When we are in our cradle fairies bring us their gifts which form the sweetness of our lives. Some of them we are able to make use of very quickly and for ourselves, it seems that nobody has any need to teach us how to suffer. But that is not the case with others. Often a charming gift lies deep within us without our even knowing about it. And it requires a good genie to illuminate that part of our soul in which it is hidden, show it to us, teach us its virtue. Often after this sudden illumination we allow the precious present to fall back into needless oblivion until the time when a new good genie appears to take it up and place it in our hand. These good genies are the ones who we generally call men of genius. To all those among us who are not men of genius, how dull and gloomy life would be if there had never been any painters, musicians and poets to guide us in the discovery of both the external and the internal world. Such is the service that these good genies perform for us, they make us discover in ourselves unknown forces in our soul, which we make grow stronger by making use of them. Among these benefactors I would today like to give special praise to the painters who make the world and life more beautiful for us. I once knew a lady who upon leaving the Louvre walked with her eyes closed, so that after seeing perfect figures by Raphael and Corot's woods she would not have to look at the ugliness of passersby or the streets of Paris. The geniuses could not give her anything beyond the fairies' present and their present certainly gave her little serenity. As for myself, when I emerge from the Louvre I am not emerging, since I am continuing or rather I am only beginning, after such an initiation, from between the wonders of sunlight and shadow on stone, the glossy wetness on the flanks of horses, a strip of grey or blue sky between the houses, the very outcrop of life to the gleaming or blighted eyes of the people passing by. Today in the Louvre I stopped most of all in front of three painters who are quite different and all three of whom provide a service for me which is marvellous and different. They are Chardin, Van Dyck and Rembrandt.
A fairy leaned over his cradle and told him sadly: "My child, my
sisters have given you beauty, courage, gentleness. Yet you will suffer
because I must, alas, join my gifts with theirs. I am the fairy of
misunderstood acts of kindness. Everybody will do you harm, will wound
you, those who you will not love, and those who you will love even more.
Like the slightest of reproaches, a little indifference, or mockery will
frequently make you suffer, you will consider them inhuman weapons, too
cruel for you to dare to use them yourself, even against the wicked.
Because in spite of yourself you will offer them your soul and your
capacity for suffering. And because of that you will be defenceless.
Fleeing from the harshness of men, you will first of all seek out the
society of women who conceal so much gentleness in their hair, in their
smile, in the shapeliness and the perfume of their bodies. But the most
artfully friendly of them will cause you sorrow without knowing it,
inflict wounds in the midst of caresses and scratch you as they play upon
the sorrowful strings that they do not understand. Nobody will properly
understand your tenderness which will evoke, through its excessive
delicacy and intensity, mad laughter or distrust. Just as others will not
have within them the template for such suffering, nor for such tenderness
as they inspire in you without understanding them, you will be for ever
misunderstood. Nobody will ever be able to console you or love you. But
yet worn out before having been made use of, your body will not resist the
counter blows of pangs and affairs of your heart. You will often be in a
fever. You will not sleep, you will shiver without respite. And so your
pleasures will be corrupted at their source. Even to feel them will make
you ill. At the age when small boys go out to laugh and play, you will
always be in tears on days when it is raining because you will not be
taken to the Champs-Elysées where you play with a little girl who you will
love and who will beat you, and on sunny days when you see each other you
will still be sad because you find her less pretty than she was during the
morning when, alone in your room, you were waiting for the moment when you
could see her. At the age when young boys run feverishly after women, you
will be reflective without respite, and already you will have lived much
more than people who are very old. And when talking to your parents you
will hear them say to you: one day you will no longer think like this,
when you have lived more, when you have our experience, you will just
smile modestly out of respect. Behold the sad gifts that I bring you, that
I am not free to not bring you, and that alas you will not be able to cast
far away from you, or smash them to pieces, these will be the dark symbols
of your existence until your death."
Then a voice made itself heard, slight but strong, light as a breath,
and like the limbo from which it came, but dominating all the voices in
the earth and the air by the sweet certainty of its tone: "I am the voice
of the one who does not yet exist but who will be born from your
misunderstood sorrows, from your unrecognized acts of kindness, from the
sufferings of your body. And unable to free you from your destiny, I will
suffuse it with my divine perfume. Listen to me, console yourself, because
I say to you: The sorrow of your slighted love, of your open wounds, I
will show you their beauty, so sweet that you will never be able to take
your tear dampened and charmed gaze away from them. The unkindness, the
stupidity, the indifference of men and women will turn into amusements for
you because it is deep and varied. And this will be as if I have uncovered
your eyes in the heart of the human forest, and you have stopped with
joyful curiosity in front of every trunk and every branch. Certainly
illness will bar you from countless pleasures. You will rarely be able to
hunt, go to the theatre, dine in town, but that will allow you to devote
yourself to other occupations that men commonly neglect, and which on the
point of quitting your life you will perhaps hold as the only essential
occupations. And over and above everything else, if I enrich it illness
has virtues that good health will never know. The invalids that are under
my protection often see things clearly that escape those who are well. And
if good health has a beauty that well people scarcely notice, illness has
its grace which you will revel in to the hilt. [A sentence made up of
crossed out expressions.] Then acceptance can flower in your heart
which tears have moistened like fields after April showers which are then
soon covered with violets. As for your kindheartedness, do not ever hope
to exchange it with anybody. It is far too rare a substance. But learn
rather to revere it. It is bitter yet sweet to give without expecting
anything in return. Then if someone is not kind to you, you will often
have the occasion to be kind to others and you will spread generously,
with the pride of a charity impossible for anyone else, this unknown and
exquisite perfume at the weary feet of those who suffer.
Created 13.11.19