by André Gide
The impenetrable underbrush forced us to walk along the edge of the shore, and often, when branches overhung the water, to crawl between them, clutching roots and vines.
We wanted to remain to the rear for a while and watch the huge insects fly, but the stifling perfumes that arose from the whole island and were carried to us on the wind, the perfumes that were already making our heads swim, would have killed us, I believe. They were so dense that we could see the aromatic dust spiraling upward.
We made our way to the other shore; startled pink flamingos and ibises took flight. We sat down on a coral rock; wind from the sea wafted the perfumes away from us.
The island must not have been very thick, for beneath it, in the deep sea, under the shadow that it cast, we could again see the light. And we thought that each such island must have become detached, like a ripened fruit from its stem; and when they were no longer held fast to the natal rock by anything, then, like insincere actions, they were at the mercy of the waves, borne along by every current.
On the fifth day, to our regret, we lost sight of them.
As soon as the sun had set, we bathed in water that was pink and green; and, since it reflected the sky, it soon became reddish brown. The warm, pacific billows were soft but penetrating. The oarsmen were awaiting us. We climbed back into the boat just as the moon was rising; there was a slight breeze; tacking our sails, we forced the boat into the wind. And sometimes we saw clouds, mauve-colored still, and sometimes the moon. In the silver wake that it left on the calm sea, the oars dug eddies of light; before us, in the wake of the moon, the Orion moved along, mysterious. The moon appeared first behind a mast, then alone—then by morning it had again fallen into the sea.*
* “My kingdom is not of this world,” is the Gospel statement that most impressed Gide. He could never manage to believe completely in the real world which always seemed “somewhat fantastic” to him, nor in eternal life. He did believe “in another facet of this life, which escapes our senses.”
* Two previous works (Narcissus and André Walter) reveal Gide’s views on art and the relation of art to the two other poles which alternately attracted and repelled him—sexuality and religion. In the present work he effectively combines the three elements deemed essential for any work of art—sensuality, sexuality and pride.
* According to the Symbolists a man is born to make manifest an Idea. Gide wanted to represent, to manifest to others his truth which was his inmost self. His task was complicated by his inability to conciliate morality with sincerity in his own life.
* Gide’s early works, written under the influence of the Symbolist movement, reflect not only his acute sensitivity but his belief in the supremacy of art over other means of cognition or expression. The Symbolists stressed the fusion of sensations and the use of concrete phenomena to suggest Ideas. From his earliest writings we learn that Gide in his solitary walks felt that “The landscape was but a projected emanation of myself … I created it step by step as I became aware of its harmonies … and I marveled as I walked through my dream-garden.”
III
On the seventh day we came upon a sandy shore interrupted by arid dunes. Gabiler, Agloval, Paride and Morgain went ashore; they kept us waiting for twenty hours; they had taken leave of us around midday, and we saw them returning the following morning, running and gesticulating. When they were quite near, Paride shouted to us:
“Let’s go,” he said. “There are sirens on the island and we have seen them.”
After they had caught their breath, while the Orion was sailing at full speed, Morgain related:
“We had walked all day among the blue thistles on the shifting dunes. We had walked all day without seeing anything but the hills that loomed before us, their crests wavering in the wind; our feet were burned by the sand, and the flashing dry air parched our lips and made our eyes smart. (Who can describe your pomp and plenitude, suns of the East, suns of the South on these sands!) When evening came, having reached the foot of a high hill, we felt so tired.… We slept in the sand, without even waiting until the sun had set.
“We did not sleep long; the coldness of the dew awakened us long before the dawn. During the nightthe sands had shifted, and we no longer recognized the hill. We set out once again, climbing always, without knowing wherewe were going, whence we had come, where we had left the ship; but soon behind us appeared the light of dawn. We had reached a very wide plateau—at least it seemed to us very wide at first—and did not realize that we had traversed it until suddenly the plateau ceased and there opened before us a mist-filled valley. We waited. Soon the light of dawn appeared behind us, and as the sun rose the mists disappeared.
“Then it appeared, this prodigious city, not far from us in an immense plain. It was a gold-colored Moslem city with fantastic minarets; flights of stairs led to hanging gardens and, on terraces, mauve palms swayed. Above the town hovered fog banks penetrated by pointed minarets. The minarets were so high that the clouds remained imprisoned by them, looking for all the world like oriflammes, like oriflammes fully distended, without a wrinkle, in spite of the fluid air untroubled by the slightest breeze.
“Such, then, is our uncertainty: before high cathedrals we used to dream of mosque towers; before the minarets today, we dreamed of church steeples, and in the morning air we waited for the angelus. But in the still too cool dawn there was no sound save the unknown tremors absorbed by the empty air; suddenly with the appearance of the sun, a chant went up from a minaret, from the minaret nearest the rising sun—a strange, pathetic chant that almost made us weep. The voices quavered on a piercing note. A new chant resounded, then another; and one by one the mosques awoke melodiously as each was struck by a ray of sunlight. Soon all resounded. It was an uncanny plea brought to an end by a burst of laughter only to begin anew. Like larks, the muezzins answered each other in the dawn. They proffered questions followedby other questions, and the tallest, on the tallest minaret, lost in a cloud, said nothing.
“The music was so wonderful that we were spellbound, enraptured; then, as the voices became lower and softer, we wanted to draw nearer, unconsciously attracted by the beauty of the town and by the moving shadows of the palms. The voices became lower and lower; but as they fell, the city, staggering with the strophe, moved away from us and disintegrated; the slender minarets and palms disappeared; the stairway crumbled; through the discolored terraces of the gardens we saw the sea and the beach. It was a fleeting mirage that fluctuated with the chant. The chant ended, and this marked the end of the spell and of the fanciful city. Our frightfully constricted hearts had seemed on the verge of death.
“A vanishing vision tottering on a trill, a gasping for breath—and then we saw them lying on the seaweeds; they were sleeping. Then we fled, shaking so violently that we could hardly run. Happily we were quite near the ship; we caught sight of it behind a promontory: it alone separated you from the sirens. How dangerous it would have been for you if they had been able to hear you—and we dared not shout until we were quite near you for fear that the noise would awaken them. I don’t know how we managed last night to walk so far and advance so little; I believe now that we marked time while these moving hills changed positions under our feet and that this plateau, this valley were but the effect of the spell cast by the sirens.”
They tried then through discussion to determine how many sirens there were and marveled over their having escaped from the wily creatures.
“But tell us,” said Odinel, “what were they like?”
“They were lying in the sea-weeds,” said Agloval, “and their glowing green and brown tresses, which covered them entirely, blended with the vegetation around them; but we ran away too quickly to see them distinctly.”
“They had webbed hands,” said Cabilor, “and their steely, scaly thighs glistened. I ran away because I was terrified.”
“I thought they were like birds,” said Paride, “like giant red-billed sea-birds. Didn’t they have wings?”
“O
no! no!” said Morgain. “They were just like women, and very beautiful. That’s why I ran away.”
“But their voices, their voices! Tell us, what were their voices like?” (And each one vowed that he had heard them.)
“They were like a shaded valley and cool water to the sick,” said Morgain.
Then each spoke of the nature of the sirens and of their charms; Morgain fell silent and I understood that he regretted the sirens.
We did not bathe that day for fear of them.
IV
It was the thirteenth day; on this plain where we had been lost since morning, constantly walking but never knowing the route, we were beginning to become bored when we met a young girl. Stark naked in a field of alfalfa and still awaiting nubility, the dark lass guarded placid dromedaries. We asked directions of her; weeping, she pointed to the town.
… One hour later we saw the town; it was large but dead. We were gripped by a solemn sadness; for the ruined mosques, with their broken minarets, the great walls reduced to rubble, the columns, gave to this city a forlorn, monumental appearance. The broad street that we were following as we made our way over piles of debris finally disappeared in the countryside, under some almond-trees, near some abandoned marabouts.
For still another hour we walked. The plain came to an end; a hill appeared, which we climbed. At the top of the hill could be seen a new village. We walked through the streets; all the houses were closed; and for some unknown reason, we could see no one. Angaire said that, perhaps, the residents were working in the fields. The stifling heat that fell on the street from the yellow walls was unbearable. Big flies vibrated in the sun against the white doors. In front of one door, seated on the threshold, a child fondled his hideous phallus. We left the village.
The open land again stretched out before us. For another hour still we walked through the heat and dust. A square monument suddenly and inexplicably emerged on the landscape and shouts coming through an open door attracted us from a considerable distance. We quickened our steps, thinking that we would finally see something. We entered a vast room. A large crowd raised such a clamor that we were at first dumbfounded. We wanted to speak, to ask questions, but no one was listening and everyone, with frenzied gestures, pointed and looked toward the middle of the room.
Standing with our backs to the wall, we were able to see, in the center of the crowd, two howling dervishes beginning their ecstasy. They turned slowly to the sound of music produced by four squatting men but not heard because of the shouts of the crowd; and periodically, at the end of a musical couplet, they released a very high guttural howl to which the crowd responded with an enthusiastic stamp. Aside from headdresses half the height of their bodies, they wore only long, very wide robes. As the music urged them on, they began to whirl more rapidly; their robes fanned out and revealed their feet as they leaped about in their sandals; as they whirled more rapidly still, they threw off their sandals and danced barefoot on the stone floor; their robes spreading out and rising, exposed their pivoting legs; their headdresses tilted at an angle and their beards became unbearable to see; they slavered and their eyes were white with joy. The crowd went out of control and oscillated as if drunk. Then the dervishes became frantic and, screaming wildly, whirled at such a dizzying speed that their robes, stiffer than ever, became almost horizontal, revealed them stark naked, obscene.… We departed.*
And again we were in the open; it was evening. For an hour we walked, then we found the ship once more.
The sailors bathed in the warm water; the searing air dried their skins. Evening came, but without the coolness that brings repose; without the coolness of night like a kiss on the eyelids. The night is now so warm that we can not sleep. Silent flashes brush the edge of the sky, and on the waves vaguely appear fluorescent streaks. Half recumbent on the deck, sailors and cabin-boys are dreaming; and in the mysterious night, the dreamers stretch forth their arms and writhe in desire. We, however, have remained standing, for we dared not lie down, and all night we heard their sighs blend with the sonorous breath of the sea. But our aloofness changed to concern as the calm of night descended upon our countenances.
*Gide was never able to divorce the sexual and the obscene. This passage recalls an episode in the life of the central figure in Gide’s autobiographical André Walter. André derived ecstatic pleasure from piercing melodies, profusions of colors, and sudden metamorphoses; in a nightmare she suddenly threw her skirt over her head, and under it there was nothing at all.
V
On the twenty-first day we stopped opposite a shore covered with trees. Not far from the shore, we could see a town; leading to it was an avenue lined with myrtles, along which strolled groups of women; on both sides of the avenue, between the trees, canvas trestles and booths had been set up for a market, and from the ship we could see splotches of red and yellow representing sweet peppers and clusters of bananas.
Before the day’s end, Mélian, Lambégue and Odinel went ashore, as did a part of the crew, to buy food and to ask directions. We waited for them all evening. The next day, Mélian, Lambégue and Odinel came back, but with only a few of the sailors. They were pale and their wide eyes sparkled with ineffable sweetness. They brought back admirable fruits, scarlet and bleeding like wounds, and cakes made from unknown ingredients; but when we tried to question them, they pretended extreme fatigue and stretched out in their hammocks; then we understood that they had been with the women on the coast, and we were extremely sad. Since we did not wish to set out again until all the others returned, toward evening Lambègue, Odinel, and Mélian, and those sailors who had returned with them the previous day, decided to revisit the town; we were unable to stop them; nor could we keep Alfasar and Hector from following them. Both of them must have talked with those exhausted by their nocturnal orgies, for we saw them standing for a long time beside their swaying hammocks.
All of them returned the following day, and the Orion managed once again to set sail. They had brought back fresh fruit—huge, purple fruit that looked like egg-plants; their eyes were haggard and insulting; their lips betrayed an ironic smirk. It was over the beautiful fruit that the quarrel began; they insisted that we taste it, butits sheen, its splendor made us suspicious of it; when we voiced our distrust, they made fun of us:
“Just look at you courageous gentlemen! You dare not even taste the fruit; you are afraid, and your sterile virtue springs from abstinence, from doubt. Will you always be dubious? Why?”
And without our asking, they related what they had done in town: the market, the purchase of the fruit, and the unknown tongue spoken by the women; then the lighted pleasure gardens and the lanterns in the foliage; they had remained there for a long time before entering, viewing the dances and girandoles through fences; then some passing women had taken them inside, and they had suddenly felt their resistance crumble at the touch of the women’s hands. They had at first been ashamed, then had derided their shame. But when they tried to tell us about their nocturnal embraces, Angaire shouted out that he did not understand how any one dared to pair off to engage in these indispensable but filthy practices, and that at such moments he even shunned mirrors.*
His sudden candor caused an uproar. Angaire then said that he liked women only when veiled, and that he was afraid even then that they would become lewd and remove their garments at the first sign of tenderness. Then they burst out laughing and turned away from us. From this day on, we were no longer all united in our thought— and, acutely aware of what we did not wish to be, we began to know what we were.
They bathed in sad, blue water; they swam in the salty spume. Back in the boat, still naked for a long time, they watched their skin gleam with unwonted paleness and let the clear sea foam dry on them from the heat. And we were ashamed for them, for they looked very beautiful and seemed happier than mere men.†
We were not very fond of Alfasar, for he was pompous and choleric, but we regretted Mélian, who was gracious and compassionate.
* Paul Clau
del called attention to Gide’s fascination by mirrors and labeled his Journal “a series of poses…a monument of insincerity.” During his early years Gide liked to stand before a dresser alternately writing on the table and looking at himself in the mirror.
† Gide in his intimate writings frequently called attentionto his personal predicament and called his failure to achieve a blending of the spiritual and the sensual, one of the most bitter realities of his life.
VI
All day long beautiful slopes loomed before the ship; pink ibises and flamingos were fishing for crabs along the sandy shore. A little farther away, on the terraced slopes, dark forests came to an end. It was warm and we were dreaming of the snow at the port where we had embarked; all of us were on the deck, watching the shores come into view. As we approached, pink flamingos took flight, then settled down again in their places as soon as we had passed by; and their actions made us suspicious of the shores.
We waited; and bitterness filled our gaping hearts.
Will it be here that we shall find a place which will not elude us, or which if it remains does not exert on us a culpable attraction? Or must we, leaning over the deck and watching the shores glide by, move forever onward?*
Toward midday we came to a town; it was a sparse settlement stretched out along the seashore. The sea fanned out to form a gulf and, before the town, at low tide, a large coral reef could be seen. Daily fishermen’s boats came there to hunt for coral, sponges, and pearl-bearing shells. Since nothing in the town interested us, one of the boats took us toward the coral island. It seemed to rise from the depths of the transparent sea that encircled it; against the background of pale polyps appeared yawning oysters; sponges grew all along the coral reef; green crabs crawled about, and in the fissures, in the shadows, octopuses lay hidden. When the divers came within range, sticky tentacles tried to seize them; but the divers, with wide-open knives, cut off the tentacles, which stuck to their bodies even after they surfaced. The saffron-skinned men were naked, but from their necks hung reticulated sacks for holding shells. They gathered the shells with their great knives, then, their sacks filled, quickly surfaced. When they emerged once more in the open air, their chests shriveled slightly and a fillet of blood which spilled from their mouths and embellished their golden skin almost made them faint.*