The next morning, we left Parma, taking only what we wanted for an absence of a fortnight. We arrived in Milan without accident, but both very sad, and we spent the following fifteen days in constant tete-a-tete, without speaking to anyone, except the landlord of the hotel and to a dressmaker. I presented my beloved Henriette with a magnificent pelisse made of lynx fur--a present which she prized highly.
Out of delicacy, she had never enquired about my means, and I felt grateful to her for that reserve. I was very careful to conceal from her the fact that my purse was getting very light. When we came back to Parma I had only three or four hundred sequins.
The day after our return M. d'Antoine invited himself to dine with us, and after we had drunk coffee, I left him alone with Henriette.
Their interview was as long as the first, and our separation was decided. She informed me of it, immediately after the departure of M. d'Antoine, and for a long time we remained folded in each other's arms, silent, and blending our bitter tears.
"When shall I have to part from you, my beloved, alas! too much beloved one?"
"Be calm, dearest, only when we reach Geneva, whither you are going to accompany me. Will you try to find me a respectable maid by to-morrow? She will accompany me from Geneva to the place where I am bound to go."
"Oh! then, we shall spend a few days more together! I know no one but Dubois whom I could trust to procure a good femme-de-chambre;
only I do not want him to learn from her what you might not wish him to know."
"That will not be the case, for I will take another maid as soon as I
am in France."
Three days afterwards, Dubois, who had gladly undertaken the commission, presented to Henriette a woman already somewhat advanced in years, pretty well dressed and respectable-looking, who, being poor, was glad of an opportunity of going back to France, her native country. Her husband, an old military officer, had died a few months before, leaving her totally unprovided for. Henriette engaged her, and told her to keep herself ready to start whenever M. Dubois should give her notice. The day before the one fixed for our departure, M.
d'Antoine dined with us, and, before taking leave of us, he gave Henriette a sealed letter for Geneva.
We left Parma late in the evening, and stopped only two hours in Turin, in order to engage a manservant whose services we required as far as Geneva. The next day we ascended Mont Cenis in sedan-chairs, and we descended to the Novalaise in mountain-sledges. On the fifth day we reached Geneva, and we put up at the Hotel des Balances. The next morning, Henriette gave me a letter for the banker Tronchin, who, when he had read it, told me that he would call himself at the hotel, and bring me one thousand louis d'or.
I came back and we sat down to dinner. We had not finished our meal when the banker was announced. He had brought the thousand louis d'or, and told Henriette that he would give her two men whom he could recommend in every way.
She answered that she would leave Geneva as soon as she had the carriage which he was to provide for her, according to the letter I
had delivered to him. He promised that everything would be ready for the following day, and he left us. It was indeed a terrible moment!
Grief almost benumbed us both. We remained motionless, speechless, wrapped up in the most profound despair.
I broke that sad silence to tell her that the carriage which M.
Tronchin would provide could not possibly be as comfortable and as safe as mine, and I entreated her to take it, assuring her that by accepting it she would give me a last proof of her affection.
"I will take in exchange, my dearest love, the carriage sent by the banker."
"I accept the change, darling," she answered, "it will be a great consolation to possess something which has belonged to you."
As she said these words, she slipped in my pocket five rolls containing each one hundred louis d'or--a slight consolation for my heart, which was almost broken by our cruel separation! During the last twenty-four hours we could boast of no other eloquence but that which finds expression in tears, in sobs, and in those hackneyed but energetic exclamations, which two happy lovers are sure to address to reason, when in its sternness it compels them to part from one another in the very height of their felicity. Henriette did not endeavour to lure me with any hope for the future, in order to allay my sorrow! Far from that, she said to me, "Once we are parted by fate, my best and only friend, never enquire after me, and, should chance throw you in my way, do not appear to know me."
She gave me a letter for M. d'Antoine, without asking me whether I
intended to go back to Parma, but, even if such had not been my intention, I should have determined at once upon returning to that city. She likewise entreated me not to leave Geneva until I had received a letter which she promised to, write to me from the first stage on her journey. She started at day-break, having with her a maid, a footman on the box of the carriage, and being preceded by a courier on horseback. I followed her with my eyes as long as I
could, see her carriage, and I was still standing on the same spot long after my eyes had lost sight of it. All my thoughts were wrapped up in the beloved object I had lost for ever. The world was a blank!
I went back to my room, ordered the waiter not to disturb me until the return of the horses which had drawn Henriette's carriage, and I
lay down on my bed in the hope that sleep would for a time silence a grief which tears could not drown.
