Atala

“ I took the body on my shoulders; the hermit walked in front of me, carrying a spade in his hand. We commenced the descent from rock to rock; old age and death combined equally to slacken our pace. At the sight of the dog which had found us in the forest, and which now, jumping with joy, led us by another route, I melted into tears. Atala’s long hair, the plaything of the morning breezes, frequently threw its golden veil over my eyes, and, bending beneath the burden, I was obliged to lay it down often upon the moss, and sit awhile, to recover my strength. ”

“ I shall never be your spouse!’
“The constant struggle between Atala’s love and religion, her tender freedom and the chastity of her conduct, the pride of her character and her profound sensitiveness, the elevation of her soul in great things, her susceptibility about trifles, rendered her, in my opinion, an incomprehensible being. Atala could not hold a weak empire over a man. Full of passion, she was full of power. She must either be adored or hated. ”

“ Nevertheless, the hermit redoubled his zeal. With the torch of religion in his hand, he appeared to be guiding Atala to the tomb, to show her its secret wonders. The humble grotto was full of the grandeur of this Christian agony, and the heavenly spirits were no doubt attentive to the scene, in which Religion had to struggle alone against Love, Youth and Death. ”

“ Atala at once comprehended his misfortunes. ‘The barbarians!’ she exclaimed.
“‘My daughter,’ replied the hermit, with a pleasant smile, ‘what is that in comparison with the sufferings of my Divine Master? If the Indian idolators have tortured me, they are poor, blind creatures, whom God will enlighten some day. I love them all the more for the injury they have done me. ”

“ What a strange contradiction is the heart of man! I, who had so much desired to speak of things mysterious to her whom I already loved like the sun, suddenly became troubled and confused, and felt as though I should have preferred to be thrown amongst the crocodiles in the fountain to finding myself alone with Atala. The daughter of the desert was as much affected as her prisoner. We observed a profound silence; for the genii of love had deprived us of speech. ”

“ When I shall have ceased to exist, no friend will place a little grass over my body, to keep the insects away from it. The corpse of an unhappy stranger interests no one.’
“These words touched Atala. Her tears fell into the fountain. ‘Ah,’ I continued with vivacity, ‘if your heart spoke like mine! Is not the desert free? Do not the forests contain folds in which we could conceal ourselves? And, in order to be happy, are there so many things necessary for the children of the huts? O maiden, more beautiful than the first dream of a spouse! ”

“ Every evening we made a great fire and built a shelter out of a large hollow piece of bark, fixed on four stakes. The forests were full of game, which I easily brought down with the bow and arrows I took when we fled from the camp, and as it was now autumn, the forests were hung with fruit. Every day I became more and more joyful, but Atala was strangely quiet. Sometimes, as I suddenly turned my head to see why she was so silent, I would find her gazing at me, her eyes burning with passion. Sometimes she would kneel down, and clasp her hands in prayer and weep like a woman with a broken heart. ”

“ Atala, ou les amours de deux sauvages dans le désert, used as an episode in the Génie du christianisme, appeared separately in 1801 and immediately made his reputation. Exquisite style, impassioned eloquence and glowing descriptions of nature gained indulgence for the incongruity between the rudeness of the personages and the refinement of the sentiments, and for the distasteful blending of prudery with sensuousness. ”

“ A hundred times I was ready to fold Atala to my breast. A hundred times I proposed to build her a hut in the wide, uninhabited wilderness, and live my life out there by her side.
"Oh, René, my son, if your heart is ever deeply troubled by love, beware of loneliness. Great passions are wild and solitary things; by transporting them into the wilderness you give them full power over your soul. But in spite of this, Atala and I lived together in the great forests like brother and sister. ”

“ I am called Atala, and am the daughter of Agrajes, the magician. I put my father's ring beside you with the object that you might be able to save your sister."
"I should like to know you in your real form and not in that of a kid."
"Well, here I am," exclaimed Atala.
And thereupon she transformed herself into a lovely girl of more or less Enrique's age.
She transformed Herself into a Lovely Girl. "How pretty you are!" exclaimed the boy. "Come home and play with my little sister, who is now quite well, thanks to you." ”

“ And yet I felt that I still loved her, and that I should die with joy for Atala.
“In extreme pleasures there is a sting that excites one as though to counsel us to profit by the rapidly passing moment: in great grief, on the contrary, there is something heavy that induces drowsiness; the eyes fatigued with tears naturally seek to close, and the goodness of Providence may be thus remarked even in our misfortunes. ”

“ Nevertheless, the solitude, the constant presence of the beloved object, even our misfortunes, increased our affection from one instant to another. Atala prayed continuously to her mother, whose irritated shade she seemed as though wishing to appease. ”

“ The profound solitudes were not disturbed by the presence of men. We only saw one Indian hunter, who, leaning motionless upon his bow, on the peak of a rock, looked like a statue raised upon the mountain to the genius of those deserts.
“Atala and myself added our silence to the silence of this scene. All of a sudden, the daughter of exile filled the air by thus singing, in a voice replete with melancholy emotion, of her absent country:
“‘Happy are they who have not seen the smoke of foreign festivals, and who have never been seated elsewhere than at the rejoicings of their fathers! ”

“ Passion is whetted, so to speak, on the altar of Catholicism, and its unnatural suppression creates that unnatural frenzy which causes Atala, the charming young Indian girl, who has so long held the desire of her heathen lover in check, to die with a wish on her lips for the annihilation of God and the world, if at that price she can be clasped for ever to his heart. ”

“ Having thus seen the sun rise and set upon this place of grief, the next day, at the first cry of the stork, I prepared to leave the sacred sepulchre. I quitted it as the spot from which I desired to start upon a career of virtue. Three times I evoked the soul of Atala; three times the genius of the desert responded to my cries beneath the funeral arch. I afterwards saluted the East, and then I perceived, amongst the mountain paths in the distance, the friendly hermit going to the cabin of some unhappy creature. ”

“ I have often thought that had the execution of Atala equalled its design, no human work could have surpassed it in its grandeur. What picture is more simple, though more sublime, than the vast solitude of an unpeopled wilderness, the woods, the mountains, the face of Nature, cast in the fresh yet giant mould of a new and unpolluted world ”

“ And if it were not so, why may not the poet create such children of his fancy as he will, and give them what garb and conversation and surroundings he may please, so long as they are really human and beautiful? Atala is certainly an interesting and natural character, the consolations of the priest are filled with tender pathos, the style of the book is simple yet highly poetical, and there are descriptions of nature—of the forest, the mountains, the storm—of great beauty and vividness,—pictures that sometimes make us wish to betake ourselves to the wilderness. ”

“ The success of Atala had delighted me, because my soul was still fresh; that of the Génie du Christianisme was painful to me: I was obliged to sacrifice my time to a more or less useless correspondence and to irrelevant civilities. A so-called admiration did not atone to me for the vexations that await a man whose name the crowd remembers. What good can supply the place of the peace which you have lost by admitting the public to your intimacy? ”

“ The southern wind, my dear son, loses its heat on passing over mountains of ice. The souvenirs of love in the heart of an old man are like the fires of day reflected by the peaceful orb of the moon when the sun has set, and silence spreads itself over the huts of the savages.
“What could save Atala? what could prevent her from succumbing to Nature? Nothing, doubtless, but a miracle; and that miracle was accomplished. The daughter of Simaghan had recourse to the God of the Christians ”

“ A thousand fires were lighted, and savages were running about in all directions with torches. We hurried away with precipitation.
“When day broke upon the Apalaches, we were already far away. Great was my felicity on finding myself again in solitude with Atala—with Atala my deliverer, with Atala who was giving herself to me for ever! Words failed my tongue. I fell on my knees, and said to the daughter of Simaghan: ‘Men are but little; but when the genii visit them, they are nothing at all. You are a genius ”

“ It would require more warmth than I have left, and that my closed eyes might re-open to the sun, to ask it to tell of the tears they shed in its light. Yes, the moon now shining above our heads will become weary of lighting the solitudes of Kentucky—the river that is now bearing our pirogues will suspend the course of its waters—before my tears cease to flow for Atala! During two days I was insensible to the hermit’s conversation. In trying to calm my grief, the excellent man did not employ the commonplace reasonings of earthly minds. ”

“ We returned to the grotto, where I made the missionary acquainted with the project I had formed of remaining with him. The saint, who wonderfully understood the heart of man, penetrated my thought and the artfulness of my grief. He said: ‘Chactas, son of Outalissi, so long as Atala was alive, I myself desired that you should live with me; but at present your lot is changed; you owe yourself to your country. Believe me, my son, such griefs are not eternal. Sooner or later they wear themselves out, because the heart of man is finite. ”

“ I became ashamed of the tears I caused him to shed. ‘My father,’ I said, ‘this is too much: let the passions of a young man disturb the peace of your days no longer. Permit me to carry away the remains of my spouse; I will inter them in some corner of the desert; and if I am condemned to live on for a time, I will endeavor to render myself worthy of the eternal nuptials that were promised me by Atala.’
“At this unexpected return of courage, the good father trembled with joy, saying, ‘O blood of Jesus Christ, blood of my Divine Master, I acknowledge herein Thy merits! ”

“ Tears rolled from his blind eyes down his withered cheeks.
"Oh René, my son," he said, "you see that Chactas is very foolish in spite of his reputation for wisdom! Why do men still weep, even when age has blinded their eyes? Every night Atala came to see me, and a strange love for her was born in my heart. After marching for seventeen days, my captors brought me to the great savannah of Alachua, and camped in a valley not far from Cuscowilla, the capital of the Creeks. I was bound to the foot of a tree outside the town, and a warrior was set to watch over me. ”

“ I had just exposed myself to every danger for the sake of liberty, and in one instant the look of a woman had changed my tastes, my resolutions, my thoughts! Forgetful of my country, my mother, my cabin, and the frightful death awaiting me, I had become indifferent to everything that was not Atala. Lacking strength to raise myself to the reason of a man, I had suddenly fallen into a sort of childishness, and, far from being able to do anything to extricate myself from threatening misfortunes, I almost required some one to provide me with the means of sleep and nourishment. ”

“ On his return to the land of white men, several years later, Chactas, having heard of the misfortunes of the chief of prayer, went to gather the Father’s ashes, and those of Atala. He arrived at the spot where the mission had formerly existed, but he could scarcely recognize it. The lake was overflown, and the savannah changed into a marsh; the natural bridge, which had fallen in, had buried Atala’s tomb and the Groves of Death beneath its ruins. ”

“ Let another be happier than myself, and may long embraces unite the tender plant to the oak!’
“The youthful maiden then said to me, ‘I am not the Virgin of the last Loves. Are you a Christian?’ I replied that I had not betrayed the genii of my cottage. At these words the Indian made an involuntary movement, and said, ‘I pity you for being merely a wicked idolator. My mother made me a Christian; my name is Atala, and I am the daughter of Simaghan of the Golden Bracelets, the chief of the warriors of this troop. ”

“ As for myself, exhausted with fatigue, but still burning with desire, and thinking that I was perhaps irretrievably lost in the midst of those forests, I was a hundred times upon the point of drawing my spouse to my arms, and a hundred times did I urge Atala to allow me to build a hut upon the river side, so that we might bury ourselves therein together. But she always resisted my propositions. ‘Remember, my young friend,’ she would say, ‘that a warrior owes himself to his country. What is a woman compared to the duties you have to fulfil? Take courage, son of Outalissi ”