Charles Nodier

“ CHARLES NODIER
"who will be delighted at the opportunity to ask you for news of the other world."
I made answer to my beloved Charles that I had just read the same news in the same paper; that I was not sure myself whether I was alive; but that, body or shade, I would be with him next day at the hour named. However, as I had not eaten much for the last six weeks, I added that it would be more a question of my shadow than my body; I was not dead, but distinctly very ill! Moreover, I had been warned by an aide-de-camp of the king that the possibility of my arrest had been seriously discussed ”

“ He was elected a member of the Academy in 1833, and made a member of the Legion of Honour in 1843, a year before his death on the 27th of January 1844. These twenty years at the arsenal were by far the most important and fruitful of Nodier's life. ”

“ The hero, Charles, who is a variation of the Werther type, desires the restoration of the monasteries, to afford a refuge from the woes of the world. In 1811 Nodier appears at Laibach as editor of a polyglot journal, the Illyrian Telegraph, published in French, German, Italian and Slav. ”

“ Woods, towns, mountains, seas swept by quicker than magic lantern pictures. Far away horizons had scarcely risen in outline from the deep-down distance before they had plunged under the flying carriage. ”

“ I loved her without remembering that she was, of all aristocrats, the noblest, of all the affluent, the most affluent and that I was only Francesco Colonna, the unknown pupil of Bellini, and that all my efforts to be happy in my work would only ever lead me to the acquisition of a sterile reputation. Such is the effect of that passion that dazzles, that blinds, that kills. ”

“ Luck of the Bean-rows tramped on and on, taking huge strides like a five-foot giant, and staring left and right at the strange things he saw by the way. He had never dreamed that the world was so big and so full of wonders. ”

“ What right would I have to accept the perks of a high position that society denies me? With what impudence could I take my seat at the banquet of fortune, I who have only obscurity and misery as my prerogatives? ”

“ If you yourself chose this state of solitude and abnegation, Beatrix, I swear to you, you have my word, that it was because you did not yet know your own heart. The commitment that you made in your then ignorance of those feelings that are natural to all that breathes, is null and void before God as it is before men. You have carelessly betrayed your destiny as a wife, as a lover, and as a mother! ”

“ What grievous twist of fate has let me see you again, chained by the links of a life which is not made for you, and cut off, without any going back, from that brilliant world that you were the principal ornament of? ”

“ Nodier, Charles, able French littérateur, born at Besançon; a man of great literary activity and some considerable literary influence; author of charming stories and fairy tales; "did everything well," says Professor Saintsbury, "but perhaps nothing supremely well" (1780-1844) .
Nollekens, Joseph, sculptor, born in London, son of an Antwerp painter; studied in Rome; his forte lay in busts, of which he modelled a great many, including busts of Garrick, Sterne, Dr. Johnson, Pitt, and Fox, and realised thereby a large fortune; he was a man of no education ”

“ I loved a woman who would be universally recognizable were I to depict the rare qualities that she is clothed with, combining with beauty all the perfections of intelligence and soul, and that heaven seems only to have entrusted to earth to remind us of the ineffable joy of the condition we have lost. ”

“ She wearied of being a burden to pity, of only getting alms that a pious repugnance often nailed to the hands of charity, of only being helped on one side by people whose brows blushed to give her a piece of bread. ”

“ Luck of the Bean-rows knew nothing of Lavater or Gall or Spurzheim, he had never heard of phrenology, but within him he felt the natural instinct which teaches every living creature to sense an enemy from afar. ”

“ I was painfully condemned to live without hope, but without fear, to reach that moment when two souls, freed from all the ties that have weighed down on them, look for each other, recognize each other and are then brought together for all time. ”

“ A year went by in these sweet works mixed with sweet illusions, and Francesco had just put the finishing touches to his work, when the most distressing and heartbreaking news came through the walls where the Dominicans were. The young Antonio Grimani, later admiral and doge of Venice, but already the most brilliant of its nobles and its highest hope, had just asked for the hand of Polia in marriage, and, it was added, the hand of Polia had been granted to him. ”

“ I grasped that this marriage, which started with widowhood to end up having, was perhaps preferable to ordinary marriages, which shatter on bad days. I no longer saw in the years that remained to me to spend among men anything other than a long engagement that death would crown with an eternal felicity. ”

“ I myself saw this noble appeal to French urbanity bring 150 francs at an auction sale where our bibliophobe, the man of wealth, had entered it in the hope of catching some collector’s fancy, and I have no doubt that this small capital has by now been tripled in hands so discreet and knowing. All of which goes to show that a favor withheld is no more lost than one that is granted! ”

“ The artist and the poet are everywhere the same. Everywhere they have success and glory, but beyond an arm of the sea the woman who is rich and titled who has known how to shake off these vain privileges of birth is no more than a woman. If this woman came to say to you: I renounce my greatness, I abandon my fortune, I am ready to become even humbler and poorer than you, and to commit to your charge, as to my sole source of support, the whole of my life's destiny, what would you say to that, Francesco? ”

“ You condemned yourself, you poor, dear child, to long days of boredom, bitterness, disgust that no pleasure henceforth will be able to assuage the long sadness of! It is however so sweet to love, so sweet to be loved, so sweet to live again through what one loves in the objects that one loves! ”

“ Beatrix did not go back down to the choir without emotion. She went back to see her companions whose faith she had betrayed, and who had aged, immune to reproach, in the practice of an austere duty. She slid among her sisters lowering her head, and ready to humble herself at the first shout to announce her fault. ”

“ Innocence, modesty, youth, beauty, love, those roses in life that only flower once, and, in addition, conscience that compensates for all other losses! The jewels that had formerly adorned her, the impious tributes that debauchery pays to crime, provided her, for a time, with a resource too apt to dwindle. ”

“ Just before she had said this Francesco had opened his downcast eyes. He dared to look at Polia. He drank in her words avidly. "Ah!" he cried. "As God is my witness, my soul has no secret that does not belong to you."
"Your soul has a secret," replied Polia, "a secret that besets your friends and that certain people among those you love best may find it of use to fathom. ”

“ You will have noted, in fact, that this worthy man—the object and model of my favorite studies and the delight of my happiest hours of reading, praesidium et dulce decus meum—has, in the charming picture he has given us of his so enviable existence, either forgotten to mention, or himself failed to realize, the rarest and most precious ingredient of his happiness. ”

“ The pure joys of affection add to life twofold, threefold, fourfold. What tenderness there is in having a friend who worships you, who enhances each moment with ever new causes for pleasure, who only lives to cherish you or please you. The innocent caresses of pretty children, so fresh, gracious, happy to be alive, and that a barbarous whim would then have sent into oblivion! This is what you have lost! This is what you would have lost, Beatrix, if blind obstinacy keeps you in the abyss you have plunged in! ”

“ After that, the whole of Beatrix's life went by like a single day, like that day in the future that is promised to the Lord's elect, without boredom, without regret, without fear, without any emotions, for sensitive hearts cannot wholly do without them, other than those of piety towards God and charity towards Man. She lived for a century without seeming to have aged, for only the soul's bad passions add years to the body. The life of the good is an eternal youth. ”

“ Whether this modest tribute really pleased the divine mother of Jesus or whether a special pleasure, which it is difficult to define, is reserved for the least outpouring of a tender heart to the object of its affection, never had the soul of the chatelaine been as open to more ineffable emotions than those she felt that mild evening. She promised herself, with a joy that was ingenuous, to go back every day to the bush in bloom in order to daily bring back a fresh garland. ”

“ The sister custodian at that time was called Beatrix. Eighteen years old at most, she had scarcely been told how pretty she was, for she had entered Our Lady's house when she was only fifteen, as pure and unspoilt as her flowers.
There is a happy or disastrous age at which a young girl's heart understands that it was created to love, and Beatrix had reached it. ”

“ Of all the torments of love, the most cruel perhaps is to remain an unknown quantity to the person one loves; of all the feelings one inspires that dull feeling of indifference for a stranger is perhaps the most painful that love has to fear. ”

“ Heavenly angel, keep the rank and the advantages that heaven has conferred on you; you must be and stay what you are, and the wretch who would be capable of letting himself be carried along by this tender and sublime urge of your heart would never have deserved to occupy a place in it. ”

“ The strange position into which I was born, without parents, without a guardian, almost without a friend, fallen from a great name and an independent fortune, would doubtless be enough to explain my natural melancholy. It's a cruel thing to say to yourself that your unhappiness started in the cradle and stayed with you the rest of your life. ”

“ Polia was about to return to Treviso, and her cousin multiplied around her the various festivities that might enhance her sojourn in Venice and make it harder for her to leave. One day had been taken up by gondola outings on the Grand Canal and on that broad and deep arm of it that separates the Serenissima from the solitude of its Lido. But Francesco had not been overlooked in Leonora Pisani's invitations, and the letter which he had had from her contained such amiable and touching reproaches as to his long absence that for him to refuse would have been inconceivable. ”

“ What would you say if this noble and rich female whose shine dazzles you, but whose soul is probably no calmer than yours, what would you say, Francesco, if she came to offer you her hand freely, if, subject to a sway both respectable and inflexible, she came to promise it you in marriage?"
"What would I say, Polia?" Francesco answered with cold dignity, "I would refuse it. In order to dare love her I love, one needs to be to a certain extent worthy of her, and my most constant application has been to ennoble my soul so that it would be closer to hers. ”

“ The best of husbands may give the key of his safe to his wife, but he must not give her, even for one moment, the key of his library. A woman should never be left alone with a book, and such in fact should be the rule with all married book-lovers.
Nodier said that, after woman, books are the most delightful things in the world. Why do not women comprehend this, and increase their influence by their appreciation of books?
Following the bibliomaniac who hoards, and the bibliophile who collects, according to the very correct terms of Nodier, come the amateurs of the old book-cult. ”

“ The first thought of a wretch is to die. That thought is as commodious as it is natural because it answers all questions and remedies all inconveniences. But might not this desperate death, far from hastening to bring about the day when I may draw nearer to her in a better world, separate me from her forever? ”

“ It was the day that Francesco was to present his book to Polia. He stood up to the blow that had just struck him, went to her palazzo and stopped on the threshold of her apartment. "Come, my brother," said Polia when she saw him. "Come to communicate to us these secret wonders of your art, a true treasure that Christian humility refuses to the world, and which is to be confided only to us." At the same time she shooed away her women and her servants, and Francesco was alone with her. ”

“ Francesco looked at her as if to seek in Polia's eyes if her mouth had not betrayed her thought.
"You know better than anyone," Polia went on, "that I have pledged my troth elsewhere and that my decision to do so is irrevocable. But I must forgive your suspicions for yours is guaranteed by the oath that binds you to an altar and I have never given you a guarantee like that. Listen, Francesco. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day you made your first vows, and it will be during the last morning mass that you will render them even more binding and more sacred by renewing them before the Lord. ”

“ Alone among our affections, it seems to grow and get stronger with time, while other loves burn so brightly and are spent so quickly in our hearts of ash. Nevertheless she loved Raymond as much as she could love anyone, but a day came when she saw that Raymond no longer loved her. That day made her foresee the even more atrocious day when she would be quite abandoned by the man for whom she herself had abandoned the honours of the altar, and that dreaded day also came. Beatrix now found herself, alas, with no-one to turn to on earth or in heaven. ”