De toutes les noirceurs par la flamme sauvage!
Transfiguration suprême! acte de foi!
Nous sommes deux sous l'œil de Dieu, Satan et moi.
Deux porte-fourches, lui, moi. Deux maîtres des
flammes.
Lui perdant les humains, moi secourant les âmes;
Tous deux bourreaux, faisant par le même moyen
Lui l'enfer, moi le ciel, lui le mal, moi le bien;
Il est dans le cloaque et je suis dans le temple,
Et le noir tremblement de l'ombre nous contemple.
Il se retourne vers les suppliciés.
Ah! sans moi, vous étiez perdus, mes bien-aimés!
La piscine de feu vous épure enflammés.
Ah! vous me maudissez pour un instant qui passe,
Enfants! mais tout à l'heure, oui, vous me rendrez
grâce
Quand vous verrez à quoi vous avez échappé;
Car, ainsi que Michel-Archange, j'ai frappé;
Car les blancs séraphins, penchés au puits de souffre,
Raillent le monstrueux avortement du gouffre;
Car votre hurlement de haine arrive au jour,
Bégaie, et, stupéfait, s'achève enchant d'amour!
Oh! comme j'ai souffert de vous voir dans les chambres
De torture, criant, pleurant, tordant vos membres,
Maniés par l'étau d'airain, par le fer chaud!
Vous voilà délivrés, partez, fuyez là-haut!
Entrez au paradis!
Il se penche et semble regarder sous terre.
Non, tu n'auras plus d'âmes!
Il se redresse.
Dieu nous donne l'appui que nous lui demandâmes,
Et l'homme est hors du gouffre. Allez, allez, allez!
À travers l'ombre ardente et les grands feux ailés,
L'évanouissement de la fumée emporte
Là-haut l'esprit vivant sauvé de la chair morte!
Tout le vieux crime humain de l'homme est arraché;
L'un avait son erreur, l'autre avait son péché,
Faute ou vice, chaque âme avait son monstre en elle
Qui rongeait sa lumière et qui mordait son aile;
L'ange expirait en proie au démon. Maintenant
Tout brûle, et le partage auguste et rayonnant
Se fait devant Jésus dans la clarté des tombes.
Dragons, tombez en cendre; envolez-vous, colombes!
Vous que l'enfer tenait, liberté! liberté!
Montez de l'ombre au jour. Changez d'éternité!
The last act would indeed be too cruel for endurance if it were not too beautiful for blame. But not the inquisition itself was more inevitably inexorable than is the spiritual law, the unalterable and immitigable instinct, of tragic poetry at its highest. Dante could not redeem Francesca, Shakespeare could not rescue Cordelia. To none of us, we must think, can the children of a great poet's divine imagination seem dearer or more deserving of mercy than they seemed to their creator: but when poetry demands their immolation, they must die, that they may live for ever.
Once more, but now for the last time, the world was to receive yet another gift from the living hand of the greatest man it had seen since Shakespeare. Towards the close of his eighty-second year he bestowed on us the crowning volume of his crowning work, the imperishable and inappreciable Légende des Siècles. And at the age of eighty-three years, two months, and twenty-six days, he entered into rest for ever, and into glory which can perish only with the memory of all things memorable among all races and nations of mankind.
I have spoken here—and no man can know so well or feel so deeply as myself with what imperfection of utterance and inadequacy of insight I have spoken—of Victor Hugo as the whole world knew and as all honorable or intelligent men regarded and revered him. But there are those among his friends and mine who would have a right to wonder if no word were here to be said of the unsolicited and unmerited kindness which first vouchsafed to take notice of a crude and puerile attempt to render some tribute of thanks for the gifts of his genius just twenty-three years ago; of the kindness which was always but too ready to recognize and requite a gratitude which had no claim on him but that of a very perfect loyalty; of the kindness which many years afterwards received me as a guest under his roof with the welcome of a father to a son. Such matters, if touched on at all, unquestionably should not be dwelt on in public: but to give them no word whatever of acknowledgment at parting would show rather unthankfulness than reserve in one who was honored so far above all possible hope or merit by the paternal goodness of Victor Hugo.