"de Musset, Alfred - Frederic and Bernerette" - читать интересную книгу автора (Musset Alfred De)

Frederic and Bernerette, by Alfred de Musset

The Naked Word electronic edition
of....
Frederic and Bernerette
by Alfred de Musset
Done into english by M. Raoul Pellissier, 1905



CHAPTER I
TOWARD the close of the Restoration, a young man from Besanчon, Frederic Hombert
by name, came to Paris to study law. His family was not rich and made him only a
modest allowance. But as he was very careful, a little was sufficient. He roomed
in the Latin quarter so as to be near his work. His tastes and inclinations were
so sedentary that he hardly ever visited the promenades, the squares and the
monuments, which, in Paris, are the chief objects of curiosity to the stranger.
The society of some young men with whom he was thrown in contact at the Law
School and a few houses whose doors had been opened to him by letters of
introduction, were his only distractions. He kept up a regular correspondence
with his parents and sent them word of his success in examinations as he passed
them. After having worked assiduously for three years, at length, the time
arrived for him to become an advocate. He had only to write his thesis, and had
already fixed the time for his return to Besanчon, when an unexpected event for
a time disturbed his plans.
He lived in the Rue de la Harpe, on the third floor, and on his window sill were
some flowers which he looked after carefully. While watering them one morning,
at a window opposite him, he noticed a young girl who bagan to laugh. She
watched him so gaily and openly that he could not help nodding his head. She
graciously returned his salutation, and from this moment they became accustomed
to wish each other "good morning" every day from one side of the street to the
other. One day, when Frederic had risen earlier than usual, after having saluted
his neighbor, he took a sheet of paper which he folded in the form of a letter
and showed it to the girl, as if to ask if he could write to her. But she shook
her head as a sign of refusal and disappeared as though offended.
The next day he chanced to meet her in the street. The young lady was returning
home, accompanied by a young man whom Frederic did not know and whom he could
not remember ever having seen among the students. From the appearance and dress
of his neighbor, in spite of the fact that she had on a hat, he judged her to be
what is known in Paris as a grisette. Her cavalier, of about his own age, was no
doubt a brother or a lover, and in all probability the latter. Whichever it was,
Frederic resolved to think no more of the matter. Winter having set in, he
removed his flowers from the place they occupied in the window. But, in spite of
himself, he could not help looking out from time to time. He brought the desk,
at which he worked, nearer to the window and arranged the curtains so that he
could see without being himself perceived.
His neighbor no longer appeared in the morning. She was sometimes to be seen
shutting the blinds at five o'clock in the evening after having lighted the
lamp. Frederic made bold enough to send her a kiss one day. He was surprised to
see her return it as gaily as she had before returned his first salute. He again