Nice, Friday.Adieu. This will be a novel without an end, after the modern fashion, for you surely will write it? If not, what is the use? And thus the fugitive shadow will pause an instant and our vain intercourse will have a realization—oh! very relatively—through the creative breath of Art.Without an end—unless Logic imposes a higher duty upon you.Without an end,—but I have not the cruelty, knowing you to be devoid of imagination, to let you torture yourself in the vain pursuit of the resolution of the two or three perturbations which my thoughtless words forced on your mind. So I mean to explain the few mysteries—psychological and otherwise—which might trouble the serenity of your mornings.First, why did I leave? Ah! do not ask it of me, I no longer know why,—but it is irrevocable.What would you? He captured me. I had to be taken. How often have I not told you that it was necessary to take me and by force and ruse to capture my wavering will? There are such fine strategies that one surrenders, not because of being at the end of resistance, but because the stroke is so well played that it gives pleasure. Ah! you believe women are insensible to Art? At least, this is clear: he captured me.We were waltzing. He carried me away. "Carry me where you will!"—That was the first submission which—mentally—I made him.It was toward the hour when the ball's intoxication commenced to evaporate and left me anticipating of the pleasures of sleep. He asked me for the honor (see, nothing premeditated, the honor!) of escorting me home, at the very moment when, wishing to leave, I feared to leave entranced, and find myself alone in the night. I accepted and sent him to call a carriage and await me there. But he discovered that I was still enjoying myself: he had to wait several hours. Finally, I fled like Cinderella.I had asked him to wait for me, and he was waiting.I fear that all this explains nothing, but the result is still more inexplicable. After all, I only wish to vindicate myself of all conspiracy and to convince you of my perfect innocence. It was he, it might have been you,—and I believed that it would be you.Now, is it my fault? The flower belongs to him who plucks it.I can now confess to you. Dimly, I loved you.Ah! that means a great deal! But you did not project any light on this dim twilight. Yes, attempts, trials, approaches, and so on, with which to make a treatise on Analytical Indecision,—and then what? In short,youdid not capture me!Why did I not coöperate in the matter? Ah! it is not our feminine habit, and it seems I have already told you that I had been too badly punished for a first choice to make a second one. Now, it is the same as in the romances: By the grace of God! And no responsibility.(I confess that little was lacking for our enthroning to be effected, but there are moments when the most reasoned reserves become unmanageable. But you urge that you held yourself tranquil until that day, or almost so, arrested at the first sign, disarmed at the first gesture! Do not say that I encouraged you, for you are not ignorant of the fact—you who know women so well—that you must not rely on our encouragements: they are snares, a manner of repetition, to find out, with no peril, how it will take place some day when we shall be disarmed—study the advances another time and see if a mockery is not lodged in the corners of the lips; they are preliminary maneuvers, quite amusing, for even in this child's play we are sure to conquer without alternatives: if our partner grows bold, O power of speech! a word puts him in his place; if he remains cold, we have the consolation that after all we lose nothing thereby, since the conclusion is impossible.)Before I was eighteen, I married the man of my choice. Well! my great love quickly turned to hate. What caused this change of my sentiments? It would be interesting to know, but even at this hour I do not know its mechanism. I believe I was like the children who want a plaything so much that they cry, stamp their feet, become convulsed with real griefs; as soon as they hold the toy in their little hands, they judge it, thinking: "Is this all it is?" What I had chosen was only this. He loved my flesh and devoured it like an egoist; he uttered immodest pleasantries and debased acts beyond which I felt infinity and the possible unveiling of the ineffable mystery. I thought myself the very creator of Joy and my pregnant desires, my desires big with sobs, miscarried, became the travail of a slave. I knew my destination.(Imagine! A laughter would seize him afterwards, a nervous laughter which lasted for minutes, a laugh fit to scandalize Hell!)Yes, I knew my destination and I refused to follow it. Once for all I refused to play the rôle of a bestower of pleasure and a stimulant. I closed my door for ever.Well, do you know what followed? This monster loved me and could not live without wallowing in my body, in the sun of my eyes. He entreated me, threatened me, turned himself into a slave and dog. I was deaf. Many times we struggled, but in addition to the force of my wrists, which are of iron, I had the force of my will, which is of steel, and I threw him at my feet, trampled upon him, spat on his sex. This endured a year, a long and hateful year.At last, on the anniversary of the first refusal, he entreated me again, with tears of love in his voice, but with a certain calm that was quite noble. A revolver was pointed to his breast. "No, never!" He fell, and I knew that it was not his fault.You will find the rest in your memories:The resolution never again to choose; the resolution to sacrifice myself, in expiation for the first murder, in the event of a second and similar occurrence. I think we have already discussed these two points:That is all the poison I gave, with an unconscious hand.(Ah! one day you chilled me so much, in hesitating to guarantee my future. A clear and spontaneous "yes" would have thrown me instantly into your arms.)Saturday.This is the legend of the portrait chamber:Every man who sleeps in this chamber sees, in the course of the first night, the portrait of the woman he must love, reflected in the old greenish mirror. No marriage, no betrothal, no liaison, no oath withstands it: the magical image thrusts itself against the will and it is like a charm.Could I have told this to you, even laughingly?Ah! it is not written that the possession will be reciprocated.I admit that your moon-madness, in which I recognized myself, impressed me. For a long time I believed you were destined to conquer me. The ancient and unreasonable tradition haunted me like a prophecy. If you had only known in what a maze of mystery you courted me! For women willingly curb their caprices under the Fatality which consecrate them as tragediennes. Just fancy! To be the chosen of the centuries and of the dim decrees of necessity! To fall into inevitable arms! To submit to an exceptional law, purposely made for one! It is this which enhances feminity for you and gives a value to the sex.After all, O analytical romancer, you did not know how to play with anything!Of course, you will write your novel. Well, I refuse to read it, for it will be full of painful naïvetés. You will naturally glorify your intelligence, your sensibility and your understanding of souls, and also negation, detachment....Why, then, did you desire me? What phantom did you pursue, if nothing exists outside of your imagination? Yet one should be informed regarding the quality of illusions which one faces. What an alarm in the harem of shadows, among the forms you murdered, bluebeard of the ideal! Have you counted them? I am the seventh, without a doubt, the one who opens the locked room.... "And they passed their swords through his body." Thus Life has killed the Dream. Adieu.P. S. Besides, you should know that he is not a nobody. Monsieur Renaudeau is going to publish his drama—so moving, so full of genius. He told me this the other evening, at the home of the countess. And this despite you and your gentle contempt, despite you who disparaged him,—without knowing him! After all cui bono.... After all, after all!
Nice, Friday.Adieu. This will be a novel without an end, after the modern fashion, for you surely will write it? If not, what is the use? And thus the fugitive shadow will pause an instant and our vain intercourse will have a realization—oh! very relatively—through the creative breath of Art.
Without an end—unless Logic imposes a higher duty upon you.
Without an end,—but I have not the cruelty, knowing you to be devoid of imagination, to let you torture yourself in the vain pursuit of the resolution of the two or three perturbations which my thoughtless words forced on your mind. So I mean to explain the few mysteries—psychological and otherwise—which might trouble the serenity of your mornings.
First, why did I leave? Ah! do not ask it of me, I no longer know why,—but it is irrevocable.
What would you? He captured me. I had to be taken. How often have I not told you that it was necessary to take me and by force and ruse to capture my wavering will? There are such fine strategies that one surrenders, not because of being at the end of resistance, but because the stroke is so well played that it gives pleasure. Ah! you believe women are insensible to Art? At least, this is clear: he captured me.
We were waltzing. He carried me away. "Carry me where you will!"—That was the first submission which—mentally—I made him.
It was toward the hour when the ball's intoxication commenced to evaporate and left me anticipating of the pleasures of sleep. He asked me for the honor (see, nothing premeditated, the honor!) of escorting me home, at the very moment when, wishing to leave, I feared to leave entranced, and find myself alone in the night. I accepted and sent him to call a carriage and await me there. But he discovered that I was still enjoying myself: he had to wait several hours. Finally, I fled like Cinderella.
I had asked him to wait for me, and he was waiting.
I fear that all this explains nothing, but the result is still more inexplicable. After all, I only wish to vindicate myself of all conspiracy and to convince you of my perfect innocence. It was he, it might have been you,—and I believed that it would be you.
Now, is it my fault? The flower belongs to him who plucks it.
I can now confess to you. Dimly, I loved you.
Ah! that means a great deal! But you did not project any light on this dim twilight. Yes, attempts, trials, approaches, and so on, with which to make a treatise on Analytical Indecision,—and then what? In short,youdid not capture me!
Why did I not coöperate in the matter? Ah! it is not our feminine habit, and it seems I have already told you that I had been too badly punished for a first choice to make a second one. Now, it is the same as in the romances: By the grace of God! And no responsibility.
(I confess that little was lacking for our enthroning to be effected, but there are moments when the most reasoned reserves become unmanageable. But you urge that you held yourself tranquil until that day, or almost so, arrested at the first sign, disarmed at the first gesture! Do not say that I encouraged you, for you are not ignorant of the fact—you who know women so well—that you must not rely on our encouragements: they are snares, a manner of repetition, to find out, with no peril, how it will take place some day when we shall be disarmed—study the advances another time and see if a mockery is not lodged in the corners of the lips; they are preliminary maneuvers, quite amusing, for even in this child's play we are sure to conquer without alternatives: if our partner grows bold, O power of speech! a word puts him in his place; if he remains cold, we have the consolation that after all we lose nothing thereby, since the conclusion is impossible.)
Before I was eighteen, I married the man of my choice. Well! my great love quickly turned to hate. What caused this change of my sentiments? It would be interesting to know, but even at this hour I do not know its mechanism. I believe I was like the children who want a plaything so much that they cry, stamp their feet, become convulsed with real griefs; as soon as they hold the toy in their little hands, they judge it, thinking: "Is this all it is?" What I had chosen was only this. He loved my flesh and devoured it like an egoist; he uttered immodest pleasantries and debased acts beyond which I felt infinity and the possible unveiling of the ineffable mystery. I thought myself the very creator of Joy and my pregnant desires, my desires big with sobs, miscarried, became the travail of a slave. I knew my destination.
(Imagine! A laughter would seize him afterwards, a nervous laughter which lasted for minutes, a laugh fit to scandalize Hell!)
Yes, I knew my destination and I refused to follow it. Once for all I refused to play the rôle of a bestower of pleasure and a stimulant. I closed my door for ever.
Well, do you know what followed? This monster loved me and could not live without wallowing in my body, in the sun of my eyes. He entreated me, threatened me, turned himself into a slave and dog. I was deaf. Many times we struggled, but in addition to the force of my wrists, which are of iron, I had the force of my will, which is of steel, and I threw him at my feet, trampled upon him, spat on his sex. This endured a year, a long and hateful year.
At last, on the anniversary of the first refusal, he entreated me again, with tears of love in his voice, but with a certain calm that was quite noble. A revolver was pointed to his breast. "No, never!" He fell, and I knew that it was not his fault.
You will find the rest in your memories:
The resolution never again to choose; the resolution to sacrifice myself, in expiation for the first murder, in the event of a second and similar occurrence. I think we have already discussed these two points:
That is all the poison I gave, with an unconscious hand.
(Ah! one day you chilled me so much, in hesitating to guarantee my future. A clear and spontaneous "yes" would have thrown me instantly into your arms.)
Saturday.
This is the legend of the portrait chamber:
Every man who sleeps in this chamber sees, in the course of the first night, the portrait of the woman he must love, reflected in the old greenish mirror. No marriage, no betrothal, no liaison, no oath withstands it: the magical image thrusts itself against the will and it is like a charm.
Could I have told this to you, even laughingly?
Ah! it is not written that the possession will be reciprocated.
I admit that your moon-madness, in which I recognized myself, impressed me. For a long time I believed you were destined to conquer me. The ancient and unreasonable tradition haunted me like a prophecy. If you had only known in what a maze of mystery you courted me! For women willingly curb their caprices under the Fatality which consecrate them as tragediennes. Just fancy! To be the chosen of the centuries and of the dim decrees of necessity! To fall into inevitable arms! To submit to an exceptional law, purposely made for one! It is this which enhances feminity for you and gives a value to the sex.
After all, O analytical romancer, you did not know how to play with anything!
Of course, you will write your novel. Well, I refuse to read it, for it will be full of painful naïvetés. You will naturally glorify your intelligence, your sensibility and your understanding of souls, and also negation, detachment....
Why, then, did you desire me? What phantom did you pursue, if nothing exists outside of your imagination? Yet one should be informed regarding the quality of illusions which one faces. What an alarm in the harem of shadows, among the forms you murdered, bluebeard of the ideal! Have you counted them? I am the seventh, without a doubt, the one who opens the locked room.... "And they passed their swords through his body." Thus Life has killed the Dream. Adieu.
P. S. Besides, you should know that he is not a nobody. Monsieur Renaudeau is going to publish his drama—so moving, so full of genius. He told me this the other evening, at the home of the countess. And this despite you and your gentle contempt, despite you who disparaged him,—without knowing him! After all cui bono.... After all, after all!
"Muchas vezes, Senor mio, considero quesi con algo se puede sustentar el virvir sinvos, es en la soledad, porque descansa elalma con su descanso."Sainte Theresa,Exclamations of the Soul to its God.
"I was mistaken," Hubert reflected, upon awaking. "This letter is full of interest, but I do not understand this need of railing at me in six small pages. And then to repeat at each line: 'If you had known, if you had been able!' Has she climbed on the stilts of her happiness! Yes, she is happy because a male has thrown himself at her and has nailed her on the cross. Ah! it will be necessary to rise, to carry it, to bend under the burden. Ah! it will bear you down and your lover will mount upwards and stamp his foot on you, for this retaliation is due you.
"Oh! I am not thirsty for vengeance and I do not desire to quench my thirst in the blood which will flow from your severed veins: I do not even wish to see you and I shut you out from my imagination.
"Only.... Ah! the wretch! She does not seem to suspect that I loved her! Everything, under the shelter of passional metaphysics, amounted to a question of adroit and decisive shrewdness. Yes, love is joiner's work.
"And I go into the great absence, but with no mental reservations. I shall not conjure the superficial magics of Claudius Mamertinus; I have perfected them, but I shall use neither those nor my own. The great absence, as one speaks of the great desert, without water and without love! But the Egyptian woman lived there forty years with four tiny loaves of bread which she had bought at Jerusalem; she nibbled at them, when she was very hungry. I, too, shall gnaw at my memories, but not to excess, and without straining for grievous corporeal images. I wish to meditate in peace. Mark you, Sixtine, this is because of my greatness of soul, for I could have carried you off on my shoulders and thrown you into my cavern, where the bones of hyenas, dead of hunger, can be seen. You see that it is not cheerful. So I spare you this exile. Nevertheless, 'you should know what corporeal vision is and you will refrain, when you think of your absent friend, from thinking him really absent. You think of him, and he appears before you corporeally, since you are thinking of his body (and how think of him otherwise, since the body is the sign of his existence and humanity?) And he will rise up before you, and likewise, across all obstacles, you will go into his presence, and he will see you.' And the author ofDe Statu Animae(he also wrote thePange, lingua: he was not a fool), after reflecting, adds: 'Vision is the true function of the intelligent'; and 'the image of things is their true reality.'
"No, I shall, indeed, content myself with little loaves of bread; you will not suffer from my familiarities. In his 'Monitories,' Thomas Aquinas says that too great familiarity begets scorn at the same time that it turns one aside from contemplation and fixes the mind on external things.
"He gives the example of Saint Dominic who, having too affectionate friends at Toulouse, went to live at Carcassonne.
"Well, I do not wish to scorn you under the vain pretext that you have fulfilled your womanly calling, and I wish to meditate in peace, for there remains nothing else for me to do. So, I leave you to your loves and I go to the great desert. Adieu."
Hubert, in turning over his theological books, was already capturing a little of the peace he desired. As long as Sixtine had remained, he had forgotten them for readings more in accord with his perturbations and desires. While putting the two tomes back in their place, he paused in front of this shelf of his library, spelling out the faded letters of gold, surprised at not always being able to guess them correctly. His Origen tempted him: he promised himself to commence the long deferred study of it. Under his fingers, the volume opened on the "Commentary on the Song of Songs," irony of Virgilian fortunes. "His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me." But Origen, who remarks that there is everything in this movement of the right hand, "omnia sunt," warns against stopping at sensual interpretations. "It is just as well, I am not in the mood for it."
He closed the book and returned to his chair. He re-read the fourth chapter of "The Adorer," congratulating himself on having resolved the supreme fate of Guido according to necessary consequences:
"At least my dream will be logical, as she desires. If life eludes me, transcendency belongs to me. I have paid very dearly for it, I have paid for it with the price of all terrestrial joys. The fruits I bite into are bubbles that soon vanish, but the bubbles which issue from my lips take flight, soar and endure: refracted through them, my ideas, like sun-beams become prismatic, and, with them plays the eternal wind which levels the world.
"In losing you, Sixtine, I have found myself again. But I confess, Madame, that it is not a compensation worth considering. Although you judged me an egoist and although I admit this charge, I bear myself no love. A little hate, rather, when I surmount indifference, for I feel that I am only a bad instrument in the hands of an unknown and transcendental Master,—a Master who laughs so apropos when I abuse my soul.... Destined to what labor? Ah!heknows!...
"Tell me, Master! Think of the invincible disgust with which my brothers and sisters fill me! Consider that I need distractions!... O Lord of the gloomy blue meadows where Chimerae browse among the stars, tell me my secret and I shall be capable of true devotion.... Already I love the grace of your saints, for they were alone, deliciously alone:... Often, O Lord, I consider that if anything could sustain life without thee, it is solitude, for there the soul rests in its peace...."