A Woman Appeared To Me - Renee Vivien.pdf

NEE iivmN TRaNSbflTED FROM THE FRENCH BY JeanREftB H. FOSf BF

INTRODUCTION BY GBYLE RUBIN

BOSTOISI

PUBLIC

UBRARY

A

WDNAN APPEARED

TOME

A WONAH APPEARED TO ME BY

Renee Vivien

TR.ANSL/1TCD FF^OM

THC FRENCH BY

Jeannef te H. Foster Introduction by

GflYLE RUBIN

THE NAIAD PRESS 1982

French text printed by Alphonse Lemerre,

Paris,

1904.

©

1976 by The This translation and introduction Copyright Naiad Press Incorporated, All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

Second Printing 1979 Third Printing 1981 Fourth Printing 1982

Cover design by Tee A. Corinne

ISBN:

0-930044-06-1

Library of Congress Catalog Card

Number 76-45689

'^WpW^^^^MC'^Z^^^

X

**-0mm:,

*^^^^-

A UfDNAN APPEARED

TONE

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2011

http://www.archive.org/details/womanappearedtomOOrene

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE The French

text

was

originally

pubHshed

as:

Une Femme

m'apparut. Printed by Alphonse Lemerre, Paris, 1904. 270 pages. With a frontispiece, Saint

John the Baptist by Leonardo

da Vinci, and brief excerpts of musical scores preceding each chapter. 19 cm.

The book

is

dedicated by the author to H. L. C. B.

Copies of this French edition are

now

rare.

The French edition contains, preceding each chapter, excerpts from musical scores, intended to indicate mood-music for each episode. In the present volume these have not been reproduced. The translator, however, has identified each excerpt and references will be found at the end of this volume in the Translator's Notes.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE The present volume is the result of a rare opportunity to modern readers in EngUsh this prose work of the gifted 20th Century poet, Renee Vivien. Although French was the language in which she chose to write, she was Anglo-American. The translation here provided by Jeannette H. Foster captures her unique style and feeling. The Introduction by Gayle Rubin

bring to

presents her as a

woman and

as a

major Lesbian writer.

INTRODUCTION

History

agreed upon by the victors.

is lies

-Anonymous The

first novel,

Adam

's

story, has

been

overprinted.

-Natalie Barney

.

.

.

/

know

that these are the

fathers stole us from.

know

thyself

.

.

Know

women our

thy

women;

.

—Bertha Harris

It is

notoriously difficult to maintain the

memory of

the past. But

groups which are socially marginal are particularly relegated to the fringes

of historical discussion. Lesbians, suffering from the dual disquahfication of being gay and female, have been repeatedly dispossessed of their history.

The generation of

lesbians

who emerged

out of the women's

movement

in

the late 1960's had to discover their immediate predecessors of the 1950*s,

who had

already undertaken the task of retrieving earlier ancestors from

scanty archives. The same silence which makes the practice of lesbian history so arduous also obscures the

work of those who have succeeded

in

illuminating a lesbian past.

Such considerations make the pubHcation of this translation of Une

Femme

m'apparutan event to be relished. The translator is Jeannette Foster, whose Sex Variant Women in Literature (1956) is the principal reference book on lesbian history.

when

a

women's

It

had been out of print for two decades until this year it from the underground. I doubt that Foster

press rescued

was very surprised by the general neglect of her work, which painstakingly documents the extent to which lesbian lives and Hterature are routinely forgotten. The author of A Woman Appeared to Me is Renee Vivien, whose own career is an object lesson in historical amnesia. Vivien's poetry was lavishly praised by critics in the early part of this century, but it has since been consigned to obscurity. (Reinach, 1914; and Cooper, 1943) Ren^e Vivien's twenty-odd volumes of poetry and prose comprise one of the most remarkable lesbian oeuvres extant. While her celebration of lesbian passion has contributed to her lack of literary recognition, iii

it

has

conversely guaranteed her a modest cult reputation as a homosexual poet.

Her collected poems were reprinted

Arno

Press collection

The Ladder.

into English in

(I'Autre, 1969)

less

known than

poems were translated Renee Vivien's prose poems,

her verse. Vivien's prose

printings even in her lifetime,

French) in the recent

several

Woman Appeared

short stories, and her one novel {A

even

(in the original

on homosexuality and

to

Me), have remained

work never reached second

when her poetry was widely Much of her prose writing

thing of a scandalous sensation.

and fascinating;

ful

it

both beauti-

should be more accessible. Hopefully, this translation

A Woman Appeared

of

read and someis

to

Me

will

encourage a revival of interest

of

in all

Renee Vivien's work. If

A Woman

lesbian writer,

Appeared

to

Me

were merely a

lost

work by an obscure

pubUcation would be welcome. But the novel

its

is

also a

document, part of the archival remains of one of the most critiperiods in lesbian history. A Woman Appeared to Me is Renee Vivien's

historical cal

dream-hke account of her tormented relationship with her muse

feverish,

and mistress, Natalie Clifford Barney. "Between Sappho and Gertrude Stein .

.

.

these

lesbian

women

represent practically the only available expressions of

cukure we have

in the

modem

western world." (Harris, 1973:87)

Since the novel evokes both the relationship and the milieu in which

took place, historical

the

it

and biographical contexts.

complex world

in

I

will first describe

its

some aspects of

which the two main protagonists of the novel Hved.

Part of the unwritten history of the nineteenth century

profound

it

can be better understood with some knowledge of both

is

that of the

The nineteenth century saw the Europe changed into modern society.

historical changes in sexuaUty.

culmination of trends which began as

The massive

social

transformations— such as industriaHzation, urbanization,

etc.— have long engaged the historical imagination. Historians have recently

become

interested in the changes

which took place

in the family

and

in

sexual Hfe, but few have noticed that these changes included a revolution in

homosexuality.

assumed

its

It

was

In the Middle Ages,

nineteenth century that homosexuality

homosexuality had been defined

havior, a sinful activity. is

in the

modern form. The idea of

type of person

a product of the nineteenth century.

ologists

who

recognized a

as a

who

form of be-

homosexual was the nineteenth century sexcategory of homosexual individuals and who a

is

It

evolved a terminology to describe such persons. Writers of the nineteenth

century also record evidence of the urban subcultures which terize so

much of homosexual

still

charac-

experience.^ The nineteenth century cities

contained speciaUzed homosexual communities, centered around bars, taurants, informal networks,

and semi-secret

The variety of lesbian society

in Paris

res-

clubs.

before 1910 has been charmingly

described by Colette. Between 1906 and 1911, Colette

left

her

first

hus-

.

band, made her living by performing

in

music

halls,

woman

and had a

lover-Missy, the Marquise de Belboeuf. Through the music halls, Colette

homosexual

familiar with the popular

was class

culture. She frequented a lower-

bar called the Palmyre. The clientele was mostly poor, the food was

amazon who

cheap, and the proprietor a rough, maternal

fed the most in-

digent for nothing. I

go to the bar kept by Semiramis, appropriately named-Semiramis,

warrior queen, helmeted in bronze, armed with the meat cleaver,

who

speaks a colorful language to her crowd of long-haired young lads and short-haired .

.

.

young

girls

.

.

.

young men who are not at all inwomen. At dinnertime there they are, comfortably at home, rest. They are recovering their strength for suppertime.They

you

find there a majority of

terested in

enjoying a

have no need to waggle their hips or cry out shrilly or flutter a handkerThey are gentle, weary, chief soaked in ether, or dance together .

.

.

with their painted eyelids heavy with sleep. While dining at Semiramis's bar I enjoy watching the girls dancing together, they waltz so well. They're not paid for this, but dance for pleasure between the cabbage soup and the beef stew. They are .

.

.

young models, scapegraces of the neighborhood, girls who take bit parts at the music hall but who are out of work ... I see only two graceful bodies united, sculptured beneath thin dresses by the wind of the waltz They waltz like the habitues of cheap dance halls, .

.

.

lewdly, sensuously, with that delicious inclination of a

yacht ...

I

can't help

it! I

really find that prettier than

tall sail

any

of a

ballet

.

.

(Phelps, 1966: 144-150)

Through her them

bering

lover Missy, Colette

met the disgruntled

aristocrats.

Remem-

thirty years later, she wrote:

The adherents of this clique of women exacted secrecy for their where tney appeared dressed in long trousers and dinner jackets

parties,

and behaved with unsurpassed propriety Baronesses Where could I find, nowadays, messmates like those of the Empire, lady cousins of Czars, illegitimate daughters of granddukes, exquisites of the Parisian bourgeoisie, and also some aged horsewomen of the Austrian aristocracy, hand and eye of steel (Colette, .

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

1967: 67-69) It

was to

this Paris, vibrant capital

of homosexual society, that Renee

Vivien and Natalie Barney came shortly before 1900,

when they were both

was here that the two young women instigated a lesbian renaissance. They distinguished themselves from their contemporaries in Paris lesbian society by what we would now call their "gay con-

in their early twenties. It

Epoque, upper-class texture of their two forerunners of the contemporary gay women's

sciousness." Beneath the florid. Belle hves, one can discern

movement.

v

II

.

.

.

sick with anguish,

Stood the crowned nine Muses about Apollo, Fear was upon them. While the tenth sang

wonderful things they

knew

Ah

not.

the tenth, the Lesbian!

-Swinburne Is it

sapphism which

nourishes her intelligence,

or

intelligence

is it

makes her a

which

lesbian?

-Jean Royere, speaking of Natalie Barney Renee Vivien was born Pauline Mary Tarn Her mother was American and her father

in

England on June

1 1

,

1877.^

The Tarn family apparently amassed their fortune in the London dry goods business. Renee^ was sent to study in Paris, where she met Violet Shilleto, a young American who was to become one of the most important figures in her life. The two girls became close friends. They shared an intense concern with religion and related questions. As children, they refused Anglican communion together and both were to die as CathoUcs. With adolescence, Renee developed an intense, but unconsummated, passion for Violet. Renee had probably British.

not yet understood the implications of her feelings

when

her parents brought

know

her back to England to prepare for her debut. She did

that she

was

miserable, missed her friend, and was in a constant state of rage at having to go through the motions of a conventional upper-class girl preparing for

marriage. Renee was fmally presented in 1897

when

escaped back to Paris the next year, and had her in

1899 with Natalie Barney, Natalie Barney

was born

Barney family then

whom

in

she

she was twenty. She

first

sexual relationship

met through Violet

Shilleto.

Dayton, Ohio on Halloween 1876.^ The

lived in Cincinnati,

where they had made

a fortune

manufacturing railroad equipment. The Barney family subsequently moved to Washington. Natalie spent

much

of her youth

tended Les Ruches, the school immortalized

in

France, where she

in Olivia.^

at-

She lived for a

while in Paris where her mother, Alice Pike Barney, studied painting.^ Natalie's

memoirs convey the impression of an extraordinary precocity.

She says that she became a feminist during one of the family excursions to Europe, where she saw a

woman

and a dog pulling a

cart while the

man

walked alongside. (Barney, 1960:30) She was ten years old. That same mother arranged tor Carolus Duran to paint Natalie's portrait.

year, her

camp which never deserted her, Natalie posed young prince wearing a green velvet doublet.^ Natalie knew that she was a lesbian from an early age, and later commented that if her studies had come to nothing, it was because '*my only books were women's looks." Displaying the fine sense of

as a

(Grindea, 1961:10) She had her

lesbian affair at the age of sixteen

first

with a red-haired beauty named Eva Palmer. The two

girls

had met

at

Bar

summer homes.

Harbor, Maine, where their families had

Natalie settled in Paris in 1899. She immediately seduced Liane de Pougy, one of the most celebrated courtesans in Paris. Pougy wrote Idylle Saphique, a

roman a

clef oi the relationship.®

The novel portrays young

Natalie orat-

ing against the injustice of male laws and referring to lesbianism as "a reH-

gion of the body, whose kisses are prayers." (Pougy, 1901:277) She refuses to call lesbianism a perversion. Instead, she refers to

it

as "a conversion."

(ibid.:57)

Natalie

was

involved with Liane

still

when

between Natalie and Renee commenced on

room

full

of

liHes.

It

met Renee. The affair 1 899 in a

lasted until a bitter rupture in

again briefly in 1904. liaison

she

a winter night in

It

would be

difficult to

could have had the impact that

it

did

1901 and resumed

understand

how

such a short

upon both women, were

it

not for the intensity generated by their shared vision of a society in which

women would be free, and homosexuahty When Renee Vivien and Natalie Barney each found a comrade

own

ism.

They dreamed of

began their relationship, they

war on behalf of

in their Hterary

bianism. Searching for their

honored.

establishing a group of

women

women

and

les-

Sappho and Hellen-

roots, they discovered

poets dedicated to

Sappho, preferably on the island of Mytilene (Lesbos). Vivien learned Greek in

order to read Sappho in the original, and she eventually translated Sappho's

poetry into French. The two

women

declared themselves pagans, spiritual

descendants of the Greeks. Vivien and Barney were part of the emergence of the early homosexual

movement

in the late

nineteenth century. In Britain this

consisted of Victorian gentlemen

movement was expHcitly

the

who wrote homoerotic

political,

movement mainly

poetry. In Germany,

and fought for the legaHzation of

homosexuality. (Lauritsen and Thorstad, 1974) Renee Vivien and Natalie

Barney were unique

in that

they achieved and articulated a distinctively

lesbian self-awareness. Their writings

show

that they understood

who

they

were and what they were up against. There were few homosexuals of either

who comprehended the dimensions of the homosexual situation. Both women understood that prejudice against homosexuals had to be

sex

fought, and they realized the importance of living openly. Before Radclyffe Hall argued for tolerance, they argued for pride. Hall's consciousness

vu

was

Havelock Ellis and Magnus Hirschfeld, homosexuaUty was an inborn anomaly for which no one

largely that of the sexologists, such as

who

believed that

should be held legally culpable.

By

contrast, Vivien and Barney adopted

an attitude for which they found support in nineteenth century French hterature, in

which the lesbian was often

a romantic figure, (see Foster,

1956:81-115) Radclyffe Hall believed that pride was possible

of

in spite

homosexuality; Vivien and Barney were proud o/homosexuaHty.

At

at

when Krafft-Ebing

time

disease, Vivien

classified

and Barney considered

it

homosexuality

as a degenerative

They responded by this Woman Appeared to Me:

a thrilling distinction.

to anti-homosexual disdain with insolent extremism, as illustrated

interchange between two of the characters in "In fact, San Giovanni, has a "I can hardly conceive

woman

A

ever loved a

man?"

of such a deviation of the senses. Sadism

and the rape of children seem more normal to me." (page 53)

Renee Vivien read widely rewrote

many

in

myth, legend, and ancient

literature.

She

of western culture's most cherished myths, replacing their

male and heterosexual biases with female and lesbian ones. In these excerpts

from "The Profane Genesis," (Vivien, 1902a:

the biblical story into the creation

I.

11 5-1 18) Vivien changes

lesbian poetry.

Before the birth of the Universe, there existed two eternal

principles, II.

myth of

Jehovah and Satan.

Jehovah was the incarnation of Force, Satan the incarnation

of Cunning. VII. Jehovah breathed

upon

was born

the Infinite, and the sky

of his breath. VIII. Satan covered the implacable azure with the fleeting grace

of clouds. XIII.

Jehovah kneaded clay, and from

XIV. From the very essence of flesh of

woman,

the

XV. Jehovah bent

this clay,

fashioned man.

this flesh flowered, idealized, the

work of Satan. the

man and

the

woman

with the violence of

the embrace.

XVI. Satan taught them the piercing subtlety of the

caress.

XVIII. He [Jehovah] inspired the Bard of Ionia, the mighty Homer.

XIX. Homer celebrated the magnificence of carnage and the glory cities, the sobs of widows

of spih blood, the ruin of

XX. Satan

.

.

.

leaned toward the west, over the sleep of Sappho, the

Lesbian.

VUl

XXI. And she sang the fugitive forms of love ... the ardent perfume of roses ... the sacred dances of Cretan women ... the immortal arrogance that scorns suffering and smiles in death and the charm of women's kisses .

.

.

Renee Vivien and Natalie Barney were

as

outspoken

as in their lesbianism. Vivien scoured her sources for

in their

feminism

themes of female

dependence. Amazons, androgynes, and archaic female deities abound

Many of

her writing.

her prose pieces are tales of

There are noble

rebels.

virgins,

women

in-

in

as magnificent

independent prostitutes, queens

who

choose

poverty and freedom to the slavery of an unloved royal bed. 'The Veil of

Vashti" (Vivien, 1904b: 131-144)

Book of

Esther.

The Jewish

is

festival

a story based

on the Old Testament

of Purim celebrates Esther's rescue of

from the machinations of a Persian court functionary. Vivien was by the part of the story which is generally ignored in Hebrew school. She wrote about Queen Vashti, whom Esther replaced. The biblical account says that Vashti refused to obey an order of King Ahasuerus. The King's advisors warn that she must be punished, or the Persians and the Medes will be faced with a feminist revolt. In Vivien's story, Vashti's prothe Jews

inspired

vocation

deliberate:

is

my

come to the attention of all women and they King Ahasuerus had ordered that Queen Vashti be brought into his presence and she did not go.' And, from that day, the princesses of Persia and Media will know that they are no longer the servants of their husbands, and that the man is no longer the master in his house; but that the woman is free and mistress equally to the master in his house." "For

action will

will say, 'The

When Queen

Vashti

is

informed of her banishment from the court, she

declares: "I

am

Hons ...

going into the desert where I

shall perish there

human

beings are free like

perhaps of hunger.!

shall perish there

of savage beasts. I shall perish there perhaps of soHtude. But, since the rebellion of Lilith, I am the first free woman. My action will come to the attention of all women, and all those who are slaves in the houses of their husbands or of their fathers will envy me in secret. Thinking of my glorious rebellion, they will say: Vashti disdained being a queen that she might be free." And Vashti went into the desert where dead serpents lived again under the light of the moon. perhaps

in the teeth

Renee Vivien

One of It is

also

wrote stories of

the most striking

worth quoting

is

"The

women

as victims

of male injustice.

Eternal Slave." (Vivien, 1903b: 89-90)

in full:

IX

/

I

saw the

Woman encumbered

with chains of gold and chains of

bronze. Her bonds were at once tenuous like a spider's web, and

\

\

heavy Hke the mass of mountains, and the Man, sometimes tyrant and sometimes parasite, dominated her and Uved off of her. Docile, she submitted to his tyranny. And what was most dismaying was to hear the hypocritical words of love which were mingled with the orders of the master. I cried out to the Woman (and my cry passed despairingly through the bars

/ /

/

which separated

us):

"O You, the eternally Afflicted, Tenderness deceived, Martyr of love, why do you resign yourself in degrading patience to the ignominy and baseness of this false companion? Do you submit out of love or out of fear?" She replied to me: "I submit neither from love nor from fear, but through ignorance and habit." And with these words, an immense sadness and an immense hope

j

\ j 1

came

\

to me.

Because of her sensitivity to the male sexual monopoly on women,

Renee Vivien was fascinated by

women who

often wrote about

stories

of

women who

refused men. She

preferred to mate with monsters or to die

rather than to accept the desire of a

human male. Many of her stories are man who has unwittingly en-

told from the viewpoint of some bemused

countered such a a

woman and been

humiliated by her refusal. "Brown Like

Hazel-Nut" (Vivien, 1904b: 145-164)

Jerry,

and consists of

be his mistress, but she refuses. She a

is

by

narrated

a

tells

toad than be embraced by him. He catches a toad and

by Renee Vivien

will take her

which

is

force unless she swallows is

chiefly

remembered

it.

and

no poet who wrote

is

as prolifically of lesbian love. Colette

of the Poet of Lesbos, "Renee Vivien has

human

her that he

for her poetry, the vast bulk of

unequal strength, force, merit, unequal as the tions of

tells

She does.

devoted to the passion of women. There

as openly, as single -mindedly, said

young man named

of Nell. Jerry wanted Nell to him that she would rather swallow

his bitter recollection

suffering." (Colette, 1967:91)

left a great

human It

many poems

would be impossible

to

begin to present the range of Vivien's poetry here, so these verses from

"Words

to

My

Friend" (Vivien, 1934b: 54-5 5)

have to suffice:

will

See: I am at the age when a maiden gives her hand To the Man whom her weakness seeks and dreads, And have not chosen my travelling companion. Because you appeared at the turn of the road. I

The hyacinth bleeds on the red hills. You dreamt and Eros walked by your side I am a woman, I have no right to beauty, They have condemned me to the ugliness of men. .

.

of

breath, as the pulsa-

.

And

had the inexcusable audacity to want made up of light purities,

I

The The

sisterly love

And

the soft voice which blends with the evening.

furtive step that

does not bruise the ferns

They had forbidden me your

hair, your eyes Because your hair is long and fragrant And because your eyes hold strange ardors

And become muddy They pointed Because

On

like rebellious

their fingers at

my eyes were

me

in

waves.

an angry gesture,

seeking your tender glance

.

.

.

no one has wished to understand have chosen you with simplicity.

seeing us pass by,

That

I

Consider the

And

vile

my

law that

1

transgress

which knows nothing of evil. As candid, as necessary, and fatal As the desire which joins the lover to his mistress. If

judge

love,

Renee Vivien was the poet of Lesbos, Natalie Barney was its muse. also a writer and a poet, but her impact came less from her

Barney was

writing than from her powerful personality, her arrogant disregard for con-

vention, the lucidity of her ideas, and her astounding capacity for seduc-

She

tion.

lived

among

writers,

many

of

whom

used her colorful personality

model for barely disguised fictional characters. Besides Vally in A Woman Appeared to Me, Barney's most memorable appearances include

as a

Laurette, in

Musset

L Ange

in the

(Flossie) in Idylle

Well orite

et les pervers (Delarue-Mardrus, 1930);

Dame

Evangeline

Ladies Almanack (Barnes, 1928); Florence Temple Bradford

Saphique (Pougy, 1901); and Valerie Seymour

in

The

of Loneliness (Hall, 1959). These characters depict Natalie in her favroles-muse of poets, high priestess of lesbianism, missionary and

ductress of the unconvinced. Natalie was healthful benefits of the gay

se-

a living advertisement for the

life.

Natalie did not restrict the exercise of her

charm

to

women. She

has a

considerable reputation as a patron of literature. Her salon at 20, rue Jacob, is

legendary, hi contrast to Gertrude Stein's, Natalie's salon was a center

for

French Hterature. Her guest

list

reads like a Who's

century French and American arts and

Who

in twentieth

letters.

home was also a gathering place for the homosexual underground. Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge Natalie frequently in the 1920's, and Hall wrote about the ambi-

During the twenties, Natalie's international visited

ance NataHe created

in

The Well of Loneliness:

And such people frequented Valerie Seymour's, men and women who must carry God's mark on their foreheads. For Valerie, placid and self-assured, created an atmosphere of courage; everyone

felt

very

.

normal and brave when they gathered together at Valerie Seymour's. There she was, this charming and cultured woman, a kind of lighthouse in a storm-swept ocean. The waves had lashed round her feet in vain The storms, gathering force, broke and drifted away, leaving behind them the shipwrecked, the drowning. But when they looked up, the poor spluttering victims, why what should they see but Valerie Seymour! .

Then

a

few would

strike boldly for the shore, at the sight

of this

.

in-

destructible creature. (Hall, 1959:352)

An

impressive

number of

talented and articulate

women

continued to

gather around Natalie Barney well into the twentieth century.

Some were

one time or another her lovers-including Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Elizabeth de Gramont (Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre), Dolly Wilde (Oscar Wilde's niece), and Romaine Brooks. They wrote about each other, painted each

at

other, wrote poetry to each other, and engaged in Byzantine sexual intrigue.

an extraordinary collection of artifacts scattered about in museums and libraries. Many of them are famous, and this period of Paris history in the 1920's is relatively well known. It should be remembered, however,

They

left

that these

women

were carrying on a tradition estabHshed by Renee Vivien

and Natalie Barney by 1900.

Ill

"Some women,"

said

Dame

Musset, "are Sea-Cattle,

and some are Land-Hogs, and yet others are Worms crawling about our Almanacks, but some," she said, "are Sisters of Heaven, and these we must follow and not be side-tracked."

-Ladies Almanack In spite of their shared ideology,

emotionally mismatched. Although

common bility.

lesbian consciousness,

Renee Vivien wrote

in Vivien's life is

The novel

is

it

to

Me

reflects their

to

Me

sometime before

based on the events and people

between 1899 and 1903, and

biographical, but

Appeared

primarily a record of their incompati-

A Woman Appeared

their reconciliation in 1904.^

novel

it is

Renee Vivien and Natalie Barney were

A Woman

its

esthetic

is

fin

de

siecle.

The

records less the events themselves than Renee's

emotional response to them. Moreover, Renee experienced her emotions very symbolically. Perhaps as part of her poetic craft, particular people

became associated with any number of levels of imagery and significance, Renee's inner cosmology associated colors, flowers, and legendary figures with personal archetypes.

There are two primary emotional sources for

Me. The

first

was the

failure

the same period of her

life,

A Woman Appeared

to

of Renee's relationship with Natalie. During

Renee faced another xii

crisis.

Her friend Violet

haunted Renee for the rest of her compUcated the relationship with Natalie. A Woman Appeared to Me is the story of a doomed love affair between the narrator (Renee Vivien) and Vally (Natalie Barney). The first part of the novel covers the years from 1899 to 1901. Vally is portrayed as inShilleto died in 1901. Violet's death

own

short

life,

and

it

capable of love and utterly faithless. The narrator

women, but

is

distressed at Vally's

most outraged by the "Prostitute," a man who wants to marry Vally. Natalie did in fact have male suitors at that time, and she led them on. But men were never of any sexual or rodalliances with other

she

is

mantic significance to her.

The narrator reahzes that her obsessed relationship with Vally is underwho had been her most dear and intimate friend. Completing the initial cast of characters, there mining her friendship with lone (Violet Shilleto),

is

the orientalist Petrus (J. C. Mardrus, a friend of Natalie's and the trans-

of the Arabian Nights), the wife of Petrus (Lucie Delarue-Mardrus),

lator

and San Giovanni.

The character San Giovanni is a composite alter ego of the narrator. is Renee 's better half, her common sense, the courageous poet of Lesbos: in short, the core of Vivien's identity which remained intact from

She

the devastation of her

unhappy

passion.

wise Vivien of 1903 while the narrator

San Giovanni

is

also

Sometimes San Giovanni

is

is

the

the innocent Vivien of 1900.

one of the archetypes of Vivien's personal mythology:

the androgyne.

Vally, the narrator, and San Giovanni travel together to America, where

women's

(Bryn Mawr); lone gets sick and dies shortly

they

visit a

after

they return. The narrator

college

is

desolate with grief for lone and jealous

common

of Vally's affairs. San Giovanni-her

sense— warns her: "If you

don't alter your jealous melancholy and your savage moods, Vally. self

She

will

you

will lose

simply stay out of the dark mists in which you wrap your-

and which smother her. She needs fresh

39, itahcs in the original)

And

air,

space, and sunlight." (page

indeed, Vally soon expels the narrator from

her divine presence.

The

rest

of the novel covers the years 1901 to 1903. The narrator attempts

to console herself with

Dagmar

"Prince" (Alfred Lord Douglas,

(Olive Custance) until

whom

Dagmar

finds her

Olive married in 1902 and

who had

been the lover of Oscar Wilde). Then the narrator finds Eva, and the two

women embark on

a year of

precise classification.

Eva

is

happy

love. Like

San Giovanni, Eva defies

based in part on Eva Palmer. Renee seems to

have fallen in love with Palmer,

who

gently refused her.-^° Renee plays up-

on the connotations of Eva's name to evoke the archetypal primal woman. Just as San Giovanni is Renee 's ideal self, Eva is the ideal lover of her dreams. Finally, Eva also represents Helene, Baronne Van Zuylen de Nyevelt,

who became Renee 's

lover after the break with Natalie in 1901. xiii

While the narrator her.

The

is

Uving happily with Eva, Vally returns to claim

part of the novel records the narrator's struggle to decide

last

between these two archangels of her destiny.

A Woman

Appeared

Me

to

was written out of Renee Vivien's need to

come to terms with her relationship with Natalie Barney. Renee wanted to understand

what went wrong and

whom

to blame. Although the novel

occasionally presents Natalie's analysis of the affair,

it is

an expression of Renee 's confusion, pain, anger, and

fundamentally

guilt. Natalie

wrote

about her side of the relationship in her memoirs {Souvenirs indiscrets and

Aventures de

I'esprit)

and

in a

group of prose poems {Je

me

souviens). All

of these accounts are partisan, and must be measured against what actually

happened.

When Renee met

Natalie in 1899, Violet Shilleto was still the center of As Renee became increasingly involved with Natalie, she began to lose touch with Violet. Early in 1901, Violet asked Renee to go with her to the south of France. Renee elected to stay in Paris with Natalie, promising Violet that she would come later. When she received

her emotional

word

life.

that Violet

was

ill,

Renee hastened to the

Riviera. While

Renee was

gone, Natalie dabbled in an unsuccessful liaison with Olive Custance. Renee

meanwhile had arrived

in

Nice to fmd that Violet was dying and had con-

compounded by her become estranged from her friend. She felt that she had betray the friendship by her absorption in the carnal delights

verted to CathoHcism. Renee 's grief for Violet was guilt for

having

been led to of her

first affair.

Renee 's

grief did not abate.

Hoping that

a change of scenery

Renee out of her depression, Natalie persuaded Renee the U.S.

They spent the summer of 1901

Eva Palmer,

who had been

in

to go

would help

with her to

Bar Harbor, where Renee met

Natalie's first lover.

Eva was much more under-

standing of Renee's grief than Natalie. While Natalie went to a round of social events,

to

Eva studied Greek with Renee. In the

Bryn Mawr, where Eva was

balls

and

finally ily's

parties,

Renee wrote poetry

departed to

home

in

visit

fall, all

three traveled

a student. ^^ While Natalie again

her family in

in

went

to

an abandoned cemetery. Renee

London and

Washington. They were to meet back

Natalie left for her famin Paris.

memoirs, Natalie says that she did not hear from Renee during that winter, and was filled with disquiet. She says she was surprised to find In her

that

Renee would not

when she returned to Paris. Natalie ascerbecome involved with Helene, Baronne Van Zuylen

see her

tained that Renee had

de Nyeveh (nee Rothschild). Renee avoided

all

of Natalie's attempts to

which included moonlight serenades and messages tossed over garden walls. Natalie speculates in her memoirs that the Baroness had paid Renee's governess to intercept her letters, leading Renee to

communicate with

her,

beheve that Natalie had abandoned her. The Baroness was jealous and did

Renee from her former lover, but Natalie *s account is somewhat disingenuous. The relationship had been in trouble for some time, and Natalie already knew that Renee was trying to avoid her quite apart

try to sequester

from any possible

From ized

by

its

and

carnality

who

a lover

by the Baroness.

intrigue

the beginning of the affair, Renee was both exhilarated and terrorits

power. Natalie was the incarnation of her dreams,

could inspire an incinerating passion. But Renee was ambiva-

about such passion. She had a curious kind of chastity, both emotional and physical. Her chaste love for Violet seemed to embody a passion untouched by impurity. If anything, her experiences with NataHe were suffi-

lent

ciently confusing to exacerbate the conflict.

was the

Natalie's ability to seduce

pleasures of the flesh. that she

love

wanted

was

a

One of

result

more ardent reahty,

willing to speak of love than to love,

And would you you who

Is it

will

I

if

have put there

is

the other hand,

Natalie's early complaints about less

largely lived in the imagination.

into your verses

On

of

ardent words. She

Renee was

felt that

Renee's

She accused Ren^e of being more

and she wrote these words to her:

of your courage and

all

much

of her religious devotion to the

all

your poetry

so Httle left for your life?

will write these

audacious and beautiful words, and you sing? (Chalon, 1976: 107)

alone dare to live that of which

with death and religion when met Renee, she thought her own lusty paganism would give Renee more of an interest in Hfe. While Renee was coping with Natalie's vitaHty, which both attracted and hurt her, the drama of Violet's death heightened the polarity she already felt. Renee thought

Renee and Violet had shared

they were children.

that Natalie -and

When

a fascination

Natalie

sex-were responsible for the unforgivable lapse

friendship with Violet. Renee's endless

expiate the guilt she

felt

mourning was

in part

in her

an effort to

towards Violet's memory. Natalie, on the other

hand, hated to think about death and even avoided funerals. Renee's grief

seemed to Natalie to exceed the right to

mourn, and wrote

Natahe commented

The most acute

in the

a

Natalie's

of decency. Renee argued for her

called "Let the

Dead Bury Their Dead."

margin, '*But not the Living." (Reinach, n.d.)^^

issue in the relationship,

other conflicts crystaUized, was

it

limits

poem

monogamy.

complex theories about sex

roles

and the one around which I

all

cannot do justice here to

and erotic relationships. Suffice

to say that Natalie evolved a critique of the sex roles

which included

a

critique of the structure of erotic emotion. She felt that the sex roles hurt

each person by dictating the suppression of the personality to the other sex. She also thought that erotic relationships ture its

from

this artificial division

traits assigned

drew

their struc-

of the sexes, such that each individual sought

missing wholeness in the other. Natalie feh that the emotions of jeal-

ousy, possessiveness, and exclusivity derived from this sexual system, which she also held to be responsible for

women's secondary XV

status. Natalie

main-

tained that a relationship should be based

on mutual independence,

rather

than on dependence, and that love should never be constrained by fidelity.

meant that love and

Fidelity, she thought,

by such

Natalie lived love, she gave

much

ideals as

desire

were dead.

as possible.

When

Natalie gave her

from giving

forever; but this did not preclude her

it

others in the meantime. Such loyalty was not always appreciated

whose idea of love was more conventional or whose emotional tions

were

it

by

to lovers

constitu-

rugged. Natalie maintained that she did not suffer from jeal-

less

ousy, but from the jealousy of others.

Of

her lovers, only

all

Romaine

Brooks shared Natalie's perspective on relationships. Although Romaine and Natalie were lovers for half

by

a set

of

a

common

When

century, they lived apart.

south of France,

built a villa in the

it

they

consisted of two residences joined

rooms. Natalie's other lovers were generally

less

than

pleased by her promiscuity.-^^ Quite apart from her ideals, Natalie had

hamadryas baboon. Chalon describes her pattern

the instincts of a

all

best,

noting that her harem usually contained a ruling "Sultana," a "Favorite" or two, and a bevy of lesser delights.

own needs

Unlike NataUe, Renee Vivien did not attempt to express her in

terms of a systematic philosophy. She was simply romantic. To Renee,

love

was forever and love meant

fidelity.

When

Natalie dallied about and

yet assured Renee that she loved her, Renee could not believe in her sincerity. Natalie

responded by saying that

to understand her;

if

Renee loved her, she would

try

and that such understanding would lead Renee to cease

the suspicious possessiveness that threatened to destroy the very liveliness that

made

Natalie so attractive.

to stop the anguish caused

by

Renee

tried to understand,

but was unable

Renee began The circumstances

Natalie's constant infidelities.

to identify Natalie's vitaUty as the source of her pain.

of Violet's death led her to link Natalie's sensuahty with betrayal. Violet's death that finally gave

herself

from

this

I

am

It

to

was

remove

emotionally unbearable relationship. She wrote the follow-

ing letter late in 1901

...

Renee enough desperate strength

from London to

sad that

made me before

Natalie,

you have thus broken

leaving.

who was

still

in

Washington:

the promise which

You had promised

not to

you

me to serve me when you

call

an hour of boredom, only to call had need of me to console you, to help you in a bad moment. Now, there is no necessity for me to come. Nothing serious has taken place you are calling me for the simple pleasure of trying in your life out, once again, your power over me, or of having once again, next to you, one who is in pain, an easy dupe whom you will use again for all your Httle amorous and whimsical projects.

as a distraction for

.

.

.

I am sad to the bottom of my heart for having to tell you this, to you whom I love still and in spite of everything. But you forget to what point you martyred me, you forget the anguish, the humiliations, the wounds that you inflicted on me; you forget that am still bleed1

and bruised with

ing

all

that

you made me suffer, unconsciously, perI do not suffer with the same intensity anxieties which I endure when I see you

haps, but fatally. Far from you, the pains, the jealousies, the giving out smiles

and provocative glances

to everyone, female or male

i

...

the

I

first

will

is

no longer have an

I

is

there

false at the

is

that

is

.

.

kisses

irrational faith;

But

I

base of the truths— for

beg you leave

I

doubt and

seek

I

true at the base of the lies-what there

plex that you are not entirely true or .

merchant of

like a

.

always love you, but no longer with that blind love of I love you now with a love more bitter, more sad, more

know what that

.

days.

skeptical ...

to

.

me

you

are a being so

com-

false.

a httle peace of

mind,

let

me

bathe

in

solitude and silence and recover a bit of strength.

...

To

return to

what madness!

I

you

for a while in order to leave again afterwards,

could not do

it, I

would not have the courage

to

absent myself a second time. There are sacrifices that one cannot

remake. .

...

.

I

.

believe

love

you

me when as

Natalie therefore

I

I

you again that I love you "unalterably" you always. (Chalon, 1976:112-1 15)

tell

will love

must have known when she returned to

Paris that

Renee considered the relationship over, although she was genuinely

sur-

by the Baroness Van Zuylen. Renee had already tried to console herself with OHve Custance in late 1901 before succeeding in the new relationship with the Baroness. Natalie was still quite in love with Renee and determined to win her back. Natalie's larger project did not however prevent her from having an affair with Lucie Delarue-Mardrus in 1902.-^'* Eva Palmer was also in Paris, and she became Natalie's emissary to Renee. prised

was only through Eva and music that Natalie had any success m her When Renee invited Eva to share her box at the opera, Natalie took Eva's seat and Renee seemed happy to see her. Renee promised to It

quest. -^^

meet Natalie again, but called

away

his ashes

make

failed to

to attend her father,

the rendezvous. Natahe was then

who was

dying in Monte Carlo. She took

back to Washington, and apparently stayed away for some

Finally in the to attend the

summer of 1904,

Wagner

festival in

Natalie heard that

time.-^^

Renee was planning

Bayreuth, and that she would be going

without the Baroness, whose constant jealous surveillance had hampered Natalie's efforts. Natalie left with

Eva for Bayreuth. Once again,

seats

were

exchanged so that Natalie and Renee could be together. Natalie had brought

some prose poems which protested the sincerity and depth of her love for Renee, and Renee was finally convinced. -^^ She decided to resume the relationship, but only at Mytilene.

Renee and Natalie traveled to Mytilene where they rented two villas in an orchard and revived their old dreams of establishing a cult of Sappho. Their happy idyll was interrupted by a cable from the Baroness Van Zuyxvii

len,

who was on

her

way

to the island. NataHe left for Paris, having been

assured that Renee was going to break with the Baroness and return to her.

Renee was torn between the two women, but

finally

decided to drop

Natalie and stay with the Baroness instead. It

becomes increasingly

difficult to trace Vivien's personal history after

the second break with Natalie in 1904. Renee seems at last to have

come The two women developed a frienddeclared impossible; after 1904 Renee had

to terms with her feelings for Natalie.

which Renee had earlier more understanding for her difficult lover but also understood that she could not stay with her. Renee was satisfied with her choice and kept to ship

it,

although she always thought of her earlier love with wistfulness. Colette

recounts a conversation in which Renee expressed some regret about a lover

from her

past:

"Then

woman, and

it

was

a question of the satisfactions of another epoch,

and comparisons." (Colette, 1967:93) Renee traveled extensively during the last years of her life, in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and the Orient. She filled her apartment at 23, Ave. du Bois with art treasures acquired on her journeys.^® Romaine Brooks another

regrets

knew Renee before 1909, and There comes before

me

she described the apartment in her memoirs:

^^

the dark, heavily curtained room, over-

reaching itself in lugubrious effects: grim life-sized Oriental figures chairs, phosphorescent Buddhas glowing dimly of black draperies. The air is heavy with perfumed incense. A curtain draws aside and Renee Vivien stands before us attired in Louis XVI male costume. Her straight blond hair falls to her shoulders, sitting

propped up on

in the folds

her flower-Uke face

is

bent

down

Oriental fashion and scant food

is

...

We

lunch seated on the fioor Damascus ware,

served on ancient

cracked and stained. During the meal Renee Vivien leaves us to bring in from the garden her pet frogs and a serpent which she twines round her wrist, (cited in Wickes, 1975:102)

Colette lived across the courtyard, and became one of Renee 's friends. She also described the apartment: I

became almost wickedly

intolerant there, yet never

patience of the gossamer angel

who

wore out the

dedicated offerings of lady apples

Buddhas. One day, when the spring wind was stripping the from the Judas trees in the avenue, I was nauseated by the funereal perfumes and tried to open the window: it was nailed shut. (Colette, 1967:84) to the

leaves

The data on Renee 's romantic attachments after 1905 are not very Some of the confusion arises from the fact that although the Baroness Van Zuylen was not popular, her identity was well protected in

definitive.

a literature that usually specialized in indiscretion.

the Valkyrie,

La Brioche,

or as

Madame

Baroness, but did not directly link her to Renee: xviii

She

is

referred to as

de Z. Colette did describe the

We heard from J de Bellune that at that gala evening in Nice the Baroness Van Zuylen lorded it in a box, wearing a white tie and tails— and a mustache! The Baroness Ricoy accompanied her, likewise in tails and looking quite emaciated beside that elephantine monster. .

They were recognized and were pestered by though the Baroness Van Zuylen responded

visitors to their

box,

al-

to the intruders with

broadsides of very masculine oaths, (letter to Leon

Hammel,

in Phelps,

1966:164)

The actual dimensions of the remain unclear.

It

seems that

affair

between Vivien and the Baroness

at least until

healing one for Renee. She did

much of

1905, the relationship was a

her best

work during

this period,

and seemed to be happy. The Baroness encouraged Renee's work, and the two of them collaborated on a few volumes of poetry published under the collective pseudonym of Paule Riversdale.^ But after 1905, something happened— either the relationship ended, or it changed. In Souvenirs indiscrets, Natalie Barney says that Renee became outraged by the discovery that the Baroness had been unfaithful to her. Natalie implies that the relationship

became cataclysmic.

ended, and that Renee's decline subsequently

In his notes

on Renee Vivien, Salomon Reinach is between 1901 and 1905,

definite that the liaison with the Baroness lasted

and he gives no indication that

it

continued after 1905. The Riversdale

We

collaboration only lasted until 1904. affairs in the last

also

know

that

Renee had

years of her Hfe, between 1906 and 1909,^^ but

several

we do

know

to what extent the Baroness was still her primary concern. It is by 1908 Renee was both depressed and unhealthy, and that her poetry was increasingly obsessed with themes of death. She wrote the epitaph which is engraved on her tomb, and many of the late poems evoke the shadow of the dead Violet Shilleto. According to Colette, Renee was

not

clear that

at that

time engaged in a very disturbing relationship with a mysterious

"master."

It is

usually assumed that the "master"

was

still

the Baroness

Van Zuylen. This "master" was never referred to by the name of woman. We seemed to be waiting for some catastrophe to project her into our midst, but she merely kept sending invisible messengers laden with jades, enamels, lacquers, fabrics. (Colette, 1967:85) .

.

.

The "master" would summon Renee

erratically, and Renee often had to As Colette arrived for one soiree, she found Renee on her way out the door. Renee explained: "Hush, I am requisitioned. She is terrible at present." (ibid.:95, itahcs in the original) At another time, Renee explained to Colette that she was leaving Paris to get

leave in the midst of a dinner party.

away before her

lover killed her.

xix

.

words she explained how she might perish. Four words of make you blink. This would not be worth telling, exwhat Renee said then.

In four

a frankness to

cept for

'*With her

I

dare not pretend or

lays her ear over

lie,

because at that

moment

she

my heart." (ibid.: 96)

Even Colette did not know whether

this

imperious lover was

real, or a cre-

ation of Vivien's imagination. Perhaps the "master" was the Baroness, per-

haps she was someone

else, or

perhaps Renee created her

last lover in the

image of her fantasies.

By httle.

this time,

Renee was acutely unhappy. She drank

Her regime of melancholy, alcohol, and starvation

on November

If the Lx)rd

"Lord, your I

to

Him: "O

strict

Christ,

I

The

earlier:

should bend His head toward

would say

And

and ate very

finally killed her

18, 1909, after a death-bed conversion to Catholicism.

poet had written these words only a few years

I

a lot

my

passage,

do not know you.

law was never mine.

lived thus a simple

pagan

"See the simpHcity of my poor and naked heart. I do not know you, I never knew you at all." (Vivien, 1934b:52-55)

But by 1909, Renee had followed her friend Violet into Christianity and an early death. Renee Vivien's tomb, at Passy, is a small, ornate, gothic chapel, full of crosses, plastic flowers, and a portrait of the poet. Natalie Barney died a pagan on February 2, 1972. Her grave, also at Passy,

is

simple, unornamented, and bears

time Barney died, the legacy of these

new generation of

no

religious

women was

emblems. At the

being rediscovered by a

lesbian feminists in search of their ancestry.

Gayle Rubin August, 1976

XX

.

New

Afterword to the

new

This

edition of

A Woman Appeared

Edition to

Me

has given

me

opportunity to correct errors and make some styUstic revisions

ductory essay.

I

a in

welcome

my

intro-

have resisted the impulse to make several substantive changes

do so would entail either major surgery or a new article. However, I cannot resist a few comments on what has changed since I wrote this one. The scholarship on Vivien and Barney has expanded. The Amazon of Letters by George Wickes was published in 1976 and is available in papersince to

back. The rumored biography of Vivien materiaHzed in 1977

1900: Renee Vivien by Paul Lorenz was published in

in Paris

when Sapho

by

1977, Naiad Press pubHshed The Muse of the Violets, the

Julliard. Also

first

book of

Enghsh translation. The National Collection of Fine Arts exhibited part of its collection of Barney family artifacts in 1978. Donald McClelland's catalog of the exhibit. Where Shadows Live: Alice Park Barney Vivien's poetry in

and her Friends,

a delightful

is

account of Natalie's milieu from the per-

spective of her mother's Hfe. In spite of

bians

is

all

the excellent research, our image of this

on what some of

largely based

Natalie Barney

was

particularly talented at generating her

that her letters and papers can be studied, will

not only correct the details, but that

the larger picture of what occurred

network of

members thought of

its

I

it

own

les-

themselves.

Now

legend.

expect that future research will also result in

changes in

women. perspective when I

among

these

ran across Mabel I had a foretaste of such a shift in Dodge Luhan's memoir of Violet Shilleto in Jonathan Katz' Gay American History (Thomas Crowell, New York, 1976). Because she died so young and made no direct contribution to the Hterary record of this group, Violet is a very shadowy historical presence. Her wraithUke existence in the written sources led

Luhan

me

to underestimate her rather substantial personal impact.

writes:

I

known any man or woman with such wisdom and such knew everything intuitively and at the same time

have never

love as she had. She

she had a very unusual intelligence -teaching herself Italian for her

when she was sixteen known ... the highest

pleasure in order to read Dante in the original

Violet was, of

all

the people

who had

evolved, the one

... she belonged to .

.

.

Once

in a great

but very rarely lives in

me

yet

.

.

.

.

.

.

I

have ever

reached the farthest

all

ages, she

was

.

.

.

like a synthesis

while Nature creates a marvelous After

all

of the past

human

being,

these years, Violet's great significance

(Katz:5 18-520)

XXI

.

.

Luhan's memoir ticism.

It

is

evidence of Violet's charisma and of her reUgious mys-

corroborates the picture of Violet in

A Woman

Appeared

to

Me

between her and Renee more intelligible. It that A Woman Appeared to Me is primarily understanding alters my earlier Natalie. Renee was dealing with two very with about Renee 's relationship and renders the relationship

strong personalities.

The this

level

of detail with which one can chronicle the bedroom wars of

group of

women would

be enough to make them historically fascinat-

But the significance of Barney and Vivien has been brought into increasingly clear focus by recent developments within lesbian and gay history. ing.

It

has

in its

become apparent

that gay /lesbian history

is

undergoing a revolution

paradigms, projects, and practices. Jeffrey Weeks'

Coming Owr (Quar-

London, 1977) perhaps best exempUfies the trend away from compiling a history of homosexuals and toward constructing a social history of homosexuality. The "new" gay history is characterized by the insight that "However people have behaved sexually throughout European history, they tet,

did not Hve in a world of heterosexuals and homosexuals until quite recently." (Bert

history

is

Hansen, review of Weeks,

in review)

The object of the new gay

to describe, date, and explain the emergence of this world of sex-

ually speciahzed persons and

its

concomitant sociology and poUtics. While

the periodization is by no means settled, there is a growing consensus among gay historians that this modern sexual system was consolidated in or by

two decades of the nineteenth century in western Europe. The transformation of gay history has been largely brought about by the study of several key figures of the late nineteenth century. The new

the last

is primarily grounded in research on Edward Carpenter, John Addington Symonds, Magnus Hirschfeld, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Natalie Barney, Renee Vivien, and Havelock Ellis. It became necessary to develop

gay history

a

new conceptual framework

in

order to understand the implications of

the activities, ideas, writings, and sexual careers of these emblematic individuals.

The

significance of Vivien

and Barney

lies

not as

much

in their

emotional and sexual pyrotechnics as in their status as the two most important lesbians

among

these late nineteenth century heroes of sexual freedom.

Gayle Rubin February, 1979

.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Numerous

individuals and institutions

made

this essay possible.

Grants

from the Center for Western European Studies at the University of Michigan funded two seasons of research in Paris. The Michigan Society of Fellows has funded further study. Fran9ois Chapon gave generously of his knowledge and his skill, and identified the Reinach notes for me. Jean Chalon carries

on the tradition of

fulness to those

who

and with cookies

his friendship

with Natalie Barney

study her. Berthe Cleyrergue regaled

"just like the

ones

I

in his help-

me

with stories

made Mademoiselle." George Wickes

has been generous beyond words with his time, his knowledge, and his galleys. Conversations

with Robert Phelps and Gregory Pearson were ex-

Young indirectly sparked my interest by telling Nightwood. Denise Blue, Helene Frances, Barbara Grier, Bertha Harris, Margaret A. Porter, Robert Sklar, Vicki Sork, Jack Thomas, Ed Weber, and Harriet Whitehead all gave encouragement at critical moments. tremely helpful. Marilyn

me

to read

The Hbrarians

in the Salle des

Reserves and the Salle des Manuscrits of the

Bibliotheque Nationale produced miracles of library science.

I

am

grateful

for having been permitted to see the treasures in storage at the National

Lynn Eden and Itsie would never have been completed. The translations from the French were done by Lynn Hunt, with a little help from me. Collection of Fine Arts. Without the editing heroics of Hull, the manuscript

FOOTNOTES 1

These urban homosexual communities

earlier.

They seem

may

to be an established fact of

in fact

life

nineteenth century, and are described in literature is

a discussion of such literary evidence for lesbian

have appeared

by the last part of the from that period. There communities

in Foster

(1956:99-115).

The source material for Renee Vivien's Hfe is scarce. Most of the literature on her is concerned with her writing. The only full-length biography (Germain, 1917) uses pseudonyms and seems to be based largely on A Woman Appeared to Me. There are biographical discussions of varying lengths in Foster (1956), Klaich (1974), Maurras (1905), and Cooper (1943). Lacretelle (1964) publishes several of Vivien's letters, most of them to Natalie Barney in 1904. Colette's lovely memoir (1967) remains one of the most revealing and sympathetic portraits. Wickes (1975) includes Romaine Brooks' memory of her encounter with Vivien. Natalie Barney's memoirs 2.

(1929; 1960) contain extensive sections on Vivien. Charles Brun taught Vivien Greek and Salomon Reinach became the self-appointed curator of xxiii

her

memory. An exchange between

the

two men (Reinach, 1914; Brun,

1914) provides a few of the relatively meager facts of Vivien's early Primary source material on Vivien

is

life.

problematic. Both Foster and Cooper

Salomon Reinach acquired Vivien's papers after her death and them to the Bibliotheque Nationale, to be released in the year 2000. letter by Reinach in Barney (1929) says only that he planned to give

say that

gave

A

the papers to the BibUotheque Nationale. In fact, Vivien's papers are not

and their whereabouts remain mysterious. Reinach was also rumored to have written a manuscript of a biography of Vivien, but I have been unable to confirm its existence. If anyone knows more about Reinach 's alleged manuscript or the missing Vivien archive, I would like to hear from them. Reinach did, however, possess a collection of Vivien's books, Barney's books, and some miscellaneous articles pertaining to Vivien. He gave this in that library

collection to the Bibliotheque Nationale in the Salle des Reserves.

when he

died, and

Reinach recorded much of

his

it

own

is

now housed

research on

Vivien in the pages of the books of this collection, and his marginaUa

(Reinach, n.d.) remain one of the best sources on her

life

and

ship to her work. NataHe Barney's archive (see note 4 below) letters

Lorenz

and other papers of Vivien. is

I

relation-

contain

have recently been informed that Paul

preparing a biography of Renee Vivien (Gregory Pearson, per-

sonal communication). Rodin's bust of Vivien

Museum 3. To

its

may

in Paris.

may

be seen

in the

Rodin

For published photographs, see note 4.

avoid confusion,

I

have used the name Renee Vivien throughout

the essay, although she did not begin to use the

name

until

around 1900.

The Hterature on Natalie Barney is extensive and growing rapidly. own memoirs are one of the most important sources, and I have relied heavily on her chapter on Renee Vivien from Souvenirs indiscrets, which recounts Barney's early Hfe. Rogers (1968) is primarily an amusing summary of that chapter. Gregory Pearson is preparing and editing an 4.

Barney's

English translation of Barney's memoirs. Bertha Harris (1973) has the best

women's movement of Barney, Vivien, The recent book on Romaine Brooks (Secrest, 1974) contains a long section on Barney. Chalon's recent and intimate biography of Barney (1976) could only have been written by discussion of the relevance to the

and the other

women

a close friend,

and

associated with them.

will

soon be translated into English. Natalie Barney

left

an enormous archive to the Bibliotheque Doucet, under the direction of Fran9ois Chapon. Unfortunately, these papers were not ready for public scrutiny

when I was doing this research. understand that now available to be read, and that the Doucet I

of them are

at least is

some

preparing to

pubhsh various letters and papers. Jean Chalon generously permitted me some of his own considerable collection of Barney memorabilia. George Wickes' biography of Barney (in press) will be published in 1977.

to see

XXIV

He has enabled me

to consult

much

of the book as

it

progressed, and his

biography promises to be definitive.

Many photographs

of Barney, Vivien, and the other

women

of their

circle have been published, most notably in Secrest (1974), Chalon (1965; 1976), Blume (1966), and Wickes (1975); and Wickes (in press) will also

contain photographs. Alice Pike Barney painted Natalie Barney, Eva Palmer,

and Renee Vivien. The portraits of Barney and Palmer can be seen in a published catalog of Alice Barney's work (Smithsonian Institution, 1957). Romaine Brooks painted herself, Barney, EHzabeth de Gramont, and others. These can be seen

in

Breeskin (1971) and Whitworth (1971). See also notes

6 and 7 below. 5

Barney attended Les Ruches some years

in Olivia (Strachey, 1949),

ground information on

Barney

6. Alice Pike

after the events described

and the personnel had changed. For the back-

Olivia's

Les Ruches, see Holroyd (1969:36-41).

home

the Barney

left

in

Washington (Studio House)

and much of her work to the Smithsonian. The Barney family retained and Natalie Barney arranged for the

their connections to the Smithsonian,

Smithsonian to acquire the great bulk of Romaine Brooks' work. Several of Brooks' portraits are displayed

and many more of them are

National Collection of Fine Arts,

at the

in storage.

The museum

of jewelry which belonged to Natalie and her 7. Natalie

referred to in

sister

also has

some

pieces

Laura.

Barney's love of costume, and this costume in particular, are

Woman Appeared

yl

to

Me. The Duran

storage at the National Collection of Fine Arts.

It

portrait

is

now

in

has been reproduced in

Blume (1966) and Chalon (1965). account of the seduction, Natalie appeared before

8. In this fictional (?)

the object of her desires wearing a gray velvet doublet with Liane's initials,

and demanded to be her beloved's page! (Pougy, 1901) 9. After their reconciliation, Renee Vivien rewrote A to

Me, bringing

the story

up to date and changing

Vally to Lorely. Both versions were pubUshed, the

second in 1905. Foster's translation ing that Natalie disliked

is

is less

first in

of the earlier text.

both versions, and

However, the 1905 version

Woman Appeared

felt

name from 1904 and the

Natalie's

It is

not surpris-

that neither did her justice.

hard on Natalie.

10. Reinach's notes in Evocations (Vivien, 1903a) say that

both Eva

and Natalie told him that the poem 'To the Sunset Goddess" (Vivien,

A Woman Appeared

Me

ibid.) referred to

Eva Palmer. The "Eva"

called the Sunset

Goddess. In the same margin, Reinach says that Liane

in

to

is

de Pougy and Natalie confirmed that Eva Palmer was "never very intimate"

with Vivien. (Reinach, n.d.) 11. In Souvenirs indiscrets (Barney,

much of

Given the date of the

1960:67) Natalie says that she spent

Mawr at the feet of one professor, "Miss G." Bryn Mawr excursion, "Miss G." was probably Miss

her time at Bryn

XXV

Mary Gwinn, whose triangular relationship with M. Carey Thomas and Alfred Hodder appears in some of Gertrude Stein's early writings. The events at Bryn Mawr and their relationship to Stein's work are discussed in Katz (1973: xxxi-xxxviii)

Cendres et poussieres (Vivien, 1902b) was copied by

12. This note in

a book which had belonged to margins. Natalie commented on

Reinach from

Natalie,

of writing in

the

book

to Renee,

Renee died.

It

who may

1917, she showed

added

his

also have written in

was found by it

a bookseller,

who

to Reinach,

it.

who

copied

gave

all

who

also

had a habit

poems and then gave the The copy was sold after back to Natalie. In

it

of the earlier notes and

own. When Natalie died, the book was

either sold again or else

was sent to the Doucet. 13. After the death of Dolly Wilde, Natalie assembled a orial essays

Wilde's letters.

them

volume of mem-

(Barney, 1951). The book also contains a number of Dolly

Some of

these are to an unidentifiable friend, and

They provide an unusual glimpse

are to a lover (Natalie).

interior of the seraglio.

The following excerpt

is

from

many

of

into the

a letter to the friend:

was wonderful in many ways, [Romaine Brooks] on the scene was the herald of unimaginable suffering to me. I must tell you all the story when I see you. It contains all but the obvious ingredients. Dear Madame de C. -T. [Ehzabeth de Clermont-Tonnerre] was with us, exquisite, wonderful and so sensitive to someone she likes, that after an outwardly amusing evening she got up in the middle of the night and came to my room because she felt I was feeling sad-and indeed I was in tears! Such sweet rough comforting! ... the fifteen days of motoring

altho' the arrival of R.

.

Gradually

I

.

.

perceive S. [Natalie Barney] to be of transcendental

intelligence -without sensibihties in the

weaker meaning of the word-

altho' ahve through her intelligence to that quality in others. Thus, is not tender— but will assume tenderness like a cloak— is not romantic but if needs be will pander to romanticism, etc. A week of charming companionship with her has left me like a refreshed martyr gathered up in new strength! forgetful of the pangs of torture. (Barney, ibid.: 1 15-1 17)

she

Dolly Wilde later discussed the letter above ing

much

in a letter to Natalie, retract-

of her earlier response:

You are the only serious thing in was amazed reading it remember in those days feeling as if you overshadowed me like a great mountain-that all at once uplifted me and awed me. I blush now at my description of your character (though retract "no tenderness" darling! You parts of it are very true)-but I

my

.

Hfe emotionally.

.

.

1

I

don't assume ity

now.

it

(ibid.:

"like a cloak"; 1

your tenderness seems

17)

xxvi

my

very secur-

.

One of

Dolly's letters even indicates that Natalie was quite capable ol

jealousy:

Why did you take such a stern attitude towards me this morning. As you have no jealousy I am left to think logic and reason inspired you. Why Why? ... I have not fallen in love with anyone I meant my wire and when you telephoned from Marseilles I immediately arranged for "my present love" to leave-without a pang. .

.

.

.

You all

cut short explanations

by ringing

off.

day yesterday with such bewildering

12

I

am

alone Please understand. .

And

.

then telephoning

results.

From tomorrow

at

LOVE ME DARLING, (ibid.: 127-1 28)

Nevertheless, this letter from Dolly indicates that Natalie continued to

own

claim her I

not

freedom:

could have wished your kindness to have gone even further and evidences of your love in the

left

book by my bed-amongst

the

writing paper, etc. Horrid stabs— unnecessary hurt. Tout Paris pours

endless stories into

my

becomes

easier

easier

and

ears-but acceptance of the rhythm of destiny .

.

.

(ibid.:

1

32)

... I'd like to shout a friendly warning to your harem:

care!"... 14.

own ^ Woman Appeared

reconciliation with Natalie

after her

version of

Mardrus appears

poems

Natalie's affair with Delarue-

Renee must have found out about

Mardrus

in

Nos

by

inspired

"Take

137)

(ibid.:

Me, Petrus

to

is

1904. In the 1905

in

gone, and Lucie Delarue-

Dorianne, another rejected lover of Lorely -Natalie. The

as

amours (Delarue-Mardrus, 1951) were apparently

secretes

Natalie.

was one of Renee's most intense passions. All the chapters Appeared to Me were originally preceded by selections of Translator's Notes, page 64). In the novel, San Giovanni speaks

15. Music

of

A Woman

music (see for

Renee when she

says,

"To

my

eternal sorrow,

I

am

not a musician."

(page 16) 16.

George Wickes (personal communication) supplied the information

that Natalie stayed in Washington, probably for several

Natalie

named Freddy (Barney, 1960:74). Custance. Freddy

young man

is

may

real

18. Violet Shilleto

had

met Freddy through OHve

name.

It is

A Woman Appeared

poems were published

describe the relationship with

she was a child.

Natalie had

not have been his

the "Prostitute" in

17. These prose

in

months to a year. a young man

was accompanied on her journey by Eva Palmer and

Renee from

lived at 23,

in

1910

as

to

/e

possible that this

Me.

me

souviens, and

Natalie's perspective.

Ave. du Bois with her family when

Renee moved to another apartment

1901. xxvii

at the

same address

Romaine Brooks therefore had met Renee before

19. in

she

met NataUe

1915. Romaine says in the same piece:

Renee Vivien had often spoken to me of Natalie Barney and found little interest in listening to those endless love grievances which are so often devoid of any logical justification. (Wickes, 1975:104) 20. In his notes, Reinach says that the Riversdale

I

poems were

largely

the work of the Baroness (Reinach, n.d.). Helene de Zuylen de Nyevelt

published non-lesbian 21.

On

the flyleaf to the

Reinach wrote out a life.

He

poems under her own name. fairly

copy of Vivien's

indicates three liaisons in

love letters

A

ITieure des mains jointes,

complete chronology of the

1908 (Reinach,

n.d.).

last

years of her

There are three

from Renee to "Une Dame Turque" dated 1905-1906

Lacretelle (1964:382-383).

xxvui

in

BIBLIOGRAPHY TAutre, Gabrielle (Margaret A. Porter). 1969. "Twenty-four Poems by

Renee Vivien." The LadderA3: 11 & 12:9-17. Barnes, Djuna. 1928. Ladies Almanack. Paris. Titus. Barney, Natalie Clifford. 1902. Cinq petits dialogues Grecs. Paris. La Plume .

1910a. Actes et entr'actes. Paris. Sansot.

.

1910b. /e

.

me

souviens. Paris. Sansot.

1912. "Vrais ou faux paradis."

La Phalange (number

.

1921. Pensees d'une amazone. Paris. Emile-Paul.

.

1929.

.

A ventures

1930. The

de

One Who

71).

Vesprit. Paris. Emile-Paul. is

Legion. London. Eric Partridge.

Le Manuscrit autographe 38:96-QQ

.

1932. "La Troisieme."

.

1939. Nouvelles pensees de Vamazone. Paris. Mercure de France.

.

\9S\. In

.

1960. Souvenirs indiscrets. Paris. Flammarion.

Memory of Dorothy

Ierne Wilde. Dijon. Darantiere.

.

1963. Traits et portraits. Paris. Mercure de France.

.

1966a. "Dormir ensemble." Cahiers des Saisons 44:491-492.

.

1966b. "Les Etres doubles." Cahiers des Saisons 46:73-80.

Bibliotheque Nationale. 1973. Colette. Paris. Bibliotheque Nationale.

Blume, Mary. 1966. "Natalie Barney, Legendary Lady of the rue Jacob." Realites 183:20-23.

Breeskin, Adelyn. 1971

.

Romaine Brooks,

''Thief

of Souls. " Washington.

Smithsonian.

Brun, Charles. 1911. Renee Vivien. Paris. Sansot. .

1914. Untitled (Response to Salomon Reinach). Notes and Queries

10:151.

Chalon, Jean. 1965. "La Maison de Natalie Barney." Connaissance des Arts 165:82-87. .

1971. "Ces etrangeres qui ont epouse

la

Htterature fran9aise."

Le

Figaro July 16. .

1976. Portrait d'une seductrice. Paris. Editions Stock.

Colette. 1967.

The Pure and the Impure. New York.

Farrar, Straus, and

Giroux.

Cooper, Clarissa. 1943.

New York.

Women

Poets of the Twentieth Century in France.

King's Crown.

Delarue-Mardrus, Lucie. 1930. L'Ange et .

1951

.

Nos

les pervers. Paris.

Ferenczi.

secretes amours. Paris. Les Isles.

Fee, Elizabeth. 1974. "Science and Homosexuality." The Universities the

Gay Experience. Proceedings of

ference.

the 1973

New York. XXIX

and

Gay Academic Union Con-

.

Foster, Jeannette. 1956.

Sex Variant

Women

New

in Literature.

York.

Vantage.

Germain, Andre. 19\7 Renee .

Vivien. Paris. Cres.

Grindea, Miron, ed. 1961. 'The Amazon of

Bamey. '" Adam

Natalie Clifford

A

Letters:

International

World Tribute to

Review 29:299:entire

issue.

Hall, Radclyffe.

1959. The Well of Loneliness.

Harris, Bertha. 1973.

Lesbian Society in Paris

Amazon

New

York. Permabooks.

"The More Profound Nationality of in the

their Lesbianism:

1920's." In Birkby, Phyllis, et

eds.

al.,

Expedition. Washington, N.J. Times Change.

Holroyd, Michael. 1968. Lytton Strachey.

New

York. Holt, Rinehart, and

Winston. Katz, Leon. 1973. "Introduction." In Stein, Gertrude. Femhurst, Q.E.D.,

and Other Early

New York. Liveright. Woman Plus Woman. New York. Simon and 1964. L Amour sur la place. Paris. Perrin.

Writings.

Klaich, Dolores. 1974. Lacretelle, Jacques de.

Lauritsen, John, and Thorstad, David. 1974.

Schuster.

The Early Homosexual Rights

Movement (1864-1935). New York. Times Change. Maurras, Charles. 1905. LAvenir de Vintelligence. Paris. Nouvelle Librarie Nationale Phelps, Robert, ed. 1966. Earthly Paradise.

New

York. Farrar, Straus, and

Giroux.

Pougy, Liane de. 1901. Idylle Saphique.

Paris.

La Plume.

Reinach, Salomon. 1914. Untitled (Query). Notes and Queries 9:488. n.d. Unpublished marginalia of Salomon Reinach in a collection of books by Renee Vivien, Natalie Barney and others, plus miscellaneous articles and manuscripts (see note 2, above). The collection is in the Salle des Reserves of the Bibliotheque Nationale and is primarily cata.

logued under the number: 8° Z. lection

is

Don

593, numbers 1-48. As this col-

highly irregular, anyone trying to consult

for a shelf

list

of the legacy of Salomon Reinach,

Rogers, WilHam G. 1968. Ladies Bountiful.

New

it is

May

advised to ask

21, 1933.

York. Harcourt, Brace,

and World. Royere, Jean. 1935. Le Point de vue de Secrest, Meryl. 1974.

Between

Me

and

Sirius. Paris.

Life.

Messein.

Garden City. Doubleday.

Smithsonian Institution. 1957. Alice Pike Barney: Portraits Pastel.

in Oil

and

Washington, D.C. Smithsonian.

Strachey, Dorothy. 1949. Olivia.

New

York. Sloane.

Troub ridge, Lady Una. 1963. The Life and Death of Radclyffe York. Citadel.

XXX

Hall.

New

Vivien, Renee. 1902a.

Brumes de

fjords. Paris.

.

1902b. Cendres et poussieres.

.

1903a. Evocations. Paris. Lemerre.

Du

au

Paris.

Lemerre.

Lemerre.

Lemerre.

.

1903b.

.

1904a. Etudes et Preludes. Paris. Lemerre.

.

1904b. La

.

1905. Une

.

1906.

.

.

.

.

A

vert

Dame a Femme

violet. Paris.

la louve. Paris.

Lemerre.

m'apparut. Paris. Lemerre.

ITieure des mains jointes. Paris. Lemerre.

1907. Chansons pour

mon

ombre.

Paris.

Lemerre.

1908a. Flambeaux eteints. Paris. Sansot.

1908b.

Sillages. Paris.

Sansot.

1909. Poemes en prose. Paris. Sansot.

.

1910a. Dans un coin de

.

\9l0b. Hallions.

.

\9342i. Poesies completes,

I.

.

1934b. Poesies completes,

II.

violettes. Paris. Sansot.

Paris. Sansot. Paris.

Lemerre.

Paris.

Lemerre.

Whitworth, Sarah. 1971. "Romaine Brooks." The Ladder 16:1 Wickes, George. 1975. .

In press (1977).

Natalie Barney.

"A

The Amazon of Letters: York. Putnam.

New

XXXI

&

2:39-45.

Review 61:84-134. The Life and Loves of

Natalie Barney Garland." Paris

A WOMAN APPEARED TO ME

.

.

.

by Ren6e Vivien

PROLOGUE The Charmer of Serpents,

to

whom

the serpents taught their shadow-

born wisdom, spoke thus to the ephebe: ^'Happiness

Your happiness should be is

as terrifying as despair.

all

creatures and their

words and

one example to offer-the example of the

When

passers-by picked

rain.

it

Guard

against

even any of this

I

moderation

am

as others

a

is

glimmer of

light

love. It

more

is

mud,

happiness. Never give advice,

is

is

will signify nothing.

that of those

who

more dangerous than

suffer

The only sorfrom being

love, since

its

roots

and go deeper than the roots of love. The anguish of friendbitter than the anguish

as others love love; they suffer

They have

into wretched

giving you. Every being should Uve his private Hfe

unable to suffer. Friendship are stronger

have only

guard against excess. For Prudence

enemy of heroes and

and win, hardly, the experience which

row without

fell

I

with the cloak of ermine.

up and offered it to her; but with an arrogant gesture went her way, her shoulders bare to the wind and

the only dangerous

ship

their thoughts.

Woman

her ermine mantle came unfastened and

she turned aside and

is

as vast as despair.

that of the hermit or the sohtary. Happiness must, like despair, be in-

different to

is

is

The only true happiness

in their lives

when they

when they

of love. Certain souls love friendship

through friendship

as others

through love.

only one friendship as others have but a single

lose friendship that they despair hopelessly.

despair thus that they find happiness. For happiness

the magnificence of ruins. 1

And is

it

like

what the serpents taught me with regard to passion: Avoid the low as thievery, brutal as rape, bloody as massacre, and worthy only of a drunken and barbaric soldiery. If the woman you love is a virgin, leave to a stranger the first violation of her modesty. Love should be pure of everything which is not wholly passion. Suffering in 'This

is

act of initiation,

love

Do

music.

like a discord in

is

where you

are sleeping.

not fear the perfume of night flowers

For their perfumes pacify

which brings dreams heavy with

sleep,

one fear waking, even waking

invisible Presences. Fear

and anguishes which make

terror,

gray before dawn. But do not fear

in the

Death.

"For the dead, lying on Life never offered,

bed of

a

Dead alone rediscover, intact and ship which once deceived and the

dreams that

violets, find at last those

and long-lost perfumes and purified of

For the

long-silent music.

cruel memories, the friend-

all

which once betrayed them."

love

-San Giovanni I

"Come

evening-I

this

am

eyes seemed to be gazing at I

eager for stars,"

me

scribbled hastily. Vally's

attached to the note a few of those large hot-house flowers she loved,

flowers grown

by art, never fading naturally went out into the rainy dusk, and grew

I

lous sadness of a night of heavy mist.

choly. "Vally," itself I

I

across the orchids deep blue as ripe grapes.

my

on

I

murmured

lips like a

saw her for the

first

sob.

time,

My

drunk with the marvel-

utterly

heart was full of hectic melan-

into the fog, "Vally I

and sunlight.

in air

..." Her name repeated

lived again the hour, already well past,

the shiver that ran through

felt

when

me when my

eyes met the mortal steel of her look, those eyes blue and piercing as a blade.

I

tern of

had

my

Near her

I

dim premonition

a

felt

woman would

that this

the luminous dizziness which

comes

at the

or the attraction of a very deep water. She radiated the

which drew me I

made no

determine the pat-

and that her face was the predestined face of

fate,

my

Future.

edge of an abyss,

charm of danger,

to her inexorably.

effort to escape;

We

could as easily have escaped death.

I

walked together toward the Bois

in the

winter evening.

My

eyes were half

blinded with snow. All that whiteness seemed to be blossoming for an en-

chanted betrothal. All about us, and within chastity, a all

of,

snow -pure

passion.

the apprehension of a

and yet

I

find in

are less beautiful

already certain

you

I

first love:

"You

you

will never love

happiness contemptible.

I

aren't at

the incarnation of

my

wedding-day

the person

most remote

dream.

me. You

are the

saw you today for the

a

in a voice failing

all

my

and more strange than

was

us, there

spoke to her softly,

I

with

dreamed

desires.

You

you and am suffering that makes

I

first

love

I

time and already

I

am

the

that

shadow of your shadow. How on your breast like tears of

I

love your moonstones, those jewels

Beneath the folds of your silvernaked body. Everything to which you have lent your enigmatic grace enchants me. I adore your mysteriously pale hair. I shall be whatever you make of me. For you are the marvellous fall

gauze

gown

"I love

and

your love,"

I

do not yet know."

murmured

Vally.

who watch

poor clowns

much

at last

like to love

their

own

am

my

lips

repeated.

"My

sorrows make

love

is

enough

great

that

is

you

are so filled

for

me

laugh?

I

my

I would moments, which would how my joys make me weep

want so much to love you," her

with hunger for

living

and feeling that the passion of fearful,

wholly dazzled.

Hds.

with mystical bewilderment. Later

When

black

I

iris

my

was suffering under her

lived

I

left

I

her house

agony

lilies

I

would turn

who

When

I

drooped exhausted

smile," she said.

my

closed

of herself, she brought per-

gazed at her Florentine smile, her

moonHght of her misty

to see her

and fantastically distant. "I smile

fore those

saw

blooming under the eye of

loved even more the I

I

strange bliss filled

realized that those days held

I

silent refusal

and persian arums, dark

eyes of fatal blue, but

When

My

Loreley slowly, softly dropped rose petals on

verse archangels. In rapturous

in blue

I

stupor of an acolyte drunk with the fumes of sacred incense.

by studying,

all

you."

hved for two weeks with Vally, half

spirit

pale

enough to stand alone," I answered. "I love you, and ecstasy and my tears. You will never love me, Vally,

the unforgettable hours of memories and regrets.

me

illusions

quiet

everything through a perfumed and dizzying haze.

my

My

my

earth's creatures could not satisfy

in the

you

afraid to understand

grimaces through their tears.

you! Love you in

be spun out forever! Don't you see

and

I

'*I

tremble at the thought of fascinating you hopelessly.

I

are

so

divine the beauty of your

I

of some faith

Priestess

light.

at all

hair.

on her balcony, haloed

who weep and

Thus her enigmatic

I

weep

be-

spirit veiled itself in

paradox which never more than half revealed her meaning. Sometimes her

would wring from me a plaint or something like a reproach. Then Vally turned her icy gaze upon me. "It is I who ought to be complaining and you should be envied. Since you have learned how to find this love I have sought in vain for so many wasted years, teach me. I want

studied cruelty

so

much

to love you." Those lips tired of

my

Hps repeated the mournful

refrain.

Sometimes she allowed me might win her. "Later, you

a bare

will

glimmering of hope that one day

I

understand the emptiness of the pleasures

for which I neglect you. And you will see in the avidity with which I seek them only my fear of seeing them vanish." For her sake I tried to control

my

tyrannous demands,

me

of exacting Christian fidelity, against which

my

stupidly passionate jealousy. Vally accused

3

all

her instincts of a young

maenad

rebelled.

Her pagan joy found outlet

numerous love

in

She

affairs.

chose as her symbols the variable weather of April, the changing

of

fires

opals or rainbows, everything that ghttered and changed with each

new

ray of light.

"Anyone who gives has the right to demand something in return," I said in the days when I still hoped to hold her fleeting spirit. "I give you a

uniquely faithful love; can't

I

expect equal constancy in return?" But

my

quickly sounded the depths of

"Like Art," she replied, "Love

must follow

folly. is

complex, and to attain

long rough road. The sculptor

a

I

who

it

finally

one

conceives of a statue

He finds abmany dissimilar figures, each of which reveals to beauty. And I, to realize my dream of passion, must col-

never expects to meet his divine vision in any single model. solute beauty through

him

its

greatest

lect scattered perfections, in

my

order to unite them into a harmonious whole

dreams. What

you

your power of loving,

a bit

"You're frighteningly right, Vally. You are Peril, and only these from Swinburne can express you and describe you wholly:

lines

created by

love in

I

is

wild, a bit primitive, but absolute."

many colors, and a mouth Of many tunes and kisses.'

'A mind of

And I, I "You

me

love

love

you

love

me

painfully, like

all

simple souls."

my

poorly," interrupted

well, since

you know

Flower of Selene. "You do not

how

neither

to hold

me

nor

how

to under-

stand me."

"One always She studied

loves badly, Vally.

me

To

love well

magnificently disinterested level? Love fore an adored idol.

who

fascinates

momentary "I don't

is

no longer

with gentle scorn. "And can't you

When

I

meet

me, you ought

isn't

in passing

to be in love."

yourself to that

raise

perpetual self-immolation be-

some

vision of grace and

to be glad of the bliss

I

charm

experience from a

illusion."

know

if

I

could ever

rise

to such grandeur of renunciation, Vally.

For the path which leads to the heights of pure tenderness

is

harder than

the road to crucifixion."

have dreamed of a Calvary where roses rioted,'" Vally quoted, with

"'I

a pale smile.

"A well.

I

beautiful thought

.'

.

.

in beautiful verse,

don't know, anyhow, Vally,

why

I

my

faithless

Sweet. Very

should presume idiotically to

forbid your enjoying the limitless stream of femininity. As to me, fault

if,

desires

through obvious inferiority,

am

unable to turn

toward any other beauty? The reach of

single creature;

am

I

yours

is

as

wide

as that

my

of mercy.

afraid that depressing Christianity has

love

You

shadowed

my

is

is it

narrowed

to a

are the luckier.

my

my

dreams and

whole joy

I

in liv-

by binding me solely, in an indissoluble marriage, to the one I love. Your concept of love is more vast and beautiful; mine is born of my sub-

ing

conscious reversion to early training."

Then we joined our

feverish lips in a kiss tasting already of the bitter-

ness of future regret.

II

my

entered Vally's drawing room,

I

opened

tiger lilies

their great

cheeks wet with mist

.

.

.

Inside,

trumpets and gave off their overpowering

perfume. Vally, stretched languidly on a divan covered with Persian

was "at home"

to a

silks,

few friends. Her white gown covered but wholly

re-

vealed her lovely figure. She excelled at designing these knowingly seductive negligees.

Her loosened hair was a moonlight halo about her

face. Sitting

commentator of Zoroaster, was uttering commonplace sentences which managed to sound pornographic, so suggestive was the expression on his thick lips. He looked terribly Hke beside her, the scholar Petrus, translator and

a

shopkeeper

in a

Levantine bazaar. His large gestures seemed to spread too-

brightly colored rugs before imaginary customers. His conversation, like his literary style,

evoked sickening scents, barbaric colors,

all

the bad taste

of cheap oriental shops. He talked too much, probably in the hope of

making up tiful gifts,

stormy and beauAlways withdrawn, she appeared lost

for his wife's silence— she the novelist of such

who

hardly spoke at

all.

perpetual dream. The filmy folds of her green

in a

sinuous body and gave her the look of sea-weed.

nium blossom burned

A

in her

some feverish hypnotized dominated her pensive face. in

forget her mysteriously sad

A that

shadowy

apart, lone, the chosen

little

friend of Vally's

Androgyne whose

hstening to

my

who

rippled about her

single blood-red gera-

friend of

my

childhood, was

lost

Her forehead, too broad and too high,

It fixed one's attention and made one almost brown eyes and tender mouth.

looked

like

Italian smile

Leonardo's equivocal Saint John,

glows so strangely in the Louvre, was

Loreley expounding her theories about Imitation in Art.

San Giovanni was a poet, her verses tion did not extend

On

gown

hair.

bosom

reverie.

A

beyond

a quite

as perverse as her smile.

narrow

circle

Her reputa-

of writers and

artists.

the other hand, her unfailing salaciousness shocked bourgeois and Ht-

erary readers equally. Only a few true iconoclasts admired her for her daring.

Her volumes bore

titles

suggestive of

ambiguous passions: In Sapphic

Rhythm, Bona Dea, and The Mysteries of

the Eleusinian Ceres.

Under the approving regard of San Giovanni, Vally was imitator

is

saying:

"The

almost always more gifted than the creator. Reflections are love-

Her than the real image, an echo

is

softer than the sound. Shakespeare 5

is

a marvellous deifies

it,

Myself,

my

echo of Boccaccio,

prolongs

drew

I

a

mountain echo that amplifies the

close to lone

and spoke

softly.

too pensive friend. Please stop thinking,

"Don't think any more,

implore you in the

I

our long-ago affection. Love someone, something. Love gerous than thought. plicable

I

know some

obsession

is

much

mystery of the world, of Ufe, haunts you perpetually.

I

worked out

prehensible are thing that

is

two

which has

a theory of the Universe

merit of extreme simplicity.

I

name of

less

dan-

tormenting you. The inex-

is

through these tortures in the face of the Unknown. To escape obsession

voice,

to infinity."

it

I

have been

this

mortal

at least the

believe that the Unutterable and the Incom-

faces of a double idea, a hermaphrodite idea. Every-

ugly, unjust, fierce, base, emanates

from the Male

Principle.

Everything unbearably lovely and desirable emanates from the Female Principle.

The two

principles are equally powerful, and hate one another in-

curably. In the end one will exterminate the other, but which will be the final victor?

That riddle

silence for the decisive

the perpetual anguish of

is

all

souls.

We hope

in

triumph of the Female Principle, the Good and the

Beautiful, over the Male, that

is,

over Bestial Force and Cruelty."

lone gazed steadily at her long hands that were the color of old ivory.

That was

a

morbid habit of

hers, to stare at her

hands

for hours.

She merely

smiled without replying to me. Oh, the sadness of lone's smile, more

full

of pain than the bitterest tears!

The voice of San Giovanni

recalled

me

abruptly to reality. She was de-

fending her dearest theories against Petrus, who, with a lewd wink, was disputing Alcaeus's

poem

to

Sappho: "Weaver of

with the honeyed smile, words

"Why

rise to

chaste?" he was demanding.

my

lips

violets, chaste

Psappha

but modesty restrains them."

"No one was

ever less chaste than

the Immortal Lover." "I accuse

you," interrupted the Androgyne, "of being unable to cononce ardent and pure, like a white flame. That was the

ceive of a love at

Psappha vowed to her melodious adorers. That love, calling forth the most delicate and subtle nuances that Beauty can offer-is it not a thousand times more chaste than cloistered soHtude which breeds obscene dreams

sort

and monstrous desires? Isn't it a thousand times more chaste than the cohabitation based on advantage which Christian marriage has become? How can one imagine anything more luminously chaste than that school at Mytilene where Psappha taught the complicated arts of music and poesy? In an era

when only

courtesans carefully learned pretty tunes, that

girl

of noble

birth dared devote herself wholly to the divine cult of Song." "Psappha has certainly been the greatest of the misunderstood and slanthis virgin dered," Vally mused. "Has there not even been confusion of invented the of what of highest lineage with some vulgar courtesan? And

legend of a

mad

infatuation for the

handsome Phaon, 6

a legend

whose

stu-

pidity

is

by

equalled only

And last, hasn't the adopted to make her utterly

lack of historical truth?

its

theory of a marriage been almost universally ridiculous?"

"This supposed husband," put in San Giovanni, "seems, according to Isle of Andros in search of a wife. But the man's

Suidas, to have left the

name, Kerkolas-he who wields the pen-and that of his birthplace, are sufficient evidence of the kind of low humor that invented the tale. Moreover, it was never the custom for the Greeks to leave their own home place in order to

"Only

marry

a vulgar

a stranger."

mind could have substituted the bearded

faces of Kerkolas

and Phaon for the divine smile of Atthis and Eranna," I agreed. "An equally low philistine morality has also used a fragment of Psappha's poetry: loved,

'I

have a beautiful child, perfect as a golden flower, Kleis the much-

whom

I

prefer to

all

the province of Lydia,' to transform the loving

slave-girl Kleis into a legitimate

daughter!" San Giovanni broke

off, scowl-

ing fiercely. "Imagine the hideous image of animal-like pregnancy after the

Ode to Aphrodite and the Ode to a Beloved Woman!" "They have made a mockery even of her sacred name,

the soft and sono-

rous Psappha, for which has been substituted the colorless label of Sappho," sighed Vally. "Sappho! That calls

est

up uncontrollably the mediocre

statues

by means of which the Philistines perpetuate the greatfeminine spirit which has ever dazzled the Universe." "How I love you in your devout furies, O my Priestess," I whispered.

and the

trite verses

"Then you seem

transfigured, almost divine."

Petrus did not give up.

He now

extolled masculine beauty, which he

declared superior to any feminine charms.

"How that the

frightful he is,"

man

San Giovanni murmured to me. "I'm convinced

has the mind and morals of the most respectable middle class

now

fellow, but right

he has the

tourists the services of like all Levantines.

dows and shake

air

of a dirty pedlar

who

offers English

untouched young boys. He's congenitally obscene,

When he

leaves,

one

feels the

need to open the win-

the hangings."

"Adolescent boys are beautiful only because they resemble women," Vally replied; "they are either in grace of

"For

my

still

movement

women, whom they do not equal harmony of form."

inferior to

or

part," said San Giovanni thoughtfully, "I don't believe that

any statue of a young god surpasses the winged magnificence of the Victory of Samothrace, that supreme incarnation of feminine beauty. ror of the Hercules.

Any

I

have

a hor-

Herakles," she emphasized, "is the apotheosis of

boy. I've never been able to lose mvself contemplation of muscles and tendons." She smiled reflectively. "If it

a carnival wrestler or a butcher in is

true," she

went on, "that the soul

was certainly born once on Lesbos.

I

7

is

reborn in several

was only

a sullen

human

bodies,

I

and awkward child

when an

me

older playmate took

ing the Goddess.

I

Ode

heard the

to the temple

where Psappha was invok-

to Aphrodite. That incomparable voice

flowed out, more harmonious than water. The verses rolled on like waves, and died and were reborn with a sound like the sea. Truly, truly, I once heard the

Ode

The shining memory has never faded with And still I was only a

to Aphrodite!

the years, not even with the passage of centuries.

and because of my homehness and my tongue-tied speechlessPsappha cared nothing for me. But I loved her, and when later I developed the body of a woman, my sobs of desire were directed toward her. child then,

ness,

I

was

that

I

in Sicily

when

and offended me. is

I

learned of her death; but that death was so glorious

did not shed a tear, and the weeping of I

my

companions surprised

reminded them of her own high-souled words: 'For

not right that there should be lamentation in the house of those

it

who

is unworthy of us.'" mused Vally, smiling, "I was a Httle Arab shepherd. slept all day, and never waked until the beginning of the green or violet dusk. Towards night, following my flock, I came down from the mountain, walking in a

serve the Muses; that

"I,"

I

cloud of red dust. I

It

was down

in the valley that

ran to the nearest village and cried out that the

And everyone who heard to see

the great

on the horizon the amber

first saw the moon rise. moon was coming up.

I

news looked up

light that just

at the

sky and cheered

precedes the appearance of

moon."

the

plump figure radiated the composmen?" he demanded abruptly of San Giovanni, fixing his heavy gaze upon her. "I neither love nor hate men," San Giovanni answered amicably. "What I hold against them is the great wrong they have done to women. They Petrus was contemplative. His whole

ure of a tolerant pasha.

are political adversaries

Off the battlefield of

"Why do you

whom

ideas,

for

a fakir

know them

injure for the little

and

am

good of the cause.

indifferent to them."

on

a

some time before pronouncing portentously: "Mademoiselle, you

trying to hide

from the

irresistible

seduction of the male.

You

are

will certain-

arms of a man." The fatuous innocence of smile should have softened a Penthesilea, but an angry flush darkened

ly finish

his

want to

solemn expression-one would have thought about to give birth to a prophecy. He stared at the Androgyne

Petrus's oily face took

him

I

I

hate

your

love-life in the

the face of the author of Ceres Eleusine.

her Hps by I managed to check the furious words about to burst from saying in a profoundly shocked tone: "That would be a crime against nature, sir. I have too much respect for our friend to believe her capable of an

abnormal passion!"

Ill

by

Little

the days grew mild with the softness of Spring. April,

little

showed us her wayward smiles and enigmatic

so beloved of Vally,

Every hour that passed bound more closely our so-different each day

my

With

aching love grew deeper and more ingrained. Vally had an

instinctive love of the artificial. lor

tears.

spirits.

with cosmetics. The

pleased her to color her white-rose pal-

It

false flush

of her cheeks was a brutal contrast to

her moonlight hair. Her mother, an Israehte, had transmitted to her

the

all

charm of the blonde Jewess. Her eyes, more coldly blue than winter haze, still conveyed something Oriental, a languorous and voluptuous gaze. And her mobile lips were more fitted for deception than for kisses. They seemed to have been sculptured meticulously by a most skillful hand. They were Hps without tenderness,

lips

long famiUar with every verbal artifice.

Sometimes she put on the costume of a Venetian page, a suit of moonwhich harmonized delicately with her pallid hair. At other times she would dress as a Greek shepherd, and then the music of invisible

light-green velvet

pipes of Pan

would seem

ter as if at the lascivious

which transform the

the nostalgic, for the magic of strange garments at the

same time

as the

and her eyes would

to follow her footsteps,

glit-

nakedness of maenads. She was trying, as do

all

spirit

body, and thus revive for an hour the grace of

a

vanished era. She was another Androgyne, vigorous as an ephebe, graceful

woman.

as a

abandoned

I

fervently adored her ardor as a priestress serving a cult of

altars.

loved her for reviving the sacred

I

fires

of ruined temples

and wreathing broken statues with roses.

Time passed with its ebb and flow of hours monotonous as tides of the was no longer welcome in the httle salon with its pool reflecting

sea. Petrus irises.

"That

"Even the

man

is

as repulsive to

charm of

infinite

bearable, that Levantine!

me

as rancid rose water," Vally declared.

his wife doesn't serve to

What

a

shame

make

his presence

woman,

to see that wonderful

that

flower, that lovely sea-weed, tied to such a shopkeeper!"

lone came there very rarely. so miserable that

I

I

was

at the

same time so enraptured and

ceased to worry about her long silences, or the wrinkles

of worry on that too broad, too high forehead. She seemed to be living

an intense inner Hfe which no outer impression could penetrate, an intense

and

terrible hfe

which was slowly sapping

all

her strength. The perpetual

question in her eyes was almost that of a hypnotized creature gazing into the abyss

which

will presently

swallow

it.

And

I

grasped nothing of that

struggle of a soul with the Incomprehensible, that struggle of

angel.

that

I

saw nothing,

first

I

understood nothing, for

which

love with

Nevertheless,

I

my

human and

was absorbed

solely

by

lost heart wrestled.

did sometimes pay a

always dressed in a

I

full-gathered gown, 9

visit

a

to the silent lone.

gown of

dull red

I

found her

which,

I

don't

know why, reminded me of

nights in Florence.

A

pendant, symboHc

design, a single great ruby set in green gold with a dangling pearl,

only jewelry she chose to wear, save for her ruby-studded girdle.

few nearly

silent

afraid of censure

hours with her.

from that but

large understanding,

my

I

1

spirit

did not dare talk of Vally.

I

in

was the I

spent a

was not

whose very purity endowed it with a would be wrung by

that her sensitive heart

felt

torments, which she would sense even

if

I

told her nothing of them.

She knew as well as I— and better— how hopeless was my futile effort to win Vally 's indifferent heart, which was not and never could be moved to love me. She was well aware that I was wasting myself in a useless struggle, and even that knowledge deepened the sorrow that shadowed those eyes of hers, eyes as brilliantly brown as an autumn twilight. This restraint which

weighed on our conversations produced one another's eyes trayal of silence.

we

as

We

a certain estrangement.

did any open confession, and

we

were afraid of the truth-afraid above

time intimate frankness. So

I

saw her

less

and

less

We

avoided

feared the beall

often, until

of our old-

my

visits

almost ceased. She never offered the least complaint or reproach. Herself as distant as a

preoccupied stranger, she seemed almost unaware of every-

Unknown. And yet— she had once been

thing but her mystic fear of the

snow-white

whom

sister to

I

had whispered

my

most intimate dreams

.

the .

.

IV

One day toward

the end of April Vally received a note addressed in a

serpentine script over-fine and

wavy— the

writing of a sensual mystic, or

perhaps a mystic sensualist. In an upper corner of the parchment-colored

paper was an elaborate hieroglyphic which after long and patient examination proved to be a

you come

We

to see

me

monogram

this

in

modern

letters.

The note

said:

"Won't

afternoon, you and your slave?"

waited for San Giovanni's appearance in an odd green boudoir whose

was of a disquietingly tortuous design. The oddest of odd Art Nouveau reigned here; the single example of any other style was a reproduction of Leonardo's San Giovanni. This picture, framed and hung with furniture

the greatest care in a place of honor, seemed a portrait, or even more, the

very spirit of our sapphic poet. full

of fading black

iris.

A

dried snake skin was coiled about a vase

With friendly

curiosity, Vally

examined the

tar-

nished scales where living brilliance Uke splintered gems was forever captured. "Don't look too long at dead serpents,"

came San Giovanni's

voice.

Her quiet step had been so hushed by the deep rugs that the thread of our attention had not been broken. "For dead serpents revive under the gaze of those who love them. The witching eyes of Lilith bring them back to life,

just as

"I

my

moonlight animates stagnant waters."

remember,"

my

pagan Priestess put

in,

"a tale with which you froze

blood once. Your words quivered out of a fantasmal dusk, came shud10

Beyond gray with

dering from a

terror. Tell us again that tale

of the dead

serpents, San Giovanni."

solemn whisper the poetess evoked the vision once suggested to her

In a

by

when

a night

was tormented by unmentionable

she

of an American adventurer

lost in the

pains. "It's the story

mountains," she explained. Then she

began:

had wandered for days on the mountain. The bare rocks distracted

'*I

me with

their fantastic resemblance to animals or

crouching chimeras, others

like

like

human

watchful water

sharks and whales, obehsks, crocodiles,

Some were

faces.

spirits.

I

recognized

women's buttocks. There were

also

the trunks of tortured giants, nuns kneeling beneath heavy veils of stone.

froHcked with beautiful and malicious lizards-I loved them as

I

And whenever

precious stones. sadness.

(I

me with I

dawn too freezes made me profoundly contemplative.

the darkness and feel the

we know nothing of. times. If I had known what

tain I

sit in

that

all

I would was struck to the heart with

I

always saddened by nightfall, and sometimes

presentiments.) SoHtude had

would

of

am

the sun set,

shadow of death.

I

thought then

Inexplicable weakness overcame I

dreaded,

me

at cer-

should not have been afraid.

I

shrank into myself, as children try to hide beneath the covers. Horror of

Unknown

the

shattered

my

consciousness. At such times

for a very long time, staring straight ahead of

my

head

right or left. It

terrible to

is

had loved

I

when

purely. Her eyes never crinkled, even

now

dead

is

are so like her.

.

.

.

Later

I

took

She loved to sleep

Although she was happy,

I

sat

motionless

a

know why.

young

girl,

she laughed ardently at

through the leaves. Those sombre eyes gave the She

I

without daring to turn

be so afraid and not

had never done any harm to anyone.

"I

me

a mistress.

I

lie

very

me

to her laughing lips

.

.

.

love the lizards because they

in the blazing sunlight.

She feared nothing.

make her

never heard her sing. Nothing could

tremble. Presently she took another lover. Since then

I

have wandered these

mountains.

"Toward

the end of one insolently blue afternoon

hallooing at an odd small hut half hidden

by

taken refuge there in his frenzy for soUtude. seen a

human

cabin.

I

face.

I

raised the straw

mat

vines. It

was

A

I

was surprised into

hermit must have

a long time since

I

had

that served as door to the loner's

have never seen such a bizarre dwelling. The walls of rough planks

were covered from top to bottom with the skins of serpents, dry and velled but

still

retaining a

dim shimmer of

scales. In a

corner an old

shri-

man

cowered, grimacing with surprise and terror. "I

drew back, vaguely alarmed, before that narrow, hollow-cheeked face. lidless, were dilated like those of owls whose night-

His yellow eyes, almost

wide pupils are hurt by his ragged

him

to

light.

His chin was long out of

white hair stood up as

pardon

my

intrusion.

if

raised

by perpetual

all

proportion, and

fright.

I

begged

The old man, half hypnotizing me with 11

his

fixed stare, said nothing. Thinking he might be deaf,

my

"'No need to shout,' protested

come from

hearing a voice

broken tomb.

a

come

the better of discretion. 'Well,

lence

by way of excuse.

have you looking

was

voice.

as startHng as

hesitated -but curiosity got

was

I

in,'

at the walls?' yelled the

hermit.

you

see

'I

are a snake killer,'

startled at the inexplicable effect

ventured

I

produced by these quite

harmless words. The hermit stood erect, his teeth chattering as

of

in the throes

a violent fever-chill.

The

crisis

if

he were

passed in a burst of childish

demanded roughly, 'have you killed serpents?' murmured with growing uneasiness.

sobbing. 'And you,' he '"I've killed

I

won't

'I

at the walls.'

stood stupidly irresolute.

timidly.

I

my

raised

I

effect

studied curiously the sinister hole in which

I

found myself. 'Why are you staring "I

The

he bawled out suddenly. Then siagain and lengthened. 'I'm out of the habit of talking,' he grumbled

fell

at last,

host.

one or two,'

I

"The old man leaped up with a single bound, violently seized my hands, and shook me like a ripe fruit tree. 'Oh miserable one, unhappy one, un-

Why

lucky one!

did

you do

it?

Don't you know, then, that

useless?'

it's

His voice broke and the phrase ended in a barely audible whisper. 'Don't

you know that serpents never die? Or rather, they revive, more terrible and venomous. They revive, tell you.' "The sun had set. A bluish dusk made the shadowy corners mysteriously ominous. The old man shivered like a Chinese ruined by opium. 'See, night I

has fallen,' '"This

no on the

is

said at last, to break the painful silence.

I

the hour

when they come

use, ever, in killing serpents.

walls?'

know whether

"I don't as

my

murmured the hermit. 'There's Look! Look! Can't you see them crawling to Hfe,'

spirit,

or whether

it

the man's terror

was an

illusion

dominated

my

eyesight as well

brought on by the dusk. But

I

did see the serpents gliding, their dried scales recapturing a jeweled gleam. I

saw them dart

my

and

their vindictive glare at us,

and crafty gHtter.

I

followed us with a hostile

it

watched them stretch and

And

recoil themselves.

in

I

turn shuddered uncontrollably.

'"Look

at the

most beautiful of prairie

green one all, it

down

there,' the hermit quavered. 'It's the

has the hving color of grass.

one steps on them without even seeing them.

lovelier one.

And

that other, the sandy-red one

on the beach the serpents of every country where

the wet stones one finds All

sneak

in

.

"I felt, the full length

stay

.

.

.

that

of

.

.

.

my

look

I

one

like

like

raw copper

have ever killed one

.

.

.

about

lie

.

.

They in

.' .

.

legs, the cold

seized the pitiful

and dehrium?'

the

have never killed a

and that, veined

contact of slimy

bony arm of the hermit here? Why don't you flee far away from this

with terror

you

I

And

I

through the cracks when the planks are damp, they

shadowed corners. Look

the

.

.

When one walks

.^

Drunk 'Why do

coils.

violently.

niglitmare, this fever

.

"With

a convulsive gesture he

his forehead.

wiped away the cold sweat that beaded that was a long time ago

used to try to get away

'I

But they followed me. Whenever

among them

They hung from

the rocks.

in the

with their

.

perhaps that

why

is

killing a serpent,

Truly,

I

am

.

.

in the grass or

swam

creeks.

saw

I

They hypnotized me

and damned. There

Those you have

see.

they

like eels.

convinced that the Devil

serpents are evil

you

.

saw them

I

tree branches,

depths of the running water,

evil eyes.

.

.

looked back

I

killed will

a serpent,

and

no use ever

in

is is

come

to

life like all

the others.'

"Darkness had

she

is

"Did the wind across the as

ray of moonlight multiplied the gleam-

maUcious tonight! They love the moon, because

They adore that insidious liglit. They are happy, Oh, they are very vicious tonight!'

as cruel as they are.

and that renders them a whispering.

A

fallen outside.

ing scales. 'Oh, they are

terrible.

rustle the vines?

heard a whispering ...

I

mountain

of an epileptic

fit

like a

panicked horse.

soiled

my

lips.

At

I

last a

was out of greenish

the peaks. But the graveyard voice of the hermit

serpents

kill

.

.

I

swear

sprang through the opening that served as door.

I

.

they never die

.

.

.

Or

still

my

1

heard

dashed

mind.

Foam

dawn showed above

rang

in

my

ears: 'Never

rather, they return to life

venomous and terrible.'" Vally was silent, a vague skepticism clouding her

I

smile.

still

"Do you

more believe

that the eyes of Lilith can really revive dead snakes?" she finally asked.

"I'm sure of

it,"

declared San Giovanni, "in the small hours they creep

along undefined paths. Through the half-darkness their eyes shoot cruel

They spy out

gleams. For they serve Lilith faithfully. indicated.

The being they

lie in

the victims she has

wait for feels, with a ghostly horror, their

cold coils tighten about his heart."

Vally was examining a

wood

carving of the Magdalen with an exquisitely

draped robe, the face and hands of porcelain. full

It

was one of those

of naive and childhke grace which the Spaniards group

about the scene of the Crucifixion. With be praying for

all

human

suffering.

A

selfless

doll-figures

like silent actresses

detachment she seemed to

sincere exaltation of grief

made

that

passionate face spiritual.

"That Magdalen brings back for

me

all

the ardent brilHance of Seville,"

mused San Giovanni. "Ah! that quivering sharpness of the air! While there, I felt myself becoming almost transparent with the subtle intensity of living." She smiled at a memory. "In Seville," she went on, "I was struck by something strange and most symboHc. You know they wanted recently to unify the time throughout Spain, and they chose Greenwich time as their standard. But the clock in the cathedral tower, nately in running a quarter hour slow.

them, seemed to glory

which

is

none the

in

It

it

alone, persisted obsti-

defied the other clocks, scorned

being behind. What do you think of that

less striking for

being true?" 13

tale,

"I don't think anything.

"To be

True

as different as possible

stories don't interest

from Nature

is

me," pouted Vally.

the true function of Art."

"You're right," confessed San Giovanni. "Representation vulgar imitation of the Real. In a painting

I

been seen or heard wish

"You

creator

To

create

is

Nature. Nature

in

is

nothing but

the only true artist.

to innovate, to produce inimitable. Art

is

understood you, San Giovanni,"

I

is

dream flowers, faces one what has never

love only imaginary landscapes,

will never see in life.

"I

The absolute

said

I

unimaginable."

is

with passionate interest.

unknown dream.

yourself are the bizarre flower of some

I

try with

dehberate sharpness to clarify the obscure causes of which you are so paradoxical a product."

San Giovanni childhood

fills

had

child,

even

me

mysteriously deep pool.

in a

"My

me

contempt,

with idiotic effusions,

one hides

as

in

deep shadows. Where

my

in-

companions

looked on such familiarities

I

with eyes already spiteful, where the beginning of childish hate was

my

She paused to give her words more convincing weight. "During I

When

withdrew into depths of

I

complacently courted admiration and caresses,

years

strange

with wonder," she reflected. "I was born an only

soHtary childhood -almost without other living creatures.

a

strangers flattered stinctive

Her eyes became vague, the eyes

lost herself in the past.

of one searching her distant image

lit."

earliest

loved no one. The most conceitedly stupid gushing was cut off by

that unconscious hostiHty. I amused myself with the complex personaHties Each of the ten had individuaUty, character, almost a soul. The aggressive, belligerent thumbs stood apart with natural pride. The index fingers were full of prophetic wisdom. The middle fingers stood up tall

"Before

my

of

I

could read,

fingers.

with the despotism of a rich bourgeois father. The fourth fingers, longer than the index, extended themselves little fingers,

made those and grave

in

feminine slenderness. As to the

they impersonated willful moodiness and gamine trickery.

fingers talk.

I

attributed to

them

crises."

"lone's fingers,"

I

interrupted, "are like

tall

San Giovanni went on: "Like most children, lies

were a reaching for the impossible, the

badly worked fantasies lighted

me

to

torment

all

my

the dreams

terrified

I

whom

I

myself even worse with

my

lied

and was

Beyond.

I

cruel.

me

telling

My

embroidered

had accumulated for years.

It

in

de-

them horrifying

with a naive sense of power. But

diabolical inventions.

"Not a single perverse reverie entered till I was thirteen that I was filled with an ion

vast

pale altar candles!"

younger playmates by

ghost stories. Their terror intoxicated I

I

a life full of diverse adventure

my

complete isolation.

It

utterly pure passion for a

was not compan-

adored because her eyelashes were so beautiful, so mournful." "I," Vally broke in, "I was barely eight when I began to drive little boys

crazy with

I

my

disturbing, almost sophisticated kisses. 14

I

didn't care a thing

I

them, but

for

was

I

proud of the precocious disturbance

terribly

San Giovanni's eyes turned again to the

who

to that girl with the beautiful lashes,

tenderness.

I

past. "I

gave

man

first

so that

could marry her. But

I

in all this

Ufe not a hint of physical intimacy entered.

of hours when

we were

lost in

one another

I

as

*'After that, for a long time religious piety

agonized over the Unknowable. Today

grandeur of Uncertainty

.

.

Perhaps

.

I

I

free.

am

poems

her innocent

was determined that we would run away together

both of us had reached the age when we would be as a

my

wrote

me openly

caused."

1

later

when

dreamed of dressing

I

mirage of closely united

imagined simply the peace

harmonious colors blend. burned

was born

regretfully after a pause. "I should have liked to

in

me. Like lone,

I

with the vast tragic

satisfied

to be an apostle," she said

found a

religion, or at

some very ancient and profoundly wise cult-the cult of the Mother Goddess who conceived Infinity and gave birth to Eternity. I haven't

least restore

of my poems. I haven't who, not having found peace in a convent, has thrown and weeps to find herself naked amid the ritual perfume of

a lover's soul at all, despite the raging sensuality

the soul of a nun,

off her veils

the incense." Her voice broke with sorrow, 'i have lost myself in a labyrinth of digressions," she

mischievous

"Like

all

little

children,"

"Of course," trate the sleep

said

of

went on. "Until

I

was fourteen,

I

was only

my

I

inserted.

San Giovanni. "But soul,

when

a confused sense of beauty.

I

When

made I

a

dream was beginning to

a trip to Italy.

was about

my

ten,

There

I

Still,

splendor of the universe had never been wholly revealed to

me

among

It

I

those luminous landscapes saturated with perfumes.

came

"You

to understand love

you haven't the her with some astonishment. say

infil-

acquired

half-conscious soul

had been moved by the Old Testament and Greek mythology.

that

a lazy,

animal."

as

it

the

was

was there

most clearly."

soul of a lover, San Giovanni," "I wish

you would teach

I

interrupted

us your conception

of tenderness and passion."

San Giovanni smiled her equivocal half-smile. "I've told you

my

childhood was of sensual reverie. At seventeen

I

how empty

was wholly ignorant

I was allowed in my whose education had been rigorously supervised described animal intercourse to me. I listened with stupefied disgust, and above all else increduHty. Instinctively I was wholly revolted by the grotesque shame of human lust. No later reflection could dispel my nausea. But soon was absorbed by less repugnant ideas. A great passion for justice seized me. was aroused on behalf of women, so misunderstood,

of bestial sexuality, despite the Anglo-Saxon freedom reading.

Then

a

young French

friend

I

I

began to hate the male for the base cruelty of considered his works and judged laws and the impurity of his morals.

made his

them

use of

by male tyranny.

I

I

evil, for

I

was burning with the

revolt of a 15

proud

spirit against

oppression

"That was when the

first

my poem,

Vashti, in which

first

I

celebrated

wife of Ahasuerus, more beau-

and with more pride than the timorous Esther, had already captured 1 was thrilled by her high-souled defiance when

tiful

my

composed

I

feminine rebelHon. Vashti, the

childhood imagination.

Ahasuerus ordered her to unveil for ous as the sun's

drunken courtiers her beauty,

his

that mystically exquisite face, but preferred to die, outcast for that hauteur that

It is

for a I

glori-

She refused to allow the satraps' lewd stares to profane

light.

I

and wretched.

venerate and love her." San Giovanni

fell silent

moment.

hastened to ask further about the mystery of her love Hfe. "Tell us

about your sweet friend with the beautiful lashes,

O

perverse Saint!"

San Giovanni withdrew, evasive and reticent. "You are mistaken about the character of that childish love.

Hps from meeting.

I

Complete ignorance kept our too naive

was twenty before

learned the inexpressible loveli-

I

ness of feminine amours, with their purity of passion, their graceful candor

then tempted. The reading oi Mephistophela opened the gates to unsus-

unknown stars. I adored that book despite some chapters, where bourgeois moraHty is wedded to cheap melodrama. From it I learned that innocent Hps can join without disgust other lips more experienced but no less timid. I understood that pected gardens and the path of

the bad taste of

on

this earth there

can blossom faerie kisses without regret or shame.

with anxious patience

I

And

awaited the coming of the hitherto Unhoped For."

"Tell us about her, San Giovanni

." .

.

But suddenly overcome by the awkward modesty of an ephebe, the poetess of Mytilene turned away and ran her hectic fingers over the velvety bass notes of the piano. The notes quivered under the passionate hands that rippled over

them with

"To my

soft insistence.

a musician," she sighed.

"Music can for

And

is

yet, like the sea,

it

the Infinite

.

me .

.

eternal sorrow,

I

be only the voice of

Music

is

am

not

mood.

a

always suggestive.

I

re-

some prose poems suggested to me by a morbid nocturne of Chopin." As she recited she accompanied the words with a tormented melody that had the broken rhythm of a feverish heartbeat: call

love "I love you because you are like autumn, like a fading sunset. you because you are ill. I love you because you are going to die. I love you also because you have coppery hair and sea-green eyes and because you are frail and sad. You have the flexibiUty of a fading flower. Your voice is melancholy as the winds of October that bring down the dead leaves. love you because you are going to die. Your lassitude enchants me and your fragility ravishes me. Someone should do, that the surely be awaiting you in the tomb. For you know, as I

I

I

Dead, lying

whom

in the

depths of their sepulchres, are waiting for those

they loved. They await them

tirelessly,

patience, in appalling immobility. Oh, 16

without anguish or im-

someone assuredly waits

for

you

tomb. The Dead twine

in the

through their closed

you

lids,

are going to die.

you too

among

they count the years.

When you

will wait resting

their fingers

the roots, hoping

and their companions. And sometimes,

for the arrival of their loved ones

are dead,

love you because Lady of Autumn,

I

O my

on those slabs of stained marble. You will which take unexpected shapes, strange

smile at the spots of moisture

outUnes, and which sometimes, like clouds, assume the face of earthly

When you are dead, you will wait for me, like her who alAnd behind your closed lids you will count the

creatures.

ready awaits me. years.

Whenever

window,

will bring

me

shadow,

cold breath.

like a

shall hear the

I

my

sing songs to

I

me

about

drifting

I

When

tapping of your fingers. The winter winds

the rustle of your passing shroud.

I

shadow on

the sundial.

who

the fog and the mists, like her

because you are going to die. that

drink from your Hps.

I

fleeting life

when

delicate design of

I

your skeleton.

finger

will insinuate yourself into

already awaits me.

believe

embrace you.

I

know you

I

love

you

the brief joy of ephemeral beauty

is

It

You

shall

Your index

wait for me, counting the months and the years. will cast its

your thouglits

shall feel

sleet rattles against the

I

you

take from

a bit

of your

can see within your flesh the

I

adore your transparent temples

I

glisten with the dew of you for being so pale. Oh, how beautiful you are, so wasted and pale! Someone must surely be awaiting you in the ." tomb

where the blue veins icy sweat.

.

I

and which

are visible

love

.

San Giovanni listened reverently for the chords.

"What

is

echo of the dying

last fugitive

most beautiful about music," she

said, "is the

pause in

the middle of a rhythm, or the silence following the last quivering note

She looked is

in the

work of

.

.

mysterious keys of the piano. "All the magic of a tune

at the

the left hand. Ah, the grave sweetness, the inexpressible

sob of the bass clef!"

"You

are a devotee of sounds,

She agreed. blest a future

"How

I

San Giovanni,"

love that religious fantasy

of Eternal Music!

I

I

observed.

which promises

to the

should wish, as one of the Elect, to be

nothing but a singing note breathed into space." She repeated in a passionate tone: "Music!

How

idea in a tale called

of a saint

spell-binding,

how

The Sin of Music.

in the desert. All sorts

magical!

Once

I

tried to express that

was an account of the temptation of mirages and oases shimmered in vain It

before his indifferent gaze. Sights did not endanger his soul at exquisite nude

women

and voluptuous statues dazzled

all.

The most

as futilely before

him as the wickedly bright moonlight on the sands. Even goddesses, the more desirable for being remote, let him look upon the white tlame of their flesh,

without waking

perfumes to make one

a single

gleam of desire

faint, scents

in his

mournful eyes. Then

of overpowering sweetness, aromas of 17

.

him without disturbing

breath-taking power, drifted over

the profound peace

of his hermit's being. Fruits richly ripened by the sun, rare fruits from

most distant climes, wines of jewel-purple or glowing gold, never wakened in him the pleasure of their taste. Even that most delicate and troubling of the senses, the sense of touch, was not roused softness of fur in

whose equivocal

tissues

by

which the

clinging

his ear. Music, ardent

grets like

and

re -awakens

may bury

Hke

is

in

mony

.

.

."

But he was seduced

a hesitant caress.

stirs re-

memories, Music which envelops and sweeps one away

water, transported his soul on the sob of a chord

so the hermit,

him by the animal by satiny

themselves, nor

and insinuating as a mistress, Music which

of sound was so sharp that

And

fingers

till

it

led

him

then invulnerable, was

San Giovanni's

fingers,

.

.

.

The sensuous appeal

to renounce the glory of paradise.

damned-by

the sin of har-

knowingly retarding, caressed with per-

verse tenacity the yielding notes.

I

my new

was twenty-one and drunk with

to Vally's and

freedom when lone took me

experienced the ecstatic pangs of a

I

first

passion. After that

day of dazzling blue and of darkness, friendship was overshadowed by lone, pale sister, receded into the background. I no longer told her of sorrows.

I

guarded them jealously

in the

saddened depths of

my

love,

my

spirit.

And

became a creature of silence and solitude. For Vally was all for ecstasies which changed with the hours. A multitude of feminine fancies succeeded one another in her variegated existence. I became accustomed to their perfumed presence, their smiles which begged my forbearance. it

I

was thus that

I

learned not to resent

never possessed. tortured

me

I

felt

them-they were not robbing me of an almost affectionate indulgence for

so unintentionally

transients without bitterness.

and so gracefully!

They were

I

a love

my

remember

had

I

rivals.

all

so dissimilarly adorable.

They

those I

specially

admired a certain Jewess, magnificent as the whole Orient. Her heavy hair was full of the perfume of roses and sandalwood. Bathsheba without veils

was never more triumphantly splendid. Beneath the languor of her heavy lids slept passionate violence. She was almost terrifyingly beautiful. She was succeeded by a mere child, whose infantile profile and birdlike twitterings

moved me

to tenderness. But she

was soon dropped

for a

body of

a godyoung Englishwoman with a little girl's spirit clothed were Both heart of Vally. dess. After that, two sisters vied for the fickle as silver-blonde as an arctic sun. But their reign too was brief. Their weather in the

vane lover forgot them, captivated by the seductive smile of a little American. No one could fix Vally's shifting imagination nor hold fast her transient heart. Nevertheless,

her,

if

I

envied these puerile loves, for each had from

only for an instant, sincere

"I don't love

kisses.

you," she would say 18

in

her

moments of

sincerity.

"May-

be

shall learn to love

I

you by-and-by. which

for the softened look

watch

I

I

followed her, just as

my

We went

I

my

hopes and

by

little

you

will teach

patience,

had for so long awaited

I

me

would

in vain.

summer blazed from the walls; to accompany her to America. And first day when I had abandoned for

Summer bloomed feverishly with and Vally gave me notice that I was her

Little

And with melancholy

your faithfulness and tenderness."

roses,

had on that

memories.

women's college where only a few men, graduate workmen, were admitted. It was Hke a consecrated of labor and meditation. These young women were

to a huge

students or grounds

community,

a place

preparing themselves for future careers, or were pursuing deeply for their

own

pleasure a

muhitude of studious

interests.

Happiness of

spirit, a

thou-

sand times keener than pleasures of the flesh, brightened indescribably

young faces. Serenity breathed from which reminded one of a beehive.

these frank

these walls full of stud-

ious buzzing

No one who

has not spent the divine

World can imagine the

full

month of October in the New me there was a

glory of autumn. All about

The woods burned with red intense

universal flame of sunset.

as fresh

blood, the golds and coppers had a dream -brilliance. Tiny snakes green as

molten emeralds hke racing

plative there this

slept in the dust

vines. Just at the edge

was

a small

of the roads, then came of this town

alive

suddenly

once active and contem-

cemetery where bats hovered on blue wings. In

narrow city of the dead Vally and

San Giovanni

at

in flagrante delictu

I

surprised,

one evening about dusk,

of Hterary composition. She was seated

on the worn slab commemorating Hannah Jane, beloved spouse of Ebenezer Brown. "You have realized your ideal of happiness, O poet!" Vally laughed mockingly. "Serpents, bats, tombs, solitude: behold you are in possession of your paradise. For blessedness or damnation differ only in one's own spirit."

"You're right,"

word Music, and would

agreed.

I

my

"My Heaven

Hell in the

is

contained complete within the

word Discord. For me,

eternal torment

be having to hear loud noises, the shrieking of buzz-saw&, the racket

of tram-cars, the screaming of children, the howling of sirens and the pounding of inexpert pianists." "I

once read an odd book

"This correspondence of the but

it

was

full

are punished

wander about

titled Letters

damned

from Hell"" mused San Giovanni.

revealed a deplorably Protestant spirit,

of bizarre detail about infernal manners and customs.

down

there

in the

by having

dusk

full

of a tragic hunger to love others and abase

They babble into the Nothingness They stretch out open arms in vain spasms of themselves.

whom

Spirits

to expiate their earthly sins. Egoists

futile

love.

words of tenderness. the shades upon

And

they press their obsequious offers spurn them utterly. Hypocrites

are forced to sob out their old lies, despite their altered souls

19

purged by

And

freedom.

the torments of the vain are

more dreadful

still.

They

are

forced to see themselves as others saw them, and hear everything that was

them during

said against

We

shuddered with

lustful?"

their

mock

whole earthly

horror.

lives."

"And what

the punishment of the

is

asked with interest.

I

"They are condemned to the act of desiring," San Giovanni answered. "Weary to the point of disgust, they dream vaguely of an impossible chastity. Their solitary craving gnaws Hke hunger, burns like thirst." She reflected

moment. "Once there was a man who sold his soul for a woman," went on. "The sensual ferocity of his love remained with him to Eternity. He cherished the hope of rediscovering that woman. Without rest, he for a

she

longed for her appearance

among

the Anguished Shades. All through the

long years, he waited for her."

"Such

is

the greatness of love,"

"He always saw her

I

observed philosophically.

beauty of her youth. He panted

in the implacable

for those long-gone Ups bruised with kisses, for her purple-shadowed lids, for her their

whole indescribable body. He remembered

all

their mystic evenings,

words, their divine silences. Long and long he waited.

"Then

at last she

came. She squatted

at his side.

The Shades revealed

her face netted with a tangle of wrinkles. Her toothless smile revealed

blackened gums. Her breasts were Hke two empty leather bottles. Her eyes

bUnked lamentably beneath to follow this spectre

and repeat kisses

their sparse lashes.

whom

the promises and prayers.

all

of that mouth with

its

The

punishment was

lover's

he abhorred, to sob out the old-time pleas

He begged with repugnance

fetid breath.

And

the

he exhausted himself

in-

venting abject compliments before this creature he once truly desired."

Vally turned away, a bit pale.

"When I

put

of

all

your turn to descend into the Eternal Abyss, San Giovanni,"

it's

in, '*you will find a

crowd of

readers.

Your books

will

be

in the

hands

the lost souls of literature."

"You flatter me. I have a more modest notion of my literary reputation. To be read in Hell— what success! That would compensate for the meagre sales of my volumes in the here and now." "Justice,"

I

added, "tired of roaming futilely on our

has taken refuge in Hell. For justice

"There aren't any demons

would be

useless, since the

is

in Hell,"

damned

terrestrial globe,

the unique virtue of

demons."

objected San Giovanni. "Tortures

torture themselves.

Demons

are only

the vulgar personification of people's wicked thoughts."

A of

young professor

classical

Greece

whom

now came

Vally respected for his remarkable knowledge to join us and to

announce triumphantly

his

engagement. Vally murmured some conventional phrases. San Giovanni gazed at him not without melancholy and said offer you,

my

young

colleague,

in friendly fashion: "I shall

some advice which 20

will

do more

for

your

empty congratulations." She spread out a manuscript at random the following passage: "The Charmer of ephebe: This is what the serpents have taught me,

future happiness than

on her knee, and chose Serpents said to the

those counsellors of Voluptuousness. Avoid the act of initiation, base as

plunder, brutal as rape, bloody as massacre, and worthy only of a drunken

and barbarous soldiery. If the woman you love is a virgin, leave the violation of her maidenhead to a stranger. Lx)ve ought to be pure of everything

which

is

not passion. Suffering in love in vain for the

She waited

a false note in music.'"

is like

warm thanks

of our companion With rare .

removed himself as soon as he heard mention of the Vally smothered her scandaHzed laughter.

ingratitude, he had act of initiation.

"What advice to offer a hellenistic worthy young man."

fiance!

You

have offended the mod-

esty of the

"More's the pity," said San Giovanni relentlessly. "He wasn't afraid of outraging

my

modesty with

his indecent

proclamation of his engagement.

That's the sort of indelicate business that one ought to avoid announcing in public.

Everyone has

his

own

private scruples."

"Oh, hush," smiled Vally. "Or rather, read us your essay which bears title: The Male Prostitute.'' "HI yield to your wish, but not without warning you that the prostitute became evident to me the other night beneath the features of that M. de Vaulxdame with whom you were waltzing so sinuously, and who has just bartered his insignificant title for some very significant dollars." Then San

the tantalizing

Giovanni began solemnly:

"Look

here,

"The female fixity of hope.

upon

this picture,

and on

this.

prostitute passes in the night.

On

her cheeks the rouge

is

Her face has the haggard

red as a blush of shame. She

by

passes through the night, pursued like a wild animal, branded

condemnation, ceaselessly

in

stant danger of death, she has hanging over her

head not the sword of

Damocles but the vulgar knife of her pimp or some passing a creature exploited, reviled, crushed beneath the

police regulations. This

woman

sells herself,

a slave in the markets of antiquity.

from her path

"The male

universal

danger of degrading imprisonment. In con-

And

sometimes even

those

lover.

She

is

burden of prejudice and is

who withdraw

sold, like

themselves

label her 'prostitute.'

prostitute flaunts his laziness in quarters vast as a palace.

Servants liveried according to his caprice in picturesque costumes silently carry out his orders.

those

who

are

The prancing grace of

mad about

his horses

draws the eyes of

animal beauty. Luxury, that realization of

all

upon his way. His desires come to life echo back his pride. He passes, his forehead

earthly dreams, shines unclouded in

beauty. Choruses of praise

crowned with

light,

more admired than 21

a scholar or a priest. This

man

has

made beneath

sold himself. But marriage has sanctified the bargain

man

of a temple. Solemn rejoicings salute the venal act. This

honored by convention, and protected by law. Only

the church,

the vault

blessed

is

I

call

by him

'prostitute.'

"The woman has sold herself through ignorance, through need, because wage laws are merciless to working women, and the only means a woman

the

has of living in comfort

through harlotry. The

is

cause, despite possibilities of lucrative

and opulence to

fort

self-respect.

And

man

has sold himself be-

employment, he

prefers ease to ef-

thousand times more morally

so, a

decadent, a thousand times more reprehensible, the male prostitute enjoys all

the advantages and

all

And

the honors on earth.

I

him

alone give

his

true label: 'prostitute.'"

"You

are right to

condemn

"but that won't in the ing.

am

I

least

the

man," said my Priestess with approval, me from waltzing with him this even-

prevent

deserting the academic scene for a very frivolous ball in a nearby

country house. Are you going with me,

"No,"

I

my

chevalier-satelHte?"

replied gently. "I have too often

my

watched you

you swaying

all

evening, sad

to the

bottom of

jays.

have too bitterly envied, too fiercely hated your partners

I

soul to see

waltz or the cotiUion.

shall

I

not go to the

"Very well," she pouted with Giovanni, since you prefer the

in the arms of those popin-

ball,

in the

Vally."

a graceful shrug. "I

company of owls and

am

leaving you, San

serpents to mine.

Meditate as long as you like on the funereal inscriptions which surround

you." And the sweep of her

from

skirts

roused without pity the dead leaves

their silence.

VI

The

fields

came

to

life

under the

of winter. The ground

first kisses

smiled like a happy giant, rejoicing in snow, ice, hoar-frost, and generous

winds. The intoxication of the

cold filled the

first

air

with satisfying vigor.

was thrilled by the shivering air, thrilled with a sensual sharpness. The end of November saw us back in Paris. I experienced none of that pleasure at returning which a familiar house gives. Only at Vally 's, where I was merely a silent presence, tolerated and sometimes irritating, had I any feeling of comfort. Paris! That loved and longed-for city brought back I

only the

least gracious presences: the

self-satisfaction,

whom

I

hated,

During

my

all

my

absence

I

I

had not written to lone. could not have scrawled a

bitter involvement.

ing with time,

fat

of them together.

was so profound that traying

unspeakable Petrus, melting with

and the innumerable adorers of and fawners upon Vally,

and

I

For Vally 's

was beginning

22

line

without

depression silently be-

bored indifference was increas-

to despair.

to achieve an impossible goal!

My amorous

I

had so vainly

set

myself

But once we were back, past.

I

went to

I

head seemed to shed

a great

time she rested upon

me

my

dreamless

white light

comprehend

strove to

abyss. "I beg of you,"

me. Guess what

dim chamber. For

her

a long

that look, but

my

tell

It

of her mysterious thoughts.

a confession

reason was lost

murmured her almost

can no longer

I

in

those eyes so unforgettably sad and tender.

seemed to me that that gaze held I

see the pale friend of

found her, as always, alarmingly given to meditation. Her high fore-

in

as in an

it

inaudible voice, "understand

you. Sense

my

thoughts, comprehend

them and me."

my

Already

had answered her, but

helpless gesture

sense your meaning, lone.

I

I

cannot

said, "I

cannot understand. Help me." Slowly and

gently she shook her head, with an

air

of infinite regret. What words could

convey the mystery of her thoughts? "Let us talk of something else," she said.

you used

"You

are

no longer the person

and wild fancies. You

to be, so brightly Utopian, so full of ideas

have given up everything that used to be your pride and joy. Your eyes are like two dead lakes, and come to life only when they meet Vally's eyes. When she is near, you see nothing but her face, hear nothing but her voice; and when she is not, you are still looking at her and listening in your thoughts. You are nothing but a wandering shadow, a reflection and an

A

echo of Vally."

long shudder of astonishment shook me. She had never

before spoken so openly of

my unhappy

passion.

"You have

certainly not

am

so divinely

unhappy

found happiness," she finished. I

I

tried to smile. "I certainly haven't!

would allow nothing

in the

lone gave a long sigh. "Nevertheless, ill,

and above

all

But

"Tired from too

much

have a plea to make.

I

thinking, lone,"

this

I

am

rather

I

interrupted her. "Oh,

live

I

beg of

desperately, but don't think

exhausting concentration!"

She went on without taking

want to go away

that

terribly tired."

you! Love someone, do something, weep,

any more with

I

world to console me."

in,

almost without hearing what

for a rest in the health-giving Midi.

great bushes of white roses,

Down

I

said: "I

there there are

and mauve wisteria whose clusters droop

clear

to the ground. There are olive groves the color of waves at disk, and one

can breathe the matchless perfume of orange blossoms.

ground

blue with violets. Great beds of seaweed

is

The sun

strong, so strong

is

me and forget. ." with me .

It

I'll

it

cure you,

cures every illness.

I'll

be as

the

hills

the

the sea purple.

Come down

there with

used to be-your Comforter.

Come

.

seemed to me that every

heavens had been snuffed out in only for a few weeks! I almost laughed

star in the

miserable blackness. Leave Vally, at

I

On

make

the madness of that thought.

if

The adored image 23

rose against the dark-

ness,

and

I

saw

in

memory the beauty of cruel pale hair and me to such weakness and weariness.

cruel ice-blue

eyes that had reduced

wanted

I

to refuse lone's friendly invitation, but

desperate supphcation that I

said evasively. "I'll

my

engagements."

silence so vast

me

it

come

later, lone.

I

At the moment

in her

eyes such

can't get free of

I

did not dare to look at her. There

I

fell

between us

a

seemed to stretch to eternity.

"You promise to come?" that you'll come later?" The anguish

saw

I

did not dare to utter a definite refusal. "Later,"

I

lone, quite pale, said at

could hear in her voice

my

resolutely. "I promise you,

"Weigh your words carry out promises

"You promise

shiver suddenly.

I

lied

dear."

Sometimes

well.

made me

last.

made with no

a

most ironic Destiny makes one

intention of keeping them." That light

phrase rang through the luminous twilight Uke a prophecy. I

caught up lone's cold hands. The intangible desolation which was

We sat side by side, and the melanshadowed our vague thoughts. We were as

drowning her weighed me down too. choly lassitude that

filled us

it, we dreaded the nothingness of night. known an hour more poignant than that hour of desolate,

sad as the cloudy dusk, and like I

have never

sisterly

communion. VII

lone

left a

from her, and times

I

few days

later.

I

received a

box of sun-drenched

flowers

a tactful letter followed, as happiness follows hope.

thought of her with intense apprehension. But

my

Some-

devouring pas-

sion once more absorbed my whole consciousness. More and more, Vally was withdrawing from me. I saw her only at rare and bitter intervals. She wanted as much freedom and space as a sea gull, and 1 followed after her flight

through the open sky.

One evening

I

received a note

slanted and stretched "I

beg you to use

more

from San Giovanni. Her eccentric

script

feverishly than usual over the pale gray paper:

your influence to put our impulsive Vally on

all

guard. Most unfortunately the Prostitute has in his possession a letter

from her which contains

a

formal promise of marriage.

I

have no

idea that Vally really intends to marry him. American girls sometimes

amuse themselves by getting engaged offhand, without attaching any more importance to the matter than to a game of golf or tennis. But the Prostitute doesn't take it in that spirit. I adjure you, warn Vally."

The nausea of

disgust

was stronger even than

my

crucified jealousy.

I

heartily shared San Giovanni's hatred for the unspeakable male. Evening

came.

I

did not dare as yet to present myself at the house of the irrespon-

sible girl.

But next day

I

knocked

at Vally 's

24

door.

1

hardly saw the Bois

lacy with hoarfrost and marvellous as any carved Moorish architecture. Vally's imperturbable British butler informed

me

with

all

the hauteur of

his Enghsh accent that his mistress had gone out. But all of James's solemnity did not convince me. I had seen in the foyer the hat and topcoat of a

man. And those evoked before "That's

right,"

all

of his butler's soul, social

"I'll

convention which

able servant,

I

sat

who was

scandaUzed to the depths

wait for Mademoiselle's return." And, disregarding insulted in the motionless person of this respect-

I

down

jealous eyes the image of the Prostitute.

James,

said to

I

my

in Vally's

Moments

entrance hall.

passed,

more

oppressive than those preceding a storm. Presently the door would open

and Vally would come in

on

in

a

wave of perfume. She would be gowned

moonlight -color, and about her throat would be her necklace of perverse

opals.

come

Her thin sleeves would reveal her bare arms I so adored. She would me. What words of voluptuous rage could I find to ex-

in smiling at

my

press the hatred of

The Prostitute was

love?

at

How

should

the bottom of

when she came in? He was looking for an

receive her

I

my

fury.

impressive position; that was his reason for being, his social function. But

she-Vally-my passionate

virgin

and

my

Priestess?

my

downfall more than for myself. What did

I

wept

my

matter, compared to the degradation of the living symbol of

had got herself engaged, promised herself completely to

unmentionable sentiments,

this creature

moral

for her

wretched eternal worship

below

cult? She

this character

of

all insults.

How should I receive her when she appeared? I would say nothing, I would walk toward her and stare into the depths of her eyes at her cruel blonde soul. She would be overcome by my silence and my calm. Then, coldly, resolutely, 1

would

I

would

strangle her.

strangle her. That

would be ugly,

brutal, savage, but

be a brief nightmare, and in the joy of the mystic murder,

I

it

would

would

stretch

her out on the divan covered in the green of a

about her head the halo of her pale hair. lilies

I

mossy bank. I would spread would fill her hands with white

and scatter her body with her favorite roses-white with

a tinge

of

would slumber, only a bit more pale than in her regular sleep. And I would love her in that superhuman hour more than any other being had ever dared to love. That would be madness with its exaltations

green. She

and

its

terrors

and

its

aftermath.

I would watch beside her until dawn. I would see the taper-flames waver. The deep blue of midnight would fill the corners with shadow. Vally's lids would grow strangely blue. And I would shout aloud as a man does when

drunk: ess.

I

have killed her! Then she would remain forever

She would be the pure whiteness of

Untarnishable.

I

would have saved her

my

in saving

her, in order to gaze at her in the Infinite.

nity her cry of terror-the one sincere cry 25

I

I

my

virgin Priest-

dreams, the Inaccessible, the myself.

would

I

would have

stolen

treasure through Eter-

had ever had from her lying

lips-and her

futile plea.

know remorse

She would never

for having failed

She would never know the fading of her grace, the caricature of

herself.

beauty that Time carves on

Death immortalizes,

And perhaps

she

would

her nobly enough to

kill

her.

herself.

The door opened slowly I

tion ...

would be over

It

.

.

my

She was coming,

.

who

loved

dream would become

fingers curved for the act of strangula-

so quickly, and after

.

.

.

afterwards

my mad

She did not notice

in.

one

feel a great gratitude to the

my

moved forward,

reality ...

San Giovanni came

She would be the Beauty that would never weep for others or for

living statues.

smiling. She

all

.

.

.

eyes, for her

own

eyes were overflowing with tears. "I've been hunting for you," she babbled. "I

knew

should find you

I

at Vally's. I've just

had

telegram-lone

this

." .

.

snatched the stupid paper that recorded the solemn ultimatum of Destiny.

I

A

few words which

summed up

of two beings: lone critically

briefly, tritely, tragically, the life

Come. When

ill.

raised

my

eyes,

and death I

seemed

from the depths of the tomb.

to have returned, like Alcestes, like Lazarus,

"lone has typhoid fever," San Giovanni

I

said.

"There

are grave compli-

cations."

"I'm going to Nice,"

announced brusquely.

I

goodbye

the sketchiest packing. Say

for

me

"I'll

have time only for

to Vally."

VIII

was in lone's garden, among white iris more mystic than UHes. shall remember all my life those white iris. And the fragrance of violets lingered I

I

in

melancholy fashion along the paths, Hke a farewell.

where she had doubtless loved to wander,

lost in

had loved these flowers, bent over the white

iris,

I

gazed

at this

garden

her acute thinking. She

breathed the scent of vio-

lets. It seemed to me that she was already dead. Presentiment smothered all effort to hope. In the blue silence echoed words heard long ago-words spoken by San Giovanni one misty night: "Friendship is more perilous than

love because

its

roots go deeper

the grief of love."

I

cannot

tell

.

.

The

.

why

grief of friendship

is

sharper than

me

these details obsessed

just then.

Sometimes one's mind wanders under great sorrow, fixes itself on triviaHties, as a drowning person clutches vainly at a tuft of grass. One thing was spoken

clearly:

You

are going to lose lone. lone

out understanding the flower like

is

lone

was

It

I

is

dying.

plucked a white

I

iris. I

heard said,

already fading, like lone.

It

it

with-

"This is

dead,

." .

.

Suddenly it

rest. Blindly,

going to die, hke lone.

is

I

raised

a priest ...

I

my

eyes.

felt a

A

tall

black figure was passing.

profound stupefaction.

A

priest!

-a

I

saw that

priest,

among

these riotous flowers, in this garden quivering with perfume! lone had sum-

moned

a priest to her

deathbed

.

.

.

Why? 26

.

remembered certain statements of mine which she had approved: "In woodland, flowers have no symboUc meanings. They have only color and perfume ... I can conceive of no other eternity than that of Poetry I

my

and Sculpture I

recalled

.

And

."

.

my

this

same

girl

had summoned

a priest?

which seemed to have

friend's fixed eyes, those eyes

lost

even in sleep, and that brow which was always thinkthe power the horror of perpetual, unremitting thought. completely ing. I understood and ultimately destroyed lone's frail ravaged That was what had slowly to close,

sensed that the poor child, haggard before the incomprehensible mystery of life, had taken refuge in the human consolation of the CathoUc

body.

I

The Eternal Silence had so weakened her that she had Ustened to those voices which speak of hope, assurance, of a shining, open-doored Heaven. Her reason having failed before the Unknowable, she had clung faith.

which scorns, denies and ridicules all reason. And, feeling herself sinking into the shadows, she had found help in the This, then, was why the priest divine lie which explains the Inexphcable to the faith of simple souls,

.

.

.

had come. In the past she I

had asked

my

opinion about the hereafter and the soul.

could answer nothing but the tragic:

no

profoundly. "I have

had and never

ideas

I

don't know.

on the subject,"

will have. Ideas

I

And

on tne subject change and

ings are immortal. Doctrines perish.

she had sighed

had added. "I never have pass; only feel-

Love endures."

went back into the house which had already taken on the ashen color of a funereal dwelling. I insisted on seeing lone, if only for a second. ...

And

I

after long grief-stricken pleading,

sickroom.

How

can

I

I

at last crossed the

threshold of her

express the impression which mastered

me when

I

saw her? Measureless fear paralyzed any sense of grief or tenderness. This

was no longer lone— she was already dead. This thing before me, writhing

warm. autumn nights. The poor hps continuously muttered senseless words. The vague eyes which saw nothing turned toward me. lone looked at me a long time -I do not know whether she recognized me. She was no longer anything but mindless suffering. The frightful enigma of that wiping out of personahty froze me and babbling with

They had

fever,

cut off her

was her corpse,

brown

still

hair, bright as

.

I

remained,

For the

like her, a first

sickness, old age

time

I

understood the

full

Death

horror of

human

decay. Misery,

were the chasms that swallowed up hope, because they

were irremediable ugliness. Terror engulfed lone.

.

mindless pain.

itself

seemed

nothing but an impulse to

less

me

there, before

what had been

implacable than this metamorphosis.

flee.

I

feh

This unconsciousness which no longer saw,

heard, spoke, understood -blank as infancy, insanity, extreme seniUty, this

was lone! -lone, that profound subtlety, that powerful thought, that complex intelligence! ... 27

My

eyes wandered a

time over that unrecognizable face, that fore-

last

now seemed

head too high and too broad which larged

it

my

wearily,

almost deformed, so en-

me

appeared against the white pillow. Then they put

my

head between

hands,

I

fled,

fled,

I

I

out, and

fled.

IX

The passage of the next hours stunned and weakened me.

I

walked for

a long time through the night, stumbling like one stricken bUnd. In

room flower I

my

A

seemed poisonously sweet, burning

sick eyes.

.

.

And

.

bed, was gazing at her hands, in the strange

out looking

at

me, she retreated to

a paleness of mist

and dream. With

go to her

my

.

.

.

which boiled

But

at the

foot of

my

.

.

way

a corner

my

lids

lone, at the foot of

.

bed.

I

I

so familiar for her. With-

I

tried to get

tried to shriek

the edges of the burning torrent squatted old

Above was

a

my

distress,

but the

waves of

women

copper moon,

bitterest winter. Cinders fell in a dreadful shower.

my tongue and throat. My eyes opened upon a temple

up and

into a pool of burning lava

fell

a crust of skin floating in the

rice over the liquid tlame.

my

where she was no more than

a painful effort

foot shpped, and

smoking flood charred me to and

my and

awoke. The room was blue with shadows.

I

stupor immobiHzed body and thought

Around

nostrils

consciousness heavily, stupidly, Hke a drunk

lost

I

on the pavement

rigid

my

could see nothing but lone's great brow. Every bHnk of

throat.

burned lying

scents

fire.

cooking eggs

like the

An abominable

sun

m

tliirst

parched ...

empurpled the shadows at

me with

hke

religious ferocity.

a starved

dog and smiled

bore

me

filled

agonizingly

off, a whirl

my

I

She at

let fall

me

From

the dead head she

with her bloody teeth

whose

was gnawing .

.

The sirocco

my

breast.

I openea my moutn and the death rattle The sand and the dust smothered, blinded

fingers dripped with nard

were weaving rhythmically in tissues

of midnight blue.

emerald ornamented each navel, their uncovered sex gleamed with

gold or red curls ... in

.

raw lungs ...

through mystic dances. They were half-veiled vast

throne of rubies

cried out into the starless night.

Priestesses

A

A

the throne. Kali stared

of burning sand and yellow dust. The sand and dust

of the strangled shook

me.

hot as a furnace.

like a setting star.

I

was

a

peacock feather which one of them waved

time with their lascivious dance. This ceaseless

movement shook me

pitilessly.

Through an open window came the voices of passers-by. All of the inand the unknown came through the open window with those voices. But I did not listen; my eyes were fixed on a white rose which balanced on the tip of a cross. There followed a childishly artificial landscape which finite

28

Norwegian or German

recalled English illustrations for

fairy tales. Trees

glowing with painted foliage lined each side of a walk smoother than a

A

little girl's hair.

roar of waterfalls-a hissing of serpents mingled with

the rustling of leaves.

Then

I

Then cascades

again

.

.

.

found myself beside the corpse of Vally

.

Vally floating in a

.

.

stagnant pool. Her bruised breasts were two blue water

with revulsion, were looking

filled

me.

at

lilies.

understood that

I

I

Her eyes, had drowned

her long ago in the stagnant pool. She floated, her blonde hair mingled

with weed and

my

on

felt

I

a perverse Ophelia.

iris, like

And

less reason.

had

I

killed her, for

me

her sightless eyes would stare at

face the chill air of a funeral vault.

four coffms. The largest was that of a man; about

weighty and imposing.

person— a

sense-

was surrounded by

I

it

some

eternally.

there

was something

sensed that this was the coffin of an important

I

politician or a diplomat. Banal flowers in large

bunches covered

it—everlastings and huge pansies with heavy purple velvet petals. Beside

heavy casket was

this

hiding a mere

narrow, thin coffm, that of an infant, an embryo,

a

shadow of limbs.

Colorless, almost odorless wreaths were

fading here without display. This infant's coffin was tragic and insignificant, as

everything which should have been able to exist. Tasteless funeral

is

coffm whose wood was

vases covered a shrunken

complex

striated

with cracks

as

web. Hideous wreaths of black and yellow pearls

as a spider's

would perpetuate the memory of

a middle-class old

woman

with

a hoarse

voice

And

then, in deeper shadow, amid the perpetual adoration of flaming

candles, there I

was

a virginal casket scented

heartbeats were hushed

wood

the

A was

.

.

.

.

imprisoned

in a corpse.

without substance or boundaries. than shuddering nudity. ness, a

It

A

I

I

was

Then darkness

At

last

.

.

I .

had ceased to

I

A

I

empty conscious-

this

was, even though

I

had

al-

was!

and nothingness.

dawn broke through my shadows, and

was

I

personality! a body! a

the gray outHnes of persons

and things replaced the terrors of delirium. As soon voice,

exist.

and confused mass,

was floating with no other sensation

thought surfaced amid

name! Oh, to become someone. To be what

who

I

a formless

thought sharper than desire or prayer:

ready forgotten

realized

was the fermentation of decay.

and another, and another ...

rattle,

I

.

of the largest casket cracked.

death

a soul

.

with white violets ...

The silence was so mysterious that my But, more frightful than the trump of doom,

was seeing the casket of lone

told that lone

was dead. She was

casket covered with white violets.

When 29

I

saw

as

I

human

could hear a

resting in a funeral vault, her it

through the dusk,

I

recog-

nized with a great shudder three other caskets Hke those

I

had seen

in

my

dehrium.

among the dead; I left only with the comThe perfume of dying flowers, mingled with some nameless odor of staleness, made me faint. At intervals the wood of the coffins cracked in the silence, or petals fell from a rose almost inaudibly. When I came out into the light, everything I looked at seemed strange and new. I I

stayed the whole day there

ing of night.

was more

dead than the

like the

living.

Voices surprised

me by

their strange

resonance, the noise of carriages in the street astonished me, the sight of

people struck

One day Through

with amazement.

a rain of tears

and the few

service

would be held next day.

can recall the cold church, the indifferent crowd,

I

mourners.

real

ginal flowers.

AngUcan

me

was told that the funeral

I

can see again the white casket and the

I

service. Despite lone's conversion to the

had imposed

vir-

can remember too the cold British clergyman and the cold

I

their choice of a Protestant

Cathohc

faith, her parents

ceremony.

The words "resurrection" and "eternity" sounded harshly across the casket where the pale flowers were withering.

above

And

my

shall eat this

form being devoured within the coffm. Though worms

the departed gentleness.

My

on

my

I

pagan

was

me more profoundly

spirit

filled

by

knees.

God

Unnameable.

.

.

shall eat

than

all

the

lamented for the vanished beauty,

regret without hope,

me the most cruel mockery. Before whom, before what, why? I do

simply knelt before something that was above understand.

body

and the Chris-

seemed to

tian consolations fell

heard, like a knell rising

streaming eyes of that soft and

body. These words took hold upon

promises of immortality.

I

I

Though worms

my

the horrible vision rose before

delicate this

sobs, the liturgical phrase:

.

How

.

.!

my

grief

not know.

and that

I

I

did not

man names the by men to make fellows— how can a name, a definition

That poor, miserable word by which

can a name, that

themselves recognizable

among

their

a label invented

is,

by human thought, express the Infinite? And what did God and the Infinite and Eternity mean,

created

which was once

beside that corpse

a beloved being?

XI San Giovanni was too

right

sharper than grief for love. as did the loss

No

human

in the

Hfe,

I

she said that grief for friendship

cruelty of Vally's had ever

of lone. Never had Vally's

of that beloved being whose

gone on

when

last

depths of that reticent

should never know.

lies

sane words

Of

spirit

I

hurt

me

made me

is

suffer

as did the silence

had not heard. Whatever had

during the

her suffering

I

last

months of her

should be utterly

ig-

norant; her doubts, her hesitations, her fmal conversion, would remain for30

ever impenetrable. She had carried her secret into the shadows.

My

affection

had been the frivolous one, the voice of other days, which she had not deemed worthy of remembering. But all bitterness had been forgotten in the beauty of her death. lone had departed consoled, had become aUen to her.

whether by

I

She had achieved the faith which

illusion or a hallucination.

transcends reason. "She died happy,"

sobbed wildly, *'and what

I

else

mat-

ters? She died happy."

lone,

my

Comforter,

I

tomb, before the dawning

can say no more before the Infinity of your

peace of your sleep. ever

may come

memory.

to

If

me,

I I

of your death. Had

I the power, I would would not snatch you from the blessed dare to envy you, it is your rest I envy. But, whatshall guard your memory, your pure and fresh

light

not bring you back to mortal

life.

I

lone, dearest tenderness of

Sleep in perfect serenity, sleep

my

among

soul,

have said the final farewell.

I

the chaste spirits

who

resemble you,

whom

no memory of passion torments during their repose. Sleep in peace, you who were consoling friendship, you who were virginal tenderness before passion and above passion the spirits

.

.

Requiescat

in pace

.

.

.

.

Amen.

XII

Sunset

Once

it

Now

I

is

glorious as a hosanna

understood

weep watching

Shining above

my

The rainbow of Death over

you

.

.

the sky red as copper.

commonplace

aimless spirit and

The fevered memory of

And

.

me and calmed me.

a friend

rises

the air.

fills

above the

me

the Priestess and

heart.

sea.

the disciple

Rises Night, unique and diverse and many-faceted.

The color of

my

days, like an incomplete

Turns gravely sombre from green to

Without rebellion,

I

poem,

violet.

await the neutral twilight,

Gray sand where the foot

More red than the wine

sinks and

at the

is

lost.

wedding

feast

Behold the approach of sunset which calmed Heretofore, and which turns

Upon my

drifting spirit

and

31

its

of Cana,

me

gold of sulphur and ochre

my commonplace

heart.

Vally's exquisitely artificial voice was reciting these sorrowful verses which San Giovanni had dedicated to her, when I came in. My mourning garments struck a sombre note among all the youthful colors. The audience listening to my Loreley gazed at her with fervor and applauded fran-

The Prostitute made himself

tically.

especially conspicuous

madonna of profane

enthusiasm. Vally, perverse

by

his excessive

chapels, breathed the in-

cense of the faithful with remote sweetness. I

hate and despise professional writers and

those

all

who

participate

directly or indirectly in debasing the pubHshdngi)usiness, the disgrace of

our time. Moreover, Vally's Hterary friends made

when they saw me

her

enter. Obviously

I

enemy, represented by

titute stayed to face the

a point

it

put them to

my

Only the Proshumble person. He went

went on Ustening fervently to her light chatter. "I remember," she was saying, "a little boy cousin to beat to a pulp. Despite child

was timid and

whom

it

his tears, he loved to be beaten.

all

he dressed

soft;

always to leave

flight.

amused me The poor

in lovely stuffs all the dolls

which

I

then ruthlessly beheaded."

"How

I

known you at that time," "You must have been such an adorable child!" adultery," I observed when at last the young man

regret, mademoiselle, not having

breathed the Prostitute. "He's as boring as

my

glacial eyes upon me. She did went on: "San Giovanni said the other day, 'If I had been unlucky enough or imbecile enough to be married, reading the three-hundred-millionth novel about adultery would produce an irresistible determination to be a faithful wife. Oh, what sorry idylls, these romances about the behavior of women of fashion or working girls in

had

left

Lore ley's salon. Vally turned

my

not reply directly to

attack.

I

trouble!'"

At that

moment

with a

rustle as

soon,"

I

observed. "The audience that was listening enthusiastically to

your verse has admiration the flood of "I

my

just left;

eulogies.

"I let

myself linger

lulled

my

I

and

I

moment you

have just spent

women,

gown of San Giovanni gHded over the carpet "You have come one minute too late— or too

the lacy

of scales.

a

Now

I

was preparing to shower you with respectful your presence has damned the

arrived, but

shall stop talking

mystic hour

in the

in a very old

heard once

fled voice,

my memory me a We are

in Tunis: 'Give

that light can't be bought.

bit all

of

"and we waste our strength

We

shall see

"Ah! to look

at

all

men and devout a blind man buy light.' We all forget

those silent

the profound silver to

word of

blind," San Giovanni added in a muf-

ing our eyes and looking into ourselves.

outside.

listen."

church," said San Giovanni.

gray shadows of the nave, and the incense has

brain divinely. In the presence of

there returned to

and

in the effort to see, instead

The

light

is

of

clos-

within us and not

only by resigning ourselves not to see."

what

is

hidden behind the blank eyes of the blind! To 32

hear the sobbing harmonies heard by the deaf in ecstasy!"

I

cried.

"And

dream the incomprehensible and immeasurable dreams of the insane! Grief has no power over them. They live in the splendor of a regal illusion. Some believe they are God, and so are indeed what they think they are. They are enigmatic and superhuman." "You always talk too much," complained Vally. "Can't you hsten to San Giovanni instead of inflicting on us your pointless dissertations about the madmen you resemble?" "Never believe that you understand me, Vally." above

.

.

all,

.

to me.

to

The door opened. With

My

sound of rustHng

a

leaves, a

Woman

appeared

eyes were magnetized by a head of hair heavy as MeHsande's,

the unreal red hair of a martyr. She had the remote gaze of daughters of

the Far North. Looking at her,

felt

I

a perfect statue inspires, a dazzle

an infinite harmony.

She was only

My

a Vision

.

that divine and terrible trembling that

of radiant marble, a long-loved picture

whole being shaken,

.

.

The

girl left

I

Hstened for her name: Eva.

us almost immediately.

The pro-

found charm of her grave voice stayed with me.

We were

silent after she left.

The dusk seemed more mysterious. The

essence of that indescribable creature permeated the atmosphere. There

was

in

Eva and about her

more

to talk again but

solemn sweetness. Vally and the poetess began

a

softly.

I

went out soon into the swarming

streets.

was depressed by the noise and confusion. The ugliness of the city crushed me. I longed with all my heart for a fresh green silence between living water and forests. I

Suddenly, ringing out above the tumult, clock towers rained

They

seraphic chimes. sacred

name of

down

their

praised in unison a saint, a martyr, they glorified the

Eva. Eva!

XIIl

"Don't you smell

a persistent

odor of printer's ink?" asked San Giovanni,

her nostrils dilated. The setting sun slanted through the

windows of her

study.

"Certainly,"

I

agreed. "Isn't that the subtlest incense that can please a

literary divinity?"

"Shut up," San Giovanni blurted. "I'm nauseated by everything

that's

expressed in verse or prose."

"Me too," smiled my Priestess. Disdainfully she turned to me. "Do you know why enjoy the company ot the amiable gentleman you please to I

call

the Prostitute? Because the other day he uttered this exquisite senti-

ment: 'Mademoiselle, declared a passion for

by

I

never read.'

him

his healthy ignorance as

If

I

were capable of love,

I

should have

because of that statement, being as refreshed

by

a crystal spring."

33

"Then why do you write, San Giovanni?" I asked in astonishment. "Such weakness bothers me in anyone as intelligent as you. It's a pastime, I

know, and superior

to the art of catching flies, but a graceless amuse-

ment, as you recognize for yourself."

know what

"I don't

my

occult force drives

me

to the futile

am

readers and disgusting myself," she sighed. "I

Why

lainous habit, Hke drink or drugs.

doesn't

vil-

some philanthropist found

where incurable authors can be healed of

a sanitarium

work of boring

the victim of a

ease through hygiene, medicine, and intelligent care?

their

You

hideous

dis-

think I'm jok-

went on, "but I never joke. Jokes are a crude masculine invention. I'm teUing you in all sincerity: I am disgusted with the business of writing." She smiled. "Again yesterday an imbecile violated my most sacred prejudices by sending me a letter whose address made me shake with fury: Mile. ing," she

Willoughby, a disgrace.

Woman

of Letters. That's impudent. One doesn't spell out such

Would you post

a letter libellously addressed to Mile. Maximilienne

de Chateau-Fleury, Prostitute? Since the pubUc

and necessary

interesting literary

women

as

both professions,

feels for

they are, the same indulgent scorn,

I

claim for

the same elementary politeness accorded to demi-mondaines

of high reputation."

"Perhaps san,"

I

it's

that the hterary

hazarded. "The latter

woman

has

less

modesty than the courte-

only her body, to a limited number of

sells

The other sells her soul, published in thousands of naked soul is more indecent than an undressed body." individuals.

"You

are about as stupid as the people

who

write to

think of no worse insult to hurl at anyone's head. Let thing they please about

my

work,

anyone should send me deUcate

I

see nothing

jests

of

me -and in that.

A

can

I

any-

critics print

damaging

this sort!"

copies.

But that

Laughing, she unfolded

a letter:

"*Mademoiselle-I regret that trace of masculine influence.

I

cannot find

To resemble

in

your work a

single

nature -is that not the

highest aim a writer can conceive of?'"

"The best way to resemble nature,

in writing,

is

to

make mistakes

in

spelling," interrupted Vally. I

looked

at

San Giovanni with sympathy. "I swear that letter is in the It could come only from a university professor or a

worst possible taste. librarian."

how to celebrate in Hterature what is unesthetic," men are The Unesthetic par excellence. If there are few women writers and poets, it is because women are too often

"One

can't imagine

Vally agreed, "and

only a

forced by convention to write about men. That is enough to paralyze any effort toward Beauty. Thus the only woman poet whose immortahty equals

who didn't deign to notice mascuhne existence. and the adorable smile of Atthis, and not speech sweet She celebrated the

that of statues

is

Psappha,

the muscled torso of the imaginary Phaon." 34

San Giovanni gazed

who

toward those

my

at

perverse beloved with that gratitude

we

feel

express-less well than ourselves, certainly, but in equi-

words-our own most sacred beliefs. "I've not reached the end of "Read this other piece by the secretary of Action Provinciale, which I have just received. The banaHty of his style

valent

my

grievances," she continued.

the is

by

spiced

fantastically learned spelling.

or the poverty of his thought. This literary provincials,

he

is

regrettable that writing

It is

*filo-

of 'philosophy' can't disguise the weakness of his phrasing

zofie' instead

is

M. Bellebotte de Foyn,

sure as he gazes in the mirror that male seductiveness

woman

could remain insensible to so

that

no

you

this priceless bit:

like all small

swollen with an immense vanity. Quite Uke Petrus,

much charm.

'Sappho, truly human, burned at

man— with

love, the natural love, for a

last

is

so irresistible

me

Let

read

with the true

the inevitable love instead of a mor-

.'"

bid and abnormal passion

.

.

"Typical of a snobbish pedant from some backward province," smiled Vally with a shrug.

"This gentleman delights me," tickles

me

as

much

as the naive

I

put

in.

"The perfection of

"No, one no longer burns with love except Delille," agreed

"And missive

my

perverse

postman

the

this

flattery,

poetry of the Abbe

in the

madonna of profane

chapels.

morning," confided San Giovanni, "brought

from an individual who,

and excessive

after

me

showering

demanded my photograph!

a

with the most absurd

Just read this." She held

out a letter bearing the postmark of a provincial town.

"Madame and

his idiocy

wavering of his affected style."

read:

I

dear enchantress-Could even a Goddess be offended at

being adored, especially when, as with you, she glorifies caresses? Since

have studied your works

I

Hve with your gracious image, but

need some nourishment from reaHty. the depths of elysian bliss, to

implore you

is

make

"Would you Uke

women?"

to hear

my

.

.

of

a village

I

haven't yet posted

it:

'Sir:

always very dangerous to write to people of whose

it

character

you know nothing. Also,

respondent very badly.

I

do dare

I

where

asked Vally.

answer?

note that

never send

being flattered by masculine praise,

You

what

."

a lesson in etiquette to this inhabitant

apparently there are no

I

dreams

do not beg to enter with you into

love there for an hour;

the gift of your portrait

"Have you sent

is

I

all

specifically,

my I

life

you have chosen your

Take and cor-

photograph to strangers. Far from

consider

it

an offense and an

should have understood, being acquainted with

my

insult.

belief in fierce in-

would not be stupid enough to marry. The title of Madame which you inflict upon me annoys me infinitely. You say, monsieur, that you do not ask to enter with me into the depths of elysian bliss. That

dependence, that

is

I

the finishing touch! Because one unfortunately publishes prose and verse,

even

if,

in

your elegant phrase, she

glorifies caresses,

35

it

does not necessarily

follow that she

woman. Accept, monsieur, my

a loose

is

sentiments of pro-

found surprise.'" sympathize with your indignation,"

"I

"I certainly have.

me

informing

applauded. "Have you other

I

O Muse who

Glorifies Caresses?"

The editor of

a provincial rag sent

reasons for bitterness,

me

a postcard

my work

that after carrying a favorable review of

in his

sheet, a lot of faithful readers of the Aquitaine Literaire cancelled their

subscriptions."

know

"Perhaps the gentleman doesn't disapproval of your janitor.

He probably

that

you have already

risked the

feels sure that his unsealed card

would have disastrous effects on that dignitary's opinion." San Giovanni went on angrily: "Here's a passage from another letter of the same sort. It is from a critic whom informed that he was mistaken I

in

me with the title of Madame: 'How could imagine that the Madame would ruffle you? Your antipathy to men have always

honoring

title

of

I

I

By heaven, what

attributed to experience.

low style,"

a

I

anyone to condemn

know?'"

relentlessly a sex she doesn't

"What

right has

commented gloomily.

"He's a half-blind fool," observed

my

Blonde. "Surely, without

Silver

being either a wife or a mistress, one can judge the whole sex by their actions and words.

of subjecting

Now, men's

women

and cruel tyranny. And self to

you

in the role

inevitably against the

actions have always had the single purpose

to their stupid caprices, their sensuality, their unjust

how

who

can you not hate anyone

of Master?

Any proud and

presents him-

intelligent being revolts

dominance of another, sometimes an equal, but more

often an inferior." "It

the hairy face, too Hke a gorilla's, that turns

is

love," exclaimed San Giovanni. "I once

beard.

I

shall

dreamed

that

me I

against masculine

was cursed with

never forget the fright and disgust with which

flection in a dark glass, a mirror of

I

my

saw

a

re-

shadows." She paused, then, violently,

"Oh! the ugliness of men!" "But among to be In

me of

all

these too discouraging letters,"

some indicating

real

I

ventured, "there ought

admiration?"

San Giovanni's remote eyes burned two red flames. "Don't talk to false

admiration, which

of morbid curiosity and

is

nothing but an indistinguishable mixture

titillated lust," said the

poetess rebelliously. "I

prefer the attacks, the insults even, to that sort of admiration.

repudiates flatteries

for

woman

ance. But

no

it

is

and

my

is

equalled only by their inanity.

it.

Men

My

pride

The impudence of these see in the love of

woman

only a spice that sharpens the flatness of their regular perform-

when they

sharing,

dignity

offended by

realize that this cult

no ambiguity, they

of grace and delicacy will permit

revolt against the purity of a passion

which

excludes and scorns them. As to myself," she added, almost solemnly 36

in

the strength of her sincerity, "I have raised the love of noble harmonies

and of feminine beauty to sacrifice

is

a faith.

Any

belief

which

inspires ecstasy

and

a real religion."

"All rehgions are real and

still

not one of them

is

true,"

I

grieved.

"Except mine," declared San Giovanni. She went on, her face sombre,

know why

"I don't

unhappy

the

of feminine writer weighs

role

more heav-

on me today than ordinarily. Perhaps prostitutes who, despite the ugH-

ily

ness of their lives, have not lost

all

may

craving for the better,

suffer the

same nausea. Their repugnance could be no more discouraging than mine.

You

O my obscure conscience-I have sold my soul. my error lies in this so-called admiration which is

are right,

ishment for

But the punaddressed

more to the woman than to the artist. no longer aspire to the honor of being stoned! Oh, to meet a fraternal understanding, without surprises, without praises, a mute and feminine understanding which would bring have read and heard!" consolation for all the words I

I

"How

I

me

never be for

you

ness, for

With

my

all

my

love

weary

I

it

soul,

is

I

I

because

solute love.

I

cult

I

you demand Vally was not

work

life

of a writer

I

passion

offer

you

is

all

you have initiated me, love you with an ab-

I

blind.

It

much

abandons

as

your

itself

the best and the worst of

my-

this impossible friendship."

"As to you, San Giovanni," she

Hstening.

sympathy.

the

my

don't deny that

With

with the image of the

priestess,

love your injustice and your unfaithfulness as

self,

my

O my

friendship.

hours."

in the twilight

can neither love nor hate by halves.

I

without discretion. But when

all

it

and into whose mysterious

serve

magnificence.

unknown

yearn toward that

turn toward

have confused your image,

Goddess you

will

sympathy full of unexpected sweetme without understanding me, you admire me blindly.

the incarnation of that

harassed heart, "If

"You

agree with you," sighed Vally. Then, turning to me,

I

won't have

this

mixing of the

artist's

said,

"you have

personaHty with

created in suffering. This organized public spying on the private I

condemn

as violently as

do these dastardly profanations

I

of graves that pass as posthumous biographies." I

and

addressed myself to Vally: "More than any other expression of revolt sincerity,

nery.'

No one

I

feel the

as

much

immensity of that cry of as

Hamlet has feh

and things. TrembHng with

regal fury

a

love: 'Get thee to a

morbid nausea

he wished to save the

for

all

nun-

persons

woman

he

loved from external soillure and to cloister her in dignity and solitude."

"'Be thou as chaste as

ice, as

pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calum-

ny,'" quoted the poetess of Mytilene

by way of emphasis. "I have often dreamed of the cleanness of chapels, as one dreams of death. have suffered all my life from a lack of faith. The only enviable happiness is that of nuns, monks, hermits." I

37

"Again,

I

agree with you," said

my

Loreley. "Lovers are predestined

men instinctively scorn those who put themselves in their power. Like mean animals, they Hke to be beaten. It is the strongest instinct they have. And so they adore only women who disdain them. In fact, San Giovanni, has a woman ever loved a man?" For

to limitless anguish.

"I can hardly conceive

the rape of children

of such a deviation of the senses. Sadism and

seem more normal to me. The

Juliets, the Yseults, the

Heloises were in love with Love, not with their lovers."

"But allow me,

me

Vally threw air

of one

who

is

O

equivocal Saint-"

began.

I

"You have

a suspicious look.

the ridiculously solemn

about to give advice," she snapped.

answer with a quotation, my Most Blonde. Do you remember Charmer of Serpents, whose maxims our poetic friend passed on to us? 'Never follow advice, not even that which I give you. Every creature "I shall

the

should

live his

own

and win dearly the experience which proves nothing."'

life

"All right," conceded Vally, "but that won't prevent

you from inflicting on us the advice which we won't listen to." "Never entertain another author, San Giovanni. Close your door to both writers and critics. Only in that way can you enjoy the peace of the wicked. For the just never know peace. Their consciences torment them."

"You

are disagreeable

and hateful,

like all

those

who

are right,"

XIV I

was wandering the

streets in a marvellous

to the purple of a violet gauze,

more than ever

a figure

those of an adolescent

when

I

from an ancient

girl

mauve

twilight deepening

met San Giovanni. She seemed frieze.

Her breasts and hips were

or an ephebe, barely showing under the stuff

of her loose gown. She was

tall

and

"What happy chance has

led

your steps just here, San Giovanni? Some

straight as a page.

Florentine with eyes blacker than an Italian night doubtless awaits you,

tuning a lute or caressing a rose?"

The Androgyne answered brusquely, full of some inner trouble. "I bebottom of your bitter passion for Vally there sleeps a

lieve that at the

tenderness unsuspected even by yourself. gentle friendship

I

know

is

in

you."

My

I

am

going to appeal to that

strange friend paused uncertainly.

"You don't know Vally as I do. Your British soul, in which still sleeps some of the old Puritan, can't manage to take in these flirtations, bold but innocent, which satisfy the childishly perverse taste for trickery of the Americans. Your souls are of different races. You will never understand one another. Vally loves to make men suffer by an impudent offer of her inviolable beauty. She has chosen the pose of a tangible idol

unattainable.

It

thrills

her to

know

who

is

still

herself inaccessible in an atmosphere

38

of brutal desires and

lusts.

She adores the tortures she can arouse with her

The sense of her feminine power intoxicates her. But she remains colder than polar ice that defies the sun. Your Saxon pride would never permit such artfulness. You retain the hostile spirit, the soul ridden by suspicion, of the old Roundheads." smile and her eyes.

She broke off, her enigmatic eyes studying to

me, you

my

embarrassed face. "Listen

who was

of Cromwell Ironsides,

disciple

so

understood

little

Frenchman Victor Hugo. If you don't alter your jealous melancholy and your savage moods, you will lose Vally. She will simply stay out of the dark mists in which you wrap yourself and which smother

by

that middle-class

She needs fresh

her.

air,

space, sunlight. She

is full

of such fiery youth,

such a passion for living!"

"0 San Giovanni, patron saint of perverse can know Vally more intimately than you." "Well, Vally, as

you know, was

foolish

enough

it

really has.

Most young American

more importance told

girls, as I've

times before, promise themselves in marriage right and least intention

for kissing

means

of carrying through the sacrifice.

on the Hps, nothing more; and

little

more than

in

on the cheek

a kiss

in

It

mouth

.

.

.

Vally

is

left

gives

America

you

a

dozen

without the

them an excuse on the Hps

kissing

France. Sisters and friends-

without any equivocal impHcations! -embrace and the

no one

for

to engage herself secretly

to the Prostitute. But don't attach to that trifling act

than

me,

love, help

kiss

one another

full

on

simply following the customs of her country. She

has already had thirteen fiances, and

probably to keep from stopping

it's

with such an unlucky number that she has taken on Giovanni hesitated a moment. "But

I

a fourteenth."

San

implore you," she went on, "extract

from our wayward Morgan le Fay a promise to bar that man from intimacy with her. I won't utter the outmoded and silly word 'compromised.' Young girls can no longer be compromised, thank God. They alone can compromise themselves by

living

openly with

a

man, or by becoming pregnant.

Vally will never give herself to any man," she repeated. "She has no love for

men,

as

you should know

as well as

I.

She mistrusts them

stinctively mistrusts one's adversaries, she hates

measures herself against them

as rivals.

them

as

one

in-

as her enemies, she

Never fear the presence of

a

man

in Vally's heart."

no longer heard San Giovanni's voice, I no longer saw the smile that lips. I was staggering, drunk with grief. "Addio, our perverse Saint." Then I went without thought or volition toward Vally's I

curved those sinuous

was surprised to be suffering so Uttle, or rather to suffer so unOn arriving at the door where so many times I had hesitated delicious anticipation, horror recalled me to reality, as some new torture

house.

I

consciously. in

returns a patient to consciousness. I

no longer remember exactly what followed, 39

for

I

moved

in a night-

marish fog.

My memory

most

retains

subdued

clearly the artfully

of

light

the green boudoir and the white silhouette of Vally's figure. At sight of

me, her closed

sketched a constrained smile. The Prostitute was fidget-

lips

ing feverishly in his armchair.

I

approached Vally.

you on the happy event

gratulate

come

"I have

to con-

learned of-your engagement

I've just

." .

.

tall and white as an Easter lily. "I don't understand," she "There has never been an engagement between M. de Vaulxdame

Vally rose, said drily.

and me."

When

my

regained full consciousness of

I

surroundings, the Prostitute

was no longer in the room. Vally was looking at me, her blue eyes icily furious. I do not know what inept nonsense I babbled in my delirium. Automatically self to

strove for phrases of reproach and accusation, forcing

I

speak resolutely. The tight

made only Then

I

was saying

Vally's voice, hard as a

my

immobile

a thin line across her

understanding what

of

lips

.

.

face.

You

who

I

heard myself without

.

blow on metal, shattered the

cannot understand your imbecile obstinacy yourself intolerable.

my-

Loreley closed until they

in irritating

should be able to see that

if

I

silence. 'T

me and

rendering

disdain slander,

I

do not believe a single word of these ridiculous tales about M. de Vaulxdame, no doubt invented by your delirious jealousy. But the perpetual state of nerves in which you please to keep me by your mischievous and absurd suspicions has worn out my patience. We have reached a point where destiny separates our paths. I have always despise those

stupidly echo

it.

have never made any lying protestations of tenFrom the first moment, showed you the emptiness of my heart. should so much have liked to love you; you have not known how to in-

been sincere with you.

1

derness. I

I

I

spire the love

'i don't

so vainly

I

know

complete

failure

you with

my

if

hoped to

my awkward

feel."

passion has been the only cause of the

of understanding between us. Certainly

I

have badgered

dark suspicions. But wasn't that the logical consequence of

you have always shown me? You speak to me as a would bully a negligent servant. It pleases you to hurt me,

the scornful coldness

brutal master

and to give your lovers the spectacle of

wounds from you were bitter than the

end of hope on earth.

my

Most Blonde and joy.

Through you

I

my

humiliation.

If

these

many

dearer than another's caresses, they were also

Most Beloved.

have

known

I

I

am

more

not reproaching you, Vally,

have given

my

life

my

up to you with

the incomparable ecstasy of sacrifice, the

1 have loved you with a holy love, Madonna. Truly, the monks and nuns who give up the

marvellous sweetness of renunciation. as others love their

world

in their divine fervor

cannot have

known

abandoning everything to follow you. You

my

me from your presence, you may exile me from your cruel you can never erase the priceless memory of which I have made against the mischances of life. For no one can efface the deep-

You may

drive

grace, but a shield

the mystic ecstasy of

are the Unforgettable, Vally.

burned brand of

a first love."

^q

-

An

She had stopped Hstening.

icy fury gHttered in those eyes pale blue

"Your presence has become odious," she said in that measured voice judges use to pronounce the sentence of capital punishment. "You are a cloud that darkens my path and makes mourning of even as an arctic river.

Your sour melancholy exasperates me to the limit. The bittermakes you unbearable. You have a soul full of

the roses.

ness of your personality

You

anger and hate.

face

you

ignore.

hypocrisy of your left.

I

persist in seeing in

Your appearances. Leave me, I

fine, noble,

Within,

I

only the worst. Everything high,

any old intimacy

prefer

Get out!" she commanded

'love.'

was

me

spiteful jealousy can see nothing

filled

with

a great silence.

beyond

sur-

that's sincere to the

in a voice of steel.

My

heart was a sepulchre

without the hope of resurrection.

XV I

as

it

left

the next day for Toledo.

persists in

ments,

its

my memory.

scarred walls,

its

I

love

I

love the impression of that fading city its

leprous houses,

agonized frescoes.

A

its

love of

decaying pave-

madness drew me

to the paintings of El Greco. His wild angels with their bizarre receding

brows, brows from which sanity has forever fled, obsessed fixed stares. In Madrid

narrow and

pallid,

Whence came

me

with their

spent hours gazing at the long faces, impossibly

I

of his portraits.

odd passion for madness and suicide, when I possessed neither imagination enough for the one nor courage enough for the other? I do not know ... No, had not daring enough for the final definitive Act which requires resolve. The complexity and the ugliness of that means of that

I

escape deterred me, and above

all

successful suicides. Constantly in

San Giovanni once composed

in

the fear of the ridicule that brands un-

my memory

was the morbid

litany

honor of Our Lady of Fevers, so

ously enshrined in that city of desolation:

"Your fetid breath has corrupted the town The green of gangrene, the green of poison .

.

.

Spreads, and night rears like a reptile.

The crowd chants from their hearts a prayerFervent deUrium that burns the lips, amid the sweat Our Lady of Fevers!

Glacial shivering

To your

Uvidness,

"The darkness consecrates

to

you

its lividest

depths,

Blue phosphorescence of decay makes your pale tapers

And

O

will-o-the-wisps adorn your ahar,

Virgin

Who

who

smiles at the death of virgins.

remains deaf to subtle appeals; 41

which

victori-

Madonna to whom matins and vespers Mount shuddering, Our Lady of Lepers! "Your cathedral with Uchen-encrusted Sickens the dusk with

walls

nauseous tepidness.

its

Into beds soiled by hideous deflorations

Soaks the moisture of sick hands.

The

scaling lepers

and the dying

Mingle their gasps with the cry of vultures

And

kiss

"Your

your knees, Our Lady of Plagues! chosen have bowed their heads

tragic

Beneath the divine wind of your

And amid

litanies

the seepage of sour discharges

exlialed the misty breath of the pest-ridden.

Is

Pus and blood and pale tears

Have bathed your naked Little

by

little

Our Lady of Death!"

feet.

perceived the cruel pallor of the

I

Madonna of

the Pest-

ridden. In her eyes shone the blue and green of stagnant waters. Marshy

odors spread from her robe with as

one seen

in

of Mortality

I

twisted folds. Her face was as distorted

its

me was

delirium. But what most shattered

that in that Image

saw the image of Vally. Those stagnant eyes reflected Vally's

The changing face was like Vally 's. Vally had come to corrupt the was healing my bleeding exhaustion. She had come to air where poison forever my hopes of forgetfulness and cure. She had come, know-

gaze.

sun and

ing that

I

should never escape her.

I

The days passed, and once

I

wrote to San Giovanni, to shorten a miserable

hour:

"She haunts me

like

remorse.

The memory of her heard gossip about her— she to

life.

is

thinks of nothing outside her to her that self. If

I

am

eventually

me

I

before

trivial balls I

it

can't return

I

can cure myself.

and dinners, and

my

I

have

it

matters Httle kill

my-

weakness and sluggishness, the

should actually succeed

Vally-will you?-that

I

have wanted -in vain-twice, to

should find, despite

I

energy to vanish-if tell

me

happy. She amuses herself back there, she

agony here.

in

can't get hold of myself,

I

will kill

at last -you

was because of her

I

must never, never

died, that only she dealt

the fatal blow.

"The

utterly pure friendship of lone

refuge. Since she has gone, nothing

my

following

first

knew

she did not love I

knew

it

was once

left for

too

me

I

at all, that

late to

I

was I

consolation and earth.

The

my

fortnight

a stupor of ecstasy, a dizzy

did not think,

stop and

42

my

me on

meeting with Vally was only

enchantment. Yes, during that time was. But

is

I

existed.

And

still

I

deceiving myself just as she

took delight

in the irremediable.

I

.

It is

not her fault

her, since

I

if

me.

she couldn't love

It is

not mine either. Never blame

myself do not.

"You fear death, you, the poet of light, roses, Aphrodite. You, lingerer from Lesbos, you dread death; but me, I love it like a faraway mistress. I am of the North, I love the mists which veil with mystery all real things. Above

am

all

I

love cool shadows.

Everything

alive.

still

I

hate Ufe.

write

I

I

do not know how or why

useless, helpless, feeble: feeble as

is

my

thoughts, helpless as

my

ory of lone's death.

exult in the certainty that she

I

heart, useless as

suffers the oppression of Hving, she

is

Hfe.

monotony of

grief! It is vulgar

a graceless prostitute possessed

is it,

I

because

at rest.

mem-

in the

She no longer

.

.

it is

.

Grief!— oh, the triteness,

common

to everyone.

It

by the crowd. From having experienced with nausea.

feel a great lassitude tinged

still

is

only a perfume drifting through the

depths of night, a bit of sap in a growing leaf the

am happy

I

I

my

"Vally! She has divine smiles from the soul, and unhoped-for tears. But

above

all

I want to love her now as one loves want to think now only of what was incomparable in

she has implacable cruelty.

dead beloved.

a

I

her, the feverish languor of our rare kisses, the dear sadness of our hours

of tenderness.

A

portrait of her that

I

ordered a good while ago has

at last

been delivered, thanks to the compHcity of ironic Fate. The open wound in

me

torn again as

is

I

look

eyes which have stabbed

"She was beheve

I

my

a

I

love,

ly a trivial

you

myself from

game,

as

it

I

dream of

empty of

theme of

have never loved anyone but her.

woman

this fixed idea.

I

a

is

was

Am

My

which yearns

me about my

medicine?

You

I

like real

was gravely

at I

fauh

in

let fly

is

at

my

why

my

mistaken almost

in the past tense.

the best of reasons

with some

once:

have fallen into the deepest error

is

Bliss

as strong as the

She harped on

answered her

love for Vally can be conjugated

over between us, yes; that

is

She

fickleness.

"Don't you know, San Giovanni, that psychology

ousy was limited.

much

woman."

Spanish flame with the fathomless eyes.

I

was on-

not right?

would be the Impossible

that death

a letter of gentle ridicule.

pointed sarcasms and teased

her.

as I

obsession with that death

for a beloved

San Giovanni returned

my

it

death that would be voluptuous, of a death that would

And

ing that

.

I

have discreetly courted

hke a martyr's agony.

which one has never met.

is

.

with the same furious and

rain or fair weather. It

be a consolation for Ufe.

as regularly as

tenderness!

were, a topic of conversation more agreeable than

love as an infant's cohc

desire

see.

Ah! those cold

lips.

seductively perfumed as night in Mytilene. But

girl as

the overworked

and those

do not know how to forget her even during the hours

I

try to distract

Spanish

"I

at that face

heart with their glances

can never again love another

savage passion.

when

first

my

1

in believ-

Everything

continue to adore

excessive imbecile jealousy. But that jeal-

never blamed her for kneeling before feminine beauties, 43

my

but

pride revolted at the thought of sharing her smiles, her promises,

even her kisses, with gross male creatures. That was the mortal affront, the unforgivable outrage.

"As to the brunette

in Seville,

O

grossly maligned Seer,

week's absence, and had never missed her. She

after a

is

saw her today

I

as perfidious as

the Other, the Only, without the cruel charm, the magic of the whole being, that

deal of subtle artifice. Perhaps is

that

I

am

lost in grief.

still

And

her suffer with delight.

to spare her the least pain.

"Au

this lightly.

hate Vally with a passion.

nevertheless

I

would

will pity

me

when

brain and blood love her.

I

'Til

the present

you

a Uttle, since

The truth

could watch

I

my

give

know anything more.

don't

can't conceive of the future

I

unhappy. Perhaps you as

I

seem to speak of

I

I

Sovereign

intelligence, but a great

little

of Mytilene, holy disciple of Psappha.

revoir. Poet

don't know.

you

my new

used to bewitch me. That does not prevent

from being altogether exquisite. She has very

is

when?

I

so intensely

are a friend as loyal

and altogether delightful when you don't go psychologi-

are subtle,

You

don't dare kiss your hands, San Giovanni.

have almost mascu-

cal.

I

line

hands, hands which possess, which take, which keep, but never give

themselves.

have, as

I

vealing than faces. valid's

you know,

a passion for hands,

remember how lone would

I

hands so Uke dead keys of old ivory ...

which

are

more

re-

for hours stare at her inI

don't dare, either, to

shake your hand as a comrade, for your hands are perverse, San Giovanni, and they disturb me. Their long sinuous fingers make me too uneasy. All these things considered, I

sala

left

de

I

divine Toledo to

las

say with complete simpHcity:

drown myself

Dos Hermanas above

On

of the Alhambra.

an evening of

sides of the fountain.

memory and

The

They were

nightmare

less

princesses sang an

I

loved the

singing water

was

peacefully in their eternal reverie.)

odd melody, and

their voices

I

saw the two

seated facing one another

shadows, and their innocent eyes smiled as they watched of guzlas slept

revoir."

other rooms in the pious enchantment

all

royal sisters, Zorayda and Zorahayda.

on opposite

Au

Moorish dream.

in a

a

mirror in the

it.

Now

(The gamblers

and then the

dominated the music of

the fountain.

Their glances, at once intimate and remote, sought one another through a cool mist.

And each time

that their eyes sought and promised thus, they

quivered with a marvelous anguish. But the fountain separated them more effectively than

all

the doors of the palace.

the insuperable obstacle. veil ot

water

.

.

.

would they dare

They smiled

They never dared

to

to join their lonely

without destroying

at sit

The fountain seemed

side

by

side

them

in their souls the infinite

and join hands. Never

They would die charm of Desire and Regret.

and passionate

44

to

one another dimly through the

lips.

XVI Toward the end of winter,

I

from that marvellous

tore myself

city.

I

returned to Paris, with the spineless hope of seeing again for an instant the fugitive beauty of Vally. All the sadness of spring filled

me. The

defi-

ance of young sprouts against inevitable death, the useless striving of Hfe,

weighed

me down

effort!

was walking around the lake,

I

like suffering.

of trees on the water,

when

San Giovanni's, Dagmar, a

What memories

my

lay at the heart of

eyes vaguely held by reflections

a liquid voice startled

little

poetess

whom

me.

It

was

a friend of

had formerly admired

I

Her eyes of baby blue were wide

by

a fairy story.

"How

sober

are

on

this lovely

day," she smiled happily.

my

Dagmar."

me

"Oh, don't worry about

my

modest existence." "You must have suffered

wrinkles or white hairs,

For a minute of

ic in spite

I

you

wasn't sure

my

A

one may say that without hurting you."

a lot.

It's

Vally

Your

belonged to the cult of the

who

has lost

all

memory

of

face isn't the same. Without any

give the impression of having aged I

year ago you

and declined.

recognized you. I'm really awfully sympathet-

carefree appearance of a spoiled child. I'd Hsten to the

story of your pain talk

if

that. I've always

haven't forgotten Vally.

I

selfish ego,

with surprised compassion. "And Vally?

were her devoted watchdog, absurd.

a

as if enraptured

She seemed a childish incarnation of May.

you

"The joy of others saddens She studied

for

made

her dehcate coloring like old Saxe porcelain. Her short curly hair delightful childish halo.

new

if it

were endless. To

tell it is

When you

the best cure.

about something you end by being detached, for one

tires

of even

one's dearest griefs."

"Perhaps you're right, you Httle April eglantine. But you frighten a bit:

you

too

are

much

like

"Well, morning can be pretty nice, she said. "There's thickets to see

which

it

if

when

it

no need to dread morning.

dawns

it

of fever,"

after a night

I've seen

the red roses have opened overnight.

touch

nitely dehcate

me

Morning."

it

steal into the

And with

an

infi-

ends the long insomnia of the tobacco flowers,

puts to sleep one by one."

"Sleep ..."

I

murmured.

"It's so

long since

I

have learned to love the sleeplessness that brings different

Presences

have

me

known

real sleep.

night thoughts, so

from the thoughts of day, and the sharp awareness of .

.

.

I

Invisible

lone returns sometimes during the long midnight silences.

Her Florentine gown, that gown of dark red velour, seems a reflection of the setting sun at the end of dusk. She stares at her pale hands

.

.

.

She

had such beautiful, such gentle hands, the hands of a sister and a comforter. But her eyes are always lowered, and she never utters a word." 45

'*Don't think about the dead. 'Let the dead bury their dead.'"

"But

am

I

nearer to the dead than the Uving,

A name

your name of a daughter of the North! a

name

Maries have sorrow-darkened

lids like

.

.

.

How

love

I

brisker than a sea breeze,

Women's names

fresh and joyous as yourself.

tive. All

Dagmar

are strangely sugges-

faded violets. The eyes of

the Sibyls are a mysterious cloudy blue and lose themselves in the beyond.

The Eleanors

music and perfume; they have heavy hair

are fashioned of

twined with hawthorn blossoms. The smiles of Lucies are gentle as

starlight.

The Elizabeths are strangely regal; their gaze is as tenacious as memory. One should fear the Faustines, perverse as sorceresses and cruel as Roman empresses. The souls of the Blanches are pure as Easter

have the tragic

lilies.

The Adelaides

of predestined lovers. The Helenes are beautiful as statues." "Now that's something I had never discovered." She paused a moment. "But I adore fairy stories When I was little, my rocking horse had falips

.

bulous wings and carried

And

light.

I

still

.

.

me

far off

have the wistful

where

spirit

elves

drank essence of moon-

of a child that listens wide-eyed

to the marvellous tales told over and over during long winter evenings."

"You

I shall come to see you with the greatest you with tales I shall give up my solitude. If it is true that everyone resembles some creature in the animal kingdom, you are a hummingbird."

are charming,

Dagmar.

pleasure. In order to dazzle

"And what

"A

is

Vally?" demanded the child curiously, her eyes

wild swan."

A

heavy sadness pressed on

my brow

Hke

brilliant.

a tight

band

of darkness.

"You're an incomprehensible creature," said the Httle poetess, to change the course of

my

thoughts.

"How many

people have you loved on this

earth?"

have loved

"I

in friendship,

and

my

most-innocent

sister is

loved with passion, and that was disastrous. Today, Dagmar,

"Ah

I

dead.

I

have

love soHtude."

it up for me. Come home with me today and Eva again-the one you nicknamed Goddess of Sunset because

well, you'll give

you'll see

of the brilliant red-gold of her hair." "I still

remember her

embodies

all

well.

She fascinates

me

because, radiantly young, she

the melancholy of autumn. Her hair

is

like a glorious

halo about her pale brow. She has learned to cherish with mournful tenderness a past she dares not remember."

"Oh fervor. I

dear, I

I

won't

let

you

want to be the only

see her!

idol in

You

my

speak of her with too

much

sanctuary."

gave in to her naive caprice, which seemed to express her completely.

"Your wishes shall be the solemn commands of Destiny, Infant So I went to Dagmar 's the following day, a bit less sad than the sight of her cheerful smile. She had chosen a liance. Like

all

Divinity." usual at

gown of barbarous

bril-

children, she loved everything bright, shimmering, irides-

46

cent-spring, rainbows, opals. About her neck a band of heavy turquoises

looked

of a savage

like the collar

"Look!" she

girl-child.

"The

cried in her crystal -clear voice.

cient

wisdom under

the bushes. She

is

who

rests her an-

so silent and so alert that she seems

grow and the roots pushing down into the Sometimes she seems friendly to me."

to be hearing the grass

"She undoubtedly

coming

lilacs are just

out in the garden. Let's go out and see the old tortoise

earth.

Hermes make the first lyre from Psappha say: 'Come, divine shell, and under fingers become melodious'? I have the greatest respect for tortoises."

a tortoise shell?

my

is,"

And

I

replied. "Didn't

didn't

Sunlight gilded Dagmar's childish ringlets. She smiled at me, and a

sudden burning tenderness for Hke blue water

sired her

came

so violent that

dawn. And then the

at

Hps naively offered for a

this creature so like fruit

roses.

felt

I

I

de-

cruel need to bite those

kiss, to bruise that flesh like rosy eglantines, be-

my

abruptly took

I

and

leave.

She said only, quite simply,

"Until tomorrow."

That evening

my

haps

I

argued with the serious conscience that disapproved of

"Why

feelings:

Hope

A

grim labyrinth.

life's

from what would certainly be

recoil

a consolation?

the

is

could drink from that blue dawn-water.

I

could inhale that perfume of eglantine ... terror,

and

was "What

at that

It

come

could sleep

I

me

fidence.

all

moment

a fickle thing,

to see

night

that

your

again, that

Open your

I

.

received a letter

lover's heart!

we

eyes, look

me

my

in

Ah! be

eyes.

I

could face morning without

I

." .

I

from Vally: you would

believed

finally

could go on together in security and con-

more

sharply, see

blindness can't go on, should not be!

with tears

and per-

thread so thin, so fine -stretched, so near to break-

but perhaps a salvation.

ing,

a pleasure

thread which alone guides us through

frail

I

you

tell

me it's

as

I

am. This

impossible.

I

afraid of checking those tears, of

tragic

repeat

it

making

unable even to weep for you! Truly, every being comes to resemble

the image of

it

our obstinate imagination creates. Be afraid of making

me

me you have fashioned. Fear that, by not me incomprehensible. Fear that, by reproaching me for cruelty, you will make me cruel, by blaming me for indifference you will turn me to stone. A thought can give one so much pain-and what you think of me hurts me more than you can imagine, one day

as ugly as the

understanding me, you

more than

I

dreamed

Hke

this? Is

cere

and passionate

it

image of

may

render

of, myself. Is

possible for the in

you

to disappear-all that

which you

sacrificed

was

sin-

your whole Hfe?

are merely striving to be unfaithful. As for me,

been unfaithful. By accusing yourself?

possible that everything should end

knew

your nature? Aren't you now hunting petty loves

in order to forget the passion to

"You

it I

By stamping on

the

me

I

have never yet

of every baseness, did you hope to exalt

Gods your own hands 47

pulled

down, what

do you hope to achieve? Their mutilated beauty will haunt you forever. Your faked happiness will never equal your self -contempt. Ah, to have given

you such

a

weapon

deceitful and cold,

me, your mean-spirited

against

why

admit; but

me

love! That

I

am

model and surpass me? Your letters are nothing but an echo of you, blind and spiteful from having suffered too much When you have grasped what a mistake separates ." us, come back to me I

.

.

I

.

as a

.

.

the house, buffeted

left

take

by inner tempests. Then some blue

window reminded me of Dagmar's

in a florist's

fresh beauty.

I

iris I

sent

to her with this message: "Flowers lovelier than fairy tales, for a child

All that night as an

hour of giving

the uncertainties of

Hadn't out,

I

now

I

.

.

lay feverishly waiting for

I

life.

who

."

loves only fairy tales and flowers

and somber

saw

them

birth.

But what did

I

It

dawn.

It

came

care about the sadness of the

within myself a ray of hope? In the fear of

did not dare to think of the

at last, ugly

seemed to shrink obscurely from

new and

fragile

its

dawn?

flickering

sweetness in

my

life.

I

did not dare to utter even to myself the uncertain joy that thrilled me.

I

did not dare to go to Dagmar's house, and

it

was not

until sunset that

I

found the courage to knock on her door. She was outside on the terrace, her hypnotized gaze on the flaming sky.

"Look

'They

at those clouds," she cried.

are like

mighty kings, who piously

bring chaHces of gold, and crystal altar-vessels sparkling with jewels to adorn

some sanctuary."

"You

are a fairy princess,"

I

told her, "a princess

who

sings while she

toys with the opals of her necklace. She loves opals that are bits of rain-

bow between

her fingers. While waiting for the

Unknown

every night to the sound of invisible harmonies which are

by her laughing little sisters, the Fairies!" Dagmar, fingering her opals, capriciously woke ." she murmured. "Oh yes, I love them. "Opals

Prince, she sleeps

murmured around

her

.

.

their changing flames. I

also love polished tur-

quoises and big sapphires."

"The Hebrews replied.

called the sapphire the

"They were marvellous

ment has never been surpassed

artists.

most beautiful of

all

things,"

I

The epic beauty of the Old Testa-

deepest admiration for that exiled race

book of Job quivers with a drama of Sophocles. I have the who have known how to make the

universe their country. But above

am

tragic sigh

in

poetry. The

of stypefying grandeur,

ettes of Sarah,

like a

all

I

haunted by the oriental silhou-

Rebecca, Rachel, Bathsheba, Tamar. Sarah's proud beauty

was such that Abraham made her pose as his sister, for he did not wish to risk his hfe by exposing himself to the jealousy which the possession of such magnificence would arouse. Rebecca appears to us eternally reflected in a legendary well. Rachel

ing once seen her treading

upon

was so harmoniously splendid

the red

48

lilies

of the

field,

that, hav-

Jacob served

seven years for her. By bathing nude on her terrace, Bathsheba roused the impulse to murder in the heart of David, who in order to raise her to his throne, had to to you,

her aggressive husband.

kill

Dagmar, because

little

I

recall all these oriental

I

know you

idylls

love tales."

She smiled her lovely smile of a perverse child.

you must have Hstened naively to numberless vows murmured in evenings as glorious as this one, or whispered

''Little opal-heart,

of love -vows

through the dusk, or sobbed

had

in the

darkness."

a lot of lovers."

"Yes,

I've

"And

girl-lovers too, little princess.

'For

Of

I

have heard you sing:

would dance to make you smile, and sing who with some sweet mad sin have

those

played

.

And how

.

.

Lx)ve walks with delicate feet afraid

'Twixt maid and maid

You must

I

.' .

.

have learned that song from the passionate

lips

of an English

girl."

"I like

making love with men and women both," she admitted.

share San Giovanni's fierce exclusiveness and that of love of their

own

sex, hate

and

revile the love

I

poem

gazed at her. "Lovely

my

gratitude?

I

in porcelain,

"I don't

women who,

for

of men. But most often

where

I

vehemence of men."

prefer incomparable feminine tenderness to the rude

to express

all

are

words

can see again, since meeting in

my

liquid

enough

path the

Saxe porcelain dream that you are." She just kept on smiling without answering.

I

stared for a long time at her half-open wild rosy lips.

"Would you," showing tonight?

she said suddenly, "take I

me

to see the fireworks they're

adore rockets, a rain of falHng stars, and broken rain-

bows." "Little princess, the

humblest of your courtiers waits humbly upon your

least orders."

She took

my

arm. The contact of that slender body intoxicated me.

my own

The consciousness of eyes.

loved

Her

I

felt

Dagmar

for being carefree

and

my

stature in

who dominates and

frail.

I

my own

protects.

I

loved the teasing child in her.

was an added charm, a troubling and arousing charm. comet shot up into the nocturnal blackness. It seemed to to the Pleiades. Dagmar's eyes followed it, the huge amazed,

infantile perversity

Suddenly

mount

clear

a

delighted eyes of a child.

azure threads.

"Oh!" she

She said "thou" to did not at

strength increased

the tender pride of the being

know

me

Then

there

was an explosion and

as naturally as a child

herself that she had said

it,

shower of

does to a playmate. She

filled as

the falling stars of green, blue, white, red.

murmured. "How

a

sighed, "it's snowing blue stars. See? See?"

she

"How

was with ecstasy

beautiful

beautiful, that glow before the stars break!

49

it

is,"

she

Look how

the whole sky seems milky white

now

blood of giants. Oh! of violets .

.

.

.

.

No, no,

all is,

it

.

Now

.

it's

streaming with the heroic .

.

.

like a great curtain

now than the ocean on and how happy I am!"

greener

it's

Oh, how beautiful

.

.

draped with purple

it's

a spring evening

She batted her lashes feverishly. Her dazzled eyes sought mine for reflection of her joy.

we were

I

laughed with her, echoed her

two

light-hearted as

gaiety died with

it.

when

children. But

We went home

the

beneath oaks

own last

piece faded

hundred years

a

"I'm almost afraid of these trees," shivered Dagmar. "They are than the vault of a gothic cathedral. if you weren't here." She pressed movement. yearned to take her I

my

old. taller

should be terrified, quite terrified,

I

against

me

with a timid and charming

away, stretch her on

far

a

laughter. Truly

a

bed

soft as

an invalid's, narrow as a cradle, and burn her delicate naked feet with frantic kisses. I

said only: "Aren't

She looked

at

me

the brilliant laughter

down on

you

now

marble bench

a

Dagmar?"

tired,

with the eyes of an offended page. "A her eyes gave the

in

deep shadow,

in

soft

lie

little."

to the words.

warm

and

We

But sat

because covered

with moss, As irresistable as an instinct, the desire to stroke that virginal

me

flesh seized

why

is it

powerfully.

such anguish for

drew

I

me

closer to her. "Lovely,

to love

oh too lovely—

you?"

She was neither surprised nor offended. She did not withdraw her hand, so purely white. "I don't understand you," she said. "But then, I've never

understood you. You're such an odd, complex creature."

At that boys,

who

moment

I

felt in

me

and

like to torture

the primitive instinct of cruel, simian Httle

terrify a wild dove.

I

wanted to turn

that

rose -eglantine face white, for the savage joy of seeing in those eyes the vivid intensity

of some uncontrollable emotion. To make that passive body

tremble— with terror or

love,

what matter which? To make her shudder,

even with fury or disgust! "Tell

me

again, and better, that

you

love

me," commanded the imperious

child.

you with what barbarous hunger I love you, you would proHate is perhaps more intense and longer lasting than love. It's as beautiful and as holy as love itself. Whoever doesn't know how to hate doesn't know how to love. Of all poets, Dante moves me most deeply because of the power of hate in him, equalled only by the power of his love. The most implacable enemies are also the most passionately tender lovers. Dante Alighieri would have loved Beatrice less if he had hated his adversaries less. I love you with all the strength of my old hatreds, Dagmar." "If

I

told

bably be really terrified

"You have

a frightful

.

.

.

way of

loving."

50

.

my

"Oh,

.

you knew, even so, with what measureless would surround you! It is simple, like all profound

flower of dawn! If

sweet tenderness

I

things-maybe prose expresses true ardor better than poetry. My tenderness is very simple, but I will decorate it with a thousand complex phrases so that it may seem forever new to you. I shall try to make it as versatile and changeable

as the opals or

She rested her head on 'i love

my

rainbows you love." shoulder.

you, Dagmar. Love you with such an indulgent heart's caress

move me

that your cruellest feminine betrayals will never

ger ..

And

.

still, if

later

me A sudden memory wrecked

that has

I

drowned

.

.

.

came to love you with who knows?"

of the Past blinded

in that terrible

me with

but dear recollection

.

to the least an-

a passion

I

its

Hke the one

blood-tinted gleam.

.

XVII Dagmar's favorite flowers were the simple gardenias, delicately artificial,

"You

are

more an eglantine than

ever,

they faded.

as

Dagmar,"

never seen such matchless freshness as yours."

me

of spring. Vally preferred

lilacs

which grew sweeter

And

I

murmured.

"I have

the sudden thought

would be exquisitely unplanned and deUcious to forget, at the side of this adolescent, my long tortures of atonement. It would be a perfumed burst of laughter, a breath of April, after the darkness of struck

that

it

the abyss where

my

soul had been lost so long

.

.

.

For Dagmar

it

would

be the caprice of an hour of boredom, and for me, an unhoped-for comfort. It

would

my

lift

heart out of

my

breast and stop

its

fevered pounding

from torturing me. But an apprehension checked me. Did I dare to lay the burden of my too-heavy heart in the hands of a child? Dagmar's laughing eyes were like spring-water in sunlight. "What are you dreaming about?" she demanded. "When you go to thinking it always bothers me. You look so somber and your mouth is so bitter! One would .

.

it the look and the mouth of an old hermit whose eyes are accustomed to darkness and his Hps to the wrinkles of silence." "I was thinking of Sister Aloyse, of Villier de I'lsle -Adam's poem. Never has there been such an ideal face of an amorous virgin. I was thinking that you look Hke her, Dagmar; happier and less intense, however." I looked deep into her blue eyes where all of spring seemed reflected. "If you can let your little girl's hand stay in mine without uneasiness, Dagmar, I can breathe beside you the air of dawn." Her clear eyes never wavered under my glance, somber with helpless

think

desire.

And with

her perverse candor, she raised to

me

her

lips, at

once

naive and experienced.

"Aren't you at silence

all

afraid,

had woven around

Dagmar?"

us.

51

My

voice tore the light veils that

"What should

my

'*0f

be afraid of?"

I

love."

"Should one be afraid of love?" she asked, so simply that

from the

kiss she offered.

ness recoils

I

drew back

drew back

I

with mad-

as a creature half stricken

from the murder planned during an hour of derangement. I in mine. "Have you no fear of my hands, Dagmar?

took her deHcate hands

how

See

they have taken yours,

She gave a

You hurt me badly-" "And that's how they which have only

how

they hold them, possess them."

my

cry like a hurt swallow. "You've broken

little

will

fingers!

always hurt you, for they are violent hands,

just missed being criminal

hands

.

.

.

They could have

closed fatally about a neck as fragile as your childish one. Vally once told

me

that

have a wicked

I

of exquisite trusting

and that what

spirit,

anger and hate. But there

is still

fragility.

room

You

in

me

love

I

more than

love are

for tender pity in the face

shan't suffer for your childHke caprice,

."

Dagmar

.

.

XVIII

My

little virgin

many

with the short curls had stayed away for

thought of her as one smiles over long past childishness the end of a rainy afternoon, while

was

I

lingering in

.

.

my

days.

I

Then toward

.

library blue with

smoke and shadows, the door was opened and Dagmar came hesime. "I've come to bring you serious news," she said in a

cigaret

tantly toward

hasty rush. "But

light

first let

me

get

warm and dry my

dress that's simply

sopping with rain." 1

stirred the capricious fire for her. Its flames

eyes. "Give

me

From Hps

a cigaret," she said.

haled a diaphanous blue cloud thin as an "I love twilight as

I

another, and the

air

"You

whispered, watching her.

woman weeping

room

in a noiseless

The petals fall without sound, one after pulses with unspoken dreams. In the distance Memories

are a poetess

who was

I

are fading.

pass by, lightly veiled

teen and

in her clear

greedy child's she ex-

opium dream.

have loved a woman,"

"Twilight," she answered, "is like a

where white flowers

were reflected

like a

.

.

.

Their sandals gleam with stars

Uke Eranna, the

loved by Psappha

.

.

virgin .

of genius

But what

is

." .

.

who

died at nine-

the serious

news you

mentioned?" She blushed faintly and lowered her soft I

was

My

a little princess waiting

on her

lids.

"You told me once Unknown Lover

terrace for the

that .

.

weary of the monotonous flat whiteness of the road, searched ." She the horizon in vain. Well-I waited long months on my terrace eyes,

.

stopped, then with a trembling sigh: "The Prince to

me

." .

.

52

I

.

waited for has come

.

A ess

which resembled Dagmar played

on

my

mantelpiece. Sadly,

and smashed

fragile,

it

I

don't deserve "I feel

no

delicate Saxe porcelain shepherd-

music on her porcelain pipes

silent

picked up the quaint

too pretty and

trifle,

on the hearth.

Dagmar reached out her I

A

long anguished silence followed.

me your

"Spare

slightly trembling hands.

spite.

it.'*

spite

"I tremble for

toward you,

my

little

princess."

happiness," she shivered. 'The world

angry dragon, the cruel dragon of fairy the hatred of the universe?

We

are

two

tales.

Oh, who

like

is

an always

will protect us

children, he and

I.

Two

from

babes

lost

in the dark woods."

The rain fell, softer than hushed music. The rain shut in our restlessness drawn curtain. It separated us from the world and its people. It rustled Hke the silk of long-trained gowns. "I don't know why," I said, hoping to hide with empty words the torment in my heart, "but rain always like a

reminds

me

of distant waves."

"Waves—" murmured Dagmar, "and pebbles ... I seem to see the ocean ." flinging flowers of silver at us— and flowers of seaweed "Dagmar," I sobbed, "you divinely sincere and perverse child, can it be that our ways are parting forever?" .

"We have only gathered

the pale roses of friendship together," she

answered. Slowly she stood up.

"My

Ufe

is

enclosed within a hedge of hawthorns, and

menaces.

I

know much about human

don't

.

from yours.

different I

I

am

hardly feel the world's ugly

life.

I

am

quite ignorant of the

unhappy eyes your cruel eyes of human life, Dagmar. That is why I

passion and anguish reflected in your

.

.

.

.' .

.

you know Httle have not dared to make love to you." "It's quite true

She turned away, and sadly, very softly, "Farewell," she

said.

"Farewell, Dagmar."

As she went, the

skirt

of her Kate Greenaway gown, long and

full,

brushed the bits of broken statuette.

XIX Dagmar ventured

into marriage like a child trusting itself to a

without oars or rudder, to cross the ocean her own, she had married a neither one survival

was

boat

Without a fortune of

young man equally without means. Moreover,

aggressive, nor

had that practical

which could alone protect them against

a

common

sense about

commonplace

life

worse

Both of them naively adored luxury, the of gems, the sweep of wide landscapes, and the stimulus of con-

actually than one of poverty. glitter

at night.

frail

stantly changing scenes

and new pleasures. 53

Dagmar had accepted

blindly the most formidable

not worried about the mystery of

them as for herself, her young husband,

new

beings to

she left the whole future to as irresponsible as she,

Unknown. She was come Careless for treacherous Chance. And .

.

.

abandoned himself with similar They were indeed two chil-

ignorant weakness to the caprices of Destiny.

dren dazzled by mirages, quite

On

her wedding day,

lost in the

dark forest.

lamented for that

I

virginal grace barbarously

Hideous maternity would deform that slim sexless body. And

violated.

conjugal lust would soil that childish flesh so like the petals of eglantines. lay inconsolable all night for that defloration of a dream

I

.

.

.

XX The torment of April ended at last. Summer, beloved of Our Lady of down on the burning earth. The image of Vally haunted

Fevers, breathed

The image of Vally consumed my blood and marrow. I feared flowers as tricky adversaries; I feared music as traitorous enemy; for flowers and music betray one to the tortures of

the torrid hours relentlessly. dried a

my

memory. They evoked

spitefully the cruel ice-blue eyes that

and adored. The voluptuous monsters. Words rang in defense,

I

furies of the past shattered

my memory.

at

I

once hated

me Uke

bewitching

Sometimes, teeth clenched

as a

me toward

her.

battled against the violent regret that drew

mute

my Loreley, and still I hoped that some chance, was oppressively desired, would let me meet her, or at least hear someone speak of her. Then circumstances favored me. I learned that Vally 's secret engagement had become pubhc and official. I was weak enough to write to her. My letter remained unanswered. I I

as

avoided the friends of

unforeseen as

it

suffered the anguish of the imprisoned or of one buried alive.

the

power to weep

lost

I

even

for myself, unique and tender consolation of the afflicted!

One day, however,

woke

I

in sHghtly better spirits. It

forehead had been bathed with violet perfume while

seemed

slept.

I

to

me my

no longer

I

smothered on waking. I no longer dreaded the sunlight pouring through open window, nor the scent of flowers rising from the garden. I asked myself silently what unknown sweetness had banished the pestilential breath of Our Lady of Fevers And then, when I looked outside, I saw that felt

the

.

.

.

way to Autumn. The comforting scent of dying flowers filled me. I wandered along the water in which the willows dipped their rusty tresses. I gazed at the chrysanthemums whose subdued colors harmonized with the fallen leaves. The summer had gone and

given

more beautiful for being bare, Hfted their deHcate winter skeletons. The consolation of autumn made the universe less intolerable. I felt like trees,

a sufferer

the path.

who is glad to die. With a reasonless hope, And before me, serene with the serenity of 54

I

raised

my

October,

1

eyes from

saw Eva.

She seemed the very incarnation of autumn. In her long, martyr's hands were chrysanthemums mixed with brown leaves. The folds of her dress fell in melancholy straightness about her. She seemed enshrined in stained

more splendid than

rainbow or a sunset.

remembered that once I had murmured her mystic name, her name of a saint. And suddenly a whole flight of airy bell-notes rose above the hideous street noises. The sacred carillons had sung out her name, shouted it, launched it on the winds: Eva! Eva! Eva! She came toward me. No empty words broke the mystic spell. I underglass

when

a

stood her and she understood

Autumn,"

dear

my

the city noises had hurt

on the

I

babbled

of eternity. The

sill

so miraculous that

found

I

me

finally.

I

spirit grievously,

"My

equally well.

invisible stained glass

could not bear

as sadness, raised itself in

my

she and

my poised

I,

threw over her a glory

A

brightness.

its

sweet Autumn,

we were,

believed that

I

marvellous hope, pro-

heart. She answered

me

only with her

grave smile.

do not know why the thought of Dagmar, that poem in porcelain, between us with its disturbing fragility and charm. An anguish more

I

rose

terrible

than mere

human

anguish seized

me

for a

themselves upon Eva's eyes^ gray and distant as incense.

I

if

moment.

My

eyes fixed

seen through fumes of

heard myself repeating those same words: "Aren't you afraid,

Eva?" "I'm not afraid of anything," she

said. It

was

like the strains

from an

organ deep in a dim chapel. "Will

you be stronger than

my

"I shall be stronger than all

A

pain?"

human

holy silence settled around

us.

I

begged.

I

pain, because

I

am

Pity."

did not dare to sob: "I love you."

XXI

A

year later on a

summer evening white with

clematis,

we were

again

together in the library with the old English furniture. Everything in this

house of Eva's where here

I

had found asylum was homeUke and simple. Things

welcomed one with

sincere kindness.

made

dark paper soft as velvet,

peace and security met one at the very scent of old

wood and

The

walls, covered with thick

An atmosphere of The rooms were full of the

confidential talk safe. sill.

Above

dried flowers.

the fireplace, beside a portrait

of lone, white violets gleamed palely. "I have

and is

secret.

some

surprising

news

for

so completely acclimated to the

struck just

you," said Eva, her voice very low

"That old Norman pendulum-clock you put

now

I

heard

five, six, seven, eight.' It

it

Queen Anne

in the dining

furniture that

when

room

it

say distinctly in EngUsh: 'One, two, three, four,

has certainly learned EngHsh

fast, hasn't it?"

"Furnishings do have obscure sympathies and antipathies," "One of my friends assures me that she has an easy chair that 55

I

agreed.

is

hostile

to strangers.

impossible for anyone but herself to be comfortable for

It is

The strong

ten minutes in that chair.

hostility that

emanates from

repels

it

people unconsciously." 'That's probably quite true.

we

ture

on

and one day

us,

a Uttle

hands which

will fall into other

we have." She

pletely as

What saddens me

is

that this furni-

which has absorbed something of ourselves,

love and

is

will possess

dependent it

com-

as

and despite the melancholy tinge

fell silent,

in

her words, a happy quiet reigned between us.

Then suddenly

showed

Eva's lips

a slight tension. "I

seem to

see in the

sadness behind your eyes the shadow of Vally," she said uneasily. Her voice

quivered a bit with pain as she pronounced that Despite the confident peace in which

name from my

reminder. Looking steadily into Eva's eyes,

at that

found happiness, Eva, but

"I have

one has loved anyone as

I

I

past.

spirit,

I

paled

answered her thought.

haven't yet found forget fulness.

I

loved that

One can never

pletely indifferent.

my

had saturated

I

woman, one can

When

become comhas made one suffer

never

blot out a Past that

unbearably."

"You're right." Eva gave a long

"But

it's

a serious

moment,

this.

sigh.

She hesitated, then said again,

Something unknown has come

in, like a

presentiment, through the open window."

Suddenly

I

breathed a strange perfume, stronger and more subtle than

which

from the garden and rose irresome unknown danger. "I'll tell you now, since it's necessary, what I've kept from you until now, fearing for your nervous health which isn't yet perfectly sound. Vally 's engagement to the Prostitute has been definitely broken. He has managed the scent of our flowers,

sistably to

to

my

nostrils.

I

drifted in

trembled as

at

himself to a fortune more tempting than Vally's

sell

off, her eyes divinely pensive, before

murmuring

.

.

."

Eva broke

come

softly: "Vally has

back."

She waited.

I

grasped the enormous significance of those few simple

words. Vally was tired of her low comedy. She had become her old the Priestess of

my

all

her.

man no

whom my

spirit

longer stood between us.

I

could

could go back to her, begging her to forgive

I

she had done

me, and that

I

self,

had knelt

me

for

had done to myself because of

could revive the acute suffering, the hateful passion whose cruel

I

scars

Loreley,

harm

the

Altars, she before

That disgraceful

for so long.

answer

Abandoned

I

As

I

would wear incurably. remembered, I seemed

had consumed

my

ficently terrible,

death.

I

"Vally,"

to be

born again

in the

suffering flesh. That flame played

and

I

shuddered with

all

flame that once

all

about me, magni-

the exaltation of a triumphant

lamented the departed bitterness more than the sharp brief joys. I

babbled, "Vally

." .

The dizziness passed, and

.

my

eyes again met the mystically clouded

eyes of Eva. In them was the sadness which sleeps in the eyes of saints 56

powerless to relieve the sufferers kneeling before them. 'The mirage

is

gone, Eva."

She rose and drifted Hke gauze through the gray half-dark. "I

shall leave

two old comforters, silence and solitude." "Aren't you my silence, Eva? Aren't you my solitude? You see my thoughts more clearly than I can myself." Slowly and with infmite sweetness she drew her slim hands from my burning ones that clutched them. "No. Your spirit must decide alone on its destiny, which concerns it alone. Solitude is the natural lot of the soul, which is born alone, suffers alone, dies alone. No compassion, however warm and full of pity it may be, can escape that sacred Law." She disappeared into the dark which enveloped her like a veil.

you

to your

stayed behind, in a confused reverie.

I

showed

as a supernatural

by

Little

Uttle the

A

gleam of stained

vision of

glass

.

Eva

in the half-light

.

shadows were lightened by an equivocal

Vally, the Flower of Selene, Undine, Loreley.

feminine temptation.

.

An ambiguous

smile.

The incarnation of

It

was

eternal

cruelty sharpened the steely gleams

two women were the two Archangels of the Best and the Worst: Vally, the Perverse; Eva, the Redeemer. Vally, gleaming moon-green, Vally perfumed with poisons, garlanded with aconite and belladonna. Eva, wearing on her brow the red halo of a martyr, Eva treading Easter lilies beneath her feet. I said aloud, to I know not what from her eyes.

I

believed those

Choose! "Never choose," interrupted a contralto voice, an androgyne's voice,

invisible presence:

its

familiar accent responding to

my

hesitation.

"For then you'll

regret

forever the thing you didn't choose."

"My

dear San Giovanni, what would

"I advise

you

you

advise in this

hour of doubt?"

to return to Vally."

"I don't recognize

your habitual wisdom."

She smiled oddly,

as night smiles at its

image

water.

in

"No words of

wisdom are worth the laugh of folly," she said. "I believe -or rather I am certain -that if you throw yourself down, as you've done before, at Vally's knees, she won't refuse her pardon."

too

"It's

us. And woman."

between other

late for that,

San Giovanni. Irreparable words have passed

also there

is

now between

her and

"I have always preferred violence to tenderness

she intoned in her imperious voice. "That

is

why

I

me

the figure of an-

and passion to love," condemn your cowar-

dice in having chosen happiness rather than blazing suffering." "I

am

neither a phoenix nor a salamander, San Giovanni, and

with what destroys and consumes." "So much the worse for you, you'll never be

I

can't

live

happy.

I

don't say that,

No

poet was ever

meaning myself," she added rather

sadly. "I have

57

a poet.

never laid any claim to that sacred

anyhow, no one

is

to

title,

which

I

have no real right.

either a poet or a saint while they're

ahve. But

still

how

won't be one even after death, because you have never known

And you

to

love."

my

"I have loved to the limit of

has a right to ask more of any I

have accepted joyously. Later

Like Dante,

strength,"

human I

gave out, and abandoned the vain struggle.

have wandered through a night of storm, and knocked on

I

A

the door of a monastery begging for peace ...

my

me, where

for

defended myself. "No one

I

being. Ibsen's terrible All or Nothing

nun opened

the sanctuary

soul has found divine consolation."

San Giovanni was listening only absently. "Dagmar had traveled the

and imbecile route of marriage when

traditional

"She asked hold rific

it

if

you

any

felt

slight

against her that she couldn't cure

ardor

harm

you by

loving

last," she said.

Why

should you

you with

the ter-

you demanded of her?"

"I have never felt resentment against

the

saw her

I

resentment against her.

me

she did

or tried to do.

The

One must

are like those of the gods.

any woman, no matter how great injustices

and rages of

women

accept them with resignation and en-

And certainly no one can be blamed for not loving is why Vally has never been at fault with regard to me." San Giovanni gazed at me somewhat more gently. "Listen to the advice

dure them with love.

someone

else.

That

of music," she said. "Listen to the advice of the flowers. The only oracles that remain to us

from marvellous Antiquity

and scents. Music

are songs

draw you back to your Pagan Priestess by the magic of dream. Flowers ." will return you to Loreley through the strength of memory She lifted the purple hanging and I heard the rustle of her gown die

will

.

away

...

remained

I

depths of Space

me

a paper I

.

.

.

.

.

.

Then

in

my

troubled solitude

.

.

.

The

stars

Eva, very pale, came in without a

.

sang

in the

word and handed

me in a rustle of dead leaves. am waiting in the garden." The strange perever, drew me like a vehement cry. got up and

she left

read in a faint light: "I

fume, more insistent than groped

my way

I

through the night-shadowed shrubbery.

XXII

The tobacco flowers were soothing the of

sleep. Their breath

silence

was frightening

would make like grave

violet

dusk with

their

perfume

of insidious languor inspired ambiguous dreams. The

hectic the

It was an anguished silence that words we were about to exchange. The trees slept,

in its intensity.

prophets saddened by the foreseen future.

more liquidly greenish, and her eyes more blue, than the moonlight, was waiting. Her blurred outline moved out from the bluish foliage, half caught by the dewy branches. For a moment I gazed at the ." She did not lift her eyes. She was face and figure of my Past. "Vally Vally, her hair

.

like a statue

of one dead. "Vally

.

." .

.

58

At

the immobile pallor of the apparition

last

you back. You belong

here to take

You You

me above

belong to

because

all

came alive. "I have come me, because I am your first love. was the first to make you suffer.

to I

cannot erase the Past which links us indissolubly. I am your Fate. The unbearable bitterness of your passion unites us with more strength than

You

long calm happiness.

can get away from me, but you can never forget

me. shall never forget

*'I

you, Vally.

I

A

never want to forget you.

shall

will never be a stranger to me, nor shall

I

You

be indifferent."

victorious gleam Ht Vally's moonlit eyes.

I

sensed the feeling of savage

made her despotic voice masculine. "I knew have come for you." I shrank as always from her cruel

triumph. The pride of victory it,

and that

why

is

I

smile. "I shall not

She stared

"I have not

did not

go with you, Vally."

me. Her Hps stretched

at

know how

to master

my

jealousy.

which

the rancor and defiance and hate erable passion.

creature

who

grimace of inexpressible spite.

in a

understood you, Vally, and

have loved you clumsily.

I

did not

I

intensified

know how

and corrupted

ever

became odious even

the executioner of I

my own

soul.

"You had

said slowly.

to conquer

my

For

to herself.

hostile

all

my

beg your pardon on

Vally 's disdainful eyes never

me," she

my

mis-

have been the most basely suspicious and the bitterest

I

I

have importuned you

while torturing myself through a thousand refined humiliations.

you and me,

I

to conquer

left

this that

I

have been

was unworthy of both

knees eternally."

mine.

"You

did not

know how

to

win

neither strength nor patience nor courage

withdrawal

of anyone

in the face

who wants

to

dominate me."

know

*'I

all

that, Vally.

faintest complaint.

I

I

am

shall feel

not offering the slightest reproach, the

always an inexpressible gratitude to you

me the love I was unable to make you share." you long ago: Love me only just enough to make my Hfe surmy.' "And I hadn't wisdom enough to obey you." She was wearing in a fold of her gown orchids that looked avid as unsatisfied lips. She pulled them off and began to tear them apart with her long merciless fingers. "I never let you believe that I would love you as you loved me. You saw me from the first day just as I am," she said. "I hoped to overcome my indifference to you but I could never get over my feeling of coldness. Even though 1 wanted so much to love you! I for having inspired in "I told

.

.

.

should really be pitied for being incapable of a unique and sincere passion, for

I

know of nothing sadder on earth than to wander perpetually in quest unknown sweetness, an inaccessible tenderness! Eros has made me without closing my eyes. You did me a grave wrong-you could not

of an love

satisfy the

Lover

in

me,

that creature of ruse and cruelty, a creature of

59

who

flesh

her,

craved the Impossible. The Impossible has never been granted

still

and the craving has been

by anger and shame and

killed

all. It is

quite

dead today." "Yes, you are right,"

sighed.

I

make of you more than you have been-that

"If less violent loves don't is,

a creature

and absurd self-abasement;

all sacrifice

own

reduce you to their

also,

harrowing loves,

if less

bend you and being, then send me a call for help. I'll swoop eagle and snatch you up in my iron talons, which may wound level; if less self-willed lovers also

to their pattern of living

Hke an

you, but will carry you to infinite heights, into lovers with their sweetness ing,

nor can

and their

you."

lift

Never before had she spoken I

in

such a voice of melancholy and regret.

drew back into the shadow. "Vally

little-at least

believe so.

I

of mortal forgetfulness. Death

sleep,

.

.

Vally

.

." .

.

and better! Ah, you'll

"I will be entirely different,

changed a

which these everyday

air

complaints never dream of reach-

little

am

I

Already

see!

afraid only of terribly

have

metamor-

frightful than living

is less

I

heavy

phosis."

"And "I

yet

you say you have changed yourself-"

need you more than

I

thought, and differently.

The tobacco flowers were mortally anesthetized that they

E deir

my

reason and

my

overcome everything

antico amore sentii

in living flame;

oh

memory! "One belongs

need you

." .

.

pale in the shadows. Their perfume

conscience. Night scents are so powerful

and

less subtle, perilous

gran potenza ...

la

I

vision springing

from

Oh

a cloud

false

than they are.

perverse Beatrice clothed

of flowers!

Oh

eternally

tragic

be too easy past

to one's past," insisted Vally. "Everything

one could escape the consequences of one's

if

on earth would

acts.

am your

I

and you belong to me."

and to Eva." "One belongs to one's future. I belong to the future "The past is truer than the future. The future is all uncertainty, the .

past

is

something written

.

.

in ineffaceable letters." Vally's voice rang

out

masterfully. I

replied evasively.

"Only

this evening

I

said to Eva:

*I

would

like. to

repay to the whole Universe a Httle of the joy that your presence gives

me.

"What joy can equal forget joys,

suffering?

Sorrow

one never forgets sorrow.

I

is

stronger than joy.

am your

can never stop loving me. Suffering alone

is

is

harder to keep

tangible, that

it

it is

than to attain

One can is why you

true, happiness isn't."

'*Why should the possible be unattainable?" that happiness

suffering, that

I

demanded.

as true as thought.

"I

am

certain

But one must struggle

it."

want you to be free, so that no one can diminish you by absorbing you. I want you free so that "I covet for

you

a higher ideal than happiness.

60

I

you can look even a

little

at what is above you. You are so weak when you are in love, and confusedly, as you loved me. And I am afraid for us both

of the harm those others will bring you." listened with troubled

I

amazement

new

to the

seriousness in her voice.

"I dream,'' she said,

"of the Passage of a Giant. The future is Hke a mountain road that must be cut through rock. The crowd stops, stupid and discouraged, before the immovable obstacles which choke the route.

But a Giant gets up and goes ahead. He hews a heroic passage through underbrush and stone. Thirst tortures him and soHtude gives him fever. He perishes before reaching the Other Slope. Then the irresistible force of all those crowds of weaklings pushes through the gap he has opened. One sees

them swarming through by the milHon, dead. If there

lies

really

there where the Giant Precursor

anything great

in you, be like him, go toward your Destiny. Scorn cowardly happiness, choose the better part, which is the part of tears."

am

"I

which

is

not sure that happiness, infinitely rare, the universal lot,"

is

is

inferior to suffering,

protested.

I

"So you want to be calm and tranquil. Let's not plunge

like this into

an endless debate about good and bad, truth and falsehood. The night feels tired-as completely tired as I am. But tomorrow I shall be born again with

dawn, and

I

be April for you, April with her half-smile, April whose

shall

joy hides the promise of harvests that are

"There

is

no dawn

in the past, Vally.

still

The

The future alone knows Aurora." *i am weary of wisdom and reason and that I

is

answered her with

know

truth.

I

am

tired

of everything

not simple love."

burning noons,

its

asleep."

past dies with the last star.

its

that better than

all

my

old sadness: "Love also has

melancholy sunsets and I,

you who

fear

its

its

hopeful dawns,

moonless nights. You

change more than death."

who are know you will

Vally turned away, shrinking. "Temptation attracts only those surfeited,

and because your

return to me.

one

side

You

will return

of the coin. Nothing

You

with disgust,

spirit is glutted

I

because disgust and weariness are never but

good or bad

is

me

in itself; that rule applies also

judge myself, and yet you The pride with which you persist in seeing only my faults proves that there is in you a vampire drunk with fury. Me, I am happier-I see only what I wish to see, Httle enough and dimly enough to preserve my illusions You will come back to me. I told you once before: it is you who are the cruel one, since you make to people.

say

don't judge

you have loved me and

as clearly as

love

me

still!

.

me

suffer stupidly,

tered

from

because

it

all

I

and since you won't give

.

.

me

a

permanent place,

suspicion, in the sanctuary of your heart.

pleases

me

to see

them

suffer,

61

I

play with

and because sometimes

I

shel-

men

find

them amusing. But sincerity.

suspicions,

I

have never loved a man,

have told you repeatedly: 'Don't

I

when

I

my

reach

can swear to that in

I

stifle

me

hungry hands to you and never want more

than your tenderness. Don't destroy something that

of

invincible strength.

its

and through

shall

I

hold

fast to

time -all the others are to

all

all

with jealousies and

is

beautiful because

you through

me

my

all

passions

boredom

a matter of

or

nerves and are neither important nor lasting.'"

"And an hour words:

my

*I

path of

you drove me away from you with the hard you wear me out you are the shadow on

later, Vally,

don't love

you

.

.

.

.

.

.

and moonlight.'"

lilies

"Oh, what have you made of your pale April?" sighed Vally. "In heart there to

me

again.

I'll

.

.

.

never bring up a vestige of the past that

your heart

like

isn't

ours together.

one reverently entering a temple, and

faded with age,

I

garden of flowers

hopes

my

from Spring Open your heart and your arms never reawaken a single moment of anguish in you. I'll

a heritage

is

will replace

when

I

it

if

with one newly opened.

dream of the

I

I

will enter

find there a joy

My

heart

is

great Possible that includes

a

all

one's

." .

.

"I can't give

you happiness, Vally. You want me because I escaped you I fled from you as a peril. I have loved you too much

as a danger, because

not to fear you eternally.

I

had

lost all

you! But a Redemptress has come for

hope and confidence after after unhoped-for Redemptress— .

.

.

me— an

Eva."

"You Past.

determined to see nothing but the sad and ugly things

are

But remember the

in

our

lilies!"

The sky was now a marvellous roof of cedar, ivory, and mother-of-pearl. The trees were slender and pale as Moorish columns. The night seemed a mystic palace of Boabdil, drawn from all dreams of the long ago. "I shall remember, Vally." "You have stolen a happiness to which you have no right. Remember your own words: *Love is renunciation and sacrifice. Love is a long kneeling.'" She paused, and added like a sacrament: "'Love is a calvary flowering with roses.'"

A

dead serpent was lying

at

our feet ...

A

slanting last ray of moonlight

struck a strange light from the tarnished gold of its green scales which seemed to quiver in slow waves. And I remembered San Giovanni's enigmatic phrases: "Dead serpents come to life beneath the gaze of those who love them.

nant water

The magic eyes of Lilith revive them as moonlight moves stagDead serpents slip through the semi-darkness, where their .

.

.

eyes dart cruel glints. For, faithful, they serve the Liliths, and they pierce coldly whatever victims are designated."

on

"What joy or what peace will ever equal the my lips?" demanded Vally. 62

divine pain

you have known

.

Our Lady of Fevers suddenly corrupted the garden with her

fatal breath.

Digitahs and belladonna offered her their perfume and their poisons

swarmed to her swampy

Reptiles

as offerings.

A

new wounds

...

my

not tear

leprous

yearned to escape the pestiferous garden, but

lamp sent

distant

Then

.

a feeble

vanished

it

I

like

could

gleam through the black shadows where It

came from the bedroom of

That gleam was as comforting

.

spirits

the lilies," she said persistently.

the tobacco flowers were dying. .

venomous

and the red roses bled

trees,

night's Hght.

"Remember

tress

shrine, bringing their

wasted the

.

eyes from those of Vally, whose hair was greener and her eyes

more blue than

A

1

moon

.

serpents. Vally's

my Redemp-

of a

as the quiet reflection

star.

The shadows were Hstening to the wisdom of dead morbid blondness grew paler under the moon. .

.

.

"Pain sharper than joy, joy deeper than pain," she persisted. "Love more terrible

than hate, hate more voluptuous than love ... All passions that ."

repudiate peace

The lamp

.

.

sent out a

new

ray of starlight.

It

moved

Truly,

unsteadily in the

who was approaching us, pale and wraithlike these two women were Hke the Archangels of Destiny:

hands of Eva,

.

.

.

Vally,

dressed in green; Eva, dressed in violet; both strangely luminous.

"This

An

is

the

Hour of the

Spirit,"

murmured

Eva.

anguished pause held the three of us. What

I was going to say would whole unshaped future depended on that instant's Upon me weighed the terror of choosing.

be decisive and resolve.

When

the

"Farewell

fatal.

words .

.

.

My

finally

and

till

were uttered, a sigh rose from the shadows.

we meet

again."

63

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES Page

Leonardo da Vinci's Saint John the Baptist, which is reproduced of the original French edition, is a very feminine half-

ii.

as the frontispiece figure.

The San Giovanni of

this story, a lesbian,

intersexual in appearance. There that she actually resembles

Page 2. Chapter

Da

L Preceded by

is

described as similarly

however, only one oblique impUcation

is,

Vinci's model.

three bars of Chopin's Op. 44.

Page 5. Chapter IL Preceded by two bars of Schumann's "Why?". Page 9. Chapter IIL Preceded by two bars of Schumann's Song without

End. Page 10. Chapter IV. Preceded by two bars from Chopin's Opus 9. Page 16. Mephistophela.

A

lesbian novel

by the French

writer Catulle

Mendes, which was very popular between 1890 and 1910. Page 18. Chapter V. Preceded by four bars from Beethoven's Opus 14. ."

Page 19. **We went to a huge women's college in the

margin of the page in French

Page 22. Chapter

VL

.

.

"Bryn Mawr"

is

written

script.

Preceded by two bars from Schumann's Song of

Foreboding. Page 24. Chapter

VIL Preceded by

six bars

from Wagner's Death of Yseult.

Page 26. Chapter VIIL Preceded by four bars from Beethoven's Maestoso

andante in seven

flats.

Page 28. Chapter IX. Preceded by three bars from Chopin's Funeral March. Page 29. Chapter X. Preceded by eight bars of the

less tragic

theme

in

Chopin's Funeral March. Page 30. Chapter XI. Preceded by three bars from Grieg's Death of Ase. Page 31. Chapter XII. Preceded by five bars from Beethoven's Opus 22. Page 33. the

I

have added "to

of this book

title

is

me"

to "a

Une femme

woman

appeared" simply because

m 'apparut.

Page 33. Chapter XIII. Preceded by eight bars from Beethoven's Opus 7. Page 38. Chapter XIV. Preceded by three bars of Beethoven's Adagio sustenuto.

Page 41

.

Opposite the page on which

tone reproduction of a Notre

but

who

is

not El Greco.

It

Dame

this

poem

appears

des Fievres by an

represents a

64

mad -eyed

is

artist

a greenish half-

who

is

unnamed

woman wrapped

all

but

by

her face in folds of drapery, surrounded

repulsive figures of

both sexes,

cripples, lepers, all obviously dying.

Page 45. Chapter XVI. Preceded by three bars from Grieg's

Page 49. This

poem

To

Spring.

appears in EngUsh in the French text.

Page 51. Chapter XVII. Preceded

by four

bars from Grieg's Morning.

Page 52. Chapter XVIII. Preceded by five bars of Chopin's Ballade, Op.

40, pt.

1.

Page 53. Chapter XIX. Preceded by three bars of Chopin's Ballade, Op. 47, pt. 2.

Page 54. Chapter

XX. Preceded by two

bars

from Chopin's Nocturne, Op.

48.

Page 55. Chapter XXI. Preceded by three bars from Chopin's Scherzo from the Sonata,

Op. 35.

Page 58. Chapter XXII. Preceded by seven bars from Chopin's Nocturnes.

65

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