ep 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