André Gide: The White Notebook

But why try to find reasons to justify a stand already taken, as if by way of an apology? I write because I need to write — and that sums up everything. A stand is weakened by attempted explanations; the act should be spontaneous.

And with revitalized ambition comes a reawakening of the hope of completing Allain, the book that I have long dreamed of writing. 8

20 April

The air is so radiant this morning that in spite of myself my soul hopes — and sings, and worships prayerfully.

E petô leva su! Vince l’ambascia

Con I’animo che vince ogni battaglia

Se col suo grave corpo non s’accascia …

E dissi: “Va, ch’i son forte e ardito”.… 9

21 April

Nothing happens. Always the quiet life — and yet such a turbulent life. Everything happens deep in the soul. Nothing appears on the surface. How can I write about nothing? My thoughts have nothing on which to build, and my persistent passions, offspring of a forgotten past, have imperceptibly reached their peak. 10

I would fashion a soul, shape it deliberately — a loving soul, a beloved soul, similar to my own — in order that it might understand and yet from such a distance that nothing could ever separate the two. Slowly I would tie such intricate knots, weave such a network of sympathetic bonds, that separation would be impossible and shared patterns would forever keep them side by side. 11

Monday

We learned everything together. I thought only of joys shared with you, and you took pleasure in following my lead. Your vagabond mind also sought companionship.

First came the Greeks, always our favorites: the Iliad, Prometheus, Agamemnon, Hippolytus. And when, knowing the meaning, you wanted to hear the harmony of the lines, I would read:

Then came King Lear :

Through the sharp, hawthorne blows the cold wind.…

Shakespeare’s dramatic genius fired us with enthusiasm. There were no such thrills in real life.

Words of a Believer had the ring of true prophecy. Later, of course, you found Lamennais’ eloquence somewhat trite. I was vexed by your criticism, even though apt, because emotion floods his pages, and emotion is always beautiful.

Then we would go back to childhood readings, first studied in the classical manner with ravishing delight: Pascal, Boussuet … 12Massillon. But instead of the specious charm of the Carême we preferred the word-magic of the Funeral Orations of Jansenist sternness.…

And so many others still — and all the others.

* * *

Acknowledging our common aspirations, we went on to Vigny, Baudelaire — to Flaubert, the friend long anticipated! 13We marveled at his masterful rhythm. The rhetorical subtleties of the Goncourts sharpened our minds; Stendhal made them more receptive, more critical.…” 14

ΣYMΠAθEIN: to suffer together, to be impassioned together.

I saw the Sphinx as it fled toward Libya; like a jackal it galloped along.

Loudly I declaimed it, developing first the line and then emphasizing the dactyl. Both of us trembled to the majestic cadences.

You wrote that T*** reread to us the other evening Du Camp and Flaubert’s Eastern Voyage. He recited for us the rhythmical apostrophe that we love, but whether he reads it for us or I read it myself, the voice that I hear is always yours.

* * *

We were still reading from the Temptation: 15

O Fantasy, bear me away on your wings to mitigate my sorrow.. . Egypt! Egypt! The shoulders of your great motionless Gods have been bleached by bird-droppings, and the wind that passes over the desert stirs the ashes of your dead!.. Spring will return no more, O eternal Mother!

… You cannot imagine the long journey that we have taken. The green courier’s onagers died of exhaustion.…

And we read much more until finally we tired of repeating the passages, of bringing out all their harmony, of letting the pulsating rhythms echo back and forth until the refrain clung to the lips of one of us and was intelligible to the other — in the absence of speech.

* * *

I related to you my aspirations; you smiled, trying your best to seem incredulous.

“And the book that I have been dreaming of writing,” I told you, “will be called ALLAIN.”

Allain, the book that I dreamed of writing! I saw it as a melancholy and romantic work at first, when with the stirring of my senses I roamed the forests in search of solitude and was prey to unknown anxieties; when the song of the wind in the swaying pines seemed to give voice to my resurgent yearnings; when I wept over falling leaves, over setting suns, over vanishing streams of water; and when at the sound of the sea I would lapse into a day of revery. Then I saw it as metaphysical and profound when my mind began to harbor doubts — childish doubts, perhaps, but doubts that caused me considerable anxiety. There cannot be two ways of doubting. 16

At the outset I saw the book as a character sketch with neither episodes nor plot.

Then I had the notion of studying our love rather than portraying a character who declaimed about such things, and of recreating the intensity and immediacy of our experience. 17

25 April

They will never understand this book, those who search for happiness. The soul remains unsatisfied; it falls asleep amid happy surroundings. It becomes inert rather than alert. The soul should remain alert, active. It should find happiness not in HAPPINESS but in the awareness of its violent activity.

It follows that sorrow is to be preferred over joy, for it quickens the soul; when it does not vanquish it stimulates. It causes suffering, but pride of undaunted living compensates for minor lapses. Supreme arrogance is the mark of intense living. I would not exchange the intense life for any other; I have lived several lives, and the least of these was the real one. 18

My life will be more intense, my soul more vigilant. My listless soul will no longer lament but will rejoice in its nobility.

* * *

The thrill, both moral and physical, that grips you at the sight of sublime things, the thrill at first considered unique by each of us with the result that neither mentioned it to the other — what joy when we discovered that it was the same in both of us! It was an overwhelming emotion. What joy, afterwards, to experience it together as we read; it seemed to unite us in the same surge of enthusiasm. And the same thrill was soon felt by each of us through the other, in the other; with our hands joined and our bodies in close contact, we became inseparably one.

And when we read and my voice alternately rose and fell, I knew the sounds and the passages which we loved and which would make us both quiver with delight.

Fools! Nor would you have believed me …

Scamander, Meander, beloved of the Priamides.

The names alone, the Greek names with their long endings, awakened in us such magnificent memories that each burst of sound aroused latent feelings of exaltation.

One summer evening we were returning from H***.

We had been left alone on top of the carriage. The others were inside. The route was long and night was coming on rapidly. We wrapped around us a common shawl; our cheeks almost touched.

“I have brought along the Gospel,” I said to her. “If you wish, we can read together while there is still some light.”

“Read,” said Emmanuèle. 19

After I had finished reading to her, I asked: “Shall we pray together?”

“No,” she answered. “Let’s pray silently. Otherwise we would think of ourselves rather than of God.”