The Vicomte de Bragelonne; Or, Ten Years Later - edizione con copertina flessibile

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE STORM. The dawn of the following day was dark and gloomy; and as every one knew that a ride was set down in the royal programme, every one's gaze, as his eyes opened, was directed towards the sky. Just above the tops of the trees a thick, suffocating vapor seemed to remain suspended, with hardly sufficient power to rise thirty feet above the ground under the influence of the sun's rays, which could barely be seen through the veil of a heavy and thick mist. That morning there was no dew; the turf was dried up for want of moisture, and the flowers were withered. The birds sang less cheerfully than usual amid the boughs, which remained as motionless as death. The strange, confused, and animated murmurs, which seemed born of the sun, and to exist by it, ? that respiration of Nature which is unceasingly heard amid all other sounds, ? could not be heard now; never had silence been so profound. The king had noticed the cheerless aspect of the heavens 'as he approached the window immediately after rising. But as all the directions had been given respecting the drive, and every preparation had been made accordingly, and, what was far more imperious than everything else, as Louis relied upon this excursion to satisfy the cravings of his imagination, and we will even already say the clamorous desires of his heart, ? the king unhesitatingly decided that the appearance of the heavens had nothing whatever to do with the matter, and that the excursion having beenappointed, should take place, whatever the state of the weather might be. Besides, there are in certain terrestrial realms privileged by Heaven times when it might almost be supposed that the expressed wish of an earthly monarch has its influence over the Divine will. It was Virgil who observed of Augustus, Nod...