Fantastic Tales Read online

  Indeed, each one of us, from the first years of life, creates the ideal woman he would like to love; each of us believes in the existence of a sisterly spirit, whose features and aspirations are well known to us and for whom we feel an attraction, in spite of ourselves, throughout our lives. The love that consumes itself restlessly is nothing more than the unknown attraction for a creature whom distance, society, and fortune deny us; and often we wander from love to love without reaching her, always anxious and always unsatisfied, lovers always but without ever loving, carrying to the grave the tremendous void that a thousand fleeting affections were powerless to fill.

  When Bouvard became aware of his passion, it felt like dismay, like pleasure mixed with pain, like a new intuition of life joined to the vague presentiment of misfortune that heaven had destined for him with that emotion. The lady vanished—would he see her again? Where? When? If he saw her again, would she remember him? Would she love him? Would that interval of time alter the sentiment of pity and love that the young man believed he had read in her eyes?

  The instant when love is first revealed to a soul is the most solemn moment in life. What kind of man is he who is capable of forgetting it? No matter how numerous our passions may be, no matter how unworthy of us, no one can ever forget the moment of his first experience of love. It is the revelation of this sentiment that signals the beginning of every man’s moral life.

  We shall not allude to the changes that occurred in Bouvard’s habits and character after that day. He passed three months without seeing her again. He ran up and down every street in Naples like a madman, went to every theater, frequented every gathering place without discovering any sign of her, almost relinquishing the hope of finding her—until one morning he saw her in an elegant carriage crossing Via di Chiaja, heading toward the villa. Bouvard had no time to mull over the most suitable plan that would enable him to overtake her; drawn by an irresistible force, he dashed after the carriage…then grew tired…but endured…stayed even with it for a long time, yet already his zeal was diminishing, his strength abandoned him, and he stopped, exhausted, in the middle of the street. Another month passed: he saw her a second time, with the same outcome; he saw her a third time and, alas, still in vain. But his exertions were finally rewarded: one day he succeeded in following her home. At last he knew her abode, her nest, that envied point on the earth where an adored woman lives…What joy! He dared to inquire about her: her name is Giulia, she is only seventeen, a girl, wealthy, happy, with a heart pure as her soul, free as the light that encircles her.

  From that day onward, Bouvard grew bold: he ventured to hope that he was loved, ventured to think of revealing his passion and of hastening the opportunity to do it with the prestige of his art and fame. It did not take him long to overcome the obstacles that denied his approach to her, and at length, the moment he so ardently yearned for arrived, the moment when he could be intoxicated with her sight and confidently read the unknown pages of his destiny.

  Giulia belonged to a patrician family, around whom the flower of the aristocracy and the most celebrated names in the arts and sciences would gather. It was to one of these artistic soirées that Bouvard received an invitation; he was joyfully welcomed there, heard with transport, applauded with frenetic enthusiasm…But oh, God! Was this the same Giulia he had first seen from the shore at the melancholy moment of sunset?…That girl, so beautiful, sweet, compassionate, that gentle, thoughtful being who appeared to him like a heavenly vision in the awful hour of his misery? She, that angel, his beloved, was nothing but an ordinary woman, happy, carefree, having a gay time, smiling at all those fatuous, elegant people who competed for her affection—a creature of society and pleasure, rich in youth and beauty, self-confident because happy, and happy because too insensible, too immune to that infirmity of mind and heart which renders us sympathetic to every social ill, wherever it may be, and compels us to share it.

  Perhaps Bouvard was not wrong in thinking that the girl recognized him and laughed at his affection and deformity. Giulia’s demeanor contained too much derision and indifference, so that he could at least flatter himself for not betraying his secret…that secret, so sweet, so dear, cherished so long, whose revelation now oppressed him with shame and humiliation. And the fact was that the young man who had followed her carriage like a fool, who had prostituted his dignity and his pride, who had laid claim to her heart in such a strange guise and with such a strange insistence, was now speechless, mortified, tacitly mocked…Besides, what was he to her?…He…that artist, virtually ignored because he disdained admiration, that poor Savoyard, that timid, suffering, misshapen young man?

  Bouvard understood too late that a fatal blindness had flattered him with an affection that his deformity rendered him incapable of inspiring. His deformity…that alone, always that…the inexorable sentence, the terrible distinction, the indelible mark of nature, which neither art, nor emotion, nor genius had the power to destroy. A horrible desire then flashed through his mind—the desire for a more monstrous deformity, an ugliness so frightening that by driving men to shrink from it, he could satiate his inexpressible greed for hate, the nascent greed that was already supplanting the first, noble aspiration of love in his soul.

  Such are the vicissitudes of the affections. Often, it is only the temperate, ordinary ones that fade into apathy. No middle course is permitted the great passions, however, and hate and love, which mark their two highest points, alternate at the apex of their power without admixture or cessation. Which of these two passions is the most noble and just is still unresolved, since one comes from heaven, the other from earth, one prevails in society, the other in private life. But it is quite certain that in the majority of men hate alone ultimately fills the void that love cannot fill.

  We shall not say that Bouvard hated: events in his later life are not so clear as to enable the confident assertion that he did. Perhaps he only desired hate—that the good always desire in vain to become wicked, and the wicked good, is a distressing aspect of our nature. Does innate goodness kill hate, then? And what is this fatal predestination that our will is powerless to destroy? Bouvard still loved Giulia—because of a strange contradiction in the human spirit, because of the irresistible potency that beauty exercised over him, he still loved the girl. But she was no longer the ideal Giulia, the creature of his dreams, celestial, reflective, loving; he loved a woman, a woman who was alive, gay, sensual, the quivering image of joy and pleasure. Why should he hate her? By what right did he dare claim the sacrifice of her beauty and heart? If the idea of such a sacrifice, if the noble, disinterested sentiment of love, if affection isolated from matter can be conceived on earth, these feelings are not in the least earthly, yet often the revelation of this truth casts forever into the mud the delicate, sensitive souls that once believed it.

  After that day Bouvard’s life was wrapped in a mystery so inscrutable that we are unable to refer, not even hypothetically, to the changes which occurred in his spirit and heart. It was only the last instant of his existence that cast an uncertain, sinister light on his past and somehow tied together the broken and scattered threads of his destiny. Where he lived and in what manner, whether exultant or not, remain unknown. He disappeared at the height of his youth and glory. His residence was found deserted, his mirrors shattered, every object that could reflect his image in his eyes was destroyed; every trace he left of himself acknowledged his mental excitement as well as some inflexible, desperate purpose.

  We shall not see him again until the last day of his life.

  Four years after the last incident—on a fragrant May morning, during the season that invites nature to love—the doors of a sumptuous palace were decked in mourning…Giulia, the wealthy, noble, elegant patrician, was dead—dead on the eve of her nuptials, snatched from the earth by a cruel and sudden illness, in all the fullness of her illusions and faith, in all the vigor of her youth and beauty.

  At that moment, the small w
indow in the attic of the opposite house showed the figure of a man whose pain-altered lineaments were twisted into a terribly bitter smile. It was Bouvard. The sepulchral pallor of his face, the unkempt growth of his hair and beard, the lucid, motionless stare, the gloomy, indefinable expression that misfortune had cast over his features like a funeral veil, all betrayed the secret of the profound, supernatural suffering that interweaves many lives in this world, always shunning familiarity and publicity, proud and disdainful of any humiliating compassion, any impossible comfort. And in fact whatever he suffered has always remained a mystery. Did he still love Giulia? Had he not forgotten her in that four-year separation? Did he always live near her? It is certain that he was her neighbor for only four months, during which the most crushing poverty often came to visit his humble artist’s garret.

  Bouvard looked, saw, read the funeral inscription, observed the black cloth that adorned the deceased girl’s doors, observed it with a mute indifference, without grief, without amazement; it could be said that this misfortune did not seem unexpected to him, that he had foreseen, invoked, hastened it, perhaps with desire. Of course, the wicked genius that had provoked men to tell fantastic tales about him would no longer smile sadly, would never show a more evil or cruel satisfaction. The young man shut the window, obsessed with an insistent thought, an idea that was fixed, comforting, long cherished. “Let us hurry,” he said, “let us hurry the moment I yearned for…let us prepare for my wedding”—and an instant later, the remaining furnishings of the attic, his books, his music, the residue of his fortune had disappeared. Bouvard changed them into gold and used it all to purchase flowers.

  The season was fertile. The infinite family of hyacinths, flowers of youth and spring, the first roses, symbol of nascent love, the orange blossoms that weave the crowns of the betrothed, jasmine’s shooting stars symbolizing demure love, lavender signifying bold love, azaleas and gardenias, flowers of passion and sentiment—all adorned the modest garret in such great quantities and with such dense fragrance that it could have been taken for one of those fabled dwellings where the fairies enticed bold, heedless youth to marry, destined to perish in an intoxication of pleasure and perfume.

  Bouvard attended to this strange transformation of his room with irrepressible joy: he wanted to know the language of each flower, wanted to arrange them himself, alternating them with pink and blue veils and adding, with a sad smile, several stems of rosemary in bloom, which signifies reciprocal love. Hundreds of lamps were arranged to pour torrents of light on the veils and the thick carpets of flowers; and since the young man carried out his preparations with the most painstaking mystery, he rejoiced at that delightfully alluring sight and said to himself, enraptured, “Now both my bridal chamber and my grave are in readiness…life and death…the chill of the tomb and the fire of a long-repressed love…Certainly, a match more worthy of human beings was never made on earth. Divinity itself might well envy my wedding.”

  We ask with hesitation: was Bouvard guilty? Had not pain already distorted his reason? Could the soul that was once so pure, so innocent, so generous be so wretchedly transformed? Could it conceive such a horrible plan in the full light of its potency? We cannot answer in the affirmative. Surely, his nature underwent a grievous alteration: poverty, disillusionment, social skepticism, isolation no doubt provoked in him that revolt which leads us to react against the deity and ourselves. Yet his guilt was only the consequence of a sudden confusion of his reason. His crime was expiated by his life, and the expiation preceded it. There was love in this crime, and I would even add genius—the epochs of human existence have few pages so sublime, and our passions are seldom elevated to a more immense power. It could be said that Bouvard’s last day was the recapitulation of his entire life.

  The nights in southern Italy possess a soft, voluptuous quality: the sky is higher, the blue more transparent, the stars more numerous and brighter. The flowers of the frail magnolia and orange trees open twice annually, suffusing the air with their delicate scents, full of something other flowers do not have—the feeling of love, the breath of youth and abandon. I have asked myself many times why heaven destined those hours for repose. But perhaps night is the calmest and most marvelous scene of nature only because it is at night that men love. The sublime epic of the night! I would like to know whether the dead still retain a portion of their spiritual life on their stone beds, whether that dust—since it exists—is conscious of existing. In the pitch darkness that cloaks all the secrets of nature, I believe that no one can smile at this thought: superstition still has its claims, since it is always its shadows that send forth the first glimmers of truth and light. But have you ever spent a night in a cemetery? The silence there is more forbidding than at any other point on the earth, but you nevertheless have the heightened sense that something is living, thinking, stirring beneath you. Of course, if the dead live, it must be a life of solemn meditation…And how do you pass those long winter nights?…The infinite years of their mute existence?…In the rain, sun, snow…Poor souls! No, it is not true that death equalizes all destinies; the wealthy have constructed mausoleums, where they still maintain a ray of that light for which they were so greedy in life.

  In one of those most splendid dwellings Giulia’s corpse is placed, and the young woman rests in her shroud as if wrapped in the veils of her virginal bed. Her beauty has lost none of its seductiveness. A white dress, light, almost diaphanous, covers her modest figure; her black hair is unbound and drawn back from her brow by a crown of still fresh tuberose flowers. Her pure white hands lie at her sides with the gentle surrender of sleep, and only her feet, pointing upward and joined together, bear witness to the horrible rigidity of death.

  Bouvard enters the tomb with joy engraved on his countenance, with that breathless but sweet trepidation which accompanies the first sinful tryst with a desired woman. The horror does not hold him back, does not bridle his impatience, does not diminish the irresistible eagerness of his passion. Every delay can be fatal to his design—he must hasten its execution—his gold has procured him accomplices…He steals the girl’s corpse, and within a few moments he is alone with her in his secret, solitary abode.

  The young man sweetly hays her on a mass of flowers, then kneels down and stares at her…The pure white gown, the long, unbound tresses, the limp body nearly sunk in the immobility of death on a verdure-scented bed, the dazzling light painting every object in shades of gold and topaz form a strange spectacle, exalting and ravishing Bouvard’s imaginative mind. But he still has not dared to lift the veil concealing her face: he trembles at those features, fears that death has already altered her beauty, fears that fixed, severe gaze whose terrible stillness must taunt him with his crime. A thousand thoughts are now stirring in his troubled soul, the thought of his suffering, his futile love, his unhappy genius, the self-abandonment that dragged him from one day to the next, always hesitating, always disheartened to the point of ending his life in crime—since he feels the nearness of his end, has irrevocably decided to die…to die near her, near the woman at whose side he could not spend the fortunate, innocent life that had once been his dream.

  With this allusion he is confronted by all the memories of his early youth, those trustful, happy years when the eagerness for the unknown painted the future scenes of his life in a thousand lovely colors: the illusions, the dreams, that bold, unfailing faith, fortune’s courteous smile, the universal love whose desire is to strew roses on every man’s head, that yearning for a home and family, for perpetuating our existence in other creatures born from us, planning the good and achieving it, fixing it beforehand as the only goal of life…What falsehood and cruelty lie in those aspirations! He has nothing left: he suffered, and he continues to suffer; this is everything, this is the synthesis of his hopes—he kneels before a corpse, and the last of his days is about to end in crime. Bouvard is shaken and weeps. In that period of spiritual tranquility preceding death, our intellect enjoys a moment of ex
traordinary lucidity, during which the entire somber canvas of our past unfolds before our eyes. Joy, pain, affection, guilt—it all passes before us again, all evoked by the inexorable conscience. Happy are those whose gentle, comforting memories leave nothing to regret in life!

  Bouvard turns his gaze over his past and perceives only a limitless desert, a barren land without oases, water, greenery, lacking heaven’s smile. Twenty-nine years have passed, and he has not gathered a single one of those flowers that nature lavishes on all men. From the tree of life he has plucked only one fruit, a bitter, poisonous fruit, the cruelest of those that mature on its branches—the fruit of derision.

  At this thought, the young man’s mind, lost in the abyss of his memories, suddenly returns to himself, to his deformity, to Giulia: he observes the lovely, inanimate body that lies before him—that creature desired so long—that girl who was once so beautiful, so gay, so carefree, whose love would have consumed him in the luxuriance of his happiness, whose hate has helped him survive her through an obstinate potency of will.

  Whence proceeds that incomprehensible alarm which seizes us in front of a cadaver? What is this pointless, hypocritical respect that draws us, silent and humble, to a heap of scattering dust? Oh, the shameless impudence that bends men’s knees before the remains of a creature whose happiness was violated occasionally, whose life was poisoned countless times!

  But such is not Bouvard’s situation: he alone has suffered, he alone is the victim. He would like to stand over her as a judge, yet an inner conviction tells him that the years do not gauge existence, only happiness, the single, irrevocable happiness he lost—that girl is dead, but she was happy; he lives, but suffers. He survives her only to remember it.