A NIGHT IN THE LUXEMBOURG
BY
REMY DE GOURMONT
WITH PREFACE
AND APPENDIX
BY ARTHUR RANSOME
JOHN W. LUCE AND COMPANY
BOSTON MCMXII
CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. By Arthur Ransome
A Night in the Luxembourg. By Remy de Gourmont
Preface
A Night in the Luxembourg
Final Note
APPENDIX: REMY de GOURMONT. By Arthur Ransome
AUTOGRAPHS--
KOPH
Reduced facsimile of the last page of M. Rose's Manuscript
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
A general, but necessarily inadequate, account of the personality
and works of one of the finest intellects of his generation will be
found in the Appendix. I am here concerned only with _Une Nuit au
Luxembourg_, which, though it is widely read in almost every other
European language, is now for the first time translated into English.
This book, at once criticism and romance, is the best introduction
to M. de Gourmont's very various works. It created a "sensation" in
France. I think it may do as much in England, but I am anxious lest
this "sensation" should be of a kind honourable neither to us nor to
the author of a remarkable book. I do not wish a delicate and subtle
artist, a very noble philosopher, noble even if smiling, nobler
perhaps because he smiles, to be greeted with accusations of indecency
and blasphemy. But I cannot help recognising that in England, as in
many other countries, these accusations are often brought against such
philosophers as discuss in a manner other than traditional the subjects
of God and woman. These two subjects, with many others, are here the
motives of a book no less delightful than profound.
The duty of a translator is not comprised in mere fidelity. He must
reproduce as nearly as he can the spirit and form of his original, and,
since in a work of art spirit and form are one, his first care must be
to preserve as accurately as possible the contours and the shading of
his model. But he must remember (and beg his readers to remember) that
the intellectual background on which the work will appear in its new
language is different from that against which it was conceived. When
the new background is as different from the old as English from French,
he cannot but recognise that it disturbs the chiaroscuro of his work
with a quite incalculable light. It gives the contours a new quality
and the shadows a new texture. His own accuracy may thus give his work
an atmosphere not that which its original author designed.
I have been placed in such a dilemma in translating this book. Certain
phrases and descriptions were, in the French, no more than delightful
sporting of the intellect with the flesh that is its master. In the
English, for us, less accustomed to plain-speaking, and far less
accustomed to a playful attitude towards matters of which we never
speak unless with great solemnity, they became wilful parades of the
indecent. It is important to remember that they were not so in the
French, but were such things as might well be heard in a story told in
general conversation--if the talkers were Frenchmen of genius.
There is no ugliness in the frank acceptance of the flesh, that is a
motive, one among many, in this book, and perhaps more noticeable by us
than the author intended. No doubt it never occurred to M. de Gourmont
that he was writing for the English. We are only fortunate listeners
to a monologue, and must not presume upon our position to ask him to
remember we are there.
The character of that monologue is such, I think, as to justify me
in tampering very little with its design. Not only is _Une Nuit au
Luxembourg_ not a book for children or young persons--if it were,
the question would be altogether different--but it is not a book for
fools, or even for quite ordinary people. I think that no reader who
can enjoy the philosophical discussion that is its greater part will
quarrel with its Epicurean interludes. He will either forgive those
passages of which I am speaking as the pardonable idiosyncrasy of a
great man, or recognise that they are themselves illustrations of his
philosophy, essential to its exposition, and raised by that fact into
an intellectual light that justifies their retention.
The prurient minds who might otherwise peer at these passages, and
enjoy the caricatures that their own dark lanterns would throw on
the muddy wall of their comprehension, will, I think, be repelled by
the nobility of the book's philosophy. They will seek their truffles
elsewhere, and find plenty.
M. de Gourmont is perhaps more likely to be attacked for blasphemy, but
only by those who do not observe his piety towards the thing that he
most reverences, the purity and the clarity of thought. He worships in
a temple not easy to approach, a temple where the worshippers are few,
and the worship difficult. It is impossible not to respect a mind that,
in its consuming desire for liberty, strips away not fetters only but
supports. Fetters bind at first, but later it is hard to stand without
them.
His book is not a polemic against Christianity, in the same sense as
Nietzsche's _Anti-Christ_, though it does propose an ethic and an
ideal very different from those we have come to consider Christian.
When he smiles at the Acts of the Apostles as at a fairy tale, he adds
a sentence of incomparable praise and profound criticism: "These men
touch God with their hands." It may shock some people to find that the
principal speaker in the book is a god who claims to have inspired,
not Christ alone, but Pythagoras, Epicurus, Lucretius, St. Paul and
Spinoza with the most valuable of their doctrines. It will not, I
think, shock any student of comparative religion. He will find it no
more than a poet's statement of an idea that has long ceased to disturb
the devout, the idea that all religions are the same, or translations
of the same religion. We recognise in the sayings of Confucius some
of the loveliest of the sayings of Christ, and we find them again in
Mohammed. Why not admit that the same voice whispered in their ears,
for this, unless we think that the Devil can give advice as good as
God's, we cannot help but believe. And that other idea, that the gods
die, though their lives are long, should not shock those who know of
Odin, notice the lessening Christian reverence for the Jewish Jehovah,
and remember the story, so often and so sweetly told, of the voices
on the Grecian coast, with their cry, "Great Pan is dead! Great Pan
is dead!" Turning from particular ideas to the rule of life that the
book proposes, we find a crystal-line Epicureanism. Virtue is, to be
happy; and sin is, where we put it. "Human wisdom is to live as if one
were never to die, and to gather the present minute as if it were to
be eternal." This is no doctrine that is easy to follow. The god does
not offer it to the first comer, but to one who has schooled his mind
to see hard things, and, having seen them, to rise above them. M. de
Gourmont will tell no lies that he can avoid, especially when speaking
to himself, but, if he burn himself, Phoenix-like, in the ashes of a
sentimental universe, he has at least the hope of rising from the pyre
with stronger wings and more triumphant flight. He will start with no
more than the assumption that the universe as we know it is the product
of a series of accidents. He will not persuade himself that man is the
climax of a carefully planned mechanical process of evolution, nor will
he hide his origin in imagery like that of Genesis, or like that which
certain modern scientists are quite unable to avoid. He turns science
against the scientists with the irrefutable remark that only a change
in the temperature saved us from the dominion of ants. Instinct for him
is arrested intellect, and he is ready to imagine man in the future
doing mechanically what now he does by intention. Such ideas would
crush a feeble brain or bind it with despair. They lead him to the
Epicureanism that is the only philosophy that they do not overthrow.
Our roses and our women make us the equals of the gods, and even envied
by them.
All his criticism, not of one or two ideas alone, but of the history of
philosophy, the history of woman, the history of man and the history
of religion, is made with a mastery so absolute as to dare to be
playful. The winter night was changed to a spring morning as the god
walked in the Luxembourg, and the wintry cold of nineteenth-century
science melts in the warmth of a spring-time no less magical. The book
might be grim. It is clear-eyed and sparkling with dew, like a sonnet
by Ronsard.
"Comme on voit sur une branche au mois de mai la rose,"
so one sees the philosophy of M. de Gourmont, not quarried stone, but
a flower, so light, so delicate, as to make us forget the worlds that
have been overthrown in its manufacture.
I remember near the end of _The Pilgrim's Progress_ there is a passage
of dancing. Giant Despair has been killed, and Doubting Castle
demolished. The pilgrims were "very jocund and merry." "Now Christiana,
if need was, could play upon the viol, and her daughter Mercy upon the
lute; so, since they were so merry disposed, she played them a lesson,
and Ready-to-halt would dance. So he took Despondency's daughter,
Much-afraid, by the hand, and to dancing they went in the road. True,
he could not dance without one crutch in his hand; but I promise you he
footed it well; also the girl was to be commended, for she answered the
music handsomely." Just so, in this book, on a journey no less perilous
among ideas, there is an atmosphere of genial entertainment, a delight
in the things of the senses illumined by a delight in the things of the
mind. And in this there is no irreverence. Only those who have ceased
to believe have forgotten how to dance in the presence of their God.
Perhaps the technician alone will observe the skill with which M.
de Gourmont has handled the most difficult of literary forms. In
translating a book one becomes fairly intimate with it, and not the
least pleasure of my intimacy with _Une Nuit au Luxembourg_ has been
to notice the ease and the grace with which its author turns, always
at the right moment, from ideas to images, from romance to thought.
"The exercise of thought is a game," he says, "but this game must be
free and harmonious." And the outward impression given by this subtly
constructed book is that of an intellect playing harmoniously with
itself in a state of joyful liberty. M. de Gourmont is a master of
his moods, knowing how to serve them; and no less admirable than the
loftiest moment of the discussion, is the Callot-like grotesque of the
three goddesses, seen not as divinities but as sins, or the Virgilian
breakfast under the trees.
It is possible that _Une Nuit au Luxembourg_ may be for a few in
our generation what _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ was for a few in the
generation of Swinburne, a "golden book of spirit and sense." Ideas are
dangerous metal in which to mould romances, because from time to time
they tarnish. Voltaire has had his moments of being dull, and Gautier's
ideas do not excite us now. M. de Gourmont's may not move us to-morrow.
Let us enjoy them to-day, and share the pleasure that the people of the
day after to-morrow will certainly not refuse.
ARTHUR RANSOME.
BY REMY DE GOURMONT
PREFACE
There appeared in _Le Temps_ of the 13th of February, 1906:--
"OBITUARY
"We have just learned of the sudden death of one of our confrères on
the foreign press, M. James Sandy Rose, deceased yesterday, Sunday,
in his rooms at 14 Rue de Médicis. Notwithstanding this English name,
he was a Frenchman; born at Nantes in 1865, his true name was Louis
Delacolombe. He was brought up in the United States, returned to France
ten years ago, and from that time till his death was the highly valued
correspondent of the _Northern Atlantic Herald._"
On the following day, the 14th of February, the same journal printed
this note among its miscellaneous news:--
"THE MYSTERY OF THE RUE DE MEDICIS
"We announced yesterday the sudden death of M. James Sandy Rose, our
confrère on the foreign press. His death seems to have taken place
under suspicious circumstances. At present a woman of the Latin
Quarter, Blanche B----, is strongly suspected of having been at least
an accomplice to it. This woman is known for her habit of dressing in
very light colours, even in mid-winter, and it was this that made the
concierge notice her. She lives, moreover, behind the house of the
crime--assuming that there has been a crime--in the Rue de Vaugirard.
This is what is said to have happened:--
"Because M. J. S. Rose, who was of fairly regular habits, had not been
seen for some days, his door was broken open, and he was discovered
inanimate. He had been dead for a few hours only, a fact which does
not agree with the length of time during which he had remained
invisible, and still further complicates the question. It is supposed
that the woman B----, after passing the night with him, put him to
sleep by means of a narcotic (from which the unhappy man did not
awake), or strangled him at a moment when he was defenceless; then,
her theft accomplished, she would seem to have fled precipitately. An
extraordinary circumstance is that in her haste she forgot her dress,
and must have gone out enveloped in a big cloak. At least there is no
other explanation of the presence of an elegant white robe in the rooms
of M. Rose, who lived alone...."
On the next day again, there was a third echo:--
"THE MYSTERY OF THE RUE DE MEDICIS
"It appears that the young woman at first implicated in this affair
has been for a fortnight at Menton with M. Pap----, a deputy from the
banks of the Danube. They have both written from that place to mutual
friends. The inquiry makes no progress; on the contrary..."
Other papers, that I then had the curiosity to examine, had embroidered
my friend's death with still madder tales. As the police, with very
good reason, made no communications to the press, the journalists
pushed unreason to insanity; then, as their imaginations could go no
further, they were silent.
In reality, the mixing up of Blanche B---- with the story was due
solely to the chatter of a young clerk, a neighbour of M. James Sandy
Rose, who had noticed a woman's dress of white material in the
room. I recount, at the end of the volume, the facts which disturbed
this pubescent imagination. Neither the police, who immediately lost
interest in the affair, nor justice, which had never taken any, would
have been able to implicate anybody in a "mystery" which, if it is
really a mystery, is not one of those that police or magistrates can
resolve.
For some days following, _Le Temps_ left the Rue de Médicis alone. At
the end of a fortnight, a very talkative young journalist, accompanied
by an old gentleman who, like him, took notes in a pocketbook, but
said nothing, came and rang at my door. He came with the intention of
questioning me. I was willing enough to reply that M. James S. Rose had
died of apoplexy, or, at least, suddenly; that I was his friend, and
that he had made me his heir; that the rumours of crime were absurd,
and the rumours of "mystery" ridiculous.
"What is there," I said, "more normal than death?"
The old gentleman acquiesced, while the young journalist murmured--
"And yet...."
"The only thing of interest," I continued, "in this banal story,
sad, perhaps, for me alone, is that M. James Sandy Rose leaves an
unpublished work which in his will he has charged me to bring out. I am
going to do this...."
I threw a persuasive glance at the young journalist.
"It is one of the most curious books I have ever read, and, though the
author was my familiar friend, it is a revelation to me...."
"Really?"
"It is indeed so. The public, without knowing what there is in the
book, await it with impatience."
"Ah!"
"When you have read it, when you have merely seen it, you will agree
with me."
This innocent advertisement was duly inserted in _Le Temps_ and in _Le
Nouveau Courrier des Provinces_, to which the old gentleman had been
asked to contribute. I gained some moments of amusement, nothing more.
Here is the book, of course without commentaries. In accordance with
the imperative requirements of the will, I have not corrected its
style, but revised it where that was necessary, for Louis Delacolombe,
educated in English, had retained some traces of his school-years in
his language. I think that it was written as fast as the pen would
move, and with a feverish hand, in the space of a few days.
I have summarised in a final note the results of my personal inquiry.
There is no need to read it, but I think, however, that it will
interest those whose curiosity is aroused by my friend's enigmatical
narrative.
_P. S._--The drawing below, which is from the hand of M. Sandy
Rose, and which I have inserted at the place that he had indicated,
may have a meaning, but, if so, I have been unable to penetrate it. It
seems to represent a Greek medal dedicated to the goddess Core. But
KOPH means also young girl, and even doll. Besides, are such medals
known?
[Illustration: Koph]
A NIGHT IN THE LUXEMBOURG...
I am certainly drunk, yet my lucidity is very great. Drunk with love,
drunk with pride, drunk with divinity, I see clearly things that I do
not very well understand, and these things I am about to narrate. My
adventure unrolls before my eyes with perfect sharpness of outline; it
is a piece of faery in which I am still taking part; I am still in the
midst of lights, of gestures, of voices.... She is there. I have only
to turn my head to observe her; I have only to rise to go and touch her
body with my hands, and with my lips.... She is there. A privileged
spectator, I have carried away with me the queen of the spectacle, a
proof that the spectacle was one of the days of my actual life. That
day was a night, but a night lit by a Spring sun, and, behold, it
continues, night or day, I do not know.... The queen is there. But I
must write.
The abridged story of my adventure will appear to-morrow morning in
the _Northern Atlantic Herald_, and will soon make the circuit of the
American press, to return to us through the English agencies: but that
does not satisfy me. I telegraphed, because it was my duty; I write,
because it is my pleasure. Besides, experience has taught me that news
gains rather in precision than in exactitude in its journeys from cable
to cable, and I am anxious for exactitude.
With what happiness I am going to write! I feel in my head, in my
fingers, an unheard-of facility....
On the first intelligence of the pious riots that transformed into
fortresses our peaceful churches, peaceful after the manner of old
haunted castles, the newspaper that I have represented for ten years
asked me, with a certain impatience, for details. As I live in the
Rue de Médicis, having a long-standing passion for the Luxembourg,
its trees, its women, its birds, I went down towards the Place
Saint-Sulpice. The square was occupied by children, playing as they
returned from school; round it rolled great empty omnibuses; now and
again a tramcar widowed of a horse left with difficulty, while another
struggled up and turned round without grace. My prolonged stay in Paris
has made me an idler like every one else. Nothing astonishes me, and
everything amuses me. Besides, I am by nature at once sceptical and
inquisitive. That is why, when I lifted my eyes towards the church, my
attention was vividly excited by the fact that the windows on the side
towards the Rue Palatine seemed lit by the rays of a brilliant sunset.
But the sun had not shone that day, and, even if the sky had been
clear, no reflection could, at that late hour, light the south side of
the church of Saint-Sulpice. I thought of a fire, but no trace of one
was to be seen in the sky. Something unusual was certainly going on
inside. I hurried towards the door in the Rue Palatine. As I advanced,
without losing sight of the windows, I perceived that the light seemed
to be coming down the length of the church, as if blazing torches were
being carried about in this transept of the nave. At the moment when I
went in, the windows by the choir began to shine, while those nearer
the front of the church were now obscure.
Pushing open the door, I went towards the chapel of the Virgin, behind
the high altar. It seemed lit up as if for a feast-day, and yet I heard
no chanting, no music, I perceived no noise. I advanced with steps that
I thought precipitate, but which were, on the contrary, very slow, for,
to my great shame, I felt myself trembling; in the deep silence of
this mournful basilica my heart, it seemed to me, beat like a bell. At
one moment the lights of the chapel shone with such brilliance that I
had to shut my eyes. When I reopened them, it was dark, and some lamps
alone shed their vague, accustomed lights in the now complete obscurity.
A man stood upright, his hand resting on the closed railings of the
chapel. He seemed in every way ordinary. Nothing was remarkable but
the profound attention with which he was observing the statue of the
Virgin. I wished to keep on my way, anxious to question some priest
or sacristan, first on the luminous phenomenon, which puzzled me very
much, and then, as was my duty, on the events which were doubtless
preparing for the next day; I wished to keep on my way, I was in a
hurry to finish my business, for I do not find churches, especially at
evening, agreeable resting-places; I wished to go away, I wished to
speak, but I felt that I was fastened to the flag-stones, I trembled
more and more, and, finally, I could not prevent myself from observing
the unknown man. I saw him in profile. His hair, worn short, slightly
curled, seemed to me to be chestnut, like his beard, which was full,
not very thick on the cheeks, and of moderate length. His clothes
were much like my own; they were those of a gentleman, correct but
unpretentious. I felt I was going mad, in my inability to explain the
interest that stopped me before so common a sight. I understood no
better the attention with which the unknown stared at the Virgin.
A connoisseur of art would have quickly passed on; a devotee would have
knelt. I was beginning to lose my head, to think that I was ill, when
the man, so ordinary and yet so singular, turned his eyes towards me.
These eyes, extremely brilliant, completed my discomfiture. I lowered
my own, not before I had observed that the very pale face was one of
the gentlest and most understanding I had ever seen. I even thought
that I discerned on those delicate features a smile of infinitely
benevolent irony, like those I have seen in certain portraits of
beautiful Lombard women. This smile enchanted and intimidated me at the
same time. "It would be a great happiness," I said to myself, my eyes
still lowered, "if I could once again enjoy that smile," but I dared
not look at the unknown, who, I divined, was still observing me. I no
longer trembled, but felt myself in that state of happy confusion which
one experiences in the presence of a woman whom one loves and fears. I
expected nothing, and yet it seemed to me that something was going to
happen.
We were about three paces from each other. By stretching our arms we
should have been able to touch each other's hands.
"Come," said he.
This single word sufficed to put an end to all my disquietude. The
voice was very agreeable. It filled me with a gentle emotion. At the
same time I became as free and as content as in the presence of a very
old and dearly loved friend. It seemed to me that I had known from all
time this unknown of a moment before. I found that I was familiar with
his face, his manner, his look, his voice, his mind, his very clothes.
An irresistible force moved me to answer him, and to answer him in
these words:--
"I follow you, my friend."
All my surprise had disappeared, and, although I was perfectly
conscious that the adventure was singular, I was in such a state of
mind that I did not feel its singularity.
I went up to him. He took my arm, and the action seemed quite natural.
Were we not old friends? Had I not known him since I was three or four
years old? Yes, and although he was certainly much older than I, he
had played with me in my cot. All this settled itself clearly in my
head. I repeat, from that moment until sunrise the next morning, that
is to say, all the time I spent with him, I had not one moment of
astonishment. What happened, what I heard, what I said, the unusual
phenomena, everything seemed to me to be perfectly in place.
So I went up to him, and, when his arm was passed under mine, which I
folded very respectfully and with a lover's joy, a long and precious
conversation began between us.
HE
It is this that they call my mother! They are full of such good
intentions. Admit, my friend, that they are good people.
I
Very good people. You do not think your mother well portrayed?
HE
I have had so many mothers that this image doubtless resembles one of
the women who have believed that they gave birth to me; it is their
innocence that makes me smile, their virginal conception of maternity,
the white robe, the blue scarf. And yet, this church, one of the
ugliest in the whole world, is one of the least puerile. The priests
who serve it have preserved some intellectual illusion. They have a
scrupulous and argumentative piety. The miracles anciently described
seem to them proved by their very antiquity. They know that I walked on
the waters, one tempestuous evening, but, if they had seen the windows
of their church on fire with lights, would they have believed their
eyes? You saw, you believed, and you came, my friend. That light shone
for you alone.
I
Oh, my friend!
HE
To speak to mankind I need a man as intermediary, and I chose you, I
gave you a sign. You were not obliged to respond. My power is not such
as to compel men's wills. I can seduce; but I cannot command.
I
I was greatly surprised, I was frightened, but I walked as if to
happiness, as if towards a moment of love. But why did the light go
out, at the moment when I came near you?
HE
Because your curiosity had become desire. No longer could anything stop
you. The iron was on its way towards the magnet. Are you happy?
I
It seems to me that my life is being fulfilled; it seems to me that my
past days were only a preparation for the present hour.
HE
Then you are happy? You are going to be much more so. There are things
of which mankind have always appeared to be ignorant. When you have
heard them from my lips you will, in that moment, have received the
courage to repeat them, and that will win you an eternal glory, a
glory that will last as long as the earth itself, perhaps as long as
the civilisation of which you are a part.
I
Is there not another eternity, a true eternity?
My master--for I now felt that this old friend was my master still more
than my friend--my master was kind enough to smile, looking at me with
tender irony, but he did not answer my question.
"Let us go," he said, after a moment's silence, "and walk in the
Luxembourg."
I
Not really?
This time, he laughed indeed. He laughed softly.
We walked all round the sombre church, and left it by the Rue
Palatine. I noticed that he took no holy water, and, even, as I
stretched out my hand towards the stone shell, he murmured:
"Useless."
It was now night. We reached the Rue Servandoni in silence. The rare
passengers met or passed us without emotion, without curiosity. A
young woman, however, who was coming slowly down the street, observed
my companion with eyes that seemed on fire. Perhaps, if he had been
alone, she would have been still bolder. An idea, madder than the young
woman's glance, crossed my mind.
"She looked at you," I said, "as if she knew you."
HE
Everybody recognises me, when I wish it. That young woman does not know
who I am. She thinks me a man like other men, and yet, if I had been
alone, her glance would have been much more lively, for she desires
soft words, she desires kisses. But what would be her destiny, if I
yielded to her mute sympathy! The women whom I love lose all reasonable
notions of life, and I have no sooner touched their hands, caressed
their hair, than all their flesh weeps with pleasure. If I insist, they
melt like figs in my sunlight. Sweet flavour and cruel! If I withdraw
myself from them they die of grief, and if I stay with them they die of
love.
I
The mystics have said something of that.
HE
Something of it they have shown, but wrapped in the withered herbs of
their piety.
I
Saint Teresa ...
HE
She believed that I loved her with passion. That fatuity made me leave
her. Hers was the solidest woman's heart I have ever met, and with it
what facility in self-deceit. She really thought she died in my arms:
I was far away. However, in that supreme moment, I consoled her with
a thought, for she had earned it by her constancy. What she wrote
herself is not without interest for mankind, but the priests, who set
themselves to excite her genius, inspired her with many follies, such
as her vision of hell. I shall not tell you, my friend, who are the
women I have most loved. Scarcely one of them has left a name among
you. A woman who is loved and loves does not pass her time, like the
illustrious Teresa, in describing the stations of love. She lives and
she dies, and that is all.
While I was considering these words, which a little troubled my
understanding, we had arrived before the railing of the garden. There I
stopped, observing the sombre drawing of the great naked trees. Heavy
black clouds were passing in the sky, that was very feebly lit by an
invisible crescent of moon.
"How gloomy," I said, "is this park on a winter evening, and gloomier
still through these bars."
But the gate opened a little way, and we went in. I had seen so many
strange things, heard so many strange words, felt so many strange
emotions, that this new miracle gave me but a mediocre surprise. We
were in the garden.
"Let us go," he said, "towards the roses."
I
Towards the rose-trees.
HE
Towards the roses.
A soft and clear daylight was born as we advanced. The trees, suddenly
in leaf, the chestnuts blossoming in shafts of white and red, were
filled with the songs of birds. Blackbirds, on the topmost branches,
launched their shrill calls. Bees were already murmuring by; a fly
settled on my hand.
The great flower-bed was in full bloom. A perfume enveloped me with a
precious sweetness. We disturbed a cat that was stalking two cooing
pigeons. My friend plucked a red rose, then a white, then a yellow. At
this moment it seemed to be five o'clock in the morning of a beautiful
summer day.
I
I am happy. I am happy.
HE
Roses, these roses, are enough to make me jealous of men. The rose of
your gardens, the woman of your civilisation, these are two creations
that make you the equals of the gods. And to think that you still
regret the earthly paradise! Eve! Eve, my friend, was a milkmaid, the
pleasure of a bird-catcher or an early-rising oxherd. Eve, when you
have all these real young women to enchant your eyes and make desperate
your dreams!
I
She was, however, a divine work. Your father ...
But I said no more, trembling with happiness. Three young women were
coming towards us. They were dressed in white. Delicate garlands of
flowers adorned their corn-coloured hair. They walked slowly, holding
each other's hands; their smiles made a light within the light. At
the sight of the new roses, they all cried out together like children,
and stayed, stretching their arms towards the rose-trees, timorous and
troubled by desire.
I watched, a prisoner of the spell, but my friend, with the ease of a
king, made a few steps towards them, and offered them the roses he had
plucked. They took them, blushing, and slipped them into their girdles.
She who was the tallest, who had the most beautiful hair, and the most
beautiful eyes, thanked him with a smile and a few words, and then
added:--
"We were looking for you."
HE
They say that when one looks for me, he always finds me.
Then there was charming laughter, laughter that made my heart laugh.
SHE
How beautiful are the roses on this earth!
Oh! I love this big red one!
HE
Take it for your hair, my friend.
SHE
I am happy.
I too dared to pluck a rose.
"The one which is red and yellow, the one with many thorns," said close
to me the voice of another of the young women.
She had rightly divined that I was thinking of her.
I
The one that makes the hands bleed, and the heart, perhaps.
THE OTHER
Do not prick your fingers. I should be wretched.
I
And what if I pricked my heart?
She lowered her eyes without answering, took the rose and rejoined her
companion. She was more feminine, more human. She who had my friend's
favour seemed of a higher nature, and her very childishnesses could not
but be divine.
The third young woman was not forgotten. She was small and frail,
timid, with a heaven of innocence in her eyes. She did not leave the
tallest, whose sister or chosen friend she seemed to be. She was not
forgotten; but she disdained the flower I meant for her, and, going
into the flower-bed, plucked herself a whole bouquet of roses. My
friend observed her with complacency.
HE
Spoilt child.
THE LITTLE ONE
I have them of all colours. For me! For me! For me!
And taking them one after another, she inhaled their scent with a
selfish delight.
My friend walked on with two of the young women. I followed him with
the other, with her who seemed to have chosen me.
THE OTHER
Look! Are you bleeding? I warned you.
A drop of blood had been crushed on my finger. I looked at the young
woman without answering. She had not the ironic air of which I
suspected her. Reassured, I came up to her again; she laid her hand on
my arm.
While these charming scenes were occurring, I was adapting myself to my
singular circumstances. The continuation of the adventure soon seemed
most natural. We were walking in the morning in a beautiful, solitary
and flowery park. Such things happen in life as well as in dreams, and
I was soon quite at my ease.
We were now walking in a wood of young chestnuts. Red stalks fell now
and again at our feet. We went down steps and climbed others; we saw
ponds and pools, stone statues and orange-trees, a cyclop and the
nakedness of a nymph, flowers of every colour, trees of all forms,
bushes of all leaves, and pigeons which, with slanting flight, dropped
on the lawns amid the fluttering of startled sparrows.
THE OTHER
My name? What an idea! You will learn it if you are destined to know
it. It is not mysterious. Call me friend; for this day, I will permit
you to do so.
I
Are we to have a whole day?
THE OTHER
Does a day seem long to you?
I
Long and short at the same time in your company.
THE OTHER
You will see that it will be short.
I
Alas!
THE OTHER
Where are they? I have lost sight of them. Ah. There they are. Yonder,
under the cherry-tree in bloom.
I
And she?
THE OTHER
What do you mean?
I
Her name?
THE OTHER
She? She is SHE, she is life, she is youth, she is beauty, she is love.
She!
I
I ask nothing further. I am happy.
THE OTHER
Already?
I
I am happy, and I still desire, but without anxiety. I desire with
delight, with calm. I feel a divine peace, a peace full of present
pleasures and of pleasures to come.
THE OTHER
With him one is always happy, one becomes accustomed to one's
happiness, and yet one feels it continually increase. I said "already."
Do not interpret that word according to your ideas of yesterday.
I
None the less, it gave me something to dream of.
She lowered her eyes, as she had lowered them before, without
confusion, with more than human coquetry. When her eyelids lifted,
slowly, it seemed to me that I saw in her look a dawn of tenderness.
She took my hand and hurried me along.
THE OTHER
Come quickly, they are waiting for us.
Under a green arbour, rustic chairs were arranged round a heavy table
of axe-hewn wood. A bowl of milk, cups of flowers, brown bread,
strawberries; it was Virgilian. The little one spread the petals of a
red rose on the milk into which she was dropping the strawberries.
THE LITTLE ONE
They are my lips. I give you my kisses.
She blushed deeply as she said it, and her big friend drew her into her
arms and kissed her eyes.
When we had begun to take this matutinal repast, my friend, taking
no further notice of the young women, renewed the conversation their
arrival had interrupted. We were seated facing each other, two of our
companions together on one side, and on the other the little one, who
was busied in arranging according to their shades all kinds of flowers
that she had picked in the course of the walk.
HE
My father ... You were speaking of my father. I am afraid you have
an exaggerated idea of him. He was certainly very powerful, fairly
intelligent, just, but, admit it, he was not good ...
I
You speak as if he no longer existed.
HE
He is not dead, but he is old. The gods end by growing old. He
has retired into the eternal silence of disabused intellects. He
still gives advice, he alone is capable of explaining certain human
evolutions, but the indifference of age has dried up his heart. He has
never much loved mankind, and now has turned from them entirely. I, on
the other hand, love them....
I
Lord....
I rose, to fall on my knees. He calmed my emotion with a gesture.
HE
Why "Lord"? I am not your lord. Listen to me, and reassure yourself.
Observe these beautiful young women, their quiet, and their smiles.
They play with flowers, they watch you with amused eyes: are you afraid
of them? And yet, would you not say that they were goddesses? Ah! How
your women are nearer than you men to nature, nearer to the divine! If
you had had a mistress, I should have asked you to go and fetch her:
she would have looked at me without timidity.
The young women began to laugh. All three were now on the same side of
the table, and, as they leaned over their scented harvest, murmuring
like bees, stirring like lilies where the wind passes, one did not know
if they were listening to the words of the master or to the words of
the flowers.
This spectacle helped to reassure me, after my friend's sayings, which,
however, I did not understand.
HE
The religious conception of the world that you now have, the conception
that you call Christian, from the name that was given me on the
occasion of one of my earthly visits, is one of the feeblest that
humanity has ever imagined. Practical intelligence has, in a certain
sense, made progress since the Greek philosophers before Socrates,
but speculative intelligence has almost consistently gone backward.
To make a system that should have some distant relation to the truth,
the cinematic philosophy of Epicurus would have to be poured into the
fables of pagan mythology. Take, if you like, if Latin thought is more
familiar to you, the poem of Lucretius, and Ovid's "Metamorphoses";
attempt an interpretation which should derive part from universal
determinism, and part from divine caprice.... It is difficult? Why? Are
not men apt in appearance to initiative, though ruled, as you know, and
very narrowly, by fatal physical laws? You are free, when you think
yourselves free. It is the same with the gods, but the liberty of the
gods is exercised on a very much more extensive material, a material
which, without being infinite (infinity does not exist), is immense.
Their power, superior though it is, is of the same order as human
power. Greece touched the knot of the question, and, if she did not
untie it, it is that it is not to be untied: the creator of the world,
the regulator of the world, is Destiny. Fatality rules over the gods,
as the gods rule over men, and under her hand, my friend, we are all
equal, exactly as you are under death, genii, kings, and beggars alike.
To dissimulate the trouble into which these words threw me, I turned
towards the young women. There were but two of them.
SHE
The little one has gone off to look for more flowers. Some of them fade
so quickly. One would say that the warmth of the earth is enough to dry
them up.
THE OTHER
How many times love has been killed by kisses.
I
Do not say so, my friend; that was not love, but caprice.
THE OTHER
Caprice and love hide under the same dress.
I wanted to lay my hand on hers. She took it away, and I had but a
finger, but I pressed it unresisted.
THE LITTLE ONE
Here are other flowers.
THE OTHER
They will fade too.
HE
No, they will not fade.
THE LITTLE ONE
There, you see.
I
I have needed this diversion, my friend, to accustom myself to your
discourse.
HE
Yes, you are a man, and such you will remain. It is necessary that you
should remain a man.
I
Shall I not become superior to other men, when I have heard, when I
have understood?
HE
Yes, if you understand.
I
The Christian phase, then, has been an error of humanity?
HE
Humanity has never lived but in error, and, besides, there is no
truth, since the world is perpetually changing. You have acquired the
notion of evolution, which, within certain limits, is correct, but
you have wished at the same time to preserve the notion of truth:
that is contradictory. If you were to succeed in constructing, in
your intellect, a true image of the world, it would be already untrue
for your grandchildren. For, if the world evolves, you likewise
evolve, and man, from one generation to another, is not the same man.
You ceaselessly struggle to find the likeness of the old man in the
portrait of the child. It is a game. After all, it is something for you
to do.
I
Yes, the search for truth is one of the great occupations of men. One
is held happy when one has found it; and, if one is unable to find it
oneself, one shares in a neighbour's discovery. The neighbour never
refuses. This need of truth torments men about the time that their
carnal passions let them rest.
HE
Nature was cruel in allowing her creatures to survive the period of
physical expansion. But of this very cruelty you have taken advantage,
and I think that many old men among you are happier than many of the
young. In Truth, at last, they find a faithful mistress.
As he said this, I could not prevent myself from glancing at the young
woman whom I have called "The Other." She looked at me, too, but
lowered her eyes, blushing.
HE
I cannot modify even for an instant the form of your human brain,
the habits of your understanding. That is why I enter into all your
fantasies of language, and use even your abstract words. Do not let
that dupe you. It is not approval. Truth is an illusion, and illusion
is a truth.
I
None the less, your presence here, your words....
HE
You will no longer believe in me when you no longer see me, and you
will never know if this night, this winter night, clear and warm as a
summer morning, if this night of happiness was a truth or an illusion.
It seemed to me, for the space of less than a second, that the whole
spectacle before me went back into the nothingness of dreams, but my
eyes, that I had not closed, found the light again, and I was comforted.
HE
I shall, then, not tell you the truth, because no concordance is
possible between your mind, served by your senses, and that which is
outside your senses. There is a representation; it is inexact, because
it is fragmentary and momentary. A few little cubes of mosaic have
fallen from the vault; you put them in the palm of your hand, you set
their tints side by side, and you believe you have reconstructed the
drama of the world. I shall not tell you the truth; I shall tell you
what you wish to know. When you know it, you will know no more of it,
but you will be satisfied.
I
Master of enigmas and of parables....
HE
The gospels, my gospels! Poor and happy books! What a strange fate
had these pious dreams of some Jews disturbed by drunken prophets!
Imposture has made in them such naïve arabesques with faith! Have you
read the Acts of the Apostles? It is not as good as "Aladdin and the
Marvellous Lamp," but how moving it is! These men touch God with their
hands. And it is pastoral and fairy tale at once. It is a pantheism of
ingenuous conjurors. Behold me a carpenter, a fisherman, a prophet,
a magician; I am hanged and buried; I am resuscitated and mount to
heaven; thence I re-descend in the form of tongues of fire. I am one,
I am two, I am three; I am a dove, I am a lamb, I am God, and all
at once. And the nations understand; the doctors explain. Everybody
believes. Truth reigns. Happiness is poured into pacified hearts.
I
Is not that what you intended?
HE
Jesus, whom I inspired with some elementary ideas, made a mistake in
taking twelve disciples. He would have done wrong to take a single one.
My ideas, falling into these twelve heads, became twelve different
kinds of folly. It was then that I interested myself in Paul. It was
too late. Besides, I abandoned him almost at once. None the less, the
Church that he founded has become a curious institution.
I
Men have thought it divine.
HE
For nearly twenty centuries I have watched with sorrow its ironical
development. It has made me curse, it has made me scorn....
I
It has also made you love.
HE
With what love! Ah! my beautiful feast-days of Ephesus and Corinth!
I
What are you saying?
HE
You hear in this moment the confession of a god. A moment unique in
your life, and rare in the life of humanity. Take the hand of your
friend, and carry it to your lips. You will listen to me more wisely
if your heart is at peace. Call her Elise; she will answer your smile
with a smile.
I obeyed with joy. Elise let me take her hand, and I tenderly kissed
it. Her friend watched us with an air of kindly complicity. Delightful
betrothal!
I
I love you, Elise. Do you love me?
ELISE
I love you, my friend. But give me my hand again, that I may arrange
these flowers for the feast-day of our hearts. Let us listen to our
master and be wise.
I let fall Elise's hand, after kissing it once more. A very sweet smile
thanked me, and I saw, under the white robe, her bosom swell with love.
The little one, tired of running about, had sat down on a low chair,
leaning her head against the knees of her comrade, who, absently, was
playing with her yellow hair. My master, his eyes on this charming
picture, whose emotion he seemed to make his own, said nothing. After
several moments of a silence that enriched my life, he spoke again:--
HE
If I have sometimes come to visit men, it has been for love of their
women. Not that, like the gods whose stories are written by the poets,
I desire a multiplicity of embraces. I come less to love than to let
myself be loved. I belong to those who wish to make me theirs, and I
make myself for their hearts the ideal man whom earth refuses them.
For you have created woman, you men, and you have remained inferior to
your creation. You have not known how to acquire the gifts that would
have completed the miracle, and your loves are always lame. You take,
and you do not give; you impoverish the fields that are fertilised by
your desire, and the women you have loved die of thirst as they look at
the dryness of your eyes.
All three were listening, very attentively. Elise, however, was good
enough to take my fingers and press them, while her two friends rose,
and were going to kiss the hand of the master. But he opened his arms,
and they fell on his breast as fall two flowers plucked by the wind.
Elise and I watched with pleasure this charming episode, and I said to
myself, naïvely: "He welcomes these two women as he would have welcomed
all women, and I understand that he can belong at the same time to all
at once and to each one in particular." Elise's hand, meanwhile, began
to grow restless in mine. She said in a whisper and unevenly, these
enigmatic words:--
ELISE
Friend, friend, are we not more beautiful than women?
Yes, Elise was more beautiful than a woman. I thought I was looking at
a divinity. I thought I was becoming a god. My mouth took possession
of her mouth, and my left arm supported her head, while my right hand
sought under the agitation of her bosom the beating of the heart that
I desired. It became dark night except in my head and in my senses,
and it seemed to me that Elise was mine, and that cries left our moist
and trembling mouths. But perhaps it was only an illusion. And yet, I
perfectly remember that, when the light came back, our eyes were full
of gratitude and of understanding. Moreover, we were now so close to
one another that we seemed but a single body.
Insensibly we recovered our former attitudes. The little one, when once
more we looked at the external world, was sleeping on her friend's
knees, and our master was meditating, his head on his hand. What had
passed before us, what mysterious accomplishment, I did not then think
of asking myself, and now, if I were to ask, I should not know what to
answer. Illusion had doubtless buried us all alike in a rain of roses,
and the magician had not escaped his own magic.
The great happiness I felt quickened my intelligence. When our master
began to speak again, I felt that a soft beam of sunlight was falling
upon me.
HE