They were not very far wrong, these provincial adorers.  The portraits of Aurore at this date show us a charming face of a young girl, as fresh-looking as a child.  She has rather long features, with a delicately-shaped chin.  She is not exactly pretty, but fascinating, with those great dark eyes, which were her prominent feature, eyes which, when fixed on any one, took complete possession of them—­dreamy, passionate eyes, sombre because the soul reflected in them had profound depths.

It is difficult to define that soul, for it was so complex.  To judge by appearances, it was a very peaceful soul, and perhaps, too, it was in reality peaceful.  George Sand, who knew herself thoroughly, frequently spoke of her laziness and of her apathy, traits peculiar to the natives of Berry.  Superficial observers looked no further, and her mother used to call her “St. Tranquillity.”  The nuns, though, of her convent had more perspicacity.  They said, when speaking of her:  “Still waters run deep.”  Under the smooth surface they fancied that storms were gathering.  Aurore had within her something of her mother and of her grandmother, and their opposite natures were blended in her.  She had the calmness of Marie-Aurore, but she also had the impetuousness of Sophie-Victoire, and undoubtedly, too, something of the free and easy good humour of her father, the break-neck young officer.  It certainly is not surprising to find a love of adventure in a descendant of Maurice de Saxe.

Beside all these inner contrasts, the observer was particularly struck by her sudden changes of humour, by the way in which, after a fit of melancholy sadness, she suddenly gave way to the most exuberant gaiety, followed by long fits of depression and nervous exhaustion.  Personally, I do not believe much in the influence of the physical over the moral nature, but I am fully convinced of the action of the moral over the physical nature.  In certain cases and in presence of extremely accentuated conditions, physiological explanations must be taken into account.  All these fits of melancholy and weeping, this prostration, these high spirits and the long walks, in order to sober down, denote the exigencies of an abnormal temperament.  When once the crisis was passed, it must not be supposed that, as with many other people, nothing remained of it all.  This was by no means the case, as in a nature so extraordinarily organized for storing up sensations nothing was lost, nothing evaporated, and everything increased.  The still water seemed to be slumbering.  Its violence, though held in check, was increasing in force, and when once let loose, it would carry all before it.

Such was the woman whom Casimir Dudevant was to marry.  The fascination was great; the honour rather to be feared, for all depended on his skill in guiding this powerful energy.