Théophile Gautier

“ Rest in peace, dear Louise, for you will always be Louise to me, even in heaven, which I shall never reach, for I have killed my brother and belong to the race of Cain; I do not pity thee, for thou hast clasped in thy arms the dream of thy heart. Thou hast been happy; and happiness is a crime punishable on earth by death, as is genius and divinity.
You will forgive me! for I caught a glimpse of the angel through the woman. I also sought my ideal and found it. O beautiful loving being! why did your faith fail you, why did you doubt the love you inspired! Alas! I thought you a faithless coquette ”

“ You are fortunate, my dear Edgar, in having found the woman you have always dreamed of and hoped for; you will have all the charms of love without its troubles; it is folly to believe that love is strengthened by its own torments and stimulated by sorrows. A storm is only admired by those on shore; the suffering sailors curse the raging sea and pray for a calm.
Your letter, my dear Edgar, is filled with that calm happiness that is the foundation of all true love; in return, I can only send you an account of my despair. Friendship is often a union of these two contrasts. ”

“ EDGAR DE MEILHAN
XI.
ROGER DE MONBERT
to
MONSIEUR DE MEILHAN,
Pont de l'Arche (Eure) .
PARIS, June 3d 18—.
She is in Paris!
Before knowing it I felt it. The atmosphere was filled with a voice, a melody, a brightness, a perfume that murmured: Irene is here!
Paris appears to me once more populated; the crowd is no longer a desert in my eyes; this great dead city has recovered its spirit of life; the sun once more smiles upon me; the earth bounds under my feet; the soft summer air fans my burning brow, and whispers into my ear that one adored name—Irene! ”

“ Edgar evidently forgot me, and truly he had a right to forget me; I was not engaged to him as I had been to Roger. A young poet has a right to dress like a Turk, and amuse himself with his friends, to suit his own fancy; but a noble prince has no right to scandalize the public when the dignity of his rank has to be striven after and recovered; when the glory of his name is to be kept untarnished. Oh! this disgusting sight gave rise to no angry feeling in my bosom, I at once comprehended the advantages of the situation. No more sacrifice, no more remorse, no more hypocrisy! ”

“ I should have mistaken for an odious and culpable passion, the fearful trouble, insupportable uneasiness that his love caused me to feel. But my vigilant reason, my implacable good faith watched over my heart; they said: "Shun Roger;" they said: "Fear Edgar...." If I had married Roger, woe to me! Conventional love, leaving my heart all its dreams, would have embittered my life.... But if, more foolish still, I had married Edgar, woe, woe to me! because one does not sacrifice with impunity to an incomplete love all of one's theories, habits and even weaknesses and early prejudices. ”

“ Excuse the homely platitude in this avowal.
Irene seemed perfect; her only fault, being an heiress, was lost in the intoxication of my love; everything was arranged, and in spite of her money I was to marry her.
I was delirious with joy, my feet spurned the earth. My bliss was the ecstasy of the blest. My delight seemed to color the contentment of other men with gloom, and I felt like begging pardon for being so happy. It seemed that this valley of tears, astonished that any one should from a terrestrial paradise gaze upon its afflictions and still be happy, would revolt against me! ”

“ Richeport is too much associated with you for me to dwell here longer; your memory has exiled me from it for ever. I must put a huge impossibility between myself and you; six thousand miles hardly suffice to separate us.
If I remained, I should resort to all manner of mad schemes to recover my happiness; no one gives up his cherished dream with more reluctance than I, especially when a word could make it a reality.
Louise, Louise, why do you avoid me and close your heart against me! You have not understood, perhaps, how much I love you? Has not my devotion shone in my eyes? ”

“ If it be absolutely necessary that my fortune should be enjoyed by women, I will bestow it upon a convent, where I will retire for the rest of my life; but I certainly would prefer becoming the wife of a poor, obscure, but noble-minded student, thirsting for glory and ambitious of making illustrious his plebeian name, seeking among the dust of ages for the secret of fame ... than to marry one of the degenerate scions of an old family, who crawl around crushed by the weight of their formidable name; these little burlesque noblemen who retain nothing of their high position but pride and vanity ”

“ Edgar has become romantic since he has been in love with me, but I think it is an hypocrisy, and I mistrust his love.
Edgar is undeniably a talented, superior man, and captivating, as the beautiful Marquise de R. has proved; but I fail to recognise in his love the ideal I dreamed of. It is not the expression of an eye that he admires, it is the fine shape of the lids, limpid pupils; it is not the ingenuous grace of a smile that pleases him, it is the regularity of the lines, the crimson of the lips; to him beauty of soul adds no charm to a lovely face. ”

“ Roger, something incredible has happened, overturning every calculation, every prevision. I am stupefied, benumbed—I was at the Marquise's, where it was darker than usual. One solitary lamp flickered in a corner, dozing under a huge shade. A fat gentleman, buried in an easy-chair, drowsily retailed the news of the day.
I was not listening to him; I was thinking of Louise's little white couch, from which I had once lifted the snowy curtain; with that sorrowful intensity, those poignant regrets which torture rejected lovers. Suddenly a familiar name struck my ear—the name of Irene de Chateaudun. ”

“ I know M. de Monbert; what I have seen of him is sufficient. M. de Meilhan, too, will not disappoint me. I shall not conceal myself; in eight days these two men will have found me. In eight days they will knock at my door, like two creditors, demanding restitution, one of Louise, the other of Irene. If I were to descend to justification, even if I were to succeed in convincing them of my loyalty and uprightness, their despair would cry out all the louder for vengeance. Then, madame, what shall I do? Shall I try to take the life of my friends after having robbed them of their happiness? ”

“ M. de Meilhan loves her; who would not love her? But what he loves in her is visible beauty: the slope of her shoulders, the perfection of her contours. His love could not withstand a pencil-stroke which might destroy the harmony of the whole. Beautiful as she is, he would desert her for the first canvas or the first statue he might encounter. Her rivals already people the galleries of the Louvre; the museums of the world are filled with them. Edgar feels but one deep and true love; the love of Art, so deep that it excludes or absorbs all others in his heart. ”

“ The fact of my having penetrated, unknown to you, this secret recess of your soul, makes me venture to confide my sorrows to you; continue to laugh at them, your railing will be understood, while friendship will ignore the borrowed mask and trust in the faithful face beneath.
Paris is still a desert. The largest and most populous city becomes obscure and insignificant at your feet when you view it from the heights of an all-absorbing passion. I feel as isolated as if I were on the South Sea or on the sands of Sahara. Happily our bodies assume mechanical habits that act instead of the will. ”

“ Passion is eloquent. She flies from me! O perfidy and cowardice! she dare not face the misery she has caused, and veils her eyes when she strikes!
I am going to America. I will dull my mental grief by physical exhaustion; I will subdue the soul through the body; I will ascend the giant rivers whose bosoms bloom with thousands of islands; penetrate into the virgin forests where no trapper has yet set his foot; I will hunt the buffalo with the savage, and swim upon that ocean of shaggy heads and sharp horns; I will gallop at full speed over the prairie, pursued by the smoke of the burning grass. ”

“ Now I know all; we always know all when it is too late, when the seal of the irreparable is fixed upon events! You came to Havre, poor beauty, to find me, and fled believing yourself deceived; you could not read my despair through my fictitious joy; you took my mask for my real countenance, the intoxication of my body for the oblivion of my soul! In the midst of my orgie, at the very moment when my foot pressed on the Ethiop's body, your azure eyes illumined my dream, your blonde tresses rippled before me like golden waters of Paradise ”

“ How fearful it is to suffer from rejected love! To say to oneself: "The loved one exists, far from me, without me; she is young, smiling, lovely—to others; my despair is only an annoyance to her, I am necessary to her in nothing; my absence leaves no void in her life; my death would only provoke from her an expression of careless pity; my good and noble qualities have made no impression upon her; my verses, the delight of other young hearts, she has never read; my talents are as destructive to me as if they were crimes; why seek a hell in another world ”

“ I passed through Savoy and when I saw the mountains of Dauphiny loom up against the distant horizon my heart beat wildly, my eyes filled with tears, and I felt like a returning exile, and know not what false pride restrained me from springing to the ground and kissing the soil of France!
Hail! noble and generous land, the home of intelligence and of liberty! On touching thee the soul swells within us, the mind expands; no child of thine can return to thy bosom without a throb of holy joy, a feeling of noble pride. I passed along filled with delirious happiness. ”

“ Oh! believe me to be serious, and accuse me not of comic-opera philosophy, my dear Valentine! I feel none of that proud disdain for importunate fortune that we read of in novels; nor do I regret "my pretty boat," nor "my cottage by the sea;" here, in this beautiful drawing-room of the Hotel de Langeac, writing to you, I do not sigh for my gloomy garret in the Marais, where my labors day and night were most tiresome, because a mere parody of the noblest arts, an undignified labor making patience and courage ridiculous, a cruel game which we play for life while cursing it. ”

“ Dear Edgar, in writing these disconsolate lines I have lost the calmness that I had imposed upon myself when I began my letter. I feel that I am devoured by that internal demon that bears a woman's name in the language of love—jealousy! Yes, jealousy fills my soul with bitterness, encircles my brow with a band of iron, and makes me feel a frenzied desire to murder some fellow-being! During my travels I lost the tolerant manners of civilization. I have imbibed the rude cruelty of savages—my jealousy is filled with the storms and fire of the equator. ”

“ Your poet is right; only it is more ecstatic to die in the arms of happiness, and to be buried with the flower of a love which has not yet faded.
My love would never have followed the fatal law of common-place affection; years would never have withered it in their passage. But what signifies its duration, if we can crowd eternity into an hour? What signifies the number of days if the days are full?
Nevertheless, I cannot refrain from regretting an existence which promises so much beauty. We would have been very happy in my little château on the Creuse. ”

“ The gardens of Madame Taverneau are not the gardens of Armida; but it is not in the power of the commonalty to spoil entirely the work of God's hands; trees, by the moonbeams of a summer-night, although only a few steps from red-cotton curtains and a sanhedrim of merry tradespeople, are still trees. In a corner of the garden stood a large acacia tree, in full bloom, waving its yellow hair in the soft night-breeze, and mingling its perfume with that of the flowers of the marsh iris, poised like azure butterflies upon their long green stems. ”

“ Heaven preserve you from jealousy! I do not mean to honor by this name that fickle, unjust, common-place sentiment that we feel when our vanity assumes the form of love. The jealousy that gnaws my heart is a noble and legitimate passion. Not to avenge one's self is to give a premium of encouragement to wicked deeds. The forgiveness of wrongs and injuries puts certain men and women too much at their ease. Vengeance is necessary for the protection of society.
Dear Edgar, tell me of your love; fear not to wound me by a picture of your happiness ”

“ Will you not let me show my appreciation of my little goddaughter by rendering her independent of future accidents, enabling her without imprudence to marry for love?
I am so happy in loving that I can imagine it to be the only source of joy to others; yet this happiness is so great that I find myself asking if my heart is equal to its blessings; if my poor reason, wearied by so many trials, will have sufficient strength to support these violent emotions; if happiness has not, like misery, a madness. I endeavor when alone to calm my excited mind ”

“ And then again, shall I say it, this humane consideration did not extend to the offending woman; my heart was still filled with a sentiment that has no name in the language of the passions!—A mixture of hatred, love, jealousy, scorn and despair.
She was not dead! A man had been sacrificed as a victim upon the altar of this goddess: that was all.
Do not women require amusement of this sort?
She would live; to-day, she would weep; to-morrow, seek the common path of consolation. One victim is not enough to gratify her cruel vanity! ”

“ It is a pity that your fine acting should be wasted upon me alone. You deserve a larger and more appreciative audience! You do not know yourself. I will hold a mirror before your eyes; you can affect astonishment, disinterestedness, magnanimity, and a constellation of other virtues, blooming like flowers in the gardens of the golden age. You are a perfected comedian. If you really possessed all the virtues you assume, you would, like Enoch, excite the jealousy of Heaven, and be translated to your proper sphere. A man of your transcendent virtue would be a moral scourge in our corrupt society. ”

“ Valentine, you see all excessive emotions are alike; the delirium of joy resembles the frenzy of despair. Having attained the summit of happiness, what do we see at our feet?... a yawning abyss!... we have lost the steep path by which we so painfully reached the top; once there, we have no means of gradually descending the declivity ... from so great a height we cannot walk, we fall!
There is but one way of preserving happiness—abjure it—never welcome it; sometimes it delights in visiting ungrateful people. Vainly do I seek to reassure myself by expiation, by sacrifices ”

“ On earth we are not allowed to taste of supreme delight—pure, unalloyed happiness—to feel at once that ecstasy of soul and delirium of passion—that pride of love and loftiness of a pure conscience ... burning joys are only permitted to culpable love. When two unfortunate beings, bound by detested ties, meet and mutually recognise the ideals of their dreams, they are allowed to love each other because they have met too late, because this immense joy, this finding one's ideal, is poisoned by remorse and shame. ”

“ I know well that people say: "Prince Roger is a good fellow" With this reputation a man is exposed to all the feline wickedness of human nature, but when once aroused "the good fellow" is transformed, and all turn pale in his presence.
No, I can never forgive a woman who holds before me a picture of bliss, and then dashes it to the ground—she owes me this promised happiness, and if she tries to fly from me I have a right to cry "stop thief."
Ah! Mlle. de Chateaudun, you thought you could break my heart, and leave me nothing to cherish but the phantom of memory! ”

“ You, my dear Edgar, will not have the benefit of final impenitence. At present the ardor of your soul is tempered by the suave indolence of your disposition.
Love is the most merciless and wearisome of all labors, and you are far too lazy to toil at it. When you suddenly look into the secret depths of your self, you will be frightened by discovering the germ of a serious passion; then you will try to escape on the wings of fancy to the realms of easy and careless pleasure. ”

“ He loves this woman as an artist; he has made her the delight of his eyes; she would have been the joy of my whole life. Besides, Edgar does not possess any of the social virtues. He is whimsical by nature, hostile to the proprieties, an enemy to every well-beaten track. His mind is always at war with his heart; his sincerest inspirations have the scoffing accompaniment of Don Juan's romance. No, he cannot make the happiness of this Louise so long sought for, so long hoped for, found, alas! to be irremediably lost. Louise deceives herself if she thinks otherwise. ”