I started to laugh, but she turned me around and took my face in her hands and regarded me seriously. “George. Before the carriage arrives, I want to tell you something you will not like to hear. But I believe the source of your unhappiness is that you have an expectation of something that cannot occur.”
I pulled away from her and walked over to sit on a chair in the corner of the room.
“You spoke last night of giving all to a man who does not want it. He is right not to. We cannot any of us accept all of another person. No one is equipped for or desirous of such a thing. It may seem so at first, but it…”
She began suddenly to sing. It was a child’s verse, and I knew it well; my mother used to sing it to me.
Let us go to the henhouse
To see the white hen
A handsome silver egg she’ll lay
For this dear little child today.
“Do you know this song?” Marie asked.
I nodded.
“I bring it up now because when you talk of love, you are talking of the silver egg. Which of us children was not enchanted by the idea of this magical egg that was promised to us in song but never delivered to us? And we liked that it was not delivered, did we not? For if it had been, poof! There went the magic and the mystery—and the story, the one we loved to hear over and over for the way it continually held out hope. We would have tired of such an egg, no matter how magnificent it would have seemed to us at first, is that not true? So it is with love. You cannot ask for something that is not possible, then regret the fact—even punish yourself for the fact—that you cannot have it. We live not to have, George. What we want is not the object of our desire but desire itself.”
I wanted to disagree with her. I wanted to point to our night of rapture, our unique way of understanding each other. I wanted to tell her that I knew she longed for the same thing as I; she had told me so in many ways, over and over again, not only with her words but with her sighs; with the beseeching look in her eyes; with the way she laid a hand over her heart. I wanted to ask her to abandon her notions of love and fall in with my own, to suggest that we pledge ourselves to each other and prove to ourselves that what we wanted was possible. For she had shown me that I was no Lélia after all.
But I said nothing. Her carriage came, and I escorted her to it, and grasped her hand through the window before it drove away. She was in a different mood by then; she laughed gaily and said, “Do you know, your diatribe against men has made me in the mood for them! I shall forgive Vigny and then persuade him to take me out for an extremely expensive dinner!”
I smiled, never mind that it was the last thing I felt like doing.
She squeezed my hand. “George. We are lucky. We shall have last night forever, our own silver egg. We shan’t forget.”
“Never.”
“I love you!” she called, letting go of my hand as the driver signaled for the horses to pull the carriage away.
I headed back toward the house. I would turn to my work. I would turn to my flowered china inkwell and my quill, my cup of tea and my bouquet of pink roses at the corner of my desk. I would finish Lélia. It was Sainte-Beuve who’d convinced me that I should publish it, after I’d shown him fragments that I had loosely put together into the shape of a novel. He was also the one who told the editor of the Revue des Deux Mondes to ask me for a chapter for publication in the magazine.
I worried that Lélia was too close to the most sacrosanct part of my own soul. It addressed itself to the notion that both prostitutes and married women were slaves to men, yes; it advocated for equality between the sexes, including in sexual fulfillment, yes; but most important, it dealt with the battle of the intellect against faith, with the struggle to believe in a God whose actions did not make sense, and with the need to find the meaning in life. It was a spiritual novel, a mystical one, I thought.
Or I could work on Pauline, a light novella I had begun sometime earlier when I was in high spirits, about two women friends. One, Pauline, is bound by the rules of the bourgeoisie; the other, an actress named Laurence, is free in thought and behavior. In these two characters, I conflated characteristics of Marie’s and mine: I put some of me in her, some of her in me.
But when I sat at my desk, my mind fixed on one thing only.
When I was a child growing up at Nohant, there had lived, in nearby La Châtre, a man who was called crazy. His name was Monsieur Demai. A young man, he was reasonably attractive—his untrimmed beard gave one pause, but he was otherwise appropriately dressed and always polite and well behaved. He used to appear almost as a ghost might, silent and unexpected, never speaking unless you spoke to him. He had an air of impenetrable sadness. Many people tolerated him without a word; he was harmless enough, but he could begin to irritate after a while for the way he stood silently nearby, observing. He would also walk into people’s houses unannounced and had been known to come often into my grandmother’s house. She had a tolerance for certain things that could be surprising. When it came to Monsieur Demai, she would never speak harshly to him or ill of him. If he stood mournfully observing past the point of her endurance, she would simply ask him, as did others, “What are you looking for?”
And he would answer in the way he always did: “I am looking for affection.”
I once stood beside my grandmother in the parlor, where she had been giving me music lessons, studying this strange man’s features as she continued the conversation with him.
“Ah, yes, affection,” my grandmother said. “You’ve still not found it, then.”
“No,” he said, with the embarrassed demeanor of one who has dropped his dinner roll under the table.
“And where have you looked?” my grandmother asked gently.
“I have looked everywhere.”
“Perhaps the garden—have you tried there?”
“I haven’t,” he said, and into his eyes came a look of bright possibility. He put his hat back on his head, touched his fingers to the brim, and turned to go back outside.
“One has to let him believe he will find it somewhere,” my grandmother said. But Monsieur Demai was destined, in his melancholy madness, to search for what he would never find.
We children never made fun of him. We felt sorry for him, and we liked him in the marginal way the dogs did: we did not want him with us, but we sensed his gentle nature, and we knew he would never hurt us. When I heard the news that he had committed suicide, I mourned not only his erratic presence but the fact that for most of his life, he had been called mad. By then, I was a bit older, and I thought that his ailment was not madness at all but, instead, a desperate honesty; I thought he had lived a life more bold and true than most dare to live. The majority of us venture only so far in our quest for an affection that can still the voice of longing at our deepest center; we grow out of the hope that we will find the perfect and all-encompassing love that Monsieur Demai called “affection.” He never lost that hope. Nor, I confess, did I.
Ah, Marie! One night! One night of our entire lifetimes that you said would last undiminished forever, and so it has. Marie, Marie, lost angel, so it has.
—
THAT NIGHT, I TOOK myself outside to walk by the river, and then far beyond, until I was too tired to do anything but come home, put into my mouth food I could not taste, and fall into bed.
Hours later, I started awake. I sat up at the edge of the bed in the darkness, crossed my arms tightly over myself, and rocked slowly side to side. Eventually, I lay back down, but I did not sleep for the rest of the night.
I had vowed that I would stay at Nohant. Now I vowed that in the morning, I would make arrangements to go back to Paris until such time as my children came home to Nohant. I would send a letter to Sainte-Beuve, asking him to make dinner reservations for us the evening after I arrived. He had written to me at Nohant to tell me he had bought me a blood-red bolero jacket, decorated with pom-poms. “Please bring the jacket to me at the restaurant, for I am in desperate need of cheering up,
” I told him. And then I packed, making sure I had all the pages of both Lélia and Pauline.
As it happened, I would not return to Pauline for years, and when I did, the tone of the book had changed. I had added this scene:
By evening, Laurence was gone. Pauline had wept as she watched her climb into the carriage, this time with regret. For thirty-six hours, Laurence had made her feel really alive, and the thought of the next day terrified her. Exhausted, she fell into bed and fell asleep, heartbroken, hoping never to wake up again. When she did awake, she cast a dejected and fearful look about the room where no trace could be found of the dream Laurence had evoked. She rose slowly, sat mechanically in front of her mirror and tried to braid her hair the way it had been the day before. Suddenly, called back to reality by the song of her canary waking up in its cage, forever happy and indifferent to its captivity, Pauline got up, opened the cage, then the window, and thrust out the sedentary bird, who had no desire to fly away.
“You don’t deserve to be free!” she cried as she watched him fly back inside at once.
She returned to her dressing table, untied her braids in a rage, and buried her face in her hands.
June 1833
MAGNY’S RESTAURANT
PARIS
“You must not be afraid of Lélia being seen as autobiographical,” Sainte-Beuve said, lavishly buttering his bread. “You know as well as I that one’s work is rarely interpreted the way one means it to be. Did you yourself not tell me that you were ‘educated’ by the critics who told you what Indiana was about?”
“Yourself included!” I said.
He drew his considerable girth back to let the waiter place before him his dinner: a whole chicken, split and roasted to a dark golden color; buttered red potatoes; and haricots verts. He had already ordered dessert: two dishes, as he could not decide between pot au chocolat and a selection of cheeses. He tucked his napkin into his collar and commenced eating nearly before the platter was put down before him. “I am famished, nearly faint from hunger,” he said, apologizing for the little piece of potato that came flying from his mouth. I merely took a sip of my wine. I had ordered only onion soup and had yet to lift my spoon.
I had complimented Sainte-Beuve on the bolero jacket he’d presented to me when I arrived but had not had the heart to try it on. And so, in an effort to lift my spirits, he had thrown it over himself. He looked absurd, but he was well known and respected enough that no one raised an eyebrow. No one, that is, but he: he lifted one of his great black caterpillars to inspect me closely.
“Tell me. What has happened?”
I stared into my lap.
He waited, and finally, I decided to tell him everything. After all, I had shared with him in a letter the grim details of my failed experiment with Mérimée; surely this was no worse. And if it was, so what? It would be of great help to let Sainte-Beuve serve as father confessor, and to listen to whatever advice he might offer. I needed to unburden myself.
Sainte-Beuve took great pride in the fact that so many women confided in him. He was extremely close to Victor Hugo’s wife, Adèle; many said he was in love with her. When I once asked him about this, he laughed and answered quickly: “Who would not love her?”
For me, this nervous response, given with his eyes averted, confirmed what I had long suspected: not only did he love her; they were lovers. Sainte-Beuve was not a handsome man, but there was kindness in his baby face, and a depth to his gaze that conferred upon him a compassionate wisdom.
I told him about Marie, and when at length I had finished speaking, he put down his knife and fork and spoke softly. “My dear,” he said, his face full of sorrow. That was all. The great critic, the eloquent Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, was at a loss for words.
Tears filled my eyes, and I hastily wiped them away, embarrassed, because it was at that moment that the waiter reappeared to remove Sainte-Beuve’s plate and, after a nod from me, my own. I had eaten nothing; the butter in the soup lay unappetizingly congealed on its surface.
“You must eat, my dear. Even if you have no appetite. I can see the effect that all this has had on you. It worries me. You will heal from the devastation, but not if you starve to death first.”
“At times when I feel sad or upset, I cannot eat or sleep,” I said. “This has been true of me since I was a child. I must suffer through whatever pain I am having, and then, gradually, I come back to myself. Surely you know me well enough to know that.”
He took a bite of his pot au chocolat, smacking his lips at its goodness. He loaded up his spoon with another bite and held it out to me.
I shook my head.
“I shall take away your jacket,” he said.
Still I demurred.
He wiped his mouth, put his spoon down, and leaned forward. “I once had sex with a young man. Well, to be honest, more than one.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Yes, very exciting but not so satisfying as the cries from some fair maiden. And that is less exciting than your new work—which, by the way, I predict will be the cure for this particular malaise. Judging from what you have shared with me so far, it is more than brilliant.”
I offered an anemic murmur.
He sighed. “George. This is no good. How can you work in this condition? And you must work! I believe in Lélia. It will be your best book yet, perhaps ever. You will astonish people with what you have done. It will not be a novel for casual and nondiscriminating readers who flip pages rapidly and read with the depth of a lamppost. It will not be for people who are uncomfortable being challenged by literature. But those with true intelligence and insight: they will sing your praises, critics and the general public alike. You must hoist yourself up and get back to it; you must be nearly finished by now.”
I shrugged.
Sainte-Beuve removed the bolero jacket, folded it neatly, and handed it to me. I laid it in my lap, taking comfort from the warmth of his body that I could feel in it.
“Listen to me. I have two suggestions for you. Or, rather, I have one suggestion and one imperative. The suggestion is that you visit Hugo’s physician, who prescribes for him and many others, as well, ‘depression pills.’ ”
“That I cannot do,” I said. I knew what my spirit needed: love and time. Not pharmaceuticals.
“Very well. This next, though, I must insist you take advantage of. I have made the acquaintance of Alfred de Musset. Do you know him?”
“I have heard about him. Too much of a dandy for me, I’m afraid. Is he not very young? And greatly troubled? I heard he is addicted to opium. And champagne. And a certain class of women.”
“A lover younger than you has never bothered you in the past. He is twenty-three to your twenty-nine, not so vast a difference. As for him being a ‘troubled soul,’ I look upon that as being your specialty! Besides, this young man with such character faults is capable of writing sublime poetry and is gifted with impressive intelligence. Truly, George, I believe you would at least find him amusing. Let me bring him round to your apartment so that you can judge for yourself.”
I hesitated, then said, “I think not. Not just yet.”
Sainte-Beuve scowled. “So the rumors are true.”
I looked sharply over at him. “What rumors now?”
“That you are in love with the critic Gustave Planche.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“It must be true. I heard it from Balzac. He insists that it is true.”
“Balzac would insist that the earth was flat if he thought it would hurt me. He has gone from being a dear friend to a bitter enemy, all on account of my break with Jules.”
“He has taken Jules in to champion him.”
“So I have heard.”
“It appears not to be going as smoothly as Balzac thought it might. Jules has a bit of a problem with laziness?”
I looked at my pocket watch. I would not indulge in gossip about someone I once loved so dearly. But it was true that Jules was lazy. I doubted Balzac would
tolerate him much longer.
“I know you want to go,” Sainte-Beuve said. “I shall release you if you promise me one thing.”
“What is it?”
“Finish Lélia!”
“I shall.” Finally, I smiled.
I resumed working that night with new determination. And as I wrote, I saw how the book was a philosophical undertaking to try to use the mind to bring peace to the heart, and to construct a morality that one could reconcile oneself to. I used aspects of Marie for the character of an actress, Pulchérie, who had become a courtesan in order to support her need for luxury; I put parts of myself in the character who is her sister Lélia, one who refuses to give up her independence for any man. Just before I stopped working for the night, I added a scene of Pulchérie talking to Lélia:
“Oh, my sister, how beautiful you were. I had never found you so before that day. I had preferred myself to you. I had felt that my brilliant cheeks, my rounded shoulders and my golden hair made me more beautiful than you. But at that instant I awakened to the beauty of another creature. I no longer loved only myself. I rose softly and looked at you with singular curiosity and a strange pleasure. Your thick, black hair clung to your face, and the close curls tightened as if a feeling of life had clenched them next to your neck, which was velvet with shadow and sweat. I passed my fingers through your hair. It seemed to squeeze and draw me toward you. Your fine, white blouse pressed against your breasts made your skin, tanned by the sun, still darker than usual. And your long eyelashes, weighted with sleep, stood out against your cheeks. Oh, Lélia, you were so beautiful! Trembling, I kissed your arm. Then you opened your eyes and your gaze penetrated me with shame. I turned away as if I had committed a guilty action. Don’t you remember my confusion and my blushing?”