She must
be some great lady of the court, and our passion must be attended by
circumstances of mystery, danger, everything to complicate it and raise
it to an epic height. Such was the amour I had determined to find in
Paris. Remember, you who read this, that I am disclosing the inmost
dreams of a man of twenty-one. Such dreams are appropriate to that age;
it is only when they are associated with middle age that they become
ridiculous; and when thoughts of amatory conquest are found in common
with gray hairs, they are loathsome. If I seem to have given my mind
largely up to fancies of love, consider that I was then at the age when
such fancies rather adorn than deface. Indeed, a young man without
thoughts of love is as much an anomaly as is an older man who gives
himself up to them.
I looked back once at La Tournoire, when I reached the top of the hill
that would, in another minute, shut it from my view. I saw old Michel
standing at the porte. I waved my hand to him, and turned to proceed on
my way. Soon the lump in my throat melted away, the moisture left my
eyes, and only the future concerned me. Every object that came into
sight, every tree along the roadside, now interested me. I passed several
travellers, some of whom seemed to envy me my indifference to the cold
weather, my look of joyous content.
About noon I overtook, just where the road left a wood and turned to
cross a bridge, a small cavalcade consisting of an erect, handsome
gentleman of middle age, and several armed lackeys.
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