The Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of
France, - in the heyday of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her
abundance into every one's lap, and every eye is lifted up, - a
journey, through each step of which Music beats time to Labour, and
all her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters: to
pass through this with my affections flying out, and kindling at
every group before me, - and every one of them was pregnant with
adventures. -
Just heaven! - it would fill up twenty volumes; - and alas! I have
but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into, - and half of
these must be taken up with the poor Maria my friend, Mr. Shandy,
met with near Moulines.
The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a
little in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood
where she lived, it returned so strong into the mind, that I could
not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a league out of
the road, to the village where her parents dwelt, to enquire after
her.
'Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance in
quest of melancholy adventures. But I know not how it is, but I am
never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me,
as when I am entangled in them.
The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before
she open'd her mouth. - She had lost her husband; he had died, she
said, of anguish, for the loss of Maria's senses, about a month
before. - She had feared at first, she added, that it would have
plunder'd her poor girl of what little understanding was left; -
but, on the contrary, it had brought her more to herself: - still,
she could not rest. - Her poor daughter, she said, crying, was
wandering somewhere about the road.
Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La
Fleur, whose heart seem'd only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back
of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it?
I beckoned to the postilion to turn back into the road.
When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little
opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria
sitting under a poplar. She was sitting with her elbow in her lap,
and her head leaning on one side within her hand: - a small brook
ran at the foot of the tree.
I bid the postilion go on with the chaise to Moulines - and La Fleur
to bespeak my supper; - and that I would walk after him.
She was dress'd in white, and much as my friend described her,
except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a
silk net. - She had superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green
riband, which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of
which hung her pipe. - Her goat had been as faithless as her lover;
and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept
tied by a string to her girdle: as I looked at her dog, she drew
him towards her with the string. - "Thou shalt not leave me,
Sylvio," said she. I look'd in Maria's eyes and saw she was
thinking more of her father than of her lover, or her little goat;
for, as she utter'd them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.
I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they
fell, with my handkerchief. - I then steep'd it in my own, - and then
in hers, - and then in mine, - and then I wip'd hers again; - and as I
did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure
could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and
motion.
I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which
materialists have pester'd the world ever convince me to the
contrary.
MARIA.
When Maria had come a little to herself, I ask'd her if she
remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt
her and her goat about two years before? She said she was
unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts: -
-that ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that
her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for the
theft; - she had wash'd it, she said, in the brook, and kept it ever
since in her pocket to restore it to him in case she should ever
see him again, which, she added, he had half promised her. As she
told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket to let me
see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine leaves,
tied round with a tendril; - on opening it, I saw an S. marked in
one of the corners.
She had since that, she told me, stray'd as far as Rome, and walk'd
round St. Peter's once, - and return'd back; - that she found her way
alone across the Apennines; - had travell'd over all Lombardy,
without money, - and through the flinty roads of Savoy without
shoes: - how she had borne it, and how she had got supported, she
could not tell; - but GOD TEMPERS THE WIND, said Maria, TO THE SHORN
LAMB.
Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I: and wast thou in my own
land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter
thee: thou shouldst eat of my own bread and drink of my own cup; -
I would be kind to thy Sylvio; - in all thy weaknesses and
wanderings I would seek after thee and bring thee back; - when the
sun went down I would say my prayers:
