We drew near the squadron, the heavy ironclads standing out in single
file, like battle towers built in the sea. They were the _Colbert,_ the
_Dévastation,_ the _Amiral-Duperré,_ the _Courbet,_ the _Indomptable,_
and the _Richelieu;_ two despatch boats, the _Hirondelle_ and the
_Milan;_ and four torpedo boats going through evolutions in the gulf.
I wanted to visit the _Courbet,_ as it passes for the most perfect type
in the French navy.
[Illustration 020]
Nothing can give a better idea of human labour, of the intricate and
formidable labour done by the ingeniously clever hands of the puny
human animal, than the enormous iron citadels which float and sail
about bearing an army of soldiers, an arsenal of monstrous arms, the
enormous masses of which are made of tiny pieces fitted, soldered,
forged, bolted together, a toil of ants and giants, which shows at the
same time all the genius, all the weakness, and all the irretrievable
barbarousness of the race, so active and so feeble, directing all its
efforts towards creating instruments for its own self-destruction.
Those who in former days raised up cathedrals in stone, carved as
finely as any lacework, fairy-like palaces to shelter childish and
pious fancies, were they worth less than those who now-a-days launch
forth on the sea these iron houses, real temples of Death?
At the same moment that I leave the ship to get on board my
cockleshell, I hear the sound of firing on shore. It is the regiment
at Antibes practising rifle shooting on the sands and amongst the
pine-woods. The smoke rises in white flakes, like evaporating clouds
of cotton, and I can see the red trousers of the soldiers as they run
along the beach.
The naval officers suddenly become interested, point their glasses
landwards, and their hearts beat faster at this spectacle of mimic
warfare.
At the mere mention of the word war, I am seized with a sense of
bewilderment, as though I heard of witchcraft, of the inquisition, of
some far distant thing, ended long ago, abominable and monstrous,
against all natural law.
When we talk of cannibals, we proudly smile and proclaim our
superiority over these savages. Which are the savages, the true
savages? Those who fight to eat the vanquished, or those who fight to
kill, only to kill?
The gallant little soldiers running about over there, are as surely
doomed to death, as the flocks of sheep driven along the road by the
butcher. They will fall on some plain, with their heads split open by
sabre cuts, or their chests riddled by bullets, and yet they are young
men who might work, produce something, be useful. Their fathers are old
and poverty-stricken, their mothers, who during twenty years have loved
them, adored them as only mothers can adore, may perchance hear in six
months or a year, that the son, the child, the big fellow, reared with
so much care, at such an expense and with so much love, has been cast
in a hole like a dead dog, after having been ripped open by a bullet
and trampled, crushed, mangled by the rush of cavalry charges. Why have
they killed her boy, her beautiful boy, her sole hope, her pride, her
life? She cannot understand. Yes, indeed, why?
War! fighting! slaughtering! butchering men! And to think that now,
in our own century, with all our civilisation, with the expansion
of science and the height of philosophy to which the human race is
supposed to have attained, we should have schools, in which we teach
the art of killing, of killing from afar, to perfection, numbers
of people at the same time; poor devils, innocent men, fathers of
families, men of untarnished reputation. The most astounding thing
is that the people do not rise up against the governing power. What
difference is there then between monarchies and republics? And what is
more astounding still, why does society not rise up bodily in rebellion
at the word "war."
[Illustration 021]
Ah yes, we shall ever continue to live borne down by the old and odious
customs, the criminal prejudices, the ferocious ideas of our barbarous
forefathers, for we are but animals, and we shall remain animals led
only by instinct, that nothing will ever change.
Should we not have spurned any other than Victor Hugo, who should have
launched forth the grand cry of deliverance and truth?
"To-day, might is called violence, and is beginning to be condemned;
war is arraigned. Civilisation, at the demand of all humanity, directs
an inquiry and indicts the great criminal brief against conquerors
and generals. The nations are beginning to understand that the
aggrandizement of a crime can in no way lessen it; that if murder
is a crime, to murder a great many does not create any attenuating
circumstance; that if robbery is a disgrace, invasion cannot be a
glory.
"Ah! Let us proclaim the peremptory truth, let us dishonour war."
Idle anger, poetic indignation! War is more venerated than ever.
A clever artist in such matters, a slaughtering genius, M. de Moltke,
replied one day to some peace delegates, in the following extraordinary
words:
"War is holy and of divine institution; it is one of the sacred laws
of nature; it keeps alive in men all the great and noble sentiments,
honour, disinterestedness, virtue, courage, in one word it prevents
them from falling into the most hideous materialism."
Therefore to collect a herd of some four hundred thousand men, march
day and night without respite, to think of nothing, study nothing,
learn nothing, read nothing, be of no earthly use to any one, rot with
dirt, lie down in mire, live like brutes in a continual besotment,
pillage towns, burn villages, ruin nations; then meeting another
similar agglomeration of human flesh, rush upon it, shed lakes of
blood, cover plains with pounded flesh mingled with muddy and bloody
earth; pile up heaps of slain; have arms and legs blown off, brains
scattered without benefit to any one, and perish at the corner of
some field while your old parents, your wife and children are dying
of hunger; this is what is called, not falling into the most hideous
materialism!
Warriors are the scourges of the earth. We struggle against nature
and ignorance; against obstacles of all kinds, in order to lessen the
hardships of our miserable existence. Men, benefactors, scholars wear
out their lives toiling, seeking what may assist, what may help, what
may solace their brethren. Eager in their useful work, they pile up
discovery on discovery, enlarging the human mind, extending science,
adding something each day to the stock of human knowledge, to the
welfare, the comfort, the strength of their country.
War is declared. In six months the generals have destroyed the efforts
of twenty years' patience and genius. And this is what is called, not
falling into the most hideous materialism.
We have seen war. We have seen men maddened and gone back to their
brute estate, killing for mere pleasure, killing out of terror, out of
bravado, from sheer ostentation. Then when right no longer exists, when
law is dead, when all notion of justice has disappeared, we have seen
ruthlessly shot down, innocent beings who, picked up along the road,
had become objects of suspicion simply because they were afraid. We
have seen dogs as they lay chained up at their master's gate, killed in
order to try a new revolver; we have seen cows riddled with bullets as
they lay in the fields, without reason, only to fire off guns, just for
fun.
And this is what is called, not falling into the most hideous
materialism. To invade a country, to kill the man who defends his home
on the plea that he wears a smock and has no forage cap on his head,
to burn down the houses of the poor creatures who are without bread, to
break, to steal furniture, drink the wine found in the cellars, violate
the women found in the streets, consume thousands of francs' worth of
powder, and leave behind misery and cholera.
This is what is called, not falling into the most hideous materialism.
What have they ever done to show their intelligence, these valiant
warriors? Nothing. What have they invented? Guns and cannons. That is
all.
The inventor of the wheelbarrow, has he not done more for humanity by
the simple and practical idea of fitting a wheel between two poles,
than the inventor of modern fortifications?
What remains of Greece? Books and marbles. Is she great by what she
conquered, or by what she produced? Was it the invasion of the Persians
that prevented her from falling into the most hideous materialism? Was
it the invasion of the barbarians that saved Rome and regenerated her?
Did Napoleon the First continue the great intellectual movement begun
by the philosophers at the end of the last century?
Well, yes, since governments assume the right of death over the people,
there is nothing astonishing in the people sometimes assuming the right
of death over governments.
They defend themselves. They are right. No one has an absolute right
to govern others. It can only be done for the good of those who are
governed. Whosoever governs must consider it as much his duty to avoid
war, as it is that of the captain of a vessel to avoid shipwreck.
When a captain has lost his ship, he is judged and condemned if found
guilty of negligence or even of incapacity.
Why should not governments be judged after the declaration of every
war? If the people understood this, if they took the law into their
own hands against the murdering powers, if they refused to allow
themselves to be killed without a reason, if they used their weapons
against those who distributed them to slaughter with, that day war
would indeed be a dead letter. But that day will never dawn!
AGAY, _April 8th_.
"Fine weather, sir."
I get up and go on deck. It is three o'clock in the morning; the sea is
calm, the infinite heavens look like an immense shady vault sown with
grains of fire. A very light breeze comes from off the land.
The coffee is hot, we swallow it down, and, without losing a moment, in
order to take advantage of the favourable wind, we set sail.
Once more we glide over the waters towards the open sea. The coast
disappears, all around us looks black. It is indeed a sensation, an
enervating and delicious emotion to plunge onward into the empty night,
into the deep silence on the sea, far from everything. It seems as
though one was quitting the world, as though one would never reach any
land, as though there were no more shores and even no more days. At my
feet, a little lantern throws a light upon the compass, that guides me
on my way. We must run at least three miles in the open to round Cape
Roux and the Drammont in safety, whatever may be the wind when the sun
has risen. To avoid any accidents, I have had the side-lights lit, red
on the port and green on the starboard side. And I enjoy with rapture
this silent, uninterrupted, quiet flight.
Suddenly a cry is heard in front of us. I am startled, for the voice
is near; and I can perceive nothing, nothing but the obscure wall of
darkness into which I am plunging, and which closes again behind me.
Raymond who watches forward says to me: "'Tis a tartan going east, put
the helm up sir, we shall pass astern." And of a sudden, nigh at hand,
uprises a vague but startling phantom; the large drifting shadow of
a big sail, seen but for a few seconds and quickly vanishing. Nothing
is more strange, more fantastic, and more thrilling, than these rapid
apparitions at sea during the night. The fishing and sand boats carry
no lights, they are therefore only seen as they pass by, and they
impart a tightening of the heart strings, as of some supernatural
encounter.
[Illustration 022]
I hear in the distance the whistling of a bird. It approaches, passes
by, and goes off. Oh that I could wander like it!
At last dawn breaks, slowly, gently, without a cloud, and the day
begins, a real summer's day.
[Illustration 023]
Raymond asserts that we shall have an east wind, Bernard still believes
in a westerly one, and advises my changing our course, and sailing on
the starboard tack straight towards the Drammont, which stands out in
the distance. I am at once of his opinion, and under the gentle breath
of a dying breeze, we draw nearer to the Esterel. The long red shore
drops into the blue water, giving it a violet tinge. It is strange,
pretty, bristling with numberless points and gulfs, capricious and
coquettish rocks, the thousand whims of a much admired mountain. On
its slopes, the pine forests reach up to the granite summits, which
resemble castles, towns, and armies of stones running after each other.
And at its foot the sea is so clear, that the sandy shoals or the
weedy bottoms can be distinguished.
Ay, verily, I do feel on certain days such a horror of all that is,
that I long for death. The invariable monotony of landscapes, faces
and thoughts, become an intensely acute suffering. The meanness of the
universe astonishes and revolts me, the littleness of all things fills
me with disgust, and I am overwhelmed by the platitude of human beings.
At other times, on the contrary, I enjoy everything as an animal
does. If my spirit, restless, agitated, hypertrophied by work, bounds
onward to hopes that are not those of our race, and then after having
realised that all is vanity, falls back into a contempt for all that
is, my animal body at least, is enraptured with all the intoxication
of life. Like the birds, I love the sky, like the prowling wolf, the
forests; I delight in rocky heights, like a chamois; the thick grass,
I love to roll in and gallop over like a horse, and, like a fish, I
revel in the clear waters. I feel thrilling within me, the sensations
of all the different species of animals, of all their instincts, of
all the confused longings of inferior creatures. I love the earth as
they do, not as other men do; I love it without admiring it, without
poetry, without exultation; I love with a deep and animal attachment,
contemptible yet holy, all that lives, all that grows, all we see; for
all this, leaving my spirit calm, excites only my eyes and my heart:
the days, the nights, the rivers, the seas, the storms, the woods, the
hues of dawn, the glance of woman, her very touch.
The gentle ripple of water on the sandy shore, or on the rocky granite
affects and moves me, and the joy that fills me as I feel myself driven
forward by the wind, and carried along by the waves, proceeds from the
abandonment of myself, to the brutal and natural forces of creation,
from my return to a primitive state.
When the weather is beautiful as it is to-day, I feel in my veins the
blood of the lascivious and vagabond fauns of olden times. I am no
longer the brother of mankind, but the brother of all creatures and all
nature!
* * * * *
The sun mounts above the horizon. The breeze dies away as it did the
day before yesterday; but the west wind foretold by Bernard, does not
rise any more than the easterly one, announced by Raymond.
Till ten o'clock, we float motionless like a wreck, then a little
breath from the open sea starts us on our road, falls, rises again,
seems to mock us, glancing across the sail, promising at each moment a
breeze that does not come. It is nothing, a mere whiff, a flutter of
a fan; nevertheless it is sufficient to prevent our being stationary.
The porpoises, those clowns of the sea, play about around us, dashing
out of the water with rapid bounds, as though they would take flight,
striking into the air like lightning, then plunging and rising again
further off.
[Illustration 024]
At about one o'clock, as we lay broadside on to Agay, the breeze
completely gave way, and I realized that I should sleep out at sea if I
did not man the boat to tow the yacht and take shelter in the bay.
I therefore made the two men get into the dingy, and when at a distance
of some thirty yards or so, they began to tug me along. A fierce sun
was glaring on the water, and its burning rays beat down upon the decks.
[Illustration 025]
The two sailors rowed in slow and regular fashion like worn-out cranks,
which, though working with difficulty, ceaselessly continue their
mechanical labour.
The bay of Agay forms a very pretty dock, well sheltered and closed on
one side by upright, red rocks, overlooked by the semaphore on the
summit of the mountain, and prolonged towards the open sea by the _Ile
d'Or,_ so called on account of its colour; while on the other side is
a line of sunken rocks, and a small headland level with the surface of
the water, bearing a lighthouse to mark the entry.
At the further end is an inn, ready for the entertainment of skippers
of vessels, that have taken refuge there from stress of weather, or
for fishermen during the summer; and a railway station where trains
only stop twice a day, and where no one ever gets out; and a pretty
river that winds away into the Esterel, as far as the valley named
Malin-fermet, which is as full of pink oleanders as any African ravine.
No road leads from the interior to the delicious bay. A pathway only,
takes you to Saint-Raphaël, passing through the porphyry quarries of
Drammont; but no vehicle could use it. We are therefore quite lost in
the mountain.
I resolved to wander about till nightfall, in the paths bordered by
cistus and lentisk. The scent of wild plants, strong and perfumed,
filled the air, mingling with the powerful resinous breath of the
forest, which seemed to pant in the heat.
After an hour's walk, I was deep among the pine trees, scattered
sparsely on a gentle declivity of the mountain. The purple
granite,--the bones of the earth,--seemed reddened by the sun, and
I wended my way slowly, happy as the lizards must be on burning hot
stones; when I perceived on the summit of the mountain, coming towards
me, without seeing me, two lovers lost in the depths of their love
dream.
[Illustration 026]
'Twas a charmingly pretty sight; on they came, with arms entwined,
moving with absent footsteps through the alternating sun and shade,
that flecked the sloping banks.
She appeared to me very graceful and very simple, with a grey
travelling dress and a bold coquettish felt hat. I hardly saw him, I
only noticed that he seemed well bred. I had seated myself behind the
trunk of a pine tree, to watch them pass by. They did not perceive
me, and continued their descent with interlocked arms, silently, and
without a word, so much did their love absorb them.
When I lost sight of them, I felt as though a sadness had fallen on my
heart. A felicity that I knew not, had passed near me, and I guessed
that it was the best of all. And I returned towards the bay of Agay,
too dejected now to continue my stroll.
Until the evening, I lay stretched out on the grass, by the side of the
river, and at about seven o'clock I went into the inn for dinner.
My men had warned the innkeeper, and he was expecting me. My table was
set in the white-washed room, by the side of another at which were
already settled my love-stricken couple, face to face, with eyes fondly
gazing upon each other.
I felt ashamed at disturbing them, as though I were committing a mean
and unbecoming action.
They stared at me for a few seconds, and then resumed their low-toned
conversation.
The innkeeper who had known me for a long time took a seat near mine.
He talked of wild boars, and rabbits, the fine weather, the _mistral,_
about an Italian captain who had slept at the inn a few nights before,
and then, to flatter my vanity, he praised my yacht, the black hull of
which I could see through the window, with its tall mast, and my red
and white pennant floating aloft.
My neighbours, who had eaten very rapidly, soon left. As for me, I
dawdled about looking at the slight crescent of the moon, shedding its
soft rays over the little roadstead. At last I saw my dingy nearing
the shore, scattering lines of silver as it advanced through the pale
motionless light that fell upon the water.
When I went down to my boat, I saw the lovers standing on the beach
gazing at the sea.
And as I went off to the quick sound of the oars, I still distinguished
their outlines on the shore, their shadows erect side by side. They
seemed to fill the bay, the night, the heavens, with a symbolic
grandeur, so penetrating was the atmosphere of love they diffused
around them, so widespread over the far horizon.
[Illustration 027]
And when I had reached my yacht, I remained seated a long while on
deck, overcome with sadness without knowing wherefore, filled with
regrets without knowing why, unwilling even to decide on going down to
my cabin, as though I would fain absorb a little more of the tenderness
they had diffused around them. Suddenly, one of the windows of the inn
was lit up, and I saw their profiles on the bright background. Then
my loneliness overpowered me, and in the balminess of the springlike
night, at the soft sound of the waves on the sand, under the delicate
crescent shedding its rays over the sea, I felt in my heart such an
intense desire of love, that I was near crying out in my envious
distress.
Then, all at once, I became ashamed of this weakness, and, unwilling to
admit to myself that I was a man like another, I accused the moonshine
of disturbing my reason.
I have moreover always believed, that the moon exercises a mysterious
influence on the human brain.
It fills poets with vagaries, rendering them delightful or ridiculous,
and produces on lovers' affections, the effect of Ruhmkorff's pile
on electric currents. The man who loves in a normal manner under the
sunlight, adores with frenzy under the moon.
A youthful and charming woman maintained to me one day, I forget on
what occasion, that moon strokes are infinitely more dangerous than sun
strokes. They are caught, she said, unawares, out walking perchance
on a beautiful night, and they are incurable; you remain mad; not
raving mad, not mad enough to be shut up, but mad of a special madness,
gentle, incurable; and you no longer think on any subject like other
men.
I have certainly been moon-struck to-night, for I feel strangely
unreasonable and light headed; and the little crescent in its downward
course towards the sea affects me, melts me to tears, and rends my
heart.
Wherein lies the power of seduction of this moon, aged dead planet
that it is, rambling through the heavens with its yellow face and
sad ghostly light, that it should thus agitate us, we whom even our
vagabond thoughts disturb?
Do we love it because it is dead? as the poet Haraucourt says:
"Puis ce fut l'âge blond des tiédeurs et des vents.
La lune se peupla de murmures vivants:
Elle eut des mers sans fond et des fleuves sans nombre,
Des troupeaux, des cités, des pleurs, des cris joyeux,
Elle eut l'amour; elle eut ses arts, ses lois, ses dieux,
Et lentement rentra dans l'ombre."[1]
Do we love it because the poets, to whom we owe the eternal illusion
that surrounds us in this world, have dimmed our sight by all the
images they have seen in its pallid rays, have taught our over-excited
sensibility to feel in a thousand different ways, the soft and
monotonous effects it sheds over the world?
When it rises behind the trees, when it pours forth its shimmering
light on the flowing river, when it descends through the boughs on to
the sand of the shaded alleys, when it mounts solitary in the black
and empty sky, when it dips towards the sea, stretching out on the
undulating surface of the waters a vast pathway of light, are we not
haunted by all the charming verses with which it has inspired great
dreamers?
If we wander forth by night in joyous spirits, and if we see its smooth
circle, round like a yellow eye watching us, perched just over a roof,
Musset's immortal ballad is recalled to our mind.
[Illustration 028]
And is it not he, the mocking poet, who immediately presents it to us
through his eyes?
"C'était dans la nuit brune,
Sur le clocher jauni La lune
Comme un point sur un I.
Lune, quel esprit sombre
Promène an bout d'un fil,
Dans l'ombre,
Ta face ou ton profil?"[2]
[Illustration 029]
If we walk on some evening full of sadness, on the beach by the side of
the ocean illuminated by its rays, do we not, in spite of ourselves, at
once recite the two grand and melancholy lines:
"Seule au-dessus des mers, la lune voyageant,
Laisse dans les flots noirs tomber ses pleurs d'argent."[3]
[Illustration 030]
If we awake, to find our bed lighted up by a long beam coming in at the
window, do we not feel at once as though the white figure evoked by
Catulle Mendè's were descending upon us:
"Elle venait, avec un lis dans chaque main,
La pente d'un rayon lui servant de chemin."[4]
If, in some evening walk in the country, we suddenly hear the long
sinister howl of a farm dog, are we not forcibly struck by the
recollection of the admirable poem of Leconte de Lisle, _les Hurleurs?_
"Seule, la lune pâle, en écartant la nue,
Comme une morne lampe, oscillait tristement.
Monde muet, marqué d'un signe de colère,
Débris d'un globe mort au hasard dispersé,
Elle laissait tomber de son orbe glacé
Un reflet sépulcral sur l'océan polaire."[5]
At the evening trysting place, one saunters slowly through the leafy
path, with arm encircling the beloved one, pressing her hand, and
kissing her brow. She is perhaps a little tired, a little moved, and
walks with lagging step.
[Illustration 031]
A bench appears in sight, under the leaves bathed by the soft light, as
by a calm shower.
In our hearts and minds, like an exquisite love-song, the two charming
lines start up:
"Et réveiller, pour s'asseoir à sa place
Le clair de lune endormi sur le banc!"[6]
Can one see the lessening crescent, as on this evening, cast its fair
profile on the vast sky spangled with stars, without thinking of
the end of that masterpiece of Victor Hugo's, which is called "Boaz
Endormi:"
"Et Ruth se demandait,
Immobile, ouvrant l'oeil à demi sous ses voiles,
Quel Dieu, quel moissonneur de l'éternel été
Avait, en s'en allant, négligemment jeté
Cette faucille d'or dans le champ des étoiles."[7]
And who has better described the moon, courteous and tender to all
lovers, than Hugo:
"La nuit vint, tout se tut; les flambeaux s'éteignirent;
Dans les bois assombris, les sources se plaignirent.
Le rossignol, caché dans son nid ténébreux,
Chanta comme un poète et comme un amoureux.
Chacun se dispersa sous les profonds feuillages,
Les folles, en riant, entraînèrent les sages;
L'amante s'en alla dans l'ombre avec l'amant;
Et troublés comme ou l'est en songe, vaguement,
Ils sentaient par degrés se mêler à leur âme,
A leurs discours secrets, à leur regards de flamme,
A leurs coeurs, à leurs sens, à leur molle raison,
Le clair de lune bleu qui baignait l'horizon."[8]
And I remember also the admirable prayer to the moon, which is the
opening scene, of the eleventh book of Apuleius' _Golden Ass._
Still all the songs of mankind are not enough to account for the
sentimental sadness with which this poor planet inspires us.
We pity the moon, in spite of ourselves, without knowing the reason,
and for this it is we love it.
Even the tender feeling we bestow on it is mingled with compassion;
we pity it like an old maid, for we vaguely feel, the poets
notwithstanding, that it is not a corpse but a cold virgin.
Planets, like woman, need a husband, and the poor moon, disdained by
the sun, is nothing more nor less than an old maid, as we mortals say.
And it is for this reason that, with its timid light, it fills us with
hopes that cannot be realized, and desires that cannot be fulfilled.
All that we vainly and dimly wait and hope for upon this earth,
works in our hearts like mysterious but powerless sap, beneath the
pale rays of the moon. When we raise our eyes to it, we quiver with
inexpressible tenderness and are thrilled by impossible dreams!
[Illustration 032]
The narrow crescent, a mere thread of gold, now dipped its keen
gleaming point in the water, and gradually plunged gently and slowly
till the other point, so delicate that I could not detect the moment of
its vanishing, had also disappeared.
Then, I raised my eyes towards the inn. The lighted window was closed.
A dull melancholy crushed my heart, and I went below.
[1]
Then it was the fair age of balminess and breezes.
The moon became peopled with living whispers;
She had bottomless seas and numberless rivers,
Flocks, cities, tears, and cries full of joy,
She had love; she had her arts, her laws, her gods,
Then slowly sank back into darkness.
[2]
'Twas in the dusky night,
Above the yellowed steeple,
Stood the moon
Like a dot on an I.
By what sombre spirit
Is thy face or profile,
Swung as from a thread
Through the shadows of the sky?
[3]
Alone above the seas, the wandering moon
Lets fall her silver tears in the black billows.
[4]
"With a lily in each hand she came,
The slanting beam her pathway.
[5]
Alone the pale moon parting the clouds
Like a gloomy lamp, sadly oscillates
Dumb world, marked by a sign of anger,
Fragment of a dead globe dispersed at haphazard,
She let fall from her frozen orb
A sepulchral reflection on a polar ocean.
[6]
And, to take her place, one awakens
A ray of moonlight asleep on the bench.
[7]
And Ruth, motionless,
Asked herself, as she opened her half-closed eye under her veil,
What God, what reaper of the eternal summer,
Had negligently thrown as he passed by
This golden sickle in the starry field.
[8]
Night fell, all was hushed; the torches died out
Under the darkening woods, the springs lament.
The nightingale, hidden in its shady nest,
Sang like a poet and like a lover.
In the depths of the dark foliage all dispersed,
The madcaps laughing carried off the wise,
The fair one disappeared in the gloom with her lover
And with the vague trouble of some dream
They felt by degrees intermingled with their souls,
With their secret thoughts, with their glances of flame,
With their hearts, their senses, with their yielding reason
The blue moonlight that bathed the vast horizon.
[Illustration 033]
_April 10th._
No sooner had I lain down than I felt sleep was impossible, and I
remained lying on my back with my eyes closed, my thoughts on the
alert, and all my nerves quivering. Not a motion, not a sound, near
or far, nothing but the breathing of the two sailors through the thin
bulkhead, could be heard.
Suddenly, something grated. What was it? I know not. Some block in the
rigging, no doubt; but the tone--tender, plaintive, and mournful--of
the sound sent a thrill through me; then nothing more. An infinite
silence seemed to spread from the earth to the stars; nothing more--not
a breath, not a shiver on the water, not a vibration of the yacht,
nothing; and then again the slight and unrecognisable moan recommenced.
It seemed to me as I listened, as though a jagged blade were sawing at
my heart. Just as certain noises, certain notes, certain voices harrow
us, and in one second pour into our soul all it can contain of sorrow,
desperation, and anguish. I listened expectantly, and heard it again,
the identical sound which now seemed to emanate from my own self,--to
be wrung out of my nerves,--or rather, to resound in a secret, deep,
and desolate cry. Yes, it was a cruel though familiar voice, a voice
expected, and full of desperation. It passed over me with its weird
and feeble tones as an uncanny thing, sowing broadcast the appalling
terrors of delirium, for it had power to awake the horrible distress
which lies slumbering, in the inmost heart of every living man. What
was it? It was the voice ringing with reproaches which tortures our
soul, clamouring ceaselessly, obscure, painful, harassing; a voice,
unappeasable and mysterious, which will not be ignored; ferocious in
its reproaches for what we have done, as well as what we have left
undone; the voice of remorse and useless regrets for the days gone by,
and the women unloved; for the joys that were vain, and the hopes that
are dead; the voice of the past, of all that has disappointed us, has
fled and disappeared for ever, of what we have not, nor shall ever
attain; the small shrill voice which ever proclaims the failure of our
life, the uselessness of our efforts, the impotence of our minds, and
the weakness of our flesh.
It spoke to me in that short whisper, recommencing after each dismal
silence of the dark night, it spoke of all I would have loved, of all
that I had vaguely desired, expected, dreamt of; all that I would
have longed to see, to understand, to know, to taste, all that my
insatiable, poor, and weak spirit had touched upon with a useless hope,
all that, towards which it had been tempted to soar, without being able
to tear asunder, the chains of ignorance that held it.
Ah! I have coveted all, and delighted in nothing. I should have
required the vitality of a whole race, the varying intelligence, all
the faculties, all the powers scattered among all beings, and thousands
of existences in reserve; for I bear within myself every desire and
every curiosity, and I am compelled to see all, and grasp nothing.
From whence, therefore, arises this anguish at living, since to the
generality of men it only brings satisfaction? Wherefore this unknown
torture, which preys upon me? Why should I not know the reality of
pleasure, expectation, and possession?
It is because I carry within me that second sight, which is at the same
time the power and despair of writers. I write because I understand and
suffer from all that is, because I know it too well, and above all,
because without being able to enjoy it, I contemplate it inwardly in
the mirror of my thoughts.
Let no one envy, but rather pity us, for in the following manner does
the literary man, differ from his fellow-creatures.
For him no simple feeling any longer exists. All he sees, his joys,
his pleasures, his suffering, his despair, all instantaneously become
subjects of observation. In spite of all, in spite of himself, he
analyses everything, hearts, faces, gestures, intonations. As soon as
he has seen, whatever it may be, he must know the wherefore. He has
not a spark of enthusiasm, not a cry, not a kiss that is spontaneous,
not one instantaneous action done merely because it must be done,
unconsciously, without reflection, without understanding, without
noting it down afterwards.
If he suffers, he notes down his suffering, and classes it in his
memory; he says to himself as he leaves the cemetery, where he has left
the being he has loved most in the world: "It is curious what I felt;
it was like an intoxication of pain, etc...." And then he recalls all
the details, the attitude of those near him, the discordant gestures of
feigned grief, the insincere faces, and a thousand little insignificant
trifles noted by the artistic observation,--the sign of the cross made
by an old woman leading a child, a ray of light through a window, a dog
that crossed the funeral procession, the effect of the hearse under
the tall yew trees in the cemetery, the face of the undertaker and
its muscular contractions, the strain of the four men who lowered the
coffin into the grave, a thousand things in fact that a poor fellow
suffering with all his heart, soul and strength, would never have
noticed.
[Illustration 034]
He has seen all, noticed all, remembered all, in spite of himself,
because he is above all a literary man, and his intellect is
constructed in such a manner, that the reverberation in him is much
more vivid, more natural, so to speak, than the first shock, the echo
more sonorous, than the original sound.
He seems to have two souls, one that notes, explains, comments each
sensation of its neighbour, the natural soul common to all men, and
he lives condemned to be the mere reflection of himself or others;
condemned to look on, and see himself feel, act, love, think, suffer,
and never be free like the rest of mankind; simply, genially, frankly,
without analysing his own soul after every joy, and every agony.
If he converses, his words often wear the air of slander, and that only
because his thoughts are clear-sighted, and that he cannot refrain
from investigating the secret springs, which regulate the feelings and
actions of others.
If he writes, he cannot refrain from throwing into his books all
that he has seen, all he has gathered, all he knows; he makes no
exception in favour of friends or relations, but he pitilessly
lays bare the hearts of those he loves or has loved, with a
cruel impartiality,--exaggerating even to make the effect more
powerful,--wholly absorbed by his work, and in no wise by his
affections.
And if he loves, if he loves a woman, he will dissect her, as he
would a corpse in a hospital. All she says, all she does, is instantly
weighed in the delicate scales of observation, which he carries within
him, and is docketed according to its documentary importance. If in
an unpremeditated impulse she throws herself on his neck, he will
judge the action, considering its opportuneness, its correctness, its
dramatic power, and will tacitly condemn it, if he feels it artificial,
or badly done.
Actor and spectator of himself and of others, he is never solely an
actor, like the good folk who take life easily. Everything around him
becomes transparent, hearts, deeds, secret intentions; and he suffers
from a strange malady, a kind of duality of the mind, that makes of him
a terribly vibrating and complicated piece of machinery, fatiguing even
to himself.
Owing to his peculiarly morbid sensibility, he is no happier than one
flayed alive, to whom nearly every sensation becomes a torture.
I can remember dark days, in which my heart was so lacerated by things
I had only caught sight of for a second, that the memory of those
visions, has remained within me like grievous wounds.
One morning, in the Avenue de l'Opéra, in the midst of a stirring and
joyous crowd, intoxicated with the sunlight of the month of May, I
suddenly caught sight of a creature, for whom one could find no name,
an old woman bent double, dressed in tatters that had been garments,
with an old straw bonnet stripped of its former ornaments, the ribbons
and flowers having disappeared in times immemorial. And she went by,
dragging her feet along so painfully, that I felt in my heart, as much
as she did, more than she could, the aching pain of each of her steps.
Two sticks supported her. She passed along without seeing anyone,
indifferent to all--to the noise, the crowd, the carriages and the sun!
Where was she going? She carried something in a paper parcel hanging
by a string. What was it? Bread? Yes, without a doubt. Nobody, no
neighbour had been able or willing to do this errand for her, and she
had undertaken herself, the terrible journey from her garret to the
baker. At least two hours must she spend, going and coming. And what a
mournful struggle! Surely as fearful a road, as that of Christ on his
way to Calvary!
I raised my eyes towards the roofs of the tall houses. She was going up
there! When would she get there? How many panting pauses on the steps,
in the little stairway so black and winding?
Every one turned round to look at her! They murmured "Poor woman!"
and passed on. Her skirt, her rag of a skirt hardly holding to her
dilapidated body, draggled over the pavement. And there was a mind
there! A mind? No, but fearful, incessant, harassing suffering! Oh,
the misery of the aged without bread, the aged without hope, without
children, without money, with nothing before them but death; do we
ever think of it? Do we ever think of the aged famished creatures in
the garrets? Do we think of the tears shed by those dimmed eyes, once
bright, joyous, full of happy emotion.
[Illustration 035]
Another time, it was raining, I was alone, shooting in the plains of
Normandy, plodding through the deep-ploughed fields of greasy mud,
that melted and slipped under my feet. From time to time, a partridge
overtaken, hiding behind a clod of earth, flew off heavily through the
downpour. The report of my gun, smothered by the sheet of water that
fell from the skies, hardly sounded louder than the crack of a whip,
and the grey bird fell, its feathers bespattered with blood.
[Illustration 036]
I felt sad unto tears, tears as plentiful as the showers that were
weeping over the world, and over me; my heart was filled with sadness
and I was overcome with fatigue, so that I could hardly raise my feet,
heavily coated as they were with the clay soil. I was returning home
when I saw in the middle of the fields, the doctor's gig following a
cross-road.
The low black carriage was passing along, covered by its round hood and
drawn by a brown horse, like an omen of death wandering through the
country on this sinister day. Suddenly, it pulled up, the Doctor's head
made its appearance, and he called out:
"Here."