Читать книгу The Heart's Domain - Georges Duhamel - Страница 11

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During the summer of 1916 I found among the meadows of the Marne a flower that had three odors. It is a very common flower in France: it adorns a low and spiny plant which the peasants call “arrête-bœuf.” Toward midday, at the hour when the sun exasperates all its creatures, this flower exhales three different odors: the first is soft, fresh and resembles the perfume of the sweet pea; the second is sharp and makes one think of phosphor irritant, of a flame; the third is the secret breath of love. This miraculous flower really has all three of these odors at once, but we perceive them more easily one at a time because we are not worthy of all this wealth.

This little discovery descended upon my weary head like a benediction. At that time we were leaving the miseries of Verdun behind and were just on the point of plunging into those of the Somme. The intermediate rest depressed us and enervated us by turns. In the walks across the fields which we took with our comrades, I grew accustomed every day to gather a root of arrête-bœuf and offer it, as a gift, to those who accompanied me, so that they might share my discovery.

Some of them, anxious about the world and their own fortune, took pleasure in this modest marvel. They breathed in with these perfumes the inexhaustible variety of the lavish universe. They distinguished and recognized, smilingly, the three odors of this one being. They honored these three ambassadors whom a people of unknown virtues had assigned to them. They interpreted as a revelation the little signs of the latent opulence which challenges and disdains the majority of bewildered men.

But others remained insensible to this delicate prayer, and these I thought of with chagrin as of men who had no care for the welfare of their own souls.

I know quite well you will say, “There is no relation between this flower and the welfare of the soul.” But this relation does exist, emphatically and definitely. Truth shines out of every merest trifle that goes to make up the world. We must fasten our eyes ardently upon it, as if it were a light shining through the branches, and march forward.

I am sure, we are all sure, that happiness is the very reason for our existence. Let it be added at once that happiness is founded upon possession, that is to say, upon the perfect and profound understanding of something.

For this reason men who have a high conception of happiness aspire to the complete and definite knowledge of an absolute, a perfection which they name God. The desire for eternal life is a boundless need of possession.

Equally noble is the passionate desire of certain men to understand, to possess themselves, to have such an exact and merciless conception of their moral and physical nature as will give them some sort of mastery over it.

It is indeed a beautiful destiny to pursue the understanding of the external world with the weapons and the arguments of a science that is not the slave of conquest. Men who achieve this may indeed be called just.

Others wish to possess a house, a field, a pair of earrings, an automobile. For them possession is not understanding, it is above all else an exclusive and almost solitary enjoyment. They deceive themselves about happiness and about possession. They deceive themselves to the actual point of war, massacre and destruction.

If we wish it, we may possess the whole universe, and it is in this possession that we shall find the salvation of our souls. We may possess, for example, that unknown something which walks by the road-side, the color of the forest of pointed firs that rises sharply against the southern horizon, the thoughts of Beethoven, our dreams by night, the conception of space, our memories, our future, the odor and the weight of objects, our grief at this moment and thousands and thousands of other things besides.

Is my soul immortal? Alas! how can I still linger in this ancient, ingenuous hope? There are millions who, like me, can no longer give reasonable credence to such an impossible happiness.

But does my soul exist? Every thought bears witness that it does, and this life of ours too, and the inexplicable life that is all about us.

When Christians speak of the salvation of the soul, they are thinking of all sorts of assurances and precautions in regard to that future life which remains the greatest charm of religion and at the same time its most wonderful weapon.

We can give a humbler but more immediate meaning to this expression.

First of all, not to be ignorant of our own souls!

To think about the soul, to think about it at least once in the confusion of every crowded day, is indeed the beginning of salvation.

To think with perseverance and respect of the soul, to enrich it unceasingly, that will be our sanctity.