Ganymede for the garments of her own sex, is recognized by her father
as his daughter, by Orlando as his mistress: the god Hymen arrives with
his saffron-colored livery and his legitimate torches.--Three weddings
take place.--Orlando marries Rosalind, Phœbe Sylvius, and the clown
Touchstone the artless Audrey.--Then the epilogue has its say and the
curtain falls.
All this has interested us exceedingly and engrossed our minds; there
was, in a certain sense, a play within the play, a drama invisible
to the other spectators and unsuspected by them, which we played for
ourselves alone, and which, in symbolic phrases, summed up our whole
lives and expressed our most secret desires.--Except for Rosalind's
strange prescription I should be sicker than ever, having not even
a distant hope of cure, and I should have continued to wander sadly
through the winding paths of the dark forest.
And yet I have only a moral certainty; I lack proofs and I can remain
no longer in this state of uncertainty; I absolutely must speak to
Théodore in more definite terms. I have approached him twenty times
with a sentence ready on my lips, but have not succeeded in saying it
to him--I dare not; I have many opportunities to speak to him alone,
either in the park or in my room, or in his, for he comes to see me
and I go to see him, but I let them pass without profiting by them,
although the next moment I feel a mortal regret and fly into a terrible
rage with myself. I open my mouth, and in spite of all I can do,
other words take the places of the words I intended to say; instead
of declaring my love, I discourse upon the rain, the fine weather or
some other similarly stupid subject. And the season is drawing to a
close and soon we shall return to the town; the facilities which
present themselves according to my wishes here will be renewed nowhere
else:--perhaps we shall lose sight of each other and opposite currents
will carry us in opposite directions, I doubt not.
The free and easy life of the country is such a delightful and
convenient thing! the trees, even though the foliage is not quite so
dense in the autumn, afford such delicious shade for the reveries
of nascent love! it is difficult to resist the lovely natural
surroundings! the birds sing so languorously, the flowers give forth
such intoxicating odors, the turf is so soft and so golden on the
hillsides! Solitude inspires countless voluptuous thoughts which the
hurly-burly of the world would have scattered here and there, and the
instinctive impulse of two creatures who hear their hearts beat in
the silence of a deserted country-side, is to entwine their arms more
tightly and to cleave to each other as if they were in truth the only
living creatures in the world.
I took a walk this morning; the air was soft and damp, not the
slightest particle of blue sky could be seen, and yet it was neither
dark nor threatening. Two or three different shades of pearl-gray,
harmoniously blended, enveloped the sky from horizon to horizon, and
against that vaporous background fleecy clouds floated slowly like
great pieces of wadding; they were impelled by the dying breath of
a light breeze, hardly strong enough to move the tops of the most
restless aspens: patches of mist rose between the tall chestnuts and
indicated the course of the stream in the distance. When the breeze
took breath once more, a few dry red leaves blew excitedly about and
ran along the path before me like swarms of timid sparrows; then as
the breeze fell, they subsided a few steps farther on: a true image
of those winds that one mistakes for birds flying freely with wings
outspread, but which are, after all, naught but leaves withered by
the morning frost, which the slightest passing breeze takes for its
plaything and its sport.
Distant points were so blurred by vapors, and the fringes of the
horizon tapered away so on the edges, that it was hardly possible to
tell where the sky began and the earth ended: a little darker gray,
a little denser haze, indicated vaguely the separation and dividing
line between the two. Through that curtain, the willows with their
ashen heads seemed more like spectral trees than real trees; the
irregularities of the hills resembled rather the undulations of a
mass of heaped-up clouds than the lay of solid ground. The outlines
of objects trembled as you looked at them, and a sort of gray woof of
indescribable fineness, like a spider's web, stretched between the
foreground of the landscape and the receding depths of the atmosphere;
in shaded places the lines stood out much more clearly, and allowed the
meshes of the net to be seen; where the light was brighter, the streak
of mist was imperceptible and lost itself in a diffused light. There
was in the air something drowsy, something warm and soft and dull that
predisposed one strangely to melancholy.
As I walked I reflected that autumn had come for me also, and that the
radiant summer had passed, never to return; the tree of my mind was
even more stripped of its leaves perhaps than the trees in the forest;
hardly one tiny green leaf remained on the topmost branch, swaying to
and fro and trembling, all sad to see its sisters leave it one by one.
Remain upon the tree, O little leaf of the color of hope, cling to the
branch with all the strength of thy nerves and fibres; be not alarmed
by the whistling of the wind, O dear little leaf! for when thou hast
left me, who will be able to distinguish whether I am a dead or living
tree, and who will prevent the wood-cutter from cutting through my foot
with his axe and making firewood of my branches?--It is not yet the
time when the trees shed all their leaves, and the sun may still throw
off the swaddling-clothes of mist that surround it.
The spectacles of the dying season made a deep impression upon me. I
reflected that time was passing swiftly and that I might die without
having pressed my ideal to my heart.
When I returned to my room I had formed a resolution.--As I cannot make
up my mind to speak, I wrote my whole destiny upon a slip of paper.--It
is absurd perhaps to write to a person who is living in the same house
with yourself, whom you can see every day, at any hour; but I am beyond
caring whether it is absurd or not.
I sealed my letter, not without trembling and changing color; then,
selecting a moment when Théodore had gone out, I placed it in the
middle of his table and fled, as disturbed as if I had committed a most
outrageous act.
[Footnote 1: _As You Like It._]
[Footnote 2: The last word in this quotation, which justifies the
succeeding epithets, is not in the English version of the play.]
XII
I promised you the sequel of my adventures; but really I am so sluggish
about writing that I must love you as the apple of my eye and know you
to be more curious than Eve or Psyche, to place myself in front of a
table with a huge sheet of white paper which I must make black, and
an inkstand deeper than the sea, each drop in which is destined to
turn into thoughts, or at least into something resembling thoughts,
without forming a sudden resolution to mount my horse and ride at full
speed the eighty endless leagues that lie between us, in order to tell
you _viva voce_ what I propose to write in imperceptible fly-tracks,
so that I may not be dismayed myself by the prodigious volume of my
_picaresque_ odyssey.
Eighty leagues! to think that there is all that space between myself
and the person I love best in the world!--I have an intense longing to
tear up my letter and order my horse to be saddled.--But I will think
no more of it--with the clothes I am wearing, I could not approach you
and resume the familiar life we led together when we were very artless
and innocent little girls; if ever I go back to my petticoats it will
certainly be for that purpose.
I left you, I believe, as we were leaving the inn where I passed
such an amusing night and where my virtue thought it was going to be
shipwrecked upon leaving the harbor.--We rode away together, going in
the same direction.--My companions went into ecstasies over the beauty
of my horse, which is a thoroughbred and one of the fastest horses
in the world;--that fact increased my stature at least half a cubit
in their estimation, and they added the merits of my steed to my own
merits.--They seemed to be afraid, however, that he was too frisky and
high-spirited for me.--I told them they need have no fear, and to show
them that there was no danger I made him prance and curvet--then I
jumped a wall of considerable height and put him at a gallop.
The party tried in vain to overtake me; I turned when I was some
distance ahead of them and rode back at full speed; just before I
met them, I checked my horse when all four feet were in the air and
stopped him short: which is, as you may or may not know, a genuine
feat.
From esteem they passed without transition to the most profound
respect. They did not suspect that a young student, recently graduated
from the University, was so accomplished a horseman as that. That
discovery served me better than if they had discovered in me all the
cardinal virtues; instead of treating me as a boy, they addressed in a
tone of obsequious familiarity that pleased me.
In laying aside my clothing, I had not laid aside my pride:--being
a woman no longer, I determined to be a thorough man and not to
be content to have simply the external appearance of one.--I had
determined to achieve as a cavalier, the triumphs I could no longer
aspire to as a woman. What disturbed me most was to ascertain how I
should set about procuring a stock of courage; for courage and skill in
bodily exercises are the means by which a man most easily establishes
a reputation. It is not that I am timid for a woman, and I have not
the idiotic pusillanimity that we see in some women; but it is a long
distance to the reckless, fierce brutality that is the glory of the
men, and it was my intention to become a young blood, a swash-buckler,
like my gentlemen of the upper circles, in order to secure a good
footing in society and to enjoy all the advantages of my metamorphosis.
But I saw in the sequel that nothing was easier and that the receipt
was of the simplest.
I will not tell you, according to the custom of travellers, that I made
so many leagues on such a day, that I went from this place to another
place, that the roast meat I ate at the Cheval-Blanc or Croix-de-Fer
inn was raw or burned; that the wine was sour and the bed I slept in
had curtains with flowered or figured designs: those are very important
details which should be preserved for posterity; but posterity will
have to do without them this time, and you must resign yourself to
be left in ignorance of the number of dishes of which my dinner was
composed, and whether I slept well or ill during my wanderings. Nor
shall I give you an accurate description of the different landscapes,
the fields of grain, the forests, the various crops and the hillsides
covered with villages which have passed successively before my eyes;
those things are easily imagined; take a little earth, plant a few
trees and a few blades of grass, daub behind it all a bit of gray or
pale-blue sky, and you will have a very adequate idea of the changing
background against which our little caravan moved on.--If I went into
some details of this nature in my first letter, pray excuse me, I will
not fall into the same error again: as I had never been abroad before,
the most trivial things seemed to me of vast importance.
One of the party, my bedfellow, he whose sleeve I came so near pulling
on the memorable night whose agonies I have described to you at length,
conceived an ardent passion for me and kept his horse beside mine all
the time.
With the exception that I would not have taken him for a lover even
if he had brought me the fairest crown on earth, I did not find him
particularly disagreeable; he was well-informed and lacked neither wit
nor good-humor: but, when he spoke of women, it was in a disdainful,
ironical tone, for which I could readily have torn the eyes out of his
head, especially as there were many things in what he said that were
cruelly true, although exaggerated, and my male costume compelled me to
acknowledge their accuracy.
He asked me so urgently and so persistently to go with him to see
one of his sisters, who was just at the end of her mourning for her
husband, and was at that moment living with an aunt in an old chateau,
that I could not refuse.--I made some objections for form's sake,
for in reality I was as ready to go there as anywhere, and I could
attain my object in that way as well as any other; and as he told me
that he should take it very ill of me if I did not give him at least
a fortnight, I answered that I would gladly do so, and that it was a
bargain.
At a fork in the road, my friend said to me, pointing to the right arm
of the natural Y: "That is our road."--The others shook hands with us
and went in the other direction.
After riding for some hours we reached our destination.
A ditch of considerable width, but filled with dense and abundant
vegetation instead of water, separated the park from the high road; the
walls were of a hewn stone and, at the angles, bristled with gigantic
iron artichokes and thistles which seemed to have grown like natural
plants between the disjointed blocks of the wall; a small bridge of a
single arch crossed this dry canal and led to the park gate.
An avenue of tall elms, rounded like a cradle-top and trimmed in the
old style, was the first thing I saw; and after following it for some
time, we came to a sort of circular clearing.
The trees had the appearance of being old-fashioned rather than old;
they seemed to wear wigs and to be powdered; only a little circle of
foliage had been preserved at the top of their heads; all the rest
was carefully pruned, so that you might have taken them for plumes of
abnormal size stuck in the ground at regular intervals.
Having crossed the clearing, which was covered with fine grass
carefully rolled, we had to pass under another curious arrangement of
foliage adorned with pots of fire, pyramids, and columns of a rustic
order, all done by skilful handling of scissors and sickles in a great
clump of boxwood.--Through different vistas you could see, at the right
and left, a half-ruined chateau, the moss-covered stairway of a dry
cascade, or it might be a vase or a statue of a nymph or a shepherd
with nose and fingers broken and with doves perching on the head and
shoulders.
A large flower-garden on the French plan was laid out in front of
the chateau; all the squares were marked out with holly and box with
absolute symmetry; it had quite as much the appearance of a carpet as
of a garden: huge flowers in ball-dresses with majestic carriage and
serene expression, like duchesses preparing to dance a minuet, bent
their heads slightly as you passed. Others, apparently less courteous,
stood straight and stiff, like dowagers embroidering. Shrubs of all
possible shapes, excepting always their natural shape, round, square,
pointed, triangular, in green and gray boxes, seemed to march in
procession along the broad avenue and to lead you by the hand to the
first steps of the entrance.
A few turrets, half surrounded by more recent buildings, towered
above the roof-line of the main structure to the height of their
slate-covered, extinguisher-like peaks, and their zinc vanes, cut in
the shape of swallows' tails, bore witness to an honorable antiquity.
The windows of the central building all opened upon a common balcony
with an iron balustrade of elaborate workmanship and great beauty, and
the other windows were set in stone frames with carved ciphers and
figures.
Four or five huge dogs ran out, barking at the top of their lungs and
leaping wildly about. They gambolled around the horses and jumped at
their noses: they paid especial attention to my companion's horse,
which they probably visited frequently in the stable or accompanied on
the road.
All this uproar finally called out a sort of valet, half laborer, half
groom, who took our horses by the reins and led them away.--I had not
as yet seen a living being except a little peasant girl, timid and wild
as a deer, who ran away at sight of us and crouched in a furrow behind
some hemp, although we called her several times and did everything in
our power to reassure her.
No one appeared at the windows; you would have said the chateau was
uninhabited, or that its only occupants were spirits; for not the
slightest sound could be heard outside.
We were beginning to ascend the steps, making considerable noise with
our spurs, for our legs were a little tired, when we heard a sound as
of doors opening and shutting within, as if some one were hurrying to
meet us.
In a moment a young woman appeared at the top of the steps, rushed
down to my companion and threw herself on his neck. He kissed her very
affectionately and, putting his arm about her waist, lifted her up and
carried her so to the landing.
"Do you know that you are very amiable and gallant for a brother, my
dear Alcibiades?--Surely, monsieur, it is altogether useless for me
to tell you that he's my brother, for he really does not stand on
ceremony?" said the young woman, turning to me.
To which I replied that it was possible to misinterpret his actions,
and that it was in a certain sense a misfortune to be her brother and
thus to be excluded from the category of her adorers; that, as for
myself, if I were her brother, I should be at once the unhappiest and
the happiest cavalier on earth."--Whereat she smiled sweetly.
Conversing thus we entered a hall, the walls of which were hung with
high warp Flemish tapestry.--Tall trees with pointed leaves were
covered with flocks of fanciful birds; the colors, faded by time,
presented strange transpositions of shades; the sky was green, the
trees royal blue with yellow streaks, and in the draperies of the
figures the shadow was often of a directly opposite color to that
of the background of the material;--the flesh resembled wood, and
the nymphs walking under the faded shadows of the forest looked
like unswathed mummies; their mouths alone, which had retained
their original purple tint, smiled with an appearance of life. In
the foreground were tall plants of a strange shade of green with
great striped flowers, whose pistils resembled a peacock's crest.
Sober-faced, pensive herons, their heads buried in their shoulders,
their long beaks resting on their swollen crops, stood philosophically
on one of their slim legs, in stagnant, black water, streaked with
lines of tarnished silver; through the vistas in the foliage, one could
see in the distance small chateaux with turrets like pepper-boxes
and balconies crowded with lovely women in grand attire, watching
processions or hunting-parties pass.
Fantastically-jagged rocks, over which foamed torrents of white wool,
blended insensibly with fleecy clouds at the horizon line.
One of the things that impressed me most was the figure of a huntress
shooting a bird.--Her open fingers had just released the string, and
the arrow had flown; but as that part of the tapestry was in a corner,
the arrow was on the other wall, having described a great curve; as
for the bird, he was flying away on motionless wings and seemed to be
headed for a neighboring branch.
That feathered arrow, armed with a golden tip, always in the air and
never reaching its destination, had a most curious effect; it was
like a melancholy, sorrowful symbol of human destiny, and the more I
looked at it the more mysterious and sinister meanings I discovered
in it.--The huntress stood there, her foot put forward, her leg
bent, her eye with its silken lid wide open, and yet unable to see
her arrow which had deviated from its path; she seemed to be looking
anxiously for the flamingo with the gorgeous plumage, that she desired
to bring down and expected to see fall at her feet, pierced through
and through.--I do not know whether it is an error on the part of my
imagination, but I detected upon that face an expression as forlorn and
desperate as that of a poet who dies without having written the work
upon which he expected to found his reputation, and who is seized with
the pitiless death-rattle just as he is trying to dictate it.
I have written at great length about this tapestry, at greater length
certainly than it deserves;--but the fanciful world created by those
who work on the high warp has always had a strange fascination for me.
I am passionately fond of the imaginary vegetation, the flowers and
plants that have no real existence, the forests of strange trees
peopled with unicorns, _caprimulgæ_. and snow-white stags with a
golden crucifix between their horns, generally pursued by red-bearded
huntsmen in the costumes of Saracens.
When I was small I hardly ever entered a room hung with tapestry
without a sort of shudder, and I hardly dared move.
All those figures standing against the wall, to which the undulation
of the material and the play of the light imparted a sort of fantastic
life, seemed to me like so many spies watching my actions in order to
report them at the proper time and place, and I would not have eaten a
stolen apple or cake in their presence.
What tales those solemn creatures would have to tell if they could open
their red silk lips, and if sounds could penetrate the drum of their
embroidered ears. Of how many murders, treasons, infamous adulteries
and monstrous deeds of all sorts have they been silent, impassive
witnesses!--
But let us leave the tapestry and return to our story.
"Alcibiades, I will go and tell my aunt of your arrival."
"Oh! there's no hurry about that, sister; let us sit down and talk a
little while first. Allow me to introduce my young friend Théodore de
Sérannes, who will pass some time here. I do not need to urge you to
make him welcome;--he is his own sufficient recommendation."--I tell
you what he said; do not be in a hurry to accuse me of self-conceit.--
The young lady nodded slightly as if in assent, and we talked of other
things.
As we talked I made a more detailed and more careful examination of her
than I had been able to do before.
She seemed to be some twenty-three or twenty-four years old and her
mourning was most becoming to her; to tell the truth, her manner was
not very lugubrious or desolate and I suspect that she had eaten the
ashes of her Mausolus in her soup by way of rhubarb.--I do not know
whether she had grieved overmuch for her defunct spouse; if she had
done it, she hardly showed it now, at all events, and the pretty
cambric handkerchief she had in her hand was as perfectly dry as
possible.
Her eyes were not red, on the contrary they were the clearest and
brightest eyes in the world, and you would have sought in vain on her
cheeks the furrow through which tears had flowed; indeed, there was
nothing there save two little dimples formed by the habit of smiling,
and it is fair to say that, for a widow, she displayed her teeth very
frequently; and it was certainly not an unpleasant spectacle, for they
were small and even. I esteemed her, first of all, for not having felt
obliged, just because some poor devil of a husband had died, to blacken
her eyes and make her nose red: I was grateful to her also for not
affecting any little mournful airs and for talking naturally with her
silvery, ringing voice, without dragging out her words and interlarding
her sentences with virtuous sighs.
It seemed to me in extremely good taste; I set her down at once as a
woman of intelligence, which she is in fact.
She was well built, with a foot and hand well suited to her figure; her
black dress was arranged with all possible coquetry and so daintily
that you entirely forgot the lugubriousness of the color, and she might
have gone to a ball in that costume without causing any remark. If I
ever marry and am left a widow, I shall ask her for a pattern of her
dress, for she looks like an angel in it.
After some little talk, we went up to the old aunt's room.
We found her sitting in a great easy-chair with a sloping back,
a little stool under her feet and beside her an old blear-eyed,
ugly-looking dog, who raised his black muzzle when we appeared and
welcomed us with a far from amiable growl.