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1Quand il employait ainsi toutes ses forces dans une lecture, il perdait en quelque sorte la conscience de sa vie physique, et n’existait plus que par le jeu tout-puissant de ses organes intérieurs dont la portée s’était démesurément étendue : il laissait, suivant son expression, l’ espace derrière lui . Mais je ne veux pas anticiper sur les phases intellectuelles de sa vie. Malgré moi déjà, je viens d’intervertir l’ordre dans lequel je dois dérouler l’histoire de cet homme qui transporta toute son action dans sa pensée, comme d’autres placent toute leur vie dans l’action. Un grand penchant l’entraînait vers les ouvrages mystiques. — Abyssus abyssum , me disait-il. Notre esprit est un abîme qui se plaît dans les abîmes. Enfants, hommes, vieillards, nous sommes toujours friands de mystères, sous quelque forme qu’ils se présentent. Cette prédilection lui fut fatale, s’il est permis toutefois de juger sa vie selon les lois ordinaires, et de toiser le bonheur d’autrui avec la mesure du nôtre, ou d’après les préjugés sociaux. Ce goût pour les choses du ciel, autre locution qu’il employait souvent, ce mens divinior était dû peut-être à l’influence exercée sur son esprit par les premiers livres qu’il lut chez son oncle. Sainte Thérèse et madame Guyon lui continuèrent la Bible, eurent les prémices de son adulte intelligence, et l’habituèrent à ces vives réactions de l’âme dont l’extase est à la fois et le moyen et le résultat. Cette étude, ce goût élevèrent son cœur, le purifièrent, l’ennoblirent, lui donnèrent appétit de la nature divine, et l’instruisirent des délicatesses presque féminines qui sont instinctives chez les grands hommes : peut-être leur sublime n’est-il que le besoin de dévouement qui distingue la femme, mais transporté dans les grandes choses.
2Grâce à ces premières impressions, Louis resta pur au collége. Cette noble virginité de sens eut nécessairement pour effet d’enrichir la chaleur de son sang et d’agrandir les facultés de sa pensée. La baronne de Staël, bannie à quarante lieues de Paris, vint passer plusieurs mois de son exil dans une terre située près de Vendôme. Un jour, en se promenant, elle rencontra sur la lisière du parc l’enfant du tanneur presque en haillons, absorbé par un livre. Ce livre était une traduction du Ciel et de l’Enfer . À cette époque, MM. Saint-Martin, de Gence et quelques autres écrivains français, à moitié allemands, étaient presque les seules personnes qui, dans l’empire français, connussent le nom de Swedenborg. Étonnée, madame de Staël prit le livre avec cette brusquerie qu’elle affectait de mettre dans ses interrogations, ses regards et ses gestes ; puis, lançant un coup d’œil à Lambert : — Est-ce que tu comprends cela ? lui dit-elle.
3— Priez-vous Dieu ? demanda l’enfant. — Mais… Oui. — Et le comprenez-vous ? La baronne resta muette pendant un moment ; puis elle s’assit auprès de Lambert, et se mit à causer avec lui. Malheureusement ma mémoire, quoique fort étendue, est loin d’être aussi fidèle que l’était celle de mon camarade, et j’ai tout oublié de cette conversation, hormis les premiers mots. Cette rencontre était de nature à vivement frapper madame de Staël ; à son retour au château, elle en parla peu, malgré le besoin d’expansion qui, chez elle, dégénérait en loquacité ; mais elle en parut fortement préoccupée. La seule personne encore vivante qui ait gardé le souvenir de cette aventure, et que j’ai questionnée afin de recueillir le peu de paroles alors échappées à madame de Staël, retrouva difficilement dans sa mémoire ce mot dit par la baronne, à propos de Lambert : C’est un vrai voyant . Louis ne justifia point aux yeux des gens du monde les belles espérances qu’il avait inspirées à sa protectrice. La prédilection passagère qui se porta sur lui fut donc considérée comme un caprice de femme, comme une de ces fantaisies particulières aux artistes. Madame de Staël voulut arracher Louis Lambert à l’Empereur et à l’Église, pour le rendre à la noble destinée qui, disait-elle, l’attendait ; car elle en faisait déjà quelque nouveau Moïse sauvé des eaux. Avant son départ, elle chargea l’un de ses amis, monsieur de Corbigny, alors préfet à Blois, de mettre en temps utile son Moïse au collége de Vendôme ; puis elle l’oublia probablement.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1A strong bias drew his mind to mystical studies. ‘‘ Abyssus abyssum,’’ he would say. ‘‘Our spirit is abysmal and loves the abyss. In childhood, manhood, and old age we are always eager for mysteries in whatever form they present. themselves.”’ This predilection was disastrous; if indeed his life can be measured by ordinary standards, or if we may gauge another's happiness by our own or by social notions. This taste for the ‘‘things of heaven,’’ another phrase he was LOUIS LAMBERT 187 fond of using, this mens divinior, was due perhaps to the influence produced on his mind by the first books he read at his uncle’s. Saint Theresa and Madame Guyon were a sequel to the Bible; they had the first-fruits of his manly intelligence, and accustomed him to those swift reactions of the soul of which ecstasy is at once the result and the means. This line of study, this peculiar taste, elevated his heart, purified, ennobled it, gave him an appetite for ‘the divine nature, and suggested to him the almost womanly refinement of feeling which is instinctive in great men; perhaps their sublime superiority is no more than the desire to devote themselves which characterizes woman, only transferred to the greatest things. As a result of these early impressions, Louis passed immaculate through his school life; this beautiful virginity of the senses naturally resulted in the richer fervor of his blood, and in increased faculties of mind.
2The Baroness de Staél, forbidden to come within forty leagues of Paris, spent several months of her banishment on an estate near Vendome. One day, when out walking, she met on the skirts of the park the tanner’s son, almost in rags, and absorbed in reading. The book was a translation of ‘‘Heaven and Hell.’’ At that time Monsieur Saint-Martin, Monsieur de Gence, and a few other French or half German writers were almost the only persons in the French Empire to whom the name of Swedenborg was known. Madame de Staél, greatly surprised, took the book from him with the roughness she affected in her questions, looks, and manners, and with a keen glance at Lambert— ‘Do you understand all this?’’ she asked. ‘“‘Do you pray to God ?”’ said the child. ‘“Why? yes!” 188 BALZAC’S WORKS And do you understand Him?” The Baroness was silent for a moment; then she sat down by Lambert, and began to talk to him. Unfortu- — nately, my memory, though retentive, is far from being so trustworthy as my friend’s, and I have forgotten the whole of the dialogue excepting those first words. Such a meeting was of a kind to strike Madame de Staél very greatly; on her return home she said but little about it, notwithstanding an effusiveness which in her became mere loquacity; but it evidently occupied her thoughts.
3The only person now living who preserves any recollection of the incident, and whom I catechized to be informed of what few words Madame de Staél had let drop, could with difficulty recall these words spoken by the Baroness as describing Lambert, ‘‘He is a real seer.”’ Louis failed to justify in the eyes of the world the high hopes he had inspired in his protectress. The transient favor she showed him was regarded as a feminine caprice, one of the fancies characteristic of artist souls. Madame de Staél determined to save Louis Lambert alike from serving the Hmperor or the Church, and to preserve him for the glorious destiny which, she thought, awaited him; for she made him out to be a second Moses snatched from the waters. Before her departure she instructed a friend of hers, Monsieur de Corbigny, to send her Moses in due course to the High School at Vendome; then she probably forgot him. Having entered this college at the age of fourteen, early in 1811, Lambert would leave it at the end of 1814, when he had finished the course of Philosophy. I doubt whether during the whole time he ever heard a word -of his benefacss Z LOUIS LAMBERT 189 tress—if indeed it was the act of a benefactress to pay for a lad’s schooling for three years without a thought of his future prospects, after diverting him from a career in which he might have found happiness. The circumstances of the time, and Louis Lambert’s character, may to a great extent absolve Madame de Staél for her thoughtlessness and her generosity. The gentleman who was to have kept up communications between her and the boy left Blois just at the time when Louis passed out of the college. The political events that ensued were then a sufficient excuse for this gentleman’s neglect of the Baroness’s protégé. The authoress of ‘‘Corinne’’ heard no more of her little Moses. A hundred louis, which she placed in the hands of Monsieur de Corbigny, who died, I believe, in 1812, was not a sufficiently large sum to leave lasting memories in Madame de Staél, whose excitable nature found ample pasture during the vicissitudes of 1814 and 1815, which absorbed all her interest. At this time Louis Lambert was at once too proud and too poor to go in search of a patroness who was travelling all over Europe. Mowever, he went on foot from Blois to Paris in the hope of seeing her, and arrived, unluckily, on the very day of her death. Two letters from Lambert to the Baroness remained unanswered. The memory of Madame de Staél’s good intentions with regard to Louis remains, therefore, only in some few young minds, struck, as mine was, by the strangeness of the story.
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
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