Chapter XX
Original French
La belle Saint-Yves meurt, et ce qui en arrive.
On appela un autre médecin: celui-ci, au lieu d’aider la nature, et dela laisser agir dans une jeune personne dans qui tous les organesrappelaient la vie, ne fut occupé que de contrecarrer son confrère. Lamaladie devint mortelle en deux jours. Le cerveau, qu’on croit le siègede l’entendement, fut attaqué aussi violemment que le coeur, qui est,dit-on, le siège des passions.
Quelle mécanique incompréhensible a soumis les organes au sentiment età la pensée? comment une seule idée douloureuse dérange-t-elle le coursdu sang? et comment le sang à son tour porte-t-il ses irrégularitésdans l’entendement humain? quel est ce fluide inconnu et dontl’existence est certaine, qui, plus prompt, plus actif que la lumière,vole, en moins d’un clin d’oeil, dans tous les canaux de la vie,produit les sensations, la mémoire, la tristesse ou la joie, la raisonou le vertige, rappelle avec horreur ce qu’on voudrait oublier, et faitd’un animal pensant ou un objet d’admiration, ou un sujet de pitié etde larmes?
C’était là ce que disait le bon Gordon; et cette réflexion sinaturelle, que rarement font les hommes, ne dérobait rien à sonattendrissement; car il n’était pas de ces malheureux philosophes quis’efforcent d’être insensibles. Il était touché du sort de cette jeunefille, comme un père qui voit mourir lentement son enfant chéri. L’abbéde Saint-Yves était désespéré, le prieur et sa soeur répandaient desruisseaux de larmes. Mais qui pourrait peindre l’état de son amant?nulle langue n’a des expressions qui répondent à ce comble de douleurs;les langues sont trop imparfaites.
La tante, presque sans vie, tenait la tête de la mourante dans sesfaibles bras; son frère était à genoux au pied du lit; son amantpressait sa main qu’il baignait de pleurs, et éclatait en sanglots; illa nommait sa bienfaitrice, son espérance, sa vie, la moitié delui-même, sa maîtresse, son épouse. A ce mot d’épouse elle soupira, leregarda avec une tendresse inexprimable, et soudain jeta un crid’horreur; puis, dans un de ces intervalles où l’accablement, etl’oppression des sens, et les souffrances suspendues, laissent à l’âmesa liberté et sa force, elle s’écria: Moi, votre épouse! ah! cheramant, ce nom, ce bonheur, ce prix, n’étaient plus faits pour moi; jemeurs, et je le mérite. O dieu de mon coeur! ô vous que j’ai sacrifié àdes démons infernaux, c’en est fait, je suis punie, vivez heureux. Cesparoles tendres et terribles ne pouvaient être comprises; mais ellesportaient dans tous les coeurs l’effroi et l’attendrissement; elle eutle courage de s’expliquer. Chaque mot fit frémir d’étonnement, dedouleur, et de pitié, tous les assistants. Tous se réunissaient àdétester l’homme puissant qui n’avait réparé une horrible injustice quepar un crime, et qui avait forcé la plus respectable innocence à êtresa complice.
Qui? vous coupable! lui dit son amant; non, vous ne l’êtes pas; lecrime ne peut être que dans le coeur, le vôtre est à la vertu et à moi.
Il confirmait ce sentiment par des paroles qui semblaient ramener à lavie la belle Saint-Yves. Elle se sentit consolée, et s’étonnait d’êtreaimée encore. Le vieux Gordon l’aurait condamnée dans le temps qu’iln’était que janséniste; mais, étant devenu sage, il l’estimait, et ilpleurait.
Au milieu de tant de larmes et de craintes, pendant que le danger decette fille si chère remplissait tous les coeurs, que tout étaitconsterné, on annonce un courrier de la cour. Un courrier! et de qui?et pourquoi? c’était de la part du confesseur du roi pour le prieur dela Montagne; ce n’était pas le P. de La Chaise qui écrivait, c’était lefrère Vadbled, son valet de chambre, homme très important dans cetemps-là, lui qui mandait aux archevêques les volontés du révérendpère, lui qui donnait audience, lui qui promettait des bénéfices, luiqui fesait quelquefois expédier des lettres de cachet. Il écrivait àl’abbé de la Montagne «que sa révérence était informée des aventures deson neveu, que sa prison n’était qu’une méprise, que ces petitesdisgrâces arrivaient fréquemment, qu’il ne fallait pas y faireattention, qu’enfin il convenait que lui prieur vînt lui présenter sonneveu le lendemain, qu’il devait amener avec lui le bon-homme Gordon,que lui frère Vadbled les introduirait chez sa révérence et chez monsde Louvois, lequel leur dirait un mot dans son antichambre.»
Il ajoutait que l’histoire de l’Ingénu et son combat contre les Anglaisavaient été contés au roi, que sûrement le roi daignerait le remarquerquand il passerait dans la galerie, et peut-être même lui ferait unsigne de tête. La lettre finissait par l’espérance dont on le flattait,que toutes les dames de la cour s’empresseraient de faire venir sonneveu à leur toilette, que plusieurs d’entre elles lui diraient:Bonjour, monsieur l’Ingénu; et qu’assurément il serait question de luiau souper du roi. La lettre était signée: «Votre affectionné Vadbled,frère jésuite.»
Le prieur ayant lu la lettre tout haut, son neveu furieux, etcommandant un moment à sa colère, ne dit rien au porteur; mais setournant vers le compagnon de ses infortunes, il lui demanda ce qu’ilpensait de ce style. Gordon lui répondit: C’est donc ainsi qu’on traiteles hommes comme des singes! on les bat et on les fait danser.L’Ingénu, reprenant son caractère, qui revient toujours dans les grandsmouvements de l’âme, déchira la lettre par morceaux, et les jeta au nezdu courrier: Voilà ma réponse. Son oncle épouvanté crut voir letonnerre et vingt lettres de cachet tomber sur lui. Il alla vite écrireet excuser, comme il put, ce qu’il prenait pour l’emportement d’unjeune homme, et qui était la saillie d’une grande âme.
Mais des soins plus douloureux s’emparaient de tous les coeurs. Labelle et infortunée Saint-Yves sentait déjà sa fin approcher; elleétait dans le calme, mais dans ce calme affreux de la nature affaisséequi n’a plus la force de combattre. O mon cher amant! dit-elle d’unevoix tombante, la mort me punit de ma faiblesse; mais j’expire avec laconsolation de vous savoir libre.
Je vous ai adoré en vous trahissant, et je vous adore en vous disant unéternel adieu.
Elle ne se parait pas d’une vaine fermeté; elle ne concevait pas cettemisérable gloire de faire dire à quelques voisins: Elle est morte aveccourage. Qui peut perdre à vingt ans son amant, sa vie, et ce qu’onappelle l’honneur, sans regrets et sans déchirements? Elle sentaittoute l’horreur de son état, et le fesait sentir par ces mots et parces regards mourants qui parlent avec tant d’empire. Enfin ellepleurait comme les autres dans les moments où elle eut la force depleurer.
Que d’autres cherchent à louer les morts fastueuses de ceux qui entrentdans la destruction avec insensibilité: c’est le sort de tous lesanimaux. Nous ne mourons comme eux avec indifférence, que quand l’âgeou la maladie nous rend semblables à eux par la stupidité de nosorganes. Quiconque fait une grande perte a de grands regrets; s’il lesétouffe, c’est qu’il porte la vanité jusque dans les bras de la mort.
Lorsque le moment fatal fut arrivé, tous les assistants jetèrent deslarmes et des cris. L’Ingénu perdit l’usage de ses sens. Les âmesfortes ont des sentiments bien plus violents que les autres, quandelles sont tendres. Le bon Gordon le connaissait assez pour craindrequ’étant revenu à lui il ne se donnât la mort. On écarta toutes lesarmes; le malheureux jeune homme s’en aperçut; il dit à ses parents età Gordon, sans pleurer, sans gémir, sans s’émouvoir: Pensez-vous doncqu’il y ait quelqu’un sur la terre qui ait le droit et le pouvoir dem’empêcher de finir ma vie? Gordon se garda bien de lui étaler ceslieux communs fastidieux par lesquels on essaie de prouver qu’il n’estpas permis d’user de sa liberté pour cesser d’être quand on esthorriblement mal, qu’il ne faut pas sortir de sa maison quand on nepeut plus y demeurer, que l’homme est sur la terre comme un soldat àson poste: comme s’il importait à l’Etre des êtres que l’assemblage dequelques parties de matière fût dans un lieu ou dans un autre; raisonsimpuissantes qu’un désespoir ferme et réfléchi dédaigne d’écouter, etauxquelles Caton ne répondit que par un coup de poignard.
Le morne et terrible silence de l’Ingénu, ses yeux sombres, ses lèvrestremblantes, les frémissements de son corps, portaient dans l’âme detous ceux qui le regardaient ce mélange de compassion et d’effroi quienchaîne toutes les puissances de l’âme, qui exclut tout discours, etqui ne se manifeste que par des mots entrecoupés. L’hôtesse et safamille étaient accourues; on tremblait de son désespoir, on le gardaità vue, on observait tous ses mouvements. Déjà le corps glacé de labelle Saint-Yves avait été porté dans une salle basse, loin des yeux deson amant, qui semblait la chercher encore, quoiqu’il ne fût plus enétat de rien voir.
Au milieu de ce spectacle de la mort, tandis que le corps est exposé àla porte de la maison, que deux prêtres à côté d’un bénitier récitentdes prières d’un air distrait, que des passants jettent quelquesgouttes d’eau bénite sur la bière par oisiveté, que d’autrespoursuivent leur chemin avec indifférence, que les parents pleurent, etqu’un amant est prêt de s’arracher la vie, le Saint-Pouange arrive avecl’amie de Versailles.
Son goût passager, n’ayant été satisfait qu’une fois, était devenu del’amour. Le refus de ses bienfaits l’avait piqué. Le P. de La Chaisen’aurait jamais pensé à venir dans cette maison; mais Saint-Pouangeayant tous les jours devant les yeux l’image de la belle Saint-Yves,brûlant d’assouvir une passion qui par une seule jouissance avaitenfoncé dans son coeur l’aiguillon des désirs, ne balança pas à venirlui-même chercher celle qu’il n’aurait pas peut-être voulu revoir troisfois, si elle était venue d’elle-même.
Il descend de carrosse; le premier objet qui se présente à lui est unebière; il détourne les yeux avec ce simple dégoût d’un homme nourridans les plaisirs, qui pense qu’on doit lui épargner tout spectacle quipourrait le ramener à la contemplation de la misère humaine. Il veutmonter. La femme de Versailles demande par curiosité qui on vaenterrer; on prononce le nom de mademoiselle de Saint-Yves. A ce nom,elle pâlit et pousse un cri affreux; Saint-Pouange se retourne; lasurprise et la douleur remplissent son âme. Le bon Gordon était là, lesyeux remplis de larmes. Il interrompt ses tristes prières pourapprendre à l’homme de cour toute cette horrible catastrophe. Il luiparle avec cet empire que donnent la douleur et la vertu. Saint-Pouangen’était point né méchant; le torrent des affaires et des amusementsavait emporté son âme, qui ne se connaissait pas encore. Il ne touchaitpoint à la vieillesse, qui endurcit d’ordinaire le coeur des ministres;il écoutait Gordon, les yeux baissés, et il en essuyait quelques pleursqu’il était étonné de répandre: il connut le repentir.
Je veux voir absolument, dit-il, cet homme extraordinaire dont vousm’avez parlé; il m’attendrit presque autant que cette innocente victimedont j’ai causé la mort. Gordon le suit jusqu’à la chambre où leprieur, la Kerkabon, l’abbé de Saint-Yves, et quelques voisins,rappelaient à la vie le jeune homme retombé en défaillance.
J’ai fait votre malheur, lui dit le sous-ministre, j’emploierai ma vieà le réparer. La première idée qui vint à l’Ingénu fut de le tuer, etde se tuer lui-même après. Rien n’était plus à sa place; mais il étaitsans armes et veillé de près. Saint-Pouange ne se rebuta point desrefus accompagnés du reproche, du mépris, et de l’horreur qu’il avaitmérités, et qu’on lui prodigua. Le temps adoucit tout. Mons de Louvoisvint enfin à bout de faire un excellent officier de l’Ingénu, qui aparu sous un autre nom à Paris et dans les armées, avec l’approbationde tous les honnêtes gens, et qui a été à-la-fois un guerrier et unphilosophe intrépide.
Il ne parlait jamais de cette aventure sans gémir; et cependant saconsolation était d’en parler. Il chérit la mémoire de la tendreSaint-Yves jusqu’au dernier moment de sa vie. L’abbé de Saint-Yves etle prieur eurent chacun un bon bénéfice; la bonne Kerkabon aima mieuxvoir son neveu dans les honneurs militaires que dans le sous-diaconat.La dévote de Versailles garda les boucles de diamants, et reçut encoreun beau présent. Le P. Tout-à-tous eut des boîtes de chocolat, de café,de sucre candi, de citrons confits, avec les *Méditations du révérendP. Croiset* et la Fleur des saints reliées en maroquin. Le bonGordon vécut avec l’Ingénu jusqu’à sa mort dans la plus intime amitié;il eut un bénéfice aussi, et oublia pour jamais la grâce efficace et leconcours concomitant. Il prit pour sa devise: *Malheur est bon àquelque chose*. Combien d’honnêtes gens dans le monde ont pu dire:Malheur n’est bon à rien!
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from the French, independently of the Plain English edition. All twenty chapters and Voltaire’s three author notes are retained; Beuchot’s editorial apparatus is omitted.
The beautiful Saint-Yves dies, and what comes of it.
Another doctor was called. Instead of assisting nature and letting her act in a young person whose every organ was calling life back, this one concerned himself only with contradicting his colleague. In two days the illness became mortal. The brain, believed to be the seat of understanding, was attacked as violently as the heart, said to be the seat of the passions.
What incomprehensible mechanism has subjected the organs to feeling and thought? How does a single painful idea disturb the course of the blood? And how does the blood in its turn carry its disorders into human understanding? What is this unknown fluid, whose existence is certain, which, swifter and more active than light, flies in less than the blink of an eye through all the channels of life, produces sensations, memory, sadness or joy, reason or delirium, recalls with horror what we would like to forget, and makes a thinking animal either an object of admiration or a subject of pity and tears?
Such were good Gordon's words; and this very natural reflection, which men rarely make, took nothing from his tenderness, for he was not one of those unhappy philosophers who strive to feel nothing. He was moved by the young girl's fate like a father watching his beloved child slowly die. The abbé de Saint-Yves was in despair; the prior and his sister shed streams of tears. But who could portray her lover's state? No language has expressions equal to this extremity of grief; languages are too imperfect.
The aunt, scarcely alive herself, held the dying girl's head in her feeble arms; her brother knelt at the foot of the bed; her lover clasped her hand, bathed it in tears, and broke into sobs. He called her his benefactress, his hope, his life, half of himself, his beloved, his wife. At the word wife she sighed, looked at him with inexpressible tenderness, and suddenly gave a cry of horror. Then, in one of those intervals when exhaustion, the oppression of the senses, and suffering are suspended and leave the soul its freedom and strength, she cried, "I, your wife! Ah, dear lover, that name, that happiness, that prize were no longer meant for me. I am dying, and I deserve it. Oh, god of my heart! You whom I sacrificed to infernal demons, it is over, I am punished. Live happily." These tender, terrible words could not be understood, but they carried terror and compassion into every heart. She found the courage to explain herself. Every word made all those present shudder with astonishment, grief, and pity. All joined in detesting the powerful man who had repaired a horrible injustice only through a crime, and had forced the most honorable innocence to become his accomplice.
"What? You, guilty!" her lover told her. "No, you are not. Crime can exist only in the heart, and yours belongs to virtue and to me."
He affirmed this feeling in words that seemed to bring the beautiful Saint-Yves back to life. She felt consoled and was astonished to be loved still. Old Gordon would have condemned her in the days when he was only a Jansenist; but having become wise, he esteemed her and wept.
Amid so many tears and fears, while the danger threatening this dear girl filled every heart and all were stricken, a courier from court was announced. A courier! From whom? And why? He came on behalf of the king's confessor, for the prior of Kerkabon. It was not Father de La Chaise who was writing, but Brother Vadbled, his valet, a very important man in those days: he conveyed the reverend father's wishes to archbishops, he granted audiences, he promised benefices, he sometimes had lettres de cachet issued. He wrote to the abbé de Kerkabon "that His Reverence had been informed of his nephew's adventures, that his imprisonment had been merely a mistake, that these little misfortunes occurred frequently, that no attention should be paid to them, that in short it was proper that he, the prior, should come and present his nephew the next day, that he should bring good old Gordon with him, that he, Brother Vadbled, would introduce them to His Reverence and to that Louvois, who would say a word to them in his antechamber."
He added that the story of the Ingénu and his battle against the English had been told to the king, that the king would surely deign to notice him as he passed through the gallery, and might even nod to him. The letter ended by holding out the flattering hope that all the ladies at court would be eager to summon his nephew to their dressing tables, that several would say to him, "Good morning, Monsieur Ingénu," and that he would certainly be mentioned at the king's supper. The letter was signed, "Your affectionate Vadbled, Jesuit brother."
The prior read the letter aloud. His furious nephew, mastering his anger for a moment, said nothing to the bearer, but turned to the companion of his misfortunes and asked what he thought of this style. Gordon answered, "So this is how men are treated like monkeys! They are beaten and made to dance." The Ingénu, reverting to his own character, which always returns in the soul's great upheavals, tore the letter to pieces and flung them in the courier's face. "There is my answer." His terrified uncle thought he saw a thunderbolt and twenty lettres de cachet falling upon him. He hurried to write and excuse as best he could what he took for a young man's fit of temper, and what was the outburst of a great soul.
But more painful cares were taking hold of every heart. The beautiful, unfortunate Saint-Yves already felt her end approaching. She was calm, but with that dreadful calm of a nature so crushed it no longer has the strength to struggle. "Oh, my dear lover!" she said in a failing voice. "Death is punishing me for my weakness, but I die with the consolation of knowing you are free.
"I adored you as I betrayed you, and I adore you as I bid you an eternal farewell."
She did not adorn herself with a show of firmness. She could not conceive of that wretched glory of making a few neighbors say, "She died bravely." Who at twenty can lose her lover, her life, and what is called honor without regret and anguish? She felt the full horror of her condition and made it felt through those words and those dying looks that speak with such command. In short, she wept like the others whenever she had the strength to weep.
Let others seek to praise the ostentatious deaths of those who go insensibly into destruction: that is the lot of every animal. We die as indifferently as they do only when age or illness makes us resemble them through the dullness of our organs. Whoever suffers a great loss feels great regret; if he stifles it, he carries vanity even into the arms of death.
When the fatal moment came, all those present broke into tears and cries. The Ingénu lost consciousness. Strong souls, when they are tender, feel far more violently than others. Good Gordon knew him well enough to fear that when he came to himself, he would take his own life. All weapons were removed. The unhappy young man noticed it and said to his relatives and Gordon, without weeping, without groaning, without agitation, "Do you really think there is anyone on earth with the right and the power to keep me from ending my life?" Gordon took care not to parade before him those tedious commonplaces by which people try to prove that we may not use our freedom to cease to exist when we are horribly unhappy; that we must not leave our house when we can no longer live in it; that man is on earth like a soldier at his post—as though it mattered to the Being of beings whether an assemblage of a few particles of matter was in one place or another. Powerless arguments, which firm and thoughtful despair disdains to hear, and which Cato answered only with a dagger stroke.
The Ingénu's bleak and terrible silence, his dark eyes, his trembling lips, the shudders of his body carried into the soul of everyone watching him that mixture of compassion and terror which binds all the soul's powers, excludes all speech, and reveals itself only in broken words. The landlady and her family had hurried in. They trembled at his despair, kept him in sight, and watched his every movement. The cold body of the beautiful Saint-Yves had already been carried to a downstairs room, far from the eyes of her lover, who seemed to be looking for her still, though he was no longer capable of seeing anything.
Amid this spectacle of death, while the body was displayed at the door of the house, while two priests beside a holy-water basin distractedly recited prayers, while passersby idly sprinkled a few drops of holy water on the coffin and others went indifferently on their way, while the relatives wept and a lover was ready to tear life from himself, Saint-Pouange arrived with the friend from Versailles.
His passing fancy, satisfied only once, had become love. The refusal of his favors had piqued him. Father de La Chaise would never have thought of coming to this house; but Saint-Pouange, with the image of the beautiful Saint-Yves before his eyes every day, burning to sate a passion that, through a single enjoyment, had driven the spur of desire deep into his heart, did not hesitate to come himself in search of a woman he might not have wanted to see three times had she come of her own accord.
He stepped down from his carriage; the first thing he saw was a coffin. He turned his eyes away with the simple disgust of a man brought up among pleasures, who thinks he should be spared any spectacle that might bring him back to contemplating human misery. He wanted to go upstairs. The woman from Versailles asked out of curiosity who was to be buried; Mademoiselle de Saint-Yves's name was spoken. At that name she turned pale and gave a dreadful cry. Saint-Pouange turned around; astonishment and grief filled his soul. Good Gordon was there, his eyes full of tears. He interrupted his sorrowful prayers to tell the courtier of the whole horrible catastrophe. He spoke with the authority that grief and virtue confer. Saint-Pouange had not been born wicked; the torrent of business and amusements had carried away his soul, which did not yet know itself. He was not approaching the old age that usually hardens ministers' hearts. He listened to Gordon with lowered eyes and wiped from them a few tears he was astonished to shed. He came to know repentance.
"I absolutely must see this extraordinary man you have told me about," he said. "He moves me almost as much as the innocent victim whose death I caused." Gordon followed him to the room where the prior, Mademoiselle de Kerkabon, the abbé de Saint-Yves, and a few neighbors were bringing the young man back to life after he had fainted again.
"I have brought you misery," the deputy minister told him. "I will spend my life making amends." The Ingénu's first thought was to kill him and then kill himself. Nothing could have been more fitting; but he had no weapons and was closely watched. Saint-Pouange was not discouraged by refusals accompanied by the reproach, contempt, and horror he had deserved and that were heaped upon him. Time softens everything. Louvois at last succeeded in making an excellent officer of the Ingénu, who appeared under another name in Paris and in the armies, with the approval of all honorable people, and who was at once an intrepid warrior and philosopher.
He never spoke of this adventure without a groan, and yet his consolation lay in speaking of it. He cherished the memory of the tender Saint-Yves to the last moment of his life. The abbé de Saint-Yves and the prior each received a good benefice; good Mademoiselle de Kerkabon preferred to see her nephew with military honors rather than in the subdiaconate. The devout woman from Versailles kept the diamond earrings and received another handsome present. Father Tout-à-tous received boxes of chocolate, coffee, rock candy, and candied lemons, with the Meditations of the Reverend Father Croiset and The Flower of the Saints bound in morocco leather. Good Gordon lived with the Ingénu in the closest friendship until his death; he too received a benefice and forgot efficacious grace and concomitant concurrence forever. He adopted as his motto: Misfortune is good for something. How many honorable people in this world have been able to say, Misfortune is good for nothing!
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the French, not from the Musean edition. All twenty chapters and Voltaire’s three author notes are retained; Beuchot’s editorial apparatus is omitted.
The beautiful Saint-Yves dies, and what follows.
They called another doctor. Instead of helping nature and letting it do its work in a young woman whose every organ was struggling to restore life, he thought only of opposing his colleague. Within two days the illness became fatal. The brain, believed to be the seat of understanding, was attacked as violently as the heart, said to be the seat of the passions.
"What incomprehensible mechanism has made our organs subject to feeling and thought? How does a single painful idea disturb the flow of blood? And how does the blood, in turn, pass its disorders on to the human mind? What is this unknown fluid, whose existence is certain, which moves faster and more actively than light, rushing through all the channels of life in less than the blink of an eye? It produces sensations, memory, sadness or joy, reason or confusion. It brings back in horror what we wish we could forget and makes a thinking animal either an object of admiration or a subject for pity and tears."
This was what good Gordon said. This very natural reflection, which people rarely make, took nothing away from his tenderness. He wasn't one of those wretched philosophers who try to feel nothing. He was moved by this young woman's fate like a father watching his beloved child slowly die. The abbé de Saint-Yves was in despair. The prior and his sister shed streams of tears. But who could describe her lover's condition? No language has words equal to such extreme pain. Languages are too imperfect.
The aunt, almost lifeless herself, held the dying woman's head in her weak arms. Her brother knelt at the foot of the bed. Her lover clasped her hand, bathing it in tears and breaking into sobs. He called her his benefactor, his hope, his life, half of himself, his beloved, his wife. At the word "wife," she sighed and looked at him with indescribable tenderness, then suddenly gave a cry of horror. Then, in one of those intervals when crushing exhaustion, dulled senses, and pain briefly held back leave the mind free and strong, she cried, "Me, your wife! Oh, dear lover, that name, that happiness, that reward were no longer meant for me. I'm dying, and I deserve it. Oh, god of my heart! You whom I sacrificed to demons from hell! It's over. I'm being punished. Live happily." No one could understand these tender, terrible words, but they filled every heart with fear and compassion. She found the courage to explain. Every word made everyone present shudder with astonishment, sorrow, and pity. They all joined in hating the powerful man who had corrected a horrible injustice only by committing a crime, and had forced the most admirable innocence to become his accomplice.
"What? You, guilty?" her lover told her. "No, you aren't. Crime can exist only in the heart. Yours belongs to virtue and to me."
He supported this thought with words that seemed to bring the beautiful Saint-Yves back to life. She felt comforted and was surprised that she was still loved. Old Gordon would have condemned her when he was only a Jansenist. But now that he had become wise, he respected her and wept.
Amid so many tears and fears, while the danger facing this beloved girl filled every heart and everyone was in distress, a messenger from court was announced. A messenger! From whom? And why? He came on behalf of the king's confessor, for the prior of Kerkabon. It wasn't Father de La Chaise who had written, but Brother Vadbled, his personal servant. He was a very important man at the time: he informed archbishops of the reverend father's wishes, gave audiences, promised church benefices, and sometimes had royal warrants for imprisonment issued. He wrote to the prior "that His Reverence had been informed of his nephew's adventures; that his imprisonment was only a mistake; that these little misfortunes happened frequently and shouldn't be taken seriously; that, in short, the prior should come and present his nephew the next day; that he should bring good old Gordon with him; and that he, Brother Vadbled, would introduce them to His Reverence and to Monsieur de Louvois, who would say a word to them in his anteroom."
He added that the king had been told the Ingénu's story and how he had fought the English. The king would surely be gracious enough to notice him when passing through the gallery, and might even nod to him. The letter ended by holding out the pleasing hope that all the ladies of the court would be eager to invite his nephew to attend them while they dressed. Several would say, "Good morning, Monsieur Ingénu," and he would certainly be talked about at the king's supper. The letter was signed, "Your affectionate Vadbled, Jesuit brother."
When the prior read the letter aloud, his furious nephew controlled his anger for a moment and said nothing to the messenger. Instead, he turned to the companion of his sufferings and asked what he thought of this way of writing. Gordon answered, "So this is how they treat people like monkeys! They beat them and make them dance." The Ingénu's original character returned, as it always does when the soul is deeply stirred. He tore the letter into pieces and threw them in the messenger's face. "There's my answer." His terrified uncle thought he saw a thunderbolt and twenty royal warrants for imprisonment falling on him. He hurried off to write and excuse as best he could what he took for a young man's temper, but which was really the outburst of a great soul.
But more painful concerns took hold of every heart. The beautiful, unfortunate Saint-Yves could already feel her end approaching. She was calm, but with the dreadful calm of a body that has collapsed and no longer has the strength to fight. "Oh, my dear lover!" she said in a fading voice. "Death is punishing me for my weakness. But I die with the comfort of knowing you're free.
"I adored you while betraying you, and I adore you as I say goodbye forever."
She didn't put on an empty show of firmness. She couldn't understand the miserable glory of making a few neighbors say, "She died bravely." Who, at twenty, can lose her lover, her life, and what is called honor, without regret and anguish? She felt all the horror of her condition and made it felt through those words and those dying looks that speak so powerfully. In short, she cried like the others whenever she had the strength to cry.
Let others praise the showy deaths of people who meet destruction without feeling. That's the fate of all animals. We die with indifference, as they do, only when age or illness dulls our organs and makes us like them. Anyone who suffers a great loss feels great regret. If he suppresses it, that's because he carries his vanity even into the arms of death.
When the fatal moment came, everyone there broke into tears and cries. The Ingénu lost consciousness. Strong souls, when they are tender, feel things much more violently than others. Good Gordon knew him well enough to fear that he would kill himself when he came to. They removed all the weapons. The unhappy young man noticed. Without tears, groans, or any sign of agitation, he said to his relatives and Gordon, "Do you think there's anyone on earth with the right and power to stop me from ending my life?" Gordon was careful not to parade those tiresome commonplaces used to try to prove that people aren't allowed to use their freedom to stop existing when they are horribly unhappy; that they mustn't leave their house when they can no longer live in it; that a person is on earth like a soldier at his post—as though it mattered to the Being of beings whether a collection of a few pieces of matter was in one place or another. These are powerless arguments which firm, thoughtful despair refuses to hear, and which Cato answered only with a stab of his dagger.
The Ingénu's bleak, terrible silence, his dark eyes, his trembling lips, and his shuddering body filled everyone who looked at him with a mixture of pity and fear. It froze every power of the mind, made speech impossible, and could show itself only in broken words. The landlady and her family had hurried in. They trembled at his despair, kept him in sight, and watched his every movement. The cold body of the beautiful Saint-Yves had already been taken to a downstairs room, away from the eyes of her lover, who seemed to be searching for her still, though he could no longer really see anything.
In the middle of this scene of death, while the body lay on display at the door of the house, while two priests beside a basin of holy water recited prayers distractedly, while some passersby idly sprinkled a few drops of holy water on the coffin and others went on their way without caring, while the relatives wept and a lover was about to take his own life, Saint-Pouange arrived with the friend from Versailles.
His passing desire, satisfied only once, had become love. The refusal of his favors had stung him. Father de La Chaise would never have thought of coming to this house. But Saint-Pouange saw the beautiful Saint-Yves's image before him every day. He burned to satisfy a passion that had driven the sharp point of desire into his heart after just one encounter. He didn't hesitate to come in person to seek the woman he might not have wanted to see even three times if she had come willingly.
He got out of his carriage. The first thing he saw was a coffin. He turned his eyes away with the simple disgust of a man raised among pleasures, who thinks he should be spared any sight that might bring him back to thinking about human misery. He was about to go upstairs. Out of curiosity, the woman from Versailles asked who was to be buried. Someone said the name of Mademoiselle de Saint-Yves. At that name she went pale and gave a dreadful cry. Saint-Pouange turned around. Astonishment and grief filled his heart. Good Gordon was there, his eyes full of tears. He broke off his sorrowful prayers to tell the courtier about the whole horrible disaster. He spoke with the authority that sorrow and virtue give. Saint-Pouange hadn't been born wicked. The rush of business and amusement had swept away his soul before it had come to know itself. He wasn't yet approaching old age, which usually hardens ministers' hearts. He listened to Gordon with his eyes lowered, wiping away a few tears that he was surprised to shed. He came to know repentance.
"I absolutely must see this extraordinary man you've told me about," he said. "He moves me almost as much as the innocent victim whose death I caused." Gordon followed him to the room where the prior, Mademoiselle de Kerkabon, the abbé de Saint-Yves, and a few neighbors were bringing the young man around after he had fainted again.
"I've caused your misery," the deputy minister told him. "I'll spend my life making it right." The Ingénu's first thought was to kill him and then kill himself. Nothing could have been more fitting. But he had no weapons and was closely watched. Saint-Pouange wasn't put off by the refusals, with all the reproach, contempt, and horror he deserved and received in abundance. Time softens everything. Monsieur de Louvois eventually managed to make an excellent officer of the Ingénu. Under another name he appeared in Paris and in the armies, winning the approval of all decent people, and was both a fearless soldier and a fearless philosopher.
He never spoke of this experience without a groan, yet speaking of it was his comfort. He cherished the memory of the loving Saint-Yves to the last moment of his life. The abbé de Saint-Yves and the prior each received a good church benefice. Good Mademoiselle de Kerkabon preferred seeing her nephew with military honors to seeing him a subdeacon. The devout woman from Versailles kept the diamond earrings and received another handsome gift. Father Tout-à-tous received boxes of chocolate, coffee, rock candy, and candied lemons, along with the Meditations of the Reverend Father Croiset and The Flower of the Saints, bound in morocco leather. Good Gordon lived with the Ingénu in the closest friendship until his death. He too received a benefice and forgot efficacious grace and concomitant concurrence forever. He took as his motto, Misfortune is good for something. How many decent people in the world have been able to say, Misfortune is good for nothing!
About this section
Chapter XX is part of L’Ingénu, histoire véritable tirée des manuscrits du P. Quesnel by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 20 of 20 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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