“
What he had just seen was no longer the ingenuous and
simple eye of a child; it was a mysterious gulf which had half
opened, then abruptly closed again.
There comes a day when the young girl glances in this
manner. Woe to him who chances to be there!
That first gaze of a soul which does not, as yet, know
itself, is like the dawn in the sky. It is the awakening of something
radiant and strange. Nothing can give any idea of the
Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1199
dangerous charm of that unexpected gleam, which flashes
suddenly and vaguely forth from adorable shadows, and
which is composed of all the innocence of the present, and
of all the passion of the future. It is a sort of undecided tenderness
which reveals itself by chance, and which waits. It is
a snare which the innocent maiden sets unknown to herself,
and in which she captures hearts without either wishing or
knowing it. It is a virgin looking like a woman.
It is rare that a profound revery does not spring from that
glance, where it falls. All purities and all candors meet in
that celestial and fatal gleam which, more than all the bestplanned
tender glances of coquettes, possesses the magic
power of causing the sudden blossoming, in the depths of
the soul, of that sombre flower, impregnated with perfume
and with poison, which is called love.
”
”