by Edgar Quinet
2.
A thousand images I dreamed, when I lived on earth, are reappearing around me. There is, however, one that still, dead as I am, makes me palpitate and weep.
CHORUS OF RESUSCITATED WOMEN
1.
How will you recognize the one you seek? We all bear the same wound in our hearts; it is, if you know it, the harm that nothing cures, neither simples, nor balm, nor the plain, nor the mountain, nor desire, nor regret, and which continues to grow in death, like a flower in its vase.
2.
Our stories are different; so are our words; but they all have the same meaning. We have lived far from one another, in many places, connected with one another without being aware of it, by dolor. In our tears, in our songs, in our sighs, we are, one after another, the ever-repeated echo of the great love that makes the heavens beautiful enough to endure, and the world sad enough to die.
THE POET
Pass by and weep. By means of these more divine tears, I shall learn more about the one who can resuscitate.
(One after another, the souls of the resuscitated emerge from the earth and pass by.)
SAPPHO
I was Sappho of Lesbos, when Phaon was on earth.36
The sea, the vast sea into which I threw myself, has not drowned my desire in its abyss. With my lyre, the Ocean has cradled me throughout Eternity on its finest shores. Just one tear, in its bosom, from the one who caused me to shed so many, would have sated me more than all the waves of Leucadia and Asia that have kissed my lips and have wearied of it without slaking my thirst.
HÉLOISE
I was Héloise, when he was named Abailard.
The skies, the vast skies, greater than the sea of Asia, are not great enough for the love of my soul. The pillars of the cloister have not chilled my bosom; my hope has been incubated in death. More than one, beneath my tombstones, I raised myself up on my elbow to embrace my Abailard. In his heart, my seven heavens radiated. Him, that my God; he is my faith, he is my Christ. I am his mystical bride, and our tomb is our paradise. Let us not emerge therefrom. Our bones are mingled, our ashes too; no, I do not want to be resuscitated.
QUEEN BERTHE THE BLONDE37
On a throne decked out with oriflammes, I have often wept when I had to smile. Ten nations kissed my robe if I passed by on my ambling horse; if I threaded my distaff, a great empire said: Shh! in order to hear my spindle purr. But beneath the awning and in my gilded chamber, and in my innumerable peoples, more than one empire was lacking. Without bargaining, I would have given away of my decorated throne for less than a sigh, my cities and domains for one sweet breath, and my three kingdoms, filed with barons, squires, tournaments and long war-cries for the three word “I love you” said, and heard and repeated in the evening, in whisper, in the forest, on a bench, in an arbor of branches.
GABRIELLE DE VERGY38
Listen to me, queen of love, and tell me whether I’m right to turn my mouth away from bread and life, and to want neither crumb nor leaven. The last meal that I had on earth is still bitter on my palate. It was in the tower of Vergy. It was a bright day in May; a bullfinch was singing in the bush. The one that I cannot name was at table with me, so close that his spur touched my dress many times, and I still tremble mortally at the thought. We were alone, not speaking. After grace, my eyes gazed at the tablecloth, but my heart as far away, on the road to the Holy Land, in expectation of a new pain. The cruel lord said to me: “What are you thinking about, my love? You’re not eating; take this.” And when I had put my lips to it: “Oh, how bitter it is! I shall die of it, I see. What have I eaten?” “You have eaten, Madame, the heart of your lover, the Sire de Coucy.”
That is how I ate my last meal, and why the taste of my poison is still in my mouth, so insistently that all the bread of the angels can never take it away.
BEATRICE
On my lips, life has left neither sweetness or bitterness. Its taste is past; I no longer know what it was. The one who put in verse the Paradise, the Inferno and the Purgatory, and who met me near Florence while going up to San Miniato, knows it in my stead. Without seeing him, I went on my way. Was I a dream in his heart? was I a sigh in his mouth? or a phantom in his night? or a flower picked too soon? or a Florentine too soon betrothed? or a wave in the moaning Arno? or nothing but a name? or nothing but a shadow that he dressed from head to toe in his deep desire? I am not the one who can say. Sigh or dream, wave passing by, flower losing its petals, or shadow, or girl, that which I want to call eternity of love with the one who dreamed me.
MADEMOISELLE AISSÉ39
For myself, I remember only too well that it was on earth that I lived; if I ever forgot, this wound in my heart, here, would remind me. In the world I lived, in the world I suffered. The fête glittered around me, and at the ball I played. To amuse myself, like the others, I pulled the petals from my crown. My mouth was still smiling, although the worm had already eaten away my joy. During the day, I lived on desires, during the night, on remorse. Once only, tremulously, the word that was the sweetest for me to say passed my lips; and that word, heard all too clearly, brought me where I am.
THE CONTESSA DI GUICCIOLI40
The one for whom I left the Conte, after my marriage, all the others called Byron, when I alone called him Noël. He, whose ennui neither the Thames nor the Rhine, nor the Tagus nor Venice, nor all the minarets beyond the Dardanelles had been able to dispel, remained seated beside me throughout the long summer months, counting my golden hairs. For one day of absence, his tears began to flow again in the garden of Ravenna, and his lips to pale. At Mira, Bologna and Genoa, but especially at Pisa, near the Arno and the Strada Lunga, in the Palazzo Lanfranchi, what hours, my God! all seeing one another, listening to one another, then falling silent, and always seeing one another again, whose skies will never return, nor anything so beautiful, so warm with soft sighs! Under an Italian pine, I cured with a smile the wound of Lara, of the Corsair, of Manfred, of Harold. With the star of Tuscany, ever ruby-red, with the breath of the sea, always half-asleep, with the balm of villas, I too appeased, for one evening, the harsh pain of an immortal spirit. That is the reason for which I was put on earth, and I do not repent of it, even if the Conte finds out about it.
CHORUS OF DESDEMONA, JULIET, CLARISSA HARLOWE, MIGNON, WOLDEMAR’S JULIE, VIRGINIE, ATALA41
Between the earth and heaven we float indefinitely, without ever an hour’s repose. Never have we had face or form, meaning or shelter, except in the dreams that made us. We are images from above, living tears, eternal tears without eyelids, infinite sighs without voices, impalpable caresses, naked thoughts, souls searching for a body as pure as ourselves, without being able to find one in the mud of the universe.
Reply, dead man, in your coffin; is it us that you expect to resuscitate you?
THE POET
No, it isn’t you. The one for whom I’m waiting has an even softer voice; her aspect is even more celestial; with a glance she would already have drawn me from the depths of my dust like Lazarus. Keep moving, and tell me what caused you to die.
A VOICE
My face was as pure as the face of an angel, but my heart as empty. My eyes were as profound as the sky, but like a sky devoid of stars. The world called me its divinity; for myself, I did not believe in any God. I did not love anything. That is why I am dead.
SECOND VOICE
1.
Beneath a linden-tree my name is written at the place where the Vosges gazes at Spire. When the Rhine flowed, it is him that I saw, on feast-days, when emerging from my city. In the vines, there, at the foot of Mont-Tonnerre, under the walnut-trees facing the church, there was a path on which my heart as broken of its own accord. I thought to collect a balm in death; but on awakening, my pain begins again too soon. Hope wearies me as much as a blade of grass to sustain. Oh, Father, where are you, to bring me something to drink? I have a fever. Where are you, my little brother, to relieve my bedside? If you want me to revive, go tell the Lord to efface in my sou
l, with his finger, the vine, the mountain, the walnut-tree, the path, and my name too, as he has effaced them without difficulty from the earth.
2.
Neither tomorrow, nor afterwards, the one who knows who I am will never come again. It is not into his arms that I have thrown myself, but it is his heart that I have broken. It is not his voice that I have followed, but it is his bosom that I have wounded. It is not at his door that I have knocked, but it is his hope that I have trampled. I wanted to love everything. That is why I, personally, am dead.
THIRD VOICE
1.
My name means Wisdom and sounds like Love. In the land where Gabrielle de Vergy’s tower crumbled, I lived without counting the months or the tears. Town or country, all was indifferent to me. I desired nothing, evening, morning or the following day. Sitting at my half-closed window, I scarcely raised my eyes to see who was coming up my steps. But one word that I heard awakened me with a sob. Since that moment, heavens and dolors have opened up to me. That is why I was born.
2.
For seven years, while doing my needlework, I waited on my balcony, overlooking the canal, for the one who had kissed the flower that fell from my hand one day on my fête in May to pass by. I had retained my breath in my heart, as much as I could, merely to hear his horse whinnying under my window; but the wind carried the sound away. The world went by in his stead. In my hearth, morning and evening, I covered my memory with my ashes. Without weeping, I did my work as before. As before, I smiled. That is why I am dead.
3.
In my bosom, I have kept in silence the faith of times that were no longer. When everything said: “It is a dream,” I alone believed in hope prolonged. A thought, a dream, chimera were sacred to me. Behind my blinding tears, I glimpsed better skies. I lived in a dream that no one else has had. For my fête, I ornamented myself, but my fête was beyond the earth. The world called to me, and without saying anything, I replied in a whisper to the sky: Here I am. That is why I am alive again.
THE POET
1.
One voice, one voice has pierced my bones. Two tears falling on my ashes have remade the clay of my heart; I am resuscitated.
2.
By this path, let me follow the one who has caused me to be reborn. My days, when I as on earth, were too short to pour my entire life at leisure on her footsteps, like a perfumed oil. Many unfinished secrets that she ought to have known, many half-pronounced words, remained on my lips. It is the very least, my God! that I can see that bodiless soul passing here, as a blind man sees a flower in its perfume.
3.
Of all the world, nothing remains to me but this ring on my finger, and on my heart, this letter, which death has not effaced, scarcely read, scarcely closed, in an ink paler than tears, the response to which must be sought in heaven. Heaven, yield me the one who wrote it. Just one hour, that her light might illuminate me! Then I will become dust again; ah! yes, dust, to dry in my book these final words, which you will show her.
VII.
A desert country. In the distance, the empty sea, and a ruin, which represents that of the world.
RACHEL
Yes, if that is what you want, Joseph, it is what I want; we shall stay here in this nameless valley; this jasmine shall be our cradle. While the worlds finish dying, you and I, here, without separating for an hour, will begin to live again, as we did in Linange. All the love of the earth will be enclosed between these two rocks. With you, without God, without Christ, without sunlight, I swear to you that I shall have no need of anything. The souls are rising up to heaven again, but we shall never go beyond this flowering heather. I shall see nothing but you; you shall see nothing but me. No one star shall say to me again: “This is dusk,” when I would rather it were daylight. My hand in your hand, my eyes in your eyes, we shall spend eternity here, beneath this linden tree.
AHASUERUS
We could be happy here, I think. But that happiness is too easy; tomorrow, or the day after, we can find it again, whenever we wish. Let’s go further on, all the way to the end of the world; it’s there, it’s there, that I should like to be.
RACHEL
We are there; after this comes the heavens.
AHASUERUS
What! That’s all? This is our barrier already! It’s too close. I’m weary of the earth; in the heavens, I think, I’ll feel better.
RACHEL
Once, when I gave you a flower, you desired nothing more. Now that I’m all yours, I’m no longer anything to you—tell the truth.
AHASUERUS
Forgive me, my heart. It’s only the moments passing. There are some, as you know, in which a blade of grass makes me weep for joy, and others in which all the heavens are insufficient for me.
RACHEL
This world, which is ending, does not make me weep; but I am no longer for you what I once was; that is what is killing me.
AHASUERUS
The evil does not come from me, be sure of that; but here, I can’t be healed. When I mean the most to you, and I feel my heart breathing in your heart, it’s precisely then that my ears ring, and there is a voice that cries out to me: “Further on! Further on! Go all the way to my sea of love.”
RACHEL
What! When I hold you in my arms, I’m not sufficient for you?
AHASUERUS
It’s the sickness of my soul. When my lips have drunk your breath, I’m still thirsty, and the same voice cries out to me: “Further on! Further on! Go all the way to my source,” and when I hug you to my bosom, my bosom says to me: “Why is this not the infinite virgin who dwells in heaven?”
RACHEL
Oh, Ahasuerus, don’t make me jealous of Mary. For a smile from you, I would damn myself a thousand times.
AHASUERUS
I would never have spoken to you about it first, but in all my joys there is a fundamental pain, and that pain is so bitter, so bitter that your kisses can never take the taste of it away; I thought that it would pass, but it has only increased!
RACHEL
Your desires are too immense; it’s my fault for having been unable to fulfill them.
AHASUERUS
No, it’s not your fault. To provide myself with an illusion, I wanted to adore you in all things. If I heard a passing stream, I said to myself: “That’s her sigh;” if I saw a bottomless abyss, I thought: “That’s her heart.” From the vapor of islands, and clouds, and the stars, and the heavy breath of the evening, I made myself an eternal Rachel who was you, and you again, and always you, and you everywhere, you a thousand times repeated. Forgive me: I’m telling you the truth; my despair lies therein. That whole world has passed; it has dried up my heart.
RACHEL
So I can no longer be anything to you? Yes! That’s Hell! Me, who wanted to be your entire Heaven and your entire Paradise.
AHASUERUS
Listen to me! If, for just one hour, I knew what it was to be loved by Heaven, I would be more tranquil, I’m certain of it. I have made a thousand chimeras of divine love; if I were to taste it, they would surely dissipate, for it’s a madness more powerful than me that drives me to love more than love, and to adore I don’t know what, of which I don’t even know the name. This evening, to finish it, I would like to drown myself in the infinite sea that I’ve never seen. To dive into it with you! To die there with you! Yes, that’s what I want. Guide me to its shore.
RACHEL
But my Christ is that sea; come, come damn yourself there with me.
AHASUERUS
Is its rock high? its strand steep? is its water deep enough to drown two souls?
RACHEL
Yes, and all their memories too.
AHASUERUS
Tell me, are you quite sure that I’ll no longer feel this disgust, not this desire that everything stirs up, and that my heart will stop in the end?
RACHEL
I’m sure of it.
AHASUERUS
And that your God, in that abyss, will always be suf
ficient for me, and that I shall not need a greater one tomorrow, for a greater desire?
RACHEL
No, come; you will never want any other.
AHASUERUS
Never any other? That’s the only thing I doubt.
RACHEL
Well, come on, then! My God! The earth has no more water, but my tears will baptize you. Get down on your knees, as in the time when you adored me.
AHASUERUS, kneeling down while Rachel baptizes him with her tears
More tears! Yours are too warm. Rather weep upon my heart; there, yes, there; it’s there that I’m thirsty.
RACHEL, to herself
And me, it’s also there, without wanting to, that you’re causing me to die, never again to be resuscitated.
VIII.
Mob is audible in the distance, pursuing the dead emerged from the ground.
MOB
1.
Resuscitate! The thing’s worn out, and the word too. Who is that, whispering it so quietly? The echo, I suppose. The dead have heard; the dead are repeating it. Here they come; there they go; here they stroll; there they run. But above all, they’re yawning and whispering: “I’m still asleep.”
