Lelia

by George Sand

  - Happy Zinzolina! "Said Sténio with affection. Then resuming his indolence: "It is true that I found her beautiful, but it was yesterday… and then you must not have what you admire, because we would defile him and we would have nothing left to to desire.

  - You can love Claudia as you see fit,

  said Zinzolina, kneeling, kissing her hand, compare to the angels and withdraw your soul filled with this love ideal that once suited the melancholy of your thoughts.

  - No, tell me no more about her, answered Sténio with impatience; make him say that I am sick or dead. I smell that, in the disposition in which I am, she would displease me and I would say that she is brazen enough to forget her rank and her honor to indulge in a libertine bachelor. Page take my purse and go get me the Bohemian girl who sang yesterday morning under my window.

  - She sings very well, replied the page calmly respectful, but your lordship has not seen it…

  - And what does it matter to you! said Sténio in anger.

  "It is, Your Excellency, that it is awful," said the page.

  - So much the better, answered Sténio.

  - Black as night, said the page.

  - In that case, I want it right away; obey or I throw you by the window. "

  The page obeys; but hardly was it at the door that Sténio the remembered.

  "No, I don't want women," he said; I want air, I want of the day. Why are we locked in

  darkness when the sun goes up in the skies? That resembles to a curse.

  - are you still asleep that you don't see the shine candles ? said Antonio.

  - Take them away and open the shutters, said Sténio, whose face grew pale. why deprive us of air pure, the song of birds waking up, the scent of flowers Page 227

  who half open? What crime have we committed for lose sight of the sky in broad daylight?

  - Here is the poet who reappears, said Marino, raising the shoulders. Don't you know you can't drink in the light of

  day, unless you are a German or a cook? A meal without candles is like a ball without women. And besides a guest who knows how to live must ignore the course of hours and not worry if it is day or night on the street, if the bourgeois go to bed or if the cardinals wake up.

  - Zinzolina, says Sténio of a tone of insult and contempt, the air that one breathes here is foul. This wine, these meats, these liquors smoking, it all looks like a Flemish tavern.

  Give me air or I overturn your torches, or I break the ice cream from your windows.

  - You're the one who will get out of here and get some fresh air outside, exclaimed the guests, rising with indignation.

  - Hey! don't you see that he is incapable of it! Said the Zinzolina, running to Sténio who fell unconscious on the sofa.

  Trenmor helped him rescue him, the others sat back down.

  "What a pity," they said to themselves, "to see the Zinzolina, the most crazy about girls, fall in love with this phtisic poet and take seriously all his assignments!

  - Come back to you, my child, said Pulchérie, breathe these essences, lean over the window, don't you feel the air that is coming to your forehead and who is waving your hair?

  - I feel your hands heating and irritating me, replied Sténio, remove them from my face. Get out, you smell musk, you sense too much the courtesan. Give me some rum, I sense of being intoxicated.

  - Sténio, you are insane and cruel, resumed Zinzolina with a great sweetness. Here's one of your best friends, who an hour is near you, don't you recognize it?

  - My excellent friend, said Sténio, deign to bow down, because you seem so tall to me that I will have to get up to see you and it's not sure your face is worth it.

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  - Which one did you lose, said Trenmor, without bending, sight or memory?

  Sténio made a gesture of surprise by recognizing this voice and, suddenly turning around:

  "So it's not a dream this time?" he said. How? 'Gold' What can i distinguish reality from illusion when my life is going to sleep or to wander? Earlier, I dreamed that you were here, that you sang the most clownish verses, the most gritty ... That surprised me; but, after all, didn't I amazed in the same way those who knew me formerly? And then he told me seemed like I was waking up, quarreling and you were still there. At least I thought I saw your shadow floating on the wall and I no longer knew if I was asleep or awake.

  Now tell me, are you Trenmor or are you

  like me a vain shadow, an erased dream, the ghost and the name of what was a man?

  - At least, I'm not a friend's ghost, replied Trenmor, and, if I don't hesitate to recognize you, I don't not deserve to be overlooked by you. "

  Sténio tried to shake his hand and smile at him sadly; but his features had lost their naive mobility and, even in the expression of gratitude, there was now something haughty and preoccupied. Their eyes, devoid of eyelashes, no longer had the veiled slowness that befits so well to youth. His eyes came straight to your face, abrupt, fixed and almost arrogant. Then the young man, fearing to surrender to the memory of the old days, got up, led Trenmor to the table and, with a singular mixture of inner shame and daring vanity, he challenged him to drink as much as him.

  "What! said the Zinzolina reproachfully, you will you still hasten the end of your life? Earlier you were dying and you're going to devour what's left of you youth and strength with these fiery drinks. O Sténio!

  go, go with Trenmor! Don't make your healing impossible…

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  - Go with Trenmor! said Sténio; and where would I go with him?

  Can we live in the same places? Am i not banished from Horeb Mountain, where God reveals Himself? Don't i have forty years to spend in the desert so that my nephews one day see the land of Chanaan?

  Sténio pressed his glass with a convulsive hand. A veil black seemed to droop on his face. Then she suddenly came alive of this feverish redness that spreads in uneven shades over faces altered by debauchery and which differ essentially fine and well mixed coloring of the youth.

  "No, no," he said, "I won't leave without Trenmor having meet again with his friend. If the confident young man and credulous no longer exists, he must at least see the drinker fearless, the elegant voluptuous who rose from the ashes of Sténio. Zinzolina, have all the cups filled. I drink to don Juan, my boss; I drink to the youth of Trenmor. But no, it's not enough, that we fill my a cup of devouring spices, poured in the spicy pepper, the clove that makes you love, the ginger that gnaws the bowels, cinnamon which precipitates the circulation of blood. Come on, page cheeky, prepare this hateful mixture for me to burn my tongue and exalt my brain. I'll drink it, should I be hold on tight to make me swallow it because I want to go crazy

  and feel young, if only for an hour, and die afterwards.

  You will see, Trenmor, how beautiful I am intoxicated, as divine poetry descends in me, like the fire of the sky ignite my thought, as the fire of fever circulates in my veins. Come on, the steaming vase is on the table; to you all, stupid drinkers, pale debauched, I carry this challenge! You taunted me, now let's see which of you will dare me stand up?

  - Who then will deliver us from this swagger without a mustache?

  said Antonio to Zamarelli. Have we not endured enough insolence in his ways?

  - Let him do it, replied Zamarelli, he works himself to get rid of him soon. "

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  An instant after swallowing the spicy wine, Sténio was seized excruciating pains of fiery red mottling

  drew on his withered skin. Sweat ran from his forehead and his eyes took an almost fierce glow.

  "You are suffering, Sténio!" Marino yelled at him with the expression of triumph.

  - No, answered Sténio.

  - In this case, sing us some of your rhymes drunken.

  - Sténio, you cannot sing, says Pulchérie, don't try.

  - I will sing, said Sténio; have I lost my voice? Born am I more the one you enthusiastically applaud and whose accents threw you into a sweeter intoxication than that
of wine?

  "It is true," said the drinkers; sing, Sténio, sing! "

  And they huddled around the table, because none of them

  could dispute to Sténio the gift of the inspiration and all felt driven and dominated by him when he found a gleam of poetry within the nervousness into which the disorder.

  He sang in an altered but vibrant voice and accentuated, in the sweetest language of the universe.

  Inno ebbrioso

  Let the fiery chypre circulate in my veins!

  Let us erase vain hopes from my heart,

  And until the memory

  Faded days, including the importunate image, Like at the bottom of a pure lake a dark cloud, Would disturb the future!

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  Forget, forget! Supreme wisdom,

  Is to ignore the days saved by drunkenness And not to know

  If the day before was sober or if, in our years, The most beautiful already disappear, faded Before evening time.

  "Your voice weakens, Sténio, shouted Marino of the end of the table. You seem to seek your worms and draw them with effort from bottom of your brain. I remember the time when you improvised twelve stanzas without making us languish. But you drops, Sténio. Your mistress and your muse are also tired of you. "

  Sténio only replied to him with a look of contempt; knocking on the table, he said in a more confident voice: Bring me a bottle, fill my cup

  Overflows and my lip, plunging into the dregs From this radiant flow,

  Alters, dries up and asks for more A new warmth to this wine that devours

  And who equals the Gods!

  On my dazzled eyes a thick veil descends!

  Let this confused torch fade! and that I hear, In the middle of the night,

  The resounding shock of your knocked cuts, Like on the ocean the rough waves

  By the wind that flees!

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  If my gaze rises in the middle of the orgy, If my trembling lip and reddish foam

  Go get a kiss,

  May my burning desires on bare shoulders

  Of these women of love, for my pleasures,

  Can not calm down.

  May in my blood depleted their lascivious caresses Rekindle convulsive heat today

  From a priest of twenty,

  May the flowers of their foreheads be sown by my hands, I wrap the scented braids on my fingers

  From their flowing hair.

  May my furious tooth with their pulsating flesh Tear out a cry of dread; that their gasping voice Ask me thank you.

  That in one last effort our sighs merge,

  By a final challenge that our cries answer each other, And let me die like this!

  "Sténio, you turn pale!" cried Marino; it's enough to sing or you will give the last sigh to the last stanza.

  - It is enough to interrupt me, exclaimed Sténio with anger, or

  I stick your glass in your throat. "

  Then he wiped the sweat from his forehead and, with a male, full voice that contrasted with his worn out features and the bluish pallor that spread over his flaming face he continued, getting up:

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  Or if God refuses me a wealthy death,

  Glory and happiness at the same time crowned, If I feel my desires,

  From helpless rage immortal agony,

  Like a pale reflection of a tarnished flame, Survive my pleasures,

  From my jealous master insulting the whim, Let this generous wine shorten the torture From the numbing body;

  In a farewell kiss that our lips hug,

  That in an icy sleep all my desires are extinguished And may God be cursed.

  By completing this sentence, Sténio became livid, his hand staggered and dropped the cup he was bringing to his lips. he tried to glance in triumph over his companions amazed at his courage and delighted with the males he had still able to draw from his exhausted chest. But the body could not resist this frantic fight with will. He collapsed and Sténio, seized of a new prostration, fell on the ground without knowledge, his head struck against Pulchérie's chair, whose the dress was red with his blood. At the cries of Zinzolina, the other courtesans came running. Seeing them come back dazzling in adornment and beauty, no one thought of more in Sténio. Pulchérie, helped by its page and Trenmor, transported Sténio under the shade of the garden, near a

  fountain which sprang from the finest Carrara marble.

  "Leave me alone with him," said Trenmor to the courtesan; it belongs to me now. "

  The Zinzolina, a good and carefree creature, deposited a kiss on the cold lips of Sténio, recommended it to God Page 234

  and to Trenmor, sighed deeply as he walked away and returned at the banquet where joy reigned now more lively and more noisy.

  "Another time," said Marino to Zinzolina, returning his cut, you will not lend, I hope, this beautiful cut to your drunkard of Sténio. It’s a work by Cellini, it almost spoiled in its fall. "

  2

  Claudia

  When Stenio regained consciousness, he received with disdain the eager care of his friend.

  "Why are we alone here? he said to him. Why have we been kicked out like lepers?

  - You must no longer return to the companions of the orgy, said Trenmor to him, because those same despise you and reject you. You have lost everything, spoiled everything; you have abandoned God, you have worn out and carried out all human things. All you have left is friendship in the womb from which a refuge is always open to you.

  - And what will friendship do for me? said Sténio with bitterness; Wasn't she the first to get tired of me and declared myself helpless for my happiness?

  - It was you who rejected it; it is you who have ignored and denied its benefits. Unhappy child! come back to us, come back to yourself. Lélia calls you back; if you

  abjure your mistakes, Lélia will forget them…

  - Leave me, said Sténio with anger, never pronounce before me the name of this woman. It's his influence accursed who corrupted my confident youth; it is his hellish irony that opened my eyes and showed me life Page 235

  in its nakedness, in its ugliness. Don't tell me about this Lélia; I don't know her anymore, I forgot her features. I know at hardly if I once loved her. A hundred years have passed since I left it. If I saw her now, I would laugh with pity thinking that I have owned a hundred more beautiful women, more young, more naive, more ardent and who have satiated me with pleasure. Why would I now bend my knee in front of this idol with marble sides? When my eyes are on fire of Pygmalion and the good will of the gods to animate it, that would i do? What would she give me more than the others? He was a time when I believed in infinite joys, in raptures heavenly. It was in his arms that I dreamed of bliss supreme, the ecstasy of the angels at the feet of the Most Holy. But today I no longer believe in the heavens, the angels, or God, nor to Lélia. I know human joys; I can not anymore exaggerate the value. Lélia herself took care to enlighten me. I know enough now; i know more about her perhaps ! So don't call me back, 'cause I'll give her back all the harm she did to me and I would be too avenged!

  - Your bitterness reassures me, your anger pleases me, said Trenmor. I was afraid of finding you insensitive to the memory of past. I see that it irritates you deeply and that the resistance of Lélia stayed in your memory like an incurable injury. God be blessed! Sténio lost only health physical; his soul is still full of energy and future.

  - Superb philosopher, mocking stoic, cried Sténio with fury, did you come here to insult my agony or do you take an idiotic pleasure in deploying your calm unmoved by my torments? Go back to where you came from and let me die in the midst of noise and intoxication. Don't come not despise the last efforts of a withered soul perhaps by his errors, but not degraded by compassion of others. "

  Trenmor bowed his head and remained silent. He was looking for words that could soften the bitterness of this savage pride and his heart was watered with sadness. His austere face lost his usual serenity and tears came to wet his eyelids.r />
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  Sténio noticed it and, in spite of him, felt moved. Their looks met; those of Trenmor expressed so many pain that Sténio, defeated, gave up to a feeling of have mercy on himself. Taunt and indifference, within of whom he had lived for a long time, had accustomed him to blush at his suffering. When he felt friendship soften his heart he was surprised and subdued for a moment and threw himself in the arms of Trenmor with effusion. But soon he had ashamed of this movement and, suddenly rising, he perceived a woman, wrapped in a long Venetian mantis,

  sank into the shadow of the cradles. It was the princess Claudia, followed by her loyal housekeeper, who was heading towards one of the garden pavilions.

  "Definitely, said Sténio by adjusting the collar of his shirt of batiste and by attaching it with its diamond clip, I do not then not let this poor child languish for me without take pity on her. The Zinzolina has probably forgotten

  that she had to come. It is my honor to be the first the appointment. "

  At the same time Sténio turned the head towards the side where walked Claudia. For a moment, his nostrils dilated as those of the muffoli, when it seizes in the air the sweet perfumes of the doe of the mountains. A youthful flash shone on his devastated forehead. His chest seemed to swell with desires. He withdrew his hand from his friend's hand and started to run slightly towards the pavilion to get ahead of Claudia; but, after a few steps he slowed down and won the goal with effort and nonchalance.

  He arrived at the same time as she entered the casino and, panting with fatigue, he leaned against the banister railing.

  The young duchess, red with shame and thrilling with joy, believed that the poet, object of his love, was seized with emotion and troubled like her. But Sténio, a little revived by the radiance of her black eyes offered her hand to climb with confidence of a herald in arms and the obsequious grace of a chamberlain.