MARIA. MOULINES.
I never felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till
now, - to travel it through 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.
