There was such a
sprinkling
of diamonds that
there was quite as much light as the moon gives in Paris.
there was quite as much light as the moon gives in Paris.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v22 - Sac to Sha
Six feet
below us there was a gutter joining two gables. It was more
imprudent than difficult to scale these gables, meet others, jump
from slope to slope, and run about like cats; and danger, far
from restraining, only seemed to stimulate us.
There was something exceedingly foolish, but at the same
time heroic, in this mania of seeking the victim; foolish, because
we had to suppose that the nuns, whose gentleness and kind-
ness we worshiped, were practicing horrible tortures upon some
one; heroic, because we risked our lives every day to deliver an
imaginary creature, who was the object of our most generous
thoughts and most chivalrous undertakings.
We had been out about an hour, spying into the garden,
looking down on a great part of the courts and buildings, and
carefully hiding behind chimneys whenever we saw a black-veiled
nun, who might have raised her head and seen us in the clouds,
## p. 12780 (#198) ##########################################
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GEORGE SAND
when we asked ourselves how we should get back. The arrange-
ment of the roofs had allowed us to step or jump down. Going
up was not so easy. I think it would have been impossible
without a ladder. We scarcely knew where we were. At last
we recognized a parlor-boarder's window,- Sidonie Macdonald's,
the celebrated general's daughter. It could be reached by a
final jump, but would be more dangerous than the others. I
jumped too hurriedly, and caught my heel in a flat sky-light,
through which I should have fallen thirty feet into a hall near
the juniors' room, if by chance my awkwardness had not made me
swerve. I got off with two badly flayed knees, but did not give
them a second thought. My heel had broken into a part of the
sash of that deuced window, and smashed half a dozen panes,
which dropped with a frightful crash quite near the kitchen.
entrance. A great noise arose at once among the lay sisters, and
through the opening I had just made, we could hear Sister
Theresa's loud voice screaming, "Cats! " and accusing Whisky-
Mother Alippe's big tom-cat- of fighting with all his fellows,
and breaking all the windows in the house. But Sister Mary
defended the cat's morals, and Sister Helen was sure that a
chimney had fallen on the roof. This discussion started the
nervous giggle that nothing can stop in little girls. We heard
the sisters on the stairs, we should be caught in the very act of
walking on the roofs, and still we could not stir to find refuge.
Then I discovered that one of my shoes was gone,- that it had
dropped through the broken sash into the kitchen hall. Though
my knees were bleeding, my laughter was so uncontrollable that
I could not say a word, but merely showed my unshod foot,
and explained what had happened by dumb show. A new ex-
plosion of laughter followed, although the alarm had been given
and the lay sisters were near.
--
We were soon reassured. Being sheltered and hidden by
overhanging roofs, we could hardly be discovered without get-
ting up to the broken window by a ladder, or following the road
we had taken. And that was something we could safely chal-
lenge any of the nuns to do. So when we had recognized the
advantage of our position, we began to me-ouw Homerically, so
that Whisky and his family might be accused and convicted in
our stead.
Then we made for the window of Sidonie, who did
not welcome us. The poor child was practicing on the piano,
and paying no attention to the feline howls vaguely striking her
## p. 12781 (#199) ##########################################
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12781
ear. She was delicate and nervous, very gentle, and quite in-
capable of understanding what pleasure we could find in roaming
over roofs. As she sat playing, her back was turned to the win-
dow; and when we burst into it in a bunch, she screamed aloud.
We lost little time in quieting her. Her cries would attract the
nuns; so we sprang into the room and scampered to the door,
while she stood trembling and staring, seeing all this strange
procession flit by without understanding it nor recognizing any
one of us, so terrified was she. In a moment we had all dis-
persed: one went to the upper room whence we had started, and
played the piano with might and main; another took a round-
about way to the school-room. As for me, I had to find my
shoe, and secure that piece of evidence, if I still had the time.
I managed to avoid the lay sisters, and to find the kitchen entry
free. Audaces fortuna juvat, said I to myself, thinking of the
aphorisms Deschartres* had taught me. And indeed I found
the lucky shoe, where it had fallen in a dark corner and not
been seen. Whisky alone was accused. My knees hurt me very
much for a few days, but I did not brag of them; and the explo-
rations did not slacken.
-
I needed all this romantic excitement to bear up against the
convent regulations, which went very much against me. We
were fed well enough, yet that is a thing I have always cared
least for; but we suffered most cruelly from the cold, and that
year the winter was very severe. The rules for rising and retir-
ing were as harmful as they were disagreeable to me. I have
always loved to sit up late, and not to rise early. At Nohant I
had done as I pleased — read or written in my room at night, and
not been compelled to confront the morning cold. My circulation
is sluggish, and the word "cool-blooded" describes both my phys-
ical and my mental organization. A "devil" among the "devils"
of the convent, I never lost my wits, and did the wildest things
in a solemn way that always delighted my accomplices; but the
cold really paralyzed me, especially during the first half of the
day. The dormitory was in the mansard roof, and so icy that I
could not go to sleep, but sadly heard every hour of the night
strike. At six o'clock two servants came and waked us pitilessly.
It has always seemed a melancholy thing to me to rise and dress.
by lamplight. We had to wash in water whose icy crust we
*Her father's tutor.
## p. 12782 (#200) ##########################################
12782
GEORGE SAND
had to break, and then it could not be washed with. We had
chilblains, and our feet bled in our tight shoes. We went to mass
by candle-light, and shivered on the benches or dozed on our
knees, in the attitude of piety. At seven o'clock we breakfasted
on a piece of bread and a cup of tea. At last, on reaching the
school-room, we could see a little light dawn in the sky, and a
bit of fire in the stove. I never thawed until about noon; I had
frightful colds, and sharp pains in all my limbs, and suffered
from them fifteen years later.
But Mary could not bear complaining; being as strong as a
boy, she made pitiless fun of all who were not stoical. She
taught me to be pitiless towards myself. I deserved some credit
for this, for I suffered more than any one else; and the Paris
climate was killing me already. Sallow, apathetic, and silent, I
seemed the calmest and most submissive of persons when in the
school-room. I never answered back: anger was foreign to my
nature, and I do not remember having an attack of it during
the three years I spent in the convent. Thanks to this disposi-
tion, I was always loved, even at the time of my worst impish-
ness, by my most disagreeable companions and the most exacting
teachers and nuns. The Superior told my grandmother that I
was "still waters. " Paris had frozen the fever of movement I
had had at Nohant. Yet this did not prevent me from climb-
ing over roofs in the month of December, or spending whole
evenings bare-headed in the garden in the middle of winter: for
we hunted "the great secret" in the garden too; and when the
doors were closed, we got down there by the windows. And
that was because we lived by our brain at those times, and I
never noticed then that I was dragging about a sick body.
LÉLIA
[Written in 1833, the period of passion and despair. In this magnificent,
fiery, yet at times absurd poem of doubt and despair, Sténio sometimes
stands for Alfred de Musset, and again for the Ideal; while Lélia is at once
George Sand, and the human soul warred upon and torn by its dual nature. ]
"THE
HE prophets are crying in the desert to-day, and no voice
answers, for the world is indifferent and deaf: it lies
down and stops its ears so as to die in peace. A few
scattered groups of weak votaries vainly try to rekindle a spark
## p. 12783 (#201) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12783
of virtue.
As the last remnants of man's moral power, they will
float for a moment about the abyss, then go and join the other
wrecks at the bottom of that shoreless sea which will swallow
up the world. "
"O Lélia, why do you thus despair of those sublime men who
aspire to bring virtue back to our iron age? Even if I were as
doubtful of their success as you are, I would not say so. I should
fear to commit an impious crime. "
"I admire those men," said Lélia, "and would like to be the
least among them. But what will those shepherds bearing a
star on their brows be able to do before the huge monster of
the Apocalypse before that immense and terrible figure outlined
in the foreground of all the prophets' pictures? That woman, as
pale and beautiful as vice,—that great harlot of nations, decked
with the wealth of the East, and bestriding a hydra belching
forth rivers of poison on all human pathways,-is Civilization;
is humanity demoralized by luxury and science; is the torrent
of venom which will swallow up all virtue, all hope of regen-
eration. "
― -
"O Lélia! " exclaimed the poet, struck by superstition, "are
not you that terrible and unhappy phantom? How many times
this fear has taken possession of my dreams! How many times
you have appeared to me as the type of the unspeakable agony
to which the spirit of inquiry has driven man! With your beauty.
and your sadness, your weariness and your skepticism, do you
not personify the excess of sorrow produced by the abuse of
thought? Have you not given up, and as it were prostituted,
that moral power, so highly developed by what art, poetry, and
science have done for it, to every new impression and error? In-
stead of clinging faithfully and prudently to the simple creed of
your fathers, and to the instinctive indifference God has implanted
in man for his peace and preservation; instead of confining your-
self to a pious life free from vain show, you have abandoned
yourself to all the seductions of ambitious philosophy. You have
cast yourself into the torrent of civilization rising to destroy, and
which by dashing along too swiftly has ruined the scarcely laid
foundations of the future. And because you have delayed the
work of centuries for a few days, you think you have shattered
the hour-glass of Eternity. There is much pride in this grief,
Lélia! But God will make this billow of stormy centuries, that
for him are but a drop in the ocean, float by. The devouring
## p. 12784 (#202) ##########################################
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GEORGE SAND
hydra will perish for lack of food; and from its world-covering
corpse a new race will issue, stronger and more patient than the
old. "
"You see far into the future, Sténio! You personify Nature
for me, and are her unspotted child. You have not yet blunted
your faculties: you believe yourself immortal because you feel
yourself young and like that untilled valley now blooming in
pride and beauty,-never dreaming that in a single day the
plowshare and the hundred-handed monster called industry can
tear its bosom to rob it of its treasures; you are growing up
full of trust and presumption, not foreseeing your coming life,
which will drag you down under the weight of its errors, disfig-
ure you with the false colors of its promises. Wait, wait a few
years, and you too will say, 'All is passing away! '»
"No, all is not passing away! " said Sténio. "Look at the
sun, and the earth, and the beautiful sky, and these green hills;
and even that ice, winter's fragile edifice, which has withstood
the rays of summer for centuries. Even so man's frail power
will prevail! What matters the fall of a few generations? Do
you weep for so slight a thing, Lélia? Do you deem it possible
a single idea can die in the universe? Will not that imperish-
able inheritance be found intact in the dust of our extinct races,
just as the inspirations of art and the discoveries of science arise.
alive each day from the ashes of Pompeii or the tombs of Mem-
phis? Oh, what a great and striking proof of intellectual immor-
tality! Deep mysteries had been lost in the night of time; the
world had forgotten its age, and thinking itself still young,
was alarmed at feeling itself so old. It said as you do, Lélia:
'I am about to end, for I am growing weak, and I was born but
a few days ago! How few I shall need for dying, since so few
were needed for living! ' But one day human corpses were ex-
humed from the bosom of Egypt - Egypt that had lived out its
period of civilization, and has just lived its period of barbarism!
Egypt, where the ancient light, lost so long, is being rekindled,
and a rested and rejuvenated Egypt may perhaps soon come
and establish herself upon the extinguished torch of our own.
Egypt, the living image of her mummies sleeping under the dust
of ages, and now awaking to the broad daylight of science in
order to reveal the age of the old world to the new! Is this not
solemn and terrible, Lélia? Within the dried-up entrails of a
human corpse, the inquisitive glance of our century discovered the
## p. 12785 (#203) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12785
papyrus, that mysterious and sacred monument of man's eternal
power, the still dark but incontrovertible witness of the impos-
ing duration of creation. Our eager hand unrolls those per-
fumed bandages, those frail and indissoluble shrouds at which
destruction stopped short. These bandages that once enfolded a
corpse, these manuscripts that have rested under fleshless ribs in
the place once occupied perhaps by a soul, are human thought;
expressed in the science of signs, and transmitted by the help
of an art we had lost, but have found again in the sepulchres of
the East, the art of preserving the remains of the dead from
the outrages of corruption,- the greatest power in the universe.
O Lélia, deny the youth of the world if you can, when you see
it stop in artless ignorance before the lessons of the past, and
begin to live on the forgotten ruins of an unknown world. "
"Learning over again
Knowledge is not power," replied Lélia.
is not progress; seeing is not living. Who will give us back the
power to act, and above all, the art of enjoying and retaining?
We have gone too far forward now to retreat. What was merely
repose for eclipsed civilizations will be death for our tired-out
one; the rejuvenated nations of the East will come and intoxi-
cate themselves with the poison we have poured on
The bold barbarian drinkers may perhaps prolong the orgy of
luxury a few hours into the night of time; but the venom we
shall bequeath them will promptly be mortal for them, as it was
for us, and all will drop back into blackness.
In fact,
Sténio, do you not see that the sun is withdrawing from us? Is
not the earth, wearied in its journey, noticeably drifting towards
darkness and chaos? Is your blood so young and ardent as not
to feel the touch of that chill spread like a pall over this planet
abandoned to Fate, the most powerful of the gods? Oh, the
cold! that penetrating pain driving sharp needles into every pore.
That cursed breath that withers flowers and burns them like fire;
that pain at once physical and mental, which invades both soul
and body, penetrates to the depths of thought, and paralyzes
mind as well as blood! Cold the sinister demon who grazes
the universe with his damp wing, and breathes pestilence on be-
wildered nations! Cold, tarnishing everything, unrolling its gray
and nebulous veil over the sky's rich tints, the waters' reflections,
the hearts of flowers, and the cheeks of maidens! Cold, that
casts its white winding-sheet over fields and woods and lakes,
even over the fur and feathers of animals! Cold, that discolors
XXII-800
――
-
## p. 12786 (#204) ##########################################
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GEORGE SAND
all in the material as well as in the intellectual world; not only
the coats of bears and hares on the shores of Archangel, but the
very pleasures of man and the character of his habits in the
spots it approaches! You surely see that everything is being
civilized; that is to say, growing cold. The bronzed nations of
the torrid zone are beginning to open their timid and suspicious
hands to the snares of our skill; lions and tigers are being
tamed, and come from the desert to amuse the peoples of the
north. Animals which had never been able to grow accustomed
to our climate, now leave their warm sun without dying, to live
in domesticity among us, and even forget the proud and bitter
sorrow which used to kill them when enslaved. It is because
blood is congealing and growing poorer everywhere, while instinct
grows and develops. The soul rises and leaves the earth, no
longer sufficient for her needs, to steal the fire of Prometheus
from heaven again: but, lost in darkness, it stops in its flight and
falls; for God, seeing its presumption, stretches forth his hand
and deprives it of the sun. "
A TRAVELER'S LETTERS
I
REMEMBER that when I was a child the hunters, towards
autumn, brought home beautiful, gentle, blood-stained ring-
doves. They would give me those that were still alive, and
I took care of them. I did it with all the ardor and tenderness
a mother lavishes upon her children, and was able to cure some
of them. When their strength came back they grew sad, and
refused the fresh beans they had pecked so greedily from my
hand during their illness. As soon as they could spread their
wings they became restless, and wounded themselves by dashing
against the bars of their cage. They would have died of grief
and fatigue if I had not set them free. And so, though I was
a most selfish child, I trained myself to sacrifice the pleasure of
possession to the pleasure of generosity. The day I carried one
of my doves to the window was always one of keen emotion,
triumphant joy, and invincible regret. I would kiss it a thousand
times, and beg it to remember me, return, and feed on the ten-
der beans in my garden. Then I would unclose my hand, but
instantly close it again, so as to retain my friend, and embrace
it anew with a swelling heart and brimming eyes. At last, after
## p. 12787 (#205) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12787
much hesitation and many efforts, I would set it on the window-
sill. It would remain motionless for a time, as though amazed,
and almost afraid of its happiness; then start off with a little
cry of joy that went to my very heart. I would follow it a long
time with my eyes; and when it had disappeared behind the
mountain-ash trees of the garden I began to weep bitterly, and
made my mother anxious all day long by looking both ill and
depressed.
When we parted, I was proud and happy to see you restored
to life; and I attributed some of the glory of having brought this
about to the care I had taken of you. I dreamed of better days,
of a calmer life, for you. I saw you revive to youth, to affec-
tion, to glory. But when I had set you on shore,-when I found
myself alone in that gondola as black as a coffin,-I felt that
my soul was departing with you. The wind was tossing nothing
but a sick and stupefied body on the restless lagoon. A man
was waiting for me on the steps of the Piazzetta. "Courage! "
he said. "Yes," I replied, "you said that same word to me one
night when he lay dying in our arms, when we thought he had
but an hour to live. Now he is saved, is on his way, is going
to his country, his mother, his friends, his pleasures. 'Tis well;
but think what you please of me, I regret that horrible night
when his pale head rested on your shoulder and his cold hand
lay in mine.
He was here between us then, he is here no morẹ.
You are weeping too, though you shrug your shoulders. Your
tears, you see, can argue no better than I do.
He is gone; it
was our wish: but he is here no longer-and we are in despair. "
G. SAND.
THE most beautiful object I saw at Chamonix was my
daughter. You cannot imagine the self-possession and pride of
this eight-year-old beauty at liberty in the mountains. Diana
must have looked so as a child, when, as yet unskilled to follow
the wild boar in horrible Erymanthea, she gamboled with young
fawns on the gentle slopes of Hybla. Solange's fresh complexion.
fears neither wind nor sun. Her partly opened bodice leaves her
strong chest bare, and nothing can sully its immaculate white-
ness. Her long fair hair floats in soft ringlets down her supple
and vigorous back, which nothing ever tires: neither the mules'
hard and hurried step, nor race down abrupt and slippery
slopes, nor the tiers of rocks which have to be scaled for hours
together. Brave and serious at all times, her cheek colors with
## p. 12788 (#206) ##########################################
12788
GEORGE SAND
pride and scorn when any one tries to help her on. As robust
as a mountain cedar, and fresh as a flower of the valley, she
seems to divine, although she does not yet know, the value of
intelligence; that the finger of God has touched her brow, and
that some day she is destined to rule those by moral force whose
physical power protects her now. At the Glacier des Bossons
she said to me: "When I'm a queen, you may be sure, my dear
George, that I'll give you the whole of Mont Blanc. "
Her brother, although five years older, is less vigorous and
less daring. Tender and gentle, he recognizes and instinctively
reveres his sister's superiority; but he knows equally well that
kind-heartedness is a treasure.
He often says, "She will make.
you proud: I shall make you happy. "
Perpetual care and joy of our life, our despotic. flatterers,
greedy for the very least pleasures, skillful in obtaining them
either by persistency or obstinacy, frankly selfish, instinctively sure
of their too legitimate independence,- children are our masters,
no matter how firm we may pretend to be with them.
In spite
of their natural kindness, mine signalize themselves amongst the
most fiery and difficult to manage; and I confess I know no way
to make them bend to social forms, before society itself makes
them feel its marble angles and iron harrows. I can find no
good reason to give, to a spirit fresh from the hand of God and
enjoying its free integrity, for subjecting it to so many use-
less and foolish servitudes. Unless I had such habits as I have
not, and such charlatanism as I neither could nor would have, I
do not understand how I could dare ask my children to recog-
nize the pretended necessity of our ridiculous fetters. Therefore
I have but one means,-authority: and I use it when I must,-
that is, very rarely; besides, it is a thing I would not advise any
one to try, unless they have the means of making themselves
loved as much as feared.
TRULY, no one had ever sufficiently praised the beauty of the
sky and the charms of Venice to us. On fine evenings the
lagoon is so calm that the stars do not tremble upon it. Out in
the middle, it is so blue and smooth that the eye loses the hori-
zon line, and sky and water become an azure veil, where revery
loses its way and falls asleep The air is so pure and trans-
parent that one discerns five hundred thousand times more stars
in the sky than can be seen in our northern France. I have
seen nights when there were so many stars that their silvery
## p. 12789 (#207) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12789
whiteness held more space in the vault of the firmament than the
blue of the ether.
There was such a sprinkling of diamonds that
there was quite as much light as the moon gives in Paris.
I do
not wish to insinuate anything against our moon: she is a pale
beauty whose melancholy says more to our intellect than this one
does, perhaps. Hazy nights in our mild provinces have charms
that no one has enjoyed more than I, and that no one has less
desire to disown. Nature here, being more vigorous in her influ-
ence, may perhaps silence the intellect a little too much. She
sends thought to sleep, agitates hearts, and rules the senses.
Unless one be a man of genius, it is useless to think of writing
poems during these voluptuous nights: one must either love or
sleep.
There is one delightful spot for sleeping: it is the flight
of marble steps leading from the viceroy's garden to the Canal.
When the gilded gate is closed on the garden side, you can be
rowed in a gondola to these flagstones still warm with the setting
sun's rays, and not be disturbed by any intruding pedestrian
unless he has the means of reaching you by the faith St. Peter
lacked. I have spent many an hour there all alone, thinking of
nothing, while Catullo and his gondola slept out on the water,
within call of my whistle. When the midnight breeze blows over
the lime-trees, and shakes their blossoms on the water; when the
perfume of geraniums and clove-trees rises in puffs as if the earth
were exhaling balmy sighs under the moon's gaze; when the
cupolas of Santa Maria raise their alabaster hemispheres and their
turban-crowned minarets to the sky; when water, sky, and mar-
ble- the three elements of Venice. are all white, and a great
brazen voice floats over my head from the tower of St. Mark,-
I begin to live by my pores alone, and woe to him who might
come and appeal to my soul! I vegetate, rest, forget. Who, in
my place, would not do the same? How could you expect me
to worry about finding out whether Mr. So-and-So has written.
an article on my books, or whether Mr. What's-his-Name has
declared my principles dangerous and my cigar immoral? All I
can say is, that these gentlemen are very good to trouble about
me, and that if I had no debts I should not leave the viceroy's
steps to give them food for scandal at my desk. "Ma la fama,"
says proud Alfieri. "Ma la fame," gayly replies Gozzi. *
"But-fame! »
"But - hunger! "
―
## p. 12790 (#208) ##########################################
12790
GEORGE SAND
I defy any one to prevent me from sleeping agreeably when
I see Venice, so impoverished, so oppressed, and so wretched,
defy Time and men to prevent her from being beautiful and
serene. There she is, all around me, looking at her reflection in
her lagoons, with the air of a sultana; and are not those fisher-
men who sleep on the pavement of the opposite shore both
winter and summer, with no other pillow than a granite step,
and no other mattress than their slashed jackets, a great example
of philosophy as well? When they have not the wherewithal for
a pound of rice, they sing a chorus to forget their hunger; and
in the same way they defy both their masters and their misery,
accustomed as they are to brave heat, cold, and squalls. It will
take many a year of slavery to completely brutalize this careless
and frivolous disposition, that has lived on amusements and fes-
tivities so many years.
Life in Venice is still so easy! Nature
there is so rich and so readily turned to account! The sea and
the lagoons teem with fish and game, and there is enough shell-
fish caught in the open streets to feed all the population. Gar-
dens make excellent returns: there is not a corner of that rich
clay which does not generously produce more fruits and vegeta-
bles than a field on terra firma. Every day, boats loaded with
fruits, flowers, and such sweet-smelling herbs that their perfumed
trace can be scented in the early morning mist, come in from
the thousand islets dotting the lagoon. The port being free,
foreign commodities are not dear; the most exquisite wines from
the Archipelago cost less at Venice than the commonest wine at
Paris. Oranges arrive from Palermo in such profusion that on
the day the Sicilian vessel comes into port, ten of the finest can
be bought for four or five cents of our money. Hence animal
life is the least cause of expense at Venice, and the transporta-
tion of provisions is so easily effected that it fosters the indo-
lence of the natives. Market produce comes to your house-door
by water, and hucksters pass through the streets and over the
bridges. The exchange of money for daily food is managed
by means of a rope and basket. In this way a family can be
abundantly supplied without going out, or even sending a serv-
ant. What a difference between this convenient mode of exist-
ence and the laborious toil that a family merely half-poor is
obliged to perform every single day in Paris, and then only
to dine worse than the poorest Venetian workman! What a dif-
ference too, between the preoccupied and serious faces of the
## p. 12791 (#209) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12791
people who jostle each other and hurry, get muddy and elbow
their way through the Parisian crowd, and the easy-going pace
of these Venetians, who sing as they crawl along, and lie down.
every now and then on the smooth, warm pavement of the quays!
The traders who bring their whole stock to Venice daily in a
single basket are the jolliest wags in the world, and retail jokes
with their wares. The fishmonger, at the close of his day's
wanderings, tired and hoarse after shouting all the morning,
comes and sits down in a square or on a parapet; and to sell
his remnants he throws out the most ingenious invitations to all
who pass by, or to the smokers on the neighboring balconies.
"Just look! " he says: "this is the finest fish I had in the whole
lot! I kept it till now, because I know that rich people dine
later than others nowadays. See these fine sardines, four for
two centimes. One glance of the pretty housemaid at this fine
fish, and another into the bargain at the poor fisherman! " The
water-carrier makes puns while offering his merchandise. "Aqua
fresca e tenera. " The gondolier at his station solicits passengers
with marvelous offers. "Are we going to Trieste this evening,
my lord? Here is a fine gondola, not afraid of a gale on the
high seas, and a gondolier who can row to Constantinople with-
out stopping! "
Unexpected pleasures are the only pleasures in this world.
Yesterday I wanted to see the moon rise on the Adriatic; I
never could induce Catullo the elder to take me to the shore of
the Lido. He pretended what they all pretend when they do
not want to obey, that wind and tide were against him. I most
cordially wished the doctor to the deuce for having sent me this
asthmatic fellow, who gives up the ghost at every stroke of his
oar, and chatters more than a thrush when he is in his cups. I
was in the worst kind of humor when, in front of the Salute,
we met a boat slowly gliding down towards the Grand Canal,
shedding the sounds of a delicious serenade, like a perfume, in its
wake. "Turn your prow," I said to old Catullo: "I hope you'll
have at least the strength to follow that boat. "
Another boat loitering about there followed my example, then
a second one, and yet another; and at last, all those out breath-
ing the evening freshness on the Canalazzo, and even some
empty boats, began to row towards us, their gondoliers shouting
«Music! Music! " in as famished a way as the Israelites clamor-
ing for manna in the desert. In ten minutes a flotilla had
formed about the dilettanti; every oar was silent, and the boats
## p. 12792 (#210) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12792
were carried on by the current. The harmony swept softly on
with the breeze, and the oboe sighed so tenderly that every one
held his breath for fear of interrupting its love-plaints. The
violin began to weep so sadly and with so sympathetic a quiver-
ing that I dropped my pipe and pulled my cap down to my eyes.
Then the harp let us hear two or three scales of harmonious
sounds which seemed to come down from heaven, and promise
the caresses and consolations of angels to suffering souls on
earth. Next the horn came out of the heart of the woods, as it
were; and each one of us thought he saw his first love come
from the heights of the forests of Frioul, and draw near to the
joyous sound of the flourish. The oboe addressed her with more
passionate words than those of a dove following its beloved
through the air. The violin breathed throbs of convulsive joy;
the harp made its deep strings vibrate generously, as if they
were the palpitations of a flaming heart; and the tones of the
four instruments clasped each other like blessed souls embracing
before departing for heaven together. I caught and held their
accents, and my imagination heard them long after they had
ceased. Their passage had left a magic warmth in the atmo-
sphere, as if Love had shaken it with his wings.
A few moments of silence, which no one dared to break, fol-
lowed. The melodious bark began to move more rapidly, as if it
wished to escape from us; but we dashed in its wake. We were
like a flock of petrels fighting to be the first to seize a gold-fish.
We pressed around it, the great steel saws of our prows shining
in the moonlight like the fiery teeth of Ariosto's dragons. The
fugitive freed itself in Orpheus's manner: a few chords on the
harp made all fall into silence and order again. At the sound of
the light arpeggios, three gondolas took their place at either side
of the one carrying the symphony, and followed the adagio with
a religiously slow movement. The others dropped behind, form-
ing a retinue; and this was not the worst place for hearing.
These rows of silent gondolas, gliding so gently down the wide
and magnificent Venetian canal, were a sight made to realize the
loveliest of dreams. At the sound of the sweetest strains of
'Oberon' and 'William Tell,' every ripple, every light rebound
of the oars, seemed to respond fondly to the sentiment of each
musical phrase. The gondoliers, standing in their bold attitude.
at the stern, were outlined against the blue air like thin black
spectres, behind the groups of friends and lovers they were
rowing. The moon was rising slowly, and began to show her
## p. 12793 (#211) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12793
inquisitive face above the roofs; she too seemed to be listening,
and to like the music. One of the palace-lined banks of the
Canal, still steeped in darkness, stenciled its huge Moorish lace-
work, blacker than the gates of hell, against the sky. The other
bank received the reflection of the full moon, now as broad and
white as a silver shield, on its serene and silent façades. This
immense line of fairy-like buildings, illumined by no other light
than that of the heavenly bodies, was truly sublime in its look of
solitude, repose, and immobility. The slender statues, rising by
hundreds against the sky, seemed flights of mysterious spirits.
charged to protect the mute city's rest, plunged thus in a slum-
ber like that of the Sleeping Beauty, and condemned like her to
sleep a hundred years and more
We rowed along thus for nearly an hour. The gondoliers had
become rather wild. Old Catullo himself bounded at the allegro,
and followed the rapid course of the little fleet. Then his oar
would take an amoroso movement at the andante, and he would
accompany it with a sort of grunt of beatitude. The orchestra
halted under the portico of the White Lion. I leaned over to see
"my lord" step out of his gondola. He was a splenetic child of
seventeen or eighteen, burdened with a long Turkish pipe, that
he could not have smoked completely without becoming con-
sumptive to the last degree. He looked very much bored; but
he had paid for a serenade that I had enjoyed far more than he,
and for which I was very much obliged to him. G. SAND.
SIMON
[The Count de Fougères had emigrated before the Revolution. During
his exile he had been a merchant in Istria, had married an Italian, and
when he returned brought a daughter, Fiamma, with him. She having repub-
lican blood in her veins,- the blood of those brave bandits who had held out
against Austria to the death,- does not want to have the old aristocratic
privileges revived in her favor. The novel closes by her marrying Simon,
-a young lawyer, the son of peasants,— who typifies all the sufferings of the
intelligent and generous déclassé of society. ]
M
EANWHILE the Count de Fougères came to take possession
of his new home. The villagers were too anxious to make
him pay a sort of "earnest money," to spare him the inflic-
tion of new merry-makings and new honors. When he saw there
## p. 12794 (#212) ##########################################
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GEORGE SAND
was no escape, he yielded gracefully and presented his "dear vas-
sals" with a barrel of wine, at the same time wishing with all his
heart that their warm affection towards him might cool a little.
But that was not the way to do it. He was welcomed, extolled,
complimented, awakened at dawn to the sound of bagpipes a
second time, and re-bombarded with fire-crackers. He took it in
good part, shook hands an incredible number of times, raised his
hat even to the village dogs, composed an infinite quantity of
variations on the invariable words of his gracious replies, endured
the interminable and fatiguing conversations with evangelic pa-
tience; and having made himself as popular a sovereign as possi-
ble, went to bed worn out with fatigue, infected by proletarian
miasmas, while his administrative brain calculated by how much
he could raise this one's rent and lower that one's wages, on
account of all these loans of paternal affability. Mademoiselle de
Fougères displayed a disposition which was pronounced haughty
and impertinent, by shutting herself up in her room during all
these sentimental pasquinades. She remained invisible, and her
father could not make her retiring sincerity bend to the politic
considerations due to his position; she had a mute and respectful
way of opposing him that broke him like a straw-him, so mean
in thought, feeling, and language. He felt that he could rule that
iron soul by conviction alone, and that the power to convince was
precisely what he lacked. Feeling that it would be a hopeless
task to punish his daughter, he was obliged to allow her to hide.
or be silent.
A few days after these extraordinary festivals, the village
patron saint's day was to be celebrated. Monsieur de Fougères
had gone to a cattle fair in Bourbonnais the previous day; for
no sooner had he been made lord of the manor than he became
a dealer again. Among all the persons who had testified their
zeal, one thought he had not sufficiently bent the knee before his
name and title. This was the village priest; a young man with
neither judgment nor true piety, but who, having read some old
ecclesiastical documents, wanted to resuscitate a singular custom
at the earliest opportunity. On the patron saint's day the sexton
was sent to Mademoiselle de Fougères, requesting her not to
fail to be present at the blessing of the Holy Sacrament. This
message surprised the young Italian very much. She thought it
strange for a priest to arrogate to himself the right to point out
her duty in such a manner. Nevertheless, she did not think she
## p. 12795 (#213) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12795
could be excused from performing what her education rendered
sacred. Still, fearing some such snare as she had hitherto been
able to avoid, she did not go into the raised pew reserved for
the ancient lords of Fougères,-a pew placed in full sight to
the right of the choir, and now furnished with a rug and several
arm-chairs at the priest's own expense. , Fiamma waited until
vespers had begun; then slipped into church in the plainest gar-
ments, and mingled with the crowd of women who in that part
of the country kneel on the church pavement. She hated the
flattery paid to any special class; but thought that before God.
she could not bow down with too much humility.
It was vain for her to hope to escape the village priest's
scrutinizing glance, or the sexton's, who had been told to find
her. The church was very small; and besides, the custom of
the country separates the women from the men, and gathers the
former in one of the naves. Between the 'Magnificat' and the
'Pange Lingua,' in the interval used by the officiating priest for
putting on his pontifical vestments, the sexton passed through
the feminine crowd, and in the priest's name came to beg
Mademoiselle de Fougères to take a place more suited to her
rank. When she refused to go to the pew, the obstinate assist-
ant had an arm-chair and a hassock placed near the railing sepa-
rating the two sexes at the entrance to the choir, just as he
would have done for his bishop. He thought that Mademoiselle
de Fougères would not be able to resist this flattering invitation,
and concluded to go back to the altar.
In the mean time the rows of women separating Mademoiselle
de Fougères from the insolent arm-chair had opened, and every
eye seemed to be requesting her to condescend to take possession
of it. Jeanne Féline alone, whose fervent prayer was somewhat
disturbed, and whose honest and incorruptible good-sense was no
less shocked, by what was going on, lowered her prayer-book,
raised her hood, and fixed on Mademoiselle de Fougères a look
in which the pride of virtue and the fire of youth shone amidst
all the ravages of age and sorrow. Fiamma saw her, and recog-
nized Simon's mother by a distant likeness of features and a
striking similarity of expression. She had heard this woman's
merit praised, and had wished for an opportunity to make her
acquaintance. She therefore bore the look quietly, and by her
own expressed that she was ready to enter into communication
with her.
## p. 12796 (#214) ##########################################
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GEORGE SAND
Madame Féline, as bold and ingenuous as truth itself, ad-
dressed her at once, and whispered:
"Well, mademoiselle, what does your conscience bid you do? ”
"My conscience," replied Fiamma unhesitatingly, "bids me
stay here and offer you the arm-chair as a mark of respect due
you. "
--
Jeanne Féline was so far from expecting this answer that she
was dumbfounded.
Mademoiselle de Fougères was not, like her father, a person
who could be accused of courting popularity. She was said to
have the opposite failing, and Jeanne could not understand why
she had remained in the general crowd from the beginning of
the ceremony. At length her face softened; and resisting
Fiamma, who wanted to lead her to the arm-chair, she said:-
"No, not I: it would ill become me to take a place of honor
before God, who sees the depths of all hearts and our weakness.
But look! there is the oldest woman in the village,-one who
has known four generations; she usually has a chair, but is
kneeling on the ground to-day. They forgot her on your ac-
count. "
Mademoiselle de Fougères followed the direction of Jeanne's
gesture, and saw a centenarian, for whom some young girls had
made a sort of cushion with their fustian cloaks. She went
towards her, and with Madame Féline's assistance, helped her
to rise and sit down in the arm-chair. The old woman did not
resist, not understanding what was taking place, and thanked
them by nodding her trembling head.
Mademoiselle de Fougères knelt on the pavement close to
Jeanne, so as to be entirely hidden by the back of the great
arm-chair; in which the ancient dame, who performed her reli-
gious duties by mere force of habit, owing to her age soon fell
quietly asleep.
The priest, however, knowing that downcast eyes harmonize
with the fervor of an officiator, could just see a woman with
a white head-covering in the arm-chair. He fancied that his
negotiations had been successful, and began to officiate calmly;
but when the time came for the explosion of his great project;
- when he had descended the three steps of the altar and knelt
to burn incense before the Holy Sacrament, crossed the choir
and walked towards the arm-chair to render the same honor to
Mademoisellede Fougères according to ancient feudal custom,- he
## p. 12797 (#215) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12797
noticed his mistake, and his arm remained suspended between
heaven and earth; while all the congregation of the faithful, eyes
and mouths wide open, were wondering why these unusual honors
were being paid to Mother Mathurin.
The young priest did not lose his composure: but seeing that
Mademoiselle de Fougères had carried her point, with a little
obstinacy and malice showed her that she was not to have it all
her own way; for turning briskly to the other side, he swung the
censers towards the seignorial pew, thus giving the empty place
the honors due more to the title than to its bearers. The whole
village was amazed; and it took more than six months to make
the commentators, who were worn out by inquiries and discussions,
adopt the true version of the event. The relatives of the cen-
tenarian did not fail to say that she had been blessed in virtue
of an ancient custom giving this preference to persons a hun-
dred years old; and that the priest had found it in the archives
of the commune. As for the old woman, being nearly blind and
more than half asleep when she was thus honored, as her ear
was fortunate enough to be forever closed to all human speech
and all worldly noise, she died without ever knowing that she
had had incense burned before her.
FRANÇOIS THE FIELD-FOUNDLING
Preface to François le Champi >
THE
HE moon shed a dim silver light on the paths through the
darkened fields as R and I were on our way home
from walk. It was a mild and softly clouded autumn
evening; and we were noticing the sonority peculiar to the air,
as well as the indefinable mystery pervading nature at that sea-
son. One might say that as the heavy winter sleep draws nigh,
all things and creatures furtively endeavor to enjoy the last rem-
nants of life and animation before the fatal coming on of be-
numbing frost; and as if they wanted to cheat the flight of time,
and feared to be surprised and interrupted in the last gambols
of their merry-making, gave themselves up silently and without
apparent activity to their nocturnal ecstasies. Birds utter smoth-
ered cries instead of the joyous flourishes of summer days. The
insect in the furrows lets us hear an indiscreet exclamation now
and then; but interrupts itself at once, and quickly transfers its
## p. 12798 (#216) ##########################################
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GEORGE SAND
chirp or plaint to another rallying-point. Plants hasten to exhale
their last perfume, all the sweeter for being subtler and long
repressed. The fading leaves dare not quiver under the breath
of the breeze; while the flocks graze in silence, without a sound.
of strife or love.
Even we, my friend and I, walked cautiously; instinctive med-
itation holding us mute, and as it were, observant of nature's
softened beauty and the enchanting harmony of her last chords,
now dying away in an imperceptible pianissimo. Autumn is a
graceful and melancholy andante, admirably introducing the sol-
emn adagio of winter.
At length my friend, who had followed my thoughts as I had
followed his, in spite of our silence, said: "All this is so calm,
and seems absorbed in a revery so foreign and indifferent to the
labors, foresight, and cares of man, that it makes me wonder
what expression, what coloring, what manifestation of art and
poetry human intelligence could give to the physiognomy of
nature at this particular moment. And to make the aim of my
inquiry clearer to you, I will compare this evening, this sky and
this landscape,- all of them so dim yet so harmonious and
complete, to the soul of a wise and pious peasant who works
and profits by his labor, enjoys his peculiar kind of life without
feeling the need or the wish, and without having the means to
manifest or express, his inner life. I try to set myself in the
heart of this mystery of rustic and natural life,-I, the civilized
creature, who do not know how to enjoy by instinct alone,— and
am forever tormented by the desire to render an account, both
to myself and others, of my contemplation or my meditation. "
"And then," continued my friend, “I am anxiously seeking
what connection can be established between my too active intelli-
gence, and the peasant's which is not active enough; just as I
was wondering a while ago what painting, music,-in short,
what the description, the translation by art,- could add to the
beauty of this autumn night, which reveals itself to me by its
mysterious reticence, and penetrates me although I do not know
by what magic communication. "
"Let me see whether I fully understand how the question is
stated," I replied. "Let us take this October night, this color-
less sky, this music without any marked or sequent melody, this
calm of nature, and the peasant who by his simplicity comes
nearer to enjoying and understanding, without describing it, than
____
## p. 12799 (#217) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12799
we do,- and putting all these together, let us call it primitive
life, relatively to our developed and complicated existence, which
I will call factitious life. You ask what the possible connection,
the direct link, between these two opposite states of the existence.
of things and creatures may be; between the palace and the
cottage, the artist and his creation, the poet and the plowman. "
"Yes," he resumed; "and to state it precisely,- between
the language spoken by this nature, this primitive life, and these
instincts, and that spoken by art, science,
in
a word, by
knowledge. "
"To speak in the language you adopt, I should answer that
the connection between knowledge and sensation is feeling. "
-
"The definition of that feeling is precisely what I am ques-
tioning you about, while I am interrogating myself. The mani-
festation that so puzzles me is intrusted to it;. this definition.
is the art-the artist, if you choose - commissioned to translate
the candor, grace, and charm of primitive life for those who live
the factitious life alone, and who are (permit me to say so) the
greatest idiots in the world when they stand before nature and
her divine secrets. "
-
"You ask for nothing less than the very secret of art: seek
that in the bosom of God, for no artist can reveal it to you. He
does not know it himself, and could not give an account of
either his inspiration or his impotence. How are we to express
beauty, simplicity, and truth? Indeed, I do not know. And who
could teach us? Not even the greatest artists could do it, for
if they tried they would no longer be artists, but become critics;
and as for criticism — ! ”
"Criticism," resumed my friend, "has been revolving around
the mystery for centuries without understanding anything about
it. But, pardon me, that is not precisely what I was asking.
am even more of a barbarian just now; I call the very power of
art in question. I despise it; I annihilate it; I maintain that art
is not born, that it does not exist, or if it has existed its time
is past. It is worn out, it has no more forms, it has no more
breath, it no longer has the means to sing the beauty of truth.
Nature is a work of art; but God is the only existing artist, and
man is but a tasteless compiler. Nature is beautiful; she exhales
feeling at every pore: and with her, love and youth and beauty
are undying.
below us there was a gutter joining two gables. It was more
imprudent than difficult to scale these gables, meet others, jump
from slope to slope, and run about like cats; and danger, far
from restraining, only seemed to stimulate us.
There was something exceedingly foolish, but at the same
time heroic, in this mania of seeking the victim; foolish, because
we had to suppose that the nuns, whose gentleness and kind-
ness we worshiped, were practicing horrible tortures upon some
one; heroic, because we risked our lives every day to deliver an
imaginary creature, who was the object of our most generous
thoughts and most chivalrous undertakings.
We had been out about an hour, spying into the garden,
looking down on a great part of the courts and buildings, and
carefully hiding behind chimneys whenever we saw a black-veiled
nun, who might have raised her head and seen us in the clouds,
## p. 12780 (#198) ##########################################
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GEORGE SAND
when we asked ourselves how we should get back. The arrange-
ment of the roofs had allowed us to step or jump down. Going
up was not so easy. I think it would have been impossible
without a ladder. We scarcely knew where we were. At last
we recognized a parlor-boarder's window,- Sidonie Macdonald's,
the celebrated general's daughter. It could be reached by a
final jump, but would be more dangerous than the others. I
jumped too hurriedly, and caught my heel in a flat sky-light,
through which I should have fallen thirty feet into a hall near
the juniors' room, if by chance my awkwardness had not made me
swerve. I got off with two badly flayed knees, but did not give
them a second thought. My heel had broken into a part of the
sash of that deuced window, and smashed half a dozen panes,
which dropped with a frightful crash quite near the kitchen.
entrance. A great noise arose at once among the lay sisters, and
through the opening I had just made, we could hear Sister
Theresa's loud voice screaming, "Cats! " and accusing Whisky-
Mother Alippe's big tom-cat- of fighting with all his fellows,
and breaking all the windows in the house. But Sister Mary
defended the cat's morals, and Sister Helen was sure that a
chimney had fallen on the roof. This discussion started the
nervous giggle that nothing can stop in little girls. We heard
the sisters on the stairs, we should be caught in the very act of
walking on the roofs, and still we could not stir to find refuge.
Then I discovered that one of my shoes was gone,- that it had
dropped through the broken sash into the kitchen hall. Though
my knees were bleeding, my laughter was so uncontrollable that
I could not say a word, but merely showed my unshod foot,
and explained what had happened by dumb show. A new ex-
plosion of laughter followed, although the alarm had been given
and the lay sisters were near.
--
We were soon reassured. Being sheltered and hidden by
overhanging roofs, we could hardly be discovered without get-
ting up to the broken window by a ladder, or following the road
we had taken. And that was something we could safely chal-
lenge any of the nuns to do. So when we had recognized the
advantage of our position, we began to me-ouw Homerically, so
that Whisky and his family might be accused and convicted in
our stead.
Then we made for the window of Sidonie, who did
not welcome us. The poor child was practicing on the piano,
and paying no attention to the feline howls vaguely striking her
## p. 12781 (#199) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12781
ear. She was delicate and nervous, very gentle, and quite in-
capable of understanding what pleasure we could find in roaming
over roofs. As she sat playing, her back was turned to the win-
dow; and when we burst into it in a bunch, she screamed aloud.
We lost little time in quieting her. Her cries would attract the
nuns; so we sprang into the room and scampered to the door,
while she stood trembling and staring, seeing all this strange
procession flit by without understanding it nor recognizing any
one of us, so terrified was she. In a moment we had all dis-
persed: one went to the upper room whence we had started, and
played the piano with might and main; another took a round-
about way to the school-room. As for me, I had to find my
shoe, and secure that piece of evidence, if I still had the time.
I managed to avoid the lay sisters, and to find the kitchen entry
free. Audaces fortuna juvat, said I to myself, thinking of the
aphorisms Deschartres* had taught me. And indeed I found
the lucky shoe, where it had fallen in a dark corner and not
been seen. Whisky alone was accused. My knees hurt me very
much for a few days, but I did not brag of them; and the explo-
rations did not slacken.
-
I needed all this romantic excitement to bear up against the
convent regulations, which went very much against me. We
were fed well enough, yet that is a thing I have always cared
least for; but we suffered most cruelly from the cold, and that
year the winter was very severe. The rules for rising and retir-
ing were as harmful as they were disagreeable to me. I have
always loved to sit up late, and not to rise early. At Nohant I
had done as I pleased — read or written in my room at night, and
not been compelled to confront the morning cold. My circulation
is sluggish, and the word "cool-blooded" describes both my phys-
ical and my mental organization. A "devil" among the "devils"
of the convent, I never lost my wits, and did the wildest things
in a solemn way that always delighted my accomplices; but the
cold really paralyzed me, especially during the first half of the
day. The dormitory was in the mansard roof, and so icy that I
could not go to sleep, but sadly heard every hour of the night
strike. At six o'clock two servants came and waked us pitilessly.
It has always seemed a melancholy thing to me to rise and dress.
by lamplight. We had to wash in water whose icy crust we
*Her father's tutor.
## p. 12782 (#200) ##########################################
12782
GEORGE SAND
had to break, and then it could not be washed with. We had
chilblains, and our feet bled in our tight shoes. We went to mass
by candle-light, and shivered on the benches or dozed on our
knees, in the attitude of piety. At seven o'clock we breakfasted
on a piece of bread and a cup of tea. At last, on reaching the
school-room, we could see a little light dawn in the sky, and a
bit of fire in the stove. I never thawed until about noon; I had
frightful colds, and sharp pains in all my limbs, and suffered
from them fifteen years later.
But Mary could not bear complaining; being as strong as a
boy, she made pitiless fun of all who were not stoical. She
taught me to be pitiless towards myself. I deserved some credit
for this, for I suffered more than any one else; and the Paris
climate was killing me already. Sallow, apathetic, and silent, I
seemed the calmest and most submissive of persons when in the
school-room. I never answered back: anger was foreign to my
nature, and I do not remember having an attack of it during
the three years I spent in the convent. Thanks to this disposi-
tion, I was always loved, even at the time of my worst impish-
ness, by my most disagreeable companions and the most exacting
teachers and nuns. The Superior told my grandmother that I
was "still waters. " Paris had frozen the fever of movement I
had had at Nohant. Yet this did not prevent me from climb-
ing over roofs in the month of December, or spending whole
evenings bare-headed in the garden in the middle of winter: for
we hunted "the great secret" in the garden too; and when the
doors were closed, we got down there by the windows. And
that was because we lived by our brain at those times, and I
never noticed then that I was dragging about a sick body.
LÉLIA
[Written in 1833, the period of passion and despair. In this magnificent,
fiery, yet at times absurd poem of doubt and despair, Sténio sometimes
stands for Alfred de Musset, and again for the Ideal; while Lélia is at once
George Sand, and the human soul warred upon and torn by its dual nature. ]
"THE
HE prophets are crying in the desert to-day, and no voice
answers, for the world is indifferent and deaf: it lies
down and stops its ears so as to die in peace. A few
scattered groups of weak votaries vainly try to rekindle a spark
## p. 12783 (#201) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12783
of virtue.
As the last remnants of man's moral power, they will
float for a moment about the abyss, then go and join the other
wrecks at the bottom of that shoreless sea which will swallow
up the world. "
"O Lélia, why do you thus despair of those sublime men who
aspire to bring virtue back to our iron age? Even if I were as
doubtful of their success as you are, I would not say so. I should
fear to commit an impious crime. "
"I admire those men," said Lélia, "and would like to be the
least among them. But what will those shepherds bearing a
star on their brows be able to do before the huge monster of
the Apocalypse before that immense and terrible figure outlined
in the foreground of all the prophets' pictures? That woman, as
pale and beautiful as vice,—that great harlot of nations, decked
with the wealth of the East, and bestriding a hydra belching
forth rivers of poison on all human pathways,-is Civilization;
is humanity demoralized by luxury and science; is the torrent
of venom which will swallow up all virtue, all hope of regen-
eration. "
― -
"O Lélia! " exclaimed the poet, struck by superstition, "are
not you that terrible and unhappy phantom? How many times
this fear has taken possession of my dreams! How many times
you have appeared to me as the type of the unspeakable agony
to which the spirit of inquiry has driven man! With your beauty.
and your sadness, your weariness and your skepticism, do you
not personify the excess of sorrow produced by the abuse of
thought? Have you not given up, and as it were prostituted,
that moral power, so highly developed by what art, poetry, and
science have done for it, to every new impression and error? In-
stead of clinging faithfully and prudently to the simple creed of
your fathers, and to the instinctive indifference God has implanted
in man for his peace and preservation; instead of confining your-
self to a pious life free from vain show, you have abandoned
yourself to all the seductions of ambitious philosophy. You have
cast yourself into the torrent of civilization rising to destroy, and
which by dashing along too swiftly has ruined the scarcely laid
foundations of the future. And because you have delayed the
work of centuries for a few days, you think you have shattered
the hour-glass of Eternity. There is much pride in this grief,
Lélia! But God will make this billow of stormy centuries, that
for him are but a drop in the ocean, float by. The devouring
## p. 12784 (#202) ##########################################
12784
GEORGE SAND
hydra will perish for lack of food; and from its world-covering
corpse a new race will issue, stronger and more patient than the
old. "
"You see far into the future, Sténio! You personify Nature
for me, and are her unspotted child. You have not yet blunted
your faculties: you believe yourself immortal because you feel
yourself young and like that untilled valley now blooming in
pride and beauty,-never dreaming that in a single day the
plowshare and the hundred-handed monster called industry can
tear its bosom to rob it of its treasures; you are growing up
full of trust and presumption, not foreseeing your coming life,
which will drag you down under the weight of its errors, disfig-
ure you with the false colors of its promises. Wait, wait a few
years, and you too will say, 'All is passing away! '»
"No, all is not passing away! " said Sténio. "Look at the
sun, and the earth, and the beautiful sky, and these green hills;
and even that ice, winter's fragile edifice, which has withstood
the rays of summer for centuries. Even so man's frail power
will prevail! What matters the fall of a few generations? Do
you weep for so slight a thing, Lélia? Do you deem it possible
a single idea can die in the universe? Will not that imperish-
able inheritance be found intact in the dust of our extinct races,
just as the inspirations of art and the discoveries of science arise.
alive each day from the ashes of Pompeii or the tombs of Mem-
phis? Oh, what a great and striking proof of intellectual immor-
tality! Deep mysteries had been lost in the night of time; the
world had forgotten its age, and thinking itself still young,
was alarmed at feeling itself so old. It said as you do, Lélia:
'I am about to end, for I am growing weak, and I was born but
a few days ago! How few I shall need for dying, since so few
were needed for living! ' But one day human corpses were ex-
humed from the bosom of Egypt - Egypt that had lived out its
period of civilization, and has just lived its period of barbarism!
Egypt, where the ancient light, lost so long, is being rekindled,
and a rested and rejuvenated Egypt may perhaps soon come
and establish herself upon the extinguished torch of our own.
Egypt, the living image of her mummies sleeping under the dust
of ages, and now awaking to the broad daylight of science in
order to reveal the age of the old world to the new! Is this not
solemn and terrible, Lélia? Within the dried-up entrails of a
human corpse, the inquisitive glance of our century discovered the
## p. 12785 (#203) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12785
papyrus, that mysterious and sacred monument of man's eternal
power, the still dark but incontrovertible witness of the impos-
ing duration of creation. Our eager hand unrolls those per-
fumed bandages, those frail and indissoluble shrouds at which
destruction stopped short. These bandages that once enfolded a
corpse, these manuscripts that have rested under fleshless ribs in
the place once occupied perhaps by a soul, are human thought;
expressed in the science of signs, and transmitted by the help
of an art we had lost, but have found again in the sepulchres of
the East, the art of preserving the remains of the dead from
the outrages of corruption,- the greatest power in the universe.
O Lélia, deny the youth of the world if you can, when you see
it stop in artless ignorance before the lessons of the past, and
begin to live on the forgotten ruins of an unknown world. "
"Learning over again
Knowledge is not power," replied Lélia.
is not progress; seeing is not living. Who will give us back the
power to act, and above all, the art of enjoying and retaining?
We have gone too far forward now to retreat. What was merely
repose for eclipsed civilizations will be death for our tired-out
one; the rejuvenated nations of the East will come and intoxi-
cate themselves with the poison we have poured on
The bold barbarian drinkers may perhaps prolong the orgy of
luxury a few hours into the night of time; but the venom we
shall bequeath them will promptly be mortal for them, as it was
for us, and all will drop back into blackness.
In fact,
Sténio, do you not see that the sun is withdrawing from us? Is
not the earth, wearied in its journey, noticeably drifting towards
darkness and chaos? Is your blood so young and ardent as not
to feel the touch of that chill spread like a pall over this planet
abandoned to Fate, the most powerful of the gods? Oh, the
cold! that penetrating pain driving sharp needles into every pore.
That cursed breath that withers flowers and burns them like fire;
that pain at once physical and mental, which invades both soul
and body, penetrates to the depths of thought, and paralyzes
mind as well as blood! Cold the sinister demon who grazes
the universe with his damp wing, and breathes pestilence on be-
wildered nations! Cold, tarnishing everything, unrolling its gray
and nebulous veil over the sky's rich tints, the waters' reflections,
the hearts of flowers, and the cheeks of maidens! Cold, that
casts its white winding-sheet over fields and woods and lakes,
even over the fur and feathers of animals! Cold, that discolors
XXII-800
――
-
## p. 12786 (#204) ##########################################
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GEORGE SAND
all in the material as well as in the intellectual world; not only
the coats of bears and hares on the shores of Archangel, but the
very pleasures of man and the character of his habits in the
spots it approaches! You surely see that everything is being
civilized; that is to say, growing cold. The bronzed nations of
the torrid zone are beginning to open their timid and suspicious
hands to the snares of our skill; lions and tigers are being
tamed, and come from the desert to amuse the peoples of the
north. Animals which had never been able to grow accustomed
to our climate, now leave their warm sun without dying, to live
in domesticity among us, and even forget the proud and bitter
sorrow which used to kill them when enslaved. It is because
blood is congealing and growing poorer everywhere, while instinct
grows and develops. The soul rises and leaves the earth, no
longer sufficient for her needs, to steal the fire of Prometheus
from heaven again: but, lost in darkness, it stops in its flight and
falls; for God, seeing its presumption, stretches forth his hand
and deprives it of the sun. "
A TRAVELER'S LETTERS
I
REMEMBER that when I was a child the hunters, towards
autumn, brought home beautiful, gentle, blood-stained ring-
doves. They would give me those that were still alive, and
I took care of them. I did it with all the ardor and tenderness
a mother lavishes upon her children, and was able to cure some
of them. When their strength came back they grew sad, and
refused the fresh beans they had pecked so greedily from my
hand during their illness. As soon as they could spread their
wings they became restless, and wounded themselves by dashing
against the bars of their cage. They would have died of grief
and fatigue if I had not set them free. And so, though I was
a most selfish child, I trained myself to sacrifice the pleasure of
possession to the pleasure of generosity. The day I carried one
of my doves to the window was always one of keen emotion,
triumphant joy, and invincible regret. I would kiss it a thousand
times, and beg it to remember me, return, and feed on the ten-
der beans in my garden. Then I would unclose my hand, but
instantly close it again, so as to retain my friend, and embrace
it anew with a swelling heart and brimming eyes. At last, after
## p. 12787 (#205) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12787
much hesitation and many efforts, I would set it on the window-
sill. It would remain motionless for a time, as though amazed,
and almost afraid of its happiness; then start off with a little
cry of joy that went to my very heart. I would follow it a long
time with my eyes; and when it had disappeared behind the
mountain-ash trees of the garden I began to weep bitterly, and
made my mother anxious all day long by looking both ill and
depressed.
When we parted, I was proud and happy to see you restored
to life; and I attributed some of the glory of having brought this
about to the care I had taken of you. I dreamed of better days,
of a calmer life, for you. I saw you revive to youth, to affec-
tion, to glory. But when I had set you on shore,-when I found
myself alone in that gondola as black as a coffin,-I felt that
my soul was departing with you. The wind was tossing nothing
but a sick and stupefied body on the restless lagoon. A man
was waiting for me on the steps of the Piazzetta. "Courage! "
he said. "Yes," I replied, "you said that same word to me one
night when he lay dying in our arms, when we thought he had
but an hour to live. Now he is saved, is on his way, is going
to his country, his mother, his friends, his pleasures. 'Tis well;
but think what you please of me, I regret that horrible night
when his pale head rested on your shoulder and his cold hand
lay in mine.
He was here between us then, he is here no morẹ.
You are weeping too, though you shrug your shoulders. Your
tears, you see, can argue no better than I do.
He is gone; it
was our wish: but he is here no longer-and we are in despair. "
G. SAND.
THE most beautiful object I saw at Chamonix was my
daughter. You cannot imagine the self-possession and pride of
this eight-year-old beauty at liberty in the mountains. Diana
must have looked so as a child, when, as yet unskilled to follow
the wild boar in horrible Erymanthea, she gamboled with young
fawns on the gentle slopes of Hybla. Solange's fresh complexion.
fears neither wind nor sun. Her partly opened bodice leaves her
strong chest bare, and nothing can sully its immaculate white-
ness. Her long fair hair floats in soft ringlets down her supple
and vigorous back, which nothing ever tires: neither the mules'
hard and hurried step, nor race down abrupt and slippery
slopes, nor the tiers of rocks which have to be scaled for hours
together. Brave and serious at all times, her cheek colors with
## p. 12788 (#206) ##########################################
12788
GEORGE SAND
pride and scorn when any one tries to help her on. As robust
as a mountain cedar, and fresh as a flower of the valley, she
seems to divine, although she does not yet know, the value of
intelligence; that the finger of God has touched her brow, and
that some day she is destined to rule those by moral force whose
physical power protects her now. At the Glacier des Bossons
she said to me: "When I'm a queen, you may be sure, my dear
George, that I'll give you the whole of Mont Blanc. "
Her brother, although five years older, is less vigorous and
less daring. Tender and gentle, he recognizes and instinctively
reveres his sister's superiority; but he knows equally well that
kind-heartedness is a treasure.
He often says, "She will make.
you proud: I shall make you happy. "
Perpetual care and joy of our life, our despotic. flatterers,
greedy for the very least pleasures, skillful in obtaining them
either by persistency or obstinacy, frankly selfish, instinctively sure
of their too legitimate independence,- children are our masters,
no matter how firm we may pretend to be with them.
In spite
of their natural kindness, mine signalize themselves amongst the
most fiery and difficult to manage; and I confess I know no way
to make them bend to social forms, before society itself makes
them feel its marble angles and iron harrows. I can find no
good reason to give, to a spirit fresh from the hand of God and
enjoying its free integrity, for subjecting it to so many use-
less and foolish servitudes. Unless I had such habits as I have
not, and such charlatanism as I neither could nor would have, I
do not understand how I could dare ask my children to recog-
nize the pretended necessity of our ridiculous fetters. Therefore
I have but one means,-authority: and I use it when I must,-
that is, very rarely; besides, it is a thing I would not advise any
one to try, unless they have the means of making themselves
loved as much as feared.
TRULY, no one had ever sufficiently praised the beauty of the
sky and the charms of Venice to us. On fine evenings the
lagoon is so calm that the stars do not tremble upon it. Out in
the middle, it is so blue and smooth that the eye loses the hori-
zon line, and sky and water become an azure veil, where revery
loses its way and falls asleep The air is so pure and trans-
parent that one discerns five hundred thousand times more stars
in the sky than can be seen in our northern France. I have
seen nights when there were so many stars that their silvery
## p. 12789 (#207) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12789
whiteness held more space in the vault of the firmament than the
blue of the ether.
There was such a sprinkling of diamonds that
there was quite as much light as the moon gives in Paris.
I do
not wish to insinuate anything against our moon: she is a pale
beauty whose melancholy says more to our intellect than this one
does, perhaps. Hazy nights in our mild provinces have charms
that no one has enjoyed more than I, and that no one has less
desire to disown. Nature here, being more vigorous in her influ-
ence, may perhaps silence the intellect a little too much. She
sends thought to sleep, agitates hearts, and rules the senses.
Unless one be a man of genius, it is useless to think of writing
poems during these voluptuous nights: one must either love or
sleep.
There is one delightful spot for sleeping: it is the flight
of marble steps leading from the viceroy's garden to the Canal.
When the gilded gate is closed on the garden side, you can be
rowed in a gondola to these flagstones still warm with the setting
sun's rays, and not be disturbed by any intruding pedestrian
unless he has the means of reaching you by the faith St. Peter
lacked. I have spent many an hour there all alone, thinking of
nothing, while Catullo and his gondola slept out on the water,
within call of my whistle. When the midnight breeze blows over
the lime-trees, and shakes their blossoms on the water; when the
perfume of geraniums and clove-trees rises in puffs as if the earth
were exhaling balmy sighs under the moon's gaze; when the
cupolas of Santa Maria raise their alabaster hemispheres and their
turban-crowned minarets to the sky; when water, sky, and mar-
ble- the three elements of Venice. are all white, and a great
brazen voice floats over my head from the tower of St. Mark,-
I begin to live by my pores alone, and woe to him who might
come and appeal to my soul! I vegetate, rest, forget. Who, in
my place, would not do the same? How could you expect me
to worry about finding out whether Mr. So-and-So has written.
an article on my books, or whether Mr. What's-his-Name has
declared my principles dangerous and my cigar immoral? All I
can say is, that these gentlemen are very good to trouble about
me, and that if I had no debts I should not leave the viceroy's
steps to give them food for scandal at my desk. "Ma la fama,"
says proud Alfieri. "Ma la fame," gayly replies Gozzi. *
"But-fame! »
"But - hunger! "
―
## p. 12790 (#208) ##########################################
12790
GEORGE SAND
I defy any one to prevent me from sleeping agreeably when
I see Venice, so impoverished, so oppressed, and so wretched,
defy Time and men to prevent her from being beautiful and
serene. There she is, all around me, looking at her reflection in
her lagoons, with the air of a sultana; and are not those fisher-
men who sleep on the pavement of the opposite shore both
winter and summer, with no other pillow than a granite step,
and no other mattress than their slashed jackets, a great example
of philosophy as well? When they have not the wherewithal for
a pound of rice, they sing a chorus to forget their hunger; and
in the same way they defy both their masters and their misery,
accustomed as they are to brave heat, cold, and squalls. It will
take many a year of slavery to completely brutalize this careless
and frivolous disposition, that has lived on amusements and fes-
tivities so many years.
Life in Venice is still so easy! Nature
there is so rich and so readily turned to account! The sea and
the lagoons teem with fish and game, and there is enough shell-
fish caught in the open streets to feed all the population. Gar-
dens make excellent returns: there is not a corner of that rich
clay which does not generously produce more fruits and vegeta-
bles than a field on terra firma. Every day, boats loaded with
fruits, flowers, and such sweet-smelling herbs that their perfumed
trace can be scented in the early morning mist, come in from
the thousand islets dotting the lagoon. The port being free,
foreign commodities are not dear; the most exquisite wines from
the Archipelago cost less at Venice than the commonest wine at
Paris. Oranges arrive from Palermo in such profusion that on
the day the Sicilian vessel comes into port, ten of the finest can
be bought for four or five cents of our money. Hence animal
life is the least cause of expense at Venice, and the transporta-
tion of provisions is so easily effected that it fosters the indo-
lence of the natives. Market produce comes to your house-door
by water, and hucksters pass through the streets and over the
bridges. The exchange of money for daily food is managed
by means of a rope and basket. In this way a family can be
abundantly supplied without going out, or even sending a serv-
ant. What a difference between this convenient mode of exist-
ence and the laborious toil that a family merely half-poor is
obliged to perform every single day in Paris, and then only
to dine worse than the poorest Venetian workman! What a dif-
ference too, between the preoccupied and serious faces of the
## p. 12791 (#209) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12791
people who jostle each other and hurry, get muddy and elbow
their way through the Parisian crowd, and the easy-going pace
of these Venetians, who sing as they crawl along, and lie down.
every now and then on the smooth, warm pavement of the quays!
The traders who bring their whole stock to Venice daily in a
single basket are the jolliest wags in the world, and retail jokes
with their wares. The fishmonger, at the close of his day's
wanderings, tired and hoarse after shouting all the morning,
comes and sits down in a square or on a parapet; and to sell
his remnants he throws out the most ingenious invitations to all
who pass by, or to the smokers on the neighboring balconies.
"Just look! " he says: "this is the finest fish I had in the whole
lot! I kept it till now, because I know that rich people dine
later than others nowadays. See these fine sardines, four for
two centimes. One glance of the pretty housemaid at this fine
fish, and another into the bargain at the poor fisherman! " The
water-carrier makes puns while offering his merchandise. "Aqua
fresca e tenera. " The gondolier at his station solicits passengers
with marvelous offers. "Are we going to Trieste this evening,
my lord? Here is a fine gondola, not afraid of a gale on the
high seas, and a gondolier who can row to Constantinople with-
out stopping! "
Unexpected pleasures are the only pleasures in this world.
Yesterday I wanted to see the moon rise on the Adriatic; I
never could induce Catullo the elder to take me to the shore of
the Lido. He pretended what they all pretend when they do
not want to obey, that wind and tide were against him. I most
cordially wished the doctor to the deuce for having sent me this
asthmatic fellow, who gives up the ghost at every stroke of his
oar, and chatters more than a thrush when he is in his cups. I
was in the worst kind of humor when, in front of the Salute,
we met a boat slowly gliding down towards the Grand Canal,
shedding the sounds of a delicious serenade, like a perfume, in its
wake. "Turn your prow," I said to old Catullo: "I hope you'll
have at least the strength to follow that boat. "
Another boat loitering about there followed my example, then
a second one, and yet another; and at last, all those out breath-
ing the evening freshness on the Canalazzo, and even some
empty boats, began to row towards us, their gondoliers shouting
«Music! Music! " in as famished a way as the Israelites clamor-
ing for manna in the desert. In ten minutes a flotilla had
formed about the dilettanti; every oar was silent, and the boats
## p. 12792 (#210) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12792
were carried on by the current. The harmony swept softly on
with the breeze, and the oboe sighed so tenderly that every one
held his breath for fear of interrupting its love-plaints. The
violin began to weep so sadly and with so sympathetic a quiver-
ing that I dropped my pipe and pulled my cap down to my eyes.
Then the harp let us hear two or three scales of harmonious
sounds which seemed to come down from heaven, and promise
the caresses and consolations of angels to suffering souls on
earth. Next the horn came out of the heart of the woods, as it
were; and each one of us thought he saw his first love come
from the heights of the forests of Frioul, and draw near to the
joyous sound of the flourish. The oboe addressed her with more
passionate words than those of a dove following its beloved
through the air. The violin breathed throbs of convulsive joy;
the harp made its deep strings vibrate generously, as if they
were the palpitations of a flaming heart; and the tones of the
four instruments clasped each other like blessed souls embracing
before departing for heaven together. I caught and held their
accents, and my imagination heard them long after they had
ceased. Their passage had left a magic warmth in the atmo-
sphere, as if Love had shaken it with his wings.
A few moments of silence, which no one dared to break, fol-
lowed. The melodious bark began to move more rapidly, as if it
wished to escape from us; but we dashed in its wake. We were
like a flock of petrels fighting to be the first to seize a gold-fish.
We pressed around it, the great steel saws of our prows shining
in the moonlight like the fiery teeth of Ariosto's dragons. The
fugitive freed itself in Orpheus's manner: a few chords on the
harp made all fall into silence and order again. At the sound of
the light arpeggios, three gondolas took their place at either side
of the one carrying the symphony, and followed the adagio with
a religiously slow movement. The others dropped behind, form-
ing a retinue; and this was not the worst place for hearing.
These rows of silent gondolas, gliding so gently down the wide
and magnificent Venetian canal, were a sight made to realize the
loveliest of dreams. At the sound of the sweetest strains of
'Oberon' and 'William Tell,' every ripple, every light rebound
of the oars, seemed to respond fondly to the sentiment of each
musical phrase. The gondoliers, standing in their bold attitude.
at the stern, were outlined against the blue air like thin black
spectres, behind the groups of friends and lovers they were
rowing. The moon was rising slowly, and began to show her
## p. 12793 (#211) ##########################################
GEORGE SAND
12793
inquisitive face above the roofs; she too seemed to be listening,
and to like the music. One of the palace-lined banks of the
Canal, still steeped in darkness, stenciled its huge Moorish lace-
work, blacker than the gates of hell, against the sky. The other
bank received the reflection of the full moon, now as broad and
white as a silver shield, on its serene and silent façades. This
immense line of fairy-like buildings, illumined by no other light
than that of the heavenly bodies, was truly sublime in its look of
solitude, repose, and immobility. The slender statues, rising by
hundreds against the sky, seemed flights of mysterious spirits.
charged to protect the mute city's rest, plunged thus in a slum-
ber like that of the Sleeping Beauty, and condemned like her to
sleep a hundred years and more
We rowed along thus for nearly an hour. The gondoliers had
become rather wild. Old Catullo himself bounded at the allegro,
and followed the rapid course of the little fleet. Then his oar
would take an amoroso movement at the andante, and he would
accompany it with a sort of grunt of beatitude. The orchestra
halted under the portico of the White Lion. I leaned over to see
"my lord" step out of his gondola. He was a splenetic child of
seventeen or eighteen, burdened with a long Turkish pipe, that
he could not have smoked completely without becoming con-
sumptive to the last degree. He looked very much bored; but
he had paid for a serenade that I had enjoyed far more than he,
and for which I was very much obliged to him. G. SAND.
SIMON
[The Count de Fougères had emigrated before the Revolution. During
his exile he had been a merchant in Istria, had married an Italian, and
when he returned brought a daughter, Fiamma, with him. She having repub-
lican blood in her veins,- the blood of those brave bandits who had held out
against Austria to the death,- does not want to have the old aristocratic
privileges revived in her favor. The novel closes by her marrying Simon,
-a young lawyer, the son of peasants,— who typifies all the sufferings of the
intelligent and generous déclassé of society. ]
M
EANWHILE the Count de Fougères came to take possession
of his new home. The villagers were too anxious to make
him pay a sort of "earnest money," to spare him the inflic-
tion of new merry-makings and new honors. When he saw there
## p. 12794 (#212) ##########################################
12794
GEORGE SAND
was no escape, he yielded gracefully and presented his "dear vas-
sals" with a barrel of wine, at the same time wishing with all his
heart that their warm affection towards him might cool a little.
But that was not the way to do it. He was welcomed, extolled,
complimented, awakened at dawn to the sound of bagpipes a
second time, and re-bombarded with fire-crackers. He took it in
good part, shook hands an incredible number of times, raised his
hat even to the village dogs, composed an infinite quantity of
variations on the invariable words of his gracious replies, endured
the interminable and fatiguing conversations with evangelic pa-
tience; and having made himself as popular a sovereign as possi-
ble, went to bed worn out with fatigue, infected by proletarian
miasmas, while his administrative brain calculated by how much
he could raise this one's rent and lower that one's wages, on
account of all these loans of paternal affability. Mademoiselle de
Fougères displayed a disposition which was pronounced haughty
and impertinent, by shutting herself up in her room during all
these sentimental pasquinades. She remained invisible, and her
father could not make her retiring sincerity bend to the politic
considerations due to his position; she had a mute and respectful
way of opposing him that broke him like a straw-him, so mean
in thought, feeling, and language. He felt that he could rule that
iron soul by conviction alone, and that the power to convince was
precisely what he lacked. Feeling that it would be a hopeless
task to punish his daughter, he was obliged to allow her to hide.
or be silent.
A few days after these extraordinary festivals, the village
patron saint's day was to be celebrated. Monsieur de Fougères
had gone to a cattle fair in Bourbonnais the previous day; for
no sooner had he been made lord of the manor than he became
a dealer again. Among all the persons who had testified their
zeal, one thought he had not sufficiently bent the knee before his
name and title. This was the village priest; a young man with
neither judgment nor true piety, but who, having read some old
ecclesiastical documents, wanted to resuscitate a singular custom
at the earliest opportunity. On the patron saint's day the sexton
was sent to Mademoiselle de Fougères, requesting her not to
fail to be present at the blessing of the Holy Sacrament. This
message surprised the young Italian very much. She thought it
strange for a priest to arrogate to himself the right to point out
her duty in such a manner. Nevertheless, she did not think she
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could be excused from performing what her education rendered
sacred. Still, fearing some such snare as she had hitherto been
able to avoid, she did not go into the raised pew reserved for
the ancient lords of Fougères,-a pew placed in full sight to
the right of the choir, and now furnished with a rug and several
arm-chairs at the priest's own expense. , Fiamma waited until
vespers had begun; then slipped into church in the plainest gar-
ments, and mingled with the crowd of women who in that part
of the country kneel on the church pavement. She hated the
flattery paid to any special class; but thought that before God.
she could not bow down with too much humility.
It was vain for her to hope to escape the village priest's
scrutinizing glance, or the sexton's, who had been told to find
her. The church was very small; and besides, the custom of
the country separates the women from the men, and gathers the
former in one of the naves. Between the 'Magnificat' and the
'Pange Lingua,' in the interval used by the officiating priest for
putting on his pontifical vestments, the sexton passed through
the feminine crowd, and in the priest's name came to beg
Mademoiselle de Fougères to take a place more suited to her
rank. When she refused to go to the pew, the obstinate assist-
ant had an arm-chair and a hassock placed near the railing sepa-
rating the two sexes at the entrance to the choir, just as he
would have done for his bishop. He thought that Mademoiselle
de Fougères would not be able to resist this flattering invitation,
and concluded to go back to the altar.
In the mean time the rows of women separating Mademoiselle
de Fougères from the insolent arm-chair had opened, and every
eye seemed to be requesting her to condescend to take possession
of it. Jeanne Féline alone, whose fervent prayer was somewhat
disturbed, and whose honest and incorruptible good-sense was no
less shocked, by what was going on, lowered her prayer-book,
raised her hood, and fixed on Mademoiselle de Fougères a look
in which the pride of virtue and the fire of youth shone amidst
all the ravages of age and sorrow. Fiamma saw her, and recog-
nized Simon's mother by a distant likeness of features and a
striking similarity of expression. She had heard this woman's
merit praised, and had wished for an opportunity to make her
acquaintance. She therefore bore the look quietly, and by her
own expressed that she was ready to enter into communication
with her.
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GEORGE SAND
Madame Féline, as bold and ingenuous as truth itself, ad-
dressed her at once, and whispered:
"Well, mademoiselle, what does your conscience bid you do? ”
"My conscience," replied Fiamma unhesitatingly, "bids me
stay here and offer you the arm-chair as a mark of respect due
you. "
--
Jeanne Féline was so far from expecting this answer that she
was dumbfounded.
Mademoiselle de Fougères was not, like her father, a person
who could be accused of courting popularity. She was said to
have the opposite failing, and Jeanne could not understand why
she had remained in the general crowd from the beginning of
the ceremony. At length her face softened; and resisting
Fiamma, who wanted to lead her to the arm-chair, she said:-
"No, not I: it would ill become me to take a place of honor
before God, who sees the depths of all hearts and our weakness.
But look! there is the oldest woman in the village,-one who
has known four generations; she usually has a chair, but is
kneeling on the ground to-day. They forgot her on your ac-
count. "
Mademoiselle de Fougères followed the direction of Jeanne's
gesture, and saw a centenarian, for whom some young girls had
made a sort of cushion with their fustian cloaks. She went
towards her, and with Madame Féline's assistance, helped her
to rise and sit down in the arm-chair. The old woman did not
resist, not understanding what was taking place, and thanked
them by nodding her trembling head.
Mademoiselle de Fougères knelt on the pavement close to
Jeanne, so as to be entirely hidden by the back of the great
arm-chair; in which the ancient dame, who performed her reli-
gious duties by mere force of habit, owing to her age soon fell
quietly asleep.
The priest, however, knowing that downcast eyes harmonize
with the fervor of an officiator, could just see a woman with
a white head-covering in the arm-chair. He fancied that his
negotiations had been successful, and began to officiate calmly;
but when the time came for the explosion of his great project;
- when he had descended the three steps of the altar and knelt
to burn incense before the Holy Sacrament, crossed the choir
and walked towards the arm-chair to render the same honor to
Mademoisellede Fougères according to ancient feudal custom,- he
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12797
noticed his mistake, and his arm remained suspended between
heaven and earth; while all the congregation of the faithful, eyes
and mouths wide open, were wondering why these unusual honors
were being paid to Mother Mathurin.
The young priest did not lose his composure: but seeing that
Mademoiselle de Fougères had carried her point, with a little
obstinacy and malice showed her that she was not to have it all
her own way; for turning briskly to the other side, he swung the
censers towards the seignorial pew, thus giving the empty place
the honors due more to the title than to its bearers. The whole
village was amazed; and it took more than six months to make
the commentators, who were worn out by inquiries and discussions,
adopt the true version of the event. The relatives of the cen-
tenarian did not fail to say that she had been blessed in virtue
of an ancient custom giving this preference to persons a hun-
dred years old; and that the priest had found it in the archives
of the commune. As for the old woman, being nearly blind and
more than half asleep when she was thus honored, as her ear
was fortunate enough to be forever closed to all human speech
and all worldly noise, she died without ever knowing that she
had had incense burned before her.
FRANÇOIS THE FIELD-FOUNDLING
Preface to François le Champi >
THE
HE moon shed a dim silver light on the paths through the
darkened fields as R and I were on our way home
from walk. It was a mild and softly clouded autumn
evening; and we were noticing the sonority peculiar to the air,
as well as the indefinable mystery pervading nature at that sea-
son. One might say that as the heavy winter sleep draws nigh,
all things and creatures furtively endeavor to enjoy the last rem-
nants of life and animation before the fatal coming on of be-
numbing frost; and as if they wanted to cheat the flight of time,
and feared to be surprised and interrupted in the last gambols
of their merry-making, gave themselves up silently and without
apparent activity to their nocturnal ecstasies. Birds utter smoth-
ered cries instead of the joyous flourishes of summer days. The
insect in the furrows lets us hear an indiscreet exclamation now
and then; but interrupts itself at once, and quickly transfers its
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GEORGE SAND
chirp or plaint to another rallying-point. Plants hasten to exhale
their last perfume, all the sweeter for being subtler and long
repressed. The fading leaves dare not quiver under the breath
of the breeze; while the flocks graze in silence, without a sound.
of strife or love.
Even we, my friend and I, walked cautiously; instinctive med-
itation holding us mute, and as it were, observant of nature's
softened beauty and the enchanting harmony of her last chords,
now dying away in an imperceptible pianissimo. Autumn is a
graceful and melancholy andante, admirably introducing the sol-
emn adagio of winter.
At length my friend, who had followed my thoughts as I had
followed his, in spite of our silence, said: "All this is so calm,
and seems absorbed in a revery so foreign and indifferent to the
labors, foresight, and cares of man, that it makes me wonder
what expression, what coloring, what manifestation of art and
poetry human intelligence could give to the physiognomy of
nature at this particular moment. And to make the aim of my
inquiry clearer to you, I will compare this evening, this sky and
this landscape,- all of them so dim yet so harmonious and
complete, to the soul of a wise and pious peasant who works
and profits by his labor, enjoys his peculiar kind of life without
feeling the need or the wish, and without having the means to
manifest or express, his inner life. I try to set myself in the
heart of this mystery of rustic and natural life,-I, the civilized
creature, who do not know how to enjoy by instinct alone,— and
am forever tormented by the desire to render an account, both
to myself and others, of my contemplation or my meditation. "
"And then," continued my friend, “I am anxiously seeking
what connection can be established between my too active intelli-
gence, and the peasant's which is not active enough; just as I
was wondering a while ago what painting, music,-in short,
what the description, the translation by art,- could add to the
beauty of this autumn night, which reveals itself to me by its
mysterious reticence, and penetrates me although I do not know
by what magic communication. "
"Let me see whether I fully understand how the question is
stated," I replied. "Let us take this October night, this color-
less sky, this music without any marked or sequent melody, this
calm of nature, and the peasant who by his simplicity comes
nearer to enjoying and understanding, without describing it, than
____
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we do,- and putting all these together, let us call it primitive
life, relatively to our developed and complicated existence, which
I will call factitious life. You ask what the possible connection,
the direct link, between these two opposite states of the existence.
of things and creatures may be; between the palace and the
cottage, the artist and his creation, the poet and the plowman. "
"Yes," he resumed; "and to state it precisely,- between
the language spoken by this nature, this primitive life, and these
instincts, and that spoken by art, science,
in
a word, by
knowledge. "
"To speak in the language you adopt, I should answer that
the connection between knowledge and sensation is feeling. "
-
"The definition of that feeling is precisely what I am ques-
tioning you about, while I am interrogating myself. The mani-
festation that so puzzles me is intrusted to it;. this definition.
is the art-the artist, if you choose - commissioned to translate
the candor, grace, and charm of primitive life for those who live
the factitious life alone, and who are (permit me to say so) the
greatest idiots in the world when they stand before nature and
her divine secrets. "
-
"You ask for nothing less than the very secret of art: seek
that in the bosom of God, for no artist can reveal it to you. He
does not know it himself, and could not give an account of
either his inspiration or his impotence. How are we to express
beauty, simplicity, and truth? Indeed, I do not know. And who
could teach us? Not even the greatest artists could do it, for
if they tried they would no longer be artists, but become critics;
and as for criticism — ! ”
"Criticism," resumed my friend, "has been revolving around
the mystery for centuries without understanding anything about
it. But, pardon me, that is not precisely what I was asking.
am even more of a barbarian just now; I call the very power of
art in question. I despise it; I annihilate it; I maintain that art
is not born, that it does not exist, or if it has existed its time
is past. It is worn out, it has no more forms, it has no more
breath, it no longer has the means to sing the beauty of truth.
Nature is a work of art; but God is the only existing artist, and
man is but a tasteless compiler. Nature is beautiful; she exhales
feeling at every pore: and with her, love and youth and beauty
are undying.
