by George Sand
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The novel Lélia appeared for the first time, in two volumes, in 1833. A second version was written from 1836 and appeared in 1839.
Cover image: Fragment of a double portrait of George Sand and Frédéric Chopin, Eugène Delacroix, oil on canvas, 1938 - © AKG.
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Lelia
Dedicated to MH Delatouche.
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When the Gullible Hope Chances a Look
confident among the doubts of a desolate and desolate soul to probe and heal them, his foot staggers on the edge of the abyss, her eye is troubled, she is struck with dizziness and death.
Unpublished thoughts of a loner.
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First part
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"Who are you? And why does your love hurt so much? He there must be in you some awful mystery unknown to
Men. Surely you are not a being kneaded with the same silt and animated by the same life as us! Are you an angel or a demon, but you're not a human creature. Why us hide your nature and your origin? Why live with us who cannot suffice or understand you? If you come from God, speak and we will worship you. If you come from hell ... You come from hell! You so beautiful and so pure! Evil spirits do they have this divine look, and this harmonious voice, and these words that elevate the soul and transport it to the throne of God ?
And yet, Lélia, there is something infernal in you.
Your bitter smile belies the heavenly promises of your gaze.
Some of your words are distressing like
atheism: there are times when you would doubt God and from yourself. Why, why, Lélia, are you like this? that do you do with your faith, what do you do with your soul, when you deny love? O heaven! you, utter this blasphemy!
But who are you so if you think what you say sometimes ? "
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"Lélia, I am afraid of you. The more I see you, the less I guess you. You toss me around on a sea of worries and of doubts. You seem to be making a game of my anxieties.
You raise me to heaven and you step on my feet. You take me with you in the radiant clouds, and then you Page 8
rush me into the dark chaos! My weak reason succumbs to such trials. Spare me, Lélia!
Yesterday, when we were walking on the mountain, you were so tall, so sublime, that I wanted to kneel in front of you and kiss the fragrant trace of your steps. When the
Christ was transfigured in a cloud of gold and appeared to swim eyes of his apostles in a burning fluid, they bowed down and said, "Lord, you are the son of God ! ". And then when the cloud had passed out and the prophet descended the mountain with his companions, they no doubt asked with concern, "This man who walk with us, who talks like us, who goes to supper with us, so is it the same that we just saw wrapped veils of fire and all radiating from the spirit of the Lord? "
So I do with you, Lélia! Every moment you
transfigure before me and then you strip the divinity to become my equal again, and then I wonder with dread if you are not some celestial power, some
new prophet, the Word incarnated once again under a human form, and if you do that to test our faith and know among us the true faithful!
But Christ! this great personified thought, this type sublime of the intangible soul it was always above the human nature that he had put on. No matter how good he became again man he could not hide so well that he was not always the first among men. You, Lélia, what scares me is that when you descend from your glories you are no longer even at our level, you fall below us-same, and you seem to no longer seek to dominate us except by the perversity of your heart. For example, what is it that this deep, stinging, unquenchable hatred that you have for our race? Can we love God as you do and hate his works so cruelly? How to tune this mixture of sublime faith and hardened impiety, these impulses towards the heaven and this pact with hell? Again, where do you come from?
you, Lélia? What a mission of salvation or revenge do you accomplish on earth?
Yesterday, when the sun was going down behind the glacier, drowned in vapors of a bluish pink, while the warm air Page 9
a beautiful winter evening slipped through your hair and the church bell threw its melancholy notes to the echoes of The valley; then, Lélia, I tell you, you were really there sky girl. The soft light of the sunset came to die on you and surrounded you with a magic reflection. Your eyes, lifted towards the blue vault where barely a few shy stars, shone with a sacred fire. Me, poet of the woods and valleys, I listened to the mysterious murmur of the waters, I looked at the soft ripples of the pines faintly agitated, I breathed the sweet scent of wild violets which, on the first warm day that comes, at the first ray of pale sun that invites them, open their chalices of azure under the dried foam. But you did not think of everything That; neither the flowers, nor the forests, nor the torrent called your looks. No object on earth aroused your feelings, you were all in heaven. And, when I showed you the show enchanted that lay under our feet, you tell me in raising your hand to the ethereal vault: Look at that! O
Lelia you longed for your homeland, didn't you? you ask God why he forgot you so long among
us, why didn't he make your wings white for you go up to him?
But unfortunately! when the cold that started to blow on the heather forced us to seek shelter in the city; when, attracted by the vibrations of this bell, I begged you to enter the church with me and attend the evening prayer, why, Lélia, did not you leave me? Why you
who can certainly do more difficult things don't
you did not bring down from above a cloud to veil me your face? Alas! why did I see you like this, standing up frown, haughty air, dry heart? Why don't you are you not kneeling on the slabs cooler than you? Why didn't you cross your hands on this breast woman that the presence of God should have filled of tenderness or terror? Why this superb calm and this apparent contempt for the rites of our worship? do adorez-you not the true God, Lélia? Do you come from the countries where we sacrifice to Brahma or the edges of these great unnamed rivers, where man implores the spirit of evil rather than that of good? because we don't know your family or Page 10
climates that saw you born. No one knows, and the mystery that surrounding you makes us superstitious despite us!
You insensitive! You godless! Oh ! That can not be !
But tell me, in the name of heaven, what becomes of these hours terrible, this soul, this great soul where poetry flows, where the enthusiasm overflows and whose fire wins us and we leads beyond anything we had felt? To what were you thinking yesterday what did you do with yourself when you were there, dumb and frozen in the temple, standing like the Pharisee, measuring God without trembling, deaf to the saints hymns, insensitive to incense, leafless flowers, sighs from the organ, all the poetry of the holy place? And like it was beautiful however this church impregnated with wet perfumes, thrilling sacred harmonies! Like the flame silver lamps exhaled white and dull in the clouds of fiery benzoin opal, while the casseroles of vermeil sent to the vault the graceful spirals of a fragrant smoke! Like the golden blades of the tabernacle
rose, light and radiant, under the reflection of the candles!
And when the priest, this tall and handsome Irish priest whose hair is so black, whose size is so majestic, the look so austere and speech so sonorous, slowly descended the steps from the altar, dragging his long mantle of velvet; when he raised his great voice, sad and penetrating like the winds blowing in his homeland; when he we says, presenting to us the sparkling monstrance, this word so powerful in his mouth: Adoremus! then, Lélia, I felt penetrated of a holy fear and, throwing myself on my knees on the marble, I hit my chest and I looked down.
But your thought is so intimately linked in my soul to all the big t
houghts that I turned around almost immediately towards you to share with you this delicious emotion or, maybe, God forgive me now, for you
address half of these humble worship.
But you were on your feet! You did not fold the knee, you haven't looked down! Your superb look walked, cold and scrutinizing, on the priest, on the host, on the prostrate crowd: none of this has spoken to you. Alone, Page 11
all alone among us all, you refused your prayer to Lord. So would you be a power above him?
Well ! Lélia (God forgive me again!)
for a while i believed him and i almost took my tribute to give it to you. I let myself be dazzled and subdue by the power that was in you. Alas! it is necessary admit it, I never saw you so beautiful. Pale as one of white marble statues watching over the tombs you had nothing more earthly. Your eyes were shining with fire dark and your broad forehead, from which you had set aside your
black hair, rose, sublime with pride and genius, above the crowd, above the priest, above God even. This depth of impiety was frightening and you thus see with gaze the space which is between us and the sky, everything that was there felt small. Had Milton seen you, when it made so noble and so beautiful the blasted forehead of his angel rebellious?
Should I tell you all my terrors? It seemed to me that the instant the priest stood up, raising the symbol of faith on our heads bowed, you live before him, standing like him, alone with him above all; yes, it seemed to me that then his deep and stern look, meeting your impassive look, bent down before him. It seemed to me that this priest paled, that his trembling hand could no longer support the chalice and his voice died out in his large chest. Is there a dream of my troubled imagination or indeed did the indignation suffocate the Minister of the Most High when he saw you thus resisting the order emanating from his mouth ? Or tormented like me by a strange
hallucination, did he think he saw something in you supernatural, an evoked power from the bosom of the abyss or a revelation sent from heaven? "
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"What do you care, young poet?" Why do you want know who I am and where I come from?… I was born like you in the valley of tears and all the wretches who crawl on earth are my brothers. So is it so big, this earth that a thought embraces and which a swallow goes around in for a few days? What can be strange
and mysterious in a human existence? What if
great influence do you suppose to a more sunbeam or less vertical on our heads? Come on! this whole world is far from him; it is very cold, and very pale, and very narrow.
Ask the wind how many hours it takes for the upset from one pole to another.
Were I born at the other end, there would still be little difference between you and me. Both condemned to suffer, both weak, incomplete, wounded by all our
enjoyments, always worried, eager for nameless happiness, always outside of us, that's our common destiny, that's what who makes us brothers and companions on earth of exile and servitude.
You ask if I am a being of another nature than you? Do you think I don't suffer? I saw some men, more unhappy than me by their condition, who were much less so by their character. All the men are not able to suffer to the same degree. In the eyes of great craftsman of our miseries, these varieties of organization are probably very little. For us, whose sight is so limited, we spend half of our life examining ourselves each other and to take note of the nuances that undergoes misfortune by revealing itself to us. All of this, what's in front God? What is before us the difference between the strands plump.
That's why I'm not praying to God. What would he ask I? Let it change my destiny? He would laugh at me. Let him give strength to fight my pains? He put it in me, it's up to me to use it.
You ask if I worship the evil spirit. Evil spirit and the spirit of good is one spirit, it is God; it's here unknown and mysterious will which is above our
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wills. Good and bad are distinctions that we have created: God does not know them more than happiness and misfortune. Do not ask heaven or hell for the secret of my destiny. It is you I could blame for constantly throwing above and below myself. Poet, do not seek in me these deep mysteries; my soul is sister of yours, you sadden her, you frighten her by probing as well. Take it for what it is, for a soul that is suffering and waiting. If you question her so severely, she will will fold in on itself and will no longer dare to open up to you. "
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"The harshness of my requests for you, I have it too frankly expressed, Lélia; I hurt the sublime modesty of your soul. It is also, Lélia, I am very unhappy!
You think I have the curious eye of a
philosopher, and you are mistaken. If I didn't feel like I you belong, that now my existence is
invincibly linked to yours, if in a word I didn't love you not with passion, I would not have the audacity to question you, were you the most remarkable subject offered for observations of the physiologist.
So these doubts, these worries that I dared to tell you, everyone who has seen you shares them. They wonder with amazement if you are a cursed existence or privileged, if you must love or fear yourself, you welcome or repel you; even the vulgar rude loses his carelessness to take care of you. He does not understand the expression of your features or the sound of your voice and, to hear the absurd tales of which you are the object, we see that this people are also ready to kneel on your
passage or to ward off you like a plague. The intelligences
higher watch you carefully, some by curiosity, others out of sympathy; but none is done like me a matter of life and death of the solution of the Page 14
problem; I alone have the right to be bold and to you ask who you are because (I feel it intimately and this feeling is linked to that of my existence), I now do part of you, you took hold of me, without your knowledge perhaps ; but finally here I am enslaved, I do not belong more, my soul can no longer live in itself. God and the poetry is no longer enough for him: God and poetry are you now and without you there is no more poetry, there is no more God, there is nothing left.
Tell me then, Lélia, since you want me to take you for a woman and let me speak to you as my equal, tell me if you have the power to love, if your soul is of fire or ice, if, by giving myself to you, like I did, I dealt with my loss or of my salvation; because I don't know and I don't watch without fear the unknown career where I will follow you. This future is wrapped in clouds, sometimes pink and shiny like those who rise to the horizon at sunrise, sometimes red and dark like the ones before the storm and conceal lightning.
Did I start life with you or did I leave it for you follow in death? These years of calm and innocence which are behind me, will you wilt or rejuvenate them? Did i know happiness and will I lose it or, not knowing what it is, will i taste it? These years were very beautiful, very fresh, very sweet! but also they were very calm, well obscure, very sterile! What did i do, that dream and wait and hope since I was born? Will I finally produce?
Will you make me big or abject? Sortirai-I of this nullity, this rest that begins to weigh on me? In will I go out to go up or down?
This is what I wonder every day with anxiety and you do not answer me, Lélia, and you seem not to suspect that it there is an existence in question before you, a destiny inherent in yours and which you must now report to God ! Carefree and distracted, you grabbed the end of my chain and every moment you forget it, you drop it!
At all times, you must be afraid of seeing me alone and abandoned, I call you and force you to descend from these regions Page 15
strangers where you rush without me. Cruel Lélia! that you are happy to have a free soul and to be able to dream alone, love alone, live alone! I can't anymore love. I only love you. All these graceful types of beauty, all these angels dressed as women who passed in my dreams, throwing kisses and flowers to me, they left. They don't come neither in waking nor in sleep. It's you henceforth, always you, whom I see pale, and calm, and sad, and silent, by my side or in my sky.
&nb
sp; I am very miserable! my situation is not ordinary; he it's not just about me being worthy
to be loved by you. I'm not sure if you are capable of loving a man and - I only write this word with effort, how horrible it is - I believe not!
O Lélia! this time will you answer? Now I shudder interrogating you. Tomorrow I could still live on doubts and chimeras. Tomorrow maybe i'll have nothing left fear or hope. "
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"Child you are!" No sooner were you born and already you are in a hurry to live! because you have to be told, you don't have still lived, Sténio; I will define life in two words, but later.
Why are you so in a hurry? Fear not
get to that cursed goal where we all fail? You will come you break there like the others, Sténio. So take your time, skip school and cross it later
that you will be able to enter the school where you learn life.
Happy child, who asks where happiness is, how it is made, if he has tasted it already, if he is called to taste it one day!
O deep and precious ignorance! I will not answer you, Sténio.
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Don't be afraid, I won't wither you to the point of telling you a only things you want to know. If I love, if I can love, if I will give you happiness, if I am good or perverse, if you will be made great by my love or wiped out by my indifference: all that, you see, is a reckless science that God refuses at your age and that he forbids me to give you.
Hold on !
I bless you, young poet, sleep in peace. Tomorrow will come, beautiful like the other days of your youth, dressed in the greatest blessing of Providence, the veil that hides the future! "
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"That's how you always answer! Well ! your silence makes me feel such pain that I am reduced to thank you for your silence. Yet this state of ignorance that you think so sweet, it is awful, Lélia; you treat him
with a light disdain is that you don't know him not. Your childhood may have passed like mine, but the first passion that ignited in your womb was not there struggle, I imagine, with the anxieties that are in me. Without a doubt you were loved before you loved yourself. Your heart, this treasure that I would implore again on my knees, if I were king of the earth, your heart was ardently called by another heart; you do not know the torments of jealousy and fear; love was waiting for you, happiness was rushing towards you and you just had to consent to be happy, to be beloved. No, you do not know what I am suffering; without this you would have mercy on it, because after all you are good, your actions prove in spite of your words that deny it. I saw you soften vulgar suffering, I saw you practicing gospel charity with your wicked smile on your lips, feed and clothe the naked and hungry, while displaying a heinous skepticism. You are good, of native kindness, involuntary and that cold thinking cannot take you away.