eighty at least, I naturally thought of Lambert's uncle. After a few
ingenious questions, I discovered that I was not mistaken. The good man
had been looking after his vintage at Mer, and was returning to Blois.
I then asked for some news of my old "chum." At the first word, the old
priest's face, as grave and stern already as that of a soldier who has
gone through many hardships, became more sad and dark; the lines on
his forehead were slightly knit, he set his lips, and said, with a
suspicious glance:
"Then you have never seen him since you left the College?"
"Indeed, I have not," said I. "But we are equally to blame for our
forgetfulness. Young men, as you know, lead such an adventurous and
storm-tossed life when they leave their school-forms, that it is only
by meeting that they can be sure of an enduring affection. However,
a reminiscence of youth sometimes comes as a reminder, and it is
impossible to forget entirely, especially when two lads have been such
friends as we were. We went by the name of the Poet-and-Pythagoras."
I told him my name; when he heard it, the worthy man grew gloomier than
ever.
"Then you have not heard his story?" said he. "My poor nephew was to be
married to the richest heiress in Blois; but the day before his wedding
he went mad."
"Lambert! Mad!" cried I in dismay. "But from what cause? He had the
finest memory, the most strongly-constituted brain, the soundest
judgment, I ever met with. Really a great genius--with too great a
passion for mysticism perhaps; but the kindest heart in the world.
Something most extraordinary must have happened?"
"I see you knew him well," said the priest.
From Mer, till we reached Blois, we talked only of my poor friend, with
long digressions, by which I learned the facts I have already related in
the order of their interest. I confessed to his uncle the character of
our studies and of his nephew's predominant ideas; then the old man told
me of the events that had come into Lambert's life since our parting.
From Monsieur Lefebvre's account, Lambert had betrayed some symptoms of
madness before his marriage; but they were such as are common to men
who love passionately, and seemed to me less startling when I knew how
vehement his love had been and when I saw Mademoiselle de Villenoix.
In the country, where ideas are scarce, a man overflowing with original
thought and devoted to a system, as Louis was, might well be regarded
as eccentric, to say the least. His language would, no doubt, seem the
stranger because he so rarely spoke. He would say, "That man does not
dwell in heaven," where any one else would have said, "We are not made
on the same pattern." Every clever man has his own quirks of speech.
The broader his genius, the more conspicuous are the singularities
which constitute the various degrees of eccentricity. In the country an
eccentric man is at once set down as half mad.
Hence Monsieur Lefebvre's first sentences left me doubtful of my
schoolmate's insanity. I listened to the old man, but I criticised his
statements.
The most serious symptom had supervened a day or two before the
marriage. Louis had had some well-marked attacks of catalepsy. He had
once remained motionless for fifty-nine hours, his eyes staring, neither
speaking nor eating; a purely nervous affection, to which persons
under the influence of violent passion are liable; a rare malady,
but perfectly well known to the medical faculty. What was really
extraordinary was that Louis should not have had several previous
attacks, since his habits of rapt thought and the character of his mind
would predispose him to them. But his temperament, physical and mental,
was so admirably balanced, that it had no doubt been able to resist the
demands on his strength. The excitement to which he had been wound up by
the anticipation of acute physical enjoyment, enhanced by a chaste life
and a highly-strung soul, had no doubt led to these attacks, of which
the results are as little known as the cause.
The letters that have by chance escaped destruction show very plainly a
transition from pure idealism to the most intense sensualism.
Time was when Lambert and I had admired this phenomenon of the human
mind, in which he saw the fortuitous separation of our two natures,
and the signs of a total removal of the inner man, using its unknown
faculties under the operation of an unknown cause. This disorder, a
mystery as deep as that of sleep, was connected with the scheme of
evidence which Lambert had set forth in his _Treatise on the Will_. And
when Monsieur Lefebvre spoke to me of Louis' first attack, I suddenly
remembered a conversation we had had on the subject after reading a
medical book.
"Deep meditation and rapt ecstasy are perhaps the undeveloped germs of
catalepsy," he said in conclusion.
On the occasion when he so concisely formulated this idea, he had
been trying to link mental phenomena together by a series of results,
following the processes of the intellect step by step, from their
beginnings as those simple, purely animal impulses of instinct, which
are all-sufficient to many human beings, particularly to those men whose
energies are wholly spent in mere mechanical labor; then, going on
to the aggregation of ideas and rising to comparison, reflection,
meditation, and finally ecstasy and catalepsy. Lambert, of course, in
the artlessness of youth, imagined that he had laid down the lines of a
great work when he thus built up a scale of the various degrees of man's
mental powers.
I remember that, by one of those chances which seems like
predestination, we got hold of a great Martyrology, in which the most
curious narratives are given of the total abeyance of physical life
which a man can attain to under the paroxysms of the inner life. By
reflecting on the effects of fanaticism, Lambert was led to believe
that the collected ideas to which we give the name of feelings may very
possibly be the material outcome of some fluid which is generated in all
men, more or less abundantly, according to the way in which their organs
absorb, from the medium in which they live, the elementary atoms that
produce it. We went crazy over catalepsy; and with the eagerness that
boys throw into every pursuit, we endeavored to endure pain by thinking
of something else. We exhausted ourselves by making experiments not
unlike those of the epileptic fanatics of the last century, a religious
mania which will some day be of service to the science of humanity.
I would stand on Lambert's chest, remaining there for several minutes
without giving him the slightest pain; but notwithstanding these crazy
attempts, we did not achieve an attack of catalepsy.
This digression seemed necessary to account for my first doubts, which
were, however, completely dispelled by Monsieur Lefebvre.
"When this attack had passed off," said he, "my nephew sank into a state
of extreme terror, a dejection that nothing could overcome. He thought
himself unfit for marriage. I watched him with the care of a mother for
her child, and found him preparing to perform on himself the operation
to which Origen believed he owed his talents. I at once carried him
off to Paris, and placed him under the care of Monsieur Esquirol. All
through our journey Louis sat sunk in almost unbroken torpor, and did
not recognize me. The Paris physicians pronounced him incurable, and
unanimously advised his being left in perfect solitude, with nothing to
break the silence that was needful for his very improbable recovery,
and that he should live always in a cool room with a subdued
light.--Mademoiselle de Villenoix, whom I had been careful not to
apprise of Louis' state," he went on, blinking his eyes, "but who was
supposed to have broken off the match, went to Paris and heard what the
doctors had pronounced. She immediately begged to see my nephew, who
hardly recognized her; then, like the noble soul she is, she insisted on
devoting herself to giving him such care as might tend to his recovery.
She would have been obliged to do so if he had been her husband, she
said, and could she do less for him as her lover?
"She removed Louis to Villenoix, where they have been living for two
years."
So, instead of continuing my journey, I stopped at Blois to go to see
Louis. Good Monsieur Lefebvre would not hear of my lodging anywhere but
at his house, where he showed me his nephew's room with the books and
all else that had belonged to him. At every turn the old man could not
suppress some mournful exclamation, showing what hopes Louis' precocious
genius had raised, and the terrible grief into which this irreparable
ruin had plunged him.
"That young fellow knew everything, my dear sir!" said he, laying on the
table a volume containing Spinoza's works. "How could so well organized
a brain go astray?"
"Indeed, monsieur," said I, "was it not perhaps the result of its being
so highly organized? If he really is a victim to the malady as yet
unstudied in all its aspects, which is known simply as madness, I am
inclined to attribute it to his passion. His studies and his mode of
life had strung his powers and faculties to a degree of energy beyond
which the least further strain was too much for nature; Love was enough
to crack them, or to raise them to a new form of expression which we are
maligning perhaps, by ticketing it without due knowledge. In fact, he
may perhaps have regarded the joys of marriage as an obstacle to the
perfection of his inner man and his flight towards spiritual spheres."
"My dear sir," said the old man, after listening to me with attention,
"your reasoning is, no doubt, very sound; but even if I could follow it,
would this melancholy logic comfort me for the loss of my nephew?"
Lambert's uncle was one of those men who live only by their affections.
I went to Villenoix on the following day. The kind old man accompanied
me to the gates of Blois. When we were out on the road to Villenoix, he
stopped me and said:
"As you may suppose, I do not go there. But do not forget what I have
said; and in Mademoiselle de Villenoix's presence affect not to perceive
that Louis is mad."
He remained standing on the spot where I left him, watching me till I
was out of sight.
I made my way to the chateau of Villenoix, not without deep agitation.
My thoughts were many at each step on this road, which Louis had so
often trodden with a heart full of hopes, a soul spurred on by the
myriad darts of love. The shrubs, the trees, the turns of the winding
road where little gullies broke the banks on each side, were to me full
of strange interest. I tried to enter into the impressions and thoughts
of my unhappy friend. Those evening meetings on the edge of the coombe,
where his lady-love had been wont to find him, had, no doubt, initiated
Mademoiselle de Villenoix into the secrets of that vast and lofty
spirit, as I had learned them all some years before.
But the thing that most occupied my mind, and gave to my pilgrimage the
interest of intense curiosity, in addition to the almost pious feelings
that led me onwards, was that glorious faith of Mademoiselle de
Villenoix's which the good priest had told me of. Had she in the course
of time been infected with her lover's madness, or had she so completely
entered into his soul that she could understand all its thoughts, even
the most perplexed? I lost myself in the wonderful problem of feeling,
passing the highest inspirations of passion and the most beautiful
instances of self-sacrifice. That one should die for the other is an
almost vulgar form of devotion. To live faithful to one love is a
form of heroism that immortalized Mademoiselle Dupuis. When the great
Napoleon and Lord Byron could find successors in the hearts of women
they had loved, we may well admire Bolingbroke's widow; but Mademoiselle
Dupuis could feed on the memories of many years of happiness, whereas
Mademoiselle de Villenoix, having known nothing of love but its first
excitement, seemed to me to typify love in its highest expression.
If she were herself almost crazy, it was splendid; but if she had
understood and entered into his madness, she combined with the beauty
of a noble heart a crowning effort of passion worthy to be studied and
honored.
When I saw the tall turrets of the chateau, remembering how often
poor Lambert must have thrilled at the sight of them, my heart beat
anxiously. As I recalled the events of our boyhood, I was almost a
sharer in his present life and situation. At last I reached a wide,
deserted courtyard, and I went into the hall of the house without
meeting a soul. There the sound of my steps brought out an old woman,
to whom I gave a letter written to Mademoiselle de Villenoix by Monsieur
Lefebvre. In a few minutes this woman returned to bid me enter, and
led me to a low room, floored with black-and-white marble; the Venetian
shutters were closed, and at the end of the room I dimly saw Louis
Lambert.
"Be seated, monsieur," said a gentle voice that went to my heart.
Mademoiselle de Villenoix was at my side before I was aware of her
presence, and noiselessly brought me a chair, which at first I would not
accept. It was so dark that at first I saw Mademoiselle de Villenoix
and Lambert only as two black masses perceived against the gloomy
background. I presently sat down under the influence of the feeling that
comes over us, almost in spite of ourselves, under the obscure vault of
a church. My eyes, full of the bright sunshine, accustomed themselves
gradually to this artificial night.
"Monsieur is your old school-friend," she said to Louis.
He made no reply. At last I could see him, and it was one of those
spectacles that are stamped on the memory for ever. He was standing, his
elbows resting on the cornice of the low wainscot, which threw his body
forward, so that it seemed bowed under the weight of his bent head. His
hair was as long as a woman's, falling over his shoulders and hanging
about his face, giving him a resemblance to the busts of the great men
of the time of Louis XIV. His face was perfectly white. He constantly
rubbed one leg against the other, with a mechanical action that nothing
could have checked, and the incessant friction of the bones made a
doleful sound. Near him was a bed of moss on boards.
"He very rarely lies down," said Mademoiselle de Villenoix; "but
whenever he does, he sleeps for several days."
Louis stood, as I beheld him, day and night with a fixed gaze, never
winking his eyelids as we do. Having asked Mademoiselle de Villenoix
whether a little more light would hurt our friend, on her reply I opened
the shutters a little way, and could see the expression of Lambert's
countenance. Alas! he was wrinkled, white-headed, his eyes dull and
lifeless as those of the blind. His features seemed all drawn upwards to
the top of his head. I made several attempts to talk to him, but he did
not hear me. He was a wreck snatched from the grave, a conquest of life
from death--or of death from life!
I stayed for about an hour, sunk in unaccountable dreams, and lost in
painful thought. I listened to Mademoiselle de Villenoix, who told me
every detail of this life--that of a child in arms.
Suddenly Louis ceased rubbing his legs together, and said slowly:
"The angels are white."
I cannot express the effect produced upon me by this utterance, by the
sound of the voice I had loved, whose accents, so painfully expected,
had seemed to be lost for ever. My eyes filled with tears in spite of
every effort. An involuntary instinct warned me, making me doubt whether
Louis had really lost his reason. I was indeed well assured that he
neither saw nor heard me; but the sweetness of his tone, which seemed
to reveal heavenly happiness, gave his speech an amazing effect. These
words, the incomplete revelation of an unknown world, rang in our souls
like some glorious distant bells in the depth of a dark night. I was no
longer surprised that Mademoiselle de Villenoix considered Lambert to
be perfectly sane. The life of the soul had perhaps subdued that of
the body. His faithful companion had, no doubt--as I had at that
moment--intuitions of that melodious and beautiful existence to which we
give the name of Heaven in its highest meaning.
This woman, this angel, always was with him, seated at her embroidery
frame; and each time she drew the needle out she gazed at Lambert with
sad and tender feeling. Unable to endure this terrible sight--for I
could not, like Mademoiselle de Villenoix, read all his secrets--I went
out, and she came with me to walk for a few minutes and talk of herself
and of Lambert.
"Louis must, no doubt, appear to be mad," said she. "But he is not, if
the term mad ought only to be used in speaking of those whose brain is
for some unknown cause diseased, and who can show no reason in their
actions. Everything in my husband is perfectly balanced. Though he did
not actively recognize you, it is not that he did not see you. He has
succeeded in detaching himself from his body, and discerns us under
some other aspect--what that is, I know not. When he speaks, he utters
wondrous things. Only it often happens that he concludes in speech an
idea that had its beginning in his mind; or he may begin a sentence and
finish it in thought. To other men he seems insane; to me, living as I
do in his mind, his ideas are quite lucid. I follow the road his spirit
travels; and though I do not know every turning, I can reach the goal
with him.
"Which of us has not often known what it is to think of some futile
thing and be led on to some serious reflection through the ideas or
memories it brings in its train? Not unfrequently, after speaking about
some trifle, the simple starting-point of a rapid train of reflections,
a thinker may forget or be silent as to the abstract connection of ideas
leading to his conclusion, and speak again only to utter the last link
in the chain of his meditations.
"Inferior minds, to whom this swift mental vision is a thing unknown,
who are ignorant of the spirit's inner workings, laugh at the dreamer;
and if he is subject to this kind of obliviousness, regard him as a
madman. Louis is always in this state; he soars perpetually through the
spaces of thought, traversing them with the swiftness of a swallow; I
can follow him in his flight. This is the whole history of his madness.
Some day, perhaps, Louis will come back to the life in which we
vegetate; but if he breathes the air of heaven before the time when we
may be permitted to do so, why should we desire to have him down among
us? I am content to hear his heart beat, and all my happiness is to be
with him. Is he not wholly mine? In three years, twice at intervals he
was himself for a few days; once in Switzerland, where we went, and once
in an island off the wilds of Brittany, where we took some sea-baths. I
have twice been very happy! I can live on memory."
"But do you write down the things he says?" I asked.
"Why should I?" said she.
I was silent; human knowledge was indeed as nothing in this woman's
eyes.
"At those times, when he talked a little," she added, "I think I have
recorded some of his phrases, but I left it off; I did not understand
him then."
I asked her for them by a look; she understood me. This is what I have
been able to preserve from oblivion.
I
Everything here on earth is produced by an ethereal substance
which is the common element of various phenomena, known
inaccurately as electricity, heat, light, the galvanic fluid, the
magnetic fluid, and so forth. The universal distribution of this
substance, under various forms, constitutes what is commonly known
as Matter.
II
The brain is the alembic to which the Animal conveys what each of
its organizations, in proportion to the strength of that vessel,
can absorb of that Substance, which returns it transformed into
Will.
The Will is a fluid inherent in every creature endowed with
motion. Hence the innumerable forms assumed by the Animal, the
results of its combinations with that Substance. The Animal's
instincts are the product of the coercion of the environment in
which it develops. Hence its variety.
III
In Man the Will becomes a power peculiar to him, and exceeding in
intensity that of any other species.
IV
By constant assimilation, the Will depends on the Substance it
meets with again and again in all its transmutations, pervading
them by Thought, which is a product peculiar to the human Will, in
combination with the modifications of that Substance.
V
The innumerable forms assumed by Thought are the result of the
greater or less perfection of the human mechanism.
VI
The Will acts through organs commonly called the five senses,
which, in fact, are but one--the faculty of Sight. Feeling and
tasting, hearing and smelling, are Sight modified to the
transformations of the Substance which Man can absorb in two
conditions: untransformed and transformed.
VII
Everything of which the form comes within the cognizance of the
one sense of Sight may be reduced to certain simple bodies of
which the elements exist in the air, the light, or in the elements
of air and light. Sound is a condition of the air; colors are all
conditions of light; every smell is a combination of air and
light; hence the four aspects of Matter with regard to Man--sound,
color, smell, and shape--have the same origin, for the day is not
far off when the relationship of the phenomena of air and light
will be made clear.
Thought, which is allied to Light, is expressed in words which
depend on sound. To man, then, everything is derived from the
Substance, whose transformations vary only through Number--a
certain quantitative dissimilarity, the proportions resulting in
the individuals or objects of what are classed as Kingdoms.
VIII
When the Substance is absorbed in sufficient number (or quantity)
it makes of man an immensely powerful mechanism, in direct
communication with the very element of the Substance, and acting
on organic nature in the same way as a large stream when it
absorbs the smaller brooks. Volition sets this force in motion
independently of the Mind. By its concentration it acquires some
of the qualities of the Substance, such as the swiftness of light,
the penetrating power of electricity, and the faculty of
saturating a body; to which must be added that it apprehends what
it can do.
Still, there is in man a primordial and overruling phenomenon
which defies analysis. Man may be dissected completely; the
elements of Will and Mind may perhaps be found; but there still
will remain beyond apprehension the _x_ against which I once used
to struggle. That _x_ is the Word, the Logos, whose communication
burns and consumes those who are not prepared to receive it. The
Word is for ever generating the Substance.
IX
Rage, like all our vehement demonstrations, is a current of the
human force that acts electrically; its turmoil when liberated
acts on persons who are present even though they be neither its
cause nor its object. Are there not certain men who by a discharge
of Volition can sublimate the essence of the feelings of the
masses?
X
Fanaticism and all emotions are living forces. These forces in
some beings become rivers that gather in and sweep away
everything.
XI
Though Space _is_, certain faculties have the power of traversing
it with such rapidity that it is as though it existed not. From
your own bed to the frontiers of the universe there are but two
steps: Will and Faith.
XII
Facts are nothing; they do not subsist; all that lives of us is
the Idea.
XIII
The realm of Ideas is divided into three spheres: that of
Instinct, that of Abstractions, that of Specialism.
XIV
The greater part, the weaker part of visible humanity, dwells in
the Sphere of Instinct. The _Instinctives_ are born, labor, and
die without rising to the second degree of human intelligence,
namely Abstraction.
XV