I
Already, the place where the second labyrinth of Limbo ended was whitening on the edge of the horizon. The Enchanter could see the end of his journey, when other souls, more hidden and more enveloped than the others, suddenly showed themselves to him—and I, who had followed the least of his footsteps this far, without daring to open my mouth, became more attentive than before. From the words with which he greeted the new souls flocking to his passage, I thought I understood that they were to rise to the earth after me, when I had quit the world of the living.
Curiosity pricked me then with its sharpest needle. I felt consumed by the desire to know their names and what they would do on earth when I was no longer there. And I, who had scarcely dared look at the prophet a moment before, suddenly carried away by a desire stronger than humility, drew nearer to him and said:
“Oh, for pity’s sake, tell me the names of those who will live after me and will tread the earth when I am in my tomb.”
“Who told you what it is to die, and how the tomb is made,” the prophet replied, “you who have not yet seen the light of day?”
“Please let me approach those who will live after me. At least lift the flap of their cloaks so that I can see their faces. May I not at least salute them with my eyes? In advance, I feel full of love and respect for them, as if they might warm my bones with their breath. Who is that one coming first, who is the tallest? With how much assurance he walks! And that other one, turning in my direction? Both attract me equally with different forces. Look, they’d like to summon me—they’re signaling to me. Oh, show me their faces! Only tell me their names, their fatherland. Are they of my country, my race, my language, or will they do honor to a foreign land? Tell me...”
But the one who had been so indulgent thus far interrupted me severely.
“All curiosity is not good!” he told me. “Isn’t it sufficient to have seen them pass by? What you take for their lowered visors are the veils of bronze that cover the future. Know only that they will not put all their joy into the blade, and that they will dry up the tears that you see assemble here in the eyes of multitudes. What do their names matter, and the syllables that form them? Names deceive easily. Learn in advance to look at things.”
While I retired, rendered confused and tremulous by that vision beyond the cradle and the tomb, he penetrated serenely into the further regions of Limbo.
II
Have you ever seen the torrent of Ain, at the place where the sharp rock advances to close its passage?
You might think that the torrent was vanquished, and that it had no option but to retrace its course, backwards, toward its source. On the contrary, however; it advances more proudly, after having looked more closely, into its blue-tinted gulfs, at the rock that wants to enchain it. That place is like the one where the valley of Limbo curves and closes to impede the passage of those who aspire to life. The narrow gorge suddenly opens out broadly, like a vast maremma.
“Who is this coming toward us?” said two souls embracing amorously on the edge of a gulf. “Is he coming to summon one of us to life and separate us?”
They both trembled simultaneously, each of them became paler as Merlin approached.
He addressed the young virgin soul that was even more bewildered than its companion, saying: “Why are you afraid?”
The amorous soul replied to him: “Eternal love holds us in this embrace above the storm. It has been thus since we have been inhabiting this place. I tremble now to remain forgotten in this abode, when you summon to the light of the living the one whom I cannot yet name. I’m afraid of remaining alone here, lost and astray, without my companion. Tell me whether you’ve come to search for him, to take him, without me before me, to where we desire to live together. After we have been betrothed in Limbo, will we be parted by time on earth? Shall we see the light of day together, or will he see it without me, while I remain imprisoned in this place, with those who have never lived?”
“Console yourself, amorous soul,” Merlin replied. “You will not be disunited. The same time will be granted to both of you to traverse life. Together you shall see the same spring, the same days, the same years, the same sunlight. Together you shall savor rapid youth; together you shall pick the same flowers, together you shall see them wither. One will not be retained in this pale abode while the other is warmed by the amorous rays of terrestrial daylight.”
A glint of joy illuminated the faces of those who loved one another in Limbo. The young female went on: “One thing still saddens me; I don’t know what to call the one thanks to whom I live before the cradle.”
“Call him Abelard,” the prophet replied.
“And me—what name should I call her?” asked the spirit that had kept silent thus far.
“Call her Héloïse.”
When the two amorous souls had heard their names, an infinite joy appeared in their gaze. It seemed that they had just encountered one another for the first time. For a long time they repeated to one another, delightedly, the names that were for them an anticipatory revelation of the life awaited. The soft whispering of the two spirits continued even when a stronger voice made itself heard in the distance, toward the place where the plain gave way to a mountain bristling with rocks.
They followed the Enchanter as far as the entrance of the valley, but on seeing in the distance a young female advancing through the landscape, they both stopped at the same time and left him, saying: “It’s not permissible for us to go any further. The one who is approaching would disapprove of our desire for love.”
With those words, they ran away.
Without having heard them, the one that had scared them continued walking, picking cornflowers from the long grass. Everything about her appearance was humble and rustic, except for her gaze, which cut through Limbo.
Why are they afraid of her? the Enchanter thought.
When he was closer, although a fast-flowing stream still separated them, he recognized the other without difficulty. None of the other souls that he had encountered thus far touched his so deeply, to the point that he was close to tears.
“Jeanne,” he said, “do you know where you’re bound?”
“I know.”
“And how hot the pyre is?”
“I know.”
Meanwhile, she crossed over the stream on a tree-trunk that was set there like the rustic bridges that villagers throw over streams in Champagne when the rain has swollen them. Two spirits were walking beside her, to her right and her left, whispering into her ears.
Having perceived them, the Enchanter exclaimed: “Jeanne, why are you thus accompanied, on this path where all the others are walking alone?”
Before she could reply, the Archangel Michael, who was to her right, said to her in a low voice: “Beware, virgin, of the one who is coming toward you; he has already mingled with the living, but neither I nor the one who is to your left have ever seen him in our celestial abode. He is not of our legion.”
“You have not met me yet,” said the Enchanter. “In spite of that, I belong, as you do, to the Eternal.”
At these words, the shepherdess, having realized that he had seen the two spirits at her sides, was filled with a joy that she had not yet experienced.
“You, at least, have seen them,” she said to him. “You have heard their voices when they whisper in my ear. You will not be like those who insist that they are dreams. But since you have already seen the sun and traversed life, tell me what I ought to know about it, and what path I ought to follow. For these are learned in the ways of Heaven, but they are scornful of the world and the messengers who arrive there.”
“With companions like those for guides,” the prophet replied, “I have nothing to teach you. However, since you question me, I shall speak. The village where you will see the light for the first time is already covered in thatch, Jeanne. The swallows are already nesting there; the chicks are chirping under the roof near your birthplace, not far from the magical tree.”
“Will I not arrive too late?” asked the shepherdess. “That is my only fear.”
“Fear not, shepherdess. You will appear at the hour of the battle; you will lose no time in finding the oriflamme and the sword.”
“How shall I carry the blade, who can scarcely carry this crook? How shall I tame a warhorse, who trembles at every passing shadow?”
“You’ll learn here, in this night of limbo. The archangel who walks beside you will teach you the virtues of the sword. Look, he is leading his black charger by the bridle; you will tame it in the darkness. When you arrive among men, you will come fully armed. Thus the good Achilles was raised before you in Limbo by the wise centaur.”
He was going to continue, but he lost his voice when he saw a company of spirits on a path on the edge of any abyss, who all had crowns on their heads. They were walking in single file, mutely, so that they did not appear to know one another.
The shepherdess and her companions had stopped to watch that company pass by, which was advancing majestically. When at least half of them had disappeared, the virgin cried out at the sight of one of the crowned pilgrims: “There he is! It’s him—the king!”
The Enchanter said to her: “Yes, Jeanne, you’ve recognized him, your Charles; form his cortege; march to his advent.”
Then the shepherdess started walking alongside the one she had greeted; she seemed, as she accompanied him, to be protecting him against the darkness.
Meanwhile, the august troop continued passing by. The Enchanter stood motionless, counting how many there still were. One of the kings, who was walking with difficulty, stopped and, emerging from the crowd, with an expression more amicable than the others, said: “You, the only one who has seen the sun, tell me whether life is as light as it seems to us here. Tell me what kinds of incense the people are preparing for us, and the red cloth they are weaving for the kings. Tell me whether my felicity is more assured than that of the others. Our eyes enclose more than one invisible tear. Will those tears ever flow? This crown weighs upon me in Limbo; will it be lighter in the world of the living?”
“King,” the prophet replied, “you only need to know one thing: accustom yourself to tears; they will flow later. Above all, remember, if you can, those who are marching so rapidly before you to escape justice; tell them to change direction, for the path they’re following is bad. They’ll leave a burdensome heritage. See, already, what anger is amassing behind them!”
The one to whom he was speaking seemed nonplussed. He was frightened by his solitude. He would have liked to call back though who were marching ahead of him, but they were all in a hurry to draw away. Each of them dreaded remaining the last.
“Your companions are cruel to you,” said the prophet, sadly. “They have made peril for you; will they retrace their steps thereafter to defend you?”
“What peril?” asked the spirit wearing the crown, anxiously.
“Beware of the anger of the people.”
“I’ve already seen mutinous larvae here; I know how they can be tamed with a smile.”
“It’s not always like that on earth.”
“Tell me how to tame unchained peoples on earth.”
“No one knows that secret, except those who have no need of it. Sometimes, the people are more flexible than grass; they crawl; that is their joy. Trample them, crush them; they will love you more for it—and that is what happens more often than not. Sometimes they sleep like lions huddled in the reeds; release the bit then, and they will be scornful of you; tighten it again and they will curse you; caress them, and they will tear you apart. Whatever you do, they will doom you.”
“What have I to fear? The eternally-awaited day will not be taken from me. If the hours are counted by the crowd, they are inexhaustible for kings.”
“Disillusion yourself, Louis, who will be called the sixteenth. It would cost you too much to know the truth, until the hour when you feel the trenchant blade strike you. Why are you pressing me to pronounce the words that I want to hold back? It behooves you more than anyone to praise the duration of the terrestrial day. It’s you who will teach others how brief joys are, how heavy shadows are, and what poison abounds in the finest cup. They will tie your hands because you will be the most debonair. They will punish you with iron. Your head will seek in vain to rejoin the trunk, although it is not you who will have committed the crime, but those who precede you and whom you see in the distance, marching indifferently before the bloody dawn.”
As he finished speaking, the one who was listening to him shivered. He took the hand of a child who was following him and who said, weeping: “Where are you taking me, Father?”
Then he let the entire cortege pass and brought up the rear, looking to see whether anyone was coming after him, like a man following a crowd who is afraid of arriving. At every step he turns round, stops and sighs—but dare he turn back?
III
The last of the file was no more than a slingshot away when the feeble, uncertain twilight began to glimmer. The light was slightly paler than at the hour and season of the year when a host of falling stars pierces the mantle of the night. By that light, however, here and there on both sides of the valley, fragments of towers, buildings and walls were visible: pale cities begun and abandoned, without anyone knowing whose hand had secretly laid their foundations. There were also blanched ruins; they began suddenly to crumble; no one could say who had built them.
Among those ruins, a spirit advanced with head held high, which seemed to disdain them. He was not a king, but he was more superb than the kings. Like a laborer spurring on a herd of cattle, in order to get them to the table before a storm bursts, he was urging breathless people on with the spur of his words, who desired to stop and graze at every step. As soon as he saw that the crowd was dulled by its hard labor, however, he urged it on again with his goad; in order to avoid it, the herd ran blindly on without looking back.
On the wrinkled face of the stranger, you might have thought you recognized the ancient traces of thunderbolts, with the marks of the bitumen of Gomorrah. You might have thought that he had already traversed the subterranean flames, and had retained more than one scar therefrom. But that was not the case. His pride alone demonstrated that he had never been defeated. He was emerging like the rest from the native profundities of inviolate limbo.
When he was close to the prophet, whom it was impossible to pass without being seen, he did not lower his head like the others. On the contrary, he straightened up and, looking at the crumbling towers, said to him: “Who made these ruins?”
“You know who rendered them irreparable, but you’ve already forgotten, Mirabeau!”
The latter, without pausing, went on: “Which way did those I’m pursuing go? I’ve lost track of them because of marching too hastily in their wake.”
“Those you’re pursuing have taken the path at the foot of that rock; you’ll soon catch up with them. They’re walking slowly; the last, especially, is weighed down by the burden of his crown.”
On hearing these words, like a hunter unmuzzling his pack of hounds, the arrogant soul unleashed the mob, which began howling under his blazing words.
“They’re here!” he cried. “Run! Forward! Howl! Don’t let the prey escape!”
And the pack went on, mouths agape, over the desiccated grass.
“Why do you press them thus, in Limbo, so quickly that they lose their breath? Afterwards, you’ll have to restrain them, for fear that they’ll escape you, and you’ll no longer have the leash, because you’ll have broken it yourself. As for them, they’ll be so breathless that they’ll run out of strength as well as breath, when they arrive in the sunlight. Instead of pursuing their route in glory, they’ll lie down, tongues hanging out, beneath the feet of the wicked.”
“I already know,” replied the arrogant soul, “what their love is worth, and how it changes into hatred. Since I’ve been walking them in this royal void, I’ve learned to lead them where it pleases me. Trust in my word to attend to them and rule them. On seeing how vain they are, and how little they weigh, I’m learning here, in advance, to scorn them all. That’s my crown.”
“You have your feet in Hell, you who speak in the clouds,” retorted the prophet. “Look at your hands! How gold has dirtied them! Why are they soiled when your heart is so noble? If I could wash them here with my tears, I would do it in advance, for I don’t know yet whether I ought to crown you or curse you. By rejecting you, I dread dishonoring the light of the world, and yet, it’s certain that you’re holding in your right hand gold that doesn’t come from noble labor. If others don’t know it, I can see it from here. Pass on; I’ll keep quiet for now. I can neither forget you nor hate you.”
At these words, the disdainful soul opened his hands, from which a rain of gold fell, and replied, sniggering: “Do you take me for Judas? That was to pay my fare.”
Then, standing up more proudly than before, he shook his immense hair and rejoined his companions, who seemed more like his subjects.
IV
When the pilgrim of the three worlds turned his head, he saw something like a swarm of larvae escaping from a hive, or rather, a great assembled nation, that was advancing from the depths of the night, singing in the manner of those leaving on a journey: “Liberty! Cherished liberty!”
They were all afloat in a sublime delight, as if they had already take possession of the light, for they believed themselves to be emancipated of the darkness because justice lived within them and scintillated in their faces. Cold Limbo was momentarily warmed by the presence of so many palpitating souls.
The prophet said to them: “It’s certainly a fine thing to launch yourselves at the first bound toward justice, but perseverance is necessary, even for larvae to become human beings, and only the outcome will show what that ardor is worth. I greatly fear that those who demand the light might get a taste for darkness as soon as they glimpse it. Just as it is glorious to be the first to enter into justice, so it is shameful to renounce it as soon as it draws near. Later, we shall count those who have persevered; how many will there be then?
“All of us!” cried the crowd.
Scarcely had the words resonated than terror chilled the lips of those who had pronounced it, and several of those generations of larvae were blown along by the wind of fear, paler, more mute and more vain than the rest. They murmured very softly, for fear of being overheard: “Let’s get further away from the daylight. Here come the twelve!”
Then, raising his eyes, the prophet saw twelve men with long hair, each of whom held a double-edged sword; and a tricolor standard, blue, white and red was floating over their heroic heads. As they marched, their shadow grew longer, but the multitude was as fearful of that shadow as the swords themselves. At the head of the twelve he recognized the one that he had found when he first entered and whom he had called Maximilien.
He said to him: “See what fear you have caused them! And the sons of their sons will tremble with that same fear. There are some turning back in the night. How do you know whether they won’t want to get out of it now? Hide the blade of your sword, then, if you want them to come back and pass on.”
As all the birds hide when the kite in soaring in the clouds, and the countryside seems dead, so all the spirits called to life fell silent, so much did they dread being seen in the azure-tinted light of the blade. For a long time, the prophet sought them himself without being able to discover them. In the end, he found them here and there, crouching on the ground, refusing in advance the gift of daylight.
“That’s not the route, sordid souls who seek to sell yourselves before having lived,” he said to them. “Why are you going back into the darkness? Why are you rejecting the golden light? Do you want to dishonor the dust of the ancestors? Where do you want to retreat? The void is behind you. It’s poor and meager; it won’t buy you anything. Whether the fear is true of hypocritical, it’s necessary nevertheless to go on and enter into life. And you who are the palest, Maximilien Robespierre, if it’s you who guards the threshold, lower your sword. Open the way for them. Go on! As if they weren’t sufficiently afraid already!”
They obeyed, but not all of them. There were two who refused to kiss the blade. In that fashion, they attracted the following speech:
“You who are the youngest, Saint-Just, it’s true, then, that that you’re also the most implacable? You hold your head too straight. As for you, Billaud-Varenne, be careful of the homicidal maremma of Sinnamary.55 For the dead that you will heap up on this side of the ocean will traverse it with dry feet. They will go to search for you in the shade of the mangroves, where you will have no companions and defenders but the parrots of the forest that will perch on your shoulder.”
Twice the timid crowd hesitated; twice it sought an exit in order to turn back and re-enter the night devoid of dawn. If it had been able to get back it would have done so that same day. How it regretted then the native darkness in which it had slept the slumber of clay! How it repented having sought the pale clarity of Limbo! For at that moment, Death loomed up above its heavy shield at the extremities of the horizon, twenty cubits taller than the human ocean at its feet, and began to snigger on seeing that they all belonged to it equally.
Then the prophet struck the crowd angrily with his hazel-branch. All of them hastened tumultuously toward life, fearfully, turning away their eyes—but there was no reasoning with the rod.
V
On the other side of a stream that seemed to be the source of the Ocean, a single soul was standing apart. From the height of the bank it had contemplated the civil tempest without changing expression. Vast savannahs extended around it. Without fear, as without anger, it advanced in a modest fashion, although it seemed to fill a world on its own.
“Who are you, whom the fall of a world has left unmoved, and who seems to be inhabiting a new world on your own?” the Enchanter shouted to him. “You’re still too far away for me to be able to greet you by name.”
The two marched toward one another, around the humble source of the Ocean. When they were near enough to touch, the prophet had recognized a long time before the spirit to which he had spoken.
“Why,” he said, “does it not depend on me to advance the hour when you would see the light, honor of the unknown world that still sleeps beneath the Ocean? I would not let you wander any longer here in this mute twilight, which resembles death so closely. I would lead you by the hand when I climb up to the earth again. The terrestrial light would thank me for showing it Washington.”
Then, touching him, he added: “O liberty, which I have not yet seen and have already loved so much, it’s you, serene soul, who will forge its cradle! You will see how sweet it is and how wretched is the man who has not known it! Better for him to remain buried forever in this desolate limbo where the sun never shines. Don’t become sad in advance, preferred soul, if your name is not the one that resounds most loudly in the human mouth. Oh, if you trampled them underfoot, you who had the strength to do it, how they would fête you! If you put your pleasure into binding them in herds, charging them with irons, how they would revere your memory! They would praise it to the clouds; all their mouths would be full of hymns to you. If you crushed them, you would be their demigod. But, while able to enslave them, you will respect them, and they will only ever have partial praise for you.”
“For whom, then, will they reserve their love and the full measure of glory?” stammered the astonished soul.
“I’ve already told you: for those who scorn them, and sow behind them the dust in which slaves are born: those who call themselves Alexander, Caesar...”
“Don’t name the third,” the free soul replied. “I know it already; I know how heavy his yoke is, even in this place where everything is so light. Just tell me what I most desire to know. What will my country be, and my people? Name the land that will receive me. Under what sky shall I see the light? What do you call it?”
“The land where you will see daylight for the first time is still unknown in the depths of the seas. It does not have its name as yet in human mouths. Only the Eternal knows it and sees it across the green-tinted Ocean. Already the insect is working day and night, though, to raise its coral temples.”
For the first time, a somber sadness spread over the impassive face of the one who was to be Washington. He cried, in amazement: “What! The land where I am to be born has not yet emerged from the waves? It has no human inhabitants yet? They have not built dwellings there or heard the sound of their speech? It is, then, the prey of winds, of tempests, perhaps reptiles and wild beasts? Or instead, undoubtedly, it will never be, and my destiny is to float here in eternal expectation, without finding anywhere to rest on a shore that is not itself a mere dream. All the others have a fatherland; they await it in advance. All are sure there, on seeing the light, of finding the ancestral land that will smile at them from the cradle on. I alone here have no ancestors, nor parents, nor a dwelling ready on the shore of the living. I alone will find no clay to make myself a mortal body.”
At these words, the soul of bronze bowed his head and began to moan.
As a master simultaneously scolds and consoles a child who has hurt his hand by virtue of excessive impatience, and who thinks himself near to dying for having seen his red blood flow for the first time, the prophet replied:
“Is it for you to moan, when you seem made of bronze? By your tears alone I see, whimpering soul, that you’re not yet entirely finished and retain something of Limbo. If there’s anyone here who ought to rejoice, it’s you—because, for your cradle you shall have a world, and no serpents will take you by surprise there. While you taste the premises of eternal justice here, the land that will be your fatherland is covered in secret with savannahs and forests. When your heart is ready for the great combat, the soil will also be ready to drink the blood of oppressors. On seeing you, it will say: ‘I’m free!’ Already the wind is blowing over the virginal crowns of tamarinds newly emerged from the depths of gulfs; the seed is sown of the tree whose bark will make your cradle. Already the great rivers have hollowed out the bed of peoples. The cataract is roaring like a herd in search of its pastor. Let’s be quiet, and you might perhaps hear it.”
Thus the prophet consoled the soul, naked as yet, which was frightened that it might not find mud to make itself a mortal body. Then the latter became indignant that someone had seen him weeping and despairing. Resuming his visage of bronze, the said: “They already have a fatherland. I shall make mine.”
And without saying anything more, he continued his pilgrimage toward the light.
VI
In that part of Limbo something was happening more extraordinary than all those I have recounted so far. There was no one who did not turn his head to make sure that it was not a dream.
After the crowd of pale larvae marched a black people, slower and sadder, as if laden with invisible chains. Those negro souls were the color of night and their hair was wooly. Their teeth shone in their mouths like a necklace of white pearls, so that they seemed to be smiling even when they wanted to weep. The trace of a bloody whip was on their ebony shoulders, and they did what none of the spirits that the pilgrim had encountered had done: they fell on their knees at his feet, seeming to say to him: “Deliver us from this burden, which we cannot bear.”
At that moment, the blow of a club resounded in the darkness. No one saw the arm lifted, nor who the murderer was, but the man who had been struck fell like a dead man at the prophet’s feet.
“What hand struck this innocent man?” he cried. “Is injustice already born in his place, and death with it? Does crime already have its cradle here? Are there already Cains in Limbo?”
All were fearful, but no one replied, for none knew as yet what death was. Only one groan was heard below the ground, in the place where the seeds of invisible things were hidden. The moan emerged from millions of warm and panting breasts. The Enchanter than saw that white men had laden the black men with a thousand heavy burdens that kept them bent down to the ground; and that servitude, before birth, was no less cruel than the one the light of the world illuminates. For it was pitiful to see those fragile souls dragging themselves along, exhausted, in the semi-darkness, toward the doors of life—and the saddest thing of all within them was hope.
“Will the desired light soon arrive,” they said, “in order that we might put down these burdens that are crushing us and preventing us from holding up our heads? Oh, we long to see the sweet light, where all servitude ceases and where the black man will be the equal, the brother, of the white, in the terrestrial hut. Our sole dread is to remain here, buried in this place, under the shackles with which they have, as you can see, charged our shoulders.”
On hearing them, the prophet sighed; he dared not tell them the truth. Turning toward a more robust soul that was passing by, however, the only one whose head was raised, he said to him:
“You who are the first among black men, you can bear this word, for you have the shoulders of Atlas. You are truly made of stone, Toussaint L’Ouverture, if gentle pity does not grip you on seeing the ingenuousness of your people. They believe that life will liberate them from harsh servitude. Oh, how disappointed they will be, as soon as they see the light! How they will regret Limbo, where, thanks to the darkness, they often escape the master’s gaze. I cannot tell them what awaits them; they would lose courage; I can already see their knees flexing under the load. But I say this to you, in order that not everyone will fall simultaneously into the ambush of the cradle.”
Toussaint L’Ouverture shook his head and replied: “That’s enough—they’re listening! Don’t say any more.”
A little further on, Merlin encountered another company of bound souls; these were white and seemed to be natural slaves, for they had no masters. They were, however, crawling as if they had felt the whip.
“Why are you crawling already, servile souls?” Merlin asked them. “You have no masters yet! Who keeps you curbed thus? Is it the memory of having lived badly in times I do not know? Are you deserters from Heaven? Get up—look at things from your full height!”
But without making any effort to obey, they looked at him as if they had not understood. Then Merlin lifted a few of them to their feet, he told them to look at the sky, which they had not yet glimpsed. They tried to smile at those azure plains, but as soon as Merlin had passed on, they fell back, embracing the muddy ground again, which their feet had kneaded.
VII
At that place, something like the sound of dead leaves rose up under the prophet’s feet. It was a multitude of larvae curled up on the ground, who were trying to laugh. They were the most wretched of all.
“Why are you striving to laugh?” he asked them, making a detour for fear of treading on them. “Nothing is sadder than your joy.”
“We’re laughing at your promises of life,” replied the inhabitants of the pale valley. Why, prophet, are you playing games with the poor larvae? We shall never believe that there’s a real life and a sun that rises, beyond the vast limbo. More than once, that rumor has been spread among us, and it has always been found to be a lie. Leave us, larvae that we are, to enjoy the realm of larvae in peace. We don’t want any other.”
Merlin exhausted himself trying to persuade the crowd that beyond the abode in which they were plunged, half-formed, there was a sun of life that warmed creatures with its gaze as they entered the world. Were they made to remain forever confined to such a sad place? It was only, in truth, a preparation for a better life, a sketch of the universe, a Propylaea barely ajar—or, rather, a prison. Did they not feel the human growing within the homunculi they were? The future days could be read in advance in their faces.
He spoke, with all the force of conviction he could muster, of the splendor of things beyond the cradle.
The blind souls replied: “You’re a bard and a poet, Merlin; you live in gilded fantasies. For us, who do not have your wings, reasoning is required. Has anyone ever come back from this pretended world of the living? Until then, we shall call it the world of dreams.”
More sad than indignant, Merlin invoked his own testimony. Was that not experience, then?
“Look,” he said, “blind people that you are! Come nearer, touch me! This hazel-branch I cut in Brittany, in the land of the living. I’ve come from there, I tell you. Here is its dust, still whitening my feet. What more do you need? Please, friends, brothers, don’t close off the future out of vanity. Believe in life at least to be obliging; if not, you’ll remain here, vain, frivolous, devoid of renown, seeds gone astray, sown in death.”
At this speech, accompanied by pleas and even a few tears, the spirits, hardened by the contradiction itself, were content to murmur enviously: “All that is visions, Merlin. It’s not us who’ll be taken in. We’re serious larvae. It’s another trick; we know that. There’s nothing beyond Limbo but eternal darkness. We don’t believe in the cradle.”
How Merlin regretted then not having Viviane for a witness!
She wouldn’t have any need to speak, he said to himself. Merely by seeing her, they’d believe in life, in the dawn, in perfume, in the woodland songs of spring, the promises of the year in flower, the sparkling gaze of daylight. For myself, it’s true, I possess existence, but I often lack the art of convincing others.
He drew away at a slow pace, often turning his head and sighing. But he could not blame himself if so many beings called to immortal life remained forever stuck, imprisoned in formless darkness, for want to belief.
Soon, the cold sniggering of those who doubted life dies away by degrees. The larvae, deprived of hope and even of desire, lapsed, one after another, shaking their heads, into the silence contemporaneous with death.