The Idea of Perfection

by Paul Valéry

  Et moi, d’un tel destin, le cœur toujours plus près,

  Mon cortège, en esprit, se berçait de cyprès …

  Vers un aromatique avenir de fumée,

  Je me sentais conduite, offerte et consumée,

  Toute, toute promise aux nuages heureux!

  Même, je m’apparus cet arbre vaporeux,

  De qui la majesté légèrement perdue

  S’abandonne à l’amour de toute l’étendue.

  L’être immense me gagne, et de mon cœur divin

  L’encens qui brûle expire une forme sans fin …

  Tous les corps radieux tremblent dans mon essence! …

  Non, non! … N’irrite plus cette réminiscence!

  Sombre lys! Ténébreuse allusion des cieux,

  Ta vigueur n’a pu rompre un vaisseau précieux …

  Parmi tous les instants tu touchais au suprême …

  —Mais qui l’emporterait sur la puissance même,

  Avide par tes yeux de contempler le jour

  Qui s’est choisi ton front pour lumineuse tour?

  Cherche, du moins, dis-toi, par quelle sourde suite

  La nuit, d’entre les morts, au jour t’a reconduite?

  Souviens-toi de toi-même, et retire à l’instinct

  Ce fil (ton doigt doré le dispute au matin),

  Ce fil dont la finesse aveuglément suivie

  Jusque sur cette rive a ramené ta vie …

  Sois subtile … cruelle … ou plus subtile! … Mens

  Mais sache! … Enseigne-moi par quels enchantements,

  Lâche que n’a su fuir sa tiède fumée,

  Ni le souci d’un sein d’argile parfumée,

  Par quel retour sur toi, reptile, as-tu repris

  Tes parfums de caverne et tes tristes esprits?

  * * *

  Hier la chair profonde, hier, la chair maîtresse

  M’a trahie … Oh! sans rêve, et sans une caresse! …

  Nul démon, nul parfum ne m’offrit le péril

  D’imaginaires bras mourant au col viril ;

  Ni, par le Cygne-Dieu, de plumes offensée

  Sa brûlante blancheur n’effleura ma pensée …

  Il eût connu pourtant le plus tendre des nids!

  Car toute à la faveur de mes membres unis,

  Vierge, je fus dans l’ombre une adorable offrande …

  Mais le sommeil s’éprit d’une douceur si grande,

  Et nouée à moi-même au creux de mes cheveux,

  J’ai mollement perdu mon empire nerveux.

  Au milieu de mes bras, je me suis faite une autre …

  Qui s’aliène? … Qui s’envole? … Qui se vautre? …

  À quel détour caché, mon cœur s’est-il fondu?

  Quelle conque a redit le nom que j’ai perdu?

  Le sais-je, quel reflux traître m’a retirée

  De mon extrémité pure et prématurée,

  Et m’a repris le sens de mon vaste soupir?

  Comme l’oiseau se pose, il fallut m’assoupir.

  Ce fut l’heure, peut-être, où la devineresse

  Intérieure s’use et se désintéresse :

  Elle n’est plus la même … Une profonde enfant

  Des degrés inconnus vainement se défend,

  Et redemande au loin ses mains abandonnées.

  Il faut céder aux vœux des mortes couronnées

  Et prendre pour visage un souffle …

  Doucement,

  Me voici : mon front touche à ce consentement …

  Ce corps, je lui pardonne, et je goûte à la cendre.

  Je me remets entière au bonheur de descendre,

  Ouverte aux noirs témoins, les bras suppliciés,

  Entre des mots sans fin, sans moi, balbutiés …

  Dors, ma sagesse, dors. Forme-toi cette absence ;

  Retourne dans le germe et la sombre innocence.

  Abandonne-toi vive aux serpents, aux trésors …

  Dors toujours! Descends, dors toujours! Descends, dors, dors!

  (La porte basse c’est une bague … où la gaze

  Passe … Tout meurt, tout rit dans la gorge qui jase …

  L’oiseau boit sur ta bouche et tu ne peux le voir …

  Viens plus bas, parle bas … Le noir n’est pas si noir …)

  * * *

  Délicieux linceuls, mon désordre tiède,

  Couche où je me répands, m’interroge et me cède,

  Où j’allai de mon cœur noyer les battements,

  Presque tombeau vivant dans mes appartements,

  Qui respire, et sur qui l’éternité s’écoute,

  Place pleine de moi qui m’avez prise toute,

  Ô forme de ma forme et la creuse chaleur

  Que mes retours sur moi reconnaissaient la leur,

  Voici que tant d’orgueil qui dans vos plis se plonge

  À la fin se mélange aux bassesses du songe!

  Dans vos nappes, où lisse elle imitait sa mort

  L’idole malgré soi se dispose et s’endort,

  Lasse femme absolue, et les yeux dans ses larmes,

  Quand, de ses secrets nus les antres et les charmes,

  Et ce reste d’amour que se gardait le corps

  Corrompirent sa perte et ses mortels accords.

  Arche toute secrète, et pourtant si prochaine,

  Mes transports, cette nuit, pensaient briser ta chaîne ;

  Je n’ai fait que bercer de lamentations

  Tes flancs chargés de jour et de créations!

  Quoi! mes yeux froidement que tant d’azur égare

  Regardent là périr l’étoile fine et rare,

  Et ce jeune soleil de mes étonnements

  Me paraît d’une aïeule éclairer les tourments,

  Tant sa flamme aux remords ravit leur existence,

  Et compose d’aurore une chère substance

  Qui se formait déjà substance d’un tombeau! …

  Ô, sur toute la mer, sur mes pieds, qu’il est beau!

  Tu viens! … Je suis toujours celle que tu respires,

  Mon voile évaporé me fuit vers tes empires …

  … Alors, n’ai-je formé, vains adieux si je vis,

  Que songes? … Si je viens, en vêtements ravis,

  Sur ce bord, sans horreur, humer la haute écume,

  Boire des yeux l’immense et riante amertume,

  L’être contre le vent, dans le plus vif de l’air,

  Recevant au visage un appel de la mer ;

  Si l’âme intense souffle, et renfle furibonde

  L’onde abrupte sur l’onde abattue, et si l’onde

  Au cap tonne, immolant un monstre de candeur,

  Et vient des hautes mers vomir la profondeur

  Sur ce roc, d’où jaillit jusque vers mes pensées

  Un éblouissement d’étincelles glacées,

  Et sur toute ma peau que morde l’âpre éveil,

  Alors, malgré moi-même, il le faut, ô Soleil,

  Que j’adore mon cœur où tu te viens connaître,

  Doux et puissant retour du délice de naître,

  Feu vers qui se soulève une vierge de sang

  Sous les espèces d’or d’un sein reconnaissant!

  Did Heaven form this mass of wonders

  To be a serpent’s dwelling?

  PIERRE CORNEILLE

  If not the wind, then who is crying there

  At this lone hour with farthest diamonds? … Who

  Is crying, so near me at the moment of tears?

  This hand that dreams of drifting over my face,

  Aimlessly docile to some deeper end,

  Awaits a tear there, melting from my weakness,

  And for the purest of my destinies,

  Slowly distinguished, to light a broken heart.

  The storm-swell breathes a shadow of reproach,

  Or here below, in straits of rock, recalls

  Like something lost and drunk with bitterness

  A rumor of sighing and of drawing in …
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  Why are you bristling, why is your hand like ice,

  What shiver of a vanished leaf still lingers

  Between you, islands of my naked breast? …

  Bound to this unfamiliar sky, I gleam …

  The vast fruit shimmers in my thirst for disaster.

  All-powerful strangers, inescapable stars

  Who deign to light this transient far-away

  With something otherworldly and pristine,

  Who plunge in mortals, to the point of tears,

  These sovereign flashes and unyielding blades,

  Your swelling transports of eternity,

  Trembling, I am alone with you, having left

  My bed; and where the wonder frets the rocks,

  I ask my heart what wakes it, what sharp pain,

  What crime fulfilled on me, or by myself? …

  … Or if the anguish of a dream now closed

  Remains, from when (gold lamps at velvet breath

  Dispersed) I raised my thick arms around my brow

  And long awaited the flashes of my soul?

  All? But all mine, mistress of my flesh,

  Hardening with a chill its strange expanse,

  And in sweet bonds, suspended in my blood,

  I saw me gazing on my winding self,

  And gilded with my gaze my deep forests.

  I followed a serpent, having felt its bite.

  * * *

  What turnings of desire, its train! … Disorder

  Of treasures torn from my avidity,

  And such a darksome thirst for clarity!

  O ruse … By glimmers of the pain it left,

  I felt more known than wounded in that light …

  There where my soul’s most false, a sting is born:

  The poison is my own; it lights me with

  Its knowledge, blushing a virgin wrapped in her

  Own arms, and jealous … but jealous, scared, of whom?

  What silence speaks to my unique possessor?

  Gods! In my heavy wound, a secret sister

  Burns, who prefers herself to clarity.

  * * *

  “Go! I no longer need your simple race,

  Dear Serpent … Dizzying being, I embrace

  Myself! Stop lending me this tangle of knots,

  Your faithfulness that flees and finds me out …

  My soul suffices, ornament of ruin!

  Leaving behind its torments in my dark,

  It bites in the night my breast’s enchanting rocks,

  And stays there long and sucks the milk of dreams …

  So let that arm of precious stones fall limp,

  Which menaces my spirit’s fate with love …

  Nothing you do to me could be more cruel,

  More desirable … Appease, then, calm these waves,

  Call back that wake, those filthy promises …

  My eyes are open, my surprise dispelled.

  I expected nothing less from my rich deserts

  Than such a birth of braid and tangled fury:

  Their reaches shimmer, passionate and dry,

  As far as I advance through thirst to see

  The desperate confines of my pensive hells …

  I know … My languor can be theatrical.

  The mind is not so pure that like a torch

  Its lonely fervor never chases back,

  Idolatrous, the walls of its sad tomb.

  Here, endless waiting could bring anything.

  The very darkness yields to certain death,

  The selfish soul falls open, and is moved

  By the beast writhing at a door of fire …

  For all you seem capricious, though, and quick,

  Reptile, O turnings rippling with caress,

  So-close impatience and so-heavy languor,

  Can you compare with my eternal night?

  You watched my lovely negligence asleep …

  Yet I am one, O Thyrsus, with my dangers,

  Nimbler and more perfidious than they.

  Flee me! Trace back through darkness the wet thread,

  Find eyes still sleeping for your heavy dance.

  Pour your successive robes toward other beds,

  Hatch on other hearts the seeds of their pain,

  And in the couplings of your animal dream

  May breathless innocence pant till break of day! …

  For I am awake. Pale and prodigious, wet

  With tears I did not shed, I body forth

  From these too-human contours of an absence

  Cradled alone … And leaning out, I break

  A quiet tomb, uneasy and yet supreme,

  For in my eye and the night, my visions so

  Conform their every movement to my pride.”

  * * *

  I trembled, though, to lose a divine pain!

  I kissed on my hand the keen and subtle bite,

  And of my ancient unfeeling body, knew

  No more than at my sides a burning fire:

  Farewell, I thought, ME, mortal sister, lie …

  * * *

  Harmonious ME, distinguished from a dream,

  Woman pliant and firm, of silences

  Before pure acts! … Clear brow, and floating strands

  Ravished in waves so far they’re finished off

  By the vague coarse wind that whirls them out to sea,

  Speak! … I was day’s equal and its bride,

  The lone smiling support I formed of love

  For the beloved almighty altitude …

  My lashes gilded by the dazzling light,

  O eyelids burdened with a night of treasure,

  I blindly prayed amid your golden shadows!

  Pervaded by the eternal that enclosed me,

  I gave my velvet fruit which it devours;

  Nothing whispered that a desire to die

  In this blond pulp could ripen in the sun:

  My bitter taste was unfamiliar still.

  The only sacrifice I made the light

  Was this bared shoulder; and this honeyed breast,

  Whose tender birth brought heaven to fulfillment,

  Received the dozing figure of the world.

  Then in the brilliant god, a wandering captive,

  I sallied forth and trod the fulsome earth,

  Crossing, uncrossing through the flax my shadows.

  Happy! As high as all the radiant blooms,

  Letting their umbels lower their frail pride

  As they obeyed the passing of my dress,

  And if against this freedom’s running thread

  The dress is torn by the rebellious briar,

  My body’s brazen arc pronounces me,

  Naked beneath the veil whose vibrant colors

  My race disputes with the lineage of flowers!

  I almost miss that empty sense of power …

  One with desire, I was the imminent

  Obedience, tied around these polished knees;

  Each wish was granted with such ready movements,

  My cause, I felt, could not be more alive!

  My blond clay streamed toward my resplendent senses,

  And in the burning peace of natural dreams

  The endless steps I took seemed never-ending.

  Except, O Splendor, that the Enemy,

  My shadow! quick cadaver at my feet

  And painted with my absence, blithely swept

  The earth on which I fled that weightless death.

  Between the rose and me, I see it crouching;

  Over the dancing dust, it glides and shakes

  No leaf, but passes, and everywhere is broken …

  Glide! Funeral boat …

  * * *

                   And I alive, and standing,

  Secretly girded with my emptiness,

  Yet with my cheeks on fire as if from love,

  My nostril seeking out the orange tree,

  I give the day a stranger�
�s look, no more …

  Oh! in my curious night, the secret part

  Of my divided heart can grow so large,

  My art, from dark endeavors, so profound …

  Far from the pure surroundings, I am captive

  And overcome by vanishing perfumes,

  I feel my statue shiver in the sunbeams,

  Its marble rippling with the gold’s caprice.

  I know, however, what my lost gaze sees,

  My black eye opens on infernal halls!

  I think, releasing to the breeze the hours

  And the soul beyond recall of the bitter shrubs,

  Poised on the golden edge of all creation

  I think of the taste for death that overtakes

  The Pythia howling for the world to end.

  I form anew my gods and my enigmas,

  My pausing steps when I address the skies,

  My pauses, on the foot that bears the dream,

  Who tracks a changing bird in mirrored wing

  Plays with the void a hundred times on the sun,

  And burns, at the center of my gaping marble.

  * * *

  O dangerously the prey of her own gaze!

  For on its shores of silk, the spirit’s eye

  Had seen too many days already break

  And pale, their course and colors all foreseen.

  The weariness of gazing on their shades

  Had given me a fatal lead on life:

  Each dawn revealed the whole of hostile day.

  I was half dead; and also, maybe half

  Immortal, dreaming that the future was only

  The final diamond in the diadem

  That swirls with chill misfortunes to be born

  Among my brow’s uncompromising fires.

  Will Time dare raise, from my so many tombs,

  A sunlit evening graced by blissful doves,

  An evening trailing from a threadbare scrap

  A final flush of red from quiet childhood,

  And dipping in emerald a long rose of shame?

  * * *

  Memory, pyre whose golden wind defies me,

  Breathe on this mask the crimson of refusal

  To be in flame the other I once was …

  Come, my blood, and infuse the pale occasion

  Exalted by the azure of sacred distance,

  The cold iridescence of beloved days!

  Come and consume on me this faded gift;

  Come! So I recognize and come to hate

  That brooding child and that complicit silence,