CHAPTER XLII
THE OLD, OLD STORY.
What thing is Love, which nought can countervail? Nought save itself--even such a thing is Love.
SIR W. RALEIGH.
My acquaintance with Hortense Dufresnoy progressed slowly as, ever, andnot even the Froissart incident went far towards promoting it. Absorbedin her studies, living for the intellect only, too self-contained toknow the need for sympathy, she continued to be, at all events for me,the most inaccessible of God's creatures. And yet, despite herindifference, I loved her. Her pale, proud face haunted me; her voicehaunted me. I thought of her sometimes till it seemed impossible sheshould not in some way be conscious of how my very soul was centred inher. But she knew nothing--guessed nothing--cared nothing; and theknowledge that I held no place in her life wrought in me at times tillit became almost too bitter for endurance.
And this was love--real, passionate, earnest; the first and last love ofmy heart. Did I believe that I ever loved till now? Ah! no; for now onlyI felt the god in his strength, and beheld him in his beauty. Was I notblind till I had looked into her eyes and drunk of their light? Was Inot deaf till I had heard the music of her voice? Had I ever trulylived, or breathed, or known delight till now?
I never stayed to ask myself how this would end, or whither it wouldlead me. The mere act of loving was too sweet for questioning. Whatcared I for the uncertainties of the future, having hope to live upon inthe present? Was it not enough "to feed for aye my lamp and flames oflove," and worship her till that worship became a religion and a rite?
And now, longing to achieve something which should extort at least heradmiration, if not her love, I wished I were a soldier, that I might winglory for her--or a poet, that I might write verses in her praise whichshould be deathless--or a painter, that I might spend years of my lifein copying the dear perfection of her face. Ah! and I would so copy itthat all the world should be in love with it. Not a wave of her brownhair that I would not patiently follow through all its windings. Not thetender tracery of a blue vein upon her temples that I would not lovinglyrender through its transparent veil of skin. Not a depth of her darkeyes that I would not study, "deep drinking of the infinite." Alas!those eyes, so grave, so luminous, so steadfast:--
"Eyes not down-dropt, not over-bright, but fed With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,"
--eyes wherein dwelt "thought folded over thought," what painter needever hope to copy them?
And still she never dreamed how dear she had grown to me. She neverknew how the very air seemed purer to me because she breathed it. Shenever guessed how I watched the light from her window night afternight--how I listened to every murmur in her chamber--how I watched andwaited for the merest glimpse of her as she passed by--how her lightestglance hurried the pulses through my heart--how her coldest word wasgarnered up in the treasure-house of my memory! What cared she, thoughto her I had dedicated all the "book and volume of my brain;" hallowedits every page with blazonings of her name; and illuminated it, for loveof her, with fair images, and holy thoughts, and forms of saintsand angels
"Innumerable, of stains and splendid dyes As are the tiger-moth's deep damask'd wings?"
Ah me! her hand was never yet outstretched to undo its goldenclasps--her eye had never yet deigned to rest upon its records. To her Iwas nothing, or less than nothing--a fellow-student, a fellow-lodger,a stranger.
And yet I loved her "with a love that was more than love"--with a lovedearer than life and stronger than death--a love that, day after day,struck its roots deeper and farther into my very soul, never thence tobe torn up here or hereafter.