Led Astray and The Sphinx | Page 5

who gave me this morning, in
vulgar language, this explanation of my midnight ballad.
There is the world, then, invading with all its pomp my beloved
solitude. I curse it, Paul, with all the bitterness of my heart. I became

indebted to it, last night, it is true, for a fantastic apparition that both
charmed and delighted me; but I am also indebted to it to-day for a
ridiculous adventure which I am the only one not to laugh at, for I was
its unlucky hero.
I was but little disposed to work this morning; I went on sketching,
however, until noon, but had to give it up then; my head was heavy, I
felt dull and disagreeable, I had a vague presentiment of something
fatal in the air. I returned for a moment to the mill to get rid of my traps;
I quarreled, to her surprise and grief, with the miller's wife, on the
subject of I know not what cruelly indigenous mess she had served me
for breakfast; I scolded the good woman's two children because they
were touching my pencils; finally, I administered a vigorous kick to the
house-dog, accompanied with the celebrated formula: "Judge whether
you had done anything to me!"
Rather dissatisfied with myself, as you may imagine, after these three
mean little tricks, I directed my steps toward the forest, in order to hide
as much as possible from the light of the day. I walked about for nearly
an hour without being able to shake off the prophetic melancholy that
oppressed me. Perceiving at last, on the edge of one of the avenues that
traverse the forest, and under the dense shade of some beech-trees, a
thick bed of moss, I stretched myself upon it, together with my remorse,
and it was not long before I fell into a sound sleep. Mon Dieu! why was
it not the sleep of death?
I have no idea how long I had been asleep, when I was suddenly
awakened by a certain concussion of the soil in my immediate vicinity;
I jumped abruptly to my feet, and I saw, within five steps of me, on the
road, a young lady on horseback. My unexpected apparition had
somewhat frightened the horse, who had shied with some violence. The
fair equestrian, who had not yet noticed me, was talking to him and
trying to quiet him. She appeared to be pretty, slender, elegant. I caught
a rapid glimpse of blond hair, eyebrows of a darker shade, keen eyes, a
bold expression of countenance, and a felt hat with blue feathers, set
over one ear in rather too rakish a style. For the better understanding of
what is about to follow, you should know that I was attired in a tourist's

blouse stained with red ochre; besides, I must have had that haggard
look and startled expression which impart to one rudely snatched from
sleep a countenance at once comical and alarming. Add to all this, my
hair in utter disorder, my beard strewn with dead leaves, and you will
have no difficulty in understanding the terror that suddenly
overpowered the young huntress at the first glance she cast upon me;
she uttered a feeble cry, and wheeling her horse around, she fled at full
gallop.
It was impossible for me to mistake the nature of the impression I had
just produced; there was nothing flattering about it. However, I am
thirty-five years of age, and the more or less kindly glance of a woman
is no longer sufficient to disturb the serenity of my soul. I followed
with a smiling look the flying Amazon. At the extremity of the avenue
in which I had just failed to make her conquest, she turned abruptly to
the left, to go and take a parallel road. I only had to cross the adjoining
thicket to see her overtake a cavalcade composed of ten or twelve
persons, who seemed to be waiting for her, and to whom she shouted
from a distance, in a broken voice:
"Gentlemen! gentlemen! a wild man! there is a wild man in the forest!"
My interest being highly excited by this beginning, I settle myself
comfortably behind a thick bush, with eye and ear equally attentive.
They crowd around the lady; it is supposed at first that she is jesting,
but her emotion is too serious to have been causeless. She saw,
distinctly saw, not exactly a savage, perhaps, but a man in rags, whose
tattered blouse seemed covered with blood, whose face, hands, and
whole person were repulsively filthy, whose beard was frightful, and
whose eyes half protruded from their sockets; in short, an individual,
by the side of whom the most atrocious of Salvator Rosa's brigands
would be as one of Watteau's shepherds. Never did a