So I drew sustenance from that rugged poetry of the north which echoes so powerfully, like the waves of the sea, in the works of Byron. Often I could remember entire chunks after only one reading and I would repeat them to myself like a song that has captivated you and whose melody continues to haunt you. How many times I recited the beginning of The Giaour: “No breath of air”… or in Childe Harold: “Whilome in Albion’s isle” or “And I have loved thee, Ocean!” The flatness of the French translation disappeared under the force of the ideas themselves, as if they had had a style of their own without needing words as such.
That fervent, passionate personality, imbued with such a deep sense of irony, could not fail to act strongly on an ardent, virginal nature. All those echoes, unknown to the sumptuous dignity of classical literature, had for me a fragrance of novelty, an allurement that made me return repeatedly to that gigantic poetry that gives you vertigo and makes you topple into the bottomless abyss of the infinite.
In this way I had corrupted my taste and my heart, as my teachers put it, and among so many beings of degraded proclivities, my independence of mind had resulted in the fact that I was considered the most depraved of all, reduced to the lowest level by my very superiority. They could barely bring themselves to concede that I did have imagination, that is, in their opinion, an overexcited brain that brought me to the verge of madness.
Such was my entry into society, and the esteem I earned there.
6
IF MY MIND AND MY PRINCIPLES were denigrated, nobody attacked my heart, for I was kind in those days and another’s misfortunes would move me to tears.
I remember that while still a child I liked to empty my pockets into those of the poor, I remember the smile with which they would greet me as I came by and the pleasure I took in doing them good. It is a pleasure that I have not experienced for a long time – for now I have a hard heart, my tears have dried up. But woe to the men who have made me corrupt and savage, when once I was kind and pure! Woe to that aridity of civilization that parches and withers everything that grows in the sunshine of poetry and the glow of the heart! That old corrupt society which has been so seductive and so crafty, that old grasping Jew will die from emaciation and exhaustion on those heaps of manure he calls his treasures, without a poet to sing of his death, without a priest to close his eyes, without gold for his mausoleum, for he will have squandered it all on his vices.
7
SO WHEN WILL THIS SOCIETY END, debased as it is by every debauchery, debauchery of mind, body and soul?
Then, doubtless, there will be joy on earth, for that lying and hypocritical vampire called civilization will finally die. Men will leave behind them the royal mantle, the sceptre, the diamonds, the tottering palace, the collapsing town, and go off to join the mare and the she-wolf. After having spent his life in palaces and worn out his feet on the flagstones of great cities, man will go off to die in the woods.
The earth will be parched by the fires that have burnt it, and filled with the dust of battles, the wind of desolation that has swept over man will have swept over it too, and it will henceforth bring forth only bitter fruit, and thorny roses.
And whole races will die out in the cradle like plants battered by the winds and dying before they have flowered.
For everything must have an end and the earth be worn down under the tramping of feet. For immensity must ultimately be weary of that speck of dust that makes so much noise and disturbs the majesty of nothingness. Gold will inevitably run out at last, having passed through men’s hands and corrupted them. This haze of blood must subside, the palace must collapse under the weight of the riches it conceals, the orgy must finish and the time come to awaken.
Then there will be a huge peal of despairing laughter when men see this void, when they have to leave life for death – for all-devouring, ever-hungry death. And everything will break apart to collapse into nothingness – and the virtuous man will curse his virtue, and vice will clap its hands.
Some few men still wandering across an arid land will call out to each other, they will make their way towards one another, and they will recoil in horror, aghast at themselves, and die. What will man be then, he who is already fiercer than the wild beasts and more vile than the reptiles?
Farewell for ever, dazzling chariots, fanfares and glory, farewell to the world, to those palaces, to those mausoleums, to the delights of crime, and the joys of corruption; – the stone will fall suddenly, crushed under its own weight, and the grass will grow over it. – And the palaces, the temples, the pyramids, the columns, the king’s mausoleums, the poor man’s coffin, the dog’s carcass, everything will be reduced to the same level under the greensward.
Then the sea no longer held back by walls will lap the shores in peace, and will bathe its waves on the still-smoking ashes of the cities, the trees will grow, leafy and green, without a hand to break and tear them, the rivers will flow through flowery meadows, nature will be free with no man to constrain her, and this race will be extinct, for it was cursed from childhood…
…What a sad and strange period is ours, towards what ocean is this torrent of iniquities flowing? Where are we going through a night so dark? Those who want to palpate this sick world withdraw hurriedly, aghast at the corruption stirring restlessly in its entrails.
When Rome felt her death agony upon her she had at least one hope, she could see behind the shroud the radiant cross lighting up eternity. That religion has lasted for two thousand years and now it is exhausted, no longer adequate, an object of mockery – see its churches falling, its cemeteries piled high with overflowing heaps of dead.
And as for us, what religion will we have?
To be as old as we are and to be still marching through the desert like the Hebrews fleeing from Egypt!
Where will be the Promised Land?
We tried everything and were starting to deny everything, devoid of hope – and then a strange greed seized us, there is an immense disquiet gnawing away at us, there is a sense of emptiness in our crowd. – We feel all around us a sepulchral chill in the soul, and humanity started to set machines in motion, and seeing the gold pouring from them it exclaimed: “This is God!” – and that God it devours. There is…
– for all is over, farewell, farewell, some wine before we die!
Everyone rushes wherever his instincts impel him, the populace swarms like insects over a corpse, poets pass by without having the time to sculpt their thoughts, hardly have they scribbled their ideas down on sheets of paper than the sheets are blown away; everything glitters and everything resounds in this masquerade, beneath its ephemeral royalties and its cardboard sceptres, gold flows, wine cascades, cold debauchery lifts her skirts and jigs around… Horror! Horror! And then there hangs over it all a veil that each one grabs part of to hide himself the best he can.
Derision! Horror – horror!
8
AND THERE ARE DAYS WHEN I FEEL an immense weariness, and a sombre boredom enwraps me like a shroud wherever I go, its folds hamper and constrain me, life weighs me down like remorse. So young and so weary when there are those who are old and still full of enthusiasm! And I who have fallen so far, and am so disenchanted – what am I to do? At night, to look at the moon that sheds its trembling gleam on my panelling like broad-leaved foliage, and in the daytime to look at the sun gilding the neighbouring roofs – is this a life? No, it is death, but without the repose of the grave.
And I have little joys that belong to me alone, childish reminiscences which still come to warm me in my isolation like reflections from the setting sun through the bars of a prison. A trifle, the least circumstance, a rainy day, a bright sun, a flower, an old piece of furniture bring back to my mind a series of memories which all pass away, in disorder, disappearing like shadows. Children’s games on the grass in the midst of daisies in the meadows, behind the flowering hedge, alongside the vine with its golden bunches of grapes, on the brown-and-green moss, beneath the broad leaves, the fresh canopy of foli
age. Calm and cheerful memories like a smile from earliest youth, you pass near me like withered roses.
Youth, its bubbling excitements, its confused instincts for the world and the heart, its tremulous love, its tears, its cries. The young man’s love, the mature man’s ironies. You often return with your dark or drab colours, fleeing along on each other’s heels like the shades of the dead which rush by along the walls on winter nights; and I often fall into raptures at the memory of some pleasant day I spent long ago, a crazy day full of joy with moments of ebullience and laughter that still echo in my ears, a day that still vibrates with gaiety and makes me smile with bitterness. It was a day I went horse riding, the horse leaping along and flecked with foam, or a time I went for a dreamy walk through a broad, shadowy garden path, watching the water flow over the pebbles, or else gazed at the sun dazzling and resplendent with its blaze of fire and its red halo, and I can still hear the horse galloping, its nostrils smoking, I can hear the water rippling, the leaves rustling, the wind bending the wheat fields like the sea’s waves.
Others are gloomy and cold like rainy days, bitter, cruel memories which also come back to me – hours of torment spent hopelessly weeping, and then laughing perforce to chase away those tears which veil your eyes, those sobs which cover the sound of your voice.
I spent many days, many years, sitting, thinking of nothing, or of everything, plunged into the infinite that I wished to embrace, and that was devouring me.
I would hear the rain falling in the gutters, the bells tolling as I wept, I would see the sun slowly setting and night falling – the sleepy night that brings you peace; and then the day would return, always the same with its problems, the same number of hours to live, the day whose dying I watched with joy.
I would dream of the sea, of distant journeys, love affairs, triumphs, all the abortive things in my life, corpses before they had ever lived.
Alas! So none of that was meant for me. I do not envy others for everyone complains of the crushing burden that fate has imposed on him; some throw it down before their life is over, others bear it to the end. And will I be able to bear it?
I have hardly seen life and there is already an immense disgust in my soul; I have brought to my lips every kind of fruit – they all seemed bitter to me, I thrust them away, and now I am dying of hunger. To die so young, without any hope in the tomb, without being sure that I will sleep there, without knowing whether its peace is inviolable – to throw yourself into the arms of nothingness and not to know whether it will receive you!
Yes I am dying, for is it living when you see your past as so much water that has flowed into the sea, when the present seems a cage, the future a shroud?
9
THERE ARE INSIGNIFICANT THINGS which made a strong impression on me and which I will always keep like the imprint of a burning brand, although they are banal and silly.
I will always remember a kind of chateau not far from my town, which we often went to see. – One of those old women of the last century who lived there. Everything of hers had kept its pastoral feel – I can still see the powdered portraits, the sky-blue costumes of the men and the roses and the carnations scattered on the panelling with shepherdesses and flocks. Everything had an old, sombre appearance, the furniture, almost all in embroidered silk, was spacious and comfortable – the house was ancient, surrounded by age-old ditches that at that time were planted with apple trees, and the stones that came away from time to time from the old battlements would go tumbling right down to the bottom.
Not far away was the park planted with great trees, with its dark paths, stone moss-covered benches, half broken-down, between the branches and the brambles. A goat would be grazing and when you opened the iron gate, it would run off into the undergrowth.
On fine days the sunbeams would shine through the branches and gild the moss here and there.
It was gloomy, the wind would blow into those wide brick fireplaces and frighten me – especially in the evening when the owls would hoot in the vast lofts.
We would often prolong our visits until quite late in the evening, gathered round the old mistress in a big room whose floor was covered with white flags in front of a wide marble fireplace. I can still see her golden snuffbox full of the finest Spanish tobacco, her pug dog with its long white coat, and her delicate little foot wrapped in a pretty high-heeled shoe decorated with a black rose.
*
How long ago all that was! The mistress is dead. Her pug dogs too, her snuffbox is in the pocket of the notary – the chateau is used as factory, and the poor shoe was thrown into the river.
*
AFTER THREE WEEKS’ PAUSE:
… I am so weary that I find it too tedious to continue, having just reread the above.
Can the works of a bored man amuse the public?
And yet I am going to force myself to create better entertainment for both one and the other.
Here my Memoirs really begin…
10
HERE ARE MY TENDEREST and at the same time most painful memories, and I embark on them with a positively religious feeling. They are alive in my memory and still almost warm to my soul, since that passion made them bleed so much. It is a broad scar across my heart that will last for ever, but as I recount this page of my life my heart is beating as if I were going to disturb some deeply cherished ruins. Those ruins are already old: as I have walked on through life, the horizon has receded behind me, and how many other things since then, for the days seem long, one by one from morning till evening! But the past seems swift, so quickly does oblivion shrink the frame that contained it. For me everything still seems to be alive, I can hear and see the rustling of the leaves, I can see the slightest fold of her dress. I can hear the timbre of her voice, as if an angel were singing near me.
A sweet, pure voice – which intoxicates you and makes you die with love. A voice which has a body it is so beautiful and which seduces you as if there were a charm in your words…
It would be impossible for me to tell you the precise year. But at the time I was really young – I was, I think, fifteen; that year we went to the seaside resort of —, a village in Picardy, charming with its houses piled on top of one another, black, grey, red, white, facing every which way without alignment and without symmetry like a heap of shells and pebbles that the waves have thrown up onto the shore.
A few years ago no one ever went there, despite its beach a good half-league in length and its charming position, but recently it has started to become fashionable; the last time I went there I saw a number of yellow-gloved dandies, and aristocratic liveries too; it was even being proposed to build a theatre there.
At that time everything was simple and remote, there was barely anyone except artists and locals. The shore was deserted, and at low tide you could see a huge beach with silvery grey sand glistening in the sun, still damp from the waves. To the left, rocks where in its days of slumber the sea lapped lazily against the walls blackened with seaweed, then in the distance the blue ocean beneath a burning sun, roaring in muffled tones, like a weeping giant.
And when you returned to the village, it was the most picturesque and heart-warming spectacle: black nets corroded by the water hanging at the doors, everywhere half-naked children walking over the grey pebbles that were the only road surface in the whole place, sailors with their red-and-blue outfits, and the entire scene simple in its grace, innocent and hearty – all of it imbued with a character of vigour and energy.
I often went to walk along the shore by myself; one day chance had it that I walked in the direction of the area where people went swimming. It was a place not far from the last houses of the village, frequented more specifically for that purpose. Men and women swam together; they undressed on the beach or in their houses and left their coats on the sand.
That day a charming red pelisse with black stripes had been left on the shore. The tide was rising – the shore was festooned with foam – already a stronger wave had wet the silk fringes of th
is coat. I picked it up to move it away, its material was soft and light. It was a woman’s coat.
Apparently I had been seen, for that very day at lunch when everyone was eating in a common dining room at the inn where we were staying, I heard someone saying to me:
“Monsieur, thank you so much for your gallantry.”
I turned round.
It was a young woman sitting with her husband at the next table.
“What’s that?” I asked, disconcerted.
“Thank you for picking up my coat: it was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Madame,” I replied in embarrassment.
She looked at me.
I lowered my gaze and blushed.
How she looked at me! How beautiful this woman was! I can still see those dazzling eyes beneath her black eyebrows gazing on me like a sun.
She was tall, dark, with magnificent black hair which fell in braids on her shoulders; her nose was Greek, her eyes burning, her eyebrows high and admirably arched; her skin was ardent and as it were velvety, intermixed with gold; she was slender and fine-boned; you could see azure veins meandering down her brown-and-crimson neck. Add to that a fine down that shadowed her upper lip and gave her face a masculine and energetic expression enough to put blonde beauties in the shade. She might have been criticized for rather too full a figure, or instead for an artistic casualness – and women in general found her in bad taste – she talked slowly, she had a modulated, musical, gentle voice. She was wearing a fine dress of white muslin that showed off the soft outlines of her arms.
When she rose to leave, she put on a white bonnet with a single pink bow. She tied it with a delicate, dimpled hand, one of those hands you dream of for ages and that you long to cover with fiery kisses.
Memoirs of a Madman and November Page 4