Florence is sad, it is the Middle Ages living in the midst of modern
life. How can any one endure those grilled windows and that horrible
brown color with which all the houses are soiled? What could we do at
Rome? We are not traveling in order to forget ourselves, much less for
the sake of instruction. To the Rhine? But the season is over, and
although we do not care for the world of fashion, still it is sad to
visit its haunts when it has fled them. But Spain? Too many restrictions
there; one has to travel like an army on the march and may expect
everything except repose. Let us go to Switzerland! Too many people go
there, and most of them are deceived as to the nature of its attractions;
but it is there, are unfolded the three most beautiful colors on God's
earth: the azure of the sky, the verdure of the plains, and the whiteness
of the snows on the summits of glaciers.
"Let us go, let us go," cried Brigitte, "let us fly away like two birds.
Let us pretend, my dear Octave, that we just met each other yesterday.
You met me at a ball, I pleased you and I love you; you tell me that some
leagues distant, in a certain little town you loved a certain Madame
Pierson; what passed between you and her I do not know. You will not tell
me the story of your love for another! And I will whisper to you that not
long since, I loved a terrible fellow who made me very unhappy; you will
reprove me and close my mouth, and we will agree never to speak of such
things.
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