Melusine

by Maurice Magre

  “It’s utterly extraordinary,” said Roseline, distractedly. “Wait for me in the park. How tedious these farmers are!”

  And she drew away with a particularly light and rapid step.

  I made a tour of the cloister several times, and then walked along the pathways under the old trees. Mimosas alternated with laurels and eucalypti derived of their bark, reminiscent of young men clad in white abruptly sprung forth from mantles that still lay at their feet.

  The reasonable time for a conversation with a farmer went by. What could the questions of butter and eggs be about which Monsieur de Lusignan ought not to know? I remembered that it was appropriate to give a tip to the concierge and as I perceived him near the gate I went to him. We exchanged a few words of great banality. I prolonged them, without really listening, in order to pass the time. However, I heard him complain about the birds that ate his fruit. He set traps, which were futile. He did not like crows.

  “There are crows here?”

  “Considerable numbers that come from those woods above Arcs.”

  And, after several hostile remarks about the race of crows I heard him say: “Oh, I couldn’t live with a crow, like Saint Eleutherius.”

  This time, my attention awoke. So Saint Eleutherius had lived with a crow? But when and where? What was this Saint Eleutherius? I asked him for details about the life of that saint, but he did not possess any.8 There are celestial saints whose names are cited with veneration without anything being known of the causes motivating that veneration. Perhaps Saint Eleutherius was our contemporary and the guardian of the chapel of La Mothe had heard mention of him from people who had lived in his intimacy and had noticed the presence of a crow in his vicinity.

  Nothing of the sort—that even made the guardian laugh. Could there be saints in our day? I supposed that he must have lived in the times of Jesus Christ. There was only Monsieur Spéluque, the great scholar of Fréjus, who would know when Saint Eleutherius had lived, if he had even existed—for so many stories are told.

  Meanwhile, time continued to pass. I saw, a little further away, on the road, the driver of the vehicle that had brought us, marching back and forth with a vivacity that testified to the length of the wait.

  Young women have no sense of duration, I said to myself, to excuse Roseline.

  In the end, I was obliged to suppose that something unforeseeable had happened.

  I looked at the surrounding country, and I suddenly saw Roseline emerge from a little house that opened on to a little path some distance away.

  That house had no connection with a farm, or with any place where farmers might reside. It resembled one of those detached houses that pullulate in the suburbs of cities and are often fitted out for the use of strangers in the vicinity of spa towns. Newly-painted shutters gave it a sort of coquetry. I distinguished a minuscule garden with the bright colors of a few flowers.

  By for the sake of discretion, I did not linger over the examination of the house. My rapid glance saw Roseline make a sign of farewell with her hand, and it seemed to me, in a flash—nothing is more deceptive than visions that only last for a second—that I distinguished a silhouette on the threshold...

  No, I cannot say that I distinguished a silhouette: such a fugitive impression has, so to speak, no existence, and ought not to be retained. When my gaze posed on the house again, the door was closed and Roseline was advancing toward me, smiling.

  “As long as I haven’t made you wait too long,” she said, simply. “You have to excuse me. I’m so talkative.”

  No unforeseeable event had occurred. And, in order to justify that loquacity, Roseline started talking about all sorts of subjects with a joyful volubility.

  Yes, something unforeseeable did happen: a bitter sentiment that made me relive scenes of my youth, which resuscitated forgotten faces and lost hours. I was confounded by astonishment to be gripped by so much force by that sentiment, which I had thought dead. And it only grew within me. I had a desire to interrogate her, to know, and I only succeeded in maintaining silence by means of an effort.

  “Au revoir. See you soon. Perhaps tomorrow. That excursion was charming. Another time, I’ll show you the banks of the Argens. And I must go back to La Mothe one of these days.”

  But no, I had not seen that silhouette on the threshold. The world is full of illusions, of false images. Roseline had not given reasons because there were none to give. Some things are so simple that one does not think of explaining them.

  THE PRESENCE OF BOOKS

  The silent beauty of books...

  They had taken a long time to arrive in their boxes, but in the end, they had arrived, thanks to the everyday miracle that is the organization of railways. I had lined them up on brand new shelves, which, thanks to a marvelous harmony, had a secret understanding of things, having been brought by the carpenter, their author, the day before the arrival of the boxes.

  The paint was slightly sticky, but not enough to cause the books to adhere.

  I arranged the books lovingly. A large surface of wall had been covered with bound books, and another with paperbacks. I had formed groups in accordance with the color of the binding, taking pleasure in admiring the fine effect of reds and garnets united on the same shelves. The books with intact paper covers had been gathered together. A few pariahs with miserably torn covers had been exiled to the lowest shelf, the one at which one does not direct the gaze.

  When, after a considerable time, that had been concluded, I had begun again, because it was more harmonious to arrange the books in accordance with their dimensions, the large with the large and the small with the small, making an exception for the pariahs, which retained their inferior position.

  Only then did my error appear to me. Were the books a décor, part of the furniture? Had I a mind sufficiently vulgar to subordinate the order of the books, those receptacles of thought, to decorative questions of color or format? I had, in truth, just been conducting myself like an upholsterer, an organizer of interiors for the use of rich bourgeois. Everything had to be begun again.

  I recommenced with ardor. One sole law ought to preside over the organization of books, a law that takes account of the authors who have written them. How can the value of a book be recognized, if not by its author? And what is it if not ingratitude not to take account uniquely of the true creators of books?

  I worked with pleasure, praising in passing the abundant writers for their abundance and the sober writers for their faculty of condensation. Memoirs ought to be with memoirs, philosophy with philosophy. To take an example, Maine de Biran’s journal ought to be detached from the rest of his works and seated next to Goethe’s memoirs. But stop there! Was it not necessary also to take account of the date when the books had been written? How difficult the classification of a library was! However, I set to work to obey the reason and justice that ought to preside over the ordering of books.

  And it was only when the last volume was standing in the place that I thought legitimate, at the moment when I was about to utter a sigh of relief, that enlightenment finally dawned.

  A library only has a reason for existence by virtue of the services it renders. Books were divided into two categories. How had that not appeared to me sooner? There were those that I had read and were there in order to be reread, taken up from time to time, or even merely to be consulted, and there were those that I had not read, which were intellectual promises for me, future pleasures of discovery, the riches of days to come. Two different sections! Then there would be no futile searches, no forgotten book. And even the pariahs ought to participate in that division, emerging from their exile.

  That exile had, in any case, been an aberration. Should the exterior envelope matter if it encloses a spiritual beauty? The pariahs ought to be in the place of honor! Even if not the slightest particle of their paper binding remained, if they had lost all covering and were as naked as beggars!

  O perplexity! Books are in place in accordance with the convenience of their posses
sor. Convenience! Should practical considerations outweigh everything else? Is there not something garish about putting The Imitation of Christ next to the Tao of Lao-Tsu? Would it not be more logical to unite, on one side, the writers of the Orient, and on the other, those of the Occident? Everything has to be done again.

  Night has fallen. I’m exhausted. The gilt of bindings is shining, the tears in paper covers attest to the frequent reading of attentive men, and, on looking more closely, one can distinguish the imprints of certain thumbs that provide an indelible sign of that attention. The books can be placed in any order; the essential thing is that they are there, with their colors, their thickness and their numerous pages.

  Fecund presence of books! Perhaps it is unnecessary to read them, and their presence alone is sufficient. In any case, they are there. Intelligence is present in the form of characters reproduced on paper. Each book contains its portion of enlightenment within its pages, and it is sufficient to pick it up in order to be illuminated.

  Not always, obviously. There are obscure enlightenments, incomprehensible authors. But just because a lamp does not function very well, for reasons of the wick or the mechanism, one is not tempted to reproach its light.

  I believe that a peasant who cannot read and who was imprisoned for all his life in a library, although he could not summarize precisely Plato’s Symposium or Spinoza’s Ethics, would nevertheless end up being the possessor of a broad and imprecise philosophical knowledge that had filtered to him without his being aware of it.

  It is, however, preferable to read books. It is even necessary to reread them. There are some that have the marvelous property of always being new. There are others that only put on fancy dress. But even those have a power of evocation. A spark of thought can be sufficient to ignite a great fire. And it is necessary not to be discouraged if there are mysterious texts. One ought to consider oneself in confrontation with them as an explorer who is traversing a dense forest with difficulty, because he knows that he will find bizarre plants and curiously-formed animals there.

  I once knew a lady whose said to me that she read twenty pages of the Enneads of Plotinus every evening, in order to stay awake! “It’s so interesting!” she added. Fortunate lady! I have just arranged the three volumes of the Enneads in the section of books not yet read. They are three thick volumes. Their turn will come. But when I consider them, I admire the richness of the human mind that has enabled certain great geniuses, only accessible to an elite, to fashion human minds merely by the radiation of their work, built on the high summits of thought, like a splendid château, the towers of which men admire without daring to attempt to reach them.

  May books be glorified! They are good, familiar and consoling. And yet, what secret hatreds they inspire in the ignorant, who are content with their ignorance, or in those that do not have the courage to penetrate into them! I wonder whether certain stains and rips might not have been made by the wicked, who experience the need to insult intelligence.

  The presence of books is admirable! It gives security to a person who is anxious, calm to one who is agitated, and transports to the heights one who wants to rise up. Books border the road of wisdom, they are the instruments of perfection.

  THE ADVICE OF A PROTECTIVE SPIRIT

  The literate Romans of old attached a great importance to a phrase in a book opened at random and the page on which the finger posed on closing the eyes. It was necessary, at the same time, to invoke a protective spirit, if you knew one. It was a means of permitting destiny to give you a slight indication of its intentions. And even if one admits that destiny does not have direct and conscious communication with particular individuals, I am personally rather tempted to believe that a protective spirit can, in certain cases, make use of that means to give you a warning or a piece of advice. I can even say that I’m convinced of it.

  Protective spirits can only have very slight effects on our lives, but their influence is exerted on impulses and they are quite capable or impelling us to choose one book rather than another and stopping our finger on a page. It is also necessary that we favor their effort by pausing the movement of our thoughts, and that we have summoned them beforehand by persistently requesting their aid.

  I had never made any appeal to any power. I was impelled most of all by a liking for handling a book, for touching it. I picked up the first that came to hand, opened it and designated a sentence.

  I read: Insensate is the man who, favored by the human condition, a state so difficult to obtain, does not profit therefrom to find God.

  Surely that was a warning given by some wise protector. That wise protector had first wanted to qualify me. I was an insensate. I was not profiting from the human condition. I was not doing anything to find God. It was not sufficient to rent a house in the midst of trees and to arrange books of philosophy in accordance with different methods. To be sure, that was a sign of good intentions, but no more. Was it seeking God to go for walks with an extravagant young woman? Was it not, on the contrary, distancing myself therefrom? Was it not jealousy that I had experienced on seeing Roseline come out of a little house with newly-painted windows that did not resemble a farm? Was temptation not within me?

  The sage protector was right. I was an insensate.

  And one phrase, in particular, was terrible. The human condition is difficult to obtain. One does not become human at will. Thus, in the afterlife, one experiences unknown difficulties in placing oneself in a human seed and appearing in the terrestrial sunlight in the form of a child. That was unimaginable. No one could have experience of it. And yet that author, an Oriental philosopher, affirmed it with certainty. He was supported by ancient traditions, and there was something in me that impelled me to believe his affirmations. I had received a favor in penetrating into this human form, in benefiting from its complex organs. I ought to profit from that favor in order to find God.

  Like all men, I had only thought about enjoying life, in extracting the maximum possible pleasure from my senses. That was an error. The sage knew it. He knew, without saying how he had learned it, that the human form is only obtained rarely, after a great deal of effort, and that it is necessary to hasten to take advantage of it because afterwards, millions of years might go by without one being able to recommence. It was necessary to make haste, and I was not making haste. I was looking at books, I was enjoying the beauty of light, and that of faces, but I was neglecting the goal that I had set myself, of becoming better, more intelligent, and more perfect, getting closer to God.

  I went out into the garden and I set about circling the old pine several times. Perhaps one ought to circle a tree if one wants to receive a piece of advice. The tree interprets that fashion of circling around it as a question, and it replies, if it is amicable.

  My thoughts immediately took another direction. The first thing to do was to understand. There was something to understand. I was enveloped by a particular atmosphere. Why did an old crow come to my garden? Why had I been able to understand the language of animals? Why had that Guillard, a bad man, emitted after his death a perfume of roses, when that seems to be a privilege exclusively reserved to saints? Things around me were going against what is normal. Was I not at risk of experiencing in my own being an analogous reversal?

  Was it the response of the pine? A name presented itself to my mind: Monsieur Spéluque, the great scholar of Fréjus. I would go to see that great scholar, and perhaps he would enlighten me.

  MONSIEUR SPÉLUQUE

  It is very agreeable to hear a man tell you that he knows nothing, especially if he is a great scholar, which causes you to suppose that he is very learned.

  “I don’t know anything.” Such were Monsieur Spéluque’s first words. But I was not sure that he was a great scholar, and perhaps he was expressing the simple truth.

  I had deliberated over the matter of how to present myself to him. Ought I to have a humble and modest attitude? Should I introduce myself as a writer from Paris, or as an erudite person? No, my hab
itual method was the right one. One always has something to learn from someone, even someone ignorant. It is always necessary to present oneself as a student avid for instruction, as a naïve pupil prompt to admire.

  Monsieur Spéluque’s house was one of the last in Fréjus, on the road to Cannes, and he had doubtless chosen it because of a fragment of a Roman aqueduct that served his garden as a boundary wall. I noticed a little metal plaque on the entrance door, on which a rather rudimentary bas-relief represented a god, Pan, playing the flute.

  Monsieur Spéluque opened the door himself. He was not wearing spectacles, or a frock-coat. He had arched eyebrows after the fashion of Mephistopheles, and his cranium was completely bald. He was poorly shaven, but he had shaved. He was reminiscent of an ancient faun who had become, in aging, a primitive Greek sage. He warranted that title, moreover, for, from the very outset, he said things like: I have a pagan soul, I ought to have been born in Athens, and I am a contemporary of Socrates.

  I saw that he had a great many books and I mentioned mine by way of a recommendation, but he seemed to wave them away with his hand. He looked at me curiously. On point seemed to interest him. Why had I come to install myself some distance from Fréjus?

  I dared not tell him that it was only at the insistence of a letting agent. I replied that friends had praised the area to me.

  “Really?” he said. “I would have thought that perhaps you had come for the same reason as me.”

  Monsieur de Lusignan had said something similar to me. I was still wondering what that reason might be, but he deflected the direction of the conversation.