UNPUBLISHED PREFACE2

 

 

I once had a starling that came from Bohemia. It was a magical bird. For as long as I was occupied with Merlin it stayed with me. While I wrote, it flew over my head or perched on the edge of my table. If I stopped, it began its chirping, which filled an entire arbor. An accomplished artiste, it mingled striking thrusts of the bow with its songs, after which it assumed a voice in a lower register, and made wise speeches in clearly-articulated human language. Then it looked at me with its great dark profound eyes and said: “Write!”

It would never have imagined that the pages it whispered in my ear were a grimoire of metaphysics and science. It took them simply for the summer song of prisoner in his cage, suspended from the vault of heaven. As for thinking that they were an academic thesis, it would rather have shed its plumage, colored violet and orange, with a gold and azure sheen. Anyone daring to contradict it on this point would immediately have received a sharp peck, whose mark would still be visible.

One day, someone took advantage of my absence to ask the bird whether this work did not contain memoirs and details of my intimate life. It took it upon itself to respond discreetly that its master was doubtless too clever to seek his poetry in a void, that everything here was real, drawn from the truth and sown with bloody plumes torn still raw from the natal nest.

They persisted. It replied that in the tomb of Merlin it recognized its master, buried alive with everything that he loved most, but that he could not say any more and did not want to reveal the deepest secrets of the house. Besides which, it found once again in Merlin the familiar echo of the birdsong of forests and ideas freely born in the open air, under the vault of heaven. That was sufficient; why ask more questions?

For as long as the composition of this work lasted, there was not a single day when the starling thought of flying away, although it was left at liberty. Every new page showed it vast horizons, hidden springs and hawthorn bushes. It played in my thoughts, as in the bosom of nature, and did not seem to desire anything else. Incredibly, though, on the day the book was finished and I put it away, our guest—our faithful, inseparable companion, our starling—flew out through the open window. I saw it fly away, as rapid as an arrow, in splendid daylight.

At first I could not believe my eyes; I called it back; I ran after it. It was futile. I never saw it again. Although an entire village was put on its track, no one was able to give me any news of it.

Reader, if you want this work to serve as a nest on a stormy day, follow the advice of a bird of heaven. Don’t rack your brains, any more than it did, searching for enigmas. Don’t imagine monsters to which the author never gave a thought. Make yourself, for a while, an airborne soul; read with the heart what was written with the heart. Pick up the good grain that I have put into these pages, and when you have nourished your fantasy, you will feel your wings, and you will be able to take flight toward a higher and clearer sky. Then you can forget me, if you wish; for all of you are birds, and never think of anything but forgetting or leaving.

 

Veytaux, canton of Vaud,

1863.