The Red Sphinx

by Alexandre Dumas

  Now, this is how poor Iris left my room:

  The evening before you saved her life, I was kneeling in prayer, my lamp placed near the curtains of my bed. Around midnight, while praying, I fell asleep. Perhaps ten minutes later, my door, left ajar, was pushed open by the breeze; the wind ruffled my curtains, the lamp flared, and the curtains caught fire. In an instant, my small room was filled with flame. I awoke already half-suffocated. My poor dove fluttered against the ceiling, struggling amid the smoke. I ran to the window and opened it. It was scarcely open before she rushed through it, and I heard her dart into the branches of her favorite tree, in which she always spends part of the day.

  Hoping she would return at daybreak, I left my window open—but the day came and went, and she never came back. Terrified by the fire, she had probably taken to her wings. That day was doubtless the one she was pursued by the hawk and came to you for aid. You gathered her in and guarded her, and then long after I’d believed her lost, I heard her beating her wings against the panes. I opened the window and admitted the runaway, who, though she carried her own excuse, was already forgiven in advance.

  That’s the story of poor Iris. Was that all you wanted to know, or did you have anything more to ask? If not, our messenger will return without a letter. I’ll know what that means, and if that’s the case, I’ll just say now: Farewell, my brother. May the Lord be with you!

  May 11, at daybreak

  Iris returned, without a letter. The poor little thing seemed sad to lose the office of messenger; she raised her empty leg and looked at me, as if to ask what it meant.

  It means, dear Iris, that you are mine alone; that today the sky will be dark, for the brother was no kin, and the friend was indifferent.

  And this, little one, I write for myself. This grievance from a soul who laments her isolation. And I say, I suffer; and I say, I weep; and I say, I am unhappy.

  Alas! Your justice, my God, is sometimes unfair, the blows you intend for the guilty are diverted, perhaps by some evil, invisible spirit, to fall on the innocent. The pains of this life prepare us for the happiness of the next, we are told, but why should pain strike one who did nothing worse than make a mistake—that’s no crime for which to atone! Didn’t Jesus forgive the Magdalene? Didn’t Christ bless the adulterous woman? Why this discipline for me, my God?

  I have loved, it’s true; but I responded with love to love from another. I was born for the life of the world, not the life of the cloister. I followed the law of love imposed by you on all creatures, persons, and plants. All must love in this world, all seek to join and merge into a single life, brooks into streams, streams into rivers, rivers into the ocean. The stars that, at night, rise from one horizon and cross the sky to the other, are swallowed in the glowing aura of a greater star rising; our souls themselves, these emanations of your divine breath, seek other souls here on earth for companions to love, and when our souls leave our bodies, they seek again to merge with you, who are the soul universal and the love endless.

  Well, my God, for a moment I rejoiced in the hope, toward the end of my horizon, that I’d found not just another soul, but a sister in suffering; in those first laments, I thought I heard the words of a suffering heart. Why, poor suffering soul, do you not wish to share in my pain, as I share in yours? It’s a law that shared burdens are lighter, and a weight that would crush two who are alone could be borne by two united.

  I hear the bell toll; you call me, my God, and I come to you! I go to you in confidence of my purity of heart, a heart open for you to read. If I have, by any act or omission, offended you, my God, please let me know by sign, vision, or revelation, and I will prostrate myself at your altar, forehead in the dust and hands outstretched until you have forgiven me.

  You, dear dove, be the faithful guardian of these feelings of my weak heart, these thoughts of my poor soul! Fold your wings over this paper that I fold to hide it from all eyes, as I await the next and final half-cup of bitterness.

  V

  May 11, at noon

  Indeed, you guessed right, my poor suffering soul; I’d resolved not to write to you, because what good, when lying in the grave, comes of raising one’s hands from the tomb, if not to raise them to God? But a sort of miracle has changed my resolution.

  That letter you wrote to yourself, that letter in which you poured out your soul at God’s feet, that letter, intimate memento of your mind, half-full of the bitterness that was to fill to overflowing with your tears—that letter, the dove, disloyal to you for once, brought to me, not tied to its leg, but in its beak, like the dove of the Ark with the green twig that showed the flood ebbing from the surface of the world, just as tears dry on the face of a forgiven sinner.

  Be it so! I accept the task you assign me to bear part of your pain, because I see I belong not just to myself, so long as, with the strength God has left to me, I can make of myself a lever to lift others in their misfortune.

  My soul, from this moment, is empty of its own misfortunes; pour in yours, as a stream seeks a river, as a lonely meteor seeks a star.

  You ask why you suffer, having done nothing wrong. Take care! When you question God, you draw near to blasphemy, a short step to a long fall.

  Down here, pride is our greatest enemy. It’s said that a recent philosopher has redefined all of nature as a series of whirlpools. In this philosopher’s view, every fixed star is a sun, surrounded by worlds like ours, and all these worlds, subject to the laws of gravity, revolve through space, each around its center of weight, without collision or confusion.

  Quite a system, isn’t it? God grows to infinite greatness, but man shrinks to nothing.

  So can our own world be divided into millions of worlds. Our pride makes each of us believe himself a sun around which all revolves, when we are at most a mere atom, one grain of dust that the Lord’s breath moves among the stars, greater and lesser, and those called kings, emperors, princes, are champions of earthly power whom God has given, as a sign of their power, a scepter or a crosier, a tiara or a sword.

  Well, who told you that immaterial things matter less than the material? Who told you the woes of this world don’t contribute to the happiness of the next? Who told you that, by the moral laws of nature, one-half the heart should not weep while the other half knows joy, just as one-half the Earth is in darkness when the other half is in light?

  Tell me your troubles, poor suffering soul—because, whatever your misfortunes, they can’t compare, I think, to mine. Tell me, and I’ll have, I hope, a consolation for each of your complaints, a balm for each of your injuries.

  But on your side, I beg you, drink from my stream of words without seeking the fountain from which they flow, drink as the black Ethiopians and pale children of Egypt drink from the Nile, while they think it sacrilege to try to follow the river to its source.

  Based on a few of my stray words, you thought to read into my past life, to see me as one of the lofty of this world who has plunged from the heights, thrown down from heaven to earth like a fallen angel.

  Do not deceive yourself: I’m just a humble monk with a humble name. My past, dark or bright, modest or proud, is lost to my memory, and, unlike the ancient philosopher who remembered the siege of Troy from another life, in my death I remember no yesterday, and tomorrow I’ll know not today.

  This is how I wish to walk into eternity, erasing every vestige I leave behind me, to arrive before my Lord as I came out of my mother’s womb: solus, pauper et nudus; poor, naked, and alone.

  Farewell, my sister; I will give you everything I can, but do not ask for more than I can give you.

  VI

  May 12

  Yes, you’ve understood everything. Yes, I was prostrate at God’s feet, asking him to account for my suffering, rather than asking forgiveness for my doubts. Yes, by a kind of miracle, God has restored this consolation I thought I’d lost, and our messenger, through disloyal devotion, carried you what had spilled from my mind—or rather, my heart—onto the paper.


  If you wish to remain unknown, then do so! What matter if the sun is hidden by clouds, or a fire is veiled by smoke, if the sun still shines its light, and the flames still warm? God is also invisible and unknown, but we still feel God’s hand extend over the world.

  I will not tell you I’m a modest and humble woman. I was a noble, I was rich, I was happy—I’m none of those now. I loved a man with all my heart, a man who loved me with all his soul; that man is dead. The cold hand of sorrow has stripped me of my worldly finery; now I wear religious robes, the habit of limbo, the funeral attire of those who no longer live but are not yet dead.

  So these are my injuries. I entered a convent to forget the one who died and remember only God; though sometimes I forget God and remember only he who is dead.

  That’s why I complain, and lament, and cry to the Lord, “God, have mercy on me!”

  Oh, tell me what you’ve done to empty your soul of the pain that once filled it! Have you put pressure on it, as one pinches a wound? I do all right while I’m praying—yet afterward, I find my soul filled again with worldly love, as if the liquor of bitterness had been drained, only to be refilled by ardent spirits from a lake of fire. How do you do it?

  Your answer will be quite simple, and I know it in advance: “I have never loved.”

  But if you have never loved, what right have you to boast that you’ve suffered?

  What will we have to say if you say to me “I have never loved”?

  This: though first I asked for your help and consolation, and then had to accept your distance and silence, I had really just passed you by as one passes a marble statue a sculptor has given human form, but in whose chest no heart has ever beat.

  If you’ve never loved, then this time I’m the one to say to you: do not reply, we’re not of the same world, we haven’t lived the same life. I was fooled by appearances; what reason is there to exchange useless words? You won’t understand what I say; I won’t understand what you say. For we don’t speak the same language.

  Oh, but if you have loved! If you have, tell me where, tell me who, tell me how—or, if you don’t want to tell me any of that, talk to me about something else, whatever you like. Anything. Tell me about your room, if it faces the east or west, the south or north; if you greet the sun when it appears, if you say goodbye to him as he leaves, or if, eyes dazzled by the blazing southern rays of afternoon, you try to distinguish the face of God in that shimmering radiance.

  Tell me all this, then tell me more: what you see from your window, plains or mountains, peaks or valleys, streams or rivers, lake or ocean. Tell me all, and it will distract my thoughts from the troubles that plague my mind—and then perhaps my heart, distracted by my thoughts, will manage to forget, if only for a moment. . . .

  No, no, no, tell me nothing. I will never forget!

  VII

  May 13

  The one you loved is dead: that’s why you still have tears. The one I love betrayed me. That’s why I have none!

  Tell me about your love all you want, but don’t ask me to speak of mine.

  For four years I’ve lived in a monastery—and yet I’m not a monk!

  Why, you may ask, is that?

  I’ll tell you.

  When my love, which was my last link to life, failed me, I fell into such despair that I gave myself to God—not from virtue, but from pain.

  I’ve waited for this despair to subside so the Lord wouldn’t have to receive me as the abyss receives the blind, but as a generous host receives a weary pilgrim who, after toilsome travels, seeks a night’s rest at the end of a long day.

  I wanted to bring him a strong spirit, not a broken heart, a whole body and not a cadaver.

  But now, four years after seeking such solitude, though daily purifying myself with prayer, I’ve not yet dared to trade the habit of a novice for the robes of a monk. My former self still lives in me, and it would be sacrilege to offer so worldly a creature to our heavenly Creator.

  Now you know as much of my past and private life as I can tell you. As to my present life and situation, here is what I can say:

  I live, not really in a monastery, but rather in a hermitage built halfway up a hill, in a room with whitewashed walls, lacking all ornament but the portrait of a king for whom I have a special reverence, and an ivory crucifix, a masterpiece of the sixteenth century, which was given to me by my mother.

  My window is surrounded by a luxuriant jasmine whose branches are laden with flowers; they scent my room as they open with the rising sun, on the horizon which is probably toward where you are: for from there I see our dove approaching from afar, and when she leaves I see her start in the same direction and fly for a mile or so until, dwindling, she merges into the azure sky or gray clouds.

  Given the lay of the land, dawn has a particular charm for me. It’s a view I adore and will try to describe.

  My horizon is bounded to the south by the high Pyrenees, with their purple slopes and snowy peaks; to the east by a hilly ridge that rises toward the main range; while to the north there stretches as far as the eye can see a country of plains, dotted with olive orchards, lined with small streams among which, like a sovereign receiving the tribute of its subjects, one of the greatest rivers of France majestically winds.

  The plateau beneath me slopes down from south to north, from the mountains to the plains.

  It has three very different aspects: in the morning, noon, and evening.

  In the morning, the sun rises behind the ridge of hills to the east. Ten minutes before it appears, I see a ray of rosy light stream slowly up until it fans across the sky, darkening the hills to black silhouettes. Through this fan spike the spearheads of early sunlight, all the colors from brightest pink to fiery yellow. As the sun rises behind the hills, it begins to gild their contours with its rays, the highest hill all aglow until, like a moving fire, ever expanding, the day star itself appears, splendid, gleaming, streaming flames, as if from the crater of some inextinguishable divine volcano. As it rises into the heavens, the life of the earth below is reborn; the tops of the Pyrenees shimmer white and silver; their dark sides slowly lighten from black to purple, and from purple to light blue. As light floods down from over the ridge, day spreads across the plain. The streams glisten like silver strands, the river twists and undulates like a shining ribbon; the birds sing in the oleander bushes, among the pomegranates, in the clumps of myrtle, and an eagle, the king of the sky, soars through the ether, banking around a circuit of a league or more, disappearing and reappearing.

  At noon, the entire basin I just described becomes a fiery furnace. Lit from top to bottom, the mountains cannot conceal their naked flanks, stony limbs that extend into the granite bones of the earth. Broken sunlight rebounds from shiny rock surfaces, streams and rivers seem torrents of molten metal, the flowers fade, the leaves bow down, the birds grow silent; invisible cicadas sing from the branches of creaking pine trees, and the only living movement that animates this baking desert is a green lizard that sometimes climbs my window trellis, or a mottled snake that, coiled in a spiral, pants with its mouth half open, ignoring the midges that pass within range of its fangs.

  In the evening, life is reborn for a while, like the last flare of a lamp before it goes out. One after another, the cicadas fall silent, their buzzing succeeded by the plaintive but monotonous cries of the crickets. The lizards flee, the snakes disappear, the bushes are agitated by the anxious fluttering of birds seeking lodging for the night. The sun goes down toward the horizon behind me, and as it descends, I see the Pyrenean snows change from soft pink to purple, while the shadows elongate across the plains, filling the spaces between them until, according to natural law, the whole world belongs to darkness. Then all noise ceases, the earthly glow is extinguished, the stars emerge silently from the sky—and in the middle of the night’s silence, a single melody unfolds into space: the song of the nightingale, star-lover, dark-singer.

  You asked me what I could see from my window, and I’ve told you.
Fix this triple vision in your mind, and allow your mind to distract your heart, for your salvation in this world is in nothing but this word:

  Forget!

  VIII

  May 13

  Forget! You tell me to forget!

  Listen to what is happening to me. You must understand: when darkness comes, it brings with it something frightening, something incredible and unnatural. When I sleep, death is no longer death, and the dead return to life! He is next to me, with his long dark hair, his pale face, his manly features imbued with all the nobility of his heritage. He is there—I speak to him—I extend my hand, I cry out “Are you still alive? And do you still love me?”

  And he replies that yes, he still lives, and yes, he still loves me. This same vision, undeniable, unrelenting, almost palpable, is repeated every night, only to disappear with the first light of dawn.

  My God, what must I do to get this nightmare, this vision from the angel of darkness, to stop tormenting me?

  I’ve prayed at the sacred altar, wrapped holy rosaries around my neck and wrists, laid a crucifix on my chest and fallen asleep with my hands crossed on the feet of the divine martyr—but all was vain, futile, useless; the day brings me back to God, but the darkness returns me to him. I’m like the queen described by the poet Homer, whose work every day was undone every night.

  If there were no night, there would be no sleep, and if no sleep, then no dreams—and then maybe I could forget.

  Can you get God to grant me that?

  IX

  May 14

  All that can be obtained from God through prayer, I’ll obtain for you; for you are sorely wounded, and the wound is grievous and deep.