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diff --git a/78206-0.txt b/78206-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1aeb74c --- /dev/null +++ b/78206-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3606 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78206 *** + + + + + Transcriber’s Note + Italic text displayed as: _italic_ + + + + +MR. ANTIPHILOS, SATYR + + + + + MR. ANTIPHILOS, SATYR + + By REMY DE GOURMONT + + TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH + _By_ JOHN HOWARD + + WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + JACK LEWIS + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + LIEBER & LEWIS + _MCMXXII_ + + + + + Copyright, 1922, + By LIEBER & LEWIS + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +_Contents_ + + + MR. ANTIPHILOS, SATYR + + Introduction 9 + + To the Amazon 27 + + Apparition 43 + + La Fosca 57 + + The Afternoon of a Faun 73 + + Cydalise 85 + + Metamorphosis 95 + + The Cell 107 + + The Satyr! The Satyr! 119 + + Fennel Water 131 + + Erebus 143 + + Diogenes 155 + + Déidamie 167 + + The Cluster of Grapes 179 + + The Unknown Woman 193 + + Flight 205 + + + COLORS + + Blue 219 + + Zinzoline 239 + + White 259 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +In an age when democratic ideas, levelling processes and the +popularization of thought are in vogue, the phenomenon of a Remy de +Gourmont emphasizing the aristocratic virtues, drawing attention to the +perfect detachment demanded by literature and art, makes one pause as +though transported to a different world, to a less nervous existence. + +Gourmont, the aristocrat of letters, the thinker who could shrug his +shoulders amusedly at current acceptances of progress, modernity and +evolution, never for an instant ceased battling for a more discriminate +attitude towards life and letters. He permitted none of his carefully +reared mansions of the intellect to be sullied by aught that could not +pass the tests of “relative” truth and sincerity,—the very truth and +sincerity which the delightful dissociator of ideas loved to mock, when +the whim seized him. His was the mechanism of a brain “heedless to +please other than by the originality of thought and charm of style.” + +It matters not what subject Gourmont attacks or woos. He can be +depended upon to take a view the opposite of the conventionally +accepted one. Whether the subject under treatment be women, art, +religion, style or customs, his piercing mind shrewdly discovers the +accumulations of prejudice and stupidity, scrapes off the patina of +rust from the medals of time. + +He has said: “I do not love prisons of any sort.” His whole life was +a fight for intellectual freedom, waged in the seclusion of his study +with his army of ideas continually engaged against the enemy. He +early found that the only fruitful research was the research of the +non-true. This quest occupied him during his lifetime. + +He achieved this by the methods of paradox and dissociation. Yet, after +having seen himself praised or blamed for this first quality, he felt +free to disclaim the gift. “I have done wrong,” he writes, “to give the +impression to the malicious that my mind has a turn for the paradox. +I never pursued it deliberately. Besides, I do not pretend to dictate +judgments concerning me. A mind of any toughness will always seem +paradoxical to timorous spirits.” + +Gourmont’s individualism was pronounced to an unusual degree. +Individualism with most men is usually a rhetorically graceful gesture, +a toying attitude, a hesitant attempt at sincerity hindered by the +fear of public opprobrium; there are always the consequences of +social ostracism or worse. It leads effectually to antinomianism, the +violation of ethical codes. It becomes a harmless pose, belied by +the very words or acts of those who profess it as the basis of their +lives. Gourmont’s sincerity is testified by the tough boldness, the +crystal consistency of his writings. The best way, he always believed, +to ennoble the world is by self-development. “True charity is the act +of the conscious man living according to his own personality and the +rules of his inner and individual logic. Such a man gives what he has +and is.... He offers only the natural opulence of a generous egotism, +conforming to the divine rhythm and adequate to the divine movements.” +And the world would be much better for all, he writes elsewhere, if one +admitted the idea that society is made for the individual and not the +individual for society. “The individual is the important thing.” + +The rich diversity of life made him realize how useless it was to +attempt to be oracular, to utter the indisputable, final truths of +the master. No two leaves are alike; no two human beings are alike. +This premise led to his indifference to absolutes, to the doctrines +with which men like to be fooled and entertained. He began and +ended with the idealistic, Schopenhaurian formula: “the world is my +representation.” Not what is, but what seems to be, seen through the +lens of my mind, is what I can depend upon. It followed, as a matter +of course, that he could be lenient toward many points of view, and +his Catholicism of mind is seen to advantage in _The Book of Masks_ +where he has enthusiastic, appreciative words for writers united by +nothing but the name of “Symbolisme.” A further corollary was the +need of tolerance to other men’s truths. But some truths are absurd. +Shall I, Remy de Gourmont, be receptive to ugliness and hypocrisy? A +puzzling problem! Either I must be receptive to all perceptions, good +or bad, all beliefs, sincere or dissembled, or I must be suspicious of +everything. Irony and pity are the roads to freedom. What is the use of +being bellicose and vengeful toward what, in the end, does not matter? +So, in his most serious onslaughts, there is something of the amused +playboy. + +One cannot help admiring his eclecticism. He saw that symbolism was +but a loose name joining many diverse talents. He took pains to show +that the popularly accepted meaning of decadence is pure trash, +since it is applied to writers whose virtues of originality and +creativeness contradict the true meaning of a down-hill movement, of +imitation and conceited artificiality. He had a good word, the proper +word invariably, for the mysticism of Maeterlinck, the obscurity of +Mallarmé’s ineffable poems, the clanging strength of Verhaeren, the +velvety dreaminess of Samain, the startling genius of Rimbaud, the +anti-democratic idealism of Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, the paganism of +Louys, the jeweled fatuity of Montesquiou. He permitted no hard and +fast rules to interfere with the sensitive apparatus of his mind. +Receptivity was a prerequisite. As a result, he is a critic sympathetic +to the core, appreciative of all works partaking of distinction and +charm. + +He has given French literature something new. Never before has there +been anything like his novels, where the brilliant youths “denude +themselves with a proud candor.” All his characters are expressions +of the complete life of a superior brain; they have one thing in +common, scepticism. But as André de Fresnois says, it is “a scepticism +necessitated by the richness of an infinitely supple sensibility, and +not the frozen scepticism of a worldly lecturer; a scepticism that is +disdain, pity, intelligence especially, and not impotence.” + +Amy Lowell speaks of his preoccupation with sex which has robbed his +books, she thinks, of the large view they might have had, and says that +he is therefore one for whom English readers will have little sympathy. +Whether true or not, it is beside the question of art. Sincerity first, +is his credo. In a brief essay on “The Role of Art,” he writes: + + “Art has a special and altogether egotistic end: it is an end in + itself. It does not willingly assume any mission, whether religious, + social, or moral. It is humanity’s supreme game; it is the sign of + man; it affirms the divine; it tends to depart from contingencies; + it desires to be free, useless, absurd, that is to say in disaccord + with the very forces of nature which hold man in a narrow servitude.” + +And as “art is not made for the people nor the people for art,” and +further, as “art is a perpetual exception,” he felt himself free to +create men who console themselves for their inability to harmonize +their thoughts with the workaday world, by trifling, delicate love +affairs. But his characters turn away weariedly even from their +_amours_. That is a preoccupation with coarseness which his sensitive +creations cannot long endure. They are martyrs to their ideas, men who +have sought happiness so long and uselessly that they abandon the quest +as hopeless and betake themselves to art and _café_ conversations. His +men reflect so much that they cannot act. Gourmont makes one of his +persons say: “Although I may be the dupe of my pride, I much prefer +this to being the dupe of my feelings.” + +They have personality, but no character, amoral beings reflecting +the complexity of Gourmont himself. “I do not wish to believe, to +suffer, to be happy, to be duped. I regard, I observe, I judge, I +smile.” Yes, it is a tired smile his imaginary personages have, a +smile of disillusionment from knowing too much, a smile of mingled +helplessness and power. It is because they live in their fortresses of +thought and are so helpless when they wish to transfer their ideas to +life. Each one, like his creator, inhabits a _tour d’ivoire_. Thought +is so fertile in possibilities that his characters live a complete +life within their brains, and like Des Esseintes, in Huysman’s _A +Rebours_, have a contemptuous disgust for the compromises of the world. +But unlike Des Esseintes, they _will_ wander from their elaborately +constructed esthetic prisons. The Gourmontian characters are strong +when detached from life and the need to act; they have recourse to +brilliant talk that scintillates with cynicism and conceals their +childish incapacity to meet the world on its own terms. + +His men are hurled into abysms of doubt through their superior +sophistication. Hubert D’Entragues devotes himself by taste, rather +than need, to the craft of letters, and spends his mornings developing +elaborate sequence poems after the manner of the medieval latinists, +inventing situations for imaginary characters, constructing a +symbolistic novel to parallel his futile love affair with Sixtine, +the young widow. He lives for himself; the world does not exist; like +Gourmont, he is a philosophic idealist. But the ghost of contradiction +leaves its shroud and haunts the exquisite scorner. He confides his +doubts to a friend: + + “We are not mummers and applause does not make us blush with joy. + But if we write neither for universal suffrage nor to earn money, we + become truly incomprehensible.” + + “Write for your mistress.” + + “I have none.” + + “Write for Botticelli’s Madonna.” + + “That is what I am doing.” + +Truly an unsatisfactory conclusion, this writing for the Madonna of +Botticelli, but following logically from the axiom that art is the mark +of intellectual disinterestedness. The audience is to be scorned since +art and the people are incompatible. Another retrenchment in the solid +ivory tower, but not without its loneliness. This engenders a cynicism: +no laws are valid other than those I choose to make. So the divine +sanction of love vanishes, the state and the validity of all ethics +made by society. To be spiritual in matters of the body is a confession +of adolescence or of a warped mind. The characters of Gourmont +consider women as flowers of the hedge to be plucked for their beauty +and fragrance, to be inserted in one’s buttonhole while the day is +still delightful, and to be replaced by another flower on the morrow. +But women, more gifted than the eglantine, have a choice: “They can +wield the menace of their thorns, if they are averse to be plucked,” +Diomède says. In love, his men are gentle cynics, a little tired and +moody and speculative, and the women, when not _jeunes filles_, follow +their whims, finding sufficient excuse, in the pleasures of the flesh, +for the act of surrender. Love is not transcendental, according to +Gourmont, it is a divine exercise of the senses. “The soul is body and +the body is spirit. The existence or the permanence of the one depends +upon the indestructibility of the other.” Soul, what we call soul, +becomes a blend of dream and act, thought and sensuality. + +All this can be seen to advantage in _Mr. Antiphilos, Satyr_. +The unbelievably naive creature of wood and dell is brought to +civilization. He is Desire, its purest essence. He knows only hunger, +fear of peasants’ pitchforks, weariness, sexual desire. Life is these +things and they represent life. Happiness comes with satisfaction of +these needs; misery from lack of satisfaction. Here is the epitome +of our animal natures. It is the animal in us,—the healthy, normal +animal. Whatever is added is superfluous; the addition is civilization. +Gourmont, himself so sophisticated, ever turns a loving, kindly eye +to men who are insistently natural, that is to say animal in their +outlook, and who are brave or simple enough to consider the other sex +in this light. Antiphilos has a try at civilization, and the result +disgusts him; we see in his abnegation the shrug of mild disgust with +which his creator views the world of men and women. Here, too, his +women are personifications of instinct, without mixture of reason and +restraint. + +To every department of literature which Gourmont essayed, he brings his +supple intelligence, lighting up his subject with a clear brilliance. +Irony he used as a surgical instrument to lance the sores of society. +In his study, isolated and removed from the bustle of Parisian life, +he boldly dispelled the mists of ridicule and slander with which the +young writers were covered. A great master, his influence on French +literature was tremendous. The high standards Gourmont demanded of +himself and others, his cultivated taste are required wherever there +is a tendency to the facile and the common. His Olympian serenity, +too, is a needed antidote to the febrile, nervous note. To read him +critically is to renounce forever the false gods which are being +worshipped in literature. He gives one a delicious draught of sanity; +he is pure mind, unadulterated by muddy emotionalism or didacticism. +The things he attacked are not dead; there remain the same problems +of art and morality. Gourmont, the supremely civilized man, brings +a cynicism, a perfect detachment and poise to the task of analyzing +current and eternal values; he helps us to understand and solve these +problems. + + _J. L._ + + + + +TO THE AMAZON + + +When you accepted the dedication of this strange story, Amazon, you did +not ask me what I had meant by it. This did not at all surprise me, +for you often know my intentions better than I do, and you are ever +ready to attribute the most favorable and ingenious ones to me. Ah, my +friend, I am not always the man of intentions, plans and projects; I +like to obey whatever the gods suggest and to place my trust, so far as +execution is concerned, in that logic which dwells deep in my brain and +which reassures me about the sequence of any of my rambling stories. +Though the chain of causes necessitated a lapse of several years +between the writing of the first letters and the others, and though the +latter were produced at irregular intervals,—beside the fact that my +mind, in the course of this novel, experienced certain modifications—I +have sought to have them conserve a sufficiently apparent unity of tone +in their ensemble. Yet I fear, though this will be quite transitory, +lest any one feel a little of the weariness, towards the end, which +the monotonous psychology of my horned character gave me. Nothing is +more difficult than the study of an elementary creature whose naiveté +puts to rout our sham or civilized habits, who advances as a matter of +course into the frankest of vices, who is not even astonished at our +astonishment. + +What most amuses us in our pleasant games is that they are forbidden. +Now, that is a quality of pleasure he cannot relish. He cannot grasp +the idea of a person not naturally attracted to whatever is pleasurable +to him, though he too enjoys, like others, the charm of obstacles +surmounted and difficulties vanquished. What amused me, in writing +this story, was to take the side of the instinctive creature against +the creature of reason, whose reason is so transitory a thing; but +whatever may have been my sympathy for the brazen-faced satyr, I could +not procure for him the contentment of living in a strait-laced society +whose finesses he would have had to learn before accommodating himself +to them. He lacks too many things ever to succeed in cutting much of a +figure in this world. What sort of being is he, ignorant of the value +of money and, first of all, possessing none? I even doubt whether he +will extract deep satisfactions from a more fastidious, delicate world +he may later chance to frequent. Just behold the simplicity of his +heart! He falls in love with a worthless woman, and he is not in the +least ashamed, understanding nothing of her trade: but even if he did +understand it, I do not know whether or not he would blush with shame. +He has not yet shown his fullest capacities. He would need a vaster +theatre. Antiphilos might go far in the world of the unconscious. + +Do not believe, moreover, that in making him relate the beginning +of his human adventures, I had any deep satirical intentions. To +criticize the manners of men:—that would need more naiveté than I +possess. To tell the truth, I find that they do well when following +their pleasures; they alone are not dupes of our extraordinary moral +organization. But let us not judge men, and still less women, after +ourselves. Most people are very well satisfied with their slavery, +to the point where their virtue suffers at the wretched state of all +who have liberated themselves. They do everything in their power to +recapture the emancipated, to fasten collars on their necks: “You do +not know happiness, our happiness. Come and we will share it with you.” +There are unfortunate souls who let themselves be taken in with this +sort of talk. Others are seized by force, when that is possible. + +The police, or some of those charitable persons of whom there are too +many, once found a nest of felicity in a hovel of the Saint-Sulpice +section. An extremely young pair of hand-to-mouth tatterdemalions +lived there. The boy might have been fifteen years old,—even less if I +remember correctly—and the girl was twelve. No one knew on what they +lived—doubtless on pickings, refuse and water. When their roamings +in search of food exhausted them, they returned to their garret and +fell asleep in each other’s arms, for they were in love. Their naive +love consoled them for having, too often, to go hungry, and those who +discovered them found them happy in their animal-like innocence. +It created a terrible scandal, still discussed, perhaps, by devout +persons and others of the neighborhood. Naturally they were separated, +although they cried hard; the boy was sent to a home, while the girl +had to follow the skirts of some good nun. And everybody thought this +was as it should be. I, too. I was compelled, so as not to be treated +with contempt, and you would have done likewise, my friend,—would you +not? to preserve the esteem of respectable people. Is it right, in +fact, that children should begin to live in a state of nature, here +in Paris, in a decent section, several steps away from a church, the +Luxembourg Gardens and the Senate? The matter of the pickings might +have been passed by, but the love! Is it not true that such perversity, +manifested so precociously, is disconcerting? Antiphilos would have +been affected by this story, but Antiphilos is very much suspected and +he is at home only in natural ethics. He practices it without knowing +its theory. + +You do not know, Amazon, how grateful I am that you loved this +uncertain little book and that you did not reprove its tendencies! I am +grateful to the point of being tempted to say that you have loved it +more than it deserved. Besides, is this not what I think of nearly all +of my writings? There is hardly one which has wholly satisfied me. That +is why I decided never to correct them when they were being printed +or reprinted, for I am always tempted to throw them into the printing +press and have their dried ink replaced by new ink. This you know well, +you who have wrested one of my books from my hands. I am haunted by +the technique of the unknown masterpiece. But I practice too well the +philosophy of detachment even to yield to such naivetés of conceit, and +I resign myself to the displeasure which my writings cause me, while +dreaming of the marvelous books I shall never write. Ah! how I envy +those authors who admire themselves in their works and who do not see +the approaching oblivion into which their works will sink with them. +I envy them, but I smile with a touch of irony, perhaps, for all this +has really little importance. Yet one must love, and to do so it is +necessary to hold firmly to some support, along the stream which sweeps +everything forward, like the castaways that we are. The feeling that +you please those very persons whom you would have chosen to please, and +the feeling that you displease others whom you would have willingly +designated for this service, sometimes suffices to keep you in +balance, to fortify heart and hands. One of these comforts only affects +the pride and has but negative effects on the pleasure of living; +but the other, which stirs every fibre of sympathy, can alone confer +the joy that is complete. Why, through what cowardice place these +necessary terms in the plural? A beautiful tenderness has achieved its +end. Amazon, I really believe that without you I should no more love +myself very much; I no longer would have a deep confidence in life or +in myself. So again I thank you for having taken Antiphilos under your +protection. Of his destiny among humans I am reassured, since you have +smiled upon him, dear friend. + + _Remy de Gourmont._ + + + + +MR. ANTIPHILOS, SATYR + + + ...Fugiunt per devia Nymphae: + Has agitant Satyri per juga quaeque leves, + Nec fuit in sylvis arbos nec rupibus antrum + Sub quo non illic pressa puella foret. + + _B. P. PRIGNANUS, Mutinensis, De imperio cupidinis. Lib. I._ + + + + +I + +APPARITION + + + + +I + + + Etang de Saint-Cucufa, June 3. + +A sense of keen injustice prompts this letter: _Indignatio facit +versum_, as they used to say good old days. You know that I can neither +read nor write, but sometimes a tiny obliging mouth tries to make me +spell out of an old newspaper stained with fat and wine. Today, the +friendly little hand of a schoolgirl, equipped with everything needed +for writing, transfers my thought with a charming dexterity. My shaggy +knees, of which she is not afraid, serve as a table. Now, therefore, I +am going to tell you my story and register my protest. + +You must know, first of all, that it was the little one now writing +to you who advised me to address you. “He is a man who wrote, I am +told, a story which is really my life. But I was eighteen and not so +complex.” Yesterday, her memory was refreshed by a paper she read to +me: “Virginal! My virgin heart! That’s it.” She stamped her foot at +the thought. Although I have been roving in fields and near towns for +about eight thousand and nine hundred years, I still do not know women +very well. I have known more women than there are stars in the sky, and +the last one remains as new and mysterious as the first. All this, to +tell you that I do not know how her virgin heart could have interested +her.—Now she is smiling, holding her tongue in the corner of her +mouth.—Perhaps she is thinking of the moment when she will once more +turn maiden, quite naturally, for the convenience of social ways.—I +hear her sing out: “Why, of course!”—They are surprising. + +But I am coming to the matter of importance. You see my innocence. I +protest, then, with all the strength of an honest, though libertine +satyr, against the use of the term ‘satyr’ by your newspapers, which +apply it to men,—yes, to men, by Jupiter, who kidnap young girls, +rip their bellies, slice them to pieces! A satyr would never do such +idiotic things. Violate, when one has but to open the arms to desire? +Grasp these fresh, yielding little necks with a brutal hand? Tear this +soft flesh and cause these unripe bodies to bleed, cut the bud where +the woman already is developing and dreaming? For what do you take us, +stupid journalists? For men? Be undeceived. We are gods. + +My history, which is very long, is obscure, but two episodes peculiarly +dignify it. I was born in Phrygia of the loves of Hermes and an elegant +Dryad, whom I greatly loved, for she was tender and pretty. She had +ardent passions and the shepherds, no less than the gods, attracted +but did not hold her caprice. I grew up, I exercised at hazard my +curiosity, which discovered odd things at all the fords and on all the +paths. Dionysius, whom you call Bacchus, brought me into his cortège +and I knew, under torrid skies, women more melting than your grapes, +more wanton than your goats. I passed into Greece, on my return, but +men were already beginning to wage war; they locked up their women and +enclosed their fields with fences. The golden age had ended: + + Regrettez-vous le temps où le ciel sur la terre + Marchait et respirait dans un peuple de dieux? + +I regret it so much and so often that I am filled with an unconquerable +melancholy. The great gods no longer descending to an earth soiled by +war, ownership, gold and those human laws which so badly translate +the gentle divine laws, we remain the sole immortals that a herdsman +can chance on at the fall of day, as he walks along the path. We were +loved, and we were also feared. We were given milk, cakes and honey, +and this was pleasant; but more than once a peevish peasant used to +pursue me with a pitchfork, forcing me to run to the shelter of a wood. +I am peaceable and vulnerable. I am a god, but a churl might easily +cripple me. They say the golden age will return. Let us hope so. + +Do not think of ancient Greece as a place where good fortune held +sway. Love was there esteemed only under a form that always excited +my disgust. Few joys: an escaped female slave, an eager peasant woman. +Had I not had my sisters, the nymphs, I should have died of boredom; +but nymphs have less variety than women, though prettier, and their +pride is terrible. The disgusting teachings of a certain Socrates, that +motley apostle of virtue, enemy of women and gods, hastened my flight. +I made for Italy, where once more I found a certain state of nature +and human customs. To refrain from astonishing people, I called myself +Faun, like my Italian brothers. + +It is in Italy that I have spent the best part of my life. There I +found the graces of Asia, with less effeminacy, much curiosity at once +erotic and passionate, and that delicious precociousness which causes +young flowers, in their innocent ardor, to outstrip the spring and +break their corslets at the sun’s first appearance. I enjoyed seasons +worthy of Apollo. My snub nose gleamed in the fairest of eyes. The +repeated sound of my feet on the rocky side of a hill awoke still +slumbering desires in the vague breasts of latin maidens. Pardon my +emotion at these brilliant memories. I still have days; I hardly have +seasons any longer, and my eternal youth is often forced to dwell on +the past: the time of gleaning has long since succeeded the period +of abundance. Remember that in those days I perhaps fled as often as +I pursued. I was weary of love, weary of opening new paths. For an +instant, I thought of remaining on a piece of cleared ground; I was +going to become domesticated.—The family of Faunus, look at the pretty +little Atellanian girl!—Alas! I did not have time for this. + +One day we found ourselves surrounded by a troop of peasants armed with +sharp staffs, as though for a boar hunt. They were led by a sort of +sorcerer with a head-dress similar to the Gauls; this man brandished a +piece of wood shaped like a crutch head; with his other hand he dipped +a branch of box into a little bottle, held by a slave, and sprinkled +the ground. I would have liked to laugh, had the danger not been so +great. My companion had left to gather grass. “They are coming to look +for her,” I reflected. “They will do _her_ no hurt. But if they get +_me_, beware of the boar-spears!” I rushed away and, springing over a +precipice, was soon free from harm. I have not been able to recross +this precipice for nearly twelve hundred years. + +What centuries! I lived amid wild goats and only from time to time did +an imprudent peasant girl, who happened to be good-looking, fall into +my traps. One of them told me that I no longer was called Faunus, but +Diabolo, and that I was considered the enemy of the human species, the +creature who had caused man to fall into sin. I had seduced a woman +under a serpent’s form! I believed that people had become as crazy +as they were wicked, and I grieved, musing on my sad immortality. +Yet, as the woman stroked my beard and kissed my snub nose and moist +lips, while calling me monster, I decided that this was a mitigated +extravagance which left a little hope, at least with a half of +humanity.—Here, my little friend sticks out her tongue at me and says: +“Ah! so it is you they call the devil?” + +A noise of hunting one day awoke me. They were blowing through horns +which gave a sound like those of my sea brothers, the Tritons. Hounds +rent the air with harsh and violent barking. The gallop of horses rang +against the firm ground like a Virgilian verse.—O days when shepherds +repeated the songs of the Mantuan Shepherd!—Made more bold for some +time past, I was loitering in the heath, chasing grasshoppers and +lizards. The hunt drew near. I did not have time enough to leap on +a rock; and, as I watched the spectacle before leaping higher and +disappearing, I heard a clear voice cry, with an accent of surprise +and joy: “Ecco il Fauno!” I, too, was satisfied, for I knew that this +beautiful name of the Roman god was applied to me, that new days had +arrived. Excited, I lay down in the thyme warm with sun kisses; evening +fell, I was musing, when the same clear voice once more rang in my +ears: “Fauno! Fauno!” I pricked my hairy ears, my body grew tense. I +stood listening. “Fauno! Fauno!” With a few bounds, I reached the spot +from which the clear voice came. She was a beautiful young woman. The +better to run, she had opened her dress and the wind had loosened her +hair. She let herself fall, dazed, into my arms, the while I murmured, +lifting my thought to the master of gods: “Has beauty then once more +descended to earth? O Jupiter, thou dost not forget thy children!” + +If I were to tell you that you have always under your eyes, perhaps, +the proof of the truth of my narrative, you would not believe me. Wait +several days, you will no longer be incredulous. My little friend is +tired.—“Yes, I really am!”—She is going to re-read to me this letter +which she promises to place in your hands. With the commencement of +this story, you can already show your friends the journalists that a +satyr is a respectable creature, meriting consideration. But what I +have still to tell you is even better. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +II + +LA FOSCA + + + + +II + + + Au Mont Agel, July 17. + +The cold drove me into the south, where I had just arrived when I first +wrote to you. It is on the fragrant slopes of this peaceful mountain, +looking upon the violet sea, that I am passing the bitter winter. +Favorable grottos provide me with shelter and, when the sun shines, I +gambol about, watching the strange passers-by along the paths. It is +a beautiful country and I am enchanted by the charm of its wonderful +girls. When the weather grows too warm, I climb upwards and it seems +that in proportion as I proceed, I carry the spring with me. I am +known in the villages. Everybody waits for me. People whisper to each +other: “You know, I’ve seen him!” “Oh, my dear!” And at the fringe +of the woods, at evening, I perceive light shadows vanishing under +the pines or oaks. By chance I surprise and seize one, sometimes two. +Stifled laughter blends with long sighs. I am the joy that passes, the +joy troubled by a delicious fear. My hand has calmed throbbing breasts, +revived many a throbbing heart. I pass, and when I am gone the young +men find the maidens less shy. I sow kisses and I do not await the +harvest time. That I leave to others. I only seize the flower, as long +as there are flowers to be taken. Such is the way of gods. The gods are +fastidious. + +When I left the banks of the Seine, the little one who wrote to +you, wished to follow me. A true love! That child will be fiercely +faithful. I left hurriedly, I traveled without pausing, save to +sleep, and I was very cold. Here, I am warming myself again, amusing +myself a little. The girl to whom I dictate this differs greatly from +my little secretary of the Saint-Cucufa pool. She is taller. She +is almost a woman.—“Almost?”—She writes on fine transparent paper +with an instrument which she calls a fountain-pen. I have never seen +such a thing before. The girl is delicate and unbreakable, wanton +as a goddess, and she has the air of having descended from Olympus +yesterday at dawn. She comes every day from Roquebrune. Having risen +with the sun, she walks through the dew, leaves to mingle innocently +with the morning strollers, and never forsakes her royal mask, even +when she murmurs: “Darling, darling!” She pleases me indeed. (Here +the fountain-pen is thrust painfully into my knee, but I say nothing, +I am satisfied.) Her curiosities are infinite, and she methodically +satisfies them, without ever abandoning her serious look. I like this. +Love is serious. When one has deep sensibility, love can cause tears; +laughter, never. It is only among mortals that love is accompanied with +laughter. The gods never laugh, except at the silliness of mankind. +When my little English woman is stirred, she recites verses and then +translates them for me, for I only know the Mediterranean languages. +She says, while caressing me: + + Tiens, couche-toi sur ce tapis de fleurs, + Pendant que je caresserai tes aimables joues, + Pendant que je piquerai des roses parfumées dans le poil soyeux de + ta douce tête + Et que je baiserai tes larges et belles oreilles, ô ma tendre joie! + ... Oh! comme je t’aime! Je suis folle de toi! + +And sometimes I fall asleep, the while she gazes at me tenderly. + +But I want to begin my story where I left off. I am anxious to narrate +the adventure which does me honor, to my way of thinking, and which I +have promised you. For two days and nights I was in love with the fair +creature who had come, crying: “Fauno! Fauno!” It was near eventide; +the sun was shining brightly and its rays, passing beneath the pines, +were lighting up the ground, each tuft of grass, each flower. My +sweetheart was sleeping and, to keep off the buzzing flies, for she +was naked, I had thrown her long scarf over her. But, from time to +time, unable to resist my desire, so beautiful she was, I approached to +lift a corner of the veil and to watch her as she slept. At a certain +moment, I discovered with terror that we were not alone. Somebody, +concealed in the thicket, was spying on us. I ran towards the enemy: a +man arose. I was about to throw myself at him, enraged with jealousy, +when he made a gesture at once imperious and friendly: + +“Do you understand the language of men?” he asked. “In that case, +know that I am not come to fight you. I am walking about in search of +beautiful things. I seek Nature and it seems I have found her. Now I +see. Are you a beast, are you a god?” + +“I am a god.” + +“Then it is true that such beings live,” the young man murmured. “And +she?” + +“She? A woman, but as lovely as my mother, who was a goddess. I was +born in Phrygia, in the time when gods were as numerous on the earth as +men.” + +“Let me do your portrait and that of the divine woman sleeping at your +feet.” + +He brought out paper and pencils. I was on the point of agreeing to +his whim when my beloved awoke. Half lifting herself on one of her +arms, she said: + +“Seigneur Allegri, I hope you will not betray me!” + +“Oh, it is La Fosca. I did not know you were so wonderful, my dark +beauty!” + +“And glowing today, eh! But turn your head away a moment, for it would +not be right to let you see the movements of my body. I am marble when +I sleep; but when I move, I become a woman. I want to dress, to honor +your presence and to offer you some fruit from our woods, and water +from our spring.” + +“Have you then left humanity forever?” + +“Perhaps. Only the gods can love, and I have found one.” + +“A marvelous adventure,” Allegri said. “But if you put a robe on, two +suns will set at the same instant.” + +“You will see me again if you come here, for my god is not jealous. And +why should he be jealous, he who surpasses men in strength, as an oak +surpasses an ivy?” + +I smiled, and my mouth was so broad that Allegri exclaimed: + +“He really is a faun. He resembles the one that Seigneur Buonarroti +made not long ago, to amuse our sainted Guilio.” + +While Allegri was tracing on his paper a figure in which I recognized +myself, La Fosca had risen and gone, draped in her scarf, farther off. +I went to fetch water in a buffalo horn, while La Fosca brought fruit, +blackberries, apples and nuts. We made a pleasant meal of these things. + +In the days that followed, Allegri visited us frequently. He sketched +on small sheets with crayons of different colors. As soon as he +arrived, La Fosca used to stretch out, in the pose you know, and I +had the goodness to remain near her, holding the veil I was about to +remove, in an attitude of desire which was not feigned. This comedy +slightly bored me. I found the sittings too long. And then La Fosca had +too happy smiles in her pretended sleep, her body moved with such charm. + +One night, when we remained chatting and laughing,—he had brought +preserves and a bottle of wine—the sky paled a little. + +“It is time,” Allegri said, getting up. “Come. In an hour we shall +reach the solitary hut where I have established my studio. My picture +is finished, but I would like, at least once, to compare it with +the original, for the recollection of my eyes may have deceived me, +although they are very dependable mirrors.” + +We followed him. The work was perfect. La Fosca truly breathed, I was +truly handsome, with my infatuated air. La Fosca reposed on skins of +beasts, and Allegri feverishly completed his work with rapid strokes, +each one of them,—what a miracle!—augmenting the distinction, the +relief, the splendor, the life. At that instant, _he_ was the real god! + +“I hear the peasants,” he suddenly cried. “Save yourself. I will bring +her to you tonight.” + +I fled, for I stand in terror of pitchforks. I have never since seen La +Fosca. Her fall only affected me during the first few days, for I had +felt her love for me grow less from the moment she yielded to Allegri’s +admiration; and besides, I had tasted so many pleasures that I was on +the verge of satiety. + +A little later I made the acquaintance of a young peasant girl who +caused me to forget the other completely. Yet I never see, without +emotion, the picture done by this Allegri, my portrait and the +divine nudity of that noble La Fosca, whom love transformed into a +bacchante, but who never, not even in her most wanton attitudes, made +a disgraceful gesture. Her beauty has made her deserve immortality: +she will live as long as I live, as long as the trees, the streams +and mountains, as long as the world itself. Yesterday, my little +Englishwoman brought me a photograph of the portrait. I prefer the +old engravings, but this manner is perhaps more exact. Why the thing +is called “Jupiter and Antiope,” no one, not even the little darling, +has been able to explain. At least you will know that it represents +the Faun Antiphilos and La Fosca, who has since become the Marquise de +Sassuolo. + +Allegri came to see me a month later. I was with the young peasant +girl, and yet I was about to shower him with reproaches, when, with a +very melancholy mien, he said: + +“She left me, in turn.” + +I answered: + +“You deserved it.” + +“Doubtless; but you are consoled and I, I am not yet consoled.” + +He told me that La Fosca was the daughter of an extremely dissolute, +indebted patrician of Modena who had sold her to a priest. She had +stabbed the priest and fled to Sassuolo where the Marquis Giambattista +met, welcomed and hid her, because of her beauty. Finally through +gratitude, she became his mistress, and lived at his court. + +“She was with him at the hunt when she ran to you. The Marquis sought +her high and low for a week and then learned that I was concealing a +woman in my shack. He came: instead of flying into a rage, he wept, +pardoned me, purchased my picture and invited me to the marriage. She +became the Marquise de Sassuolo this very morning. These old men have +odd ideas. What creations I could have made with such a figure!” + +“You are neither man nor god, Allegri, only a painter.” + +He did not answer, but remained plunged in revery a long time. I have +not seen him since. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +III + +THE AFTERNOON OF A FAUN + + + + +III + + + Cogolin, June 3. + +At last I have the leisure to write and give you another chapter of +my adventures, since I know that you have communicated them to other +men. Like nature, the gods exist only at the instant you speak and +think of them, and as soon as your attention is distracted from divine +things, they fall again into the dim, pantheistic immensity where +their lives glide by, mute, deep and plant-like. I partake of the +gods, I have lived that life. I partake of men, and I know what human +joys are. Alas! destiny has meted them out to me so miserly, in these +days, that I hardly feel my humanity any longer. That is why I am sad, +yes, sad, despite the restless eyes which reproachfully gaze at me +this very moment, despite cheeks made slightly rosy by paint and now +somewhat pale, rubbing against my old, immortal, shaggy skin. For the +past three years I have tasted more bitterness than I experienced in +my life heretofore. Solitude has poisoned my heart and if such times, +or worse,—who knows?—were to return, I would be reduced to imploring +the gods to recall me to Olympus, to the parental habitation. Ah! to +renounce women! The gods no longer descend to the earth and I fear the +goddesses. What a sorry figure this poor goat-footed satyr would make +among them! + +But was I not born to be happy? When I say this, Cydalise treats +me as a romantic satyr, and though I do not very well understand, I +feel it means that such a dream is considered chimerical. I and your +philosophers do not understand happiness in the same way. I will die +only when nature dies, and it is with her alone that I should take +my stand. The seasons mean more to me than does metaphysics. Why +should there not be a return to the old, faun liberties? The gates of +sheepfolds will not always be so firmly shut and Venus, who seems to +have forgotten herself in particular loves, will yet again remember +her universal mission. It is a fact that the nymphs no longer inhabit +the woods and that for three years I have not been able to capture +any maiden, but Cydalise has comforted the old solitary faun and the +hope of vintage time returns to my heart. Do not believe the things I +told you at the beginning of this letter. They were the remains of +melancholy moods I have not been able to share with anyone. Now that +you have felt them with me, I no longer feel them. What matters the +past to him who holds the present? + +Cydalise descended from the Thespian chariot to come to me. Her +profession is to recite verses of the poets to the people. She was +seeking me, which means that she had already found me, according to +some verses she recited and which evidently apply to my divinity, ever +present and ever active. Cydalise has not invoked me in vain. The +hoary, old god has always the youth of his desires and the desires of +his youth. Weak men disappoint women, many women have told me, but +satyrs never; others say they have known, trembling and blushing, men +too late for happiness. Dreamy and wanton, Cydalise loves to recite +poems in the interval of two frenzies. She begins with a voice a +little out of breath because of the divine inspiration; then she slowly +grows elated and falls into a sort of sudden trembling which ends still +more rapidly in my arms. So, I know the first stanzas better than I do +the last, which die in vague murmurs. I remember a similar adventure in +Campania. I was enamoured of a Greek slave of marvelous beauty who used +to come to visit me each evening, and who always wished to sing the +first idyll of Theocritus for me, to show that her voice was as pure +as her body anointed with oil of lavender. She never had the strength +to begin the third verse: “Sweet is the murmuring of the pine near +the fountains, O goatherd, sweet is the sound of thy flute....” Her +voice stopped at [Greek: Tyrisdes]. Perhaps she did not wish, as Aesop +says, to lose the prey for the shadow. The gods be praised! Gaiety +returns to me with these distant memories which are so delicately +woven into the present, across the centuries. This one knows better +how to resist the violence of desire: She prepares with more skill the +denouement whose plaintive syllables she knows how to prolong. She +has not received a bad education: perhaps I shall be attached to her +more than to all the others, though my nature always drives me to new +discoveries. Such women are so rare! + +But love knows a forced repose, and honest satyrs themselves respect +this state, for they hold blood in as much horror as tears. One of +these days of languor, she came to me with a book and, still smiling +through her resigned sadness, began to read aloud, without any +explanation: _The Afternoon of a Faun_. What a miracle! Lulled by +these rhythms that were as irregular as a stream running down woody +hillsides, I had almost as much pleasure in watching her moving lips as +in holding them sealed to mine. Then she explained the poem to me, as +the philosophers formerly did in the academies. + +And I saw myself rising from between the willows of the bank, my ear +intent for hint of pastimes which I desired and which was lacking. I +remember it was one of those exciting and warm days, the like of which +I have not experienced for a long time; I had heard the river lightly +plash, as though on some plunging body, and I was about to run away, +for I fear the hostility of mankind, when I fancied I saw floating +hair on the water’s edge, some hemp held by a rush. I watched. If +it was a woman, come from a garden of roses, she would return; the +hedge was translucent and the house quite high, up towards the hill. +Long I waited. Tired, I went in quest of her. I saw nothing. Now I +heard laughter. I imagined many things, the very things this poet has +described. Oh! to seize them! They are at least two, since there is so +much laughter. Laughter, games, delicate caresses. It is yonder. Now +silence reigns. Could they have guessed? No. Pleasure meditates before +bursting forth. And I? But if you know the poem, you also know my +agitation, my exasperated restlessness, panting, atremble, made dizzy. +A man stood up among the trees, far above me. + +“It was he,” said Cydalise. + +“Who is ‘he’?” + +“The poet.” + +And she kissed his name on the title page of the book. + +“So it was really he?” + +“Certainly.” + +“I took to flight!” + +“To run away! But he saw you, he would have liked to approach. Just +fancy! he resembled you, as much as any man can resemble a god, and +no one was ever nearer the gods by spirit. To run away from him. Your +brother in candor!” + +This is the adventure such as I have been able to learn it. Cydalise +says I should be very proud because of it. She has made me memorize +three lines of this divine poem, so that I shall never have the air of +being ignorant of my past: + + Alors m’éveillerais-je à la ferveur première, + Droit et seul, sous le flot antique de lumière, + Lys! et l’un de vous tous pour l’ingénuité. + +Candor, again! But nothing suits me any longer. + +I have made a bargain with Cydalise. I permit her to send you kisses: +accept them. She permits me to make, to renew rather, an entreaty to +you. Do not allow those rascals who disembowel girls to be called +satyrs. A satyr is incapable of such crimes. The lasses I have met +have been highly satisfied with me and their kisses, innocent like +nature, have thanked me fervently with a thousand little tricks I +taught them. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +IV + +CYDALISE + + + + +IV + + + Cogolin, September 30. + +Realize that I myself write to you. Cydalise has achieved this miracle. +My divinity, which was already old six thousand years ago, now knows +almost as much as those little lads coming out from school. I will +not say that it has revealed the world to me. It has veiled it, on +the contrary, and I have seen the world diminish, just as the pines +on the hillsides lessen in size as one moves away. But in shrinking +in stature, the world becomes sharper, its outlines grow more fixed, +its light stronger. My brain is quite changed. It is no longer that +of a god. The vision, vast but confused, and almost unconscious, has +suddenly assumed form. Little by little I have detached myself from +nature, where I was at home. She lived within me and I felt her like +the beating of my heart. It is now I who live in her and in vain do I +seek to touch her hands: no longer is she only air, light, odors and +nourishment. I felt her breathing with the same breath as my own and +now I must drink her essence: it intoxicates me. + +Cydalise is amused at my astonishment: + +“I see,” she says, “the birth of a man. That is finer than a god. I +was curious about you. Now I love you, for I read a fraternity in your +eyes. One can only love one’s equals or those who have been fashioned +in one’s image. When the gods begin to love, they become men.” + +This strange language delights me, for it is the truth: I have begun +to love Cydalise. I know it by the fact that I now view the loveliest +creatures almost indifferently, by the fact that the image of Cydalise +immediately is interposed between them and me, if by chance they please +and attract me. There were many of them under our pines, this summer. +They used to lie on the lavender, their large hats shading their eyes; +and they would pretend to sleep in the warm peacefulness of nature, +beneath the sun’s last rays. Oh! the sudden emotion, the thrill that +instantly seizes you, when the slowly lifted robe reveals a beautiful +body! This is not an old recollection. There are still such refinements +which were once common. Those bare feet in sandals, those hoods, those +robes of a nun I once had seen in Florence, upright and modest in +wool—the color of time and innocence—I beheld again, one evening, +under the Cogolin pines. + +How good and beautiful and gentle she was,—the little nun of Cogolin! +It was my last adventure. Its memory is dear to me and I have not +sacrificed it for Cydalise’s love; but since then I have sought +nothing, accepted nothing. When I learned my alphabet, I wanted to +carve these words on the bark of a plane-tree: + + THE SATYR ANTIPHILOS + IS FAITHFUL TO + CYDALISE. + +Re-reading this inscription, I could not believe it to be the truth, +could not believe that I myself had written it. I was about to burst +into laughter, when I beheld a happy expression in Cydalise’s eyes. I +understood that I had not been lying. + +We are living golden days. My sweetheart gives me almost all her time. +When she leaves for the town, she returns a trifle fatigued, with +pieces of gold which she smilingly shows, cakes, milk and honey. We +share the food by the banks of a pure stream where doves come to drink. + +Then she gives me a lesson. I think the gold she brings back with her +comes from the lessons she gives men, down there. When I ask if her +pupils are progressing, her only reply is to play with my curls and +kiss me. I am acquiescent. Then we traverse our domain, that is to say +the pine wood, the carpet of heather and lavender, the arid hillside +where a stream, near which several plane-trees have sprung up, pauses +beside a grotto and brambles. + +Cydalise thinks it odd and amusing to dwell in a grotto. I have never +slept anywhere but in the open or in grottos, and what astonishes +me in our haven is not that it is a grotto, but that Cydalise has +transformed it into a palace worthy of Olympus. In a chariot drawn +by a swift-footed steed she brought a large sack of wool, skilfully +sewed, on which we rest, much more at our ease than on the dead leaves +which, notwithstanding, are comfortable; she also brought skins of +beasts, and material richly woven and painted with liveliest colors. +For her toilette she has collected a thousand objects which would make +goddesses envious and, placed in elegant little boards are—and I have +never seen the like of this—books and sketches. With her aid,—she +is so frank, so refined, divine one might say—I live in a state of +enchantment. I have leisure. My prepared repasts await me and the time +I once spent in gathering fruits and roots is now passed with a book in +which I discover life. + +What surprises me, even more than the wonders created by Cydalise, is +that life can be contained in the pages of a book. Yes, I have noticed +that a sheet of paper on which one would say that a bug has taken a +deliberate stroll with its dirty legs,—that such a rag of paper holds +in itself more things than do the valleys and hillsides, the trees and +horizons which stand or spread out in front of me. My long and divine +experience is confounded. I believed I knew things because I had seen +them; but men have regarded them, and that is not the same thing. I +can only faintly express my joys, those of a budding, young, civilized +creature. Into me have entered ideas of whose existence I never had +the slightest suspicion, and as a result I am quite perturbed. It is +in vain that I would attempt to explain them to you. Then, it would be +like explaining flying to one who is at home in the air. But I need a +confidant, a man to whom I can confess my new state of mind, without +being laughed at. Cydalise intimidates me too much: near her I am like +a big child trying to read thoughts in eyes and finding only itself +reflected therein. + +Ah! divine nature, thou art the agent, nevertheless, and it is thee I +must thank. It is my noble nudity and the wild boldness of my carriage +that have attracted this woman to me. The antennæ of pleasure have +slowly changed to those of intelligence. When Cydalise, under my +attentive eyes, disrobes and stands radiant, it seems to me that it is +Isis herself; my brain is awhirl and no longer my senses alone, and my +mind expands and blossoms with the same movement as my flesh. + +Well! Not so bad for a satyr, eh? I re-read what I have written with a +sense of pleasure, change a few commas and amuse myself hugely. + + + + +V + +METAMORPHOSIS + + + + +V + + + Toulon, December 15. + +Oh, what adventures since my last letter which itself announced so many +changes in my life! I believe Cydalise is the victim of Aphrodite who +has caused her to become infatuated with me. + +“Before knowing you,” she tells me, “I did not know what love was?” + +I laugh up my sleeve, for Cydalise, though mortal, has always seemed +to me an expert in this immortal science, which I have practiced long +enough to be considered a good judge. But I say nothing. How retort? +My divine irony pauses at my lips, for Cydalise makes me experience +such a strange sentiment. It is certain that I cannot do without +her, and such a thing never happened to me before. To me she is more +beautiful than all other women, fresher than maidens, more melting than +perfumed matrons. With her I possess everything and I regret nothing. +I soar higher than the gods, to the point where it seems to me that to +become more than a god, one must cease being divine at each hour of +existence. True divinity is intermittent and reposes deliciously in +the vague condition of having been a god. I offer so many things in +love that heretofore I had never sought of women; of them I had asked +nothing more than to be a pretext, an opportunity for self-display. +Now I feel that Cydalise throws as many jewels at my feet as I do: +accordingly, not to be outdone in generosity, I obey her. She does +what she wishes with me. What a metamorphosis! + +I could not bear to be separated from her and the inclemency of the +season made our meetings more and more difficult. Then she hit on the +idea of bringing me to town: + +“For I want to love you among my people,” she said. + +I, who recalled the blows of pitchforks and the fangs of dogs, remained +silent, gazing at her with terror. + +“Are you afraid?” + +“How can I follow you with my bareness?” + +Cydalise broke into laughter, threw herself into my arms. That day we +spoke no more of my departure. + +One morning I was sadly meditating, dreaming of flight like a boar +bearing in its flank the spear which has wounded it. Despite my love, +the intriguing vision of new women began to swim before me; I was +hearing their laughter, their disputes and their restless mockery, +when Cydalise appeared at the end of the road, carrying a large bundle +which she let fall, at the same instant that she herself dropped to the +ground. Without uttering a word, she by turns looked at the package and +at me. At last, she decided to laugh, as is her wont in embarrassing +situations. She rolled on the moss, a prey to such a fit of hysterical +gayety that her dress gave way. This changed the tenor of her thoughts +and instantly calmed her. As soon as I noticed her troubled and serious +face, I drew near and, after kissing her eyes tenderly, opened the +package. + +Cydalise’s eyes were following my every emotion with curiosity: + +“Yes, it’s for you. I’m going to take you to town.” + +You have guessed that it contained man’s apparel. I experienced a +moment of despair: + +“What, put on this!” + +But Cydalise looked at me with such solicitude that I murmured, as +submissive as an infant: + +“I would really like to.” + +She clapped her hands and we entered the grotto. There, it was quite +cool and this perhaps influenced my mood. I was very much satisfied +with myself after I had donned these garments which at first had seemed +such wretched instruments of torture. + +I felt warm and there emanated from me a certain human elegance of +which I was proud. A sailor has since told me that I had the grace +of Ho-Papo, the negro king, and he was not joking: a king is always +a king, a satyr is always a satyr. With usual feminine good taste, +Cydalise began to admire me. She did not tire of flattery, made me turn +like a top, and smoothed the wrinkles and pockets of the suit. She +only pouted at my blue tie which did not go well with my complexion, +she said. “But we will see about that later.” My shoes were of +soft, brilliant leather and did not hurt me in the least. A round, +broad-brimmed hat completely covered my little, curving horns and my +heavy shock of hair. Blushing a little, she put some pieces of gold and +silver in my coat pocket. Then: + +“Now, dear, you are ready. Let’s leave.” + +“Farewell, grotto where I have been happy with the wind; and you, +trees, streams, holly-trees, adieu. Nature, adieu....” + +Cydalise interrupted my effusions, which seemed ridiculous, besides, +to me, now that I had donned this human livery, and we transferred the +contents of the grotto into a packet hardly bigger than the one which +had contained the elements of my metamorphosis. I would have really +liked to sacrifice once more to the sylvan Aphrodite, but Cydalise said +that the train would not wait for us. We reached the carriage waiting +for us at the edge of the pine forest. + +My sensations, in this extraordinary beginning of my new life, were +too confused for me to be able to find words to characterize them +correctly. I traveled with something of the feeling of the animal +I had been until now, but a divine animal in whom all sounds leave +an impression. If I applied myself to the task, I might succeed in +deciphering my impressions, as I did the phrases in my first reading +book, but I fear that the results will give you nothing new, and I am +going to delay the co-ordination of my emotions till later, if I should +then decide that it is worth the trouble. + +“Thus I behold these rapid objects which pass through the country, +fleeter than the deer, more clamorous than wolves....” + +You know how this sort of thing is done. Or again: + +“Now I am installed in one of those palaces seen massed far off in the +valleys or on the hills, and from which spreads a confused, continuous +roar like the sea.” + +Besides, my astonishments have ceased. I live with Cydalise in a room +which looks out on the sea and where I suffocate when the window is +shut. I hardly see my divine creature more often than in the days when +our couch had only pine branches for a curtain. She never returns +before two or three o’clock in the morning, and so fatigued that she +only thinks of love upon awakening. She continues to recite the verses +of the poets before groups of people, and amateurs of poetry demand her +talents after the public performances. Despite this, I am not bored. I +pay attention to things. So far, I do not see very well. My happiness +is concentrated in Cydalise, and I am the joy of her days. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +VI + +THE CELL + + + + +VI + + + March 1. + +Strange, this life for which I have exchanged my familiar woods and +their hazards! And all through Cydalise! What monotony at first; then +what annoyance and ennui! I thought of escape many a time, but my +sweetheart imprisoned me with her tears, her smiles, her kisses, her +gestures of entreaty. + +“At least, wait until good weather arrives, dear,” she said. “What will +you do in this severe cold, with the wind moaning through the pines, +now that you have grown accustomed to the softness of beds and my +tenderness? Could you find your way alone, among all these houses that +conceal the horizon from your gaze? O Antiphilos! think of me, think of +our mornings, think of my days made divine by your presence! What! you +wish to leave your Cydalise! Have you not everything needed by a satyr? +Come, tell me what it is you lack?” + +I am at a loss for a reply to these honied words breathed into my +pointed ears, and on my lips as well, while she kisses me. I desire +to rediscover myself, but would she understand if I told her this? So +I am silent. I also keep from her an adventure which has upset me. I +fear she suspects it, although I would not wish her to be certain of +it. The thing still makes me tremble, but you will know it, for you +are my friend. And if I did not tell you, who then? For I no longer +can confide in the pines, the rhododendrons, the crags and streams. +Formerly, when some unlucky adventure befell me, through having strayed +too near civilization, I would joyously chant my griefs and fears. Now, +a prisoner, I have no living thing to listen to me, and when my voice +rises, it stuns me. Besides, I have other concerns than liberty, the +liberty I know I shall never recover. + +One sunny day of last month, when I was leaning against the window and +peering out, I discovered a grassy nook not far from here, a garden +from which sharp cries came. I desired to go there. Cydalise daily +takes me for a walk before dinner—as she would a favorite, pet animal. +We go through old streets, towards the harbor, trying to reach the +country; but it is too far away, and Cydalise never has time to spare. +We dine early; she returns with me and, after a few caresses, leaves +me with a parting injunction to be good. These maternal, little ways +delight me, but they are also hard on me. I see myself reduced to an +obedient infant, and this hurts my pride. At other times, I reflect +that it is love which holds me, modifying my soul. Then I no longer +dare commiserate myself, and I obey Cydalise’s every whim with a good +grace. + +I can fall asleep quickly. Reading by natural light dazes me, and I +have preserved that faculty, more divine than animal, of instantly +falling into an easy slumber, at once profound and light, which plunges +me to the depths in a trice, and in a breath brings me back to the +surface. I awake only with the return of Cydalise, who comes at a late +hour, with the harmonious bees of Pindus still murmuring within her. +She hums the verses she has been declaiming before the people, with +new rhythms unfamiliar to my ear accustomed more to the stirring +of winds through trees than to the fanciful inventions of inspired +Euterpe. Sometimes she falls into my arms, almost dead with fatigue. +Sometimes she disrobes frantically, astonishing me even by the boldness +of her wanton movements. But I must confess that usually she is quite +calm. After hailing me with a “Good evening, Tityrus,” she counts the +money lying in her large bag which never leaves her; generally, she +seems satisfied with herself and loses no time in falling asleep. + +Were it not for the mornings, I certainly could not support a life so +measured and confined; despite my love for Cydalise, I would go whither +the road led; but I must confess that the mornings embellish my life. +Cydalise is very lovely and surrenders her beauty even more completely +than was her wont in the grottos and on the mosses. The open air and +absence of seclusion frighten women a little. So I can understand and +admire the means taken by your civilization to reassure them. If I can +judge by Cydalise, how faun-like they become behind a stout bolt and +under a light softly sifted by curtains! She is worthy of the gods. +Why art thou not, like myself, immortal! I cannot behold thee without +melancholy, for now that I perceive thy continued existence, I also +perceive thy fate. It is only _en passant_, like a flash of lightning +that gods should love women, who then experience them as a memorable +thunderclap descending, illuminating, consuming, disappearing. And +for them love, in their life, is but a deeper sensation, a profounder +inspiration, a headier cup of wine. But the constant union of two +beings so different in essence, though almost alike in desires and +pleasures! Cydalise’s love makes me aware of the sadness of perishable +things. I think of flowers, I think of the harvest time, I think of the +seasons, of all that lives but a day, of all things that inevitably +fall into the gulf, never to reappear. In giving me her feminine love, +Cydalise has given me a man’s soul,—a soul realizing that destiny will +not strike it, while witnessing the passing of all dear ones. + +I already possess the metaphysical jargon of men. I can no longer +accept life as it is offered, good or bad, but ever adorable by the +fact that it exists. In spite of my divinity, I think of what will +be, as though I did not bear the present and future within me, and as +though I were not destined never to feel their burden on my shoulders. +Mysterious gods, I need an effort not to think with sadness, I whose +unconscious life once exulted in brief moments of illumination! Shall I +really be transformed into a man, through having loved a woman? Then, I +too, would have age. How long do infatuated fauns live? Perhaps that is +why they have disappeared, for one no longer encounters them, at least +in these Occidental lands. + +You see to what excesses my ramblings lead me and the illogical +thoughts which attack me while contemplating the mortal head of +Cydalise, asleep as though she were dead. Ah, mortals! how poisonous is +your love, and what an idea was mine to lift towards my lips the cool +amphoras which seemed to contain pure water! Trust in pure water, fauns +and satyrs. + +And I have not told you my adventure. Cydalise is yet asleep, but she +will soon awake. I dare not. I will write you more anon. Despite his +sunny mornings, pity the poor satyr. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +VII + +THE SATYR! THE SATYR! + + + + +VII + + + Toulon, March 15. + +Dear friend, the head of a satyr living in Toulon with a lyrical +declaimer of verse, the people’s favorite, and seeing nothing but +the ungraceful habitations of humanity, is subject to strange +effervescences. So you will pardon the ramblings of my last letter in +which I desired to describe a certain incident but did not know how +to go about it. I have not yet learned how to assort my ideas into +their compartments. They are jumbled together in complete disorder, +and the result is confusion. When I wish to draw one of them out, the +others interfere, and much time is spent in putting the whole into some +semblance of order. + +I was on the point of touching the matter in question when the hour +struck for Cydalise to give to her rested features the smile that +illuminates them. This is the same as saying that Cydalise awakes +with a smile. It occurs like a rose unfolding quickly enough to let +one observe the opening of its petals. I would not willingly miss the +phenomenon, and from the rose I watch each morning I draw the dew of +moist lips. The hamadryads and the oreads are beautiful. Happy is he +who can surprise them in the freshness of dawn and awaken storms of +pleasure in their breasts. But Cydalise effaces their memory by her +indescribable grace in which promises and desires are blent. She is +really the waking nymph, but she is the nymph who awaits her beloved, +joyously taking possession at the same instant that she surrenders. +I would never reach an end, dear friend, if I dared tell you all the +delights Cydalise causes me to experience. It is an incantation, +perhaps, but I lend myself happily to its consummation, and never am I +surfeited by the divine potion, no more than by the ecstasy with which +it fills me. + +On a certain morning of the month that has passed, Cydalise was +cruel. She permitted me to drink her dawning smile, but the perfumed, +blossomed cup was rudely snatched from my lips, at the same time that +her arms, clasped an instant round my neck, disengaged themselves and +thrust me away. + +“Tityrus,”—this is how she always addresses me—“I have business to +attend. I must leave for I am already late. Be good, my dear.” + +Not a word did I say; I merely looked at her distressfully. She quickly +dressed, kissed me almost discreetly and disappeared. + +She left me in a state which you, perhaps, will not understand, since +you are not a faun. Within me these lines murmured: + + Tant pis! vers le bonheur d’autres m’entraîneront + Par leur tresse nouée aux cornes de mon front.... + +She had forgotten to lock me in. I was out in a trice. I had taken +pains with my attire, had given myself all the elegance worthy of my +athletic, satyr form. It was the morning hour. Shrill cries issuing +from a little garden gave me my bearings. There were all sorts of +short-skirted creatures who were playing, leaping, running; but I +particularly noticed two almost tall girls near a clump of trees. They +were conversing while combing their dolls. Another bench was opposite; +I sat down on it. + +Already you are trembling because you know the person, because he has +confessed several amusing anecdotes to you, because it is by a mere +slip of a girl that you first learned of my existence. Well, my friend, +nothing occurred, unless it be that I was suddenly seized with fear, +that I took to my heels and returned home, followed, from a distance, +happily—by a yelling troop of Yahoos. + +“The satyr! The satyr!” + +I was allayed. I did not desire to be led “by their tresses tied to the +horns of my head.” + +But what reflections are these! + +Now you see the result of five or six months of living in a +civilization of which I have not been a part. Certainly, I have never +been foolhardy and I prefer to flee from blows to having the blows +scathe me; but nonetheless, I would never have trembled, in the old +days, like a hare at the shadow of my ears. Could it be the reading +of your newspapers which has distracted me? I think so. An honest +man—at least, I have the appearance of one—can no longer sit facing and +smiling at the playful affectations of two little girls without having +his ears tingle with the baying of a pack of hounds. + +Yet these young lasses with hair down their backs are pretty; but since +this foolish adventure, I detest them. Ah! how I suffer through my +cowardice and faithfulness. Cydalise, always Cydalise! Does she imagine +that, because I love her, I can love no one but her? + +Alas! I am enchained. After having broken my bonds, I have myself +rewelded them. I fear lest she grumble, I fear lest she ridicule, I +fear her eyes, especially, her eyes in which I see and tremblingly +await the dawning of suspicion. + +Is it thus you love, you others? With such laceration and an equal +submissiveness? Do you feel within you the roarings of an impatient +and obedient animal? Perhaps, at bottom, men and gods are formed of +the same elements, with the exception that the fauns have a more +energetic leaven? This might easily be the case, since in all times the +gods have mingled with your women and, to please and serve them, have +occasionally abdicated their divinity. We all are children of destiny +and our immortal life is, after all, but a succession of human lives +badly joined to each other by the confused mortar of recollection. What +matters the past to me, today? I easily perceive that there is only a +present, for the present effaces every other instant of time. There +is such a difference between the being I was yesterday and the being +I am today that it is only with difficulty that I can establish any +logical connection. Duration, or what you call by this name, is only +an illusion of the passage of time. But it is motionless for me, who +am ever the same and whose life is always recommencing, rather than +continuing, since duration is time. Do you understand? My dear, I have +read the metaphysicians and have concluded that life means nothing to +mortals, since it has an end, and nothing to the gods, since it has +none. All things are equal in absurdity. Yet, I still have a vague +reminiscence of pleasures I knew as a free animal. I did not act the +animal every day, but neither do I do so every day with Cydalise. By +Jupiter! if I came to such a pass that I loved no longer, what would +I become between these four walls, or outside, among those swarming +Yahoos! + +I want Cydalise to take me with her to the people she delights with +her art. I must familiarize myself with external movement and speech. +Have I not everything needful to please? Yes, I am satisfied with +myself when I gaze into my darling’s mirror. Besides, since she looks +upon me with pleasure, why should others be startled? I had no doubts +concerning myself in the woody dells when my limbs were plastered with +dried mud, with moss and leaves clinging to my hairy body; and never +did woman flee long before me without bringing on an opportune fall. It +is true that everything seemed good to me at that time and that I have +since become more fastidious. I am even astounded by the number of ugly +and unattractive women we meet in our walks. I jest so loudly about it +to Cydalise that she scolds me, but she holds my opinion and often +softly murmurs: “What figures?” + +I did not wish to relate my experiences with the young girls to +Cydalise. I have changed my mind. I want her to know of it. I even want +to exaggerate the dangers—almost imaginary—which I risked among these +Yahoos, so that she may see the necessity of familiarizing me with the +world. + +Yahoos! That is the feeling you all give me. Do not be offended! There +are women, there are men among the Yahoos. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +VIII + +FENNEL WATER + + + + +VIII + + + Toulon, April 1. + +Friend, I thank you for your advice which I found to the point. +Everything has succeeded beautifully. My chagrin has touched Cydalise. +It was real. I had but to feign an excess of feeling and simulate +despair. A week of high comedy has reduced her to acquiescence. How +easy it is to deceive women! I came to this conclusion long ago with +the naive nymphs of my fatherland; women, just a little more subtle, +fall into the same snares. Occupied with themselves more than with +anyone else, and totally confident of the power of their charms, +they do not know that one can deprive oneself of them for a week, +merely to acquire that superior thing,—liberty. Creatures of instinct, +they are superior in the conflicts of instinct, but the exercise of +intelligence puts them to rout, because they never think of crediting +their adversaries with this quality. Cydalise understood but one thing, +that I might escape her tenderness; ever since, she redoubles her +cajoleries. Mine reassure her and, as I have been well received by the +society she frequents, we are more than ever united. + +I secretly made preparations for my new mode of life. From the very +first, I found myself at my ease. I owe it to myself, I said, to the +antiquity and divinity of my race, and I assumed the disillusioned +attitude of a superior person exiled among the Scythians. I converse +little, save when Cydalise is near enough to nudge me with her elbow +or knee, and by degree I am acquiring the reputation of a contemptuous +or indifferent man. + +“Some gentleman’s son, some solid country squire,” I have heard people +remark. + +Cydalise, to whom I repeated this, laughed heartily. + +“Isn’t it true!” she kept on saying. + +She informed me that a country squire signifies a nobleman of the +country who has remained slightly rustic. Stroking my beard, she kissed +me before everybody. This brought queer little cries from many of the +women present. It took place in the café de l’Amirauté, where I made my +debut in the career of a man of the world, of the vast world. + +Women gaze at me intently. This does not astonish me, for I must seem +supernatural to them, but hardly any one of them has yet pleased me, +and Cydalise sees her anxieties dissipated from day to day. She has +entrusted me to one of her friends, an old naval officer who has known +human nature of every kind and who tells me, from morning to night, of +his sea voyages and experiences. He is very proud of having known a +girl named Rarahu who was inconsolable, like Calypso at the departure +of Ulysses, and whom he, notwithstanding, consoled. + +“I have never seen my equal,” he tells me, “in consoling mulatto girls +abandoned by the whites.” + +This inferior love inspires me with some pity, but I am glad to know of +his function in love. If I ever leave Cydalise to follow my destiny, +which is unlimited, besides, I shall place her in the hands of this +fine fellow. + +A crony came to see him and they began to recount what they term their +lucky fortunes. This comrade is very agreeable, but a trifle of a bore. + +What a poverty of recollections and sensations! From their recitals +there emanates an indefinable odor of smutty talk which sickens. As +for myself, love never made me laugh. It was to me the most serious, +the most profound thing in the world. I have always found a savor of +infinity even with the coarse farm girl, smelling of cow dung. + +Besides, I really believe that love gives us what we already possess +and that it can give us this alone. That is why, to natures like mine, +the quality of the adversary matters little, allowing for youth and +strength. Yet beauty has always been a fountain wherein my forces +increased, and where I have ever found my desires renewed as soon as I +abandoned myself to the secret of the waters. + +But beauty is so rare! I can confess to you that even the immortal +nymphs are sometimes a little flat-nosed, and there is a common quality +in their eyebrows which are too close together, and their hair which +falls too far down. Like myself, before the transformation, they are +redolent of the earth, dead leaves and flowers crushed by thighs. +Do not dream of those loves which are beautiful only by reason of +their unconsciousness. They can still delight me, I can still renew +my original essence with them and the vigorous youth of my Phrygian +desires, but your Cydalises, so precious through their very fragility, +surpass the deliciousness of the immortal creatures, and it is their +skin which is fragrant with the odor of violets. + +My two sailors drank a sort of grass-colored water with the aroma of +fennel. Their complexion took on richer hues and, playing with some +little bones, like Sicilian shepherds, they exchanged no speech save +for a few words whose meaning I could not seize. They had forgotten +the women and I was not at all sorry, for I hardly relish the insane +conversations of which they are the pretext. + +I was free to gaze at those who now filled the café and who seemed to +be paying no attention to me. Yet I noticed that two eyes, apparently +straying listlessly, were fixed on my figure from time to time, and +vanity caused me to smile. A smile answered me. I, who was not drinking +any of the fennel water, felt myself grow redder than my companions, +and I suddenly made a movement to rise. My old instincts came to the +surface, I was about to run toward my pleasure, as in days past. An +instant, I thought I breathed real fennel and the odor of the Cogolin +oranges. Had she also risen, had she made a gesture of flight like +the wild creatures I once knew, how I would have bounded in pursuit! +But she took a newspaper, behind which she concealed her face, and +the source of enticement being removed, I remained tranquil. Cydalise +approached. It is probable that her arrival, perceived in the mirror, +had caused the newspaper to be unfolded. I promised myself to be, +henceforth, more a master of myself and to survey the mirrors. + +My beloved Cydalise annoyed, then exasperated me by stupidly calling me +“her old Tityrus”; this caused the release of a little rusty spring in +the old officer who labouriously let fall these words: + + “_Tityre tu recubans, recubans_....” + +The newspaper did not budge, but I prudently lowered my eyes. +Fortunately, the game of bones was ended, the two old men turned +towards her and assailed her with gallantries. The one who had arrived +last was the most assiduous and Cydalise, amused, recovered a little of +her animation. She accepted a glass of grass juice and the gentlemen +profited by the occasion to fill their cups, begging me to follow their +example. + +“Not he, not he!” Cydalise cried. “It makes him wild. He wants some +milk.” + +The milk was bluish and tasted like old paper, but I preferred it to +the fennel. How often, in my wanderings through fields, have I not +pressed Io’s drugs to my lips! I wanted to mention this aloud. Happily, +the grimace I made, in tasting this strange beverage, removed from my +mind this unreasonable piece of confidence. + +I kept silent, imbibing the benefits of civilization without a word. + +“Well, there are compensations,” I told myself. + +We left. On the threshold I turned toward the newspaper. It had been +lowered. Cydalise examined the folds of her dress. I foolishly threw a +kiss at the face which now was looking at me. + +“Are you coming, Tityrus?” + +I followed. + +Am I beginning to understand? + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +IX + +EREBUS + + + + +IX + + + Toulon, June 17. + +You now know the manner of my life for the past two months, my dear +friend, and although you have not let me hear from you for such a +length of time, I am going to tell you something of myself, to call +forth your advice. Young persons and the eternally young gods need +the remonstrances of the sages, and you are a sage, you who do not +scorn satyrs. You know that the manner of their life exposes them to +unpleasant adventures among mortals more infatuated with the idea of +love than with love itself. + +It seems that some sort of Olympic games are being celebrated at Turin +and that different representatives from the whole world have come +there to dispute for the embossed cups and laurel wreaths. A director +of the performances who traveled through this place became enamoured +of Cydalise’s face and entreated her to represent the goddesses, in +unveiled poses, before the assembled throngs. He supposes that a +beautiful body always follows from a fine figure and I must confess +to you that he was not deceived, in this instance. Cydalise is like +myself; she has no false modesty and she would even consider it +criminal obstinately to conceal from the world what the supreme Creator +of men and satyrs has formed for the delight of eyes. She therefore +accepted,—she has since then laughingly told me that the tyrant of +this country, whom I thought more humane, far from wishing to lighten +the draperies of goddesses, insists on their being very opaque and +heavy; but this is a secondary point in the story, so we will pass it +by,—without concealing the fact that there was a question of me; this +embarrassed her greatly. She said that she feared all sorts of dangers +for her dear Antiphilos, and Antiphilos who preferred to remain at +Toulon hastened to reveal a scandalous joy in the idea of the trip. So +she has left me here, promising—and her director has agreed to this—to +return once a week to spend a day with me. + +She faithfully returns, as she has promised, bringing on each trip a +quantity of golden money with the most diverse effigies: I would never +have supposed that the world contained so many tyrants. If they wage +war, as was customary in the old days, in what state must the earth +be, O master of Olympus? I am the guardian of this treasure, which +steadily increases. I do not yet know very well what can be done with +this gold; I have other means of persuasion, but Cydalise knows, and +I content myself with fulfilling my office which is to stuff all this +gold in a bag, make it fast and be silent. + +I have other means of persuasion. They are apparent in the eagerness +of my eyes which are not, as the poet says, “hard, brilliant and sad,” +but soft, brilliant and joyous, eyes of a lover, eyes of a magnet, eyes +which attract hearts and eyes, as the magic stone, sapphires. You have +guessed that my conquest of the Admiralty café has fallen into my arms +and that she was satisfied to be there. She is far from being as comely +as Cydalise and hardly gives me any pleasure outside that of variety. +Yet she, too, knows the rules of the game and all its finesse. What +especially stimulates her is the idea of deceiving Cydalise, whom she +knows and who has never wanted to associate with her. Let us hope, O +god of the winged heel, that she proceeds not to boast of her good +fortune! I will make a sacrifice to Harpocrates so that he may place +a seal on her lips. I have called her Erebus; why, she does not know. +Her body is like those gilded flambeaux, smudged with black, that I +remember having seen at Ephesis after the conflagration. As we were +strolling on the wharf the other day, a sailor sang: + + Elle est un peu brunette, + Ce sont les plus belles gens. + +She began to listen and laugh: + +“Is that so, Satyros?” + +“Yes, Erebus.” + +I have not confided anything to her, but she has beheld, carved on the +poop of a Greek vessel, a satyr’s head that resembled me; and a sailor +spelled for her the name with which she calls me. All this amuses me. +The Phrygian Oreads used to call me this name for the fun of provoking +me, and they would stamp a figure on the ground, telling of my victory. +O sweet land of Phrygia! + +All the same, I have entreated her to keep this name for our intimacy, +for the satyrs have more and more acquired a bad reputation in this +country and it maddens me. Did not Erebus have the idea, the other +day, to buy and read aloud a newspaper proudly called _The Journal of +Satyrs_: + +“Ah! Ah! there is the paper for you! The only thing it lacks is your +picture.” + +By Apollo! What incoherencies! What nonsense! What idea, anyway, have +the slaves who write these pages, of a satyr? Despite my debonair +attitude of mind, I grew angry both against the journal and against +the archons who have thrown, it seems, the slaves into prison. They +are but fools. They hardly merit the punishment with which Priapus +threatens plunderers of the orchards: _inrumabo!_ I explained all this +to Erebus: she became serious. We began to speak of other things. + +This is to what you expose your satyr, Cydalise, in letting him stroll +through the streets, while the Olympic youths drain the enchased cups, +filled with a dark wine, in your honor. Erebus only likes champagne. +I am always faithful to my milk with the paper taste and, when Erebus +is astonished at this, I tell her that milk is the wine of satyrs. She +quickly assumes a smiling expression: it is her manner of intimating +that she has understood. + +When Cydalise returns, we pass every minute at our home, the days as +well as the nights. Thus I avoid chance meetings and explanations, +which would cause me to lose my head, for my only diplomacy consists +in taking to flight and in concealing myself behind a tree trunk. How +fettered I feel myself with your civilization and how unreasonable +women are! This they call treason, betrayal. But I love them all. Do +they not all belong to me, since I can satisfy them all? Neither they, +nor you perhaps, yet know what it is to be a satyr, the quality of +that force of nature unchained by desire. Cydalise will have to make a +decision and admit that satyrs are not formed for constancy and that +caprice is a divine thing. + +O caprice, diversity of forms under the eternal law, caprice with +changing eyes! + +Caprice, slender maiden with breasts of brass, matron where autumn and +its colors are enthroned! + +Caprice, nymphs stained with blackberries, with argil backs, with +cheeks cut by brambles, pure or impure like the earth,—and dry leaves +rustle in their entangled tresses! + +Caprice, the young shepherds run towards the cot, and the shepherdesses +takes each other by the hand, crying like fowl surprised by a fox, and +turning round to laugh between their cries! + +Caprice, pungent odor of ferns, odor of shoulders under willows and of +limbs in streams still white with the foam of the daughter of Latona +bathing there! + +Caprice! + +Let not this flight of fancy surprise you. The summer has mounted to my +head. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +X + +DIOGENES + + + + +X + + + Toulon, July 15. + +Joyful, indeed, and happy is my lot since I became a domesticated faun. +No longer do I experience hunger or cold, absence of love, hostility +of mankind, the bites of dogs. But with my happiness there mingles a +vague sense of shame, an indescribable feeling of being cramped. I have +the sensation of diminishing divinity: the man grows in me, subtly and +gradually stifling my primitive nature, which was Desire. I have the +nostalgia of desire. Once I desired fruits, leaves, women; and now that +these things have come to me, I dream only of being naked and famished +in a desert. Oh! what attractions solitude has for him who lives in the +midst of humanity! + +The Phrygian Aesop—I knew his brothers, who were handsome and +stupid—has written a fable to prove that liberty is the chief blessing. +I heard it in the Greek of my infancy, and young girls learned it by +heart on my knees. It is true and false, like every human invention. +Liberty is a burden which one desires to throw on the ground, when one +knows nothing else, and in the slavery of the happiest of civilizations +there is a bitterness that oppresses the heart. Once my very sadness +was a sort of joy that caused my life to expand flower-like and become +glorious. My sadness was a momentary transformation of the forces of +my being and when, by chance, I encountered someone with whom to share +this mood, it bourgeoned in the voluptuous silence of nights until it +equalled the very immensity of the world. Now and then I suffered, but +I never experienced ennui. What is this new distemper whose existence I +learned at the same time that I knew its name? One day I observed that +things around me were becoming colorless and that the eyes of women +were fading at my approach, like a metal mirror. I no longer interested +myself in anything, I dreamed of lands that were inexistent. My past +itself, so rich in adventures, no longer sufficed to fix memory on any +single point of my history, and my dormant desire stirred not at the +prospect of future loves. + +This only lasted several days, but I am still affected by it and +I feel that I shall never be cured. Cydalise’s return brought a +temporary recovery; since her second departure, I support my life +without extracting much pleasure out of it. Erebus has forsaken me, I +am alone, and it is in vain that Déidamie, a little Greek girl, puts +herself in my way when I go to see my friends who drink the green +water. She is a friend of Erebus, who has also bequeathed me an old +dealer in syllables who used to write love letters for her in return +for the pleasure her visits gave him. She had a habit of tossing her +dark hair at him, while letting fall a medley of words that were sharp +and peppery. Erebus called him her secretary and I address him as +Diogenes. I have often heard their quarrels and debates, one wishing +to clothe the secret thoughts of Erebus in fitting diction, the other +hurling them forth at random, as naked as Aphrodite emerging from the +waves, and much less chaste. How comical my old Diogenes seemed in +this struggle. But I was hurt to learn that Erebus trafficked in her +charms, with the same unconsciousness as Destiny. The manner of my +breaking with her is an insignificant episode. Several days afterwards, +I learned that she had left with an English traveler who had no desire +to view sunny sites without a companion. Diogenes was in tears when he +told me the news. He attends when I dress and awaits my morning talk, +but it is I who make him speak. + +His discourse is pleasant and bitter. At first I was immensely amused, +but his disillusioned words soon made me reflect on myself and on life +more than he would have wished, and I think it is perhaps this that has +made me ill. It is not surprising to find him disenchanted, for he is +old and poor, reduced to associate with a circle of people that goes +against his instincts and habits. I have perhaps erred in calling him +Diogenes, for he is more melancholy than cynical, more resigned than +depraved. Little as I am versed in apparel and styles, he seems to me +to be garbed with a sort of old-fashioned refinement. His hair has +the color of hemp one sees steeping in the ponds of fields; it is as +discolored as his soul. His linen is always immaculate, his complexion +is rosy, his hands fine, his eyes gentle and vague; and his fleshy lips +give him an air of goodness and innocent sensuality. + +There are priests of Jupiter here with this appearance, but some Greek +phrases he let fall have revealed to me the old professor of eloquence +or philosophy. Now I listen to his explanations of life without dismay +and I even experience the pleasures of the initiate. Sometimes I seem +to hear a Bacchant, sometimes a Mithriac, and sometimes again, a man in +his cups. Wine, which makes me wild and which I like only in the grape, +makes him bold. When he visits me, I always order a flagon the color +of amber or of new roses, the sight of which is pleasant to my eyes, +and I hearken to his wisdom while brushing my hair or polishing my +horns, for I keep no secrets from him. + +Like Erebus, he familiarly calls me Satyros, and I find this quite +natural. She was the subject of our first conversation, or rather of +his first discourse: + +“What I like in this woman is her disinterestedness. She sells her +body only the better to surrender herself; it is her weakness. She +has a marvelous appetite and can only satisfy it with those of her +choice. Those who choose her find her but a servant of Aphrodite. Were +she rich, she would be the most honest of women and would only select +her loves among those who most resemble the gods. Wealth is a great +privilege, even in love. Thus it happens that there are two races on +the globe, everlastingly creating and re-creating themselves,—the race +submissive to destiny and the race which surmounts it. You have heard +the contrary. It is nonsense. Give heed to the voice of a man whom +fate overwhelms and who, to be reconciled with a woman he loves, has +changed himself into her domestic slave. She will return; I shall again +feel the odor of her hair and of her scorn. I have ruined myself for +Aspasia. It is right that Aspasia should hold me in contempt.” + +I give you quite faithfully some of his words; I have not understood +them well. It seemed to me, besides, that his face flushed and grew +ruddy, that he was getting drunk. He added words that I understood +even less, about the pleasure of suffering and the keen delights of +humiliation. Then he recited Theognis’ invective against poverty, thus +completing the confession of his absolute incoherence. + +He is not always so senseless. He is an unfortunate wretch punished by +Aphrodite for having misused love—this is only permitted the gods—but +she usually offers him a respite and then his conversation is less +depressing. If I am to tell you the end of my experiences, I shall +doubtless have to speak of Diogenes. But I am truly forbearing, for he +has taken advantage of me. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +XI + +DÉIDAMIE + + + + +XI + + + Monte-Carlo, September 15. + +How it all came about, my dear friend, is a puzzling matter, but +Diogenes led me into an adventure which could not help make me uneasy, +though I am confident the protection of the all-powerful gods will +never fail me. Everything was proceeding smoothly; the roguish snares +of Déidamie, to which I had at last yielded, had freed me of that +vague ennui which tormented me.... But I must make you familiar with +this, in the episodic manner, before giving you the recital of the +dreadful happenings. Picture to yourself this Phrygian girl, born on +the Mæander shores, and if this does not move you, at least you will +understand my emotion upon discovering, once more, a lass hailing from +my native land! But the Phrygians have always been inconstant: Déidamie +is the very embodiment of caprice. Charming maid! She was the inamorata +of an archon’s wife, herself strikingly lovely, partaking of the beauty +that men have given Pallas Athena. + +“You love those who resemble you, O Déidamie of the violet eyes!” + +Déidamie loved those who were like her and those unlike her. How +privileged women are! They bring grace to their loves. Diogenes +explained to me that it was thus they disarmed morality, that power +dreaded by mankind, and whose aim is to prevent the extraction of +too much pleasure from life. Déidamie was taken away from me while +I still loved her. That is a good time to lose a woman. Regrets then +are transformed into pleasant memories, and one is spared satiety. +Diogenes had predicted that this would hardly last and that Déidamie, +being accustomed to feminine cajoleries, would soon weary, after the +first days of felicitous astonishment, of a being awkward in tender +adorations. + +“You will not know,” he said, “how to feed the flame sleeping in her +soft eyes. Your bellows will extinguish instead of keeping it alive.” + +And he continued: + +“I know all about you, Satyros. You always excite curiosity and you +never fail to disappoint it. Your career consists of abduction, the +sudden surprise, the stupefaction.” + +I wanted to reply that there was much truth in his judgment of my +character, but I remained silent, meditating on my companion’s wisdom +and perspicacity. Yet I thought of Cydalise, of whom he was ignorant. +I related the story to him and surprised him. After a moment’s +reflection, he confessed that to know and classify the types of women +was a vain and sorry task; some one would always turn up to contradict +and annihilate the most positive theories. + +“What you tell me, Satyros, does not go against the grain, since it +instructs me. The science of men and women is composed of exceptions, +each one of which constitutes a rule. Thus the science is a very long +and laborious one. It thus resembles the Chinese language, which aged +men begin to master after sixty years of study and when they no longer +have either the strength or the inclination to discourse. The eyes +grow impaired in observing men, and it is quite other faculties that +are used in the company of women, without which, besides, they would +be equally spent. But you cannot understand this, you who were kneaded +out of an immortal clay, moulded so that you would never experience +exhaustion, and who are the image of a youthfulness whose illusions +should be realities.” + +While saying this, Diogenes looked at me with an air of envy in which +was affection, that air carried by the poor in the presence of vases +filled with gold, such as I have seen in the street behind iron +railings. He continued, as though issuing from a dream: + +“Are you truly immortal, Satyros? The great gods, your masters and the +masters of men, are dead....” + +“Destiny has overlooked me, Diogenes, and besides, I believe that I +have brethren in the depths of every forest, in the grottos of every +mountain, in every dale. I have never seen, but I divine them. We are +the forces of nature and if we died, you would be condemned to death.” + +“That is rather what _we_ are. I think you are confusing immortality +and perpetuity.” + +I did not answer. I find it difficult to enter into subtleties. It +seems to me that my horns then begin to shoot out of my head. This time +he looked at me with pity: + +“Hm! Satyr,” he said. “To return to a more sensible topic, since +Cydalise loves you, why do you not go to find her again?” + +“And will you come with me, Diogenes?” + +“Without a doubt. You spoke of destiny, and since it has placed in my +path a son, or even a grand-cousin of the immortal gods, do you suppose +that I can abandon him? You do not know friendship, Satyros. It is +man’s virtue.” + +Thereupon, he delivered a long discourse which enchanted me by the +charmingly cadenced arrangement of its periods. I imagined myself +transported to the times of my childhood, I drank his eloquence like +my mother’s milk. I was stirred, I wept with emotion and I panted, +half-drowned under these harmonious waves. I am Greek and sensitive +to the felicities of rhetoric. Ah! had he spoken in Greek, I would +have offered to share my divinity with him, but I was thankful for his +discretion and embraced him. It was the time propitious for swearing +eternal friendship. I passed the remainder of the day congratulating +myself on the good fortune which had fallen to my lot among mankind. I +had a friend, and without understanding the joys that this should bring +me, I considered them great and equal to those painted by Diogenes in +his flowered discourse. + +He came to live with me. He installed himself in an adjoining room +which I was happy to be able to offer him, as is fitting in true +friendship, and he did not hesitate to share my frugal repasts, with +which he was pleased to be contented. Then he spoke once more of +Cydalise, whose portrait arose from the depths of his memories. I +described her to him and he forthwith knew her. His talk afforded me +pleasure. To speak of her was to revive her under my very eyes, almost +under my lips. She was nearer to me, each time I pronounced her name +aloud, and it seemed to me that the door was about to open and reveal +her. + +Cydalise had not returned for nearly a month and she had only written +me somewhat enigmatic letters which but half reassured me. The last +was a note so brief that I read it at a glance, as one drinks with +a single draught the water scooped into the palm of the hand. I had +been distracted from my uneasiness by Déidamie’s caprice, but now that +the little Phrygian had returned to her friend, I thought deeply of +Cydalise. It was easy for Diogenes to prevail on me to go and join her, +and as he wished to spare me all the inconveniences of the trip, our +departure was decided upon, following a new discourse which profoundly +stirred me to the depths of my heart and satisfied my last scruples. We +made our preparations. I did not forget the treasure with whose care I +was entrusted. Diogenes took charge of it. + +You will know the consequences. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +XII + +THE CLUSTER OF GRAPES + + + + +XII + + + Monte-Carlo, September 20. + +Consequently we left. Diogenes was in very good spirits and I a trifle +out of countenance by such a rapid decision, for he had hardly obtained +my consent than, our affairs in order, we were on our way. + +“Perhaps,” I said, “Cydalise is returning at the very moment that I +leave. What will she think of me?” + +But Diogenes seemed quite sure of the matter. + +“Doubtless, at this very moment she is climbing the flight of stairs, +she knocks at the door, no one answers her, she grows perturbed, +she begins to make inquiries. This is possible since everything is +possible. But Cydalise is not one of those giddy, thoughtless persons +who arrive all of a sudden at the home of their lover, especially +when the lover goes by the name of Satyros. Life has given such a one +experience. Trust in me, my friend, and let us have no anxieties about +the matter.” + +As I am always sensitive to the last impression which strikes me, I +easily agreed with the opinion of Diogenes and began to examine the +landscape which still possessed the richness of summer. Everywhere I +imagined I found once more the appearance of the Cogolin countryside +and the fragrance of its orange-trees. In vain did Diogenes endeavor +to put me right by informing me that we were quite remote from that +spot; still I saw the woods of the last days of my liberty, and I grew +enthusiastic as though they were about to return. + +“Let us get off at this spot,” I would say each moment, “I feel that +happiness awaits me in these rocks. A woman has come for me in this +very place, she is looking for me, she believes she has spied me behind +each clump of arbutus. See, she turns round hopefully and scans the +autumn-hued land. Let us get off, let us get off!” + +“It is a long time since you beheld the country fields, Satyros,” +Diogenes answered. “Your head is turned. What would you have us do +in this wild desert? It is nothing but a color, it is nothing but +imagination.” + +The train slackened its speed and Diogenes had to stop me as I was +about to hurl myself through the carriage door. It opened at the same +moment and two women entered our compartment where we had been alone +up till now. Diogenes now knew that he need no longer watch me. From +his pocket he drew a newspaper and began to read tranquilly, confident +that I would not try to escape. In fact, I was quite at ease, quite +satisfied with the turn of affairs. Although the new arrivals afforded +no pleasure to my eyes, they were capable of occupying my imagination. +I recognized their coiffure. How many similar heads had I not pursued +in days of yore among the shadows of descending night, on the skirt of +the vineyards! They were not absolutely ugly and their eyes had even a +certain beauty; but what heaviness of outline, what disgracefulness of +forms! Certainly I had loved more than one with less comeliness. And +these were the types of conquests with which I had once been so elated, +those fruits of nature which I had devoured, those earthen urns out of +which I had quaffed my pleasures so boldly. These buxom daughters of +Pomona carried in each arm a basket of grapes, oranges and vegetables. +These they deposited near them, and as I looked at the contents of the +baskets more intently than at their owners, one of them addressed me in +a singing voice: + +“Perhaps you would like to eat a bunch of grapes?” + +I stretched my hand forward and she gracefully lifted her heavy basket +toward me. She was the less coarse of the two. + +“I can only offer you,” I said, “a kiss.” + +Both of them commenced to laugh and the other, in an engaging manner, +remarked: + +“The baskets belong to the two of us.” + +I kissed her on the cheek, and her companion on the corner of her +lips. I had once again become a faun; my contemptuous reflections had +counted for naught against the tempting odor of a market woman! + +They laughed so loudly, to conceal their embarrassment, that they +failed to notice the train’s arrival at Arcs. Diogenes, whom the scene +had diverted from his newspaper, mentioned the fact aloud and the +countrywomen hastened to dismount. As I held out their baskets to them, +she whom I had touched with my desire bowed to me with a smile while +the other said: + +“Shall we perhaps meet again?” + +I had dominated my emotion. When the train started again, Diogenes +sententiously proferred these words which I was long in understanding: + +“That is what one gets for having frequented the little courtesans of +Toulon.” + +Noticing my astonishment, he added: + +“Satyros is becoming farther and farther removed from nature. Perhaps +we shall be able to make something out of him.” + +Diogenes’ perspicacity surprised and enchanted me at the same time. How +well the two propositions reunite and how faithfully they render my own +sentiment. But what could be the meaning of these words: “Perhaps we +shall be able to make something out of him. Am I then nothing, nothing +of consequence, nothing serious and true?” + +“Diogenes,” I answered, “I understand your first thought; it answers to +mine; but what do you propose to make of me? This is vague.” + +“A philosopher, Satyros, nothing more and nothing less, a philosopher +like myself, that is to say a man who is the dupe of nothing or who, +when he is a dupe, knows and enjoys his deception. It is a very rare +state of mind and surpasses even that of the Gods whom, if I am to +judge by yourself, are totally ignorant and always at the mercy of the +impressions of the moment. I was satisfied to notice with what an eye +you studied the rustics who tried their best little tricks upon you. +That is the first stage. One must know how to resist the passions. The +second consists in yielding to them. To be neither above nor below +human weakness, which the divine foibles greatly resemble, if once more +I can judge by yourself,—here you have the ideal position. Be always at +their level, always ready to respond to them.” + +“Had I met them along some path, in the mountain, despite my repulsion +of the first moment I would not have been able to master my desire.” + +“It is thus I understand the second stage,” answered Diogenes, “but +there is a third stage, which is still more advantageous. This takes +place when a person loves himself sufficiently, loves himself more than +the desires which make him leave his egoism. I am journeying toward +that condition, which I do not believe you will ever attain, Satyros.” + +“No more do I myself believe it, Diogenes. If the nature of the +gods is hardly removed from that of men, it nevertheless differs in +this essential point: all poetry is forthwith incorporated with its +substance, effortlessly and by the very play of desire. I enrich myself +where you impoverish yourself, Diogenes.” + +It was his turn to meditate upon the profundity of my words. He did +not know what to answer, doubtless, for on his face I read ennui +and sadness and envy perhaps. Diogenes is no longer very young. I +fear his philosophy is only a sort of insouciant resignation to the +fatality which weighs on mankind. I perceive—books have already taught +me this—that there are as many philosophies as there are ages and +temperaments. He has sufficiently outlined this for me by his theory +of the three stages. One desires to resist passions when they are so +weak that a little attention suffices to master them. One yields to +them when they are so strong that a struggle is grievous. One scorns +them on the day they become nerveless, when one no longer dare regret +the time of their heydey for fear of appearing in the attitude of a +vanquished person. That is the moment of virtue. According as young or +old men, the feeble or the strong govern society, the one or the other +spirit dominates the world. And I really believe that this applies to +all human inclinations. States fluctuate according as action or thought +and dream are held in higher repute. Ah! I understand why they laugh +in Olympus. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +XIII + +THE UNKNOWN WOMAN + + + + +XIII + + + Cannes, December 1. + +Good friend, I have not told you what happened to us at Monte-Carlo +and it is with difficulty that I now recall it. At first it seemed +important and stirring, but I readily see that events have hardly any +interest outside of their novelty: this should teach us to view them +philosophically at the very moment when they appear most grievous. It +really seems to me that the adventure which befell Diogenes, and which +affected us both, might have turned out badly for both of us, at least +this is what he told me, but my insouciance did not linger on the +matter overlong and life soon put me to rights. + +“Fortunate Antiphilos!” said Diogenes, gazing at me with an admiration +in which anger was mingled, “we are lost and he is as calm as a god! +Are you at least capable of giving me some advice? Divine animal, be +oracular, be Dodonian, pronounce a number!” + +It is probable that I obeyed, for Diogenes manifested a sudden +contentment and disappeared, leaving me slightly bewildered by his +eccentricities, on one of the garden seats, in the dim shadow of the +palm trees. I was not long in finding tranquility, since the place was +propitious to peace. Young women passed by accompanied by aged men and +the same thoughts certainly did not inhabit their heads, for their +glances were unlike. The expressions on the men’s faces were dull, the +women looked stupid, and though some among them were quite pretty, they +did not inspire me with any desire. + +Besides, I do not dispute a woman with any male. Only the rams, goats +and bulls intertwine their horns and battle for the conquest of +females. I, whose ways are peaceful, only attack unescorted women; it +is surer. Unless it be night, I even wait to see, in their eyes, near +the dwellings, the provocative little flame which my presence rarely +fails to light in their eyes. I do not put myself to any trouble, +unless I am sure of pleasing. Diogenes has told me that men are not +so constituted and that what often excites them in a woman is her +coldness, no less than the obstacles which shield her. On this subject +they use in their speech all sorts of images of warfare which make +veritable treaties of strategy of their books on love. It is a question +of siege, stratagems, skirmishes, attack, defeat, resistance, victory, +conquest. I do not understand all these things. Love is naught when it +is not the leaping of a twin desire. Yet I would not be worthy of my +name of Satyros did I not admit assault and abduction, the surprise +which satisfies desire lulled to sleep before it has had time to +awake. It is not perhaps the most beautiful side of my nature, but it +is such as the gods have made it and besides, neither women nor girls +have ever taken offense at it. I must confess that I have completely +leashed these habits since living, in the towns, a life similar to +that of other men. If I have not yet been able to understand that one +lays siege to woman, as Alexander laid siege to the city of Tyre, it +is perhaps due to the fact that I still rely more on the candor of +her desires than on a possession which, in the strategic system, one +generally owes to the weariness of the besieged, to the poliorcetic +science of the besieger. + +“Satyros,” Diogenes suddenly cried out, “Satyros! You are the true God +or at least a true god!” + +And, plunging a hand in his pocket, he drew it forth filled with gold +pieces. + +“But let us be circumspect,” he continued. “One must no longer question +destiny. It has answered in no uncertain terms. Let us flee this town. +Take my arm on the side where I carry the gold and let us leave without +turning our heads.” + +“You are wrong, monsieur,” a voice behind us answered. “One does not +thus break his lucky streak....” + +The voice belonged to an extremely pretty woman who lacked neither +elegance nor distinction. Diogenes apostrophized her strongly: + +“Are you the guardian dragon of these portals, recovering from mortals +the gold which destiny conceded them? Are you....” + +“I am not even a dragon of virtue,” answered the young woman, smiling +pleasantly. “You are right. It is time to go and breakfast. I will show +you the way.” + +I had the look of a schoolboy rescued from the perils of an adventure +by his elder brother and I found that Diogenes really protected my +virtue a little too carefully, for this woman decidedly pleased me. I +am ashamed to avow it, but I struggled an instant longer against my +desire, I was on the point of obeying Diogenes, my arm relaxed its +hold, I felt myself the docile son of the dreariest civilization, which +sits down at the roadside and watches its dream pass, without daring +to arrest them. But she turned her fair head, her clear eyes toward +me, our glances penetrated each other and I suddenly felt myself become +again the faun of the forests, the jovial, whinnying faun who can +overcome pitchfork blows, but not reasonings. + +With a harsh burst of laughter, I scoffed at my hesitations. My +companion trembled and grasped my arm tighter. She led me away and I +imagined that I was carrying her off, for already I felt her limbs +tremble under my strength. + +When Diogenes rejoined us in the rooms, to which he had the key, she +was already arranging her hair in front of the mirror, while glancing +at my reflection in one of its corners. She was murmuring: + +“What a man! Amazing!” + +He had the rudeness to come and behold us, then he shrugged his +shoulders and said: + +“It might as well be this one as another. Besides, she is pretty, even +though she has blond hair. Satyros could not remain good very long. And +one must enliven the journey. We are going far, madam, and the caprices +of the gods are short-lived. I leave you, unless you are going to +invite me to the repast.” + +The nymph was still dressing her hair. I reflected on the fortunate +state of women in being able to arrange their hair in delicate +situations. I myself did not know what to say, I did not know what to +do. + +“What repast?” asked the lady. “It is finished,” she added with a happy +laugh. “At least, I believe so.” + +“And are you ready?” questioned Diogenes. + +“Who are you anyway?” she rejoined, almost angry. “Why do you come to +interfere?...” + +“Madam, I am Satyros’ secretary, and as I fear that he does not know +the customs very well....” + +“I understand. You imagine me venal? I am life’s slave, that is all. +I know how to enjoy, making allowances for my chain and its length, +the enchantments of the present moment, and I accept the disappointing +after-taste that follows. Leave me with my friend an hour, so that I +may gather, under my eyelids, tears for the moment he will quit me.... +I have often seen love bud in eyes that followed me, but I have not +known how to make the bud thrive, how to keep it fresh, at least, like +a rose in a glass of water. When friends abandon me, they tear the rose +to bits and sneer, they throw it to the ground and trample it. Are you, +too, ashamed of your pleasures?” + +“How well she speaks!” exclaimed Diogenes, who loves eloquence. “How I +love this flute player! And you say nothing, Satyros?” + +But I spoke and she remained. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + + + +XIV + +FLIGHT + + + + +XIV + + + Cannes. + +A sage among civilized people, Diogenes tells me, decrees the uttering +of hypocritical compliments during the last days of the year, but this +does not suit me at all for several reasons. The first one is that +I am aware of the seasons, but not of the years, which have already +fallen on me in such numbers that I should be engulfed by them. Now it +is warm, now it is cold. The seasons alternate and do not accumulate. +The second, third and other reasons are that I have a profound disgust +for men and no longer wish to resemble them in anything. I am going +to leave, I shall return to the old, consecrated woods, to the fortune +awaiting me on the paths. I have engaged my passage on a vessel which +returns to the land of Theocritus, deprived of the citrons it brought. +Diogenes has pointed out to me that I would doubtless be very ill and +that I might be shipwrecked, but I believe he did it only to frighten +me, and besides I prefer risking every peril to becoming, in the end, a +man like yourself. I leave, I leave! Nothing shall hold me. + +I flee a frightful evil, which reduces my strength, exhausts my +limbs, which might succeed in turning my skin white. Diogenes, who is +touched with the malady like myself, but less perhaps, supports it +merrily, laughs at me, swears that it is the common lot of mankind +and that I must learn to live with him. I already suffered an attack +and acquainted you with its nature, I believe, but this time it is +intolerable. This is boredom. Everything seems unprofitable. I have no +desire and life for me is vapid. Diogenes tells me that this seizure +will pass like the first one, but it is much stronger and I succumb to +it. I feel that solitude alone can cure me and I must apply myself to +seek it with the last ounce of energy left in me. + +Cydalise has absolutely forgotten me. This caused me bitter pain, a +sentiment of which I am ashamed. Diogenes finds it an honorable one, +but happily I am not fashioned like you and find myself horrified at +the idea that a woman should have been able to reduce me to such a +degree of slavery that her forgetfulness would make me wretched. The +worst of it is that a part of me thinks like Diogenes. He has left +for a trip to Toulon. She has never returned. She has not written. +Finally, through a female companion, he learned that Cydalise had never +gone to Toulon; the informant added that we would perhaps have some +tidings before long. I would henceforth like to know only chance women +like the one I met in the gardens of Monte-Carlo. It is wrong for a +person to belie his own nature. I am pleased with those women who come +led by pure chance, and who pass. + +I am leaving! Yet there is a consolation in those syllables which +I often repeat and which betoken my last days among men. Diogenes +does not try very hard to detain me. He sees my dejection and has +renounced the idea of conquering it. Besides, I believe he is feeling +the nostalgia of his libidinous life, the trip to Toulon awoke his +memories. I shall perhaps miss him. He is not at all ignorant of the +customs of the women of the country and I, who am almost totally +ignorant of them, enjoyed his bitter words which were yet full of +gayety. + +“You will return to us, Satyros, when solitude, or rather barbarism, +will have strengthened your heart. You still have many experiences +awaiting you among us, I mean to say among women who love and this +includes them all, if one counts those who shun love because they fancy +they are afraid. You have only known those who throw themselves at +men, but there are others who must be conquered. There lies infinity, +Satyros. It is our infinity and generally our sepulchre. We descend +thither, ever dreaming of the enigma of their smile, and we will never +know whether their smiles are natural expressions or condescensions. +You cannot understand this, I fear, Satyros, but one loves these women +in proportion as one suspects their love, of which one is never sure. +They are never completely conquered, and this is what gives such value +to their slightest favors. It is a quite different world. You have not +the faintest idea of it, Satyros. You have remained with Phryne, access +to whom is always assured by a bag of gold....” + +“What is this thing you call gold?” + +“Or a fine reputation as a faun.” + +“That is more to the point.” + +“I do not deny that this last merit, which is yours, might not still +gain you some hearts whose pride has not killed curiosity, but for +this, too, you will need a diplomatic tact which is not yet a part of +you.” + +“The thing bores me in advance!” + +“You cannot know. Ah! Satyros, despite your little adventure with +Cydalise, you still have a lovely, sentimental ignorance. How many +steps you have still to mount, or perhaps descend, to reach the level +of beautiful, delicate humanity!” + +“To descend, Diogenes, to descend. But I no longer desire to resemble +men. I want to leave.” + +“You too will think so when you will be alone with your brothers the +trees and the vanishing shadows of your desires. Patience! You will +return. And for this one must leave. Nostalgia is the beginning of the +spiritual life. Ennui is the nobility of the soul.” + +“I would have thought it was rather joy.” + +“No, a joyous soul will never be thoroughly distinguished. If you must +caper, at least let it be done with melancholy. Look at me steadily. +Infinity commences to appear in your eyes, Satyros, I believe I +discover in you a Christian faun in his birth.” + +“I dimly feel, Diogenes, that you are bantering. No matter, I will +perhaps miss you.” + +“I really hope so. But I am not bantering. I find that a certain +sadness has touched your heart. If you remained, you would soon weary +of pleasures. In fine, this state does not befit a god. It is good for +us, it is good for me who have no more than this means of living the +last years of my poor life. Life escapes me and I only capture it by +feigning indifference, for there is an irony in things and they love +the malice of contradiction. But I feel that I still have some love for +them and that this love is useless. Do you see what is taking place in +me?” + +“I see nothing at all, despite my earnest application, but I hope that +you will be happy and that Erebus will be good to you.” + +“That is understood. Adieu. I return to my turpitude.” + +Ah! I shall never understand men! But my vessel leaves at break of day +and I must sleep on board. I do not know if I shall ever again have the +occasion or even the desire to write you. + + ANTIPHILOS, + _Satyr._ + + +(END) + + + + + _Three Stories from_ + + COLORS + + By REMY DE GOURMONT + + [Illustration] + + Translated by Louis Lozowick + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + LIEBER & LEWIS + _MCMXXII_ + + + Copyright, 1922, + By LIEBER & LEWIS + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +BLUE + + _La demoiselle bleu aux bords frais de la source_ + + _Th. Gautier._ + + +She was a princess. Sister of the queen, she lived together with her +and shared her royal honors. But her fancy counselled pleasures less +splendid, and she gladly paid occasional visits to one of her maids +of honor whose husband served in the royal body guard, and was an +excellent gentleman, young, fair, clever, amiable. + +In her own country the princess had been married to a prince who +might have become king, had several generations disappeared in some +catastrophe. They never loved each other. However, the princess, +sometimes gay and always proud, was known as a woman with a heart +of steel. She received much homage but accepted little. Either she +would assume a mocking attitude or take an icy tone. She loved only to +dress, to play, to reign. What pleased her at the house of the royal +guardsman was that her smile was there equivalent to law; besides, she +was always winning in _vingt-et-un_; then, too, her dresses and her +jewels eclipsed all other robes and adornments. The guardsman had never +exhibited any other sentiment except that of profound respect. + +Being a blond she liked blue clothes, blue flowers, blue sapphires—as +blue as her own eyes, so that she finally came to be called the Blue +Princess. This appellation which seemed to come out of some fairy tale, +pleased her greatly. One day as she was listening to the melancholy +stories of her maid of honor, she felt a kind of languor in her body +and mind, and said: “My soul is a blue bird.” These words repeated +several times, brought back her serene mood—so beautiful they were. +Then she looked about her and said: + +“Is your husband absent, my dear? I do not think he came out to greet +me.” + +“You noticed my husband’s absence today, but isn’t he always absent?” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Isn’t he always absent-minded?” + +“My poor friend, that means he is neglecting you.” + +“He does not love me any more.” + +“Really? A fine state of affairs. But that’s impossible. Moreover, I +won’t allow it. I do not want to see my friend unhappy. I am going to +order him.” + +“Ah! Do you think, Madame, a heart can obey orders?” + +“Certainly. Was I, a princess, consulted about my marriage? I was told +to love my husband, and I did.” + +“How long?” + +“I might have loved him always had he wanted it. He did not.” + +“There, you see.” + +“He did not or perhaps could not. Marriage brought me no pleasure +whatever; he reproached me with indifference and I cried. Thenceforth +we never met without witnesses. In the beginning I felt deeply +humiliated, but gradually I learned to appreciate the calm of solitary +nights. I lead the life of a virgin with great pleasure. But since my +sad experiences, the plays, the dramas, the comedies of love seem to +me more inexplicable than ever.... Does the marriage ceremony really +interest you?” + +The maid of honor looked at her mistress with respectful and sad irony. + +Then she said: + +“I fear my husband hides from me some love or infatuation.” + +“Infatuation?” said the princess. “A pretty word. Infatuation is +nothing serious, is it?” + +“Serious? No, infatuation passes while love endures. But I do not +know. Perhaps it is real love that alienates him from me. I fear this +greatly.” + +“I scarcely understand anything of this,” said the princess, “but I +would like to see you as happy as I am myself. For me, to observe the +passing show of life is quite sufficient. For you—since you need love—I +shall try to do something to help you, I repeat. The word of a princess +will touch his heart.... Oh! my good friend, it is I, perhaps, whom he +adores?” + +“Perhaps, alas!” + +“Why ‘alas!’ If that is so, you are saved.” + +At that moment the guardsman came in and went to greet the princess. + +“Sir,” she said to him, “I shall receive you at the palace, in private +audience, at six o’clock.” + +She rose and left. + +Everybody followed the example of the princess, and the husband and +wife, very excited, remained face to face. + +“Madame,” said the husband, “so you have angered the princess? It is to +you then that I owe this affront?” + +“Affront? Your heart’s desire wants to see you in private and you +complain?” + +At first he did not know what to answer, for this was the first time +his wife made allusion to the feelings he thought securely hidden in +his heart. + +“My heart’s desire,” he said brutally, “is my career, and you have +doubtless ruined it through your chatter.” + +“I am not a chatter-box.” + +“You are stupid.” + +“Ah! let me be, you do not deserve to be loved.” + +The woman ran away overcome with despondent anger. Yet she hoped +despite her reason that the intervention of the princess would be +crowned with success. She passed the rest of the day in tears. + +The guardsman worshipped the princess in secret and without hope. Timid +and violent, he reserved his timidity for his idol, his violence for +his wife. But every brutal act left him in deep shame and every act +of shyness caused him untold suffering. He was almost always unhappy. +Thus, he began to seek in ambition a remedy for his ills. He had spent +all that afternoon in most humiliating errands for the king’s mistress +who was troubled by the conduct of a lover she had recently dismissed. +In exchange for a note of three lines the guard was to receive a +warrant for the rank of captain. The note was in his pocket-book now +and he had to deliver it to the king’s favorite lady at six o’clock +exactly. + +Love, curiosity, disquietude had the better of ambition. Dressed in his +finest, and well perfumed, he ran to the audience, saying to himself: +“Perhaps this is a _rendez-vous_?” + +The princess, instead of letting him wait for her, was herself waiting, +and not without impatience. She was prettier now, being paler, and her +eyes were shining. Her face had the sweetness of white lilac hiding +in the foliage, but the foliage was fair: her hair intentionally +disarranged with great art let a few curls fall casually to her +shoulders. + +“Come here,” she said dolefully, “come here. Sit down near me. I am ill +and can speak only in a whisper. And besides, it is a friend of your +wife that is receiving you and not a princess. Well then: I noticed +that you do not love Elizabeth any more and this grieves me. Is it +really true that you no longer love her?” + +“Alas!” + +“And the consciousness of your duty, of your honor?” + +“My honor?” + +“Yes, you swore conjugal fidelity as well as eternal affection.” + +“She believed it.... Perhaps I believed it myself....” + +“It is wrong to forsake her, to torment her.... She is crying at this +very moment, I am sure....” + +“I am not severe with her.” + +“Very well, then. Will you promise not to cause her any more suffering?” + +“I never did that intentionally.” + +“Good, but promise me more, promise me....” + +She seemed crushed, and her voice became so weak that to hear her the +guard had to bend his head so near her as almost to touch her hair. +Although he had been trained in all the dissimulation of a courtier, he +suffered frightfully. To love the princess from a distance seemed to +him sweet pain in comparison with the racking torture his desire caused +him at that moment. With any other woman he would either fall on his +knees or flee; with the princess he had to stay still, keep silent and +maintain an attitude of a soldier receiving orders. + +“Promise me,” went on the princess, “to be kind to her, to be very +kind, to love her....” + +The guardsman was mute. + +“Do you promise?” + +He was still silent. + +“That is impossible, then? Is it all over between you! Can you +reproach her with anything serious?” + +“I have nothing to reproach her with. I do not love her any longer, +that is all.” + +“At least, do not let her notice it!” + +“I had hoped that she never would notice it.” + +“Then it is possible to stop loving a woman without her noticing it?” + +“That is very hard if one has not the necessary ability. More easy it +is, alas! to love a woman without her noticing it.” + +“Oh! Do you think so?” + +“I am quite sure of it. She whom I love never suspected it and never +shall.” + +“Sir guardsman,” said the princess, “Sir soldier, you are a child. She +whom you love is aware of it....” + +“Alas!” he said, incredulous. + +“... and she loves you,” she added extending both her hands to him. + +Still hesitating and breathlessly agitated, he flung himself into the +proferred hands. + +“Kiss them, child,” said the princess, “kiss me, you who love me, you +who desired me so long in the secrecy of your heart. Embrace your blue +princess, embrace your love.” + +Next morning, the chamber-maid said to her mistress: + +“Oh! Madame has a blue spot on her breast.” + +“Nothing surprising. This is a birthmark. But how strange! Now here, +now there. It appears, it disappears. On the breast, on the heart....” + +“Maybe that is why Madame is called the blue princess?” she continued +innocently. + +“Go and see whether my maid of honor is here.” + +Remaining alone for a moment, the princess looked with emotion at the +blue mark. + +“God! How happy I am!” she thought, “and how clever! How stupid my +friend! To share love confidence with any one! Poor Ariane, without you +I might never have suspected anything. His glances which I mistook for +a sign of warm and respectful attachment, were glances of love!... But +here she is....” + +The maid of honor came in agitated. + +“Oh, princess! I had to wait for him till four o’clock in the morning! +I am mad! All is lost!” + +“There, now! Won’t you ever be reasonable? On the contrary, everything +is settled.” + +“Oh! Thank you!” + +“Listen to me. I made him confess. It was difficult and took a long +time. At last I know the truth. Mere infatuation. The person who turned +your husband’s head is an actress of no importance. It is the type +one picks up, discards, picks up again. She passed through many hands +already, those of my husband, among others.... You see, we are of the +same family.... Now, the actress is rarely free during the day. Her +freedom begins at the time when the freedom of the other women ends—at +midnight. I therefore decided that your husband be on guard at my +palace every day from midnight to four in the morning.... Naturally, +he will receive his compensation, for the work is very exhausting.... +His future is assured, and his happiness.... Is he ambitious? Yes. Very +well. Would a promotion please him? A decoration? First of all I attach +him to my person. As soon as he is promoted to higher rank, in six +months, in three months, he shall become my aide-de-camp, my secretary. +He shall leave me only to court you, happy spouse. We will save him +for both of us.” + +“How kind you are!” + +“Am I?” + +“You are kindness itself.” + +“You are beautiful and that is worth more.” + +“Beautiful! Who is more beautiful than you?” + +“Flatterer! I am thirty years old and you are twenty-five.... Alas! I +have renounced everything. Will you at least love me?” + +“I always did love you. I will adore you. My life belongs to you. I +will be devoted to you until death, and my husband also, I hope.” + +“I hope so too, I saved him perhaps from a grave danger, from unhappy +love, for what joy could he find in the adventure he had entered into?” + +“When he comes to himself he will be very grateful to you.... Last +night, that is, this morning, he was very agitated. When he returned I +thought him intoxicated. He looked at me with wandering eyes. As soon +as he entered his room he locked the door, then I heard him cry: ‘Ah! +Ah! Ah!’” + +“He said nothing more?” + +“I think not. He is not very talkative.” + +“An excellent trait. What would you say of a husband who should be +making humiliating confessions before you?... There are such.... Mine, +for example....” + +“You were very unhappy!” + +“Yes and no. I think no more about it. The present fills my heart with +joy.... To give happiness to those whom you love and who love you—is +there anything like it in the world?” + +“You are adorable.” + +“And adored.” + +“Oh, yes!” + +“Dearest friend!” + +She allowed her maid of honor to take her hand and cover it with kisses. + +“Kisses superimposed,” she thought, “but the last do not efface the +first. Your lips, poor couple, still meet with passion but on my +skin.... Very strange....” + +“Ah!” she began aloud, “now that you are certain of regaining your +happiness sooner or later, I hope you will use discretion. From his +confidential talk I gather that your husband is a little weary of +conjugal joys. Men dislike to have women make advances to them....” + +“Oh! between husband and wife! However, I shall be prudent, kind +friend....” + +“More kind than you think! For, after all, your husband is quite +seductive. He is young, younger than I am, beautiful, warm-hearted, +passionate....” + +“He was.” + +“He still is, rest assured, and it will not take you long to perceive +it. If I had not renounced everything, if I were not a princess.... In +your place I would be jealous.” + +“Heavens! I know your heart too well.” + +“Then you will return home full of hope? Still a little sad?” + +“A little.” + +“But the clouds are scattering, the sky is becoming blue again?” + +“Yes.” + +“Blue like my soul, my sweet friend, blue like my heart.” + +And she pressed her finger to her breast where she felt the blue mark +that thrilled her love-intoxicated flesh. + + + + +ZINZOLINE + + _D’une lumière zinzoline...._ + + _Scarron_ + + +Color was the subject of conversation, and the young women were +expressing their commonplace preferences. One liked rose, another liked +blue, a third praised pale green, a fourth preferred red. + +“And you, Alain?” + +“Oh! I as a man,” said Alain, “am condemned to black, gray and brown. I +do not dream like you of brilliant plumage. Still, if I were allowed my +choice, I should like to dress in zinzoline.” + +All burst out laughing to hide their ignorance. + +“Is not the word beautiful?” continued Alain. + +No answer came. Then the young man went on: + +“I do not want to deceive you. The word is pretty but the color is +frightful. Imagine something reddish violet, recall a piece of violet +velvet all worn and showing the warp of a dubious red.” + +“You are making fun of us, that is not fair.” + +“I am not making fun. I like the word because it is so pretty, because +it rhymes with my name, perhaps because it rhymes with yours, my Aline. +Zinzoline!” + +And he passionately kissed his sister who protested vigorously: + +“No, I am not zinzoline; I do not want to be zinzoline.” + +“But though I like the word I do not like the color it denotes, and if +my Aline did in truth become zinzoline I would not love her so much.” + +“Naughty boy!” said Aline. + +“For several minutes,” said Alain. + +The girl called Blue was an orphan. A daughter of the closest friend of +Alain and Aline’s mother, she entered their house as a little girl and +grew up there, although it was generally felt that she was not one of +the family. Her nature separated her from her foster-relatives. She was +gloomy, they were gay; she seemed to be afraid of life; they joyfully +plunged into it, young and old, as into a warm sea. Neither the first +nor the last possessed a strong will. Paula (this was her real name) +was, on the contrary, always in a state of high, moral tension, and if +she ever happened to laugh in company, aloud like everybody else, she +would suddenly cut herself short as soon as she became aware of it. A +philosopher would have found in this child the passion for suffering +which priesthood has so often exploited in women among whom it is +not at all rare; a passion which most men like because it flatters +their pride or better still because they find it quite natural. Such +women are hard to tame because they are very suspicious and also very +apprehensive. One often thinks them cruel while they are only timorous. +The more skilled in the art of self-torment seek often to displease, +just as others seek to please; always, however, with some hidden +motive; and when one divines this motive, he becomes their master. + +Paula was neither ugly nor beautiful. When the features of her somewhat +concentrated face were illumined with a smile, she became attractive. +Her eyes would have been very eloquent had she not imposed an oath of +unexpressiveness on them. She was small though not slight, and very +nimble; her very thick hair was chestnut of that indefinable hue which +is perhaps most captivating because most mysterious, because it does +not promise anything. + +Besides the two young girls there were two young women and it was to +them, naturally, that Alain paid his chief attention. He was not quite +sure which of the two pleased him more, nor, in fact, whether either +one of them pleased him at all. Both, decided brunettes, scared him a +little, but as they answered his banter, he kept teasing them somewhat +as one teases a strange animal to see what would happen. What did +happen was that while playing, they exchanged sidelong glances, and +that each in turn brightened up whenever an extra compliment fell to +her share. Alain kissed the tapering fingers of one, and the waist, +where the fingers immediately withdrew to seek shelter, heaved like a +big wave. He then walked up, like a traitor, to the other woman, and +his lips touched the down on the nape of her neck; the neck and the +entire body quivered long after. + +Motionless, with a dull glance and disdainful air, Paula seemed to see +nothing and saw everything. She seemed to feel nothing and suffered +great pains. + +“I am nothing. He did not look at me even once! I am ugly, it’s true, +and badly dressed in this blue so unbecoming to me. But I am satisfied. +Oh! I wish I could displease him still more!” + +At that moment Alain noticed her. + +“She is really the prettiest.” + +He threw her a rose he had just stolen from one of the other two women. + +“Thanks, Zinzoline,” said Paula, “you do not often make me presents; I +shall keep this one.” + +“He wanted to humiliate me,” she thought, “what shall I do to displease +him still more? Stay here or go?” + +She looked at the two young women: + +“Stay.” + +She smelled the rose: + +“Go.” + +“I am going up,” said Aline at that moment, “are you, Paula?” + +She looked again at the two young women half concealed from her by +Alain who was facing them. + +“No, I stay here.” + +Alain turned his head towards her. His face was smiling. + +“Yes, I am going too, wait for me.” + +She was thinking: + +“He looked at me ironically. He thinks I want to watch him. What an +idea! I scorn him!” + +Aline entered the parlor. Paula went up to her room. She put some water +into a small vase of blue crystal, and, before putting the rose in it, +long inhaled its odor, looked attentively at it, then suddenly with a +quick motion brought it to her lips. + +“I am going mad. I am ashamed of my own self! What’s this flower to me? +How stupid! No! no! no!” + +And she crushed the rose in a violent fury, threw its shreds on the +floor, and began to stamp her feet over the petals in ever-rising +childish wrath. Coming to herself, she carefully swept into the +fireplace the remnants of her rejected joy, when another fit overtook +her in this humble plight. With the small duster in one hand, leaning +with the other on the marble, comical and tragic, she burst into tears. + +Paula once more found strength to counteract this. She straightened up, +washed her eyes, forced herself to read three pages from _The Treasure +of the Humble_, and went down calm and cool. Everybody was already in. +As usual, she helped Aline to serve the tea. Alain, in the meantime, +continued his adolescent pranks. Alain, eighteen years of age, was +awkward and insolent, though quite innocently so, for he thought +himself very clever as he had already conquered the hearts of two +servant maids and one little flower girl in the neighboring city. He +saw them swoon away by turns from pleasure and disappointment, and told +them such things as occasions required. Hence, he did not think himself +insolent at all but, on the contrary, well-bred and even affable. + +He was rather tall and graceful, beardless and with hair closely cut. +His head was of two hues superimposed above each other, rose and +copper, in the rose—two big blue flowers. He was peculiar in appearance +and very captivating; women desired him as they desire a sparkling, +rare jewel, but being too self-conscious, he failed to notice their +desire. Besides, the friends of his mother or sister seemed to him +impenetrable fortresses. These two women, however, showed their +weakness, and he began to believe them vulnerable. + +Remaining alone with the two women, he began to tell them, rather +awkwardly, the greatest impertinences in the world. + +“I love you both, yes, both.” + +“We don’t need to be loved,” answered the younger quickly, “we have +husbands.” + +“Husbands? Do they know how to love?” + +“Certainly,” she answered. + +“If your husbands loved you they would not have gone out hunting. They +would have acted like me. They would have got a sudden pain in their +foot and stayed with you.” + +And he pointed to his slipper. + +The young woman would not admit herself defeated. She said: + +“There is a time for all things.” + +But she was thinking: + +“Heavens! He remained for my sake! he loves me.” + +“So he loves me?” thought the other. “He loves me!” + +As if divining their secret thoughts, Alain became more daring. + +“Only lovers know how to love.” + +“Perhaps this is true?” thought the older. “Shall I try it?” + +“He is right,” thought the younger, who had some experience. “He would +love me splendidly!” + +They dropped their eyes to dream the better. + +“_Mesdames_,” said Alain, “I place my heart at your feet.” + +This time they both laughed. + +“What a devil!” + +“What a little demon!” + +“Oh! I wish I could whisper something in your ears, to both at the same +time.” + +“Naughty boy!” + +“Naughty boy!” + +“Alright, one after the other. Let us draw lots.” + +They began to laugh still more loudly. + +“I shall say one word to each and ask one question. I expect an answer.” + +“No, I don’t want to hear anything.” + +“And still less, to answer.” + +“But I won’t say the same thing to both, and won’t ask the same +question.” + +“You wouldn’t say anything that can’t be listened to?” + +“You wouldn’t ask questions that can’t be answered?” + +“Naturally.” + +“Alright, give us the lots, naughty boy.” + +“I yield my turn.” + +“Your turn, dear Madame. Be kind enough to come near. Good: ‘I love +you. And you?’ ‘Monster!’ Now yours: ‘I adore you. Do you love me!’ +‘Hush!’ I kept my word and you did likewise. Now let us go and have tea +with a gratified conscience of duty performed.” + +They walked, thinking. Alain followed them and was asking himself: + +“With which shall I begin and how?” + + * * * * * + +The dawn was hardly breaking when Paula was already on her feet. She +had slept very little. Before dressing, she went out of her bedroom, +and straight to an adjacent room called the laundry, which contained +besides the wash of the entire household, all sorts of remnants of +worn-out clothes, hats, and discarded ribbons—a heritage left by +several generations of women. There were multicolored silks brought +into fashion by the Empress Eugenie, there was amaranthine velvet, and +nacarat satins. + +“Ah! Here is something I want!” + +She took a box of ribbons the sad color of which seemed to answer fully +the definition of zinzoline—reddish violet. + +“How ugly!” + +She fastened bows of zinzoline silk to her blue waist, to her white +neck, to her chestnut hair. + +“I look like a wild woman,” she said looking at herself in the mirror, +“he will laugh at me; perhaps he is angry. If I do not quite displease +him this time, what else can I do?” + +She went into the garden. A blackbird was madly whistling the five +notes of its monotonous plaint; the sun was casting long shadows; there +was velvety dew on the leaves and the grass. She saw a morning glory +open truly like a pretty eye; she ate up an apple cold as ice. Paula +thought of nothing except how jolly it would be to leap like an early +roe. + +But what was that she suddenly noticed under the lilac bush? Alain +sitting on a bench and looking at her in surprise! + +The sight of this friendly enemy revived her rancor. + +“What! You are not thinking about me?” + +“No, dear, Paula, I was thinking of my own self.” + +“Do you always get up so early?” + +“Only today.” + +Standing in the full light of the sun, Paula sparkled with zinzoline +hues. + +“Where did you find this?” + +“What?” + +“These dreadful ribbons.” + +“Dreadful? Do you think so?” + +“You put them on for my sake, perhaps?” + +“Why not?” + +“If you intended to displease me, you fully succeeded. But listen, I +thought you were indifferent to everything, I thought nothing could +touch your heart, and here I see you up at five in the morning....” + +“And you?” + +“I! I am, at least, in love.” + +“Not I.” + +“... and you disguise as a gypsy and run about in the garden to shake +off your thoughts.... Sit down near me, Paula, come.... This is really +zinzoline.... What an idea! But you have not been so foolish as you +thought, and I am less stupid than you imagine....” + +“Well?” she said with ill-disguised coolness. + +“Well, I am like you, I do not know what to say. I would like to jest, +but cannot.... Paula, Paula, do you know why we both got up with the +sun? Tell me, do you?... Give me your hand, Paula.” + +She let him take her hand, she let his arm embrace her, she allowed him +to press her to his breast. The trees, flowers, heaven and earth—all +became a whirling confusion. She shut her eyes, her head fell. + +“Tell me, do you know?” continued Alain. “Well, we sought and found +each other.” + +She was a tender mistress of Alain during all his vacation and long +after, every time he returned home. + +One day Alain said to her: + +“We ought to marry. But how shall we do it? Can a man marry at +eighteen? Let us wait a little.” + +“Let us not talk about it,” answered Paula, “I am yours, and you can do +with me whatever you please.” + +And so she reconciled her happiness with her love of suffering. She +was very happy in the course of many years. + + + + +WHITE + + _Cet unanime blanc conflit + D’une guirland avec la même._ + + _S. Mallarmé._ + + +There were once two children of the same age, a little boy and a little +girl. They loved each other very much, were never happy apart, and +their playing had much tenderness in it. In the game of hide-and-seek, +whenever the little girl was caught, she would fall into the arms of +her friend, throw her head back, lower her eyes, half-open her mouth; +and if the kisses were not showered upon her, she would demand them +or go in search of them, raising her mouth gracefully to his timid or +distracted lips. They had just completed their tenth year. + +One day when it was very warm, they removed their socks and went +splashing into the stream. They became very wet and went to dry +themselves in the sun on the warm grass. The sight of their little rosy +legs and wet knees excited their curiosity. They made comparisons, and +the little boy had the good sense to notice that his skin was less +smooth. “And not so tender,” he said; and his hands were in agreement +with his eyes. + +They recommenced next day, and read more with each day. Their kisses, +now accompanied by soft caresses, sent the blood to their heads. But +an instant later they thought no more of it and broke out in innocent +laughter. They were happy. + +With the coming of the first cold and rainy days they transferred their +games to a big half-empty room, left entirely to them. The little boy, +who was attending school, came to pass his time at his friend’s house. +The little girl was receiving instruction at home. Whenever the weather +was bad, the little boy took lessons together with her. Their parents, +with an eye on the future, noticed with pleasure the childish intimacy +of the two pupils. + +Toward the month of September a curé came to the house, and was taken +by the mother into the large room where the children were at play. +They brought him an armchair and a foot-stool. He sat down, pulled out +his snuff-box, blew his nose, took a good pinch of snuff, and began to +talk of God. They knew the topic very well, but the little girl became +attentive when the priest turned to her and said: + +“My child, I hope you will soon make the acquaintance of your creator. +You know how much he loves you and also how much you love Him. Pure +hearts always love the kind God. But true love requires greater +intimacy and greater sacrifice. Jesus will come to you and you must +submit to Him with trust. You will feel the sacred embrace of your +creator. In a word, my dear little girl, we are going to prepare you +for your first communion.” + +“And I?” asked the little boy. + +“Listen,” said the priest, “and profit by my words. You know,” he +continued, turning again to the little girl, “the whole importance of +such an act. Catechism teaches you the grandeur of this sacrament. What +mystery in the union of the creator and the created! This union is +achieved by the Eucharist, and brings to those who know how to prepare +themselves for it and how to render themselves worthy of it, the +ineffable joys of divine love....” + +He spoke a long time, and the frigidity of his speech contrasted +strangely with the exalted sentiments he was expressing. Every minute +he unfolded a big red, dirty handkerchief, opened his snuff-box, took +a pinch, spat, sneezed. The little girl understood nothing of all the +grandiloquence on love retailed by the old automaton; however, he spoke +of love, and this word even in such a mouth charmed her and made her +tremble a little. + +Her confessor did not as yet question her on the sixth commandment, but +at the approach of the great day he departed from his usual reserve +and indifference. His questions, very precise and in conformity with +the church manual, interested the little girl very much. Her heart +bled reflecting upon them. Then all that was sin! These games, kisses, +fondling, caresses—sins! The priest did not, however, apprise her of +anything through which might have lost her innocence without knowing +it. + +One afternoon, she refused a kiss of her friend, and went, without +further explanation, to kneel in a corner of her room. Then she +took out a book and began to read: “Let us have faith to remove all +obstacles that prevent the coming of Christ within us. Let us prepare +Him a sanctuary, pure, adorned, kindled with love; and when He comes we +can say in the fervor of our joy: ‘My beloved is mine, He rests in my +heart’....” + +She pronounced these last words aloud. The little boy heard them and +asked in tears: + +“You don’t love me any more, then?” + +“You cannot understand these things. I like you as a brother, as a +little friend; I have great affection for you, but my love belongs to +Jesus.” + +“To Jesus!” + +He shrugged his shoulders, vexed in his affliction. + +“Jesus loves me, how can I fail to love Him. He is courting me, how can +I resist Him? Don’t you know that He is Almighty, that He can grind +both of us to dust, at this very moment?” + +“Is that true?” + +He reflected, overwhelmed, upon this stranger so powerful and so cruel +who came to take his friend away, to break his heart. + +“Ah! Let Him kill me, but let Him not take you away!” + +“He won’t take me away. Did He take Angela, Laura, Juliette whom He +loved last year and who are still happy?” + +“Then he won’t always love you?” + +“He will always love me but from a distance; and I will love Him. But +I am not the only one on this earth and He has to reach the hearts of +all the little girls who have their first communion.” + +“Does he also reach the hearts of little boys?” + +“I don’t think so,” she said in a tone of irony. “He cannot offer +little boys anything more than good, firm friendship.” + +“I will never love Him.” + +“You will have to love Him, when your heart is pure. You’ll see.” + +“Ah!” + +“I have a pure heart. I confessed all my sins!” + +“What sins?” + +“Be still and ask God’s forgiveness.” + +She turned again to her prayers. + +Her friend was lost in thought. + +Less mature than little girls, little boys have their first communion a +year later than girls of the same age. It was a custom; he did not feel +himself humiliated by it. Still he was very anxious to participate in +the mysteries into which his friend was going to be initiated. He was +resentful both through jealousy and fear. + +“I hope,” he thought, “He doesn’t do her any harm!” + +The great day arrived. He saw his little friend pale and pretty in a +cloud of muslin. Coming near her, he whispered: + +“How I do love you!” + +She lowered her eyes and began to roll the rosary between her hands +gloved in white. She passed without answering him, without looking at +him. He was sad throughout the ceremony. The reading of the acts braced +him up a little, but his heart broke when he heard the voice of his +friend: + +“Oh, my wealth, my treasure, my life, my paradise, my love, my all, +receive a heart burning with love.... Oh, my treasure, I want to live +and die in endless communion with you!... My well-beloved is mine and I +am His. Oh, Jesus, I do not want to be my own, I want to be yours. Let +all my faculties be yours and let them serve your pleasure....” + +“Ingrate!” he thought. He felt a spasm of anger. Then he recalled the +enchanting moments spent with his friend, their games, their laughter, +those long kisses which left them breathless, those embraces out of +which they came blushing, skin burning, eyes moist.... + +“Someone else will now give her all these pleasures! And I am going to +be alone.... She does not love me any more....” + +The little girl had the honor to speak again after communion. She +returned to her place first from the ceremony, fell on her knees, +hid her face in her hands, and remained long absorbed in thought. A +powerful sentiment was weighing her down. She felt sad and happy: + +“He is within me, I feel Him in my heart.... My heart is expanding.... +I am choking with joy.... I am loved, I am loved.... Is this you, my +love? Oh! Rest in my arms, clasp me to you again, again! Ah! My heart +is faint.... My head is reeling.... Ah! Ah! what emotion! I am going to +confess my love for Him aloud. I am very happy, very proud.... Do you +love me? He loves me.” + +And she rose and said: + +“Oh, kind Savior, I have devoted myself to you, You have devoted +yourself to me. I want to sacrifice to You all my earthly pleasures. +I sacrifice to You my body, my soul, my will. This is all I have to +offer, alas! If I had more I would give more, I would like to die for +You.... Kindle me with Your love. But I cannot be pleased with a +spark, I want a tongue of flame, I want a thousand of them, I want a +conflagration which would destroy within me all attachment to living +creatures.... Vain creatures, leave me alone, you will no longer see +me. My heart belongs entirely to my well-beloved....” + +“She does not love me any more,” he thought, “she will never love me +again.” + +He cried. His neighbors thought it was from piety. + +In the meantime the Mass was being finished and one could already hear +the moving of chairs in the back of the church. The little girl reborn +through love was also devoured by hunger. Then she thought of her home, +her parents, her friend, of the fine ceremonial table sparkling with +flowers, crystals, silverware; she thought of the kitchen and the cook. +She was sure that a fine plate of soup was already being cooled for +her. + +“After that I shall eat a little cake.... My friend will be there +anxious to wait upon me.... I like him very much.... We shall take a +walk while waiting for the vespers. We shall pick some flowers, nothing +but white, white like my veil, like my heart. I am happy!” + +The little boy ran to the house of his friend where his own family +breakfasted that day. He came to notify the cook. And in the pantry +were two portions of soup, two wonderful tarts, and two glasses of wine. + +When the little girl arrived, he took her hand and she allowed him to +lead her. At the sight of the little dinner all prepared, her little, +feminine heart leaped with joy. She fell on the neck of the little boy +and embracing him with all her strength, said: + +“You know, Jesus is my mystic spouse, but this will not last long. +While He still loves me, tell me what you want, He will not refuse +anything to his little spouse.” + +“I want you to love me as before.” + +“Here,” she said. + +And she offered her lips. + +“Are you satisfied? Let us eat now, I am hungry.” + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + pg 146 Changed: that my conquest of the Admirality + To: that my conquest of the Admiralty + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78206 *** |