Chapter II · 7

In spite of everything, the dark rings persisted, the melancholy lingered, and Berta, pale as precious ivory, arrived one day at death’s door.

All wept for her in the mansion, and the healthy, sentimental mother came to contemplate the white palms for a maiden’s coffin. Until one morning the languid, anemic girl went down into the garden alone, ever wrapped in her vague, melancholic torpor, at the hour when dawn laughs. Sighing, she wandered aimlessly, here and there; and the flowers were saddened to behold her. She leaned against the pedestal of a proud, gallant faun whose marble hair, wet with dew, bathed his splendid, bare torso in the morning light. She noticed a lily lifting the purity of its white chalice toward the azure, and stretched forth her hand to pluck it. No sooner had...—yes, my ladies, a fairy tale, but you shall soon see its bearing upon a beloved reality;—no sooner had she touched the flower’s chalice than from it suddenly arose a fairy, in her tiny golden carriage, clothed in lustrous, impalpable threads, adorned with dew, a pearl diadem, and a silver wand.

Do you fancy Berta was frightened? Not in the least. She clapped her hands in delight, revived as if by magic, and said to the fairy: “Are you the one who loves me so dearly in my dreams?” “Climb in,” replied the fairy. And as though Berta had shrunk, she fit so neatly within the shell of the golden carriage that she would have rested easily upon the curved wing of a swan skimming the water. And the blossoms, the haughty faun, the daylight, all watched how in the fairy’s carriage Berta rode upon the wind, serene and smiling at the sun—the girl with olive-colored eyes, fresh as dawn, graceful as the princess of an azure fairy tale.

When Berta, with the divine charioteer now high above, climbed up to the salons by the garden steps carved like smaragdite, everyone—mother, cousin, servants—formed their mouths into an ‘O’. Along she came, skipping like a bird, her countenance brimming with life and crimson, her lovely bosom full, caressed by a loose, unstudied lock of chestnut hair, her arms bare to the elbow, half-revealing the mesh of faint, blue veins, her lips parted in a smile as though about to pour forth a song.

All exclaimed: “Hallelujah! Glory! Hosanna to the king of physicians! Eternal renown to the globules of arsenious acid and the triumphant showers!” And while Berta hastened to her boudoir to don her richest brocades, gifts were dispatched to the elder of the tortoiseshell spectacles, black gloves, illustrious bald pate, and double-breasted frock coat. And now, heed, you mothers of anemic maidens, how there is something far better than arsenic and iron for kindling the purple glow upon fair virginal cheeks. And you shall learn how it was not the pills; no, it was not the showers; no, it was not the apothecary who restored health and life to Berta, the girl with olive-colored eyes, merry and fresh as a peach bough in bloom, luminous as dawn, graceful as the princess of an azure fairy tale.

As soon as Berta found herself in the fairy’s carriage, she asked her: “And where are you taking me?” “To the Palace of the Sun.” And instantly the maiden felt her hands turn fiery, and her little heart leaped as though swollen with impetuous blood. “Listen,” the fairy went on: “I am the good fairy of teenage girls’ dreams; I am she who cures the chlorotic, merely by carrying them in my golden chariot to the Palace of the Sun, whither you now go. Take care not to drink overmuch of the nectar of the dance, and do not faint in the first swift bursts of joy. We are almost there. Soon you shall return to your dwelling. A single minute in the Palace of the Sun leaves years of fire in body and soul, my child.”

In truth, she stood within a charming enchanted palace, where the sun itself seemed to permeate the air. Oh, what light, what fires! Berta felt her lungs fill with the air of field and sea, and her veins with flame; she felt waves of harmony disperse through her brain, her soul expand, and her delicate woman’s flesh turn more elastic and supple. Then she heard waking dreams and listened to intoxicating melodies. In vast, dazzling galleries, brimming with light, perfumes, silks, and marbles, she beheld a whirlwind of couples swept away by the invisible, sovereign surges of a waltz. She saw other anemic maidens like herself arrive pale and mournful, breathe that air, and cast themselves into the arms of vigorous, slender youths whose golden down and fine locks gleamed in the light; and they danced and danced with them in an ardent embrace, hearing mysterious flatteries that reached the soul, catching from time to time breaths scented with vanilla, Tonka bean, violet, and cinnamon, until feverish, breathless, and spent, like doves wearied by a long flight, they sank upon silken cushions, bosoms heaving, throats flushed, dreaming and dreaming of intoxicating things... And she too! She plunged into the swirl, the seductive maelstrom; she danced, she cried out, passing through the spasms of an agitated delight; and she remembered then that she must not grow too intoxicated with the wine of the dance, though she never ceased gazing upon her handsome partner with her wide eyes of springtime look. And he drew her through the vast galleries, encircling her waist and whispering in her ear in the loving, rhythmic tongue of gentle words, iridescent and fragrant phrases, crystalline and oriental cadences.

And then she felt her body and soul fill with sunlight, powerful emanations, and life. No, expect no more!

The fairy returned her to the garden of her palace—the garden where she had gathered flowers wrapped in a surge of perfumes, which rose mystically toward the trembling boughs to float like the wandering soul of dead blossoms.

Mothers of anemic maidens! I congratulate you upon the victory of the doctor’s arsenates and hypophosphites. Yet in truth I say unto you: it is necessary, for the benefit of pretty virginal cheeks, to open the cage door to your lovely fledglings, above all in springtime, when fire runs through veins and sap, and a thousand sunbeams buzz in the gardens like a swarm of gold over half-opened flags. For your chlorotic daughters, let there be sun in body and soul! Yes, to the Palace of the Sun, whence return maidens like Berta, she of the olive-colored eyes, fresh as a peach bough in bloom, luminous as dawn, graceful as the princess of an azure fairy tale.

THE BLUE BIRD

Paris is a diverting and terrible theater. Among the regulars at the Café Plombier—good, determined fellows: painters, sculptors, writers, poets; yes, all in pursuit of the ancient green laurel!—none was more beloved than poor Garcín: sad almost always, a hearty drinker of absinthe, a dreamer who never grew drunken, and, like an irreproachable bohemian, a valiant improviser.

In the dilapidated garret of our merry gatherings, the plaster on the walls preserved, amidst sketches and brushstrokes of future Delacroix, verses and entire stanzas inscribed in the slanting, heavy hand of our blue bird.

The blue bird was poor Garcín. Do you not know why he was called that? We christened him with that name.

It was no mere whim. That excellent fellow was a melancholy drinker. When we asked him why, while the rest of us laughed like madmen or schoolboys, he would knit his brow, stare fixedly at the ceiling, and answer with a certain bitter smile:

“Comrades: you must know that I have a blue bird inside my brain; consequently...”

It happened also that he loved to venture into the fresh countryside at the onset of spring. The woodland air did good to his lungs, so the poet told us.

From his excursions he was wont to bring back bunches of violets and thick notebooks of madrigals, written to the rustling of leaves beneath the wide, cloudless sky. The violets were for Niní, his neighbor, a fresh and rosy girl who had deep blue eyes.

The verses were for us. We read them and applauded them. Every one of us had words of praise for Garcín. He was a talent destined to shine. The time would come. Oh, the blue bird would fly very high! Bravo! Well done! Hey, waiter, more absinthe!

Garcín’s tenets:

Among flowers, the lovely bluebells.

Among precious stones, the sapphire.

Among immensities, the sky and love; that is to say, Niní’s eyes.

And the poet would repeat: “I believe that neurosis is ever preferable to stupidity.”

At times Garcín was sadder than usual.

He would stroll along the boulevards, watching with indifference the passing of luxurious carriages, elegant swells, and handsome women. Before a jeweler’s window he would smile; but when he passed near a bookshop, he would approach the panes, peer inside, and at the sight of lavish editions declare himself decidedly envious, furrow his brow, and, to unburden himself, turn his face toward the heavens and sigh. He would hasten to the café in search of us, agitated, exalted, order his glass of absinthe, and tell us:

“Yes, inside the cage of my brain a blue bird is imprisoned, longing for its freedom...”

There were some who came to believe in an overthrow of his reason.

An alienist who was informed of what was happening diagnosed the case as a singular monomania. His pathological investigations left no room for doubt.

Decidedly, unfortunate Garcín was mad.

One day he received from his father—an old provincial from Normandy, a rag merchant—a letter that read more or less as follows:

“I know of your follies in Paris. So long as you remain thus, you shall not have a single sou from me. Come and keep the ledgers in my warehouse; and when you have burned your manuscripts of nonsense, you idle scamp, you shall have my money.”

This letter was read aloud in the Café Plombier.

“And will you go?”

“Will you not go?”

“Do you accept?”

“Do you refuse?”

Bravo, Garcín! He tore up the letter, and flinging the scraps toward the window, improvised a few stanzas that concluded, if memory serves:

Yes, an idler I shall ever be, which I applaud and celebrate, so long as my brain remains the cage of the blue bird!

From that day forth Garcín’s temper changed. He grew talkative, bathed himself in cheer, bought a new frock coat, and began a poem in tercets entitled: The Blue Bird.

Every evening something new from the work was read in our gathering. It was excellent, sublime, extravagant.

Therein lay a very lovely sky, fresh countryside, lands sprung up as if by the magic of Corot’s brush, children’s faces peeping through flowers, Niní’s large, dewy eyes; and to crown it all, the good Lord sending, flying, flying above it all, a blue bird that without knowing how or when nests within the poet’s brain, where it remains imprisoned. When the bird desires to fly and spreads its wings and beats against the walls of the skull, eyes are lifted to heaven, brows are furrowed, and absinthe is drunk with little water, followed, for good measure, by a paper cigarette.

Here is the poem.