Whither away, Fabien, my friend, whither away?  You are letting your imagination run away with you again.  A hint from it, and off you go.  Come, do use your reason a little.  You have seen this young lady again, that is true.  You admired her; that was for the second time.  But she, whom you so calmly speak of as “Jeanne,” as if she were something to you, never even noticed you.  You know nothing about her but what you suspect from her maiden grace and a dozen words from her lips.  You do not know whether she is free, nor how she would welcome the notions you entertain if you gave them utterance, yet here you are saying, “We should go here,” “We should do this and that.”  Keep to the singular, my poor fellow.  The plural is far away, very far away, if not entirely beyond your reach.

CHAPTER VII

A WOODLAND SKETCH

April 27th.

The end of April.  Students, pack and be off!  The first warm breezes burst the buds.  Meudon is smiling; Clamart breaks into song; the air in the valley of Chevreuse is heavy with violets; the willows shower their catkins on the banks of the Yvette; and farther yet, over yonder beneath the green domes of the forest of Fontainebleau, the deer prick their ears at the sound of the first riding-parties.  Off with you!  Flowers line the pathways, the moors are pink with bloom, the undergrowth teems with darting wings.  All the town troops out to see the country in its gala dress.  The very poorest have a favorite nook, a recollection of the bygone year to be revived and renewed; a sheltered corner that invited sleep, a glade where the shade was grateful, a spot beside the river’s brink where the fish used to bite.  Each one says, “Don’t you remember?” Each one seeks his nest like a home-coming swallow.  Does it still hold together?  What havoc has been made by the winter’s winds, and the rain, and the frost?  Will it welcome us, as of old?

I, too, said to Lampron, “Don’t you remember?” for we, too, have our nest, and summer days that smile to us in memory.  He was in the mood for work, and hesitated.  I added in a whisper, “The blackbird’s pool!” He smiled, and off we went.

Again, as of old, our destination was St. Germain—­not the town, nor the Italian palace, nor yet the terrace whence the view spreads so wide over the Seine, the country dotted with villas, to Montmartre blue in the distance—­not these, but the forest.  “Our forest,” we call it; for we know all its young shoots, all its giant trees, all its paths where poachers and young lovers hide.  With my eyes shut I could find the blackbird’s pool, the way to which was first shown us by a deer.