Читать книгу Sylvie: souvenirs du Valois - Gérard de Nerval - Страница 6

I sought my bed, but not to sleep, and, lost in a half-conscious revery, all my youth passed before me. How often, in the border-land of dreams, while yet the mind repels their encroaching fancies, we are enabled to review in a few moments, the important events of a lifetime!

I saw a castle of the time of Henry IV., with its slate-covered turrets, its reddish front, jutting corners of yellow stone, and a stretch of green bordered by elms and lime-trees, through whose foliage, the setting sun shot its last fiery rays. Young girls were dancing in a ring on the lawn, singing quaint old tunes caught from their mothers, in a French whose native purity bespoke the old country of Valois, where for more than a thousand years had throbbed the heart of France. I was the only boy in the circle where I had led my young companion, Sylvie, a little maid from the neighboring hamlet, so fresh and animated, with her black eyes, regular features and slightly sun-burned skin. I loved but her, I had eyes but for her – till then! I had scarcely noticed in our round, a tall, beautiful blonde, called Adrienne, when suddenly, in following the figures of the dance, she was left alone with me, in the centre of the ring; we were of the same height, and they bade me kiss her, while the dance and song went whirling on, more merrily than before. When I kissed her, I could not forbear pressing her hand; her golden curls touched my cheek, and from that moment, a new feeling possessed me.

The fair girl must sing a song to reclaim her place in the dance, and we seated ourselves about her. In a sweet, penetrating voice, somewhat husky, as is common in that country of mists and fogs, she sang one of those old ballads full of love and sorrow, which always carry the story of an imprisoned princess, shut in a tower by her father, as a punishment for loving. At the end of every stanza, the melody died away in those quavering trills which enable young voices to simulate so well the tremulous notes of old women.

While she sang, the shadows of the great trees lengthened and the light of the young moon fell full upon her, as she stood apart from the rapt circle. The lawn was covered with rising clouds of mist that trailed its white wreaths over every blade of grass. We thought ourselves in Paradise. The song ended and no one dared break the stillness – at last I rose and ran to the gardens where some laurels were growing in large porcelain vases painted in monochrome. I plucked two branches which were twined into a crown, bound with ribbon, and I placed it upon Adrienne's brow, where its glossy leaves gleamed above her fair locks in the pale moonlight. She looked liked Dante's Beatrice, smiling at the poet as he strayed on the confines of the Blest Abodes.

Adrienne rose and, drawing up her slender figure, bowed to us gracefully and ran back to the castle; they said she was the child of a race allied to the ancient kings of France, that the blood of the Valois princes flowed in her veins. Upon this festal day, she had been permitted to join in our sports, but we were not to see her again, for on the morrow she would return to the convent of which she was an inmate.

When I rejoined Sylvie, I found her weeping because of the crown I had given to the fair singer. I offered to make another for her, but she would not consent, saying she did not merit it. I vainly tried to vindicate myself, but she refused to speak as we went the homeward way.

Paris soon recalled me to resume my studies, and I bore with me the two-fold memory of a tender friendship sadly broken, and of a love uncertain and impossible, the source of painful musings which my college philosophy was powerless to dispel.

Adrienne's face alone haunted me, a vision of glory and beauty, sweetening and sharing the hours of arduous study.

In the vacation of the following year, I learned that this lovely girl, who had but flitted past me, was destined by her family to a religious life.