Chapter 32: Intoxication

“Ως ἧν έν άεχἥ”
Greek Liturgy.
“Man, meditate on the syllable Om.”
The Khandogya Upanishad.

Hubert wrote two notes, and the evening of the second day knocked at Sixtine’s door. Absence. A third note and another visit were likewise in vain.

“She is sulking,” he thought. “So much the better. Her anger will exhaust itself against my shadow and, when she condescends to receive me, her beautiful face will be free of all vexation.”

He was too assured of virtual possession even to suppose an attempt to fly from his hands. By imaginary advances, realized in desire, the union was established for ever. All scorn was impossible: she had breathed the fragrance of the philter.

Far from grieving, he congratulated himself; far from languishing, he breathed more deeply the invigorating breezes of certitude. Having achieved peace with himself, having thrown his pride overboard, his lightened bark now moving spiritedly towards the haven of golden sands, he would enter at the propitious hour.

The morning of the fourth day, he received news in this form:

“Please do not forget the soirée of the Countess on Wednesday next. This on her behalf.

“On my own behalf, I am sorry for having been too unwell and too busy either to receive you or to reply.

“But have we not eternity? S. M.”

Entragues saw no disquieting bitterness in this raillery—and another day passed.

“The catalogue of obscene joys is brief, but it suffices, on certain days, to give the desire of purifying oneself for this world and the other. Solange had some rather just views before his malady: it is distressing that the chastity of devotees should be defiled in the hour when they regain their solitary oratories. I shall do well to read Tertullian and some consoling pages before retiring, for I fear the power of words. No, I shall dream of Sixtine. Dear creature of my desire, I trust in your magic: what wanton importunities will not yield to the grace of your gestures? Abode of my will, retreat of my illusions of love, appear to me and protect me!”

They were standing, interlaced. She kissed him lightly and repeatedly on the corner of his eyes, while having him breathe a rose. It could not last, he was becoming too languid.

Silvery moonlight, clouds, strident peals which usher in lightning, silvery moonlight.

The storm hovers in the velvety sky, the turbulent clouds pass, rifts pour out silvery moonlight.

It has thundered, indeed. Far away it rumbles, it rumbles! Another flash! Ah! it lightens, long! Again! He is dead.

Hubert awoke, roused by the terrible rumbling.

“Ah! Desecration! It was Sixtine. Ah! the plague of imbecile nerves!”

All during the storm, he remained up in his bed, haggard and shivering. The confusion of his sensations stunned him: he could not understand how this carnal hallucination had developed parallel with the beginning of the storm in a moonlight night. At last, when the dream’s absurdity was evident to him, he grew calm and, benumbed by the cold, fell again between his covers.

“This day will be horrible. After all, it is worse than Guido, worse than Valentine! Such a retrogression is degrading. And I think I am master of myself, master of the external world, master of this universe—a woman—when I cannot even regulate the order the logical sequence of my impressions! The human mechanism should be known to me, and if consequences are unconquerable, at least the causes should submit to my will. The saints, with the aid of God, had this power; but God has deserted us and because of the modern Celsus’ has left us, without bucklers, exposed to the arrows of Sin. Henceforth, all hours are its hour and we all belong to it: it has conquered time, space and number.”

Hubert had never felt, as in those moments, the misfortune of being a man and of being nothing else. His pride, ruined by his passion, collapsed like an old wall, and, lying on the ruins bemoaned himself. This attraction, reasoned and combatted with the logical weapons of his character, became the stronger, dominated him consciously and unconsciously. He had come to a state where he no longer thought; his mind no longer functioned save in brief deductions, and the need of security distracted him from exact observation. During those decisive days, in which Sixtine had taken a part, without a doubt, he limited his tactics to brief recalls of presence, instead of obtruding himself point-blank and barring the road to every other unforeseen arrival. It was easy to avoid the nocturnal visitation, by going himself to the fair visitor: if a magnetic and super-reasonable force had thrust Sixtine in his arms while asleep, this same force, according to the most elementary directions, had, on occasion, very, surely joined their realities, as it had joined their phantasms. He lost knowledge of his philosophy, revealed himself capable of nothing but theories—a critic and not a creator of life.