XIV FLIGHT

XIV

Cannes.

A sage among civilized people, Diogenes tells me, decrees the uttering of hypocritical compliments during the last days of the year, but this does not suit me at all for several reasons. The first one is that I am aware of the seasons, but not of the years, which have already fallen on me in such numbers that I should be engulfed by them. Now it is warm, now it is cold. The seasons alternate and do not accumulate. The second, third and other reasons are that I have a profound disgust for men and no longer wish to resemble them in anything. I am going to leave, I shall return to the old, consecrated woods, to the fortune awaiting me on the paths. I have engaged my passage on a vessel which returns to the land of Theocritus, deprived of the citrons it brought. Diogenes has pointed out to me that I would doubtless be very ill and that I might be shipwrecked, but I believe he did it only to frighten me, and besides I prefer risking every peril to becoming, in the end, a man like yourself. I leave, I leave! Nothing shall hold me.

I flee a frightful evil, which reduces my strength, exhausts my limbs, which might succeed in turning my skin white. Diogenes, who is touched with the malady like myself, but less perhaps, supports it merrily, laughs at me, swears that it is the common lot of mankind and that I must learn to live with him. I already suffered an attack and acquainted you with its nature, I believe, but this time it is intolerable. This is boredom. Everything seems unprofitable. I have no desire and life for me is vapid. Diogenes tells me that this seizure will pass like the first one, but it is much stronger and I succumb to it. I feel that solitude alone can cure me and I must apply myself to seek it with the last ounce of energy left in me.

Cydalise has absolutely forgotten me. This caused me bitter pain, a sentiment of which I am ashamed. Diogenes finds it an honorable one, but happily I am not fashioned like you and find myself horrified at the idea that a woman should have been able to reduce me to such a degree of slavery that her forgetfulness would make me wretched. The worst of it is that a part of me thinks like Diogenes. He has left for a trip to Toulon. She has never returned. She has not written. Finally, through a female companion, he learned that Cydalise had never gone to Toulon; the informant added that we would perhaps have some tidings before long. I would henceforth like to know only chance women like the one I met in the gardens of Monte-Carlo. It is wrong for a person to belie his own nature. I am pleased with those women who come led by pure chance, and who pass.

I am leaving! Yet there is a consolation in those syllables which I often repeat and which betoken my last days among men. Diogenes does not try very hard to detain me. He sees my dejection and has renounced the idea of conquering it. Besides, I believe he is feeling the nostalgia of his libidinous life, the trip to Toulon awoke his memories. I shall perhaps miss him. He is not at all ignorant of the customs of the women of the country and I, who am almost totally ignorant of them, enjoyed his bitter words which were yet full of gayety.

“You will return to us, Satyros, when solitude, or rather barbarism, will have strengthened your heart. You still have many experiences awaiting you among us, I mean to say among women who love and this includes them all, if one counts those who shun love because they fancy they are afraid. You have only known those who throw themselves at men, but there are others who must be conquered. There lies infinity, Satyros. It is our infinity and generally our sepulchre. We descend thither, ever dreaming of the enigma of their smile, and we will never know whether their smiles are natural expressions or condescensions. You cannot understand this, I fear, Satyros, but one loves these women in proportion as one suspects their love, of which one is never sure. They are never completely conquered, and this is what gives such value to their slightest favors. It is a quite different world. You have not the faintest idea of it, Satyros. You have remained with Phryne, access to whom is always assured by a bag of gold....”

“What is this thing you call gold?”

“Or a fine reputation as a faun.”

“That is more to the point.”

“I do not deny that this last merit, which is yours, might not still gain you some hearts whose pride has not killed curiosity, but for this, too, you will need a diplomatic tact which is not yet a part of you.”

“The thing bores me in advance!”

“You cannot know. Ah! Satyros, despite your little adventure with Cydalise, you still have a lovely, sentimental ignorance. How many steps you have still to mount, or perhaps descend, to reach the level of beautiful, delicate humanity!”

“To descend, Diogenes, to descend. But I no longer desire to resemble men. I want to leave.”

“You too will think so when you will be alone with your brothers the trees and the vanishing shadows of your desires. Patience! You will return. And for this one must leave. Nostalgia is the beginning of the spiritual life. Ennui is the nobility of the soul.”

“I would have thought it was rather joy.”

“No, a joyous soul will never be thoroughly distinguished. If you must caper, at least let it be done with melancholy. Look at me steadily. Infinity commences to appear in your eyes, Satyros, I believe I discover in you a Christian faun in his birth.”

“I dimly feel, Diogenes, that you are bantering. No matter, I will perhaps miss you.”

“I really hope so. But I am not bantering. I find that a certain sadness has touched your heart. If you remained, you would soon weary of pleasures. In fine, this state does not befit a god. It is good for us, it is good for me who have no more than this means of living the last years of my poor life. Life escapes me and I only capture it by feigning indifference, for there is an irony in things and they love the malice of contradiction. But I feel that I still have some love for them and that this love is useless. Do you see what is taking place in me?”

“I see nothing at all, despite my earnest application, but I hope that you will be happy and that Erebus will be good to you.”

“That is understood. Adieu. I return to my turpitude.”

Ah! I shall never understand men! But my vessel leaves at break of day and I must sleep on board. I do not know if I shall ever again have the occasion or even the desire to write you.

Antiphilos, Satyr.

(END)

Three Stories from COLORS By REMY DE GOURMONT

Translated by Louis Lozowick

NEW YORK LIEBER & LEWIS MCMXXII

Copyright, 1922, By LIEBER & LEWIS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA