Gérard de Nerval

Aurelia (Aurélia, ou Le Rêve et La Vie, 1855)

Profile Of Helena Rubinstein - Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)

Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)
Artvee

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Translator’s Introduction.
Aurelia.
Part One.
Part Two.
Notes To The Text.

Translator’s Introduction

Gérard de Nerval was the pen-name of Gérard Labrunie (1808-1855), essayist, translator, poet, playwright, and travel writer. He was a major figure during the era of French Romanticism, and is best known for his novellas and poetry, especially the collection ‘Les Filles du feu (The Daughters of Fire)’, which contained a set of eight novellas, including ‘Sylvie’, and a selection of poems including ‘El Desdichado’. Gérard played a major role in introducing French readers to the works of the German Romantic authors, including Goethe and Schiller, initially through his prose translation of the first part of Goethe’s ‘Faust’. His later work, merging poetry and journalism in a fictional manner, influenced Proust, particularly ‘Sylvie’’ which explores the theme of time lost and recalled, its most obvious literary descendant being Alain-Fournier’s ‘Le Grand Meaulnes’, while its antecedents are Rousseau’s ‘La Nouvelle Héloïse’ and Goethe’s ‘Sorrows of Young Werther’.

At college, he had met Théophile Gautier, who became a lifelong friend, and in 1836 accompanied Gautier on a trip to Belgium. In 1840 he took over the latter’s column in ‘La Presse’.

He began to experience serious mental health problems in 1841. In late 1842 and 1843, Gérard travelled to, and around, the Near East, later publishing articles deriving from his travels, and the major work ‘Voyage en Orient’ which expanded on his journey. Between 1844 and 1847, Nerval travelled to Belgium, the Netherlands, and London, writing about his experiences. At the same time, he was writing novellas and opera librettos, and translating the poems of his friend Heinrich Heine, publishing a selection of these in 1848. His last years were troubled by severe emotional and financial problems, and he sadly took his own life in January 1855.

Gérard’s last novella, ‘Aurélia, ou la Reve et La Vie’ (‘Aurelia, or Life and the Dream’), modelled stylistically, to a degree, on Dante’s semi-autobiographical ‘La Vita Nuova’, and sharing the latter’s theme of self-reassessment and renewal through the fact of the beloved’s death, drew on Gérard’s unrequited love, and memories of his own troubled mental states, particularly in the period prior to his suicide. Believing that the artist, especially the writer, should bear witness to every facet of human experience, and as a warning to others, he created in this text a psychological profile of his inner disturbances, and the power of dreams, as well as producing an accomplished literary work, one which strongly influenced André Breton and the Surrealist movement. There are aspects of the text that foreshadow science-fiction, while also invoking myth, legend, and arcane religious beliefs, and anticipating the exploration of the psychology of dreams and mania, by Freud, Jung and others. The extent to which Gérard himself believed in the reality or otherwise of his dreams or visions, is unknown, and doubtless varied from time to time. But like Coleridge, with regard to his poem ‘Kubla Khan’, or Dante with regard to his ‘Divine Comedy’, though Gérard’s dreams and visionary experiences stirred his imagination and prompted the work, its literary development was performed by a mind in complete intellectual and rational control.

Part One

Chapter One

The dream is a second life. I cannot penetrate without trembling those doors, of ivory or horn, which separate us from the invisible world. The first moments of sleep are an image of death; a nebulous numbness seizes my thoughts, nor can I determine the precise moment when the Self, in another form, continues the course of existence. There is a vague subterranean space which gradually becomes clearer, in which the pale, grave, motionless figures which inhabit the abode of Limbo emerge from the shadow and the night. Then the picture takes shape, a new clarity illuminates, and engages, those strange apparitions: – the world of Spirits opens to me.

Swedenborg called his visions Memorabilia; he experienced them in reverie more often than he did in sleep; Apuleius’ ‘Golden Ass, Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’, are the poetic models for such studies of the human soul. I will try, following their example, to transcribe my impressions of a long illness which took place entirely in my mind — though I know not why I employ the term illness, since I have never, in my experience, felt better. Sometimes I thought my strength and activity re-doubled; I seemed to know everything, and understand everything; imagination brought me infinite delights. In recovering what men call Reason, will I have cause to regret the vanishing of these visions?...

My Vita Nuova had two phases. Here are the notes that relate to the first. A lady I had loved for a long while, whom I will call Aurelia, was lost to me. The circumstances of this event, which was to have such a great influence on my life, matter little. All can find amongst their memories the most heartbreaking emotion, the most terrible blow struck against their soul by fate; one must resolve, at that moment, to live or to die: — I will speak later of why I chose life over death. Condemned by the one I loved, guilty of a fault for which I no longer hoped to be forgiven, there was nothing left for me but to indulge in vulgar forms of intoxication; I affected joy and carelessness, I travelled the world, madly, in love with variety and caprice: I loved above all the costumes and strange customs of distant nations, it seemed to me that I was redefining for myself the meaning of good and ill; the meaning of what we French term sentiment. — ‘What madness,’ I said to myself, to love thus, with platonic love, a woman who no longer loves me! This is all the fault of my reading: I took the inventions of the poets seriously, and made a Laura or a Beatrix of an ordinary person belonging to this century… — Let me pursue other affairs and this one will be swiftly forgotten.’ — The giddy joys of Carnival in an Italian city chased away my melancholy thoughts. I was so content with the relief I felt, that I shared my joy with all my friends and, in my letters, portrayed as a constant state of mind what was simply my feverish over-excitement.

One day, a woman of some renown arrived in the city, who took a liking to me, and being accustomed to please and impress, drew me, willingly, among her circle of admirers. After an evening in which she had displayed a natural and charming manner felt by all there, I was so taken with her that I declined to delay a moment in writing to her. I felt so happy to feel my heart capable of fresh affection! I borrowed, in this artificial state of enthusiasm, the very formulae which had served, but a brief time before, to imitate a true and long-nurtured love. The letter once sent, I would have wished to retract it, and went away to dream, in solitude, of what seemed to me a profanation of those memories.

The evening restored to my new love all the previous day’s power. The lady showed herself sensitive to what I had written, while displaying some astonishment at my sudden fervour. I had experienced, in one day, and conveyed to her, the several degrees of feeling one can conceive for a woman, while giving the appearance of complete sincerity. She confessed that I had astonished her, while her pride was flattered. I tried to convince her of my affection; but, whenever I wished to address her, I failed, subsequently, to achieve in our conversations the same elevated style, so that I was reduced to confessing to her, with tears, that I had deceived myself, in deceiving her. My tender confidences nevertheless possessed some charm, and a friendship, stronger in its sweetness, succeeded my fruitless protestations of tenderness.

Chapter II

Later, I met her again, in another city, where the lady I still loved, though hopelessly, was living. A chance encounter brought them together, and the former had occasion, no doubt, to soften the feelings towards me of she who had exiled me from her heart. So, finding myself in the circle to which she belonged, I saw her, one day, approach me and extend her hand. How should I interpret her advance, and the deep, sad look which accompanied her greeting? I thought I saw, there, forgiveness for the past; a divine hint of pity granted an inexpressible value to the simple words she now addressed to me, as if an element religious in nature were mingled with the sweetness of an affection hitherto profane, and gave it something of an eternal character.

An imperative duty forced me to return to Paris, but I resolved, immediately, to remain there only a few days and to return to these two friends. Joy and impatience produced a sort of dizziness, complicated by the attention the business I needed to conclude required. One evening, close to midnight, I was walking through the suburb where I dwelt, when, looking upwards by chance, I noticed a house number, illuminated by the street lamp. The number corresponded to my own age. Immediately, casting my eyes down, I thought I saw before me a woman with a pale complexion and hollow eyes, who seemed to me to possess Aurelia’s features. I said to myself: ‘It is her death or mine that is thus announced!’ But I know not why, it was the latter supposition that impressed me, and I was convinced that my death would, of necessity, occur the following day at the same time.

That night I experienced a dream that confirmed my thoughts. I was wandering through a vast building composed of several rooms, some of which were devoted to study, others to conversation or philosophical debate. I stopped, intrigued, at one of the first, where I thought I recognised my former teachers and classmates. The lesson continued, on the subject of the Greek and Latin authors, with that monotonous drone which ever seems like a prayer to the goddess of memory, Mnemosyne. I entered another room, where a philosophical discussion was taking place. I took part in it for a while, then departed to seek my room, which appeared to be located in a kind of hostelry with immense staircases, full of travellers busy about their own affairs.

A Dream (Drawings for Aurelia) - Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)

A Dream (Drawings for Aurelia)
Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)
Artvee

I lost my way several times among the long corridors, and, while crossing one of the central galleries, was struck by a strange spectacle. A being of immense size — male or female, I know not — was fluttering painfully above the floor, seemingly struggling amidst dense cloud. Lacking strength and breath, it fell to the ground, at last, in the centre of that dark courtyard, its wings catching, and crumpling, on the roofs and balustrades. I was able to contemplate it for a moment. It was coloured in vermilion hues, and its wings gleamed with a thousand varying reflections. Dressed in a long robe, the folds in antique style, it resembled that Angel, the ‘Melancolia I’, of Albrecht Dürer’s creation. I could not help uttering a cry of fright, which woke me with a start.

The next day I hastened to visit all my friends. I mentally bade them farewell, and, without relating anything of what occupied my mind, I discoursed warmly on mystical subjects; I astonished them with a particular show of eloquence; it seemed to me that I knew all, and that the mysteries of the world had been revealed to me in these supreme hours.

In the evening, when the fatal moment seemed to be approaching, I was discussing with two friends, in my circle, the subjects of painting and music, defining, from my viewpoint, the origin of colours and the meaning of numbers. One of them, named Paul **, wished to accompany me home, but I told him I was not intending to return there. ‘Where are you going?’ he said. ‘To the Orient,’ I replied. While in his company, I began to search in the sky for a particular star, which I seemed to know of, as if it exercised some influence over my fate. Having found it, I continued to walk, following various streets, in the direction in which it was visible; walking, so to speak, ahead of my fate, wishing to keep my eyes on that star, till the moment when death was destined to strike me. Having arrived, however, at the confluence of three streets, I felt no desire to advance further. It seemed to me that my friend was deploying superhuman strength in order to oblige me to change direction; he was growing taller in my eyes and took on the features of one of the apostles. I thought I saw the place where we stood elevating, while losing the form granted to it by its urban configuration — on a hill, amidst immense solitude, the scene turned into the combat of two Spirits, and akin to a Biblical moment of temptation. — ‘No!’ I said, ‘I do not belong to your heavens. In that star, those who await me dwell. They existed prior to the revelation you announce. Let me join them, for the one I love is among them, and it is there that we must meet again!’

Chapter III

Here commenced what I will call the ‘effusion’ of my dream into real life. From that moment on, everything acquired a dual aspect, and this without my reasoning ever lacking logic, without the slightest details of what was happening to me lapsing from memory. Only, my actions, apparently senseless, were subject to what is termed ‘illusion’, according to human reason...

I have thought, many a time, that, at certain grave moments of life, a Spirit from the outside world suddenly renders itself incarnate, thus, in the shape of an ordinary person, and acts, or attempts to act, on us, without that person possessing any knowledge or memory of it.

My friend had left me, finding his efforts in vain, and doubtless believing me prey to some idée fixe from which walking would distract me. Finding myself alone, I rose with an effort, and set off again in the direction in which the star was visible, the one on which my gaze had settled. As I walked, I sang a mysterious hymn which I thought I recalled hearing in some other existence, and which filled me with an ineffable joy. At the same time, I doffed my earthly clothes, and scattered them around me. The road seemed to rise endlessly, though the star grew larger. Then I halted, arms outstretched, awaiting the moment when my soul would separate from the body, magnetically attracted to that beam of starlight. I felt a shudder, then. Regret for the Earth, and those I loved there, seized my heart, and I implored the Spirit who drew me to him, to release me, and did so with such ardour and success that seemingly I descended again among Mankind. The night-watch surrounded me – the idea possessed me that I had become immensely large – and that, fully empowered by the electric force, I could overthrow anything that approached. There was something ridiculous in the care with which I sought to spare the strength and lives of the soldiers who had gathered me up.

If I were not of the view that the writer’s mission is to analyse, sincerely, what he feels during the serious events in life, and if I had not set myself a goal that I believe to be useful, I would halt here, and not attempt to describe what I next experienced; a series of visions, perhaps insane, or at least vulgarly morbid... Lying on a camp bed, I thought I saw the sky open to reveal a thousand aspects of unheard-of magnificence. The destiny of the Soul, once delivered from the body, seemed to reveal itself, prompting me to regret having wished to regain a foothold, with all the strength of my spirit, on the Earth that I was about to leave... Immense circles were traced in the sky’s infinite depths, like those formed in water disturbed by a falling body; each separate region, peopled with radiant figures, was tinted with its own colour, traversed the heavens, and melted, in turn, while a divinity, always the same, rejected, furtively, but smilingly, the masks of its various incarnations, and finally took refuge, ever elusive, in the mystical splendour of the Eastern sky.

This celestial vision, obeying the law of such phenomena that all may experience in certain dreams, left me partially aware of what was happening around me. Lying on a guard-house camp-bed, I heard the soldiers speaking of a stranger they had arrested, as I had been arrested, whose voice had just sounded in the same room. By a singular vibratory effect, it seemed to me that this voice resonated in my own chest, and that my soul was split, so to speak; divided, distinctly, between vision and reality. For a moment, I had the idea of exerting myself, and turning towards the half in question, then shuddered as I remembered the tradition, well known in Germany, which says that each of us has a double, a döppleganger, and that when one sees it, death is near. — I closed my eyes, and entered a confused state of mind, in which the real or fantastic figures that surrounded me shattered into a thousand transient images. For a moment, I thought I saw two of my friends close by, who had called to collect me, the soldiers pointing me out to them; then the door opened and someone of my stature, whose face I could not see, exited with my friends whom I begged, in vain, to return. — ‘But they’re in error!’ I cried, ‘I’m the one they’ve come for, and the one who is departing with them is someone else completely!’ I made so much noise that I was locked in a cell.

I remained there for several hours, in a sort of stupor; finally, the two friends I thought I had seen before came with a carriage to gather me up. I told them all that had happened, but they denied having been there during the night. I dined with them quite peacefully, but, as night approached, it seemed to me that I had reason to fear the very hour which, the day before, would have proved fatal to me. I asked one of them for the oriental ring he wore on his finger which I considered an ancient talisman, and threaded it through a scarf, which I tied around my neck, taking care to turn the turquoise stone, with which it was set, towards that point on the nape of my neck where I felt pain. According to my reasoning, this point was the one via which my soul would dare to leave, at the moment when a certain ray of light, emitted by the star I had seen the day before, would coincide with the zenith, situated relative to myself. Either by chance, or due to the effect of my profound obsession, I fell as if struck by lightning, at the very same time when I had fallen the previous day. I was placed on a bed, and lost, for a long while, my power to grasp the meaning of, and connections between, the images that presented themselves to me.

This state lasted for several days. I was taken to a nursing-home. Many relatives and friends visited me, though without my knowing. The only difference between waking and sleeping, as far as I was concerned, was that, in the former state, everything was transfigured before my eyes; each person who approached seemed changed, material objects glistened in a sort of half-light, which modified their form, and the play of light, the combinations of colours, decomposed, in such a way as to maintain within me, a constant stream of linked impressions, in which stream those of the dream state, which was more significantly detached from external elements, continued to prove the most apparent.

Chapter IV

One evening, I thought I had been transported to the banks of the Rhine. In front of me were sinister rocks whose profiles were outlined in the shadows. I entered a pleasant house, a ray of the setting sun gaily lighting its green shutters festooned with vines. It seemed to me that the home I was entering was familiar to me, being that of a maternal uncle of mine, a Flemish painter, dead for more than a century. His sketches and pictures hung here and there; one of them represented the famous siren of that river-bank, the Lorelei. An old servant, whom I addressed as Marguerite and whom I seemed to have known since childhood, said to me: ‘Are you ready to retire to bed? You’ve had a long journey, and your uncle will be home late; we’ll wake you for supper.’ I lay down on a four-poster bed draped in chintz adorned with large red flowers. There was a rustic clock hanging on the wall in front of me, and on this clock perched a bird that began to speak like a human being. The idea came to me that the soul of my grandfather was in this bird; but I was no more surprised by its language and its form than by finding myself transported back a century or so. The bird spoke to me of members of my family, living or dead, from various times, as if they existed simultaneously, and said to me: ‘You see that your uncle took care to paint her portrait in advance... for now she is with us.’ I glanced at the canvas, representing a woman in traditional German costume, leaning over the river bank, while gazing at a clump of forget-me-nots. – Meanwhile, the darkness was gradually deepening, and the sights, sounds, and feelings of various places merged in my sleepy mind; I thought I was falling into an abyss that furrowed the globe. I felt myself borne away, painlessly, by a flow of molten metal, while a thousand similar streams, whose colours indicated the chemical differences between them, carved the breast of the earth like the vessels and veins that wind between the lobes of the brain. The streams all flowed, circulated, and quivered in the same manner, and I felt their currents were composed of living souls, in a molecular state, which the speed of movement alone prevented me from distinguishing. A clear brightness gradually infiltrated these conduits, and I finally saw a fresh horizon expanding above, in a vast dome, in which islands surrounded by luminous waves could be traced. I found myself on an illumined coast beneath this sunless sky, and there I saw an old man who was cultivating the ground. I recognised him as the same old man who had spoken to me through the voice of the bird, and, whether he spoke to me, or whether I understood him internally, it became clear to me that our ancestors adopt the form of certain creatures to visit us on earth, and that they thus attend, as mute observers, the various phases of our existence.

The old man left his work, and accompanied me to a house that stood nearby. The landscape that surrounded us reminded me of a French region of Flanders where my parents had dwelt, and where their graves are located: the field surrounded by groves at the edge of the wood, the nearby lake, the river and wash-house, the village and its sloping street, and the dark sandstone hills with their clumps of broom and heather — composed rejuvenated images of the places I had once loved. Yet, the house I entered was unfamiliar to me. I understood that it had existed in some other age, and that in the world that I was now visiting, the ghosts of things accompanied that of the body.

I entered a large room in which many people had gathered. Everywhere I saw familiar faces. The features of dead relatives I had mourned were reproduced there in other folk who, dressed in outdated costumes, gave me the same paternalistic welcome. They seemed to be there for a family banquet. One of these relatives approached me and embraced me tenderly. He wore an old costume whose colour seemed faded, and his smiling face, beneath his powdered hair, bore some resemblance to mine. He seemed to me more fully alive than the rest, and in more immediate and willing rapport with my mind, so to speak. — It was my uncle. He had me seat myself near him, and a form of communication was established between us; for though I cannot say I heard his voice, as my thoughts turned to address some question or other to him the answer immediately became clear to me, and the images before my eyes became more vivid like animated paintings.

— ‘So, it is true!’ I said with delight, ‘we are indeed immortal and here are preserved the images of the world we inhabited. What happiness to think that all that we have loved will forever exist around us! I was weary of life!’

— ‘Don’t be so quick to rejoice,’ he said, ‘for you still belong to the world above, and you must yet endure years of harsh trial. This abode that enchants you so possesses its own pains, struggles and dangers. The land in which we were once alive is forever the theatre in which our destinies are wound and unwound: we are but rays of the central fire which animates it, and which already grows less...’

— ‘What!’ I cried, ‘Then the Earth might die, and we be invaded by nothingness?’

— ‘Nothingness,’ he said, ‘cannot exist, in the sense that we understand it; but the Earth is itself a material body, and the gathering of spirits its soul. Matter can no more perish than spirit, but it can alter, for good or ill. Our past and future are interdependent. We live in our species, and our species is alive in us.’

This idea immediately became palpable to me, and, as if the walls of the room had opened on an infinite perspective, it seemed to me that I viewed an uninterrupted chain of men and women, in whom I existed and who existed in me; the costumes of all peoples, the images of all countries appeared to me, distinctly and simultaneously, as if my powers of attention had increased greatly without becoming confused, due to a spatial phenomenon analogous to that temporal one which can concentrate a century of events in a dream-minute. My astonishment increased on seeing that this immense enumeration was comprised of only those people in the room, whose images I had seen dividing and combining in a thousand fleeting ways.

— ‘There are seven of us, here,’ I said to my uncle.

— ‘Indeed,’ he said, ‘that is the typical composition of a human family, and, by extension, seven times seven, or more,’ (Seven was the number of Noah’s family, but one of the seven was mysteriously connected with the earlier generations, those of the Elohim! Imagination, like a lightning flash, presented to my mind the multiple gods of India as forming images of the family, as originally composed, so to speak. I shudder to address this further, for a formidable mystery still resides in the Trinity… I was born under Biblical law…)

I cannot hope to render this answer comprehensible, which has remained obscure even to myself. Metaphysics lacks the terms to define the perception that struck me, at that moment, regarding the relationship between that number of persons, seven, and universal harmony. One can well conceive that ‘the father’ and ‘the mother’ are analogous to the magnetic poles, in Nature; but how to comprehend the individual centres emanating from them, and from which they emanate, as a combined animistic figure, whose plethora would be at once multiple and yet bounded? It would be as well to ask a flower for an account of the numbers of its petals, or the divisions of its corolla... or the ground to account for the contours it traces, the sun for the colours it illuminates.

Chapter V

Everything around me was changing shape. The spirit with whom I was conversing no longer appeared the same as before. Now he was a young man who received ideas from me, rather than communicating them to me… Had I ascended those dizzying heights too boldly? It seemed to me that I knew these questions to be obscure or dangerous, even for the spirits of the world I then perceived … Perhaps also a higher power forbade me such investigations. I found myself wandering the streets of a densely populated yet unknown city. I noticed that it was hilly, and dominated by a mountain completely covered with dwellings. Among the folk of this capital, I distinguished certain individuals who seemed to belong to a particular nation; their lively, resolute air, the vigorous nature of their features, brought to mind the independent, warlike peoples of mountainous countries, or of certain islands little frequented by outsiders. Moreover, amidst that vast city, with its mixed and commonplace population, they maintained a fierce individuality of manner. Who were these people? My guide led me on the ascent of the steep and noisy streets where varied sounds of industry rang out. We climbed higher, via a long series of stairways, beyond which a view was revealed. Here and there, terraces covered with trellises, small gardens arranged on the few level spaces, wide roofs, lightly built pavilions painted and sculpted with capricious patience, and broad perspectives connected by long trails of climbing vegetation, seduced the eye, and pleased the mind, like the view of some delightful oasis, an undiscovered solitude above the tumult and noise below, which was now no more than a murmur. We often speak of proscribed nations, dwelling in the shadow of necropolises and catacombs; here, was undoubtedly the opposite. A fortunate race had created this retreat for itself, enriched by the birds and flowers, by pure air, and light. ‘They are,’ my guide said, ‘the ancient inhabitants of the mountain which overlooks this town in which we now are. For a long time, they lived simple lives, amicable and just, preserving the natural virtues of earlier days. The surrounding peoples honoured them, and modelled themselves on them.’

From the point where I stood, I descended, following my guide, and entered one of those tall dwellings whose joined roofs presented so strange an aspect. It seemed to me that my feet sank into successive layers of buildings of various ages. These phantoms of construction always revealed others in which the particular style of each century could be distinguished, seeming to me like the various levels revealed by the excavations undertaken in ancient cities, except that all was airy, alive, adorned by a thousand effects of the light. I finally found myself in a vast room where I saw an old man working at a table on some complex labour or other. At the moment when I crossed the threshold, a man dressed in white, whose face I could barely distinguish, threatened me with the weapon he held in his hand; but my companion signalled to him to move aside. It seemed that someone wished to prevent me from penetrating the mystery of this place. Without needing to ask my guide, I understood, intuitively, that these heights and depths were the retreat of those primal inhabitants of the mountain. Forever braving the invading flood of accumulated buildings constructed by younger nations, they lived their simple lives there, moral, affectionate, and just; skilful, enduring, and ingenious; and victorious, in a peaceful manner, over the blind masses who had on many occasions invaded their inherited spaces. Neither corrupted, destroyed, nor enslaved! Pure in mind, through having conquered ignorance; preserving, in their lives of ease, the virtues of poverty.

A child was playing by himself on the ground, with a heap of crystals, shells, and engraved stones, doubtless making a game of his studies. A woman, elderly but still beautiful, was busy about the household. At that moment, several young people entered noisily, as if returning from their labours. I was surprised to see that all were dressed in white; but it seems this was mere illusion; so as to make them perceptible, my guide began to draw their brightly coloured costumes, variously dyed, giving me to understand that that is how they looked in reality. The whiteness which had astonished me derived perhaps from a particular brilliance, a play of light, in which the spectrum split by a prism was again merged. I left the room and found myself on a terrace arranged in a series of flowerbeds. There, young girls and children were walking and playing. Their clothes seemed white to me like the others, but they were embellished with rose-coloured embroidery. These people were so beautiful, their features so graceful, and the radiance of their souls shone so vividly through their delicate forms, that they all inspired a kind of love, without inspiring preference or desire, yet comprising, in sum, all that intoxicates the vague passions of youth.

I cannot describe my feelings for these charming beings, who were dear to me without my knowing them. They were like a primeval, celestial family, whose smiling eyes sought mine with sweet compassion. I began to weep hot tears, as if at the memory of a lost paradise. I felt, bitterly, that I was a passer-by in this world at once foreign to me and yet beloved, and I shuddered at the thought that I must return to life. In vain, women and children pressed around, seeking to stop my leaving. Already their delightful forms were melting amidst vague mists; their lovely faces paled, and those accentuated features, those sparkling eyes, were lost in shadow, in which the last gleam of a smile still shone…

Such was my vision, or at least such were the principal details I retained in memory. The cataleptic state I had occupied for several days was explained to me in scientific terms, yet the accounts of those who had seen me thus afflicted caused me an irritation of sorts on finding that the words or gestures coinciding with the various phases of what constituted for me a series of logical events were attributed to mental aberration. I preferred those of my friends who, through their patient compliance with my wishes, or as a result of holding ideas similar to my own, elicited from me long accounts of the things I had viewed in my mind.

One of them said to me, weeping: ‘It is true then, that there is a God?’ ‘Yes!’ I replied, enthusiastically. And we embraced as if we were brothers from that mystical homeland I had glimpsed. — What happiness I found at first in my new-found conviction! Thus, the endless doubt regarding the immortality of the soul, which affects the best of minds, was resolved for me. No more death, no more sadness, no more anxiety. Those I had loved, parents, friends, gave me sure signs of their eternal existence, and I was no longer separated from them except by the hours of the day. I awaited those of the night in a state of sweet melancholy.

Chapter VI

A dream I experienced re-confirmed these thoughts. I found myself, suddenly, in a room that was part of my grandfather’s house. Only, it seemed to have grown larger. The old furniture was wondrously polished and shining, the carpets and curtains were as if refurbished, while light three times brighter than normal entered through the window and doorway, and there was a freshness, and a scent of the first days of spring, in the air. Three women were working in this room, who appeared, without absolutely resembling them, like the relatives and friends of my youth. Each seemed to possess the features of several of those familiar folk. The contours of their faces flickered like the flame of a lamp, and at every moment something of one would transfer to another; the smile, the voice, the colour of their eyes, of their hair, their height, their everyday gestures, were exchanged among them as if they had lived the one life, and each was thereby a composite of all, like those features that painters create from several models to achieve a completeness of beauty.

Three Women (Drawings for Aurelia) - Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)

Three Women (Drawings for Aurelia)
Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)

The eldest spoke to me with a vibrant, melodious voice that I recognised, from having heard it in childhood, and something she said struck me with a sense of its profound accuracy. Whatever it was, it turned my thoughts towards myself, and I found I was dressed in a short brown coat in an old-fashioned style, entirely woven of fine threads like the strands of a cobweb. It was neat, graceful, and impregnated with sweet odours. I felt quite rejuvenated and handsome in this garment woven and sewn by their magical hands, and I thanked them, blushing, as if I were only a little child before grand and beautiful ladies. Then one of them rose, and moved towards the garden.

Everyone knows that in dreams one never sees the sun, though we often perceive a far brighter light. Objects and bodies are luminous in themselves. I found myself in a little park where trellises extended in arches, laden with weighty bunches of pale and black grapes; as the lady who guided me advanced beneath these arches, the shadow of the woven trellises altered her form and clothing. I finally emerged, and found that we were in an open space. where one could see the faint traces of ancient paths that had once traversed it and had produced the appearance of a cross. Its cultivation had been neglected for many years, and scattered plants, clematis, hops, honeysuckle, jasmine, ivy, and birthwort stretched in long trailing vines between trees in vigorous growth. Branches laden with fruit bent to the ground, and among tufts of parasitic grasses a few garden flowers that had returned to their wild state flourished.

Here and there rose clumps of poplars, acacias, and pines, amidst which one could glimpse statues darkened by time. I saw before me a pile of ivy-covered rocks from which a spring of fresh water gushed, whose harmonious lapping echoed across a pool of still water half-veiled by the broad leaves of water lilies.

The slender figure of the lady I was following, with a movement that made the folds of her changing taffeta dress shimmer, gracefully embraced a long hollyhock stem with her bare arm, while that plant began to grow within a clear shaft of light, such that, little by little, the garden took on her shape, and the flowerbeds and trees became the rosettes and festoons of her clothing, as her face and arms imprinted the purple clouds of the sky with their contours. I lost sight of her as she was thus transfigured, for she seemed to vanish amidst her own grandeur. ‘Oh, don’t go!’ I cried... or Nature dies with you!’

The Garden (Drawings for Aurelia) - Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)

The Garden (Drawings for Aurelia)
Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)

As I said these words, I was struggling painfully through the brambles, as if to catch the expanding shadow that was escaping me; but stopped short faced with a section of dilapidated wall, at the foot of which lay the sculpted head and bust of a woman. As I lifted it, I was persuaded that it was hers... I recognised cherished features, and, looking about me, saw that the garden had acquired the air of a cemetery. Voices were murmuring: ‘The Universe is now benighted!’

Chapter VII

This dream, so happy at first, left me in great perplexity. What did it mean? I learned only later that Aurelia was dead.

At first, I only received news of her illness. Due to my state of mind, I felt only a vague sorrow mingled with hope. I believed that I myself had only a short time to live, and was now assured of the existence of another world where loving hearts find each other once more. Besides, she would be mine more truly in death than in life... A selfish thought that, I would bitterly regret, and pay for later with my reason.

I would not like to claim it as premonition; chance does strange things; but I was preoccupied now with a memory of our too rapid union. I had gifted her a ring of antique workmanship set with a heart-shaped opal. As this ring was too large for her finger, I had conceived the fatal idea of having it cut to size; I failed to understand my error until I heard the noise of the saw. I thought I saw blood flow...

The care I received had restored me to health without having returned my mind to its regular course, and re-established the normal human powers of reason. The house where I was, situated on a height, possessed a vast garden planted with rare trees. The pure air of the hill on which it was sited, the first breath of spring, and the sweetness of friendly society, allowed me long days of calm.

The fresh leaves of the sycamores delighted me with the liveliness of their colours, which seemed to me like those of a cock-pheasant’s plumage. The view, which extended over the plain, presented a charming horizon from morning to evening, whose graduated hues stirred my imagination. I peopled the hillsides and clouds with divine figures whose forms I seemed to see distinctly. — I wished to fix my favoured ideas more firmly and, with the help of pieces of coal and brick that I collected as drawing implements, I soon covered the walls with a series of frescoes in which my impressions were realised. One figure always dominated the others: that of Aurelia, depicted with the features of divinity, just as she had appeared to me in dream. Below her feet a wheel turned, and the gods formed a procession round her. I succeeded in colouring this group by expressing the juices of herbs and flowers. — How often I dreamed before that dear idol! I did more, I tried to represent, with clay, the body of the one I loved; every morning, my work had to be redone, because the insane residents, jealous of my happiness, took pleasure in destroying her image.

I was given paper, and for a long time applied myself to representing, in a thousand forms, accompanied by stories, verses, and inscriptions in all known languages, a sort of history of the world mixed with memories of my studies, and fragments of dreams that my preoccupation made more striking, or whose duration it prolonged. Nor did I deal only with modern traditions of creation. My thoughts went further back in time: I glimpsed, as in memory, the first pact formed by the genies, by means of talismans. I had tried to bring together the stones of the Sacred Table, and to represent around them the first seven Elohim who had divided the world between them.

This system of history, borrowed from Eastern tradition, began with the happy agreement of the Powers of Nature, which formed and organised the universe. — During the night which preceded my labours, I had believed myself transported to a darkened planet where the first germs of creation were struggling. From the depths of the clay which was still soft, rose gigantic palm trees, poisonous euphorbias, and acanthuses twisting about cacti; the arid shapes of the rocks leapt like skeletons from this sketchy beginning, and hideous reptiles, swollen and rounded, wound amidst the inextricable network of wild vegetation. The pale light of the stars alone illuminated the bluish outlines of this strange perspective; however, as these various efforts at creation were formed, one star, a brighter one, extracted from them the seeds of a greater clarity.

Chapter VIII

Then the monsters changed form, and, shedding the skins they had first acquired, rose up more powerfully on gigantic legs; the enormous mass of their bodies broke through the branches and trampled the grass, and, in the disorder of nature, they engaged in combats in which I myself took part, for I had as strange a body as theirs. Suddenly a singular harmony resounded amidst our solitude, and it seemed that the cries, roars and confused hisses of these primitive beings were henceforth modulated by this divine air. Variations succeeded one another, to an infinite degree; the planet was illuminated little by little; divine forms appeared amid the verdure; and in the depths of the groves, the monsters, henceforth tame, that I had seen, shed their bizarre forms, and became individual men and women; others in their transformations, assumed the figures of wild animals, fish, and birds.

Who had performed this miracle? A radiant goddess guided the rapid evolution of humanity through these new avatars. A distinction between species was established which, starting from the order of birds, also included mammals, fish and reptiles: these were the Dives, Peris, Ondines, and Salamanders; each time one of these beings died, it was immediately reborn in more beautiful form, and sang the glory of the gods. However, one of the Elohim had the idea of creating a fifth species, composed of the elements of the earth, to be called the Afrites. This was the signal for a complete revolution among the Spirits who refused to recognise these new possessors of the world. I know not how many thousand years these battles lasted which bloodied the globe. Three of the Elohim, were finally relegated, with the Spirits of their kind, to the southern hemisphere, where they founded vast kingdoms. They had taken with them the secrets of the divine Kabbalah that binds the worlds together, and drew their strength from the continual worship of certain stars to which they corresponded. These necromancers, banished to the ends of the earth, had agreed to transmit power to each other. Surrounded by women and slaves, each of their sovereigns ensured his rebirth in the form of one of his children. Their lives were a thousand years long. Powerful Kabbalists, the necromancers imprisoned the sovereign, when his death approached, in a well-guarded tomb where he was fed on elixirs and preservatives. For a long while, an appearance of life would be visible, then, like the chrysalis spinning its cocoon, he would fall asleep for forty days, to be reborn in the form of a young child who was later summoned to rule the empire.

However, the life-giving forces of the earth were exhausted in nourishing these dynasties, whose blood, ever pure, flooded their new offspring. In vast underground chambers, excavated beneath the hypogea and the pyramids, they accumulated all the treasures of past peoples, along with certain talismans which protected them against the wrath of the gods.

It was in the heart of Africa, south-west of the mountains of the Moon and ancient Ethiopia, that these strange mysteries took place. For a long while, I groaned there in captivity, as part of the human species. The groves that I had seen, once so green, now bore only pale flowers and withered foliage; an implacable sun devoured these regions, and the weak children of these eternal dynasties seemed overwhelmed by the burden of life. The imposing and monotonous grandeur of their days, regulated by etiquette and hieratic ceremonies, weighed on everyone though none dared attempt to escape it. Old men languished under the weight of their crowns and imperial ornaments, amidst doctors and priests whose knowledge guaranteed them immortality. As for the people, forever enmeshed in their divisive castes, they could count on neither life nor liberty. At the foot of trees struck by sterility and death, at the mouths of dried-up springs, one saw children and young women withering away on the scorched grass, enervated and pallid. The splendour of the royal chambers, the majesty of the porticoes, the brilliance of the clothes and finery, were but weak consolation for the eternal afflictions in these solitary places.

Soon the peoples were decimated by disease, the animals and plants died, and the immortals themselves wasted away beneath their finery. A scourge greater than the others came, suddenly, to rejuvenate and save the world. The constellation of Orion, through its influence, brought cataracts of water from the sky; the poles of an Earth overburdened by the mass of ice in the north, exchanged places, and the seas, surmounting their shores, flowed over the plateaux of Africa and Asia; the flood penetrated the sands, filled the tombs and the pyramids, while for forty days a mysterious ark wandered over the seas carrying the hope of a new creation.

Three of the Elohim had taken refuge on the highest peak of the African mountains. A struggle took place between them. Here, my memory is deficient, and I know not the result of that supreme conflict. Only, I still see, on a peak bathed by the waters, a woman with dishevelled hair, abandoned by them, who cried out, as she struggled against death. Her plaintive accents dominated the noise of the waters… Was she saved? I know not. The gods, her brothers, had condemned her; but above her head shone the Evening Star, pouring fiery rays on her forehead.

The interrupted hymn of the earth and the heavens resounded harmoniously, consecrating the concord of the new peoples. And, while the sons of Noah toiled in the rays of the new-born sun, the necromancers, huddled in their subterranean dwellings, guarding their treasures and delighting in silence and the night. Sometimes they emerged, cautiously, from their retreats, and appeared among the living to frighten them, or to spread among the wicked the fatal teachings of their science.

Such are the memories I traced, by a sort of vague intuition of the past: I shuddered as I reproduced the hideous features of those accursed races. Everywhere was the image of the Eternal Mother dying, weeping, languishing, suffering. Amidst the vague civilisations of Asia and Africa, a bloody scene of orgy and carnage was enacted, and constantly renewed, reproduced by the same spirits in new forms.

The last took place in Granada, where the sacred talisman crumbled beneath the opposing blows of Christians and Moors. How many more years must the world suffer, simply because the vengeance of these eternal enemies must ever be renewed under other skies! They are the separate segments of the serpent that winds about the earth... divided by the clash of steel, they are joined in a hideous kiss, cemented by human blood.

Chapter IX

Insane Asylum (Drawings for Aurelia) - Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)

Insane Asylum (Drawings for Aurelia)
Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)

Such were the images that appeared, one after another, before my eyes. Little by little, calm returned to my mind, and I left the asylum which had been for me a paradise. Fatal circumstances caused, long after, a relapse which renewed in my mind the interrupted series of strange reveries. — I was walking in the countryside, preoccupied with some labour connected with my religious ideas. Passing before a house, I heard a bird which spoke according to the few words which it had been taught, but whose confused chatter seemed to me to contain a meaning: it reminded me of the bird in that vision I recounted above, and I felt a shudder of ill omen. A few steps further on, I met a friend whom I had not seen for a long time, and who had moved to a neighbouring house. He showed me around his property, and, during my visit, he made me ascend to a high terrace from which a vast stretch of the horizon could be seen. It was sunset. As I descended a rustic stairway, I took a false step, and my chest struck the corner of a piece of garden furniture. I had strength enough to rise, and stagger to the middle of the garden, believing myself to be mortally wounded, but wanting, before dying, to take one last look at the setting sun. In the midst of the regrets that such a moment brought, I felt happy to die in that way, at that hour, amidst the trees, trellises, and autumn flowers. It was, however, only a fainting spell, after which I still had the strength to return to my home and bed. Fever took hold; remembering the place where I had stumbled, I recalled that the view I had so admired overlooked a cemetery, the very one in which Aurelia’s tomb was located. It was only then that I thought of the fact; otherwise, I might have attributed my fall to the impression the sight of her grave led me to experience. — That thought, in turn, prompted a more fatal idea still.

Aurelia's Tomb (Drawings for Aurelia) - Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)

Aurelia's Tomb (Drawings for Aurelia)
Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)
Artvee

I regretted all the more that death had not reunited us. On reflection, I told myself that I was not worthy of such a circumstance. I recalled, bitterly, the life I had led since her death, reproaching myself, not for having forgotten her, which was indeed not the case, but for having, with facile displays of affection, insulted her memory. The idea came to me to seek answers in my sleep: but her image, which had often appeared, no longer returned to my dreams. At first, those dreams were merely confused, and full of blood-stained scenes. It seemed that the ambitions of a fatal people had been unleashed on the ideal world I had previously seen, of which she was queen. The same Spirit who had threatened me, when I entered the dwellings of those pure families who inhabited the heights of the Mysterious City, passed before me, no longer in that white costume that he had worn then, like those of his kind, but dressed as a Prince of the Orient. I rushed towards him, threatening him, but he turned towards me calmly. O terror! O anger! His face was my own, his form mine, but idealised and enlarged... Then, I remembered the person who had been arrested on the same night as I had been, and who, according to my thoughts, had emerged from the guardhouse under my name, when those two friends of mine came to look for me. He was, now, carrying a weapon in his hand, the shape of which I could hardly distinguish, while one of those who accompanied him said: ‘That’s what he struck him with.’

I know not how to explain that, in my mind, terrestrial events were able to occur concurrently with those of the supernatural world; it was easier to feel it to be so, rather than it is to state it clearly (to me it had to do with the blow I felt in my fall). But who or what was this Spirit who was both myself, and yet external to me? Was he the doppelgänger of legend, or that mystical brother that the Orientals call the Ferouër? — Had I not been struck, long ago, by the story of the knight who fights all night, in a forest, against a stranger who proves to be his own self? Whatever the case, I believe the human imagination has invented nothing that is not true, in this world or in others, and I could not doubt what I had seen so distinctly.

A terrible idea came to me: — ‘Mankind is dual’, I said to myself. — ‘I feel two men within me,’ wrote a Father of the Church. — The concurrence of twin souls deposited this mixed seed in a body itself offering to the view two similar facets reproduced in all the organs within its structure. There is in every man a spectator and an actor, the one who speaks and the one who replies. The Orientals saw two enemies there: the good and the bad spirit. — ‘Am I the good one?’’ Am I the bad?’ I asked myself. ‘In either case, the other is hostile to me… Who knows if there is not a circumstance or a given age when these two spirits separate? Though both are attached to the same body by a material affinity, perhaps one is destined for glory and happiness, the other annihilation or eternal suffering?’ — A fatal lightning-flash, suddenly pierced this darkness... Aurelia was no longer mine!... I thought I heard talk of a ceremony taking place elsewhere, and of the preparations for a mystical marriage which should have been mine, whereby the other would profit from my friends’ error, and that of Aurelia herself. The dearest people who came to visit and console me seemed to me prey to uncertainty, that is to say, the two halves of their souls were also as if separated where I was concerned, one affectionate and trusting, the other as if lacking all regard for me. There was a double meaning in what these people said to me, though they failed to realise it, since they were not, in spirit, like myself. For a moment, this thought even seemed comical to me, when I recalled Amphitryon and his servant Sosie, who were masks for the god’s disguises. But what if that grotesque symbolism were something else—what if, as in other of the fables of antiquity, the fatal truth was concealed by a mask of madness? — ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘let us fight against the fatal spirit, let us fight against the god himself, with the weapons of tradition and science. Whatever he may do in the shadows and the night, I exist — and have all the time remaining to me on Earth in which to vanquish him.’

Chapter X

How can I describe the strange state of despair to which these ideas gradually reduced me? An evil genius had taken my place in the world of souls; as far as Aurelia was concerned, this spirit was myself, while the desolate spirit that vivified my body, weakened and disdained, saw itself, unknown to her, forever destined to despair or nothingness. I employed all my strength of will to further penetrate the mystery, of which I had raised a veil or two. The dream sometimes toyed with my efforts, bringing only grimacing, transient figures. I can give here only a somewhat strange idea of what resulted from this mental restraint. I felt myself sliding, as if along a taut wire whose length was infinite. The Earth, traversed by coloured veins of molten metal, as I had seen it before, gradually brightened with the blossoming of the central fire, whose whiteness blended with the cherry hues that coloured the sides of the interior orb. From time to time, I was surprised to encounter vast pools of water, suspended like clouds in the air, yet so dense that slivers could be detached from them; yet it was clear that this was a liquid different from terrestrial water, and doubtless the evaporation of whatever represented the sea and rivers in the spirit world.

I came in sight of a vast, hilly shore covered with a species of greenish reed, yellowed at the tip as if the sun’s rays had partly scorched them, but I saw no more sign of the sun than on other occasions. A castle dominated the hill, which I began to climb. On the far side, I saw an immense city spread out beneath me. While I was crossing the mountain, night had fallen, and I could see lights in the houses, and street lamps. As I descended, I arrived at a market where fruits and vegetables similar to those of the South were sold.

I walked down a dark staircase and found myself in the street. The opening of a casino was being advertised, of which the details were depicted in posters. Their typographical frame was made of garlands of flowers, so well represented and coloured that they seemed natural. — Part of the building was still under construction. I entered a workshop where I saw men modelling an enormous animal, in the form of a llama, in clay, though it seemed to possess large wings. This monster was as if bathed by a jet of fire, which animated it little by little, so that it writhed, penetrated by a thousand purple flames, forming the veins and arteries and fertilising, so to speak, its inert matter, which was clothed in an instant, by a flowering of fibrous appendages, of fins and woolly tufts of hair. I stopped to contemplate this masterpiece, in the manufacture of which the secrets of divine creation seemed to have been re-discovered. — ‘That is because here you see,’ I was told, ‘the primitive fire which animated the first beings… Formerly, it rushed to the surface of the earth, but those founts have run dry.’ I also saw goldsmith’s work in which two metals unknown on Earth were used: one was red in colour, and seemed to correspond to cinnabar, the other an azure blue. The ornaments were neither hammered nor chiselled, but were formed, coloured, and blossomed like metallic plants derived from certain chemical mixtures. ‘Cannot human beings too be created?’ I asked one of the workers; he replied: ‘Human beings derive from above, and not from below: can we create ourselves? Here, we only formulate, benefiting from the continual development of our industrial processes, a more subtle material than that which composes the Earth’s crust. These flowers which seem natural to you, this creature which will seem to live, are only the products of art created through a supreme refinement of knowledge, and everyone will judge them thus.’

These are roughly the words that were said to me, or at least the meaning of them that I thought I perceived. I began to wander through the rooms of the casino, and came upon a large crowd, in which I distinguished a few people who were known to me, some living, others having died at various periods. The first seemed not to see me, while the others answered seemingly without knowing me. I arrived at the largest room, which was entirely hung with dark red velvet, bands of woven gold thereon forming a rich design. In the centre was a sofa in the form of a throne. Some passers-by each sat on it to test its degree of comfort and elasticity; but the preparations being as yet unfinished, they soon headed to other rooms. There was talk of a marriage, and of the bridegroom who, it was said, was due to arrive to announce the hour of its celebration. Immediately a mad transport seized me. I imagined that the one they were awaiting was my double, who was to wed Aurelia, and I made a scandalous fuss which seemed to dismay the assembly. I began to speak in a violent manner, explaining my grievance, and invoking the help of those who knew me. An old man said to me: ‘But one doesn’t behave like this, you will frighten everyone.’ Then I cried out: ‘I know very well that he has already struck me with his weapon, but I await him without fear, and know the hidden sign that will defeat him.’

At the Casino (Drawings for Aurelia) - Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)

At the Casino (Drawings for Aurelia)
Louis Marcoussis (French, 1883-1941)
Artvee

At that moment, one of the men from the workshop, which I had visited upon entering, appeared, holding a long iron bar whose end consisted of a red-hot sphere. I desired to rush upon him, but the sphere he held threatened my head… The folk around me seemed to mock my impotence… I retreated, then, to the throne at the centre, my soul filled with indescribable pride, and raised my arm to make the sign that I deemed to possess magical power. The cry of a woman, distinct and vibrant, imbued with heart-rending pain, woke me with a start! The syllables of the undisclosed word I was about to pronounce expired on my lips… I threw myself to the ground, and began to pray fervently, weeping hot tears. — But whose was this voice that had echoed so painfully in the night?

It was not a part of the dream; it was the voice of a living person, yet it seemed to me I heard the voice and tones of Aurelia…

I opened my window; all was quiet, and the cry was not repeated. — I enquired outside, no one had heard a thing. — And yet, I am still certain that the cry was real, and that the world of the living had resounded with it… Doubtless, I will be told that chance may have caused some woman, in pain, to cry out at that moment in the vicinity of my home. — But, according to my ideas, terrestrial events were linked to those of the invisible world. That being one of the strange relationships, the details of which I myself have no awareness of, and which it is easier to indicate than to define…

What had I done? I had disturbed the harmony of the mystical universe from which my soul drew the certainty of our immortal existence. I was cursed perhaps for having sought to pierce so formidable a mystery, and thus offend the divine law; I could expect now nothing but anger and contempt! The shades fled, uttering cries of annoyance, and tracing fatal circles in the air, like birds on the approach of a storm.

Part Two

Eurydice! Eurydice!

Chapter I

Lost for the second time! All is over, all is past! Now, I am the one who must die, and die without hope! — What is death then? If it were nothingness… would to God! But God himself cannot make of death a nothingness.

Why then is this the first time in so long that I have thought of Him? The fatal system that had been created in my mind did not admit this lone sovereign... or rather it was absorbed in the sum of beings: it was the god of Lucretius, powerless and lost in immensity.

She, however, had believed in God, and one day I heard the name of Jesus leave her lips. It flowed forth so gently that I wept. My God! That tear, — that tear… It dried up long ago! That tear, my God; restore it to me!

When the soul floats, uncertainly, between life and the dream, between disorder of the mind and the return of cold reflection, it is in religious thought that one may seek help; — I have never been able to obtain from that philosophy which presents us only with selfish maxims or at most the concept of reciprocity, anything but vain experience, and bitter doubt — it is a philosophy that combats moral pain by annihilating sensitivity; like surgery, it knows no better than to remove the organ causing that pain. But for us, born in days of revolution and storm, in which all beliefs have been shattered, raised in a faith, vague at best, which is content with external practice, an indifferent adherence to which is perhaps more culpable than impiety and heresy, it is difficult in the extreme, when we happen to feel the need, to reconstruct that mystical edifice the lines of whose contours the innocent and simple trace in their hearts. The tree of science is not the tree of life! Yet, how can we reject from our minds what so many generations of intelligent effort have poured into them, for good or evil? Ignorance cannot be re-acquired.

I place greater hope in the goodness of God: perhaps we are approaching the time foreseen when science, having completed its entire circle of analysis and synthesis, of belief and negation, will be able to purify itself and bring forth from ruin and disorder the wondrous city of the future… We should not make so little of human reason as to believe that it gains anything by humiliating itself completely, for that would be to deny its celestial origin… God will doubtless appreciate purity of intent; and no father could be pleased to see his son abdicate all reason and pride before him! The apostle who wanted to touch before believing was not accursed for so wishing!

What have I written here? These are blasphemies. Christian humility should not speak thus. Such thoughts are far from tempering the soul. They betray on their brow the gleams of pride from Satan’s crown... A pact with God himself?... O science! O vanity!

I had collected a few books on the Kabbalah. I immersed myself in my studies therein, and persuaded myself that everything the human mind had accumulated on the subject over the centuries was valid. The conviction that I had formed of the existence of the world beyond coincided too well with my reading for me to doubt henceforth those revelations from past ages. The dogmas and rites of the various religions seemed to me to relate to it in such a way that each possessed a certain portion of the arcana which constituted that world’s means of expansion and defence. Such powers could weaken, diminish, and vanish, which in turn led to the invasion of certain peoples by others, none proving victorious or finding themselves vanquished except through the Spirit.

— ‘However,’ I said to myself, ‘it is certain that these sciences are full of human error. The magic alphabet, the mysterious hieroglyphs, have only reached us in an incomplete manner, distorted either by time or by those who have some vested interest in maintaining our ignorance; let us but find the lost letter, or the erased sign, let us recompose the dissonant scale, and we will gain strength in the world of spirits.’

This is how I perceived the relationship, I believe, between the real world and that same world of spirits. The Earth, its inhabitants and their history, was the theatre in which those physical actions were accomplished which the existence and situation of the immortal beings, attached to its destiny, determined. Without touching on the impenetrable mystery of the eternity of the worlds, my thoughts returned to the age when the sun, like the sunflower which represents it and which, with head inclined, follows the revolution of its celestial march, sowed on Earth the fertile seeds of plants and animals. It was none other than fire itself which, being compounded of souls, instinctively formed our common dwelling-place. The Spirit of the Divine Being, reproduced, so to speak, and mirrored on Earth, became the common ground of human souls, each of which, consequently, was at once Human and Divine. Such were the Elohim.

When one feels unhappy, one thinks of the unhappiness of others. I had been somewhat negligent as regards visiting one of my dearest friends, who I had been told was ill. On my way to the house where he was being treated, I reproached myself deeply for being so remiss. I was even more distressed when my friend told me that the day before he had felt at his worst. I entered a whitewashed hospice room. The sunlight reflected cheerfully from the walls, and played over a vase of flowers a nun had just placed on the patient’s table. The room was an Italian anchorite’s cell. — His emaciated face, his complexion like yellowed ivory, enhanced by the dark colour of his beard and hair, his eyes alight with a remnant of fever, perhaps also the arrangement of a hooded cloak, wrapped around his shoulders, made him appear to me like a being half-removed from the person I had known. He was no longer the joyful companion of my labours, and my pleasures; there was the look of an apostle about him. He told me how he had felt himself, at the height of suffering caused by his illness, seized by a last transport which seemed to him to indicate the supreme moment. Immediately his pain had ceased, as if by a miracle. What he told me next is impossible for me to convey: a sublime dream in the vaguest reaches of infinite space, a conversation with a being at once different from, yet participating in, himself, of whom he asked, believing himself to be dead, where God resided. ‘But God is everywhere,’ his spirit companion answered, ‘he is in you, and in all. He judges, he listens, he advises; he is you and I, who think and dream together, and have never left each other, and are eternal!’

I am unable to quote anything more of this conversation, which I may have misheard or misunderstood. I only know that the impression it made was profound. I dare not attribute to my friend the conclusions I may have, wrongly, drawn from his words. I know not whether the feelings that resulted from the conversation are even in conformity with the ideas of Christianity.

— ‘God is with him!’ I cried, ‘but he is no longer with me! Oh, woe is me! I have driven him from myself, threatened him, cursed him! It was, indeed, this mystical brother, who had moved further and further away from my soul, and who had warned me in vain! That favourite spouse, that king of glory, it is he who judges and condemns me, and who has snatched away forever, to his heaven, the one he would have granted me, and of whom I am henceforth unworthy!’