DECLARATION OF WAR
Far from rejoicing at this moment in the triumph he had just obtained,
Gerfaut fell into one of those attacks of disenchantment, during which,
urged on by some unknown demon, he unmercifully administered to himself
his own dreaded sarcasm. Being unable to sleep, he arose and opened his
window again, and remained with his elbows resting upon the sill for some
time. The night was calm, numberless stars twinkled in the heavens, the
moon bathed with its silvery light the tops of the trees, through which a
monotonous breeze softly rustled. After gazing at this melancholy
picture of sleeping nature, the poet smiled disdainfully, and said to
himself "This comedy must end. I can not waste my life thus. Doubtless,
glory is a dream as well as love; to pass the night idiotically gazing at
the moon and stars is, after all, as reasonable as to grow pale over a
work destined to live a day, a year, or a century! for what renown lasts
longer than that? If I were really loved, I should not regret those
wasted hours; but is it true that I am loved? There are moments when I
recover my coolness and clearness of mind, a degree of self possession
incompatible with the enthusiasm of genuine passion; at other times, it
is true, a sudden agitation renders me powerless and leaves me as weak as
a child. Oh, yes, I love her in a strange manner; the sentiment that I
feel for her has become a study of the mind as well as an emotion of the
heart, and that is what gives it its despotic tenacity; for a material
impression weakens and gradually dies out, but when an energetic
intelligence is brought to bear upon it, it becomes desperate. I should
be wrong to complain. Passion, a passive sentiment! This word has a
contradictory meaning for me. I am a lover as Napoleon was an emperor:
nobody forced the crown upon him, he took it and crowned himself with his
own hand. If my crown happens to be a thorny one, whom can I accuse?
Did not my brow crave it?
"I have loved this woman of my own choosing, above all others; the choice
made, I have worked at my love as I would at a cherished poem; it has
been the subject of all my meditations, the fairy of all my dreams, for
more than a year. I have not had a thought in which I have not paid her
homage. I have devoted my talents to her; it seemed to me that by loving
and perpetually contemplating her image, I might at last become worthy of
painting it. I was conscious of a grand future, if only she had
understood me; I often thought of Raphael and his own Fornarina. There
is a throne vacant in poetry; I had dreamed of this throne in order to
lay it at Clemence's feet. Oh! although this may never be more than a
dream, this dream has given me hours of incomparable happiness! I should
be ungrateful to deny it.
"And yet this love is only a fictitious sentiment; I realize it today.
It is not with her that I am in love, it is with a woman created by my
imagination, and whom I see clearly within this unfeeling marble shape.
When we have meditated for a long time, our thoughts end by taking life
and walking by our side. I can now understand the allegory of Adam
taking Eve from his own substance; but flesh forms a palpitating flesh
akin to itself; the mind creates only a shadow, and a shadow can not
animate a dead body. Two dead bodies can not make a living one; a body
without a soul is only a cadaver--and she has no soul."
Gerfaut sat motionless for some time with his face buried in his hands;
suddenly he raised his head and burst into harsh laughter.
"Enough of this soaring in the clouds!" he exclaimed; "let us come down
to earth again. It is permissible to think in verse, but one must act in
prose, and that is what I shall do tomorrow. This woman's caprices,
which she takes for efforts of virtue, have made of me a cruel and
inexorable man; I have begged in vain for peace; if she wishes war, very
well, so be it, she shall have war."