by George Sand
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- So, I told you, you are no more advanced the first day of your flight.
- Don't say that, son, is it nothing to have the firm desire to resist?
- It is nothing, my father, answered Sténio harshly.
What is ambition without power? what's up
most despicable in the world. What! you think you're tall, because you are fasting to slow the heat of your blood, because you raise between yourself and the seductions of the world walls of marble and bronze; and when you got thrown alive in this sepulcher, when you closed on you doors that your hand can no longer lift, you break your teeth in silence, you bite the earth, you blaspheme quietly and you think you are holy, because a day of enthusiasm or cowardice brought you down in the dungeon. If your worship had purified you, if your zeal had hardened you, if your courage had grown you, you could return to the world, spread the benefits of it you are rich, heal men and console them for their ailments without fear of being infected with contagion and desperate by the spectacle of their anxieties. You could, you monk, go find the one whose eyes devoured you once and him speak calmly from heaven that maybe she forgets about God who defends her pride. But it is not so ; you are a martyr, you are not a saint. You would have the strength to feel the boiling oil and molten lead entering your veins without denying Christ, but you would not have that of spend a night in a woman's room without being carried away by bad desires. Oh ! is that nature is stronger than your weak brain, because nature is God, because your faith is just a golden dream, a fool ambition poeticized by the genius of an enthusiastic cultist!
But, for the man who thought, who felt, who lived, who has been at the bottom of all the realities of life, there is no hi, no consolation, no hope in your books and in your traditions.
- O my son! don't speak like that! cried the priest with pain.
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- And you, my father, resumed Sténio, give me therefore a affirmation that persuades me. Tell me that Lélia could sleep in your cell without the sin of adultery being committed in your heart. Respond and remember that you have sworn by Christ. "
The monk bowed his head and, leaning against the trunk of a if enormous, he remained absorbed in deep pain.
Sténio sat down on the ground at the edge of the ravine. He was leaning on a rock, after which there was no longer, between him and the lake, that the rapid slope of a plain white sand, where the clouds, passing over the moon, drawing their great shadows moving.
" Oh ! I knew it well, exclaimed Sténio in a loud voice and deep that went to moan into the depths of the lake, I knew it well, I knew it well, my God! "
And he stood up, as if he was going to rush.
Magnus shivered and rushed to hold him back. Sténio had stale, and the priest, fearing to awaken in him the dreadful thought suicide, dared not ask him to leave this place.
"I knew well, resumed Sténio of the same sound of voice scary and gloomy, that there was nothing true in dreams of man, and once the truth was revealed, there was no longer for him that the patience of boredom, or the resolution of the despair. And when I said that man can take pleasure
in his individual strength, I lied to others and to myself; because one who has come to the possession of unnecessary force, to the exercise of worthless and aimless power is but one vigorous madman to be wary of.
In the dreams of my youth, in the ecstasies of my most fresh poetry, a ghost of love hovered constantly and me was showing the sky. Lélia, my illusion, my poetry, my Élysée, my ideal, what have you become? Where your spectrum fled lightweight ? In what elusive ether has your soul passed out intangible substance? Is that my eyes opened, is that by learning that you were the impossible, life is me appeared all naked, all cynical; beautiful sometimes hideous often, but always similar to itself in its Page 268
beauties or in its horrors; always limited, always.
subject to unspeakable laws that it does not belong to the man's fantasy to lift! And as this
fantasy has worn out and faded (this fantasy of the unachievable who alone poetizes the days of man and ties him a few years to his frivolous pleasures), as my soul turned tired of looking in the arms of a herd of women for ecstatic kiss that Lélia alone could give, in wine, poetry and praise, the intoxication that a word of love from Lélia had to sum up, I enlightened myself to the point of knowing…
Listen, Magnus, and may my words benefit you. I am am enlightened to the point of knowing that Lélia herself is a woman like any other, that her lips don't have a kiss more suave, that his word does not have a more powerful virtue than the kiss and the word of the other lips. I know today Lélia whole, as if I had possessed it; I know what makes her was so beautiful, so pure, so divine: it was me, it was my
youth. But, as my soul withered, the image of Lélia withered too. Today I see it as it is, pale, dull lip, sown hair of these first sons of silver that invades our heads like grass invades the tomb, the forehead crossed by this indelible fold that the old age imprints us, first with an indulgent hand and light, then a deep and cruel nail. Poor Lélia, you that's changed! When you pass in my dreams; with your old diamonds and jewelry, I can't help it to laugh bitterly and say to yourself, "Good you take to be queen, Lélia, and to have a lot of spirit; because on my honor, you are no longer beautiful, and, if you invited me today at the celestial banquet of your love, I would prefer the young dancer Torquata or the cheerful courtesan Elvira. "
And after all, Torquata, Elvire, Pulchérie, Lélia, what are-you to intoxicate me, to tie me to this iron yoke which bloody my forehead, to hang myself on this gibbet where my members broke? Swarm of women with blondes hair, ebony braids, ivory feet, brunettes
shoulders, modest girls, rious debauchers, virgins with shy sighs, brazen Messalines, all of you, that I owned or dreamed, what would you do in my life Page 269
present? What secret would you have to reveal to me? Me would you give the wings of the night, to go around the universe? would you tell me the secrets of eternity? feriez-will you take the stars down to be my crown?
Would you only make a more beautiful flower bloom for me and sweeter than those that litter the earth of man?
You are liars and shameless! so what is it in
your caresses, so that you put them at such a high price? Of what joys so divine do you have the secret, so that our desires embellish you to this point? Illusion and reverie is you who are truly the queens of the world! When your torch is extinguished, the world is uninhabitable.
Poor Magnus! stop devouring your bowels, stop you hit the chest to bring in the indiscreet momentum of your desires! Stop stifling your screams and biting your sheets read, when Lélia appears in your dreams! Go, it's you, poor man, who makes her so beautiful and so desirable; unworthy altar of a flame so holy, she laughs in herself at your torment. Because she know well, the woman, that she has nothing to give you in exchange for so much love. More skillful than the others, she does not give herself up, it is gassed. She refuses, she divinizes. But would be veiled her so if her body was more beautiful than that of women that we buy? Would her soul shirk from the effusions of affection, if his soul was larger and greater than the ours?
O woman! you're just a lie! man! you are only vanity! To such insolent claims God owed the punishment for these miserable disappointments! Lélia, it's your smile that led me astray! Don Juan, it's your example that got me lost !… "
Sténio sat dreamy, and getting up soon:
"Yes, it was you, don Juan, who lost me without return!"
he cried vehemently; it's my fervent adoration for you who threw me into a bottomless abyss. Walking on your traces, I hoped to rise above other men; the the day I told you, "Be my star and my God", the day I blasphemed the master of the world to report on the altar of your genius my prayers and my incense, I thought I was going
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grow up and take courage, I thought that disregard for the laws vulgar would put common ambitions at my feet and I found myself lower than them.
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Damn you, don Juan! I took you for greatness, and you're just madness. The dust of your steps is not worth more as the wind swept ash. The path you followed does not only leads to despair and dizziness. Today my blood goes away, my arteries slow down and calm down, I can come down into myself. The inviting and sweet smiles words no longer disturb my reverie. I no longer believe, like formerly, that voluptuous sighs and burning kisses be the only happiness and the only wisdom. At this hour solemn where the world fades and fades, where my eyes only see through a cloud the lying delights in whom I trusted, your shadow, oh don Juan, no longer has the power to stray. I can look at you face to face without blushing and without shaking. You are no longer my master and my idol; I no longer see in your fiery apple the divine ray of hope and strength. The bright halo which
shone above your head disappeared to no longer come back. You are nothing more for me than a spectacle of astonishment and pity.
But I will no longer offer your cursed mans the prayers of my lips. I will no longer bring a holocaust to your vanity the heavenly confidence of my young years. I will not burn anymore feet of the statue the fragrant flowers blooming in my soul and your breath has withered.
Fat insolent! where then did you take the insane rights to whom have you devoted your life? What time, where Did God say to you: "Here is the earth, it is yours: you will be the lord and king of all families; all the women that
you will have preferred are intended for your layer. All eyes to who you deign to smile will burst into tears to implore your thank you. The most sacred knots will untie as soon as you will have said: "I want it. " If a father claims his daughter from you, you plunge your sword into his sorry heart and defile his white hair in blood and mud. If a furious lover come to dispute you, iron in hand, the beauty of his mistress you will mock his anger and you will confide in your mission Page 271
irrevocable. You will wait for it firmly, without hastening the blow who should hit him. An angel that I will send will obscure her look and will lead him to the front of the wound. "
That is to say that God, didn't he, ruled the world for your pleasures? he commanded the sun to rise for illuminate hamlets and taverns, convents and palaces, where your libertine verve improvised its adventures; and when night had come, when your insatiable lip had watered sighs and caresses, he ignited the silent ones in heaven stars to protect your retirement and guide your new ones trips.
The infamy inflicted by you was an honor worthy of envy.
You fulfilled the role that you received when you were born. The withering of your perfidies was a glorious, splendid seal, indelible, which marked your passage, like the oaks struck down the race of fiery clouds. You didn't recognize person the right to say, "Don Juan is a coward because he abuses weakness; he betrays defenseless women. "No, you don't not back down from danger. If an avenger armed himself for the victims of your debauchery, you did not ignore a corpse and you was not afraid of tripping while stepping on his numb limbs.
A day without promise and without lies, a night without adultery and dueling would have been an irreparable shame. You walked head raised and your eyes boldly sought the prey that you had to devour. From the shy virgin, who shuddered under your kisses, to the cheeky courtesan who put challenge your courage and your fame, you didn't want to ignore any joys of the soul or the senses; the temple marble or the manure from the stable served as a pillow for your sleep.
What did you want then, oh don Juan? What did you want from these weeping women? Is it the happiness that you asked their arms ? Did you hope to stop after this laborious pilgrimage? Did you believe that God would send you finally, to fix your fickle loves, a woman superior to all those that you had betrayed? But why were you betraying them? Is that when you left them you felt spite inside yourself and the discouragement of a lost illusion? Do their Page 272
caresses and their ecstasies did not reach the height of your tone ambitious reverie? Did you say in your lonely pride and monstrous: "They owe me infinite bliss, which I never then give them; their sighs and groans are a sweet music in my ear; the tortures and anxieties of my first hugs delight my eyes; slaves
submissive and devoted, I love to see them embellish with joy liar so as not to disturb my pleasure; but I tell them forbid to plant their hope on the threshold of my thought, I forbid them to wait for loyalty in exchange for sacrifice? "
Did you flinch in anger whenever you
guessed at the bottom of their soul the inconstancy which made them equal to you and who, perhaps, was going to gain you speed? Étais-you are ashamed and humiliated when their oaths threatened you
an obstinate and relentless love, which would have chained your selfishness and your glory? Did you read somewhere in the God's advice that a woman is a thing made for the pleasure of man, incapable of resistance or change? Did you think that this ideal perfection of renunciation existed on earth and had to ensure the inexhaustible renewal of your joys? Did you believe that one day delirium would tear from your victim's lips an unholy promise, and that she would exclaim: "I love you because I suffer; I love you, because you enjoy unparalleled pleasure; i love you because that I feel at your kisses which slow down, at your arms which open and abandon me, that you will soon be weary of me and that you will forget me. I devote myself, because you despise me; I will remember, because you will erase me from your memory. I will set up an inviolable sanctuary in my heart, because you will write my name on your disdainful book and insulting ”?
If you nourished this absurd hope for a single moment, you was just a fool, oh don Juan! If you believed for a moment that woman can give to man she loves something other than her beauty, her love and her confidence, you were just a fool: if you believed that his caresses would extinguish the ardor of yours with impunity sense, that his patience would never fall asleep and would wait, without weary, the awakening of your gross desires; she would lend you his shoulder to doze you off, his heart to rest your head and Page 273
that she wouldn't be indignant when your hand pushed her away like a useless garment, you were just a blind mind and ignorant.
Oh ! that they misunderstood you who, like me, saw in your destiny the emblem of a glorious struggle and
persevering against reality! If they had renewed their spend the test you tried, they wouldn't give you the credit so beautiful: they would confess aloud the misery of your ambitions, the meanness of your hopes; if they had, like you, fought hand to hand with orgy and debauchery, how they would know what you missed! Go, you were only one heartless libertine, a cheeky courtier soul in the body a plowman: beyond the exhausting pleasure, you did not perceive the mysterious sympathy which remains after the intoxication of the senses, the peaceful and serene affection that survives ecstasies of an embalmed layer and which doubles by the memory the vanished pleasures.
That's why, don Juan, your death scares them and dismay and they worship you on their knees. Their eyes don't do not cross the horizon that you had embraced; they are not happy, like you, that with gnashing of teeth.
The exhaustion and the pain of your last days, the duel relentless of your brain lost against your numb blood, the agony and the rattle of your sleepless nights hit them with terror as a prophetic threat.
They don't know, fools, that your complaints were blasphemies, and that your death is only a fair punishment. They don't know that God punishes selfishness and vanity in you, that he sent you despair to avenge the victims whose voices protested against you.
But you have no right to complain, the punishment that got you hit is just retaliation. You weren't wise, don Juan, if you did not know the fatal outcome of all the tragedies that you had played. You hadn't studied the models that had preceded you in career and you wanted to rejuvenate. You therefore did not know that crime, to have any grandeur, to claim the empire of the world, must live in the
assiduous presence, in the anticipated awareness of the pain he Page 274
deserves every day? So, maybe, he can boast of his courage, because he
is not unaware of the end which is reserved for him. But if you thought you were escaping celestial revenge, don Juan, you weren't so that a coward?
Besides, even at this hour my anger
would slander, when you were this great idea personified that I once thought I saw in you, I would still have the right to curse and hate you, because you lost me.
I sucked too high, I put on you a glory that was not without never doubt yours and that I wanted to match. I am found weak, puny in spirit and body, I took the imagination for intelligence, desire for need, will for strength. I confused everything and I broke down trying to fight against the weak sides of my organization. Trenmor, you condemned me when you said that misfortune purified only great souls. Lélia, you condemned me when you once wrote to me that the fallen man must pass away.
What would your lukewarm and commonplace do here today friendship? Lélia, Trenmor, are you at this point of charity silly that the life of a man like me seems to you too precious to keep than that of a horse, an ox or of a useful servant? Go take care of your grooms and your dogs, these will serve you something. I would bother you only. Pity is a feeling close to contempt and hand supporting a tottering friend soon goes numb. And then you don't believe in friendship. You offered me in vain yours to support me and guide me in the ways of the future ; you can see that you are lying to yourself
same and that you abandoned me. Where were you when i lost myself? In the calm of your sublime rest, your unchanging renunciation, you knew well that Sténio fought against the agony of all his faculties. But you said, "So much worse for Sténio. Sitting in the shelter of the storm, you knew that there below a skiff broke on the reefs; but you said:
"God loves him, God will save him. Providence watches over him, the test will be good and beneficial. He will come back ; let the a little wrestling. And, meanwhile, I was perishing!