Chapter Chapter 190 · LUX FACTA EST

During the second year, precisely at the point in this history which

the reader has now reached, it chanced that this habit of the

Luxembourg was interrupted, without Marius himself being quite aware

why, and nearly six months elapsed, during which he did not set foot in

the alley. One day, at last, he returned thither once more; it was a

serene summer morning, and Marius was in joyous mood, as one is when

the weather is fine. It seemed to him that he had in his heart all the

songs of the birds that he was listening to, and all the bits of blue

sky of which he caught glimpses through the leaves of the trees.

He went straight to “his alley,” and when he reached the end of it he

perceived, still on the same bench, that well-known couple. Only, when

he approached, it certainly was the same man; but it seemed to him that

it was no longer the same girl. The person whom he now beheld was a

tall and beautiful creature, possessed of all the most charming lines

of a woman at the precise moment when they are still combined with all

the most ingenuous graces of the child; a pure and fugitive moment,

which can be expressed only by these two words,—“fifteen years.” She

had wonderful brown hair, shaded with threads of gold, a brow that

seemed made of marble, cheeks that seemed made of rose-leaf, a pale

flush, an agitated whiteness, an exquisite mouth, whence smiles darted

like sunbeams, and words like music, a head such as Raphael would have

given to Mary, set upon a neck that Jean Goujon would have attributed

to a Venus. And, in order that nothing might be lacking to this

bewitching face, her nose was not handsome—it was pretty; neither

straight nor curved, neither Italian nor Greek; it was the Parisian

nose, that is to say, spiritual, delicate, irregular, pure,—which

drives painters to despair, and charms poets.

When Marius passed near her, he could not see her eyes, which were

constantly lowered. He saw only her long chestnut lashes, permeated

with shadow and modesty.

This did not prevent the beautiful child from smiling as she listened

to what the white-haired old man was saying to her, and nothing could

be more fascinating than that fresh smile, combined with those drooping

eyes.

For a moment, Marius thought that she was another daughter of the same

man, a sister of the former, no doubt. But when the invariable habit of

his stroll brought him, for the second time, near the bench, and he had

examined her attentively, he recognized her as the same. In six months

the little girl had become a young maiden; that was all. Nothing is

more frequent than this phenomenon. There is a moment when girls

blossom out in the twinkling of an eye, and become roses all at once.

One left them children but yesterday; today, one finds them disquieting

to the feelings.

This child had not only grown, she had become idealized. As three days

in April suffice to cover certain trees with flowers, six months had

sufficed to clothe her with beauty. Her April had arrived.

One sometimes sees people, who, poor and mean, seem to wake up, pass

suddenly from indigence to luxury, indulge in expenditures of all

sorts, and become dazzling, prodigal, magnificent, all of a sudden.

That is the result of having pocketed an income; a note fell due

yesterday. The young girl had received her quarterly income.

And then, she was no longer the school-girl with her felt hat, her

merino gown, her scholar’s shoes, and red hands; taste had come to her

with beauty; she was a well-dressed person, clad with a sort of rich

and simple elegance, and without affectation. She wore a dress of black

damask, a cape of the same material, and a bonnet of white crape. Her

white gloves displayed the delicacy of the hand which toyed with the

carved, Chinese ivory handle of a parasol, and her silken shoe outlined

the smallness of her foot. When one passed near her, her whole toilette

exhaled a youthful and penetrating perfume.

As for the man, he was the same as usual.

The second time that Marius approached her, the young girl raised her

eyelids; her eyes were of a deep, celestial blue, but in that veiled

azure, there was, as yet, nothing but the glance of a child. She looked

at Marius indifferently, as she would have stared at the brat running

beneath the sycamores, or the marble vase which cast a shadow on the

bench, and Marius, on his side, continued his promenade, and thought

about something else.

He passed near the bench where the young girl sat, five or six times,

but without even turning his eyes in her direction.

On the following days, he returned, as was his wont, to the Luxembourg;

as usual, he found there “the father and daughter;” but he paid no

further attention to them. He thought no more about the girl now that

she was beautiful than he had when she was homely. He passed very near

the bench where she sat, because such was his habit.