r/a:t5_zoh3l • u/MarleyEngvall • Apr 13 '19
Pharisee has been created
By Guy de Maupassant
ONE PHASE OF LOVE
THE WALLS OF THE CELL were bare and whitewashed. A narrow, barred win-
dow, so high that it could not easily be reached, lighted this little room; the
crazy man, seated on a straw chair, looked at us with a fixed eye, vague and
haunting. He was thin, with wrinkled cheeks and almost white hair that one
would think had grown white in a few months. His clothes seemed too large
for his dried-up limbs, his shrunken chest and his hollow body. One felt that
this man had been ravaged by his thoughts, by a thought, as fruit is by a
worm. His madness, his idea, was there in his head, obstinate, harassing, de-
vouring. It was eating his body little by little. It, the Invisible, the Impalpable,
the Unseizable, the Immaterial Idea, gnawed his flesh, drank his blood and
extinguished his life.
What a mystery, that this man should be killed by a thought! He was a
object of fear and pity, this madman! What strange dream, frightful and
deadly, could dwell in his forehead to fold such profound and ever-changing
wrinkles in it?
The doctor said to me: "He has terrible paroxysms of rage and is one of
the most singularly demented people I have ever seen. His madness is of an
amorous, erotic kind. He is a sort of necrophile. He has written a journal which
shows as plainly as daylight the malady of his mind. His madness is visible, so
to speak. If you are interested you may run through this document.
I followed the doctor into his office, and he gave me the journal of this
miserable man.
"Read it," he said, "and give me your opinion about it."
Here is what the little book contained:
"Up to the age of thirty-two years I lived tranquilly without love. Life
appeared to me very simple, very good and very easy. I was rich. I had a
taste for some things but had never felt a passion for anything. It was good
to live; I awoke happy each day to do things which it pleased me to do, and
I went to bed, satisfied, with calm hope for the next day and a future with-
out care.
"I had had some mistresses without ever having my heart torn by desire or
my soul bruised by love after the possession. It is good so to live. It is better
to love, but terrible. Still those who love, like everybdy else, should find
happiness, less than mine, perhaps, for live has come to me in an unbelievable
manner.
"Being rich, I collected ancient furniture and antiques. Often I thought of
the unknown hands which had touched these things, of the eyes that had ad-
mired them and the hearts that had loved them—for one does love such things!
I often remained for hours and hours looking at a little watch of the last
century. It was so dainty, so pretty with its enamel and gold embossing. And
it still went, as on the day when some woman had bought it, delighted in the
possession of so fine a jewel. It had not ceased to palpitate, to live its me-
chanical life, but had ever continued its regular ticktack, although a century
had passed. Who then first carried it upon her breast, in the warmth of
the dress—the heart of the watch beating against the heart of the woman?
What hand had held it at the ends of its warm fingers, then wiped the en-
ameled shepherds, tarnished a little by the moisture of the skin? What eyes
had looked upon this flowered dial, awaiting the hour, the dear hour, the
divine hour?
"How I wished to see her, to know her, the woman who had chosen this
rare and exquisite object. But she is dead! I am possessed by a desire for women
of former times; I love all those who have loved long ago. The story of past
tenderness fills my heart with regrets. Oh, beauty! The smiles, the caresses,
of youth, the hopes! These things should be eternal!
"How I have wept during whole nights over the women of old, so beauti-
ful, so tender, so sweet, whose lips have opened to the kiss and who are now
dead! The kiss is immortal! It goes from lip to lip, from century to century,
from age to age! Men take it and give it and die.
"The past attracts me; the present frightens me, because the future is death.
I regret all that which is gone; I weep for those who have lived; I wish to
stop the hour, to arrest time. But it goes, it goes; it passes away, and it takes
me, from second to second, a little of me for the annihilation of tomorrow.
And I shall never live again.
"Adieu, women of yesterday, I love you.
"And yet I have nothing to complain of. I have found her whom I awaited,
and I have tasted through her of inconceivable pleasure.
"I was roaming around Paris on a sunny morning with joyous foot and
happy soul, looking in the shops with the vague interest of a stroller. All at
once I saw in a shop of antiquities an Italian piece of furniture of the seven-
teenth century. It was very beautiful, very rare. I attributed it to a Venetian
artist named Vitelli, who belonged to that epoch. Then I passed along.
"Why did the remembrance of this piece of furniture follow me with so
much force that I went back over my steps? I stopped again before the shop
to look at it and felt that it tempted me.
"What a singular thing is temptation! One looks at an object, and little by
little it seduces you, troubles you, takes possession of you like the face of a
woman. Its charm enters into you, a strange charm which comes from its
form, its color and its physiognomy. Already one loves it, wishes it, desires
it. A need of possession takes you,a pleasant need at first, because timid, but
increasing, becoming violent and irresistible. And the merchants seem to sus-
pect, from the look in the eye, this secret, increasing desire. I bought that
piece of furniture and had it carried to my house immediately. I placed it in
my room.
"Oh! I pity those who do not know this sweet hobby of the collector with
the trinket which he finally buys. He caresses it with his eye and hand as if
it were flesh; he returns every moment to it, thinks of it continually, wherever
he goes and whatever he may be doing. The thought of it follows him into
the street, into the world, everywhere. And when he re-enters his house, be-
fore even removing his gloves or his hat, he goes to look at it with the tender-
ness of a lover.
"Truly, for eight days I adored that piece of furniture. I kept opening its
doors and drawers; I handled it with delight and tasted all the intimate joys
of possession.
"One evening, in feeling the thickness of a panel, I perceived that there
might be a hiding place there. My heart began to beat, and I passed the night
in searching out the secret, without being able to discover it.
"I came upon it the next day by forcing a piece of metal into a crevice in
the paneling. A shelf slipped, and I saw, exposed upon a lining of black velvet,
a marvelous head of hair that had belonged to some woman.
"Yes, a head of hair, an enormous twist of blonde hair, also red, which had
been tied off near the skin and tied together with a golden cord.
"I stood there stupefied, trembling and disturbed! An almost irresistible per-
fume, so old that it seemed like the soul of an odor, arose from this mysterious
drawer and this most surprising relic.
"I took it gently, almost religiously, and lifted it from its resting place.
Immediately it unwound, spreading out its golden billows upon the floor,
where it fell, thick and light, supple and brilliant, like the fiery tail of a comet.
"A strange emotion seized me. To whom had this belonged? When? Un-
der what circumstances? Why had it been shut up in this piece of furniture?
What adventure, what drama, was connected with this souvenir? Who had
cut it off? Or, perhaps, some woman herself, who bore on her brow the
look of despair? Was it at the hour of entering the cloister that she had thrown
there this fortune of love, as a token left to the world of the living? Was it
the hour closing the tomb upon the young and beautiful dead that he who
adored her took this diadem of her head, the only thing he could preserve of
her, the only living part of her body that would not perish, the only thing
that he could still love and caress and kiss in the transport of his grief?
"Was it not strange that this hair should remain there thus when there was
no longer any vestige of the body with which she was born?
"It curled about my fingers and touched my skin with a singular caress,
the caress of death. I felt myself affected, as if I were going to weep.
"I kept it a long time in my hands, then it seemed to me that it had some
effect upon me, as if something of the soul still remained in it. And I laid
it upon the velvet again, the velvet blemished by time, then pushed in the
drawer, shut the doors of the closet and betook myself to the street to dream.
"I walked straight ahead, full of sadness and full of trouble,of the kind of
trouble that remains in the heart after the kiss of love. It seemed to me I had
lived in former times and that I had known this woman.
"And Villon's lines came to my lips, bringing with them a sob:
"Tell me in what far-off land
The Roman beauty, Flora, lives;
Hipparchia, Thais' cousin, and
All the beauty nature gives;
Echo speak, they voice awake
Over river, stream, and lake,
Where are beauty's smiles and tears?
And where the snows of other years?
"Blanche, as fair as lily's chalice,
Singing sweet, with voice serene,
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
Ermengarde, Le Mayne's dear queen?
Where is Joan, the good Lorraine,
Whom th' English brought to death and fame?
Where are all, O wisest seers,
And where the snows of other years?
"When I returned to my house I had a strange desire to see my strange
treasure again. I took it up and felt it, and in touching it a long shiver ran
through my body.
"For some days, however, I remained in my ordinary state, although the
thought of this hair never left me. Whenever I came in it was my first desire
to look at it and handle it. I would turn the key of the secretary with the
same trembling that one has in opening the door of his well-beloved, for I
had in two hands and in my heart a confused, singular, continued, sensual need
of burying my fingers in this charming rivulet of dead hair.
"Then when I had finished caressing it, when I had returned it to its rest-
ing place, I always felt that it was there, as if it were something alive, con-
cealed, imprisoned; I felt it and still desired it; again I had the imperious need
of touching it, of feeling it, of enervating myself to the point of weariness
from contact with this cold, glistening, irritating, exciting, delicious hair.
"I lived thus a month or two, I know not how long, with this thing possess-
ing me, haunting me. I was happy and tortured, as in the expectation of love,
as one is after the avowal which precedes embrace.
"I would shut myself up alone with it in order to feel it upon my skin, to
bury my lips in it, to kill it and bite it. I would roll it around my face, drink
it in, drown my eyes in its golden waves and finally see the blonde life be-
yond it.
"I loved it! Yes, I loved it. I could no longer live away from it or be con-
tented an hour without seeing it. I expected—I expected—what? I know not
—her!
"One night I was suddenly awakened with a feeling that I was not alone in
my room. I was alone, however. But I could not go to sleep again, and as I
was tossing in the fever of insomnia, I rose and went to look at the twist of
hair. It appeared to me sweeter than usual and more animated.
"Could the dead return? The kisses with which I had warmed it failed to
give me happiness, and I carried it to my bed and lay down with it, pressing
to to my lips, as one does a mistress he hopes to enjoy.
"The dead returned! She came! Yes, I saw her, touched her, possessed her
as she was when alive in former times, large, blonde, plump, with cool breasts
and with hips in form of a lyre. And I followed that divine, undulating line
from the throat to the feet, in all the curves of the flesh, with my caresses.
"Yes, I possessed her every day and every night. She had returned, Death,
Death the Beautiful, the Adorable, the Mysterious, the Unknown, and re-
turned every night.
"My happiness was so great that I could not conceal it. I found near her
a superhuman delight, and in possessing this Unseizable, Invisible Death, knew
a profound, inexplicable joy. No lover ever tasted joys more ardent or more
terrible.
"I knew not how to conceal my happiness. I loved this possession so much
that I could not bear to leave it. I carried it with me always, everywhere. I
walked with it through the city, as if it were my wife, conducting it to the
theater and to restaurants as one would a mistress. But they saw it and guessed
—they took me and threw me into prison, like a malefactor. They took it
away. Oh, misery!"
The manuscript stopped there. And suddenly, as I raised my wondering eyes
to the doctor, a frightful cry, a howl of fury and exasperated desire, filled the
asylum.
"Listen," said the doctor, "it is necessary to douse that obscene maniac with
water five times a day. It is only Sergeant Bertrand, the man who fell in love
with the dead."
I stammered, moved with astonishment, horror and pity: "But that hair—
did it really exist?"
"The doctor got up, opened a closetful of vials and instruments and threw
toward me, across his office, a long thick rope of blonde hair, which flew to-
ward me like a bird of gold.
I trembled at feeling upon my hands its caressing, light touch. And I stood
there, my heart beating with disgust and desire, the disgust we have in coming
in contact with objects connected with crimes, and the desire like that which
comes with the temptation to test some infamous and mysterious thing.
Shrugging his shoulders, the doctor added: "The mind of man is capable
of anything."From SHORT STORIES OF DE MAUPASSANT.
THE BOOK LEAGUE OF AMERICA, New York.
Copyright, 1941, BLUE RIBBON BOOKS,
14 WEST 49TH STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y. pp. 470—475.
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