Chapter 29: Pantomime

“Il paraît que l’opéra était fini.”
E. and J. de Goncourt,
Idées et Sensations.

Entragues, endowed with a deductive mind, liked to find his bearings—to know what he was about. To recall the past, confront it with the present, determine the resultant of the two terms, the future—this he called living. Nothing, in fact, clarifies the conscious mind more than these analytical processes. What a philter! The state of one’s soul is clearly perceived. It is an egoistic enjoyment, but as salubrious as opening the windows after awaking in the morning.

He saw the cold gardens, the trees despoiled of their illusions: could he, with a glance, warm the earth again and bedeck the trees?

No, he only acquired the certainty of his impotence, an immense acquisition.

“With a glance? There certainly is a certain way of looking at things which makes them tremble like conquests under the conqueror’s eyes. The book of universal magic should teach this. Satan knows it. But Faust is in hell. That denouement was a good lesson: we will not be caught again! Now, what is momentary love at the cost of eternal life?

“I must confess that I was deliciously agitated yesterday. But why? I realize it now, though I did not yesterday. Yesterday I revelled in perfect unselfconsciousness: I had to leave the flower-bed in order to breathe the perfume of flowers.

“It is true that I had breathed them in advance. Ah! I remember it all. It was not a flower-bed, but a forest, —it comes to the same thing: one can take the wrong symbol.

“So, there is no present. My calculations are simplified. The future is uncertain, for, thinking that I was penetrating the jungle of a somewhat disordered forest, I found myself in the smooth walks of a pretty little parterre: we were very well-behaved there, we did not trample on the flower-beds with heedless feet, and we breathed the fragrance of the flowers with fitting gestures of assent. Thus only the past has some chances of existence.

“Here is the question reduced to the simplest unity: is it worth while traveling for the sake of memories? All who have gone to Constantinople or to the Gobelins can respond.