“
He went straight to ‘his alley,’ and when he reached the
end of it he perceived, still on the same bench, that wellknown
couple. Only, when he approached, it certainly was
the same man; but it seemed to him that it was no longer the
same girl. The person whom he now beheld was a tall and
beautiful creature, possessed of all the most charming lines
of a woman at the precise moment when they are still combined
with all the most ingenuous graces of the child; a pure
and fugitive moment, which can be expressed only by these
two words,— ‘fifteen years.’ She had wonderful brown hair,
shaded with threads of gold, a brow that seemed made of
marble, cheeks that seemed made of rose-leaf, a pale flush,
an agitated whiteness, an exquisite mouth, whence smiles
darted like sunbeams, and words like music, a head such
as Raphael would have given to Mary, set upon a neck that
Jean Goujon would have attributed to a Venus. And, in order
that nothing might be lacking to this bewitching face,
her nose was not handsome— it was pretty; neither straight
nor curved, neither Italian nor Greek; it was the Parisian
nose, that is to say, spiritual, delicate, irregular, pure,—
which drives painters to despair, and charms poets.
When Marius passed near her, he could not see her eyes,
which were constantly lowered. He saw only her long chestnut
lashes, permeated with shadow and modesty.
This did not prevent the beautiful child from smiling as
she listened to what the white-haired old man was saying to
her, and nothing could be more fascinating than that fresh
smile, combined with those drooping eyes.
For a moment, Marius thought that she was another
daughter of the same man, a sister of the former, no doubt.
But when the invariable habit of his stroll brought him, for
the second time, near the bench, and he had examined her
attentively, he recognized her as the same. In six months the
little girl had become a young maiden; that was all. Nothing
is more frequent than this phenomenon. There is a moment
when girls blossom out in the twinkling of an eye, and become
roses all at once. One left them children but yesterday;
today, one finds them disquieting to the feelings.
This child had not only grown, she had become idealized.
As three days in April suffice to cover certain trees
with flowers, six months had sufficed to clothe her with
beauty. Her April had arrived.
One sometimes sees people, who, poor and mean, seem
to wake up, pass suddenly from indigence to luxury, indulge
in expenditures of all sorts, and become dazzling, prodigal,
magnificent, all of a sudden. That is the result of having
pocketed an income; a note fell due yesterday. The young
girl had received her quarterly income.
And then, she was no longer the school-girl with her felt
hat, her merino gown, her scholar’s shoes, and red hands;
taste had come to her with beauty; she was a well-dressed
person, clad with a sort of rich and simple elegance, and
without affectation. She wore a dress of black damask, a
cape of the same material, and a bonnet of white crape. Her
white gloves displayed the delicacy of the hand which toyed
with the carved, Chinese ivory handle of a parasol, and her
silken shoe outlined the smallness of her foot. When one
passed near her, her whole toilette exhaled a youthful and
penetrating perfume.
”
”