Short Fiction, Xavier de Maistre [books to read in your 20s txt] 📗

of being useful, when I seized my pen, and it only remains for me to defend myself against the promptings of self-esteem, which I might lawfully feel at having revealed truths like these to mankind. XXIX

Amidst all these confidences, my dear Sophie, I hope that you have not forgotten the uncomfortable position in which I was left at my window. The emotion that the sight of my neighbour’s pretty foot had inspired still remained, and I was more than ever in the thrall of the dangerous influence of that slipper, when an unforeseen event rescued me frorn the danger I was in, of precipitating myself from the fifth story into the street below. A bat, which was flitting round and round the house, seeing me motionless for such a length of time, mistook me, apparently, for a chimney, and suddenly bore right down upon me, and laid hold of my ear. I felt on my cheek the horrible coldness of its damp wings. The loud cry I uttered, in spite of myself, awoke all the echoes of Turin. The sentinel shouted, “Who goes there?” and I heard the hurried march of the patrol in the street. The balcony having no further attraction for me, I turned from it without much difficulty. The chill night air had seized me, a slight shudder ran over me from head to foot, and as I wrapped myself closely in my dressing gown to get warm, I perceived, to my great regret, that, that sensation of cold, added to the insult of the bat, had been sufficient to divert anew the course of my thoughts. At that moment the magical slipper would have had no more influence over me than the hair of Berenice, or any other constellation. I at once considered how unreasonable it was to pass the night exposed to the chilly air instead of following the ordinary course of nature, which ordains sleep for us. At this moment, reason, which alone influenced me, made me see that as clearly as one of Euclid’s propositions. In a word, I was suddenly deprived of all imagination and enthusiasm, and hopelessly abandoned to painful reality. What a deplorable existence! One might just as well be a withered tree in a forest, or even an obelisk in the middle of a square. “What extraordinary machines are the head and the heart of man!” I exclaimed, “carried away, in turn, in contrary directions by these two regulators of his actions, the last one that he has obeyed always seems the best!” “O folly of enthusiasm and sentiment!” says cold reason. “O weakness and uncertainty of reason!” exclaims sentiment. Who would dare to decide between their rival claims?

I thought it would be well to settle this point and then and there to decide once for all to which of these two guides I ought to entrust myself for the remainder of my life.

In future, shall I follow my head or my heart? Let us consider the question.

XXX

Whilst speaking thus I felt a dull pain in that foot, which was resting on the step. I was, moreover, very tired with the uncomfortable attitude which I had maintained up to this time. I carefully bent down a little, in order to sit down, and, letting my legs dangle on either side of the window, I began my travels on horseback.

I have always preferred this mode of travelling to any other, and I am passionately fond of horses; but of all those I have ever seen or heard of, the one I should most eagerly have desired to possess is the wooden horse mentioned in the Arabian Nights, on which one could ride through the air, and which went like a flash of lightning, if you only turned a little peg, which was fixed between his ears.

Now you will probably say that my mount very much resembled this horse of the Arabian Nights. On the one side, the rider on his windowsill is in direct communication with the sky, and he enjoys the imposing spectacle of Nature; the meteors and stars lie before him; on the other side, the sight of his dwelling and of the objects it contains, brings him back to this world and compels him to think of himself. A mere turn of the head acts in the same way as the magic peg; it can produce a change in the soul of the traveller, as rapid as it is wonderful. Dwelling on the earth and in the sky by turns, his mind and soul run through all the delights which man can experience. I had a foretaste of all the benefits I could derive from my mount. When I felt myself firm in the saddle and quite comfortable, free from all fear of robbers, or from my horse stumbling, I felt that this was a most favourable opportunity to go thoroughly into the problem I had before me as to the preeminence of the heart over the head. But the very first reflection I made on this subject brought me to a standstill. “Is it for me to set myself up as a judge in such a matter as this?” said I, in an undertone. “Has not my conscience already decided in favour of the heart?” But, on the other hand, if I exclude those whose hearts are stronger than their heads, whom am I to consult⁠—the geometricians? Bah! those folks are bond-slaves to reason. In order to decide this point, we must find a man who has received from nature an equal portion of reason and sentiment, and in whom, at the very moment of decision, these two faculties are in perfect equilibrium. Impossible! It would be an easier task to place a republic in equilibrium!

The only competent judge, then, will be he who has nothing in common with either the one or the other; in short, a man without head or heart.

My reason shrank back in