Dieudonat

by Edmond Haraucourt

  In a circle, the naked young women were standing up, astonished by their handiwork and admiring his reconquered beauty. To one of them, who was smiling more complaisantly, he responded with a smile. She advanced timidly, as if she feared having misunderstood and daring too much. He continued smiling at her, without knowing why; then the young woman’s lips expanded further; they came closer, and he saw them hovering above him like a pink bird, which came closer and closer to his mouth, while two eyes appealed to his soul and drank it through his eyes. He felt the fresh breasts settle over his heart, and above the shoulder of the first lover he perceived the others, who were going away, discreetly and sulkily.

  XIX. He discovers an aspect of divine bounty

  and becomes an optimist

  The revelation of amour produced a complete upheaval in Dieudonat. His stupor was indescribable; books of science or philosophy, and theologians too, had denounced to him, it is true, the existence of the inferior sensations that they classified under the denomination of “sensual pleasures,” and he had supposed that the label in question designated an ensemble of mediocre pleasures, such as those produced by foodstuffs with an agreeable taste. But about an emotion so intense, no one had warned him, either in writing or verbally. For the first time in his life, after so many doubts and negations, he had finally encountered a decisive verity, absolute light, doubtless ephemeral but the dazzling certainty of which nothing could abolish. The plenary light, he had seen! For a moment, he had possessed the incontestable! He was now able to remember something, and that thing fully merited all the honors of memory.

  Now, that sudden illumination having accompanied the loss of his virginity, he concluded, by means of syllogism, that the one was inherent in the other, as the effect in the cause, and that, in consequence, that minute must be unique for everyone, like those of birth and death.

  Of the three, that one is assuredly the best.

  In order not to trouble the last residues, he remained immobile in an ecstasy that was prolonged in languor, and in that demi-dream he told himself hat God is good; he had never doubted it in principle, even though he had never found many proofs of it before this one; at any rare, it was sufficient! But frankly, why were those same books obstinate in recommending chastity, in praising virginity, when the Church Fathers, in assembling to demonstrate the existence of God, did not have a single argument or a single cry in their homilies the eloquence of which was comparable to the one that emanates spontaneously from those two virtues when they are violated?

  I’m inclined to think that there is an error in the interpretation of the texts; we are told that virginity is agreeable to God, and I don’t dispute that, since it proves God on the day when one loses it; still, it is necessary to lose it, under pain of being impious, and that is quite evident.

  In the depths of his heart he formed the firm intention to remember, every evening and every morning, in the course of his prayers, the good moment that divine mercy had just given him. Then he uttered a sigh in thinking about the brevity of that precious moment.

  How beautiful life would be, Lord, if your clemency had wanted that sublime invention of your genius to be of renewable usage! Such a decision was possible for you, since nothing is impossible for you, according to the affirmation of our Prior. If the intoxication that the ablation of virginity brings were only permissible to us from time to time, this world would be your masterpiece, Lord. Perhaps you conceived the earthly paradise thus, and we have lost it. Who knows whether your angels might benefit from that durable perfection, which is forbidden to us, and whether their superiority does not consist of becoming virginal again indefinitely, in order to recommence no longer being, indefinitely? If it is thus, Lord, may I become an angel during eternity. Amen.

  “What are you thinking about, prince of my heart?”

  Thus spoke, softly, the young woman whose upper body was reposing on the arm of the ascetic, in breach of the ban.

  “I’m thinking…about that which is already past...”

  She kissed his eyes, laughing with pleasure.

  “Do you love me?” she asked.

  “Have no doubt of it,” he replied. “My gratitude will be associated with your memory and that of this hour, of which you were the emissary and sacred instrument.”

  “Emissary, my treasure?”

  “The unexpected happiness has been conceded to me by you, and you must tell me your name, in order that I can bless it.”

  “My name is Lelia.”

  “O Lelia, my beautiful cousin, my grateful soul honors your benefit.”

  She thought that the foreigner’s gallantry was expressed in locutions that were slightly too pompous, and which lacked abandon, but not civility; she attributed that excess of correction to the fashions of a country that she did not know.

  “Tell me, darling, do people talk to women like that where you come from?”

  “I don’t know, but ought one to speak otherwise to the person who was chosen among all to reveal Heaven to a son of the earth?”

  She tried to understand, and almost succeeded.

  “What?” she said. “I revealed to you…?”

  “Infinity.”

  “Really? You were...?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I...”

  “Yes.

  “At your age! What age are you, then?”

  “Thirty-three years.”

  She clapped her hands, proud of her collaboration, and called her companions back in order to announce he news to them, but none of them wanted to believe it.

  “He’s making fun of you, Lelia!”

  “Isn’t it the case, darling, that you’re not joking, and that it’s true?”

  “My heart is still beating.”

  “Poor boy, then. He’s been locked in a convent.”

  “He must have barbaric parents!”

  The brunette Cleanthis, who had red flowers in her hair and was more daring than the others, drew closer to the master in order to confess. She sat down very close to him. hip to hip; she spoke into his ear and he replied in a low voice, and as they conversed, a double astonishment elongated their faces. Around them, the beautiful maidservants observed, intrigued. With lively gestures and eyes shining with gaiety, seemed to be affirming something, which the Prince still doubted.

  Finally, she burst out laughing, and cried: “That’s too funny, can you imagine that…he believes that…he doesn’t want to believe that...”

  She had to try several successive formulae to explain, as best she could, the naïve illusion of the neophyte who thought that he no longer had the right ever to rediscover the vanished intoxication.”

  “What are we doing on earth, then?”

  The laughed uproariously, having lost all respect for a man so naïve, for it is generally admitted that candor is a feminine virtue and a masculine vice. Crowded around him and all talking at once, they offered to prove his error without delay. Cleanthis claimed priority; it was recognized.

  With a sovereign gesture, she dismissed her friends, and the proof was administered.

  “O beloved master, do you still doubt?”

  “Oh!” said Dieudonat. “That changes the aspect of the world notably! Life is not at all what I imagined it to be! I didn’t know anything worthwhile, and I’ve wasted my time. In truth, the Earthly Paradise still exists, whatever people say, and it’s an offense to God voluntarily to turn away from the best gift that he has granted us! I was impious, quite simply, and without knowing it; God has punished my disdain; that’s justice. It’s necessary to observe, though, that it wasn’t my fault; the books deceived me. Can you read, Cleanthis?”

  “No.”

  “And yet, you’re very knowledgeable, since you’ve instructed me, who has read everything.”

  “I know the most important thing.”

  “Indeed, my cousin, and you’ve proved it to me well. But perhaps you can tell me why the moralists have been able to put themselves in accord to classify among the s
ins a fête that God organized himself, and that it is appropriate for us to celebrate with actions of grace?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “I’ll reflect on it further at leisure, when calm has returned to my intellect. For a quarter of an hour, it will suffice for me to reprove my error and to renounce the sin of abstinence; I shall not commit it any longer; I intend to reform my life to the extent that it depends on me, and whatever the number of my days might be. For I don’t know the designs of our King, but my gratitude to him is acquired henceforth, even if he has my head cut off.”

  “His Majesty isn’t thinking about cutting off any part of you, Milord; the proof is that he ordered us to serve you with tenderness, and promised us anything if were able to render you happy.”

  “Your sovereign is a philanthropist; I judged him very poorly, only knowing him by his military exploits; but a man is truly worthy of the scepter who applies himself to use it for the good of his fellows. I shall tell him that, thanking him as is appropriate. Since, thanks to him, this dwelling is mine, I shall no longer leave it; my solitude is with you. Here I shall install the convent of which we shall be the cenobites, and we shall celebrate together the works of adoration. Dear young women, I have vowed no longer to give anything but my person; it is a fine vow; much finer than I thought. Recall your sisters, Cleanthis.”

  “Already, Milord?”

  “Don’t name me thus, cousin; rather give me a kiss with your mouth. I am not your lord, Cleanthis, but your disciple, and very glad of what you have taught me, very glad, Cleanthis; I shall retain a gratitude to you a thousand times superior to that which I owe Lelia, for she taught me happiness, but I owe to you the knowledge that happiness is innumerable.”

  At that moment, Anoure advanced, with the regulation salutation, to announce that the King would receive his guest in an hour.

  “In an hour!” said Dieudonat. “That’s very regrettable, but I’d be an ingrate if I hesitated to obey. Let’s go find the King.”

  He got up, sighing, and the maidservants returned, in order to adorn him, with a view to his reception; they trimmed his beard and hair, and then they dressed him in magnificent clothes, which molded his forms narrowly.

  Then, he appeared so handsome that they would have had difficulty recognizing him. Sacred virility had transfigured him. When he appeared on the perron of the palace, a murmur of admiration emerged from the people, and, better than before, the crowd understood that he was a Prince.

  The maidservants, hidden behind the windows, watched their master draw away.

  “Alas,” they said, “he won’t come back to us. When the great ladies of the Court have seen him as he is now, they’ll want to keep him for themselves.”

  “The great ladies,” said Lelia, “are very knowledgeable, and we can’t compete with them.”

  “Are you sure?” said Cleanthis.

  XX. He multiplies with excess the gracious gifts

  of his person

  Dieudonat made a sensational entrance to the Court. On seeing the man who had been depicted to them as a savage, the ladies uttered a little cry of surprise, and the lords pulled faces; his virile and lithe stature, an ensemble of strength and delicacy, his proud bearing, but without arrogance, his pure features, his casual gestures and his generous and frank physiognomy, everything about him, expressed an avidity to comprehend, to live, and need to go forth and to give. A strange ardor was shining in his eyes, at the memory of the fire of youth that had just animated his blood for the first time.

  “Well,” said Gaifer, “is that my anchorite? Hasn’t his journey changed him?”

  “He’s nice,” sad Princess Aude.

  “He’s better than that,” said Queen Gaude.

  The maids of honor shifted their honor on the stools.

  The newcomer had stopped on the threshold of the Great Hall, and his glance verified the noble ladies, counting more than a hundred. He was glad of that, and approved their presence. Under his circular gaze, they sensed a caress brush them all, and the Prince advanced amid smiles.

  In the distance, at the back, was the King, under his gold-fringed awning, enthroned in a semicircle of halberdiers and ministers, who all belonged to the male sex, and thus did not merit any attention. Unhurriedly, Dieudonat walked toward the throne; but there he was distracted, having bared his head, having discovered Princess Aude at the foot of the steps, who was contemplating him with large candid eyes, and Queen Gaude, who was analyzing him with little knowing eyes; they pleased him, and he saluted the King. At the same time, he recognized, to the right of the monarch, Archduke Galeas the One-Eyed, whom he was astonished to find in this place. For twenty years, His Serene Highness had been awaiting the death of the sick old Emperor, who could not decide to pass on, and the humor of the heir had become increasingly caustic; already, three wives had passed from his couch to the coffin, and he was in quest of a fourth fiancée. At the approach of Dieudonat, whose insolence he remembered, he frowned the eyebrow over his punctured eye, which was a bad sign.

  However, Gaifer was already proffering, pompously: “Prince Dieudonat, we know that your father has lacked gratitude and justice toward you; Heaven has punished him for it. The paternal bounty that you ought to have expected from him, you will find with us. In adopting his Estates, we are adopting his son. You will be ours henceforth.”

  Having spoken, the sovereign stood up, descended from his throne, came to his guest and gave him the accolade; his royal moustaches reeked of beer and lavender. Afterwards, he turned to Galeas.

  “Serene Highness, I solicit for this man the high favor of your bounty, and I ask Your Highness to consider him henceforth as a member of this household, which Your Imperial Highness has deigned to chose among all for the honor of his august alliance.”

  Dieudonat advanced toward the Queen with eyes like carbuncles. “Never would I have seen in you a mother.”

  “Kiss me all the same.”

  And Her Majesty extended her cheek, which smelled good.

  Princess Aude having raised her chin in her turn, her improvised brother kissed her immediately; she blushed, and for the second time, Galeas frowned.

  Then the courtiers were introduced, and kissed the hand of their new prince, who found that ceremony absurd and too long; he changed his opinion when the ladies and damsels filed past. A few of them were beautiful, many of them were pretty, and they were all women. The touch of their lips and the current of their breath tickled his fingers delightfully; the inclined curves of their bodies, which he was already examining as a connoisseur, had a moving grace in the genuflection, and the gaze that several raised toward his face entered into his eyes and flowed into him like a warm liquid; many a time, the tips of his fingers were seen to return to render a caress to the face whose contact had caused him pleasure; it was noticeable that the honorific distinction in question was only awarded to the most becoming.

  This one, yes; that one, no...

  He classified them as they passed by. Still obsessed by his discoveries regarding the collaboration of the sexes, he was incapable of deflecting his mind away from it, and scarcely tried; knowing all those gentle creatures in the possession of latent sensuality, he delighted in thinking that each of them contained infinity, and catalogued them mentally in accordance with their physical advantages, without paying any attention to their hierarchical dignities. He adopted one, dismissed another, and cast his designs like a benediction: This one, yes; that one, no... They followed one another; the game amused him; the Devil recorded his wishes, and when the file came to an end, sixty-three elect carried away the sacrament of a desire; Aude and Gaude were among them.

  The best endowed of men no longer reason when the concern of amour grips them. Dieudonat, in playing thus, had almost forgotten that he was the individual whose wishes were realized; sixty-three lovers returned to their seats, affected by the contagion and perfectly decided no longer to see any but one romantic hero on earth, Him! To that number were added the persons
who are spurred on when they are disdained, and those, more reasonable, who were able to calculate the real importance of a rich man introduced into a good family, adding equally to the dowry of virgins to be married a gentleman full of future.

  Already, rivalries were sniffing one another out; a fever of competition electrified the palace, while a fever of amour vulcanized it from below; wives were nervous and husbands peevish; fiancés sulked, virgins dreamed, and mothers looked daggers at one another.

  The clan of diplomats was unanimous in criticizing the indecent attitude of the foreigner during the hand-kissing.

  “He lacks deportment, that anchorite.”

  “An impolite donkey,” riposted Galeas.

  The courtiers deemed that that was what is known as a witty remark; jealousies on the alert caused it to circulate as far as the princess, who declared it stupid, inept and abject.

  “Highness, it comes from your fiancé.”

  “And worthy of him!”

  Three minutes later, His Serene Highness was informed of that discourteous appreciation; he was irritated by it; the malcontents applied themselves to exciting him; he seethed; nascent hostilities learned that they had a leader. Hatred germinates in the shadow of amour.

  Dieudonat had no suspicion of anything. The King having taken him into his carriage in order to enable him to admire the splendors of the capital, he traveled through the interminable ovation of the boulevards. Affable by nature, he responded with amenity to the acclamations of the crowd. When the encumbrance of the avenues obliged the horses to slow down, he looked at the idlers; he discovered in that way a few hundred adorable women, and wanted them politely for a second before drawing away; a wake of the enamored extended behind the two sides of the carriage, and several of them were sluts who had no appetite for waiting.