submissiveness? Do you feel within you the roarings of an impatient
and obedient animal? Perhaps, at bottom, men and gods are formed of
the same elements, with the exception that the fauns have a more
energetic leaven? This might easily be the case, since in all times the
gods have mingled with your women and, to please and serve them, have
occasionally abdicated their divinity. We all are children of destiny
and our immortal life is, after all, but a succession of human lives
badly joined to each other by the confused mortar of recollection. What
matters the past to me, today? I easily perceive that there is only a
present, for the present effaces every other instant of time. There
is such a difference between the being I was yesterday and the being
I am today that it is only with difficulty that I can establish any
logical connection. Duration, or what you call by this name, is only
an illusion of the passage of time. But it is motionless for me, who
am ever the same and whose life is always recommencing, rather than
continuing, since duration is time. Do you understand? My dear, I have
read the metaphysicians and have concluded that life means nothing to
mortals, since it has an end, and nothing to the gods, since it has
none. All things are equal in absurdity. Yet, I still have a vague
reminiscence of pleasures I knew as a free animal. I did not act the
animal every day, but neither do I do so every day with Cydalise. By
Jupiter! if I came to such a pass that I loved no longer, what would
I become between these four walls, or outside, among those swarming
Yahoos!
I want Cydalise to take me with her to the people she delights with
her art. I must familiarize myself with external movement and speech.
Have I not everything needful to please? Yes, I am satisfied with
myself when I gaze into my darling’s mirror. Besides, since she looks
upon me with pleasure, why should others be startled? I had no doubts
concerning myself in the woody dells when my limbs were plastered with
dried mud, with moss and leaves clinging to my hairy body; and never
did woman flee long before me without bringing on an opportune fall. It
is true that everything seemed good to me at that time and that I have
since become more fastidious. I am even astounded by the number of ugly
and unattractive women we meet in our walks. I jest so loudly about it
to Cydalise that she scolds me, but she holds my opinion and often
softly murmurs: “What figures?”
I did not wish to relate my experiences with the young girls to
Cydalise. I have changed my mind. I want her to know of it. I even want
to exaggerate the dangers—almost imaginary—which I risked among these
Yahoos, so that she may see the necessity of familiarizing me with the
world.
Yahoos! That is the feeling you all give me. Do not be offended! There
are women, there are men among the Yahoos.
ANTIPHILOS,
_Satyr._
VIII
FENNEL WATER
VIII
Toulon, April 1.
Friend, I thank you for your advice which I found to the point.
Everything has succeeded beautifully. My chagrin has touched Cydalise.
It was real. I had but to feign an excess of feeling and simulate
despair. A week of high comedy has reduced her to acquiescence. How
easy it is to deceive women! I came to this conclusion long ago with
the naive nymphs of my fatherland; women, just a little more subtle,
fall into the same snares. Occupied with themselves more than with
anyone else, and totally confident of the power of their charms,
they do not know that one can deprive oneself of them for a week,
merely to acquire that superior thing,—liberty. Creatures of instinct,
they are superior in the conflicts of instinct, but the exercise of
intelligence puts them to rout, because they never think of crediting
their adversaries with this quality. Cydalise understood but one thing,
that I might escape her tenderness; ever since, she redoubles her
cajoleries. Mine reassure her and, as I have been well received by the
society she frequents, we are more than ever united.
I secretly made preparations for my new mode of life. From the very
first, I found myself at my ease. I owe it to myself, I said, to the
antiquity and divinity of my race, and I assumed the disillusioned
attitude of a superior person exiled among the Scythians. I converse
little, save when Cydalise is near enough to nudge me with her elbow
or knee, and by degree I am acquiring the reputation of a contemptuous
or indifferent man.
“Some gentleman’s son, some solid country squire,” I have heard people
remark.
Cydalise, to whom I repeated this, laughed heartily.
“Isn’t it true!” she kept on saying.
She informed me that a country squire signifies a nobleman of the
country who has remained slightly rustic. Stroking my beard, she kissed
me before everybody. This brought queer little cries from many of the
women present. It took place in the café de l’Amirauté, where I made my
debut in the career of a man of the world, of the vast world.
Women gaze at me intently. This does not astonish me, for I must seem
supernatural to them, but hardly any one of them has yet pleased me,
and Cydalise sees her anxieties dissipated from day to day. She has
entrusted me to one of her friends, an old naval officer who has known
human nature of every kind and who tells me, from morning to night, of
his sea voyages and experiences. He is very proud of having known a
girl named Rarahu who was inconsolable, like Calypso at the departure
of Ulysses, and whom he, notwithstanding, consoled.
“I have never seen my equal,” he tells me, “in consoling mulatto girls
abandoned by the whites.”
This inferior love inspires me with some pity, but I am glad to know of
his function in love. If I ever leave Cydalise to follow my destiny,
which is unlimited, besides, I shall place her in the hands of this
fine fellow.
A crony came to see him and they began to recount what they term their
lucky fortunes. This comrade is very agreeable, but a trifle of a bore.
What a poverty of recollections and sensations! From their recitals
there emanates an indefinable odor of smutty talk which sickens. As
for myself, love never made me laugh. It was to me the most serious,
the most profound thing in the world. I have always found a savor of
infinity even with the coarse farm girl, smelling of cow dung.
Besides, I really believe that love gives us what we already possess
and that it can give us this alone. That is why, to natures like mine,
the quality of the adversary matters little, allowing for youth and
strength. Yet beauty has always been a fountain wherein my forces
increased, and where I have ever found my desires renewed as soon as I
abandoned myself to the secret of the waters.
But beauty is so rare! I can confess to you that even the immortal
nymphs are sometimes a little flat-nosed, and there is a common quality
in their eyebrows which are too close together, and their hair which
falls too far down. Like myself, before the transformation, they are
redolent of the earth, dead leaves and flowers crushed by thighs.
Do not dream of those loves which are beautiful only by reason of
their unconsciousness. They can still delight me, I can still renew
my original essence with them and the vigorous youth of my Phrygian
desires, but your Cydalises, so precious through their very fragility,
surpass the deliciousness of the immortal creatures, and it is their
skin which is fragrant with the odor of violets.
My two sailors drank a sort of grass-colored water with the aroma of
fennel. Their complexion took on richer hues and, playing with some
little bones, like Sicilian shepherds, they exchanged no speech save
for a few words whose meaning I could not seize. They had forgotten
the women and I was not at all sorry, for I hardly relish the insane
conversations of which they are the pretext.
I was free to gaze at those who now filled the café and who seemed to
be paying no attention to me. Yet I noticed that two eyes, apparently
straying listlessly, were fixed on my figure from time to time, and
vanity caused me to smile. A smile answered me. I, who was not drinking
any of the fennel water, felt myself grow redder than my companions,
and I suddenly made a movement to rise. My old instincts came to the
surface, I was about to run toward my pleasure, as in days past. An
instant, I thought I breathed real fennel and the odor of the Cogolin
oranges. Had she also risen, had she made a gesture of flight like
the wild creatures I once knew, how I would have bounded in pursuit!
But she took a newspaper, behind which she concealed her face, and
the source of enticement being removed, I remained tranquil. Cydalise
approached. It is probable that her arrival, perceived in the mirror,
had caused the newspaper to be unfolded. I promised myself to be,
henceforth, more a master of myself and to survey the mirrors.
My beloved Cydalise annoyed, then exasperated me by stupidly calling me
“her old Tityrus”; this caused the release of a little rusty spring in
the old officer who labouriously let fall these words:
“_Tityre tu recubans, recubans_....”
The newspaper did not budge, but I prudently lowered my eyes.
Fortunately, the game of bones was ended, the two old men turned
towards her and assailed her with gallantries. The one who had arrived
last was the most assiduous and Cydalise, amused, recovered a little of
her animation. She accepted a glass of grass juice and the gentlemen
profited by the occasion to fill their cups, begging me to follow their
example.
“Not he, not he!” Cydalise cried. “It makes him wild. He wants some
milk.”
The milk was bluish and tasted like old paper, but I preferred it to
the fennel. How often, in my wanderings through fields, have I not
pressed Io’s drugs to my lips! I wanted to mention this aloud. Happily,
the grimace I made, in tasting this strange beverage, removed from my
mind this unreasonable piece of confidence.
I kept silent, imbibing the benefits of civilization without a word.
“Well, there are compensations,” I told myself.
We left. On the threshold I turned toward the newspaper. It had been
lowered. Cydalise examined the folds of her dress. I foolishly threw a
kiss at the face which now was looking at me.
“Are you coming, Tityrus?”
I followed.
Am I beginning to understand?
ANTIPHILOS,
_Satyr._
IX
EREBUS
IX
Toulon, June 17.
You now know the manner of my life for the past two months, my dear
friend, and although you have not let me hear from you for such a
length of time, I am going to tell you something of myself, to call
forth your advice. Young persons and the eternally young gods need
the remonstrances of the sages, and you are a sage, you who do not
scorn satyrs. You know that the manner of their life exposes them to
unpleasant adventures among mortals more infatuated with the idea of
love than with love itself.
It seems that some sort of Olympic games are being celebrated at Turin
and that different representatives from the whole world have come
there to dispute for the embossed cups and laurel wreaths. A director
of the performances who traveled through this place became enamoured
of Cydalise’s face and entreated her to represent the goddesses, in
unveiled poses, before the assembled throngs. He supposes that a
beautiful body always follows from a fine figure and I must confess
to you that he was not deceived, in this instance. Cydalise is like
myself; she has no false modesty and she would even consider it
criminal obstinately to conceal from the world what the supreme Creator
of men and satyrs has formed for the delight of eyes. She therefore
accepted,—she has since then laughingly told me that the tyrant of
this country, whom I thought more humane, far from wishing to lighten
the draperies of goddesses, insists on their being very opaque and
heavy; but this is a secondary point in the story, so we will pass it
by,—without concealing the fact that there was a question of me; this
embarrassed her greatly. She said that she feared all sorts of dangers
for her dear Antiphilos, and Antiphilos who preferred to remain at
Toulon hastened to reveal a scandalous joy in the idea of the trip. So
she has left me here, promising—and her director has agreed to this—to
return once a week to spend a day with me.
She faithfully returns, as she has promised, bringing on each trip a
quantity of golden money with the most diverse effigies: I would never
have supposed that the world contained so many tyrants. If they wage
war, as was customary in the old days, in what state must the earth
be, O master of Olympus? I am the guardian of this treasure, which
steadily increases. I do not yet know very well what can be done with
this gold; I have other means of persuasion, but Cydalise knows, and
I content myself with fulfilling my office which is to stuff all this
gold in a bag, make it fast and be silent.
I have other means of persuasion. They are apparent in the eagerness
of my eyes which are not, as the poet says, “hard, brilliant and sad,”
but soft, brilliant and joyous, eyes of a lover, eyes of a magnet, eyes
which attract hearts and eyes, as the magic stone, sapphires. You have
guessed that my conquest of the Admiralty café has fallen into my arms
and that she was satisfied to be there. She is far from being as comely
as Cydalise and hardly gives me any pleasure outside that of variety.
Yet she, too, knows the rules of the game and all its finesse. What
especially stimulates her is the idea of deceiving Cydalise, whom she
knows and who has never wanted to associate with her. Let us hope, O
god of the winged heel, that she proceeds not to boast of her good
fortune! I will make a sacrifice to Harpocrates so that he may place
a seal on her lips. I have called her Erebus; why, she does not know.
Her body is like those gilded flambeaux, smudged with black, that I
remember having seen at Ephesis after the conflagration. As we were
strolling on the wharf the other day, a sailor sang:
Elle est un peu brunette,
Ce sont les plus belles gens.
She began to listen and laugh:
“Is that so, Satyros?”
“Yes, Erebus.”
I have not confided anything to her, but she has beheld, carved on the
poop of a Greek vessel, a satyr’s head that resembled me; and a sailor
spelled for her the name with which she calls me. All this amuses me.
The Phrygian Oreads used to call me this name for the fun of provoking
me, and they would stamp a figure on the ground, telling of my victory.
O sweet land of Phrygia!
All the same, I have entreated her to keep this name for our intimacy,
for the satyrs have more and more acquired a bad reputation in this
country and it maddens me. Did not Erebus have the idea, the other
day, to buy and read aloud a newspaper proudly called _The Journal of
Satyrs_:
“Ah! Ah! there is the paper for you! The only thing it lacks is your
picture.”
By Apollo! What incoherencies! What nonsense! What idea, anyway, have
the slaves who write these pages, of a satyr? Despite my debonair
attitude of mind, I grew angry both against the journal and against
the archons who have thrown, it seems, the slaves into prison. They
are but fools. They hardly merit the punishment with which Priapus
threatens plunderers of the orchards: _inrumabo!_ I explained all this
to Erebus: she became serious. We began to speak of other things.
This is to what you expose your satyr, Cydalise, in letting him stroll
through the streets, while the Olympic youths drain the enchased cups,
filled with a dark wine, in your honor. Erebus only likes champagne.
I am always faithful to my milk with the paper taste and, when Erebus
is astonished at this, I tell her that milk is the wine of satyrs. She
quickly assumes a smiling expression: it is her manner of intimating
that she has understood.
When Cydalise returns, we pass every minute at our home, the days as
well as the nights. Thus I avoid chance meetings and explanations,
which would cause me to lose my head, for my only diplomacy consists
in taking to flight and in concealing myself behind a tree trunk. How
fettered I feel myself with your civilization and how unreasonable
women are! This they call treason, betrayal. But I love them all. Do
they not all belong to me, since I can satisfy them all? Neither they,
nor you perhaps, yet know what it is to be a satyr, the quality of
that force of nature unchained by desire. Cydalise will have to make a
decision and admit that satyrs are not formed for constancy and that
caprice is a divine thing.
O caprice, diversity of forms under the eternal law, caprice with
changing eyes!
Caprice, slender maiden with breasts of brass, matron where autumn and
its colors are enthroned!
Caprice, nymphs stained with blackberries, with argil backs, with
cheeks cut by brambles, pure or impure like the earth,—and dry leaves
rustle in their entangled tresses!
Caprice, the young shepherds run towards the cot, and the shepherdesses
takes each other by the hand, crying like fowl surprised by a fox, and
turning round to laugh between their cries!
Caprice, pungent odor of ferns, odor of shoulders under willows and of
limbs in streams still white with the foam of the daughter of Latona
bathing there!
Caprice!
Let not this flight of fancy surprise you. The summer has mounted to my
head.
ANTIPHILOS,
_Satyr._
X
DIOGENES
X
Toulon, July 15.
Joyful, indeed, and happy is my lot since I became a domesticated faun.
No longer do I experience hunger or cold, absence of love, hostility
of mankind, the bites of dogs. But with my happiness there mingles a
vague sense of shame, an indescribable feeling of being cramped. I have
the sensation of diminishing divinity: the man grows in me, subtly and
gradually stifling my primitive nature, which was Desire. I have the
nostalgia of desire. Once I desired fruits, leaves, women; and now that
these things have come to me, I dream only of being naked and famished
in a desert. Oh! what attractions solitude has for him who lives in the
midst of humanity!
The Phrygian Aesop—I knew his brothers, who were handsome and
stupid—has written a fable to prove that liberty is the chief blessing.
I heard it in the Greek of my infancy, and young girls learned it by
heart on my knees. It is true and false, like every human invention.
Liberty is a burden which one desires to throw on the ground, when one
knows nothing else, and in the slavery of the happiest of civilizations
there is a bitterness that oppresses the heart. Once my very sadness
was a sort of joy that caused my life to expand flower-like and become
glorious. My sadness was a momentary transformation of the forces of
my being and when, by chance, I encountered someone with whom to share
this mood, it bourgeoned in the voluptuous silence of nights until it
equalled the very immensity of the world. Now and then I suffered, but
I never experienced ennui. What is this new distemper whose existence I
learned at the same time that I knew its name? One day I observed that
things around me were becoming colorless and that the eyes of women
were fading at my approach, like a metal mirror. I no longer interested
myself in anything, I dreamed of lands that were inexistent. My past
itself, so rich in adventures, no longer sufficed to fix memory on any
single point of my history, and my dormant desire stirred not at the
prospect of future loves.
This only lasted several days, but I am still affected by it and
I feel that I shall never be cured. Cydalise’s return brought a
temporary recovery; since her second departure, I support my life
without extracting much pleasure out of it. Erebus has forsaken me, I
am alone, and it is in vain that Déidamie, a little Greek girl, puts
herself in my way when I go to see my friends who drink the green
water. She is a friend of Erebus, who has also bequeathed me an old
dealer in syllables who used to write love letters for her in return
for the pleasure her visits gave him. She had a habit of tossing her
dark hair at him, while letting fall a medley of words that were sharp
and peppery. Erebus called him her secretary and I address him as
Diogenes. I have often heard their quarrels and debates, one wishing
to clothe the secret thoughts of Erebus in fitting diction, the other
hurling them forth at random, as naked as Aphrodite emerging from the
waves, and much less chaste. How comical my old Diogenes seemed in
this struggle. But I was hurt to learn that Erebus trafficked in her
charms, with the same unconsciousness as Destiny. The manner of my
breaking with her is an insignificant episode. Several days afterwards,
I learned that she had left with an English traveler who had no desire
to view sunny sites without a companion. Diogenes was in tears when he
told me the news. He attends when I dress and awaits my morning talk,
but it is I who make him speak.
His discourse is pleasant and bitter. At first I was immensely amused,
but his disillusioned words soon made me reflect on myself and on life
more than he would have wished, and I think it is perhaps this that has
made me ill. It is not surprising to find him disenchanted, for he is
old and poor, reduced to associate with a circle of people that goes
against his instincts and habits. I have perhaps erred in calling him
Diogenes, for he is more melancholy than cynical, more resigned than
depraved. Little as I am versed in apparel and styles, he seems to me
to be garbed with a sort of old-fashioned refinement. His hair has
the color of hemp one sees steeping in the ponds of fields; it is as
discolored as his soul. His linen is always immaculate, his complexion
is rosy, his hands fine, his eyes gentle and vague; and his fleshy lips
give him an air of goodness and innocent sensuality.
There are priests of Jupiter here with this appearance, but some Greek
phrases he let fall have revealed to me the old professor of eloquence
or philosophy. Now I listen to his explanations of life without dismay
and I even experience the pleasures of the initiate. Sometimes I seem
to hear a Bacchant, sometimes a Mithriac, and sometimes again, a man in
his cups. Wine, which makes me wild and which I like only in the grape,
makes him bold. When he visits me, I always order a flagon the color
of amber or of new roses, the sight of which is pleasant to my eyes,
and I hearken to his wisdom while brushing my hair or polishing my
horns, for I keep no secrets from him.
Like Erebus, he familiarly calls me Satyros, and I find this quite
natural. She was the subject of our first conversation, or rather of
his first discourse:
“What I like in this woman is her disinterestedness. She sells her
body only the better to surrender herself; it is her weakness. She
has a marvelous appetite and can only satisfy it with those of her
choice. Those who choose her find her but a servant of Aphrodite. Were
she rich, she would be the most honest of women and would only select
her loves among those who most resemble the gods. Wealth is a great
privilege, even in love. Thus it happens that there are two races on
the globe, everlastingly creating and re-creating themselves,—the race
submissive to destiny and the race which surmounts it. You have heard
the contrary. It is nonsense. Give heed to the voice of a man whom
fate overwhelms and who, to be reconciled with a woman he loves, has
changed himself into her domestic slave. She will return; I shall again
feel the odor of her hair and of her scorn. I have ruined myself for
Aspasia. It is right that Aspasia should hold me in contempt.”
I give you quite faithfully some of his words; I have not understood
them well. It seemed to me, besides, that his face flushed and grew
ruddy, that he was getting drunk. He added words that I understood
even less, about the pleasure of suffering and the keen delights of
humiliation. Then he recited Theognis’ invective against poverty, thus
completing the confession of his absolute incoherence.
He is not always so senseless. He is an unfortunate wretch punished by
Aphrodite for having misused love—this is only permitted the gods—but
she usually offers him a respite and then his conversation is less
depressing. If I am to tell you the end of my experiences, I shall
doubtless have to speak of Diogenes. But I am truly forbearing, for he
has taken advantage of me.
ANTIPHILOS,
_Satyr._
XI
DÉIDAMIE
XI
Monte-Carlo, September 15.
How it all came about, my dear friend, is a puzzling matter, but
Diogenes led me into an adventure which could not help make me uneasy,
though I am confident the protection of the all-powerful gods will
never fail me. Everything was proceeding smoothly; the roguish snares
of Déidamie, to which I had at last yielded, had freed me of that
vague ennui which tormented me.... But I must make you familiar with
this, in the episodic manner, before giving you the recital of the
dreadful happenings. Picture to yourself this Phrygian girl, born on
the Mæander shores, and if this does not move you, at least you will
understand my emotion upon discovering, once more, a lass hailing from
my native land! But the Phrygians have always been inconstant: Déidamie
is the very embodiment of caprice. Charming maid! She was the inamorata
of an archon’s wife, herself strikingly lovely, partaking of the beauty
that men have given Pallas Athena.
“You love those who resemble you, O Déidamie of the violet eyes!”