After Paul Sillery’s departure Amedee turned over in his mind various other recollections of former days.  He has been a trifle estranged from Madame Roger since his marriage to Maria, but he sometimes takes little Maurice to see her.  She has sheltered and given each of Colonel Lantz’s daughters a dowry.  Pretty Rosine Combarieu’s face rises up before him, his childhood’s companion, whom he met at Bullier’s and never has seen since.  What has become of the poor little creature?  Amedee almost hopes that she is dead.  Ah, how sad these old memories are in the autumn, when the leaves are falling and the sun is setting!

It has set, it has plunged beneath the horizon, and suddenly all is dark.  Over the darkened landscape in the vast pearl-colored sky spreads the melancholy chill which follows the farewell of day.  The white smoke from the city has turned gray, the river is like a dulled mirror.  A moment ago, in the sun’s last rays, the dead leaves, as they fell, looked like a golden rain, now they seem a dark snow.

Where are all your illusions and hopes of other days, Amedee Violette?  You think this evening of the rapid flight of years, of the snowy flakes of winter which are beginning to fall on your temples.  You have the proof to-day of the impossibility of absolutely requited love in this world.  You know that happiness, or what is called so, exists only by snatches and lasts only a moment, and how commonplace it often is and how sad the next day!  You depend upon your art for consolation.  Oppressed by the monotonous ennui of living, you ask for the forgetfulness that only the intoxication of poetry and dreams can give you.  Alas!  Poor sentimentalist, your youth is ended!

And still the leaves fall!

     ETEXT editor’s bookmarks: 

     Egotists and cowards always have a reason for everything
     Eternally condemned to kill each other in order to live
     God forgive the timid and the prattler! 
     Happiness exists only by snatches and lasts only a moment
     He almost regretted her
     He does not know the miseries of ambition and vanity
     How sad these old memorics are in the autumn
     Never travel when the heart is troubled! 
     Not more honest than necessary
     Poor France of Jeanne d’Arc and of Napoleon
     Redouble their boasting after each defeat
     Take their levity for heroism
     The leaves fall! the leaves fall! 
     Universal suffrage, with its accustomed intelligence
     Were certain against all reason

     ETEXT editor’s bookmarks of the entire romance of youth: 

     Break in his memory, like a book with several leaves torn out
     Dreams, instead of living
     Egotists and cowards always have a reason for everything
     Eternally condemned to kill each other in order to live
     Fortunate enough to