The Last Fay

by Honoré de Balzac

  All the items of furniture, instead of wood, were made of nacre and enriched with designs in mat silver; their fabric was the most brilliant satin, embroidered with pearls figured by the design. Everywhere, delicate white flowers spread their odor of jasmine, orange-blossom and myrtle. In the middle of the room, a vast sculpted alabaster basin contained an amour blowing into a shell, limpid water springing half way up to the height of the apartment, and then escaping via the marble column on which the basin was set. That murmuring water refreshed the air and encouraged reverie.

  Finally, on a silver platform at the back of that cloud of whiteness, Abel, dazed by the search, perceived the fay lying majestically in the middle of a bed of dew, as white as the fabric on which she lay. A profusion of pearls, sown into everything that she used, indicated the profession of the Pearl Fay, and her beauty was so true, so brilliant, that as soon as one looked at her, the magnificence of the place disappeared, and one no longer saw anything but her. On a mat silver night-table the beautiful bronze lamp cast a mysteriously soft glow, only providing the light necessary to perceive the beauty of the place, which too bright a light would have rendered fatiguing for the eyes.

  The pearl and the white were a combination of candor and mystery that fostered amour like the light of the stars. There is an expertise and a purity in the color that renders it the favorite of all loving and gracious souls, Venus emerged from the bosom of the ocean, but before that, she had emerged from a pearl; for a pearl had to be her cradle, as the soul of a young virgin has to be that of amour. Amour itself is born of the dew in the chalice of a virginal lily. Finally, white without brightness is the friend of the unfortunate; does not the melancholy of the half-tender, half-bitter smile often gaze at the mass of light that forms the white radiance that the chaste goddess of the night sends to the earth? So, in that redoubt of softness, Abel sensed amour taking possession of all his faculties.

  The pretty fay got up and ran toward Abel. He did not hear the sound of her footfalls, for she was moving over a snow-white carpet. In the end, he was plunged in such ecstasy that he could not pronounce a single word. He contemplated the fay, fell to his knees, placed his amorous head on the feet of the goddess, and covered them with kisses. The curls of his beautiful hair caressed the fay’s feet. She enjoyed his astonishment with an indescribable pleasure.

  “Come on, get up,” she said, the sound of her voice charming, “and don’t be foolish. In truth, fay as I am, I blush for you...”

  It Abel had been able to see the color that covered the fay’s face he would have been at the peak of his joy. She drew the young man to a white satin sofa; they sat down there together, and the fay, taking back her wand, rapped three times on the night-table.

  Suddenly, an ethereal music filled the air with divine sounds. In his ecstasy, Abel seized the fay’s hand; they remained side by side for as long as the music went on, and poor Abel, intoxicated by amour, confounded his soul with that of the goddess. His eyes came perpetually to die in the eyes of his companion, who was not at all displeased by that mute homage, and even appeared to take pleasure in it.

  Finally, at a moment when three divine voices were singing, in an unknown language, a piece whose notes seemed infused with amour, Abel and the fay were squeezing one another’s hands, blushing together, and their hearts were beating in unison; then, gradually, the fay withdrew her hand, and Abel thought he had lost everything when he could no longer feel the delicate fingers of the angel of amour and beauty.

  “Why,” he said “did I ask to come to this place? I can no longer live on earth, but only in his cloud that you inhabit. My cottage, my garden, my flowers—you have taken them all away, for everything will displease me, and you will have given me nothing!”

  “Ingrate!” said the fay, in a tone full of reproach. “Why do you not count the memory of this moment, which, even for me, will not be without charm? Yes, my palace is full…splendid…magnificent; but think, Abel, that the most beautiful habitation of a fay is a pure heart, a heart entirely hers, a great, generous, sensible heart.”

  Abel looked at her with an expression signifying that he was offering his.

  “I hear you,” she said, with the delicate smile of an angel opening the door of heaven to a just person, meaning: Here it is! “I hear you, Abel…but to communicate with fays and djinn requires vast knowledge that you do not have.”

  “Can I acquire it?” he asked, swiftly.

  “Yes,” she replied, “And if you succeed, I shall have a great proof of your…of your…aptitude for science.”

  “Beautiful fay,” said Abel, “you promised to evoke the shade of my father for me. If you have the power to do that...” He set himself on his knees.

  The fay stood up, took him by the hand, and, while he was gazing at the white vault shining with a soft brightness, she deposited a kiss on that cherished hand, gathering her soul into the small space that her lips embraced. Abel turned round, but the majestic fay adopted an attitude of cool dignity, and suppressed her pleasure in the utmost depths of her heart. Nonplussed, Abel lowered his gaze.

  Then, with her wand, the fay touched a shell, which suddenly vanished; a slight sound caused Abel to look, and he saw his father stimulating his furnace with the bellows, and his mother embroidering his collar; he raised his hand to his neck, to assure himself that that pledge of maternal love was still there, and remained mute with stupor, prey to fear.

  He uttered an exclamation, moved forward, putting out his hands, but he was stopped by a substance as cold as ice and as hard as diamond, and he fainted.

  When he woke up, he found himself in the fay’s arms. She was paler than he was, holding a handkerchief, with which she was wiping his face, and the sweetest perfumes had brought him round. That moment was one of the most beautiful instants of his life; his eyes encountered the anxious eyes of the fay, who was looking at him amorously.

  Contemplating that sweet face was a delicious sensation; he did not feel himself yet; he was born to life, with the difference that he knew that he was being born, and that he seemed to be drawing his existence from the fay’s eyes. He had no other memory, no perception of himself.

  Plunged in a delightful, tranquil, blissful calm, no longer belonging to the earth, he no longer knew who he was, or where he was…no, he was in love, and saw the object of his love smiling at him in the bosom of a cloud of voluptuousness, grace and richness.

  The Pearl Fay was coiffed in a manner to realize the idea of an angel, her curls accumulated over her forehead, her gaze compassionate. Abel thought he was in heaven…but when she saw him open his eyes, she left him, and went out.

  Abel found himself alone, therefore, in that place of delights, with his ecstasy and his memories. After an amorous reverie, as sweet as the air of the homeland, he perceived the lamp. Then, remembering the story of Aladdin, he conceived the idea of appropriating the fay’s—to whom, moreover, he would not be doing any harm because, he told himself, if it’s a talisman she won’t miss it, and if it’s only a lamp, I won’t be depriving her of anything very precious.

  What confirmed him in the thought that the lamp was a talisman was its lack of richness, for it was only bronze; then again, a fay ought not to have anything that was not enchanted.

  In brief, he stole the lamp, slipped it into his bosom, and promised himself to try it out at the first opportunity.

  The fay soon returned, bringing in a precious milk-white vase a beverage that she demanded that Abel drink immediately. While he was drinking she perceived very easily the larceny that he had committed, and, remembering the manner in which he had looked at the lamp, deduced with what intention the theft had been committed.

  “Ingrate!” she exclaimed, in a harmonious voice that she tried in vain to render severe. “I heap you with benefits, I satisfy your desires, I do for you what no fay has ever done for anyone, since I have introduced you to my dwelling, at the risk of being reprimanded by all the fays who learn of it—and you take possession of one o
f my most precious talismans, the one that an enchanter in the great bazaar sold so dearly?”

  Abel was on his knees. “Little fay,” he said, “don’t be angry, or you’ll make me perish of dolor.”

  “Go,” she went on. “My only vengeance is to give it to you, telling you what it is necessary to do to make use of it. Rub it beside the great cabalistic stone that is near your cottage; stamp your foot three times on the slab that had to be found there—a precious slab that your father had buried and which I had a great deal of trouble recognizing—and then you can obtain from the djinni of the lamp anything that you desire. Adieu—merit my presence.”

  She took him by the hand, and, emerging from her mysterious abode, she guided him in darkness through a long tunnel.

  The fay pronounced a few words in a strange language; then three men seized him, and placed him on a soft cushion, while covering his eyes with a blindfold, and he felt himself borne away rapidly.

  He fell asleep, and after a very long and profound sleep he woke up again, and found himself in bed in his laboratory.

  Caliban was by his side, and seemed troubled.

  Abel thought he had been dreaming; he rubbed his eyes and looked at his old servant, who was contemplating him with great anxiety.

  Chapter VIII

  Testing the Lamp

  “Isn’t this a dream, Caliban? Didn’t you come with me into the gulf, yesterday evening?”

  “Yesterday evening?” said he old servant. “The day before yesterday, Abel, for it’s a day and a night that I’ve been in terror of your fate.”

  He continued: “As soon as I had fallen into that vile hole, two strangers grabbed me, and guarded me for some time, after which they reopened the gulf and threw me on to the earth as if it were giving birth to me. I ran to look for you everywhere, but everyone fled from me; finally, I came back this evening and found you asleep.”

  Abel got up, and when he perceived his lamp, he did not doubt the verity of his adventure.

  “Caliban,” he exclaimed, “We’re the kings of the earth! Look, do you see this lamp? It’s a talisman that the fay has given me.” And with that, he told him everything that had happened to him.

  The wonderstruck Caliban said to Abel that it was necessary to test the lamp right away. They went out immediately and ran to the big stone with a haste that is easily imaginable.

  Abel placed himself on the large slab, rubbed the lamp and stamped his left foot three times; then, with a childlike naivety, Caliban and he withdrew and crouched down, trying to look under the stone, if possible. It rose up abruptly. A pretty djinni, wearing a crown of flowers on the head, clad in a white robe garnished with pearls, who was leaning gracefully on a frightful near-naked negro holding a gleaming scimitar, spoke in a harmonious voice, almost as soft as that of the fay.

  “Greetings, my adored master, greetings! I am here to listen to your orders, to serve your pleasures, to espouse your hatreds and to obey any order you give, whether it be necessary for me to fly and run before the clouds, drinking space; or, as a sonorous flame, to devour a house; whether I have to flow like a light wave, rise up in a column, change myself into diamonds or become the brilliant carpet on which you tread: I am whatever you wish. What do you desire, master? Speak, speak!”

  When the pure song had concluded, Abel and Caliban, gripped by surprise, contemplated the beauty of the group, for the djinni resembled a young woman sitting next to a bronze statue. Abel and Caliban, looking at one another, no longer knew what to ask for.

  Eventually, the old servant said to them: “I want our garden to be cared for, for you to do the digging so that I no longer have anything to do but sow and reap; I want the flour ready-milled and as white as milk.”

  “Yes,” said Abel.

  The djinni and the negro disappeared immediately, and the stone, which seemed to be alive, closed abruptly, leaving Abel and Caliban in astonishment; they looked sat the slab again, and thought it was a dream. The old servant tried to lift it up by means of the iron ring, but it was impossible. Then they were convinced that the stone was enchanted. Finally, they set about examining the lamp with the same curiosity as a child seeking to break his toy in order to discover what it contains.

  Plunged into embarrassment by the multiplicity of his desires, Abel found no other means to put an end to his reverie than thinking about the perfections of the fay, and the celestial charm of the last moments that he had spent by her side.

  Amour was burning him entirely, and it was impossible henceforth for him not to mingle the memory of the fay with all his actions, to see her incessantly and relate all his desires to her.

  When Caliban came back to the dwelling it was almost dark. He bumped into a heavy object that he found in his path, and when he put his hands on it they sank into it. He pulled them out full of the most beautiful wheat flour that had ever been milled, and he hastened to transport the sack into the cottage. Through the windows of his redoubt he perceived three slaves clad entirely in white, who were briskly digging a square plot of ground by the light of the moon.

  He went out and watched them do it with his arms folded, taking a divine pleasure in seeing his work completed as if by enchantment. He approached them and spoke to them, but they did not interrupt themselves, made no movement and did not appear to have heard him. Marveling, Caliban blessed the lamp, the fay, the heavens, and rendered thanks to God that Abel finally had a talisman that would not leave them wanting for anything.

  “Well,” he said, aloud, “it’s forty years that I haven’t eaten meat and made a meal of it; I’ll have to ask for a splendid one tomorrow morning.”

  Abel was outside; the moon cast a sash of light over the valley that invited meditation. At the bottom of the hill he heard a sad and melancholy voice modulating the most moving plaints. That hymn of suffering, which resounded in the midst of the most solemn silence, impressed him forcefully.

  There are unhappy people in this valley, he said to himself, and I can help them.

  He advanced, and tried to see the woman who was singing so sadly. He perceived a figure moving slowly among the sonorous poplars that bordered the banks of the stream. She was like the wandering shade of a mortal who has not obtained earth over her abandoned remains.11 Her movements had the indecisive randomness of a person to whom everything is indifferent, because her heart is full of a single idea, a single desire. She seemed to be roaming the valley in order to bid it adieu.

  At that moment, a melodious respiration announced Catherine. Abel ran to meet her and, showing her his lamp, he said to her, joyfully: “Ask me anything you wish, Catherine; this precious talisman that I possess will grant your wishes.”

  “Oh,” she said, “what I desire can never come from that metal lamp.”

  “Yes, my little Catherine.”

  Then he told her his latest adventure, and the poor peasant girl had a heart filled with bile on listening to the expressions of amour that Abel employed.

  “Oh, Catherine,” he said, as he concluded, “the misfortune about which you spoke to me, of loving without being loved, I have felt that cruel suffering. How can one say to a fay: ‘I love you!’ How can one dare to look at her with that thought, which must be legible in one’s face...”

  “Why don’t you love instead,” said Catherine, sharply, “a young woman who would carry you in her heart, and for whom you are what the fay is to you…?”

  She stopped, and silence ranged throughout nature. After a few moments, the young woman who was wandering in the valley gave voice to her song of despair; it said that she loved in vain. Those tones seemed prophetic to Catherine; she wept.

  “Catherine!” exclaimed Abel. “Oh, you’re hiding some chagrin from me! That’s bad, for now I can do anything for your happiness.”

  “I was thinking,” she said, making an effort to control herself, “about poor Juliette, whom I’ve just heard.”

  “What? That’s her?” Abel replied. “Oh, ask her to come, Catherine, and my lamp will r
emove all the obstacles that separate her from Antoine.”

  Catherine ran through the bushes, admiring the good heart of her beloved, without understanding how he would render Juliette happy. But she went, she ran, she flew, for she and Juliette were plunged in the same unhappiness, and there was mention of helping her sister in amorous misery.

  Juliette arrived; she was beautiful but pale, and on her face, which respired the tomb, traces were visible that declared that she had been all kindness and gaiety before love had illuminated the fire shining in her sunken eyes. She sat down in a fashion to indicate immediately that everything was indifferent to her, and her gaze announced a vague anxiety for a treasure that did not belong to her.

  Juliette, no longer herself, was living elsewhere, and there, where she posed with grace, there as only her elegant and pure form, for her soul was still voyaging. Catherine, contemplating her, read her own future. When she told Juliette that the young man had the power to make her Antoine’s wife, a glimmer of hope wandered over her face, and modified it like the errant sparks that run through the ashes of a burning piece of paper.

  She turned her death-filled eyes toward Abel, but she did not perceive his rare beauty, because someone else had given her another ideal type, and she replied slowly, looking at the ground: “The grave will be my nuptial bed, and the hymns of the church in mourning will be my wedding march. Antoine! Antoine...” Then she contemplated the vault of the heavens and the stars, the mantle of azure and the valley. “Adieu, adieu.” Her hair was loose, and she resembled Ariadne abandoned—but an Ariadne ready to perish.

  “Catherine,” said Abel, “what is necessary to enable her to marry the man she loves?”

  “I imagine,” she replied, “that thirty thousand francs would remove all the obstacles.”

  Abel stamped three times and rubbed the lamp. When the djinni had sung his song of obedience, and plunged Catherine and Juliette into astonishment, Abel asked for thirty thousand francs.