I
Already the games had been forgotten for several weeks. Weary of the constraint of grandeur, Merlin was impatient to get closer to nature again. With that intention he took his leave of kings and gods. Privately, he had made a vow. What was it? To retire for a season into the midst of what remained of the Homeric Greeks, among the Pallichares, people fallen back into complete barbarity, who were in complete contrast to the inhabitants of courts. That vow was sacred, and prevented him from sleeping.
“O women, women! How heavily ignorance and darkness must weigh upon these countries, once the chosen fatherland of pure enlightenment, since you no longer know how beautiful you are! It is appropriate that I teach you again, by means of a memorable example.”
Thus, full of his recent memories, he talked to himself while traversing the Magoula in a field of Mistra, where he searched obstinately for traces of the house of Helen. In the middle of a stony furrow a young woman was marching slowly, harnessed by a rope to plow beside a donkey and the thin cow. The laborer had his whip raised over the ivory shoulders of the young Greek woman.
“Keep going!” he shouted.
Merlin saw that. To command the laborer to stop, to hurl himself upon the harness, to unfasten the young woman’s yoke, was the work of a moment for him. He led her to the end of the furrow, and, having sat her down on a clump of buttercups, orchids, immortelles and euphorbias, he said to her: “How is it that you’re dragging a plow here, in the very field of Helen, in company with that donkey and that ox, you who are the granddaughter of Miltiades, Leonidas and Epaminondas, or at least of Philopoemen?”
These words made no impression on the young woman. The glorious names pronounced by Merlin did not even seem to enter her ears.
“At least you know your own name?”
“Marina,” she replied, in a tremulous voice.
“How can so much beauty be any longer profaned by that abominable yoke?” said Merlin. “That’s something to which I can’t consent without dishonoring myself; and if, in order to liberate you, I have to ignite with my own hands a war longer than the one your ancestors sustained in the fields of Troy to recover the beautiful Helen, who was assuredly less beautiful than you, I won’t hesitate to give the signal.”
Meanwhile, he wiped away the sweat that was running down the young Greek’s face. At the sight of her moist eyes, sometimes black and sometimes blue, according to whether they were reflecting dolor or hope, he was dazzled. Already he was experiencing something akin to remorse for finding her so beautiful.
Her arms folded over her bosom, she was holding her head tilted like an anemone in the morning breeze. You might have thought at first that her entire person consisted merely of two eyes, so large, open, piercing, blooming and invasive were they, so much did they envelop you with flashes of splendor. After the initial dazzle, however, Merlin ended up discovering in those haloes of flame a proud, Arcadian head, silky hair that descended in curls over her neck, drinking the sweat of a moist, panting bosom; a slender figure, hugged by a woolen rag; and the expression of a virgin huntress searching her quiver for a javelin.
Such might Viviane’s godmother have been at fifteen in the ravines of Etna or the forest of Erimanthus. Unfortunately, a recent sprain still swelled the blue veins of one of Marina’s feet and prevented her from running, in the manner of goddesses, skimming over the tufts of wild thyme without treading them down. No one but the enchanter would have perceived all that.
“How,” she said, finally, “would I dare to raise my eyes to look at my lord? Perhaps he mistakes me for a daughter of the ruins, emerged from Paloeo-Chorio. But they’re beautiful. When they draw young men into the depths of forests, they enchant their hearts, so that they conceive a hatred of us.”
“What!” said the Enchanter. “No one here speaks to you of love?”
“No,” relied the young woman, gravely, tilting her head back to show that she had never heard that word. “Fortunate are the women of stone lying in the long grass! It’s for them that magic words are made, for they too ensorcel men’s hearts.”
“Those stones,” Merlin replied, “Are worthy of all admiration. They’re the most faithful portraits I’ve encountered of Viviane. But the man is deceiving himself who disdains living creatures for inanimate stones, because of the imperfections he can discover in them.”
Having said that, Merlin detached a little dagger from his own belt.
“Here, keep this in memory of me. It will serve to defend your honor.”
II
Such was their conversation, in all sincerity. Not one word more or less—and who could find fault with a single word of it? These, however, were its consequences.
A few days later—three or four—Merlin was on the coast of Morea, ready to embark for the islands. He had just come down to Piada, which is a very unhealthy place sown with euphorbia. Ten paces from the shore, a distended leather sack was floating on the surface of the water. Merlin thought he perceived that the sack was agitated by somersaults: that convulsive movement sometimes brought it to the surface and sometimes, alas, plunged it into the depths.
Without deliberation, Merlin threw himself into the sea. The movement of the waves drove the palpitating sack under a low vault gaping at the foot of a sheer rock that opened in a vent at the steepest place. Merlin swam after it, entering into a marine cavern. Beneath a profound cupola, a narrow ledge was raised at the back, about a cubit wide, the only place where the swimmer could set foot. It was there that the leather sack had just run aground. Merlin seized it and deposited it on the rock. He hastened to open it.
O God in Heaven! The icy, inanimate body of Marina fell at his feet.
Why had he not left her in the middle of the furrow that she was helping to hollow out a few days before? She would still be full of life today. She would still be competing in purpurine coloration with the mulberries, the pomegranates, the carob flowers, the wild roses and even the incarnadine of the columbine, the most beautiful of flowers, which no sunlight can fade. And now, here she was, her face chilly, her lips violet, her hair soiled with sand, her eyes closed forever, breathless and unmoving. A last residue of warmth had not abandoned her heart, however.
Let us also say that, shaving the waves and penetrating through the narrow vent, the light tinted everything in the cave, including Marina’s body, with a somber, violet-tinted, cadaverous light.
“What a frightful crime!” Merlin exclaimed, as soon as he could speak. “But it shall be avenged! No, never would the death of Malvina in Fingal’s cave, nor that of Lucretia in Rome, nor the abduction of Helen, nor that of Briseis, not that of Yseult the blonde or Genièvre—for none was as beautiful!—have had such terrible consequences. Stamboul, you shall be shaken on your foundations!”
As he was proffering this speech, he rubbed the young woman’s hands in his, in the hope of reviving a flicker of life, and even covered her with warm tears. He massaged her temples, her forehead and the nape of her neck; he made her breathe tufts of wild thyme and lavender, which were fortunately growing in abundance on the walls of the grotto. He even pricked her arms with the stems of nettles and wrack, which remained stained with droplets of blood. In addition, he did not forget to extend his cloak over her, folding it double—but all in vain.
It was then that the idea came to him of blowing his panting enchanter’s soul gently over Marina’s discolored lips.116
I have said, and I repeat, that all known means had been impotent: friction, penetrating odors, lotions of salt water. But when our Enchanter’s lips touched Marina’s lips—was it the work of magic or the effect of a specific whose employment ought to be recommended in similar cases?—the young woman’s eyelids quivered and appeared to part momentarily.
What is that rapid hope? Almost immediately, her dying eyes close again, doubtless forever this time, for they are sealed beneath grains of sand adhering to the interstices of the eyelids. Merlin perceives the damp sand through the black lashes; he blows it away. Alas, the pupils remain closed.
He needs to know, however, whether the heart has recommenced beating; nothing is more urgent than to make sure of that. His ear attentive, glued to Marina’s heart—the implacable sea itself falls silent—Merlin counts, to begin with, fifteen pulsations, slow, irregular, fluttering, scarcely perceptible. He fears that he might be mistaken; he begins again—and this time, he is able to count, distinctly, twenty, then thirty…and finally reaches sixty. Finally, it is life.
On reopening her eyes, Marina sees nothing around her but the azure of the vaults, the pillars, the deformed stalactites. Already she thinks that she is resident in heaven, and searches in a niche for the Panagia.117 As for her savior, she mistakes him at first for Saint George—but that mistake only lasts a moment.
The sea having suddenly freshened under the mistral that makes itself felt in that region, the opening soon closed. Instead of the sapphire daylight, all was filled with impenetrable darkness. Marina thought she was dying for a second time.
“You’re alive!” Merlin cried.
“Panagia! Panagia!” murmured the young Greek, raising herself up partly. Seeing that the exit was sealed by a mountain of water, she allowed herself to fall back on the prophet’s heart.
A long silence followed; then, in a faint voice, she added: “I’m hungry.”
Pronounced by an ingenuous mouth, those words, “I’m hungry,” transpierce Merlin’s heart. He measures the peril: no means of escape. He looks to see whether he still has any provisions about his person. One dry date, two bitter almonds, three grapes, but not a crumb of bread: that is all he can discover in a pouch at his belt—and frankly, what is that for two people buried alive in the equinoctial season, for it was September?
He gave it all to Marina.
Reader, you too truly have a heart of stone if this situation does not draw a sigh from you! For myself, I know it; I can describe it in detail by virtue of having experienced it.
They were no longer speaking; what would they have said? They both kept quiet, trying to see one another. But scarcely had they glimpsed one another than the dense, immense, humid darkness covered them again—and they lost one another, found one another, only to lose one another again, a hundred times over in an instant.
In the end, the obscurity took them; they felt walled up, in darkness, by the Ocean.
Meanwhile, they hugged one another tightly—and could they have done anything wiser, if they wanted to prevent the night, the waves and the cold separating them for all eternity?
Merlin utters a cry; the earth moves; an extraordinary sound rumbles overhead, as if all the herds of cattle in the country were responding to him with their lowing.
It was the waves, vomiting furiously from the mouth of the cavern. God knows what horrible echo that lowing found in their hearts!
Thus the day passed; more cruel, the night went by until the dawn, and Marina trembled under Merlin’s cloak. He saw, not an aurora, but a shadow, a gleam, a pale dot—paler, surely, that the light that appeared to the Cyclops when his only eye was punctured and gushed forth a torrent of tears.
Twice the waves, in retiring through the vent, allow the daylight to slip in; twice they swallow it almost immediately. If our two castaways are to survive, they have to choose one of those brief moments when the back of the Ocean hollows out in a valley. Otherwise, how will they avoid being broken against the jagged vault of rock? But already, Merlin has seized the young woman by the rope that serves her as a belt. Taking advantage of the eddies of the waves, sometimes aiding himself with one arm, sometimes striking out with his feet, swallowing and spitting out salty water, he has enabled her to see daylight again. Beneath the vault of the sky, he has deposited her on the level beach, near a tortoise that is returning to its lair among the rushes and asphodels.
“Saint George!” Marina exclaims.
“Recognize me,” said Merlin.
“Fortunate are the daughters of the ruins! For us, it costs too much to live!”
“If this land must be shaken to its foundations, things will change. But who committed the crime?”
“The Emir.”
With these words, a man in a muslin turban appeared on the strand, his eyes sharp and his cheeks pale, vomiting frightful imprecations. So far as they could understand, he was complaining furiously that someone had opened the sack that he had sewed up with his own hands and confided to the discretion of the ocean. He was ready to do it all over again.
“What right do you have over this woman?” Merlin demanded.
“My eyes have encountered her—that’s my right.”
He launched himself forward to grab her.
Quicker than lightning, Merlin covers her with his body. Then a frightful struggle commences. Nothing similar has been seen since the combat between Jacob and the angel. The two adversaries’ scimitars are broken at the hilt. Each of them still has a curved dagger stuck in his belt, but their arms clash without being able to make use of them. At the supreme moment, Merlin knocks the Saracen down and puts his knee of his breast.
“You love her furiously?” he said.
“The gaze of another has soiled her face; she must die!”
“That gaze is mine. Do you want to marry her, then?”
“By Allah, I can scarcely make her my slave. She’s so thin!”
Indignant, Merlin thought of causing the Osmanli to pay for that last blasphemy with his life, but, changing his mind by virtue of a magnificent effort, he let him live.
“Go, you who blaspheme—be a living testament to the forbearance of Merlin. It’s not in single combat that you ought to perish. Live, but become a Christian.”
And the miscreant, who had shown such a cold barbarity, was to die a few weeks later, of wrath and impiety, in the convent of Vourcano.
III
Meanwhile, at the terrible cry that Merlin had uttered, the people of the vicinity had been moved, and they hastened to run to him. They came from the harsh crests of Arcadia, from the banks of the Coron shaded by mastic trees, from the snowy summits of the Acro-Corinth, from the grottoes of Souli, from the warrior isles of Hydra and Psara. They also came from Parga, Londari and the numerous foothills of the Taygete. They came from the Pinde and Roumelia, some coiffed in turbans, others in red skullcaps, almost all of them with shoulders clad in sheepskin.
As soon as they had assembled, Merlin tore the leather sack into shreds and distributed the various strips to all of them, to remind of the vengeance that they were to carry out. Then he said to them:
“If your ancestors fought for ten years for Helen, you won’t hesitate to commence a bloodied war for this young woman”—he pointed to Marina—“whose beauty infinitely surpasses that of the wife of Menelaus. Prepare yourselves for battle, then. Only wait until I give you the signal.
“How shall we recognize, Lord, that the time has come?” asked the klepht Yorghi of Parga.
You’ll easily recognize it by this: when the time is near, I’ll send you as messengers two of my principal bards: René will be the first, and he’ll come from France; Harold will be the second, and he’ll come from Britain.118 If the victory is uncertain, I’ll arrive myself. Don’t fear then to attack the prophet Mohammed, for I too am a prophet. Listen.”
The circle of the crowd tightened around Merlin and he continued:
“The prophecy of Merlin on Morea and the islands.
“O sacred soil, you are the tripod, I am the bard. I shall publish your victory in advance.
“Why was I not born on your summits? Never would sadness have approached me. When the winter wind blows over my roof, if your name alone is pronounced, I smile even in tears, even in fever, in the expectation of death. It is thus that an empty cup, if one fills it with the crimson wine of Corinth, smiles at cup-bearer.
“A cry will depart from the ruins of Caritene, and the entire land will awake with a start. The tombs of Mistra will give birth to klephts, whose arrows will be a hundred times more rapid than the arrows of Ulysses. The Nemean lion will roar; its voice will be heard in the cavern of Souli.
“The anemones of the mountains of Arcadia will be intoxicated by blood.
“Already I could pronounce the name of the warrior chiefs who will awaken the dust of the ancestors. I know their names in advance; they please my ear.
“I heard yesterday the dialogue of Olympe and Oeta. Both of them were recounting their victories to one another, in the quivering language of the oaks. Meanwhile, the birds with the brazen beaks were flying over the summit. They were pecking the head of the brave fallen in the ravines of Souli and Missolonghi.
“With my foot, I have struck the tombs of Paloeo-Chorios, and the dead have said to me: ‘Here we are.’
“O land of bards, how have you allowed yourself to be stripped of your myrtle? Why have you preferred the wild brambles? I shall sow in your valleys and on your shores the golden herb that no tempest can uproot. By the power of my art, I shall attach here, in the odorous grass, in the olive groves, in the limpid waves, in the hard rock, in the lair of the echo, in the rapid footsteps of men, in the gazes of women, an enchantment that no magician will ever efface.
“At the bellowing of the bull of Missolonghi, the shores of France and Britain will shake. The vast kingdom of Arthus will ignite with love for the vulture of Souli.
“From the court of Mark of Cornwall and that of Arthus, sword-bearers and archers will rally to the battle-cry. Those who drink the water of the Seine will staunch their thirst in the maremma of Navarin.
“And the women with bright faces throughout Arthus’ empire will lean over the balconies to ask for news from the sea of Messenia.
“And Harold, the king of bards, will pass over the sea in a winged vessel; landing at Missolonghi, the will sing his swan song on my brazen harp.
“And Zante, you will weep, like Albion, on learning of his death.
“Meanwhile, the land of flowering myrtle, the virgins of Morea, escaped from the yataghan, will dance, holding one another by the hand, on the flattened summit of the Ithome; a new people will surge forth from the dust in place of the old.”
At Merlin’s voice, Marina wept without knowing why. The others shuddered to the depths of their hearts; for the impatience of the distant future had gripped them all. They resembled men devoured by a burning thirst hastening toward crystalline springs, with the anxiety of being unable to reach them.
“With what will fight?” shouted a klepht from Souli. “We only have one yataghan between us.”
“No matter!” Merlin replied. “I will furnish you with a thousand to begin with, and a thousand more the following day.”
In testimony of these words, he gave them magic bullets as prompt as lightning, of which he fortunately had a supply. In addition, he taught them to make a hundred swords from a plowshare, ten yataghans from a sickle, and a dagger from a nail; to lay ambushes; to sleep standing up; to eat wild herbs; to construct fire-ships and set them alight, and to attach them by iron chains to the flanks of their own vessels.
After which he added, turning toward Marina, who could only sit up as yet on the mat on which she was lying: “As this young woman has been sowed into that leather sack and plunged into the sea, where she remained until my hands snatched her from the jaws of death, this Hellenic land, today sealed in slavery and plunged into the dormant abyss, will one day emerge from the profound waters.
“But then, no longer harness women to the yoke; even I could not absolve you of that.”
Immediately, the Greeks withdrew by a hundred different paths, and each obeyed the orders he had received. Some sharpened their knives in secret, others prepared resinous torches. Other refloated the little vessels of Hydra and elongated them in the form of sea-swallows. Others preferred the forms of kingfishers and petrels. Others rediscovered Greek fire. The women made lint and murmured cantinelas of death in advance.
All of them, after Merlin had spoken, had but one thought and one soul, Already, with an ear to the ground, more than one was listening in the olive groves to see whether the Enchanter had yet given the signal.
IV
Meanwhile, Marina had been carried into the hut of old Father Dimitri. The interior comprised two compartments separated by a trellis of reeds. A few nets and a calabash were the whole of the furniture. There was also, however, a barrel half-full of olives in a dark corner.
Marina was lying in one of the rooms; the other had been reserved for Merlin, but he was more often in the first, and rarely left it except to collect centaury and other magical flowers from the nearby woods, with which he made a bitter beverage that ought to restore the rosy colors of life to Marina’s cheeks.
He wanted to watch over her himself. In her hours of insomnia he was there to support her head, which he leaned upon his breast. If he found her asleep, with his arm or only his hand he pulled a goat’s-wool blanket over her. If she uttered a moan, he responded with a sigh. If she dreamed about vampires he woke her up with a start. Twenty times an hour he went to her on tiptoe, one step after another, and leaned over, listening, and never withdrew without being assured that Marina had the calm of youthful respiration of a child.
It was the tenderness of a father, a mother, a brother and a sister all at once, and even something more.
As soon as she was able to walk, he wanted to teach her his triads; she could not remember a single word of them, nor of the hymns of Homer; she preferred her lively rustic airs, similar to the songs of the oriole and the sea-swallow; she showed no inclination to Greek history. After those various attempts, which only produced tears, he contented himself with teaching her to thread chaplets of aloe-wood or rose-leaves soaked and then hardened in the sun; to collect sea-shells; to embroider slippers; to smoke a narghile; to hunt tortoises; to nourish sparrows from her lips; to watch water flowing; to dance rounds on the edge of precipices; and to sharpen a dagger. Such was the education he gave her.
Did he tell her that he loved her? He did not say so even once; be certain of that; I’ll answer for that as for myself.
He collected bunches of wild mulberries for her, it’s true; he unearthed medallions for her, which he pierced in the middle and threaded in her black hair; he also helped her, like the most modest and most submissive of genies, to cream the milk in the bowls, to revive the fire under the ashes, to draw water in the pitcher, to light the lamp in front of the Panagia, to launch the caique into the sea, to ornament it with violets, to hoist the sail with the rope. He even went with her on Sunday to mass in the little church where a long-haired monk from Ligourio officiated behind a golden veil.
If she thought that he loved her, it’s because she imagined it.
One night when everything in the cabin was asleep, a violent struggle erupted in the heart of our Enchanter. Should he continue his pilgrimages? Should he leave Marina? That was what was agitating in him.
“How can I leave her? I’m her protector. Dimitri is so old! He’ll die when the leaves fall. What will she do without him? Anyway, she’s become indispensable to my art. In eyes so limpid I can read presages better than anywhere else in the world. Her vermilion lips serve me as a talisman. In the beating of her heart, I measure the divine rhythm of the worlds.”
Then, after a short silence, stirring the firebrands:
“Shall I be obstinate, then, in pursuing, in Viviane, an enchantress who, all too evidently, is toying with me? Is it wise to covet the impossible? Here, I shall find under this thatch, doubtless not felicity, which can only be encountered with Viviane, but repose, perhaps also forgetfulness. This country is frequented by the most illustrious female magicians, such as Medea, Canidia, Simoetha and the blonde Perimeda.119 It’s appropriate, surely, to remain here in order to perfect my art. Besides which, there are thousands of examples of enchanters who bind themselves with modest ties, as witness Faust, who was able to contract a misalliance with Marguerite without the world speaking ill of him in consequence.”
Scarcely had these words emerged from his mouth, however, than a voice, which was that of his conscience, shouted at him in a forceful tone:
“Merlin, Merlin! Is it thus that you keep your oaths? Is it thus that you’re faithful to Viviane? Do you remember what you wrote to her only yesterday? Coward that you are! Are you weary so soon of the pursuit of the ideal? Will you sell the glory of the world for two coral lips, which can’t even pronounce your name exactly? You’re blind, Merlin! You’ve enchanted yourself with magic words and gazes.”
With that find statement, Merlin, making a desperate effort, broke the spell that was chaining him to that place. He stood up and got ready to leave. Nevertheless, he looked back one more time; one more time, he walked on tiptoe to the mat on which Marina was lying. It was to make sure that she was sleeping profoundly.
One last gleam of the fire, mingled with a ray of moonlight, illuminated the young woman, whose face was framed by tresses spangled with medallions. Beside her bed there was a little illuminated image of the Panagia, suspended from the wall. Merlin took the image down and he placed it beside Marina.
“May it protect you from vampires, wolves and ghouls! Personally, I need all my art to protect me from myself!”
Without adding anything, he went out of the hut. On the far side of the threshold he passed through a little flock of goats lying in the courtyard. The billy-goat recognized the Enchanter, and raising a silver beard toward him, bit the hem of his cloak in order to hold him back. It was in vain.
Dawn had not yet broken; the paling stars were letting their light fall through the clumps of olives and flowering almonds. Here and there, nightingales, drowsy and intoxicated by their songs, languidly repeated “Itys! Itys!” in the Palaio Chorio. There was a virginal peace in everything. Everything seemed to be saying: “See, at least, Merlin, what you’re losing.”
When daylight came, Marina sat down on the sandy shore to wait for the man she called her lord and master. She waited all the next day and the two following. By dint of looking at the blue of the sea, her eyes became the same color. More than one sailor, seeing her from a distance, thought that he was looking as a sculpted marble statue, so motionless was she. I too, passing along that coast, was duped by an illusion of the same sort.
Who can ever say what passed through Merlin’s heart—whether it was the pure religion of beauty, the inspiration of the divine, or the surprise of the senses, or a cloud spread over his knowledge, or all of that together? Let’s not try to discover what must remain hidden from us. The important thing for us is that he emerged victorious from that ordeal. Don’t seek tasks in the sun. More amorous than Roland, my hero has been thus far, in reality if not in imagination, as wise as Aeneas. Don’t ask any more.
Anyway, he explained himself overtly in the letter you’re about to read.
V
Merlin to Viviane
They’ve told you about Marina, haven’t they? And, in order to be more easily believed, they’ve slandered me. Don’t you know that the earth and the heavens are full of venomous tongues, which soil the day-star if one listens to them: people incapable of understanding us, and who, to avenge themselves upon us, want us to despair?
The pure and simple truth is this, and only my numerous, even tumultuous, occupations have prevented me from telling you sooner. It’s certain that I’ve made prodigious efforts myself to extract you from my heart. I’m not hiding or defending myself, Viviane.
Yes, to escape the damage you’ve inflicted upon me, I would have liked to numb and bewilder my soul, transpierced by a thousand blades. My most bitter complaint will always be that, in rendering me insensate, you’ve exposed me to the risk of becoming unworthy of you. In what miserable amusements I dragged the genius you admired such a short time ago! Nothing was beneath me, provided that I succeeded in drawing myself out of myself. I confess that I’ve been intoxicated by vain inextinguishable desires on the edge of volcanoes. The poplars of Italy, entwined with amorous vines, agitated at my feet like thyrses. The bell of the Camaldoli rang in the distance as if for the wedding of spring. The white veil espoused the blue wave. And what did I do then? What insensate desires were unleashed in my heart! Having come down from the mountain, I went to beg a smile from some beauty, or at least from a star; and scarcely had I obtained that smile than I fled at top speed, full of terror, as if I had awakened a serpent. That’s the truth. You can see that I’m not hiding anything.
In the midst of that, two or three serene, straightforward, honest affections of which even you could not help of approving. Let’s only talk today about Marina. No brother has a purer affection for his sister; there was never a word that you could not have heard; not a single caress except perhaps a fraternal kiss in seeing her again in the morning. Rude, practical occupations, a shrewd father, always present, no reveries, no sighs; once, a tear fell on her forehead, but she was on the point of dying. In brief, nothing was less similar to amour. Whoever says different is lying. And yet, I was abruptly seized by scruples. I left her, while she was asleep, like a thief.
I left her because of you, and also to avoid vile suspicions, slanders, or even the gossip of the cicadas, which, I know only too well, wouldn’t fail to bring you such news. See, however, to what everything is reduced. Oh, how I hate the loquacious people, thirsty for lies, who blacken me to flatter you.
Now I’m alone in the world. I’ve broken a child’s heart. I’ve caused divine tears to flow, and you won’t give me any credit for it.
What should I tell you about the ruins of Italy and Greece and the many empires I’ve just visited? Personally, I’m a ruin in the midst of these ruins. I, who could once had lifted up that crumbling world so easily with a word—you were beside me then!—could only whistle with the winter wind, to disguise my embarrassment, among the heaped-up stones, as happened to me on the threshold of the partly-open door of Mycenae. I found the ashes of a shepherd’s little fire in the tomb of Agamemnon—what an opportunity for a magician!—and in my confusion I couldn’t even relight a spark under those white ashes, which the rain had, admittedly, soaked on the previous days. Several people, who came to me to hear the gravest conversation, or to ask me to resuscitate the dead cities—so easy to do!—were astonished, and even scandalized only to be able to extract from me a sigh and a name. So this period of my life has been the most sterile. My renown is fading away—well, what does it matter?