Flaminia [pp. 795-810]

Flamninia.
tuosity of her sentiments, and for the
sallies of her quick and brilliant spirit. But that world of reverie, peopled
with vague and indefinable forms;
that world illumined by a supernatural light, where we catch the glimpses
of a happiness unknown here below;
that world which is created by the
soul and colored by the imagination,
was to her quite unknown. Whilst
her sister delighted in all this, and
listened with her whole heart to those
harmonious voices which spoke to
her of a coming happiness penetrating and sweet as the joys of heaven,
Antonia was bounding like a young
fawn among the trees of their garden, or, mounted on a spirited horse,
rapidly ascended the paths of the
mountains that surrounded the town.
The same impetuosity was to be remarked in her sympathies and antipathies; she could not moderate her
expression of them, not did she even
seek to impose upon herself a useless constraint on this subject. On
the other hand, Flaminia seemed already to bear in her entire appearance the impress of those sorrows
that she was destined to suffer. Her
look, so sweet and sad even in its
smile, was half veiled with her eyelids, and gave to her face an indefinable expression of melancholy. That
expression could be again found in
her delicately shaped mouth, and
even in her movements full of languor and grace. Whilst Antonia,
lively and petulant, employed by
every outward effort the too abundant forces of her life and youth,
Flaminia seemed to place hers in reserve for the terrible moment of need.
She concentrated in the depths of
her soul all her impressions; nor
could she give to herself a reason for
so doing. She had the consciousness
of her exquisite sensibility, and protected it, under the shield of indifference and affected calm, against all
contact that could have wounded it.
But under this apparent indolence
an attentive eye could have easily recognized the marks of an ardent soul
and of a strong nervous organization.
A sudden flame would at moments
lighten up those glances usually veiled in indifference, the soft and musical voice took an accent of enthusiasm, and her whole expression changed, being animated by the power of
an emotion that she no longer restrained, and whose vibrations were
the more violent, because her soul,
far from pouring itself on all that
surrounded her, as did Antonia's,
was one of those that at a given
hour in life is destined to concentrate all its force on a single thought
and on an only affection. Outwardly cold and impassible, her excessive
sensibility showed itself by scarcely
perceptible signs; but later in life,
happy to find at her side a heart filled
with similar ideas, all this ice melted.
Is there not in us, at the moment
when life commences, that is to say,
at the epoch when the soul awakes
from the long slumber of infancy, a
vague presentiment of our future
destinies? For the same reason that
we have so often seen the bravest soldiers tremble on the morning of a
battle, feeling beforehand that death
will call them during the day, is there
not likewise in us a voice which
warns us of the trials that we shall
have later in our lives to endure?
The birds have a presentiment of the
coming storm, even when the atmosphere is yet full of splendor; the very
insects that crawl upon the ground
foresee in the autumn the rigors of
the approaching winter, and envelop
their eggs with a double covering of
silk; and why should man be less favored than the birdsor insects? Why
should he be the only creature that
is delivered up, as it were, with his
hands and feet bound, to the rigors
8o6