and light.
At the fortifications, we encountered the first grass, short yet, but spread out like a vast carpet of light green and emitting a perfume intoxicating in its delicious freshness. We went down into the moat, making our way along beside the high gray walls, penetrating with curiosity into their secluded corners. On one side was the pale-hued stretch of wall, on the other the verdant slope. We advanced as if in a deserted and silent street which had no houses. In some of the corners the sun’s rays had massed themselves, and had caused to shoot up tall thistles which were peopled by a whole nation of insects — beetles, butterflies and bees; these corners were full of buzzing sounds and grateful warmth. But, that morning, the slope threw its delightful shadow at our feet; we walked noiselessly upon a fine, thick turf, having before us a narrow band of sky, against which stood out in full light the meagre trees which rose above the wall.
The moats of the fortifications are little deserts, amid which I have very often forgotten myself and my troubles. The narrow horizon, the shade and the silence, which render more audible the hollow murmur of the great city and the bugles of the neighboring soldiers’ barracks, make them peculiarly dear to boys, to little and grown up children. There, one is in an excavation at the gates of the city, feeling it pant and start, but no longer perceiving it. For half an hour, Laurence and I contented ourselves with this ravine which made us forget the houses and the beaten paths; we were a thousand leagues from Paris, far from every habitation, seeing only stones, grass and sky. Then, already suffocating, eager for the plain, we joyously ran up the slope. The broad country stretched out before us.
We found ourselves amid the airy and unconfined lands of Montrouge. These neglected and muddy fields are stricken with eternal desolation, poverty and lugubrious poesy. Here and there, the soil is cleft frightfully, as with a horrible yawn, displaying, like open entrails, old and abandoned stone quarries, wan and deep. Not a tree is to be seen; huge windlasses alone stand out against the low, sad horizon. The lands have I know not what miserable aspect, and are covered with nameless wrecks. The roads twist, plunge into hollows and stretch away in a melancholy fashion. New huts in ruins and heaps of rubbish thrust themselves upon the eye at each turn of the paths. Everything has a raw look — the black lands, the white stones and the blue sky. The entire landscape, with its unhealthy aspect, its roughly cut up sections and its gaping wounds, has the indescribable sadness of countries which the hand of man has torn.
Laurence, who had become thoughtful in the moats of the fortifications, timidly clung to me as we were crossing the desolated plain. We walked on silently, sometimes turning to glance at Paris, which was grumbling in the distance. Then, we brought back our eyes to our feet, avoiding the gaps in the ground, contemplating with saddened souls this plain, the open wounds of which were brutally shown by the sun. Afar off were the churches, the Panthéons and the royal palaces; here were the ruins of an overturned soil, which had been searched and robbed to build these temples to men, to kings and to God. The city explained the plain; Paris had at its threshold the desolation which all grandeur causes. I know of nothing more mournful or more lamentable than those unconfined lands which surround great cities; they are not yet a part of the town and they are no longer the country; they have the dust, the mutilations of man, and have no longer the verdure or the tranquil majesty given them by God.
We were in haste to flee. Laurence had bruised her feet; she was afraid of this disorder, of this melancholy which reminded her of our chamber. As for me, I found in this wretched spot my love, my troubles and my bleeding life. We hurried away.
We descended a hill. The Bièvre river flowed along at the bottom of the valley, bluish and thick. Trees, here and there, bordered the stream; tall houses, sombre, narrow and pierced with immense windows, loomed up lugubriously. The valley was more discouraging than the plain; it was damp, oily and full of disagreeable smells. The tanneries there emitted sharp and suffocating odors; the waters of the Bièvre, that sort of common sewer open to the sky, exhaled a fetid and powerful stench which gave me a choking sensation. It was no longer the sad and gray desolation of Montrouge; it was the disgusting sight of a gutter, black with mud and refuse, bearing away with its waters horrible odors. A few poplar trees had grown vigorously in this reeking soil, and, above, against the clear sky, were pictured the long white lines of the Hôpital de Bicêtre, that frightful abode of madness and death, which worthily towers over the unhealthful and ignoble valley.
Despair seized upon me; I asked myself if I should not stop where I was and pass the day upon the borders of the sewer. I could not, it seemed, quit Paris, I could not escape from the gutter. Filth and infamy followed me even into the fields; the waters were corrupted, the trees had an unhealthy vigor, my eyes encountered only wounds and suffering. This must be the country which God now reserved for me. Each Sunday, I would come, with Laurence on my arm, to promenade upon the banks of the Bièvre, beside the tanneries, and to talk of love in that sink; I would come, at the noontide hour, to seat myself with my sweetheart on the oily ground, yielding to the awful influence of that dead creature and of the wretched valley. I paused in terror, ready to return to Paris on a run, and glanced at Laurence.
Laurence had her weighed down look, her look of want and premature old age. The smile she wore at her departure from the city had vanished. She seemed weary and dull; she looked around her, calmly, without disgust. I thought I saw her in our chamber; I realized that this slumbering soul needed more sunlight and nature of a gentler aspect to restore the innocence of a young girl’s fifteenth year.
Then, I grasped her tightly by the arm; without permitting her to turn her head, I dragged her along, reascending the hill, always pushing straight ahead, following the roads, crossing the meadows, in quest of the young and virgin spring. For two hours we went along thus, in silence, rapidly. We passed two or three villages — Arcueil, Bourg-la-Reine, I believe; we hurried over more than twenty paths, between white walls and green hedges. Then, as we were about to leap across a narrow brook, in a valley full of foliage, Laurence uttered a childish shout, a burst of laughter, and escaped from my arm, running among the grass, all gayety, all innocence.
We were upon a large square of turf, planted with trees, with tall poplars, which arose like a jet of water, majestically, and balanced themselves languidly in the blue air. The turf was close and thick, dark in the shade and golden in the sunlight; one might have called it, when the wind agitated the poplars, a broad carpet of silk with changing reflections. All around extended cultivated lands, covered with shrubs and plants: there was a sea of leaves at the horizon. A white house, low and long, which was in the shade, at the edge of a neighboring grove of trees, stood out gayly against all this green. Further away, higher up, on the edge of the sky, across the shadows, were seen the first roofs of Fontenay-aux-Roses.
The verdure was of recent growth, it had virgin freshness and innocence; the young leaves, pale and tender, in transparent masses, seemed like light and delicate lace placed upon the great blue veil of the sky. The tree trunks themselves, the rough old trunks, appeared as if newly painted; they had hidden their wounds beneath fresh moss. It was a universal song, a bright and caressing gayety. The stones and the lands, the sky and the waters, all appeared neat, vigorous, healthy and innocent. The recently awakened country, green and golden beneath the broad azure sky, laughed in the light, intoxicated with sap, youth and purity.
And amid this youth, this purity, ran Laurence in the full light, amid the flowing sap. She plunged into the grass, drank in the pure air; she had again found her fifteenth year upon the bosom of this country which had not been green fifteen days. The young verdure had refreshed her blood; the young sunlight had warmed her heart, given roses to her cheeks. All her being had awakened in this awakening of the earth; like the earth, she had resumed her innocence under the mild influence of the season.
Laurence, supple and strong, ran wildly about, carried away by the new life which was singing in her being. She lay down, she arose, with vivacity, bursting out laughing; she stooped to pick a flower, then fled between the trees, afterwards returning all in a rosy glow. Her entire face was animated; its features, unbent and rendered supple, had a healthful expression of genuine joy. Her laugh was frank, her voice sonorous and her gestures caressing. Seated, with my back against the trunk of a tree, I followed her with my eyes, white amid the grass, her hat fallen upon her shoulders; I was pleased with the pretty dress, so neat and light, which she wore chastely, and which gave her the air of a turbulent schoolgirl.