No More Learning

Each one therefore was joyful; his evil humour left him. Quarrels were
forgotten, reciprocal wrongs forgiven, the thought of duels was blotted
out of the memory, and rancour fled away like smoke.

I alone was sad, inconceivably sad. Like a priest from whom one has torn
his divinity, I could not, without heartbreaking bitterness, leave this
so monstrously seductive ocean, this sea so infinitely various in its
terrifying simplicity, which seemed to contain in itself and represent
by its joys, and attractions, and angers, and smiles, the moods and
agonies and ecstasies of all souls that have lived, that live, and that
shall yet live.

In saying good-bye to this incomparable beauty I felt as though I had
been smitten to death; and that is why when each of my companions said:
"At last! " I could only cry "_Already! _"

Here meanwhile was the land, the land with its noises, its passions, its
commodities, its festivals: a land rich and magnificent, full of
promises, that sent to us a mysterious perfume of rose and musk, and
from whence the music of life flowed in an amorous murmuring.




THE DOUBLE CHAMBER.


A chamber that is like a reverie; a chamber truly _spiritual_, where the
stagnant atmosphere is lightly touched with rose and blue.

There the soul bathes itself in indolence made odorous with regret and
desire. There is some sense of the twilight, of things tinged with blue
and rose: a dream of delight during an eclipse. The shape of the
furniture is elongated, low, languishing; one would think it endowed
with the somnambulistic vitality of plants and minerals.

The tapestries speak an inarticulate language, like the flowers, the
skies, the dropping suns.

There are no artistic abominations upon the walls. Compared with the
pure dream, with an impression unanalysed, definite art, positive art,
is a blasphemy.
Here all has the sufficing lucidity and the delicious
obscurity of music.

An infinitesimal odour of the most exquisite choice, mingled with a
floating humidity, swims in this atmosphere where the drowsing spirit is
lulled by the sensations one feels in a hothouse.

The abundant muslin flows before the windows and the couch, and spreads
out in snowy cascades. Upon the couch lies the Idol, ruler of my dreams.
But why is she here? --who has brought her? --what magical power has
installed her upon this throne of delight and reverie? What matter--she
is there; and I recognise her.

These indeed are the eyes whose flame pierces the twilight; the subtle
and terrible mirrors that I recognise by their horrifying malice. They
attract, they dominate, they devour the sight of whomsoever is imprudent
enough to look at them. I have often studied them; these Black Stars
that compel curiosity and admiration.

To what benevolent demon, then, do I owe being thus surrounded with
mystery, with silence, with peace, and sweet odours? O beatitude! the
thing we name life, even in its most fortunate amplitude, has nothing in
common with this supreme life with which I am now acquainted, which I
taste minute by minute, second by second.

Not so! Minutes are no more; seconds are no more.