Louis Lambert — Honoré de Balzac, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley

And then the old man heard with dismay a groan mingling with the sound of a heavy fall—the fall, as his experienced ear assured him, of a dead body. He hastened into Godefroid’s room, and saw him lying in a heap with a long rope tight round his neck, the end meandering over the floor.

When he had untied it, the poor lad opened his eyes.

““Where am I?” he asked, with a hopeful gleam.

‘‘In your own room,”’ said the elder man, looking with surprise at Godefroid’s neck, and at the nail to which the cord had been tied, and which was still in the knot.

‘“‘In heaven ?’’ said the boy, in a voice of music.

‘*No; on earth!”’

Godefroid rose and walked along the path of light traced on the floor by the moon through the window, which stood open; he saw the rippling Seine, the willows and plants on the island. A misty atmosphere hung over the waters like a smoky floor. ' On seeing the view, to him so heart-breaking, he folded his hands over Lis bosom, and stood in an attitude of despair; the Exile came up to him with astonishment on his face.

“You meant to kill yourself?’’ he asked.

‘“*Yes,’’ replied Godefroid, while the stranger passed his hand aboat his neck again and again to feel the plpeeem where the rope had tightened on it.

But for some slight bruises the young man had been but little hurt. His friend supposed that the nail had given way at once under the weight of the body, and the terrible attempt had ended in a fall without injury.

‘‘ And why, dear lad, did you try to kill yourself ?’’

** Alas!”’ said Godefroid, no longer restraining the tears that rolled down his cheeks, ‘‘I heard the Voice from onp. 346 high; it called me by name! It had never named me before, but this time it bade me to Heaven! Oh, how sweet is that voice!—As 1 could not fly to Heaven,’’ he added artlessly, ‘‘I took the only way we know of going to God.”

““My child! oh, sublime boy!”’ cried the old man, throwing his arms round Godefroid and clasping him to his heart. ‘*You are a poet; you can boldly ride the whirlwind! Your poetry does not proceed from your heart; your living, burning thoughts, your creations, move and grow in your soul. —Go, never reveal your ideas to the vulgar! Be at once the altar, the priest, and the victim!

‘““You know Heaven, do you not? You have seen those myriads of angels, white-winged, and holding golden sistrums, all soaring with equal flight toward the Throne, and you have often seen their pinions moving at the breath of God as the trees of the forest bow with one consent before the storm. Ah, how glorious is unlimited spacel Tell: me”

The stranger clasped Godefroid’s hand convulsively, and they both gazed at the firmament, whence the stars seemed to shed gentle poetry which they could hear.

‘‘Oh, to see God!” murmured Godefroid.

p. 347

that where your soul now hovers? Poor outcast cherub! Should you not rather bless God for having suffered you to live in a sphere where you may hear none but heavenly harmonies? Are you not as pure as a diamond, as lovely as a flower?

*‘Child!’’ said the old man suddenly, in a sterner voice, ‘have you so soon forgotten the holy teaching of our good master, Doctor Sigier? In order to return, you to your heavenly home, and I to my native land on earth, must we not obey the voice of God? We must walk on resignedly in the steny paths where His almighty finger points the way. Do not you quail at the thought of the danger to which you exposed yourself? Arriving there without being bidden, and saying, ‘Here I am!’ before your time, would you not have been cast back into a world beneath