But you see, all must be well, since I didn’t die.
July 15
My marathon continues, guided as ever by our dove. On the 13th, we went from Alos to Castillon; that was a big day for our poor girl. I should have been more sorry for her—we must have gone three leagues.
The next day, the 14th, I was repaid for my cruelty of the day before, as we made barely a league. Now it’s the 15th, and I’ve reached Saint-Lary, just across a small unnamed stream that flows into the Salat.
At least I’m sure I’m on the right road. The dove doesn’t hesitate for a moment, doesn’t deviate for a second. She goes straight ahead without pause.
Only, time is passing, while still you wait. Time is flying toward the day you take your vow.
Oh, that vow, be in no haste to take it, beloved! Believe in me, believe in your Isabelle.
If you doubt me for a moment, it could cost us everything.
July 18
For three days I’ve wandered almost at random, through woods and along streams. Alas, the air lacks the obstacles of the land, and the dove often goes where I can’t!
I confess, O my beloved, that for once my courage and strength have failed me, and I’ve collapsed at the foot of a tree, desperate and dying.
It’s already eleven days since I left, and I’ve covered only fifteen to eighteen leagues of what she flew in only an hour when she was our messenger of love, flying fast as an arrow above the miserable beings who call themselves kings of creation, but haven’t the abilities of a bird, and must take eleven days to travel what a dove can do in an hour.
Tell me, how can it be that a wretched magnetic needle knows where north is, while I, a thinking being, made in the image of God, don’t know where you are?
How is it a ship can sail from one point in the world, go to the far side of the Earth and find a particular island in the ocean, while I can’t seem to find you, though you were close enough to speak to or reach out and touch?
Oh, I know well, dear God, that if I want to find him, it’s not to him but to you that I must reach out.
My God, support me! My God, go with me! My God, guide me!
July 29
I return to my senses; to daylight; to life.
I nearly died, my beloved—and few would disbelieve that then, at last, I’d know where you are, for the dead know everything; few would disbelieve that the ghost of your Isabelle could enter your cell at night, in the hour when the spirits walk.
And that’s why I wish to live. If you saw my shadow, you’d have known I was dead—whereas if you see neither my shadow nor my body, you may think I’ve only forgotten or betrayed you. Don’t say, alas, that you no longer believe in me! For I haven’t forgotten or betrayed you—I love you! I love you!
I nearly died—that’s all.
Do you remember the dying soldier I saw that night, who’d dragged himself to the stream, leaking his last drops of blood, gasping his last breath, yearning for water, and then dying at his first swallow? Well, that was almost me.
After a long trek through a forest that I was told was called the Mauleon, I arrived breathless at a spring. This spring came right out of the rock, and was icy cold. I drank, thinking it would restore my strength and I could continue my journey. I continued, but walked for only a hundred steps and then stopped, shivering. A chill overcame me, and I fainted beside the small path I was following.
I don’t know what happened after I passed out. All I know is that yesterday, when I came to, the light was very dim. I looked around and found myself in a fairly clean room, on a bed, watched from its foot by an unknown woman. Beside me on the bed perched our dove, stroking my cheek with her poor wounded wing.
This woman had found me while returning with two men from the Mauleon market. They saw I was still breathing, took pity on me, and brought me where I am now.
Where I am is a small village near Nestier, or so I’ve been told. The room I’m in must be at some altitude, because from my bed, out the windows I can see only sky.
The sky! The sky is the only road to he who awaits me.
Yesterday I asked the date, and was told it was July 28. Alas! I’ve spent more than twenty days in my wandering. Where am I—near to you, or far?
I asked for paper, ink, and a pen, but after tracing just a few letters, my head was swimming and I couldn’t continue.
Tonight I’m better, and can write almost without tiring—I’ve had to stop only three or four times so far while writing this letter.
I thanked the woman who was watching over me. I no longer need constant care, I’m better, I feel strong. Tonight I’ll try to get up, and tomorrow resume my journey.
It would kill me to just lie here while you’re waiting for me—as you’d expect, wouldn’t you, my heart’s beloved, who waits for me?
The dove is also well rested. I hope it will be capable of longer flights, and therefore guide me to you more quickly.
I’d planned to spend all night in writing to you, but I’d overestimated my strength. I must stop, I must say goodnight to you—my ears are ringing, the room spins around me, and my pen seems to trace letters of fire.
Ah . . . !
Nine in the morning
I slept for two hours or so, a horrible, restless sleep more like delirium. Fortunately, upon opening my eyes, I saw the day was almost born.
O my beloved, what a beautiful thing daybreak would be, if we were near each other, and watched together as the stars disap-peared—all those stars whose names you know, and that merge and disappear into the ether ahead of the sun, who chases them and appears in his turn!
I just opened my window to gaze out upon a huge expanse. Alas! The more land I see, the more lost I feel.
My God! The love story of Theseus and Ariadne, was it truly just a fable? My prayer, deep, ardent, and eternal, is that you’ll send me some blessed angel who will bring me a thread that leads me to him.
Oh! I listen; I watch; I wait.
But there is nothing, dear God, nothing! Only the sun, that is to say, your image, which, still tinted pink, colors the atmosphere above and the mountain behind which it rises.
If only my heart were calm, this spectacle would be beautiful.
The hills emerge, their blue outlines silhouetted against the golden rays, showing their lovely and graceful forms. The ridge of mountains that girds the southern horizon is vast and beautiful, with snowy peaks that shimmer and sparkle like the flames of a divine star. A great river appears crossing the plain, broad and majestic, like . . .
Oh, my God!
My God, I can’t be mistaken! The angel I begged for, pleaded for—he came, invisible but real! Those hills behind which the sun rises, the double crest he tops, these snowy mountains that seem like silver pillars supporting the vault of heaven, that great river flowing from north to south taking in tributaries as a sovereign receives his subjects . . . it’s the hills, the mountains, the river he described to me, that he sees from his window. My horizon is his! My God—did I lose my way, only to find at last my road to him? Did you close my eyes, just to show me the light I’d see when they opened?
My God! Your mercy is infinite!
You are great, you are holy, you are good, and it is only on my knees that I should address you.
Kneel, therefore, faithless heart who doubted the goodness of the Lord! On your knees! On your knees!
Four in the morning
I have thanked God, and I depart. My strength came back to me with my faith. I was weak only because I was desperate.
But first, a final look.
Oh, it’s your picture to the life, my beloved! Painter, I have seen your vision! Poet, it is as you described so well!
There are the peaks of the Pyrenees, changing from white to shining silver; their dark sides gradually lightening from black to purple, from purple to blue, as a flood of light flows down from the high peaks; there the daylight spreads across the plain, there are the streams that glisten like silver strands, there th
e river that twists and undulates like a ribbon of satin; here are the birds singing in the oleander bushes, the pomegranates and clumps of myrtle; and there flies the eagle, king of the sky, circling in the ether.
Oh, my beloved! We are joined in vision, and I see what you see.
Only, from where do you see it?
Wait, wait, your letter is here. Oh, your letters, they don’t leave my side for a moment; when I die, they’ll be next to my heart, and those who lay me in the grave will be charged under pain of sacrilege to bury them with me.
From where do you see it?
Dear God, it’s as if I just read it. Fortunately, I know them by heart—if I lose them, I could rewrite them without missing a word, I’ve read them so often.
“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.”
That’s it! That’s it! The sun has just risen to my left, so you are to my right.
“The plateau beneath me slopes down from south to north, from the mountains to the plains.”
That’s it, exactly. Yes, that’s the very horizon. Thank you, Lord, for making the day so clear! Yonder are the highlands where I’ll find your hermitage.
Oh, why are they still so far away, and why is the human eye so feeble? I see hundreds of white specks scattered among the green trees—which of all these white specks is your hermitage?
Oh, darling dove—beloved dove—dove, daughter of heaven—it’s up to you to tell me that.
I go, my beloved, I go; each minute of delay is a minute stolen from our happiness; to delay is to tempt Providence.
For wasn’t it only by the delay of a minute that you lost me?
Come, dove! Yes, tomorrow, perhaps even tonight, we’ll see him again!
July 31
The night has interrupted my search, beloved—but I hope, I hope!
I questioned everyone I met, and was finally shown, on a distant ridge, a Camaldolese monastery, and near it a small house that looks to me like the one you described. I saw it shining through the rising mists of evening; perhaps it’s yours, perhaps you looked out over your horizon without knowing that it hid, invisible to your eyes, a poor, anxious creature who lives only for you, and will die without you.
I was told that that small house is inhabited by a recluse, a sage and man of God, but one still young and handsome.
That man is you, my beloved, is it not? It’s you. And if so, during the day sometimes you must visit the village of Camons, where I am now. You once visited a poor carpenter who broke his leg falling from a roof; you took care of him, and healed him. When the whole family kneeled before you as you were leaving, you said, “If you are consoled, pray for the consoler.”
Oh, that’s you—I recognize your sorrowful way of speaking. You wait for me, not knowing what’s become of me, and you suffer.
You suffer, because you doubt. Oh, man must always doubt; if you didn’t doubt, I’d think you were dead.
To think that if I’d arrived here only two hours earlier, I might perhaps have met you!
I say perhaps, for if I was sure it had been you, it would break me—I’d hire a guide, I’d even have them carry me. But what if I was wrong? Our dove’s instinct is the best guide of all; she hasn’t deviated for a moment. If by some fate I just missed you, I can still rely on her.
What are you doing at this moment, wherever you are, my beloved? Unless you are thinking of God, I hope you’re thinking of me.
It’s eleven o’clock. Tomorrow! Tomorrow! This great hope, too strong not to have come from heaven, says I’ll see you—tomorrow.
XXV
July 31, eleven o’clock
I don’t know if you’re returning to me, heart’s beloved, but hurry, hurry—midnight approaches, and the stroke of midnight will end the last day of my life as part of the world.
Tomorrow is the day on which I’m to take my vows. I waited religiously for the full three months, but I cannot forever postpone my promise to God. God speaks to me, since you are silent; God calls me, since you leave me alone.
Oh, it’s not without deep sorrow that I renounce this hope. If only you had come, if but for a moment.
I have dwelled, body and soul, in the past, that is to say, in happiness; it will cost me more to set aside that happiness than it would cost me to set aside life.
The life of the cloister, no matter what people say, is neither death of the body nor death of the soul. I have often examined corpses, cast my eyes over their pale and livid faces, and it’s only the material flesh that has broken down. No dream stirs in those sleeping brains, no pain, physical or moral, afflicts those flaccid fibers.
I have often examined, on the other hand, these living corpses called monks. Their faces are as pale or paler than those of the dead, but their visages are not those of the deceased: tears flow forever from their hearts, a deep and inexhaustible source that reddens their eyes, sinking them in their sockets, and plows bitter furrows down their cheeks. By this we recognize God’s suffering elect, whom I hope, at least, derive some comfort from his love.
The nervous energy that drives the living animates them only with sadness. It’s neither the composure of life nor the quiet of the grave; it’s the agony, the fever of slow consumption, the withering from this world to the next, from life to death, from the cradle to the grave.
Well, Isabelle, I can fool myself no longer, and postpone the abyss by plumbing its depths; I, too, will embark on this agony, in hopes it will quickly carry me to death!
Goodbye. I shall spend the night in prayer. The monastery bells will sound at two o’clock to say that a soul, though not a body, is leaving the earth for heaven.
At nine in the morning, those who will be my brothers in God will come for me.
August 1, five in the morning
I just saw my life’s last rising of the sun. He has never been brighter, more splendid, more magnificent. What matter to him the pains of this poor little world he illuminates? What matter the tears I shed that drown this paper? I’ve watched his dawn break for but ten short minutes, and already he drinks the dew that trembles at the tip of a blade of grass, or glistens like a diamond in the petaled chalice of a flower.
I shall never see his dawn again. The cell assigned to me looks into a high-walled courtyard; through an archway, I can just glimpse the corner of the cemetery. I’ll try to have them put my grave in that corner—I want it to be as close as possible, so the journey will be short.
Now, pray!
Nine in the morning
The chanting approaches; they’re coming for me.
I don’t want those men coming in here. I don’t want them to see your letters, or what I’ve been writing. I don’t want them to see my tears.
I’ll wait on the threshold. My soul remains with you: they bear away only my corpse.
Adieu!
The cry that rose from all of creation at the death of the Son of God was not deeper, more agonizing, or more lamentable than that which I utter at the death of our love.
Adieu! Adieu! Adieu!
XXVI
Ten o’clock
Your empty chamber! Your letter, wet with tears! Your final goodbye!
I arrived half an hour too late.
If only your vows have not yet been spoken!
My God! My God! Give me strength.
Oh, dove, my dove, if only I had your wings, broken though they are!
XXVII
(This fragment of a letter was found in the archives of the Ursuline Convent at Montolieu, but the first part is missing.)
. . . At daybreak I left the village of Camons, where I told you, dear Mother Superior, everything had led me to believe he sometimes spent the day.
I had questioned the entire family of the poor injured carpenter, and I would have known him from their descriptions, even if my heart hadn’t already told me it was him.
Moreover, the words he’d spoken upon leaving them—“If you ar
e consoled, pray for the consoler”—those could have come only from a suffering soul preparing to give himself to God.
My strength was restored by the hope of seeing him again. I set out on foot, for if I took a horse or a carriage, I’d have to make a wide detour to reach that white speck beside the vast, dark Camaldolese monastery, which, though almost three leagues off as the crow flies, sent me the sound of its bells on the wings of the wind.
Upon leaving the village, I let fly the dove. The poor dear made one of its longest flights, nearly two hundred paces toward the house my eyes devoured. There was no doubt—I was headed toward the goal she’d shown me with the last of her strength.
Unfortunately, there was no marked path; I had to follow the slope of the mountain, sometimes split by ravines, sometimes crossed by streams, sometimes cloaked with small woods which I dared not enter, for fear of losing myself.
I walked three hours without pause, but due to these detours, I covered only two leagues.
The house was often out of sight, and without my darling dove, I’d have been lost. I cast her in the air and followed wherever her flight led me.
Finally, it seemed to me my route became a bit easier. I heard the bells of a small village sounding eight o’clock; I don’t know why, but the tone of the bells seemed so sad, I felt my heart clench. It seemed that every hour, as it passed me on wings of bronze, pealed out “Hurry! Hurry!”
So I hurried, and soon I could distinguish the details of the house. As I approached, I recognized it from the description he’d given me: the window through which he watched the sun rise, and the jasmine that shaded the window and seemed to me like a green palisade.
For a moment I thought I could see him in that window, and whether illusion or reality, I spread my arms and shouted. Alas! He was still over a mile away, and neither saw nor heard me.
The Red Sphinx Page 69