Chapter XXIV Days of Sunshine
There are but few persons, I imagine, who have not created for themselves a sort of intimate language, which they use to separate and classify the different emotions and events of their lives. It was thus that I gave the name of “days of sunshine” to those few fortunate hours that brightened my existence, which were fixed in my memory in such vivid colours that even the remembrance of them sufficed to cheer the dullest days of my after life.
At such times, when, by a turn of her wheel, fortune seems to amuse herself by raising a man to the very height of his fondest desire, on such “days of sunshine” everything that happens to us is not only just as we would wish, but the environment is such that our senses are doubly gratified.
And who is there that has not had his day of sunshine once at least in his life? One of those days when everything is beautiful and splendid, when the soul is filled with an ineffable sense of satisfaction, and Nature herself seems to contribute to our felicity? When if a long-cherished friend said, in a trembling voice: “To-night!” the night was so beautiful, the heavens so clear, the woods beautiful in their fresh foliage, the flowers glistening, the air saturated with perfume, and everything that you gazed on was smiling and peaceful.
No shadow of sadness came to obscure your luminous aureole. Is it needful to say how such rare and divine harmony delighted you? New and happily turned expressions came spontaneously to your lips; your lively wit sparkled in a thousand graceful pleasantries; when that is silent your heart murmurs ineffable tenderness. You feel yourself to be so brave, so proud, so gifted, that to your dazzled eyes the future is boundless, the perspective illimitable and glorious, and you say to yourself, “No misfortune can come to me while I am under the guidance of the radiant genius who shelters me with his golden wings.”
Since Marguerite had declared her love, a love so long and sadly struggled against by every souvenir of her past happiness, my incurable distrust had succumbed, at least for the time being, to the most intoxicating proofs of her affection.
There never were happier or more beautiful days than those that followed this avowal.
Almost every evening, on returning home, I had written in my journal a memento of these charming days.
Therefore it is with tender and respectful emotion that in writing this memoir I transcribe these fragments which were written during one of the most delightful periods of my life.