Chapter X: Toulon, July 15

Joyful, indeed, and happy is my lot since I became a domesticated faun. No longer do I experience hunger or cold, absence of love, hostility of mankind, the bites of dogs. But with my happiness there mingles a vague sense of shame, an indescribable feeling of being cramped. I have the sensation of diminishing divinity: the man grows in me, subtly and gradually stifling my primitive nature, which was Desire. I have the nostalgia of desire. Once I desired fruits, leaves, women; and now that these things have come to me, I dream only of being naked and famished in a desert. Oh! what attractions solitude has for him who lives in the midst of humanity!

The Phrygian Aesop—I knew his brothers, who were handsome and stupid—has written a fable to prove that liberty is the chief blessing. I heard it in the Greek of my infancy, and young girls learned it by heart on my knees. It is true and false, like every human invention. Liberty is a burden which one desires to throw on the ground, when one knows nothing else, and in the slavery of the happiest of civilizations there is a bitterness that oppresses the heart. Once my very sadness was a sort of joy that caused my life to expand flower-like and become glorious. My sadness was a momentary transformation of the forces of my being and when, by chance, I encountered someone with whom to share this mood, it bourgeoned in the voluptuous silence of nights until it equalled the very immensity of the world. Now and then I suffered, but I never experienced ennui. What is this new distemper whose existence I learned at the same time that I knew its name? One day I observed that things around me were becoming colorless and that the eyes of women were fading at my approach, like a metal mirror. I no longer interested myself in anything, I dreamed of lands that were inexistent. My past itself, so rich in adventures, no longer sufficed to fix memory on any single point of my history, and my dormant desire stirred not at the prospect of future loves.

This only lasted several days, but I am still affected by it and I feel that I shall never be cured. Cydalise’s return brought a temporary recovery; since her second departure, I support my life without extracting much pleasure out of it. Erebus has forsaken me, I am alone, and it is in vain that Déidamie, a little Greek girl, puts herself in my way when I go to see my friends who drink the green water. She is a friend of Erebus, who has also bequeathed me an old dealer in syllables who used to write love letters for her in return for the pleasure her visits gave him. She had a habit of tossing her dark hair at him, while letting fall a medley of words that were sharp and peppery. Erebus called him her secretary and I address him as Diogenes. I have often heard their quarrels and debates, one wishing to clothe the secret thoughts of Erebus in fitting diction, the other hurling them forth at random, as naked as Aphrodite emerging from the waves, and much less chaste. How comical my old Diogenes seemed in this struggle. But I was hurt to learn that Erebus trafficked in her charms, with the same unconsciousness as Destiny. The manner of my breaking with her is an insignificant episode. Several days afterwards, I learned that she had left with an English traveler who had no desire to view sunny sites without a companion. Diogenes was in tears when he told me the news. He attends when I dress and awaits my morning talk, but it is I who make him speak.

His discourse is pleasant and bitter. At first I was immensely amused, but his disillusioned words soon made me reflect on myself and on life more than he would have wished, and I think it is perhaps this that has made me ill. It is not surprising to find him disenchanted, for he is old and poor, reduced to associate with a circle of people that goes against his instincts and habits. I have perhaps erred in calling him Diogenes, for he is more melancholy than cynical, more resigned than depraved. Little as I am versed in apparel and styles, he seems to me to be garbed with a sort of old-fashioned refinement. His hair has the color of hemp one sees steeping in the ponds of fields; it is as discolored as his soul. His linen is always immaculate, his complexion is rosy, his hands fine, his eyes gentle and vague; and his fleshy lips give him an air of goodness and innocent sensuality.

There are priests of Jupiter here with this appearance, but some Greek phrases he let fall have revealed to me the old professor of eloquence or philosophy. Now I listen to his explanations of life without dismay and I even experience the pleasures of the initiate. Sometimes I seem to hear a Bacchant, sometimes a Mithriac, and sometimes again, a man in his cups. Wine, which makes me wild and which I like only in the grape, makes him bold. When he visits me, I always order a flagon the color of amber or of new roses, the sight of which is pleasant to my eyes, and I hearken to his wisdom while brushing my hair or polishing my horns, for I keep no secrets from him.

Like Erebus, he familiarly calls me Satyros, and I find this quite natural. She was the subject of our first conversation, or rather of his first discourse:

“What I like in this woman is her disinterestedness. She sells her body only the better to surrender herself; it is her weakness. She has a marvelous appetite and can only satisfy it with those of her choice. Those who choose her find her but a servant of Aphrodite. Were she rich, she would be the most honest of women and would only select her loves among those who most resemble the gods. Wealth is a great privilege, even in love. Thus it happens that there are two races on the globe, everlastingly creating and re-creating themselves,—the race submissive to destiny and the race which surmounts it. You have heard the contrary. It is nonsense. Give heed to the voice of a man whom fate overwhelms and who, to be reconciled with a woman he loves, has changed himself into her domestic slave. She will return; I shall again feel the odor of her hair and of her scorn. I have ruined myself for Aspasia. It is right that Aspasia should hold me in contempt.”

I give you quite faithfully some of his words; I have not understood them well. It seemed to me, besides, that his face flushed and grew ruddy, that he was getting drunk. He added words that I understood even less, about the pleasure of suffering and the keen delights of humiliation. Then he recited Theognis’ invective against poverty, thus completing the confession of his absolute incoherence.

He is not always so senseless. He is an unfortunate wretch punished by Aphrodite for having misused love—this is only permitted the gods—but she usually offers him a respite and then his conversation is less depressing. If I am to tell you the end of my experiences, I shall doubtless have to speak of Diogenes. But I am truly forbearing, for he has taken advantage of me.

ANTIPHILOS,
_Satyr._

XI

DÉIDAMIE