Daughters of Fire, Gerard de Nerval

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8) From the Income of

the Becjuest ofWALTER W. jj

NAUMBURG'89

Harvard College Library

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DAUGHTERS OF FIRESYLVIE EMILIE OCTAVIE

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THE SEA GULL LIBRARYEdited by O. F. THEIS

VOL. I.ROMANCE OF THERABBIT. By Francis Jammes.Authorized translation by Gladys

Edgerton.

VOL. ILMOGENS and OTHERSTORIES. By Jens PeterJacobsen.Translated from the Danish by

Anna Grabow.

VOL. III.THE SHEPHERD'SPIPE. By Arthur Schnitzlbr.

Authorizedtranslaiion by 0. F. Theis.

VOL. IV. DAUGHTERS OFFIRE. By Gerard db Nerval.Translated from the French by

James WhitaU.

OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION

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DAUGHTERS OF FIRESYLVIEEMILIEOCTAVIE

By

GERARD DE NERVAL

Translated from the French

ByJAMES WHITALL

NICHOLAS L. BROWNNEW YORK MCMXXII

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Copyright, 1922BY

NICHOLAS L. BROWN

HKH3.n. ?5~

AU rights reserved

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CONTENTSPage

Introduction 7

Sylvie 17

Ebuleb 83

Octavib 125

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INTRODUCTION

The writings of G&rard de Nerval (1808-1855) are seldom found upon the bookshelvesof the present-day reader, and it is a pity thatthis should be so when one considers the impor-tance of his place in French literature. Hisgreatest achievements are Les Filles du Feu,Le Rive et la Vie, and the sonnets, of which ElDesdichado, Arthbnise and Myrtho are the bestknown, and their profound influence uponthe poetry of France is now admitted by thebest critics of that country. It may be thatthe writer of them died in ignorance of whathe had done, but, according to Arthur Symons,it is unquestionably a fact that he discov-ered "one of the foundations of what maybe called the practical aesthetics of Symbol-ism." Mallarm6 and Verlaine followed himand there is evidence to be found in the worksof both of these poets that the glimmeringtorch of this man, who could himself see intothe darkness, had preceded them like a will-o'-the-wisp. Gerard's whole life was a web of

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8 INTRODUCTION

dreams and realities, and indeed his contem-poraries, the Romantics, saw more of the vision-ary than of the man of letters in him. Hisdiscreet voice was scarcely heard then, for hiswords fell upon ears that were unprepared,and he himself felt that beauty was far toomysterious a thing to be comprehended by thecrowd. Gerard's dreams, as he says, over-flowed into his real life, and it was not duringhis periods of sanity but in those of madnessthat he produced his finest work.He wandered the streets of Paris, travelled

to the East, and made several visits to Ger-many. His resting places were asylums, policestations, and rooms shared with eccentricfriends, and the tragedy with which he endedhis life occurred in the rue de la Vieille Lanterne,where his body was found one morning sus-pended from an iron railing. He had beencarrying about with him an apron string, whichhe thought was the garter of the Queen ofSheba, and it was with this that he hangedhimself. Gfrard's friends' eccentricities werecarefully thought out, but he himself did notpose and the incident in the Patais~Roy

INTRODUCTION 9

blue ribbon, because, he said, "it does notbark and knows the secrets of the sea.

"

It is a delightful experience to read a piece ofGerard's prose, not only because it flows insuch a pleasing rhythm, but because it is alwaysan unconscious revelation rather than a studiedexposition of his emotions;. and the voice thatwas lost in the lyrical tumult of his time nowrises from his pages with a penetrating sweet-ness which those of his contemporaries did notpossess. To attempt a translation of threestories from Les FiUes du Feu requires a certainamount of courage, especially in the case ofSylvie, and the mere thought of such a thingmay distress those who are familiar with thatdelicate tissue of youthful memories. Butfrom the moment of my first reading thislabor became inevitable, and if I have pre-served in the pages that follow even a fewfaintly heard echoes of that rare music, I shallfeel that my time has not been ill spent, andthat no one can accuse me of unfaithfulness.My hopes of presenting to my readers as cap-tivating a Sylvie as Gfrard's soon faded away,and I have often turned from my table in de-spair, allowing my thoughts to be carried offin the gentle current of his phrases to a time

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10 INTRODUCTION

almost a hundred years ago when the littleParisian first gazed upon Adrienne, or perhapsone should say, when his mind became pos-sessed by the vision he had of her.

Sylvie was written during those tense fever-ish months, just before Gerard's death, whenhis genius was' at its highest mark; he undoubt-edly realized that darkness might come downupon him again at any moment, and that hehad only a limited time in which to accomplishwhat he must have known would be his master-piece, and he succeeded in giving us not onlyhis masterpiece, but also the key to his way-ward fantastic existence.The appearanceor it may have been only

the visionof Adrienne, that first unforgetablemoment when the bewitchment of Poetry andLove fell upon him, was the divine experienceof Gerard's youth, and to return to his belovedValois while engaged in writing Sylvie was toreturn to Adrienne. The greater part of thestory is concerned with Sylvie, but that otheralmost symbolic figure lurks behind everyphrase, and the actress Amelia (Jenny Colon),in whom Gerard thought he saw a resemblanceto his Ideal, strikes the minor note for hisopening pages and for his conclusion.

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INTRODUCTION 11

I have said that Sylvie gives the key to itsauthor's existence, and there may be a desireon the part of some to know to what extent thestory is autobiographical; but this curiosity, ifit is felt, can only be partially satisfied. It isfairly certain that there is no pure inventionin it, but we must remember that Sylvie is apoet's presentment of the episodes of his youth,and that the intervening years may have con-fused the outlines of the silhouettes cast bythese events upon his memory. One of hisbiographers, Aristide Marie, says: "It is alldone with miraculous art, in the purest andmost musical languagean unrestrained rev-elation of his divine soul. The melody flowssmoothly, undisturbed by sharp accents, andone is only conscious of an imperceptible noteof sorrow, saddening here and there this swan-song, and tinging with ineffable melancholythe poet's last smile at the beauty of thisworld."

Sylvie and Octavie are both in great partautobiographical, and they are both examplesof Gerard's finest manner. Emilie makesquite a different appeal and it proves him to bea story-teller as well as a composer of word-music. In all three stories we are conscious of

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12 INTRODUCTION

a slight chronological confusion; Gerard oftenseems to have difficulty in dealing with timeand place, but it must be borne in mind thathis eyes were almost continually fixed uponthe unknown; the past and the future werealways with him, and it was only through con-tact with normal people that he was able to layhold upon the present. During his momentsof sanity he was always peering out of the realworld into the darkness which so frequentlyenveloped him. Sleep was possible only duringthe day, and at night he wandered the streets,his restless feet in constant motion. Perhapshe thought the wanderings of his mind couldbe checked in this fashion.he Rive el la Vie, his last work, was written

when he was considered by the world in generalto be actually mad, and it is a narrative ofmadness from the pen of the madman himself.The concluding fragments of it were found inhis pockets after his death, written uponcrumpled bits of paper, and interspersed withcabalistic signs and strange geometrical dem-onstrations. Th6ophile Gautier finds in it,"cold reason seated by the bedside of hot fever,hallucination analyzing itself by a supremephilosophic effort."

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INTRODUCTION 13

Jenny Colon, the actress who was the objectof Gerard's sane adoration, had died, and herspirit was his constant companion till the endof his life. When the fact of her death pene-trated his confused mind, he said in a letter toa friend, "I am now certain of the existence ofanother world where lovers meet. She is muchmore mine in death than she was in life. " LeBfoe et la Vie is the record of his communionwith the spirit of Jenny Colon, and to read itis to realize that from the moment of her deathG&rard's pilgrimages into the world of darknessbehind the stars were more than vague wander-ings; there was a new figure in his country of

dreams, frequently caught sight of, but always,as he says, "as though lit up by a lightning-flash, pale and dying, hurried away by darkhorsemen.

"

On that evening of mist and moonlight inGerard's childhood, Adrienne floated in andout of his vision, and all his subsequent loves,whether of this world or notJenny Colon, orSylvie, or Isis, or the Queen of Shebaweremerely reincarnations. Adrienne remained thesupreme inspiration of his life: the divinespectre of ever-changing form who led himthrough the fatal labyrinth of madness. He

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14 INTRODUCTION

listened to the "secret voices of Nature," and,though a captive upon earth, "held conversa-tion with the starry choir." His eyes restedupon strange things, strange music fell upon hisears, and there were times when he was blindedby the light that flowed in upon him frombehind the world, but he was able to set downupon paper the materializations of the sightsand sounds that came to him. And he it waswho first divined that words could be usedsymbolically, that they might be made directlyto suggest beauty, not simply its reflection orits praise, but beauty itself, intangible andmysterious.

J. W.

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SYLVIE

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SYLVIE

I

Leisure Nights

ILEFT the theatre where I sat every eveningin a stage box, dressed with the eleganceand care befitting my hopes. Sometimes

the house was full, and sometimes empty, butit mattered little to me whether my eyes restedupon thirty or forty deadheads in the pit andupon boxes filled with old-time caps anddresses, or whether I found myself part of anenthusiastic audience, crowding every tier withcolor and the gleam of jewels. The stageawakened my interest no more than did thehouse, except, during the second and thirdscene of the tiresome play, when a vivid ap-pearance illuminated the empty spaces, and,with a breath and a word, summoned theshadowy figures of the actors back to life.

I felt that I lived in her, and that she livedonly for me. Her smile filled me with infinitecontentment, and the resonance of her voice,now soft, now vibrating with emotion, made

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18 DAUGHTERS OF FIRE

me tremble with joy and love. She under-stood all my enthusiasms and whims ; forme shepossessed every perfectionradiant as the day,when the footlights shone upon her from below,pale as the night, when the footlights wereturned down and the rays of the chandeliershowed her simple beauty against a curtain ofshadows, like one of the divine Hours carvedon the sombre background of the frescoes ofHerculaneuin.

For a year it had not entered my mind tofind out what her life away from the theatremight be, and I was loth to disturb the magicmirror that held her image. I may have lis-tened to idle speculations about her privatelife, but my interest in it was no greater than inthe prevailing rumors about the Princess ofElis or the Queen of Trebizond, for one of myuncles who had lived in the eighteenth centuryhad warned me in good time that an actresswas not a woman and that Nature had forgot-ten to give her a heart. Of course he meantthose of his own time, but he recounted somany of his illusions and his deceptions, and heshowed me so many portraits on ivorycharm-ing medallions which now adorned his snuff-boxesso many faded letters and ribbons, each

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SYLVIE 19

the token of a disappointment, that I had falleninto the habit of mistrusting them all.We were in the midst of strange years then,

years like those that generally follow a revo-

lution or the decline of a great empire. Therewas none of the noble gallantry of the Fronde,the polite vice of the Regency, or the skepti-cism and mad orgies of the Directorate; welived in a confusion of activity, hesitation andindolence, of dazzling Utopias, of philosophicalor religious aspirations, of vague enthusiasmsmingled with certain impulses towards a re-newal of life, of weariness at the thought ofpast discord, of unformulated hopesit wassomething like the epochs of Peregrinus andApuleius. We looked for new birth from thebouquet of roses that the beautiful Isis shouldbring us; and at night the young and puregoddess appeared, and we were stricken withshame for the daylight hours we wasted. Butambition had no part in our life, for the greedyrace for position and honors had closed to usall the possible paths to activity. Our onlyrefuge from the multitude was that IvoryTower of the poets which we were alwaysclimbing higher and higher. Upon theseheights whither our masters led us, we breathed

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at last the pure air of solitude, we drank forget-fulness from the golden cup of legend, and wewere intoxicated with poetry and love. Love,alas! vague figures, tinges of blue and rose,spectral abstractions! Intimacies with womenoffended our ingenuousness, and it was ourrule to look upon them as Goddesses or Queens,and above all never to approach them.But there were some of our number never-

theless who thought little of these platonicsublimities, and sometimes amid our dreamsborrowed from Alexandria they shook thesmoldering torch of subterranean gods, andsent a trail of sparks through the darkness.Thus on leaving the theatre, my soul full of thesadness of a fading vision, I was glad to availmyself of the society of a club where many weresupping and where melancholy yielded to theunfailing warmth of certain brilliant spiritswhose ardor and passion often rendered themsublimesuch people as one always meetsduring periods of renovation or decadence

people whose discussions often reached a pointwhere the more timid amongst us would go tothe windows to make certain that the Huns,or the Turkomanians, or the Cossacks, had notarrived at last to put an end to rhetoric and

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SYLVIE 21

sophism. "Let us drink, let us love, that iswisdom!" was the only opinion of the youthsamong them, and it was one of these who saidtome:

"I've been meeting you in the same theatrenow for a long time, I always find you there.For whom do you go?" For whom? ... Ithad never occurred to me that one could gothere for another. However, I mentioned aname.

" Well, " said my friend, indulgently, " there'sthe happy man who has just taken her homeand who, faithful to the laws of our club, willprobably not see her again until to-morrowmorning.

"

Without showing too much interest, I turnedand saw a young man of the world, faultlesslyattired, with a pale, expectant face and eyesfull of a gentle sadness. He was sitting at awhist-table, where he threw down his gold andlost it heedlessly.

"What does he matter to me?" I said, "orany other? There had to be some one, and heseems worthy of her choice.

"

"And you?""Me? I'm following a likeness, nothing

more,"

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I went out through the reading-room andinstinctively picked up a newspaper; I think Iwanted to see how the market was going, forafter the wreck of my fortune there remaineda considerable sum in foreign shares, and arumor was afloat that the property was at lastgoing to amount to something. A ministryhad just fallen and the quotation was veryhigh; I was rich once more.Only one thought arose out of this turn in

my affairs: the woman I had loved for so longwas mine for the asking; my ideal was withinreach. Surely I was deluding myself with amocking misprint? But all the newspaperscontained the same quotation, and my winningsrose up before me like the golden statue ofMoloch. What would that young man saynow, I wondered, if I were to take possessionof the woman he had forsaken? ... I trembledat the thought and then my pride asserteditself. No! at my age one does not put an endto love with money; I will not be a seducer.After all, the times have changed, and how doI know she is mercenary?My eyes ran vaguely over the newspaper I

was still holding, and I read these two lines:"F2fe du Bouquet Provincial. To-morrow the

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SYLVIE 23

archers of Senlis will present the bouquet tothose of Loisy." These simple words awakenedin me an entirely new train of thought; memo-ries of the province forgotten long ago, distantechoes of the care-free festivals of youth. Thehorn and the drum sounded far away in thehamlets and in the forests; maidens were weav-ing garlands, and they sang as they sorted outthe bouquets tied with ribbons. A heavywagon drawn by oxen passed by to receivethese gifts, and we, the children of the country,took our places in the procession, knights byvirtue of our bows and arrows, unaware thenthat we were but repeating through the years adruidic festival that would outlive monarchiesand new religions.

II

Adrienne

IWENT to bed but found no rest; and as Ilay there between sleeping and waking,memories of my childhood thronged about

me. In this state, where the mind still resiststhe fantastic combinations of dreams, the im-

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portant happenings of a long period of one'slife often crowd themselves into a few moments.The picture rose up in my mind of a chateau

of the time of Henry IV, with its pointed slateroofs, its reddish front and yellowed stone-work, and its wide enclosure edged by elms andlindens whose foliage scattered golden shaftsfrom the setting sun upon the smooth greensurface. Maidens danced in a ring on the grass,and they sang the old melodies, handed downto them by their mothers, with an accent so un-affectedly pure that one seemed to be actuallyliving in that old Valois country where the heartof France beat for more than a thousand years.

I was the only boy at this dance and I hadtaken Sylvie with me, a little girl from the nexthamlet. She was so alive and so fresh, withher black eyes, her clearly cut profile and deli-cately tanned complexion! . . . I loved no onebut her, I had eyes for no one elseuntil then!. . . I saw a tall and beautiful light-haired girlin the ring where we were dancing, one whomthey called Adrienne. All at once, by the rulesof the dance, we found ourselves along in themiddle of the ring. We were of the sameheight; we were told to kiss each other, and thedancing and singing became livelier than ever.

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SYLVIE 25

... I pressed her hand when I kissed her, and Ifelt the light touch of long golden ringlets uponmy cheeks. From that moment a strangeuneasiness took possession of me.Adrienne had to sing that she might have

the right to rejoin the dance. We sat in a circleabout her and she began at once in the clearand delicately modulated voice peculiar to theyoung girls of that misty country. Her songwas one of those old-time ballads, full of pas-sionate sadness, that always tell of the misfor-tunes of a princess imprisoned in her tower forhaving loved. At the end of each stanza themelody passed into one of those quiveringtrills that young voices can make so much of,when, by means of a restrained shudder, theysimulate the trembling voices of their grand-mothers.

Twilight came down from the great treesaround us as the song drew to a close, and thelight of the rising moon fell upon her, alone inthe midst of our listening circle; then shestopped and none of us dared to break thesilence. A faint white mist spread itself overthe lawn and rested upon the tips of the grass,and we thought ourselves in Paradise. ... Atlast I got up and ran to where there were some

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laurels planted in tall earthenware vases, andbrought back two branches which had beenwoven into a crown and tied with ribbon. Iplaced this ornament upon Adrienne's head,and its shiny foliage caught the pale gleam ofthe moon. She was like Dante's Beatricesmiling at him as he wandered on the bordersof Heaven.

Then she got up, and making us a gracefulcurtsy, which showed us her slender figure, sheran across the lawn into the chateau. Theysaid she was the granddaughter of one of thedescendants of a family related to the ancientkings of France; the blood of the Valois ran inher veins. For this day of festivities she hadbeen allowed to join in our games, but we werenot to see her again, for she was returning thefollowing morning to her convent school.

Sylvie was crying when I returned to her,and I found that the reason for her tears wasthe crown I had given to Adrienne. I offeredto get her another but she refused, saying shewas unworthy of it. I tried to defend myself,but she did not speak to me again that evening.When I returned to Paris to continue my

studies, my mind was divided between a tenderfriendship that had come to an end, and a

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SYLVIE 27

vague, impossible love enveloping me withpainful thoughts which a schoolboy's philos-ophy was powerless to disperse.But Adrienne triumphed in the end

a

mirage of beauty and nobility, that lightenedor shared the severity of my studies. Duringthe next summer's holiday I learned that, inobedience to her family's wishes, she hadentered a convent.

Ill

Resolution

EVERYTHING was made clear to me bythis half-dreamed memory. This un-reasonable and hopeless love I had con-

ceived for an actress, that took possession ofme every evening at the time of the play, onlyto set me free at bedtime, had its origin in thememory of Adrienne, a flower of the night thatopened to the pale moon, a youthful apparition,half-bathed in mist, gliding across the grass.

The almost-forgotten features were now singu-

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larly clear, and it was as though a pencil sketch,dimmed by time, had become a painting; firstthe master's rough study and then the splendidfinished picture.

To love a nun in the guise of an actress! Andwhat if they were one and the same! Thatpossibility leads to madness, but it is an inev-itable impulsethe unknown beckons like thewill-o'-the-wisp fading through the rushes in astill pool.But we must cling to realities.Why have I forgotten Sylvie for so long,

Sylvie whom I loved so well? She was such apretty little girl, much the prettiest in Loisy.Surely she is still there, as innocent and asgood as she was then. I can see her windownow, framed by creepers and roses, and the cageof warblers hanging on the left; I can hear herwhirring spindle and she is singing her favoritesong:

La belle etait assisePrts du ruisseau coulant. .

.

She is still waiting for me. Who would havemarried her? She is so poor! There were onlypeasants in Loisy and the neighboring hamlets,rough fellows with toil-worn hands and thin,sunburnt faces, so when I came to visit myuncle who lived near by, she loved me, a little

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SYLVIE 29

Parisian. My poor uncle is dead now and forthe last three years I have been lavishly spend-ing the modest legacy he left me, and it mighthave been enough for the rest ofmy life. WithSylvie I would have saved it, and now Chancebrings to my mind this opportunity before itis too late.

What is she doing at this moment? She isasleepno, she cannot be, for to-day is theFestival of the Bow, the only one of the yearwhen they dance the night through. . . . Sheis at the dance.What time is it now?I had no watch, and my gaze wandered over

the extravagant collection of furniture withwhich an old-fashioned apartment is usuallygiven its proper atmosphere. My Renaissanceclock of tortoise-shell surpassed all the otherobjects with its quiet richness. A gilded dome,surmounted by the figure of Time, is supportedby caryatids of the Medici period upon half-rampant horses, and Diana, leaning upon herstag, is in bas-relief beneath a dial inlaid withenameled figures of the hours. But I did notbuy this clock in Touraine that I might knowthe time, and, though an excellent one, it hasprobably not been wound up for two centuries.

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30 ' DAUGHTERS OF FIRE

I went downstairs, saying to myself that Icould get to Loisy in four hours. The porter'sclock struck one as I passed out into the Placedu Palais-Royal, where there were still four orfive cabs waiting, no doubt, for fares from theclubs and gambling houses. I mentioned mydestination to the nearest one."And where is that?" he asked."Near Senlis, about twenty miles."" I will take you to the post-house, " said the

cabman, less absorbed than I.How dreary the Flanders road is at night,

until it enters the forest! Always the doublerows of trees, monotonous and vague in themist; meadows and ploughed land to right andleft, with the gray hills of Montmorency,Ecouen and Luzarches beyond. And thencomes the dreary market town of Gonesse withits memories of the League and the Fronde,but, beyond Louvres, there is a short cut to thevillages where I have often seen apple blossomsshining through the darkness like stars of theearth. While my carriage slowly ascends thehill, Tet me try to call those happy days to life.

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SYLVIE 31

IV

To the Island op Venus

SEVERAL years had passed, and alreadymy meeting with Adrienne in front of thechateau was no more than a memory of

youth. I had happened to be at Loisy on thepatron saint's day and took my accustomedplace among the Knights of the Bow. Someyoung people from the dilapidated chateauxin the neighboring forests had arranged thefestival, and from Chantilly, Compi&gne andSenlis joyous companies came trooping to jointhe rural cavalcade. After the long walkthrough towns and villages, and when masswas over and the prizes for the sports had beenawarded, a banquet for the prize-winners washeld on an island, covered with poplars andlindens, in one of the lakes fed by the Nonetteand the Thfrve. Barges adorned with flowerscarried us to this island, chosen for its ovaltemple which was to serve as banqueting hall.There are many of those delicate structuresthereabouts, built by rich philosophers to-wards the end of the eighteenth century. Ithink this temple must have been originallydedicated to Urania. Three of the pillars had

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fallen, carrying a part of the architrave withthem, but the fragments had been cleared awayand garlands were hung between the remainingpillars; such was the restoration of this modernruin, for which the paganism of Boufflers orChaulieu was responsible rather than that ofHorace.

It may be that the crossing of the lake hadbeen devised to call up the memory of Wat-teau's Voyage a Cythere, and the illusion wascomplete but for our modern costumes. Thegreat bouquet of the festival had been takenfrom the wagon that carried it and was placedin one of the largest barges, the customaryescort of little girls in white dresses took seatsaround it, and this graceful procession, re-created from that of another day, was mirroredin the calm waters that lay between it and theisland. The thickets of thorn, the colonnadeand the brilliant foliage, glowed red in theafternoon sun, and when all the barges hadlanded and the bouquet had been carried cere-moniously to the centre of the table, we tookour places, the more fortunate of the boys sit-ting next to the girls. To obtain this favor itwas only necessary to be known to their fami-lies, and I managed to sit by Sylvie, for her

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SYLVIE 33

brother and I had been together in the pro-cession. He reproached me for never comingto see them and I spoke of my studies whichkept me in Paris, assuring him that this timeI had come especially to pay them a visit."No, he's forgotten me," Sylvie said.

"We're village people and Paris is so far aboveus!"

I wanted to close her mouth with a kiss, butshe kept on pouting until her brother inter-vened and she offered me her cheek in a veryhalf-hearted fashion. It was the sort of kissshe had often given to others and I did notenjoy it, for in that old country, where onespeaks to everybody, a kiss is no more than apoliteness among well-mannered people.The directors of the festival had arranged

a surprise for us, and when the banquet wasover, a wild swan rose up out of the depths ofthe basket where it had been confined beneaththe flowers. Wreaths and garlands were liftedupon its strong wings and they fell all about us,and each boy took possession of one of them forthe adornment of his companion's brow, whilethe swan took joyous flight towards the glowof the sinking sun. It was my good fortune toget one of the finest of these wreaths, and this

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time Sylvie was smiling when I kissed her, sothe memory of that other day was blotted out.My admiration of her now was complete, forshe had become so beautiful. She was nolonger the little village girl whom I had scornedwhen my eyes fell upon another, taller andmore used to the manners of the world. Shehad improved in every possible way: the spllof her black eyes, so captivating even as a littlechild, had now become irresistible; there was agleam of Attic intelligence in her smile whenits quick light spread over her calm regularfeaturesa face that might have been paintedby an old master. With her white, well-rounded arms, her long delicate hands, and herslender figure, she was no longer the Sylvie Ihad known, and I could not help telling herhow changed I found her, in the hope that shewould forget my former faithlessness.Every circumstance was in my favor; I had

the friendship of her brother, the atmosphereof the festival was alluring, and the time andplace for this echo of a gay ceremonial of by-gone days had been chosen with tasteful dis-crimination. We escaped from the dance assoon as we could, that we might talk of ourchildhood, and dream together as we watched

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the glow of the sun fading from the foliage andthe still surface of the lake; and it was Sylvie'sbrother who put an end to our meditations,telling us the time had come to go back toLoisy.

VThe Village

1LEFT them at the old guard house atLoisy, and returned to my uncle with whomI was staying at Montagny. Turning from

the road to go through the little wood betweenLoisy and Saint S

, I soon found myself fol-

lowing the deep path that skirts the forest ofErmenonville, expecting every moment tocome upon the convent walls which wouldcause me to go more than half a mile out of myway. Every now and then the moon was hid-den by clouds, and I had great difficulty inavoiding the gray rocks and the tufts of sweetheather on both sides of the way. The pathbranched neither to the right nor to the left,and great druidic rocks rose up out of the thick

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forest, where the memory of the sons of Armen,who were killed by the Romans, is still lurking.From the tops of these rocks the distant lakeslooked like mirrors set in the misty plain, butI could not tell which one had been the sceneof the festival.The soft air was laden with the perfume of

the wood, and I decided to go no farther, butto sleep till morning on a bed of sweet heather.When I awoke, the outlines ofmy surroundingswere just visible. To the left, the walls of theConvent of Saint S stretched away into themist, and across the valley I saw the ridge ofthe Gens-d'Armes and the jagged remains ofthe old Carlovingian dwelling. Then cameThiers Abbey, high above the tree tops, itscrumbling walls, pierced by trefoils and pointedarches, silhouetted against the sky; and beyond,the moated manor of PontarmS had just caughtthe first rays of the sun. To the south rose upthe high turret of La Tournelle, and on thefirst slopes of Montmeliant I saw the fourtowers of Bertrand-Fosse.My thoughts were held captive by the mem-

ory of the day before, and I thought only ofSylvie. Nevertheless, the appearance of theconvent forced the idea into my mind that

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SYLVIE 37

perhaps Adrienne was within. The tolling ofthe morning bell, which had undoubtedlyawakened me, was still in my ears, and I wassuddenly possessed by the desire to climb uponthe highest rock that I might look into theenclosure, but a moment's hesitation kept mefrom this as from a profanation. With thefullness of daylight this futile memory vanishedfrom my mind, and I saw only the pink cheeksof Sylvie.

"Why not awaken her myself," I said, andI started off along the path that skirts the woodtowards Loisy: twenty thatched cottages fes-tooned with vines and climbing roses. Somespinners, their hair tied in red handkerchiefs,were already at work, but Sylvie was not amongthem. Her people were still peasants, butSylvie had become a young lady now that shewas engaged in making fine laces. ... I wentup to her room without shocking any one, andfound her already at work plying her bobbins,which clicked gently against the green frameupon her knees.

"You lazy thing, " she said, smiling adorably," I believe you're only just out of bed!"

I told her how I had passed the night, of mywanderings through the woods and among the

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rocks, and she replied half indulgently, "I hopeyou're not too tired for another ramble, be-cause we're going to see my great-aunt atOthys."

I had scarcely time to answer before shegleefully abandoned her work, arranged herhair before a mirror and put on a rough strawhat. Her eyes were bright with innocent pleas-ure as we set out, first following the banks ofthe Th&ve, then through a meadow full ofdaisies and buttercups and on into Saint-Lau-rent wood. Every now and then we leapt overstreams and broke through thickets in orderto shorten our way. Blackbirds whistled in thetrees above us, and tomtits darted exultinglyfrom the nearest bushes.At our feet there was periwinkle, so dear to

Rousseau, opening its blue flowers upon spraysof paired leaves, and Sylvie was careful not tocrush them, but memories of the philosopherof Geneva did not interest her for she washunting for strawberries. I spoke to her ofLa Nouvelle Hihise and recited several passagesI knew by heart.

"Is it good?" she asked."It is sublime!""Better than Auguste Lafontaine?"

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SYLVIE 39

"There is more tenderness in it.

"

"Oh, well," she said, "I must read it then.Ill tell my brother to get it for me the nexttime he goes to Senlis. " Then I recited somemore passages while she gathered her straw-berries.

VI

Othys

AS WE emerged from the wood we cameJ\_ upon a great clump of purple foxglove,

and when Sylvie had picked an armfulof it she told me it was for her aunt. "Sheloves to have these beautiful flowers in herbedroom.

"

There remained only a bit of level field tocross before reaching Othys, and we could seethe village steeple against the bluish hills thatrise from Montm61iant to Dammartin. Nowthere fell upon our ears the pleasant rustlingsound of the Theve flowing in its bed of sand-stone and flint. The river was narrow here,for its source, a tiny lake enclosed by gladioli

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and iris, lay close by in the meadow's sleepyembrace. We soon came to the outskirts of thevillage where Sylvie's aunt had a little thatchedcottage built of rough sandstone blocks hiddenbeneath trellis work that supported wild grapeand hop vines; she lived on the produce of asmall piece of land the village people hadworked for her since her husband's death. Ather niece's arrival the cottage seemed at onceto be full of commotion.

"Good-morning, Auntie! Here are yourchildren!" cried Sylvie, "and we're dreadfullyhungry!"

It was only after kissing her affectionatelyand placing the bunch of foxgloves in her arms,that it occurred to her to introduce me: "Heis my sweetheart ! " And when I too had kissedher, she said:

"What a fine young fellowand fair hairtoo!"

"He's got nice soft hair," Sylvie added."It won't last," the old woman said, "but

you've got plenty of time, and your dark hairgoes well with his.

"

"We must give him some breakfast," an-nounced Sylvie, and she brought brown bread,milk and sugar from the cupboard, and spread

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SYLVIE 41

out on the table some earthenware plates andplatters with flowers and bright-featheredcocks upon them in large design. A Creilchina bowl of strawberries floating in milkwent in the centre, and when several handfulsof cherries and currants had been brought infrom the garden, Sylvie placed a vase of flowersat either end of the tablecloth. But her aunt,who was not to be outdone, objected: "Thisis all very nice, but it's only dessert. Youmust let me do something now," and takingdown the frying-pan, she threw a faggot on thefire. Sylvie wanted to help her, but she wasfirm. "You mustn't touch this; those prettyfingers are for making lace, finer lace than theymake at Chantilly! I know, because you oncegave me some.

"

"Yes, I know, Auntie. But tell me, haveyou got any old bits? I can use them for modelsif you have.

"

"Go upstairs and see what you can find;perhaps there are some in my chest of drawers I""But the keys, Auntie!""Nonsense! The drawers are open.

"

"It's not true; there's one that's alwayslocked, " and while the old woman was cleaningthe frying-pan, Sylvie snatched a little key of

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wrought steel from its place at her belt andwaved it at me triumphantly.Then she ran quickly up the wooden stair-

case leading to the bedroom, and I followedher. Oh, sacred Youth! Oh, sacred Old Age!Who could have dreamed of such an intru-sion into that innermost sanctuary where thememory of a first love lay carefully guarded?At the head of the rough bedstead, a youngman with black eyes and red lips smiled downfrom an oval gilt frame. He was wearing agamekeeper's uniform of the house of Conde,and his soldierly appearance, rosy cheeks andfinely modeled forehead beneath his powderedhair had cast upon this otherwise commonplaceportrait the spell of youthful grace and sim-plicity. Some unassuming artist, invited tothe royal hunt, had done the best he could, andupon the opposite wall in a similar frame hunghis portrait of the young wife, mischievous andinviting, in her slim, ribbon-laced bodice, coax-ing a bird perched upon her finger to comestill nearer. This was indeed the same personwho was cooking now down there bent overthe hearth, and I thought of the fairies at theFunambules and the shriveled masks that con-cealed soft bright faces of youth until the last

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SYLVIE 43

scene when they were cast aside and the Templeof Love gleamed beneath the magical rays ofa revolving sun."Oh!" I exclaimed, "how pretty she was!""And what about me?" said Sylvie, who had

finally succeeded in opening the famous drawer.From it she drew a long dress of worn taffetathat crackled when she shook out the wrinkles."I must try it on to see if it suits me. Oh!

Fm going to look like an old-fashioned fairy!""The Fairy of Legend, forever young!" I

thought to myself; and Sylvie unhooked herprinted-cotton frock, letting it fall around herfeet. The taffeta dress fitted her slim waistperfectly, and she told me to hook her up.

"Oh, these wide sleeves, aren't they ab-surd!" she cried; but their loop-shaped open-ings revealed her pretty bare arms, and herlittle white throat rose out of the faded tulleand ribbons of the bodice.

"Do finish it! Don't you know how to hookup a dress?" She reminded me of Greuze'sVillage Bride.

"You must have some powder," I said."We'll find some," and she began to rum-

mage again in the drawers. And the treasuresthey contained! What delicious perfume!

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What a glistening of tinsel and brilliant colors:two slightly broken mother-of-pearl fans, someChinese paste boxes, an amber necklace, and ahost of other trinkets from which Sylvie extract-ed two little white slippers with paste buckles."Oh, I must wear these," she said, "and

there ought to be embroidered stockings to gowith them. " A moment afterwards we unrolleda pair of silk onesdelicate pink with greenclocks; but the old woman's voice and therattling of the frying-pan below put an end toour explorations.

"Go on down," Sylvie commanded, andnothing I could say would persuade her toallow me to help with the stockings and slip-pers, so I went down to find the contents of thefrying-pan already dished upa rasher ofbacon with fried eggs. But I soon had tomount the stairs again at Sylvie's call, andfound her costume now complete.

"Dress yourself quickly," and she pointedto the gamekeeper's wedding-suit spread outon the chest. In a few moments I had becomethe bridegroom of a past generation. Sylviewas waiting for me on the stairs, and we de-scended hand-in-hand to meet the astonishedgaze and the startled cry of the old woman:

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SYLVIE 45

" Oh, my children ! " She wept first and thensmiled through her tears. It was a vision ofher youth, at once cruel and delightful. Wesat gravely down beside her, but our gayetysoon returned when she began to recall thepompous festivities of her wedding. She evenremembered the old part-songs that had beensung around her bridal table, and the simpleepithalamium that had accompanied her re-turn, upon her husband's arm, after the dance.We repeated these, mindful of every hiatus andassonance; Solomon's Ecclesiastes was notmore full of color nor more amorous. And wewere husband and wife for that whole lovelysummer's morning.

VII

Chaalis

IT IS four o'clock in the morning; the roadsinks down into a cut, and then rises again.The carriage will soon pass Orry, then La

Chapelle. To the left there is a road thatskirts the Forest of Hallate, where I went one

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evening with Sylvie's brother in his cart; Ithink it was to some sort of festival on SaintBartholomew's day. His pony flew over thelittle-used woodland roads as if bound for awitch's sabbath, until we turned through thevillage street at Mont-1'fivSque and, a fewmoments afterwards, drew up at the guardhouse which had once been Chaalis Abbey. .

.

Chadlis, and my mind throngs again withmemories.There is nothing of this ancient refuge of

emperors left to admire except the ruins of itscloister of byzantine arches through which onemay look out across the lakesthe forgottenrelic of a holy edifice upon what used to beknown as Charlemagne's farm lands. TheCardinals of the House of Este, owing to theirlong stay thereabouts at the time of the Medici,had left their mark upon the religion of thatcountry, so far removed from the hfe andmovement of cities, and there is still somethingnoble and poetic in its quality and practice; inthe chapels beneath delicately molded arches,decorated by Italian artists, one breathes theperfume of the fifteenth century. Figures ofsaints and angels are painted in pink upon thepale blue background of the vaulting, with an

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SYLVIE 47

appearance of pagan allegory that calls to mindthe sentimentality of Petrarch and the ficti-tious mysticism of Francesco Colonna.

Sylvie's brother and I were intruders thatevening at what turned out to be a sort ofallegorical spectacle. It had been arranged bythe owner of the domain, a person of noblebirth, and he had invited some families of theneighborhood to be his guests. Some littlegirls from a nearby convent were to take partin the performance, which was not a repro-duction of the tragedies of Saint-Cyr, butdated back to those first lyrical experimentsbrought into France at the time of the Valois:a mystery play of the middle ages. The cos-tumes worn by the actors were long robes ofazure, hyacinth or gold, and the opening scenewas a discourse by the angels upon the de-struction of the world. They sang of its van-ished glories, and the Angel of Death set forththe causes of its downfall. A spirit then roseup out of the depths, holding the FlamingSword in its hand, and bade them bow downin admiration before the Glory of Christ,Conqueror of the regions beneath the earth.It seemed as though I were gazing uponAdrienne, transformed by the spirit's robe as

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she already was by her vocation, and thegilded pasteboard halo that encircled her headseemed to us quite naturally a ring of light.The range and the power of her voice had in-creased, and her singing, with its birdliketwitter of gracenotes, gave an Italian flavor tothe severe phrasing of the recitative.As I set down these words I cannot help

wondering whether the events they describeactually took place or whether I have dreamedthem. Sylvie's brother was a little drunk thatnight, for we had stopped a few moments atthe guard house, where a swan with wings out-spread, suspended above the door, impressedme greatly, and there were high cupboards ofcarved walnut, a grandfather's clock, and sometrophies, bows, arrows, and a red and greenmarksmen's record. An odd-looking dwarf ina Chinese hat, holding a bottle in one hand anda ring in the other, seemed to be urging themarksmen to aim accurately. He was, if I amnot mistaken, cut out of sheet-iron. . . . Butthe presence of Adrienne!is it as clearlyfixed in my mind as these details and theunquestionable existence of Chaalis Abbey?Yet I can remember that it was the guard'sson who took us into the room where the per-

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SYLVIE 49

formance took place; we stood near the doorand I have to-day a distinct impression of thedeep emotion of that numerous company seatedin front of us. It was Saint Bartholomew'sday, peculiarly associated with the memory ofthe Medici, whose coat of arms, united withthat of the house of Este, decorated the oldwalls. . . . But perhaps, after all, that cherishedappearance was only one of my obsessions, andnow, happily, the carriage has stopped at thePlessis road ; I emerge from the world of dreamsand it is only a quarter of an hour's walk, by adeserted path, to Loisy.

VIII

The Loisy Dance

1 ARRIVED at the Loisy dance just at thatmelancholy but somehow agreeable stagewhen the lights begin to grow dim at the

approach of dawn. The lower outlines of thelindens had sunk into obscurity and their top-most branches were blue in the half-light. The

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rustic flute strove but faintly now to silence thesong of the nightingale, and I could hardlyrecognize those I knew, scattered through thepale, dishevelled groups. At last I found Lise,one of Sylvie's friends, and she kissed me,saying, "It's a long time since we've seen you,Parisian!""Ah, yes, a long time.""And you've come just now?""By the post-coach.""And not too quickly I""I wanted to see Sylvie; is she still here?""She never leaves before morning; she

adores dancing, you know.

"

The next moment I saw her, and though herface looked tired, I saw that same Attic smileas she turned her black eyes upon me. A youthstanding near by withdrew with a bow; shewould forego the quadrille.

It was almost broad daylight as we went outhand in hand from the dance. The flowersdrooped in theloosened coils ofSylvie's hair, andpetals from the bouquet at her waist fell downover the crumpled lace of her frock. I offeredto take her home and we set out beneath agray sky along the right bank of the Thfeve.Yellow and white water lilies bloomed in the

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SYLVIE 51

still pools at each bend in the stream, upon adelicately embroidered background of waterstars; the meadows were dotted with sheavesand hayricks, and though their fragrance wasless intoxicating than the cool scent of thewoods and the thickets of flowering thorn, wefollowed the river path.

"Sylvie," I said, "you love me no longerI""Ah, my dear friend, " she sighed, "you must

be reasonable; things don't come out in life aswe want them to. You once spoke to me ofLa Nouvelle Hbloise; I've read it now, but thefirst sentence that met my eyes made me shud-der, 'Every girl who reads this book is lost.'However, I went on with it, trusting to myown judgment. You remember the day wedressed up in the wedding clothes at myAunt's. In the book there were engravings oflovers in old-fashioned costumes, and when Isaw Saint-Preux I thought of you, and I wasJulie. Oh, if you had only been here then!But they told me you were in Italy, and I sup-pose you saw girls there much prettier than Iam.

"None as beautiful as you, Sylvie, nor withsuch clear-cut features. You might be a nymphout of some old Legend! And our country

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here; it's just as beautiful as the Italian coun-try; the rocks there are just as high as ours, tobe sure, and a cascade falls down over themlike the one at Terni, but I saw nothing therethat I miss here.

"

"And in Paris?""In Paris?" I shook my head without

replying, and I thought suddenly of that shad-owy form that had troubled my mind for solong.

"Sylvie," I said, "let's stop here, do youmind?" Then I knelt at her feet, and told herof my indecision and my fickleness, while thehot tears rolled down my cheeks, and I calledup the sinister apparition that haunted mylife. "Sylvie," I sobbed, "you must save me,for I shall always love you and no one else."She turned to me tenderly and was about to

speak, but at that moment we were interruptedby gay bursts of laughter from some nearbybushes. It was Sylvie's brother, who, afternumerous refreshments at the dance, had comeon to join us, in a state of exaltation far beyondthe usual limits of country gayety. He calledto Sylvie's admirer, who had remained behindthe bushes, but who now came towards us evenmore unsteadily than his companion. He

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SYLVIE 53

seemed more embarrassed with me than withSylvie, and his sincere though awkward defer-ence prevented me from bearing him any ill-will for having been the partner with whomSylvie had stayed so late at the dance. Ithought him not a very dangerous rival."We must go home, .so good-by for the

present," Sylvie said, and she offered me hercheek, which did not seem to offend heradmirer.

IX

Ermenonville

1 HADN'T the slightest desire to sleep, so Iwent to Montagny to see my uncle's houseonce more. Sadness took possession of me

when I caught sight of its yellow front andgreen shutters; everything was just as before,except that I had to go around to the farm-house for the key, and then the shutters werethrown open, and I stood among the old bitsof carefully polished furniture, all in their

accustomed places: the high walnut cupboard.

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the two Flemish pictures, said to be the workof our artist grandfather, some large engravingsafter Boucher, and a series of engraved illus-trations from Gmile and La Nouvelle Hihiseby Moreau. The stuffed dog on the table hadbeen my companion during his lifetime formany tramps through the woods; he was anItalian pug, perhaps the last of that forgottenrace.

"The parrot's still alive, " the farmer told me,"I've got him over at my house." And Ilooked out across the garden, a mass of luxuri-ant weeds; but over in the corner I could stillsee traces of the little patch that had been myown garden as a child. Trembling with emo-tion, I entered the study with its little bookcaseof carefully chosen volumes, old friends of theman whose memory they evoked, and on hisdesk I saw the old Roman vases and medallionshe had dug up in his garden, a small but greatlytreasured collection.

"Let's go and see the parrot," I said, andon entering the farmhouse we could hear himdemanding his lunch as stridently as ever. Heturned his gaze on me and his round eye in itscircle of wrinkled skin made me think of acalculating old man.

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SYLVIE 55

My belated visit to this well-loved spotfilled me with gloomy thoughts, and I longedto see Sylvie again. Sylvie was not a memory,she was alive and young, the only person whocould keep me in this country of my childhood.At midday I set out along the Loisy road, andsince everybody would be sure to be restingafter the dance, I decided to walk two milesand a half through the woods to Ermenonville.The sun scarcely penetrated the interlacingbranches of the trees above me, and the forestroad was as deliciously cool as an avenue insome great park. Scattered among the talloaks were birches with their white trunks andquivering foliage; no birds were singing, andthe stillness was complete but for the tap-tapof a green woodpecker building its nest. Thedirections on the finger-posts were often quite

illegible, and once I very nearly lost my way,but at last, leaving the Dfeert on my left, Icame to the dancing-green and found the oldmen's bench still in existence, and I stood be-fore this graphic realization oiAnacharsis and ofGmile, beset by memories of an ancient philoso-phy revived by the previous owner of the estate.A little farther on when the glistening sur-

face of a lake shone through the branches of the

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hazels and willows, I knew it was to this spotthat my uncle had so often brought me. Herein a grove of pines stands the Temple of Phil-osophy, unhappily never completed by itsfounder. This unfinished structure, alreadyin ruins, resembles the temple of the Tiburtinesybil, and upon it are the names of great think-ers, beginning with Montaigne and Descartesand ending with Rousseau; graceful strands ofivy hang down among the columns, and thesteps are covered with brambles. I rememberbeing brought here as a little child to witnessthe awarding of school prizes to white-robedmaidens. Raspberry bushes and dog-briarshave killed the roses now; and have the laurelsbeen cut, as they were in the song of the maid-ens who would not go into the wood? No,those delicate Italian shrubs could not live inour misty country, but Virgil's privet stillblooms as if to emphasize his words inscribedabove the door: Rerum cognosce causas!Yes, this temple is falling away like so manyothers; tired and forgetful men will pass it byunnoticed and Nature will carelessly reclaimthe ground that Art sought to take from her,but a desire for knowledge will persist foreveras the strength-giving incentive to every action.

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SYLVIE 57

I turned and saw the island with its grove ofpoplars, and the tomb of Rousseau which nolonger contains his ashes. Ah! Rousseau, wewere too weak to avail ourselves of what youset before us; we have forgotten what youtaught our fathers, and we have wrongly inter-preted your words, those last echoes of ancientwisdom. Still, we must take courage, and, asyou did at the moment of your death, turn oureyes to the sun.

I saw the chateau surrounded by still waters,the cascade splashing down over the rocks, andthe causeway joining the two parts of thevillage with its four dove-cots. The lawnstretches away to a great length between steep,shady hills, and Gabrielle's tower is reflectedin the flower-starred waters of the artificiallake; little billows of foam press against therocks beneath the cascade, and there is amonotonous hum of insects. The artificialityof the place repels me, and I hurry away acrossthe sandy heath land, with its bracken andpink heather. How lonely and cheerless allthese places are now, without Sylvie, and howdelightful her childish joy made them seem tome years ago. I can recall her little cries as sheran here and there among the rocks and

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heather. With tanned skin and bare feet shewas like a young savage, except for the strawhat whose broad ribbons streamed out behindwith her black hair. We went to get some milkat the dairy farm, and the farmer said to me,"How pretty your sweetheart is, little Paris-ian!"And she didn't dance with peasants then,

you may be sure. She danced with me only,once a year, at the Festival of the Bow.

XCurly-Head

WW 7"HEN I reached Loisy, everybody was upW and about. Sylvie had quite the air of ayoung lady, and her clothes were almost

entirely in the style of the city. She took meupstairs with all her former artlessness, and hersmile was just as captivating as ever, but theprominent arch of her eyebrows gave her a lookof seriousness now and then. The bedroom wasstill quite simple, though the furniture wasmodern. The antique pier-glass had gone and

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SYLVIE 59

in its place there was a mirror in a gilt frame,and above it a picture of a shepherd offeringa bird's nest to a pink and blue shepherdess.The four-post bed, modestly hung with oldflowered chintz, was now replaced by a walnutbedstead with a pointed canopy, and therewere no more warblers in the cage by thewindow, but canaries. There was nothing ofthe past in this room, and my one idea was toleave it.

"Will you be making lace to-day?" I askedher.

"Oh, I don't make lace any more, there's nodemand for it here; even at Chantilly the fac-tory is closed.

"

"What do you do then?"For answer she produced from one of the

cupboards a steel instrument that looked likea long pair of pliers, and I asked her what itwas.

"It's what they call the machine; with ityou hold the skin of the glove in order to sewit."

"Ah, then you make gloves, Sylvie?""Yes, we work here for the Dammartin

trade, and it pays very well just now. Whered'you want to go? I'm not working to-day."

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I looked toward the Othys road, but sheshook her head and I knew that her aunt wasno longer alive. Then she called a little boyand told him to saddle the donkey."I'm still tired from last night, but this will

do me good. Let's go to Chaalis.

"

The little boy followed us through the forest,carrying a branch, and Sylvie soon wanted tostop, so I urged her to rest a while, kissing heras I helped her to dismount. Somehow I couldno longer bring our talk round to intimate mat-ters, and was obliged to tell her of my travelsand my life in Paris.

" It seems strange to go so far away.

"

"To see you again makes me think so too.

"

"Oh! that's easily said.""And you must admit that you are prettier

now than you used to be.

"

"I know nothing about that.""Do you remember when we were children,

how much bigger you were than I?""And I was the naughtiest tool""Oh, Sylvie!""And we were put in two baskets slung on

the donkey's back.

"

"Do you remember showing me how to catchcrayfish beneath the bridges over the rivers?"

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SYLVIE 61

"And do you remember the day when yourfoster-brother pulled you out of the water? "

"You mean Curly-head I And it was he whotold me I could wade across ! " Then I hurriedon to change the conversation. This incidentvividly recalled the time when I had comethere dressed in a little English suit, and all thepeasants had laughed at me except Sylvie, whothought me magnificent. But I lacked thecourage to remind her of her compliment oflong ago, and the thought of the weddingclothes we had put on at Othys rose up in mymind, so I asked what had become of them."Dear old Auntie, she lent me the dress to

dance in at the Dammartin Carnival two yearsago; she died last year. " And Sylvie wept sobitterly that I did not like to ask her how it wasthat she had gone to a masked ball. But Iunderstood without asking when I rememberedthat, thanks to her trade of glove-maker, shewas no longer a peasant. Her people were stillas they had always been, but she was like anindustrious fairy bringing ease and comfortsto them all.

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XI

The Return

XVTHEN we came out of the wood we foundww ourselves among the lakes of Chaalis.

The slanting sun fell upon the littlechateau which had sheltered the loves ofHenry IV and Gabrielle, and it glowed redagainst the dull green of the forest.

"That's a real Walter Scott landscape, isn'tit?" said Sylvie.

"And who told you about Walter Scott?You have been reading since I saw you threeyears ago! I want to forget books, and whatgives me real pleasure is to revisit the old abbeywhere we used to play hide-and-seek togetheras little children. Do you remember howfrightened you were when the keeper told usthe story of the Red Monks?""Oh, don't let's talk about that.""Then you must sing me the song of the

maiden who was carried off while walking bythe white rose tree in her father's garden.

"

"One doesn't sing that song any more.""Have you been studying music?""A little."

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SYLVIE 63

"Then I suppose you sing nothing butoperatic airs nowl""And why should you complain of that?""Because I love those old melodies and

because you will forget how to sing them.

"

Sylvie then went through several bars of anair from a modern opera, phrasing them as shesang!

We walked past the pools and soon cameupon the smooth green lawn edged by elms andlindens where we had danced so often. Myconceit led me to mark out the old Carlovingianwalls for her and to decipher the coat of armsof the House of Este."And you talk to me of reading! See how

much more you have read than I. You'requite a scholar. " Her tone of reproach wasirritating just when I had been waiting for afavorable moment to renew my entreaties ofthe morning. But what could I say to her,accompanied by a donkey and a very wide-awake little boy who never left us for a second,in order not to miss hearing a Parisian talk?And then I was stupid enough to tell her of thatunforgetable appearance of Adrienne at Cha-&lis long ago; we even went into the very roomin the chateau where I had heard her sing.

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" If I could only hear your voice here beneaththese arches, Sylvie, it would drive away thespirit that torments me, be it divine or the oldbewitchment.

"

Then she repeated after me:

Angesy descendez promptcmentAu fond du pwgatoiref. .

.

"What a gloomy song!""To me it's sublime; it is probably by Por-

pora, and I think the words were translated inthe sixteenth century.

"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Sylvie.We came back through the valley, taking the

Charlepont road which the peasants, naturallyunversed in etymology, insist upon callingChallepont. Sylvie, weary of the donkey, waswalking beside me, leaning upon my arm. Theroad was deserted and I tried to speak thewords that were in my mind, but somehownothing but the most vulgar expressions oc-curred to me, or perhaps a pompous phrasefrom a novel that Sylvie might have read.Then, as we approached the walls of Saint S

,

I surprised her with something quite classic,and fell silent for we were crossing water mead-

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SYLVIE 65

ows and our path had to be carefully chosenamong the interlacing streams."What's become of the nun?" I said sud-

denly.

"How tiresome you are with your nun I . . .Well, that affair hasn't turned out very well.

"

And this was all Sylvie would say about it.I wonder whether women know when men

are not speaking their true feelings? So oftenare they deceived, that it seems hardly possible,and many men act the comedy of love socleverly I Though there are women who sub-mit knowingly to deception, I could neverbring myself to practise it, and besides, thereis something sacred about a love that goes backto one's childhood. Sylvie and I had grown uptogether, almost as brother and sister, and toattempt to seduce her was unthinkable. Quitea different thought rose up in my mind!Were I in Paris at this moment, I said to

myself, I would be at the theatre. What willAurelia (that was the actress' name) be playingin to-night? Surely the Princess in the new

drama, and how pathetic she is in the third act IAnd the love scene in the second, with thatwizened old fellow who plays the hero. . . .

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"What are you meditating?" asked Sylvie,and then she began to sing:

A Dammartin, Vy a trois belles filles:Vy en a z'une plus belle que le jour. .

.

"Ah, that's not fair," I cried, "you knowplenty of those old songs!"

" If you came here oftener I would try andremember them, but it would take time. Youhave your occupation in Paris, and I have mywork here. Don't let's be too late; to-morrowI must be up at sunrise.

"

XII

Father Dodu

1WAS about to reply by throwing myself ather feet and offering her my uncle's housewhich I could still buy back, for there had

been several heirs and the little estate was asyet undivided, but unhappily we had arrived atLoisy, where supper was being delayed for us.

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SYLVIE 67

Onion soup proclaimed itself before we entered,and some of the neighbors had been invited tocelebrate the day after the festival. I recog-nized Father Dodu at once, the old woodmanwho used to tell stories by the fire in the even-ings. In his time, Father Dodu had been ashepherd, a messenger, a gamekeeper, a fisher-man, and even a poacher, and in his leisuremoments he made cuckoo clocks and turnspits.His present occupation was to show Ermenon-ville to the English, taking them to all theplaces where Rousseau had sat in meditation,and telling them about the philosopher's lastdays. It was Father Dodu who, as a little boy,had been employed by him to sort out hisplants, and he had gathered the hemlock whosejuice was to be squeezed into his cup of coffee.The innkeeper of the Golden Cross wouldnever believe this last detail and consequentlythe old woodman had always hated him. Ithad long been grudgingly admitted that FatherDodu possessed several quite innocent secrets,such as curing sick cows by reciting a verse ofthe Scriptures backwards, and making the signof the cross with the left foot. But he alwaysdisowned them, declaring that, thanks to the

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memory of his conversations with Jean-Jacques, he had long since abandoned super-stitions.

"Have you come here, little Parisian, tocorrupt our girls?"

"I, Father Dodu?""You take them into the woods when the

wolfs not there I"

"You are the wolf, Father Dodu.

"

"I was, as long as I could find any sheep;now there are only goats and they can defendthemselves. You Paris people are a bad lot,and Jean-Jacques was right when he said,'L'homme se corrompt dans Fair empoisonne desvilles.'

"

"You know only too well, Father Dodu, thatmen are corrupt everywhere." Whereuponthe old man began a drinking-song which hefinished in spite of our outcry against a certain

filthy verse that we all knew it contained. Webesought Sylvie to sing, but she refused, sayingthat one did not sing at table nowadays.

I had already noticed the youth who hadbeen so attentive to her the night before, for hewas sitting on her left, and there was somethingin his round face and dishevelled hair that wasstrangely familiar to me. He got up and came

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SYLVIE 69

round behind my chair ; " Don't you recognizeme, Parisian? " And then the woman who hadbeen waiting on us whispered in my ear:"Don't you remember your foster-brother?""Oh, it's Curly-head, of course," I cried,

thankful for the timely information, "and youpulled me out of the water I"

Sylvie burst out laughing at our meeting,and Curly-head continued, after kissing me,"I didn't know you had a beautiful silverwatch in your pocket, and that you were muchmore anxious at its haying stopped than youwere about yourself; you said, 'The animal'sdrowned, he doesn't go tick-tack any more!Whatever will my uncle say?' ""So that's what they tell little children in

Paris!" said Father Dodu. "Fancy an animalin a watch!"

I thought Sylvie had forgotten me com-pletely, for she started to go up to her room,saying she was sleepy, but as I kissed her good-night she said, "Come and see us to-morrow.

"

Father Dodu sat with us for a long time overa bottle of ratafia. Once he paused betweentwo verses of a song he was singing and said,"All men are the same to me. I drink with apastry-cook as I would drink with a prince!"

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"And where is the pastry-cook?" I asked."This young man wants to go into the busi-

ness. " Then Curly-head blushed, and I under-stood everything.

I was fated to have a foster-brother in thisplace made illustrious by Rousseau (Rousseauwho reproved the use of wet-nurses!). FatherDodu told me that Sylvie would probablymarry Curly-head, and that he wanted to opena confectioner's shop at Dammartin. I askedno more questions, and the next day the Nan-teuil-le-Haudoin coach took me back to Paris.

XIII

AURELIA

TO PARIS! ... The coach would take fivehours, but I only wanted to be there forthe evening, and eight o'clock found me

in my usual seat. The play, the work of a poetof the day, and faintly reminiscent of Schiller,owed much to Aurelia's inspired reading of herlines, and in the garden scene she was astonish-

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SYLVIE 71

ing. She did not appear in the fourth act, andI went out to Madame Prevost's to buy her abouquet. In it I put a very affectionate letter,signed Un Inconnu, saying to myself that Inow had something settled for the future. Thenext morning I started for Germany. And whydid I do this? To bring order into the confu-sion ofmy thoughts. If I were to write a novelabout a man in love with two women at once,what chance would I have of getting it ac-cepted? Sylvie had slipped away from me,and though I had no one to blame for this butmyself, it had taken only a day to rekindle mylove for her. Now she was for me a statue inthe Temple of Wisdom, whose placid smile hadcaused me to hesitate at the edge of an abyss.And it seemed inconceivable to offer myself toAurelia, to join that company of commonplacelovers who fluttered like moths into a con-suming flame.We shall see one day, I said, whether she has

a heart or not, and it was not long before I readin the papers that Aurelia was ill. I wrote toher from the mountains of Salzburg, but myletter was so full of Germanic mysticism thatI hardly expected it to have much success;there could be no answer, for I had not signed

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my name, and I put my faith in Chance and. . . rinconnu.Months went by while I was writing a poetic

drama about the painter Colonna's love forLaura, whose family had placed her in a con-vent, and whom he had loved till the end of hisdays; there was something in this subject akinto my own perplexities. When I had finishedthe last line I began to think about returningto France.

What can I say now that will not be thestory of most of my fellow-beings? I passed,circle by circle, into the Purgatory which wecall the theatre; "I ate of the drum and drankof the cymbal, " as runs the senseless phrase ofthe initiates of Eleusis. It means, no doubt,that when the need arises one must go beyondthe boundaries of nonsense and absurdity.For me it was a question of achieving my idealand of making it permanent.

Aurelia accepted the leading part in thedrama I had brought back with me from Ger-many, and I shall never forget the day whenshe let me read it to her. It was she who hadinspired the love scenes, and consequentlythere was true feeling in my rendering of them.Then I disclosed the identity of rinconnu of

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SYLVIE 73

the two letters, and she said, "You are quitemad, but come and see me again. I am stillwaiting to find the man who knows how to loveft 'me.

Oh, Woman! Is it love you are seeking?And I? The letters I wrote her then musthave been more exquisite and more movingthan any she had ever received, but her repliesdid not exceed the limits of friendship. Oneday, however, her emotions were stirred, andshe summoned me to her boudoir to tell me ofan attachment from which it would be verydifficult to extricate herself.

" If you really love me for myself, " she said,"you will want me to be yours and yours only.

"

Two months later I received an effusive let-ter, and a few moments after reading it I wason my way to her flat. A friend whom I metin the street gave me this precious bit of infor-mation: the young man I had met at the clubhad just joined the Algerian cavalry.The next summer Aureha and her compan-

ions gave a performance at the Chantilly racemeeting and, while there, they were all underthe orders of the manager, to whom I had mademyself as agreeable as possible. He had playedDorante in Marivaux's comedies and the lover's

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part in many dramas, and his latest successwas in the play after the manner of Schiller,when he looked so wizened. At close range heseemed much younger, and being slender hewas able to produce quite an effect in theprovinces, for he still had plenty of vivacity.I had succeeded in getting him to give per-formances at Senlis and Dammartin, for I hadbecome attached to the company as Chief Poet

:

he was at first in favor of Compiegne, butAurelia had agreed with me. The followingday, while they were dealing with the authori-ties and obtaining a theatre, I hired somehorses and we rode out past the lakes ofComelle to have lunch at the Chateau of QueenBlanche. Dressed in her riding-habit, and withher hair streaming out in the wind, Aureliarode through the wood like a queen of bygonedays, to the great bewilderment of the peas-antry, who had never seen any one, sinceMadame de F , so imposing or so gracious.After lunch we went to some neighboring vil-lages, so like those of Switzerland, with theirsawmills run by the waters of the Nonette.These places, full of precious memories for me,awakened only a mild interest in Aurelia, andeven when I took her to the green lawn in front

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SYLVIE 75

of the chateau near Orry, where I had first seenAdrienne, she was unmoved. So I told herhow my love had been awakened by that slen-der figure bathed in mist and moonlight, andhow, since then, that love had lived only inmy dreams, now to be realized in her. She wasgravely attentive, and when I had finishedspeaking she said, "You don't love me at all!You're only waiting for me to tell you that theactress and the nun are the same person. Allyou want is a drama, and the climax evadesyou. I've lost my faith in you completely!"A flash of the truth came to me as she spoke.

This extraordinary passion that had possessedme for so long, these dreams and these tears,this despair and this tenderness, perhaps itwasn't love at all? But then where was loveto be found?Amelia played that evening at Senlis, and it

seemed to me that she showed rather a fond-ness for the manager, the wizened lover. Hewas an extremely upright man, and he hadbeen very useful to her. One day she spoke ofhim to me, "If you want to see some one whoreally loves me, there he is!"

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XIVThe Last Leaves

SUCH are the vagaries that beguile anddisturb the morning of life, and thoughthere seems to be little order in what I

have written here, I know there are those whowill understand me. Illusions fall away fromus one after the other, and experience is like afruit that may not be tasted until the skin isremoved. Its flavor is often bitter, but thereis something invigorating in bitterness. (Ihope these old phrases will be forgiven.)

Rousseau says that to look upon Nature isconsolation for everything, and I sometimesgo in search of my favorite grove at Clarens,lost in the mists to the north of Paris, but thereis nothing there to stir my memory. All ischanged.

Ermenonvillelwhere they still read Gess-ner's ancient idyl, translated for the secondtimeno longer will your twofold radiancefall upon me, blue or rose, like Aldebaran'selusive star; now Adrienne, now Sylvie, the twoobjects of a single passion, an unachieved idealand a sweet reality. Your shady groves, yourlakes, and even your solitudes, what are they

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SYLVIE 77

to me now? Othys, Montagny, Loisy, yourhumble neighbors, and Chaalis now being re-stored: they have kept nothing of the past.Sometimes the need rises up within me to re-visit these places of silence and meditation,and sadly to evoke the fugitive memories of atime when my affectation was to be natural;and I often smile on reading those once ad-mired lines of Roucher cut into the surface of arock, or a benevolent saying carved on a foun-tain or above the entrance to a grotto sacred toPan. The ponds, dug out at such great ex-pense, offer their leaden waters to the swans invain, and the woods no longer echo with thehorns of the Cond6 huntsmen or flash with thecolor of their habits. To-day there is no directroad to Ermenonville; sometimes I go by Creiland Senlis, and sometimes by Dammartin.

I never go to Dammartin until evening, so Ispend the night at the Image Saint Jean, wherethey give me a room with old tapestry uponthe walls and a pier-glass hanging between thewindows. Beneath an eiderdown coverlet,with which one is always provided in that partof the country, I sleep warmly, and in themorning, through an open window framed byvines and roses, I survey with delight a green

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expanse of twenty-five miles. The poplars looklike lines of soldiers, and here and there villagesshelter beneath their pointed church towers.First thereis Othys, then five, then Ver; and Icould find Ermenonville in the forest, if it hada tower, but in that* retreat qf philosophers thechurch has been neglected. I breathe deeplyof this pure upland air, and set forth to theconfectioner's shop.

"Hello, Curly-head!""Hello, Little Parisian!" And after a

friendly hand-clasp, I run upstairs to be wel-comed by shouts of joy from the two childrenand by Sylvie's delighted smile. I say to my-self, "Perhaps this is happiness! Still ..."

I sometimes call her Lolotte, and though I donot carry pistols, for it is no longer the fashion,

she thinks me a little like Werther. WhileCurly-head is occupied in getting the lunchready, we take the children for a walk throughthe avenue of Hmes that encircles what is leftof the old brick towers of the chateau, and whilethey are playing with their bows and arrowswe read poetry or a page or two from one ofthose short books that are so rare nowadays.

I forgot to say that I took Sylvie to the per-formance at Dammartin, and asked her

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SYLVIE 79

whether she thought Amelia resembled someone she knew."Whom do you mean?""Don't you remember Adrienne?""What an idea!'? she exclaimed, and burst

out laughing, but then, as if in self-reproach,she sighed and said, "Poor Adrienne, she diedat the Convent of Saint S about 1832."

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Digitized byVjOOQIC

EMILIE

Memories of the French Revolution

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EMILIE

^TVTO ONE actually knows the story ofJ_^| Lieutenant Desroches who was killed

last year at the battle of Hambergen,just two months after his wedding. If it wasreally suicide, may God forgive him! Butsurely, a man who sacrifices his life for hiscountry deserves to have his action given abetter name than that, whatever his motives.

"

"That takes us back again to the question ofcompromising with conscience," put in theDoctor. "Desroches was a philosopher whohad had enough of life; he wanted his death tobe of some use, so he threw himself bravelyinto the conflict, and killed as many Germansas possible, saying to himself, 'This is the bestI can do now, and I'm content to die.' Andwhen the blow fell that killed him, he shouted,'Vive FEmpereur! 9 Ten soldiers from hiscompany will tell you the same thing.

"

"And it was no less a suicide for that," re-plied Arthur, "still, it would not have beenright to refuse him church burial. ..."

83

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"If you argue that way, you underrate theself-sacrifice of Curtius. That young Romanknight may have been ruined by gambling,unlucky in his love affairs, and tired of life,who knows? But undoubtedly there is some-thing fine about a man, who, when he has madeup his mind to leave this world, wants hisdeath to be of some use to others, and that iswhy it was not suicide in the case of Desroches,for suicide is the quintessence of egoism andcalls forth the world's disapproval. . . . Whatare you thinking about, Arthur?""About what you said a moment agothat

Desroches killed as many Germans as he couldbefore he died.

"

"Well?""The appearance of those poor souls before

God provided melancholy evidence of thesplendid death of Lieutenant Desroches, andI must say that it seems to me homicide aswell as suicide.

"

"Oh, who would think of that? Germansare enemies.

"

"But does a man who has made up his mindto die have enemies? At that moment nation-ality disappears, and one thinks only of the

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EMILIE 85

other world, and of God as the only Sovereign.But the Holy Father listens and says noth-ing; still, I hope he will approve of what I amsaying. Come, Father, give us your opinion,and try to bring us to an agreement. Thequestion is a very difficult one, and the storyof Desroches, or rather what the Doctor and Ibelieve we know of it, appears to be no lesscomplicated than the discussion it has pro-duced between us.

"

"Yes," said the Doctor, "one is told thatDesroches was greatly distressed by his lastwoundthe one that so terribly disfiguredhimand it may be that he surprised a look ofscorn or ridicule upon the face of the woman hehad just married. Philosophers are easilyoffended. In any case, he died, and willingly.

"

"Willingly, if you insist upon it, but don'tcall the death one meets in battle suicide.That misinterpretation may be in your mind,but do not put it into words. One dies in aconflict because one encounters something thatkills, not because one wishes to die.

"

"Then you want to call it fate?""My turn has come," said the priest, who

had been lost in meditation during this dis-

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cussion, "and you will perhaps think it strangeof me to object to your paradoxes or yoursuppositions. ..."

"Go ahead, by all means; you undoubtedlyknow more about it than we do. You've livedat Bitche for a long time, and we are told thatDesroches knew you. For all we know, youmay have been his confessor.

"

" If that were the case, I should have to keepsilence. Unfortunately, Desroches confessedto no one, but you may take my word for itthat his was a Christian death. I shall tell youwhat caused it, and how it occurred, so thatyou will think of him as an upright man and agood soldier to the end. He died both forHumanity and for himself, and his death wasaccording to the will of God.

"Desroches joined a regiment when he wasonly fourteen, at a time when our republicanarmy was being replenished with youthfulrecruits, most of the men having been killed onthe frontier. He was as weak and slender as agirl, and it distressed his companions to see hisfragile shoulders bend under the weight of hisgun. You must have heard how permissionwas obtained from the Captain to have it cutdown six inches. With his weapon thus suited

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EMILIE 87

to his strength, Desroches did splendid workin Flanders, and later on he was sent to Hague-nau, where we, or rather you, were fighting forso long.

"At the time of which I am going to speak,Desroches was at the height of his powers, andhis services as ensign-bearer to the regimentwere far greater than his rank or his flag wouldhave led one to think, for he was practi-cally the only man to survive two reinforce-ments. Twenty-seven months ago,he was madea lieutenant, after receiving a terrible face

wound at Bergheim. The field-surgeons, whohad often joked with him over the thirty bat-tles he had come through without even ascratch, shook their heads when they saw him.'If he lives,' they said/ he'll always be weak-minded or perhaps insane.

'

"The lieutenant was sent to Metz to recover,and a good many miles of the journey had beenaccomplished before he regained consciousness.After five or six months of the best possiblecare, he was able to sit up, and in anotherthree he managed to open one e

Documents

Daughters of Fire, Gerard de Nerval