by George Sand
realize one by the other.
This lesson, it is not me, it is the destiny which you given. For me, whose maternal heart was glorious in your love, I had to refuse to humiliate you
provide it and if in a woman's arms you were to meet your first disappointment, I had the right to you return to the arms of a woman whose profession is consent and disabuse.
I did not try to make your forehead blush and you have reason to say that pleasure has not defiled it. I love you i esteem you today as much as yesterday. I don't see anything changed in you, if not that you have learned and that you have suffered. I pity you and my tenderness increases. It is I who would be humiliated and humbled if I had you, like Pulchery, served as a torch to descend into these abysses nothingness and loneliness. Such a role is repugnant, I admit, to my pride ; but it's your fault, you shouldn't worship me like a deity, then ask me to be your
slave and your Sulamite.
I did not want to age you and transform you. I have not, as you believe, resolved to be inspired by the contempt for the pleasures of pleasure. I would like to on the contrary that you would have found them more endearing and Page 205
that they would have intoxicated your senses for a few days and rested Your spirit. Then you would have come back to me, calmer and more able to appreciate the pure charm of a chaste affection. Instead, you persisted in me
search in the arms of another; you tried,
reckless and guilty child, to desecrate by thought that which was to be sacred to you; but luckily God has denied desire the power to consume without food. He has placed objects of your worship out of your reach, for fear until you touch and watch them, you don't come to them dismiss with contempt. The blood of Christ is contained in the sacred vases and hidden behind the golden walls of the Tabernacle; if the gaze of the crowd could penetrate it, the crowd would quickly learn to doubt and deny. So between the soul and the vague objects of his expectation, God put invisible but
insurmountable obstacles, so that the fire of holy desires did not die out in it by examination and possession.
That was my mission with you and I fulfilled it. More experienced, more proven than you, closer to heaven, because that I was more detached from the earth, I had to shine before you like the star that led the Magi to the feet of the King of nations. The star was not God, it was not even an angel, it was a torch lit by the breath of the Almighty to light the pilgrims' route. If the pilgrims had been able command the star, slow its flight or squeeze it, attract it towards them and replace it as they wish in the ether, the star would have paled in their atmosphere, he would have died in the wind of their breath and they would have been abandoned in darkness, within unknown valleys, at the edge of rivers they didn't know the name.
I irritate you when I speak to you like this, because I tell you treats, you say, like a child. What are you complaining about you, Sténio, and why are you humiliated to be younger and happier than me? Have I ever reproached you for not having passed the course of time and not being hardened tiredness when your childhood has so far been dormant on flowers? Alas! my child do you think i am proud of my sufferings? Do you think I came out without spot and undefiled? The victim who is torn down half broken from Page 206
horrors of torture does she take a look at the crowd daring and vain? Has he not escaped neither roars, nor blasphemy under the executioners' iron? If she didn't betray her faith and denied his God, have we not left him some respite, seeing that she was losing physical strength and feeling pain ? Oh ! how many times in the agony of the heart
did I drop to the ground, inert, exhausted and crying out for last curse: “Avenging God, slow down your blows; it's a waste of time, because I don't feel them anymore! "
Child submissive, whom God has not yet chastised and whose accept prayers as pure incense, do not send the fervor and the tears of the penitent who strikes his forehead temple steps. God may allow him to share the treasures of his mercy, but his trials are not over.
Before having a throne among the powers of heaven, he will still have to crawl a long time on a land of atonement and punishment, where the eternal death may surprise him in a day of weariness and doubt.
Inflexible justice, sovereign equity! save work for young courage, spare the wind for delicate plants!
Make life sweet and calm in Sténio: Sténio has no crime to atone.
I once spoke to you in another language, oh my young poet!
I tried to soften your rigid wisdom. I showed you the merits of Trenmor. I taught you to respect the great misfortunes and great wills. But I didn't not said to deserve my love by throwing you in the same pitfalls. Stay pure, stay calm for a long time, I told you, I love you differently than Trenmor. But i will love you perhaps more. Trenmor will be my brother and you my son.
He will be my support as I will be yours and, all three, helped one by the other, united in a holy love, we will come to the truth, wisdom, perhaps rest.
Have I broken these promises? Didn't i keep my respect for Trenmor, my tenderness for you? Have i removed the hand that supported you? How does it come that at every step, frightened and tired, you stay behind, whispering against the guide you have chosen ? Why are you amazed and afraid
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do they let go, while you become attached to us, you could pass without danger through danger. Here you are irritated, because, yielding to child's wishes, I told them given the change to appease them? What desecration do i have therefore committed by indulging in the caresses of a beautiful woman and young, who, taking you, gave himself to you without degradation, without market? Pulchérie is not a common courtesan. His passions are not feigned, his soul is not sordid. She cares little about commitments imaginary of lasting love. She worships only one God and sacrifice only to him. This God is pleasure. But she knew the put on poetry, cynical and courageous chastity. Your meaning called the pleasure it gave you, and that the mine would have refused you. Why despise Pulchérie, because that she satisfied you? Why curse Lélia, because she looked outside of herself for what you asked her and what that she didn't have?
As I live, I cannot refuse to recognize
that the ideas adopted by the youth, on the exclusive ardor of love, on the absolute possession it claims, on the eternal rights which he claims, are false or at least fatal. All theories should be admitted and I would grant that of marital fidelity to souls exception. The majority have other needs, others powers. Reciprocal freedom, mutual insurance tolerance, the abjuration of all jealous selfishness. To those of mystical ardors, fires long brooded in silence, a long and voluptuous reserve. To others, calm angels, fraternal chastity, eternal virginity.
Are all souls alike? All men have-
do they have the same faculties? Weren't some born for the austerity of religious faith, the others for the languors of pleasure ; others for the labors and struggles of passion, still others for the vague reveries of poetry? Nothing is no more arbitrary than the meaning of true love . All loves are true, whether fiery or peaceful, sensual or ascetic, lasting or transient, whether they lead men to suicide or pleasure. The head loves lead to actions as great as love of the heart.
They have as much violence, as much empire, if not as much Page 208
duration. The love of the senses can be ennobled and sanctified by struggle and sacrifice. How many veiled virgins have blind, obeyed the impulse of nature by kissing the feet of Christ, shedding hot tears on the hands of marble of their celestial husband! Believe me, Sténio, this deification of the selfishness which possesses and which keeps, this law of moral marriage in love is also crazy, so helpless to contain the wills, as paltry before God, as that of the social marriage is now in the eyes of men.
You have confused two very distinct things: love of the senses and the love of the soul. This one, I can inspire it and share; but the other is not for me or, rather, I do not am not made to feel it; because, far from despising it, I have that disdainful compassion for organizations depleted, for the false faculties which abou
nd in these these days and of which I am a sad example. But as I am, whatever dissatisfaction with which I accept my destiny, I must submit to it and draw from my invalid condition the best possible. I have to stop to fight against my helplessness and that I shrink my
ambitions to bring them into harmony with my strengths.
It is very true that I suffer, that a frightful despair would be my inevitable sharing, if I did not back down and yield day per day from the field to the need. The isolation of the heart me continues within the purest intimacies. I can never arrive at these complete effusions, at this embracing of souls, happiness that I once dreamed of, of which I have only grasped The shadow ! But I feel that I can only save myself by resignation, that new mistakes, new attempts would sour my pain and make it incurable.
Possess the faculties of love in their double power, being able to feel the joys of the soul keenly and those of the senses, do you know, Sténio, that that is not given to many of us? If you are gifted with this wealth is not a reason to be indignant if
you do not meet your equal in this world. I declare humbly that I am not. The evils attached to my sad existence are there to free me from the reproach of irony and contempt.
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Maybe I shouldn't be complaining about my sharing.
Many have told me that God treated me beautifully by giving me intelligence. But the thought, I often have it proven, is a dangerous power to those who use it, a weapon that hurts the hand that lifts it, a bright beacon, but misleading, which leads us astray from abyss to abyss. I often have damn this source of bitterness, I often asked God to make me like woodland animals. But in
bewilderment in my suffering I formed a wish that I would not have wanted to see realized. I would have consented to put on the dress of the panthers and to sink into the ignored solitudes
of humans, to possess the wings of seagulls and to cross seas, carried by storms, but provided that the thought human would live in me to contemplate the beauties of the desert, the splendor of the clouds and the immensity of the waves. I do not didn't understand the benefits of muscle strength, physical agility, extraordinary development and magnificent in some senses, like the sight in birds, like that of voluptuousness in tigers, without the exercise of thought to appreciate its value, without the powers of the soul to thank God for it. Even today, although tired of the abuse of these powers and tormented aimless worries, it is not in good faith that I aspire to the isolated possession of the faculties of matter. I would refuse perhaps the carefree and crazy life of my sister; because the thought also has his intoxication, his ecstasies, his celestial pleasures, one of which hour is worth a whole youth, a whole life.
And if your threat were realized, Sténio, if the fire of the sky died in me and gave me over to the disorder of the senses; if, transformed by the wrath of God to the point of losing the empire of my will, I threw myself thrilling and pale with shame in the arms of these men my heart would not love, but that my senses would covet ... oh! then, if there were any so rest assured, you would not have to blush for long to have loved Lélia. When moral strength escapes us, when brutal need dominates us, when respect for us-even stop talking in us and that we're close to to roll into the abyss of infamy is that God give up and then we too can give up
God. We are freed from the law of love and Page 210
recognition that makes each of us united in order
eternal, infinite. We are no longer part of creation, we let us disturb the universal harmony; because a stupid man no longer belongs to any species and must be subtracted or less apart. If society is forced to bear it, it the insult, she crushes it under her contempt and contempt for men is horrible when it is deserved, when behind its implacable justice, there is no open retreat to go claim peaceful justice, the paternal indulgence of God.
So, Sténio, there are no two sides to be taken. If the macerations of mysticism cannot tame us, if the wisdom advice no longer contains passions in us rude, you have to die. There is a refuge from men, it is suicide; there is a refuge from God, it is nothingness.
So don't try to change me: it's not in my
power and yours would miserably fail in this attempt. If I'm the only woman you can love, stay, my child, stay near me, I agree. I will be your friend. I won't miss you, if you don't force me not walk away for fear of harming you. You see, Sténio, your fate is in your hands. Be content of my refined tenderness, of my platonic embraces.
I tried to love you like a lover, like a
woman ... But what! is the role of women limited to outbursts of love? Are men fair when
they accuse the one who responds poorly to their transport to deviate to the attributes of her gender? Don't they count for nothing intelligent care of the sisters, sublime devotion mothers ? Oh ! if i had had a younger brother i would have guided him in life, I would have tried to spare him his pain, to preserve from dangers. If I had had children, I would have had them fed from my breast; I would have carried them in my arms, in my soul ; I would have submitted to them effortlessly to all
ills of life: I feel it, I would have been a mother courageous, passionate, tireless. So be my brother and my son and the thought of any hymen seems to you incestuous and whimsical. Hunt her like we hunt these monstrous dreams, which disturb us at night and which we we grow back effortlessly and without regret upon waking. If your youth is hungry for permitted pleasures, let me Page 211
to shed light on the dangers that must be avoided. Let Trenmor you guide in these difficult paths, where however one can to walk when one carries within oneself a strong soul and a noble heart.
We were born to serve you as support and advice, because we were born before you. Your life begins and ours ends. So we cannot share your passions, but we we can direct them. Live for your account; but come to us when you suffer, so that we will heal them bruises that the chains of life will inflict on you.
So the three of us can be happy. Accept this contract of love and chastity. Confidently put your hand in ours. Lean calmly on our
shoulders ready to support you. But don't worry anymore illusion: no longer hope to rejuvenate me to the point of taking away my discernment and reason. Don't break the bond that makes your strength ; do not reverse the support you are invoking. Call, if you like, from the name of love the affection that we have one for the other, but let’s be the love that we know in stay of angels, where only souls burn with the fire of holy desires. "
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5
" Well ! be cursed! because I'm cursed and it's you whose cold breath withered my youth in its flower. You you are right and I can hear you very well, Madame; you admit that I need you, but you declare that you don't need me. What can I complain about? Born don't I know that this is unanswerable? You like better stay calm where you pretend to be that go down to share my ardor, my torments, my storms. You have a lot of wisdom and logic in truth and far from arguing with you, I remain silent and admire you.
But I can hate you, Lélia, it is a right that you gave me and which I pretend to use. You made me enough trouble for me to dedicate an eternal and deep enmity; because, without having had any real wrong towards you found a way to be fatal and take me away the right to complain. Your coldness has placed you opposite live on me, in an unassailable position, while my youth and my elation delivered me to you defenseless.
You have not deigned to have pity on me, that is simple; why should it be otherwise? What sympathy could exist between us? By what works, by what great actions, by what superiority did I deserve you? You do not owed me nothing and you gave me this easy compassion that makes you turn your head when you pass by a man bleeding and injured. Wasn't that already a lot? Was not at least enough to prove your sensitivity?
Oh yes ! you are a good sister, a tender mother, Lélia! You throw me into the arms of the courtesans with a admirable selflessness, you shatter my hope, you destroy my illusion with severity really well majestic; you tell me there is no happiness pure, no chaste pleasures on earth and, to prov
e it to me,
you push me away from your bosom which seemed to welcome me and promise me the joys of heaven, to send me to sleep on a Page 213
still warm breast of kisses from a whole city. God was wise, Lélia, not to give you children; but he was unfair to me, by giving me a mother like you!
Thank you, Lélia. But the lesson is strong enough, it doesn't I don't need one more to reach wisdom. Here I am enlightened, here I am disillusioned with all things. Here I am old and full of experience. In heaven are all the joys, all the loves. All in good time. But in the meantime, let's accept life with all its necessities, the worried and feverish youth, the fiery and sickly desire, brutal need, cheeky vice, peaceful, philosophical. Let's make two parts of our being: one for religion, for friendship, for poetry, for wisdom; the other for debauchery and impurity. Let's get out of temple, let's forget God on Messaline's bed. Parfumons our foreheads and wallow in the mire. Let us aspire, in the same day, to the immaculation of the angels and resign ourselves to the rudeness of animals. But I, Madame, hear it better than you, I go further: I adopt all consequences of your precept. Unable to share as well my life between heaven and hell, too mediocre, too incomplete to go from prayer to orgy, from light to darkness, I renounce pure joys, divine ecstasies, I surrender to the whim of my senses, to the ardor of my fiery blood.
Long live the Zinzolina and those who look like it! Long live easy pleasures, intoxication that you don't need to conquer or by study, neither by meditation, nor by prayer! Really yes, it would be folly to despise the faculties of matter.
Haven't I tasted happiness in your sister's arms too