ore? I had no pretext
to offer for desiring to leave the seminary, not knowing any person in
the city. I would not even be able to remain there but a short time,
and was only waiting my assignment to the curacy which I must thereafter
occupy. I tried to remove the bars of the window; but it was at a
fearful height from the ground, and I found that as I had no ladder it
would be useless to think of escaping thus. And, furthermore, I could
descend thence only by night in any event, and afterward how should I be
able to find my way through the inextricable labyrinth of streets?
All these difficulties, which to many would have appeared altogether
insignificant, were gigantic to me, a poor seminarist who had fallen in
love only the day before for the first time, without experience, without
money, without attire.

'Ah!' cried I to myself in my blindness, 'were I not a priest I could
have seen her every day; I might have been her lover, her spouse.
Instead of being wrapped in this dismal shroud of mine I would have had
garments of silk and velvet, golden chains, a sword, and fair plumes
like other handsome young cavaliers. My hair, instead of being
dishonoured by the tonsure, would flow down upon my neck in waving
curls; I would have a fine waxed moustache; I would be a gallant.' But
one hour passed before an altar, a few hastily articulated words, had
for ever cut me off from the number of the living, and I had myself
sealed down the stone of my own tomb; I had with my own hand bolted the
gate of my prison! I went to the window. The sky was beautifully blue;
the trees had donned their spring robes; nature seemed to be making
parade of an ironical joy. The _Place_ was filled with people, some
going, others coming; young beaux and young beauties were sauntering in
couples toward the groves and gardens; merry youths passed by, cheerily
trolling refrains of drinking-songs--it was all a picture of vivacity,
life, animation, gaiety, which formed a bitter contrast with my mourning
and my solitude. On the steps of the gate sat a young mother playing
with her child. She kissed its little rosy mouth still impearled with
drops of milk, and performed, in order to amuse it, a thousand divine
little puerilities such as only mothers know how to invent. The father
standing at a little distance smiled gently upon the charming group, and
with folded arms seemed to hug his joy to his heart. I could not endure
that spectacle. I closed the window