A Memory of a Captain
I had come back to spend a day in this
little town of L... where I was a lieutenant for a year, and where I
feverishly sought to see everything again, places that love had rendered
me incapable of thinking back on without a powerful quiver of sadness, and
places, so humble however, like the walls of our barracks and our small
garden, adorned only with the varying charms that the light brought with
it according to the time of day, the inclination of the weather and the
season. These simple places from there remain fixed for ever in the world
of my imagination mantled in an immense sweetness, an immense beauty. Even
when I had gone for months without thinking about them I would suddenly
catch sight of them, just as at the turning of a climbing road one catches
sight of a village, a church, a small wood in the harmonious light of
evening. The courtyard of the barracks, the little garden where my friends
and I would dine together in the summer, it is the memory that without
doubt paints you with this delightful freshness, as does the enchanting
light of morning or evening. Every little detail is there to see, fully
illuminated and seems beautiful to me. I see you as if from a hill. You
are a small self-sufficient world, outside of me, that has a gentle
beauty, in its bright unexpected light. And my heart, my gay heart of that
time, now sad for me and yet uplifted, because in a moment it enraptures
the other with its gaiety, the sick and sterile heart of today, my gay
heart of that time is in this sunlit little garden, in the courtyard of
the far off barracks and yet so close, so strangely close to me, so inside
of me, and yet so outside of me, so impossible ever to reach again, my
heart is in the little village of harmonious light and I hear a clear
sound of bells that fills the road bathed in sunshine. So I had come back
to spend a day in this little town of L... And I had felt the regret, less
sharp than I feared, of rediscovering in it somewhat less than I
rediscovered from moment to moment in my heart, in which however I was
already rediscovering too little, which is truly sad, and minute by minute
more disheartening... We have so many occasions that are pregnant with the
means to disappoint us that idleness, like a tiny genie of unconsciousness
and "non-thought", makes us lose. - Consequently I had once more found
great melancholy surrounding the men and the objects from that place. And
then again much gaiety that I could hardly explain and that only two or
three friends could share because they were so much a part of my life
during that period. But this is what I want to relate. Before going to
dinner, in order to catch the train straight afterwards, I had gone to
give instructions to my old orderly, now with a different company,
destined for the other regiment in the town, barracked at the other end of
town, to have sent on to me some books I had forgotten. I met him in the
street, practically deserted at that hour, in front of the entrance gate
of the barracks of his new regiment and we chatted for ten minutes there
in the street, fully lit up by the evening light, our only witness being
the duty corporal who was reading a newspaper sitting on a corner-stone,
near the entrance gate. I do not remember his face very clearly, but he
was very tall, quite slim with something delightfully refined and charming
in his eyes and around his mouth. He exercised over me a quite mysterious
seduction and I made myself pay attention to my words and my gestures,
trying to please him and say rather admirable things, be it through a
sense of delicacy, be it through an excess of indulgence or pride. I have
forgotten to say that I was not in uniform, and that I was in a phaeton
that I had stopped outside in order to chat with my orderly. But the duty
corporal could not have helped but recognize the phaeton as belonging to
the Comte de C..., one of my old friends from my promotion to the rank of
lieutenant and who had put it at my disposal for the day. My old orderly,
furthermore, by ending each of his replies with: Captain, sir, could not
help but make the corporal perfectly aware of my rank. But such a usage
was not at all that by which a soldier pays his respects to officers out
of uniform, unless they belong to his regiment.
I had the feeling that the corporal overheard me and he
had raised his exquisite calm eyes towards us, which he lowered to his
newspaper when I looked at him. Passionately anxious (why?) that he look
at me, I put in my monocle and affected to look around me, avoiding
looking in his direction. Time was advancing, I had to leave. I could no
longer prolong the conversation with my orderly. I took my leave of him
with a friendliness tempered with a certain haughtiness expressly for the
sake of the corporal, and looking for a moment at the corporal who,
reseating himself on his corner-stone, turned his exquisite calm eyes
towards us, I saluted them both by raising my hat and nodding my head,
whilst smiling at him slightly. He stood to attention and held his right
hand open without letting it fall, as one does for a full second during a
military salute, against the peak of his képi, looking straight at me, as
per regulations, with extraordinary embarrassment. Then, while getting my
horse ready to leave, I saluted him fully, and it was as if I were saying
to him in my expression and in my smile something extremely affectionate
as if he were already an old friend. And, forgetting reality, by that
mysterious enchantment of looks that are like spirits and transport us
into their mystical kingdom where all impossibilities are abolished, I
remained bare-headed already borne away some distance by the horse, turned
towards him until I could no longer see him at all. He continued his
salute and truly two looks of friendship, as though outside time and
space, two looks of friendship already confident and established, had
crossed each other. I dined sadly and I spent two days in true anguish,
and in my dreams that face would suddenly appear before me and I would be
roused all in a tremble. Naturally I never saw him again, and I never
shall see him again. - But in any case now, you see, I can no longer
remember his face very well, and it appears to me only as being very
gentle, in that place all warm and golden in the evening light, a little
sad however on account of its mystery and its incompleteness.
Manuscript of uncertain date,
c. 1896.