Raphael - Pages of the Book of Life at Twenty | Page 8

evening, however, a ray of the setting
sun strikes and reverberates on its walls, as a beacon to mark the haven
of life at the close of day. A few fishing boats, without sails, glide
silently on the deep waters, beneath the shade of the mountain, and
from their dingy color can scarcely be distinguished from its dark and
rocky sides. Eagles, with their dusky plumage, incessantly hover over
the cliffs and boats, as if to rob the nets of their prey, or make a sudden
swoop at the birds which follow in the wake of the boats.

III.
At no great distance, the little town of Aix, in Savoy, steaming with its
hot springs, and redolent of sulphur, is seated on the slope of a hill
covered with vineyards, orchards, and meadows. A long avenue of
poplars, the growth of a century, connects the lake with the town, and
reminds one of those far-stretching rows of cypresses which lead to
Turkish cemeteries. The meadows and fields, on either side of this road,
are intersected by the rocky beds of the often dried-up mountain
torrents and shaded by giant walnut-trees, upon whose boughs vines as
sturdy as those of the woods of America hang their clustering branches.
Here and there, a distant vista of the lake shows its surface, alternately
sparkling or lead-colored, as the passing cloud or the hour of the day
may make it.
When I arrived at Aix, the crowd had already left it. The hotels and
public places, where strangers and idlers flock during the summer, were
then closed. All were gone, save a few infirm paupers, seated in the sun,
at the door of the lowest description of inns; and some invalids, past all
hope of recovery, who might be seen, during the hottest hours of the
day, dragging their feeble steps along, and treading the withered leaves
that had fallen from the poplars during the night.

IV.
The autumn was mild, but had set in early. The leaves which had been
blighted by the morning frost fell in roseate showers from the vines and
chestnut-trees. Until noon, the mist overspread the valley, like an
overflowing nocturnal inundation, covering all but the tops of the
highest poplars in the plain; the hillocks rose in view like islands, and

the peaks of mountains appeared as headlands in the midst of ocean;
but when the sun rose higher in the heavens, the mild southerly breeze
drove before it all these vapors of earth. The rushing of the imprisoned
winds in the gorges of the mountains, the murmur of the waters, and
the whispering trees, produced sounds melodious or powerful, sonorous
or melancholy, and seemed in a few minutes to run through the whole
range of earth's joys and sorrows its strength or its melancholy. They
stirred up one's very soul, then died away like the voices of celestial
spirits, that pass and disappear. Silence, such as the ear has no
preception of elsewhere, succeeded, and hushed all to rest. The sky
resumed its almost Italian serenity; the Alps stood out once more
against a cloudless sky; the drops from the dissolving mist fell pattering
on the dry leaves, or shone like brilliants on the grass. These hours
were quickly over; the pale blue shades of evening glided swiftly on,
veiling the horizon with their cold drapery as with a shroud. It seemed
the death of Nature, dying, as youth and beauty die, with all its charms,
and all its serenity.
Scenes such as these exhibiting Nature in its languid beauty were too
much in accordance with my feelings. While they gave an additional
charm to my own languor, they increased it, and I voluntarily plunged
into an abyss of melancholy. But it was a melancholy so replete with
thoughts, impressions, and elevating desires, with so soft a twilight of
the soul, that I had no wish to shake it off. It was a malady the very
consciousness of which was an allurement, rather than a pain, and in
which Death appeared but as a voluptuous vanishing into space. I had
given myself up to the charm, and had determined to keep aloof from
society, which might have dissipated it, and in the midst of the world to
wrap myself in silence, solitude, and reserve. I used my isolation of
mind as a shroud to shut out the sight of men, so as to contemplate God
and Nature only.
Passing by Chambery, I had seen my friend, Louis de ----; I had found
him in the same state of mind as myself, disgusted with the bitterness
of life, his genius, unappreciated, the body worn out by the mind, and
all his better feelings thrown back upon his heart.
Louis had mentioned to me a quiet and secluded