Louis Lambert

IV

“Farewell to glory, farewell to the future, to the life I had dreamed of!  Now, my well-beloved, my glory is that I am yours, and worthy of you; my future lies entirely in the hope of seeing you; and is not my life summed up in sitting at your feet, in lying under your eyes, in drawing deep breaths in the heaven you have created for me?  All my powers, all my thoughts must be yours, since you could speak those thrilling words, ’Your sufferings must be mine!’ Should I not be stealing some joys from love, some moments from happiness, some experiences from your divine spirit, if I gave my hours to study—­ideas to the world and poems to the poets?  Nay, nay, my very life, I will treasure everything for you; I will bring to you every flower of my soul.  Is there anything fine enough, splendid enough, in all the resources of the world, or of intellect, to do honor to a heart so rich, so pure as yours —­the heart to which I dare now and again to unite my own?  Yes, now and again, I dare believe that I can love as much as you do.

“And yet, no; you are the angel-woman; there will always be a greater charm in the expression of your feelings, more harmony in your voice, more grace in your smile, more purity in your looks than in mine.  Let me feel that you are the creature of a higher sphere than that I live in; it will be your pride to have descended from it; mine, that I should have deserved you; and you will not perhaps have fallen too far by coming down to me in my poverty and misery.  Nay, if a woman’s most glorious refuge is in a heart that is wholly her own, you will always reign supreme in mine.  Not a thought, not a deed, shall ever pollute this heart, this glorious sanctuary, so long as you vouchsafe to dwell in it —­and will you not dwell in it for ever?  Did you not enchant me by the words, ‘Now and for ever?’ Nunc et semper!  And I have written these words of our ritual below your portrait—­words worthy of you, as they are of God.  He is nunc et semper, as my love is.

“Never, no, never, can I exhaust that which is immense, infinite, unbounded—­and such is the feeling I have for you; I have imagined its immeasurable extent, as we measure space by the dimensions of one of its parts.  I have had ineffable joys, whole hours filled with delicious meditation, as I have recalled a single gesture or the tone of a word of yours.  Thus there will be memories of which the magnitude will overpower me, if the reminiscence of a sweet and friendly interview is enough to make me shed tears of joy, to move and thrill my soul, and to be an inexhaustible wellspring of gladness.  Love is the life of angels!

“I can never, I believe, exhaust my joy in seeing you.  This rapture, the least fervid of any, though it never can last long enough, has made me apprehend the eternal contemplation in which seraphs and spirits abide in the presence of God; nothing can be more natural, if from His essence there emanates a light as fruitful of new emotions as that of your eyes is, of your imposing brow, and your beautiful countenance—­the image of your soul.  Then, the soul, our second self, whose pure form can never perish, makes our love immortal.  I would there were some other language than that I use to express to you the ever-new ecstasy of my love; but since there is one of our own creating, since our looks are living speech, must we not meet face to face to read in each other’s eyes those questions and answers from the heart, that are so living, so penetrating, that one evening you could say to me, ‘Be silent!’ when I was not speaking.  Do you remember it, dear life?

“When I am away from you in the darkness of absence, am I not reduced to use human words, too feeble to express heavenly feelings?  But words at any rate represent the marks these feelings leave in my soul, just as the word God imperfectly sums up the notions we form of that mysterious First Cause.  But, in spite of the subtleties and infinite variety of language, I have no words that can express to you the exquisite union by which my life is merged into yours whenever I think of you.

“And with what word can I conclude when I cease writing to you, and yet do not part from you?  What can farewell mean, unless in death?  But is death a farewell?  Would not my spirit be then more closely one with yours?  Ah! my first and last thought; formerly I offered you my heart and life on my knees; now what fresh blossoms of feelings can I discover in my soul that I have not already given you?  It would be a gift of a part of what is wholly yours.

“Are you my future?  How deeply I regret the past!  I would I could have back all the years that are ours no more, and give them to you to reign over, as you do over my present life.  What indeed was that time when I knew you not?  It would be a void but that I was so wretched.”

FRAGMENT.

“Beloved angel, how delightful last evening was!  How full of riches your dear heart is!  And is your love endless, like mine?  Each word brought me fresh joy, and each look made it deeper.  The placid expression of your countenance gave our thoughts a limitless horizon.  It was all as infinite as the sky, and as bland as its blue.  The refinement of your adored features repeated itself by some inexplicable magic in your pretty movements and your least gestures.  I knew that you were all graciousness, all love, but I did not know how variously graceful you could be.  Everything combined to urge me to tender solicitation, to make me ask the first kiss that a woman always refuses, no doubt that it may be snatched from her.  You, dear soul of my life, will never guess beforehand what you may grant to my love, and will yield perhaps without knowing it!  You are utterly true, and obey your heart alone.

“The sweet tones of your voice blended with the tender harmonies that filled the quiet air, the cloudless sky.  Not a bird piped, not a breeze whispered—­solitude, you, and I. The motionless leaves did not quiver in the beautiful sunset hues which are both light and shadow.  You felt that heavenly poetry—­you who experienced so many various emotions, and who so often raised your eyes to heaven to avoid answering me.  You who are proud and saucy, humble and masterful, who give yourself to me so completely in spirit and in thought, and evade the most bashful caress.  Dear witcheries of the heart!  They ring in my ears; they sound and play there still.  Sweet words but half spoken, like a child’s speech, neither promise nor confession, but allowing love to cherish its fairest hopes without fear or torment!  How pure a memory for life!  What a free blossoming of all the flowers that spring from the soul, which a mere trifle can blight, but which, at that moment, everything warmed and expanded.

“And it will always be so, will it not, my beloved?  As I recall, this morning, the fresh and living delights revealed to me in that hour, I am conscious of a joy which makes me conceive of true love as an ocean of everlasting and ever-new experiences, into which we may plunge with increasing delight.  Every day, every word, every kiss, every glance, must increase it by its tribute of past happiness.  Hearts that are large enough never to forget must live every moment in their past joys as much as in those promised by the future.  This was my dream of old, and now it is no longer a dream!  Have I not met on this earth with an angel who had made me know all its happiness, as a reward, perhaps, for having endured all its torments?  Angel of heaven, I salute thee with a kiss.

“I shall send you this hymn of thanksgiving from my heart, I owe it to you; but it can hardly express my gratitude or the morning worship my heart offers up day by day to her who epitomized the whole gospel of the heart in this divine word:  ‘Believe.’”