LUX FACTA EST.
In the second year, just at the point of our story which the reader has how reached, it happened that Marius broke off his daily walk in the Luxembourg, without exactly knowing why, and was nearly six months without setting foot in the garden. One day, however, he returned to it; it was a beauteous summer day, and Marius was joyous, as men are when the weather is fine. He felt as if he had in his heart all the birds' songs that he heard, and all the patches of blue sky of which he caught a glimpse between the leaves. He went straight to "his walk," and when he reached the end he noticed the well-known couple seated on the same bench; but when he drew near he found that while it was the same man, it did not seem to be the same girl. The person he now saw was a tall and lovely creature, possessing the charming outlines of the woman, at the precise moment when they are still combined with the most simple graces of the child,—a fugitive and pure moment which can alone be rendered by the two words "fifteen years." He saw admirable auburn hair tinted with streaks of gold, a forehead that seemed made of marble, cheeks that seemed made of a rose-leaf,—a pale flesh tint,—an exquisite mouth, from which a smile issued like a flash and words like music, and a head which Raphael would have given to a Virgin, set upon a neck which Jean Goujon would have given to a Venus. And, that nothing might be wanting in this ravishing face, the nose was not beautiful, but pretty, neither straight nor bent, neither Italian nor Greek; it was the Parisian nose, that is to say, something witty, fine, irregular, and pure, which is the despair of painters and the charm of poets.
When Marius passed her he could not see her eyes, which she constantly drooped; he only saw her long brown eyelashes, pervaded with shade and modesty. This did not prevent the lovely girl from smiling while she listened to the white-haired man who was speaking to her, and nothing could be so ravishing as this fresh smile with the downcast eyes. At the first moment Marius thought that it was another daughter of the old gentleman's,—a sister of the former. But when the invariable habit of his walk brought him again to the bench, and he examined her attentively, he perceived that it was the same girl. In six months the girl had become a maiden, that was all; and nothing is more frequent than this phenomenon. There is a moment in which girls expand in the twinkling of an eye and all at once become roses; yesterday you left them children, to-day, you find them objects of anxiety. This girl had not only grown, but was idealized; as three days in April suffice to cover some trees with flowers, six months had sufficed to clothe her with beauty; her April had arrived. We sometimes see poor and insignificant persons suddenly wake up, pass from indigence to opulence, lay out money in all sorts of extravagance, and become brilliant, prodigal, and magnificent. The reason is that they have just received their dividends; and the girl had been paid six months' income.
And then she was no longer the boarding—school Miss, with her plush bonnet, merino dress, thick shoes, and red hands; taste had come to her with beauty, and she was well dressed, with a species of simple, rich, and unaffected elegance. She wore a black brocade dress, a cloak of the same material, and a white crape bonnet; her white gloves displayed the elegance of her hand, which was playing with the ivory handle of a parasol, and her satin boot revealed the smallness of her foot; when you passed her, her whole toilette exhaled a youthful and penetrating perfume. As for the man, he was still the same. The second time that Marius passed, the girl raised her eyelids, and he could see that her eyes were of a deep cerulean blue, but in this veiled azure there was only the glance of a child. She looked at Marius carelessly, as she would have looked at the child playing under the sycamores, or the marble vase that threw a shadow over the bench; and Marius continued his walk, thinking of something else. He passed the bench four or five times, but did not once turn his eyes toward the young lady. On the following days he returned as usual to the Luxembourg; as usual he found the "father and daughter" there, but he paid no further attention to them. He thought no more of the girl now that she was lovely than he had done when she was ugly; and though he always passed very close to the bench on which she was sitting, it was solely the result of habit.