r with the appearances
of the plant-life about him, and of the changes in the sky, he minutely
noted the progress of everything working around him in the water, on the
earth, or in the air. He tried to share the secret impulses of nature,
sought by passive obedience to become a part of it, and to lie within
the conservative and despotic jurisdiction that regulates instinctive
existence. He no longer wished to steer his own course.

Just as criminals in olden times were safe from the pursuit of justice,
if they took refuge under the shadow of the altar, so Raphael made an
effort to slip into the sanctuary of life. He succeeded in becoming an
integral part of the great and mighty fruit-producing organization; he
had adapted himself to the inclemency of the air, and had dwelt in every
cave among the rocks. He had learned the ways and habits of growth of
every plant, had studied the laws of the watercourses and their beds,
and had come to know the animals; he was at last so perfectly at
one with this teeming earth, that he had in some sort discerned its
mysteries and caught the spirit of it.

The infinitely varied forms of every natural kingdom were, to his
thinking, only developments of one and the same substance, different
combinations brought about by the same impulse, endless emanations from
a measureless Being which was acting, thinking, moving, and growing, and
in harmony with which he longed to grow, to move, to think, and act.
He had fancifully blended his life with the life of the crags; he had
deliberately planted himself there. During the earliest days of
his sojourn in these pleasant surroundings, Valentin tasted all the
pleasures of childhood again, thanks to the strange hallucination of
apparent convalescence, which is not unlike the pauses of delirium
that nature mercifully provides for those in pain. He went about making
trifling discoveries, setting to work on endless things, and finishing
none of them; the evening's plans were quite forgotten in the morning;
he had no cares, he was happy; he thought himself saved.

One morning he had lain in bed till noon, deep in the dreams between
sleep and waking, which give to realities a fantastic appearance, and
make the wildest fancies seem solid facts; while he was still uncertain
that he was not dreaming yet, he suddenly heard his hostess giving a
report of his health to Jonathan, for the first time. Jonathan came
to inquire after him daily, and the Auvergnate,