My divinity, which was already old six thousand years ago, now knows
almost as much as those little lads coming out from school. I will
not say that it has revealed the world to me. It has veiled it, on
the contrary, and I have seen the world diminish, just as the pines
on the hillsides lessen in size as one moves away. But in shrinking
in stature, the world becomes sharper, its outlines grow more fixed,
its light stronger. My brain is quite changed. It is no longer that
of a god. The vision, vast but confused, and almost unconscious, has
suddenly assumed form. Little by little I have detached myself from
nature, where I was at home. She lived within me and I felt her like
the beating of my heart. It is now I who live in her and in vain do I
seek to touch her hands: no longer is she only air, light, odors and
nourishment. I felt her breathing with the same breath as my own and
now I must drink her essence: it intoxicates me.
Cydalise is amused at my astonishment:
“I see,” she says, “the birth of a man. That is finer than a god. I
was curious about you. Now I love you, for I read a fraternity in your
eyes. One can only love one’s equals or those who have been fashioned
in one’s image. When the gods begin to love, they become men.”
This strange language delights me, for it is the truth: I have begun
to love Cydalise. I know it by the fact that I now view the loveliest
creatures almost indifferently, by the fact that the image of Cydalise
immediately is interposed between them and me, if by chance they please
and attract me. There were many of them under our pines, this summer.
They used to lie on the lavender, their large hats shading their eyes;
and they would pretend to sleep in the warm peacefulness of nature,
beneath the sun’s last rays. Oh! the sudden emotion, the thrill that
instantly seizes you, when the slowly lifted robe reveals a beautiful
body! This is not an old recollection. There are still such refinements
which were once common. Those bare feet in sandals, those hoods, those
robes of a nun I once had seen in Florence, upright and modest in
wool—the color of time and innocence—I beheld again, one evening,
under the Cogolin pines.
How good and beautiful and gentle she was,—the little nun of Cogolin!
It was my last adventure. Its memory is dear to me and I have not
sacrificed it for Cydalise’s love; but since then I have sought
nothing, accepted nothing. When I learned my alphabet, I wanted to
carve these words on the bark of a plane-tree:
THE SATYR ANTIPHILOS
IS FAITHFUL TO
CYDALISE.
Re-reading this inscription, I could not believe it to be the truth,
could not believe that I myself had written it. I was about to burst
into laughter, when I beheld a happy expression in Cydalise’s eyes. I
understood that I had not been lying.
We are living golden days. My sweetheart gives me almost all her time.
When she leaves for the town, she returns a trifle fatigued, with
pieces of gold which she smilingly shows, cakes, milk and honey. We
share the food by the banks of a pure stream where doves come to drink.
Then she gives me a lesson. I think the gold she brings back with her
comes from the lessons she gives men, down there. When I ask if her
pupils are progressing, her only reply is to play with my curls and
kiss me. I am acquiescent. Then we traverse our domain, that is to say
the pine wood, the carpet of heather and lavender, the arid hillside
where a stream, near which several plane-trees have sprung up, pauses
beside a grotto and brambles.
Cydalise thinks it odd and amusing to dwell in a grotto. I have never
slept anywhere but in the open or in grottos, and what astonishes
me in our haven is not that it is a grotto, but that Cydalise has
transformed it into a palace worthy of Olympus. In a chariot drawn
by a swift-footed steed she brought a large sack of wool, skilfully
sewed, on which we rest, much more at our ease than on the dead leaves
which, notwithstanding, are comfortable; she also brought skins of
beasts, and material richly woven and painted with liveliest colors.
For her toilette she has collected a thousand objects which would make
goddesses envious and, placed in elegant little boards are—and I have
never seen the like of this—books and sketches. With her aid,—she
is so frank, so refined, divine one might say—I live in a state of
enchantment. I have leisure. My prepared repasts await me and the time
I once spent in gathering fruits and roots is now passed with a book in
which I discover life.
What surprises me, even more than the wonders created by Cydalise, is
that life can be contained in the pages of a book. Yes, I have noticed
that a sheet of paper on which one would say that a bug has taken a
deliberate stroll with its dirty legs,—that such a rag of paper holds
in itself more things than do the valleys and hillsides, the trees and
horizons which stand or spread out in front of me. My long and divine
experience is confounded. I believed I knew things because I had seen
them; but men have regarded them, and that is not the same thing. I
can only faintly express my joys, those of a budding, young, civilized
creature. Into me have entered ideas of whose existence I never had
the slightest suspicion, and as a result I am quite perturbed. It is
in vain that I would attempt to explain them to you. Then, it would be
like explaining flying to one who is at home in the air. But I need a
confidant, a man to whom I can confess my new state of mind, without
being laughed at. Cydalise intimidates me too much: near her I am like
a big child trying to read thoughts in eyes and finding only itself
reflected therein.
Ah! divine nature, thou art the agent, nevertheless, and it is thee I
must thank. It is my noble nudity and the wild boldness of my carriage
that have attracted this woman to me. The antennæ of pleasure have
slowly changed to those of intelligence. When Cydalise, under my
attentive eyes, disrobes and stands radiant, it seems to me that it is
Isis herself; my brain is awhirl and no longer my senses alone, and my
mind expands and blossoms with the same movement as my flesh.
Well! Not so bad for a satyr, eh? I re-read what I have written with a
sense of pleasure, change a few commas and amuse myself hugely.
V
METAMORPHOSIS
V
Toulon, December 15.
Oh, what adventures since my last letter which itself announced so many
changes in my life! I believe Cydalise is the victim of Aphrodite who
has caused her to become infatuated with me.
“Before knowing you,” she tells me, “I did not know what love was?”
I laugh up my sleeve, for Cydalise, though mortal, has always seemed
to me an expert in this immortal science, which I have practiced long
enough to be considered a good judge. But I say nothing. How retort?
My divine irony pauses at my lips, for Cydalise makes me experience
such a strange sentiment. It is certain that I cannot do without
her, and such a thing never happened to me before. To me she is more
beautiful than all other women, fresher than maidens, more melting than
perfumed matrons. With her I possess everything and I regret nothing.
I soar higher than the gods, to the point where it seems to me that to
become more than a god, one must cease being divine at each hour of
existence. True divinity is intermittent and reposes deliciously in
the vague condition of having been a god. I offer so many things in
love that heretofore I had never sought of women; of them I had asked
nothing more than to be a pretext, an opportunity for self-display.
Now I feel that Cydalise throws as many jewels at my feet as I do:
accordingly, not to be outdone in generosity, I obey her. She does
what she wishes with me. What a metamorphosis!
I could not bear to be separated from her and the inclemency of the
season made our meetings more and more difficult. Then she hit on the
idea of bringing me to town:
“For I want to love you among my people,” she said.
I, who recalled the blows of pitchforks and the fangs of dogs, remained
silent, gazing at her with terror.
“Are you afraid?”
“How can I follow you with my bareness?”
Cydalise broke into laughter, threw herself into my arms. That day we
spoke no more of my departure.
One morning I was sadly meditating, dreaming of flight like a boar
bearing in its flank the spear which has wounded it. Despite my love,
the intriguing vision of new women began to swim before me; I was
hearing their laughter, their disputes and their restless mockery,
when Cydalise appeared at the end of the road, carrying a large bundle
which she let fall, at the same instant that she herself dropped to the
ground. Without uttering a word, she by turns looked at the package and
at me. At last, she decided to laugh, as is her wont in embarrassing
situations. She rolled on the moss, a prey to such a fit of hysterical
gayety that her dress gave way. This changed the tenor of her thoughts
and instantly calmed her. As soon as I noticed her troubled and serious
face, I drew near and, after kissing her eyes tenderly, opened the
package.
Cydalise’s eyes were following my every emotion with curiosity:
“Yes, it’s for you. I’m going to take you to town.”
You have guessed that it contained man’s apparel. I experienced a
moment of despair:
“What, put on this!”
But Cydalise looked at me with such solicitude that I murmured, as
submissive as an infant:
“I would really like to.”
She clapped her hands and we entered the grotto. There, it was quite
cool and this perhaps influenced my mood. I was very much satisfied
with myself after I had donned these garments which at first had seemed
such wretched instruments of torture.
I felt warm and there emanated from me a certain human elegance of
which I was proud. A sailor has since told me that I had the grace
of Ho-Papo, the negro king, and he was not joking: a king is always
a king, a satyr is always a satyr. With usual feminine good taste,
Cydalise began to admire me. She did not tire of flattery, made me turn
like a top, and smoothed the wrinkles and pockets of the suit. She
only pouted at my blue tie which did not go well with my complexion,
she said. “But we will see about that later.” My shoes were of
soft, brilliant leather and did not hurt me in the least. A round,
broad-brimmed hat completely covered my little, curving horns and my
heavy shock of hair. Blushing a little, she put some pieces of gold and
silver in my coat pocket. Then:
“Now, dear, you are ready. Let’s leave.”
“Farewell, grotto where I have been happy with the wind; and you,
trees, streams, holly-trees, adieu. Nature, adieu....”
Cydalise interrupted my effusions, which seemed ridiculous, besides,
to me, now that I had donned this human livery, and we transferred the
contents of the grotto into a packet hardly bigger than the one which
had contained the elements of my metamorphosis. I would have really
liked to sacrifice once more to the sylvan Aphrodite, but Cydalise said
that the train would not wait for us. We reached the carriage waiting
for us at the edge of the pine forest.
My sensations, in this extraordinary beginning of my new life, were
too confused for me to be able to find words to characterize them
correctly. I traveled with something of the feeling of the animal
I had been until now, but a divine animal in whom all sounds leave
an impression. If I applied myself to the task, I might succeed in
deciphering my impressions, as I did the phrases in my first reading
book, but I fear that the results will give you nothing new, and I am
going to delay the co-ordination of my emotions till later, if I should
then decide that it is worth the trouble.
“Thus I behold these rapid objects which pass through the country,
fleeter than the deer, more clamorous than wolves....”
You know how this sort of thing is done. Or again:
“Now I am installed in one of those palaces seen massed far off in the
valleys or on the hills, and from which spreads a confused, continuous
roar like the sea.”
Besides, my astonishments have ceased. I live with Cydalise in a room
which looks out on the sea and where I suffocate when the window is
shut. I hardly see my divine creature more often than in the days when
our couch had only pine branches for a curtain. She never returns
before two or three o’clock in the morning, and so fatigued that she
only thinks of love upon awakening. She continues to recite the verses
of the poets before groups of people, and amateurs of poetry demand her
talents after the public performances. Despite this, I am not bored. I
pay attention to things. So far, I do not see very well. My happiness
is concentrated in Cydalise, and I am the joy of her days.
ANTIPHILOS,
_Satyr._
VI
THE CELL
VI
March 1.
Strange, this life for which I have exchanged my familiar woods and
their hazards! And all through Cydalise! What monotony at first; then
what annoyance and ennui! I thought of escape many a time, but my
sweetheart imprisoned me with her tears, her smiles, her kisses, her
gestures of entreaty.
“At least, wait until good weather arrives, dear,” she said. “What will
you do in this severe cold, with the wind moaning through the pines,
now that you have grown accustomed to the softness of beds and my
tenderness? Could you find your way alone, among all these houses that
conceal the horizon from your gaze? O Antiphilos! think of me, think of
our mornings, think of my days made divine by your presence! What! you
wish to leave your Cydalise! Have you not everything needed by a satyr?
Come, tell me what it is you lack?”
I am at a loss for a reply to these honied words breathed into my
pointed ears, and on my lips as well, while she kisses me. I desire
to rediscover myself, but would she understand if I told her this? So
I am silent. I also keep from her an adventure which has upset me. I
fear she suspects it, although I would not wish her to be certain of
it. The thing still makes me tremble, but you will know it, for you
are my friend. And if I did not tell you, who then? For I no longer
can confide in the pines, the rhododendrons, the crags and streams.
Formerly, when some unlucky adventure befell me, through having strayed
too near civilization, I would joyously chant my griefs and fears. Now,
a prisoner, I have no living thing to listen to me, and when my voice
rises, it stuns me. Besides, I have other concerns than liberty, the
liberty I know I shall never recover.
One sunny day of last month, when I was leaning against the window and
peering out, I discovered a grassy nook not far from here, a garden
from which sharp cries came. I desired to go there. Cydalise daily
takes me for a walk before dinner—as she would a favorite, pet animal.
We go through old streets, towards the harbor, trying to reach the
country; but it is too far away, and Cydalise never has time to spare.
We dine early; she returns with me and, after a few caresses, leaves
me with a parting injunction to be good. These maternal, little ways
delight me, but they are also hard on me. I see myself reduced to an
obedient infant, and this hurts my pride. At other times, I reflect
that it is love which holds me, modifying my soul. Then I no longer
dare commiserate myself, and I obey Cydalise’s every whim with a good
grace.
I can fall asleep quickly. Reading by natural light dazes me, and I
have preserved that faculty, more divine than animal, of instantly
falling into an easy slumber, at once profound and light, which plunges
me to the depths in a trice, and in a breath brings me back to the
surface. I awake only with the return of Cydalise, who comes at a late
hour, with the harmonious bees of Pindus still murmuring within her.
She hums the verses she has been declaiming before the people, with
new rhythms unfamiliar to my ear accustomed more to the stirring
of winds through trees than to the fanciful inventions of inspired
Euterpe. Sometimes she falls into my arms, almost dead with fatigue.
Sometimes she disrobes frantically, astonishing me even by the boldness
of her wanton movements. But I must confess that usually she is quite
calm. After hailing me with a “Good evening, Tityrus,” she counts the
money lying in her large bag which never leaves her; generally, she
seems satisfied with herself and loses no time in falling asleep.
Were it not for the mornings, I certainly could not support a life so
measured and confined; despite my love for Cydalise, I would go whither
the road led; but I must confess that the mornings embellish my life.
Cydalise is very lovely and surrenders her beauty even more completely
than was her wont in the grottos and on the mosses. The open air and
absence of seclusion frighten women a little. So I can understand and
admire the means taken by your civilization to reassure them. If I can
judge by Cydalise, how faun-like they become behind a stout bolt and
under a light softly sifted by curtains! She is worthy of the gods.
Why art thou not, like myself, immortal! I cannot behold thee without
melancholy, for now that I perceive thy continued existence, I also
perceive thy fate. It is only _en passant_, like a flash of lightning
that gods should love women, who then experience them as a memorable
thunderclap descending, illuminating, consuming, disappearing. And
for them love, in their life, is but a deeper sensation, a profounder
inspiration, a headier cup of wine. But the constant union of two
beings so different in essence, though almost alike in desires and
pleasures! Cydalise’s love makes me aware of the sadness of perishable
things. I think of flowers, I think of the harvest time, I think of the
seasons, of all that lives but a day, of all things that inevitably
fall into the gulf, never to reappear. In giving me her feminine love,
Cydalise has given me a man’s soul,—a soul realizing that destiny will
not strike it, while witnessing the passing of all dear ones.
I already possess the metaphysical jargon of men. I can no longer
accept life as it is offered, good or bad, but ever adorable by the
fact that it exists. In spite of my divinity, I think of what will
be, as though I did not bear the present and future within me, and as
though I were not destined never to feel their burden on my shoulders.
Mysterious gods, I need an effort not to think with sadness, I whose
unconscious life once exulted in brief moments of illumination! Shall I
really be transformed into a man, through having loved a woman? Then, I
too, would have age. How long do infatuated fauns live? Perhaps that is
why they have disappeared, for one no longer encounters them, at least
in these Occidental lands.
You see to what excesses my ramblings lead me and the illogical
thoughts which attack me while contemplating the mortal head of
Cydalise, asleep as though she were dead. Ah, mortals! how poisonous is
your love, and what an idea was mine to lift towards my lips the cool
amphoras which seemed to contain pure water! Trust in pure water, fauns
and satyrs.
And I have not told you my adventure. Cydalise is yet asleep, but she
will soon awake. I dare not. I will write you more anon. Despite his
sunny mornings, pity the poor satyr.
ANTIPHILOS,
_Satyr._
VII
THE SATYR! THE SATYR!
VII
Toulon, March 15.
Dear friend, the head of a satyr living in Toulon with a lyrical
declaimer of verse, the people’s favorite, and seeing nothing but
the ungraceful habitations of humanity, is subject to strange
effervescences. So you will pardon the ramblings of my last letter in
which I desired to describe a certain incident but did not know how
to go about it. I have not yet learned how to assort my ideas into
their compartments. They are jumbled together in complete disorder,
and the result is confusion. When I wish to draw one of them out, the
others interfere, and much time is spent in putting the whole into some
semblance of order.
I was on the point of touching the matter in question when the hour
struck for Cydalise to give to her rested features the smile that
illuminates them. This is the same as saying that Cydalise awakes
with a smile. It occurs like a rose unfolding quickly enough to let
one observe the opening of its petals. I would not willingly miss the
phenomenon, and from the rose I watch each morning I draw the dew of
moist lips. The hamadryads and the oreads are beautiful. Happy is he
who can surprise them in the freshness of dawn and awaken storms of
pleasure in their breasts. But Cydalise effaces their memory by her
indescribable grace in which promises and desires are blent. She is
really the waking nymph, but she is the nymph who awaits her beloved,
joyously taking possession at the same instant that she surrenders.
I would never reach an end, dear friend, if I dared tell you all the
delights Cydalise causes me to experience. It is an incantation,
perhaps, but I lend myself happily to its consummation, and never am I
surfeited by the divine potion, no more than by the ecstasy with which
it fills me.
On a certain morning of the month that has passed, Cydalise was
cruel. She permitted me to drink her dawning smile, but the perfumed,
blossomed cup was rudely snatched from my lips, at the same time that
her arms, clasped an instant round my neck, disengaged themselves and
thrust me away.
“Tityrus,”—this is how she always addresses me—“I have business to
attend. I must leave for I am already late. Be good, my dear.”
Not a word did I say; I merely looked at her distressfully. She quickly
dressed, kissed me almost discreetly and disappeared.
She left me in a state which you, perhaps, will not understand, since
you are not a faun. Within me these lines murmured:
Tant pis! vers le bonheur d’autres m’entraîneront
Par leur tresse nouée aux cornes de mon front....
She had forgotten to lock me in. I was out in a trice. I had taken
pains with my attire, had given myself all the elegance worthy of my
athletic, satyr form. It was the morning hour. Shrill cries issuing
from a little garden gave me my bearings. There were all sorts of
short-skirted creatures who were playing, leaping, running; but I
particularly noticed two almost tall girls near a clump of trees. They
were conversing while combing their dolls. Another bench was opposite;
I sat down on it.
Already you are trembling because you know the person, because he has
confessed several amusing anecdotes to you, because it is by a mere
slip of a girl that you first learned of my existence. Well, my friend,
nothing occurred, unless it be that I was suddenly seized with fear,
that I took to my heels and returned home, followed, from a distance,
happily—by a yelling troop of Yahoos.
“The satyr! The satyr!”
I was allayed. I did not desire to be led “by their tresses tied to the
horns of my head.”
But what reflections are these!
Now you see the result of five or six months of living in a
civilization of which I have not been a part. Certainly, I have never
been foolhardy and I prefer to flee from blows to having the blows
scathe me; but nonetheless, I would never have trembled, in the old
days, like a hare at the shadow of my ears. Could it be the reading
of your newspapers which has distracted me? I think so. An honest
man—at least, I have the appearance of one—can no longer sit facing and
smiling at the playful affectations of two little girls without having
his ears tingle with the baying of a pack of hounds.
Yet these young lasses with hair down their backs are pretty; but since
this foolish adventure, I detest them. Ah! how I suffer through my
cowardice and faithfulness. Cydalise, always Cydalise! Does she imagine
that, because I love her, I can love no one but her?
Alas! I am enchained. After having broken my bonds, I have myself
rewelded them. I fear lest she grumble, I fear lest she ridicule, I
fear her eyes, especially, her eyes in which I see and tremblingly
await the dawning of suspicion.