" She walks in beauty " ( Tom Hiddleston fanfic )

1 ~ A last reading

Meet our female hero, Jane. Truly british, with the energy of her young 26 years old, wanna-be actress, graduated in English Literature by Cambridge.

She walked down the Rue de la Bûcherie in Paris, entering a charismatic small bookshop, named " Shakespeare and Company ". 

Jane was staying with her older sister in Paris, since she lived there and because Jane was on holidays, Chloe demanded Jane to visit her.

Jane didn't enjoyed very much the city. It was a beautiful city, yes, but it was so cliché, so usual. Nevertheless, she spent the days wandering the streets, visiting all the monuments, like a normal tourist was supposed to do. But in that day, she decided that she would do something she really enjoyed. Read. 

So , yeah. " Shakespeare and Company ". Jane loved Shakespeare, she was indeed a really romantic person, that believed in all the nonsenses that romantic people do : love at first sight, true love, the one, prince charming, although to Jane, that prince charming hadn't yet crossed her path. " One day ", she would say.

With her black long hair on a single braid pushed to her left side, coffee on her hand and with her brown bag, Jane sensed the books smell , after the bookshop door close behind her. She was in paradise.

Walking through the book shelfs, touching on the spine of the books. Jane took one by Thomas Hardy and sat on one of the red chairs, leafing it softly , stopping at one page.

"I found her out there
On a slope few see,
That falls westwardly
To the sharp-edged air,
Where the ocean breaks
On the purple strand,
And the hurricane shakes
The solid land.

I brought her here,
And have laid her to rest
In a noiseless nest
No sea beats near.
She will never be stirred
In her loamy cell
By the waves long heard
And loved so well.

So she does not sleep
By those haunted heights
The Atlantic smites
And the blind gales sweep,
Whence she often would gaze
At Dundagel's far head,
While the dipping blaze
Dyed her face fire-red;

And would sigh at the tale
Of sunk Lyonnesse,
While a wind-tugged tress
Flapped her cheek like a flail;
Or listen at whiles
With a thought-bound brow
To the murmuring miles
She is far from now.

Yet her shade, maybe,
Will glide underground
Till it catch the sound
Of that western sea
As it swells and sobs
Where she once domiciled,
And joy in its throbs
With the heart of a child."

Jane smiled brightly at every verse,  when a stranger sat on the chair next to her. It was like her whole life made sense everytime she read poetry, her day just brighted after a shot of beautiful romantic poetry.

- Pardon , mais c'est Thomas Hardy ? - the stranger man asked and she just babbled.

- Oh, sorry.. I don't speak french...

Jane answered , before looking to him and frozing. She was next to Tom Hiddleston. In Paris. The living legend of Cambridge, the ex libris of London. What? Where really was she ? Her brain just stopped.

- You're English ! Thank god, my french is a little rusted... I was asking you , if you're reading Thomas Hardy... I'm really sorry to disturb you, but my curiosity was killing me...