Bernardin de St. Pierre

by Arvède Barine

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre had so absolutely lost sight of his systems, that he gives to Virginia the refined modesty which is only generated in creatures complicated by civilisation. "Children of Nature" are ignorant of these shy reserves which do not occur at all without a certain amount of knowledge. Longus is much more to the point when he depicts the amorous Chloe kissing her Daphnis with all her heart, and without thinking of any harm, as a "simple girl brought up in the country, and never having in her life heard even the name of love."

A terrible summer came to increase the mysterious trouble from which Virginia suffered. "It was towards the end of December when the sun in Capricorn, for weeks burns the Isle of France with its vertical rays. The south wind which prevails there nearly the whole year, blew no longer. Great clouds of dust rose upon the roads and remained suspended in the air. The earth cracked in all directions; the grass was burnt; warm exhalations issued from the sides of the mountains, and most of the brooks were dried up. Not a cloud came from the side of the sea, only during the day a ruddy vapour would rise from its plains, appearing at sunset like the blaze of a conflagration. Night even brought no coolness to the heated atmosphere. The moon, quite red, rose in the misty horizon with extraordinary grandeur. The flocks, prostrate upon the hill-sides, inhaling the air, made the valleys echo with their sad bleatings. Even the Kafir tending them lay upon the earth to find some coolness there; but everywhere the ground was burning, and the stifling air resounded with the hum of insects, trying to quench their thirst in the blood of men and animals."

The drama now develops itself in strict accordance with these exterior sensations. "On one of those sultry nights Virginia felt all the symptoms of her malady redoubled. She rose, sat up, lay down again, not finding in any attitude sleep or repose. By the light of the moon she directed her steps towards the spring. She could see its source which, in spite of the drought, still flowed like a silver thread along the brown surface of the rock. She plunged into its trough, and at first the coolness revived her, and a thousand agreeable recollections presented themselves to her mind. She remembered that in her infancy her mother and Marguerite amused themselves by bathing her with Paul in this same place; that Paul afterwards, reserving this bath for her, had hollowed it out, covered the bottom with sand, and sown on its margin aromatic herbs. She caught a glimpse in the water on her bare arms and bosom of the reflections of two palm-trees, planted at her own and her brother's birth, which interlaced their green branches and young cocoa-nuts above her head. She thought of Paul's friendship, sweeter than perfume, purer than the waters of the springs, stronger than the united palm-trees, and she sighed. She thought of the night, of solitude; and a devouring fire took possession of her. She rose at once, afraid of these dangerous shadows, and these waters more burning than the suns of the Torrid Zone. She ran to her mother to seek protection from herself. Several times, wishing to tell her her sufferings, she took her hands between her own, several times she was near breathing Paul's name, but her oppressed heart left her tongue without speech, and laying her head on her mother's breast she could only burst into floods of tears."

A tempest ravages their valley and destroys their garden, leaving however after it a feeling of peace and repose. Virginia restored, becomes once more familiar and affectionate with Paul, but it is only a flash of light in the darkness, which disappears with the expansion of nerves produced by the cool damp air.

Already while his hero and heroine were but infants, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre showed us how nature, even at that early age, mingled in their pleasures and needs, so that "their life seemed one with that of the trees, like the fauns and hamadryads." Now it is in their passions that nature takes part, and with what intensity the scene of the bath, and the return of intimacy after the storm show us vividly. The author profits by the characters he has in hand to realise a conception already old, and establish a bond, henceforth indissoluble, between the human soul and its surroundings. The bond existed before his time; it is as old as the world and it acts, without their knowledge, upon the most uncultured beings. But in the age and surroundings where men have learnt to recognise it, to be conscious of it, it requires so much strength and importance that we may be allowed to welcome it as a new force. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre pointed it out, showed it at work, and the lesson was not lost. Chateaubriand was twenty at the time of the appearance of Paul and Virginia. When his René cries out amidst the whistling of the wind, "Be swift to gather ye tempests that I have longed for," he does not know whether he is speaking of real storms or of those in his soul. He confounds them, and no one is unaware how much poetical inspiration has been given to our age by this confusion between our feelings and external impressions.

Let us remark in passing that it was not worth while being so indignant in the Études de la Nature against those who dared to say that morals vary with the climate. The fragments which we have just read bring us to exactly the same conclusion.

It is also a landscape which prepares us, if I may so express it, for the scene of the love-confession, when after the episode of the letter which calls Virginia away to France, the two young people go out after supper to spend their last evening together. They seat themselves upon a hillock and at first remain absolutely silent.

It was one of those delicious nights so common in the tropics, whose beauty no brush however skilful can paint. The moon appeared in the midst of the firmament, surrounded with a curtain of clouds which were gradually dispersed by her rays. Her light spread by degrees over the mountains of the island, and over their highest peaks which shone with silvery green. The winds held their breath. One heard in the woods, in the depths of the valleys, and on the rocky heights, little cries, soft murmurs of birds billing and cooing in their nests, happy in the moonlight and the tranquility of the air. On the ground everything seemed to be stirring, even the insects.

The night seemed to breathe of love: an intoxicating languor stole over the two lovers, and they spoke at last and confessed their secret. Paul's speech is a little too set, the phrases too smooth, too careful. Virginia's reply is full of passion and impulse, even when we abridge it, and only retain the cry at the end: "Oh, Paul, Paul! thou art much dearer to me than a brother! How much has it not cost me to hold thee at a distance!... Now whether I remain or go, live or die, do with me as thou wilt...." At these words Paul clasped her in his arms.

Virginia departs, and with her goes the inspiration. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre seems to be filled with remorse for having lingered over trifles which have taught us nothing, unless it is that love belongs to the number of "natural laws" which govern our earth (we ourselves rather question it). He tries to make up for lost time, and succeeds only too well, for until the final catastrophe, we never cease to be taught, and to verify the truth of the ideas propounded in the Études de la Nature. Paul learns to read and write so as to be able to correspond with Virginia, and he loses at once his tranquility of mind. What he learns from romances makes him uneasy and jealous: "His knowledge already makes him unhappy." He talks sometimes with the other inhabitants, but their slander, their vain gossip are so many more causes of sorrow; why was he so imprudent as to leave his desert? "Solitude restores man in part to natural happiness, by keeping from him social unhappiness."