Chapter 5

Both windows of the bedroom were wide open, and in the depths below
the house, which was perched on the very summit of the hill, lay
Paris, rolling away in a mighty flat expanse. Ten o'clock struck; the
lovely February morning had all the sweetness and perfume of spring.

Helene reclined in an invalid chair, reading in front of one of the
windows, her knee still in bandages. She suffered no pain; but she had
been confined to her room for a week past, unable even to take up her
customary needlework. Not knowing what to do, she had opened a book
which she had found on the table--she, who indulged in little or no
reading at any time. This book was the one she used every night as a
shade for the night-lamp, the only volume which she had taken within
eighteen months from the small but irreproachable library selected by
Monsieur Rambaud. Novels usually seemed to her false to life and
puerile; and this one, Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe," had at first
wearied her to death. However, a strange curiosity had grown upon her,
and she was finishing it, at times affected to tears, and at times
rather bored, when she would let it slip from her hand for long
minutes and gaze fixedly at the far-stretching horizon.

That morning Paris awoke from sleep with a smiling indolence. A mass
of vapor, following the valley of the Seine, shrouded the two banks
from view. This mist was light and milky, and the sun, gathering
strength, was slowly tinging it with radiance. Nothing of the city was
distinguishable through this floating muslin. In the hollows the haze
thickened and assumed a bluish tint; while over certain broad expanses
delicate transparencies appeared, a golden dust, beneath which you
could divine the depths of the streets; and up above domes and
steeples rent the mist, rearing grey outlines to which clung shreds of
the haze which they had pierced. At times cloudlets of yellow smoke
would, like giant birds, heavy of wing, slowly soar on high, and then
mingle with the atmosphere which seemed to absorb them. And above all
this immensity, this mass of cloud, hanging in slumber over Paris, a
sky of extreme purity, of a faint and whitening blue, spread out its
mighty vault. The sun was climbing the heavens, scattering a spray of
soft rays; a pale golden light, akin in hue to the flaxen tresses of a
child, was streaming down like rain, filling the atmosphere with the
warm quiver of its sparkle. It was like a festival of the infinite,
instinct with sovereign peacefulness and gentle gaiety, whilst the
city, chequered with golden beams, still remained lazy and sleepy,
unwilling to reveal itself by casting off its coverlet of lace.

For eight days it had been Helene's diversion to gaze on that mighty
expanse of Paris, and she never wearied of doing so. It was as
unfathomable and varying as the ocean--fair in the morning, ruddy with
fire at night, borrowing all the joys and sorrows of the heavens
reflected in its depths. A flash of sunshine came, and it would roll
in waves of gold; a cloud would darken it and raise a tempest. Its
aspect was ever changing. A complete calm would fall, and all would
assume an orange hue; gusts of wind would sweep by from time to time,
and turn everything livid; in keen, bright weather there would be a
shimmer of light on every housetop; whilst when showers fell, blurring
both heaven and earth, all would be plunged in chaotic confusion. At
her window Helene experienced all the hopes and sorrows that pertain
to the open sea. As the keen wind blew in her face she imagined it
wafted a saline fragrance; even the ceaseless noise of the city seemed
to her like that of a surging tide beating against a rocky cliff.

The book fell from her hands. She was dreaming, with a far-away look
in her eyes. When she stopped reading thus it was from a desire to
linger and understand what she had already perused. She took a delight
in denying her curiosity immediate satisfaction. The tale filled her
soul with a tempest of emotion. Paris that morning was displaying the
same vague joy and sorrow as that which disturbed her heart. In this
lay a great charm--to be ignorant, to guess things dimly, to yield to
slow initiation, with the vague thought that her youth was beginning
again.

How full of lies were novels! She was assuredly right in not reading
them. They were mere fables, good for empty heads with no proper
conception of life. Yet she remained entranced, dreaming unceasingly
of the knight Ivanhoe, loved so passionately by two women--Rebecca,
the beautiful Jewess, and the noble Lady Rowena. She herself thought
she could have loved with the intensity and patient serenity of the
latter maiden. To love! to love! She did not utter the words, but they
thrilled her through and through in the very thought, astonishing her,
and irradiating her face with a smile. In the distance some fleecy
cloudlets, driven by the breeze, now floated over Paris like a flock
of swans. Huge gaps were being cleft in the fog; a momentary glimpse
was given of the left bank, indistinct and clouded, like a city of
fairydom seen in a dream; but suddenly a thick curtain of mist swept
down, and the fairy city was engulfed, as though by an inundation. And
then the vapors, spreading equally over every district, formed, as it
were, a beautiful lake, with milky, placid waters. There was but one
denser streak, indicating the grey, curved course of the Seine. And
slowly over those milky, placid waters shadows passed, like vessels
with pink sails, which the young woman followed with a dreamy gaze. To
love! to love! She smiled as her dream sailed on.

However, she again took up her book. She had reached the chapter
describing the attack on the castle, wherein Rebecca nurses the
wounded Ivanhoe, and recounts to him the incidents of the fight, which
she gazes at from a window. Helene felt that she was in the midst of a
beautiful falsehood, but roamed through it as through some mythical
garden, whose trees are laden with golden fruit, and where she imbibed
all sorts of fancies. Then, at the conclusion of the scene, when
Rebecca, wrapped in her veil, exhales her love beside the sleeping
knight, Helene again allowed the book to slip from her hand; her heart
was so brimful of emotion that she could read no further.

Heavens! could all those things be true? she asked, as she lay back in
her easy-chair, numbed by her enforced quiescence, and gazing on
Paris, shrouded and mysterious, beneath the golden sun. The events of
her life now arose before her, conjured up by the perusal of the
novel. She saw herself a young girl in the house of her father,
Mouret, a hatter at Marseilles. The Rue des Petites-Maries was black
and dismal, and the house, with its vat of steaming water ready to the
hand of the hatter, exhaled a rank odor of dampness, even in fine
weather. She also saw her mother, who was ever an invalid, and who
kissed her with pale lips, without speaking. No gleam of the sun
penetrated into her little room. Hard work went on around her; only by
dint of toil did her father gain a workingman's competency. That
summed up her early life, and till her marriage nothing intervened to
break the monotony of days ever the same. One morning, returning from
market with her mother, a basketful of vegetables on her arm, she
jostled against young Grandjean. Charles turned round and followed
them. The love-romance of her life was in this incident. For three
months she was always meeting him, while he, bashful and awkward,
could not pluck up courage to speak to her. She was sixteen years of
age, and a little proud of her lover, who, she knew, belonged to a
wealthy family. But she deemed him bad-looking, and often laughed at
him, and no thought of him disturbed her sleep in the large, gloomy,
damp house. In the end they were married, and this marriage yet filled
her with surprise. Charles worshipped her, and would fling himself on
the floor to kiss her bare feet. She beamed on him, her smile full of
kindness, as she rebuked him for such childishness. Then another dull
life began. During twelve years no event of sufficient interest had
occurred for her to bear in mind. She was very quiet and very happy,
tormented by no fever either of body or heart; her whole attention
being given to the daily cares of a poor household. Charles was still
wont to kiss her fair white feet, while she showed herself indulgent
and motherly towards him. But other feeling she had none. Then there
abruptly came before her the room in the Hotel du Var, her husband in
his coffin, and her widow's robe hanging over a chair. She had wept
that day as on the winter's night when her mother died. Then once more
the days glided on; for two months with her daughter she had again
enjoyed peace and happiness. Heaven! did that sum up everything? What,
then, did that book mean when it spoke of transcendent loves which
illumine one's existence?

While she thus reflected prolonged quivers were darting over the
sleeping lake of mist on the horizon. Suddenly it seemed to burst,
gaps appeared, a rending sped from end to end, betokening a complete
break-up. The sun, ascending higher and higher, scattering its rays in
glorious triumph, was victoriously attacking the mist. Little by
little the great lake seemed to dry up, as though some invisible
sluice were draining the plain. The fog, so dense but a moment before,
was losing its consistency and becoming transparent, showing all the
bright hues of the rainbow. On the left bank of the Seine all was of a
heavenly blue, deepening into violet over towards the Jardin des
Plantes. Upon the right bank a pale pink, flesh-like tint suffused the
Tuileries district; while away towards Montmartre there was a fiery
glow, carmine flaming amid gold. Then, farther off, the working-men's
quarters deepened to a dusty brick-color, changing more and more till
all became a slatey, bluish grey. The eye could not yet distinguish
the city, which quivered and receded like those subaqueous depths
divined through the crystalline waves, depths with awful forests of
huge plants, swarming with horrible things and monsters faintly
espied. However, the watery mist was quickly falling. It became at
last no more than a fine muslin drapery; and bit by bit this muslin
vanished, and Paris took shape and emerged from dreamland.

To love! to love! Why did these words ring in Helene's ears with such
sweetness as the darkness of the fog gave way to light? Had she not
loved her husband, whom she had tended like a child? But a bitter
memory stirred within her--the memory of her dead father, who had hung
himself three weeks after his wife's decease in a closet where her
gowns still dangled from their hooks. There he had gasped out his last
agony, his body rigid, and his face buried in a skirt, wrapped round
by the clothes which breathed of her whom he had ever worshipped. Then
Helene's reverie took a sudden leap. She began thinking of her own
home-life, of the month's bills which she had checked with Rosalie
that very morning; and she felt proud of the orderly way in which she
regulated her household. During more than thirty years she had lived
with self-respect and strength of mind. Uprightness alone impassioned
her. When she questioned her past, not one hour revealed a sin; in her
mind's eye she saw herself ever treading a straight and level path.
Truly, the days might slip by; she would walk on peacefully as before,
with no impediment in her way. The very thought of this made her
stern, and her spirit rose in angry contempt against those lying lives
whose apparent heroism disturbs the heart. The only true life was her
own, following its course amidst such peacefulness. But over Paris
there now only hung a thin smoke, a fine, quivering gauze, on the
point of floating away; and emotion suddenly took possession of her.
To love! to love! everything brought her back to that caressing phrase
--even the pride born of her virtue. Her dreaming became so light, she
no longer thought, but lay there, steeped in springtide, with moist
eyes.

At last, as she was about to resume her reading, Paris slowly came
into view. Not a breath of wind had stirred; it was as if a magician
had waved his wand. The last gauzy film detached itself, soared and
vanished in the air; and the city spread out without a shadow, under
the conquering sun. Helene, with her chin resting on her hand, gazed
on this mighty awakening.

A far-stretching valley appeared, with a myriad of buildings huddled
together. Over the distant range of hills were scattered close-set
roofs, and you could divine that the sea of houses rolled afar off
behind the undulating ground, into the fields hidden from sight. It
was as the ocean, with all the infinity and mystery of its waves.
Paris spread out as vast as the heavens on high. Burnished with the
sunshine that lovely morning, the city looked like a field of yellow
corn; and the huge picture was all simplicity, compounded of two
colors only, the pale blue of the sky, and the golden reflections of
the housetops. The stream of light from the spring sun invested
everything with the beauty of a new birth. So pure was the light that
the minutest objects became visible. Paris, with its chaotic maze of
stonework, shone as though under glass. From time to time, however, a
breath of wind passed athwart this bright, quiescent serenity; and
then the outlines of some districts grew faint, and quivered as if
they were being viewed through an invisible flame.

Helene took interest at first in gazing on the large expanse spread
under her windows, the slope of the Trocadero, and the far-stretching
quays. She had to lean out to distinguish the deserted square of the
Champ-de-Mars, barred at the farther end by the sombre Military
School. Down below, on thoroughfare and pavement on each side of the
Seine, she could see the passers-by--a busy cluster of black dots,
moving like a swarm of ants. A yellow omnibus shone out like a spark
of fire; drays and cabs crossed the bridge, mere child's toys in the
distance, with miniature horses like pieces of mechanism; and amongst
others traversing the grassy slopes was a servant girl, with a white
apron which set a bright spot in all the greenery. Then Helene raised
her eyes; but the crowd scattered and passed out of sight, and even
the vehicles looked like mere grains of sand; there remained naught
but the gigantic carcass of the city, seemingly untenanted and
abandoned, its life limited to the dull trepidation by which it was
agitated. There, in the foreground to the left, some red roofs were
shining, and the tall chimneys of the Army Bakehouse slowly poured out
their smoke; while, on the other side of the river, between the
Esplanade and the Champ-de-Mars, a grove of lofty elms clustered, like
some patch of a park, with bare branches, rounded tops, and young buds
already bursting forth, quite clear to the eye. In the centre of the
picture, the Seine spread out and reigned between its grey banks, to
which rows of casks, steam cranes, and carts drawn up in line, gave a
seaport kind of aspect. Helene's eyes were always turning towards this
shining river, on which boats passed to and fro like birds with inky
plumage. Her looks involuntarily followed the water's stately course,
which, like a silver band, cut Paris atwain. That morning the stream
rolled liquid sunlight; no greater resplendency could be seen on the
horizon. And the young woman's glance encountered first the Pont des
Invalides, next the Pont de la Concorde, and then the Pont Royal.
Bridge followed bridge, they appeared to get closer, to rise one above
the other like viaducts forming a flight of steps, and pierced with
all kinds of arches; while the river, wending its way beneath these
airy structures, showed here and there small patches of its blue robe,
patches which became narrower and narrower, more and more indistinct.
And again did Helene raise her eyes, and over yonder the stream forked
amidst a jumble of houses; the bridges on either side of the island of
La Cite were like mere films stretching from one bank to the other;
while the golden towers of Notre-Dame sprang up like boundary-marks of
the horizon, beyond which river, buildings, and clumps of trees became
naught but sparkling sunshine. Then Helene, dazzled, withdrew her gaze
from this the triumphant heart of Paris, where the whole glory of the
city appeared to blaze.

On the right bank, amongst the clustering trees of the Champs-Elysees
she saw the crystal buildings of the Palace of Industry glittering
with a snowy sheen; farther away, behind the roof of the Madeleine,
which looked like a tombstone, towered the vast mass of the Opera
House; then there were other edifices, cupolas and towers, the
Vendome Column, the church of Saint-Vincent de Paul, the tower of
Saint-Jacques; and nearer in, the massive cube-like pavilions of the
new Louvre and the Tuileries, half-hidden by a wood of chestnut trees.
On the left bank the dome of the Invalides shone with gilding; beyond
it the two irregular towers of Saint-Sulpice paled in the bright
light; and yet farther in the rear, to the right of the new spires
of Sainte-Clotilde, the bluish Pantheon, erect on a height, its fine
colonnade showing against the sky, overlooked the city, poised in the
air, as it were, motionless, with the silken hues of a captive balloon.

Helene's gaze wandered all over Paris. There were hollows, as could be
divined by the lines of roofs; the Butte des Moulins surged upward,
with waves of old slates, while the line of the principal boulevards
dipped downward like a gutter, ending in a jumble of houses whose
tiles even could no longer be seen. At this early hour the oblique sun
did not light up the house-fronts looking towards the Trocadero; not a
window-pane of these threw back its rays. The skylights on some roofs
alone sparkled with the glittering reflex of mica amidst the red of
the adjacent chimney-pots. The houses were mostly of a sombre grey,
warmed by reflected beams; still rays of light were transpiercing
certain districts, and long streets, stretching in front of Helene,
set streaks of sunshine amidst the shade. It was only on the left that
the far-spreading horizon, almost perfect in its circular sweep, was
broken by the heights of Montmartre and Pere-Lachaise. The details so
clearly defined in the foreground, the innumerable denticles of the
chimneys, the little black specks of the thousands of windows, grew
less and less distinct as you gazed farther and farther away, till
everything became mingled in confusion--the pell-mell of an endless
city, whose faubourgs, afar off, looked like shingly beaches, steeped
in a violet haze under the bright, streaming, vibrating light that
fell from the heavens.

Helene was watching the scene with grave interest when Jeanne burst
gleefully into the room.

"Oh, mamma! look here!"

The child had a big bunch of wall-flowers in her hand. She told, with
some laughter, how she had waylaid Rosalie on her return from market
to peep into her basket of provisions. To rummage in this basket was a
great delight to her.

"Look at it, mamma! It lay at the very bottom. Just smell it; what a
lovely perfume!"

From the tawny flowers, speckled with purple, there came a penetrating
odor which scented the whole room. Then Helene, with a passionate
movement, drew Jeanne to her breast, while the nosegay fell on her
lap. To love! to love! Truly, she loved her child. Was not that
intense love which had pervaded her life till now sufficient for her
wants? It ought to satisfy her; it was so gentle, so tranquil; no
lassitude could put an end to its continuance. Again she pressed her
daughter to her, as though to conjure away thoughts which threatened
to separate them. In the meantime Jeanne surrendered herself to the
shower of kisses. Her eyes moist with tears, she turned her delicate
neck upwards with a coaxing gesture, and pressed her face against her
mother's shoulder. Then she slipped an arm round her waist and thus
remained, very demure, her cheek resting on Helene's bosom. The
perfume of the wall-flowers ascended between them.

For a long time they did not speak; but at length, without moving,
Jeanne asked in a whisper:

"Mamma, you see that rosy-colored dome down there, close to the river;
what is it?"

It was the dome of the Institute, and Helene looked towards it for a
moment as though trying to recall the name.

"I don't know, my love," she answered gently.

The child appeared content with this reply, and silence again fell.
But soon she asked a second question.

"And there, quite near, what beautiful trees are those?" she said,
pointing with her finger towards a corner of the Tuileries garden.

"Those beautiful trees!" said her mother. "On the left, do you mean? I
don't know, my love."

"Ah!" exclaimed Jeanne; and after musing for a little while she added
with a pout: "We know nothing!"

Indeed they knew nothing of Paris. During eighteen months it had lain
beneath their gaze every hour of the day, yet they knew not a stone of
it. Three times only had they gone down into the city; but on
returning home, suffering from terrible headaches born of all the
agitation they had witnessed, they could find in their minds no
distinct memory of anything in all that huge maze of streets.

However, Jeanne at times proved obstinate. "Ah! you can tell me this!"
said she: "What is that glass building which glitters there? It is so
big you must know it."

She was referring to the Palais de l'Industrie. Helene, however,
hesitated.

"It's a railway station," said she. "No, I'm wrong, I think it is a
theatre."

Then she smiled and kissed Jeanne's hair, at last confessing as
before: "I do not know what it is, my love."

So they continued to gaze on Paris, troubling no further to identify
any part of it. It was very delightful to have it there before them,
and yet to know nothing of it; it remained the vast and the unknown.
It was as though they had halted on the threshold of a world which
ever unrolled its panorama before them, but into which they were
unwilling to descend. Paris often made them anxious when it wafted
them a hot, disturbing atmosphere; but that morning it seemed gay and
innocent, like a child, and from its mysterious depths only a breath
of tenderness rose gently to their faces.

Helene took up her book again while Jeanne, clinging to her, still
gazed upon the scene. In the dazzling, tranquil sky no breeze was
stirring. The smoke from the Army Bakehouse ascended perpendicularly
in light cloudlets which vanished far aloft. On a level with the
houses passed vibrating waves of life, waves of all the life pent up
there. The loud voices of the streets softened amidst the sunshine
into a languid murmur. But all at once a flutter attracted Jeanne's
notice. A flock of white pigeons, freed from some adjacent dovecot,
sped through the air in front of the window; with spreading wings like
falling snow, the birds barred the line of view, hiding the immensity
of Paris.

With eyes again dreamily gazing upward, Helene remained plunged in
reverie. She was the Lady Rowena; she loved with the serenity and
intensity of a noble mind. That spring morning, that great, gentle
city, those early wall-flowers shedding their perfume on her lap, had
little by little filled her heart with tenderness.