When she came to the high-pitched notes in the bewitching line “Es ist shun spät; es ist schon kalt,” she trembled and quivered like a broken object.
Your emotion was too much for you; tears poured from your eyes; then, ashamed of your confusion and worried because your heart also quivered involuntarily, you darted away. I followed you to your room.
“Oh, leave me!” you said. “Please leave me!”
I went away. I wandered until evening through the fields, my mind undulating with the flood of exaltations produced by remembered harmonies.
Let my soul sense its vitality through the effort to win in its arduous struggle. Then will come dreams of the impossible, of chastity, of faith. Then, endowed with new strength, it will be brave enough to overpower your soul in spite of your belligerent mind.
Your mind! I once resented your mind, your poor mind which was frightened by your troubled soul and which did its utmost to calm your outbursts of feeling. What struggles! And always to resist yourself! You wanted your will to prevail and you set it against invading tenderness.
“I shall never allow myself to be dominated by anything!” you thought.
I misunderstood all that. I only understood that your mind deprived me of your soul and that your soul desired me.
I sometimes hear your soul cry out softly, but your dominating mind subdues it. One day I shall force it to cry out and prevent your mind from stifling its pleas.
One day I shall force your poor soul to speak.…
Music, music — in anguished harmonies your astonished soul will recognize its counterpart and release the tears that it has long restrained. But when I start to play, you become alarmed and flee.
* * *
One summer night — a hot stormy night following a splendid day — all was still without. There was no breeze. My soul was expectant.
You came out on the terrace while the others remained inside. When I saw that you could not flee, I opened the window wide and sat down at the piano. The sounds came to you in waves.
I began to play Chopin’s first Scherzo—brutally, noisily, almost as a prelude at first, for I did not wish to startle your soul. When I came to the piú lento, I muted the melody and it cried, morbidly sweet. As pearls drop from a fountain, the high notes fell, obstinately the same but severally eloquent, while the harmony changed.
I went back to the agitato but with all the passion in my heart, making the anguished dissonances quiver. I stopped abruptly before you could break the spell. And I approached you and found you trembling; there were no tears and your eyes were radiant.
“André, why were you playing that?” you asked, and your voice was so different that I was frightened and dared not answer.
We remained silent.
“Look into the darkness,” you finally said, as if alarmed. “Is it not supernatural?”
Lightning flickered noiselessly on the horizon. The air was perfumed with pollen from lime-trees, with the scent of flowering acacias. I tried to take your hand; it was feverous but you rebuffed me.
We remained silent.
“Oh, André,” you again interposed, but in a whisper and with your head lowered, “you acted cowardly this evening.”
Raindrops were beginning to fall. We went back inside.
The storm broke during the night. You were suffering: feverish and almost delirious.
The next day you stayed in bed and refused to see me.
“My affliction is not serious,” you said.48
(Thursday)
“My thoughts kept me awake almost all night long. I could not sleep. ‘Oh, André, you acted cowardly this evening.’ Suddenly I felt you next to me, so frail, so fragile — as if penitent.”
“It was wrong for me to do what I did: to upset you, to wish to disturb your soul.… And could I satisfy it after altering it?”
“You acted cowardly!
“Her contempt! Do not hold me in contempt!.. What now?”
(October 5)
“All day long I experienced infinite sadness amid grey surroundings.
“I collected one by one my sullied hopes, and I cried over each of them.
“All my strength had left me! I no longer dared even desire you from afar.”
“I ceased to pursue your soul.
“I shall wait. I shall be there. I shall still be the same. If you have the slightest desire for me, I shall rush to your side — but not until you call me. I shall wait.”
(Sunday)
“Today I lived close to her but our eyes did not seek each other. I did not draw near you. I was lost in thought almost all day long.
“Waiting.
“We shall travel PARALLEL. That used to drive me to despair.”
“I have again started to read my Bible. I must once again ascend the slope which I descended unsuspectingly.
“Oh, how difficult it is!”
I skip over pages — the transition will be too abrupt, but I am tired of recounting everything.
I would like new things — and I see some that are so radiant.…
I was sad then.… How distant is this “then!” Outside spring is in the air — and I would like to sing:
For the day is approaching, the dawn draws near.
(October 18)
“Self-esteem, contentment in the soul! The splendor of virtue, which I at first sought for you, gradually dazzles and attracts me.
“There are loftier emotions, nobler yearnings, more sublime raptures.
“The soul evolves.”
(October 22)
“For me alone! For me alone!
“They will not understand — what does it matter to me?
“My heart is flooded. I must sing.
“A little harmony rather than words — no sentences — O for words that they might understand!
“My heart teems with incantations. My soul floats on a moving tide of modulations and broken arpeggios which rise like a troubled flight of furtive wings and incessantly fall without being resolved.
“Passion flows rhythmically, metrically, quietly … passion subsides; the soul meditates.”
“ALLAIN.
“In order not to taint her purity, I shall abstain from caressing her — in order not to disturb her soul — and even from the most chaste caresses, from clasping her hand … for fear that she may later desire all the more that which I could never give her. And I shall not look into her eyes for fear that she may wish me to come closer and cause me in spite of everything to go so far as to kiss her.
“In this way our souls will remain fearful even though one calls out to the other.…”49
(October 25)
The soul meditates:
No virtue without effort. My chastity is not virtuous. I love to love because it is sweet for me to love and because I would be loved as much as I love … but there is no effort.
Nor does effort count if motivated by the desire for the esteem of another — for her esteem. The effort must be made without hope for reward.
I am searching for the source of virtue.
Virtue would consist in doing good without her knowing about it … yes, without my laying claim later to a larger measure of her esteem.…
Without her knowing … and willfully — is this possible? First, before acting, I would have to promise not to say anything to her — about the act, nor to anyone who would repeat my words to her — to bury the act in my heart. It is at this point that the idea of God is necessary. I would have to appear to myself to be offering it to her like a secret sacrifice whose smoke would rise to her without being seen by men — to promise myself to hide it forever!..