How amazed he would be if he only knew that he, not usually much sought after in his material incarnation, will suddenly appear in her mind’s eye wherever she goes, in the company of more talented people, in the most exclusive salons, and amid the most richly satisfying landscapes; and if he only knew that this woman, widely loved as she is, then allows her tenderness, her thoughts and her attention to focus on the memory of this intruder and on him alone. Everything fades in comparison with him, as if he alone had the reality of a person and as if the other people present were as insubstantial as memories and shadows.
Whether Mme de Breyves is out walking with a poet or lunching at the home of an archduchess, whether she leaves Trouville for the mountains or for the countryside, whether she is alone reading or conversing with the best-loved of her friends, whether she goes out horse riding or drifts off to sleep, the name and the image of M. de Laléande hover over her, delightfully, cruelly, unavoidably, in the same way that the sky hovers over our heads.
Things have gone so far that she, who used to hate Biarritz, now finds that everything to do with that town affects her with a painful and unsettling charm. She is anxious to know who is going there – people who will perhaps see him, who will perhaps live with him without appreciating their privilege. For those people she is without rancour, and without daring to ask them to carry out any errands for her, she keeps asking them questions, and is sometimes astonished that they can hear her talking so much about things indirectly connected with her secret, and still not guess it. A large photograph of Biarritz is one of the few decorations in her room. She has given one of the people out for a stroll visible on this photograph, whose face is quite indistinct, the features of M. de Laléande.
If only she knew the horrid music he likes and plays, those despised romances would doubtless usurp, first on her piano and before long in her heart, the place of the symphonies of Beethoven or the dramas of Wagner, because of the sentimental dumbing-down of her taste, and the charm that the man who is the source of all charm and all pain would project onto them. Sometimes the image of the man she has seen only two or three times, for just a few minutes, the man who holds such a small place in the external events of her life and who has assumed one in her mind and her heart that is so all-absorbing as to fill them entirely – sometimes this image grows faint before the tired eyes of her memory.
She can no longer see him, can no longer recall his features or his silhouette, and has almost forgotten his eyes. And yet this image is all she has of him. She panics at the thought that she might lose this image, and that her desire – which admittedly tortures her, but which is now part and parcel of her, since she has entirely taken refuge in it, having fled from everything else, and to which she clings as one clings to one’s own self-preservation, to life itself whether good or bad – might evaporate and that the only thing left would be a feeling of dreamlike malaise and suffering, of which she would no longer know the objective cause, would not even see him in her thoughts and would no longer be able to cherish him there. But all at once the image of M. de Laléande has returned, after that momentary disturbance in her inner vision. Her grief can resume its course – and this is almost an occasion for joy.
How will Mme de Breyves be able to tolerate going back to Paris, where he will not be returning until January? What will she do in the meantime? What will she do, what will he do afterwards?
Twenty times over I have been ready to leave for Biarritz and bring back M. de Laléande. The consequences might well be dreadful; but there is no point asking her, she will not permit it. But I am so saddened to see her delicate forehead being beaten from within and almost broken by the merciless blows of that inexplicable love. It gives her whole life an anguished rhythm. Often she imagines that he is about to arrive in Trouville, and will come up to her and tell her he loves her.
She can see him: his eyes are shining. He talks to her with that expressionless, dreamlike voice that forbids us to believe while at the same time forcing us to listen. It is him. He is saying to her those words that make us delirious, even though we never hear them except in a dream, when we see shining in them, so heart-meltingly, the divine and trustful smile of destinies that are conjoined. Whereupon, the feeling that the two worlds, that of reality and that of her desire, run in parallel, and that it is just as impossible for them to meet as it is impossible for a shadow to coincide with the body that has cast it, awakens her.
Then, remembering that minute near the cloakroom when his elbow brushed against hers, when he offered her that body which she could now be holding tight to hers if she had only wanted to, if she had only known, and which is now for ever distant, she feels cries of despair and rebellion resounding through her entire body like those one hears on sinking ships.
If, when out walking on the beach or in the woods, she allows herself gently to yield to the pleasure of contemplation or reverie, no, not even that – to a sweet smell, or a song brought to her indistinctly by the breeze, making her forget for a moment her pain, then she suddenly feels, striking deep into her heart, an agonizing wound, and above the waves or the leaves, in the uncertain distance of the sylvan or marine horizon, she perceives the evanescent image of her invisible and ever-present victor who, his eyes shining through the clouds as on the day he offered himself to her, takes flight, bearing the quiver from which he has just sent yet one more arrow winging its way towards her.
– July 1893
Portraits of Painters and Musicians*
Portraits of Painters
Aelbert Cuyp
Cuyp, a setting sun dissolved in limpid air –
A ripple of grey wood pigeons, as if through water –
A damp golden haze, a halo for ox or birch,
Blue incense of fine days – smoke on the slopes –
Or gleam of stagnant marsh in the empty sky.
Cavaliers are ready, a pink plume in their hats;
Hands dangle down; the chill air makes their skin
Turn pink, and gently lifts their fine blond curls,
And, tempted by the hot fields and cool rills –
Their noise leaves undisturbed the herd of oxen
Dreaming in the mist of pale gold and repose –
They trot off, to breathe in those deep moments.
Paulus Potter
The mournful gloom of skies a uniform grey,
Made even sadder by rare patches of blue –
Filtering down onto the frozen plains
The warm tears of a foreign-seeming sun…
Potter, melancholy mood of sombre plains
That stretch out endlessly, joyless and dull,
The hamlet and the trees that shed no shade,
The scrubby gardens where no flower grows.
A ploughman drags his buckets home; his mare,
Sickly, resigned, disquieted, full of dreams
And anxious thoughts, lifting her thoughtful head,
Snuffles and sniffs and smells the whistling wind.
Antoine Watteau
The dusk applies make-up to trees and faces,
In its blue coat, beneath its dubious mask;
A scatter of kisses falls on weary lips…
The vague grows fond now, and the near grows far.
The masquerade is sad and distant too,
Love’s movements now seem forced, with their sad charm.
A poet’s whim – or lover’s wise precaution,
Since love must be adorned with expert skill –
Behold: a ship, a picnic, silence, song.
Anthony Van Dyck
Heart’s gentle pride, and noble grace of things
That shine in eyes, in velvet and in woods,
The lofty language of a posture’s pose
– Hereditary pride of kings and ladies! –
You triumph, Van Dyck, prince of tranquil gestures,
In all the lovely things that will soon die,
In every lovely hand that can still open,
And unawares – who cares? – gives you the palm!
The horsemen halt, beneath the pines and near
The waves equally calm and near to tears –
Such royal children, grave already and splendid,
Resigned in dress, with brave-plumed hats and jewels
In which there weeps – as water through the flames –
The bitterness of tears that fill their souls
Too haughty to shed tears from open eyes;
And you, oh precious stroller, above all,
In pale-blue shirt, one hand perched on your hip
(The other holds a fruit just plucked and leafy),
I dream, but do not grasp, your eyes and gestures:
Standing in alert repose in that dark shelter,
Oh wise young Richmond* – charming madman too?
I come to you again: around your neck
A sapphire shines as quietly as your gaze.
Portraits of Musicians
Chopin
O Chopin, sea of sighs and tears and sobs,
The butterflies wing their restless way across you,
Playing on sadness, or dancing on the waves.
You dream, love, suffer, cry, console and charm
And cradle, and between each pain you bring
Dizzy and sweet oblivion at your whim
Like butterflies that dart from flower to flower;
Your joy is then in league with all your
