If the sky was clear, I crossed the Great Mall, around which lay meadows divided by hedges of willow-trees. In one of these willows, I had contrived a seat, like a nest: here, isolated between heaven and earth, I spent hours with the singing birds; my nymph was by my side. I also associated her image with the beauty of those spring nights filled with the freshness of the dew, the sighs of the nightingale and the murmuring of the breeze.
At other times I followed a deserted path, a stream adorned with its river-side plants; I listened to the sounds that issued from unfrequented parts; I lent an ear to every tree; I thought I heard the moonlight singing in the woods: I tried to tell these pleasures, and the words died upon my lips. I know not how I found my goddess again in the accents of a voice, the vibration of a harp, the velvety or liquid sounds of a horn or an harmonica. It would take too long to describe the fine journeys I took with my flower of love; how, hand in hand, we visited famous ruins, Venice, Rome, Athens, Jerusalem, Memphis, Carthage; how we crossed the seas; how we asked happiness of the palm-trees of Otaheite, of the scented groves of Timor and Amboyna; how, on the summit of the Himalayas, we went to wake the dawn; how we descended the sacred rivers whose spreading waves encircle gilt-domed pagodas; how we slept on the banks of the Ganges, while the Bengali, perched on the mast of a bamboo wherry, sang his Hindoo boat-song. Earth and Heaven no longer existed for me; above all, I forgot the latter; but though it no longer received my prayers, it heard the voice of my secret misery: for I suffered, and sufferings pray.
*
The sadder the season, the greater its harmony with myself; the time of hoar-frost makes communication less easy and isolates those who dwell in country-places: one feels more beyond the reach of men.
A moral character clings to autumn scenery: those leaves which fall like our years, those flowers which fade like our days, those clouds which fleet like our illusions, that light which fails like our intelligence, that sun which cools like our love, those streams which freeze like our life bear a secret relation to our destinies.
I beheld with ineffable pleasure the return of the season of storms, the passing of the swans and the ring-doves, the muster of the crows on the pond field, and their perching at nightfall on the tallest oaks in the Great Mall. When the evening raised a bluish vapor in the cross-roads of the forest, and the plaintive lays of the wind moaned in the withered moss, I entered into full possession of the sympathies of my nature. If I met some ploughman at the end of a field, I stopped to look at that man who had shot up in the shadow of the wheat with which he was to be reaped, and who, turning over the earth of his tomb with the plough-share, mingled his burning sweat with the icy rains of autumn: the furrow which he dug was the monument intended to outlive him. What did my elegant dæmon then do? By means of her magic, she wafted me to the banks of the Nile, and showed me the Egyptian pyramid sunk beneath the dust, as one day the Armorican furrow would lie hidden beneath the heather: I congratulated myself on having placed the fables of my felicity beyond the circle of human realities.
In the evening I embarked upon the pond, and, alone in my boat, rowed amidst the rushes and the broad floating leaves of the water-lilies. Overhead was the meeting-place of the swallows preparing to quit our climes. Not one of their twitterings did I lose; the child Tavernier[172] followed less closely the traveller's tale. They played on the water at sundown, chased the flies, darted together into the air, as though to test their wings, dropped down upon the surface of the lake, and then perched upon the reeds, which scarcely bent beneath their weight, and which were filled with their warbling turmoil.
Night fell; the reeds shook their fields of swords and distaves, among which the feathered caravan of moor-fowl, teal, kingfishers, snipe lay silent; the lake washed against its shores; the loud voices of autumn issued from the woods and marshes; I ran my boat aground and returned to the castle. Ten o'clock struck. I went to my room, and at once opened the windows, fixed my eyes upon the sky, and commenced an incantation. In company with my witch I mounted the clouds: enveloped in her tresses and her veil, I was swept along by the tempest, shaking the forest-tops, hustling the mountain-summits, whirling upon the seas. I plunged into space, I dropped from the Throne of God to the gates of the abyss, and the worlds were surrendered to the power of my love. Amid the disorder of the elements, I frenzically wedded the idea of danger to that of pleasure. The breath of the north wind brought to me but the sighs of voluptuousness; the murmur of the rain summoned me to sleep upon a woman's breast. The words which I addressed to that woman would have revived the senses of old age and warmed the marble of the tombs. Nothing-knowing and all-knowing, at once maid and lover, Eve before and after the fall, the enchantress from whom I derived my madness was a commixture of mystery and passion: I placed her on an altar and worshipped her. The pride of being loved by her yet further increased my love. When she walked, I prostrated myself to be trod beneath her feet or kiss their traces. I grew confused at her smile; I trembled at the sound of her voice; I thrilled with desire if I touched what she had touched. The air exhaled from her moist mouth penetrated into the marrow of my bones, coursed through my veins instead of blood. At a look from her I would have flown to the ends of the earth: a desert would have sufficed me with her! With her at my side, the lions' den would have changed into a palace, and millions of centuries would have been too short to exhaust the fires with which I felt myself consumed.
Nocturnal incantations.