ng are falling off,
and the shield that surmounts the mantelpiece is broken into bits. While
we were looking around, a flight of birds entered, flew around for a few
minutes and passed out through the chimney.

In the evening, we went to the lake. The meadow has encroached upon it
and will soon cover it entirely, and wheat will grow in the place of
pond-lilies. Night was falling. The castle, flanked by its four turrets
and framed by masses of green foliage, cast a dark shadow over the
village. The setting sun made the great mass appear black; the dying
rays touched the surface of the lake and then melted in the mist on the
purplish top of the silent forest.

We sat down at the foot of an oak and opened _Rene_. We faced the lake
where he had often watched the nimble swallow on the bending reeds; we
sat in the shadow of the forest where he had often pursued rainbows over
the dripping hills; we harkened to the rustling of the leaves and the
whisperings of the water that had added their murmur to the sad melody
of his youth. As the darkness gathered on the pages of the book, the
bitterness of its words went to our hearts, and we experienced a
sensation of mingled melancholy and sweetness.

A wagon passed in the road, and the wheels sank in the deep tracks. A
smell of new-mown hay pervaded the air. The frogs were croaking in the
marshes. We went back.

The sky was heavy and a storm raged all night. The front of a
neighbouring house was illumined and flared like a bonfire at every
flash of lightning. Gasping, and tired of tossing on my bed, I arose,
lighted a candle, opened the window and leaned out.

The night was dark, and as silent as slumber. The lighted candle threw
my huge shadow on the opposite wall. From time to time a flash of
lightning blinded me.

I thought of the man whose early life was spent here and who filled half
a century with the clamouring of his grief.

I thought of him first in these quiet streets, playing with the village
boys and looking for nests in the church-steeple and in the woods. I
imagined him in his little room, leaning his elbows on the table, and
watching the rain beating on the window-panes and the clouds passing
above the curtain, while his dreams flew away. I thought of the bitter
loneliness of youth, with its intoxications, its nausea, and its bursts
of love that sicken the heart. Is it not here that our own grief was
nourished, is this not the very Golgotha where the genius that