Nerval, "Nuit perdue"

A prose poem ("Lost night") by this French man of letters. You can read the original here.

I was exiting a theater where, every evening, I would put in an appearance in the loges among the large entourage of admirers.  Sometimes it was completely full; sometimes completely empty. I did not care much to detain my glance on the orchestra seats filled only with thirty-odd forced enthusiasts, on the loges garnished in bonnets or on the antiquated dress – or, for that matter, to be part of an animated and trembling hall crowned on every floor with flowery outfits, sparkling jewels, and radiant countenances. Indifferent as I was to the performance in the hall, the performance in the theater hardly detained me – until the second or third scene of a sullen masterpiece popular at the time, when a well-known apparition illuminated the empty space, bestowing life in a breath and a word upon these vain figures in my immediate vicinity.

I felt alive in her, and she alone lived for me. Her smile filled me with infinite bliss; the vibration of her voice, so soft and yet so strongly resonant, made me twitch in joy and love. For me she had every perfection, responded to every interest and every whim. She was beautiful like the day amidst the footlights that shone upon her from below, pale as the night when, the footlights dimmed, the chandelier rays let her shine from on high. This last position showed her to be even more natural and brilliant in the shadow of her beauty thus isolated, like the divine Hours cast, with a star upon the forehead, on the brown depths of the frescoes of Herculaneum! 

For a year now I had not dreamed of learning what else she could be; I was afraid to disturb that magic mirror that sent me her image, and, what is more, I had lent an ear to certain notions regarding not the actress, but the woman; what little I learned could have just as well applied to the Princesse d'Élide or the Princess of Trébizonde. One of my uncles, who had lived in the last years of the 18th century, as one needed to have lived in that era to know it well, had warned me early on that actresses were not women, and that nature had forgotten to make them a heart. Doubtless, he was talking about the actresses of that time; but he had told me so many stories of his illusions, his disappointments, and showed me so many portraits on ivory, charming medallions that he would use later to adorn snuff boxes, so many yellowed tickets, so many withered ribbons, all in establishing the definitive tale, that I had habituated myself to think badly of all these actresses without comprehending the nature of the times.

At that time we lived in a strange era, like those periods which ordinarily succeed revolutions or the overthrows of great reigns. No longer did one find the heroic gallantry of the Fronde, the elegant and adorned vice of the Régence, the scepticism and mad orgies of the Directory; instead, there obtained a medley of activity, hesitation and sloth, of brilliant utopias, philosophical or religious aspirations, vague enthusiasms, all imbued with certain instincts of rebirth; of worries from past disagreements, of uncertain hopes – something akin to the epoch of Peregrinus and Apuleius. Worldly man aspired to the bouquet of roses which were supposed to regenerate him through the hands of beautiful Isis; the eternally young and pure goddess would appear to us at night and shame us for the hours lost during the day. Ambition nevertheless was not something of our age, and the avid carving up of the positions and honors distanced us from the possible spheres of activity. The only refuge we had was the poets' ivory tower, where we would climb ever higher to isolate ourselves from the throngs. At these elevated peaks to which our masters guided us, we would finally breath the pure air of solitude, we would drink in oblivion from the golden cup of legends, we would be drunk on poetry and love. Love, alas, of vague forms, of pink and blue hues, of metaphysical ghosts! Seen from close, the real woman appalled our ingenuity; she had to appear as a queen or a goddess, and most of all, she could not be approached. Several among us understood, however, little of these Platonic paradoxes, and through our renewed dreams of Alexandria at times agitated the torch of subterranean gods, which lights the shadow for an instant with its sparkling trails. 

It is in this way, therefore, that I, exiting the theater with the bitter sadness of a vanished dream, gladly made my way to the company of a large circle of acquaintances who dined together. And all melancholy yielded in the face of the inexhaustible eloquence of a handful of dazzling, stormy, lively, and sometimes sublime minds, those one always finds in periods of renewal or decadence, and whose discussions escalated to such a degree that the more fearful among us would go to the windows to see whether the Huns, the Ottomans, or the Cossacks had not come at last to cut short these arguments of rhetoricians and sophists.

"Let us drink, let us love, this is wisdom!" Such was the sole opinion of the circle's very youngest members. One of them told me: "For some time now I have seen you again and again in the same theater, each time I go, in fact. Which actress do you come to see?"

Which actress? ... It did not seem as if one could go there for any other. Nevertheless, I gave a name.

"Well, then!" said my friend with indulgence. "Do you see that happy man over there who just accompanied her out, and who, faithful to the rules of our circle, will not meet her again until perhaps after the night is done?"

Without too much emotion, I turned my eyes towards the person in question. They rested upon a young man properly dressed, a pale and nervous figure with acceptable manners and eyes stamped with melancholy and gentleness. He threw down gold pieces on a table of whist and lost them with indifference. 

"What difference does it make to me," I said, "if it is he or someone else? There had to be someone, and he seems worthy of having been chosen."

"What about you?"

"Me? She's an image I pursue, nothing more."

As I left, I passed the reading room and mechanically took a look at a newspaper. This was, I believe, to see how the stock market was doing. In the debris of my opulence I had a sufficiently large amount invested in foreign equities. Rumor had said that these equities, long since neglected, would regain in value – which was exactly what had taken place following a change of ministers. The funds were already quoted as very high; and I became rich again. 

A single thought resulted from this change in situation, that of the woman I had loved for so long, for she was now mine for the taking if I so wished. I was close to touching my ideal. Was it not still an illusion, a mocking typographical error? But the other newspapers said much of the same. The newly gained sum rose before me like a gold statue of Moloch. "What would he say now," I thought to myself. "That young man who was just with her, if he abandoned her and I were to take his place at her side?" I trembled at this thought, and my pride was shaken.

No! Not this way! It is not at my age that one murders love with gold. I will not become a corrupter. Besides, this is an idea from another era. Now who told me that this woman was venal? My eyes wafted vaguely across the newspaper I was still holding and I read these two lines: "Provincial Festival of the Flowers: tomorrow the archers of Senlis are to hand over the bouquet to their counterparts from Loisy." These words, remarkably simple, awakened in me a new series of impressions: a long-forgotten memory from the countryside, a distant echo of the innocent festivals of my youth. The trumpet and drum resonated from the distance in the hamlets and in the woods; young girls wove garlands and, as they sang, matched ornate bouquets with ribbons. A heavy wagon pulled by oxen received presents on its path, and we, children of these lands, formed a procession with our bows and arrows, decorating ourselves with the title of knights, all the while not knowing that we were doing nothing but repeating, from one age to the next, a druidic celebration which had survived monarchies and new religions.

Nerval, "Octavie (part 2)"

The conclusion to a short story ("Octavia") by this French writer. You can read the original here.

"But where before had this image appeared to me? Ah, I have already told you that! It was in Naples, three years ago. I had an encounter one night near the Villa Reale with a young girl that looked like you, a pious creature whose art was to weave gilded embroideries to adorn her church. In spirit she seemed lost; I took her home although she spoke to me about a lover she had in the Swiss Guard and who she was afraid might drop by. Nevertheless she did not hesitate to confess that I pleased her more greatly. What should I tell you? That whole evening I lost myself to reverie and headiness and imagined that this woman, whose language I could barely understand, was actually you come to me in enchanted form from up above. Why should I hush up this adventure and the bizarre delusion that my soul accepted without any pain, especially after a few glasses of foamy lacryma Christi poured for me at dinner? The room which I entered had something mystical either by chance or by the particular selection of objects it contained. A black Madonna cloaked in rags, whose old finery had been entrusted to my hostess for restoration, was sitting on a chest of drawers next to a bed with baize green curtains; a figure of Saint Rosalie wreathed in roses seemed from afar to be protecting the cradle of a child; the walls white with lime were decorated with old paintings of the four elements depicting the mythological divinities. Add to this a fine assortment of brilliant fabrics, artificial flowers, and Etruscan vases; then mirrors surrounding one copper light reflected so splendidly, and a Treatise on divination and dreams that made me think that my companion was a sorceress or at least a gypsy.

"A pleasant old woman with solemn features would come and go, bringing us things. I think it had to be her mother! And I, pensive as ever, never took my eyes off her nor said a word – she who could not stop reminding me of you.

"And this woman kept repeating to me: 'Are you sad?' And I responded: 'Do not talk. I can hardly understand what you are saying.' Both listening to and speaking Italian tired me out immensely. 'Oh!' she said. 'I know how to speak differently.' And suddenly she broke into a language that I had never heard before. Sonorous and guttural syllables, twitterings full of charm; doubtless an ancient tongue: Hebrew, Syriac, I know not. She smiled at my surprise and went over to the chest of drawers. From here she took out some costume jewelry, necklaces, bracelets, a tiara. Putting on the jewelry there, she returned to the table and remained serious for a long time. The old woman came back in and seeing her thus, began laughing vociferously and said to me, I believe, that this what she looked like at celebrations. At this point the child awoke and began to cry. The two women ran over to the cradle, and soon enough the young woman was back with me, this time holding the bambino who had just been mollified.

"She spoke to the child in the language that I had so admired, and she kept him amused with graceful prods and pokes. And I, hardly accustomed to wines burned by Vesuvius, I sensed the room and its contents spinning around. This woman of curious manners and dressed like a queen, proud and capricious, seemed to me one of the magicians of Thessaly to whom one gives one's soul for a dream. Oh, why was I not afraid to relate all of this to you? Because it was nothing more than a dream, a dream in which you alone reigned!

"I tore myself from this phantom that seduced and scared me at the same time and wandered through the deserted city until the first church bells. Then, sensing dawn's rosy fingers upon my neck, I amended my steps through the small streets behind Chiaia and began to climb up Posilippo above the grotto. Arriving at the summit, I walked around gazing at the already-blue sea, the city emitting only early morning sounds, and the islands in the bay where the sun had begun to engild the villa roofs. I was not saddened in the least. I walked with broad strides, rolled in the wet grass, but in my heart sank deeper into notions of death.

"O gods! I know not what profound sadness resided in my soul, but it was nothing more than the cruel thought that I was not loved. I had seen as the phantom of happiness, I had employed all the gifts of God, I was beneath the most beautiful sky in the world, in the presence of nature at its most perfect, at the greatest spectacle that man is allowed to behold, but four hundred leagues away from the only woman who existed for me and who knew nothing of me, not even of my existence. Not loved and without hope ever to be loved! And so it was here that I sought to seek compensation from God for my singular existence. There was but one step to take: at the location where I found myself, the mountain was cut like a cliff, the sea moaned below, blue and pure, and I would only suffer for a second. Oh, the dizziness of that thought was terrible! Twice I hurled myself down and I know not what power returned me alive to land which I grasped. No, my God, you did not create me for eternal suffering, and so I will not offend you with my death. But give me the resolution that leads some to thrones, some to glory, and others to love!"

During this strange night a rather rare phenomenon had taken place. Towards the end of the night all the openings to the house in which I found myself were lit up; a warm, sulphuric dust prevented me from breathing, and leaving my easy conquest asleep on the terrace, I set out through the alleyways which led to Château Elme, and as I clambered up the mountain, the pure morning air came and inflated my lungs. I rested sumptuously on the vine arbors of the villas and fearlessly contemplated Vesuvius, newly bound in a cupola of smoke.

And it was here that I was seized with the dizziness of which I spoke. The thought of the encounter with the English girl roused me from the fatal ideas which I had conceived. After having refreshed my mouth with one of the enormous bunches of grapes sold at the market by women vendors, I headed to Portici to visit the ruins of the Herculaneum. All the roads were sprinkled with a metallic ash. Arriving at the ruins I descended into the underground city and strolled for a time from building to building, trying to extract from each monument the secret of its past. The temple of Venus and that of Mercury spoke in vain to my imagination; they needed to be populated with the living. I went back to Portici, stopped pensively below the arbor and waited there for my stranger to come.

She was not long in coming, steering her father's wretched gait. She seized my hand and said: 'It's alright.' We hailed a small coach and went to visit Pompeii. What happiness filled me as I guided her through the silent streets and the old Roman colony! I had studied the most secret passages in advance, and when we arrived at the small temple of Isis I had the pleasure of explaining to her in faithful detail the religion and ceremonies about which I had read in Apuleius. She wanted to play the role of the Goddess herself, whereas I was tasked with the role of Osiris in which I was to explain the divine mysteries.  

Dreaming, seized by the grandeur of the ideas which we had begun to raise, I dared not speak to her of love ... She thought me so cold that I had to be reproached, and then I confessed that I no longer felt worthy of her. I related to her the story of that apparition which had awakened a past love within my heart, as well as all the sadness which had constricted me that fatal night in which the phantom of happiness had been nothing more than a lie.

Alas, all of this is very distant from us! Ten years ago, coming from the East, I went back to Naples. I went down to the hotel of Rome, and again I found the English girl. She had married a famous painter who had been stricken with complete paralysis shortly after their marriage. Lying on a daybed, he had almost no movement in his facial features apart from his large black eyes, and since he was still young he could not hope that other climes would provide relief. The poor girl had devoted her existence between caring for her father and caring for her husband, and still, her softness and virginal candor could not relieve the atrocious jealousy that seethed in the latter's soul. Nothing could ever bring him to let her go free during their walks, and he reminded me of that black giant who lurked eternally in the cavern of the djinns, with his wife continuously having to stave off sleep. O mystery of the human soul! Should one descry in such a scene the cruel marks of the vengeance of the gods?

I could only endure a day of this anguish. The boat that took me back to Marseilles carried with it like a dream the memory of this cherished apparition, and I thought that perhaps I had forsaken my happiness there. And its secret Octavia will guard with her always.

Nerval, "Octavie (part 1)"

The first part of a short story ("Octavia") by this French writer. You can read the original here.

It was in the spring of 1835 that I was overcome by a lively desire to see Italy. Every day as I rose, I breathed in the bitter scent of the alpine chestnut trees; in the evening, the waterfall of Terni, the effervescent font of the Aniene gushed forth on me alone among the hoarse backstage in a small theater. A delicious murmur like the voice of a siren rustled in my ears, as if the reeds of the Trasimeno themselves had gained sound. I had to quit Paris and leave behind a thwarted love whom I wanted to escape for distraction.

My first stop was Marseilles. Every morning I would bathe in the sea by Châteauvert, and as I swam I could espy elegant isles far off in the gulf. And within this azure bay I would meet daily with an English girl whose slender body split the green waters before me. One day this water girl, who was called Octavia, swam over reveling in the strange catch she had made: in her white hands she held a fish that she gave to me.

I could not but smile at such a gift. Nevertheless, cholera was still sweeping through the city and to avoid the quarantines, I opted for a land route. I saw Nice, Genoa and Florence; I admired both the Dome and the Baptistery, the masterpieces of Michelangelo, and the leaning tower of Pisa. Then, taking the route of Spoleto, I stopped for ten days in Rome. The Dome of Saint Peter, the Vatican, the Colosseum all appeared to be a dream. I rushed to take the post for Civitaveccha, where I would be embarking. For three days the furious sea delayed the arrival of the steamship. On this desolate beach I walked pensively, one day almost getting myself eaten alive by some dogs. On the eve of my departure a French vaudeville was showing in the local theater. A blond and spirited head attracted my attention: it was the English girl who had taken a seat in the forestage box. She was accompanying her father, who looked ill; as a cure doctors had recommended the climate of Naples.

The next morning I gleefully took up my ticket. The English girl was on the bridge which she crossed with long strides, and, impatient with the ship's slowness, she plunged her ivory teeth into a lemon peel. "Poor thing," I told her, "I'm sure you're suffering from angina pectoris and that is certainly not what you need." She fixed her eyes upon me and asked: "Who taught you that?" "The Sibyl of Tivoli," I replied without discomforting myself. "Come off it!" she answered. "I don't believe a word of that."

Saying this she gave me a tender look and I could not prevent myself from kissing her hand. "If I were stronger," she said, "I would teach you how to lie!" And she threatened me, laughing, with a thin golden loaf that she held in her hand.

Our vessel docked at Naples and we crossed the gulf between Ischia and Nisida flooded with the fires of the Orient. "If you love me," she said, "you'll wait for me tomorrow in Portici. It's not every day that I commit myself to such encounters." She disembarked at La Mole square and accompanied her father to the Hotel of Rome, while I took up residence in the Florentin. My day was spent promenading down Toledo and La Mole and visiting the pictures in the museum; in the evening I went to see the San Carlos ballet. There I bumped into the Marquis Gargallo, whom I had known in Paris, and who invited me to accompany him after the show to take tea with him and his sisters. 

I will never forget the sumptuous evening that followed. The Marquise played host to a vast room of strangers and conversation veered towards that of the précieuses, and for a time I believed myself to be in the blue salon of Rambouillet. The Marquise's sisters, as beautiful as the Three Graces, revived in me all the prestige of Ancient Greece. We talked at length about the shape of the Ninnion tablet, whether it was triangular or square. Since she was beautiful and proud like Vesta herself, the Marquise could talk with complete assurance. I left the palace with my head still spinning from this philosophical discussion and could not manage to locate my hotel. By dint of wandering through the city I was finally going to become the hero of some kind of adventure. The encounter I had that night is the subject of the following letter which I later addressed to her from whose love I had thought myself absolved when I quit Paris. 

"I am in a state of extreme inquietude. For four days now I have not seen you, or I have only seen you amidst the swirling rabble. I have something akin to a fatal presentiment. That you were sincere with me, I truly believe; that you have changed in the last few days, I know not but it is this I fear. My God! Have pity on my incertitude or you will bring us into misfortune. Nonetheless, it is I whom I blame. I was meeker and more devoted than a man should be. I surrounded my love with so many reservations; I so feared to offend you, you who had punished me so severely once before that perhaps I went too far in my tact, and perhaps you thought me cold and distant as a result. In any case, I did not spoil an important day for you, I stifled my emotions until it almost cracked open my soul, and my face was covered in a smiling mask, while all this time my heart sighed and burned. Others would not have been so swayed, and yet no one could have shown as much genuine affection nor sensed all that you were worth.

"Let us be frank: I am well aware that there are connections that a woman is loath to break without difficulty, uneasy relationships that can only be severed slowly. Did I ask you for sacrifices that were too great? Tell me your concerns and I shall understand. Your fears, your fantasies, the necessities of your position, none of this can shake the immense affection that I have for you, nor dilute the purity of my love. But together we will see what we can admit and what we must fight, and you can leave it to me to determine whether these are knots that must be cut and not undone. It might be inhuman to be bereft of liberty in such a moment because, as I have said, my life is nothing but your will, and you must know that my greatest wish is to die for you and you alone!

"To die, great God! Why does this idea come to me now and linger as if my death were precisely the equivalent of the happiness that you promise? Death! Somehow that word does not suggest anything somber to my mind. It appears crowned in pale roses just like at the end of a feast. Often I have dreamt that it would be waiting for me at the bedside of the woman I love, after happiness, after intoxication, and it would say to me: 'Young man, you've had your share of joy in this world, now come sleep, come lie down in my arms. I may not be beautiful, but I am good and safe, and it is not happiness that I will bestow upon you but eternal peace.'

Nerval, "Aurélie"

A prose poem ("Aurelia") by this French writer, as the last part of "Sylvia," a section of this famous work.  You can read the original here.

Onward to Paris!  A five-hour drive by coach, but I was in no hurry provided I arrived by evening.  Around eight o'clock I was sitting at my habitual stall.  Aurelia was spreading her inspiration and charm in verse feebly inspired by Schiller, which one owed to a contemporary talent; in the garden scene, however, she became sublime.  During the fourth act, in which she did not appear, I went to buy a bouquet from Madame Prévost.  There I inserted a letter signed in a very tender hand: An unknown admirer.  And I said to myself: here is something concrete for me to think and dream about.  The next day I was on my way to Germany.

And what I did plan to do there?  Reorder my feelings, or at least attempt to do so.  Were I to write a novel, I would never be able to convince anyone of a story involving a heart seized simultaneously by two loves.  Sylvia was getting away from me, and it was my own fault; but seeing her again for one day was enough to elevate my soul anew: since that time it stood like a smiling statue in the temple of Athena.  Her look had halted me on the edge of the abyss.  I rejected now with greater energy the idea of going and introducing myself to Aurelia, which would involve a brief struggle with a horde of vulgar suitors who would shine in her presence and then crumble into pieces.  We will see each other, I told myself, if she so intends.

One morning I read in the newspaper that Aurelia was ill.  I wrote to her from the mountains of Salzburg.  The letter was so imbued with German mysticism that I could not reasonably expect from it any great success; at the same time, I did not ask for a reply.  I was counting somewhat on chance and on the unknown admirer.  

Months pass.  Through my travels and idleness I had attempted to pinpoint in a poetic action the love and passion of the painter Colonna for the beautiful Laura, whose parents made her a nun, and whom he would love until his death.  Something of this subject was related to my constant preoccupations.  The last verse of the drama now written, I dreamed of nothing more than returning to France.   And what could I say at this time that had not been said by the stories of so many others?  I passed through all those testing grounds that one calls theaters.  "I ate tambourines and drank cymbals," as the saying goes, stripped of its sense as apparent from the initiates of the Eleusinian mysteries.   It means doubtless that, when necessary, one must go past the limits of nonsense and absurdity; and reason for me meant conquering and concretizing my ideal. 

Aurelia had accepted the main role in the drama that I had brought back from Germany.  I will never forget the day when she permitted me to read her the play aloud.  The love scenes were prepared with her in mind.  I fully believe that I read them with conviction in my soul, but most of all with enthusiasm.  In the ensuing conversation, I revealed myself as the unknown admirer of those two letters.  She said to me: "You're quite mad; but come by and see me again.  I have never been able to find anyone who knew how to love me."

O woman, you seek love!  And I, then, seek ...?  

In the days that followed I wrote her the most tender and beautiful letters she could have ever possibly received.  I understood from her that they were filled with logic and reason.  At one point she was moved; she beckoned me over and admitted that it was difficult for her to sever an older attachment.  "If you truly love me for myself," she said, "then you will understand that I can belong to only one person." 

Two months later I received a letter ebullient in its emotions.  I made great haste to her place.  During this interval, as it were, someone had passed along a precious detail.  The handsome young man whom I had met one night had just come from serving in the Spahis. 

The following summer stops were made in Chantilly.  The theater troupe to which Aurelia was attached was giving a performance there.  Once in the region, the troupe was ordered by the director to remain there for three days.  I befriended this gallant fellow who used to play Dorante in the comedies of Marivaux.  For a while now he had been the young dramatic lead.  His latest success had been as the lover in the play in the vein of Schiller, where my binoculars betrayed him as rather wrinkled.  From up close he seemed younger and, having remained thin, he still made an impression in the provinces.  He had a certain passion.  I accompanied the troupe in the capacity of gentleman poet; I persuaded the director to add performances in Senlis and Dammartin.  He was initially leaning for Compiègne; but Aurelia shared my opinion. 

The next day while they were off to negotiate with venue owners and the local authorities, I rented out some horses and we took the route of the ponds of Commelles to go have lunch at the castle of Blanche de Castille.  Riding side-saddle with her blonde hair floating in the breeze, Aurelia crossed the forest like a queen of olden times, and the local peasants stood there dazzled.   Madame F. was the only one they had ever seen so imposing and yet so gracious in her greetings.  After lunch we descended into villages recalling those of Switzerland in which the water of the Nonette makes the sawmills move.  These vistas so dear to my memories did not cease to interest her.  I had planned to take Aurelia to the castle, near Orry-la-Ville, to the same green location where I had first espied Adrienne.  Yet no emotion appeared in her.  And so I told her everything; I spoke of the source of this love glimpsed every night, dreamt of later still, realized in her.  She listened to me seriously and then said: "You don't love me!  You're expecting me to tell you that an actress is like a nun; you're looking for drama, and here's everything except the dénouement, which eludes you.  Go now, I no longer believe you!"

These words were like lightning.  The bizarre urges which I had felt for so long, these dreams, these tears, these bouts of despair and of tenderness ... was all this not love?

But then where is this love?

Aurelia was on stage that evening in Senlis.  I thought I noticed that she had a weakness for the director – the wrinkled 'young' lead.  This man was of excellent character and had done her many favors.

And one day Aurelia told me: "Here is the one who loves me!"

Nerval, "Adrienne"

A prose poem ("Adrienne") by this French man of letters.  You can read the original as part of this collection.

I regained my bed but could not find any rest.  Plunged in half-somnolence, I watched reels of my entire childhood cascade through my memory.  This state, in which the mind continues to resist odd combinations in dream, often allows one to see – if hurriedly in only a few minutes – the most striking paintings one may ever behold.

I imagined a castle in the times of Henri IV, its pointed roofs covered in slate and its reddish front with jagged corners of yellow stone; a large green clearing then appeared, framed in elm and lime trees whose foliage was pierced by the setting sun and its flaming strokes.  Young girls danced around the lawn singing old tunes inherited from their mothers, in a French so naturally pure it might have still existed in the old Valois country where for over a thousand years the heart of France had beaten.

In this circle I was the only lad.  Here I had brought a companion, still very young as well, Sylvia, a little girl from a neighboring hamlet, so alive and so fresh, with black eyes, a straight, neat profile and her skin lightly tanned!  I loved nothing but her, I could see nothing but her – until now!  I had just noticed in the circle in which we were dancing a blonde girl, tall and lovely, who was called Adrienne.  All of a sudden, in accordance with the rules of the dance, Adrienne found herself alone with me in the middle of the circle  Our heights were identical.  We were told to embrace, with the dance and choir now more vivacious than ever before.  In kissing her I could not help but squeeze her hand.  Her long flaxen curls caressed my cheeks.  From that moment on a hitherto unknown concern took hold of me.  My beauty had to sing to gain the right to rejoin the dance.  We sat around her and, just as quickly, in a voice both fresh and penetrating, almost lightly misted like the voices of girls from those hazy parts, she sang one of those old romances replete with love and melancholy.  It was a song typical of a princess incarcerated in a tower by her father who wished to punish her for having loved.  The melody stopped at each stanza for quavering trills that so enhance a young voice when, by modulated thrill, it imitates the trembling song of its foremothers.

As she sang darkness descended from the large trees, and the nascent moonlight retrieved her alone, isolating her from our tight little circle.  She fell silent, and no one dared interrupt her wordlessness.  The lawn was covered with weak condensed vapor which unraveled its white flakes upon the grass blades.  We thought that we were in paradise.  Finally I got up and ran along the castle's terrain where laurel trees were planted in great monochrome earthenware vases.  I brought back two branches which were then woven into a crown and bound with a ribbon.  Upon Adrienne's head then I placed this ornament whose lustrous leaves flashed on her blond hair in the pale streams of moonlight.  She resembled Dante's Beatrice who smiled at the poet straying along the outskirts of saintly abodes.   

Adrienne rose, drawing her svelte figure to its full height.  To us she bade a gracious farewell and ran back into the castle.  We were told that she was the granddaughter of one of the descendents of a family allied to the ancient kings of France; the blood of Valois coursed through her veins.  For this holiday she had been allowed to take part in our games; we would never see her again since she left the following day to a convent where she was a resident.

When I returned to Sylvia's side I noticed that she was crying.  The crown given by me to the beautiful singer had been the cause of her tears.  I offered to gather her another, but she protested that she was not keen on such a gift nor did she deserve it.  In vain I sought to defend myself, but she said not a word more to me as I took her back to her parents' house.

Returning to Paris to resume my studies, I bore this double image of tender friendship sadly broken and a vague and impossible love, a source of dolorous thoughts that university philosophy proved unable to assuage.   The figure of Adrienne remained only triumphant, the mirage of glory and beauty, softening or sharing the hours of grueling learning.  On vacation the following year I learned that this beauty hardly espied had just been consecrated by her family into the monastic life.