“Father,” said the boy, “on that head you need not be alarmed. That which renders me so gloomy is neither sickness nor pride; no, it is a settled grief.”
“A settled grief, poor child! And what grief, good heaven, can you have at your age? Come, now, speak out.”
“No, Father, no; some other time. You have told me that you were in a hurry. You have only a quarter of an hour to devote to me. Let us speak of other things than my follies.”
“No, Sebastien; I should be uneasy were I to leave you so. Tell me whence proceeds your grief.”
“In truth, Father, I do not dare.”
“What do you fear?”
“I fear that in your eyes I shall appear a visionary, or perhaps that I may speak to you of things that will afflict you.”
“You afflict me much more by withholding your secret from me.”
“You well know that I have no secrets from you, Father.”
“Speak out, then.”
“Really, I dare not.”
“Sebastien, you who have the pretension of being a man, to—”
“It is precisely for that reason.”
“Come, now, take courage.”
“Well, then, Father, it is a dream.”
“A dream which terrifies you?”
“Yes, and no; for when I am dreaming, I am not terrified, but as if transported into another world.”
“Explain yourself.”
“When still quite a child I had these visions. You cannot but remember that two or three times I lost myself in those great woods which surround the village in which I was brought up?”
“Yes, I remember being told of it.”
“Well, then, at those times I was following a species of phantom.”
“What say you?” cried Gilbert, looking at his son with an astonishment that seemed closely allied to terror.
“Well, then, Father, I will tell you all. I used to play, as did the other children in the village. As long as there were children with me, or near me, I saw nothing; but if I separated from them, or went beyond the last village garden, I felt something near, like the rustling of a gown. I would stretch out my arms to catch it, and I embraced only the air; but as the rustling sound became lost in distance, the phantom itself became visible. It was at first a vapor as transparent as a cloud; then the vapor became more condensed, and assumed a human form. The form was that of a woman gliding along the ground rather than walking, and becoming more and more visible as it plunged into the shady parts of the forest. Then an unknown, extraordinary, and almost irresistible power impelled me to pursue this form. I pursued her with outstretched arms, mute as herself, for often I attempted to call to her, and never could my tongue articulate a sound. I pursued her thus, although she never stopped, although I never could come up with her, until the same prodigy which announced her presence to me warned me of her departure. This woman vanished gradually from my sight, matter became once more vapor, the vapor became volatilized, and all was ended; and I, exhausted with fatigue, would fall down on the spot where she had disappeared. It was there that Pitou would find me, sometimes the same day, but sometimes only the next morning.”
Gilbert continued gazing at his son with increasing anxiety. He had placed his fingers on his pulse. Sebastien at once comprehended the feeling which agitated the doctor.
“Oh, do not be uneasy, Father,” said he. “I know that there was nothing real in all this. I know that it was a vision, and nothing more.”
“And this woman,” inquired the doctor, “what was her appearance?”
“Oh, as majestic as a queen.”
“And her face; did you sometimes see it, child?”
“Yes.”
“And how long ago ” asked Gilbert, shuddering.
“Only since I have been here,” replied the youth.
“But here in Paris you have not the forest of Villers-Cotterets, the tall trees forming a dark and mysterious arch of verdure. In Paris you have no longer that silence, that solitude, the natural element of phantoms.”
“Yes, Father, I have all these.”
“Where, then?”
“Here, in this garden.”