, but, above all, from my dislike to share with others
her looks and words. It seemed to me that each of those with whom she
was obliged to keep up a conversation robbed me of some part of her
presence or her mind. To see her, to hear her, and not to possess her
alone, were often a harder trial to me than not to see her at all.

LXXI.

To pass away the time I used to walk from one end to the other of a
bridge which crossed the Seine nearly opposite to the house where Julie
lived. How many thousand times I have reckoned the boards of that
bridge, which resounded beneath my feet! How many copper coins I have
thrown, as I passed and repassed, into the tin cup of the poor blind
man, who was seated through rain or snow on the parapet of that bridge!
I prayed that my mite which rung in the heart of the poor, and from
thence in the ear of God, might purchase for me in return a long and
secure evening, and the departure of some intruder who delayed my
happiness.

Julie, who knew my dislike to meeting strangers at her house, had
devised with me a signal which should inform me from afar of the
presence or absence of visitors in her little drawing-room. When they
were numerous, the two inside shutters of the window were closed, and I
could only see a faint streak of light glimmering between the two
leaves; when there were one or two familiar friends, on the point of
leaving, one shutter was opened; and at last, when all were gone, the
two shutters were thrown open, the curtains withdrawn, and I could see
from the opposite quay the light of the lamp which stood on the little
table, where she read or worked while expecting me. I never lost sight
of that distant ray, which was visible and intelligible for me alone,
amid the thousand lights of windows, lamps, shops, carriages, and
_cafes_, and among all those avenues of fixed or wandering fires which
illumine at night the buildings and the horizon of Paris. All other
illuminations no longer existed for me,--there was no other light on
earth, no other star in the firmament but that small window, which
seemed like an open eye seeking me out in darkness, and on which my
eyes, my thoughts, my soul, were ever and solely bent. O
incomprehensible power of the infinite nature of man, which can fill
the universal space and think it too confined; or can be concentrated
in one bright speck shining through the river mists, amid the ocean of
fires of a vast city, and feel its desires, f