Chapter VI: March 1

Strange, this life for which I have exchanged my familiar woods and their hazards! And all through Cydalise! What monotony at first; then what annoyance and ennui! I thought of escape many a time, but my sweetheart imprisoned me with her tears, her smiles, her kisses, her gestures of entreaty.

“At least, wait until good weather arrives, dear,” she said. “What will you do in this severe cold, with the wind moaning through the pines, now that you have grown accustomed to the softness of beds and my tenderness? Could you find your way alone, among all these houses that conceal the horizon from your gaze? O Antiphilos! think of me, think of our mornings, think of my days made divine by your presence! What! you wish to leave your Cydalise! Have you not everything needed by a satyr? Come, tell me what it is you lack?”

I am at a loss for a reply to these honied words breathed into my pointed ears, and on my lips as well, while she kisses me. I desire to rediscover myself, but would she understand if I told her this? So I am silent. I also keep from her an adventure which has upset me. I fear she suspects it, although I would not wish her to be certain of it. The thing still makes me tremble, but you will know it, for you are my friend. And if I did not tell you, who then? For I no longer can confide in the pines, the rhododendrons, the crags and streams. Formerly, when some unlucky adventure befell me, through having strayed too near civilization, I would joyously chant my griefs and fears. Now, a prisoner, I have no living thing to listen to me, and when my voice rises, it stuns me. Besides, I have other concerns than liberty, the liberty I know I shall never recover.

One sunny day of last month, when I was leaning against the window and peering out, I discovered a grassy nook not far from here, a garden from which sharp cries came. I desired to go there. Cydalise daily takes me for a walk before dinner—as she would a favorite, pet animal. We go through old streets, towards the harbor, trying to reach the country; but it is too far away, and Cydalise never has time to spare. We dine early; she returns with me and, after a few caresses, leaves me with a parting injunction to be good. These maternal, little ways delight me, but they are also hard on me. I see myself reduced to an obedient infant, and this hurts my pride. At other times, I reflect that it is love which holds me, modifying my soul. Then I no longer dare commiserate myself, and I obey Cydalise’s every whim with a good grace.

I can fall asleep quickly. Reading by natural light dazes me, and I have preserved that faculty, more divine than animal, of instantly falling into an easy slumber, at once profound and light, which plunges me to the depths in a trice, and in a breath brings me back to the surface. I awake only with the return of Cydalise, who comes at a late hour, with the harmonious bees of Pindus still murmuring within her. She hums the verses she has been declaiming before the people, with new rhythms unfamiliar to my ear accustomed more to the stirring of winds through trees than to the fanciful inventions of inspired Euterpe. Sometimes she falls into my arms, almost dead with fatigue. Sometimes she disrobes frantically, astonishing me even by the boldness of her wanton movements. But I must confess that usually she is quite calm. After hailing me with a “Good evening, Tityrus,” she counts the money lying in her large bag which never leaves her; generally, she seems satisfied with herself and loses no time in falling asleep.

Were it not for the mornings, I certainly could not support a life so measured and confined; despite my love for Cydalise, I would go whither the road led; but I must confess that the mornings embellish my life. Cydalise is very lovely and surrenders her beauty even more completely than was her wont in the grottos and on the mosses. The open air and absence of seclusion frighten women a little. So I can understand and admire the means taken by your civilization to reassure them. If I can judge by Cydalise, how faun-like they become behind a stout bolt and under a light softly sifted by curtains! She is worthy of the gods. Why art thou not, like myself, immortal! I cannot behold thee without melancholy, for now that I perceive thy continued existence, I also perceive thy fate. It is only _en passant_, like a flash of lightning that gods should love women, who then experience them as a memorable thunderclap descending, illuminating, consuming, disappearing. And for them love, in their life, is but a deeper sensation, a profounder inspiration, a headier cup of wine. But the constant union of two beings so different in essence, though almost alike in desires and pleasures! Cydalise’s love makes me aware of the sadness of perishable things. I think of flowers, I think of the harvest time, I think of the seasons, of all that lives but a day, of all things that inevitably fall into the gulf, never to reappear. In giving me her feminine love, Cydalise has given me a man’s soul,—a soul realizing that destiny will not strike it, while witnessing the passing of all dear ones.

I already possess the metaphysical jargon of men. I can no longer accept life as it is offered, good or bad, but ever adorable by the fact that it exists. In spite of my divinity, I think of what will be, as though I did not bear the present and future within me, and as though I were not destined never to feel their burden on my shoulders. Mysterious gods, I need an effort not to think with sadness, I whose unconscious life once exulted in brief moments of illumination! Shall I really be transformed into a man, through having loved a woman? Then, I too, would have age. How long do infatuated fauns live? Perhaps that is why they have disappeared, for one no longer encounters them, at least in these Occidental lands.

You see to what excesses my ramblings lead me and the illogical thoughts which attack me while contemplating the mortal head of Cydalise, asleep as though she were dead. Ah, mortals! how poisonous is your love, and what an idea was mine to lift towards my lips the cool amphoras which seemed to contain pure water! Trust in pure water, fauns and satyrs.

And I have not told you my adventure. Cydalise is yet asleep, but she will soon awake. I dare not. I will write you more anon. Despite his sunny mornings, pity the poor satyr.

ANTIPHILOS,
_Satyr._

VII

THE SATYR! THE SATYR!