第16章

"During two months,while my work in the garden lasted,I never set eyes on the little house where my fair neighbor dwelt.I had not even inquired whether I had a neighbor,though the Countess'garden was divided from mine by a paling,along which she had planted cypress trees already four feet high.One fine morning Madame Gobain announced to her mistress,as a disastrous piece of news,the intention,expressed by an eccentric creature who had become her neighbor,of building a wall between the two gardens,at the end of the year.Iwill say nothing of the curiosity which consumed me to see the Countess!The wish almost extinguished my budding love for Amelie de Courteville.My scheme for building a wall was indeed a dangerous threat.There would be no more fresh air for Honorine,whose garden would then be a sort of narrow alley shut in between my wall and her own little house.This dwelling,formerly a summer villa,was like a house of cards;it was not more than thirty feet deep,and about a hundred feet long.The garden front,painted in the German fashion,imitated a trellis with flowers up to the second floor,and was really a charming example of the Pompadour style,so well called rococo.Along avenue of limes led up to it.The gardens of the pavilion and my plot of ground were in the shape of a hatchet,of which this avenue was the handle.My wall would cut away three-quarters of the hatchet.

"The Countess was in despair.

"'My good Gobain,'said she,'what sort of man is this florist?'

"'On my word,'said the housekeeper,'I do not know whether it will be possible to tame him.He seems to have a horror of women.He is the nephew of a Paris cure.I have seen the uncle but once;a fine old man of sixty,very ugly,but very amiable.It is quite possible that this priest encourages his nephew,as they say in the neighborhood,in his love of flowers,that nothing worse may happen----'

"'Why--what?'

"'Well,your neighbor is a little cracked!'said Gobain,tapping her head!

"Now a harmless lunatic is the only man whom no woman ever distrusts in the matter of sentiment.You will see how wise the Count had been in choosing this disguise for me.

"'What ails him then?'asked the Countess.

"'He has studied too hard,'replied Gobain;'he has turned misanthropic.And he has his reasons for disliking women--well,if you want to know all that is said about him----'

"'Well,'said Honorine,'madmen frighten me less than sane folks;Iwill speak to him myself!Tell him that I beg him to come here.If Ido not succeed,I will send for the cure.,'

"The day after this conversation,as I was walking along my graveled path,I caught sight of the half-opened curtains on the first floor of the little house,and of a woman's face curiously peeping out.Madame Gobain called me.I hastily glanced at the Countess'house,and by a rude shrug expressed,'What do I care for your mistress!'

""Madame,'said Gobain,called upon to give an account of her errand,'the madman bid me leave him in peace,saying that even a charcoal seller is master in his own premises,especially when he has no wife.'

"'He is perfectly right,'said the Countess.

"'Yes,but he ended by saying,"I will go,"when I told him that he would greatly distress a lady living in retirement,who found her greatest solace in growing flowers.'

"Next day a signal from Gobain informed me that I was expected.After the Countess'breakfast,when she was walking to and fro in front of her house,I broke out some palings and went towards her.I had dressed myself like a countryman,in an old pair of gray flannel trousers,heavy wooden shoes,and shabby shooting coat,a peaked cap on my head,a ragged bandana round my neck,hands soiled with mould,and a dibble in my hand.

"'Madame,'said the housekeeper,'this good man is your neighbor.'

"The Countess was not alarmed.I saw at last the woman whom her own conduct and her husband's confidences had made me so curious to meet.

It was in the early days of May.The air was pure,the weather serene;the verdure of the first foliage,the fragrance of spring formed a setting for this creature of sorrow.As I then saw Honorine Iunderstood Octave's passion and the truthfulness of his deion,'A heavenly flower!'

"Her pallor was what first struck me by its peculiar tone of white--for there are as many tones of white as of red or blue.On looking at the Countess,the eye seemed to feel that tender skin,where the blood flowed in the blue veins.At the slightest emotion the blood mounted under the surface in rosy flushes like a cloud.When we met,the sunshine,filtering through the light foliage of the acacias,shed on Honorine the pale gold,ambient glory in which Raphael and Titian,alone of all painters,have been able to enwrap the Virgin.Her brown eyes expressed both tenderness and vivacity;their brightness seemed reflected in her face through the long downcast lashes.Merely by lifting her delicate eyelids,Honorine could cast a spell;there was so much feeling,dignity,terror,or contempt in her way of raising or dropping those veils of the soul.She could freeze or give life by a look.Her light-brown hair,carelessly knotted on her head,outlined a poet's brow,high,powerful,and dreamy.The mouth was wholly voluptuous.And to crown all by a grace,rare in France,though common in Italy,all the lines and forms of the head had a stamp of nobleness which would defy the outrages of time.

"Though slight,Honorine was not thin,and her figure struck me as being one that might revive love when it believed itself exhausted.