Le Portrait de Monsieur W.H.

0763

0763f

Le Portrait de Monsieur W.H.

Oscar Wilde



THE PORTRAIT OF MONSIEUR WH



Albert Savine translation



(Published in 1906)




Contents

PREFACE
THE PORTRAIT OF MONSIEUR WH
I
II
III
THE PHANTOM OF CANTERVILLE
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
THE SPHINX THAT HAS NO SECRET
THE MILLIONAIRE MODEL
POEMS IN PROSE
_I - The artist_
_II - The doer of good_
_III - The disciple_
_IV - The master_
_V - The house of judgment_
_VI - The master of wisdom_
THE HUMAN SOUL UNDER SOCIALIST REGIME




PREFACE

This volume contains, I believe, all the short stories of Oscar Wilde
which had not yet been translated into French.

I owed to the courtesy of Mr. Walter E. Ledger the texts on
which I translated _the Phantom of Canterville, A Sphinx who
has no secrets _and_ the Millionaire Model_.

I owe the same writer clarifications on different
difficulties which have proved to me that one never fully knows a
language when you have not lived in the countries where it is spoken.

Finally, I owe him exact bibliographical notions of which I have
worn, moreover, with discretion so as not to deflower the work
very complete bibliographic he has in preparation, with a friend
from Oxford, on the works of Oscar Wilde. That my generous
correspondent finds here the testimony of my gratitude!

I drew the texts from the _Portrait of Mr. WH_, from the _Poèmes
in prose_ and the study _the human soul under the socialist regime_
in the Revues collections cited in my notices
bibliographic, collections that the National Library
luckily has complete.

By translating _the Portrait of Monsieur WH_, I allowed myself
two corrections which seemed to me to correspond to mistakes
printing.

It is to _Mary Fitton_ and not to _Mary Finton_ that we attributed
a role in the history of _Sonnets_ and, to all appearances,
it's at _P. Oudry_ that Wilde has his friends attribute the fake
portrait of Mr WH, although _Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine_ printed _Ouvry_.

Finally, it is my duty to recognize that for the versions of
quoted fragments of the _Sonnets_, I borrowed a lot from
translations by François-Marie-Victor Hugo and Émile Montégut.
_Suum cuique_.

Albert Savine.


THE PORTRAIT OF MONSIEUR WH [1]

I

I had dinner with Erskine in his cute little Bird Cage house
Walk and we were sitting in his library, drinking our coffee
and smoking cigarettes, when we came to cause fake
in literature.

Now I don't remember what brought us to a topic
so weird at such a time, but I know we had a
long discussion about Macpherson [2], Ireland [3] and
Chatterton [4] and that with regard to the latter, I insisted on
this point that his alleged fakes were simply the result
of an artistic desire for perfect likeness, which we have
no right to bargain with an artist under the conditions
which he wants to present his work and that all art being
some kind of game, an attempt to achieve its
own personality on some imaginative level outside of the
scope of accidents and limitations of real life; - censor
an artist for a pastiche was to confuse a problem of
moral and aesthetic problem.

Erskine, who was by far my oldest and who had listened to me with
the amused politeness of a man in his forties,
suddenly leaned his hand on my shoulder and said:

- How about a young man who had a strange thesis on
certain work of art, which believed in this thesis and which committed a
false to demonstrate it?

- Oh! this is quite another question.

Erskine was silent for a few moments, gazing at the thin
tangle of gray smoke rising from his cigarette.

- Yes, he said after a pause, it's quite different!

There was something in the tone of her voice, a slight
a feeling of bitterness perhaps, which excited my curiosity.

- Did you ever know someone who had done this? him
I asked sharply.

- Yes, he replied, throwing his cigarette into the fire, one of my
great friends, Cyril Graham. He was quite a boy
fascinating, a real madman without the slightest energy. Yet it is he
who left me the only bequest I received in my life.

- And what was it? I cried.

Erskine got up from his chair and going to a small window in
marquetry that was placed between the two windows, he opened it
and came back to where I was sitting, holding in his hand a
small painting panel framed with an old, somewhat dull frame of
the time of Elisabeth.

It was a full-length portrait of a young man dressed in a suit
from the end of the 16th century, seated at a table, his right hand
resting on an open book.

He appeared seventeen years old and was very handsome.
extraordinary fact, although obviously a little effeminate.

Of course, if it had not been for the costume and the very cropped hair
short, it looked like the face, with its pensive eyes and
dreamers and her thin scarlet lips, was a woman's face.

By the way, especially by the way the hands were
treated, the painting recalled the last works of François
Clouet. The black velvet doublet, with its gold embroidery
capricious, and the peacock blue background, on which it stood out
so pleasantly, and which gave its tones such a
luminous, were quite in the style of Clouet.

The two masks of Comedy and Tragedy, suspended, from a
somewhat primed, with a marble pedestal, had this
hardness of touch, this severity so different from easy grace
Italians that, even at the Court of France, the grand master
Flemish never lost completely and who with him always have
been a feature of the temperament of northern men.

- It's a lovely thing, I cried, but what is it
wonderful young man whose art has so happily preserved us
the beauty?

- This is the portrait of Mr. WH, said Erskine with a sad
smile.

It may be a random lighting effect, but it seemed to me
that tears shone in his eyes.

- Mr. WH! I cried. Who is mister WH?

- Don't you remember? he replied. Watch the book on
which rest his hands.

- I see that there is something written there, but I cannot
read, I replied.

- Take that magnifying glass and try it, Erskine said of the
lips of which always played the same smile of sadness.

I took the magnifying glass and bringing the lamp a little closer, I
I began to spell out the harsh sixteenth-century writing:

_To the sole purchaser of the sonnets below._

- God in heaven, I cried. This is Mr. WH, from
Shakespeare.

"Cyril Graham claimed it was so," Erskine whispered.

- But he has not the slightest resemblance to Lord Pembroke,
I replied. I know Penhurst portraits very well [5].
I stayed very close to there a few weeks ago.

- So you really believe that the sonnets are addressed to Lord
Pembroke [6]? he asked.

"I'm sure of it," I replied. Pembroke, Shakespeare and Madame
Mary Fitton [7] are the three characters of _Sonnets, _there is
not the slightest doubt about it.

- Very well, I agree with you, said Erskine, but I didn't
not always thought of that. I used to believe ...
yes I think I used to believe Cyril Graham and his
theory.

- And what was this theory? I asked looking at the
wonderful portrait which was almost beginning to exert on me a
singular fascination.

- It's a long story, said Erskine, taking the painting back from me.
hands in a way that I then considered almost brutal ...
a long story, but if you want to know it, I
will tell you.

- I like the theories on _Sonnets, _ I cried, but I don't
do not think that I am ready to be converted to some
new idea. The question is no longer a mystery to anyone and,
admittedly, I am surprised that it has ever been a mystery.

- As I do not believe in theory, I will not make any effort to
get her adopted, Erskine laughs, but she can
to interest.

- Tell me, of course! I replied. If the theory is half
as delicious as the painting, I will be more than satisfied.

- Well! said Erskine, lighting a cigarette, I must
start by telling you about Cyril Graham himself.

He and I lived in the same house in Eton. I had one or
two years older than him, but we were great friends. We
we worked and had fun together all the time. Certainly,
we had a lot more fun than we were working, but i
cannot say that I regret that.

It's always an advantage not to have received an Orthodox
shopkeeper education. What I learned in the game
Eton was just as useful to me as anything I have been taught
in Cambridge.

I must tell you that Cyril's father and mother were
both dead. They had drowned in a terrible
yacht accident near the Isle of Wight.

Her father had been in diplomacy and had married a girl,
the only daughter in fact, of old Lord Crediton who became the
guardian of Cyril after the death of his parents.

I don't think Lord Crediton cared much for Cyril. In
fact, he had never forgiven his daughter for marrying a man who
had no title.

He was a strange aristocrat of the old rock, who swore
like a French fries merchant and had the manners of a
farmer.

I remember seeing him once one day distributing
price. He scolded at me, he gave me a ruler and told me to
not to become a "sacred radical" like my father.

Cyril had very little affection for him and had no more
great joy to come and spend most of your
holidays with us in Scotland.

In reality, they never got along together.

Cyril considered him a bear and he considered Cyril effeminate.

He was effeminate, okay, in some things, though he
was an excellent rider and a first-rate shooter. In fact,
he obtained the foils of honor before leaving Eton. But his
attitude was very soft.

He was not mediocrely vain in his good looks and had a
extreme loathing for the _foot ball._

The two things that really charmed him were poetry
and scenic art. In Eton, he was always busy painting and
to recite Shakespeare and when we went to the college of the
Trinidad, the first year he became a member of ADC

I remember I was always very jealous of his taste for
scene. I was absurdly devoted to him. I was a left boy,
weak, with huge feet and his face horribly covered with
freckles.

Freckles are the bane of Scottish families,
like gout that of English families.

Cyril used to say that of the two he preferred the
drop, but he still attached absurd importance to
outside people and, once he read, in front of our club
controversy, a brief to prove that it was better to have
good-looking than being good.

Admittedly, he was surprisingly handsome.

The people, who didn't like him, the Philistines and the teachers
of college, the young men who studied to be of the Church,
used to say that he was only pretty, but on his
there was more to her face than prettiness.

I believe he was the most splendid creature I have
never seen and nothing can surpass the grace of its movements,
the charm of his manners. He seduced all those who deserved
that they were seduced and many people who did not deserve it.

He was often willful and sassy and quite often I
thought he was terribly lacking in sincerity.

This was due, I believe, above all to his immoderate desire to please.
Poor Cyril! I told him once that he was content to triumph
cheaply, but he only laughed.

He was horribly spoiled.

All lovely people, I imagine, are horribly spoiled. This is
the secret of their attraction.

However, I must tell you about Cyril's game.

You know that the ADC does not welcome on its stage to any
actress, at least, it was so in my time; i don't know how
things are happening today.

Well! quite naturally Cyril was always chosen for
roles of young girls and, when we gave _As you like,
_it was he who played Rosalinde.

The performance was wonderful.

In fact, Cyril Graham was the only perfect Rosalind I have
never seen. It would be impossible for me to describe to you the beauty, the
delicacy, refinement in all points of his game.

It caused a huge sensation and the horrible little theater - this
was nothing else then - was packed every night.

Even when I read the play now I can't help but
think about Cyril. It could have been made for him.

The following year, he took his degrees and came to London to prepare
to the diplomatic career. But he never worked. he
spent his days reading Shakespeare's _Sonnets _ and his
evenings to attend the theater.

He certainly had a mad desire to get on the boards. Lord
Crediton and I did our best to stop him.

Perhaps if he had started playing, he would still be alive.

It is always a foolish thing to give advice, but
giving good advice is absolutely a matter of luck. I you
wishes never to fall into the error of wanting to advise.
If you do, you'll regret it.

Well! to come to the real crux of this story, one day I
received a letter from Cyril in which he asked me to pass
at home in the evening.

He had a delightful apartment in Piccadilly overlooking the
Green Park, and, as I used to go to see it every
days, I was a little surprised that he had taken the trouble to write to me.

Of course I went to his house and when I got there I found him
in a state of great excitement.

He told me that he had finally discovered the true secret of _Sonnets
_of Shakespeare, that all scholars and critics had
was wrong and that he was the first who, working
only from the evidence, had elucidated who was
really sir WH

He was completely overjoyed and he remained a long time without
want to tell me his theory.

Finally, he showed a bundle of notes, took his copy of the
_Sonnets _on his fireplace, sat down and gave me a long lecture
on the whole question.

He began by establishing that the young man, to whom Shakespeare
addressed these strangely passionate poems, had to be someone
which had really been a vital factor in the development of
his dramatic art and that neither Lord Pembroke nor Lord Southampton
were in this case.

Besides, on the whole, he could not be a man of high
birth, as follows abundantly from sonnet 25, in which
Shakespeare puts it in parallel with those who are the favorites of
_grand princes _and said with complete frankness:

_That those who are in favor with their stars adorn themselves
public honors and superb titles, while I, that
fortune deprives of such triumphs, I enjoy an unexpected happiness
which is for me the supreme honor, _

and ends the sonnet by congratulating himself on the poor condition of
the one he adored so much.

_Happy am I then, I who love and am loved, without power
inflict or suffer disgrace.

Cyril declared that this sonnet would be quite unintelligible if
we imagined it was addressed either to the Earl of Pembroke,
either to the Earl of Southampton who were both men of
the highest position in England and fully entitled
to be called "_grand princes" _.

To support this opinion, he read me sonnets 124 and 125, in
which Shakespeare tells us that his love is not _a child
royal, _ that he _ is not embarrassed by the smiling pomp, _but that he
_was brought up far from any accidents._

I was listening with great interest, because I do not believe that the
remark would have been made until then; but what followed was still
more curious and then seemed to me to completely solve the cause
by Pembroke.

We learned from Meres [8] that the _Sonnets _ were written
before 1598 and sonnet 104 informs us that the friendship of
Shakespeare for Mister WH had already existed for three years.
But Lord Pembroke, who was born in 1580, did not come to London
before his eighteenth year, that is to say before 1598 and the link
of Shakespeare with Sir WH must have started in 1594 or
at the beginning of 1595. Consequently, Shakespeare could not know
Lord Pembroke only after writing the _Sonnets._

Cyril also noticed that Pembroke's father did not die before
1601; while it results from the verse:

_You had a father; may your son say the same, _

that Sir WH's father died in 1598.

Besides, it was absurd to imagine that some editor of the
time, - and the preface is written by the editor - would have dared
call William Herbert Earl of Pembroke sir.

The case of Lord Buckhurst, referred to as Mr. Sackville, is not
similar, for Lord Buckhurst was not a peer, but simply
the youngest son of a peer who received a courtesy title,
and the passage of the _Parnassus of England, _ where it is thus spoken of
him, is not a dedication in form and with pomp, but a
simple accidental allusion.

So much for Lord Pembroke, whose Cyril easily demolished
so-called pretensions, while I remained stunned at his
demonstration.

For Lord Southampton, Cyril felt even less
difficulties.

Southampton became, at a still tender age, Elisabeth's lover
Vernon: So he didn't need to be begged him to get married.

He was not handsome. He didn't look like his mother, like
mr WH

_You are the mirror of your mother, and she finds the lovable in you
April of his youth ..._

and above all his baptismal name was Henry, while the
pun sonnets (the 135th and 143rd) prove that the name of
Baptism of Shakespeare's friend was the same as his, Will.

As for the other insinuations of the unfortunate commentators that
Mr. W. is a printing error for Mr. WS, that is
ie William Shakespeare; that _mister WH all _must be a
Mr. W. Hall, that Mr. WH is Mr. William Hathevay
and that after _Wisheth_ [9] it is necessary to put a period, which makes
Mr. WH the author and not the subject of the dedication, Cyril is
got rid of them in a very short time and it is not worth the trouble
to mention his reasoning, although I remember
laughed while reading me -I'm happy to say that this
was not in the original - some excerpts from a commentator
German named Bernstroff who claimed to maintain that Mr.
Will was none other than Mr. William Himself (himself).

Graham refused to admit for a single moment that the _Sonnets
_were pure satires of the work of Drayton and John Davies
from Hereford.

For him, as for me, they were poems of a
serious and tragic, expression of the bitterness of the heart of
Shakespeare and softened by the honey of his lips.

Even less did he want to admit that it was a simple allegory
philosophical and that Shakespeare addressed his Sonnets to the
ideal, to the ideal human Nature, to the Spirit of beauty, to the
Reason, to the divine Logos or to the Catholic Church.

He felt, as sure, I think we all feel that
_Sonnets _are addressed to a being who has an individuality
peculiar to a determined young man, whose personality, for a
reason, seems to have filled Shakespeare's soul with
terrible joy and no less terrible despair.

After having cleared the road in this way, Cyril asked me to
chase from my mind all the preconceptions that I could
get used to this subject and lend an impartial ear and
benevolent to his own theory.

The problem, which he pointed out, was this: What was the young
contemporary man of Shakespeare, to whom, without being a noble
birth or even of noble character, he had been able to address
terms of such passionate worship that we can only
wonder at this strange cult and be almost afraid of
turn the key to the lock that encloses the mystery of the heart of
poet? Who was the one whose physical beauty was such
that she became the true cornerstone of Shakespeare's art,
the true source of Shakespeare's inspiration, the true
embodiment of Shakespeare's dreams?

Look at him only as the object of certain love poems,
it is forgetting all the meaning of poems, because art, whose
Shakespeare speaks in _Sonnets, _is not the art of _Sonnets
_themselves, which certainly were for him only light things
and intimate, it is the art of the playwright to whom he always
allusion and the one Shakespeare says:

_You are all my art and you exalt even my science
gross ignorance, _

the one to whom he promises immortality,

_Where the breath has the most power, on the very mouth of
humanity._

was surely no other than the young actor for whom he created
Viola and Imogene, Juliette and Rosalinde, Portia and Desdemone, and
Cleopatra herself.

This was the theory of Cyril Graham, drawn, as you
see, only _Sonnets _and the acceptance of which did not depend
not so much proof by demonstration or formal evidence
that of a kind of spiritual and artistic flair by which alone,
he claimed, one could discern the true meaning of poems.

I remember that he read me this beautiful sonnet:

_How could my muse lack subject matter so much
breath you pour in my verse your ineffable inspiration too
perfect to be entrusted to vulgar paper? _

_Oh! Thank yourself if you find anything worthwhile in me
the trouble that you read it; because who is the being dumb enough not to
nothing can say to you, when you yourself give light to your
invention._

_Be for him the tenth muse, ten times more powerful than the
nine old women invoked by the rhymers: and he who invokes you
will produce eternal numbers which will mature in the future
distant._

He pointed out to me how much it was a complete confirmation of
his theory.

Indeed, he carefully leafed through all the _Sonnets _ and showed,
or imagined that he showed that in the new explanation of
their meaning that he proposed, the things that had appeared
obscure, or defective, or exaggerated, became clear and
rational and of high artistic significance, illuminating the
Shakespeare's conception of the true relationship between the art of
the actor and the art of the playwright.

It is, of course, evident that there must be in the company of
Shakespeare some wonderful young actor of great beauty,
to whom he entrusted the care of personifying his noble heroines; because
Shakespeare was a dramatic tour organizer, at the same
time that a poet full of imagination. However, Cyril Graham had finished
by finding out the name of the young actor.

It was Will, or as he preferred to call him Willie Hughes.

He had found the baptismal name in the pun sonnets
125 and 143 and the surname, according to him, was hidden in the
eighth line of sonnet 20 where Sir WH is described as.

_A man by complexion but beating all possible TINTS ._

In the original edition of _Sonnets, TEINTS (hews) _ is printed
in capital letters and italics and that, he claimed,
clearly showed that this was an attempt at a pun.

This view received a great deal of confirmation from
those sonnets in which weird puns were made
on the words _usage _and _usure._

Of course I let myself be convinced from the start and Willie Hughes
became to me a being as real as Shakespeare.

The only objection I made to the theory was that the name of
Willie Hughes is not on the cast list for
Shakespeare company printed on the first folio.

Cyril, however, establishes that the absence of Willie Hughes' name from
this list really demonstrated the theory, since it resulted
of sonnet 86 that Willie Hughes had abandoned the
Shakespeare to play in a rival theater, probably in
some of Chapman's pieces [10].

It is in allusion to this fact that in the great sonnet on Chapman,
Shakespeare said to Willie Hughes:

_But as soon as your playing has enhanced its poetry, mine no longer
had a subject and that's what made him languish._

the expression _as soon as your game has enhanced its poetry _se
undoubtedly relating to the beauty of the young actor who
to live, realized Chapman's verses and added charm to them.

The same idea was still stated in the 79th sonnet:

_As long as I alone called for your help, my verse alone possessed
all your kind grace; _ _but now my gracious numbers
are fallen and my sick muse gives way to another, _

and in the sonnet immediately preceding it where Shakespeare says:

_All the other feathers took their example from me_ [11] _and
spread their poetry under your patronage, _

the pun use = Hughes being naturally wanted and the phrase
_ spread their poetry under your _significant _ patronage _with your
competitions as an actor give their plays to the public.

It was a superb night.

Almost until daylight we sat there reading and rereading
the _Sonnets._

A little later, however, I began to see that before the
theory could be launched publicly without a really
perfect, it was necessary to provide a demonstration of
the existence of this young actor Willie Hughes, outside of
_Sonnets._

If, one day, one could establish the existence of this character, it
there would be no more doubt about his identity with mister
WH

Otherwise the theory would fall to the ground.

I explained this to Cyril in the clearest way.

He was very annoyed with what he called my
Philistine and he was even a little bitter about it.

Yet I made him promise that, in his own interests, he would not
would not publish his discovery before putting the whole question
beyond doubt and, for many weeks, we leafed through
the registers of the churches of the City, the Alleyn manuscripts in
Dulwich, the Record Office papers, the Lord's papers
Chamberlain, in short everything we thought we could contain
some allusion to Willie Hughes.

We did not discover anything, it goes without saying and every day
the existence of Willie Hughes seemed to me to become more
problematic.

Cyril was in a terrible state. He was asking the question
on the mat every day, trying to convince me, but
I had seen the weak point of the theory and I refused to
believe as long as the existence of Willie Hughes, the teenage actor
in Elisabeth's time, had not been demonstrated without doubt nor
possible hesitation.

One day, Cyril left London to go to his grandfather,
at least I believed it then, but later I learned from lord
Crediton that it was not so.

After a fortnight, I received a telegram from Cyril, sent from
Warwick, where he begged me not to fail to come and dine with
him that evening at eight o'clock sharp.

When I arrived, he greeted me with these words:

- The only apostle, who did not deserve to have anything proven to him,
was St. Thomas and St. Thomas was the only apostle to whom the
proof was given.

I asked him what he meant.

He replied that it had not only been possible for him
to establish the 16th century existence of a teenage actor named
Willie Hughes, but to prove, with the most obvious
conclusive, that it was indeed the Mr. WH of _Sonnets._

He didn't want to tell me anything more yet; but, after the
dinner, he solemnly placed the portrait before my eyes, which I
showed you, and told me he had discovered it, by chance
the most extraordinary, nailed to one of the panels of an old chest
which he had bought from a farm house in County Warwick.

He had naturally also brought back the chest himself which
was a very fine specimen of cabinetmaking in Elisabeth's time.

In the middle of the front panel we read, without the slightest doubt the
initials WH engraved in the wood.

It was this monogram that had caught Cyril's attention and he
told me he hadn't thought of carefully examining the interior of the
safe that several days after he had it in his possession.

One morning, however, he noticed that one of the walls of the safe
was much thicker than the other and looking at it very
near he discovered that a framed painting panel was there
nested.

He pulled it away and it turned out that it was the portrait that was
now sprawled out on the couch.

The panel was very dirty and covered with mold, but it
managed to clean it and, to his delight, he saw that he was
stumbled upon the only thing that could excite his desire by pure chance.

It was an authentic portrait of Mr.WH His hand was resting
on the dedicatory page of _Sonnets _and, on the frame itself, we
could distinguish the young man's name written in black initials
on a tarnished gold background: Sir William Hews.

Well! what could I say?

It didn't occur to me for a moment that Cyril Graham was playing me
comedy and that he tried to demonstrate the theory by means of a
false.

- But is it a fake? I asked.

- Certainly yes, said Erskine. It was a very well made fake, but this
was nonetheless a fake.

I believed then that Cyril had had his appeasements on all this
question, but I remember him telling me more than once that
for him there was no need for any such proof and that he
believed the theory complete, even without it.

I laughed at his confidence.

I told him that without this proof the whole theory was tumbling down
earth and I warmly congratulated him on his wonderful discovery.

So we decided that the portrait would be engraved or reproduced in
facsimile and placed as frontispiece at the top of the edition of
_Sonnets _ by Cyril.

For three months, we just went over all the poems
verse by verse until we had mastered all
difficulties of the text or meaning.

One unhappy day I was in a print shop in Holborn,
when I saw a few silver point drawings on the counter
extremely beautiful.

I was so attracted to them that I bought them, and the
owner of the store, a certain Rawlings, tells me that they
were the work of a young painter named Edward Merton who was
very clever, but as poor as a church rat.

A few days later, I went to see Merton whose merchant
prints gave me the address.

I found a pale, interesting young man with a
rather banal, a model, as I learned later.

I told him how much I had admired his drawings, which seemed to me
be very nice, and I asked him if he could show me
some other of his works.

As we leafed through a wallet full of things
really lovely, - for Merton had a very
delicate and quite delicious, -I suddenly saw a
sketch of the portrait of Mr. WH There was no doubt
conceive about it.

It was almost a _fac-simile: _ the only difference was that the
masks of tragedy and comedy were not
the marble table, as in the portrait, but lay on the
floor at the feet of the young man.

- Where the hell did you get that? I said.

He got a little confused and replied:

- It's nothing. I didn't know this drawing was in the
wallet. It is a thing of no value.

- That's what you did for Mr. Cyril Graham, cried
his teacher. If this gentleman wants to buy it, why not
sell him?

"For Mr. Cyril Graham," I repeated. Did you paint the
portrait of mister WH?

- I don't know what you mean, he replied, becoming
very red.

Well! The story was really terrible.

The woman let go of the secret.

When I left, I gave him five pounds.

Now it is not possible for me to think about it, but of course
I was furious then.

I went straight to Cyril's.

I waited for him three hours before he came back, with this awful
lie that bloomed on her face and I told her that
I had discovered the fake.

He turned very pale and said to me:

- I did this only for you. You wouldn't have been
convinced otherwise. This does not detract from the truth of
the theory.

- The truth of the theory! I cried. The less you talk about it and
the better it will be. You yourself never believed it. If you there
had believed, you would not have committed a forgery to make it
evidence.

There were violent words exchanged between us. We had a
appalling quarrel. I admit, I was unfair. The next day
morning he was dead.

- Death! I cried.

- Yes, he killed himself with a revolver. Some of his blood spurts out
on the portrait frame right where the name was painted.
When I arrived - his servant had sent me on the spot
look, - the police were already there. He had left a letter
for me, obviously written in the greatest agitation and
greater distress of the heart.

- What did it contain? I asked.

- Oh! that he had absolute faith in Willie's existence
Hughes, that the forgery in the portrait was only made as a
concession to me and in no way weakened the truth
theory; in short, that to show me how much his faith was
firm and unshakeable, he would offer his life as a sacrifice to
secret of _Sonnets._

It was a crazy, insane letter. I remember he was finishing
telling me that he entrusted me with the Willie Hughes theory and that
it was up to me to present it to the world and to unveil the secret of
heart of Shakespeare.

- This is a very tragic story, I cried, but why
have you not fulfilled his vows?

Erskine shrugged.

- Because it is from beginning to end a theory absolutely
wrong, he replied.

- My dear Erskine, I said, rising from my seat, you
are there in a complete error. This is the only key
perfect Shakespeare _Sonnets _ that we have ever built.
It is perfect in all its details. I believe in Willie Hughes.

"Don't say that," Erskine replied gravely. I recognize
that there is something in the idea which inevitably appeals and
intellectually there is nothing wrong with it. I examined the
question in all its details and I assure you that the theory
is entirely misleading. It is plausible up to a certain point
point. Beyond that everything tumbles. For heaven's sake, my dear
kid, don't get into this Willie Hughes theme. You there
would break your heart.

- Erskine, I replied, it is your duty to give this theory
in the world. If you don't, I will. By the way
in silence, you damage the memory of Cyril Graham,
the youngest and most splendid of all the martyrs of the
literature. I beg you to do him justice. He is dead
for this theory, will you do that he died in vain?

Erskine looked at me in amazement.

"You are carried away by the emotion of this whole thing," he said.
You forget that a thing is not necessarily true because
that a man dies for her.

I was devoted to Cyril Graham. His death was terrible for me
stroke. I won't get over it for many years.

But Willie Hughes? There is nothing in the idea of ​​Willie Hughes.
Such a character has never existed.

As for revealing the whole story to the world, the world believes that
Cyril Graham killed himself by accident. The only proof that he was
killed was the result of the letter he wrote to me and the public
never knew anything about this letter. Now even Lord Crediton
believes it was all accidental.

- Cyril Graham sacrificed his life to a great idea, I replied,
and if you don't want to talk about his martyrdom, at least talk about
her faith.

- His faith, said Erskine, was based on one thing that was wrong,
on one thing that no Shakespeare scholiaste would want
accept a moment. We would laugh at the theory. Don't play the role
of a madman. Do not follow a pipe dream that leads to no goal. You
begin by affirming the existence of the very person whose
is to prove the existence. Besides, everyone knows that
the _Sonnets _ are addressed to Lord Pembroke. The question is
resolved once and for all.

"The question is not resolved," I cried. I will spread the
theory that Cyril Graham left and I will prove to the world that he
was right.

- Stubborn child, said Erskine, go home. It is more than two
hours. And don't think about Willie Hughes anymore. I regret you in
to have spoken and I am very sorry to have converted you to
something I don't believe in.

- You gave me the key to literature's greatest mystery
modern, I replied. And I won't have a rest until I
made you all recognize that Cyril Graham was the most
subtle criticism of Shakespearean today.

As I returned to my home through the park of Saint-James,
dawn was dawning over London. On the polished lake, the white swans
were sleeping and the palace skeleton stood out in purple on the
pale green sky.

I thought of Cyril Graham and my eyes filled with tears.

II

It was past noon when I awoke and the sun was streaming through
through the curtains of my bedroom in long slanting streams of gold
dusty.

I told my servant that I wasn't at home for anyone and,
after taking a cup of chocolate and a bun, I went
look on a shelf of my library for my copy of
_Sonnets _ of Shakespeare and I started to browse them with
great attention.

Each poem seemed to me a confirmation of Cyril's theory
Graham.

It seemed to me that my hand was resting on the heart of
Shakespeare and I counted all the beats one by one and
all the pulsations of passion.

I thought of the wonderful teenage actor and saw his face
in each verse.

Two sonnets, I remember, particularly struck me:
they were the 53rd and the 67th.

In the first of these sonnets, Shakespeare, praising Willie Hughes
the flexibility of his game, the vast field of his roles, a
which extends from Rosalinde to Juliette and from Béatrice to Ophélie, he
said:

_What substance are you made of, you escorted by
millions of strange shadows? Each being has only a single shadow,
and you, who are but one, you lend your shadow to
all,_

towards whom were unintelligible if they did not address a
actor, for the word _ombre _ had in Shakespeare's time a meaning
which related to the scene.

"The best of this kind are only shadows," said Theseus of
actors in the _Songe of a Midsummer Night, _and there are many others
similar allusions in the literature of the time.

The _Sonnets _ obviously belonged to the series in which
Shakespeare spoke of the nature of the art of the actor and
strange and rare temperament which is indispensable to the perfect
actor.

"How is it," Shakespeare said to Willie Hughes, that you
have so many personalities ”, and then he comes to establish that
her beauty is such that she seems to realize any shape and any
fantasy phase, embody any dream of the creative imagination,
an idea, which is further expressed further in the sonnet which
immediately follows, or starting with the delicate thought:

_Oh! how beauty looks more beautiful when it is embalmed
by _LA TRUTH.

Shakespeare invites us to notice how much the truth of the game, the
truth of the representation visible on the stage, adds to the
prestige of poetry, gives life to all its alluring nature
and current reality in its ideal form.

And yet, in the 67th sonnet, Shakespeare invites Willie Hughes
to give up the scene so artificial with its false life, its
mimes with make-up faces and costume without reality, his
influences and his immoral suggestions, his distancing from the true
world, real action and candid language.

_Oh! why would my beloved live with corruption and
would he honor the sacrilege with his prestige so that the sin
would obtain by him a decisive advantage and would adorn himself with his
society?_

_Why would the makeup mimic the complexion of her cheeks and
Would he plagiarize, by an inanimate copy, their vivid colors? _
_Why would the poor beauty indirectly seek the
reflections of the rose, when it has the true rose? _

It may seem strange that such a great playwright as
Shakespeare, who achieved his own perfection as an artist and his
humanity as a man on the ideal plane of the literature of
theater and scenic play, wrote in these terms on the
theater, but we must remember that in the sonnets 110
and 111, Shakespeare shows us that he was weary of the world of
puppets and full of shame to have played in the eyes of all his
role of harlequin. The 111th sonnet especially is bitter:

_Oh! scold fortune about me, this goddess guilty of
all my faults, which left me no other means of existence than
public resource that feeds public life.

_This is what makes my name carry a stigma and my
nature is, so to speak, marked by the profession she does as
the hand of the dyer. So have mercy on me and wish that I
be regenerated, _

and there are many signs of the same feeling elsewhere, signs
familiar to all true Shakespeare fanatics. A point
embarrassed me a lot when I read the _Sonnets _ and it passed
many days before I establish the True interpretation that
certainly Cyril Graham himself does not seem to have understood.

I could not understand that Shakespeare gave so much
of importance in seeing his young friend marry.

He himself had married young, and the result had not been
happy: it was not probable that he wanted to push Willie
Hughes to make the same mistake.

The young actor from Rosalinde had nothing to gain from marriage and
to the passions of real life. The first sonnets, with their
strange supplications to have children, seemed to me a note
discordant.

The explanation of the mystery came to me almost suddenly and I
found in the bizarre dedication.

It should be remembered that the dedication reads as follows:

_To the sole source of these sonnets below_
_Mr WH, all the happiness And this eternity, _
_promises of_
_our immortal poet, _
_may he have them._
It is the very sincere wish
_of the one who adventure_
_this publication_

_T. T._

Some commentators have assumed that the word _producer _in
this dedication simply indicates who provided the _Sonnets
_to Thomas Thorpe, their editor. But this opinion is now
generally abandoned and the highest authorities are
agrees on this point that this word is taken in the sense
_inspirator, _the metaphor being taken from the analogy of life
physical.

So I saw that the same metaphor is used by Shakespeare
himself in all his poems and that put me on the right path.

Finally I made my great discovery.

Shakespeare's marriage to Willie Hughes is the
marriage with his muse, an expression that is precisely used
in the 82nd sonnet where, in the bitterness of his heart, during the
defection of the young actor, for whom he had written his greatest
roles and whose beauty had really inspired them, he
begins his complaints by saying:

_I agree that you are not married to my muse._

The children he begged him to father are not children
of blood and flesh, but the most immortal children of a glory
who cannot die.

The whole cycle of the first sonnets is simply the invitation to
Shakespeare to Willie Hughes to take the stage and be
actor. How vile and vain it would be, he said, for your
beauty, if you don't use it.

_When forty winters will besiege your front and
deep trenches in the field of your beauty, the proud livery of
your youth, so admired now, will only be a rag of which
we will pay little attention.

_If we asked you then where is all your beauty where is all the
treasure of your flourishing days, and if you answered that all this
is in your sunken eyes, that would be a devouring shame and a
sterile praise.

You have to create something in art. My verse "is yours and is born
of you ", just listen to me and I" will give birth to worms
immortals who will live for an eternity ”and you will populate forms
of your own face the imaginary world and the stage. These
children you father, he continues, will not waste away,
like children subject to death, but you will live in them and
in my rooms: so

_Create another yourself for the love of me; may your beauty live
in your child as in you.

I put together all the passages which seemed to me to corroborate this
interpretation: they made a strong impression on me and
showed me how much Cyril Graham's theory really was
complete.

I also saw that it was very easy to separate the worms, in
which he speaks of the _Sonnets _ same, and those in which he
talks about his great dramatic works.

This was a point that had absolutely escaped criticism.
prior to Cyril Graham.

And yet it was one of the most important considerations
in all the series of poems.

Aux _Sonnets _Shakespeare was more or less indifferent. he
did not want his glory to rest on them. It was, to his
eyes, his "light muse", as he calls them, and, as he puts it
Mothers, he wanted reserved circulation, only among a
small number, a very small number of friends.

On the other hand, he was acutely aware of the high value
artistic expression of his pieces and testifies to a noble confidence in his
dramatic genius.

When he says to Willie Hughes:

_But your eternal summer will not wither and be dispossessed
of your graces. Death won't brag about what you wander under
its shadow, when you grow up in the future _IN TOWARDS ETERNALS.

_As long as men breathe and eyes can see,
this will live and give you life ..._

the expression _to eternal _ clearly alludes to one of his
pieces he sent her at the same time, as well as the stanza
final aims his confidence in the probability that his pieces are
always played.

In an apostrophe to the dramatic muse (sonnets C and CI), we
find the same thought.

_Where are you, muse, to forget to talk about this for so long
who gives you all your power? Do you spend your strength on something
unworthy song, covering your poetry with shadow to shed light
on vile subjects? _

he cries.

Then he reproaches the muse of Tragedy and Comedy for his
abandonment of the radiantly beautiful truth and said:

_What! 'Cause he don't need praise, will you become
silent? Do not give this pretext for your silence, because it does not hold
it's up to you to make my friend live beyond a golden grave and
let by future centuries.

_Come on, muse, to work! I'll teach you how to show it to
the future as it appears today.

Yet it is perhaps in the 55th sonnet that Shakespeare gives
in his opinion the broadest expression.

Imagine that the "powerful rhythm" of the second line relates to the
sonnet itself, it is absolutely deceiving the intention of
Shakespeare.

It seemed to me that it was extremely clear, from the character
general of the sonnet, that it was a question of a specific piece and
that the play was none other than _Roméo et Juliette, _

_Neither marble, nor the golden mausoleums of princes will last
longer than my mighty rhythm. You will keep more
brightness in these measurements than on the unswept slab as time
smeared with its lees._

_When the devastating war will overthrow the statues and the
tumults will uproot the work of masonry, nor the sword of Mars
nor the fiery fire of war will undermine the living tradition of
your fame._

_Despite death and the rage of oblivion, you will advance
in the future, your glory will find its place incessantly under the
eyes of all generations who must wear this world up to
last judgement._

_Thus until the supreme call to which you will rise-
even you will live here and in posterity under the eyes of
lovers._

It was also extremely suggestive to note how many there and
elsewhere Shakespeare promised Willie Hughes immortality under
a form which reminded him in the eyes of men, that is to say under
a scenic form in a play that we would go and see performed.

For two weeks I worked hard on the
_Sonnets, _ barely coming out and refusing all invitations.

Every day it seemed to me that I discovered something
new and Willie Hughes became a kind of companion to me
spiritual, an always dominant personality.

I almost ended up imagining that I had seen him standing in
the atmosphere of my room so clearly Shakespeare had it
drawn with her golden hair, her tender flower grace, her sweet
eyes with dreamlike depths, her delicate and mobile limbs and
her hands as white as lilies.

His name alone exerted a real fascination on me. Willie
Hughes! Willie Hughes! How it sounded like music! Yes what
other than him could be "the master and mistress of
passion "of Shakespeare [12], the" lord of his love to whom he
been bound in vassalage ”[13], the delicate favorite of pleasure [14], the
"Rose of the whole universe" [15], the "herald of spring" [16] "adorned with
the superb livery of youth ”[17], the“ lovely boy who is
sweet music for his listener "[18] and whose" beauty was
the true garment of the heart "of Shakespeare" [19], just as it was
the keystone of its dramatic force.

How bitter now seemed to me all the tragedy of her
desertion and his shame that he made "sweet and pretty [20]" by the
pure magic of his person, but who was no less ashamed.

Yet if Shakespeare forgave him, why didn't he
will we not also forgive.

I didn't care to try to penetrate the mystery of her
peach.

His abandonment of Shakespeare's theater was a question
different and I dug it way before.

Finally I came to the conclusion that Cyril Graham had
fooled into viewing Chapman as the rival playwright he is
spoken in the 80th sonnet.

It was obviously Marlowe who was referred to [21].

While the _Sonnets _ were written, one could not apply to
Chapman's work an expression such as "the proud
arrogance of its great verse ”, although it could have been applied more
late in the style of his last plays of the time of King James.

No, Marlowe was unquestionably the playwright whom Shakespeare
spoke in those praising terms and that familiar affable ghost
who, at night, the height of his inspirations, was the
Mephistopheles of his _Doctor Faustus._

Without a doubt, Marlowe was fascinated by the beauty and grace of
young actor and kidnapped him at the Blackfriars theater in order to
play the Gaveston of his _Edouard II._

That Shakespeare had the legal right to retain Willie Hughes
in his own troop, this is evident from sonnet 87 where
he says:

_Farewell! you are too precious for me and you only know
too probably what you are worth: _LA CHARTER _of _TA VALEUR _te
let go and your commitments to me have all made
end._

_Because I have other rights over you than those you grant me? And
where are my titles, to so much wealth? Nothing in me can
justify this gift SPLENDID_ AND SO MY PATENT IS M'EST-ELLE
WITHDRAWN.

_You were given to me by ignorance of what you are worth or by
a pure mistake on my account. Also this great concession
based on a misunderstanding, you revoke it by changing your mind.

_Thus I will have possessed you as in the illusion of a dream; King
in sleep, but when you wake up nothing more.

But the one he couldn't hold back for love, he didn't want
hold him back by force. Willie Hughes became one of the subjects of the
Lord Pembroke's troop and perhaps he played in the yard
open of the Taverne du Taureau Rouge, the role of the delicate favorite
of King Edward.

When Marlowe died he seems to have reverted to Shakespeare
who, whatever his comrades in the theater may have thought, soon
not to forgive the whim and the betrayal of the young actor.

Truly, as Shakespeare drew in precise lines the
temperament of the actor. Willie Hughes was one of those,

_who do not commit the action they threaten the most, who
while moving others are themselves like a stone.

He could play love, but he couldn't feel it. he
could mimic passion without realizing it.

_In many people the story of a treacherous heart is written in
looks, written in pouts, frowns,
strange grimaces.

But with Willie Hughes it was not so. Heaven says
Shakespeare in a sonnet of mad idolatry,

_the sky decreed, by creating you, that a sweet love would breathe
always on your face; whatever your thoughts or
emotions of your heart, your gaze can never express that the
sweetness._

In his "fickle mind" and "false heart" it was easy
to distinguish the lack of sincerity and the cheating that appears in
somehow inseparable from the nature of the artist, as in
his love of praise this desire for immediate reward which
characterizes all the actors. And yet, in this happier
than the other actors, Willie Hughes must have known
thing of immortality: inseparably linked to the coins of
Shakespeare, he had to live in them.

_Your name will draw from my towards immortality, even when a
once gone I should die to the whole world. The earth cannot
provide me with a vulgar pit, while you will be buried in
the sight of all mankind.

_You will have as a monument my noble verse that will read
come: and future languages ​​will repeat your existence, when all
the breaths of our generation will be extinguished.

There were endless allusions to the power of Willie Hughes
on his audience, the "attentive spectators", as they are called
Shakespeare, but perhaps the most perfect description of his
wonderful master's degree in drama was she in the
_Complaint of a Lover _ where Shakespeare said of him:

_He used in his artifices a mass of subtle matter to
which he gave the strangest forms: redness
inflamed, streams of tears, faint pallor; he took, he
left all faces, being able, according to his perfidies,
blush at unclean words, cry in pain or turn white and
faint with tragic faces.

_Likewise at the end of his domineering tongue, all kinds
arguments and deep questions, prompt replies and
strong reasons slept and woke ceaselessly to his
service. To make the weeper laugh and the laughter cry, he had
a language and a varied eloquence, catching all passions
in the trap of his whim._

One day I thought I actually found Willie Hughes in the
literature from the time of Elisabeth.

In a wonderful account of the last days of the great count
of Essex, his chaplain Thomas Knell tells us that on the night that
preceded his death, the count

_called William Hewes who was his musician to play on the
virginal and sing. _ «- _Play, he said, my song, Will
Hewes, and I'll sing it myself. ”_ _So he said very cheerfully, no
like the plaintive swan who still contemptuously mourns his death, but
like a gentle lark that lifting its wings and casting its eyes
towards God, ascend towards the crystalline clouds and reach
inexhaustible tongue the tops of the haughty skies.

Surely the boy, who played on the virginal, in the last hours
of Stella Sydney's father's life, was none other than the Will
Hewes, to whom Shakespeare dedicated the _Sonnets _ and of which he tells us
that it was sweet music to a listener.

Yet Lord Essex died in 1576 when Shakespeare himself
was only twelve years old: it was therefore impossible that his musician
was Mr. WH of _Sonnets._

Perhaps Shakespeare's young friend was the son of
who played the virginal.

It was, at least, something to have discovered that Will Hewes
was a name from Elizabeth's day.

Truly the name of Hewes seems to be exactly related to music and
poetry. The first English actress was the delicious Margaret
Hewes with whom Prince R upert was so madly in love. What of
more likely that between her and Lord Essex's musician there is
had the young actor from Shakespeare's plays!

But the evidence, the witness, where was it? Alas! ... I could not
find them. It seemed to me that I was still on the eve of the
final check, but that I could never get there.

Of the life of Willie Hughes, I quickly passed to the thought of his
dead. I was curious what his end had been.

Perhaps he was one of those English actors who, in 1604,
went to Germany and performed before the Grand Duke Henry-
Julius of Brunswick [22], himself a valuable playwright, and
court of this strange Elector of Brandenburg who was so in love
of beauty that it has been said that he bought at his weight of amber the young
son of a Greek itinerant merchant and that he gave, in honor of
her slave, feasts throughout this terrible year of famine
1606-1607, when the people were dying of hunger in the streets of
city ​​and that, for seven months, not a drop of
rain.

Finally, we know that _Roméo et Juliette _ was played in Dresden in
1613, side by side with _Hamlet _and the _King Lear, _and this is
certainly not to anyone other than Willie Hughes who was, in 1615, handed over
the mask molded on the head of dead Shakespeare, by the hand of
someone from the English Ambassador's suite, - weak
memory of the great poet who had loved him so dearly.

Truly, there was something truly captivating about
the idea that the young actor, whose beauty had a vital element
in the realism and romanticism of Shakespeare's art, had
was the first to bring the seed of the new
civilization and was, in this way, the precursor of
this _aufklarung, _or illumination, of the eighteenth century, this
splendid movement which, although initiated by Lessing and Herder and
carried to its fullest and perfection by Goethe, was not for
a small part helped by another actor, Friedrich Schroeder, who
awakened popular consciousness and, in defiance of the passions
feints and mimicry methods of the scene, showed the link
intimate and vital between life and literature.

If this were so, - and there was no proof that it was
otherwise - it was not unlikely that Willie Hughes was a
English comedians _ (mimae quidam ex Britannia, _like the
calls the old chronicle) who were slaughtered at Nuremberg in
a sudden uprising of the populace and secretly buried in
a small vineyard, outside the city, by a few young people "who
had enjoyed their performances and some of whom had
dreamed of being educated in the mysteries of Art Nouveau. " Certainly,
there could not be a more suitable place for one to whom
Shakespeare had said:

"_You are all my art," _

than this little vine beyond the city walls. Because was it
not Dionysus pains that tragedy was born? Did we not have
not for the first time heard flourish on the lips of
Sicilian winegrowers the clear laughter of comedy, with its gaiety
carefree and her lively repartees. And what's more, the stain
purple and red wine foaming on the face and hands
hadn't she given the first suggestion of charm and
fascination with disguise, the desire to strip
personality, the sense of the value of objectivity showing
thus in the rough beginnings of art.

All in all, wherever he was buried, whether in the small
vineyard at the gates of the Gothic city, or in some sad
London church cemetery amid the hustle and bustle of
our great city, no pompous monument marked the place where
he was resting.

His real grave, as Shakespeare had said, was the verse of
poet, his true monument the durability of the drama.

So it was with others, whose beauty gave a
new driving force in their time.

The Ivorian body of the slave of Bithynia rots in the mud
green of the Nile and the dust of the young Athenian strews the yellow
hills of Ceramics, but Antinous lives in sculpture and
Charmides in philosophy.

III

Three weeks had passed.

I resolved to give Erskine an ardent appeal, inviting him to
do justice to the memory of Cyril Graham and to give to the world
his wonderful interpretation of _Sonnets, _the only one
interpretation that provides an explanation of the problem.

I have no copy of my letter, I regret to say it, and I
couldn't get my hands on the original, but I remember that
I walked all over the land and covered sheets of
paper of the passionate repetition of arguments and proofs that
the study had suggested to me.

It seemed to me that I was not only restoring Cyril Graham the
due place in literary history, but that I
redeemed the honor of Shakespeare himself from the hateful memory
of a trivial criticism.

I put all my enthusiasm into the letter; I put in the letter
all my faith, but I hadn't shipped it sooner than
produced a curious reaction in me.

It seemed to me that I had abdicated my faculties in
believing in the Willie Hughes hypothesis, that something had
extinguished in me - which was correct - and that I was now
perfectly indifferent to the whole question.

What had happened then?

It's hard to say.

Maybe I had exhausted my ardor even looking for it
the perfect expression? Emotional forces, as well as
forces of physical life, have their express limits.

Maybe the simple effort of converting someone to a theory
complicated, does it imply some form of renunciation of
ability to believe?

Maybe I was just tired of the whole problem and, my
enthusiasm having been consumed, my sanity returned to its own
judgment without passion?

Whatever the cause, and I do not claim to provide any
explanation, - there was no doubt that Willie Hughes was
suddenly became for me a pure myth, an idle dream,
the childish imagination of a young man, who, like many
fiery minds, was more concerned with convincing others than
to be convinced himself.

As I had said to Erskine in my letter very
unjust and very bitter, I decided to go see him once and
apologize to him for my behavior.

In accordance with this resolution, the next morning I pushed
to Bird Cagewalk.

I found Erskine sitting in his bookcase, the false portrait of
Willie Hughes in front of him.

“My dear Erskine,” I cried. I come to apologize to you.

- Apologize to me! he said. And why?

- For my letter, I replied.

"You have nothing to regret in your letter," he said. At
on the contrary, you have rendered me the greatest service
your power. You have shown me that Cyril Graham's theory
is perfectly solid.

- You don't mean to say that you believe in Willie Hugues?
I exclaimed.

- And why not? he replied. You have shown me
his existence. Do you think that I do not know how to take a prize
the value of the obvious?

Sinking into an armchair, I moan:

- But there is no evidence here. When i got you
I wrote, I was under the influence of quite an enthusiasm
stupid. I had been moved by the story of Cyril Graham's death,
fascinated by the romanticism of his theory, conquered by the
marvelous and novelty of its glimpses. I now see that
the theory is based on an illusion. The only proof of
the existence of Willie Hughes is this portrait that is there in front
you and this portrait is a fake. So do not let yourself
lead by pure sentiment in this matter. Although the
novel can argue in favor of Willie Hughes' theory, the
Reason has delivered a final judgment against it.

- I don't understand you, said Erskine, looking at me with
stupefaction. What! yourself, you convinced me by your
letter that Willie Hughes was an absolute reality. Why did
you changed your belief? Or whatever you told me
was it just a game?

- I can't explain that to you, I replied, but I see
now that there is really nothing to say in favor of
the interpretation of Cyril Graham. The _Sonnets _are addressed to
Lord Pembroke. For heaven's sake don't waste your time
in a mad attempt to find a young actor from
the time of Elizabeth which never existed and to make this
phantom puppet the center of the great cycle of _Sonnets _de
Shakespeare.

"I see you don't understand the theory," he replied.

- That I do not understand her, my dear Erskine! I cried. But
I feel it, as if I had invented it. Surely my letter to you
proves that not only do I own the whole question, but that
I brought my contingent of proofs of all kinds. The only
flaw in the theory is that it presupposes the existence of
person whose existence is under discussion. If we admit
that there was in Shakespeare's company a young actor by the name
of Willie Hughes, it is not difficult to be the subject of
_Sonnets, _but as we know there was no actor
this name in the Globe Theater Company, it is unnecessary to
push further research.

"But that's exactly what we don't know," Erskine said. he
is absolutely true that his name is not on the list
given on the first page, but as Cyril indicated, it is
rather a proof of the existence of Willie Hughes than a proof
contrary if we remember that he gave up with treachery
Shakespeare for the benefit of a dramatic rival.

We reasoned about it for hours, but nothing
I could tell, couldn't get Erskine to give up his trust in
the interpretation of Cyril Graham.

He told me he claimed to dedicate his life to proving the theory and
that he was determined to do justice to Cyril's memory
Graham.

I begged him. I taunted him, begged him, but it didn't help
nothing.

Anyway, we parted, not quite angry, but
certainly with a shadow between us.

He thought I was narrow-minded; I thought he was crazy.

When I went to his house again, his servant told me
that he had left for Germany.

Two years later, as I entered my club, the valet
concierge service handed me a letter bearing the
stamp from abroad.

It was from Erskine who wrote to me from the Hotel d'Angleterre in
Cannes.

When I read his letter I was filled with horror, although I did not
could really believe that he would be foolish enough to perform his
resolution.

The main point of his letter was that he had tried by all
the possible ways to verify Willie Hughes' theory and
that he had failed, just as Cyril Graham had given his life
for this theory, he had resolved to give his own, also
for the same cause.

The conclusion of the letter was this:

"I still believe in Willie Hughes and when you will receive
this i will be dead by my own hand for willie's sake
Hughes, for him and for Cyril Graham whom I made to die by
my stupid skepticism and my ignorant lack of faith.

“The truth was once revealed to you. You rejected it.

"Now you are stained with the blood of two men: do not
divert more. "

It was a horrible time.

I was sick with grief and yet I couldn't believe it.

Dying for your religious beliefs is the worst use
can do with his life; but die for a literary theory
it seemed impossible.

I looked at the date.

The letter had been written a week before.

Some bad luck had kept me from going to the club
for a few days: There, I could have received it in time to
save him.

Maybe it wasn't too late.

I ran home. I packed my bags and left Charing-
Cross by night train.

The trip was unbearable. I thought I would never get there.

As soon as I landed, I ran to the Hotel d'Angleterre.

I am told that Erskine had been buried two days before at
English cemetery.

There was something horribly about all of this tragedy
grotesque.

I say all kinds of inconsistent words in the hotel lobby
and they looked at me with an air of curiosity.

Suddenly Lady Erskine, in great mourning, crossed the hall.

When she saw me she came to me, whispered a few words on her
poor son and burst into tears.

I led her to her living room.

An old gentleman took care of her: it was the English doctor.

We talked a lot about Erskine, but I didn't say a word
motives that had driven him to suicide. It was obvious that he
had told his mother nothing of the reason that had brought him to
so fatal, so crazy act.

Finally Lady Erskine rose and said:

- Georges left you something as a souvenir. This is
something he held in high esteem. I'll give it to you.

As soon as she left the room I turned to the doctor
and tell him:

- What a terrible shock this death must have been for lady
Erskine. I'm surprised that she puts up with it the way she did.

- Oh! Months ago she was warned of what was going to be
happen, he replied.

- She had been warned for months! I cried, but how
has she not turned him away? How did she not watch over
him? He must have been crazy.

The doctor looked at me with wide eyes.

- I don't understand what you mean, he said.

- Bah! I cried, if a mother knows her son is going
commit suicide ...

- Commit suicide! he replied. Poor Erskine did not
suicide. He died of consumption ... He came to die here.
As soon as I saw him, I realized that there was no hope. A
lung was almost lost; the other was very hurt. Three
days before his death, he asked me if there was no more hope.
I told him frankly that there was none and that he
had only a few days to live. He wrote some
letters. He was quite resigned and kept his knowledge
until its last hour.

At that moment Lady Erskine entered the room, the fatal portrait
by Willie Hughes by hand.

- When George was about to expire, he begged me to give you this,
she says.

As I took the portrait, her tears fell on my hands.

The portrait is now in my library where it is admired
of my artist friends. They decided it's not a Clouet
but an Oudry [23].

I never bothered to tell them his true story.
But sometimes when I look at it I think there really is
much to say about the Willie Hughes theory of _Sonnets _de
Shakespeare.


THE PHANTOM OF CANTERVILLE [24]

New hylo-idealist

I

When Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the Minister of America, made
the acquisition of Canterville-Chase, everyone tells him that he
was doing this a great stupidity, because we had no doubts
that the place was not haunted.

Besides, Lord Canterville himself, as a man of honesty
more scrupulous, had made a point of making known the
thing to Mr. Otis, when they came to discussing the terms.

`` We ourselves, '' said Lord Canterville, `` we did not care about
have lived in this place since the time when my great aunt, the duchess
Dowager of Bolton, was taken from a failure caused by
the terror she felt, and from which she never recovered
altogether, feeling two skeletal hands resting on his
shoulders, as she dressed for dinner.

I feel compelled to tell you, Mr. Otis, that the ghost has been seen
by several members of my family who still live, as well as
by the rector of the parish, the Reverend Auguste Dampier, who
is an Fellow of King's College, Oxford.

After the tragic accident to the Duchess, none of our
young domestic workers did not agree to stay with us, and
Lady Canterville has often been deprived of sleep as a result of
mysterious noises which came from the corridor and from the library.

- Mylord, replied the minister, I will take the furniture and
ghost on inventory. I come from a modern country, where we
can have whatever money can provide, and
with our young and sassy fellows who do the hundred blows in
the old world, kidnapping your best actors, your best
prima-donnas I'm sure if there was still a real ghost
in Europe, we would soon have offered it to us for the
put in one of our public museums, or to walk it on
great roads as a phenomenon.

`` The ghost exists, I fear, '' said Lord Canterville,
smiling, although he stood firm against the offers of your
enterprising impresarios. It has been over three centuries
known. It dates, exactly, from 1574, and never fails to
show when there is going to be a death in the family.

- Bah! the family doctor does not act otherwise, lord
Canterville. But, sir, a ghost cannot exist, and I
does not assume that the laws of nature have exceptions
in favor of the English aristocracy.

- Certainly, you are very kind in America, said Lord
Canterville, who did not quite understand the last remark
by M. Otis. But please have a ghost in the room
house, everything is for the best. Just remember that I
warned you.

A few weeks later the purchase was made, and towards the end of
the season, the minister and his family traveled to Canterville.

Mrs Otis, who, under the name of Miss Lucretia R. Tappan, of the West
52nd Street, had been an illustrious _belle_ of New York, was still
a very beautiful woman, middle aged, with beautiful eyes and a profile
superb.

Many American ladies, when they leave their homeland,
pretend to be people with a disease
chronic, and imagine that this is one of the forms of
distinction in Europe, but Mrs Otis had never fallen into
this mistake.

She had a magnificent constitution, and an abundance
extraordinary vitality.

To tell the truth, she was quite English in many ways.
view, and one could have correctly cited it to support the thesis that
we all have in common with America in our time, except
language can be heard.

His eldest son, baptized Washington by his parents in a while
of patriotism that he never ceased to deplore, was a young man
blond, pretty well turned, who had posed as a candidate for the
diplomacy by driving the cotillion to the Newport Casino during
three seasons in a row, and even in London he was considered a
dancer offline.

Its only weaknesses were the gardenias and the peerage. To that
close, it made perfect sense.

Miss Virginia E. Otis was a slender, fifteen-year-old girl
graceful as a fawn, with a beautiful air of freedom in her
big blue eyes.

She was a wonderful Amazon, and on her pony she had a
once beat old Lord Bilton in a race, twice
around the park, and gaining a length and a half, just in front
of the statue of Achilles, which had caused a delirious
enthusiasm in the young Duke of Cheshire, so much so that he
immediately proposed to marry her, and that her guardians last
to send it that very evening to Eton, all awash in tears.

After Virginia, there were the twins, commonly known as
name of Stars and Bands, because they were constantly taken
sport.

They were lovely children, and with the worthy minister, the
only true Republicans in the family.

As Canterville-Chase is seven miles from Ascot, the most
nearby, Mr. Otis had telegraphed that they would come and collect them.
car discovered, and we set off in the
very cheerful.

It was a lovely July evening, where the air was everything
perfumed with the scent of pines.

From time to time, we could hear a woodpecker cooing loudly
soft voice, or we caught a glimpse, in the thickness and
rustle of the fern the burnished gold plastron of some pheasant.

Little squirrels watched them from the top of the beech trees, on their
passage; rabbits scampered through the thickets, or through-
above the foamy mounds, raising their white tails.

However, as soon as we entered avenue de Canterville-Chase, the
sky was suddenly covered with clouds. A singular silence seemed
win the whole atmosphere. A great flight of crows passed without
noise above their heads, and before we got to the
house, a few large drops of rain had fallen.

On the steps an old woman stood to receive them
suitably dressed in black silk dress, hat and apron
white.

It was Mrs Umney, the housekeeper, that Mrs Otis, on the alert
Lady Canterville, had consented to keep in her
situation.

She bowed deeply to the family as we stepped down
land, and said in a weird old-fashioned accent:

- Welcome to Canterville-Chase.

We followed her, crossing a beautiful Tudor-style hall, until
in the library, a long, vast room which ended with
a large stained-glass window.

Tea awaited them.

Then, when we got rid of the travel effects, we
sat down, we began to look around, while Mrs. Umney
hastened.

Suddenly Mrs. Otis' gaze fell on a red spot
dark on the parquet, right next to the fireplace, and without
give no account of her words, she said to Mrs. Umney:

- I'm afraid something has been spilled there.

"Yes, ma'am," replied Mrs. Umney in a low voice. Blood was
prevalent in this place.

- It's horrible! cried Mrs. Otis. I don't want stains
blood in a living room. We must remove that immediately.

The old woman smiles, and in her same low, mysterious voice,
she replied:

- It is the blood of Lady Eleonor of Canterville, who was killed in
this place even by her own husband, Sir Simon of Canterville, in
1575. Sir Simon survived him nine years, and suddenly disappeared in
very mysterious circumstances. Her body was never
found, but his guilty soul continues to haunt the house. The
bloodstain was greatly admired by tourists and others
people, but removing it ... it's impossible.

"This is all nonsense," cried Washington Otis. The product
stain remover, champion Pinkerton's incomparable cleaner will
disappear in the blink of an eye.

And before the horrified housekeeper could intervene, he
had knelt down, and was quickly rubbing the floor with a small
stick of a substance that looked like black cosmetic.

A few moments later, the stain was gone without leaving any
trace.

"I knew the Pinkerton would be right about it," he cried.
in a tone of triumph, gazing round the
family in awe.

But hardly had he said these words than a formidable flash
lit up the dark room, and that a terrible rolling thunder
everyone stood up, except Mrs. Umney, who passed out.

- What a terrible climate! said the minister quietly, lighting
a long cigar. I imagine the land of the ancestors is so
crowded, that there is not enough good weather to
everybody. I have always been of the opinion that what the English have
the best thing to do is to emigrate.

- My dear Hiram, cried Mrs. Otis, what can we do with
woman passing out?

- We will deduct this from his wages with the breakage, replied the
minister. After that, she won't pass out.

And, indeed, Mrs. Umney was not long in coming to her senses.

However, it was evident that she was deeply upset.
fills; and in a stern voice she warned Mrs. Otis that she had to
expect some trouble in the house.

- I saw things with my own eyes ... Sir, she said,
make a Christian's hair stand on end. And during
nights, and nights, I could not sleep, because of
terrible facts happening here.

Nevertheless Mrs Otis and his wife certified to the good woman, with
liveliness that they had no fear of ghosts.

The old housekeeper after calling the blessing of the
Providence over his new master and his new mistress, and
made arrangements to increase his wages, went home
she hobbling.

II

The storm raged throughout the night, but it did not
produced nothing remarkable.

The next day, when we went down for lunch, we found ourselves on the
parquet the terrible stain.

- I do not think it is the fault of the _Cleaner without rival_,
Washington said, because I've tried it on all kinds of stains. It
must be the ghost.

As a result, he erased the stain with a few rubs.

Two days later, she had reappeared.

And yet the library had been locked, and Mrs. Otis
had taken the key upstairs.

From then on, the family began to take an interest in the matter.

Mr. Otis was about to believe he had been too
dogmatic by denying the existence of ghosts.

Mrs Otis expressed her intention to join the Psychic Society,
and Washington prepared a long letter to MM. Myers and Podmore [25],
about the persistence of bloodstains when they
result from a crime.

That night removed all doubts about the objective existence of
ghosts.

It had been a hot and sunny day.

The family took advantage of the cool evening to make a
car ride.

We didn't come home until nine o'clock, and ate a light meal.

The conversation was by no means about ghosts, so
that even the most basic waiting conditions were missing
and receptivity which so often precede the phenomena
psychic.

The subjects we discussed, as I later learned from
Mr. Otis, were simply those who fueled the conversation of
Cultured Americans, who belong to the upper classes,
for example the immense superiority of Miss Janny Davenport over
Sarah Bernhardt, as an actress; the difficulty of finding corn
green, buckwheat pancakes, polenta, even in
best English houses, the importance of Boston in
the expansion of the universal soul, the advantages of the system which
involves checking in travelers' luggage; then the sweetness
New York accent, compared to the drawling London tone.

There was no question of the supernatural. We did not do the
slightest allusion, even indirect, to Sir Simon of Canterville.

At eleven o'clock the family withdrew.

At half past eleven all the lights were off.

Moments later Mr. Otis was awakened by a noise
singular in the corridor, outside his room. This
sounded like a sound of iron, and got closer and closer
more.

He stood up, lighted a match, and looked
time.

It was just one o'clock.

Mr. Otis was quite calm. He felt his pulse, and didn't
not at all agitated.

The singular noise continued, at the same time that
distinctly hear the sound of footsteps.

Mr. Otis put on his slippers, took in his toiletries
a small elongated vial and opened the door.

He saw right in front of him, in the pale moonlight, an old
terrible looking man.

The eyes looked like red coals. A long
gray hair fell in lumpy strands over her shoulders. His
clothes, of an antique cut, were soiled and torn. Of its
from his wrists and ankles hung heavy chains and
rusty shackles.

- My dear sir, said Mr. Otis, let me beg you
urge to oil these chains. I brought you on purpose
a small bottle of the Tammany-Soleil-Levant Greaser. One says
that a single application is very effective, and on the envelope it
there are several certificates from the most eminent theologians in
we who attest to it. I'll leave it here for you next to the
candlesticks, and I will be happy to provide you with some
more, if you wish.

With these words, the Minister of the United States placed the vial on a
marble table, closed the door, and went back to bed.

For a few moments, the ghost of Canterville remained
motionless with indignation.

Then throwing the vial angrily on the waxed floor, he fled
through the corridor, uttering hollow growls, and
emitting a singular green glow.

However, as he arrived at the great oak staircase, a door
suddenly opened.

Two small figures draped in white appeared, and one
heavy pillow brushed her head.

Obviously, there was no time to waste, too, using
as a means of escape the fourth dimension of space, it
vanished through the whitewash, and the house resumed its
tranquility.

Arrived in a little secret alcove on the left wing, he leaned back
to a moonbeam to catch my breath, and began to think
to realize his situation.

Never in a brilliant career that had lasted three hundred years
immediately, he had not been insulted so rudely.

He remembered the Dowager Duchess whom he had thrown into a
crisis of terror as she contemplated herself, covered with
lace and diamonds in front of the mirror; the four good ones, that he
had panicked in hysterical convulsions, just in their
making faces between the curtains of one of the guest rooms;
the rector of the parish whose candle he had blown out, during
that he was coming back from the library at a late hour and who
had since become a frequent client of Sir William Gull, and a
martyr of all kinds of nervous disorders; the old lady
de Trémouillac, who woke up early, had seen in the
armchair, near the fire, a skeleton busy reading the newspaper
that she was writing; and had been ordered to stay in bed for
six months with a cerebral fever attack.

Once recovered, she had reconciled with the Church, and had
severed all relations with this proven skeptic, M. de Voltaire.

He also remembered the terrible night when that rascal Lord
Canterville had been found grumbling in his bathroom,
the jack of spades stuck in his throat, and had confessed that
using this same card, he had tricked from Charles Fox, at
Crockford, the sum of 10,000 pounds. He swore that the ghost
had made him swallow this card.

All his great exploits came to mind.

He saw the sommelier pass by who had burned his brains out to
to have seen a green hand drumming on the glass; and the beautiful lady
Steelfield, who was condemned to wear a necklace of
black velvet to hide the mark of five fingers printed as
hot iron on his white skin, and who ended up drowning
in the fishpond at the end of the Allée du Roi.

And full of the egotistical enthusiasm of a true artist, he
reviewed his most famous roles.

He gave himself a bitter smile, recalling his last appearance.
in the role of "Reuben the Red or the strangled infant" his
beginning in that of "Gibéon the Skinny Vampire of the
Bexley ”, and the _furore_ which he had excited by a charming
June evening, just by bowling with your own
bones on the lawn tennis court.

And all this to achieve what?

Miserable modern Americans came to offer him the
_Rising Sun Mark Greaser! _ And they threw
head pillows!

It was absolutely intolerable.

Furthermore, history teaches us that no ghost was ever treated
in this way.

The conclusion he drew from this was that he had to take his
revenge, and he remained until daybreak in an attitude of
deep meditation.

III

The next day, when lunch brought the Otis family together, we discussed
at some length on the ghost.

The United States Minister was, of course, a little offended by
see that his offer had not been approved:

- I have no intention of hurting the ghost
personal, he said, and I admit that given the long duration of his
stay in the house, it was not at all polite to throw him
pillows to the head ...

I am sorry to have to say that this observation so correct
caused the twins to burst into laughter.

`` But on the other hand, '' continued Mr. Otis, `` if he persists for everything
good not to use the Soleil Levant grease nipple, it
We will have to remove his chains. There would be no more
way to sleep with all this noise at the bedroom door
sleep.

Nevertheless, during the rest of the week, we were not disturbed.

The only thing that attracted any attention was the
continual reappearance of the bloodstain on the floor of the
library.

It was certainly very strange, especially since the door was
always locked, in the evening, by Mr. Otis, and that
carefully closed windows.

The color changes that the stain underwent, comparable to
those of a chameleon, also produced frequent comments.

Some mornings she was dark red, almost red
Indian: other times it was vermilion; then a purple
rich, and once when we went down to pray
in accordance with the simple rites of the free Episcopal Church
Reformed in America, it was found to be a beautiful emerald green.

Of course these kaleidoscope permutations amused a lot.
the troop, and we made bets every evening without hindrance.

The only person who took no part in the joke
was little Virginia.

For some reason ignored, she was still keenly
impressed at the sight of the bloodstain, and she was very close
to cry the morning the stain appeared emerald green.

The ghost made its second appearance on a Sunday night.

Shortly after we were in bed we were suddenly alarmed by a
a huge crash that was heard in the hall.

We hurried down, and found that a full suit of armor
had detached itself from its support, and had fallen on the flagstones.

Nearby, seated in a high-backed chair, the
Canterville's ghost rubbed his knees with a
expression of intense pain painted on the face.

The twins, who had brought their blowpipes, he
immediately threw two balls with this glance
that can only be acquired by long and patient exercises
about the writing teacher.

Meanwhile, the United States Minister was holding the ghost
in the line of his revolver, and in accordance with the label
Californian, summoned him to raise his hands in the air. The ghost
suddenly stood up, uttering a cry of savage fury, and
dissipated in the midst of them like a fog, extinguishing in the
passing the Washington Otis candle, and leaving everyone
in the most complete darkness.

When he was at the top of the stairs, he took possession of himself-
even, and decided to launch his famous chime of bursts of laughter
satanic.

On many occasions he had experienced the usefulness of this
process.

It is said that it made the city turn gray in one night.
Lord Raker's wig.

It is certain that it did not take more to decide
the three French governesses to resign before
to have finished their first month.

As a result he let out his most horrible laugh,
gradually waking up the echoes under the ancient vaults,
but hardly had the terrible sounds died out
a door opened, and Mrs. Otis appeared in a light blue dress.

- I fear, she said, that you are indisposed, and I have
brought a vial of Doctor Dobell's tincture. If it's a
indigestion, it will do you a lot of good.

The ghost looked at her with eyes blazing with fury, and began to
able to change into a big black dog.

It was a trick that had earned him a well-deserved reputation, and
to which the family doctor always attributed the idiocy
incurable from Lord Canterville's uncle, the Honorable Thomas
Horton.

But the sound of approaching footsteps made him stagger in his
cruel resolution, and he contented himself with surrendering slightly
phosphorescent.

Then he passed out, after uttering a sepulchral groan,
because the twins were going to catch up with him.

Returning home, he felt broken, in the grip of the most violent
restlessness.

The vulgarity of twins, the gross materialism of Mrs. Otis,
all this was certainly very annoying, but what humiliated him
more, is that he did not have the strength to wear the
mesh.

He had counted on making an impression even on modern Americans,
make them shiver at the sight of an armored specter, if not by
reasonable grounds, at least out of deference to their poet
national Longfellow [26], whose graceful and attractive poems
had often helped him kill time, while the
Canterville were in London.

Besides, it was his own armor.

He had worn it with great success at the Kenilworth tournament, and
had been warmly complimented by the Virgin Queen herself.

But when he wanted to put it on, he had been absolutely
crushed by the weight of the enormous breastplate, the steel helm. he
had fallen heavily on the stone slabs, had
cruelly scratched the knees, and bruised the right wrist.

For several days he was very ill, and barely did
a few steps away from home, just enough to
keep the blood stain in good condition.

Nevertheless, by dint of care, he eventually recovered, and he
decided to make a third attempt to stop the minister
from the United States and his family.

He chooses for his return to the stage on Friday August 17, and
spent much of that day reviewing
of his costumes.

His choice finally settled on a hat with raised brim on one side
and folded down from the other, with a red feather, a frayed shroud
on the sleeves and the collar, finally a rusty dagger.

Towards evening, a violent storm of rain broke out.

The wind was so strong that it shook and threw doors and
windows in the old house.

In short, it was the time it needed.

Here is what he planned to do.

He would go quietly to Washington Otis' room, he
would jabber sentences, standing at the foot of the bed, and he
thrice his dagger in his throat, to the sound of
muffled music.

He was particularly angry with Washington, for he knew
perfectly well that it was Washington who had the constant habit
to remove the famous Canterville bloodstain, by the use of
Incomparable Cleaner from Pinkerton.

After having reduced the reckless to a state of abject terror,
the carefree young man, he then had to enter the
room, occupied by the Minister of the United States and his wife.

Then he would put a slimy hand on Mrs. Otis' forehead,
while in a hollow voice he would whisper in his ear
husband trembling the terrible secrets of the mass grave.

As far as little Virginia was concerned, he was not quite
fact fixed.

She had never insulted him in any way. She was pretty
and sweet.

A few low growls from the cupboard, it
seemed more than enough, and if it wasn't enough for the
wake up, he would go so far as to pull the quilt with his
fingers shaken by paralysis.

For the twins, he was quite determined to give them a
lesson, the first thing to do would certainly be to sit on
their breasts, so as to produce the suffocating sensation of
nightmare. Then taking advantage of what their beds were very
close together, it would rise up in the free space between them, under
the appearance of a green corpse, cold as ice, until
let them be paralyzed by terror.

Then, abruptly throwing down his shroud, he would be on all fours
around the room, in a skeleton whitened by time, with a
eye rolling in the orbit, also playing the "Daniel the Mute or the
Skeleton of the Suicide ”, a role in which he had in many
occasions produced a great effect. He considered it as good as
in his other role "Martin the Maniac or the Masked Mystery".

At half past ten he heard the family coming up
sleep.

For a few moments he was worried by the tumultuous
bursts of laughter from the twins who, obviously, with their crazy mirth
schoolchildren, had fun before going to bed, but at eleven
a quarter past all was silent again, and when the bell rang
midnight, he set off.

The owl bumped against the window panes. The
crow croaked in the hollow of an old yew tree, and the wind
moaned as it wandered around the house like a lost soul,
but the Otis family slept without realizing the fate that
was waiting for him.

He could distinctly perceive the minister's regular snoring
of the United States over the sound of rain and thunderstorm.

He slipped stealthily through the whitewash. A bad smile
loomed over her cruel and wrinkled mouth, and the moon hid her
figure behind a cloud as he passed the big bay
ogival where were represented in blue and gold his own
coat of arms and those of his murdered wife.

He was still going, slipping like a fatal shadow, which seemed
make the darkness itself recede in horror in its path.

Once he thought he heard someone calling; he stopped himself,
but it was only a barking dog in the Red Farm.

He started walking again, muttering strange sixteenth-century oaths.
century, and occasionally wielding the rusty dagger in
the midnight breeze.

Finally he came to the corner of the passage leading to the bedroom
of the unfortunate Washington.

He paused there briefly.

The wind stirred its long gray locks around her head,
bypassed in grotesque and fantastic folds the unspeakable horror
of the corpse shroud.

Then the clock struck the quarter.

He understood that the time had come.

He sneered at himself, and turned the corner. But hardly had-
he takes this step, that he stepped back, uttering a pitiful moan
of terror hiding his pale face in his long hands
bone.

Right in front of him stood a horrible specter, motionless as
a statue, monstrous as a madman's dream.

The head of the specter was bald and shiny, the face round,
chubby, and white; a hideous laugh seemed to have twisted them
features in an eternal grimace; through the eyes came a flood
scarlet red light. The mouth looked like a vast well of
fire, and a hideous garment like that of Simon himself, draped
the titanic form of its silent snow.

On the chest was fixed a cupboard bearing an inscription in
strange, ancient characters.

Perhaps it was a sign of infamy, on which were inscribed
awful crimes, a terrible list of crimes.

Finally, in his right hand he held a steel scimitar
sparkling.

As he had never seen ghosts until this day, he felt
of course a terrible fear, and after having quickly thrown a
second glance at the dreadful ghost, he returned to his room
long steps, stumbling in the shroud in which he was wrapped.

He ran down the corridor, and finally dropped
the rusty dagger in the minister's riding boots, where the
the next day the butler found him.

Once back in the asylum of his withdrawal, he let himself down
on a small sling bed, and hid his face under the sheets.
But, after a while, the indomitable courage of the Cantervilles
of old awoke in him, and he resolved to go
talk to the other ghost as soon as it gets light.

Consequently, as soon as dawn had silvered with its touch the
hills, he returned to where he had sighted for the
first time the hideous ghost.

He said to himself that after all two ghosts are better than one
alone, and with the help of his new friend, he could
victoriously with the twins. But when he was right side up,
he found himself in the presence of a terrible spectacle.

Something had obviously happened to the specter, for the
light had completely disappeared from its sockets.

The sparkling scimitar had fallen from his hand, and he stood
leaning against the wall in a constrained and inconvenient attitude.

Simon rushed forward and grabbed him in his arms, but what
was his horror, seeing the head come off, and roll on the
ground, the body assume the supine posture, and he noticed that
hugged a curtain of coarse white canvas, and that a broom, a
kitchen cleaver, and a hollowed out turnip lay at his feet.

Not understanding anything about this curious transformation, he seizes
with a feverish hand the sign, and read it, thanks to the gray glow
in the morning, these terrible words:

Here is the Otis Ghost
The one true and authentic Spirit
Beware of imitations
All others are fakes

And the whole truth flashed to him like a flash.

He had been fooled, mystified, played!

The expression that characterized the look of old Cantervilles
reappeared in his eyes; he clenched his toothless jaws, and lifting
above his head, his withered hands, he swore, in accordance with
the picturesque formula of the ancient school, that when Chanteclair
would have sounded its merry horn call twice, exploits
bloody bloodshed would take place, and that the Murder at the silent foot
would come out of retirement.

He had hardly finished enunciating this dreadful oath,
a distant farm with a red-tiled roof, a rooster crowing.

He gave a prolonged, slow, bitter laugh, and waited. He waited
one hour, then another, but for some mysterious reason,
the rooster did not crow another time.

Finally, around half past seven, the arrival of the maids, the
forced to leave his terrible faction, he returned home,
with a proud step, thinking of his vain oath, and of his vain
missed project.

There he consulted various works on the ancient knighthood, including the
reading interested him extraordinarily, and he saw that
Chanteclair had always sung twice, on occasions when
this oath had been used.

- May the devil take this bird animal! he whispered. In
long ago, with my good lance, I would have swooped down on him. I
pierced his throat, and forced him to sing a
another time for me, even if he died!

Having said this, he retired to a comfortable lead coffin, and there
stayed until evening.

IV

The next day the ghost felt very weak, very weary.

The terrible turmoil of the past four weeks
were starting to take effect.

His nervous system was completely upset, and he
jumped at the slightest noise.

He kept the room for five days, and finally made up his mind to
make a concession on the bloodstain section of the parquet floor
from the library. Since the Otis family didn't want it,
it was that she did not deserve it, that was clear. These people
were obviously located on a lower plane, material
of existence, and perfectly incapable of appreciating the value
symbolic of sensitive phenomena.

The question of ghost appearances, the development of
astral bodies, were really for her something quite
foreign, and which was really not within his reach.

It was for him a rigorous duty to show himself in the
corridor once a week, and to stammer by the large
ogival window on the first and third Wednesday of each
months, and he saw no honorable way and to evade
its obligation.

It was true that his life had been very criminal, but from a
on the other hand, he was very conscientious in everything
concerned the supernatural.

Also, the three Saturdays that followed, he went through
custom the corridor between midnight and three in the morning, in
taking all possible precautions not to be heard or
seen.

He took off his boots, walked as lightly as he could on
the old worm-eaten planks, wrapped in a large coat
of black velvet, and did not forget to use the Lubricator
Rising Sun to oil its chains. I am bound to recognize
that it was only after much hesitation that he decided to
adopt the latter means of protection.

Nevertheless, one night, during the family dinner, he slipped
in Mr. Otis' bedroom, and stole the vial.

He felt somewhat humiliated at first, but later he
was reasonable enough to understand that this invention deserved
great praise, and that it concurred to some extent,
to promote his plans.

Nevertheless, despite everything, he was not immune to teasing.

We never failed to stretch across the rope corridor
that caused him to stumble in the dark, and once he
had dressed up for the role of "Isaac the Black, or the Hunter of
Hogsley Wood ”, he fell heavily, for having set foot
on a slide of soaped boards that the twins had
built from the threshold of the Tapestry Room to the top
of the oak staircase.

This last affront put him in such a rage that he resolved to
make a supreme effort to impose his dignity and strengthen his
social position, and formed the plan to visit, at night
next, to the insolent young Etonians, in his famous role of
"Rupert the reckless, or the Headless Count".

He had never shown himself in this disguise for sixty-
ten years, that is to say since he had, by this means, made
beautiful lady Barbara Modish such a fright that she had resumed
his promise of marriage to the grandfather of the current Lord Canterville,
and had fled to Gretna Green, with the handsome Jack Castletown, in
swearing that for nothing in the world she would not agree to ally
a family that tolerated the walks of such a horrible ghost,
on the terrace at dusk.

Poor Jack was subsequently killed in a duel by Lord Canterville
on Wandsworth meadow, and Lady Barbara died of grief at
Tunbridge Wells, before the end of the year, so that all
points of view, it was a great success.

Nonetheless, it was, if I may use a slang term
theatrical to apply it to one of the greatest mysteries of
supernatural world or, to speak a more scientific language, of the
higher world of nature, it was one of the most
difficult, and it took him a good three hours to complete his
preparations.

In the end, everything was ready, and he was very happy with his
cross-dressing.

The large leather riding boots, which were matched with
the costume was a little too large for him; and he couldn't
find only one of the two pommel pistols, but all in all,
he was very satisfied; and at a quarter past one he passed through
the whitewash, and went down to the corridor.

When he arrived near the room occupied by the twins, and
that I'll call the blue bedroom, because of the color
hangings, he found the door ajar.

In order to make a sensational entrance, he pushed her forcefully,
but he received a heavy jug full of water, which wet him
to the bones, and only missed his shoulder an inch or two.

At the same time, he heard bursts of muffled laughter, which
came from the large canopy bed.

His nervous system was shaken so violently that he went home
at full speed, and the next day he was bedridden with a big
cold.

The only consolation he found was that he had not brought
her head on him; without it the suites could have been much more
serious.

Now he gave up all hope of ever frightening this
tough family of Americans, and confined himself to walking the corridor
with selvedge slippers, the neck surrounded by a thick scarf,
for fear of drafts, and provided with a small arquebus,
in case he gets attacked by the twins.

It was around September 19 that he received the coup de grace.

He had come down the stairs to the great hall, sure
that in this place at least, he was safe from teasing;
and he amused himself there making satirical remarks on the great
portraits photographed by Sarow, of the United States Minister and
of his wife, who had taken the place of family portraits
of the Cantervilles.

He was simply but decently dressed in a long shroud strewn
cemetery mold. He had tied his jaw with a
band of yellow cloth, and carried a small lantern and a spade
gravedigger.

In short he was disguised in the costume of "Jonah the Unearthed or the
Chertsey Barn Corpse Thief. "

It was one of his most remarkable roles, and one in which
Canterville had the most reason to remember, because there
was the real cause of their quarrel with their neighbor,
Lord Rufford.

It was about a quarter past two in the morning, and as much as
could tell, no one was moving in the house. But as he
walked at leisure towards the library to see what
there was still a stain of blood, suddenly he saw leaping towards him with a
dark corner two figures who waved their arms madly
above their heads, and cried in his ears:

- Boom!

Seized with panic terror - which was quite natural in the
circumstance - he rushed to the side of the stairs; but there
found in front of Washington Otis, who was waiting for him armed with the great
watering can in the garden, so that it is surrounded on all sides by its
enemies, almost reduced to bay, it evaporated in the great
cast iron pan, which luckily for him was not lit, and
he made his way to his house, through pipes and
chimneys, and arrived at his home, in the terrible state where
had put dirt, turmoil, and despair.

He has never been seen on a night expedition since.

The twins were often on the lookout to surprise him,
and sowed walnut shells in the corridors every
evenings, to the annoyance of their parents and servants, but this
was in vain.

It was obvious her self-esteem had been so deep
hurt, that he didn't want to show himself anymore.

As a result, Mr. Otis returned to his great work on
the history of the democratic party, which he started three years ago
before.

Mrs Otis organized an extraordinary _clam-bake_ [27], which put everything
the country in rumor.

The children devoted themselves to the games of "lacrosse", from the side of the
poker, and other national amusements of America.

Virginia went horseback riding through the trails,
company of the young Duke of Cheshire, who had come to
Canterville the last week of vacation.

Everyone assumed the ghost was gone; so that
Mr. Otis wrote a letter to Lord Canterville informing him,
and received in response another letter in which he testified to him
pleasure that this news had caused him, and sent his most
sincere congratulations to the worthy wife of the Minister.

But the Otis were wrong.

The ghost was still at home; and although he should bear
very badly, he was not at all willing to stop there, especially
after learning that among the number of guests was the young
Duke of Cheshire, whose great uncle, Lord Francis Stilton, had
once bet with Colonel Carbury, that he would play dice
with the Ghost of Canterville.

The next day, we had found him lying on the floor of the room
of play, in a state of paralysis so complete, that despite the age
advanced that he reached, he could never utter any other word than
this one:

- Double six!

This story was well known in its day, although in respects
for the feelings of two noble families, we would have done everything
possible to suffocate it; and a detailed account of all that
concerns is found in the third volume of The Memoirs of Lord
Tattle on the Prince Regent and his friends_.

From then on, the ghost really wanted to prove that he did not have
lost his influence over the Stilton, with whom he was
moreover parent by marriage, his first cousin having married
in second marriage the Sieur de Bulkeley, from whom, as well as all the
world knows the Dukes of Cheshire descend in a straight line.

As a result, he made his preparations to show himself to the little one
in love with Virginia in her famous role of "Vampire Monk, or the
Benedictine bled white ”.

It was such a terrible sight, that when the old lady
Startuy, had seen him play, that is to say on New Years Eve
1764, she began by uttering the most piercing cries, which
resulted in a violent stroke and his death,
after three days, not without her having disinherited
Canterville and bequeathed all his money to his London pharmacist.

But at the last moment the terror inspired by the
twins, prevented him from leaving his room, and the little duo slept
in peace in the large four-poster bed crowned with feathers of the
Royal Chamber, and dreamed of Virginia.

V

A few days later, Virginia and her curly-haired lover
went for a horse ride in the meadows of
Brockley, where she tore her Amazon in such a grievous way,
crossing a hedge that when she came home, she
decided to go through the back stairs, so as not to be
point of view.

As she ran past the Tapestry Room,
with the door open, she thought she saw someone
inside.

She thought it was her mother's maid, because she
often came to work in this room.

She glanced at it to beg the woman to mend her
habit.

But to his immense surprise, it was Canterville's ghost in
no one!

He was sitting by the window, gazing at the scorched gold of
yellowing trees, fluttering in the air, reddened leaves
dancing madly all along the main avenue.

He had his head resting on his hand, and his whole attitude
revealed the deepest discouragement.

He really looked so downcast, so demolished, that the little one
Virginia, instead of giving in to her first movement, which had been
to run and shut himself up in his room, was filled with compassion,
and decided to go and console him.

She was so light, and he was so melancholy
deep, that he only noticed her presence when she
over there.

- I am very sorry for you, she said, but my brothers
return to Eton tomorrow.

So if you behave well, no one will torment you.

- It is absurd to ask me that I behave well, replied-
he staring in amazement at the little girl who had
emboldened to speak to him. It is absolutely absurd. he
I have to shake my chains, that I growl through the holes
locks, that I wander at night, if that's what you
by misbehaving mean. This is my only reason for being.

- This is not at all a reason to exist, and you have been well
nasty, do you know? Mrs Umney told us, on the very day of our
arrival, that you killed your wife.

- Yes, I agree, answered the ghost thoughtlessly. But
it was a family affair, and it was nobody's business.

- It's wrong to kill anyone, said Virginia, who had
sometimes a pretty little air of Puritan gravity, bequeathed by some
ancestor from New England.

- Oh! I cannot bear the cheap severity of morality
abstract. My wife was very ugly. She never stank
properly my cuffs and she couldn't hear a thing
cooked. Here, one day I killed a beautiful male in the woods
of Hogley, a beautiful two year old stag. You would never guess
how she served it to me. But let's not talk about it anymore. It's a
case over now, and I find it was not very
good from his brothers, to starve me even though
I killed her.

- Starve you! Oh! Mister the Phantom ... Mister
Simon, do I mean, are you hungry? i have a sandwich
in my cassette. Would you like it?

- No, thank you, I don't eat now; but it's all the same
very good of you, and you are much nicer than the
rest of your horrible, rude, vulgar, dishonest family?

- Enough! cried Virginia, stamping her foot. It is you who are
rude, and horrible, and vulgar. As for dishonesty, you
know that you stole my colors from my box for
renew that ridiculous bloodstain in the library. You
started by taking all my reds from me, including the
vermilion, so that it is impossible for me to make sunsets
of Sun. Then you took the emerald green, and the yellow of
chromium. Finally I only have indigo and white left
from China. I have only been able to do moonlight since then, which
still difficult to watch, and which are not at all
dressers to color. I never said anything about you, though
I was very bored, and it was all perfectly
ridiculous. Have we ever seen emerald green blood?

- Come on, said the ghost, not without gentleness, what am I
could do? It's a very difficult thing in the short time
to get real blood, and since your brother started
with his _Unparalleled Detacher_, I don't see why I
would not have used your colors to resist, As for the shade,
it's a matter of taste: for example, the Cantervilles have
blue blood, the bluest blood there is in England ...
But I know you Americans don't care
of those things.

- You don't know, and what the best you can do,
it is to emigrate, that will train your mind. My father will make a
pleasure to give you a free passage, and although there are
very high entry fees on spirits of all kinds, we do not
will not make difficulties at customs. All employees are
democrats. Once in New York, you can count on a great
success. I know lots of people who would give a hundred
thousand dollars to have a grandfather, and who would give
much more to have a family ghost.

- I think I wouldn't enjoy myself very much in America.

- It is probably because we have no ruins, no
curiosities, Virginia smirked.

- No ruins! no curiosities? replied the ghost. You have
your navy and your manners.

- Good evening, I'm going to ask dad to grant the twins
an additional week of vacation.

- Please, Miss Virginia, do not go away, cried.
he. I'm so lonely, so miserable, and I really don't know anymore
what to do. I would like to go to bed, and I cannot.

- But that's absurd; you just have to get to bed and
extinguish the candle. It is sometimes very difficult to stay
awake, especially in church, but it's not difficult at all
of sleeping. Here, babies can sleep very well; however,
they are not the smartest.

- It's been three hundred years since I slept, he said sadly,
which made Virginia open wide her beautiful blue eyes,
all astonished. It's been three hundred years since I slept, too
am I really tired.

Virginia assumed a very serious expression and her thin lips
waved like rose petals.

She walked over, knelt beside him, and considered the
aged and wrinkled figure of the ghost.

`` Poor, poor Phantom, '' she said in a low voice, `` isn't there a
where you could sleep?

- Far beyond the pine woods, he replied in a low voice.
and dreamy, there is a small garden. There the grass grows tall and
drue; there are seen the great white stars of the hemlock; the the
nightingale sings all night long. All night long he sings, and the
icy crystal moon peers over there, and the eyebrow stretches its arms out
giant above the sleepers.

Virginia's eyes were clouded with tears, and she
hid the face in his hands.

"You mean the Garden of Death," she whispered.

- Yes, Death, it must be so beautiful! Rest in the
soft brown earth, while the grass sway above
from your head, and listen to the silence! Have no yesterday, no
next day. Forget time, forget about life, be at peace.
You can help me, you can open wide
doors, of Death, because Love always accompanies you and
Love is stronger than death.

Virginia trembled. An icy shiver ran through her and during
silence reigned for a few moments.

It seemed to her that she was in a terrible dream.

Then the Phantom spoke again, in a voice that sounded like
the sighs of the wind:

- Have you ever read the old prophecy on the stained glass windows of the
library?

- Oh! often, cried the little girl, raising her eyes,
know very well. It is painted in curious golden letters, and
it is difficult to read. There are only six lines:

_When a young blonde girl knows how to bring_
_A prayer on the lips of the sinner, _
_When the sterile almond tree bears fruit_
_And a child will let her tears flow, _
_Then the whole house will be calm, _
_And peace will return to Canterville._

But I don't know what it means.

- It means you must cry with me over my sins,
because I have no tears, that you must pray with me
for my soul, because I have no faith and then if you have
always been sweet, good and tender, the Angel of Death will take
pity me. You will see terrible beings in the darkness,
and dire voices will whisper in your ears, but they will not
can do you no harm, because against the purity of a young
child the powers of Hell cannot prevail.

Virginia didn't answer, and the Phantom wrung his hands
the violence of his despair, while looking at the blond head who
leaned forward.

Suddenly she straightened up, very pale, a strange light in the
eyes.

- I'm not afraid, she said firmly, and I will ask
the Angel of having mercy on you.

He rose from his seat, uttering a faint cry of joy, took
the blond head in his hands with a grace that recalled the
long ago, and kissed her.

Her fingers were cold as ice, and her lips
scorching like fire, but Virginia did not weaken, and he
walked through the dark room.

On the faded green tapestry were embroidered small
hunters. They were blowing in their horns adorned with fringes, and
their cute hands, they motioned for him to back away.

- Retrace your steps, little Virginia. Go away, go away!
they cried.

But the ghost only squeezed her hand tighter, and she
closed her eyes so as not to see them.

Horrible lizard-tailed animals; with big protruding eyes,
flashed at the corners of the carved fireplace and told him to
low voice:

- Take care, little Virginia, take care. We may well
not to see you again.

But the Phantom only hastened, and Virginia didn't listen.
nothing.

When they were at the end of the room he stopped and whispered
a few words that she did not understand.

She opened her eyes and saw the wall slowly dissipate like a
fog, and before her a dark cave opened.

A harsh icy wind enveloped them, and she felt a pull on
his clothes.

“Quick, quick,” cried the Phantom, “or it will be too late.

And at the same moment, the wall closed behind them, and the
bedroom with tapestries remained empty.

VI

About ten minutes later the bell rang for tea, and
Virginia did not come down.

Mrs. Otis sent one of the lackeys to look for her.

It was not long before he returned, saying that he had not been able to discover
Miss Virginia nowhere.

As she used to go to the garden every night
picking flowers for dinner, Mrs. Otis was not at all
worry. But six o'clock struck, Virginia did not reappear.

So his mother felt seriously agitated, and sent the boys
looking for her, while she and Mr. Otis visited all
rooms in the house.

At half past six the twins came back and said they
had found no trace of their sister anywhere.

Then all were extremely moved, and no one knew that
do, when Mr. Otis suddenly remembered that a few days
previously he had allowed a bunch of gypsies to camp
in the park.

Accordingly, he immediately set off for the Blackfell-Hollow,
accompanied by his eldest son and two farm servants.

The Little Duke of Cheshire, who was absolutely insane with worry,
urged Mr. Otis to join him, but Mr. Otis there
refused, for fear of a fight. But when he came to
the place in question, he saw that the gypsies had left.

It was evident that they had hastened to decamp, for their fire
was still burning, and some plates were left on the grass.

After sending Washington and the two men to beat the
surroundings, he hurried home, and sent telegrams to
all county police inspectors urging them to
search for a young girl who had been abducted by
tramps or gypsies.

Then he had his horse brought, and after insisting that
his wife and his three sons sit down to table, he left with a
bellhop on the road to Ascot.

He had barely done two miles, he heard galloping behind
him.

He turned around and saw the little duke arriving on his pony,
face all red, head bare.

- I'm terribly sorry, said the young man in a voice
interspersed, but it is impossible for me to eat, as long as Virginia
is lost. Please don't get angry with me. Yes
you allowed us to get engaged last year, these
trouble would never have happened. You won't fire me,
is not it? I can not; I do not want!

The minister could not help but smile at this young man and
handsome stunned, and was very touched by the dedication he showed to
Virginia.

Also leaning on his horse, he stroked her shoulders with
kindness, and said to him:

- Well, Cecil, since you want to stay, it will be necessary
you come with me, but I will also have to find you a
hats off to Ascot.

- To hell with the hat! It's Virginia I want! cried the
little duke laughing.

Then they galloped to the station.

There, Mr. Otis inquired of the station master if we had not seen
on the departure platform a person responding to the report of
Virginia, but he couldn't learn anything about her.

Nevertheless the station master threw dispatches along the line,
upstream and downstream, and promised that careful monitoring
would be exercised.

Then, after buying a hat for the little duke from a
new merchant who was about to close shop, Mr. Otis
rode to Bexley, a village four miles away,
and who, he had been told, was much frequented by gypsies.

When we had raised the rural guard, we could not get him
no information.

Also, after crossing the square, the two riders resumed
the way home, and returned to Canterville around eleven
hours, the body broken with fatigue, and the heart broken with worry.

They found Washington and the twins waiting for them at the
gate, with lanterns, for the avenue was very dark.

No trace of Virginia had been discovered.

The gypsies had been caught up on Brockley's meadow,
but she was not with them.

They had explained the haste of their departure by saying that they
were mistaken on the day when the fair of
Chorton, and that the fear of arriving too late had forced them to
to hurry up.

Furthermore, they had seemed very sorry for the disappearance of
Virginia, as they were very grateful to Mr. Otis for their
have allowed to camp in its park. Four of them were
stayed behind to take part in the research.

The carp pond had been emptied. We had searched the area in
all the senses, but no result had been achieved.

It was obvious that Virginia was lost, at least for this
night, and it was with an air of profound depression that Mr. Otis, and
the young people returned to the house, followed by the bellhop who
led the horse and pony in hand.

In the hall, they found the group of terrified servants.

Poor Mrs. Otis was lying on a sofa in the library,
almost mad with fear and anxiety, and the old housekeeper
bathed the forehead with cologne.

Mr. Otis immediately insisted that she eat a little, and
serve dinner for everyone.

It was a very sad meal.

We hardly spoke there, and the twins themselves looked
startled, dumbfounded, for they loved their sister very much.

When we had finished, Mr. Otis, despite the pleas of the little one
duke, ordered everyone to go to bed, saying that no
could do nothing more tonight, than the next morning he
would telegraph to Scotland-Yard, so that they could immediately
available a few detectives.

But now, just as we were leaving the dining room,
midnight struck on the tower clock.

No sooner had the vibrations of the last blow been extinguished
a crack was heard followed by a piercing cry.

A tremendous roll of thunder shook the house. A melody
which had nothing earthly floated in the air. A sign is
loudly detached from the top of the stairs, and on the landing, well
pale, almost white, appeared Virginia, holding in her hand a
small box.

Immediately all of rushing towards her. Mrs Otis hugged her
passionately on his heart.

This little duke suffocated him under the violence of his kisses, and
the twins performed a savage war dance around the group.

- Great gods! My daughter, where have you been? said Mr. Otis, enough
angry, because he imagined that she had made everyone
bad stuffing. Cecil and I, we rode all the way
country, looking for you, and your mother almost died of fright.
We should not start over with these mystifications.

- Except for the ghost! except for the ghost! shouted them
twins continuing their antics.

- My darling, thank God, you have been found, it will not take
leave me, whispered Mrs. Otis, kissing the child who
was shaking, and smoothing her golden hair scattered over her shoulders.

- Dad, said Virginia softly, I was with the ghost. It is
dead. You'll have to go see it. He was very mean,
but he sincerely repented of all he had done, and
before he died he gave me this box of beautiful jewelry.

The whole family looked at her silent, bewildered, but she
looked very serious, very serious.

Then, turning, she preceded them through the opening of the
wall, and we descended by a secret corridor.

Washington followed holding a burning candle that he had taken
Table. Finally, we came to a large spiky oak door
big nails.

Virginia touched her. It turned on its huge hinges, and we
found in a narrow, low room, the ceiling of which was
vaulted shape, and with a very small window.

A large iron ring was sealed in the wall, and to this ring
was chained a large skeleton stretched out full length on the
paved floor. He seemed to stretch out his gaunt fingers to
reach for an antique-shaped dish and jug, which were
placed so that it could not touch it.

Obviously the jug had been filled with water, because the inside
was lined with green mold.

All that was left on the dish was a pile of dust.

Virginia knelt beside the skeleton, and joining her little ones
hands, began to pray in silence, while the family
contemplated with astonishment the terrible tragedy of which the secret
had just been revealed to him.

- Hallo! suddenly cried one of the twins, who had gone to look
through the window, to try to guess in which wing of the
house the room was located. Hallo! the old almond tree that was
withered bloomed. I can see the flowers very well in the moonlight.

- God forgave him! Virginia said gravely as she stood up, and a
magnificent light seemed to illuminate her face.

- What an angel you are! cried the little duke, passing him the
arms around his neck, and kissing him.

VII

Four days after these curious events, around eleven o'clock in the
evening, a funeral procession left Canterville-Chase.

The chariot was drawn by eight black horses, each of which had the
head adorned with a large plume of ostrich feathers which
swayed.

The lead coffin was covered with a rich shroud of
purple, on which were embroidered in gold the coats of arms of
Canterville.

On either side of the chariot and cars walked the servants,
carrying lighted torches.

The whole parade looked grand and impressive.

Lord Canterville was in mourning; he came from Wales
expressly to attend the funeral and he occupied the
first car with little Virginia.

Then came the United States Minister and his wife, then
Washington and the three young boys.

In the last car was Mrs. Umney.

It was obvious to everyone that after being scared
by the ghost for more than fifty years of life, she had
well the right to see it disappear for good.

A deep pit had been dug in a corner of the cemetery,
just under the old yew; and the last prayers were said from
in the most pathetic way by the Rev. Augustus Dampier.

The ceremony ended, the servants conforming to an old
custom established in the Canterville family, extinguished their
torches.

Then, when the coffin had been lowered into the grave, Virginia
stepped forward and placed a large cross made of flowers on it
white and red almond trees.

At the same moment, the moon came out from behind a cloud and flooded with
its silent waves of silver the cemetery, and from a neighboring grove
began the song of a nightingale.

She remembered the description the Ghost of the Garden had given.
of death. Her eyes filled with tears, and she said to
barely a word while the cars are driving home.

The next morning, before Lord Canterville left for the
town, Mr. Otis spoke to him about the jewelry donated by
the Ghost in Virginia. They were superb, magnificent. Mostly
certain ruby ​​necklace, with an ancient Venetian setting,
was really a splendid specimen of the work of the sixteenth
century, and the whole was of such value that Mr. Otis felt
great scruples to allow his daughter to keep them.

- Mylord, he said, I know that in this country, the dead hand applies
to small objects as well as to lands, and it is clear, very
clear to me that these jewels should stay in your hands
as family property. I beg you, therefore, to
please take them with you to London, and
just consider it part of your heritage that you
would have been returned under unusual conditions. As for
my daughter, she is just a child, and so far I am
glad to say, she takes little interest in these rattles
of vain luxury. I also learned from Mrs Otis, who is not
an authority to be despised in matters of art, be it said in
passing, because she had the good fortune to spend several winters in
Boston being a young girl, that these precious stones have a
great monetary value, and that if we put them up for sale we
would draw a nice sum. In these circumstances, Lord
Canterville, you will recognize, I'm sure, that it is me
impossible to allow them to remain in the hands of any
member of my family; and besides all these kinds of vain
trinkets, toys, if appropriate, however necessary they are
to the dignity of the British aristocracy, would absolutely
displaced among people who have been raised in principle
severe, and I can say the immortal principles of simplicity
republican. I might venture to say that Virginia
is very keen on you leaving the box to him,
as a remembrance of the errors and misfortunes of your
ancestor. This box being very old and therefore very
dilapidated you may find it appropriate to grant his request.
As for me, I admit I am very surprised to see one of my own
children show so little interest in the things of
Middle Ages, and I can only find an explanation for this fact,
is that Virginia was born in one of your suburbs of London, little
not long after Mrs. Otis returned from an excursion to Athens.

Lord Canterville listened without flinching to the speech of the worthy
minister, pulling his gray mustache from time to time to hide
an involuntary smile.

When Mr. Otis had finished, he cordially shook his hand, and
answered him:

- My dear sir, your charming little girl has returned to my
unhappy ancestor a very important service. My family and me
we are very grateful for the wonderful courage, blood-
cold she showed. The jewels belong to him, that is
clear, and by my faith I believe that if I had enough
heart to take them from him, the old rascal would come out of his grave
after two weeks, and would give me a hell of a life. As for
be family jewels, they would only be on condition
to be specified as such in a will, in a legal document,
and the existence of these gems has remained unknown. I certify you
that they are no more mine than your butler. When
Miss Virginia will be tall, she will be enchanted, I will dare
to affirm it, to have pretty things to wear. In addition, Mr. Otis,
you forget you took the furnishings and the ghost on
inventory. So all that belongs to the ghost you
belongs. Despite all the evidence of activity given by sir
Simon, at night, in the corridor, he is nonetheless dead,
legal point of view, and your purchase made you the owner of this
which belongs to him.

Mr. Otis was not a little tormented by Lord Canterville's refusal, and
begged him to think again about his decision, but the excellent
peer held firm and finally decided the minister to accept the
present that the ghost had given him.

When, in the spring of 1890, the young Duchess of Cheshire was
presented for the first time at the reception of the Queen, at
on the occasion of her marriage, her jewels were the object of
general admiration. For Virginia received the baronal twist which
is given as a reward to all the little Americans who
are very wise, and she married her little lover, as soon as he had
age.

They were both so nice, and they loved each other so much,
that everyone was delighted with this marriage, except the old
Marquise de Dumbleton, who had done all she could to
catch the duke and make him marry one of his seven daughters.

For this purpose, she had given no less than three large dinners
very expensive.

Strangely enough, M. Otis had a strong feeling for the little duke.
personal sympathy, but in theory he was the opponent of
particle, and, to use his own expressions, he had
some subject to apprehend, that, among the irritating influences
of an aristocracy in love with pleasure, the true principles of
Republican simplicity were not forgotten.

But his observations were ignored, and when he
stepped into the wing of St. George's Church, Hanover-Square,
his daughter on his arm, there was not a more proud man in the
length and breadth of England.

After the honeymoon, the Duke and Duchess returned to
Canterville-Chase, and the day after their arrival, in the after-
at noon, they went for a walk in the lonely cemetery near
pine wood.

They were at first very embarrassed about the registration
that would be engraved on Sir Simon's tombstone, but they
ended up deciding that we would limit ourselves to simply engraving the
the old gentleman's initials, and the verses written on the
the library.

The Duchess had brought beautiful roses which she scattered
on the grave; then, after having stopped there for a few moments, we
walked through the ruins of the choir of the ancient abbey.

The Duchess sat there on a fallen column, while her
husband, lying at her feet, and smoking his cigarette, looked at her
in her beautiful eyes.

Suddenly, throwing down his cigarette, he took her hand and said:

- Virginia, a wife should have no secrets from her husband.

- Dear Cecil, I don't have one.

- Yes, you have, he replied smiling, you never have me
said what happened while you were locked up with the
ghost.

"I never told anyone," Virginia replied gravely.

- I know, but you could tell me.

- Please, Cecil, don't ask me. I can not
really tell you, Poor Sir Simon! I owe him a lot.
Yes, Cecil, don't laugh, I really owe him a lot. He had me
show what life is, what death means and why
Love is stronger than death.

The duke stood up and kissed his wife lovingly.

- You can keep your secret, as long as I have your
heart, he said, in a low voice.

- You always had it, Cecil.

- And you will tell our children one day, won't you?

Virginia blushes.


THE SPHINX WHICH HAS NO SECRET [28]

Line engraving

One afternoon, I was sitting on the terrace of the Café de la Paix,
contemplating the splendor and the undersides of Parisian life.

While taking my vermouth, I studied with curiosity the strange
panorama where pride and poverty paraded before me, when
I heard myself called by my name.

I turned around and saw myself facing Lord Murchison.

We had not seen each other since we had been at the
college together, ten years ago.

So I was charmed by this meeting.

We exchanged a warm handshake.

In Oxford we had been great friends. I loved him very much.

He was so good, so spirited, so full of honor. We
we often said of him that he would be the best boy in the world
without his inclination to always tell the truth, but I believe that
really we admired him all the more for his frankness.

I found him a little changed.

He looked anxious, embarrassed. It looked like he had
doubts about something. I guessed it was not
this is an effect of modern skepticism, for Murchison was the most
immutable of the torgs and he believed in the _Pentateuque_ with so many
firmness that he believed in the House of Peers.

I concluded that there was a woman under rock and I asked her
if he was already married.

"I don't understand women enough yet," he replied.

- My dear Gerald, I said, women are made to be
love and not so that we understand them.

- I cannot love when I cannot trust, replied
he does.

- I think you have a mystery in your life, Gerald, say-
I, tell me that.

"Let's go for a drive," he replied. There is too much
crowd here ... No, no, not that yellow car, no matter
what other color. Hold! this one, which is dark green, will
the case.

And, a few minutes later, we were trotting down the boulevard
in the direction of the Madeleine.

- Where shall we go? I asked.

- Oh! wherever you like, he replied, at the restaurant in the woods. We are
will have dinner, and you will tell me all that concerns you.

- I want to listen to you first yourself, I say. Tell me your
mystery.

He drew from his pocket a small card holder, made of morocco clasp
money and handed it to me.

I opened it.

Inside was a photograph of a woman.

She was tall and slender, strangely picturesque with her
big vague eyes and flowing hair. She had a
clairvoyant physiognomy and was enveloped in rich
furs.

- What do you say about this figure? he said. Does she inspire
trust?

I examined it carefully.

She gave me the impression of a woman who had a secret, but this
whether it was honest or not, I couldn't tell.

This beauty seemed to be made of many mysteries together, in fact
a psychological beauty rather than plastic, and then, this light
smile, which played on the lips, was far too subtle to
have real charm.

- Well? he cried impatiently, what do you say?

"It's the Mona Lisa in black," I replied. Tell me all about it
concerned.

- Not now, after dinner.

And we began to talk about something else.

When the waiter brought us coffee and cigarettes, I
reminded Gerald of his promise.

He got up from his chair, went back and forth two or three times in the
room.

Then, letting himself fall in an armchair, he told me the story
next.

- One evening, around five o'clock, I was walking down Bond-Street.

There was a large congestion of cars and traffic
was completely stopped.

Very close to the sidewalk was a small yellow brougham, which
for one reason or another caught my attention.

As I passed close by, I saw coming forward, to look
outside, the figure I showed you this afternoon.

She immediately fascinated me.

All night long I didn't think of anything else, and he
was the same the next day.

I went up, I went down several times this damn
row, peeking through all the cars,
waiting for the yellow brougham, but I could not find out
my beautiful stranger, so that I end up convincing myself that I
had only seen her in a dream.

About eight days later, I dined with Madame de Rastail.

Dinner was at eight o'clock, but at half past eight we
were still waiting in the living room.

At last the servant opened the door and announced Lady Alroy.

She was the woman I had been looking for.

She entered very slowly. She looked like a radius of
moon in its gray lace, and I was, to my immense joy, prayed
to lead her to the table.

When we were seated, I say, in the most innocent way
world:

- It seems to me that I saw you while passing in Road-Street, it
some time ago, Lady Alroy.

She turned very pale, and she said in a low voice:

- Please don't speak so loudly, we could
hear.

I felt very unhappy to have started so badly, and I
launched headlong into a tirade on the French theater.

She spoke very little, always in the same low, musical voice.
It was as if she was afraid of being listened to by someone.

I felt passionately, stupidly enamored and indefinable
atmosphere of mystery, which surrounded him, excited to the highest
point my curiosity.

When she was about to leave, which she did very little
time after dinner I asked him if I could give him back
visit.

She hesitated for a moment, looked around to see if
someone was near us, and then said to me:

- Yes, tomorrow at quarter past five.

I begged Madame de Rastail to tell me about her, but everything
that she could tell me was reduced to this.

This lady was a widow. She owned a beautiful house in Park-
Lane.

As at that moment, a scorer of the scientific type undertook
a dissertation on widows, to support the thesis of the
survival of the fittest, I took my leave and went home.

The next day, just on time, I went to Park-Lane, but
the servant told me that Lady Alroy had just gone out.

Very annoyed, very intrigued I went to the club and, after many
reflections, I wrote her a letter begging her to
let see if I would be happier another time.

The answer was delayed several days; but at the end I received
a little note in which she informed me that she would be at home on
Sunday at four o'clock and where was this extraordinary
post Scriptum.

“Please do not write to me here any more; I will explain this to you
when I see you. ”

On Sunday she was quite charming, but by the time
I was going to retire, she asked me if I ever had a
further opportunity to write to him to write the address as follows: at
Mistress Knox, in the care of Mr. Wittaker, bookseller, Green-
Street.

- Some reasons, she added, prevent me from receiving any
letter to my own house.

Throughout the season, I see her very often and this
an atmosphere of mystery never left her.

Sometimes I thought she was in some man's power, but
she seemed so awkwardly accessible that I couldn't stick to
that idea.

It was really hard for me to come to a conclusion
ordinary, because it was like these singular crystals
that we see in museums and which are transparent to some
moments and troubles to some others.

In the end, I made up my mind to ask her to become my wife;
I was angry and tired of the incessant precautions she
imposed on me to make a mystery of my visits, of the few
letters that I sent him.

I wrote to her at the bookstore to ask if she could
receive me the following Monday at six o'clock.

She answered yes, and I was transported with pleasure to the
seventh heaven.

I was madly in love with her, despite the mystery that I
believed then, but in fact for the very reason of the mystery I see it at
present.

No, it was not the woman I loved about her.

This mystery troubled me, made me lose my mind.

Why did chance make me discover the trail?

- So you found him, I cried?

"I'm afraid so," he replied. You will judge for yourself.

On Monday, I had lunch with my uncle, and around four o'clock
I found myself in Marylebone-Road.

As you know, my uncle lives in Regent's-Park.

I wanted to go to Piccadilly and took the shortest route in
passing through a bunch of miserable looking little streets.

Suddenly I saw Lady Alroy in front of me, hidden under a thick veil
and walking very fast.

When she got to the last house on the street, she went up
down the stairs, took a master key from his pocket and entered.

- Here is the mystery, I said to myself, moving quickly to
inspect the house.

On the threshold was her handkerchief that she had dropped, I
picked it up and put it in my pocket.

So I started to think about what to do. I arrived
to this conclusion that I had no right to spy on him and
I drove to my club.

At six o'clock I went to her house.

I found her stretched out on a sofa, dressed in tea, that is
say in a dress of a silver cloth, raised with the aid of
those strange moonstones that she always wore.

She seemed quite charming.

"I'm so glad to see you," she said. I'm not
exit of the day.

I looked at her in astonishment, and taking the handkerchief from my pocket, I
Handed it to him.

- You dropped him on Cummor Street this afternoon,
Lady Alroy, I said very calmly.

She gave me a look of horror, but made no
movement to take the handkerchief.

- What were you doing there? I asked.

- What right do you have to question me? she replied.

"The right of a man who loves you," I replied. I came
here to ask you to become my wife.

She hid her face in her hands, and melted in a deluge of
tears.

- Do you have to answer me? I said.

She stood up and looking me in the face said:

- Lord Murchison, there is nothing to tell you.

"You came here to see someone," I cried. It's here
your secret.

She turned horribly pale and said:

- I haven't made an appointment with anyone.

- Can't you tell the truth? I cried.

"But I said it," she replied.

I was distraught, distraught. I don't know what I told her, but I
told him terrible things.

Finally I rushed out of the house.

She wrote to me the next day, but I returned her letter to her without
have opened it. I left for Norway with Alan Colville.

I returned after a month, and the first thing I saw in
the _Morning Post_, it was the death of Lady Alroy.

She had taken a chill at the Opera, and she had
succumbed in five days to pulmonary congestion.

I locked myself in and didn't want to see anyone, I had loved her so much and
I loved her so madly. Great gods, how I loved this
women!

- You went to this street, to this house? I asked.

- Yes, he replied, one day I walked into Cummor-Street. I do not
could stop me. I was tortured by doubt.

I knocked on the door, and a very decent-looking woman came
open the door for me.

I asked her if she had an apartment to rent.

- Ah! sir, she replied, I believe the apartment is
rent, but I haven't seen the lady for three months, and like the
rent continues to run, it is impossible for me to rent it to you.

- Is this this lady? I asked him in him
showing the photograph.

- Yes, it is she, of course, she cried, but when will
she back?

"The lady is dead," I replied.

- I hope not, said the woman. She was my best
tenant. She paid me three guineas a week, just for
come to my living room from time to time.

- Was she having someone here? I said. But the woman assured me that
no, that she always came alone, and saw no one.

- What the devil was she doing here! I cried.

- She was just staying in the living room, sir. She was reading
books, and a few times she had tea, replied the woman.

I didn't know what to say. So I gave him a ruler and I
went away.

- Now tell me what did it all mean? You do not
don't think the woman was telling the truth.

- I believe him.

"Then why was Lady Alroy going to this house?"

- My dear Gerald, I replied, Lady Alroy was quite simply
a woman with a mania for mystery. She praised this
apartment for the pleasure of going there with the veil down and
to imagine that she was a heroine. She had a crazy
passion for secrecy, but she herself was everything
simply, a sphinx without secrets.

- Is that your true opinion?

- I am convinced of it, I replied.

He took out the morocco card holder, opened it and looked at the
photography.

- I wonder, he said finally.


THE MILLIONAIRE MODEL [29]

Admiring note

When you have no fortune, there is no point in being a charming
boy.

The novel is a privilege of the rich and not a profession for
those who do not have a job.

Better to have a fixed income than to be a charmer.

These are the great axioms of modern life, and Hughie Erskine
never assimilated them.

Poor Hughie!

From the intellectual point of view, we must recognize that
was not a phenomenon.

Never in his life had he thrown a line
shiny, or even a bodywork. This does not prevent it from being
surprisingly attractive, with her curly hair, her profile
clearly drawn and his eyes gray.

He was as popular with men as he was with women.
He had all kinds of talents, except winning
money.

His father bequeathed him his cavalry latte and a _History of
la Guerre de la Péninsule in fifteen volumes.

Hughie had hung the first of these bequests above his
mirror, and stored the second on a shelf between the
Ruff [30], and Bailey's Magazine [31] and he lived on a pension
annual two hundred pounds from an old aunt.

He had tried everything.

He had attended the Bourse for six months, but what
you what becomes of a butterfly among bulls and bears?

He had established himself as a tea trader, and he had remained so
longer, but he had finally had enough of _pekoé_
and _souchong_.

Then he tried to sell dry sherry. It didn't
not completed. The sherry was a little too dry.

Eventually it became ... nothing at all; a lovely young man
unsuitable for anything, always with a perfect profile,
still without a profession.

And so that his misfortune was complete, he fell in love.

The young girl he loved was named Laura Merton. his father
was a retired colonel who had lost all his patience and
all his digestive faculties in India and found them
never since.

Laura adored Hughie, and he had kissed the cords of
Laura's shoes.

They were the most charming couple you could see in London and
the two of them didn't own a penny.

The colonel had great affection for Hughie, but he did not
didn't want to hear about marriage.

- My boy, he would often say, come and find me when you are
at the head of ten thousand pounds all yours, then we'll see.

And, those days, Hughie looked very grumpy, and he
Laura's company was needed to console herself.

One morning, as he was on his way to Holland Park where the
Merton, he took it into his head to go and see his big
friend, Alan Trevor.

Trevor was a painter. Currently few people escape this
contagion, but he was, moreover, an artist, and artists
are quite rare.

Judging by his exterior, Alan was a singular character,
savage, with a face all dotted with freckles,
and a red, shaggy beard. But, as soon as he had a brush to
hand, we were in the presence of a master and his paintings
were eagerly sought.

At first he had felt a strong feeling towards Hughie.
attraction, due, it must be said, to the personal charm of it
only.

- The only people a painter should know, he repeated,
are beautiful and silly beings, people whose sight gives you a
artistic pleasure and whose conversation is for you a rest
intellectual. The men who are dandies and the women who
are coquettes, these are the beings who rule the world, or
who at least should rule it.

But when he got to know Hughie better, he ended up
love her just as much because of her enthusiasm, her good humor,
his carelessly generous nature, and gave him the right to enter
all the time in his workshop.

Hughie, when he entered, found Trevor giving the
last brushstrokes to a masterful painting that
represented, in life size, a beggar.

The beggar himself posed on a platform placed in a
corner of the workshop.

He was a shriveled old man, whose face looked
to be crumpled parchment, with a pitiful expression.

Over his shoulders was thrown a coat of coarse brown cloth, made
rags and holes; his big boots were patched up,
resoled. He had one hand resting on a big stick and
the other he held out the rest of his hat to ask for alms.

- What a superb model! said Hughie in a low voice, shaking hands.
to his friend.

- A superb model! Trevor cried out loud, I believe him
well. Beggars like that, we don't meet all of them
days! A find, my dear, a Velasquez in flesh and blood!
By the sky! what an engraving Rembrandt would have done with that!

- Poor old! said Hughie. How unhappy he looks! But I
suppose that for you, the painters, his figure is related to
his fortune.

- Certainly, said Trevor, you wouldn't want a beggar
look happy.

- How much does a model earn per session? Hughie asked, after
comfortably seated on a couch.

- One shilling per hour.

- And you, Alan, how much do you get from your painting?

- Oh! that one, they take it for two thousand.

-Books?

- Guineas. Painters, poets, doctors matter
always by guineas.

- Hey! well! I am of the opinion that the model should have a so
percent, cried Hughie, laughing, for he does so much
that you.

- This is all nonsense. Just the trouble we give ourselves to
to spread the colors and to always be standing with the brush
hand. You talk about it at your ease, Hughie, but I answer you
that at times art rises to the level of a
manual loom. But enough talk like that! I am very busy.
Take a cigarette and be still.

A few moments later the servant came in and told Trevor that
the supervisor asked to speak to him.

- Don't go, Hughie, he said as he left, I will be
back soon.

The old beggar took advantage of Trevor's absence to rest
a moment on the wooden bench behind him.

He looked so abandoned, so miserable that Hughie couldn't
to keep from having compassion on him, and that he felt his pockets
to find out how much he had left.

There he found only a sovereign and some small change.

-- Poor old! he said to himself, he doesn't need it anymore
than me, but that means that I will do without cabs for
fifteen days.

And crossing the workshop, he slipped the sovereign into the hand of the
Beggar.

The old man jumped.

Then a vague smile wandered over his withered lips.

- Thank you, sir, he said, thank you.

With Trevor home, Hughie bids him farewell, blushing a little
its action.

He spent the whole day with Laura, received a charming
reprimanded for his lavishness and was forced to walk home.

That evening, he entered the Club de la Palette around eleven o'clock, and
found Trevor alone in the smoking room in front of a glass of white wine
seltzer water.

- Hey! good, Alan! he told her, lighting his cigarette. Have you got
finished your painting as you wish?

“Finished and framed, my boy,” Trevor replied. About you have
made a conquest, this old model, which you saw, is quite
actually delighted with you. I had to tell him about you,
tell him everything ... who you are, where you live, your income,
your plans for the future, etc ...

- My dear Alan, cried Hughie, I'm sure I will.
be on duty outside my door when I get home. But no,
this is just a joke. Poor old man! I would like
to be able to do something for him. I find it terrible that we
be so miserable. I have lots of old effects at home!
Do you think that would do his business? I believe it, because its
rags were falling in pieces.

"But it suited him superbly," Trevor said. For nothing in the world
I will not paint his portrait in a black coat. What you call
rags, I call it picturesque; what seems to you
poverty, seems to me of the local color! Nevertheless I him
will say a word about your offer.

- Alan, said Hughie seriously, you painters, you
are heartless people.

"An artist has his heart in his head," Trevor replied.
Besides, we have to see the world as it is, and not to
redo from what we know. To each his job.
Now give me news of Laura. The old model
really took an interest in her.

- You don't mean to say that you told him about it? said Hughie.

- But if, certainly, he knows everything: the inexorable colonel, the
lovely Laura, and the ten thousand pounds.

- You told all my private affairs to this old man
Beggar! cried Hughie, red-faced, looking very angry.

- Old man, said Trevor smiling, this old beggar, like you.
say, is one of the richest men in Europe. he
could buy all of London tomorrow without exhausting his fortune. He has
a home in all capitals. He dines on dishes
gold, and if it displeases him that Russia goes to war, he can
prevent it.

- What are you telling me here? cried Hughie.

"It's as I tell you," Trevor said. The old man, that you
saw today in the workshop, it was Baron Hausberg.
He's a great friend of mine. He buys all my paintings and
quantities of others. And a month ago he asked me to do his
portrait in beggar costume. What do you want? A fantasy of
millionaire, and I have to admit he made a magnificent
figure in its rags. I should rather say, in my
rags. It's an old costume I brought back from Spain.

- Baron Hausberg, great gods [32]! cried Hughie. And I who
gave him a sovereign!

And he sank down into an armchair, and he looked like
personify disappointment.

- You gave him a sovereign! cried Trevor bursting out
to laugh! My boy, that sovereign, you will never see him again!
_His business is other people's money_.

- It seems to me, Alan, that you could well have warned me, said
Hughie sullenly, instead of letting me commit a
also ridiculous stupidity.

“Come on, Hughie,” Trevor said. In the first place, he couldn't
come to mind the idea that you were going to distribute alms
on an adventure in this extravagant way. Whether you kiss a
nice model, that I understand, but that you give a
sovereign to a model of ugliness! By Jupiter no! And other
Besides, my door was closed that day for everyone. When
you came, I wondered if Hausberg would be flattered to
to hear oneself named. You know, he wasn't in a prom dress.

"I'm sure he takes me for a nasty bit," said Hughie.

- Not at all! He was delighted when you left; he ... not
stopped talking to himself, rubbing his old hands
wrinkled. I wondered why he put so much emphasis on
know everything about you, and didn't understand anything about it, but
I can see it clearly now. He will place your ruler at your
name, Hughie. Every six months he will send you interest, and he
will have a great story to tell for dessert.

-I'm a poor devil of hapless, grumbled Hughie and what
I have better things to do is go to bed! As for you, my
dear Alan, tell no one; I wouldn't dare to show myself anymore
in the Roso.

- Nonsense! it does your spirit the greatest honor to
philanthropy, Hughie. And don't go! Take another
cigarette, you can talk to me about Laura as much as you want.

But Hughie didn't want to stay.

He walked home, feeling very unhappy, and he
Alan left in the midst of a fit of giggles.

The next morning, while he was having breakfast, the servant told him
handed over a card bearing these words:

"Monsieur Gustave Naudin, on behalf of Monsieur le baron de
Hausberg. "

“I guess he's sending me to ask for an apology,” Hughie said to himself.

And he gave the servant the order to let in.

An old gentleman with golden glasses and gray hair was
introduced and said with a slight French accent.

- It is to Mr. Hughie Erskine that I have the honor of
talk?

Hughie bowed.

"I have come from Baron Hausberg," he continued.

The baron ...

- I beg you, sir, to apologize to him the most
sincere, stammered Hughie.

`` The baron, '' continued the old gentleman, smiling, `` has charged me with
give you this letter.

And he held out a sealed envelope.

On this envelope were written these words:

_ "Wedding gift given to Hughie Erskine and Laura Merton by
an old beggar.

And, in that envelope, there was a check for ten thousand
books.

When the wedding took place, Alan was one of the groomsmen, and
the baron made a speech at the wedding lunch.

- Millionaire models, Alan pointed out, that's already good
rare, but model millionaires are even rarer.


POEMS IN PROSE [33]

_I - The artist_

One evening arose in his soul the desire to model the statue of
_Pleasure that lasts a moment_. And he went all over the world to
look for bronze, because he could only see his works
bronze.

But all the bronze in the whole world was gone and nowhere
in the whole world one could not find bronze, except the
bronze of the statue of _Chagrin which one suffers all the life_.

Now, it was he himself, and his own hands, who had modeled
this statue and placed it on the tomb of the only being he had
loved in his life. On the grave of the dead being he had so much
loved, he had placed this statue which was his creation, for
that it was there as a sign of the love of the man who never dies
not and a symbol of the sorrow of man, that we suffer all
life.

And in the whole world there was no other bronze than the
bronze of this statue.

And he took the statue that he had created and he put it in a
great furnace and delivered it to the fire.

And the bronze of the statue of _Chagrin that we suffer all our lives_,
he modeled a statue of _Pleasure that lasts a moment_.

_II - The doer of good_

It was night and _He_ was alone.

And _He_ saw from afar the walls of a considerable city and _He_
approached the city.

And when _He_ got close to it, _He_ heard in the city the
the stamp of pleasure, the laughter of joy and the crash
resounding with many lutes. And _He_ knocked on the door and a
the gatekeepers opened the door for him.

And _He_ contemplated a house built of marble and which had
beautiful marble colonnades on its facade, the colonnades were
lined with garlands and outside, and inside there were
cedar torches.

And _He_ entered the house.

And when _He_ had crossed the Hall of Chalcedon and the Hall of
jasper and reached the great feast hall, _He_ lives, lying on
a bed of navy purple a man whose hair was
crowned with red roses and whose lips were red with
wine.

And _He_ went to him and touched him on the shoulder and said to him:

- Why do you live like this?

And the young man turned, and _The_ recognized and _He_ answered.

He tells him:

- One day I was just a leper and you healed me. How? 'Or' What
would I live otherwise?

And, a little further, _He_ saw a woman whose face was
made up and the costume of showy colors and whose feet were
shod with pearls. And near her came, with the slow pace of a
hunter, a young man who wore a two-color coat.

Now the face of the woman was like the beautiful face of an idol and
the young man's eyes shone with lust.

And _He_ followed quickly.

_He_ touched the young man's hand and said:

- Why are you looking at this woman that way?

And the young man turned and _The_ recognized and said:

- One day when I was blind, you gave me sight. who
will I look at other?

And _He_ ran forward and touched the garment of bright colors
of the woman and said to her:

- There is no other road to take here than that of sin ...

And the woman turned and _The_ recognized. And she laughs and she says:

- You forgave me my sins and this road is a road
pleasant.

And _He_ walked out of town.

And when _He_ went out of town, _He_ saw sitting on the side of
the road a young man who was crying.

And _He_ came to him and touched the long curls of his hair and
said to him:

- Why are you crying?

And the young man raised his head to look at him and _The_ recognized
and _He_ replied:

- One day when I was dead, you made me get up from among the
dead. How could I do anything but cry?

_III - The disciple_

When Narcissus died, the pool of his delights changed from
cup of fresh water in a cup of salted tears and the Oreads
came, weeping, through the wood, to sing near the pond
and console her.

And when they saw that the pond was, of cup of fresh water,
transformed into a cup of salty tears, they released the
green curls of their hair and cried out to the pond.

They said:

- We are not surprised that you also cry over Narcissus
that was so beautiful.

- But was Narcissus so handsome? said the pond.

- Who could know better than you? replied the Oreads.
He neglected us, but you he courted you, and he
bent over your edges, and he let his eyes rest on you and
it is in the mirror of your waters that he wanted to reflect his beauty.

And the pond answered:

- I loved Narcissus because, when he was bent over my
edges and let her eyes rest on me, in the mirror of her
I could see my own beauty shining in my eyes.

_IV - The __maitre_

Now when darkness fell upon the earth, Joseph of Arimathea,
having lit a torch of resinous wood, descended from the hill
in the valley.

Because he had business in his house.

And kneeling on the flints of the Valley of Desolation, he saw
a young man who was naked and weeping.

Her hair was the color of honey and her body was like a
white flower, but the thorns had torn her body and on
his hair, he had put ashes like a crown.

And Joseph, who had great wealth, told the young man who
was naked and crying.

- I am not surprised that your grief is so great, because surely
_He_ was a righteous man.

And the young man answered:

- It is not for him that I cry, but for myself. I have
also changed the water into wine and I healed the leper, and I made
blind eyesight. I walked the waters and I hunted
the demons, the inhabitants of the tombs. I fed the hungry
in the desert where there was no food and I made myself
raise the dead from their narrow layers and at my command, and
before a great multitude of people, a barren fig tree
bloomed again. Everything the man did, I did. And yet we
did not crucify me.

_V - The house of judgment_

And silence reigned in the house of judgment and the man appeared
naked before God.

And God opened the book of the life of man.

And God said to man:

- Your life has been bad, and you have been cruel to those who
needed help and to those who were destitute
support. You were rude and hard of heart. The poor called you, and
you did not hear it, and your ears were closed to the cry of
the grieving man. You grabbed for your own use of
the inheritance of the orphan and you sent the foxes into the vineyard
from your neighbor's field. You took the children's bread and you have it
fed the dogs and my lepers who lived in the
swamps, and who praised me, you chased them on the
highways, on my land, this land from which I had formed you,
and you shed innocent blood.

And the man answered and said:

- I also did that.

And once again God opened the book of the life of man.

And God said to man:

- Your life was bad and you hid the beauty that I showed
and the good that I have hidden you have neglected. The walls of your
room were painted pictures and, from your abomination bed, you
you rose to the sound of the flutes. You have built seven altars to the sins that
I suffered, and you ate what we should not eat, and
the purple of your clothes was embroidered with three signs of shame.
Your idols were neither gold nor silver which remains, but of
flesh that perishes. You bathed their hair in perfumes and you
put grenades in their hands. You anointed their feet with
saffron and you spread carpets in front of them. With antimony,
you painted their eyelids and, with the myrrh, you coated their
body. Before them you bowed down to the ground and the thrones of
your idols have risen to the sun. You showed the sun your
shame and to the moon your madness. And the man answered and said:

- I also did that.

And for the third time, God opened the book of the life of
the man.

And God said to man:

- Your life has been bad, and with the evil you have paid for the good and with
imposture goodness. You hurt the hands that fed you and
you despised the breasts which had given you their milk. The one who
came to you with water left thirsty and the men out there
law who hid you in their tents at night, you delivered them
before dawn. You ambushed your enemy who had you
spared and the friend who walked with you, you sold him for
money, and to those who brought you love, you have in return
given lust.

And the man answered and said:

- I also did that.

And God closed the book of man's life and said:

- Really I should send you to hell. It is in hell that I
must send you.

And the man cried out:

- You can't.

And God said to man:

- Why can't I send you to hell and for what reason?

"Because I've always lived in hell," replied the man.

And silence reigned in the house of judgment.

And after a while God spoke and said to the man:

- Since I cannot send you to hell, really I will send you to
sky. It is to heaven that I will send you.

And the man cried out:

- You can't.

And God said to man:

- Why can't I send you to heaven and for what reason?

- Because never and nowhere could I imagine a sky,
the man replied.

And silence reigned in the house of judgment.

_VI - The master of wisdom_

Since his childhood he had been, like anyone else, drunk with
perfect knowledge of God and, even when he was one
kid, many saints, as also some holy women who
lived in the free city, in which he was born, had been
seized with great wonder at his serious and wise responses.

And when her parents gave her the dress and the ring of age
virile, he kissed them and left them to go running around the world,
because he wanted to tell the world about God.

Because there were, at that time, in the world, many people who
did not know God at all or had only one
incomplete knowledge or worshiped the false gods that inhabit
the sacred groves and do not care about their worshipers.

And he faced the sun and traveled, walking without sandals, like
he had seen the saints walking, and wearing at his belt a
leather satchel and a small gourd of burnished clay.

And as he walked along the main road he was full of
that joy that arises from the perfect knowledge of God, and he
sang the praises of God without interrupting his songs and,
after some time he entered an unknown land where
many cities.

And he passed through eleven cities.

And some of these cities were in the valleys, others
on the banks of large rivers and others sitting on
Hills.

And in every city he found a disciple who loved him and
followed, and a great multitude of people from every city followed him
also and the knowledge of God spread over all the earth and
many heads of government were converted.

And the priests of the temples, in which there were idols,
found that half of their winnings were lost and, when, at
noon, they were beating their drums, nobody or very few people
came with breads and meat offerings, as it was
was the custom of the country before the arrival of the pilgrim.

However, the more the crowd that followed him grew, the more the
number of his disciples grew, the more his affliction
was increasing.

And he didn't know why his affliction was so great, because
he always spoke of God and according to the fullness of perfect
knowledge of God that God had given him.

And one evening he came out of the eleventh city which was a city
from Armenia; and his disciples and a great crowd of the
followed, and he went up a mountain and sat on a rock
that there was on the mountain.

And his disciples lined up around him and the multitude
knelt in the valley.

And he buried his head in his hands and wept, and said to his soul:

- Why am I full of grief and fear and why
is each of my disciples like an enemy advancing in
full light?

And his soul answered him and said:

- God has filled you with the full knowledge of himself and you have
gave this science to others. You divided the pearl of great
price and you split the seamless garment into fragments. The one
he who spreads wisdom steals himself. He is like the one who
give treasure to a thief. Isn't God wiser than this
that you are Who are you to spread the secret that God has for you
entrusts? I was rich one day and you made me poorer. I saw god
one day and now you hid it from me.

And again he cried, for he knew his Soul was telling him
truth and that he had given others the perfect knowledge of
God and that he was like a man who clung to the skirts of
the robe of God and that his faith forsook him because of the number of
those who believed in him.

And he said to himself:

- I won't talk about God anymore. He who spreads wisdom steals
himself.

And, a few hours later, his disciples came to him
and, bowing to the ground, said to him:

- Master, speak of God, for you have the perfect knowledge of
God and no man other than you have this knowledge.

And he answered them and said to them:

- I will tell you about all the other things that are in the
heaven and earth, but I will not tell you about God. Or
now and at no time will I speak to you about God again.

And they were angry with him and said to him:

- You led us into the desert so that we could
listen to you. Will you send us back hungry and the great crowd
that you invited to follow you.

And he answered them and said to them:

- I won't tell you about God.

And the multitude murmured against him and said to him:

- You led us into the desert and you did not give us any
food to eat. Tell us about God and that will be enough for us.

But he didn't answer them a word, because he knew that if he
spoke of God he would give them a treasure.

And the disciples sadly departed and the multitude returned
in his homes. And many died on the way.

And, when he was alone, he got up and turned to the moon and
traveled for seven moons, speaking to no man and
answering no questions.

And when the seventh moon was at its waning he reached this desert
which is the desert of the great River.

And having found empty a cave once inhabited by a Centaur, he
took it for shelter and made a rush mat to sleep on and
lead the life of a hermit.

And, every hour, the hermit praised God who had allowed him
learns to know him and to know his admirable greatness.

Now, one evening, as the hermit was sitting in front of the cave where he
had organized a resting place, he saw a young man
perverse and beautiful face that passed in simple clothes and hands
empty.

Each evening the young man passed by empty-handed, and each
morning he returned with his hands full of purple and pearls, for
he was a thief, and he stole the merchant caravans.

And the hermit looked at him and he took pity on him. But he didn't tell her
not a word, for he knew that whoever says a word loses faith.

And, one morning, as the young man came back with his hands full of
purple and pearl, he stopped, frowned, knocked
foot on the table and said to the hermit:

- Why do you always look at me that way when I pass?
What do I see in your eyes? Because no man has me
looked before that way. And it's a sting for me
and a heartache.

And the hermit answered him and said:

- What you see in my eyes is pity. It's here
pity that looks at you through my eyes.

And the young man sneered contemptuously and called out to the hermit
in a bitter voice.

He tells him:

- I have purple and pearls in my hands and you have
to lie down than a rush mat. What pity would you have
for me? And why do you have this pity?

- I pity you, said the hermit, because you do not know
not God.

- Is the knowledge of God a precious thing? asked him
young man.

And he approached the entrance to the cave.

- She is more precious than all purple and all
pearls of the world, replied the hermit.

- And do you own it? said the young thief.

And he approached again.

- Long ago, replied the hermit, I really possessed the perfect
knowledge of God, but in my madness I shared it and I
divided her among many other men. Even still now
such remembrance is and remains for me more precious than
purple and pearls.

And when the young thief heard this, he threw the purple and the
pearls he carried in his hands and, drawing a sharp sword
of bent steel, he said to the hermit:

- Give me immediately this knowledge of God that you
own or I will kill you without hesitation? Why won't i kill
not the one who has a treasure greater than my treasure?

And the hermit stretched out his arms and said:

- Wouldn't it be better for me to go to school
farther from the house of God and praise him than living in
the world and not know it? Kill me if it's your
will. But I will not hand over my knowledge of God.

And the young thief fell to his knees and begged him, but the hermit did not
wanted neither to speak to him about God nor to give him his treasure.

And the young thief got up and said to the hermit:

- Let it be as you want it. For me I will go to the
City of Seven Sins which is only three days walk from here,
and for my purple they will give me pleasure and for my pearls they will
will sell me joy.

And he picked up the purple and the pearls and quickly went away.

And the hermit called out to him with a loud cry. He followed him and implored her.

For three days, he followed the young thief on the road, and he
begged him to come back, not to enter the City of Seven
Sins.

And, at all times, the young thief looked at the hermit, and
called him, and said to him:

- Will you give me this knowledge of God which is more
precious than purple and pearls? If you want to give me
that, I will not enter the City.

And always the hermit answered:

- I will give you everything I have, except one
thing, for that thing I am not permitted to give.

And, at twilight on the third day, they came to the
large scarlet gates of the City of Seven Sins.

And from the City the sound of a thousand bursts of laughter reached them.

And the young thief laughed in response and tried to knock on the
door.

And as he knocked on it, the hermit ran over him, and grabbed him by
the skirts of his clothes and said to him:

- Extend your hands and put your arms around my neck;
bring your ear to my lips and I will give you what
I still have knowledge of God.

And the young thief stopped.

And, when the hermit had given him his knowledge of God, he fell
on the ground and wept, and great darkness hid the
town and the young thief so that he no longer saw them.

And as he was there bent over in tears, he noticed that
someone was standing next to him and whoever was standing
side of him had bronze feet and hair like
fine wool.

And he raised up the hermit and said to him:

- So far you have had perfect knowledge of God; now
you have the perfect love of God. Why are you crying?

And he kissed him.


THE HUMAN SOUL UNDER SOCIALIST REGIME [34]

The main benefit that would result from restoring
socialism would undoubtedly be that we would be delivered
through him of this sordid need to live for others, who
as it stands, weighs so heavily on everyone
almost without exception. In fact, we do not see who can there
to subtract.

Here and there, in the course of the century, a great man of science, such
than Darwin; a great poet, like Keats; a subtle critic like
Renan; an accomplished artist, like Flaubert, knew how to isolate himself,
place outside the area where the rest of the men are making hear
his clamors, to keep safe from the wall, as described by Plato [35]
thus realize the perfection of what was in each one, with a
incalculable benefit to them, to the infinite and eternal benefit of
whole world.

However, these were exceptions.

The majority of men spoil their existence with altruism
unhealthy, exaggerated, and in short, they do it out of necessity. They
see in the midst of hideous poverty, hideous ugliness,
hideous misery. They are strongly impressed with everything
that is inevitable.

Man is more deeply agitated by his emotions than by his
intelligence, and as I have shown in detail in an article
that I once published on _la Critique et l'Art __ [36] _, it is
much easier to sympathize with what is suffering than to
sympathize with what thinks. Consequently, with intentions
admirable, but misguided, we take ourselves very seriously, very
sentimentally to the task of remedying the evils of which we are
witness. But your remedies cannot cure disease, they cannot
can only prolong it, we can even say that your remedies
integral part of the disease.

For example, we claim to solve the problem of poverty, by
giving the poor enough to live on, or else, according to a very
advanced, entertaining the poor.

But by that, the difficulty is not resolved; we make it worse
real goal is to strive to rebuild society on
such a basis that poverty is impossible._ And the virtues
altruists have really hindered the realization of this plan.

Just the same as the worst slave owners were those who
showed the most kindness to their slaves, and prevented
so on the one hand the victims of the system feel all
the horror, and on the other hand the simple spectators to understand it,
thus, in the present state of things in England, the people who
do the most harm, are those who strive to do the most
very possible. It is to the point that in the end we witnessed
of this show: men who have seriously studied the
problem, and who know life, educated men, and who
live in East-End, come to beg the public to put a
curbing his altruistic impulses of charity, kindness, etc. And
they do it for this motive which Charity degrades and demoralizes. They
are absolutely right.

Charity is the creator of a multitude of sins.

It remains to say this: it is immoral to employ
private property to alleviate the terrible ailments caused by
deprivation of private property; it is both immoral and disloyal.

Under the socialist regime, it is obvious that all this will change.

There will be no more people who will live in stinking dens,
will be dressed in foul rags, more people to procreate
unhealthy children, and emaciated by hunger, in the midst of
impossible circumstances and in an absolutely
repulsive.

The security of society will no longer be subordinate, as it
is today, in the weather. If there is frost,
we will no longer have a hundred thousand men forced to be unemployed,
wandering through the streets in a state of disgusting misery, moaning
with neighbors to collect alms or piling up
door of disgusting shelters to try to find a crust of
bread and messy accommodation for one night. Each of the members of
society will have its share of general prosperity and happiness
social, and if frost occurs, no one will experience it
real inconvenience.

And on the other hand, socialism in itself will have for great
advantage of leading to individualism.

Socialism, communism, - call it what you like
convert any private property into public property,
substitute cooperation for competition, - restore society
in its natural state of absolutely healthy organism, it will ensure the
material well-being of every member of society. In fact it
will give life its true basis, the environment that suits it. But
for life to reach its highest mode of perfection, it
needs something more.

What is needed is individualism. If socialism is
authoritarian, if there are governments armed with power
economic, as there are today who are armed with power
political, in short, if we are to have tyrannies
industrial, then this new state of affairs will be worse for
man as the first.

Currently, thanks to the existence of private property, many
of men are in a position to produce an extremely small sum
of individualism.

Some are removed from the need to work in order to live,
others are free to choose the sphere of activity in which they are
really feel in their element, where they find their
pleasure: such are the poets, the philosophers, the men of
science, cultivated men, in a word men who are
managed to define themselves, those in whom all humanity succeeds in
partially achieve.

On the other hand, there are a good number of men who, deprived of
any personal property, always on the verge of falling into
the abyss of hunger, are forced to do good jobs
for the beasts of burden, to do absolutely chores
disagreeable to them, and the tyranny of necessity, which gives
orders, which does not reason, force them to do so. These are the
poor, and no grace in manners is found among them,
no charm in language, nothing reminiscent of civilization,
culture, delicacy in the pleasure, the joy of living.

Their collective strength is of great benefit to humanity. But
what she gains from it is reduced to the material result.

As for the individual, if he is poor, he does not have the slightest
importance. It is part, an infinitesimal atom, of a force which,
far from seeing it, crushes it, and besides prefers to see it
crushed, because it makes him much more obedient.

Of course, we can say that individualism such as
produces an environment in which private property exists, is not
always, that even, as a rule, it is seldom of
very fine quality, of a very marvelous type, and that in default of
culture and charm, the poor still have many virtues.

Both of these assertions would be quite true.

Possession of private property is often of the greatest
demoralizing, and it is only natural that socialism sees there
one of the reasons to get rid of this institution. In fact, the
property is a real scourge.

Some time ago men walked around the country saying that
property has duties. They said it so often in a way
so boring, that the Church began to say it. We hear it
repeat in all chairs.

This is perfectly true. Not only does the property have
homework, but she has so many homework that beyond
certain limits, its possession is a source of trouble. She
includes endless easements for some; for
others a continual application to business: they are
endless trouble.

If ownership was all about pleasures, we could
accommodate us, but the duties attached to it make it
insupportable. We must remove it, in the interests of
rich.

As for the virtues of the poor, we must recognize them, they are
are all the more regrettable.

We are often told that the poor are grateful for the
charity. Some are, no doubt, but _the best
of them are never grateful_. They are ungrateful,
discontented, rebellious, ungovernable, and that is their strict right.

They feel that Charity is a means of partial restitution
ridiculously inadequate, or sentimental handout, almost
always aggravated by an impertinent indiscretion that the man
sentimental allows himself to tyrannically rule their private life.

Why would they gratefully pick up the crusts of bread
that fall from the rich man's table?

Their place would be at this same table, and they begin to
know.

We talk about their discontent. A man who wouldn't be
dissatisfied in such an environment, in such a low existence,
would be a perfect bully.

To anyone who has read the story, disobedience is a
primordial virtue of man. It is through disobedience that
made progress, through disobedience and revolt.

Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But recommend
economy to the poor is both grotesque and
insulting. It is like saying to a man who is dying of hunger:
don't eat so much ”. A city or field worker who
practicing economics would be a deeply immoral being. We
should be careful not to give proof that we are able to live
like an animal reduced to the minimum portion. We should refuse
to live that way; it is better to steal or resort
public assistance, which many people regard as a
form of flight. As for begging, it's safer than taking, but
to take is more beautiful than to beg. No, a poor man who is
ungrateful, spendthrift, disgruntled, rebellious, is probably someone,
and there are many things in him. In any case, it is a
healthy protest.

As for the virtuous poor, we can pity them, but for
nothing in the world we will admire them. They treated for their
personal account with the enemy, and sold their birthright for
a very nasty dish. So they have to be people
extremely narrow-minded.

I understand very well that we accept laws protecting the
private property, that we admit the accumulation, as long as we are
capable oneself of achieving under such conditions some
aesthetic and intellectual life form. But what seems to me
absolutely incredible is that a man whose existence is
hampered, made hideous by such laws can resign themselves to
their permanence.

And yet the true explanation is not difficult to find,
here it is in all its simplicity.

Misery and poverty have such a degrading power, they
exert such an energetic paralyzing effect on human nature,
that no class has a clear awareness of its own
suffering. She must be warned by others, and
often she totally refuses to believe them.

What large working employers say against
agitators is indisputably true.

The agitators are a bunch of people who get involved in everything,
cram everywhere; they attack a class which until then
was perfectly satisfied, and they sow the seeds in her,
discontent. This is what makes agitators
most necessary. Without them, in our state of imperfection
social, we would not make a single advance towards civilization.

If slavery has disappeared from America, this is in no way due to
the initiative of the slaves and they did not even express
formally the desire to be free. Its deletion is
entirely due to the grossly illegal conduct of certain
agitators from Boston and elsewhere, who were not themselves
slaves, nor owners of slaves, who had no
interest actually engaged in the matter. Those are the
abolitionists, certainly, who lit the torch, have
held in the air, which started the whole affair. And, thing
rather curious, they found only a very weak competition at
the slaves themselves, they scarcely awakened in those
sympathies, and when the war was over, when the slaves were
found free, even in possession of such a freedom
complete that they were free to starve, many among
they deplored the new state of affairs.

For the thinker, the most tragic event in all
French Revolution, it is not that Marie-Antoinette was
put to death as Queen, but that the starving peasants of the Vendée
have voluntarily run to be killed for the dreadful cause of
Feudalism.

It is therefore clear that authoritarian socialism will not
the case. In fact, in the current system, a very large number
people can lead lives that include a certain
sum of freedom, expression, happiness. In a society
composed of industrial barracks, under a regime of tyranny
economic, no one would be able to enjoy this freedom.

It is unfortunate that part of our population is in such a
equivalent to slavery, but it would be childish to claim
solve the problem by enslaving the whole population.

Everyone must have the freedom to choose their work. Onne
must exert no constraint on anybody, whatever the
form.

If it happens, his work will not be good for him, will not be
not good in itself, will not be good for others. And by work,
I just hear all kinds of activity.

I can hardly believe that there is a single socialist today
to suggest that every morning an inspector go to each
house make sure that the citizen who occupies it is up and doing his
eight hours of manual labor.

Humanity has passed this phase and reserves this kind of life for those
which, for very arbitrary reasons, it considers appropriate
to call the criminals.

But I admit that many plans of socialism, which have fallen to me
under my eyes, seem to me vitiated with authoritarian ideas, if not
constraint performed. Of course there can be no question
authority or constraint. Any association must be
completely voluntary. _It is only by the association
voluntary that man develops in all his beauty.

We may wonder how individualism, more or less
nowadays subordinate to the existence of private property,
will find its profit in the abolition of all private property.

The answer is very simple.

It is true that under present conditions a small number
men, who had their own means of existence, such as
Byron, Shelley, Browning, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, and others have
been able to more or less fully realize their
personality. Not one of these men worked a single day for
salary. They were free from poverty. They had a
huge advantage.

The question is whether individualism would benefit from the abolition
of such an advantage.

What then happens to individualism?

What benefit will he get from it?

He will benefit from it as follows:

In the new state of affairs, individualism will be much more
free, much more refined, much more intensified than it is
currently.

I am not talking about the grandiose individualism that these poets
realize in their imagination, but great individualism which
exists in a latent, potential state in humanity in general. Because
acceptance of the property has done real harm to
individualism, and made it nebulous as a result of the confusion
between man and what he owns.

It has completely deviated individualism. She gave him
for gain and not for growth. Consequently, it was believed that the
important point was to have, and we ignored that the point
important was to be.

The true perfection of man consists not in what he has,
but in what he is.

Private property has crushed true individualism and brought about
an illusory individualism. She banned part of the
population access to individualism through the hunger barrier.
She prohibited this access to the rest of the population, in him
driving the wrong road and unnecessarily overloading it.

And, indeed, the personality of man has so completely
melted into his possessions, that English law dealt with
attacks on individual properties much more severely
that attacks on people, and that property is
remained the condition of civic rights.

The activity required to earn money is also most important.
demoralizing.

In a country like ours, where ownership brings benefits
immense, social position, honors, respect, titles, and others
approvals of the same kind, man, ambitious by nature, gives himself
for the purpose of accumulating this property. He persists,
exhausted at this boring labor of accumulating, long after he
has acquired well beyond what is necessary for him, what he
can make some use, derive some pleasure, far beyond even
of what he thinks he has. A man will overwork himself until he dies
to secure possession, and really when you consider the
It is hardly surprising that the enormous advantages that property gives.

We regret that the company is built on such a basis that
man was forcibly engaged in a groove, and thus put
unable to freely develop what, in him, is
marvelous, fascinating, exquisite, - thereby put out of
feel the real pleasure, the joy of living.

Moreover, under present conditions, man enjoys very little
of security.

A trader who has a huge fortune, can be, and he is
indeed, at every moment of his life, at the mercy of things on
over which he has no influence. Let the wind direction
moves a few points, that the weather suddenly changes, that it
a trivial incident occurs, that his ship sinks, that his
speculations go wrong, and he will find himself in the ranks of
poor: his social situation will disappear completely.

Now, a man should only suffer from the harm he does to himself.
himself. It should be impossible to steal a man. This
that we really have, we have it in ourselves. It would be necessary that what
is apart from a man be entirely unimportant.

Abolish private property, and then we will have the real, the
beautiful, healthy individualism.

No one will waste their life accumulating things, and symbols
things.

We will live.

Living is the rarest thing in the world. Most of
men exist, that's all.

We wonder if we have ever seen the full expression
of a personality, if not in terms of
imagination of the artist.

In action, we never saw him.

Caesar, says Mommsen, was the complete, perfect man. But in the middle
what tragic insecurity was he not living on?

Wherever man exercises authority, there is one who resists
authority.

Caesar was very perfect, but his perfection traveled on a
road too dangerous.

Marc-Aurèle was the perfect man, says Renan. Yes, the big one
emperor was a perfect man, but what an intolerable burden
infinite loads were imposed on him! He staggered under the weight of
the empire. He was aware of the impossibility where a single man
was to bear the burden of this titanic world, too vast.

The man I call perfect is the man who grows
in the midst of perfect conditions, the uninjured man,
bothered, mutilated, or in danger.

_Most personalities were forced into rebellion.
Half of their strength has worn away in friction.

Byron's personality, for example, was terribly
wasted in its battle with stupidity, hypocrisy,
English philistinism. Such battles do not always have
as a result of increasing forces. Byron was never in a state
to give what he could have given.

Shelley did better. Like Byron, he had left England
as soon as it had been possible. But he was not also
known. If the English had ever suspected its value,
of his real superiority as a poet, they would have fallen on him
with teeth, with claws, and they would have made
the impossible to make his life unbearable. But it does
was not big enough in the world, so he
relatively quiet. Nevertheless, even in Shelley, the mark of
the rebellion is sometimes very strong. The characteristic trait of
the perfect personality is not rebellion, but peace.

It will be a very wonderful thing, that the true personality
human, when we see her. It will grow naturally and
simply, like the flower, like the tree grows. She will not be
never in discordant condition. She won't argue, argue
not. She won't do any demonstrations. She will know all things.
And yet she will not go after knowledge.
She will have wisdom. Its value will not be measured by
material things. She won't own anything, and yet she
will have everything, and whatever is taken from her, she will continue to
to own, so rich will she be. She won't endlessly
busy meddling in other people's affairs or wanting
others are similar to him. She will love others, with good reason
even of their difference. Nevertheless, while refusing to
intervene in others, it will help them all, as we are
helpful a beautiful thing, simply because it is such.

The man's personality will be a real wonder. She will
as wonderful as the child's personality.

Christianity will contribute to its development, if men
desire; but if men do not want it, it does not
will not develop with less certainty. 'Cause she won't care
hardly from the past. It won't matter to him that things have had
place or not. In addition, it will not admit other laws than those
that she will have made for herself, no other authority than hers.
Nevertheless, she will love those who sought to make her more
intense, she will often talk about them. And Christ was one of them.

"Know thyself", we read on a portico in the world
former. On the portico of the new world we will read: "Be yourself".
And the message that Christ brought to man boiled down to
this: "Be yourself". This is the secret of Christ.

_When Jesus speaks of the poor, he simply means
personalities, just as his mention of rich applies to
men who have not developed their personalities.

Jesus was moving in the midst of a people who admitted
the accumulation of property just as it is admitted among us.
The Gospel he preached did not tend to make people look like
advantageous to man a kind of life where one would nourish oneself
sparse of unhealthy food, where one would dress in rags
unhealthy, where one would sleep in horrible rooms and
unhealthy. He did not find it disadvantageous for the man to
live in healthy, pleasant and decent conditions.

Such a view would have been distorted in this country at that time.
there and would be much more nowadays and in England, because
the further north the man goes, the greater the material necessities
of life take on vital importance; our company is
infinitely more complicated, and pushes back the extremes much further
luxury and pauperism, than any other society in the ancient world.

What Jesus meant was this:

He said to the man, “You have a wonderful personality;
develop it, be yourself. Do not imagine that the
perfection is to accumulate or own things
exterior. Your perfection is within yourself.
As soon as you understand this, you will no longer need
to be rich. Ordinary riches can be stolen from one
man. Real wealth cannot be taken. In the
inner treasure of your soul, there is an infinity of things
precious that cannot be stolen from you. Also, strive to
shape your life in such a way that things outside
can hurt you. Also try to get rid of the
private property. This includes sordid concerns,
endless activity, countless evils. Private property
hinders individualism at every step. "

It should be noted, Jesus never said that impoverished people
are necessarily honest people, nor that wealthy people are
necessarily bad.

It would not have been true. As a class, wealthy people
better than impoverished people. They are more moral, more
intellectuals. They have more hold.

_There is in a nation, a single class that thinks more about
money than the rich, and it's the poor.

The poor cannot think of anything else. It is in this that
is the curse of poverty.

What Jesus says is that man arrives at perfection no
not by what he has, nor even by what he does, but only
because he is.

And so the rich young man, who comes to Jesus, is represented
as a deeply honest citizen, who did not violate any of the
laws of his country, none of the commandments of his religion. It is
quite _respectable_, in the sense that we usually give to
this extraordinary word.

Jesus said to him:

- You should give up your personal property. this will
prevents you from achieving your perfection; it's a dead weight that you
hang around; it is a burden. Your personality doesn't need it.
It is within you, and not outside of you, that you
find what you really are, and what you are
really necessary.

To his friends, he speaks the same language.

He tells them to be themselves, and not to worry
incessantly about things that are foreign to them. And
what do other things matter?

Man forms a complete whole.

When they mingle with the world, the world will come into conflict with
them. This is inevitable. The world hates individualism. But
let them not be troubled by it.

They should be calm, focused on themselves.

If someone takes their coat, let them give them their
habit, just to show that material things have no
of importance. If people curse them, let them refrain from
retaliate. What does that mean? What they say about a man
change nothing in this man. He is what he is. Public opinion
has no value whatsoever.

Even when we use violence, they should not oppose it
violence. It would be lowering to the same level.

After all, even in a prison, a man can be quite
free. His soul can be free. His personality can escape
any fuss.

And that they refrain, above all things, from wanting to act
on others, to pass judgment on them. The
personality is very mysterious thing. We can't always
appreciate a man by his actions. He may observe the
law, and nevertheless be an unworthy being. He may be breaking
law, and nevertheless be honorable. It may be
bad, never doing anything bad. He can commit a
fault towards society and nevertheless realize through this fault its
true perfection.

One day a woman was caught in the act of adultery. We don't
do not know the story of his love, but this love must have
been very great, for Jesus told him that his sins were
forgiven, and not because she repented, but because
his love was so intense, so admirable [37].

Later, shortly before his death, as he was sitting at a meal
party, the woman came in and sprinkled on her hair
perfumes of great price. The friends of Jesus wanted to oppose it.
They said that was extravagance, and that the price of these
perfumes should have been used to charitably rescue people
in need or for some other similar use. Jesus will not agree
point this way of seeing. He pointed out that the needs
materials of man are numerous and very constant, but that the
man's spiritual needs are greater still, than in
a divine moment, a personality can make itself perfect, by
choosing her own mode of expression. And still today
the world honors this woman as a saint.

Yes, there are suggestive things in individualism.

For example socialism destroys family life.

When private property, marriage, in its form disappears
current, will have to disappear.

It's part of the program.

Individualism adheres to it and ennobles this thesis. To constraint
legal, which is abolished, it substitutes a free form which
will promote the total development of the personality, will make
admirable love of man and woman, will embellish this love,
will ennoble it.

Jesus knew this. He refused to meet family demands, well
that, in his time and in his country, they had a very
precise.

- Where is my mother? where are my brothers? he said when we informed him
that they asked to speak to him.

When one of his disciples asked his permission to go
to give the burial to his father, he gave him this answer
terrible:

- Let the dead bury the dead. He did not admit any
a requirement that could undermine the personality.

So then, the man who would like to imitate the existence of Christ,
it is the man who wants to be perfectly, exclusively himself.
It could be a great poet, a great scientist, a young student of
the University; it may be a shepherd who keeps the sheep on the
moor; or a drama maker, like Shakespeare, or a
man who searches the divine nature, like Spinoza; or a child
playing in a garden, or a fisherman throwing his nets in
the sea. It doesn't matter whether he is this or that, as long as he is
realizes the perfection of the soul that is in him.

All imitation in morals and in life is bad.

At present there is a madman in the streets of Jerusalem who
painfully traverses them, and carries on the shoulders a cross of
wood. It is the symbol of existences distorted by imitation.

Father Damien acted like Christ when he left for
go and live with the lepers, because by taking on this task, he
fully realized what was best in him, but he
was no more like Christ than Richard Wagner, expressing
his Soul through music; that Shelley, expressing her soul through the
towards. There is not just one type for man.

The number of perfections equals the number of imperfect men.
What if a man can give in to the demands of charity while
remaining free, the requirements of uniformity cannot be
realize that on condition of destroying all freedom.

Individualism is therefore the goal that we will reach in passing
by Socialism. A natural consequence is that the State
must give up any idea of ​​government. He has to give it up
because, if it is possible to conceive of man left to himself-
even, it is not possible to design a government for
the human species, as a wise man before Christ said.

_All systems of government are abortions._

Despotism is unjust to everyone, to the despot himself,
which probably was meant to do better than that.

Oligarchies are unfair to the majority, and
ochlocracies are towards the minority.

In the past, great hopes had been placed on democracy, but
the word democracy simply means that the people rule over
people with cudgels in the interest of the people.

We made this discovery.

I must say that it was high time, for all authority is
deeply degrading. It degrades those who exercise it. She
degrades those who undergo the exercise.

When we use it violently, brutally, cruelly, it
produces a good effect, creating, and always bursting
the spirit of revolt ”, of individualism that will kill her.

When we handle it with a certain softness, when we add to it
the use of bonuses and rewards, it is terribly
demoralizing. In this case, people notice less
the horrible pressure exerted on them, and they go as far as
end of their life in a sort of coarse well-being, like
animals that we pamper; they never realize that they
probably think the thoughts of others, that they live according to
the ideal conceived by others, that in the end, they wear what we
can call second-hand clothes, than ever, not a minute,
they are not themselves.

"Anyone who wants to be free," says a shrewd thinker, "must withdraw
uniformity. ” And authority, by encouraging with bait the
people to uniformity, produce among us a clan of rude
heavily force-fed barbarians.

With authority, the punishments will disappear.

We will then have gained a lot; in reality we will have made a gain
invaluable.

When you read the story, not that of the pruned editions which
are written for schoolchildren and university dunces, but
original documents from each era, we are absolutely sickened,
not by the crimes committed by the scoundrels, but by the
punishments inflicted by honest people.

_A people are infinitely more stupefied by the habitual use of
punishments only by the crimes committed there from time to time
other._

The obvious consequence is that the more he inflicts
punishments, the more crimes are committed.

Most modern legislators have noticed this very well, and
have set themselves the task of reducing sentences to the extent
that they believe possible. And everywhere that reduction has been
real, it has always produced excellent results.

The fewer the sentences, the fewer the crimes.

When we have completely abolished the punishments, or else there
will have more crimes, or if they happen, their perpetrators
will be treated by doctors for a form of very
annoying, which must be dealt with with care and kindness.

In fact, those who today are called criminals do not
are not at all.

What breeds modern crime is misery and not
wickedness.

We have, it is true, the right to look at our criminals, as
class, like people absolutely devoid of all that
might interest a psychologist. These are not
wonderful Macbeth, very terrible Vautrins. They are everything
what ordinary, respectable men would be,
down to earth, if they had nothing to eat.

As private property is abolished, it will no longer be necessary to
commit crimes. The need will no longer be felt; he ... not
will commit more.

It is true, without doubt, that not all crimes are committed
against property, although English law, attaching more
of what a man has than what he is, reserves
his most severe, the most horrible punishments for this kind of
crimes, assassination aside, and although she looks at death
as worse than penal servitude, on what, I believe, the
opinions of our criminals are divided. But it can happen
that a crime, without being committed against property, has for cause
the misery, the rage, the depression produced by the defects of our
système de propriété; dès lors il ne s'en commettra plus, après
l'abolition de ce système.

Lorsque chaque membre de la Société a tout ce qui est nécessaire à
ses besoins, et que son prochain le laisse tranquille, il n'a lui-
même aucun motif de se mêler des affaires d'autrui.

La jalousie, source extraordinairement féconde de crimes en notre
temps, est une émotion qui se rattache de fort près à nos
conceptions de propriété, et qui s'effacera bientôt sous le régime
du socialisme et de l'individualisme.

Il est assez remarquable que la jalousie soit inconnue dans les
tribus communistes.

Maintenant l'État, n'ayant plus à gouverner, on peut se demander
ce que l'État fera.

L'État deviendra une association volontaire qui organisera le
travail, qui fabriquera et distribuera les objets nécessaires.

_L'État a pour objet de faire ce qui est utile._

_Le rôle de l'individu est de faire ce qui est beau._

Et puisque j'ai prononcé le mot de travail, je ne puis me
dispenser de dire qu'on a écrit et dit un nombre infini de
sottises, de nos jours, à propos de la dignité du travail manuel.
Le travail manuel n'a en soi rien qui soit nécessairement digne,
et il est en grande partie absolument dégradant.

L'homme éprouve un dommage à la fois mental et moral, quand il
fait quelque chose où il ne trouve aucun plaisir. Bien des formes
de travail sont de l'activité tout à fait dépourvue d'attrait, et
devraient être regardées comme telles. Balayer pendant huit heures
par jour un passage boueux quand le vent souffle de l'est, c'est
une occupation dégoûtante. Faire ce nettoyage avec une dignité
intellectuelle, ou morale, ou physique, me parait impossible. Le
faire avec joie, ce serait terrifiant.

L'affaire de l'homme est autre que de déplacer de la boue. Tous
les travaux de ce genre devraient être exécutés par des machines.

Et je suis convaincu qu'on en arrivera là.

Jusqu'à présent, l'homme a été, jusqu'à un certain point,
l'esclave de la machine, et il y a quelque chose de tragique dans
ce fait que l'homme a souffert de la faim dès le jour où il a
inventé une machine pour le remplacer dans son travail.

Un homme possède une machine qui exécute la besogne de cinq cents
hommes.

En conséquence, voilà cinq cents hommes jetés sur le pavé, n'ayant
rien à faire, rien à manger, et qui se mettent à voler.

Quant au premier, il récolte les produits de la machine, et il les
garde. Il a cinq cents fois plus de temps qu'il ne devrait en
avoir, et très probablement, beaucoup plus qu'il ne lui en faut,
en réalité, ce qui est bien plus important.

Si la machine appartenait à tout le monde, chacun en profiterait.

Ce serait là un avantage immense pour la société.

Tout travail non intellectuel, tout travail monotone et ennuyeux,
tout travail où l'on manipule des substances dangereuses et qui
comporte des conditions désagréables, doit être fait par la
machine.

C'est la machine qui doit travailler pour nous dans les mines de
houille, qui doit faire les besognes d'assainissement, faire le
service des chauffeurs à bord des steamers, balayer les rues,
faire les courses quand il pleut, en un mot, accomplir toutes les
besognes ennuyeuses ou pénibles.

_Actuellement, la machine fait concurrence à l'homme._

_Dans des conditions normales, la machine sera pour l'homme un
serviteur._

Il est hors de doute que tel sera un jour le rôle de la machine,
de même que les arbres poussent pendant que le gentleman
campagnard dort, de même l'Humanité passera son temps à s'amuser,
ou à jouir d'un loisir raffiné, - car sa destination est telle, et
non le labeur - ou à faire de belles oeuvres, ou à lire de belles
choses, ou à contempler simplement l'univers avec admiration, avec
enchantement - pendant que la machine fera tout le travail
nécessaire et désagréable.

Il est certain que la civilisation a besoin d'esclaves.

Sur ce point, les Grecs avaient tout à fait raison. Faute
d'esclaves pour faire la besogne laide, horrible, assommante,
toute culture, toute contemplation devient impossible. Et quand
les savants ne seront plus forcés d'aller dans les vilains
quartiers d'East-End, distribuer du méchant cacao, et des
couvertures plus méchantes encore aux affamés, ils auront de
charmants loisirs pour combiner des choses admirables,
merveilleuses, qui feront leur joie et la joie de tous.

On aura de grandes accumulations de force pour chaque ville, au
besoin pour chaque maison. Cette force, l'homme la convertira en
chaleur, en lumière, en mouvement, selon ses besoins.

Est-ce de l'Utopie, cela?

Une carte du monde où l'Utopie ne serait pas marquée, ne vaudrait
pas la peine d'être regardée, car il y manquerait le pays où
l'Humanité atterrit chaque jour.

Et quand l'Humanité y a débarqué, elle regarde au loin, elle
aperçoit une terre plus belle, et elle remet à la voile.

Progresser, c'est réaliser des Utopies.

J'ai donc dit qu'en organisant le travail des machines, la société
fournira les choses utiles, pendant que les belles choses seront
faites par l'individu. Non seulement il faut qu'il en soit ainsi,
mais encore il n'y a pas d'autre moyen pour que nous ayons l'une
et l'autre chose.

Un individu qui a pour tâche de fabriquer des objets destinés à
l'usage des autres, et qui doit tenir compte de leurs besoins et
de leurs désirs, ne saurait s'intéresser à ce qu'il fait, et par
conséquent, il ne peut mettre en son oeuvre ce qu'il y a de
meilleur en lui.

D'un autre côté, quand une société, ou une puissante majorité de
cette société, quand un gouvernement de n'importe quelle sorte,
attentent de dicter à l'artiste ce qu'il a à faire, l'art se
dissipe à l'instant, ou bien il prend une forme stéréotypée, ou
bien il dégénère en une sorte de métier, basse et ignoble.

_Une oeuvre d'art est le résultat unique d'un tempérament unique.
Elle doit sa beauté à ce que l'auteur est ce qu'il est. Elle ne
doit rien à ce fait que d'autres ont besoin de ce dont ils ont
besoin._

Et en réalité, dès que l'artiste tient compte de ce que les autres
demandent, dès qu'il s'efforce de satisfaire à cette demande, il
cesse d'être un artiste, devient un artisan morne ou amusant, un
commerçant honnête ou malhonnête.

Il n'a plus aucun droit au nom d'artiste.

_L'art est le mode d'individualisme le plus intense que le monde
ait connu._ J'irais même jusqu'à dire que c'est le seul mode
d'individualisme que le monde ait connu.

Le crime, qui dans certaines circonstances, peut paraître la
source de l'individualisme, est obligé de tenir compte d'autres
hommes, et de se mettre en rapport avec eux. Il appartient à la
sphère de l'action.

L'artiste, seul, est exempt de la nécessité de s'occuper de ses
voisins. Seul, il peut façonner une belle chose sans intervenir
dans quoi que ce soit d'extérieur, et s'il ne la travaille pas
pour son propre plaisir, il n'est pas du tout un artiste.

Et il faut noter ceci:

Le fait que l'Art est cette forme intense de l'individualisme est
justement ce qui incite le public à vouloir lui imposer une
autorité aussi immorale que ridicule, aussi corruptrice que
méprisable.

Et ce n'est pas tout à fait sa faute.

Le public a toujours, et dans tous les siècles, été mal éduqué. Il
demande constamment à l'Art d'être populaire, de flatter son
manque de goût, d'aduler son absurde vanité, de lui dire ce qui
lui a déjà été dit, de lui montrer ce qu'il devrait être las de
voir, de l'amuser quand il se sent alourdi par un trop copieux
repas, de lui distraire l'esprit quand il est accablé par sa
propre stupidité.

_Or, l'Art ne doit jamais chercher à être populaire. C'est au
public lui-même à tâcher de se rendre artistique._

C'est là une différence très profonde.

Dites à un homme de science que les résultats de ses expériences,
les conclusions auxquelles il est arrivé doivent être de nature à
ne point bouleverser les notions que possède le public sur le
sujet, de nature à ne point déranger les préjugés populaires, ne
point froisser la sensibilité de gens qui n'entendent rien à la
science, - dites à un philosophe qu'il a le droit absolu de porter
ses spéculations dans les plus hautes sphères de la pensée, mais
qu'il doit arriver aux mêmes conclusions qu'admettent ceux qui
n'ont jamais promené leur pensée dans aucune sphère, - certes
l'homme de sciences et le savant modernes seraient
considérablement amusés.

Et cependant, il n'y a réellement que bien peu d'années,
philosophie et science étaient également sujettes à subir le
brutal contrôle du public, à subir en fait l'autorité, l'autorité
fondée soit sur l'ignorance générale qui régnait dans la société,
soit sur la terreur et l'avidité de pouvoir de la classe
ecclésiastique ou gouvernementale.

Certes, nous avons repoussé avec un assez grand succès toute
tentative faite par la société, par l'Église ou par le
gouvernement pour pénétrer dans le domaine de l'individualisme qui
poursuit la pensée abstraite, mais il reste encore quelques traces
de cette tendance à envahir l'individualisme dans l'art de
l'imagination.

Même, il en reste plus que des traces; elle est agressive,
offensive, abrutissante.

_En Angleterre, les arts qui ont le mieux réussi à s'y
soustraire, ce sont les arts auxquels le public ne prend aucun
intérêt._

La poésie est un exemple qui me permettra de me faire comprendre.

Si nous avons été en mesure d'avoir en Angleterre de belle poésie,
c'est parce que le public n'en lit point, et par conséquent, ne
saurait exercer d'influence sur elle.

Le public se plaît à insulter les poètes parce qu'ils sont
individuels, mais quand il les a insultés, il les laisse
tranquilles.

Quand il s'agit du roman ou du drame, genres auxquels le public
s'intéresse, les effets que produit la dictature populaire ont été
absolument ridicules. Il n'est pas de pays qui produise des
oeuvres de fiction aussi méchamment écrites, aussi ennuyeuses,
aussi banales, des pièces de théâtre aussi sottes, aussi vulgaires
que l'Angleterre.

Et cela est inévitable.

L'idéal populaire est d'une nature telle que nul artiste ne peut y
atteindre.

Il est à la fois très aisé et très malaisé d'être un romancier
populaire.

C'est chose trop aisée, parce que les exigences du public, au
point de vue de l'intrigue, du style, de la psychologie, de la
façon de décrire la vie, de l'exécution littéraire, sont à la
portée des facultés les plus simples, de l'esprit le plus dépourvu
de culture.

C'est chose trop malaisée, parce que l'artiste qui voudrait obéir
à ces exigences, devrait faite violence à son tempérament, se
verrait obligé d'écrire non plus pour la joie artistique d'écrire,
mais pour l'amusement de gens à demi éduqués. Il lui faudrait donc
renoncer à son individualisme, oublier sa culture, annihiler son
style, abandonner tout ce qui, en lui, a quelque valeur.

À l'égard du drame, la situation est un peu meilleure.

Les amateurs de théâtre veulent bien qu'on leur montre des choses
évidentes; mais ils ne veulent pas de choses ennuyeuses.

La pièce burlesque et la comédie-farce qui sont les deux formes
les plus populaires, ont un caractère artistique marqué. On peut
créer des oeuvres charmantes dans les genres du burlesque et de la
farce, et l'artiste jouit en Angleterre, d'une très grande
liberté, dans les pièces de cette sorte.

C'est quand il s'agit des formes dramatiques plus élevées que se
fait sentir l'influence du contrôle populaire. La seule chose que
le public ne puisse pas souffrir, c'est la nouveauté.

Tout effort qu'on fait pour élargir le sujet, le domaine de l'art,
est extrêmement mal accueilli du public, et pourtant la Vitalité
et le progrès de l'art dépendent dans une large mesure du
développement continuel qu'on donne au domaine des sujets. Le
public repousse la nouveauté parce qu'il en a peur. Elle lui
apparaît comme un mode d'individualisme, comme une affirmation
qu'émet l'artiste d'avoir le droit de choisir son sujet, de le
traiter comme il l'entend.

L'attitude du public se justifie parfaitement.

L'art, c'est de l'individualisme, et l'individualisme est une
force qui introduit le désordre et la désagrégation. C'est là ce
qui fait son immense valeur. Car ce qu'il cherche à bouleverser,
c'est la monotonie du type, l'esclavage de la coutume, la tyrannie
de l'habitude, la réduction de l'homme au niveau d'une machine.

Dans l'art, le public accepte ce qui a été, parce qu'il ne peut
rien y changer, et non parce qu'il l'apprécie. Il avale ses
classiques en masse, mais ne les déguste jamais. Il les endure
comme des choses inévitables, et, ne pouvant les détériorer, il
fait sur eux des phrases.

Chose très étrange, ou pas étrange du tout, suivant le point de
vue de chacun, cette résignation aux classiques produit des
inconvénients assez nombreux.

L'admiration irraisonnée qu'on professe en Angleterre à l'égard de
la Bible et de Shakespeare est un exemple de ce que je veux faire
entendre.

En ce qui concerne la Bible, des considérations d'autorité
ecclésiastique viennent compliquer la chose; donc je n'insisterai
pas sur ce point-là.

Mais en ce qui concerne Shakespeare, il est parfaitement évident
que le public ne voit en réalité ni les beautés, ni les défauts de
ses pièces. S'il en voyait les beautés, il ne s'opposerait pas au
développement du drame; s'il en voyait les défauts, il ne
s'opposerait pas non plus au développement du drame.

_La vérité, c'est que le public se sert des classiques d'un pays
comme d'un moyen pour tenir en échec les progrès de l'Art._

Il abaisse les classiques au rang d'autorités. Il s'en sert comme
d'autant de triques pour empêcher la Beauté de s'exprimer
librement en ses formes nouvelles. Il demande sans cesse à
l'écrivain pourquoi il n'écrit pas comme tel ou tel autre, à un
peintre pourquoi il ne peint pas comme celui-ci ou celui-là. Il
perd complètement de vue ce fait que si l'un ou l'autre faisaient
quoi que ce soit d'analogue, ils cesseraient d'être des artistes.

Le public a une franche aversion contre une forme nouvelle de la
beauté, et toutes les fois qu'il en surgit une, il se met
tellement en colère, il s'affole tellement, qu'il en vient
toujours à deux assertions stupides, - la première, que l'oeuvre
d'art est grossièrement inintelligible, la seconde que cette
oeuvre est grossièrement immorale.

Qu'est-ce qu'il entend par là?

Le voici, à ce que je crois.

Quand il dit qu'une chose est grossièrement inintelligible, il
veut dire que l'artiste a écrit ou créé une belle chose qui est
nouvelle.

Quand il qualifie une oeuvre de grossièrement immorale, cela
signifie que l'artiste a dit ou fait une belle chose qui est
vraie.

La première phrase se rapporta au style; la dernière au sujet
traité. Mais sans doute ces mots ont pour lui un sens très vague,
il s'en sert comme une foule en émeute se sert de pavés tout
prêts.

_Il n'y a pas un seul vrai poète, pas un seul vrai prosateur, en
ce siècle par exemple, auquel le public anglais n'ait
solennellement conféré des diplômes d'immoralité._

Et chez nous ces diplômes sont l'équivalent exact de ce qu'est en
France l'entrée officielle par une élection à l'Académie
Française; et par bonheur, ils ont eu pour effet d'empêcher
l'établissement d'une institution identique, dont l'Angleterre n'a
aucun besoin.

Naturellement le public se montre très téméraire dans l'emploi de
ces qualifications.

Qu'on ait qualifié Wordsworth de poète immoral, il fallait s'y
attendre. Wordsworth était un poète. Mais que Charles Kingsley ait
été appelé un romancier immoral, c'est extraordinaire, la prose de
Kingsley n'était pas d'une très belle qualité.

Mais le mot est là, et le public s'en sert du mieux qu'il peut.

Le vrai artiste est un homme qui croit absolument en lui-même,
parce qu'il est absolument lui-même. Mais je n'ai pas de peine à
concevoir, que si, en Angleterre un artiste produisait une oeuvre
d'art qui, dès l'instant de son apparition, serait adoptée par le
public, par son interprète, c'est-à-dire par la presse, et
déclarée par elle oeuvre parfaitement intelligible, hautement
morale, l'artiste ne tarderait pas à se demander sérieusement, si
dans sa création il a été réellement lui-même, et si par
conséquent l'oeuvre n'est pas tout à fait indigne de lui, si elle
n'est point d'un ordre tout à fait inférieur, si même elle n'est
pas dépourvue de toute valeur artistique.

Peut-être ai-je fait tort au public en limitant son langage à des
mots tels que «immoral,» «intelligible,» «exotique,» et «malsain».

Il y a encore un autre mot en usage.

C'est celui de «morbide»; on ne s'en sert pas souvent. Le sens de
ce mot est si simple qu'on hésite à l'employer. Mais enfin on
l'emploie parfois, et de temps à autre on le rencontre dans les
journaux populaires. Certes, il est ridicule d'appliquer un pareil
mot à des oeuvres d'art. Car qu'est-ce qu'un état morbide, sinon
un état d'émotion ou un état de pensée qu'on est incapable
d'exprimer.

Le public est fait de gens morbides, parce que le public n'arrive
jamais à trouver une expression adéquate pour quoi que ce soit.

_L'artiste n'est jamais morbide; il exprime toutes choses._

Il se tient en dehors de son sujet, et par l'intermédiaire de ce
sujet, il produit des effets incomparables et artistiques.

Qualifier un artiste de morbide, parce qu'il a affaire à l'état
morbide dans le sujet qu'il traite, c'est aussi sot que de traiter
Shakespeare de fou parce qu'il a écrit le _Roi Lear_.

À tout prendre, l'artiste gagne à être attaqué, en Angleterre. Son
individualité est intensifiée: il devient plus complètement lui-
même. Comme de juste les attaques sont très grossières, très
impertinentes et très méprisables. Mais nul artiste ne s'attend à
trouver de la grâce dans un esprit vulgaire, du style dans un
intellect de provincial.

La vulgarité et la stupidité sont deux faits fort vivants dans
l'existence moderne, on le regrette, c'est tout naturel. Mais ils
sont là. Ce sont des sujets d'étude comme n'importe quelle autre
chose.

Et il n'est que juste de constater, à propos des journalistes
modernes, qu'ils s'excusent toujours en particulier, de ce qu'ils
ont écrit publiquement contre un homme.

Dans les quelques dernières années, il faut mentionner deux
adjectifs nouveaux qui sont venus s'ajouter au vocabulaire si
restreint d'injures dont le public dispose à l'égard des artistes.

L'un de ces mots, c'est le terme de «malsain», l'autre, le mot d'
«exotique.»

Ce dernier exprime simplement la rage qu'éprouve l'éphémère
champignon contre l'immortelle orchidée dans son charme séducteur,
dans son exquise élégance. C'est un hommage, mais un hommage de
peu de prix.

Quant au mot «malsain», celui-là est susceptible d'analyse; c'est
un mot qui n'est pas dépourvu d'intérêt, et même, il est si
intéressant que ceux qui l'emploient ne savent pas ce qu'il
signifie.

Qu'est-ce qu'il signifie?

Qu'est ce qu'une oeuvre d'art qui est saine ou malsaine?

Tous les termes qu'on applique à une oeuvre d'art, à condition de
les appliquer rationnellement, se rapportent ou à son style, ou à
son sujet, ou à tous deux ensemble.

Au point de vue du style, une oeuvre d'art saine est celle où le
style rend hommage à la beauté des matériaux qu'il emploie, que
ces matériaux soient des mots ou du bronze, des couleurs ou de
l'ivoire et utilise cette beauté comme un élément qui doit
concourir à l'effet artistique.

Au point de vue du sujet, une oeuvre d'art saine est celle où le
choix du sujet est déterminé par le tempérament de l'artiste, et
en provient directement.

En somme, une oeuvre d'art saine est celle qui réunit la
perfection et la personnalité. Naturellement il est impossible de
séparer, dans une oeuvre d'art, la forme et la substance; elles ne
font jamais qu'un. Mais si nous voulons nous livrer à l'analyse,
si nous écartons un instant l'unité de l'impression esthétique,
notre intelligence peut les considérer séparément ainsi.

Une oeuvre d'art malsaine, d'autre part, c'est une oeuvre dont le
style est facile, vieillot, commun, dont le sujet a été choisi à
dessein, non point d'après le plaisir que l'artiste éprouverait à
le traiter, mais d'après ce qu'il compte en tirer de profit
pécuniaire, de la part du public.

_En réalité_, le roman populaire que le public qualifie de sain,
_est toujours une production profondément malsaine, et ce que le
public qualifie de roman malsain est toujours une oeuvre d'art
belle et saine._

J'ai à peine besoin de dire que je ne veux pas, même un seul
instant, me plaindre du mauvais usage que le public et la presse
font de ces mots. Je ne sais pas comment ils arriveraient à les
employer avec justesse étant dépourvus de toute compréhension de
ce qui est l'art.

Je me borne à signaler le mauvais usage; quant à l'origine du
mauvais usage, quant à la signification qui se cache derrière tout
cela, l'explication est des plus simples.

Elle se résume dans une conception barbare de l'autorité. Elle
vient de la naturelle inaptitude d'une société corrompue par
l'autorité à comprendre, à apprécier l'individualisme.

En un mot, elle vient de cet être monstrueux et ignorant qui
s'appelle l'opinion publique, qui se montre si mauvais dans une
bonne intention quand il s'évertue à diriger l'action; mais qui
est infâme dans ses actes comme dans ses intentions, quand il
prétend contrôler la pensée ou l'art.

Il y aurait même beaucoup plus de choses à dire en faveur de la
force matérielle du public, qu'en faveur de l'opinion publique. Le
premier peut être raffiné; l'autre doit être imbécile.

On dit souvent que la force est un argument. Mais cela dépend de
ce qu'on cherche à prouver.

La plupart des problèmes les plus importants des siècles derniers,
comme la durée du gouvernement personnel en Angleterre, celle de
la féodalité en France, ont été uniquement résolus par l'emploi de
la force matérielle.

La violence même d'une révolution peut donner à la foule une
grandeur, une splendeur momentanée.

Ce fut un jour fatal que celui où le public découvrit que la plume
l'emporte en puissance sur le pavé, qu'elle est plus dangereuse
dans les attaques, qu'une brique. Le public alors s'enquit du
journaliste, le trouva, le développa, fit de lui son domestique
actif et bien payé. C'est fort regrettable pour l'un et l'autre.

Derrière la barricade, il peut y avoir bien de la noblesse, bien
de l'héroïsme. Mais qu'y a-t'il derrière un article de fonds? Du
préjugé, de la stupidité, du cant, du verbiage. La réunion de ces
quatre choses constitue une force terrible, et constitue
l'autorité nouvelle.

Au temps jadis, on avait le chevalet de torture. Aujourd'hui on a
la presse. Assurément c'est un progrès. Mais c'est encore chose
mauvaise, nuisible, démoralisante.

Quelqu'un - était-ce Burke, - a dit que la presse est le quatrième
État. Évidemment c'était vrai alors. Mais à l'heure actuelle,
c'est en réalité le seul État, il a mangé les trois autres. Les
lords temporels ne disent rien, les lords ecclésiastiques n'ont
rien à dire. La Chambre des Communes n'a rien à dire, et elle le
dit; nous sommes dominés par le journalisme.

En Amérique, le Président règne quatre ans; le journalisme règne à
perpétuité. Heureusement en Amérique, ce journalisme a poussé
l'autorité jusqu'aux dernières limites de la grossièreté et de la
brutalité, La conséquence naturelle est qu'il s'est développé un
esprit de réaction. Les gens s'en divertissent ou en sont
dégoûtés, suivant leur tempérament. Mais il n'est plus, comme
jadis, une force réelle. On ne le prend pas au sérieux.

En Angleterre, à part quelques exceptions bien connues, on n'a
point permis au journalisme de pousser la brutalité jusqu'à de
telles limites, et il est encore un facteur important, une
puissance vraiment remarquable. La tyrannie qu'il prétend exercer
sur la vie privée des gens me paraît absolument extraordinaire.
_Le fait, c'est que le public a une insatiable curiosité de
connaître toutes choses, excepté les choses qui valent la peine
d'être connues._

Le journalisme, qui le sait bien, et qui a des habitudes
mercantiles, répond à ces demandes.

Dans les siècles passés, le public clouait les journalistes par
l'oreille aux pompes publiques. C'était affreux. En ce siècle, les
journalistes clouent leurs oreilles à tous les trous de serrure.
C'est bien pire.

Et ce qui aggrave le mal, c'est que les journalistes les plus à
blâmer ne sont pas les journalistes amusants qui écrivent pour les
journaux dits mondains. Le mal est fait par des journalistes
sérieux, réfléchis, pondérés, qui traînent solennellement, comme
ils le font actuellement, sous les yeux du public, quelque
incident de la vie passée d'un grand politicien, invitent le
public à discuter l'incident, à exercer son autorité dans
l'affaire, à donner ses vues, et non seulement à donner ses vues,
mais encore à les mettre en action, à imposer à l'homme ses idées
sur divers points, à les imposer à son parti, à les imposer au
pays, c'est-à-dire, en définitive à se rendre ridicule, agressif,
et malfaisant.

On ne devrait point exposer au public l'existence privée des
hommes ou des femmes. Le public n'y a rien à voir.

En France on s'y prend mieux.

Dans ce pays on interdit la reproduction par les journaux des
détails des procès qui se débattent devant les tribunaux de
divorces, et qui seraient un objet d'amusement ou de critique pour
le public. Tout ce que celui-ci peut savoir se réduit à ceci, le
divorce a été accordé, ou non. Il l'a été au profit de tel ou
telle des intéressés.

En France, vraiment on impose des bornes au journaliste, mais on
laisse à l'artiste une liberté presque absolue.

_Chez nous, au contraire, c'est au journaliste que nous accordons
la liberté intégrale tandis que nous limitons étroitement
l'artiste._

En d'autres termes, l'opinion publique s'évertue, en Angleterre, à
ligoter, gêner, entraver l'homme qui fait des choses belles, qui
les exécute; mais elle force le journaliste à vendre au détail,
des objets de nature laide, repoussante, révoltante, si bien que
chez nous on trouve les journalistes les plus sérieux et les
journaux les plus indécents.

Ce n'est point exagérer que de dire: elle force.

Il se peut qu'il y ait des journalistes qui prennent un réel
plaisir à publier des choses horribles, ou qui, étant pauvres,
considèrent le scandale comme une sorte de base solide pour se
faire des rentes. Mais il y a, j'en suis certain, d'autres
journalistes qui sont des hommes bien élevés, des gens cultivés,
qui éprouvent une réelle répugnance à publier de telles choses;
ils savent qu'il est mal d'agir ainsi, et ils le font, parce que
l'état de choses malsain au milieu duquel s'exerce leur
profession, les oblige à fournir au public ce que le public
demande, à rivaliser avec d'autres journalistes pour livrer cette
marchandise en quantité, en qualité correspondantes autant que
possible, au grossier appétit des masses. Il est très humiliant
pour une classe d'hommes bien élevés, de se trouver dans une
situation pareille, et je suis convaincu que la plupart d'entre
eux en souffrent cruellement.

Mais laissons de côté cet aspect véritablement honteux du sujet,
et revenons à la question de l'influence populaire sur les choses
d'art, je veux dire par là celle où l'on voit l'opinion publique
dictant à l'artiste la forme qu'il doit employer, le mode qu'il
adoptera, le choix des matériaux qu'il mettra en oeuvre.

J'ai fait remarquer que les arts qui sont restés le plus indemnes
en Angleterre sont les arts auxquels le public ne prenait aucun
intérêt.

Il s'intéresse néanmoins au drame, et comme en ces dix ou quinze
dernières années, il s'est accompli un certain progrès dans le
drame, il est important de rappeler que ce progrès est dû
uniquement à ce que quelques artistes originaux se sont refusés à
prendre pour guide le défaut de goût du public, se sont refusés à
considérer l'art comme une simple affaire d'offre et de demande.

Possédant une vive, une merveilleuse personnalité, un style qui
contient une véritable puissance de couleur; et avec cela une
extraordinaire faculté non seulement de reproduire les jeux de
physionomie, mais encore d'imaginer, de créer par l'intelligence,
M. Irving, s'il s'était proposé pour but unique de donner au
public ce que celui-ci voulait, eût pu présenter les pièces les
plus banales de la manière la plus banale, avoir aussi autant de
succès, autant d'argent qu'un homme en peut souhaiter, mais il
avait autre chose en vue. Il voulait réaliser sa propre
personnalité en tant qu'artiste, dans des conditions données, et
dans certaines formes de l'art. Tout d'abord, il fit appel au
petit nombre. Maintenant il a fait l'éducation du grand nombre. Il
a créé dans le public à la fois le goût et le tempérament.

Le public apprécie immensément son succès artistique. Néanmoins je
me suis souvent demandé si le public comprend que ce succès est
entièrement dû au fait qu'Irving a refusé d'accepter son
criterium, et qu'il y a substitué le sien. Avec le goût du public,
le Lyceum eut été une boutique de second ordre, telle que le sont
actuellement la plupart des théâtres populaires de Londres. Mais
qu'on l'ait compris ou non, un fait reste acquis, que le goût et
le tempérament ont été jusqu'à un certain point créés dans le
public, que le public est capable de produire ces qualités.

Dès lors le problème se pose ainsi: Pourquoi le public ne se
civilise-t-il pas davantage? Il en possède la faculté; qu'est-ce
qui l'arrête?

Ce qui l'arrête, il faut le redire, c'est son désir d'imposer son
autorité à l'artiste et aux oeuvres d'art.

Il est des théâtres, comme le Lyceum, comme Haymarket, où le
public semble arriver avec des dispositions favorables. Dans ces
deux théâtres, il y a eu des artistes originaux, qui ont réussi à
créer dans leur auditoire - et chaque théâtre de Londres a son
auditoire - le tempérament auquel s'adapte l'Art.

Et qu'est-ce que ce tempérament-là? C'est un tempérament réceptif.
Voilà tout.

Quand on aborde une oeuvre d'art avec le désir, si faible qu'il
soit, d'exercer une autorité sur elle et sur l'artiste, on
l'aborde dans des dispositions telles qu'on ne saurait en recevoir
la moindre impression artistique.

_L'oeuvre d'art est faite pour s'imposer au spectateur; le
spectateur n'a point à s'imposer à l'oeuvre d'art._

Le spectateur doit être un récepteur. Il doit être le violon sur
lequel jouera le maître.

Et mieux il arrivera à supprimer complètement ses sottes manières
de voir, ses sots préjugés, ses idées absurdes sur ce que l'art
devrait être ou ne peut pas être, plus il est probable qu'il
comprendra, qu'il appréciera l'oeuvre d'art dont il s'agit.
Certes, cela est chose évidente, quand on parle du public vulgaire
anglais, hommes et femmes, qui fréquente le théâtre. Mais c'est
également vrai en ce qui concerne les personnes d'éducation, comme
on dit.

En effet, les idées que possède sur l'Art une personne d'éducation
se tirent forcément de ce que l'Art a été, tandis que l'oeuvre
d'Art nouvelle est belle parce qu'elle est ce que l'Art n'a jamais
été. Lui appliquer le passé comme mesure, c'est lui appliquer une
mesure dont la suppression est la condition même de sa perfection.
Un tempérament capable de recevoir par l'intermédiaire de
l'imagination, et dans des circonstances dépendant de
l'imagination, des impressions belles et nouvelles, voilà le seul
tempérament capable d'apprécier une oeuvre d'Art.

Et si vrai que cela soit, quand il s'agit d'apprécier de la
sculpture ou de la peinture, c'est plus vrai encore pour
l'appréciation d'un art tel que le drame. Car un tableau, une
statue ne sont point en guerre avec le temps. Ils n'ont point à
tenir compte de sa succession. Il suffit d'un moment pour en
apprécier l'unité. Mais pour la littérature, le cas est différent.
Il faut parcourir une certaine durée, avant que l'unité d'effet
soit perçue.

Aussi dans le drame, le premier acte de la pièce peut présenter
quelques détails dont la réelle valeur artistique ne saurait
apparaître au spectateur que quand on sera au troisième ou au
quatrième.

L'imbécile a-t-il le droit de se fâcher, de se récrier, de
troubler la représentation, de tourmenter les acteurs?

Non.

L'honnête homme attendra en silence, connaîtra les délicieuses
émotions de l'étonnement, de la curiosité, de l'attente. Il n'ira
pas au théâtre pour perdre patience, cette chose sans valeur. Il
ira au théâtre pour voir se déployer un tempérament artistique. Il
ira au théâtre pour se donner un tempérament artistique. Il n'est
point l'arbitre d'une oeuvre d'art. Il est celui qu'on admet à
contempler l'oeuvre d'art, et qui, si l'oeuvre est belle, devra
oublier dans la contemplation de celle-ci, l'égotisme dont il est
atteint, l'égotisme de son ignorance, ou l'égotisme de son état
arriéré.

Cette caractéristique du drame est, je crois, insuffisamment
reconnue.

Je puis m'expliquer fort bien que si _Macbeth_ était représenté
pour la première fois devant une salle de Londoniens modernes, la
plus grande partie d'entre eux protesteraient de toute leur force,
de toute leur énergie, contre l'introduction des sorcières au
premier acte, avec leurs phrases grotesques, leurs mots ridicules.
Mais quand la pièce tire à sa fin, l'on comprend que le rire des
sorcières dans _Macbeth_ est aussi terrible que le rire de la
folie dans _Le Roi Lear_, plus terrible que le rire d'Iago dans la
tragédie du Maure.

Aucun spectateur d'art n'a plus besoin d'un plus parfait état de
réceptivité que le spectateur d'une pièce. Dès le moment où il
prétend exercer de l'autorité, il se fait l'ennemi déclaré de
l'Art et de lui-même. L'Art ne s'en soucie guère; c'est l'autre,
qui en souffre.

Pour le roman, c'est la même chose.

L'autorité populaire et la soumission à l'autorité populaire sont
mortelles.

L'_Esmond _de Thackeray est une belle oeuvre d'art, parce qu'il
l'a écrite pour son propre plaisir. Dans ses autres romans, dans
_Pendennis, _dans _Philippe_, dont la _Foire aux Vanités_ même, il
regarde un peu trop du côté du public, il gâte son oeuvre, en
faisant un appel trop direct aux sympathies du public, ou en s'en
raillant directement.

_Un véritable artiste ne tient aucun compte du public: pour lui
le public n'existe pas._

Il n'a point sur lui de gâteaux à l'opium ou au miel pour endormir
ou gaver le monstre. Il laisse cela au romancier populaire.

Nous avons actuellement en Angleterre un romancier incomparable,
M. George Meredith.

Il y en a de meilleurs en France, mais la France n'en possède
point qui ait sur la vie une façon de voir aussi large, aussi
variée, aussi vraie dans son caractère créateur.

Il y a en Russie des conteurs d'histoires qui ont un sentiment
plus vif de ce que peut être la douleur dans un roman; mais
M. Meredith, non seulement ses personnages vivent, mais encore ils
vivent dans la pensée. On peut les considérer d'une myriade de
points de vue. Ils sont suggestifs. Il y a de l'âme en eux et
autour d'eux. Ils sont interprétatifs, symboliques. Et celui qui
les a créées, ces figures merveilleuses, au mouvement si rapide,
les a créées pour son propre plaisir. Jamais il n'a demandé au
public ce que celui-ci désirait. Jamais il ne s'est préoccupé de
le savoir. Jamais il n'a admis le public à lui dicter, à lui
imposer quoi que ce soit. Il n'a fait que marcher en avant,
intensifiant sa propre personnalité, produisant une oeuvre qui
était son oeuvre individuelle.

Dans les débuts, personne ne vint à lui.

Cela n'importait point.

Puis vint à lui le petit nombre.

Cela ne le changea pas.

Maintenant le grand nombre est venu à lui. Il est resté le même.

C'est un romancier incomparable.

Dans les arts décoratifs, il n'en est pas autrement.

Le public se cramponnait, avec une ténacité que je pourrais dire
touchante, aux traditions laissées par la grande Exposition de
vulgarité internationale, traditions si effrayantes que les
maisons où les gens habitaient n'eussent dû avoir pour hôtes que
des aveugles.

On se mit à faire de belles choses; de belles couleurs sortirent
des mains du teinturier; de beaux dessins sortirent du cerveau de
l'artiste. Il se créa une habitude des belles choses; on y attacha
la valeur et l'importance qu'elles méritaient.

Le public s'indigna pour tout de bon; il perdit patience. Il dit
des sottises. Nul ne s'en soucia. Nul ne s'en trouva plus mal. Nul
ne se soumit à l'autorité de l'opinion publique.

Et maintenant on ne peut entrer dans une maison moderne qu'on n'y
trouve quelque preuve de docilité au bon goût, quelque preuve du
prix qu'on attache au charme du milieu, quelque signe indiquant
que la beauté est appréciée. Et réellement, les demeures des gens
sont, en règle générale, tout à fait charmantes, de nos jours. Les
gens se sont civilisés jusqu'à un très haut degré.

Il n'est toutefois, que trop juste d'ajouter que le succès
extraordinaire de la révolution accomplie dans la décoration
intérieure, l'ameublement, et le reste, n'a pas dû son origine
réelle à un développement du très bon goût dans la majorité du
public.

Elle est due principalement à ce fait, que les artisans des choses
ont tant apprécié le plaisir de faire ce qui est beau, ont fait
apercevoir si crûment la laideur et la vulgarité de ce que voulait
le public, qu'ils ont tout simplement réduit le public à
l'inanition.

Il serait tout à fait impossible présentement de meubler une
pièce, comme on meublait les pièces, il y a peu d'années, à moins
d'aller chercher chaque objet, l'un après l'autre, dans les ventes
aux enchères parmi des soldes qui proviennent d'hôtels meublés de
troisième catégorie. Ces choses-là ne se fabriquent plus.

Malgré tout ce qu'on pourra leur dire, les gens de nos jours ont
une chose charmante, ou une autre, dans ce qui les entoure.

Heureusement pour eux, on n'a tenu aucun compte de leur prétention
à vouloir faire autorité dans ces choses d'art.

Il est donc évident qu'en de telles matières, toute autorité est
mauvaise.

Les gens se demandent parfois quelle forme de gouvernement est la
plus avantageuse à l'artiste.

Il n'y a à cette question qu'une réponse:

_La forme de gouvernement la plus avantageuse à l'artiste, est
l'absence totale de gouvernement._

Il est ridicule qu'une autorité s'exerce sur lui et sur son art.

Il a été affirmé que, sous le despotisme, des artistes ont fait
des choses charmantes.

Cela n'est pas tout à fait vrai.

Des artistes ont rendu visite à des despotes, non point pour se
soumettre à leur tyrannie mais en créateurs de merveilles
ambulants, à titre de personnalités vagabondes et fascinantes,
qu'il fallait amuser, charmer, et laisser tranquilles, tout
entiers à la liberté de créer.

Ce qu'on peut dire en faveur du despote, c'est qu'étant un
individu, il peut avoir de la culture, tandis que la populace,
étant un monstre, n'en a point. L'homme, qui est un Empereur ou un
Roi, peut se baisser pour ramasser le pinceau d'un peintre, mais
quand la démocratie se baisse, ce n'est jamais que pour lancer de
la boue. Et pourtant la démocratie n'est pas forcée de se baisser
aussi bas que l'Empereur; et même quand elle veut jeter de la
boue, elle n'a pas du tout à se baisser. Toutefois il n'est
aucunement nécessaire de distinguer entre monarque et populace;
toute autorité est également mauvaise.

Il y a trois sortes de despotes.

Il y a le despote qui tyrannise les corps; il y a le despote qui
tyrannise les âmes; il y a le despote qui exerce sa tyrannie sur
les uns et les autres.

On donne au premier le nom de Prince, au second le nom de Pape, au
troisième le nom de Peuple.

Le prince peut être cultivé: beaucoup de Princes l'ont été.
Cependant le Prince offre quelque danger. Qu'on se souvienne de
Dante dans l'amertume de la fête de Vérone, et du Tasse dans un
cabanon de fou à Ferrare.

Il est préférable pour l'artiste de ne point vivre avec le Prince.

Le Pape peut être cultivé. Beaucoup de Papes l'ont été. Les
mauvais Papes l'ont été. Les mauvais Papes aimaient la Beauté. Ils
y mettaient presque autant de passion, ou plutôt, autant de
passion que les bons Papes en montraient dans leur haine de la
Pensée. L'humanité doit beaucoup à la scélératesse de la Papauté;
la bonté de la Papauté doit un compte terrible à l'humanité.

Néanmoins, bien que la Papauté ait gardé sa rhétorique tonitruante
et perdu la baguette conductrice de sa foudre, il vaut mieux que
l'artiste ne vive point avec les Papes.

C'est un pape qui dit de Cellini en plein conclave de cardinaux
que les lois faites pour tout le monde, l'autorité faite pour tout
le monde, n'étaient point faites pour des hommes tels que lui.
Mais ce fut un pape qui jeta Cellini en prison, l'y tint jusqu'à
ce qu'il devînt malade de rage, si bien qu'il finit par se créer à
lui-même des visions imaginaires, qu'il vit le soleil entrer tout
doré dans sa chambre, et en devint si amoureux, qu'il voulut
s'échapper, qu'il rampa de tour en tour, que l'air de l'aube lui
donna le vertige, qu'il tomba, s'estropia, fut couvert de feuilles
de vigne par un vigneron, et transporté dans une charrette auprès
d'un homme qui, épris de belles choses, eut soin de lui.

Il y a du danger auprès des Papes.

Quant au peuple, que dire de lui, et de son autorité.

On a peut-être assez parlé de lui et de son autorité. Son autorité
est chose aveugle, sourde, hideuse, grotesque, tragique, amusante,
sérieuse, et obscène.

Il est impossible à l'artiste de vivre avec le peuple.

Tous les despotes vous achètent. Le peuple vous achète et vous
abrutit.

Qui lui a parlé d'exercer une autorité?

Il a été fait pour vivre, pour écouter, pour aimer.

On lui a causé un grand dommage. Le peuple s'est défiguré par
l'imitation de ses inférieurs.

Il a arraché le sceptre au prince. Comment le manierait-il?

Il a pris au Pape sa triple couronne. Comment porterait-il ce
fardeau?

C'est un clown qui a le coeur brisé. C'est un prêtre dont l'âme
n'est pas née encore.

Que tous les amants de la Beauté le prennent en pitié. Que le
peuple, bien qu'il n'aime pas la beauté, s'apitoie sur lui-même.
Qui lui a donc appris les ruses de la tyrannie?

Il y a bien d'autres choses qu'on pourrait signaler.

On pourrait signaler combien la Renaissance fut grande parce
qu'elle n'entreprit de résoudre aucun problème social, mais
qu'elle laissa l'individu se développer dans sa liberté, dans sa
beauté, dans son naturel, et eut aussi de grands artistes
originaux, de grands hommes originaux.

On pourrait faire remarquer que Louis XIV par la création de
l'État moderne, détruisit l'individualisme de l'artiste, fit des
choses monstrueuses dans leur monotone répétition, méprisables
dans leur asservissement à la règle, et fit disparaître dans toute
la France ces belles libertés d'expression qui avaient donné à la
tradition le charme de la nouveauté, et créé des modes nouveaux,
avec des formes antiques.

Mais le passé n'est d'aucune importance; le présent n'est d'aucune
importance. C'est avec l'avenir que nous devons compter. Car le
passé, c'est ce qu'un homme n'aurait point dû avoir été; le
présent, c'est ce que l'homme ne devrait point être. L'avenir,
c'est ce que sont les artistes.

On ne manquera pas de dire qu'un plan tel que celui-ci est
absolument impraticable et qu'il est en opposition avec la nature
humaine.

Cela est parfaitement vrai.

Il est impraticable, et il tend à l'opposé de la nature humaine.
C'est pourquoi il vaut la peine d'être mis à exécution, et c'est
pourquoi on le propose. Car qu'est-ce qu'un plan praticable?

_Un plan praticable, c'est un plan qui existe déjà ou qui peut
être mis à exécution dans des conditions qui existent déjà._

Or, c'est précisément à ces conditions déjà existantes que nous en
voulons, et tout plan qui comporterait ces conditions est vicieux,
est absurde.

Qu'on le débarrasse des conditions, et la nature humaine changera.

Tout ce qu'on sait de vraiment certain sur la nature humaine,
c'est qu'elle change. Le changement est le seul attribut que nous
puissions lui attacher.

Les systèmes qui échouent, ce sont les systèmes fondés sur
l'immutabilité de la nature humaine, et non sur sa croissance et
son développement.

L'erreur de Louis XIV consistait à croire que la nature humaine
serait toujours la même. La conséquence de son erreur a été la
Révolution française.

Ce résultat était admirable. Rien de plus admirable que les
résultats produits par les méprises des gouvernements.

Il est à remarquer, en outre, que l'individualisme ne se présente
pas à l'homme avec de geignantes tirades sur le devoir, qui
consiste tout simplement en ceci qu'on fait ce que veulent les
autres, parce qu'ils ont besoin qu'on le fasse. Il dispense
également de tout cet affreux jargon de sacrifice de soi qui n'est
en somme qu'un legs des temps de sauvagerie où l'on se mutilait.

_En réalité, il se présente à l'homme sans faire valoir aucune
légende sur lui. Il sort naturellement, inévitablement de
l'homme._

C'est le point vers lequel tend tout développement.

C'est l'état hétérogène auquel aboutit la croissance de tout
organisme. C'est la perfection inhérente à tout mode de vie, et
vers laquelle tout mode de vie tend d'une vitesse accélérée.

Aussi l'individualisme n'exerce-t-il aucune contrainte sur
l'homme. Loin de là, il dit à l'homme qu'il ne doit se laisser
imposer aucune contrainte. Il ne s'évertue pas à forcer les gens
d'être bons. Il fait que les hommes sont bons quand on leur laisse
la paix.

L'homme tirera l'individualisme de lui-même. C'est ainsi que
l'homme développe actuellement l'individualisme. Quand on demande
si l'individualisme est praticable, c'est comme quand on demande
si l'évolution est praticable.

_L'évolution est la loi de la vie et il ne s'accomplit
d'évolution que dans le sens de l'individualisme._

Lorsque cette tendance ne se manifeste pas, c'est qu'on a affaire
à un cas d'arrêt artificiel de développement, à un cas de maladie,
à un cas mortel.

L'individualisme sera aussi dépourvu d'égoïsme et d'affection.

On a déjà fait remarquer que l'un des résultats de
l'extraordinaire tyrannie qu'exerce l'autorité consiste en ce que
les mots sont violemment détournés de leur sens propre et simple,
et employés de façon à exprimer le contraire de leur signification
naturelle.

Ce qui est vrai pour l'art est vrai pour la vie.

De nos jours, on dit qu'un homme est affecté, quand il s'habille
comme il lui plaît, mais c'est justement en agissant ainsi qu'il
se montre dans tout son naturel. Sur ces points là, l'affectation
consiste à s'habiller conformément à la manière de voir des
autres, manière de voir qui a bien des chances d'être tout à fait
stupide, étant celle de la majorité.

On dira encore d'un homme qu'il est égoïste, parce qu'il vit à la
façon qui lui parait la plus favorable au développement complet de
sa personnalité, lorsqu'il donne pour but essentiel à sa vie ce
développement. Mais c'est de cette façon-là que tout le monde
devrait vivre.

_L'égoïsme ne consiste point à vivre comme on le veut, mais à
demander que les autres conforment leur genre de vie à celui qu'on
veut suivre._

Le défaut d'égoïsme consiste à laisser les autres vivre à leur
gré, sans se mêler de leur existence.

L'homme sans égoïsme sera enchanté de voir autour de lui une
infinie variété de types. Il s'en accommode. Il ne demande pas
mieux. Il y prend plaisir.

Un homme qui ne pense point à soi, ne pense point du tout.

C'est faire preuve d'un grossier égoïsme, d'exiger de votre voisin
qu'il pense comme vous, qu'il ait les mêmes opinions. Pourquoi le
ferait-il? S'il pense, il est très probable qu'il pensera
autrement que vous. S'il ne pense point, c'est monstrueux d'exiger
de lui une pensée quelconque.

Une rose rouge n'est point égoïste parce qu'elle veut être une
rose rouge. Elle serait d'un égoïsme horrible, si elle prétendait
que toutes les autres fleurs du jardin fussent des roses, et de
couleur rouge.

Sous l'individualisme, les gens seront parfaitement naturels,
absolument dépourvus d'égoïsme. Ils connaîtront le sens des mots,
et ils l'exprimeront dans la liberté et la beauté de leurs
existences.

Les hommes ne seront pas non plus égotistes comme de nos jours,
car l'égotiste est celui qui prétend avoir des droits sur les
autres, l'individualisme ne désirera rien de tel, il n'y saurait
trouver aucun plaisir.

Quand l'homme aura compris l'individualisme, il comprendra
également la sympathie et l'exercera librement, spontanément.

Jusqu'à présent, l'homme n'a guère cultivé la sympathie. Il n'a de
sympathie que pour la douleur, et la sympathie pour la douleur
n'est pas la forme la plus élevée de sympathie.

_Toute sympathie est un raffinement, mais la sympathie avec la
souffrance est le moindre des raffinements._

Elle est troublée d'égotisme. Elle est apte à devenir maladive. Il
y entre une certaine dose de terreur au sujet de notre propre
sécurité. Nous nous laissons aller à la crainte de devenir pareils
au lépreux ou à l'aveugle, et d'être privés de tous soins.

En outre, elle nous rétrécit d'une façon curieuse. On devrait
avoir de la sympathie pour la vie dans sa totalité, et non pas
seulement pour les fléaux et les maladies de la vie. On devrait en
avoir pour la joie, la beauté, l'énergie, la santé, la liberté de
la vie.

Naturellement à mesure qu'elle s'élargit, la sympathie devient
plus difficile. Elle demande qu'on soit encore moins égoïste.

Chacun peut sympathiser avec les souffrances d'un ami, mais il
faut être d'une nature bien pure, en somme d'une nature vraiment
individualiste, pour sympathiser avec la fortune d'un ami. Dans la
cohue et la lutte entre concurrents pour les places, une telle
sympathie est évidemment rare, et en même temps très comprimée par
l'idée immorale de l'uniformité typique, de la soumission à la
règle, choses si universellement prédominantes, et qui en
Angleterre ont acquis le plus d'influence nuisible.

De la sympathie pour la douleur, il est certain qu'il y en aura
toujours. C'est là un des premiers instincts de l'homme. Les
animaux qui ont de l'individualité, je veux dire les animaux
supérieurs, ont ce trait commun avec nous. Mais il est bon de se
rappeler que si la sympathie avec la joie augmente la somme de
joie qui existe dans le monde, la sympathie avec la douleur ne
saurait diminuer la somme de la douleur.

Elle rend l'homme plus capable d'endurer le mal, mais le mal
persiste. La sympathie avec la consomption, ne guérit pas la
consomption, mais la science la guérit. Et quand le socialisme
aura résolu le problème de la pauvreté, que la science aura résolu
le problème de la maladie, le domaine des sentimentalistes se
rétrécira, et la sympathie de l'homme sera large, saine,
spontanée.

On aura de la joie à contempler la vie joyeuse des autres.

Car c'est grâce à la joie que l'individualisme de l'avenir se
développera.

_Le Christ n'a fait aucune tentative pour reconstruire la
société. En conséquence l'individualisme qu'il prêchait à l'homme
ne pouvait être réalisé qu'en passant par la douleur ou dans la
solitude._

Les idéals, que nous devons au Christ, sont ceux de l'homme qui
abandonne entièrement la société, ou de l'homme qui se refuse
absolument à la société.

Mais l'homme est sociable par nature. La Thébaïde elle-même finit
par se peupler et bien que le cénobite réalise sa personnalité,
celle qu'il réalise ainsi est souvent une personnalité appauvrie.

D'autre part, cette vérité terrible, que la douleur est un mode
par lequel l'homme peut se réaliser, a exercé sur le monde une
extraordinaire fascination.

Des parleurs superficiels, des penseurs superficiels, dans les
chaires et à la tribune, déclament sur l'amour du monde pour le
plaisir, et geignent contre ce fait. Mais il est rare de trouver
dans l'histoire du monde qu'il se soit donné pour idéal la joie et
la beauté.

Le culte, qui a le plus dominé le monde, c'est celui de la
souffrance.

Le moyen-âge avec ses saints et ses martyrs, son amour de la
souffrance cherchée, sa furieuse passion de se faire des
blessures, de s'entailler avec des couteaux, de se déchirer à
coups de verges, le moyen-âge, c'est le vrai christianisme, et le
Christ médiéval, c'est le Christ véritable.

Quand l'aube de la Renaissance parut sur le monde, et qu'elle lui
offrit les idéals nouveaux de la beauté dans la vie, et de la joie
de vivre, les hommes cessèrent de comprendre le Christ.

L'art lui-même nous le montre.

Les peintres de la Renaissance nous représentent le Christ comme
un enfant qui joue avec un autre enfant dans un palais ou un
jardin, ou se renversant dans les bras de sa mère pour lui
sourire, pour sourire à une fleur, à un brillant oiseau, ou bien
encore comme une noble et imposante figure qui parcourt
majestueusement le monde, ou comme un personnage surnaturel, qui
dans une sorte de cage, surgit de la mort dans la vie.

Même quand ils le peignent crucifié, ils le représentent comme un
dieu de beauté auquel de méchants hommes ont infligé la
souffrance.

Mais il ne les absorbait pas beaucoup.

Ce qu'ils représentaient avec plaisir, c'étaient les hommes et les
femmes qu'ils admiraient. Ils se plaisaient à montrer tout le
charme de ce globe enchanteur.

Ils firent beaucoup de tableaux religieux; et même ils en firent
beaucoup trop. La monotonie du type et du sujet est chose
fatigante; elle nuisit à l'art. Elle était imputable à l'autorité
que le public exerçait dans les choses d'art, et on doit la
déplorer. Mais ils ne mettaient point leur âme dans le sujet.

Raphaël fut un grand artiste quand il fit le portrait du pape.
Lorsqu'il peignait ses Madones et ses Christs enfants, il n'était
plus du tout un grand artiste.

Le Christ n'avait rien à dire à la Renaissance.

Elle était merveilleuse parce qu'elle apportait un idéal différent
du sien.

Aussi devons-nous recourir à l'art médiéval pour trouver la
représentation du véritable Christ.

Il y figure comme un homme mutilé, abîmé de coups, un homme sur
lequel les regards n'ont point de plaisir à se porter, parce que
la beauté est une joie, un homme qui n'est point vêtu richement,
parce que c'est là aussi une joie. C'est un mendiant qui a une âme
admirable. C'est un lépreux dont l'âme est divine. Il ne lui faut
ni propriété ni santé. C'est un dieu qui atteint à la perfection
par la souffrance.

L'évolution de l'homme est lente. L'injustice des hommes est
grande. Il était nécessaire que la douleur fût mise au premier
rang comme mode de réalisation de soi-même.

De nos jours encore, la mission du Christ est nécessaire.

Personne, dans la Russie Moderne, n'eût pu réaliser sa perfection
autrement que par la souffrance. Un petit nombre d'artistes russes
se sont individualisés dans l'Art, dans une fiction qui est
médiévale par le caractère, parce que la note qui y domine, est le
développement des hommes grâce à la souffrance. Mais pour ceux qui
ne sont pas des artistes et pour lesquels il n'y a pas d'autre
genre de vie que celui de la réalité, la douleur est la seule
porte qui s'ouvre vers la perfection.

Un Russe, qui se trouve heureux sous le système actuel de
gouvernement qui règne en Russie, doit croire ou bien que l'homme
n'a pas d'âme, ou bien que s'il en a une, elle ne vaut pas la
peine d'évoluer.

Un nihiliste, qui rejette toute autorité, parce qu'il sait que
toute autorité est mauvaise, et qui fait bon accueil à la
souffrance, parce que grâce à elle, il réalise sa personnalité,
est un véritable chrétien.

Pour lui, l'idéal chrétien est une vérité.

Et pourtant le Christ ne se révolta point contre les autorités.

Il reconnaissait l'autorité de l'empereur dans l'Empire Romain, et
lui payait tribut. Il supportait l'autorité spirituelle de
l'Église juive, et se refusait à repousser la violence par la
violence.

Comme je l'ai dit plus haut, il n'avait aucun plan pour la
reconstruction de la société.

Mais le monde moderne a des plans.

Il compte en finir avec la pauvreté et les souffrances qu'elle
amène. Il espère en finir avec la douleur, et les maux qu'amène la
douleur. Il s'en rapporte au socialisme et à la science; il compte
sur leurs méthodes.

Le but auquel il tend, c'est un individualisme s'exprimant par la
joie. Cet individualisme sera plus large, plus complet, plus
attrayant que ne l'aura jamais été aucun individualisme.

La douleur n'est point le but ultime de la perfection. Ce n'est
qu'une chose provisoire, une protestation. Elle ne vise que des
milieux mauvais, insalubres, injustes.

Quand le mal, la maladie, l'injustice auront été écartés, elle
cessera d'avoir une place. Elle aura accompli sa tâche.

Ce fut une tâche considérable. Mais elle est presque entièrement
achevée, et sa sphère diminue de jour en jour.

Et l'homme ne manquera pas de s'en apercevoir.

_En effet, ce qu'a cherché l'homme, c'est non pas la souffrance,
ni le plaisir, c'est simplement la vie._

L'homme s'est efforcé de vivre d'une manière intense, complète,
parfaite. Quand il pourra le faire sans imposer de contrainte à
autrui, sans jamais en subir, quand toutes ses facultés actives
lui seront d'un exercice agréable, il sera plus sain, plus
vigoureux, plus civilisé, plus lui-même. Le plaisir est la pierre
de touche de la nature, son signe d'approbation. Lorsque l'homme
est heureux, il est en harmonie avec lui-même et avec ce qui
l'entoure.

Le nouvel individualisme, auquel travaille, qu'il le veuille ou
non, le socialisme, sera l'harmonie parfaite.

Il sera ce que les Grecs ont poursuivi, mais n'ont pu atteindre
que dans le domaine de la pensée, parce qu'ils avaient des
esclaves et les nourrissaient.

Il sera ce que la Renaissance a cherché, mais n'a pu réaliser
complètement que dans l'art, parce qu'on y avait des esclaves et
qu'on les laissait mourir de faim.

Il sera complet, et par lui, tout l'homme arrivera à sa
perfection.

Le nouvel Individualisme est le nouvel Hellénisme.

FIN



    [1] _Le Portrait de Monsieur W. H._ a paru en juillet
1889 dans le _Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine_. C'était,
paraît-il, le canevas d'une étude complète, à un point de
vue neuf, sur les sonnets de Shakespeare. Le manuscrit de
ce travail beaucoup plus étendu a existé: selon M. Thomas
Seccombe, il a été dérobé en 1893 chez Oscar Wilde en
même temps que le manuscrit du drame _A Florentine
tragedy_.
    _Le Portrait de Monsieur W. H._ a été plusieurs fois
réédité en Angleterre et en Amérique (1901-1905).
    Cette plaquette a été traduite en allemand.
    [2] Macpherson est l'éditeur et le _forgeur _des
prétendus _Poèmes_ d'Ossian qui ont fait les délices de
nos grands-pères à qui il n'aurait pas fallu parler de leur
dieu avec ce dédain. _(Note du traducteur.)_
    [3] Ireland (William Henry, 1777-1835) prétendit avoir
trouvé des manuscrits inédits de Shakespeare qu'il publia à
partir de 1795. Il finit par avouer son invention. (_Note du
traducteur.)_
    [4] Chatterton (Thomas, 1752-1770) mit au jour _des
_poèmes qu'il attribuait à Rowley et qui soulevèrent
d'interminables polémiques. _(Note du traducteur.)_
    [5] Penhurst dans le Kent, château ayant appartenu
aux Sydney. _(Note du traducteur.)_
    [6] William Herbert, troisième comte de Pembroke,
(1580-1630), célèbre par son goût pour les lettres, héritage
de sa mère et de son oncle Philippe Sydney. Il fut l'ami de
Massinger, de Ben Jonson, de Chapman et de Shakespeare.
_(Note du traducteur.)_
    [7] Mary Fitton, fille d'honneur de la reine Elisabeth,
devenue en 1600 la maîtresse du jeune comte de
Pembroke, dont elle eut un fils. L'hypothèse, qui le mêle au
mystère des Sonnets, est moins généralement admise que
celle qui fait jouer le rôle capital à William Herbert. (_Note
du traducteur_.)
    [8] Francis Meres (1565-16471, auteur du Discours
comparatif _de nos poètes anglais _avec les _poètes grecs,
latins et italiens _(1598) où il fournit la liste des œuvres de
Shakespeare. (_Note du traducteur)._
    [9] Voici le texte de la dédicace des Sonnets. Je copie la
disposition typographique et traduis le plus littéralement
possible.
    To
    The only begetter of these ensuing sonnets
    Mr W. H.
    _All_ Happiness
    and
    That Eternity promised by our ever living poet
    _Wisheth_
    The well Wishing adventurer
    In setting forth.
    T. T.
    À l'unique acquéreur des sonnets ci-après, monsieur
W. H. .tout bonheur et cette éternité que lui promit notre
poète immortel, souhaite le très sincère vœu de celui qui
hasarde cette publication, T. T. (Thomas Thorpe).
    Si l'on place la virgule après _Wisheth, _le sens est
ainsi modifié:
    À l'unique acquéreur des sonnets ci après, monsieur
W. H. souhaite tout bonheur et cette éternité que lui
promit notre poète immortel. Le bien sincère aventureur
de cette publication, T. T.
    Thomas Thorpe était l'éditeur des _Sonnets. _(_Note
du traducteur._)
    [10] Georges Chapman (1557-1534) contemporain de
Shakespeare, remis en honneur par Algernon C. Swinburne
et réédité en 1873. (_Note du traducteur,)_
    [11] Ou ont pris mon Hughes. _(Note du traducteur.)_
    [12] Sonnet XX, 8.
    [13] Sonnet CIX, 14.
    [14] Sonnet VIII, 1.
    [15] Sonnet XXVI, 1.
    [16] Sonnet 1, 10.
    [17] Sonnet XXII, 6.
    [18] Sonnet CXXVI, 9.
    [19] Sonnet II, 3.
    [20] Sonnet XCV, 1.
    [21] Christophe Marlowe (1564-1593). Voir l'excellente
étude de Félix Rabbe préfaçant sa traduction du _Théâtre.
_Stock, éditeur. (_Note du traducteur.)_
    [22] Henry-Julius de Brunswick (1589-1613), fils du
troisième duc de Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, prince lettré,
auteur de deux drames en prose, grand bâtisseur de
châteaux et grand dépensier. _(Note du Traducteur.)_
    [23] P. Oudry, peintre français inconnu, est l'auteur
d'un portrait de Marie Stuart qui figure à la National
Gallery. _(Note du traducteur.)_.
    [24] Cette nouvelle, parue pour la première fois en
1891 à la suite de l'édition originale du _Crime de lord
Arthur Savile, _a été réimprimée pour une circulation
privée depuis la mort d'Oscar Wilde.
    [25] Auteurs des _Phantasms of the living_, traduit en
français par L. Marilliev, avec préface de Charles Ribot
sous le titre _les hallucinations télépathiques_, 1891.
_(Note du traducteur.)_
    [26] Longfelow a publié le _Squelette dans sa
cuirasse_, poésie, inspirée par la découverte à Newport
d'un squelette cuirassé. _(Note du traducteur.)_
    [27] Un _clam-bake_ est un plat de cuisine improvisé
sur des pierres dans un pique-nique. On mélange pour
obtenir cette tourte toute espèce d'ingrédients. (Note du
Traducteur.)
    [28] Cette nouvelle, publiée en 1891 à la suite du
_Crime de lord Arthur Savile_, a été réimprimée pour une
circulation privée depuis la mort d'Oscar Wilde.
    [29] Publiée, pour la première fois en 1891 à la suite du
_Crime de lord Arthur Savile_, cette nouvelle a été
réimprimée pour une circulation privée depuis la mort
d'Oscar Wilde.
    [30] Ruff est l'auteur du Guide du Turf. _(Note du
traducteur.)_
    [31] The Museum. Bailey est mort en 1823. _(Note du
traducteur.)_
    [32] L'expression _grand dieux_ est erronée. Mais il
est impossible de savoir si le traducteur voulait écrire
_grand Dieu_ ou _grands Dieux_. [Note du correcteur]
    [33] Publiés au complet pour la première fois dans la
_Fortnightly Review_ de juillet 1894, les _Poèmes en
prose_ ont été réimprimés plusieurs fois en Amérique et à
Paris (1904-1906).
    _La Maison du Jugement_ et le _Disciple_ furent
publiés isolément, dès 1893, dans _The Spirit Lamp_
d'Oxford.
    [34] Cette étude a été insérée dans la _Fortnightly
Review_ en février 1891, réimprimée en 1891 à New-York
et en Angleterre en 1895 en une édition non mise dans le
commerce, et quatre fois rééditée depuis la mort d'Oscar
Wilde.
    Il en existe une traduction allemande récente.
    [35] Allusion à l'allégorie de la caverne dans _La
République_, livre VII.
    [36] _La Critique et l'art_. Cette étude fait partie du
volume _Intentions_, si bien traduit par M. J.-J. Renaud,
(Stock, éditeur), p. 98. Elle avait paru pour la première fois
dans la _Nineteenth Century_ en juillet. 1890 et en
volume l'année suivante.
    [37] Dans l'_Evangile_ ce n'est pas l'amour adultère
qui est intense et admirable, c'est l'amour de la pécheresse
pour Jésus. (_Note du traducteur._)