Short Fiction by Xavier de Maistre (digital e reader txt) 📕

in the direction of the clock, “Yes, I know it⁠—I know it is midnight⁠—I know it only too well.” Doubtless it was at the insidious prompting of an evil spirit that man made the division of the days at this hour. Shut up at home, they sleep or amuse themselves whilst this hour cuts off a thread of their existence, and next morning they get up gaily, in the foolish conceit that they have gained another day of life. Vainly does the prophetic voice of the bell warn them of the approach of Eternity. In vain it sadly reminds them of each passing hour, they hear not, or if they do, they do not heed. Oh terrible hour of midnight! I am not superstitious, but that hour always inspires me with a sort of fear, and I have a presentiment that if ever I do die it will be at midnight. Must I die, someday? I die⁠—I, who speak, think, and feel, shall I really die? I have some difficulty in believing it. Nothing is more natural than that other folks should die; it is our daily experience, they pass away, we are used to it; but to die oneself⁠ ⁠… oneself⁠ ⁠… one can hardly believe that. And you sir who think that these reflections are nonsense, learn that all the world thinks in this way, and so do you yourself. No one thinks that he must die. If there were a race of immortal men, the idea of death could not alarm them less than it does us.

There is something in this that I cannot understand. How is it that men, disturbed eternally by hopes and dreams of the future, trouble themselves so little about that which the future presents to them with absolute certainty? May it not be that beneficent nature herself has given us this happy unconsciousness, so that we can fulfil our destiny in peace? In truth, I believe that one may still be a very good man without adding to the real evils of life, that turn of mind which broods on melancholy thoughts, or without troubling one’s imagination with gloomy apprehensions, so I think we may venture to laugh, or at least to smile, whenever there is an innocent provocation for so doing.

Thus ended the meditation which the clock of St. Philip’s had inspired. I should have pursued it further if I had not felt some scruples as to the correctness of the code of morality which I had set up; but being unwilling to search deeper into this doubtful question, I whistled the air of the “Follies of Spain,” which has the property of being able to change the current of my ideas when they take a gloomy turn. The effect was so instantaneous that, on the spot, I put an end to my ride on horseback.

XXXVIII

Before re-entering my room I cast a glance on the dark city and the country round Turin, which I was about to quit, perhaps forever, and I bade them my last farewell. Never had night seemed to me beautiful, or the spectacle beneath my gaze so intensely fascinating. After saluting the mountain and church of the Superga, I took leave of the towers, the steeples, and of all the well-known objects, at leaving which I felt so great but so unexpected a regret; also of the air, the sky, and the river, whose dull murmur seemed to answer responsive to my farewells.

Oh! could I but describe the feelings, tender and cruel at the same time, which filled my heart, and all the memories of the sweetest half of my past life, which, like hobgoblins, thronged round me, to keep me in Turin. But, alas! the recollections of past pleasures are the wrinkles on the face of the soul. When we are unhappy we ought to drive them from our thoughts like mocking phantoms which come to triumph over our present situation. It is better then, a thousand times, to give oneself up to the illusions of hope, and above all to put a good face on it when the game is going against us, and to be very careful not to let anyone into the secret of our misfortunes. I have observed, in my experience of the world and mankind, that those who are always complaining of their woes are, in the end, held up to ridicule.

In these terrible moments, a very good course to adopt is to try the new mode of travelling I have just described. For myself I gave it a decisive trial, and not only did I succeed in forgetting the past, but was enabled to face the present troubles with a brave heart. “Time will bear them away,” I said to myself by way of consolation, “it takes everything and overlooks nothing as it goes by, and even if we wished to stop it or urge it on, our efforts would be all in vain, for nothing can alter its inevitable course.”

Although usually I take no thought about the rapidity of its flight, there are certain circumstances and chains of thought which bring it most strikingly before me. When men are silent and the demon of noise is at rest in the midst of his temple, in a sleeping town wrapped in slumber, then it is that Time lifts up his voice and makes himself heard in my soul. Silence and darkness become his interpreters and reveal to me his mysterious progress, then he ceases to be a being which my mind can barely grasp, and he becomes perceptible even to the senses themselves. I behold Time in the heavens driving before him the stars towards the West; there he is urging on the rivers to the ocean, and rolling the mist along the mountains! I hear the wind moaning beneath the stroke of his rapid wings, and the distant clock quivers at his lightning flight.

“Let us take advantage,” I exclaim, “of his rapid fight; let me not waste the