The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [866]
“How could I help believing in a love which was expressed in such words? And yet how could I believe a woman whose coquetry had been proved to me beyond a doubt again and again. My life seemed enveloped in a “clair-obscur,” from which I was unable to extricate myself. You see, my dear nephew, I was about as silly as yourself, and that I was going the straight road to Charenton. Happily for me that it was not an epoch which afforded leisure for a passion to grow ripe, ferment, and run ranting through my sentimental brain. I received orders to hasten immediately with a detachment to join the army. I will spare you the recital of our adieus — they were heart rending. I laugh now when I think of the sincere tears I shed then, while, as for Madame de B——, I believe she has passed many amusing moments in recalling the sobs she lavished upon me. The day of my departure I accompanied the rear-guard, and leaving my steed, who, “with mournful eye and inclined head seemed in consonance with my sad thoughts,” I jumped into the baggage-wagon, and rode backwards like a criminal to the gallows, my eyes turned to the happy walls which contained my fair.
“But soon the hurry, the excitement and emotions of battlefields drove the lovely widow from my memory. From Spain I went to Wagram, where, through destruction and smoke, I recognised my friend. In the midst of the infernal noise of more than a hundred mouths of fire which thundered around us, we were too busy, and had other things to think of besides our garrison amours. From the south to the north I bore manfully the arrow with which the mischievous god had transfixed my too susceptible nature; but Providence ordained that my love adventures should end where my military expeditions began. After the battle of Waterloo the remnant of our regiment fortified themselves on the Loire, and chance, which separated me from my friend so long, at last brought us both back to the same place in which we made our debut.
“We were no longer, it is true, those gay young lieutenants of 1800; years, and still more the hardships we had undergone, and, I ought to add, a shot received in my face, had not served to embellish; yet in spite of the cutting pains the misfortunes of our country had caused us, our old haunts, formerly so gay, reminded us of the lady of our affections, and both of us went to see her. Time had touched her lightly, for in truth, it had only heightened her charms, only lent them mor substantial sweetness! In short, she appeared to us both more beautiful than ever. She received us like indifferent persons, whom she had casually met in the world. In vain we strove to recall to her mind certain circumstances — there was now no jealousy between us — one was not more favoured than the other. Madame the Countess Amilie de B—— was thoughtful, and treaded us exactly as if we had been brigands of the Loire. How sad our life had become; how hard was it to hear the insulting flourish of trumpets of our conquerors who had encamped on the other side of the river; how I hated the detestable horns which played that infernal Tyrolienne I had heard so many times resounding through the mountains at a call to arms against us! But the ladies of the city were differently affected by the foreign music. Every evening they went to the other side of the bridge to hear it. Now it happened on a time the music did wonders; dances and waltzes succeeded each other, and time passed rapidly; when the crowd of music-lovers wished to regain the opposite shore, they were stopped by the brutal qui