318 THE PROSCRIBED. 



countries of the earth, a country that I have never seen and of which 

 I have no remembrance. Oh ! if I could cleave the air on outspread 

 pinions, I would go " 



— " Where ?'' asked the proscribed one. 



— " On high," replied the youth. 



On hearing this word, the stranger gave a sudden start, fixed his 

 powerful eye upon the young man, and rendered him silent. But 

 they understood and held communion with each other by an 

 inexplicable effusion of soul, by reading in and, as it were, listening 

 to each other's eyes, while rapped in a fruitful silence ; and were 

 travelling in mental brotherhood, like two doves soaring towards 

 heaven on the same wing, until the moment that their bark touched 

 the sand of the shore. Buried in their thoughts they proceeded in 

 silence to the house of the serjeant. 



— " And thus," said the tall stranger to himself, " this poor boy 

 imao-ines himself an angel banished from heaven. And who is he 

 among us who should have the right to undeceive him ? Shall it be 

 me? I, who am so often elevated by a magic power above the earth, 

 I who belong to God. I who am a mystery to myself. Have I not 

 seen the loveliest of the angels living in this vile scene ? Is this youth 

 then more or less insensate than I am myself? Has he made a bolder 

 step in the faith ? He believes ! This belief will conduct him, 

 beyond a doubt, into some luminous path similar to that in which I 

 walk. But, if he is beautiful as an angel, is he not too feeble to 

 resist the effects of such rude combats !'' 



Intimidated by the presence of his companion, whose awe- 

 inspiring voice expressed his own thoughts, as the lightning translates 

 the will of heaven, the youth contented himself with gazing upon the 

 stars with the eyes of a lover, overwhelmed by a luxurious excess of 

 sensibility, which swelled and oppressed his heart. He was there, 

 feeble and fearful, as a young fly inundated by the ardent rays of 

 the sun. These two noble natures comprehended in the other, 

 Godfrey the force, and the old man the feebleness, the celestial 

 voice of Sigier had deduced to them the mysteries of the moral world. 

 The grand stranger seemed destined to invest them with glory, and 

 the youth to feel them. The three transfigured by living but by noble 

 images, science, poesy, and sentiment. 



On returning to the house, the elder stranger shut himself up in 

 his chamber, lighted his inspiration-bringing lamp, and, confiding 

 himself to the demon of labour, demanded words from silence, 

 ideas from the stillne->s of night. Godfrey, seated by his window, 

 contemplated by turns the reflections of the moon in the water, or 

 studied the mysteries of heaven. Delivered up to one of these 

 ecstasies, which were familiar to him, he travelled from sphere to 

 sphere, from visions to visions, listening and imagining that he heard 

 low flutterings and murmurings of angels' voices, seeing or believ- 

 ing that he saw divine lights, in the bosom of which he lost himself, 

 endeavouring to attain the distant point, source of all light, principle 

 of all harmony. Soon the grand clamour of Paris, borne from afar 

 by the waters of the Seine, subsided, and the lights were extin- 

 guished one after another in the houses ; and before long silence 



