he high and
narrow forehead seemed as if compressed by intense thought, and joined
the nose by an almost straight and Grecian line. The lips were thin and
slightly depressed at the corners with an habitual expression of
sadness; the teeth of pearl, rather than of ivory, as is the case with
the daughters of the sea or islands. The face was oval, slightly
emaciated in the lower part and at the temples, and, on the whole she
seemed rather an embodying of thought than a human being. Besides this
general expression of revery there was a languid look of suffering and
passion, which made it impossible to gaze once on that face without
bearing its ineffaceable image stamped forever in the memory. In a
word, hers was a contagious sickness of the soul, veiled in a shape of
beauty the most majestic and attractive that the dreams of mortal man
ever embodied.

I passed rapidly before her, bowing respectfully, and my deferential
air and downcast eyes seemed to ask forgiveness for having disturbed
her. A slight blush tinged her pale cheeks at my approach. I returned
to my room trembling and wondering that the evening air should thus
have chilled me. A few minutes later I saw her re-enter the house, and
cast one indifferent look at my window. I saw her again on the
following days, at the same hour, both in the garden and in the court,
but never dared to think of accosting her. I even met her sometimes
near the chalets, with the little girls who drove her donkey or picked
strawberries for her, at other times, in her boat on the lake; but I
never showed any sign of recognition or interest, beyond a grave and
respectful bow; she would return it with an air of melancholy
abstraction, and we each went our separate ways, on the hills or on the
waters.

VII.

And yet when I had not met her in the course of the day, I felt sad and
disturbed; when evening came, I would go down to the garden, I knew not
why, and stay there, with my eyes riveted on her windows, spite of the
cold night air. I could not make up my mind to return to the house
until I had caught a glimpse of her shadow on the curtains, or heard a
note of her piano, or one of the strange tones of her voice.

The apartment she occupied was contiguous to my room, from which it was
separated by a strong oaken door with two bolts. I could hear
confusedly the sound of her footsteps, the rustling of her gown, or the
crumpling of the leaves of her book as she turned over the pag