Complete Works of Gustave Flaubert

by Gustave Flaubert

  “Everything that is born will perish; everything that is dead will come to life again. The beings that have actually disappeared will sojourn in wombs not yet formed, and will come back to earth to serve with sorrow other creatures. But, as I have resolved through an infinite number of existences, under the guise of gods, men, and animals, I give up travelling, and no longer wish for this fatigue. I abandon the dirty inn of my body, walled in with flesh, reddened with blood, covered with hideous skin, full of uncleanness; and, for my reward, I shall, finally, sleep in the very depths of the absolute, in annihilation.”

  The flames rise to his breast, then envelop him. His head stretches across as if through the hole of a wall. His eyes are perpetually fixed in a vacant stare.

  Antony gets up again. The torch on the ground has set fire to the splinters of wood, and the flames have singed his beard. Bursting into an exclamation, Antony tramples on the fire; and, when only a heap of cinders is left:

  “Where, then, is Hilarion? He was here just now. I saw him! Ah! no; it is impossible! I am mistaken! How is this? My cell, those stones, the sand, have not, perhaps, any more reality. I must be going mad. Stay! where was I? What was happening here?

  “Ah! the gymnosophist! This death is common amongst the Indian sages. Kalanos burned himself before Alexander; another did the same in the time of Augustus. What hatred of life they must have had! — unless, indeed, pride drove them to it. No matter, it is the intrepidity of martyrs! As to the others, I now believe all that has been told me of the excesses they have occasioned.

  “And before this? Yes, I recollect! the crowd of heresiarchs ... What shrieks! what eyes! But why so many outbreaks of the flesh and wanderings of the spirit?

  “It is towards God they pretend to direct their thoughts in all these different ways. What right have I to curse them, I who stumble in my own path? When they have disappeared, I shall, perhaps, learn more. This one rushed away too quickly; I had not time to reply to him. Just now it is as if I had in my intellect more space and more light. I am tranquil. I feel myself capable ... But what is this now? I thought I had extinguished the fire.”

  A flame flutters between the rocks; and, speedily, a jerky voice makes itself heard from the mountains in the distance.

  “Are those the barkings of a hyena, or the lamentations of some lost traveller?”

  Antony listens. The flame draws nearer.

  And he sees approaching a woman who is weeping, resting on the shoulder of a man with a white beard. She is covered with a purple garment all in rags. He, like her, is bare-headed, with a tunic of the same colour, and carries a bronze vase, whence arises a small blue flame.

  Antony is filled with fear, — and yet he would fain know who this woman is.

  The stranger (Simon) — ”This is a young girl, a poor child, whom I take everywhere with me.”

  He raises the bronze vase. Antony inspects her by the light of this flickering flame. She has on her face marks of bites, and traces of blows along her arms. Her scattered hair is entangled in the rents of her rags; her eyes appear insensible to the light.

  Simon — ”Sometimes she remains thus a long time without speaking or eating, and utters marvellous things.”

  Antony — ”Really?”

  Simon — ”Eunoia! Eunoia! relate what you have to say!”

  She turns around her eyeballs, as if awakening from a dream, passes her fingers slowly across her two lids, and in a mournful voice:

  Helena (Eunoia) — ”I have a recollection of a distant region, of the colour of emerald. There is only a single tree there.”

  Antony gives a start.

  “At each step of its huge branches a pair of spirits stand. The branches around them cross each other, like the veins of a body, and they watch the eternal life circulating from the roots, where it is lost in shadow up to the summit, which reaches beyond the sun. I, on the second branch, illumined with my face the summer nights.”

  Antony, touching his forehead — ”Ah! ah! I understand! the head!”

  Simon, with his finger on his lips — ”Hush! Hush!”

  Helena — ”The vessel remained convex: her keel clave the foam. He said to me, ‘What does it matter if I disturb my country, if I lose my kingdom! You will be mine, in my own house!’

  “How pleasant was the upper chamber of his palace! He would lie down upon the ivory bed, and, smoothing my hair, would sing in an amorous strain. At the end of the day, I could see the two camps and the lanterns which they were lighting; Ulysses at the edge of his tent; Achilles, armed from head to foot, driving a chariot along the seashore.”

  Antony — ”Why, she is quite mad! Wherefore? ...”

  Simon — ”Hush! Hush!”

  Helena — ”They rubbed me with unguents, and sold me to the people to amuse them. One evening, standing with the sistrum in my hand, I was coaxing Greek sailors to dance. The rain, like a cataract, fell upon the tavern, and the cups of hot wine were smoking. A man entered without the door having been opened.”

  Simon — ”It was I! I found you. Here she is, Antony; she who is called Sigeh, Eunoia, Barbelo, Prounikos! The Spirits who govern the world were jealous of her, and they bound her in the body of a woman. She was the Helen of the Trojans, whose memory the poet Stesichorus had rendered infamous. She has been Lucretia, the patrician lady violated by the kings. She was Delilah, who cut off the hair of Samson. She was that daughter of Israel who surrendered herself to he-goats. She has loved adultery, idolatry, lying and folly. She was prostituted by every nation. She has sung in all the cross-ways. She has kissed every face. At Tyre, she, the Syrian, was the mistress of thieves. She drank with them during the nights, and she concealed assassins amid the vermin of her tepid bed.”

  Antony — ”Ah! what is coming over me?”

  Simon, with a furious air —

  “I have redeemed her, I tell you, and re-established her in all her splendour, such as Caius Cæsar Agricola became enamoured of when he desired to sleep with the Moon!”

  Antony — -”Well! well!”

  Simon — ”But she really is the Moon! Has not Pope Clement written that she was imprisoned in a tower? Three hundred persons came to surround the tower; and on each of the murderers, at the same time, the moon was seen to appear, — though there are not many moons in the world, or many Eunoias!”

  Antony — ”Yes! ... I think I recollect ...”

  And he falls into a reverie.

  Simon — ”Innocent as Christ, who died for men, she has devoted herself to women. For the powerlessness of Jehovah is demonstrated by the transgression of Adam, and we must shake off the old law, opposed, as it is, to the order of things. I have preached the new Gospel in Ephraim and in Issachar, along the torrent of Bizor, behind the lake of Houleh, in the valley of Mageddo, and beyond the mountains, at Bostra and at Damas. Let those who are covered with wine-dregs, those who are covered with dirt, those who are covered with blood, come to me; and I will wash out their defilement with the Holy Spirit, called by the Greeks, Minerva. She is Minerva! She is the Holy Spirit! I am Jupiter Apollo, the Christ, the Paraclete, the great power of God incarnated in the person of Simon!”

  Antony — ”Ah! it is you! ... it is you! But I know your crimes! You were born at Gittha on the borders of Samaria. Dositheus, your first master, dismissed you! You execrate Saint Paul for having converted one of your women; and, vanquished by Saint Peter, in your rage and terror, you flung into the waves the bag which contained your magical instruments!”

  Simon — ”Do you desire them?”

  Antony looks at him, and an inner voice murmurs in his breast, “Why not?”

  Simon resumes:

  “He who understands the powers of Nature and the substance of spirits ought to perform miracles. It is the dream of all sages — and the desire of which gnaws you; confess it!

  “Amongst the Romans I flew so high in the circus that they saw me no more. Nero ordered me to be decapitated; but it was a sheep’s head that fell to the ground in
stead of mine. Finally, they buried me alive; but I came back to life on the third day. The proof of it is that I am here!”

  He gives him his hands to smell. They have the odour of a corpse. Antony recoils.

  “I can make bronze serpents move, marble statues laugh, and dogs speak. I will show you an immense quantity of gold, I will set up kings, you shall see nations adoring me. I can walk on the clouds and on the waves; pass through mountains; assume the appearance of a young man, or of an old man; of a tiger, or of an ant; take your face, give you mine; and drive the thunderbolt. Do you hear?”

  The thunder rolls, followed by flashes of lightning.

  “It is the voice of the Most High, ‘for the Eternal, thy God, is a fire,’ and all creations operate by the emanations of this central fire. You are about to receive the baptism of it — that second baptism, announced by Jesus, which fell on the Apostles one stormy day when the window was open!”

  And all the while stirring the flame with his hand, slowly, as if to sprinkle Antony with it:

  “Mother of Mercies, thou who discoverest secrets in order that we may have rest in the eighth house ...”

  Antony exclaims:

  “Ah! if I had holy water!”

  The flame goes out, producing much smoke.

  Eunoia and Simon have disappeared.

  An extremely cold fog, opaque and f[oe]tid, fills the atmosphere.

  Antony, extending his arms like a blind man —

  “Where am I? ... I am afraid of falling into the abyss. And the cross, no doubt, is too far away from me. Ah! what a night! what a night!”

  A sudden gust of wind cleaves the fog asunder; and he perceives two men covered with long white tunics. The first is of tall stature, with a sweet expression of countenance and grave deportment. His white hair, parted like that of Christ, descends regularly over his shoulders. He has thrown down a wand which he was carrying in his hand, and which his companion has taken up, making a respectful bow after the fashion of Orientals. The other is small, coarse-looking, flat-nosed, with a thick neck, curly hair, and an air of simplicity. Both of them are bare-footed, bare-headed, and covered with dust, like people who have come on a long journey.

  Antony, with a start — ”What do ye seek? Speak! Go on!”

  Damis — He is the little man —

  “La, la! ... worthy hermit! what do you say? I know nothing about it. Here is the Master!”

  He sits down; the other remains standing. Silence.

  Antony, resumes — ”Ye come in this fashion? ...”

  Damis — ”Oh! a great distance — a very great distance!”

  Antony — ”And ye are going? ...”

  Damis, pointing at his companion — ”Wherever he wishes.”

  Antony — ”Who, then, is he?”

  Damis — ”Look at him.”

  Antony — ”He has the appearance of a saint. If I dared ...”

  The fog by this time is quite gone. The atmosphere has become perfectly clear. The moon shines out.

  Damis — ”What are you thinking of now that you say nothing more?”

  Antony — ”I am thinking of — — Oh! nothing.”

  Damis draws close to Apollonius, makes many turns round him, with his figure bent, and without moving his head.

  “Master, this is a Galilean hermit who wishes to know the sources of your wisdom.”

  Apollonius — ”Let him approach.”

  Antony hesitates.

  Damis — ”Approach!”

  Apollonius, in a voice of thunder —

  “Approach! You would like to know who I am, what I have done, what I am thinking of? Is that not so, child?”

  Antony — ” ... If at the same time those things contribute to my salvation.”

  Apollonius — ”Rejoice! I am about to tell them to you!”

  Damis, in a low tone to Antony —

  “Is it possible? He must have, at the first glance, recognised your extraordinary inclinations for philosophy! I shall profit by it also myself.”

  Apollonius — ”I will first describe to you the long road I travelled to gain doctrine; and, if you find in all my life one bad action, you will stop me — for he must scandalise by his words who has offended by his actions.”

  Damis to Antony:

  “What a just man! eh?”

  Antony — ”Decidedly, I believe he is sincere.”

  Apollonius — ”The night of my birth, my mother thought she saw herself gathering flowers on the border of a lake. A flash of lightning appeared; and she brought me into the world amid the cries of swans who were singing in her dream. Up to my fifteenth year, they plunged me three times a day into the fountain Asbadeus, whose waters render perjurers dropsical; and they rubbed my body with leaves of cnyza, to make me chaste. A princess from Palmyra sought me out, one evening, and offered me treasures, which she knew were hidden in tombs. A priest of the temple of Diana cut his throat in despair with the sacrificial knife; and the Governor of Cilicia, after repeated promises, declared before my family that he would put me to death; but it was he who died three days after, assassinated by the Romans.”

  Damis, to Antony, striking him on the elbow — ”Eh? Just as I told you! What a man!”

  Apollonius — ”I have for four years in succession observed the complete silence of the Pythagoreans. The most unforeseen calamity did not draw one sigh from me; and, at the theatre, when I entered, they turned aside from me as from a phantom.”

  Damis — ”Would you have done that — you?”

  Apollonius — ”The time of my ordeal ended, I undertook to instruct the priests who had lost the tradition.”

  Antony — ”What tradition?”

  Damis — ”Let him continue. Be silent!”

  Apollonius — ”I have conversed with the Samaneans of the Ganges, with the astrologers of Chaldea, with the magi of Babylon, with the Gaulish druids, with the priests of the negroes. I have climbed the fourteen Olympi; I have sounded the Lakes of Sythia; I have measured the vastness of the desert!”

  Damis — ”All this is undoubtedly true. I was there myself!”

  Apollonius — ”At first, I went as far as the Hyrcanian Sea. I have gone all round it, and through the country of the Baraomatæ, where Bucephalus is buried. I have gone down to Nineveh. At the gates of the city a man came up to me.”

  Damis — ”I! I! my good Master! I loved you from the very beginning. You were sweeter than a girl, and more beautiful than a god!”

  Appollonius, without listening to him — ”He wished to accompany me, in order to act as an interpreter for me.”

  Damis — ”But you replied that you understood every language, and that you divined all thoughts. Then I kissed the end of your mantle, and I walked behind you.”

  Apollonius — ”After Ctesiphon, we entered into the land of Babylon.”

  Damis — ”And the satrap uttered an exclamation on seeing a man so pale.”

  Antony, to himself — ”Which signifies — — ?”

  Apollonius — ”The King received me standing near a throne of silver, in a circular hall studded with stars, and from a cupola hung, from unseen threads, four great golden birds, with both wings extended.”

  Antony, musing — ”Are there such things on the earth?”

  Damis — ”That is, indeed, a city — Babylon! Everyone is rich there! The houses, painted blue, have gates of bronze, with staircases that lead down to the river.”

  Making a sketch with his stick on the ground:

  “Like that, do you see? And then there are temples, squares, baths, aqueducts! The palaces are covered with copper! and then the interior, if you only saw it!”

  Apollonius — ”On the northern wall rises a tower, which supports a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth; and there are three others besides! The eighth is a chapel with a bed in it. Nobody enters there but the woman chosen by the priests for the God Belus. The King of Babylon made me take up my quarters in it.”

  Damis — ”They scarcely paid
any heed to me. I was left, too, to walk about the streets by myself. I enquired into the customs of the people; I visited the workshops; I examined the huge machines which bring water into the gardens. But it annoyed me to be separated from the Master.”

  Apollonius — ”At last, we left Babylon; and, by the light of the moon, we suddenly saw a wild mare.”

  Damis — ”Yes, indeed! she sprang forth on her iron hoofs; she neighed like an ass; she galloped amongst the rocks. He burst into angry abuse of her; and she disappeared.”

  Antony, aside — ”Where can they have come from?”

  Apollonius — ”At Taxilla, capital of five thousand fortresses, Phraortes, King of the Ganges, showed us his guard of tall black men, five cubits high, and in the gardens of his palace, under a pavilion of green brocade, an enormous elephant, whom the queens used to amuse themselves in perfuming. This was the elephant of Porus, who fled after the death of Alexander.”

  Damis — ”And which was found again in a forest.”

  Antony — ”They talk a great deal, like drunken people.”

  Apollonius — ”Phraortes made us sit down at his table.”

  Damis — ”What an odd country! The noblemen, while drinking, amuse themselves by flinging arrows under the feet of a child who is dancing. But I do not approve ...”

  Apollonius — ”When I was ready to depart, the King gave me a parasol, and said to me: ‘I have, on the Indus, a stud of white camels. When you do not want them any longer, blow into their ears, and they will return.’ We proceeded along the river, walking in the night by the gleaming of the glow-worms, who emitted their radiance through the bamboos. The slave whistled an air to keep off the serpents; and our camels bent the reins while passing under the trees, as if under doors that were too low. One day, a black child, who held in his hand a caduceus of gold, conducted us to the College of Sages. Iarchas, their chief, spoke to me of my ancestors, of all my thoughts, of all my actions, and all my existences. He had been the river Indus, and he recalled to my mind that I had conducted the boats on the Nile in the time of King Sesostris.”