On this hypothesis, all would be reduced to nothing.
Our reason is not immense, our terrestrial faculties are sufficiently limited, but this reason and these faculties suffice none the less to make us feel the improbability, the absurdity, of this hypothesis, and we reject it as incompatible with the sublime grandeur of the spectacle of the universe.
Undoubtedly, Creation does not seem to concern itself with us. It proceeds on its inexorable course without consulting our sensations. With the poet we regret the implacable serenity of Nature, opposing the irony of its smiling splendor to our mourning, our revolts, and our despair.
Que peu de temps suffit pour changer toutes choses!
Nature au front serein, comme vous oubliez!
Et comme vous brisez dans vos métamorphoses
Les fils mystérieux où nos cœurs sont liés.
D'autres vont maintenant passer où nous passâmes;
Nous y sommes venus, d'autres vont y venir,
Et le songe qu'avaient ébauché nos deux âmes,
Ils le continueront sans pouvoir le finir.
Car personne ici-bas ne termine et n'acheve;
Les pires des humains sont comme les meilleurs;
Nous nous éveillons tous au même endroit du rêve:
Tout commence en ce monde et tout finit ailleurs.
Répondez, vallon pur, répondez, solitude!
O Nature, abritée en ce désert si beau,
Quand nous serons couchés tous deux, dans l'attitude
Que donne aux morts pensifs la forme du tombeau,
Est-ce que vous serez à ce point insensible,
De nous savoir perdus, morts avec nos amours,
Et de continuer votre fête paisible
Et de toujours sourire et de chanter toujours?[16]
Note.—Free Translation.
How brief a time suffices for all things to change! Serene-fronted Nature, too soon you will forget!... in your metamorphoses ruthlessly snapping the cords that bind our hearts together!
Others will pass where we pass; we have arrived, and others will arrive after us: the thought sketched out by our souls will be pursued by theirs ... and they will not find the solution of it.
For no one here begins or finishes: the worst are as the best of humans; we all awake at the same moment of the dream: we all begin in this world, and end otherwhere.
Reply, sweet valley, reply, solitude; O Nature, sheltering in this splendid desert, when we are both asleep, and cast by the tomb into the attitude of pensive death.
Will you to the last verge be so insensible, that, knowing us lost, and dead with our loves, you will pursue your cheerful feast, and smile, and sing always?