f
the man who should first cause that heart to beat; who should be looked
upon with love by those beautiful eyes, and who, in the words, "I love
you!" should gather from those lips, so fresh and so pure, that flower
of the soul--a first kiss.

Such are the different aspects which the same objects borrow from the
situation of him who looks at them. A week before, in the midst of his
gayety, in his life which no danger menaced, between a breakfast at the
tavern and a stag-hunt, between a wager at tennis and a supper at La
Fillon's, if D'Harmental had met this young girl, he would doubtless
have seen in her nothing but a charming grisette, whom he would have had
followed by his valet-de-chambre, and to whom, the next day, he would
have outrageously offered a present of some twenty-five louis.

But the D'Harmental of a week ago existed no more. In the place of the
handsome seigneur--elegant, wild, dissipated, and certain of life--was
an insulated young man, walking in the shade, alone, and self-reliant,
without a star to guide him, who might suddenly feel the earth open
under his feet, and the heavens burst above his head. He had need of a
support, so feeble was he; he had need of love, he had need of poetry.
It was not then wonderful that, searching for a Madonna to whom to
address his prayers, he raised in his imagination this young and
beautiful girl from the material and prosaic sphere in which he found
her, and that, drawing her into his own, he placed her, not such as she
was, doubtless, but such as he wished her to be, on the empty pedestal
of his past adorations.

All at once the young girl raised her head, and happened to look in his
direction, and saw the pensive figure of the chevalier through the
glass. It appeared evident to her that the young man remained there for
her, and that it was at her he was looking. Then a bright blush spread
over her face. Still she pretended she had seen nothing, and bent her
head once more over her embroidery. But a minute afterward she rose,
took a few turns round her room; then, without affectation, without
false prudery, but nevertheless with a certain embarrassment, she
returned and shut the window. D'Harmental remained where he was, and as
he was; continuing, in spite of the shutting of the window, to advance
into the imaginary country where his thoughts were straying.

Once or twice he thought that he saw the curtain of his neighbor's
window raised, as if she wished to kn