to study, my days to solitude and to the sea, my evenings to a small number of unknown friends, who came from the city to speak to me of travels, literature, and commerce.
"Commerce at Marseilles is not a matter of paltry traffic, or trifling parsimony and retrenchments of capital. Marseilles looks on all questions of commerce as a dilation and expansion of French capital, and of the raw material exported and imported from Europe and Asia. Commerce at Marseilles is a lucrative diplomacy, at the same time, both local and national. Patriotism animates its enterprises, honor floats with its flag, and policy presides over every departure. Their commerce is one eternal battle, waged on the ocean at their own peril and risk, with those rivals who contend with France for Asia and Africa, and for the purpose of extending the French name and fame over the opposite continents which touch on the Mediterranean.
"One Sunday, after a long excursion on the sea with Madame Lamartine, we were told that a woman, modest and timid in her deportment, had come in the diligence from Aix to Marseilles, and for four or five hours had been waiting for us in a little orange grove next between the villa and the garden. I suffered my wife to go into the house, and passed myself into the orange grove to receive the stranger. I had no acquaintance with any one at Aix, and was utterly ignorant of the motive which could have induced my visitor to wait so long and so patiently for me.
"When I went into the orange grove, I saw a woman still youthful, of about thirty-six or forty years of age. She wore a working-dress which betokened little ease and less luxury, a robe of striped Indienne, discolored and faded; a cotton handkerchief on her neck, her black hair neatly braided, but like her shoes, somewhat soiled by the dust of the road. Her features were fine and graceful, with that mild and docile Asiatic expression, which renders any muscular tension impossible, and gives utterance only to inspiring and attractive candor. Her mouth was possibly a line too large, and her brow was unwrinkled as that of a child. The lower part of her face was very full, and was joined by full undulations, altogether feminine however in their character, to a throat which was large and somewhat distended at the middle, like that of the old Greek statues. Her glance had the expression of the moonlight of her country rather than of its sun. It was the expression of timidity mingled with confidence in the indulgence of another, emanating from a forgetfulness of her own nature. In fine, it was the image of good-feeling, impressed as well on her air as on her heart, and which seem confident that others are like her. It was evident that this woman, who was yet so agreeable, must in her youth have been most attractive. She yet had what the people (the language of which is so expressive) call the seed of beauty, that prestige, that ray, that star, that essence, that indescribable something, which attracts, charms, and enslaves us. When she saw me, her embarrassment and blushes enabled me to contemplate her calmly and to feel myself at once at ease with her. I begged her to sit down at once on an orange-box over which was thrown a Syrian mat, and to encourage her sat down in front of her. Her blushes continued to increase, and she passed her dimpled but rather large hand more than once over her eyes. She did not know how to begin nor what to say. I sought to give her confidence, and by one or two questions assisted her in opening the conversation she seemed both to wish for and to fear."
[This girl is Reine-Garde, a peasant woman, attracted by a passionate love of his poetry to visit Lamartine. She unfolds to him much that is exquisitely reproduced in Genevieve. The romance bids fair to be one of the most interesting this author has yet produced.]
"Madame ——," said I to her. She blushed yet more.
"I have no husband, Monsieur. I am an unmarried woman."
"Ah! Mlle, will you be pleased to tell me why you have come so far, and why you waited so long to speak with me? Can I be useful to you in any manner? Have you any letter to give me from any one in your neighborhood?"
"Ah, Monsieur, I have no letter, I have nothing to ask of you, and the last thing in the world that I should have done, would have been to get a letter from any of the gentlemen in my neighborhood to you. I would not even have suffered them to know that I came to Marseilles to see you. They would have thought me a vain creature, who sought to magnify her importance by visiting people who are so famous. Ah, that would never do!"
"What then do you wish to say?"
"Nothing, Monsieur."
"How can that be? You should not for nothing have wasted two days in coming from Aix to Marseilles, and should not have waited for me here until sunset, when to-morrow you must return home."
"It is, however, true, Monsieur. I know you will think me very foolish, but ... I have nothing to tell you, and not for a fortune would I consent that people at Aix should know whither I am gone."
"Something however induced you to come—you are not one of those triflers who go hither and thither without a motive. I think you are intellectual and intelligent. Reflect. What induced you to take a place in the diligence and come to see me? Eh!"
"Well, sir," said she, passing her hands over her cheeks as if to wipe away all blushes and embarrassment, and at the same time pushing her long black curls, moist as they were with perspiration, beyond her ears, "I had an idea which permitted me neither to sleep by day nor night; I said to myself, Reine, you must be satisfied. You must say nothing to any one. You must shut up your shop on Saturday night as you are in the habit of doing. You must take a place in the night diligence and go on Sunday to Marseilles. You will go to see that gentleman, and on Monday morning you can again be at work. All will then be over and for once in your life you will have been satisfied without your neighbors having once fancied for a moment that you have passed the limits of the street in which you live."
"Why, however, did you wish so much to see me? How did you even know that I was here?"
"Thus, Monsieur: a person came to Aix who was very kind to me, for I am the dressmaker of his daughters, having previously been a servant in his mother's country-house. The family has always been kind and attentive, because in Provence, the nobles do not despise the peasants. Ah! it is far otherwise—some are lofty and others humble, but their hearts are all alike. Monsieur and the young ladies knew how I loved to read, and that I am unable to buy books and newspapers. They sometimes lent books to me, when they saw anything which they fancied would interest me, such as fashion plates, engravings of ladies' bonnets, interesting stories, like that of Reboul, the baker of Nimes, Jasmin, the hairdresser of Agen, or Monsieur, the history of your own life. They know, Monsieur, that above all things I love poetry, especially that which brings tears into the eyes."
"Ah, I know," said I with a smile, "you are poetical as the winds which sigh amid your olive-groves, or the dews which drip from your fig trees."
"No, Monsieur, I am only a mantua-maker—a poor seamstress in ... street, in Aix, the name of which I am almost ashamed to tell you. I am no finer lady than was my mother. Once I was servant and nurse in the house of M.... Ah! they were good people and treated me always as if I belonged to the family. I too thought I did. My health however, obliged me to leave them and establish myself as a mantua-maker, in one room, with no companion but a goldfinch. That, however, is not the question you asked me,—why I have come hither? I will tell you."
Truth is altogether ineffably, holily beautiful. Beauty has always truth in it, but seldom unadulterated.
The poet's soul should be like the ocean, able to carry navies, yet yielding to the touch of a finger.
Original Poetry
AZELA
BY MISS ALICE CAREY
From
