drove them out as soon as they presented
themselves.

But one day fate willed that (unlike the
dog in the fable) I should drop my shadow
for a substance. I was in the cathedral on a
Sunday afternoon, listening to the chaunting
of the singers hidden in the choir, when
suddenly catching the dull sound of the closing
of the baize-covered door behind me, I looked
round involuntarily, and saw such a pretty
face, that I secretly felt it (in spite of my
philosophy) to be worth all the shadows in
the world. I will not describe it; first,
because those romancists who delight to
catalogue each separate item of beauty, with all
the minuteness of a slave merchant haggling
with the Sultan's eunuch, have never yet been
able to present to my imagination the total
of a human face: and next, because to describe
it in detail would give a false impression of
that sudden glance in which, without taking
account of the character of her nose, or the
colour of her eyes, I saw that she was beautiful.
Into the poor-box I saw her drop a coin, and,
let the truth be told, without any apparent
desire to conceal her charity from the world.
Then she passed on; and taking one of the
straw chairs in the middle of the nave, and
balancing it on two legs—as is customary in
French churches—leaned over the back of it,
and in that devout posture began (as I
charitably hoped) to say her prayers. And
now, as I sat behind her, a symmetrical
figure, dresssed in black, a lace veil, flung
back, as well as a pair of chocolate-coloured
boots became deeply interesting. "The tyranny
of material forms," as a German philosopher
would say, "was re-established." How could a
poor shadow, a mere negation of light, a
nothing, owing its existence (if it could be
called an existence) solely to the juxtaposition
of a something, prevail against these
attractions, which, in a bar of wintry
sunlight, falling through the high arched window,
were each a reality, with a shadow into
the bargain? Assuredly, if I had thought
of my shadow in that moment, the probability
of some resemblance, however small,
existing between a brother and a sister,
would have seemed to me to have increased
ten-fold.

The attendant was lighting the candles,
when she rose to go away, passing me again
so closely that she brushed my foot with her
dress, and by that wondrous touch rendered me
entirely deaf to the singing in the choir. When
the baize-covered door slammed to again, and
the singing in the choir broke out afresh, the
hymn that they were chaunting was such a
worthless, old-fashioned, hacknied tune, sung
with such preposterous energy and noise, that
it was intolerable. Had not my thoughts
been occupied with the chocolate boots, I
had assuredly not endured it so long. "How
jarring," thought I, as I walked on tip-toe
towards the baize-covered door, "is this
tasteless music; in a church more rich in
workmanship than the bridal lace veil of a
queen."

O daughters of the early world, whose ears
and fingers yielded gold enough to make a
monstrous idol! not less than you, the
Norman woman worships gauds and trinkets.
As I came out from the cathedral porch,
behold, I saw a pair of chocolate boots standing
quite still in the light from a shop front
—the very first of a row of jewellers' windows,
all glittering, shameless, in the Sabbath afternoon.
It was but for a moment, but the
pang that it caused me was the first penalty
I paid for my interest in a substance. When
the chocolate-coloured boots walked away, I
walked away too; and, as it happened by the
same street. I was not following them. I
merely took the way to my home; but,
through street after street, the owner of the
boots kept still before me, till she turned at
last into the Rue D'Aimette. Drawing nearer
to the house where I had so often seen the
shadow on the blind, a hope that hardly
dared declare itself made my heart throb like
wine poured out of a narrow-necked bottle.
Only a few yards from the door she looked
back for a moment and hesitated. Perhaps
she thought that some one had followed
her. A child watching a spinning teetotum
dying out upon the line that separates a
prize from a blank, knows something of the
anxiety that I felt at that moment. But
I was soon relieved. I saw her distinctly
enter the very house, and in spite of all
doubts which (considering the great number
of families always living in a large house
in France) I might reasonably have cherished
still, I decided at once that this was the
identical substance of the shadow I had
worshipped.

With what anxiety did I watch the blind
that night! fancying how, if by some
transmigration I could become that bird, I would
pretend to be asleep like him, and sometimes
hear her talking secrets to herself, or humming
tunes, or laughing suddenly at some recollection,
and many other notions of the kind,
none of which had ever come into my head
till I fell away from the wiser form of shadow
worship. But that time I think she sat behind
the light, for I saw nothing but the birdcage,
and I went to bed in an ill-humour, having said
bitter things against my landlady, because
my candle, being loosely set up, fell out of
its socket as I walked with it across the
room.

Having now, as I believed, seen the original
of the shadow—my passion began to ripen
fast. No more fogs compelled me to visit the
porter again; for which reason I determined
to visit him without compulsion, and renew
our conversation.

"Good morning, Mr. Grégoire."

"Good morning, sir."

"You were saying, 'that if I should
wish——'"

"Yes; I remember. To see a really pretty