The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait
Page 19
It is not necessary to regard philosophies and religions as a collection of beliefs of which a single sign is the summary; on the contrary, they only develop a single sign or word. The formula is the origin and not the consequence. After Pythagoras, the law of number that he proposed was verified. The number or the word is the most intimate essence that we can ever attain. All religion rests on a word, expressed or not; and the word is represented by a figure.
The trinity and the triangle are equivalents. At the very least, since human concepts, in spite of our craze for the absolute, are only the exteriorization of forms in the human brain, the representation of a triple god, and the triangular symbol expressing the same law, are born in the same obscure fold of the grey matter. The altars of every religion are based on a geometrical figure. The Egyptians set up the figure of the triangle; the pyramid represents the union of the ternary number with the square. It has four faces, each limited by three lines. Three of them face the sky. The fourth is the obscure face turned toward the ground and humankind. Other religions have enclosed themselves within the eternal serpent, the circle, the form of the horizon, the formless form appropriate to receive everything. The mages placed on the threshold of their dwelling the five-pointed star, the pentagram, which is man, and the double triangle, and many other things if one desires. The letter with which the name of Zeus begins describes the lightning. The Christians have made the right-angled secant divine.
If one wants to press to the end, exasperating it, the paradox that they are all merely the enunciation of an obscure verity, one may say that there is a meaning hidden not only in words but in the form of words. Words, like images, have an esoteric meaning. The marvelous genius of Edgar Poe has seen this verity. No one could have developed the idea we have broached better than he did, and, while exaggerating the methodical rigor of the explanation, simultaneously giving it a discursive and flexible aspect. He is the king whose rich imagination, better than of De Quincey, would evoke the sumptuous scenes and dazzling visions of opium merely at the summons of the sonorous word: the Roman consul. Since he has departed for the land of dreams—to the paradise, whatever it may be, that he has created—it is at least appropriate that these notes be submitted to him, as a poor monkish illuminator, before bending over his folio, addresses a fervent prayer to Doctor Angelicus.39
Let us suppose that a curious philosopher, one of those who searches in all things for the homunculus and the summary, imagined that he had found a word that completely satisfied his love of symmetry, a word whose form and complex meaning might lend itself to amusing variations. It is, in sum, a matter of a vocable appropriate to illustrate the vague theories already emitted. Like Edgar Poe when he invented the word Nevermore in “The Raven,” one will ensure that the word is possessed of all the necessary virtues. As it is a matter of speculations on symbolism, the language that imposes itself is Latin, so muscular, sober and compact. It is, in any case, appropriate that it should be thus, for what honest excuse would these discursive fantasies have is we were not speaking Latin?
Every formula that is easy to remember must be brief. What is required here is a summary, and easily-citable exemplar of the symbolism of words. We cannot, in consequence, think of some Abracadabra. Two or three letters will suffice. They can be more easily engraved on the fronton of the mysterious temple. As it is a matter of occult things, we shall be led to choose the number three, the most perfect of all. If one cares to remember what was said at the beginning about geometry, one will not be astonished if we demand that the essence of this vocable should be the essence of known lines. As they are three in number—straight, broken and curved—if we care to recover them, the word will, it seems, emerge from the shadows, as an unknown planet emerges from the depths to the summons of a calculator. It can be no other than the Latin word VIS—force—the most significant of all.
Geometry being the principle according to which all forces develop, as one can see by looking at the images of elementary physics, it is natural to expect that the word designating force would also have a geometrical form. A drop of water abandoned to itself adopts the form of a sphere. Falling snow crystallizes in designs of an admirable regularity. The line is everywhere.
And so is number. We have chosen the number three as being the most perfect. Not only that but, additionally, we can make from these three signs all the others that we may please. The second letter is that which, for the Latins, represented unity. The first is the number five. Two Vs united at the extremity will give us the number ten. The last letter of the word offers us, it is necessary to say, no satisfactory interpretation. It is too undulating to designate any definite number. But is it not necessary that in any theory, no matter how precise it may be, that there should be an indeterminate part? In addition to the limited numbers, does there not exist an unlimited one? The series of numbers is infinite. It can always go beyond. It would be inappropriate for this word, the summary of the theory, to be closed in too definite a fashion. The S, with its imprecise form, allows the supposition of the infinity that numbers do not exhaust. Praised be the god of Pythagoras, who has furnished us, in our embarrassment, with this legitimate explanation. It is thus that the sage Epictetus was able to get out of anything.40
It is not enough that the form of the vocable should satisfy natural logic. What is the meaning of the word? If we accept the idea that modern philosophers have of the world, matter disappears; there is nothing beneath appearances but forces in action. Every movement, one of them has said, reveals a force expressing itself, every form a force expressed. In consequence, the term that we have had the good fortune to choose, appears to be the summary of all theories of the universe. From the viewpoint of form, as from the viewpoint of meaning, this benevolent vocable leaves nothing to be desired.
It would, in consequence, be unfortunate if it did not present to us a summary of philosophy—but let us be reassured; philosophy comprises the study of three faculties: Voluntarism,41 Intelligence and Sensibility. Let us combine the initial letters and we shall rediscover our word. Intelligence is placed between the two other faculties, which serve as its intermediaries, one active and one passive, with the external world. And each of the three is expressed by an appropriate gesture.
Intelligence, which pierces and goes straight to its goal, is the straight line. It is the arrow. It is the magic wand opening the treasures of thought. It is the eternal parallel to the progress of reality. It is the thyrsis around which the spirals of sensibility rotate to form the image of the caduceus, the entire anagram of Isis.
For Voluntarism, however, a more powerful form is necessary. And what is more expressive than V, the corner that penetrates and separates, whose action is unlimited, since the two branches extend to infinity. As accrued voluntarism is, in sum, the whole of magic, it is only just that the triangle and the pentagram are made up of Vs. The flight of doves, generation, and all things that go far are imaged there.
The curved-back S, fleeting and perverse, as if undulated by a spasm, represents sensibility. Under every appearance was revealed, to the gaze of the first man, the ancient serpent: the two halves of the circle each turned the other way; aptly representing impotence to satisfy eternal desire, they do not meet.
In what order is the synthesis of the three signs presented to us? Voluntarism comes first, as per the meaning of the word. Power is voluntarism. Intelligence is on the second level; intellectuals are not men of action. As for poor sensibility, it is understood that she only lags behind, timidly. What fairy will come to punish her two ugly sisters, and put the glass slipper on her so that she might marry the king’s son?
One can demonstrate the truth of what has been said by reversing the proof. Let us change the order of the three signs. Let us put Intelligence ahead of her sister Voluntarism. We would have less wild ideas, in which wisdom is dominant. In that new disposition, one obtains the Latin word IVS: law.42 What is justice, other than intelligence mastering blind voluntarism?
Le
t us also observe that in both cases, sensibility is sacrificed with a praiseworthy emulation. Justice, like force, carried a sword in her hand.
So many things can be found in a word that it is true to say that everything is in everything. One might extend these comparisons infinitely. The universe is like a sumptuous cloth; as soon as one grips it edge it unfolds completely. There is an immanent logic and things, like words, are captives of the golden chain. The principle escapes us, but if we believe, with the ancient metaphysicians, that the cause of life is the heat that force and movement produce, we can, before closing this fantastic explanation, recover in the word taken as a symbol the proof of this new meaning: the first sign is the vase in which one places hot coals, the second the flame that rises up, the third the smoke that coils around. The symbol of fire brings all symbols together in the future unity, as its image, terrestrial fire, melts rare metals together.
The Shadow
Behind the doors the musicians rubbed the catgut strings and the concert began.
It was an almost-invisible harmony, which the heavy wall-hangings seemed to hear as it pass through; and the conversationalists lying on supple divans modulated their words to the slow violins.
The oval flame of candelabras, amid the mirrors, was reminiscent of distant blue landscapes.
A flute-player: Stella.
She was sitting in the room, a delicate courtesan, with fine black wings on her forehead.
The poet bore exile in his eyes; the metaphysician with heavy eyelids evoked it in gestures with his hands; the third was one of those who go, in the evening, via the streets or gates of the city, toward the violet sunset, pausing before everything with keen senses, as before a painting.
For all three, and for her, the chimera of gold, the fragile ornament on her young bosom, had been placed around her neck in the solemn hours of infancy by an unknown god. It woke up from its metal sleep, the following day, on hearing a heartbeat.
A little while ago, the velvet portals having been lifted, the poet had welcomed Stella, when her laughter drew near, and had greeted her, without the irony quivering on the lips of other talkers, in his own language. Stella’s light soul, rising to her mouth in astonishment, had rendered them happy.
The window was closed on the profound blue.
Then the divans drew together, the doors were sealed and the third, thoughtfully, said to the others: “If I were not fearful of a ridiculous game, I would be saddened, as you are, by the absence of ivory skeletons in the hands of the king of the feast—you cannot, as he does, between those who remove the petals of violet thoughts, play distractedly with death. But since smiling life is born on Stella’s lips, let us evoke the lugubrious frame in which that rose flower will be wearing black.
“The danse macabre of frescoes cannot equal of the one that dances in our skulls. We shall lean over our souls, as over a well, with a sad gaze, and each one of us will describe the landscape that he has seen.
“Here come the young women of allegory, bearing urns in their hands.
“A king of oriental Sadness, standing on the threshold of his palace, makes an idle gesture, which the guards obey; the prisoners are set on their knees, their heads and faces upraised. Their grotesque fingers are agitated, for the executioners have come, and with their flexible phalanges, in response to the king’s whim, they have removed the sufferers’ eyelids. The eyelids have been removed in order to flutter no longer with any dear emotion, and the eyes, playfully, have been slowly turned around in their orbits. Now, what can be seen is two bloody circles in a pale face, and the nerves, exposed to the light, quiver, while he pupils are permanently directed into the obscure hollow—and these men, who no longer caress the magical décor of the external world, gaze immutably into themselves.
“The king approaches all the sensualists, laughing, and asks them: ‘What do you see?’
“The first says: ‘ I am leaning on a windowsill; the window opens on to a high wall; it is night; the wall extends above me to dizzying heights; beneath me it plunges into an abyss, and seems to occupy infinite space. The lamps in my room have gone out; only the window is open, and I gaze in bewilderment. Large fiery birds streak the obscurity, and I hear moaning, and I am sure than on the other side of the wall of exile are bright forms, and a blue park—but all the other windows are closed.’
“After that one, very slowly: ‘Similar, I remember, were the nocturnal halts I once made on the highway. I arrived at dusk, delightfully repenting having marched for twelve hours through perfumed hemp-fields. The hostelry was open and the joyful landlord in his white bonnet bowed to me on the threshold. I knew the same of the serving-women, and the puzzle of the sign was my friend. At the thought that the heavy treasure was buried in the cave beneath us, the evening’s delay seemed light to me. We went down with the landlord, the candles red and the keys forged; though the two open doors, which are eyes, through the webs where agile back spiders perch, I saw the immense and somber cellar, with its steps. But the cellar was empty, and the treasure gone. Someone, digging a tunnel through the ground, had fled toward the city in the fraternal night, knocking on doors to give evidence of his joy.’
“When they had both spoken, the last, an old blind man, spoke. ‘I have directed my eyes toward myself, and looked at myself. Let the executioner put his hand in mine that I should kiss it thankfully. In spite of the pain, a cry of ecstasy would have taken flight from my lips if my lips were not closed disdainfully—for what I see is the dream toward which my fleshy arm reached out in the luminous life of yesterday. You have partly lifted the veil or me, and I am now, O king, like a grim king, sitting alone with his wives and his beautiful silence, in the hall of his palace.’”
“What a gloomy story,” said Stella.
The storyteller turned to her and kissed her eyelids, then said:
“A frisson travels through space and pauses in our hearts, like a bird on a wall. When it sings, we think we are alone, not knowing from what horizon it came, and that other birds have a voice, but every soul is a landscape, and we bear the universe within us. Infinity leans its pale face over our mirror, and eternity weeps or is delighted by every moment of our life. What light can breach the ether of our extinct eyes, what speech that of our closed mouths? Everything is naught but shadow, and the shadow of ourselves. With the vestments of mages and the gestures of enchanters, we extend the glass eye of observation toward our brains and the stones of the highway—but the life that pursues us through the meanders of the grey matter refuses, and flees toward some willows, torch in hand, and leaves us nothing but formulae, amulets in the mouths of a mask, with which scientists are content. And the stones on the highway, beneath the magnifying eye, separate out an infinite number of atoms in a vertiginous explosion. Everything escapes us, and that is nothingness.
“A damned thing that gnaws the heart eternally, that is consciousness. No one should seek to know, and forms are what they are. Let us play the game of humanity, with roses and fine sobs, without desiring the true name of roses or whether the sobs emanate from a true heart. The great fall into the divine night, after the sad passage of life, only frightens us by virtue of the enchantments of that Circe, our soul. She creates appearances and pours the liquid marble of her soul into them. But we ought to be light forms, which are unaware, whose delicate vestment is never creased by the brush of any care, and go forth like shades, a hand holding before us a golden rod. Beneath the marble gaze of the sphinx, we would arrive at the shore of the vast sea, without interrogating the oscillatory night, nor touching the blue vault on the edge of out cloak. The words of the philosophers, from the very beginning, in their unfolding, are vainer than the delicate rosy spirals of a sea-shell that a walker on the sand crushes heavily underfoot.”
“Now,” said Stella, “the poet ought to reply and knock on the door of the Temple. If the guardian of the threshold is a female shade, she would take him to breathe the incense, and perhaps it would be appropriate to pray for her.”
“It is necessary not to use formulae, but to speak to you as to those ancient women whose disciples named them the muses, for you are the sister of the night. And you only come at nightfall after having wandered close by us all day, without our sparing you a glance. Once, I even thought I had lost you during a stroll on the sand on a motionless summer’s day. The Sun was so high overhead that you had vanished, doubtless having descended into the depths of the Earth to continue, among your sisters the shades, the obscure dream of my life. But in the evening, you climb the darkening stairways with me that vacillate in my torchlight. You march obliquely along the walls, like a thought, and you knock at the door at the same time, Shadow.
“The worship to be rendered to you is discreet, and without smoke, shadow and incense, perhaps you are already good to us, a companion for eternity. Supple and fleeting, you love walks in the dusk, where the street-lights make decreasing and dying circles for you. And you will remain until the hour when we become phantoms in our turn, to go on alone, somewhat emotional, through magical cities, O obscure face of the real, whose shadow we are, and who looks upon us with pity.
“Thus I speak to my companion, not really knowing which of us is the shadow and which the real individual. I always find her there, in the solemn lamplit hours; I’m sure that she doesn’t sleep at night, for I often wake up, with the light turned down, to spy on her, and I’ve seen her moving faintly on the wall. I move about, moaning, and make signs to her, to which she always replies. I am, therefore, not far from believing, which would please a Platonist, that she is my familiar demon.”