Just at the last, when Mireille is dying under the care of the Saints, her distracted father and Vincent, broken-hearted, arrive, but only just in time to see her pass peacefully away into the silence.
From the windows of our rooms one can see above the trees the fantastic summits of the Alpilles. They are clear against a "jewel-enamelled sky."
The roses are exhaling their fragrance in the dark garden just below; now and then the omnibus horses peacefully move in their stalls, perhaps going over again in their dreams the happy homeward journey after the last train.
It is not yet late, but St. Remy has gone to its rest; only the stars are awake and watching.
The sweet night air comes in quietly at the window which has been unbolted and thrown open--not without giant efforts, for French precautions against the dangerous element are thorough and hard to circumvent.
The whole scene--black trees, mountains, stars--shows through a mist of oncoming sleep and has the appearance of some unearthly vision. The whole riddle of the universe seems to be out there in the darkness; the answer is there too, just behind the veil; only just behind----
One--two--three--four----eleven o'clock! The big church in the Market Place strikes the hour with that particularly solemn note of a clock striking in a sleeping town.
"Hour for rest, hour for rest," it seems to admonish the wakeful few.
Over all things Night and Peace spread wide their wings----
"Pas de chantar m'es pres talens, Farai un vers don sui dolens, Non serai mais obediens De Peigtau ni de Lemozi.
Ieu m'en anarai en eyssilh; Laissarai en guerra mon filh, E gran paor et en parilh; E faran li mal siey vozi."
("A desire to sing has seized me, And I shall sing of that which afflicts me; I shall no longer be obeyed By either Poitou or Limousin.
I shall depart into exile; I shall leave my son behind me in war, In great fear and peril, At the mercy of those who wish him ill.")
By WILLIAM IX. COUNT OF POICTIERS (THE "FIRST TROUBADOUR"). Born 1071.
There is a vast work on Provence by le Sieur Honoré de Bouche, Docteur en Theologie, A.P.D.S.I., printed at Aix, by Charles David, "printer to the King, the clergy and the town," MDCLXIV. It is bound in ancient brown leather;--two majestic volumes which have to be propped up against something substantial or laid upon a family dining-table in order to be read in any sort of security. Less serious treatment, such as an attempt to balance the tomes on the knee between the arms of a chair, however solid, always results in a temporary eclipse of the student. The difficulties of acquiring erudition in this case are physical as well as intellectual. But the dangers of the road are worth braving even if one does come off with an aching head and some few marks of conflict.