.

JOSE DE HEREDIA
de l'Academie Francaise.

A ROMANCE OF YOUTH

BOOK 1.

CHAPTER I. ON THE BALCONY

As far back as Amedee Violette can remember, he sees himself in an
infant's cap upon a fifth-floor balcony covered with convolvulus; the
child was very small, and the balcony seemed very large to him. Amedee
had received for a birthday present a box of water-colors, with which
he was sprawled out upon an old rug, earnestly intent upon his work of
coloring the woodcuts in an odd volume of the 'Magasin Pittoresque', and
wetting his brush from time to time in his mouth. The neighbors in the
next apartment had a right to one-half of the balcony. Some one in there
was playing upon the piano Marcailhou's Indiana Waltz, which was all the
rage at that time. Any man, born about the year 1845, who does not feel
the tears of homesickness rise to his eyes as he turns over the pages of
an old number of the 'Magasin Pittoresque', or who hears some one play
upon an old piano Marcailhou's Indiana Waltz, is not endowed with much
sensibility.

When the child was tired of putting the "flesh color" upon the faces of
all the persons in the engravings, he got up and went to peep through
the railings of the balustrade. He saw extending before him, from right
to left, with a graceful curve, the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, one of
the quietest streets in the Luxembourg quarter, then only half built up.
The branches of the trees spread over the wooden fences, which enclosed
gardens so silent and tranquil that passers by could hear the birds
singing in their cages.

It was a September afternoon, with a broad expanse of pure sky across
which large clouds, like mountains of silver, moved in majestic
slowness.

Suddenly a soft voice called him:

"Amedee, your father will return from the office soon. We must wash your
hands before we sit down to the table, my darling."

His mother came out upon the balcony for him. His mother; his dear
mother, whom he knew for so short a time! It needs an effort for him to
call her to mind now, his memories are so indistinct. She was so modest
and pretty, so pale, and with such charming blue eyes, always carrying
her head on one side, as if the weight of her lovely chestnut hair was
too heavy for her to bear, and smiling the sweet, tired smile of those
who have not long to live! She made his toilette, kissed him upon his
forehead, after brushing his hair. Then