into an abyss of melancholy. But it was
a melancholy so replete with thoughts, impressions,
and elevating desires, with so soft a twilight of
the soul, that I had no wish to shake it off.
It was a malady the very consciousness of which was
an allurement, rather than a pain, and in which Death
appeared but as a voluptuous vanishing into space.
I had given myself up to the charm, and had determined
to keep aloof from society, which might have dissipated
it, and in the midst of the world to wrap myself in
silence, solitude, and reserve. I used my isolation
of mind as a shroud to shut out the sight of men, so
as to contemplate God and Nature only.
Passing by Chambery, I had seen my
friend, Louis de ; I had found
him in the same state of mind as myself, disgusted
with the bitterness of life, his genius, unappreciated,
the body worn out by the mind, and all his better
feelings thrown back upon his heart.
Louis had mentioned to me a quiet
and secluded house, in the higher part of the town
of Aix, where invalids were admitted to board.
The establishment was conducted by a worthy old doctor
(who had retired from the profession), and communicated
with the town by a narrow pathway, which lay between
the streams that issue from the hot springs.
The back of the house looked on a garden surrounded
by trellis and vine arbors; and beyond that there
were paths where goats only were to be seen, which
led to the mountain through sloping meadows, and through
woods of chestnut and walnut-trees. Louis had
promised to join me at Aix, as soon as he should have
settled some business, consequent on the death of
his mother, which detained him at Chambery. I
looked forward with pleasure to his arrival, for we
understood each other, and the same feeling of disenchantment
was common to us both. Grief knits two hearts
in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common
sufferings are far stronger links than common joys.
Louis was, at that particular time, the only person
whose society was not distasteful to me, and yet I
awaited his arrival without eagerness or impatience.