CHAPTER LXXXII.
My sister and I had expected to visit the mountains again the next
summer.
But Azrael passed our way; terrible and unexpected misfortunes
disrupted our tranquil and happy family life.
And it was not until fifteen years later, after I had been over the
greater part of the earth, that I revisited this corner of France.
All was greatly changed there; my uncle and aunt slept in the
graveyard; my boy cousins had left, and my girl cousin, who already
had threads of silver among her dark locks, was preparing to quit this
part of the country forever, this empty house in which she did not
wish to live alone; and the Titi and the Marciette (whose names were
no longer prefaced by the article) had grown into tall young ladies
whom I would not have recognized.
Between two long voyages, in a hurry as always, my life hastening
feverishly upon its way, in remembrance of bygone days, I made this
pilgrimage to my uncle's house to see it once more, and for the last
time, before it was delivered into the hands of strangers.
It was in November, and the cold gray sky completely changed the
aspect of the country, which I had never seen before except under the
glorious summer sun.
After spending my only morning in revisiting a thousand places, my
melancholy ever augmented by the lowering winter clouds, I found that
I had forgotten the old garden and the vine-clad arbor in whose meagre
shade I had come to so momentous a decision, and I wished to run
there, at the last moment, before my carriage took me away from this
spot forever.
"You will have to go alone," said my cousin, who was busy packing her
trunks. She gave me the large key, the same large key that I carried
in the warm and radiant days of old when I went there, net in hand, to
catch the butterflies . . . oh! the summers of my childhood, how
marvellous and how enchanting they were!
For the last time of all, I entered the garden, which under the gray
sky appeared shrunken to me. I went first to the arbor, now leafless
and desolate, in which I had written the portentous letter to my
brother, and, by means of the same breach in the wall that had served
me in days gone by, I lifted myself to the coping to get a hasty
glimpse of the surrounding country, to bid it a last farewell. Bories
looked singularly near and small to me, it was almost unrecognizably
so, and the mountains beyond seemed diminished also, appeared no
higher than little hills. And all of these things that formerly I had
seen flooded with sunlight, now looked dull and sinister in the wan,
gray November light, and under the dark and wintry clouds. I felt as
if with the commencement of nature's autumn, my life's autumn had also
dawned.
And the world, the world which I had thought so immense and so full of
wonder and charm the day that I leaned on this same wall, after I had
made my decision,--the whole wide world, did it not look as faded and
shrunken to me now as this poor landscape?
And especially Bories, that under the autumnal sky looked like a
phantom of itself, filled me with the deepest sadness.
As I gazed at it I recalled the pinkish-yellow butterfly still under
its glass in my museum; it had remained there in the same spot, and
had preserved its fresh bright hues during the time that I had sailed
all round the globe. For many years I had not thought of the
association between the two things; but as soon as I remembered the
yellow butterfly, which was recalled to my mind by Bories, I heard a
small voice within me sing over and over, very softly: "Ah! Ah! the
good, good story!" . . . The little voice was strange and flute-like,
but above all it was sad, sad enough for tears, sad enough to sing
over the tomb where lie buried the vanished years and dead summers.
