Memoirs of a Madman and November

by Gustave Flaubert

  The ideas of pleasure and love that had assailed me at the age of fifteen came back again at eighteen. If you have understood anything at all of what you have just read, you will remember that at that age I was still a virgin and had never been in love: as far as the beauty of the passions and their sonorous commotion were concerned, the poets provided me with themes for my reverie; as for the pleasures of the senses, those joys of the body so lusted after by adolescents, I stirred up an incessant desire for them in my heart by every kind of deliberate mental stimulation; just as those who are in love long to be able to put their love behind them by yielding ceaselessly to its charm, and to get rid of it by thinking about it constantly, it seemed to me that my thought alone would manage to drain that subject dry, quite unaided, emptying the cup of temptation by drinking from it. But, forever coming back to the same place I had started, I was trapped within a magic circle, and constantly bumping my head against it, longing for more room and freedom; at night, no doubt, I would dream of the most beautiful things of which one can dream, since in the morning my heart was filled with smiles and delightful presentiments; I was sorry to awaken, and I awaited impatiently for sleep to return, so that it could again give me those tremulous joys which filled my thoughts all day long, which I could have obtained that very moment had I so wished, and for which I felt a kind of religious awe.

  It was then that I clearly sensed the demon of the flesh living in every muscle of my body, and coursing through my every vein; I pitied the innocent period when I had trembled under the gaze of women, when I would swoon over paintings or statues; I wanted to live, to enjoy, to love; I hazily realized that my hot season was arriving, just as in the first days of sunshine the ardour of summer is conveyed to you on the warm winds, although there is still no grass, nor leaves or roses. What should you do? Whom should you love? Who will love you? Who will be the great lady who will accept you? Which superhuman beauty will hold out her arms to you? Who can relate all the melancholy walks you take alone by the streams, all the sighs from swelling hearts that have risen up towards the stars on those stifling nights when you can barely breathe for the heat!

  To dream of love is to dream of everything; it is the infinitude of happiness, the mystery within joy. With what ardour, oh you lovely, triumphant women, does our gaze devour you, and with what intensity do our eyes fasten on your faces! Grace and corruption emanate from each of your movements, the folds of your dresses rustle and stir us to the depths of our being, and from the surface of your bodies there wafts a certain something that kills us and enraptures us.

  Henceforth, there was one word that seemed to me the most beautiful of all human words: the word adultery. An exquisite enchantment hovers hazily over it, and a singular magic fills it with fragrance; all the stories we tell, all the books we read, every move we make, all describe it and endlessly gloss it to the young man’s heart; he drinks it in at will, finding in it the highest poetry – a mixture of malediction and pleasure.

  It was in particular as spring approached, when the lilacs begin to bloom and the birds to sing amid the first leaves, that I felt my heart overwhelmed with a need to love, to melt completely away into love, to be absorbed in some great sweet emotion, and even to remake itself, so to speak, in light and fragrance. Even now, every year, for a few hours, I again experience this virginal feeling as it blossoms like a new bud; but joys do not flower again as do roses, and there is no more greenery left in my heart than there is on the highway, where the hot, dry wind tires your eyes and the dust swirls in rising spirals.

  However, now that I am about to tell you the following tale, on the verge of digging down into this memory I tremble and draw back; it’s just as if I were about to visit some former mistress. Your heart is oppressed, and you halt on every step of the staircase, frightened at the idea of meeting her again, and yet afraid she might not be there. The same goes for certain ideas with which you have lived for too long; you’d like to get rid of them once and for all, and yet they flow through you like life itself, and your heart breathes them in as if they were its natural atmosphere.

  I’ve told you I loved the sun; on the days when it shone, my soul would enjoy something of the serenity of the radiant horizons and the loftiness of the sky. So, it was summer… Ah! My pen shouldn’t be writing it all down… it was warm, I went out, nobody at home noticed me leaving; there were few people in the streets, the cobblestones were dry, from time to time gusts of hot air would blow up from underground and rise to your head, the walls of the houses reflected the dazzling gleam and the shade seemed even more burning hot than the light. At the street corners, near the piles of rubbish, swarms of flies were buzzing in the sun’s rays, turning slowly like a great golden wheel; the corners of the roofs stood out in sharp straight lines against the blue of the sky, the stones were black, and there were no birds flying round the church steeples.

  I walked on, looking for a place to rest, longing for a breeze, something that could sweep me from the surface of the earth and carry me away in a whirlwind.

  I left the suburbs, and found myself behind some gardens, in paths that were half streets and half country lanes; here and there, dazzling light pierced through the leaves on the trees, and in the massed shadows blades of grass stood erect, the sharp edges of the pebbles reflected the sun’s rays, the dust crackled under my feet, the whole of nature clamped hotly down, and then the sun was hidden; a big cloud came into sight, as if a storm were brewing; the feeling that had been tormenting me up until then changed its character: I was no longer so edgy, but claustrophobic instead; I no longer felt torn apart, but stifled.

  I lay down flat on my belly, in the spot where I thought I would have the maximum shade, silence and darkness, the spot that would best conceal me and, panting, I let my heart wallow in unbridled desire. The clouds were swollen with softness; they weighed down on me and crushed me like one chest on another; I felt a need for pleasure, more heavily laden with perfumes than the scent of the clematis flowers and more scorching than the sun on the garden walls. Ah, if only I could have something to clasp in my arms, to suffocate under my heat, or if only I could make myself double, love that other being and melt into one with it. It was no longer the desire for some vague ideal nor the voluptuous recollection of a lovely faded dream, but, as with rivers that have no fixed beds, my passion overflowed on every side in furious ravines, it flooded my heart and made it echo all around with more giddy tumult than torrents coursing down the mountainsides.

  I went to the river bank; I have always loved water and the gentle undulation of the waves chasing one another; it was flowing peacefully along, and the white water lilies trembled in the murmur of the stream, the ripples rising and falling slowly, unfolding and overtaking one another; in the middle, the islands dangled their thickets of greenery in the water, the river bank seemed to be smiling, and you could hear nothing but the voice of the waters.

  In that spot there were a few big trees; the freshness that spread out from the water and the shade filled me with delight, and I felt myself smiling. Just as the Muse who dwells within us, when she listens to harmony, opens her nostrils and breathes in the lovely sounds, a mysterious something expanded within me to draw in the universal joy; I gazed at the clouds which drifted along in the sky, and the greensward of the river bank gleaming glossy and yellow in the sunlight, as I listened to the sound of the water and the rustle of the treetops, which were stirring even though there was no wind. All alone, both calm and restless at once, I felt myself growing faint with pleasure beneath the weight of nature’s love; and love is what I cried out for! My lips trembled and puckered as if I had sensed the breath of another mouth, my hands sought something to caress, and my eyes tried to discover, in the shape of every folding wave, in the outline of the swelling clouds, some shape, some thrill of pleasure, some revelation; desire oozed from my every pore, my heart was tender and filled with a barely contained harmony, and I shook the hair round my head, caressing my face with it, taking pleasure
in breathing in its odour; I stretched out on the moss, at the foot of the trees, longing for even greater and more languorous sensations; I longed to be suffocated in roses, broken by kisses – I longed to be the flower shaken by the wind, the river bank watered by the river, the earth made fecund by the sun.

  The grass was smooth to walk on, so I walked on it; every step gave me a new pleasure, and I enjoyed the sensation of the soft greensward against the soles of my feet. In the distance, the meadows were dotted with animals – horses and foals; the horizon echoed to the sound of their neighing and galloping, the open fields rose and fell gently in broad undulations along the hillsides, the river wound its way along, disappearing behind the islands and reappearing between the grasses and the reeds. It was all a fine spectacle, seemingly contented, following its law, its own course; I alone was sick and in agony, filled with desire.

  Suddenly I took flight, and returned to the town, dashing over the bridges; I wandered through the streets and squares; women passed by me, many women, walking swiftly along, all marvellously beautiful; never had I looked so directly into so many faces, staring into their shining eyes, or gazing at the easy way they walked along, light-footed as goats; duchesses, leaning out of the blazoned doors of their carriages, seemed to be smiling at me, inviting me to amorous dalliance on silken drapes; from their balconies, ladies in scarves hung out to see me, and gazed down, saying, “Love us! Love us!” All of them loved me: I could clearly see it in their posture, their eyes, their very immobility. And then, women were everywhere, on all sides of me, I grazed against them, I breathed their perfume, the air was full of their scent; I could see the sweat on a woman’s neck between the shawl wrapped round her and the feathers on her hat that swayed in rhythm with her gait; her heel lifted the hem of her dress as she walked along before me. When I walked past her, her gloved hand was fluttering. Neither this woman nor that one, no single woman more than any other: no, all of them, each of them, in the infinite variety of their forms and the specific desire that corresponded to each form; it was no use their being fully clothed, I would decorate them there and then with a magnificent nudity that my eyes devoured; and soon, as I brushed by them, I was able to carry away with me the greatest number of voluptuous ideas, fragrances that fill you with love for everything, glancing touches that arouse you, and shapes that allure.

  I knew full well where I was going: to a house in a little street down which I had often walked so as to feel my heart beating faster; it had green shutters, you went up three steps – oh! I knew the scene by heart, I had gazed at it often enough, and taken a detour from my route simply to see those closed windows. Finally, after what seemed like a century, I came to the street, and thought I was going to suffocate; nobody passed by, and I made my way farther and farther along; I can still feel the contact of the door that I pushed open with my shoulder; it yielded – I’d been afraid it might be locked, but no, it turned on its hinge, gently, noiselessly.

  I made my way up the stairs; the stairwell was dark and the steps worn down and wobbly under my tread; I carried on upwards, unable to see, feeling dazed; no one spoke a word to me, I could hardly breathe. Finally I came into a room, it seemed a big room, but this was due to the darkness; the windows were open, but big yellow curtains, hanging to the ground, kept out the daylight, and the apartment was suffused with a wan golden hue; at the far end, next to the window on the right, a woman was sitting. She couldn’t have heard me, since she didn’t turn round when I went in; I stood there motionless, gazing at her.

  She was wearing a white dress with short sleeves, and sitting with her elbow propped on the window ledge, one hand near her mouth, apparently looking down at something vague and indistinct on the ground; her black hair, smoothed and plaited at the temples, shone like a crow’s wings, her head was leaning forward slightly, some wisps of hair at the back stood out from the others and fell in light curls on her neck, and the curve of her big golden comb was crowned with points of red coral.

  She uttered a cry when she noticed me and jumped to her feet. I was immediately struck by the shining gaze of her two big eyes; when I was able to look up again and withstand the intensity of that gaze, I saw a face of adorable beauty: a single straight line started from the summit of her head and along the parting in her hair, passed between her two arched eyebrows, down her aquiline nose with its tremulous nostrils flaring like those in ancient cameos, and drew a line down the middle of her warm lip, shadowed by a bluish down… and then came her neck, her plump, white, round neck; through her thin clothes I could see the shape of her breasts rising and falling in rhythm with her breathing; thus she stood before me, framed by the sunlight that passed through the yellow curtains and brought out even more strongly her white clothes and dark head.

  Eventually she started to smile, almost out of pity and gentleness, and I walked over. I don’t know what she had put on her hair, but it was strongly perfumed, and I felt my heart growing softer and more yielding than a peach melting on my tongue. She said, “What’s the matter with you? Come over here!”

  And she went to sit on a long sofa covered with grey canvas, standing against the wall; I sat next to her, she took my hand – hers was warm – and we sat there for a long time gazing at one another wordlessly.

  Never had I seen a woman from so close; her beauty was all around me, her arm was touching mine, the folds of her dress fell onto my legs, the heat of her hip set me on fire, and through its contact I could feel the undulations of her body; I gazed at the roundness of her shoulder and the blue veins of her temples. She said to me, “Well?”

  “Well,” I repeated cheerfully, trying to shake off this mesmerizing fascination.

  But then I stopped, totally intent on devouring her with my eyes. Without speaking, she put her arm round me and drew me towards her in a silent embrace. Then I took her in my arms and planted my mouth on her shoulder, and ecstatically drank in my first kiss of love, savouring the prolonged desires of my youth and the pleasures of my dreams that had at last come true; and then I flung back my head to see her face more clearly: her eyes were shining, inflaming me, her gaze enveloped me more than her arms, I was lost within her eyes, and our fingers mingled; hers were long and delicate, and turned within my hand in quick, subtle movements; I could have crushed them with the slightest effort, and I squeezed them deliberately so as to feel them more intensely.

  I have forgotten what she said to me and what I replied; I sat there for a long time, lost, in suspense, swaying on the beating of my heart; each minute increased my intoxication, at every moment some new impression entered my soul, my whole body was quivering with impatience, desire and joy; and yet I was solemn, sombre rather than light-hearted, serious and absorbed as if in something divine, something supreme. With her hand she drew my head against her heart, but gently, as if she had been afraid of crushing me against her.

  She removed her sleeve with a twist of her shoulders, and her dress came undone: she had no corset, and her chemise was open. She had splendid breasts, the kind that make you long to die between them, smothered by love. Sitting on my knees, she had the naive pose of a dreaming child; her lovely profile stood out in pure lines; an adorable fold of skin in her armpit seemed like a smile of her shoulder; her white back bent slightly and wearily, and her dress as it fell gathered in broad folds on the floor; she raised her eyes skywards and murmured between her teeth a sad, languorous refrain.

  I touched her comb and took it out; her hair came flooding down like a wave, and her long black tresses quivered as they fell to her hips. I immediately ran my hand over it, and in it, and beneath it; I plunged my arm into it, and bathed my face in it, filled with sadness. Sometimes I would enjoy separating it into two, from behind, and then bringing it over her shoulder so as to hide her breasts; then I would bring all her hair together in a mesh, and pull it so that her head came back and her neck was thrown forward; she let me do what I wanted, like a dead woman.

  Suddenly she broke away from me, stepped out of
her dress, and leapt onto the bed with the litheness of a cat; the mattress sank under the weight of her feet, the bed creaked, she quickly drew back the curtains and lay down, she held out her arms to me and took me in them. Oh! The sheets themselves seemed to be still warm from all the caresses of love that had passed through them.

  Her soft damp hand moved over my body, and she kissed me on the face, on the mouth, on the eyes, and each of her urgent caresses made me swoon; she lay on her back and sighed; sometimes she would half-close her eyes and look at me with a voluptuous irony, then, propped on one shoulder, she would twist round onto her stomach, raising her heels into the air. She was full of charming little amorous tricks, and refined and innocent movements; finally, abandoning herself impulsively to me, she raised her eyes and heaved a great sigh which lifted her whole body… Her warm skin, all tremulous, stretched out beneath me and shuddered; from my head to my feet I felt a thrill of intense pleasure; my mouth was glued to hers, our fingers were intertwined, quivering in the same rhythm, clasped in the same embrace; and, breathing the odour of her hair and the breath of her lips, I felt myself ecstatically expiring. For a while longer I stayed there, panting, savouring the beating of my heart and the final juddering of my excited nerves; then it seemed as if everything was fading away and disappearing.

  But she too said nothing; immobile like a statue of flesh, with her abundant black hair round her pale face, and her arms wide open and softly resting; from time to time, a convulsive movement would shake her knees and hips; on her breast, the place where I had kissed her was still red, and a raucous, pitiful sound emerged from her throat, as when someone is going to sleep after a long time weeping and sobbing. Suddenly I heard her saying these words: “Just imagine if you were swept away by your senses and ended up becoming a mother” – and then I don’t remember what happened next, she crossed her legs and rocked from side to side as if she had been in a hammock.