scarcely rest upon the earth. Seen from the
valley the ground-floor appears to be the first story; but on the
other side it is on a level with a broad gravelled path leading to a
grass-plot, on which are several flower-beds. To right and left are
vineyards, orchards, and a few acres of tilled land planted with
chestnut-trees which surround the house, the ground falling rapidly to
the Indre, where other groups of trees of variegated shades of green,
chosen by Nature herself, are spread along the shore. I admired these
groups, so charmingly disposed, as we mounted the hilly road which
borders Clochegourde; I breathed an atmosphere of happiness. Has
the moral nature, like the physical nature, its own electrical
communications and its rapid changes of temperature? My heart was
beating at the approach of events then unrevealed which were to change
it forever, just as animals grow livelier when foreseeing fine weather.

This day, so marked in my life, lacked no circumstance that was needed
to solemnize it. Nature was adorned like a woman to meet her lover.
My soul heard her voice for the first time; my eyes worshipped her,
as fruitful, as varied as my imagination had pictured her in those
school-dreams the influence of which I have tried in a few unskilful
words to explain to you, for they were to me an Apocalypse in which my
life was figuratively foretold; each event, fortunate or unfortunate,
being mated to some one of these strange visions by ties known only to
the soul.

We crossed a court-yard surrounded by buildings necessary for the farm
work,--a barn, a wine-press, cow-sheds, and stables. Warned by the
barking of the watch-dog, a servant came to meet us, saying that
Monsieur le comte had gone to Azay in the morning but would soon return,
and that Madame la comtesse was at home. My companion looked at me. I
fairly trembled lest he should decline to see Madame de Mortsauf in
her husband's absence; but he told the man to announce us. With the
eagerness of a child I rushed into the long antechamber which crosses
the whole house.

"Come in, gentlemen," said a golden voice.

Though Madame de Mortsauf had spoken only one word at the ball, I
recognized her voice, which entered my soul and filled it as a ray of
sunshine fills and gilds a prisoner's dungeon. Thinking, suddenly, that
she might remember my face, my first impulse was to fly; but it was too
late,--she appeared in the doorway, and our eyes met. I know not which