The Last Fay

by Honoré de Balzac

  “I’m suffering! My heart is swelling!”

  “Are you in pain?” asked the fay.

  “No,” he said. “I think, on the contrary, that it’s too much happiness...”

  The fay blushed, and turned her eyes away; she made no reply, and that moment never left Abel’s memory. He felt then sufficient boldness to speak about his amour, but an invincible dread, a modesty of sentiment, froze his senses and held his tongue captive.

  Throughout the time the journey lasted, only their eyes spoke, and a charming smile often came to wander on their lips, and made them both comprehend that they understood one another. Does anyone know anything more delightful than that language of the soul, that sympathetic force, which, without the incomplete assistance of human speech, causes you to sense what the cherished object that you love thinks and desires?

  In that pure region of thought, disengaged from the gross sensations of the body, a subtle charm reigns that no human speech can render, since no human thought can give the idea of a mystery that has to be felt by the soul; it seems that in those exceedingly rare moments, a light flame wings its way from one heart to the other, bearing light and thought successively, and a freshness, an indescribable delight; perhaps that is the way that angels communicate in heaven.

  Once two individuals have mingled their sentiments in that fashion, and their perfect accord has rendered a similar note, having, so to speak, sung the same hymn, it is impossible for them to conceive of a separation, or an absence; they love one another, and always, even at a distance of a thousand leagues, their souls will have similar movements.

  Abel and the Pearl Fay savored that superhuman voluptuousness, and those two marvels of nature, having souls worthy of the perfection of their bodies, understood one another perfectly and so well that by the end of the journey, Abel’s eyes having become increasing expressive, the charming fay made a divine little gesture with her fan, full of delicacy and grace, as if to lower her beautiful long-lashed eyelids, and sais to him: “Silence, Abel—you talk too much!”

  At that remark, the only one that had been pronounced for an hour, they looked at one another and started laughing.

  “Oh,” said Abel, “I know of nothing more delightful than an amour that grows in the midst of exquisite luxury and elegance. To see you always ornamented, respiring the sweetest perfumes, surrounded by the prestige of your power…it’s too much...if I don’t have your protection, I want to die.”

  “You, die? Oh, live, Abel, live to spread through the world the influence of your beautiful soul.”

  At that moment, she placed her hand over Abel’s eyes, and Abel heard a noise and a confusion, a multitude of cries and voices; but after a quarter of an hour, it stopped. The fay instructed him to keep his eyes closed, and, taking him by the hand, she guided him through corridors and staircases. Finally, they reached a place where the little fay made Abel sit down, and permitted him to open his eyes, while only looking at her.

  “Even if the heavens were open,” he said, “I could only see you...”

  As he finished, an intoxicating music commenced; and when the fay lowered with her pretty hand a panel that was in front of them, Abel remained mute with surprise before the magical scene that was offered to his gaze.

  A vast circular space decorated with golden columns and garlands, rose-windows, nets, plinths and golden ornaments, contained an innumerable crowd of djinn and enchanters; the circus was black; from stage to stage Abel perceived a host of fays, each prettier than the rest. They appeared to be surrounded by a cloud of light, for between each row of fays there was a diamond chandelier covered with candles that spread a marvelous glow; their costumes competed in richness and elegance; they were laughing, chatting and joking with enchanters and djinn, who were mingled with them. An immense sun, brilliant and ornamented with crystals, sowed furrows of light, which seemed to sprinkle an entire dew of vivid and scintillating radiance within the superb palace.

  The most profound silence fell, and everyone listened attentively to the divine music whose sounds spread out through the palace. Abel thought he was in heaven and listening to magical chords played by angels. He was profoundly moved, and could only squeeze the hand of his little fay, who enjoyed his astonishment with an indescribable pleasure.

  “Hide yourself well in this corner,” she told him, for if my companions the fays perceive the presence of a mortal by my side, I’m doomed! I’ve already had difficulty getting you through, although dressed as a djinni.”

  In fact, Abel was wearing a costume absolutely similar to the most beautiful garments that he saw on the djinn. He turned round and looked at himself in a mirror, admired that enchantment on seeing himself, and experienced a kind of surge of coquetry on perceiving that he was more handsome than the majority of the djinn he could see.

  Suddenly, the music stopped, and a tap of the wand of the djinni who was conducting the music caused a magical decoration suddenly to rise up, which attracted Abel’s attention, and an even more surprising spectacle plunged him into an ocean of new enjoyments.

  A palace ornamented by a profusion of marble and porphyry columns, with galleries extending as far as the eye could see, an ornamentation of a miraculous sumptuousness, was offered to his gaze, as if by enchantment; a host of gracious fays and djinn, magnificently dressed, some of whom resembled the djinni of the lamp, intoned a song of joy, which confused his ears slightly; but the pretty Pearl Fay told him that it was because he was not a djinni, that the song was only appropriate to the immortal troop of enchanters, and that humans could not comprehend it.

  “Wait a while,” she continued, “And you’ll see the djinn prey to a species of frenzy that will make them raise their hands and strike them against one another furiously; for things happen here that will surprise you.”

  Indeed, after a quarter of an hour, there was such a din that Abel was obliged to block his ears; meanwhile, a number of marvels succeeded one another to astonish him; for a palace, a forest, fields and cottages had been substituted; for the cottage, a enchanted garden; for the garden, a dungeon; for the dungeon, places that delighted him with admiration.

  He had not enough eyes or ears, to hear the songs and the music and to see the voluptuous dances of the prettiest fays. Those magical tableaux were intermingled with piquant and spiritual remarks by the Pearl Fay, who, at intervals, explained to him the usages of the empire of the fays.

  “The djinn you see assembled here,” she told him, “have singular manias; one can touch their hand, the fingers, the arm, the shoulder—the entire body, in fact, except the cheek; as soon as a djinni’s cheeks is even brushed by another djinni, it can only be washed away with blood; it’s one of those bizarreries to which enchanters are subject.

  “Then again, they have what they call their patriotism, which consists of praising themselves for their courage and glory; it would be a crime to recognize the courage of other nations of djinn.

  “That’s not all; you see those enchanters who are wearing something red on their vestment? Well, that ribbon is one of their passions. Suspend a delicacy in a room and bring dogs; they will wear themselves out leaping in order to seize a few morsels; it is the same for djinn and the ribbon; they wear themselves out and consume themselves in efforts to have a fragment, but once they have it, it is no longer of any consequence to them.

  “Finally, you see the djinn in very white shirts with neat clothing and exquisite jewelry—that, alas, is what pleases them most. If you were not dressed as fastidiously as you are at this moment, Abel, for all your sensible, noble and proud soul, in spite of the cortege of virtues and graces that accompany you, with your beautiful face, the most rascally of enchanters would have preference over you, if he were well-dressed.

  “Among other usages, there are djinn who preach the art of learning to die, and even if one does not succeed the first time, they continue to recommend it. Then too, if among the djinn there are striking individuals, so long as they are alive, no one takes any n
otice of them; as soon as they are dead, they are celebrated. In general, the djinn here put grandeur into petty things, and pettiness into great ones. It is necessary to spend ten times as much in order to stroll as to eat; there are even animals that cost more to maintain than humans.

  “Finally, the religion of djinn consists of kneeling down, reading in a book and listening to hymns; but of doing good, helping the unfortunate, setting aside the self and forgetting it a little, oh, there are only very rare good djinn who combine one with the other—which is to say, the exterior religion with the interior religion that is seated in the conscience. For the most part, the exterior religion is everything, and they believe that heaven is won, as a game of chess is won, by dint of maneuvers.”

  “What you are telling me there,” replied Abel, “astonishes me even more than what I see.”

  “Oh,” she said, “you will learn many other things even more astonishing...”

  After a thousand enchantments, each more extraordinary than the last, the pretty fay ordered her young protégé to close his eyes, and she transported him to her palace. There he had complete liberty to come and go. A pretty girl, one of the fay’s slaves, took him to a place almost as lovely as the boudoir of pearls that he had seen before. He lay down in a bed whose sheets were dazzlingly white, and the following day, the fay came to wake him up with the sounds of an instrument that rendered an enchanting melody.

  The Pearl Fay rejoiced in Abel’s awakening, as nature does in the return of the sun. She was dressed with a simplicity that contrasted with her vestments of the day before. After asking her young protégé how he liked it in the empire of the fays, while sitting on his bed, and having frolicked with the child of nature, she left him in order to prepare for him, with her own hands, a meal entirely new to him.

  Indeed, everything—the unfamiliar dishes, the precious crystal, the tablecloth, the silverware and the furniture—was a subject of astonishment for Abel.

  The pretty fay served him and shared everything with him; a tender amour, pure and celestial, spread an indefinable magic over those two charming individuals. How could poor Catherine be anything to Abel, and enter into comparison with the Pearl Fay?

  Catherine was in love, her heart knew all the love of nature; she had an admirable simplicity and candor; but the fairy had just as much love, which she testified in a less naïve but perhaps more gracious manner, and to simplicity she added all the majesty and seductions of wealth, and the cortege of fortune and power. Furthermore, she was loved—what am I saying?—adored! So Abel’s amour, combined with hers, embellished every movement, every word, every smile, with a charm that Catherine certainly found in Abel, but which Abel did not find in Catherine.

  Abel spent in the fay’s palace moments of happiness that no discourse can render. Finally, one evening, he fell to his knees, and declared his passion to her, and no man ever spoke more eloquently than him.

  The next day he woke up; the smile with which the fay had welcomed his speech was still so deeply engraved in his heart that he believed that he saw her, presented her with his hand, and furtively wiped away a tear. He looked around to admire the sumptuousness of the place where he slept; he saw the laboratory, his cottage, the retorts, and the dust.

  The cricket was singing; that was the only music that greeted his awakening. He thought that he had been dreaming and had emerged too soon, alas, from enchanting illusions of a dream of amour.

  Chapter XIII

  What the Pearl Fay Is

  Abel got dressed, and, seeing the garments of his dream, began to believe that the multiple sensations that he had experienced might have been real, even though they had been surrounded by the vaporous cloud that surrounds nocturnal illusions. He saw Caliban coming toward him; the worthy old servant rejoiced in seeing his master again, and son drew him outside the cottage. He showed him poor Catherine sitting on the stone. The pretty peasant girl was posed with grace, but the sharpest dolor was painted in her attitude.

  Abel took a few steps; she raised her head, uttered a cry, and threw herself, weeping, into the young man’s arms.

  “For three days,” she said, “I’ve come every morning, waiting for my daylight, my sun…but nothing dissipated the night of my soul. I said to myself every time, as I climbed the hill: ‘Today he’ll be there!’ I said it to myself, and when I went down again I was sad, because you hadn’t arrived. Oh, if I had an enemy, and I wished him harm, I would like him to wait for three days…for someone he loved.”

  “Catherine! My dear Catherine!”

  Oh, dear Abel, how handsome you are! Oh, let me look at you...”

  “It’s the fay who wove this fine linen, it’s her who embroidered the flowers on that precious fabric…”

  The fay…always the fay...

  “Oh, Catherine, she loves me…I’m certain of it…I’ve seen her palace, the empire of the fays...I’m dazed by it.”

  And Abel told Catherine about the marvels that he had witnessed, and the delicate attentions of the fay: how she had poured the milk to temper a divine liquid that spread the activity of thought through the mind, and animated amour, etc., etc.

  “I would do it as well as her,” said Catherine, with a sulky expression. “Abel, I implore you, let me witness an apparition of the fay.”

  “Come this evening,” Abel replied to her. “She ought to come to take back the lamp, of which she says I have no more need—for, Catherine, I dare not tell you my hope.”

  “She’ll marry you! The fay!”

  “I believe so,” he replied. “But I don’t know how a man can become the husband of a fay...”

  “Can one be happy,” Catherine replied, “married to a woman who has more power than us? If she deceived you...”

  “Impossible” cried Abel. “Impossible! To say that, it’s necessary not to have seen her smile.”

  Catherine looked at Abel, savored that sight, so desired, and could not help bursting into tears. She fled, after having promised to come back that evening.

  She did in fact, come at nightfall; she had helped to put her aged father to bed, who had scolded her softly because, he said, at the approach of her marriage, she was running around too much, alone and in the fields; Jacques Bontems had complained about it.

  She had calmed her father down with caresses and kisses. Then, taking Françoise into her confidence, she quit her virginal bed in order to run to the cottage to see her beloved again.

  He was sitting in the worm-eaten armchair that had been the delight of his infancy, with his elbows on the table where Caliban had once cleaned the grain, and he was thinking about his fay. The antique lamp illuminated the laboratory. Catherine made a sign to Caliban, slid lightly through the partly-open door, and, approaching Abel very quietly, greeted him with a kiss.

  “Oh! It’s you, Catherine?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ve come to see the fay.”

  “Where shall we hide you?” he replied, looking around.

  Caliban’s advice prevailed, and it was decided that he large worm-eaten armchair would be placed between the oven and the fireplace, and that, in the small space that was found there, Catherine would crouch down silently, and as soon as the fay stirred she would lower her head and make herself as small as possible.

  Catherine, genteel and cheerful, chatted to Abel all evening, and the gentle manners of the chemist’s son gave her hope every time she conversed and played with him.

  Finally, Abel lay down on his bed. Caliban withdrew, and on the stroke of midnight, a soft music announced the apparition of the Pearl Fay. She came in her brilliant costume, more beautiful, daintier and more vivacious than ever. She wandered around the laboratory, touched with her hands everything of which Abel made use, talked to him, and listened to him.

  They sat on the bed, and there, the pretty fay, deploying her graces and the prestige of her coquetry, appeared to Catherine to be the queen of nature. The peasant girl, hidden in her corner, put her handkerchief over her mouth, so that in t
he silence, no one would hear her sighs and sobs, for she despaired of ever prevailing over a creature as astonishing as the Pearl Fay.

  Alas, she said to herself, why has the sun, in spite of all my precautions, adulterated the whiteness of my hands? Why am I not a fay? Oh, yes, she’s a fay, for there’s no woman on earth who can have that intelligence, that grace! Great God! Amour is lodged in her eyes. What a gaze!

  “Abel,” said the fay, “in a little while you shall know to what I’m submitting myself in order to make our happiness. You won’t see me again except as a mortal; I’m abdicating my empire for you...”

  What proof of love more beautiful than that can I give him? Catherine said to herself, and wept, dampening the handkerchief she was holding with tears.

  Abel, at the peak of joy, ardently kissed the fay’s hands; he covered her with kisses; she smiled secretly—which broke Catherine’s heart—and finally, she deposited a farewell kiss on Abel’s lips, which left the chemist’s son like a marble statue. A divine fire was flowing through his veins instead of blood, and he felt his heart falter; he fell on to his bed.

  The fay disappeared then, taking the marvelous lamp with her.

  Abel was recalled to life by the gentle Catherine; she was weeping hot tears, and her chagrin was so violent that Abel despaired of knowing what to do to soothe Catherine’s dolor.

  “She’s too beautiful! Oh, yes, you have to love her, you can’t do otherwise, and I…I have nothing more to do than die; I want to kill myself. Where are the poisons? Kill me, Abel. I feel that I can’t live without you…you’re more to me than a brother…oh, what will I become?”

  Abel spent the rest of the night soothing Catherine; He could only calm her despair by abusing her and swearing to her that he loved her tenderly, that they would always be together. Catherine replied that she knew full well that he was deceiving her by speaking to her thus, but that she loved him even more for hearing him say it; and, lulled by a hope of which she knew the scant reality, she dried her tears and became tranquil again.