Part 6 (1/2)

(ANDREW LANG.)

TO ALEXANDER DUMAS.

When it was currently reported that Gerard de Nerval had become insane, Alexander Dumas, who was then publis.h.i.+ng that amusing journal _Le Mousquetaire,_ endeavored to explain and interpret the poet's peculiar form of mental alienation. Gerard, who presently came to himself, as was his wont, took note of the study, and in return dedicated to Dumas his _Filles du Feu_, thus acknowledging the obligation conferred by the great novelist in inditing the epitaph of the poet's ”lost wits.”

This dedication, now done into English for the first time, is interesting and important, as embodying the author's own interpretation of his singular mental const.i.tution. He confesses that he is unable to compose without incarnating himself in his creations so thoroughly as to lose his own ident.i.ty. In ill.u.s.tration, he throws into the text the tragic history of a mythical hero. It is easy to trace in this story of a nameless prince, unable to prove his lofty origin, involved in a network of misfortunes through the crafty machinations of the arch plotter La Rancune (malice) and abandoned by his mistress, the beautiful guiding Star of his destiny, allegorical allusions to the poet, the heir of genius and of glory, unable to prove or justify his n.o.ble birthright, his highest impulses misunderstood and trampled upon by a heartless and vulgar world.

LUCIE PAGE.

I dedicate this book to you, my dear Master, as I dedicated _Lorely_ to Jules Janin. I was indebted to him for the same service that I owe to you. A few years ago, it was reported that I was dead, and he wrote my biography. A few days ago, I was thought to have lost my reason, and you honoured me by devoting some of your most graceful lines to the epitaph of my intelligence. Such an inheritance of glory has fallen to me before my time. How shall I venture, yet living, to deck my forehead with these s.h.i.+ning crowns? It becomes me to a.s.sume an air of modesty and beg the public to accept, with suitable deductions, the eulogy bestowed upon my ashes, or rather upon the lost wits contained in the bottle which, like Astolpho, I have been to seek in the moon, and which, I trust, I have now restored to their normal place in the seat of thought.

Being, therefore, no longer mounted upon the hippogriff, and having, in the popular conception, recovered what is vulgarly termed reason,--let us proceed to the exercise of that faculty.

Here is a fragment of what you wrote concerning me, the tenth of last December:

”As you can readily perceive, he possesses a subtle and highly cultivated intellect, in which is manifested from time to time a singular phenomenon which, fortunately, let us hope, has no serious import to himself or his friends. At intervals, when preoccupied by literary toil, imagination goaded to frenzy masters reason and drives it from the brain; then, like an opium-smoker of Cairo, or a has.h.i.+sh-eater of Algiers, Gerard finds again the talismans that evoke spirits. Now he is King Solomon waiting for the Queen of Sheba; then by turns Sultan of the Crimea, Count of Abyssinia, Duke of Egypt, or Baron of Smyrna. Next day, he declares himself mad and relates the whole series of events from which his madness sprung, with such a joyous abandon, such an ingenious fertility of resource that one is ready to part with his wits in order to follow such a fascinating guide through the desert of dreams and hallucinations, sprinkled with oases fresher and greener than any which dot the route from Alexandria to Ammon. Finally, melancholy becomes his muse of inspiration, and now, restrain your tears if you can, for never did Werther, Rene, or Antony pour forth sobs and complaints more tender and pathetic!”

I shall now endeavour to explain to you, my dear Dumas, the phenomenon which you mention above. There are, as you well know, certain writers who cannot invent without identifying themselves with the creations of their imagination. You remember with what conviction our old friend Nodier related how he had the misfortune to be guillotined in the Revolution. The narrative was so convincing that we wondered instinctively how he had contrived to fasten his head on again.

Understand, therefore, that the ardour of production may conduce to a like result, that the author incarnates himself, as it were, in the hero of his imagination so completely that he loses himself and burns with the imaginary flames of this hero's love and ambition! This was precisely the effect produced upon me in narrating the history of a personage who figured under the t.i.tle of Brisacier, about the time of Louis XV, I believe. Where did I read the fatal biography of this adventurer? I have found again that of the Abbe of Bucquoy, but I cannot recall the slightest historical proof of the existence of this ill.u.s.trious unknown. What for you, dear Master, would have been but a pastime,--you, who have with clever artifices so bewildered our minds concerning the old chronicles, that posterity will never be able to disentangle truth from fiction, and is certain to credit your invention with all the characters from history that figure in your romances--this became for me a veritable obsession. To invent, is in reality only to recollect, says a certain moralist. Finding no proofs of the material existence of my hero, I suddenly came to believe in the transmigration of souls, not less firmly than Pythagoras or Peter Leroux. Even the eighteenth century, in which I believed myself to have lived, was full of these illusions. Do you remember that courtier who recalled distinctly that he was once a sofa? Whereupon Schahabaham exclaimed with enthusiasm, ”What, you were once a sofa! why, that is delightful!--Tell me, were you embroidered?”

As for me, I was embroidered at every seam. From the moment when I first grasped the continuity of all my previous existences, I figured as readily in one character as another, prince, king, mage, genie, or even G.o.d; could I unite my memories in one masterpiece, it would represent the Dream of Scipio, the Vision of Ta.s.so or the Divine Comedy of Dante.

Renouncing, henceforth, all pretensions to inspiration or illumination, I can offer only what you so justly call impracticable theories, an impossible book, whose first chapter, subjoined below, seems but to furnish the context of the Comic Romance of Scarron.... Read and judge for yourself:

A TRAGIC ROMANCE.

Here I still languish in my prison, Madame, still rash and culpable and alas! still trusting in that beautiful _star_ of comedy, which, for one brief instant, deigned to call me her _destiny_ The Star and its Destiny! what a charming couple to figure in a romance like the poet Scarron's! And yet, how difficult we should find it to sustain the two characters now! The heavy vehicles which used to jolt us over the uneven pavements of Mons, have been superseded by coach, post-chaise and other new inventions. Where shall we find to-day those wild adventures, that gay, Bohemian life that united us, poets and actresses, as comrades and equals? You have betrayed and deserted us, and left us to perish in some miserable inn, while you share the fortunes of some rich and gallant lord. Here, in sooth, am I, but lately the brilliant actor, the prince in disguise, the disinherited son and the banished lover, no better treated than some provincial rhymer! My countenance disfigured by an enormous plaster only adds to my discomfiture. The landlord, tempted by the plausible story poured into his ears by La Rancune, has consented to hold as security for the settlement of his account the person of the son of the great Khan of the Crimea, sent here to finish his education and well known throughout Christian Europe as Brisacier. Had the old intriguer, La Rancune, left me a few gold pieces, or even a paltry watch set with false brilliants, I could, doubtless, have won the respect of my accusers and extricated myself from this unfortunate situation. But in addition, you have left my wardrobe furnished only with a puce-coloured smock-coat, a blue and black striped waist-coat and small clothes in a doubtful state of repair. The suspicions of the landlord were awakened upon lifting my valise after your departure, and he insulted me to my face by calling me an imposter, and a _contraband prince_, I sprang up to stab him, but La Rancune had removed my sword, fearing lest despair on account of the ungrateful mistress who has abandoned me, might lead me to thrust it through my heart. This precaution was needless, O La Rancune! An actor never stabs himself with the sword that he has worn in many a comedy; nor does he who is himself the hero of tragedy ape the hero of a romance. I call all my comrades to witness that such a death could never be represented with dignity upon the stage. I know that one may plant his sword in the earth and fall upon it with outstretched arms; but in spite of the cold weather, I have here a bare floor with no carpet. The window, too, is wide enough and at sufficient height to aid in putting an end to all despair. But ... but as I have told you a thousand times, I am an actor with a conscience.

Do you remember how I used to play Achilles, when in pa.s.sing through some third or fourth-rate town, the whim would seize us to re-establish the neglected cult of the old French tragedians? Was I not n.o.ble and puissant in the gilded helmet with streaming locks of purple blackness, the glittering armor and azure cloak? What a spectacle to see a father as weak and cowardly as Agamemnon contend with the priest Calchas for the honour of immolating such a victim as poor, weeping Iphigenia! I rushed like a thunderbolt into the midst of the forced and cruel action; I restored hope to the mothers and reawakened courage in the daughters, always sacrificed from a sense of duty, to stay the anger of a G.o.d, allay the vengeance of a nation, or advance the interests of a family.