Memoirs of a Madman and November

by Gustave Flaubert

  She ran her hand through my hair, teasingly, as if I were a child, and asked me whether I had ever had a mistress; I answered yes, and as she was about to carry on, I added that she was beautiful and married. She asked me some more questions about my name, my life and my family.

  “And what about you,” I asked her, “have you ever been in love?”

  “In love? No!”

  And she burst out into an exaggerated laugh that quite unsettled me.

  She asked me again if my mistress was beautiful, and after a silence she continued:

  “Oh, how she must love you! Tell me your name, go on! Your name!”

  I in turn wished to know hers.

  “Marie,” she replied. “But I had another name, that’s not what I was called at home.”

  And then… well, I don’t remember, it’s all gone now; it was all such a long time ago! And yet there are certain things that I can still see as clearly as if it were yesterday – her room, for example: I can see the bedspread, threadbare in the middle, the mahogany bed with its ornaments in copper and curtains of red moiré silk; they rustled stiffly if you touched them, and their fringes were faded and worn. On the mantelpiece were two vases of artificial flowers; in the middle, the clock, whose face was suspended between four alabaster columns. Here and there, hanging on the wall, was some old engraving with a black wooden frame, depicting women bathing, harvesters or fishermen.

  And as for her!… Sometimes a memory of her returns to me, so vivid, so precise, that every detail on her face appears to me again, with that astonishingly faithful memory that dreams alone give us, when we meet again, wearing the same clothes and speaking in the same tone of voice, old friends who have been dead for years – something which fills us with dread. I clearly remember that on her lower lip, on the left side, she had a beauty spot that showed up in a crease when she smiled; indeed, she was no longer in her first youth, and the corner of her mouth was pinched in a bitter and weary fashion.

  When I was ready to go, she said goodbye.

  “Goodbye!” I replied.

  “Shall we be seeing you again?”

  “Maybe.”

  And I went out; the fresh air gave me new vigour, I found myself quite changed, I imagined that people should be able to see from my face that I was no longer the same man; I walked as if on air, bold, happy and free; I had nothing else to learn, nothing to feel, nothing to desire in life. I returned home, an eternity had gone by since I had left; I went up to my room and sat on my bed, overcome by the events of my long day, which weighed down so incredibly heavily on me. It was perhaps seven o’clock in the evening, the sun was setting, the sky was aflame and the fiery horizon gleamed red right across the house tops; the garden, already in shade, was filled with melancholy, yellow and orange circles were turning in the corners of the walls, rising and falling in the bushes, the earth was dry and grey; and in the street a few workers, arm in arm with their wives, were singing as they strolled by on their way to the town gates.

  I continued to mull over what I had done, and I was over-whelmed by an indefinable sense of sadness, filled with distaste; I was sated and weary. “But this morning,” I told myself, “it wasn’t like that, I was fresher and happier – why?” And in my mind I went through all the streets I had walked along, I saw again the women I had met, all the paths down which I had wandered; I went back to Marie and dwelt on every detail I could recollect; I squeezed my memory to extract as much as it would yield. I spent the entire evening engaged in this activity; night fell and there I still was, clinging to this delightful thought, like an old man, but sensing that I would never be able to grasp it again, that other loves might come along, but that they would never resemble this one; this first perfume had been savoured, these sounds had faded; I desired my desire and I longed to have my joy back again.

  When I considered my former life and my present life – the expectation of former days and the lassitude by which I was now overwhelmed – then I could not tell in which nook of my existence my heart had hidden itself, whether I was dreaming or really acting, whether I were filled with disgust or with desire, since I was experiencing both the nausea of repletion and the ardour of new hope.

  So that was all love was! That was all a woman was! Good Lord, why do we still hunger even when we are sated? Why so many aspirations and so many disappointments? Why is man’s heart so big and life so small? There are days when even the love of the angels would not suffice it, and in a single hour it grows weary of all the caresses of earth.

  But a vanished illusion leaves its fragrance within us, like a fairy, and we seek her trace along every path down which she has fled; we indulge ourselves in the thought that it cannot all be over so soon, that life has only just begun, that a whole world is opening up before us. And indeed, can we have lavished so many sublime dreams and so many seething desires merely to have ended up here? I was quite unwilling to give up all the lovely visions I had concocted for myself; I had created for myself, well before my lost virginity, other, vaguer but more beautiful shapes, other pleasures that were, like the desire I had for them, less precise, but heavenly and infinite. The imaginary scenes I had once dreamt up, and that I was now trying to summon back into being, were mixed with the intense memory of my latest sensations, and as the whole combination melded together, phantom and body, dream and reality, the woman I had just left took on for me a synthetic status, in which everything past was summed up and from which everything sprang forth towards the future. Alone, and thinking about her, I continued to turn her this way and that, trying to discover something new in her, something I had not noticed, something that had remained unexplored the first time; the longing to see her again flooded through me, obsessively, like a destiny luring me on, a slope down which I was slipping.

  Oh, what a lovely night it was! It was warm, I arrived at her door bathed in sweat, there was a light on in her window; she must be still be awake; I stopped, feeling fearful; I stood there for a long time, not knowing what to do, filled with countless confused anxieties. Once again I went in, and my hand for a second time felt its way up the banister of her staircase and turned the key in her lock.

  She was alone, as she had been that morning; she was sitting in the same place, almost in the same posture, but she had changed her dress: this one was black, and the lace trimming round the neck quivered with a life of its own on her white breast; her flesh was glowing, and her face had that lascivious pallor that the flicker of candlelight creates; her mouth half-opened, her hair hanging in curls around her shoulders and her eyes raised to the sky, she seemed to be seeking some vanished star.

  Straight away, she leapt joyfully up, dashed over to me and clasped me in her arms. For us it was one of those shuddering embraces that lovers at night must enjoy when they meet – when, after hours spent straining to see through the darkness, watchfully aware of every crunching of leaves underfoot, every vague shape passing through the clearing, they finally come together and fall into each other’s arms.

  In a tone of voice that was simultaneously urgent and gentle, she said to me:

  “Ah, so you love me! You must, if you have come back to see me! Tell me, oh tell me, sweetheart; do you love me?”

  Her words had a high-pitched but melodious sound, like the higher notes played on a flute.

  Half-falling to her knees and clutching me in her arms, she gazed at me in sombre ecstasy; as for myself, however astonished I was at this sudden onset of passion, I was charmed by it, and filled with pride.

  Her satin dress rustled under my fingers as if emitting sparks; then, after feeling how velvety-soft the fabric was, I came to the warm softness of her bare arm, and her clothes seemed to be alive and sharing in her intimate being, breathing with the allure of the most luxuriant nudity.

  She wanted at all costs to sit on my knees, and she started to caress me in her usual fashion, running her hand through my hair while she gazed fixedly at me, face to face, her eyes probing mine. In this immobile pose, her pu
pils seemed to dilate, and from them flowed a fluid that I felt flooding down into my heart; each wave of that wide-eyed gaze, like the successive circles described by a sea eagle, put me in deeper and deeper thrall to that terrible magic.

  “Ah, so you love me!” she resumed, “you must love me since you’ve come back to see me again, you’ve come back for me! But what’s the matter? You’re not saying anything, you’re all sad! Don’t you want me any more?”

  She paused and then continued:

  “How lovely you are, my angel! As lovely as the daylight! So hold me tight, love me! A kiss, quick, a kiss!”

  She hung on my mouth and, cooing like a dove, her breast swelled with a deep sigh.

  “Ah, but stay for the night, yes, for the night, the whole night, the two of us! It’s someone like you that I’d like to have as a lover, a fresh young lover, who would love me dearly, who would think only of me. Oh, how I would love him!”

  And she drew in her breath in that deeply passionate way that seems to summon God from the heavens.

  “But don’t you have one?” I asked her.

  “Who? Me? Are we poor women ever loved? Does anyone ever think of us? Who would have us? Even you – will you even remember me tomorrow? Perhaps you’ll merely say, ‘Hm, well yesterday I slept with a whore,’ but brrr! Oh la la!” (And she started to dance, her hands on her hips, with lascivious gestures.) “I do dance well! Just look at my costume.”

  She opened her cupboard, and I saw on a shelf a black mask and some blue ribbons with a domino; there was also a pair of black velvet trousers with gold braid, hanging from a nail – the faded remnants of the last carnival.

  “My poor costume,” she said, “how often I went to the ball with it! I was the one dancing this winter!”

  The window was open and the candle was flickering in the wind; she took it off the mantelpiece and placed it on her night table. She sat on the bed and fell into a deep musing, her head lowered on her breast. I too was silent, waiting; the warm odours of an August night rose up to us, and we could hear, from where we were, the rustle of the trees on the boulevard, and the curtain swaying at the window; all night long a storm raged; often, in the flashes of lightning, I caught sight of her wan face, twisted in an expression of passionate sadness; the clouds scudded across the sky, the moon, half-hidden behind them, shone out from time to time in a patch of clear sky surrounded by dark clouds.

  She undressed slowly, with the regular movements of a machine. When she was in her chemise, she came towards me, barefoot across the floor, took me by the hand and led me to her bed; she was not looking at me, but thinking of something else; her lips were pink and damp, her nostrils flaring, her eyes fiery, and she seemed to be vibrating in tune with her thoughts just as, even when the artist is no longer there, the melodious instrument gives off a secret fragrance of slumbering notes.

  It was when she was lying next to me that she displayed for me, with a courtesan’s pride, all the splendours of her flesh. I saw her breast naked and firm, constantly swelling as with a tempestuous murmur, her belly of pearl, with its deep navel, her belly, supple and convulsive, as soft for your head to plunge into as a pillow of warm silk; she had superb hips, real womanly hips, the lines of which, as they curve down onto a round thigh, always remind me in profile of some supple and corrupt shape of a snake or a demon; the sweat beading her skin made it fresh and clinging, in the darkness her eyes shone with alarming intensity, and the amber bracelet she wore on her right arm rang out when she dashed it against the wainscoting of the alcove. It was during those hours that she said to me, holding my head tightly to her breast:

  “My angel of love, delight, and pleasure, where do you come from? Where is your mother? What was she thinking of when she conceived you? Was she dreaming of the strength of African lions or the perfume of those distant trees, so powerful that you die if you smell them? You’re not speaking; look at me with your big eyes, look at me, look at me! Your mouth! Your mouth! Look now – here is mine!”

  And then her teeth would start chattering as if in some intense cold, and her parted lips trembled and uttered crazy words into the air:

  “Ah, I would be jealous of you, you know, if we loved one another; the least woman who looked at you…”

  And she completed her phrase with a cry. At other times she would stop me with taut, outstretched arms, telling me in a low voice that she was going to die.

  “Oh, how handsome he is, a man when he is young! If I were a man, all women would love me, my eyes would gleam so brightly! I would be so elegantly dressed, so attractive! Your mistress loves you, doesn’t she? I’d like to make her acquaintance. How do you manage to see each other? Is it in your house or hers? Is it when you go out riding? You must look so good on a horse! Or in the theatre, when people are leaving and her coat is handed to her? Or at night in her garden? Ah what hours of rapture you pass, I imagine, talking together, sitting under the bower!”

  I let her have her say – it struck me that with these words she was fabricating an ideal mistress for me, and I loved this phantom who had just come into my mind and was shining with a gleam as transient as that of a will-o’-the-wisp, on country evenings.

  “Have you known each other for long? Tell me about it. What do you say to make her happy? Is she tall or petite? Can she sing?”

  I could not hold back from telling her that she was mistaken, and I even told her of my apprehensiveness in coming to see her – of my remorse, or rather of the strange fear that had subsequently seized me, and then the sudden renewed longing that had driven me back to her. When I had explained to her that I didn’t have a mistress, that I’d been looking for one everywhere, that I’d dreamt for ages of having one, and that she in fact was the first woman who had tolerated my caresses, she drew closer, filled with astonishment, and, seizing my arm as if I were some illusion she wanted to grasp, she said:

  “Is that true? Oh, don’t lie to me! So you’re a virgin, and I was the one to deflower you, my poor angel? Yes, your kisses did have something naive about them, they were like ones that only children would give, if they ever made love. But you surprise me! You are charming; the more I look at you, the more I love you; your cheeks are as soft as peaches, and your skin is white all over; you have lovely hair, strong and abundant. Ah, how much I’d love you, if you wanted! I’ve never seen anyone quite like you: you seem to gaze on me with kindness, and yet your eyes burn into me; I always have this longing to get close to you and to clasp you to me.”

  These were the first words of love I had ever heard in my life. Wherever such words come from, our hearts accept them with a shudder of bliss. Just remember this! I drank them in with delight. Oh, how swiftly I soared aloft into this new sky!

  “Yes, yes, kiss me, kiss me do! Your kisses rejuvenate me,” she repeated. “I love the smell of you, it’s like that of my honeysuckle in June, fresh and sweet at the same time; your teeth – show me! – are whiter than mine, I’m no longer as good-looking as you are… Ah, how nice this spot is, just here!”

  And she fastened her mouth to my neck, burrowing into it with fierce kisses, like a wild beast into its victim’s belly.

  “What can be wrong with me, this evening? You’ve set me completely on fire, I feel like drinking, and singing and dancing. Have you ever wanted to be a little bird? We would fly off together, it must be delightful to make love in the air, the winds blow you along, and clouds surround you… No, be quiet, just let me look at you, look at you for a long time, so I will always be able to remember you!”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Whatever for?” she echoed. “But… to remember you, to think of you; I’ll think of you at night when I can’t sleep, and in the morning, when I wake up, I’ll think of you all day long, leaning on my window watching the passers-by; but especially in the evening, when I can’t see anything and still haven’t lit my candles; I’ll remember your face, your body, your lovely body, aglow with pleasure, and your voice! Oh! Listen, I beg you, my love, let me
cut off a lock of your hair, I’ll set it in that bracelet; there – it will never leave me.”

  She immediately rose to her feet, went to fetch her scissors and cut off a lock of hair from the back of my head. They were small pointed scissors that squeaked on their screw; I can still feel on the nape of my neck the cold steel and the hand of Marie.

  A lock of hair given and exchanged is one of the finest of lovers’ trophies. How many pretty hands, from time immemorial, have slipped through balconies at night to present a gift of black tresses! Down with those figure-of-eight watch chains, those rings onto which they are glued, the medallions on which they are arranged in trefoil, and all those locks that have been polluted by the commonplace hand of a hairdresser! I want them to be simple and tied together by a thread at each end, for fear of losing a single strand; you have cut them yourself from the beloved head, in some sublime moment, at the height of a first love affair or on the eve of a separation. A head of hair! In primal days, the hair formed a woman’s magnificent mantle, when it fell to her heels and covered her arms, when she would walk along with man along the banks of great rivers, and the first breezes of creation blew simultaneously through the tops of palm trees, the manes of lions and the hair of women! I love hair. How often, in the cemeteries where gravediggers were turning over the soil, or in old churches that were being demolished, have I gazed on hair that appeared in the broken earth, between the yellow bones and fragments of rotten wood! Often the sun would shed on it a wan ray, making it gleam like a seam of gold; I loved to dream of the days when this hair had been gathered together on a white scalp and anointed with liquid perfumes, and some hand, now withered, had stroked it and spread it out on the pillow, or some mouth, its gums now shrivelled away, had kissed it in the middle and grazed on its strands, sobbing with happiness.

  I allowed her to cut my hair, filled with a foolish vanity, and shamefully I did not ask for hers in return; now, when I have nothing – not a glove, not a belt, not even three corollas of rose dried and kept within a book, nothing but a memory of the love of a common whore – I regret it.