Indiana (Oxford World's Classics)

by George Sand

  ‘“If you don’t regret having lived till this morning,” I said, “we can both affirm that we have tasted happiness to the full; that’s an additional reason for leaving life, since perhaps my star will decline tomorrow. Who knows if, when I leave this spot and emerge from the ecstasy into which I have been thrust by thoughts of love and death, I won’t once more become the hateful brute whom you despised yesterday? Won’t you blush for yourself when you find me again as you knew me? . . . Oh, Indiana spare me such an excruciating pain; it would be the fulfilment of my destiny.”

  ‘“Do you doubt your own heart, Ralph, or does mine not offer you enough guarantees?” asked Indiana with an adorable expression of trusting affection.

  ‘Shall I tell you? The first few days I wasn’t happy. I didn’t doubt Madame Delmare’s sincerity but I was frightened of the future. I had been excessively mistrustful of myself for thirty years and it wasn’t in one day that I could have a firm hope of pleasing and being loved. I had moments of uncertainty, of panic, of bitterness. Sometimes I regretted not having jumped into the lake when one word from Indiana had made me so happy.

  ‘She too must have had recurrent attacks of melancholy. It was difficult for her to break the habit of suffering, for it takes root in the soul, which becomes used to unhappiness, and is detached from it only with difficulty. But I must do her heart the justice of saying that she never had a single regret for Raymon; she didn’t even remember him to hate him.

  ‘At last, as happens with deep, genuine attachments, time, instead of weakening our love, confirmed and sealed it. Each day made it stronger, because each day brought to both sides fresh reasons for esteeming and blessing. All our fears vanished one by one, and when we saw how easy it was to demolish these grounds for mistrust, we smilingly admitted to each other that we accepted our happiness like cowards and that we didn’t deserve each other. From that moment we were secure in our love for each other.’

  Ralph fell silent; then, after a few moments of solemn meditation in which we were both absorbed, he pressed my hand and said:

  ‘I won’t talk to you of my happiness. If there are sorrows which are never revealed and which envelop the soul like a shroud, there are also joys which remain buried in man’s heart because an earthly voice cannot express them. Furthermore, if some angel from heaven were to alight on one of these flowering branches and tell you of them in the language of his own country, you wouldn’t understand them, for you are a young man, not hurt by strong winds nor shattered by storms. Alas! What can the heart that has not suffered understand of happiness? As for our crimes . . .’ he added smiling.

  ‘Oh!’ I cried, my eyes wet with tears.

  ‘Listen to me, Monsieur,’ he said, quickly interrupting me; ‘you have lived only a few hours with the two Bernica criminals, but one single hour is enough for a knowledge of their whole life. All our days are the same; they are all calm and beautiful; they pass swiftly and purely like those of our childhood. Every evening we praise God; every morning we pray to Him and ask Him for the sun and shade of the previous day. The major portion of our income is devoted to buying the freedom of poor, infirm blacks. That’s the main reason for the bad things the colonists say about us. If only we were rich enough to free all who live in slavery! Our servants are our friends; they share our joys, we tend their ills. That is how our life is spent, without sorrows and without remorse. We rarely speak of the past, rarely too of the future; we speak of the latter without fear, of the former without bitterness. If, at times, we surprise each other with eyes moist with tears, it is because there must be tears in great happiness; there are none in great misery.’

  ‘My friend,’ I said after a long silence, ‘if the world’s accusations could reach you, your happiness would be sufficient answer.’

  ‘You are young,’ he replied. ‘For your pure, guiltless conscience, our happiness is a sign of our virtue; for the world that constitutes our crime. You see, solitude is good and men are not worth any regrets.’

  ‘They don’t all accuse you,’ I said, ‘but even those who appreciate you blame you for despising public opinion, and those who acknowledge your virtue say you are proud and haughty.’

  ‘Believe me,’ replied Ralph, ‘there’s more pride in this reproach than in my alleged contempt. As for public opinion, Monsieur, if one looks at the people it rates highly, shouldn’t one always hold out one’s hand to those it tramples underfoot? They say its favour is essential to happiness; those who think so must respect it. As for me, I sincerely pity any happiness that is increased or diminished by its whims.’

  ‘Some moralists blame your solitude. They claim that every man belongs to society, which requires his presence. They add that you set men an example which is dangerous to follow.’

  ‘Society should demand nothing from a man who expects nothing from it,’ replied Sir Ralph. ‘As for being affected by my example, I don’t believe it, Monsieur. Too much energy is required to break with the world, too many sorrows to acquire that energy. So let a private happiness, which costs nothing to anyone and hides itself for fear of making people envious, continue in peace. And so, young man, follow the course of your destiny, have friends, a profession, a reputation, a fatherland. As for me, I have Indiana. Don’t break the chains which bind you to society; respect its laws if they protect you; value its judgements if they are fair to you. But if some day it slanders and spurns you, have enough pride to be able to do without it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘a pure heart can enable us to endure exile, but to enable us to love it, one needs a companion like yours.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said with an ineffable smile, ‘if you knew how I pity this society which despises me.’

  The next day, I left Ralph and Indiana; the former embraced me, the latter shed a few tears.

  ‘Farewell,’ they said, ‘return to the world. If some day it banishes you, remember our Indian cottage.’*

  EXPLANATORY NOTES

  Marmontel: an eighteenth-century literary figure (1723–99) who wrote, amongst other things, agreeably told moral tales.

  Brie: a region of France to the east of Paris.

  Argus: in Greek mythology a creature with one hundred eyes, of which fifty remained always open. The name has come to be used as a symbol of relentless vigilance.

  Bourbon Island: an island in the Indian Ocean to the east of Africa, now called Reunion Island.

  Rubelles: a district not far from Melun, a town about forty kilometres south-east of Paris.

  Almaviva: in Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville (based on Beaumarchais’s play of that name). Count Almaviva disguises himself to gain access to the home of the heroine Rosine.

  Virginie wrote no more charming letter to Paul: Paul et Virginie is a sentimental tale (1787) by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre of two young people brought up on an idyllic tropical island, the Ile-de-France (now called He Maurice) in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar.

  the scaffolds of’93: a reference to the multiple executions of the Reign of Terror of 1793.

  vices of the Directory: the Directory was the government which ruled France towards the end of the Revolutionary period from 1798 to 1799. In reaction against the repressive Revolutionary regime it was a period of social license.

  the vanities of the Empire: General Bonaparte, who overthrew the Directory in 1799, became Emperor in 1801. His reign was marked by a certain amount of vain showmanship, e.g. elaborately decorated uniforms, glittering balls, pompous coronation.

  the grudges of the Restoration: the Monarchy was restored in France in 1814, when Louis XVIII became king. Many who had left France during the years of the Revolution and Empire returned, and grudges were felt by people who thought they had been insufficiently compensated for their losses.

  eclectic salons: ‘eclectic’ was the name given to the philosophy of Victor Cousin, who tried to make a synthesis of what he thought were the most probable theories of former philosophers, discarding what was false or inadmissible. The eclectic salon
s were salons where Cousin’s ideas and their political implications were accepted and discussed. In practice these salons supported the Restoration and the charter granted by Louis XVIII.

  Lovelace: the seducer in Samuel Richardson’s novel Clarissa (1749).

  Joseph Bonaparte: (1768–1844) brother of Napoleon, who in 1808 was made Joseph, King of Spain, where he reigned till 1813.

  his great Emperor: i.e. Napoleon. Colonel Delmare, like many former Napoleonic soldiers, is in favour of the Imperial regime.

  the Restoration: i.e. the restoration to the French throne of the Bourbon monarchy in the person of Louis XVIII.

  reversi: a card game of Spanish origin.

  Van Dyck: Dutch painter (1599-1644), renowned especially for his portraits.

  Ixion: in Greek mythology Ixion was a king to whom Jupiter gave refuge in Olympia. He was attached to a flaming wheel in perpetual rotation as a punishment for his lack of respect towards Juno.

  Deianeira’s tunic: in Greek mythology Deianira, the wife of Hercules, unwittingly gave him a poisoned tunic which caused his death.

  Martignac: French Minister of the Interior, 1828–9. He tried to reconcile the aristocracy of the pre-Revolutionary regime with the liberal middle class. His main support in the Chamber of Deputies came from the doctrinaires, a moderate group with a left-wing tendency.

  last revolution: the Revolution of 1830 in which Charles X was replaced by Louis-Philippe, who was more sympathetic to moderately liberal ideas.

  absolute monarchy: the monarchy of Charles X, who was deposed in 1830.

  the charter: Louis XVIII granted the charter in 1814. It gave legislative power to the Chamber of Peers and the Chamber of Deputies, and tried to restore links with the old (i.e. pre-Revolutionary) regime, while maintaining some of the achievements of the Revolution and retaining the administrative structures of the Napoleonic Empire.

  Imperial cohorts: Napoleon’s armies.

  the conquerors of Spain: Spain was conquered by the forces of Napoleon in 1809 with great loss of life.

  the King’s forest: the Forest of Fontainebleau, not far from Colonel Delmare’s house at Lagny, belonged to the French crown.

  the Bourbons: the royal house of France to which Louis XVIII, King of France from 1814 to 1830, belonged.

  the Empire: the Napoleonic Empire which lasted from 1804 to 1814.

  the Republic: the regime in France from 1792 to 1795.

  England’s intervention: England had been at war with the Napoleonic regime from 1804 till Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

  a king proclaimed by foreign bayonets: Louis XVIII became King of France in 1814, thanks to the victory of the allied armies of Britain, Prussia and Russia over the Napoleonic forces.

  Constitutional Charter: the Charter granted by Louis XVIII in 1814.

  the excesses of 1793: of the Reign of Terror.

  1815: the date of Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo.

  the Coblenz émigrés: in 1792 aristocrats who had left France after the Revolution of 1789 gathered together at Coblenz to join forces fighting against the Revolutionary regime in France.

  Fanchet: head of police during the reactionary ministry of Villèle (1822–7). He made use of informers and spies.

  Fouché: Napoleon’s clever but unscrupulous Minister of Police.

  St Louis’ sceptre: Louis IX of France (1218–70) was known as Saint Louis because of his great piety. He was greatly esteemed for his virtue.

  at the foot of the Pyramids: Napoleon’s victory in Egypt (1798) is known as the Battle of the Pyramids.

  the oak of Vincennes: Louis IX was popularly envisaged as administering justice under the shade of an oak tree in the grounds of the royal chateau of Vincennes.

  the white flag: the emblem of the Royalist supporters of the Bourbon monarchy.

  the throne of 1815: the monarchy of Louis XVIII, whose reign in France was confirmed after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

  his tricolour: the colours of the Revolutionary flag which were retained in the Napoleonic Empire.

  Due de Reichstadt: Napoleon’s son.

  desert sun: a reference to Napoleon’s campaigns in the Middle East.

  Moskva: the river in Russia near which Napoleon’s forces gained a hard-won victory over the Russians, followed, however, by the French retreat from Moscow with great hardships.

  the Republic’s day: each of the three characters in this political discussion is representative of one of the different political views prevalent in France during the Restoration. Raymon presents the Royalist point of view, Delmare the Imperial, and Ralph the Republican.

  the Hundred Days: after his defeat at Leipzig in 1813 and the signing of the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1814), Napoleon was forced to retire to the Island of Elba. But on 26 February 1815 he returned to France and on 20 March re-entered Paris. Louis XVIII fled but was restored to the French throne after Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815. The period of Napoleon’s brief second reign is known as the Hundred Days.

  Peau d’Ane: a fairy-tale published in a collection of fairy-tales by Charles Perrault in 1697 over the name of his son aged 10.

  a pleasure-loving, frivolous age: the eighteenth century, when, during the reign of the Regent, Philippe d’Orléans, and then of Louis XV, frivolity and licentiousness were prevalent in aristocratic society.

  the Elysian fields: in classical mythology the shades of only the virtuous dead were permitted to enter the Elysian fields, where they dwelt in permanent happiness.

  the Regency type: a reference to the lax moral standards of the period during the Regency of Philippe d’Orléans (1715–23).

  Madame du Barry: the chief mistress of Louis XV from 1770 till his death in 1774.

  the Dauphin’s wife: Dauphin was the title given to the heir to the French throne. During the reign of Charles X (1824–30) the heir was the Duc d’Angouiême, who had married a daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. She was a woman with harsh, anti-liberal opinions.

  the emigration: after the French Revolution many French aristocrats left France. They became known as the émigrés.

  prosperity: after the restoration of the monarchy in 1814 the émigrés were able to return to France, and many recovered their former privileges.

  from the Institut as far as the Corps Législatif: public buildings at some distance from each other on the left bank of the Seine; Indiana walked along the left bank until she reached the outskirts of Paris.

  faham: a kind of wild orchid.

  Saint-Gilles river: a river in Bourbon Island near Indiana’s home.

  saxatile shrubs: shrubs which grow on stony ground.

  camarous: large shrimps.

  veloutier: the name given in Bourbon Island to a plant of which there is a British version, borage, with bright blue flowers, and stem and leaves covered with prickly hairs.

  the ministry of 8 August: the government which came to power in August 1829 and whose reactionary policies precipitated the 1830 Revolution which deposed Charles X.

  Prince de Polignac: the head of the ministry of 8 August.

  the family whose interests . . . had been closely tied to his own: the Royal family. Raymon, while supporting the Royal family, did not go along with the return to absolute monarchy of Charles X and the Polignac government.

  choosing a colour: choosing a political party.

  the two sections of society: the aristocracy and the rich bourgeoisie.

  peris: fairy-like creatures in Persian tales which were fashionable at the time.

  Rodrigues Island: this island is in fact about 800 kilometres east-north-east of Bourbon Island, probably beyond the reach of the red-winged tropic bird from Mauritius (p. 196), 200 kilometres nearer, let alone the diurnal habits of common or garden birds.