The Valley Of Decision

ad reined in his horse at apoint where a group of Spanish chestnuts overhung the way. The air waslight and pure, the

ng sunshine, thegreat city in the bosom of the plain. The spectacle was fair enough totouch any fancy: brown domes and facades set in new-leaved gardens andsurrounded by vineyards extending to th

ghPennine valleys. It was a mere waft, perhaps, from some clod of loosenedearth, or the touch of cool elastic moss as he flung himself facedownward under the trees; but the savour, the contact filled hisnostrils with mountain air and his eyes with dim-branched distances. AtDonnaz the slow motions of the northern spring had endeared to him allthose sweet incipiencies preceding the full choral burst of leaf andf

e gentlefolk never absentedthemselves from town but for a few weeks of autumn, when they went totheir villas for the vintage, transporting thither all the diversions ofcity life and venturing no farther afield than the pleasure-grounds thatwere but so many open-air card-rooms, concert-halls and theatres. Odo'stenderness f

echoed her laugh; but one man atleast had felt the divine commotion of nature's touch, had felt andinter

stook the light, the chiaroscuro of sun and shade, and the variations oflight resulting from it at morning and evening...sum up the impressionsI have tried to describe and you will be able to form an idea of theenchanting situation in which I found myself...The scene has indeed amagical, a supernatural quality, which so ravishes the spirit and sensesthat one seems to lose all exact notion of one's surroundings andidentity."This was a new language to eighteenth-century readers. Already it hadswept through the length and breadth of France, like a spring storm-windbursting open doors and windows, and filling close candle-lit rooms withwet gusts and the scent of beaten blossoms; but south of the Alps thenew ideas travelled slowly, and the Piedmontese were as yet s

first disturbance of his childish faith,and the coincident reading of the Lettres Philosophiques, had beenfollowed by a period of moral perturbation, during which he sufferedfrom that sense of bewilderment, of inability to classify the phenomenaof life, that is one of the keenest trials of inexperience. Youth andnature had their way with him, however, and a wholesome reaction ofindifference set in. The invisible world of thought and conduct had beenthe frequent subject of his musings; but the other, tangible world wasclose to him too, spreading like a rich populous plain between himsel

deal of those largerrelations that link the individual to the group--this was a stroke oforiginality for which it would be hard to find a parallel in modernfiction. Here at last was an answer to the blind impulses agrope inOdo's breast--the loosening of those springs of emotion that gushedforth in such fresh contrast to the stagnant rills of the sentimentalpleasure-garden. To renounce a Julie would be more thrilling than--Odo, with a sigh, thrust the book in his pocket and rose to his feet. Itwas the hour of the promenade at the Valentino and he had promised theCountess Clarice to attend her. The old high-roofed palace of the Frenchprincess lay below him, in its gardens along the river: he could figure,as he looked down on it, t

ry limb: of her face Odo had but abright glimpse in the eclipse of her flapping hat-brim. She stood u

the wall across the road. The movement tiltedback her hat, and Odo caught her small fine profile,

Her father smiled. "May temptation," said he philosophically,

is is a monk's orchard, not a peasant's plot.

gatherthem." He slipped a hand through her arm. "Come, child," said he, "doesnot the philosopher tell us that he who enjoys a thing possesses it? Theflowers are yours already

es of the romance. What a breath of freshnessthey brought with them! The girl's cheek was clear as thecherry-blossoms, and with what lovely freedom did she move! Thus Juliemight have led Saint Preux through her "Elysium." Odo crossed t

ith a nine years' accretion of fat,la

with a missive.""Well?""The last time, I shook him off with the message that you would be ther

all a chair; or no--writ

ad painfully laboured after Odo up the high stone flightsto that young gentleman's modest lodgings,

y coat and called the se

avaliere?" Cantapresto asked,obsequiou

""You began the last letter in those terms, caval

the last letter! Why did you send it?" Odo sprang up and slippedhis arms into the dress-tunic his servant had

before! Quick, Antonio--my gloves, mysword." Odo, flushed and animated, buckled his sword-belt with impatienthands. "Write anything--anything to free my evening. Tomorrowmorning--tomorrow morning I shall wait on

in one of the provincialregiments. He was tall and fair, and a certain languor of complexion,inherited from his father's house, was corrected in him by the vivacityof the Donnaz bl

aside with a contemptuous toe. "I sometimes think he botanises," hemurmured w