The White Notebook

by André Gide

  Your mind! I will find fault with it because it irritates me. It is your mind that I know best, and yet it is not similar in any respect to my own. You are afraid to admire without passing judgment. You would like to keep your reason unimpaired; whatever is immoderate terrifies you—as much as it attracts me. I resent your not having trembled in the face of Luther’s grandeur; then I sensed your femininity, and I suffered. You understand things too well and do not love them enough.

  But our souls—they are so alike that they can not know each other!…40

  I wrote to Pierre:

  But let them believe. What right have you to deprive them of the joys of believing? What will you give them in exchange? They are absolutely right even if they are mistaken. To believe in possession is as comforting as to possess … and are not all possessions chimerical? They are duped by a mirage of eternity and uplifted by their hope. If there is nothing after life, who will return to tell them? Nor will they be aware of not existing after death; they will never know that they have not lived on eternally. But nothing must stand in the way of their belief here and now—it is the basis for their happiness.

  I remember having shown her those lines.

  “O André!” she exclaimed. “If things were the way you say they are, faith would be an illusion. Only truth is worthy of belief, even though it might offer no hope. I prefer to suffer through not believing than to believe in a lie.”

  Ah! Rebel!

  Your serene and lofty ideas are too much for me. I am tormented by the stability of your faith; I wish it had tottered. Oh, that your soul had cried out in the void! Mine would have been less forlorn with yours for its companion, for it would have known compassion. You might now be less haughty. But you did not flinch, and now you look down on me.

  Then one day we were reading Spinoza—oh, how these memories tire me!—and admiring his divine plan.

  “Does this not bother you, Emmanuèle—this unorthodox book?” I asked.

  “Oh, all doubts are in the mind,” you said. “A book could not create them.”

  Sweet little soul! Who could know it?

  Our minds were intimately acquainted and no longer withheld their secrets. We knew each other’s thoughts before speaking and we knew how they would be phrased. I made a game of it. When we were talking I would anticipate the word that was to come from your lips and take it away from you before they parted. But familiarity with the mind did not extend to the soul.… One soul pursued the other but was always deluded and led astray by the succession of thoughts that flowed in parallel fashion through our minds. The soul was enchanted by an illusory similitude, one that involved not the soul but a frivolous mind.

  It was like the lover in the legend of Ondine. Pursuing her one evening, he imagined that he saw her changing image in the will-o’-the-wisp hovering over a pond. Seduced by the captivating illusion, he dashed after it only to be disillusioned. He wept when the phantom disintegrated between his fingers.

  (Our souls were obscured by our thoughts. When one of them darted forth, it would skid along smooth surfaces. The slope formed by our thoughts was so inviting and the succession of our thoughts so effortless that our souls were tempted to go wherever our thoughts coincided.)

  We liked to lose ourselves in distant memories. By virtue of associations that transcended time and space and unsuspected relationships, one word was enough to evoke a host of dreams. The word was never bare but it had one and the same legend for both of us; it evoked from the past many emotions, many passages that we had read—both when we had said things and when we had read them. It was never the word itself but the recall of the past. That is why we derived so much pleasure from quoting poets—not because we experienced something through them but because they reminded us of so many things!

  Then one word often signified a whole sentence known only to us—it was only a bare word to others. One word was the beginning of a verse or of a thought, another marked the end. For instance, when we were walking around the house one evening, I began:

  Listen! my dear …

  and you understood:

  Listen to the night gently descending.41

  Then it became a task, an obsession. We had always to watch for companion thoughts and to bring them to light even though we recognized them for what they were beforehand.… We no longer thought but watched each other think, and with the same result. But we were tormented by the need to test the similitude and would voice our thoughts even though we could have remained silent and communicated without words.

  We anticipated sentences, snatching them from each other’s lips before they were uttered—and sometimes as we both waited for a thought from the other, the same thought would come to both of us.

  On summer evenings it was with Chopin, Baudelaire.…

  Leisurely dreams the moon tonight …

  How would I love you, O night, without stars.…

  But our tired lips left the verse incomplete and we let our eyes give more precise expression to our feelings of tenderness tinged with desire.

  Some of those around us were upset by our close relationship, which we never tried to conceal. They tried to separate us, to erect barriers between us; but it was already too late, for we communicated by means of signs unnoticed by others. Instead, they quickened our interest in the mystery of sign languages, and we created our own solitude in their midst. By shackling them, they revealed to us our desires.

  “Phenomena are signs that make up a language—the language of the desires that lie behind phenomena. Only desires matter, and they must be understood.

  “To understand is nothing, but to be understood—that is the problem and the source of anguish. The soul throbs and would have the other know—but can not and feels isolated. Then come gestures, words, awkward explanations and material symbols for imponderable outbursts of feeling—and the soul despairs.

  “Nor is that anything. The worst suffering is that of two souls unable to approach each other. Thou hast built a wall around me to prevent my going out (Jeremiah).

  “They hug the wall that keeps their courses parallel, and they collide and bruise each other.”

  “Neither words nor gestures give shape to thought—they proceed from the frivolous mind. But the inflection of an excited voice, the lines on the face, especially the look—these are the eloquence of the soul. Through them the soul finds expression. They must be studied, dominated, made into docile interpreters.

  “I study them in front of a looking glass. They would have laughed if they had seen me looking into my own eyes and, by night, becoming almost hypnotized by the changes undergone by dark pupils as I searched for the outward manifestation of emotions through sparkling or sorrowful looks, for the alignment or narrowing of the eyebrows and the wrinkles on the brow that should accompany words of passion, of elation, of sorrow.…

  “Comedian? Perhaps.… But I play myself, and the roles best played are those best understood.”42

  “Then it becomes painful never to lose sight of myself while searching anxiously for the word, the gesture, especially the look arid the inflection of the voice which will best reveal the secret emotions of my soul.

  “Often preoccupation over appearing to be excited supplants the genuine emotion. Many times I have been with you, Emmanuèle, and felt the true, spontaneous emotion vanish under the attempt to force it to the surface.

  “Suffering consists in being unable to reveal oneself and, when one happens to succeed in doing so, in having nothing more to say.”

  To understand each other is nothing. What matters is a mating of our souls.

  “I need to caress someone. My repressed caresses have not been restricted to one person but lavished on everyone. My caress is an embrace; I tend instinctively to embrace others.”

  The sad part, and the part that has caused me to suffer acutely, is that the soul can reveal its tenderness only through caresses which are signs of unchaste desires. The soul is mistaken, deluded.… And then in me the gesture awaken
ed the thought.…

  I must remain frigid in order that there be no mistake, even on the part of my soul … for sometimes.… I must simply clasp and release her hand, bid her goodnight without the kiss of peace. My heart may quiver—but imperceptibly and not violently.

  “Loving, adoring, impassioned caresses—I am obsessed by the act of caressing. I would like an all-absorbing, all-encompassing caress, or complete oblivion of self, which constitutes ineffable ecstasy. That is why I suffer so much in the presence of the beauty of statues, for then my being does not blend with theirs but contrasts with it.

  … Quoniam nihil inde abradere possunt,

  Nee penetrate et abire in corpus corpore toto.

  “A little flesh is still infused by virtue of the transparency of the marble. The desire to possess torments me and I suffer piteously, both physically and spiritually, through awareness of the impossibility of possession. I am corrupted, not intoxicated, by the sight of the Thorn Puller, Apollo, the mutilated torso of Diana Reposing.

  Nec satiare queunt spectando corpora coram.

  “And I suffer still when I think that they will never feel my caresses.

  Superfluous, implacable splendor,

  O beauty, what pain you cause me!

  Impossible union of souls through bodies

  … tormented by an embrace.

  “Here is the strange part, and the part that has caused me to suffer so much. The soul blends in with everything else, and it becomes impossible to determine whether it harbors desire or whether the flesh is disguised as reverence. So insistently is the soul pushed toward the mysterious bed.…

  A caress comes to an end, is ephemeral,

  My soul stirs at the sound of a kiss.…

  “Et non erat qui cognosceret me … Nor the others, for souls can not know each other. The courses followed by those who are most nearly alike are still PARALLEL.

  “So you see that I do not desire you. Your body disturbs me and carnal possession frightens me. We do not love each other according to the dictates of rational love. You could never belong to me, for the things that we long for are never possessed.”43

  12 June

  A letter from Pierre and some books. He writes of Paris, of the struggle and of some early triumphs.… Farewell to philosophical calm; this gust of feverish air intoxicates me and rouses dormant visions of glory. My ambitions were slumbering in solitude, but now they have been awakened. Everything militates against my secluded life: a flurry of excitement, of preparations back there. I shall arrive too late for everything.44

  The letter is really good for me. My pride is cut to the quick but I am not defeated. The lash that brings the blood gives me the energy to run even faster. Oh, how strong I feel!

  I shall arrive suddenly, without warning, and blow a loud trumpet blast—or perhaps remain unknown but hear my work acclaimed (for I shall withhold my name).45

  I must work frantically, dishonestly. I shall leave here only after the work is finished. And to avoid further disturbances, I am having my mail sent to an imaginary place.

  His writing is perfect—callously, impeccably, inexorably so. This discourages me, for to me my language was still fluid and boundless. I wanted to give it rhythmic contours—but emotion always made the sentence explode, and I set down only the debris.

  The books are by Verlaine, and I did not know him!

  This evening, even though the hour was late, I trimmed and stacked the paper that Pierre sent with the books. The sight of white paper intoxicates me. The black signs which I may use to cover them, which will reveal my thoughts and which when reread later will recall today’s emotions.

  I could not sleep because my simmering thoughts were so uncontrollable. I felt the pressure of latent creative forces. Inspiration became something tangible, and the vision of my work was as dazzling as if the work had already been completed. What splendors of aureoles, what flashes of dawn! Then my burning brow, my grandeur stunned me—disorganized thoughts—the feeling of stumbling, a fall—something on the verge of breaking.… Oh, loss of sanity! Suddenly, piously, gripped by indescribable terror, I made a supreme effort to protect my mind and my vision against sudden destruction.

  “Forgive me, Lord,” I prayed. “I am but a child, a small child lost on a treacherous byway. O Lord, keep me safe and sane!”46

  Let style and mood blend. And since this is not plastic art, let music exert its influence. Why not even a strophe?

  Put your hand in mine, and let our fingers join,

  Put your chin on my shoulder, and let our hearts beat as one,

  Let your brow come to rest and let your eyes merge with mine.

  But let us stop short of a kiss, for fear that love will intervene.

  Let us not speak but listen to the singing of your soul

  And to the reply of mine through fingers joined;

  Hearts in close communion, looks that reciprocate …

  Silence—let us not speak.

  * * *

  Your soul sings in your dark eyes.

  Come closer to me, my friend,

  You are always too far away.

  Closer, ah! come closer still—

  How upsetting are your glances!

  They seem to smile and your soul to cry.

  How far behind your pupils is your soul.

  Into the damp darkness of your eyes

  Plunges my desire-drenched soul

  But your soul keeps retreating

  Behind the darkness in your eyes.

  “Dearly beloved, ah! turn away, ah! turn away from me

  Your eyes, for they disturb me.”

  (Alternate: Schumann)

  Do not look at me. Speak to me instead—I am listening.

  Oh! speak and I shall see you in my dream

  Not unlike the inflection of your sweet voice.

  Words are unimportant—speak incoherently,

  Speak slowly, think of the harmony

  That your soul will reveal to me.

  * * *

  I would like to be lulled to sleep by your words.

  * * *

  Sometimes I think that pursuit of the elusive soul is a deception and that the soul is but a more subtle manifestation of the mind; reason then advises me to rejoice. Priceless subtleties then ensue:

  The effort that my soul makes to reach yours must be instinctive, spontaneous. It must be unconscious and the soul must be lost … in self-contemplation.

  Still other subtleties.

  They will not indulge in calling and in contemplating each other. If they escape from the body and leap toward each other in a mutual outburst of desire, they collide or their paths cross, but there is no place for them to come to rest.

  The result is that they meet in mutual admiration and intermingle on the thing admired. They will thus be oblivious to themselves and will not be troubled by enticing looks, and will not exhaust themselves in the attempt to call each other.

  For example, I have at times experienced their fusion when we were reading and admiring each other—when both of us prayed for each other in the mourning room with Lucie, when we watched the same star on a flowery May night and let our tears run together as our cheeks touched and we surrendered our souls to each other.

  Still other subtleties—traps set by the bantering mind.

  “Our communion is still not perfect.

  “I sense the confusion in our souls; I do not sense their fusion.

  “In order for mine to blend with yours, I must lose the notion of its resistant life, its consciousness of itself. Then the soul becomes passive.

  “Thus Nirvana is experienced only as the taste of nothingness in non-life itself. It is negation.

  “Our communion will never be perfect; or, if perfect, it will never be experienced as such.”

  But harmony—music! Music carries the undulation of one soul all the way to the other soul.

  Bodies hindered me; they hid the souls. The flesh is useless. An embrace should be immaterial.


  Possession. An alternative for Allain—and for me. If only I could be convinced.…47

  At night when the body surrenders to sleep, the soul escapes. It flies hurriedly toward distant loves and possesses them immaterially. The body dreams.

  Morning comes and the body stirs, awakens, rises. Again it takes possession of the little soul, which is again imprisoned. Distant memories are cause for regret—dear loves recalled merely as dreams … for normally you are accompanied by the body, little soul! People do not imagine caresses in the absence of bodies. Ah! If they knew! But they are all blind!

  And each evening my soul flies to your side, to the side of the one loved by my soul. Like a weightless bird my soul alights on your lips, and with a slight tremor your lips begin to smile.

  With a passionate (sehnsuchtsvoll) shout my soul summons yours. Like two merging flames our two souls fuse and plunge more deeply into space filled with harmonies produced by the beating of their wings.

  They have taken their flight through space. It is night and the moon is beautiful. From vast sleeping forests rise masses of fog. Together we fly toward sweeter heavens, toward warmer breezes whose caresses our souls desired.

  Through pines where the wind sings—in the forest chilled by sparkling dewdrops that fall on us as tears from sagging branches—over wheat that extends beyond the range of sight on the empty horizon and inclines at our passage, like a billowing sea traversed by gusts—to moist slopes where the petals of dormant flowers, finally refreshed, perfume the stars with their ecstatic dreams.

  Through the night’s silence our souls pursue their swift untroubled flight.

  Death when it comes will not separate our souls.

  Beyond the tomb they will take flight and again join.

  For separation of bodies does not make soul solitary.

  The world can only separate bodies.

  Nothing can stand in the way of the loving soul, for love has conquered all.

  Love is stronger than death.

  “Reason!” they say, and to me this is sheer arrogance. What has their Reason done?

  It is always contrasted with the soul; when the heart acts, reason interferes.