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By Root 1441 0

them, and the stone darkened again, but, as though they had been tamed, they would return; imperceptibly the stone whitened once more, and as in one of those uninterrupted crescendos which, in music, at the end of an overture, carry a single note to the supreme fortissimo by making it pass rapidly through all the intermediate stages, I would see it reach that fixed, unalterable gold of fine days, on which the clear-cut shadow of the wrought iron of the balustrade was outlined in black like some capricious vegetation, with a delicacy in the delineation of its smallest details that seemed to indicate a deliberate application, an artist’s satisfaction, and with so much relief, so velvety a bloom in the restfulness of its dark, felicitous masses that in truth those broad and leafy reflections on that lake of sunshine seemed aware that they were pledges of tranquillity and happiness.

Brief, fading ivy, climbing, fugitive flora!—the most colourless, the most depressing, to many minds, of all that creep on walls or decorate windows; to me the dearest of them all ever since the day when it appeared upon our balcony, like the very shadow of the presence of Gilberte, who was perhaps already in the Champs-Elysées, and as soon as I arrived there would greet me with: “Let’s begin at once; you’re on my side”; frail, swept away by a breath, but at the same time in harmony, not with the season, but with the hour; promise of that immediate happiness which the day will deny or fulfil, and thereby of the one paramount immediate happiness, the happiness of love; softer, warmer upon the stone even than moss; robust, a ray of sunlight sufficing for it to spring into life and blossom into joy, even in the heart of winter.

And even on those days when all other vegetation had disappeared, when the fine green hide which covered the trunks of the old trees was hidden beneath the snow, and, though the latter had ceased to fall, the sky was still too overcast for me to hope that Gilberte would venture out, then suddenly—inspiring my mother to say: “Look, it’s quite fine now; I think you might perhaps try going to the Champs-Elysées after all”—on the mantle of snow that swathed the balcony, the sun would appear and weave a tracery of golden threads and black shadows. On one such day we found no one, or only a solitary little girl on the point of departure, who assured me that Gilberte was not coming. The chairs, deserted by the imposing but shivering assembly of governesses, stood empty. Alone, beside the lawn, sat a lady of a certain age who came in all weathers, dressed always in an identical style, splendid and sombre, to make whose acquaintance I would at that time have sacrificed, had it lain in my power, all the greatest advantages and privileges of my future life. For Gilberte went up to greet her every day; she used to ask Gilberte for news of her “adorable mother”; and it struck me that, if I had known her, I should have been for Gilberte someone wholly different, someone who knew people in her parents’ world. While her grandchildren played together at a little distance, she would sit and read the Journal des Débats, which she called “My old Débats,” and with aristocratic affectation would say, speaking of the policeman or the woman who let the chairs, “My old friend the policeman,” or “The chair-keeper and I, who are old friends.”

Françoise found it too cold to stand about, so we walked to the Pont de la Concorde to see the Seine frozen over, which everyone, even children, approached fearlessly, as though it were an enormous whale, stranded, defenceless, and about to be cut up. We returned to the Champs-Elysées; I was growing sick with misery between the motionless roundabout and the white lawn, caught in the black network of the paths from which the snow had been cleared, while the statue that surmounted it held in its hand a long pendent icicle which seemed to explain its gesture. The old lady herself, having folded up her Débats, asked a passing nursemaid the time, thanking her with “How very good of you!” then begged the road-sweeper