"The leaves were shaken in the clear, burning green; and, on a
sudden, a multitude of goldfinches, the heads red in the wind, the
wings half spread, were fluttering from branch to branch. I could
have fancied, amid the quivering of the great bunches of fruit, that
they were cherries on the wing. Justin suffered his pipe to die
away: the birds were come at his invitation, and performed their
prelude."
It is forty years afterwards that the narrator, now a man of letters
in Paris, writes to his old friend, with tidings of Justin and
Norine:--
"In 1842 (he observes) you were close on fifteen; I scarcely twelve.
In my eyes your age made you my superior. And then, you were so
strong, so tender, so amiteux, to use a word from up there--a
charming word. And so God, Who had His designs for you, whereas I,
in spite of my pious childhood, wandered on [131] my way as chance
bade me, led you by the hand, attached, ended by keeping you for
Himself. He did well truly when He chose you and rejected me!"
His finding the pair in the wilds of Paris is an adventure, in which,
in fact, a goldfinch again takes an important part--a goldfinch who
is found to understand the Cevenol dialect:--
"The goldfinch (escaped from its cage somewhere, into the dreary
court of the Institute) has seen me: is looking at me.
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