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LUX FACTA EST
During the second year, precisely at the point in this history
which the reader has now reached, it chanced that this habit of
the Luxembourg was interrupted, without Marius himself being quite
aware why, and nearly six months elapsed, during which he did
not set foot in the alley.
One day, at last, he returned thither once more; it was a
serene summer morning, and Marius was in joyous mood, as one is
when the weather is fine.
It seemed to him that he had in his heart all the songs of
the birds that he was listening to, and all the bits of blue sky
of which he caught glimpses through the leaves of the trees.
He went straight to "his alley," and when he reached
the end of it he perceived, still on the same bench, that well-known
couple. Only, when he approached, it certainly was the same man;
but it seemed to him that it was no longer the same girl.
The person whom he now beheld was a tall and beautiful creature,
possessed of all the most charming lines of a woman at the precise
moment when they are still combined with all the most ingenuous
graces of the child; a pure and fugitive moment, which can be
expressed only by these two words,-- "fifteen years."
She had wonderful brown hair, shaded with threads of gold,
a brow that seemed made of marble, cheeks that seemed made of
rose-leaf, a pale flush, an agitated whiteness, an exquisite mouth,
whence smiles darted like sunbeams, and words like music, a head
such as Raphael would have given to Mary, set upon a neck that
Jean Goujon would have attributed to a Venus.
And, in order that nothing might be lacking to this bewitching
face, her nose was not handsome-- it was pretty; neither straight
nor curved, neither Italian nor Greek; it was the Parisian nose,
that is to say, spiritual, delicate, irregular, pure,--which drives
painters to despair, and charms poets.
When Marius passed near her, he could not see her eyes, which
were constantly lowered.
He saw only her long chestnut lashes, permeated with shadow
and modesty.
This did not prevent the beautiful child from smiling as she
listened to what the white-haired old man was saying to her, and
nothing could be more fascinating than that fresh smile, combined
with those drooping eyes.
For a moment, Marius thought that she was another daughter
of the same man, a sister of the former, no doubt.
But when the invariable habit of his stroll brought him, for
the second time, near the bench, and he had examined her attentively,
he recognized her as the same. In six months the little girl had
become a young maiden; that was all. Nothing is more frequent
than this phenomenon.
There is a moment when girls blossom out in the twinkling
of an eye, and become roses all at once.
One left them children but yesterday; today, one finds them
disquieting to the feelings.
This child had not only grown, she had become idealized. As
three days in April suffice to cover certain trees with flowers,
six months had sufficed to clothe her with beauty.
Her April had arrived.
One sometimes sees people, who, poor and mean, seem to wake
up, pass suddenly from indigence to luxury, indulge in expenditures
of all sorts, and become dazzling, prodigal, magnificent, all
of a sudden.
That is the result of having pocketed an income; a note fell
due yesterday.
The young girl had received her quarterly income.
And then, she was no longer the school-girl with her felt
hat, her merino gown, her scholar's shoes, and red hands; taste
had come to her with beauty; she was a well-dressed person, clad
with a sort of rich and simple elegance, and without affectation.
She wore a dress of black damask, a cape of the same material,
and a bonnet of white crape.
Her white gloves displayed the delicacy of the hand which
toyed with the carved, Chinese ivory handle of a parasol, and
her silken shoe outlined the smallness of her foot. When one passed
near her, her whole toilette exhaled a youthful and penetrating
perfume.
As for the man, he was the same as usual.
The second time that Marius approached her, the young girl
raised her eyelids; her eyes were of a deep, celestial blue, but
in that veiled azure, there was, as yet, nothing but the glance
of a child. She looked at Marius indifferently, as she would have
stared at the brat running beneath the sycamores, or the marble
vase which cast a shadow on the bench, and Marius, on his side,
continued his promenade, and thought about something else.
He passed near the bench where the young girl sat, five or
six times, but without even turning his eyes in her direction.
On the following days, he returned, as was his wont, to the
Luxembourg; as usual, he found there "the father and daughter;"
but he paid no further attention to them.
He thought no more about the girl now that she was beautiful
than he had when she was homely. He passed very near the bench
where she sat, because such was his habit.
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