Paul et Virginie. English

by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

andVirginia in a more peculiar manner; these were the birth-days of theirmothers. Virginia never failed the day before to prepare some wheatencakes, which she distributed among a few poor white families, bornin the island, who had never eaten European bread. These unfortunatepeople, uncared for by the blacks, were reduced to live on tapioca inthe woods; and as they had neither the insensibility which is the resultof slavery, nor the fortitude which springs from a liberal education,to enable them to support their poverty, their situation was deplorable.These cakes were all that Virginia had it in her power to give away, butshe conferred the gift in so delicate a manner as to add tenfold toits value. In the first place, Paul was commissioned to take the cakeshimself to these families, and get their promise to come and spend thenext day at Madame de la Tour's. Accordingly, mothers of families, withtwo or three thin, yellow, miserable looking daughters, so timid thatthey dared not look up, made their appearance. Virginia soon put themat their ease; she waited upon them with refreshments, the excellenceof which she endeavoured to heighten by relating some particularcircumstance which in her own estimation, vastly improved them. Onebeverage had been prepared by Margaret; another, by her mother: herbrother himself had climbed some lofty tree for the very fruit she waspresenting. She would then get Paul to dance with them, nor would sheleave them till she saw that they were happy. She wished them to partakeof the joy of her own family. "It is only," she said, "by promoting thehappiness of others, that we can secure our own." When they left, shegenerally presented them with some little article they seemed to fancy,enforcing their acceptance of it by some delicate pretext, that shemight not appear to know they were in want. If she remarked that theirclothes were much tattered, she obtained her mother's permission togive them some of her own, and then sent Paul to leave them, secretly attheir cottage doors. She thus followed the divine precept,--concealingthe benefactor, and revealing only the benefit.

  You Europeans, whose minds are imbued from infancy with prejudices atvariance with happiness, cannot imagine all the instruction and pleasureto be derived from nature. Your souls, confined to a small sphere ofintelligence, soon reach the limit of its artificial enjoyments: butnature and the heart are inexhaustible. Paul and Virginia had neitherclock, nor almanack, nor books of chronology, history or philosophy.The periods of their lives were regulated by those of the operations ofnature, and their familiar conversation had a reference to the changesof the seasons. They knew the time of day by the shadows of the trees;the seasons, by the times when those trees bore flowers or fruit;and the years, by the number of their harvests. These soothing imagesdiffused an inexpressible charm over their conversation. "It is time todine," said Virginia, "the shadows of the plantain-trees are at theirroots:" or, "Night approaches, the tamarinds are closing their leaves.""When will you come and see us?" inquired some of her companions inthe neighbourhood. "At the time of the sugar-canes," answered Virginia."Your visit will be then still more delightful," resumed her youngacquaintances. When she was asked what was her own age and that ofPaul,--"My brother," said she, "is as old as the great cocoa-tree of thefountain; and I am as old as the little one: the mangoes have bore fruittwelve times and the orange-trees have flowered four-and-twenty times,since I came into the world." Their lives seemed linked to that of thetrees, like those of Fauns or Dryads. They knew no other historicalepochs than those of the lives of their mothers, no other chronologythan that of doing good, and resigning themselves to the will of Heaven.

  What need, indeed, had these young people of riches or learning suchas ours? Even their necessities and their ignorance increased theirhappiness. No day passed in which they were not of some service to oneanother, or in which they did not mutually impart some instruction. Yes,instruction; for if errors mingled with it, they were, at least, not ofa dangerous character. A pure-minded being has none of that descriptionto fear. Thus grew these children of nature. No care had troubled theirpeace, no intemperance had corrupted their blood, no misplaced passionhad depraved their hearts. Love, innocence, and piety, possessed theirsouls; and those intellectual graces were unfolding daily in theirfeatures, their attitudes, and their movements. Still in the morning oflife, they had all its blooming freshness: and surely such in the gardenof Eden appeared our first parents, when coming from the hands of God,they first saw, and approached each other, and conversed together, likebrother and sister. Virginia was gentle, modest, and confiding as Eve;and Paul, like Adam, united the stature of manhood with the simplicityof a child.

  Sometimes, if alone with Virginia, he has a thousand times told me, heused to say to her, on his return from labour,--"When I am wearied, thesight of you refreshes me. If from the summit of the mountain I perceiveyou below in the valley, you appear to me in the midst of our orchardlike a blooming rose-bud. If you go towards our mother's house, thepartridge, when it runs to meet its young, has a shape less beautiful,and a step less light. When I lose sight of you through the trees, Ihave no need to see you in order to find you again. Something of you, Iknow not how, remains for me in the air through which you have passed,on the grass where you have been seated. When I come near you, youdelight all my senses. The azure of the sky is less charming than theblue of your eyes, and the song of the amadavid bird less soft than thesound of your voice. If I only touch you with the tip of my finger,my whole frame trembles with pleasure. Do you remember the day when wecrossed over the great stones of the river of the Three Breasts? I wasvery tired before we reached the bank: but, as soon as I had taken youin my arms, I seemed to have wings like a bird. Tell me by what charmyou have thus enchanted me! Is it by your wisdom?--Our mothers have morethan either of us. Is it by your caresses?--They embrace me much oftenerthan you. I think it must be by your goodness. I shall never forget howyou walked bare-footed to the Black River, to ask pardon for the poorrun-away slave. Here, my beloved, take this flowering branch of alemon-tree, which I have gathered in the forest: you will let it remainat night near your bed. Eat this honey-comb too, which I have taken foryou from the top of a rock. But first lean on my bosom, and I shall berefreshed."

  Virginia would answer him,--"Oh, my dear brother, the rays of the sun inthe morning on the tops of the rocks give me less joy than the sight ofyou. I love my mother,--I love yours; but when they call you their son,I love them a thousand times more. When they caress you, I feel it moresensibly than when I am caressed myself. You ask me what makes you loveme. Why, all creatures that are brought up together love one another.Look at our birds; reared up in the same nests, they love each other aswe do; they are always together like us. Hark! how they call and answerfrom one tree to another. So when the echoes bring to my ears the airwhich you play on your flute on the top of the mountain, I repeat thewords at the bottom of the valley. You are dear to me more especiallysince the day when you wanted to fight the master of the slave for me.Since that time how often have I said to myself, 'Ah, my brother has agood heart; but for him, I should have died of terror.' I pray toGod every day for my mother and for yours; for you, and for ourpoor servants; but when I pronounce your name, my devotion seems toincrease;--I ask so earnestly of God that no harm may befall you! Whydo you go so far, and climb so high, to seek fruits and flowers forme? Have we not enough in our garden already? How much you arefatigued,--you look so warm!"--and with her little white handkerchiefshe would wipe the damps from his face, and then imprint a tender kisson his forehead.

  For some time past, however, Virginia had felt her heart agitated bynew sensations. Her beautiful blue eyes lost their lustre, her cheekits freshness, and her frame was overpowered with a universal langour.Serenity no longer sat upon her brow, nor smiles played upon her lips.She would become all at once gay without cause for joy, and melancholywithout any subject for grief. She fled her innocent amusements, hergentle toils, and even the society of her beloved family; wanderingabout the most unfrequented parts of the plantations, and seeking everywhere the rest which she could no where find. Sometimes, at the sightof Paul, she advanced sportively to meet him; but, when about to accosthim,
was overcome by a sudden confusion; her pale cheeks were coveredwith blushes, and her eyes no longer dared to meet those of her brother.Paul said to her,--"The rocks are covered with verdure, our birds beginto sing when you approach, everything around you is gay, and you onlyare unhappy." He then endeavoured to soothe her by his embraces, butshe turned away her head, and fled, trembling towards her mother. Thecaresses of her brother excited too much emotion in her agitated heart,and she sought, in the arms of her mother, refuge from herself. Paul,unused to the secret windings of the female heart, vexed himself invain in endeavouring to comprehend the meaning of these new and strangecaprices. Misfortunes seldom come alone, and a serious calamity nowimpended over these families.

  One of those summers, which sometimes desolate the countries