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.