Part 3

This is the adventure such as I have been able to learn it. Cydalise says I should be very proud because of it. She has made me memorize three lines of this divine poem, so that I shall never have the air of being ignorant of my past:

Alors m’éveillerais-je à la ferveur première, Droit et seul, sous le flot antique de lumière, Lys! et l’un de vous tous pour l’ingénuité.

Candor, again! But nothing suits me any longer.

I have made a bargain with Cydalise. I permit her to send you kisses: accept them. She permits me to make, to renew rather, an entreaty to you. Do not allow those rascals who disembowel girls to be called satyrs. A satyr is incapable of such crimes. The lasses I have met have been highly satisfied with me and their kisses, innocent like nature, have thanked me fervently with a thousand little tricks I taught them.

ANTIPHILOS, _Satyr._

IV

CYDALISE

IV

Cogolin, September 30.

Realize that I myself write to you. Cydalise has achieved this miracle. My divinity, which was already old six thousand years ago, now knows almost as much as those little lads coming out from school. I will not say that it has revealed the world to me. It has veiled it, on the contrary, and I have seen the world diminish, just as the pines on the hillsides lessen in size as one moves away. But in shrinking in stature, the world becomes sharper, its outlines grow more fixed, its light stronger. My brain is quite changed. It is no longer that of a god. The vision, vast but confused, and almost unconscious, has suddenly assumed form. Little by little I have detached myself from nature, where I was at home. She lived within me and I felt her like the beating of my heart. It is now I who live in her and in vain do I seek to touch her hands: no longer is she only air, light, odors and nourishment. I felt her breathing with the same breath as my own and now I must drink her essence: it intoxicates me.

Cydalise is amused at my astonishment:

“I see,” she says, “the birth of a man. That is finer than a god. I was curious about you. Now I love you, for I read a fraternity in your eyes. One can only love one’s equals or those who have been fashioned in one’s image. When the gods begin to love, they become men.”

This strange language delights me, for it is the truth: I have begun to love Cydalise. I know it by the fact that I now view the loveliest creatures almost indifferently, by the fact that the image of Cydalise immediately is interposed between them and me, if by chance they please and attract me. There were many of them under our pines, this summer. They used to lie on the lavender, their large hats shading their eyes; and they would pretend to sleep in the warm peacefulness of nature, beneath the sun’s last rays. Oh! the sudden emotion, the thrill that instantly seizes you, when the slowly lifted robe reveals a beautiful body! This is not an old recollection. There are still such refinements which were once common. Those bare feet in sandals, those hoods, those robes of a nun I once had seen in Florence, upright and modest in wool—the color of time and innocence—I beheld again, one evening, under the Cogolin pines.

How good and beautiful and gentle she was,—the little nun of Cogolin! It was my last adventure. Its memory is dear to me and I have not sacrificed it for Cydalise’s love; but since then I have sought nothing, accepted nothing. When I learned my alphabet, I wanted to carve these words on the bark of a plane-tree:

THE SATYR ANTIPHILOS IS FAITHFUL TO CYDALISE.

Re-reading this inscription, I could not believe it to be the truth, could not believe that I myself had written it. I was about to burst into laughter, when I beheld a happy expression in Cydalise’s eyes. I understood that I had not been lying.

We are living golden days. My sweetheart gives me almost all her time. When she leaves for the town, she returns a trifle fatigued, with pieces of gold which she smilingly shows, cakes, milk and honey. We share the food by the banks of a pure stream where doves come to drink.

Then she gives me a lesson. I think the gold she brings back with her comes from the lessons she gives men, down there. When I ask if her pupils are progressing, her only reply is to play with my curls and kiss me. I am acquiescent. Then we traverse our domain, that is to say the pine wood, the carpet of heather and lavender, the arid hillside where a stream, near which several plane-trees have sprung up, pauses beside a grotto and brambles.

Cydalise thinks it odd and amusing to dwell in a grotto. I have never slept anywhere but in the open or in grottos, and what astonishes me in our haven is not that it is a grotto, but that Cydalise has transformed it into a palace worthy of Olympus. In a chariot drawn by a swift-footed steed she brought a large sack of wool, skilfully sewed, on which we rest, much more at our ease than on the dead leaves which, notwithstanding, are comfortable; she also brought skins of beasts, and material richly woven and painted with liveliest colors. For her toilette she has collected a thousand objects which would make goddesses envious and, placed in elegant little boards are—and I have never seen the like of this—books and sketches. With her aid,—she is so frank, so refined, divine one might say—I live in a state of enchantment. I have leisure. My prepared repasts await me and the time I once spent in gathering fruits and roots is now passed with a book in which I discover life.

What surprises me, even more than the wonders created by Cydalise, is that life can be contained in the pages of a book. Yes, I have noticed that a sheet of paper on which one would say that a bug has taken a deliberate stroll with its dirty legs,—that such a rag of paper holds in itself more things than do the valleys and hillsides, the trees and horizons which stand or spread out in front of me. My long and divine experience is confounded. I believed I knew things because I had seen them; but men have regarded them, and that is not the same thing. I can only faintly express my joys, those of a budding, young, civilized creature. Into me have entered ideas of whose existence I never had the slightest suspicion, and as a result I am quite perturbed. It is in vain that I would attempt to explain them to you. Then, it would be like explaining flying to one who is at home in the air. But I need a confidant, a man to whom I can confess my new state of mind, without being laughed at. Cydalise intimidates me too much: near her I am like a big child trying to read thoughts in eyes and finding only itself reflected therein.

Ah! divine nature, thou art the agent, nevertheless, and it is thee I must thank. It is my noble nudity and the wild boldness of my carriage that have attracted this woman to me. The antennæ of pleasure have slowly changed to those of intelligence. When Cydalise, under my attentive eyes, disrobes and stands radiant, it seems to me that it is Isis herself; my brain is awhirl and no longer my senses alone, and my mind expands and blossoms with the same movement as my flesh.

Well! Not so bad for a satyr, eh? I re-read what I have written with a sense of pleasure, change a few commas and amuse myself hugely.

V

METAMORPHOSIS

V

Toulon, December 15.

Oh, what adventures since my last letter which itself announced so many changes in my life! I believe Cydalise is the victim of Aphrodite who has caused her to become infatuated with me.

“Before knowing you,” she tells me, “I did not know what love was?”

I laugh up my sleeve, for Cydalise, though mortal, has always seemed to me an expert in this immortal science, which I have practiced long enough to be considered a good judge. But I say nothing. How retort? My divine irony pauses at my lips, for Cydalise makes me experience such a strange sentiment. It is certain that I cannot do without her, and such a thing never happened to me before. To me she is more beautiful than all other women, fresher than maidens, more melting than perfumed matrons. With her I possess everything and I regret nothing. I soar higher than the gods, to the point where it seems to me that to become more than a god, one must cease being divine at each hour of existence. True divinity is intermittent and reposes deliciously in the vague condition of having been a god. I offer so many things in love that heretofore I had never sought of women; of them I had asked nothing more than to be a pretext, an opportunity for self-display. Now I feel that Cydalise throws as many jewels at my feet as I do: accordingly, not to be outdone in generosity, I obey her. She does what she wishes with me. What a metamorphosis!

I could not bear to be separated from her and the inclemency of the season made our meetings more and more difficult. Then she hit on the idea of bringing me to town:

“For I want to love you among my people,” she said.

I, who recalled the blows of pitchforks and the fangs of dogs, remained silent, gazing at her with terror.

“Are you afraid?”

“How can I follow you with my bareness?”

Cydalise broke into laughter, threw herself into my arms. That day we spoke no more of my departure.

One morning I was sadly meditating, dreaming of flight like a boar bearing in its flank the spear which has wounded it. Despite my love, the intriguing vision of new women began to swim before me; I was hearing their laughter, their disputes and their restless mockery, when Cydalise appeared at the end of the road, carrying a large bundle which she let fall, at the same instant that she herself dropped to the ground. Without uttering a word, she by turns looked at the package and at me. At last, she decided to laugh, as is her wont in embarrassing situations. She rolled on the moss, a prey to such a fit of hysterical gayety that her dress gave way. This changed the tenor of her thoughts and instantly calmed her. As soon as I noticed her troubled and serious face, I drew near and, after kissing her eyes tenderly, opened the package.

Cydalise’s eyes were following my every emotion with curiosity:

“Yes, it’s for you. I’m going to take you to town.”

You have guessed that it contained man’s apparel. I experienced a moment of despair:

“What, put on this!”

But Cydalise looked at me with such solicitude that I murmured, as submissive as an infant:

“I would really like to.”

She clapped her hands and we entered the grotto. There, it was quite cool and this perhaps influenced my mood. I was very much satisfied with myself after I had donned these garments which at first had seemed such wretched instruments of torture.

I felt warm and there emanated from me a certain human elegance of which I was proud. A sailor has since told me that I had the grace of Ho-Papo, the negro king, and he was not joking: a king is always a king, a satyr is always a satyr. With usual feminine good taste, Cydalise began to admire me. She did not tire of flattery, made me turn like a top, and smoothed the wrinkles and pockets of the suit. She only pouted at my blue tie which did not go well with my complexion, she said. “But we will see about that later.” My shoes were of soft, brilliant leather and did not hurt me in the least. A round, broad-brimmed hat completely covered my little, curving horns and my heavy shock of hair. Blushing a little, she put some pieces of gold and silver in my coat pocket. Then:

“Now, dear, you are ready. Let’s leave.”

“Farewell, grotto where I have been happy with the wind; and you, trees, streams, holly-trees, adieu. Nature, adieu....”

Cydalise interrupted my effusions, which seemed ridiculous, besides, to me, now that I had donned this human livery, and we transferred the contents of the grotto into a packet hardly bigger than the one which had contained the elements of my metamorphosis. I would have really liked to sacrifice once more to the sylvan Aphrodite, but Cydalise said that the train would not wait for us. We reached the carriage waiting for us at the edge of the pine forest.

My sensations, in this extraordinary beginning of my new life, were too confused for me to be able to find words to characterize them correctly. I traveled with something of the feeling of the animal I had been until now, but a divine animal in whom all sounds leave an impression. If I applied myself to the task, I might succeed in deciphering my impressions, as I did the phrases in my first reading book, but I fear that the results will give you nothing new, and I am going to delay the co-ordination of my emotions till later, if I should then decide that it is worth the trouble.

“Thus I behold these rapid objects which pass through the country, fleeter than the deer, more clamorous than wolves....”

You know how this sort of thing is done. Or again:

“Now I am installed in one of those palaces seen massed far off in the valleys or on the hills, and from which spreads a confused, continuous roar like the sea.”

Besides, my astonishments have ceased. I live with Cydalise in a room which looks out on the sea and where I suffocate when the window is shut. I hardly see my divine creature more often than in the days when our couch had only pine branches for a curtain. She never returns before two or three o’clock in the morning, and so fatigued that she only thinks of love upon awakening. She continues to recite the verses of the poets before groups of people, and amateurs of poetry demand her talents after the public performances. Despite this, I am not bored. I pay attention to things. So far, I do not see very well. My happiness is concentrated in Cydalise, and I am the joy of her days.

ANTIPHILOS, _Satyr._

VI

THE CELL

VI

March 1.

Strange, this life for which I have exchanged my familiar woods and their hazards! And all through Cydalise! What monotony at first; then what annoyance and ennui! I thought of escape many a time, but my sweetheart imprisoned me with her tears, her smiles, her kisses, her gestures of entreaty.

“At least, wait until good weather arrives, dear,” she said. “What will you do in this severe cold, with the wind moaning through the pines, now that you have grown accustomed to the softness of beds and my tenderness? Could you find your way alone, among all these houses that conceal the horizon from your gaze? O Antiphilos! think of me, think of our mornings, think of my days made divine by your presence! What! you wish to leave your Cydalise! Have you not everything needed by a satyr? Come, tell me what it is you lack?”

I am at a loss for a reply to these honied words breathed into my pointed ears, and on my lips as well, while she kisses me. I desire to rediscover myself, but would she understand if I told her this? So I am silent. I also keep from her an adventure which has upset me. I fear she suspects it, although I would not wish her to be certain of it. The thing still makes me tremble, but you will know it, for you are my friend. And if I did not tell you, who then? For I no longer can confide in the pines, the rhododendrons, the crags and streams. Formerly, when some unlucky adventure befell me, through having strayed too near civilization, I would joyously chant my griefs and fears. Now, a prisoner, I have no living thing to listen to me, and when my voice rises, it stuns me. Besides, I have other concerns than liberty, the liberty I know I shall never recover.

One sunny day of last month, when I was leaning against the window and peering out, I discovered a grassy nook not far from here, a garden from which sharp cries came. I desired to go there. Cydalise daily takes me for a walk before dinner—as she would a favorite, pet animal. We go through old streets, towards the harbor, trying to reach the country; but it is too far away, and Cydalise never has time to spare. We dine early; she returns with me and, after a few caresses, leaves me with a parting injunction to be good. These maternal, little ways delight me, but they are also hard on me. I see myself reduced to an obedient infant, and this hurts my pride. At other times, I reflect that it is love which holds me, modifying my soul. Then I no longer dare commiserate myself, and I obey Cydalise’s every whim with a good grace.

I can fall asleep quickly. Reading by natural light dazes me, and I have preserved that faculty, more divine than animal, of instantly falling into an easy slumber, at once profound and light, which plunges me to the depths in a trice, and in a breath brings me back to the surface. I awake only with the return of Cydalise, who comes at a late hour, with the harmonious bees of Pindus still murmuring within her. She hums the verses she has been declaiming before the people, with new rhythms unfamiliar to my ear accustomed more to the stirring of winds through trees than to the fanciful inventions of inspired Euterpe. Sometimes she falls into my arms, almost dead with fatigue. Sometimes she disrobes frantically, astonishing me even by the boldness of her wanton movements. But I must confess that usually she is quite calm. After hailing me with a “Good evening, Tityrus,” she counts the money lying in her large bag which never leaves her; generally, she seems satisfied with herself and loses no time in falling asleep.

Were it not for the mornings, I certainly could not support a life so measured and confined; despite my love for Cydalise, I would go whither the road led; but I must confess that the mornings embellish my life. Cydalise is very lovely and surrenders her beauty even more completely than was her wont in the grottos and on the mosses. The open air and absence of seclusion frighten women a little. So I can understand and admire the means taken by your civilization to reassure them. If I can judge by Cydalise, how faun-like they become behind a stout bolt and under a light softly sifted by curtains! She is worthy of the gods. Why art thou not, like myself, immortal! I cannot behold thee without melancholy, for now that I perceive thy continued existence, I also perceive thy fate. It is only _en passant_, like a flash of lightning that gods should love women, who then experience them as a memorable thunderclap descending, illuminating, consuming, disappearing. And for them love, in their life, is but a deeper sensation, a profounder inspiration, a headier cup of wine. But the constant union of two beings so different in essence, though almost alike in desires and pleasures! Cydalise’s love makes me aware of the sadness of perishable things. I think of flowers, I think of the harvest time, I think of the seasons, of all that lives but a day, of all things that inevitably fall into the gulf, never to reappear. In giving me her feminine love, Cydalise has given me a man’s soul,—a soul realizing that destiny will not strike it, while witnessing the passing of all dear ones.

I already possess the metaphysical jargon of men. I can no longer accept life as it is offered, good or bad, but ever adorable by the fact that it exists. In spite of my divinity, I think of what will be, as though I did not bear the present and future within me, and as though I were not destined never to feel their burden on my shoulders. Mysterious gods, I need an effort not to think with sadness, I whose unconscious life once exulted in brief moments of illumination! Shall I really be transformed into a man, through having loved a woman? Then, I too, would have age. How long do infatuated fauns live? Perhaps that is why they have disappeared, for one no longer encounters them, at least in these Occidental lands.

You see to what excesses my ramblings lead me and the illogical thoughts which attack me while contemplating the mortal head of Cydalise, asleep as though she were dead. Ah, mortals! how poisonous is your love, and what an idea was mine to lift towards my lips the cool amphoras which seemed to contain pure water! Trust in pure water, fauns and satyrs.

And I have not told you my adventure. Cydalise is yet asleep, but she will soon awake. I dare not. I will write you more anon. Despite his sunny mornings, pity the poor satyr.

ANTIPHILOS, _Satyr._

VII

THE SATYR! THE SATYR!

VII

Toulon, March 15.

Dear friend, the head of a satyr living in Toulon with a lyrical declaimer of verse, the people’s favorite, and seeing nothing but the ungraceful habitations of humanity, is subject to strange effervescences. So you will pardon the ramblings of my last letter in which I desired to describe a certain incident but did not know how to go about it. I have not yet learned how to assort my ideas into their compartments. They are jumbled together in complete disorder, and the result is confusion. When I wish to draw one of them out, the others interfere, and much time is spent in putting the whole into some semblance of order.

I was on the point of touching the matter in question when the hour struck for Cydalise to give to her rested features the smile that illuminates them. This is the same as saying that Cydalise awakes with a smile. It occurs like a rose unfolding quickly enough to let one observe the opening of its petals. I would not willingly miss the phenomenon, and from the rose I watch each morning I draw the dew of moist lips. The hamadryads and the oreads are beautiful. Happy is he who can surprise them in the freshness of dawn and awaken storms of pleasure in their breasts. But Cydalise effaces their memory by her indescribable grace in which promises and desires are blent. She is really the waking nymph, but she is the nymph who awaits her beloved, joyously taking possession at the same instant that she surrenders. I would never reach an end, dear friend, if I dared tell you all the delights Cydalise causes me to experience. It is an incantation, perhaps, but I lend myself happily to its consummation, and never am I surfeited by the divine potion, no more than by the ecstasy with which it fills me.

On a certain morning of the month that has passed, Cydalise was cruel. She permitted me to drink her dawning smile, but the perfumed, blossomed cup was rudely snatched from my lips, at the same time that her arms, clasped an instant round my neck, disengaged themselves and thrust me away.

“Tityrus,”—this is how she always addresses me—“I have business to attend. I must leave for I am already late. Be good, my dear.”

Not a word did I say; I merely looked at her distressfully. She quickly dressed, kissed me almost discreetly and disappeared.

She left me in a state which you, perhaps, will not understand, since you are not a faun. Within me these lines murmured:

Tant pis! vers le bonheur d’autres m’entraîneront Par leur tresse nouée aux cornes de mon front....

She had forgotten to lock me in. I was out in a trice. I had taken pains with my attire, had given myself all the elegance worthy of my athletic, satyr form. It was the morning hour. Shrill cries issuing from a little garden gave me my bearings. There were all sorts of short-skirted creatures who were playing, leaping, running; but I particularly noticed two almost tall girls near a clump of trees. They were conversing while combing their dolls. Another bench was opposite; I sat down on it.

Already you are trembling because you know the person, because he has confessed several amusing anecdotes to you, because it is by a mere slip of a girl that you first learned of my existence. Well, my friend, nothing occurred, unless it be that I was suddenly seized with fear, that I took to my heels and returned home, followed, from a distance, happily—by a yelling troop of Yahoos.

“The satyr! The satyr!”

I was allayed. I did not desire to be led “by their tresses tied to the horns of my head.”

But what reflections are these!