among all men, without doubt, I held in my arms an immortal. Much
pride was mingled with my love, and also much curiosity.
My goddess much resembles Giorgione's Venus. While I write this, she
is sleeping in the same pose, her right arm folded under her head.
The body is tapering, the breasts are two upturned cups; the face, of
a pure oval, has great charm, with its very red mouth, and its large
lowered eyelids that hide from me beautiful eyes of a glaucous and
changeful blue. From head to foot she has the complexion of a blonde,
but this whiteness is as if melted in gilded rose, because she is
accustomed to wear only light and almost transparent veils. Her hair is
of that rare chestnut colour, a colour which we scarcely know but by
its name; but her eyelashes are much darker, of a very sombre brown.
I have kissed with piety the miracle of her feet, fresh as a spring,
and with nails that shone like drops of dew under my lamp.
She accepts homage like caresses, and caresses as a flower accepts the
evening rain. She is more feminine than the most sensitive of women,
more trembling than the tenderest violins. The kiss that her mouth
gives has first passed like a wave of harmony along her whole body, and
the kiss that she receives makes her melt voluptuously like snow that
has lingered in the sunlight.
O snow with the odour of violets, O flesh with the taste of figs!
1 have eaten and I have drunken, and now I write the praise of my
delight, among some metaphysical memories. Of the life that goes on
up there, or yonder, she has told me something more than my master.
She has told me that perfect pleasure is a gift too common among the
gods much to excite their gratitude. They walk under the trees of the
orchard, and pluck the gilded fruit whose weight bends them within
reach of their hands. More lively and more sensitive, the divine
females feel now and then some vexation at being unable to knot their
arms about the conquered male; there is sometimes melancholy in their
eyes, at seeing light shoulders moving away that happiness has not
crushed, and knees that gratitude has not bowed.
We speak.
ELISE
Tell me, you whom I love, are all men like you?
I
Men are not gods during love, but they are gods afterwards.
ELISE
That is to say that they become indifferent.
I
No, satisfied, and surfeited.
ELISE
Then they are not always hungry?
I
Alas! No.
ELISE
But, at least, they do not disdain the mouth whose moisture has made
them drunk?
I
They forget even the taste of it.
ELISE
They too? I feel like crying.
I
There are some who love tears.
ELISE
You love tears?
I
How do I know? When one is happy, one no longer loves anything but
one's own happiness.
Thereupon she dreamed for a long time, perhaps without very well
understanding, for there came no more words to her mouth, but only
kisses.
With the details I could get from her, in our clearer moments, on the
life of the immortals, I pictured their dwelling-place as an earthly
paradise of the kind described to us in the Jewish legends. It is
probable that ancient indiscretions had long ago informed some Asiatic
poet. The popular mind, friendly to confusions, placed at the beginning
of our world a paradisiac state which is parallel to our world, and
otherwise closed to men. The Greeks, with their adventures of the
gods among us, also divined a little of the truth that had just been
revealed to me in these two mythological nights. I understood that
men do not invent, but remember. How I rejoiced at sharing in these
mysteries! What moments! how express their odour, how paint their
brilliance and their beauty?
I shall continue every morning to keep the journal of the happiness of
my heart and the satisfactions of my intellect. Lover of an immortal,
I see the Arcana open at last before my one-time sorrowful desire. The
Arcana! For I feel that I am about to enter into the Unity.
But I have been writing for a long time, I am tired. My mistress is
waiting for me. She sleeps, she is still sleeping. Perhaps, with them,
there is no sleep. She tastes for the first time the happiness of not
living....
FINAL NOTE
M. JAMES SANDY ROSE was found sitting at his work-table, his head laid
on his desk. He seemed asleep, and he was dead. The pen had escaped
from his fingers, and rolled to the ground, leaving a large blot of ink
on the paper. After the word "vivre "[1] comes the first letter of a
word that ends in a serpentine scrawl. This letter is doubtless a V,
and perhaps, as would have been fairly characteristic of his style,
he was going to begin a new phrase with this same word, _Vivre_, when
death struck him down.
All this is of small importance. Besides, we are giving a facsimile of
the last page of this manuscript whose singular aspect has, no doubt,
a psychological value.
It has already been seen that the death of M. J. Sandy Rose was spoken
of by the newspapers under the title of "The Mystery of the Rue de
Médicis."
Their account, without being altogether inaccurate, was very
incomplete. Here is exactly what happened, or at least what I saw and
knew.
Sandy Rose called at my rooms almost every day at about five o'clock,
on his way to the post. I live in the Rue de Tournon, behind an old
garden. We used to go out together, and often dined together. On the
11th of February, as I had not seen him for three or four days, I
decided to go to his rooms. It was half-past three. The concierge, at
first, dissuaded me from going up, and assured me that M. Sandy Rose
was away. A bundle of letters and several telegrams were awaiting him.
[Illustration: Manuscript.]
"What if he is ill?" I said. "What if he is dead?"
"Oh! But how am I to find out? How am I to open his door? We should
have to have a locksmith, witnesses, the commissaire...."
Without answering, I bolted up the stair-case. When I reached the door,
on the fifth landing, I rang, knocked very loudly, and then bent to
look through the crack, or glue my ear to the keyhole. It was dark, a
small iron thing went into my eye. The key was in the door.
At that moment, I heard the voice of the concierge, who had followed me.
"Well! You see!"
"The key is in the door."
"Impossible; it was not there yesterday evening, and he has certainly
not come in."
"Look!"
And I turned the key. The door opened. The flat consisted of the
kitchen, on the left as one went in, and three rooms opening into each
other, along the street. We opened three more doors. The last let us
see the spectacle I have described.
The death was recent. The body was cold, but not frozen, and the
fingers of the right hand, which was hanging over the arm of the chair,
were still supple. Later on the doctor declared that death must have
occurred about twelve hours before my arrival.
Two young clerks, brothers, who live in a neighbouring room, came home
at this moment. We sent one of them in search of the police, and the
other remained with me, while the concierge went back to her lodge.
While waiting for the police to draw up their official statement, I
made a mental inventory of my friend's room. Its aspect seemed to
me odd. The bed, a great four-posted one, very large and almost
sumptuous, the only luxury, moreover, of this sentimental and libertine
youth, was in disorder. It told of a night of frenzied passion, or of
an attack of hallucinatory fever. The counterpanes were dangling, the
pillows were one at the foot and one in the middle of the bed; two
candles at the bed-side had burned themselves out. A man's clothes had
been flung on a sofa, and among these clothes I found a woman's dress,
of antique or rather empire fashion, a sort of tea-gown of spongy white
linen, very fine, with a gathered belt, much lacework, and blue and
yellow embroideries. I saw besides some plain white silk stockings,
yellow garters with paste buckles, and one slipper in blue morocco; I
did not find the other.
The man's clothes were those of my friend, who was dressed at the
moment in a grey flannel suit and a brown dressing-gown. Nothing could
be simpler. But the dress, and the silk stockings? Did Sandy Rose
amuse himself with robing his mistress magnificently, before unrobing
her? The presence of a woman seemed proved by this theatrical costume.
The stockings had been worn; some one had even walked bare-foot in one
of them, doubtless looking for the slipper that had slid away under a
piece of furniture.
On the mantelpiece, I found a big tortoiseshell comb, a necklace of
pearls, no doubt false, another of amethysts, some ancient rings, and
two bracelets, one of braided gold, the other of cameos.
I opened a little door. The state of the washing-stand showed that it
had been recently used. There were still drops of water on the marble,
and the towels were damp. On a comb, I found some woman's hairs, blond,
very long; a powder-box was open. A perfume that I could not identify,
was floating in this closet, something like peppered, highly peppered,
jessamine.
In the fireplace of the room a log was still burning, among dead pieces
of coal.
I returned to the table on which was resting the lifeless head of my
unfortunate friend. He seemed asleep, and I was glad of it, for, if a
tragic story is to be as it should, the dead must seem to sleep.
There was nothing on the table but a quantity of sheets of paper
covered with big irregular handwriting, nothing but that and an
ink-pot. The pen had fallen down.
At this moment the commissaire arrived with a scribe. Notes were taken.
The doctor who had come attested something.
"Natural death?"
"The most natural in the world."
And he pointed first to the bed and then to the writing-table.
"Sexual followed by cerebral excesses. These papers, perhaps, will
give us an explanation."
Meanwhile the commissaire, who had opened a drawer, found a will that
left everything to me; the doctor, happy to do nothing, stopped putting
together the sheets of the manuscript.
"I do not dispute them with you. I have signed. I am off."
My rights were soon legally confirmed. Meanwhile I thought of the
woman who had worn the white dress with yellow embroideries and put
her feet in the slippers of blue morocco. I sought her and did not
find her. Singular rumours went about, set on foot by the journalists.
M. Sandy Rose had been strangled by a woman with whom he had spent
the night. She had disappeared at dawn, taking money and jewels.
I had no difficulty in exposing the absurdity of this hypothesis,
firstly because we had noticed no trace of violence on the body of
the defunct, and secondly because many precious stones, as well as a
quantity of gold pieces, were found in the same drawer as the will,
which was not locked.
Little by little there came to be silence concerning the story, and I
was alone in sometimes thinking of it.
It is certain that Sandy Rose went home on Thursday morning, the 8th
of February, about nine o'clock, accompanied by a woman. He took his
letters: no letter or paper of earlier date was found in the Sunday
packet. It is also certain that he went out with this woman about
midday, and that they returned about eight, this time without speaking
to the concierge, without answering her question: "Monsieur Sandy Rose,
aren't you going to take your letters?" Finally, from that moment on,
the concierge saw no one, neither Sandy Rose nor the lady, whose name
she did not know, though, she says, she had noticed her light-coloured,
almost white, dress; and adds,
"I was surprised at it, because of the colour." On Friday morning, she
knocked, at the hour at which she was accustomed to come and clean out
the rooms. She knocked again in the afternoon, and rang the bell; in
vain. It was the same on Saturday and Sunday, and she had therefore
concluded that he was away, as was not unlikely, for my friend
sometimes went to spend a week at Menton, and never went alone.
These little facts, whose accuracy I cannot doubt, do not contradict
certain details that have been read in my friend's manuscript, but I
am far from offering them as a proof of the veracity of his story. I
give on the one hand the manuscript, as the will obliges me, and on the
other the result of my inquiry, as friendship demands; that is all.
I must note one last detail. No trace of food was found in the flat,
except some paper that had been used in wrapping up cakes, or perhaps
a pâté, and six empty champagne bottles. But there is nothing to prove
that these relics are contemporaneous with the period that interests
us. It is, however, probable enough.
The telegram mentioned on page 36 has not been printed by the _Northern
Atlantic Herald_. It is even doubtful if it was ever sent off. At
least, the inquiries I have made have been without result.
[1] The last word of the manuscript.
APPENDIX[1]
REMY DE GOURMONT
BY
ARTHUR RANSOME
I
M. de Gourmont lives on the fourth floor of an old house in the Rue
des Saints-Pères. A copper chain hangs as bell-rope to his door. The
rare visitor, for it is well known that for many years he has been a
solitary and seldom receives even his friends, pulls the chain and
waits. The door opens a few inches, ready to be closed immediately,
by a man of middle size, in a brown monk's robe, with a small, round,
grey felt cap. The robe is fastened with silver buckles, in which are
set large blue stones. The admitted visitor walks through a passage
into a room whose walls are covered with books. In the shadow at the
back of the room is a loaded table. Another table, with a sloping desk
upon it, juts out from the window. M. de Gourmont sits in a big chair
before the desk, placing his visitor on the opposite side of the table,
with the light falling on his face so that he can observe his slightest
expression. He pokes at the little, brimless skull-cap, and twists it
a quarter of a circle on his head. He rolls and lights cigarettes. In
conversation he often disguises his face with his hand, but now and
again looks openly and directly at his visitor. His eyes are always
questioning, and almost always kindly. His face was beautiful in the
youth of the flesh, and is now beautiful in the age of the mind,
for there is no dead line in it, no wrinkle, no minute feature not
vitalised by intellectual activity. The nose is full and sensitive,
with markedly curved nostrils. There is a little satiric beard. The
eyebrows lift towards the temples, as in most men of imagination.
The eyes are weighted below, as in most men of critical thought. The
two characteristics are, in M. de Gourmont, as in his work, most
noticeable together. The lower lip, very full, does not pout, but falls
curtain-like towards the chin. It is the lip of a sensualist, and yet
of one whose sensuality has not clogged but stimulated the digestive
processes of his brain. Omar might have had such a lip, if he had been
capable not only of his garlands of roses, but also of the essays of
Montaigne.
He was born in a château in Normandy on April 4th, 1858. Among his
ancestors was Gilles de Gourmont, a learned printer and engraver of
the fifteenth century. He has himself collected old woodcuts, and in
_L'Ymagier_ amused himself by setting the most ancient specimens of
the craft, among which he is proud to show some examples of the work
of his family, side by side with drawings by Whistler and Gauguin. He
came to Paris in 1883, when he obtained a post in the Bibliothèque
Nationale. Huysmans was "sous-chef de bureau la direction de la Sûreté
générale," and M. de Gourmont, who made his acquaintance through the
dedication of a book, used to call for him between four and five of
the afternoon, and walk with him across the river to a café, that has
since disappeared, where he listened to the older man's rather savage
characterisations of men, women, movements and books. A few years
later he was held to be lacking in patriotism, and relieved of his
post on account of an article urging the necessity of Franco-German
agreement. He wrote incessantly. Merlette, a rather naïve and awkward
little novel, published in 1886, did not promise the work he was to
do. It was no more than an exercise. The exercise was well done, but
that was all. It was the work of a good brain as yet uncertain of its
personal impulse. But about this time he was caught in the stream of
a movement for which he had been waiting, for which, indeed, the art
of his time had been waiting, the movement that was introduced to
English readers by Mr. Arthur Symons's admirable series of critical
portraits.[2] In 1890 he published Sixtine, dedicated to Villiers de
l'Isle Adam, who had died the year before. In 1892 appeared Le Latin
Mystique, a book on the Latin poets of the Middle Ages. He has always
been "a delicate amateur of the curiosities of beauty," though the
character that Mr. Symons gave him has since become very inadequate.
He edited Gérard de Nerval, _Aucassin et Nicolette_, and Rutebeuf's
_La Miracle de Théophile_, and wrote _Lilith_, 1892, and _Théodat_,
a dramatic poem in prose that was produced by my friend M. Paul Fort
at the Théâtre d'Art on December 11th of the same year. Several other
curious works of this period were united in Le Pèlerin du Silence.
I extract from the bibliography by M. van Bever, printed in Poètes
d'aujourd'hui, a list of the more important books that have followed
these very various beginnings:--_Le Livre des Masques_, 1896;
_Les Chevaux de Diomède_, 1897; _Le IIme Livre des Masques_, 1898;
_Esthétique de la langue française_, 1899; _La Culture des Idées_,
1900; _Le Chemin de Velours_, 1902; _Le Problème du Style_, 1902;
_Physique de l'Amour_, 1903; _Une Nuit au Luxembourg_, 1906; besides
four volumes of literary and philosophical criticism, and four volumes
of comment on contemporary events.
All this mass of work is vitalised by a single motive. Even the
divisions of criticism and creation (whose border line is very dim)
are made actually one by a desire common to both of them, a desire not
expressed in them, but satisfied, a desire for intellectual freedom.
The motto for the whole is written in _Une Nuit au Luxembourg_:
"L'exercice de la pensée est un jeu, mais il faut que ce jeu soit
libre et harmonieux." I am reminded of this sentence again and again
in thinking of M. de Gourmont and his books. There must be no loss of
self-command, none of the grimaces and the awkward movements of the
fanatic, the man with whom thought plays. The thinker must be superior
to his thought. He must make it his plaything instead of being sport
for it. His eyes must be clear, not hallucinated; his arms his own,
not swung with the exaggerated gestures of the preacher moved beyond
himself by his own words. M. de Gourmont seems less an artist than a
man determined to conquer his obsessions, working them out one by one
as they assail him, in order to regain his freedom. It is a fortunate
accident that he works them out by expressing them, twisting into
garlands the brambles that impede his way.
[1] Reprinted from the _Fortnightly Review_.
[2] _The Symbolist Movement in Literature_, 1899.
II
M. de Gourmont almost immediately left the half-hearted realism
of _Merlette_, and, just as in his scientific writings he is more
profoundly scientific than the men of science, so in his works of
this period he carried to their uttermost limits the doctrines of
the symbolists. In his critical work the historian must look for the
manifestoes and polemics of the group that gathered in Mallarmé's rooms
in the Rue de Rome. The theories are in _Idéalisme_, published in 1893,
and in such essays as his defence of Mallarmé, written in 1898, and
included in the _Promenades Littéraires_. Of their practice he supplies
plenty of examples. "Nommer un objet, c'est supprimer les trois
quarts de la jouissance du poème qui est faite du bonheur de deviner
peu à peu; le suggérer voilà le rêve." Mallarmé wrote that in 1891,
and during the 'nineties, Remy de Gourmont was publishing mysterious
little books of poetry and prose, of which small limited editions were
issued on rare paper, in curious covers, with lithographed decorations
as reticent as the writing. There is the _Histoire tragique de la
Princesse Phénissa expliquée en quatre épisodes_, a play whose action
might be seen through seven veils, a play whose motive, never stated
directly, is, perhaps, the destruction of the future for the sake of
the present. There is _Le Fantôme_, the story of a liaison between a
man and a woman if you will, between the intellect and the flesh if
you will, that begins with such an anthem as might have been sung by
some of those strange beings whom Poe took "into the starry meadows
beyond Orion, where, for pansies and violets and heartsease, are the
beds of the triplicate and triple-tinted suns." The man--is it a
man?--who tells the story, ends with a regret for something too real to
be visible, something that is seen because it is not visible:--"Je me
sentais froid, j'avais peur--car je la voyais, sans pouvoir m'opposer?
cette transformation douloureuse--je la voyais s'en aller rejoindre
le groupe des femmes indécises d'où mon amour l'avait tirée--je la
voyais redevenir le fantôme qu'elles sont toutes." There is _Le Livre
des Litanies_, with its wonderful incantation, from which I take the
beginning and end:--
"Fleur hypocrite, "Fleur du silence. "Rose couleur de
cuivre, plus frauduleuse que nos joies, rose couleur
de cuivre, embaume-nous dans tes mensonges, fleur
hypocrite, fleur du silence.
* * * * *
"Rose améthyste, étoile matinale, tendresse épiscopale,
rose améthyste, tu dors sur des poitrines dévotes et
douillettes, gemme offerte à Marie, ô gemme sacristine,
fleur hypocrite, fleur du silence.
"Rose cardinale, rose couleur du sang de l'Eglise
romaine, rose cardinale, tu fais rêver les grands yeux
des mignons et plus d'un t'épingla au noeud de sa
jarretière, fleur hypocrite, fleur du silence.
"Rose papale, rose arrosée des mains qui bénissent le
monde, rose papale, ton coeur d'or est en cuivre, et
les larmes qui perlent sur ta vaine corolle, ce sont les
pleurs du Christ, fleur hypocrite, fleur du silence.
"Fleur hypocrite,
"Fleur du silence."
III
These, and other things like them, made it possible for M. de Gourmont
to proceed in the discovery of himself. He drank his mood to the dregs,
leaving no untried experiment to clog his mind with a regret as he
moved on. "I have always been excessive," he says; "I do not like to
stop half-way." He follows each impulse as far as it will take him,
lest, by chance, he should leave some flower untasted in a by-path he
has seen but not explored. Unlike most authors, he never has to copy
himself, and does not feel bound, because he has written one book whose
prose is malachite green, to produce another of the same colour. "Un
artiste," said Wilde, "ne recommence jamais deux fois la même chose
... ou bien c'est qu'il n'avait pas réussi." The surest way to fail in
an experiment is to make it with a faint heart. M. de Gourmont always
burns his boats.