And the feeling
was as palpable as the seeing; as in the early spring the new life which
is being born in the year, produces a febrile kind of sorrow in the mind.
But the glow of Indian summer, that compromise, that after-thought of
real summer, which brings her back for another good-bye ere she vanishes
for ever--its sadness is of a different kind. Its longing has a sharper
edge; there stir in it the pangs of discontent; and the mind and body
yearn for solace. It is a dangerous time, even more dangerous than
spring for those who have passed the days of youth.
It had proved dangerous to Carmen Barbille. The melancholy of the
gorgeously tinted trees, the flights of the birds to the south, the smell
of the fallow field, the wind with the touch of the coming rains--these
had given to a growing discontent with her monotonous life the desire
born of self-pity. In spite of all she could do she was turning to the
life she had left behind in Cadiz long ago.
It seemed to her that Jean Jacques had ceased to care for the charms
which once he had so proudly proclaimed. There was in her the strain of
the religion of Epicurus. She desired always that her visible corporeal
self should be admired and desired, that men should say, "What a splendid
creature!" It was in her veins, an undefined philosophy of life; and she
had ever measured the love of Jean Jacques by his caresses.
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